by Mel Odom
Sayrit’s voice grew sharp. “Enough!”
Brokkle leaned across the railing, having to stand on tiptoe because the railing was more a human’s height than a dweller’s. “What we gave up…”
Smoothly, in the space of an eye blink, Sayrit fitted an arrow to his bowstring and released the shot. The shaft, fletched in the blue-purple feathers of a falcon, sank into the rich oak of the railing only inches under Brokkle’s nose.
Juhg’s heart stopped for a moment. If the shot had been off by as much as a fraction of an inch, the shaft would have ricocheted up into the dweller merchant’s face.
“No more,” Sayrit ordered. “Your people gave up little. You’ve always gotten more than you were asked to give. Your ancestors were given the safest place in all the world while the rest of that world fought the goblinkin and died.”
“We were given a pretty prison,” someone among the dwellers said.
“You don’t know what a prison is,” Sayrit said. “Most of the members of my brotherhood have not seen any land except this place. They’ve not seen any animals, save those that we watch over here.” He drew in a breath. “This is no prison for a dweller, but it is to an elf who was born with an unbridled wanderlust and a desire to see everything there is in the world.”
“No one asked you to stay,” one of the dwellers said.
“We were asked,” Sayrit said. “We swore oaths that our brotherhood and the other brotherhoods would remain here to protect and watch over this island as protectors, to serve nature strong and healthy enough to provide for the constant demands put on this island’s resources.”
“You could leave.”
“We are bound by our oath. Just as are the dwarves and the humans.”
As he listened to the elven warder’s words, Juhg realized how much the elves had truly given up to hold up their ends of the arrangement. Dwarves and humans gave up a lot, too, but both of those races could still enter into the service of the sea and rotate out with each other.
The elves never did.
“Those warders in my brotherhood,” Sayrit said, “live their whole lives learning how to take care of this place. They don’t negotiate to put in less time or shirk their duties. When the Library was attacked, my brotherhood shed its lifeblood to keep the destruction that claimed the Library from rolling down the Knucklebones. Few of you came up the mountain to defend either the Library or yourselves.”
The accusation hung heavily in the sudden silence that filled the meeting chamber.
“We are not warriors,” Dilwiddy said after an uncomfortable time. “We are not trained to fight.”
“I know you’re not warriors,” Sayrit said. “I spent days burying the warriors that were in that battle in the days that followed. They wore the faces of dwarves and elves and humans.”
“A few of them, though,” Erolg added, “were dwellers. An’ they wore the robes of the Library.”
Pride touched Juhg for a moment, but it was quickly consumed by sadness and hurt. Those Librarians had earned the respect of warriors, but the cost had been so high.
“You dwellers,” Sayrit said, “have cut back on the time you give the Library. Getting the books organized took longer because of that selfishness. Not as many copies were made, which is going to be even more telling in the days that come with so much lost. And with less time spent reading and dedicating yourselves to the craft that you were assigned to, even less is going to be known about what was lost.”
“Our children know how to read,” Dilwiddy argued.
“Perhaps,” Sayrit conceded. “Perhaps they do know how to read. But many of them have no love of it. You may have taught them the mechanics of reading, but you haven’t taught them the passion for doing a job well. They, like you, begrudge any time spent at that craft.”
“You could teach your own children to read,” Brokkle said.
“I have,” Sayrit said.
A buzz of concerned voices filled the room. Juhg noticed that even the Grandmagister seemed surprised by the announcement.
“There isn’t an elf on this island that doesn’t know how to read,” Sayrit declared.
“You presume too much,” Dilwiddy said. “Reading is the purview of the dwellers.”
“No,” Sayrit replied. “Taking care of the Library, learning everything there is in the Library, that is the purview of the dwellers. That is your duty. And you don’t live up to the expectations of those who first built this place.” He paused. “That’s why I started teaching all the warders here on the island to read.”
“To replace us?” Brokkle demanded.
“If necessary.”
A cry of outrage rose among the dwellers.
Juhg sat, feeling nearly stunned. How was it that the elves had dedicated themselves to learning to read, but no one had noticed? More than that, if the elves had been reading, had they been writing?
“The warders I train don’t just learn about a plant or an animal,” Sayrit said. “They learn the ecology of those things, the good properties about that plant or animal as well as the bad properties, and they hear how all of that works together. But I don’t let them end their education there. I make them learn this island. They have to know where those plants grow and where those animals nest. In order to do that, they have to walk and explore every foot of this place over and over again.”
“Aye,” one of the human captains spoke up. “Just as I train ever’ man on my ship to repair an’ rebuild ever’ stick on her. I’ve got crews what could build new ships if we’ve a mind to an’ we end up without a ship at some time.”
Erolg stood. “We train constantly, always ready for the enemy. Ever’ warrior what counts is in our numbers. An’ if’n it should someday come to it, our wives an’ daughters have been trained to fight as well.”
“Now,” Sayrit said in a sarcastic tone, “here is the lot of you, daring to tell Grandmagister Lamplighter that you’re done with serving the Library and have no intentions of helping him rebuild.” He shook his head. “Over the last few years, your births have exceeded the allotted numbers. Your population continues to grow, despite my warnings and instructions to the contrary. Those numbers endanger the balance that the warders have worked diligently to create for years.”
More grumbling tumbled into the quiet pause that the elven warder let hang.
“If you should decide—truly decide—not to help the Grandmagister rebuild the Vault of All Known Knowledge,” Sayrit said, “then you will be left on your own. The warders won’t help you. We won’t tend the forests and your fields. We won’t hunt predators that prey on your livestock. We won’t clean the wells and streams that you all work so hard to foul.” He shrugged, an eloquent expression that showed exactly the contempt he held for Brokkle and Dilwiddy. “I’d venture to guess that within two generations, you will be destitute and dying of starvation and malnutrition.”
“If’n ye ain’t dead afore then,” Erolg said. “As fer the dwarves, we’ll let ye fight yer own battles, should anyone else find ye. We’ll gladly go a-rovin’, looking fer the treasures most of us have had to give up on by agreein’ to stay here.”
“You’ll also have to build and sail your own ships,” the human captain said. “For I’ll have no more to do with you. Going into business for myself will be a lot more profitable for me and my crew than splitting profits with the likes of you.”
Stunned, Juhg looked out over the assembly hall. Dilwiddy, Brokkle, and the other dwellers who had banded together to challenge the Grandmagister could not have counted on the responses given by the elves, dwarves, and humans.
“Well, now,” Raisho said, grinning, “that’ll give ’em something to think about, now, won’t it? Let the land become an enemy to them again. Strip them of their protection and their profits.”
Dilwiddy stood with a sour expression. He glanced down at the arrow that stood out from the railing in front of Brokkle.
“Grandmagister Lamplighter,” the Chief Speaker said.
/> “Yes.”
Gazing at the Grandmagister, Juhg knew that he was as shocked by the turn of events as everyone else.
“Is that how you plan on dealing with us?” Dilwiddy demanded.
“Begging the Grandmagister’s pardon,” Sayrit said. “The Grandmagister had no part in the planning of this. We’ve talked among ourselves since you first started this little rebellion.”
Dilwiddy seized the railing before him in both hands. His fat face turned purple with anger. His jowls quivered. “You are trying to enslave us. You’re no better than the goblinkin.”
“That’s not true.” The elven warder stood straight and tall with one hand on his bow. “Your greed and your lack of initiative have enslaved you. Just as you’ve shirked your duties to the Library—which I would not have allowed to happen, nor would I have put up with the burgeoning population numbers the Grandmagister has—you’ve also shirked responsibilities to yourselves. You were put here on this island just as we were. Most of you have chosen to pursue selfish goals.”
“Grandmagister, I have to protest. Are you going to let this … this … person continue to harangue us so unmercifully?”
Grandmagister Lamplighter started to speak, but the elven warder hurried on.
Sayrit gazed around the room and talked quickly, with more passion than before. “Many of you chose to pursue no goals at all. That’s why you sold off your rights to the lands Dilwiddy and Brokkle and other dwellers now control. You were given the right to live on this island for free, to build homes, to raise your families. Instead, you squandered those rights to dwellers among you who took advantage of your own foolhardiness. Your ancestors took whatever paltry sums Dilwiddy’s family gave them all those years ago, then waited while Dilwiddy’s family made deals with the dwarves to build houses that were later rented to your ancestors. Houses that all of you still pay on, even now.”
Juhg knew that the elven warder’s assessment was true, but no one in Greydawn Moors talked about what had happened or how landowners and renters had come into being.
However, now that the elven warder had put such a fine point on the occurrence, dweller tongues were wagging. No few of the dwellers who had gathered around Dilwiddy and Brokkle in a show of support had started to distance themselves.
“You victimized yourselves,” Sayrit said. “By not wanting to take responsibility for yourselves and for your actions, you’ve become dependent on Dilwiddy and others among you like him. Over all these years, Grandmagister Lamplighter and most other Grandmagisters before him have stood to hold the elves, dwarves, and humans together to help the dwellers, who in turn cared for the Vault of All Known Knowledge. If not for the Grandmagisters, if not for the promise of the Library, we would have left you long ago.”
“You can’t do that,” one of the dwellers wailed. He was one of the landowners who held with Dilwiddy’s circle of associates. “You took an oath. You swore to…”
“We,” Sayrit said, “still take our oath. We still stand by that oath. Every child who begins his or her studies of the ecology of this island and everything that we can teach him or her about the lands that lay across the Blood-Soaked Sea takes the oath that the first of our ancestors took when they agreed to shepherd this place.”
Conversations broke out all around the meeting hall. Juhg listened to the voices and heard the fear and anxiety in them. Many of the dwellers had retreated from Dilwiddy’s camp now, starting to see for the first time that they wouldn’t enjoy the safety they’d had if the humans, dwarves, and elves chose to leave. In fact, since few dwellers ever ventured out in anything more than small fishing boats, they realized they would be stranded on the island.
“Quiet!” Dilwiddy roared. He pounded his fist on the railing to call the meeting to order. When silence returned, filled with anticipation of what would come next, Dilwiddy glared at the Grandmagister. “So this is how it is to be, Grandmagister Lamplighter? You would blackmail us with our fears for our own safety?”
“I’m not blackmailing you,” the Grandmagister replied.
“Then what do you call this?”
“I stand ready to deliver on the promise of the Vault of All Known Knowledge,” the Grandmagister said. “As has every Librarian before me.”
Juhg looked at Grandmagister Lamplighter, seeing how confident and unassuming the Grandmagister was. During their travels along the mainland, during their harrowing adventures, the Grandmagister had always somehow managed to stay a step ahead of the blinding fear that reached for them. Grandmagister Lamplighter was not by nature a brave person, but he had learned to be brave.
“The Library is destroyed,” Dilwiddy protested. “I’ve heard reports that only one book in five survived the attack.”
“Yes.”
Dilwiddy raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That figure is accurate?”
“Yes.” The Grandmagister’s shoulders bowed a little at the terrible weight of accepting that toll of destruction.
Juhg reached inside his shirt and took out the journal and small cotton bag of charcoal sticks that he had put there that morning. He hated not having something to work with if an idea hit him so he was prepared this time.
“Then the Library is destroyed,” Dilwiddy said.
“If it were,” Sayrit said, “we would have already been gone from this place.”
Many of the dwellers started frantically whispering among themselves. If the Library were destroyed, if the books were all gone, what remained to hold the elves, dwarves, and humans there? Evidently no one had thought about that in their haste to try to usurp control over the Grandmagister.
“We can rebuild it.” The Grandmagister stood his ground. “We have to rebuild it.”
With a sure hand, Juhg laid out lines, shaping the meeting hall and the dwellers who stood there at odds across the circular area.
“You’ve lost the books.”
The Grandmagister nodded. “We’ve lost a great number of them.”
“Then what good would it do to rebuild a Library only to hold empty shelves?”
“They won’t always be empty.”
“Why?”
The Grandmagister hesitated, then said, “Because they won’t be.”
Interest came to attention within Juhg. He felt the Grandmagister’s answer was part of the mystery that had kept him busy in his own studies the past few days.
“What does he mean by that?” Raisho asked.
“I don’t know,” Juhg replied.
Dilwiddy clearly wasn’t happy. “Grandmagister Lamplighter, I am aware—as are a number of others in this room—that you have journeyed to the mainland on a number of occasions and brought back books you discovered there.”
The Grandmagister didn’t bother to deny the statement.
“In fact,” Dilwiddy said, “one of your Librarians recently brought back a book that led to the attack at the Vault of All Known Knowledge.”
“That is not your concern.”
“Not my concern?” Dilwiddy suddenly appeared apoplectic. “How can you stand there and say that? If those Grymmlings and Dread Riders had come down the Knucklebones—”
“An’ they didn’t,” Erolg growled. “We seen to that, sure enough.”
“No, Grandmagister, with all due respect, I think that anything you do that could potentially harm those who live here is our concern.”
Exasperated, the Grandmagister fixed Dilwiddy with his gaze. “I’ve listened to your accusations and veiled threats long enough.” His voice sounded strong, and his words silenced every whisper in the room.
Dilwiddy looked disconcerted and started to speak.
“No,” the Grandmagister said, holding up a hand. “I’ll not listen to another word. Craugh, if Dilwiddy or Brokkle speaks before I am finished, you may turn them into toads at your leisure.”
Sparks leapt and snapped at the end of the wizard’s staff. “Thank you, Grandmagister. I look forward to serving in whatever small but happy way I might.”
; The Grandmagister walked around the table as he spoke, breaking the unwritten rule that both sides debating across the round table would have their own spaces.
“I’ve listened to your complaints for a long time over the years, Dilwiddy,” the Grandmagister said.
Dilwiddy started to speak, glanced at Craugh, and thought better of it.
“You’ve led the complaints about the Library since even before I was made Grandmagister. You’ve whined about the fact that the Library takes a percentage of all the profits that are made by the townsfolk. You’ve stated on repeated occasions that you don’t like the way the Library also gets a percentage of all the goods brought to the island, knowing that the Vault of All Known Knowledge only takes goods that can be used in the pursuit of our work or by my staff.”
That had always been a large complaint.
“You forget yourself,” the Grandmagister said, “and I take my share of the blame for not reminding you.” He turned and gazed around the room. “This place was not given to you to be your home. This island was formed by magic, raked from the bottom of the sea, and made habitable as a place of protection for the Vault of All Known Knowledge. This place was intended as the last bastion of all learning, of all the information the races have managed to accumulate.”
Juhg turned the page and began sketching hurriedly, captivated by the Grandmagister’s words.
“Until Lord Kharrion united the goblinkin hordes and tried to destroy us,” the Grandmagister said, “our races lived apart. We had our separate lives and we had our separate histories. There were occasional cultural fairs and exchanges of information during times when sickness or a natural disaster like drought struck an area. But for the most part, all the races—and even smaller groupings of them—lived away from each other.”
Dilwiddy backed up as the Grandmagister came to a halt near him. The fat dweller glanced fearfully at Craugh, who watched the Grandmagister with a mixture of pride and wariness.
“For nearly one hundred and fifty years,” the Grandmagister said, “I’ve served the Vault of All Known Knowledge. I’ve labored with reports, catalogues, and repair work. I’ve learned old languages as well as dead ones. I’ve celebrated past successes and wept over the heartbreak of defeat with races who were gone long before the Cataclysm, with authors who were elves and dwarves and humans.”
