Free The Destruction of the Books by Mel Odom

what a book looks like?”
    Raisho scowled and watched the goblins rowing for the piers. He looked back at Juhg. “A lot like that one ye keep scribblin’ in.”
    “No. That’s just one way a book can look.” Juhg shook his head. “There’s any number of ways an author can assemble a book. Before Lord Kharrion assembled the goblinkin and set to burning libraries and destroying books, authors used all kinds of mediums to record their histories, their philosophical discourses, and their texts concerning the sciences.”
    “A book is a book,” Raisho growled defensively. “Yers wasn’t the only one what I ever seen.”
    “But that’s all you’ve seen,” Juhg argued. “You haven’t been trained to look for books as I have.”
    Grandmagister Lamplighter trained Juhg in that task. Seeing that Raisho either didn’t grasp his point or chose to ignore it, Juhg threw his verbal sails into the air and tried another tack.
    “Did you know that the Kupper elves used to live in this hospitable place?”
    Raisho didn’t answer.
    “They did,” Juhg went on. “Before Lord Kharrion, before the Cataclysm reshaped the known world, the Kupper elves lived along the shore of the Frozen Ocean.”
    “Elves live in forests,” Raisho grumbled. “Ever’one knows that.”
    “Not always,” Juhg said. He was surprised at his friend’s limited knowledge of the world. Then he reminded himself how narrow his own knowledge of the world had been until Wi—until Grandmagister Lamplighter had taken him into the Vault of All Known Knowledge and begun his true education. “The Kupper elves divided their lives between the sea and the forest. They wrote books with shells and pebbles, and their language was laid out in color and shape and texture and sound.”
    “I never heard of such a thing.”
    “The Tordalian humans,” Juhg went on, “wove their books into carpets and tapestries. “Their language spoke through thread length and thickness, through skillfully tied knots and patterns. Khroder dwarves carved obelisks with their picks that interlock so tightly no seams can be seen. Reading a Khroder dwarven book requires a knowing hand, and the meaning of the sequence of the pieces, as well as the icons carved on their surfaces, tell the message.”
    Raisho grunted in disgust.
    “So you see,” Juhg said, “you might not know the book for what it is even if you see it.”
    Growling an oath, Raisho shook his head. “Means I got no choice, then, bookworm.”
    Juhg felt a little relieved, then felt guilty almost at once. He should want to know about the book as much as Captain—
    “Ye’re gonna have to go with me,” Raisho said.

4
    The Book
    Juhg stared through the shadows at Raisho. The young sailor gestured again, pointing out the length of rusted anchor chain that ran from the goblin ship’s stern. Reluctantly, Juhg slowly stood in the cargo skiff and took hold of the rough links of the chain. He started climbing, hauling himself up the chain with relative ease.
    Under the cover of the night and with the skiff lantern out, he and Raisho had quietly rowed to the goblin ship undetected. Whatever skeleton crew, and Juhg hated the images that term automatically summoned to mind after having read some of the selections from Hralbomm’s Wing that Grandmagister Lamplighter had recommended, remained aboard appeared uncaring about the security of the ship.
    Of course, Juhg said, few people try to sneak aboard a goblin ship. He grabbed another handful of rusty chain and pulled himself up farther.
    Only a short time later, he reached the railing. His arms ached and his body quivered from exertion. He held on with his cramped fingers, his nose barely hung over the bottom rung, and peered across the deck.
    The huge ship’s wheel stood abandoned, locked in place by a wooden bar and leather tethers. The furled sails along the ’yards above rattled in the wind. Three goblins stood in the hesitant glow of the ship’s forward lanterns. A