by Mel Odom
“Oh no!” Cottle shrieked. Then he too sped off, waddling from side to side because he made a very fat toad.
“Well then,” Varrowyn said, “since nothin’s truly amiss”—he pointed toward the door—“we’ll just go on back outside an’ take care of guardin’ the Library. Wouldn’t want anythin’ untoward to happen now, would we?”
“No,” Craugh said, “we wouldn’t.”
Varrowyn ushered his command outside the Library. The main doors closed with a loud bang.
“Now,” Craugh said, turning to the Librarians, “on your feet.”
The Librarians moved incredibly quickly.
“I have a project that I need researched,” Craugh said. He dropped a hand to Wick’s shoulder. “Second Level Librarian Lamplighter will be my emissary in this. Obey him as you would me. Address the tasks he gives you with all due haste, or by the Old Ones, your rumps will thump!”
The Librarians stood fearfully.
“Get your assignments from Second Level Librarian Lamplighter,” Craugh ordered. “Are you Librarians? Or are you toads?”
As it turned out, they all chose to be Librarians. Wick found himself in the middle of a panicked chaos.
The research took three days. Later, when he realized it had really been three days, Wick couldn’t believe it. The time had seemed like hours, and Craugh had demanded updates on what he was finding out every few minutes. Once he knew how long it had actually been, he didn’t feel quite so angry at Craugh for asking so much, but at the time it hadn’t sat well with Wick.
When he was finished, he was exhausted. It wasn’t that he was unused to hard work. The truth was that he worked hard every day. But he’d never had to think for so many, and all at one time, too. In the end, he’d finally had to make a much larger outline to map what he needed and from where he needed it.
He worked nonstop, feeding on the excitement of what he was learning. As quickly as he could, he compiled all the information into one journal, trying to figure out a timeline of when everything happened. And who had done it.
Finally, the reports started to trickle down. Soon no more information was coming from the military libraries or the biographical section or the shelves containing tomes on magic and spells and enchantments.
Wick became a bottomless pit of knowledge. He hadn’t ever before known how much raw information he could hold at one time. He had to start the journal over twice, then finally gave up and worked the pages in loose fashion, sewing them up later only when he was finished with them.
The whole time, Craugh stood guard over him. At first Wick had thought it was only to make certain Wick kept his nose to the grindstone and didn’t get distracted. Then he realized that the wizard was facilitating the handling of the books, the organization of the presentation of the material, and the meals. Wick never had to ask for sustenance; it was there when he was ready for it.
At times he’d had to take leave of the chair to go to the privy, of course, but there was a lot of pacing involved as well. Pacing helped Wick think, and there was a lot of thinking to do.
But finally, he had all of it: the history of the three weapons that went into human, elven, and dwarven hands.
And he understood why Lord Kharrion had been interested in Dream at the start of the Cataclysm.
“What did you find out?” Quarrel asked.
Wick tried to find a comfortable spot in the back of the wagon. Craugh sat in the driver’s seat and handled the team. The wizard knew most of the story, having patched it together himself as Wick had uncovered bits and pieces of the events that had tied Dream and the heroes’ weapons together.
“Almost all of it,” Wick said.
“Who betrayed the defenders at the Battle of Fell’s Keep?” Bulokk asked.
“That,” Wick acknowledged, “I didn’t find out. Let me begin with the vidrenium that was used to create the weapons.”
The wagon creaked as it headed through the big gate past Varrowyn and the dwarves. Craugh had assured them that Grandmagister Frollo and Cottle would no longer be toads by the next morning, though it was the wizard’s frank opinion that they could have used a life as toads for a while longer yet.
“Wizards and blacksmiths for centuries have labored to create armor that will withstand a dragon’s fiery breath and sharp claws,” Wick said. “So far, there’s only one thing that will do that without fail.”
“Dragon skin,” Quarrel put in.
“Exactly. However, getting dragon skin to make armor with presents two problems.”
“Ye hafta kill the dragon,” Bulokk said.
Wick nodded. “Also, cutting the dragon skin is almost impossible. If it’s magicked in any way to be made more supple and easier to deal with, it also loses its ability to withstand the attacks you’re trying to design it for. So these wizards and blacksmiths of Dream came up with vidrenium. That’s what they called the hybrid metal they created.”
“What’s Dream?” Bulokk asked.
“Dream was a city,” Wick answered, “like no other. Built by elves, humans, and dwarves, it was constructed so that all the races could live there in peace and bring out only the best of each other.”
“It sounds too good to be true,” Quarrel said.
“Maybe it was,” Wick said. “The goblinkin hated it. Dream signified the eventual fate that awaited the goblinkin. If all people could come together in the manner that Dream did, it wouldn’t be long before those races living there decided to effect a more permanent solution to having goblinkin living around them.”
“I could live with that,” Adranis said, smiling mirthlessly. “No goblinkin sounds awfully good.”
“Dream was the first city to fall during the Cataclysm,” Wick went on. “Lord Kharrion struck there first, knowing that if he could take the city he would strike a major blow against the morale of those who would oppose him.”
“Because each race would follow suit as they always did, and blame each other for the loss of Dream,” Craugh said.
“But I think Lord Kharrion struck there first because of the vidrenium. It posed too big a threat.”
“How did he find out about the vidrenium?” Quarrel asked.
“Lord Kharrion worked among the wizards and blacksmiths,” Wick said.
“And they knew it?” Alysta asked.
“No,” Craugh called back from the driver’s seat. The horses’ hooves slammed against the ground as they hurried along. “Lord Kharrion was there under another name.”
“What name?” Bulokk asked.
“Wazzeln Phalto,” Wick answered.
“No one knew that was Lord Kharrion?” Alysta asked.
“Not until later. The people who died there that day, I’m pretty sure they never knew.”
“Lord Kharrion worked on the invention of the vidrenium?” Bulokk asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because during the Cataclysm, he enlisted the aid of dragons. Shengharck and others like him. If the humans, dwarves, and elves suddenly came up with armor that might stave off most dragon attacks, he’d have to rethink his plans of conquest.”
“He went there to sabotage the creation of the vidrenium,” Alysta said.
“I think so.” Wick rubbed his tired and aching eyes. “It has to be what happened. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” But you’re so tired after three days of no sleep that everything or nothing makes sense to you. He smothered a yawn. “After the forge where the vidrenium was being made—had been made, actually, according to papers from Master Blacksmith Kalikard that survived the explosion, the invasion, and the subsequent shipping to the Vault of All Known Knowledge—exploded, the goblinkin attacked Dream and sacked the city. By that time, the vidrenium was gone.”
“Where?” Quarrel asked.
“It had to have been blown out into the Gentlewind Sea where the merpeople found it,” Wick said. “Or perhaps it was carried aboard a ship fleeing the city that was later sunk and the merpeople found it then.
”
“How much later?”
“I don’t know. It took Lord Kharrion nine years to secure his hold on Dream and the outlying country. The wars, the Cataclysm, was not an easily won thing. For either side.”
“Either way,” Bulokk growled, “this chunk of vidrenium found its way into the hands of the merpeople, then into the hands of my ancestor.”
Wick drank from the wineskin Adranis passed him. He was thirsty but he didn’t want it to make him lightheaded. “Yes,” he replied. “It did.”
Of course, once they reached the Yondering Docks, climbed aboard One-Eyed Peggie, and got underway, Wick had to tell the story all over again for Cap’n Farok and Hallekk.
“Why did the merpeople take the ore to Master Bulokk?” Cap’n Farok asked.
They sat down in the ship’s galley. The rest of the crew that weren’t on watch sat on the long benches and listened. Wick knew the story would get repeated several times when he’d finished with it. Everyone would know.
“Maybe it was only chance they took it there,” the little Librarian said. “After all, who would have been interested in a chunk of ore? Even ore that looked different than any ore anyone had seen before?”
“Or because it were so different,” Hallekk put in.
“True.” Wick rubbed his face in an effort to stay awake. “The merpeople might have figured that difference made the ore even more valuable. At any rate, Master Blacksmith Oskarr took the ore back to his forge in the Cinder Clouds Islands and began working with it. He made Boneslicer, Seaspray, and the metal reinforcement parts of Deathwhisper.” Remembering the elven bow from the vision Craugh had summoned up, he was certain it had possessed metal reinforcement arms.
“Why three weapons?” Cap’n Farok asked. “An’ why not all three of ’em dwarven weapons?”
“At this point,” Wick said, “I have to start guessing. But these are educated guesses. From the notes we discovered that were left by the wizards and blacksmiths, the originators of the vidrenium intended to make three enchanted weapons, one for a warrior from each of the races. They worked the magic of their designs into the metal as they constructed it.”
“A battle-axe fer the dwarves, of course,” Bulokk said. “Master Oskarr kept that himself.”
“A sword for the humans,” Quarrel said. “That went to Dulaun.”
“Wait,” Cap’n Farok said. “I thought ye said the three of them didn’t know each other before the Battle of Fell’s Keep.”
“I didn’t think they did,” Wick admitted. “But when we researched ships’ logs of vessels that traded on a regular basis with the Cinder Clouds Islands, we discovered that Dulaun shipped aboard Wavecutter as a boy and worked his way up in command. He was first mate when Master Oskarr gave him the sword.”
“Why would Oskarr give such a blade to a young human?” Cap’n Farok asked.
“I don’t know.”
“In the stories about Dulaun,” Alysta put in, “it’s said that the sword was given to him by a dwarven blacksmith for an act of bravery. But the stories don’t name the blacksmith or say what that act was.”
“In the legends of the Cinder Clouds Islands dwarves, it’s said that Master Oskarr gave the finest sword he ever made to a human who rescued his son from a sea monster,” Bulokk said.
“When he was just a young man, before he made captain, Dulaun is supposed to have slain a sea monster that very nearly killed him,” Quarrel said. “I only now remembered that story. There are so many.”
“Aye,” Bulokk said. “I know what you mean. All the way back from the Library down that windin’ mountain trail, I had somethin’ at the back of me head. Just couldn’t pry it loose. Till now.”
“So those two weapons are explained,” Cap’n Farok said. “But why weren’t the stories intertwined before now?”
“Because of what happened at the Battle of Fell’s Keep,” Craugh answered. “The defenders there were betrayed and overrun by the goblinkin. Master Oskarr was blamed for it.”
“Because Dulaun died there, and lost Seaspray,” Quarrel said bitterly.
“Why not blame Sokadir?” Cap’n Farok asked.
“Because,” Wick said, flipping open the journal he’d made of all the research he’d done on the vidrenium and the weapons, “Sokadir lost his two sons there.” He showed Cap’n Farok and the rest the illustration he’d made of the brave elven warder and his two sons.
“So Master Oskarr was the only one who didn’t lose anything?” Cap’n Farok asked.
“If you don’t count his warriors,” Wick said.
“An’ his honor an’ his good name,” Bulokk said in a quiet voice.
They all sat quiet and sober for a time. Despite the fact that he wanted to be abed more than anything, Wick reached for another of the sugar biscuits Cook had made and slathered it with apricot jelly. It tasted just as good as the first one. A full stomach also made him want to sleep. During the last three days of frenzied research, he knew he’d eaten, but it had only been when he’d gotten sick from not eating. He hardly remembered anything he’d had.
“What about Sokadir?” Cap’n Farok asked. “How did he come by Deathwhisper?”
“I don’t know.”
Cap’n Farok’s brow wrinkled. “What do ye mean ye don’t know?”
Wick hesitated for a moment. This was the part of the story that he most hated.
“The metal bow reinforcements were stolen from the Cinder Clouds Islands,” Craugh said.
Leave it to you to put a bald face on it, Wick thought sourly. In truth, though, he knew there was no other way to state what had happened.
“Stolen?” Cap’n Farok asked. “By who?”
“We don’t know,” Craugh said.
Cap’n Farok pulled at his beard irritably. “Ye don’t mean to suggest that it was Sokadir?”
“He did end up with the bow,” Bulokk said.
“Mightn’t it be another bow?”
“Wick got me ancestor’s books out of the forge.” Bulokk nodded at Wick. “There was a drawin’ of the bow reinforcements.”
“Blueprints,” Wick said automatically. “I didn’t catch it the first time through. It doesn’t look like a bow. But the powers in the bow, what it’s supposed to do, fit what Deathwhisper does.”
“Didn’ Master Oskarr recognize the bow at the Battle of Fell’s Keep?” Cap’n Farok asked.
“I don’t,” Wick said quietly, “see how he could not have.”
Silence hung heavily in the room when he finished the story.
“Well then,” Cap’n Farok said, “I suppose we’ll just have to ask Sokadir how he came by that bow when we find him.”
When he finally got to sleep a short time later, Wick slept nearly a day and a half. He could translate the word exhaustion in dozens of languages, write it in almost as many, but he didn’t think he’d ever truly comprehended what it was to be exhausted until after the marathon at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He couldn’t believe how tired he was.
After the first day, he tried to get up but only succeeded in staying up long enough to use the privy and get a drink of water. Then he was once more abed and nothing woke him.
Through it all, One-Eyed Peggie sailed relentlessly, canvas spread high and wide to catch as much of the wind as she dared, spending half a day fighting a storm that seemed to follow them as surely as a predator that had their scent. Hallekk later told Wick that the ship had foundered a couple of times and her deck had been awash with the Blood-Soaked Sea. Wick was only too glad to have slept through that.
When he finally got up, he found that his time was off and it was the middle of the night, not morning. Starving now, he retreated to the galley and whipped up a batch of cinnamon-flavored oatmeal and a rasher of bacon, then took servings to the two dwarves standing at the helm.
They thanked him and started spooning the oatmeal up before the cold wind whipping across the sea cooled it.
“What’s our course?” Wick asked.
T
elafin, the helmsman, answered. “Craugh says Boneslicer an’ Seaspray are still in Torgarlk Town. We’re headin’ there.”
That was curious. Since Gujhar and Ryman Bey had reached Torgarlk Town, they hadn’t left. Or maybe they’d left but the weapons were there for safekeeping.
Of course, there was always the possibility that the weapons were in town as bait in a trap.
8
Torgarlk Town
Wick watched Craugh in disbelief.
The wizard slung a bedroll over his shoulder, then crossed it with a waterskin. He put on his hat last, then took a fresh grip on his staff.
“You’re going to go?” Wick asked when he could hold the question no longer.
Craugh just looked at him. Then he walked toward the gangplank that connected One-Eyed Peggie to the pier.
“Good luck, Craugh,” Cap’n Farok called down from the stern castle.
“Thank you, Captain Farok,” Craugh responded, glancing up for just a moment, then setting his sights on Torgarlk Town again.
Wick turned to Cap’n Farok. “You’re going to just let him go? Alone?”
“It’s not like I have any choice, Librarian Lamplighter,” Cap’n Farok said. “Craugh has made his wishes known.”
Staring at Craugh, who had already reached the pier, Wick couldn’t understand all the confusion that was racing through him. For the last two days that he’d been conscious, he’d worked in his journals and tried not to think about the fact that Craugh was going to send him into the middle of the outlaw town.
After all, Torgarlk Town wasn’t as bad as Wharf Rat’s Warren, but the citizens there condoned slavery (primarily of dwellers) and traded with goblinkin (which was generally only done for slaves—dwellers—and spices to season the bounty in their stewpots—dwellers who could no longer swing a pickaxe in a mine).
Trade caravans from Never-Know Road stopped by there to do their illicit business (contraband goods that were smuggled in without benefit of paying the local king’s tax, and slaves), then continue on to other coastal towns farther north.
