The Chaos Curse (21 page)

“I love you,” Dorigen said quietly, so as not to interrupt the prayer. “I had hoped to participate in the wedding, your wedding with Danica, as it should have been.”

Cadderly choked up, but forced himself to finish. The light seemed to spread out from his holy symbol limning the corpse, pulling at Dorigen’s spirit.

As it should have been! Cadderly could not help but think. And Dorigen would indeed have been at the wedding, probably standing with Shayleigh behind Danica, while Ivan and Pikel, and King Elbereth of Shilmista stood behind Cadderly.

As it should have been! And Avery Schell and Pertelope should not be dead, should be there with Cadderly to witness his joining.

Cadderly kept his rage sublimated. He did not want that to be the last image poor Dorigen saw of him. “Farewell,” he said softly to the corpse. “Go to your deserved rest.”

Dorigen nodded, ever so slightly, and the blackened form crumpled at Cadderly’s feet.

Cadderly considered it for a moment, was glad that Dorigen was free of Rufo. A moment later, he screamed, as loudly as he had ever screamed, the primal roar torn from his heart by the agony of the realization. “As it should have been!” he yelled. “Damn you, Kierkan Rufo! Damn you, Druzil, and your chaos curse!”

The young priest started for the chapel exit, nearly fell over in his haste. “And damn you, Aballister,” he whispered, cursing his own father, the man who had abandoned him, and who had betrayed everything that was good in life, everything that gave life joy and meaning.

Ivan and Pikel thundered into the chapel, weapons held high. They skidded to a bumbling stop, falling over each other, when they saw that Cadderly was not in danger.

“What in the Nine Hells are ye yelling about?” Ivan demanded.

“Dorigen,” Cadderly explained, looking to the charred corpse.

“Oo,” Pikel moaned.

Cadderly continued to push for the exit, but then he noticed the large, boxlike item strapped to Ivan’s back and paused, his face screwed up with curiosity.

Ivan noticed the look and beamed happily. “Don’t ye worry!” the dwarf assured Cadderly. “We’ll get him this time!”

Despite all the pain, all the despair, the memories of Danica, and the thoughts of what should have been, Cadderly could not prevent a small, incredulous chuckle from escaping his tips.

Pikel hopped over and put his arm across his brother’s shoulders, and together they nodded confidently.

It was impossible, Cadderly realized, but these were the Bouldershoulders, after all. Impossible, but Cadderly could not deny that it just might work.

“Me brother and me been thinking,” Ivan began. “Them vampires don’t much like the sunlight, and there’s places here that never get any, windows or no windows.”

Cadderly followed the reasoning perfectly-it scared him a little to think he could follow Ivan and Pikel’s logic so easily!-and the notion led him to exactly the same conclusion as the dwarves had already reached.

“The wine cellar,” Cadderly and Ivan said together.

“Hee hee hee,” added a hopeful Pikel.

Cadderly led the charge through the kitchen and to the wooden door. It was closed and locked, barred from the inside, and that confirmed the companions’ suspicions.

Ivan started to lift his heavy axe, but Cadderly beat him to it, bringing up his spindle-disks in a short, tight spin, then heaving them with all his strength at the barrier. The solid adamantite smashed through the door’s wood and slammed the metal bar on the other side so forcefully that it bent and dislodged.

The door creaked open, showing the dark descent.

Cadderly did not hesitate. “I am coming for you, Rufo!” he cried, taking his first step down.

“Why don’t ye just warn him!” Ivan grumbled, but Cadderly did not care.

“It does not matter,” he said, and down he went.

“Where we going?” Ivan asked, hopping out in front of the others, obviously intent on leading. A zombie reached for him, and his great axe promptly removed the thing’s arm from its torso. That hardly stopped the mindless zombie, but Ivan’s next chop, a downward strike on the collar bone, angled to go across the monster’s chest, surely did.

Pikel immediately dropped his club to the floor and began that curious dance again.

“Where we going?” Ivan asked again, more urgently, the battle rage welling inside him.

Cadderly continued to ponder the question. Where indeed? The wine cellar was large, filled with dozens of tall racks and numerous nooks. Great shadows splayed across the floor, angled away from Cadderly and the lone source of light, making the room even more mysterious and foreboding.

Both Ivan and Pikel were into it by then, hacking and banging, Ivan ducking his head to thrash his antlers into one zombie’s midsection, Pikel occasionally giving a squirt of his waterskin to keep the monstrous horde at bay.

“Close your eyes!” Cadderly cried, and the dwarves did not have to ask why. A moment later, a spark shower cut through the zombie ranks, dropping several of the monsters in their tracks. Cadderly could have wiped them all out, but he realized the dwarves were in control here and that he should use the valuable wand with restraint.

The dwarves could cut through the throng, but where should they go? Cadderly considered the cellar’s layout. Using one of the lesser functions of the wand, he put a minor globe of light between the racks to his right, for he knew that at the end of those racks loomed a deep alcove. The light illuminated the cubby fully, and it was empty.

“To the back!” Cadderly called to his companions. “Straight across the cellar to the back wall.” It was only a guess, for though Cadderly was confident that Rufo would have sought the underground chambers (and the appearance of so many zombies added credence to this), where exactly he might find the vampire in this odd-shaped and uneven chamber was beyond him. He took up the rear as the dwarves plowed through the throng, cutting a wake so that Cadderly wasn’t too engaged in fending off the zombies. The young priest’s eyes darted back and forth, looking side to side as they crossed the racks, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rufo. Cadderly scolded himself for not keeping his light tube intact then, for the light on his hat was dispersed and could not seek the deepest crannies.

He pulled down both the lighted disk and the holy symbol, that he might better direct the illumination. Something fluttered across the shadows at the other end of the long racks, moving too quickly to be a zombie. His attention fixed on that spot, the young priest didn’t notice the monster reaching for his back.

The blow nearly knocked Cadderly from his feet. He stumbled forward several steps and swung about, sensing the pursuit, his walking stick flailing across. It came up short of the mark, though, and the zombie waded in behind. Purely on instinct, Cadderly thrust out his holy symbol and cursed the thing.

The zombie stopped, held fast by the priest’s magical strength. Yellow light limned its form, began to consume the edges of the zombie’s material being.

Cadderly felt a wave of satisfaction in the knowledge that Deneir was with him. He pressed his attack, clenching his hand tight about the emblem of his station. The eye-above-candle flared to greater intensity; the glowing flames licking the zombie leaped and danced.

But the zombie remained, tapping the dark power of its master-its nearby master, Cadderly realized-for battle. Dark lines creased the fiery glow, breaking it apart.

Cadderly growled and stepped closer, invoking the name of Deneir, singing the melodies of the god’s song. Finally, his holy symbol made contact with the zombie, and the thing burst apart, falling into a mess of macabre chunks and puffing dust.

Cadderly fell back, drained. How powerful had Rufo become that the vampire’s lesser minions could resist his holy powers so strenuously? And how far had the library gone from Deneir when Cadderly’s call to the god could barely destroy such a minor creature?

“Get the burned thing off! Get the durned thing off!” Ivan yelled, drawing Cadderly’s attention. The dwarf’s goring horns had done their work too well, it seemed, for Ivan had a zombie stuck atop his head. It lay flat out and flailing away with its arms and legs. Pikel hopped frantically beside his brother, trying to line up a hit that would dislodge the zombie without taking Ivan’s head off.

Ivan chopped the legs from another zombie that waded too near, then took a hit in the face from the one above. The dwarf tried a halfhearted swing high with his axe, but the striking angle was wrong. He went into a spin instead, the momentum forcing the zombie flat out.

Pikel braced himself and took up his heavy club. Around came the zombie’s head, whipping past. Pikel was ready the next time, and he timed his strike perfectly.

The zombie was still impaled-Ivan had to carry it around for a while-but it was no longer fighting.

“Took ye long enough,” was all the thanks Ivan offered his brother. A short burst launched them side by side into the next rank of zombies, which broke apart into bits in the face of dwarven fury.

Cadderly rushed to keep pace. A zombie intercepted, and it pained the young priest greatly to view his newest foe, for the dead young man had, in life, been a friend. A clubbing arm came across, and Cadderly parried. He dodged a second strike, fighting defensively, then consciously reminded himself that this was not his friend, that this animation was merely an unthinking toy of Kierkan Rufo. Still, it was not easy for Cadderly to strike out, and he winced as his walking stick obliterated his former friend’s face.

The young priest pressed on to catch the dwarves. He recalled that he had seen something, something dark and quick, in the shadows.

Out it came from the side, from the wine racks. Pikel squealed and turned to meet the charge, but got bowled over and tumbled away with the monster. They rolled past Ivan, who was quick enough to chop the newest adversary’s leg.

When the axe didn’t bite in, both Ivan and Cadderly knew the nature of this foe.

“Mas illu!” the young priest cried, and the vampire howled as sparks fell over it.

“That one’s yer own!” Ivan cried to his brother, and he rubbed the temporary blindness out of his eyes and went back to his zombie chopping. He paused and dipped his head, grabbing at the dead weight entangled there, and a host of monsters closed in, arms clubbing.

Cadderly started for Pikel, but saw that Ivan, with his encumbering load, was in more trouble. He rushed to join Ivan, smacked away those zombies he could reach, then took hold of the corpse and finally pulled it free of the dwarfs antlers.

Cadderly overbalanced as it fell loose, then found he was sailing backward even faster as a zombie punched him in the chest. He hit the stone floor hard, felt the breath blasted from his lungs, and his precious wand flew free of his grasp. By the time he regained his sensibilities, a zombie had its strong hands clasped firmly about his throat.

The vampire was agile, but none could roll better than a round-shouldered dwarf. Pikel enjoyed the ride, throwing his weight into every turn with enthusiastic abandon. Finally the living ball slammed a wine rack, and the old structure buckled, showering Pikel and the vampire with splintered wood and shards of breaking bottles.

Pikel took the worst of that, the breaking rack doing no more damage to the vampire that Ivan’s axe had done. Pikel, cut in a dozen places, one eye closed by a sliver, found himself in tight quarters suddenly, the vampire against him, holding him tight in its impossibly strong arms, its sharp fangs digging at his throat.

“Oooo!” the dwarf growled, and he tried to pull free, tried to wriggle one arm out, that he might hit his adversary.

It was no use; the vampire was too strong.

Cadderly thought to invoke Deneir’s name, thought to present his holy symbol, thought to grab his walking stick and slam the zombie on the side of the head. He thought all of it and more at once, his mind whirling as the monster, its bloated face devoid of emotion, held the needed breath from his lungs.

Suddenly that bloated face rushed at Cadderly, slammed him hard, drawing blood from his lips. At first he thought the zombie had launched a new attack, then, as the thing steadily lifted from him, its grasp on his neck relaxed, the young priest understood.

“Burned things keep getting stuck,” Ivan grumbled, hoisting his axe higher and bringing the impaled zombie with it. He brought the blade close and tried to pry the zombie loose.

“Behind you!” Cadderly called.

Too late. Another of the monsters pounded Ivan hard on the shoulder.

Ivan looked at Cadderly and shook his head. “Will ye wait a minute?” he screamed into the zombie’s face, and the monster promptly punched him again, raising a welt on his cheek.

Ivan’s heavy boot stomped on the zombie’s foot. The dwarf launched himself forward with all his weight, the sudden movement dislodging the last zombie from his axe. The two foes staggered backward, but the zombie somehow held its footing.

Ivan’s hand whipped around, bringing the handle of the axe behind the zombie’s shoulder, then back in front of its face. The dwarfs other hand went in a similar movement, grabbing the other end of the handle, just below the axe’s huge head. With his hands behind the zombie’s back and the handle crossing in front of it, tight across its shoulders and throat, Ivan had the thing off balance. It continued to club at the dwarfs back, but it was in too tight to be effective.

“I telled ye to wait,” Ivan explained casually, and the muscles on his powerful arms corded and bulged as he pressed backward and down, folding the monster in half the wrong way.

Cadderly didn’t see the powerful move. He was up and moving again. He searched for his wand, but saw no sign of it in the tangle and the darkness. He starred for Pikel, but ran into a wall of zombies. Taking a circular route that moved him deeper into the cellar, Cadderly’s attention was grabbed by something off to the side: three coffins, two open and one closed.

The young priest saw something else there, a blackness, a manifestation of evil. Huddled, shadowy images danced atop that closed coffin. Cadderly recognized the aura sight for what it was. As he had come to decipher the song of Deneir, the general weal of people he encountered was often revealed to him by shadowy images emanating from them. Normally Cadderly had to concentrate to see such things, had to call upon his god, but here the source of evil was too great for the shadows to be concealed.

Cadderly knew Pikel needed him, but he knew, too, that he had found Kierkan Rufo.

Pikel didn’t like the feeling at all. The dwarf was a creature of natural order, who prized nature above all, and this foul, perverted thing was violating him, sinking its filthy fangs into the personal temple that was nature’s gift to the dwarf.

He screamed and thrashed, to no avail. He felt his blood being drawn out, but could do nothing to stop it.

Pikel tried another tactic. Instead of pressing out with his arms, he tightened them to his sides, hoping the vampire would loosen its grip.

The monster’s eyes widened in shock, and it began to tremble violently. Pikel understood when he felt the water, the “doo-dad” water being forced from his water-skin, soaking the front of his baldric and breeches.

The vampire broke the hold and leaped back, crashing into the part of the wine rack that had not collapsed, sending bottles flying. Smoke wafted from its chest, and Pikel saw that his squirting waterskin had drilled a neat hole there, right into the vampire’s heart.

On came the raging dwarf, pounding with his club, crushing the perversion into the floor. He turned, sensing that zombies were converging from behind, but the undead wall parted as Ivan burrowed through to his brother’s side once more.

Cadderly’s remaining light source dimmed as he approached the coffins, his eyes set firmly on the dancing shadows, on the box that held Kierkan Rufo. He felt a warmth in his pocket then, which confused him for just a moment.

Cadderly stopped suddenly and lashed out to the side with his walking stick, smashing several bottles. A shriek and a flap of wings told him he had guessed right.

“I see you, Druzil,” the young priest muttered. “Never will I lose sight of you!”

The imp became visible, crouched on the lip of one of the opened boxes.

“You desecrated the library!” Cadderly accused.

Druzil hissed at him. “There is no place here for you, foolish priest. Your god has left!”

In answer, Cadderly thrust forth his holy symbol and, for a moment, the light flared, stinging Druzil’s sensitive eyes. These two had battled before, on several occasions, and each time Cadderly had proven stronger.

So it would be again, the young priest determined, but this time, Druzil, that most malicious imp, would not escape his wrath. Cadderly pulled forth the amulet, the link between him and the imp, and sent a telepathic wave at Druzil, calling loudly the name of Deneir. The image manifested itself in both combatants’ thoughts as a sparking ball of light, floating toward Druzil from Cadderly.