Dwarven Nations - Hammer And Axe Part 10

Sturm gestured far the knights to come forward. "This is Brian Dormer, Knight of the Sword:' he said, "Aran Tallbow, Knight of the Crown, and Derek Crownguard, Knight of the Rose:" The knights bowed.

"And this is Tanis Half -Elven, our leader;" Sturm said. The half-elf saw Alhana start and look at him in wonder, glancing at Sturm to see if she had heard correctly.

Sturm introduced Gilthanas and Flint, then he turned to Alhana. "Lady Alhana."

he begin, then stopped, embarra.s.sed, realizing he knew nothing :note about her.

''Alhana Starbreeze," Gilthanas finished. "'Daughter of the Speaker of the Stars. Princess of the Silvanesti elves:'

The knights bowed again, lower this time.

"Accept my heartfelt grat.i.tude foe rescuing me;" Alhana said coolly Her gaze encompa.s.sed! all the group but lingered longest an Sturm. Then she turned to Derek whom she knew from his Order of the Rose to be the leaden. "Have you discovered the records the Council sent you to find?"

As she spoke, Tanis examined the knights, now unhooded, with interest. He, too, knew enough to know that the Knights Council-the ruling body of the Solamnic knights-had sent the best. In particular he studied Derek, the elder and the highest in rank. Few knights attained the Order of the Rose. The tests were dangerous and difficult, and only knights of pure bloodline could belong.

"We have found a book, my lady," Derek said, "written in an ancient language we could not understand. There were pictures of dragons, however, so we were planning to copy it and return to Sancrist where, we hoped, scholars would be able to translate it. But instead we have found one who can read it. The kender- ".

"Ta.s.slehoff!" Flint exploded.

Tanis's mouth gaped open. "Ta.s.slehoff?" he repeated incredulously. "He can barely read Common. He doesn't know any ancient languages. The only one among us who might possibly be able to translate an ancient language is Raistlin"

Derek shrugged. "The kender has a pair of gla.s.ses he says are 'magical gla.s.ses of true seeing: I-Ie put them on and he has been able to read the bank. It says- ".

I can imagine what it says" Tanis snapped. "Stories about automatons and magic rings of teleporting and plants that live off air. Where is he? I'm going to, have a little talk with Ta.s.slehoff Burrfoot:'

"Magical gla.s.ses .of trine seeing;" Flint grumbled. "And I'm a gully dwarf!"

The companions entered a shattered building. Clumping aver rubble, they followed Derek's lead through. a law archway. The smell of must and mildew was strong.

'The -darkness was intense after the brightness of the afternoon sun outside and for a moment, everyone was blinded. Them Derek lit a torch, and they saw narrow.

winding stairs leading down into more darkness.

"The library was built below ground," Derek explained. "Probably the only reason it survived the Cataclysm so well :'

The companions descended. the, stairs rapidly and soon found themselves inside a huge. room. Tanis, caught his breath and even Alhana's eyes widened in the.

flickering torchlight.

The gigantic room was filled from ceiling to floor with tall, wooden shelves, stretching as far as the eye could see. On the shelves were books. Books of all kinds. Soaks with leather bindings, books bound in wood, books bound in what looked like leaves from some exotic tree. Many were not bound at all but were simply sheaves of parchment, held together with black ribbons. Several shelves had toppled over, spilling the books to the floor until it was ankle-deep in parchment.

"There must be thousands!" Tanis said in awe. "How did you ever find one among theses'"

Derek shook his head. ''It was not easy," he said. "Long days we have spent down here, searching. When we discovered it at last, we felt more despair than triumph, far it was obvious that the book cannot be moved. Even as we touched) the pages, they crumbled to dust. We feared we would spend long, weary hours copying it. But the kender-"

"Right, the kender," Tani; said grimly. "Where is he?"

"Over here!" piped a shrill voice.

Tanis peered through the dimly lit room to see a candle burning on a table.

Ta.s.slehoff, seated an a high. wooden chair, was bent over a thick book. As the - companions neared him, they could see a pair of small gla.s.ses perched am his nose.

"All right, Tas," Tanis said. "Where did you get them?"

"Get what?" the kender asked innocently. He saw Tanis's eyes narrow and put his hand to the small wire-rimmed gla.s.ses. "Oh, uh, these? I had them in a pouch . .

. and, well, if you must know, I found them in the dwarven kingdom-"

Flint ,groaned and) put his hand ewer this face.

"They were just lying on a table)' Tas pro tested, seeing Tanis scowl. "Honest!

There was no .one .around. l thought perhaps someone misplaced them:. I any took them for safekeeping. Good thing, too. Some thief might have come along and stolen them, and they're very valuable! I meant to return them, but after that we were so busy what with fighting dark dwarves and draconians and finding the Hammer, and I-sort of I had them. When L remembered them,. we were miles away from the dwarves .an ,our way to Tarsis, and I didn't think you'd want me to go back., just to return. them, so-'

"What do they do?" Tanis interrupted the kender knowing they'd be here until the day after tomorrow if he didn't.

"They're wonderful;" Tas said hastily, relieved that Tanis wasn't going to yell at him. "I left them lying on a map one day:" Tas patted his mapcase. "I looked down and what do you suppose? I could read the writing on the map through the gla.s.ses! Now, that doesn't sound very wonderful;" Tas said hurriedly, seeing Tanis start to frown again, "but this was a map written in a language I'd never been able to understand before. So I tried them on all my maps and I could read them, Tanis! Every one! Even the real, real old ones!"

"And you never mentioned this to us?" Sturm glared at Tas.

"Well, the subject just never came up;' Tas said apologetically. "Now, if you had asked me directly-'Ta.s.slehoFf, do you have a pair of magical seeing gla.s.ses?'-I would have told you the truth straight off. But you never did, Sturm Brightblade, so don't look at me like that. Anyway, I can read this old book.

Let me tell you what I-"

"How do you know they're magic and not just some mechanical device of the dwarves?" Tanis asked, sensing that Tas was hiding something.

Tas gulped. He had been hoping Tanis wouldn't ask him that question.

"Uh;" Tas stammered, "I-I guess I did sort of, !happened to, uh, mention them to Raistlin one night when you were all busy doing something else. He told me they might be magic. To find out, he said one of those weird spells of his and they - uh - to glow. That meant they Were enchanted. He asked me what they did and I demonstrated and he said they were 'gla.s.ses of true seeing: The dwarves magic- users of old made them to read books written in other languages and-" Tas stopped.

"And?" Tanis pursued.

"And-uh-magic spellbooks:" Tas's voice mss a whisper.

"And what else did Raistlin say?"

"That if I touched his spellbooks or even looked at them sideways, he'd turn me into a cricket and s-swallow m-me whale;' Ta.s.slehoff stammered. He looked up at Tanis with wide eyes. "'I believed him; too:'

Tanis shook his head. Trust Raistlin to come up with a threat awful enough to quench the curiosity of a kender. "Anything else:' he asked.

"No, Tanis," Tas said innocently. Actually Raistlin had mentioned something else about the gla.s.ses, but Tas hadn't been able to understand it very well.

Something about the gla.s.ses seeing things too truly, which didn't make any sense, so he figured it probably wasn't worth bringing up. Besides, Tanis was mad enough already.

"Well, what have you discovered?" Tanis asked grudgingly.

"Oh, Tanis, it's so interesting!" Tas said, thankful the ordeal was over. He carefully turned a page and, even as he did so, it split and cracked beneath his small fingers. He shook his head sadly. "That happens almost every time. But, you can see here"-the others leaned around to stare beneath the kender's finger- "pictures of dragons. Blue dragons, red dragons, black dragons, green dragons. I didn't know there were so many. Now, see this thing?" He turned another page.

"Oops. Well, you can't see it now, but it was a huge ball of gla.s.s. And-so the book says-if you have one of these gla.s.s b.a.l.l.s, you can gain control aver the dragons and they'll do what you say!"

"Gla.s.s ball!" Flint sniffed, then sneezed. "Don't believe him, Tanis. I think the only thing those gla.s.ses have done is magnify his tall stories:'

"I am so telling the truth!" Tas said indignantly. 'They're called dragon orbs, and you can ask Raistlin about them! He must know because'., according to this, they wore made by the great wizards, long ago:'

"I believe you;" Tanis said gravely, seeing that Ta.s.slehoff was really upset.

"But I'm afraid it wan"t do us much good. They were probably all destroyed in the Cataclysm and we wouldn't know where to look anyway-"

"Yes, we do," Tas said excitedly. "There's a list here, of where they were kept.

See--'He stopped, c.o.c.king his head. "Shhhh:' he said, listening. The others fell silent For a moment they heard nothing, then their ears caught what the mender's quicker hearing had already detected.

Tanis felt his hands. grow cold; the dry, bitter taste of fear filled his mouth.