At first, the crushing might of the dwarven axe formation drove the invaders back. Axes, short-hafted as well as the two-handed weapons, cleaved Grymmlings in twain and left body parts scattered in the wake of the dwarves. Even the Dread Riders and the Blazebulls were beaten back as the pikemen dragged one of the Riders from the saddle while others twisted their pikes between the legs of its mount. The axe formation followed to finish the kill.

Fearing for his life but unable to go without knowing the fates of Grandmagister Lamplighter and Craugh, Juhg followed behind when every dweller instinct in him cried out to take cover and save himself. But he couldn't leave the dwarves. If the battle suddenly turned against them, they might not be able to find their way to another staging area to rally, or-if the tide of the battle truly turned against them-find their way out of the twisting maze that was the Library.

The battle raged, and the combatants fell. Juhg passed two dwarves, their faces frozen in expressions of disbelief, as if up until that very moment they had thought themselves invulnerable.

One of them Juhg knew. Artip was a young dwarf, only newly come to the Library Guardsmen.

Once, when Juhg had worked on copying a book in the outer courtyard-on a seldom day when there was no wind to blow dust or dirt into fresh ink and the Library had seemed uncomfortably remindful of the goblinkin mines he had grown up in-Artip had glanced at the pictures in the book. Juhg had reproduced the pictures flawlessly in the new copy of the book he worked on.

The book had been a work on close-quarter pikework, used for tripping great beasts of war used by enemy cavalry. The dwarves had used many of those tactics to bring down the great Blazebull in the Library. Drawn by the pictures, Artip had asked questions of how the fighting was done. Because he'd had to figure out the moves to properly render the instructional images on the page, Juhg had been able to show the young dwarven warrior, which had caused considerable consternation among other Librarians out in the courtyard as they saw one of their own working the pike to further elaborate the methods. Artip had learned quickly, knowing things of the movements that Juhg had stumbled with. Of course, Juhg's rudimentary skills quickly paled when compared to the dwarf's. Even Grandmagister Lamplighter had stuck his head out from one of the high windows to watch the training.

Afterward, whenever Juhg had watched the young dwarven warrior practicing the moves he'd learned that day-and especially when he was teaching those moves to another dwarven guardsman-he had felt proud of his part in teaching Artip a new skill. It had felt good to pass on part of the learning Juhg had discovered, and better still that someone had found a use for something he had read in a book and so laboriously worked to make a copy of. And Artip had praised Juhg for his knowledge for days afterward, something that most Librarians never heard outside of their own circle.

And now his brave friend Artip, with his dreams of being a mighty warrior about whom songs would be sung in dwarven taverns long after he was gone, was dead of a Grymmling knife to his throat and crimson staining his body under his armor.

Juhg's eyes brimmed with tears. All of it was his fault. The seventeen sailors aboard Windchaser and the two dwarves who lay fallen in the hallway owed their deaths to him. The book had been his to find, and with it came all the foul luck that had been carefully woven into its pages.

Slowly, though the dwarves fought valiantly and held nothing back, they inched up the hallway to the door of the research room where the mystical gate had opened. The ring of steel on steel and the hollow thump of axe blades and pikes striking flesh filled the hallway.

Juhg peered anxiously at the door, wondering if the gate were still open and whether creatures still poured forth from it.

"Down!" Varrowyn roared.

Too late, Juhg looked forward as three Blazebulls lumbered forward. Flames curled from their black noses. Then they expurgated, hurling fiery liquid toward the dwarven war party again.

The dwarf nearest Juhg swept his feet from under him just as the Librarian started to move. Juhg fell head over teakettle and just managed to keep his face from striking the stone floor.

"Up!" Varrowyn commanded.

The dwarves surged up again, following their brave leader.

"Pikemen to the axe!" Varrowyn yelled.

In response, the pikemen advanced to the front of the axe formation. The shieldmen and dwarves with battle-axes stood to either side and fought off the Grymmlings that tried to overwhelm them by sheer numbers.

A half-dozen Grymmlings overpowered one of the dwarves, tangling his feet and dragging him down. Their knives descended mercilessly, turning crimson and spreading blood all over the floor and walls. The dwarves in the fallen warrior's axe fought to defend their friend, but Juhg knew from the blood and the grim looks of anguish and anger on the dwarven warriors' faces that they were too late. None of the Grymmlings escaped alive, and the dwarves' attentions were as merciless as the foes they fought.

When the dwarves drew even with the door to the research room, Juhg pushed through their ranks, avoiding the quick hands that tried to stop him. He had to know what fate had befallen Grandmagister Lamplighter and Craugh. Twenty dwarves, their numbers already lesser by three and their inability to hold up their attack against innumerable enemies, had barely made this distance.

Even with Craugh's wizardry, Juhg held little hope that the two had survived. He rushed into the doorway, taking cover as long as he dared, then peered around the corner. A mournful cry escaped him as he saw what had happened.

There, in the center of the room amid the three hundred nineteen books-at least, where those books had been-a huge jumble of broken rock stood.

For a moment, Juhg did not know where the rock had come from. Without the lanterns to light the room, mostly shadows filled the great expanse. Then, as his eyes-keen dweller's eyes that could see in the dark almost as well as elves and nearly as well underground as dwarves-adapted to the lack of light, he spotted the huge gaping hole in the ceiling.

Awe filled Juhg at the thought of the sheer magnitude of force that had been necessary to rend the thick stone separating the research room from the upper one. His agile mind, filled with the different paths through the various rooms that had been honeycombed throughout the Knucklebones Mountains, quickly let him know that the upstairs room had been one of the twenty-nine that had been devoted to elven histories.

Then he saw the books spread over the rubble. The volumes lay torn and scattered. The violence done to the books had spread them like confetti. A few of them showed burning embers, as did the crushed mouth of a Blazebull almost buried under the fallen rock.

Looking at the carnage, knowing the loss the Library had suffered, Juhg felt his knees go weak and his stomach twist sickeningly. So much had been lost.

And all of it irreplaceable. The realization haunted his thoughts, making him numb even to the bell still clanging in the distance and echoing through the Vault of All Known Knowledge and the sounds of battle out in the hall.

Only then did Juhg realize that the mystical gate extended beyond the room where it had originated. Crimson lightning streaked the violet sky revealed through the gate that stood above the heap of broken rock and destroyed books that reached almost to the point where the ceiling had once been. In that same instant, he realized further that the rock couldn't have fallen in such a pile, that it had been deliberately shaped and stacked to block the mystical gate.

Craugh, Juhg thought.

Shapes slithered and shadows leapt from the gate in the room above. More and more of the creatures continued to enter the Library. Most of them flooded the upper level across a massive dead tree that someone or something had shoved out into the Library from whatever world they came from.

But, his luck holding true, Juhg was spotted by some of the evil creatures. Grymmlings scampered and skidded down the pile of rock toward him. Their yellow eyes turned on Juhg and their jackrabbit teeth clacked. A Dread Rider turned its Blazebull from the makeshift tree bridge and guided its mount down the massive hill of broken stones. Others followed, including other creatures that Juhg did not recognize.

Darting back out into the hall, Juhg found that the dwarven war party had advanced thirty feet onward, never realizing that they had left their flank open to the attack only now coming from the research room. Their axes and pikes flashed as they fought by the dim light of the lanterns strung along the way. Three more of their number lay unmoving in the hallway.

The buzzing drone of Grymmlings' voices filled the room behind Juhg. He ran, ignoring the painful twinges of his legs, hoping only that they did not fail him.

"Varrowyn!" he yelled. "Varrowyn!" He was almost upon the dwarves when the last one in the group turned to him. When the dwarf's eyes turned hard and his massive jaw dropped slightly, Juhg knew the warrior had seen the threat.

"Our flank!" the dwarf yelled grimly. "To our flank!" He turned around and raised his bloody pike.

Other dwarves at the rear of the war party turned with him. In seconds, the dwarven advance was crushed as two groups stood fore and aft to face them.

Juhg hesitated only long enough to pick up a short-hafted single-bitted axe shieldmen used to cleave the skulls of their opponents or grab onto their opponents' shields and strip them away, leaving them open to another dwarven fighter.

The axe felt heavy and uncertain in Juhg's hands, but he made do. Long years of working in goblinkin mines, lifting rock and a pickaxe for years, had left him with strength. Though years had passed since he'd done those things, he was still strong enough to lift the axe. At least for a while. Looking at the foes arrayed against them at either end, Juhg felt certain that his life's blood would give out long before his strength did.

Varrowyn divided the dwarves into four anvils, two facing either way. Juhg was placed in the rear of one of those formations in place of a missing dwarf. He raised the axe and tried very hard not to be afraid, but he failed.

The two enemy forces suddenly realized they had the upper hand. The Dread Riders took command of their groups, speaking in the harsh clacking tongue they had. Three of the Grymmlings darted forward anyway. At a signal from one of the Dread Riders, a Blazebull snorted fire over the three small predators and crisped them on the spot. Their blackened bodies tumbled to the stone floor.

"Stand yer ground!" Varrowyn growled, holding his two-handed axe at the ready. Blood leaked down from his helm, proof that the Grymmlings' blades had found flesh behind the armor, and black soot stained the plate where he had not always been able to take cover behind a shieldmate.

One of the Dread Riders urged its mount forward. Its fierce gaze raked over the dwarves standing almost shoulder to shoulder in their formations. The Blazebull, cut and bleeding from a dozen wounds, stamped its feet impatiently. Fire curled from its black nose.

The Dread Rider lifted its head as if stretching its throat. When it spoke, it spoke in the common tongue that all the races knew.

"You do not have to die today," the Dread Rider said in a cold, flat voice.

Varrowyn spat in disgust. "Today is a fine day to die."

The Dread Rider worked its throat again. The language was obviously known to it, but it was unfamiliar in its use. "You are a fool."

"Mayhap," Varrowyn replied, "but I'll die a courageous fool with me honor intact if'n that's what it takes."

The other dwarves cheered and pounded their armor or shields with their weapons in support of their leader's bold declaration. But they never dropped their eyes from those of their enemies.

"You would have died anyway," the Dread Rider promised. "Your passing would have been easier."

Juhg quaked where he stood. He couldn't help it. Even after the harsh life he'd barely lived through in the goblinkin mines, he had a hard time facing the certainty of death. Always before there had existed a chance, however small it was, that he might escape and- Someone grabbed his ankle.

Startled, Juhg stepped back and peered down. He drew up the axe and got ready to bring it crashing down, thinking that one of the Grymmlings had sneaked through the dwarves' defensive line. The uncertain light, most of it cast by pools of flames spat out by the Blazebulls that clung to the hallway walls or sat in fat puddles on the floor, made it difficult to see who had grabbed him.

Instead of a Grymmling hand as he had expected, Juhg saw a dweller hand glowing ghastly green flare open. A muffled voice said, "Juhg! Give me a hand!" The hand reached forward, exposing more of the arm.

Recognizing Grandmagister Lamplighter's voice and trained by years of friendship as well as work, Juhg bent down and caught hold of the hand. The Grandmagister's flesh felt cold but strong.

"Pull," the Grandmagister said.

Juhg pulled, and as he pulled, Grandmagister Lamplighter oozed through the stone floor. Marveling at the sight, suddenly aware of what the spectral form glowing green and translucent before him must mean, Juhg exclaimed, "Oh, Grandmagister, they have killed you! I am sorry! This is all my fault!"

"Juhg," the Grandmagister said in a fierce tone, "I am not dead."

Studying the green glowing figure before him, Juhg said nothing. He was confused. Do I believe what I see before me, or do I believe the Grandmagister?

"Craugh worked a spell," the Grandmagister said. "The gate extends all through the Library. It has taken root like a carrot and driven down into the levels from top to bottom. We have viewed all the floors."

The three dwarves who made up the anvil Juhg currently stood in stared at the glowing figure of the Grandmagister with confusion and some trepidation.

"Stand ready!" Varrowyn yelled to his troops.

The Dread Rider marshaled its troops. The Blazebull shifted and moved like an earthquake beneath its loathsome master, stamping its feet and snorting great clouds of bright orange embers from his black nostrils.

"Hold fast to my hand, Juhg," the Grandmagister ordered.

Juhg squeezed the hand tightly.

"Varrowyn," the Grandmagister called out.

"Yes, Grandmagister," the dwarven commander replied.

"Have your men link hands," the Grandmagister instructed. "You'll die if you stay here."

"Well, now," Varrowyn said, shifting his axe between his hands, "we're not afeared of dyin', Grandmagister Lamplighter."

"Oh, and wouldn't that help with all the problems facing the Library now," the Grandmagister stated reproachfully. "Here I am, needing every person I can get, and you're willing to die."

Varrowyn blinked at the Grandmagister. Juhg marveled at the dwarf's skill, for Varrowyn never took his other eye from the assembled enemies before him.

The Dread Riders held their forces in check, obviously wondering what the Grandmagister's sudden and strange appearance held for them. The Grymmlings crooned and buzzed their bloodthirsty song of want.

"Grandmagister," Varrowyn said, "I just-"

"You'll just live," Grandmagister Lamplighter declared impatiently, "until such time as I can no longer help you do that. I've lost too many friends and too many Librarians I was responsible for today to willingly allow anyone else to die. Now, take hold."

Varrowyn gave the command. One of the dwarves grabbed Juhg's hand in a mailed fist. Excruciating pain shot through Juhg's hand, but he didn't say anything.

Evidently growing less fearful of what the spectral figure in the midst of the dwarves might do, the Dread Rider gave the order for the groups massed on either side of the Library's defenders to attack. They surged forward.

"Craugh!" Grandmagister Lamplighter yelped.

In the next instant, Juhg felt the floor beneath his bare feet turn as mushy as lime-flavor salted seafoam cake batter. The Grandmagister sank through the floor like a man sucked deep into the deadly embrace of a marsh muck pit. Before he could even cry out in alarm, Juhg sank through the floor as well. Frozen in fear, he watched as a thrown spear came right at his chest, then passed on through, leaving only a cold tingle that washed through him the way the incoming sea did when he was checking lobster pots out in the harbor.

Then he was within the stone floor, feeling the rasp of the rough rock somehow, even though it never touched his skin.

15.

"Our Enemies Have Struck Us a Grave and Serious Blow"

A flickering torch held the darkness at bay in the hallway under the one where Juhg had been trapped with Varrowyn's dwarven guards. He stared in disbelief at his new surroundings as he floated toward the floor. Grandmagister Lamplighter suddenly jerked away from him, as if caught in the fierce talons of some fearful beast, and his hand jerked free of Juhg's grip.

Then Juhg stopped floating and started falling. He thudded into the floor almost on top of the Grandmagister. The impact dazed him for a moment, but Grandmagister Lamplighter was already up, hooking his fingers into Juhg's hair and jerking him into motion.

"Get up," the Grandmagister ordered, pulling Juhg. "Hurry. The dwarves are falling and their armor will injure you."

Glancing up, twisting through the pain of the Grandmagister's uncompromising grip in his hair, Juhg watched as the dwarves-all of them spectral green-dropped through the floor. As soon as each was clear from the stone ceiling that had been the floor above only moments before, that dwarf took on a flesh and blood appearance again. And they fell like rotten fruit.

One after the other, as noisy as hailstones on a tin roof, the plate-mail-clad dwarves dropped onto the stone floor hard enough to chip the surface in places. Sparks flashed from their armor. Varrowyn was the last to drop, and he only held on to the hand of the dwarf before him. However, a Grymmling had hold of the dwarven commander's leg and was pulled partially through.

"Up!" one of the dwarves cried in warning, forcing himself to his feet. "To arms! They're comin' through after us!" He raised his pike.

Varrowyn landed flat on his back with a growl of pain. He never lost his grip on his battle-axe.

Then a green mist breathed out of the stone ceiling. The wriggling Grymmling suddenly stiffened and mewled in terror or pain. With the buzzing drone the thing made, even afterward Juhg was never sure what that awful noise was.

A moment later, the Grymmling relaxed in death and hung limply from the ceiling. Its crystal knife fell from its limp fingers and shattered against the stone floor below. The yellow eyes narrowed in a vacant stare.

"They can't come through," Craugh declared.

Following the voice, Juhg saw the wizard striding toward the group from the left. A spinning green-white light glowed at the tip of his staff. A handful of scared Librarians followed in the wizard's wake, all of them huddled together.

"This was yer magic then, wizard?" Varrowyn asked, lifting the faceplate of his helm. Blood stained his features, and some of it was his. He blinked his eyes and crimson tears ran down his cheeks.

"Yes," Craugh answered. He looked worn and haggard. Scratches marred his face. His robes showed burned places, as well as long, bloody rents. Juhg knew immediately that not all of the blood was the wizard's. The old man simply could not have bled that much and still yet live.

Varrowyn shook his head. "Ye called us out of the battle just as we had 'em right where we wanted 'em." He sounded gruff and confident.

"Tell your tales in a tavern some other time and be glad you're there to tell them," Craugh said. "I saved your lives and I know it."

Even though Craugh was much more friendly and predisposed to let others live than any other wizard Juhg had met during his adventures with Grandmagister Lamplighter, Craugh possessed no false sense of modesty or even a grain of humility. The old wizard chose his own path long ago at a price that he sometimes alluded to but had never described. He claimed all the glories that came with that choice and his skills.

Varrowyn bristled and took a step forward.

Juhg watched in disbelief, even though he had seen countless times that dwarves loved to fight over anything, and would fight even more quickly over honor and against disrespect. How could the dwarf even think of taking up weapons against the wizard when enemies stood inside the Library destroying everything all of them had sworn to protect?