by Mel Odom
When they were finished with their second helping, resting up before they rallied for a third attempt, Wick asked, “How is Bulokk?”
“Still alive,” Craugh said. “That one is very tough. He comes from good stock. He’s very disappointed to have lost his ancestor’s battle-axe.”
Wick sipped his razalistynberry wine. After the battle, Hallekk and the pirates had secured the shoreline and gathered all the scattered mine slaves. Instead of trying to get them out on one of the goblinkin ships, Cap’n Farok had ordered everyone aboard One-Eyed Peggie. There had been no chance of catching the mysterious black ship. Knowing the slave ships could never be made anything more than what they were, Hallekk had ordered them burned to their waterlines and sunk in the harbor.
They’d remained at anchor for nearly a full day, tending to the wounded and giving the dead a proper burial. Bulokk had also requested that Master Oskarr’s anvil be rescued if at all possible. Cap’n Farok had ordered that done, and Hallekk and a group of the ship’s crew had gone down into the mine and brought the anvil back up.
There’d been a brief set-to with the Burrower, but Wick let Hallekk know that Burrowers didn’t much care for fire and it had given them a wide berth after they’d doused it with oil and set it aflame. In the end, though, Craugh had gone after the Burrowers and dispatched them all. Leaving the creatures to eat their way through the islands wasn’t possible. There had been no sign of the fire elemental, Merjul.
“I’m not a bungler,” Wick said, when he could no longer stand the guilt the wizard had heaped upon him. “There was a lot I didn’t know. Mostly things you didn’t tell me. And you should have.”
“I’m aware of that.” Craugh reached into his robe and took out Wick’s journal.
Only then did Wick realize that he hadn’t switched the journal out of his other clothes back in his room. “Did you read that?”
“I did.” Craugh nodded.
“That’s not my best work,” Wick said defensively. When he hadn’t been helping with the wounded, Wick had climbed up to the crow’s nest and worked on the journal. As a result, his work at recording the events that had taken place after he’d reached the Cinder Clouds Islands was hurried, more in the form of notes than in anything presentable.
“It isn’t,” Craugh agreed. “But I know it’s an unpolished first draft. You’ll get it right as you work on it. I just wanted to get an idea of what you’d been through.”
Wick flipped through the pages, making certain everything was there. Every time he started a new journal, he always numbered the pages ahead of time, so he would know if anything had ever been removed.
“It’s all there,” Craugh grumbled. He tossed the protective oilskin pouch and writing supplies onto the table as well.
“Wizards have a habit of making things disappear,” Wick returned. “They don’t always put those things back where they belong.”
“We have to get Master Oskarr’s axe back,” Craugh declared.
“How?” Wick asked. “We don’t even know who took it.”
Craugh snatched the journal from Wick’s hands, then opened it to a page displaying the thieves’ guild symbol of the straight razor and lips. “We do.” He tapped the tattoo on the drawing Wick had made for reference. “The thieves were members of the Razor’s Kiss, a thieves’ guild that operates out of Wharf Rat’s Warren.”
Wick thought about that. He’d never been to Wharf Rat’s Warren. Nor had he ever wanted to go. The port city was in the Deep Frozen North and was said to be one of the most lawless around. Only thieves and murderers lived there, safe from the vengeful arm of anyone who tried to make them pay for their crimes.
“You recognize the tattoo?” Wick asked.
“I do.”
“How?”
“I’ve been there and seen it.”
Wick resisted the impulse to ask what business had taken Craugh there. No doubt it wasn’t good business. Craugh wasn’t exactly a good person. The wizard tended to chase after his desires and seldom addressed the needs of others.
“That being the case,” Craugh went on, “you’ll have to go search for the thieves’ guild.” He sipped his wine.
At first, Wick couldn’t believe he’d heard correctly. “No,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m not going.”
“Second Level Librarian Lamplighter,” Craugh said in tones that sent a shiver through Wick just as surely as though they’d been uttered by Grandmagister Frollo, “you have a duty to protect the Vault of All Known Knowledge.”
“I don’t see how going into Wharf Rat’s Warren is going to accomplish that.”
“That’s because you have limited scope of vision.”
“My vision,” Wick insisted, perhaps a bit emboldened by the razalistynberry wine, “is perfectly fine.”
Craugh looked at him.
For a moment, Wick felt certain he was about to be threatened with toadification, and he wasn’t certain how he was going to react to that. But for the moment he held onto his newfound belligerence.
“We still need to know what happened at the Battle of Fell’s Keep,” Craugh said.
“We know that Master Oskarr didn’t betray anyone,” Wick countered.
“Do we? Aren’t some of those books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge sometimes in conflict with each other about events?”
Grudgingly, Wick had to admit that was true.
“Someone’s lying then,” Craugh said.
“Not necessarily,” Wick replied. “It just depends on when the account took place.”
“The victors always write the histories.”
Sitting there looking at the wizard, Wick felt torn. He didn’t know if it was better to argue with someone who didn’t acknowledge books or the information in them, or with someone who was suitably educated. And opinionated, he added unkindly.
“Do you have Master Oskarr’s stone table in which he writes he was betrayed?” Craugh asked.
“No. You know we don’t.” Wick hadn’t even thought to bring it. “I have the rubbings I took of his statement, though. They’re legible. And if we need to, we could go back for Master Oskarr’s table.”
“How many people can read that statement, Second Level Librarian Lamplighter?”
Wick drummed his fingers on the tabletop irritably. Okay. Point taken. He sighed. “No one who doesn’t work at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Even of those there, only a few can read it.”
“I see. So can you prove your claim?”
“No.”
Craugh nodded. “Then there’s the red-cowled wizard who was with the black ship.”
Wick looked at Craugh in surprise. “You knew him!”
“I know of him,” Craugh corrected. “He’s a very dangerous man. A wizard-for-hire to the highest bidder.”
Unconsciously, Wick turned to the page where he’d drawn the red-cowled wizard’s face. Wick had drawn the man four different times, using his memory of the wizard to remember how he’d looked and moved. Even rendered in charcoal, the man looked dangerous.
“His name is Hauk Kerbee,” Craugh said.
Automatically, Wick asked for the spelling and inscribed it at the bottom of the page.
“He’s an albino,” Craugh said.
That explains the coloration I saw, Wick thought.
“As such, you don’t find Ryman Bey often out in the daylight hours,” Craugh went on.
“Is he part of the Razor’s Kiss?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Why would Ryman Bey be with them?”
“That’s one of the questions we’d like answered, isn’t it?”
Not we, Wick wanted to reply. But he couldn’t. Not simply because he didn’t want to anger Craugh, but because he was curious, too.
“The Razor’s Kiss is for hire as well,” Craugh said.
“You believe someone hired them to look for Boneslicer.”
Craugh nodded. “I do.”
“Why?”
“Because someone doesn’t want the truth of what happened at the Battle of Fell’s Keep to come out.”
“Who?”
Craugh smiled. “If I knew the answer to that, we might not have to go to Wharf Rat’s Warren.”
Wick looked into Craugh’s green eyes. “What if I choose not to go there?”
Craugh started to speak, then Cap’n Farok’s rough voice blared through the galley.
“If ’n ye chooses not to go,” the dwarven captain said from the doorway, “then ye’ll not go.”
“What if I want to go back to Greydawn Moors?” Wick asked.
“Then I’ll take ye there, Librarian.” Farok glared at Craugh. “I’ve had me fill of slave ships. I’ll not abide bein’ made part of one.”
Craugh was silent for a moment, then gave a tight nod. “All right then, Second Level Librarian Lamplighter. The choice is yours.” Without another word, the wizard got up from the table and stalked outside.
For some reason that he couldn’t explain, Wick felt ashamed, like he’d somehow let the wizard down. That’s stupid, he told himself. You don’t owe him anything. You’ve already risked your life several times for him. But he couldn’t shake the feeling.
“Are ye all right, Librarian?” Cap’n Farok asked.
“I am,” Wick answered. I will be.
“Will ye be wantin’ to go back to Greydawn Moors, then?”
“I’d be safer there,” Wick said, hoping the old pirate captain would understand.
“Aye.” Farok nodded. “Ye would be. An’ it’s a more fittin’ place for ye than out here on the sea or on the mainland.”
Somehow, though, even though Farok said that, Wick still felt guilty.
“I’m gonna see them we rescued to home first,” Farok said. “They’s closer an’ we could use a few supplies afore we cross the Blood-Soaked Sea again. All these extra mouths we took on to feed ain’t doin’ our supplies any good.” He clapped Wick on the shoulder. “Just let me know what ye’ve a mind to do.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Hours later, Wick sat up in the crow’s nest with a fresh journal, the one he’d taken notes in, and his writing supplies. After the time he’d spent in the Cinder Clouds Islands, he enjoyed the simple and familiar task of rendering his notes into properly stated text.
He used one of the codes he’d invented to record his adventures and the events that had propelled him into them. Even as he reworked the argument in Paunsel’s Tavern, beginning with how Paunsel had dragged him away from the adventure of Taurak Bleiyz, a vague wave of discontent filled Wick.
He hated unfinished things.
Since he’d been back on One-Eyed Peggie, he’d tried to focus on the book. He hadn’t even been able to get the intrepid dweller hero across the spiderweb spanning the Rushing River high in the Death Thorn Forest. Swinging Toadthumper with Taurak just hadn’t seemed … right.
So many things about the Battle of Fell’s Keep remained undone.
It’s not yours to do, Wick told himself. You’re a Librarian, not some larger-than-life dweller hero from a romance on the shelves of Hralbomm’s Wing. He watched the sun slowly sinking into the west, painting the sky fiery orange and red above the silvery water. You don’t even want to be a hero.
Still, he knew that Taurak Bleiyz would have been able to slip unnoticed into Wharf Rat’s Warren and spy on a thieves’ guild.
And that was what Craugh was proposing. It was the only strategy that made sense.
It’s also the strategy that could get you strung up from a net for the birds to eat, Wick reminded himself. Or tossed to the sharks.
He looked down at the page he’d been working on. It was an image of the Battle of Fell’s Keep, pulled from the few pictures he’d seen drawn of it and from the descriptions he’d read. His picture centered on Master Oskarr standing atop a boulder in the heart of the Painted Canyon, swinging Boneslicer at goblinkin and the trolls that accompanied them.
Master Oskarr gave his life, Wick thought sadly, maybe not then, but eventually all the same. And he was branded a traitor for that. The realization didn’t set easily with the little Librarian. He’d seen in Bulokk how those hurts from the past could still wound. How long will they continue to do so?
In the end, Wick knew he had no choice. What if he went back to Greydawn Moors, to the Vault of All Known Knowledge, and couldn’t find peace to do his work or enjoy a good book?
It could happen. It was happening now. He could only imagine Grandmagister Frollo haranguing him for his absence, then for his inattention to the tasks before him. If he couldn’t find it within himself to finish the Taurak Bleiyz adventure, how could he ever return home?
When it was almost dark, Wick packed the two journals away. He was too unsettled to work anymore, and it was even more unsettling realizing he knew what he had to do about it. He folded up his writing supplies and made his way down the rigging.
Critter and Rohoh were involved in some argument on one of the ’yards. It was evident from the ungainly way they were swinging upside down from their claws that they’d been raiding Slops’s cooking brandy.
Once he reached the deck, Wick made his way to Craugh’s room. Before he even knocked on the door, the wizard called, “Enter.”
Sighing, Wick thought, I hate when he does that. Craugh had a habit of laying wards on the doors of rooms where he slept.
Inside the small room, Craugh sat cross-legged on the narrow bed.
“Why did you get a bed?” Wick asked, thinking of the hammock he’d been sleeping in. He’d never visited Craugh’s room.
“Because I asked,” Craugh answered. He closed the book he’d been reading and tried to hide it from sight.
Before he could stop himself, driven by curiosity, Wick grabbed the book. Craugh didn’t let it go. Green sparks leapt from the wizard’s baleful gaze. Wick saw the title anyway. He released the book.
Craugh tucked it into his traveler’s pack. “Well?”
“That book was one I wrote,” Wick said in surprise.
“You gave it to me.”
“I know. As a gift.” Wick shook his head. “I didn’t think you’d still have it.”
“I just found it in my pack,” Craugh said. “Obviously I forgot to remove it.”
Wick knew that wasn’t true. The book had shown a lot of careful attention, but it also looked decidedly well read. Like a favorite book should. Wick had written it about his adventures with Craugh down in the Seltonian Bogs when they’d gone in search of Ralkir’s hidden library.
“Was there something you wanted?” Craugh demanded.
Wick squinted up at him. “Some days, Craugh, you’re a miserable excuse for a person.”
Craugh glared at him.
“If it wasn’t for the whole toad thing you do,” Wick said, “I think more people would tell you that.”
“Hmmmph,” Craugh responded. “And more people would be toads.”
“You know why I’m here, don’t you?”
To his credit, Craugh didn’t gloat.
“I can’t leave this unfinished,” Wick said, realizing the wizard was going to make him say it.
“I know,” Craugh said.
“There are too many questions that need to be answered. And I’ve started taking some of them personally. During the last few days, I’ve gotten to know Bulokk. He’s a good person. He shouldn’t have to suffer under the weight of the accusation of Master Oskarr.”
“I agree.”
Wick regarded Craugh suspiciously. “But there’s more to this, isn’t there?”
“Yes.”
Wick waited, then sighed as he gave up. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I know too much to be neutral the way a good investigator should be. I have too many preformed suspicions.”
“Do you know who hired the Razor’s Kiss?”
“Perhaps.”
“Then why should I go there?”<
br />
“Because we need proof before I start making accusations.”
“I could get killed in Wharf Rat’s Warren.”
“I sincerely hope not. But it is a distinct possibility. I never said any of this was going to be easy.”
At least that, Wick thought, is the truth.
A Note from Grandmagister Edgewick Lamplighter
I look back on this document after so many years have elapsed and it seems like only yesterday. The task that Craugh and Cap’n Farok set before me on that day was far more perilous than even they believed.
Well, I think that Craugh knew more than he was telling. He usually does.
As you can plainly see from this note, I lived through it all. But many didn’t. And even now if all the truths come spilling out that we left hidden, more people will die.
“Secrets are such hard things to manage when you’re not the only one who knows.” Of course, as any Librarian worth his salt would recognize, that’s a quote from Gart Makmornan’s Cashing in on Secrets: A History of Blackmail in the Higher Elven Courts.
In all, there are three of these books, these journals of my travels during this time of trouble. I have divided them up to forestall any inadvertent discovery of them before their time. Timing is, as they say, everything. And it was never truer than now. The trouble I was witness to, the discovery of Lord Kharrion’s Wrath so long after the Cataclysm, was not ended. I knew that when I walked out of the Forest of Fangs and Shadows.
But it was finished enough for the time. The danger was put aside.
The second book details what happened to me during my travails at Wharf Rat’s Warren, of how I tracked down the Razor’s Kiss, Ryman Bey, and the person who hired them to search for Master Blacksmith Oskarr’s battle-axe, Boneslicer.
That journal, as with the third, will not be found with this one. Only one person knows where this journal may be found. And I will teach only one other Librarian—an apprentice I know whose heart and mind I can trust—the trick of the code I have used to record this narrative.
Only you, my apprentice, know the code to these books. And I will have taught you the way to find them. But know that the secrets they guard are dangerous things. I cannot impress that strongly enough upon you.
