Seeing the raw emotion on his mentor's features made Juhg feel as though a huge hand had closed around his own heart and was squeezing the life from him.

Over the years that he had known Grandmagister Lamplighter, Juhg had seen the Grandmagister cry on a number of occasions. Sometimes it had only taken a sad song in a tavern when they'd been far from home in inhospitable lands, because the Grandmagister possessed a tender heart and a great capacity to care for others than himself. And at other times, the Grandmagister had wept over the graves of comrades when circumstances had forced them to bury in lonely places where no one they knew would ever travel.

"Grandmagister." Juhg took his mentor's robe sleeve. "Grandmagister, we have to go."

"Look at what has been done, Juhg," the Grandmagister whispered. "All of this was put on me. It was my duty to protect the Library. I failed."

More stones shifted, rattling and capering down the pile.

"You did all that you could to protect this place." Juhg stared at the books-ripped and torn and scattered into pages and pieces of pages-that lay strewn within the debris.

"It wasn't enough," the Grandmagister whispered.

Juhg barely heard him over the growing roar of the shifting stones. "Grandmagister, please. We have to go." He pulled on the Grandmagister's robe sleeve.

More stones skittered across the floor.

"Grandmagister," Juhg said, "Craugh needs our help."

Reluctantly, the Grandmagister turned his attention from the hole in the ceiling and the ponderous tonnage of stones shifting there. "Craugh."

"He's been injured," Juhg said.

The wizard still struggled to climb the staff.

"Craugh," the Grandmagister said.

More stones shot outward, beginning a slow tide of detrius that tumbled down from the hole in the ceiling.

The Grandmagister turned and ran to his friend. Together, he and Juhg managed to get Craugh to his feet and started rapidly stumbling for the arched door. Behind them, the pile of stones broke loose from the precarious positions they'd been locked in. The tide of stones became a full-fledged flood, a roaring, snarling beast that pursued them.

Craugh grunted in pain as they ran through the doorway into the next room. The tide of stones halted for an instant against the walls while a tongue of debris lapped out at them through the doorway.

The Grandmagister said something that Juhg couldn't understand, but the younger dweller knew that the Grandmagister had hastened his pace. A huge, cracking roar thundered through the room, overcoming the grinding noise that had filled Juhg's ears until then. Unable to stop himself, he glanced backward.

Craugh's magical green flame still dancing atop his staff revealed the sudden destruction of the walls of the room. They cracked and broke, then became part of the inexorable tide of rock shoving through the room.

Rocks rebounded from Juhg's back, causing him to break his stride and nearly fall. But he kept his hold on Craugh and marveled at the wizard's own efforts to escape the brutal death that pounded at their heels. The room shook underfoot. Then they were through the next doorway and turning to the right to gain the stairs they had followed down to the Library's lowest level.

Like the last wall, this one held only for a moment, but a spray of stones followed them into the hallway and ricocheted against the wall in front of them. Juhg fell, nearly bringing Craugh down with him. But the wizard yanked him upright again with strength that belied his frame and his condition. There were many impossible things about wizards, Juhg knew.

Guided by Craugh's magical flame, they ran up the stairs.

The walls broke behind them, then the stones filled the hallway and began climbing the stairs. If the stairs hadn't been carved from the very heart of the Knucklebones Mountains themselves, Juhg had no doubt that they would have fallen.

The stones eventually slowed as they climbed above the height of the room. Once the room was filled, the downpour stopped. However, the clouds of dust followed, clogging their lungs with thick, acrid air and coating their eyes so they wept grainy tears.

Juhg coughed weakly, all but out of wind and strength to go on. He made himself go on for a little more, then Craugh fell, dragging the Grandmagister down and causing Juhg to miss a step. Juhg fell heavily, barking his shins on the steps. He pushed himself to his knees, his free hand on the wall beside him.

The wall vibrated. At first, Juhg thought the vibration was caused by the mountain of stones that had pursued them from the rooms below, then he noticed that they pulsed in counter-rhythm to the shifting stone, and that the stones below had mostly come to rest.

It's coming from up above!

Fearfully, Juhg glanced upward, watching as a few dozen small stones bounced and careered from the turn of the landing ahead and came down at them. Juhg covered his head with a hand, fearing that the stones were only the heralds for the mass only now starting to come.

But other than the few stones, nothing more came down the stairway.

He stayed crouched and expectant. The Grandmagister and the wizard did the same, all of them fearing the worst.

Gradually, the grinding noise of the stones came to an end. The vibrations that moved the mountains halted. Only the thick stone dust remained, hanging stubbornly in the air.

"Here," the Grandmagister said. He handed Juhg a section of cloth torn from the hem of his robe. "Tie this around your face. Over your nose and mouth."

Juhg did, watching as the Grandmagister offered another section to the wizard, then tore one for himself. Craugh's green light fought back the darkness but had trouble penetrating the shifting dust clouds.

"That," Craugh said in a painful voice, "was a very near thing."

Grimly, the Grandmagister turned his attention to the wizard's injured leg. He pulled Craugh's robes to one side, revealing the bloodstained breeches.

"I think," Craugh said, "it's broken."

"Of course it's broken," the Grandmagister snapped. He looked at Juhg and the younger dweller saw the uncertainty in his mentor's eyes. "You're lucky you didn't lose your leg." He hesitated. "You still might-infection sets in and you don't care for this properly."

"Nonsense," Craugh snorted. "What use is a one-legged wizard? Why, I'd not even be able to sit a horse properly, never mind being able to go the places I've needed to over the years to find the things I've quested for."

"Juhg," the Grandmagister asked, "do you still carry that knife?"

When they were on the mainland, tracking down myths and legends about books and other objects, the Grandmagister seldom carried weapons. But during those times he did carry a magical knife he'd found in the Broken Forge Mountains. While he was in the Library, though, he went unarmed.

The Grandmagister also preferred that Juhg go without weapons as well, but Juhg almost always carried a knife. Becoming a slave again-for goblinkin or anyone else-wasn't something he was going to allow to happen. He was no fighter, but having a knife meant possibly having some way out of a bad situation.

He slid free the boot knife that Raisho had given him to seal their partnership aboard Windchaser.

The Grandmagister gave the knife a quick examination out of habit. "Ah, a Hostyn blade by the Burning Anvil dwarves."

"Yes."

"But not the handle," the Grandmagister said, turning his attention to the wizard. "That's a recent addition."

"Yes. Raisho had the blade refitted when the original broke."

"In the South." The Grandmagister slit the wizard's breeches leg, running the keen blade up the seam. "Sharp."

Juhg knelt beside Craugh. His stomach tightened at the sight of all the blood, but he had seen worse in his years as a slave in the goblinkin mines. And some much worse, he thought, remembering the attack among the upper rooms, only moments ago.

White bone poked through the side of Craugh's leg. The jagged break had left an edge that had punctured the flesh either at the time the leg had broken or during Craugh's attempts to stand and flee.

"A greenstick break," the Grandmagister said.

Juhg recognized the wound as well. Books on medicine remained high on the Grandmagister's reading list for all Librarians. Usually, unless the patient was extremely fortunate, a limb that suffered a greenstick break was lost. Too much infection was allowed into the wound through the torn flesh. Even when the bone was set properly and the flesh healed without infection, the limb seldom recovered full strength.

"I know what it is," Craugh said irritably. "Help me get the bone back where it belongs."

"I don't know if we can-" the Grandmagister began.

"Do it," Craugh growled. "We've wasted enough time as it is. Don't you want to see what other damage has been done to your Library?"

"It's not my Library," the Grandmagister said.

"It would do you good to remember that." Craugh shifted, hauling himself along the step he sat on so that his back rested against the wall behind him. "Are you going to help me with my leg or not?"

The Grandmagister nodded. "Juhg, you've read up on these kinds of wounds."

"Yes."

"Then let's get started."

Taking his knife back from the Grandmagister, Juhg quickly cut lengths of cloth from his robe, then fashioned two harnesses out of them. He tied one harness to the wizard's leg above the knee and the other at the ankle. Together, he and the Grandmagister helped the wizard to the next landing and took a moment to clear the rubble from the area they would need to work.

They made Craugh as comfortable on his back as they could. The wizard turned even paler during the movements and his breath came in short gasps. Still, his magical staff stayed lit and filled the landing with greenish light.

"Grandmagister." Juhg held up the two ends of the harnesses.

"I'll take this end." The Grandmagister gripped the harness attached to Craugh's upper leg, then knelt down at the wizard's shoulder. He touched Craugh's shoulder gently. "We'll be as quick as we can."

"Just get it done." Craugh held his staff and folded his free arm over his chest. He gazed upward, fixating on the lit end of the staff.

As carefully as he could, Juhg sat at the wizard's feet, his legs splayed on either side of the broken limb. He pulled the slack from the harness.

"When you're ready," Juhg told Craugh.

"Do it." Craugh's voice sounded hoarse and far away.

With steadily increasing pressure, Juhg leaned back. The harness tightened around Craugh's ankle, then started pulling the leg toward him.

Unbelievably, Craugh spoke not a word, nor made a sound.

Knowing the pain Craugh handled was incredible, Juhg heard his own heart beating in his ears, certain at any moment that the wizard would give in to the pain and turn him into a toad simply to end it. He kept building the pressure, watching as the Grandmagister shifted to keep his weight behind Craugh's shoulder, holding the top of the leg and the wizard steady.

Caught between the two opposing forces and no longer connected, the wizard's leg stretched longer than normal. The white bone, burning with a greenish cast from the magical staff, retreated into the awful wound, eased back into line with the other section of bone.

"Almost," Craugh gasped hoarsely. "Keep pulling. Don't you dare stop now." Beads of perspiration gleamed on his face.

Juhg pulled, ignoring the queasy feeling in his stomach. He remembered the times he'd had to cut a dead dweller free of the slave chains, then carry the amputated leg back to the goblinkin guards as proof that the dweller had died. Retreating from those memories, he focused on the task ahead of him. Craugh wasn't going to die.

But is having a live wizard who blames you for his crippled walk a good thing?

Without a word, the Grandmagister leaned forward, keeping his end of the harness locked under his knees. Gently, he probed the wounded leg with his fingers. Finding something that interested him, he pressed.

Bone rasped in the deathly quiet that had descended over the stairwell.

"There," the Grandmagister said, drawing back. "I think it's back in place, Craugh." He paused and took a deep breath. "Juhg, take the pressure off your end. Slowly."

Juhg leaned forward, easing the pull he'd maintained on the harness. In a moment, the harness fell slack. He gazed worriedly at Craugh.

Craugh fought to sit up, using his staff and striving to lean forward from the waist. Both attempts failed. "I am getting far too old for this nonsense." He blew an angry breath between his clenched teeth. "Wick."

"I'm here," the Grandmagister replied.

"I'll have need of your assistance, please."

Still on his knees, the Grandmagister got behind Craugh and helped push the wizard to a sitting position.

"Thank you, my friend. I'll need you to hold me for only a short time."

"Of course."

In the distance, clanking echoed in the halls. Juhg wondered if the noise signaled the impending collapse of still more debris.

Craugh stretched his free hand over his bloody leg. Cool blue light emanated from his palm, bathing his wound.

Interested despite his trepidation at looking too closely at the damage or risking invading Craugh's privacy, Juhg leaned forward. As he watched, the broken ends of the shinbone shifted and rotated.

"Wouldn't do to have a crooked foot after this, now, would it?" Craugh asked in a thin voice. His control was tenuous and frayed. "I'll not suffer a limp."

In the space of a drawn breath, the broken ends of the bone fitted themselves together. The blue glow bathed the ends till the break became a line finer than frog hair. When that was complete, the flesh began pulling together, healing.

During his time at the Library, Juhg had read about healing spells, but he had never seen one in action before. Magic was a thing seldom seen outside of destruction and mayhem. Wizards didn't learn spells to do good; they learned spells to acquire power.

"Apprentice." Craugh's voice came as a harsh rasp squeezed out through pain.

Juhg looked at him.

"After this day, after this moment," Craugh said hoarsely, "there's not to be one word about what you've seen here."

"No," Juhg agreed. "Not one word."

The fact that Craugh could handle such a spell, more aligned with the good forces than the evil forces, spoke volumes about the wizard's true nature and contradicted what most people believed of him. Juhg thought of the wizard with newfound respect.

Abruptly, Craugh fell backward without a sound, crumpling against the Grandmagister, who was almost bowled over by the wizard's collapse. The blue light faded and the green light at the end of the staff exploded in a lizardlike hiss.

Darkness filled the stairwell landing.

"Grandmagister," Juhg called, afraid that the wizard had died from his own magical exertions complicating the massive wound he'd received.

Healing spells, from all accounts, drew mightily on the resources of the healer and did not allow magic places or things often to fuel them. Healing, according to Endelsohn's The Art of the Magical Healer, was the most jealous magic ever crafted, the most demanding of its caster.

That was one of the primary reasons why those who wielded magic didn't learn those arts. Magic, by its nature, was disruptive. Even a healing spell played havoc with the wounded person who received treatment. Medicines and rest were far easier to give. Craugh, who was already exhausted, couldn't have had much left.