The Chaos Curse

by R. A. Salvatore

  Rufo smiled in a starkly condescending way that made it clear to Thobicus that he knew much more than he would ever let on. To Banner he only repeated his promise of, “In time.”

  Rufo turned to the confused Thobicus and said, “This very night you will suffer the blood thirst. You will seek out one of the lesser priests and feed. I grant you this, but be warned. If ever you hold a thought against me, I will deny you your victims. There is no greater torment than denial of the blood thirst—this you will know for certain when the hunger comes upon you.”

  Dean Thobicus’s mind whirled at the unexpected news. He had become a vampire!

  “This very night,” Rufo said again, as if in answer to the dean’s silent exclamation. “And be warned that the sun tomorrow and forever after will be your enemy. Seek a dark spot to sleep after you have fed, Thobicus.”

  The dean’s breath came in short gasps, and when he realized that fact, he seriously wondered if he’d already seen the last full day he would draw breath.

  “Have you done as I instructed?” Rufo asked him.

  Thobicus looked up at the vampire, startled by the unexpected change in subject, but he collected his wits quickly.

  “The five Oghmanytes are on the road to Carradoon,” Thobicus answered. “They wanted to wait until morning and complained that they would have only a short span of daylight before they had to stop and set up camp.”

  “But you convinced them,” Rufo reasoned.

  “I sent them,” Thobicus corrected, as defiant a tone as he had ever used against the vampire. “But I do not understand the value in allowing them out of the library. If Druzil is at work—”

  A sharp pain in Thobicus’s head cut the statement short, nearly knocking the dean from his feet.

  “You question me?” Rufo asked.

  Thobicus found he was on his knees, clutching his temples. He thought his head would explode, but then, as abruptly as it had started, the pain ceased. It took him a long moment to muster the courage to look up at Kierkan Rufo again, and when he did, he found the vampire at ease, Banner comfortably at his side.

  Thobicus, for some reason he didn’t quite understand, hated Banner at that moment.

  “The Oghmanytes might have sensed the desecration,” Rufo explained. “Or might have soon recognized you for what you have become. They will understand the desecration fully when they return to the library, and they will welcome it.”

  Thobicus considered Rufo’s words, and didn’t doubt his claim. There remained less than sixty living priests, Deneirrath and Oghmanyte, at the library, and but six visitors, none powerful enough to stand against the master vampire.

  “Is the priestess of Sune in her room?” Rufo asked suddenly, startling Thobicus from his private musings. The dean nodded, and Rufo, looking to Banner, nodded as well.

  Later, when the sun had fallen behind the western horizon, Kierkan Rufo walked out of the Edificant Library’s front doors, his black robes sweeping behind him and the mischievous imp perched on his shoulder.

  On a high branch in a nearby tree, a white squirrel crouched in fear, watching the vampire’s progress with more than passing curiosity.

  EIGHT

  CAMPFIRES

  What do you see?” Danica asked Shayleigh. The monk moved to the camp’s border, where the elf stood in perfect silence.

  Shayleigh held out a delicate arm and pointed far down the mountain trails to a flickering light. Danica’s heart leaped for an instant, the monk thinking she might be catching her first glimpse of the Edificant Library.

  “A campfire,” Shayleigh explained, seeing Danica’s hopeful expression. “A group of emissaries or traders from Carradoon on their way to the library, or perhaps a band of priests heading down to the city. Spring has come, so the trails awaken to the sound of caravans.”

  “It’s a spring you thought would be full of the cries of battle,” Dorigen reminded Shayleigh as she moved to join the pair.

  Danica eyed Dorigen, wondering what the woman hoped to gain by reminding Shayleigh of the carnage in Shilmista, and of her fears that an army—led by Dorigen herself—might soon return to the wood.

  “So it might still,” Shayleigh was quick to reply, fixing the wizard with a cool stare. “We do not yet know if the ores and their kin we sent scrambling into the mountains will return to Shilmista once the trails are clear.”

  Dorigen didn’t back away from the elf maiden’s accusing look. “If they do,” she said, her chin held high, “I will demand that part of my penance be that I fight on the side of the elves in that conflict.”

  Well said, Danica thought. “If the elves would have her,” the monk quickly put in, drawing Shayleigh’s attention to her disarming smile before the suspicious elf could reply.

  “We would be foolish to refuse,” Shayleigh answered. She looked back to the quiet night and the distant flickers. “It is likely the orcs and giantkin will enlist the aid of trolls.” In her own way, the elf had, for the first time, agreed with the decision to return Dorigen to the library and argue for a positive judgment, rather than punishment.

  Shayleigh had made no moves against Dorigen since the wizard’s surrender in Castle Trinity, but neither had she befriended her. Shilmista was the elf’s home, after all, and Dorigen had been instrumental in bringing ruin to the forest’s northern reaches.

  Behind Shayleigh’s back, Danica and Dorigen exchanged hopeful nods. If King Elbereth and the elves could forgive Dorigen’s crimes, then the library’s claims against her would seem trivial.

  “If it was earlier, I would suggest we go down for a visit,” Danica remarked. “I could do with a bit of good food, and maybe a taste of wine.”

  “I’d settle for ale,” Dorigen said, to which Shayleigh promptly spun and gave the wizard a sour look.

  “Wine,” the elf agreed, and it seemed to Dorigen and Danica as if the whole atmosphere of the encampment had suddenly changed, lightened, as if Shayleigh had come to terms with Dorigen’s past and had become a true ally. The two women went to their bedrolls then, taking comfort in the knowledge that the alert elf guarded over them.

  Shayleigh remained where she was, standing quietly and watching the flicker of the distant campfire. Her second guess as to its origin had been correct; a group of priests was making its way down to Carradoon—a group of Oghmanyte priests, sent out by Dean Thobicus.

  Like Danica, Shayleigh wished the night was earlier, that they might have hiked the couple of miles down to the group.

  Kierkan Rufo, approaching the flickering fire from another trail, would have been pleasantly surprised if they had.

  He dreamed of towering spires stretching three hundred feet into the air. He dreamed of all the folk of Carradoon, and all the elves of Shilmista, congregating before the cathedral, come to worship and to find inspiration in its massive windows and walls that were, in truth, works of art.

  The nave dwarfed the individual. The arching ceiling soared a hundred feet from the stone floor. Graceful walls were lined by corridors housing statues of the worthy priests of both Deneir and Oghma who had gone before. Avery Schell was there, as was Pertelope, for all time, and at the end of the high walkway was an empty pedestal, awaiting the statue that would be most fitting in his tribute to Deneir.

  The statue of Cadderly.

  He dreamed of conducting a service in that cathedral, of Brother Chaunticleer’s a cappella gift to the brother gods, Oghma and Deneir, the talented tenor’s voice echoing about the graceful walls like the songs of the heavens themselves.

  Then Cadderly saw himself, wearing the sash of the library’s dean, leading the service, with Danica sitting proudly by his side.

  He was a hundred years old, withered, worn, and near death.

  The shocking image shook Cadderly from his slumber, and his eyes opened wide to take in the starry sky. He closed his eyes quickly and tried to recapture that last fleeting glimpse, to learn why it might be so startling. Cadderly could only hope that the new library would be construc
ted before he reached his hundredth year, even if construction began in full that very summer and Ivan and Pikel delivered a thousand dwarves to help with the work.

  Cadderly, so filled with divine faith, certainly had no fear of his own death. But then why had he awakened, and why was his forehead cold with sweat?

  He looked back into the dream, and forced the image to linger. Even though it was clear, it took Cadderly time to discern what might be out of place.

  It was he, the old dean of the library. He looked as if he had lived a century or more, but Danica, sitting beside him, seemed no older than she was in the present, barely in her twenties.

  Cadderly let go the surreal scene and looked up at the stars, reminding himself that it had been just a dream. The Bouldershoulders’ wild snoring—Ivan snorting and Pikel whistling in response—calmed him somewhat, told him that all was as it should be.

  Still, many hours passed before Cadderly found his slumber again, and that image of an old, dying priest leading a service in the cathedral went into his dreams with him.

  Two of the five Oghmanytes sat awake, chatting quietly and keeping a halfhearted watch on the dark trees surrounding their encampment as the darkest hours of the night passed. None in the group was really afraid of trouble so far south in the mountains. The trails between Carradoon and the Edificant Library were well traveled, and they were powerful clerics. They had lined the perimeter of their camp with wards that would not only alert them to the presence of monsters, but would send jolts of lightning into the creatures, probably destroying them before they ever crossed into the campsite.

  So the two Lorekeepers were awake more to enjoy the night than to guard their camp, and their eyes were more often on each other, or on the fire, than on the dark and ominous trees.

  Kierkan Rufo was there, along with Druzil, watching the priests and listening to the rhythmic snoring of the other three, fast asleep. Rufo nodded and began his steady approach, but Druzil, still in many ways the wiser of the two, scanned the camp’s perimeter, his knowing eyes looking for the revealing emanations of magic. He kicked off the ground and flapped his wings to land hard against Rufo’s shoulder.

  “It’s guarded,” he whispered into the vampire’s ear. “All the way around.”

  Rufo nodded again, as though he had suspected that all along. He jerked, throwing Druzil from his shoulder and lifting his black robes high into the air around him. As the material descended, Rufo’s corporeal form seemed to melt away. As a bat, Rufo zipped up into the treetops, Druzil following closely

  “Did they think to guard from above?” the vampire bat asked the imp in a voice so high-pitched that it hurt Druzil’s ears, and though Rufo had spoken loudly, the men on the ground could not even hear the sound.

  The two picked their way down the branches. Rufo noticed that Druzil had turned invisible, as was the imp’s way, but the vampire was surprised—pleasantly so—to learn that he could still see the imp’s vague outline. Another benefit of his undead state, Rufo decided. One of many, many benefits. A few moments later, the vampire was hanging upside down from the lowest branch over the encampment, barely fifteen feet above the heads of the two seated guards. Rufo had thought to swoop right down on them, but paused, wondering if something valuable might be gained from their conversation.

  “Bron Turman’s going to be surprised when we walk unannounced into Carradoon,” one of them was saying.

  “His own fault,” answered the other. “His rank does not give him the privilege of rewriting the Oghmanyte orders without consulting the other leaders.”

  Rufo was impressed at how resourceful a liar Dean Thobicus could be. With all the strange goings-on, the Oghmanytes had been on the alert back at the library. Only the dean’s hint that something was indeed amiss, instead of simply telling them that everything was all right, had brought them out.

  “If that is what Bron Turman is doing in Carradoon,” the first priest remarked, his tone full of doubt.

  The other nodded in agreement.

  “I’m not convinced of Dean Thobicus’s words,” the first went on. “Not even his motives. He’s frightened of Cadderly’s return—in that, I agree with Bron Turman’s assessment.”

  “Do you believe Dean Thobicus wanted all the Oghmanytes out of the library so we wouldn’t interfere with his plans for his own order?” the other asked, to which the first only shrugged.

  Rufo nearly squealed aloud at the irony of that question. If only they knew the truth of the “order” to which they unintentionally referred….

  The ruse had worked, of that much the vampire was certain. Almost all of the leading Deneirrath were dead, or undead and under his control, and the Oghmanytes were divided and off their guard.

  One of the priests gave a great yawn, though a moment before he’d seemed perfectly alert. The other followed suit, overcome by a sudden compulsion to lie down and sleep.

  “The night grows long,” the first remarked, and without even moving toward his bedroll, he slipped down to the ground and closed his eyes.

  The other Oghmanyte thought the movement somewhat silly, until it struck him as suspiciously odd that his friend should fall so quickly into slumber. He fought against that same compulsion, a little suggestion in the back of his mind that sleep would be a good thing. He opened his eyes wide and vigorously shook his head. He even reached down, hoisted a waterskin, and poured the fluid over his face.

  When the man tossed his head back to wet his face a second time, he was stopped by the image of a black-robed man standing on a branch fifteen feet above him.

  Rufo fell down atop him with feline grace. The vampire grabbed the man’s chin and the hair on the back of his head as he opened his mouth to scream, tugging so fiercely that the man’s head turned around on his shoulders with a sickening crack.

  The vampire stood straight, eyeing the other four, all sleeping. He would wake them one by one and give them a chance to forsake their god, a chance to kneel before him, the personification of Tuanta Quiro Miancay.

  NINE

  THE WORDS OF ROMUS SOALADI

  Fare well,” Shayleigh offered when the three women came to a fork in the trail early the next morning. One bend went south, for the library, and the other meandered on to the west. “King Elbereth will be pleased to hear all that I have to tell him.”

  “All?” Dorigen asked, and the perceptive elf maiden knew that the wizard referred 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 a heartbeat, her gray-green cloak shielding her form in the sylvan shadows, though Danica and Dorigen had no doubt she could still see them.

  “I am ever amazed by the elves,” Dorigen remarked. “So supple and graceful, yet in battle, I have never known a race to match the their ferocity.”

  Danica did not disagree. During the war in Shilmista, the monk had had her first real experience 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’d been born an elf, or at least had been raised among them. She would have been closer to the spirit of the traditions of Grandmaster Penpahg D’Ahn.

  Still staring down the empty trail, Danica 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 gr
aceful dance of the grandmaster’s fighting style, and the sight made her heart skip.

  Then Danica let go the image, shook it away as she recalled the demeanor of the People, recalled what it meant 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 pursuits. Following her mentor, the young monk was rarely casual, always focused. Even Shayleigh, whom Danica would wish at her side whenever danger was near, couldn’t hold a course for very long. Through the tendays 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 was in the room, as though nothing else in all the world mattered except the falling snowflakes and the subtle movements Shayleigh hardly seemed conscious of making.

  The elves could never 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 the monk didn’t doubt the love Shayleigh felt for her, she knew the elf maiden would likely witness the dawn of several centuries after 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 dream in Shayleigh’s future Reveries?

  Simply put, there was no way 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 elf maiden innately possessed what Danica sought: the peace and grace of true harmony.