Dragons of Winter Noght by Weis, Margaret

“Tasslehoff!” Flint exploded.

Tanis’s mouth gaped open. “Tasslehoff?” he repeated incredulously. “He can barely read Common. He doesn’t know any ancient languages. The only one among us who might possibly be able to translate an ancient language is Raistlin.”

Derek shrugged. “The kender has a pair of glasses he says are ‘magical glasses of true seeing’. He put them on and he has been able to read the book. It says-”

“I can imagine what it says” Tanis snapped. “Stories about automatons and magic rings of teleporting and plants that live off air. Where is he? I’m going to, have a little talk with Tasslehoff Burrfoot.”

“Magical Glasses of True Seeing” Flint grumbled. “And I’m a gully dwarf!”

The companions entered a shattered building. Clumping aver rubble, they followed Derek’s lead through a low archway. The smell of must and mildew was strong. The darkness was intense after the brightness of the afternoon sun outside and for a moment, everyone was blinded. Then Derek lit a torch, and they saw narrow winding stairs leading down into more darkness.

“The library was built below ground.” Derek explained. “Probably the only reason it survived the Cataclysm so well .”

The companions descended the stairs rapidly and soon found themselves inside a huge. room. Tanis, caught his breath and even Alhana’s eyes widened in the flickering torchlight.

The gigantic room was filled from ceiling to floor with tall, wooden shelves, stretching as far as the eye could see. On the shelves were books. Books of all kinds. Books with leather bindings, books bound in wood, books bound in what looked like leaves from some exotic tree. Many were not bound at all but were simply sheaves of parchment, held together with black ribbons. Several shelves had toppled over, spilling the books to the floor until it was ankle-deep in parchment.

“There must be thousands!” Tanis said in awe. “How did you ever find one among these?”

Derek shook his head. “It was not easy.” he said. “Long days we have spent down here, searching. When we discovered it at last, we felt more despair than triumph, for it was obvious that the book cannot be moved. Even as we touched the pages, they crumbled to dust. We feared we would spend long, weary hours copying it. But the kender-”

“Right, the kender,” Tanis said grimly. “Where is he?”

“Over here!” piped a shrill voice.

Tanis peered through the dimly lit room to see a candle burning on a table. Tasslehoff, seated an a high. wooden chair, was bent over a thick book. As the -companions neared him, they could see a pair of small glasses perched am his nose.

“All right, Tas,” Tanis said. “Where did you get them?”

“Get what?” the kender asked innocently. He saw Tanis’s eyes narrow and put his hand to the small wire-rimmed glasses. “Oh, uh, these? I had them in a pouch… and, well, if you must know, I found them in the dwarven kingdom-”

Flint, groaned and put his hand over his face.

“They were just lying on a table” Tas protested, seeing Tanis scowl. “Honest! There was no one around. I thought perhaps someone misplaced them. I any took them for safekeeping. Good thing, too. Some thief might have come along and stolen them, and they’re very valuable! I meant to return them, but after that we were so busy what with fighting dark dwarves and draconians and finding the Hammer, and I-sort of I had them. When I remembered them, we were miles away from the dwarves, on our way to Tarsis, and I didn’t think you’d want me to go back, just to return them, so-‘

“What do they do?” Tanis interrupted the kender knowing they’d be here until the day after tomorrow if he didn’t.

“They’re wonderful.” Tas said hastily, relieved that Tanis wasn’t going to yell at him. “I left them lying on a map one day.” Tas patted his mapcase. “I looked down and what do you suppose? I could read the writing on the map through the glasses! Now, that doesn’t sound very wonderful;” Tas said hurriedly, seeing Tanis start to frown again, “but this was a map written in a language I’d never been able to understand before. So I tried them on all my maps and I could read them, Tanis! Every one! Even the real, real old ones!”