The Fallen Fortress Read online

  Cadderly paused to consider his response. Perhaps his feelings could be considered arrogant, but he believed them nonetheless. He could control the force of the Ghearufu, had controlled it to that point, at least. Cadderly realized that he held a special insight, a gift from Deneir, that others of his order, with the exception of Pertelope, seemed to lack.

  “That is good,” the headmistress said, answering her own accusation.

  Cadderly eyed her curiously, not quite understanding where her reasoning was leading.

  “Deneir has called upon you,” Pertelope explained. “You must trust in that call. When you first discovered your budding powers, you did not understand them and you feared them. It was only when you came to trust in them that you learned their uses and limitations. So it must be with your instincts and your emotions, feelings heightened by the song that ever plays in your mind. Do you believe you know what is the best course concerning the Ghearufu?”

  “I know,” Cadderly replied firmly, not caring that he did indeed sound arrogant.

  “And concerning Kierkan Rufo’s brand?”

  Cadderly spent a moment considering the question, for Rufo’s case seemed to encompass many more edicts of proper procedure, procedures that Cadderly had obviously circumvented.

  “I did as the ethics of Deneir instructed me,” he decided. “Still, Dean Thobicus doubts my authority with good cause.”

  “From his perspective,” Pertelope replied. “Yours was a moral authority, while the dean’s power over such situations comes from a different source.”

  “From a human hierarchy,” Cadderly added. “A hierarchy that remains blind to the truth of Deneir.” He gave an unintentionally derisive chuckle. “A hierarchy that will hold us in check until the cost of a war with Castle Trinity multiplies tenfold, a hundredfold.”

  “Will it?”

  It was a simple question, asked simply by a priestess who hadn’t the strength to even rise from her bed. To Cadderly, though, the question’s connotations were quite complex, implicating him and his future actions as the only possible answer. He knew in his heart that Pertelope was calling upon him to prevent what he’d just predicted, was asking him to usurp the authority of his order’s highest ranking priest and bring Castle Trinity’s influence to a quick end.

  Her coy smile confirmed his suspicions.

  “Have you ever dared overrule the Dean?” Cadderly asked.

  “I have never been in such a desperate situation,” the headmistress replied. Her voice sounded weak, as though her efforts to be strong had reached their end.

  “I told you when you first discovered your gift,” she went on, pausing often to collect her breath, “that many things would be required of you, that your courage would often be tested. Deneir demands intelligence, but he also demands courage of spirit so that intelligent decisions can be acted upon.”

  “Cadderly?” The quiet call came from the door, and Cadderly looked back over his shoulder to see Danica, her face grave.

  Behind her stood the beautiful Shayleigh, elf maiden, elf warrior, from Shilmista Forest, her golden hair lustrous and her violet eyes shining as the dawn. She offered no greeting to Cadderly, though she’d not seen him in tendays, out of respect for the obviously solemn meeting.

  “Dean Thobicus is looking for you,” Danica explained quietly, her tone full of trepidation. “You did not give the Ghearufu …” Her voice trailed away as Cadderly looked back to the bed, to Pertelope, who appeared very old and very tired.

  “Courage,” Pertelope whispered.

  Then, as Cadderly looked on with understanding, the headmistress peacefully died.

  Cadderly neither knocked nor waited for permission to enter the office of Dean Thobicus. The withered man sat back in his chair, staring out the window. Cadderly knew that the dean had just received news of Headmistress Pertelope’s death.

  “Have you done as you were instructed?” Thobicus snapped as soon as he noticed that Cadderly had entered, and by that time, Cadderly was already up to the man’s desk.

  “I have,” Cadderly replied.

  “Good,” Thobicus said, and his anger faded, replaced by his obvious sorrow for Pertelope’s passing.

  “I have bid Danica and Shayleigh to assemble the Bouldershoulder brothers and Vander by the front door, with provisions for the journey,” Cadderly explained, popping on his blue, wide-brimmed hat as he spoke.

  “To Shilmista Forest?” Thobicus asked, as though he was afraid of what Cadderly was about to say. One of the options Thobicus had offered to Cadderly was to go out and serve as emissary to the elves and Prince Elbereth, but he didn’t think that was what the young priest was hinting at.

  “No,” came the even answer.

  Thobicus sat up straight in his chair, a perplexed expression on his hollow, weathered face. He noticed then that Cadderly wore his hand crossbow and the bandoleer of explosive darts. The spindle-disks, Cadderly’s other unconventional weapon, were looped on the young priest’s wide belt, next to a tube that Cadderly had designed to emit a concentrated beam of light.

  Thobicus considered the clues for a long while. “Have you turned the Ghearufu over to the library supervisor?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Thobicus trembled with mounting rage. He started to speak several times, but wound up chewing his lips instead.

  “You just said that you had done as you were instructed!” he roared at last, in as furious an outburst as Cadderly had ever seen from the normally calm man.

  “I have done as Deneir instructed,” Cadderly explained.

  “You arrogant … you … sacrilegious—” Thobicus stammered, his face shining bright red as he stood up behind the desk.

  “Hardly,” Cadderly corrected, his voice unshaking. “I have done as Deneir instructed, and now you, too, are to do Deneir’s bidding. You will go down with me to the front hall and wish my friends and me good fortune on our all-important mission to Castle Trinity.”

  The dean tried to interrupt but something that he did not yet understand, something intruding into his very thoughts, compelled him to silence.

  “Then you will continue the preparations for a springtime assault,” Cadderly explained, “a reserve plan in case my friends and I cannot accomplish what we set out to do.”

  “You are mad!” Thobicus growled.

  Hardly.

  Thobicus began to argue back—until he realized that Cadderly hadn’t spoken the word. The dean’s eyes narrowed then popped wide as he came to realize that something was touching him—inside his mind!

  “What are you about?” he demanded.

  You need not speak, Cadderly telepathically assured him.

  “This is …” the dean began.

  “… preposterous, an insult to my position,” Cadderly finished for him, revealing the dean’s words before Thobicus ever spoke them.

  The dean fell back in his chair. Do you realize the consequences of your actions? he mentally asked.

  Do you realize that I could shatter your mind? Cadderly responded with all confidence. Do you further realize that my powers are bestowed by the Lord of All Glyphs and Images?

  The dean’s faced screwed up in confusion and disbelief. What was the young upstart hinting at?

  Cadderly held no love for that ugly game, but he had little time to handle things the way the proper procedures of the Edificant Library demanded. He mentally commanded the dean to stand, then to stand on the desk.

  Before he knew what had happened, Thobicus found himself looking down at the young priest from a high perch.

  Cadderly looked out the window, and Thobicus sensed the young priest privately musing that he could quite easily persuade the dean to jump out of it—and Thobicus believed Cadderly could do just that. Without warning, Cadderly released Thobicus from his mental grip, and the dean slumped down from the desk and slid back into his chair.

  “I take no pleasure in dominating you so,” Cadderly explained sincerely, understanding that the best results m
ight be gained by restoring the defeated man’s pride. “I am allowed the power by the god that we both recognize. This is Deneir’s way of explaining to you that I am correct in these matters. It is a signal to us both, nothing more. All that I ask—”

  “I will have you branded!” Thobicus exploded. “I will see that you are escorted from the library in chains, tormented every step of the way as you leave the barony!”

  His words stung Cadderly profoundly as he continued his tirade, promising every conceivable punishment allowable by the Deneirrath. Cadderly had been raised under those rules of order, under the precept that the dean’s word was absolute rule in the library, and it was truly terrifying to the young priest to cast aside convention, even in light of the greater truth playing within the notes of Deneir’s song. Cadderly focused his thoughts on Pertelope at that terrible moment, remembering her call for courage and conviction.

  He heard the harmony of the song playing in his mind, entered its alluring flow, and found again those channels of energy that would allow him into the private realm of Dean Thobicus’s mind.

  Cadderly and the dean exited the library a few moments later, to find Danica and Shayleigh, the giant Vander—who used his innate magical abilities to appear as a huge, red-bearded man—and the two dwarves: stocky, yellow-bearded Ivan and round-shouldered Pikel, his beard dyed green and pulled up over his ears, braided with his long hair halfway down his back. The smiling dean wished Cadderly and his five companions the best of fortunes on their most important mission, and waved a fond farewell as they walked off into the Snowflake Mountains.

  THREE

  JUSTIFYING THE MEANS

  Aballister leaned in close over Dorigen’s shoulder, making the woman somewhat uncomfortable. Dorigen let her focus drift away from the images in the crystal ball and shook her head vigorously, purposely letting fly her long salt-and-pepper hair so that it smacked nosy Aballister in the face.

  The older wizard backed up a step and pulled a strand of hair from his lips, glowering at Dorigen.

  “I didn’t realize you were so close,” Dorigen apologized weakly.

  “Of course,” replied Aballister in similarly feigned tones.

  Dorigen clearly recognized his anger, but sensed that he would accept her insult without much complaint.

  Aballister had broken his own scrying device, a magical mirror, and the experience had left him fearful of any more attempts at clairvoyance. He needed Dorigen. She was quite skilled at the Art.

  “I should have announced my presence and waited for you to complete your search,” Aballister said, which was as close to an apology as Dorigen had ever heard from him.

  “That would have been the appropriate course,” Dorigen agreed, her amber eyes flashing with …

  With what? Aballister wondered. Hatred?

  Their relationship had been on a steady decline since Dorigen had returned from her humiliating defeat in Shilmista Forest, a defeat she’d suffered at the hands of Aballister’s own estranged son.

  The older wizard shrugged away the personal problems. “Have you found them?” he asked.

  He and Dorigen could settle their score after the immediate threat was eliminated, but for the time being, they both had greater problems. The spirit of Bogo Rath had returned to Aballister the previous night, with the information that Cadderly was indeed on his way to Castle Trinity.

  The report inspired both trepidation and exhilaration in the older wizard. Aballister was obsessed with conquering the realm of Erlkazar, a goal given to him by an avatar of Talona herself, and Cadderly certainly seemed to be among the foremost obstacles to those designs. The wizard couldn’t deny the tingle of anticipation he felt at the thought of doing battle with his formidable son. By all reports, Cadderly didn’t even know of his relationship to Aballister, and the thought of crushing the upstart youth, both in magical battle and emotionally with the secret truth, inevitably widened a grin across cruel Aballister’s angular features.

  The news of Cadderly’s march inspired nothing but fear in Dorigen, however. She had no desire to tangle with the young priest and his brutal friends again, especially not with her hands still sore from the beating Cadderly had given them. Many of her spells required precise hand movements, and with her fingers bent crooked and joints smashed, more than one spell had backfired on her since her return from the elves’ forest.

  “I have seen no sign of Cadderly,” Dorigen replied after a long pause to study again the blurry images in the crystal ball. “My guess is that he and his companions have just recently left the library, if they have left at all, and I dare not send my magical sight so near our enemy’s stronghold.”

  “All this time, and you have found nothing?” Aballister did not sound pleased. He paced the edge of the small room, running withered fingers across a curtain that separated the space from Dorigen’s boudoir. A smile spread across the wizard’s face, though, despite his trepidation, when he remembered the many games he and Dorigen had enjoyed behind that very curtain.

  “I didn’t say that,” Dorigen answered, understanding the conniving grin, and she turned back again to the crystal ball.

  Aballister rushed back across the room to peer over his associate’s shoulder. At first, only a gray mist swirled within the confines of the crystal ball, but gradually, with Dorigen’s coaxing, it began to shift and take on definite form.

  The two wizards viewed the foothills of the Snowflakes, obviously the southeastern mountain region, for the road to Carradoon was plainly in sight. Something moved along that road, something hideous.

  “The assassin,” Aballister breathed. Dorigen regarded the older wizard with curiosity.

  “The spirit of Bogo was cryptic on this point,” Aballister explained. “This thing you have discovered was one of the leaders of the band of Night Masks, the one called, appropriately it would now seem, Ghost. Apparently our dear Cadderly took from Ghost a magical device, and now the wretched creature has come back for it. Can you sense the spirit’s power through your ball?”

  “Of course not,” Dorigen answered.

  “Then go out to the mountains and watch over this one,” Aballister growled at her. “We may have a powerful ally here, one that will eliminate our problems before they ever make their way to Castle Trinity.”

  “I will not.”

  Aballister straightened as though he’d been slapped.

  “I have not yet recovered,” Dorigen explained. “My spells are not dependable. You would ask me to approach a malignant undead thing, and near your dangerous son, without full use of my Art?”

  Her reference to Cadderly as Aballister’s son made the older wizard cringe, the obvious implication being that all their troubles were somehow Aballister’s fault.

  “You have at your disposal one far more capable of estimating the strength of this undead monster,” Dorigen went on. “One who can communicate with the creature, if necessary, and who can certainly learn more about its intentions than I.”

  Aballister’s wrath melted away as he came to see Dorigen’s point. “Druzil,” he replied, referring to his familiar, a mischievous imp of the lower planes.

  “Druzil,” Dorigen echoed, her tone derisive.

  Aballister put a crooked hand up to his sharp chin and mumbled. Still, he seemed unconvinced.

  “Besides,” Dorigen purred. “If I remain at Trinity, perhaps you and I….” She let the thought hang, her gaze directing Aballister’s to the curtain across the small room.

  Aballister’s dark eyes widened in surprise, and his hand drooped back down by his side. “Continue your search for my s—for Cadderly,” Aballister said. “Alert me at once if you discover his location. After all, I have ways of striking at the foolish boy before he ever gets near Castle Trinity.”

  The wizard took his abrupt leave then, seeming flustered, but with an obviously hopeful bounce in his step, and Dorigen turned back to her crystal ball. She didn’t immediately return to her scrying, though, but instead considered the action s
he’d just taken to prevent Aballister from sending her away. She held no love for the man anymore, no respect even, though he was certainly among the most powerful wizards she’d ever seen. But Dorigen had made a decision—a decision forced by her will to ride their whole adventure out to a safe conclusion. She knew herself well enough to admit that Cadderly had truly unnerved her in the elven wood.

  Her thoughts led her to contemplations of Aballister’s intentions for his son. The wizard had allies, enchanted monsters kept in private cages in his extra-dimensional mansion. All that Aballister needed was for Dorigen to point the way.

  Dorigen looked down at her still swollen and bruised hands, remembered the disaster in Shilmista, and remembered, too, that Cadderly could have killed her then if he had wished to.

  They set their first camp on a high pass in the Snowflakes, sheltered from the biting, wintry wind by a small alcove in the rocky mountain wall. With Vander’s gigantic bulk standing to further block the gusting breezes—the cold didn’t seem to bother the firbolg in the least—Ivan and Pikel soon had a fire roaring. Still, the wind inevitably found its way in to the companions, and even the dwarves were soon shivering and rubbing their hands briskly near the flames. Pikel’s typical moan of “Oooo,” came out more as “O-o-o-o,” as his teeth chattered through the sound.

  Cadderly, deep in thought, was oblivious to it all, oblivious even to the fact that his fingers were beginning to take on a delicate blue color. His head down and eyes half-closed, he sat farthest from the flames—except for Vander, who had moved out around the edge of the natural alcove to feel the full force of the refreshing wind against his ruddy cheeks.

  “W-we’re n-needing sleep,” Ivan stuttered, aiming his comment at the distracted priest.

  “O-o oi,” Pikel readily agreed.

  “It w-will be hard to sleep with the c-cold,” Danica said rather loudly, practically in Cadderly’s ear. The four companions looked incredulously at each other then back at Cadderly. Danica shrugged and moved closer to the flames, rubbing her hands all the while. But Ivan, always a bit more blunt in his tactics, took Shayleigh’s longbow, reached across the fire with it, and bopped Cadderly several times atop the head.