"I am Cadderly, of the Order of Deneir," the young priest replied. He turned to Danica and shrugged, embarrassed and almost apologetic, as soon as he had spoken the last few words.
"We are making our way back to the Dragon's Codpiece, the inn of Fredegar Harriman" Danica explained, tossing Cadderly a sidelong glance, "to check on the friends we were forced to leave behind."
"Forced?" Cadderly and Danica knew the question was a test. The guardsman's eyes remained narrow and searching as he continued to scrutinize them.
"You know what occurred," Cadderly replied without hesitation.
The guardsman nodded gravely, apparently satisfied with the explanation. "Come, and quickly," he bade them, and he used his horse to nudge aside any who stood to block the couple's progress.
Neither Cadderly nor Danica enjoyed that stroll down Lakeview Street, fearful that among those many watching eyes loomed some belonging to their assassin enemies. And even more fearful to the companions, considering the guard's grim tone, loomed the possibility that the victory back at the inn had not been without cost.
Their fears did not diminish when they passed the inn two doors down, where Ivan and Pikel had been staying, to find that the front rail, the window above the door, and the wall beside the door all had been smashed apart. The innkeeper, sweeping glass and wood shards from his front porch, regarded the two suspiciously, not looking away and not blinking once as they passed.
Cadderly paused and sighed deeply when the Dragon's Codpiece came into sight. He spotted the balcony of his room, the place he had used as a sanctuary from the harshness of the world for the past several weeks. The front rail lay in the street; one plank, the one that had supported Danica's ride to safety, hung out at a weird diagonal angle. There were no bodies in the street (thank the gods!), but Cadderly saw a crimson stain on the cobblestone beneath his room, and a larger one halfway across the wide street. Danica, apparently sensing his distress at the sight, hooked her arm around his and lent him support. To her surprise, Cadderly pulled away. She looked at him, to see if she had done something wrong, but his return stare was not accusing.
He stood straight and tall, took another deep breath, and squared his shoulders.
Danica understood the significance of those simple acts, understood that, this time, Cadderty had accepted what he had been forced to do. This time, he would not run away, as he had in Shilmista; he would meet the threat head-on, strike back against those who meant to strike at him. But could he do so, Danica wondered, without ghosts Kke Bar-jin's hovering beside him for the rest of his days?
Cadderly walked past her, then smiled and waved when "Oo oi!" sounded from the door of the Dragon's Codpiece and Pikel Bouldershoulder stepped onto the front porch. The dwarf held Cadderly's lost walking stick high above his head and waved excitedly with a heavily bandaged hand.
Danica waited a moment longer and let Cadderty get far ahead of her, considering the perceived shift in the young priest's demeanor. This continuing stream of violent events was forcing Cadderty to grow up, to thicken his hide, in a hurry. Violence could be a numbing thing, Danica knew; no battle is ever harder to accept and fight than the first, no killing blow made with more reluctance than the first.
Watching her lover stride confidently to join Pike!, the young monk was afraid.
By the time Danica caught up to Cadderty, he stood silently inside the inn with both dwarves (to her relief) and with a teary-eyed Fredegar Harriman. Danica held in check her elation at Ivan and Pikel's good heath, though, for she followed Cadderly's gaze to a table in the hearth room, to Headmaster Avery's sprawling corpse. The chest was torn wide and revealed a gaping hole where the heart should have been.
"My Brennan," broken Fredegar was saying. "They killed my poor Brennan!"
Cadderly let his gaze drift about the sacked room, to the broken stairwell, the shattered chandelier atop its rubble to the charred floor beside the long bar; to a young, unmarked body gently laid beside that bar; and to the row of six corpses, one of them still releasing wisps of smoke from under the cloth that covered it.
"Four of them, at least, got away," Ivan informed them.
"You will find another one on the roof," Danica remarked.
"Oo oi," Pikel chirped, snapping his stubby fingers and motioning for one of the guards to go and check.
"Maybe only three got away," Ivan corrected.
"Seven got away," Cadderly said absently, remembering the three men who had assaulted him and Danica from the water, and the four others in the pursuing boat.
Ivan shook his yellow-bearded face, then grumbled, "Well, there's a pack of trouble for ye."
Cadderly hardly heard the dwarf. The young priest walked slowly across the cluttered floor toward the body of the man who had served him as a father for as long as he could recall. Before he got there, though, a tall man, a city soldier, intercepted him.
"Vfe have some questions," the man explained gruffly.
Cadderly eyed him dangerously. "They will wait."
"No," the man retorted. "They will be answered when I say. And fully! I'll brook no - "
"Leave." It was a simple word, spoken quietly and in controlled tones, but, to the city guardsman, it struck like a thunderbolt. The man stood up very straight, glanced about curiously, then headed for the front door. "Come along," he instructed his fellow soldiers, who, after exchanging surprised glances, obeyed without complaint.
Ivan started to say something to Cadderly, but Danica put a hand on the dwarfs shoulder to stop him.
Cadderly wouldn't have heard Ivan anyway. The young priest moved beside Avery's torn body and wiped a tear from his gray eyes. Avery had gotten in the way of something that really did not concern him, Cadderly suspected, and the notion brought disgust to the young man, brought yet another layer of guilt to his growing burden.
But it wasn't guflt that drove Cadderly now; it was sorrow, a grief more profound than any be had ever known. So many images of Avery's fife flowed through the young priest. He saw the portly headmaster on the lane outside the Edificant Library, trying to enjoy a sunny spring day but continually hampered by Perrival, the white squirrel, who dropped twigs on him from the branches above. He saw Avery at Brother Chauntideer's midday canticle, the headmaster's face made content, serene, by the melodious song to Avery's cherished god.
How different that fatherly face seemed now, its mouth open in a final scream, an unanswered plea for help that did not come.
Most of all, Cadderly remembered the many scoldings the headmaster had given him, Avery's blotchy face turning blight red with frustration at CadderJy's apparent indifference and irresponsibility. It took the insidious chaos curse for the headmaster to finally admit his true feelings for Cadderly, to admit that he considered Cadderly a son. In truth, though, Cadderly had known it all along. He never could have upset Avery so completely and so many times if the headmaster had not cared for him.
Only now, standing beside the dead man, did Cadderly realize how much he had loved Avery, this man who had served as father.
It occurred to Cadderly that Avery should not have been down in the hearth room at such an early hour, especially not dressed so informally, so vulnerably. Cadderly digested that information almost subconsciously, filing it away with the myriad other facts he had collected and scrutinized since his flight from the assassin band.
"My Brennan, too," Fredegar blubbered, coming to Cadderly's side, draping an arm over Cadderly's shoulder to lean on the young priest.
Cadderly was more than willing to give his gentle friend the needed support, and he followed the innkeeper's lead across the floor toward the bar.
The contrast between Brennan's body and Avery's was startling. The teenager's face showed neither horror nor any signs of surprise. His body, too, seemed intact, with no obvious wounds.
It appeared that he had simply, peacefully, died. The only thing Cadderly could think of was poison.
"They could not tell me how" Fredegar wailed. "The guardsman said he wasn't choked, and there's no blood anywhere. Not a mark on his young form." Fredegar panted desperately to find his breath.
"But he's dead," the innkeeper said, his voice rising to a wail. "My Brennan is dead!"
Cadderly shuffled to the side under the weight as Fredegar fell into him. Despite his sincere grief at the sight of Brennan, the death had raised a riddle that Cadderly could not leave unanswered. He remembered the horrible shadows he had seen dancing atop Brennan's shoulders that night at supper. He recalled Danica's story, her dream, and knew beyond doubt that someone, something, had possessed the young man, then discarded him.
Perhaps some lingering trace of what had happened remained to be seen. Perhaps telltale shadows remained on Brennan's shoulders. Cadderly opened his mind, let the song of Deneir into his consciousness again, despite the continuing, painful throb in his head.
Cadderly saw a ghost.
The spirit of Brennan sat atop the bar, looking forlorn and lost, staring with pity at his distraught father and with disbelief at his own pale body. He looked up at Cadderly, and his nearly translucent features twisted with surprise.
All the material world around the spirit became blurry as Cadderly allowed himself to fall more into Brennan's state.
Poison? his mind asked the lost soul, though he knew he had not spoken a word.
The spirit shook its head. I have nowhere to go.
The answer seemed so very obvious to Cadderly. Go back to your father.
Brennan looked at him with confusion.
The song played louder in Cadderly's throbbing head, its volume becoming ferocious. The young priest would not let it go, though, not now. He saw Brennan's spirit tentatively approach the corpse, seeming confused, hopeful yet terribly afraid. To Cadderly's eyes, the room around the spirit went dark.
Everything went dark.
"By the gods," Cadderly heard Danica whisper.
"Oooo," Pikel moaned.
A thump on the floor beside him jolted Cadderly awake. He was kneeling on the hard floor, but, beside him, Fredegar was out cold.
In front of him, young Brennan sat up, blinking incredulously.
"Cadderly," Danica breathed. Her shivering hands grasped the young priest's trembling shoulders.
"How do you . . . feel?" Cadderly stammered to Brennan.
Brennan's chuckles, as much sobs as laughter, came out on a quivering, breaking voice reflecting astonishment, as though he really didn't know how to answer the question. How did he feel? Alive!
The young man looked to his own hands, marveled that they again moved to his command. Fists clenched suddenly, and he punched them up into the air, a primal scream erupting from his lips. The effort cost the lad his newfound physical bearings, though, and he wobbled and swooned.
Ivan and Pikel rushed to catch him.
Cadderly steadied himself suddenly, his gaze snapping back across the room, to Headmaster Avery. The determined young priest rose briskly, brushed Danica aside, and stalked to the corpse.