Songs of the Dying Earth

“Be my guest,” said Shrue and opened the large book. He read — or rather, looked — over the war maven’s dragonscaled shoulder. The yellowish light from KirdriK’s chest was more than ample.

Derwe Coreme’s head snapped back as if she had been slapped. Shrue himself tried to focus, but the sentences and words and very letters shimmered in and out of focus and visibility as if they were written in quicksilver.

“Ah,” cried the woman warrior. “That gives me a blinding headache just trying to bring a word into focus.”

“Men have gone blind staring at these books,” whispered Shrue.

“Magicians, you mean,” said Derwe Coreme.

“Yes.”

“Can your monster read it?” she asked.

“No,” croaked KirdriK. “I am literate in more than nine hundred phonetic and glyphic alphabets and more than eleven thousand written languages, living and dead, but these symbols scatter like cockroaches when a light is turned on.”

Shrue smiled dryly and applauded in the direction of Derwe Coreme and his daihak. “Congratulations,” he said to the woman. “You’ve just elicited the first simile I’ve heard from KirdriK in more than a hundred…”

There came a sound from the darkness behind them.

Derwe Coreme whirled and her long blade glittered in KirdriK’s chest-light. The daihak balled his huge six-fingered fists and showed a wall of teeth. Shrue raised three long fingers, more in restraint of his companions than in defense.

A short — no more than four feet tall — form stepped from the shadows and a genderless voice squeaked, “Do not harm me! I am a friend.”

“Who are you?” demanded Shrue.

“What are you?” asked the Myrmazon leader.

“I am called Mauz Meriwolt,” squeaked the little form. “I was — have always been, since birth — Ulfänt Bander — oz’s servant boy.”

“Boy?” repeated Derwe Coreme and lowered her sword.

Shrue had his Expansible Egg incantation ready to surround them at the utterance of a final syllable, not to mention his Excellent Prismatic Spray spell ready to slice this newcomer to ribbons in an instant, but even the diabolist — who judged few things or people upon their appearance — sensed no threat from the tiny form. Mauz Meriwolt was pibald in hue, with arms and legs thinner and more rubbery than Shrue’s old wrists, tiny three-fingered hands, an oversized head with oversized ears placed too far back, a long proboscis with only a few whiskers protruding, and enormous black eyes.

“What are you?” repeated Derwe Coreme.

The little person seemed befuddled by the question, so Shrue answered for him. “Ulfänt Banderz had the affectation of recreating lost life forms from the dim past to fill his staff,” he said softly. “I believe that our short friend Mauz Meriwolt came from some long-forgotten line of rodents.”

“You can call me Meriwolt,” squeaked the shy little form. “The ‘Mauz’ was some sort of honorific…I think.”

“Well, then, Meriwolt,” said Shrue, his voice carrying an edge, “perhaps you can explain why you survived here when all of Ulfänt Banderz’s other servants appear to have been turned into stone like their master.” The magus gestured toward a stone figure on the floor — what might have been a humanoid attempt at the ancient life form called a feline.

“That’s Gernisavien, the Master’s neo-cat and tutor to all of us lesser servants,” said Meriwolt. “She…changed…at the instant of the Master’s death, as did all the others.”

“Then we ask again,” said Shrue. “Why not you?”

The little figure shrugged and Shrue noticed for the first time that Meriwolt had a skinny but short whip of a tail. “Perhaps I was not important enough to turn to stone,” he said, his voice squeaking with misery. “Or perhaps I was spared because — despite my unimportance — the Master seemed to feel some affection for me. Master Ulfänt Banderz was not widely known for his sentimental side, but it may be the reason I was spared when all the others died when he did. I can think of no other.”

“Perhaps,” said Shrue. “In the meantime, Meriwolt, take us to your Master.”

Derwe Coreme, Shrue, and KirdriK followed the little creature up stairways, through hidden doorways, and through more huge rooms filled from floor to ceiling with racks and shelves of books.

“Did you ever shelve these books for your master?” Shrue asked the little figure as they climbed to yet another level and entered a turrent staircase.

“Oh, yes, sire. Yes.”

“So you could read the titles?”

“Oh, no, sire,” said Meriwolt. “No one in the Library could read the titles or any part of the books. I simply knew where the book should go on the shelves or in the stacks.”

“How?” asked Derwe Coreme.

“I don’t know, sire,” squeaked Meriwolt. He gestured to a low door. “Here is the Master’s bedchamber. And within is…well…the Master.”

“Have you been inside since your master died?” asked Shrue.

“No, sire. I was…afraid.”