Cadderly had better success against the zombie. He came up much faster than the awkward thing, and his finger was already set in the loop of the cord to his spindle-disks, two small disks joined by a short metal rod. He twice sent the adamantine disks spinning down to the end of their cord, and recalled them to his hand, to tighten the string. As the zombie finally pulled itself to its feet, Cadderly snapped them out viciously at the thing’s face.
The young priest winced at the sound of crunching bone. The zombie staggered backward several steps, but compelled by commands it had not the intelligence to question, it came right back in, arms out wide.
The spindle-disks slammed home again, right under the creature’s chin, and when the thing began its next advance, its head lolled weirdly, with all of the supporting neck bones shattered.
It didn’t rise again after the third hit, but as it fell to the floor, a tumbling dwarven missile—Pikel Bouldershoulder—went right over it, leaving the ground between Cadderly and Histra wide open.
Cadderly heard Ivan up on the stairs, engaged with some enemy. He glanced that way momentarily then looked back to find that Histra had closed the ground, standing just a couple of feet in front of him, smiling that terrible, fanged smile.
Cadderly hit her solidly in the chest with the spindle-disks as she brazenly walked in, but the weapon only knocked her back a step, and she smiled again, even more widely, showing that it had not hurt her.
“Dear Cadderly,” she purred. “You have no defense against me.” Cadderly, like Pikel before him, looked down at the disks as though they had deceived him.
“Would you not prefer the fate I offer you?” Histra said, teasing him. She seemed such a grotesque caricature to Cadderly, a mocking insult to the alluring, sensual woman she’d once been. As a priestess of Sune, the goddess of beauty, Histra had primped and perfumed, had kept her curvy body in perfect physical condition, and had kept a light in her eyes that promised the purest of pleasure to any man she deemed worthy.
But what little skin was left on her face sagged, and no perfume could overcome the stench of burned flesh that surrounded her. Even worse, by Cadderly’s estimation, was the look in her eyes. What once promised pleasure, had come to burn with the diabolical fires of evil incarnate.
“I offer you life,” the ugly vampire purred. “A better deal than you’ll get from Rufo, who offers only death.”
Cadderly bolstered himself in the face of that awful image, and the mere mention of Kierkan Rufo’s name, using both to reinforce his faith, seeing both as symbols, as clear reminders of the fall to temptation. Up came his holy symbol, the light tube behind it, and never had the young priest presented the light of Deneir with so much of his heart in it.
Rufo had resisted Cadderly’s symbol earlier, but Histra no master vampire. She stopped her advance in midstep and began trembling.
“By the power of Deneir!” Cadderly cried, advancing a step, holding the symbol high and angling it down so that its flaring weight drove Histra to her knees.
“Well, we ain’t going out that way!” A bruised and bloody Ivan cried as he half ran, half tumbled out of the stairway.
Cadderly growled and pushed the light lower, and Histra groveled and whimpered. Then the young priest looked to the stairs, at the host of zombies that shuffled down behind Ivan. He looked across the hall at Pikel, who was thankfully up again and running in circles—no, dancing, Cadderly realized.
For some reason Cadderly couldn’t quite understand, Pikel was dancing around his club, gesturing with his stubby hands, his mouth moving more than Cadderly had ever seen it move.
Ivan took up the fight again at the entrance to the stairs, his mighty, wickedly sharp axe taking limbs off reaching, stubborn zombies with every swing.
“There’s a hunnerd o’ the damned things!” the dwarf bellowed.
Something faster and more sinister than the zombies stepped through their ranks to stand before the dwarf. Ivan’s axe met it head-on, and right in the chest, but as the blade connected, the vampire, not flinching, caught it by the handle and pushed it harmlessly aside.
“Hunnerd and one,” the dwarf corrected himself.
Cadderly growled and forced the symbol of his god right down on Histra’s forehead. Acrid smoke belched from the wound. The vampire tried to reach up and fight off the attack, but there was no strength in her trembling arms.
“I deny you, and I damn you!” Cadderly growled, pressing with all his strength. Again, Histra was caught by the fact that she hadn’t yet mastered her new state of undeath, that she couldn’t quickly and easily transform into a bat or some other creature of the night, or melt into vapors and flow away.
“Hold him back!” Cadderly, knowing he had Histra defenseless, cried to Ivan. He started to call to Pikel, but just grunted, seeing that the dwarf was still dancing, worried that his friend’s senses had been knocked clear of his green-bearded head.
Ivan growled and launched a furious attack on the vampire, hitting the thing several times. But the monster, and its horde of zombies behind it, inexorably advanced. If it had been a loyal thing, a true comrade, the vampire would have rushed past the dwarf to save Histra, but as one of Rufo’s two remaining vampiric minions, Baccio of Carradoon looked upon the powerful young priest and his flaring holy symbol and knew fear. Besides, Baccio must have realized, the demise of Histra would only strengthen his position as Rufo’s second.
And so the vampire allowed the frantic and ineffective dwarf to hold him at bay.
Soon Cadderly was engulfed with black smoke. He kept up his call to Deneir, kept pressing the eye-above-candle on Histra’s forehead, though he could no longer even see her through the acrid cloud. Finally, the vampire collapsed, and Cadderly heard the thump as Histra fell hard to the floor. As the smoke wafted away, Cadderly saw that it was finished. He could only imagine—and he shuddered when he did!—the reward that awaited Histra. He thought of black, huddled shadows pouncing on her damned soul, dragging her down to hellish eternity. Still, the vampire seemed much more peaceful in real death than she had a moment before. Her eyes reverted to their natural color, and she seemed almost at rest. Perhaps even great sins could be forgiven.
But Cadderly had no more time to think about Histra. A single glance over his shoulder told him that he and his friends were being beaten back once more, that they could not, despite their fears for Danica and their determination to rescue the monk, defeat the Rufo’s black library in the dark of night.
Baccio, too, had apparently seen enough. With a single swipe of his hand, he sent Ivan flying away, skidding across the floor right beside Pikel. Pikel picked up his club with one hand and his battered brother with the other.
Cadderly cried out and faced the vampire squarely, presenting his symbol as he had against Histra. Baccio, an older and wiser man, and one who had more willingly gone into Rufo’s service, flinched, but didn’t back down.
Cadderly thrust his arm forward, and Baccio winced again. Cadderly called out to Deneir and advanced a step, and Baccio found that he had to fall back. It lasted only a moment, and Cadderly knew he had the upper hand, knew that if he pressed on with all his faith, he could destroy Baccio as he had destroyed Histra.
It was clear that Baccio knew it, too, but the vampire smiled wickedly, and mentally commanded his legion of zombies to swarm around him, to block him from the light of Cadderly’s faith.
The first of those unthinking monsters was limned with light, as had the zombies Cadderly had met and defeated when first he and the dwarves had come back into the library. That one dissolved to dust, as did the next, but there were simply too many of the things.
Another shriek, a most terrifying wail, resounded off the walls and echoed down the stairway.
“The master is coming,” Baccio mused from the back of the horde.
“To the door!” Ivan cried, and Cadderly, though his heart ached to think of Danica in that ungodly place, knew the dwarf was correct.
They ran down the ha
ll, easily outdistancing the slow-moving zombies. Pikel spun around the first door, slammed it closed behind them, and threw its latch.
“We’ll take another way up,” Cadderly said as he began scouring his memories, searching for the fastest route to the back stairs.
Baccio’s hand smashed through the door, and the vampire’s fingers began searching for the latch.
The three friends were running again, through the small rooms, past the kitchen, closing every door behind them. They came into the foyer, the dwarves angling for the open door, and Cadderly tried to push them straight across, toward the south wing and main chapel, where there was a balcony that led up to the second floor.
“Not out!” the young priest insisted.
“Not in!” Ivan promptly countered.
Then Kierkan Rufo was in front of them, halfway between the door to the open night and the door to the hall that would take them to the main chapel.
“Not anywhere,” Ivan, skidding to a stop, remarked.
Up came Cadderly’s holy symbol, the light tube shining behind it, casting its image on Rufo’s face.
The vampire, trembling with rage, didn’t shy away in the least, but began a steady approach that promised nothing short of a terrible deaths for the young priest and his friends.
Cadderly invoked Deneir’s name a dozen futile times. They had to get out over the threshold, he realized, out of the place that Rufo had come to call home.
“Get to the door,” he whispered to his companions, and he boldly stepped out in front of them. He was Cadderly, he reminded himself, Chosen of Deneir, who had faced a dragon alone, who had sent his mind into the realm of chaos and had returned, who had destroyed the evil artifact, the Ghearufu, and who had overcome the terrible legacy of his own heritage. Somehow none of that measured up against Rufo and the fall from faith the vampire represented, the ultimate perversion of life itself.
Somehow, somewhere, Cadderly found the strength to move out from the dwarves, to face Rufo and protect his friends.
So did Ivan. The brave dwarf must have realized that Cadderly alone might be able to face off against Rufo and win. But not in there. Cadderly could beat Rufo only if the young priest could get out of that desecrated place.
The yellow-bearded dwarf gave a whoop, charged past Cadderly, and skidded up in front of the vampire, who never took his flaming eyes off the young priest, his mortal enemy. Without fear, without hesitation, Ivan whooped again and slammed Rufo with a wicked overhead chop.
Rufo brushed the axe away and seemed to notice Ivan for the first time.
“I’m getting real tired o’ this,” Ivan grumbled at his ineffective axe.
The only luck poor Ivan had was that Rufo’s mighty punch launched him in the general direction of the open door.
Cadderly came in hard and fast.
“You cannot hurt me!” Rufo growled.
The young priest presented his symbol as best he could, holding both it and his light tube in one hand—but the real weapon was in his other hand. His finger was still fast in the loop of the spindle-disks, but they bounced along low to the floor at his side. Cadderly knew they would have no real effect on a vampire. As he rushed, he had taken his second weapon off his belt, his ram’s-head walking stick, which had been enchanted by a wizard friend in Carradoon.
Rufo unwittingly accepted the blow, and the enchanted weapon tore the skin from half of his face.
Cadderly’s arm pumped again for a second strike, but Rufo caught his wrist and bent it over backward, forcing the young priest to his knees. Cadderly straightened his arm holding the holy symbol, and used it to intercept Rufo’s closing, leering face.
They held the pose for what seemed like eternity, and Cadderly knew he couldn’t win, knew that even his supreme faith could not defeat Rufo in there.
He felt a splash against his cheek. Cadderly thought it blood, but realized in an instant that it was clean, cool water. Rufo backed off, and Cadderly looked up to see that a line of burned skin had creased the vampire’s other cheek.
A second stream drove Rufo back, forcing him to relinquish his grip on Cadderly’s arm. The surprised young priest grew even more confused as Pikel stalked by, his waterskin tucked under one arm, every press sending a line of water at the vampire.
Rufo slapped at the water with smoking fingers and kept backing away until his shoulders were against the foyer wall.
Pikel stalked in, his face as determined as Cadderly had ever seen it, but Rufo, too, straightened and stiffened his resolve, the moment of surprise past.
Pikel hit him again with the spray, but the snarling vampire accepted it.
“I will tear out your heart!” he threatened, and came a step from the wall.
Pikel exploded into motion, turning a complete spin that dropped him to one knee and sent his club knifing across low to catch Rufo on the side of the leg. Surprisingly, there came the resounding crack of snapping bone, and the vampire’s leg buckled. Down went Rufo, and squealing Pikel was up and over him, club raised for a second strike.
“We got him!” unsteady Ivan bellowed from the door.
Even as his brother cried out in victory, Pikel’s club banged hard off the stone floor and rushed right through the mist that Rufo had become.
“Hey!” roared Ivan.
“Oooo!” agreed an angry and deceived Pikel. “That’s not fightin’ fair!” Ivan spouted, and the yell seemed to take the last of his energy. He took a step toward his brother, stopped, and regarded both Pikel and Cadderly curiously for an instant then fell down flat on his face.
Cadderly glanced around, trying to discern their next move—back in, or out into the night?—while Pikel went for his brother. The young priest knew that Rufo was far from defeated, and knew that the other vampire, and the host of zombies, weren’t far away. Cadderly’s eyes narrowed as he carefully scanned the foyer, remembering that Druzil, the wretched and dangerous imp, probably watched them all along. Cadderly hadn’t forgotten the painful bite of the imp’s magic, and even more so, the creature’s poisonous sting. That venom had dropped Pikel once, long ago, and while Cadderly had spells of healing to counter the poison, he suspected he would not be able to access them in the defiled library.
The night had fallen, and they were ill prepared.
But Danica was in there—Cadderly couldn’t forget that. He wanted to go after her, to search every room in the massive structure until he found her and could hold her once more. What had awful Rufo done to her? his fears screamed at him. Spurred by that inner alarm, the young priest almost ran back toward the kitchen, back toward the zombie host and the lesser vampire.
Cadderly heard a calming voice, Pertelope’s, in his head, reminding him of who he was, of what responsibilities his position entailed.
Reminding him to trust in Deneir, and in Danica.
It was a harder thing for the young priest than entering the unholy library had been, but Cadderly moved to Pikel and helped support unconscious Ivan, and the three made their way back out into the open air, back out into the night.
SEVENTEEN
ONE NIGHT FREE
They scrambled down the library’s long front walk, between the rows of tall trees, and Cadderly, despite his urgency, couldn’t help but think of how often he’d viewed those trees as a sign that he was home. Cadderly’s world had changed dramatically in the past few years, but none of the previous turmoil, not even the deaths of Avery and Pertelope, or the revelation that Aballister was, in truth, his father, could have prepared the young man for that ultimate change.
Cadderly and Pikel had to carry Ivan. The dwarf’s head lolled back and forth, his bushy yellow hair scratching the exposed areas of Cadderly’s skin. The young priest could hardly believe how much weight was packed into Ivan’s squat frame. Stooped low as he was to keep Ivan fairly level between himself and Pikel, Cadderly quickly began to tire.
“We need to find a hollow,” he said. Pikel bobbed his head in agreement.
“Yes, do,”
came a reply from above.
Cadderly and Pikel skidded to a stop and looked up in unison, the distraction costing them their hold on poor Ivan. The unconscious dwarf pitched forward and hit the ground face first.
Rufo squatted on a branch a dozen feet above the companions. With a bestial snarl, which seemed fitting coming from him, he leaped out, stepping lightly on the path behind Cadderly and Pikel. They spun, crouching low, to face the vampire.
“I’m already fast on the mend,” Rufo chided, and Cadderly could see that the monster spoke the truth. The wound Cadderly’s walking stick had opened on Rufo’s cheek was already closed, and the scar from Pikel’s water had turned from an angry red to a ghostly white.
The howl of a wolf cut the night air.
“Do you hear them?” Rufo said, and Cadderly found the vampire’s confidence more than a bit unnerving. They’d hit Rufo with every weapon they could muster, and yet there he was, facing them again, apparently unafraid.
Another howl echoed through the night air.
“They are my minions, the creatures of the night,” the vampire gloated. “They howl because they know I’m about.”
“How?” Cadderly asked. “How are you ‘about’? What have you done, Kierkan Rufo?”
“I have found the truth!” Rufo retorted.
“You’ve fallen into a lie,” the young priest was quick to correct.
The vampire began to tremble. His eyes flared an angry red, and it seemed as if he wanted nothing more than to rush forth and throttle his nemesis.
“Uh-oh,” muttered Pikel, also expecting the charge, and knowing that neither he nor Cadderly could stop it.
Rufo calmed, though, even smiled. “What of this might you understand?” he asked Cadderly. “You who have spent your days in worthless prayers to a god that keeps you small and insignificant. You who cannot dare to look beyond the limitations Deneir imposes on you.”
“Do not speak his name,” Cadderly warned.
Rufo laughed at him. He laughed at Deneir, and Cadderly knew it, knew that everything Kierkan Rufo had become mocked Deneir and all the goodly gods, mocked the value of, the very concept of, morality. And in Cadderly’s thinking, that, in turn, mocked the very purpose of life.