Free Lord of the Libraries by Mel Odom Page A

enter.”
    “Enter?” The thought horrified Juhg.
    “Of course,” Craugh snapped. “This is a sizeable monster, after all. The stomach is a cavern inside this thing.”
    “You never said anything about entering the corpse.”
    “I’m saying it now. Cut.”
    Having no choice, Juhg enlarged the hole.
    When he had the hole big enough, Craugh lit the lantern, then his pipe. He handed the lantern to Juhg. “Go, apprentice.”
    Staring at the large wound he’d created, Juhg asked, “This will help the Grandmagister?”
    “Didn’t I say that it would?”
    Juhg took a handkerchief from his pocket and tied it around his face, hoping that it would block some of the noxious stench. After adjusting the lantern wick to glow more brightly, he clambered down inside the dead body.
    The footing was treacherous and slippery. Gore covered him, fouling
him at once. Inside the belly of the beast, he lifted the lantern high and gazed around. Fluid several inches deep ran over his toes.
    Craugh crawled down after him.
    “These are stomach fluids,” Juhg said. “Won’t they hurt me?”
    “No. I’ve already tended to that.” Craugh puffed on his pipe and the scent of the pipeweed seemed to overcome the stomach stink. He gazed in all directions.
    Juhg waited, totally amazed. The inside of the bearded hoar-worm was larger than One-Eyed Peggie’s belowdecks. Then he remembered the creature’s body was long, and there would be a lot of room.
    Craugh drew a symbol in the air that caught fire and burned with a green flame. He blew smoke at the symbol and it floated forward.
    “Come on,” Craugh said. “That marks our way.”
    Without a word, Juhg held forth the lantern and started after the glowing symbol. He tramped through stomach fluid and then piles of ancient armor he recognized from books at the Vault of All Known Knowledge. Many of the civilizations that had constructed the armor had disappeared even before Lord Kharrion had called the goblinkin tribes together.
    Questions ran rampant through Juhg’s mind. How long had the bearded hoar-worm lived? How had it known Craugh? What had it meant when it had accused Craugh of having a darkness within him? When had it—not it, Juhg amended, Methoss—when had Methoss and its comrades offered Craugh a spot among them?
    They walked for at least fifty yards. The darkness inside the monster’s stomach was complete except for the lantern and the hole Juhg had cut into it. The hole was dimming as the sun went down. For a moment, Juhg worried that they might not be able to find the way out.
    Then the glowing symbol stopped.
    “There,” Craugh breathed in a smoky whisper. His eyes narrowed and he moved his staff in front of him.
    Staring into the darkness, Juhg crept forward. The lantern light invaded the innards of the beast, chasing the darkness back.
    A multifaceted blood-red gem the size of a horse’s head sat in the stomach amid a pile of human bones. Some of the bones spilled over the gem, arm bones and leg bones, like they were clinging to the gem.
    “Well,” Craugh said, “she’s fed lately.” He didn’t look happy.
    Drawn by the sight of the gem’s elegant beauty, Juhg knelt down, scarcely paying attention to the fluids and the skeletons and partially decomposing bodies. He brushed away an arm bone. Then he realized what Craugh had said.
    “She?” Juhg repeated. “Don’t you mean that he has fed lately?”
    “No,” Craugh said. “I mean that she has.”
    Before Juhg could ask the question that immediately came to mind, the gem dawned with an inner light of its own. Crimson bathed the immediate area, stronger than the lantern light.
    Something stirred within the depths of the gem. It whirled and flipped, like a cloud turning in on itself.
    “No, apprentice,” Craugh said. “You’re too close.”
    Juhg barely registered the words, then a woman’s face formed inside the gem. She was graced with elven beauty, her ears pointed and her nose slightly upturned. Her