[The Cleric Quintet 01] - Canticle

by R. A. Salvatore

  No, Druzil decided, right now the bottle was not worth the many risks. If Barjin survived, perhaps the priest would find another catalyst to rejuvenate the curse. Druzil could get back here if that came to pass.

  The imp opened the small pouch he held and looked away from the impending battle, to the brazier that, fortunately, still burned.

  * * * * *

  Cadderly started to reach for another dart but realized that the evil priest would get to him before he could load it. Even if he did get his crossbow readied, Cadderly doubted that he could find the courage to use it against a living man.

  Barjin sensed his ambivalence. "You should have let the dwarves kill me," he snickered.

  "No!" Cadderly replied firmly. He dropped his crossbow and slipped one finger into his pocket, into the loop of his spindle-disks.

  "Did you really believe that I would provide information, that keeping me alive would prove beneficial?" Barjin asked.

  Cadderly shook his head. Barjin had missed the point. Cadderly had only made that claim to convince Ivan and Pikel not to kill him. His true motives in keeping Barjin alive had nothing to do with information, but with his own desire not to kill a man he did not have to kill. "We had no reason to kill you," he said evenly. "The fight was already won."

  "So you believed," snarled Barjin. He skipped across the remaining distance to Cadderly and whipped Ivan's axe across as viciously as his wounded hand would allow.

  Anticipating the attack, Cadderly easily dodged aside. He pulled his hand from his pocket and sent his spindle-disks flying out at Barjin. They connected with a thud on Barjin's chest, but the mighty priest was more startled than injured.

  He looked at Cadderly―or more pointedly, at Cadderly's coiled weapon hand―for a moment, then laughed aloud.

  Cadderly nearly threw himself at the mocking priest, but he realized that was exactly what his opponent wanted him to do. His only chance in this fight was to play defensively, the same way he had defeated Kierkan Rufo back in his room. He grinned widely against the continuing laughter and tried to appear as confident as possible.

  Barjin was not Kierkan Rufo. The evil priest had seen countless battles, had defeated seasoned warriors in single combat, and had directed armies marching across the Vaasan plains. After just a single viewing, this veteran's confident smile revealed that he had surmised the limitations of Cadderly's strange weapon, and he knew as well as Cadderly that he would have to make a huge mistake if the young priest was to have any chance.

  "You should not have returned to this place," Barjin said, calmly. "You should have left the Edificant Library altogether and given up what was already lost."

  Cadderly paused to consider the unexpected words, and the even more unexpected, almost resigned, tone. "I erred," he replied, "when first I came down here. I returned only to correct the wrong." He glanced over at the bottle to emphasize his point. "And now I have done that."

  "Have you?" Barjin teased. "Your friends are down, young fool. All those in the library are down, I would guess. When you closed the bottle, you weakened your allies more than your enemies."

  Cadderly could not deny the priest's taunt, but he still believed that he had done the right thing in closing the bottle. He would find a way to revive his friends, and all the others. Perhaps they were only sleeping.

  "Do you truly believe that, once loosed, Tuanta Quiro Miancay, the Most Fatal Horror, could be defeated simply by placing the stopper back in the flask?" Barjin smiled widely. "Look," he said, pointing over at the altar. "Even now the agent of my goddess Talona battles its way back through your pitiful barrier, back into the air it has claimed as Talona's domain."

  Cadderly should have seen the trick coming, but his own insecurity concerning the unknown bottle and curse caused him to glance to the side again. Still, he was not caught completely off his guard when Barjin waded straight in, growling and swinging.

  Cadderly ducked under one cut, then rolled to the side as Barjin reversed his swing and came with a wicked overhead chop. Cadderly tried to scramble back to his feet, but Barjin was too quick. Before he could rise, he was rolling again, back the other way, to avoid another dipping slice.

  Cadderly knew that he couldn't keep this up for long, nor could he launch any effective counters from a position on the floor. Barjin, relentless with the taste of victory on his drooling lips, kept the two-headed axe under perfect control and readied yet another strike. The issue seemed decided.

  It became an eerie, almost slow-motion sequence for Cadderly as he watched Barjin maneuvering into position. Was this the moment of his death? What then of Danica and Ivan and Pikel?

  The flap of wings sounded by the door. Cadderly, too engrossed with his own dilemma, hardly took note, but Barjin did glance around.

  Seeing his opening, Cadderly rolled away as fast as he could. Barjin easily could have caught up to him, but the priest seemed more concerned with the unexpected appearance of his missing imp.

  "Where have you been?" Barjin demanded. Stripped of his vestments and weapon, ragged and beaten, the priest's words did not carry much authority.

  Druzil didn't even answer. He floated across to the brazier, pausing only to scoop up Barjin's necromancer's stone.

  "Put it back!" Barjin roared. "You play a dangerous game, imp."

  Druzil considered the stone, then the priest, then moved to the brazier. His gaze again drifted back to the closed bottle, but if he was considering a try for it, he quickly thought better of it. The enraged Barjin, if not the young priest, surely would strike him down if he went within reach.

  "I will protect it," Druzil offered, holding up the stone. "And the bottle?"

  "You will run and hide!" Barjin retorted sharply. "You think me beaten?"

  Druzil shrugged, his wings nearly burying his head with the action.

  "Stay and watch, cowardly imp," Barjin proclaimed. "Watch as I regain my victory and finish off this pitiful library."

  Druzil hesitated for a long moment, considering the offer. "I prefer a safer haven," he announced. "I will return when things are under your control."

  "Leave the stone!" Barjin commanded.

  Druzil's smile revealed much to the priest. The imp clutched the powerful necromancer's stone all the tighter and dropped his powder into the burning brazier. The magical fire flashed and burned with a bluish hue, and Druzil casually stepped through the reopened gate.

  "Coward!" Barjin cried. "I will win this day. I will loose Tuanta Quiro Miancay again, and you, cowardly imp, will no longer be treated as an ally!"

  His threats were lost in the crackle of the brazier's flames.

  Barjin spun back on Cadderly, now standing around on the other side of the altar, opposite the priest. "You can still save yourself and your friends," Barjin purred, suddenly friendly. "Join me. Open the bottle once more. The power you will realize ..."

  Cadderly saw through the lie and cut the priest short, though Barjin's sudden charm was effective enough to be shocking. "You need me to open it because you cannot, because it must be opened by one who is not allied with your god," he reasoned.

  Barjin's curved smile did not diminish.

  "How can I agree, then?" Cadderly asked him. "To do so would be to join with you, but would that not ally me with your designs and with your god? Would that not break the conditions?"

  Cadderly thought himself quite clever, thought that his logic had cornered the priest, as Barjin mulled the words over. When Barjin looked back at him, his eyes shining fiercely, Cadderly knew that he had thought wrong.

  "Not if you open the bottle for a better reason," Barjin said, turning to view Danica and the dwarves, "to save the woman perhaps." Barjin took a step away.

  All fear flew from Cadderly at that moment. He jumped out from behind the altar, meaning to intercept Barjin, determined to stop the priest at any cost. He stopped suddenly, eyes widening in horror.

  Another being had entered the room, one that Cadderly had seen before.

  Barj
in's reaction was just the opposite of Cadderly's. He swung the axe high above his head victoriously, feeling that his base of power was returning, that his fortunes had turned back for the better. "I had thought you destroyed," he said to the scorched mummy.

  Khalif, the less than complete spirit, savaged and removed from all sense of sanity, did not respond.

  "What are you doing?" the evil priest demanded as the mummy stalked in. Barjin swiped with the axe, hoping to keep the monster at bay, but the mummy simply slapped the weapon from his hand.

  "Halt!" Barjin cried. "You must obey me!"

  Khalif had other ideas. Before Barjin could say anything else, a heavy arm slammed into the side of his head and sent him tumbling to the wall by the brazier.

  Barjin knew his doom. The mummy was out of control, crazed with pain and rage. It hated all life, hated Barjin for bringing it back from its rest. With all that had happened, both to Barjin and to the mummy, the priest's domination was no more.

  Barjin looked desperately to the table where he had left the necromancer's stone, the one item that might aid him now against this undead foe. Then he remembered, and he cursed Druzil's abrupt departure.

  He propped himself up against the wall and looked about desperately. To his right loomed the burning brazier, the gate reopened but not an escape route for a being of the material plane. To Barjin's left, though, was Pikel's impromptu doorway, an exit to the tunnels beyond the room.

  He tried to rise, but a throbbing pain in his head dropped him back to his knees. Undaunted, Barjin began to crawl. Before he could get to the hole, though, the mummy cut him off and slammed him again into the wall. Barjin had no defense against the ensuing onslaught. He raised his one functioning arm, but the mummy's heavy blows snapped it aside.

  Cadderly stood very still beside the altar, consciously telling himself to take some action. The fear gripped him, but he at last overcame it by conjuring an image of the mummy's next move after finishing off Barjin. Danica was the next closest target.

  He took his crossbow in hand and loaded it, seeking some way to get the monster off the priest. Cadderly had no love for the man, and he held no hopes that helping Barjin might bring some mutually beneficial compromise, but despite the fact that Barjin was his enemy, he could not let the human be killed by this undead monster.

  Another problem presented itself as Cadderly leveled his bow for a shot. The imp's passage had reopened the inter-planar gate, and now some lower plane denizen had found its way in. A hideous face appeared in the flames, obscure, but huge, and growing more tangible with each passing second.

  Cadderly instinctively lined his crossbow up with this newest intruder, but then swung it back at the mummy, realizing that it was his most pressing problem.

  Another scorch mark appeared on the mummy's rotted linen; another jolt shook the monster, but the scabrous thing did not turn away from Barjin. The priest managed once to stand up, only to be immediately pounded back to the floor.

  A huge black wing tip came out the side of the brazier fire. Cadderly nearly lost his breath; the creature forming in the flames was monstrous, much larger than the imp.

  Cadderly loaded and fired again at the mummy. Another hit, and now, with Barjin offering no resistance, the mummy wheeled about.

  Cadderly felt that paralyzing fear welling in him again, but he did not let it slow his practiced movements. He had used more than half his darts and had no idea if he had enough remaining to finally defeat this undead thing, had no idea if his attacks were even causing any real damage to the monster.

  Again, he refused to let his fears slow him. Another dart whistled out at the mummy. This one did not explode, but dove through a hole created by a previous dart and cut right through the tattered linen bindings.

  At first Cadderly was more concerned with getting another dart fitted; he knew that his miss would allow the monster to close, but then he heard Barjin grunt.

  The dart thudded into the chest of the sitting priest. The next interminable second ended with the noise that Cadderly now dreaded, for the dart had enough remaining momentum to collapse and explode.

  The mummy took a step out, giving Cadderly a view of the priest. Barjin lay nearly flat. Only his head and shoulders remained propped against the wall. He gasped and clutched the hole in his chest, his eyes unblinking, though he seemed not to see anything, not to be aware of anything beyond his own demise. He gasped again, a gout of blood bursting from his mouth, and then he lay still.

  Cadderly did not even think of his movements. His mind seemed to disengage from his body, to give way to his own instincts for survival and his own boiling rage at what he had done. He took up his water skin under his free arm, popped off the cap, and drove the mummy back toward the wall with a steady stream of blessed water.

  The liquid hissed as it struck the evilly enchanted linen, etching blackened scars. The mummy issued a loud, outraged roar and tried to cover up, but it had no way to block the small but painful stream.

  In the brazier, a hideous face was clear now, leering hungrily at Cadderly. Cadderly thought to defeat both foes with a single attack. He angled his water skin, seeking to drive the mummy into the flames, perhaps to topple the brazier and dose the gate.

  The mummy did indeed recoil from the spray, but if it feared the blessed water, it feared the open flames even more. Try as he might, Cadderly could not force it too near the burning gate.

  He apparently was doing some damage, but Cadderly could not afford this stalemate. He was running out of water; then what might he use to finish off the mummy? And if that monster came through the gate ... .

  Helplessly, Cadderly fumbled to keep up the stream and to load another dart. He lifted his crossbow toward the mummy, trying to find a vital area beyond its blocking arms. What area, he wondered helplessly, might be the most vulnerable? The eyes? The heart?

  The water skin was empty. The mummy stood straight.

  "Last shot," Cadderly muttered resignedly. He started to pull on the trigger, then, as he had with Barjin earlier in the fight, he noticed another possibility.

  Pikel's charge through the wall had caused tremendous structural damage. The hole in the brickwork was fully four feet wide and half that again high, nearly reaching the beamed ceiling. One crossbeam, directly above the hole, balanced precariously on a cracked support. Cadderly moved his arm in that direction and fired.

  The dart smacked into the wood at the joint between cross-beam and support, exploding into a small fireball, sending splinters everywhere. The crossbeam slipped, but, still attached at its other end, it swung down like a pendulum.

  The mummy took only one short step from the wall before the beam slammed into it, driving it sidelong. It pitched into the brazier, taking the fiery tripod and bowl right over with it. The hideous image of the otherworldly denizen disappeared in a huge fireball. Flames engulfed the mummy, eagerly devouring its layered cloth wrappings. It managed to stagger to its feet―Cadderly wondered with horror if it might survive even this―but then it crumbled and was consumed.

  Without the enchanted brazier, the gate was closed, and gone, too, was Barjin's greatest undead monster. The flames flared a couple of times, then burned very low, leaving the smoky room in the dimness of low-burning torches.

  Cadderly understood that victory was within his grasp, but he hardly felt in the mood for rejoicing. Newander lay dead at his feet, others had died upstairs, and, perhaps most disconcerting of all to the young scholar, no longer an innocent, he had killed a man.

  Barjin remained propped against the wall, his lifeless eyes staring out at Cadderly, holding the defenseless young priest in an accusing gaze.

  Cadderly's arm drooped to his side and the crossbow fell to the floor.

  Out of the Mist

  Cadderly so desperately wanted to close those eyes! He willed himself to go over to the dead priest and turn his head away, get that accusing stare off him, but it was an impotent command, and Cadderly knew it. He had not the strength to
go anywhere near Barjin. He moved a few short steps to the side, to get to Danica, but looked back and imagined that the dead priest's eyes followed him still.

  Cadderly wondered if they would forever.

  He slammed his fist on the floor, trying to shake free of the guilt, to accept the priest's stare as a necessary price that he must pay. Events had dictated his actions, he reminded himself, and he determinedly told himself to foster no regrets.

  He jumped defensively when a small form suddenly darted in through the opening beside the priest, then managed a weak smile as Percival climbed up him and sat atop his shoulder, cluttering and complaining as always. Cadderly patted the squirrel between the ears with a single finger―he needed to do that―then went to his friends.

  Danica seemed to be sleeping quite peacefully. She would not wake, though, to Cadderly's call or shake. He found both dwarves in similar states, their thunderous snores complimenting each other in strange rock-grating harmony. Pikel's snores, in particular, sounded contented.

  Cadderly grew worried. He had believed the battle won―finally―but why couldn't he wake his friends? How long would they sleep? Cadderly had heard of curses that caused slumber for a thousand years, or until certain conditions had been met, however long that might take.

  Perhaps the battle wasn't yet won. He went back to the altar and examined the bottle. It seemed harmless enough now, to the naked eye, so Cadderly decided to look deeper. He moved his thoughts through a series of relaxation exercises that slipped him into a semimeditative trance. The mist was fast dissipating, that much he could tell, and no more was emanating from the stoppered bottle. That gave Cadderly hope; perhaps the slumber would last until the mist was gone.

  The bottle itself, though, did not appear completely neutralized. Cadderly sensed a life, an energy, within it, a pulsating evil, contained but not destroyed. It might have been only his imagination, or perhaps what he thought was a life-force was merely a manifestation of his own fears. Cadderly honestly wondered if the remaining flickers within that bottle were playing some role in the lingering mist. The evil priest had called the mist the Most Fatal Horror, an agent of Talona. Cadderly recognized the name of the vile goddess, and the title, normally reserved for Talona's highest-ranking clerics. This mist was indeed some sort of god-stuff, a simple stopper would not suffice.