Verwandte Artikel zu The Rover

9780765341945: The Rover
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0765341948 ISBN 13: 9780765341945
Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

An assistant librarian at a remote, isolated center of learning finds his life turned upside down when he is kidnapped and sold into slavery in a far-off land, adopted by a thieves' guild, pursued by assassins, and forced into battle with a powerful dragon that could hold the fate of the entire world in his claw. Reprint.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Mel Odom is the award-winning author of The Rover, as well as numerous books in the Forgotten Realms, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Mack Bolan, and the Shadow Run series. A devotee of historical research, this is his first novel of historical horror. He lives in Moore, Oklahoma.

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The Rover
1
A Meeting of Dreadful Portent
Shadows, Wick thought sourly as he studied the treacherous mass of darkness at the end of the long bookcase, are foul and nasty things. They're mostly useless, only showing someone where he is when he already knows he's there. And what's the good of that?
Of course, evil things that dwelt in darkness loved shadows because they allowed them to walk in the light of day--just before they pounced on an unsuspecting victim.
Holding tightly onto the glimmerworm candle he carried, Wick paused between two huge bookcases in Hralbomm's Wing of the Great Library and let out a long, quiet breath that whistled slightly between his teeth. The books at his back felt reassuring. At least the thick volumes bound in stone and leather on the split log shelves offered protection from that direction. There was no defense against what possibly hid in the shadows in front of him.
After the slight sound of his inadvertent whistling breath had died away, silence filled the room again. At this time of morning, slightly before eleven, the Great Library was always quiet. The thick stone walls and the cavernous rooms filled with bookcases never allowed theeveryday noises of Greydawn Moors, the town farther down the foothills of the Knucklebones Mountains, to enter the library.
Gathering his failing courage, Wick lifted the glimmerworm candle high as he could. The shadows bent back as if afraid of the green-tinged candle flame. The candle was a good one, the delicate blown glass tubing fully two feet long and possessing a fluted reflector plate behind the flame. He'd refilled it only that morning with the dark green lummin juice milked from domestic glimmerworms raised on the island.
The candle had been a gift from his father, Mettarin Lamplighter, and Wick was proud of it. He'd gotten it on one of the last pleasant birthdays he had enjoyed before his father had developed a deep and lasting disappointment in him. It was his father's sighs, Wick often supposed, that were the hardest to bear. No one could sigh so disconsolately as his father could.
Steadying his trembling hand, taking a deep breath, Wick stepped forward on weak knees. "Be warned, large and putrid goblinkin," he said in a deep voice.
He was fairly certain only goblins would lie in wait so silently in the early hours--and it was still before noon!--because trolls and other things too horrible to mention wouldn't lurk about quite so early. Trolls, however, stayed on the alert for new victims to knock on the head and enslave ... except, of course, for those dwellers that were baked into pies.
"And this is the only warning you shall be given," Wick bravely continued, struggling hard to keep his voice from cracking. "After this, no quarter will be asked, and none given. You face a warrior born this morn," he wanted desperately to rephrase that last, "for I am Edgewick Lamplighter, Master Librarian at the Vault of All Known Knowledge."
He drew himself to his full three feet four inches in height and tried to look severe, much older than his seventy years which, actually, was quite young as dwellers went and more formidable than life as a librarian had made him. (Dwellers, in general, hardly ever reached four feet in height, so Wick was sometimes considered short even by their standards. Although about the same height as dwarves, dwellers were symmetrically built, not broad-shouldered and barrel-chested. Nor were they as slender as elves. Dwellers were just little people, able to live meagerly and on the leavings and--mostly--abandoned things of others.)
Wick kept his red-gold hair neat and himself presentable most of the time. As usual, he wore the white-fringed light gray robes of a Third Level Librarian in the Vault of All Known Knowledge. However, he now saw,he hadn't noticed the dark purple chulotzberry stain on his sleeve from this morning.
The shadows twisted and fell back again, as if reluctantly giving ground before the glimmerworm candle.
For a moment, enjoying the power of the flame and the way the title "Master Librarian" rolled so easily from his tongue in the agonizing silence, Wick felt as brave and fierce as Taurak Bleiyz. Taurak had been a dweller as Wick was, but Taurak had been a mighty warrior who had ventured down into the Bleak Pits of Darkhearted Vormoral to save fair Gylesse, the woman he loved above life itself. At least, until the next story. Taurak, as it turned out, was a dweller of considerable appetites and was always about, rescuing one love or another. Of course, Taurak's bravery and mighty strength had also come from carrying his magical warclub, Toad-thumper.
Claws skittered in the darkness ahead and the short hairs on Wick's neck stood up.
The little librarian forced himself to breathe. More than anything, he wished he could run from the room. But if someone saw him running, what then? Most of the other librarians, even the ones at his own low ranking, made it a point to stay away from him. A chance to ridicule him for running from shadows would be too much for many of them to resist.
Claws scratched at the stone floor again, but the shadows drew no closer.
Trolls don't have claws, Wick reminded himself, then instantly remembered, but they often let their toenails grow long and curved so they can be used as weapons. He waited, pressed tightly against the bookshelves, fearful to make any move. Drawing in a deep breath, he realized the rotten stench that usually accompanied trolls wasn't present.
I am not afraid, Wick told himself, raising the candle. The lummin juice burned steadily even with him jerking it around and shaking on top of that, proof of his father's craftsmanship. Panting, he stumbled forward on fear-numbed feet. I have slain poison-tongued Terror Toads alongside Taurak Bleiyz in Donsidance the troll queen's private chambers. I have climbed the Ogre Leper's Forgotten Maw with Carrad Muzzyl and found the Philosopher's Skull.
The shadows continued to draw back, but the claws skittered on the stone again. This time they sounded a little frantic.
I have survived attacks by the undead pirate crew of Purple Lament in the Dagger Straits, Wick went on, growing a little more confident, and dug up the treasure of Captain Kallyn One-Eye.
It didn't help that he knew all the adventures he thought of were ones he'd encountered in books. Adventures, at least in real life, were much too dangerous. He preferred the life of a librarian, even the life of a Third Level Librarian ... but still, he loved the excitement that he only borrowed from books.
As Wick neared the end of the bookcase, leaving the shadows pressed up tight against the wall there, the claws froze and the noise they made faded.
"I'm only toying with you," Wick stated, trying to make his voice steely as he continued to advance. "If you run now, I'll spare your life. I'll--"
Without warning, the little librarian tripped over his own feet. He fell face forward, breaking his fall with one hand and managing to keep the glimmerworm candle whole with the other. He fearfully thrust the candle forward toward the sound of renewed claw skittering, afraid that the creature might attack in his moment of defenselessness.
"I warned you!" Wick shrieked, lying prone with the candle before him, wrapping his other arm around his head to protect his face. "I'm not in the mood for taking prisoners today!" When no attack followed, he spread his fingers and peered cautiously between them.
The candlelight spread its warm, green-tinted glow over the foul fiend that waited on him in the shadows. The creature, scarcely as big as the dweller's fist and...

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Verlag
St Martin's Press
Erscheinungsdatum
2002
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0765341948
ISBN 13 
9780765341945
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
512
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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