The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks - Page 11/23

 

"When I am with you, then all the world and all of my life is beautiful," Cadderly went on. "In truth, it is not, of course. ShUmista proved that beyond doubt. When I am with you, I can hide behind my love. You, my Danka, have been my mask. Wearing it, I could even hide from the horrors of that continuing battle, I am sure."

"But you could not hide from yourself," Danica put in, beginning to catch on.

Cadderly nodded. "There are troubles in here," he explained, pointing to his heart and then to his head, "that will remain beside me until I can resolve them. Or until they destroy me."

"And you could not face them while your mask was there to hide behind," Danica reasoned. There was no malice in her quiet tones. Honestly sympathetic for Cadderly, she asked softly, "Have you found your answers?"

Cadderly nearly laughed out loud. "I have found more questions," he admitted. "The world has only become more confusing since I delved into myself." He pointed to the Tome of Universal Harmony. "You would hardly believe the sights that book has shown to me, though whether they are true sights or clever deceptions, I cannot tell."

By the way Danica's posture seemed to shrink back from him, Cadderly realized that he had said something revealing. He waited long moments for Danica to respond, to share the revelation with him.

"You question your faith?" she asked bluntly.

Cadderly spun away, his gaze again searching for the dying light on the lake. She had hit the mark squarely, he only then realized. How could he, as a priest of Deneir, doubt the vision and magic shown to him by the most holy book of his god?

"I do not doubt the principles espoused by the clerics of Deneir," Cadderly asserted with conviction.

"Then it is the god himself," Danica reasoned incredulously. "You question the existence of such beings?" her voice nearly broke apart with the words. "How can one who was raised among priests, and who has witnessed so much clerical magic, claim to be agnostic?"

"I claim nothing," Cadderly protested. "I am just not certain of anything!"

"You have seen the magic bestowed by the gods," Danica argued. "You felt the magic ... in healing Tintagel."

"I believe in magic," Cadderly reasoned. "It is an undeniable fact on the soil of Faerun. And, yes, I have felt the power, but where it comes from I cannot say."

"The curse of intelligence," Danica muttered ironically. Cadderly regarded her over his shoulder once more. "You cannot believe anything you cannot prove beyond doubt" she said to him. "Must everything be tangible? Is there no room for faith in a mind that can unravel any of the lesser mysteries?"

A wind had kicked up across the lake. Ripples rolled to the shore, carrying the last daylight on their crests.

"I just do not know," Cadderly said, regarding the rolling water, trying to find some fitting symbolism in its transport of the dying light.

"Why did you run?" Danica asked him again, and he knew by her determined tone that she meant to force him through this, whatever the cost to them both.

"I was afraid," he admitted. "Afraid to kill any more. Afraid that you would be killed. That I could not bear." Cadderly paused and swallowed hard, forced to come to terms with this difficult realization. His silence went on, Danica not daring to interrupt his train of thought.

"I was afraid to die." There it was. Cadderly had just admitted his own cowardice. He tightened his arms against his sides, fearing Danica's stinging rebuttal.

"Of course you were," she said instead, and there was no sarcasm in her remark. "You question your faith, question that there is anything beyond this existence. If you believe there is nothing more, then of what worth is honor? Bravery rides the crest of a cause, Cadderly. You would die for Elbereth. You have already proven that. And if a spear were aimed for my heart, you would willingly take it in my stead. That I do not doubt."

Cadderly continued to stare out the window. He heard Danica shifting on the bed again, but was too lost in contemplations of her wisdom. He watched the last gasps of light riding the waves, riding the crest, and knew that there was truth in Danica's description. He had been afraid to die in Shilmista, but only because the justification for continuing that fight was founded in a cause of principles, and those principles were, in turn, founded in faith. And he had been so angry at Danica and Elbereth, and all the others, because he had feared for them and could not appreciate their dedication to those higher principles, their willingness to continue a course that might easily lead to their deaths.

"I would take the spear," Cadderly decided.

"I never doubted you," Danica replied. There was something in the ring of her voice, something softer and mysterious, that made Cadderly turn back to her.

She lay on her side comfortably on his bed, her clothes dropped in a pile at the bedside. If Cadderly lived a thousand years, he would never forget the sight of Danica at that moment. She rested her head against her hand, propped at the elbow, her thick strawberry-blond locks cascading down her arm to dance on the single pillow. The minimal light accentuated the curves of Danica's soft skin, the shine of her sculpted legs.

"Through all the weeks, I never doubted you," she said.

Cadderly sensed the slight tremor in her voice, but still could not believe how brave she had been. Without blinking, he unbuttoned his shirt and started to her.

A moment later, they were together. The song played again in Cadderly's mind. No, rather, he felt it, thrumming with urgency through every facet of his body, guiding him through every subtle motion, and convincing him that nothing had ever been so right.

Cadderly's mind whirled through a dizzying jumble of thoughts and emotions. He thought of Danica bearing his child, and considered the implications of mortality.

Most of all, Cadderly focused his thoughts on Danica, his soul mate, and he loved her all the more. Perhaps once she had been his shelter, but only because he had made that her role. Now, Cadderly had revealed his vulnerability, his deepest fears, and Danica had accepted them, and him, with all her heart, and with the sincere desire to help him resolve them.

Later, as Danica slept, Cadderly rose from the bed and lit a single candle on his table, beside the Tome of Universal Harmony. Not bothering to dress, he looked back to Dan-

ica on the bed, and felt a surge of love course through his veins. Strengthened by that security, Cadderly sat down and opened the book, hopeful that, in light of this night's revelations, he would hear the song a different way.

Many hours before Cadderly lit that candle, Ghost had slipped away from the young priest's door, confident from his eavesdropping that the arrival of Danica Maupoissant would do little to deflect his solidifying plans. Actually, Ghost had come to the conclusion that he might be able to use Danica - her body, at least - to substantially increase the pleasure offered by this kill.

If he could possess the body of Cadderly's lover, he might catch the young priest with his guard about as far down as it could possibly go.

But for all the eagerness reflected when Ghost rubbed his hands together, every step of the way back to his own room, he was wise enough to realize that things had become dangerously complicated.

Still bound in the cubby between bed and wall, poor, beaten Brennan looked up pleadingly.

"I will release you this night," Ghost promised. "I have decided that I cannot afford to keep your body - and a pity that is, for the body is fine!"

Brennan, desperate to hope, almost managed to smile right up until the point when Ghost's hands - Brennan's own hands - closed around his borrowed throat. There was no pain this time for the beleaguered innkeeper's son; there was only blackness.

The task completed, Ghost sat down on the bed, untying the weakling form and waiting impatiently for when he could take back his own body. He lamented that he had lost his chance at this fine young form, but reminded himself of the pressing business and pressing danger. He assured himself that he would find another suitable body soon enough, when Cadderly lay dead.

The Stooge's Stooge

ierkan Rufo eyed the stocked shelves with open contempt. Shopping! For more than a dozen years, he had labored in the Edificant Library, had meticulously attended to his du-ties, and now Headmaster Avery had sent him shopping!

This entire trip to Carradoon had been one humiliation after another for poor Rufo. He knew his actions in Shil-mista had angered Avery (though he had convinced himself by this time that none of it had really been his fault), but he never would have believed that the headmaster would degrade him so. Through all the many meetings, with the priests of Ihnater, with several of the other religious sects in the city, and with the city officials, Rufo had been ordered to stand behind Avery and remain silent. These meetings were vital to the defense of the region, vital to the survival of the Edificant Library, yet Rufo was, for all purposes, left out of them. Not only was his input not wanted by Avery, the headmaster had outright forbidden it!

And now he was shopping. Rufo stood before the shelves for many moments, fantasizing that the other side had won in Shilmista Forest, thinking that he would have been better off if Dorigen's forces had slaughtered the elves and had taken him into their ranks as the imp had promised. Perhaps the world would be a better place for Kierkan Rufo if Cadderly had fallen in the sylvan shadows.

Cadderly! The word screamed out in Rufo's mind like the most damning of curses. Cadderly had apparently forsaken the library and the Order of Deneir, had virtually slapped Headmaster Avery and all the other priests in the face with his desertion - there could be no other word for the young priest's actions. Cadderly had never been a good priest -  not by Rufo's estimation - had never attended to the many duties given the lesser clerics with any kind of dedication. And yet, in Avery's eyes at least, Cadderly ranked far above Rufo, far above any except the ruling order in the library.

Rufo grabbed a sack of flour and pulled it to him so forcefully that a small white puff burst up at him, covering his face.

"Someone's not seeming a bit too happy," came a gruff, gravelly voice beside him.

"Uh-uh," agreed a voice on the other side.

The angular priest did not have to look sidelong or down to know that the Bouldershoulder brothers had flanked him, and that fact did little to improve his sour mood. He had known that the dwarves were coining to Carradoon, but he had hoped that he and Avery would be well on their way back to the library before these two ever arrived.

He turned toward Ivan and started to push past the dwarf, through the narrow aisle of the cramped store. Ivan did little to aid the angular man, and with the dwarfs considerable girth, Rufo had nowhere to go.

"Ye're in a hurry," Ivan remarked. "I thinked ye'd be glad to see me and me brother."

"Get out of my way, dwarf," Rufo said grimly.

"Dwarf?" Ivan echoed, feigning a mortal wound. "Ye saying that like it's an insult?"

"Take it for what you will," Rufo replied evenly, "but dp get out of my way. I am in Carradoon on important business, something you obviously could not understand."

"I always figured flour to be important," Ivan replied sarcastically, giving the bag a rough pat that sent another white burst into Rufo's face. The angular man trembled with mounting rage, but that only spurred Ivan to further taunts.

"Ye're acting like ye're not so glad to see me and me brother," the dwarf said.

"Should I be?" Rufo asked. "When have we ever claimed friendship to one another?"

"Vfe fought together in the wood," Ivan reminded him. "or at least, some of us fought. Others figured to hide in a tall tree, if me memory's working proper."

Rufo growled and pushed ahead, dislodging several packages in his attempt to get beyond Ivan. He had nearly made his way past when the dwarf threw out one strong arm, stopping Rufo as completely as a stone wall.

"Danica's in town, too," Ivan remarked, his other hand held high and balled into a fist.

"Boom," Pikel added grimly behind the angular man.

The reference to Danica's humiliating attack made Rufo's face flush red with rage. He growled again and shoved past Ivan, stumbling all the rest of the way down the narrow aisle and knocking many more items from the shelves.

"A fine day to ye," Ivan called behind him. Rufo dropped the sack of flour and passed right by the counter, fleeing for the street.

"Good to see him," Ivan said to Pikel. "Adds a bit of flavor to a dull trip."

"Hee hee hee," Pikel agreed.

Ivan's face went serious once more as he noticed a tall man selecting goods from a shelf behind Pikel. The man's gait and movements were easy and graceful, his eyes sharp and steady, and he hoisted a twenty-pound bag of meal easily with one hand. His tunic moved up from the back of his trousers as he moved, revealing a dagger tucked securely in the back of his belt.

That alone would not have fired off any alarms in Ivan; many people carried concealed weapons in Carradoon, and Ivan himself had a knife in one pocket.

But the dwarf was certain he 'd seen this man before, in a different guise. He watched the man for a few moments longer, until the man noticed him, snarled, and headed off the other way down the aisle.

"Eh?" Pikel asked, wondering what problem so obviously bothered his brother.

Ivan did not immediately reply, for he was too busy searching his memory. Then it came to him: he had seen a man closely resembling the shopper in the alley beside the Dragon's Codpiece. The man had been more disheveled then, wearing tattered clothing and seeming like an ordinary street beggar, of which Carradoon had its share. Even then, though, Ivan had noted the grace of the beggar's movements, a skilled and measured step.

The dwarf hadn't thought much about it, and wouldn't even have given it more than a passing thought now, except for the unpleasant incident on his journey into the city. Danica was convinced that the would-be bandits were not ordinary highwaymen and had been waiting to ambush the three companions. Ivan had little proof either way, and, while he held many private doubts, he knew Danica better than to openly disagree with her reasoning. An inspection of the bodies had revealed little, though, for the men carried no obvious marks, not even the familiar trident-and-bottle insignia of the enemy, which the companions had expected to find.

By all appearances, they had been simple robbers, coin-cidentally stumbling into the companions' path, and that had seemed even more plausible when Ivan and the others had arrived in Carradoon to find Cadderly, Avery, and Rufo safe and secure at the Dragon's Codpiece.

But prudent, .battle-tested Ivan had not let his guard down, not one bit.

"We should go find Cadderly and Danica," he said to Pikel.

"Tut tut," Pikel argued, blushing with embarrassment and waggling a stubby finger Ivan's way. Danica had not returned to her room the previous night, and the dwarves didn't have to struggle to figure out where she had stayed, and why she had stayed there.

"We won't bother them if we don't need to," Ivan growled back. "Just want to keep an eye on them, that's all." Ivan nodded to the end of the aisle, where the suspicious shopper was gathering more goods. "I'm not so sure we seen the last of the group that hit us on the road."

"Eh?" Pikel balked.

"Sure, that bunch is dead," Ivan said as Pikel finally hopped around to regard the man, "but me thinking's that they got friends, and me fear's that we were more than accidental targets."

"Uh-oh," Pikel whined. He looked back to Ivan, crestfallen and obviously worried.

"We'll just watch 'em, that's all," Ivan said comfortingly. "We'll just watch 'em close."

Vander paced nervously about the barn on the outskirts of town. Ghost had telepathically contacted him using the power of the GAearunj that morning to set the plans into motion; the strike against Cadderly would come before the next dawn.' All of the other assassins w.ere gone from the farm, sent into position with their remaining associates in Carradoon. There had still been no word of the five who had gone into the mountains, but word of the arrival of Danica and the dwarves into die city did not bode well for the missing Night Masks.

Still, fourteen expertly trained assassins should prove an ample number for a single, unsuspecting kill. At least, that had been Ghost's reasoning when he had told Vander, the most powerful of the group, to remain at the farm, out of the way.

Truly the firbolg did not mind the specifics of the instructions; executions had always left a sour taste in the honorable giant's mouth. What bothered Vander now was Ghost's motivations in keeping him beyond the immediate action. The only times the devious little assassin ever used this method of attack was when Ghost sincerely respected the powers of his intended victim. On those occasions, Vander became no more than a secret escape route for Ghost. If the assassin got into serious trouble, he could just summon his magical item and flee to Vander's body, . . . leaving Vander back in Ghost's body to suffer whatever peril the assassin had gotten himself into.

How long would it continue? the firbolg wondered for about the ten thousandth time. How long would he remain the plaything of that wicked, honorless little weakling?

For all of his pacing and all of his painstaking thought, Vander could see no end and no escape. He could find consolation only by telling himself that in the morning Cadderly would be dead, and this wretched chapter of his miserable life would be at an end.

"You seem in a hurry," the young wizard commented when Rufo, his face chalk white with flour, entered the Dragon's Codpiece and made his way straight for the stairs.

Rufo looked at Bogo Rath and snorted derisively, but didn't have the courage to ignore the young wizard's hand gesture that Rufo should go over and join him.

"What do you need?" Rufo snapped, angry at all the world and especially impatient in yet another situation in which he was forced to serve. Everywhere the angular man turned, he found someone more than willing to give him orders.

Bogo laughed heartily and flipped his stringy hair over to the side, out of his green eyes. "How go your meetings?" the wizard asked.

Again Rufo snorted. "You should ask Avery," he replied, venom dripping from every word. "Certainly I, the errand boy, would not know!" As evidence to his point, Rufo held up the few small sacks of purchases he had made in the first stores he had visited that day.

"You deserve better treatment than this " Bogo commented, trying to sound like an honest friend.

"From you as well," Rufo replied sharply.

Bogo nodded and did not argue. In truth, the young wizard, "Boygo" to his older associates, could sympathize with Rufo's dilemma.

"Well, have you a task for me, or are you merely wasting my time?" Rufo asked. "Not that my time is such a precious thing."

"Nothing," Bogo replied. Immediately, the angular man spun away, heading back for the stairs. "As of yet," Bogo remarked after him, stealing some of the ire-filled thunder from Rufo's determined steps. The priest looked back one final time.

"You will be informed when you are needed," Bogo said evenly, his visage stern and unyielding. The young wizard might sympathize with Rufo, but that would offer the priest little reprieve from the duties Bogo would eventually require of him.

"You met with the priest again this day," Ghost said to Bogo when the young wizard entered his room later that afternoon. He really wasn't surprised to find the sneaky assassin waiting for him, or by the fact that Ghost knew of his meeting with Rufo.

"I have warned you once of your meddling," Ghost went on. Bogo's face twisted curiously, and Ghost realized that he had made a mistake. He hadn't warned Bogo of any such thing; the innkeeper's son had done that, at least as far as Bogo was concerned.

"You?" Bogo questioned, his lips turning up in a smile. "I have not seen young Brennan today," he remarked cryptically. "Actually, his father is quite worried about him."

Ghost settled back on the bed and nodded silent congratulations to the observant wizard. "Let us just say that the young man outlived his usefulness," he explained. "A very dangerous thing to do."

Neither man spoke for a very long while, but there remained little tension between them. Ghost studied Bogo long and hard, and the young wizard seemed to sense that the assassin was forming some plans - plans that Bogo could only hope would include him.

"The time is close then," Bogo remarked. "The disappearance of young Brennan is a question that you cannot let hang unanswered for a very long time."

Again, Ghost nodded his silent appreciation of Bogo's reasoning powers. "The time is nearly upon us," he confirmed, "but it would seem that some things have changed."

"The arrival of the priests and Danica?" Bogo asked.

"Complications," Ghost replied.

"And what else has changed?"

"Your role," Ghost answered immediately. Bogo initially took a cautious step back, fearing that he, too, might have outlived his usefulness.

"I had said you were only an observer," the assassin explained, "and, so, by Aballister's measure, you were meant to be. But you never believed that, did you, Rath? You never planned to sit back and watch while the Night Masks had all the fun of killing this young Cadderly."

Bogo cocked his head curiously at the assassin, obviously unsure of what that plain fact might mean.

"And you have proven to me," Ghost continued, "both by your astute conclusions and your ability to get close to our enemies, that your value extends beyond your assigned role."

"I thought you did not want me talking with Rufo," Bogo replied, still a safe distance from the dangerous man.

"I just explained to you that things have changed," Ghost retorted. 'We have a headmaster from the library to deal with and a formidable young woman, it would seem. I intend to handle the latter problem personally, and for that I will need to borrow your stooge."

Bogo moved over to the bed, now more curious than afraid.

"A simple matter," Ghost explained. "A simple, innocuous task for Kierkan Rufo that will allow me to get at the Lady Maupoissant."

"You will kill her?"

"In a manner," Ghost replied. "First I will use her so that when the Night Masks come for Cadderly, the one he believes is his closest ally will, in truth, be his enemy."

Bogo's smile widened, mimicking Ghost's devious expression. The assassin's plan was beautifully simple, with Bogo, and more particularly, Rufo, being the only potential trouble areas that he could foresee. To that end, the assassin then delivered a secure hook.

His smile abruptly disappeared, causing Bogo's visage to assume a similarly grim tone.

"I offer you a part in this execution," Ghost explained, "something you have craved since before we left Castle Trinity. I assure you that your role will be well-received by Aballister.

"But," Ghost continued slyly, and this was the real hook, "my pay will be as originally agreed."

"Of course . . ." Bogo started, but Ghost didn't pause long enough to let him continue.

"And if Aballister does not deliver to me the full amount," Ghost went on grimly, "then you must make up the difference - to the gold piece."

Bogo nodded eagerly, more than happy to pay such a pittance in exchange for the prestige, and also beginning to understand for the first time, how very bad it might be to get on the wrong side of this wicked little man.

They spent another hour together, with Ghost detailing the plans and the role Bogo would play. To the ambitious young wizard, the plan and his part seemed safe enough (Rufo would actually be doing most of the work) and rewarding enough to satisfy him. Just as Ghost had known it would.