Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [29]
Sturm gestured for the knights to come forward. “This is Brian Donner, Knight of the Sword,” he said. “Aran Tallbow, Knight of the Crown, and Derek Crownguard, Knight of the Rose.” The knights bowed.
“And this is Tanis Half-Elven, our leader,” Sturm said. The half-elf saw Alhana start and look at him in wonder, glancing at Sturm to see if she had heard correctly.
Sturm introduced Gilthanas and Flint, then he turned to Alhana. “Lady Alhana,” he began, then stopped, embarrassed, realizing he knew nothing more about her.
“Alhana Starbreeze,” Gilthanas finished. “Daughter of the Speaker of the Stars. Princess of the Silvanesti elves.”
The knights bowed again, lower this time.
“Accept my heartfelt gratitude for rescuing me,” Alhana said coolly. Her gaze encompassed all the group but lingered longest on Sturm. Then she turned to Derek, whom she knew from his Order of the Rose to be the leader. “Have you discovered the records the Council sent you to find?”
As she spoke, Tanis examined the knights, now unhooded, with interest. He, too, knew enough to know that the Knights Council—the ruling body of the Solamnic knights—had sent the best. In particular he studied Derek, the elder and the highest in rank. Few knights attained the Order of the Rose. The tests were dangerous and difficult, and only knights of pure bloodline could belong.
“We have found a book, my lady,” Derek said, “written in an ancient language we could not understand. There were pictures of dragons, however, so we were planning to copy it and return to Sancrist where, we hoped, scholars would be able to translate it. But instead we have found one who can read it. The kender—”
“Tasslehoff!” Flint exploded.
Tanis’s mouth gaped open. “Tasslehoff?” he repeated incredulously. “He can barely read Common. He doesn’t know any ancient languages. The only one among us who might possibly be able to translate an ancient language is Raistlin.”
Derek shrugged. “The kender has a pair of glasses he says are ‘magical glasses of true seeing.’ He put them on and he has been able to read the book. It says—”
“I can imagine what it says!” Tanis snapped. “Stories about automatons and magic rings of teleporting and plants that live off air. Where is he? I’m going to have a little talk with Tasslehoff Burrfoot.”
“Magical glasses of true seeing,” Flint grumbled. “And I’m a gully dwarf!”
The companions entered a shattered building. Climbing over rubble, they followed Derek’s lead through a low archway. The smell of must and mildew was strong. The darkness was intense after the brightness of the afternoon sun outside and for a moment, everyone was blinded. Then Derek lit a torch, and they saw narrow, winding stairs leading down into more darkness.
“The library was built below ground,” Derek explained. “Probably the only reason it survived the Cataclysm so well.”
The companions descended the stairs rapidly and soon found themselves inside a huge room. Tanis caught his breath and even Alhana’s eyes widened in the flickering torchlight. The gigantic room was filled from ceiling to floor with tall, wooden shelves, stretching as far as the eye could see. On the shelves were books. Books of all kinds. Books with leather bindings, books bound in wood, books bound in what looked like leaves from some exotic tree. Many were not bound at all but were simply sheaves of parchment, held together with black ribbons. Several shelves had toppled over, spilling the books to the floor until it was ankle-deep in parchment.
“There must be thousands!” Tanis said in awe. “How did you ever find one among these?”
Derek shook his head. “It was not easy,” he said. “Long days we have spent down here, searching. When we discovered it at last, we felt more despair than triumph, for it was obvious that the book cannot be moved. Even as we touched the pages,