She found herself in the throes of repeated urges, building to overwhelming crescendos and then dying away to be replaced by other insistent impulses. Surely this was Danica's definition of Hell, the discipline and strict codes of her beloved religion swept away by waves of sheer chaos.
She tried to staunch those waves, to beat back the images of Iron Skull, the urges she had felt when Cadderly had touched her, and the many others, but she found no secure footholds in her violently shifting thoughts.
Danica touched upon something that even the chaos could not disrupt. To fight the battle of the present, the young woman sent her thoughts into the simpler past.
She saw her father, Pavel, again, his small but powerful frame and blond hair turning to white on the temples. Mostly, Danica saw his gray eyes, always tender when they looked upon his little girl. There, too, was her mother and namesake, solid, immovable, and wildly in love with her father. Danica was the exact image of that woman, except that her mother's hair was raven black, not blond, showing closer resemblance to the woman's partially eastern background. She was petite and fair like her daughter, with the same clear brown, almond eyes, not dark but almost tan, that could sparkle with innocence or turn fast to unbreakable determination.
Danica's images of her parents faded and were replaced by the wrinkled, wizened image of mysterious Master Turkel. His skin was thick, leathery, from uncounted hours spent sitting in the sun and meditating atop a mountain, high above the lines of shading trees. Truly he was a man of extremes, of explosive fighting abilities buried under seemingly limitless serenity. His ferocity during sparring matches often scared Danica, made her think the man was out of control.
But Danica had learned better than to believe that; Master Turkel was never out of control.
Discipline was at the core of his, their, religion, the same discipline that Danica needed now.
She had labored beside her dear master for six years, until that day when Turkel honestly admitted that he could give no more to her. Despite her anticipation at studying the actual works of Penpahg D'Ahn, it had been a sad day for Danica when she left Westgate and started down the long road to the Edificant Library.
Then she had found Cadderly.
Cadderly! She had loved him from the first moment she had ever seen him, chasing a white squirrel along the groves lining the winding road to the library's front door. Cadderly hadn't noticed Danica right away, not until he tumbled headlong into a bush of clinging burrs. That first look struck Danica profoundly both then and now, as she battled to reclaim her identity. Cadderly had been embarrassed, to be sure, but the sudden flash of light in his eyes, eyes even purer gray than Danica's father's, and the way his mouth dropped open just a hint, then widened in a sheepish, boyish smile, had sent a curious warm sensation through Danica's whole body.
The courtship had been equally thrilling and unpredictable; Danica never knew what ingenious event Cadderly would spring on her next. But entrenched beside Cadderly's unpredictability was a rock-solid foundation that Danica could depend upon. Cadderly gave her friendship, an ear for her problems and excitement alike, and, most of all, respect for her and her studies, never competing against Grandmaster Penpahg D'Ahn for her time.
Cadderly?
Danica heard an echo deep in her mind, a soothing but determined call from Cadderly, urging her to
"fight."
Fight?
Danica looked inward, to those overwhelming urges and deeper, to their source, then she saw the manifestation, as had Cadderly. It was within her and not in the open room around her. She envisioned a red mist permeating her thoughts, an ungraspable force compelling her to its will and not her own. It was a fleeting vision, gone an instant after she glimpsed it, but Danica had always been a stubborn one. She summoned back the vision with all her will and this time she held onto it. Now she had an identified enemy, something tangible to battle.
"Fight, Danica," Cadderly had said. She knew that; she heard the echoes. Danica formulated her thoughts in direct opposition to the mist's urging. She denied whatever her impulses told her to do and to think. If her heart told her that something was correct, she called her heart a liar.
"Iron Skull," compelled a voice inside her.
Danica countered with a memory of pain and warm blood running down her face, a memory that revealed to her how stupid she had been in attempting to smash the stone.
* * * * *
It was not a call heard by physical ears; it needed neither the wind nor open air to carry it. The energy emanating from Barjin's necromancer's stone called to a specific group only, to monsters of the negative plane, the land of the dead.
A few short miles from the Edificant Library, where once there had been a small mining town, the call was heard.
A ghoulish hand, withered and filthy, tore up through the sod, reaching into the world of the living. Another followed, and another, just a short distance away. Soon the gruesome pack of ghouls was up out of their holes, drooling tongues hanging between yellow fangs.
Running low, knuckles to the ground, the ghoul pack made for the stone's call, for the Edificant Library.
* * * * *
Newander could only guess what inner turmoil racked the young woman. Sweat soaked Danica's clothes and she squirmed and groaned under the tightly binding vines. At first, the druid had thought her in pain, and he quickly prepared a sedating spell to calm her. Fortunately, it occurred to Newander that Danica's nightmare might be self-inflicted, that she might have found, as Cadderly had promised, some way to fight back the curse.
Newander sat beside the bed and placed his hands gently but firmly on Danica's arms. While he did not call to her, or do anything else that might hinder her concentration, he watched her closely, fearful lest his guess be wrong.
Danica opened her eyes. "Cadderly?" she asked. Then she saw that the man over her was not Cadderly, and she realized, too, that she was tightly strapped down. She flexed her muscles and twisted as much as the vines would allow, testing their play.
"Calm, dear lass," Newander said softly, sensing her growing distress. "Your Cadderly was here, but he could not stay. He set me to watch over you."
Danica stopped her struggling, recognizing the man's accent. She didn't know his name, but his dialect, and the presence of the vines, told her his profession. "You are one of the druids?" she asked.
"I am Newander," the druid replied, bowing low, "friend of your Cadderly."
Danica accepted his words without question and spent a moment reorienting herself to her surroundings. She was in her own room, she knew, the room she had lived in for a year, but something seemed terribly out of place. It wasn't Newander, or even the vines. Something in this room, in Danica's most secure of places, burned on the edges of the young woman's consciousness, tortured her soul. Danica's gaze settled on the fallen block of stone, stained darkly on one side.
The ache in her forehead told her that her dreams had been correct, that her own lifeblood had made that stain.
"How could I have been so foolish?" Danica groaned.
"You were not foolish," Newander assured her. "There has been a curse about this place, a curse that your Cadderly has set out to remove."
Again Danica knew instinctively that the druid spoke truthfully. She envisioned her mental struggle against the insinuating red mist, a battle that had been won temporarily but was far from over. Even as she lay there, Danica knew that the red mist continued its assault on her mind.
"Where is he?" Danica asked, near panic.
"He went below," Newander replied, seeing no need to hide the facts from the bound woman. "He spoke of a smoking bottle, deep in the cellars."
"The smoke," Danica echoed mysteriously. "Red mist. It is all about us, Newander."
The druid nodded. "That is what Cadderly claimed. It was he who opened the bottle, and he that means to close it."
"Alone?"
"No, no," Newander assured her. "The two dwarves went with him. They have not been as affected by the curse as the rest."
"The rest?" Danica gasped. Danica knew that her own resistance to such mind-affecting spells was greater than the average person's and she suddenly feared for the other priests. Š she had been driven to slam her head into a block of stone, then what tragedies might have befallen less disciplined priests?
"Aye, the rest," Newander replied grimly. "The curse is general on the library. Few, if any, have escaped it, your Cadderly excepted. Dwarves are tougher than most against magic, and the brother cooks seemed in good sorts."
Danica could hardly digest what she was hearing. The last thing she could remember was finding Cadderly unconscious under the casks in the wine cellar. Everything after that seemed just a strange dream to her, fleeting images of irrational moments. Now, in concentrating with all her willpower, she remembered Kierkan Rufo's advances and her punishing him severely for them. Danica remembered even more vividly the block of stone, the exploding flashes of pain, and her own refusal to admit the futility of her attempt.
Danica did not dare to let her imagination conjure images of the state of the library if the druid's words were true, if this same curse was general throughout the place. She focused her thoughts instead on a more personal level, on Cadderly and his quest down in the dusty, dangerous cellars.
"We must go and help him," she declared, renewing her struggles against the stubborn vines.
"No," said Newander. "We are to stay here, by Cadderly's own bidding."
"No," Danica stated flatly, shaking her head. "Of course Cadderly would say that, trying to protect me-and it seems I needed protecting, until a few moments ago. Cadderly and the dwarves might need us, and I'll not lie here under your vines while he walks into danger."
Newander was about to question her on why she thought there might be danger in the cellars, when he recalled Cadderly's own morbid descriptions of the haunted place.
"Have your plants let me go, Newander, I beg" Danica appealed to the druid. "You can remain here if you choose, but I must go to Cadderly's side quickly, before this cursing mist regains its hold on me!"
Her last statement, that the curse might fall back over her, only reinforced Newander's logical conclusion that she should be kept under tight control, that her reprieve from the curse, if that was what this was, might be a temporary thing. But the druid could not ignore the determination in the young woman's voice. He had heard stories of the remarkable Danica from many sources since his arrival at the library and he did not doubt that she would be a powerful ally to Cadderly if she could remain clear-headed. Still, the druid could not underestimate the curse's power-the evidence was too clear all about him- and the choice to release her seemed a great risk.
"What have you to gain by keeping me here?" Danica asked, as though she had read the druid's thoughts. "A Cadderly is not in danger, then he will find and defeat the curse before I... we, can get to him. But if he and the dwarves have found danger, then they could surely use our help."
Newander waved his hands and whistled shrilly to the vines. They jumped to his call, releasing their hold on Danica and the bed, rolling back out the open window.
Danica stretched her arms and legs for many moments before she could bring herself to stand, and even then she got up quite unsteadily, needing Newander's support.
"Are you so certain that you are fit for walking?" the druid asked. "You suffered some serious wounds to the head."
Danica pulled roughly from his grasp and staggered to the middle of the room. There she began an exercise routine, falling more and more easily into the familiar movements. Her arms waved and darted in perfect harmony, each guiding the other to its next maneuver. Every now and again, one of her feet came whistling up in front of her, arcing high over her head.
Newander watched her tentatively at first, then smiled and nodded his agreement that the young woman had fully regained control of her movements, movements that seemed ever so graceful and appealing, almost animal-like, to the druid.
"We should be going, then," Newander offered, taking up his oaken staff and moving to the door.
Renewed sounds from Histra's room greeted them as they entered the hall. Danica glanced anxiously at Newander, then started for the priestess's door. Newander's hand clasped her shoulder and stopped her.
"The curse," the druid explained.
"But we must go to help," Danica started to retort, but she stopped suddenly as she recognized the connotations of those cries.
Danica's blush became a deep red, and she giggled in spite of the seriousness of the situation.
Newander tried to hurry her down the corridor and she did not resist. Indeed, it was Danica pulling the druid by the time they passed Histra's closed door.
Their first stop was Cadderly's room, and they entered just as Kierkan Rufo was pulling himself free from the last of Ivan's stubborn bindings.
Danica's eyes lit up at the sight. Vivid memories of Rufo prodding her and grabbing at her assaulted her thoughts, and a wave of sheer hatred, augmented by the red mist, nearly overwhelmed her.