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Authors: Mel Odom

Tags: #Fantasy, #S&S

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BOOK: Lord of the Libraries
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Juhg’s mind reeled. One impossibility followed another. “That’s a Laurel Tree elven name. It means ‘middle child.’”
Craugh nodded. “Usually it is reserved for the middle son in a family. Jazzal thought it was appropriate in Chrion’s case, given his birthplace.”
Thoughts flew through Juhg’s mind. “No one ever mentioned you had a son.”
A hint of sadness surfaced in Craugh’s green eyes for a moment then faded away, like an ember that had caught a fresh breath of air that caused it to burn itself out. “No one,” he stated heavily, “has ever before known. The last two people who knew died two days ago.”
“What of Jazzal?”
“Chrion killed her.”
Juhg’s stomach turned sickeningly. The flat tone with which Craugh delivered the shocking news caught him off guard.
“Why would he kill his mother?” Juhg, who had barely known his own mother, could not believe such a thing could happen outside of the goblinkin.
“Because he was blood of bad blood,” Craugh whispered. “It was my son who stole
The Book of Time
from us. Jazzal worked to decipher the book while the rest of us went forth to secure our places among the empires of the mainland. She was the one most gifted with reading the confusing text that changed on every page. We went to trained sages at the time—elven, dwarven, and human—and showed them
The Book of Time.
Some of them
killed themselves because they saw their own destinies writ out before them. Some of them went mad because they could not comprehend everything that was written. Others couldn’t understand anything that was there.”
The mournful cry of a seagull sounded off in the distance. Critter screeched an obscenity at the bird from high up in the rigging.
“What did you do to Chrion?” Juhg asked.
“We went after him, those of us that lived,” Craugh said. “If we had caught him, we would have killed him. But he was too clever for us for many years. Eventually, though, we caught up with him. During the battle that raged, his goblinkin forces against the armies of the empires that we all ruled,
The Book of Time
was lost to him. And to us.”
“Chrion took up with the goblinkin?”
“Yes. Haven’t you ever noticed the goblinkin don’t speak of history?”
“They do upon occasion.”
“That’s because they were changed during the war that purged the books from the mainland. They learned what they fought against, and even though they had no real use for it, they came to learn about history because they questioned the warriors they fought against. Have you ever read much about goblinkin before the Cataclysm?”
“Only a little. They weren’t written about much. Mostly the human, elven, and dwarven books only mentioned them as monsters. There was no real description of their culture, only that they were savage and bestial and ate their enemies.”
“In the early years, goblinkin had no concept of time. That was why Chrion felt so at home with them. They didn’t strive under the weight of the past or look with disfavor toward the burden of the future. They only lived in the now, locked in the events that surrounded them.”
“As Chrion had grown up with.”
“Yes.” Craugh put his pipe away. “We trapped Chrion and decimated his armies. And we earned forever the enmity of the goblinkin.”
“But
The Book of Time
was lost.”
“Yes. We questioned Chrion for months, employing some of the best torturers we could buy. At the end of that time, he was put to death.”
Juhg’s breath caught at the back of his throat. “You had your own son executed?”
“There was nothing to be done about it.” Craugh looked away. “I know that some think that I am evil, that I am too forceful in my ways.”
Juhg silently agreed. He’d been among mainland towns and villages where the wizard was feared, though he did not know why that was so.
“I have earned that reputation over the years, and that is the curse of having a long life.” Craugh paused. “Nothing you’ve ever done—nothing evil—is ever truly forgotten. It lies ever waiting to spring forth and call attention to itself again. Nothing lasts so long as the evil that people do to each other in the name of whatever they choose to make their excuse.” He cleared his throat because it had gotten tight. “For every bit of evil that I was, and perhaps still am, Chrion was ever more.”
“But you did look for the book?”
“Of course we looked for the book, apprentice. We searched for it for centuries. All to no avail. But the worst was yet to come. Chrion was not dead as we believed.”
Juhg scarcely drew a breath. Pieces fell together in his mind. “He rose once more, didn’t he? And he again united the goblinkin.”
Craugh looked at him and nodded. “So you have figured it out, then.”
“Chrion went by another name. Or maybe it was only a name adulterated by the goblinkin tongue.” Juhg couldn’t believe what he was about to say. “Your son was Lord Kharrion.”
“Yes.” Craugh’s voice was the thinnest whisper.
“How did he live?”
“As I told you, after our exposure to the In-Betweenness, none of us lived normal lives. Years no longer seemed to matter. None of us that went to that place and returned ever died of old age. It was as though we were somehow placed outside of time. Only violence or sickness—or suicide as when Capul could no longer take the strain of living on past his loved ones over the centuries—could end our long lives.”
“Why did Chrion, Kharrion, seek to destroy the books?”
“Because
The Book of Time
can’t be destroyed by fire. Its magical nature prevents that. Perhaps something can destroy it, but we never learned what that might be.”
“Kharrion had no clue where the book was?”
“Obviously not. He destroyed nearly every library on the mainland.” Craugh looked hesitant. “Though his body rose again centuries later, not
all of his mind was there. He’d become a loathsome creature, filled with hate and a desire for vengeance.”
“So the goblinkin didn’t destroy all those books out of jealousy against the dwarves, elves, and humans.”
“Oh, they destroyed them for those reasons, too. But primarily they searched for
The Book of Time.
During the Cataclysm, the Unity armies heard whispers about the ‘book that would not burn.”’
“I’ve never read anything about it.”
“We didn’t allow that to be written about,” Craugh said. “It was dangerous enough that Kharrion knew about
The Book of Time.”
And that you did, Juhg thought, but decided to keep still his tongue.
“We decided that the fewer who knew about
The Book of Time,
the better,” Craugh said.
“But the myths persisted.”
“Of course. They always do.”
“How did the Grandmagister find out
The Book of Time
was real?”
“Because there were others that searched for it,” Craugh answered. “He learned of Aldhran Khempus and the others who searched for the book.”
“What others?”
Craugh shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps Wick knows more about them than he has told me.”
“He was keeping secrets from you?”
Craugh’s green gaze turned misty with sadness. “It appears that he had uncovered enough of my secrets that he chose to play his own game.”
Cold understanding dawned inside Juhg. “That was why you shamed me and told me I should stay with him. You thought that whatever burden the Grandmagister carries he might share with me. And that I could be persuaded or bullied into telling you.”
“It,” Craugh said softly, “was a plan.”
“And you admit this to me?”
Craugh stared at him. “Would it help my case if I were to lie?”
“No.”
“I could have tried to lie now. I could have tried to persuade you or bully you, but I didn’t.”
Juhg pushed himself up and started to walk away. His mind was dizzy with suspicious and questions. He wanted to walk away. By the Old Ones, he
should
have walked away.
But he couldn’t. In the end, the Grandmagister was in the hands of goblinkin and Aldhran Khempus, and Juhg knew that Craugh’s power would probably be needed to set the Grandmagister free.
If he chooses to help anyone other than himself,
Juhg warned himself. He turned back to the wizard, trembling and more scared than he could remember being in years. The danger surrounding the Grandmagister seemed to have intensified during the last few hours.
“So you have told me the truth?” Juhg challenged.
“Yes.”
“
All
of the truth?”
“I have.” Craugh sat quietly, looking defeated, an appearance that Juhg had never before seen on the wizard.
“I can’t bear any more lies or half-truths,” Juhg said. “Your power can’t be discounted in this struggle to free the Grandmagister, Craugh, but I’ll not wish to leave myself or anyone else open to the dark side of that power.”
“I want to save my friend,” Craugh said. “The only true friend I’ve known in all these years. And I want to set right those things that I did wrong all those years ago.”
Juhg paced the deck.
One-Eyed Peggie’s
crew watched the encounter, but none of them could hear from as far away as they were.
“There is something else you must know, apprentice,” Craugh said.
Juhg waited, fearing what was going to be said.
“If you are correct and
The Book of Time
lies within Imarish as Wick told you, you must be very wary of it.”
“I already am.”
And should I get it, that book will never leave my hand and you will never lay eyes on it.
“If you open that book and so much as peek at one page—” Craugh paused. “You may be lost forever.”
A ghostly chill threaded up Juhg’s spine.
“When I found out Wick was pursuing
The Book of Time
some years ago—”
“‘Some years ago’?” Juhg echoed in disbelief.
Has the Grandmagister truly been searching for
The Book of Time
that long?
“You didn’t know either.”
“No. Not until we were on the goblinkin ship together.”
“Then Wick hid his secret from both of us.”
Juhg shook his head. “No, back in Greydawn Moors you intimated that you knew the enemies that faced the Grandmagister.”
“I knew of Aldhran Khempus and a few of the people that followed him. They are united as well.”
“United how?”
“They also have a library that survived the Cataclysm.”
Juhg’s mind reeled. “That can’t be.”
“But it is, apprentice. Aldhran Khempus is only a vassal for Quhrag.”
“Quhrag the Black?” Juhg remembered all the old stories of the wizard. From all accounts, Quhrag was evil beyond comparison. He had served with Lord Kharrion during the Cataclysm.
“Yes.”
“I thought he was dead.”
“He cheats death,” Craugh said. “He lives, but not really. There is only a spark of life within him, but no true flame. He has been hiding for years. Until I saw Aldhran Khempus on Greydawn Moors, I thought Quhrag was dead. There has always been a being that has called himself Aldhran Khempus who has carried Quhrag the Black’s mark. I didn’t want Wick captured at that point. I tried to prevent it. I couldn’t. And Wick would not have let me if I’d been able.”
“Quhrag wants
The Book of Time?”
Craugh nodded. “There can be no other prize that would interest him. Quhrag knows I have lived far past what I should have, and he knows I have been interested in
The Book of Time.
He believes that it has been the source of my long years.”
“What about the other library?” Juhg asked. “Where is it? Why didn’t anyone know about it?”
“I don’t know where it is,” Craugh admitted. “I don’t know that Wick knows, though—as we have both come to recognize—he has kept his secrets from me.”
“Why was a second library built?”
Craugh shook his head. “Evil built the second library. As the Unity armies raced through the town just ahead of the goblinkin hordes, books were found that were filled with evil. We discovered evil men that held them and wanted to pay us to rescue their personal libraries.”
“Some of the books in the Vault of All Known Knowledge were filled with despicable and dangerous things. Poisons, torturers’ skills, and traps
are all there for the reader to discover. I have read several of them. With all the places I have gone with the Grandmagister, I had to know about those things.”
“There are things much worse than those. Magic is neutral on its own, but humankind and most of the rest of the world found the power was much easier to manipulate when it was used for darkness. Magic often thrives on pain, whether from the wielder or from those it is used against. Haven’t you ever noticed how spells for killing dozens of enemies are so much simpler than healing spells?”
BOOK: Lord of the Libraries
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