“You will read this to me?”
“I will. But only at the same price that Oryn's paying.”
Without warning, Faldraak gave a cry of gladness, tossed his battle-axe to one of his companions, and wrapped his arms around Juhg, lifting the dweller from his feet like a puppy. “Ah, now you are a surprise, you are! You done filled this old dwarf's heart with gladness! I'd thought that secret lost an' gone forever!”
Juhg almost couldn't breathe. He felt certain his ribs would be bruised for days. A moment later, Faldraak placed him back upon his feet.
During the next several minutes, Juhg passed out twenty-seven other books to people who had come to the gathering. Only five histories didn't have descendants to give them to, and several others were disappointed that they didn't have anything. Juhg got all their names and promised to get them each books upon his return to the Vault of All Known Knowledge. He could only imagine the protests of his poor staff, who were dividing their time between getting the Library back into shape, teaching Novices, and carrying on their own works and studies.
In the end, he returned to the stage, though he didn't humiliate himself by crawling up to the lectern again. He spoke to them from the stage's edge.
“These books represent the worlds that existed before the Cataclysm,” Juhg said.
Amazingly, the audience was quiet now, hanging onto his words. He couldn't believe how much giving them the books had impressed them.
“They also represent the worlds your children and your children's children can return to,” Juhg went on. “As the goblinkin are driven back, and I believe they will be, the world will grow smaller, not larger. Our lives will become larger. We won't exist as little communities. But as we grow, we'll develop the same problems we had that Lord Kharrion was able to take advantage of in the early part of the Cataclysm.”
“What are you talking about?” the human merchant demanded.
“Sit down, Dooly!” someone yelled. “I want to hear the halfer speak!”
“Don't you know what he's talking about?” Dooly demanded. “Truly?” He hurried on before anyone answered. “This halfer is intending to pick your pockets! Who do you think is going to pay for these schools he intends to build?”
That started another ripple of speculative conversation. Obviously, the merchant could smell a plea for donations a mile away.
“Tell them,” Dooly snarled at Juhg. “Tell them that's why you gathered them here. To fleece them of money.”
Honesty is the best policy
, Juhg told himself. He tried desperately not to remember how many times he knew of that such a practice had gotten the practitioner killed.
“The establishment of schools will require help,” Juhg said.
Immediately some of the good will of the book presentation evaporated. No one liked the idea of giving away gold.
“Some of that help,” Juhg said, speaking over the noise, “will, of necessity, be of a financial nature. To feed and clothe the students and teachers while they are at their studies for the first year. Then they can garden, hunt, or fish to get what they need or the goods to trade for what they need. But most of the help needed will be only labor to build the schools.”
“For what purpose?” Dooly asked. “To deprive farmers of their helpers? Artisans of their apprentices? To make every man and woman work two and three times as hard as he or she should have to, while their sons and daughters sit in some schoolhouse and do nothing?”
“To get an education,” Juhg replied, trying to control the damage of the merchant's words. “In order to learn to do things and teach others. In order to better live with one another. We will someday live in one world again. We should live in it better than we have in the past. The children need education to do that.”
“Education is overrated, Grandmagister,” Dooly accused. “You stand up there today, offering your gifts and your promises, and you want only to make our lives harder. I've had just about enough of this foolishness and your empty words.”
A single green spark danced from the back of the room, drawing the attention of several attendees. As Dooly continued haranguing Juhg, the spark sailed over and attached itself to the back of the merchant's head. As Dooly talked, his tongue got longer and longer, and his face broadened and shortened, till he soon showed the wide face of a toad atop human shoulders. His hair became bumps and warts.
Several of the people around Dooly started laughing. Even Juhg couldn't help smiling.
Abruptly, Dooly stopped speaking and glared at the people around him. “What?” he demanded. His tongue flicked out like a whip. Evidently he saw that movement for the first time. Experimentally, he flicked his tongue out several times. Then he raised his hands and felt his head.
“Oh no!” he cried. “Oh no! Ohâ
ribbit
!” Holding onto his head, he fled the room. Before he reached the door, his gait changed from a run into bounding hops. The door closed after his retreat.
“Perhaps,” a deep voice from the back of the room suggested, “we could do the Grandmagister the courtesy of listening to his plans.”
“It'd be better than being a toad,” someone grunted irritably.
“Continue, Grandmagister,” Oryn said.
And Juhg did.
Â
Â
“Coercion wasn't part of my presentation,” Juhg said.
“No, I claim credit for that,” Craugh responded. “Once I used it, things seemed to go more smoothly.”
Juhg looked around Keelhauler's Tavern, which was a waterfront dive not too far from
Moonsdreamer
, the ship that had brought him from Greydawn Moors. That also meant the ship was only a short distance away if things turned ugly locally and they had to run for it.
Over the years, the tavern's owners had enlarged the building three or possibly four times, simply hauling over other structures and attaching them, then laying in a floor. As a result, the floors were of varying heights and weren't always level. The furniture consisted of a hodgepodge of whatever had showed up at the door.
Although the tavern was filled near to bursting with all the extra people in for
the meeting, no one sat close to Craugh and Juhg. It was, under the toad circumstances, understandable.
“They're afraid of you,” Juhg said.
Craugh preened in self-satisfaction. “They should be.”
Juhg sighed. “It's difficult to get anyone to do anything charitable when they feel threatened.”
“I beg to differ. After the possibility of being turned into toads was presented, they sat and listened while you droned on and on about schools and education.”
“I didn't drone.”
Craugh frowned. “Your elocution lacks. âWe must build for the future. We must ensure our children know about the past before they step into the future.'” The wizard shook his head. “The toad threat? That was eloquent. Short, punchy, attention-getting.” He took another cream-filled bitter blueberry tort from the plate he'd ordered and dug in. For all his leanness, the wizard was a bottomless pit when it came to food. “You don't
ask
people for help. You
tell
them to help you.”
“Or you turn them into toads.”
Craugh shrugged. “If I threatened that, then yes, I turn them into toads. Threats don't carry much weight if you don't occasionally carry them out.”
Despair weighed heavily on Juhg. “Toads can't build schools.”
“Actually, toads can't do much of anything. Except eat flies.” Craugh brushed cookie crumbs from his beard. “I believe that was the point.”
“We need these people's goodwill.”
“Over the years, Grandmagister, I have found that people demonstrate an overall lack of enthusiastic goodwill without being properly motivated. Especially when it comes to public projects. I merely provided the motivation. Had I been here two days ago, doubtless you would have already been finished.”
One way or another
, Juhg silently agreed.
“Now if Wick had addressed those people todayâ” Craugh caught himself and shook his head. “Alas, but that's not to be, is it?” He smiled a little, but sadness touched his green eyes.
“I regret that I'm not Grandmagister Lamplighter,” Juhg said, feeling the old pain stir inside him as well. Although he understood Grandmagister Lamplighter's decision to explore the realms opened up to him by
The Book of Time
, Juhg hadn't quite forgiven his mentor for leaving.
“No,” Craugh said forcefully. “Never regret that. You are you, Grandmagister Juhg, and were it not for you, the possibility of giving back all the lost knowledge to the people of the world would never have come this far.”
Pain tightened Juhg's throat. For all that they argued and disagreed, he and Craugh had shared a love and deep respect for Edgewick Lamplighter. They were the only two who knew most of the Grandmagister's life. They had shared his adventures outside Greydawn Moors and had gotten to see him work. None of the Grandmagister's acquaintances on the Shattered Coast had ever come to Greydawn Moors.
“Thank you,” Juhg whispered.
“Your friendship these days,” the wizard said, “means a lot to me.”
That admission from Craugh was both surprising and touching. Juhg didn't know what to say. The silence stretched between them, crowded by the conversations throughout the rest of the tavern.
“You didn't come here today for the presentation, did you?” Juhg asked. He'd asked earlier, but Craugh had never answered him. The wizard didn't answer any questions until he was ready. But that didn't mean he couldn't be asked again.
“No, I didn't.” Craugh took another tort and nibbled at the edge. “Something else brought me to you.”
Silently, Juhg waited. Only trouble would bring Craugh to him. He didn't want to ask what
that
was. So he didn't.
“Tell me,” Craugh said almost conversationally, as if the potential fate of the world didn't hang in his words, “have you ever heard of Lord Kharrion's Wrath?”
Juhg reflected for a moment. “No. Not really. There was some mention of it in Troffin's
Legacy of the Cataclysm
.”
“I'm not familiar with that.”
“Most people aren't. The Grandmagister had me read it one day, but he never explained why.”
“Ah. What did the book say about Lord Kharrion's Wrath?”
“Only that it was a weapon the Goblin Lord had been building toward the end of the Cataclysm. I think the legend was eventually dismissed as a fabrication.”
Craugh took out his pipe and filled it. He snapped his fingers and a green flame sprang to life on his thumb. In short order, he had the pipe going merrily and a cloud of smoke wreathed his hat.
“What,” the wizard asked, “if I told you the story of Lord Kharrion's Wrath was true?”
Juhg thought about that. “Then I'd say it was over a thousand years too late.”
“Perhaps not.”
Disturbing images took shape in Craugh's pipe smoke. Wars were fought in those small clouds. Juhg didn't know if the smoke revealed things yet to come or were drawn from the wizard's memory.
“Wick, at one time, was on the trail of Lord Kharrion's Wrath,” Craugh said. “Quite by accident, though. He'd ended up in the Cinder Clouds Islands as a result of an argument between Hallekk and another ship's crew one night in the Yondering Docks.”
“The Grandmagister wouldn't get involved in an argument,” Juhg said automatically. “Besides, there'd be nothing to argue over. The Grandmagister would know the answers.”
“No one believed him.”
“And he went to prove them wrong?” Juhg shook his head. “That still doesn't sound like the Grandmagister.”
Craugh coughed delicately. “Actually, Wick wasn't given a choice.”
Juhg lifted a suspicious eyebrow.
“We waited until Wick was deep into his cups, then we took him back to the ship.”
“You shanghaied him? Again?” Juhg could't believe it.
“It was Hallekk's idea, actually.”
At the time, Hallekk had probably been first mate on
One-Eyed Peggie
, Greydawn Moors' only dwarven pirate ship. The crew had shanghaied Grandmagister Lamplighter from the Yondering Docks all those years ago to fill their crew, so deep in their cups they hadn't realized then that he was a Librarian.
Juhg wondered why the Grandmagister would have gone adventuring again just to satisfy Hallekk's need to win a wager.
“Did the Grandmagister believe in Lord Kharrion's Wrath?” Juhg asked.