The Cleric Quintet: The Chaos Curse

 

Rufo shook his head as well, wondering how this conversation had gotten so out of hand. It was difficult for him to bring things back under control while at the same time move beyond the pain that Danica's words brought him.

"If I had been scarred so," Danica pressed, "if I became ugly, as Histra has become, Cadderly would love me still. He would not seek a new queen."

Rufo's lips moved around the edges of words that did not seem sufficient. He steadied himself abruptly, straightened, and found a measure of dignity.

Then Histra barreled into him, and both flew sidelong, spinning and crashing into the wall. They bit and clawed each other, punched, kicked, anything at all to inflict pain.

Danica knew her moment of opportunity would be brief. She threw herself into a sitting position and gingerly, but as fast as she could, shifted her injured leg to the side of the bed. She stopped suddenly and went perfectly still, trying to concentrate on something minute that had caught her attention, trying to block out the continuing sounds of Rufo and Histra's struggling.

Danica's hand shot out to the side like a biting snake, fingers clenching about something she could not see, but could surely sense, an instant before the barbed tail could snap at her.

Druzil began thrashing immediately, caught £ast in the woman's strong grasp. He came back to visibility, for expending the magical energy now seemed foolish; Danica obviously knew where he was.

"You are still not quick enough," Danica said coldly.

Druzil started to respond, but Danica's other hand came across furiously, pounding right between his bulbous black eyes, and suddenly, for the imp, all the room was spinning.

Druzil hit the wall hard and slumped, muttering "bene tellemara" over and over. He understood what Rufo would have done to him, or would have tried to do, if his attack on Danica had been successful; in an odd way, Danica had probably saved him from banishment back to his own plane of existence. But Druzil's dedication was to the chaos curse, of which Kierkan Rufo was now the embodiment, and though Rufo would never see it, keeping this woman alive was a dangerous, dangerous thing.

Danica was off the bed by then, hopping for the door on her one good leg.

"You cannot hurt me!" Druzil rasped at her, and he came in a flurry, wings beating and tail snapping.

Danica kept her balance perfectly on her one good leg, and her hands worked to her call, spinning blocking circles in the air before her.

Druzil's tail snapped repeatedly, was parried several times, and then was caught again.

The imp growled and waggled his fingers in the air. Greenish bolts of energy erupted from their tips and shot out, stinging Danica.

"You cannot hurt me," Druzil taunted.

The imp could not keep up with the speed of Danica's next move. She jerked hard on the tail, spinning him about, then caught his wings, one in each hand, while still holding fast to the tail. Jerking and twisting, Danica tied the three ends, wing, wing, and tail, into a tight knot behind Druzil's back, and hurled the startled imp face first into the nearest wall.

"Probably knot," she agreed.

Druzil rolled about on the floor, muttering curses, not appreciating the pun, as Danica turned back for the door.

Kierkan Rufo stood before her, seeming amused at her handling of the imp. In the far corner, Histra knelt on her hands and knees, skin hanging loose to the floor, eyes downward, thoroughly beaten.

"Wonderful," Rufo congratulated, and he turned his gaze on Danica.

And Danica punched him again in the face.

Rufo turned back to her deliberately, expecting and accepting the next punch, and the third, and fourth, and the continuing barrage. Finally the vampire had enough, and with an unearthly roar that sent shivers along Dan-ica's spine, he swept his hand across in front of him, knocking Danica off balance momentarily, and caught her by an arm.

Danica knew how to easily defeat such a tenuous hold, except that no grip she had ever witnessed was as strong as the vampire's! She was caught and feared that her elbow would shatter under the strain.

She got her free hand up to block as Rufo's wide-arcing slap raced in, but his strength blew through the defense and snapped Danica's head viciously to the side. Dazed, Danica offered no resistance as Rufo hurled her back onto the bed, and then he was atop her, his strong fingers about her throat. Danica grabbed Rufo's forearm and twisted, but again to no avail.

Then Danica simply stopped struggling, sublimated her strong survival instinct and did nothing to remove Rufo's hand from her neck, did nothing to restore the flow of air into her lungs. At that moment, Danica hoped the vampire would kill her, thought death preferable to any other option. Then there was only blackness.

The trail was a winding way, sometimes looping back on itself through passable areas between towering pillars of stone. At times the view was panoramic and majestic; at others, the three companions felt almost as if they were walking along tight underground corridors.

As fate would have it, Cadderly did not see the plume of black smoke rising from the southern wing of the Edi-ficant Library, his view blocked by the last tall mountain before the place. If he had seen the smoke, the young priest would have sought the song of his god, his magic, and walked with the wind the rest of the way to the library. For, while Cadderly was pressing anyway, anxious to aid in the battle he thought Dorigen faced, he did not listen for Deneir's song, did not want to strain his energies, which had been so sorely taxed in his battle with Aballister and Castle Trinity.

Pikel and Ivan hopped along the trail behind Cadderly, oblivious to any problems at all - except that Ivan was weary of this whole journey and badly wanted to be home again in his familiar kitchen. Pikel still delighted in wearing Cadderly's wide-brimmed blue hat, thinking it brought out the rich green in his dyed and braided hair and beard.

Ivan just thought he looked stupid.

They moved in silence for a time, and at one point, Cadderly paused, thinking he heard a song. He cocked an ear to the wind; it sounded like Brother Chauntideer's midday offering. Cadderly looked around, gauging the distance still to go, and realized there was no way, even if the winds were perfect, that he could possibly hear Chaunticleer's song; the library was at least five miles away.

As he moved to keep up with the bouncing dwarves, Cadderly realized that the music he heard was not in his ears, but in his mind.

Chaunticleer was singing - it was definitely Chaunticleer's voice - and Cadderly was hearing it the way he heard the song of Deneir.

What could that mean?

It didn't occur to Cadderly that Chaunticleer's sweet song might be a ward against some terrible evil. He reasoned that his own mind was tuned purely to Deneir, and that Chaunticleer's offering, too, was in perfect harmony with the god.

To Cadderly, the song was a good thing. It didn't remain constant in his thoughts, but came often enough for the young priest to know that Brother Chaunticleer was going on and on, far longer than usual. Still, the young priest put no ominous connotations on that, simply figured that the man must be feeling extremely pious this day - or perhaps Chaunticleer wasn't really singing and Cadderly was just hearing the reverberations of that perfect offering.

"Are ye thinking of setting another camp?" the increasingly surly, yellow-bearded Ivan asked some time later, drawing Cadderly from the music and its unfathomable implications.

Cadderly looked at the rocky trail ahead and tried to remember exactly where he was.

"Five miles left to walk, at least," he replied, "through difficult terrain."

Ivan snorted. The Snowflakes, by his estimation, were not so difficult, not even with winter still holding fast with its last fingers. Ivan was from a place far to the north, wild Vaasa and the rugged Galena Mountains, where goblinoids were thicker than pebbles and the winter wind off the Great Glacier could freeze a man solid in minutes.

The dwarf took one last disgusted glance at Pikel, who chuckled in response, then stomped past Cadderly and took up the lead. "Tonight," Ivan explained. "We'll be walking through the front doors before the stars come clear!"

Cadderly sighed and watched Ivan take a fast-paced lead. Pikel was still chuckling when he came hopping past

"Give me that," Cadderly snapped, seeing the source of Ivan's ire. He plucked the hat from Pikel's head, brushed it off, and tapped it atop his own crown. Then he pulled from his pack the cooking pot, the impromptu helmet the green-bearded dwarf had fashioned for himself, and plopped it over Pikel's head.

Pikel's chuckle turned into a sorrowful "Oooo."

Some miles from the three, to the west and north, a scrambling noise in the boughs above brought Shay-leigh from her reverie. Angled in the hollow of a thick branch near the trunk of a wide elm, the elf, to an unknowing observer, would have appeared in an awkward and dangerous predicament. But a slight twist brought agile Shayleigh completely about, her back flat on the branch and her longbow somehow clear of the tangle, out and ready above her.

The elf's violet eyes narrowed as she considered the busy canopy, searching for the source of the noise. She wasn't too worried - the sun was still high above the western horizon - but she knew the sounds of the natural movements of all the area's animals, and recognized that whatever had come so noisily into the boughs of this tree had done so in wild flight.

A leaf danced suddenly, not so far above her. Back bent her bow.

Then the foliage parted, and Shayleigh eased the string back to rest, and smiled to see a familiar white squirrel staring down at her.

Percival came down in a frenzied rush, and Shay-leigh's smile faded into an expression of confusion. Why would Percival, whom she'd met long ago, be so far from the library? she wondered. And what had so obviously upset the creature?

Unlike Cadderly and the dwarves, Shayleigh had seen the pillar of smoke, and, at that time, had thought to turn back and investigate. She figured it was only a ceremonial fire, though, perhaps a communal burial cairn for those priests who had died over the winter months and were now being put to their rest So she had determined that it was not her business, that her business was, after all, to return to Shilmista with full speed, where King Elbereth, no doubt, greatly anticipated her information.

She had taken her reverie early, with the sun still high, thinking to travel through the night.

Now, seeing Percival here, hopping about and chattering frantically, Shayleigh regretted that choice to continue. She should have gone straight to the library, straight to Danica, her friend, who might have needed her help... and still might.

Shayleigh swung under the branch, her feet torching lightly on the next lowest. She bent her legs and fell backward, hooking the branch with her knees, and swung down so that she caught the lowest branch in one hand. She kept with the flow of her momentum to spin lightly down to the ground. Percival, following, was hard-pressed to keep up.

Shayleigh held her arm out and made a ticking noise, and Percival leaped from the lowest branch to her, accepting the ride as the elf maiden ran full speed back to the east, back to her friend.

Twilight

I feared I had killed you." It was Rufo's voice, from far away, but rushing closer. Danica opened her eyes. She was on the bed, in the same room as before, but her wrists and ankles now were securely bound to the bed's four strong posts. A throbbing, burning pain in her wounded left leg did not relent, and the monk feared the binding would cut through her skin and sever the already tattered ankle.

Worse still, there was Rufo, leaning over her, his white face softened with concern.

"My dear Danica," he whispered. He came closer, trying to soften his angular features, trying to be gentle. Danica did not spit in his face; she was beyond any more symbolic, if ineffective, protests.

Rufo, though, recognized her disgust "Do you not believe I can love?" he asked quietly, and a twitch on one cheek told Danica he was fighting hard to hold his calm.

Again Danica offered no response.

"I have loved you since you first came to the library," Rufo went on dramatically. "I have watched you from afar, delighting in the simple grace of your every movement"

Danica steeled her cold gaze and did not blink.

"But I am not a pretty man," Rufo went on. "Never have I been, and so it was Cadderly" - a bit of venom bubbled over at the mention of that name - "and not I who caught your fairest eye."

The self-deprecation was pitiful, but Danica held little sympathy for Rufo, "A pretty man?" she questioned. "You still cannot comprehend how small a thing that is."

Rufo backed off, perplexed.

Danica just shook her head. "You would love Histra still if she was a pretty thing," she said. "But you have never been able to see beyond the skin. You have never cared for what was in someone's heart and soul because your own are empty."

"Take care with your words," Rufo said.

They hurt because they are true."

"No!"

"Yes!" Danica lifted her head as high as the bindings would allow, her glower forcing Rufo to retreat further. "It is not Cadderly's smile I love, but the source of that smile, the warmth of his heart and the truth of his soul. Wretched Rufo, I pity you," she decided then. "I pity that you never fathomed the difference between love and ego."

"You are wrong!" the vampire retorted.

Danica didn't blink, but she did slip back to the mattress as Rufo closed over her. She scrunched her head down on her shoulders and even whimpered a bit as he continued his advance, thinking he meant to take her against her will. For all her training and all her strength, Danica was unable to accept that possibility.

The monk, though, had touched a weakness in the vampire's heart. "You are wrong," Rufo said again, quietly. "I do love." As if to accentuate his point, Rufo brushed his hand softly down Danica's cheek, under her chin, and along her neck. Danica recoiled as much as possible, but the bindings were strong and she was weak from loss of blood.

"I do love," he said again. "Rest, my sweet. I will return when you are stronger, and I will show you pleasure, love."

Danica breathed a sincere sigh of relief as Rufo backed away, gave a final look, and swept from the room. That sigh was temporary, she knew. She tested her bindings again and, finding no luck, lifted her head to consider her wounds.

She couldn't even feel the cord holding her injured leg, only the general pain. She saw that the ankle and calf were bloated, and the exposed skin, where it was not caked with dried blood, was badly discolored. Danica felt the infection within her, adding to the weakness from the loss of blood, and she knew she could not get free of her bindings this time. Even if she could, her broken body would not give her the strength to get out of the library.

Danica rested, fell back into a sense of hopelessness greater than anything she had ever known. She saw between the boards over the room's one small, west-facing window that the sun had already crested on thifrnew day, to begin its journey to the horizon. Danica knew Rufo would return with the night. And she would have no defense.

The Edificant Library came into sight late in the afternoon, a square, squat structure peeping through the more rounded and natural lines of the surrounding terrain.

TTiat first, distant glimpse told Cadderly something was very wrong with the place. His instincts, or maybe the subtle warnings from Chaunticleer's song, screamed at him, but he didn't understand the connotations. He thought now that it was his own feelings for the library that had given him such a start

The building was soon out of sight, blocked by high rocks as the group rounded another bend. Ivan and Pikel, after whispering together, rushed past Cadderly and set a tremendous pace, explaining that they planned to prepare a delicious supper this very night.

The sun had not yet dipped below the skyline when they came back in sight of the library, the companions cutting in at the side of the grove that lined the structure's long front walkway. All three skidded to an abrupt stop, Pikel's ensuing "Oooo" pretty much summing things up for them all.

Wisps of gray smoke still filtered from several windows on the southern wing; the smell of burned wood hung thick in the air.

"Oooo," Pikel said again.

Those inner pleas, Chaunticleer's continuing call to Deneir, erupted in Cadderly's mind, shouting for him to flee, but he ran to the doors of the place that had been his home. He should have paused there, should have taken note of the hole in the wood, the hole Danica had kicked when Rufo had cornered her.

Cadderly grabbed at the handles and tugged hard, to no avail. He turned back to Ivan and Pikel, his face screwed up curiously. "They're locked," he said, and it was the first time Cadderly had ever known the doors to the Edificant Library to be locked.

Ivan's tremendous axe came sweeping off his shoulder; Pikel lowered his club into battering ram position and began scraping the ground with one foot, like a bull about to charge.

Both relaxed and straightened unexpectedly when they saw the doors open behind Cadderly.

"Ye're sure about that?" Ivan asked the young priest.

Cadderly turned and eyed the opening skeptically. "Swollen from the heat of the fire," he decided, and with Ivan and Pikel beside him, the young priest entered the library.

All the silent cries that he should flee flew from Cadderly the moment he crossed the threshold. He took this as a good sign, a confirmation that he had overreacted, but, in truth, Cadderly had crossed into Rufo's place, where Deneir could no longer warn him.

The foyer was not badly damaged, though the scent of soot was nearly overwhelming. To the left sat the small chapel, obviously where the fire had been most intense. The place's heavy door was apparently closed, though the friends could not see it, for a thick tapestry had been draped over it

Cadderly eyed that tapestry for a long while. It showed elves, dark elves. Cadderly knew how valuable that tapestry was, among the finest artwork in all the library. It had belonged to Pertelope; Ivan had used its Depictions to fashion the small hand-crossbow that Cadderly now wore on his belt.

What was it doing here? the young priest wondered. Who would think to use such a precious piece of irreplaceable art as a blockade against soot?

"Seems like the fire was contained," Ivan offered. Of course it had been contained, both dwarves and Cadderly realized when they took a moment to think about it. The library was more stone than wood, and there really was very little to burn in the place.

What, then, had caused so intense a fire?

Ivan started right, Pikel bobbing after, for the kitchen, but Cadderly caught him by the arm and swung him and his ducking brother about.

"I want to check the main chapel," the young priest stated, his voice detached. Ivan and Pikel looked to each other, shrugged, then turned curious gazes at Cadderly, who stood still for a long while, his eyes closed.