The Chaos Curse Read online

  Druzil didn’t even try to continue, didn’t even try to get words past the lump that Rufo knew filled his throat.

  “Come to me,” Rufo said quietly, calmly.

  Druzil demonstrated no intention of following that command. He started to shake his head, large ears flapping noisily. He even tried to utter a derogatory comment. Those thoughts were lost in the imp’s obvious realization that he was indeed moving toward Rufo, that his feet and wings were heeding the vampire’s command. At the end of the slab he hopped off, flapping his batlike wings to remain in the air, to continue his steady progress.

  Rufo’s cold hand shot out and caught the imp by the throat, breaking the trance. Druzil let out a shriek and instinctively brought his tail around, waving it menacingly in Rufo’s face.

  Rufo laughed and began to squeeze.

  Druzil’s tail snapped into Rufo’s face, its barbed tip boring a small hole.

  Rufo continued to laugh wickedly and squeezed tighter with his horribly powerful grasp.

  “Who is the master?” the confident vampire asked.

  Druzil must have thought his head would pop off. He couldn’t begin to squirm.

  “Who is the master?” Rufo asked again.

  Druzil’s tail fell limp, and he stopped struggling. “Please, master,” he whined.

  “I am hungry,” the vampire announced, casually tossing Druzil aside.

  Rufo strode for the mausoleum door with a graceful and confident gait. As he neared the door, he reached out with his will and it swung open. As he crossed through the portal, it banged closed once more, leaving Druzil alone in the mausoleum, muttering to himself.

  Bachtolen Mossgarden, the library’s cook since Ivan Bouldershoulder had gone away, was also muttering to himself that night. Bachy, as the priests called him, was fed up with his new duties. He had been hired as a groundskeeper—that was what Bachy did best—but with winter thick about the grounds, and with the dwarf gallivanting in the mountains, the priests had changed the rules.

  “Slop, slop, and more stinkin’ slop!” the dirty man grumbled, overturning a bucket of leftover cabbage down a slope behind the library. He moved to pick his nose, but changed his mind as the finger, reeking of old cabbage, neared his nostril.

  “I’m even startin’ to smell like the stinkin’ slop!” he whined.

  Bachy banged on the metal bucket, spilling the last of its remains onto the slick, stained snow, and turned to leave then noticed that it had suddenly grown much colder—and quieter, he realized a moment later. It wasn’t the cold that had given him pause, but the stillness. Even the wind was no more.

  The hairs on the back of Bachy’s neck tingled and stood on end. Something was wrong, out of place.

  “Who is it?” he asked, a straightforward question. That had always been his way. He didn’t wash much, he didn’t shave much, and he justified it by saying that people should like him for more than appearance. Bachy liked to think of himself as profound.

  “Who is it?” he asked again, more clearly, gaining courage in the fact that no one had answered the first time. He’d almost convinced himself that he was letting his imagination get the best of him, had even taken his first step back toward the Edificant Library, the back door of the kitchen only twenty yards away, when a tall, angular figure stepped in front of him, standing perfectly still and quiet.

  Bachy stuttered through a series of beginnings of questions, never completing one. Most prominent among them was Bachy’s pure wonderment at where the man had come from. It seemed to the poor, dirty cook that the man had stepped out of thin air, or out of shadows that were not deep enough to hide him.

  The figure advanced a step. Overhead, the moonlight broke through a cloud, revealing Rufo’s pallid face.

  Bachy wavered, and felt as if he would fall over. He wanted to cry out, but found no voice. He wanted to run, but his legs would barely support him while standing still.

  Rufo tasted the man’s fear, and his eyes lit up, horrid red flames dancing where his pupils should have been. The vampire grinned, his mouth gradually opening wide, baring long fangs. Bachy mumbled something that sounded like, “By the gods,” then he was kneeling in the snow, his legs having buckled underneath him.

  The sensation of fear, of sweet, sweet fear, multiplied tenfold, washed over Rufo. It was the purest feeling of ecstasy the wretch had ever known. He understood and appreciated his power at that moment. That pitiful slob, a man he didn’t even know, couldn’t begin to resist him!

  Rufo moved slowly, determined, knowing his victim was helpless before him.

  Then he tasted blood, like the nectar he had drawn from the foolish Oghmanyte inside the mausoleum before Druzil’s poison had tainted it. Bachy was a dirty wretch, but his blood was pure, warm, and sweet.

  The moments slipped past, and Rufo fed. He understood then that he should stop. Somehow he knew that if he didn’t kill the wretch, the man would rise up in undeath, a lesser creature, to serve him. Instinctively the vampire realized that the cook would be his slave—at least until Bachy, too, had fully followed the path to becoming a vampire.

  Rufo continued to feed. He meant to stop, but no level of thought could overrule the pleasure the vampire knew. Sometime later, Bachy’s bloodless husk of a corpse tumbled down the slope behind the other discarded garbage.

  By the time the night began to wane, Kierkan Rufo had become comfortable with his new existence. He wandered about like a wolf scouting its domain, thinking always of the kill, of the taste of the dirty man’s blood. Dried brown remnants of the macabre feast stained the vampire’s face and cloak as he stood before the side wall of the Edificant Library, looking up at the gargoyles that lined its gutter system, and past the roof, to the stars.

  A voice in his head—he knew it was Druzil’s—told him he should return to the mausoleum, to the cool, dark crypt where he might hide from the infernal heat of the coming sun. Yet there was a danger in that plan, Rufo realized. He had taken things too far. The revealing light of day might put the priests on their guard, and they would be formidable opponents.

  They would know where to start looking.

  Death had given Kierkan Rufo new insights and powers beyond anything the order of Deneir had ever promised. He could feel the chaos curse swirling within his body, which he inhabited like a partner, an adviser. Rufo could go and find a place to be safe, but Tuanta Quiro Miancay wanted more than safety.

  Rufo was barely conscious that he had changed form, but the next thing he knew, his bat claws had found a perch on the edge of the library’s roof. Bones crackled and stretched as the vampire resumed his human form, leaving Rufo sitting on the roof’s edge, looking down on a window that he knew well.

  He climbed head first down the wall, his strong undead fingers finding secure holds where in life he would have seen only smooth stone, past the third floor, to the second. To Rufo’s surprise, an iron grate had been placed over the window. He reached through the bars and pushed in the glass, then thought of becoming vaporous and simply wafting into the room. For some reason, some instinctive, animalistic urge, as though it occurred to him that the grate had been put there only to hinder his progress, he grabbed an iron bar, and with one hand, tore the grate free and sent it spinning into the night.

  The entire library was open to him, and the vampire had no intention of leaving.

  FIVE

  WELL-PLACED FAITH

  Danica stared into the flames of the campfire, watching the orange and white dance and using its hypnotic effects to let her mind wander across the miles. Her thoughts were on Cadderly and his troubles. He meant to oppose Dean Thobicus, and to rip apart all the rituals and bureaucracy that the Deneirraths had built through the years. The opposition would be wicked and unyielding, and though Danica had no reason to believe that Cadderly’s life would be in danger, as it had been in Castle Trinity, she knew that his pain, if he lost, would be everlasting.

  Those thoughts inevitably led Danica to Dorigen, sitting wrapped in a b
lanket across the fire from her. What of the wizard? she wondered. What if Thobicus, expecting what was to come from Cadderly, failed to respect Danica’s rights as captor and ordered Dorigen executed?

  Danica shook the disturbing thoughts from her mind and berated herself for letting her imagination run wild. Dean Thobicus was not an evil man, after all, and his weakness had always been a lack of decisive action. Dorigen was hardly in danger.

  “The area remains clear,” said Shayleigh, pulling Danica from her thoughts.

  She looked up as the elf maiden entered the camp, bow in hand. Shayleigh smiled and nodded to Dorigen, who appeared fast asleep.

  “The mountains haven’t awakened from the winter’s slumber,” Danica replied.

  Shayleigh nodded, but her mischievous, thoroughly elven smile showed Danica that she thought the time for the spring dance was growing near.

  “Rest now,” Shayleigh offered. “I will take my Reverie later in the evening.”

  Danica eyed Shayleigh for a long while before agreeing, intrigued, as always, by the elf’s referral to her “Reverie.” The elves didn’t sleep, not by the human definition of the word. Their Reverie was a meditative state apparently as restful as true sleep. Danica had asked Shayleigh about it on several occasions, and had seen it often during her stay with the elves in Shilmista Forest, but though the elves were hardly secretive about the custom, it remained mysterious to the monk. Danica’s practice involved many hours of deep meditation, and though that was indeed restful, it didn’t quite match the elves’ Reverie. Someday, Danica thought, she would unlock that secret and find her rest as the elves did.

  “Do we need to keep a watch?” Danica asked.

  Shayleigh looked around at the dark trees. It was their first night back in the Snowflakes after a long trek south across the open fields north of Carradoon.

  “Perhaps not,” the elf replied. She sat at the fire’s side and took a blanket from her pack. “But sleep lightly and keep your weapons close at hand.”

  “My weapons are my hands,” Danica reminded her with a grin.

  Across the fire, Dorigen peeked out from under half-closed eyelids and tried to hide her smile. For perhaps the first time in all her life, the wizard felt as if she was among friends. She had secretly gone out and placed magical wards around their encampment. No need to tell Danica and Shayleigh of them, though, for Dorigen had worded the spells so that the monk and the elf wouldn’t trigger them.

  With those comforting thoughts in mind, Dorigen allowed herself to drift off to sleep.

  Shayleigh came out of Reverie sometime before dawn, the woods still dark around them. The elf sensed something amiss, so she rose, shrugged off her blanket, and took up her longbow. Shayleigh’s keen eyes adapted quickly to the night. Towering mountains loomed as dark silhouettes all around her, and all appeared quiet and as it should be.

  Still, the tiny hairs on the back of Shayleigh’s neck tingled. One of her senses hinted at danger, and not so far away.

  The elf peered hard into the shadows. She tilted her head at different angles, trying to discern an out-of-place sound. Then she sniffed the air and crinkled her nose in disgust.

  Trolls.

  Shayleigh knew that foul odor. Nearly every adventurer in the Realms had encountered a wretched troll at least once in his or her travels.

  “Danica,” she whispered, not wanting to warn her enemies that she was aware of their presence.

  The wary monk came awake immediately, but made no sudden movements.

  “Trolls,” Shayleigh whispered, “not far away.”

  Danica looked at the fire, no more than glowing embers, with all the wood fully consumed. Trolls hated fire, and feared it, if they feared anything at all.

  Danica called quietly to Dorigen, but the wizard didn’t stir. A glance at Shayleigh sent the elf maiden sliding gently around the side of the fire, near enough to prod Dorigen with her bow.

  Dorigen grumbled and started to come awake then popped her eyes wide when Danica yelled out. An explosion went off to one side, one of Dorigen’s wards taking down a monster in flaring blue flames. But three more trolls rushed past their burning companion without regard for its terrible fate and crashed into the clearing, eyes glowing a fierce red, their stench nearly overwhelming the companions. The monsters’ long, thin frames towered over the group—one had to be nearly eleven feet tall—and as they came into the light, their rubbery skin showed as putrid grayish green.

  Shayleigh’s bow was up and firing in the blink of an eye, three arrows blasting into the closest troll. The monster jerked with each hit, but came stubbornly on, its skinny arms waving its hands awkwardly in wide, arcing swipes.

  Shayleigh gained no comfort from the troll’s awkward movements. The three fingers on each of its hands ended in long, sharp claws that could easily tear the hide from a bear. A fourth arrow hit the monster squarely in the chest, and Shayleigh hopped away, thinking it better to pummel the creature from a distance.

  Two flashes, one silver, one gold, went past the elf as Danica led with her daggers. The monk leaped up and spun head over heels over the fire, following the shots—both solid hits on the next troll—at full speed. She barreled in, jumped, and spun, her trailing foot flying around to slam hard into the troll’s midsection.

  Danica winced at the sickly, squishy sound of that impact, but she didn’t dare hesitate. She spun again for a second kick then came up straight and landed a one-two punch on the lurching troll’s jaw.

  “Dorigen!” she screamed, seeing the third troll bearing down on the sitting wizard. To Danica’s knowledge, Dorigen had no weapons, and few if any components for spellcasting—not even a proper spell-book that she might have studied. The monk, too engaged with the monster, and with Shayleigh still battling the first troll, thought her new companion doomed as the troll reached down at the blanketed woman.

  There came a bright flash, and the troll fell back, holding the blanket and nothing more. That blanket flared suddenly with fire, scorching the monster’s arms, causing it to scream out in pain.

  Danica had no idea where Dorigen had come up with that spell, but she had no time to ponder the issue just then.

  The troll swiped at her repeatedly, and she did a fair, twisting dance to keep clear of its deadly arms. She came in close, inside the monster’s reach, thinking to wriggle out the backside and score a few hits before the lumbering thing turned, but the troll proved faster and more resourceful than she believed, and she nearly swooned as the monster opened its wide, horrible mouth. The long, pointy teeth came within an inch of Danica’s face—she could smell the thing’s disgusting breath!—and the troll would have had her, except that the incredibly agile monk snapped her foot straight up in front of her, lifting it to her face, though she had only a few inches to spare between herself and the troll.

  Her kick caught the troll on its long nose and drove the proboscis up and back with a loud crackling noise. Danica was down in a crouch in an instant, dodging the flailing arms, and out she slipped, under the troll’s armpit, around the back, where she exploded with fury, launching a barrage of heavy punches.

  Shayleigh continued to backstep, firing arrow after arrow into the pursuing troll. She knew that wouldn’t do, though. The troll’s wounds were already on the mend. Trolls could regenerate, their rubbery skin binding of its own accord, and could take an incredible amount of punishment before falling dead.

  No, not dead, Shayleigh realized to her horror, for even a dead troll, even a troll that had been cut into little bits, would come back to life, whole again, unless its wounds had been completely burned. That notion led the elf’s gaze to the fire, but the embers promised little help. It would take some time to coax that glow back into any sort of flame, and Shayleigh and her companions had no time at all. The elf looked to the side of the encampment, but found that the troll that had been consumed by the explosion, which Shayleigh didn’t fully understand herself, and had fallen into the snow. Already the fires that had destro
yed the thing were nearly extinguished. Shayleigh muttered an Elvish curse.

  Another arrow thudded into the troll, hitting the creature in the face. Still the stubborn thing advanced, and Shayleigh looked with doubt at to her half-empty quiver. She thought of running into the woods then, of leading the monster away, but one look at Danica told her that she couldn’t, that her friend would not be able to follow.

  The troll that had gone unsuccessfully after Dorigen had turned on the monk, it and its gruesome companion circling fast to find an exposed flank. Danica worked hard to keep up her guard against attacks from all angles. With their long arms the trolls could simply reach around any straightforward defense.

  “Where did she go?” Danica cried to Shayleigh, obviously referring to the missing wizard.

  Shayleigh sighed helplessly and fired another arrow into the pursuing troll. Where indeed had Dorigen gone? she wondered, and she suspected that the wizard had determined that was a good time to finally escape.

  Danica’s powerful punch landed heavily against the side of a bending troll’s head with a sickly splatting sound. When she retracted the hand, she found a bit of the monster’s skin on her knuckles, along with some strands of the thing’s hair. Danica groaned in revulsion when she noticed the mess. The troll’s hair writhed of its own accord.

  She turned that revulsion into anger, and as the troll came around to swipe at her again, she stepped in close and pounded it repeatedly. Then she wisely fell to her knees and rolled fast to the side as the second troll came rushing at her back. Both monsters were on her as she sprang up to her feet, and up snapped her foot, knocking a lunging hand aside.

  “They heal as fast as I hurt them!” the tiring monk cried in frustration.

  Danica’s statement wasn’t quite true, as Shayleigh found out when her next arrow, her sixteenth shot, dropped the troll to the ground. She looked at her quiver, four arrows remaining, and sighed again.