"When I am with you, then all the world and all of my life is beautiful," Cadderly went on. "In truth, it is not, of course. ShUmista proved that beyond doubt. When I am with you, I can hide behind my love. You, my Danka, have been my mask. Wearing it, I could even hide from the horrors of that continuing battle, I am sure."
"But you could not hide from yourself," Danica put in, beginning to catch on.
Cadderly nodded. "There are troubles in here," he explained, pointing to his heart and then to his head, "that will remain beside me until I can resolve them. Or until they destroy me."
"And you could not face them while your mask was there to hide behind," Danica reasoned. There was no malice in her quiet tones. Honestly sympathetic for Cadderly, she asked softly, "Have you found your answers?"
Cadderly nearly laughed out loud. "I have found more questions," he admitted. "The world has only become more confusing since I delved into myself." He pointed to the Tome of Universal Harmony. "You would hardly believe the sights that book has shown to me, though whether they are true sights or clever deceptions, I cannot tell."
By the way Danica's posture seemed to shrink back from him, Cadderly realized that he had said something revealing. He waited long moments for Danica to respond, to share the revelation with him.
"You question your faith?" she asked bluntly.
Cadderly spun away, his gaze again searching for the dying light on the lake. She had hit the mark squarely, he only then realized. How could he, as a priest of Deneir, doubt the vision and magic shown to him by the most holy book of his god?
"I do not doubt the principles espoused by the clerics of Deneir," Cadderly asserted with conviction.
"Then it is the god himself," Danica reasoned incredulously. "You question the existence of such beings?" her voice nearly broke apart with the words. "How can one who was raised among priests, and who has witnessed so much clerical magic, claim to be agnostic?"
"I claim nothing," Cadderly protested. "I am just not certain of anything!"
"You have seen the magic bestowed by the gods," Danica argued. "You felt the magic ... in healing Tintagel."
"I believe in magic," Cadderly reasoned. "It is an undeniable fact on the soil of Faerun. And, yes, I have felt the power, but where it comes from I cannot say."
"The curse of intelligence," Danica muttered ironically. Cadderly regarded her over his shoulder once more. "You cannot believe anything you cannot prove beyond doubt" she said to him. "Must everything be tangible? Is there no room for faith in a mind that can unravel any of the lesser mysteries?"
A wind had kicked up across the lake. Ripples rolled to the shore, carrying the last daylight on their crests.
"I just do not know," Cadderly said, regarding the rolling water, trying to find some fitting symbolism in its transport of the dying light.
"Why did you run?" Danica asked him again, and he knew by her determined tone that she meant to force him through this, whatever the cost to them both.
"I was afraid," he admitted. "Afraid to kill any more. Afraid that you would be killed. That I could not bear." Cadderly paused and swallowed hard, forced to come to terms with this difficult realization. His silence went on, Danica not daring to interrupt his train of thought.
"I was afraid to die." There it was. Cadderly had just admitted his own cowardice. He tightened his arms against his sides, fearing Danica's stinging rebuttal.
"Of course you were," she said instead, and there was no sarcasm in her remark. "You question your faith, question that there is anything beyond this existence. If you believe there is nothing more, then of what worth is honor? Bravery rides the crest of a cause, Cadderly. You would die for Elbereth. You have already proven that. And if a spear were aimed for my heart, you would willingly take it in my stead. That I do not doubt."
Cadderly continued to stare out the window. He heard Danica shifting on the bed again, but was too lost in contemplations of her wisdom. He watched the last gasps of light riding the waves, riding the crest, and knew that there was truth in Danica's description. He had been afraid to die in Shilmista, but only because the justification for continuing that fight was founded in a cause of principles, and those principles were, in turn, founded in faith. And he had been so angry at Danica and Elbereth, and all the others, because he had feared for them and could not appreciate their dedication to those higher principles, their willingness to continue a course that might easily lead to their deaths.
"I would take the spear," Cadderly decided.
"I never doubted you," Danica replied. There was something in the ring of her voice, something softer and mysterious, that made Cadderly turn back to her.
She lay on her side comfortably on his bed, her clothes dropped in a pile at the bedside. If Cadderly lived a thousand years, he would never forget the sight of Danica at that moment. She rested her head against her hand, propped at the elbow, her thick strawberry-blond locks cascading down her arm to dance on the single pillow. The minimal light accentuated the curves of Danica's soft skin, the shine of her sculpted legs.
"Through all the weeks, I never doubted you," she said.
Cadderly sensed the slight tremor in her voice, but still could not believe how brave she had been. Without blinking, he unbuttoned his shirt and started to her.
A moment later, they were together. The song played again in Cadderly's mind. No, rather, he felt it, thrumming with urgency through every facet of his body, guiding him through every subtle motion, and convincing him that nothing had ever been so right.
Cadderly's mind whirled through a dizzying jumble of thoughts and emotions. He thought of Danica bearing his child, and considered the implications of mortality.
Most of all, Cadderly focused his thoughts on Danica, his soul mate, and he loved her all the more. Perhaps once she had been his shelter, but only because he had made that her role. Now, Cadderly had revealed his vulnerability, his deepest fears, and Danica had accepted them, and him, with all her heart, and with the sincere desire to help him resolve them.
Later, as Danica slept, Cadderly rose from the bed and lit a single candle on his table, beside the Tome of Universal Harmony. Not bothering to dress, he looked back to Dan-
ica on the bed, and felt a surge of love course through his veins. Strengthened by that security, Cadderly sat down and opened the book, hopeful that, in light of this night's revelations, he would hear the song a different way.
Many hours before Cadderly lit that candle, Ghost had slipped away from the young priest's door, confident from his eavesdropping that the arrival of Danica Maupoissant would do little to deflect his solidifying plans. Actually, Ghost had come to the conclusion that he might be able to use Danica - her body, at least - to substantially increase the pleasure offered by this kill.
If he could possess the body of Cadderly's lover, he might catch the young priest with his guard about as far down as it could possibly go.
But for all the eagerness reflected when Ghost rubbed his hands together, every step of the way back to his own room, he was wise enough to realize that things had become dangerously complicated.
Still bound in the cubby between bed and wall, poor, beaten Brennan looked up pleadingly.
"I will release you this night," Ghost promised. "I have decided that I cannot afford to keep your body - and a pity that is, for the body is fine!"
Brennan, desperate to hope, almost managed to smile right up until the point when Ghost's hands - Brennan's own hands - closed around his borrowed throat. There was no pain this time for the beleaguered innkeeper's son; there was only blackness.
The task completed, Ghost sat down on the bed, untying the weakling form and waiting impatiently for when he could take back his own body. He lamented that he had lost his chance at this fine young form, but reminded himself of the pressing business and pressing danger. He assured himself that he would find another suitable body soon enough, when Cadderly lay dead.
The Stooge's Stooge
ierkan Rufo eyed the stocked shelves with open contempt. Shopping! For more than a dozen years, he had labored in the Edificant Library, had meticulously attended to his du-ties, and now Headmaster Avery had sent him shopping!
This entire trip to Carradoon had been one humiliation after another for poor Rufo. He knew his actions in Shil-mista had angered Avery (though he had convinced himself by this time that none of it had really been his fault), but he never would have believed that the headmaster would degrade him so. Through all the many meetings, with the priests of Ihnater, with several of the other religious sects in the city, and with the city officials, Rufo had been ordered to stand behind Avery and remain silent. These meetings were vital to the defense of the region, vital to the survival of the Edificant Library, yet Rufo was, for all purposes, left out of them. Not only was his input not wanted by Avery, the headmaster had outright forbidden it!
And now he was shopping. Rufo stood before the shelves for many moments, fantasizing that the other side had won in Shilmista Forest, thinking that he would have been better off if Dorigen's forces had slaughtered the elves and had taken him into their ranks as the imp had promised. Perhaps the world would be a better place for Kierkan Rufo if Cadderly had fallen in the sylvan shadows.
Cadderly! The word screamed out in Rufo's mind like the most damning of curses. Cadderly had apparently forsaken the library and the Order of Deneir, had virtually slapped Headmaster Avery and all the other priests in the face with his desertion - there could be no other word for the young priest's actions. Cadderly had never been a good priest - not by Rufo's estimation - had never attended to the many duties given the lesser clerics with any kind of dedication. And yet, in Avery's eyes at least, Cadderly ranked far above Rufo, far above any except the ruling order in the library.
Rufo grabbed a sack of flour and pulled it to him so forcefully that a small white puff burst up at him, covering his face.
"Someone's not seeming a bit too happy," came a gruff, gravelly voice beside him.
"Uh-uh," agreed a voice on the other side.
The angular priest did not have to look sidelong or down to know that the Bouldershoulder brothers had flanked him, and that fact did little to improve his sour mood. He had known that the dwarves were coining to Carradoon, but he had hoped that he and Avery would be well on their way back to the library before these two ever arrived.
He turned toward Ivan and started to push past the dwarf, through the narrow aisle of the cramped store. Ivan did little to aid the angular man, and with the dwarfs considerable girth, Rufo had nowhere to go.
"Ye're in a hurry," Ivan remarked. "I thinked ye'd be glad to see me and me brother."
"Get out of my way, dwarf," Rufo said grimly.
"Dwarf?" Ivan echoed, feigning a mortal wound. "Ye saying that like it's an insult?"
"Take it for what you will," Rufo replied evenly, "but dp get out of my way. I am in Carradoon on important business, something you obviously could not understand."
"I always figured flour to be important," Ivan replied sarcastically, giving the bag a rough pat that sent another white burst into Rufo's face. The angular man trembled with mounting rage, but that only spurred Ivan to further taunts.
"Ye're acting like ye're not so glad to see me and me brother," the dwarf said.
"Should I be?" Rufo asked. "When have we ever claimed friendship to one another?"
"Vfe fought together in the wood," Ivan reminded him. "or at least, some of us fought. Others figured to hide in a tall tree, if me memory's working proper."
Rufo growled and pushed ahead, dislodging several packages in his attempt to get beyond Ivan. He had nearly made his way past when the dwarf threw out one strong arm, stopping Rufo as completely as a stone wall.
"Danica's in town, too," Ivan remarked, his other hand held high and balled into a fist.
"Boom," Pikel added grimly behind the angular man.
The reference to Danica's humiliating attack made Rufo's face flush red with rage. He growled again and shoved past Ivan, stumbling all the rest of the way down the narrow aisle and knocking many more items from the shelves.