The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper

by Mel Odom

  Green embers suddenly blazed from Craugh’s eyes.

  Wick closed his eyes involuntarily, feeling certain that he’d never open them again.

  “Craugh.” The voice belonged to Cap’n Farok.

  Wick was suspended a moment longer, then he dropped to the deck. He let himself go limp (or maybe it was that he was so close to passing out that he couldn’t physically move!) and remained lying on the deck as it rose and fell. I’m alive! And I’m still me!

  “Is there a problem here?” Cap’n Farok asked.

  Craugh gazed down at Wick. Slowly, the embers stopped blazing from his eyes and they were just eyes again. “No,” the wizard replied. “No problem.”

  Wick wondered if he had the physical ability to cringe. He thought cringing might be a good move under the circumstances. Actually, maybe it was a little late for cringing.

  “Well then,” Cap’n Farok said, and cleared his throat.

  “There’s a course change,” Craugh said in a curious, detached tone.

  “Aye,” the dwarven captain replied.

  Wick continued lying on the deck. None of the crew, not even Hallekk, came to help him to his feet.

  “Make for Greydawn Moors,” Craugh said. He turned to go, leaning heavily on his staff. “I’ll be in my cabin. Make certain I’m not disturbed.”

  “Aye.”

  Wick thought that was unnecessary. After what they’d just seen, no one on the ship would dare bother the wizard. He lay there for a while longer, till he could no longer hear Craugh’s staff thumping against the deck, or feel the vibrations.

  4

  Innocence

  “Are ye fit then, Librarian Lamplighter?”

  Wick held up a hand against the light that invaded the darkness of his cabin. He recognized Cap’n Farok’s voice. “I’m fine,” he replied, wishing that he hadn’t been bothered. The last few hours had been very confusing. After the confrontation with Craugh, he’d returned to his cabin and threw up several times. The room was still rank with the stench.

  “I expected to catch ye readin’, or maybe writin’ in them journals ye keep.” Cap’n Farok lumbered into the cabin and hung the lantern on the wall. He adjusted the wick, making the light brighter till it filled the room. He grimaced and his nose twitched. “Ye need to air this room out some.”

  “I got sick,” Wick apologized.

  “Understandable. Very understandable, given what ye risked. Ain’t no shame in that.”

  “I’m tired,” Wick said, hoping the captain would take the hint and leave.

  Instead, Farok limped over to the bed and sat himself. “Well, I won’t keep ye long, then, but I feel there’s some things that need sayin’. After what went on between you an’ Craugh.”

  “I made a mistake,” Wick said. You mean I could have gotten us all killed or turned to toads. I know that. “It won’t happen again.” Pain swelled at the back of his throat.

  “Eh? An’ what mistake was that?” Cap’n Farok put both hands on his crutch and waited patiently.

  Feeling strange lying down when the dwarven captain was sitting, Wick levered himself up. “I told Craugh he was wrong.”

  “Ye did, did ye?”

  “Yes.” Wick sighed. “That has to be one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done.”

  “But was he wrong?”

  Wick looked at Cap’n Farok suspiciously. Is this some kind of trick? Did Craugh send you down here to terrify me further? Because I know he’s not going to just drop this. He’ll drop me first. Probably over the side.

  “We need more information if we’re to pursue Sokadir,” Wick said, deciding not to make it an issue of right and wrong. “I told him we needed to go back to the Vault of All Known Knowledge and find out what we could.”

  Cap’n Farok scratched his chin. “Aye, I think that’s a good plan.”

  “Well, don’t mention how you feel to Craugh. You’ll probably end up turned into a toad.”

  The dwarven captain laughed at that. “Wouldn’t that be somethin’? Me a toad? An’ Hallekk an’ them other brutes a-snappin’ to whenever I croaked the orders?”

  The image the possibility summoned was funny. Before he knew it, even though he truly didn’t want to, Wick was laughing at the thought. Cap’n Farok joined in, and both of them were belly-laughing like a couple of fools.

  “Them sails is a-luffin’!” Cap’n Farok said. Then added, “Cro-oak! Batten them hatches! Cro-oak!”

  “Furl them sails or I’ll have the hides from yer backs, I will!” Wick said in his best Cap’n Farok imitation, which he’d been told by several of the crew members was actually pretty good. “Cro-oak!”

  “Wait just a minute now,” Cap’n Farok said, suddenly serious. “That ain’t what I sound like, now is it?”

  Wick stopped laughing, suddenly realizing he might have offended yet someone else he considered a friend.

  Then Cap’n Farok’s face wrinkled, no longer able to stay straight. “Cro-oak!” he laughed, and slapped his knee.

  Wick wiped the tears from his eyes. It felt good to laugh, but he knew it hadn’t changed the fact that he’d angered Craugh. Gradually, both of them calmed.

  “I know ye think ye’re in trouble with Craugh,” Cap’n Farok said.

  “I’d like to keep it in its proper perspective,” Wick said. “Basically, life as I know it is potentially at an end.”

  “I got to tell ye something, lad,” Cap’n Farok said. “I’m mighty proud of ye.”

  Wick sat in stunned silence.

  “I don’t know another being alive that would confront Craugh as ye did,” Cap’n Farok said.

  Meaning all the ones in the past are dead? Wick wondered. Or bouncing around on their new, plump behinds? “Never argue with a wizard.” He sighed. “I know. I’ve read all the books.”

  “Arguin’ with a wizard ain’t the smartest course ye could plot.”

  “I didn’t exactly plot it.”

  “But we was in a storm, an’ ye made the decision ye knew to be right.”

  “I was right?”

  “Weren’t ye?” Cap’n Farok searched his face. “Don’t we need to know more?”

  “Yes,” Wick sighed. “We do. What we’ve discovered is confusing. And trying to beard Sokadir in his homeland is—is—”

  “About as sensical as beardin’ a wizard who’s tired an’ scared—”

  “‘Scared’?” That choice of description interested Wick at once. “Craugh wasn’t scared.”

  “Sure he is. He’s been scared since we started this thing. He was scared when he went a-huntin’ ye in Greydawn Moors.”

  Wick shook his head. “He doesn’t seem scared to me.” Scary, though. Awfully, awfully scary.

  “That’s ’cause ye don’t know what ye’re lookin’ for when it comes to a man like Craugh.” Cap’n Farok sighed and clawed his beard in momentary indecision. Then he stared at Wick with his rheumy eyes. “I’m gonna tell ye somethin’, Librarian, that I expect never to hear again. Do ye understand me?”

  Wick nodded.

  “I’ll have yer oath on this, I will.”

  “Aye,” Wick said automatically. “I swear that I’ll keep your confidence.”

  “Good.” Cap’n Farok grinned, but the effort was forced. “Mayhap that way we’ll both keep our skins.” He paused a moment to gather his thoughts and choose his words. “Craugh’s been alive an awfully long time. A thousand years. That we know of. Could be more.”

  Wick accepted that.

  “A person don’t live without makin’ mistakes,” Cap’n Farok went on. “I’ve made me share of ’em, too, Old Ones know. But with a thousand years to live, a thousand years to make mistakes, can ye even fathom the mistakes Craugh mighta made along the way?”

  Wick couldn’t, but he recognized the propensity was there. In the years that he’d known him, Wick knew that the wizard was pursued by a restlessness that he couldn’t shed himself of.

  “There’s a pain in Craugh,” Cap’n Farok went
on. “Some hurt I can’t ken.”

  “I don’t see it,” Wick muttered.

  “Just because ye don’t see it don’t mean it ain’t there.” Cap’n Farok sighed. “Do ye remember when ye climbed up on that mast when the Embyr came?” Wick did remember. It was something he knew he could never forget. The Embyr had been the most wondrous and wicked thing he’d ever seen.

  “Where all we saw was a monster,” Cap’n Farok said softly, “ye saw a little girl. One what was lost and alone. Ye climbed up that mast an’ touched a part of her that saved us.”

  And I hurt her horribly in the process, Wick thought. He felt even worse in that moment, but he wasn’t as fearful of Craugh.

  “I’m tellin’ ye now,” Cap’n Farok said, “ye touch something in Craugh, too. Somethin’ he didn’t expect mayhap even existed.”

  “I don’t know.” Wick shook his head. He didn’t believe it for a moment. Craugh had been on the verge of killing him or throwing him overboard only a few hours ago.

  “Well then, when ye get to me years, mayhap ye’ll know more an’ be able to see more.”

  “Craugh used me. He came to Greydawn Moors to use me to try to recover those lost weapons.”

  “I know.”

  “If he’d have asked, I wouldn’t have come.”

  “I know that, too. Ye forget, Librarian, I’m as much responsible for yer kidnappin’ as he is.”

  Wick had forgotten. He blamed everything on Craugh.

  “The wizard did go to Greydawn Moors lookin’ for ye,” Cap’n Farok said. “I went with him. He told me wasn’t nobody else would do in this instance.”

  “I’m not a warrior. I’m not the person who needs to be doing this.”

  “An’ yet, was it ye that recognized we need to get back to Greydawn Moors an’ try to ferret out more information?”

  Wick made no reply.

  “Ye’re the exact man for this job, Librarian Lamplighter. Wouldn’t nobody else do it proper. Craugh knew that. That’s why, when he figured on goin’ to the Cinder Clouds Islands to recover Boneslicer, he wanted ye. Wouldn’t nobody else do. Not the way he saw it. It’s yer mind he wanted. Yer mind an’ yer heart an’ that little bit of innocence ye’ve managed to hang onto in spite of the worst things ye’ve gone through. Ye’ve got a child’s eyes, Librarian Lamplighter. An’ I’spect ye always will.”

  Listening to the old dwarven captain’s words, Wick didn’t know if he was being complimented or not.

  “It’s that innocence, I think,” Cap’n Farok said after a while, “that touches Craugh most. I fear he, like most of us who have grown up an’ gone where we’ve gone in the darkest parts of our lives, has lost all his own innocence. So he borrows yers when he feels he needs strong counselin’.”

  “Craugh doesn’t listen to me.”

  “He did today, didn’t he? We’re headed back to Greydawn Moors, ain’t we?”

  Wick couldn’t argue with that.

  “Craugh comes to ye,” Cap’n Farok said, “he seeks ye out, when he seeks out the company of no one else. Ye need to remember that.”

  “He sought you out first,” Wick objected. “You and Hallekk and the others brought Craugh to Greydawn Moors.”

  “Craugh wasn’t seekin’ us out. He wanted One-Eyed Peggie. He needed a ship.” Cap’n Farok shrugged. “I take me some pride in the fact that Craugh trusts me an’ me ship more’n he trusts any other that comes out of the Yondering Docks in Greydawn Moors.”

  Wick took a deep breath. “I thought he was going to kill me.”

  “But that’s just it, lad. Craugh can’t kill ye. He can’t harm ye in any way. ’Cept mayhap yer feelin’s now an’ again.” Cap’n Farok scratched his chin. “I think that’s why he wants ye along, too. Ye can’t help tellin’ him when he’s in the wrong, an’ he’ll listen to ye whether he wants to or not on account of who ye are.”

  For a long time only silence, permeated by the slap of waves against the hull, the creak of the ’yards and the rigging, and the banging Hallekk’s repair crew was making below, stretched between them.

  “Do you think that’s really true?” Wick asked.

  “Aye,” Cap’n Farok responded, smiling and patting Wick’s knee. “I do.”

  “Then maybe I can make him tell us the rest of it. Because I know he’s not telling us everything he knows.”

  Cap’n Farok frowned a little at that. “Well now, Librarian Lamplighter, I wouldn’t go pressin’ yer luck now.”

  During the next six days while One-Eyed Peggie made for Greydawn Moors, Wick contented himself with his journals, transferring his notes and drawings to the coded copy he intended to leave with Evarch in Deldal’s Mills.

  He also added work to another journal that he kept on the ship and her crew. Occasionally, after bribing Critter to keep a weather eye (as if the one-eyed rhowdor had any choice in the matter!) peeled for Craugh, Wick worked among the crew, repairing rigging, scraping barnacles, and swabbing the decks. That was, he’d discovered, the best way to pick up stories about where they’d been and what they’d done and whom they’d met.

  On several of those occasions, Quarrel, Alysta, Bulokk, and the Cloud Cinder-Islands dwarves joined Wick in the galley and talked late into the night. All of them told tales, and Wick kept notes. In exchange, he—with Cap’n Farok’s guidance—told them about the Vault of All Known Knowledge and Greydawn Moors. Given everything that they had been through, none of them was truly surprised by the existence of the Library.

  Craugh never put in an appearance. The wizard stayed in his room and took his meals by himself.

  Despite the near-death experience (near-blinding, near-toadifying experience), Wick felt a little sorry for Craugh. He thought about going to the wizard’s door and trying to talk to him. Once, Wick had almost gone to the wizard’s door, but two crewmen who “happened” to be standing by Craugh’s door engaged him in conversation, begging stories and songs from him. Gladdened to see that his company was desired—after fearing the reception he would get from Craugh—Wick went with them to the galley only too willingly.

  On the morning of the seventh day, they reached Greydawn Moors.

  Eagerness filled Wick as he stood in One-Eyed Peggie’s prow and strained his eyes to see through the layers of pale gray fog that continually surrounded Greydawn Moors and gave the island its name. He found he could almost see through it, maybe even enough to cry out a warning if he saw a ship in time for the pirate ship to take evasive action (which was actually Zeddar’s job at the moment). Some days were better than others. This was one of the good ones. There was no rain.

  One-Eyed Peggie’s warning bell clanged out her presence and the sound pealed out over the Blood-Soaked Sea. There had been no further sign of the creature that hunted the pirate ship, but they had seen other monsters, none of which—thankfully—seemed interested in them.

  Wick secretly hoped they were stuffed to the gills on the goblinkin pirates that sometimes plied the seas looking for merchant ships that might not be properly armed. When Cap’n Farok and his crew weren’t spreading the rumors of the Blood-Soaked Sea being filled with monsters, they sank the goblinkin ships to the bottom.

  Gradually, Greydawn Moors came into sight. Homesickness twisted in Wick’s stomach, especially since he knew this was only to be a brief visit and he would have to set sail again, possibly never to return. That was always a sobering thought every time he shipped aboard One-Eyed Peggie to track down a myth or a rumor or a scrap of history that he’d turned up in his studies.

  Under Cap’n Farok’s guidance, they put in to one of the piers of the Yondering Docks. A few other ships sat at anchorage, most of them pirate ships unloading goods that the populace of Greydawn Moors wanted.

  “Even when people have everything they need or think they want, often they want what their neighbor has. The sheer act of the neighbor wanting that thing sets up a desire in others that simply can’t be explained.” That was from Ardelph’s Laws of Supply and Demand: Beyond Necessi
ty.

  It also summed up the populace of Greydawn Moors. When the Builders had magically lifted the island from the sea floor, they’d planned for everything. There was nothing the denizens of Greydawn Moors lacked. The limestone construction of the island provided for several natural wells that filtered out the sea salt, and cisterns and lakes that held fresh water. The forests in back of Greydawn Moors proper and before the Knucklebones Mountains teemed with wild game that elven warders tended to. Farmers raised still more and reaped plenty of grain for bread and livestock from the fields.

  The island was, Wick had come to know, a veritable paradise. He closed his eyes and could almost smell the paper and ink of the books sitting on the shelves of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

  Several families came running to meet the ship. One-Eyed Peggie had been identified by the small cargo vessels ferrying goods in from the big ships that sat out from the docks. Wives, children, and friends all came to greet the pirates.

  No one came to greet Wick. Because no one knew I was gone, Wick told himself. But he was a little surprised at his feelings of being left out as he watched the pirates climb the ladder and go among their families. Still, he knew Cap’n Farok and Hallekk wouldn’t be going ashore either to be with families. Cap’n Farok had outlived his wife and two children (both of whom had died in battle against the goblinkin even before Wick had met him), and Hallekk had been orphaned as a child. Cap’n Farok was the closest thing to a father Hallekk had ever known.

  “Are you going to get moving?” a cold voice asked. “Or are you going to just stand there and moon?”

  Trembling a little, and feeling suddenly sick to his stomach, Wick turned and found Craugh standing there.

  The wizard looked rested again, perfectly able to toadify someone, or blind someone, or blast someone to little bitty—

  Craugh growled.

  “I’m going,” Wick responded, grabbing hold of the ladder and hauling himself up. He just hoped his weak knees didn’t give way beneath him and cause him to fall on Craugh. He didn’t think that would be well received. At the top of the pier, he tripped and almost fell.