The Cleric Quintet: Canticle

Danica's Battle

 
She found herself in the throes of repeated urges, building to overwhelming crescendos and then dying away to be replaced by other insistent impulses. Surely this was Danica's definition of Hell, the discipline and strict codes of her beloved religion swept away by waves of sheer chaos.
She tried to staunch those waves, to beat back the images of Iron Skull, the urges she had felt when Cadderly had touched her, and the many others, but she found no secure footholds in her violently shifting thoughts.
Danica touched upon something that even the chaos could not disrupt. To fight the battle of the present, the young woman sent her thoughts into the simpler past.
She saw her father, Pavel, again, his small but powerful frame and blond hair turning to white on the temples. Mostly, Danica saw his gray eyes, always tender when they looked upon his little girl. There, too, was her mother and namesake, solid, immovable, and wildly in love with her father. Danica was the exact image of that woman, except that her mother's hair was raven black, not blond, showing closer resemblance to the woman's partially eastern background. She was petite and fair like her daughter, with the same clear brown, almond eyes, not dark but almost tan, that could sparkle with innocence or turn fast to unbreakable determination.
Danica's images of her parents faded and were replaced by the wrinkled, wizened image of mysterious Master Turkel. His skin was thick, leathery, from uncounted hours spent sitting in the sun and meditating atop a mountain, high above the lines of shading trees. Truly he was a man of extremes, of explosive fighting abilities buried under seemingly limitless serenity. His ferocity during sparring matches often scared Danica, made her think the man was out of control.
But Danica had learned better than to believe that; Master Turkel was never out of control.
Discipline was at the core of his, their, religion, the same discipline that Danica needed now.
She had labored beside her dear master for six years, until that day when Turkel honestly admitted that he could give no more to her. Despite her anticipation at studying the actual works of Penpahg D'Ahn, it had been a sad day for Danica when she left Westgate and started down the long road to the Edificant Library.
Then she had found Cadderly.
Cadderly! She had loved him from the first moment she had ever seen him, chasing a white squirrel along the groves lining the winding road to the library's front door. Cadderly hadn't noticed Danica right away, not until he tumbled headlong into a bush of clinging burrs. That first look struck Danica profoundly both then and now, as she battled to reclaim her identity. Cadderly had been embarrassed, to be sure, but the sudden flash of light in his eyes, eyes even purer gray than Danica's father's, and the way his mouth dropped open just a hint, then widened in a sheepish, boyish smile, had sent a curious warm sensation through Danica's whole body.
The courtship had been equally thrilling and unpredictable; Danica never knew what ingenious event Cadderly would spring on her next. But entrenched beside Cadderly's unpredictability was a rock-solid foundation that Danica could depend upon. Cadderly gave her friendship, an ear for her problems and excitement alike, and, most of all, respect for her and her studies, never competing against Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ahn for her time.
Cadderly?
Danica heard an echo deep in her mind, a soothing but determined call from Cadderly, urging her to
"fight."
Fight?
Danica looked inward, to those overwhelming urges and deeper, to their source, then she saw the manifestation, as had Cadderly. It was within her and not in the open room around her. She envisioned a red mist permeating her thoughts, an ungraspable force compelling her to its will and not her own. It was a fleeting vision, gone an instant after she glimpsed it, but Danica had always been a stubborn one. She summoned back the vision with all her will and this time she held onto it. Now she had an identified enemy, something tangible to battle.
"Fight, Danica," Cadderly had said. She knew that; she heard the echoes. Danica formulated her thoughts in direct opposition to the mist's urging. She denied whatever her impulses told her to do and to think. If her heart told her that something was correct, she called her heart a liar.
"Iron Skull," compelled a voice inside her.
Danica countered with a memory of pain and warm blood running down her face, a memory that revealed to her how stupid she had been in attempting to smash the stone.
* * * * *
It was not a call heard by physical ears; it needed neither the wind nor open air to carry it. The energy emanating from Barjin's necromancer's stone called to a specific group only, to monsters of the negative plane, the land of the dead.
A few short miles from the Edificant Library, where once there had been a small mining town, the call was heard.
A ghoulish hand, withered and filthy, tore up through the sod, reaching into the world of the living. Another followed, and another, just a short distance away. Soon the gruesome pack of ghouls was up out of their holes, drooling tongues hanging between yellow fangs.
Running low, knuckles to the ground, the ghoul pack made for the stone's call, for the Edificant Library.
* * * * *
Newander could only guess what inner turmoil racked the young woman. Sweat soaked Danica's clothes and she squirmed and groaned under the tightly binding vines. At first, the druid had thought her in pain, and he quickly prepared a sedating spell to calm her. Fortunately, it occurred to Newander that Danica's nightmare might be self-inflicted, that she might have found, as Cadderly had promised, some way to fight back the curse.
Newander sat beside the bed and placed his hands gently but firmly on Danica's arms. While he did not call to her, or do anything else that might hinder her concentration, he watched her closely, fearful lest his guess be wrong.
Danica opened her eyes. "Cadderly?" she asked. Then she saw that the man over her was not Cadderly, and she realized, too, that she was tightly strapped down. She flexed her muscles and twisted as much as the vines would allow, testing their play.
"Calm, dear lass," Newander said softly, sensing her growing distress. "Your Cadderly was here, but he could not stay. He set me to watch over you."
Danica stopped her struggling, recognizing the man's accent. She didn't know his name, but his dialect, and the presence of the vines, told her his profession. "You are one of the druids?" she asked.
"I am Newander," the druid replied, bowing low, "friend of your Cadderly."
Danica accepted his words without question and spent a moment reorienting herself to her surroundings. She was in her own room, she knew, the room she had lived in for a year, but something seemed terribly out of place. It wasn't Newander, or even the vines. Something in this room, in Danica's most secure of places, burned on the edges of the young woman's consciousness, tortured her soul. Danica's gaze settled on the fallen block of stone, stained darkly on one side.
The ache in her forehead told her that her dreams had been correct, that her own lifeblood had made that stain.
"How could I have been so foolish?" Danica groaned.
"You were not foolish," Newander assured her. "There has been a curse about this place, a curse that your Cadderly has set out to remove."
Again Danica knew instinctively that the druid spoke truthfully. She envisioned her mental struggle against the insinuating red mist, a battle that had been won temporarily but was far from over. Even as she lay there, Danica knew that the red mist continued its assault on her mind.
"Where is he?" Danica asked, near panic.
"He went below," Newander replied, seeing no need to hide the facts from the bound woman. "He spoke of a smoking bottle, deep in the cellars."
"The smoke," Danica echoed mysteriously. "Red mist. It is all about us, Newander."
The druid nodded. "That is what Cadderly claimed. It was he who opened the bottle, and he that means to close it."
"Alone?"
"No, no," Newander assured her. "The two dwarves went with him. They have not been as affected by the curse as the rest."
"The rest?" Danica gasped. Danica knew that her own resistance to such mind-affecting spells was greater than the average person's and she suddenly feared for the other priests. Š she had been driven to slam her head into a block of stone, then what tragedies might have befallen less disciplined priests?
"Aye, the rest," Newander replied grimly. "The curse is general on the library. Few, if any, have escaped it, your Cadderly excepted. Dwarves are tougher than most against magic, and the brother cooks seemed in good sorts."
Danica could hardly digest what she was hearing. The last thing she could remember was finding Cadderly unconscious under the casks in the wine cellar. Everything after that seemed just a strange dream to her, fleeting images of irrational moments. Now, in concentrating with all her willpower, she remembered Kierkan Rufo's advances and her punishing him severely for them. Danica remembered even more vividly the block of stone, the exploding flashes of pain, and her own refusal to admit the futility of her attempt.
Danica did not dare to let her imagination conjure images of the state of the library if the druid's words were true, if this same curse was general throughout the place. She focused her thoughts instead on a more personal level, on Cadderly and his quest down in the dusty, dangerous cellars.
"We must go and help him," she declared, renewing her struggles against the stubborn vines.
"No," said Newander. "We are to stay here, by Cadderly's own bidding."
"No," Danica stated flatly, shaking her head. "Of course Cadderly would say that, trying to protect me-and it seems I needed protecting, until a few moments ago. Cadderly and the dwarves might need us, and I'll not lie here under your vines while he walks into danger."
Newander was about to question her on why she thought there might be danger in the cellars, when he recalled Cadderly's own morbid descriptions of the haunted place.
"Have your plants let me go, Newander, I beg" Danica appealed to the druid. "You can remain here if you choose, but I must go to Cadderly's side quickly, before this cursing mist regains its hold on me!"
Her last statement, that the curse might fall back over her, only reinforced Newander's logical conclusion that she should be kept under tight control, that her reprieve from the curse, if that was what this was, might be a temporary thing. But the druid could not ignore the determination in the young woman's voice. He had heard stories of the remarkable Danica from many sources since his arrival at the library and he did not doubt that she would be a powerful ally to Cadderly if she could remain clear-headed. Still, the druid could not underestimate the curse's power-the evidence was too clear all about him- and the choice to release her seemed a great risk.
"What have you to gain by keeping me here?" Danica asked, as though she had read the druid's thoughts. "A Cadderly is not in danger, then he will find and defeat the curse before I... we, can get to him. But if he and the dwarves have found danger, then they could surely use our help."
Newander waved his hands and whistled shrilly to the vines. They jumped to his call, releasing their hold on Danica and the bed, rolling back out the open window.
Danica stretched her arms and legs for many moments before she could bring herself to stand, and even then she got up quite unsteadily, needing Newander's support.
"Are you so certain that you are fit for walking?" the druid asked. "You suffered some serious wounds to the head."
Danica pulled roughly from his grasp and staggered to the middle of the room. There she began an exercise routine, falling more and more easily into the familiar movements. Her arms waved and darted in perfect harmony, each guiding the other to its next maneuver. Every now and again, one of her feet came whistling up in front of her, arcing high over her head.
Newander watched her tentatively at first, then smiled and nodded his agreement that the young woman had fully regained control of her movements, movements that seemed ever so graceful and appealing, almost animal-like, to the druid.
"We should be going, then," Newander offered, taking up his oaken staff and moving to the door.
Renewed sounds from Histra's room greeted them as they entered the hall. Danica glanced anxiously at Newander, then started for the priestess's door. Newander's hand clasped her shoulder and stopped her.
"The curse," the druid explained.
"But we must go to help," Danica started to retort, but she stopped suddenly as she recognized the connotations of those cries.
Danica's blush became a deep red, and she giggled in spite of the seriousness of the situation.
Newander tried to hurry her down the corridor and she did not resist. Indeed, it was Danica pulling the druid by the time they passed Histra's closed door.
Their first stop was Cadderly's room, and they entered just as Kierkan Rufo was pulling himself free from the last of Ivan's stubborn bindings.
Danica's eyes lit up at the sight. Vivid memories of Rufo prodding her and grabbing at her assaulted her thoughts, and a wave of sheer hatred, augmented by the red mist, nearly overwhelmed her.
"Where is Cadderly?" Danica demanded through clenched teeth.
Newander knew nothing of Rufo, of course, but the druid recognized immediately that Danica's feelings for the angular man were not positive.
Rufo twisted his wrist free and tore away from the bed. He averted his gaze, obviously not wanting to face Danica, or anyone else at that moment. Thoroughly wretched, the beaten man wanted only to crawl under his own bed in his own dark room. He had the misfortune, though, or the poor judgment, to walk near Danica on his way out of the room.
"Where is Cadderly?" Danica insisted again, stepping in Rufo's way.
Rufo sneered at her and swung a backhand that never got dose. Before Newander could begin to intervene, Danica had caught Rufo's wrist and used its own momentum, with a slight twist, to send the angular man lurching to the side. Newander heard the dull thud, though Danica's next movement had been too subtle to follow. The druid wasn't sure where Danica had hit the man, but from the curious way Rufo squealed and hopped up onto his toes, Newander could make a guess.
"Danica!" the druid cried, wrapping himself around Danica's arms and pulling her back from the tiptoeing man. "Danica," he whispered in Danica's ear. "It is the curse. Remember the curse? You must fight it, girl!"
Danica relaxed immediately and let Rufo slip by. The stubborn man couldn't resist the temptation to turn back as he passed and put one more sneer in Danica's face.
Danica's foot caught him on the side of the head and sent him tumbling out into the hall.
"I meant to do that," Danica assured Newander, making no struggles against his continuing hold,
"curse or no curse!"
The druid nodded resignedly; Rufo had asked for that one. He let Danica go as soon as he heard Rufo scramble away down the corridor.
"He is stubborn, that one," Newander remarked.
"Too true," said Danica. "He must have come in on Cadderly and the dwarves."
"Did you notice the bruises on his face?" said the druid. "It would seem that he did not fare too well in that fight."
Danica agreed quietly, thinking it best not to tell Newander that she was the one who had put most of those bruises on Rufo's face. "So Rufo did not slow them," Danica reasoned. "They have made their way to the cellars, and we must be quick to follow."
The druid hesitated.
"What is it?"
"I am afraid for you," Newander admitted, "and of you.
How free are you of the mist? Less than I was believing, by the look on your face when we came upon that one."
"I admit that, for all my efforts, the mist remains," replied Danica, "but your words brought me back under control, I assure you, even against Kierkan Rufo. My argument with him goes beyond this curse. I'll not forget the way he has stared at me, or what he tried to do to me." A suspicious look came into Danica's brown eyes, and she cautiously backed away from Newander. "Why is Newander, the druid, not affected by this thing? And what does Cadderly possess that frees him from the influences of the red mist?"
"As for myself, I know not," Newander replied immediately. "Your Cadderly believes I am free because there are no ridden desires in my heart, and because I came into the library after the curse had started. I knew that something was amiss here as soon as I went to my friends-perhaps that warning has allowed me to fend off the cursing effects."
Danica didn't seem convinced. "I am a disciplined warrior," she replied, "but the curse found its way into my thoughts easily enough, even just now, though I understand the dangers of it."
Newander shrugged, having no explanation. "That was your Cadderly's theory, not my own," he reminded her.
"What does Newander believe?"
Again the druid merely shrugged.
"For Cadderly," he said a moment later, "it was he who opened the bottle, and that alone might have saved him. Often in magical curses, the bringer of the curse does not feel its sting."
Danica didn't really appreciate the value of anything the druid had said, but the sincerity in Newander's voice was undeniable. She lowered her guard and walked out beside the man.
The kitchen still belonged to the gluttons. Several more had fallen in an overstuffed stupor, but others continued to wander about, pillaging the dwarves' well-organized cupboards.
Newander and Danica tried to keep their distance as they made their way toward the cellar door, but one fat priest took more than a passing interest in the beautiful young woman.
"Here's a tasty bit still to be tried" he slobbered between several thunderous belches. Rubbing his greasy fingers on his greasier robes, he started straight for Danica.
He had nearly reached her-and Danica thought she would have to clobber the man-when a pudgy hand grabbed him on the shoulder and roughly spun him about.
"Hold!" shouted Headmaster Avery. "What do you think you are about?"
The priest eyed Avery with sincere confusion, as did Danica, standing behind him.
"Danica," Avery explained to the man. "Danica and Cadderly! You keep away from her." Before the man could make any apologies, before Danica could try to calm Avery, the pudgy headmaster swung across with his other arm, holding a hefty leg of mutton, and cracked the offending priest on the side of the head. The man dropped in a heap and did not move.
"But, Headmaster ..." Danica began.
Avery cut her off. "No need to thank me," he said. "I watch out for my dear friend, Cadderly. And for his friends, too, of course. No need to thank me!" He wandered off without waiting for any reply, gorging on his mutton and searching for new stores to raid.
Danica and Newander started for the fallen man, but the priest awoke with a start and shook his head briskly. He wiped a hand across the mutton-wetted side of his head, smelled his fingers curiously for a moment when he realized the wetness was not his own blood, then began licking them wildly.
The two companions' relief when they reached the heavy, iron-bound cellar door dissipated as soon as they found the portal barred. Danica worked at the jam for a few moments, trying to discover the source of the lock, while the druid prepared a spell.
Newander spoke a few words-they sounded elvish to Danica-and the door groaned, as if in answer.
Wood planks warped and loosened and the whole door rattled to Danica's slightest touch.
When the druid's spell was completed, Danica went at the door more forcefully. It no longer fit neatly on any side, though the locking bar remained firmly in place behind it.
Danica spent a long moment in deep concentration, then lashed out with her open palm. Her blow would have dropped any man, but the door was very old, of ancient oak, and very thick, and the punch had little effect. This portal had been constructed for defense in the earliest days of the library. If a goblin raid ever overpowered the outside defenses, the priests could retreat to the cellars. It had only happened twice in the history of the library, and both times, the oaken door had stopped the intruders. Neither the flames of goblin torches, nor the weight of their crude battering rams had broken through, and now, Danica, for all her power and training, was simply overmatched.
"It appears that Cadderly and the dwarves will have to get the task finished without our help,"
Newander remarked grimly, though there was a hint of relief in his voice.
Danica was not so willing to surrender. "Outside," she ordered, starting back across the kitchen.
"There may be a window, or some other way down."
Newander did not think her hopes likely, but Danica hadn't asked for, or even waited to hear, his opinion. Reluctantly, the druid shrugged and ran to catch up with her.
They split up just outside the double doors, Danica searching along the base of the wall to the south, Newander going north. Danica had gone only a few steps when she was joined by a welcomed friend.
"Percival," the woman said happily, glad for the distraction as the white squirrel peered over the edge of the roof right above her, chattering excitedly. Danica knew immediately that something was bothering the squirrel, but while she could sometimes figure out the connotations of a few of Percival's basic cries, she could not begin to follow his wild stream of chatter.
"Oh, Percival!" she scolded loudly, interrupting the squirrel's banter. "I do not understand."
"Surely I do," said Newander, coming up quickly behind Danica. To the squirrel, he said, "Do continue," and he uttered a series of squeaks and clicks.
Percival began again at once, at such a pace that Newander was hard pressed to keep up.
"We may have found our way in," the druid announced to Danica when Percival had finished. "That is, if we can trust the beast."
Danica studied the squirrel for a brief moment, then vouched for him.
The first place Percival led them was the old work shed to the side of the library. As soon as they entered, they understood the squirrel's noisy introduction to the place, for the chains still hung from the ceiling near to the back wall and droplets of blood had spattered the floor beneath them.
"Mullivy?" Danica asked to no one in particular. Her question set Percival off on a new stream of gossip. Danica waited patiently for the squirrel to finish, then turned to Newander for a translation.
"This Mullivy," the druid asked, looking about with even more concern, "might he be the caretaker?"
Danica nodded. "He has been groundskeeper of the library for decades."
"Percival claims he was brought here by another man," the druid explained, "then they both went off to the hole."
"The hole?"
"Tunnel, he means, as best as I can figure," explained Newander. "All this happened several days ago, perhaps. Percival's grasp of time is weak. Still, it is remarkable that the squirrel can recall the incident at all. They are not known for long memories, you know."
Percival hopped down from the shelf and raced out the door as though he had taken exception to the druid's last remark. Danica and Newander rushed to follow, Danica pausing to collect a couple of torches that Mullivy had conveniently stocked in the work shed.
It seemed as if Percival was almost playing a deliberate game with them as they tried to follow his darting movements along the broken ground and rough underbrush south of the library. At last, after many wrong turns, they caught up to the squirrel along a ridge. Below them, under an overhang thick with brush, they saw the ancient tunnel, heading into the mountain in the general direction of the library.
"This might not get us anywhere near the cellars we are seeking," Newander offered.
"How long will it take us to get through the door in the kitchen?" Danica asked, mostly to remind the druid of their lack of options. To accentuate her point, she led Newander's gaze to the west, where the sun was already disappearing behind the high peaks of the Snowflakes.
Newander took a torch from her, uttered a few words, and produced a flame in his open palm. The fire did not burn the druid, but it lit the torch, and then lit Danica's torch, easily enough before Newander extinguished it.
They walked in side by side, taking note that there were indeed prints in the dust on the tunnel floor-boot prints, possibly, though most were scraped away in a manner that neither of them could explain.
Neither of them realized that zombies dragged their feet when they walked.