The Cleric Quintet: Canticle

Face to Face

 
Ivan hit the loose-swinging door with a terrific impact, jolting it free of one of its hinges.
Cadderly's fears were proved true, for several fiery explosions went off in rapid succession as Ivan crossed the threshold. If the door had stopped, or even delayed his charge, he would have been roasted.
As it was, Cadderly was not certain if the dwarf had survived. Ivan skidded into the room on his face, wisps of smoke rising from several points on his body. Cadderly rushed in right behind to get to his friend; he could only hope that no glyphs remained.
The young scholar didn't quite make it to Ivan, though. As soon as he entered the room, squinting in the brightness of the several torches and blazing brazier, he saw that he and Ivan were not alone.
"You have done well to come so far," Barjin said calmly, standing halfway across the room, beside the altar that held the ever-smoking bottle. Torches lined the wall to either side of the priest, but the brighter light came from a brazier along
the wall to Cadderly's right, which Cadderly correctly guessed was an interplanar gate.
"I applaud your resilience," Barjin continued, his tone teasing, "futile though it will prove."
Every memory came rushing back to Cadderly in clear order and focus when he saw Barjin. The first thought that crossed his mind was that he would go back up and have a few nasty words with Kierkan Rufo, the man who had, he believed, kicked him down the stairway from the wine cellar in the first place. His resolve to scold Rufo did not take firm hold, though, not when Cadderly considered the dangers before him. His eyes did not linger on the priest, but rather on the man standing next to Barjin.
"Mullivy?" he asked, though he knew by Mullivy's posture and the grotesque bend of his wrecked arm that this was not the groundskeeper he once had known.
The dead man did not reply.
"A friend of yours?" Barjin teased, draping an arm over his zombie. "Now he is my friend, too.
"I could have him kill you quite easily," Barjin went on. "But, you see, I believe I shall reserve that pleasure for myself." He removed the obsidian-headed mace from his belt, its sculpted visage that of a pretty young girl. Next, Barjin pulled on the conical hood hanging in back of his clerical robes. This fit over his head as a helmet might, with holes cut for Barjin's eyes.
Cadderly had heard about enchanted, protecting vestments and he knew that his nemesis was armored.
"For all your valiant efforts, young priest, you remain a minuscule thorn in my side," Barjin remarked. He took a step toward Cadderly but stopped suddenly when Ivan hopped back to his feet.
The dwarf shook his head vigorously, then looked about, as if seeing the room for the first time.
He glanced at Cadderly, then focused on Barjin. "Tell me, lad," Ivan asked, swinging his double-bladed axe up to a ready position on his shoulder, "is he the one who killed me brother?"
* * * * *
Aballister wiped a cloth over his sweaty brow. He could not bear to continue peering through his magical mirror, but he had not the strength to turn his eyes away. He had felt Barjin's urgency when first he sent his thoughts to the distant altar room, unable to hear his inability to contact his imp. Aballister worried for Druzil and for the cleric, though his fears for and of Barjin were double-sided indeed. For all of his ambiguity, though, for all of his fears of Barjin and the power gains his rival would enjoy, Aballister honestly believed he did not want to see Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror, fail.
Then the enemies had revealed themselves-himself, for Aballister hardly took note of the stumbling dwarf. It was the young scholar that held the wizard's thoughts, the tall and straight lad, twenty years old perhaps, with the familiar, inquisitive eyes.
Aballister sensed Barjin's mounting confidence and knew that the evil priest was back in control, that Barjin and Tuanta Quiro Miancay would not be defeated.
Somehow that notion seemed even more disturbing to the wizard. He stared hard and long at the young scholar, a boy really, who had come in bravely and foolishly to face his doom.
* * * * *
Cadderly nodded at Ivan. The dwarfs eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared back at the evil priest. "Ye shouldn't have done that," Ivan growled in a low and death-promising tone. He held his axe high and began a steady advance. "Ye shouldn't have-"
Waves of mental energy stopped Ivan in midsentence and midstep. Barjin's spell broke the dwarfs thought patterns, holding him firmly in place. Ivan struggled with all his mental strength and all the resistance a dwarf could muster, but Barjin was no minor spellcaster and this was his evilly blessed altar room, where his clerical magic was at its highest. Ivan managed a few indecipherable sounds, then stopped talking and moving altogether.
"Ivan?" Cadderly asked, his voice shaky as he suspected his companion's fate.
"Do keep talking," Barjin taunted. "The dwarf can hear your every word, though I assure you that he'll not respond."
Barjin's ensuing laughter sent shivers through Cadderly's bones. They had come so far and through so much. Pikel had died to get them here, and Ivan had taken a terrible beating. And now to fail.
Looking at this evil priest, with gruesome Mullivy standing obediently at his side, Cadderly knew that he was overmatched.
"You battled through my outer defenses, and for that you deserve my applause," Barjin continued,
"but if you believed my true power would be revealed to you out in the empty and meaningless corridors, then know your folly! Look upon me, foolish young priest-" he waved a hand to the ever-smoking bottle"-and look upon the agent of Talona that you yourself brought to life. Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror! "You should feel blessed, young priest, for your pitiful library is the first to feel the awesome power of the chaos that will dominate the region for centuries to come!"
At that awful moment, the threat did not sound so hollow in Cadderly's ears. Talona-he knew the name: the Lady of Poison, of disease.
"Did you expect to find the bottle unguarded?" Barjin laughed. "Did you think to stroll in here after defeating a few minor monsters and simply dose the flask that you yourself-" again the priest emphasized those painful words "-opened?"
Cadderly hardly heard the banter. His attention had gone to the bottle and the steady stream of pinkish mist that issued from it. He thought of loading his crossbow and putting an explosive dart into the bottle. Where would this Talona's agent be then? Cadderly wondered. But Cadderly feared that action, feared that to destroy the bottle would only release the evil agent, or whatever it was, in full.
His attention was stolen from the bottle suddenly, and he realized that the choice, if ever he had one, had passed. The evil priest strode casually toward him, his arm uplifted and holding a curious black mace, its head the image of a pretty young girl, an innocent face so very out of place atop a weapon, a face that strangely reminded Cadderly of Danica.
* * * * *
Aballister did not pause to consider his actions. His thoughts focused on the dwarf, standing rigid a few steps ahead of the young man. The wizard summoned all of his powers, sent a spell into the magic mirror and across the miles, tried to use the scrying device as a magical gate for his focused magical energies.
The mirror's own dweomer, not designed for such uses, resisted the attempt. It could be used to see distant places, to converse with viewed creatures, even to transport Aballister to those places viewed, but Aballister tried to carry that ability farther now, to send not only his thoughts or physical being but his magical energy flowing to the rigid dwarf.
It would have been a difficult enough task, even for a wizard as powerful as Aballister, if the attempt had been made on a human, but Ivan, though fully in the throes of Barjin's paralyzing spell, fought back with typical dwarven stubbornness against the wizard's intrusions.
Aballister gritted his teeth and focused his concentration. Veins stood out on his forehead; he thought the toll of the attempt would destroy him, but Barjin was close to the young man now-too dose!-the awful mace held high.
Aballister put his lips right up against the mirror and whispered, hoping that the dwarf alone would hear, "Let me in, you fool!"
* * * * *
Barjin came on, smiling wickedly, victoriously. Cadderly gave him every reason for confidence, offering no outward sign of resistance. The young scholar did have his ram's head walking stick in one hand, but he hadn't even lifted it yet.
In truth, Cadderly had decided on another defense, the only one he believed could slow this imposing priest. His free hand clenched and unclenched at his side, tightening the muscles, straightening a single finger for the coming strike. He had seen, and keenly felt, Danica do this a dozen times.
Barjin was only a step away, moving cautiously now for fear that Cadderly would take a swipe at him with the walking stick.
Cadderly kept its butt end firmly to the ground. Barjin maneuvered to the side, away from the weapon, and swung his mace in a teasing cut. Cadderly easily stepped back, though his concentration nearly faltered when he saw the mace's head transform into the leering, open-mouthed visage of some unearthly monster, fanged and hungry.
He kept his wits enough to retaliate, though, and with Barjin expecting him to strike with the walking stick, Percival hand got through the cleric's defenses.
Cadderly drove his finger powerfully into Barjin's shoulder. He knew that he had hit the precise spot, just as Danica had so often done to him. A look of sincere confusion crossed the evil priest's face, and Cadderly nearly squealed in glee. "Withering Touch!" he proclaimed. While Barjin was indeed confused, his arm, and the cruel mace at the end of it, did not fall limply to his side.
Cadderly was confused as well, and he barely reacted, at the very last instant, as Barjin's mace whipped in with more determination. Cadderly turned and dove, but the weapon clipped his shoulder, the evilly contorted face biting a deep gash. Cadderly had intended to roll back to his feet a short distance away, but the hit put him off balance and he crashed heavily instead into one of the room's many bookcases.
The wound itself was not too severe, but the frozen waves of agony rolling through the young scholar's body most certainly were. Cadderly shuddered and trembled, hardly able to comprehend, hardly able to focus through the dizzy blur. He knew that he was doomed, knew that he could never recover in time to parry or dodge the priest's next attack.
"-killed me brother!" he heard Ivan roar, right where the dwarf had left off, and then he heard Barjin yelp in surprise.
Ivan's axe pounded into the priest's back, a blow that would have felled any man, but Barjin was protected. His magical vestments absorbed the brunt of the bit; the priest didn't even lose his breath. He wheeled about, swiping with Percival mace in response.
Skilled and seasoned, Ivan Bouldershoulder was ready. From just his single attack, he realized that the priest was somehow powerfully armored. Barjin's blow cut harmlessly short, and Ivan stepped in behind it, hooked one head of his weapon under Barjin's shoulder, and heaved with all his strength, sending Barjin tumbling head over heels back toward the altar in the center of the room.
Ivan dropped his weapon's head to the ground and clasped his legs about its handle so that he could spit into his hands before continuing. The priest had a wicked weapon and nearly invulnerable armor, but the fiery dwarf had no doubts as to how this fight would end. "You shouldn't have killed me brother," Ivan muttered one more time, then he grabbed his axe and moved in to finish the work.
Barjin had other ideas. He had no time to ponder how the dwarf might have broken free from his binding spell, and it didn't really matter anyway. Barjin understood the fury in this formidable foe, a curse-enhanced rage that more than evened the odds, but Barjin didn't play with even odds.
He scrambled over to the wall behind Mullivy. "Kill the dwarf!" he instructed his zombie, and he pulled a burning torch from its sconce and touched it to Mullivy's shoulder. The zombie's oil-soaked clothing ignited immediately, but Barjin's protective spell did not fail. While the flames consumed the oill and Mullivy's clothes, the zombie's body was quite unharmed.
Ivan's startled response as the flaming zombie bore down on him would have made Pikel proud: "Oo oi!"
Cadderly started to rise, but the continuing, debilitating chilling bite of his wound sent him spiraling back to the floor. He tried to shake away the pain, tried to find some focus.
He saw Ivan swiping wildly but sorely missing his mark as the dwarf steadily backed away from the fiery zombie. Mullivy's advance showed no concern for the dwarfs meager attacks. Cadderly heard the evil priest laughing, somewhere back by the altar, by the cursing bottle. The priest would get Ivan, even if the naming zombie did not, Cadderly knew. Then the priest would get him, and then this Most Fatal Horror, this evil agent of an evil goddess, would win over the Edificant Library fully and destroy everything the young scholar valued.
"No!" Cadderly managed to cry, multiplying his concentration tenfold.
The devilish mace had done its work well, even in a glancing blow on Cadderly's shoulder. The mace had a life of its own, an inner and foul energy spawned somewhere in the lowest pits of hell.
Cadderly continued to battle against its stunning touch, tried to realign his physical control with his mental determination, but his body didn't heed to his commands; there remained a long road to travel.
* * * * *
Nothing rose to hinder the three companions' progress, and Percival appeared quite adept at following Cadderly's trail. They came through several passageways, always slowing to peer into the nearest alcoves and ensure that no monsters waited to spring out.
Pikel grew steadier with each passing step but seemed distracted, introspective. Danica could appreciate his somber mood; he had just passed through death and returned. What tales might the enlightened dwarf tell? Danica wondered. When she questioned him about the experience, though he said only, "Oo," and would not elaborate.
At many places, they could confirm that Percival was leading them correctly. Three-way alcoves, thick with webbing on one side, had been burned clear on the other.
Soon the party came to a fork in the tunnel. Hardly hesitating, Percival scampered off down the right-hand side.
Sounds of battle, not far off, echoed in their ears.
The squirrel stopped suddenly and chattered excitedly, but his squeaks and chirps were lost in the sudden commotion. Pikel, Danica, and Newander heard the fighting, and none of them stopped to listen to the squirrel's banter. The noise came from farther down the tunnel; that was all they needed to know. Off they charged, the dwarf no longer introspective, but head down and running to his brother's aid, and Danica and the druid no less determined to help their friends.
When they came to the altar room wall, they heard Ivan growling about some "flaming hunk of walking kindling," and understood their error. While the words were clear, the path certainly was not. No doors lined this section of the passage, just blank wall.
Percival came up chattering and scolding.
"We have come the wrong way, so says the squirrel!" Newander told them. "The path tracks back to the left!"
Danica nodded. "Run, then!" she cried.
She and Newander started away, but both stopped abruptly to regard Pikel, who was not following.
The agitated dwarf hopped up and down, stubby legs pumping rapidly, his whole body building into a tremendous tremble.
"Me brudder!" Pikel cried, and he lowered both his head and his tree trunk and burst forward into the brick wall.