Authors: Mel Odom

Tags: #Fantasy, #S&S

Lord of the Libraries (8 page)

BOOK: Lord of the Libraries

7.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads

There were other worse things, but Juhg knew he’d have to think for a long time to come up with them.

In death, the bearded hoar-worm’s flesh was loose, and walking across its belly was like walking through a swamp.

The storm had abated. The fog remained, but the lashing waves had gone wherever it was they’d been headed when they’d overtaken the pirate ship. The sea was like that, always moving, always restless.

The monster’s body bobbed in the water, occasionally bumping into
One-Eyed Peggie
because the ropes that tied the carcass to the ship were short. Gulls landed on the enormous body, tearing at the meat and eating their fill. Dark shapes under the water kept bumping up against the monster like nursing pups, but Juhg knew they were sharks drawn by the creature’s blood. They, too, feasted on the monster.

Juhg felt a little sorry for the bearded hoar-worm. That surprised him, but he supposed it was because he had known it could think. Somehow that made watching it being eaten worse.

“Here.”

Turning, Juhg found Craugh behind him. Surprisingly, the wizard had followed him onto the monster’s body. Juhg had felt certain Craugh would leave him to tend to the ghoulish task on his own.

“You’re sure?” Juhg asked.

Craugh tapped the bottom of his staff against the body. He held an oil lantern in his other hand. “Here,” he repeated. Then he sat down, crossing his legs with his staff across his knees. He put the lantern to one side.

Juhg hunkered down and took a fresh grip on the flensing knife he’d borrowed from Cook. He smoothed the monster’s flesh with his other hand, testing it. His mouth dried and his stomach turned over as he readied himself to carry out his instructions.

“Go ahead!” a raucous voice shouted. “Go ahead an’ stick ’im! Give ‘im a good ’un fer me!”

Looking up, Juhg spotted Critter perched on the ship’s railing. The bird sat lopsidedly due to the fork pegleg.

“Apprentice,” Craugh said in a low voice, “we’re going to lose the light.”

Already, the sun was setting in the westering sky. Pinks, purples, and reds tinted the clouds.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
Juhg remembered the odd bit but couldn’t remember where he’d gotten it from. The Grandmagister would know, of course. And that turned his thoughts back to the chore Craugh had assigned him.

He no longer felt that Craugh could have done the task himself. The fight with the bearded hoar-worm had all but done him in. Craugh would not have admitted it, Juhg was sure, but it was the truth. The wizard was not sure-footed crossing the monster’s body.

“The creature is well beyond feeling any pain you may think you’re causing,” Craugh said.

“I know.” Juhg thrust the knife into the dead flesh and started cutting. He found out at once that he hadn’t cut deeply enough and the task would be more arduous than he’d believed. Still, the knife was sharp and he was determined. After all, this was supposed to help save the Grandmagister. He didn’t know if he hoped to help or prove the wizard wrong. Craugh couldn’t be right all the time.

Gradually, just as dusk had started to swell in the eastern sky, Juhg sliced through the skin and into the stomach beyond. When that happened, a little more energy seemed to spark in Craugh, but the wizard appeared a trifle more apprehensive as well.

At Craugh’s urging, Juhg sliced into the stomach. The stench was horrible.

“Make the hole larger,” Craugh said, leaning forward and peering inside. “We’re going to have to enter.”

“Enter?” The thought horrified Juhg.

“Of course,” Craugh snapped. “This is a sizeable monster, after all. The stomach is a cavern inside this thing.”

“You never said anything about entering the corpse.”

“I’m saying it now. Cut.”

Having no choice, Juhg enlarged the hole.

When he had the hole big enough, Craugh lit the lantern, then his pipe. He handed the lantern to Juhg. “Go, apprentice.”

Staring at the large wound he’d created, Juhg asked, “This will help the Grandmagister?”

“Didn’t I say that it would?”

Juhg took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his face, hoping that it would block some of the noxious stench. After adjusting the lantern wick to glow more brightly, he clambered down inside the dead body.

The footing was treacherous and slippery. Gore covered him, fouling
him at once. Inside the belly of the beast, he lifted the lantern high and gazed around. Fluid several inches deep ran over his toes.

Craugh crawled down after him.

“These are stomach fluids,” Juhg said. “Won’t they hurt me?”

“No. I’ve already tended to that.” Craugh puffed on his pipe and the scent of the pipeweed seemed to overcome the stomach stink. He gazed in all directions.

Juhg waited, totally amazed. The inside of the bearded hoar-worm was larger than
One-Eyed Peggie’s
belowdecks. Then he remembered the creature’s body was long, and there would be a lot of room.

Craugh drew a symbol in the air that caught fire and burned with a green flame. He blew smoke at the symbol and it floated forward.

“Come on,” Craugh said. “That marks our way.”

Without a word, Juhg held forth the lantern and started after the glowing symbol. He tramped through stomach fluid and then piles of ancient armor he recognized from books at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Many of the civilizations that had constructed the armor had disappeared even before Lord Kharrion had called the goblinkin tribes together.

Questions ran rampant through Juhg’s mind.
How long had the bearded hoar-worm lived? How had it known Craugh? What had it meant when it had accused Craugh of having a darkness within him? When had it—not it,
Juhg amended,
Methoss—when had Methoss and its comrades offered Craugh a spot among them?

They walked for at least fifty yards. The darkness inside the monster’s stomach was complete except for the lantern and the hole Juhg had cut into it. The hole was dimming as the sun went down. For a moment, Juhg worried that they might not be able to find the way out.

Then the glowing symbol stopped.

“There,” Craugh breathed in a smoky whisper. His eyes narrowed and he moved his staff in front of him.

Staring into the darkness, Juhg crept forward. The lantern light invaded the innards of the beast, chasing the darkness back.

A multifaceted blood-red gem the size of a horse’s head sat in the stomach amid a pile of human bones. Some of the bones spilled over the gem, arm bones and leg bones, like they were clinging to the gem.

“Well,” Craugh said, “she’s fed lately.” He didn’t look happy.

Drawn by the sight of the gem’s elegant beauty, Juhg knelt down, scarcely paying attention to the fluids and the skeletons and partially decomposing bodies. He brushed away an arm bone. Then he realized what Craugh had said.

“She?”
Juhg repeated. “Don’t you mean that
he
has fed lately?”

“No,” Craugh said. “I mean that
she
has.”

Before Juhg could ask the question that immediately came to mind, the gem dawned with an inner light of its own. Crimson bathed the immediate area, stronger than the lantern light.

Something stirred within the depths of the gem. It whirled and flipped, like a cloud turning in on itself.

“No, apprentice,” Craugh said. “You’re too close.”

Juhg barely registered the words, then a woman’s face formed inside the gem. She was graced with elven beauty, her ears pointed and her nose slightly upturned. Her eyes warred with the crimson light, but they were purest amethyst. Her skin was dark, the color of old pecan. Her smile revealed fangs that spoke at once of a predator.

“Hello, Craugh,” she said. Then she laughed and reached through the gem walls to grab Juhg around the head.

A Secret Past

J
uhg dropped the lantern and tried to escape the woman’s clutches. Her strength proved too much and he couldn’t. Her laughter echoed the length of the monster’s belly and came back over them.

She cackled with glee as Juhg’s struggles helped pull her free of the gem. She was almost as tall as Craugh. Obsidian black armor covered her and she wore an obsidian black blade at her side. She had seven fingers on each hand, and they were much longer than anything human, dwarven, elven, or dweller. Her long fingernails were razor sharp. Short red hair was plastered tightly against her head.

Most surprising of all, she had a tail. It looked like a lizard’s. Juhg saw the appendage first when it whipped forward and closed around his neck, choking off whatever attempt he might have made at speaking.

“Ladamae,” Craugh said in an even voice. He didn’t move a muscle. “Don’t kill him.”

The woman took her hands from Juhg’s head. Her tail held him off the ground easily. She drew her obsidian blade as she turned her full attention to the wizard.

“Don’t kill him?” she repeated. “You killed Methoss.”

“Methoss would not listen to me,” Craugh said. “He chose to ignore my warning.”

“He had been sent after that ship,” Ladamae said. “He did not know that you were aboard.”

“And if he had known that I was aboard?”

The woman grinned and waved the obsidian blade. “He would still have tried to killed you. You know how Methoss was, Craugh. He was always jealous of you.” She smiled, but to Juhg the expression was like watching a cat unsheathe her claws.

Craugh said nothing.

Dangling from the woman’s tail, Juhg struggled to breathe. Her tail around his throat was incredibly tight.

Ladamae maintained her stance between Craugh and the red gem. “I knew about Methoss’s death, of course. How could I not? I am here, aren’t I? I have been with him for centuries, Craugh. When he slept at the bottom of the sea, where you and your friends spelled him, I did not sleep. Did you know that?”

“No,” Craugh answered.

Juhg watched the woman, wondering what she was. In all the books that he had read, he’d never seen anything like her.

“But you knew that I was inside Methoss,” Ladamae accused. “You remember how he swallowed me whole after he was changed. He couldn’t bear the thought of me being with anyone else. And he hated you for the time that I spent with you.”

Craugh said nothing, keeping his arms spread to offer no threat.

“You cut your way into the corpse to kill me, didn’t you?” Ladamae asked in a shrill voice.

Juhg feared that Craugh was going to say yes. He felt certain as soon as he did the woman would snap his neck with her tail. He kicked valiantly but couldn’t escape.

“No,” Craugh said. “I didn’t come here to kill you, Ladamae.”

The woman hesitated a little, watching him carefully. “You lie.”

“No.” Craugh regarded her, seemingly totally at ease.

“I had resigned myself to sitting at the bottom of the ocean till Methoss’s body rotted into pieces,” Ladamae said. “I didn’t know how I was going to get the gem to the surface again, but the water here is shallow enough. I had hopes of a fisherman finding me one day.” She smiled sadly.
“If it weren’t for that cursed gem, I could go anywhere that I wanted to. I could have anything I wanted.”

“But that’s not how it is, is it?” Craugh’s tone wasn’t unkind, but his words were.

“You turned away from me all those years ago. Just turned and walked away and forgot about me.”

“I didn’t forget about you.”

The woman laughed and the sound carried a hint of madness.

Juhg didn’t blame her. He couldn’t imagine how it would be to lie at the bottom of the Blood-Soaked Sea for hundreds of years. Still, the last place at the moment that he wanted to be was in her clutches.

The woman cursed and pointed her blade at Craugh’s head. “Once you thought I was pretty.”

“A long time ago,” Craugh agreed. “I was foolish. Now I am not.”

Listening to the conversation and the flat way the wizard responded, Juhg knew that if he lived he was going to recommend
The Language of Love
by Rugahr Dahalson. Of course, he wasn’t going to mention that Rugahr had been poisoned while writing the sequel,
Keeping Happiness in Your Harem.

“Now you are even more foolish,” Ladamae said. “Perhaps even pathetic.” She shook her head. “You should not have cut your way inside Methoss.”

“I had to see you.”

“Better that you had not.”

“Coming to see you seemed better than letting you simply drop to the bottom of the sea and lie there forever.”

“Many things can change,” Ladamae said. “When you can live forever.”

“Methoss,” Craugh said with a grim smile, “thought he could live forever. He couldn’t.” He paused. “Neither can you. Without protection.”

Ladamae paused to think. Juhg watched her watching Craugh with her amethyst eyes. She was cunning and savage. Juhg saw that at once.

“Why
did
you come here?” she asked finally.

“To strike a bargain,” Craugh said.

“Bargains are hard things, Craugh. You know that. Most times you give away more than you get, even though you think it will be the other way around or at least balance. We all took on burdens to bear when we sought after
The Book of Time.”

Craugh hunted for
The Book of Time? Juhg couldn’t believe his ears.

“We were all foolish then,” Craugh said.

“No,” she said. “Just greedy. In the end, we weren’t clever enough, were we? Methoss became a bearded hoar-worm like some of the others. I got trapped in that gem. We both got immortality, of course, but the cost was far more than we thought.” She looked at the wizard. “And how is it you’re still alive, Craugh? After all these years?”

“We all,” Craugh said, “had a price to pay for our part in the evil that was done when
The Book of Time
was brought into this world.”

If Juhg hadn’t been hanging from the woman’s lizardlike tail and fighting for every breath he took, he knew he would have been listening with bated breath. What were the secrets that Craugh had been hiding? He’d never mentioned how he’d achieved the longevity he enjoyed.

“Are you paying a price, Craugh? Truly?” The woman’s tone mocked him.

“What do you think?” Craugh asked.

“Methoss was told you had aligned yourself with the dwellers. With that precious Library of theirs. I thought that was unbelievable even though I knew you had a hand in its building. I thought you served your own purposes. Yet, here you stand. And you are searching for
The Book of Time
to aid the Grandmagister.”

“Who woke Methoss?” Craugh asked.

“It’s a pity you can’t ask him.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Maybe I’ll tell you.” Ladamae smiled. “And maybe I won’t.”

“Do you know a man named Aldhran Khempus?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t have the power required to have wakened Methoss.”

The woman shook her head. At the end of her tail, Juhg shook even more violently.

“So someone else wakened Methoss,” Craugh concluded.

“Yes.”

“Who?” Craugh demanded.

“What do I get if I tell you?”

Indecision showed on Craugh’s bearded face. “Letting you go free from this place would be a horrible thing, Ladamae.” He nodded toward the pile of bones surrounding the crimson gem. “You feast on men. I see Methoss kept you fed.”

She smiled as though embarrassed. “Methoss only caught me a few morsels now and again.”

“Tell me who woke Methoss.”

“And if I don’t?”

Craugh eyed her levelly. Inside the body of the monster, his whisper was cold and filled with threat. “Then I will kill you.”

Ladamae laughed, sounding more insane than ever. “I don’t believe you, Craugh. Not even after all that we once meant to each other—or if we only thought we meant that to each other—you wouldn’t allow me to leave this place. You can’t. Despite all the wicked things you did with us before you joined the Round and tried to forget you were ever anything but a protector of the world, you were never truly as evil as we were. You just wanted to know if you could defeat the Guardians of Time and steal their precious book. It was more a challenge to you than anything else.”

“Don’t do this,” Craugh said in a soft voice.

“If you didn’t want it to end this way,” Ladamae said, “then you would have never cut Methoss’s body open and found me.”

The tail around Juhg’s neck tightened. He would have sworn he felt his neck separating from his shoulders.

Then Craugh attacked faster than Juhg would have believed possible, swinging the staff into the woman’s tail. Juhg felt the vibration of the blow throughout his body, then the tail loosened about his neck. Using his inherent dweller’s quickness and the instinct for self-preservation, he pulled his head from inside the coil of tail and dropped to the beast’s stomach. He threw himself forward in a dive at once, sliding through the horrid fluids and striving not to think about what they were or that the woman was going to plant her sword between his shoulders at any moment.

Ladamae screamed in anger and the sound echoed and re-echoed the length of the monster’s stomach.

Juhg rolled to his feet and picked up a short sword lying nearby. He turned, ready to defend himself, expecting to see Craugh dead or dying.

Instead, the wizard battled his opponent with skill and quickness that Juhg would not have believed even if Craugh hadn’t been dead tired from fighting the bearded hoar-worm earlier.

Ladamae swung her obsidian blade like a warrior born to the craft of swordplay. But Craugh met her at every turn with the staff, and each time the wood met the obsidian blade, green sparks showered the air.

Juhg started to go to the wizard’s aid. He pushed himself to his feet.

“Stay back, apprentice!” Craugh roared, blocking the sword again. “This is my fight!”

And when you fall,
Juhg wondered,
whose fight will it be then?
The way back to the hole he’d cut in the belly of the beast was far. He doubted he’d make it before the woman overtook him. Then he saw the woman pull a knife from her boot with her tail.

Ladamae brought the blade up behind her, cleverly concealing the weapon from Craugh. The wizard blocked her sword, then swapped ends with the staff to aim a blow at her head. She ducked, calling him vile names, and her tail whipped forward with the knife.

Craugh blocked the knife at the last moment, then lifted the staff and halted the sword. Still holding both blades away from him, he sidestepped and pushed, throwing the woman off-balance. She whirled, wasting no time to get turned back around to once more face the wizard.

But there was no time. With a short step, Craugh swung the staff once more, this time driving it into the gem.

The gem exploded into a huge ball of crimson light at once, blinding Juhg with its intensity. He cried out at the pain and fought to get his eyes opened again to see if Craugh still lived. He blinked in amazement as his vision returned and he saw Craugh standing where the gem had been.

Ladamae stood in front of the wizard. Disbelief, followed quickly by fear, twisted her features. “Craugh,” she whispered. “What have you done? By the Old Ones, what have you done to me?”

As Juhg watched, Ladamae’s boots turned white, and the whiteness spread upward, taking her legs and her hips and her upper body.

“Nooo,” she whispered, and the sound was as plaintive as a child’s. She went rigid as the whiteness enveloped her head. She stood there only a moment more, then dropped into a powdery pile.

Stunned but curious, Juhg approached. He gazed down at the pile of powder, then bent to poke his finger into it.

“Salt,” Craugh said.

Juhg looked up at the wizard.

Craugh cleared his throat. “It’s salt. When I destroyed the gem, she turned into salt. She’s dead.” A lone tear trickled down his face. “One thing—” His voice broke. “One thing you must know, apprentice, if you ever write about this.” His eyes would not meet Juhg’s. “Ladamae was not
always an evil creature. She was once … a beautiful young woman. She was corrupted.” He took a deep breath.
“I
corrupted her.”

Juhg stared in openmouthed wonder. There were so many things inside his mind, questions that needed answering, emotions he needed to vent. “You
—you—
helped steal
The Book of Time
from the Guardians?”

Craugh’s face grew stern. “We won’t talk of this, apprentice.”

“Does the Grandmagister know?”

BOOK: Lord of the Libraries

7.75Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

Read Book Download Book

ads