In Sylvan Shadows Read online

  “There can be no doubt that you are in control of Castle Trinity,” Dorigen offered, “but we must continue with caution, for the seat has been a precarious one. What new cleric will rise in Barjin’s place to lead the order? How strong will Ragnor become?”

  “And what of Boygo Rath?” Aballister asked slyly, referring to the third and least adept wizard of Castle Trinity, whom both Aballister and Dorigen considered an upstart child. The wizard’s real name was Bogo Rath, but Aballister and Dorigen referred to him as Boygo, even to his face. “And what of you?” Aballister added.

  “Do not doubt my loyalty,” Dorigen assured him. “In your absence, I would indeed have designs on ruling the triumvirate, but I know my betters and have more patience than you believe. As for Boygo.…” She let the thought hang with an amused look, as though the notion of the young upstart challenging the likes of Aballister Bonaduce was simply too ridiculous to consider.

  Aballister’s laughter showed that he wholeheartedly agreed. “The clerics and Ragnor, then,” the wizard said, “and neither should pose too serious a threat if we are cautious and attentive.”

  “Ragnor is a long way from here,” Dorigen reminded him, prompting an invitation.

  Aballister looked at her carefully for a moment, as though trying to discern her agenda. “Ragnor will not easily accept your presence in his camp,” the wizard remarked.

  “I do not fear him,” replied Dorigen.

  She clapped her hands sharply three times. Aballister’s door opened again, and in strode a man nearly seven feet tall, with corded muscles obvious under his fine silken clothes. His hair hung, thick and blond, braided down over his shoulders, and his pale blue eyes stared ahead with incredible intensity. Aballister hardly recognized him, except for his bronze skin and the curious tattoo, a polar worm, he wore upon his forehead.

  “Surely this cannot be …” the wizard began.

  “Tiennek,” Dorigen confirmed, “the barbarian I plucked from the shadows of the Great Glacier in faraway Vaasa.”

  “Dear Dorigen,” cried the wizard, his tone revealing sincere amazement, but also disdain, “you have civilized him!”

  Tiennek growled.

  “Perhaps a bit,” Dorigen replied, “but I would not destroy Tiennek’s spirit. That would serve neither my purposes … nor my pleasures.”

  Aballister’s jaw tightened at that remark. Apparently, the image of his former lover in that huge man’s arms did not sit well with him, not well at all.

  “Impressive,” Aballister admitted, “but be warned if you think him a match for Ragnor.”

  Tiennek growled again.

  “Take no offense,” Aballister added. The wizard had never been comfortable around Dorigen’s dangerous pet. Under the lip of his great desk, he fingered a wand that would blast the barbarian apart if Tiennek even hinted at charging. “Your barbarian companion is powerful beyond doubt, possibly the strongest human I have ever seen,” the wizard continued, looking at Dorigen once more, “but still I doubt that any human could defeat Ragnor in single combat. The ogrillon would kill him, and you would have to go all the way back to the Great Glacier to catch yourself another one.”

  “I, too, have never seen mighty Ragnor bested,” Dorigen admitted. “Perhaps you’re correct in your assessment, but Tiennek would prove a difficult opponent. Within his breast beats the heart of a warrior of the White Worm, and I have given him much more than that. I have disciplined him so that he might better use those savage powers. Ragnor would find himself hard-pressed to defeat this one, and even more so with me standing beside him.” Again she drummed her fingers, displaying her deadly ring.

  Aballister spent a long moment considering Dorigen’s claims, and Dorigen could see the doubts plainly upon his pale, wrinkled face. In truth, she doubted that Tiennek could stand up to Ragnor as well as she had proclaimed—or that she, for all her magical prowess, could offer much help if Ragnor decided to do away with both of them—but going to Shilmista was simply too important for the success of the campaign for Dorigen to accept such possibilities.

  “Ragnor could become too powerful to control,” she remarked. “By one count, he has five thousand at his command.”

  “We have three thousand,” Aballister retorted, “a strong defensive position, and the services of three wizards.”

  “Do you desire that war?” Dorigen asked. “What title would you gain from fighting Ragnor and his rabble?”

  Aballister nodded and put his sharp chin in his skinny hand. “Go to him, then,” the wizard said. “Go to Shilmista and help our dear Ragnor. He should have a wizard at his side anyway, if he hopes to deal with the elves. I will watch the clerics and prepare for the next step in our conquest.”

  Dorigen didn’t wait around to see if Aballister might reconsider. She bowed and started from the room.

  “Dorigen,” Aballister called after her. She stopped and clenched her fist at her side, somehow knowing that the wily wizard would throw a new complication her way.

  “Take Druzil along with you,” Aballister said as she turned back around. “With the imp beside you, you and I can communicate from time to time. I don’t like to be left out of so important a matter as Ragnor’s progress.”

  Suspicions concerning Druzil’s role in Barjin’s death hovered over Dorigen’s thoughts, and she didn’t doubt for a moment that Aballister was sending the imp along to watch over her as much as Ragnor. But how could she argue? The hierarchy at Castle Trinity was specific, and Aballister ruled the wizard’s leg of the triumvirate.

  “A wise decision,” she said.

  More than you believe, came another of Druzil’s intrusions.

  Dorigen hid well her surprise and walked out of Castle Trinity that very afternoon, Tiennek at her side and the bat-winged imp flapping lazily behind them, invisible through his own innate magic. Dorigen tried to hide her disdain as she passed the workmen building the castle’s new walls, fearing that Druzil might already be reporting back to his master.

  Dorigen was not pleased by the construction and thought Aballister a fool for ordering it begun. Because of the enclave’s secrecy—it resembled no more than a natural outcropping of stone—Castle Trinity had survived unmolested in the otherwise civilized Heartlands for several years. Travelers generally walked right past the hidden castle on the northern slopes of the Snowflake Mountains without beginning to guess that a wondrous complex of tunnels and chambers lay beneath their feet.

  But Aballister was apparently feeling invulnerable. They would need the new walls, he had argued, if the final battles reached their gates. Dorigen favored secrecy, preferred that the fight never got so far north. She guessed, too, Aballister’s real motivations.

  Again the senior wizard was thinking ahead, beyond the conquest of Shilmista and Carradoon. He didn’t really expect to be attacked at the castle, but knew that an impressive stronghold might help in his diplomatic dealings with neighboring realms.

  I share your thoughts, came Druzil’s not-so-unexpected call. Dorigen turned on the imp, and frantic flaps revealed that he had darted to the side in a wild flurry.

  “Apparently you do,” the female wizard snarled, “for I was thinking of blasting you from the sky!”

  “A thousand pardons,” the imp said aloud, landing on the ground before Dorigen, becoming visible, and falling immediately into a low bow. “Forgive my intrusion, but your feelings were obvious. You like neither Aballister’s plans nor the way he has behaved since Barjin’s demise.”

  Dorigen did not reply, but purposely kept her features locked in an unforgiving grimace.

  “You will come to learn that I am no enemy,” the imp promised.

  Dorigen hoped he spoke the truth, but she didn’t believe him for a moment.

  Cadderly knew his time was up as soon as Elbereth and Headmaster Avery entered his room, neither smiling.

  “We leave today for Shilmista,” Elbereth said.

  “Farewell,” Cadderly quipped.

  Elbereth was no
t amused. “You will pack for the road,” the elf prince ordered. “Carry little. Our pace will be swift and the mountain trails are not easy.”

  Cadderly frowned. He started to reply, but Avery, seeing the mounting tension between the two, cut him off. “A grand adventure for you, my young lad!” The portly headmaster beamed as he walked over and dropped his heavy hands on Cadderly’s shoulders. “Time for you to see some of the land beyond our library doors.”

  “And what are you packing?” Cadderly asked, his sarcasm unrelenting.

  His words stung Avery more than he had intended. “I wished to go,” the headmaster replied sharply, rubbing a kerchief over his blotchy face. “I pleaded with Dean Thobicus to let me accompany you.”

  “Dean Thobicus refused?” Cadderly could not believe the placid dean would refuse any request from one of his headmasters.

  “I refused,” Elbereth explained.

  Cadderly, incredulous, stared at him over Avery’s shoulder.

  “I am Prince of Shilmista,” the elf reminded him. “None may enter my domain without my leave.”

  “Why would you refuse Headmaster Avery?” Cadderly dared to ask, right in the face of Avery’s silent but frantic signals for him to let the matter drop.

  “As I have told you,” the elf replied, “our pace will be swift. Horses cannot carry us through all of the mountain passes, and I fear the headmaster could not keep up. I will not delay my return, and I do not wish to leave an exhausted man in the wild to die.”

  Cadderly had no rebuttal, and Avery’s embarrassed expression pleaded with him not to press on.

  “Just you and I?” Cadderly asked the elf, his tone revealing his displeasure at the thought.

  “No,” Avery answered. “Another has agreed to go along, at Prince Elbereth’s request.”

  “Headmistress Pertelope?”

  “Lady Maupoissant.”

  Danica! The name came like a mule’s kick to Cadderly’s face. He straightened, eyes wide, and tried to figure out when Elbereth had found the chance to invite Danica along. And she had accepted! Cadderly had to wonder if Danica had known that he, too, would be venturing into the wood before she’d agreed to go.

  “Why does that so surprise you?” Elbereth asked, a slight trace of sarcasm in his melodic voice. “Do you doubt—”

  “I doubt nothing where Danica is concerned,” Cadderly was quick to reply. His scowl turned to an expression of confusion as he realized the many implications of his claim.

  “Easy, lad,” Avery said, holding him steady. “Danica agreed to go along only when she learned that you would be accompanying Prince Elbereth.”

  “As you wish,” Elbereth added slyly, and Avery joined Cadderly in scowling at the elf.

  “We shall depart presently,” Elbereth said, standing impassively, fully composed. His black hair and silver eyes shone in the morning light that streamed through Cadderly’s window. “You will come with whatever you have packed, and silently endure any hardships resulting from what you have neglected to take along.” The tall, proud elf turned and walked away without another word.

  “I’m starting to dislike him,” Cadderly admitted, easing away from Avery’s grip.

  “He fears for his homeland,” the headmaster explained.

  “He’s an arrogant—”

  “Most elves are,” said Avery. “It comes from living so long. Makes them believe they have experienced so much more than anyone else, and thus that they are wiser than anyone else.”

  “Have they, and are they?” Cadderly asked, his shoulders slumping a bit. He hadn’t considered that fact about Prince Elbereth, that the elf had seen more in his life than Cadderly ever would, and probably would live on long after Cadderly’s body was no more than a scattering of dust.

  “Some have, and they are indeed wise, I would presume,” replied Avery, “but not most. The elves have become increasingly untrusting and xenophobic. They keep to their own, and to their own lands, and know little beyond their borders. I first met Prince Elbereth three decades ago and would guess that I have learned much more than he in that time. He seems much the same as he did then, in face and mind.

  “Well,” Avery continued, turning for the door, “I’ll leave you to your packing. Please don’t leave Prince Elbereth waiting too long.”

  “I wouldn’t care to live for centuries,” Cadderly remarked just before the headmaster exited the room. “But then,” the young scholar continued when Avery turned back to him, “I’m not sure I’ve begun to live at all.”

  Avery studied Cadderly for a long while, caught off guard by his unexpected words. He’d certainly noticed a change in Cadderly since the incident with Barjin, but the young scholar knew his last thought had deeply troubled the headmaster. Avery waited a few moments longer then obviously sensed that Cadderly had nothing further to offer, shrugged, and closed the door.

  Cadderly sat unblinking on his bed. The world was going too fast for him. Why had Elbereth asked Danica along? Why had it fallen upon him to kill Barjin? The world was going too fast, indeed.

  And he was going too slow, he soon realized. He would find enough time on the road for contemplation, but at that moment he had to prepare himself for the journey before Elbereth pulled him out of the library with only the clothes on his back.

  He stuffed a pack with extra clothing and his writing kit then placed in his magical light tube, a narrow, cylindrical device, which when uncapped, issued a beam of light that Cadderly could widen or narrow with a turn of the wrist.

  Satisfied with the pack, the young scholar donned his blue silk traveling cloak and wide-brimmed hat, banded in red and set with the eye-over-candle holy symbol of Deneir in its center. He took up his ram’s-head walking stick and headed for the hall.

  At the doorway, he turned back, stopped by the cries of his conscience.

  Cadderly looked down at his feathered ring, as if that might offer him some relief from what he knew he must do. The ring’s base was circular and hollow, holding a tiny vial of drow-style sleep poison. The point of the tiny dart was a cat’s claw, and once fitted into the hollow shaft of Cadderly’s walking stick, it became a potent weapon indeed.

  But Cadderly couldn’t count on that. Using the blow-gun required time to set the dart, and he wasn’t even certain of its potency anymore. Drow poison didn’t last long on the surface world, and though Cadderly had taken great pains to protect his investment, placing the sealed vials into a strong box enchanted with a darkness spell, many tendays had passed since its creation.

  Reluctantly the young scholar walked back to the wardrobe and put his hand on the door handle. He looked around helplessly, as if searching for some way out.

  Cadderly opened the wardrobe door, picked a wide strap from among dozens of hanging leather ties, and belted it around his waist. It sported a wide, shallow holster on one side, which held a single-hand crossbow of dark elf design. Cadderly took out a bandoleer next, and found some comfort in the fact that only three explosive darts remained. Nearly two score other darts were in the bandoleer—it was designed to hold as many as fifty—but their centers were hollow and empty, not yet fitted with the tiny vials of oil of impact that gave the loaded three their wicked punch.

  Despite his ambivalent feelings, Cadderly couldn’t resist undoing the small leather tie and taking out the crossbow. It was an instrument of beauty, perfectly tooled by Ivan and Pikel. That beauty paled beside Barjin’s dead eyes, though, for it was the same weapon Cadderly had used on that fateful day. He had fired at a mummy, trying to destroy the undead monster as it tried to destroy Barjin. One shot had slipped through the mummy’s meager wrappings, though, thudding into helpless Barjin’s chest as he lay propped against a wall.

  Cadderly distinctly remembered the sound as that dart collapsed on the magical vial and exploded, a sharp echo that had followed him every day and every night since.

  “Belago asked me to give you this,” came a voice from the doorway. Cadderly turned and was surprised to see Kierka
n Rufo, tall and tilting, standing in the doorway. Though they had once been friends, Rufo had been avoiding Cadderly the past few tendays.

  Cadderly winced as Rufo held out a small ceramic container, for he knew what was inside. Belago’s alchemy shop had been blown up during the confusion of the chaos curse, and the alchemist had thought the formula for his oil of impact lost in the flames. Not lamenting the loss, Cadderly had lied and told Belago that he didn’t remember where he’d found the formula, but the alchemist, determined to reward Cadderly for his heroics against the Talonite priest, had vowed to recover it.

  The same trapped, resigned expression he had worn when retrieving the crossbow crossed Cadderly’s face as he took the flask. The container was heavy. Cadderly guessed he could fill perhaps twenty more darts with that amount. He searched for some way out, and even thought of letting the flask slip to the floor, feigning an accident, but reconsidered that course immediately, knowing the potentially catastrophic consequences.

  “You are surprised to see me,” Kierkan Rufo said in his monotone voice. His dark hair clung tightly to his head, and his dark eyes sparkled like little points of shimmering blackness.

  “You haven’t been around lately,” Cadderly replied, turning his head up to look the taller man in the face. “Are you angry with me?”

  “I-I …” Rufo stammered, his angular features contorting uncomfortably. He ran a hand through his matted black hair. “The curse affected me deeply,” he explained.

  “Forget the curse,” Cadderly advised him, feeling some sympathy, but not too much. Rufo’s actions during the curse had hardly been above suspicion. The tall man had even made advances toward Danica, which the young woman had promptly discouraged—by beating Rufo severely.

  “We shall talk more when I return,” Cadderly said. “I have no time—”

  “It was I who pushed you down the stairs,” Rufo announced.

  Cadderly’s reply caught in his throat, and his mouth hung open. He had suspected Rufo, but never expected an admission.