The Chaos Curse

by R. A. Salvatore

  “Danica,” Rufo said lewdly. “My dear, dear Danica. I cannot tell you how I’ve longed for your return.”

  Danica’s knuckles whitened as she gripped her daggers tightly. She was looking for a shot, looking to put one of the enchanted knives over Dorigen’s shoulder into Rufo’s ugly face.

  As if he read her thoughts, Rufo tightened his grip on Dorigen and jerked the mage’s head back a bit more, forcing her to grimace at the pain.

  “It would be a little thing to tear her head from her shoulders,” Rufo taunted. “Would you like to see that?”

  Danica’s muscles relaxed slightly.

  “Good,” the perceptive vampire said. “There is no need for us to be enemies, dear Danica. I will make you my queen.”

  “Then your queen will cut your heart out,” Danica replied.

  She knew she shouldn’t have said those words with Dorigen so obviously in peril, but the thought of what Rufo offered filled her throat with bile. She couldn’t bear to talk to the man in life. As a vampire …

  “I expected as much from you, stubborn Danica,” Rufo retorted. “But as for you, Dorigen,” he purred, turning the mage’s head so she could readily view his pallid face. “We were allies once, and so we shall be again! Come to me, and be my queen, and know more power than Aballister could ever have given you!”

  For just an instant, Danica feared that Dorigen might give in. The price of refusal was obvious. Danica reconsidered her fear immediately, though, remembering all she had learned of Dorigen during their journey to the library.

  “Cadderly will destroy you,” Danica warned Rufo.

  The tall vampire relaxed his grip and turned angry eyes toward her. Nothing could get Rufo’s attention more than the mention of Cadderly.

  Danica locked stares with the vampire, but not before she noticed Dorigen’s lips moving again.

  “He should be at the library’s doors by now,” Danica went on, feigning confidence. “He’s strong, Rufo. He crushed Aballister, and all of Castle Trinity.”

  “I would know if he had arrived!” the vampire roared, and his tone told Danica that she’d rattled him. “If he had, I would blee eaglerly …”

  Rufo’s words turned into a jumble, all his body jerking suddenly as arcs of blue lightning shot out of Dorigen’s hands and pulsed through the vampire’s body.

  Dorigen twisted, growled, and pulled away, and the final shock of the spell sent the two flying apart, wafts of smoke from Rufo’s burning flesh rising in the air between them.

  The wizard was casting again as Rufo tried to recover his senses.

  “I will torture you for eternity!” the vampire promised, and it seemed to Danica as though Dorigen knew she was doomed, knew that she could not complete her spell before Rufo fell over her.

  A spinning metallic sliver caught Rufo’s attention. He threw his arm in front of his face and shrieked as the tip of Danica’s dagger bored through his forearm.

  Danica smelled sulfur mixed with the scent of burned flesh. She looked at Dorigen then back to Rufo as he yanked out her dagger and tossed it to the floor.

  “Run,” Danica heard Dorigen say, and when she looked back at the wizard, her heart fell.

  Dorigen stood calmly, too calmly, a tiny ball of flame dancing in the air above her uplifted palm. Danica knew enough about wizardry to know what was about to happen.

  “No!” Rufo roared. He threw his robes tightly around him and fell within himself, as though seeking the source of his newfound powers.

  “Run,” Dorigen said again, her voice serene.

  Danica had taken two steps through the doorway before she looked ahead and realized that Histra was coming for her again. She lashed out with her remaining dagger, more to throw the vampire off balance than to score a hit, then spun to the side and down, coming around with a circling kick that caught the dodging Histra on the back of one leg. She heard Rufo command Dorigen to stop and heard the confident wizard laugh in response.

  Danica kicked off, launching Histra back toward the chapel’s open door and using the momentum to propel herself farther from harm’s way. She stumbled for the effort, and threw herself with the flow, falling and rolling, as Rufo’s form melted, as Dorigen dropped a ball of flame on the floor between herself and where the vampire had stood.

  It all seemed surreal to Danica, as if all the world had gone into slow motion. Flames rolled out the chapel door, and she saw Histra’s hair and arms reach forward from the force of the blast. Then there was just the fireball, reaching lazily toward Danica.

  She curled up, tucked her head, and became, through years of training, like stone. The flames licked at her, swirled around her, but Danica felt only the slightest heat. When it was ended, an instant later, she was unharmed, and only the fringes of her cloak had been so much as singed.

  Then that horrible instant had passed, and Danica looked back at Histra. The vampire hurled herself around the room, slamming walls and flailing against the back of her shoulders as her flesh bubbled under the hungry flames. The oaken support beams in the room smoldered, tapestries a thousand years old were fast consumed, and acrid black smoke poured from the destroyed chapel where Dorigen had given her life.

  Danica fought back tears as she scrambled for the door. She had to link up with Cadderly and the dwarves, maybe find Shayleigh. She had to—

  The door wouldn’t open.

  Danica tugged with all her might and the handle broke off, sending her sprawling to the floor.

  A green fog rolled out of a crack in the wall beside the door, swirling into a funnel cloud then blowing away and dissipating, leaving an angry and hardly-wounded Kierkan Rufo standing before her.

  ELEVEN

  DANICA’S FALL

  Danica’s right hook caught Rufo on the side of the jaw and snapped his head to the side. Slowly and ominously, the vampire turned back to face the monk.

  Danica hit him again with another vicious hook then a third time, in the same place, with the same punch.

  Rufo laughed as his head turned slowly back to center, not a welt or mark on his white cheek.

  “You cannot hurt me,” the vampire said in quiet, even tones.

  In response, Danica drove her knee straight up between Rufo’s legs, the force of the blow lifting the vampire up on his toes.

  Rufo merely smiled.

  “I should have guessed you’d have nothing there to hurt,” Danica said, stinging the monster with words where her fists had failed.

  Rufo’s face contorted, rage bubbling through his cool demeanor. A feral snarl escaped his lips, and his arm shot forward for Danica’s throat.

  But the monk’s gold-hilted dagger, sculpted like a tiger, drove deep into Rufo’s forearm. Faster than Rufo could react, the skilled monk ripped the blade along his arm, then tore it out and slashed Rufo across the face, marring the same cheek she’d punched.

  She went into a frenzy then, and so did Rufo, Danica slashing this way and that, Rufo’s grasping hands trying futilely to catch the nasty blade. Danica scored hit after minor hit then plunged the enchanted dagger deep into Rufo’s chest, seeking his heart.

  By the way Rufo froze suddenly, his hands going wide to the side and his expression shocked, she could tell she’d hit the mark. Unblinking, eyeing the vampire squarely and showing not a trace of fear, Danica gave a sharp, short twist.

  The side of Rufo’s mouth began to twitch, and Danica expected he would fall.

  They held that macabre pose for a long while, small growls escaping Rufo’s mouth.

  Why won’t he fall? Danica wondered. Why won’t he just die?

  Her confidence began to waver as Rufo’s hand eased toward her wrist. She gave another sharp tug, and the vampire grimaced. She turned the blade again, and though Rufo’s pain was obvious on his pallid face, his hand kept its steady approach.

  When his strong fingers grabbed tight to Danica’s wrist, the monk’s left hand went into a flurry, slamming the vampire’s throat and face.

  Rufo never b
linked, just watched as he gradually forced Danica to retract the blade, her muscles corded with strain, no match for the physical strength of the vampire. As soon as the dagger’s tip came clear of his chest, Rufo yanked Danica’s arm up high.

  “Fool!” he said, his rancid breath in her face.

  Danica slammed her forehead into his nose.

  Rufo yanked her back, and his other hand came snapping across, smacking the dagger from her hand, sending it spinning across the foyer.

  “You cannot hurt me,” Rufo declared again, despite his obviously painful wounds.

  But with both of her enchanted weapons lost to her, Danica found she believed him. And she believed Rufo would tear her apart.

  “Look at me!” came a shriek from across the foyer.

  Both Rufo and Danica turned to see Histra kneeling by the chapel door, looking down at her hands, held out in front of her. The flesh had bubbled from fingers and arms and hung down in grotesque flaps. Histra looked plaintively at her master, and even Rufo couldn’t mask his disgust at the sight. Histra, who had spent her living years primping and powdering, seemed a caricature of her former self, a cruel joke on the order of Sune, goddess of beauty, love, and passion. Jowls of burned flesh hung off her chin and though they remained intact, there was no flesh around her eyeballs, so they seemed as if they would roll from her face. Her upper lip was gone, as was the flesh on one side of her nose. Her hair, that beautiful, silky, alluring mane, was no more than short, scraggly clumps of gray.

  Rufo’s disgust came out as a long, low growl, and without even thinking of the movement, he clenched his hand tighter and lowered his arm, forcing Danica to her knees. The monk thought to use Rufo’s distraction for her own benefit and break away, but though she had her free hand working on only one of Rufo’s grasping fingers, she couldn’t budge the digit. She tried to twist and squirm, but without even thinking, Rufo held her steady. Soon Danica came to accept that all her efforts would get her only a dislocated elbow.

  “You are a vampire,” Rufo said, apparently to comfort Histra. “Your wounds will heal.”

  Danica didn’t hear much conviction in Rufo’s voice, and she understood why. Vampires healed as did trolls, knitting tears in their skin and regenerating lost blood. Histra’s garish wounds, though, had been caused by fire, and they would not regenerate.

  A glimmer of hope crossed Histra’s destroyed features.

  “Find a mirror!” Danica shouted suddenly. “See what your choice has done to you.”

  Rufo turned and glared down at her. She could feel his grip tighten, reminding her that she was taking a dangerous chance.

  “Immortality?” Danica asked, and groaned as Rufo subtly shifted her arm, bending it to the side, above the elbow. “Is that what he promised you?” the monk stubbornly went on. “Then you shall be ugly for all eternity!”

  Danica knew that last statement would pain Histra more than anything else in the world. Rufo knew it, too, and the look he put over Danica promised her nothing short of an agonizing death. Rufo’s free hand whipped across, slapping Danica so hard on the side of her head she nearly passed out.

  She shook off the blow and could feel warm blood rolling down from her ear when Rufo hit her again.

  “Your burns will not heal!” Danica cried through clenched teeth, trying to fend off the continuing attack with her free hand.

  Rufo opened his mouth wide, fangs moving near Danica’s neck. She cried out, certain she was about to die.

  Outraged beyond rational thought, Histra barreled into Rufo, slamming him back against the wall.

  Danica shifted her legs and threw all her weight to one side. She heard her elbow pop out of its joint, but had to ignore the agony, had to break free.

  She did so just as Rufo hurled Histra back across the foyer, where the disfigured priestess slumped to the floor, her shoulders bobbing with sobs.

  Danica was up, but Rufo was ready.

  “Where will you run?” the vampire asked.

  Danica looked to the library’s outer doors again, but Rufo laughed at that notion.

  “You are mine.” The vampire took a step forward, and Danica’s foot came up hard, slamming his chest and knocking him back. Danica went into a spin then, her trailing foot flying wide, and Rufo, not understanding, merely laughed and stayed back, apparently out of range.

  As soon as the foot whipped past, the vampire came in hard, but Danica had hit her mark perfectly, had never been aiming at Kierkan Rufo. Her foot went up high and drove through the library’s outer door, splintering the wood. Rufo stepped right into a shaft of sunlight that streamed through.

  The vampire recoiled, raising his arms to block the searing beam. Danica started for the door, thinking to break it wider and make her escape into daylight, but Rufo’s fist shot out and clipped her shoulder, and though Danica was quick enough to partially brace for the blow, she found herself spinning through the air.

  She caught her balance and touched down in a shock-absorbing roll then came back to her feet many yards from the door. By then Rufo had crossed the beam of sunlight and stood blocking her way.

  “Damn,” Danica muttered, a fitting curse if ever there was one, and she turned and fled for the stairway.

  Banner spent this day in sleep, a deep sleep filled with dreams of power, basking in the pleasures Kierkan Rufo had promised him. He had forsaken his god, thrown aside all that he had learned about morality in life, in exchange for that personal gain.

  There was no remorse, no guilt to interrupt his slumber. Truly Banner was a damned thing.

  His dream took him to Carradoon, to a brothel he’d once visited, on the eve of his acceptance into the Edificant Library. How pretty the women were! How wonderful their scent!

  Banner pictured them as his queens, faces pallid, sharing his life, washing in the warmth of blood.

  The warmth.

  Waves of heat rolled over the sleeping vampire, and he exalted in a sea of warm blood.

  But the warmth took on a vicious edge, began to lick painfully at Banner’s sides. His eyes popped open and to his horror, he found himself immersed in a thick gray cloud. Wafts of smoke rose from the smoldering lining of his casket, tucked under a bed on the library’s second floor, right above the chapel Dorigen had fireballed.

  Banner’s hair burst into flame.

  The vampire shrieked and punched straight up, his powerful fists breaking through the wood of the casket and those splintered, burning boards fell back in atop him.

  Banner scrambled wildly, kicking and thrashing apart his flaming prison. His robes flared in biting orange fires. The skin on one arm bubbled and blistered. He thought to turn gaseous, as he had seen Rufo do on occasion, but he was not enough into the realm of undeath, had not mastered his own vampirism to that degree.

  Banner heaved the burning bed aside and staggered to his feet, away from the box. His room was ablaze, and he couldn’t see the door for the fiery light. Several zombies, including Fester Rumpol, stood calmly inside the conflagration, feeling no pain from the flames, though they were being consumed. They were unthinking things, and couldn’t even comprehend that they should flee the fire, could feel neither the terror nor the pain of being burned alive.

  Looking at Rumpol, Banner found that he envied the zombie.

  Hot cinders swept into the vampire’s eyes, stinging and blinding him, and he ran desperately, hoping for the door, but slamming hard into the unyielding stone wall instead.

  He was down again, thrashing in agony, the hungry flames attacking from every angle as though they were a coordinated army. There was nowhere to run, nowhere …

  Banner’s eyes were gone by then, burned out, but for the first time since he’d succumbed to Kierkan Rufo’s temptations, the fallen priest could see the truth.

  Where were Rufo’s promises now? Where was the power, the warmth of blood?

  In the last moments of his existence, Banner understood his folly. He wanted to call out to Deneir, to beg forgiveness, but like ev
erything else in the man’s life, that intent was based on personal need. There was no charity in Banner’s heart, and so he died without hope.

  Across the room, the flames consumed the zombies, including the body of Fester Rumpol. The spirit, the essence, of Fester Rumpol felt none of it, for he had held true in the face of adversity, and had followed his faith past the mortality of his physical shell.

  She came off the landing on the second floor and ran straight into Dean Thobicus. His hands clasped her upper arms, holding her steady, and for an instant, Danica thought she had found an ally, a priest who could turn back awful Rufo.

  “F-fire,” she stammered. “And Rufo …”

  Danica stopped, calmed herself, and looked carefully into Thobicus’s eyes. She silently mouthed, “No,” over and over, slowly shaking her head.

  She could not deny the truth, though, and if Dean Thobicus too had fallen to the darkness then the library truly was doomed.

  Danica took a deep, steadying breath, making no immediate move to resist, and the vampire smiled wickedly, revealing his fangs, only inches from Danica’s face.

  Danica’s foot flashed up in front of her face, slammed Thobicus under the nose, and jerked his head back violently. The monk’s arms worked in a fast circle, fists crossing in front of her chest then going out and down over the dean’s elbows. As strong as the vampire’s grasp was, Danica’s leverage pulled her free. Up came her foot a second time, again slamming the monster under the nose. The blow did no real damage, but bought Danica the instant she needed to break free.

  She was back on the staircase and thought for a moment to go down, but Rufo was laughing, ascending the stairs behind her.

  Danica went up to the third floor. A zombie stood silently in the stairway, but offered no resistance as Danica drove her fist into its bloated face then heaved it down behind her to impede her pursuers.

  She was free in the hallway of the third floor then, but where to go? She looked right, to the south, then left, and found herself running north, toward Cadderly’s room.