by Mel Odom
“By now you’ve found that the first set of gemstones has powers,” the mantis said.
“‘By now?’ You talk like time has passed here.” Juhg was confused.
The mantis looked at him. “You asked me to talk to you like time passes, remember?”
“Yes,” Juhg said.
“And you thought I was the one having trouble keeping up with things. All you have to remember is what is in the past and keep up with what is happening now. I, on the other hand, am constantly immersed in all that you perceive, plus what—for you, at any rate—is yet to be.”
“I see,” Juhg said, though he really didn’t see at all.
“That’s why we’re not meeting upon the mountain.”
Juhg looked at the mantis.
“I knew you were wondering,” the mantis said.
“We’re not meeting on the mountain because why?”
“Because we’re already meeting there.”
“Oh.”
“You doubt me?” the mantis demanded. “I picked this place because it is beautiful—don’t you think?”
“Yes,” Juhg said, struggling to make sense of everything. It didn’t help that he was distracted by thoughts of his friends getting killed by the Slither or the strange dwarven “ghosts” while he was talking to a giant bug.
“You do doubt me?” Now the praying mantis looked incensed.
At least, Juhg was fairly certain it looked incensed. Since he’d never seen an angry praying mantis before—or, if he had, he’d never taken notice—he wasn’t certain. Before he could tell the mantis that he was only agreeing that the orchard was beautiful and steer the conversation back around to his need to rejoin his friends—as well as secure any help that might be in the offing—the mantis grabbed his wrist.
The strange thing was, the mantis’s foreleg looked like chitin-covered hide, but it felt like a … tentacle?
“Come,” the mantis ordered imperiously in a tone that reminded Juhg of Craugh’s haughtiness when the wizard was vexed at someone or something.
Pulled stumbling behind the mantis, Juhg took two big steps and turned sharply to the right three times and once to the left. When they stopped, they were standing on the mountain again.
The mantis pointed farther down the narrow trail. “See?”
Turning, Juhg saw that he and the mantis were talking. His past self happened to look up and looked squarely at him.
“That’s enough,” the mantis said. “Your mind isn’t going to be able to handle much of this. And I need your mind working at its best.” It took his hand again and walked over the mountain’s edge.
Two quick turns to the right, three to the left, and—somehow, though Juhg could not remember seeing steps—two steps up took them from the mountain to a river where big brown bears fished for salmon swimming upstream. The bears’ claws flashed and they fed with ravenous teeth that tore at the pink flesh.
“But … but …” Juhg struggled to marshal his thoughts. “That didn’t happen.”
The mantis looked at him. “Didn’t it? Think back, Librarian Juhg. Think back long and hard.”
Juhg did, closing his eyes with the effort. He couldn’t believe it when he could remember the incident. He had looked up the mountain just after seeing his multiple selves, and he had seen himself.
He could even remember the mantis telling him that was his future self and he would understand what had happened later.
“I do remember,” Juhg said hoarsely.
“Of course you do.” The mantis folded its arms over its chest and looked satisfied.
“But that’s a paradox. I know I didn’t remember being there until we went there. And if I didn’t see me then till now, how can I remember that my future self was there then?”
The mantis held its arms up and took a step back. “Stop! Now you’re confusing me.”
“Things can’t happen like that,” Juhg insisted.
“Okay,” the mantis said, “it didn’t happen.” It stood with crossed arms and waited.
Juhg shook his head. “But it did happen.”
“Make up your mind.”
“How can something like that happen?”
“I thought you said it couldn’t.”
“It can’t, but it did.”
The mantis sighed and shook its shining head. “This is why I have seldom, do seldom, and will seldom talk with beings outside of the In-Betweenness. This inability to grasp what is so simple.”
“This isn’t simple.”
“Because you’re impaired from living all those years outside the In-Betweenness.”
“If I can see into the past, then can’t I see into the future?”
“You really shouldn’t do that, Librarian Juhg.”
“But it’s true. Unless this is the last time I visit you here.” That possibility scared Juhg. If he never visited the mantis again, after setting a pattern of seeing it after getting two sections of The Book of Time, what did that mean? “Am I already dead in the future? Did I not make it out of the dwarven caves in the Molten Forge Mountains?”
“Of course you made it out of the dwarven caves. We talked, you went back, and you saved your friends.”
“But I haven’t done that yet.”
“You will.”
“How do I know that?”
Sighing again, the mantis took him by the arm and marched past the bears, who barely took notice of them. A few turns later, Juhg couldn’t remember how many because he was almost tripping all over himself, they came to a bleak desert covered with rolling sand dunes.
The mantis pointed to where it was talking with yet another Juhg. Instead of being clad in the First Level Librarian robe he had worn last time as well as this time, the other Juhg wore torn breeches and a ripped shirt. A long cut on the side of his face promised a bad scar to come when the wound healed.
“And this is the future, Librarian Juhg,” the mantis declared in an exasperated voice. “As you can clearly see, you have some interesting things still coming up.”
Appalled, Juhg stared at the other two of them, wondering where he’d been and what he’d gotten into. Whatever it was, it looked bad. Besides the blood from the cut on his face, his other self was covered in smoke and soot.
“That is you,” the mantis said. “After you have gotten the third piece of The Book of Time in the Drylands. And, oh my, that was, is, will be an exciting time.”
At the Oasis of Bleached Bones, Juhg remembered. Fear paralyzed him when he wanted to go talk to his future self and find out everything he was going to know. Most of all, he wanted to know what had happened to himself.
Then his other self looked up at him. Recognition flared in the other Juhg’s eyes. He pushed away from the other mantis, breaking its grip on him and running across the dry yellow sand at him.
“No!” the other Juhg yelled. “Don’t do it! Don’t let Craugh push you into the tunnel in the gemstone room! You don’t know what’s going to happen! You can’t let him—”
The mantis with Juhg grabbed his hand again and marched off with him. The first step raised a blistering sandstorm that obscured the other Juhg and ripped his words away. Juhg couldn’t hear the rest of the other Juhg’s warning.
“Wait!” Juhg cried. “I—he—I think there was something that I needed to tell myself!”
The mantis didn’t stop walking. “You’ve seen enough, Librarian Juhg. Most people never get to look into their own futures. In your world, I’ve found, glimpsing what is yet to come can have dire consequences. You can’t really do anything about it, you see, but just knowing something bad is coming makes you so unhappy before the end.”
The end? The end is coming? That didn’t relax Juhg’s mind whatsoever.
“I was trying to warn myself,” Juhg said. “There is something that I think I’m not supposed to do. Something that has to do with Craugh and a tunnel.” And I’ve already got enough problems with believing in Craugh.
Once more back in the orchards, the ma
ntis released Juhg and looked at him sharply. “Nothing you could tell yourself is going to matter, Librarian Juhg. You’re going to do what you’re going to do.”
“But I can change what I’m going to do,” Juhg said. “All I needed to hear was what I was going to say. I just needed to listen to myself a little longer.” He looked around, hoping to see himself charging out of a desert. But he didn’t. He was the only self he had in the orchard.
The mantis shook its head. “The future can’t be changed any more than the past. All of those are anchored in your world. That’s why I could never live there.”
“But if I knew what it was I wasn’t supposed to do, I could not do it,” Juhg protested.
“That isn’t how Time works,” the mantis said. “Time simply is.”
Juhg thought desperately. “The Book of Time is supposed to have the power to change time, to go back and change a moment or a year or a life.” He remembered Craugh telling him that aboard One-Eyed Peggie, and he had written it himself in his journal and the one he’d given to Jassamyn.
The mantis was quiet for a moment, as if he’d brought up something it had not thought of. “The Book of Time has that power in your world, outside of the In-Betweenness,” it said finally. “That is one of the reasons it is so dangerous in your world and why it must be brought back here.”
“Do I bring it back here?” Juhg asked.
“You are not yet ready to know that answer.”
Angry and scared, feeling all the responsibility of what he was doing, Juhg wouldn’t let the question go. He couldn’t. “Will I bring The Book of Time back here?”
“You have noticed that the pieces of The Book of Time possess powers,” the mantis said, ignoring him. “You can use the blue gems you got from the human city of Seadevil’s Roost to peer into places around the world, to see things that are happening at the same exact minute as you’re looking.”
“I have done that.” Pain sparked inside Juhg’s head as he remembered his visit to the Grandmagister in the torture chamber. “Do I bring the book back to you?”
“The brown gemstones allow you to see into the past,” the mantis went on. “You can use that power to examine the history of things if you need to.”
“What happens if I don’t bring The Book of Time back to you?” Juhg asked.
The mantis regarded him coldly, and for the first time Juhg felt threatened by the being. “That,” it stated clearly, “is not something you want to do.”
“You showed me a piece of my future.”
“I already regret that,” the mantis replied.
Regret? How could the mantis regret anything? Especially if it was supposed to know everything that had, was, and will happen?
“It’s time for you to go,” the mantis said.
“I’m not done yet,” Juhg said. “I have questions I want answered.”
The mantis pointed into the nearest pool. “Your friends are in danger. Do you really wish to waste time?”
Drawn by the mantis’s words, Juhg looked at the pool. He saw himself reaching into the cavity that held the brown gemstones that had been given to the Molten Forge Mountains. The “ghosts” fought with his companions, attacking them savagely. The Slither fought as well, though still not at full strength after Craugh’s attacks. The creature had squared off with Cobner, who was giving as good as he was taking.
“They will perish without you,” the mantis said. “They can’t hope to defeat the Slither or the dwarven memories.”
“I don’t know how to defeat them,” Juhg said. He felt his hold on the In-Betweenness slipping, felt himself being carried away.
“The answer,” the mantis said, “lies in the past.”
Blackness filled Juhg’s vision and he was swept away by it.
The sound of ringing steel filled Juhg’s ears, and the sound was intensified by the cavern where the battle was taking place. He ignored the sounds and concentrated on the brown gemstones, feeling their weight settle into his hand. Then he closed his hand over them and drew them out of the cavity.
Turning, covered in sweat, Juhg glanced back at his companions. Raisho, Cobner, and Jassamyn fought with naked steel, but their blows did nothing to the mysterious dwarven “ghosts” except knock them backward.
Cobner swung his battle-axe, knocking two “ghosts” from in front of him while he went after the Slither again.
Juhg stayed back, remembering what the mantis said about the answer being in the past. He looked down at the gemstones and felt the power within them. The gemstones had been given to the dwarves because they held so tightly to the past. Just as Cobner had made himself a promise to carry the cornerstone back out of the volcano when they departed.
If we depart, Juhg thought.
But the stones also had power to peer into the past. The mantis had told him that. But what good would that do? How could that help him now when his friends were under attack by foes they could not kill?
Abruptly, the Slither broke past Cobner, slipping under the swing of the big battle-axe and shoving the dwarven warrior to the side. A trio of dwarven “ghosts” immediately swarmed Cobner and bore him to the ground.
Uninterrupted, the Slither crossed the distance between itself and Juhg. “Give me the gemstones!” it cried. “They belong to Lord Kharrion!”
Juhg tried to turn and run, but the creature was too fast for him, launching itself at him and knocking him to the ground. He almost dropped the gemstones as the impact against the cavern’s stone floor drove the air from his lungs. Stubbornly, too afraid of what would happen if he let go, he tightened his fist around the gemstones.
“Give them to me!” The Slither tried to pry Juhg’s hand open.
Why wasn’t the creature in Skull Canal? The question floated up into Juhg’s consciousness over his screaming fear to survive. If Lord Kharrion had made it the guardian of The Book of Time, why hadn’t it been there?
The Slither fought with Juhg. Its body shifted and changed, like wine slopping up against the sides of a wineskin, as if it might pour out of itself at any moment.
Was distance the problem? Juhg wondered. Then why make a guardian that couldn’t be in all places at the same time? Or was there more than one guardian?
Putting a hand up under Juhg’s chin, the creature tried to lever his head back and snap his neck.
Despite the pain and how helpless he felt, Juhg held on. The Grandmagister had mentioned only one guardian of The Book of Time but had offered no explanation as to how the creature was supposed to get back and forth. The mantis had mentioned only one guardian. So why this place?
The answer lies in the past, the mantis said.
“The past,” Juhg said out loud, his voice straining as he tried to keep his neck from breaking under the Slither’s cruel ministrations.
“What?” the creature asked, fixing him with its baleful yellow gaze.
Juhg felt for the power of the gemstones, found it, and pulled it to him.
Suddenly he and the Slither stood on a mountainside bearing a shiny coat of permafrost because they were so high up. The creature halted its struggles and stared around at the mountain. Its misshapen face took on an animalistic look of fear.
“What have you done?” the Slither demanded.
Juhg didn’t know. He was just grateful to be alive and his neck in one piece.
Dazed, the Slither released its hold on him and stood.
The cold mountain air washed over Juhg and made his teeth chatter. His clothing was still sweat-soaked from being down inside the buried volcano. He shivered and drew in a breath of air, discovering that there didn’t seem to be enough of it to breathe even though his lungs filled. He scooted away from the Slither and stood on shaking legs.
“Do you know this place?” Juhg asked.
The Slither still didn’t look at him, gazing out in sheer wonder at the beautiful orange mountain coated with the white permafrost. Below the mountain was a lush valley with a stream flowing through it. From where th
ey stood, Juhg could see caves farther down the mountains. Dwarves—men, women, and children—labored in gardens and at stonecutting. Several ox-drawn wagons were being loaded with cut stone. Out on the stream, other dwarves loaded stones onto small river craft.
“This,” the Slither said in a quiet voice, “is my home.”
“You lived here?” Juhg was surprised. He had believed the Slither to be a thing, a construct Lord Kharrion had created.
“Yes. I had a wife and children, but they were killed during battles with other dwarven clans. I alone survived.” Black tears ran down the Slither’s face. “I wanted revenge against our enemies. I wanted to see them broken and driven screaming in fear before me. Lord Kharrion came among us and offered me that chance for vengeance.”
“How?”
Turning, the Slither pointed at the gemstones in Juhg’s hand. “By becoming the guardian for The Book of Time. He changed me into this, made me powerful and strong.”
“You were a dwarf?”
The Slither dropped its arm and nodded. “Yes. When I fought in battles against those who tried to take The Book of Time, I killed many of my clan’s enemies. I was grateful to take my vengeance piecemeal.”
“But The Book of Time was spread out,” Juhg said. “Pieces of it were in four different cities.”
“I know that. I was here when Lord Kharrion used the Molten Forge foundry to break The Book of Time into four parts. It was intricate work. He labored for months, and he performed his task with a dwarf’s skill and cunning and patience.”
“Did Lord Kharrion make three other guardians to guard the other sections of the book?”
“No,” the Slither said. “I was the only one. He gave me the power to flow along through The Book of Time. I knew when his enemies—and mine—got too close to a section of The Book of Time. I just had to wish for it and I was there.”
“At any one of the four cities?”
“Yes.”
“And if two cities were under attack at one time?”
“I could become two,” the Slither said. “Or four, if that was what was needed. The power was mine.”
