The Cleric Quintet: The Fallen Fortress

Chapter Seven

 
Cadderly froze in his tracks, trying to keep the beam of light steady on the creature. To the side, another "rock" shifted, forcing Cadderly's attention. As soon as he brought the light around, he realized that these were not stones all about him, but giant toads, red-colored, with their uplifted heads higher than Cadderly's waist
Just as Cadderly decided that he must not make any sudden moves, must try to ease his way beyond these weird creatures, a toad shuffled somewhere behind him. Despite his determination, Cadderly spun about, bringing the tight to bear and startling several other monsters.
*****
"I ain't going up there to fight any damned wyrm!" Ivan protested, crossing his burly arms over his chest, wjhich put them about three inches above the level of the deep snow. The dwarf pointedly looked away from the rising slope of Nightglow.
"Uh-oh," Pikel muttered.
"Cadderly is up there," Danica reminded the stubborn, yellow-bearded dwarf.
Then Cadderly's stupid," Ivan grumbled without missing a beat A giant arm wrapped about him suddenly, and he was hoisted into the air, tucked in close to Vander's side.
"Hee hee hee." Pikel's mirth did little to brighten Ivan's mood.
"Why, ye thieving, dwarf-stealing son of a red-haired dragon!" Ivan roared, kicking viciously but futilely against the firbolg's powerful hold.
"We should scale straight to the opening," Danica reasoned.
"Right along Cadderly's trail," Shayleigh agreed.
"Might we hurry?" Vander asked of them. "Ivan is biting my arm."
Danica was away in a moment, scrambling with all speed up the slope, following Cadderly's obvious footprints. Shayleigh came right behind, the nimble, light-footed elf having little trouble managing the deep snow. She kept her bow out and ready, playing a watchful role while Danica tracked.
Vander plodded along behind her, trying to resist the urge to cave in the vicious Ivan's thick skull, and Pikel came last, bobbing easily in the cleared wake of the giant firbolg.
They stood in the melted region before the cave entrance a few minutes later. Shayleigh peered in, using her elven heat-sensing vision, but she poked her head back out in a moment and shrugged helplessly, explaining that the air was too warm inside for her to make out anything distinct
"Cadderly went in," Danica said, as much to firm her own resolve as to the others. "And so must we."
"Nope," came Ivan's predictable reply.
The enchantment that Cadderly put over you last night will not hold for long," Shayleigh reminded him. The air is too cold this high up for even one of a dwarfs toughness."
"Better freezed than toasted," Ivan grumbled.
Danica ignored the remark and slipped into the cave. Shayleigh shook her head and followed.
Vander set Ivan on the ground, drawing curious looks from both the dwarves.
"Ill not force you into a dragon's cave," the firbolg explained, and he walked by without waiting for a reply, squeezing in through the narrow entrance.
"Oo," Pikel moaned, not so filled with humor now that they had come to a critical moment
Ivan stood resolute, his burly arms crossed over his chest and one foot tap-tapping on the wet stone. Pikel looked from his brother, to the cave, back to his brother, and back to the cave, not sure of what he should do.
"Aw, go on," Ivan growled at him a few seconds later. "I'm not for leaving the thick-headed fool to fight the dragon alone!"
Pikel's cherubic face brightened considerably as Ivan grabbed him and led the way in. When the green-bearded dwarf remembered that they were marching on their merry way to face a red dragon, that impish smile disappeared.
* * * * *
Far down the trail from the face of Nightglow, Druzil watched the black forms disappear under the high, enshrouding veil of fog. The imp had no idea of where the giant had come from - why would a giant be marching beside Cadderly? - but he was fairly confident that the other distant forms, particularly the two bobbing, short, and stout creatures, belonged to Cadderly"s friends.
The undead monster seemed certain enough. Whether the creature could actually "see" the distant party, Druzil could not tell, but the monster's chosen path was straight and furious. Some beacon was guiding this otherworldly spirit, leading it on without hesitation through the dark of night and under the light of day. The creature hadn't slowed, hadn't rested (weary Druzil was beginning to wish it would!), and it and Druzil had covered a tremendous amount of ground in a very short time.
Now, with the goal apparently in sight, the creature moved even more furiously to the base of Nightglow's treeless high slope, ripping through the snow angrily, as if the white powder's hindering depth was some deliberate conspiracy to keep the ghoulish thing away from Cadderly.
As a creature of the fiery lower planes, Druzil was not fond of the chilling snow. But as a creature of the chaotic lower planes, the imp eagerly moved along behind the undead monster, rubbing his clawed hands at the thought of the savagery that was soon to come.
*****
Cadderly gently slid one foot in front of the other, inching his way toward the chamber's far exit. The giant red toads had settled again, but the young priest felt many eyes upon him, watching him with more than a passing interest
Another few feet put him right in line with the exit; ten running strides would have gotten him through it. He stopped where he was, trying to muster the courage to break into a run, trying to discern if that would be the wisest course.
He started to lean ferward anxiously, was mentally counting down to the moment when he would spring away.
A toad hopped across to block the exit
Cadderly's eyes widened with fear and darted from side to side, looking for some other path. Behind him, toads had quietly gathered in a group, cutting off any retreat
Was this a deliberate herding tactic? the young priest wondered with complete astonishment. Whatever it was, Cadderly knew that he had to act quickly. He considered his magic, wondered what aid he might find from the song
of Deneir. He decided immediately to act more directly and began flicking his light beam at the blocking toad up ahead, trying to startle the thing out of his path.
The toad seemed to settle down more fully, grinding its considerable belly against the stone. It jerked upward suddenly - Cadderly feared for an instant that it was leaping at him - but only its head came forward, its mouth popping open and a gout of flame bursting forth.
Cadderly fell back a step as the small fireball erupted just short of him, reddening his face. He let out a cry of surprise and heard the toads shuffling rapidly behind him. Instinctively, the young priest brought his hand-crossbow up. He didn't look back, but kept his focus on the escape ahead and launched the quarrel He ran off at once, following the dart's wake, fearing that a dozen small fireballs would incinerate him from behind before he ever got near the exit
The toad's mouth flicked at the small missile, sticky tongue catching it in midflight and drawing it in.
The quarrel had not exploded! The tongue had apparently caught it without crushing the vial. And Cadderly, in full flight toward the toad and with nowhere else to run, had no readied alternatives, didn't even have his enchanted walking stick or spindle-disks in hand. He flicked the light tube frantically again, hoping against all reason to startle the formidable toad away. The thing just sat there, waiting.
Then the creature made a strange belching sound, its throat puffing and then retracting, and a moment later it blew apart, toad guts flying in all directions.
Cadderly threw his arms up in front of his face as he crossed through the spray and prudently ducked his head to avoid cracking it against the top rim of the low tunnel He was many running strides out of the cavern before he dared to look back and confirm that no toads had come in pursuit. Still the frightened young priest ran, careening down the winding way, skidding to a stop and looking back, though he sensed that the tunnel had widened suddenly around him.
Cadderly stopped, frozen in place, no longer thinking about the toads but more concerned with the sound of rhythmic breathing, breathing that sounded like a tempest wind in a narrowing tunnel Slowly, Cadderly turned his head about, and, even more slowly, he brought the light tube to bear.
"Oh, my dear Deneir," the young priest mouthed silently as the light ran along the scaly hide of the impossibly long, impossibly huge wyrm. "Oh, my dear Deneir."
The light passed the dragon's spearlike horns, crossed down the awesome beast's ridged skull, past the closed eye to the maw that could snap giant Vander in half with hardly an effort
"Oh, my dear Deneir," the young priest muttered, and then he was kneeling, not even conscious of the fact that his knees had buckled under him.
Old Fyren
The beast was a hundred feet long, its curled tail a hundred feet again, and armored, every inch, with large, overlapping scales that gleamed like metal - and Cadderly did not doubt for a moment that those smooth red scales were every bit as strong as tempered plates. The dragon's great leathery wings were folded now, wrapping the beast like a blanket on a babe.
But that illusion could not hold against the reality of Fyrentennimar. Had an unsettling dream inspired those six-inch deep claw marks in the very stone near the dragon's forelegs? Cadderly wondered. And how many humans had been part of the meal that had so sated the beast's hunger that it could sleep for centuries?
In the next few moments, Cadderly thanked the gods a thousand times that he had stumbled upon Fyrentennimar while the dragon was asleep. If he had come running in here blindly and old Fyren had been awake, Cadderly would have never known what happened. His luck continued, for none of the toads were following him - the little creatures were smarter than Cadderly had expected. Still, Cadderly knew that dragon slumber was an unpredictable thing at best. He had to work fast, get his magical defenses up, and prepare himself mentally to battle the awe-inspiring beast
He summoned the song of Deneir into his thoughts, but for many moments - interminable moments to the terrified Cadderly - could not hold the notes in any logical sequence, could not fully appreciate the harmony of the music and find his devotional focus within its mystical notes. It was that very harmony, the understanding of universal truths, that lent Cadderly his magical strength.
Finally Cadderly managed to enact a magical shielding sphere, an elemental inversion of the material air about him that would, he hoped, protect him from die fires of dragon breath.
The young priest took out the Tome of Universal Harmony, flipping to a page he had marked before leaving the Edificant Library. TTie origin of dragons was not known, but it was obvious to scholars that these creatures did not follow the natural and expected laws. Large as they were, there was no logical way that a dragon's wings should have been able to keep the creature aloft, and yet dragons were among the fastest fliers in all the world. Typically druidic magic, powerful against the mightiest of animals, had little power over dragons, so special protective wards had been devised to guard against these mighty beasts, by wizards and priests trying to survive in the wilder world millennia before. The page in the Tome of Universal Harmony showed Cadderly these wards, guided his thoughts to the song of Deneir in a slightly different manner, altering some of the notes. Soon he had erected a barrier, called dragonbane, from wall to wall a few feet in front of him that, according to the writings, the mighty wyrm could not physically pass through.
Fyrentennimar shifted uneasily; Cadderly figured that the wyrm probably sensed the magical energies being enacted in the room. The young priest took a deep breath and told himself over and over that he had to go through with this most important quest, had to trust in his magic and trust in himself. He took the evil Ghearufu out of his pack, tucked his feeble weapons away (even his potent hand-crossbow would do little damage against the likes of this beast), and wiped his sweaty palms on his tunic.
He uttered a simple spell so that the clap of his hands sounded as a thunder strike. Great wings hummed as they beat the air, uplifting the front portion of the wyrm. Old Fyren's head shot up from the ground in the span of a heartbeat, hovering a dozen feet in front of Cadderly, and the young priest had to fight the urge to fall on the stone and grovel before this magnificent creature. How could Cadderly dare to presume that anything he might do would even affect the awesome Fyrentennimar?
And those eyes! Twin beacons that scrutinized every detail, that held the young priest on trial before a word had been spoken. Surely they emanated a light of their own as intense as that coming from Cadderly's enchanted tube.
The weakness in Cadderly's legs multiplied tenfold when the dragon, tired and cranky and not at all in the mood for a parley, loosed its searing breath.
A line of flames came at Cadderly but parted as they hit his magical globe, encircling him in a fiery blaze. His translucent globe took on a greenish hue under the assault, the protective bubble seeming thick at first but fast thinning as the dragon continued to spew forth its fire.
Sweat poured from Cadderly, his tongue went dry in his mouth, and his back itched as though all the moisture in his body was being evaporated. Wafts of smoke came up from the edges of his tunic; he had a hand on the adaman-tite spindle-disks, but had to let go as the metal heated, and similarly had to flip his metallic light tube gingariy from hand to hand.
Still came the fires as the great dragon lungs expelled their load. Would old Fyren never end?
And then it was over. "Oh, my dear Deneir," the young priest mouthed when the green hue of his magical bubble faded and he looked at the floor just outside of his protected area. He needed no light tube to witness this spectacle. Molten stone glowed and bubbled and fast-cooled, hardening in a wavelike formation from the force of the flames.
Cadderly looked up to see the dragon's slitted lizard eyes widen with disbelief that anything could survive its searing breath. Those evil eyes went narrow again quickly, the dragon issuing a low, threatening growl that shook the floor under Cadderly's feet
What have I gotten myself into? Cadderly asked himself, but he forced the fearful notion away immediately, thought of the evil the Ghearufu had spread on the land and would continue to spread if he did not destroy it
"Mighty Fyrentennimar," he began bravely, "I am but a poor and humble priest, come to call upon you in good faith."
The sharp intake of Fyren's breath drew Cadderly's cloak around him, nearly pulled him forward beyond the tine of magical dragonbane.
Cadderly knew what was coming and desperately fell back into the song, chanting at the top of his voice to reinforce his thinned fire shield. The breath came in a wicked blast, mightier than the last, if that was possible. Cadderly saw the thin green bubble diminish to nothingness, felt a blast of warmth and thought that he would sizzle where he stood.
But a blue globe replaced the green, again driving the fires harmlessly aside. Cadderly's entire body ached as though he had fallen asleep under a high summer sun; he had to stamp out small flames on the laces of his boots.
"I have come in good faith!" he cried loudly when the blast ended, old Fyren's eyes wider still with disbelief. "I need but a simple favor and then you may return to your slumber!"
Amazement turned to an unbridled rage beyond anything Cadderly would ever have believed possible. The dragon opened its mouth wide, rows of ten-inch fangs gleaming horribly, and then its head shot forward, neck snapping like a snake's coiled body.
Cadderly groaned and nearly fell over, for a moment sure that he was losing consciousness and soon his life.
But the young priest nearly laughed aloud, in spite of his terror, when he peeked out to regard Fyrentennimar, the dragon's face pressed and distorted weirdly against the fine of magical dragonbane. Cadderly could only think of the mischievous young boys at the Edificant Library, who would press their faces against the glass of the windows in the study chambers, startling the disciples within, then run off laughing down the solemn halls.
His unintentional lightheartedness actually aided the fortunate young priest, for the dragon backed away and looked all about, seeming unsure of itself for the first time.
"Thief!" Fyrentennimar bellowed, the power of the dragon voice blowing Cadderly back a step.
"No thief," Cadderly wisely assured the wyrm. "Just a humble priest..."
"Thief and liarr Fyrentennimar roared. "Humble priests do not survive the breath of Fyrentennimar the Great! What treasures have you taken?"
"I come not for treasure," Cadderly declared firmly. "Nor to disturb the slumbers of a most magnificent wyrm.'*
Fyrentennimar started to retort, but seemed to reconsider, as though Cadderly's "most magnificent" compliment had given him pause.
"A simple task, as I have said," Cadderly went on, going with the momentum. "Simple for Pvrentennimar the Great, but quite beyond the abilities of any other in all the land. If you will perform..."
"Perform?" the dragon roared, and Cadderly, his hahblown back by the sheer force of the dragon's hot breath, wondered if his hearing would be permanently damaged. "Fyrentennimar does not perform! I am not interested hi your simple task, foolish priest" The dragon surveyed the area right in front of Cadderly, as if trying to discern what barrier had been enacted to keep it at bay.
Cadderly considered the few options that seemed open to him. He felt that his best chance was to continue to flatter the beast He had read many tales of heroic adventurers successfully playing to the ego of dragons, particularly of red dragons, which were reputably the most vain of all dragonkind.
"Would that I might better see you!" he said dramatically. He snapped his fingers, as though a thought had just come to him, then whipped out his slender wand and uttered "Domin Ulu" Instantly the wide chamber was bathed in a magical light, and all of Fyrentennimar's magnificence was revealed to him. Silently congratulating himself, Cadderly replaced the wand under his cloak and continued his survey, noting for the first time the mound of treasure across the way, beyond the bulk of the blocking dragon.
"Would that you might better see me," Fyrentennimar began suspiciously, "or see my treasure, humble thief?"
Cadderly blinked at the words and at his possible mistake. The murderous expression on Fyrentennimar's face was not hard to decipher. Then Cadderly felt his light tube growing warm, uncomfortably so, and he had to drop it to the ground. His forearm brushed against his belt buckle, and he winced in pain as bare skin contacted the fast-heating metal. It took Cadderly just a moment to understand, a moment to remember that many dragons, too, could access the realm of magical energies.
Cadderly had to act fast, had to humble the wyrm and make old Fyren desire parley. He chanted immediately, pointedly ignoring the wisps of smoke rising from his leather belt near the buckle.
A whirling ring of magical blades appeared in the air above Fyrentennimar's head.
They will cut!" Cadderly promised, and he willed the blades lower, dangerously close to the dragon's head. He hoped to drive old Fyren down so that the beast would not be in such a position of physical superiority, hoped that his display of power would make the wyrm consider that continuing this fight might not be so wise a choice.
"Let them!" old Fyren bellowed, and his wings beat on, lifting his huge head higher, meeting the spell full force. Sparks flew as the blades chipped off of dragon armor. Tiny pieces of scales flecked away, and, to Cadderly's ultimate dismay, Fyrentennimar's roar seemed one of glee.
The dragon's tail whipped about, slamming Cadderly's magical barrier viciously, the waves of the concussion shaking the chamber and knocking Cadderly from his feet The line of dragonbane held, though Cadderly feared that the chamber's ceiling would not He realized then how vulnerable he truly was, how pitiful he must seem to this wyrm that had lived for centuries and had feasted on the bones of hundreds of men more powernil than he.
He had enacted protection from the fiery breath, had enacted a barrier that the beast could not physically pass through (though neither, he feared, would hold out for long), but what defense could Cadderly offer against Fyrentennimar's no-doubt potent array of spells? He realized then that his defeat could be as simple a thing as Fyrentennimar tearing a hunk of stone from the wall and hurling it into him!
The dragon whipped its armored head to and fro, challenging Cadderly's enchanted blades, mocking Cadderly's spell. Foreclaws dug great ridges into the chamber's stone floor and the great tail whipped about, shattering rock and cracking apart the walls.
Cadderly could not hold out for long, was certain that he had nothing hi all his arsenal that could begin to wound this monster.
He had only one alternative, and he feared it almost as much as he feared Fyrentennimar. The song of Deneir had taught him that the magical energies of the universe could be accessed from many different angles, and the way that one accessed those energies determined the grouping, the magical sphere, of the spells found within. Cadderly, for instance, had approached the universal energies differently for enacting his line of magical dragonbane than he had when entering the sphere of elemental fire to create the protective barrier against Fyrentennimar's flames.
Deneir was a deity of art, of poetry and soaring spirits, praising and accepting of a myriad of thoughtful accomplishments. Deneir's song rang out across the heavens, thrumming with the powers of many such energies, and thus a priest attuned to this god's song could find access, could find many various angles, to bend the universal energies in countless directions.
There was one particular bent of those energies, though, that ran contrary to the harmony of Deneirian thinking, where no notes rang clear and no harmony could be maintained. This was the sphere of chaos, a place of discord and illogic, and this was where young Cadderly had to go.