The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper

by Mel Odom

  “Schools!” someone yelled. “Fish got schools! We ain’t fish!”

  “Your children and their children need educations,” Juhg said. “With Lord Kharrion defeated, with the goblinkin horde in abeyance—”

  “They ain’t in abeyance!” someone shouted. “They’s down to the south! Where they always been! We need to go down there an’ burn ’em all out rather than sittin’ here on our duffs listenin’ to a halfer tryin’ to convince us he’s important!”

  Cheering broke out immediately.

  Thoughts of war bring these people together, but peacetime divides them. Juhg couldn’t believe it.

  “We should all get us an ale down at Keelhauler’s Tavern an’ head on out down there.”

  And more wars have started with tankards of foaming ale. Juhg raised his voice. “You’ll have your chance at the goblinkin soon enough. But if you aren’t ready for them, they’ll destroy you.”

  That declaration set off another wave of hostility.

  An elf stood up in the front row. His two great wolves roused with him, growling fiercely as they stood with their forelegs on the arms of his chair and rose nearly to their master’s shoulders.

  He was an elven warder, marked by his green leathers, bow, and pointed ears as well as the animal companions he kept. His long hair was the color of poplar bark and stood out against the golden skin. Amethyst eyes glinted like stone. Thin and beautiful and arrogant, the elf leaned on his unstrung bow and gazed at the assembly.

  “Quiet,” he said. “I wish to hear what the halfer has to say.”

  A group of rough-hewn sailors stood up in the back. “We don’t take no orders ’cept from our cap’n, elf,” one of their number said. He made the word a curse.

  The elf smiled lazily. “You’ll do well to take orders from me, human. Or at least not feel so emboldened in my presence. Your continued survival could count on that.”

  A dwarf stood up only a few feet from the elf. His gnarled hand held a battle-axe that was taller than he was. Scars marked his face and arms, offering testimony to a warrior’s life and not a miner’s. His fierce beard looked like the hide ripped from a bear but was stippled through with gray. “That’ll be enough threats, Oryn.”

  Still smiling casually, the elf turned to face the dwarf. “Really, Faldraak? You should know me well enough to know that I don’t make threats. I make promises.”

  “An’ you don’t have sense enough to come in from the rain,” Faldraak accused. “Are you prepared to fight a crew of humans?”

  “I am,” Oryn replied. “The only question is whether or not I have to fight a dwarf as well.”

  Several other elves stood up. “Oryn won’t fight alone,” one of them promised.

  Armor clanking, a dozen dwarves flanked Faldraak.

  “Fight!” someone in the back yelled. “There’s gonna be a fight between the elves and the dwarves!”

  Unable to bear it any longer, Juhg gave in to his anger. “Stop!” Amplified by the construction of the stage, his voice rang out over the assembly hall with shocking loudness. Before he knew it, he’d abandoned the lectern and stood at the stage’s edge.

  The crowd turned on Juhg at once, as if suddenly realizing their presence and the discomfort between them there was his entire fault.

  Too late, Juhg realized that he should have stayed behind the lectern. At least it would have offered some shelter against arrows and throwing knives. Still, his fear wasn’t enough to quiet the anger that moved within him.

  “Look at you!” he accused. “Ready to fight each other over a few harsh words!” He stood on trembling legs but found he couldn’t back away from his own fight with them. “Is this the kind of world you want to give each other? One where you have to fight each other instead of the goblinkin?”

  No one said anything. All eyes were upon him.

  “Because that’s how it was before Lord Kharrion gathered the goblinkin tribes, you know,” Juhg said. “Before he came among them, they were wary and distrustful of each other. They preyed on each other, thieving and murdering among themselves because they didn’t like fighting humans, dwarves, or elves. But Kharrion taught them to work together. And they very nearly destroyed the world.”

  The audience stood quietly listening to Juhg for the first time in three days.

  “Now that the goblinkin aren’t the threat they used to be,” Juhg said, “maybe you can go back to killing each other over territory nobody wants or needs. Or to feel secure. Or over harsh words. Or any of other reasons people have found to go to war over since groups first gathered.”

  “Make your point, halfer,” a human merchant said. He was dressed in finery and accompanied by a dozen armed guards. Age and success had turned him plump and soft. His hair was black but the color looked false. Jeweled rings glinted on his fingers. “For two days, you’ve stood up there and ranted and raved about the Library’s existence, which”—he turned to address the crowd—“I think nobody really cares about.”

  A few in the audience agreed with him.

  “I’d heard the Library existed only a few years ago,” the human continued. “There was some mention of a battle against a man named Aldhran Khempus. Supposedly, there are two libraries, in fact.”

  “Yes,” Juhg said, “there are.” He had discovered the second while rescuing Grandmagister Lamplighter and searching for The Book of Time.

  “In the past,” the merchant said, “simply owning a book was enough to get you killed not only by the goblinkin, but generally by anyone who found you with one.”

  “The times are changing,” Juhg said.

  “You’re only here,” the merchant continued, “because you want the people here to help aid in your defense from the goblinkin. I’ve heard they’ve sent raiding parties out to your little island.”

  “They have,” Juhg admitted. “Those goblinkin raiding parties haven’t succeeded in reaching Greydawn Moors. They never will. The island’s defenders will never allow that to happen.”

  “How many dwellers are among those defenders?” the human taunted.

  “Dwellers,” Juhg said, “aren’t warriors. We were charged by the Old Ones to become the keepers of the Great Library.”

  “That’s what you do?”

  “Yes.”

  The human held up his hands in fake supplication. “Then why did you call us here, telling us that the fate of the world rested in our hands?”

  “Because it does,” Juhg said.

  “How?”

  Leaping from the stage, Juhg opened his backpack, took several books from it, and walked to the elven warder and surveyed him. “You’re a Fire Lily elf from the Joksdam Still Waters.”

  Oryn was unimpressed. “A number of those present know who I am.”

  Opening the book, Juhg flipped to one of the illustrations that showed the wide river that wound through what had once been Teldane’s Bounty but was now the Shattered Coast. “But I know the history of your people. I know what Joksdam Still Waters looked like when it was whole, when it was a place of beauty and not a place of dead trees and cities.”

  The picture was in color, elaborately inked and designed to catch the eye. It showed an elven warder on a leaf boat sculling the waters and battling a sea troll three times his size.

  Reverently, Oryn took the book. “Kaece the Swift,” he marveled. The other elven warders crowded in around him to peer over his shoulder.

  “Yes.” Juhg had deliberately ordered the story of Kaece the Swift copied. “This is his story, Oryn. His true story. Before Lord Kharrion came among the Fire Lily elves and destroyed them.” He changed his language to the elven tongue. “And it’s written in the language of your people.”

  Cautiously, Oryn flipped through the book, stopping at several other pictures. All of them were in color, which had drawn a lot of complaints from Juhg’s overworked Library staff, but he’d wanted to make a good impression.

  “You know his story?” Oryn asked.

  “I’ve read it,” Juhg
said.

  “There have been few like him.”

  “I know.”

  Oryn looked at Juhg with new respect. “You have read this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you”—he hesitated, because elves were haughty beings and didn’t like being beholden to another—“read this to me?”

  “I will.”

  Oryn’s hands closed tightly around the book. “What do you want for such a book?”

  “The book is yours,” Juhg said. “It’s the Library’s gift to you.”

  “I can’t just accept such a gift.” Nor did Oryn seem especially desirous of returning the book. “There must be something I can give you in return.”

  “There is,” Juhg said.

  Wariness entered the amethyst eyes.

  “Give me your promise that you will let me teach you to read this book,” Juhg said. “And others like it. Whether at the Vault of All Known Knowledge, your home, or someplace else you might wish to meet. And promise me too that you will teach at least two others to read this book, and that they will each teach two more, and that the teaching will continue.”

  “I have two sons and a daughter,” Oryn said. “I give you my word that I will do as you ask.”

  “Thank you,” Juhg said. He turned to Faldraak and took out another book. “You’re of the Ringing Anvil dwarves.”

  “I am,” Faldraak replied proudly. “Ringing Anvil steel is like no other. We’re known for it.”

  “Your people once built armor for kings,” Juhg said. “And you constructed iron figureheads and rams for ships that were magically made so they wouldn’t rust.”

  Faldraak shook his shaggy head. “A myth, nothing more.”

  Dwarves and magic didn’t get along well. Everyone knew that. Humans and elves were more open to it, though elves held more with nature and humans tended to be more destructive.

  Juhg opened the book. “The secret of that magically imbued iron was the Ringing Anvil clan’s alone. They wrested the process from a dragon named Kallenmarsdak who lived long ago and high up in the Boar’s Snout Mountains.”

  The dwarf’s eyes widened. “Not many know that tale.”

  “I know more than the tale,” Juhg said quietly. “I know the secret of how magic was put into that iron.”

  “No,” Faldraak whispered hoarsely.

  Juhg opened the book to a picture of a dwarf grabbing hold of the toe of a dragon swooping over a mountaintop with the setting sun in the background. “Drathnon the Bold. The Ringing Anvil dwarf who bearded Kallenmarsdak in his lair.”

  Faldraak snatched the book from Juhg’s hands. “The secret of the magical iron lies in here?”

  “It does.”

  “And you would give it to me?”

  “It’s yours.”

  “You will read this to me?”

  “I will. But only at the same price that Oryn’s paying.”

  Without warning, Faldraak gave a cry of gladness, tossed his battle-axe to one of his companions, and wrapped his arms around Juhg, lifting the dweller from his feet like a puppy. “Ah, now you are a surprise, you are! You done filled this old dwarf’s heart with gladness! I’d thought that secret lost an’ gone forever!”

  Juhg almost couldn’t breathe. He felt certain his ribs would be bruised for days. A moment later, Faldraak placed him back upon his feet.

  During the next several minutes, Juhg passed out twenty-seven other books to people who had come to the gathering. Only five histories didn’t have descendants to give them to, and several others were disappointed that they didn’t have anything. Juhg got all their names and promised to get them each books upon his return to the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He could only imagine the protests of his poor staff, who were dividing their time between getting the Library back into shape, teaching Novices, and carrying on their own works and studies.

  In the end, he returned to the stage, though he didn’t humiliate himself by crawling up to the lectern again. He spoke to them from the stage’s edge.

  “These books represent the worlds that existed before the Cataclysm,” Juhg said.

  Amazingly, the audience was quiet now, hanging onto his words. He couldn’t believe how much giving them the books had impressed them.

  “They also represent the worlds your children and your children’s children can return to,” Juhg went on. “As the goblinkin are driven back, and I believe they will be, the world will grow smaller, not larger. Our lives will become larger. We won’t exist as little communities. But as we grow, we’ll develop the same problems we had that Lord Kharrion was able to take advantage of in the early part of the Cataclysm.”

  “What are you talking about?” the human merchant demanded.

  “Sit down, Dooly!” someone yelled. “I want to hear the halfer speak!”

  “Don’t you know what he’s talking about?” Dooly demanded. “Truly?” He hurried on before anyone answered. “This halfer is intending to pick your pockets! Who do you think is going to pay for these schools he intends to build?”

  That started another ripple of speculative conversation. Obviously, the merchant could smell a plea for donations a mile away.

  “Tell them,” Dooly snarled at Juhg. “Tell them that’s why you gathered them here. To fleece them of money.”

  Honesty is the best policy, Juhg told himself. He tried desperately not to remember how many times he knew of that such a practice had gotten the practitioner killed.

  “The establishment of schools will require help,” Juhg said.

  Immediately some of the good will of the book presentation evaporated. No one liked the idea of giving away gold.

  “Some of that help,” Juhg said, speaking over the noise, “will, of necessity, be of a financial nature. To feed and clothe the students and teachers while they are at their studies for the first year. Then they can garden, hunt, or fish to get what they need or the goods to trade for what they need. But most of the help needed will be only labor to build the schools.”

  “For what purpose?” Dooly asked. “To deprive farmers of their helpers? Artisans of their apprentices? To make every man and woman work two and three times as hard as he or she should have to, while their sons and daughters sit in some schoolhouse and do nothing?”

  “To get an education,” Juhg replied, trying to control the damage of the merchant’s words. “In order to learn to do things and teach others. In order to better live with one another. We will someday live in one world again. We should live in it better than we have in the past. The children need education to do that.”

  “Education is overrated, Grandmagister,” Dooly accused. “You stand up there today, offering your gifts and your promises, and you want only to make our lives harder. I’ve had just about enough of this foolishness and your empty words.”

  A single green spark danced from the back of the room, drawing the attention of several attendees. As Dooly continued haranguing Juhg, the spark sailed over and attached itself to the back of the merchant’s head. As Dooly talked, his tongue got longer and longer, and his face broadened and shortened, till he soon showed the wide face of a toad atop human shoulders. His hair became bumps and warts.

  Several of the people around Dooly started laughing. Even Juhg couldn’t help smiling.

  Abruptly, Dooly stopped speaking and glared at the people around him. “What?” he demanded. His tongue flicked out like a whip. Evidently he saw that movement for the first time. Experimentally, he flicked his tongue out several times. Then he raised his hands and felt his head.

  “Oh no!” he cried. “Oh no! Oh—ribbit!” Holding onto his head, he fled the room. Before he reached the door, his gait changed from a run into bounding hops. The door closed after his retreat.

  “Perhaps,” a deep voice from the back of the room suggested, “we could do the Grandmagister the courtesy of listening to his plans.”

  “It’d be better than being a toad,” someone grunted irritably.

  “Continue, Grandmagister,
” Oryn said.

  And Juhg did.

  “Coercion wasn’t part of my presentation,” Juhg said.

  “No, I claim credit for that,” Craugh responded. “Once I used it, things seemed to go more smoothly.”

  Juhg looked around Keelhauler’s Tavern, which was a waterfront dive not too far from Moonsdreamer, the ship that had brought him from Greydawn Moors. That also meant the ship was only a short distance away if things turned ugly locally and they had to run for it.

  Over the years, the tavern’s owners had enlarged the building three or possibly four times, simply hauling over other structures and attaching them, then laying in a floor. As a result, the floors were of varying heights and weren’t always level. The furniture consisted of a hodgepodge of whatever had showed up at the door.

  Although the tavern was filled near to bursting with all the extra people in for the meeting, no one sat close to Craugh and Juhg. It was, under the toad circumstances, understandable.

  “They’re afraid of you,” Juhg said.

  Craugh preened in self-satisfaction. “They should be.”

  Juhg sighed. “It’s difficult to get anyone to do anything charitable when they feel threatened.”

  “I beg to differ. After the possibility of being turned into toads was presented, they sat and listened while you droned on and on about schools and education.”

  “I didn’t drone.”

  Craugh frowned. “Your elocution lacks. ‘We must build for the future. We must ensure our children know about the past before they step into the future.’” The wizard shook his head. “The toad threat? That was eloquent. Short, punchy, attention-getting.” He took another cream-filled bitter blueberry tort from the plate he’d ordered and dug in. For all his leanness, the wizard was a bottomless pit when it came to food. “You don’t ask people for help. You tell them to help you.”

  “Or you turn them into toads.”

  Craugh shrugged. “If I threatened that, then yes, I turn them into toads. Threats don’t carry much weight if you don’t occasionally carry them out.”

  Despair weighed heavily on Juhg. “Toads can’t build schools.”