Dragons of the Highlord Skies dc-2

by Margaret Weis

Lillith’s dimple vanished. She seemed troubled and suddenly motioned them to come near and, when she spoke, she kept her voice low. “Something is very wrong in this city. We’ve heard rumors-”

  “Who is ‘we?’ Derek interrupted.

  “Those of us who have the interests of the world at heart,” Lillith replied, meeting his gaze steadfastly. “We’re on the same side in this war, Sir Derek, I assure you. As I was saying, we’ve heard rumors that draconians have been seen inside the city walls.”

  The three knights exchanged glances.

  “Outside the city walls, too,” said Aran.

  “So the rumors are true. You’ve seen them?” Lillith said, looking grave. “Where?”

  “On the road to Tarsis. They were camped out by a bridge. They were watching those who crossed…”

  “That makes sense,” said Lillith. “Someone is circulating a bounty list for the assassins of Dragon Highlord Verminaard. I happened to get hold of a copy.” She reached to her waistband and drew out a document similar to the one they had taken from the draconians.

  “I’ve been searching for a person a long time, only to find him at last on this list. I want you to apprehend him and bring him to me.” Lillith held up a warning finger. “You must do this without anyone’s knowledge.”

  “You have the wrong people, Mistress,” said Derek. “You should speak to the local Thieves Guild. They are experts at kidnapping-”

  “I don’t want him kidnapped! And I certainly don’t want thieves to get hold of him, or the draconians.” Lillith flushed in her earnestness. “He carries something of great value and I’m very much afraid he doesn’t appreciate its importance. He might give this object to the enemy out of sheer ignorance. I’ve been trying to think of some way to get hold of him ever since I saw his name on this list. You gentlemen are a godsend. Give me your word of honor as knights that you will do this for me and I will show you how to find the library.”

  “That is blackmail-unworthy of the daughter of a knight!” said Derek, and Brian, regretfully, couldn’t help but agree with him. This was all very vague and shadowy.

  Lillith was not daunted. “I think it’s unworthy of a knight to refuse to help a knight’s daughter!” she said spiritedly.

  “What is the object this person carries?” Aran asked curiously.

  Lillith hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. If it were my secret, I would tell you, Sir Knight, but the secret is not mine to share. My information came from one who would be in great peril if he were discovered. He’s not supposed to be talking to us. He risked a great deal revealing this much, but he’s worried about this valuable object and also the person carrying it.” Derek continued to look grim.

  “Which person on this bounty list do you want us to find?” Brian asked.

  Lillith put her finger on a name.

  “Out of the question!” barked Derek.

  “Derek…” said Brian.

  “Brian!” said Derek, glowering.

  “I’ll just leave you gentlemen to discuss this among yourselves.” Lillith walked off out of ear-shot.

  “I do not trust this hoyden,” said Derek, “even if she is the daughter of a knight, and I have no intention of kidnapping a kender! She is playing some sort of prank on us.”

  “Derek, we’ve tramped up and down this blasted street most of the morning and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of a library,” Aran said, exasperated. “We could spend the rest of our lives searching for it. I say we agree to do this little errand of hers in return for her helping us locate the library.”

  “Besides, if the draconians are keen to get their claws on the kender, that alone should give us reason enough to want to save him,” Brian pointed out. “He was one of those who killed the Highlord, apparently, along with Sturm.”

  “He might be able to tell us where we could find Sturm,” said Aran.

  Brian shook his head, signaling to Aran that this argument was the last one to use to induce Derek to go along with Lillith’s plan. Quite the opposite, in fact. For his part, Brian was eager to help Lillith regardless, if only to see her smile again.

  Derek was obviously not happy about the situation, but he had to face facts: they could not find the library and, with draconians lurking about the city there was no time to waste.

  He called to Lillith. “We will undertake this task for you, Mistress. Where do we find this kender?”

  “I have no idea,” she said brightly. Seeing Derek’s brows come together, she added, “My fellow Aesthetics are keeping an eye out for him. They’ll let me know. In the meantime, I will show you the library. See there? I can be honorable, too.”

  “What are draconians doing in Tarsis, Mistress?” Brian asked. She was leading them down an alleyway that appeared to be a cul-de-sac, with no library in sight.

  Lillith shook here head. “Maybe nothing more than searching for these people. We don’t know.”

  “Have you reported this to the authorities?”

  “We tried,” said Lillith, making a face. “We sent a delegation to see the lord. He scoffed at us. He claimed we were imagining things. He termed us rabble-rousers, said we were trying to start trouble.”

  Lillith shook her head. “There was something odd about him, though. He used to be a gracious man, always taking his time to listen to supplicants, but when we saw him this time, he was brusque, almost rude.” She sighed deeply. “If you ask me, trouble’s already started.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We think the enemy has him in their control. We can’t prove it, of course, but it would make sense. They have some sort of hold over him. That’s the only reason our lord would allow those monsters to even get near our city.”

  The alley ran between a large building which had fallen into such decrepitude it was hard to tell that it had once been an elegant mansion. The walls looked as if they would tumble down if someone breathed on them and they kept clear, though Lillith assured them the building had been standing for hundreds of years. She continued down the alley, pausing every now and then to glance over her shoulder, to make sure they were not being followed.

  “Mind the sewer grate,” she said, pointing. “The bolts are rusty, and it’s not to be trusted. You could take a nasty tumble.”

  Aran, who had been about to step on the grate, hopped nimbly over it.

  “Why don’t the Tarsians clean all this up?” he asked, gesturing. “It’s been over three hundred years, after all.”

  “At first they were too busy just trying to survive to rebuild what was lost,” Lillith answered. “They took the bricks and granite and marble blocks from ruined structures and used them to construct houses. I think they meant to rebuild their city at first, but what with hardship, danger and people leaving the city to find work other places, there was always a lack of money and, perhaps more important, a lack of will.”

  “In later years, as they grew more prosperous, they must have considered rebuilding this part as they did other parts,” said Brian. “I saw some magnificent structures on my way here.”

  Lillith shook her head. “It’s because of the library. This part of the city came to be associated with those the people blamed for their woes-wizards, clerics, scholars, and Solamnic Knights like yourselves. The citizens feared that if they rebuilt the library and universities troublemakers like us would come back.”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t destroy the library,” said Aran.

  “The Aesthetics feared the worst. When word of the trouble occurring in Tarsis reached our Order, they were deeply concerned. They sent a group to the city-a dangerous journey back then, what with the lawlessness in the land-with instructions to either save the books or, if they were too late, salvage what they could.

  “When they arrived, the Aesthetics found that the clerics of Gilean working here prior to the Cataclysm had received warnings that something terrible was about to occur. The clerics could have left Krynn safely with the clerics of the other god
s, but they chose to remain to guard the books. Fortunately the library had been built below ground, so that when the fiery mountain struck, the library was spared. All they had to fear now was men.

  “When the mobs came to burn and loot the library, they found the Aesthetics guarding it. Many of them were slain in the battle, but they kept the mobs at bay until they could seal up the library entrance. After that, they concealed the entrance so that no one could find it or open the door unless they knew the secret. The books have thus remained safe all these centuries, guarded by those who love them.”

  “Such as yourself,” said Brian admiringly. He took hold of her hand, indicating her ink-stained fingers.

  Lillith blushed, but she gave a matter-of-fact nod. Brian kept hold of her hand, as if by accident. Lillith smiled at him, the dimple flashed, and she gently slid her hand out of his grasp.

  “What book or reference are you looking for, Sir Brian? Perhaps I can help you find it. I’m familiar with most of what’s down here, though not all, mind you. That would take several lifetimes.”

  Derek gave Brian a sharp glance, silencing him.

  “It is not that we do not trust you, Mistress Hallmark,” Derek said coolly. “But I believe we should keep this information to ourselves. We might put you in danger otherwise.”

  “Just as you choose,” said Lillith. She came to a halt. “Here we are.”

  “A blank wall,” Aran stated.

  They walked through a shadowy archway that led to a dead end. A wall made of multicolored stones, rounded and weathered and set in mortar, butted up against a hillside covered over with long grass.

  “The Library of Khrystann,” said Lillith.

  She placed her boot on a flagstone in front of the wall and pressed on it. To the knights’ amazement, the solid stone wall gave a sudden jolt and slid off to one side.

  “It’s not stone at all,” exclaimed Aran, reaching out his hand to touch it. “It’s wood painted to look like stone!” He laughed. “What a masterpiece! It fooled me completely!”

  The knights looked back down the alley and saw it in a far different light.

  “The alley is part of the library’s defenses,” said Brian. “Anyone trying to reach the library has to walk down it.”

  “And the sewer grate I almost stepped on-it’s a trap!” Aran regarded Lillith with more respect. “You and your Aesthetics appear ready to fight and die to defend the library. Why? It’s only a bunch of books.”

  “A bunch of books that contain the bright light of wisdom of past generations, Sir Aran,” said Lillith softly. “We fear that if this light is quenched, we will plunge into a darkness so deep we might never find our way out.”

  She shoved aside the wooden door painted to look like stone. Behind it was another wooden door, this one of very old workmanship. Carved into the wood were the scales of balance resting on a book.

  “The symbol of Gilean, God of the Book and Keeper of the Balance.” Lillith reached out her hand to touch the scales.

  “You speak of him with reverence,” said Brian. “Do you believe the gods have returned?”

  Lillith opened her mouth to reply, but Derek cut her short. “We have no time for such nonsense. Please proceed, Mistress.”

  Lillith gave Brian a sidelong glance and a secret smile.

  “We will speak of that later,” she said.

  She pressed on one of the scales twice, then the other scale three times, then pressed four times on the symbol on the book. The second door slid open. A long staircase extended straight down into darkness. A lantern hung on a hook on the wall near the door. Lillith removed the lantern and, opening a glass panel, lit the stub of a candle inside. The flame burned clear. She shut the glass panel carefully and lighted their way down the stairs.

  The air grew warmer. The stairway smelled of old leather and sheepskin and the dust of time. At the bottom of the stairs was another door, again decorated with the scales and a book. Lillith pressed on each again, only in a different order. The door slid into the wall. She entered the room, holding her lantern high.

  The room was enormous. Long and wide, it extended far beyond the reach of the lantern light. And it was filled, floor to ceiling, with books. Shelves of books lined the walls. Shelves of books marched in long rows across the floor, row after row, on and on into the darkness. It was a veritable forest of shelves, and the books on those shelves were as numerous as the leaves on a forest of trees.

  The three knights stared at the books in awe mingled with growing dismay.

  “Are you sure you don’t need my help, Sir Derek?” Lillith asked serenely.

  4

  A hopeless search. The riot. Kender-snatching. here are thousands!” Aran gasped.

  “Thousands of thousands,” said Brian in hopeless tones. Derek turned to Lillith. “There must be a catalog of the books, Mistress Hallmark. The Aesthetics are known for their meticulous record-keeping.”

  “There was,” said Lillith. “The books were catalogued and cross-referenced by title, author, and content.”

  “You’re speaking in the past tense,” Aran noted ominously.

  “The catalog was destroyed,” Lillith told them gravely.

  “Who would do such a thing? Why?” Brian asked.

  “The Aesthetics themselves destroyed it.” Lillith gave a deep sigh. “Right before the Cataclysm, during the time that the Kingpriest handed down the Edict of Thought Control, he threatened to send his Enforcers to the library to search the catalog of books so that his Enforcers could remove and burn all those deemed ‘a threat to the faith’. The Aesthetics could not allow this, of course, so they burned the catalog. If the Enforcers wanted to know what was in the books, they were going to have to read them. All of them.”

  “And so, it seems, are we,” said Brian grimly.

  Brian pointed to Lillith’s ink-stained fingers. “Not necessarily. You’ve been recreating the catalog, haven’t you, Mistress Hallmark?”

  “I wish you would all just call me Lillith, and, yes, I’ve been trying to recreate the catalog. I haven’t gotten very far. It’s an enormous task.”

  “Derek, we must tell her why we’re here,” murmured Aran.

  Derek was determined to keep the orb a secret, and for a moment he looked obstinate. Then his gaze went to the shelves of books, shelf after shelf after shelf of books. He pressed his lips together a moment, then said tersely, “We’re looking for information concerning dragon orbs. All we know for certain is that they were created by wizards.”

  Lillith gave a low whistle. “Wizards, eh? I don’t recall coming across any information on dragon orbs, but then, I haven’t started work on the books that deal with magic.”

  Derek and Brian looked at each other in dismay. Aran, shaking his head, reached for his flask.

  “I can show you the section where books on the arcane are shelved,” Lillith offered. “They’re all the way in the back, I’m afraid.”

  The shelves were stacked closely together; the aisles between them were so narrow that occasionally Aran had to turn sidewise to fit. They moved cautiously, for the lantern light didn’t go very far. Brian fell over a crate in the dark and almost knocked down an entire shelf.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Lillith said, as they edged their way around several shelves that had toppled over, spilling their contents onto the floor. “I haven’t started to work on this section yet and I didn’t want to disturb anything. Though it may not look it, there is order in this chaos.

  “Which reminds me, gentlemen,” Lillith added in severe tone, “if you take a book down from a shelf, please put it back in exactly the same place you found it. Oh, and if you could make a note of the contents, that would be a big help to me. By the way, how many different languages do you speak?”

  “Solamnic,” Derek answered impatiently, not understanding the reason for the question, “and Common, of course.”

  Lillith paused, holding the lantern high. “Nothing else? Elvish? Khurian?”

 
The knights all shook their heads.

  “Ah, that’s a shame,” she said, biting her lip. “We Solamnics assume everyone in the world speaks our language, or if they don’t, they should. Wizards come in all races and nationalities. Their writings are in many different languages, including the language of magic. Given the way our people feel about wizards, I doubt you’ll find many books written in Solamnic.”

  “This just keeps getting better and better!” Aran remarked cheerfully. “We could take weeks to find a scroll on dragon orbs, only to discover it’s written in some obscure dwarvish dialect and we can’t understand a word! Here’s a toast to our quest!” He took a pull from his flask.

  “Don’t borrow trouble,” Derek admonished. “Fortune might smile on us.”

  Lillith clapped her hands together. “By Gilean’s Book! Fortune has smiled on you. I just thought of something. That kender you’re going to rescue might be able to help you!”

  “A kender?” Derek repeated in disgust. “I most seriously doubt it!”

  “How could he help us?” asked Brian.

  Lillith flushed. “I can’t tell you that, but he might.”

  “The kender again! When do we go in search of this kender?” Derek asked in resigned tones.

  “Whenever my friends tell me he’s arrived in Tarsis, if he comes here at all. I’m just hoping he will because of that list.” Lillith hiked up her skirts to climb over another shelf. “This way. I’ll show you where to look and I’ll give you what help I can.”

  The knights spent two days in the library in what proved to be a frustrating and fruitless search. They decided against returning to their camp, for that would mean passing in and out of the city gates, and once inside, they deemed it wise to stay, particularly if there were draconians about. Lillith suggested they sleep in the library-an ideal hiding place, since no one in Tarsis ever came there. Brian took the two horses to a stable near the main gate, in case they had to make a hasty departure. Lillith brought them food and drink. They made their beds on the floor among the shelves.

  Dusk to dawn, they searched through books, manuscripts, treatises, scrolls, collections of notes, and scribbles on scrap paper. They sat at long wooden tables hemmed in and blocked off by a maze of shelves that Aran swore shifted position when they weren’t looking, for if they left, they always seemed to lose their way back. They worked by lantern light, for the library had no windows. Lillith pointed out the old skylights located high in the lofty ceiling that had once let in the sunlight. The skylights were covered over with earth and debris and rubble.