The door squeaked open just before he collided, and he stumbled in, sinking down to his knees on the clean floor within. Then the door swung closed of its own accord, leaving the red mist and the macabre rattle out in the darkness. Cadderly remained very still for a long moment, confused and trying to slow his racing heart.
After a moment, Cadderly rose shakily to survey the room, hardly even registering that the door had closed behind him. He was struck by the cleanliness of this room, so out of place in the rest of the dungeons. He recognized the place as a former study hall; it was similar in design and contained similar furniture to those studies still in use in the library proper. Several small cabinets, worktables, and free-standing two-sided bookcases sat at regular intervals about the room, and a brazier rested on a tripod along the right-hand wall. Torches burned in two sconces, and the walls were lined with bookshelves, empty except for a few scattered parchments, yellow with age, and an occasional small sculpture, once a book end, perhaps. Cadderly's gaze went to the brazier first, thinking it oddly out of place, but it was the display in the center that ultimately commanded his attention.
A long and narrow table had been placed there, with a purple and crimson blanket spread over it and hanging down the front and sides. Atop the table was a podium, and on this sat a clear bottle sealed with a large cork and filled with some red-glowing substance. In front of the bottle was a silvery bowl, platinum perhaps, intricately designed and covered with strange runes.
Cadderly was hardly surprised, or alarmed, at the blue mist he noted covering the floors and swirling about his legs. This entire adventure had taken on a blurry feeling of unreality to him. Rationally, he could tell himself that he was wide awake, but the dull ache on the side of his skull made him wonder just how badly he had banged his head. Whatever this was, though, Cadderly was now more intrigued than afraid, so, with great effort, he forced himself to this feet and took a cautious step toward the central table.
There were designs, tridents capped by three bottles, woven into the blanket. He noticed that the bottles of the designs were similar to the real one atop the table. Cadderly thought he knew most of the major holy symbols and alliance crests of the central Realms, but this was totally foreign. He wished he had prepared some spells that might reveal more of the strange altar, if it was an altar. Cadderly smiled at his own ineptitude. He rarely prepared any spells at all, and even when he took the time, his accomplishments with clerical magic were far from highly regarded. Cadderly was more scholar than priest, and he viewed his vows to Deneir more as an agreement of attitude and priorities than a pledge of devotion.
As he approached the table, he saw that the silvery bowl was filled with a clear liquid-probably water, though Cadderly did not dare dip his fingers into it. More intrigued by the glowing bottle behind it, Cadderly meant to pay it little heed at all, but the reflection of the flask in that strange rune-covered bowl captured his attention suddenly and for some reason would not let go.
Cadderly felt himself drawn toward that reflected image. He moved right up to the bowl and bent low, his face nearly touching the liquid. Then, as if a tiny pebble had fallen into the bowl, little circular ripples rolled out from the exact center. Far from breaking Cadderly's concentration on the reflection, the watery dance only enhanced it. The light bounced and rolled around the tiny waves and the image of the bottle elongated and bent, side to side.
Cadderly knew somehow that the water was pleasantly warm. He wanted to immerse himself in the bowl, to silence all the noises of the world around him in watery stillness and feel nothing but the warmth.
Still there was the image, swaying enticingly, capturing Cadderly's thoughts.
Cadderly looked up from the bowl to the bottle. Somewhere deep inside him he knew that something was amiss and that he should resist the strangely comforting sensations. Inanimate objects were not supposed to offer suggestions.
Open the bottle, came a call within his head. He did not recognize the soothing voice, but it promised only pleasure. Open the bottle.
Before he realized what he was doing, Cadderly had the bottle in his hands. He had no idea what the bottle truly was, or how and why this unknown altar had been set up. There was a danger here―Cadderly sensed it―but he could not sort it out clearly; the ripples in the silvery bowl had been so enthralling.
Open the bottle, came the quiet suggestion a third time. Cadderly simply could not determine whether or not he should resist and that indecision weakened his resolve. The cork stopper was stubborn, but not overly so, and it came out with a loud romp.
That pop cut through the smoky confusion in the young scholar's brain, rang out like a clarion call of reality, warning him of the risk he had taken, but it was too late.
Red smoke poured out of the flask, engulfing Cadderly and spreading to fill the room. Cadderly realized his error at once and he moved to replace the cork, but watching from behind the cabinet, an unseen enemy was already at work.
"Hold!" came an undeniable command from the side of the room.
Cadderly had the cork almost back to the bottle when his hands stopped moving. Still the smoke poured out. Cadderly could not react, could not move at all, could not even make his eyes look away. His whole body grew weirdly numb, tingled in the grasp of a magical grip. A moment later, Cadderly saw a hand reach around him but did not even feel the bottle being pried from his grasp. He then was forcefully turned about to face a man he did not know.
The man was waving and chanting, though Cadderly could not hear the words. He recognized the movements as some sort of spellcasting and knew that he was in dire peril. His mind struggled against the paralysis that had overcome him.
It was a futile effort.
Cadderly felt his eyes drooping. The sensations suddenly came rushing back to his limbs, but all the world grew dark around him and he felt himself falling, forever falling.
* * * * *
"Come, groundskeeper," Barjin called. From out of the same cabinet in which Barjin had hidden came Mullivy's pallid corpse.
Barjin spent a moment inspecting his latest victim. Cadderly's light tube and spindle-disks, along with a dozen other curiosities, intrigued the priest, but Barjin quickly dismissed the idea of taking anything. He had used the same spell of forgetfulness on this man as he had on the tall, angular man back in the wine cellar. Barjin knew that this man, unlike the other, was strong of mind and will, and would unconsciously battle such a spell. Missing items might aid his fight to regain the blocked parts of his memory, and for the priest, alone and beneath a virtual army of enemies, that could prove disastrous.
Barjin dropped a hand to his hungry mace. Perhaps he should kill this one now, add this young priest to his undead army so that he would bring Barjin no trouble in the future. The evil priest dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come to him; his goddess, a deity of chaos, would not approve of eliminating the excruciating irony. This man had served as catalyst for the curse; let him see the destruction wrought of his own hands!
"Bring him," Barjin instructed, dropping Cadderly to his zombie. With one stiff arm and little effort, Mullivy lifted Cadderly from the floor.
"And bring the old ladder," Barjin added. "We must get back up to the wine cellar. We have much work to do before the dawn."
Barjin wrung his hands with mounting excitement. The primary component of the ritual had been executed easily; all that remained to complete the curse, to fully loose the Most Fatal Horror upon the Edificant Library, were a few minor ceremonies.
The Puzzle
Danica knew by the approaching headmaster's expression, and by the fact that Kierkan Rufo shuffled along at Avery's heels, that Cadderly had done something wrong again. She pushed away the book she was reading and folded her arms on the table in front of her.
Avery, normally polite to guests of the library, came quickly and bluntly to his point. "Where is he?" the headmaster demanded.
"He?" Danica replied. She knew perfectly well that Avery was referring
to Cadderly, but she didn't appreciate the headmaster's tone.
"You know ..." Avery began loudly, but then he realized Danica's objections and caught himself, looked around, and blushed with embarrassment.
"I am sorry. Lady Danica," he apologized sincerely. "I had only thought... I mean, you and ..." He stomped hard with one foot to steady himself and proclaimed, "That Cadderly frustrates me so!"
Danica accepted the apology with a grin and a nod, understanding, even sympathizing, with Avery's feelings. Cadderly was an easily distracted free spirit, and, like most formal religious organizations, the Order of Deneir was firmly based on discipline. It was not a difficult task for Danica to remember just a few of the many times she had waited for Cadderly at an appointed place and time, only to eventually give up and go back to her chambers alone, cursing the day she ever saw his boyish smile and inquisitive eyes.
For all her frustrations, though, the young woman could not deny the pangs in her heart whenever she looked upon Cadderly. Her smile only widened as she thought of him now, flying in the face of Avery's bubbling anger. As soon as Danica turned her attention back to the present and looked over Avery's shoulder, though, her grin disappeared. There stood Kierkan Rufo, leaning slightly to one side, as always, but wearing a mask of concern rather than the normally smug expression he displayed whenever he had one-upped his rival.
Danica locked stares with the man, her unconscious grimace revealing her true feelings toward him. She knew that he was Cadderly's friend―sort of―and she never spoke out against him to Cadderly, but in her heart she didn't trust the man, not at all.
Rufo had made many advances on Danica, beginning on her very first day at the Edificant Library, the first time the two had ever met. Danica was young and pretty and not unused to such advances, but Rufo had unnerved her on that occasion. When she had politely turned Rufo down, he just stood towering over her, tilting his head and staring, for many minutes with that same frozen, unblinking stare on his face. Danica didn't know exactly what it was that had caused her to rebuff Rufo way back then, but she suspected it was his dark, deep-set eyes. They showed the same inner light of intelligence as Cadderly's, but if Cadderly's were inquisitive, then Rufo's were conniving. Cadderly's eyes sparkled joyfully as if in search of answers to the uncounted mysteries of the world.
Rufo's, too, collected information, but his, Danica believed, searched for advantage.
Rufo had never given up on Danica, even after her budding relationship with Cadderly had become common talk in the library. Rufo still approached her often, and still she sent him away, but sometimes she saw him, out of the corner of her eye, sitting across the room and staring at her, studying her as though she were some amusing book.
"Do you know where he is?" Avery asked her, his tone more controlled.
"Who?" Danica answered, hardly hearing the question.
"Cadderly!" cried the flustered headmaster.
Danica looked at him, surprised by the sudden outburst.
"Cadderly," Avery said again, regaining his composure. "Do you know where Cadderly might be found?"
Danica paused and considered the question and the look on Rufo's face, wondering if she should be worried. As far as she knew, Avery was the one directing Cadderly's movements.
"I have not seen him this morning," she answered honestly. "I thought that you had put him to work―in the wine cellar, by the words of the dwarven brothers."
Avery nodded. "So, too, did I believe, but it seems as if our dear Cadderly has had enough of his labors. He did not report to me this morning, as he had been instructed, nor was he in his room when I went to find him."
"Had he been in his room at all this morning?" Danica asked. She found her gaze again drawn to Kierkan Rufo, fearing for Cadderly and somehow guessing that if trouble had befallen him, Rufo was involved.
Rufo's reaction did not diminish her suspicions. He blinked―one of the few times Danica had ever seen him blink―and tried hard to appear unconcerned as he looked away.
"I cannot say," Avery replied and he, too, turned to Rufo for some answers.
The angular man only shrugged. "I left him in the wine cellar," he said. "I was down there working long before he arrived. I thought it fitting that I retire earlier than he."
Before Avery could even suggest that they go search the wine cellar, Danica had pushed past him and started on her way.
* * * * *
The darkness and the weight. Those were the two facts of Cadderly's predicament: the darkness and the weight. And the pain. There was pain, too. He didn't know where he was or how he had gotten to tins dark place or why he could not move. He was lying face down on the stone floor, buried by something. He tried calling out several times but found little breath.
Images of walking skeletons and thick spiderwebs flitted about his consciousness as he lay there, but they had no real definition, nor any solid place in his memory. Somewhere―in a dream?―he had seen them, but whether that place had anything to do with this place, he could not guess.
Then he saw the flicker of torchlight, far away but coming down toward him, and as the shadows revealed tall and open racks, he at last recognized his surroundings.
"The wine cellar," Cadderly grunted, though the effort sorely hurt. "Rufo?" It was all a blur. He remembered coming down from the kitchen to join Rufo in his inventory, and remembered beginning his work, away from the angular man, but that was all. Something obviously had happened subsequent to that, but Cadderly had no recollection of it, or of how he might possibly have gotten in his current predicament.
"Cadderly?" came a call, Danica's voice. Not one, but three torches had entered the large wine cellar.
"Here!" Cadderly gasped with all his breath, though the wheeze was not nearly loud enough to be heard. The torches fanned out in different directions, sometimes disappearing from Cadderly's sight, other times flickering at regular intervals as they moved behind the open, bottle-filled racks. All three bearers―Avery, Rufo, and Danica, Cadderly realized―called out now.
"Here!" he gasped as often as he could. Still, the cellar was wide and sectioned by dozens of tall wine racks, and it was many minutes before Cadderly's call was heard.
Kierkan Rufo found him. The tall man seemed more ghastly than ever to Cadderly as he looked up at the shadows splayed across Rufo's angular features. Rufo appeared surprised to find Cadderly, then he glanced all about, as if undecided as to how to react.
"Could you ..." Cadderly began, and he paused to catch his breath. "Please get... me ... get this off me."
Still Rufo hesitated, confusion and concern crossing his face. "Over here," he called out finally. "I have found him."
Cadderly didn't note much relief in Rufo's tone.
Rufo laid his torch down and began removing the pile of casks that were pinning Cadderly. Over his shoulder, Cadderly noticed Rufo tipping one heavy cask over him, and the thought came to him for just an instant that the angular man had tilted it purposely and meant to drop it on his head. Then Danica came running up, and she helped Rufo push it away.
All the casks were cleared before Headmaster Avery ever got there, and Cadderly started to rise.
Danica held him down. "Do not move!" she instructed firmly. Her expression was grave, her brown almond eyes intense and uncompromising. "Not until I have inspected your wounds."
"I am all right," Cadderly tried to insist, but he knew his words fell on deaf ears. Danica had been scared, and the stubborn woman rarely bothered to argue when she was scared. Cadderly tried halfheartedly to rise again, but this time Danica's strong hand stopped him, pressing on a particularly vulnerable area on the back of his neck.
"I have ways of stopping you from struggling," Danica promised, and Cadderly didn't doubt her. He put his cheek down on folded arms and let Danica have her way.
"How did this happen?" demanded the chubby, red-faced Avery, huffing up to join them.
"He was counting bottles when I left," Rufo offered nervously.
/> Cadderly's face crinkled in confusion as he tried again to sort through the blur of his memories. He got the uncomfortable feeling that Rufo expected his explanation to sound like an accusation, and Cadderly himself wondered what part Rufo might have had in his troubles. A feeling of something hard―a boot?―against his back slipped past him too quickly to make any sense.
"I know not," Cadderly answered honestly. "I just cannot remember. I was counting ..." He stopped there and shook his head in frustration. Cadderly's existence depended on knowledge; he didn't like illogical puzzles.
"And you wandered away," Avery finished for him. "You went exploring when you should have been working."
"The wounds are not too severe," Danica cut in suddenly.
Cadderly knew that she had purposely deflected the headmaster's rising agitation, and he smiled his thanks as Danica helped him to his feet. It felt good to be standing again, though Cadderly had to lean on Danica for support for several minutes.
Somehow Avery's supposition didn't fit into Cadderly's memories―whatever they might be. He did not believe that he had just "wandered away" to fall into trouble. "No," he declared. "Not like that. There was something here." He looked at Danica, then to Rufo. "A light?"
Hearing the word triggered another memory for Cadderly. "The door!" he cried suddenly.
If the torchlight had been stronger, they all would have noticed the blood drain from Kierkan Rufo's face.
"The door," Cadderly said again. "Behind the wall of casks."
"What door?" Avery demanded.
Cadderly paused and thought for a moment but had no answers. His considerable willpower subconsciously battled Barjin's memory blocking spell, but all he could remember was the door, some door, somewhere. And wherever that portal might have led, Cadderly could only guess. He resolved to find out again, as soon as he rounded the casks and opened it.
It was gone.
Cadderly stood for a long while, staring at the dusty bricks of the solid wall.