The Cleric Quintet: Canticle

Cryptic

 
The tunnel was fiery and swirling, but not so long for the imp. These were summoning flames and did not bum a creature of Druzil's otherworldly constitution. Barjin had opened his interplanar gate, exactly as Dorigen had predicted, and Druzil was quick to rush to the cleric's call.
A puff of red smoke-Druzil dropping the powder to effectively shut the gate behind him-signaled Barjin that his first summoned ally had arrived. He stared deeply into the brazier's orange flames at the grotesque face taking definite form. A batlike wing extended from the side of the brazier, then another, and a moment later Druzil hopped through. "Who has dared to call me?" the imp snorted, playing the part of an unwitting lower-planar creature caught by Barjin's magical call.
"An imp?" the priest retorted derisively. "I have extended all my efforts for the sake of summoning a mere imp?" Druzil folded his wings around him and snarled, not appreciating Barjin's tone.
If Barjin exhibited sarcastic disdain, Druzil knew that that, too, was part of the summoning game. As with the summoned creature, if the summoner accepted the situation without grumbles, he would be giving a definite advantage to his counterpart. Sorcery, the magic of conjuring creatures from other planes, was a contest of wills, where perceived strength was often more important than actual strength.
Druzil knew that the priest was thrilled that his first call had been answered at all, and an imp, resourceful and clever, was no small catch. But Barjin had to seem disappointed, had to make Druzil believe he was capable of calling and controlling much larger and stronger denizens.
Druzil didn't appear impressed. "I may go?" he replied as he turned back to the brazier.
"Hold!" Barjin shouted at him. "Do not assume anything, I warn you. I have not dismissed you, nor shall I for many days to come. What is your name?"
"Cueltar qui tellemar gwi," Druzil replied.
"Lackey of the stupid one?" Barjin translated, laughing, though he did not fully understand the connotations of Druzil's words. "Surely you can concoct a better title than that for yourself!"
Druzil rocked back on his clawed feet, hardly believing that Barjin could understand the common language of the lower planes. This priest was full of surprises.
"Druzil," the imp replied suddenly, though he didn't quite understand why he had revealed his true name. Barjin's quiet chuckle told him that the priest might have mentally compelled such a truthful response.
Yes, Druzil thought again, this priest was full of surprises.
"Druzil," Barjin muttered, as though he had heard the name before, a fact that did not please the imp. "Welcome, Druzil," Barjin said sincerely, "and be glad that I have called you to my side. You are a creature of chaos, and you will not be disappointed by what you witness in your short stay here."
"I have seen the Abyss," Druzil reminded him. "You cannot imagine the wonders there."
Barjin conceded the point with a nod. No matter how completely the Most Fatal Horror engulfed the priests of the Edificant Library, it could not, of course, rival the unending hellish chaos of the Abyss.
"We are in the dungeons of a bastion dedicated to order and goodness," Barjin explained.
Druzil crinkled his bulbous nose sourly, acting as though Barjin had revealed something he did not already know.
"That is about to change," Barjin assured him. "A curse has befallen this place, one that will bring the goodly priests to their knees. Even an imp who has witnessed the Abyss should enjoy that spectacle."
The glimmer in Druzil's black eyes was genuine. This was the whole purpose in giving Aballister the recipe for the chaos curse. Aballister had expressed concerns, even distress over Barjin's choice of target and Barjin's apparent successes, but Druzil was not Aballister's stooge. If Barjin could indeed take down the Edificant Library, then Druzil would be much closer to realizing his hopes of throwing an entire region of the Realms into absolute disarray.
He looked around at the altar room, impressed by Barjin's work, particularly by the setup around the precious bottle. His gaze then went to the door, and he was truly amazed.
There stood Barjin's newest bodyguard, wrapped head to toe in graying linen. Some of the doth had slipped, revealing part of the mummy's face, dried and hollowed skin on bone with several lesions where the skilled preservation techniques had not held up to the test of centuries.
"Do you like him?" Barjin asked.
Druzil did not know how to respond. A mummy! Mummies were among the most powerful of the undead, strong and disease ridden, hateful of all living things and nearly invulnerable to most attacks.
Few could animate such a monster; fewer still would dare to, fearing that they could not begin to keep the monster under control.
"The priests and scholars above soon will be helpless, lost in their own confusion," Barjin explained, "then they will meet my army. Look at him, my new friend, Druzil," the priest said triumphantly, moving over to Khalif. He started to drape an arm over the scabrous thing, then apparently reconsidered the act and prudently pulled back. "Is he not beautiful? He does love me so." To illustrate his power, Barjin turned to the mummy and commanded, "Khalif, kneel!"
The monster stiffly dropped to its knees.
"There are other preserved corpses that offer similar promise," Barjin bluffed. He had no other ashes, and any attempts to animate a mummified corpse without such aid would prove futile or produce nothing more powerful than a simple zombie.
Druzil's growing admiration for Barjin did not diminish when the priest led him out on a tour of the catacombs. Cunning, explosive glyphs, both fiery and electrical, had been placed at strategic positions, and a virtual army of animated skeletons sat patiently in their open tombs, awaiting Barjin's commands or the predetermined conditions for action the priest had set upon them.
Druzil did not need to be reminded that all of these precautions could well be unnecessary. If the chaos curse continued to work effectively in the library above, no enemies would be likely to find their way down to bother Barjin.
"Caution," Barjin muttered as though he had read Druzil's thoughts when the two had returned to the altar room. "I always assume the worst, thus am I pleasantly surprised if anything better occurs."
Druzil could not hide his agreement or his excitement. Barjin's thinking had been complete; the priest had taken no chances.
"This library soon will be mine," Barjin assured the imp, and Druzil did not doubt his boasts.
"With the Edificant Library, the very cornerstone of the Impresk region, defeated, all the area from Shilmista Forest to Impresk Lake will fall before me."
Druzil liked what he heard, but Barjin's reference to "me" and not to the triumvirate was a bit unnerving. Druzil did not want any open warfare among the ruling factions of Castle Trinity, but if it did come, the imp had to make certain that he chose the winning side. He was even more glad now that Aballister had chosen to send him to Barjin, glad that he could view both sides of the coming storm.
"It is almost done," Barjin reiterated. "The curse grabs at the sensibilities of the priests above and the library soon will fall."
"How can you know what happens above?" Druzil asked him, for the tour had not included any windows or passages up into the library. The one stairway Barjin had shown him had been smashed into pieces, and the door it once had led to had been recently bricked off. The only apparent weakness in Barjin's setup was isolation, not knowing the exact sequence of events in the library above.
"I have only indications," Barjin admitted. "Behind the new wall I showed you lies the library's wine cellar. I have heard many priests passing through there for more than a day now, grabbing bottles at random-some of which are extraordinarily expensive-and apparently guzzling them down.
Their talk and actions speak loudly of the growing chaos, for tins certainly is not within the rules of behavior in the disciplined library. Yet you are correct in your observations, friend imp. I do indeed require more details to the events above."
"So you have summoned me," said Druzil.
"So I have opened the gate," Barjin corrected, flashing a sly look Druzil's way. "I had hoped for a more powerful ally."
More of the summoner's facade, Druzil thought, but he did not question Barjin's claims. Anxious to see for himself what effects the curse was having, Druzil was more than willing to serve Barjin in a scouting capacity. "Please, my master," the imp whined. "Let me go and see for you. Please, oh, please!"
"Yes, yes," Barjin chuckled condescendingly. "You may go above while I bring more allies through the gate."
"Does a path remain through the wine cellar?" the imp asked.
"No," Barjin explained, grabbing Mullivy by the arm. "My good groundskeeper has sealed that door well.
"Take my imp out the western tunnel," Barjin instructed the zombie. "Then return to me!" Mullivy's stinking, bloated corpse shuffled, stiff-legged, out of its guard position and through the altar room door. Not revolted in the least by the disgusting thing, Druzil flapped over and found a perch on Mullivy's shoulder.
"Take care, for it is daylight above," Barjin called after him. hi response, Druzil chuckled, whispered an arcane phrase, and became invisible.
Barjin moved excitedly back to the gate, hoping for continued good fortune in his summoning. An imp was a prized catch for so small a gate, though if Barjin had known the identity of this particular imp and his wizard master, or that Druzil had sealed the gate behind his entry, he would not have been so thrilled.
He tried for more than an hour, calling out general spells of summoning and the names of every minor denizen he knew. Flames leaped and danced, but no forms appeared within their orange glow.
Barjin wasn't too concerned. The brazier would bum for many days, and the necromancer's stone, though it had not yet produced results, continued to send out its call for undead. The priest would find many opportunities to add to his force.
* * * * *
Cadderly wandered the hallways of the building, stunned by the emptiness, the brooding quiet. Many priests, both visitors and those of the host sects, such as Brother Chaunticleer, had left the library without explanation, and many of those who had remained apparently preferred the solitude of their rooms.
Cadderly did find Ivan and Pikel, in the kitchen, busily cooking a variety of dishes.
"Your fights have ended?" Cadderly asked, grabbing a biscuit as he entered. He realized then that he hadn't eaten much in nearly a day, and that Danica and Newander no doubt would be hungry also.
"Fights?" Ivan balked. "No time for fighting, boy! Been cooking since the eve. Not a many for supper, but them that's there won't go away."
A terrible, sick feeling washed over Cadderly. He moved through the kitchen to peek out the other door, which led to the library's large dining hall. A score of people were in there, Headmaster Avery among them, stuffing themselves hand over hand. Several had fallen to the floor, so full that they could hardly move, but still trying to shove more food into their eager mouths.
"You are killing them, you know," Cadderly remarked to the dwarves, his tone resigned. The young scholar was beginning to get an idea of what was going on. He thought of Histra and her unending passion, of Danica's sudden obsession with lessons that were beyond her level of achievement, and of the druids, Arcite and Cleo, so fanatic to their tenets that they had lost their very identities.
"They will eat as long as you put food before them," Cadderly explained. "They will gorge themselves until they die."
Both Ivan and Pikel stopped their stirring and stared long and hard at the young priest.
"Slow the meals down," Cadderly instructed them.
For the first time in a while, Cadderly noted some measure of comprehension. Both dwarves seemed almost repulsed by their own participation in the food orgy. Together they backed away from their respective pots.
"Slow the meals down," Cadderly asked again.
Ivan nodded gravely.
"Oo," added Pikel.
Cadderly studied the brothers for a long moment, sensing that they had regained their sanity, that he could trust them as he had trusted Newander.
"I will be back as soon as I can," he promised, then he took a couple of plates, packed a meal, and took his leave.
Anyone watching would have noticed a profound difference in the strides of the young scholar as he left the kitchen. Cadderly had come down tentatively, afraid of something he could not understand.
He still had not figured out the curse or its cause, nor could he remember his trials in the lower catacombs, but, more and more, it was becoming evident to Cadderly that fate had placed a great burden upon him, and the price of his success or failure was terrifying indeed.
To Percival relief, Newander had the situation in Danica's room under control. Danica was still in her bed, conscious but unable to move, for the druid had compelled long vines of ivy to come in through the window and wrap the woman where she lay. Newander, too, seemed in better spirits, and his face brightened even more when Cadderly handed him the supper plate.
"You have done well," Cadderly remarked.
"Minor magic," the druid answered. "Her wounds were not so bad. What have you learned?"
Cadderly shrugged. "Little," he answered. "Whatever is wrong in this place grows worse by the moment. I have an idea, though, a way that I might learn what is happening."
Newander perked up, expecting some revelation.
"I am going to go to sleep."
The druid's fair face crinkled in confusion, but Cadderly's confident smile deflected any forthcoming questions. Newander took the plate and began eating, mumbling to himself with every bite.
Cadderly knelt beside Danica. She seemed barely coherent, but she managed to whisper, "Iron Skull."
"Forget Iron Skull," Cadderly replied quietly. "You must rest and heal. Something is wrong here, Danica, wrong with you and with all the library. I do not know why, but I seem to have not been affected." He paused, searching for the words.
"I think I did something," he said. Newander shuffled uneasily behind him. "I cannot explain.... I do not understand, but I have this feeling, this vagrant thought, that I somehow caused all of this."
"Surely you cannot blame yourself," Newander said.
Cadderly turned on him. "I am not looking to place any blame at all," he replied evenly, "but I believe I played a part in this growing catastrophe, whatever it might be. If I did, then I must accept that fact and search, not for blame, but for a solution."
"How do you mean to search?" the druid asked. His tone turned sarcastic. "By going to sleep?"
"It is hard to explain," Cadderly replied to the druid's stare. "I have been dreaming-vivid dreams. I feel there is a connection. I cannot explain ..."
Newander's visage softened. "You need not explain," he said, no longer doubting. "Dreams sometimes do have the power of prophecy, and we have no clearer trail to follow. Take your rest, then. I will watch over you."
Cadderly kissed Danica's pale cheek.
"Iron Skull," the woman whispered.
More determined than ever, Cadderly pulled a blanket to the comer of the room and lay down, placing an inkwell, quill, and parchments beside him. He threw an arm across Percival eyes and filled his thoughts with skeletons and ghouls, beckoning the nightmare.
* * * * *
The skeletons were waiting for him. Cadderly could smell the rot and the thick dust, and hear the scuffle of fleshless feet on the hard stone. He ran in a red fog, his legs heavy, too heavy. He saw a door down a long hallway, and there was light peeking through its cracks. His legs were too heavy; he could not get there. '
Cold beads of sweat caked Cadderly's clothing and streaked his face. His eyes popped open and there, hovering over him, stood the druid.
"What have you seen, boy?" Newander asked. The druid quickly handed him the writing materials.
Cadderly tried to articulate the gruesome scene, but it was fast fading from his thoughts. He snatched up the quill and began writing and sketching, capturing as many of the images as he could, forcing Percival thoughts back into the dimming recesses of his nightmare.
Then it was daytime again, midafternoon, and the dream was no more. Cadderly remembered the skeletons and the smell of dust, but the details were foggy and indistinct. He looked down to the parchment and was surprised by what he saw, as if someone else had done the writing. At the top of the scroll were the words, "slow ... red fog.. . reaching for me ... too close!" and below these was a sketch of a long hallway, its sides lined by sarcophagi-filled alcoves and with a cracked door at its end.
"I know this place," Cadderly began tentatively, then he stopped abruptly, his elation and train of thought disrupted by Barjin's insidious and incessant memory-blocking spell.
Before Cadderly could fight back against the sudden lapse, a scream from the hallway froze him where he sat. He looked at Newander, who was equally disturbed.
"That was not the priestess of Sune," the druid remarked. They rushed through the door and into the hallway.
There stood a gray-capped priest, holding his entrails in Percival hands, an eerie, almost ecstatic expression on his face. His tunic, too, was gray, though most of it now was bloodstained, and still more blood poured out of the man's opened belly with each passing second.
Cadderly and Newander could not immediately find the strength to go to him, knew the futility of it anyway. They watched in blank horror as the priest fell face down, a pool of blood widening around him.
Disturbing Answers
Mullivy was not a swift walker, and Druzil used this time away from Barjin to reestablish contact with his master. He sent his thoughts out across the miles to Castle Trinity and found an eager recipient awaiting them. Greetings, my master, the imp communicated. You have found Barjin?
In the catacombs, as you believed, Druzil replied. The fool.
Druzil wasn't certain that he shared Aballister's appraisal, but the wizard didn't need to know that. He has other allies, the imp imparted. Undead allies, including a mummy.
Druzil smiled widely as he sensed Aballister's reaction to that bit of news. The wizard didn't mean to communicate his next thoughts, but Druzil was deeply enough into his mind to hear them anyway.
I never would have believed that Barjin could achieve that. Many emotions accompanied those words, Druzil knew, and fear was not the least among them.
The mighty Edificant Library is in peril, Druzil added, just to prod the wizard. If Barjin succeeds, then the Most Fatal Horror will have put us on the path toward a great victory. All the region will fall without the guidance of the library's clerics.
Aballister was wondering if the price was too high, Druzil realized, and the imp derided that he had told the wizard enough for this day. Besides, he could see the daylight up ahead as his zombie chauffeur neared the tunnel exit. He broke off direct communication, though he let the wizard remain in his mind and view through the imp's eyes. Druzil wanted Aballister to get a good look at the glory of the chaos curse.
* * * * *
The white squirrel kept high in the branches, unsure of what its keen senses were telling it.
Mullivy came to the edge of the earthen tunnel, then immediately turned around and disappeared back into it. Another scent, an unfamiliar scent, lingered. Percival saw nothing, but like other foraging animals, low on the food chain, the squirrel had learned quickly to trust more than just its eyes.
Percival followed the scent-it was moving-to the tree-lined lane. The road was quiet, as it had been for the last two days, though the sun shone bright and warm in a clear blue sky.
The squirrel's ears perked up and twitched nervously as the library's door opened, seemingly of its own accord, and the strange scent moved inside.
The unusualness of it all kept the squirrel sitting nervously still for many moments, but the sun was warm and the nuts and berries in the trees and shrubs were abundant, just waiting to be plucked. Percival rarely kept any thought for any length of time, and when he spotted a pile of acorns lying unattended on the ground, he was too relieved that the groundskeeper had stayed in the tunnel to worry about anything else.
* * * * *
Brazil's perceptions of the state of the Edificant Library were far different from Cadderly's.
Unlike the young scholar, the imp thought the rising, paralyzing chaos a marvelous thing. He found just a few priests in the study halls, sitting unmoving in front of open books, so riveted by their studies that they barely remembered to draw breath. Druzil understood the hold of the chaos curse better than any; if Barjin entered the hall with a host of skeletons at his back, these priests would offer no resistance, would probably not even notice.
Druzil enjoyed the spectacle in the dining hall most of all, where gluttonous priests sat on chairs set back from the table to accommodate their swelling bellies, and other priests lay semiconscious on the floor. At one end of the table, three priests were engaged in mortal combat over a single remaining turkey leg.
Arguments, particularly between priests of differing faiths, were general throughout the building, often becoming more serious encounters. The least faithful or studious simply wandered away from the library altogether, and few had a care to stop them. Those most faithful were so absorbed in their rituals that they seemed to notice nothing else. In another of the second-floor study chambers, Druzil found a pile of Oghman priests heaped together in a great ball, having wrestled until they were too exhausted even to move.
When Druzil left an hour later to report to Barjin, he was quite satisfied that the chaos curse had done its work to unpredictable perfection.
He felt the first insistent demands of his master when he rounded the northern side of the building, approaching the tunnel.
You have seen? his thoughts asked Aballister. He knew that if Aballister had been paying attention, the wizard would know the state of the library as well as Druzil did.
The Most Fatal Horror, Aballister remarked somewhat sourly.
Barjin has brought us a great victory, Druzil promptly reminded the ever-skeptical wizard.
Aballister was quick to reply. The library is not yet won. Do not count our victory until Barjin is actually in control of the structure.
Druzil replied by shutting toe wizard completely out of Percival thoughts in midconversation.
"Tellemara," the imp muttered to himself. The curse was working. Already the few score priests remaining at the library probably would not be able to fend off Barjin's undead forces, and their potential for resistance lessened with each passing moment. Soon, many of them likely would kill each other and many others simply would wander away. How much more control did the wizard require before claiming victory?
Druzil paid no heed to Aballister's final warning. Barjin would win here, the imp decided, and he was thinking, too, that maybe he could find extra gains in his mission from Aballister, in spying on the powerful priest. Ever since the magical elixir had been dubbed an agent of Talona, the priests of Castle Trinity had enjoyed a more prominent role in the evil triumvirate. With the Edificant Library in Barjin's hands, and with Barjin controlling a strong undead army, that domination would only increase.
Aballister was an acceptable "master," as masters went, but Druzil was an imp from the domain of chaos, and imps owed no loyalty to anyone except themselves.
It was too early to make a definitive judgment, of course, but already Druzil was beginning to suspect that he would find more pleasure and more chaos at Barjin's side than at Aballister's.
* * * * *
"Do something for him!" Cadderly pleaded, but Newander only shook his head helplessly. "Ilmater!"
gasped the dying priest. "The ... pain," he stammered. "It is so won-" He shuddered one final time and fell dead in Cadderly's arms.
"Who could have done this?" Cadderly asked, though he feared he knew the answer.
"Is not Ilmater the Crying God, a deity dedicated to suffering?" the druid asked, leading Cadderly to a clear conclusion.
Cadderly nodded gravely. "Priests of Ilmater often engage in self-flagellation, but it is usually a minor ritual of no serious consequence."
"Until now," Newander remarked dryly.
"Come on," Cadderly said, laying the dead priest onto the floor. The blood trail was easily followed, and both Cadderly and Newander could have guessed where it led anyway.
Cadderly didn't even bother knocking on the partly opened door. He pushed it in, then turned away, too horrified to enter. In the middle of the floor lay the remaining five priests of the Ilmater delegation, torn and bloodied.
Newander rushed in to check on them but returned in only a few moments, shaking ins head grimly.
"Priests of Ilmater never carry it this far," Cadderly said, as much to himself as to the druid,
"and druids never go so far as to become, heart and body, their favored animals." He looked up at the druid, his gray eyes revealing that he thought his words important. "Danica was never so obsessed as to slam her face into a stone block repeatedly."
Newander was beginning to catch on.
"Why were we not affected?" Cadderly asked.
"I fear that I have been," replied the sullen druid.
When Cadderly looked more closely at Newander, he understood. The druid continued to fear not for his animal-transformed friends, but for himself.
"I have not the true heart for my chosen calling," explained the druid.
"You make too many judgments," Cadderly scolded. "We know that something is wrong-" he waved toward the room of carnage "-terribly wrong. You have heard the priestess of Sune. You have seen these priests, and your own druid brothers. For some reason, we two have been spared-and perhaps I know of two others who have not been so badly affected-and that is not cause to lament. Whatever has happened threatens the whole library."
"You are wise for one so young," admitted Newander, "but what are we to do? Surely my druid brothers and the girl will be of no help."
"We will go to Dean Thobicus," Cadderly said hopefully. "He has overseen the library for many years. Perhaps he will know what to do." Cadderly didn't have to speak his hopes that Dean Thobicus, aged and wise, had not fallen under the curse also.
The journey down to the second floor only increased the companions' apprehension. The halls were quiet and empty, until a group of drunken rowdies appeared down at the other end of a long hallway. As soon as the mob spotted Cadderly and Newander, they set out after them. Cadderly and the druid did not know if the men meant to attack them or coerce them into joining the party, but neither of them had any intentions of finding out.
Newander turned back after rounding one comer and cast a simple spell. The group came in fast pursuit, but the druid had laid a magical trip-wire and the intoxicated mob had no defense against such a subtle attack. They tumbled in a twisting and squirming heap and came up too busily wrestling with each other to remember that they had been chasing somebody.
Cadderly considered the headmasters' area his best hope- until he and Newander crossed through the large double doors at the southern end of the second level. The area was eerily quiet, with no one to be seen. Dean Thobicus's office door was among the few that were not open. Cadderly moved up slowly and knocked.
He knew in his heart that he would get no response.
Dean Thobicus was never an excitable man. His love was introspection, spending hours on end staring at the night sky, or at nothing at all. Thobicus's loves were in his own mind, and when Cadderly and Newander entered his office, that was exactly where they found him. He sat very still behind his large oaken desk and apparently hadn't moved for quite a while. He had soiled himself, and his lips were dry and parched, though a beaker full of water sat only inches away on his desk.
Cadderly called to him several times and shook him roughly, but the dean showed no sign of having heard him. Cadderly gave him one last shake, and Thobicus fell right over and remained where he dropped, as if he hadn't noticed.
Newander bent to examine the man. "We'll get no answers from this one," he announced.
"We are running out of places to look," Cadderly replied.
"Let us get back to the girl," said the druid. "No good in staying here, and I am afraid for Danica with the drunken mob roaming the halls."
They were relieved to find no sign of the drunken men as they exited the headmasters' area, and their return trip through the quiet and empty hallways was uneventful.
Their sighs of relief upon entering Danica's room would have been lessened considerably if either of them had noticed the dark figure lurking in the shadows, eyeing Cadderly with utter hatred.
* * * * *
Danica was awake but unblinking when the two men returned to her. Newander started toward her, concerned and thinking that she had fallen into the same catatonic state as the dean, but Cadderly recognized the difference.
"She is meditating," Cadderly explained, and even as he spoke the words, he realized what Danica had in mind. "She is fighting whatever it is that compels her."
"You cannot know that," reasoned Newander.
Cadderly refused to yield his assumptions. "Look at her closely," he observed, "at her concentration. She is fighting, I say."
The claim was beyond Newander's experience, either to agree or refute, so he accepted Cadderly's logic without further argument.
"You said you know of others who might have escaped?" he said, wanting to get back to the business at hand.
"The dwarven cooks," replied Cadderly, "Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder. They have been acting strangely, I admit, but each time I have been able to bring them to reason."
Newander thought for a few minutes, chuckling quietly when he remembered Pikel, the green-bearded dwarf that so badly wanted to join the druidical order. The notion was absurd, of course, but Pikel was an appealing chap-for a dwarf. Newander snapped his fingers and allowed himself a smile of hope as he found a clue in Cadderly's report. "Magical," he said, looking back to Cadderly. "It is said by all who know that dwarves are a tough lot against magical enchantments. Might it be that the cooks can resist where men cannot?"
Cadderly nodded and looked to the vine-covered bed. "And Danica will resist in time, I know," he said and turned back to Newander immediately. "But what about us? Why have we been spared?"
"As I told you," replied Newander, "it might well be that I have not been spared. I was gone all of yesterday, out walking in the sunshine and feeling the mountain breezes. I found Ar-cite and Cleo, bear and tortoise, upon my return, but since I came back, I must admit that I, too, have felt compulsions."
"But you have resisted them," said Cadderly.
"Perhaps," Newander corrected. "I cannot be sure. My heart of late has not been for the animals, as seemingly were the hearts of my druid kin."
"And so you doubt your calling," Cadderly remarked.
Newander nodded. "It is a difficult thing. I so badly wish to join Arcite and Cleo, to join the search they have begun for the natural order, but I want, too ..."
"Go on," Cadderly prompted as though he believed the revelations were vital.
"I want to learn of Deneir and the other gods," Newander admitted. "I want to watch the progress of the world, the rise of cities. I want to ... I want," Newander shook his head suddenly. "I do not know what I want!"
Cadderly's gray eyes lit up. "Even in your own heart you do not know what is in your own heart,"
he said. "That is a rare thing, and it has saved you, unless I miss my guess. That, and the fact that you have not been here for very long since this all began."
"What do you know?" Newander asked, a sharp edge on his voice. He softened quickly, though, wondering how much truth was in the young scholar's words.
Cadderly only shrugged in response. "It is only a theory."
"What of you?" Newander asked. "Why are you not affected?"
Cadderly nearly laughed for lack of a suitable answer. "I cannot say," he honestly admitted. He looked to Danica again. "But I know now how I might find out."
Newander followed the young scholar's gaze to the meditating woman. "Are you going back to sleep?"
Cadderly gave him a sly wink. "Sort of."
Newander did not argue. He wanted the time alone anyway to consider his own predicament. He could not accept Cadderly's reasoning concerning his exclusion from whatever was cursing the library, though he hoped it was as simple as that. Newander suspected that something else was going on, something he could not begin to understand, something wonderful or terrible-he could not be sure.
For all of his thinking, though, the druid could not rid himself of the image of Arcite and Cleo, contented and natural, and could not dismiss his fears that his ambivalence had caused him to fail Silvanus in a time of dire need.
* * * * *
Cadderly sat crosslegged with his eyes closed for a long time, relaxing each part of his body in turn, causing his mind to sink within his physical self. He had learned these techniques from Danica-one of the few things she had revealed about her religion-and had found them quite useful, restful, and enjoyable. Now, though, the meditation had taken on a more important rote.
Cadderly opened his eyes slowly and viewed the room, seeing it in surreal tones. He focused first on the block of stone, stained with his dear Danica's blood. It sat between the downed sawhorses, and then it was gone, removed to blackness. Behind it was Danica's cabinet and wardrobe, and then they, too, were gone.
He glanced left, to the door and Newander keeping a watchful guard. The druid watched him curiously, but Cadderly hardly noticed. A moment later, both druid and door were holes of blackness.
His visual sweep eliminated the rest of the room: Danica's desk and her weapons, two crystalline daggers, in their boot sheaths against the wall; the window, bright with late morning light; and, lastly, Danica herself, still deep in her own meditation on the vine-wrapped bed.
"Dear Danica," Cadderly muttered, though even he didn't hear the words. Then Danica, too, and everything else, was out of his thoughts.
Again he returned to relaxation-toes, then feet, then legs, fingers, then hands, then arms-until he had achieved a sedated state. His breathing came slowly and easily. His eyes were open, but they saw nothing.
There was only quiet blackness, calm.
Cadderly could not summon thoughts in this state. He had to hope that answers would flow to him, that his subconscious would give him images and dues. He had no concept of time passing, but it seemed a long while of emptiness, of simple, uncluttered existence.
The walking dead were alongside him then in the blackness. Unlike his dreams, he saw the skeletal figures as no threat now, as though he were an unattached observer instead of an active participant. They scuffled along on his mental journey, falling behind him, leaving him in a hallway. There was the familiar door, cracked and showing lines of light, always the ending image of his nightmare.
The picture faded, as if some unseen force were trying to stop him from proceeding, a mental barrier that he now, for some reason unknown to him, believed to be a magical spell.
The images became a gray blur for just a moment, then focused again, and he was at the door, then through the door.
The altar room!
Cadderly watched, hopeful and afraid, as the room darkened, leaving only a single, red-glowing object, a bottle, visible before him. He saw the bottle up close then, and he saw hands, his own hands, twisting off the stopper.
Red smoke exploded all about him, stole every other image.
Cadderly looked again on Danica's room, the image identical to the one he had blocked out-even Newander remained at his position near the door-except that now there hung in the air an almost imperceptible pink haze.
Cadderly felt his heart quicken as the purpose of that haze became all too clear. His gaze fell over Danica, still deep in her own meditation. Cadderly's thoughts reached out to Danica and were answered. She was battling, as he had suspected, fighting back against that permeating pink haze, trying to recover her sensibilities against its debilitating effects.
"Fight, Danica!" he heard himself say, and the words broke his trance. He looked over to Newander, his expression desperate.
"I was the cause," he said, holding up his hands as though they were covered in blood. "I opened it!"
Newander rushed over and knelt beside Cadderly, trying to calm him. "Opened?"
"The bottle," Cadderly stammered. "The bottle! The red-glowing bottle. The mist-do you see the mist?"
Newander glanced around, then shook his head.
"It is there ... here," Cadderly said, grabbing the druid's arm and using it to help him to his feet. "We have to close that bottle!"
"Where?" the druid asked.
Cadderly stopped suddenly, considering the question. He remembered the skeletons, the dusty smell, the corridors lined with alcoves. "There really was a door in the wine cellar," he said at length,
"a door to the lowest catacombs, those dungeons no longer used in the library."
"We must go there?" asked Newander, rising beside Cadderly.
"No," Cadderly cautioned, "not yet. The catacombs are not empty. We have to prepare." He looked to Danica again, seeing her in a new light now that he understood her mental struggles.
"Will she be fighting beside us?" Newander asked, noticing Cadderly's focus.
"Danica is fighting now," Cadderly assured him, "but the mist hangs all about us, and it is insistent." He gave Newander a confused look. "I still do not know why I have been spared its effects."
"If you were indeed the cause, as you believe," replied the druid, who had lengthy experience with magical practices, "then that fact alone might have spared you."
Cadderly considered the words for a moment, but they hardly seemed to matter. "Whatever the reason," he said determinedly, "we-I-have to dose that bottle." He spent a few minutes trying to recall the obstacles before him and imagining even more frightening monsters that might be lurking just outside his nightmarish visions. Cadderly knew that he would need allies in this fight, powerful allies to help him get back to the altar room.
"Ivan and Pikel," he said to Newander. "The dwarves are more resistant, as you said. They will help us."
"Go to them," Newander bade him.
"You stay with Danica," Cadderly replied. "Let no one, except for me and the dwarven brothers, into the room."
"I have ways of keeping the world out," Newander assured him.
As soon as he entered the hallway, Cadderly heard the druid chanting softly. Danica's wooden door, suddenly brought to life by Newander's spell, warped and expanded, wedging tightly, immovably, into its frame.
* * * * *
Ivan and Pikel were not fighting when Cadderly entered the kitchen this time, but neither were they cooking. They sat quietly, somberly, at the room's main table opposite each other.
As soon as he noticed Cadderly, Ivan absently handed him the one-handed crossbow, finished to perfection. "Had an urge," the dwarf explained, not giving the magnificent item a second look.
Cadderly was not surprised. It seemed that many people in the Edificant Library were having
"urges" these days.
"What's it about?" Ivan asked suddenly.
Cadderly did not understand. Pikel, a grim expression on his normally carefree features, pointed to the door leading into the dining room. Cadderly crossed the kitchen tentatively and when he looked into the adjoining room, he came to realize the reason for the dwarves' somber mood. Half the gluttonous priests, Avery included, remained at the table, hardly able to move. The other half were worse yet, lying on the floor in their own vomit. Cadderly knew without going to them that several were dead, and his face, too, was ashen when he turned back into the kitchen.
"So what's it about?" Ivan asked again.
Cadderly looked at him long and hard, unsure of how he could begin to explain the bottle and his own, still unclear actions. Finally, he said only, "I am not certain what has happened, but I believe I know now how to stop it."
He thought his proclamation would excite the dwarves, but they hardly stirred at the news.
"Will you help me?" Cadderly asked. "I cannot do it alone."
"What do ye need?" Ivan asked offhandedly.
"You," Cadderly replied, "and your brother. The curse- and it is a curse-comes from below the cellars. I have to go down there to end it, but I fear that the place is guarded."
"Guarded?" Ivan balked. "How can ye guess that?"
"Just trust me, I beg," replied Cadderly. "I am not so skilled with weapons, but I have witnessed you two at your fighting and could use your strong arms. Will you come with me?"
The dwarves exchanged bored looks and shrugs. "I'd rather be cooking," Ivan remarked. "Gave up me adventuring pack long ago. Pikel'd rather be ..." He stopped and eyed his brother intently.
Pikel fixed a smug look on his face, reached up, and waggled one side of his green beard.
"A druid!" Ivan yelled, hopping to his feet and grabbing a nearby pan. "Ye stupid bird-loving, oak-kissing ... !"
"Oo oi!" Pikel exclaimed, arming himself with a rolling pin.
Cadderly was between them in an instant. "It is all part of the curse!" he cried. "Can you not see that? It makes you argue and fight!"
Both dwarves jumped back a step and lowered their utensil weapons.
"Oo," muttered Pikel curiously.
"If you want to fight a true enemy," Cadderly began, "then come to my room and help me prepare.
There is something below the cellars, something horrible and evil. If we do not stop it, then all the library is doomed."
Ivan leaned to the side and looked around the young scholar to his similarly leaning brother. They shared a shrug and simultaneously heaved their cookware weapons across to the other side of the room.
"Let us go to the gluttons first," Cadderly instructed. "We should leave them as comfortable as we may."
The dwarves nodded. "Then I'll get me axe," Ivan declared, "and me brother'll get his tree!"
"Tree?" Cadderly echoed quietly at the departing dwarves' backs. One look at Pikel's green-dyed braid bouncing halfway down the dwarfs back and his huge, gnarly, and smelly feet flopping out every which way from his delicate sandals told Cadderly not even to bother pressing the question.