Byric crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “My hospitality is offered so long as everyone keeps their bloody hands to themselves until they get my say-so.”
Tunney guffawed. “Gods, man. Twenty years since yer precious book was ripped and yer still sore? Well, wouldn’t you know it, but these here folk are all ‘bout asking after the Bazira who affronted you so terrible.” He turned to Selena. “I’d forgotten to mention yer witch lost her welcome here afore she departed Nanokar, on account of her messing up one o’ Byric’s musty old books.”
Byric snorted. “That musty old book was an illuminated manuscript from the Age of Tranquility. Aye, she ‘messed it’ when she tore out a page as if she meant to wipe her arse with it.” He turned his gaze on Selena and the others. “You want to know about Accora, eh? Who’s asking?”
“I’m Selena Koren, Paladin of the Shining face. This is Niven Mattias, a healer of the same, and Captain Julian Tergus of the Black Storm.”
The man warmed not at all to her introductions but stared at her with dark eyes shrouded in bushy brows that glinted with intelligence.
“Your library is quite unique,” Selena said. “Exceptional. Would you mind showing us some of its treasures?”
Some of the coolness in Byric’s expression melted. He narrowed his eyes at her. “Perhaps. But might I have a look at your treasure first, lady?”
Julian whipped his head around while Niven made a gurgling sound and blushed up to his ears. Selena’s own cold rebuke was on her lips while Byric glanced at each, confused.
“Your Paladin’s sword,” he said, indicating the blade on Selena’s hip. “I have never seen one with my own eyes.”
There was a moment of silence and then Captain Tunney burst out with laughter that rang in the small cavern. He slapped Byric on the shoulder.
“Oi, mate. Ye stay too long in this hole. Ye know not how to speak to guests, especially them o’ the female persuasion.” He wiped tears or mirth from his eyes and slumped into a chair against one wall of books. “I’m going to rest me nerves for the trek out o’ this tomb,” he said, still chuckling as he settled his cap over his eyes. “Wake me when yer done sharin’ yer treasures.”
Byric’s cold expression vanished altogether and he stammered, hands flapping.
“Oh, godsdamn my mouth, I meant no offense, lady. Tunney is right. I have been too long outside the company of people. Please accept my apologies.”
“No need to apologize,” Selena said, unsheathing her sword. “A simple misunderstanding.” She held the weapon by the hilt, its blade resting on her other palm, and offered it to Byric.
The big man took it reverently. He inspected its lines and edges, and tested its balance on one hand. “Such fine steel. And the sapphire…” He held the sword near the flame of a candle on the long table before them. The sapphire in the pommel caught the light and refracted a smattering of blue stars across the table. “Perfectly cut. I have heard the gem is what makes the Paladin’s sword distinct.”
“The sword is given at the beginning of our training. Plain, sturdy steel. The sapphire is added after we pass the final tests.”
Byric nodded absently, examining the blade a moment longer before returning it to Selena. “Thank you. I have not seen an Aluren Paladin since leaving Isle Parish many years ago.”
“You haven’t a Nanokari accent,” Selena remarked. “What brought you here from the big islands?”
“What drives a man to trade one of the richest islands on Lunos for this cold, snowy desert, you mean? Knowledge. Or, more accurately, the preservation of knowledge.”
The dramatic tint to his words told Selena the man did indeed love to talk, and she guessed he’d be willing to tell her anything she wished about Accora. Eventually.
“I was a Guildsman in my youth,” he continued. “Order of Archivists. I wished to spend my days in the Parish library, sorting and ordering, but my Guildmaster needed men on the sea, in acquisitions. I spent many a dreary year sailing about Lunos, searching for artifacts to preserve at the Guild.
“One winter, some forty years gone now, a great storm crashed our ship against Nanokar’s ice.” His eyes grew heavy for a moment with memories and he rocked back and forth on his heels. “Most of …well, most of the crew and fellow Guildsman were lost to the Deeps is what happened.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Selena said.
“Only three crew survived and I was taken gravely ill,” Byric said after clearing his throat. “It was some many turns of the moon before I was able to send a peliteryx to the Guild to make them aware of the lost barge and our men. There are not many birds here, as you can imagine. While I recuperated and waited for orders from the Guildmaster, the Nanokari revealed that they had their own small trove of artifacts. Come. Let us walk about and I’ll show them to you.”
Selena inspected a intricately woven grass tapestry, painted in wild garish colors, now faded.
“That is a kneeling mat from the Islands of the Painted Kings,” he told her. “Dates from the Age of Sedition, before abolition. The Kings wove these beautiful mats for kneeling before their altars to the Two-Faced God. During War of Sedition they burned them in front of slavers. The idea being that they knelt to no man. Heavily symbolic, are the traditions of the Painted Kings.” He admired the mat as if he hadn’t been in its presence for the last forty years, and then continued their tour.
“The Nanokari stowed all their treasures—some valuable and historic, most not—in a cask house. They had no idea what to do with it all, or if they should sell them or burn them. When I was well enough, they brought me to the Dragon’s Breath Canyon and showed me the door under what I call the Royal Dragon. You saw it? The broken dragon with the haughty expression?”
“We did.”
“They brought me to this cavern under the Royal, and it occurred to me that Isle Nanokar was rich in its own history and that it should preserve the treasures that washed upon its shores, so to speak.”
“So you are responsible for this great archive?” Selena said. “A noble endeavor, Guildsman Byric.”
The big man’s pleasure was evident though he hid his smile in his beard. “Yes, well, the Guild agreed that it was a worthy endeavor, if not noble. Mostly because the idea of transporting so many valuable artifacts past Uago’s pirates wasn’t a voyage they wished to undertake.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I never was much of a people person and sailing makes me ill. Turns out I have the nerve to live with the weight of the mountain over my head, too. It’s comforting, in a way.”
“Who carved those great dragons that make up the canyon?” Niven asked.
“I don’t know, young sir,” Byric said, “and neither do the Nanokari. The beasts were here before the first settlers to Nanokar arrived, hundreds of years ago.”