Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies (23 page)

“When the mobs came to burn and loot the library, they found the Aesthetics guarding it. Many of them were slain in the battle, but they kept the mobs at bay until they could seal up the library entrance. After that, they concealed the entrance so that no one could find it or open the door unless they knew the secret. The books have thus remained safe all these centuries, guarded by those who love them.”

“Such as yourself,” said Brian admiringly. He took hold of her hand, indicating her ink-stained fingers.

Lillith blushed, but she gave a matter-of-fact nod. Brian kept hold of her hand, as if by accident. Lillith smiled at him, the dimple flashed, and she gently slid her hand out of his grasp.

“What book or reference are you looking for, Sir Brian? Perhaps I can help you find it. I’m familiar with most of what’s down here, though not all, mind you. That would take several lifetimes.”

Derek gave Brian a sharp glance, silencing him.

“It is not that we do not trust
you
, Mistress Hallmark,” Derek said coolly. “But I believe we should keep this information to ourselves. We might put you in danger otherwise.”

“Just as you choose,” said Lillith. She came to a halt. “Here we are.”

“A blank wall,” Aran stated.

They walked through a shadowy archway that led to a dead end. A wall made of multicolored stones, rounded and weathered and set in mortar, butted up against a hillside covered over with long grass.

“The Library of Khrystann,” said Lillith.

She placed her boot on a flagstone in front of the wall and pressed on it. To the knights’ amazement, the solid stone wall gave a sudden jolt and slid off to one side.

“It’s not stone at all,” exclaimed Aran, reaching out his hand to touch it. “It’s wood painted to look like stone!” He laughed. “What a masterpiece! It fooled me completely!”

The knights looked back down the alley and saw it in a far different light.

“The alley is part of the library’s defenses,” said Brian. “Anyone trying to reach the library
has
to walk down it.”

“And the sewer grate I almost stepped on—it’s a trap!” Aran regarded Lillith with more respect. “You and your Aesthetics appear ready to fight and die to defend the library. Why? It’s only a bunch of books.”

“A bunch of books that contain the bright light of wisdom of past generations, Sir Aran,” said Lillith softly. “We fear that if this light is quenched, we will plunge into a darkness so deep we might never find our way out.”

She shoved aside the wooden door painted to look like stone. Behind it was another wooden door, this one of very old workmanship. Carved into the wood were the scales of balance resting on a book.

“The symbol of Gilean, God of the Book and Keeper of the Balance.” Lillith reached out her hand to touch the scales.

“You speak of him with reverence,” said Brian. “Do you believe the gods have returned?”

Lillith opened her mouth to reply, but Derek cut her short. “We have no time for such nonsense. Please proceed, Mistress.”

Lillith gave Brian a sidelong glance and a secret smile.

“We will speak of that later,” she said.

She pressed on one of the scales twice, then the other scale three times, then pressed four times on the symbol on the book. The second door slid open. A long staircase extended straight down into darkness. A lantern hung on a hook on the wall near the door. Lillith removed the lantern and, opening a glass panel, lit the stub of a candle inside. The flame burned clear. She shut the glass panel carefully and lighted their way down the stairs.

The air grew warmer. The stairway smelled of old leather and sheepskin and the dust of time. At the bottom of the stairs was another door, again decorated with the scales and a book. Lillith pressed on each again, only in a different order. The door slid into the wall. She entered the room, holding her lantern high.

The room was enormous. Long and wide, it extended far beyond the reach of the lantern light. And it was filled, floor to ceiling, with books. Shelves of books lined the walls. Shelves of books marched in long rows across the floor, row after row, on and on into the darkness. It was a veritable forest of shelves, and the books on those shelves were as numerous as the leaves on a forest of trees.

The three knights stared at the books in awe mingled with growing dismay.

“Are you
sure
you don’t need my help, Sir Derek?” Lillith asked serenely.

4

A hopeless search.

The riot. Kender-snatching.

here are thousands!” Aran gasped.

“Thousands of thousands,” said Brian in hopeless tones. Derek turned to Lillith. “There must be a catalog of the books, Mistress Hallmark. The Aesthetics are known for their meticulous record-keeping.”

“There was,” said Lillith. “The books were catalogued and cross-referenced by title, author, and content.”

“You’re speaking in the past tense,” Aran noted ominously.

“The catalog was destroyed,” Lillith told them gravely.

“Who would do such a thing? Why?” Brian asked.

“The Aesthetics themselves destroyed it.” Lillith gave a deep sigh. “Right before the Cataclysm, during the time that the Kingpriest handed down the Edict of Thought Control, he threatened to send his Enforcers to the library to search the catalog of books so that his Enforcers could remove and burn all those deemed ‘a threat to the faith’. The Aesthetics could not allow this, of course, so they burned the catalog. If the Enforcers wanted to know what was in the books, they were going to have to read them.
All
of them.”

“And so, it seems, are we,” said Brian grimly.

Brian pointed to Lillith’s ink-stained fingers. “Not necessarily. You’ve been recreating the catalog, haven’t you, Mistress Hallmark?”

“I wish you would all just call me Lillith, and, yes, I’ve been trying to recreate the catalog. I haven’t gotten very far. It’s an enormous task.”

“Derek, we must tell her why we’re here,” murmured Aran.

Derek was determined to keep the orb a secret, and for a moment he looked obstinate. Then his gaze went to the shelves of books, shelf after shelf after shelf of books. He pressed his lips together a moment, then said tersely, “We’re looking for information concerning dragon orbs. All we know for certain is that they were created by wizards.”

Lillith gave a low whistle. “Wizards, eh? I don’t recall coming across any information on dragon orbs, but then, I haven’t started work on the books that deal with magic.”

Derek and Brian looked at each other in dismay. Aran, shaking his head, reached for his flask.

“I can show you the section where books on the arcane are shelved,” Lillith offered. “They’re all the way in the back, I’m afraid.”

The shelves were stacked closely together; the aisles between them were so narrow that occasionally Aran had to turn sidewise to fit. They moved cautiously, for the lantern light didn’t go very far. Brian fell over a crate in the dark and almost knocked down an entire shelf.

“Sorry about the mess,” Lillith said, as they edged their way around several shelves that had toppled over, spilling their contents onto the floor. “I haven’t started to work on this section yet and I didn’t want to disturb anything. Though it may not look it, there is order in this chaos.

“Which reminds me, gentlemen,” Lillith added in severe tone, “if you take a book down from a shelf,
please
put it back in exactly the same place you found it. Oh, and if you could make a note of the contents, that would be a big help to me. By the way, how many different languages do you speak?”

“Solamnic,” Derek answered impatiently, not understanding the reason for the question, “and Common, of course.”

Lillith paused, holding the lantern high. “Nothing else? Elvish? Khurian?”

The knights all shook their heads.

“Ah, that’s a shame,” she said, biting her lip. “We Solamnics assume everyone in the world speaks our language, or if they don’t, they should. Wizards come in all races and nationalities. Their writings are in many different languages, including the language of magic. Given the way our people feel about wizards, I doubt you’ll find many books written in Solamnic.”

“This just keeps getting better and better!” Aran remarked cheerfully. “We could take weeks to find a scroll on dragon orbs, only to discover it’s written in some obscure dwarvish dialect and we can’t understand a word! Here’s a toast to our quest!” He took a pull from his flask.

“Don’t borrow trouble,” Derek admonished. “Fortune might smile on us.”

Lillith clapped her hands together. “By Gilean’s Book! Fortune
has
smiled on you. I just thought of something. That kender you’re going to rescue might be able to help you!”

“A kender?” Derek repeated in disgust. “I most seriously doubt it!”

“How could he help us?” asked Brian.

Lillith flushed. “I can’t tell you that, but he might.”

“The kender again! When do we go in search of this kender?” Derek asked in resigned tones.

“Whenever my friends tell me he’s arrived in Tarsis, if he comes here at all. I’m just hoping he will because of that list.” Lillith hiked up her skirts to climb over another shelf. “This way. I’ll show you where to look and I’ll give you what help I can.”

The knights spent two days in the library in what proved to be a frustrating and fruitless search. They decided against returning to their camp, for that would mean passing in and out of the city gates, and once inside, they deemed it wise to stay, particularly if there were draconians about. Lillith suggested they sleep in the library—an ideal hiding place, since no one in Tarsis ever came there. Brian took the two horses to a stable near the main gate, in case they had to make a hasty departure. Lillith brought them food and drink. They made their beds on the floor among the shelves.

Dusk to dawn, they searched through books, manuscripts, treatises, scrolls, collections of notes, and scribbles on scrap paper. They sat at long wooden tables hemmed in and blocked off by a maze of shelves that Aran swore shifted position when they weren’t looking, for if they left, they always seemed to lose their way back. They worked by lantern light, for the library had no windows. Lillith pointed out the old skylights located high in the lofty ceiling that had once let in the sunlight. The skylights were covered over with earth and debris and rubble.

“We thought it best to leave them hidden like that,” she said, and added wistfully, “Someday, perhaps, we can uncover them and light will once again shine on us. Now is not the time, however. Too many people in this world consider knowledge a threat.”

The library was not only dark, it was eerily silent. All sound was absorbed and swallowed up by the books. The world could end in an explosion of fire outside and they would be none the wiser.

“I tell you honestly,” said Aran on the morning of the third day, “I’d rather be fighting death knights.” He opened a book. Dust flew up his nose and he gave a violent sneeze. “An entire legion of death knights with a hundred drunken dwarves thrown in!”

He glanced dispiritedly through the discolored pages. “This appears to have been written by spiders who dipped their legs in ink and ran across the vellum. There
are
pictures of dragons, though, so this might have something to do with orbs.”

Lillith peered over his shoulder. “That’s the language of magic. Put it here with the other books on dragons.” She shoved her hair out of her eyes, leaving a smear of dirt on her forehead. “Be sure to mark its place on the shelf.”

“This book also has pictures of dragons,” said Brian, “but the pages are so brittle I’m afraid they’ll disintegrate if I continue examining it, and I can’t read it anyway.”

Lillith took the book from him, handling it carefully, and added it to the small pile.

“Perhaps there is a wizard is the city who could translate this writing for us—” Brian began.

“We’re not telling the wizards about this,” Derek stated flatly.

“There aren’t any wizards in Tarsis, anyway,” said Lillith, “or at least any who’d openly admit to it. We’ll wait for the kender. I’m not promising anything, mind you, but—”

“Lillith?” A male voice called out her name. “Are you here?”

Derek rose to his feet.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Lillith hurriedly. “It’s one of the Aesthetics.” She raised her voice. “I’m coming, Marcus!”

She hurried off toward the front of the library.

“Brian, go with her,” Derek ordered.

Brian did as he was told, wending his way through the shelves, trying to remember the twists and turns that would take him to the front and not strand him on some remote literary island. He kept the light of Lillith’s lantern in sight and eventually caught up with her.

“What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me?” Lillith asked, dimpling.

Brian felt his cheeks burn and was thankful it was so dim she couldn’t see him flush.

“It’s just … it might be dangerous,” he said lamely. Lillith only laughed at him.

A man stood in the doorway. He was wrapped up in cloak and scarves and it was difficult to tell anything about him. Lillith hurried over to him and the two conferred together in low voices. Brian hung back, though he knew quite well Derek had sent him to spy on her. The two didn’t speak long. Marcus left and Lillith came back to Brian. Her eyes were shadowed in the lantern light. She looked troubled.

“What’s wrong?” Brian asked.

“You should alert the others,” she said.

Brian gave a halloo that echoed off the walls and shook the dust from the ceiling. He heard Aran swear and the sound of heavy objects falling.

Lillith winced. “Be careful!” she called out anxiously.

“Oh, I’m all right,” Aran answered.

Lillith muttered something, and Brian grinned. It wasn’t the knight she was worried about. It was her precious books.

“The kender is in Tarsis,” she reported when Derek and Aran emerged from the gloom into the lantern light. “He and his friends entered the city through one of the gates this morning. They’re staying in the Red Dragon, but there’s going to be trouble. The guards at the gate saw that one of the men was wearing a breastplate with the markings of a Solamnic knight and reported him to the authorities. They’ve sent guards to the inn to arrest them.”

“That would be Brightblade,” said Derek irritably, “and he is not a knight. He has no right to wear such armor!”

“That’s not really the point, Derek,” said Aran, exasperated. “The point is that Brightblade and his friends are about to be arrested, and if the draconians find out that these are the people they’ve been searching for—”

“They can’t find out!” said Lillith urgently. “They mustn’t! They’ll search the kender’s belongings, and they’ll discover what he’s carrying. You have to save him.”

“From the Tarsian guards? In broad daylight? Mistress, I don’t care what mysterious thing this kender is supposed to be carrying. A rescue attempt would only end in our joining the kender in prison,” said Derek.

“My friends are going to create a diversion,” Lillith said. “You’ll be able to grab the kender in the confusion. Bring him straight here. I’ll be waiting for you. Now hurry!” She started to herd them up the stairs.

“How will we find this inn?” Brian asked. “We don’t know our way around town!”

“You won’t have any trouble,” she predicted. “Keep to the main road out front. Go back through the Central Plaza, the way you came. After that, just follow the shouting.”

Brian blinked and rubbed his eyes as he walked into the bright winter sunlight. He’d been living in the library in perpetual night, and he had no idea what time of day it was. From the position of the sun, he guessed it must be about midmorning. The knights hastened along the main street as Lillith had told them, meeting no one until they came to the Central Plaza. Here, they found crowds of people, all in a state of excitement. Those who had been inside the shops and stalls were pouring out into the streets, while others were breaking into a run. The knights could hear a low roaring sound, as of waves breaking on a shore.