The Fallen Fortress Read online

  “No, they will not,” Cadderly said. “You will come back, Dorigen, and you will serve a penance. But you have much to contribute. You will help heal the scars of this war, and help better Erlkazar. That is the proper course, and the course the library will follow.”

  Danica turned a doubting look Cadderly’s way, but it fell away as she considered the determination etched on the young priest’s face. She knew what Cadderly had done to Dean Thobicus to get them out there in the first place, and she suspected then what Cadderly meant to do once they got back to the Edificant Library.

  Again, Dorigen nodded, and she smiled warmly at Cadderly, the man who had spared her in Shilmista Forest, the man who apparently meant to spare her once more.

  “Tell me of mercy, wise Cadderly,” Dorigen remarked. “Is it strength, or weakness?”

  “Strength,” the young priest answered without hesitation.

  Cadderly stood on the rocky slope above Castle Trinity, flanked by his five friends.

  “Where will they go?” he asked Dorigen, who came up the rise to join them.

  “I told the men they will be welcomed in Carradoon,” the wizard replied. “Though I doubt too many will head that way. I told the ogres, the orcs, and the goblins to go and find holes in the mountains, to run away and cause no more mischief.”

  “But many remain within the fortress?” Cadderly stated as much as asked.

  Dorigen looked back at Castle Trinity’s uncompleted walls and shrugged. “Ogres, orcs, and goblins are stubborn beasts.”

  Cadderly eyed the fortress with contempt. He remembered the hostile plane, the earthquake he’d brought about to bury Aballister, and thought of doing the same thing again, destroying Castle Trinity and cleansing the mountainside. Grinning wickedly, the young priest fell into the song of Denier, searching for powerful magic.

  He found nothing to replicate the earthquake. Confused, Cadderly pressed the notes, mentally calling for guidance.

  Then he understood. His release of power on the other plane had been a reaction to primal emotions, not consciously conjured, but forced by events around him.

  Cadderly laughed aloud, and opened his eyes to see all six of his companions standing around him, eyeing him curiously.

  “What is it?” Danica asked.

  “You were thinking of destroying the fortress,” Dorigen reasoned.

  “Aw, do it!” bellowed Ivan. “Split the ground and drop it in!”

  “Oo oi!”

  Cadderly glanced around at his companions, those friends who believed him invincible, godlike. When his gaze fell over Shayleigh, though, he found the elf maiden slowly shaking her head. She understood.

  As did Danica. “Split the ground and drop it in?” the monk asked Ivan. “If Cadderly can do such a feat, then why did we run around inside that cursed place?”

  “We have come to expect too much,” Shayleigh added.

  “Oo.” Pikel said it, but it aptly reflected Ivan’s thoughts.

  “Well, c’mon, then,” Ivan remarked after a long pause. He put his hand on Cadderly’s back and pushed the young priest along with him. “We’ve got a month’s hiking ahead, but don’t ye worry, me and me brother’ll get ye all through!”

  It was a good start, Cadderly decided. Ivan was taking the lead, was assuming some of the responsibility.

  A good start on a long road.

  EPILOGUE

  Waves of agony rolled over Druzil when Aballister died, pains that only a familiar who’d lost his wizard master could ever know. Unlike many familiars, Druzil managed to survive the assault, and when the agony had at last subsided, the imp limped his way down the trails of the eastern Snowflakes.

  “Bene tellemara, Aballister,” he grumbled under his breath, his litany against his mounting fears.

  It was easy enough for the intelligent imp to figure out who had brought Aballister down, and easy enough for him to figure that without the wizard, even if Castle Trinity had survived, his role in the planned of conquest of Erlkazar had come to a sudden end. He thought briefly of going to the castle, to see if Dorigen had survived, but quickly dismissed the thought, reminding himself that Dorigen may have lived, and she wasn’t too fond of him.

  But where to go? Druzil wondered.

  Wizard masters were not so easy for renegade imps to find, nor were planar gates that might return him to the smoky, dark lands where he truly belonged. Also, Druzil figured that his business on the Prime Material Plane was not quite finished, not with the precious chaos curse he’d concocted bottled up in the catacombs of the Edificant Library. Druzil wanted the bottle back, so had to figure out a way to get it before that wretched Cadderly, if Cadderly was still alive, returned.

  For the time being, though, the imp’s needs were more immediate. He wanted to get out of the Snowflake Mountains, wanted to get indoors and out of winter’s chilly bite, and so he continued his course down toward the human town of Carradoon.

  After several days, and several close calls with the wary farmers living on the edges of the wild mountains, Druzil, perched in the rafters of a barn, overheard what sounded like promising news. A hermit had taken up habitation in a remote shack not too far from the farm, a solitary recluse with no friends and no family.

  “No witnesses,” the imp rasped, his poison-tipped tail flicking eagerly.

  As soon as the sun went down, Druzil flapped off for the shack, figuring to kill the hermit and take his home, and spend the cold winter feasting off the dead man’s flesh.

  How his plans changed when he looked upon the hermit, at the mark branded clearly on his forehead. Suddenly Druzil was more concerned with how to keep the man alive. He thought again of the Edificant Library, and the powerful chaos curse locked away in its catacombs. He thought again that he must possess it, and by some chance of fate, it seemed to Druzil as if his wish might come true.

  Bent low under the burden of an armful of firewood, Kierkan Rufo plodded slowly, dejected, back to his ramshackle hut.

  R.A. Salvatore

  R.A. Salvatore was born in Massachusetts in 1959. His love affair with fantasy, and with literature in general, began during his sophomore year of college when he was given a copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas gift. He promptly changed his major from computer science to journalism. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Communications in 1981 then returned for the degree he always cherished, the Bachelor of Arts in English. He began writing seriously in 1982, penning the manuscript that would become Echoes of the Fourth Magic.

  His first published novel was The Crystal Shard from TSR in 1988 and he is still best known as the creator of the dark elf Drizzt, one of fantasy’s most beloved characters.

  His novel The Silent Blade won the Origins Award, and in the fall of 1997, his letters, manuscripts, and other professional papers were donated to the R.A. Salvatore Library at his alma mater, Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg, Massachusetts.

  FORGOTTEN REALMS, WIZARDS OF THE COAST, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, their respective logos, and THE LEGEND OF DRIZZT are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. Other trademarks are property of their respective owners. ©2009 Wizards.

  The Cleric Quintet, Book IV

  THE FALLEN FORTRESS

  ©1993 TSR, Inc.

  ©2009 Wizards of the Coast LLC

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC

  FORGOTTEN REALMS, WIZARDS OF THE COAST, and their respective logos are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-5435-3

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