Searching for the Lost Library

Korm and Gho from Korm and the Lost Library (see elsewhere on this blog).

Korm and the Lost Library (Part Two)

 

     As fate would have it, a half-hour later they turned a corner down a tree-choked avenue, and there was the dome, a cyclopean skull resting on a bed of decay. The lower half of the domed building was covered in ivy, cracked steps leading up to its enormous doors, almost twenty feet high and still miraculously hanging closed on their hinges. Over the lintel, deeply scored letters defied wreck and oblivion to carry their message down the centuries.

     Instead of rushing forward, Korm was suddenly struck with a fearful awe. He staggered slowly towards the doors, his worn boots kicking stones and fallen leaves, eyes fixed on the writing, as he worked to decipher their archaic meaning. He felt like he was walking towards a tomb, the grave of a whole forgotten people, his own people perhaps, cousins lost to time. Gho followed stoically behind, claws gripping his spear warily.

Before stepping on the broad porch Korm stopped, where he could just still see the letters above.

“’Ra-Sel-Melniar’,” he breathed. “’The Court of the City of the Moon’.”

He paused, darting eyes squinting, muzzle agape, searching his memory. After a moment, Gho asked, “You know place?”

Korm shook his head.

“No,” he finally managed. “By the form of the letters and style of the words, though, it must be … at least seven thousand years old.” He swallowed. “Maybe older.”

“Hwa,” Gho snorted after watching the stunned scholar a while. “You gonna knock, or we just go in? Don’ think anyone still home.”

“What? Oh. Yes. Yes.” Korm seemed to wake up. “Uh. The traveler didn’t mention anything about these doors. I don’t know if he could have opened them by himself, either. They may be the only thing holding up this wall. Let’s … let’s look around for another way in, shall we?”

Gho grinned grimly.

“You learn, Morg, you learn.”

They nudged their way around the side of the building until they came upon a doorless passage, cracked and overgrown with the screening limbs of a tall rough-barked shrub. Chopping away at the whipping branches with Gho’s hatchet, they uncovered a gnarled and hacked stump from which all the live growth had sprung.

“This must be it,” Korm said happily. “The way he got in. Praise Mog! Though it was fifty years ago, we’ve found his trail.” He set his pack down excitedly. “Keep clearing the way, I’ll get the lamp ready.”

While Gho slashed and grunted away, the Morg carefully put together the brass and crystal lamp he had carried all the way from Tronduhon, wrapped up carefully in a fleecy sheepskin. It was a marvel of craftsmanship, but delicate, and he had feared to take it out before. His fingers trembled so much he was afraid he would break it now that the moment had come.

He put the last piece together and looked up to see the Ghamen watching him curiously. Korm grinned nervously.

“Watch this,” he said. He wound the little crank on the side. He looked up again and let the crank go.

There was a snap and a spark, and the clear globe in its brass nest suddenly lit up with a weird green firefly glow. Gho hissed in surprise.

“Magic,” he snarled, raising his weapon.

“No, no,” the scholar hastened to inform him. “Purely natural philosophy, I assure you.” He laughed nervously. “If it were magic, I surely wouldn’t be able to use it.”

The Ghamen glared at it.

“Where flame? Where oil?”

“It doesn’t need any,” Korm said in satisfaction. “It was put together by craftsmen who noticed certain properties of silk and crystal. You wind it up and it goes for an hour or so, then you just wind it again. No fuel. Look, no heat.” He prodded the globe gently and there was a tiny crackle. He pulled back his hand and sucked the nail but smiled up at the frowning scout. “Still bites a bit, though.”

Gho snorted.

“Like fire better. Many more useful.”

“Well, it’s not either or,” said Korm, standing up. He raised the lamp high. “Shall we go?”

Since he had the light, Korm went first, the Ghamen close behind, spear-point held forward warily in front of the Morg’s waist.

That first room was small, barely thirty feet square, and the floor was buried a foot deep in decaying leaves and pale plants that reached tendrils to the dim sun outside. Korm shuddered as his boots pressed crackling into the springy detritus and unseen things slithered and scampered away from his footsteps.

Luckily, they were not in that room for long, but stepped down the cascading debris that dribbled through the inner door and into a large curving corridor. The interior support of that hall was made of mammoth columns that upheld the broken dome. The lamp paled again in the sunlight that came streaming down the gaping hole. Korm looked up in wonder at the birds flying in and out, landing in what looked like generations of shaggy nests along a narrow ledge that circled the room.

“Well, whicha way?” asked Gho.

Korm tried to squint across the sunbeam, then back and forth on either side where the hall faded into darkness.

“I’ve never had any luck starting out with the right,” he grumbled. “Let’s go left.”

“Man never say?”

“No.” Korm wound up the lamp to top it off. “And when I wanted to ask him for more details, I found out he had been dead for nearly twenty years. Let’s go.”

They headed down the aisle to the left. There were doorways every fifty feet or so, some empty, some with shards of nearly petrified wood and rusty hinges still hanging on. The Morgish scholar stuck his head in each one they passed and found only emptiness and desolation, shattered vessels and chipped stone furniture still somehow defying time.

Gho snuffled at each room, as if he smelled a faint hint of something unpleasant, but said nothing.

After six or seven tries they started finding more intact portals but hanging open crookedly. The rooms inside were no less bare; if they had ever held any treasures, they were long since emptied. But at last, in the deepest, most sheltered shadows, they found a door standing upright in its frame. Korm held the brass lamp high. Even after decades since being broken, the snapped hinges still gleamed steely at the core.

In the dim golden-green light Korm, muzzle agape and eyes wide, turned to Gho. Slowly, without a word, he turned back and grabbed a corner of the door. The Ghamen leaned his spear against the wall and took the other side. Together they began pulling, walking it carefully out of its recess.

The door was heavy, made of several slabs of stone jointed together, which was probably the only thing that had preserved it against the centuries.

Korm stood a moment before the dark doorway and breathed in. The air from inside seemed to exhale must and dust and cold, but most of all, like incense to his quivering snub nose, the intoxicating, the enthralling, the unmistakable smell of old books.

“Well? What you wait? Look!” Gho snapped.

Korm came to himself and shook his head. Holding the lamp higher, he stepped inside.

The place was much of a size to the others. In the middle was a polished granite table. A lectern of the same material sat ponderous and immovable at the far end. Rubbish of what have might been chairs or benches at one time lay scattered on the floor. But the main feature of this room, that made it different from all the others, was the shelf that ran the length of three sides. There, behind the lectern, on the shelf facing the entrance, half-hidden behind a carelessly drawn rolling shutter of stone, was a tilted row of rectangular objects, their dark backs gleaming with half-familiar, archaic letters.

Korm approached the shelf in reverent awe, his cracked boots scuffling the dust of ages. In the wonder and glory of the moment a corner of his fussy mind still found time to scold that old human wanderer for not protecting this treasure more securely, then blessing him for at least doing what he did. He set the lamp high on the lectern, where it shed its eerie glow over the entire chamber. Gho followed, looking curiously around the place, but more concentrated on Korm’s reactions than interested in his objectives.

The Morg reached out one black clawed finger and touched the nearest volume, then drew it back as if afraid.

“Gho,” he said huskily. “Help me clear the table. I think we are luckier than I even hoped we would be.”

The Ghamen raised his eyebrows but joined the Morg in hastily swiping the table as clean as possible with their hands. Then Korm took out a brush and swept it again. He opened his pack and removed a soft bulky parcel he had never unwrapped on the whole journey and set it by the lectern. He wound up the lamp one more time, looked at the scout helplessly, as if he feared to proceed, then reached in and took out the first book.

“Oh, yes,” he breathed thankfully. “Look, Gho. Look here.” He held it out for the Ghamen to see. “This is not just a book, but a book inside a box.” He held it up closely to his face. “Cedar, if I’m not mistaken.” He turned, stepping softly, and placed it gently on the table. “These people knew how to treat a book.”

With infinite care he scrutinized the case with eyes and lightly probing fingers, until he thought he had the trick of it. He pulled tenderly on certain points of the box. It parted smoothly with a slight sucking sound, and a faint smell of ancient wood and ink. There, like a baby in a cradle, lay the book, its plain black leather cover hatch-marked with a traditional design that Korm recognized immediately.

“The Book of Home,” he said blissfully. “Every Morg hears bits of it read four times every year. This must be the oldest version in the world! Every town, wherever there are Morgs, has a copy.”

“What need this then?” grumbled Gho, stretching out as if to touch it. “Seems far to go …”

He stopped, astonished. Korm had lashed out, reflexively, and stopped his hand in an iron clench.

“Please don’t,” the scholar said mildly, not even looking up. “These should be handled as little as possible.” He unwrapped his claws from the Ghamen’s arm, uncurling each finger as if by a conscious act of will. “I won’t be just leafing through them myself after this.” He looked up at Gho’s wondering face, where he stood rubbing his wrist. “To answer your question,” he went on in a more normal voice. “There might be variations, lost bits, ancient words that can fill out our knowledge by comparisons … even this can be a feast for scholars.”

“Morgs got odd ideas about feast,” Gho said. “Gimme good meat any day.” He looked around and shuddered. “Hurry pack, yes? Maybe I even find fresh food, shoot birds, we celebrate, yes?”

“Yes,” echoed Korm, distractedly. “Sounds good.” He followed Gho’s glance around the room and at the gaping door. He seemed to wake up. “Yes. We should get out before dark, and it must already be getting late.” He chuckled uneasily. “We don’t want to wait around and see if the old owners object to our little raid.”

Gho shrugged.

“Dead folks least dangerous,” he said.

 

Korm opened no more boxes. He undid the parcel from the pack and took out a stack of little padded bags, closed The Book of Home in its box, carefully laid it in one of the bags, shut the flap and laced it up. He took out a scrap of parchment and carefully noted the title. He did this twenty-three times in all, tutting over more damaged specimens, crowing over unknown titles, puzzling over unfamiliar script and copying the letters down in painstaking, artistic strokes. He even brushed together two bags of anonymous fragments that he could only attribute to the carelessness of the wanderer.

Gho sat in the doorway through the entire process, even lightly dozing, ears twitching now and then in his tangled mane. He must have been aware on some level of what was going on, for as Korm had finished putting the books away in the padded chest in the bottom of his pack and clicked the buckles securely, the Ghamen snorted and rose to his feet.

“Done?” he grunted. He cocked his eye at the sunlight outside. “Hour or so till dark. Donkey chew again tonight, I thinks.”

“Never mind,” said Korm. He smiled and slung the pack on. The weight on his shoulders was oddly satisfying. He felt strong enough at that moment to run all the way back to Tronduhon. “Right now, I could eat stink-hen eggs and be happy. Let’s get to camp.”

Outside the fading light was almost blinding after the dimness of the room and fading gleams of the lamp. Korm was still squinting, trying to adjust his eyes, when Gho lay a hand on his arm and said quietly, “Somethin’ wrong.”

     The Ghamen looked around the hall, his snout snuffling warily, peering into the gray shadows around them. He started to slowly stalk forward, Korm following fearfully, his scraping footsteps sounding like thundering hooves in his own ears. They had almost reached the room where they had entered when suddenly the wind changed, and then even he could smell the rank stench that had alerted the scout’s attention. At the same moment there came a low, barrel-chested growl from above.

Their eyes snapped up. From the cracked lip of the dome, an enormous feline form with emerald eyes and bunched shoulders looked down at them. It was easily ten feet high, paused to pounce, and gazing at them like a cat that has seen two mice crawling over the kitchen floor. Its tongue, broad as a board, flicked out of its mouth for a fraction of a second, flashing a set of knife-like teeth.

“Oh, shit,” Gho whispered. “Oh, shit, shit, shit. Matta-kar. Matta-kar. Big Momma Matta-kar!”

“What do we do?” Korm muttered out of the corner of his muzzle, trying not to twitch even a fraction of a muscle lest it draw more attention. The beast’s shoulders hunched even higher.

“What you think?” husked Gho, then bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Run!”

Gho jerked the scholar into the crumbling room and they had barely time to scramble over the debris and through the cracked wall before the Matta blocked the light and poured like a shadow through the door, despite its bulk. The two stumbled as they passed over the lip of the fracture and fell to the earth, rolling on their backs, and a claw, wide as a shield, darted out and missed them by inches. They lay, unable to move as it swiped and swatted, until, after a flash of a gigantic green eye at the hole, it disappeared.

Gho was suddenly on the move again. He jerked the scholar to his feet and pushed him heavily forward. Korm felt that the books were now a thousand pounds, trying to anchor him to the earth. At the same time, he had no impulse to let them go.

“Where? How?” he spluttered at last. “We looked all around! There was no …”

“There,” Gho said without pausing. “Up there.” He pointed fiercely. “Clever, clever cat. Stupid, stupid Ghamen.”

Korm gawped overhead as he stumbled on, uncomprehending. Then he saw it: the network of tumbling bridges and aqueducts, leading from the forest’s edge right to the dome.

“Up there?” he gasped.

“Smelled something. Faint. Far,” Gho panted, never slowing. “Far. Hah! Far up!”

“Can they do that?”

“She did. Damn, damn, damn.” He tugged Korm’s arm fiercely.

“Where are we going?”

“Away.”

“What’ll we do?”

     “Tell me if idea come. She get out – and she will – she find us.”

     “Fire,” Korm stuttered. “You said fire – “

     “No time. She big. Can’le not scare, need bonfire.”

     There was a distant crash as of falling stone, a yowl, and then the sound of velvet, pattering thuds growing nearer. Gho, who seemed to have a map in his head of the confusing path they had taken, suddenly pulled Korm to the left. The Morg staggered but stayed with him.

     “We’ll never outrun the beast,” he finally managed. “Shouldn’t we stand and fight? Your spear – “

     “Stick pin in cat, just get mad cat,” Gho said, eyes darting. “Only one, maybe two spot … There!”

     It was a place they had passed more than once in their search. A vast stagnant fountain, at least sixty feet across, with a towering central pyramid, narrow but thickly carved in abstract floral figures and spotted with embrasures that must have once spouted or flowed in mighty streams, sat in the middle of an empty city square.

     They made a beeline to it, hopped the rim, and pounded across the knee-deep water, sending desperate sprays up behind them. Even in his panic fear, a corner of Korm’s mind was hoping that he wasn’t getting the books wet. As they struggled up the side of the fountain, claws clenching the crumbling stonework, he never once thought of dropping the heavy pack pulling him backward.

     They reached the top, a flat space about four feet across with a hole in the middle the size of a pie. Gho sat and Korm followed his example, glad to rest his burden after their breakneck flight.

     “Quiet now!” said Gho urgently in a low grunt. “An’ still!”

     They had barely settled themselves when the Matta-kar came oozing cautiously but inexorably into the square. For the first time Korm had a moment to really see their foe. He swallowed hard, his throat rippling his beard with unwanted movement. He was suddenly keenly aware of that.

     She was ten feet high, and at least twenty long, and broad across the chest. The muscles flowed like oil beneath her skin, rippling the dark stripes and spots of the tawny hide in an ever more confusing pattern as he watched. Her sniffing head was held low to the ground but with eyes level and darting, and she moved forward in a briefly hesitating motion that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with watchfulness.

     She came up to the coping where they had entered the pool, nose shrinking back disdainfully from the stagnant water.  The beast sniffed her way around the fountain, circled twice, then nonchalantly oozed back the way she had come. After three minutes or so, Korm spoke through clenched teeth.

     “Is she gone?”

     Gho’s voice, if anything, was even lower through his barely moving lips.

     “No. Waiting. She knows we here somewhere. No move.”

     “How long?”

     Gho squinted sourly.

     “Rest of life, could be. One hungry cat.”

     At that moment the Matta-kar padded back into the square, and they clammed up instantly. She strolled nonchalantly to within ten feet of the fountain and lay down on the dusty pavement. She squinted, yawned showing all her teeth and a gaping red gullet besides, then closed her eyes. She seemed to be basking sleepily in the last rosy rays of the setting sun, but her head never went down, and her big ears never stopped twitching.

     Up on their perch, Korm felt his rump growing numb. He longed to shift his legs even a little bit to get the blood moving but didn’t dare. Next to him Gho seemed to have entered a light but easy trance of watchfulness, his limbs relaxed but ready. In contrast the Morg could feel his own muscles quivering with the effort to stay still. Sweat beaded his brow, trickling down into his beard, his throat growing dry. Ever so slightly, he coughed behind his closed mouth.

     Instantly the beast’s head shot up, focusing gleaming green eyes exactly on the two where they sat.

     “Oh, damn,” said Gho. He reached behind his back and began stringing his bow.

     “I’m sorry!” Korm yelped despairingly. He watched in horror as the great beast, eyes never wavering, came forward and touched one reluctant paw to the water.

     “No matter,” said the scout. He fitted an arrow to the string. “Woulda happen, sooner later. Knew bad end sometime. Why I come.” He drew the arrow back. “Why I come wi’ stupid Morg.”

     The Matta-kar entered the water and began treading carefully through the green stagnation that burned like copper in the sunset. She seemed the embodiment of the dark realization that had suddenly come relentlessly stalking into Korm’s brain.

     “You … you came with me, expecting to die?”

     The cat was halfway across the water.

     “Oh, sure.” Gho released the arrow, and it struck one hairy flank. The Matta-kar flinched, hissing, but seemed undeterred. After a few seconds she continued her progress. “Stupid Morg, bad season, bad lands. Lucky made so far.”

     “But … but why if you knew it was so hopeless did you let ME go?” Korm spluttered, suddenly angry. “If you’re so Mog-damned tired of life, why make me a part of your suicide?” The Matta-kar put one broad paw on the base of the cone, looking up.

     “Not su’cide,” said Gho. He let another arrow fly, and managed to nick an ear, balking the beast for another few seconds. It started to climb. “Venture. No wife, no childs, no Chant go on.” He looked Korm in the face. “Maybe, maybe we win.” He took out another arrow. “Then Gho have story.”

He let the arrow go. It stuck in the flank next to the other one. This time the big cat didn’t pause as it climbed up the tower towards them, grim claws clicking on the crumbling stone.

“Hah! But who tell story now? Killed by one old lonely Matta, not even a pack left her.”

Korm’s jaw moved soundlessly as Gho nocked another arrow.

“I … I’m sorry,” he managed at last.

“Eh,” Gho said evenly as he released. The arrow went skimming off the Matta’s skull, making the beast hiss angrily and leaving a trail of red. “Ooh, she good ‘n’ mad. Tear us up quick now. That last arrow.” He spoke to the Morg scholar out of the side of his mouth, eyes never leaving the monster. It was ten feet up now, halfway to their perch.

“This don’ work – prolly won’t – no run. Only make longer.”

“If what won’t – “ Korm began, but at that moment Gho threw the bow in the beast’s face, snatched up his spear, and leapt bellowing down even as the Matta-kar sprang furiously upward with a deep coughing roar.

The clash of their meeting sent them reeling backward, turning over screaming in the air, limbs tangling and ripping, plunging with a thundering splash in the pool below that wet Korm even where he sat. He looked desperately through falling darkness and blinded eyes at the battering frenzy below that was striking claws and convulsive limbs churning black water. Suddenly, horribly, the sun’s last ray vanished, and it was darkest night.

A little more thrashing, and then the slapping water settling itself noisily against the rim of the fountain, and then all went still.

Korm peered in vain into the shadows below. Had the beast dragged the Ghamen off quietly to devour him? Could he possibly escape while she was busy – he shuddered – eating his companion? Or would she pounce the minute he was in striking range?

He sat a long while debating with himself. Finally, not knowing what to do but feeling he must do something, he opened his pack and took out the lamp. He wound it up. Its feeble light did not reach far. He felt dangerously exposed, but that, even so, he would rather see what was coming than be struck down in darkness. With trembling fingers, he fastened the lamp to his pack, then started climbing slowly down.

He knew he had reached the bottom when his boots stepped into water. Still facing the wall of the cone, Korm unhitched the light. He took a deep breath and turned. His foot struck against something bobbing in the water.

It was Gho. His lifeless eyes gleamed in the firefly light, and his snout was gritted snarling. His hands still held his splintered spear in a death grip, and the head of the spear was stuck deep into the brain of the great Matta-kar through one ruined, glittering eye.

Korm may have gone a little bit mad at that point. He couldn’t be sure afterwards, because there was no-one around to tell him so right then, and everyone he told later had different opinions. He didn’t lose any memory, and everything he did was meticulous and purposeful.

First he went and very carefully set his pack of books outside of the damp area around the fountain pool. He went back and managed to unclench Gho’s hands and pull him outside the fountain. He set him next to the pack. Then he laid down next to the dead scout, and in the dim light of the fading lamp, fell deeply, dreamlessly asleep.

His eyes snapped open the next morning, and he immediately sat up. Without a word, almost without a thought, he set to work, as if he had planned it all while he slept. He didn’t remember afterward if he had planned to do it. It just seemed the next thing to be done. And then the next thing. And the next thing.

He rolled the Ghamen’s body onto a blanket, then dragged it back to the library room. He got it up onto the stone table, his head raised up on the lectern like a pillow. He removed Gho’s pouches with all their tools and supplies. Korm would need those. He arranged the limbs as decently as he could. He stopped to gaze at the body a moment. It did not even remotely look like it was sleeping.

He returned to the fountain square. The Matta-kar still lay like a furry island in the water. Flies had started to gather.

Korm took out Gho’s flint flensing knife. It was a simple process. He had watched the scout do it dozens of times and had even helped.

When he was done, he slung on his pack of precious books, and picked up the dripping supply pouch in one hand and a new bundle in another. He had gathered up the bow and arrows as well. Using the broken spear as a walking staff, he went forward, and never returned to that spot again. Behind him the flies buzzed ever louder, then faded away.

He returned to the library room. He did what he thought was the next thing. Then he struggled and slid the stone door shut, and walked away from that, too. The last thing he saw before sealing the place shut was Gho, covered in a jagged square of raw Matta-kar hide, his name written in bloody Morgish runes on the wall behind him.

 

A few months later, the guards at the gates of Steepwater watched as a lone wanderer came limping out of the wilderness. He looked like an old peddler, bowed down by the weather-beaten pack on his back and leaning on a broken stick. His face was seamed and tanned by sun and wind and the teeth in his muzzle were red with chewing gogen wood. The long streaks in his beard were iron gray. Still, he carried himself with purpose.

He passed the guards without a word. He went down the crowded main street of the city. He didn’t seem to see the jostling crowds or streaming livestock but followed their flow into the Mercatus. The first outdoor eatery he came to, he sat at a table and slung down his pack. A curious barmaid came up to him and looked a question.

“A jug of tea, please,” Korm said.

 

And two months after that Korm stood on the stage of the largest auditorium in Tronduhon Library School, his beard trimmed, his clothes clean and new, the red sash of his Mastery cinched on his waist. In one hand he clutched a scroll, a new scroll he had been working on even during his trip from Steepwater, to read before the academy.

Behind and around him sat a crowd of dignitaries, scholars representing many different schools, Masters of many disciplines, and even a representative from the White Tower, in blue and purple robes. Grand High Master Belmok was there, almost hairless, unable to speak, and nearly a skeleton, propped up in a bed they had set on stage for him at his insistence, his one good eye still glittering like a star behind his monocle.

The Undersecretary of the school spoke. He spoke of the dangers Korm had faced, of his dedication to scholarship, of the priceless works he had rescued. He spoke of the inestimable treasure he had gained for them all, that many scholars were even now studying, and which would enrich the store of knowledge for years to come. The speaker was proud, in the name of Tronduhon Library School and Master Belmok, to award Korm the High Mastery. A roar of approval, stamping of feet, pounding applause, and even howls of delight from the younger scholars in the audience, as Korm bowed his head to receive the ribboned silver badge around his neck.

He raised his head again and looked around the thundering room. The Undersecretary motioned him to the podium to say a few words. Korm walked over to it slowly and stood silent, waiting for the noise to die down. His left hand briefly touched the badge, then fell to his side. The right hand gently placed the scroll on the podium, but never let it go. He looked around gravely until the noise had died away enough to be heard. Then he spoke.

“Masters, fellow scholars, and officers of the realm,” he said. “I want to thank you for the honor you bestow on me today. I especially thank Grand High Master Belmok, who set my feet on this path.” He cleared his throat.

“But I did not walk this path alone. I had a companion, without whom I would not be here today. I speak of Gho, the Ghamen. He got me to the City of the Moon. He died there. He saved me. I could not have made my way back here, climbed cliffs, traversed forests, even found the food to live, if it were not for the things he taught me. As much as you honor me, I honor him, and the things I learned from him.”

The audience were completely silent, gripped. This was not an academic speech.

“One thing he taught me was that the Ghamen reverence history as much as we do, in their own way. They have their Long Chants, their family histories. He told his over, every night. As long as a Ghamen’s name is spoken they -” His voice broke. He cleared his throat. “– they never truly die.”

He unrolled the scroll and bowed his head. He raised it, and his voice went echoing firmly throughout the packed chamber.

“There was Gho the Matta-kar Slayer, son of Nar Who-Leapt-the-Canyon, son of Rel …”

 

First Draft 2/8/2019 12:30 PM

Friday Fiction: Korm and the Lost Library (Part One)

 

Korm and The Lost Library

 

     Korm sat glumly on the edge of a crumbling wall and wondered, not for the first time, how he had gotten to this point.  The youngish Morg's proper stomping grounds were not the tumbling clamor of a great city, and not even (he freely admitted) among the rustic demands of farm life in the country. Korm belonged, in fact he longed, to be back in the Tronduhon Library School, and not in the crowded halls either, full of the rumble of bustle and debate, but nosing through the peaceful stacks of the Library itself, in search of an obscure bit or two of knowledge with the prospect of a good lunch in the near future. That was the hunt he should be on, not this ... this quest.

     Korm tangled his claws nervously through the thick brown bush of his beard. Since this thing had begun, he was sure the premature grey-streaks that trailed from the sides of his muzzle had grown longer.

     He mused about how it had all started just four months ago, when the ancient Master Belmok, by now a pile of brittle bones in a deflated sack of wrinkled skin, had called him to the side of his sick-bed, opened his nearly toothless muzzle, and had wheezed ...

     "Hey, stupid Morg-pah! Is time to be moving!"

     Korm looked up, shaking his head free of the memory. His Ghamen guide had returned, stepping into camp without a sound, spear in hand, mane rippling irritably around his frowning snout.

     "Path ahead clear," he grunted. "You wanta move get gone while light in sky?"

     "Uh ... yes, thank you, Gho," Korm said, blinking. "Er. Crikta thellee lee," he hazarded, trying out his somewhat rusty classical High Ghamish.

     Gho's snout wrinkled even more deeply, drawing back and showing his flat tombstone teeth. "You sound like the old woman." The malicious humor seemed obvious in his tone. "Get pack things."

     Korm bent and meekly began gathering his scattered belongings, not without a twinge of annoyance at Gho's contempt. He slung his water bottle over his shoulder, tied up the bag of mixed prunes and walnuts he had been munching on, took his drying neckerchief from off of the log next to him on the right and tied it on, rolled up the map that had been open on his left, and closed the three unwieldy leather volumes he had been consulting as he rested. The scholar's gear was almost five times that of his guide's.

     For all that Korm had paid him for his services, he often thought that the Ghamen might at least carry some of it through the Wastelands for him. But Gho would have none of it, and Gho was the only guide he had been able to hire. Korm sighed as he thought of it, and also about the puzzle why things that one unpacked never seemed to go back into the same space. Especially since technically there was now less of it to pack.

     As he wedged the last book in, he almost, but not quite, cursed his old teacher. It was not Belmok's fault he was here; he had merely offered the temptation. It was Korm who had actually taken the bait, and he knew that it was all, ultimately, his own responsibility. But how could he have refused?

     "Korm, my boy," Belmok had wheezed, his one good eye shut, breath barely raising the wispy silver beard on his chest. "Korm, you are my Tar-an-Rantha, my son and heir in the discipline and art of History, my best pupil. That you should come at the crown of my life is a blessing from the Fathers."

     "Oh, Grand High Master ... " Korm began.

     "Don't interrupt," the old Morg snapped vigorously. "I don't have time." He went on, his voice lapsing back into a quavering, portentuous tone. "As such, I am leaving you all my worldly possessions, my papers, and the picked jewels of ... " -he coughed mightily, then swallowed the phlegm - "My library. The school gets the rest, the greedy old torbens."

     "Thank you. Master. I shall treasure them forever."

     "Don't worry so much about the papers," Belmok rambled. "I'm sure there's plenty that can feed the fire. And there'll come a day, of course, when you'll pass the books on yourself, to someone worthy. Ah ..." The old Morg recovered his focus. "But there is one other thing I want to leave you, for you alone, for your benefit. Accept this, and not even Time or Death can take it away."

     Korm's low-set, cuplike ears had prickled, and he leaned forward.

     "I first heard about it not so long ago, about fifty years ... Of course, I was too old even then ... I only offered it to two other students," Belmok rambled. "They both refused ... Denn was married, and Lok had that twisted arm ... they had the talent, but not the spirit." His gnarled claw suddenly shot out, grabbing the other Morg's sleeve. "Korm, I want to give it to you."

     "What ... what is it, sir?"

     "It's a chance to earn your High Mastery," Belmok said earnestly. Korm's eyes had widened. "You know the next step in the Tower of Knowledge. You can only advance so high by nosing through books. You have to go out into the world and find something to add to the hoard, perform a task, a service to the Sons of Kelsitor."

     "And that task would be?" Korm said. He had tried to keep his voice as neutral as he could, but he could tell that the old Master knew he was hooked.

     Belmok chuckled. "That curiosity. We share it, you and me. And I, for one, don't want to go to the Halls of Waiting with this mystery on my mind." He sighed and dropped his arm. "Reach under my pillow and take the scroll there."

     Korm carefully bent down and inserted his hand and groped around.

     "It is the report of a man who got lost in the Barrens, west of the Ghamen Mountains. He stumbled through some nameless ruins, from which he was chased by a great beast of some kind that he never clearly saw. Before he left, however, he found what he described as a room with 'many books', of which he took one, for the gems embedded in its cover. The rest of the book ... " Belmok shuddered painfully. "He used page by page as kindling to start his fires. By the time he got back to civilized lands, there were only three pages left, spared to the last because of the 'pretty pictures'." The old Morg paused, as if unwilling to speak the words. Korm's hand had found the scroll. "Examination showed that it must have been a complete copy of 'The Journey Over the Waves'."

     Korm's hand shot out from under the pillow in surprise, scroll in hand, and Belmok's head fell, clonking his bare skull on the headboard. He hissed in pain and gave the alarmed, repentant Korm the evil eye for a second, before continuing.

     "It was a ripple on the lake among the upper echelons for a while, then disappeared from sight after the pages were given to Master Ket to study, so I'm not surprised you've never heard about it. Few people have. He's still preparing his report."

     "But if Master Ket is working on the problem ..."

     "I don't care about the three pages!" Belmok rumbled. "What about the 'many books'? What else might be out there? What other lost works? What can be recovered for living memory?" He laid back wheezing, passion spent. "You, Korm. You could do it. Before I die. And I haven't long."

     Then, to Korm's everlasting surprise, he had agreed.

     "Are we go?"

     Korm looked up and shook his beard, clearing the memories out of his head. He shouldered his pack, settled it once more as comfortably as he could, and followed the irritable Ghamen off into the brush. It had been two months later, after Belmok’s commission, that he met Gho.

     It was in Steepwater, the final frontier city before the verge of the Barrens. He had joined the Third Legion in Morg City, on its way to change out the garrison there. He had learned how to ride a mule, how to march a league, how to build a campfire and cook over it (quite a different experience, he found out, from their domestic versions, which he had been growing disused to anyway, under his college life), and had arrived at the grim, high-walled fortress somewhat toughened-up but no more confident than before. Korm was, however, very determined, and at the Legion Captain's advice had gone straight to the Mercatus off the city square.

     Here were shops and inns and exchanges that were more or less established for their various businesses, as well as the tents of traders that came and went like the tide. Korm took a room at the Iron Hound, and from there the word went out to all guides, hunters, and scouts that there was work to be had.

     He interviewed almost forty of them, and the answer was always the same. No-one was willing to strike out for an unknown point in the Barrens for the pitiful amount promised by the bill of mark Korm had been issued by the College. Maybe if he had had the silver right there, instead of a scrap of paper...  But there were plenty of more definite adventures to be had, hunts with shorter time frames and more mundane objectives, led by serious, tough folks with no nonsense about them. The thin, nervous scholar did not inspire confidence.

     It was at the end of a desperate week, in the walled evening dim of the Mercatus, that he had met Gho. Korm had just turned in regret from his latest vain interview (a grim Wose scout and his two human associates) when a hand had lashed out of the shadows and grabbed his cloak.

     "Hey, Morgh," a voice had clicked behind him.

     Korm had at first turned in panic to find no-one there, then glanced down in bewilderment to see a short, skin tent set up around one of the supporting poles of the market. Squatting on his hunkers in a space scarcely broader than he was, the grey-skinned, shaggy-maned Ghamen looked up at him.

     "You need a guide into the Barrens?" he had said grimly. "Gho knows the Barrens well enough. I will go before you."

     And that was that, and here they were, two months later, trudging through what the Ghamen had misleadingly called the Short Forest.

     The Short Forest spread out for miles and miles beyond what the eye could see. But there wasn't a tree, not a bush, above six feet tall. Just the height to make it impossible for any Morg (or Ghamen for that matter) to simply see which way they were going, and the trees were thin and wiry and infested with thorns that made them impossible to climb. The only paths through had been made by the tough-hided yellow buffalo, which had somehow learned to live on the thorns. It left the path navigable but somewhat odiferous. Every morning, and several times during the day, Korm had to bend down to let Gho climb on his back so the scout could look around and take their bearings. It was not a position that helped his leadership status.

      And it was not a way many people would choose to tread. When Korm had mentioned back in Steepwater where he meant to go, it had been something of a deal breaker with the other potential guides. But never a word about it passed the Ghamen's lips.

     In fact, Gho didn't seem to care much about anything. Korm had described his destination in the vaguest terms possible. Gho had accepted offhandedly and packed his gear almost before Korm had finished speaking. With dizzying speed, they had left through the East Gate, and by moonfall they were twenty miles out on the heath, camped around a fire with Korm's donkey looking on patiently. A few months later they were around another fire, eating the same donkey, which had died falling off a cliff in exhaustion.

     It had been that night that Korm had finally got a little insight into Gho's character.

     "Eat innards first," the Ghamen had grunted. "Smoke flesh. Last few days."

     "Eh," the scholarly Morg started. He looked down at the brains simmering in the skull he had been handed. "Do you suppose, perhaps ... well, that maybe we should turn back and try again later?"

     Gho looked up. He had taken a bite out of the singed heart and was chewing it vigorously. He swallowed. "Why?" he asked flatly. "Two, three weeks we be at lost place, I guess." He gestured at the donkey legs on the fire. "Got food."

     "Yes, I see," said Korm uneasily. "It's just that in the middle of nowhere, with our beast dead, and no knowing where we'll find any water ... it just seems it might be wiser to chalk up this expedition as more of a scouting trip for our next effort?"

     "Nah. Waste." Gho finished chewing and swallowed noisily. He gestured at the skull. "Eat. Is good, like cream. No waste, no regret. Far to go." He plucked a smoking chunk from the rocks near the flames. "Look. Liver! Best part. We share."

     After they had finished the somewhat gruesome meal (which Korm had to admit had been tastier than he might have imagined) they settled back, drowsy and replete. In a bit, the Ghamen had started what Korm had come to think of as his evening prayers.

     It was an interminable droning chant, that went on and on until Korm himself fell asleep. That night, feeling both nervous about the future but full in stomach for the first time in weeks, his curiosity overcame his respect for the other's privacy.

     "Gho," he asked as the scout paused for breath. "Pardon my interruption, but may I ask what you are doing? Is it some kind of prayer?"

     The Ghamen laughed.

     "No, Morg. That thing might help if the gods are before you. And the Mother? She always there, but She only gives what you can find and take from Her. No. This is the Long Chant of my family. I speak it, so it be not forgotten."

     "What does it -- ah -- what does it do?"

     "What? Morg no got Long Chant? Where you keep you soul?" Gho spat in the fire. "'Splain a lot. Every Ghamen has Long Chant. It tale of family, alla way back to Gha. We learn from just little. Tell it each night so no death."

     "You'll die if you don't?"

     Gho laughed scornfully.

     "No, stupid Morg. So they don't die, they who go before. While name is spoken under the sky, they life. And ..." He paused. He hunched his shoulders, jaw snapping shut. "And when there is none left to speak it, they are gone."

     "Ah. So it is a religious obligation," said Korm. "Can you tell me ..."

     "Shut up, stupid Morg," Gho growled. "Go to sleep. Tomorrow hard. Dammit, I start again." The Ghamen turned away, eyes shut, and began the chant all over. Korm very gingerly stowed away his gear and climbed into his bedroll. He fell asleep with the angry sound grinding in his ears like a waterfall, and now that he listened, he thought he could make out, every now and then, a name familiar from some old song or legend.

     Before that night Korm had only been concerned with his quest. Gho had been a tool, a means to help along the way to finding his goal. Now he realized that he was out in the wilderness, miles away from any other speaking creature, alone, dependent on him for his very life, and he had no idea at all what he was, what drove him, why he had agreed to go on this mad journey. Gho was like a book in a foreign language, and Korm felt suddenly that he should learn his grammar.

     It was a long, slow process. The Ghamen was not naturally talkative. Korm would start the conversation, often about what they must do, lead it into his own life, and then bring it around to the scout's. Some subjects Gho spoke about easily enough, like the Ghamen way of life. This he was inordinately proud of, holding it above Wose or Morg or Man. Other things he would bark back at. And some he would speak of thoughtlessly, flinch, and withdraw into resentful silence, and these were the most personal.

     He had had a son. It had died. He had gone quiet for three days after he revealed that. He had had a wife. After he had let that slip, he didn't speak for a week, and for a long while whenever Korm had tried to talk he cut him short with a surly glance. Korm was relieved when the Ghamen had at last spoken to reveal that he smelled rain in the wind.

     There had been a day, a very harsh day, when they had struggled through a bleak swampy grassland. Korm had slid and slopped and groaned and shivered as they passed through, and at nightfall they had stopped on the verge of the Short Forest that rose like a featureless gray wall before them. Gho looked as impassive as ever, while the scholar had sat shaking feverishly wrapped in a blanket in front of their tiny fire. Gho watched him with unblinking eyes that gleamed red in the flames. Finally, he spoke.

     "Why you do?"

     Korm flinched reflexively as if a fly had bitten him.

     "What? What did I do?"

     "No. Why. Why you do. You not hunter. You seek no fight. Dead city. So what? Treasure?" He snorted. "You say no. Books, you say. I seen book. Just paper. Plenty of paper in Steepwater. Men wipe ass on it. Why you do?"

     "Well, for that matter, why you do?" Korm retorted querulously. He drew his blanket closer. "Why did you agree to take me into this Mog-forsaken wilderness? It can't be for the pittance I'm paying you."

     "Reasons," Gho said. "Ghamen reasons. But you a skinny soft city Morg. Is the holy stupidity on you?"

     "The ... the what?"

     "Crazy man when doom upon him. He tries to die, stupid ways. Walk into Ogre camp. Swim across ocean. Hunt tiger alone. You been cursed?"

     "No!" Korm looked around wildly. "How am I supposed to explain it to someone like you?"  Gho bridled, his mane bristling upright. That made Korm pause, frightened for a second, and then his brain started to work. "How do I explain it to someone like you?" he said quietly.

     He thought a moment, then hesitantly began to work it out aloud for Gho.

     "A book... it isn't just a bundle of paper. It's like ... it's like your Long Chant, I suppose. It keeps the thoughts, the words, even in some ways the very life of those from the past alive. And it keeps it more safely, I think, then mortal memory, better ... it doesn't depend on one interested person, an heir. Anyone can learn from its wisdom, joy at the beauty of the words, live that adventure again. And it puts itself outside of our minds, so we don't have to constantly carry it like a burden. How many hours of your life do you think you've spent chanting, when you could be, well, living?"

     "Bah." Gho tapped his head. "Always in mind is alive."

     "But is there room enough for more? Do you know any other Ghamen's Long Chant? Do you know even any other history?" Korm smiled. "Have you heard the Long Chant of Ortha?"

     "I know Ghamen part of tale," he said proudly. "What else need?"

     "Context," Korm said. "What good is it to follow a trail if you don't look side to side to see where it is going, and where it has been?" He dug into his pack and pulled out a battered leather-bound book. "There is a world beyond Ghamen lands that may very well affect your life, and a world that happened before any Ghamen was ever born. If you don't know where you come from, how do you know where you're going?"

     "Ghamen make paths," Gho said simply. "It is our way." He looked curiously at the book in the Morg's claws. "Is that ... is that the chant of the world?"

     "It is," said Korm. He patted the book. "Do you want to hear the story of how all things came to be?"

     "Huh." Gho sounded skeptical. "If story before the peoples, who told it?"

     "Before the Peoples, before the world, there were the Yorns. And they told the Fathers. Do you want to hear some of what they said?" Korm cracked the book open enticingly. "There are even the words they spoke to Gha in the Beginnings."

     "What it say they say?"

     Korm opened the book all the way and began to read. He almost didn't need the book, but he kept his eye close on the pages. He didn't want to get a word wrong.

     "'Morlakor Shyreen," he read. "'Stood on the Spindle at the Core of Chaos, at the Vortex of Creation. He had arisen from the howen as it spun, and he was the spirit of that stuff, and he was the crown of it all. And he was alone ..."

     That afternoon he had read for two hours, and only stopped when it had grown dark and the flickering fire that Gho had kindled to cook their supper was too hard to read by. That had started a daily ritual, where Korm would ask if Gho wanted to hear some more while he set up camp, and the Ghamen would grunt in noncommittal assent and go about his task. But Korm could tell (he had been a teacher for a short while and knew all the marks and grades of attention) that the scout was always listening carefully, and by the time supper drew on and the food nearly cooked, Gho would have stopped seated by the fire, his gaze totally rivetted on the reading.

     He never asked questions, never thanked Korm, and very seldom commented on the tales he heard. The few times he ever said anything it would be something like "That was stupid" or "What an asshole". He always ended the evening with his Long Chant as he ever did, but Korm thought he could detect a subtle change in the ritual. Before the Ghamen had been talking to himself. But now Korm thought he was projecting the words towards him, as if to share it with him or possibly pay the scholar back for his efforts.

     At last, on a day just past the height of summer, they came out of the Short Forest where it broke off like the crest of a wave on the top of a high cliff. The land sank sloping below them down to a rough plain. Korm stood on the edge, looking down dizzily. It seemed to him as if he had thought he was walking on the ground floor of a place, opened a door, and found he was stepping out of a tall tower. Gho stood next to him, snuffling his pig-like nose, head turning side to side, his pebbly eyes scouring the horizon.

     “There,” he said pointing. “Must be.”

Korm carefully turned his head. To the left, almost on the verge a sight, a tumble of what looked like small rough hills rose above the plain.

“Are you sure?” the scholar asked timidly.

“You see anywhere other?” Gho shrugged. “We look. Maybe see, maybe not. Maybe somewhere further.” He looked over at the queasy Morg. “You ever climb?” he grinned.

“Can’t say I ever have.”

“This easy part. Down easy; cliff hurries you along.” He chuckled. “Do not worry, Morg. Looks steeper to eye. Watch Gho, watch rock under hand, and soon I have you down.”

There were ropes. There were instructions in Gho’s fractured language. There was an eternity of carefully placed feet, moved in infinitesimal paces, occasional shouting and threats by the Ghamen guide, and the constant feeling that his stomach was already hanging three feet below him. Somehow, after a millenia or two, Korm woke up and found himself with black broken nails, stubbed toes, and somehow still alive. Gho thumped him cheerfully on the back and suggested that though it was still some hours before the sun set, they go ahead and make camp. Korm looked up, saw the cliff towering tumbling above them, shuddered, and suggested they move a little way off first.

After Korm found a likely boulder and sat with his back to the cliff for an hour or so, and seemed to have his breath again, Gho cheerfully straightened up from leaning on his spear.

“Time-a go.” He headed off into the scrub.

Korm scrabbled to his feet.

“Wait,” he said, plunging after the Ghamen. “How do you know this is the way?”

“’Cause unlike smart Morg, I look out while I climb.” He snorted. “Fine look-a cliff might help on climb back up. Guide now, not much.”

“You saw the ruins?” Korm gasped as he tried to follow.

“Saw something,” said Gho. “Ruins, rocks, who knows this far? Next high spot anyway, look again there. Everything else, trees.”

They camped that night without incident, but late the next morning ran across the remains of a deer, torn apart and decimated until little more remained than head and hooves. A great stench, not all of it decay, hung about the site.

“Matta-kar,” Gho snuffed, eyes darting around at the shadows under the trees.

“What’s that?” Korm’s voice was hushed.

“Big cats,” the other said. “Big, big cats. Big teeth. Big packs.” He examined the ground. “Not here though. Just one. Scout. Maybe rogue.” He shrugged.

“What do we do?”

Gho shrugged again.

“Move on. Eyes open. Ears open. Nose open. What else? Go back?” He smiled. “Least Matta not here.” The Ghamen started to move on, his movements decidedly more careful.

“Matta?” asked Korm.

“Big Mamma,” Gho said. “Way bigger. Way meaner. It’s her pack, if there be one. Sometime twenty, maybe thirty, altogether.” He looked at Korm. “Eyes open.”

“But … but what do we do if we meet these beasts? In a pack?” The Morg stumbled after him. In his own ears, his movements seemed unconscionably loud.

“Might not.” Gho paused. “Fire. We make fire. Never know beast like fire.”

Korm thought a while.

“Can we make a fire fast enough?”

“Hope so.” The Ghamen chuckled. “If not, don’t last long enough to worry about it.”

For three days they walked on. Sometimes they crossed trails in the wood. After examination, Gho declared them Matta-kar paths, but old and overgrown. They were twisty and narrow, and none led towards the traveler’s goal, so they did not use them. The Ghamen speculated that they may have moved out of the area further north for the season, and they grew cautiously optimistic the farther they went, and Korm, at least, relaxed a little.

On the fifth day they reached their destination.

Korm knew it was the Ruined City from the lost traveler’s tale the moment they stepped from the trees. There was the fallen dome, the square tower, the broken bridge he had described. The scholar’s heart swelled with joy, and he almost ran out to it then and there.

Gho pulled him back with a hiss.

“More care, Morg,” he said quietly.

Korm looked at him in exasperation, but nevertheless lowered his voice as well.

“Why?” he rasped, almost angrily. “The place is deserted! This is the end of the quest! The sooner I find those books the sooner we can head back. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of sleeping on stones and under trees!”

“Then don’t fall now, stupid Morg.” Gho’s impatience matched Korm’s. “How know be empty? It fifty season since found. Wanderer, he find it. Knash to the north of here. Sneaky Ogres, they could find it, infest. Look like Ogree place to me. Outlaws, rebels, exiles … not too happy to see us, I think.”

Korm grew more thoughtful as Gho spoke. Still, his arm strained eagerly in the Ghamen’s grip.

“Can’t go home in a day,” the scout said reasonably. “What hour cost?”

Korm finally relaxed and nodded.

In the end, it took more than five hours, and the sun was already setting when they reached the exact spot where they had started. Gho led them in cautiously, and as the dark was gathering, they made camp in the first crumbling building that had four walls. The Ghamen still seemed a little uneasy, but Korm was bubbling over with the thought of the next day.

“Listen to this,” he said, chortling over his notes. “The traveler reported that he found the books in a large room attached to the dome, somewhat on the west side. The room had an iron-bound door. He had to break the hinges to get in, but they had almost rusted through. He set it up again when he left, so the books should still be protected.” He looked up from his papers. “Imagine. There are inscriptions all around the city, but he couldn’t read a one of them. Well, that’s Men for you. I could even find out the name of this place. What a discovery! They’ll be writing about me for years to come.”

Gho looked up, the firelight making red moons in the tiny eyes in his piggish face.

“Tell me, Morg. How long Morgs live?”

Korm was taken aback.

“Er… well, about two hundred and fifty years is what we can hope for, I guess. Some less, some longer. My master Belmok is pushing two hundred and ninety, but these last years have been none too easy on him.”

“And you?”

“One hundred and fifteen next summer, assuming I get back alive,” Korm said, and smiled.

Gho sighed.

“How? Fifty winters for Ghamen. Time enough. Find mate, have childs, do deeds. Very very old when fifty. How … how you live?”

Korm put down his notes and looked at Gho and his melancholy face and drooping mane.

“It’s nothing we do,” he said gently. “It’s just the way we are. There’s nothing you could do to live any more than your natural lifetime.”

“No understand,” Gho said. He shrugged his massive shoulders. “How endure? How … morapalee carid ghothos … how you take it?” He lifted his head and looked at Korm with pity. “So much time you spend on pointless things.”

Korm was speechless for a moment. He had always thought that the lifespan of the Morgs was the envy of other, less fortunate races. He himself was certainly jealous of the Ivra, who lived for thousands of years. This change of perspective sent his mind reeling a bit as it tried to adjust.

“Well, I … I suppose that’s part of why we invented writing, again,” he stammered. “To off-load our memory from becoming so burdensome. As for the rest … we take it moment by moment, you know. And the world’s so big and interesting … you couldn’t understand it all, even if you lived to be ten thousand.”

Gho tilted his head and squinted his eyes.

“Let world unnerstand itself. Ghamen only duty what Ghamen do in life.” His snout crinkled humorously. “Like guide stupid peoples on stupid hunt in bad lands.” Something inside him seemed to suddenly relax. “G’night.”

He sat back. In a moment he began his Long Chant. Korm lay down, thoughts whirling and rearranging in his head, and went to sleep with the sound of its droning in his ears, echoing off the abandoned walls of the crumbling building in a ruined city in the vastness of a dark wasteland.

The next morning, for the first time on the whole expedition, found Korm awake before the Ghamen scout. The excited scholar wanted to leave everything in camp and start right away, but Gho insisted they eat first and then bundle their packs up and take them along, as there was no telling what they might need. Korm barely had the patience to crunch down a handful of nuts before they were off, Gho behind him, following infuriatingly slow.

It was the beginning of things that tried the Morg’s eager temper. He had the fallen dome in his eye when they started. It looked like a giant cracked egg in the overgrown nest of the city, a hole gaping in it as if some monstrous chick had hatched and flown off, leaving ruin in its wake. It seemed impossible to miss the way to that brooding landmark.

This made it all the more frustrating. Streets blocked with fallen stones. Dead ends. Gaping chasms that seemed to have collapsed into underground excavations. Every time the searchers were balked, Korm would look up through the network of broken bridges and teetering aqueducts, and see the dome, just there, mocking him. A little after mid-day he cast himself down on the rim of a dry urn and tore savagely into his supplies.

“See,” said Gho. “Glad have stuff now.”

“Ah,” Korm snarled, and snapped off a tatter of donkey jerky with an angry bite. “How the hell are we supposed to get there?” he mumbled through his chewing.

     “Patience,” Gho said impassively. “Gone ‘round part. Bigger part still coming. Back up. Find ‘nother way in.” He pointed with his spear to the square tower. “Nothing else, climb and look high.”

     “Why not do that now?” asked Korm. “We’ve passed that thing at least three times in our back-tracking!”

     Gho shook his head.

     “Don’ like climb old builds. Slippy. Dangerous. My friend Dahker, killed like that. Good cliff? You know. People makes?” He snorted. “Last resort. Feet on groundy floors.”

     Korm rose to his feet and shook the crumbs from his tunic hastily.

     “Then for Mog’s sake let’s get looking,” he said testily. “I don’t want to spend another night in this place. It was all right yesterday, but today I’ve had the growing feeling that something is watching me. I don’t want a bunch of ghosts creeping up around my bed, even if they’re only ghosts of the mind.”

Notes

Since yesterday's 2019 Diary mentions 'The Lost Library' I thought I'd go ahead and use it for Friday Fiction. It is rather long (fifty pages), so this is Part One (twenty-six pages). I'll probably publish Part Two tomorrow.

 I only ever drew one picture of a Ghamen when we were working on Goldfire forty years ago, and they never as a species got introduced in the old writings. They are physically distinguished from the Morgs by their greyish skin and their 'snouts' as opposed to the Morgish 'muzzle'; that is to say, their nostrils are at the end of their elongated faces while the Morgs have their noses set underneath their eyes. I had great fun 'discovering' what they were like culturally this time around.

I was also glad to explore Korm (and Belmok) during another phase of their careers (and ages). Belmok certainly become much more delineated over the tales since he was mentioned in passing in Thron, the first of the new Ortha stories, where he was mentioned as the scholar who had recommended Korm to Thron.

Gho thinks Korm speaks Ghamen 'like an old woman' because of the antique forms that he uses in his speech, a classical form that is only preserved in the elder speakers among the matriarchs of the Ghamen.

We also get a fleeting glance at Steepwater, a far-flung Morgish border city, that was a destination (never reached) in the old epic.