The Cleric Quintet: The Fallen Fortress

 

But what of the Night Masks? Cadderly's reasoning screamed at him. Aballister had indeed searched him out, had sent killers to search him out, to murder him and to murder Danica.

It was only then that Cadderly suspected that the wizard had placed an enchantment over him, had sweetened his words with subtle magical energies. The young priest's heart fought back against the reasoning, against the logical protests, for he did not want to believe that he was being deceived, wanted desperately to believe in his father's sincerity.

But his mother had not died in childbirth!

Aballister's charming tapestry began to unwind. Cadderly focused on the wizard's continuing words once more - and found that the man was no longer coaxing sweet images, but was chanting.

Cadderly had let his guard down, had no practical defense against the impending spell. He looked up to see Aballister loose a sheet of sizzling blue lightning that wobbled and zigzagged through the popping red dust The wizard apparently understood the properties of this landscape, for the blast deflected unerringly toward Cadderly. The young priest threw his arms up, felt the jolting, burning explosion jerk his muscles every which way, felt it grab at his heart and squeeze viciously.

He sensed that he was flying, but felt nothing. He sensed that he had slammed hard against some rock, but was beyond the sensation of pain.

"Now you are dead," he heard Aballister say, distantly, as though he and the wizard were no longer facing each other, were no longer on the same plane of existence.

Cadderly understood the truth of that claim, felt his life-force slipping from his mortal coil, slipping into the world of the spirit, the realm of the dead. Looking down, he saw himself lying on the red ground, broken and smoldering. Then his spirit was bathed in the divine light, the same washing sensation he had felt weeks ago at the Dragon's Codpiece when he had gone in search of Headmaster Averts spirit

One, two, played the notes of Deneir's song.

He knew only peace and serenity, felt more at home than he had ever felt, and knew that he had come to a place where he might find some rest

One, two.

All thoughts of the material world began to fade. Even images of Danica, his dearest love, were not tainted with regret, for Cadderly held faith that he and she would one day be rejoined. His heart lifted; he felt his spirit soar.

One, two, came the song. Like a heartbeat

Cadderly saw his body again, far below him, saw one finger twitch slightly.

No! he protested.

One, two, compelled the song. Cadderly was not being asked, he was being told. He looked to Aballister, spell-casting once more, creating a shimmering doorway in the red air. Aballister would return to Castle Trinity, the young priest suddenly realized, and all the region would be plunged into darkness.

Cadderly understood the plea of Deneir, and no longer did his spirit protest One, two, beat his heart

When he opened his material eyes and looked upon Aballister, he was again flooded with the warm sensation of the images of childhood the wizard had conjured. Rationally, Cadderly understood that he had been under an enchantment, understood that simple logic proved Aballis-ter's lies. But the lure of what Aballister had shown him could not be easily overcome.

Then another image came to the young priest, a memory he had blocked out, packed away in a remote corner of his mind long, long ago. He stood before the doors of the Edifi-cant Library, a young and not so fat Headmaster Avery facing his father before him. Avery's face was blotched red from rage. He screamed at Aballister, even cursed the man, and reiterated that Aballister had been banned from ever again entering the Edificant Library.

Aballister showed no sign of remorse, even laughed at the burly priest. Then take the brat," he cackled, and he roughly shoved Cadderly forward, tearing a handful of hair from Cadderly's head as he pulled his hand away.

The pain was intense, physically and emotionally, but Cadderly did not cry out, not then and not now. In looking back on that awful moment, Cadderly realized that he did not cry out because he was so accustomed to Aballister's commonplace abuse. He had been the outlet for the wizard's frustrations. He was the outlet as his mother had been the outlet

His mother!

Cadderly was somehow standing, growling, and Aballister turned about, his eyes popping wide with surprise when he saw that his son still lived. Behind the wizard, the portal glowed and shimmered, sometimes showing an image of the anteroom to the wizard's mansion within its magical borders. Aballister would abandon him now, as he had abandoned him then, would go about his business and leave his son, "the brat," to fate.

More memories assaulted the young priest, as though he had opened a box that he could not close. He saw Aballister's face, twisted demonically with rage, heard his mother's pitiful cries and his own quiet sobs.

The manifestation of a huge sword appeared in the red air before him, waving menacingly. "Lie down and die," he heard the wizard say.

That sword! Aballister had used it against Cadderly's mother, had used this very same spell to kill Cadderly's mother!

"Oh, my dear Deneir," the lost young priest heard himself whimper. The song thrummed in his head of its own accord; Cadderly did not compel it to play and hardly heard the harmony of its sweet notes. He thought he heard Headmaster Averts voice at that moment, but the notion was lost when he saw the magical sword arcing his way, slicing for his unprotected neck, too close for him to dodge.

The sword struck him and then dissolved with a sharp sizzle.

"Damn you!" the wizard, his father, cried.

Cadderly saw nothing but his mother's face, felt nothing but a primal rage focused on this murderer, this imposter. He heard a sound escaping his lips, a burst of anger and magical energy too great for him to contain. It came forth as the most discordant note of the Deneirian song Cadderly had ever heard, a purely destructive twist of the precious notes,

TTie very ground heaved before him, and he continued to scream. Like an ocean wave, the red soil rolled toward Aballister, a crack widening in its mighty wake.

"What are you doing?" the wizard protested, and so weak and minuscule did his voice sound beneath the roar of Cadderly's primal scream!

Aballister lurched into the air, thrown by the wave. He flailed his arms as he descended, flapping futilely, and fell into the torn crack. The wave diminished as it rolled on, the ground becoming quiet once more.

"I am your father!" came Aballister's pleading, pained cry from somewhere not too far below the rim of the crack.

Another cry erupted from Cadderly's aching lungs, and he threw his hands up before him and clapped them together.

And following his lead, the crack in the ground, too, snapped shut Aballister's cries were no more.

War's End

An exhausted Cadderly stepped through the door Aballister had conveniently created, stepped through the wall, which was no longer covered with a swirling mist, and into the room where he had left Danica. A dozen enemy soldiers were there, milling about and grumbling to each other, but, oh, how they scrambled when the young priest suddenly appeared in their midst! They screamed and punched each other, fighting to get away from the dangerous man. In but a few moments, only she remained in the room, and these kept their wits enough to draw their weapons and face the young priest squarely.

"Go to Dorigen!" one of them barked at another, and the man ran off.

"Stay back, I warn you!" another man growled at Cadderly, prodding forward threateningly with his spear.

Cadderly's head throbbed; he wanted no fight with this crew, or with anyone for that matter, but he could hardly ignore his precarious situation. He accessed the song of Deneir, though the effort pained him, and the next time the man prodded ahead, he found that he was holding not a spear, but a writhing, obviously unhappy serpent The man shrieked and dropped the thing to the floor, scrambling back away from it, though it made no move to attack.

"We have your friends!* another man, the soldier who had ordered a companion to go for Dorigen, cried. "If you kill us, they, too, will be killed!"

Cadderly didn't even hear the second sentence. The proclamation that his friends were prisoners, and not dead, sent his hopes soaring. He rested back against the wall and tried hard not to think of the fact that he had just destroyed his own father.

Danica raced into the room a moment later, slammed hard into Cadderly, and threw her arms around him, crushing him in a hug.

"Aballister is dead," the young priest said to Dorigen over Danica's shoulder.

Dorigen gave him an inquisitive look, and Danica, too, backed away to arm's length and stared hard at her love.

"I know," Cadderly said quietly.

"He was your father?" Danica asked, her expression as pained as that of Cadderly.

Cadderly nodded, and his lips went thin as he tried to firm up his jaw.

"Ivan needs you," Danica said to him. She regarded the young priest carefully, then shook her head doubtfully, seeing his obvious exhaustion.

Dorigen led Cadderly and Danica back to the room they had set up for the care of the wounded. Cadderly's four friends were there - though Vander hardly seemed wounded anymore - along with a handful of Castle Trinity's human soldiers. The ores and other goblinoid creatures had followed their own custom of slaughtering their seriously wounded companions.

Pikel and Shayleigh were both sitting up, though neither looked very steady. Their expressions brightened at Cad-derly's approach, and they motioned for him to go to Ivan, lying, pale as death, on a nearby cot.

Cadderiy knelt beside the yellow-bearded dwarf, amazed that Ivan still drew breath, given the sheer number of garish wounds he had suffered. The young priest realized that Ivan, for all his toughness, didn't have much time, and knew that he had to somehow find the strength to follow the song to the sphere of healing and bring forth powerful magics.

Quietly, Cadderiy began to chant, and he heard the music, but it was distant, so distant. Cadderiy mentally reached for it, felt the pressure in his temples, and closed his eyes as he fell into its flow, guiding it along. He swam past the notes of the minor spells of healing, knowing they would be of little use in tending the dwarf's most serious wounds. The song built to a thrumming crescendo in his thoughts, moved at Cadderly's demand into the realm of the greatest spells of healing.

The next thing the young priest knew, he was lying on the floor, looking up into Danica's concerned expression. She helped him back to a sitting position and he looked upon Ivan hopelessly.

"Cadderiy?" Danica asked, and the young priest could think of several questions reflected in that one word.

"He is too tired," Dorigen answered, coming to kneel beside them both. The wizard looked into Cadderly's hollowed gray eyes and nodded, and understood.

"I must access the magic," the young priest said determinedly, and he fell right back into the song, fought hard, for now it seemed to him even more distant

Twenty minutes passed before he woke up the next time, and Cadderiy knew then that he would need several more hours of rest before he could even attempt to get into the greatest levels of healing magic again. He knew, too, in looking at the dwarf, that Ivan would not live that Icrtig.

"Why do you do this to me?" Cadderiy asked aloud, asked his god, and all those about him regarded him curiously.

"Deneir," he explained privately to Danica. "He has abandoned me in my time of desperation. I cannot believe that he will let Ivan die."

"Your god does not control the minor fetes of minor players," Dorigen said, again moving close to the two.

Cadderiy shot her a derisive glance that plainly asked what the wizard might know of it

"I understand the properties of magic," Dorigen replied squarely against that arrogant expression. "The magic remains to be accessed, but you have not the strength. The failing is not Deneir's."

Danica moved as if to strike out at the woman, but Cadderiy grabbed the monk immediately and held her back, nodding his head in agreement with Dorigen.

"And so your magic is held," Dorigen remarked. "Is that all that you have to offer the dying dwarf?"

At first, Cadderiy took her unexpected words to mean that he should bid Ivan farewell, as a friend would do, but after a moment's thinking, the young priest came to interpret the words in a different way. He motioned Danica away, spent a long minute in contemplation, searching for some possible answers.

"Your ring," he remarked to Vander suddenly.

The firbolg glanced quickly at his hand, but the initial excitement of the group died away immediately. "It will not work," Vander explained. "The ring must be worn while the wounds are received."

"Give it to me, I beg," Cadderiy said, not letting down a bit in light of the grim explanation. He took the ring from the willing firbolg and slipped it over his own finger.

"There are two types of healing magic," Cadderiy explained to Vander and the others. "Two types, though I have called only upon the method that begs the blessing of the gods to mend torn skin and broken bones."

Danica started to inquire further, but Cadderiy had closed his eyes and was already beginning to sing once more. It took him some time to catch up to the flow of the song. Again he felt the pressure in his temples as he followed its tiring current, but he kept heart, knowing that this time, he would not have to go so far.

The four friends and Dorigen gathered around the cot, and gasped in unison as Ivan's severe throat wound simply disappeared, then gasped again as it reappeared on Cad-derly's neck!

Blood bubbled from the young priest's opened throat as he continued to force the words from his mouth. Another of Ivan's wounds was erased from the dwarf's body, to appear in a similar position on Cadderly.

Danica cried out for her love and started forward, but Dorigen and Shayleigh held her back, reasoning with her to trust in the young priest

Soon Ivan was resting peacefully, and Cadderly, showing every brutal wound the dwarf had suffered, fell to the floor.

"Oooo," groaned an unhappy Pikel.

"Cadderly!" Danica cried again, and she tore free of Shayleigh and Dorigen and ran to him. She put her head to his chest to hear his heartbeat, brushed his curly brown locks from his face, and put her face close to his, whispering for him to live.

Vander's laughter turned her angrily about

"He wears the ring!" the firbolg roared. "Oh, clever young priest!"

"Oo oi!" Pikel squealed with glee.

When Danica turned back, Cadderly, his head uplifted, gave her a peck of a kiss. "This really hurts," he groaned, but he managed to smile as he spoke the words, his head drifting slowly back to the floor, his eyes slowly closing.

"What's wrong with him?" Ivan grumbled, sitting up and looking about the room with a confused expression.

By the time his friends had pushed Ivan aside and lifted Cadderly into place on the cot, the young priest was breathing much easier, and many of his wounds were unmistakably on the mend.

Later that night, the still weary priest rose from his bed and moved about the makeshift infirmary, singing softly once more, tending the wounds of his other friends, and those of Castle Trinity's soldiers.

*****

"He was my father," Cadderly said bluntly. The young priest rubbed a hand across his wet eyes, trying to come to terms with the sudden explosion of memories that assaulted him, memories he had buried away many years before.

Danica shifted closer to him, locking his arm with her own. "Dorigen told me," she explained.

They sat together in the quiet darkness for many minutes.

"He killed my mother," Cadderly said suddenly.

Danica looked up at him, a horrified expression on her fair face.

"It was an accident," Cadderly continued, looking straight ahead. "But not without blame. My fath ... Aballister was always experimenting with new magics, always pressing the energies to their very limits, and to his very limits of control. He conjured a sword one day, a magnificent glowing sword that sliced back and forth through the air, floating of its own accord."

Cadderly could not help a slight, ironic chuckle. "He was so proud," the young priest said, shaking his head, his unkempt sandy-brown locks flopping from side to side. "So proud. But he could not control the dweomer. He had overstepped his magical discipline, and before he could dispel the sword, my mother was dead."

Danica mumbled her love's name under her breath, pulled him tighter, and put her head on his shoulder. The young priest moved away, though, so that he could look Danica in the eye.

"I do not even remember her name," he said, voice trembling. "Her face is clear to me again, the first face I ever saw in this world, but I do not even remember her name!"

They sat quietly again, Danica thinking of her own dead parents, and Cadderly playing with the multitude of rushing images, trying to find some logical recollection of his earliest years. He remembered, too, one of Headmaster Avery's scoldings, when the portly man had called Cadderly a "Gondsman," referring to a particular sect of priests known for creating ingenious, and often destructive, tools and weapons without regard for the consequences of their creations. Now, knowing Aballister, remembering what had happened to his own mother, Cadderly could better understand dear Avery's fears.

But he was not like his father, he silently reminded himself. He had found Deneir, found the truth, and found the call of his conscience. And he had brought the war - the war Aballister had precipitated - to the only possible conclusion.

Cadderly sat there assaulted by a tumult of long-buried and confusing memories, assaulted by empty wishes of what might have been and by a host of more recent memories which he could now look at with a new perspective, A profound sadness that he could not deny washed over him, a sense of grief that he had never felt before, for Avery, for Pertelope, for his mother, and for Aballister.

His sadness for his father was not for the man's death, though, but for the man's life.