Anthology - The Search For Magic

Grantheous and Stynmar hung their heads.

“Wh-what did you do with our scroll, Archmagus?” Stynmar asked meekly. “Did you rip it up or burn it?”

Gerald shook his head. “No, no. I told you that I wanted to teach you a lesson.” He folded his arms across his chest. “I cast the spell.”

“Where? On what?” The two gasped.

“The Palanthian City well, of course,” said Archmagus Gerald. He pointed to the window. “And it seems to be having quite an interesting effect.”

That day, in the city of Palanthas, something strange and wonderful began to happen. It was as if the gods had cast down a fiery mountain of revelry, a Cataclysm of Hope, directly on the city of Palanthas.

And none could escape its effects.

Children ran through the streets, giggling and playing. Adults ran through the streets, laughing and cavorting with the children. The rich decided that they owned too much for their own good and opened their doors to the poor. Gnomes made sense. Render emptied their pouches. Innkeepers erased debts. Politicians spoke the truth. Dark Knights of Neraka played hopscotch. Everyone began dancing in the streets. Mages forgot that their beloved Art was dying and joined in the celebration. With what little power they had left, they tossed magical fireworks into the air to mark the festivities with a shower of blue and gold sparks and images of water lilies and lilacs.

And while everyone was in the streets having the time of their lives, the members of the Thieves Guild sneaked into the empty houses-but only to return items they’d stolen in the past with little notes of apology.

The two mages and their apprentice wended their way through the mob and finally, after much hugging and kissing and pounding on the back, Grantheous, Stynmar, and Fetlin reached their house. Racing inside, they bolted the door and, then and there, took a solemn vow to destroy their notes for their recipe for hope, distilled into the perfect pint.

The frenzied celebration ended at dawn. People rubbed their eyes and went to their beds. When they awoke, a day and a night later, they went back to doing what they had been doing, but each knew in his or her heart, that for a brief moment in time there had been true peace in their world. It had left them with heartburn and sore feet, but also a more kindly feeling toward their fellow men, though no one could remember a thing about what had happened.

No one except for two aging mages and their apprentice, who, after witnessing the effects of their best intentions, resolutely refused to drink anything other than plain milk from then on.

Just in case.

Be careful, Jai,” said the librarian, Annalisse Elmgrace.

Jai Windwild bent low over the worktable to see the parchment sheets better. Three were stuck together. He suspected they were held fast by the beginnings of mildew.

With great difficulty he bent to one knee so his eye was level with the table, but he held his position only for a moment. Gripping the edge of the table and gritting his teeth, he quickly levered himself up again. His shattered left kneecap had long since healed, or at least the bones had grown together again, though they had never knitted well. Sometimes, Jai felt the bones grinding against each other, the pain like lightning shooting through him. It had been his bad luck to break his kneecap in the dark years after the gods had left and taken magic with them. There had been no one to heal him, mage or cleric or sorcerer.

“Be careful, Jai,” Annalisse murmured.

He said, “Yes, madam,” but didn’t look around. The librarian cared only about her books, scrolls, and manuscripts. Fond though she might be of him, her best apprentice, her true love was for the Library of Quali-nost. This Jai knew, and he didn’t resent it.

“Ah, excellent,” she said, as he slipped one page from atop another. “These pages are among our most precious treasures.”

Jai waited, hiding a smile, for he knew what she’d say next. He’d heard those words a hundred times.

“We can’t forget who we were, Jai. It’s how we know who we are, and how we can guess who we will be.”

He said, “Yes, madam,” as he had a hundred times. Hearing her dictum over and again did not lessen his belief in the truth of it.

Head bent, Jai returned to his work, for another thing the librarian liked to say was this: “Results. I care about results, and the only result that matters to me, or should ever matter to you, is that we preserve our Library in the best order.”

They did that, the Lady and all her scribes and cat-alogers and recorders and preservationists. Their devotion was to the Library of Qualinost, heart and soul, and each had sworn the quiet vow required upon entering the service of the Lady Librarian: There will always be a Library; there will always be History’s Hoard in Qualinost.

There would always be, Jai thought, his fingers teasing the edges of the parchments, looking for a way between. Yet the collection was not growing. Few new books came to the library these days. Annalisse and her staff tended what books they had in their collection. They repaired old manuscripts, brightened faded illuminations, deepened the ink of an ancient script, tried to maintain the various rooms at the proper temperature and level of humidity to keep safe manuscripts that were penned as long ago as the Age of Dreams. In the days before the Dragon Purge that had been easier to do. Then there had been elven mages to weave spells to keep the climate of the great Library of Qualinost at perfect balance.

No matter the difficulty, this was the dearest work of Jai’s heart, this careful preservation of a race’s history in the face of war and a dragon’s oppression. Most especially because of those things. Some elves stood against the dragon’s overlord-some with their bodies armed in secret or, as Jai’s own parents, standing as small links in a slender chain of shadowy resistance. Jai served in his own way, safeguarding the records of ancient elven heritage, the history to stand forever as a light against the darkness. In these days after gods, in these dragon days when House Cleric did not send its sons and daughters to temples but to libraries, Jai did holy work.

Beneath his hand now lay the Histories of Kings, the tales of all the rulers of the Qualinesti elves since fabled Kith Kanan himself had separated their race and led the people out of Silvanesti and into the forest. The thin page felt like silk. So did the breeze slipping in through the high window. Out that window the towers of Qualinost rose golden-lovely structures round which a great span of bridgework ran. Upon the bridge used to walk proud elven warriors who kept the kingdom and its gleaming capital safe.

But those were older times. Jai had been but an infant in his mother’s arms, and the king had been Solostaran. In these days of the dragon Beryl, all the Qualinesti had for leadership was Gilthas, the misbred son of the old king’s daughter, Princess Laurana, and her half-elven husband, but he was little more than a puppet on the Dark Knights’ strings. A marshal ran the kingdom now, a human named Medan, and no one doubted it was he who pulled the strings that made the weakling king dance.

At the Marshal’s order, the Qualinesti warriors had been disbanded. The young king did not make any significant protest. Troubled with ill health, when he roused, it was to dance the nights away with pretty women and then lull himself to sleep with his own- by all accounts turgid-poetry. While Gilthas danced, Medan’s black-armored Knights patrolled the silvery span round the elven city and sat in their squat, ugly barracks drinking, gambling, and making certain no elf doubted the ruthlessness of the green dragon’s minions.