The vampire’s fangs sought her neck, and Danica was too engaged in keeping the wild thing at bay to concentrate on landing properly. She jammed her elbow under the vampire’s chin, pushing with all her strength, and twisted to put Thobicus beneath her. They flew apart under the weight of impact, to an accompanying snap that sounded like the breaking of a thick tree branch.
The vampire wasn’t even dazed by the fall, but as he sprang back to his feet and rushed at Danica, compelled still by Kierkan Rufo’s demands, Thobicus staggered, then looked about, as if confused. The light of day washed over him. Danica whimpered as she tried to stand, and found that her ankle had shattered, the bone tearing out through the skin. Pained by every movement, the stubborn monk got up on her good knee and launched herself forward, her hands grabbing tight to the vampire’s ankle.
All she had wanted was to get away, but now it was Thobicus who wanted to flee, to get back into the dark comfort of the library. Danica didn’t want that to happen. She could see the agony in his expression, and she knew from legends she had heard as a child that the daylight would peel the skin from his bones. Even in her intense pain, in her horrifying dilemma, the monk kept her wits enough to understand that destroying Thobicus now would be a good thing, would make the necessary trip back to purge the library that much easier.
Danica held on like a bulldog. Thobicus battered her about the head, kicked and screamed. One of Danica’s eyes swelled and closed. She heard the crackle of cartilage as her nose shattered, and the pain in her ankle did not relent, even intensified to the point where she had to fight hard just to keep her senses.
Then she lay in the cold mud, in her own blood, holding nothing. Distantly she heard the retreating vampire’s diminishing screams.
Thobicus ran straight for the library’s front doors. Every muscle trembled from the strain, from the burn of the daylight, and he was a weakened and pitiful thing. He hurled himself against the wooden barrier and was repelled. He staggered backward and tumbled into the dirt. He could see the hole in the door where Danica had kicked, could see the cool dark beyond, beckoning to him.
A patch of skin above the vampire’s right eye melted and drooped, blurring his vision. He went back for the doors, but swayed in his path and missed, falling hard against the stone wall.
“How could you do this to me?” he cried, but his voice was no more than a whisper. “How?”
The beleaguered vampire stumbled as much as ran along the wall, to the library’s edge and down the side of the building. There was a tunnel somewhere to the south, he knew, a dark, cool tunnel.
He hadn’t the time to find it. Thobicus realized he was doomed, cursed by his own weaknesses and by that wretch, Rufo, who had lied to him.
The sunlight was direct around the back of the building, and the vampire stopped as he began around the corner, then fell back against the stone. Where to go? Thobicus fought hard to clear his thoughts, sublimate the pain long enough to remember the mausoleum.
Cool and dark.
To get there, though, he would have to cross the sunny side of the library grounds. The fallen dean could hardly face that prospect of pain, but he understood that to stay here meant death.
With a scream of denial, Thobicus threw himself around the corner and ran with all speed for the mausoleum. The sun’s fires licked at every inch of his body, burned into his very heart and pained him more than he ever believed possible. But he got there. Somehow he fell through the mausoleum’s heavy door and felt the cool shade of the stone floor under his burning cheek. He crawled on his belly to the back corner, opened the crypt of headmaster Avery, and somehow found the strength to pull the fat corpse out and crawl into Avery’s place.
Trembling with agony, the vampire curled into a ball and closed his eyes. Thobicus needed to sleep, to gather strength, and to consider his folly and his fate.
Kierkan Rufo had lied to him. He had lost the way to Deneir.
The shadows were long and slanted when Danica regained consciousness. She realized immediately that she had lost a lot of blood, and she grimaced when she mustered the strength to look down at her injury, her foot bloated and greenish, with the sharp edge of bone sticking out, caked with dried blood, a torn tendon hanging.
How could she hope to move, and yet, how could she remain in this place with the shadows growing long? Using all the concentration her years of training had given her, all the willpower that had guided her life, the monk managed to get up onto her good leg. Waves of dizziness washed over her, and she feared her change in posture would send more blood flowing from her wound.
She took a hopping step to the east, toward the main walk leading from the library.
Then she was facedown in the dirt once more.
Breathing hard, forcing air into her lungs so she did not pass out again—by the gods, she could not pass out again!—Danica ripped the bottom off of her shirt and bent over to reach her broken ankle. She found a stick nearby and shoved it between her teeth, biting hard as she tightly wrapped the wound, forcing the bone somewhat back into place.
She was lathered in sweat by the time she turned back to the path, but she chanted her einto, her mantra, and set off, first crawling, then hopping, faster and faster, away from the darkness.
Whatever comfort she took in putting the library out of sight was countered by the red sunset lining the mountains at her back. She knew that Rufo would come after her; she was a prize that wretch had craved since the moment he had seen her.
This area was familiar to Danica, and though the going was much more difficult in the thick brush, she swerved from the main path, continuing straight to the east and knowing she could pick up the trail again later on, in the morning, perhaps, after hiding from Rufo in the deep woods through the night. She found a narrow trail through the brush, a ranger’s trail or a druid’s, she assumed, and the going was somewhat easier. Then, with twilight descending about her, her heart fluttered with hope as three forms made their way along the trail, heading back for the library. Danica recognized the Oghman garb and nearly shouted with joy to the priests.
Her face screwed up with curiosity as she realized that one of them was walking backward, that his head had been turned around on his shoulders. Danica’s breath fell away, and her hopes as well, as the stiff gait of the three men, the three dead men, became apparent, and she thought then that she was doomed, for they had to have seen her.
Danica slumped against a tree trunk, knowing she could not fight them off. They were just ten feet away. Five feet away.
She lashed out pitifully and clipped one on the shoulder, but the zombie only staggered a foot to the side and continued walking, right past Danica!
Danica did not understand, and did not question her luck. She looked back only once at the retreating monsters, then started moving again, wondering if all the world had fallen under this darkness.
She was still moving after sunset, after twilight, when the dark grew thick and the night birds began to call out. She found a hollow and slumped, thinking she had to rest, hoping she would still be alive when the sun’s first rays stretched across the Shining Plains. The hard remains of a snowdrift offered some relief as Danica packed the cold ice about her ankle. She scratched a V in the pile and secured her foot in place, then lay back, continuing her einto, trying to survive the night.
Sometime later, she heard music, not ominous, but gay, and she soon recognized the song as a bawdy merchant romp. After a moment of confusion, Danica remembered the season, remembered that merchants often came up from Carradoon to resupply the library after the long winter.
So all the world had not fallen, she realized, not yet, and she took hope.
Danica lay back and closed her eyes. She needed sleep.
But she could not allow herself to sleep, she understood a moment later, when she considered the larger picture. She could not remain here and let the merchant caravan roll past. She could not let these unwitting men walk into Rufo’s lair, and even worse, it seemed likely to her that Rufo, in his search for her, might find the caravan this very night!
Before she was conscious of her actions, Danica was up and moving again, stumbling through the brush. She saw the campfire almost immediately and made straight for it.
She tripped before she got there and had no strength to stand up again, but crawled on, washed by dizziness and nausea.
“Here now!” cried a man at the edge of the encampment as Danica fell through the last line of brusji. She saw the flash of a sword as the man leaped for her, apparently thinking her some thief, or even some wild animal.
The next thing Danica knew, she was sitting beside a canvas-topped wagon, her injured leg elevated before her and an old woman carefully tending the wound. Several men, merchants and their guards, surrounded her, all looking on worriedly, more than one biting his lip.
The old woman shifted the ankle slightly, and Danica cried out, then the woman turned to her companions and nodded her head grimly.
“You have to ...” Danica started, fighting for the breath to speak. “You have to run.”
“Easy, lass,” one of the men tried to comfort. “You’re safe now.”
“Run,” Danica said again. “Run!”
The men looked to each other, each one of them giving a confused shrug.
“To Carradoon,” Danica managed to say. “Flee this—“
“Easy lass,” the same man interrupted.
“A priest!” came a hopeful call from the side of the camp. “An Oghman priest!”
Hopeful smiles widened on the faces of those tending Danica, but Danica’s face blanched even more.
“Run!” she screamed, and she pulled her leg free of the old woman’s grasp and worked her way back along the wagon, walking her shoulders up its side until she stood once more.
The same man spoke again to comfort her.
He was the first to die, hurled clear over the high wagon to smash against the trunk of a tall tree, his neck snapped.
In a moment, the camp was in a frenzy. Two Oghman priests who had given themselves over to the dark, and a host of zombies, now had orders to kill.
The merchants fought valiantly, realizing the price of failure, and many zombies were hacked apart. But three vampires, including the master, cut into their ranks, tearing and breaking them.
Several merchants ran off screaming into the night. Three took up defensive stances around Danica and the old woman, who would not leave the injured monk’s side.
Kierkan Rufo faced these three. Half-unconscious, Danica expected a fierce battle, but for some reason, amidst all the frenzy in the encampment, this group of men stood calmly.
She realized then that Rufo was talking to them, soothing them with a web of words, intruding on their minds with his will and making them see things that were not true.
“He is lying!” Danica screamed. “Block your ears and your minds! Deny him! Oh, by the light that is your god, whatever god, see the evil for what it is!”
She never understood where that sudden power came from, where she found the strength to yell to those three doomed men, but though they soon died at the terrible hands of Kierkan Rufo, they did not succumb to the dark. They heeded Danica’s words and found the strength of faith to deny the vampire.
That fight was still raging, one man scoring a vicious hit—with a silver-inlaid sword—on Rufo, when the old woman to Danica’s side shrieked suddenly and fell back against the wagon.
Danica looked that way to see one of the other vampires stalking in, his fanged smile wide and his gaze set squarely on Danica.
“You leave her be!” the old woman shouted, and she produced a club from somewhere—it seemed to be the handle of a butter churn—and swatted the vampire over the head.
The monster looked at the hag with curiosity, and she raised the club a second time.
His hand shot out and caught her by the throat. Danica looked away but could not block the sound of cracking bone.
Then the vampire faced her, his expression wild and lewd.
Danica punched him in the mouth.
He seemed surprised, but hardly hurt.
Danica punched him again, her strength returning with her anger. She looked to the old woman who had helped her, lying dead on the ground, and her hands lashed out, one-two, scoring alternate hits on the vampire’s throat. His windpipe collapsed under those hits, and no air would pass through.
But vampires did not draw breath.
Danica hit him a dozen more times before he finally caught hold of her and held her steady. He had her, and Rufo was still fighting, and there was nothing she could do.
A flash of white came in front of her face, and the vampire fell back suddenly, unexpectedly. It took Danica a moment to realize he was grappling with a clawing, biting squirrel.
Danica pushed off the wagon and hopped out, thinking only to go to Percival’s aid.
The vampire extracted the rodent and tossed Percival aside, just as Danica leaped and crashed in, bowling him over. They rolled completely around, Danica bracing her good foot against the vampire’s belly and kicking off with all her strength as they came around.
She heard a cracking sound, a tree branch snapping as the flying vampire crashed upside down.
When the world finally stopped spinning for poor Danica, she could appreciate the blind luck that had, for the moment, saved her, for the vampire was impaled on that broken branch, through the chest, kicking and thrashing wildly but to no avail.
She took heart, too, in seeing Percival scampering up that same tree, apparently unhurt.
Suddenly Danica was pulled to her feet, caught in the clutches of an angry Kierkan Rufo. She looked to his bare forearm and realized his wounds had healed, except for the reddened patch of skin that had crossed into the sunbeam before the broken door.
“You run no more,” Rufo promised, and Danica shuddered. She was out of strength and out of breath. The fight was over. The remaining vampire walked up beside Rufo. He looked to the tree branch, to his limply hanging friend, and an expression of evil crossed his features.
He glowered at Danica and moved steadily toward her.
It struck Danica as odd at how easily Kierkan Rufo stopped the outraged vampire. Rufo merely held up his hand, and the vampire fell back a step, snarling, whining, helpless.
“This one is for me,” Rufo reminded him.
The vampire looked to his companion again. “If I pull him from the branch, he will return to us,” he reasoned suddenly, and by the legends, that statement was true.
“Leave him!” Rufo commanded as the vampire bounded for the impaled creature. The vampire looked back to his master.
“He went against my will,” Rufo explained. “He would have killed Danica, or taken her for his own. Leave him to the fate he deserves.”
Danica did note the skeptical, then wicked cloud that crossed the lesser vampire’s pallid features. In that moment, the fallen Oghman hated Rufo with all his heart and soul, wanted nothing more than to rip out Rufo’s throat. But that hatred fast melted into resignation, and the lesser vampire moved away.
“Our losses were great,” he remarked, and it seemed curious to Danica that he should be the one to change the subject.
Rufo scoffed at the notion. “They were but zombies,” he replied. “I will return tomorrow night and animate them once again, and animate those who defended this one as well.” He gave Danica a shake, which sent pain flowing up from her ankle.
“What of Diatyne?” the vampire demanded, looking to the tree.
Rufo paused for a long moment. “He failed,” Rufo decided. “His flesh is for the sun.”
To the Oghman vampire, it seemed such a waste. But that was their way, he decided, that was the course he had chosen. So be it.
Rufo looked to Danica, his face now serene. “You need sleep,” he whispered. Danica felt the words more than heard them, felt that falling into slumber would be a good thing indeed.
She shook her head vigorously, realizing she must fight Rufo to the last, on every point.
Rufo stared at her, wondering where that inner strength had come from.
Danica spat in his face.
Rufo hit her hard before he realized the movement, and Danica, battered and weak from loss of blood, fell limply to the ground. The angry vampire grabbed her by the hair and began dragging her, telling the lesser creature to gather the remaining zombies and follow him back to the library.
Rufo hadn’t even cleared the encampment, though, when what was left of his heart tugged at him, reminded him of his feelings for Danica. He bent and picked her up gently in his arms, cradling her close to him, though his body had no warmth to offer. He saw the flash of her white neck in the moonlight and was tempted to feed, tempted to drink of this one’s blood, and it was the strongest act Kierkan Rufo had ever taken to deny himself that pleasure, for he knew that Danica could not afford the act, would surely die and be lost to him forever if he took from her now.
High in the trees above the carnage, Percival watched the unholy procession wander away. The squirrel understood their course, so he flew off, along the branches, into the night, looking for someone who was not in league with Kierkan Rufo.
The vampire looked her over, and, for the first time in the years he had known Danica, she seemed so frail. A delicate flower, she was, and a strong wind could have blown her away.
Kierkan Rufo wanted to go to her, to gently stroke her pretty neck, to kiss her, softly at first, until the urgency built and he could rightly sink his fangs, the material extensions of what he had become, into that throat, and drink of Danica’s blood, feel the warmth of this woman he had desired since the first moment he had seen her.
But Kierkan Rufo could not, despite the chaos curse’s urging. To feed on ... no, to join with Danica now, would kill her prematurely. Rufo did not want Danica to die, not yet, not until he could give to her enough of himself, of what he had become, that she might join him in this state of vampirism. No matter the demands of the hunger and the chaos curse, the vampire simply would not accept and would not tolerate Danica’s death.
She would be his queen, Rufo decided. This existence he had chosen would be so much more fulfilling with Danica at his side.
That image of his queen was sweeter still for Rufo when he thought of how it would wound Cadderly.
As much as Kierkan Rufo desired Danica, he wanted more to hurt Cadderly. He would flaunt Danica, his Danica, before the young priest, torturing him with the knowledge that, in the end, it was Cadderly’s life that was a lie.
Drool slid from the vampire’s half-opened mouth as Rufo basked in the fantasy. His bottom lip trembled as he took a sliding step forward. He almost forgot his own reasoning and fell upon unconscious Danica then and there.
He caught himself and straightened, seeming almost embarrassed as he turned to Histra, poor scarred wretch that she was, standing beside him in the room.
“You will watch her,” Rufo commanded.
“I am hungry,” Histra remarked, and she eyed Danica as she spoke.
“No!” Rufo snarled, and the sheer force of his command knocked the lesser vampire back a step. “You will not feed on this one! And if any others come in and harbor similar thoughts, warn them well that I shall destroy them!”
A hiss of disbelief escaped Histra’s bright red lips, and she looked frantically, like a starving animal, from Rufo to Danica.
“You will tend her wounds,” Rufo went on. “And if she dies, your torment will be eternal!” With that, the confident master swept from the room, heading for the wine cellar to spend the daylight hours gathering his strength. He noted the dim outline of an invisible imp perched in a corner and nodded slightly. If anything got out of line here, Druzil would warn him telepathically.
Danica’s trip back to consciousness was a slow and painful journey. As her mind awakened, so, too, did thoughts of the carnage at the campsite, thoughts of poor Dorigen, and the realization that the Edificant Library had fallen. Tormenting dreams carried Danica to the end of her journey, and she opened her eyes with a start.
The room was dim, but not dark, and after a moment, Danica remembered she had been taken in the deep of night, and realized that the next dawn must have come. She steadied her breathing and tried to separate reality from nightmare.
She understood then that reality had become a nightmare.
Danica’s hands shot up suddenly—the movement sent jolts of pain along her leg—and grasped at her neck, feeling for puncture wounds. She relaxed slightly when she was convinced that the skin remained smooth.
But where was she? She struggled to get up on her elbows, but fell back at once as Histra, carrying the stench of burned skin, leaped to her side and glared down at her.
The remaining skin on the back of Histra’s head had ripped apart under the strain of support, so that her face sagged, as if she were wearing a loose and pliable mask.
And those horrid eyes! They seemed as if they would fall from their destroyed sockets, land upon Danica’s torso, and roll about the contours of her body.
Danica tried not to show her relief as the gruesome creature backed away. She saw then that she was in one of the bedrooms of the library, probably the private quarters of Dean Thobicus himself, for the place was handsomely furnished in dark wood. A great rolltop desk sat against the opposite wall, under a fabulous tapestry, and a leather divan was to the side of that. Even the bed showed of, and felt of, luxury. It was a huge four-posted structure with an open canopy top, and was over-stuffed so as to be pillowy soft.
“So you live,” Histra said, her voice full of venom. Danica could understand the source of that rage; she and Histra had been rivals in life, when Histra had tried to use her charms, to no avail, on Cadderly. Danica, with her exotic, almond-shaped eyes the color of cinnamon and unkempt strawberry blond mane, was, by all measures, a beautiful woman. Histra, despite the tenets of her religion, did not like beautiful women, not when they were rivals—and they were always rivals.
Now Histra was an ugly thing, a caricature of her former beauty, and though she obviously held every advantage in this encounter with weak and battered Danica, that fact had her on the defensive and on the verge of exploding.
Danica used her perceptions to overcome the revulsion and the fear. She could sense danger in Histra—if Histra wanted to kill her, Danica could do little to prevent it. But Histra would not kill her, Danica believed. Rufo commanded here—Danica knew that much from their encounter in the foyer—and if Rufo wanted Danica to die, he would have killed her himself, out in the forest.
“How sweet you are,” Histra remarked, talking more to herself than Danica. The abruptly change in the timbre of her voice confirmed Danica’s suspicions that the vampiress was walking a very fine line. Histra put a hand on Danica’s face and ran it gently over her cheek and down the side of her throat.
Histra’s ugly visage shot forward suddenly, mouth opened wide, drool and hot breath spitting onto Danica’s face.
Danica nearly swooned, thought in that instant that her life had come to an abrupt end. She caught her control quickly, though, and looked up to find that Histra had backed off.
“I could destroy you,” the vampiress said matter-of-factly. “I could rip out your heart and eat it. I could stick my fingers through your pretty almond eyes and claw at your brain.”
Danica didn’t know how she should react to the threats. Should she feign horror at Histra’s promises, or remain aloof to it all, calling the vampiress’s bluff?
She decided to call the bluff, and took it one step further. “Kierkan Rufo would not approve,” she replied calmly.
Histra’s openmouthed face shot forward again, but this time, Danica did not flinch.
“He wants me,” Danica said when Histra had backed off.
“I am his queen,” the vampiress protested. “The master does not need you!”
“The master?” Danica whispered under her breath. It was difficult for her to associate those words with Kierkan Rufo. In life the man hadn’t even mastered his own emotions. “He loves you?” she asked innocently.
“He loves me!” Histra declared.
Danica began to chuckle and acted as if she were trying hard to bite it back.
“What?” Histra demanded, and she trembled visibly. Danica realized she was taking a chance here, but she saw no other way.
“Have you looked into a mirror?” Danica asked, but caught herself as she finished the question, as though something had just occurred to her. “Of course,” she added softly, condescendingly. “You can no longer look into mirrors, can you?”
Danica started to say, “Rufo loves me,” but decided that would push the vampiress just a bit too far. “Rufo loves no one,” she corrected Histra. “He has never learned how.”
“You lie.”
“Neither have you,” Danica continued. “In your haste to appease the goddess Sune, you never separated lust from love.”
The mention of Sune brought obvious pain to Histra’s twisted features. Her hand, bones showing between blackened patches of skin, went high, as if to slam down on Danica, but the room’s door swung open an instant before she punched.
“Enough,” said the calm voice of Kierkan Rufo.
Histra looked back over her shoulder and gradually lowered her arm.
Rufo jerked his head to the side and waved his hand across in front of him, and Histra obediently moved to the side wall and lowered her head—and the loose skin of her face hung down to almost brush her large bosom.
“Even so obviously beaten, you find the spirit to play your games,” Rufo said to Danica, his tone congratulatory. He moved beside the bed and put a calm smile on his face. “Save your strength,” he whispered. “Heal your wounds, and then...”
Danica laughed at him, stealing the fantasies, stealing the smug smile and the calm demeanor.
“And then what?” she asked sharply. “You and I shall love for eternity?” She took note that her snicker hurt the vampire profoundly. “I was just explaining to Histra that you do not know how to love.”
“You and Cadderly have gathered all of that emotion for yourselves,” Rufo replied sarcastically, “as though it is some finite commodity...”
“No,” Danica retorted, “but Cadderly and I have learned to share in that emotion. We have learned what the word means.”
“I have loved you ...” Rufo started to say, but he caught himself.
“Impossible,” Danica snapped back, again before Rufo could present his argument. “Impossible. You loved Histra, too. I know you did, when you first brought her to your side.” Danica looked at Histra as she continued, hoping to find some clues in the vampiress’s expression to aid her improvisation.
“I did not,” Rufo started to argue, meaning to explain that it was not even him who brought Histra over. Danica cut him short, though, and the hanging words carried a very different meaning to Histra’s ears, seemed a denial that Rufo had ever loved her.
“You did!” Danica cried with all her strength, and she had to pause for a moment just to catch her breath and beat back the ensuing waves of pain. “You loved her,” she went on, sagging deep into her pillow, “when she was pretty.”
That got to Histra; Danica recognized that clearly enough. The vampiress lifted her head, her already grotesque features seeming more so as they twisted with mounting rage.
“But now she is an ugly thing,” Danica said, taking care that her words conveyed her disappointment with Rufo and nothing against Histra. “And no longer appealing.” Danica saw Histra take a short step forward.
“Bene tettemara.” Druzil, invisible and perched upon the room’s desk, growled and shook his dog-faced head.
Rufo shook his head as well, wondering how this conversation had gotten so out of hand. It was difficult for him to bring things back under control while at the same time move beyond the pain that Danica’s words brought him.
“If I had been scarred so,” Danica pressed, “if I became ugly, as Histra has become, Cadderly would love me still. He would not seek a new queen.”
Rufo’s lips moved around the edges of words that did not seem sufficient. He steadied himself abruptly, straightened, and found a measure of dignity.
Then Histra barreled into him, and both flew sidelong, spinning and crashing into the wall. They bit and clawed each other, punched, kicked, anything at all to inflict pain.
Danica knew her moment of opportunity would be brief. She threw herself into a sitting position and gingerly, but as fast as she could, shifted her injured leg to the side of the bed. She stopped suddenly and went perfectly still, trying to concentrate on something minute that had caught her attention, trying to block out the continuing sounds of Rufo and Histra’s struggling.
Danica’s hand shot out to the side like a biting snake, fingers clenching about something she could not see, but could surely sense, an instant before the barbed tail could snap at her.
Druzil began thrashing immediately, caught fast in the woman’s strong grasp. He came back to visibility, for expending the magical energy now seemed foolish; Danica obviously knew where he was.
“You are still not quick enough,” Danica said coldly.
Druzil started to respond, but Danica’s other hand came across furiously, pounding right between his bulbous black eyes, and suddenly, for the imp, all the room was spinning.
Druzil hit the wall hard and slumped, muttering “bene tellemara” over and over. He understood what Rufo would have done to him, or would have tried to do, if his attack on Danica had been successful; in an odd way, Danica had probably saved him from banishment back to his own plane of existence. But Druzil’s dedication was to the chaos curse, of which Kierkan Rufo was now the embodiment, and though Rufo would never see it, keeping this woman alive was a dangerous, dangerous thing.
Danica was off the bed by then, hopping for the door on her one good leg.
“You cannot hurt me!” Druzil rasped at her, and he came in a flurry, wings beating and tail snapping.
Danica kept her balance perfectly on her one good leg, and her hands worked to her call, spinning blocking circles in the air before her.
Druzil’s tail snapped repeatedly, was parried several times, and then was caught again.
The imp growled and waggled his fingers in the air. Greenish bolts of energy erupted from their tips and shot out, stinging Danica.
“You cannot hurt me,” Druzil taunted.
The imp could not keep up with the speed of Danica’s next move. She jerked hard on the tail, spinning him about, then caught his wings, one in each hand, while still holding fast to the tail. Jerking and twisting, Danica tied the three ends, wing, wing, and tail, into a tight knot behind Druzil’s back, and hurled the startled imp face first into the nearest wall.
“Probably knot,” she agreed.
Druzil rolled about on the floor, muttering curses, not appreciating the pun, as Danica turned back for the door.
Kierkan Rufo stood before her, seeming amused at her handling of the imp. In the far corner, Histra knelt on her hands and knees, skin hanging loose to the floor, eyes downward, thoroughly beaten.
“Wonderful,” Rufo congratulated, and he turned his gaze on Danica.
And Danica punched him again in the face.
Rufo turned back to her deliberately, expecting and accepting the next punch, and the third, and fourth, and the continuing barrage. Finally the vampire had enough, and with an unearthly roar that sent shivers along Danica’s spine, he swept his hand across in front of him, knocking Danica off balance momentarily, and caught her by an arm.
Danica knew how to easily defeat such a tenuous hold, except that no grip she had ever witnessed was as strong as the vampire’s! She was caught and feared that her elbow would shatter under the strain.
She got her free hand up to block as Rufo’s wide-arcing slap raced in, but his strength blew through the defense and snapped Danica’s head viciously to the side. Dazed, Danica offered no resistance as Rufo hurled her back onto the bed, and then he was atop her, his strong fingers about her throat. Danica grabbed Rufo’s forearm and twisted, but again to no avail.
Then Danica simply stopped struggling, sublimated her strong survival instinct and did nothing to remove Rufo’s hand from her neck, did nothing to restore the
flow of air into her lungs. At that moment, Danica hoped the vampire would kill her, thought death preferable to any other option. Then there was only blackness.
The trail was a winding way, sometimes looping back on itself through passable areas between towering pillars of stone. At times the view was panoramic and majestic; at others, the three companions felt almost as if they were walking along tight underground corridors.
As fate would have it, Cadderly did not see the plume of black smoke rising from the southern wing of the Edificant Library, his view blocked by the last tall mountain before the place. If he had seen the smoke, the young priest would have sought the song of his god, his magic, and walked with the wind the rest of the way to the library. For, while Cadderly was pressing anyway, anxious to aid in the battle he thought Dorigen faced, he did not listen for Deneir’s song, did not want to strain his energies, which had been so sorely taxed in his battle with Aballister and Castle Trinity.
Pikel and Ivan hopped along the trail behind Cadderly, oblivious to any problems at all—except that Ivan was weary of this whole journey and badly wanted to be home again in his familiar kitchen. Pikel still delighted in wearing Cadderly’s wide-brimmed blue hat, thinking it brought out the rich green in his dyed and braided hair and beard.
Ivan just thought he looked stupid.
They moved in silence for a time, and at one point, Cadderly paused, thinking he heard a song. He cocked an ear to the wind; it sounded like Brother Chaunti-
deer’s midday offering. Cadderly looked around, gauging the distance still to go, and realized there was no way, even if the winds were perfect, that he could possibly hear Chaunticleer’s song; the library was at least five miles away.
As he moved to keep up with the bouncing dwarves, Cadderly realized that the music he heard was not in his ears, but in his mind.
Chaunticleer was singing—it was definitely Chaunticleer’s voice—and Cadderly was hearing it the way he heard the song of Deneir.
What could that mean?
It didn’t occur to Cadderly that Chaunticleer’s sweet song might be a ward against some terrible evil. He reasoned that his own mind was tuned purely to Deneir, and that Chaunticleer’s offering, too, was in perfect harmony with the god.
To Cadderly, the song was a good thing. It didn’t remain constant in his thoughts, but came often enough for the young priest to know that Brother Chaunticleer was going on and on, far longer than usual. Still, the young priest put no ominous connotations on that, simply figured that the man must be feeling extremely pious this day—or perhaps Chaunticleer wasn’t really singing and Cadderly was just hearing the reverberations of that perfect offering.
“Are ye thinking of setting another camp?” the increasingly surly, yellow-bearded Ivan asked some time later, drawing Cadderly from the music and its unfathomable implications.
Cadderly looked at the rocky trail ahead and tried to remember exactly where he was.
“Five miles left to walk, at least,” he replied, “through difficult terrain.”
Ivan snorted. The Snowflakes, by his estimation, were not so difficult, not even with winter still holding fast with its last fingers. Ivan was from a place far to the north, wild Vaasa and the rugged Galena Mountains, where goblinoids were thicker than pebbles and the winter wind off the Great Glacier could freeze a man solid in minutes.
The dwarf took one last disgusted glance at Pikel, who chuckled in response, then stomped past Cadderly and took up the lead. “Tonight,” Ivan explained. “We’ll be walking through the front doors before the stars come clear!”
Cadderly sighed and watched Ivan take a fast-paced lead. Pikel was still chuckling when he came hopping past.
“Give me that,” Cadderly snapped, seeing the source of Ivan’s ire. He plucked the hat from Pikel’s head, brushed it off, and tapped it atop his own crown. Then he pulled from his pack the cooking pot, the impromptu helmet the green-bearded dwarf had fashioned for himself, and plopped it over Pikel’s head.
Pikel’s chuckle turned into a sorrowful “Oooo.”
Some miles from the three, to the west and north, a scrambling noise in the boughs above brought Shayleigh from her reverie. Angled in the hollow of a thick branch near the trunk of a wide elm, the elf, to an unknowing observer, would have appeared in an awkward and dangerous predicament. But a slight twist brought agile Shayleigh completely about, her back flat on the branch and her longbow somehow clear of the tangle, out and ready above her.
The elf’s violet eyes narrowed as she considered the busy canopy, searching for the source of the noise. She wasn’t too worried—the sun was still high above the western horizon—but she knew the sounds of the natural movements of all the area’s animals, and recognized that whatever had come so noisily into the boughs of this tree had done so in wild flight.
A leaf danced suddenly, not so far above her. Back bent her bow.
Then the foliage parted, and Shayleigh eased the string back to rest, and smiled to see a familiar white squirrel staring down at her.
Percival came down in a frenzied rush, and Shayleigh’s smile faded into an expression of confusion. Why would Percival, whom she’d met long ago, be so far from the library? she wondered. And what had so obviously upset the creature?
Unlike Cadderly and the dwarves, Shayleigh had seen the pillar of smoke, and, at that time, had thought to turn back and investigate. She figured it was only a ceremonial fire, though, perhaps a communal burial cairn for those priests who had died over the winter months and were now being put to their rest. So she had determined that it was not her business, that her business was, after all, to return to Shilmista with full speed, where King Elbereth, no doubt, greatly anticipated her information.
She had taken her reverie early, with the sun still high, thinking to travel through the night.
Now, seeing Percival here, hopping about and chattering frantically, Shayleigh regretted that choice to continue. She should have gone straight to the library, straight to Danica, her friend, who might have needed her help... and still might.
Shayleigh swung under the branch, her feet torching lightly on the next lowest. She bent her legs and fell backward, hooking the branch with her knees, and swung down so that she caught the lowest branch in one hand. She kept with the flow of her momentum to spin lightly down to the ground. Percival, following, was hard-pressed to keep up.
Shayleigh held her arm out and made a ticking noise, and Percival leaped from the lowest branch to her, accepting the ride as the elf maiden ran full speed back to the east, back to her friend.
“I feared I had killed you.” It was Rufo’s voice, from far away, but rushing closer. Danica opened her eyes. She was on the bed, in the same room as before, but her wrists and ankles now were securely bound to the bed’s four strong posts. A throbbing, burning pain in her wounded left leg did not relent, and the monk feared the binding would cut through her skin and sever the already tattered ankle.
Worse still, there was Rufo, leaning over her, his white face softened with concern.
“My dear Danica,” he whispered. He came closer, trying to soften his angular features, trying to be gentle. Danica did not spit in his face; she was beyond any more symbolic, if ineffective, protests.
Rufo, though, recognized her disgust “Do you not believe I can love?” he asked quietly, and a twitch on one cheek told Danica he was fighting hard to hold his calm.
Again Danica offered no response.
“I have loved you since you first came to the library,” Rufo went on dramatically. “I have watched you from afar, delighting in the simple grace of your every movement.”
Danica steeled her cold gaze and did not blink.
“But I am not a pretty man,” Rufo went on. “Never have I been, and so it was Cadderly”—a bit of venom bubbled over at the mention of that name—“and not I who caught your fairest eye.”
The self-deprecation was pitiful, but Danica held little sympathy for Rufo, “A pretty man?” she questioned. “You still cannot comprehend how small a thing that is.”
Rufo backed off, perplexed.
Danica just shook her head. “You would love Histra still if she was a pretty thing,” she said. “But you have never been able to see beyond the skin. You have never cared for what was in someone’s heart and soul because your own are empty.”
“Take care with your words,” Rufo said.
“They hurt because they are true.”
“No!”
“Yes!” Danica lifted her head as high as the bindings would allow, her glower forcing Rufo to retreat further. “It is not Cadderly’s smile I love, but the source of that smile, the warmth of his heart and the truth of his soul. Wretched Rufo, I pity you,” she decided then. “I pity that you never fathomed the difference between love and ego.”
“You are wrong!” the vampire retorted.
Danica didn’t blink, but she did slip back to the mattress as Rufo closed over her. She scrunched her head down on her shoulders and even whimpered a bit as he continued his advance, thinking he meant to take her against her will. For all her training and all her strength, Danica was unable to accept that possibility.
The monk, though, had touched a weakness in the vampire’s heart. “You are wrong,” Rufo said again, quietly. “I do love.” As if to accentuate his point, Rufo brushed his hand softly down Danica’s cheek, under her chin, and along her neck. Danica recoiled as much as possible, but the bindings were strong and she was weak from loss of blood.
“I do love,” he said again. “Rest, my sweet. I will return when you are stronger, and I will show you pleasure, love.”
Danica breathed a sincere sigh of relief as Rufo backed away, gave a final look, and swept from the room. That sigh was temporary, she knew. She tested her bindings again and, finding no luck, lifted her head to consider her wounds.
She couldn’t even feel the cord holding her injured leg, only the general pain. She saw that the ankle and calf were bloated, and the exposed skin, where it was not caked with dried blood, was badly discolored. Danica felt the infection within her, adding to the weakness from the loss of blood, and she knew she could not get free of her bindings this time. Even if she could, her broken body would not give her the strength to get out of the library.
Danica rested, fell back into a sense of hopelessness greater than anything she had ever known. She saw between the boards over the room’s one small, west-facing window that the sun had already crested on the new day, to begin its journey to the horizon. Danica knew Rufo would return with the night. And she would have no defense.
The Edificant Library came into sight late in the afternoon, a square, squat structure peeping through the more rounded and natural lines of the surrounding terrain.
That first, distant glimpse told Cadderly something was very wrong with the place. His instincts, or maybe the subtle warnings from Chaunticleer’s song, screamed at him, but he didn’t understand the connotations. He thought now that it was his own feelings for the library that had given him such a start.
The building was soon out of sight, blocked by high rocks as the group rounded another bend. Ivan and Pikel, after whispering together, rushed past Cadderly and set a tremendous pace, explaining that they planned to prepare a delicious supper this very night.
The sun had not yet dipped below the skyline when they came back in sight of the library, the companions cutting in at the side of the grove that lined the structure’s long front walkway. All three skidded to an abrupt stop, Pikel’s ensuing “Oooo” pretty much summing things up for them all.
Wisps of gray smoke still filtered from several windows on the southern wing; the smell of burned wood hung thick in the air.
“Oooo,” Pikel said again.
Those inner pleas, Chaunticleer’s continuing call to Deneir, erupted in Cadderly’s mind, shouting for him to flee, but he ran to the doors of the place that had been his home. He should have paused there, should have taken note of the hole in the wood, the hole Danica had kicked when Rufo had cornered her.
Cadderly grabbed at the handles and tugged hard, to no avail. He turned back to Ivan and Pikel, his face screwed up curiously. “They’re locked,” he said, and it was the first time Cadderly had ever known the doors to the Edificant Library to be locked.
Ivan’s tremendous axe came sweeping off his shoulder; Pikel lowered his club into battering ram position and began scraping the ground with one foot, like a bull about to charge.
Both relaxed and straightened unexpectedly when they saw the doors open behind Cadderly.
“Ye’re sure about that?” Ivan asked the young priest.
Cadderly turned and eyed the opening skeptically. “Swollen from the heat of the fire,” he decided, and with Ivan and Pikel beside him, the young priest entered the library.
All the silent cries that he should flee flew from Cadderly the moment he crossed the threshold. He took this as a good sign, a confirmation that he had overreacted, but, in truth, Cadderly had crossed into Rufo’s place, where Deneir could no longer warn him.
The foyer was not badly damaged, though the scent of soot was nearly overwhelming. To the left sat the small chapel, obviously where the fire had been most intense. The place’s heavy door was apparently closed, though the friends could not see it, for a thick tapestry had been draped over it
Cadderly eyed that tapestry for a long while. It showed elves, dark elves. Cadderly knew how valuable that tapestry was, among the finest artwork in all the library. It had belonged to Pertelope; Ivan had used its Depictions to fashion the small hand-crossbow that Cadderly now wore on his belt.
What was it doing here? the young priest wondered. Who would think to use such a precious piece of irreplaceable art as a blockade against soot?
“Seems like the fire was contained,” Ivan offered. Of course it had been contained, both dwarves and Cadderly realized when they took a moment to think about it. The library was more stone than wood, and there really was very little to burn in the place.
What, then, had caused so intense a fire?
Ivan started right, Pikel bobbing after, for the kitchen, but Cadderly caught him by the arm and swung him and his ducking brother about.
“I want to check the main chapel,” the young priest stated, his voice detached. Ivan and Pikel looked to each other, shrugged, then turned curious gazes at Cadderly, who stood still for a long while, his eyes closed.
He couldn’t hear the song of Deneir, he realized. And he could no longer hear Chaunticleer’s singing, though the priest was likely closer now than when they were in the mountains. It seemed as if Deneir had flown from this place.
“What are ye thinking?” the always impatient Ivan asked.
Cadderly opened his gray eyes and looked at the dwarf.
“Well?” Ivan prompted. “What are ye thinking?”
“This place has been desecrated,” Cadderly replied, and it wasn’t until he had spoken the words that he understood what he was saying.
“Been burned,” Ivan corrected, looking to the tapestry, not understanding what Cadderly was talking about.
“Desecrated!” Cadderly yelled, the word echoing off the stone walls and filtering up the stairway. The significance of the word, and the weight with which Cadderly had shouted it sent shivers coursing through both brothers.
“What are ye talking about?” Ivan asked quietly.
Cadderly just shook his head vigorously and spun off, making all speed for the main chapel, the holiest place in this holy place. He expected he would find priests there, brothers of both host orders, praying to their respective gods, fighting to bring Deneir and Oghma back to this library.
The chapel was empty.
Thick soot covered the intricate designs on the massive, arching pillars closest to the doors, but little else seemed out of place. The altar across the way seemed intact, all the items, the bells, the single chalice, and the twin scepters atop it exactly where they belonged.
Their footsteps resounding, the three huddled close together and made their way toward the front.
Ivan saw the body first, and pulled up to a quick stop, holding out a strong arm that bent Cadderly over at the waist and forced him to hold as well.
Pikel continued forward a step, came around when he realized that the others were not following, and used their stunned expressions to guide his own eyes.
“Oooo,” the green-bearded dwarf muttered.
“Banner,” Cadderly explained, recognizing the burned corpse, though its skin hung in flaps away from the bone, and its face was half skull and half blackened skin.
The eyes rotated in their sockets, settling on Cadderly, and a grotesque smile erupted, the remaining flaps of the body’s lips going wide.
“Cadderly!” Banner cried excitedly, and he catapulted to a standing position, bones rattling, arms bouncing wildly, and head bobbing about.
“Oh, Cadderly, how good of you to return!”
Ivan and Pikel gasped in unison and fell back. They had fought undead monsters before, alongside Cadderly in the catacombs of this very building. Now they looked to the young priest for support for this was his place, his chapel. Cadderly, stunned, overwhelmed, fell back, too, and grabbed his hat and, more particularly, the holy symbol set in its front.
“I knew—I simply knew!—that you’d come back,” the grotesque Banner rambled on. He clapped his hands, and one of his fingers, held by a mere thread of ligament, fell from the others and dangled in midair several inches from his hand.
“I keep doing that!” the exasperated thing wailed, and he began reeling in his dropped digit as though it were some empty fishhook.
Cadderly wanted to talk to Banner, to ask some questions, to get some answers. But where to begin? This was too crazy, too out of place. This was the Edificant Library, the sanctuary of Deneir and Oghma! This was a place of prayer and reverence, and yet, standing here before Cadderly was a creature that mocked that reverence, that made all the prayers sound like pretty words strung together for no particular purpose. For Banner had been a priest, a well-respected and high-ranking priest of Cadderly’s own god! Where was Deneir now? Cadderly had to wonder. How had Deneir allowed this grim fate to befall one so loyal?
“Not to worry,” Banner assured the three, as if they were concerned about his finger. “Not to worry. I’ve become quite good at putting the pieces back together since the fire, actually.”
“Tell me about the fire,” Cadderly interjected, seizing that one important event and holding on to it like a litany against insanity.
Banner looked at him weirdly, the bulging eyeballs rolling this way and that. “It was hot,” he replied.
“What started it?” Cadderly pressed.
“How would sleeping Banner know that?” the undead thing answered bruskly. “I have heard that the wizard...”
Banner paused and smiled widely, and began waggling his finger in the air before him, as though Cadderly had asked a question that was out of bounds. That waggling finger, like the one before it, dropped free, this one falling all the way to the floor.
“Oh, where did it go?” Banner cried in desperation, and he whipped himself to a crouched position and began hopping about the pews.
“Are ye wanting to talk to this one?” Ivan asked, and the dwarf’s tone made it obvious which answer he preferred.
Cadderly thought for a moment. Banner had stopped short of an answer—and the hint he had offered did not settle well with Cadderly! But why had the wretched thing stopped? the young priest wondered. What had compelled Banner to hold back? Cadderly did not know exactly what Banner was. He was more than an unthinking zombie, Cadderly knew, though the young priest wasn’t well versed in the various versions of undeath. Zombies, and others of the lowest form of animated undeath, didn’t converse, were simply unthinking instruments of their masters, so Banner apparently ranked somewhere above them. Cadderly had once battled a mummy, but Banner didn’t seem to fit that mold either. He seemed benign, almost, too foolish to be a threat.
Yet, something, some impulse, had held Banner from answering.
Cadderly eyed the scrambling creature directly, presented his holy symbol, and in commanding tones aid, “Banner! Spirit of Banner. I ask you again and, by the power of Deneir, demand an answer. Who started the fire?”
The undead thing stopped his frantic movements, froze perfectly still and stared at Cadderly, or, more particularly, at Cadderly’s holy symbol.
Banner seemed to wince several times. “By the power of who?” he asked innocently, and then it was Cadderly who winced. What had happened to this place to push his god, so very far, away?
Cadderly lowered his arm, lowered the symbol of Deneir, knowing then that he would gain no useful information.
“Are ye wanting to keep talking to this thing?” Ivan asked.
“No,” Cadderly said simply, and before the word had fully fallen from his lips, Ivan’s axe went into a tremendous overhead arc, slicing down and taking Banner’s left arm from his shoulder.
The undead thing looked curiously at that lost arm, as if wondering how he was supposed to reattach it. “Oh, I’ll have to fix that,” his almost lipless mouth said matter-of-factly.
Even more devastating was Pikel’s attack, the tree-trunk club slamming hard atop Banner’s exposed skull, dropping the undead thing into a crumpled, broken pile of flesh and bones.
Both eyes popped from their sockets and rolled about on long, thin strands. “Now that hurt,” Banner said, and all three companions jumped at the unexpected response. They realized then, to their horror, that the eyeballs were not rolling randomly, but seemed to be inspecting the damage!
“So much to do!” Banner whined.
The three slowly backed away, Pikel last, whimpering a bit and shaking his head in denial. Five feet from the broken monster, they found the courage to turn away, and started off, legs pumping to gain them full speed.
“Oh, Rufo will make me fix it alone!” Banner cried.
Cadderly skidded to a stop; Ivan crashed into him, and Pikel crashed into Ivan.
“Rufo?” Cadderly asked, turning back.
“Rufo?” Ivan echoed.
“Oo oi!” Pikel agreed.
“You remember Rufo, of course,” said a calm and familiar voice from behind them.
Slowly and in unison the three turned back toward the exit of the chapel to see Kierkan Rufo standing at his usual angle, not quite perpendicular to the floor.
Cadderly noticed immediately that the brand he had given Rufo had been marred, clawed away.
“You do not belong in this place!” the young priest roared, finding his courage, reminding himself that this was his home, Deneir’s home.
Rufo’s laughter mocked him.
Cadderly moved inevitably closer, drawing the dwarves in his wake. “What are you?” he demanded, understanding that something was terribly amiss, that something stronger than Kierkan Rufo now faced him.
Rufo smiled widely, opened his mouth in a feral hiss, proudly showing his fangs.
Cadderly nearly swooned, then caught himself. He yanked his holy symbol free of the wide-brimmed hat, and plopped the hat awkwardly on his head in the same movement “By the name of Deneir, I banish—“ he began.
“Not here!” Rufo roared back, his eyes flashing like red dots of fire. “Not here.”
“Uh-oh,” muttered Pikel.
“He’s not a vampire, is he?” Ivan asked, and, like everything Ivan seemed to ask in here, it was obvious what answer he wanted—needed—to hear.
“If you could only understand the meaning of that word,” Rufo answered. “Vampire? I am Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror! I am the embodiment of the mixture, and in here, I rule!”
Cadderly’s mind whirled along the terrible possibilities. He knew that name, Tuanta Quiro Miancay. He, above anyone else, understood the power of the chaos curse, for he had been the one to defeat it, the one who had put it in the bowl, immersed in holy water.
But he had not destroyed it; Rufo was proof of that. The chaos curse had returned, in a new and apparently more deadly form. Cadderly felt a warmth along his leg, emanating from his pocket. It took him only a moment to remember that he had a pin in there, an amulet that Druzil had placed on Rufo in Shilmista. The amulet was tuned to the imp, so that its possessor and Druzil could be easily joined telepathically. It was warm now, and Cadderly feared what that might mean.
“Your god is gone from this place, Cadderly,” Rufo chided, and Cadderly could not deny the truth of that statement “Your order is no more, and so many have come over willingly to my side.”
Cadderly wanted to argue that, wanted to not believe it. He knew of the cancer that had crept into the order of Deneir, and of Oghma, even before this newest incarnation of the chaos curse. He thought of his last encounter with Dean Thobicus. Even as he had left the Edificant Library in the early winter, Cadderly knew that he would have to return and battle the ways that had become so ingrained on this place, ways contrary to the brother gods.
Now there was Rufo, and the fall of the library seemed to make perfect sense.
The pause now, the proverbial calm before the storm, could not last long, not with two volatile and scared dwarves at Cadderly’s side. Ivan shattered that calm, roared and charged forward, and hit Rufo full force with a sidelong swipe of his great axe.
The vampire lurched and flew half a dozen feet to the side, but came up straight and seemed unhurt—indeed, was even laughing!
Pikel lowered both his head and his club and charged, but Rufo casually slapped him aside, launching him end over end to crash right through two wooden pews.
Ivan charged again, and Rufo spun to the side, snapped his hand out in the air. Some force emanated from that hand, some mighty energy that slammed Ivan and sent him flying off as wildly as if he had run into the edge of a tornado. The dwarf grunted, his breath blasted from his lungs, and flew off. He hit the edge of an arch with a sharp, sickening retort, rocketed head over heels to the floor, and skidded and bounced along, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Cadderly feared that the blow had killed Ivan. He wanted to rush to his friend’s side, to call upon Deneir’s healing gifts and take away Ivan’s pain. Not yet, he realized. He could not go to Ivan yet. He kept his holy symbol high in the air, presented with all his faith, as he steadily approached the vampire. He was chanting, praying, demanding that Deneir hear his call and come back to this place.
Rufo winced, and seemed pained by the presented symbol, but did not back down.
“You do not belong here,” Cadderly said through gritted teeth, and the symbol, flaring with a silvery flame, was barely a foot from die vampire’s snarling visage.
Rufo reached out and clenched his hand over the eye above candle, closed his fist upon it. There came a hiss, and wafts of smoke rose, and Rufo was obviously pained. But the vampire held on stubbornly, proving that this was his place and not Deneir’s, that Cadderly’s holy magic was no good, not in here.
Gradually straightening, the vampire widened a smile, his free hand, in a clawing position, rising up to his ear, ready to strike, ready to lash out for stunned Cadderly’s throat.
Pikel hit the vampire from the side, and, though his club did no real damage, the jolt saved Cadderly, pushing him and Rufo far apart.
Rufo and Pikel engaged in a wrestling and slugging match, but the vampire was too strong, and Pikel was soon hurled away. Rufo turned immediately on Cadderly, the prized prey of this group, who had staggered back many feet.
A tremendous, inhuman leap brought Rufo flying up to block Cadderly’s way. Perched atop a pew, the vampire raised his arms wide and leaned forward, meaning to fall over Cadderly.
Up came Cadderly’s holy symbol, and this time, the quick-thinking young priest enhanced the presentation. He pulled out his light tube, popped off the end cap, and put the beam right behind the forward-thrusting symbol.
Rufo recoiled, struck and pained by the sudden glare. He spun away, his robes flying defensively as a dark barrier against the burning beam, and wailed an ungodly, unearthly wail that resounded off every wall in the library, that fell upon the ears and tugged at the heartstrings of the many minions the evil vampire had fashioned.
The building itself seemed to rise in answer to that call, responding wails and moans coming into the chapel from every direction.
Rufo melted away, transforming suddenly into a bat, and fluttered about the wide hall. Another bat came in hard through the open door, and then something bigger than a bat, but with batlike wings.
Cadderly recognized Druzil, and the imp’s presence answered many questions indeed.
They heard the shuffling of stiff-legged zombies in the hall outside; they heard those of the dark rising to Rufo’s side.
They had to get out—Cadderly knew they had to flee this place. Pikel, obviously thinking along the same lines, staggered to the young priest’s side and together they turned for Ivan, neither of them knowing how they were supposed to carry the battered dwarf out of there.
But Ivan wasn’t down. Somehow, he was standing and seemed to have shaken off the terrific hit.
The three joined and ran for the door, Rufo’s laughter echoing in their ears every step. They cascaded down the hall and plowed into a jumble of zombies congregating in the foyer.
Ivan and Pikel cut through the throng like the prow of a ship through water, scattering bodies and limbs in every direction. Ivan’s axe cleaved monsters in half or took limbs with every tremendous swipe, and the dwarf lowered his head and gored like a charging elk, ripping wide holes in zombie chests. Pikel flanked his brother, knocking zombies aside with his club, and Cadderly came right behind them, ready to strike, and yet, with the dwarves so efficient, the young priest had nothing to strike at!
For all their progress, though, Rufo was right behind, and a horrible, scarred vampire—Histra!—was beside him, along with that wretched imp.
Bolts of energy launched from Druzil’s fingertips, scorching Cadderly’s back. Rufo’s mocking laughter and Histra’s hungry hissing licked at the young priest’s sensibilities.
“Where will you run?” Rufo cried.
Ivan’s axe cut a zombie in half at the waist and the way to the open door (open to the twilight) was clear before them.
The doors swung closed with a bang that sounded like a nail in Cadderly’s coffin.
“Where will you run?” Rufo cried again, and another barrage of Druzil’s energy stung the running priest so badly that he nearly tumbled.
Cadderly thought to run past those doors, knowing that Rufo had closed them, that the vampire had placed a spell on them that would keep them closed.
Ivan and Pikel were never that subtle, or that quick-thinking, especially on those few occasions when they were truly terrified. They cried out together, lowered their heads together, and hit the doors together, and no enchantment Rufo or anyone else could have placed on the doors would have held the portal against that charge.
The two dwarves rolled outside amidst flying splinters. Cadderly, running full out behind them, tried to jump clear of the tangle, but hooked his foot on Pikel’s chin and went flying headlong to the ground.
Even that evasive, if unintentional, maneuver did not save the young priest from yet another of Druzil’s volley’s. Pain raced along Cadderly’s razed spine. Ivan and Pikel each hooked him under one arm and ran along, dragging him with them. Ivan kept the presence of mind to scoop up the young priest’s dropped light tube and holy symbol.
The slow zombies ambled out in pursuit, but the vampires did not, for the night had not fallen in full. Twenty paces down the path, Cadderly and the dwarves were running free.
But for how long? all three wondered. The, sun was out of sight; the library was lost.
Shayleigh squatted atop the roof of the low structure behind the Edificant Library, eyeing the large, square building with mounting suspicion. She could tell that the fire had been fairly concentrated, as she would expect in a structure made mostly of stone, but it wasn’t so much the fire that now worried the elf maiden. Two things struck her as more than a little odd. The first was the simple lack of activity around the library. Winter was on the wane and the trails were open, yet Shayleigh saw no priests milling about the place, stretching their weary limbs in the warming sunshine.
Even more curious, Shayleigh could not understand why all the windows were boarded over, especially after the fire—to her thinking, the library should have been thrown open wide to allow the smoke to filter out and fresh air to blow in. As it was, the Edificant Library was far from an airy place, but with the windows blocked, at least the ones on this side of the structure, the smoky air inside must be nearly overwhelming.
Percival, hopping along the branches of the nearest tree, did not provide much comfort. The squirrel was still obviously agitated—so wild, in fact, that Shayleigh feared he might have contracted some disease. He ran down right near her—she thought for a moment he was going to crash against her arm.
“What is it?” she said softly, trying to calm the squirrel as he hopped a circular dance on the branch.
Percival hopped down to the mausoleum roof, did that spinning dance again, chattering loudly, as if in protest, then leaped high, back to the low branch and sat facing the mausoleum squarely, still chattering.
Shayleigh ran a delicate hand through her golden hair, not beginning to understand what all of this was about.
Percival repeated the action, and this time, the squirrel’s dance atop the low structure’s roof was one of frenzy. He went flying back to the branch, again sitting facing the mausoleum directly, again sputtering protests.
Shayleigh realized that the squirrel was watching the low building, not watching her or the library.
“In here?” she asked, pointing straight down to the mausoleum roof. “Is something in here?”
Percival did a somersault on the branch, and his shriek sent shivers along the elf s spine.
Shayleigh stood up straight and stared down at the twig-covered slate roof. She knew enough about the customs of the humans to understand that this was a burial house, but that fact alone should not bother a squirrel, even one such as Percival, who seemed to have more understanding than a squirrel should.
“Something is in there, Percival?” she asked again. “Something bad?”
Again the white squirrel went into its frantic dance, chattering wildly.
Shayleigh crept to the front edge of the mausoleum and peeked over. There was one window, dusty and dirty, and the door was closed—but the elf maiden’s keen vision showed her how clean the edges of that doorjamb were, showed that the door had been opened recently.
Shayleigh looked all around at the small field and the library’s back grounds. With no one in sight, she gripped the edge of the mausoleum and gracefully rolled over, putting her feet near the ground, and hopped down.
Percival was on the roof then, near her and making more noise than the elf wanted to hear.
“Do be quiet!” Shayleigh scolded, her voice a harsh whisper. Percival sat very still and silent, his little nose twitching.
Shayleigh could see nothing moving beyond the dirty window. She fell into a deep trance and forced her eyes into the night vision of elves, where they could view things in the infrared spectrum, seeing heat and not reflected light.
From this perspective, too, the place seemed empty.
Shayleigh took little comfort in that as she let her eyes slip back into the normal spectrum of light and moved for the door. This was a crypt, after all, and any monsters inside might well be undead. Dead creatures were cold; they gave off no body heat.
Shayleigh winced at the creak of the old door as it rolled on its rusty hinges. Dim twilight filtered into the place, barely illuminating it. Shayleigh and her kin in Shilmista lived more under the stars than the sun, though, and she didn’t need much light. She kept her eyes focused in the normal spectrum and silently entered, leaving Percival, who was chattering again despite her scolding, on the lip of the roof above the open door.
The mausoleum seemed empty, but the hairs on the nape of Shayleigh’s neck told her otherwise. She slipped her longbow off her shoulder, as much to have something to prod about with as to have a weapon in hand, and moved in farther. She looked back to the door with nearly every step and noticed Percival perched nervously on the outside sill of the window, staring in with bulging eyes. The sight of the concerned animal almost made her laugh despite her trepidations.
She passed the first of the stone slabs, noticed then that there was more than a little blood—fairly fresh, it seemed—on the floor, along with a tattered burial shroud. The elf maiden shook her head at the continuing riddle. She slipped past the second slab, and looked at the far wall, the wall to the left of the door, lined by marked stones that she knew were grave markers.
Something—something out of place—about the far stone, the stone in the corner near the back wall of the mausoleum, caught her attention.
Shayleigh eyed it curiously for a moment, trying to discern what it was.
It was hanging crooked just a bit. Shayleigh nodded and slid a cautious step closer.
The stone flew off the wall, and the elf maiden leaped back. Out came a fat corpse, a bloated and rotting thing, to fall in a heap at the base of the wall. Shayleigh had barely registered the gruesome scene when another form leaped out of the open crypt, springing with incredible agility to stand atop the slab nearest the wall, barely a dozen feet from the startled elf.
Dean Thobicus!
Shayleigh recognized him despite the fact that half his skin had somehow melted away, and the remaining pieces were blistered and torn. She recognized the dean, and understood that he had become something terrible, something powerful.
The elf maiden continued to backpedal, thinking to cross the last slab between her and the door, use the final pillar as a block behind her, then turn and bolt. The day was long, but she knew that the light, any light, would be her ally against this one.
Thobicus crouched, animal-like, on the slab; Shayleigh, her muscles tense, expected him to spring at her. He just stared without blinking, without breathing, and she could not figure out the source of that stare. Was it hunger or fear? Was he a malicious monster or a pitiful thing?
She came beside the last slab, felt the pillar behind her shoulder. Her foot slid back and subtly turned.
The elf exploded into motion, darting behind the pillar, but the move had been anticipated and the heavy door swung closed with a tremendous crash.
Shayleigh skidded to a stop, saw Percival doing frantic somersaults on the windowsill. She felt the coldness of the dead man’s approach at her back and knew then the truth, the foul demeanor of this undead monster. She spun about and went into a defensive crouch, backpedaling as Thobicus slowly stalked in.
“The door will not open,” the vampire explained, and Shayleigh didn’t doubt the claim. “There is no escape.”
Shayleigh’s violet eyes darted back and forth, searching the room. But the building was solid, with only a single window (leaded glass, which she could never get through in time) and the single door.
The vampire opened his mouth wide, proudly displaying his fangs. “Now I will have a queen,” Thobicus said, “as Rufo has Danica.”
The last statement hit Shayleigh hard, both for the proclamation of wretched Kierkan Rufo’s return and the fact that he apparently had Danica in his clutches.
She looked to the door, and to Percival in the window, searching, searching, but she could not deny the truth of Thobicus’s next statement.
“There is no escape.”
By the time they stopped running, the library was barely visible, back along the winding trail and beyond many sheltering trees. Cadderly stood bent at the waist, gasping for breath, and not just for sheer physical exertion. What had happened to his library? his thoughts screamed at him. What had happened to the order that had guided him through all the years of his life?
Pikel, bleeding from several wounds, hopped about the small clearing frantically, several times even rebounding off the boulders lining the place on the south (which did not help his injuries), and sputtering, “Oo oi!” over and over, Ivan just stood solemnly, staring back at the one visible top corner of the library, shaking his shaggy head.
Cadderly couldn’t think straight, and Pikel’s frenzy wasn’t helping him any. On more than one occasion, the young priest’s concentration narrowed on the problem at hand, seeking a solution, but then Cadderly would be brushed by Pikel, or loudly interrupted by an emphatic “Oo oi!”
Cadderly stood straight and eyed the green-bearded dwarf directly, and was about to scold Pikel, when he heard clearly the song of Deneir. It swept him away like he was a twig that had fallen into a swift stream. It didn’t ask if he wanted to go along; it just took him in the current, gaining speed, gaining momentum, and all the young priest could do was hold on.
After a few moments, Cadderly found some control of his spiraling thoughts and he willingly steered himself to the middle of the stream, to the strongest notes of the song. He hadn’t heard the melody this clearly since Castle Trinity, since he had destroyed his own father, Aballister, by sundering the ground beneath the evil wizard’s feet. It sounded sweet, so very sweet, and relieved Cadderly of the grief for the library and his fears for the future. He was purely with Deneir now, basking in the most perfect music.
Corridors began to open wide to him, tributaries of the main river. Cadderly thought of the Tome of Universal Harmony, the most holy book of Deneir, the book inscribed with the very words of this song, though they were translated things. In the song, there were only notes, pure, perfect, but these notes corresponded exactly to the written text, the human translation of Deneir’s music. Cadderly knew this—Pertelope had known this—but they were the only two. Even Dean Thobicus, head of the order, had no idea of the way this music played. Thobicus could recite the words of the song, but the notes were far beyond his comprehension.
To Cadderly, it was as simple as turning pages, as following the flow of the river, and he went down one of those offered tributaries now, to the sphere of healing, and pulled spells of mending from the waters.
Minutes later, Pikel was calmed, his bleeding stopped, and Cadderly’s few wounds were no more. The young priest turned to Ivan, who, by all appearances, had been hit the hardest in the brief encounter with the vampire, but to Cadderly’s surprise, he found the yellow-bearded dwarf standing quietly, seeming unharmed.
Ivan returned Cadderly’s dumbfounded stare, not understanding its source. “We got to hide,” the dwarf reasoned.
Cadderly shook himself from his stupor; the song faded from his thoughts, but he kept faith that he could recall it if the need arose. “The open is better,” the young priest reasoned. “In the light, away from the shadows.”
“The light won’t last!” Ivan sternly reminded him. The dwarf poked a finger to the west, where even the distant and tall mountains loomed dark now, their rim glistening in the very last rays of the day.
Without a word, or even a grunt, of explanation, Pikel rushed off quickly into the brush. Ivan and Cadderly watched him go, then turned to each other and shrugged.
“We shall find a place to hide the night,” Cadderly remarked. “I’ll seek the answers we need with Deneir. His blessing will protect...” Cadderly stopped abruptly and looked back to the library, his gray eyes wide with horror. The note of fear sounded again in his thoughts. Perhaps it was Deneir-inspired; perhaps it was just a logical conclusion by Cadderly, a moment when he considered everything in a light more clear. As mysterious as Pikel, the young priest ran back to the west, back toward the library.
“Hey!” Ivan roared as he took up the chase. Pikel came out of the bushes, then, smiling broadly and carrying his dripping waterskin.
“Huh?” he asked, seeing the others running fast back for the library. The dwarf gave a little whistle and rambled off in pursuit.
Cadderly cut to the side, a tight corner around some brambles. Ivan went right through the tangle and rammed the young priest sidelong out the other side.
“What?” the dwarf demanded. “Ye just said we’d be finding a place to hide! I’m not for going back in ...”
Cadderly scrambled to his feet, his legs pumping before he ever got his balance, propelling him away from the grumbling dwarf. Ivan took up the chase again and paced him, and Pikel, taking similar, if painful shortcuts, was soon bobbing along on Cadderly’s other side.
“What?” Ivan demanded again, trying to catch hold and stop the stubborn priest. They were at the edge of the library’s entry walk then, between the lines of silent and well-groomed trees, in sight of the battered doors, closed again and apparently barricaded from behind.
“What?” Ivan growled wildly.
“She’s in there!” Cadderly offered. Taking longer strides, the young priest moved ahead of the dwarves on the flat and open ground.
“Ye can’t go in!” Ivan bellowed, not really understanding what Cadderly was talking about. “Night’s falling full! Night’s his tune, the time of vampires!”
“Oo oi!” Pikel heartily agreed.
Cadderly’s answer blew away any logic that Ivan could muster against going back into the library, against facing Rufo, whether or not the night had fallen.
“Danica is in there!”
Their legs were shorter, but their love for Danica was no less, and as Cadderly straightened and slowed, trying to figure out how to get through the barrier, trying to discern if the portal had been dangerously warded or trapped, Ivan and Pikel flew past him, heads down, calling out a united “Oooo!”
Rufo had bolstered the doors with both enchantments and heavy furniture and had placed half a dozen zombies behind the barrier, with orders to stand very still and simply hold the doors closed.
He shouldn’t have bothered. By the time Ivan and Pikel had played out their momentum, they were facedown in the foyer, with splintered wood and furniture and zombies raining down all about them.
Cadderly came in on the heels of the dwarves, his holy symbol held out strong and chanting the melodies of Deneirian music. He felt his power diminish as soon as he crossed the threshold into the desecrated place, but had enough of his momentum with him, and enough sheer anger and determination, to complete his call to his god.
The six zombies rose stubbornly and advanced on the dwarves and Cadderly. Then they froze in place, expressionless, and a golden light limned them all, head to toe. The edge where that light met either ragged clothing or skin blurred, and the glow intensified.
A moment later, the zombies were piles of dust on the floor.
Back by the entrance, Cadderly slumped against the jamb and nearly swooned, amazed at the effort it had taken him to bring Deneir into this place—amazed yet again that the Edificant Library, his library, his home, had become a place so foreign and uninviting.
She did not scream when Rufo leaned over her, because she did not think that anyone could hear. Neither did she struggle, for her bindings were too tight, her weakness too complete.
“Danica,” she heard Rufo say softly, and the sound of her own name disgusted her, coming from that one.
The monk fell deeper into herself, tried to fall away from her corporeal body, for she knew what was to come. And for all that Danica had endured in her short life, the loss of her parents, the years of brutal and unforgiving training, the battles on the trail, she did not think she could survive this.
Rufo leaned closer; she smelled the stench of his breath. Instinctively, she opened her eyes and saw his fangs. She struggled hard against the unyielding bonds. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to deny the reality of this hellish scene, trying to will it away.
Danica felt the sting as Kierkan Rufo’s fangs punctured her neck.
The vampire groaned in ecstacy, and Danica was filled with disgust. All she wanted was to get away, to flee her own battered body. She thought she would die, and she wanted to die.
To die.
The idea hung in her swirling thoughts, a flicker of salvation, the one route of escape from this horrid monster and the state of undeath that he desired for her.
Danica felt the sickness in her leg, felt the pain through all her beaten body, and she let go her defenses, accepted that sickness and pain, basked in it, called to it.
To die...
Kierkan Rufo knew true ecstacy for the first time in his life, a greater pleasure than even imbibing the chaos curse, when he felt the pulse of Danica’s blood coming to his taste. Danica! This was far better than any vampiric meal he had tasted thus far. Danica! Rufo had desired her, craved her, since the moment he had first seen her, and now she would be his!
So lost was the vampire in the realization of his own fantasy, that it took Rufo a long moment to understand that the woman’s blood was no longer pumping, that any sweetness he extracted from the wound on Danica’s neck had to be taken forcefully. He kicked back to a kneeling position, staring down, perplexed, at this woman who would be his queen.
Danica lay perfectly still. Her breast did not rise and fall with the rhythms of breath; the dots of blood on her neck did not increase from the continuing flow of blood. Rufo could see that he had hit her artery perfectly. With other victims, the blood spurted wildly from such wounds.
But not now. Just little red dots. No force; no pulse.
“Danica?” the vampire asked, fighting hard to keep his voice steady. He knew, though. Beyond any rational doubts, the vampire knew, for Danica’s face was too serene, too pale. And she was too, too perfectly still.
Rufo had wanted to bring Danica from life into undeath, into his realm to be his queen. She was tied and weak and could not escape, or so he thought.
Rufo’s body trembled as he realized what had happened, what Danica had done. He fell back farther from her, to the bottom of the huge four-poster bed, brushed an arm across his bloody face, dark eyes wide with horror, and wider still with outrage. Danica had found an escape; Danica had found the one way out of Rufo’s designs and desires.
Danica had died.
Of all the things they had ever heard—the cries of wild animals in a mountain night, the screams of the dying on a field in Shilmista, the roar of a dragon deceived—none of them, not Cadderly or even hardy Ivan and Pikei, had felt their bones so melted as by the unearthly shriek of Kierkan Rufo, of the vampire who had lost his most precious of treasures.
Cadderly, when his wits returned, instinctively believed they should follow that sound, that it would lead to Rufo, and he, in turn, would lead to Danica. The young priest had a difficult time telling his dwarven companions that, though, and had a difficult time in his own mind in rationalizing any decision that would put him closer to the one who had loosed that wail! He looked behind him, out the door, and into the empty night. One step back, he knew, and the song of his god would sound more clearly in his thoughts. One step back ... but Danica was ahead.
“Deneir is not with me,” Cadderly whispered, to himself and not the others, “not close.”
“Where are we off to?” Ivan prompted impatiently, his gnarly, hairy brow showing droplets of sweat, more from nerves than exhaustion.
“Up,” Cadderly answered. “It came from the second floor, the private quarters.”
They crossed the foyer and several smaller chambers, past the kitchen where Ivan and Pikel had worked as cooks for many years. They met no enemies, but the library was awakening around them. They knew that, could feel the sensation, a sudden chill in air that was not moving.
“Cadderly.” The voice, the lewd, feminine voice, froze the three in their tracks, barely a dozen steps up the winding stair that led to the second floor. Cadderly, at the head of the line, his light tube in hand, turned about slowly, putting the beam over the low heads of Ivan and Pikel to shine directly on the scarred face of Histra.
The vampiress, baring her fangs, curled and hissed at the intruding light.
Pikel squeaked and launched himself, and his swinging club, smack into her, sending both of them tumbling down the stairs.
Cadderly swung about instinctively, facing up the stairs again, and threw up a defensive arm just in time to catch the charge of a ragged zombie. Back stumbled the priest, and Ivan, not really turning enough to comprehend what was happening up front, ducked and braced. Over the low and immovable dwarf went Cadderly and
the zombie, rolling in a clinch to join Pikel and Histra in the hallway below.
Pikel did a series of short hops, trying to flank the crouching vampiress. He waggled his club threateningly, then came forward in a rush, angling the club out and turning a complete spin, once and then again. He swirled out of the ineffective routine, and, dizzy, stumbled a single step.
“Eh?” the confused dwarf asked, for Histra was not in front of him, not where she had been.
Her fist connected on his shoulder, and Pikel spun again. Fortunately for the dwarf, he rotated the other way this time, and somehow the counterspin took all the dizziness from him, so that when he stopped (and luck again was with him), he found himself facing the advancing vampiress squarely.
“Hee hee hee,” Pikel snickered, and he came forth in a tremendous burst, stepping somewhat to the side of his foe. Histra veered quickly to keep square, but Pikel, solid on his big dwarven feet, shifted one foot ahead of the other and threw himself at her in a purely straightforward attack. Hardened muscles corded and snapped, and the dwarf’s tree-trunk club sneaked past Histra’s upraised arm to smack her squarely in the face. She flew back as though launched from a crossbow, to slam the wall, but before Pikel could utter another “hee hee hee,” he realized he had not, in any way, hurt her.
Pikel looked down at his club, then to the confident vampiress, then back to the club again, as though the weapon had deceived him.
“Uh-oh,” the green-bearded dwarf muttered an instant before Histra’s powerful slap sent him spinning. He did a perfect two-and-a-half somersault, ending up standing on his head against the wall.
Cadderly had better success against the zombie. He came up much faster than the awkward thing, and his finger was already set in the loop of the cord to his spindle-disks, two small disks joined by a short metal rod. He sent the adamantine disks spinning down to the end of their cord and recalled them to his hand, once and then again to tighten the string. As the zombie finally pulled itself to its feet, Cadderly snapped them out viciously at the thing’s face.
The young priest winced at the sound of crunching bone. The zombie staggered backward several steps, but, compelled by commands it had not the intelligence to question, it came right back in, arms stupidly out wide.
The spindle-disks slammed home again, right under the chin, and when the thing began its next advance, its head lolled weirdly, with all of the supporting neck bones shattered.
It didn’t rise again after the third hit, but as it fell to the floor, a tumbling dwarven missile, Pikel Bouldershoulder, went right over it, leaving the ground between Cadderly and Histra wide open.
Cadderly heard Ivan up on the stairs, engaged with some enemy. He glanced that way momentarily, then looked back to find that Histra had closed the ground, standing just a couple of feet before him, smiling that terrible, fanged smile.
Cadderly hit her solidly in the chest with the spindle-disks as she brazenly walked in, but the weapon only knocked her back a step, and she smiled again, even more widely, showing that it had not hurt her.
“Dear Cadderly,” she purred. “You have no defense against me.” Cadderly, like Pikel before him, looked down to the disks as if he had been deceived.
“Would you not prefer the fate I offer you?” Histra said teasingly. She seemed such a grotesque caricature to Cadderly, a mocking insult to the alluring, sensual woman she had once been. As a priestess of Sune, the Goddess of Love, Histra had primped and perfumed, had kept her curvy body in perfect physical condition, and had kept a light in her eyes that promised the purest of pleasure to any man she deemed worthy.
But now the skin of her face sagged, as did her cleavage, showing between the tatters of what had once been a beautiful crimson gown. And no perfume could overcome the burned stench that surrounded the maimed vampiress. Even worse, by Cadderly’s estimation, was the look in her eyes, once a promise of pleasure, now the diabolical fires of unholiness, of evil incarnate.
“I offer you life,” the ugly vampiress purred. “A better deal, for Rufo will offer only death.”
Cadderly bolstered himself in the face of that awful image, and in the mere mention of Kierkan Rufo, using both to reinforce his faith, using both as a symbol, a clear reminder, of the fall to temptation. Up came his holy symbol, the light tube behind it, and never had the young priest presented the light of Deneir with so much of his heart in it.
Rufo had resisted Cadderly’s symbol earlier, but Histra was not the master here, was still far from the full powers of vampirism. She stopped her advance immediately and began trembling.
“By the power of Deneir!” Cadderly cried, advancing a step, holding the symbol high and angling it down so that its flaring weight drove Histra to her knees.
“Well, we ain’t going out that way!” A bruised and bloody Ivan cried as he half ran, half tumbled out of the stairway.
Cadderly growled and pushed the light lower, and Histra groveled and whimpered. Then the young priest looked to the stairs, to the host of zombies that were shuffling down behind Ivan. He looked across the hall, to Pikel, who was thankfully up again and running in circles —no, dancing, Cadderly realized. For some reason that Cadderly could not understand, Pikel was dancing around his club, gesturing with his stubby hands, his mouth moving more than Cadderly had ever seen it move.
Ivan took up the fight again at the entrance to the stairs, his mighty, wickedly sharp axe taking limbs off reaching, stubborn zombies with every swing. “There’s a hunnerd o’ the damned things!” the dwarf bellowed.
Something faster and more sinister than the zombies stepped through their ranks to stand before the dwarf. Ivan’s axe met it head-on, and right in the chest, but as the blade connected, the vampire, not flinching, caught it by the handle and pushed it harmlessly aside.
“Hunnerd and one,” the dwarf corrected dryly.
Cadderly growled and forced the symbol of his god right down on Histra’s forehead, acrid smoke belching from the wound. The vampiress tried to reach up and fight off the attack, but there was no strength in her trembling arms.
“I deny you, and I damn you!” Cadderly growled, pressing with all his strength. Again, Histra was caught by the fact that she had not yet mastered her new state of undeath, that she could not quickly and easily transform into a bat or some other creature of the night, or melt into vapors and flow away.
“Hold him back!” Cadderly, knowing he had Histra defenseless, cried to Ivan. He started to call to Pikel, but just grunted, seeing that the dwarf was still weirdly dancing, worried that the dwarfs sensibilities had been knocked clear of his green-bearded head.
Ivan growled and launched a furious attack on the vampire, hitting the thing several times. But the monster, and its horde of zombies behind it, inevitably advanced. If it had been a loyal thing, a true comrade, the vampire would have rushed past the dwarf to save Histra, but as one of Rufo’s two remaining vampiric minions, Baccio of Carradoon looked upon the powerful young priest and his flaring holy symbol and knew fear. Besides, Baccio realized, the demise of Histra would only strengthen his position as Rufo’s second.
And so the vampire allowed this frantic and ineffective dwarf to hold him at bay.
Soon Cadderly was engulfed with black smoke. He kept up his call to Deneir, kept pressing the eye-above-candle on Histra’s forehead, though he could no longer even see her through the acrid cloud. Finally, the vampiress collapsed, and Cadderly heard the thump as Histra fell hard to the floor. As the smoke wafted away, Cadderly saw that it was finished. He could only imagine—and he shuddered when he did!—the reward that awaited Histra. He thought of black, huddled shadows pouncing on her damned soul, dragging her down to hellish eternity. Still, the vampiress seemed much more peaceful in real death than she had a moment before. Her eyes reverted to their natural color, and she seemed almost at rest. Perhaps even great sins could be forgiven.
Cadderly had no more time to think about Histra. A single glance over his shoulder told him that he and his friends were being beaten back once more, that they could not, despite their fears for Danica and their determination to rescue the monk, defeat the library, Rufo’s library, in the dark of night.
Baccio, too, had seen enough. With a single swipe of his hand, he sent Ivan flying away, skidding across the floor right beside Pikel. Pikel picked up his club with one hand and his battered brother with the other.
Cadderly cried out and faced the vampire squarely, presenting his symbol as he had against Histra. Baccio, an older and wiser man, and one who had more willingly gone into Rufo’s service, flinched, but did not back down.
Cadderly thrust his arm forward, and Baccio winced again. Cadderly called out to Deneir and advanced a step, and Baccio found that he had to fall back. It lasted only a second, and Cadderly knew he had the upper hand, knew that if he pressed on with all his faith, he could destroy this one as he had destroyed Histra.
Baccio knew it, too, but the vampire smiled wickedly, unexpectedly, and mentally commanded his legion of zombies to swarm about him, to block him from the light of Cadderly’s faith.
The first of those unthinking monsters was limned with light, as were the zombies Cadderly had met and defeated when first he and the dwarves had come back into the library. That one dissolved to dust, as did the next, but there were simply too many of the things.
Another shriek, a most terrifying wail, resounded off the walls, echoed down the stairway.
“The master is coming,” Baccio mused from the back of the horde.
“To the door!” Ivan cried, and Cadderly, though his heart ached to think of Danica in this ungodly place, knew the dwarf was correct.
They rambled down the hall, easily outdistancing the slow-moving zombies. Pikel spun around the first door, slammed it closed behind them, and threw its latch.
“We will take another way up,” Cadderly remarked, and he began scouring his memories, searching for the fastest route to the back stairs.
Baccio’s hand smashed through the door, and the vampire’s fingers casually began searching for the latch.
The three friends were running again, through the small rooms, past the kitchen, closing every door behind them. They came into the foyer, the dwarves angling for the open door, and Cadderly tried to push them straight across, toward the south wing and main chapel, where there was a balcony that led up to the second floor.
“Not out!” the young priest insisted.
“Not in!” Ivan promptly countered.
Kierkan Rufo was before them suddenly, halfway between the door to the open night and the door to the hall that would take them to the main chapel.
“Not anywhere,” Ivan, skidding to a stop, remarked.
Up came Cadderly’s holy symbol, the light tube shining behind it, casting its image on Rufo’s face.
The vampire, trembling with rage at Danica’s death, didn’t shy away in the least, but began a steady approach that promised nothing short of a terrible death to the young priest
Cadderly invoked Deneir’s name a dozen futile times. They had to get out over the threshold, he realized, out of the place that Rufo had come to call home.
“Get to the door,” he whispered to his companions, and he boldly stepped out in front of them. He was Cadderly, he reminded himself, chosen priest of Deneir, who had faced a dragon alone, who had sent his mind into the realm of chaos and had returned, who had destroyed the evil artifact, the Ghearufu, and who had overcome the terrible legacy of his heritage.
Somehow none of that measured up now, not against Rufo and the fall this vampire represented, not against the ultimate perversion of life itself.
Somehow, somewhere, Cadderly found the strength to move out from the dwarves, to face Rufo squarely and protect his friends.
So did Ivan. The brave dwarf realized that Cadderly alone might be able to face off against Rufo and win. But not in here, Ivan knew. Cadderly could beat Rufo only if the young priest could get out of this desecrated place. The yellow-bearded dwarf gave a whoop, charged past Cadderly, and skidded up before the vampire (who never took his flaming eyes off the young priest, his mortal enemy). Without fear, without hesitation, Ivan whooped again and slammed Rufo with a wicked overhead chop.
Rufo brushed the axe away and seemed to notice Ivan for the first time.
“I’m getting real tired o’ this,” Ivan grumbled at his ineffective axe.
The only luck poor Ivan had was that Rufo’s mighty punch launched him in the general direction of the open door.
Cadderly came in hard and fast.
“You cannot hurt me!” Rufo growled, but the young priest had figured something out. He presented his symbol as best he could, holding both it and his light tube in one hand, but the real weapon was in his other hand. His finger was still fast in the loop of the spindle-disks, but they bounced along low to the floor at his side, for Cadderly now understood that they would have no real effect on a vampire. As he rushed, he had taken his second weapon off his belt, his ram’s-head walking stick, which had been enchanted by a wizard friend in Carradoon.
Rufo unwittingly accepted the blow, and the enchanted weapon tore the skin from half of his face.
Cadderly’s arm pumped again for a second strike, but Rufo caught his wrist and bent it over backward, forcing the young priest to his knees. Cadderly straightened his arm holding the holy symbol, used it to intercept Rufo’s closing, leering face.
They held the pose for what seemed like eternity, and Cadderly knew he could not win, knew that in here even his supreme faith could not defeat Rufo.
He felt a splash against his cheek. Cadderly thought it blood, but realized in an instant that it was clean, cool water. Rufo backed off unexpectedly, and Cadderly looked up to see that a line of burned skin had creased the vampire’s other cheek.
A second stream drove Rufo back, forced him to relinquish his grip on Cadderly’s arm. The surprised young priest grew even more confused as Pikel stalked by, his waterskin tucked under one arm, every press sending a line of water at the vampire.
Rufo slapped at the water with smoking fingers and kept backing until his shoulders were against the foyer wall.
Pikel stalked in, his face as determined as Cadderly had ever seen it, but Rufo, too, straightened and stiffened his resolve, the moment of surprise past.
Pikel hit him again with the spray, but the snarling vampire accepted it. “I will tear out your heart!” he threatened, and came a step from the wall.
Pikel exploded into motion, turning a complete spin that dropped him to one knee and sent his club knifing across low to catch Rufo on the side of the leg. Surprisingly, there came the resounding crack of snapping bone, and the vampire’s leg buckled. Down went Rufo heavily, and squealing Pikel was up and over him, club raised for a second strike.
“We got him!” unsteady Ivan bellowed from the door. Even as his brother cried out in victory, Pikel’s club banged hard off the stone floor, rushed right through the mist that Rufo had become.
“Hey!” roared Ivan.
“Oooo!” agreed an angry and deceived Pikel.
“That’s not fightin’ fair!” Ivan spouted, and the yell seemed to take the last of his energy. He took a step toward his brother, stopped and regarded both Pikel and Cadderly curiously for an instant, then fell down flat on his face.
Cadderly glanced all around, trying to discern their next move—back in or out into the night?—while Pikel went for his brother. The young priest understood that Rufo was not defeated, knew that the other vampire and the host of zombies were not far away. Cadderly’s eyes narrowed as he carefully scanned the foyer, remembering that Druzil, wretched and dangerous Druzil, was probably watching them even now. Cadderly had not forgotten the painful bite of the imp’s magic, and even more so, of the imp’s poisonous sting. That venom had dropped Pikel once, long ago, and while Cadderly had spells of healing to counter the poison, he suspected he would not be able to access them in here.
The night had fallen, and they were ill-prepared.
But Danica was in here! Cadderly could not forget that, not for an instant. He wanted to go after her—now! To search every room in this massive structure until he found her and could hold her once more. What had awful Rufo done to her? his fears screamed at him. Spurred by that inner alarm, the young priest almost ran back toward the kitchen, back toward the zombie host and the lesser vampire.
Cadderly heard a calming voice, Pertelope’s voice, in his head, reminding him of who he was, of what responsibilities his position entailed.
Reminding him to trust in Deneir, and in Danica.
It was a harder thing for the young priest than even entering this unholy place had been, but Cadderly moved to Pikel and helped support unconscious Ivan, and the three made their way back out into the open air, back out into the night.
They scrambled down the library’s long front walk, between the rows of tall trees, and Cadderly, despite his urgency, could not help but think of how often he had viewed these trees as a sign that he was home. Cadderly’s world had changed so dramatically in the last few years, but none of the previous turmoil, not even the deaths of Avery and Pertelope or the revelation that evil Aballister was, in truth, his father, could have prepared the young man for this ultimate change.
Cadderly and Pikel had to carry Ivan, the dwarf’s head lolling back and forth, his bushy yellow hair scratching the exposed areas of Cadderly’s skin. The young priest could hardly believe how much weight was packed into Ivan’s muscular frame. Stooped low as he was to keep Ivan fairly level between himself and Pikel, Cadderly quickly began to tire. “We need to find a hollow,” he reasoned.
The green-bearded dwarf bobbed his head in agreement.
“Yes, do,” came a reply from above. Cadderly and Pikel skidded to a stop and looked up in unison, the distraction costing them their hold on poor Ivan. The unconscious dwarf pitched forward to hit the ground face first.
Rufo squatted on a branch a dozen feet above the companions. With an animal-like snarl—and it seemed so very fitting coming from him!—he leaped out, stepping lightly on the path behind the two. They spun about, crouching low, to face the vampire.
“I am already fast on the mend,” Rufo chided, and Cadderly could see that the monster spoke truthfully. The wound Cadderly’s walking stick had opened on Rufo’s cheek was already closed, and the scar from Pikel’s water had turned from an angry red to white.
The howl of a wolf cut the night air.
“Do you hear them?” Rufo said casually, and Cadderly found the vampire’s confidence more than a bit unnerving. They had hit Rufo with every weapon they could muster, and yet, here he was, facing them again and apparently unafraid.
Another howl echoed through the night air.
“They are my minions, the creatures of the night,” the vampire gloated. “They howl because they know I am about.”
“How?” Cadderly asked bluntly. “How are you about? What have you done, Kierkan Rufo?”
“I have found the truth!” Rufo retorted angrily.
“You have fallen into a lie,” the young priest was quick to correct.
The vampire began to tremble; Rufo’s eyes flared an angry red, and it seemed as if he would rush forth and throttle his nemesis.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Pikel, expecting the charge and knowing that neither he nor Cadderly could stop it.
Rufo calmed suddenly, even smiled. “What of this might you understand?” he asked Cadderly. “You who have spent your days in worthless prayers to a god that keeps you small and insignificant. What of this might you understand? You who cannot dare to look beyond the limitations Deneir offers you.”
“Do not speak his name,” Cadderly warned.
Rufo laughed at him. He laughed at Deneir, and Cadderly knew it, knew that everything Kierkan Rufo had become mocked Deneir and all the goodly gods, mocked the value of, the very concept of, morality. And in Cadderly’s thinking, that, in turn, mocked the very purpose of life.
The young priest, gray eyes steeled against this instrument of perversion, began a slow chant, demanding that the song of Deneir come into his head. Fire, Cadderly knew. He needed a spell of fire to hurt this one, to burn wounds that would not regenerate. How he wished Dorigen’s onyx ring still held its dweomer!
Cadderly dismissed that wasted, unproductive thought and focused on his call to Deneir. He needed fire to cleanse the perversion, fire given to him, channeled through him, by his god. Cadderly’s head began that familiar ache, but Cadderly did not relent, sent his thoughts sailing into the main flow of the melody’s stream.
“I have her,” he heard cocky Rufo say, and Cadderly’s heart fluttered at that moment, and his concentration, for all his sense of purpose, wavered.
Pikel gave a squeal and rushed out in front of Cadderly, waterskin tucked under his arm. He howled and pressed, and the skin responded with a flatulent burst. Pikel looked down at the empty thing, the last drops of water dripping from its end. Then the dwarf looked to Rufo, looked into the monster’s angry scowl.
“Uh-oh,” Pikel whimpered, and he was diving aside before Rufo’s backhand even connected. He rolled through several tight somersaults, until he collided with a tree, then hopped up, dropped his club to the ground again, and began that same curious dance he had taken up in the corridor of the library.
Cadderly did not turn aside, did not, would not, retreat from Rufo this time. The reference to Danica had disrupted his concentration, had pushed him from the flow of Deneir’s song, and he had no time to fall back into it. He had his faith, though. Above everything else, young Cadderly had his convictions and would not show fear in the face of the vampire. He planted his feet firmly and presented his holy symbol, crying with all the strength he could muster, “Get you back!”
Rufo staggered to a stop and nearly retreated a step before he found, within the evil swirls of the chaos curse, the strength to resist. There was no smile on the vampire’s face, though, and where his expression had once shown confidence, now there was only determination.
Cadderly advanced a step, so did Rufo, and they stood facing each other, barely three feet apart.
“Deneir,” Cadderly said clearly. How the young priest wanted to fall back into the song of his god, to find a spell of fire, or a most holy word that would send waves of agonizing discord through the vampire’s skinny frame! He could not, though, not with Rufo so close and so very strong. This had become a contest of will, a test of faith, and Cadderly had to hold on to the ground he had found, had to present his symbol with all his heart, and all his focus, squarely behind it.
The very air seemed to spark between them, positive and negative energy doing battle. Both men trembled with the strain.
In the distance, a wolf howled.
Every second seemed an eternity; Cadderly thought he would burst from the pressure. He could feel Rufo’s evil, a tangible thing, washing over him, denying his faith. He could feel the strength of Tuanta Quiro Miancay, a diabolical brew he had battled before, a curse that had almost defeated him and all the library. Now it was personified, stronger still, but Cadderly was older and wiser.
Rufo tried to advance, but his feet would not come to the call of his desires. Cadderly concentrated on merely holding his ground. He didn’t hope that Pikel would come rushing in, as before. He didn’t hope for anything. His focus was pure. He would hold Rufo here until the dawn if necessary!
Bolts of green energy slammed into the young priest’s ribs. He gasped and recoiled, and by the time he straightened and regained the edge of concentration, Kierkan Rufo was upon him, clutching his wrist, holding Cad-derly’s arm high to keep the symbol of Deneir out of his face.
“Allies have their places,” Rufo chided.
Cadderly managed to glance to the side, to see Pikel hopping about and swinging his club desperately, chasing a teasing Druzil around the lowest branches of the nearest trees.
Rufo pressed forward, and Cadderly struggled helplessly. Ivan groaned on the ground behind him—Cadderly was surprised that the dwarf was even close to consciousness. Ivan would be of no help, though, not this time.
“I have her,” Rufo said again, confident of his victory, and despite the rage that welled within Cadderly, he was caught in such a disadvantageous position that he could do nothing against the vampire’s terrifying strength. Rufo was bending him backward; he thought his backbone would snap.
The vampire jerked suddenly, then again, and Rufo straightened, easing the pressure on Cadderly’s spine. Rufo jerked again and groaned, his features twisted in pain.
As the fourth sting hit him, Rufo hurled Cadderly backward to the ground and wheeled about, and Cadderly saw four long arrows sticking from his shoulder blades. A fifth bolt whistled in, slamming Rufo’s chest, staggering him, his red-glowing eyes wide with surprise.
Shayleigh continued a steady walking advance, calmly putting another arrow to her bowstring and sending it unerringly into the vampire. From the side, Pikel, tired of the fruitless chase, came bobbing out of the trees, club held high as he bore down on Rufo. The dwarf skidded between Cadderly and the vampire, and readied the club.
Rufo spun about suddenly, his hand thrusting in the air, sending forth a wave of energy that froze Pikel momentarily.
“Come find your lover, Cadderly,” the vampire spat, taking no heed of yet another arrow that dove into his side. “I will be waiting.”
Rufo’s form blurred, a green mist coming up about him, engulfing him. Pikel came from his trance, shaking his head vigorously, his generous lips flapping noisily, and wound up to swing, but stopped abruptly as Shayleigh’s next arrow passed right through the insubstantial vampire and thudded hard into the club.
“Oo,” muttered the dwarf, considering the bolt.
“Is he going to keep doing that?” roared Ivan, and both Cadderly and Pikel swung about, surprised by the outburst.
Cadderly, back to his knees, stared hard at the tough dwarf—tough indeed, for Ivan’s wounds, injuries the young priest had thought nearly fatal, did not seem so bad now!
Ivan noticed the stare and returned it with a wink, holding up his left hand to display a ring, a ring that Vander had given him at their parting. Cadderly knew the item, an instrument of healing that could even bring its wearer back from the grave, and everything then made sense to him.
Everything concerning Ivan, at least. The young priest rose to his feet and looked back the other way, to Shayleigh. What was she doing here, and how much might she know of Danica’s fate?
“I have just returned,” Shayleigh greeted as she neared the three, as though Cadderly’s impending stream of questions were obvious to her. “I left Danica and Dorigen yesterday, in a pass high from this place, and would be halfway to Shilmista.”
“Except?” Cadderly prompted.
“I saw the smoke,” Shayleigh explained. “And your friend, Percival, came to me. I knew then that there was trouble at the library, but...”
Cadderly’s face gave her pause, the young priest leaning forward, eyes wide, mouth open in anticipation.
“But I know not of Danica’s fate,” Shayleigh finished, and Cadderly slumped back on his heels. Rufo had told him Danica’s fate, and he found that now, with Shay-leigh’s confirmation that Danica and Dorigen had reached the library, he could not deny the vampire’s claim. Also, knowing the fate of the library, and the apparent probability that Danica and Dorigen had walked into its midst, Cadderly believed he now understood the source of the fire in the small chapel. Starting a conventional fire that would so consume a room in the stone library would not be easy, for there was little fuel to feed the flames. A wizard’s fireball, though (and Dorigen was quite adept at those), would have sufficed.
“More than fire has attacked the library,” Cadderly replied grimly to the elf. “Rufo has become something sinister.”
“A vampire,” Shayleigh said.
Cadderly nodded. “And there are others.”
“One less,” Shayleigh replied, to which the three friends looked at her curiously. “I found Dean Thobicus behind the library,” the elf explained, “in the burial vault. He, too, was undead, but he was wounded by sunlight, I believe, and not so strong.”
“And ye beat him?” Ivan asked, the dwarf neither sounding nor looking very hurt at all anymore.
Shayleigh nodded. She stepped near Pikel and pulled hard on the arrow embedded in the dwarfs tree-trunk club. It came out with a pop, and Shayleigh held its tip up for the others to see. Its sharp point glistened a bright gray in the moonlight.
“Silver-tipped,” Shayleigh explained. “The purest of metals, and one that the undead cannot ignore. I have few left, I fear,” she explained, indicating her nearly empty quiver. “We encountered some trolls ...”
“So we saw,” said Ivan.
“I recovered some of those, and all the ones I used against Dean Thobicus,” Shayleigh said. “But Kierkan Rufo just took a few with him, and I fear that my supply of arrowheads grows small.” To emphasize her point, she reached down to a belt pouch and jiggled it.
“Me axe wouldn’t hurt the things,” Ivan huffed.
“Adamantine?” Shayleigh asked, nodding her head expectantly.
“That and iron,” Ivan explained.
“Neither would my spindle-disks hurt Rufo,” Cadderly added. “But my walking stick”—he held the fabulous ram’s-headed baton up before him—“is enchanted, in addition to being silver. It struck Rufo a terrible blow.”
Ivan’s head bobbed in agreement, then both he and Cadderly looked curiously at each other. Together they slowly turned their heads to regard Pikel, who sheepishly slipped his club behind his back.
“Just a club,” Ivan remarked, sliding over to his brother and pulling the huge weapon out from behind Pikel. “I seen him take it from the trunk of a dead tree meself!”
“Just a club,” Cadderly agreed. “Yet it hurt Rufo.”
Pikel leaned over and whispered something into Ivan’s ear, and the yellow-bearded Bouldershoulder brightened with understanding.
“He says it’s not a club,” Ivan explained to Cadderly. “Me brother calls it a ...” Ivan turned a questioning glance back at Pikel, who hopped back to his toes and whispered again into Ivan’s ear.
“Calls it a Sha-lah-lah,” Ivan explained happily.
Cadderly and Shayleigh echoed the curious word together, and then Cadderly figured it out. “A shillelagh,” he said, and for a moment it made perfect sense, a shillelagh being a magical cudgel often used by druids. Such a weapon would certainly harm a vampire. A moment later, of course, it made no sense at all—where in the world did Pikel get a druid’s enchanted cudgel?
“And the water?” Cadderly asked Pikel.
The proud dwarf jumped up on his tiptoes to put his lips to Ivan’s ear.
Ivan’s look soured as he, too, began to figure it all out, began to digest the impossibility of it all. “Druid water,” he said dryly, his voice even-toned.
“Doo-dad!” Pikel squealed.
Again came the curious stares, all three wondering what in the world was happening with Pikel. Shayleigh and Ivan had seen Pikel tame a snake in Castle Trinity, but that, unlike the club and water, could be explained in other ways. But these events ... What explanation might there be except that Pikel had found some measure of druidic magic?
With everything going on, though, this wasn’t the time to press the issue, or to question their apparent good luck. Cadderly, Shayleigh, and even Ivan silently realized that if they told Pikel firmly enough that dwarves could not become druids, he might just believe them. That would do nothing except give them fewer weapons to use against Rufo.
“Then we do indeed have the means to strike Rufo,” Cadderly stated firmly, ending the debate. “We have to get back into the library.”
Pikel’s smile went away, and Ivan was shaking his head before Cadderly ever finished the proclamation.
“On the morrow,” Shayleigh put in. “If Danica and Dorigen are there, and we do not know that they are, there is nothing we can do for them this night. Trust in them. Rufo is strongest in the hours of dark.”
A wolfs howl cut the night, answered by another, then a third and a fourth.
“And the vampire is mustering his forces,” Shayleigh went on. “Let us be far from this place. In the night, movement is our only ally.”
Cadderly looked back toward the library. Despite what Shayleigh had said, he did know, in his heart, that Danica was in there. Dorigen was in there, too, though the young priest had a terrible feeling that the wizard had met her end. Shayleigh’s words about Rufo were true enough, though. This was Rufo’s hour, and his allies would soon be all about them. Cadderly could not defeat Rufo, not at night, not inside the library.
He agreed and followed the elf maiden’s lead as she led them off into the woods, Pikel pausing long enough to refill his skin with the clear water of a nearby stream.