The Chaos Curse

by R. A. Salvatore

  The mausoleum seemed empty, but the hairs on the nape of Shayleigh’s neck told her otherwise. She slipped her longbow off her shoulder, as much to have something to prod about with as to have a weapon in hand, and moved in farther. She looked back to the door with nearly every step and noticed Percival perched nervously on the outside sill of the window, staring in with bulging eyes. The sight of the concerned animal almost made her laugh despite her trepidations.

  She passed the first of the stone slabs, noticed then that there was more than a little blood—fairly fresh, it seemed—on the floor, along with a tattered burial shroud. The elf maiden shook her head at the continuing riddle. She slipped past the second slab, and looked at the far wall, the wall to the left of the door, lined by marked stones that she knew were grave markers.

  Something—something out of place—about the far stone, the stone in the corner near the back wall of the mausoleum, caught her attention.

  Shayleigh eyed it curiously for a moment, trying to discern what it was. It was hanging crooked just a bit. Shayleigh nodded and slid a cautious step closer.

  The stone flew off the wall, and the elf maiden leaped back. Out came a fat corpse, a bloated and rotting thing, to fall in a heap at the base of the wall. Shayleigh had barely registered the gruesome scene when another form leaped out of the open crypt, springing with incredible agility to stand atop the slab nearest the wall, barely a dozen feet from the startled elf.

  Dean Thobicus!

  Shayleigh recognized him despite the fact that half his skin had somehow melted away, and the remaining pieces were blistered and torn. She recognized the dean, and understood that he had become something terrible, something powerful.

  The elf maiden continued to backstep, thinking to cross the last slab between her and the door, use the final pillar as a block behind her, then turn and bolt. The day was long, but she knew that the light, any light, would be her ally.

  Thobicus crouched like an animal on the slab. Shayleigh, her muscles tense, expected him to spring at her, but he just stared without blinking, without breathing. Was it hunger or fear she saw in his dead eyes? Was he a malicious monster or a pitiful victim?

  She came beside the last slab, and felt the pillar behind her shoulder. Her foot slid back and subtly turned.

  The elf exploded into motion, darting behind the pillar, but the move had been anticipated and the heavy door swung closed with a tremendous crash.

  Shayleigh skidded to a stop, and saw Percival doing frantic somersaults on the windowsill. She felt the coldness of the dead man’s approach at her back and knew then the truth, the foul demeanor of the undead monster. She spun and went into a defensive crouch, backstepping as Thobicus slowly stalked in.

  “The door will not open,” the vampire explained, and Shayleigh didn’t doubt the claim. “There is no escape.”

  Shayleigh’s violet eyes darted back and forth, searching the room. But the building was solid, with only a single window of leaded glass, which she could never get through in time, and the single door.

  The vampire opened his mouth wide, proudly displaying his fangs. “Now I will have a queen,” Thobicus said, “as Rufo has Danica.”

  The last statement hit Shayleigh hard, both for the proclamation of wretched Kierkan Rufo’s return and the fact that he apparently had Danica in his clutches.

  She looked at the door, and at Percival in the window, searching, searching, but she couldn’t deny the truth of Thobicus’s next statement.

  “There is no escape.”

  By the time they stopped running, the library was barely visible, back along the winding trail and beyond many sheltering trees. Cadderly stood bent at the waist, gasping for breath, and not just for sheer physical exertion. What had happened to his library? his thoughts screamed at him. What had happened to the order that had guided him through all the years of his life?

  Pikel, bleeding from several wounds, hopped about the small clearing frantically, several times even rebounding off the boulders lining the place on the south, which didn’t help his injuries), and sputtering, “Oo oi!” over and over. Ivan just stood solemnly, staring back at the one visible corner of the library, shaking his shaggy head.

  Cadderly couldn’t think straight, and Pikel’s frenzy wasn’t helping him any. On more than one occasion, the young priest’s concentration narrowed on the problem at hand, seeking a solution, but then Cadderly would be brushed by Pikel, or loudly interrupted by an emphatic, “Oo oi!”

  Cadderly stood straight and eyed the green-bearded dwarf directly, and was about to scold Pikel, when he heard clearly the song of Deneir. It swept him away like he was a twig that had fallen into a swift stream. It didn’t ask if he wanted to go along, it just took him in the current, gaining speed, gaining momentum, and all the young priest could do was hold on.

  After a few moments, Cadderly gained some control over his spiraling thoughts and he willingly steered himself to the middle of the stream, to the strongest notes of the song. He hadn’t heard the melody so clearly since Castle Trinity, since he’d destroyed his own father, Aballister, by sundering the ground beneath the wizard’s feet. The song sounded sweet, so very sweet, and relieved Cadderly of the grief for the library and his fears for the future. He was purely with Deneir, basking in the most perfect music.

  Corridors began to open wide to him, tributaries of the song’s main river. Cadderly thought of The Tome of Universal Harmony, the most holy book of Deneir, the book inscribed with the translated words of that song. But in the song, there were only notes, pure, perfect, but notes that corresponded exactly to the written text, the human distillation of Deneir’s divine music. Cadderly knew it—Pertelope had known it—but they were the only two. Even Dean Thobicus, head of the order, had no idea of the way their god’s music played. Thobicus could recite the words of the song, but the notes were far beyond his comprehension.

  To Cadderly, it was as simple as turning pages, as following the flow of a river, and he went down one of those offered tributaries to the sphere of healing, and pulled spells of mending from the waters.

  Moments later, Pikel was calmed, his bleeding stopped, and Cadderly’s few wounds were no more. The young priest turned to Ivan, who by all appearances had been hit the hardest in the brief encounter with the vampire, but to Cadderly’s surprise, he found the yellow-bearded dwarf standing quietly, seeming unharmed.

  Ivan returned Cadderly’s dumbfounded stare, not understanding its source. “We got to hide,” the dwarf said.

  Cadderly shook himself from his stupor. The song faded from his thoughts, but he kept faith that he could recall it if the need arose.

  “The open is better,” the young priest reasoned. “In the light, away from the shadows.”

  “The light won’t last!” Ivan reminded him. The dwarf poked a finger to the west, where even the distant, tall mountains loomed dark, their rim glistening in the very last rays of the day.

  Without a word, or even a grunt of explanation, Pikel rushed off quickly into the brush. Ivan and Cadderly watched him go then turned to each other and shrugged.

  “We shall find a place to hide the night,” Cadderly remarked. “I’ll seek the answers we need with Deneir. His blessing will protect …” Cadderly stopped and looked back to the library, his gray eyes wide with horror.

  The note of fear sounded again in his thoughts. Perhaps it was Deneir, or perhaps it was just a logical conclusion by Cadderly, a moment when he considered everything in a clearer light. As mysterious as Pikel, the young priest ran back to the west, back toward the library.

  “Hey!” Ivan roared as he took up the chase. Pikel came out of the bushes then, smiling broadly and carrying his dripping waterskin.

  “Huh?” he asked, seeing the others running fast back for the library. The dwarf gave a little whistle and rambled off in pursuit.

  Cadderly cut to the side, a tight corner around some brambles. Ivan went right through the tangle and rammed the young priest sidelong out the other s
ide.

  “What?” the dwarf demanded. “Ye just said we’d be finding a place to hide! I’m not for going back in …”

  Cadderly scrambled to his feet, his legs pumping before he ever got his balance, propelling him away from the grumbling dwarf. Ivan took up the chase again and paced him, and Pikel, taking similar, if painful short cuts, was soon bobbing along on Cadderly’s other side.

  “What?” Ivan demanded again, trying to catch hold and stop the stubborn priest.

  They were at the edge of the library’s entry walk by then, between the lines of silent, well-groomed trees, in sight of the battered doors, closed again and apparently barricaded from behind.

  “What?” Ivan growled wildly.

  “She’s in there!” Cadderly offered.

  Taking longer strides, the young priest moved ahead of the dwarves on the flat, open ground.

  “Ye can’t go in!” Ivan bellowed, not really understanding what Cadderly was talking about. “Night’s falling full! Night’s his time, the time of vampires!”

  “Oo oi!” Pikel heartily agreed.

  Cadderly’s answer blew away any logic that Ivan could muster against going back into the library, against facing Rufo, whether or not the night had fallen.

  “Danica is in there!”

  Their legs were shorter, but their love for Danica was no less, and as Cadderly straightened and slowed, trying to figure out how to get through the barrier, trying to discern if the portal had been dangerously warded or trapped, Ivan and Pikel flew past him, heads down, calling out a united, “Oooo!”

  Rufo had bolstered the doors with both enchantments and heavy furniture and had placed half a dozen zombies behind the barrier, with orders to stand still and simply hold the doors closed.

  He shouldn’t have bothered. By the time Ivan and Pikel had played out their momentum, they were face down in the foyer, with splintered wood, furniture, and zombies raining down around them.

  Cadderly came in on the heels of the dwarves, his holy symbol held out strong, chanting the melodies of Deneir’s music. He felt his power diminish as soon as he crossed the threshold into the desecrated place, but had enough of his momentum with him, and enough sheer anger and determination, to complete the call to his god.

  The six zombies rose stubbornly and advanced on the dwarves and Cadderly. Then they froze in place, expressionless, and a golden light limned them all, head to toe. The edge where that light met either ragged clothing or skin blurred, and the glow intensified.

  A moment later, the zombies were piles of dust on the floor.

  Back by the entrance, Cadderly slumped against the jamb and nearly swooned, amazed at the effort it had taken him to bring Deneir into that place—amazed yet again that the Edificant Library, his library, his home, had become a place so foreign and uninviting.

  She didn’t scream when Rufo leaned over her, because she didn’t think anyone would hear her. Neither did she struggle, for her bonds were too tight, her weakness too complete.

  “Danica,” she heard Rufo whisper, and the sound of her own name disgusted her coming from that one.

  The monk fell deeper into herself, tried to fall away from her corporeal body, for she knew what was to come. And for all Danica had endured in her short life, the loss of her parents, years of brutal and unforgiving training, the battles on the trail, she didn’t think she could survive what was surely to come.

  Rufo leaned closer, and she smelled the stench of his breath. Instinctively, she opened her eyes and saw his fangs. She struggled hard against the unyielding bonds. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to deny the reality of that hellish scene, trying to will it away.

  Danica felt the sting as Kierkan Rufo’s fangs punctured her neck.

  The vampire groaned in ecstasy, and Danica was filled with disgust. All she wanted was to get away, to flee her own battered body. She thought she would die, and she wanted to die.

  To die.

  The idea hung in her swirling thoughts, a flicker of salvation, the one route of escape from the horrid monster and the state of undeath that he desired for her.

  Danica felt the sickness in her leg, felt the pain through all her beaten body, and she let go her defenses, accepted that infection and pain, basked in it, called to it.

  To die …

  Kierkan Rufo knew true ecstasy for the first time in his life, a greater pleasure than even imbibing the chaos curse, when he felt the pulse of Danica’s blood coming to his taste. Danica! She would be far better than any meal he’d tasted thus far. Danica! Rufo had desired her, craved her, since the moment he’d first seen her, and she was his!

  So lost was the vampire in the realization of his own fantasy, that it took Rufo a long moment to understand that the woman’s blood was no longer pumping, that any sweetness he extracted from the wound on Danica’s neck had to be taken forcefully. He kicked back to a kneeling position, staring down, perplexed, at the woman who would be his queen.

  Danica lay perfectly still. Her breast did not rise and fall with the rhythms of breath, and nothing more flowed from the dots of blood on her neck. Rufo could see that he’d hit her artery perfectly. With other victims, the blood spurted wildly from such wounds.

  But from Danica, just little red dots. No force, no pulse.

  “Danica?” the vampire asked, fighting hard to keep his voice steady.

  He knew, though. Beyond any rational doubts, the vampire knew, for Danica’s face was too serene, too pale. And she was too, too perfectly still.

  Rufo had wanted to bring Danica from life into undeath, into his realm to be his queen. She was tied and weak and could not escape, or so he thought.

  Rufo’s body trembled as he realized what had happened, what Danica had done. He fell back farther from her, to the bottom of the huge four-poster bed, brushed an arm across his bloody face, dark eyes wide with horror, and wider still with outrage. Danica had found an escape. She had found the one way out of Rufo’s designs and desires.

  Danica had died.

  SIXTEEN

  PIKEL’S PUNCH

  Of all the things they had ever heard—the cries of wild animals in a mountain night, the screams of the dying on a battlefield in Shilmista, the roar of a dragon deceived—none of them, not Cadderly or even hardy Ivan and Pikel, had felt their bones so melted as by the unearthly shriek of Kierkan Rufo, the vampire who had lost his most precious of treasures.

  Cadderly, when his wits returned, instinctively believed they should follow that sound, that it would lead to Rufo, and he, in turn, would lead to Danica. The young priest had a difficult time telling his dwarf companions that, though, and had just as difficult a time convincing himself that anything was worth getting any closer to the one who had loosed that wail!

  He looked behind him, out the door, into the empty night. One step back, he knew, and the song of his god would sound more clearly in his thoughts. One step back … but Danica was ahead.

  “Deneir is not with me,” Cadderly whispered to himself, “not close.”

  “Where are we off to?” Ivan prompted, his gnarly, hairy brow showing droplets of sweat—more from nerves than exertion.

  “Up,” Cadderly answered. “It came from the second floor, the private quarters.”

  They crossed the foyer and several smaller chambers, past the kitchen where Ivan and Pikel had worked as cooks for many years. They met no enemies, but the library was awakening around them. They knew that, could feel the sensation, a sudden chill in air that did not move.

  “Cadderly.” The voice, the lewd, feminine voice, froze the three in their tracks, barely a dozen steps up the winding stairs.

  Cadderly, at the head of the line, his light tube in hand, turned slowly, putting the beam over the low heads of Ivan and Pikel to shine directly on the scarred face of Histra.

  The vampire, baring her fangs, curled and hissed at the intruding light.

  Pikel squeaked and launched himself and his swinging club smack into her, sending both of them tumbling down
the stairs.

  Cadderly swung around, facing up the stairs again, and threw up a defensive arm just in time to catch the charge of a ragged zombie. Back stumbled the priest, and Ivan, not really turning enough to comprehend what was happening up front, ducked and braced.

  Over the low and immovable dwarf went Cadderly and the zombie, rolling in a clinch to join Pikel and Histra in the hallway below.

  Pikel made a series of short hops, trying to flank the crouching vampire. He waggled his club threateningly then came forward in a rush, angling the club out and turning a complete spin—once, then again. He swirled out of the ineffective routine, dizzy, and stumbled a single step.

  “Eh?” the confused dwarf asked—Histra wasn’t in front of him, where she had been.

  Her fist connected with his shoulder, and Pikel spun again. Fortunately for the dwarf, he rotated the other way, and somehow the counter spin took enough of the dizziness from him so that when he stopped he found himself facing the advancing vampire.

  “Hee hee hee,” Pikel snickered.

  The dwarf druid came forth in a tremendous burst, stepping somewhat to the side of his foe. Histra veered quickly to keep square, but Pikel, solid on his wide dwarf feet, shifted one foot ahead of the other and threw himself at her in a purely straightforward attack. Hardened muscles corded and snapped, and the dwarf’s tree-trunk club sneaked past Histra’s upraised arm to smack her squarely in the face. She flew back as though launched from a crossbow and slammed against the wall. But before Pikel could utter another, “Hee hee hee,” he realized he had not, in any way, hurt her.

  Pikel looked down at his club then to the confident vampire then back to the club again, as though it was the weapon that had deceived him.

  “Uh-oh,” the green-bearded dwarf muttered an instant before Histra’s powerful slap sent him spinning. He did a perfect two-and-a-half somersault, ending up standing on his head against the wall.