The Chaos Curse (9 page)
“All?” Dorigen asked, and the perceptive elf maiden knew that the wizard was referring to herself, to the fact that she was still alive and well and ready to face judgment for her crimes.
Shayleigh’s smile was enough of an answer for Dorigen.
“Elbereth is not a vengeful sort,” Danica added hopefully. “King Elbereth,” Dorigen quickly corrected. “I will remain at the library,” she said to Shayleigh, “whatever the decision of the priests, to await word from your king.”
“A fair judgment I will be pleased to deliver,” Shayleigh replied, and with a nod, she was gone, slipping down the western trail so gracefully and noiselessly that she seemed to the two women almost an illusion, an artist’s tapestry, a perfect embodiment of nature. She was out of sight in mere seconds, her gray-green cloak shielding her form in the sylvan shadows, though Danica and Dorigen did not doubt that she could still see them.
“I am ever amazed by their movements,” Dorigen remarked. “So supple and graceful, yet in battle, I have never known a race to match the elves’ ferocity.”
Danica did not disagree. During the war in Shilmista, the monk had found her first real experiences with elves, and it seemed to her that all her years of training in harmony and movement had made her somewhat akin to what came naturally to Shayleigh’s people. Danica wished she had been born an elf, or had been raised among them. Then she would have been closer to the spirit of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn’s writings, she knew.
Still staring down the empty trail, she imagined she might return to Shilmista and work with Elbereth’s people, bringing them the vision of Penpahg D’Ahn. She pictured an open meadow full of elves, practicing the graceful dance of the grandmaster’s fighting style, and the sight made her heart skip excitedly.
Then Danica let go the image, shook it away as she recalled the demeanor of elvenkind, recalled what it meant emotionally to be an elf. They were a calm and casual people, easily distracted, and though fierce in battle, their way was playful. The grace of movement was their nature, not their practice, and that was very different from Danica’s life. Following her mentor, the young monk was rarely casual, always focused. Even Shayleigh, whom Danica would wish at her side whenever danger was near, could not hold any course for very long. Through the weeks in the caves, waiting for winter’s break, the elf had spent long hours, even days, just sitting and watching the snow, occasionally rising to dance, as though no one else had been in the room, as though nothing else in all the world mattered except the falling snowflakes and the movements that Shayleigh hardly seemed conscious she was making.
The elves could not follow the rigorous discipline of Penpahg D’Ahn. Danica didn’t pretend to understand them, any of them, even Shayleigh, who had become so dear to her. The elf was fiercely loyal, she knew, but she could not begin to understand all of Shayleigh’s motivations. Shayleigh saw the world from a perspective that Danica could not comprehend, a perspective that put friendship in a different light. While Danica did not doubt the love Shayleigh felt for her, she knew that the elf maiden would likely witness the dawn of several centuries after she, Danica, had died of old age. How many new human friends would Shayleigh come to know and love in those centuries? Would the memory of Danica withstand the test of such a long time, or would she become just a fleeting moment of Shayleigh’s future reveries?
Simply put, there was no way that Danica could ever be as important in Shayleigh’s eyes as Shayleigh had become in hers. She would remember the elf maiden vividly until the moment of her death.
She considered that difference between them for a moment and decided that hers was the better way, the more passionate existence. Still, Danica found that she envied Shayleigh and all of her kind. The golden-haired elven maiden innately possessed what Danica sought: the peace and grace of true harmony.
“We will be there today?” Dorigen asked, and for the first time, Danica noted a slight tremor in the determined woman’s voice.
“Today,” Danica answered as she walked off down the southern trail.
Dorigen paused a moment, mustering her courage. She knew she was doing right, that she owed this, at least, to the library and the elves. Still, the wizard’s first step along the final trail came hard, as did the second, the third, and all the rest.
Back a short distance down the western trail, Shayleigh watched Dorigen’s every move. She didn’t doubt Dorigen’s sincerity, knew that the wizard honestly meant to follow through, but she knew the journey would be more difficult than Dorigen implied. It was quite possible that Dorigen might be walking to her death. Somewhere along the way, Shayleigh understood, Dorigen would have to battle her survival instinct, the most basic and powerful force in any human.
Shayleigh waited a moment longer, then slipped quietly into the underbrush alongside the southern trail. If Dorigen lost that battle, she would be ready.
For the time being, Shayleigh called Dorigen a friend, but the elf maiden could not forget the scars on Shilmista. If Dorigen could not bring herself to face the rightful judgment of the victors, then Shayleigh would enact the judgment of Shilmista… in the form of a single, well-placed arrow.
“Where is Bron Turman?” one of the younger priests asked nervously. He leaned against a low railing surrounding the altar in one of the library’s first-floor chapels.
“Or Dean Thobicus?” added another.
Romus Scaladi, a short, dark-complexioned Oghman whose shoulders seemed nearly as wide as the man was tall, tried to calm his five brother priests of both orders, patting his hands in the empty air and saying, “Shh,” as though the men were young children.
“And surely Cadderly will return,” a third priest, kneeling before the altar, said hopefully. “Cadderly will set things right.”
Two of the other young priests, the only Deneirians in the group, who had listened to Thobicus’s warning concerning Cadderly, looked to each other and shrugged, sharing a common fear that Cadderly might actually be the one behind all of the strange things that were going on about them. None of the leaders – of either order – had been seen all day, and both Thobicus and Bron Turman had been missing for two full days.
It was rumored, though none of this group could confirm it, that half a dozen lesser priests had been found dead in their rooms this morning, lying peacefully – under their beds! The priest who had told the group this startling news was not the best of sources, though. He was the newest member of the Oghman order, a small, weak man who had snapped his collarbone in his very first wrestling match. It was common knowledge that this man did not wish to remain in the order, and his appeals to join the Deneirian order had not been received warmly. So when they had encountered him early in the day, his belongings in a sack slung over one shoulder and his eyes squarely on the front door, the six did not panic.
Still, there was no denying that the library was strangely quiet this day-except in one corner of the second floor, where Brother Chaunticleer was holed up in his room, singing to his gods. Not a soul stirred in the headmasters’ area. It was strangely quiet and strangely dark, even for the perpetually gloomy place; barriers had been constructed over nearly every window. Normally the library housed nearly eighty priests-before the disaster of the chaos curse, well over a hundred-and at any given time, five to thirty visitors. The guest list was small now, with winter just giving way, but so was the list of priests who had gone to Carradoon, or Shilmista.
So where was everybody?
Another troubling sensation that the six priests could not ignore was the subtle but definite feeling that the Edificant Library had changed somehow, as though the gloom about them was more than a physical feature. It was as if Deneir and Oghma had moved away from this place. Even the midday ritual, in which Brother Chaunticleer sang to both the gods in the presence of all the priests, had not been performed in two days. Romus himself had gone to the singing priest’s room, fearing that Chaunticleer had taken ill. He found the door locked, and only after several minutes of pounding had Chaunticleer called out, telling him to go away.
“I feel as if someone has built a ceiling above me,” one of the Deneirians remarked, following the suspicions of Cadderly that Dean Thobicus had implanted. “A ceiling that separates me from Deneir.”
The other Deneirian nodded his agreement, while the Oghmans looked to each other, then to Romus, who was the strongest cleric among them.
“I am certain there is a simple answer,” Romus said as calmly as he could, but the other five knew that he agreed with the Deneirian priest’s assessment of the gods. This library had always been among the holiest of places, where priests of any goodly faith could feel the presence of their god or goddess. Even the druids who had visited had been surprised to find an aura of Sylvanus within the walls of a man-made structure.
And for the priests of Oghma and Deneir, there was, perhaps, no holier place in all of Faerun. This was their tribute to the gods, a place of learning and art, a place of study and recital. The place of Chaunticleer’s song.
“We will wrestle!” Romus Scaladi announced surprisingly. After a moment of shock, the Oghmans began to bob their heads in agreement, while the Deneirians continued to stare dumbfoundedly at the stocky Scaladi.
“Wrestle?” one of them asked.
“Tribute to our god!” Scaladi answered, pulling off his black-and-gold vest and fine white shirt, revealing a eldest bulging with muscles and thick with dark hair. “We will wrestle!”
“Oooo,” came a woman’s purr from the back of the chapel. “I do so love to wrestle!”
The six priests swung about hopefully, every one of them thinking that Danica, the woman who not only loved to wrestle, but who could defeat any priest in the library, had at last returned.
They saw not Danica, but Histra, the alluring priestess of Sune, dressed in her customary crimson gown that was cut so low in the front that it seemed as if her navel should show, and slitted high on the thigh to show off the woman’s shapely legs. Her long, lush hair, dyed so blond this week as to appear almost white, flew wildly, as usual, and her makeup was thickly applied-never had the priests seen any lips so bright red! Her perfume, also poured generously, wafted across the chapel.
Something was out of place. All six of the priests recognized that fact, though none had figured it out. Behind Histra’s generous paint, her skin was deathly pale, as was the leg sticking out from under her gown. And the perfume aroma was sickly sweet, something less than alluring.
Romus Scaladi studied the woman intently. He had never much liked Histra, or her goddess, Sune, whose, only tenet seemed to be the physical pleasures of love. Always, ever-hungry Histra had set the hairs on the back of Scaladi’s neck to tingling, as they were now, but more than usual.
It was uncommon to see Histra on the first floor, Scaladi knew; it was uncommon for the woman to be out of her room, or out of her bed.
“Why are you here?” the wary priest started to ask, but Histra seemed not to notice.
“I do so love to wrestle,” she purred again, openly lewd, and she opened her mouth and laughed wildly.
All six priests understood; all six nervous priests recognized the vampire’s fangs for what they were.
Five of the six, including Scaladi and both Deneirians, went immediately for their holy symbols.
Histra continued to laugh. “Wrestle with these!” she cried, and several torn, rotting, stiff-walking men came into the room-men the priests knew.
“My dear Deneir,” one of the priests muttered hopelessly.
Romus leaped forward and presented the symbol of Oghma boldly. “Be gone from this holy place foul undead things!” he cried, and the zombies stopped their shuffling, a couple of them even turning about.
Histra hissed viciously at the monstrous group, compelling them to continue.
“I deny you!” Romus roared at Histra, and it seemed as if she nearly fell over backward. A zombie reached awkwardly for the Oghmau, and he growled and punched out with his holy symbol, slamming the monster on the side of the face. Acrid smoke rose from the wound, but the monster kept on, its companions filtering around Romus to get to the others.
“I cannot turn them away!” one of the priests behind Romus cried. “Where is Deneir?”
“Where is Oghma?” cried another.
A stiff arm clubbed Romus on the shoulder. He grunted away the blow and cupped his hand under the zombie’s chin, bending the head back, then slashed at the monster’s throat with the edge of his holy symbol. Again came a puff of smoke from the wound, and the zombie’s rotting flesh opened up easily to the strong man’s blow.
But zombies needed no air, so the wound was not serious.
“Fight them!” Romus Scaladi screamed. “Beat them down!” To accentuate his point, the powerful Oghman launched a barrage of punishment on the zombie, finally lifting the corpse over his head and hurling it into a statue against the wall. The Oghman spun about to see to his friends, and found that they were not fighting, but backing away, their faces horror-stricken.
Of course, Scaladi realized. These undead monsters they now face, these men, had been their friends! “Do not look at their faces!” he ordered. “They are not of our order. They are mere tools, weapons!