"Belowdecks," Raisho whispered.

Keeping his hands in place because he didn't trust himself, Juhg shook his head. Belowdecks was the last place he wanted to go-or they needed to be.

"That's a wizard." Raisho pointed at the old man. "Wizards have books."

Juhg couldn't argue with that.

Light from the stern lanterns highlighted Raisho's black skin, warming the color to dark molasses. He stared at the prow and let out a tense breath. "Then stay here. Yell a warnin' if I need one." He looked at Juhg. "Can ye do that?"

Despite the fear that rattled his insides, Juhg knew he couldn't let his friend go alone. The same reasoning-that Raisho might not recognize a book if he saw one-held now.

Juhg forced his hands down. "I'll go."

"Then step lively." Raisho shifted toward the stern castle stairs. "An' don't be heavy-footed. Might as well toss up a shot of Grekham's Fire if'n ye do."

Grekham's Fire isn't exactly the best comparison, Juhg thought. Humans had invented Grekham's Fire. As a race, humans were known for their ability to bend the wind and water to their will, and for their borderline suicidal impulses for creating weapons of war. Elves and dwarves contented themselves with skills and a few magical weapons, goblins took whatever they could find, but humans went out of their way to invent arsenals that were as potentially dangerous to themselves or their compatriots as they were to their enemies. Grekham's Fire was a prime example.

Designed for catapult loads for siege missions against castles and fortified cities, Grekham's Fire was a concoction of pitch, sulfur, suet, and lye soap. Formed in large balls for catapults or in fist-sized chunks to rain like hail, the loads were fired and hurled against their opponents. When great balls of Grekham's Fire landed on buildings, flames spread throughout.

However, the catapult loads didn't always stay lit, and using the loads also proved dangerous because the flames frayed the catapults and caused launches to go awry so that often the loads landed on nearby armies. In addition, many times the warriors assigned to loading and firing ended up drenched in the stinking concoction and going up in flames.

When the human navies sought to use catapults loaded with Grekham's Fire at sea, the disasters grew even larger. There was often nowhere to go from a burning ship in the middle of the ocean.

By the time Juhg got to his feet, Raisho had already reached the stairwell. The dweller hurried after his friend. He stayed so low his knuckles sometimes knocked against the ship's deck and dragged.

The wizard continued staring toward the town nestled into the crooks and crannies of the ragged-edge shore while the three goblinkin watched on fearfully.

Amidships, Raisho stepped into the hold the wizard had emerged from. Juhg followed. His large feet found the ladder leading down into the hold with accustomed grace. After so many days at sea, crawling through the innards of Windchaser, he moved by instinct.

Most cargo ships of similar size tended toward a similar layout. With a ship's shape, there were only so many designs that allowed comfortable usage of all available space.

The goblin ship held three decks. The upper, the waist, and the hold. Cargo went into the hold, jammed in to fill every conceivable space. Crew's quarters occupied either end of the mid-decks. General sailors rode crammed into the prow, where the ride aboard was less generous. In the event of rough seas, the prow oftentimes took a beating.

Cabin space for officers and for important passengers occupied the stern.

Raisho immediately turned his attention to the stern. He kept his sword in hand as he went.

Fearfully, Juhg trailed behind the big sailor. He took heart in Raisho's reasoning. The wizard's quarters had to be located in the stern, but Juhg didn't know how the man had withstood the stench that permeated the ship.

Perhaps he used a spell, Juhg reasoned. He opened his own mouth to breathe and only felt the impact of the stink lessened in a small degree. His bare feet left tracks in the creeping sludge and slime that coated the deck. At that moment, he was grateful for the care and work that Captain Attikus put into Windchaser.

Never once, even with all the cargo the ship shifted, did Juhg remember Windchaser's decks ever feeling like the grunge he now walked through. He felt certain that his poor feet would never be clean again or be free of the putrescence of goblinkin filth. At the very least, it would take a flensing knife to whittle the flesh from his foot bones to- Raisho stopped at a locked door. Two others he had tried had opened at his touch. He produced his lockpick again and felt for the lock.

"Careful," Juhg said, striving not to let his teeth chatter. "There might not just be a lock on the door. The wizard could have an alarm warded onto the wood. Arch-mage Kulkinny in The Foul Master of Heart's Bane often left his door ensorcelled to tell him when someone tried to-"

The lock clicked open.

Raisho froze.

For a moment, Juhg thought a spell had struck his friend and rooted him to the spot. He didn't know what he was going to do. He couldn't carry his friend to safety and he couldn't leave him either.

Then Raisho shifted and pushed the door open with his free hand. He kept his cutlass crossed in front of him to parry any attack that might come.

Drawn by the innate curiosity that had lured so many dwellers to their doom, Juhg peered around his friend. Peeking into places where he hadn't been, especially if he wasn't supposed to go there, was catnip to a dweller.

Warm yellow light filled the small room. Opposite the door, a sagging bed occupied the wall beneath built-in shelves. Robes, some of them plain and unadorned, shared space on the right with other, more wizardly, garb. A heavy leather traveling cloak showing years of hard use lay across a small chair.

A desk sat on the left side of the room. A narrow trough held a capped inkwell and a sleeve of goose quills.

There were no books in sight, but Juhg's interest peaked instantly. Whenever you find ink and quills, books are not far away. Forgetting himself for the moment in the fresh flush of discovery, he moved forward around Raisho.

The big sailor stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Hold up there, bookworm," Raisho ordered in a hoarse whisper. "Ye don't know what mayhap be waitin' on ye in that room. An' it were yer own warnin' ye were all set to forget about."

Chastised, Juhg put aside the excitement that screamed through him and stopped at the door. He stared longingly at the desk, wondering what secrets the drawers might hold. Still, a wizard's quarters couldn't be a safe place.

With cautious care, Raisho stepped across the threshold and into the room. He looked almost surprised that something didn't immediately leap on him.

"Didn't expect it to be this easy," he said.

And you may have just cursed us with that bold statement, Juhg thought. But he didn't retreat. "We probably haven't got much time."

Raisho nodded. "I'm likin' this less as we go."

"There's a desk."

"I don't see no book."

"It's probably inside the desk. The wizard wouldn't leave it out where something could happen to it."

Raisho scowled. "Like as not, he wouldn't leave it in a desk where it can be so easily pilfered neither."

"The goblins wouldn't want it. They'd have no use for it."

"They could sell it." As always when it found its own way, Raisho's mind turned to profits.

"And risk a wizard's wrath?"

"Which is what ye an' me are doin' here now, I might remind ye."

The reminder, Juhg thought, was a very unhappy one, though timely. He gazed at the desk. "Let me try the desk. I can be very careful."

Raisho hesitated.

"You can keep watch at the door," Juhg pointed out.

"An' we'd probably be the better for it," Raisho said. "At least, I can keep me mind on lookin' out for goblins an' the like."

Juhg ignored the comment. Quelling his fears, he crossed to the desk. He focused on the evil ways of the goblinkin and those who worked with them. No book should ever be kept by goblins.

He ran his fingers over the desk, searching with nimble alertness for tricks and traps. Wizards were a crafty and canny lot by nature, and the more evil they were, the more crafty and canny they were. He found nothing untoward. Quick as a wink, though, he filched the inkwell and quills from the desktop. Writing utensils were hard to come by along the mainland too.

With the inkwell and quills inside the kit he wore at his waist, Juhg tried the middle door. Although it stuck and seemed jammed into the desk somewhat crossways, the drawer pulled out.

Inside was a book.

The sight of the book took Juhg's breath away. The book was slim and tidy in appearance, standing out at once against the crusted grime that littered the drawer. A blue handkerchief provided a bed for the book. Maroon cloth bound the book. Black writing of a language Juhg couldn't read and couldn't immediately identify-which was strange because he was well versed in several languages and trained to recognize scores of others-scrawled across the front. A black lithograph of a small cottage on a hill filled the lower right cover.

He studied the book for a moment, still wary of the wizard's possible magicks. If the volume was the wizard's personal spell book-and Juhg doubted that because most wizards' books tended to be invisible to normal eyes or hidden away in pockets of otherwhereness until such time as the wizard called them forth-it was much too slim to hold much in the way of spells.

Probably a discourse or a treatise, Juhg told himself. The Librarians at the Vault who still labored to sort out all the books gathered after Lord Kharrion rose to power among the goblinkin often began their initial separations based on heft alone when those decisions couldn't be made based on language or interior illustrations.

But so many important things arrived in the pages of discourses and treatises. Scholars with a true talent for words could unveil so many large mysteries with only a few well-chosen words. Secrets to crafts and metallurgies and healing herbs had gotten lost during the Cataclysm. The Librarians worked hard to rescue those processes and applications from the books they studied.

And histories, Juhg reminded himself. Normally, histories came fat and unwieldy, no matter what the language. Paper books weighed in by the ream and books like the Vuwelchel Shark People's shell books rolled along in wheelbarrows. But every now and again, a slim book detailed a monarch's rule or a year of trade that brought so much understanding of a culture. He loved histories because the more skilled writers painted such bright and vivid pictures of lost lands and countries and peoples that might never be seen again.

"Juhg," Raisho called.

Juhg's mind snapped back to the moment. He realized he'd forgotten to breathe. He did so now, and the sounds of the ship lying at anchor-the lap of the waves against the hull and the creak of the timber and the clank of the chain-all returned in a rush.

He reached for the book.

Movement froze Juhg in place like a mouse that had spotted a hawk. Then he realized that the movement rippled along the desk's top surface.

The wood rolled and drew up airy and light like bread dough. It twisted and shifted, becoming an open-mouthed viper the same color as the dark wood of the desk, just as stained and just as scarred, but bearing the unmistakable markings of scales.

The wooden snake's mouth looked big enough to swallow Juhg's head. Fangs stood out prominently in powerful jaws that dripped green-blue venom. Cold light danced in the ink-black eyes.

The creature lunged at Juhg.

5.

Blowfly Juhg flung himself backward, hoping to escape the snake's lunge but knowing in his heart that he couldn't match the magical creature's speed. He was dead, and though he didn't accept that, he wished that his passing might be quick and painless.

Even as the snake's distended mouth and gleaming fangs seemed to fill all of Juhg's vision, he saw Raisho already in motion. The young sailor strode forward and swung his cutlass.

The keen blade caught the wooden serpent behind its wedge-shaped head and knocked its strike to one side just as Juhg tripped over his own feet in his panicked haste and fell to the floor. The serpent's fangs embedded in the ship's deck with a thunderous crunch.

"Get up!" Raisho stepped in front of Juhg. "Hurry afore it kills ye!"

The serpent lifted its head. The eyes looked cold and indifferent, but Juhg saw now that they also contained intelligence.

As he pushed himself to his feet, the snake wrenched the rest of its body free of the desk. The massive coils, at least twenty feet of them and as big around as Raisho's thigh, plopped to the wooden floor. Another snake's head formed on the desk and started stretching to free itself from its prison.

Raisho set himself and swung as the first snake struck again. The cutlass swept overhead and crashed down on the snake's head. Splinters flew like chaff and the dull thunk of a blade meeting wood filled the cabin.

The second snake wriggled and squirmed, reaching almost five feet long as it bumped its head against the ceiling.

Holding the snake's head pinned with the cutlass, Raisho swung a boot around and slammed it onto the creature's snout. He looked up at Juhg. "Go!"

"The book," Juhg protested. He looked longingly at the desk that contained the coveted prize.

"Leave it!" Raisho freed his blade and stood precariously atop the snake's head. The creature writhed and jerked, working its massive body toward the young sailor. "Now!"

Hurling himself from the room, Juhg slid across the hallway and banged into the wall on the other side of the narrow stern corridor between two rows of cabins. The vibration of the snake's struggle to get away from Raisho echoed in Juhg's feet.

The second snake struck without warning, uncoiling and launching itself from the desk.

Raisho ducked the second snake's attack and slapped his free hand against the underside of its throat as the head passed. Moving quickly, he leapt from the first snake and sped for the doorway. The snakes gathered themselves in his wake and pursued at once.

In the hallway, Raisho spun and caught hold of the door, barely pulling it closed. The two snakes slammed through the door like arrows driven from a Bramblethorn elf warder's war bow. The resounding impacts echoed in the mid-deck hallway.

"Run!" Raisho grabbed Juhg by the shoulder and shoved him forward.

Juhg ran, but his breath burned short and quick in his lungs. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the snakes slithering through the holes in the shattered door. Coils of wooden snake filled the hallway behind them.

Raisho grabbed the lantern from the wall and flung it back toward the snakes. The lantern burst against the snout of the lead snake and showered cargiff oil over both magical creatures. Luckily, the wick stayed lit, though it didn't at first ignite the oil.

Juhg caught the ladder and hauled himself up. He missed the first rung with his foot in his haste, barked his shin painfully, then curled his toes around it on the second attempt and hurled himself up. By the time he reached the upper deck and started to pull himself through the hold, the wick caught the oil aflame.

Blue and yellow fiery tongues gave chase to the wooden snakes in a slow, liquid rush. The snakes moved in a zigzag fashion, throwing their heads back and forth, then twisting their coils to follow.

"Move! Move!" Raisho grabbed onto the ladder and clambered up after Juhg. The ladder shook under the young sailor's weight.

Juhg threw himself from the hold and turned to watch his friend, afraid that the quickly moving snakes were fast enough to catch him.

With a seaman's ease, Raisho fairly ran up the ladder and flung himself from the hold. As he came clear of the opening, Juhg peered down and saw the snakes coiling around the ladder. The flames caught up with the creatures, zigzagging along the oily paths they'd left. Greedily, the fire rolled over the snakes and enveloped them. Juhg didn't know if the magic that animated the creatures would protect them from the fire and he was curious.

"C'mon!" Raisho called. "Ye've got goblins fit to skewer ye!"

Glancing up, Juhg saw the three goblinkin racing pell-mell across the deck. The creatures carried harpoons and short swords. Behind the goblinkin, the wizard held his hands out and chanted. Blue sparks flickered in the wizard's palms. Ozone crackled in the air.

Although he hadn't often been around magic, Juhg recognized evidence of the arcane art. Hair stood up on the back of his neck. He turned and fled and a harpoon rattled against the deck where he'd just been standing.

Up the stairwell as quick as he could go, Juhg spotted Raisho beside one of the two stern lanterns that marked the ship for all to see. The young sailor yanked one lantern free of its moorings.

"Wizard!" Juhg yelped, pointing and running at the same time. The efforts didn't complement each other. Before he knew it, his legs went out from under him and he sprawled across the deck.

"I know." Raisho threw the lantern amidships.

Pushing himself up again, Juhg watched the lantern arc out onto the deck as a flaming snake's head thrust up from the hold. Obviously in pain, the magical creature cracked open its maw and bellowed.