mass of black hair-popped to the surface.
She screamed for him to come back, motioning toward the abandoned ships.
For a moment, he stared at her, at the mass of black hair that floated about her like wriggling seaweed. He could see the air between them darkening, visibly, second by second. The yellow lantern light from the tavern was a mere pinprick in a dark curtain now, like a firefly seen across an evening field. Choking and coughing, slipping down into the water then fighting back to the surface, the woman waved for him to return. He turned from her, from the mass of black hair to a blacker sky. To the sea. The storm over it.
He sailed away from her and the waterfront buildings and the warm, yellow light, in a great loop that would take him around the harbor, back along the docks. Perhaps up and down through a few of the old ships.
Even in the darkness, they could not fail to see him. The lightning would light him up like a spotlight upon a stage. Those who clung to the ships they had defiled, those who clung to the land would see him. They could not fail to see him. To know that of them all, only he sailed.
Only crazy Captain Effram sailed the storm and the lost Sea of Tarsis.
And perhaps the ghost ships would follow in his wake.
Some Assembly Required
The stone floor shivered with the hum of a nearby high-speed axle that was gradually spinning faster and faster.
An accompanying crescendo of thuds sent puffs of dust rising up off the age-darkened wood floor. The thuds grew stronger and came closer together.
The resulting explosion shook the shelving until it rocked on its springs, throwing the topmost book out of the shelves.
Sorter, the gnome seated behind the desk that stood in front of the shelves, caught the book in his left hand seconds before it could smash his head and knock him senseless. He opened the volume and leafed through it, scanning the drawings and bills for materials.
“Self-winding,” he muttered to himself. “Self-propelled walker. Transport Section, East Outer Upper Right. Agricultural propulsion.”
He closed the book and looked wistfully out a side window, where he could see thick black smoke and the occasional teetering Multi-Story Fire Suppressor chasing a thoroughly soaked gnome.
“Nothing ever happens in here.” He sighed.
Beyond the smoke he could see the usual hammering, sawing, fastening, and soldering that was Mount Nevermind. Only inside the Great Repository was there quiet. Far too much of the stuff, to Sorter’s way of thinking.
He dropped the walker plans into one of the wicker baskets on the Flying Cata-Shelver, then laboriously cranked the windlass until the trigger on the basket arm caught in its latch. He dropped a few more dislodged portfolios in the labeled baskets and cocked each of the arms. Stepping well back, he gave the multi-trigger cord a single, quick tug.
The Cata-Shelver flew down the aisle, throwing books with unerring accuracy at the wrong shelves. Sorter followed the Cata-Shelver, picking up the strewn volumes and putting them in place.
At the end of the aisle he nearly bumped into a stocky older gnome, who was reading one of the thrown volumes and cautiously feeling a bump on the back of his bald head.
Sorter winced in sympathy. “I’m sorry, Blastmaster. Did it hurt?”
“Double-reciprocating action,” Blastmaster murmured as he read, oblivious to Sorter. “Who thinks of these things?” He looked up. “What was that? Oh, not much.” He rubbed his head again, blinking as his fingers touched the bump. “I think that shelver’s stronger than it used to be.”
Sorter nodded vigorously. “I added a second windlass. You should see it whip books into the Upper Stacks.” He gestured to the high shelves, where gnomes on ladders and the odd trapeze read the books they were supposed to be shelving.
Sorter added shyly, “The same principle would apply to a larger machine-”
Blastmaster was already shaking his head. “Sorter, Sorter, we have discussed this before. You may not design or build. You are a librarian-a sorter, chosen and named from birth.”
Blastmaster patted the younger gnome’s shoulder. “It is a noble role, and you fill it well. Stacker has nothing but praise for you.”
“He does?” Sorter asked, astounded. Stacker had always seemed exasperated by Sorter.
“Well, he says you work his crews hard, and that’s all to the good.” Blastmaster smiled at Sorter. “Take joy in your work, son, for you will never leave it.”
Sorter tugged glumly at the lever beside an empty stack of shelves and didn’t even smile when it slammed into the floor with a loud thunk.
“I’ll try to find some joy,” he said, sighing. “Even if it kills me.”
Before returning to his desk, he felt obligated to ask, “Blastmaster, there was an explosion a few moments ago…?”
Blastmaster beamed. “That was mine.” He pulled a scroll from one of his many pockets and unrolled it. “There is a very old legend that with the right detonating device, you can detonate water. I was testing a new device this morning.” He shrugged and laughed proudly. “What a marvelous detonator! Blew itself into more pieces than you can imagine. Completely destroyed the work of thirty years. I’ll have to start over.”
Sorter nodded and returned to his desk, muttering bitterly, “Some gnomes have all the luck.”
Sorter had been at his work long enough to accumulate a few stray volumes and stack them on a corner of the desk when a voice from the stack said, “Excuse me.”
Sorter blinked. “Excuse me?”
“That’s what I said.” The voice said reproachfully. “You have to say something different.”
“Ah.” Sorter looked this way and that, but saw nothing but the books. “Excuse me-I mean, sorry.” He opened the topmost book cautiously, peered inside. “Hello?”
“Down here.” A hand waved above the edge of his desk.
Sorter leaned forward and saw a small face with large eyes staring back at him. At first he thought the face belonged to a child, but children weren’t usually allowed to go around carrying dangerous-looking sticks like that.
“A kender,” Sorter said with certainty and some wonder. “You’re a kender.”
“I know I’m a kender, but how did you know?” the kender asked, sounding impressed.
“From reading,” Sorter said, though he hadn’t read very much about kender at all.
“That’s what I wanted to ask you about.” The kender looked up at the gnome earnestly. “Have you actually read all those books?”
Delighted, Sorter smiled down at him. “Nobody reads these books. They review parts of them and then come to revise them. What is your name?” Sorter’s right hand picked up a steam-powered quill pen that had all its feathers singed off and hovered over the Visitors Log.
“Franni,” the small visitor said, but he wasn’t paying attention. His gaze took him through the shelves, the aisles, all the myriad books. “If nobody reads them, what good are they?”
Sorter was shocked. “What good? Why, they’re history. They’re the history of the progress of gnome engineering down through the ages. Did you really think anyone could read all these books?”
“Well, I wasn’t sure,” the kender said cautiously. “Do you at least know what’s in them?”
“By category at least,” Sorter said. “Is Franni your full name?”
Sorter marveled. A short name for a short being. He was thoroughly charmed.
Franni kicked at the desk, watching with interest as his kicks drove the top book bit by bit off the corner stack. “It’s all the name I’ve ever had. What’s your name?”
