The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks

Chapter Sixteen

 
He tried hard to not think of the man's family, children perhaps, waiting for a father that would never return.
Danica, too, sat quietly, deep in thought, at the small boat's prow. More accustomed to battle than her somewhat innocent companion, the young woman was more concerned with what had precipitated the vicious attack.
What had brought the Night Masks upon her and Cadderly?
Cadderly took up the oars and gave a single stroke, reversing the drift and pushing the boat farther out from the imposing bridge. He let the oars hang in the water and turned about on the bench seat to face Danica.
"Night Masks," Danica muttered grimly.
Cadderly looked at her; the name meant little to him.
"From Westgate," Danica explained. "They are among the deadliest killers in all the Realms. We were fortunate to escape them, and I now believe I have escaped them twice."
Cadderly's expression showed that he still did not understand.
"On our journey down from the library," Danica continued, "the dwarves and I were attacked by a band of five."
"Many bandits have been reported on the roads during these troubled times " Cadderly remarked.
Danica shook her head, certain that there was a connection between the attack on the road and the one in Cadderly's room.
"Why would an assassin's guild from lAfestgate come after us?" Cadderly reasoned.
"Us?" echoed Danica, "No, they are after me, I fear. It was the Night Masks who killed my parents, years ago. Now they have come to finish the job."
Cadderly didn't believe a word of that explanation. He sensed that - if Danica's theories about the identity of the killer band were correct - there was more at work here than the completion of a decade-old vendetta. Cadderly contemplated his own experiences of the last few days, thought of his meeting with Rufo in the hearth room and the presence of the invisible wizard. And what had happened, he wondered, back in his own room that night?
He looked at Danica quizzically. "I found you on the floor, terrified. Tell me about your dream."
"I do not remember much," Danica admitted, and her tone revealed that she did not really see the point of it all. Cadderly was determined, though. He thought for a moment, then took out his crystal-centered spindle-disks.
He held them up before Danica's eyes and set them spinning. Even in the dim light, the crystals flickered with reflective fires. "Concentrate," Cadderly begged the woman. "Let the crystal into your mind. Please, do not use your meditative talents to block me now."
"What will this tell us?" Danica argued. "It was just a dream."
"Was it?"
Danica shrugged - it was a dream that contained references to the Night Masks, after all - and relaxed, focusing her gaze on the spindle-disks. Cadderly watched her intently, then closed his eyes and thought of the sacred tome, heard the song playing the words to a simple spell of hypnosis.
Danica sank deeper, her shoulders visibly slumping, as Cadderly quietly chanted. His words became prying questions that Danica heard only subconsciously.
Cadderly, too, allowed the hypnosis to fall over him, used it to achieve complete empathy with Danica.
The questions rolled out of his mouth, though he was barely aware of them. And Danica answered, as much with her posture and her facial expressions as with mere words.
Danica blinked her eyes open; Cadderly followed her lead. Neither of them knew how much time had passed, but Cadderly understood then, beyond any doubt, that Danica's nighttime experience had indeed been an important clue.
"It was not a dream," he announced.
Cadderly recalled what Danica had imparted to him under the hypnosis: the sense of departure from a black sphere that the young priest knew represented her identity. The image reminded the young priest vividly of his own telepathic experiences with the imp Druzil and the wizard Dorigen. Might those two be behind all this?
Cadderly dropped a hand into his pocket to feel the amulet he had taken from Rufo in Shilmista Forest, an amulet that Druzil had given Rufo to improve telepathic contact between the two. With the amulet, Cadderly had been able to sense the imp's proximity, and he took comfort that it had not signaled Brazil's presence in many weeks, not since the large battle in the forest.
But who then? he wondered.
Dorigen remained a distinct possibility.
"Possession?" he muttered, using the word as a catalyst for his thoughts.
Another image struck Cadderly then, an image of Nameless, the beggar on the road, and the horrible, shadowy shapes writhing atop his shoulders. He remembered, too, that night when Brennan had come to his room, projecting the same vile aura. Perhaps the song of Deneir had not lied to him; perhaps the attempt on Danica was not his enemy's first try at possession.
Cadderly winced, remembering Fredegar's worries that young Brennan had not been seen since that night. He tried to recall clues as he took up the oars for another single stroke against the drift.
"What is it?" Danica asked. Her tone revealed her understanding that Cadderly's mind had unlocked some of the secrets.
"They have not come for you," the young priest answered with certainty, looking over his shoulder. "They were here before you, around me, close to me." Cadderly exhaled deeply, fearing for Brennan and Nameless, and let his gaze drift across the water to the gray outline of the great bridge. "Too dose."
Danica started to reply - something comforting, Cadderly knew - then she stopped and cocked her head curiously.
Cadderly began to turn his whole body about, to fully face Danica, understanding that something was wrong and fearing that the young woman had come under some mental assault.
Danica spun about, rocking the boat so suddenly that Cadderly, though he was seated near the center, almost went over the side.
"Stubborn!" Danica cried. Her hand snapped in front of her just in time to grab the wrist of the man who had tried to drive a dagger into her back. Holding tight, Danica leaped to her feet, stretched her attacker's arm to the limit, and pulled him farther over the bow.
She gave her attacker's arm a quick, violent twist and brought her free hand over the back of his fingers, jerking the man's hand back toward his wrist.
Cadderly tried to get about in the rocking boat to go to Danica's aid, but all he wound up doing was stumbling over the boat's center seat and slamming himself on the side of the head with one of the oar handles.
He realized that the stumble was a good thing, though, as a knife soared up over the side of the boat and whipped across above his head. Reacting instinctively to the threat, Cadderly forearmed the oar, freeing it from its lock to tumble into the water near the unseen attacker.
The young scholar got his spindle-disks looped onto his finger. The boat rocked, and he looked back the other way, across the boat, to see still another assassin coming up over the side.
Danica held her balance easily in the rocking craft. She continued her vicious press on the caught man's hand, finally forcing him to release his dagger.
She wasn't done with him yet.
Danica's foot snapped out wide, coming back around the man's head and forcing his chin over the prow rail. Holding him tightly against the wood, Danica yanked his arm back out over the water. She locked his elbow so that he could not bend the limb and pressed straight down.
The man's eyes bulged as the bow pressed his throat up under his jaw.
Cadderly's off-balance throw soared lower than he had hoped, but while he did not get the man's head, he did get a few fingers - and the top plank of the boat. Wbod splintered, the remaining oar flew off, and so did the assassin, clutching his blasted belly as he fell away into the lake.
Free of the weight, the boat rocked back so far that Cad-derly feared its other side would dip under the water-where the knife-thrower waited.
The young priest realized how vulnerable he was, and how vulnerable Danica was! They needed a distraction, something to allow them to get their bearings.
Water did come in over the broken side of the boat when it rocked back again, but Cadderly took no note of it, intent on the wounded man fumbling in the water with the floating oar. The shape of the oar caught the young priest's attention.
With one foot planted in the rocking boat, and with the choking man struggling frantically against her, Danica amazingly held her balance.
The struggling killer tried to come up over the side, but Danica jammed his arm down mightily, dislocating his shoulder.
The man could not even grimace at the obvious pain. His face went blank, weirdly serene. Danica understood. She brought her foot back around, released its hold on the man's head, and let him slip under the water.
Her sensibilities returned to her then, her sheer rage at the presence of the Night Masks temporarily sated by the reality of the kill. Others were about - Danica realized for the first time that others were likely about!
She turned, and to her horror, saw Cadderly disappear under the water in the grasp of a killer. Another boat, with several men in it, approached from behind; Danica did not know if they were friend or foe - until a crossbow quarrel cut the air beside her face.
Instinctively, she dove to the floor of the boat. She knew she had to get to Cadderly, but how? If she went under the water, how could she hope to stop this approaching menace?
A scream to the side turned Danica about, to peek over the broken plank. There floundered the wounded Night Mask, the one Cadderly had hit with his spindle-disks, fighting desperately to free himself from the clutches of a long, thick constrictor - a snake about the same size as one of the boat's oars.
The man somehow broke free and began swimming with all speed toward the approaching boat. The snake slithered off in pursuit, slipping under the water as it went.
Despite the peril, Danica could not help but smile. She knew that the appearance of this snake was no natural coincidence; she knew that Cadderly, and that mysterious power, had struck again.
Danica got up to her knees. The other boat was closer now; she could see a man in the prow leveling a crossbow her way. She jerked up, as though she meant to stand, then fell flat and heard the whistle of the high-flying bolt.
Now she had time to get over the side, into the water after Cadderly. Before she moved out of the boat, though, the water churned and the Night Mask appeared, his face contorted in terror and the second snake, the second oar, wrapped about his shoulder and chest. He reached for the boat, then slapped at the water and the beast.
Then he was gone.
Again the water churned, a short distance to the side. Up came Cadderly, impossibly fast, his body breaking out of the water impossibly high.
He was standing on the water! And still wearing his hat, the holy symbol set in its front glowing furiously.
Danica nearly laughed, too amazed to react any other way. Cadderly took in a few gulps of air, seeming more surprised than Danica.
He looked back toward the approaching boat - the swimming man had just about met it by then - and saw that the crossbowman was preparing another shot.
"Get in!" Danica cried, thinking Cadderly too vulnerable standing on the water out in the open. Cadderly seemed not to hear her. He was chanting, singing actually, and waving one hand slowly to and fro.
Danica looked back to the other boat, saw the man leveling the crossbow - and saw Cadderiy standing in the open, vulnerable.
She scrambled to the side, grabbed at a piece of broken wood floating in the small pool at the bottom of her boat. She came up throwing, skimming the wood sidelong so that it spun and swerved . . . and plopped harmlessly into the water a dozen feet to the side of the approaching craft.
But the crossbowman had flinched, had looked her way.
A sudden swell erupted in the calm lake, near where Danica's wood had disappeared. The water reared up and rolled, as if aimed, toward the enemy boat. The crossbowman had set his sights on Cadderly again when the wave collided against the side of his boat. Not even bracing himself at the time, the man lurched over the side and nearly lost his weapon.
At first, Danica wondered how the little piece of wood had so disrupted the stillness of the lake. She realized it was no more than coincidence, though, and she turned to the true source of the swell. Cadderiy, still standing calmly, sung his soft song and waved his hand back and forth.
Another swell rose and crashed against the enemy boat, turning it about so that it was facing the bridge.
Cadderly smiled; another swell turned the boat so that it was feeing the shore, directly away from him.
"Come," Cadderly said to Danica, extending his hand. "Before they get their bearings."
Danica at first misunderstood, thinking that Cadderly wanted her to help him into the boat. He resisted her pull, though, beckoning her to go to him.
The assassin who had pulled Cadderh; under the water bobbed to the surface facedown. The snake that had been wrapped about him became an oar again at Cadderiy's command and floated benignly, a harmless piece of flotsam.
"Come," Cadderly reiterated, tugging Danica. She jumped onto him and wrapped herself about him.
Cadderly looked about, then ran for the island. Danica watched over his shoulder, taking note that his footsteps did not splash the water. Rather, the burdened young priest left depressions in the lake surface, which quickly reverted to the natural water shape, as though he was running across soft ground.
Behind them, the enemy boat finally straightened and the crossbowman pulled the swimmer up over the side. The oar that had been chasing him bobbed up over the waves.
Danica kissed Cadderly on the neck and rested her weary head on his shoulder. The world had gone crazy.
Cadderly came to the shore mumbling, thinking out loud. He kept chugging along but slowed under the weight of his burden when he hit more solid ground.
"Cadderly . . ."
"If those are professional assassins," he was saying, "we must assume they were hired by our enemies, by Dorigen perhaps."
"Cadderly. . ."
"Someone has made the connection to us," Cadderly continued, undaunted. "Someone has determined that we are, or at least that I am, a threat to be eliminated."
"Cadderly. . ."
"But how long have they been hovering about me?" the young priest muttered. "Oh, Brennan, I pray I am wrong."
"Cadderly!"
Cadderly looked right at Danica for the first time since he had left the lake. "What?"
"You can put me down now," Danica replied.
She hit the ground running, grabbing Cadderiy's wrist and tugging him along. They heard the enemy boat skid to shore through the brush behind them.
"Stubborn," Danica said, looking over her shoulder gravely.
Cadderly knew she wanted to turn and finish the fight. "Not now," he begged. "We must get back to the inn."
"V\fe may never get our enemies so out in the open again," Danica reasoned.
"I am weary," Cadderly replied. And indeed, the young priest was. The song no longer played in his head, but was replaced by a severe headache, the likes of which young Cadderly had never before experienced.
Danica nodded and sped on. They crashed through a hedgerow, into the back yard of one of Carradoon's finer estates. Dogs began to bark from somewhere nearby, but Danica did not veer from her path through another hedgerow and into another open yard.
Several people, older merchants and their spouses stared at the fleeing couple incredulously.
"Get to cover and alert the city guard!" Cadderly called to them as he followed Danica past. "Thieves and murderers pursue us! Call out the city guard and send them to the bridge!"
The couple burst through another row of bushes, coming out onto a wide, fiat cobblestone lane, running between lines of beautiful manor houses, between lines of staring, curious people.
Not a horse or wagon was seen on the bridge at this early hour, something Cadderly took comfort in as he and Danica started across. The young priest would have hated to place anyone directly in the path of his deadly pursuers, and he knew by the continued bark of distant, unseen dogs that the Night Masks had not given up the chase, were only a few minutes behind.
Cadderly skidded to a stop when they came to the high point in the first of the bridge's three arching supports. Danica started to question him, but was stopped by his conniving smile.
"TOitch for the assassins," he said to her as he fell to his knees. He used his soaked cloak to trace a square on the stone of the wide bridge.
"The first page I ever looked at in Headmistress Perte-lope's book always amazed me," he explained, not slowing in his work. "I knew it was a spell, similar to one I had seen in the book of Belisarius."
The square completed, two lines of wetness running parallel across the structure, Cadderly rose and led Danica a few dozen steps farther along.
Cadderly called up the song and began to chant, knowing the words intimately. He had to stop, though, and rub his temples to relieve the throbbing the powers caused.
They will drain you and take a bit of you with them whenever you summon them, Pertelope had warned him. Exhaustion is your enemy . . .
"They are on the bridge!" he heard Danica say, and he felt her tug at his arm, trying to hurry him along.
It could not be helped. Cadderly fought through the pain and weariness, forced the song into his mind and to his Ups.
What is the bond that holds the stone? A bond that wetness breaks. What are you without the bond?
Danica knocked him to the ground; he barely heard the crossbow quarrel pass them by. Still he sang, his concentration complete.
Seep, my water, seep Through the bond, so deep.
The leading assassin stumbled suddenly, lurched forward as though his feet had been ensnared, fell facedown onto the bridge, . . . and sank into the mud that the section of bridge had become.
Danica and Cadderly heard splashes below as chunks of mud and stone dropped into the lake. Another assassin hit the area but managed to fall back, knee deep in the collapsing morass.
The man who had gone in headlong screamed as he dropped out the bottom, plummeting the twenty feet or so to the churning lake.
The entire section Cadderly had marked off slipped down right behind him.
Four stunned assassins stood at the edge of the fifteen-foot gap separating them from their intended quarry, staring in disbelief.
"She said that Deneir would demand of me," Cadderly remarked to Danica, rubbing his throbbing temples. "And he will again, when we get to the inn."
"You have come into some faith?" Danica asked as they fled, leaving behind the frustrated assassins' curses and the clip-clop of many horses coming onto the bridge, bearing city guardsman.
Cadderly looked at Danica as though she had slapped him. He calmed and shrugged, having no recourse against her logic.
They heard the shouts of guardsmen and killers as the trapped assassins, one by one, dove for the cover of the water.
The way was clear, all the way back to the Dragon s tod-piece, to dead enemies and dead friends.
Sorrow and Divine Joy houts continued to follow Cadderly and Danica after they left the bridge and made their way on-to Lakeview Street. The mist was fast flying, burned away by the steamy rays of the rising sun.
Carradoon had awakened to a travesty. Lakeview Street was jammed with curious citizens and city guardsmen. Many heads turned to regard the young priest and his escort, Cadderly's wide-brimmed hat drooping on all sides from its soaking. Pointing fingers turned the companions' way as well, and soon a horseman, a city guard, pushed his way through the throng to stop in Cadderly's path.
"Are you a priest of the Edificant Library?" came the guardsman's blunt and gruff question.