The Cleric Quintet: Canticle

Oh, Brother, Me Brother

 
"Me brother!" Ivan wailed, falling over Pikel's prostrate form. "Oh, me brother!" The dwarf sniffled and wept openly, cradling Pikel's head in his hands.
Cadderly had no words to comfort Ivan. Indeed, the young scholar was nearly as overcome as the dwarf. Pikel had been a dear friend, always ready to listen to Cadderly's latest wild idea, and always adding an emphatic "Oo oi!" just to make Cadderly feel good.
Cadderly had never known the pangs of a friend's death. His mother had died when he was very young, but he didn't remember that. He saw the priests of Ilmater and the dead gluttons in the kitchen, but they were only faces to him, distant and unknown. Now, looking at dear Pikel, he didn't know how he should feel. didn't know what he could do. It seemed a macabre game, and for the very first time in his life, Cadderly understood that some things were beyond his power to control or change, that all his rationale, his intelligence, in the final estimation seemed just a minor thing.
"Ye should've been a druid," Ivan said quietly. "Ye always were better under the sky than the stone." Ivan let out a great cry and buried his head in Pikel's chest, his shoulders shuddering uncontrollably.
Cadderly could understand the dwarfs pain, but he was shocked nonetheless that Ivan was so openly emotional. The priest wondered if something was wrong with him for not falling over Pikel as Ivan had done, or if Ivan's love for his brother was so much greater than his own feelings for the dwarf. Cadderly kept his wits about him; no matter how agonizing Pikel's death was, if they did not move on and close the bottle, many others would share a similar fate.
"We must go," Cadderly said softly to Ivan.
"Shut yer mouth!" Ivan roared, on the verge of an explosion, never taking his gaze from his brother.
The response caught Cadderly by surprise, but again he did not understand the nature of grief, did not know if it was Ivan who was acting out of sorts or if he was. When the dwarf finally did look back at him, tears streaked his contorted face and Cadderly feared that he knew what was going on.
"The curse," he muttered breathlessly. As far as he could tell, this red mist worked to exaggerate one's emotions. Apparently the curse had found a hold in Ivan's sincere grief, a chink in the tough dwarfs magic-resistant constitution.
Cadderly feared that it was taking hold of Ivan. The dwarfs blubbering increased with each passing moment; he could hardly draw breath, so violent was his weeping.
"Ivan," he said quietly, moving over to put a hand on the dwarfs shoulder. "We can do no more for Pikel. Come away now. We have other business to attend."
Ivan snapped an angry glare on Cadderly and smacked his hands away. "Ye're wanting me to leave him?" the dwarf cried. "Me brother! Me dead brother! No, I'm not going, never going. I'll stay by me brother's side. Stay here and keep me Pikel druid warm!"
"He is dead, Ivan," Cadderly said through his own budding sniffles. "Gone. You cannot keep the warmth in his body. You cannot do anything for him"
"Shut yer mouth!" Ivan roared again, reaching for his axe. Cadderly thought the dwarf meant to chop him down, feared that Ivan blamed him for what had happened to Pikel, but Ivan never even found the strength to lift the heavy weapon and instead tumbled back down over Pikel.
Cadderly realized that he would get nowhere reasoning with the grieving dwarf, but Ivan's outburst incited other ideas in the young scholar. There was one emotion that could overrule even grief, and Ivan seemed all too willing to let that emotion take charge.
"You can do nothing," Cadderly said again, "but repay the one who did this to Pikel."
Suddenly Cadderly had Ivan's full attention.
"He is down here, Ivan," Cadderly prodded, though he didn't like leading the dwarf on like this.
"Pikel's killer is down here."
"The imp!" Ivan roared, looking around wildly for the creature.
"No," Cadderly replied, "not the imp, but the imp's master."
"The imp's what poisoned me brother!" Ivan protested.
"Yes, but the imp's master brought the imp, and the curse, and all the evil that led to Pikel's demise," replied Cadderly. He knew he was taking license in drawing such conclusions, but if he could get Ivan moving, then it would be worth the deceit. "If we can defeat the master, then the imp and all the evil will follow.
"The master, Ivan," Cadderly said again, "he who brought the curse."
"Ye brought the curse," Ivan snarled, fingering his two-headed axe again and eyeing Cadderly suspiciously.
"No," Cadderly quickly corrected, seeing his conniving tactics taking an entirely different light.
"I played an unfortunate role in its release, but I did not bring it. There is one down here-there must be-who brought the curse and sent the skeletons and the imp down here after us, down here to kill your brother!"
"Where is he?" Ivan cried, springing up from Pikel and clasping his heavy axe in both hands.
"Where's me brother's killer?" The dwarfs eyes darted all about wildly, as if he expected some new monster to appear at any moment.
"We must find him," Cadderly prodded. "We can go back the way we came, back into the tunnels I remember."
"Go back?" The idea didn't seem to please Ivan.
"Just until I remember the way, Ivan," Cadderly explained, "then we'll go forward, to the room with the cursed bottle, to where we shall find your brother's killer." He could only hope his words were true and that Ivan would relax by the time they found the room.
"Forward!" Ivan yelled, and he scooped up one of the barely glowing torches, whipped it about frantically to refuel the flame, and stormed off back the way they had come. Cadderly checked to make certain that he had all of his belongings, said a final good-bye to Pikel, and ran to catch up.
They had not gone far when they came upon the first group of skeletons, five monsters wandering down a side passage. The disoriented skeletons, refugees from Druzil's disastrous battle, made no move to attack, but Ivan, blind with rage, turned on them with a fury that Cadderly had never before imagined.
"Ivan, no," Cadderly pleaded, seeing the dwarfs intent. "Let them alone. We have more important
..."
Ivan never heard him. The dwarf let out a roar and a snarl and rushed at the skeletons. The two closest turned to meet the charge, but Ivan overwhelmed them. He launched a mighty side cut with his axe that cleaved one in half, then shifted the weapon's momentum as it whirled behind him and drove it straight over his head, coming down on top of the second skeleton with enough force to shatter the monster.
Ivan let go of the weapon, entangled once more in bones, and caught the third skeleton with his deer-homed helmet, lifting the monster dear of the ground, shaking it wildly for a moment, then slamming it into the wall. The attack damaged the skeleton, but it also dislodged Ivan's helmet.
The clawing fingers of the fourth skeleton found an opening in the dwarfs defenses and dug into the back of his neck.
Cadderly came running down to help, readying his walking stick for a swing at Ivan's newest attacker. Before he could get into the fray, though, Ivan took things into Percival own hands. He reached around and caught the skeleton by its bony wrist, then pulled and spun for all his life.
Cadderly dove for the ground, nearly sliced by the flying skeleton's legs and feet. Ivan picked up momentum in Percival twirl and soon had the skeleton spinning straight out at arms' length. He let the momentum build for a moment, then shuffled a step closer to a wall and let the bricks do Percival work. The skeleton slammed against them and broke apart and Ivan was left holding an unattached bone.
The last of the skeletons was on the dwarf then, and Ivan, dizzy and a bit disoriented, took the monster's first clawing hand squarely in the face. Again Cadderly started to help Percival friend, but one of the other skeletons was back up and closing, still bearing Ivan's helmet entangled in its ribs.
Ivan slammed a forearm into his attacker's ribs. The dwarf's stubby legs pumped wildly, driving the monster back toward a wall. When it pressed in, Ivan did not stop. His every muscle tensed and then snapped, launching him forward and bringing the only weapon he had available, his forehead, to bear.
He slammed the skeleton in the face, and the creature's skull exploded in the crush between the rock wall and the dwarfs equally tough head. Bits of bone popped out to the sides, other pieces were ground into dust, and Ivan bounced back, Percival head badly gashed. .
Cadderly smacked at the remaining monster with Percival walking stick and snapped Percival spindle-disks into its face once and then again. The stubborn creature came on, slashing its bony fingers and forcing Cadderly into retreat. Soon, though, Cadderly felt the wall at his back and had nowhere left to run.
One hand had latched firmly onto Cadderly's shoulder. The other slashed at his face. He got his own hand up to block but found himself helplessly pinned with the bony fingers digging deeper into His flesh. He tried desperately to hook the skeleton's arm under his own, to twist it around and break the monster's grasp, but Cadderly's attack was designed to twist muscles and tendons and inflict such pain on an attacker as to disable him. Skeletons had no muscles or tendons and felt no pain.
Cadderly put his one free hand against the skeleton's face and tried to push it away-and got a wicked bite on the wrist for his efforts.
Then the skeleton's head disappeared in an instant, went flying away. Cadderly didn't understand until Ivan's second axe chop, a downward cut, destroyed the skeletal body.
Cadderly leaned back against the wall and clutched at his bloodied wrist. He simply dismissed his own pain a moment later, thinking his wounds minor indeed when he looked upon Ivan.
Pieces of skull bone were embedded in the dwarfs forehead. Blood ran freely down Ivan's face, along the sides of his neck, and from numerous cuts on his gnarly hands. Even more horrifying, a skeleton's broken rib bone stuck out from the side of the dwarfs abdomen. Cadderly could not tell how deeply the bone had gone, but the wound seemed wicked indeed and he was truly amazed that the dwarf was still standing.
He reached for Ivan, meaning to support his friend, fearing that Ivan would topple.
Ivan roughly slapped his hand away. "No time for coddling," the dwarf barked. "Where's the one that killed me brother?"
"You need help," Cadderly replied, horrified by his friend's condition. "Your wounds ..."
"Forget them," Ivan retorted. "Get me to the one that killed me brother!"
"But Ivan," Cadderly continued to protest. He pointed to the skeletal rib.
Ivan's eyes did widen when he noticed the ghastly wound, but he only shrugged his shoulders, reached down to grasp the bone, and pulled it free, casually tossing it aside as though he hadn't even noticed the several inches of bloodstains upon it. Ivan's attitude was similarly uncaring when he tried to put his helmet back on, only to find that the embedded bones blocked him from seating it correctly on his head. He plucked a few chips from his forehead, then, with a grunt, forced the helmet into place.
Cadderly could only assume that the cursing mist had increased the dwarfs rage to a point where Ivan simply did not acknowledge pain. He knew that dwarves were a tough lot, Ivan more than most, but this was beyond belief.
"Ye said ye'd take me to him!" Ivan roared, and his words rang like a threat in Cadderly's ears.
"Ye said ye'd find the way!" In a move of concession, Ivan reached up and tore off Cadderly's cloak and used it to quickly tie off his wound.
Cadderly had to be satisfied with that. He knew that the best he could do for everybody, Ivan included, was to find and dose the smoking bottle as quickly as he could. Only then would the enraged dwarf allow Cadderly or anyone else to tend to his injuries.
Only then, but Cadderly was not so certain that Ivan would make it that far.
They soon came back to the original areas where they had encountered the undead monsters. All was quiet now, deathly still, giving Cadderly the opportunity to carefully reconstruct his first passage through. He thought that he was making some progress, leading Ivan down several adjoining passages, when he noticed some movement far down one hall, at the very edge of his narrow light beam.
Ivan noticed it, too, and he set off at once. his grief for his dead brother transferred again into uncontrollable battle lust.
Cadderly fumbled with his bandolier and tried futility to keep up with the dwarf, pleading with Ivan to let this enemy go.
It was a single skeleton this time, wandering aimlessly at first, but then coming straight in at the charging dwarf.
Cadderly came to a very important decision at that moment.
He held his light beam in one hand and his loaded crossbow in the other, lining both up between the horns of the dwarfs helmet at the skeletal face beyond. Cadderly had never intended his custom-designed crossbow to be used as a weapon, especially not while firing the exploding darts. He had designed the bow for opening locked doors, or blasting away troublesome tree branches that scraped against his window, or a variety of other nonviolent purposes. Also, he had to admit, he had designed the crossbow and the bolts in part for the simple challenge of designing them. But Cadderly had vowed to himself, as much as an excuse as anything else, never to use the darts or the bow as a weapon, never to unleash the concentrated violence of the explosive darts against a living target.
The arguments in this instance were many, of course. Ivan could ill afford another fight, even against a single skeleton, and the skeleton, after all, was not really a living creature. Still, Cadderly's guilt hovered over him as he took aim. He knew that he was breaking the spirit of his vow.
He fired. The bolt arced over Ivan's head and crashed into the charging skeleton's face. The initial impact wasn't so great, but then the dart collapsed, setting off the oill of impact. When the dust cleared a moment later, the skeleton's head and neck were gone.
The headless bones stood a moment longer, then dropped with a rattle.
Ivan, just a few strides away, stopped abruptly and stared in amazement, his jaw hanging open and his dark eyes wide. He turned slowly back to Cadderly, who only shrugged apologetically and looked away.
"It had to be done," Cadderly remarked, more to himself than to Ivan.
"And ye did it well!" Ivan replied, coming back down the passage. He clapped Cadderly on the back, though Cadderly did not feel heroic in the least.
"Let us go on," Cadderly said quietly, slipping the crossbow back into its wide and shallow sheath.
They crossed under another low archway, Cadderly beginning to believe that they were again on the right path, and then came to a fork in the dusty passage. Two tunnels ran out from the one, parallel and very near together. Cadderly thought for a moment, then started down the right side.
He went only a few steps, though, before he recognized his location more clearly. He backtracked, ignoring Ivan's grumbling, and moved at a determined pace down the left passage. This corridor went on for just a short distance, then angled farther to the left and opened into a wider passage.
Standing sarcophagi filled the alcove in this passage, confirmation to Cadderly that he had chosen the right path. A few steps in and beyond a slight bend, he knew beyond doubt. Far in front of them, at the end of the passage, loomed a door, cracked open and with light shining through.
"That the place?" Ivan demanded, though he had already guessed the answer. He started off before Cadderly nodded in reply.
Again Cadderly tried futility to slow the dwarfs charge, desiring a more cautious approach. He was just a couple of steps behind Ivan when the last sarcophagus swung open and a mummy stepped out to block the way. Too enraged to care, Ivan continued on undaunted, but Cadderly no longer followed.
The young scholar was frozen with fear, stricken by the sheer evilness of the powerful undead presence. The skeletons had been terrifying, but they seemed only minor inconveniences next to this monster.
"Irrational," Cadderly tried to tell himself. It was acceptable to be afraid, but ridiculous to let that fear paralyze him in so urgent a situation.
"Outta me way!" Ivan roared, bearing in. He chopped viciously with his axe, scoring a hit, but, unlike the battle against the skeletons, the weapon met stiff resistance this time. The mummy's thick wraps deflected much of the blow's force, and pieces of the linen came unraveled, snarling the axe-head and preventing Ivan from following through.
The hit hardly hindered the mummy. It clubbed with its arm, catching Ivan on the shoulder and sending him spinning into the nearest alcove. He crashed heavily and nearly swooned but stubbornly, unsteadily, forced himself back to his feet.
The mummy was waiting for him. A second hit knocked the dwarf down to his back.
That would have been the end of Ivan Bouldershoulder had it not been for Cadderly. His first attack was almost inadvertent, for the mummy, in going after Ivan, crossed the direct, narrow beam of Cadderly's fight tube. A creature of the night, of a dark and lightless world, Khalif was neither accustomed to, nor tolerant of, brightness of any kind.
Seeing the mummy recoil and lift its scabrous arm to block the beam restored a bit of composure in Cadderly. He kept the fight focused on the monster, forcing it back from Ivan, while he nimbly loaded another dart with his free hand. Cadderly held no reservations about using his crossbow on this monster; the mummy was simply too hideous for his conscience to argue.
Still shielding its eyes, the mummy advanced on Cadderly, slapping at the beam of fight with every sliding step.
The first dart buried itself deeply into the mummy's chest before exploding, and the blast sent the monster back a couple of steps and left scorch marks both front and back on the creature's linen wrappings. If it had suffered any serious damage, though, the mummy didn't show it, for it came on again.
Cadderly scrambled to reload the crossbow. His design had been good, fortunately, and the crank was not difficult to execute. A second dart joined the first, again driving the monster backward.
The mummy came on again, and again after Cadderly had shot it a third time, and each time its stubborn advance brought it a step or two closer to the frantic young man. The fourth shot proved disastrous to Cadderly, for the dart's initial momentum drove it right through the mummy without ever igniting the magical oil. The mummy hardly slowed and Cadderly nearly held the crossbow right against its filthy wrappings when he fired his fifth shot.
This time the dart had more effect, but again it only slowed, and did not stop, the monster.
Cadderly had no time to load another dart.
"Coming!" slurred Ivan as he crawled from the alcove.
Cadderly doubted that the dwarf could help him, even if Ivan could reach the monster in time, which he obviously couldn't. The young scholar knew, too, that neither of his conventional weapons, spindle-disks or walking stick, could hurt this monster.
He had just one weapon to use. He stuck the light tube out in front of him, slowing the mummy further, causing it to shield its eyes and half turn away from him, then he dropped his crossbow and reached with his free hand for the water skin hanging at his side. He grabbed it by the extended nozzle, tucked it tight under his arm, and used his thumb to pop off its gooey cap.
Cadderly squeezed with his arm, slowly and steadily sending a stream of the blessed water into his attacker's face.
The holy water sizzled as it struck the evilly enchanted monster and, for the first time in the battle, the mummy revealed its agony. It let out an unearthly, spine-chilling wail that filled Cadderly with fear and even stopped Ivan- temporarily. It was the proverbial bark with no bite, for while the mummy continued to advance, it purposely shied away from the man with the light beam and the stinging water. Soon it had passed Cadderly altogether, but it continued down the passage, roaring with pain and frustration, clubbing with its powerful arms against the walls, the sarcophagi, and anything else that got in its way.
Ivan came rushing past Cadderly, intent on resuming the battle.
"The man who killed your brother is behind the door!" Cadderly cried as quickly as he could, desperate to stop the dwarf this time. He couldn't know the truth of his claim, of course, but at that critical moment, he would have said anything to turn Ivan around.
Predictably, Ivan did wheel about. He let out a growl and charged back past Cadderly, forgetting all about the fleeing mummy, his unblinking eyes glued instead on the door at the end of the passage.
Cadderly saw disaster coming. He recalled the newly constructed wall in the wine cellar and the blasts that had followed Pikel's battering-ram charger He had to believe that this door might also be magically warded, and he saw that the door was heavy, iron-bound. If Ivan didn't get right through, but was held in the area of exploding glyphs...
Cadderly dove to the ground, pulling a dart and grabbing for his crossbow. In a single motion, he cocked it, fitted the bolt, and spun about, using his light beam to show him the target.
The dart passed Ivan just a stride from the door. It didn't hit the lock area directly but exploded with enough force to weaken the jam.
Surprised by the sudden blast, but unable to stop even if he chose to, Ivan barreled in.