CONTENTS
Aballister Bonaduce looked long and hard at the shimmering image in his mirror. Mountains of wind-driven snow and ice lay endlessly before him, the most forbidding place in all the Realms. All he had to do was step through the mirror, onto the Great Glacier.
“Are you coming, Druzil?” the wizard said to his bat-winged imp.
Druzil folded his leathery wings around him as if to privately consider the question. “I am not so fond of the cold,” he said, obviously not wanting to partake of this particular hunt. “Nor am I,” Aballister said, slipping onto his finger an enchanted ring that would protect him from the killing cold. “But only on the Great Glacier does the yote grow.” Aballister looked back to the scene in the magical mirror, one final barrier to the completion of his quest and the beginning of his conquests. The snowy region was quiet now, though dark clouds hung ominously overhead and promised an impending storm that would delay the hunt, perhaps for many days.
“There we must go,” Aballister continued, talking more to himself than to the imp. His voice trailed away as he sank within his memories, to the turning point in his life more than two years before, in the Time of Troubles. He had been powerful even then, but directionless.
The avatar of the goddess Talona had shown him the way.
Aballister’s grin became an open chuckle as he turned back to regard Druzil, the imp who had delivered to him the method to best please the Lady of Poison. “Come, dear Druzil,” Aballister said. “You brought the recipe for the chaos curse. You must come along and help to find its last ingredient.”
The imp straightened and unfolded his wings at the mention of the chaos curse. This time he offered no arguments. A lazy flap brought him to Aballister’s shoulder and together they walked through the magical mirror and into the blowing wind.
* * * * *
The hunched and hairy creature, resembling a more primitive form of human, grunted and growled and threw its crude spear, though Aballister and Druzil were surely far out of range. It howled again anyway, triumphantly, as though its throw had served some symbolic victory, and scooted back to the large gathering of its shaggy white kin.
“I believe they do not wish to bargain,” Druzil said, shuffling about from clawed foot to clawed foot on Aballister’s shoulder.
The wizard understood his familiar’s excitement. Druzil was a creature of the lower planes, a creature of chaos, and he wanted desperately to see his wizard master deal with the impudent fools-just an added pleasure to this long-awaited, victorious day.
“They are taer,” Aballister explained, recognizing the tribe, “crude and fierce. You are quite correct. They’ll not bargain.” Aballister’s eyes flashed suddenly and Druzil hopped again and clapped his hands together.
“They know not the might before them!” Aballister cried, his voice rising with his ire. All the terrible trials of two long and brutal years rolled through the wizard’s thoughts in the span of a few seconds. A hundred men had died in search of the elusive ingredients for the chaos curse; a hundred men had given their lives so that Talona would be pleased. Aballister, too, had not escaped unscathed. Completing the curse had become his obsession, the driving force in his life, and he had aged with every step, had torn out clumps of his own hair every time the curse seemed to be slipping beyond his reach. Now he was close, so close that he could see the dark patch of yote just beyond the small ridge that held the taer cave complexes. So close, but these wretched, idiotic creatures stood in his way.
Aballister’s words had stirred the taer. They grumbled and hopped about in the shadow of the jagged mountain, shoving each other forward as if trying to select a leader to start their charge.
“Do something quickly,” Druzil suggested from his perch. Aballister looked up at him and nearly laughed.
“They will attack,” Druzil explained, trying to sound unconcerned, “and, worse, this cold stiffens my wings.”
Aballister nodded at the imp’s rationale. Any delay could cost him, especially if the dark clouds broke into a blinding blizzard, one that would hide both the yote and the shimmering doorway back to Aballister’s comfortable room. He pulled out a tiny ball, a mixture of bat guano and sulphur, crushed it in his fist, and pointed one finger at the group of taer. His chant echoed off the mountain face and back across the empty glacier ice, and he smiled, thinking it wonderfully ironic that the stupid taer had no idea of what he was doing. A moment later, they found out.
Just before his spell discharged, Aballister had a cruel thought and lifted the angle of his pointing finger. The fireball exploded above the heads of the startled taer, disintegrating the frozen bindings of the ice mountain. Huge blocks rained down, and a great rush of water swallowed those who had not been crushed. Several of the band floundered about in the ice and liquid morass, too stunned and overwhelmed to gain then-footing as the pool quickly solidified around them.
One pitiful creature did manage to struggle free, but Druzil hopped off Aballister’s shoulder and swooped down upon him. The imp’s claw-tipped tail whipped out as he passed by the stumbling creature, and Aballister applauded heartily.
The taer clutched at its stung shoulder, looked curiously at the departing imp, then fell dead to the ice.
“What of the rest?” Druzil asked, landing back on his perch. Aballister considered the remaining taer, most dead, but some struggling fertilely against the tightening grip of ice.
“Leave them to their slow deaths,” he replied, and he laughed evilly again.
Druzil gave him an incredulous look, “The Lady of Poison would not approve,” the imp said, wagging his wicked tail before him with one hand.
“Very well,” Aballister replied, though he realized that Druzil was more interested in pleasing himself than Talona. Still, the reasoning was sound; poison was always the accepted method for completing Talona’s work. “Go and finish the task,” Aballister instructed the imp. “I will get the yote.”
A short while later, Aballister plucked the last gray-brown mushroom from its stubborn grasp on the glacier and dropped it into his bag. He called over to Druzil, who was toying with the last whining taer, snapping his tail back and forth around the terrified creature’s frantically jerking head-the only part of the taer that was free of the ice trap.
“Enough,” Aballister said firmly.
Druzil sighed and looked mournfully at the approaching wizard. Aballister’s visage did not soften. “Enough,” he said again.
Druzil bent over and kissed the taer on the nose. The creature stopped whimpering and looked at him curiously, but Druzil only shrugged and drove his poison-tipped stinger straight into the taer’s weepy eye.
The imp eagerly accepted the offered perch on Aballister’s shoulder Aballister let him hold the bag of yote, just to remind the somewhat distracted imp that more important matters awaited them beyond the shimmering door.
The White Squirrel’s Pet
The green-robed druid issued a series of chit-chits and clucks, but the white-furred squirrel seemed oblivious to it all, sitting on a branch in the towering oak tree high above the three men. “Will, you seem to have lost your voice,” remarked another of the men, a bearded woodland priest with gentle-looking features and thick blond hair hanging well below his shoulders.
“Can you call the beast any better than I?” the green-robed druid asked indignantly. “I fear that this creature is strange in more ways than its coat.”
The other two laughed at their companion’s attempt to explain his ineptitude.
“I grant you,” said the third of the group, the highest-ranking initiate, “the squirrel’s color is beyond the usual, but speaking to animals is among the easiest of our abilities. Surely by now-“
“With all respect,” the frustrated druid interrupted, “I have made contact with the creature. It just refuses to reply. Try yourself, I invite you.”
“A squirrel refusing to speak?” asked the second of the group with a chuckle. “Surely they are among the chattiest...”
“Not that one,” came a reply from behind. The three druids turned to see a priest coming down the wide dirt road from the ivy-streaked building, the skip of youth evident in his steps. He was of average height and build, though perhaps more muscular than most, with gray eyes that turned up at their corners when he smiled and curly brown locks that bounced under the wide brim of his hat. His tan-white tunic and trousers showed him to be a priest of Deneir, god of one of the host sects of the Edificant Library. Unlike most within his order, though, this young man also wore a decorative light blue silken cape and a wide-brimmed hat, also blue and banded in red, with a plume on the right-hand side. Set in the band’s center was a porcelain-and-gold pendant depicting a candle burning above an eye, the symbol of Deneir.
“That squirrel is tight-lipped, except when he chooses not to be,” the young priest went on. The normally unflappable druids’ stunned expressions amused him, so he decided to startle them a bit more. “Well met, Arcite, Newander, and Cleo. I congratulate you, Cleo, on your ascension to the status of initiate.”
“How do you know of us?” asked Arcite, the druid leader. “We have not yet reported to the library and have told no one of our coming.” Arcite and Newander, the blond-haired priest, exchanged suspicious glances, and Arcite’s voice became stem. “Have your masters been scrying, looking for us with magical means?”
“No, no, nothing like that,” the young priest replied immediately, knowing the secretive druids’ aversion to such tactics. “I remember you, all three, from your last visit to the library.”
“Preposterous!” piped in Cleo. “That was fourteen years ago. You could not have been more than ...”
“A boy,” answered the young priest. “So I was, seven years old. You had a fourth to your party, as I recall, an aging lady of great powers. Shannon, I believe was her name.”
“Incredible,” muttered Arcite. “You are correct, young priest.” Again the druids exchanged concerned looks, suspecting trickery here. Druids were not overly fond of anyone not of their order; they rarely came to the renowned Edificant Library, sitting high in the secluded Snowflake Mountains, and then only when they had word of a discovery of particular interest, a rare tome of herbs or animals, or a new recipe for potions to heal wounds or better grow their gardens. As a group, they began to turn away, rudely, but then Newander, on a sudden impulse, spun back around to face the young priest, who now leaned casually on a fine walking stick, its silver handle sculpted masterfully into the image of a ram’s head.
“Cadderly?” Newander asked through a widening grin. Arcite, too, recognized the young man and remembered the unusual story of the most unusual child. Cadderly had come to live at the library before his fifth birthday-rarely were any accepted before the age of ten. His mother had died several months before that, and his father, too immersed in studies of his own, had neglected the child. Thobicus, the dean of the Edificant Library, had heard of the promising boy and had generously taken him in.
“Cadderly,” Arcite echoed. “Is that really you?” “At your service,” Cadderly replied, bowing low, “and well met. I am honored that you remember me, good Newander and venerable Arcite.”
“Who?” Cleo whispered, looking curiously to Newander. Cleo’s face, too, brightened in recognition a few moments later.
“Yes, you were just a boy,” said Newander, “an overly curious little boy, as I recall!”
“Forgive me,” said Cadderly, bowing again. “One does not often find the opportunity to converse with a troupe of druids!”
“Few would care to,” remarked Arcite, “but you ... are among that few, so it would appear.”
Cadderly nodded, but his smile suddenly disappeared. “I pray that nothing has happened to Shannon,” he said, truly concerned. The druid had treated him well on that long-ago occasion. She had shown him beneficial plants, tasty roots, and had made flowers bloom before his eyes. To Cadderly’s astonishment, Shannon had transformed herself, an ability of the most powerful druids, into a graceful swan and had flown high into the morning sky. Cadderly had dearly wished to join her-he remembered that longing most vividly-but the druid had no power to similarly transform him.
“Nothing terrible, if that is what you mean,” replied Arcite. “She died several years back, peacefully.”
Cadderly nodded. He was about to offer his condolences, but he prudently remembered that druids neither feared nor lamented death, seeing it as the natural conclusion to life and a rather unimportant event in the overall scheme of universal order.
“Do you know this squirrel?” asked Cleo suddenly, determined to restore his reputation.
“Percival,” Cadderly replied, “a friend of mine.”
“A pet?” Newander asked, his bright eyes narrowing suspiciously. Druids did not approve of people keeping pets.
Cadderly laughed heartily. “If any is the pet in our relationship, I fear it is I,” he said honestly. “Percival accepts my strokes-sometimes-and my food-rather eagerly-but as I am more interested in him than he in me, he is the one who decides when and where.”
The druids shared Cadderly’s laugh. “A most excellent beast,” said Arcite, then with a series of clicks and chits, he congratulated Percival.
“Wonderful,” came Cadderly’s sarcastic response, “encourage him.” The druids’ laughter increased and Percival, watching it all from his high branch, shot Cadderly a supercilious look.
“Well, come down here and say hello!” Cadderly called, banging the lowest tree branch with his walking stick. “Be polite, at least.”
Percival did not look up from the acorn he was munching.
“He does not understand, I fear,” said Cleo. “Perhaps if I translate ...”
“He understands,” Cadderly insisted, “as well as you or I. He is just a stubborn one, and I can prove it!” He looked back up to the squirrel. “When you find the time, Percival,” he said slyly, “I left a plate of cacasa-nut and butter out for you in my room ... .” Before Cadderly even finished, the squirrel whipped off along a branch, hopped to another, and then to the next tree in line along the road. In a few short moments, the squirrel had leaped to a gutter along the library’s roof and, not slowing a bit, zipped across a trail of thick ivy and in through an open window on the northern side of the large structure’s third floor.
“Percival does have such a weakness for cacasa-nut and butter,” Cadderly remarked when the druid’s laughter had subsided.
“A most excellent beast!” Arcite said again. “And yourself, Cadderly, it is good to see that you have remained with your studies. Your masters spoke highly of your potential fourteen years ago, but I had no idea that your memory would be so very sharp, or, perhaps, that we druids had left such a strong and favorable impression upon you.”
“It is,” Cadderly replied quietly, “and you did! I am glad that you have returned-for the recently uncovered treatise on woodland mosses, I would assume. I have not seen it yet. The headmasters have kept it secured until those more knowledgeable in such matters could come and appraise its value. You see, a band of druids was not wholly unexpected, though we knew not who, how many, or when you would arrive.”
The three druids nodded, admiring the ivy-veiled stone structure. The Edificant Library had stood for six hundred years, and in all that time its doors had never been closed to scholars of any but the evil religions. The building was huge, a self-contained town-it had to be, in the rough and secluded Snowflakes-more than four hundred feet across and half as deep through all four of its above-ground levels. Will staffed and well stocked-rumors spoke of miles of storage tunnels and catacombs beneath-it had survived ore attacks, giant-hurled boulders, and the most brutal mountain winters, and had remained unscathed through the centuries.
The library’s collection of books, parchments, and artifacts was considerable, filling nearly the entire first floor, the library proper, and many smaller study chambers on the second floor, and the complex contained many unique and ancient works. While not as large as the great libraries of the Realms, such as the treasured collections of Silverymoon to the north and the artifact museums of Calimport to the south, the Edificant Library was convenient to the west-central Realms and the Cormyr region and was open to all who wished to learn, on the condition that they did not plan to use their knowledge for baneful purposes.
The building housed other important research tools, such as alchemy and herbalist shops, and was set in an inspiring atmosphere with breathtaking mountain views and manicured grounds that included a small topiary garden. The Edificant Library had been designed as more than a storage house for old books; it was a place for poetry reading, painting, and sculpting, a place for discussions of the profound and often unanswerable questions common to the intelligent races. Indeed, the library was a fitting tribute to Deneir and Oghma, the allied gods of knowledge, literature, and art.
“The treatise is a large work, so I have been told,” said Arcite. “Much time will be expended in examining it properly. I pray that the boarding rates are not excessive. We are men of little material means.”
“Dean Thobicus will take you in without cost, I would expect,” answered Cadderly. “Your service cannot be underestimated in this matter.” He shot a wink at Arcite. “If not, come to me. I recently inscribed a tome for a nearby wizard, a spellbook he lost in a fire. The man was generous. You see, I had originally inscribed the spellbook, and the wizard, forgetful as most wizards seem to be, never had made a copy.”
“The work was unique?” Cleo asked, shaking his head in disbelief that a wizard could be so foolish with his most prized possession.
“It was,” Cadderly replied, tapping his temple, “except for in here.”
“’You remembered the intricacies of a wizard’s spellbook enough to recreate it from memory?” Cleo asked, stunned.
Cadderly shrugged his shoulders. “The wizard was generous.”
“Truly you are a remarkable one, young Cadderly,” said Arcite.
“A most excellent beast?” the young priest asked hopefully, drawing wide smiles from all three.
“Indeed!” said Arcite. “Do look in on us in the days ahead.” Given the druids’ reputation for seclusion, Cadderly understood how great a compliment he had just been paid. He bowed low, and the druids did likewise, then they bid Cadderly farewell and moved up the road to the library.
Cadderly watched them, then looked up to his open window. Percival sat on the sill, determinedly licking the remains of his cacasa-nut and butter lunch from his tiny paws.
* * * * *
A tiny drop slipped off the end of the coil, touching a saturated cloth that led down into a small beaker. Cadderly shook his head and put a hand on the spigot controlling the flow.
“Remove your hand from that!” cried the frantic alchemist from a workbench across his shop. He jumped up and stormed over to the too-curious young priest.
“It is terribly slow,” Cadderly remarked.
“It has to be,” Vicero Belago explained for perhaps the hundredth time. “You are no fool, Cadderly. You know better than to be impatient. This is Oil of Impact, remember? A most volatile substance. A stronger drip could cause a cataclysm in a shop so filled with unstable potions!”
Cadderly sighed and accepted the scolding with a conceding nod. “How much do you have for me?” he asked, reaching into one of the many pouches on his belt and producing a tiny vial.
“You are so very impatient,” remarked Belago, but Cadderly knew that he was not really angry. Cadderly was a prime customer and had many times provided important translations of archaic alchemical notes. “Only what is in the beaker, I fear. I had to wait for some ingredients-hill giant fingernails and crushed oxen horn.”
Cadderly gently lifted the soaked cloth and tilted the beaker. It contained just a few drops, enough to fill only one of his tiny vials. “That makes six,” he said, using the cloth to coax the liquid into the vial. “Forty-four to go.”
“Are you confident that you want that many?” Belago asked him, not for the first time.
“Fifty,” Cadderly declared.
“The price ...”
“Will-worth it!” Cadderly laughed as he secured his vial and skipped out of the shop. His spirits did not diminish as he moved down the hall to the southern wing of the third floor and the chambers of Histra, a visiting priestess of Sune, Goddess of Love.
“Dear Cadderly,” greeted the priestess, who was twenty years Cadderly’s senior but quite alluring. She wore a deep crimson habit, cut low in the front and high on the sides, revealing most of her curvy figure. Cadderly had to remind himself to keep his manners proper and his gaze on her eyes.
“Do come in,” Histra purred. She grabbed the front of Cadderly’s tunic and yanked him into the room, pointedly shutting the door behind him.
He managed to glance away from Histra long enough to see a brightly glowing object shining through a heavy blanket.
“Is it finished?” Cadderly asked squeakily. He cleared his throat, embarrassed.
Histra ran a finger lightly down his arm and smiled at his involuntary shudder. “The dweomer is cast,” she replied. “All that remains is payment.”
“Two hundred ... gold pieces,” Cadderly stammered, “as we agreed.” He reached for a pouch, but Histra’s hand intercepted his.
“It was a difficult spell,” she said, “a variation of the norm.” She paused and gave a coy smile. “But I do so love variations,” Histra declared teasingly. “The price could be less, you know, for you.”
Cadderly did not doubt that his gulp was heard out in the hallway. He was a disciplined scholar and had come here for a specific purpose. He had much work to do, but Histra’s allure was undeniable and her fine perfume overpowering. Cadderly reminded himself to breathe.
“We could forget the gold payment altogether,” Histra offered, her fingers smoothly tracing the outline of Cadderly’s ear. The young scholar wondered if he might fall over.
In the end, though, an image of spirited Danica sitting on Histra’s back, casually rubbing the priestess’s face across the floor, brought Cadderly under control. Danica’s room was not far away, just across the hall and a few doors down. He firmly removed Histra’s hand from his ear, handed her the pouch as payment, and scooped up the shrouded, glowing object.
For all his practicality, though, when Cadderly exited the chambers two hundred gold pieces poorer, he feared that his face was shining as brightly as the disk Histra had enchanted for him.
Cadderly had other business-he always did-but, not wanting to arouse suspicions by roaming about the library with an eerily glowing pouch, he made straight for the north wing and his own room. Percival was still on the window sill when he entered, basking in the late morning sun.
“I have it!” Cadderly said excitedly, taking out the disk. The room immediately brightened, as if in full sunlight, and the startled squirrel darted for the shadows under Cadderly’s bed.
Cadderly didn’t take time to reassure Percival. He rushed to his desk and, from the jumbled and overfilled side drawer, produced a cylinder a foot long and two inches in diameter. With a slight twist, Cadderly removed the casing from the back end, revealing a slot just large enough for the disk. He eagerly dropped the disk in and replaced the casing, shielding the light.
“I know you are under there,” Cadderly teased, and he popped the metal cap off the front end of the tube, loosing a focused beam of light.
Percival didn’t particularly enjoy the spectacle. He darted back and forth under the bed and Cadderly, laughing that he had finally gotten the best of the sneaky squirrel, followed him diligently with the light. This went on for a few moments, until Percival dashed out from under the bed and hopped out the open window. The squirrel returned a second later, though, just long enough to snatch up the cacasa-nut and butter bowl and chatter a few uncomplimentary remarks to Cadderly.
Still laughing, the young priest capped his new toy and hung it on his belt, then moved to his oaken wardrobe. Most of the library’s host priests kept their closets stocked with extra vestments, wanting always to look their best for the continual stream of visiting scholars. In Cadderly’s wardrobe, however, the packed clothing took up just a small fraction of the space. Piles of notes and even larger piles of various inventions cluttered the floor, and custom-designed leather belts and straps took up most of the hanging bar. Also, hanging inside one of the doors was a large mirror, an extravagance far beyond the meager purses of most other priests at the library, particularly the younger, lower-ranking ones such as Cadderly.
Cadderly took out a wide bandoleer and moved to the bed. The leather shoulder harness contained fifty specially made darts and, with the vial he had taken from the alchemist’s shop, Cadderly was about to complete the sixth. The darts were small and narrow and made of iron, except for silver tips, and their centers were hollowed to the exact size of the vials.
Cadderly flinched as he eased the vial into the dart, trying to exert enough pressure to snap it into place without breaking it.
“Oil of Impact,” he reminded himself, conjuring images of blackened fingertips.
The young scholar breathed easier when the volatile potion was properly set. He removed his silken cape, meaning to put on the bandoleer and go to the mirror to see how it fit, as he always did after completing another dart, but a sharp rap of his door gave him just enough time to place the leather belt behind him before Headmaster Avery Schell, a rotund and red-faced man, burst in.
“What are these calls for payment?” the priest cried, waving a stack of parchments at Cadderly. He began peeling them off and tossing them to the floor as he read their banners.
“Leatherworker, silversmith, weaponsmith ... You are squandering your gold!”
Over Avery’s shoulder, Cadderly noticed the toothy smile of Kierkan Rufo and knew where the headmaster had gained his information and the fuel for his ire. The tall and sharp-featured Rufo was only a year older than Cadderly, and the two, while friends, were principal rivals in their ascent through the ranks of their order, and possibly in other pursuits as well, considering a few longing stares Cadderly had seen Rufo toss Danica’s way. Getting each other into trouble had become a game between them, a most tiresome game as far as the headmasters, particularly the beleaguered Avery, were concerned.
“The money was well spent. Headmaster,” Cadderly began tentatively, well aware that his and Avery’s interpretations of “well spent” differed widely. “In pursuit of knowledge.”
“In pursuit of toys,” Rufo remarked with a snicker from the doorway, and Cadderly noted the tall man’s satisfied expression. Cadderly had earned the headmaster’s highest praise for his work on the lost spellbook, to his rival’s obvious dismay, and Rufo was obviously enjoying bringing Cadderly back down.
“You are too irresponsible to be allowed to keep such sums!” Avery roared, heaving the rest of the parchments into the air. “You have not the wisdom “
“I kept only a portion of the profits,” Cadderly reminded him, “and spent that in accord with Deneir’s-“
“No!” Avery interrupted. “Do not hide behind a name that you obviously do not understand. Deneir. What do you know of Deneir, young inventor? You have spent all but your earliest years here in the Edificant Library, but you display so little understanding of our tenets and mores. Go south to Lantan with your toys, if that would please you, and play with the priests of Gond!”
“I do not understand.”
“Indeed you do not,” Avery answered, his tone becoming almost resigned. He paused for a long moment, and Cadderly recognized that he was choosing his words very carefully.
“We are a center of learning,” the headmaster began. “We impose few restrictions upon those who wish to come here-even Gondsmen have ventured through our doors. You have seen them, but have you noticed that they were never warmly received?”
Cadderly thought for a moment, then nodded. Indeed, he remembered clearly that Avery had gone out of his way to keep him from meeting the Gondish priests every time they visited the library. “You are correct, and I do not understand,” Cadderly replied. “I should think that priests of Deneir and Gond, dedicated to knowledge, would act as partners.”
Avery shook his head slowly and very determinedly. “There you err,” he said. “We put a condition on knowledge that the Gondsmen do not follow.” He paused and shook his head again, a simple action that stung Cadderly more than any wild screaming fit Avery had ever launched at him.
“Why are you here?” Avery asked quietly, in controlled tones. “Have you ever asked yourself that question? You frustrate me, boy. You are perhaps the most intelligent person I have ever known-and I have known quite a few scholars-but you possess the impulses and emotions of a child. I knew would be like this. When Thobicus said we would take you in ...” Avery stopped abruptly, as if reconsidering his word; then finished with a sigh.
It seemed to Cadderly that the headmaster always stopped short of finishing this same, beleaguered point about morality stopped short of preaching, as though he expected Cadderly to come to conclusions of his own. Cadderly was not surprise a moment later when Avery abruptly changed the subject.
“What of your duties while you sit here in your ‘pursuit of knowledge’?” the headmaster asked, his voice filling with anger once again. “Did you bother to light the candles in the study chambers this morning?”
Cadderly flinched. He knew he had forgotten something. “I did not think so,” Avery said. “You are a valuable asset to our order, Cadderly, and undeniably gifted as both a scholar and scribe, but, I warn you, your behavior is far from acceptable.” Avery’s face flushed bright red as Cadderly, still no properly sorting through the headmaster’s concerns for him met his unblinking stare.
Cadderly was almost used to these scoldings; it was Avery who always came rushing to investigate Rufo’s claims. Cadderly did not think that a bad thing; Avery, for all his fuming was surely more lenient than some of the other, older, head masters.
Avery turned suddenly, nearly knocking Rufo over, and stormed down the hallway, sweeping the angular man up in his wake.
Cadderly shrugged and tried to dismiss the whole incident as another of Headmaster Avery’s misplaced explosions. Avery obviously just didn’t understand him. The young priest wasn’t overly worried; his scribing skills brought in huge amounts of money, which he split evenly with the library. Admittedly, he was not the most dutiful follower of Deneir. He was lax concerning the rituals of his station and it often got him into trouble. But Cadderly knew that most of the headmasters understood that this indiscretions came not from any disrespect for the order, but simply because he was so busy learning and creating, two very high priorities in the teachings of Deneir-and two often profitable priorities for the expensive-to-maintain library. By Cadderly’s figuring, the priests of Deneir, like most religious orders, could find it in their hearts to overlook minor indiscretions, especially considering the greater gain.
“Oh, Rufo,” Cadderly called, reaching to his belt.
Rufo’s angular face poked back around the jamb of the open door, his little black eyes sparkling with victorious glee.
“Yes?” the tall man purred.
“You won that one”
Rufo’s grin widened.
Cadderly shone a beam of light in his face, and the stunned Rufo recoiled in terror, bumping heavily against the wall across the corridor.
“Keep your eyes open,” Cadderly said through a wide smile. “The next attack is mine.” He gave a wink, but Rufo, realizing the relatively inoffensive nature of Cadderly’s newest invention, only sneered back, brushed his matted black hair aside, and rushed away, his hard black boots clomping on the tiled floor as loudly as a shoed horse on cobblestones.
* * * * *
The three druids were granted a room in a remote corner of the fourth floor, far from the bustle of the library, as Arcite had requested. They settled in easily, not having much gear, and Arcite suggested they set off at once to study the newly found moss tome.
“I shall remain behind,” Newander replied. “It was a long road, and I am truly weary. I would be no help to you with my eyes falling closed.”
“As you wish,” Arcite said. “We shall not be gone too long. Perhaps you can go down and pick up on the work when we have ended.”
Newander moved to the room’s window when his friends had gone and stared out across the majestic Snowflake Mountains. He had been to the Edificant Library only once before, when he had first met Cadderly. Newander had been but a young man then, about the same age as Cadderly was now, and the library, with its bustle of humanity, crafted items, and penned tomes, had affected him deeply. Before he had come, Newander had known only the quiet woodlands, where the animals ruled and men were few.
After he had left, Newander had questioned his calling. He preferred the woodlands, that much he knew, but he could not deny the attraction he felt for civilization, the curiosity about advances in architecture and knowledge.
Newander had remained a druid, though, a servant of Silvanus, the Oak Father, and had done well in his studies. The natural order was of primary importance, by his sincere measure, but still ...
It was not without concern that Newander had returned to the Edificant Library. He looked out at majestic mountains and wished he were out there, where the world was simple and safe.
From a distance, the rocky spur at the northeastern edge of the Snowflake Mountains seemed quite unremarkable: piles of strewn boulders covering tightly packed slopes of smaller stones. But so, too, to those who did not know better, might a wolverine seem an innocuous thing. A dozen separate tunnels led under that rocky slope, and each of them promised only death to wayward adventurers seeking shelter from the night. This particular mountain spur, which was far from natural, housed Castle Trinity, a castle-in-mountain’s-clothing, a fortress for an evil brotherhood determined to gain in power. Wary must wanderers be in the Realms, for civilization often ends at a duty wall.
“Will it work?” Aballister whispered nervously, tentatively fingering the precious parchment. Rationally, he held faith in the recipe-Talona had led him to it-but after so much pain and trouble, and with the moment of victory so close at hand, he could not prevent a bit of apprehension. He looked up from the scroll and out a small window in the fortified complex. The Shining Plains lay flat and dark to the east, and the setting sun lit reflected fires on the Snowflake Mountains’ snow-capped peaks to the west.
The small imp folded his leathery wings around in front of himself and crossed his arms over them, impatiently tapping one clawed foot. “Quiesta bene tellemara,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What was that?” Aballister replied, turning sharply and cocking one thin eyebrow at his often impertinent familiar. “Did you say something, Druzil?”
“It will work, I said. It will work,” Druzil lied in his raspy, breathless voice. “Would you doubt the Lady Talona? Would you doubt her wisdom in bringing us together?”
Aballister muttered suspiciously, accepting the suspected insult as an unfortunate but unavoidable consequence of having so wise and wicked a familiar. The lean wizard knew that Druzil’s translation was less than accurate, and that ‘quiesta bene tellemara’ was undoubtedly something uncomplimentary. He didn’t doubt Druzil’s appraisal of the powerful potion, though, and that somehow unnerved him most of all. If Druzil’s claims for the chaos curse proved true, Aballister and his evil companions would soon realize more power than even the ambitious wizard had ever hoped for. For many years Castle Trinity had aspired to conquer the Snowflake Mountain region, the elven wood of Shilmista, and the human settlement of Carradoon. Now, with the chaos curse, that process might soon begin.
Aballister looked beside the small window to the golden brazier, supported by a tripod, that always burned in his room. This was his gate to the lower planes, the same gate that had delivered Druzil. The wizard remembered that time vividly, a day of tingling anticipation. The avatar of the goddess Talona had instructed him to use his powers of sorcery and had given him Druzil’s name, promising him that the imp would deliver a most delicious recipe for entropy. Little did he know then that the imp’s precious scheme would involve two years of pains taking and costly effort, tax the wizard to the limits of his endurance, and destroy so many others in the process.
Druzil’s recipe, the chaos curse, was worth it, Aballister decided. He had taken its creation as personal quest for Talona, as the great task of his life, and as the gift to his goddess that would elevate him above her priests.
The interplanar gate was closed now; Aballister had powders that could open and shut it as readily as if he were turning a knob. The powders sat in small, carefully marked pouches, half for opening, half for closing, lined up alternately on a nearby table. Only Druzil knew about them besides Aballister, and the imp had never gone against the wizard’s demands and tampered with the gate. Druzil could be impertinent and was often a tremendous nuisance, but he was reliable enough concerning important matters.
Aballister continued his scan and saw his reflection in a mirror across the room. Once he had been a handsome man, with inquisitive eyes and a bright smile. The change had been dramatic. Aballister was hollowed and worn now, all the dabbling in dark magic, worshiping a demanding goddess, and controlling chaotic creatures such as Druzil having taken their toll. Many years before, the wizard had given up everything-his family and friends, and all the joys he once had held dear-in his hunger for knowledge and power, and that obsession had - only multiplied when he had met Talona.
More than once, though, both before and after that meeting, Aballister had wondered if it had been worth it. Druzil offered him the attainment of his lifelong quest, power beyond his grandest imaginings, but the reality hadn’t lived up to Aballister’s expectations. At this point in his wretched life, the power seemed as hollow as his own face.
“But these ingredients!” Aballister went on, trying, perhaps hoping, that he could find a weakness in the imp’s seemingly solid designs. “Eyes of an umber hulk? Blood of a druid? And what is the purpose of this, tentacles of a displacer beast?”
“Chaos curse,” Druzil replied, as if the words alone shout dispell the wizard’s doubts. “It is a mighty potion you plan to brew, my master.” Druzil’s toothy smile sent a shudder of revulsion along Aballister’s backbone. The wizard had never be come overly comfortable around the cruel imp.
“Del quimera cas dempa,” Druzil said through his long and pointy teeth. “A powerful potion indeed!” he translated falsely. In truth, Druzil had said, “Even considering your limitations,” but Aballister didn’t need to know that.
“Yes,” Aballister muttered again, tapping a bony finger on the end of his hawkish nose. “I really must take the time to learn your language, my dear Druzil.”
“Yes,” Druzil echoed, wiggling his elongated ears. “lye quiesta pas tellemara,” he said, which meant, “If you weren’t so stupid.” Druzil dropped into a low bow to cover his deceptions, but the act only convinced Aballister further that the imp was making fun of him.
“The expense of these ingredients has been considerable,” Aballister said, getting back to the subject,
“And the brewing is not exact,” added Druzil with obvious sarcasm. “And we could find, my master, a hundred more problems if we searched, but the gains, I remind you. The gains! Your brotherhood is not so strong, not so. It can’t survive, I say! Not without the brew.”
“God-stuff?” mused Aballister.
“Call it so,” replied Druzil. “Since it was Talona who led you to it, that her designs be furthered, perhaps it truly is. A fitting title, for the sake of Barjin and his wretched priests. They will be more devout and attentive if they understand that they are fabricating a true agent of Talona, a power in itself to lavish their worship upon, and their devotion will help keep ore-faced Ragnor and his brutish warriors in line.”
Aballister laughed aloud as he thought of the three clerics, the second order of the evil triumvirate, kneeling and praying before a simple magical device.
“Name it Tuanta Miancay, the Fatal Horror,” Druzil offered, his snickers purely sarcastic. “Barjin will like that.” Druzil contemplated the suggestion for a moment, then added, “No, not the Fatal Horror. Tuanta QUIRO Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror.”
Aballister’s laughter trebled, with just a hint of uneasiness in it. “Most Fatal Horror” was a tide associated with Talona’s highest-ranking and most devout priests-Barjin, Castle Trinity’s clerical leader, had not yet attained that honor, being referred to only as a Most Debilitating Holiness. That this chaos curse would outstrip him in tide would sting the arrogant cleric, and Aballister would enjoy that spectacle. Barjin and his band had been at the castle for only a year. The priest had traveled all the way from Damara, homeless and broken and with no god to all his own since a new order of paladin kings had banished his vile deity back to the lower planes.
Like Aballister, Barjin claimed to have encountered the avatar of Talona and that it was she who had shown him the way to Castle Trinity. Barjin’s dynamism and powers were considerable, and his followers had carried uncounted treasures along with them on their journey. When they first had arrived, the ruling triumvirate, particularly Aballister, had welcomed them with open arms, drinking it grand that Talona had brought together so powerful a union, a marriage that would strengthen the castle and provide the resources to complete Druzil’s recipe. Now, months later, Aballister had begun to foster reservations about the union, particularly about the priest. Barjin was a charismatic man, something frowned upon in an order dedicated to disease and poison. Many of Talona’s priests scarred themselves or covered their skin with grotesque tattoos. Barjin had done none of that, had sacrificed nothing to his new goddess, but, because of his wealth and his uncanny persuasive powers, he quickly had risen to the leadership of the castle’s clerics.
Aballister had allowed the ascent, thinking it Talona’s will, and had gone out of his way to appease Barjin-in retrospect, he was not so certain of his choice. Now, however, he needed Barjin’s support to hold Castle Trinity together, and Barjin’s riches to fund the continuing creation of the chaos curse.
“I must see about the brewing of our ingredients for the god-stuff,” the wizard said with that thought in mind. “When we find a quiet time, though, Druzil, I would like to learn a bit of that full-flavored language you so often toss about.”
“As you please, my master,” replied the imp, bowing as Aballister left the small room and closed the door behind him.
Druzil spoke his next words in his private tongue, the language of the lower planes, fearing that Aballister might be listening at the door. “Quiesta bene tellemara, Aballister!” The mischievous imp couldn’t help himself as he whispered, “But you are too stupid,” aloud, for no better reason than to hear the words spoken in both tongues.
For all of the insults he so casually threw his master’s way, though, Druzil appreciated the wizard. Aballister was marvelously intelligent for a human, and the most powerful of his or her of three, and by Druzil’s estimation those three wizards were the strongest leg of the triumvirate. Aballister would complete the cursing potion and supply the device to deliver it, and for that, Druzil, who had craved this day for decades, would be undyingly grateful. Druzil was smarter than most imps, smarter than most people, and when he had come upon the ancient recipe in an obscure manuscript a century before, he wisely had kept it hidden from his former master, another human. That wizard hadn’t the resources or the wisdom to carry through the plan and properly spread the cause of chaos, but Aballister did.
* * * * *
Aballister felt a mixture of hope and trepidation as he stared hard at the reddish glow emanating from within the dear bottle. This was the first test of the chaos curse, and all of the wizard’s expectations were tempered by the huge expense of putting this small amount together.
“One more ingredient,” whispered the anxious imp, sharing none of his master’s doubts. “Add the yote, then we may release the smoke.”
“It is not to be imbibed?” Aballister asked.
Druzil paled noticeably. “No, master, not that,” he rasped. “The consequences are too grave. Too grave!”
Aballister spent a long moment studying the imp. In the two years Druzil had been beside him, he could not recall ever seeing the imp so badly shaken. The wizard walked across the room to a cabinet and produced a second bottle, smaller than the plain one holding the potion, but intricately decorated with countless magical runes. When Aballister pulled off the stopper, a steady stream of smoke issued forth.
“It is ever-smoking,” the wizard explained. “A minor item of magical ...”
“I know,” Druzil interrupted. “And I have already come to know that the flask will mate correctly with our potion.”
Aballister started to ask how Druzil could possibly know that, how Druzil could even know about his ever-smoking bottle, but he held his questions, remembering that the mischievous imp had contacts on other planes that could answer many things.
“Could you create more of those?” Druzil asked, indicating the wondrous bottle.
Aballister gritted his teeth at yet another added expense, and his expression alone answered the question.
“The chaos curse is best served in mist, and with its magical properties, the bottle will continue to spew it forth for many years, though its range will be limited,” Druzil explained. “Another container will be necessary if we mean to spread the intoxicant properly.”
“Intoxicant?” Aballister balked, on the verge of rage. Druzil gave a quick flap of his leathery wings, putting him farther across the room from Aballister-not that distance mattered much where the powerful wizard was concerned.
“Intoxicant?” Aballister said again. “My dear, dear Druzil, do you mean to tell me that we have spent a fortune in gold, that I have groveled before Barjin and those utterly wretched priests, just to mix a batch of elvish wine?”
“Bene tellemara,” came the imp’s exasperated reply. “You still do not understand what we have created? Elvish wine?”
“Dwarvish mead, then?” Aballister snarled sarcastically. He took up his staff and advanced a threatening step.
“You do not understand what will happen when it is loosed,” Druzil barked derisively.
“Do tell me.”
Druzil snapped his wings over his face, then back behind him again, a movement that plainly revealed his frustration. “It will invade the hearts of our targets,” the imp explained, “and exaggerate their desires. Simple impulses will become god-given commands. None will be affected in quite the same way, nor will the effects remain consistent to any one victim. Purely chaotic! Those affected will ...”
Aballister raised a hand to stop him, needing no further explanation.
“I have given you power beyond your greatest hopes!” the imp growled forcefully. “Have you forgotten Talona’s promise?”
“The avatar only suggested that I summon you,” Aballister countered, “and only hinted that you might possess something of value.”
“You cannot begin to understand the potency of the chaos curse,” Druzil replied smugly. “All the races of the region will be yours to control when their own inner controls have been destroyed. Chaos is a beautiful thing, mortal master, a force of destruction and conquest, the ultimate disease, the Most Fatal Horror. Orchestrating chaos brings power to he who remains beyond its crippling grip!”
Aballister leaned on his staff and looked away. He had to believe Druzil, and yet he feared to believe. He had given so much to this unknown recipe.
“You must learn,” the imp said, seeing that Aballister was not impressed. “If we are to succeed, then you must believe.” He folded his leathery wings over his head for a moment, burying himself in thought. “That young fighter, the arrogant one?” he asked suddenly.
“Haverly,” Aballister answered.
“He thinks himself Ragnor’s better,” Druzil said, a wicked, toothy smile spreading over his face. “He desires Ragnor’s death so that he might assume captainship of the fighters.”
Aballister did not argue. On several occasions, young Haverly, drunken with ale, had indicated those very desires, though he had never gone so far as to threaten the ogrillon. Even arrogant Haverly was not that stupid.
“Call him to us,” Druzil begged. “Let him complete our test. Tell him that this potion could strengthen his position in the triumvirate. Tell him that it could make him even stronger than Ragnor.”
Aballister stood quietly for a few moments to consider his options. Barjin had expressed grave doubts about the whole project, despite Aballister’s claims that it would serve Talona beyond anything else in all the world. The priest had only funded Aballister’s treasure hunt on the wizard’s promise, made before a dozen witnesses, that every copper piece would be repaid if the priest was not overjoyed with the results. Barjin had lost much in his flight from the northern kingdom of Damara: his prestige, his army, and many valuable and powerful items, some enchanted. His retained wealth alone had played the major role in preserving a measure of his former power. Now, as the weeks dragged on with rising expenses and no measurable results, Barjin grew increasingly impatient.
“I will get Haverly at once,” Aballister replied, suddenly intrigued. Neither the wizard nor Barjin held any love for either Ragnor, whom they considered too dangerous to be trusted, or Haverly, whom they considered too foolish, and any havoc that the test wreaked on that pair could help to diminish Barjin’s doubts.
Besides, Aballister thought, it might be fun to watch.
* * * * *
Druzil sat motionless on Aballister’s great desk, watching the events across the room with great interest. The imp wished he could play a larger role in this part of the test, but only the other wizards knew of his position as Aballister’s familiar, or that he was alive at all. The fighters of the triumvirate, even the clerics, thought the imp merely a garish statue, for on the few occasions that any of them had entered Aballister’s private quarters, Druzil had sat perfectly motionless on the desk.
“Bend low over the beaker as you add the final drop,” Aballister bade Haverly, looking back to Druzil for confirmation. The imp nodded imperceptibly and flared his nostrils in anticipation.
“That is correct,” Aballister said to Haverly. “Breathe deeply as you pour.”
Haverly stood straight and cast a suspicious gaze at the wizard. He obviously didn’t trust Aballister-certainly the wizard had shown him no friendship before now. “I have great plans,” he said threateningly, “and being turned into a newt or some other strange creature is not part of them.”
“You doubt?” Aballister roared suddenly, knowing that he must scare off the young fighter’s doubts without hesitation. “Then go away! Anyone can complete the brewing. I thought that one as ambitious as you ...”
“Enough,” Haverly interrupted, and Aballister knew his words had bit home. Haverly’s suspicion was no match for his hunger for power.
“I will trust you, wizard, though you have never given me cause to trust you,” Haverly finished.
“Nor have I ever given you cause not to trust me,” Aballister reminded him.
Haverly stared a moment longer at Aballister, his grimace not softening, then bent low over the beaker and poured the final drops. As soon as the liquids touched, the red-glowing elixir belched a puff of red smoke right in Haverly’s face. The fighter jumped back, his hand going straight to his sword.
“What have you done to me?” he demanded.
“Done?” Aballister echoed innocently. “Nothing. The smoke was harmless enough, if a bit startling.”
Haverly took a moment to inspect himself to be sure that he had suffered no ill effects, then he relaxed and nodded at the wizard. “What will happen next?” he asked sharply. “Where is the power you promised me?”
“In time, dear Haverly, in time,” replied Aballister. “The brewing of the elixir is only the first process.”
“How long?” demanded the eager fighter.
“I could have invited Ragnor instead of you,” Aballister pointedly reminded him.
Haverly’s transformation at the mention of Ragnor forced the wizard back several steps. The young fighter’s eyes widened grotesquely; he bit his lip so hard that blood dripped down his chin. “Ragnor!” he growled through gritted teeth. “Ragnor the imposter! Ragnor the pretender! You would not invite him, for I am his better!”
“Of course you are, dear Haverly,” the wizard cooed, trying to soothe the wild-eyed man, recognizing that Haverly was on the verge of explosion. “That is why ...” Aballister never finished, for Haverly, muttering under his breath, drew his sword and charged out of the room, nearly destroying the door as he passed. Aballister stared into the hallway, blinking in disbelief.
“Intoxicant?” came a sarcastic query from across the room.
Drawn away by the screams of “Ragnor!” Aballister didn’t bother to answer the imp. The wizard rushed out, not wanting to miss the coming spectacle, and soon found his two colleagues as they made their way through the halls.
“It is Haverly, the young fighter,” said Dorigen, the only female wizard in the castle. Aballister’s evil smile stopped her and her companion in their tracks.
“The potion is completed?” Dorigen asked hopefully, her amber eyes sparkling as she tossed her long black hair back over her shoulder.
“Chaos curse,” Aballister confirmed as he led them on. When they arrived at the complex’s large dining hall, they found that the fighting had already begun. Several tables had been flung about and a hundred startled men and ores, and even a few giants, lined the room’s perimeter, watching in amazement. Ragnor and Haverly stood facing each other in the center of the room, swords drawn.
“The fighters will need a new third in their ruling council,” Dorigen remarked. “Surely either Ragnor or Haverly will fall this day, leaving only two.”
“Ragnor!” Haverly proclaimed loudly. “Today I take my place as leader of the fighters!”
The other warrior, a powerfully built ogrillon, having ancestors both ogre and ore, and carrying the scars of a thousand battles, hardly seemed impressed. “Today you take your place among your ancestors,” he chided.
Haverly charged, his foolishly straightforward attack costing him so deep a gash on one shoulder that his arm was nearly severed. The crazed fighter didn’t even grimace, didn’t even notice the wound or the pain.
Though plainly amazed that the vicious wound had not slowed his opponent, Ragnor still managed to deflect Haverly’s sword and get in close to the man. He caught Haverly’s sword arm with his free hand and tried to position his own weapon for a strike.
Gasps of astonishment arose throughout the gathering as Haverly somehow managed to lift his brutally torn arm and similarly block Ragnor’s strike.
Haverly was almost as tall as Ragnor, but many pounds lighter and not nearly as strong. Still, and despite the wicked wound, he held Ragnor at bay for many moments.
“You are stronger than you seem,” Ragnor admitted, somewhat impressed, but showing no concern; on the few occasions that his incredible strength had failed him, the ogrillon had always found a way to improvise. He pressed a disguised button on his sword hilt, and a second blade, a long, slender dirk, appeared, protruding straight down from the sword hilt, right in line with Haverly’s unhelmeted head.
Haverly was too engrossed to even notice. “Ragnor!” he screamed again, hysterically, his face contorted. He slammed his forehead into Ragnor’s face, squashing the ogrillon’s nose. Haverly’s head came crashing in again, but Ragnor managed to ignore the pain and keep his concentration on the more lethal attack.
Haverly’s head came back in line a third time. Ragnor, tasting his own blood, savagely twisted his sword arm free and plunged straight down, impaling the dirk deeply into Haverly’s skull.
* * * * *
The three priests of the ruling triumvirate entered the room then, led by Barjin, who was obviously not pleased by the combat.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded of Aballister, understanding that the wizard had played a role here.
“A matter for the fighters to explain, it would seem,” Aballister replied with a shrug. Seeing that the priest was about to intervene in the continuing battle, Aballister bent over and whispered, “The chaos curse,” in Barjin’s ear.
Barjin’s face brightened immediately and he watched the bloody battle with sudden enthusiasm.
* * * * *
Ragnor could hardly believe that Haverly still struggled. His foot-long dirk was bloodied right to the pommel, but his opponent stubbornly backed away, thrashing to free himself of the blade.
Ragnor let him go, thinking Haverly in his death throes. But, to the continuing gasps of the onlookers-Barjin’s heard most loudly-Haverly did not topple.
“Ragnor!” he growled, shirring badly and spitting thick blood with every syllable. Blood filled one of his eyes and poured from his head wound, matting his brown hair, but he raised his sword and stumbled in.
Ragnor, terrified, struck first, taking advantage of Haverly’s partial blindness and hacking at his already wounded arm. The force of the blow severed the arm completely, just below the shoulder, and knocked Haverly several feet to the side.
“Ragnor!” Haverly sputtered again, barely keeping his balance. Again he came in, and again Ragnor beat him back, this time slicing through Haverly’s exposed ribs, digging at his heart and lungs.
Haverly’s cries became unintelligible wheezes as he continued his advance. Ragnor frantically rushed out to meet him, locking him in a tight embrace that rendered both long swords useless. Haverly had no defenses against Ragnor’s free hand, now holding a dirk, and the weapon dug repeatedly, viciously, at his back.
Still, many minutes passed before Haverly finally tumbled dead to the floor.
“A worthy adversary,” one bold ore remarked, coming over to inspect the body.
Covered in Haverly’s blood, and with his own nose broken, Ragnor was in no mood to hear any praises for Haverly. “A stubborn fool!” he corrected, and he lopped off the ore’s head with a single strike.
Barjin nodded at Aballister. “Talona watches with pleasure. Perhaps your chaos curse will prove worth the expense.”
“Chaos curse?” Aballister replied as though a notion had struck him. “That is not a fitting title for such a powerful agent of Talona. Tuanta Miancay, perhaps ... no, Tuanta QUIRO Miancay.”
One of Barjin’s associates, understanding the language and the implications of the title, gasped aloud. His companions stared at him, and he translated. “The Most Fatal Horror!”
Barjin snapped his gaze back on Aballister, realizing the wizard’s ploy. Aballister had played the most important role in the brewing and, with a few simple words, had ranked the potion above Barjin. Already the other two clerics, fanatic followers of Talona, were nodding eagerly and whispering their praises for Aballister’s creation.
“Tuanta Quiro Miancay” the cornered priest echoed, forcing a smile. “Yes, that will do properly.”
The obese wrestler rubbed a pudgy hand over his newest bruise, trying to ignore the growing taunts of his colleagues.
“I have been too relaxed against you,” he said to the young woman, “my being thrice your weight and you being a girl.”
Danica brushed her hair out of her almond-shaped brown eyes and tried to hide her smile. She didn’t want to humiliate the proud cleric, a disciple of Oghma. She knew his boasts were ridiculous. He had fought with all his fury, but it hadn’t done him any good.
Danica looked like a wisp of a thing, barely five feet tall, with a floppy mop of curly strawberry-blond hair hanging just below her shoulders and a smile to steal a paladin’s heart. Those who looked more closely found much more than “girlish” dressing, though. Years of meditation and training had honed Danica’s reflexes and muscles to a fine fighting edge, as the clerics of Oghma, fancying themselves great wrestlers in the image of their god figure, were painfully discovering one after another.
Every time Danica needed information in the great Edificant Library, she found it offered only in exchange for a wrestling match. For the gain of a single scroll penned by a long-dead monk, Danica now found herself faced off against this latest adversary, a sweaty and smelly behemoth. She didn’t really mind the play; she knew she could defeat tins one as easily as she had dispatched all the others.
The fat man straightened his black-and-gold vest, lowered his round head, and charged.
Danica waited until he was right in front of her, and to the onlookers it looked as if the woman would be buried beneath mounds of flesh. At the last moment, she dipped her head under the fat man’s lunging arm, caught his hand, and casually stepped behind him as he lumbered past. A subtle twist of her wrist stopped him dead in his tracks and, before he even realized what was happening, Danica kicked the back of both his knees, dropping him to a kneel.
While the big man went down, his arm, bent backward and held firmly in Danica’s amazingly strong grasp, did not. Sympathetic groans and derisive laughter erupted from those gathered to watch.
“Eastern corner!” the big man cried. “Third row, third shelf from the top in a silver tube!”
“My thanks,” Danica said, releasing her hold. She looked around, flashing that innocent smile. “Perhaps the next time I require information, you can fight me two against one.”
The clerics of Oghma, fearing that their god was not pleased, grumbled and turned away.
Danica offered her hand to the downed priest, but he proudly refused. He struggled to his feet, nearly falling again for lack of breath, and rushed to catch up with the others. Danica shook her head helplessly and retrieved her two daggers from a nearby bench. She took a moment to examine them, as she always did before putting them back into their respective boot sheaths. One had a hilt of gold, twisted into a tiger’s head, while the other had one of silver, bearing an image of a dragon. Both sported transparent crystal blades and were enhanced by a wizard’s spell to give them the strength of steel and perfect balance. They had been a very valuable and treasured gift from Danica’s master, a man whom Danica dearly missed. She had been with Master Turkel since her parents had died, and the wizened old man had become all the family she had. Danica thought of him as she resheathed the weapons, vowing for the millionth time to visit him when she had completed her studies.
Danica Maupoissant had been raised amid the bustle of the Westgate marketplace, five hundred miles to the northeast of the Edificant Library, on the neck between the Lake of Dragons and the Sea of Fallen Stars. Her father, Pavel, was a craftsman, reputably the finest wagonmaker in the region, who, like many people of Westgate, possessed a stubborn and fierce independence and no small amount of pride.
Theirs was a life of simple pleasures and unconditional love. Danica was twelve when she left her parents to serve as an apprentice to the aged, white-bearded potter named Turkel Bastan. Only months later did Danica come to understand her parents’ reasoning in sending her to him: they had foreseen what was to come.
She spent a year shuffling back and forth across the city, splitting her time between her extensive duties with Master Turkel and those rare opportunities she found to go home. Then, suddenly, there was nowhere to go. The raid had come in the dark of night, and when the assassins had gone, so, too, were Danica’s parents, the house she had grown up in, and the wagon shop that had been her father’s lifelong toil.
Master Turkel showed little emotion when he told Danica the terrible news, but the young girl heard him crying later, in the solitude of his small room. Only then did Danica come to realize that Turkel and her parents had orchestrated her apprenticeship. She had assumed it an accidental thing, and had feared that perhaps her parents had simply shuffled her away for their own convenience. She knew that Turkel was from the far-off eastern land of Tabot, the mountainous region of some of her mother’s ancestors, and she wondered if Turkel might be a distant relative. Whatever their relationship, Danica’s apprenticeship with the master soon had taken on a different light. He had helped her through her grieving, then had begun her true instruction, lessons that had little to do with making pottery.
Turkel was a Tabotan monk, a disciple of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn, whose religion combined mental discipline with physical training to achieve harmony of the soul. Danica guessed Turkel to be no less than eighty years old, but he could move with the grace of a hunting cat and strike with his bare hands with the force of iron weapons. His displays more than amazed Danica; they consumed her. Quiet and unassuming, Turkel was as peaceful and contented a man as Danica had ever known, yet underneath that outward guise was a fighting tiger that could be brought roaring forth in times of need.
So, too, grew the tiger in Danica. She learned and practiced, nothing else mattered to her. She used her constant work as a litany against her memories, a barricade against the pain with which she could not yet come to terms. Turkel understood, Danica later realized, and he chose carefully when he would tell her more of her parents’ demise.
The craftsmen and merchants of Westgate, along with, or perhaps because of, their fierce independence, were often bitter rivals, and Pavel had not escaped this fact of Westgate life. There were several other wagonmakers- Turkel would not tell Danica their names-who were jealous of Pavel’s continuing prosperity. They went to Pavel on a few occasions, threatening him with severe consequences if he would not share with them his long backlog of orders.
“If they had come as friends and fellow craftsmen, Pavel would have shared the wealth,” Turkel had said, as though he and Danica’s father had been much more than the slight acquaintances they pretended to be in public. “But your father was a proud man. He would not give in to threats, no matter how real the danger behind them.”
Danica had never pressed Turkel for the identity of the men who had killed her parents-or, rather, had hired the dreaded Night Masks, the usual means of assassination in Westgate, and to this day, she did not know who they were. She trusted that the master would tell her when he felt she was prepared to know, prepared to take revenge, if that was her choice, or when he believed she was willing to let go of the past and build on the future. Turkel had always indicated that to be his preference.
The image of the aged master came clearly to Danica’s mind as she stood there, holding the magnificent daggers. “You have outgrown me,” he had said to her, and there was no remorse, only pride, in his tone. “Your skills surpass my own in so many areas.”
Danica remembered vividly that she had thought the time of revelation at hand, that Turkel would tell her the names of the conspirators who had killed her parents and tell her to go out and seek revenge.
Turkel had other ideas.
“There remains only one master who can continue to instruct you,” Turkel had said, and as soon as he mentioned the Edificant Library, Danica knew what was to come. The library was home to many of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn’s rare and priceless scrolls; Turkel wanted her to learn directly from the records of the long-dead grandmaster. It was then that Turkel had given her the two magnificent daggers.
So she had left Westgate, barely more than a child, to build on her future, to attain new heights of self-discipline. Once again Master Turkel had shown his love and respect for her, placing her needs above his own obvious despair at her departure.
Danica believed that she had accomplished much in her first year at the library, both in her studies and in her understanding of other people, of the world that suddenly seemed so very large. She thought it ironic that her education of the wide world would come in a place of almost monastic seclusion, but she couldn’t deny that her views had matured considerably in the year she had spent at the library. Before she had lived in the private desire for revenge; now Westgate and the hired assassins seemed so very far away, and so many other, more positive, opportunities were opened to her.
She dismissed those dark memories now, left them with a final image of her father’s calm smile, her mother’s almond eyes, and the many wrinkles of Master Turkel’s wizened old face. Then even those pleasing images dissipated, buried beneath Danica’s many responsibilities to her craft.
The library was a massive room supported by dozens and dozens of arched pillars, which were even more confusing because of the thousands of distracting bas-reliefs carved into each one. It took Danica many minutes to determine which was the eastern comer. When she finally got there, moving down a narrow isle of tightly packed books, she found someone waiting for her.
Cadderly couldn’t hide his smile; he never could when he looked upon Danica, since the very first time he had seen her. He knew she had come from Westgate, several hundred miles to the northeast. That alone made her worldly by his standards, and there were so many other things about her that piqued his imagination. Although Danica’s features and mannerisms were mostly Western and not so different from the norm in the central realms, the shape of her eyes revealed some ancestry in the far and exotic East.
Cadderly often wondered if that was what had initially attracted him to Danica. Those almond eyes had promised adventure to him, and he was a man sorely in need of adventure. He had passed his twenty-first birthday and had been off the grounds of the Edificant Library only a few dozen times-and on those occasions, he had always been accompanied by at least one of the headmasters, usually Avery, and several other priests. Sometimes Cadderly thought himself pitifully bereft of any real experiences. To him, adventures and battles were events to be read about. He had never even seen a living orc, or monster of any kind.
Enter mysterious Danica and those alluring promises.
“It took you long enough,” Cadderly remarked slyly.
“I have been at the library just a year,” Danica retorted, “but you have lived here since before your fifth birthday.”
“I had the library figured out in a week, even at that age,” Cadderly assured her with a snap of his fingers. He fell into step beside her as she walked briskly toward the corner.
Danica glanced up at him, then bit back her sarcastic reply, not certain if the amazing Cadderly was teasing her or not.
“So you are fighting the big ones now?” Cadderly asked. “Should I be concerned?”
Danica stopped suddenly, pulled Cadderly’s face down to her own, and kissed him eagerly. She moved back from him just a few inches, her almond eyes, striking and exotic, boring into him.
Cadderly silently thanked Deneir that neither he nor Danica were of a celibate order, but, as always when they kissed, the contact made both of them nervous. “Fighting excites you,” Cadderly remarked coyly, stealing the romance and relieving the tension. “Now I am concerned.”
Danica pushed him back but did not let go of his tunic.
“You should be careful, you know,” Cadderly went on, suddenly serious. “If any of the headmasters caught you wrestling ...”
“The proud young loremasters do not leave me much choice,” Danica replied, casually tossing her hair and pulling it back from her face. She hadn’t really worked up much of a sweat against her latest opponent. “In this maze you call a library, I could not find half of what I need in a hundred years.” She rolled her eyes about to emphasize the vastness of the pillared room.
“Not a problem,” Cadderly assured her. “I had the library figured out ...”
“When you were five!” Danica finished for him and she pulled him close again. This time Cadderly decided that her attention might bring some added benefits. He prudently moved around to Danica’s right side-he scribed left-handed, and the last time he had attempted tins with his left hand, he had not been able to work for several days. Cadderly had been thrilled by what Danica called her “Withering Touch” for many months, considering it the most effective nonlethal attack form he had ever witnessed. He had begged Danica to teach it to him, but the skilled monk carefully guarded her fighting secrets, explaining to Cadderly that her fighting methods were but a small part of her religion, as much a discipline of the mind as of the body. She would not allow others to copy simple techniques without first achieving the mental preparation and philosophical attitudes that accompanied them.
In the middle of the kiss, Cadderly rubbed his hand across Danica’s belly, under the bottom of her short vest. As always, the young priest was amazed by the hard, rolling muscles of her stomach. A moment later, Cadderly started moving his hand slowly upward.
Danica’s reaction came in the blink of an eye. Her hand, one finger extended, snapped out across Cadderly’s chest and drove into his shoulder.
Under the vest, Cadderly’s hand stopped immediately, then fell lifeless to hang by his side. He grimaced for a moment as the burning pain became a general numbness the length of his arm.
“You are such a ...” Danica stammered, “a ... a boy!”
At first, Cadderly thought her anger just the expected reaction to his bold advance, then Danica stunned him completely. “Can you never forget your studies?”
“She knows!” a horrified Cadderly muttered to himself as Danica stormed away. Expecting the attack, he had carefully watched out of the comer of his eye and believed he knew precisely where Danica’s finger had struck. Until that moment, he had considered this attempt a success, despite the continuing pain. But now Danica knew!
The young scholar paused a moment to consider the implications, then was relieved when he heard Danica’s soft laughter from just beyond the next bookshelf. He took a step toward her, meaning to amend things, but Danica spun as soon as he rounded the corner, her finger poised to strike.
“The touch will work on your head as well,” the young woman promised, her light brown eyes sparkling eagerly.
Cadderly didn’t doubt that for a moment, and he surely didn’t want Danica to prove her words. It always amazed him that Danica, barely half his weight, could so easily take him down. He looked upon her with sincere admiration, even envy, for Cadderly dearly wished that he possessed Danica’s direction and dedication, her passion for her studies. While Cadderly went through his life busy but distracted, Danica’s vision of the world remained narrowly focused, based in a rigid and philosophical religion little-known in the western realms. That passion, too, enhanced the enchantment Danica had cast over Cadderly. He wanted to open her mind and her heart and look into both, knowing that only there would he find answers to fill the missing elements of his own life.
Danica embodied his dreams and his hopes; he didn’t even try to remember how sorely empty his life had been before he had met her. He backed away slowly, lifting his palms and holding them open and out wide to show that he wanted no part of any further displays.
“Stand!” Danica commanded as sharply as her melodious voice allowed. “Have you nothing to say to me?”
Cadderly thought for a moment, wondering what she wanted to hear. “I love you?” he asked as much as declared.
Danica nodded and smiled disarmingly, then dropped her hand. Cadderly’s gray eyes returned the smile tenfold and he took a step toward her.
The dangerous finger shot up and waved about, resembling some hellish viper.
Cadderly shook his head and ran from the room, pausing only to grab a scrap of parchment and dip the quill he kept stuck under his hat band into an open inkwell. He had witnessed the Withering Touch perfectly, and he wanted to sketch the image while it was fresh in his mind. This time, Danica’s laughter was not so soft.
“They are singing to it!” Druzil cried in amazement, not certain of whether that was a good thing or not. The religious fanatics of Castle Trinity had taken the potion to heart; even the not-so-faithful, such as Ragnor and, by Aballister’s estimation, Barjin, had been swept up in the zealous flow. “Though not very well, I fear.” The imp put his wings over his ears to lessen the sound.
Aballister, too, did not enjoy the discordant wails that resounded throughout the castle complex with a zeal that walls and doors could not diminish, but he tolerated the clerics better than his worrisome imp. The wizard, too, was not without his reservations, though. Ever since the battle in the dining hall four weeks before, Barjin had forcefully taken the project as his own and had led the chorus of chants to the Most Fatal Horror.
“Barjin has the wealth,” Druzil reminded the wizard, as though the imp had sensed Aballister’s thoughts.
Aballister replied with a grim nod. “I fear that my insult has been turned back on me,” he explained, moving slowly to the window and looking out over the Shining Plains. “By naming the chaos curse the Most Fatal Horror, I sought to demean Barjin, to weaken his position, but he has weathered the torment and resisted his prideful urging better than I had expected. All the followers believe his sincerity, to Talona and to the chaos curse.” Aballister sighed. On the one hand, he was disappointed that his ploy had not stung Barjin, at least not outwardly, but on the other hand, the priest leader, sincere or not, was surely preparing Castle Trinity for the coming trials and thus was furthering Talona’s will.
“If the followers believe our mixture is a simple magical concoction, no matter how potent, they will not so readily give their lives to the cause,” Aballister reasoned, turning back on Druzil. “There is nothing like religion to rouse the rabble.”
“You do not believe the elixir is an agent of Talona?” Druzil asked, though he already knew the answer.
“I know the difference between a magical concoction and a sentient shield man,” Aballister replied dryly. “The elixir will indeed serve the Lady of Poison’s cause, and so its title is a fitting one.”
“Barjin has put all the forces of Castle Trinity behind him,” Druzil quickly responded, his tone ominous. “Even Ragnor does not dare go against him.”
“Why would he, or anyone else, want to?” Aballister replied. “The chaos curse soon will be put to proper use, and Barjin has played a major role in that.”
“At what price?” the imp demanded. “I gave the recipe for the chaos curse to you, my master, not the priest. Yet it is the priest who controls its fate and uses you and the other wizards to serve his own designs “
“We are a brotherhood, sworn to loyalty.”
“You are a gathering of thieves,” Druzil retorted. “Be not so swift in presuming the existence of honor. If Ragnor did not fear you, and did not see profit in keeping you, he would cut you down. Barjin-“ Druzil rolled his bulbous eyes “-Barjin cares for nothing except Barjin. Where are his scars? His tattoos? He does not deserve his title, nor the leadership of the priests. He falls to his knees for the goddess only because doing so makes those around him praise him for his holiness. There is nothing religious-“
“Enough, dear Druzil,” soothed the wizard, waving one hand calmly.
“Do you deny that Barjin controls the chaos curse?” Druzil retorted. “Do you believe that Barjin would show any loyalty to Aballister if he did not need Aballister?”
The wizard walked away from the small window and fell back into his wooden chair, unable to argue those points. But even if he admitted that he had miscalculated, he could do little now to stop events from following their course. Barjin had the elixir and the money, and if Aballister meant to recapture control of the potion for himself, he might have to fight a war within the triumvirate. Aballister and his wizard comrades were powerful, but they were only three. With Barjin whipping the hundreds of Castle Trinity soldiers into religious fervor, the wizards had become somewhat secluded within the complex.
“They have added rituals and conditions,” the imp went on, spitting every word with distaste. “Did you know that Barjin has placed warding glyphs on the flask, so that it might be opened only by an innocent?”
“That is a typical priestly ploy,” Aballister replied casually, trying to alleviate Druzil’s worries.
“He does not understand the power under his control,” Druzil retorted. “The chaos curse needs no ‘priestly ploys.’”
Aballister gave an unconcerned shrug, but he, too, had not agreed with Barjin’s decision concerning those glyphs. Barjin thought that allowing an innocent to serve as an unintentional catalyst was fitting for the agent of the chaotic goddess, but Aballister feared that the cleric was simply adding conditions to an already complicated process.
“Barjin quiesta pas tellemara,” Druzil muttered.
Aballister narrowed his eyes. He had heard that obviously unflattering phrase in many different contexts these last few weeks, most often aimed at him. He kept his suspicions to himself, though, realizing that many of Druzil’s complaints were valid.
“Perhaps it is time for the Most Fatal Horror to go out and perform Talona’s will beyond this pile of rocks,” Aballister said. “Perhaps we have spent too long in preparation.”
“Barjin’s power is too consolidated,” Druzil said. “Do not underestimate him.”
Aballister nodded, then rose and walked across the room. “You should not underestimate,” he pointed out to the imp, “the advantages in convincing people that there is a higher purpose to their actions, a higher authority guiding their leaders’ decisions.” The wizard opened the heavy door, and the unholy canticle drowned out his next words. More than Barjin’s handful of clerics were singing; the canticle was a hundred screaming voices strong, echoing off the stone walls with frantic urgency. Aballister shook his head in disbelief as he exited.
Druzil could not deny Barjin’s effectiveness in preparing the force for the tasks ahead, but the imp still held reservations about the Most Fatal Horror and all the complications that title implied. The imp knew, if the wizard did not, that Aballister would not have an easy time of walking away with the elixir bottle.
* * * * *
“More like this one,” Cadderly said to Ivan Bouldershoulder, a square-shouldered dwarf with a yellow beard hanging low enough to trip him if he didn’t watch his step. The two were beside Cadderly’s bed-Cadderly kneeling and Ivan standing-examining a tapestry depicting the legendary war wherein the elvish race had been split into surface and drow. Only half unrolled, the huge woven cloth still covered the bed. “The design is right, but its shaft might be a little tight for my darts.”
Ivan pulled out a small stick, notched at regular intervals, and took some measurements of the hand-held crossbow Cadderly had indicated, then of the arm of the drow elf holding it. “They’ll fit,” the dwarf replied, confident of his work. He looked across the room to his brother, Pikel, who busied himself with several models Cadderly had constructed. “You got the bow?”
Engrossed in his play, Pikel didn’t even hear him. He was older than Ivan by several years, but he was by far the less serious of the two. They were about the same size, though Pikel was a bit more round-shouldered, an attribute exaggerated by his loose-fitting, drooping robes. His beard was green this week, for he had dyed it in honor of the visiting druids. Pikel liked druids, a fact that made his brother roll his eyes and blush. It wasn’t usual that a dwarf would get on well with woodland folk, but Pikel was far from usual. Rather than let his beard hang loose to his toes, as did Ivan, he parted it in the middle and pulled it back over his huge ears, braiding it together with his hair to hang halfway down his back. It looked rather silly to Ivan, but Pikel, the library’s cook, thought it practical for keeping his beard out of the soup. Besides, Pikel didn’t wear the boots common to his race; he wore sandals-a gift from the druids-and his long beard tickled his free-wiggling, gnarly toes.
“Oo oi,” Pikel chuckled, rearranging the models. One was remarkably similar to the Edificant Library, a squat, square, four-storied structure with rows of tiny windows. Another model was a displaced wall like those in the library, supported by huge, heavily blocked arches. It was the third and tallest model that intrigued Pikel. It, too, was of a wall, but unlike anything the dwarf, no novice to masonry, had ever seen. The model stood straight to half the dwarfs four-foot height but was not nearly as wide or bulky as the other, shorter, wall. Slender and graceful, it was really two structures: the wall and a supporting pillar, connected by two bridges, one halfway up and the other at the very top.
Pikel pushed down hard on the model, but, fragile though it appeared, it did not bend under his considerable strength.
“Oo oi!” the delighted dwarf squealed.
“The crossbow?” demanded Ivan, now standing behind Pikel. Pikel fumbled about the many pockets in his cook’s apron, finally handing over a small wooden coffer.
Pikel squeaked at Cadderly, pointed to the strange wall, and gave an inquisitive look.
“Just something I investigated a few months ago,” Cadderly explained. He tried to sound nonchalant, but a clear trace of excitement rang in his voice. With all that had been going on lately, he had almost forgotten the models, though the new design had shown remarkable promise. The Edificant Library was far from a mundane structure. Elaborate sculptures, enhanced by the ivy, covered its walls, and some of the most wondrous gargoyles in all the Realms completed its intricate and effective gutter system. Many of the finest minds in the region had designed and constructed the place, but whenever Cadderly looked upon it, all that he could see were its limitations. For all its detail, the library was square and squat, and its windows were small and unremarkable.
“An idea for expanding the library,” he explained to Pikel. He gathered up a nearby blanket and slipped it under the model of the library, folding its sides to resemble the rough surrounding mountain terrain.
Ivan shook his head and walked back to the bed, knowing that Cadderly and Pikel could continue their outlandish conversations for hours on end.
“Centuries ago, when the library was built,” Cadderly began, “no one had any idea it would grow so large. The founders wanted a secluded spot where they could study in private, so they chose the high passes of the Snowflake Mountains. Most of the northern and eastern wings, as well as the third and fourth stories were added much later, but we have run out of room. To the front and both sides, the ground slopes too steeply to allow further expansion without supports, and to the west, behind us, the mountain stone is too tough to be properly cleared away.”
“Oh?” muttered Pikel, not so sure of that. The Bouldershoulder brothers had come from the forbidding Galena Mountains, far to the north beyond Vaasa, where the ground was ever frozen and the stones were as tough as any in the Realms. But not too tough for a determined dwarf! Pikel kept his thoughts private, though, not wanting to halt Cadderly’s mounting momentum.
“I think we should go up,” Cadderly said casually. “Add a fifth, and possibly sixth level.”
“It’d never hold,” grumbled Ivan from the bed, not so intrigued and wanting to get back to the business of the crossbow.
“Aha!” said Cadderly, pointing a finger straight up in the air. Ivan knew by the look on Cadderly’s face that he had played right into the young man’s hopes. Cadderly did so love doubters where his inventions were concerned.
“The aerial buttress!” the young priest proclaimed, holding his hands out to the strange, two-structured wall.
“Oo oi!” agreed Pikel, who had already tested the wall’s strength.
“There’s one for the faeries,” grumbled a doubting Ivan. “Look at it, Ivan,” Cadderly said reverently. “One for the faeries, indeed, if that phrase implies grace. The strength of the design cannot be underestimated. The bridges displace stress so that the walls, with minimal stonework, can hold much more than you might believe, leaving incredible possibilities for window designs.”
“Sure, from the top,” the dwarf replied gruffly, “but how might it take a giant’s ram on the side? And what about the wind? There are mighty cross-breezes up here, and mightier still if you go building higher!”
Cadderly spent a long moment considering the aerial buttress. Every time he looked upon the model, he was filled with hope. He thought that a library should be an enlightening place, physically and mentally, and while the Edificant Library was surrounded by impressive grounds and mountain views, it remained a dark and thick-stoned place. The popular architecture of the time required massive stone foundations and did not allow for large windows. In the world of the Edificant Library, sunlight was something to be enjoyed outside. “Scholars should not sit squinting by candlelight, even at midday, to read their tomes,” Cadderly argued.
“The greatest weapons in all the world were forged in deep holes by my ancestors,” Ivan countered.
“It was just the beginnings of an idea,” mumbled Cadderly defensively, suddenly agreeing with Ivan that they should get back to the crossbow. Cadderly did not doubt his design’s potential, but he realized that he would have a hard time convincing a dwarf, who had lived a century in tight tunnels, of the value of sunlight.
Ever sympathetic, Pikel put a hand on Cadderly’s shoulder.
“Now for the bow,” Ivan said, opening the wooden coffer. The dwarf gently lifted a small, nearly completed crossbow, beautifully constructed and resembling the bow depicted on the tapestry. “The work’s making me thirsty!”
“The scroll is nearly translated,” Cadderly assured him, not missing the reference to the ancient dwarven mead recipe he had promised in return for the crossbow. Cadderly had actually translated the recipe many weeks before but had held it back, knowing that Ivan would complete the bow more quickly with such a prize dangling just out of his reach.
“That’s good, boy,” Ivan replied, smacking his lips. “You get your bow in a week, but I’ll need the picture to finish it. You got something smaller showing it?”
Cadderly shook his head. “All I have is the tapestry,” he admitted.
“You want me to walk through the halls with a stolen tapestry under me arm?” Ivan roared.
“Borrowed,” Cadderly corrected.
“With Headmistress Pertelope’s blessings?” Ivan asked sarcastically.
“Uh oh,” added Pikel.
“She will never miss it,” Cadderly replied, unconvincingly. “If she does, I will tell her that I needed it to confirm some passages in the drow tome I am translating.”
“Pertelope knows more of drow than does yerself,” Ivan reminded him. “She’s the one who gave you the book!”
“Uh oh,” Pikel said again.
“The mead is blacker than midnight,” Cadderly said offhandedly, “so the recipe says. It would kill a fair-sized tree if you poured only a pint of it along the roots.”
“Get the other end,” Ivan said to Pikel. Pikel pulled his mushroom-shaped cook’s cap over the tangle of green hair, which made his ears stick out even farther, then helped Ivan roll the tapestry up tight. They hoisted it together while Cadderly cracked open the door and made sure that the hall was empty.
Cadderly glanced over his shoulder at the diminishing angle of the shining sun through his window. His floor was marked in measured intervals to serve as a morning clock. “A few minutes to noon,” he said to the dwarves. “Brother Chaunticleer will begin the midday canticle soon. All the host priests are required to attend and most of the others usually go. The way should be clear.”
Ivan gave Cadderly a sour look.
“Tut-tut,” muttered Pikel, shaking his furry face and wagging a finger at Cadderly.
“I will get there!” Cadderly growled at them. “No one notices if I am just a few moments late.”
The melody began then, Brother Chaunticleer’s perfect soprano wafting gently through the corridors of the ancient library. Every noon, Chaunticleer ascended to his place at the podium of the library’s great hall to sing two songs, the respective legends of Deneir and Oghma. Many scholars came to the library to study, it was true, but many others came to hear the renowned Chaunticleer. He sang a cappella but could fill the great hall and the rooms beyond with his amazing four-octave voice so fully that listeners had to look at him often just to make sure that no choir stood behind him.
Oghma’s song was first tins day, and under the cover of that energetic and rousing tune, the brothers Bouldershoulder bounced and stumbled their way down two curving stairways and through a dozen too-tight doorways to their quarters beside the library’s kitchen.
Cadderly entered the great hall at about the same time, slipping quietly through the high oaken double doors and moving to the side, behind a large arch support.
“Aerial buttress,” he couldn’t help but mutter, shaking his head in dismay at the bulky pillar. He realized then that he had not entered unnoticed. Kierkan Rufo smiled at him from the shadows of the next nearest arch.
Cadderly knew that the conniving Rufo had waited for him, seeking new fuel for Headmaster Avery’s ire, and he knew that Avery would not excuse his tardiness. Cadderly pretended not to care, not wanting to give Rufo the satisfaction. He pointedly looked away and pulled out his spindle-disks, an archaic weapon used by ancient halfling tribesmen of southern Luiren. The device consisted of two circular rock crystal disks, each a finger’s breadth wide and a finger’s length in diameter, joined in their centers by a small bar on which was wrapped a string. Cadderly had discovered the weapon in an obscure tome and had actually improved on the design, using a metal connecting bar with a small hole through which the string could be threaded and knotted rather than tied.
Cadderly slipped his finger through the loop on the string’s loose end. With a flick of his wrist, he sent the spindle-disks rolling down the length of the string, then brought them spinning back to his hand with a slight jerk of his finger.
Cadderly sneaked a look out of the comer of his eye. Knowing that he had Rufo’s attention, he sent the disks down again, quickly looped the string over the fingers of his free hand to form a triangle, and held the still-spinning disks in the middle, rocking them back and forth like a baby’s cradle. Rufo was leaning forward now, mesmerized by the game, and Cadderly didn’t miss the opportunity.
He released the string from his cradling hand, gathering the spindle-disks too suddenly for the eye to follow, then flicked them out straight at his rival. The string brought the flying device back to Cadderly’s hand before it got halfway to Rufo, but the startled man stumbled backward and toppled. Cadderly congratulated himself for his timing, for Rufo’s noisy descent coincided with the most dramatic pause in Brother Chaunticleer’s song.
“Ssshhh!” came the angry hisses from every direction, and Cadderly’s was not the least among them. It seemed that Headmaster Avery would have two students to discipline that night.
The meeting chamber at Castle Trinity was quite different from the great and ornate hall of the Edificant Library. Its ceiling was low and its door squat and barred and heavily guarded. A single triangular table dominated the room, with three chairs on each side, one group for the wizards, one for the fighters, and one for the clerics.
Scan the room, Druzil suggested telepathically to Aballister, who was in the room. The imp surveyed through the wizard’s eyes, using their telepathic link to view whatever Aballister was looking at. Aballister did as he was bidden, moving his gaze around the triangular table, first to Ragnor and the other two fighters, then to Barjin and his two cleric companions.
Druzil broke the mental connection suddenly and hissed a wicked laugh, knowing that he had left Aballister in complete confusion. He could feel the wizard trying to reestablish the mental link, could hear Aballister’s thoughts calling to him.
But Aballister was not in command of their telepathy; the imp had used this mental form of communication for more decades than Aballister had been alive and it was he who decided when and where he and the wizard would link. For now, Druzil had no reason to continue contact; he had seen all that he needed to see. Barjin was in the meeting hall and would be busy there for some time.
Druzil found his center of magic, his otherworldly essence, which allowed him to transcend the physical rules governing creatures of this host plane. A few seconds later, the imp faded from sight, becoming transparent, then he was off, flapping down the hallways to a wing of Castle Trinity to which he rarely traveled.
It was risky business, Druzil knew, but if the chaos curse was to be in the priest’s hands, then Druzil needed to know more about him.
Druzil knew that Barjin’s door would be locked and heavily warded against intrusion, but he considered that a minor problem with one of Barjin’s bodyguards standing rigid in the hall just outside it. Druzil entered the man’s thoughts just long enough to plant a suggestion, a magical request.
“There is an intruder in Barjin’s room,” came Druzil’s silent beckon.
The guard glanced about nervously for a moment, as if seeking the source of the call. He stared long at Barjin’s door-looking right through the invisible imp-then hastily fumbled with some keys, spoke a command word to prevent the warding glyphs from exploding, and entered.
Druzil quietly mouthed the same command word and walked in behind.
After, a few minutes of inspecting the apparently empty room, the guard shook his head and left, locking the door behind him.
Druzil snickered at how easily some humans could be controlled. The imp didn’t have the time or inclination to gloat, though, not with all of the mysterious Barjin’s secrets open for his inspection. The room was ordinary enough for one of Barjin’s stature. A large canopy bed dominated the wall opposite the door, with a night table beside it. Druzil rubbed his hands together eagerly as he headed for the table. Atop it, next to the lamp, was a black-bound book and, next to that, several quills and an ink-well.
“How thoughtful of you to keep a journal,” Druzil rasped, carefully opening the work. He read through the first entries, dated two years earlier. They were mostly lamentations by Barjin, accounts of his exploits in the northern kingdoms of Vaasa, Damara, and Narfell, to the north. Druzil’s already considerable respect for the priest grew as he devoured the words. Barjin once had commanded an army and had served a powerful master-he gave no direct references to the man, if it was a man-not as a cleric, but as a wizard!
Druzil paused to consider this revelation, then hissed and read on. Although formidable, Barjin admitted that he had not been the most powerful of the wizards in his master’s service-again a vague reference to the mysterious master, giving Druzil the impression that perhaps Barjin, even years later, feared to speak the creature’s name aloud or write it down. Barjin’s rise to power had come later, when the army had taken on a religious zeal and his master apparently had assumed godlike proportions.
Druzil couldn’t contain a snicker at the striking parallels between the priest’s ascent and the chaos curse’s transformation into a goddess’s direct agent.
Barjin had become a priest and headed an army to fulfill his evil master’s desire to conquer the whole of the northland. The plans had fallen through, though, when an order of paladins-Druzil hissed aloud when he read that cursed word-arose in Damara and organized an army of its own. Barjin’s master and most of his cohorts had been thrown down, but Barjin had barely escaped with his life and a portion of the evil army’s accumulated wealth.
Barjin had fled south, alone but for a few lackeys. Since his proclaimed “god” had been dispatched, his clerical powers had greatly diminished. Druzil spent a while musing over this revelation; nowhere did Barjin mention his claimed meeting with Talona’s avatar.
The journal went on to tell of Barjin’s joining the triumvirate at Castle Trinity-again with no mention of the avatar. Druzil snickered aloud at Barjin’s opportunism. Even a year ago, coming in as a pitiful refugee, Barjin had duped Castle Trinity’s leaders, had used their fanaticism against them.
After only a month in the castle, Barjin had ascended to the third rank in the priestly hierarchy, and after only a few more weeks, Barjin had taken over undisputed command as Talona’s chief representative. And yet, Druzil realized as he flipped quickly through the pages, Barjin thought not enough about his goddess to give her more than a few passing references in his journal.
Aballister was correct: Barjin was a hypocrite, a fact that hardly seemed to matter. Again Druzil snickered aloud at the irony, at the pure chaos.
Druzil knew the rest of Barjin’s story well enough; he had been present long before Barjin ever arrived. The journal, sadly, did not offer any further revelations, but the imp was not disappointed when he closed the book; there were too many other items to be investigated.
Barjin’s new vestments, a conical cap and expensive purple robes embroidered in red with the new insignia of the triumvirate, hung beside the bed. An offspring of Talona’s symbol, the three teardrops inside a triangle’s points, this one sported a trident, its three prongs tipped by teardrop-shaped bottles, much like the one carrying the chaos curse. Barjin had designed it personally, and only Ragnor had offered any resistance.
“So you do plan to spread the word of your god,” Druzil muttered a few moments later when he discovered Barjin’s bedroll, folded tent, and stuffed backpack under the bed. He reached for the items, then jumped back suddenly, sensing a presence in that pile. He felt the beginnings of a telepathic communication, but not from Aballister. Eagerly, the imp reached under the bed and pulled the items out, recognizing the telepathic source immediately as Barjin’s magical mace.
“Screaming Maiden,” Druzil said, echoing the item’s telepathic declaration and examining the crafted item. Its obsidian head was that of a pretty young girl, strangely innocuous and appealing. Druzil saw through the grotesque facade. He knew this was not a weapon of the material plane, but one that had been forged in the Abyss, or in the Nine Hells, or in Tarterus, or in one of the other lower planes. It was sentient, obviously, and hungry. More than anything else, Druzil could feel its hunger, its blood-lust. He watched in joyful amazement as the mace enhanced that point, its obsidian head twisting into a leering visage, a fanged maw opening wide.
Druzil clapped his padded hands together and smiled wickedly. His respect for Barjin continued to mount, for any mortal capable of wielding such a weapon must be powerful indeed. Rumors around the fortress expressed disdain that Barjin did not favor the poisoned dagger, the usual weapon of Talona’s clerics, but, seeing this mace up close and sensing its terrible power, Druzil agreed with the priest’s choice.
Inside the rolled tent Druzil found a brazier and tripod nearly as intricate and rune-covered as Aballister’s. “You are a sorcerer, too, Barjin,” the imp whispered, wondering what future events that might imply. Already Druzil imagined what his life might be like if he had stepped through the brazier to Barjin’s call instead of Aballister’s.
The thick backpack held other wondrous items. Druzil found a deep, gem-encrusted bowl of beaten platinum, no doubt worth a king’s fortune. Druzil placed it carefully on the floor and reached back into the pack, as exuberant as a hungry ore shoving its arm down a rat hole.
He pulled out a solid and heavy object, fist-sized and wrapped in black doth. Whatever was inside dearly emanated magical energies, and Druzil took care to lift only one comer of the doth to peek in. He beheld a huge black sapphire, recognized it as a necromancer’s stone, and quickly rewrapped it in the shielding cloth. If exposed, such a stone could send out a call to the dead, summoning ghosts or ghouls, or any other netherworld monsters in the area.
Of similar magical properties was the small ceramic flask that Druzil inspected next. He unstoppered it and sniffed, sneezing as some ashes came into his ample nose.
“Ashes?” the imp whispered curiously, peering in. Under the black cloth, the necromancer’s stone pulsed, and Druzil understood. “Long dead spirit,” he muttered, quickly dosing the flask.
Nothing else showed to be of any particular interest, so Druzil carefully rewrapped and replaced everything as he had found it. He hopped up on the comfortable bed, secure with his invisibility, and relaxed, pondering all that he had learned. This Barjin was a diversified human-priest, wizard, general, dabbling in sorcery, necromancy, and who could guess what else.
“Yes, a very resourceful human,” Druzil decided. He felt better about Barjin’s involvement in the chaos curse. He checked in telepathically with Aballister for just a moment, to make certain that the meeting was in full swing, then congratulated himself on his cunning and folded his plump hands behind his head.
Soon he was fast asleep.
* * * * *
“We have only the one suitable bottle,” said Aballister, representing the wizards. “The ever-smoking devices are difficult to create, requiring rare gems and metals, and we all know how costly it was to brew even a small amount of the elixir.” He felt Barjin’s stare boring into him at the reference to the cost.
“Do not speak of the Most Fatal Horror as an elixir,” the clerical leader commanded. “Once it may have been just a magical potion, but now it is much more.”
“Tuanta Quiro Miancay,” chanted the other two priests, scarred and ugly men with blotchy tattoos covering nearly every inch of their exposed skin.
Aballister returned Barjin’s glare. He wanted to scream at Barjin’s hypocrisy, to shake the other clerics into action against him, but Aballister wisely checked his outburst. He knew that any accusations against Barjin would produce the opposite results and that he would become the target of the faithful. Druzil’s estimation of Barjin had been correct, Aballister had to admit. The priest had indeed consolidated his power.
“Brewing the Most Fatal Horror,” conceded Aballister, “has depleted our resources. To begin again and create more, and also acquire another bottle, could well prove beyond our limits.”
“Why do we need these stupid bottles?” interrupted Ragnor. “If the stuffs a god as you say, then ...”
Barjin was quick to answer. “The Most Fatal Horror is merely an agent of Talona,” the priest explained calmly. “In itself, it is not a god, but it will aid us to comply with Talona’s edicts.”
Ragnor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. It was obvious that the volatile ogrillon’s patience had just about expired.
“All of your followers embrace Tuanta Quiro Miancay,” Barjin reminded Ragnor, “embrace it with all their hearts.” Ragnor eased back in his seat, flinching at the threatening implications.
Aballister studied Barjin curiously for a long while, awed by how easily the priest had calmed the ogrillon. Barjin was tall, vigorous, and imposing, but he was no match physically for Ragnor. Usually, physical strength was all that mattered to the powerful fighter; Ragnor normally showed the clerics and wizards less respect than he gave to even his lowliest soldiers. Barjin seemed to be the exception, though; especially of late, Ragnor had not openly opposed him on any issue.
Aballister, while concerned, was not surprised. He knew that Barjin’s powers went far beyond the priest’s physical abilities. Barjin was a charmer and a hypnotist, a careful strategist who weighed his opponent’s mind-set above all else and used spells as often for simple enhancement of a favorable situation as to affect those he meant to destroy. Just a few weeks earlier, a conspiracy had been discovered within the evil triumvirate. The single prisoner had resisted Ragnor’s interrogations, at the price of incredible pain and several toes, but Barjin had the wretch talking within an hour, willingly divulging all that he knew about his fellow conspirators.
Whispers said that the tortured man actually believed Barjin was an ally, right up until the priest casually bashed in his skull. Aballister did not doubt those whispers and was not surprised. That was how Barjin worked; few could resist the priest’s hypnotic charisma. Aballister did not know much of Barjin’s former deity, lost in the wastelands of Vaasa, but what he had seen of the refugee priest’s spell repertoire was beyond the norm that he would expect of clerics. Again Aballister referred to the whispers for his answers, rumors that indicated Barjin dabbled in wizardry as well as clerical magic.
Barjin was still speaking reverently of the elixir when Aballister turned his attention back to the meeting. The priest’s preaching held the other clerics, and Ragnor’s two fighter companions, awestruck. Aballister shook his head and dared not interrupt. He considered again the course that his life had taken, how the avatar had led him to Druzil, and Druzil had delivered the recipe. Then the avatar had led Barjin to Castle Trinity. That was the part of the puzzle that did not fit in Aballister’s reasoning. After a year of watching the priest, Aballister remained convinced that Barjin was no true disciple of Talona, but again he reminded himself that Barjin, sincere or not, was furthering the cause, and that because of Barjin’s purse and influence, all the region might soon be claimed in the goddess’s name.
Aballister let out a profound sigh; such were the paradoxes of chaos.
“Aballister?” Barjin asked. The wizard cleared his throat nervously and glanced around, realizing he had missed much of the conversation.
“Ragnor was inquiring about the necessity of the bottles,” Barjin politely explained.
“The bottles, yes,” Aballister stuttered. “The elix- ... the Most Fatal Horror is potent with or without them. Minute amounts are all that are required for the chaos curse to take effect, but it will last only a short while. With the ever-smoking bottles, the god-stuff is released continually. We have created just a few drops, but I believe there is enough liquid to fuel the ever-smoking bottle for months, perhaps years, if the mixture within the bottle is correct.”
Barjin looked around and exchanged nods with his clerical companions. “We have decided that Talona’s agent is ready,” he declared.
“You have ...” the wizard Dorigen stammered in disbelief.
Aballister stared long and hard at Barjin. He had meant to take command of the meeting and suggest just what the priest was getting at; again Barjin had thought one step ahead of him, had stolen his thunder.
“We are the representatives of Talona,” Barjin coolly replied to Dorigen’s outrage. His companions bobbed their heads stupidly.
Aballister’s clenched fingers nearly tore a chunk out of his oaken chair.
“The goddess has spoken to us, has revealed her wishes,” Barjin continued smugly. “Our conquests will soon begin!”
Ragnor beat a fist on the table in excited agreement; now the priest was speaking in terms the ogrillon warrior could understand. “Who are you planning for carrying the bottle?” Ragnor asked bluntly.
“I will carry it,” Aballister quickly put in. He knew as soon as he heard his own words that his claim sounded desperate, a last attempt to salvage his own position of power.
Barjin shot him an incredulous look.
“It was I who met Talona’s avatar,” Aballister insisted, “and I who discovered the recipe for the Most Fatal Horror.”
“For that, we thank you,” remarked the priest in a condescending tone. Aballister started to protest, but sank back in his chair as a magical message was wispered into his ear. Do not fight with me over this, wizard, Barjin quietly warned.
Aballister knew that the critical moment was upon him. He gave in now, he felt he might never recover his standing in Castle Trinity, but if he argued against Barjin, against the religious fury that the priest had inspired, he would surely split the order and might find himself badly outnumbered.
“The priests of Talona will carry the bottle, of course,” Barjin answered Ragnor. “We are the true disciples.”
“You are one leg of a ruling triumvirate,” Aballister dared to remind him. “Do not claim the Most Fatal Horror solely as your own.”
Ragnor did not see things quite the same way. “Leave it to the priests,” the ogrillon demanded.
Aballister’s surprise disappeared as soon as he realized that the brutish fighter, suspicious of magic, was simply relieved that he would not have to carry the bottle.
“Agreed,” Barjin quickly put in. Aballister started to speak out, but Dorigen put a hand over his arm and gave him a look that begged him to let it go.
“You have something to say, good wizard?” Barjin asked.
Aballister shook his head and sank even deeper into his chair, and even deeper into despair.
“Then it is settled,” said Barjin. “The Most Fatal Horror will descend upon our enemies, carried by my second-“ he nodded to the priests on his right and on his left “-and my third.”
“No!” Aballister blurted, seeing a way to salvage something of this disaster. All gazes descended upon him; he saw Ragnor put a hand to his sword hilt. “Your second?” the wizard asked, and now it was he who feigned an incredulous tone. “Your third?” Aballister rose from his chair and held his arms out stretched.
“Is this not the direct agent of our goddess?” he preached. “Is this not the beginning of our greatest ambitions? No, only Barjin is fit to carry such a precious artifact. Only Barjin can properly begin the reign of chaos.” The gathering turned as one to Barjin and Aballister returned to his seat, thinking that he had at last outmaneuvered the clever priest. If he could get Barjin out of Castle Trinity for a time, he could reestablish his claim as the chief speaker for the brotherhood.
Unexpectedly, the priest didn’t argue. “I will carry it,” he said. He looked to the other, startled clerics and added, “And I will go alone.”
“All the fun for you?” Ragnor complained. “Merely the first battle of the war,” Barjin responded. “My warriors desire battle,” Ragnor pressed. “They hunger for blood!”
“They will have all that they can drink and more!” Barjin snapped. “But I will go first and cripple our enemies. When I return, Ragnor can lead the second assault.”
This seemed to satisfy the ogrillon, and now Aballister understood Barjin’s salvaging ploy. By going alone, the priest would not only leave his clerical cohorts to keep an eye on things, but he would leave Ragnor and his soldiers. Always vying for power, the ogrillon, with the prodding of the remaining clerics, would not allow Aballister and the wizards to regain a firm foothold.
“Where will you loose it?” Aballister asked. “And when?” “There are preparations to be made before I leave,” Barjin answered, “things that only a priest, a true disciple, would understand. As to where, let it be of no concern to you.” “But-“ Aballister started, only to be interrupted sharply. “Talona alone will tell me,” Barjin growled with finality. Aballister glared in outrage but did not respond. Barjin was a slippery opponent; every time Aballister had him cornered, he merely invoked the name of the goddess, as if that answered everything.
“It is decided,” Barjin continued, seeing no response forthcoming. “This meeting is at an end.”
* * * * *
“Oh, go away,” Druzil slurred, both audibly and telepathically. Aballister was looking for him, trying to get into his thoughts. Druzil smiled at his superiority in keeping the wizard out and lazily rolled over.
Then the imp realized what Aballister’s call might signify. He sat up with a start and looked into Aballister’s mind just long enough to see that the wizard had returned to his own room. Druzil hadn’t meant to sleep this long, had wanted to be far from this place before the meeting adjourned.
Druzil held very still when the door opened and Barjin entered the room.
If he had been more attentive, the priest might have sensed the invisible presence. Barjin had other things on his mind, though. He rushed for the bed and Druzil recoiled, thinking Barjin meant to attack him. But Barjin dropped to his knees and reached eagerly for his pack and his enchanted mace.
“You and I,” Barjin said to the weapon, holding it out before him, “will spread the word of their goddess and reap the rewards of chaos. It has been too long since you feasted on the blood of humans, my pet, far too long.” The mace couldn’t audibly reply, of course, but Druzil thought he saw a smile widen on the pretty girl’s sculpted face.
“And you,” Barjin said into the backpack, to the ceramic, ash-filled flask as far as Druzil could tell. “Prince Khalif. Could it be the time for you to walk the earth again?” Barjin snapped the backpack shut and roared with such sincere and exuberant laughter that Druzil almost joined in.
The imp promptly reminded himself that he and Barjin were not, as yet, formally allied, and that Barjin would most definitely prove a dangerous enemy. Fortunately for the imp, Barjin, in his haste, had not closed the door behind him. Druzil crawled off the bed, using Barjin’s laughter as cover, and slipped out the door, wisely uttering the password for the warding glyph as he crossed the threshold.
* * * * *
Barjin left Castle Trinity five days later, bearing the ever-smoking bottle. He traveled with a small entourage of Ragnor’s fighters, but they would only serve as escorts as far as the human settlement of Carradoon, near Impresk Lake on the southeastern edge of the Snowflake Mountains. Barjin would go alone from there to his final destination, which he and his clerical conspirators would still not reveal to the other leaders of Castle Trinity.
Back at the fortress, Aballister and the wizards waited as patiently as possible, confident that their turn would come. Ragnor’s force was not so patient, though. The ogrillon wanted battle, wanted to begin the offensive right away. Ragnor was not a stupid creature, though. He knew that his small force, only a few hundred strong unless he managed to entice the neighboring goblinoid tribes to join in, would not have an easy time of conquering the lake, the mountains, and the forest.
Still, and despite all his reasoning, Ragnor was hungry. Since his very first day at Castle Trinity, nearly five years before, the ogrillon had vowed revenge on Shilmista Forest, on the elves who had defeated his tribe and driven him and the other refugees far from the wood.
Every member of Castle Trinity, from lowly soldier to wizard to priest, had spoken often of the day they would rise from their disguised holes and blacken the region. All now held their breath, awaiting Barjin’s return, awaiting confirmation that the conquest had begun.
The cloaked figure moved slowly toward Danica. Thinking it a monk of some obscure and eccentric sect-and such monks were usually hostile and dangerous, determined to prove their fighting prowess against any other monks they encountered-the woman gathered up the pile of parchments she had been studying and quickly moved to another table. The tall figure, cowl pulled low to hide its face, turned to pursue, its feet making unrecognizable scuffling noises on the stone floor.
Danica looked around. It was late; this study hall, on the second floor above the library, was nearly empty and Danica decided that it might be time for her to retire, too. She realized that she was exhausted, and she wondered if she might be imagining things.
The figure came on, slowly, menacingly, and Danica thought that perhaps it was not some other monk. What horrors might that low cowl be hiding? she wondered. She gathered the parchments again and started boldly for the main aisle, though that course meant passing right by the figure.
A hand shot out and caught her shoulder. Danica stifled a startled cry and spun about to face the shadowy cowl, losing many of her scrolls in the action. As she collected her wits, though, Danica realized that it was no skeletal apparition holding her in an icy, undead grip. It was a human hand, warm and gentle, and showing signs of ink near the fingernails. The hand of a scribe. “Fear not!” the specter rasped.
Danica knew that voice too well to be deceived by the breathless mask. She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest.
Understanding that the joke was ended, Cadderly removed his hand from Danica’s shoulder and quickly pulled back the cowl. “Greetings!” he said, smiling widely into Danica’s frown as though he hoped his mirth to be a contagious thing. “I thought I might find you here.” Danica’s silence did not promise reciprocal warmth. “Do you like my disguise?” Cadderly went on. “It had to be convincing for me to get past Avery’s spies. They are everywhere, and Rufo watches my every move even more closely now, though he shared equal punishment.”
“You both deserved it!” Danica snapped back. “After your behavior in the great hall.”
“So now we clean,” Cadderly agreed with a resigned shrug. “Everywhere, every day. It has been a long two weeks, with a longer two still to come.”
“More than that if Headmaster Avery catches you here,” Danica warned.
Cadderly shook his head and threw up his hands. “I was cleaning the kitchen,” he explained. “Ivan and Pikel threw me out. ‘It’s me kitchen, boy!’ “ Cadderly said in his best dwarven voice, slamming his fists on his hips and puffing out his chest. “ ‘If there’s any cleanin’ to be done, it’ll be done by meself! I’m not needing a ...” Danica reminded him where he was to quiet him and pulled him to the side, behind the cover of some book racks.
“That was Ivan,” Cadderly said. “Pikel did not say much. So the kitchen will be cleaned by the dwarves if it is to be cleaned at all, and a good thing, I say. An hour in there could put an end to my appetite for some time to come!”
“That does not excuse you from your work,” Danica protested.
“I am working,” Cadderly retorted. He pulled aside the front of his heavy woolen cloak and lifted a foot, revealing a sandal that was half shoe and half scrubbing brush. “Every step I take cleans the library a little bit more.”
Danica couldn’t argue with Cadderly’s unending stream of personalized logic. In truth, she was glad that Cadderly had come to visit her. She hadn’t seen much of him in the last two weeks and found that she missed him dearly. Also, on a more practical level, Danica was having trouble deciphering some important parchments and Cadderly was just the person to help her.
“Could you look at these?” she asked, retrieving the fallen scrolls.
“Master Penpahg D’Ahn?” Cadderly replied, hardly surprised. He knew that Danica had come to the Edificant Library more than a year before to study the collected notes of Penpahg D’Ahn of Ashanath, the grandmaster monk who had died five hundred years before. Danica’s order was small and secretive, and few in this part of the Realms had ever heard of Penpahg D’Ahn, but those who studied the grandmaster’s fighting and concentration techniques gave their lives over to his philosophies wholeheartedly. Cadderly had only seen a fraction of Danica’s notes, but those had intrigued him, and he certainly could not dispute Danica’s fighting powers. More than half of the proud Oghman clerics had been walking around rubbing numerous bruises since the fiery young woman had come to the library.
“I am not quite certain of this interpretation,” Danica explained, spreading a parchment over a table.
Cadderly moved to her side and examined the scroll. It began with a picture of crossed fists, which indicated that it was a battle technique, but then showed the single open eye indicating a concentration technique. Cadderly read on. “Gigel Nugel,” he said aloud, then he thought that over for a moment. “Iron Skull. The maneuver is called Iron Skull.”
Danica banged a fist onto the table. “As I believed!” she said.
Cadderly was almost afraid to ask. “What is it?” Danica held the parchment up over the table’s lamp, emphasizing a small, nearly lost sketch in the lower comer. Cadderly eyed it closely. It appeared to be a large rock sitting atop a man’s head. “Is that supposed to be a representation of Penpahg D’Ahn?” he asked. Danica nodded.
“So now we know how he died,” Cadderly snickered. Danica snapped the parchment away, not appreciating the humor. Sometimes Cadderly’s irreverence crossed the boundaries of her considerable tolerance.
“I am sorry,” Cadderly apologized with a low bow. “Truly Penpahg D’Ahn was an amazing person, but are you saying he could break stone with his head?”
“It is a test of discipline,” Danica replied, her voice edged with mounting excitement. “As are all of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn’s teachings. The grandmaster was in control of his body, of his very being.”
“I am quite certain that you would forget my very name if Master Penpahg D’Ahn returned from the grave,” Cadderly said mournfully.
“Forget who’s name?” Danica replied calmly, not playing into his game.
Cadderly cast a hard glare at her but smiled as she smiled, unable to resist her charms. The young scholar grew suddenly serious, though, and looked back to the parchment. “Promise me that you are not intending to smash your face into a stone,” he said.
Danica crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head in an obstinate way, silently telling Cadderly to mind his own business.
“Danica,” Cadderly said firmly.
In reply, Danica extended one finger and placed it down on the table. Her thoughts turned inward; her concentration had to be complete. She lifted herself by that single extended digit, bending at the waist and bringing her legs up even with the table top. She held the pose for some time, glad for Cadderly’s amazed gape.
“The powers of the body are beyond our comprehension and expectations,” Danica remarked, shifting to a sitting position on the table and wiggling her finger to show Cadderly that it had suffered no damage. “Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn understood them and learned to channel them to fit his needs. I will not go out this night, nor any night soon, and attempt the Iron Skull, that much I can promise you. You must understand that Iron Skull is but a minor test compared to what I came here to achieve.”
“Physical suspension,” Cadderly muttered with obvious distaste.
Danica’s face brightened. “Think of it!” she said. “The grandmaster was able to stop his heart, to suspend his very breathing.”
“There are priests who can do the very same thing,” Cadderly reminded her, “and wizards, too. I saw the spell in the book I inscribed ...”
“This is not a spell,” Danica retorted. “Wizards and priests call upon powers beyond their own minds and bodies. Think, though, of the control necessary to do as Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn did. He could stop his heart from beating at any time, using only his own understanding of his physical being. You above all should appreciate that.”
“I do,” Cadderly replied sincerely. His visage softened and he ran the back of his hand gently across Danica’s soft cheek. “But you scare me, Danica. You are relying on tomes a half millennium old for techniques that could be tragic. I do not remember with fondness how my life was before I met you, and I do not want to think of what it would be without you.”
“I cannot change who I am,” Danica replied quietly, but without compromise, “nor will I surrender the goals I have chosen for my life.”
Cadderly considered her words for a few moments, weighing them against his own feelings. He respected everything about Danica, and above all else it was her fire, her willingness to accept and defeat all challenges, that he most loved. To tame her, to put out that fire, Cadderly knew, would be to kill this Danica, his Danica, more surely than any of Penpahg D’Ahn’s seemingly impossible tests ever could.
“I cannot change,” Danica said again.
Cadderly’s reply came straight from his heart. “I would not want you to.”
* * * * *
Barjin knew that he could not enter the ivy-streaked building through any of its windows or doors. While the Edificant Library was always open to scholars of all nonevil sects, warding glyphs had been placed over every known entrance to protect against those not invited-persons, such as Barjin, dedicated to the spread of chaos and misery.
The Edificant Library was an ancient building, and Barjin knew that ancient buildings usually held secrets, even from their present inhabitants.
The priest held the red-glowing bottle aloft before his eyes. “We have come to our destination,” he said, speaking as if the bottle could hear him, “to where I will secure my position of rulership over Castle Trinity, and over all the region once our conquest is completed.” Barjin wanted to rush in, find his catalyst, and set the events in motion. He really didn’t believe the elixir was an agent of Talona, but then, Barjin didn’t consider himself an agent of Talona, though he had joined her clerical order. He had adopted the goddess for convenience, for mutual benefit, and knew that as long as his actions furthered the Lady of Poison’s evil designs, she would be content.
Barjin spent the rest of the day, which was drizzly and dreary for late spring, in the shadows behind the trees lining the wide road. He heard the midday canticle, then watched many priests and other scholars exit alone or in groups for an early afternoon stroll.
The evil priest took a few precautionary measures, casting simple spells that would help him blend into his background and remain undetected. He listened to the casual banter of the passing groups, wondering with amusement how their words might change when he loosed the Most Fatal Horror in their midst.
The figure that soon caught Barjin’s attention, though, was neither priest nor scholar. Disheveled and gray haired, with a dirty and stubbly face and skin wrinkled and browned from many years in the sun, Mullivy, the groundskeeper, went about his routines as he had for four decades, sweeping the road and the stairs to the front doors, heedless of the drizzle.
Barjin’s wicked grin spread wide. If there was a secret way into the Edificant Library, this old man would know of it.
* * * * *
The clouds had broken by sunset, and a beautiful crimson patina lined the mountains west of the library. Mullivy hardly noticed it, though, having seen too many sunsets to be impressed anymore. He stretched the aches out of his old bones and strolled to his small work shed off to the side of the library’s huge main building.
“You’re getting old, too,” the groundskeeper said to the shack as the door opened with a loud creak. He reached inside, meaning to replace his broom, then stopped abruptly, frozen in place by some power he did not understand.
A hand reached around him, prying the broom from his stubborn grasp. Mullivy’s mind shouted warnings, but he could not bring his body to react, could not shout or spin to face the person guiding that unexpected hand. He then was pushed into the shed-fell face down, not able to lift an arm to break the fall-and the door dosed behind him. He knew he was not alone.
* * * * *
“You will tell me,” the sinister voice promised from the darkness.
Mullivy hung by his wrists, as he had for several hours. The room was totally black, but the groundskeeper sensed the awful presence all too near.
“I could kill you and ask your corpse,” Barjin said with a chuckle. “Dead men talk, I assure you, and they do not lie.”
“There’s no other way in,” Mullivy said for perhaps the hundredth time.
Barjin knew the old man was lying. At the beginning of the interrogation, the priest had cast spells to distinguish truth from falsehood and Mullivy had failed that test completely. Barjin reached out and gently grabbed the groundskeeper’s stomach in one hand.
“No! No!” he begged, thrashing and trying to wiggle out of that grip. Barjin held tight and began a soft chant, and soon Mullivy’s insides felt as if they were on fire, his stomach ripped by agony that no man could endure. His screams, primal, hopeless, and helpless, emanated from that pained area.
“Do cry out,” Barjin chided him. “All about the shed is a spell of silence, old fool. You will not disturb the slumber of those within the library.
“But then, why would you care for their sleep?” Barjin asked quietly, his voice filled with feigned sympathy. He released his grip and softly stroked Mullivy’s wounded belly.
Mullivy stopped thrashing and screaming, though the pain of the sinister spell lingered.
“To them you are insignificant,” Barjin purred, and his suggestion carried the weight of magical influences. “The priests think themselves your betters. They allow you to sweep for them and keep the rain gutters clean, but do they care for your pain? You are out here suffering terribly, but do any of them rush to your aid?”
Mullivy’s heaving breaths settled into a calmer rhythm. “Still you defend them so stubbornly,” Barjin purred, knowing that his torture was beginning to wear the groundskeeper down. “They would not defend you, and still you will not show me your secret, at the cost of your life.”
Even in his most lucid state, Mullivy was not a powerful thinker. His best friend most often was a bottle of stolen wine, and now, in his agony-racked jumble of thoughts, this unseen assailant’s words rang loudly of truth. Why shouldn’t he show this man his secret, the damp, moss-and-spider-filled dirt tunnel that led to the lowest level of the library complex, the ancient and unused catacombs below the wine cellar and the upper dungeon level? Suddenly, as Barjin had planned, Mullivy’s imagined appearance of the unseen assailant softened. In his desperation, the groundskeeper needed to believe that his tormentor could actually be his ally.
“You won’t tell them?” Mullivy asked.
“They will be the last to know,” Barjin promised hopefully. “You won’t stop me from getting at the wine?” Barjin backed off a step, surprised. He understood the old man’s initial hesitance. The groundskeeper’s secret way into the library led to the wine cellar, a stash that the wretch would not easily part with. “Dear man,” Barjin purred, “you may have all the wine you desire-and much more, so much more.”
* * * * *
They had barely entered the tunnel when Mullivy, carrying the torch, turned and waved it threateningly at Barjin. Barjin’s laughter mocked him, but Mullivy’s voice remained firm. “I showed you the way,” the groundskeeper declared. “Now I’m leaving.”
“No,” Barjin replied evenly. A shrug sent the priest’s traveling cloak to the floor, revealing him in all his splendor. He wore his new vestments, the purple silken robes depicting a trident capped by three red flasks. On his belt was his peculiar mace, its head a sculpture of a young girl. “You have joined me now,” Barjin explained. “You will never be leaving.”
Terror drove Mullivy’s movements. He slapped the burning torch against Barjin’s shoulder and tried to push by, but the priest had prepared himself well before handing the torch to the groundskeeper. The flames did not touch Barjin, did not even singe his magnificent vestments, for they were defeated by a protection spell.
Mullivy tried a different tactic, slamming the torch like a club, but the vestments carried a magical armor as solid as metal plate mail and the wooden torch bounced off Barjin’s shoulder without so much as causing the priest to flinch.
“Come now, dear Mullivy,” Barjin cajoled, taking no offense. “You do not want me as an enemy.”
Mullivy fell back and nearly dropped the torch. It took him a long moment to get past his terror, to even find his breath.
“Lead on,” Barjin bade him. “You know this tunnel and the passages beyond. Show them to me.”
Barjin liked the catacombs-dusty and private and filled with the remains of long-dead priests, some embalmed and others only cobweb-covered skeletons. He would have use for them.
Mullivy led him through a tour of the level, including the rickety stairwell that led up to the library’s wine cellar and a medium-sized chamber that once had been used as a study for the original library. Barjin thought this room an excellent place to set up his unholy altar, but first he had to see exactly how useful the groundskeeper might prove.
They lit several torches and set them in wall sconces, then Barjin led Mullivy to an ancient table, one of many furnishings in the room, and produced his precious baggage. The bottle had been heavily warded back at Castle Trinity; only disciples of Talona or someone of pure heart could even touch it, and only the latter could open it. Like Aballister, Barjin knew this to be an obstacle, but unlike the wizard, the priest believed it a fitting one. What better irony than to have one of pure heart loose the chaos curse?
“Open it, I pray you,” Barjin said.
The groundskeeper studied the flask for a moment, then looked curiously at the priest.
Barjin knew Mullivy’s weak spot. “It is ambrosia,” the priest lied. “The drink of the gods. One taste of it and forever after wines will taste to you ten times as sweet, for the lingering effects of ambrosia will never diminish. Drink, I pray you. You have certainly earned your reward.”
Mullivy licked his lips eagerly, took one final look at Barjin, then reached for the glowing bottle. A jolt of electricity shot into him as he touched it, blackening his fingers and throwing him across the room to where he slammed into a wall. Barjin went over and dropped one arm under Mullivy’s shoulder to help him stand.
“I thought not,” the priest muttered to himself.
Still twitching from the blast, his hair dancing wildly with lingering static, Mullivy could not find his voice to reply.
“Fear not,” Barjin assured him. “You will serve me in other ways.” Mullivy noticed then that the priest held his girl’s-head mace in his other hand.
Mullivy fell back against the wall and put his arms up defensively, but they were hardly protection from Barjin’s foul weapon. The innocent looking head swung in at the doomed groundskeeper, transforming as it went. The weapon’s image became angular, evil, the Screaming Maiden, her mouth opening impossibly wide, to reveal long, venom-tipped fangs.
She bit hungrily through the bone in Mullivy’s forearm and plowed on, crushing and tearing into the man’s chest. He twitched wildly for several agonizing moments, then he slid down the wall and died.
Barjin, with many preparations still to make, paid him no heed.
* * * * *
Aballister leaned back in his chair, breaking his concentration from his magical mirror but not breaking the connection he had made. He had located Barjin and had recognized the priest’s surroundings: the Edificant Library. Aballister rubbed his hands through his thinning hair and considered the revelation, news that he found more than a little disturbing.
The wizard had mixed emotions concerning the library, unresolved feelings that he did not care to examine at this important time. Aballister had actually studied there once, many years before, but his curiosity with denizens of the lower planes had ended that relationship. The host priests thought it a pity that one of Aballister’s potential had to be asked to leave, but they expressed their concerns that Aballister had some trouble distinguishing between good and evil, between proper studies and dangerous practices.
The expulsion did not end Aballister’s relationship with the Edificant Library, though. Other events over the ensuing years had served to increase the wizard’s ambiguous feelings toward the place. Now, in the overall plan of regional conquest, Aballister would have greatly preferred to leave the library for last, with him personally directing the attack. He never would have guessed that Barjin would be so daring as to go after the place in the initial assault, believing that the priest would venture to Shilmista, or to some vital spot in Carradoon.
“Well?” came a question from across the room.
“He is in the Edificant Library,” Aballister answered grimly. “The priest has chosen to begin our campaign against our most powerful enemies.”
Aballister anticipated Druzil’s reply well enough to mouth “bene tellemara” along with the imp.
“Find him,” Druzil demanded. “What is he thinking?”
Aballister put a curious gaze the imp’s way, but if he had any notion to reprimand Druzil, it was lost in his agreement with the demand. He leaned forward again toward the large mirror and scried deeper, into the library’s lower levels, through the cobweb-covered tunnels to the room where Barjin had built his altar.
Barjin glanced around nervously for a moment, then apparently recognized the source of the mental connection. “Well met, Aballister,” the priest said smugly.
“You take great chances,” the wizard remarked.
“Do you doubt the power of Tuanta Quiro Miancay?” Barjin asked. “The agent of Talona?”
Aballister had no intentions of reopening that unresolvable debate. Before he could respond, another figure moved into the picture, pallid and unblinking, with one broken arm hanging grotesquely and blood covering the left side of its chest.
“My first soldier,” Barjin explained, pulling Mullivy’s body close to his side. “I have a hundred more awaiting my call.”
Aballister recognized the “soldier” as an animated corpse, a zombie, and, knowing that Barjin was in catacombs no doubt laced with burial vaults, the wizard did not have to ask where he intended to find his army. Suddenly Barjin’s choice to assault the library did not seem so foolhardy; Aballister had to wonder just how powerful his conniving rival might be, or might become. Again the wizard’s mixed feelings about the Edificant Library flooded over him. Aballister wanted to order Barjin out of the place at once, but of course, he had not the power to enforce the demand.
“Do not underestimate me,” Barjin said, as though he had read the wizard’s mind. “Once the library is defeated, all the region will be opened to us. Now be gone from here; I have duties to attend that a simple wizard cannot understand.”
Aballister wanted to voice his protest at Barjin’s demeaning tone, but again, he knew that words would carry no real weight. He broke the connection immediately and fell back in his chair, memories welling inside him.
“Bene tellemara,” Druzil said again.
Aballister looked over to the imp. “Barjin may bring us a great victory much earlier than we expected,” the wizard said, but there was little excitement in his voice.
“It is an unnecessary risk,” Druzil spat back. “With Ragnor’s forces ready to march, Barjin could have found a better target. He could have gone to the elves and loosed the curse there-Ragnor certainly hates them and intends to make them his first target. If we took Shilmista Forest, we could march south around the mountains to isolate the priests, surround the powerful library before they ever even realized that trouble had come to their land.”
Aballister did not argue and wondered again if he had been wise in so easily relinquishing control of the elixir to Barjin. He had justified each action, each failing, but he knew in his heart that his cowardice had betrayed him.
“I must go to him,” Druzil remarked unexpectedly.
After taking a moment to consider the request, Aballister decided not to contest it. Sending Druzil would be a risk, the wizard knew, but he realized, too, that if he had found the strength to take more risks in his earlier meetings with Barjin, he might not now be in so awkward a position.
“Dorigen informed me that Barjin carried an enchanted brazier with him,” the wizard said, rising and taking up his staff. “She is the best with sorcery. She will know if Barjin opens a gate to the lower planes in search of allies. When Dorigen confirms the opening, I will open a gate here. Your journey will be a short one. Barjin will not know you as my emissary and will think that he freely summoned you and that it is he who controls you.”
Druzil snapped his batlike wings around him and wisely held his tongue until Aballister had exited the room.
“Your emissary?” the imp snarled at the closed door.
Aballister had a lot to learn.
Newander felt invigorated as soon as he walked out the building’s front doors, into the morning sunshine. He had just completed his turn at translating the ancient moss tome, hours huddled over the book with walls closing in all about him. For all his doubts concerning his own views about civilization, Newander knew with certainty that he preferred the open sky to any ceiling.
He was supposed to be in the small chamber, resting now, while Cleo worked at the book and Arcite performed the daily druidic rituals. Newander didn’t often go against Arcite’s orders, but he could justify this transgression; he was much more at rest walking along the mountain trails than in any room, no matter how comfortable its bed.
The druid found Percival skipping through the branches along the tree-lined lane. “Will you come and talk with me, white one?” he called.
The squirrel looked Newander’s way, then glanced back to a different tree. Following the gaze, Newander saw another squirrel, this one a normal gray female, sitting very still and watching him.
“A thousand pardons,” Newander piped to Percival. “I did not know that you were engaged, so to speak.” He gave a low bow and went on his merry way down the mountain road.
Percival chattered at the departing druid for a few moments, then hopped back toward his mate.
The morning turned into afternoon and still the druid walked, away from the Edificant Library. He had broken off the main road some time ago, following a deer trail deep into the wilderness. Here he was at home and at peace, and he was confident that no animal would rise against him.
Clouds gathered over distant ridges, promising another of the common spring thunderstorms. As with the animals, the druid did not fear the weather. He would walk in a downpour and call it a bath, skip and slide along snow-covered trails and call it play. While the gathering storm clouds did not deter the druid, they did remind him that he still had duties back at the library and that Arcite and Cleo soon would realize that he was gone. “Just a little bit farther,” he promised himself.
He meant to turn back a short while later but caught sight of an eagle, soaring high on the warm updrafts. The eagle spotted him, too, and swooped down low at him, cawing angrily. At first, Newander thought the bird meant to attack, but then he sorted through enough of its excited chatter to realize that it had recognized him as a friend.
“What is your trouble?” Newander asked the bird. He was fairly adept at understanding bird calls, but the eagle was too agitated and spoke too rapidly for Newander to hear anything but a clear warning of danger.
“Show me,” the druid replied, and he whistled and cawed to ensure that the eagle understood. The great bird rushed off, climbing high into the sky so that Newander would not lose sight of it as it soared ever deeper, and ever higher, into the mountains.
When he came out on a high and treeless ridge, the wind buffeted his green cloak fiercely and the druid realized the cause of the eagle’s distress. Across a deep ravine, three filthy gray, monkeylike creatures scrambled up the side of a tall, sheer cliff, using their prehensile tails and four clawed paws to gain a secure hold on even the tiniest juts and cracks. On a shallow ledge near the top of the cliff sat a great pile of twigs and sticks, an eagle aerie. Newander could guess what was inside that nest.
The infuriated eagle dove at the intruders repeatedly, but the monsters only spat at it as it helplessly passed, or swiped at it with their formidable claws.
Newander recognized these creatures as su-monsters, but he had no direct knowledge of them and had never encountered them before. It was widely agreed that they were vicious and bloodthirsty, but the druids had taken no formal stance concerning them. Wire they an intelligent, evil group, or just a superbly adapted predator, feared because of their prowess? Animal or monster?
To many, the distinction would mean nothing, but to a druid, that question concerned the very tenets of his or her religion. If the su-monsters were animal, then terms such as “evil” did not apply to them and Newander could play no role in aiding the pitiful eagle. Watching their eager climb, saliva dripping from their toothy maws, Newander knew that he must do something. He called out a few of the more common natural warning cries, and the su-monsters stopped suddenly and looked at him, apparently noticing him for the first time. They hooted and spat and waved their claws threateningly, then resumed their climb.
Newander called out again. The su-monsters ignored him.
“Guide me, Silvanus,” Newander begged, closing his eyes. He knew that the greatest druids of his order had held council about these rare but nightmarish creatures, and that they had come to no definite conclusions. Thus, the common practice among the order, though no edict had been issued, was to interfere with su-monsters only if threatened directly.
In his heart, though, Newander knew that the scene before him was unnatural.
He called again to Silvanus, the Oak Father, and, to his utter amazement, he believed that he was answered. He looked to the nearest thunderhead, gauging the distance, then back to the su-monsters.
“Halt!” Newander cried out. “Go no farther!”
The su-monsters turned at once, startled perhaps by the urgency, the power, in the druid’s voice. One found a loose stone and heaved it Newander’s way, but the ravine was wide as well as deep and the missile fell harmlessly.
“I warn you again,” the druid cried, sincerely desiring no battle. “I have no fight with you, but you’ll not get to the aerie.”
The monsters spat again and clawed ferociously at the empty air.
“Be gone from here!” Newander cried. Their reply came in the form of spittle and they turned and started up again.
Newander had seen enough; the su-monsters were too close to the aerie for him to waste any more time screaming warnings. He closed his eyes, clutched the oak leaf holy symbol hanging on a leather cord about his neck, and called out to the thunderstorm.
The su-monsters paid him no heed, intent on the egg-filled nest just a few dozen yards above them.
Druids considered themselves the guardians of nature and the natural order. Unlike wizards and priests of many other sects, druids accepted that they were the watchdogs of the world and that the powers they brought were more a call for help to nature than any manifestation of their own internal power. So it was as Newander called again to the heavy black cloud, directing its fury.
The thunderstroke shook the mountains for many miles around, sent the surprised eagle spinning away blindly, and nearly knocked Newander from his feet. When his sight returned, the druid saw that the cliff face was clear, the aerie was safe. The su-monsters were nowhere to be seen, and the only evidence that they had ever been there was a long scorch mark, a dripping crimson stain along the mountain wall, and a small tuft of fur, a severed tail perhaps, burning on a shallow ledge.
The eagle flew to its nest, squawked happily, and soared down to thank the druid.
“You are very welcome,” the druid assured the bird. In conversing with the eagle, he felt much better about his own destructive actions. Like most druids, Newander was a gentle sort, and he was always uncomfortable when called to battle. The fact that the cloud had answered his summons, a calling power that he believed came from Silvanus, also gave him confidence that he had acted correctly, that the su-monsters were indeed monsters and no natural predators.
Newander interpreted the next series of the eagle’s caws as an invitation to join the bird at its aerie. The druid would have loved that, but the cliff across the way was too formidable a barrier with night fast approaching.
“Another day,” he replied.
The eagle cackled a few more thanks, then, explaining that many preparations were still needed for the coming brood, bade the druid farewell and soared off. Newander watched the bird fly away with sincere lament. He wished that he was more skilled at his religion; druids of higher rank, including both Arcite and Cleo, could actually assume the form of animals. If Newander were as skilled as either of them, he could simply shed his light robes and transform himself into an eagle, joining his new friend on the high, shallow ledge. Even more enticing, as an eagle Newander could explore these majestic mountains from a much improved viewpoint, with the wind breaking over his wings and eyes sharp enough to sort out the movements of a field mouse from a mile up.
He shook his head and shook away, too, his laments for what could not be. It was a beautiful day, with a cleansing shower dose at hand, full of new-blossoming flowers, chattering birds, fresh air on a chill breeze, and clear and cold mountain spring water around every bend-all the things that the druid loved best.
He stripped off his robes and put them under a thick bush, then sat cross-legged out on a high and open perch, awaiting the rain. It came in a torrential downpour, and Newander considered its patter on the stones the sweetest of nature’s many songs.
The storm broke in time for a wondrous sunset, scarlet fading to pink, and filling every break in the towering mountain peaks to the west.
“I fear that I am late in returning,” Newander said to himself. He gave a resigned shrug and could not prevent a boyish grin from spreading over his face. “The library will still be there on the morrow,” he rationalized as he retrieved his robes, found a comfortable spot, and settled in for the night.
* * * * *
Barjin hung the brazier pot in place on the tripod and put in the special mixture of wood chips and incense blocks. He did not light the brazier at this time, though, uncertain of how long it would take him to find a proper catalyst for the chaos curse. Denizens of lower planes could be powerful allies, but they were usually a wearisome lot, demanding more of their sum-moner’s time and energy than Barjin now had to give.
Similarly, Barjin kept his necromancer’s stone tightly wrapped in the shielding doth. As with lower-plane creatures, some types of undead could prove difficult to control, and, like the gate created by the enchanted brazier, the necromancer’s stone could summon an assortment of monsters, anything from the lowliest, unthinking skeletons and zombies to cunning ghosts.
Still, for all his glyphs and wards, Barjin felt insecure about leaving the altar room, and the precious bottle, with nothing more intelligent and powerful than Mullivy to stand guard. He needed an ally, and he knew where to find it.
“Khalif,” the evil priest muttered, retrieving the ceramic flask. He had carried it for years, even before his days in Vaasa and before he had turned to Talona. He had found the ash um among some ancient ruins while working as an apprentice to a now dead wizard. Barjin, by the terms of his apprenticeship, was not supposed to claim any discoveries as his own, but then, Barjin had never played by any rules but his own. He had kept the ceramic um, filled with the ashes of Prince Khalif, a noble of some ancient civilization according to the accompanying parchment, private and safe through many years.
Barjin hadn’t fully come to appreciate the potential value of such a find until after he began his training in clerical magic. Now he understood what he could do with the ashes; all he needed was a proper receptacle.
He led Mullivy out into the passageway beyond the altar room’s door, a wide corridor lined with alcoves, burial vaults of the highest-ranking founders of the Edificant Library. Unlike the other vaults Barjin had seen down here, these were not open chairs, but elaborately designed caskets, sarcophagi, gem-studded and extravagant. Barjin could only hope, as he instructed Mullivy to open the closest sarcophagus, that the early scholars had spared no expenses on the contents within the casket as well, that they had used some embalming techniques.
Mullivy, for all his strength, could not begin to open the first sarcophagus, its lock and hinges rusted fast. The zombie had better luck with the second, for its cover simply fell away under Mullivy’s heavy tug. As soon as the door opened, a long tentacle shot out at Mullivy, followed by a second and a third. They did no real damage, but Barjin was glad that the zombie, and not he, had opened the lid.
Inside was a carrion crawler, a monstrous wormlike beast with eight tentacles tipped with paralyzing poison. Undead Mullivy could not be affected by such an attack and, beyond the tentacles, the carrion crawler was virtually defenseless.
“Kill it!” Barjin instructed. Mullivy waded in fearlessly, pounding away with his one good arm. The carrion crawler was no more than a lifeless lump at the bottom of the casket when Mullivy at last backed away.
“This one will not do,” Barjin mumbled, inspecting the empty husk inside the sarcophagus. There was no dismay in his voice, though, for the body, ruined by the carrion crawler, had been carefully wrapped in thick linen, a sure sign that the ancient scholars had used some embalming techniques. Barjin also found a small hole at the back of the sarcophagus, and he correctly assumed that the carrion crawler had come in there, gorged itself for months, perhaps even years, on the full corpse, then had grown too large to crawl back out.
Barjin pulled Mullivy along eagerly, seeking another sarcophagus, one with no obvious external holes. The third time paid for all, as the saying goes, for, with help from the Screaming Maiden, Barjin and Mullivy were able to break through the locks of the next casket. Inside, wrapped in linen, lay a well-preserved corpse, the receptacle that Barjin needed.
Barjin instructed Mullivy to carry the corpse gently into the altar room-he did not want to touch the scabrous thing himself-then to rearrange the sarcophagi so that this one’s would be closest to the altar room door.
Barjin shut the door behind his zombie, not wanting to be distracted by the noises outside. He took out his clerical spellbook, turned to the section on necromantic practices, and took out his necromancer’s stone, thinking its summoning powers to be helpful in calling back the spirit of Prince Khalif.
The priest’s chanting went on for more than an hour, and all the while he dropped pinches of the ash onto the wrapped corpse. When the ceramic um was emptied, the priest broke it apart, rubbing it clean on the receptacle body’s linen. Khalif’s spirit had been contained in the whole of the ash; the absence of the slightest motes could prove disastrous.
Barjin became distracted by the necromancer’s stone, for it began to glow with an eerie, purple-black light. The priest snapped his gaze back to the mummy, his attention caught by the sudden red glow as two dots of light appeared behind the linen wrappings that covered the corpse’s eyes. Barjin covered his hand in clean cloth and carefully pulled away the linen.
He fell back with a start. The mummy rose before him.
It looked upon the priest with utter hatred, its eyes burning as bright red dots. Barjin knew that mummies, like most monsters of the netherworld, hated all living things, and Barjin, for the moment anyway, was a living thing.
“Back, Khalif!” Barjin commanded as forcefully as he could manage. The mummy took another stiff-legged step forward.
“Back, I say!” Barjin snarled, replacing his fear with determined anger. “It was I who retrieved your spirit, and here in my service you shall stay until I, Barjin, release you to your eternal rest!”
He thought his words pitifully inept, but the mummy responded, sliding back to its original position.
“Turn away!” Barjin cried, and the mummy did.
A smile spread wide over the evil priest’s face. He had dealt with denizens of the lower planes many times before and had animated simple undead monsters, like Mullivy, but this was a new and higher step for him. He had called to a powerful spirit, torn it from the grave and forced it under his control.
Barjin moved back to the door. “Come in, Mullivy,” he ordered in a mirthful tone. “Come and meet your new brother.”