“Many acted unwisely during the curse,” Cadderly managed to say after a long silence.
“It was before the curse,” Rufo reminded him.
“Why are you telling me this?” Cadderly demanded, his gray eyes narrowing with mounting anger. “And why did you do it?”
Rufo shrugged and looked away. “That priest, I suppose,” he whispered. “The Talonite caught me in the wine cellar while you were looking down the secret stairway to the lower levels.”
“Then forget it,” said Cadderly with as little anger as he could, “and accept no blame. Barjin was a powerful adversary, with tricks and charms beyond our comprehension.”
“I cannot forget it,” Rufo replied.
“Then why do you come to me?” Cadderly snapped. “Am I to forgive you? All right, then, I do. You are forgiven. Your conscience is cleared.”
Cadderly pushed by, heading for the hall, but Rufo grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.
“I cannot ask your forgiveness until I have forgiven myself,” he explained, and his wounded expression touched Cadderly.
“We all have cause to forgive ourselves,” Cadderly remarked, glancing down at the flask in his hands.
“I wish to come with you,” Rufo said.
Cadderly could not reply for many moments. Rufo was full of surprises.
“I must regain my dignity,” the man explained. “As with you, I must see this threat, or whatever it may be, through to its conclusion. Only then will I forgive my actions of those tendays ago.”
Again Cadderly started to drift toward the hall, but Rufo pulled him back.
“The dwarf brothers are gone,” Rufo reminded him, “and the druid Newander is dead. You may need help.”
“You’re asking the wrong person,” Cadderly replied. “Dean Thobicus—”
“Left the choice to Headmaster Avery,” Rufo interrupted, “and Avery left it to you. I may go with your permission, so say they, and Prince Elbereth has agreed as well.”
Cadderly hesitated and thought it over for just a few moments. After all that had happened, he wasn’t certain he trusted Rufo, but he couldn’t ignore the pleading look in the repentant man’s dark eyes.
“You have virtually no time left to prepare your gear,” he said, but Rufo’s dark face brightened.
“I’m already packed.”
Somehow, Cadderly wasn’t surprised.
Elbereth and Danica were waiting for Cadderly outside the library’s ornate double doors. There, too, were Avery, Pertelope, and two spare horses—apparently the headmasters had expected Cadderly to allow Rufo along.
Danica flashed a wide smile Cadderly’s way, but it dissipated, her full lips turning down into a scowl, when she saw Rufo coming out the doors on Cadderly’s heels.
Cadderly offered only a shrug for an explanation as he mounted the horse next to Danica’s.
The monk’s visage softened as she watched Rufo fumble with his horse. The man was so awkward, and Danica was not without pity. She nodded Cadderly’s way, she too determined that she would put the past behind her and concentrate on the road ahead.
“You will see many sights along the road and in the elven wood,” Pertelope said to Cadderly as she moved beside his horse. Cadderly tried not to notice the carefree headmistress’s prudish dress, but her long gloves seemed out of place, especially in a summer day’s warmth.
“Wondrous sights,” Pertelope continued. “I know you will learn more in your short time away from the library than in all the years you have been here.”
Cadderly looked at her curiously, not certain of how to take her strange words.
“You will see,” Pertelope explained, and she tried hard to hide a chuckle, not wanting to mock the young scholar. “There is more to life than the adventures of others, dear Cadderly, and more to living than reading books.
“But, when you find some empty time out there …” she continued, producing a large tome from under her robes. Cadderly knew the book as soon as she handed it to him, for he, like all priests of his order, had studied the work since his first days in the library: The Tome of Universal Harmony, the most holy book of Deneir.
“For good fortune?” he asked, still confused.
“For reading,” Pertelope replied.
“But—”
“I’m sure you have the work memorized,” Pertelope interrupted, “but I doubt you’ve ever truly read it.”
Cadderly wondered if he looked as stupid as he felt. He consciously forced himself to close his hanging jaws.
“Words can be read in many ways,” Pertelope said, and she pulled herself up enough to peck Cadderly on the cheek. “That was for good fortune,” the headmistress explained, throwing a wink Danica’s way.
“I wish I were going with you!” Headmaster Avery cried suddenly. “Oh, to see Shilmista again.…” He wiped a kerchief over his eyes and over his chubby face.
“You may not,” Elbereth said coldly, tiring of the lengthy farewell. He touched the reigns of Temmerisa, his shining white stallion, and the mighty horse kicked off, a thousand bells jingling with each step. Kierkan Rufo fell in behind the elf and Danica, too, started away.
Cadderly looked from The Tome of Universal Harmony to Headmistress Pertelope and smiled.
“Your perceptions of the world will change often as you grow,” Pertelope said quietly, so the others couldn’t hear her. “And while the words in the book remain the same, your reading of them will not. The Scribe of Oghma’s heart is a poet’s heart, and a poet’s heart drifts with the shadows of the clouds.”
Cadderly held the thick book in both hands. His perception of the world, of morality, had indeed changed. He had killed a man, and had somehow found his first adventure beyond the thousands he had read about in books.
“Read it,” Pertelope told him gravely. She turned back to the library, hooked Avery by the arm, and dragged him along.
Cadderly’s mount took its first step, and the young priest was on his way.
FOUR
INDECISION
Felkin looked around at his eight companions, feeling terribly insecure despite the company. They had come probing deep into Shilmista on orders from Ragnor, the brutish, unmerciful ogrillon. Felkin hadn’t questioned the orders, not even to his fellow goblins, thinking that whatever dangers awaited them in the elven forest would be no match for the severity of Ragnor’s anger.
Surrounded by the trees of Shilmista, though, Felkin wasn’t so sure. They had seen nothing, heard nothing, but every member of the nine-goblin scouting party sensed they were not alone.
They crossed one sandy ridge and came into a deep patch of tall green ferns growing in the shadows of wide-spreading elms.
“What was that?” one goblin croaked, dipping into a defensive crouch and trying to keep his eyes on an elusive, figure darting through the deepening shadows. The group fidgeted nervously, knowing how vulnerable they were.
“Quiets!” Felkin scolded, fearing the noise more than any elf spies.
“What was—?” the goblin tried to ask again, but his words were cut short as an arrow pierced his throat.
The eight remaining goblins scrambled for cover, dropping under the ferns and crawling for the elms. Felkin heard a noise like a snapping stick, and the goblin closest to him soared into the air, kicking and gasping, as a vine noose tightened around his neck.
That proved too much for two of the others. They jumped up and broke into a run for the trees. Neither got more than a few short strides before arrows took them down.
“Where was they?” Felkin called to his companions.
“Left!” cried one goblin.
“Right!” screamed another.
There came a flurry of bow shots, arrows slicing through the ferns and knocking into trees, then all went quiet. The goblin in the air stopped thrashing and began turning slowly with the wind.
Felkin crept over to one of his companions, lying still in the ferns. “Five of usses left,” Felkin reasoned. When the
other didn’t answer, Felkin roughly turned him around.
A green arrow shaft protruded from one of the goblin’s eyes. The other eye stared ahead blankly.
Felkin dropped the corpse and scrambled wildly away, drawing several bow shots in his noisy wake. Somewhere to the side, another goblin tried to run and was cut down with brutal efficiency.
“There remain no more than four of you,” said a melodic voice in the goblin tongue, but with the unmistakable accent of a female elf. “Perhaps only three. Do you wish to come out and fight me fairly?”
“Me?” Felkin echoed quietly, confused. “Only one elf?” His entire party had been trimmed by a single elf? Boldly, the goblin poked his head above the ferns and saw the elf warrior, sword in hand, standing beside an elm with her bow leaning against the tree within easy reach.
Felkin looked to his own crude spear, wondering if he could make the shot. One of his companions apparently entertained the same notion—the goblin leaped from the ferns and hurled his spear.
The elf, hardly caught unaware, dropped to her knees. The spear flew high. Faster than Felkin could follow, she took up her bow and put two shots into the air. The foolish goblin hadn’t even the chance to drop back into the ferns. The first arrow thudded into his chest and the second caught him in the throat.
Felkin looked at his spear again, glad that one of the others had shown him his folly. By his count, only he and one other remained—still two against one if they could get close to the elf archer.
Felkin heard someone call his name, and he recognized the voice of Rake, a fine fighter. “How many of usses?”
“Two!” he replied, then he called to the elf. “Two of usses, elf. Will you puts your nasty bow down and fights us fair-like?”
The elf leaned her bow back against the tree and took up her sword. “Come on, then,” she said. “The day grows long and my supper awaits.”
“Yous is ready, Rake?” Felkin cried.
“Ready!” the other goblin eagerly replied.
Felkin licked his cracked lips and set his floppy feet for a good start. He’d send Rake into action against the elf and use the diversion to run away into the forest.
“Ready?” he called again.
“Ready!” Rake assured him.
“Charge!” came Felkin’s cry, and he heard the rustle as Rake, far to his right, leaped from the ferns.
Felkin, too, leaped up, but ran off to the left, away from the elf. He looked back once, thinking himself clever, and saw that Rake had similarly retreated to the right. The elf, wearing an amused smile, took up her bow.
Felkin put his head down and sprinted into the shadows, running as fast as his spindly goblin legs would carry him. There came a distant twang of a bowstring and Rake’s steady stream of curses. Felkin’s hopes returned with the knowledge that the elf had gone after his companion.
There came an agonized scream, and Felkin knew he was alone. He ran on, not daring to slow. Only a few moments later, Felkin thought he heard a rustle behind him.
“Don’t kills me! Don’t kills me!” Felkin cried pitifully, breathlessly, over and over. Panicking, he looked behind him once again—and turned back just in time to see that he had veered straight into an oak tree.
Felkin went down in a heap, folding neatly into a leafy crook between the huge roots at the great tree’s base. He didn’t hear the footsteps pass him by, a few strides to the side. He didn’t hear anything at all.
“Are you in contact with Aballister?” Dorigen asked Druzil, seeing the imp in a contemplative stance.
Druzil laughed at her. “Why?” he asked, feigning innocence. “I have nothing to tell him.”
Dorigen closed her eyes and muttered a short chant, casting a simple spell that might allow her to confirm Druzil’s claim. When she looked at the imp again, she seemed satisfied.
“That’s good,” she muttered. “You aren’t a familiar in the accepted sense of the word, are you, dear Druzil?”
Again the imp laughed in his raspy, breathless voice. “Truly you err, Mistress Magic,” Druzil replied, wondering if Aballister had arranged a little test of fealty. “I am loyal to he who summoned me from the torments of the Abyss.”
Dorigen was unimpressed, and Druzil didn’t push it. Rumor had it that he’d helped kill Barjin, but in truth the imp had considered joining the cleric and abandoning Aballister all together. Then Barjin’s grand designs had come crashing down.
The rumors worked in Druzil’s favor, though. They made upstarts such as Dorigen treat him with a bit of respect and kept Aballister from discerning what had really transpired in the catacombs of the Edificant Library.
“We work for a single cause,” Dorigen said, “a cause given to us by Talona. All the Heartlands will fall to Castle Trinity, have no doubt, and those who stand beside us shall profit greatly—but those who stand against us shall suffer even more.”
“You make a threat?” The imp’s simple question nearly knocked Dorigen over.
Dorigen took a moment to collect her thoughts then replied, “If you believe so. Should it be?” She seemed more unsure of herself than Druzil had ever seen her.
“I am loyal to my master,” Druzil said again, “and now to you, the wizard my master has bade me travel beside.”
Dorigen relaxed a bit. “Then let us travel,” she said. “The sun is rising, and we’re still several days from Shilmista. I don’t like the prospect of having Ragnor stomping about uncontrolled.” She called Tiennek, who was gathering water from a nearby stream, and took up her walking stick.
Druzil wholeheartedly agreed. He gave a lazy flap and landed on Dorigen’s shoulder then folded his leathery wings around himself to shield him from the sun. He liked his position. On a journey with Mistress Magic, he could see the progress of Castle Trinity’s conquest, and even more importantly, in Shilmista he would be out of Aballister’s reach.
Druzil knew that Cadderly, the young priest who had defeated Barjin, was Aballister’s deserted son, and Aballister knew that he knew. The web of intrigue seemed to be tightening around Aballister, and the imp refused to be choked by its strands.
“One of them got away,” Shayleigh reported to Tintagel when she returned to the new elven camp, “but eight others are dead.”
The elf wizard nodded, having heard similar reports all day. The enemy had backed off after the slaughter in the Dells, and now sent small probing groups—mostly goblins—deeper into Shilmista. “Perhaps it is good that one escaped,” the elf wizard offered, the corners of his blue eyes turning up in a smile. “Let it return to its foul brethren and tell them that only death awaits them under Shilmista’s boughs.”
Shayleigh, too, managed a smile, but there was worry reflected in the elf maiden’s violet orbs. The enemy scouting parties were being slaughtered, but the fact that their leader seemed to easily accept the losses only heightened Shayleigh’s belief that a huge force indeed had found its way into Shilmista’s northern reaches.
“Come,” Tintagel said. “Let us go to the king and see what plans he has formulated.”
They found Galladel alone in a clearing beyond a shielding wall of thick pines, pacing nervously. The elf king motioned for them to join him then brought his slender hand up to stroke his raven-black hair, still vibrant and thick, though Galladel had lived many centuries. He stopped his hand when he saw that it was trembling, and dropped it back to his side. He glanced at Shayleigh and Tintagel to make sure that they had not seen.
“The slaughter of goblins continues,” Tintagel announced, trying to calm the nervous king.
“For how long?” Galladel retorted. “The reports, sightings—so many sightings of monstrous scum in our fair wood!—have continued to come in.”
“We will beat them back,” Shayleigh pronounced.
Galladel appreciated his fine young commander’s confidence, but in the face of the emerging force against him, it seemed only a minor thing.
“For how long?” he asked again, less sharply. “This black tide
has rolled over the northern reaches. Our enemy is cunning.”
“He sends his troops to be massacred,” Tintagel argued.
“He bides his time,” the elf king countered. “He sacrifices his weakest fodder to keep us busy. Damn this waiting game.”
“Something will happen soon,” Shayleigh said. “I can feel the tension. Our enemy will soon reveal himself in full.”
Galladel looked at her with curiosity, but knew better than to dismiss the elf maiden’s intuition. Shayleigh had been the one to argue for, and to organize, the ambush in the Dells, having read the enemy’s initial probing actions perfectly. Certainly the king was glad to have her at his side, especially with Elbereth, his son and closest advisor, in the east, trying to gain some insight from the priests of the Edificant Library. Galladel had ordered Elbereth not to go, but lately his commands carried little weight with his headstrong son.
“Soon,” Shayleigh said again, seeing that the tension was near to breaking Galladel.
“They are marching now,” came a chirping voice from the side. Both Galladel and Shayleigh turned and eyed a large oak tree.
They heard tittering laughter. Thinking to defend her king, Shayleigh drew her slender sword and advanced. Tintagel took up a position to the side, producing a spell component from his pocket, ready to strike at a moment’s warning.
“Oh, don’t tell me you haven’t heard the warnings of the trees!” came the voice, followed by a movement around the back of the tree. A pixie-featured woman, her skin as tan as the oak’s bark and her hair as green as the great tree’s dark leaves, peeked out from around the thick trunk.
Shayleigh’s sword went back into its scabbard. “We have heard nothing but the dying gasps of intruders,” the elf maiden said, her voice as cold as her eyes.
“Who is it?” demanded Galladel.
“A dryad,” Shayleigh replied. “Hammadeen, I believe.”
“Oh, you remember me!” chirped Hammadeen, and she clapped her delicate hands together. “But you just said you can feel it!”
The dryad’s abrupt change of subject left the elf maiden bewildered. “I feel what?” she asked.