The Cleric Quintet: Night Masks
Chapter Twenty

 
"It was a fight, ye . . ." Ivan began to protest, but he threw his thick hands up in disgust, snorted, "Bah!" and stomped away. A few strides off, beyond the nearest corner of the house, he caught sight of the lone living Night Mask, wedged tightly in the kitchen window and no longer struggling against the pressing weight.
"There ye go, lad," the dwarf bellowed. "Me brother held out some mercy for yer foolhardy wishes." The other three moved over to join Ivan, to see what the dwarf had discovered.
"What'U ye do with him?" Ivan asked Cadderly when the young priest saw the trapped man. "Do ye have some questions ye need to ask this one? Or are ye going to give him to the city guard, ye merciful fool?"
Cadderly regarded the dwarf curiously, not understanding Ivan's anger. His ensuing question sounded clearly as an accusation. "Are you so eager to kill?"
"What do ye think the city guard'U do with him?" Ivan balked. "Ye forgetting yer fat friend, sprawled across a table with his heart cut out? And what of them that lived in this place? Do ye think the fanner and his family'll be coming back anytime soon?"
Cadderly averted his gaze, stung by the honest words. He preferred mercy, hated killing, but he could not deny Ivan's observations.
"Ye bring us out here and ask us to fight with half our hearts " Ivan blustered, spittle glistening the bottom edges of his thick mustache. "If ye're thinking that I'm one to risk me own neck to give a few more days of life to that scum, then ye're thinking wrong!"
Confusion dictated Cadderly's next move. He brought the song up in the recesses of his mind, heard the flow of Deneirian magic, and found a point where he could join in that sweet river. He had stepped fully into the spirit world several times - in Shilmista Forest, to bid farewell to Elbereth's gallant horse; in the Dragon's Codpiece, to find Brennan's wandering spirit and learn the truth of Avery's heavenly bliss - and now he found the journey short and not so difficult.
As soon as he arrived, as soon as the material world faded into indistinct grayness behind him, he heard the desperate screams of lost souls.
Leaving his corporeal body standing with his unknowing friends, Cadderly willed his spirit toward the corpse lying in the road, the man Danica had shot from the horse. The young priest ended his trek abruptly, though, terrified by the images. Huddled, shadowy things, shapes akin to those growling pools of darkness he had seen on the shoulders of evil men, encircled the doomed assassin's spirit. The dead man noticed Cadderly then and looked to him desperately.
Help me, came his silent plea.
Cadderly did not know what to do. The growling, shadowy things tightened their ring, dark claws reaching out for their victim.
Help me!
Cadderly willed his spirit toward the man, but something, his fears, perhaps, or his knowledge that it was not his place to interfere, held the young priest's spirit firmly in place.
Shadows grabbed the doomed assassin. He twisted and jerked about frantically, but the dark grip did not relent, did not release him.
Help me! The cry tore at Cadderly's heart, horrified him and filled him with sorrow all at once.
The shadows melted into the ground, taking the man's spirit with them. Only the spirit's legs remained visible, kicking futilely.
Then they, too, were gone, pulled down to eternal hell.
Cadderly found himself back in his corporeal form, his eyes open wide, sweat beaded on his forehead.
"What're ye thinking?" Ivan demanded.
"Maybe I was wrong," Cadderly admitted, looking at Danica as he spoke the words, looking for judgment in her knowing gaze.
Danica grabbed him by the arm and put her head on his shoulder. She understood the trial Cadderly had just undergone, the realization once again that war precipitated cruel actions, that their survival against this unmerciful foe demanded a resolve equally vicious.
"But he goes back to the town," Cadderly went on firmly, pointing to the man trapped in the window. "The city guard will decide his fate. He cannot harm us now, and we have no cause to kill him."
Ivan, deadly in battle but certainly no merciless killer, readily agreed. He and Pikel immediately started for the man.
"Not now," Cadderly called to them, turning them about. "Will the window hold him?"
The dwarves turned to study the broken structure.
"For a hunnerd years," Ivan decided.
"Hee hee hee," Pikel chuckled and patted his trusty club, the compliments to his mighty clubbing bringing a blush to his cherubic, fuzzy cheeks.
"Then let it hold him," Cadderly said to them. "We have other business." The young priest turned and nodded to the barn door, realizing that his spell of whirling blades would not last. If they did not get to the giant soon, they would likely wind up in yet another fight.
On Cadderly's command, Ivan and Pikel each took hold of one of the barn doors and pulled it wide. The dwarves remained behind the doors, out of sight, for Cadderly knew that most giants were not particularly fond of the bearded folk and that the sight of the brothers might send this one into a rage that would be quieted only by the monster's death.
Vander wasn't up for any fight, though. Vander wasn't up at all. He lay on his back, helpless below the magically conjured blades. The firbolg lifted his head at the sound of the opening doors and looked across his prone form to see Cadderly and Danica regarding him.
Cadderly studied the giant intently, studied the forms on Vander's shoulders. He saw again the wide mountains, the great boat in the iceberg-dotted bay, and he knew that this was the same being (the same spirit at least) the assassin had switched bodies with when Cadderly and the others had cornered the evil little man.
"I will release you," the young priest promised, "on your word that you will attack neither me nor my companions."
%nder growled at him.
"By my estimation, we have no quarrel with you, mighty giant" Cadderly went on, "and we want none. It may be that I can aid you in your struggle."
The growling stopped, replaced by an honestly perplexed expression.
"Aid it?" Ivan bellowed from behind the shielding door. "Ye didn't say nothing about aiding any stupid giant!" Before Cadderly could react, the dwarf stormed around the barn door, axe in hand, Pikel rushing in from the other side to join him.
"Ivan!" Cadderly started, but Pikel's sincere, "Oo oi!" and the look of amazement on Ivan's face stopped the young priest completely.
"Let him up," Ivan snapped at Cadderly, giving the man a push. "Ye got no cause to keep one o' his kind in the dirt!"
"Wfell met, good dwarves " the giant said unexpectedly. Danica and Cadderly exchanged stunned stares and helpless shrugs, Danica blowing away a lock of her hair and blinking.
"Let him up, I say!" Ivan demanded, pushing Cadderly once more. "Can't ye see the flames of his beard?"
Cadderly mouthed the words silently as he regarded the prone giant, wondering what the red color of this one's beard had to do with Ivan's apparent approval of the monster. Cadderly had seen Ivan and Pikel go after giants with wild abandon in Shilmista Forest. What made this one so different?
"He ain't no giant," Ivan explained.
"He looks pretty big to me," the disbelieving Danica remarked.
"He's a firbolg," Ivan answered impatiently, "a friend o' the land - and a friend of the elves. \\fe'Il forgive him that, since firbolgs and dwarves get on well, too."
Ivan seemed to be winding up for a long dissertation on the subject of firbolgs, and would have continued, but Cadderly motioned for him to stop, needing nothing further. The images, the aurora of this strange giant, made perfect sense to Cadderly now, and he understood, too, beyond any doubts, why one of this being's honorable weal would be in league with an evil wretch.
The giant was a prisoner.
A wave of Cadderly's hand removed the magical blades. Vander growled at the indignity of it all, took up his huge sword, and got to his feet. For a moment, it seemed to Cadderly and Danica that the monster would attack, but Ivan and Pikel, nodding and smiling, walked right into the barn and struck up a conversation - in a voluminous, grumbling language that sounded like the roll of boulders down a rocky mountainside.
The giant, talking with the dwarves, kept his sword up in front of him and seemed even more nervous when Cad-derly and Danica joined their companions.
"He's not to trusting us," Ivan whispered to Cadderly. Then, louder, he announced, "His name's Vander."
"If we had wanted you dead, I would have lowered the blades," Cadderly reasoned.
Finder's thick lips curled back, his giant teeth showing white through the red tresses of his beard.
"Don't ye insult the thing!" Ivan warned harshly. "Don't ye ever tell a firbolg that ye could've beaten it unless ye've already beaten it!"
"Where are my associates?" Vander demanded, his huge sword hovering in the air only a few short strides from the companions. Cadderly realized then that the fir-bolg could probably take one great step forward and cut him in half before he even began to form a defense - and what defense could Cadderly put up against so monstrous a beast, anyway?
"They are dead, except for one/' Cadderly answered as firmly as he could, determined to show no signs of weakness, though he was less than confident of how the giant would take the news.
Vander nodded, seeming none too upset.
It was a good sign, Cadderly noted, a piece of the puzzle that fit exactly. "I came here to find you," the young priest explained, "to speak with you about our common enemy."
There, he had put things out in the open. His three friends stared at him, still not in the know about Cadderly's revelations.
"Ghost," %nder replied. "His name is Ghost." Danica and the dwarves looked to each other and shrugged.
"Together we can beat him," Cadderly promised.
%nder snickered, a curious sound indeed, coming from the giant. "You know little of him, Cadderly," he replied.
"I am stiH alive," Cadderly argued, not surprised at all that the giant had figured out his identity. "Can the same be said for most of Ghost's associates?"
"You know little of him," Vander said again.
"Then tell me."
Cadderly bade his Mends to clean up the yard and set a watch from the house. The companions, particularly Danica, didn't seem anxious to leave their friend beside a dangerous giant, but Vander said something to the dwarves in that mountain language, and Ivan immediately took hold of Danica's arm.
"He gave me his word," Ivan explained. "A firbolg never breaks his word." Cadderly's nod further assured his concerned lover, and she left with the dwarves, looking back over her shoulder every step of the way.
"\fou should be wary," %nder said as soon as the others had left.
Cadderly looked at him curiously, wondering if the giant had just threatened him.
"I will not go against what I have promised," Vander assured him, "but Ghost can take my body when he chooses, and you would be an easy kill if your guard was down."
"Then we must act quickly," Cadderly replied, no tremble in his voice. "I know Ghost took your body and left you in his boots when we had cornered him in the inn. And I know, too, that the possession can be blocked."
Vander shook his head doubtfully.
"Danica, the woman you just met, blocked him," Cadderly replied. "Together, you and I can do the same. I have spells, and this." He held up the amulet he had taken from Rufo in Shilmista Forest, the imp's amulet that Cadderly had claimed as his own, that allowed the young priest to easily contact the mind of another. "The amulet will allow me to join with you in your struggle."
Vander eyed him suspiciously, but Cadderly could see he had at least intrigued the beleaguered giant.
They talked for a short while longer, then went to the farmhouse to coordinate the defenses with the others. They found the dwarves hard at work freeing the captured Night Mask from the broken window.
The man at last slipped back to the kitchen floor, shakily finding his feet. He would have offered no resistance, so obviously outnumbered, except that he spotted Vander out of the corner of his eye, standing beside the outside door. With a jerk, the man pulled free of Ivan's halfhearted hold, punched the surprised dwarf in the eye, and rushed for the door.
"Master!" he cried hopefully.
"That one's going to be trouble," Ivan muttered.
There came a great swoosh as Vander's sword cut the air and cut the man's torso cleanly in half.
"Nope," Pikel said to Ivan, both of the tough dwarves wincing at the gruesome sight.
under shrugged against the stunned stares that lingered on him from every direction. "If you knew him as well as I," the firbolg explained, his tone casual, "you would have killed him long before now."
"Not like that," Ivan protested, "not when me and me brother got to clean the mess up!"
Cadderly closed his eyes and fell back out of the room, back to the relative clean of the wider yard. He wondered if he would ever get as accustomed to such violence as his sturdy, battle-hardened companions.
He hoped he would not.
Finder took the companions to the graves of the murdered farm family, explaining grimly that he had, at least, forced the assassins to properly bury the victims.
Danica looked quizzically at Cadderly, and the young priest knew she was wondering if he meant to go straight after the spirits of the departed, to resurrect the family.
Cadderly shook his head, more a gesture for himself than to Danica. Such actions were not so simple, he knew, and he did not have time to make an attempt. Also, Cadderly, still bone-weary from his exhausting use of magic over the previous two days, was determined to save what little power remained in him. Confident that he would soon be tested again, the young priest decided to open himself to the song only when absolutely necessary.
Besides, the horrible memories of the shadowy things pulling the assassins' doomed souls to eternal torment were too fresh in Cadderly's mind for him to want a return trip to the realm of the dead.
That afternoon, the farm was quiet once more, showing no signs that any trouble had occurred.
Watching the fast-westering sun, Cadderly led the firbolg back to the barn. If Ghost was coming for Vander, telepath-ically or physically, it might wen happen soon.
Cadderly set his spindle-disks spinning, let their crystalline center catch the lamplight and disperse it into a myriad of dancing shapes and flickers. The willing giant slipped into the hold of the mesmerizing crystal and let Cadderly into his thoughts. Vander put a hand into his pocket and clutched at the amulet Cadderly had given him, as though the closer contact would improve the joining of their minds. A short while later, Cadderly sat quiet, out of sight, in one of the small stalls within the barn, enjoying the majestic images playing in his mind at the firbolg's mental recounting of his frosty, rugged homeland.
Layers of Treachery
The call drifted on the silent winds of the dimension where dwelled only the mind. It drifted in-
exorably toward the farm on the outskirts of
Carradoon and the firbolg that had served for so
JL long as this caller's waiting vessel.
Cadderly sensed the fear in the unseen giant, knew that Ghost had come a-calling.
Stand easy, the young priest imparted telepathically to Vander. Do not let your fear or your anger block me from our joining.
Cadderly knew that the profound fear, far beyond what he would have expected from a mighty and proud giant, had not diminished, but Vander mentally reached back to him, strengthening their bond.
Ghost's call meandered in; Cadderly drove it away.
Vander? the distant assassin questioned.
Like a mirror, Cadderly offered no response other than to turn the telepathic question back on the winds.
Anger. Cadderly felt that above all else. The young priest smiled in spite of the importance of his task, pleased by the confirmation that he had somewhat unnerved the little assassin.
Then the call was no more, but Cadderly, suspecting the killer who had been so dogged in pursuing him would not give up this important link so easily, did not let his guard down.
Vander hissed; Cadderly heard it distinctly.
"Fight!" the young priest cried, aloud and mentally. Ivan and Pikel moved to the stall door, weapons ready, as Cad-deity had instructed. If the assassin found his way into Aider's identity, the dwarves would set upon him before he could sort out his surroundings.
But Cadderly had no intention of letting Ghost in, not while the trickster had his body as an open escape route, safely away in Carradoon. The young priest conjured an image of the spinning spindle-disks, shared it with Vander, and together they studied the hypnotic dance, remembered the specific defensive chants Cadderly had taught the giant.
Other, more evil sensations assaulted them, cluttered their space with the anger of another will. Cadderly prayed that Ghost would not understand the joining, would not realize that Vander had an ally beside him.
Cadderly watched and chanted, and the firbolg, though his anger rose dangerously, managed to keep Cadderly in his mind.
Together, they drove the would-be possessor away.
"You defy me?" Ghost asked in the dark alleyway. Above anything else, the assassin, vulnerable without Vander, knew this type of defiance could not be tolerated. Vander was his out, his desperate escape from any situation. He could not allow the firbolg to somehow, somewhere, find the strength to turn his distant intrusions away.
Somehow? Somewhere?
The little assassin breathed a deep sigh. What was going on at the farm? he wondered. He feared that Cadderly might be involved, but how could that be? Certainly Van-der, if an attack had come, would have called out to Ghost? Might Cadderly and his friends have taken the farm so quickly that the firbolg never got the chance?
Ghost dismissed the thought. Vander was still alive; Ghost had recognized the receptacle at the other end of his telepathic call. He told himself he was being paranoid, a dangerous state of mind for a killer living on the edge of artistry and disaster, \ander had denied him before, after aH, from a distance, where the Ghearufu's power was not quite the same.
In a few hours, Ghost could call upon the firbolg again and get back in. Vander would not be able to keep up his mental defenses for very long. An evil grin spread across the wicked man's face as he considered the boundless possibilities for punishment.
The smile did not last long. His mind was clouded by doubts. Things were too unusual this time, and there was simply too much at stake for Ghost to readily accept that %nder had found a moment of strength to keep him out. The assassin had not located Cadderly and the young priest's friends in many hours.
"To the farm," the assassin decided quietly. He would go to the farm, punish Finder, and regroup his forces.
He slipped out of the alleyway and approached an armed man sitting comfortably on a fine horse.
"bur pardon, gentle sir," Ghost said meekly to the city guardsman. The assassin was wearing his mismatched gloves. No need to take chances.
Up on the farmhouse roof, wearing the black-and-silver domino mask and nondescript clothes of a Night Mask,
with the cowl of a black cloak pulled low, Danica watched the riders - two men on one horse - moving steadily down the road. The monk leveled her crossbow when the two entered the farmyard. She recognized the man on the back as the same assassin they had found at the Dragon's Codpiece. Danica's first instincts, her initial anger, prompted her to shoot the man from the horse, but Cadderly had warned her against such actions, warned her that the man might not be what he seemed.
Another factor urged Danica to hold her shot: the man in control of the horse wore the uniform of a Carradoon guardsman.
"He is a friend," the assassin on the back of the horse called out, seeing Danica atop the roof.
Danica smiled under the cowl, glad that her disguise had apparently fooled the pair.
"Friend," the guardsman said. He brought the horse into the yard, said something Danica could not hear to the other man, and dismounted, heading straight for the barn.
Danica was confused and worried. Cadderly had expected the weakling assassin to come in and confront Vander, not bring a city guardsman. She still held tight to her crossbow, still wanted to put a quarrel into the evil little man's androgenous face.