Lord of the Libraries (26 page)
“Well,” Cobner asked impatiently, “are you gonna open that door or stare a hole in it? I’m thinking that you’re not gonna be able to stare a hole in it. And even if you do, I don’t think you’re going to be able to stare open a hole big enough to let me through.”
Moving his lantern, Juhg glanced down at the waterline. The door wasn’t watertight. Seepage showed on both sides of the hidden entrance.
He knelt and studied the water in front of the door. Even with the lantern trained on the area, he couldn’t see anything.
“What are ye doin’?” Raisho asked.
“The Grandmagister mentioned that the hallway leading down to the vault room where the section of
The Book of Time
is held is filled with traps.” Extending his hand along the floor under the water, Juhg concentrated on feeling for suction. If the hidden door was leaking, then the trapdoor had to be leaking as well.
The Book of Time
is held is filled with traps.” Extending his hand along the floor under the water, Juhg concentrated on feeling for suction. If the hidden door was leaking, then the trapdoor had to be leaking as well.
“After all these years?” Jassamyn asked. “Juhg, it’s been a
really
long time.”
really
long time.”
“Most of the traps are already sprung,” Juhg said. “But not this one.”
A-ha!
He felt the suction he was suspecting, though it was slight and feathery
soft, and traced the rectangle with his fingertips. His palm slid across a layer of mud and he felt the straight edges of the trapdoor mirrored in the sediment. “Someone has gone through this one literally. Perhaps one of Dusen’s people.”
A-ha!
He felt the suction he was suspecting, though it was slight and feathery
soft, and traced the rectangle with his fingertips. His palm slid across a layer of mud and he felt the straight edges of the trapdoor mirrored in the sediment. “Someone has gone through this one literally. Perhaps one of Dusen’s people.”
“Kind of him not to mention the trap,” Cobner rumbled. “Mayhap I’ll have a brief visit with him on the way out. Leave him a knot on his melon to remember me by.”
Juhg stood, carefully marking the trapdoor in his mind. He was glad the Grandmagister was so thorough. In all eventuality, though, he would have checked the door before going through. The life he’d led exploring legends and myths with the Grandmagister along the mainland had trained him to be careful.
He turned to Jassamyn and held out the lantern. “Can you manage this?”
The elven maid took the lantern and held it steady on the door as she pulled her bow over her shoulder and freed her longsword. The smugglers showed no sign of recovering from the paralysis any time soon, but there was every chance of other things shambling around in the dark.
“The trapdoor once dropped an unwary person down onto a clutch of sharpened stakes,” Juhg said. “The corpses were taken out down in the basement and burned in the fireplace that heated the building.” He straddled the trapdoor. “The hidden door here is spring-loaded.” Placing his hands on the door, he set himself, then shoved.
The door slid back slowly and Juhg had to lean into it harder. Before he could get it to lock back in position, the trapdoor between his feet popped open and a dead man floated up out of the dark recesses.
Frightened, repulsed by the agony and fear branded onto the dead man’s rat-gnawed face, Juhg cried out and shoved himself backward. He heard the hidden door click into place even as he fell on his rump and the dead man floated up out of the hole.
“Easy there, scribbler,” Raisho said. “Ain’t nothin’ about that one gonna ’urt ye none.”
Jassamyn had kept the lantern trained on the dead man, stepping slightly in front of Juhg to defend him if necessary.
“Evidently,” Craugh said, “he didn’t know about the trapdoor.”
“Came to a dead end, ’e did,” Raisho commented.
The dead man wore regular clothing and not rat hides. Most of the flesh remained on his bones, but it was going fast.
“’E’s not been dead long.” Raisho stepped forward and picked up an abandoned crowbar covered in wet rust. He hooked the body with the crowbar and pulled it free of the trap. As soon as the obstruction cleared the deadly shaft, the trapdoor closed behind it. Whoever the architects were that had built the trap, they had built it to last. Counterweights grinded in the wall.
Two dead rats floated free of the corpse as it came out of the water.
“Well,” Craugh said, kicking one of the rodents with a big boot and causing it to plop into a nest of its brethren on the other side of the room, “there’s two that didn’t get a free meal.”
“Them being there, drowned like that,” Jassamyn said, “and that dead man being a fairly recent victim, means that the water is new to this part of the building. Could mean the lower two floors are flooded.”
Raisho used the crowbar to loot the dead man. A pouch at his waist held a handful of gold and silver coins.
Grinning at the coins, Raisho said, “’E wasn’t wealthy by any means. The next time we stop at an inn, I’ll be buyin’.”
“Let me see those coins,” Craugh said.
A hurt look filled Raisho’s dark face. “I don’t mind sharin’, but it was me what took the time to loot this man.”
“The coins.” Imperiously, Craugh held out his hand. “By the Old Ones, give you eyes to see and still you are blind.”
Grimacing, Raisho dropped the coins into the wizard’s outstretched hand. “I don’t think there’s enough there to change yer life,” the young sailor stated truculently.
Craugh held the coins up to study them under his lantern. Then he looked at Juhg, who had gotten to his feet, nearly as soaked as he had been after the fierce swim underwater.
“Have a look at these, apprentice.”
Juhg cupped both hands and caught the coins. A quick inspection of them revealed what Craugh had spotted. “They’re Torvassiran coins. Not Imarish.”
Each of the communities along the mainland struck their own coins. Sometimes a successful trade guild or a ship owner with a small fleet did the same. There was no standard between the nations and the cities of the mainland. Gold and silver were minted, and they were all checked for weight on the scales of every marketplace where they were spent.
“Exactly.” Craugh glared at the dead man. “This man came a long way to die.”
Torvassir lay to the east, far inland where the trade caravans met. It wasn’t too unusual to think that the man had come from Torvassir, but since he had few other coins mixed in, he’d come from there almost straightaway and hadn’t mixed much with the locals. That kind of behavior was curious.
During his travels with the Grandmagister, Juhg had twice been through Torvassir, finding the city a comfortable place to be. A consortium of merchants ran Torvassir and provided for the city’s defense. Several of them had interests in history, as Juhg had found out while journeying with the Grandmagister. During that time, the Grandmagister had searched for two books that one of the merchants had purchased. Fleeing Torvassir later, after they’d successfully stolen the books witch Brandt’s help, they had been pursued for days before finally eluding them.
“I ’ave something else as well,” Raisho announced. He ripped open the dead man’s inside coat pocket and took out a waterproof oilskin pouch.
The familiar rectangular shape set Juhg’s heart to pounding at once. The shape could have belonged to anything, but he only imagined one. He crossed over to the young sailor and offered the coins in exchange for the oilskin pouch.
Raisho gratefully made the exchange, dumping the coins into his own coin pouch, then tucking it away inside his shirt.
Excitedly, no longer paying much attention to the dead man, Juhg opened the oilskin pouch. Inside was a handmade book.
He took the book from the pouch. It was smooth and clean and unadorned, obviously something that had been well cared for. But the pages swelled with writing, having to be tied shut with a bright blue ribbon.
Opening the book, Juhg found a simple declaration:
The Journal of Liggon Phares, Being an Account of My Travels and Discoveries.
Hypnotized by the find, still not believing what he was looking at, Juhg flipped through the pages.
The Journal of Liggon Phares, Being an Account of My Travels and Discoveries.
Hypnotized by the find, still not believing what he was looking at, Juhg flipped through the pages.
“What have you got there, apprentice?” Craugh asked.
“A journal,” Juhg whispered in awe. The pages revealed a good writing hand and several diagrams that he quickly recognized as Skull Canal and the building they were currently in.
The Book of Time
was mentioned (and heavily underlined) on a number of pages. The language was one of the human ones, and one that Juhg could read, though not without considerable effort.
The Book of Time
was mentioned (and heavily underlined) on a number of pages. The language was one of the human ones, and one that Juhg could read, though not without considerable effort.
“A journal?” Craugh stepped closer.
“Yes,” Juhg replied. “This man’s journal. He came here looking for
The Book of Time
as well.”
The Book of Time
as well.”
Arms folded over his chest, Cobner glared down at the dead man. “Mayhap this quest ain’t any too healthy.”
“He came here alone?” Craugh asked.
“I don’t know.” Halfway through the book, Juhg came to an end of the narrative. It was dated, as the Kashaller human traders counted days, no more than three ten-days ago.
Cobner suggested they open up the trapdoor and look for the dead man’s companions. No one took him up on it.
“A mystery better saved for a more convenient time, apprentice,” Craugh said. “For the moment, let’s turn our attentions to the matter at hand.”
Regretfully, Juhg closed the book and replaced it into the oilskin pouch, which he tied tightly. He shoved the book inside his jacket where he carried his own journal and the Grandmagister’s coded one.
If this keeps up,
he thought wryly,
I will soon be carrying a Library around with me.
If this keeps up,
he thought wryly,
I will soon be carrying a Library around with me.
Returning his attentions to the hidden door, he once more straddled the trapdoor and placed his hands on the surface of the door. Knowing the door had clicked back into the secondary ready position, he shoved it sideways. At first he didn’t think he was going to be strong enough to move it, then the door grudgingly got underway.
The light from the lantern Jassamyn held speared into the dark throat of the hallway on the other side of the door.
Juhg had expected the water swirling around his ankles to slide down the long hallway ahead of him. Instead, it splashed a little, but stayed level.
The hallway was flooded with sea water.
Jassamyn pressed forward. The draca on her shoulder hissed and spat, obviously afraid that she was contemplating entering the water.
The lantern light penetrated the hallway, following the curving descent till the sea filled it. Fifteen feet down, the stairway was completely submerged.
“Everything below is filled with water,” the elven maid said. “Whatever is down there must be ruined.”
“Not
The Book of Time,
” Craugh said. “It’s magical. The elements can’t harm it. Only another, more powerful spell can unweave it. And since it
came from the In-Betweenness, magic to do that might not exist in this place.” He took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out. “If it’s down there, it’s in one piece.”
The Book of Time,
” Craugh said. “It’s magical. The elements can’t harm it. Only another, more powerful spell can unweave it. And since it
came from the In-Betweenness, magic to do that might not exist in this place.” He took a deep breath in through his nose and let it out. “If it’s down there, it’s in one piece.”
“Might as well be on one of the moons, for all the good that does us,” Raisho said. “It would take a team of dwarven engineers days to dry dock that tunnel. An’ then, they wouldn’t be able to do it because this room might not be big enough to hold all the water what’s down there.”
“Maybe there’s an air pocket down there.” Juhg was loath to turn away from the chance to find the piece of
The Book of Time.
The Grandmagister had given him the task and he didn’t want to let go of it.
The Book of Time.
The Grandmagister had given him the task and he didn’t want to let go of it.
“Did the diagrams you looked at show any upward turn in the hallway leading down?” Jassamyn asked.
“No.”
“Then there’s no air pocket down there,” she said. “That area is filled with water. No one can hold their breath long enough to go down there and back. And you said the Grandmagister couldn’t free the fragment from whatever was holding it.”
“Get to the other side of the room,” Craugh ordered as he stepped forward, stopping short of the trapdoor, and held the staff on the ground before him in both hands.
Juhg and the others quickly cleared the area as the emerald sparks around the end of Craugh’s staff whipped themselves into a frenzy. In a powerful voice, the wizard spoke in the language of magic.
Immediately, a whirling waterspout rose from the water in front of Craugh. It stood nearly four feet tall, moving so violently that spray spattered Juhg on the other side of the room.
More harsh words followed.
In response, the waterspout skated from inside the hallway, spitting up even more of the brackish water as it shot toward the big room where they had entered below the waterline. A moment later, the water inside the hallway rushed out, spilling into the room where they all stood and running in the direction the waterspout had taken.
“The waterspout is a construct,” Craugh said. His brows knitted in concentration. “An artificial thing. It’s very hard to maintain, and it takes a lot of power.” He glanced at Juhg. “We’ll have to be quick about this.”
Hesitantly, Juhg walked to the wizard’s side and peered down the hallway in disbelief as the water continued to run uphill and evacuate the bottom
two floors. The gurgling noise of the water rushing by echoed within the room, sounding like the ocean.
two floors. The gurgling noise of the water rushing by echoed within the room, sounding like the ocean.
Long moments passed. Juhg didn’t know how many thousands of gallons of water Craugh caused to relocate, but he knew he was witnessing something few wizards could master. He remembered again how Craugh had wrought the healing spell to mend his own broken leg down in the basement levels of the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
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