Juhg glared at the wizard.

"Juhg," Craugh said, obviously struggling to maintain control of himself, "I don't understand what you're getting at."

"All those years ago," Juhg said, "the Founders caused this island to rise from the ocean bed. They changed the sea around this place, brought up dangerous reefs on three sides and most of the fourth, and covered the land and the sea with perpetual fogs that scared off most seafaring races. Back then, with the large navies from the pre-Cataclysm days destroyed and others employed solely for military maneuvers along the mainland, most ships didn't venture out this way anyhow. But the Founders knew that the races, especially the humans with their wanderlust and need to conquer the seas, would journey out here again."

"And so they tried. Probably would have found this island as well. If the Founders hadn't decided to fill the waters with enough dangerous beasts to keep stories fresh."

"The pirate fleet helps keep them away as well," Juhg said.

"Yes."

"Back then," Juhg said, "the Library had to be hidden. Lord Kharrion fought and commanded the goblinkin hordes on the land and on the sea. The goblinkin hunted the books as much as they hunted everyone who dared stand against them."

"I know. You're not telling me anything that-"

"Once Lord Kharrion and the goblinkin were defeated, the books were supposed to be given back." Juhg stopped and looked at the wizard. He repeated his words, giving them weight and feeling his voice grow hoarse with the emotion tangled up in them. "The books were supposed to be given back."

Craugh frowned. "Oh. I see."

"Do you?" Juhg demanded. "Do you really?"

The wizard held up a hand. "The books will be given back."

"Will they?" Juhg let all the doubts he'd started fostering these past few years sound in his voice.

"Of course they will. That was the promise. When the time is right, they'll be returned."

"And when will that time be?"

Craugh's frown deepened. "I'm not in charge of these things."

"Then who is?"

"The Grandmagister of the Vault of All Known Knowledge."

"And when will the Grandmagister feel the time is right to return the books?"

Craugh made an irritated tch. "I begin to see what you're talking about."

"No," Juhg said, shaking his head. "I don't think that you do."

"Don't forget yourself, apprentice. Your boldness-"

"I'm not bold," Juhg interrupted. "If I were bold, I would have spoken of this before now. Instead, when I felt certain I could no longer curb my tongue and I started growing bitter with the Grandmagister as well as myself, I ran. I left this place and headed for the mainland and told myself it was only because I had the faintest of hopes that I would find my family alone and unaided."

"You left because you were afraid to talk to Wick about this?"

"Yes."

Craugh waved a hand. "You're just confused, apprentice. Nothing more. If you had only taken the time to talk to Wick-"

"If I had spoken of my feelings to the Grandmagister, we would have argued. Despite how I felt, I ... I ... did not want to argue with him." In the end, that desire had outweighed the need he'd felt to challenge the Grandmagister's continued withholding of the Library. Besides that, releasing the Library was not Juhg's choice to make.

"Still, there was no sense in losing you if that could have been prevented."

"It couldn't have been. Not without the Grandmagister's understanding that the books had to start being handed back to the people out there."

"What made you think that the time for that return was now?"

Despite the wizard's protests, Juhg knew Craugh was starting to consider what he had to say. He drew a deep breath and hoped that he might sway his audience even more. "You travel along the mainland following your own agendas, Craugh. You see the people there. There are more than just goblinkin out there. Things have changed since the Cataclysm. These people aren't just scattered pockets of civilization who were driven from their homelands during the battles and the war. They're people who have settled down and built new homes, new neighborhoods, and new cities. New lives and new histories."

"I don't see your point."

"The point is," Juhg said, "those people could use the knowledge that is kept here in the Library. They could make themselves stronger, they could fight better, provide more for themselves and their families. They could stop the encroachment of the goblinkin."

"I don't think-"

Juhg hurried on before wizard could finish. "Do you know how much the lives of the dwarves, elves, humans, and dwellers could be improved if they could resource books, essays, and monographs on building, on horticulture, on medicine, even war and weapons-any one of a hundred different studies that were contained here in the Vault of All Known Knowledge?"

"I-"

"I do," Juhg stated. "I've seen them, Craugh. I've lived among them before I was a slave and after. I've traveled among them at the Grandmagister's side. The knowledge that is-" He stopped himself, remembering all the damage that had been done, and corrected his statement. "All the knowledge that was held here could have changed their lives." He paused. "If they had but known it was here."

"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."