The Destruction of the Books (20 page)

Unless Ertonomous Dron didn’t know what the book contained either.

“Could be the book is about a treasure,” Raisho said hopefully.

“I don’t think so.” Juhg filled the captain’s wounds with Krylik’s weed to offset infection and help keep the bleeding to a minimum. He’d already had Cook prepare some Fosdin’s tea to help with pain and fever. “Books about treasures usually come with maps.”

“The book has no maps?”

“None. That means it’s probably not a book on history, a biography, or science. All of those tend to have illustrations. Likewise, the book is not about mathematics, otherwise there would be formulas and such. Even if whoever wrote the book chose to use different symbols than the numbering systems we’ve discovered at the Vault of All Known Knowledge, it would look differently on the page.”

“If ye don’t know what it is an’ ye’ve never seen the like of it before,” Raisho pointed out, “seems like the Vault of All Known Knowledge is some’at mis-named.”

“I know,” Juhg quietly agreed. “When the Elders built the Library, they intended for it to store all the world’s knowledge. Even the human, elven, and dwarven armies couldn’t save all of the libraries scattered throughout the nations Lord Kharrion and the goblinkin laid siege to and plundered. So much was lost.” He scooped up the bandages and quickly bound the captain’s wounds.

When Juhg was satisfied with the job he’d done, he gathered his medical supplies and quit the captain’s quarters. He stood on the deck and squinted up against the bright sun and the blue sky.

Out on the open ocean now with the Tattered Islands behind them,
Windchaser
rode free and easy. If it hadn’t been for the dead lying across her deck awaiting burial and the wounded lying abed belowdecks, the day would have been an enjoyable one.

“Now that the cap’n’s seen to proper-like,” Raisho said, “I’m gonna see if Navin needs some help fixin’
’Chaser
back into shape. If you need somethin’ else, let me know.” The young sailor went toward the stern castle, where Navin occupied the captain’s place.

With a heavy heart and feeling somewhat abandoned, Juhg turned his steps toward the hatch to go belowdecks. Thoughts of the book, what the writing on the pages might mean, stayed uppermost in his mind. He was angry with himself because his greatest desire was to go off by himself and see if he could decipher the writing.

*   *   *

“Mother Ocean,” Captain Attikus said in a strong voice that only betrayed a little of the weakness Juhg knew the man had to have been feeling, “we commend the bodies of these brave sailors who have been graced by your presence and at times fought you with all their resources. Please take them gladly into your embrace and show them the secrets of you that they never knew in this life.”

Juhg stood on deck with the other sailors in the twilight hour after all the wounded had been tended. One of the men Juhg had bandaged as best as he could had died before regaining his senses. Juhg hoped the man’s passing was as peaceful as it looked.

Seventeen bodies lay swathed in sailcloth. The drain on the ship’s resources was considerable. Throwing away good sailcloth wasn’t something any good captain wanted to do. Captain Attikus would have been within his rights to simply heave the bodies overboard and been done with it.

But they were shipmates, men who had spent time together and protected the secret of the Vault of All Known Knowledge on Greydawn Moors.

One by one as the crew sang their farewells to the dead, the seventeen fallen sailors were tossed into the sea as
Windchaser
continued to run west toward the Blood-Soaked Sea. Rocks from the ballast lining the bottom of the ship’s hold were wrapped in the bottom of the sailcloth so the bodies would drop to the sea bottom.

To Juhg’s way of thinking, burial at sea was a horrible thing. Once on the ocean floor, crabs and fish would start eating on a person’s body till only bones remained. He shivered slightly at the thought and knew that his dreams that night, if he slept at all, would not be restful.

When the ceremony was finished, the sailors returned to their appointed tasks. A lot of work remained to make
Windchaser
shipshape again.

None of them spoke to Juhg, and he knew that all of them blamed him for the deaths of their comrades. In fact,
he
blamed himself because he was a Librarian and they’d felt compelled to honor their sworn duty because he was among them.

All for a book that he still couldn’t translate.

*   *   *

“Librarian Juhg.”

Hearing the captain’s voice, Juhg looked up at the stern castle. Captain Attikus stood at the railing, his left arm in a sling to protect his wounded shoulder.

“Yes, sir,” Juhg replied. Rigging creaked and sails cracked overhead.
Windchaser
ran through the sea like a racehorse, completely in her element under the clear skies and across the smooth sea.

“You could eat that down in the galley, you know.”

Juhg carried a plate in one hand and a mug of chulotzberry tea. The plate was piled high with sweet breads, nuts, grain cakes, jerked pork, and cheese. He carried two apples tucked inside his blouse. It was too late for breakfast actually and too early for lunch, but it was his first meal of the day because he’d slept late after working into the wee hours by lantern light. His eyes still burned and were light sensitive from overwork and lack of sleep.

“That’s all right, Captain,” Juhg said. “The morning light is better out here.” That wasn’t the real reason he wasn’t eating in the galley and they both knew it. Despite the passage of three days since the attack on
Blowfly,
the crew still kept their distance from him. He had become an outcast on what was essentially a very small island in a huge ocean.

It didn’t help that he had been released from shipboard repairs, which turned out to be considerable down in the hold, where caulking threatened to come loose and temporary patches had to be made to fix hull timbers where they had cracked.
Windchaser
was taking on water, but not at an alarming rate and not anything that the pumps couldn’t handle.

“A moment of your time if I may, Librarian Juhg.”

Reluctantly, knowing the captain would be asking about his progress on translating the book seventeen men, threescore or better goblins, and one wizard had given their lives for, Juhg trudged up the stern castle stairwell. The book rested inside his blouse, along with his journal and the fresh book he’d made from packing supplies aboardship.

“How is it going, Librarian?” the captain asked. His gaze continually scanned the horizon ahead of them. The gray-green water was starting to take on the red-purplish hue that had given the Blood-Soaked Sea its name.

“I’ve not given up on the book, Captain,” Juhg responded, deciding to cut to the crux of the matter because it would save time for them all.

“No, I hadn’t thought that,” Captain Attikus said.

“And I haven’t made any progress either.”

Captain Attikus gave a short nod. “That distresses me, Librarian. I had hoped to give the men some news of the book’s contents that might make the losses of their fellow crewmen easier to bear.”

Secretly, Juhg doubted that was possible. Not many “pirates” who protected the Blood-Soaked Sea were often called upon to spend their lives. Usually the crews of those ships put up the skull and crossbones any time an outside ship showed up in the area and scared off potential discoverers of the island.

“I understand,” Juhg said.

“It’s a hard thing to lose good men.”

Juhg couldn’t think of anything to say about that.

“There is one other thing, Librarian.” Captain Attikus kept his gaze out to sea. “If you should discover that we’ve only managed the rescue of a cookbook, I’d rather the men not know that. Even while we’re in harbor at Greydawn Moors.” He paused. “Are we clear on that?”

“Yes, sir,” Juhg replied.

“Then I’ll talk to you when you have more news.”

“Yes, sir.” Summarily dismissed, Juhg trudged back down the stern castle stairwell and went forward. The encounter almost robbed him of his considerable appetite, one in which he felt would truly match his dweller heritage.

No one has any faith in you.
Juhg knew that. After three days, no one believed he could decipher the book. And if he did, they fully expected it to be only the crassest sort of joke.

He made his way to the prow rigging and climbed up into the ropes. Sitting cross-legged in the netting, he placed the heaped plate in his lap and tried to summon his appetite again. He studied the water around them, amazed at how peaceful it was at the moment, like a plate of the finest glass.

The mid-morning sun hung behind the ship. Shadows from the taut sails fell over Juhg, and the absence of direct light almost made the loose blouse and breeches too flimsy to wear in the chill. In the distance, Juhg noticed the first faint wisps of the fog that rolled constantly over the Blood-Soaked Sea.

An unfamiliar feeling coursed through Juhg as he looked at the fog and knew that Greydawn Moors lay only a few more days’ sailing beyond. The feeling was bittersweet. He was going home after weeks away from the city and the Library and the Grandmagister, and he wanted to be there, to be in familiar surroundings after all the atrocities he’d witnessed.

He’d been a fool to leave. He should have stayed. He saw that now. During the days before he’d left, Grandmagister Lamplighter had tried in vain to get him to see that.

Well, I see it now.

He only hoped he translated the book, or at least got a start on the translation before
Windchaser
dropped anchor in the harbor at Yondering Docks. Going back to the Vault of All Known Knowledge and to Grandmagister Lamplighter with a puzzle he couldn’t unravel on his own after all the time the Grandmagister had invested in him would be almost more than he could bear after everything he’d been through.

Sailors worked aloft today. He heard their voices behind him, and that simple thing reminded him how far apart he was from them. He remembered Grandmagister Lamplighter’s own tales of his first voyage aboard
One-Eyed Peggie,
of how the Grandmagister had gone from potato peeler to pirate in just a matter of days.

But Grandmagister Lamplighter had saved lives aboard the pirate ship. When the Embyr had alighted in the rigging, Grandmagister Lamplighter had gone and talked to her, convincing her that she didn’t want to harm them or the ship.

He saved lives,
Juhg thought bitterly,
and I set my friends upon a course that took them.
During the few hours of sleep he got a night, dreams of the killings aboard
Blowfly
haunted him, shocking him awake in a cold sweat in his hammock where he slept on the main deck.

He picked up a grain cake, mixed with honey and cinnamon to bond it, and nibbled, hoping to work up some kind of appetite. He had to eat. He needed his strength. As he ate, he reached inside his blouse and took out the red clothbound book.

He felt the tingle of
something
again. It felt like something alive, though he knew it couldn’t be. The only explanation he could think of was that some innate magic remained within the book and he was sensitive enough to “feel” it.

That was a scary probability. A few Librarians at the Vault of All Known Knowledge had inadvertently tried reading tomes of magic that were meant only for wizards’ eyes and had ended up dying hideous deaths. Specialists were trained who perused such volumes and hid them away until such time that Craugh came visiting.

Juhg flipped open the cover and started scanning the first page again, looking for some clue as to who had written it. So far he hadn’t even ascertained which race had authored the book. Juhg spoke a couple dozen languages, most of them dead after the events of the Cataclysm, which had driven nearly every race to learn a new language together, one that allowed them to work quickly and efficiently together.

After the Cataclysm, after Lord Kharrion and the goblin hordes had finally been beaten, although many of the lands remained inhospitable to man or beast as a result, the races had kept the common tongue they had devised during their decades-long wars. So many languages had been lost during that time. At least, the oral versions of them had been lost. The written versions still existed within the Library.

As he ate, forcing himself now when he had so been looking forward to the meal only moments ago, Juhg studied the pages of writing, trying to discern something—a pattern or a few words—that would give him the key to unlocking the language that bound the secrets in the book.

*   *   *

Juhg roused from a nightmare, feeling embarrassed because he knew he’d been crying out as dead men and goblins rose from
Blowfly
’s decks and came after him. He blinked up at the night sky, feeling his heart hammering inside his chest.

Overhead, Jhurjan the Swift and Bold, the greater of the two moons, burned a red glare across the dark heavens. He would cross three more times during the night at this time of year. Farther to the south now, Gesa the Fair showed pale blue and was in her shy phase when she could hardly be seen at all due to Jhurjan’s magnificence.

“Ease up there, bookworm. You’re all right.”

Juhg turned at the sound of Raisho’s voice and saw the young sailor sitting in the rigging over the prow only a short distance away. A nearby lantern occupied a spot on the prow railing.

Two more days had passed and Juhg had not broken down any of the language in the book. Nor had the crew broken down their standoffishness against him.

Suddenly aware that he was hanging out over the dark ocean as
Windchaser
sailed along under the night sky and that it was only a short drop into the brine and a quick disappearance with no hope for rescue for a man with a knife, Juhg shifted warily in the rigging. Raisho always carried plenty of knives.

“What are you doing here?” Juhg asked.

Raisho shrugged. “I have missed ye.”