by Mel Odom
“As I said, I talked with your friend, apprentice.”
“You mean Raisho.”
Craugh shrugged. “Yes. I mean Raisho.”
Juhg stared at the flower garden, remembering how frivolous he’d once thought the area to be. The Librarians managed gardens to the east, and there were several small lots inside the Library’s inner courtyard where table vegetables were grown year-round. Even though some of the flowers were edible, none of them were particularly filling.
“Raisho told me something I found … unsettling,” the wizard said.
Juhg waited. Actually, there were any number of things that Raisho could have told the wizard that might have been considered unsettling.
“He told me you planned to sail with Windchaser when she lifted anchor,” Craugh said.
Juhg made no reply and actually let himself fall a step or two behind.
Craugh stopped so suddenly that Juhg almost ran into him.
Stepping back, Juhg thought quickly, wondering how it was that Raisho came to tell the wizard something that he had told Raisho in confidence. He blinked at the wizard, seeing the first streaks of lightning stirring the dark clouds. Full evening was upon the island now, and twilight gathered strength, turning from the gentle purple of amethyst to the deep ochre of bruised flesh.
“I made him tell me,” Craugh said, as if guessing Juhg’s unanswered question. “He had no choice. I’m not easily turned from something I want.”
Juhg met the wizard’s gaze and struggled not to look away.
“Is that what you’re planning to do?” Craugh demanded.
“Yes,” Juhg answered.
“Why would you do something like that, apprentice?”
Exasperated, Juhg asked, “Why do you insist on calling me that? I have a name. I am not your apprentice. Even when I was the Grandmagister’s apprentice, he never called me that. Only you.”
Craugh folded his arms before him, his staff clutched in his right fist. “Because you are an apprentice. You are Wick’s apprentice.”
“I was a Novice Librarian in the beginning,” Juhg said. “But I have gone past that. I am a First Level Librarian.”
“No, you’re not.”
Anger stirred in Juhg and he couldn’t help giving vent to it. He was no longer a scared little dweller shackled to a mining chain gang.
“You abandoned that posting,” Craugh said before Juhg could speak.
“I didn’t abandon it.”
“Yes, you did. And went charging off across the ocean just like you’re preparing to do again.”
“It’s my business.”
“You are Wick’s apprentice.”
“I am my own person.”
Craugh bent and thrust his face into Juhg’s. “What is it that you hope to find on the mainland?”
“My family.”
“Lies.” Craugh’s eyes flashed. “You know in your heart that none of them survived the goblin mines.”
“They may yet live,” Juhg stated fiercely.
“Even if by some rare miracle they did live, how would you ever expect to find them?”
“I could go there.”
“To the goblin mines?”
“Yes.” Juhg felt tears burning his eyes. The cold winds blowing in from the south from the Blood-Soaked Sea not so very far away on the other side of the peaks of the Knucklebones Mountains coaxed them loose and he felt them dribble down his face.
“Now, there’s a plan,” Craugh roared.
“It is.” Juhg felt embarrassed that he’d let the wizard get to him so.
“And what, exactly, did you plan on doing after you got your ankle fitted for a new slave ring?”
“That wouldn’t have happened.”
“That’s exactly what would have happened.” The wizard glared at him.
Juhg was suddenly aware that several heads adorned the top of the courtyard wall.
Without looking, Craugh gestured with the staff and called down a lightning bolt that crashed against the courtyard wall. There was sound and fury, but no stone was damaged. The heads along the wall disappeared.
“I hate eavesdroppers.” Craugh frowned and resumed. “The worst thing of all is that Wick would probably have gone off after you once he heard of your capture. If I had been here at the time you’d chose to depart, I’d never had let you go.”
“You couldn’t have stopped me.”
Craugh stared harder at him.
Bad, Juhg told himself, bad decision to say that. “You wouldn’t have had any right. It was my choice to make. They are my family.”
“You have family here, apprentice.”
Juhg started to object, then immediately thought better of it.
“More than that,” Craugh said, “you have a duty here. A very special duty that you were fortunate enough to be selected for.”
“What duty?”
“To become the apprentice of the Grandmagister of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.”
“There have been dozens of Novices during the time the Grandmagister has served here—”
“Hundreds,” Craugh corrected.
“All right. Hundreds.” Juhg knew that some of them had died during service to the Library, whether of old age or the occasional sickness that was brought back from the mainland, or they had chosen to leave the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Nearly all of the dwellers who came forward to serve in the Library only did so because of the long-standing requirements laid down by the Founders who had created the island.
Some of those reluctant Librarians had returned to the family farms and businesses after their ten years of servitude were up because they had never learned to love what they did. Others, who might have loved the books or their duties at the Library more than horticulture or trades or managing stores or services, lacked the necessary skills to advance beyond certain levels.
Juhg knew that the Grandmagister himself had spent more years as a Third Level Librarian than anyone in the history of the Vault of All Known Knowledge. In fact, Grandmagister Lamplighter had felt certain he was going to be asked to leave the Library.
But that was before the crew of One-Eyed Peggie had shanghaied him and took him off a-roving. After returning to Greydawn Moors with four books he had found in a dead wizard’s tomb in the goblin city of Hanged Elf’s Point, Craugh had taken an interest in the Grandmagister. As it turned out, Craugh worked to place information in the hands of the past Grandmagisters to secure books still out on the mainland. Grandmagister Frollo, the human Grandmagister before Grandmagister Lamplighter, had never shown any interest in Craugh or the tales the wizard told of books.
But Grandmagister Lamplighter had, and numerous trips to the mainland had brought back several books important to the collections at the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
“I couldn’t stay here,” Juhg said. “The day I realized that the reason I couldn’t find my family was the Grandmagister’s fault, I couldn’t stay another moment.”
Craugh’s face hardened. “Whatever are you blathering about?”
“I said—”
Craugh lifted a hand and waved it irritably. “I heard what you said, but you need to explain yourself.”
“Explain what?”
“How your inability to find your family could in any wise be Wick’s responsibility.”
Juhg sighed. No one is going to understand. You’re going to be a toad, and no one will even know why. “My inability to locate my family is the Grandmagister’s fault. But I won’t stop there. I’ll share the blame. I’ll lay it at the feet of the last ten or twenty or thirty Grandmagisters if you want. I don’t think that the problem lies solely with Grandmagister Lamplighter.”
“How could any of this possibly be any lack on Wick’s part?”
Knowing he wouldn’t be able to simply walk away, especially not after he’d let the worm out of the apple, Juhg said, “Because he didn’t give it back.”
The pronouncement seemed to confuse Craugh even more. His features twit
ched and his eyes narrowed as he studied Juhg. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“The Library.” Juhg felt the need to pace now, and he did so. But he confined his pacing to a back-and-forth pattern only a few feet to either side of the wizard.
“The Library,” Craugh repeated.
Juhg nodded. “The Vault of All Known Knowledge. The Library.”
“And Wick didn’t give it back?”
“No. He didn’t. He was supposed to.”
“Apprentice…”
Juhg glared at the wizard.
“Juhg,” Craugh said, obviously struggling to maintain control of himself, “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“All those years ago,” Juhg said, “the Founders caused this island to rise from the ocean bed. They changed the sea around this place, brought up dangerous reefs on three sides and most of the fourth, and covered the land and the sea with perpetual fogs that scared off most seafaring races. Back then, with the large navies from the pre-Cataclysm days destroyed and others employed solely for military maneuvers along the mainland, most ships didn’t venture out this way anyhow. But the Founders knew that the races, especially the humans with their wanderlust and need to conquer the seas, would journey out here again.”
“And so they tried. Probably would have found this island as well. If the Founders hadn’t decided to fill the waters with enough dangerous beasts to keep stories fresh.”
“The pirate fleet helps keep them away as well,” Juhg said.
“Yes.”
“Back then,” Juhg said, “the Library had to be hidden. Lord Kharrion fought and commanded the goblinkin hordes on the land and on the sea. The goblinkin hunted the books as much as they hunted everyone who dared stand against them.”
“I know. You’re not telling me anything that—”
“Once Lord Kharrion and the goblinkin were defeated, the books were supposed to be given back.” Juhg stopped and looked at the wizard. He repeated his words, giving them weight and feeling his voice grow hoarse with the emotion tangled up in them. “The books were supposed to be given back.”
Craugh frowned. “Oh. I see.”
“Do you?” Juhg demanded. “Do you really?”
The wizard held up a hand. “The books will be given back.”
“Will they?” Juhg let all the doubts he’d started fostering these past few years sound in his voice.
“Of course they will. That was the promise. When the time is right, they’ll be returned.”
“And when will that time be?”
Craugh’s frown deepened. “I’m not in charge of these things.”
“Then who is?”
“The Grandmagister of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.”
“And when will the Grandmagister feel the time is right to return the books?”
Craugh made an irritated tch. “I begin to see what you’re talking about.”
“No,” Juhg said, shaking his head. “I don’t think that you do.”
“Don’t forget yourself, apprentice. Your boldness—”
“I’m not bold,” Juhg interrupted. “If I were bold, I would have spoken of this before now. Instead, when I felt certain I could no longer curb my tongue and I started growing bitter with the Grandmagister as well as myself, I ran. I left this place and headed for the mainland and told myself it was only because I had the faintest of hopes that I would find my family alone and unaided.”
“You left because you were afraid to talk to Wick about this?”
“Yes.”
Craugh waved a hand. “You’re just confused, apprentice. Nothing more. If you had only taken the time to talk to Wick—”
“If I had spoken of my feelings to the Grandmagister, we would have argued. Despite how I felt, I … I … did not want to argue with him.” In the end, that desire had outweighed the need he’d felt to challenge the Grandmagister’s continued withholding of the Library. Besides that, releasing the Library was not Juhg’s choice to make.
“Still, there was no sense in losing you if that could have been prevented.”
“It couldn’t have been. Not without the Grandmagister’s understanding that the books had to start being handed back to the people out there.”
“What made you think that the time for that return was now?”
Despite the wizard’s protests, Juhg knew Craugh was starting to consider what he had to say. He drew a deep breath and hoped that he might sway his audience even more. “You travel along the mainland following your own agendas, Craugh. You see the people there. There are more than just goblinkin out there. Things have changed since the Cataclysm. These people aren’t just scattered pockets of civilization who were driven from their homelands during the battles and the war. They’re people who have settled down and built new homes, new neighborhoods, and new cities. New lives and new histories.”
“I don’t see your point.”
“The point is,” Juhg said, “those people could use the knowledge that is kept here in the Library. They could make themselves stronger, they could fight better, provide more for themselves and their families. They could stop the encroachment of the goblinkin.”
“I don’t think—”
Juhg hurried on before wizard could finish. “Do you know how much the lives of the dwarves, elves, humans, and dwellers could be improved if they could resource books, essays, and monographs on building, on horticulture, on medicine, even war and weapons—any one of a hundred different studies that were contained here in the Vault of All Known Knowledge?”
“I—”
“I do,” Juhg stated. “I’ve seen them, Craugh. I’ve lived among them before I was a slave and after. I’ve traveled among them at the Grandmagister’s side. The knowledge that is—” He stopped himself, remembering all the damage that had been done, and corrected his statement. “All the knowledge that was held here could have changed their lives.” He paused. “If they had but known it was here.”
“The goblinkin—”
“Still harbor resentment against books,” Juhg said. “Yes. I know that. They always will. And do you know why?”
“Because Kharrion—”
“Because,” Juhg said, raising his voice and speaking over that of the wizard, “the goblinkin, of all the races in the world, were the only ones that didn’t develop a written language. Not before the Cataclysm. Not during. And not after.”
Craugh eyed Juhg steadily.
“The goblinkin lived only a little better than animals before Lord Kharrion came along and recruited the creatures,” Juhg said. “The clans were migratory, living in the wild and preying on each other until the leaders learned their numbers were sufficient to prey on the races that built towns. So the goblinkin moved into areas surrounding cities. When the clans grew strong enough, the goblinkin massed and invaded those cities, killing and enslaving the populace that didn’t survive or escape to run away. The goblinkin lived in the houses in those cities, and those creatures ate from the larders that those people had stocked.”
“Ancient history,” Craugh snapped.
Juhg shook his head. “No. It’s still going on. In fact, it’s gotten worse.”
“Worse? How?”
“Because Lord Kharrion gave the goblinkin a lot more than just guidance during a long war that very nearly wrecked these lands.”
“Not true. Once Lord Kharrion was defeated, the goblinkin armies fell apart. The clans returned to their infighting.”
“Not completely.”
“Apprentice—”
“See? Even for all you know, all the magical spells you know and the arcane knowledge you possess, you don’t see what’s before you either. That’s how I knew it was useless to talk to anyone about this.”
“Apprentice,” Craugh growled. “Whatever your thoughts, I would—”
“What Lord Kharrion gave the goblinkin,” Juhg said, “was a common history. Something none of the clans had ever had before. He came among the goblins and brought hi
s magic and his power and his deceit, and he won the clans over. He gave the goblins a common starting place, a point in time the clans could look back on and know had changed. In only a short time, he negotiated treaties among the clans and got the goblins to quit killing each other. For the first time ever, the goblinkin stood together.”
“That was only because of the magick Lord Kharrion used,” Craugh objected. “He used spells to blind the clans and bind the leaders to him.”
“No. Not true. That’s a misconception. The goblinkin banded because Lord Kharrion gave them a common history. He showed them that the goblins could stand together against the races the clans perceived as enemies. He made the goblinkin strong together. No matter what the clans did, the goblins could not forget the lessons of unification that Lord Kharrion taught them through that common history and an alliance against their enemies.”
That statement halted Craugh just as he was about to speak. He closed his mouth again, then furrowed his brow in thought. He tapped his staff against the ground and tiny green sparks drifted up from the top end.
“A common history,” Craugh repeated finally.
“Yes. All the violence that had gone on between the goblinkin before the time Lord Kharrion arrived among the clans was forgotten. Maybe the creatures still remember those darker times. Maybe the leaders even still talk of it. But none of the goblins act on the old grudges. The clans fight over new ones, but even those battles don’t last as long or become as bloody. The goblinkin don’t squander resources. Instead, the goblinkin band together and hate the other races. And the clans breed like locusts, growing stronger and ever more hungry. The goblins remember how Lord Kharrion almost guided the clans to victory over the world, and the more aggressive goblin commanders look forward to the time when the clans can still achieve that.”
“Everyone felt certain that the goblinkin would self-destruct as the clans always had after Lord Kharrion was slain,” Craugh said.
“It hasn’t happened,” Juhg said. “Not in all these hundreds of years. It hasn’t happened.”
“No. And you believe that is because Lord Kharrion changed the goblins. Changed the clans’ thinking.”
