The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks

Chapter Fifteen

 
Mentor
urn it back," Danica pleaded, her voice edged in desperation, her hands trembling at her sides.  Cadderly stared helplessly at his squirrelUke I limbs, without the slightest idea of how to begui
JL to reverse the process. "I cannot," he admitted, as much to himself as to Danica. He looked helplessly to her, his gray eyes wide with disbelief and horror.
"I cannot."
Danica moved to him, or tried to, until the pain in her side sent her lurching over. She grasped at the bloody wound in her abdomen just above her hip, and slumped to one knee.
Stubbornly, Danica got back to her feet, one hand held out in front of her to keep her concerned lover at bay.
"That must be tended," Cadderfy pleaded.
"With squirrel arms?" Danica's retort stung the young priest more than she had intended. "Turn your arms and legs back to human, Cadderly. I beg you."
Cadderly stared long and hard at his limbs, feeling deceived, feeling as though his god, or the magic, had led him astray. Danica stood before him, needing him, and he, with the limbs of a rodent, could do nothing for her.
The young priest searched his memory, let page after page of the Tome of Universal Harmony flip through his thoughts in rapid succession. Nothing openly hinted at what he had done, at this transformation, miraculous and damning, that he had somehow brought upon himself.
But while Cadderly found no direct answers, he did begin that distant harmony, that sweet, inspiring song where all the mysteries of existence drifted past him, waiting to be grasped and deciphered. The song rang out a single word to the young priest, the name of the one person who might help him make sense of it all.
"Pertelope?" Cadderly asked blankly.
Danica, still grimacing, stared at him.
"Pertelope," he said again, more firmly. He turned his gaze to Danica, his breath coming in short gasps. "She knows."
"She knows what?" the young woman asked, wincing with every word.
"She knows," was all Cadderly could answer, for in truth, he did not really know what information the headmistress might have for him. He sensed only that the song was not tying to him, was not leading him astray.
"I must go to her."
"She is at the library," Danica argued. "It will take you three . . ."
Cadderly stopped her with an outstretched palm. He closed his mind to the stimuli around him and focused on the song again, felt it flow across the miles, calling him to step into it. Cadderly fell in with the tune, let it carry him along. The world became a dreamscape, surreal, unreal. He saw the gates of Carradoon and the western road leading into higher ground. Mountain passes zipped along beneath his consciousness, then he saw the library fast approaching, came upon the ivy-strewn walls and passed right through them ... to Pertelope's room.
Cadderly recognized the tapestry on the back wall, to the side of the bed, the same one he had stolen so that Ivan could use it in making a replica of the drew crossbow.
"I have been waiting for you to come to me," he heard Pertelope say. The image of the room shifted and there sat the headmistress on the edge of her bed, dressed as always in her long-sleeved, high-necked black gown. Her eyes widened as she regarded the presence, and Cadderly understood that she saw him, with his rodent limbs, though he had left his corporeal form far behind.
"Help me," he pleaded.
Pertelope's comforting smile fell over him warmly.
"You have found Affinity? the headmistress explained, "a powerful practice, and not without its dangers."
Cadderly had no idea what Pertelope was talking about. Affinity? He had never heard the word used in such a way.
"The song is playing for you," Pertelope remarked, "often without your bidding." Cadderly's face revealed his startlement.
"I knew it would," Pertelope continued. "When I gave you the Tome of Universal Harmony, I knew the song would begin to play in your mind, and I knew that you would soon find the means to decipher the mysteries hidden within its notes."
"I have not" Cadderly protested. "I mean, things are happening around me, and to me" - he looked helplessly at his own limbs, translucent replicas of his corporeal form -  "but they are not of my doing, not of my control."
"Of course they are," Pertelope replied, drawing his attention away from his polymorphed limbs. "The book is the conduit to the magical energy bestowed through the power of Deneir. You summon and guide that energy. It comes to your call and bends to your will."
Cadderly looked down helplessly, and doubtingly, at his deformed body. He knew Pertelope could see his problem, and wondered if Danica could as well, back on the rooftop in Carradoon. Those squirrel limbs flew in the face of what the headmistress was saying, for if Cadderly could control the magic, as Pertelope insisted, then why had he remained half a rodent?
"You have not learned complete control," the headmistress said to him, as though she had read his mind, "but you are still a novice, after all, untrained and with mighty powers at your fingertips."
"Powers from Deneir?" Cadderly asked.
"Of course," answered Pertelope coyly, as though Cad-derly's next remark would come as no shock whatsoever to her.
"Why would Deneir grant me such powers?" the young priest asked. "What have I done to warrant such a gift?"
Pertelope laughed at him. "You are his disciple."
"I am not!" Cadderly said, and he gave a horrified expression, realizing that he had offered that admission to a headmistress of his order.
Again, Pertelope only laughed. "feu are, Cadderly," she said, "feu are a true disciple of our god, and of Oghma, the brother god, as well. Do not measure fealty in terms of rituals and attendance to duties. Measure it by what lies in your heart, by your morals and your love. You are a scholar, in all your inquisitive mind and in all your heart, a blessed scholar. That is the measure of fealty to Deneir."
"Not according to Avery," Cadderly argued. "How often he has threatened to throw me out of the order altogether for my indiscretions concerning those rituals you so quickly dismiss!"
"He could not throw you out of any order," Pertelope replied. "One cannot be 'thrown out' of a religious calling."
"Religious calling?" Cadderly replied. "If that is what you must label it, then I fear I was never in the order to begin with. I have no calling."
"That's absurd," replied Pertelope. "You are as attuned with the precepts of Deneir as any person I have ever met. That, my young priest, is what constitutes a religious calling! Do you doubt the powers you have begun to unlock?"
"Not the powers," Cadderly replied with typical stubbornness, "but their source."
"It is Deneir."
"So you say," answered Cadderly, "and so you are free to believe."
"You will, too, in time. You are a priest of Deneir, a follower of a god who demands independence, the exercise of free will, and the exercise of intellect," Pertelope continued, again as though she had read Cadderly's mind. He had to wonder if Pertelope hadn't played through this scenario herself many years ago.
"You are supposed to question - to question everything, even the existence of the gods and the purpose of being alive," Pertelope continued, her hazel eyes taking on a faraway, mystical look. "If you would follow blindly from ritual to ritual, you would be no better than the cattle and sheep that dot the fields around Carradoon.
"Deneir does not want that," Pertelope went on, calmly, comfortingly, and looking directly back at the frightened young priest. "He is a god for artists and poets, freethinkers all, else their work would be no more than replicas of what others have deemed ideal. The question, Cadderly, is stronger than the answer. It is what accomplishes growth - growth toward Deneir."
Somewhere deep inside, Cadderly prayed that Pertelope was speaking truthfully, that the apparent wisdom of her words wasn't just the feeble hope of one as confused and desperate as he.
"You have been chosen," Pertelope went on, bringing the conversation back to more concrete terms. "You hear the song and will come, over time, to decipher more and more of its notes, to better understand yoy ilace in this confusing experience that we call life."
"I am a wizard."
"No!" It was the first time the he? peared angry during the conversation, did not immediately reply. "Your maf nature," Pertelope asserted. "Have yond those enchantments you priests casting" my's face.
Cadderly thought long and hard. In truth, everything magical he had done in some way, at least, replicated clerical spells. Even this Affinity was not so different from the shape-changing abilities exhibited by the woodland priests, the druids. But still, his powers were different, Cadderly knew.
"I do not pray for these spells," he argued. "I do not get out of my bed in the morning with the notion that I should be able to create light this day, or that I will find need to turn my arms into a squirrel's paws. Nor do I pray to De-neir, at any time."
"You read the book," Pertelope reasoned, stealing Cad-derly's building momentum. "That is your prayer. As far as selecting spells and memorizing their particular chants and inflections, you have no need. You hear the song, Cadderly. You are one of the chosen, one of the few. I had suspected that fact for many years, and came to understand just a few weeks ago that you would take my place."
"What are you talking about?" Cadderly asked, his near-panic only intensified by the fact that Pertelope, as she spoke, had begun to unbutton her long gown. Cadderly gaped in amazement as the headmistress peeled the garment off, revealing a featureless torso covered by skin that resembled the hide of a shark, covered not with skin, but with sharp denticles.
"I was raised from childhood on the Sword Coast," the headmistress began wearily, "near the sea. My father was a fisherman, and often I would go out with him to tend the nets. You see, I found affinity with the shark, as you have with squirrels - with Percival in particular. I came to marvel at the graceful movements, at the perfection of that oft-maligned creature.
"I already explained to you that Affinity is a practice that
is not without its dangers," Pertelope went on, giving a
TiioqpU, ironic chuckle. "You see, I, too, fell prey to the cha-
ing! Dtrse. Under its influences, I assumed my affinity with
"Not tiie safety, no practical restraints at all." bornness, "buttced to think that this wonderful woman, always a dear friend to him, had suffered by the curse that he had brought upon the library.
There was no malice, no blame, edging Pertelope's voice as she continued.
"The change I enacted is permanent," she said, rubbing a hand along her arm, the denticles drawing several lines of blood on her human palm. "It is painful, too, for my whole body is part human and part fish. The very air is poison to me, as would be the waters of the wide sea. I have no place left in this world, my friend. I am dying."
"No!"
"Tfes," Pertelope replied easily. "I am not young, you know, and have labored long on this confusing path we call life. The curse killed me, do not doubt, and I have struggled to hang on for the very purpose that is before me this day. You, Cadderly, are my successor."
"I will not accept it."
"You cannot avoid it," answered the headmistress. "Once begun, the song never ends. Never."
The word sounded like the bang of a drum to Cadderly, suddenly terrified of what horrors he may have unlocked in the pages of that awful book.
"You will come to know the limitations of your powers," Pertelope went on. "And there are indeed limitations." She looked disconcertingly at her own destroyed arms as she spoke, making her point all too clear. "You are not invincible. You are not all-powerful. You are not a god."
" I never said - "
"Humility will be your preservation," Pertelope promptly, sharply interrupted. "Test the powers, Cadderly, but test them with respect. They will drain you and take a bit of you with them whenever you summon them. Exhaustion is your enemy, and know that enacting magic will inevitably weary the spellcaster. But know, too, that if Deneir has chosen you, he will demand of you."
Pertelope smiled warmly, revealing her confidence that Cadderly would be up to meeting the challenge.
No reciprocal smile found its way to Cadderly's face.
"Do you plan to go somewhere?" Ghost whispered to Bogo Rath, seeing the young wizard in the upstairs hall of the Dragon's Codpiece with a sack in hand. The assassin stepped out of Cadderly's room and motioned for Bogo to follow him to his own room.
"The city guard has been called," the wizard explained. "They will swarm all about this place."
"And find what?" Ghost replied with a snicker, thinking it an ironic statement, given that he had just deposited Brennan's body in Cadderly's room. "Certainly nothing to implicate either one of us."
"I hit the green-bearded dwarf with a lightning bolt," Bogo admitted.
"He did not see you," Ghost retorted. "If he had, you would be dead. Both he and his brother are up and about, downstairs with Fredegar. They would have come back for you long before this if the stupid dwarf suspected you had launched that magic."
Bogo relaxed a bit. "Did Cadderly and Danica get away?"
Ghost shrugged, unable to answer. He had seen little beyond the carnage left in the wake of the violence. "Temporarily, perhaps," he answered at length, and with as much conviction as he could muster. "But the Night Masks have been set on the trail now. They will not stop until the young priest is dead.
"Then I am free to return to Castle Trinity," Bogo reasoned hopefully.
"If you try to leave now, you will invite only suspicion," Ghost replied. "And if Cadderly has managed to elude the assassins, he will likely return here. This is still the best seat at the game, for those who have the courage to play to the end."
The last words sounded clearly like a threat.
"Aid the city guard in their investigation," Ghost continued, a sudden ironic smile crossing his features. He was the artist, he privately reminded himself, already weaving new webs of intrigue. "Tell them you possess some knowledge of magic, and that you believe a bolt of lightning was set off in the upstairs corridor. When the dwarf confirms your story, you will be viewed in a favorable light."
Bogo eyed the assassin doubtfully, even more so when he remembered that Kierkan Rufo was still about, carrying information that could certainly damn him.
"What is it?" Ghost asked, seeing his mounting concern.
"Rufo."
Ghost chuckled evilly. "He can say nothing without implicating himself. And he, by all of your descriptions, is too much a coward to do that."
"True enough," Bogo admitted, "but I am still not certain of our wisdom in remaining at the inn. We have underestimated Cadderiy and his friends, it would seem."
"Perhaps," Ghost said in reluctant agreement, "but do not complicate the error by overestimating the priest now. For all we know, Cadderly might lie dead in an alley."
Bogo hesitated, then nodded.
"Be gone," Ghost instructed, "back to your room, or to aid in the investigation, but say nothing to Rufo. Better that the cowardly priest be left alone to stew in his guilt and terror."
Again Bogo nodded and then was gone.
Ghost's confidence disappeared as soon as he was alone. This had been a complicated visit to Carradoon, had not been a clean kill. Even if Cadderly was dead, the toll had been horrendous, with more than half of the dedicated Night Mask band killed.
Ghost really was no longer sure that remaining at the Dragon's Codpiece would bode well for either himself or Bogo, but he feared the consequences of trying to slip away with the city guard, and two rambunctious dwarves, snooping around. He moved to his door and cracked it open an inch, curious to see what might be transpiring outside. He watched carefully for Rufo, thinking that if the treacherous priest made any dangerous moves, he might have to kiQ him.
No, it had not been without complications, but that was part of the fun of it all, was it not? It was a new challenge for the artist, an intricate landscape for the filling canvas.
Ghost smiled wickedly, taking comfort in the fact that he wasn't in any personal danger - not while he had the Ghearufu, and had Vander as a waiting and helpless host on the outskirts of town.
Cadderiy was relieved to see Danica still up and conscious when he rejoined his corporeal form on the rooftop beside the Dragon's Codpiece. The young woman's face remained contorted in pain. A crossbow quarrel protruded from her right side, hanging from skin and tunic and surrounded by a widening crimson stain.
Cadderiy did not immediately go to her. He dosed his eyes and forced the song back into his thoughts. The notes drifted past until Cadderiy recalled that part of the song, that page in the tome, he had been hearing back on the balcony when he had enacted the change to the squirrel form.
Danica whispered to him softly, sounding more concerned for his own safety than for her own. With some effort, Cadderiy pushed her words away, concentrated on the music. His mouth moved in silent prayer, and when he at last opened his eyes, Danica was straining to smile and his arms and legs were back to normal.
"You found your answers," the young woman remarked.
"Along with more questions," Cadderiy replied. He pulled his spindle-disks from their tight hold on his finger and tucked them away, then moved beside his love.
"You were speaking," Danica said to him, "but not to me. It sounded like half of a conversation, the other half - "
"Wfes with Pertelope," Cadderiy explained. "I, or at least my consciousness, was back in the library." He hardly noticed Danica's stare, was more interested in her sorely wounded side.
When he recalled the song this time, it sounded more distant to him, required more effort to get near it. Pertelope's warnings of exhaustion welled up in him, but he pushed his mounting fears away; Danica's health was more important.
Cadderiy focused on the dangling quarrel as much as on the wound it had caused; his thoughts were as much on destruction as on healing. His chant was uttered through gritted teeth.
Danica grunted and winced. Black smoke wafted from her wound. Soon a small cloud of the stuff covered her side.
The quarrel was his enemy, was Danica's enemy, Cadderiy determined. Poor Danica, dear Danica.
When the smoke dissipated, gone, too, were the crossbow quarrel and the wound.
Danica straightened and shrugged, not knowing how she could possibly thank Cadderiy for what he had done.
"Are you injured?" she asked, concerned.
Cadderiy shook his head and took her arm. "Wfe must be gone " he said, his tone absent, as though he was talking more to himself than to Danica. "We must go and sit together, privately, and try to sort through the turns fate has shown us." He cocked his head, turned his attention to the growing tumult in the awakening lanes around the Dragon's Codpiece, particularly to the clip-clop of many hooves echoing from every direction.
"The city guard is about," Danica replied. "They will require information."
Cadderiy continued to pull her along.
"Vfe have nowhere to go," Danica argued as they neared the building's back edge, many soldiers coming into sight along Market Square.
Cadderiy wasn't listening. His eyes were closed again and he was deep in some chant, deep in song.
Danica's eyes widened one more time as she felt herself become something less than substantial. Somehow Cad-derly kept his grip on her arm and together they simply blew away, off the rooftop, riding the currents of the wind.
Bogo Rath slipped out of the Dragon's Codpiece a short while later, rushing briskly past the dwarves and the bereaved innkeeper in the hearth room. After brief consideration, the frightened young wizard decided that Ghost's presumptions were not worth risking his life over, and he decided, too, that departing the inn after such tragedy could not be viewed as a suspicious act.
The only thing the city guardsman asked of him as he passed through the hole where the front door had been was that he remain in town.
Bogo nodded and pointed to an inn a few doors farther up Lakeview Street, though the wizard had no intention of staying around for very long. He would go to the inn and get a room, but would remain in Carradoon only until he had studied the spells that would allow him to leave quickly and without the possibility of being stopped.
Reflections on the Water
he morning light was still new, and the mist had  not yet flown from the waters of Impresk Lake.
I The great three-arched stone bridge connecting  the mainland to Carradoon's island section L loomed ghostly. It towered above Cadderly and Danica as they drifted in a small rowboat, quiet with their thoughts and the lap of the gentle waves against the prow.
The weather was fitting to Cadderly's grim mood. He had killed a man, had burned him to a blackened ball, and had knocked another from the balcony, leaving him for dead as well. There had been no real choice, Cadderiy knew, but he could not easily dismiss his guilt. Whatever the reasons, he had killed a human being.