The Cleric Quintet: Canticle

 

Cadderly so desperately wanted to close those eyes! He willed himself to go over to the dead priest and turn his head away, get that accusing stare off him, but it was an impotent command, and Cadderly knew it. He had not the strength to go anywhere near Barjin. He moved a few short steps to the side, to get to Danica, but looked back and imagined that the dead priest's eyes followed him still.

Cadderly wondered if they would forever.

He slammed his fist on the floor, trying to shake free of the guilt, to accept the priest's stare as a necessary price that he must pay. Events had dictated his actions, he reminded himself, and he determinedly told himself to foster no regrets.

He jumped defensively when a small form suddenly darted in through the opening beside the priest, then managed a weak smile as Percival climbed up him and sat atop his shoulder, cluttering and complaining as always. Cadderly patted the squirrel between the ears with a single finger-he needed to do that-then went to his friends.

Danica seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully. She would not wake, though, to Cadderly's call or shake. He found both dwarves in similar states, their thunderous snores complimenting each other in strange rock-grating harmony. Pikel's snores, in particular, sounded contented.

Cadderly grew worried. He had believed the battle won- finally-but why couldn't he wake his friends? How long would they sleep? Cadderly had heard of curses that caused slumber for a thousand years, or until certain conditions had been met, however long that might take.

Perhaps the battle wasn't yet won. He went back to the altar and examined the bottle. It seemed harmless enough now, to the naked eye, so Cadderly decided to look deeper. He moved his thoughts through a series of relaxation exercises that slipped him into a semimeditative trance. The mist was fast dissipating, that much he could tell, and no more was emanating from the stoppered bottle. That gave Cadderly hope; perhaps the slumber would last until the mist was gone.

The bottle itself, though, did not appear completely neutralized. Cadderly sensed a life, an energy, within it, a pulsating evil, contained but not destroyed. It might have been only his imagination, or perhaps what he thought was a fife-force was merely a manifestation of his own fears. Cadderly honestly wondered if the remaining flickers within that bottle were playing some role in the lingering mist. The evil priest had called the mist the Most Fatal Horror, an agent of Talona. Cadderly recognized the name of the vile goddess, and the title, normally reserved for Talona's highest-ranking clerics. ˆ this mist was indeed some sort of god-stuff, a simple stopper would not suffice.

Cadderly came out of his trance and sat down to consider the situation. The key, he decided, was to accept the evil priest's description of the bottle and not think of it simply as some secular, though potent, magic.

"Battle gods with gods," Cadderly mumbled a moment later. He stood again before the altar, studying not the bottle, but the reflective, gem-studded bowl in front of it. Cadderly feared what magic tins item might contain, but he chanced it without delay, tipping the bowl to the side and dumping out the water stained by the evil priest's foul hands.

He retrieved a piece of cloth, a piece of Barjin's own vestments, and wiped the bowl thoroughly, then found Newander's water skin, full as usual, out in the hallway beyond Pikel's impromptu door.

Cadderly consciously avoided looking at Newander as he reentered the room, meaning to go straight to the altar, but Percival delayed him. The squirrel sat atop the dead druid, still in his semitransformed state.

"Get away from there," Cadderly scolded, but Percival only sat up higher, clicking excitedly and displaying some small item.

"What have you got?" Cadderly asked, moving slowly back so as not to startle the excitable squirrel.

Percival displayed an oak leaf pendant, the holy symbol of Silvanus, dangling from a fine leather thong.

"Do not take that!" Cadderly started to scold, but then he realized that Percival had something in mind.

Cadderly bent low, studying Percival more closely and seeking guidance in the wise druid's face.

Newander's visage, so peaceful and accepting of his fate, held him fully.

Percival shrieked in Cadderly's ear, demanding his attention. The squirrel held out the pendant and seemed to motion toward the altar.

Confusion twisted Cadderly's face. "Percival?" he asked.

The squirrel danced an agitated circle, then shook his little head briskly. Cadderly blanched.

"Newander?" he asked meekly.

The squirrel held out the holy symbol.

Cadderly considered it for a moment, then, remembering the druids' creed concerning death as a natural extension of life, he accepted the oak leaf and started back toward the altar.

The squirrel shook suddenly, then leaped back up to Cadderly's shoulder.

"Newander?" Cadderly asked again. The squirrel did not answer. "Percival?" The squirrel perked up its ears.

Cadderly paused and wondered what had just transpired. His instincts told him that Newander's departing spirit somehow had used Percival's body to get a message to him, but his stubborn sense of reality told him that he probably had imagined the whole episode. Whatever it was, he now had the druid's holy symbol in his hand and he knew that the aid of Silvanus could be only a good thing.

Cadderly wished he had been more attentive in his mundane duties, the simple ceremonies required of the lesser priests of the Edificant Library. His hands trembling, he poured the water from Newander's water skin into the gem-studded bowl, and added to it, with a silent call to Newander's god, the holy symbol.

Cadderly figured that two gods would be better than one in containing this evil, and also that Newander's god, dedicated to natural order, might be the most effective in battling the curse. He dosed his eyes and recited the ceremony to purify the water, stumbling a few times over the words he had not spoken very often.

Then it was completed and Cadderly was left with only his hopes. He lifted the evil bottle and gently immersed it in the bowl. The water went cold and took on the same red hue as that within the bottle, and Cadderly feared that he had not accomplished anything positive.

A moment later, though, the red hue disappeared altogether, from the water and the bottle.

Cadderly studied it closely, somehow sensing that the pulsating evil was no more.

Behind him, Pikel's snore was replaced by a questioning, "Oo oi?"

Cadderly scooped up the bowl carefully and looked around. Danica and both dwarves were stirring, though they were not yet coherent. Cadderly moved across the room to a small cabinet and placed the bowl inside, closing the door as he turned away.

Danica groaned and sat up, holding her head in both hands. "Me head," Ivan said in a sluggish voice. "Me head." They exited the tunnel to the south side of the great library half an hour later, Ivan and Pikel bearing Newander's rigid body and both dwarves and Danica sporting tremendous headaches. The dawn, just breaking, looked so good to Cadderly that he considered it a sign that all had been put right and that the nightmare had ended. His three companions groaned loudly and shielded their eyes when they came out into the brightness.

Cadderly would have laughed at them, but when he turned, the sight of Newander stole his mirth.

* * * * *

"Ah, there you are, Rufo," Headmaster Avery said upon entering the angular man's room. Kierkan Rufo lay on his bed and groaned weakly, pained by the many wounds he had received in the last couple of days and by a pounding headache that would not relent.

Avery waddled over toward him, pausing to belch several times. Avery's head ached, too, but it was nothing compared to the agony in his bloated stomach. "Get up, then," the headmaster said, reaching for Rufo's limp wrist. "Where is Cadderly?"

Rufo did not reply, did not even allow himself to blink. The curse was no more, but Rufo had not forgotten all that he had suffered in the past couple of days, at the hands of both Cadderly and the monk, Danica. He had not forgotten his own actions, either, and he feared the accusations that might be brought against him in the coming days.

"We have so very much to do," Avery went on, "so very much. I do not know what has befallen our library, but it is a very wicked business indeed. There are dead, Rufo, many dead, and many more are wandering confused."

Rufo at last forced himself to a sitting position. His face was bruised and caked in several places with dried blood, and his wrists and ankles were still sore from the dwarves' bindings. He hardly thought of the pain at that moment, however. What had happened to him? What had caused him to so foolishly go after Danica? What had caused him to reveal his jealousy, in the form of outright hostility, so clearly to Cadderly?

"Cadderly," he breathed quietly. He had almost killed Cadderly; he feared that memory nearly as much as the potential consequences. His memories came to him as if from a dark mirror in his heart, and Rufo was not certain that he liked what he saw.

* * * * *

"Ws have been five days with no further incidents," Dean Thobicus said to the gathering in his audience hall a few days later. All the surviving headmasters, of both the Oghman and Deneiran sects, were present, as well as Cadderly, Kierkan Rufo, and the two remaining druids.

Thobicus shuffled through a pile of reports, then declared, "The Edificant Library will recover."

There was a chorus of somewhat subdued cheers and nods. The future might have looked bright again, but the recent past, particularly the wholesale slaughter of the visiting Ilmater sect and the death of the heroic druid, Newander, could not be so easily dismissed.

"We have you to thank for it," Thobicus said to Cadderly. "You and your nonsectarian friends-" he nodded an acknowledgment to the druids "-displayed great bravery and ingenuity in defeating the evil infection that came into our midst."

Kierkan Rufo subtly nudged Headmaster Avery.

"Yes?" Dean Thobicus inquired.

"I have been requested to remind us all that Cadderly, brave though he was, is not without responsibility for this catastrophe," Avery began. He cast a look at Cadderly that showed he was not angered by the young scholar, but that he indeed held Cadderly's actions against the invading priest in high regard.

Cadderly took no offense; after seeing the headmaster under the influences of the curse, he suspected he knew how Avery really felt about him. He almost wished that he could get the headmaster back under the influence of the curse and talking again about Cadderly's father and the young scholar's first days at the library.

It was an absurd notion, but one that Cadderly enjoyed imagining nonetheless. He looked past Avery to the tall and angular man leering over the headmaster's shoulder. Cadderly could point a finger at Rufo, concerning the man's actions against Danica and himself, and including Cadderly's firm belief that Rufo was the one who had knocked him into the catacombs in the first place, but many of Rufo's actions already had been reported and it was unlikely that, given the extraordinary circumstances, any action would be taken against him, or against any of the others caught in the curse. Cadderly, still not fully understanding what the cursing mist had done, was not sure if any reprimands would be appropriate.

As to the most serious charge, Cadderly believed that Rufo had kicked him down the stairs, but he really hadn't seen the blow. Perhaps the evil priest had been in the wine cellar with him and Rufo. Perhaps the priest had immobilized Rufo, as he had Ivan later on, then crept up past the man to knock Cadderly down.

Cadderly shook his head and nearly laughed aloud. It didn't matter, he believed. Now was a time of forgiveness, when all the remaining priests must band together to restore the library.

"Do you find something amusing?" Dean Thobicus asked, somewhat sternly. Cadderly remembered the accusation against him then and realized that his introspection might not have been so timely.

"If I may speak," Arcite interjected.

Thobicus nodded.

"The lad cannot be blamed for opening the bottle," the druid explained. "He is a brave one just for admitting such a thing. Let us all remember the foe he battled, one who beat us all, except for a handful. Were it not for Cadderly, and for my friend and god, the evil one would have proved strong enough to win the day."

"True enough," admitted Dean Thobicus, "and true enough, too, that Cadderly must bear some responsibility for what has transpired. Therefore, I declare that young Cadderly's duties in this incident are not at an end. Who would be better than he to study the works we possess concerning such curses, to learn more of the origin of both the priest and this Most Fatal Horror that he described as an agent of Talona?"

"A year quest?" Cadderly dared to ask, though it was not his place to speak.

"A year quest," Dean Thobicus echoed. "At the end of which you are to deliver a full report to this office. Do not take this responsibility lightly, as you seem to take so many of your responsibilities." He went on with his warnings, reminders of the gravity of the situation, but Cadderly didn't even hear him. He had been given a year quest, an honor normally bestowed exclusively upon the top-ranking Deneiran priests, and one most often given only to the headmasters themselves!

When Cadderly glanced back to Avery, and to Rufo behind him, he saw that they, too, understood the honor he had been given. Avery tried unsuccessfully to hide his widening smile, and Rufo, even more unsuccessfully, to hide his frustration.

Indeed, Rufo, surely out of order and surely to be punished for it, turned about and stormed out of the audience chamber.

The meeting was adjourned soon after that, and Cadderly came out flanked by the two druids.

"I thank you," Cadderly said to Arcite.

"It is we who should be grateful," Arcite reminded him. "When the curse befell us all, it was Arcite and Cleo who could not fight against it and who would have been beaten."

Cadderly couldn't hide a chuckle. The druids, and Danica and the dwarves, who had come over to join the group, looked at him curiously.

"It is ironic indeed," Cadderly explained. "Newander thought he had failed because he could not find it in his heart to become as you had, to revert to an animal form in mind and body."

"Newander did not fail," Arcite declared.

"Silvanus held him close," Cleo added.

Cadderly nodded and smiled again, remembering the sincere peace on the departed druid's face. He looked up at Arcite suddenly and thought about the squirrel incident, and whether the druids would know if Newander's departing spirit had communicated through Percival's body. He stopped himself, though, before the question was asked.

Maybe some things were better left to the imagination.

"I'll be needing that crossbow of yours, and a dart or two," Ivan said after the druids took their leave. "Figuring to make one for myself!"

Cadderly instinctively reached for the weapon belted on his hip, then recoiled suddenly and shook his head. "No more," he said gravely.

"It's a fine weapon," Ivan protested.

"Too fine," Cadderly replied. He had heard recently of smoke powder, of cannons hurling huge projectiles at opposing armies, elsewhere in the Realms. Avery's scolding, calling Cadderly a

"Gondsman," echoed in the young scholar's mind, for rumors claimed it was the Gondish priests who had loosed this new and terrible weapon on the world.

For all that it had aided him, Cadderly did not look upon his crossbow with admiration. The thought of copies being constructed horrified him. Truly, the crossbow's power was meager compared to a wizard's fireball or the summoned lightning of a druid, but it was a power that could fall into the hands of the untrained. Warriors and magic-users alike spent years training both their minds and their bodies to attain such proficiency. Weapons such as smoke powder, and Cadderly's crossbow-and-dart design, circumvented that need of any sacrifice or self-discipline. Cadderly understood that it was that very discipline that held the powers in check.

Ivan started to protest again, but Danica reached around him and covered his mouth with her hand.

Ivan pulled away and grumbled a few curses, but he let the matter drop.

Cadderly looked over to Danica, knowing that she understood. For the same reasons that Danica would not show him the Withering Touch, he could not let his design become commonplace.

* * * * *

Druzil waited for a very long time in the smoking stench of the lower planes. He knew that Barjin's gate had been closed again shortly after he left, though he had no way of knowing if the priest had done it intentionally or not. Had Barjin survived? If so, had he found another victim to reopen the cursing flask?

The questions nagged at the imp. Even if Barjin had not succeeded or survived, even if the precious bottle had been destroyed, he knew now the potential for his recipe and vowed that one day the chaos curse would again descend on the Realms.

"Do hurry, Aballister," the imp groaned nervously. The wizard had not summoned him back to the material plane, a fact that the nervous imp could not ignore, particularly since the wizard still possessed the recipe. If Aballister somehow had learned of Druzil's mental connection with Barjin, the wizard might never trust Druzil enough to bring him back.

The imp knew not how many days had passed-time was measured differently in the lower planes-but finally he heard a distant call, a familiar voice. He saw the distant flicker of a fiery gate and heard the call again, more demanding this time. Off he soared, through the planar tunnel, and soon he crawled out of Aballister's brazier to stand in a familiar room in Castle Trinity.

"Too long," the imp snorted derisively, trying to gain an upper hand. "Why did you delay?"

Aballister cast a foul look at him. "I did not know that you had returned to the lower planes. My contact with Barjin was broken."

Druzil's long and pointy ears perked up at the mention of the priest, a fact that brought a sneer to Aballister's lips. Across the room, the magical mirror sat broken, a wide crack running its length.

"What happened?" Druzil asked, leading Aballister's gaze to the mirror.

"I overextended its powers," the wizard replied. "Trying to aid Barjin."

"And?"

"Barjin is dead," Aballister said. "He has failed utterly."

Druzil ran a clawed hand along the wall and snarled in dismay.

Aballister was more pragmatic. "The priest was too reckless," he declared. "He should have taken more care, should have set his goals on a more vulnerable target. The Edificant Library! It is the most defended structure in all the region, a fortress teeming with mighty priests who would seek our destruction if they learned of our plans! Barjin was a fool, do you hear? A fool!"

Druzil, ever the practical familiar, thought it prudent not to disagree. Besides, Aballister's observations apparently were correct.

"But fear not, my leathery friend," Aballister went on, his attitude becoming more friendly toward his imp. "It is but a minor setback to our cause."

Druzil thought Aballister might be enjoying this just a bit too much. Barjin may have been a potential rival, but he was also, after all, an ally.

"Ragnor and his charges march for Shilmista," Aballister went on. "The ogrillon will win against the elves and sweep south around the mountains. The region will fall to more conventional methods."

Druzil allowed himself a bit of optimism, though he preferred a more insidious attack method, like the chaos curse. "But he was so close, my master," the imp whined. "Barjin had brought the library to its knees. It was his to finish, and then the cornerstone of any resistance we might face would have been gone before the rest of the region even knew the danger in its midst." Druzil clenched a clawed hand before him. "He had victory in his grasp!"

"His grasp was not as strong as he believed," Aballister sharply pointed out.

"Perhaps," Druzil conceded, "but it was that one human, the young man who had first opened the bottle, who came back to defeat him. Barjin should have killed that one right away."

Aballister nodded, remembering the last image he had seen of Barjin's altar room, and could not help but smile.

"Surprisingly resourceful, that one," Druzil sputtered.

"Not so surprising," Aballister replied casually. "He is my son."