As if on cue, Pikel began to tremble violently and both Cadderly and Ivan thought he surely would go down. Dwarves, though, were a tough lot, and Pikel was a tough dwarf. A moment later, he growled loudly and threw off the trembling in a sudden violent jolt. Straightening, he smiled at his brother, hoisted his tree trunk, and nodded toward the skeletal host, still at work taking apart the crate defenses.

“So it was poisoned,” Ivan explained, looking pointedly at Cadderly. “Might’ve killed a man.”

“My thanks,” Cadderly said to Pikel, and he would have gone on, except that other things demanded his attention at the moment. The imp had targeted him, he realized, and it most probably would be back.

Cadderly released a latch on his walking stick and tilted the ram’s head backward on cleverly hidden hinges. He then popped off the stick’s bottom cap, leaving him a hollow tube.

“Eh?” asked Pikel, wording Ivan’s thoughts exactly.

Cadderly only smiled in reply and continued his preparations. He unscrewed his feathered ring, the one filled with drow-style sleep poison, and showed the dwarves the tiny feather, its other end a cat’s claw dripping with the potent black solution. Cadderly winked and fitted the dart into the end of his walking stick, then grabbed a nearby plank and waited.

The fluttering sound of bat wings returned a moment later and both dwarves hoisted their weapons to defend. Cadderly had anticipated that the imp would be invisible again. He determined the general direction of the attack and, when the flapping grew near, tossed out the plank.

The agile imp dodged the heavy board, just nicking it with one wing tip as he passed. While the hit hadn’t done any real damage, it did cost Druzil dearly.

With his walking stick blow-gun held to pursed lips, Cadderly registered the sound of the nick, aimed, and puffed. A slight thud told him that the dart had struck home.

“Oo oi!” Pikel squealed in glee as the invisible imp, stuck with a quite visible dart, fluttered overhead. “Oo oi!”

* * * * *

Druzil wasn’t sure if he or the corridor was spinning. Whichever it was, he knew, somewhere in the back of his dreamy thoughts, that it was not a good thing. Normally poisons would not affect an imp, especially on a plane of existence other than its own. But the cat’s-claw dart that had struck Druzil was coated in drow sleep poison, which was among the most potent concoctions in all the world.

“My skeletons,” the imp whispered, remembering his command, and feeling that he was somehow needed in some distant battle. Druzil couldn’t sort it out; all he wanted to do was sleep.

He should have landed first.

He bit the wall before he realized that he was flying, and fell with a heavy groan. The concussion shook a bit of the slumber from him and he remembered suddenly that the battle was not so distant and that he was indeed needed  ... but the thought of sleep felt so much better.

Druzil kept enough of his wits about him to get out of the open corridor. His bones crackled in transformation, leathery skin ripped and reshaped. Soon he was a large centipede, invisible still, and he slipped in through a crack in the wall and let the slumber overtake him.

* * * * *

When Druzil fell, so did any semblance of organization in the skeleton forces. Now the imp’s intrusions into the undead creatures’ predetermined commands worked against the skeletons, for they were not thinking creatures and their original course had been seriously interrupted.

Some skeletons wandered aimlessly away, others hung their bony arms down by their sides and stood perfectly still, while others continued their methodical dismantling of the crate barricades, though they no longer followed any purpose in then-actions. Only one group remained hostile, rushing down the narrow channel at Cadderly and the dwarves, their arms reaching out eagerly.

Ivan and Pikel met them squarely with powerful chops and straightforward thrusts. Even Cadderly managed to get in a few hits. He stood behind Pikel, knowing that Ivan’s antlers probably would foul his spindle-disks. Pikel was only about four feet tall, with another few inches added for the pot helmet, and Cadderly, standing at six feet, snapped off shots whenever the dwarfs clubbing maneuvers allowed him an opening.

At Cadderly’s suggestion, they worked their way down the channel, leaving piles of bones in their wake. The imp had been controlling the skeletons, Cadderly realized, and with the imp down-Cadderly had heard it hit the wall-Cadderly suspected that the monsters would take little initiative in the fight.

With the one attacking group dispatched, Ivan and Pikel moved cautiously toward those breaking down the barricades. The skeletons offered no resistance, didn’t even look up from their work, as the dwarves smashed them into bits. Similarly, those skeletons still remaining in the area, those standing still and showing no signs that they had even been animated, fell easy prey to the dwarves.

“That’s the lot,” Ivan announced, blasting the skull from the last standing skeleton, “except for those that are running away. We can catch them!”

“Let them wander,” Cadderly offered.

Ivan glared at him.

“We have more important business,” Cadderly replied, his words more a suggestion than a command. He moved slowly toward where the imp had crashed, the dwarves at his side, but found no sign of Druzil, not even the feathered dart.

“Which way then?” asked an impatient Ivan.

“Back the way we came,” Cadderly replied. “I will have an easier time finding the altar room if we return to tunnels I know. Now that the skeletons have been defeated  ...”

“Oo!” chirped Pikel suddenly. Cadderly and Ivan looked around anxiously, thinking another attack imminent.

“What do ye see?” asked Ivan, staring into the empty distance.

“Oo!” Pikel said again, and when his brother and Cadderly looked back at him, they understood that he was responding to no outside threat.

He was trembling again.

“Oo!” Pikel clutched at his chest and went into a series of short hops.

“Poison!” Cadderly cried to Ivan. “The excitement of battle allowed him to fight it off, but only temporarily!”

“Oo!” Pikel agreed, scratching furiously at his breastplate, as if he were trying to get at his heart.

Ivan ran over and grabbed him to hold him steady. “Ye’re a dwarf!” he yowled. “Ye don’t go falling to poison!”

Cadderly knew better. In the same book he had found the drow recipe, he had read of many of the Realms’ known poisons. Near the top of the potency list, beside the deadly sting of a wyvern’s tail and the bite of the dreaded two-headed amphisbaena snake, were listed several poisons of lower plane denizens, among them one from the tail stingers of imps. Dwarves were as resistant to poison as to magic, but if the imp had hit Pikel solidly  ...

“Oo!” Pikel cried one final time. His trembling mocked Ivan’s desperate efforts to hold him steady and, with a sudden burst of power, he threw his brother aside and stood staring blankly ahead for just a moment. Then he fell, and both Ivan and Cadderly knew he was dead before they ever got to him.

Ghouls

They had heard the call of the necromancer’s stone; they had sensed the dead walking and knew that a crypt had been disturbed. They were hungry now-they were always hungry-and the promises of carrion, ancient and new, brought them running, hunched low on legs that once had been human. Long tongues wagged between pointy teeth, dripping lines of dirty saliva along chins and necks.

They didn’t care; they were hungry.

They came up along the road, darting in and out of the deepening afternoon shadows as they made their way toward the large building. One man, a tall human in long gray robes, was up there milling about the great doors. The lead ghoul bent low over its bowed legs and charged, arms hanging low, knuckles dragging on the ground, and fingers twitching excitedly.

Long and filthy fingernails, as sharp and tough as a wild animal’s claws, caught the unsuspecting priest on the shoulder. His agonized cries only increased the frenzy. He tried to fight back, but the chill of the diseased, ghoulish touch deadened his limbs. His features locked in a horror-filled, paralyzed contortion, and the pack fell over him, tearing him apart in seconds.

One by one, the ghouls drifted away from the devoured corpse, toward the great doors and the promise of more food. But each of them veered away, shielding its eyes with raised arms as it approached, for the doors were blessed and heavily warded against intrusions by undead creatures. The ghouls wandered about for a moment, hungry and frustrated, then one of them heard the call of the stone again, to the south of the structure, and the pack swept off to find it.

* * * * *

It was a damp place, with pools of muddy water dotting the earthen floor and mossy vines, covered by crawling things, hanging from the evenly spaced support beams. Danica moved cautiously, the torch far out in front of her, and she kept as far from the sinister-looking moss as possible.

Newander was less concerned with the hanging strands, for they were a natural growth, as were the insects crawling over them, and so were within the druid’s realm of understanding. Still, though, Newander seemed even more anxious than Danica. He stopped several times and looked around, as if he was trying to locate something.

Finally his fears infected Danica. She moved beside him, studying him closely in the torchlight.

“What do you seek?” she asked bluntly.

“I sense a wrongness,” Newander replied cryptically.

“An evil?”

“Your Cadderly told me of undead monsters walking the crypts,” Newander explained. “Now I know he was telling me true. They are the greatest perversion of nature’s order, a wrong upon the earth itself.”

Danica could understand why a druid, whose entire life was based on natural order, might be sensitive to the presence of undead monsters, but she was amazed that Newander could actually sense they were nearby. “The walking dead have passed this place?” she asked, fully trusting that his answer would be correct.

Newander shrugged and looked around nervously again. “They are close about,” he replied, “too close.”

“How can you know?” Danica pressed.

Newander looked at her curiously, confusedly. “I... I cannot,” he stammered, “and yet I do.”

“The curse?” Danica wondered aloud.

“My senses do not lie to me,” Newander insisted. He spun about suddenly, back toward the tunnel entrance, as if he had heard something.

Just an instant later, Danica jumped in surprise as a screech sounded from the tunnel entrance, now no more than a gray blur far behind. She recognized the cry as Percival’s, but that fact did not calm her, for even then the hunched forms appeared at the entrance, the sound of their hungry slobbers carrying all the way down to the woman and the druid.

“Run, Danica!” Newander cried and turned to go.

Danica did not move, unafraid of any enemy. She saw eight man-sized shapes distinctly, though she had no idea if they were priests from the library or monsters. Either way, Danica saw no advantage in stumbling down the tunnel, perhaps running into a waiting enemy and having to fight both foes at the same time. Also, Danica could not ignore Percival. She would fight for the white squirrel as surely as she would fight for any friend.

“They are undead,” the druid tried to explain and, even as he spoke the words, the rotted ghoul stench filled their nostrils. The odor told Newander much about their enemy, and his desire to flee only increased. It was too late, though. “Do not let them scratch you,” Newander advised. “Their touch will freeze the marrow of your bones.”

Danica crouched low, feeling the balance of the torch and tuning all her senses to her surroundings. Above her, Percival skittered along a wooden beam; behind her, Newander had begun a low chant, a spell preparation; and before her, the pack came on, hissing and sputtering, but slower now, out of respect for the blazing torch.

The pack came to within a dozen running strides of Danica and halted. Danica saw their yellow, sickly eyes, but unlike those of a corpse, these shone with inner, hungry fires. She heard their breathless gasps and saw their long and pointy tongues, flicking like a reptile’s might. Danica crouched even lower, sensing their mounting excitement.

As a group, they charged, but it was Newander who struck first. As the ghouls passed under a crossbeam, the moss came to life. Like the vines that had held Danica to her bed, the moss strands grabbed at the passing ghouls. Three of the creatures were fully entangled; two others scrambled and spat in horrifying rage, their ankles hooked, but three came right through.

The lead ghoul bore down on Danica, who stood poised and unafraid. She held her unthreatening posture until the very last moment, luring the ghoul right in on her, so close that even Newander let out an alarmed cry.

Danica was in perfect control of the situation. Her torch shot out suddenly, its fiery end slamming the ghoul right in the eye. The creature recoiled and let out a shriek that sent tingling shivers along Danica’s spine.

She popped the ghoul in the other eye for good measure, but the move put her torch out of line for a continuing defense. A second foe appeared beside the first, its tongue hanging low and its wretched hands reaching for Danica.

Danica moved to punch it but remembered Newander’s warning and knew that her own arm’s reach could not match the taller ghoul’s. Danica possessed other weapons. She threw her head backward suddenly, so far that it seemed she would tumble to the ground. Her continued balance caught the still-advancing ghoul by surprise and brought an astounded gasp from Newander behind her, for Danica did not fall. She pivoted her body on one leg, her other leg shooting up before her and her foot catching the charging ghoul right under the chin. The monster’s jaw smacked shut, its severed tongue dropped to the floor, and it stopped abruptly, hideous red-green blood and mucus pouring from its mouth.

Danica wasn’t nearly finished with it. She dropped her torch and leaped straight up, catching the crossbeam support, and snap-kicked one foot into the ghoul’s face, sending gore flying. Again and again Danica’s kicks pounded it.

The third advancing ghoul had met equal punishment. Newander held his open palm out before him and uttered a few words to produce another ball of magical flame, similar to the one he had used to fight the torch back at the tunnel entrance. As the ghoul came hobbling in, Newander launched the fiery missile. It hit the advancing monster squarely in the chest and suddenly the ghoul was more concerned with patting out the flames than attacking the druid. It had nearly put out the first fire when another ball came in, this one taking it in the shoulder. Then came the third missile, bursting into a shower of sparks as it hit the ghoul in the face.

Danica held her position on the crossbeam and kicked one final time. She knew that she had snapped the ghoul’s neck, but the doomed creature managed to get a claw on the side of her leg. As it fell, its dirty nail dug a deep in the down Danica’s calf. Danica looked upon the wound in horror, feeling the paralyzing touch taking hold of her. “No!” she growled, and she used all her years of training, all her mental discipline, to fight back, to force the chill from her bones.

She dropped from the beam and scooped up the torch, glad to learn that her leg could still support her. Her anger controlled her now; part of Danica’s discipline involved the knowledge of when to let go, of when to let sheer anger guide her actions. The ghoul with the burned eyes spun about wildly, slashing blindly with its claws in its search for something to hit. Its mouth opened impossibly wide in a hungry, vicious scream.

Danica grasped the torch in both hands and rammed it with an overhead chop down the ghoul’s throat. The creature thrashed wildly, scoring several hits on Danica’s arms, but the furious woman did not relent. She drove the torch deeper down the ghoul’s gullet, twisting and grinding until the ghoul stopped thrashing.

Hardly slowing, Danica tightened one hand and spun about, catching the ghoul battling Newander’s fires with a left hook. The blow lifted the monster from its feet and sent it crashing into the tunnel wall. Newander came on it in an instant, pounding with his oaken staff.

The fight was far from over. Five ghouls remained, though three were still helplessly entangled by the moss strands. The other two had worked their way free and charged, paying no concern to their dead companions.

Danica dropped into a low crouch, pulled her daggers from their boot sheaths, and struck before the monsters ever got close. To the lead ghoul, the coming dagger probably seemed no more than a sliver, flickering as it spun in the dim torchlight. Then the creature got the point, as the dagger buried itself to the hilt in its eye. The ghoul shrieked and teetered to the side, clutching its face. Danica’s second shot followed with equal precision, thudding into the creature’s chest, again burying to the hilt, and the ghoul tumbled, writhing in the throes of death.

The second charging ghoul, not a fortunate creature, now had a clear path at Danica. The monk waited again until the very last moment, then sprang to grab the beam and her deadly foot flashed out. The powerful kick caught the ghoul on the forehead, stopping it cold and snapping its head backward. As the head came back, Danica’s foot met it again, then a third and a fourth time.

Danica dropped from the beam, letting the momentum of her fall take her down into a low squat. Like a coiled spring, she came back up, spinning as she rose and letting one foot fly out behind her. The circle-kick maneuver caught the stunned and battered ghoul on the side of the jaw and snapped its head to the side so brutally that the ghoul was sent into an airborne somersault. It landed in a kneeling position, weirdly contorted, with its legs straight out to either side, its lifeless body hunched heavily and its head lolling about, looking over one shoulder.

Danica’s rage was not appeased. She charged down the passage, issuing a single-toned scream all the way. She put her right hand in a partial fist, extending her index and little fingers rigidly. The closest moss-wrapped ghoul, not Danica’s target, managed to free one arm to lash at the woman. Danica easily dove under the awkward attack, went into a roll right past the attacker, and came up a few feet in front of the next ghoul without breaking her momentum in the least. She leaped into the air and struck viciously as she descended. Eagle Talon, this attack was named, according to the scrolls of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn, and Danica worked it to perfection as her extending fingers drove right through the ghoul’s eyes, exploding into its rotted brain. It took Danica nearly a minute to extract her hand from the creature’s shattered head, but it didn’t matter, she knew. This ghoul offered no further threat.

Newander, finished with his ghoul, started toward the young woman. He stopped, though, seeing that Danica had things well under control, and went instead to retrieve the low-burning torch.

Finally free, Danica went back at the ghoul that had swung at her. Her fist thudded grotesquely against the rotted flesh of the creature’s chest; Danica knew that its ribs had collapsed under the blow, but the ghoul, nearly free before the attack, fell clear of the moss with the weight of the punch. It came up screaming horribly, wailing away like a thing gone insane.

Danica matched its intensity, hitting it three times for each hit she suffered. Again she felt the paralyzing chill of a ghoul’s touch and again she growled it away. Still, she could not ignore the lines of blood on her arms, and her pain and weariness were mounting. She feigned another straightforward punch, then dropped into a squat under the ghoul’s lurching swings. Her foot flashed straight out, catching the ghoul inside its knee and sending it face-first to the ground. In an instant, Danica was back up. She clutched her hands together in a double fist, reached back over her head and dropped to her knees, using the momentum of her fall to add to the power of her chop. She caught the rising ghoul on the back of the head, slamming it back to the ground. The creature bounced under the terrific impact and then lay very still.

Danica didn’t wait to see if it would move again. She grabbed a handful of its scraggly hair, reached under to cup its chin in her other hand, and twisted its head so violently that before the crackling of neck bones had finished, the ghoul’s dead eyes were staring straight up over its back.

Danica came up with an enraged scream and advanced steadily on the one remaining ghoul. The moss had lifted this one clear of the ground and it hung there still, barely struggling against the impossible bonds. Danica punched it on the side of the head, sending it into a spin. As the face came around in a full circle, Danica, too, spun a circuit and circle-kicked, reversing the creature’s spin. And so it went, punch, kick, around one way and then the other.

“It is dead,” Newander started to say, but he didn’t bother to press the point, understanding that Danica needed to work through her rage. Still she kicked and punched, and still the limply hanging ghoul spun.

Finally, the exhausted monk dropped to her knees before the latest kill and put her head in her blood-soaked hands.

* * * * *

“Druzil?” Barjin didn’t know why he had spoken the word aloud; perhaps he had thought that the sound would help him reestablish the suddenly broken telepathic link with his imp familiar. “Druzil?”

There was no reply, no hint that the imp kept any link at all opened to the cleric. Barjin waited a moment longer, still trying to send his thoughts along the outer passageways, still hoping that Druzil would answer.

Soon, the priest had to admit that his outer eyes had somehow been closed. Perhaps Druzil had been slain, or perhaps an enemy priest had banished the imp back to his own plane. With that uncomfortable thought in mind, Barjin moved to his low-burning brazier. He spoke a few command words, ordering the flames higher and trying to reopen his mysteriously unproductive interplanar gate. He called to midges and manes and lesser denizens; he called to Druzil, hoping that if the imp had been banished, he might bring him back. But the flames crackled unimpeded by any otherworldly presence. Barjin did not know, of course, of the magical powder Druzil had sprinkled to close the gate.

The priest continued his calling for a short while, then realized the futility of it and realized, too, that if Druzil had indeed been defeated, he might have some serious problems brewing. Another thought came to him then, the image of the imp returning to the altar room at the head of the skeletal force with ideas of overthrowing the priest’s leadership. Imps had never been known for their undying loyalty.

In either case, Barjin needed to strengthen his own position. He moved to Mullivy first and spent a long moment considering how he might further strengthen the zombie. He already had given Mullivy a patchwork armor plating and had magically increased the zombie’s strength, but now he had something more devious in mind. He took out a tiny vial and poured a drop of mercury over Mullivy, uttering an arcane chant. The spell completed, Barjin retrieved several flasks of volatile oil and soaked Mullivy’s clothes.

Barjin turned to his most powerful ally, Khalif, the mummy. There was little the priest could do to enhance the already monstrous creation, so he issued a new set of unambiguous commands to it and set it in a more strategic position outside the altar room.

All that remained for Barjin was his personal preparations. He donned his clerical vestments, enchanted doth as armored as a knight’s suit of mail, and uttered a prayer to enhance this protection even more. He took up the Screaming Maiden, his devilish woman-headed mace, and rechecked the wards at the room’s single door. Let his enemies come; whether it was a traitor imp or a host of priests from above, Barjin was confident that the attackers soon would wish they had remained in the outer passages.

* * * * *

Newander moved to comfort Danica, but Percival got there first, dropping from a crossbeam to the woman’s shoulder. Danica’s smile returned when she looked upon the white squirrel, a reminder of better times, to be sure.

“They sense the raising of the dead” Newander explained, indicating the ghouls. “The meat of their table is the meat of a corpse.”

Danica shot him an incredulous look.

“Even if they must create the corpse on their own,” Newander replied. “But it is the raising of the dead that brings them.” Newander seemed to doubt his own words, but he knew nothing of the necromancer’s stone and had no other explanation. “Ghouls will flock to undead from anywhere near, though where these wretches have come from, I cannot guess.”

Danica struggled unsteadily to her feet. “It does not matter where they came from,” she said. “Only that they are dead- and will stay dead this time. Let us go on. Cadderly and the dwarves might have met troubles farther in.”

Newander grabbed her arm and held her back. “You cannot go,” he insisted.

Danica glared at him.

“My spells are nearly exhausted,” the druid explained, “but I have some salves that might help your wounds and a curative spell that can defeat any poison you might have suffered.”

“We have no time,” Danica argued, pulling free. “Save that poison cure. My wounds are not so serious, but we might need that before this is ended.”

“Only a minute for treating your wounds then,” Newander argued back, conceding the point concerning the spell but adamant that Danica’s scratches at least should be cleaned. He took out a small pouch. “You might be needing me, Lady Danica, but I’ll not go in with you if you do not let me tend to your wounds.”

Danica wanted no delays, but she didn’t doubt the stubborn druid’s resolve. She kneeled before Newander and held her torn forearms out to him, and, despite her own stubbornness, she had to admit that the gashes felt much better the instant the druid applied his salves.

They set off again, Newander bearing the torch and his staff, Danica holding her daggers, stained darkly with ghoul gore, and the newest member of the party, Percival, wrapped nervously about Danica’s neck and shoulders.

Oh, Brother, Me Brother

“Me brother!” Ivan wailed, falling over Pikel’s prostrate form. “Oh, me brother!” The dwarf sniffled and wept openly, cradling Pikel’s head in his hands.

Cadderly had no words to comfort Ivan. Indeed, the young scholar was nearly as overcome as the dwarf. Pikel had been a dear friend, always ready to listen to Cadderly’s latest wild idea, and always adding an emphatic “Oo oi!” just to make Cadderly feel good.

Cadderly had never known the pangs of a friend’s death. His mother had died when he was very young, but he didn’t remember that. He saw the priests of Ilmater and the dead gluttons in the kitchen, but they were only faces to him, distant and unknown. Now, looking at dear Pikel, he didn’t know how he should feel. Didn’t know what he could do. It seemed a macabre game, and for the very first time in his life, Cadderly understood that some things were beyond his power to control or change, that all his rationale, his intelligence, in the final estimation seemed just a minor thing.

“Ye should’ve been a druid,” Ivan said quietly. “Ye always were better under the sky than the stone.” Ivan let out a great cry and buried his head in Pikel’s chest, his shoulders shuddering uncontrollably.

Cadderly could understand the dwarfs pain, but he was shocked nonetheless that Ivan was so openly emotional. The priest wondered if something was wrong with him for not falling over Pikel as Ivan had done, or if Ivan’s love for his brother was so much greater than his own feelings for the dwarf. Cadderly kept his wits about him; no matter how agonizing Pikel’s death was, if they did not move on and close the bottle, many others would share a similar fate.

“We must go,” Cadderly said softly to Ivan.

“Shut yer mouth!” Ivan roared, on the verge of an explosion, never taking his gaze from his brother.

The response caught Cadderly by surprise, but again he did not understand the nature of grief, did not know if it was Ivan who was acting out of sorts or if he was. When the dwarf finally did look back at him, tears streaked his contorted face and Cadderly feared that he knew what was going on.

“The curse,” he muttered breathlessly. As far as he could tell, this red mist worked to exaggerate one’s emotions. Apparently the curse had found a hold in Ivan’s sincere grief, a chink in the tough dwarfs magic-resistant constitution.

Cadderly feared that it was taking hold of Ivan. The dwarfs blubbering increased with each passing moment; he could hardly draw breath, so violent was his weeping.

“Ivan,” he said quietly, moving over to put a hand on the dwarfs shoulder. “We can do no more for Pikel. Come away now. We have other business to attend.”

Ivan snapped an angry glare on Cadderly and smacked his hands away. “Ye’re wanting me to leave him?” the dwarf cried. “Me brother! Me dead brother! No, I’m not going, never going. I’ll stay by me brother’s side. Stay here and keep me Pikel druid warm!”

“He is dead, Ivan,” Cadderly said through his own budding sniffles. “Gone. You cannot keep the warmth in his body. You cannot do anything for him”

“Shut yer mouth!” Ivan roared again, reaching for his axe. Cadderly thought the dwarf meant to chop him down, feared that Ivan blamed him for what had happened to Pikel, but Ivan never even found the strength to lift the heavy weapon and instead tumbled back down over Pikel.

Cadderly realized that he would get nowhere reasoning with the grieving dwarf, but Ivan’s outburst incited other ideas in the young scholar. There was one emotion that could overrule even grief, and Ivan seemed all too willing to let that emotion take charge.

“You can do nothing,” Cadderly said again, “but repay the one who did this to Pikel.”

Suddenly Cadderly had Ivan’s full attention.

“He is down here, Ivan,” Cadderly prodded, though he didn’t like leading the dwarf on like this. “Pikel’s killer is down here.”

“The imp!” Ivan roared, looking around wildly for the creature.

“No,” Cadderly replied, “not the imp, but the imp’s master.”

“The imp’s what poisoned me brother!” Ivan protested.

“Yes, but the imp’s master brought the imp, and the curse, and all the evil that led to Pikel’s demise,” replied Cadderly. He knew he was taking license in drawing such conclusions, but if he could get Ivan moving, then it would be worth the deceit. “If we can defeat the master, then the imp and all the evil will follow.

“The master, Ivan,” Cadderly said again, “he who brought the curse.”

“Ye brought the curse,” Ivan snarled, fingering his two-headed axe again and eyeing Cadderly suspiciously.

“No,” Cadderly quickly corrected, seeing his conniving tactics taking an entirely different light. “I played an unfortunate role in its release, but I did not bring it. There is one down here-there must be-who brought the curse and sent the skeletons and the imp down here after us, down here to kill your brother!”

“Where is he?” Ivan cried, springing up from Pikel and clasping his heavy axe in both hands. “Where’s me brother’s killer?” The dwarfs eyes darted all about wildly, as if he expected some new monster to appear at any moment.

“We must find him,” Cadderly prodded. “We can go back the way we came, back into the tunnels I remember.”

“Go back?” The idea didn’t seem to please Ivan.

“Just until I remember the way, Ivan,” Cadderly explained, “then we’ll go forward, to the room with the cursed bottle, to where we shall find your brother’s killer.” He could only hope his words were true and that Ivan would relax by the time they found the room.

“Forward!” Ivan yelled, and he scooped up one of the barely glowing torches, whipped it about frantically to refuel the flame, and stormed off back the way they had come. Cadderly checked to make certain that he had all of his belongings, said a final good-bye to Pikel, and ran to catch up.

They had not gone far when they came upon the first group of skeletons, five monsters wandering down a side passage. The disoriented skeletons, refugees from Druzil’s disastrous battle, made no move to attack, but Ivan, blind with rage, turned on them with a fury that Cadderly had never before imagined.

“Ivan, no,” Cadderly pleaded, seeing the dwarfs intent. “Let them alone. We have more important ...”

Ivan never heard him. The dwarf let out a roar and a snarl and rushed at the skeletons. The two closest turned to meet the charge, but Ivan overwhelmed them. He launched a mighty side cut with his axe that cleaved one in half, then shifted the weapon’s momentum as it whirled behind him and drove it straight over his head, coming down on top of the second skeleton with enough force to shatter the monster.

Ivan let go of the weapon, entangled once more in bones, and caught the third skeleton with his deer-horned helmet, lifting the monster dear of the ground, shaking it wildly for a moment, then slamming it into the wall. The attack damaged the skeleton, but it also dislodged Ivan’s helmet. The clawing fingers of the fourth skeleton found an opening in the dwarfs defenses and dug into the back of his neck.

Cadderly came running down to help, readying his walking stick for a swing at Ivan’s newest attacker. Before he could get into the fray, though, Ivan took things into his own hands. He reached around and caught the skeleton by its bony wrist, then pulled and spun for all his life.

Cadderly dove for the ground, nearly sliced by the flying skeleton’s legs and feet. Ivan picked up momentum in his twirl and soon had the skeleton spinning straight out at arms’ length. He let the momentum build for a moment, then shuffled a step closer to a wall and let the bricks do his work. The skeleton slammed against them and broke apart and Ivan was left holding an unattached bone.

The last of the skeletons was on the dwarf then, and Ivan, dizzy and a bit disoriented, took the monster’s first clawing hand squarely in the face. Again Cadderly started to help Percival friend, but one of the other skeletons was back up and closing, still bearing Ivan’s helmet entangled in its ribs.

Ivan slammed a forearm into his attacker’s ribs. The dwarf’s stubby legs pumped wildly, driving the monster back toward a wall. When it pressed in, Ivan did not stop. His every muscle tensed and then snapped, launching him forward and bringing the only weapon he had available, his forehead, to bear.

He slammed the skeleton in the face, and the creature’s skull exploded in the crush between the rock wall and the dwarfs equally tough head. Bits of bone popped out to the sides, other pieces were ground into dust, and Ivan bounced back, his head badly gashed. .

Cadderly smacked at the remaining monster with his walking stick and snapped his spindle-disks into its face once and then again. The stubborn creature came on, slashing its bony fingers and forcing Cadderly into retreat. Soon, though, Cadderly felt the wall at his back and had nowhere left to run.

One hand had latched firmly onto Cadderly’s shoulder. The other slashed at his face. He got his own hand up to block but found himself helplessly pinned with the bony fingers digging deeper into his flesh. He tried desperately to hook the skeleton’s arm under his own, to twist it around and break the monster’s grasp, but Cadderly’s attack was designed to twist muscles and tendons and inflict such pain on an attacker as to disable him. Skeletons had no muscles or tendons and felt no pain.

Cadderly put his one free hand against the skeleton’s face and tried to push it away-and got a wicked bite on the wrist for his efforts.

Then the skeleton’s head disappeared in an instant, went flying away. Cadderly didn’t understand until Ivan’s second axe chop, a downward cut, destroyed the skeletal body.

Cadderly leaned back against the wall and clutched at his bloodied wrist. He simply dismissed his own pain a moment later, thinking his wounds minor indeed when he looked upon Ivan.

Pieces of skull bone were embedded in the dwarfs forehead. Blood ran freely down Ivan’s face, along the sides of his neck, and from numerous cuts on his gnarly hands. Even more horrifying, a skeleton’s broken rib bone stuck out from the side of the dwarfs abdomen. Cadderly could not tell how deeply the bone had gone, but the wound seemed wicked indeed and he was truly amazed that the dwarf was still standing.

He reached for Ivan, meaning to support his friend, fearing that Ivan would topple.

Ivan roughly slapped his hand away. “No time for coddling,” the dwarf barked. “Where’s the one that killed me brother?”

“You need help,” Cadderly replied, horrified by his friend’s condition. “Your wounds ...”

“Forget them,” Ivan retorted. “Get me to the one that killed me brother!”

“But Ivan,” Cadderly continued to protest. He pointed to the skeletal rib.

Ivan’s eyes did widen when he noticed the ghastly wound, but he only shrugged his shoulders, reached down to grasp the bone, and pulled it free, casually tossing it aside as though he hadn’t even noticed the several inches of bloodstains upon it. Ivan’s attitude was similarly uncaring when he tried to put his helmet back on, only to find that the embedded bones blocked him from seating it correctly on his head. He plucked a few chips from his forehead, then, with a grunt, forced the helmet into place.

Cadderly could only assume that the cursing mist had increased the dwarfs rage to a point where Ivan simply did not acknowledge pain. He knew that dwarves were a tough lot, Ivan more than most, but this was beyond belief.

“Ye said ye’d take me to him!” Ivan roared, and his words rang like a threat in Cadderly’s ears. “Ye said ye’d find the way!” In a move of concession, Ivan reached up and tore off Cadderly’s cloak and used it to quickly tie off his wound.

Cadderly had to be satisfied with that. He knew that the best he could do for everybody, Ivan included, was to find and dose the smoking bottle as quickly as he could. Only then would the enraged dwarf allow Cadderly or anyone else to tend to his injuries.

Only then, but Cadderly was not so certain that Ivan would make it that far.

They soon came back to the original areas where they had encountered the undead monsters. All was quiet now, deathly still, giving Cadderly the opportunity to carefully reconstruct his first passage through. He thought that he was making some progress, leading Ivan down several adjoining passages, when he noticed some movement far down one hall, at the very edge of his narrow light beam.

Ivan noticed it, too, and he set off at once. His grief for his dead brother transferred again into uncontrollable battle lust.

Cadderly fumbled with his bandolier and tried futility to keep up with the dwarf, pleading with Ivan to let this enemy go.

It was a single skeleton this time, wandering aimlessly at first, but then coming straight in at the charging dwarf.

Cadderly came to a very important decision at that moment.

He held his light beam in one hand and his loaded crossbow in the other, lining both up between the horns of the dwarfs helmet at the skeletal face beyond. Cadderly had never intended his custom-designed crossbow to be used as a weapon, especially not while firing the exploding darts. He had designed the bow for opening locked doors, or blasting away troublesome tree branches that scraped against his window, or a variety of other nonviolent purposes. Also, he had to admit, he had designed the crossbow and the bolts in part for the simple challenge of designing them. But Cadderly had vowed to himself, as much as an excuse as anything else, never to use the darts or the bow as a weapon, never to unleash the concentrated violence of the explosive darts against a living target.

The arguments in this instance were many, of course. Ivan could ill afford another fight, even against a single skeleton, and the skeleton, after all, was not really a living creature. Still, Cadderly’s guilt hovered over him as he took aim. He knew that he was breaking the spirit of his vow.

He fired. The bolt arced over Ivan’s head and crashed into the charging skeleton’s face. The initial impact wasn’t so great, but then the dart collapsed, setting off the oil of impact. When the dust cleared a moment later, the skeleton’s head and neck were gone.

The headless bones stood a moment longer, then dropped with a rattle.

Ivan, just a few strides away, stopped abruptly and stared in amazement, his jaw hanging open and his dark eyes wide. He turned slowly back to Cadderly, who only shrugged apologetically and looked away.

“It had to be done,” Cadderly remarked, more to himself than to Ivan.

“And ye did it well!” Ivan replied, coming back down the passage. He clapped Cadderly on the back, though Cadderly did not feel heroic in the least.

“Let us go on,” Cadderly said quietly, slipping the crossbow back into its wide and shallow sheath.

They crossed under another low archway, Cadderly beginning to believe that they were again on the right path, and then came to a fork in the dusty passage. Two tunnels ran out from the one, parallel and very near together. Cadderly thought for a moment, then started down the right side. He went only a few steps, though, before he recognized his location more clearly. He backtracked, ignoring Ivan’s grumbling, and moved at a determined pace down the left passage. This corridor went on for just a short distance, then angled farther to the left and opened into a wider passage.

Standing sarcophagi filled the alcove in this passage, confirmation to Cadderly that he had chosen the right path. A few steps in and beyond a slight bend, he knew beyond doubt. Far in front of them, at the end of the passage, loomed a door, cracked open and with light shining through.

“That the place?” Ivan demanded, though he had already guessed the answer. He started off before Cadderly nodded in reply.

Again Cadderly tried futility to slow the dwarfs charge, desiring a more cautious approach. He was just a couple of steps behind Ivan when the last sarcophagus swung open and a mummy stepped out to block the way. Too enraged to care, Ivan continued on undaunted, but Cadderly no longer followed. The young scholar was frozen with fear, stricken by the sheer evilness of the powerful undead presence. The skeletons had been terrifying, but they seemed only minor inconveniences next to this monster.

“Irrational,” Cadderly tried to tell himself. It was acceptable to be afraid, but ridiculous to let that fear paralyze him in so urgent a situation.

“Outta me way!” Ivan roared, bearing in. He chopped viciously with his axe, scoring a hit, but, unlike the battle against the skeletons, the weapon met stiff resistance this time. The mummy’s thick wraps deflected much of the blow’s force, and pieces of the linen came unraveled, snarling the axe-head and preventing Ivan from following through.

The hit hardly hindered the mummy. It clubbed with its arm, catching Ivan on the shoulder and sending him spinning into the nearest alcove. He crashed heavily and nearly swooned but stubbornly, unsteadily, forced himself back to his feet.

The mummy was waiting for him. A second hit knocked the dwarf down to his back.

That would have been the end of Ivan Bouldershoulder had it not been for Cadderly. His first attack was almost inadvertent, for the mummy, in going after Ivan, crossed the direct, narrow beam of Cadderly’s fight tube. A creature of the night, of a dark and lightless world, Khalif was neither accustomed to, nor tolerant of, brightness of any kind.

Seeing the mummy recoil and lift its scabrous arm to block the beam restored a bit of composure in Cadderly. He kept the light focused on the monster, forcing it back from Ivan, while he nimbly loaded another dart with his free hand. Cadderly held no reservations about using his crossbow on this monster; the mummy was simply too hideous for his conscience to argue.

Still shielding its eyes, the mummy advanced on Cadderly, slapping at the beam of fight with every sliding step.

The first dart buried itself deeply into the mummy’s chest before exploding, and the blast sent the monster back a couple of steps and left scorch marks both front and back on the creature’s linen wrappings. If it had suffered any serious damage, though, the mummy didn’t show it, for it came on again.

Cadderly scrambled to reload the crossbow. His design had been good, fortunately, and the crank was not difficult to execute. A second dart joined the first, again driving the monster backward.

The mummy came on again, and again after Cadderly had shot it a third time, and each time its stubborn advance brought it a step or two closer to the frantic young man. The fourth shot proved disastrous to Cadderly, for the dart’s initial momentum drove it right through the mummy without ever igniting the magical oil. The mummy hardly slowed and Cadderly nearly held the crossbow right against its filthy wrappings when he fired his fifth shot.

This time the dart had more effect, but again it only slowed, and did not stop, the monster. Cadderly had no time to load another dart.

“Coming!” slurred Ivan as he crawled from the alcove.

Cadderly doubted that the dwarf could help him, even if Ivan could reach the monster in time, which he obviously couldn’t. The young scholar knew, too, that neither of his conventional weapons, spindle-disks or walking stick, could hurt this monster.

He had just one weapon to use. He stuck the light tube out in front of him, slowing the mummy further, causing it to shield its eyes and half turn away from him, then he dropped his crossbow and reached with his free hand for the water skin hanging at his side. He grabbed it by the extended nozzle, tucked it tight under his arm, and used his thumb to pop off its gooey cap. Cadderly squeezed with his arm, slowly and steadily sending a stream of the blessed water into his attacker’s face.

The holy water sizzled as it struck the evilly enchanted monster and, for the first time in the battle, the mummy revealed its agony. It let out an unearthly, spine-chilling wail that filled Cadderly with fear and even stopped Ivan- temporarily. It was the proverbial bark with no bite, for while the mummy continued to advance, it purposely shied away from the man with the light beam and the stinging water. Soon it had passed Cadderly altogether, but it continued down the passage, roaring with pain and frustration, clubbing with its powerful arms against the walls, the sarcophagi, and anything else that got in its way.

Ivan came rushing past Cadderly, intent on resuming the battle.

“The man who killed your brother is behind the door!” Cadderly cried as quickly as he could, desperate to stop the dwarf this time. He couldn’t know the truth of his claim, of course, but at that critical moment, he would have said anything to turn Ivan around.

Predictably, Ivan did wheel about. He let out a growl and charged back past Cadderly, forgetting all about the fleeing mummy, his unblinking eyes glued instead on the door at the end of the passage.

Cadderly saw disaster coming. He recalled the newly constructed wall in the wine cellar and the blasts that had followed Pikel’s battering-ram charger. He had to believe that this door might also be magically warded, and he saw that the door was heavy, iron-bound. If Ivan didn’t get right through, but was held in the area of exploding glyphs...

Cadderly dove to the ground, pulling a dart and grabbing for his crossbow. In a single motion, he cocked it, fitted the bolt, and spun about, using his light beam to show him the target.

The dart passed Ivan just a stride from the door. It didn’t hit the lock area directly but exploded with enough force to weaken the jam.

Surprised by the sudden blast, but unable to stop even if he chose to, Ivan barreled in.

A Well-Placed Blow

“No!” she heard the druid say at her back, but it was a distant call, as if Newander’s voice were no more than a memory of some other time and some other place. All that mattered to Danica was the wall, made of stonework now and not like the natural dirt tunnel that had led them in. The wall, inviting her, enticing her, to emulate her long-dead hero. That distant voice spoke again, but in clicks and chatter that Danica could not understand.

A furry tail fell down over Danica’s eyes, breaking her concentration on the stone. She moved one hand merely by reflex to push aside the distraction.

Following the druid’s instructions, Percival promptly bit her. Danica dipped her shoulder and came across with an instinctive chop that would have killed the squirrel. She recognized Percival before she struck, though, and that led her again out of the red mist and back to reality. “The wall,” she stammered. “I meant to ...” “It is not your fault,” Newander said to her. “The curse affected you again. It would seem to be an endless fight.”

Danica slumped back against the stone, weary and ashamed. She had put every effort into resisting the intrusive mist, had seen it for what it was and planted deeply in her own thinking the logical conclusion that such destructive impulses must be avoided. Yet here she was, near the heart of danger, abandoning their entire hopes for success for the sake of her curse-enhanced desires.

“Do not accept the guilt,” Newander said to her. “You are braving the curse better than any of the priests above us. You have come this far against it, and that alone is more than most others can say.”

“The dwarves walk with Cadderly,” Danica reminded him.

“Do not hold yourself against that measure,” Newander warned. “You are no dwarf. The bearded folk have a natural resistance to magic that no human can match. Theirs is not a question of self-discipline. Lady Danica, but of physical differences.”

Danica realized that the druid spoke the truth, but the knowledge that Pikel and Ivan had an advantage over her in resisting the curse did little to diminish her sense of guilt. For all of the druid’s talk, Danica considered the intrusive mist a mental challenge, a test of discipline.

“What of Newander?” she asked suddenly, more sarcastically than she had intended. “Does the blood of the bearded folk run in your veins? You are no dwarf. Why, then, are you not affected?”

The druid looked away; it was his turn to feel the weight of guilt. “I do not know,” he admitted, “but you must believe that I feel the curse keenly with my every step.

“Cadderly guessed that the mist pushes a person to what is in his heart. The gluttons eat themselves to death. The suffering priests cut each other apart in religious frenzy. My own druid brothers revert to animal form, losing themselves in altered states of being. Why, then, is Newander not running with the animals?”

Danica recognized that the druid’s last question was a source of great and sincere anguish. They had discussed this once before, but Newander had offered little explanation for himself, focusing his responses on why Cadderly might have escaped the curse.

“My guess is that the curse has found no hold on my heart, that my own desires are not known to me,” the druid went on. “Have I failed at my calling?” Tears rolled openly down Newander’s face and he appeared on the verge of a breakdown, a dear sign to Danica that he was indeed being affected by the red mist. “Have I no calling?” Newander wailed. He crumbled to the floor, head in hands, his shoulders shuddering with heavy sobs.

“You are mistaken,” Danica said with enough force to command the druid’s attention. “If you have failed in your calling, or if you have no calling, then why do you retain the magical spells that are a gift of your god, Silvanus? You brought the vines in my window, and the moss to life against the ghouls.”

Newander composed himself, intrigued by Danica’s words. He found the strength to stand and this time did not look away from her.

“Perhaps it is the truth in your heart that has led you to defeat the curse,” Danica reasoned. “When did you first feel the curse acting upon you?”

Newander thought back a couple of days, to when he had returned to the library to find Arcite and Cleo already in the throes of their shape change. “I felt it soon after I returned,” he explained. “I had been out in the mountains, watching over an eagle aerie.” Newander recalled that time clearly, remembered his own insight concerning the su-monsters. “I knew that something was out of sorts as soon as I came back in the library’s doors. I went to find my druid brothers, but, alas, they were deep into their animal forms by then, and I could not reach them.”

“There is your answer,” Danica said after a moment of thought. “You are a priest of natural order, and this curse is certainly a perversion of that order. You said that you can sense the presence of undead-so, I believe, did you sense the presence of the curse.”

How had he known that the ghouls were coming? Newander wondered. There were spells to detect the presence of such undead, but he had not enacted any and still knew that they were there, just as he had known that the su-monsters were evil creatures and not just predatory animals. The implications of his insight nearly overwhelmed the druid.

“You give me more credit than I deserve,” he said somberly to Danica.

“You are a priest of the natural order,” Danica said again. “I do not think you alone have resisted this curse, but you were not, are not, alone. You walk with your faith, and it is that sincere calling that has given you the strength to resist. Arcite and Cleo had no warning. The curse was upon them before they knew anything was wrong, but their failure forewarned you of the danger, and with that warning, you have been able to keep true to your calling.”

Newander shook his head, not convinced, not daring to believe that he possessed such inner strength. He had no rebuttals against Danica’s reasoning, though, and he would not deny anything where Silvanus, the Oak Father, was concerned. He had given his heart to Silvanus long ago, and there his heart remained, despite any curiosities Newander might hold for the ways of progress and civilization. Was it possible that he was so true a disciple of the Oak Father? Was it possible that what he had perceived as failure, in not transforming into animal form, as Arcite and Cleo had done, might actually reflect strength?

“We lose time in asking questions we cannot answer,” he said at length, his voice more steady. “Whatever the cause, both you and I found the way dear.”

Danica looked back to the stone wall with concern. “For now at least,” she added. “Let us be off again, before my will wanes.”

They crossed under several archways, Danica holding the torch far out in front of her to burn the unrelenting cobwebs from their path. Neither of them had much experience with travel underground, or with the common designs of catacombs, and their course was a wandering one; they chose tunnels more or less at random. Danica was thoughtful enough to scratch directional marks at the more confusing turns, in case they had to retrace their steps, but still she feared that she and the druid would become lost in the surprising intricate complex.

They saw some signs of previous passage-torn webbing hanging in loose strands, an upset crate in one corner-but whether these had been caused by Cadderly, by other monsters such as the ghouls, or simply by some animal that had made its home in the catacombs, neither of them could say.

Their torch burned low as they entered one long passage. Several side corridors ran off this one, mostly along the right-hand wall, and Danica and Newander agreed that they would stay the course this time and not continue to wander in circles. They passed by the first few passages, Danica entering just a few feet with the torch to get a quick glimpse of what lay down each, but stayed in the main tunnel and meant to until they reached its end.

Finally they came to a passage they could not ignore. Danica went in, again for a quick perusal. “They have been here!” she cried out, the realization drawing her farther down the tunnel. The sights there confirmed Danica’s suspicions. A battle had been fought here; dozens of bone piles lay strewn about the floor and several skulls, forcibly removed from their skeletal bodies, greeted them with sightless eye sockets. Two lines of piled crates formed a defensive run farther in, a place where Danica soon reasoned that Cadderly and the dwarves had made their stand.

“The bones agree with my sensing of the undead,” Newander said grimly, “but we cannot be certain that it was our friends who fought them here.”

The confirmation came even as he spoke, as Danica moved her torch slowly about for a wider view of the battle-torn area.

“Pikel!” the woman cried, running to the fallen dwarf. Pikel lay cold and still just as Ivan had left him, his burly arms crossed over his chest and his tree-trunk club lying at his side.

Danica fell to her knees to examine the dwarf but had no doubts that he was dead. She shook her head as she studied his wounds, for none of them seemed serious enough to fell one of Pikel’s toughness.

Newander understood her confusion. He knelt beside her and uttered a few words as he waved his hand slowly over the body.

“There is a poison in this one,” the druid announced grimly. “A wicked brew indeed, gone straight to his heart.”

Danica cupped her hands under Pikel’s head and gently lifted his face to hers. He had been a dear friend, possibly the most likable person Danica ever had known. It occurred to her, holding him, that he had not been dead for very long. His lips had gone blue, but there was no swelling at all and there remained warmth in his body.

Danica’s eyes widened and she turned on Newander. “After we fought the ghouls, you told me that you had a spell to counter any poisons I might have contracted,” she said.

“And so I do,” Newander replied, understanding her intent, “but the poison has done its work on this one. My spell cannot undo the dwarf’s death.”

“Use the spell,” Danica insisted. She moved quickly, propping Pikel under the neck with one arm and tilting his head backward.

“But it will not-“

“Use it, Newander!” Danica snapped at him. The druid backed off a step, fearing that the mist had again taken hold of his companion.

“Trust me, I beg,” Danica continued, softening her tone, for she recognized the druid’s sudden caution.

Newander didn’t understand what Danica might have in mind, but after all they had been through, he did trust her. He paused a moment to consider the spell, then took an oak leaf from his pocket and crumbled it on top of the dwarf, uttering the proper chant.

Danica opened Pikel’s cloak and unbuckled the breastplates of his heavy armor. She looked to Newander for confirmation that his spell was complete.

“If there is any poison left in this one, it has been neutralized,” the druid assured her.

It was Danica’s turn. She closed her eyes and thought of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn’s most prized scroll, the notes of physical suspension. Penpahg D’Ahn had stopped his breathing, even his heart, for several hours. One day Danica meant to do the same. She was not yet ready for such a demanding trial, she knew, but there were aspects of Penpahg D’Ahn’s writings, particularly those involved with coming out of the physical suspension, that she knew would be of help to her now.

Danica thought of the steps required to restart the suspended heart, in the writings, these were internal, of course, but their principles might be duplicated by an outside force. Danica laid Pikel back down flat, unbuttoned his vest, and pulled his nightshirt up high. She could hardly see the details of his chest through the virtual sweater of hair, but she persisted, feeling his ribs and hoping that a dwarf’s anatomy was not so different from a human’s.

She had found the spot-she thought. She looked back to Newander for support, then, to the druid’s obvious surprise, turned back suddenly and rapped her free hand sharply into the hollow of the dwarf’s breast. She waited just a moment, then rapped again. Danica’s intensity multiplied; all her heart went into her work on Pikel, and that only encouraged the cursing mist to creep back in.

“Lady Danica!” Newander cried, grabbing the frantic woman’s shoulder. “You should show more respect to the dead!”

Danica whipped her arm around and back, hooking the druid behind the knees. A sudden jerk sent Newander to the floor, then Danica resumed her work, furiously pounding away. She heard a rib crack but wound up for yet another blow.

Newander was back at her, grabbing her more forcefully this time and tearing her from the corpse.

They wrestled for a moment, Danica easily gaining an advantage. She put Newander flat on his back and scrambled atop him, her fist coming up dangerously over the druid’s face.

“Oooi!”

The call froze both Danica and Newander.

“What have you done?” Newander gasped.

Danica, as surprised as the druid, shook her head and slowly turned about. There sat Pikel, looking sore and confused but very much alive. He smiled when he gazed upon Danica.

The woman rushed off Newander and tackled the dwarf, wrapping him in a tight hug. Newander came over, too, patting both of them heartily on the shoulders.

“A miracle,” the druid muttered.

Danica knew better, knew that reviving Pikel had involved some very logical and well documented principles in the teachings of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn. Nonetheless, Danica, too amazed by what she had done and too relieved to see Pikel again drawing breath, did not find the resolve to answer.

“This is a fortunate meeting,” Danica reasoned after the hugging had ended.

“Oo oi!” Pikel was quick to agree.

“More than for you,” Danica started to explain.

Newander cast her a curious look.

“This is our first proof that the tunnel we entered connects to the area that Cadderly went into,” said Danica. “Until we found Pikel, we were lost.”

“Now we know,” added Newander, “and we know, too, that we have crossed Cadderly’s path. Perhaps now we shall find a clearer trail to follow.” He bent low with the torch, studying the floor for some signs, but came up a moment later shaking his head. “It is a tiny path if it is one at all,” he lamented.

A smile widened on Danica’s face. “Tiny for us, perhaps,” she said. “But maybe dear enough for Percival.”

Pikel sat confused, but Newander’s smile surpassed Danica’s. The druid uttered a few sounds to Percival, asking the squirrel to lead them to Cadderly. Percival hopped about for a few moments, scratching at the ground and searching for some pattern, either in the scuff marks or the scent.

He caught the trail and set off down the passage, Newander right behind. Danica helped Pikel to his feet. He was still unsteady, and still thoroughly confused, but he called upon the two most prominent dwarven traits, toughness and stubbornness, and made his way beside the young woman.

* * * * *

Sleep had been such a pleasant thing, but somewhere deep in his thoughts Druzil realized that he was dangerously vulnerable lying in a crack in the wall of a deserted corridor. The imp pulled himself out of the cubby and shape-changed back to his more customary, bat-winged form. Somewhere in his slumber, he had lost the concentration necessary for invisibility and could not sort through the fog that remained in his mind enough to recover it. That sleepy fog was heavy, but the imp kept one thought clear: he must get back to Barjin, back to the safety of his magical gate connection to Castle Trinity. He knew that someone recently had exited this passage and, having no desire to meet any enemies, he took a roundabout, meandering course.

He stopped and held very still a short while later when the crazed mummy came storming by, smashing anything and everything in its path. Druzil realized that something had gone terribly wrong, recognized that the mummy, scorched and blasted in many places, had gone out of control.

The monster was gone then, slamming down a side corridor, growling and bashing things with its heavy arms with every step.

Druzil’s wings flapped slowly as he half-walked and half-flew back toward the altar room.

Yes, Barjin would help him, and if not Barjin, then surely Aballister. With that thought in mind, the imp sent out a weak, sleepy message to his master back at Castle Trinity.

Face to Face

Ivan hit the loose-swinging door with a terrific impact, jolting it free of one of its hinges. Cadderly’s fears were proved true, for several fiery explosions went off in rapid succession as Ivan crossed the threshold. If the door had stopped, or even delayed his charge, he would have been roasted.

As it was, Cadderly was not certain if the dwarf had survived. Ivan skidded into the room on his face, wisps of smoke rising from several points on his body. Cadderly rushed in right behind to get to his friend; he could only hope that no glyphs remained.

The young scholar didn’t quite make it to Ivan, though. As soon as he entered the room, squinting in the brightness of the several torches and blazing brazier, he saw that he and Ivan were not alone.

“You have done well to come so far,” Barjin said calmly, standing halfway across the room, beside the altar that held the ever-smoking bottle. Torches lined the wall to either side of the priest, but the brighter light came from a brazier along the wall to Cadderly’s right, which Cadderly correctly guessed was an interplanar gate.

“I applaud your resilience,” Barjin continued, his tone teasing, “futile though it will prove.”

Every memory came rushing back to Cadderly in clear order and focus when he saw Barjin. The first thought that crossed his mind was that he would go back up and have a few nasty words with Kierkan Rufo, the man who had, he believed, kicked him down the stairway from the wine cellar in the first place. His resolve to scold Rufo did not take firm hold, though, not when Cadderly considered the dangers before him. His eyes did not linger on the priest, but rather on the man standing next to Barjin.

“Mullivy?” he asked, though he knew by Mullivy’s posture and the grotesque bend of his wrecked arm that this was not the groundskeeper he once had known.

The dead man did not reply.

“A friend of yours?” Barjin teased, draping an arm over his zombie. “Now he is my friend, too.

“I could have him kill you quite easily,” Barjin went on. “But, you see, I believe I shall reserve that pleasure for myself.” He removed the obsidian-headed mace from his belt, its sculpted visage that of a pretty young girl. Next, Barjin pulled on the conical hood hanging in back of his clerical robes. This fit over his head as a helmet might, with holes cut for Barjin’s eyes. Cadderly had heard about enchanted, protecting vestments and he knew that his nemesis was armored.

“For all your valiant efforts, young priest, you remain a minuscule thorn in my side,” Barjin remarked. He took a step toward Cadderly but stopped suddenly when Ivan hopped back to his feet.

The dwarf shook his head vigorously, then looked about, as if seeing the room for the first time. He glanced at Cadderly, then focused on Barjin. “Tell me, lad,” Ivan asked, swinging his double-bladed axe up to a ready position on his shoulder, “is he the one who killed me brother?”

* * * * *

Aballister wiped a cloth over his sweaty brow. He could not bear to continue peering through his magical mirror, but he had not the strength to turn his eyes away. He had felt Barjin’s urgency when first he sent his thoughts to the distant altar room, unable to hear his inability to contact his imp. Aballister worried for Druzil and for the cleric, though his fears for and of Barjin were double-sided indeed. For all of his ambiguity, though, for all of his fears of Barjin and the power gains his rival would enjoy, Aballister honestly believed he did not want to see Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror, fail.

Then the enemies had revealed themselves-himself, for Aballister hardly took note of the stumbling dwarf. It was the young scholar that held the wizard’s thoughts, the tall and straight lad, twenty years old perhaps, with the familiar, inquisitive eyes.

Aballister sensed Barjin’s mounting confidence and knew that the evil priest was back in control, that Barjin and Tuanta Quiro Miancay would not be defeated.

Somehow that notion seemed even more disturbing to the wizard. He stared hard and long at the young scholar, a boy really, who had come in bravely and foolishly to face his doom.

* * * * *

Cadderly nodded at Ivan. The dwarfs eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared back at the evil priest. “Ye shouldn’t have done that,” Ivan growled in a low and death-promising tone. He held his axe high and began a steady advance. “Ye shouldn’t have-“

Waves of mental energy stopped Ivan in midsentence and midstep. Barjin’s spell broke the dwarfs thought patterns, holding him firmly in place. Ivan struggled with all his mental strength and all the resistance a dwarf could muster, but Barjin was no minor spellcaster and this was his evilly blessed altar room, where his clerical magic was at its highest. Ivan managed a few indecipherable sounds, then stopped talking and moving altogether.

“Ivan?” Cadderly asked, his voice shaky as he suspected his companion’s fate.

“Do keep talking,” Barjin taunted. “The dwarf can hear your every word, though I assure you that he’ll not respond.”

Barjin’s ensuing laughter sent shivers through Cadderly’s bones. They had come so far and through so much. Pikel had died to get them here, and Ivan had taken a terrible beating. And now to fail. Looking at this evil priest, with gruesome Mullivy standing obediently at his side, Cadderly knew that he was overmatched.

“You battled through my outer defenses, and for that you deserve my applause,” Barjin continued, “but if you believed my true power would be revealed to you out in the empty and meaningless corridors, then know your folly! Look upon me, foolish young priest-“ he waved a hand to the ever-smoking bottle”-and look upon the agent of Talona that you yourself brought to life. Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror! “You should feel blessed, young priest, for your pitiful library is the first to feel the awesome power of the chaos that will dominate the region for centuries to come!”

At that awful moment, the threat did not sound so hollow in Cadderly’s ears. Talona-he knew the name: the Lady of Poison, of disease.

“Did you expect to find the bottle unguarded?” Barjin laughed. “Did you think to stroll in here after defeating a few minor monsters and simply dose the flask that you yourself-“ again the priest emphasized those painful words “-opened?”

Cadderly hardly heard the banter. His attention had gone to the bottle and the steady stream of pinkish mist that issued from it. He thought of loading his crossbow and putting an explosive dart into the bottle. Where would this Talona’s agent be then? Cadderly wondered. But Cadderly feared that action, feared that to destroy the bottle would only release the evil agent, or whatever it was, in full.

His attention was stolen from the bottle suddenly, and he realized that the choice, if ever he had one, had passed. The evil priest strode casually toward him, his arm uplifted and holding a curious black mace, its head the image of a pretty young girl, an innocent face so very out of place atop a weapon, a face that strangely reminded Cadderly of Danica.

* * * * *

Aballister did not pause to consider his actions. His thoughts focused on the dwarf, standing rigid a few steps ahead of the young man. The wizard summoned all of his powers, sent a spell into the magic mirror and across the miles, tried to use the scrying device as a magical gate for his focused magical energies.

The mirror’s own dweomer, not designed for such uses, resisted the attempt. It could be used to see distant places, to converse with viewed creatures, even to transport Aballister to those places viewed, but Aballister tried to carry that ability farther now, to send not only his thoughts or physical being but his magical energy flowing to the rigid dwarf.

It would have been a difficult enough task, even for a wizard as powerful as Aballister, if the attempt had been made on a human, but Ivan, though fully in the throes of Barjin’s paralyzing spell, fought back with typical dwarven stubbornness against the wizard’s intrusions.

Aballister gritted his teeth and focused his concentration. Veins stood out on his forehead; he thought the toll of the attempt would destroy him, but Barjin was close to the young man now-too dose!-the awful mace held high.

Aballister put his lips right up against the mirror and whispered, hoping that the dwarf alone would hear, “Let me in, you fool!”

* * * * *

Barjin came on, smiling wickedly, victoriously. Cadderly gave him every reason for confidence, offering no outward sign of resistance. The young scholar did have his ram’s head walking stick in one hand, but he hadn’t even lifted it yet.

In truth, Cadderly had decided on another defense, the only one he believed could slow this imposing priest. His free hand clenched and unclenched at his side, tightening the muscles, straightening a single finger for the coming strike. He had seen, and keenly felt, Danica do this a dozen times.

Barjin was only a step away, moving cautiously now for fear that Cadderly would take a swipe at him with the walking stick.

Cadderly kept its butt end firmly to the ground. Barjin maneuvered to the side, away from the weapon, and swung his mace in a teasing cut. Cadderly easily stepped back, though his concentration nearly faltered when he saw the mace’s head transform into the leering, open-mouthed visage of some unearthly monster, fanged and hungry.

He kept his wits enough to retaliate, though, and with Barjin expecting him to strike with the walking stick, his hand got through the cleric’s defenses.

Cadderly drove his finger powerfully into Barjin’s shoulder. He knew that he had hit the precise spot, just as Danica had so often done to him. A look of sincere confusion crossed the evil priest’s face, and Cadderly nearly squealed in glee. “Withering Touch!” he proclaimed. While Barjin was indeed confused, his arm, and the cruel mace at the end of it, did not fall limply to his side.

Cadderly was confused as well, and he barely reacted, at the very last instant, as Barjin’s mace whipped in with more determination. Cadderly turned and dove, but the weapon clipped his shoulder, the evilly contorted face biting a deep gash. Cadderly had intended to roll back to his feet a short distance away, but the hit put him off balance and he crashed heavily instead into one of the room’s many bookcases.

The wound itself was not too severe, but the frozen waves of agony rolling through the young scholar’s body most certainly were. Cadderly shuddered and trembled, hardly able to comprehend, hardly able to focus through the dizzy blur. He knew that he was doomed, knew that he could never recover in time to parry or dodge the priest’s next attack.

“-killed me brother!” he heard Ivan roar, right where the dwarf had left off, and then he heard Barjin yelp in surprise.

Ivan’s axe pounded into the priest’s back, a blow that would have felled any man, but Barjin was protected. His magical vestments absorbed the brunt of the bit; the priest didn’t even lose his breath. He wheeled about, swiping with his mace in response.

Skilled and seasoned, Ivan Bouldershoulder was ready. From just his single attack, he realized that the priest was somehow powerfully armored. Barjin’s blow cut harmlessly short, and Ivan stepped in behind it, hooked one head of his weapon under Barjin’s shoulder, and heaved with all his strength, sending Barjin tumbling head over heels back toward the altar in the center of the room.

Ivan dropped his weapon’s head to the ground and clasped his legs about its handle so that he could spit into his hands before continuing. The priest had a wicked weapon and nearly invulnerable armor, but the fiery dwarf had no doubts as to how this fight would end. “You shouldn’t have killed me brother,” Ivan muttered one more time, then he grabbed his axe and moved in to finish the work.

Barjin had other ideas. He had no time to ponder how the dwarf might have broken free from his binding spell, and it didn’t really matter anyway. Barjin understood the fury in this formidable foe, a curse-enhanced rage that more than evened the odds, but Barjin didn’t play with even odds.

He scrambled over to the wall behind Mullivy. “Kill the dwarf!” he instructed his zombie, and he pulled a burning torch from its sconce and touched it to Mullivy’s shoulder. The zombie’s oil-soaked clothing ignited immediately, but Barjin’s protective spell did not fail. While the flames consumed the oil and Mullivy’s clothes, the zombie’s body was quite unharmed.

Ivan’s startled response as the flaming zombie bore down on him would have made Pikel proud: “Oo oi!”

Cadderly started to rise, but the continuing, debilitating chilling bite of his wound sent him spiraling back to the floor. He tried to shake away the pain, tried to find some focus.

He saw Ivan swiping wildly but sorely missing his mark as the dwarf steadily backed away from the fiery zombie. Mullivy’s advance showed no concern for the dwarfs meager attacks. Cadderly heard the evil priest laughing, somewhere back by the altar, by the cursing bottle. The priest would get Ivan, even if the naming zombie did not, Cadderly knew. Then the priest would get him, and then this Most Fatal Horror, this evil agent of an evil goddess, would win over the Edificant Library fully and destroy everything the young scholar valued.

“No!” Cadderly managed to cry, multiplying his concentration tenfold.

The devilish mace had done its work well, even in a glancing blow on Cadderly’s shoulder. The mace had a life of its own, an inner and foul energy spawned somewhere in the lowest pits of hell.

Cadderly continued to battle against its stunning touch, tried to realign his physical control with his mental determination, but his body didn’t heed to his commands; there remained a long road to travel.

* * * * *

Nothing rose to hinder the three companions’ progress, and Percival appeared quite adept at following Cadderly’s trail. They came through several passageways, always slowing to peer into the nearest alcoves and ensure that no monsters waited to spring out.

Pikel grew steadier with each passing step but seemed distracted, introspective. Danica could appreciate his somber mood; he had just passed through death and returned. What tales might the enlightened dwarf tell? Danica wondered. When she questioned him about the experience, though he said only, “Oo,” and would not elaborate.

At many places, they could confirm that Percival was leading them correctly. Three-way alcoves, thick with webbing on one side, had been burned clear on the other.

Soon the party came to a fork in the tunnel. Hardly hesitating, Percival scampered off down the right-hand side.

Sounds of battle, not far off, echoed in their ears.

The squirrel stopped suddenly and chattered excitedly, but his squeaks and chirps were lost in the sudden commotion. Pikel, Danica, and Newander heard the fighting, and none of them stopped to listen to the squirrel’s banter. The noise came from farther down the tunnel; that was all they needed to know. Off they charged, the dwarf no longer introspective, but head down and running to his brother’s aid, and Danica and the druid no less determined to help their friends.

When they came to the altar room wall, they heard Ivan growling about some “flaming hunk of walking kindling,” and understood their error. While the words were clear, the path certainly was not. No doors lined this section of the passage, just blank wall.

Percival came up chattering and scolding.

“We have come the wrong way, so says the squirrel!” Newander told them. “The path tracks back to the left!”

Danica nodded. “Run, then!” she cried.

She and Newander started away, but both stopped abruptly to regard Pikel, who was not following.

The agitated dwarf hopped up and down, stubby legs pumping rapidly, his whole body building into a tremendous tremble.

“Me brudder!” Pikel cried, and he lowered both his head and his tree trunk and burst forward into the brick wall.

In the Druid’s Heart

The wall was made only of brick and mortar and was no match for the rage of Pikel Bouldershoulder. The dwarf battered through into the altar room, sending up a cloud of dust and a shower of bricks. Pikel stood in the new doorway for a moment, his eyes darting about to take in the scene. Several bricks came straight down, bouncing off his pot helmet with dull clangs, but Pikel seemed not to notice. He was looking for Ivan, his “brudder,” and it would take a lot more than a few chunks of stone, however heavy, to deter him.

Then he saw Ivan, far to his left, near the room’s original door and backing away from a flaming humanoid creature. Repelled by the intense heat, Ivan’s defensive chops were falling short and, fast approaching a comer, Ivan soon would be out of running room.

“Oo oi!” Pikel cried, and he bounded off, pot-covered head and tree trunk leading the way.

Danica started in right behind, but Newander stopped her. She turned and saw a look of sudden revelation on the druid’s face, an expression that quickly changed to one of sincere joy.

“You spoke the truth, dear lady,” Newander said. “It was not ambivalence, but a sense of order that kept me free of the cursing mist. Now I know how I was spared, why I was spared, and, in truth, it was a power far beyond my own will.”

Danica consider the profound changes that had come over the man. No longer did Newander stoop in despair. His back was straight and his visage proud.

“I hear the call of Silvanus himself!” the druid declared. “His own voice, I tell you.”

Truly intrigued, Danica would have liked to stay and hear Newander’s explanation, but the situation wouldn’t allow it. She nodded quickly and pulled away from the druid’s grasp, taking only the split second it took her to come through the wall to survey the room and determine her course. Her heart told her to go to Cadderly, still dazed and struggling by the door, but her warrior instincts told her that the best she could do for her beloved, and for all her friends, was to stop the imposing priest who stood by the altar.

She took two running strides at Barjin, dove into a roll just in case he had some spell or dart aimed her way, then came back to her feet and pounded in. She enacted her moves too quickly for Barjin to block, and she got her fist through his defenses, slamming him solidly on the chest.

Danica bounced back, stunned, her hand sore, as if she had struck an iron wall. Barjin hadn’t even moved.

Danica kept her wits enough to dodge Barjin’s first attack, and to take note of the contorting, biting movement of the enchanted mace’s sculpted head. She circled to the priest’s right, away from the altar, wondering if perhaps her daggers would have more effect. By all appearances, the priest wasn’t wearing any armor, but Danica trusted her sore hand more than her eyes. She knew that magic could deceive, and she understood already that her tactics against the priest would have to be akin to those she might use against an armored knight.

Barjin waved the Screaming Maiden again easily, attacks designed to keep Danica at bay and to test her reflexes. She realized that again the priest had underestimated her quickness. She stepped in right behind the swing and snapped off two jabs at her opponent’s weapon arm.

There, too, the magical vestments repelled the blow.

Her understanding of the extent of the priest’s armor growing, Danica realized that she would find few openings for strikes. The priest was covered head to toe and the kind of power Danica expected she would need to get through the enchanted vestments, a blow that required long concentration, would leave her vulnerable to a preemptive hat. She took a different path then, one designed to get that awful mace away from her adversary.

Danica came in low, feigning a strike at Barjin’s groin. The priest whipped the Screaming Maiden straight down at the stooping woman, just as Danica had expected.

She brought her forearm up to block the blow. Her next move would have been to reach under with her free hand, grabbing the priest’s wrist. Pulling with this hand and pushing with her locked forearm would then tear the mace from his grasp. But, while Danica had correctly anticipated Barjin’s overhand strike, she had not foreseen the reaction of his vile, sentient, weapon.

The Screaming Maiden twisted, its maw snapping futilely at the out-of-reach blocking forearm. The ugly visage opened its mouth wide and hissed, loosing a cone of frost over Danica.

Danica began her dodge at the instant the chill emanated from the mouth, but the cone encompassed too wide an area for her to get fully out of harm’s way. Chilling ice descended on her, so cold that it burned at her skin and so evil, the chill of death, that it found its way deeper, into Danica’s heart and bones. Her lungs ached with her next gasp and it was all she could do to break away from the encounter and stagger back toward the broken wall.

Newander watched it all through a dull haze. He wisely registered the important facts-Barjin’s vestment armor and the mace, in particular-but the druid’s thoughts were turned primarily inward now, heeding, he believed, the personal summons of Silvanus, the Oak Father. The sight of this room, of the cursing bottle, had put many things into perspective for Newander. Gone now were his fears that he, unlike his transformed druid companions, was somehow not true to his calling. Gone was his fear that he had only avoided the brunt of the curse because of some inner ambivalence. Perhaps that had been the case, but it hardly mattered now to the druid. His gaze locked upon the evil priest, the one who had raised the dead, the bringer of perversion, and he heard the commands of nature’s god.

He remembered the su-monsters and how dearly he had sensed the approach of ghouls, and Newander knew his purpose. Druids were dedicated to preserving the natural order, the natural harmony, and his faith demanded that the evil priest be stopped, here and now.

Newander let his thoughts slip to the woodland, to the home of druidic power. He felt the beginning twinges in his body- the first time he had ever achieved this level of druidic concentration. Though a bit afraid, he encouraged the engulfing power fully, focusing his own energies to push it along. There was a sensation of distant pain as his bones cracked and reconfigured, a tickle as hair sprouted across his body.

As had Cleo and Arcite, Newander let himself go to his urging, let his body follow his thoughts. Unlike his companions, though, Newander did not relinquish his thinking to the instincts of the animal. His focus did not change with his body.

He saw the evil priest’s eyes widen as he pawed toward the altar, past the recoiling Danica.

* * * * *

Ivan saw Pikel’s storming approach, but the flaming zombie never turned to witness the attack. At the last moment, Ivan dodged to the side and Pikel slammed in, his tree trunk connecting squarely on Mullivy’s rump. His stubby legs pumping wildly, Pikel brutally drove the zombie into the wall. Still Pikel’s legs did not stop thrashing; he ignored the intense heat and kept the zombie pinned.

Mullivy swung his good arm about wildly, but his back was to the attacker and he could not reach beyond Pikel’s pinning club. He wriggled and squirmed, trying to get out the side of the pin. Every time he made some progress, though, Ivan rushed over and smacked him hard with the axe.

This went on for several moments, then luck turned against the dwarves. Mullivy started out the side; Ivan waded in and hit him. The powerful blow drove deep into Mullivy’s arm, but sent a gout of flame flying back in Ivan’s direction, instantly igniting the dwarfs beard.

Ivan dove away, slapping at the flames, and Pikel, distracted by his brother’s sudden distress, unconsciously loosened his hold.

Mullivy slipped free of his captor and advanced on the rolling Ivan.

Pikel overbalanced and stumbled forward into the wall. He came back up in an instant, but again he saw Ivan in dire need and again the sight sent him on a ferocious charge. This time Pikel held his club perpendicularly in front of him, one hand on either end. Mullivy was just reaching down at Ivan when Pikel tat him. Again the dwarf drove on, pushing the zombie before him. They passed the open door-Pikel thought he saw a bat-winged impish form hovering outside-and barreled headlong into an empty bookcase. The ancient wooden shelves fell apart under their weight, and dwarf, zombie, and kindling crashed down in a fiery heap.

* * * * *

Long and pointy teeth bared, the giant wolverine that Newander had become charged the evil priest. The druid had a surprise in mind, an attack that the priest’s cloth vestments, however strengthened, might not be able to withstand. Just before he reached the mark, Newander spun over suddenly and loosed a cloud of vile musk.

The disgusting spray rolled over Barjin, stinging his eyes, permeating his clothing, and nearly overwhelming him. He fell back as quickly as he could, trying to escape the cloud, gagging and gasping.

Newander’s pursuit was furious. He hooked his claws around the backpeddling priest’s knees and bore Barjin to the ground. Barjin kicked and scrambled, but the wolverine was too quick and strong to be easily dislodged. Newander bit into Barjin’s Hugh, tearing and gnawing. Still the magical vestments repelled the attacks, but they seemed not so invulnerable now. The stinking musk clung to them as would an acid, already wearing at their integrity.

Barjin twisted and screamed. He couldn’t see through the burn in his eyes; he couldn’t think straight against the sudden-ness of the attack. He felt the gnawing bites grow sharper and knew that he was in trouble. Very soon, the wolverine would be through his vestments and those wicked teeth would be tearing at his exposed thigh.

The Screaming Maiden reached out empathically to Barjin, calmed him and let him see through its eyes. Barjin stopped his struggling and followed the mace’s lead. Newander burrowed in, but the Screaming Maiden bit back.

Barjin bit the wolverine perhaps a dozen times; each strike put more blood and more fur into the hungry mace’s gaping mouth. The burrowing stopped, but Barjin kept pounding.

* * * * *

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!” Pikel grunted, rolling out of the burning pile. His clothes had caught in several places; his beard no longer appeared green, but the thick-skinned dwarf had taken no real damage in his tumble with the flaming zombie, and he rolled about the floor, suffocating the last stubborn embers.

Ivan started toward his brother but changed direction suddenly, seeing that Mullivy, too, had begun to rise. Ivan had seen enough of that one. He crept over, using the crackle of the fire to cover his footsteps, and took up a position just to the side of the rising zombie.

Mullivy was no longer burning. Barjin’s protection spell kept the flames from his rotting flesh, and now all the oil and clothing, the fuel for his fires, had been consumed. He came up still focused on Pikel, taking no notice of the dwarf winding up just behind his shoulder.

Ivan quickly put a finger across each side of his double-bladed axe, testing to see which edge was the sharper. He shrugged then-both seemed equally capable-and whipped the blade across at his own eye level. It sliced just above the zombie’s shoulder, as Ivan had planned, and hit the creature squarely on the side of the neck. More than the weakened flesh of a zombie’s thin neck would be needed to slow the blow of an enraged Ivan Bouldershoulder.

Ivan smiled with grim satisfaction as the zombie tumbled to the side, its head spinning through the air far from its body.

“Oo!” remarked an appreciative and admiring Pikel.

“Had it coming,” Ivan snorted back, sharing a smile with toe brother he had thought dead.

Their mirth was short-lived. Mullivy’s corpse stood up between them, deaf and blind but flailing wildly with both arms. One connected on toe side of Pikel’s head, knocking off his pot helmet.

“Oo!” Pikel squeaked again, and he slipped one step to the side and smacked the headless zombie with his club. He leaned and glanced at Ivan and both brothers understood the proper tactics.

They worked in unison, two dwarves who knew each other’s moves as well as his own. They surrounded the zombie, one on either side, and moved synchronously in circles. Ivan prodded Mullivy’s shoulder, then jumped back. The zombie shifted and waved its arms futilely at toe empty air. Pikel, behind the monster, waded in with a heavy blow.

Mullivy spun to get at the newest attacker, and Ivan came in behind, launching an overhead chop into the zombie’s shoulder with enough force to take off one arm.

It went on for a long while, though both dwarves actually would have preferred to make this fun last a bit longer. Finally, though, Mullivy’s dismembered corpse fell to toe floor and did not try to rise.

* * * * *

Still dazed and disoriented, Cadderly witnessed the horrors at the altar from across the room. He knew that Newander was probably dead, and he knew, too, that the evil priest would advance next toward Danica.

He saw his love, climbing up from the floor, trembling violently from the chilling frost and gasping and squinting on toe edges of Newander’s musk cloud.

Blood stained one of Barjin’s legs, and he limped noticeably as he struggled away from the still wolverine’s stubborn clutch, but the priest’s expression showed only rage, and he waved his mace with sure and easy swings.

“Newander,” Cadderly called hopelessly, desperately, wanting someone to intervene and stop this madness. He knew that the druid, his head and back a bloody pulp, would never answer.

Danica moved next, drawing her crystalline daggers and launching them in rapid succession. The first bit the priest in the shoulder, drawing just a tiny line of blood. The second had even less success. It managed to cut through the priest’s conical cap, but the angle of the hat deflected it above Barjin’s head, where it hung weirdly and harmlessly.

Barjin rubbed his eyes, stepped over the druid, and bore down on Danica. She fell into a low, defensive posture as though she would spring into him, but then dove straight backward.

Cadderly understood Danica’s reaction; she feared another blast from that awful mace. And even as Cadderly watched, the priest brought the weapon in line.

Cadderly watched Danica move back beside the altar, steadily backpedaling from the advancing priest. All of Cadderly’s pain, so overwhelming just a moment ago, suddenly seemed insignificant next to Danica’s troubles. He shook the dizziness away, denied the weakness in his limbs, and forced himself to his knees, drawing his crossbow and fitting another dart.

He nearly swooned from the permeating cold and bit his hip right through in fighting against it, understanding the price of failure. He leveled the crossbow Barjin’s way, had the evil priest in line, and knew that those vestments would not stop the enchanted dart.

He hesitated. A voice screamed in protest inside Cadderly’s head, a distant echo of the vow he had made when he had first decided to construct the bow and darts. “Not as a weapon!” he growled under his breath, but as the bow began to slip toward the floor, Cadderly looked back at Danica, growled in defiance and tightened his grip. Struggling with his conscience through every inch, he stubbornly brought the crossbow up level again.

Cadderly nearly cried out a moment later, believing his hesitation might have cost Danica dearly. Barjin launched a series of mighty blows at the young woman, who somehow managed to stagger out of the biting mace’s grasp.

Cadderly saw an out.

“Feel the cold,” he heard Barjin snarl, distantly, as though he were viewing it all through a crystal ball. The priest held the cruel mace out in front of him, its mouth opened wide.

Danica, agile despite her wounds, desperately leaped to the side.

“No!” Cadderly cried, and his dart found its way right between the evil weapon’s fangs.

There was a sharp crack, and Barjin barely managed to keep his grip on the jolted mace. For an interminable moment, nothing at all seemed to happen, but Cadderly could tell from the priest’s shocked expression that something was indeed going on within Barjin’s prized weapon.

Without warning, the top of the Screaming Maiden’s head blew off. Barjin still held the broken weapon by the handle; he seemed as if he could not let go. Multicolored sparks flared as the magical energy burst forth unbridled, showering the entire center region of the room.

“Oo!” Pikel and Ivan squealed together.

The sparks caught on Barjin’s vestments, burning little holes. The priest screamed in agony as a spark slipped through the cap’s view hole and sizzled into his eye.

Danica fell away, diving and rolling and shielding her own eyes with a raised arm.

The spark shower went on unabated. Blue sparks erupted right into Barjin’s head, catching the side of his conical hood as he desperately lurched. Red sparks flew out in a sudden circular explosion, spinning and rising and then falling over Danica, Barjin, and the evil altar. A small fireball popped straight up from the broken mace, exploding into the ceiling. Lighted specks of dust descended, only to be devoured by the continuing shower.

Across the room, Cadderly squinted and wondered if he had inadvertently set something into motion that would destroy them all.

Then it ended. The base of the Screaming Maiden dropped to the floor and sputtered to a smoldering death.

Off came Barjin’s conical hood, and then off, too, came the fast-burning vestments. They fell apart, destroyed by both the wolverine musk and the sparks, as Barjin clawed at them, Frantically trying to get the hot embers away from his skin. He cursed and spat at his own foolishness for putting the spell of fire protection on his zombie instead of on himself.

The priest’s eyes darted wildly. Cadderly was still kneeling.

To his side, the triumphant dwarves stood over the gruesome remains of the zombie. Then his gaze settled on Danica, apparently unarmed and unarmored, who seemed the easiest target. Wiping the musk and sparks from her face, she wasn’t even looking at him.

Barjin had made many mistakes in his life, but none were more complete than his assumption that Danica would be an easy catch. He reached out for her, meaning to hook her around the neck with his strong arm and bring her in, choking, against his chest.

His arm had almost reached her shoulder when Danica reacted. She spun fully and used her momentum to drive her finger hard against Barjin’s shoulder.

“I already tried that!” Cadderly warned, but he fell silent, and Barjin’s arm fell dead.

The priest looked down in amazement at his numbed right arm. He started to strike out with his left, but Danica was simply too quick for him. She caught his punch in midswing, hooked her fingers over his hand, and jerked his thumb back so forcefully that, with a crack of bones that sounded as loudly as one of Pikel’s tree trunk hits, Barjin’s thumbnail touched his wrist.

Danica wasn’t finished. With a slight twist, she cupped her fingers around Barjin’s, curling her fingertips over the top of the priest’s hand. Looking Barjin straight in the eye, Danica squeezed, her grip forcing Barjin’s top knuckles back in on themselves and sending waves of excruciating pain rolling up his arm. He tried to resist, mentally telling his arm to pull away, but Danica’s assault blocked out his determined call; the unrelenting pain prevented him from taking any actions against her, or any actions at all. Even if his other arm had not been “killed,” he could not have responded.

He gurgled indecipherably; all the world became a blur.

Danica sneered and pulled down on the trapped hand, driving Barjin to his knees. She tightened her free hand into a ball and lined up Barjin’s face.

“Danica ...” breathed a horrified Cadderly.

“Here, now, don’t we get a piece of him?” came a gruff call from the side. “He’s the one who killed me brother.”

Pikel turned incredulously on Ivan. “Oh?”

“Well, he tried to kill me brother,” Ivan corrected, grinning from ear to ear.

Danica uncurled her fist. Her anger was lost in sadness and concern as she looked at Cadderly. The pitiful image stopped her cold. Cadderly was still kneeling, staring at Danica, his hands outstretched in a silent plea and his gray eyes unconsciously judging her.

Danica twisted Barjin’s arm around, cupped her other arm under his shoulder and sent him rolling toward the dwarves.

Ivan scooped him up roughly and half-rolled and half-bounced him to Pikel, crying, “Ye killed me brother!”

“Me brudder!” Pikel echoed, spinning the dizzy priest about and launching him back at Ivan.

Ivan caught him and sent him bounding back.

Cadderly realized that the dwarfs game could easily get out of hand. Both were injured, and angry, and with the cursing bottle spewing smoke so very close, their pain and rage could bring them to new heights of violence.

“Do not kill him!” Cadderly screamed at them. Pikel looked at him incredulously and Ivan caught Barjin, slammed the priest to the ground, and held him by the hair.

“Not kill him?” Ivan asked. “What’re ye thinking to do with this one?”

“Do not kill him!” Cadderly demanded again. He suspected that he’d need more than the protests of his own conscience to convince the agitated dwarves, so he played a pragmatic game. “We need to question him, to learn if he has allies and where they might be.”

“Yeah!” roared Ivan. “What about it?” He jerked Barjin’s head back so violently that Cadderly thought the dwarf had broken the man’s neck.

“Not now, Ivan,” Cadderly explained. “Later, in the library, where we will find maps and writings to aid us in our interrogation.”

“Ye’re a lucky one, ye are,” Ivan said, putting his considerable nose right against Barjin’s, pushing the priest’s smaller proboscis flat against his cheek. “I’d get ye talking, don’t ye doubt!”

Indeed Barjin didn’t doubt Ivan’s words, but he hardly felt lucky, especially when Ivan hoisted him back up and bounced him over to Pikel once again.

Cadderly walked over and draped his arm across Danica’s shoulders. She stood quietly, looking down at the druid who had sacrificed everything for their cause. Newander’s bones continued to crackle, as his body tried to revert to its natural form in death. He got about halfway there. His calm and wise face once more became recognizable, and most of the wolverine hair disappeared, but then the transition stopped. Death had stolen the magic, the energy.

“He was a good friend,” Cadderly whispered, but he thought his words incredibly lame. Words could not carry the sense of grief that he felt, both for the druid and for the many others who had perished under the curse-the curse that he had loosed.

That thought inevitably led Cadderly’s gaze to the altar and the bottle, still pouring smoke, oblivious to the defeat of its guiding priest.

“It is for me to do,” Cadderly surmised, hoping he was right. He took the stopper from the altar and gingerly reached out, his mind rushing through a hundred different scenarios of what would happen if he were unable to close the bottle.

He was not. He placed the stopper over the bottle and patted it down, ending the smoky stream.

Cadderly felt a bump on his shoulder and thought that Danica had put her head on him for support. He turned to acknowledge her apparent relief, but she limply fell past him, face down to the floor.

Back by the door, the others went down, too. Barjin tumbled heavily over Ivan, and for a moment, not a thing moved. Only Barjin got back up, snarling and cursing.

“You,” he said accusingly at Cadderly. The evil priest grabbed Ivan’s axe in his one working arm and headed Cadderly’s way.

The Most Fatal Horror

The shock brought Druzil abruptly from his sleepy state. The bottle had been closed! The chaos curse, which Druzil had waited decades to witness, had been defeated! The imp still could recognize the misty magic in the air, but already it was beginning to diminish.

Druzil reached out with his thoughts toward Barjin but found telepathic communication to the priest blocked by a wall of rage. He didn’t really want to go into the altar room; he had seen the formidable dwarves tear apart Barjin’s zombie and feared another dart from the young priest. When Druzil glanced around at the empty corridors, he realized that he had no other way to go. He reached down to the small pouch hanging on the base of one wing and pulled it free, clutching it in his taloned hands.

He crept up to the door. Beyond Mullivy’s chopped up remains lay the two unconscious dwarves, and farther in, by the altar, a young woman. Druzil’s surprise at the unexpected scene lasted only as long as it took the imp to consider what had transpired. The sudden shock of the chaos curse’s end, the termination of the magic that had permeated these peoples’ thoughts so fully, had overcome them.

Druzil saw Barjin advance on the young priest-and now the imp knew that this young man had been the catalyst, the one who had opened the bottle. Apparently, he also had been the one to close it.

The great evil priest seemed not so powerful in Druzil’s eyes anymore. Barjin’s vestments and weapon were gone, one arm hung limply at his side, and, most important, he had allowed the bottle to be closed.

There it rested, powerless, atop the altar. Druzil had an impulse to go and get it, to whisk it away through the fire gate back to Castle Trinity. The imp quickly dismissed that notion. Not only would he have to get within striking distance of the young man who earlier had brought him down, but if he took the bottle and Barjin somehow survived the day, the priest’s continuing mission at the library would be futile. And the priest would not be happy.

No, Druzil decided, right now the bottle was not worth the many risks. If Barjin survived, perhaps the priest would find another catalyst to rejuvenate the curse. Druzil could get back here if that came to pass.

The imp opened the small pouch he held and looked away from the impending battle, to the brazier that, fortunately, still burned.

* * * * *

Cadderly started to reach for another dart but realized that the evil priest would get to him before he could load it. Even if he did get his crossbow readied, Cadderly doubted that he could find the courage to use it against a living man.

Barjin sensed his ambivalence. “You should have let the dwarves kill me,” he snickered.

“No!” Cadderly replied firmly. He dropped his crossbow and slipped one finger into his pocket, into the loop of his spindle-disks.

“Did you really believe that I would provide information, that keeping me alive would prove beneficial?” Barjin asked.

Cadderly shook his head. Barjin had missed the point. Cadderly had only made that claim to convince Ivan and Pikel not to kill him. His true motives in keeping Barjin alive had nothing to do with information, but with his own desire not to kill a man he did not have to kill. “We had no reason to kill you,” he said evenly. “The fight was already won.”

“So you believed,” snarled Barjin. He skipped across the remaining distance to Cadderly and whipped Ivan’s axe across as viciously as his wounded hand would allow.

Anticipating the attack, Cadderly easily dodged aside. He pulled his hand from his pocket and sent his spindle-disks flying out at Barjin. They connected with a thud on Barjin’s chest, but the mighty priest was more startled than injured.

He looked at Cadderly-or more pointedly, at Cadderly’s coiled weapon hand-for a moment, then laughed aloud.

Cadderly nearly threw himself at the mocking priest, but he realized that was exactly what his opponent wanted him to do. His only chance in this fight was to play defensively, the same way he had defeated Kierkan Rufo back in his room. He grinned widely against the continuing laughter and tried to appear as confident as possible.

Barjin was not Kierkan Rufo. The evil priest had seen countless battles, had defeated seasoned warriors in single combat, and had directed armies marching across the Vaasan plains. After just a single viewing, this veteran’s confident smile revealed that he had surmised the limitations of Cadderly’s strange weapon, and he knew as well as Cadderly that he would have to make a huge mistake if the young priest was to have any chance.

“You should not have returned to this place,” Barjin said, calmly. “You should have left the Edificant Library altogether and given up what was already lost.”

Cadderly paused to consider the unexpected words, and the even more unexpected, almost resigned, tone. “I erred,” he replied, “when first I came down here. I returned only to correct the wrong.” He glanced over at the bottle to emphasize his point. “And now I have done that.”

“Have you?” Barjin teased. “Your friends are down, young fool. All those in the library are down, I would guess. When you closed the bottle, you weakened your allies more than your enemies.”

Cadderly could not deny the priest’s taunt, but he still believed that he had done the right thing in closing the bottle. He would find a way to revive his friends, and all the others. Perhaps they were only sleeping.

“Do you truly believe that, once loosed, Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror, could be defeated simply by placing the stopper back in the flask?” Barjin smiled widely. “Look,” he said, pointing over at the altar. “Even now the agent of my goddess Talona battles its way back through your pitiful barrier, back into the air it has claimed as Talona’s domain.”

Cadderly should have seen the trick coming, but his own insecurity concerning the unknown bottle and curse caused him to glance to the side again. Still, he was not caught completely off his guard when Barjin waded straight in, growling and swinging.

Cadderly ducked under one cut, then rolled to the side as Barjin reversed his swing and came with a wicked overhead chop. Cadderly tried to scramble back to his feet, but Barjin was too quick. Before he could rise, he was rolling again, back the other way, to avoid another dipping slice.

Cadderly knew that he couldn’t keep this up for long, nor could he launch any effective counters from a position on the floor. Barjin, relentless with the taste of victory on his drooling lips, kept the two-headed axe under perfect control and readied yet another strike. The issue seemed decided.

It became an eerie, almost slow-motion sequence for Cadderly as he watched Barjin maneuvering into position. Was this the moment of his death? What then of Danica and Ivan and Pikel?

The flap of wings sounded by the door. Cadderly, too engrossed with his own dilemma, hardly took note, but Barjin did glance around.

Seeing his opening, Cadderly rolled away as fast as he could. Barjin easily could have caught up to him, but the priest seemed more concerned with the unexpected appearance of his missing imp.

“Where have you been?” Barjin demanded. Stripped of his vestments and weapon, ragged and beaten, the priest’s words did not carry much authority.

Druzil didn’t even answer. He floated across to the brazier, pausing only to scoop up Barjin’s necromancer’s stone.

“Put it back!” Barjin roared. “You play a dangerous game, imp.”

Druzil considered the stone, then the priest, then moved to the brazier. His gaze again drifted back to the closed bottle, but if he was considering a try for it, he quickly thought better of it. The enraged Barjin, if not the young priest, surely would strike him down if he went within reach.

“I will protect it,” Druzil offered, holding up the stone. “And the bottle?”

“You will run and hide!” Barjin retorted sharply. “You think me beaten?”

Druzil shrugged, his wings nearly burying Percival head with the action.

“Stay and watch, cowardly imp,” Barjin proclaimed. “Watch as I regain my victory and finish off this pitiful library.”

Druzil hesitated for a long moment, considering the offer. “I prefer a safer haven,” he announced. “I will return when things are under your control.”

“Leave the stone!” Barjin commanded.

Druzil’s smile revealed much to the priest. The imp clutched the powerful necromancer’s stone all the tighter and dropped his powder into the burning brazier. The magical fire flashed and burned with a bluish hue, and Druzil casually stepped through the reopened gate.

“Coward!” Barjin cried. “I will win this day. I will loose Tuanta Quiro Miancay again, and you, cowardly imp, will no longer be treated as an ally!”

His threats were lost in the crackle of the brazier’s flames.

Barjin spun back on Cadderly, now standing around on the other side of the altar, opposite the priest. “You can still save yourself and your friends,” Barjin purred, suddenly friendly. “Join me. Open the bottle once more. The power you will realize ...”

Cadderly saw through the lie and cut the priest short, though Barjin’s sudden charm was effective enough to be shocking. “You need me to open it because you cannot, because it must be opened by one who is not allied with your god,” he reasoned.

Barjin’s curved smile did not diminish.

“How can I agree, then?” Cadderly asked him. “To do so would be to join with you, but would that not ally me with your designs and with your god? Would that not break the conditions?”

Cadderly thought himself quite clever, thought that his logic had cornered the priest, as Barjin mulled the words over. When Barjin looked back at him, his eyes shining fiercely, Cadderly knew that he had thought wrong.

“Not if you open the bottle for a better reason,” Barjin said, turning to view Danica and the dwarves, “to save the woman perhaps.” Barjin took a step away.

All fear flew from Cadderly at that moment. He jumped out from behind the altar, meaning to intercept Barjin, determined to stop the priest at any cost. He stopped suddenly, eyes widening in horror.

Another being had entered the room, one that Cadderly had seen before.

Barjin’s reaction was just the opposite of Cadderly’s. He swung the axe high above his head victoriously, feeling that his base of power was returning, that his fortunes had turned back for the better. “I had thought you destroyed,” he said to the scorched mummy.

Khalif, the less than complete spirit, savaged and removed from all sense of sanity, did not respond.

“What are you doing?” the evil priest demanded as the mummy stalked in. Barjin swiped with the axe, hoping to keep the monster at bay, but the mummy simply slapped the weapon from his hand.

“Halt!” Barjin cried. “You must obey me!”

Khalif had other ideas. Before Barjin could say anything else, a heavy arm slammed into the side of his head and sent him tumbling to the wall by the brazier.

Barjin knew his doom. The mummy was out of control, crazed with pain and rage. It hated all life, hated Barjin for bringing it back from its rest. With all that had happened, both to Barjin and to the mummy, the priest’s domination was no more.

Barjin looked desperately to the table where he had left the necromancer’s stone, the one item that might aid him now against this undead foe. Then he remembered, and he cursed Druzil’s abrupt departure.

He propped himself up against the wall and looked about desperately. To his right loomed the burning brazier, the gate reopened but not an escape route for a being of the material plane. To Barjin’s left, though, was Pikel’s impromptu doorway, an exit to the tunnels beyond the room.

He tried to rise, but a throbbing pain in his head dropped him back to his knees. Undaunted, Barjin began to crawl. Before he could get to the hole, though, the mummy cut him off and slammed him again into the wall. Barjin had no defense against the ensuing onslaught. He raised his one functioning arm, but the mummy’s heavy blows snapped it aside.

Cadderly stood very still beside the altar, consciously telling himself to take some action. The fear gripped him, but he at last overcame it by conjuring an image of the mummy s next move after finishing off Barjin. Danica was the next closest target.

He took his crossbow in hand and loaded it, seeking some way to get the monster off the priest. Cadderly had no love for the man, and he held no hopes that helping Barjin might bring some mutually beneficial compromise, but despite the fact that Barjin was his enemy, he could not let the human be killed by this undead monster.

Another problem presented itself as Cadderly leveled his bow for a shot. The imp’s passage had reopened the inter-planar gate, and now some lower plane denizen had found its way in. A hideous face appeared in the flames, obscure, but huge, and growing more tangible with each passing second.

Cadderly instinctively lined his crossbow up with this newest intruder, but then swung it back at the mummy, realizing that it was his most pressing problem.

Another scorch mark appeared on the mummy’s rotted linen; another jolt shook the monster, but the scabrous thing did not turn away from Barjin. The priest managed once to stand up, only to be immediately pounded back to the floor.

A huge black wing tip came out the side of the brazier fire. Cadderly nearly lost his breath; the creature forming in the flames was monstrous, much larger than the imp.

Cadderly loaded and fired again at the mummy. Another bit, and now, with Barjin offering no resistance, the mummy wheeled about.

Cadderly felt that paralyzing fear welling in him again, but he did not let it slow his practiced movements. He had used more than half his darts and had no idea if he had enough remaining to finally defeat this undead thing, had no idea if his attacks were even causing any real damage to the monster.

Again, he refused to let his fears slow him. Another dart whistled out at the mummy. This one did not explode, but dove through a hole created by a previous dart and cut right through the tattered linen bindings.

At first Cadderly was more concerned with getting another dart fitted; he knew that his miss would allow the monster to close, but then he heard Barjin grunt.

The dart thudded into the chest of the sitting priest. The next interminable second ended with the noise that Cadderly now dreaded, for the dart had enough remaining momentum to collapse and explode.

The mummy took a step out, giving Cadderly a view of the priest. Barjin lay nearly flat. Only his head and shoulders remained propped against the wall. He gasped and clutched the hole in his chest, his eyes unblinking, though he seemed not to see anything, not to be aware of anything beyond his own demise. He gasped again, a gout of blood bursting from his mouth, and then he lay still.

Cadderly did not even think of his movements. His mind seemed to disengage from his body, to give way to his own instincts for survival and his own boiling rage at what he had done. He took up his water skin under his free arm, popped off the cap, and drove the mummy back toward the wall with a steady stream of blessed water.

The liquid hissed as it struck the evilly enchanted linen, etching blackened scars. The mummy issued a loud, outraged roar and tried to cover up, but it had no way to block the small but painful stream.

In the brazier, a hideous face was dear now, leering hungrily at Cadderly. Cadderly thought to defeat both foes with a single attack. He angled his water skin, seeking to drive the mummy into the flames, perhaps to topple the brazier and dose the gate.

The mummy did indeed recoil from the spray, but if it feared the blessed water, it feared the open flames even more. Try as he might, Cadderly could not force it too near the burning gate.

He apparently was doing some damage, but Cadderly could not afford this stalemate. He was running out of water; then what might he use to finish off the mummy? And if that monster came through the gate ... .

Helplessly, Cadderly fumbled to keep up the stream and to load another dart. He lifted his crossbow toward the mummy, trying to find a vital area beyond its blocking arms. What area, he wondered helplessly, might be the most vulnerable? The eyes? The heart?

The water skin was empty. The mummy stood straight.

“Last shot,” Cadderly muttered resignedly. He started to pull on the trigger, then,” as he had with Barjin earlier in the fight, he noticed another possibility.

Pikel’s charge through the wall had caused tremendous structural damage. The hole in the brickwork was fully four feet wide and half that again high, nearly reaching the beamed ceiling. One crossbeam, directly above the hole, balanced precariously on a cracked support. Cadderly moved his arm in that direction and fired.

The dart smacked into the wood at the joint between cross-beam and support, exploding into a small fireball, sending splinters everywhere. The crossbeam slipped, but, still attached at its other end, it swung down like a pendulum.

The mummy took only one short step from the wall before the beam slammed into it, driving it sidelong. It pitched into the brazier, taking the fiery tripod and bowl right over with it. The hideous image of the otherworldly denizen disappeared in a huge fireball. Flames engulfed the mummy, eagerly devouring its layered cloth wrappings. It managed to stagger to its feet-Cadderly wondered with horror if it might survive even this-but then it crumbled and was consumed.

Without the enchanted brazier, the gate was dosed, and gone, too, was Barjin’s greatest undead monster. The flames flared a couple of times, then burned very low, leaving the smoky room in the dimness of low-burning torches.

Cadderly understood that victory was within his grasp, but he hardly felt in the mood for rejoicing. Newander lay dead at his feet, others had died upstairs, and, perhaps most disconcerting of all to the young scholar, no longer an innocent, he had killed a man.

Barjin remained propped against the wall, his lifeless eyes staring out at Cadderly, holding the defenseless young priest in an accusing gaze.

Cadderly’s arm drooped to his side and the crossbow fell to the floor.

Out of the Mist

Cadderly so desperately wanted to close those eyes! He willed himself to go over to the dead priest and turn his head away, get that accusing stare off him, but it was an impotent command, and Cadderly knew it. He had not the strength to go anywhere near Barjin. He moved a few short steps to the side, to get to Danica, but looked back and imagined that the dead priest’s eyes followed him still.

Cadderly wondered if they would forever.

He slammed his fist on the floor, trying to shake free of the guilt, to accept the priest’s stare as a necessary price that he must pay. Events had dictated his actions, he reminded himself, and he determinedly told himself to foster no regrets.

He jumped defensively when a small form suddenly darted in through the opening beside the priest, then managed a weak smile as Percival climbed up him and sat atop his shoulder, cluttering and complaining as always. Cadderly patted the squirrel between the ears with a single finger-he needed to do that-then went to his friends.

Danica seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully. She would not wake, though, to Cadderly’s call or shake. He found both dwarves in similar states, their thunderous snores complimenting each other in strange rock-grating harmony. Pikel’s snores, in particular, sounded contented.

Cadderly grew worried. He had believed the battle won- finally-but why couldn’t he wake his friends? How long would they sleep? Cadderly had heard of curses that caused slumber for a thousand years, or until certain conditions had been met, however long that might take.

Perhaps the battle wasn’t yet won. He went back to the altar and examined the bottle. It seemed harmless enough now, to the naked eye, so Cadderly decided to look deeper. He moved his thoughts through a series of relaxation exercises that slipped him into a semimeditative trance. The mist was fast dissipating, that much he could tell, and no more was emanating from the stoppered bottle. That gave Cadderly hope; perhaps the slumber would last until the mist was gone.

The bottle itself, though, did not appear completely neutralized. Cadderly sensed a life, an energy, within it, a pulsating evil, contained but not destroyed. It might have been only his imagination, or perhaps what he thought was a life-force was merely a manifestation of his own fears. Cadderly honestly wondered if the remaining flickers within that bottle were playing some role in the lingering mist. The evil priest had called the mist the Most Fatal Horror, an agent of Talona. Cadderly recognized the name of the vile goddess, and the title, normally reserved for Talona’s highest-ranking clerics.  This mist was indeed some sort of god-stuff, a simple stopper would not suffice.

Cadderly came out of his trance and sat down to consider the situation. The key, he decided, was to accept the evil priest’s description of the bottle and not think of it simply as some secular, though potent, magic.

“Battle gods with gods,” Cadderly mumbled a moment later. He stood again before the altar, studying not the bottle, but the reflective, gem-studded bowl in front of it. Cadderly feared what magic tins item might contain, but he chanced it without delay, tipping the bowl to the side and dumping out the water stained by the evil priest’s foul hands.

He retrieved a piece of cloth, a piece of Barjin’s own vestments, and wiped the bowl thoroughly, then found Newander’s water skin, full as usual, out in the hallway beyond Pikel’s impromptu door. Cadderly consciously avoided looking at Newander as he reentered the room, meaning to go straight to the altar, but Percival delayed him. The squirrel sat atop the dead druid, still in his semitransformed state.

“Get away from there,” Cadderly scolded, but Percival only sat up higher, clicking excitedly and displaying some small item.

“What have you got?” Cadderly asked, moving slowly back so as not to startle the excitable squirrel.

Percival displayed an oak leaf pendant, the holy symbol of Silvanus, dangling from a fine leather thong.

“Do not take that!” Cadderly started to scold, but then he realized that Percival had something in mind.

Cadderly bent low, studying Percival more closely and seeking guidance in the wise druid’s face. Newander’s visage, so peaceful and accepting of his fate, held him fully.

Percival shrieked in Cadderly’s ear, demanding his attention. The squirrel held out the pendant and seemed to motion toward the altar.

Confusion twisted Cadderly’s face. “Percival?” he asked.

The squirrel danced an agitated circle, then shook his little head briskly. Cadderly blanched.

“Newander?” he asked meekly.

The squirrel held out the holy symbol.

Cadderly considered it for a moment, then, remembering the druids’ creed concerning death as a natural extension of life, he accepted the oak leaf and started back toward the altar.

The squirrel shook suddenly, then leaped back up to Cadderly’s shoulder.

“Newander?” Cadderly asked again. The squirrel did not answer. “Percival?” The squirrel perked up its ears.

Cadderly paused and wondered what had just transpired. His instincts told him that Newander’s departing spirit somehow had used Percival’s body to get a message to him, but his stubborn sense of reality told him that he probably had imagined the whole episode. Whatever it was, he now had the druid’s holy symbol in his hand and he knew that the aid of Silvanus could be only a good thing.

Cadderly wished he had been more attentive in his mundane duties, the simple ceremonies required of the lesser priests of the Edificant Library. His hands trembling, he poured the water from Newander’s water skin into the gem-studded bowl, and added to it, with a silent call to Newander’s god, the holy symbol.

Cadderly figured that two gods would be better than one in containing this evil, and also that Newander’s god, dedicated to natural order, might be the most effective in battling the curse. He dosed his eyes and recited the ceremony to purify the water, stumbling a few times over the words he had not spoken very often.

Then it was completed and Cadderly was left with only his hopes. He lifted the evil bottle and gently immersed it in the bowl. The water went cold and took on the same red hue as that within the bottle, and Cadderly feared that he had not accomplished anything positive.

A moment later, though, the red hue disappeared altogether, from the water and the bottle. Cadderly studied it closely, somehow sensing that the pulsating evil was no more.

Behind him, Pikel’s snore was replaced by a questioning, “Oo oi?”

Cadderly scooped up the bowl carefully and looked around. Danica and both dwarves were stirring, though they were not yet coherent. Cadderly moved across the room to a small cabinet and placed the bowl inside, closing the door as he turned away.

Danica groaned and sat up, holding her head in both hands. “Me head,” Ivan said in a sluggish voice. “Me head.” They exited the tunnel to the south side of the great library half an hour later, Ivan and Pikel bearing Newander’s rigid body and both dwarves and Danica sporting tremendous headaches. The dawn, just breaking, looked so good to Cadderly that he considered it a sign that all had been put right and that the nightmare had ended. His three companions groaned loudly and shielded their eyes when they came out into the brightness.

Cadderly would have laughed at them, but when he turned, the sight of Newander stole his mirth.

* * * * *

“Ah, there you are, Rufo,” Headmaster Avery said upon entering the angular man’s room. Kierkan Rufo lay on his bed and groaned weakly, pained by the many wounds he had received in the last couple of days and by a pounding headache that would not relent.

Avery waddled over toward him, pausing to belch several times. Avery’s head ached, too, but it was nothing compared to the agony in his bloated stomach. “Get up, then,” the headmaster said, reaching for Rufo’s limp wrist. “Where is Cadderly?”

Rufo did not reply, did not even allow himself to blink. The curse was no more, but Rufo had not forgotten all that he had suffered in the past couple of days, at the hands of both Cadderly and the monk, Danica. He had not forgotten his own actions, either, and he feared the accusations that might be brought against him in the coming days.

“We have so very much to do,” Avery went on, “so very much. I do not know what has befallen our library, but it is a very wicked business indeed. There are dead, Rufo, many dead, and many more are wandering confused.”

Rufo at last forced himself to a sitting position. His face was bruised and caked in several places with dried blood, and his wrists and ankles were still sore from the dwarves’ bindings. He hardly thought of the pain at that moment, however. What had happened to him? What had caused him to so foolishly go after Danica? What had caused him to reveal his jealousy, in the form of outright hostility, so clearly to Cadderly?

“Cadderly,” he breathed quietly. He had almost killed Cadderly; he feared that memory nearly as much as the potential consequences. His memories came to him as if from a dark mirror in his heart, and Rufo was not certain that he liked what he saw.

* * * * *

“We have been five days with no further incidents,” Dean Thobicus said to the gathering in his audience hall a few days later. All the surviving headmasters, of both the Oghman and Deneiran sects, were present, as well as Cadderly, Kierkan Rufo, and the two remaining druids.

Thobicus shuffled through a pile of reports, then declared, “The Edificant Library will recover.”

There was a chorus of somewhat subdued cheers and nods. The future might have looked bright again, but the recent past, particularly the wholesale slaughter of the visiting Ilmater sect and the death of the heroic druid, Newander, could not be so easily dismissed.

“We have you to thank for it,” Thobicus said to Cadderly. “You and your nonsectarian friends-“ he nodded an acknowledgment to the druids “-displayed great bravery and ingenuity in defeating the evil infection that came into our midst.”

Kierkan Rufo subtly nudged Headmaster Avery.

“Yes?” Dean Thobicus inquired.

“I have been requested to remind us all that Cadderly, brave though he was, is not without responsibility for this catastrophe,” Avery began. He cast a look at Cadderly that showed he was not angered by the young scholar, but that he indeed held Cadderly’s actions against the invading priest in high regard.

Cadderly took no offense; after seeing the headmaster under the influences of the curse, he suspected he knew how Avery really felt about him. He almost wished that he could get the headmaster back under the influence of the curse and talking again about Cadderly’s father and the young scholar’s first days at the library.

It was an absurd notion, but one that Cadderly enjoyed imagining nonetheless. He looked past Avery to the tall and angular man leering over the headmaster’s shoulder. Cadderly could point a finger at Rufo, concerning the man’s actions against Danica and himself, and including Cadderly’s firm belief that Rufo was the one who had knocked him into the catacombs in the first place, but many of Rufo’s actions already had been reported and it was unlikely that, given the extraordinary circumstances, any action would be taken against him, or against any of the others caught in the curse. Cadderly, still not fully understanding what the cursing mist had done, was not sure if any reprimands would be appropriate.

As to the most serious charge, Cadderly believed that Rufo had kicked him down the stairs, but he really hadn’t seen the blow. Perhaps the evil priest had been in the wine cellar with him and Rufo. Perhaps the priest had immobilized Rufo, as he had Ivan later on, then crept up past the man to knock Cadderly down.

Cadderly shook his head and nearly laughed aloud. It didn’t matter, he believed. Now was a time of forgiveness, when all the remaining priests must band together to restore the library.

“Do you find something amusing?” Dean Thobicus asked, somewhat sternly. Cadderly remembered the accusation against him then and realized that his introspection might not have been so timely.

“If I may speak,” Arcite interjected.

Thobicus nodded.

“The lad cannot be blamed for opening the bottle,” the druid explained. “He is a brave one just for admitting such a thing. Let us all remember the foe he battled, one who beat us all, except for a handful. Were it not for Cadderly, and for my friend and god, the evil one would have proved strong enough to win the day.”

“True enough,” admitted Dean Thobicus, “and true enough, too, that Cadderly must bear some responsibility for what has transpired. Therefore, I declare that young Cadderly’s duties in this incident are not at an end. Who would be better than he to study the works we possess concerning such curses, to learn more of the origin of both the priest and this Most Fatal Horror that he described as an agent of Talona?”

“A year quest?” Cadderly dared to ask, though it was not his place to speak.

“A year quest,” Dean Thobicus echoed. “At the end of which you are to deliver a full report to this office. Do not take this responsibility lightly, as you seem to take so many of your responsibilities.” He went on with his warnings, reminders of the gravity of the situation, but Cadderly didn’t even hear him. He had been given a year quest, an honor normally bestowed exclusively upon the top-ranking Deneiran priests, and one most often given only to the headmasters themselves!

When Cadderly glanced back to Avery, and to Rufo behind him, he saw that they, too, understood the honor he had been given. Avery tried unsuccessfully to hide his widening smile, and Rufo, even more unsuccessfully, to hide his frustration.

Indeed, Rufo, surely out of order and surely to be punished for it, turned about and stormed out of the audience chamber.

The meeting was adjourned soon after that, and Cadderly came out flanked by the two druids.

“I thank you,” Cadderly said to Arcite.

“It is we who should be grateful,” Arcite reminded him. “When the curse befell us all, it was Arcite and Cleo who could not fight against it and who would have been beaten.”

Cadderly couldn’t hide a chuckle. The druids, and Danica and the dwarves, who had come over to join the group, looked at him curiously.

“It is ironic indeed,” Cadderly explained. “Newander thought he had failed because he could not find it in his heart to become as you had, to revert to an animal form in mind and body.”

“Newander did not fail,” Arcite declared.

“Silvanus held him close,” Cleo added.

Cadderly nodded and smiled again, remembering the sincere peace on the departed druid’s face. He looked up at Arcite suddenly and thought about the squirrel incident, and whether the druids would know if Newander’s departing spirit had communicated through Percival’s body. He stopped himself, though, before the question was asked.

Maybe some things were better left to the imagination.

“I’ll be needing that crossbow of yours, and a dart or two,” Ivan said after the druids took their leave. “Figuring to make one for myself!”

Cadderly instinctively reached for the weapon belted on his hip, then recoiled suddenly and shook his head. “No more,” he said gravely.

“It’s a fine weapon,” Ivan protested.

“Too fine,” Cadderly replied. He had heard recently of smoke powder, of cannons hurling huge projectiles at opposing armies, elsewhere in the Realms. Avery’s scolding, calling Cadderly a “Gondsman,” echoed in the young scholar’s mind, for rumors claimed it was the Gondish priests who had loosed this new and terrible weapon on the world.

For all that it had aided him, Cadderly did not look upon his crossbow with admiration. The thought of copies being constructed horrified him. Truly, the crossbow’s power was meager compared to a wizard’s fireball or the summoned lightning of a druid, but it was a power that could fall into the hands of the untrained. Warriors and magic-users alike spent years training both their minds and their bodies to attain such proficiency. Weapons such as smoke powder, and Cadderly’s crossbow-and-dart design, circumvented that need of any sacrifice or self-discipline. Cadderly understood that it was that very discipline that held the powers in check.

Ivan started to protest again, but Danica reached around him and covered his mouth with her hand. Ivan pulled away and grumbled a few curses, but he let the matter drop.

Cadderly looked over to Danica, knowing that she understood. For the same reasons that Danica would not show him the Withering Touch, he could not let his design become commonplace.

* * * * *

Druzil waited for a very long time in the smoking stench of the lower planes. He knew that Barjin’s gate had been closed again shortly after he left, though he had no way of knowing if the priest had done it intentionally or not. Had Barjin survived? If so, had he found another victim to reopen the cursing flask?

The questions nagged at the imp. Even if Barjin had not succeeded or survived, even if the precious bottle had been destroyed, he knew now the potential for his recipe and vowed that one day the chaos curse would again descend on the Realms.

“Do hurry, Aballister,” the imp groaned nervously. The wizard had not summoned him back to the material plane, a fact that the nervous imp could not ignore, particularly since the wizard still possessed the recipe. If Aballister somehow had learned of Druzil’s mental connection with Barjin, the wizard might never trust Druzil enough to bring him back.

The imp knew not how many days had passed-time was measured differently in the lower planes-but finally he heard a distant call, a familiar voice. He saw the distant flicker of a fiery gate and heard the call again, more demanding this time. Off he soared, through the planar tunnel, and soon he crawled out of Aballister’s brazier to stand in a familiar room in Castle Trinity.

“Too long,” the imp snorted derisively, trying to gain an upper hand. “Why did you delay?”

Aballister cast a foul look at him. “I did not know that you had returned to the lower planes. My contact with Barjin was broken.”

Druzil’s long and pointy ears perked up at the mention of the priest, a fact that brought a sneer to Aballister’s lips. Across the room, the magical mirror sat broken, a wide crack running its length.

“What happened?” Druzil asked, leading Aballister’s gaze to the mirror.

“I overextended its powers,” the wizard replied. “Trying to aid Barjin.”

“And?”

“Barjin is dead,” Aballister said. “He has failed utterly.”

Druzil ran a clawed hand along the wall and snarled in dismay.

Aballister was more pragmatic. “The priest was too reckless,” he declared. “He should have taken more care, should have set his goals on a more vulnerable target. The Edificant Library! It is the most defended structure in all the region, a fortress teeming with mighty priests who would seek our destruction if they learned of our plans! Barjin was a fool, do you hear? A fool!”

Druzil, ever the practical familiar, thought it prudent not to disagree. Besides, Aballister’s observations apparently were correct.

“But fear not, my leathery friend,” Aballister went on, his attitude becoming more friendly toward his imp. “It is but a minor setback to our cause.”

Druzil thought Aballister might be enjoying this just a bit too much. Barjin may have been a potential rival, but he was also, after all, an ally.

“Ragnor and his charges march for Shilmista,” Aballister went on. “The ogrillon will win against the elves and sweep south around the mountains. The region will fall to more conventional methods.”

Druzil allowed himself a bit of optimism, though he preferred a more insidious attack method, like the chaos curse. “But he was so close, my master,” the imp whined. “Barjin had brought the library to its knees. It was his to finish, and then the cornerstone of any resistance we might face would have been gone before the rest of the region even knew the danger in its midst.” Druzil clenched a clawed hand before him. “He had victory in his grasp!”

“His grasp was not as strong as he believed,” Aballister sharply pointed out.

“Perhaps,” Druzil conceded, “but it was that one human, the young man who had first opened the bottle, who came back to defeat him. Barjin should have killed that one right away.”

Aballister nodded, remembering the last image he had seen of Barjin’s altar room, and could not help but smile.

“Surprisingly resourceful, that one,” Druzil sputtered.

“Not so surprising,” Aballister replied casually. “He is my son.”

Epilogue

He huddled between towering piles of huge tomes, immersed in his important year quest. The security of the Edificant Library was at stake, Cadderly believed, and his ability to discern the source of the chaos curse and the background of the powerful priest would be a critical factor in reestablishing that security.

Cadderly knew that the implications of what had happened might go far beyond the library itself. Carradoon, on the lake to the east, was not a large and well-fortified town, and the elves of Shilmista were neither numerous nor particularly interested in affairs beyond their own borders. If the appearance of the evil priest foreshadowed things to come, then Cadderly’s headmasters desperately needed information.

The young scholar alternated his time researching known curses and known symbols. He pored through dozens of tomes and ancient, yellowed scrolls, and interviewed every scholar, host or visitor, who had any knowledge of either field. The evil priest had proclaimed Talona as his goddess, and the trident symbol was somewhat similar to the Lady of Poison’s triangle-and-teardrop insignia, but what particular organization that trident represented, Cadderly could not discover.

Danica watched Cadderly from a distance, not wanting to disturb his vital work. She understood the discipline that Cadderly now needed, the focused determination that excluded everything else, including her, from his days. The young woman was not concerned; she knew that as soon as time permitted, she and Cadderly would continue their relationship.

For Ivan and Pikel, the days passed with wonderful boredom. Both dwarves had been beaten badly in the catacombs, but both were soon well on the way to recovery. Pikel held fast to his resolve to become a druid, and Ivan, after witnessing Newander’s heroics, no longer chided him about his choice.

“I’m not thinking a dwarf would make a druid,” Ivan huffed whenever anyone asked him about it, “but it’s me brother’s choice to be making.”

So life gradually returned to normal at the proud and ancient library. Summer came on in full and the sunshine seemed like deliverance from the nightmare. Those who came to the library’s front doors that season often noticed, basking high in the branches of a tree along the road, a plump white squirrel, usually licking casasa-nut and butter from its paws.

* * * * *

To the elf prince Elbereth, the sun did not seem so marvelous. Rather, it revealed him, leaving him open and vulnerable. It was a strange feeling for the skilled warrior, who could put four arrows in the air before the first ever hit its mark, and who could cut down an enraged giant with his finely crafted sword.

It was that same warrior training that told Elbereth to be afraid now. A week before, he had led a contingent of elves against a small party of huge and hairy bugbears. His troops had won the encounter quickly, but, unlike the expected rabble filtering down from the wild mountains, these bugbears were well disciplined and well armed, and each wore a glove bearing a similar insignia.

Elbereth had fought in several wars. He knew an advanced scouting party when he encountered one.

The determined elf plodded on through the broken mountain passes, leading his weary horse. The multitude of bells on the shining white steed did not ring cheerily in Elbereth’s ears, nor did the sun seem so warm. The magic of Shilmista had long been on the wane; Elbereth’s proud people were not so numerous anymore. If a major attack did come, Shilmista would be Sorely pressed.

Elbereth had left the forest, bearing one of the gloves, to discover what his people might be up against, to the only place in the region where he might learn of his enemies: the Edificant Library.

He looked again at the curious trident-and-bottle design on the glove, then high and far in the distance, to the ivy-strewn structure just coining into view.