The Destruction of the Books (52 page)

As Juhg watched, the monsters attacked the goblinkin ships. Some struck them with their bodies, while others roped tentacles around the ships and pulled them under. In heartbeats, the goblinkin navy became shattered fragments floating on the surface of the Blood-Soaked Sea or sinking in the harbor.

“It appears,” Craugh said dryly, “that the horn works as well as the Tower.” He smiled. “And there’s less and less goblinkin all the time. I take it you never have taught the vicious creatures to swim, have you?”

Snarling a fierce oath, Aldhran turned his attention to the wizard. The younger human chanted and gestured, then he threw his hand out.

Craugh held up his staff. Virulent purple light splintered against his staff. However, whatever spell Aldhran had used threw off enough force to cause the wizard to stagger back.

Before Craugh could recover, Aldhran kicked the dragonet in the sides. The beast belched a great gulp of liquid fire at the wizard.

Craugh held up a hand and put out the flames of the dragonet venom, but he couldn’t stop the arrow that leapt from the bow of the archer seated behind Aldhran from piercing his chest.

A shocked look filled Craugh’s face as he gazed down at the arrow in the center of his chest. Without a word, he toppled over the railing behind him and fell.

“Craugh!” The Grandmagister ran to the railing, grabbing frantically, as if he might somehow save his old friend. But he arrived too late. The wizard was already gone by the time he got there.

Horrified, frozen in terror and disbelief, Juhg stood against the railing.

Aldhran lifted a net from the saddle, spoke a few words, and threw the net through the air. The net flew true, unfurling and wrapping around the Grandmagister, bringing him to the ground as the strands magically tightened.

Breaking away from the terror that held him, Juhg raked his boot knife free and ran for the Grandmagister. His movement startled the dragonet, though, and the great creature spread its wings instinctively in preparation to throwing itself into the air.

The wing slapped into Juhg and knocked him backward effortlessly. Before he knew it, he was across the railing and falling. Headfirst, he plunged toward the broken rocks in the harbor below. He spotted Craugh’s body already lying there.

Unable to stop himself, Juhg put his hands in front of his face and hoped that his impending death would be quick and relatively pain-free.

Then burning agony bit into his ankle and his fall was stopped short as he began gliding out to sea. Glancing up, he saw that one of the dragonets had wrapped its talons around one of his feet and was carrying him off like a fish plucked clean of the sea.

Overcome by the rapid stop and the blood pounding at his temples, Juhg could only make a token effort to try to pull himself up before he passed out.

EPILOGUE

The Book of Time

Someone threw cold seawater over Juhg and woke him to the constant pain that had been his most frequent companion in the dark hold of the ship for the last several hours. He moaned a little in the darkness, knowing from experience that whoever was delivering the water liked to know that he was in discomfort.

Earlier, he’d tried being quiet and had nearly gotten his ribs kicked in. Of course, the time before that he’d moaned and gotten kicked, which had led him to the mistaken belief that crying out that time had led him to getting kicked.

No matter what happened, whenever someone entered the small storeroom where he was being held captive, he was going to get kicked or stomped or hit or beaten by a chain. His jailer just liked doing those things and didn’t derive any satisfaction from hearing his charge cry out or beg for mercy.

Under other circumstances, Juhg might have tried begging for mercy, but he had learned long ago in the goblinkin mines that begging was just a show of weakness that marked a target for further abuse.

“Sit him up.”

Juhg recognized Aldhran’s voice. He didn’t know how to feel about that. Since Juhg had regained consciousness on the goblinkin ship after the attack on Greydawn Moors, his captor hadn’t ever visited.

Dozens of questions popped through Juhg’s head. Chief among those was what had happened to Grandmagister Lamplighter, if his mentor was still alive and whole and healthy? When he’d awakened on the goblinkin ship as a prisoner, Juhg had felt certain the Grandmagister had also become a prisoner.

Juhg also wanted to know more about the relationship between Aldhran and the Grandmagister. The two of them knew each other, and it had sounded like Craugh—

A sob tightened the back of Juhg’s throat as he remembered the wizard lying broken on the shattered rock at the harbor. He had never spent much time with Craugh, not truly, but he had liked the wizard well enough not to wish any harm to him. And Craugh had seemed indomitable, unbreakable, a force of nature rather than a man.

Juhg forced himself to breathe out as he moved gingerly and sat upright. The shackles on his ankles were old and familiar weights, but the shackles on his wrists were new. A hood covered his head and reminded him uncomfortably of the executioner’s block he’d seen in Green Troll Gap, a small town in the South that consisted of bandits and thieves. Things had gotten so bad there that they had taken their worst offenders and chopped their heads off, just to keep the others from stealing from each other or committing murder.

“Juhg,” a quiet voice said.

Excitement flared through Juhg when he recognized the voice. “Grandmagister?”

“Yes.” Grandmagister Lamplighter sounded tired and worn.

Juhg wondered if the goblinkin had been beating him too.

“Are you all right?” the Grandmagister asked.

Juhg didn’t quite know how to answer that question. He still tasted blood inside his mouth.

“He’s alive,” Aldhran growled. “Get that hood off of him.”

When the hood was removed by one of the goblinkin guards in the room, Juhg had to squint his eyes against the harsh lantern light that filled the storeroom. In addition to the Grandmagister and the mysterious Aldhran and six goblinkin guards, there were two other humans.

One of the humans was tall and gaunt, with long gray hair and beard and eyes that looked flat and dead. The other man had fiery red hair and a mustache. His freckled skin looked too warm, as if he were carrying a recent sunburn. The older man wore a long robe and the younger man wore a warrior’s harness festooned with weapons and scarred from numerous battles.

“He doesn’t have to remain alive,” Aldhran warned. “Of course, Mikros can chop a number of pieces off of him before he actually kills him.”

The redheaded man grinned. “My specialty. My da was a butcher.”

The storeroom was cold with the chill of the sea. However long they had been at sail, Juhg knew they had been on the ocean. He knew that from the swells the vessel rode out. All that time, and they had gone farther and farther from Greydawn Moors.

In the darkness, Juhg had thought of the town nestled at the foothills of the Knucklebones Mountains often. None of those races living there (outside of the dwarves, who always stayed prepared for such things) had been prepared for an invading goblinkin navy. No one there had ever believed it would happen. Even after the Dread Riders and Blazebulls and Grymmlings had appeared in the Vault of All Known Knowledge, no one had thought such a thing would happen. He wondered how much of the town still stood against all the fires that had been set.

Juhg shivered and coughed, feeling weak and scared. He hated lying in the wet that covered the storeroom floor.

Grandmagister Lamplighter looked at Aldhran. “I don’t want him treated harshly any more. I won’t have it.” His voice was strong and full of conviction.

“‘Won’t have it,’ he says,” the redheaded man said, laughing without humor. “And what will you do about it, Grandmagister? Chastise me? Make me copy sections out of books?”

The Grandmagister didn’t turn from Aldhran. “That will be our agreement, yes?”

That amused Aldhran. “Do you trust me?”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Aldhran lifted a speculative eyebrow. “I could lie to you. Is that what you want? A lie from me? Will that make you feel better?” The man laughed. “I’m sure any promise I make you won’t help your apprentice feel better at all. Even if you believe me, I don’t think that he will.”

“I want you to promise.”

Aldhran shook his head. “The time for fun and games is over. I want that book.”

“That book doesn’t exist,” the Grandmagister answered.

Despite his pain and fear, Juhg couldn’t help being interested in the conversation. First of all, he wanted to know what book it was they discussed. And second, and he didn’t know whether to feel bad or good about this, there was a chance he knew where the book was.

Of course, there was also a good chance—
four in five,
he grimly reminded himself—that the book had been destroyed in the fires that ravaged the Library.

Aldhran cursed and paced in short quick steps, which was all the storeroom allowed. “What kind of fool do you take me for, Librarian?”

The Grandmagister made no reply.

Directing his attention to Juhg, Aldhran said, “What about you, apprentice?”

The term immediately galled Juhg and reminded him of Craugh at the same time.

“Do you say the book doesn’t exist?” Aldhran asked. “Do you believe that I am a fool?”

Juhg looked from the Grandmagister to the human several times, finally ending up looking at the human. Despite his pain and the chance for making his situation even worse, he couldn’t put aside his innate curiosity. “What book?”

“
The
book,” Aldhran snarled. He slammed his fist into the storeroom wall. “The only book that matters. The lost book that Lord Kharrion searched for while he burned the world’s Libraries.”

The Goblin Lord searched for a book?
Juhg blinked at that. In all the legends and stories he’d heard about the Goblin Lord, he’d never once heard that Lord Kharrion searched for a book. The idea just seemed … impossible.

“The Book of Time,”
Aldhran said in exasperation. “Golden Tohras’ final spell to unveil the ages woven into an illuminated manuscript. Written but lost after Golden Tohras was betrayed and murdered by his king.”

Amazed, Juhg said nothing. That the enemies, whoever they were, searched for
The Book of Time
was even more astounding than learning Lord Kharrion was looking for such a book. Everyone connected with books and libraries knew the myth about the book that showed everything that happened for all times past and all time to come was nothing more than a myth. There was no way any one book could hold all that information.

Unless the world ends really soon.
Sitting in the storeroom in the dank bottom of a goblinkin ship made that possibility suddenly seem very real and very near to hand.

“I’ve heard of that book,” Juhg said cautiously. Everyone who worked with books had heard of
The Book of Time.
The story was one of the grandest myths ever, but only children paid it any real attention. Every adult knew the book wasn’t real, that it couldn’t be real. In fact, no one had ever proven that Golden Tohras was a real person or where the mythical kingdom had existed.

Aldhran cursed, then nodded at the goblinkin closest to Juhg. Without preamble, the goblin lifted its foot and brought it crashing down on Juhg’s wounded leg. The dragonet’s claws had lacerated his ankle and those lacerations had already started to become infected because of the damp conditions of the ship.

Pain exploded in Juhg’s mind and he almost blacked out. The goblinkin dumped another bucket of water over him. He sputtered and kept himself from crying out as the cold saltwater burned into his freshly opened wounds.

“I grow weary of this exercise, Grandmagister,” Aldhran warned. “Keep disappointing me and I’ll set Mikros free with his knives. I’ll let you keep the pieces of your apprentice as trophies.”

Brushing through the goblinkin, the Grandmagister dropped to his knees at Juhg’s side. Worry showed on his face.

“Juhg,” the Grandmagister said, “I’m sorry I got you into this.” He held Juhg’s head. “I swear I never meant for you to be involved in this matter after all these years. Until recently, I didn’t know about Lord Kharrion’s true quest, nor of
The Book of Time.
”

Years?
Juhg looked at his mentor with surprise. How had the Grandmagister kept anything hidden from him after all these years?

“This is about Golden Tohras’ book,” the Grandmagister said. “It
is
real. And being real, with all the powers ever imagined to it and more, it is a most dangerous thing.”

Juhg tried to digest that.

“That was what Lord Kharrion searched for when he burned all the libraries all those years ago,” the Grandmagister said. “Aldhran, these people around us, they are part of the library that Lord Kharrion set up without the goblinkin knowing. They documented and researched the book, but they didn’t have everything they needed. But Lord Kharrion knew that the book is real.”

“You mean he
believed
it was real,” Juhg said. He struggled to make sense of everything he was hearing. How could the book be real? How could Lord Kharrion have hidden his quest from the goblinkin?

How could the Grandmagister hide all of these things from him?

“No, Juhg. The Goblin Lord didn’t just believe the book was real. He
knew
it was. He and that book were bound in ways that I can’t go into now.” The Grandmagister shook his head. “The book is real, Juhg. And whoever holds it, whoever commands its power, can command this world.”

Juhg looked at his mentor. “Do you—do you know where the book is?”

“I don’t know. Mayhap.” The Grandmagister shrugged. “I can’t be sure. I was still researching everything I’d found out. There was so much. Lies. Half-truths. I’d hoped one day to have you help me. But you were so conflicted about what you needed in your life that I couldn’t add the complication of knowledge of the book.” He sighed. “Just knowing the book exists … it’s very confusing even for me.”