“No, you have shrunk. I reached my full height before you were born.”
“Yes, and elves can’t grow beards,” she said.
“Don’t let’s talk about it.”
“Now who’s speaking like a romantic poet?”
Chapter Thirty
The Great Library of Palanthas was one of the city’s most famous buildings, one of the most well known buildings in all of Krynn. Here for uncounted centuries the Aesthetics of the Library had watched over and maintained the greatest repository of knowledge ever gathered, and for most of those centuries they had also attended the master of the library, the historian Astinus, who recorded the history of Krynn as it occurred. When the old master disappeared in the wake of the Chaos War, taking the contents of the library with him, the library’s monks continued their duties as best they could, painfully rebuilding their vast collection of books, scrolls, documents, and artifacts. Though Krynn had lost its chronicler and they mourned the absence of their undying leader, they struggled on.
The library was ever busy collecting, cataloging, and storing every piece of information that might be gathered from the world of Krynn, from artifacts of cultures and peoples vanished before the Age of Dreams, to the binding and storing of the volumes of legal proceedings generated by Palanthas’s Dark Knight overlords. Where before the Chaos War one man had recorded the history of Krynn, now a thousand Aesthetics scoured the lands and seas for history to observe and memorialize as it was happening.
Brother Gillam had long since ceased pondering the significance of the loss of Astinus. The fate of Krynn’s chronicler was ancient history, so far as Brother Gillam was concerned. Tonight, Brother Gillam’s primary duty was that of night roof guard of the Great Library. To that end a stout mace dangled from the belt of his brown Aesthetics’ robe. Brother Bertrem, the old man who was now the leader of the Order of Aesthetics, being a prudent fellow, had declared several years ago that all night roof guards be drawn from the Astronomical Sciences division of the library. Thus, they could both guard the library (a pointless task, as no one dared desecrate this sacred building by breaking into it) and also study the new stars of Krynn.
At the end of the Chaos War, when the Graygem shattered, all the old stars and constellations had disappeared and were replaced in the night sky by the myriad fragments of the Graygem. Astronomy, as a science, was reborn, and Brother Gillam was one of its foremost scholars. In his career, he had already named over a hundred stars, from the dim red New Forge in the northern sky, to the hazy cluster near the south polar star, a cluster he had named the Dwarfs Beard.
The first breath of autumn was in the air this night, and it promised to be a fine evening for viewing the stars. Brother Gillam settled himself atop a stool beside a broad wooden desk, quite near the edge of the southern wall of the housing wing of the library, the darkest corner of the roof and thus the best place to observe the sky. This wing was also the only one whose roof was flat. The roofs of the library’s other wings were all steeply pitched, but the roof of the housing wing had been constructed flat to serve as a rooftop garden on one end as well as an observatory. This meant, of course, that his guard duties only required him to patrol a small area, leaving him plenty of time for study.
In the rooms below him, most of the Aesthetics were fast asleep, but Gillam’s work was just At his left hand stood a dark lantern, smelling of hot metal, and on the desk before him was spread a star map, beside it a bottle of ink, and a quill. The mace hanging from his belt proved to be as bothersome as ever, so as he always did, he unclipped it and dropped it into one of the desk drawers. He leaned over the map, flashed the light of the dark lantern over it for a moment, lifted the quill, and turned his gaze to the sky.
The stars of Krynn wheeled slowly overhead. His breath catching in his throat, Brother Gillam spotted a dim twinkle of blue rising in the east, one he didn’t immediately recognize His hand already reaching out to flip open the dark lantern, he turned his attention away from the sky in time to see the desk, the lantern and ink bottle atop it, slide across the roof and come to a thudding halt against one of the library’s many chimneys, very near the edge of the roof. It was not this, though, that caused the Aesthetic to cry out. It was the breeze that lifted the map from the desk and sent it fluttering in the air. Brother Gillam leaped from his stool and dashed after it just in time to watch the map rise and disappear into the dark Palanthian night.
A dagger was already at his throat, while the second thief was still scrambling onto the roof. The means of their ascent, as well as the cause of the desk’s movement, became all too apparent as the second thief quickly wound up a black rope and stowed it into some deep, hidden pocket in his dark outfit, but only after dislodging the small grappling hook that had caught one of the desk’s sturdy legs and sent it hurtling across the library roof.
It was a good thing his mace was safely stowed in the desk drawer, Brother Gillam thought with a sigh of relief. Now he wouldn’t be obligated to try to use it. The thief holding the dagger was somewhat smaller than himself, but he had no doubt that he or she-perhaps a she, judging from the eyes glittering darkly over her mask-would kill him at the slightest move. Brother Gillam needn’t be tempted to resist. He only hoped he wouldn’t faint, something he was prone to do when excited.
“Take us to Bertrem,” the female thief hissed, slapping the monk for emphasis. “We’re not here to steal anything or hurt anyone, but if you give us trouble or raise the alarm…” Her voice trailed off as she waggled the dagger at the Aesthetic’s nose. He quickly nodded his silent assent, especially after the grim look her accomplice gave him.
Among the many chimneys and ventilation shafts that sprouted forestlike from this section of the roof of the Great Library, there were also several small wooden sheds. One was used for storage, partly for garden equipment but mostly for the paraphernalia of the astrological sciences division. Another served as a shelter for those whose job it was to patrol the rooftop. There were even a few pigeon coops, used to house the carrier pigeons with which the Aesthetics sometimes maintained contact with their far-traveling scholars. One, however, covered a staircase that led down to the living quarters of the Aesthetics. It was a testament to the reverence most people held for the Great Library that no lock barred this’ door. Prodded from behind by the thief’s dagger, Gillam opened it quickly and led the two thieves down the dark staircase within.
“Bertrem, wake up!” a stern, familiar voice ordered.
“Yes, master!” The elderly Aesthetic sat bolt upright in his bed, nervous sweat popping out on his brow. Instinctively, he moved to rise from the bed, but the aching in his bones and the slowness of his joints slowly brought him back to reality. His room was dark, and he could tell by the faint sound of snoring come from other rooms that the night was not far progressed.
“A dream,” he sighed, dabbing at his brow with the corner of a bedsheet. He felt along the table beside the bed for his spectacles, found them, and slipped them onto his nose. He glanced around the room as though to assure himself of his own words, peering nervously at the deeper shadows.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. His room was spartan, with few furnishings beyond those absolutely essential for his needs: a bed and night table, a desk and chair, a wardrobe, a washstand, hearth and coal shuttle, and the inevitable bookshelves. A little light shone under his door, dimly illuminating a plain square of rug.
He was about to remove his spectacles and return to his slumber when the sound of the door’s knob made his eyes pop. To his horror, the door began to swing open, pushed by a pale white hand. The elderly Aesthetic trembled, clutched his blankets almost up to his eyes, and sought for his voice in a throat strangled by fear.