Canticle

  Rufo seemed not to even notice the twin lines of blood running down his face from his newest wound, a small bite on his cheek from Percival. "I will hold your heart in my hands!" he promised again, laughing insanely.

  Cadderly jerked his arm once, and then again, feigning a throw to keep Rufo off guard. Between dodges, Rufo managed a few weak thrusts that did not come near to hitting the mark. Cadderly launched the disks finally, in a long and wide throw that brought them to the very end of their reach. He flicked his wrist, bringing the disks back to his grasp, but not with the usual suddenness.

  Rufo measured the pace of the throws and bided his time. The disks came on again, and Rufo leaned back, then rushed toward Cadderly right behind them as they retracted.

  Cadderly's bait had worked. On this throw, he had shortened up on the cord, bringing the spindle-disks smacking back into his palm much more quickly than Rufo had anticipated. Rufo had barely taken his first step when the young scholar's weapon shot out again, deliberately low.

  Rufo squealed in shock and pain and grasped at his smashed kneecap, his leg nearly buckling. He was under the influences of the chaos curse, though, and nearly impervious to pain. His squeal became a growl and he plowed ahead, slashing wildly.

  Again Cadderly had to dive across the bed to avoid the blade, but when he came up this time, Kierkan Rufo had already circled the bottom of the bed and stood facing him. Cadderly knew that he was in trouble. He could not trade hits, dagger against spindle-disks. Normally, the disks might have proven effective, but in Rufo's state of mind, nothing short of a perfect and powerful strike would slow him. That type of attack would be risky indeed for Cadderly, and he doubted that he could even get one through his wild opponent's defenses.

  They traded feints and teasing lunges for a few moments, Rufo grinning and Cadderly wondering if he had a better chance by diving out the window.

  Then the whole building shook suddenly as if it had been hit by lightning. The explosion rolled on for several seconds and Cadderly understood its source when he heard a single word from the corridor.

  "Oo!"

  Rufo hesitated and glanced over his shoulder, toward the open door. Cadderly realized that his sudden advantage wasn't really fair, but decided immediately to worry about that later. He cocked his arm and let go with all his strength. Rufo turned back just in time to catch the soaring disks right between the eyes.

  Rufo's head snapped straight back, and when he righted himself again, he was no longer grinning. A startled, stupefied look came over him and his eyes crossed, as if they were both straining to see the newest bruise.

  Cadderly, too transfixed to take his gaze from Rufo's contorted features, heard the dagger hit the floor. A moment later, Rufo followed it down with a crash. Still Cadderly did not react. He just stood there, his spindle-disks hanging by his side at the end of their cord, spinning end-around-end.

  When Cadderly finally reached down to wind his weapon, his stomach turned over. The spindle-disks were covered in blood and one had a piece of Rufo's eyebrow glued onto it by the thick, drying red fluid. Cadderly slipped down to the bed and let the disks fall to the floor. He felt betrayed, by himself and by his toy.

  All priests of the library were required to train with some weapon, usually a more conventional instrument of destruction, such as the quarterstaff, mace, or club. Cadderly had begun with the staff, and could use his ram-headed walking stick fairly well if the occasion arose, but he was never really comfortable with carrying any weapon. He lived in a dangerous world, so he was told, but he had spent the majority of his life in the secure confines of the Edificant Library. He had never even seen a goblin, except for a dead one once, that being one of the library's most wretched servants, who was said to be a half-breed. The headmasters had not allowed him to bend the rule of preparedness, though; every priest was required to train.

  Cadderly had come across the spindle-disks in an archaic halfling treatise, and had quickly constructed his own. Some of the headmasters balked at his new choice, calling it more a toy than a weapon, but it fit all of the requirements set out in the ethical codes of Deneir. The vocal opposition, particularly Headmaster Avery's, only strengthened Cadderly's resolve to use the ancient weapon.

  For Cadderly, the spindle-disks had replaced hours of savage fighting with hours of enjoyable playing. He learned a dozen tricks, tests of skill that didn't hurt anybody, with his new toy, for a toy he, too, secretly considered it. Now, though, covered in Rufo's blood, the spindle-disks did not seem so amusing.

  Rufo groaned and shifted slightly, and Cadderly was glad that he was still alive. He took a deep breath and reached down for the disks, determinedly reminding himself of the gravity of the task ahead, and that he would have to be brave and thick-skinned to see it through.

  Percival was on the bed at his side, lending further support. Cadderly rubbed a finger down the white squirrel's smooth coat, then nodded gravely and rewound his weapon.

  "He dead?" asked Ivan, entering the room with a smoldering Pikel at his heels. Percival darted out the open window, and Cadderly, when he looked upon the brothers, nearly joined him. Ivan's antlers, face, and beard, which stuck out wildly in several directions, were blackened with soot, and one of Percival heavy boots was now as open-toed as his brother's sandals.

  Pikel wasn't much better off. Flecks of ceramics dotted his sooty face, his smile showed a missing tooth, and a shard of glass had actually embedded itself right into his iron pot helmet.

  "Belago was not in?" Cadderly asked evenly.

  Ivan shrugged, "Not a sight of that one," he replied, "but me brother found yer potion―what little there was of it" He held up the small catch basin. "We figured ye'd be wanting more, so we ..."

  "Turned up the spigot," Cadderly finished for him.

  "Boom! "added Pikel.

  "He dead?" Ivan asked again, and the casual tone of the question sent a shudder through Cadderly.

  Both dwarves noted the young scholar's discomfort. They glanced at each other and shook their heads. "Ye'd best get the belly for it," Ivan said. "If ye mean to go adventuring, ye'd best get the belly for things that are likely to be falling yer way." He led Cadderly's gaze back to Kierkan Rufo. "Or at yer feet!"

  "I never meant to go adventuring," Cadderly replied, somewhat sourly.

  "And I never meant to be a cook," retorted Ivan, "but that's what I got, ain't it? Ye said we got a job to do, and so we do. Let's get doing what needs doing, and if some try to get in our way, well ..."

  "He is not dead," Cadderly interjected. "Put him on the bed and tie him there."

  Again Ivan and Pikel exchanged glances, but this time, they nodded in favor of Cadderly's determined tone.

  "Oo," remarked Pikel, obviously impressed.

  Cadderly wiped his spindle-disks clean, picked up his ram-headed walking stick and a water skin, and headed down the hall. He was relieved to see Danica's door still warped and tightly wedged, and even more relieved to hear Newander's calm voice answering his knock.

  "How is she?" Cadderly asked immediately.

  "She is still deep within her meditation," Newander replied, "but she appears comfortable enough."

  Cadderly conjured his meditative image of Danica, fighting back the insidious red haze.

  "I can reverse the spell and let you in," the druid offered.

  "No," Cadderly replied, though he truly wanted to see Danica again. His last image of Danica was a comforting one; he could not take the chance that something she did now would worry him and steal his heart from his coming trials. On a more practical level, Cadderly thought it best to let Newander preserve his magical energies. "When I return, perhaps your spell will no longer be needed," he said.

  "Then you want me to stay with Danica?"

  "I have the dwarves with me," Cadderly explained. "They are better suited to the underground tunnels than a druid would be. Stay with her and keep her safe."

  Ivan and Pikel came up then, and by the eager gleam in their eyes, Ca
dderly knew that the time had come to set off. Cadderly glanced back at Danica's door several times as they walked away, emotionally torn. A large part of him argued against his journey, reasoned that his best course would be to go with his armed friends, sit by Danica's side, and ride this whole nightmare to its conclusion.

  Cadderly did not find it difficult to argue against that irrational notion. Men were dying all around him. How many more Kierkan Rufos lurked in the shadows, murder in their hearts?

  "Dear Cadderly," came a purring voice that only reinforced the young scholar's determination. Histra stood behind her chamber's door, opened just a crack, but that was enough to show Cadderly and the dwarves that she wore no more than a filmy, transparent negligee. "Do come in and sit with me."

  "Oo!" said Pikel.

  "She's wanting more than sitting, boy," chuckled Ivan.

  Cadderly ignored them all and ran right by the door. He felt Histra grab at him as he passed and heard her door creak open wider.

  "Come back here!" the priestess of Sune screamed, jumping into the middle of the hall.

  "Oo!" an admiring Pikel remarked again.

  Histra concentrated deeply, meaning to utter a magical command for her would-be lover to "Return!" But Pikel, for all his obvious enchantment, kept a pragmatic attitude about the situation. As Histra began her spell, he clamped a sooty hand onto her rump and casually tossed her back into her room.

  "Oo," Pikel uttered a third time when he moved into the room to close the door, and Ivan, standing right behind his brother, whole-heartedly agreed. A dozen young men lay sprawled about the room, exhausted by their exploits.

  "Are you so certain that you want to leave?" Histra purred at the dirty brothers.

  By the time the blushing dwarves caught up to Cadderly, he was down to the first floor, dipping his water skin into a font in the great hall.

  "Wretched stuff," Ivan whispered to Pikel. "Oils and water. Tried drinking it once." He hung his floppy tongue out in disgust.

  Cadderly smiled at the dwarf's remarks. He had better uses than drinking in mind for the holy water. When the skin was full, he took out a narrow tube, fitted on one end with a rubbery ball of some gooey substance. He popped this onto the open tip of his water skin and capped it with a smaller ball of the same goo.

  "You will understand in time," was all the explanation he offered to the curious dwarves.

  The Bouldershoulder brothers grew alarmed when the group entered the kitchen and found the place full of priests. Headmaster Avery led the impromptu chefs, though their progress was limited since each of them spent more time stuffing food into his mouth than actually cooking anything.

  More alarming to Cadderly than the eating frenzy was his companions' reactions. Both seemed on the verge of abandoning the quest, as though some greater compulsions now pulled at them.

  "Fight it," Cadderly said to them, recognizing their growing desires as curse-induced. Ivan and Pikel were protective of their kitchen, and both took extreme satisfaction in keeping the hungriest priests of the library fed to contentment. They looked around at the messy kitchen and the gluttonous priests, and for a moment, Cadderly feared that he would be traveling down to the lower catacombs alone. But Newander's claims of dwarven resistance to magical enchantment held true this time, for the Bouldershoulders shrugged unhappily at the disaster that had befallen their space, then pushed Cadderly on, prodding him toward the door to the wine cellar.

  The musty stairs were dark and quiet; the torches lining the wall had not been tended. Cadderly opened his light tube and moved down a few steps, waiting there for the brothers to strike torches. Ivan came in last and closed and bolted the iron-bound door, even taking the trouble to slide an iron locking bar into place.

  "We've as much trouble behind as ahead," the dwarf explained to Cadderly's questioning look. "If that group gets as thirsty as they are hungry, they'll only bring trouble along with them!"

  The reasoning seemed sound enough, so Cadderly turned and started down. Pikel grabbed him, though, and took up the lead, tapping his heavy club to his pot helmet.

  "Keep yerself between us," Ivan explained. "We've been on this road before!"

  His confidence comforted Cadderly, but the clamor as the bulky dwarves thumped and rattled down the stairs did not.

  Their lights intruded into absolute darkness as they came down, but all three sensed that they were not alone. Beside the first wine rack, they found their first clues that someone else had come this way. Broken glass covered the floor and many bottles―bottles that Cadderly had inventoried only a few days before―were missing. The trail led to yet another dead priest. His stomach grossly distended, he lay curled on the floor, surrounded by emptied bottles.

  They heard a shuffle to the side and Cadderly put a narrow beam of light down between the wine racks. Another priest was in there, trying futilely to stand. He was too drunk to even notice the light, and his stomach, too, bulged and sloshed. Despite his stupor, he still held a bottle to his lips, stubbornly forcing more liquid down his throat.

  Cadderly started toward the drunk, but Ivan held him back. "Show me yer door," Ivan said to him, then the dwarf nodded to Pikel. As Cadderly and Ivan headed deeper into the cellar, Pikel moved the other way, between the racks. Cadderly soon heard a thump, a groan, and a bottle breaking on the stone floor.

  "For his own good," Ivan explained.

  They came to the casks where Cadderly had been found and, once again, the young scholar grew confused and frustrated that there was no door to be found. Ivan and Pikel shoved all the casks far away, and the three of them searched every inch of the wall.

  Cadderly stuttered an apology; perhaps his entire theory was misguided. Ivan and Pikel stubbornly continued their search, though, keeping faith in their friend. They found their answers not on the unremarkable wall, but on a series of scratches in the floor.

  "The casks were dragged," Ivan asserted. He bent low to study the dust, the absence of dust, in the marks. "Not too long ago."

  Cadderly's focused beam made the tracking easy and as they moved across the room, he began to get more excited. "How could I have missed this?" he said. He turned the light back to the wine racks. "We―Rufo and I―came from over there, so the door could not have been back where we found the piled casks. It was a purposeful deception. I should have known."

  "Ye took a bit on the head," Ivan reminded him. "And it's a clever trick."

  The trail led to yet another cask, tight up against the wall. The companions knew before Ivan even kicked it aside that the mysterious door would indeed be found behind it. Ivan nodding and smiling, moved right up to the door and pulled it, but it did not budge.

  "Locked," the dwarf grunted, examining a keyhole above the pull ring. He looked to his brother, who nodded eagerly.

  "Pikel's one for unlocking doors," Ivan explained to Cadderly, and Cadderly got the point when Pikel leveled his tree trunk like a battering ram and lined himself up with the door.

  "Hold!" Cadderly said. "I have a better way."

  "Ye're a lockpick, too?" Ivan asked.

  "Oh," groaned a disappointed Pikel.

  "You could say that," Cadderly replied smugly, but instead of instruments for picking locks, he produced the hand-held crossbow. Cadderly had been hoping that he would get to try out his newest invention, and he was hardly able to keep from shaking as he cranked the bow and loaded a dart.

  "Stand back," he warned, taking aim at the keyhole. The crossbow clicked and the dart plunked in. A split second later, the momentum of the dart collapsed its weak middle section, crushing the vial of Oil of Impact, and the ensuing explosion left a blackened and blasted hole where the lock had been. The door creaked open only an inch but hung there loosely.

  "Oh, I'm wanting one of those!" Ivan cried happily.

  "Oo oi!" agreed Pikel.

  Their glee was short-lived, for behind the open door they found, not the top of the broken stairway, as Cadderly had predicted, but a brick wall.

&
nbsp; "New work," Ivan muttered after a quick inspection. He cast a sly glance Cadderly's way. "Ye got a dart for this one, boy?"

  Ivan didn't wait to hear an answer. He ran his hands over the wall, pushing at certain points as though he was testing its strength. "Pikel's got the key," he declared and he moved out of the way.

  Cadderly started to protest, but Pikel paid him no heed. The dwarf began a curious whining sound and his stubby legs churned up and down, running in place, as though he were winding himself up like a spring. Then, with a grunt, Pikel charged, his battering ram tight against his side.

  Bricks and mortar flew wildly. Several fiery explosions indicated that warding glyphs had been placed on the other side of the wall, but Pikel's furious charge was not slowed, by either the flimsy wall or the magical wards. Neither was Pikel able to halt his momentum. As Cadderly had told them before, and as he had tried to warn them again, the stairway beyond the short landing was down.

  "Ooooooooo!" came Pikel's diminishing wail, followed by a dull thump.

  "Me brother!" Ivan cried, and before Cadderly could stop him, he, too, charged through the opening. His torch flared in the dust cloud for just a moment, then both the light and the dwarf dropped from sight.

  Cadderly winced and shuddered at Ivan's final words: "I can see the grou...!"

  The Walking Dead

  Cadderly came down the rope slowly and in control, using a technique he had seen illustrated in a manuscript. He held the rope both in front of and behind him, looping it under one thigh and using his legs to control his descent. He had heard the dwarven brothers grumbling while he was tying off the rope, so he knew that they had survived the fall. That fact offered some comfort, at least. As he neared the stone floor, within the area of torchlight, he saw Pikel running about in circles, with Ivan close on his heels, smacking out the last wisps of smoke from his brother's smoldering behind.

  "Oo, oo, oo, oo!" Pikel cried, slapping at his own rump whenever he got the chance.

  "Hold still, ye stinking oak kisser!" Ivan bellowed, whacking wildly.