The Cleric Quintet: The Fallen Fortress

 

"It's a five-dwarf drop!" Ivan protested, holding fast to Danica's wrist. Danica could not even see the floor beneath the vertical chute and had to trust in the estimate of Ivan's heat-sensing vision. That estimate, "five-dwarf drop," twenty feet, was not so promising. But Danica had heard the thunderstrike of Cadderly's dragon-awakening clap, knew in her heart that her love was in dire need. She pulled free of Ivan's grasp, scrambled the rest of the way down the narrow chute and without hesitation dropped into the darkness.

She prayed that she could react quickly enough when at last she reached the end of the drop, hoped that the dim light of the torch Shayleigh held up in the chute would show her the floor before she slammed against it She saw the gray and turned her ankles to the side as she hit, launching herself into a sidelong roll, half twisting as she went Her roll took her over backward, so that she came squarely back to her feet Never slowing, having not absorbed enough of the fall's energy, Danica sprang into the air, turning a backward somersault She landed on her feet and jumped again, spinning forward this time. She came up in a roll and hit the ground running, me rest of her momentum played out in long, swift strides.

*Wefl, 111 be a wine-drinking faerie," Ivan muttered in disbelief, watching the spectacle from above. For all his complaints, the dwarf could not let his friends endure any danger without him, and he knew that any hesitation now would force Danica to face the coming trials alone.

"Don't ye try to catch me, girl!" he warned as he let go. Ivan's landing technique was not so different than Danica's. But while Danica rolled and leaped, somersaulting gracefully and changing direction with subtle, stressless twists, Ivan just bounced.

He was up quickly, though. He adjusted his deerantlered helmet and caught Danica by her flowing cloak as she ran back the other way, following the continuing sounds to the east

Vander dropped down next, the tight chute posing more trouble for the firbolg than the not-so-high (for a giant) drop. Shayleigh dropped into his waiting arms, virtually springing from him in quick flight after Ivan and Danica.

Pikel came last, and Vander caught him, as well. The firbolg eyed the nestled dwarf curiously for a moment, noting that something seemed to be missing. Tour club?" Vander started to ask, and he understood a split second later, when Pikel's club, tumbling down behind the dwarf, bounced off his skull.

"Oops," the green-bearded dwarf apologized, and in looking at Vender's scowl, he was glad that they had no tinje to stand around and discuss the matter.

Danica would have outdistanced Ivan in no time - except that the dwarf had a firm grip on her trailing cloak and would not let go. They heard the rumble of Fyrentenni-mar's distant voice by this point, and though they couldn't make out any words, it guided them easily. Ivan was glad when he noted that Shayleigh, still holding her torch, was gaining on them.

TTiey passed through a few chambers, down several narrow corridors, and one wide passage. The mounting heat alone told them that they were nearing the dragon's chamber and made them both fear that Fyrentennimar had already loosed its killing breath.

Shayleigh passed Ivan, seeming as desperate as Danica, and the dwarf promptly reached out and grabbed a hold on her cloak, too. He understood their urgency, understood that both of them were fostering images of a deep-fried Cadderly, but Ivan remained pragmatic. If the dwarf had anything to say about it, they would not run helter-skelter into old Fyren's waiting maw.

Shayleigh's torch showed that they were nearing yet another wide chamber. They saw light up ahead, a residual glow, it seemed, and that led them to one inescapable conclusion.

For all of his earlier protests and stubbornness, Ivan Bouldershoulder showed his true loyalties at that point. Thinking that the dreadful Fyrentennimar waited just ahead, the tough dwarf yanked back on both cloaks, springing past Danica and Shayleigh and leading the way into the chamber before he had even had time to draw out his double-bladed battle-axe.

A flicking tongue hit him two steps inside the door - hit him, wrapped him, and pulled him sideways. Danica and Shayleigh skidded in behind, to find the chamber filled with very anxious, giant red toads. They spotted Ivan, spotted his boots at least, sticking out from the mouth of a contented-looking toad to the right Danica started for it but was intercepted by a mini-fireball, and then another, as two more toads took up the attack.

Shayleigh hurled her torch out in front of her, had her bow up in an instant, and put it to deadly work.

Ivan didn't know what had hit him, but he understood that he was quite uncomfortable, and that he could not get his arms around to retrieve the axe strapped to his back. Never the one to listen to his own many complaints, Ivan followed the only course open to him and began thrashing about, trying to bite, trying to find something to grasp and twist The deer rack atop his helmet snagged on something up above and again Ivan did not question his misfortune, just snapped his head up as forcefully as he could.

A toad leaped long and high at her, but Shayleigh's three arrows, fired in rapid succession, broke the dung's momentum in midflight and dropped it dead to the ground. Two more toads came flying at the elf simultaneously, and though she hit them both with perfect shots, she could not deflect their flight One clipped her shoulder, the other crashed against her shins, and back she flew.

She would have hit the cavern floor hard, but Vander, coming in from the corridor, caught her gently in one giant hand and kept her on her feet The firbolg was beyond her in an instant, his great sword slashing back and form, slicing the two attacking toads in half.

A third monster came flying in from the side, but Pikel skidded in between it and Shayleigh, holding his tree-trunklike club tight over one shoulder, both his hands grasping the weapon's narrow end. With a whoop of delight, the green-bearded dwarf batted the flying toad aside. It dropped, stunned, and Pikel stood over it squishing it with repeated strikes.

Danica fell to her back and rolled about frantically to avoid the fiery blasts. She tucked her feet in dose, hoping to roll back to a standing position, and grabbed at her boots, drawing two daggers, one golden-hifted and sculpted into the image of a tiger, the other a silvery dragon. ^

She came up throwing, scoring two hits on the nearest toad. It closed its eyes and squatted down low to the floor, and Danica couldn't tell if she had killed it or not

Nor could she pause to find out Another toad was near her, flicking its sticky tongue.

Danica leaped straight up, a mongoose against a striking snake, and tucked her legs tight She leaped again as soon as her feet touched stone, forward and high, before the toad could flick its tongue again. This time, Danica came down hard on the creature's head. One foot planted firmly, she spun fiercely, her face passing close to her ankle, her other foot flying high, straight above her. As she completed the circuit, her momentum cresting, she tightened the muscles in her sailing foot and drove it right through the toad's bulbous eye.

The weight of the blow forced Danica down from the dead thing, and she spun about searching out the next target

At first she thought the toad she saw to the side to be among the most curious of crossbred creatures. But then Danica realized that its antlers were not its own, but rather belonged to the indigestible dwarf it had foolishly pulled in.

The antlers jerked, this way and that, and Ivan's slime-covered head popped through. The dwarf grunted and contorted weirdly, twisting all the way about so that he was looking at his own heels, protruding from the toad's mouth, and at Danica, staring in disbelief.

"Ye think ye might be helping me outa here?" the dwarf asked, and Danica saw the now-dead toad's eyes hump up and then go back to normal as Ivan shrugged.

The familiar song played in Cadderly's mind, but he did not fell into its harmonic flow. He sang it backward instead, sang it sideways, randomly, forcing out whatever notes seemed to be the most discordant. Shivers ran through the marrow of his bones; he felt as if he would break apart under the magical assault He was exactly where a priest of Deneir should not be, mocking the harmony of the universe, perverting the notes of the timeless song so that they twanged painfully in his mind, slamming doors in the pathways of the revelations the song had shown to him.

Cadderly's voice sounded guttural, croaking, and his throat was filled with phlegm. His head ached; the intensity of the shivering waves along his spine stung him repeatedly.

He thought he would go insane, had gone insane, had gone to a place where every logical course seemed to meander aimlessly, where one and one added up to three, or to ten. Cadderly's emotions similarly fluctuated. He was angry, furious at... what? He did not know, knew only that he was filled with despair. Then suddenly he felt invulnerable, as if he could walk past his magical barriers and snap his fingers under puny Fyrentennimar's dragon nostrils.

Still he croaked against the harmonious flow of the beautiful song, still he denied the universal truths the song had shown to him. Suddenly, Cadderly realized that he had unleashed something terrible within his own mind, that he could not stop the flashing images and the shivering pains.

His mind darted randomly, a gamesman's wheel, flitting through the accessed magical energy whh no basis. He was falling, falling, dropping into an endless pit from which there could be no escape. He would eat the dragon, or the dragon would eat him, but either way, Cadderly felt that it did not matter. He had broken himself - the only logical thought he could hold onto for more than a fleeting moment was that he had overstepped his bounds, had rushed in his desperation into ultimate, unending chaos.

Still he croaked the discordant notes, played the random rantings of half-truths and untruths in his mind. One and one equaled seventeen this time.

One and one.

Whatever else assaulted Cadderly's mind, he continued to call upon the simple mathematics of adding one and one.

A hundred different answers came to him in rapid succession, were generated randomly in this place, his mind, wherein no rules held true.

A thousand different answers, generated without pattern, without guidance, shot past him. And Cadderiy let them go awpy with the rest of his fleeting thoughts, knowing them to be lies.

One and one equaled two.

Cadderly grabbed onto that thought, that hope. The simple equation, the simple, logical truth ringing as a single note of harmony in the discord.

One and one equaled two!

A thin line of Deneir's song played in Cadderly's mind simultaneously, but separately, from the discord. It came as a lifeline to the young priest, and he clutched it eagerly, not intending it to pull him from the discord, but to help him hold his mental footing within this sphere's slippery chaos.

Now Cadderly searched the dangerous sphere, found a region of emotional tumult, of inverted ethics, and hurled it with all his mental strength at Fyrer.ter.mmar.

The dragon's rage continued to play, and Cadderly understood that he had not penetrated the innate magical resistance of the beast. Cadderly realized that he was sitting then, that sometime during his mental journey, the earthquake of Fyrentennimar's thrashing had knocked him from his feet

Again Cadderly searched out the particular region of chaos that he needed - it was in a different place this time - and again he hurled it at the wyrm. And then a third time, and a fourth. His head ached as he continued to demand the enchantment, continued to assault the stubborn dragon with false emotions and false beliefs.

The chamber was deathly quiet, except for some scrambling that Cadderly heard emanating from somewhere down the tunnel behind him, back in the toad room, perhaps. He slowly opened his eyes, to see oid Fyren sitting quietly- regarding him.

"My welcome, humble priest," the dragon said in calm, controlled tones. "Do forgive my outburst. I do not know what brought about such a tirade."The dragon blinked its reptilian eyes and glanced all about curiously. "Now, about this small task that you wished me to perform."

Cadderly, too, blinked many times in disbelief. "One and one equals two," he muttered under his breath. "I hope."

Residual Energy

Danica was the first to come to the end of the tunnel leading to the dragon's chamber. On her hands and knees, the monk quietly crept up to the lighted area and peeked in. She felt the strength drain from her as she gazed upon the magnificent wyrm, a hundred times more dreadful than the legends could begin to describe. But then Danica's delicate features twisted in confusion at the unexpected sight

Cadderly stood right beside the dragon, talking with it easily and pointing to the Ghearufu, the gloves, one black, one white, and the gold-edged mirror that he had placed on the floor some distance away.

Danica nearly cried out aloud when she felt a hand on her leg. She realized that it was only Shayleigh, creeping in behind her as they had planned. The elf maiden, too, seemed stunned by the spectacle in the chamber. "Should we go in?" she whispered to Danica. Danica considered the question for a long moment, honestly unsure of what role they should play. Cadderly seemed to have things in hand; would their unexpected presence startle the dragon, bring old Fyren into a fit of terrifying rage?

Just as Danica started to shake her head, there came an impatient call from back down the tunnel.

"What do ye see?" Ivan demanded, slime-covered from toad innards and not too happy at all.

The dragon's beaconlike gaze immediately flashed toward the tunnel, and Danica and Shayleigh again felt their limbs go weak under the awful glare.

"Who comes uninvited to the lair of..." the great wyrm began, but it stopped in midsentence, cocking its massive head so that it could better hear Cadderly, whispering calmly at its side.

"Do come in," the dragon bade the two in the tunnel a moment later. "Welcome, friends of the humble priest!"

It took Danica and Shayleigh some time to muster the courage to actually enter the dragon's chamber. They went straight for Cadderly, Danica hooking his arm with her own and admiring him incredulously.

Cadderly felt the weight of that trusting gaze. Again, he had been put into the forefront, had become the leader to his friends. He alone understood how tentative his hold on the dragon might be, and now that Danica and the others had arrived, their fates rested solely in his hands. They admired him, they trusted him, but Cadderly was not so sure that he trusted himself. Would he ever shed the guift if he failed at the expense of a friend's life? He wanted to be home at the library, sitting on a sun-drenched roof, feeding cacasa nuts to Percival, the one friend who placed no demands upon him (other than the cacasa nuts!).

"The dragon likes me," the young priest explained, straining to put his smile from ear to ear. "And Fyrentenni-mar - the great Fyrentennimar - has agreed to help me with my problem," he added, nodding toward the Gkearufit.

Danica looked to the still-glowing floor near the entryway of the chamber and could guess easily enough that the dragon had utilized its deadly breath at least once already.

But Cadderly appeared unhurt - and unafraid. Danica started to ask him about the strange turn of events, but he quieted her immediately with a concerned look, and she understood that the discussion was better left until later, when they were safely away from the dragon.

Ivan and Pikel skidded into the chamber, Vander coming right behind, nearly tripping over them.

"Uh-oh!" Pikel squeaked at the sight of the wyrm, and Ivan's face went pale.

"Dwarves? Fyrentennimar bellowed, the force of his roar driving the three beards - yellow, red, and green - out behind the friends, the heat of Fyren's breath making the three squint their eyes.

"Friends again!" Cadderly called to the dragon, and, reasoning that treasure-coveting dragons were not overly fond of treasure-coveting dwarves, the young priest motioned for the three to stay back near the tunnel.

Fyrentennimar issued a long, low growl and didn't seem convinced. The dragon could not sustain its ire, though. It blinked curiously, turned an almost plaintive look upon Cadderly, and then looked to the Ghearufit.

"Friends again," Fyrentennimar agreed.

Cadderly looked to the Ghearu/u, thinking it prudent to just get things done and get out of there.

"Remain behind me," old Fyren warned Cadderly and the two women, and then came the sharp intake as the dragon's lungs expanded.

This time when Fyrentennimar breathed, there was no magical protection in place to divert his fire. The flames drove against the Ghearu/u and against the floor. Stone bubbled, and the Ghearufu sizzled, angrily it seemed, as though its potent magic was fighting back against the incredible assault

"Oooo," Ivan muttered in disbelief. Pikel put his hands on hips and growled at his brother for stealing his line.

Their fight did not continue, though, as the searing heat of the dragon breath assaulted them. Vander grabbed the brothers and fell back against the wall, one huge arm up defensively in front of his eyes.

The dragon's fiery exhalation did not relent There came a series of snapping explosions from within the flame, and a thick gray smoke arose, encircling the fiery pillar, dimming its blinding yellow light

Cadderiy nodded to Danica and Shayleigh, confident that the dragon fire was doing its work.

The flaming column disappeared, and Fyrentennimar sat back, reptilian eyes scrutinizing the area and the magical item. The smoke continued to swirl, funnel-like above the Gkearufu. Small fires burned on both the item's gloves; the gold edges around the mirror had turned liquid and spread out in a wide flat glob. The mirror itself pulsed, bulging weirdly but remaining, it appeared, intact

"Is it done, humble priest?" Fyrentennimar asked.

Cadderiy wasn't sure. The thick smoke seemed to gain momentum in its swirl, the mirror continued to bulge and flatten.

Then it cracked apart

Cadderly's blue hat flew away, his cape flapped up over his head and shoulders, standing out straight, snapping repeatedly, rapidly, in the sudden suction. Now the smoke whipped in circular fury, and the swirling wind became a thunderous roar.

Shayleigh's arrows left her quiver, smacked against Cadderly's back, and ricocheted past. The young priest could hardly hold his footing, leaning back at a huge angle against the vicious pull. All the small items in the area piled atop the broken mirror. The still pliable molten floor rolled up, wavelike, around the center of that tremendous pufl.

Something banged hard against the back of Cadderly's legs, costing him his tentative hold. He looked down to see Shayleigh, blinded by her wild-flying golden hair, shaping her hands against the stone in a futile effort Cadderiy fell over her, and she slid away, toward the fury.

Danica stood very still a few feet back, her eyes closed in meditation, and her legs wide and firmly planted. Over by the tunnel, Vander and the dwarves had formed a chain, the firbolg holding Pikel, Pikel holding Ivan. Pikel's grip slipped suddenly, and Ivan screamed out. He resisted the pull for just a second, long enough for Pikel to dive down and grab him about the ankles.

"Humble priest!" the confused Fyrentennimar roared, and even the dragon's thunder seemed a distant thing against the tumult of the mighty wind.

Cadderiy cried out for Shayleigh, found himself going along behind her as the sucking wind increased. Behind him, Danica opened her eyes, and her concern for her friends stole her meditation. She jumped forward a long stride, catching hold of Cadderiy, but when she tried to stop, found her momentum too great and wound up going right over the young priest, and right over Shayleigh, and suddenly it was she who was closest to the furious vortex.

Ivan and Pikel were up in the air now, Pikel holding tight to Ivan's ankles, and Vander, behind him, had one hand tight about Pikel's ankle, the other grasping a jut in the tunnel wall.

Danica's horrified scream as she went over the vortex stole the blood from Cadderly's face. Shayleigh went in right behind her, pressed tight against her, and then Cadderiy was atop the pile.

"What do I do, humble priest?" the confused dragon called, but Fyrentennimar was distracted as his own piles of treasure whipped to the call of the vortex, smacked hard against the dragon's back and widespread wings. What worth is such treasure? the dragon wondered, and in his magically confused state, Fyrentennimar decided right then that he would soon clear his cave of the worthless debris.

"Ooooooo!" Pikel wailed, blinded by his beard (as was Ivan), his muscled arms aching from the strain and his leg throbbing from Vender's giant-strong grip. Pikel feared that

he would be torn right in half, but for the sake of his dear brother, he would not let go.

Cadderly felt an intense burning, felt as if his insides had been torn right through his skin. He was falling, spinning in a gray fog, spiraling down, out of control

He splashed into muck, stood in the knee-deep sludge, and regarded himself and his surroundings incredulously. He was naked and filthy, apparently unhurt but standing in a vast plain of unremarkable grayness, the lake of oozing sludge stretching out in every direction as far as he could see.

Danica and Shayleigh stood near him, but they, for some reason the young priest could not understand, were still wearing their clothes.

Cadderly modestly crossed his arms in front of him, took note of the fact that both of his companions did likewise.

Danica's lips moved as though she meant to ask, "Where are we?" but there seemed no point in uttering the unanswerable question.