The Destruction of the Books (43 page)

“The goblinkin—”

“Still harbor resentment against books,” Juhg said. “Yes. I know that. They always will. And do you know why?”

“Because Kharrion—”

“Because,” Juhg said, raising his voice and speaking over that of the wizard, “the goblinkin, of all the races in the world, were the only ones that didn’t develop a written language. Not before the Cataclysm. Not during. And not after.”

Craugh eyed Juhg steadily.

“The goblinkin lived only a little better than animals before Lord Kharrion came along and recruited the creatures,” Juhg said. “The clans were migratory, living in the wild and preying on each other until the leaders learned their numbers were sufficient to prey on the races that built towns. So the goblinkin moved into areas surrounding cities. When the clans grew strong enough, the goblinkin massed and invaded those cities, killing and enslaving the populace that didn’t survive or escape to run away. The goblinkin lived in the houses in those cities, and those creatures ate from the larders that those people had stocked.”

“Ancient history,” Craugh snapped.

Juhg shook his head. “No. It’s still going on. In fact, it’s gotten worse.”

“Worse? How?”

“Because Lord Kharrion gave the goblinkin a lot more than just guidance during a long war that very nearly wrecked these lands.”

“Not true. Once Lord Kharrion was defeated, the goblinkin armies fell apart. The clans returned to their infighting.”

“Not completely.”

“Apprentice—”

“See? Even for all you know, all the magical spells you know and the arcane knowledge you possess, you don’t see what’s before you either. That’s how I knew it was useless to talk to anyone about this.”

“Apprentice,” Craugh growled. “Whatever your thoughts, I would—”

“What Lord Kharrion gave the goblinkin,” Juhg said, “was a common history. Something none of the clans had ever had before. He came among the goblins and brought his magic and his power and his deceit, and he won the clans over. He gave the goblins a common starting place, a point in time the clans could look back on and know had changed. In only a short time, he negotiated treaties among the clans and got the goblins to quit killing each other. For the first time ever, the goblinkin stood together.”

“That was only because of the magick Lord Kharrion used,” Craugh objected. “He used spells to blind the clans and bind the leaders to him.”

“No. Not true. That’s a misconception. The goblinkin banded because Lord Kharrion gave them a common history. He showed them that the goblins could stand together against the races the clans perceived as enemies. He made the goblinkin strong together. No matter what the clans did, the goblins could not forget the lessons of unification that Lord Kharrion taught them through that common history and an alliance against their enemies.”

That statement halted Craugh just as he was about to speak. He closed his mouth again, then furrowed his brow in thought. He tapped his staff against the ground and tiny green sparks drifted up from the top end.

“A common history,” Craugh repeated finally.

“Yes. All the violence that had gone on between the goblinkin before the time Lord Kharrion arrived among the clans was forgotten. Maybe the creatures still remember those darker times. Maybe the leaders even still talk of it. But none of the goblins act on the old grudges. The clans fight over new ones, but even those battles don’t last as long or become as bloody. The goblinkin don’t squander resources. Instead, the goblinkin band together and hate the other races. And the clans breed like locusts, growing stronger and ever more hungry. The goblins remember how Lord Kharrion almost guided the clans to victory over the world, and the more aggressive goblin commanders look forward to the time when the clans can still achieve that.”

“Everyone felt certain that the goblinkin would self-destruct as the clans always had after Lord Kharrion was slain,” Craugh said.

“It hasn’t happened,” Juhg said. “Not in all these hundreds of years. It hasn’t happened.”

“No. And you believe that is because Lord Kharrion changed the goblins. Changed the clans’ thinking.”

“Yes.”

Craugh paused. “No one—
no
one—has ever thought that before.”

“What I’m saying is true,” Juhg stated quietly. Even though he knew the wizard was listening to him, he felt near exhaustion from having to fight to get Craugh to hear him out. When the ideas he was talking about now first began to circle within his mind, he had resisted them. That line of thinking seemed too far-fetched, immensely above anything the goblinkin could do.

At least,
Juhg corrected himself,
above anything the goblinkin had been able to do before.

“The trap set in the book and the wizard aboard the goblinkin vessel in Kelloch’s Harbor indicated that the goblinkin weren’t working alone.”

“I can see that.” Craugh stroked his bearded chin with his free hand. “Now.”

“When I was a slave in the mines,” Juhg said, “there were always stories the goblinkin slavers told. The overseers talked about the Cataclysm and Lord Kharrion. Told each other over and over again how the whole world had very nearly fallen to the goblins to loot and pillage and enslave.”

“It very nearly was.”

“I know.”

“If Lord Kharrion had not fallen in the end, it very well could have been.”

“The potential yet remains for that to happen,” Juhg said. “The goblinkin numbers still flourish.”

Craugh frowned. “They breed constantly.”

“Yes. And they’ve gotten more conscious of other places in the world. In these recent years, the goblinkin have grown strong enough to recapture and hold the South. How long will it be before the clans spread over the rest of the world?”

“That will never happen,” Craugh said.

“Why not? Who will stop the goblinkin. Who is strong enough to stand against the clans? Who can unite the races and have them pull together as they did during Lord Kharrion’s reign?”

Craugh hesitated, and Juhg could see that his words were having an effect on the wizard.

“The dwarves,” the wizard said. “The elves and the humans. None of them will allow the goblinkin to grow that strong again.”

“How long ago,” Juhg asked, “were they saying that about the South? About how they would never allow the goblinkin a toehold in the nearly destroyed cities that line the mainland there? The South started falling a hundred years ago, and the goblinkin are firmly entrenched there. Nothing less than a war will get them out of those places. And no one wants another war with the goblinkin. None of the races can produce enough warriors to make that happen. They seldom band together to defend each other, choosing instead to fall back grudgingly before the goblinkin. I’ve seen that happening. You have, too.”

“Apprentice, all of these things you’re talking about—”

“Lord Kharrion died all those years ago,” Juhg said. “But—
Don’t you see, Craugh?—
the Cataclysm has continued. It is a specter that has continued to haunt our world, to leech the life from it. Only slowly.”

“The Cataclysm ended—”

“
Lord Kharrion
ended,” Juhg interrupted. “Lord Kharrion died. Not the Cataclysm. Do you know why Lord Kharrion truly tried to get rid of all the books?”

“To take away knowledge,” Craugh replied. “Without knowledge, the humans, elves, and dwarves lacked the resources to stand against him and the goblinkin army.”

“It was more than that.” Juhg felt hesitant. All those months and years ago as he had formulated the ideas that had driven him from Greydawn Moors, he had doubted himself, doubted his thinking and his logic. Then he’d become convinced, but also convinced that neither the Grandmagister nor any of the other Librarians would listen to him. His theory was largely unsupported. And now, looking at Craugh, he was grimly aware of that again. “Lord Kharrion planned deliberately. The books died. The music died. Art—all the paintings, sculptures, and all the beauty that the races learned to create—died. Do you know what truly died for most people? Do you know what Lord Kharrion and the goblinkin truly destroyed?”

“I suppose—”

“With the destruction of those books, of those libraries and collections, the past for the dwarves, humans, and elves died,” Juhg stated clearly. “Much of the history. Much of the way those races did things. The voices of those who had gone before and who had learned so many valuable truths were stilled forever. They could no longer look to each other’s culture and find similarities. Without books, without a proper accounting of history, their lives became small and selfish. In fact, they were reduced to the same level as the goblinkin when Lord Kharrion went among them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lord Kharrion took their histories from them and left them only the uncertainty of today and the hatred of the hardships of all the yesterdays before. They forgot how to look forward to the future with hopes that better things might lie ahead.”

“Bosh!” Craugh exploded. “They remembered enough. You talk like nearly everyone read in those days. It simply wasn’t true.”

Juhg kept focused. He was right and he knew it. The attack on the Library, the means with which it was done, made him even more certain. Grandmagister Lamplighter had taught him how to argue and present his thoughts in an orderly fashion. He leaned on that skill now. “What did they remember?”

A fierce look carved Craugh’s face. If Juhg had been a true enemy of the wizard’s, he knew he would have feared for his life in that instant.

“They remembered that Lord Kharrion was the most evil enemy the world has ever faced,” Craugh stated vehemently.

“They did.” Juhg nodded and locked eyes with Craugh. “In the end, that proved to be the undoing of all the races.”

20

Evicted

“What are you talking about?” Craugh demanded. The dark scowl on his face clearly indicated that he didn’t agree with Juhg’s assessment that the defeat of Lord Kharrion had somehow made present matters for the survivors of the Cataclysm worse. “How can the human, dwarven, and elven remembrances that Lord Kharrion was their enemy be in any way debilitating?”

“Because,” Juhg said, “in the end Lord Kharrion was defeated.”

“Of course he was defeated,” Craugh said. “I was there. I was among the army that brought his citadel down around his ears. That’s what we were there for: to defeat him.”

“Yes.” Juhg waited a beat. Thunder cracked overhead. “But what happened then?”

“We pursued the remnants of the goblinkin armies and defeated them where we could. We couldn’t destroy them all.”

Juhg nodded. “And then?”

“And then nothing.”

“Not true. A decision was made to keep the books—to keep the Vault of All Known Knowledge—secret.” Juhg studied the wizard. “How many knew then that so many of the books had been saved?”

“Not many. Nor did many care.”

“Why?”

Craugh waved a hand. “Because most people during those times were illiterate. Reading—and books, for that matter—lay within the realm of kings, princes, nobles, wizards, healers, and merchants. A common male couldn’t read, and even if he could, he couldn’t afford the price of a book.”

“But there were readers in those days,” Juhg said. “I know that because I have encountered tales of them in the histories, as well as the romances, from Hralbomm’s Wing. The Grandmagister has even written monographs and essays on the role of the reader in those societies. If a healer had a question about how to do a surgery, there were books he could resource. But if a common man had a question about animal husbandry or proper crop rotation in an area new to him, he could go to a reader at a library or to the owner of a small, private collection of books and receive information for a modest price.”

“Yes.”

“The books could have been used in those days following Lord Kharrion’s fall,” Juhg pointed out, “in an effort to get the devastated cities and outlying lands back into habitable shape more quickly.” He drew in a breath. “But that isn’t what happened.”

“The decision was made not to do that.”

“Why?”

Craugh sighed, letting Juhg know the argument had been a long one and full of emotion all those years ago.

“The chiefest reason was that most of the common folk didn’t want anything to do with books again. They didn’t share your certainty that possessing such things would be a boon. Most of them, if you’d care to ask, still don’t. Many of those people you would attempt to give the books back to would only destroy them or throw them away.”

Juhg shook his head. “I’ve read about those times. In the volumes penned by the Grandmagisters who set up the Library. Those people weren’t given a choice.”

Craugh stamped his staff irritably, sending off sparks. “
Faugh!
You don’t know whereof you speak, apprentice! Old Ones, preserve me from some young know-it-all who believes he has all the answers in a handful of years that the Founders struggled over for decades!”

Juhg resisted his immediate impulse to disagree and challenge the statement.

“You are looking at those days from the perspective of today,” Craugh went on. “In those days, having a book equated a death sentence to the survivors of the Cataclysm. To all the elves, dwarves, and humans. Especially those who had never had much to do with books when they were accessible. They didn’t want books, or even rumors of books, existing in their settlements, towns, or cities. Books drew the vengeance of the goblinkin. Despite our best efforts, too many goblinkin yet remained in the world.”

“Yes.”

Triumph flashed in Craugh’s eyes. “The goblinkin targeted any place where books were kept. Even during those days, the army of the unity still transported a few books now and again. The goblinkin were merciless in their destruction of books.”

Juhg knew that. He’d read stories about those transportation efforts, even after Lord Kharrion had fallen. Goblinkin land forces had descended upon caravans and slain them to the last man, and goblinkin navies—something that had never before existed until the Cataclysm—had sent ships to the bottoms of a dozen seas.