The Chaos Curse (20 page)

Cadderly stood beside the bed, staring down, not finding the strength to reach out and touch Danica.

She would be cold to his touch. He knew that. He knew she was dead.

Shayleigh couldn’t bear the suspense anymore; she could not bear to see Cadderly in such awful torment. She bent low over the bed and put her sensitive ear to

Danica’s pursed lips. A moment later, she rose, staring straight at Cadderly and slowly shaking her head. Her hand moved as well, shifting Danica’s tunic to reveal the puckered wounds on the monk’s neck, the twin punctures of a vampire’s bite.

“Oooo,” Ivan and Pikel moaned together. Vicero Belago sniffled and fought back tears.

That tangible confirmation that Danica was gone, that Rufo had taken her, sent a ball of grief spiraling through Cadderly, a spiked ball that pained the young priest in every corner of his soul, that tore at his heart and all his sensibilities. Danica dead! His love taken from him!

This Cadderly could not tolerate. By all the power of Deneir, by all the edicts of callous fate, Cadderly could not allow this to be.

He commanded the song of Deneir into his thoughts, forced its flow past the dullness of the evil veil that permeated this place. His head throbbed for the effort, but he did not relent. Not with Danica, his love, lying so pale before him.

Cadderly’s thoughts careened into the flow, pushed open closed doors and rushed to the highest levels of power. He was gone from his friends, then, not physically, for his body stood very still beside the bed, but spiritually, his soul rushing free of its mortal coil into the realm of spirits, the realm of the dead.

So it was that Cadderly did not hear Shayleigh’s shriek, and did not react as the strong hand shot out from under the bed to clasp the elf’s ankle.

Cadderly could see the events in the room, but they were distant from him, somehow disconnected. Through a thick veil of smoky gray he saw his own body standing very still, saw that Shayleigh, for some reason, had apparently gone down to the floor and was being pulled under the bed.

Cadderly sensed the danger back in the room, sensed that his elven companion was in trouble. He should go to her, he knew, go to the aid of his friends. He hesitated, though, and stayed clear of his corporeal form. Shayleigh was among powerful allies-Ivan and Pikel were moving, he could see, probably rushing to her side. Cadderly had to trust in them now, for he knew that if he left this realm, he would not soon find the strength to return, not in the desecrated library. He was looking for a spirit, and spirits were fleeting things. If he hoped to get Danica back, he had to find her quickly, before she took her place in the netherworld.

But where was she? Cadderly had gone into the spirit world on several occasions, had gone after Avery Schell when he had found the headmaster lying dead, his chest torn wide, on a table in the Dragon’s Codpiece tavern in Carradoon. Cadderly had gone into the spirit world after the souls of men he had killed, assassins who had been pulled down by shadowy things before the young priest could call out to them. He had gone into the spirit world after Vander, and had held back the malignant assassin Ghost while Vander found his way back to life through the enchantment of his regenerative ring.

The ring!

Cadderly saw it glowing clearly on Ivan’s gnarled finger, the only distinctive thing in the room. He could use it, he believed, as a gate to get Danica back to the realm of the living. If he could somehow get Ivan to put the ring on Danica’s finger, he might be able to find an easier way to usher her spirit back to her corporeal form.

But where was she? Where was his love? He called out to Danica, let the images in the room fade from his thoughts and sent his mind out in every direction. Danica’s spirit should be here; she could not have been dead for long. She should be here, or at least there should be some trail of her passing that Cadderly could follow. He would pull her from the arms of a god if need be!

There was no trail. There was no spirit. No Danica.

Cadderly weakened with the realization that she was lost to him. Suddenly there seemed no purpose in his life, no reason to even bother returning to his body. Let Deneir take him now, he thought, and be done with his torment.

He saw a flicker of clarity in the dull plane he had left behind, a movement within the room. Then he saw the vampire, as clearly as he had seen Ivan’s ring, coming out from under the bed.

Baccio ripped at a dull form-Shayleigh, Cadderly knew-and leaped up to his feet. He was undead, existing on both planes, as tangible to Cadderly in the spirit world as he obviously was to Ivan and the others in the material room. Yet the vampire took no note of Cadderly. Baccio’s thoughts were squarely on the battle at hand, on the battle against Cadderly’s friends!

Cadderly’s focus became pure anger. His spirit shifted behind Baccio, his will narrowing like a spike.

Shayleigh was out of the fight before it ever really began. She hit the floor hard beside the bed and slid under, the vampire’s strong hands slamming her shoulder as she tried to reach for her short sword.

»The silver-tipped arrows had bounced free of Shayleigh’s quiver with the impact, and that alone saved the wounded elf. Sheer luck brought her free hand atop one of those bolts and, without hesitation, Shayleigh whipped the thing around, sticking its silvery point deep into Baccio’s eye.

The vampire went into a frenzy, battering Shayleigh, bouncing the bed up and down on its supports. Pikel lay flat on the floor by then, using his club like a billiard stick, poking it straight into Baccio’s face to keep the vampire busy while Ivan yanked Shayleigh out into the clear.

Baccio came out, too, wailing and thrashing, most of his strikes landing squarely on poor Shayleigh. Pikel hit him good a couple of times, but the vampire was strong, and he accepted the blows and returned them tenfold.

Belago shrieked and cowered; Ivan rushed in with a vicious swipe, but his axe was useless against the vampire. Baccio had them on the defensive, had them dead.

The vampire lurched suddenly as if something had hit him from behind, and indeed, he had been struck, by Cadderly’s spirit. He staggered forward, his trembling arms reaching behind him for some unseen wound.

What a beautiful target that presented eager Pikel. The green-bearded dwarf spat in his hands and rubbed them for a tighter grip on his shillelagh, then spun two complete circuits, building momentum, before bringing the tree-trunk club to bear against Baccio’s face.

The broken monster flew away, crashing into the far wall. Still, Baccio reached around to his back, reached for the spike, the manifestation of Cadderly’s will, which the young priest had driven into his back.

Cadderly’s corporeal form shuddered then as the priest came back to the Material Plane. He moved deliberately, mercilessly. He reached for his hat, then changed his mind and went instead for a fold in his traveling cloak, a pocket he had sewn into the cloak during his weeks in the cave on the northern side of the Snowflakes, producing a thin, dark wand. Cadderly shook his head as he considered the instrument-over the weeks of idleness and during the excitement of the last day, he had nearly forgotten about this wand. Advancing on Baccio, the wand’s tip leading the way, the young priest said calmly, “Mas illu.”

A myriad of bright colors exploded from the wand, every color of the spectrum.

“Ouch!” Pikel wailed, blinded by the explosion, as were all of Cadderly’s friends. Cadderly, too, saw spots behind his eyelids, but he did not relent. “Mas illu,” he said again, and the wand complied, spewing forth another colorful burst of light.

To the friends, the bursts were optically painful but otherwise benign, but to the vampire, they were pure agony. Baccio tried to recoil from the explosions, tried to curl into a little ball and hide, to no avail. The shower of lights clung to him, attacked his undead form with the fury of hot sparks. To a living creature, the spark shower could only blind; to an undead monster, the shower could burn.

“Mas illu” Cadderly said a third time, and by the time the last burst ended, Baccio sat limply against the wall, staring at Cadderly with pure hatred and pure impotence. Cadderly put away the wand and pulled the holy symbol down from his head. He walked up to stand before the wounded vampire and calmly, methodically, placed the glowing symbol on Baccio’s broken face.

The vampire’s trembling hand came up and clasped Cadderly’s wrist, but the young priest didn’t waver. He held firm his symbol and intoned a prayer to Deneir as he struck repeatedly with his ram’s-headed walking stick, thoroughly destroying the monster.

Cadderly turned about to see his four friends staring at him incredulously, amazed by the sheer, unbridled fury of the display.

Pikel moaned, and the end of his club dropped limply to the floor.

Shayleigh grimaced against the pain as she regarded Cadderly. Her right shoulder was badly torn, and the wheezing in her voice told Cadderly that Baccio’s beating had probably broken a few ribs and collapsed one of her lungs. He went to her immediately, without saying a word, and sought the distant song of Deneir.

The melody’s flow was not strong this time; Cadderly could not seek the higher levels of clerical power. The day was young, but he was already tired, he realized, so he accepted the weakness and found his way instead to minor spells of healing, pressing his hands gently but firmly against Shayleigh’s ribs and then her shoulder.

Cadderly came back to full consciousness to find the elf resting more easily, the magic already knitting the wounds.

“You did not find Danica,” Shayleigh reasoned, her voice determined but trembling from her pain and weakness. It was obvious to them all that she needed rest and could not go on.

Cadderly shook his head, confirming the elf’s fears. He looked plaintively to the bed, to the serene form of his lost love. “She is not undead, though,” he offered, more to bolster himself than the others.

“She escaped,” Shayleigh agreed.

“Danica should not be in this place,” Cadderly said. He looked determinedly to each of his friends. “We must take her from here.”

“The mausoleum is clear,” Shayleigh offered.

Cadderly shook his head. “Farther,” he said. “We will take her to Carradoon. There, away from the darkness of Kierkan Rufo, I can better tend your wounds, and can put Danica to rest.”His voice broke as he finished the thought.”

“No!” Ivan said unexpectedly, drawing Cadderly’s attention.

“We’re not for leaving!” the dwarf argued. “Not now, not while the sun’s in the sky. Rufo got her, and he’ll get another if we walk away. Yerself can go if ye need to, but me and me brother are staying.”

“Oo oi!”

“We’ll pay that one back for Danica, don’t ye doubt!” Ivan finished.

Pay that one back. The sentiment bounced about Cadderly’s thoughts for a while, gaining momentum and imparting strength. Pay that one back! Indeed, Cadderly would pay Rufo back. He found his heart in the thought of revenge.

“Take Danica to the mausoleum,” he said to Belago and Shayleigh. “If the dwarves and I do not come to you by the time the sun has begun its descent, set out far from this place, to Shilmista or Carradoon, and do not return.”

Shayleigh, as angered by the loss of Danica as any of them, wanted to argue, but as she started to reply, sharp pain racked her side. Cadderly had done all he could for her wounds; she needed rest.

“I will go with Belago to the mausoleum,” she reluctantly agreed, accepting that she would only hinder her friends in her weakened state. She grabbed Cadderly’s arm as he started to move away from her and locked his gray eyes with her violet orbs, “Find Rufo and destroy him,” she said. “I’ll not leave the mausoleum unless it is to come back into the library to your side.”

Cadderly knew there was no way he would convince the valiant elf otherwise. Danica had been like a sister to Shayleigh, and the elf would never walk away from the one who had killed her sister. Understanding that sentiment, that he, too, would never walk away from this place unless Rufo was destroyed, Cadderly accepted her pledge with a knowing nod.

When the young priest looked at the battered elf, her whole body quaking as she tried to hold her balance, he understood he could not expend the energy to go off again into the spirit world after Danica, that the consequences might be too high. He looked to Shayleigh and nodded, and she backed away, seeming satisfied.

It was decided that Belago should go down first, to cushion Danica’s descent. The alchemist, seeming more determined than any of them had ever witnessed, took up the rope in both hands and hopped up onto the windowsill. He paused, though, then motioned for Ivan to come near.

“Ye got to do it,” the dwarf said, coming close. “We need ye…” Ivan stopped in midsentence, realizing Belago’s intentions, as the alchemist extended his arm.

“Take it!’ Belago offered, pushing the flask of explosive oil to Ivan. “You will need every weapon.”

As soon as the dwarf had the flask in hand, Belago, without hesitation, slipped over the sill and descended quickly to the ground. Danica’s body went next, and then Shayleigh, the injured elf needing nearly as much support as had Danica.

Cadderly watched forlornly from the window as the group slipped away toward the back of the library and the mausoleum. Belago had Danica’s form over one shoulder, and though the load was extreme for the alchemist, he still had to pace himself so that the wounded Shayleigh could keep up.

When Cadderly turned away from the window, back to the room, he found Ivan and Pikel, helms tucked under their arms, heads bowed and cheeks streaked with tears. Ivan looked up first, his sorrow transformed into rage. “I gotta fix me axe,” the dwarf said through gritted teeth.

Cadderly looked at the weapon skeptically-it seemed fine to him.

“Gotta put some silver in the damned thing!” Ivan roared.

“We haven’t the time.” Cadderly replied.

“I got a forge near the kitchen,” Ivan retorted, and Cadderly nodded, for he had often seen the setup, which doubled as a stove.

Cadderly looked out the window. The morning light was full, sending long shadows to the west. “We have just one day,” Cadderly explained. “We must finish our business before nightfall. If Rufo recognizes that we have been inside the library, as he surely will when he realizes that Baccio is destroyed, he will come after us with all his forces. I would rather face the vampire now, though only my walking stick and Pikel’s club-“

“Sha-Iah-lah!” the dwarf said determinedly, popping the cooking pot on top of his green hair.

Cadderly nodded, even managed a slight smile. “We must be done with Rufo this day,” he said again.

“But ye’ll have to kill him quick,” Ivan protested, presenting his axe once more. “Kill him to death. Quick, or he’ll just go into that green mist and melt away from us. I got a forge…” Ivan stopped in midramble and turned a wicked look toward Pikel. “A forge,” he said again, slyly.

“Huh?” came Pikel’s predictable reply.

“Makes the fire hot,” Ivan explained.

“You will need a fire very hot to singe Rufo,” Cadderly interjected, thinking he was following the dwarf’s reasoning. “Magical flames that no forge could match.”

“Yeah, and if we hurt him, he’ll just go into a cloud,” Ivan said, aiming the remark at Pikel.

Pikel considered the information, tried to connect the forge to Rufo. His face brightened suddenly, his grin ear to ear as he returned his brother’s hopeful stare.

“Hee hee hee,” both dwarves said together.

Cadderly didn’t understand, and wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. The Bouldershoulder brothers seemed secure in their secret plans, so the young priest let it go at that. He led them along the corridors of the second floor, the library quiet and brooding about them. They tore the covers from every window they crossed, but even with that, the squat stone structure was a gloomy place.

Cadderly took out his wand once more. Every time he noticed a particularly gloomy area, he pointed the wand at it and uttered the command “Domin illu” and, with a flash, the area became as bright as an open field under a midday sun.

“If we cannot find Rufo this day,” the young priest explained, “let him come out to find his darkness stolen!”

Ivan and Pikel exchanged knowing looks. Rufo could likely counter the young priest’s spells of light-Rufo had been a cleric, after all, and clerics understood such magic. Cadderly wasn’t brightening the library for any practical reasons, then, but merely to challenge the vampire. The young priest was throwing down a gauntlet, doing everything he could to slap Rufo across the face. Neither Ivan nor Pikel was thrilled at facing the powerful vampire again, but as they followed their companion through the library, his anger unrelenting, the image of beaten Baccio still clear in their thoughts, they came to the conclusion that they would rather have Rufo as an enemy than Cadderly.

The three came down to the first floor, having met no resistance. Not a single zombie, vampire, or any other monster, undead or otherwise, had risen against them. Not a single answer had been offered to Cadderly’s open challenge. If he had stopped to think about it, Cadderly would have realized that was a good thing, a sign that perhaps Rufo was not yet aware that they had come into his domain. But the young man was consumed with thoughts of Danica, his lost love, and he wanted something, some ally of Rufo’s, or especially Rufo himself, to block his path. He wanted to strike with all his might against the darkness that had taken his love.

They came into the hallway that led to the foyer. Cadderly promptly started that way, for the main doors and the southern wing beyond them, where the fire had been. There lay the Edificant Library’s main chapel, the place Rufo would have to work the hardest to desecrate. Perhaps the young priest might find sanctuary there, a base from which he and the dwarves could strike in different directions. Perhaps in that area Cadderly would find clues that would lead him to the one who had taken Danica from him.

His steps were bold and swift, but Ivan and Pikel caught him by the arms, and no amount of determination would have propelled the young priest against that strong hold.

“We got to go to the kitchen,” Ivan explained.

“You have no time for silver-edging your axe,” Cadderly replied sharply.

“Forget me axe,” Ivan agreed. “Me and me brother still got to go to the kitchen.”

Cadderly winced, not thrilled with anything that would slow the hunt. He knew he would not change Ivan’s mind, though, so he nodded. “Be quick,” he said to them. “I will meet you in the foyer, or in the faurned-out chapel near it.”

Ivan and Pikel leaned to the side to exchange concerned looks behind Cadderiy’s back. Neither were excited about the prospect of splitting the already small group, but Ivan was determined to go to his forge, and he knew that Cadderly would not be held back.

“Just the foyer,” the dwarf said sternly. “Ye go sticking yer nose about, and ye’re likely to put it somewhere it shouldn’t be!”

Cadderly nodded and pulled free of the dwarves, immediately resuming his swift pace.

“Just the foyer!” Ivan shouted after him, and Cadderly didn’t respond.

“Let’s be quick,” Ivan said to his brother as they both looked at the young priest’s back. “He won’t be stopping in the foyer.”

“Uh-huh,” Pikel agreed, and the two skittered off for the kitchen and the forge.

Cadderly was not afraid in the least. Anger consumed him, and the only other emotion nipping at its edges, fraying the wall of outrage, was grief. He cared not that Ivan and Pikel were separated from him, that he was alone. He hoped Kierkan Rufo and all his dark minions would rise to stand before him, that he might deal with them once and for all, that he might damn their undead corpses to dust, to blow on the wind.

He got to the foyer without incident and didn’t even think of pausing there to wait for his companions. On he pressed, to the burned-out chapel, the room where the fire had apparently started, to search for clues. He tore down the tapestry blocking the way and kicked the charred door open.

The smoke hung heavy in the place, as did the stench of burned flesh, with nowhere to go in the library’s stagnant, dead air. Cadderly knew immediately, just from that smell, that at least one person had perished here. Horribly. Thick soot lined the walls, part of the ceiling had collapsed, and only one of the many beautiful tapestries remained even partially intact on the wall, though it was so blackened as to be unidentifiable. Cadderly stared at the black cloth long and hard, trying to remember the image that had once been there, trying to remember the library when it had basked in the light of Deneir.

So deep was he in concentration that he did not see the charred corpse rise behind him and steadily approach.

He heard a crackle of dried skin, felt a touch on his shoulder, and leaped into the air, spinning so forcefully that he overbalanced and nearly fell to the floor. His eyes were wide, anger stolen by horror as he looked at the shrunken, blackened remains of a human being, a small figure of cracked skin, charred bone, and white teeth- those teeth were the worst of the terrible image!

Cadderly fumbled his walking stick and wand, finally presenting the wand before him. This creature was not a vampire, he realized, probably not nearly as strong as a vampire. He remembered his ring, its enchantment expired, and understood that the same could happen with the wand. Suddenly Cadderly felt foolish for his tirade in the upper level, for his waste of the wand’s energy in stealing shadows. He tucked the wand under his arm and grabbed his hat instead. His free hand reached alternately for his walking stick and his spindle-disks, not sure of which would be the most effective, not sure if only enchanted weapons would bite into the flesh of this animated monster, whatever it might be.

Finally, Cadderly calmed and presented his hat, and his holy symbol, more forcefully. “I am the agent of Deneir!” he said loudly, with full conviction. “Come to purge the home of my god. You have no place here!”

The blackened thing continued its approach, reaching for Cadderly.

“Be gone!” Cadderly commanded.

The monster didn’t hesitate, didn’t slow in the least. Cadderly lifted his walking stick to strike, and reached back with his other hand, dropping the hat, to grab the wand. He growled at his failure to turn the thing away, wondering if the library was too far from Deneir now for him to invoke the god’s name.

The answer was something altogether different, something Cadderly could not anticipate.

“Cadderly,” the blackened corpse rasped, and though the voice was barely audible, the movement of air a strained thing from lungs that would not draw breath, Cadderly recognized the way his name had been spoken.

Dorigen!

“Cadderly,” the dead wizard said again, and the young priest, too stunned, did not resist as she moved closer and brought her charred hand up to stroke his face.

The stench nearly overwhelmed him, but he stubbornly held his ground. His instincts told him to lash out with the walking stick, but he held firm his resolve, kept his nerve, and lowered the weapon to his side. If Dorigen was still a thinking creature, and apparently she was, then she must not have given in to Rufo, must not have gone over to the other side against Cadderly.

“I knew you would come,” dead Dorigen said. “Now you must battle Kierkan Rufo and destroy him. I fought him here,”

“You destroyed yourself with a fireball,” Cadderly reasoned.

“It was the only way I could allow Danica to escape,” Dorigen replied, and Cadderly did not doubt the claim.

The look that came over the young priest’s face at the mention of Danica told Dorigen much.

“Danica did not escape,” she whispered.

“Lie down, Dorigen,” the young priest replied softly, as tenderly as he could. “You are dead. You have earned your rest.”

The corpse’s face crackled as Dorigen bent her tortured features into a grotesque smile. “Rufo would not permit me such rest,” she explained. “He has held me here, as a present to you, no doubt.”

“Do you know where he is?”

Dorigen shrugged, the movement causing flecks of skin to fall from her withered shoulders.

Cadderly stared long and hard at the gruesome thing Dorigen had become. And yet, despite her appearance, she was not gruesome, he realized, not in her heart. Dorigen had made her choices, and, to Cadderly’s thinking, she had redeemed herself. He could have held her there, questioned her intensely about Kierkan Rufo and perhaps even garnered some valuable information. But that would not have been fair, he realized, not to Dorigen, who had earned her rest.

The young priest bent and retrieved his hat, then lifted his holy symbol and placed it atop the corpse’s forehead. Dorigen neither retreated from it, nor was pained by it. It seemed to Cadderly as if the lighted emblem brought her peace and that, too, confirmed his hopes that she had found salvation. Cadderly lifted his voice in prayer. Dorigen relaxed; she would have closed her eyes, but she had no eyelids. She stared at the young priest, at the man who had shown her mercy, had given her a chance to redeem herself. She stared at the man who would free her from the torments of Kierkan Rufo.