He gasped futilely for breath, scratched and clawed at Danica’s arms, and shoved his own hand into Danica’s face, probing for her eyes.
Danica felt the hardness of a stone under her hip and she quickly shifted again, putting the man’s head in line. Frantically, brutally, the young monk realigned her grip on the man’s hair, leaving the back of his head exposed, and began slamming him down to the stone.
“He’s dead!” Ivan cried, and Danica realized only then that the dwarf had been uttering the words over and over.
Horrified and sorely bruised, the young woman released her grip and rolled away from the man, fighting back her nausea.
“That one’ll be gone soon, too,” Ivan said, indicating the man slumped against the tree, two daggers protruding from his bloody torso. “Unless we tend his wounds.”
The man seemed to hear and looked pleadingly at the three companions.
“We must,” Danica, composed again, explained to the dwarves. “I think this one knew my name. There may be a conspiracy here and he—” she pointed to the man against the tree—“can tell us what it is.”
Ivan shrugged his agreement and took a step toward the man, who seemed to take some comfort in the fact that his life would be spared. But there came a click from the side, and the man jerked violently a moment later, a crossbow quarrel next to the silver-hilted dagger.
The lone surviving Night Mask, wounded, with a crossbow quarrel protruding from his shoulder, crashed through the brush on the edge of delirium from the searing pain and loss of blood. One thought dominated his thoughts: he had failed in his mission. But at least he’d stopped his cowardly comrade from revealing the greater strategy—rule number one for the merciless band of assassins.
The man didn’t know where to run. Vander would kill him when the firbolg learned that Lady Maupoissant had survived—the man regretted that he had chosen his one remaining shot to finish the potential informant instead of trying again for Danica. Then he took heart as he reminded himself that even if he had been able to hit Danica, even if he had killed her, the dwarves would have had their informant and the more important plan to eliminate Cadderly would have been in jeopardy.
Still, the man regretted the decision, all the more when he heard the pursuit. Even wounded and weakened, he was confident that he could outrun the short-legged dwarves. When he looked back over his shoulder, though, he saw the young monk, running effortlessly through the brush, gaining on him with every sure-footed stride.
The trees and brush opened up to more barren, rocky ground, and the desperate man smiled as he recalled the surrounding terrain. He was a Night Mask to the bitter end, loyal and proud. His duty, wicked though it often was, had been his all, a dedication bordering on obsession.
The cruel monk was only a few strides behind him, he knew.
Loyal and proud, he never slowed as he came upon the edge of the hundred-foot cliff, and his scream as he leaped into the air was one of victory, not terror.
ELEVEN
WHAT THE SHADOWS SAY
Long shadows of the day’s last light streaked across the barn’s floor and walls. Gray webs glistened across gaps in the rafters then went dark as the sun slipped farther away. Vander leaned against the wooden wall, glad to be back in his body again, but not so glad to learn what had transpired in the few short hours that Ghost had taken his form.
The farmer’s girl was dead, and her end had been most unpleasant.
Memories of the time he had fled to his homeland, the Spine of the World, when Ghost had caught up to him and taken his body, coursed through Vander’s thoughts, forcing the firbolg lower against the wall. For the proud firbolg, his failure was complete. He could accept defeat in battle, could kneel to a rightful king, but Ghost had dared to take that one step farther. Ghost had taken Vander’s valor, his honor, his very identity.
“Have they returned?” the firbolg snapped at the black-and-silver robed man as soon as he appeared at the barn door.
“The trip to the mountains would have taken them all of last night,” the Night Mask replied, as if he sensed Vander’s frustration. “Likely, they have not yet even encountered Lady Maupoissant.”
Vander looked away.
“The line has been set up to Carradoon, and the group has taken position near the Dragon’s Codpiece,” the assassin went on.
Vander eyed the man for a long moment. He knew what the human was thinking, knew that the man had only blurted that information in the hopes that the news would be well received and would spare him from the firbolg’s unpredictable wrath.
Unpredictable! Vander nearly laughed at the vicious irony of that thought. He waved the man away, and the Night Mask seemed more than happy to comply.
Vander sat alone once more in the deepening shadows. He took some measure of solace in the fact that the noose was apparently tightening around their latest target and that their business might soon be concluded.
Vander hardly began to smile before a frown again captured his visage. The business would be finished and another would soon begin. It would not end, Vander knew, until Ghost decided that the firbolg had outlived his usefulness.
The sun was gone, leaving Vander in the darkness.
“You’ve indicated that you want to be of help,” Ghost said to the surprised wizard. “Now I offer you that chance.”
Bogo Rath’s beady green eyes seemed to grow even smaller as he studied the sleepy-eyed man. He had just moved his small pack of belongings to the private room that Fredegar had provided, only to find the mysterious assassin sitting on his bed, waiting for him.
Ghost understood both the wizard’s suspicion and his hesitation. Bogo didn’t trust Ghost, and rightly so. Bogo’s agenda was his own. Surely the wizard wanted Cadderly dead, but Ghost knew that the opportunistic and ambitious young wizard wasn’t really working with the Night Masks. Rather, he was working independently, hopeful that he might use the assassins to meet his own ends. Ghost, above all others, could understand a healthy dose of self-aggrandizement, but the wicked man was also aware of the dangers that tended to follow.
“I’m to serve as a sentry?” Bogo replied, incredulous.
Ghost thought it over then nodded—that was as good a description as he could think of. “For this minor exploration only,” he answered. “The time has come for us to learn a bit more about Cadderly’s room and personal defenses. I can do that, do not doubt, but I wouldn’t be pleased to have the other two priests of the library return to the inn while I’m otherwise engaged.”
Bogo spent a long moment staring at the man. “You are so filled with riddles,” he said at length. “You can get near Cadderly, hint that you can get even closer, and yet, the young priest lives. Is it caution or macabre pleasure that makes you play games with your prey?”
Ghost smiled, congratulating Bogo for his perceptiveness. “Both,” he answered honestly, more than willing to tout his own prowess. “I’m an artist, young wizard, not a common killer. The game, for that is what it is, must be played on my terms and by my rules.” Ghost carefully chose his emphasis for that last sentence, letting it sound just enough like a threat to keep Bogo on edge.
“It’s early for the hearth room,” Bogo reasoned. “The sun is just down. Most of the patrons are still at home, finishing their dinners, and I’m not yet settled into my new quarters,” he added, a hint of dissatisfaction in his tone.
“Do you consider that so very important?” Ghost asked.
Bogo had no immediate reply.
“Take your dinner down in the hearth room,” Ghost replied. “It’s not so unusual a practice for guests of the inn.”
“The priests went to the Temple of Ilmater,” Bogo argued. “It’s unlikely they’ll return within the time you’ll need.”
“But they might,” Ghost said, his voice hinting of mounting anger. “Artist,” he reiterated, voicing each syllable slowly and clearly. “Perfectionist.”
Bogo gave up the argument and nodded in agreement. Ghost had indicate
d that he wouldn’t yet kill Cadderly, and the young wizard had no reason to believe otherwise. Certainly, if the weakling assassin had wanted to strike against the young priest, he could have done so at almost any time over the last few days, and he wouldn’t have had to go out of his way and engage Bogo to stand watch in the hearth room.
They left Bogo’s room together, Ghost stopping Bogo at the door and whispering to him, “Do inform young Brennan, the innkeeper’s son, that Cadderly wishes to take his dinner now.” Bogo cocked an eyebrow at him.
“It will get the door open,” Ghost explained, a perfectly reasonable lie.
Ghost turned into his own room, with Bogo continuing on to the stairway. The puny assassin silently congratulated himself for so easily handling the potentially troubling wizard. He willed the Ghearufu into sight as he slipped behind the protection of his partly opened door.
The industrious Brennan came hopping up the stairs a short while later, carrying a dinner tray balanced easily in one hand and a long, narrow package in the other. Ghost admired the spring in the teenager’s step, the vigor and boundless energy of awakening manhood in the handsome, if a bit slender, Brennan.
“Boy,” Ghost called out as Brennan turned the corner past Avery’s room. Brennan stopped and turned to regard the curious man, following the waving motion of Ghost’s white-gloved hand.
“Let me deliver this and I’ll get you whatever—” Brennan began, but Ghost cut him short with his upheld hand, the one adorned with a black glove.
“My business will take only a moment,” Ghost said, the significance of his wry smile lost on the unsuspecting youth.
A scant heartbeat later, Brennan found himself staring back into his own face, and to the hallway beyond. At first, he probably thought the strange man had put up some sort of mirror, but then the image, his image, moved independently. And he, or at least his image, wore the black and white gloves.
“Wh-what …?” Brennan stammered, on the verge of panic.
Ghost shoved the trapped youth back into the room and waded in, closing the door behind him, dropping the narrow bundle—some sort of staff or rod—and setting the tray on his own night table.
“It’s just a game,” Ghost purred, trying to keep the terrified victim from calling out. “How do you like your borrowed body?”
Brennan’s eyes darted around in search of some escape. Gradually, his terror shifted to curiosity. The man standing before him, wearing his body, didn’t seem so ominous.
“I feel … weak,” he admitted then cringed, realizing he might have offended the man.
“But you are!” Ghost teased. “Don’t you understand? That’s the point of the game.”
Brennan’s face crinkled in further confusion then his eyes popped open wide as Ghost, moving with the speed of youth, clenched his borrowed fist and launched a roundhouse punch. Brennan tried to dodge, tried to block, but the weak body didn’t respond quickly enough. The fist slipped through his pitiful defenses, slamming Brennan between the eyes, and he fell, helpless, with no strength to resist the wave of blackness closing over him.
Ghost regarded the body for a long while, trying to decide on his next move. The prudent act, he knew, would be to strangle Brennan then and there, as he had done with the beggar on the road, and put one glove on the body to prevent the regeneration process from recalling the lad’s wandering spirit.
But the wretched assassin felt wonderful in the youth’s body, full of barely controllable energy, and with his passions fluctuating almost violently, beckoning him urgently toward base actions he had not seriously considered for decades. The impulsive notion came to Ghost to reach over and remove the boot and the magical ring, to kill Brennan in the weakling body and leave him dead. Ghost could then claim the young man’s form as his own until he’d burned it out as he’d nearly burned out his previous, effeminate mantle.
He again wore the black and white gloves when his hands went around the weakling’s neck.
But then Ghost realized that he mustn’t do it—not yet. He berated himself for even beginning to act on such a rash notion. Moving methodically, he tied and gagged his victim, dragged him behind the bed, and wedged him between the bed and the wall.
The ring had already begun its work, and young Brennan’s eyelids fluttered with the first signs of consciousness.
Ghost smashed him again, and again after that.
Brennan groaned through the gag and Ghost leaned in close, putting his lips to the trapped boy’s ear. “You must be quiet,” he purred, “or you will be punished.”
Brennan groaned again, more loudly.
“Would you like me to tell you the punishments I have planned for your disobedience?” Ghost asked, putting a finger into Brennan’s eye.
The terrified Brennan made no sound.
“Good, wise lad,” Ghost cooed. “Now let us see what you have brought.”
The assassin moved away and quickly unwrapped the bundle, revealing a ram-headed walking stick, finely crafted and perfectly balanced. Ghost had seen the marvelous item before, in Cadderly’s hands when the priest had gone to the wizard’s tower outside Carradoon. Only then did Ghost realize that the young priest had not been carrying the stick when he’d returned down the road.
“How convenient!” he said, moving back over to Brennan. “I said I would tell you of the punishments, but here, let me show you instead,” he said, patting the formidable club against his open palm.
Ghost’s face contorted with sudden rage, and he launched a two-handed overhead chop. He felt the magic of the weapon thrumming when he slammed the ram’s head down on Brennan’s shoulder, and smiled even more widely when he saw the skinny limb crumble under the weapon’s tremendous enchantment. Ghost had never fancied weapons, but he thought of keeping that one.
Ghost considered the wisdom of turning the walking stick over to Cadderly. The assassin was left in a quandary, for if the young priest was expecting the weapon’s return, he might seek out Fredegar, or the wizard in the tower, and either would likely pose larger, more dangerous, questions.
The artist-killer left the room a few moments later, bearing the tray and the retied bundle for Cadderly, and leaving the crumpled, unconscious Brennan hidden behind the bed in a pool of blood. Ghost had beaten Brennan severely, and the young man in the pitiful body would soon have died, except for the persistent healing magic of the ring concealed under the boot.
Semiconscious, Brennan almost hoped he would die. A thousand fiery explosions seemed to be going off within him. Every joint ached, and the man with the club had paid particularly painful attention to his groin and collarbone.
He tried to move his head but couldn’t. He tried to wriggle his body out of the tight cubby, despite the pain, but found he was securely bound in place. He coughed up another gout of blood, his survival instincts barely managing to force the warm liquid past the gag so that he wouldn’t choke on it.
Broken, Brennan prayed to Ilmater that his torment would soon end, even if that end meant death. He didn’t know, of course, that he wore a magical ring, that he would soon be healed once more.
Cadderly wasn’t thinking of dinner, wasn’t thinking of anything at all beyond the alluring song playing in his mind as he turned the pages of The Tome of Universal Harmony. The book had offered him shelter once again, had chased away the images of Avery and Rufo—they had come back to see Cadderly that morning, and had again been abruptly turned away—and all the other troubles weighing heavily on the young priest’s shoulders.
Under the protection of the sweet song of Deneir, Cadderly felt none of that weight, but sat straight and tall. He worked his arms out to the sides when they were not engaged in turning the pages, in a manner similar to the meditative techniques Danica had once shown him back at the Edificant Library. Back then, the movements had been simple exercises, but with the song flowing through his every movement, Cadderly felt his inner strength coursing through his limbs.
“I have your supper!” he heard Brennan ca
ll from behind him.
He knew from the young man’s volume that Brennan had probably called him several times and knocked loudly on the door before that. Embarrassed, Cadderly closed the great book and turned to meet the young man.
Brennan’s eyes opened wide.
“Excuse me,” Cadderly apologized, looking around helplessly for something with which to cover up. He was naked from the waist up, his well-muscled chest and shoulders glistening with sweat, and the rippling muscles of his waistline, newly trim from the meditative exercises, quivering from the recent exertion.
Brennan quickly composed himself, even flipped Cadderly a towel from the dinner tray.
“It would seem that you could use the meal,” the boy offered. “I didn’t know that reading could be so strenuous.”
Cadderly chuckled at the witticism, though he was a bit confused that Brennan had made such a remark. The young man had seen him at his reading many times before, and many times involved, as he was just then, in the meditative exercises.
“What have you there?” Cadderly asked, seeing the long, narrow bundle.
Brennan fumbled with the item. “It came in just this afternoon,” he explained, “from the wizard, I would assume.”
He unwrapped the bundle and handed the fine walking stick to Cadderly.
“Yes … Belisarius,” Cadderly replied. He waved the walking stick around easily, testing its balance, then tossed it on the bed. “I had nearly forgotten about it,” he remarked. Then he added with obvious sarcasm, “I wonder what mighty enchantments my wizard friend bestowed upon it!”
The boy only shrugged, though secretly he gnawed at his lower lip, angry that he had decided to return the unexpected present.
Cadderly gave the young man a wink. “Not that I’ll ever find use for it, you understand.”
“We never know when a fight might fall our way,” Brennan replied, sliding the tray onto Cadderly’s small table and arranging the silverware.