What the dragon glared down upon was an ever-changing collection of men and women ardently pursuing relaxation. Barons and generals, explorers and high-born patrons of adventure made up the club's majority, but a few erudite souls could also be found in the library's confines. These avid scholars huddled over ancient histories in hopes of gleaning some bit of trivia that would lead them to whatever long-lost relic or magical blade served as their grail. Their solemn study habits sometimes darkened the club's air of cultured quiescence. "Bookwarts" was the name Sir Hamnet Hawklin gave to such fellows, though he himself had authored many of the journals over which the eager young savants pored.
"They should be out creating their own maps," that same revered adventurer now muttered, lifting his port glass with one age-spotted but steady hand. As a cartographer and explorer, he had captured huge parts of the world on paper. The books he'd penned and maps he'd created filled two entire shelves in the library. "That's the trouble with the snot-nosed blighters," Sir Hamnet continued. "Too much time spent looking through books for short cuts when they should be plunging into the thick of it and finding their own way."
The distinguished young soldier occupying the adjoining, overstuffed armchair sounded his agreement. "Just so," said Captain Gareth Truesilver, the words balanced expertly between enthusiasm and cultured restraint. "They're no more likely to discover something new than they are to catch a weasel asleep."
"Yes," Sir Hamnet muttered. "Wretched little beggars."
The epithet was meant to rain shame upon both Book-warts and weasels alike. Sir Hamnet had despised the latter ever since his expedition to the Hill of Lost Souls. The weasel that had brought about this undying hatred was a particularly huge and mean-spirited example of its kind. According to Sir Hamnet's twenty-third journal, the beast devoured the camp's rations and the exquisitely detailed maps the nobleman had made of the hill and its environs. And in trying to skewer the monster, Hawklin's companions created enough of a racket to alert the local goblin tribe to their presence. Only Sir Hamnet survived the battle that followed. It was neither the first, nor the last time he would report how his expert swordsmanship had preserved his life.
Captain Truesilver knew this tale, being quite familiar with all his mentor's writings. His mention of the most-hated of animals had been intentional, a kind-hearted ploy to fire the nobleman's spirits. A funk had settled over Sir Hamnet in the past tenday. More and more frequently, the accounts written by younger adventurers eclipsed his works. Sometimes, as with Artus Cimber's recent collected writings on Chult, the upstart tomes even usurped his books as primary reference.
"Even if the whole pack of them ran out of the library this instant, their explorations would still depend upon your maps, Sir Hamnet," Captain Truesilver offered generously. He struck a noble pose-an easy thing with his athletic good looks-and gazed with open admiration upon the aged nobleman.
Hawklin gulped the remainder of his wine. "The real romance lies in mapping lands untrodden by civilized men," he said, cheeks flushed from both the topic and the port. "Only rabble follow maps."
"Or tourists," the soldier added. The word was a curse on his lips.
"Exploration brings glory, not cataloguing street names in Calimshan or counting the number of words the Bedine have to describe sand." The nobleman paused and held his empty glass out at his side. "Uther!"
The butler appeared at Sir Hamnet's side before his name was free of the explorer's tongue. Befitting his service in this unusual adventurers' club, Uther himself was arrest-ingly exotic. A misfired spell during the Time of Troubles had cursed him with a remarkable resemblance to a denizen of Hades-tall and brutishly muscled, with skin a sooty, corrupt shade of crimson seen only in a burning church. The magnificent set of twisted horns atop his head rivaled any trophy hung upon the library's walls.
"Yes, Sir Hamnet?" Uther said smoothly. He raised the cut crystal decanter with gnarled, black-clawed fingers. "Would you care for another glass of port?"
"No, I'm holding my glass this way to catch the drool when a doddering peer shuffles by," Sir Hamnet said coldly.
Uther bowed his horned head. "My question was needless," he noted, his fiendish face impassive. "I had forgotten how Your Lordship prefers not to waste words upon the staff." Deferentially he filled the nobleman's glass.
"Where was I?" Sir Hamnet drummed his fingers on the chair's padded arm. "Ah, yes. The Bedine. The sun makes them wild, unreliable. Not surprising, the way they wander for days on end across the Anauroch."
Sir Hamnet paused to sip his port, as if uttering the name of the great desert had parched his throat. But a pained look twisted his features before he'd even lowered the glass. With a groan of disgust, Hawklin spat out the wine. "Uther, you subhuman! What is this swill?"
All heads turned at Sir Hamnet's outburst, and a susurrus of murmured speculation slithered through the room. Uther bristled at the undesired attention, but kept his thoughts hidden behind a mask of unearthly calm. "I refilled your glass with the same Tethyrian vintage you've been drinking all afternoon, milord," the butler replied truthfully. "If you wish something else-"
"Dolt," snarled the nobleman. "I know good Tethyrian port from chamber pot lees like this." He spat a blob of crimson spittle onto the Shou carpet at his feet. "You've switched the good port with the servants' dregs, haven't you?"
Uther scowled, the tip of one fang protruding over his lower lip. "That is a grave accusation, milord. I assure you I would never do such a thing. I value my position here too highly to even consider it."
Sir Hamnet leapt from his chair and came face-to-chest with the monstrous butler. "If I say you did it, you did! How dare you challenge my word!" He grabbed for the rapier that hung at his hip during expeditions, but his fingers closed on empty air. "You're fortunate I've left my blade at my quarters, you impertinent behemoth, or I'd have flayed a layer or two of leather from you – just as a reminder."
"I'll need no reminder, Sir Hamnet," Uther said, voice as dead as the stuffed yeti in the corner. "You've impressed your point quite forcefully on me. In fact, if you look around, I think you'll find that you've made it clear to everyone that I've overstepped my position."
Sir Hamnet Hawklin surveyed the now-silent library. He was not surprised to find more than one head nodding in support of him.
With a swiftness not unlike that of the treacherous animals he so despised, the nobleman turned and triumphantly shattered his port glass in the fireplace. For an instant the fragments flashed, starlike, against the sooty backdrop of the chimney. Then the wine-wet shards rained down on the blazing logs. The fire hissed angrily with a sound like a sword tip sliding across stone.
"I'll see to it you're out of this club and begging along the Promenade by morning," Sir Hamnet announced. He met the butler's unblinking gaze and paused, silently daring Uther to reply.
A tense, unpleasant hush settled over the library, broken only by the hissing fire. It was Gareth Truesilver who finally ended the confrontation. Some little part of him pitied Uther, but mostly he feared that prolonging the menial's degradation might cast Sir Hamnet as cruel.
The captain took the nobleman by the arm and guided him back to his chair. "You've made your case against Uther so well that even the gods agree," Truesilver noted loudly. "When a fire hisses like that, it's supposed to be an echo of Lliira's laughter. Our Lady of Joy finds great mirth in a fool being exposed-and you've certainly revealed Uther as a fool. You'll find no debate about that here."