The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks (Page 4)
Shaking, Cadderly slipped out of his chair and over to his bed. He threw an arm across his eyes, as though that act might hide the confusing memory of what had just occurred.
"I'll see the wizard in the morning," he whispered aloud. "He will understand "
Cadderly didn't believe a word of it, but he refused to listen to the truth.
"In the morning," he whispered again, as he sought the serenity of sleep.
The morning was many hours and many dreams away for the troubled young man.
Percival hopped up to the room's window - no, not the window, but the terrace doors. Cadderly considered the strange sight, for the squirrel's sheer size made the doors look more like a tiny window. It was Percival, Cadderly knew instinctively, but why was the squirrel six feet tall?
The white squirrel entered the room and came beside him. Cadderly extended his hand to pat the beast, but Percival recoiled, then rushed back in, his not-so-tiny paws ripping tears in the pouches on Cadderly's belt. Cadderly began to protest, but one of the pouches broke open, spilling a continual stream ofcacasa nuts onto the floor.
Hundreds ofcacasa nuts! Thousands ofcacasa nuts! The gigantic squirrel eagerly stuffed them into his bulging mouth by the score and soon the floor was clear again.
"Where are you going?" Cadderly heard himself ask as the squirrel bounded away. The doors were closed again somehow, but the squirrel ran right through them, knock-ingthemfrom their hinges. Then Percival hopped over the balcony railing and was gone.
Cadderly sat up in his bed - but it was not his bed, for he was not in his room. Rather, he was lying in the inn's common room. It was very late, he knew, and very quiet.
Cadderly was not alone. He felt a ghostlike presence behind him. Mustering his courage, he spun about.
Then he cried out, the scream torn from his lungs by sheer desperation. There lay Headmaster Avery, Cad-derly's mentor, his surrogate father, spread across one of the room's small circular tables, his chest opened wide. Cadderly didn't have to examine the man to know he was dead and that his heart had been torn out.
Cadderly sat up in his bed - and now it was indeed his bed. His room was quiet, except for the occasional rattling of the balcony doors, shivering in the night wind. A mil moon was up, its silvery light dancing through the window, splaying shadows across the floor.
The serenity seemed hardly enough to chase away the dreams. Cadderly tried to recall that page in the tome again, tried to remember the chant, the spell, to bathe the room in light. He was weary and troubled and had not eaten all that day, and hardly at all the day before. The image of the page would not come, so he lay still, terrified, in the dim light.
There was only the quiet light of the moon.
Dawn was a long while away.
Home Again
steady stream of shouts led the way for Danica and the Bouldershoulder brothers as they walked the halls in the southern section of the Edificant Library's second floor. All three com-panions knew the source of the ruckus was Headmaster Avery even before they approached his office, and they knew, too, from whispers that had greeted them on their arrival, that Kierkan Rufo bore the brunt of the verbal assault.
"It is good that you have returned," came a voice to the side. Headmistress Pertelope strode toward the three. She smiled warmly and wore, as had become her norm, a full-length, long-sleeved gown and black gloves. Not an inch of skin peeked out below her neck, and, between the dark robes and the tightly cropped salt-and-pepper hair, her face seemed almost detached, floating in an empty background. "I'd feared you had lost your hearts to Shilmista - something perfectly reasonable," the headmistress said sincerely, with no hint of judgment in her perpetually calm tone.
"Ye're bats!" Ivan snorted, shaking his head vigorously. "An elfish place, and not for me liking."
Pike! kicked him in the shin, and the brothers glared long and hard at each other.
"Shilmista was wonderful," Danica admitted. "Especially when we sent the monsters in full flight. Already it seems as if the shadows have lightened in the elven wood."
Pertelope nodded and flashed her warm smile once more. "You are going to see Avery?" she stated as much as asked.
"It is our duty," Danica replied, "but he does not seem to be in a good mood this day."
"Rufo'd spoil anyone's day, by me reckoning," Ivan put in.
Again Pertelope nodded, and she managed a somewhat strained smile. "Kierkan Rufo's actions in the forest will not be easily forgotten," she explained. "The young priest has much to prove if he wishes to regain the favor of the headmasters, particularly Headmaster Avery."
"Good enough for him!" Ivan snorted.
"Oooi!" Pikel added.
"I've heard that Rufo has already received some punishment," Pertelope continued wryly, looking pointedly at Danica's fist.
Danica unconsciously slipped her guilty hands behind her back. She couldn't deny that she had slugged Rufo, back in the forest when he was complaining about his companions' deficiencies. She also couldn't deny how much she had enjoyed dropping the blustering fool. Her actions had been rash, though, and probably not without consequence.
Pertelope sensed the young woman's discomfort and quickly moved on to a different subject. "When you are done talking with Headmaster Avery," she said to Danica, "do come and see me. We have much to discuss."
The perceptive headmistress smiled knowingly and said, "Later," then gave the young woman a wink and walked on.
Danica watched her go, a thousand thoughts of Cadderly following kind Pertelope's every step. Ivan's tapping boot reminded her that she had other considerations, and she reluctantly turned back to the dwarves. "Are you two ready to face Avery?"
Ivan chuckled wickedly. "Not to worry," the dwarf assured her, grabbing her by the arm and leading her to the portly headmaster's office. "If the fat one gets outta line with ye, I'll threaten him with smaller portions at the dinner table. There's a measure of power from being a place's cook!"
Danica couldn't disagree, but that offered little comfort as she neared the door and heard more clearly the level of Avery's rage.
"Excuses!" the headmaster roared. "Always excuses! Why do you refuse to take responsibility for your actions?" "I did not - " they heard Rufo begin meekly, but Avery promptly cut him off.
"You did!" the headmaster cried. "You betrayed them to that wretched imp - and more than once!" There came a pause, then Avery's voice sounded again, more composed. "Your actions after that were somewhat courageous, I will admit," he said, "but they do not excuse you. Do not presume for a moment that you are forgiven. Now, go to your tasks with the knowledge that any transgression, however minor, will cost you dearly!"
The door swung open and a haggard Rufo rushed out, seeming displeased to see Danica and the dwarves. "Surprised?" Ivan asked him with a wide grin. The angular man, tilting slightly, ran his fingers through his matted black hair. His dark eyes darted about as if in search of escape. With nowhere to go, Rufo shoved his way between Danica and Pikel and scurried away, obviously embarrassed.
"Yer day just got better, eh?" Ivan called after him, enjoying the tall man's torment.
"It took you a while to find your way to me," came a surly call from the room, turning the companions back to Avery.
"Uh-oh," muttered Pikel, but Ivan merely snorted and strode into the room, right up to Avery's oaken desk. Danica and Pikel came in a bit more hesitantly.
Avery's bluster seemed to have played itself out. The chubby man pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and rubbed it across his sweaty, blotchy face. "I did not believe you would come back," he said, huffing with labored breath. He alternated his glance from Ivan to Pikel. "I had even suggested to Dean Thobicus that we begin to search for new cooks."
"Not to worry," Ivan assured him with a bow that swept the dwarfs yellow beard across the floor. "The masters of yer belly have returned."
Pikel piped up in hearty agreement, but Avery's renewed glare showed he did not enjoy the boisterous dwarfs smug attitude.
"Ws will, of course, need a full report of your time in Shilmista - a written report," he said, shuffling some papers about on his large desk.
"I don't write," Ivan teased, "but I can cook ye a goblin ear stew. That'll fairly sum up me time in the wood." Even Danica couldn't bite back a chuckle at that.
"Lady Maupoissant will help you then," Avery said, articulating each word slowly to show them he was not amused.
"When will you need this?" Danica asked, hoping he would give her the whole winter. Her thoughts were on Carradoon, on Cadderly, and she was beginning to suspect that perhaps she should have continued through the mountains and gone straight to him.
"You are scheduled to meet with Dean Thobicus in three days," Avery informed her. "That should give you ample time - "
"Impossible," Danica said to him. "I will meet with the dean this day, or in the morning, perhaps, but - "
"Three days," Avery repeated. "The dean's schedule is not for you to manipulate, Lady Maupoissant." Again he used her surname, and Danica knew it was to emphasize his anger.
Danica felt trapped. "I am not of your order," she reminded the portly man. "I am under no obligation - "
Again Avery cut her short. "You will do as you are told " he said grimly. "Do not think your actions in Shilmista have been forgotten or forgiven."
Danica fell back a step; Ivan, as angry as he was confused, hopped to his toes and glowered at Avery.
"Huh?" was all that stunned Pikel could mutter.
"As I said," Avery declared, slamming a heavy fist on the desk. "You all played the role of hero, both in Shilmista and before that, when the evil priest and his insidious curse fell over the library, but that does not excuse your actions, Lady Maupoissant."
Danica wanted to scream "What actions?" but she couldn't get a sound past the mounting rage in her throat.
"You struck him," Avery finally explained. "You attacked Rufo, a priest of Deneir, a host of the Edificant Library, without provocation."
"He had it coming," Ivan retorted.
Avery managed a bit of a smile. "Somehow, I do not doubt that," he agreed, for a moment seeming his old, likable self. "Yet there are rules concerning such behavior." He looked straight into Danica's brown eyes. "You might well be banned from the library for life if I were to pursue Rufo's charges.
"Think of it," Avery continued after giving Danica and the dwarves a moment to absorb his meaning. "All of your texts are here, all of the known works of Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ann. I know how dear your studies are to you."
"Then why do you threaten me like this?" Danica snapped. She flipped a lock of her unkempt hair from in front of her face and crossed her arms before her. "If I erred in striking Rufo, then so be it, but if the same situation was repeated - if, after so many trials and so much killing, I had to listen to his endless whining and berating of me and my friends - I cannot honestly say that I would not punch him again."
"Oo oi!" Pikel readily agreed.
"Had it coming," Ivan said again.
Avery waved his hand in a patting motion to try to calm the three. "Agreed," he said, "and I assure you I have no intention of letting Rufo's accusations go beyond this point. But in exchange, I demand that you give me these few things I have asked. Prepare the report and meet with Thobicus in three days, as he desires. On my word, Rufo's accusations will never again be mentioned, to you or to anyone else."
Danica blew the stubborn strand of hair away from her face, an action Avery understood as a resigned sigh.
"Cadderly is all right, by all reports," the headmaster said quietly. Danica winced. Hearing the name aloud brought fears and painful recollections.
"He stays at the Dragon's Codpiece, a fine inn," Avery went on. "Fredegar, the innkeeper, is a friend, and he has looked after Cadderly, though that has not been difficult since our man rarely leaves his room."
The portly headmaster's obvious concern for Cadderly reminded Danica that Avery was no enemy - for her or for her love. She understood, too, that most of Avery's surly behavior could be attributed to the same fact that had been gnawing away at her: Cadderly had remained at the library only as long as it took to retrieve his possessions. Cadderly had not, and might not ever, come home.
"I leave for Carradoon this afternoon," Avery announced. "There is much business to be handled between the headmasters and the town's leaders. With this threat of war hanging over us and . . . well, worry not about it. You three have earned at least a few days of relaxation."
Again Danica understood the implication of the portly headmaster's words. Certainly there was business between the library and the town, but Danica thought it unlikely that Avery, whose duties were to preside over and guide the younger priests, would be chosen as the library's representative in town matters. Avery had volunteered to go, had insisted, Danica knew, and not because of any threat to the region. His business in Carradoon was an excuse to look in on Cadderly, the young man whom he loved as dearly as he would his own son.
Danica and the dwarves took their leave, the brothers protectively flanking Danica as they exited the room.
"Not to worry," Ivan said to Danica. "Me and me brother'l] have to go to town soon anyway, to stock up for the winter. Get yer business and yer meeting done and we'll set off right after. It's not a long road to Carradoon, but 'tis better, in these times, that ye don't go down it alone."
Piket nodded his agreement, then they parted, the dwarves heading down the stairs for the kitchen and Danica toward her room. Ivan and Pikel missed Cadderly, too, the young woman realized. She gave a flip of her strawberry-blond hair, which now hung several inches below her shoulders, as though that symbolic act would allow her to put her troubles behind her for the moment. Like the stubborn hair that inevitably found its way back around to her face, though, Danica's fears did not stay away.
She desperately wanted to see Cadderly, to hold him and kiss him, but at the same time she feared that meeting. If the young scholar rejected her again, as he had in Shil-mista, her life, even her dedication to her studies, would fail to have meaning.
"I did not see much," Danica admitted, adjusting her position on the edge of Headmistress Pertelope's cushioned bed. "I was guarding against the approaching battle. I knew Cadderly and Elbereth would be vulnerable while they cast their summons to the trees."
"But you are convinced that Cadderly played a role in that summoning?" Pertelope pressed, repeating the question for perhaps the fifth time. Pertelope sat near Danica and was clad in her usual modest garments. "It was not just the elf prince."
Danica shook her head. "I heard Cadderly's chant," she tried to explain. "There was something more to it, some underlying power..." She struggled to find the words, but how could she? What had happened back in Shilmista, when Cadderly and Elbereth had awakened the great oaks, had seemed almost miraculous to the young woman. And miracles, by definition, defied description.
"Cadderly told me he had played a role," a flustered Danica responded at last. "There was more to the summons than simply repeating the ancient words. He spoke of gathering energy, of a mind-set that brought him into the trees' world before awakening them and coaxing them to ours."
Pertelope nodded slowly as she digested the words. She held no doubts about Danica's honesty, or about Cadderly's mysterious, budding power. "And the elf wizard's wound?" she prompted.
"By Elbereth's description, the spear had gone a foot or more into Tintagel's side," Danica replied. "So very much blood covered his clothing - I saw that much for myself - and Elbereth had not expected him to survive for more than a few moments longer. Yet when I saw him, just half an hour after he was wounded, he was nearly healed and casting spells at our enemies once more."
"You have seen spells of healing at the library," Pertelope said, trying to hide her excitement. "When the Oghman priest broke his arm in wrestling you, for example."
"Minor compared to the healing Cadderiy did on Tinta-gel," Danica assured her. "By Elbereth's word, he held the wizard's belly in while the skin mended around his fingers!"
Pertelope nodded again and remained quiet for a long while. There was no need to go over it all again. Danica's recounting had been consistent and, Pertelope knew instinctively, honest. Her hazel eyes stared into emptiness for a time before she focused again on Danica.
The young monk sat quietly and very still, lost in her own contemplations. To Pertelope's eyes, a shadow appeared on Danica's shoulder, a silhouette of a tiny female, trembling and glancing nervously about. Extraordinary heat emanated from the young monk's body, and her breathing, steady to the casual observer, reflected her anxieties to Pertelope's knowing and probing gaze.
Danica was mil of passion, yet full of fear, the headmistress knew. Merely thinking of Cadderly stirred a boiling turmoil within her.
Pertelope shook the insightful visions away, ended the distant song that played in the recesses of her mind, and put a comforting hand on Danica's shoulder. "Thank you for coming to sit with me," she said sincerely. "You have been a great help to me - and to Cadderly, do not doubt." A confused look came over Danica. Pertelope hated that she had to be cryptic with someone so obviously attached to Cadderly, but she knew Danica would not understand the powers at work on the young priest. Those same powers had been with Pertelope for nearly a score of years, and Pertelope wasn't certain that even she understood them.
The bed creaked as Danica stood. "I have to go now," she explained, looking back to the small room's door. "If you wish, I can come back . . ."
"No need," the headmistress answered, offering a warm smile. "Unless you feel you would like to talk," she quickly added. Pertelope intensified her gaze again and bade the song begin, searching for that insightful, supernatural, level of perception. The trembling shadow remained upon Danica's shoulder, but it seemed calmer now, and the young monk's breathing had steadied.
The heat was still there, though, the vital energy of anticipated passion for this young woman, no more a girl.
Even after Danica had departed, the door handle glowed softly from her touch.
Pertelope smiled at the dark thought. "No, not a curse," she said aloud, lifting her eyes toward the ceiling as though she were addressing a higher presence. She played the song more strongly in her mind, the universal harmony that she had heard a thousand times in the turning pages of the tome she had given to Cadderly. She fell into the song and followed its notes, gaining communion with her dearest god.
"So you have chosen Cadderly," she whispered.
She received no answer, and had expected none.
"He could not otherwise have accomplished all of those 'miracles' in the elven wood," Pertelope went on, speaking aloud her conclusions to bolster her suspicions. "I pity him, and yet I envy him, for he is young and strong, stronger than I ever was. How powerful will he become?"
Again, except for the continuing melody in Perteiope's head, there came no response.
That was why the headmistress often felt as though she had been cursed; there never were any answers granted. She had always had to discover them for herself.
And so, too, she knew, would Cadderly.
A Beggar Man, A Thief
adderly purposely avoided looking at the guardsman as he moved through the short tun-nel and under the raised portcullis leading out of the lakeside town. All along his route to the western gate the young scholar had observed people of every station and every demeanor, and the variety of shadowy images he had seen leaping from their shoulders had nearly overwhelmed him. Again the song of Deneir played in his thoughts, as though he had subconsciously summoned it, and again, aurora remained the only identifiable term. Cadderly could not make sense of it all; he feared that this new insight would drive him mad.
He grew more at ease when he had put the bustle of Car-radoon behind him and was walking along the hedge-and tree-lined roads, with nothing more to attract his attention than the chatter of birds and the overhead rustle of squirrels gathering their winter stores.
"Is mine the curse of the hermits?" he asked himself aloud. "That it is!" he proclaimed loudly, startling a nearby squirrel that had frozen in place on the camouflaging gray bark of a tree. The rising volume of Cadderly's voice sent the critter hop-skipping up the tree, where it froze again, not even its bushy tail twitching.
" Wfell, it is," Cadderly cried to the rodent in feigned exasperation. "All those poor, wretched, solitary souls, so frowned upon by the rest of us. They are not hermits by choice. They possess this same vision that haunts me, and it drives them mad, drives them to where they cannot bear the sight of another intelligent thing.
Cadderly moved to the base of the tree to better view the beast. "I see no shadows leaping from your shoulders, Mr. Gray," he called. "You have no hidden desires, no cravings beyond those you obviously seek to fill."
"Unless there be a lady squirrel about!" came a cry from down the path. Cadderly nearly leaped out of his boots. He spun about to see a large, dirty man dressed in ragged, ill-fitting clothes and boots whose toes had long ago worn away.
"A lady squirrel would get his mind from those nuts," the stubble-faced man continued, advancing easily down the road.
Cadderly unconsciously brought his ram-headed walking stick up in front of him. Thieves were common on the roads close to the town, especially in this season, with winter fast approaching.
"But, then..." the large man continued, putting a finger upon his lower lip in a contemplative gesture. Cadderly noted that he wore mismatched fingerless gloves, one black, one brown leather. "If the lady was about, the squirrel would still have no 'hidden desires,' since the unabashed beast would seek to fill whatever his heart deemed necessary, the call of his belly or the call of his loins.
"I'd be one to choose the loins, eh?" the dirty man said with a lascivious wink.
Cadderly blushed slightly and nearly laughed aloud, though he still hadn't figured out what to make of this well-spoken vagabond, and he still wasn't comfortable near the dirty man. He peered closer, trying to find a revealing shadow on the man's shoulders. But Cadderly's surprise had stolen the song fully, and nothing rested there, except the badly worn folds of an old woolen scarf.
"It is a fine day to be about, talking to the beasts," the man went on, seeing no response forthcoming from Cad-derly. "A pity, then, that I must get myself inside the gates of Carradoon, in the realm of smells more unpleasant, where high buildings hide the panorama of beauty so easily taken for granted on this most lovely of country roads "
"You will not easily pass by the guards," Cadderly remarked, knowing how carefully the city militiamen were protecting their home, especially with rumors of war brewing.
The vagabond opened a small pouch on the side of his rope belt and produce a single silver coin. "A bribe?" Cadderly asked,
"Admission," the beggar corrected. " 'One must spend gold' - or silver, as the case may be - 'to make gold,' goes the old saying. I will accept the lore as true, since I know I will indeed secure some gold once I am within the town's wall."
Cadderly studied the man more closely. He wore no insignia of any lawful guild, showed no signs of any money-making talents whatsoever. "A thief," he stated flatly.
"Never," the man asserted.
"A beggar?" Cadderiy asked, this word coming out with the same obvious venom.
The larger man clutched his chest and staggered back several steps, as though Cadderly had launched a dagger into his heart.
Now Cadderly did notice some shadows. He caught the flicker of a pained look beneath the man's sarcastic, playful facade. He saw a woman on one shoulder, holding a small child, and an older child on the man's other shoulder. The images were gone in an instant, and Cadderly noticed for the first time that the man had a slight limp and a blue-green bruise on his wrist just above the edge of the brown glove. of nausea nearly overwhelmed the young scholar; as he focused his senses, he felt the emanations of the disease clearly and knew beyond doubt why this intelligent, articulate man had sunk to his lowly station.
He was a leper.