The Cleric Quintet: In Sylvan Shadows

 

Under Guard

"Cadderly." The word came from a great distance, from beyond the edge of the young scholar's consciousness. "Cadderly," it came again, more insistent.

Cadderly strained to open his eyes. He recognized the voice, and he recognized the caring eyes he found himself looking into, rich brown and exotic. Still, it took him a while to remember the woman's name.

"Danica?"

"I feared you would never awaken," Danica replied. "The bruise on your lower neck is wicked indeed." Cadderly didn't doubt that; even the slightest shift of his head hurt him.

He gradually came back to consciousness. He and she were in a tent of animal skins, Cadderly's hands tightly bound behind his back and Danica's behind hers. Danica sat with Cadderly's head and shoulders gently propped on her lap. No guards were in sight, but Cadderly heard the guttural grunts of orcs and orogs outside, and that noise inevitably led him to recall the battle, and the last desperate act in which he had blasted the ogre's shoulder.

"They did not kill us?" he asked, confused. He wriggled his hands about and could feel that he still wore his feathered ring.

Danica shook her head. "They were under orders not to, I must assume strict orders," she replied. "The orc that struck you was punished by the orogs for hitting you so hard. They all feared you would die."

Cadderly considered the news for a moment, but found no solution to this puzzle. "Elbereth?" he asked, panic obvious in his voice.

Danica looked beyond the young scholar, to the back of the skin tent. With some effort, Cadderly managed to shift around for a glance as well. Elbereth, the elf prince, seemed far removed from royalty at that moment. Dirty and bloodstained, he sat with his head down, his arms tied to his knees, with one eye bruised so badly that it would not open.

He sensed the stares and looked up.

"I caused our capture," he admitted, his choked voice barely more than a whisper. "It was I they sought, an elf prince to ransom."

"You cannot know that," Danica offered, trying to comfort the distraught elf. There was little conviction in the young woman's voice Elbereth's guess seemed logical. The elf put his head back down and did not answer.

"Orogs," Cadderly muttered, trying to jog his memory. He had read several passages concerning the brutes and searched now for some answers to the situation. Had he and his companions, perhaps, been taken prisoner to become sacrifices in some horrible ritual? Were they to be the meat of an orog's dinner? Neither explanation offered much solace, and Cadderly nearly jumped upright when the flap of the tent was thrown aside.

It was no orog that walked in from the dusky light, but a man, great and tall, bronze-skinned and golden-haired. A tattoo of some strange creature was centered in his forehead, between his ice-blue, piercing eyes.

Cadderly studied him intently, thinking that the tattoo Cadderly recognized it as a remorhaz, a polar worm should tell him something.

The huge man walked over to Danica and gave a leer that sent shivers through her spine and evoked silent rage in Cadderly. Then, casually, with the slightest flick of his muscled arm, he tossed the young woman aside. With one hand and similar ease, he grabbed the front of Cadderly's tunic and hoisted the young scholar to his feet.

"White Worm," Cadderly muttered, unconsciously thinking aloud, the words brought on by the man's sheer size. He was nearly a foot taller than Cadderly's six feet, and easily a hundred pounds heavier, though there wasn't a bit of softness on his mighty frame.

The bronze-skinned giant's frown quickly became a threatening scowl aimed at Cadderly. "What do you know of the White Worm?" he demanded, his voice edged by the hint of an accent from a distant land.

It was Cadderly's turn to frown. The big man's command of the language seemed too smooth and unaccented for the young scholar's budding theory to be correct. Also, the man's clothes were richly made, of silk and other fine materials, cut as a king might wear them, or a servant of a king's court. The man seemed quite comfortable in them too comfortable, Cadderly noted, for a barbarian.

"What do you know?" the man demanded, and he lifted Cadderly from the floor again with one gigantic hand.

"The painting on your forehead," Cadderly gasped. "It is a remorhaz, a white worm, an uncommon beast, even in the northern reaches, and known not at all among the Snowflake Mountains and the Shining Plains."

The large man's scowl did not relent. He eyed Cadderly for some time, as if waiting for the young priest to elaborate on his explanation.

There came a rustle from the door, and the giant promptly lowered Cadderly to the floor. In walked a black-haired woman, a wizard, judging from the robes she wore. She reminded Cadderly somewhat of a younger Pertelope, except that her eyes were dots of amber, not hazel, and she wore her hair longer and less tended than the neatly groomed Pertelope. And while Pertelope's nose was arrow straight, the wizard's had obviously been broken and forever bent to the side.

"Welcome, dear Cadderly," the wizard said, her words drawing surprised looks from both Cadderly and Danica. Even Elbereth looked up. "Have you enjoyed your visit to Shilmista? I know Kierkan Rufo longs for home."

Danica sucked in her breath at the mention of Rufo. Cadderly turned to her, anticipating her anger and trying to diffuse it for the time being.

"Yes, I know your name, young priest of the Edificant Library," the woman continued, reveling in her superior position. "You will come to understand that I know many things."

"Then you are at an advantage," Cadderly dared to remark, "for I know nothing of you."

"Nothing?" The woman chuckled. "If you knew nothing of me, then surely you would not have come out to kill me." This time, Cadderly and Danica could not even manage to stifle gasps, their astonishment plain on their faces.

Cadderly heard Danica mutter, "Rufo."

"I do not wish to die, you must understand," the wizard said sarcastically.

Not as Barjin died, rang a voice inside Cadderly's head. He glanced around at Danica, then realized that the words had been telepathic, not audible communication. The unexpected connection to the slain priest brought a thousand questions rushing through Cadderly's thoughts. He settled them quickly, though, asking himself if someone, or something, had actually communicated with him, or if that inner voice had been his own, reasonably placing this wizard in the same conspiracy as the slain priest.

Cadderly looked the wizard over, up and down. Her dress was unremarkable enough, certainly not as ornamented as Barjin's clerical robes had been. The young scholar strained his neck, trying to get a better view of the wizard's rings. She wore three, and one of them appeared to hold an insignia.

The wizard smiled at him, drawing his eyes to hers, then pointedly slipped her hands into her pockets.

"Always curious," she mumbled, but loud enough so that Cadderly could hear. "So similar to that other one."

The way she spoke that reference surprised Cadderly.

"Yes, young priest," the woman continued, "you will prove a valuable well of information."

Cadderly wanted to spit on her foot he knew that his dwarven friend Ivan would have without a second thought but he couldn't muster the courage. His sour expression revealed his feelings, though.

That disdainful, uncompromising expression gave way to despair when the wizard took her hand back out of her deep pocket. She held something, something terrible by Cadderly's estimation.

Dorigen leveled Cadderly's deadly crossbow, cocked and loaded with an explosive dart, at Danica. Cadderly didn't breathe for what seemed like minutes.

"You will do as I command you," the wizard said, glaring at Cadderly, her visage suddenly icy and removed. "Say it!"

Cadderly couldn't say anything past the lump in his throat.

"Say it!" the wizard cried, jerking the crossbow Danica's way. For a split second, Cadderly thought she had pulled the trigger, and he nearly fainted away.

"I will do as you command!" he cried desperately as soon as he realized that the bow hadn't fired.

"No!" Danica shouted at him.

"A well of information," the wizard said again, her lips turning up in a comfortable smile. She turned to her bronze-skinned soldier. "Take him."

Stubborn Danica was up in a second, cutting between Cadderly and the huge man. She tugged at her ropes, but was unable to get her hands free and settled instead for kicking at the large man.

His agility and quick reactions surprised the young woman. He was down in a crouch even as Danica's foot flew up, and he caught her leg cleanly. A subtle twist of his powerful arms sent Danica off balance, gritting her teeth in pain. The huge man tossed her aside, again with no more than a casual flick of his hands.

"Enough!" the wizard commanded. "Do not kill her." She gave Cadderly an awful smile. "Fear not young priest, I will not kill those who allow me to control you like a marionette! Ah, to have my prize, and an elf prince thrown into the package by sheer chance! Yes, I know of you, too, Elbereth, and do not doubt that you shall be reunited with your people soon. You are much too dangerous a prisoner for me to keep." Dorigen snickered again. "Or at least, your head will soon be reunited with your father."

Her words renewed Elbereth's futile struggling with his tight bonds. The wizard laughed aloud, mocking him. "Take him!" she said again to the warrior, indicating Cadderly.

The huge man grabbed Cadderly quickly, before Danica could react, and wrapped him in a tight headlock, the great man's other hand waving ready in case the fiery woman decided to come back for more.

"Stay back!" Cadderly called out meekly, and Danica did, for she saw that the warrior could snap Cadderly's neck with ease.

"Stay back," the huge man echoed. "Come only when you are summoned." The manner in which he spoke, through a lascivious grin, renewed the shivers along the young woman's spine.

Behind the huge man, the wizard frowned, and Danica was quick to understand the jealousy behind that look.

At the wizard's snapping command, two orogs took up positions inside the tent as she and her giant lackey departed with Cadderly in tow.

The camp itself struck Cadderly as out of place, as wrong, from the moment he was half-dragged, half-carried outside. Even in the fading daylight he could see that beautiful Shilmista had been scarred and torn, with trees that had lived a hundred years ripped down and broken apart. It was an odd feeling for the young scholar, something he hadn't expected. He himself had used firewood back at the Edificant Library, had plucked a flower from the roadside to give to Danica without a second thought. But there was a majesty about Shilmista that Cadderly had never known, a raw and natural beauty that even the print of a boot seemed to mar.

Watching filthy orogs and orcs milling about the forest pained Cadderly's heart profoundly.

He recognized many of the creatures, mostly from wounds such as the profound limp one ogre exhibited and the heavy bandage on its shoulder. The monster noticed Cadderly, too, and its scowl promised death if the thing ever got its hands on the young scholar.

The wizard's tent was on the far side of the camp. While on the outside it seemed a normal skin canopy, the inside revealed that this wizard enjoyed her niceties. Plush cloth covered the one table and the four chairs around it; the bed was thick and soft no blanket on the ground for this woman; and a silver serving set was perched upon a cart off to the side.

The bronze giant roughly placed Cadderly in one of the chairs.

"You may leave us, Tiennek," the wizard said, taking a seat opposite the young scholar.

Tiennek didn't seem overly pleased by that idea. He scowled at Cadderly and made no move toward the flap.

"Oh, be gone!" his mistress scolded, waving her hand.

"Do you believe I cannot protect myself from the likes of this one?"

Tiennek bent close to Cadderly and issued a threatening growl, then bowed low to his lady and departed.

Cadderly shifted in his seat, letting the wizard know that his bindings were uncomfortable. Now was the time for him to take command, he decided, to let his enemy understand that he was not some coward she could do with as she pleased. Cadderly wasn't certain he could hold up that facade, especially not with Danica and Elbereth's lives hanging so tenuously before him. But that facade, he realized, might be the only thing that kept them all alive.

The wizard considered him for a long while, then muttered some words under her breath. Cadderly felt the ties about his wrists being undone, and soon his aching arms were free.

His first thoughts centered on his feathered ring. If he could manage to get the cat's claw out and stick the wizard . . .

Cadderly dismissed that notion. He didn't even know if the drow sleep poison was still active. If he made his attempt and failed, he did not doubt that the wizard would punish him severely or, more likely, punish his helpless friends.

"He is cultured beyond what one would expect from a barbarian," the young scholar said, thinking to catch the wizard off her guard.

The wizard's chuckle mocked him. "Deductive, as I expected," she said, more to herself than to Cadderly. Again her tone gave Cadderly pause.

"The marking on his forehead, I mean," Cadderly stammered, trying to regain his composure. "Tiennek is of the White Worm, the barbarian tribe living under the shadows of the Great Glacier."

"Is he?" the wizard purred, leaning forward in her chair, as if to better hear Cadderly's startling revelations.

Cadderly realized that it was useless to continue.

The wizard fell back comfortably in her seat. "You are correct, young priest," she said sincerely. "Amazingly so. Few from the region would recognize the remorhaz at all, let alone connect the marking to an obscure barbarian tribe that never ventures south of the Galena Mountains. I congratulate you as you have congratulated me."

Cadderly's eyebrows rolled up with curiosity.

"Tiennek's mannerisms are indeed an aberration," the wizard explained, "far from what one would expect from the savage warriors of the White Worm."

"You taught him that culture," Cadderly added.

"It was necessary if he was to properly serve me," the wizard explained.

The casual conversation put Cadderly at ease enough to offer a prompt. "Does he properly serve his lady . . . ?"

"Dorigen," the wizard said. "I am Dorigen Kel Lamond."

"Of?"

Again came that mocking chuckle. "Yes, you are inquisitive," she said, her excitement mounting. "I have dealt far too long with one too much like you for your words to entangle me." She calmed immediately, putting the conversation back into a casual mode. "So many things have happened so quickly, and Cadderly Bo - " Dorigen paused and smiled, seeing his reaction. It was true, Dorigen realized, the young priest did not know his heritage, or even his family name.

"You will pardon me," Dorigen went on. "For all my knowledge, I fear I know not your surname."

Cadderly slumped back, understanding that Dorigen had lied to him. What was the significance of that single syllable the wizard had uttered? he wondered. Did Dorigen know of his parentage? Determinedly, Cadderly resolved not to play this mocking game with the wizard. To do so would put Dorigen in an even higher position of authority, something he and his friends could not afford.

"Cadderly of Carradoon," he answered curtly. "That is all."

"Is it?" Dorigen teased, and Cadderly had to concentrate hard to hide his interest.

Dorigen broke the ensuing silence with a heartfelt laugh. "Let me answer some of your questions, young priest," she said, and she tapped her shoulder, or rather, she tapped something invisible that was perched upon her shoulder.

Druzil, the imp, faded into view.

So they were connected! Cadderly realized, recognizing the imp, the same imp who had poisoned Pikel back in the library's catacombs. There could be no doubt. Barjin and this wizard had come from the same source. Cadderly understood then the silent voice he had heard back in the other tent. He looked immediately to Dorigen's delicate hand and the signet ring, recognizing it now that he realized what should be upon it. The trident and bottle design, the variation of Talona's holy symbol that had so quickly become a mark of disaster to the region.

"Greetings again, young priest," the imp said in his raspy voice. Druzil's forked tongue flicked, lizardlike, between his pointed yellow teeth, and he leered at Cadderly as an ogre might stare at a piece of roasting mutton. "You have been well, I presume?"

Cadderly didn't blink, refused to show any weakness. "And you have recovered from your flight into a wall?" he replied evenly.

Druzil growled and disappeared from view.

Dorigen laughed again. "Very fine," she congratulated Cadderly. "Druzil usually is not so easily intimidated."

Still Cadderly did not blink. He felt an intrusion in his mind, an empathic bond he knew was coming from the imp.

"Let him in," Dorigen instructed. "He challenges you. Do you fear to learn who is the stronger?"

Cadderly didn't understand, but, still determined not to reveal any weakness, he closed his eyes and lowered his mental defenses.

He heard Dorigen chanting softly, heard Druzil snicker, then felt the energy of a magical spell fall over him. His mind became a tangible blackness, as though he had been mentally transported to an empty place. Then a light, a glowing and sparkling orb, appeared in the distance, floating toward Cadderly.

His mind watched the orb curiously as it neared, not understanding the danger. Then it was upon him, a part of his thoughts, burning him like a flame! A thousand fiery explosions went off inside his brain, a thousand searing blasts of agony.

Cadderly grimaced, thrashed about in his seat, and opened his eyes. Through a dark cloud he saw the wizard, and the imp, seated, smiling, on her shoulder. The pain intensified; Cadderly cried out and feared he would fall unconscious or dead, and he almost wished that he would.

He closed his eyes again, tried to concentrate and find some way to relieve the agony.

"Push it away," came a distant voice that Cadderly recognized as Dorigen's. "Use your will, young priest, and push the fire away."

Cadderly heard her and understood her words, but he could hardly find his focus through the pain. He took a deep breath and slammed his fists on the table before him, determined to distract himself from the ball of fiery light.

Still it burned. He heard Druzil snicker.

Cadderly mentally reached for his meditation techniques, tried to blot out the light as he could blot out the material world, bit by bit.

It would not go away. Druzil snickered again.

Anger replaced the vacuum of meditation, destroyed any serenity the young scholar had managed to create. The light became his enemy; he convinced himself that it would turn on Danica after it devoured him.

"No!" Cadderly growled, and suddenly the ball was moving away, out of the void he had entered. It wavered for many moments, then slipped beyond Cadderly's mentality. The pain was no more, and no more were Druzil's snickers.

Cadderly realized another void, another hole of blackness beyond his own, and he knew instinctively that it belonged to the imp, to the one who had forced the pain upon him. His anger did not relent; the ball of sparkling light moved toward the other blackness.

"Enough," he heard Druzil cry, to which Dorigen merely laughed.

Cadderly forced the orb into Druzil's thoughts. The imp squealed out, and that only prompted Cadderly on. He would show no mercy; he would hold the fire in Druzil's mind until it burned the imp away to nothing!

Then it was over, abruptly, and Cadderly found himself seated at a table opposite Dorigen and Druzil, the imp reeling, his bulbous eyes promising death to the young scholar.

"Excellent!" Dorigen cried, clapping her hands together. "You are powerful indeed if you can defeat Druzil, who is practiced in the game. Perhaps even more powerful than your - " She stopped and tossed Cadderly a teasing stare. "You will do well beside me."

Again the young scholar would not play along. "I do not serve Talona," he announced, and it was Dorigen's turn to try to hide her surprise. "I never shall, whatever the price."

"We shall see," Dorigen replied after a short pause. "Tiennek!"

The barbarian was upon Cadderly in an instant, fiercely tugging his arms behind his back and retying his hands so tightly that the cords cut into his wrists. The young scholar was hoisted into the air and briskly carried away.

Cadderly struggled to sit up when the barbarian dropped him back in his tent. Tiennek offered one more leer Danica's way before he departed.

"What happened to you?" Danica asked when the barbarian was gone. She shuffled over to Cadderly, resting her head against his.

Cadderly, still overwhelmed and with too many questions whirling about in his thoughts, did not answer.

Danica gave a concerned look Elbereth's way.

"Alas for my studies," the woman lamented.

Cadderly looked at her in disbelief.

"Physical suspension," Danica explained. "If I could achieve that state, slow my heart so that its beating could not be detected . . ."

Cadderly's incredulous stare did not diminish.

"But I cannot," Danica said, lowering her eyes. "That feat is beyond me." Her declaration rang ominously for the prisoners, a general sound of doom. Cadderly, too, allowed his head to bow.

"I shall kill that wizard," Cadderly heard the elf vow. "And I, her giant lackey," Danica added, a ring of determination returning to her voice. That thought did little to comfort Cadderly, though, given his new insight concerning Tiennek.

"He is of the White Worm," Cadderly said, turning to Danica.

She shrugged; the words meant nothing to her.

"A barbarian tribe of the north," Cadderly explained. "Savage, living surviving in brutal conditions. And Tiennek hat is his name is of Kura-winther, the elite warriors, unless I am mistaken."

Danica looked at him curiously, and he realized that his words still meant little to her.

"Fear him," Cadderly said grimly. "Do not underestimate his prowess. Kura-winther," he said again, closing his eyes to recall all he had read of the White Worm. "To get the marking upon his forehead, Tiennek would have had to kill a polar worm, a remorhaz, single-handedly. He is an elite warrior of a tribe of warriors." Cadderly's expression, sincerely terrified, unnerved Danica more than any words ever could.

"Fear him," Cadderly said again.

*****

"There's the camp," Ivan whispered to Pikel, "though I'm not fond of fighting orc-types in a dark forest night."

Pikel wagged his head in agreement; dwarves were more accustomed to the blackness of a deep cave, a much different situation than the starlit forest.

"We could get after them just afore the dawn," Ivan offered, talking as much to himself as to his brother. "Yeah, that'd do fine. But there's too many. We can't just go walking into them. We're needing a plan."

"Uh-oh."

Ivan glared at his doubting brother, but his expression lightened considerably when a thought came to him. He pulled his deer-antler helm from his head, fished a small hammer from one impossibly deep pocket, and began chipping away at the lacquer holding one of the antlers firmly in place.

Pikel wagged his head fearfully and tried not to watch.

Ivan had done well in making the helmet, and it was a long time before he had the lacquer cleared enough to unscrew the antler, and even then, he had to fight with the firm hold of his setting. He got it free, finally, and handed it to Pikel, putting the now-lopsided helmet back in place on his hairy head.

"When we go, ye hold it up atop ye and keep close by me," Ivan instructed.

Pikel prudently waited for Ivan to take up a more distant spying position before uttering "Uh-oh" again. Somewhere unseen in the shadows of the trees behind him, Hammadeen tittered.