The prospect of fighting the Maumet kept Jason patient as he watched Windbreak Island draw imperceptibly closer. He knew they needed to get there ahead of their enemies. But part of him was in no hurry. What if the creature decimated Aram, Jasher, and the rest of their squad? Jason frowned. What if it came out into the water and destroyed the people in his own launch boat as well? His frown deepened. What if the Maumet attacked the ship? Jason was not eager for answers to those questions.
All they really knew about the Maumet was that it could transform into different substances and that it had been feared by the most powerful people in Lyrian since the days of Eldrin. From the current distance Windbreak Island looked innocent, but Jason knew that it might end up as his cemetery.
Hour by hour the island came into sharper focus. Eventually shorebirds squawked above the ship, some with dark plumage and red feet, others white with gray tail feathers. By evening Jason could discern beaches, trees, and jagged hills. He could also see the enormous domes of a colossal building curving above the treetops on the eastern side of the island, near the crest of a long slope. Jasher confirmed that the gargantuan edifice was the Celestine Library. Supposedly, the location of Darian the Pyromancer awaited inside.
As the light failed, a larger Aram guided the ship in a wide circle around the island. Windbreak Island was several miles long and at least a few miles across, with steep cliffs on the northwestern side and several long sandbars to the southwest. Everyone aboard kept watch, but they found no hidden enemy ships. They anchored the Valiant off the eastern side of the island, near a pristine beach of white sand. The moon made the beach ghostly, and glowed off the five domes visible up the slope from the coast. The two largest domes overshadowed the other three. As Jason considered the library by moonlight, Farfalee came to his side.
“Quite a sight,” she said.
“Have you been there before?” Jason wondered.
“No. But I did work for years in the Great Document Hall at Elbureth. The Maumet has dwelled here since our race was young. The Abomination is very old.”
“Old enough to be getting weaker?”
“Wouldn’t that be fortunate? We will know much more tomorrow.”
“I looked for it all day,” Jason said. “I never saw anything.”
“We were all keeping watch. The creature has not shown itself. But I expect it is aware of us.”
“What kind of books are in the library?” Jason asked.
“Many have speculated,” Farfalee said. “Certainly the collection contains the majority of the oldest surviving writings in Lyrian. Many will be written in Sulcrix, a phonetic shorthand version of Edomic. Even the characters would be unrecognizable to most. Some of the texts will be in our current common tongue.”
“Can anyone read Sulcrix?”
She nodded. “I can. Drake can read a little Sulcrix. Jasher less. I am quite fluent in twelve languages, most of them scholarly, some of them dead. My most obvious role in this mission will be locating the information we seek here.”
“Looks like a big library,” Jason remarked.
“Vast,” she agreed. “Zokar wanted to seal off the information from his enemies without harming the texts, so he imprisoned the Maumet here. Presumably, he planned to move the Maumet elsewhere after his foes were vanquished.”
“But he lost, so the Maumet has guarded the place ever since.”
Farfalee turned to Jason. “You should rest. Tomorrow will be eventful.”
Jason nodded. “Guess I might as well try.”
* * *
By the time Drake jostled Jason awake, the launches had already been lowered into the water. Sunrise was perhaps an hour away. They wanted to reach the shore with light in the sky, but before the sunrise would shrink Aram.
The others were finishing a breakfast of unsweetened oatmeal. Jason accepted a bowl of lukewarm mush and began hurriedly eating.
“Quiet this morning,” Nia observed, staring at the island. “What if the Maumet doesn’t show itself?”
“I don’t want to stray far from the beach on this first foray,” Aram said, adjusting his leather cloak over his heavy shirt of overlapping rings. “If the Maumet means to lie in wait out of sight, we’ll have to devise a new strategy. We had best move out before the daylight renders me frail.”
Jason gulped down the last of his oatmeal before descending a rope ladder to one of the launches. Eight people fit comfortably in each. Farfalee, Drake, Nia, and Heg were all in his boat. Three other drinlings joined them, two of them at the oars.
Aram and Jasher were in the other launch, along with six drinlings, including Ux. Zoo was the only female going ashore.
The launches moved away from the Valiant toward the white sand beach. The swells were noticeable, rocking the launches gently, but could not have competed with ocean waves. The modest breakers seldom rose above eighteen inches as they curled against the shore. The drinling rowers maneuvered the launches with little difficulty.
The launches were roughly a hundred yards from the beach when a dark figure strode out onto the sand. In form it looked just like a lurker—a smooth humanoid shape without a face. But the similarity ended there. Although not clumsy, the figure did not move with the shadowy stealth of a torivor. It rocked slightly as it walked forward, kicking up sand with each stride. Composed of reddish-brown wood, the creature was much larger than any torivor Jason had seen.
“Is that the Maumet?” Nia asked. “It doesn’t look so tough.”
The wooden figure stopped at the center of the beach and held perfectly still, arms at its sides, facing the launches. It made no sound.
“Stay back,” Aram called from the other launch. “Watch closely.”
“It isn’t entering the water,” Drake murmured. “That’s a good sign.”
“Don’t draw conclusions yet,” Farfalee cautioned, setting an arrow to the string of her bow.
Jason’s launch wobbled on the swells, holding steady as Aram’s launch powered toward the shore. The Maumet made no move as the launch neared the beach. The craft rasped onto the sand, and the people inside piled out, weapons held high as they splashed away from the shallows. One strapping drinling remained beside the launch, ready for a quick getaway.
Aram, Jasher, Ux, Zoo, and three other drinlings fanned out and approached the Maumet in a loose arc. Jasher drew the torivorian sword he had borrowed from Corinne. The wooden figure seemed inanimate, more like a driftwood scarecrow than a fearsome enemy. The stillness was unnerving, because they had all seen it moving. Raising a fist, Aram signaled for his squad to halt.
With the squad in a loose semicircle before the Maumet, Jason could see that it stood at least ten feet high, making Aram look like the tallest of a group of children. Farfalee pulled an arrow to her cheek. Jason gripped the gunwale.
Aram had brought a pair of orantium spheres. Hefting one of them, he flung it at the stationary Maumet. His aim was good, but the wooden figure dodged the globe, and it landed on the sand without bursting. Farfalee released her arrow, which struck the wooden creature in the chest and remained there. Showing no discomfort from the arrow, the Maumet rushed Aram. Drinlings closed from either side to help their captain face the creature.
The Maumet was quick. A leg lashed out and struck Aram squarely in the chest, sending him tumbling across the sand, ring mail jangling, his sword still in hand. A drinling soldier whacked the Maumet in the hip with an ax before getting clubbed in the head by a wooden forearm. Batting away the sword of another drinling, the Maumet kicked the warrior in the side, the blow simultaneously folding him over and sending him flying.
Jasher, Ux, and Zoo had been on the far side of the semicircle from Aram, and they rushed the Maumet from behind. Ux crunched his mace against the creature’s thigh, noisily splitting the wood. Zoo dove low, attacking an ankle with a pair of hatchets. The Maumet spun and swung a vicious backhand. With a beautifully timed swing of his sword, Jasher hacked the wooden hand off at the wrist. The severed hand turne
d to dust in the air.
Shaking free from Zoo, the Maumet hobbled away. A new hand promptly formed, and the cracks and gouges on the leg closed.
“Did it lose a little size to replace the hand?” Farfalee said, peering through a spyglass. “When the hand was severed, I think that mass was lost.”
“So it adjusted,” Drake said. “Reformed the hand with material from elsewhere.”
“Will we have to destroy it one hand at a time?” Jason asked.
“I hope not,” Farfalee murmured. “It’s quick and strong.”
Another drinling charged the Maumet. The creature caught his war hammer by the haft just below the head and punched him in the face with its free hand. Instantly the Maumet turned a glossy white. The fallen drinling scrambled to his feet, wiping his sleeve against his face. Clutching the captured war hammer, the Maumet backed away so that all the combatants were in front of it, then held still.
Aram had risen, as had the drinling who’d gotten clubbed on the head. The drinling who had received the kick in the side lay motionless on the white sand.
“Did it change to sand?” Drake asked.
“I don’t think so,” Farfalee said. “Right color, wrong texture.”
“Tooth enamel,” Jason realized.
“The Maumet hit Kay in the mouth right when it transformed,” Drake said.
“Tooth enamel!” Farfalee cried, in case those on the beach had not realized.
Aram threw his other orantium sphere. The Maumet flung the war hammer. The two objects collided in midair. Though at least ten yards away, the brilliant explosion knocked down Aram and a drinling.
The Maumet charged at those still standing. The drinlings and Jasher fell back and spread out, those at the sides trying to curl around and get behind the attacker. Aram staggered back to his feet as well, racing toward the combat. An arrow from Farfalee glanced off the Maumet’s shoulder, chipping it.
The enamel figure kicked Zoo aside and used two hands to snap Kay’s neck. Mace ready, Ux came in low and bashed the Maumet in the shin, shattering the bottom of the leg. The foot and lower shin all turned to dust, leaving behind a jagged stump. The Maumet plunged the spiky stump into Ux, who gurgled and twitched.
Jasher leaped from behind, swinging the torivorian sword in a vicious two-handed stroke. The instant the blade hit the Maumet at the waist, the creature turned a gleaming metallic color. Jason had hoped to witness a crippling blow, but he realized in horror that the Maumet had become torivorian steel.
An ax-wielding drinling whacked the creature in the thigh with a resounding clang. The ax fell from his hands, the bit notched. An arrow from Farfalee pinged off the Maumet’s head. A hatchet thrown by Zoo clinked against the chest. None of the blows had scratched the reflective surface.
The lower leg and foot grew back, reducing the Maumet’s stature a small degree, and then the creature snatched the nearest drinling and tore him in half. The Maumet now moved more jerkily, metal body shrieking as if resisting the motion. But it wasn’t dramatically slower than before.
“Fall back!” Aram cried.
Four drinlings were now down. Only Jasher, Zoo, Aram, and the drinling beside the boat remained standing. While Zoo and Aram ran for the boat, Jasher dashed away from the water and retrieved the undetonated orantium globe from the sand. The Maumet pursued Aram and Zoo. The drinling by the launch heaved the craft into the water. Aram and Zoo splashed into the shallows.
The Maumet stopped at the edge of the water. Jasher hit it from behind with the orantium sphere. The explosion flashed, but the Maumet was indifferent. It turned to chase Jasher. The seedman raced across the sand, parallel to the waterline. Joints screeching, the Maumet tried to keep pace, but even with much longer legs, it could not quite pump them fast enough. Jasher pulled ahead and cut across to the water, sprinting through the shallows, then diving forward and swimming.
Aram helped the burly drinling who had stayed with the launch row over to Jasher, who climbed inside, sword in hand. The Maumet paced back and forth at the edge of the water, metal feet sinking deep into the damp white sand with each stride, joints squealing like tortured dolphins.
Jason finally relaxed a degree. Toward the end of the skirmish he had thought Jasher would die again for sure, and he’d worried about whether the Maumet would care about crushing an amar. On the white beach four drinlings lay where they had fallen.
Aram’s launch rowed close to Jason’s. Aram had a scratch on his cheek and a bleeding gash on his forehead. A huge welt disfigured the side of Zoo’s face. One eye was swelling shut.
“Opinions?” Aram asked, swiping blood from his eyes.
“We’re in trouble,” Jason said numbly.
“Was it toying with you at first?” Drake asked.
“Looked that way,” Jasher replied. “It could have turned to iron the first time we hit it with a weapon. Fight would have been over.”
“Maybe at first it wanted to stay faster and more flexible,” Farfalee guessed. “The wood was fairly resilient, and it moved more gracefully.”
“I thought I had it,” Jasher mourned. “I meant to cleave it at the waist. But the instant my blade touched it, the Maumet transformed. Quick as a blink.”
“If it does that every time, what are we supposed to do?” Jason worried aloud. Once the Maumet had turned into steel, it had won the fight so quickly!
“The creature is strong,” Aram said. “When it kicked me in the chest, it felt like a blow from a mallet. The impact was not square, and still it might have killed me without my armor and cloak.”
“Drinlings can take punishment,” Heg said. “You don’t slay us with a blow to the abdomen. But it killed Ibe with a kick.”
Jason looked at the beach. He tried not to stare at the bodies. Minutes earlier they had all been alive and well. Those hardy drinlings had stormed the beach, ready for a fight, but the Maumet had killed them so savagely, so easily. Had the others not run away, they would have died as well.
Farfalee gave Aram a white bandage. He held it against the gash in his forehead as he spoke. “We knew it would be bad. I had hopes at first, when Jasher severed the hand. I envisioned us chopping off limb after limb, shrinking the brute until nothing remained. But after Ux took its foot, the creature got serious. The torivorian blade may have surprised it the first time. But clearly, if it chooses, the Maumet can immediately become any substance we use to attack it. Now I understand why everyone keeps away from this island.”
“Look,” Zoo said.
On the beach the Maumet crouched over Ux, probing him. The shiny metallic creature turned to gold-tinged skin, then to red muscle, then to white bone, then to brown leather, then finally to the black iron of Ux’s mace. Metal screaming, the Maumet stood upright.
“Solid iron,” Nia griped. “How do you fight solid iron?”
Jason shook his head in silence. He had no answer.
“We’re fortunate that any of us survived,” Jasher said. “We lost good people. Only the safety of the water let some of us escape.”
“The library must be at least a mile from the coast,” Jason said.
“Unfortunately, the task ahead will be as difficult as we anticipated,” Farfalee said. “We should return to the Valiant and confer.”
Drake chuckled darkly. “I’m afraid the only topic will be choosing how we die.”
CHAPTER 12
WINDBREAK ISLAND
Jason stood outside the small cabin, bracing himself for the smell. The stench of vomit always made him want to puke, and losing his lunch was not likely to help Corinne feel any better. He had volunteered to deliver the news because he felt guilty about not visiting her very often. Maybe he should have found another way to show his concern. Straightening like a soldier, he knocked with two knuckles.
“Yes,” came the reply. She was trying to sound normal but not quite succeeding.
“It’s Jason. Can I come in?”
“Just a moment.” He heard her scuffling around. “All righ
t.”
Jason opened the door and found Corinne sitting on the floor against the wall. One of the cracks between the planks had left a straight mark on her cheek, so he knew she had been lying down. Her hair looked stringy, her lips chapped. A glowing length of seaweed cast green light on her pallid features. The smell was less terrible than he had expected. Her puke bucket was empty.
“Not using the bunk?” he asked.
She shook her head, a careful motion. “The floor feels best.” Her lips quivered and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Lie back down.”
Nodding faintly, she spread out on the floor and pressed a damp cloth to her forehead. She seemed to be perspiring, though it might have been moisture from the rag. He watched her breathe.
“Can I get you anything?” Jason asked.
“Water. Barrel. Corner.”
He went to the cask in the corner, lifted the lid, and dipped in a little tin cup. He set it beside her on the floor.
“Sorry,” she said. “Hard to talk.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Propping herself up on an elbow, Corinne lifted the cup and took a tiny sip. She paused, as if assessing how it made her feel, then tried a bigger sip. She started coughing, leaned over the bucket, and retched.
Stomach churning, Jason turned away. There was no escaping the smell. As it hit him, the room suddenly seemed warmer and more cramped. He clenched his teeth.
“Sorry,” Corinne apologized wretchedly.
“Don’t worry about me,” Jason replied valiantly. “I’m sorry you’re so sick.”
Corinne picked up a rag and wiped her mouth. “I can’t suppress the nausea. I can’t will it away. Everything I eat comes back up sooner or later. I feel a little better right after I throw up. It never lasts long.”
“I have good news.”
She perked up a little. “What?”