R. A. Salvatore - The Fallen Fortress

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To Nancy, for showing true courage.
THE FALLEN FORTRESS
Copyright ©1993 TSR. Inc. Afl Rights Reserved.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.
this book is protected under the copyright laws of the United Steles of America. Any reproduction
or unauthorized use of die material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without me express
written permission of TSR, inc.
Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide distribution rights in the book trade for
English language products of TSR, Inc.
Distributed to die book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR Ltd. Distributed to the toy
and hobby trade by regional distributors. Cover art by Jeff Easley.
FORGOTTEN REALMS is a registered trademark owned by TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is a trademark owned by
TSR, Inc. All TSR characters and the distinctive likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by TSR
Inc.
First Printing: June 1993.
Printed in the United Sates of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-61090
987654321
ISBN: 1-560764193
TSR Inc.
P.O. Box 756
Lake Geneva, Wl 53147
U.SA
TSR Ltd.
120 Church End, Cherry Hinton Cambridge CB13LB United Kingdom
r
i iNCi) = 30 Miles
Castle CKiNfty
Aballister walked along Lakeview Street in Car-radoon, the wizard's black cloak wrapped tight
against his skin-and-bones body to ward off the wintry blows whipping in from Impresk Lake. He had
been in Carradoon less than a day, but had already learned of the wild events at the Dragon's
Codpiece. Cadderly, his estranged son and neme-sis, had apparently escaped the assassin band
Aballister had sent to kill him.
Aballister chuckled at the thought a wheezing sound from lips withered by decades of uttering
frantic enchantments, channeling so many tingling energies into destructive purposes. Cadderly had
escaped? Aballister mused, as though the thought was preposterous. Cadderly had done more than
escape. With his friends, the young priest had obliterated the Night Mask contingent, more than
twenty professional killers, and had also slain Bogo Rath, Aballister's second underling in the
strict hierarchy of Castle Trinity.
2 R. A. Satvatore
All the common folk of Carradoon were talking about the exploits of the young priest from the
Edificant Library. They were beginning to whisper that Cadderly might be their hope in these dark
times.
Cadderly had become more than a minor problem for Aballister.
The wizard took no fatherly pride in his son's exploits. Aballister had designs on the region,
intentions to conquer it given to him by the avatar of the evil goddess Talona. Just the previous
spring, those intentions appeared easy to fulfill, with Castle Trinity's force swelling to over
eight thousand warriors, wizards and Talonan priests included. But then Cadderly had unexpectedly
stopped Barjin, the mighty priest who had gone after the heart of the region's goodly strength,
the Edificant Library. The following season, Cadderly had led the elves of Shilmista Forest in the
west to a stunning victory over the goblinoid and giantkin forces, chasing a sizable number of
Castle Trinity's minions back to their mountain holes.
Even the Night Masks, possibly the most dreaded assassin band in the central Realms, had not been
able to stop Cadderly. Now winter was fast approaching, the first snows had already descended over
the region, and Castle Trinity's invasion of Carradoon would have to wait
The afternoon light had grown dim when Aballister turned south on the Boulevard of the Bridge,
passing through the low wooden buildings of the lakeside town. He crossed through the open gates
of the city's cemetery and cast a simple spell to locate the unremarkable grave of Bogo Rath. He
waited for the night to fully engulf the land, drew a few runes of protection in the snow and mud
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around the grave, and pulled his cloak up tighter against the deathly cold.
When the lights of the city went down and the streets grew quiet, the wizard began his
incantation, his summons to the netherworld. It went on for several minutes, with Aballister
attuning his mind to the shadowy region between
The Fallen Fortress 3
the planes, attempting to meet the summoned spirit halfway. He ended the spell with a simple call:
"Bogo Rath."
The wind seemed to focus around the withered wizard, collecting the nighttime mists in a swirling
pattern, enshrouding the ground above the grave.
The mists parted suddenly, and the apparition stood before Aballister. Though less than corporeal,
it appeared quite like Aballister remembered the young Bogo—straight and stringy hair flipped to
one side, eyes darting inquisitively, suspiciously, one way and the other. There was one
difference, though, something that made even hardy Aballister wince. A garish wound split the
middle of Bogo's chest Even in the near darkness, Aballister could see past the apparition's ribs
and lungs to its spectral backbone.
"An axe," Bogo's mournful, drifting voice explained. He placed a less-than-tangible hand into the
wound and flashed a gruesome smile. "Would you like to feel?"
Aballister had dealt with conjured spirits a hundred times and knew that he could not feel the
wound even if he wanted to, knew that this was simply an apparition, the last physical image of
Bogo's torn body. The spirit could not harm the wizard, could not even touch the wizard, and by
the binding power of Aballister's magical summons, it would answer truthfully a certain number of
Aballister's questions. Still, Aballister unconsciously winced again and took a cautious step
backward, revolted by the thought of putting his hand in that wound.
"Cadderly and his friends killed you," Aballister began.
"Yes," Bogo answered, though Aballister's words had been a statement, not a question. The wizard
silently berated himself for being so foolish. He would only be allowed a certain number of
inquiries before the dweomer dissipated and the spirit was released. He reminded himself that he
must take care to word his statements so that they could not be interpreted as questions.
"I know that Cadderly and his friends killed you, and I know that they eliminated the assassin
band," he declared.
4 R. A. Salvatore
The apparition seemed to smile, and Aballister was not certain whether the clever thing was
baiting him to waste another question or not The wizard wanted to go on with the intended leading
conversation, but he couldn't resist that bait
"Are all..." he began slowly, trying to find the quickest way to discern the fate of the entire
assassin band. Aballister wisely paused, deciding to be as specific as possible and end this part
of the discussion efficiently. "Which of the assassins still live?"
"Only one," Bogo answered obediently. "A traitorous fir-bolg named Vander."
Again, the inescapable bait "Traitorous?" Aballister repeated. "Has this Vander joined with our
enemies?"
"Yes—and yes."
Damn, Aballister mused. Complications. Always there seemed to be complications where his
troublesome son was concerned.
"Have they gone for the library?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Will they come for Castle Trinity?"
The spirit, beginning to fade away, did not answer, and Aballister realized that he had erred, for
he had asked the apparition a question which required supposition, a question which could not, at
that time, be positively answered.
"You are not dismissed!" the wizard cried, trying desperately to hold onto the less than corporeal
thing. He reached out with hands that slipped right through Bogo's fading image, reached out with
thoughts that found nothing to grasp.
Aballister stood alone in the graveyard. He understood that Bogo's spirit would come back to him
when it found the definite answer to the question. But when would that be? Aballister wondered.
And what further mischief would Cadderly and his friends cause before Aballister found the
information he needed to put an end to that troublesome group?
The Fallen Fortress 5
"Hey, you there!" came a call from the boulevard, followed by the sounds of boots clapping against
the cobblestone. "Who's in the cemetery after nightfall? Hold where you are!"
Aballister hardly took notice of the two city guardsmen who rushed through the cemetery gate,
spotting him and making all haste toward him. The wizard was thinking of Bogo, of dead Barjin,
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once Castle Trinity's most powerful cleric, and of dead Ragnor, Castle Trinity's principle
fighter. More than that, the wizard was thinking of Cadderly, the perpetrator of ail his troubles.
The guardsmen were nearly upon Aballister when he began his chant He threw his arms out high to
the sides as they closed in and started to reach for him. A cry of the final, triggering rune sent
the two men flying wide, hurled through the air by the released power of the spell, as Aballister,
in the blink of an eye, sent his material body cascading back to his private room in Castle
Trinity.
The dazed city soldiers pulled themselves from the wet ground, looked to each other in disbelief,
and fled back through the cemetery gates, convinced that they would be better off if they
pretended that nothing at all had happened in the eerie graveyard.
Cadderly sat upon the flat roof of a jutting two-story section of the Edificant Library, watching
the sun spread its shining fingers across the plains east of the mountains. Other fingers
stretched down from the tall peaks all about Cadderly*s position to join those snaking up from the
grass. Mountain streams came alive, glittering silver, and the autumn foliage, brown and yellow,
red and brilliant orange, seemed to burst into flame.
Percival, the white squirrel, hopped along the roofs gutter when he caught sight of the young
priest, and Cadderly nearly laughed aloud when he regarded the squirrel's
6 R, A. Salvatore
eagerness to join him—a desire emanating from PercivaTs always grumbling belly, Cadderly knew. He
dropped his hand into a pouch on his belt and pulled out some cacasa nuts, scattering them at
Percival's feet
It all seemed so normal to the young priest, the same as it had always been. Percival skipped
happily among his favorite nuts, and the sun continued to climb, defeating the chill of late
autumn even this high up in the Snowflakes.
Cadderly saw through the facade, though. Things most certainly were not normal, not for the young
priest and not for the Edificant Ubrary. Cadderly had been on the road, in the elven wood of
Shilmista and in the town of Carradoon, fighting battles, learning firsthand the realities of a
harsh world, and learning, too, that the priests of the library, men and women he had looked up to
for his entire life, were not as wise or powerful as he had once believed.
The single notion that dominated young Cadderly's thoughts as he sat up there on the sunny roof
was that something had gone terribly wrong within his order of Deneir, and within the order of
Oghman priests, the brother hosts of the library. It seemed to Cadderly that procedure had become
more important than necessity, that the priests of the library had been paralyzed by mounds of
useless parchments when decisive action was needed.
And those rotting roots had sunk even deeper, Cadderly knew. He thought of Nameless, the pitiful
leper he had met on the road from Carradoon. Nameless had come to the library for help and had
found that the priests of Deneir and Oghma were, for the most part, more concerned with their own
failure to heal him than with the consequences of his grave affliction.
Yes, Cadderly decided, something was very wrong at his precious library. He lay back on the gray,
slightly pitched roof and casually flipped another nut at the munching squirrel.
No Time for Guilt
The spirit heard the call from a distance, floating across the empty grayness of this reeking and
forlorn plane. The mournful notes said not a discernable word, and yet, to the spirit, they seemed
to speak his name.
Ghost. Clearly it called to him, beckoned him from the muck and mire of his eternal hell Ghost,
its melody called again. The wretch looked at the growling, huddled shadows all about him, wicked
souls, the remains of wicked people. He, too, was a growling shadow, a tormented thing, suffering
punishments for a life villainously lived.
But now he was being called, being carried from his torment on the notes of a familiar melody.
Familiar?
The thin thread that remained of ghost's living consciousness strained to better recall, to better
remember its life before this foul, empty existence. Ghost thought of sunlight, of shadows, of
killing....
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R. A. Satvatore
The Ghearuju! Evil Ghost understood. The Ghearuju, the magical item he had carried in life for so
many decades, was calling to him, was leading him back from the very hellfires!
"Cadderly! Cadderly!" wailed Vicero Belago, the Edifi-cant Library's resident alchemist, when he
saw the young priest and Danica at his door on the huge library's third floor. "My boy, it's so
good that you have returned to us!" The wiry man virtually hopped across his shop, weaving in and
out of tables covered with beakers and vials, dripping coils and stacks of thick books. He hit his
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target as Cadderly stepped into the room, throwing his arms about the sturdy young priest and
slapping him hard on the back.
Cadderly looked over Bel ago's shoulder to Danica and gave her a helpless shrug, which she
returned with a wink of an exotic brown eye and a wide, pearly smile.
"We heard that some killers came after you, my boy," Belago explained, putting Cadderly back to
arm's length and studying him as though he expected to find an assassin's dagger protruding from
Cadderly's chest. "I feared (hat you would never return." The alchemist also gave Cadderly's upper
arms a squeeze, apparently amazed at how solid and strong the young priest had become in the short
time he had been gone from the library. Like a concerned aunt, Belago ran a hand up over
Cadderly's floppy brown hair, pushing the always unkempt locks back from the young man's face.
"I am all right," Cadderly replied calmly. "This is the house of Deneir, and I am a disciple of
Deneir. Why would I not return?"
His understatement had a calming effect on the excitable alchemist, as did the serene look in
Cadderly's gray eyes. Belago started to blurt out a reply, but stopped in midstut-ter and nodded
instead.
The Fallen Fortress 9
"Ah, and lady Danica," the alchemist went on. He reached out and gently stroked Danica's thick
tangle of strawberry-blond hair, his smile sincere.
Belago's grin disappeared almost immediately, though, and he dropped his arms to his sides and his
gaze to the floor.
"We heard about Headmaster Avery," he said softly, nodding his head up and down, his expression
clouded with sad resignation.
The mention of the portly Avery Schell, Cadderly's surrogate father, stung the young priest
profoundly. He wanted to explain to poor Belago that Avery"s spirit lived on with their god. But
how could he begin? Belago would not understand; no one who had not passed into the spirit world
and witnessed the divine and glorious sensation could understand. Against that ignorance, anything
Cadderly might say would sound like a ridiculous cliche, typical comforting words usually spoken
and heard without conviction.
"I received word that you wished to speak with me?" Cadderly said instead, raising his tone to
make the statement a question and thus shift the conversation.
"Yes," Belago answered softly. His head finally stopped bouncing, and his eyes widened when he
looked into the young priest's calming gray eyes. "Oh, yes!" he cried, as if he had just
remembered that fact "I did—of course I did!"
Obviously embarrassed, the wiry man hopped back across the shop to a small cabinet. He fumbled
with an oversized ring of keys, muttering to himself all the while.
"You have become a hero," Danica remarked, noting the man's movements.
Cadderly couldn't disagree with Danica's observation. Vicero Belago had never been overjoyed to
see the young priest before. Cadderly had always been a demanding customer, taxing Belago's
talents often beyond their limits. Because of a risky project that Cadderly had given the
alchemist, Belago's shop had once been blown apart
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R. A. Salvatore
That had been long ago, however, before the battle in Shilmista Forest, before Cadderly's exploits
in Carradoon, the city to the east on the banks of Impresk Lake.
Before Cadderty had become a hero.
Hero.
What a ridiculous title, the young priest thought He had done no more than Danica or either of the
dwarven brothers. Ivan and Pikel, in Carradoon. And he, unlike his sturdy friends, had run away
from the battle in Shilmista Forest, fled because he could not endure the horrors.
He looked down at Danica again, her brown-eyed gaze comforting him as only it could. How beautiful
she was, Cadderly noted, her frame as delicate as that of a newborn fawn and her hair tousled and
bouncing freely about her shoulders. Beautiful and untamed, he decided, and with an inner strength
clearly shining through those exotic, almond-shaped eyes.
Belago was back in front of him then, seeming nervous and holding both his hands behind his back.
"You left this here when you came back from the elven wood," he explained, drawing out his left
hand. He held a leather belt with a wide and shallow holster on one side that sported a hand-
crossbow.
"I had no idea that I would need it in peaceful Carradoon,'' Cadderly replied easily, taking the
belt and strapping it around his hips.
Danica eyed the young priest curiously. The crossbow had become a symbol of violence to Cadderly,
and a symbol of Cadderly's abhorrence of violence to those who knew him best To see him strap it
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on so easily, with an almost cavalier attitude, twisted Danica's heart
Cadderly sensed both the woman's gaze and her confusion. He forced himself to accept it thinking
that he would probably shatter many conceptions in the days ahead. For Cadderly had come to see
the dangers facing the Edificant Library in ways that others could not
"I saw that you had nearly exhausted your supply of the
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11
darts," Belago stammered. "I mean... there's no charge for this batch." He pulled his other hand
around, producing a bandolier filled with specially crafted bolts for the tiny crossbow. "I
figured I owed it to you—we all owe it to you, Cadderly."
Cadderly nearly laughed aloud at the absurd proclamation, but he respectfully held his control and
accepted the very expensive gift from the alchemist with a grave and approving nod. The darts were
special indeed, hollowed out in the center and fitted with a vial that Belago filled with volatile
Oil of Impact.
"My thanks for the gift," the young priest said. "Be assured that you have aided the cause of the
library in our continuing struggle against the evil of Castle Trinity."
Belago seemed pleased by that remark. Head bobbing once more, he accepted Cadderly's handshake
eagerly. He was still standing in the same place, smiling from ear to ear, as Cadderly and Danica
walked out into the hall
Cadderly could still sense Danica's continuing unease and could see the disappointment etched in
her features. The young priest's narrowing stare attacked that disappointment. "I have dismissed
the guilt because it has no place in me," was all the explanation he would offer. "Not now, not
with all that is left to be done. But I have not forgotten Barjin or that fateful day in the
catacombs."
Danica looked away down the hall, but hooked Cadderly's arm with her own, showing her trust in
him.
Another form, shapely and obviously feminine, entered the corridor as the pair moved toward
Danica's room at the southern end of the complex. Danica tightened her grip on Cadderly's arm at
the scent of an exotic and overpowering perfume.
"My greetings, handsome Cadderly," purred the shapely priestess in the crimson gown. "You cannot
imagine how pleased I am that you have returned."
Danica's grip nearly cut off Cadderly's blood flow; he felt his fingers tingling. He knew that his
face had blushed a
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R. A. Satvatore
deep scarlet, as reddish as Priestess Histra's revealing gown. He realized, sensibly, that this
was probably the most modest outfit he had ever seen the lusty priestess of Sune, the Goddess of
Love, wearing, but that did not make it modest by anyone else's standards. The front was cut in a
low V, so low that Cadderly felt he might glimpse Histra's navel if he got up on his toes, and
though the gown was long, its front slit was incredibly high, displaying all of Histra's shapely
leg when she brought one foot out in front of the other in her typically alluring stance.
Histra did not seem displeased by Cadderly's obvious discomfort or by Danica's growing scowl. She
bent one leg at the knee, her thigh slipping completely free of the gown's meager folds.
Cadderly heard himself gulp, didn't realize that he was gawking at the brazen display until
Danica's small fingernails dug deep lines into his upper arm.
"Do come and visit, dear young Cadderly," Histra purred. She looked disdainfully at the woman on
Cadderly's arm. "When you are not so tightly leashed, of course." Histra slowly, teasingly moved
into her room, the door's gentle click as she closed it lost beneath the sound of Cadderly's
repeated swallowing.
"I—* he stammered, at last looking Dariica in the eye.
Danica laughed and led him on down the hall. "Fear not," she said, her tone more than a little
condescending. "I understand your relationship with the priestess of Sune. She is quite pitiful,
actually."
Cadderly looked down at Danica, perplexed. If Danica was speaking the truth, then why had little
lines of blood begun their descent on his muscled arm?
"I am not jealous of Histra, certainly," Danica went on. "I trust you, with all my heart." Just
outside her room, she stopped and faced Cadderly squarely, one hand brushing the outline of his
face, the other tight about his waist
"I trust you," Danica said again.
"Besides," added the fiery young monk in very different,
Hie Fallen Fortress
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stronger tones as she turned into her room, "if anything romantic ever happened between you and
that single-minded, over-painted lump of too-too quivering flesh, I would put her nose somewhere
in back of one of her ears."
Danica abruptly disappeared into her room to retrieve the book of notes she and Cadderly had
prepared for their meeting with Dean Thobicus. The young priest remained in the hall, considering
the threat and privately laughing at how true it could be. Danica was fully a foot shorter than
he, and easily a hundred pounds lighter. She walked with the grace of a dancer—and fought with the
tenacity of a bee-stung bear.
The young priest was far from worried, though. Histra had spent all of her life in the practice of
being alluring, and she made no secret of her designs on Cadderly. But she hadn't a chance; not a
woman in the world had a chance of breaking Cadderly's bond with his Danica.
*****
A blackened, charred hand tore up through the newly turned earth, reaching desperately for the
open air above. A second arm, similarly charred and broken at a gruesome angle halfway between the
wrist and the elbow, followed, grasping at the mud, tearing at the natural prison that held the
wretched body.
Finally the creature found enough of a hold to pull his hairless head from the shallow grave, to
look again upon the world of the living.
The blackened head swiveled on a neck that was no more than skin shriveled tight to the bone,
surveying the scene. For a fleeting instant, the wretch wondered what had happened. How had he
been buried?
A short distance away, down a little hill, the creature saw the glow of the evening lamps of a
small farmhouse. Beside it stood another structure, a barn.
A barn!
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R. A. Satvatore
The thin sliver of the consciousness that had once belonged to a man known as Ghost remembered
that barn. Ghost had seen this body, his body, charred by that wicked Cadderly in that very barn!
The evil corpse drew in some air—the action could not be called breathing where this undead thing
was concerned—and dragged his blackened and shriveled body the rest of the way out of the hole.
The notes of that distant, yet strangely familiar, melody continued to thrum in the back of his
feeble consciousness.
Unsteadily, Ghost loped more than walked toward the structure, the memories of that horrible,
fateful day coming back more fully with each stride.
Ghost had used the Gkearufu, a powerful device with magical energies directed toward the spirit
world, to steal the body of the firbolg Vander, an unwilling associate. Disguised as Vander, with
the strength of a giant, Ghost had then crushed his own body and had thrown it across the barn.
And then Cadderly had burned it The malignant monster looked down to his bone-skinny arms and
prominent ribs, the hollow shell that somehow lived.
Cadderly had burned his body, this body! A single-minded hatred consumed the wretched creature.
Ghost wanted to kill Cadderly, to kill anybody dear to the young priest, to kill anybody at all.
Ghost was at the barn then. Thoughts of Cadderly had flitted away into nothingness, replaced by an
unfocused anger. The door was over to the side, but the creature understood that he did not need
the door, that he had become something more than the simple material wooden planking now blocking
his way. The shriveled form wavered, became insubstantial, and Ghost walked through the wall.
He heard the horse whinnying before he came fully back to the material plane, saw the poor beast
standing wild-eyed, lathered in sweat. The sight pleased thellndead
The Fallen Fortress
15
thing; waves of a new sensation of joy washed over Ghost as he smelled the beast's terror. The
undead monster ambled over to stand before the horse, let his tongue drop out of his mouth
hungrily. With all the skin burned away from the sides of the tongue, its pointy tip hung far
below Ghost's blackened chin. The horse made not a sound, was too frightened to move or even to
draw breath.
With a wheeze of evil anticipation, Ghost put deathly cold hands against the sides of the beast's
face.
The horse fell dead.
The undead creature hissed with delight, but while Ghost felt thrilled by the kill, he did not
feel sated. His hunger demanded more, could not be defeated by the death of a simple animal. Ghost
moved across the barn and again walked through the wall, coming into view of the lights within the
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farmhouse. A shadowy shape, a human shape, moved across one of the rooms.
Ghost was at the front door, undecided as to whether to walk through the wood, tear the door
apart, or simply knock and let the sheep come to the wolf. The decision was taken from the
creature, though, when he looked to the side of the door, to a small pane of glass, and saw, for
the first time, his own reflection.
A red glow emanated from empty eye sockets. Ghost's nose was completely gone, replaced by a
blacker hole edged by ragged flaps of charred skin.
That tiny part of Ghost's consciousness that remembered the vitality of life lost all control at
the sight of that hideous reflection. The monster's unearthly wail sent the barnyard animals into
a frenzy and shattered the stillness of the quiet autumn night more than any violent storm ever
could. There came a shuffling from inside the house, just behind the door, but the outraged
monster didn't even hear it With strength far beyond that of any mortal, he drove his bony hands
through the center of the door and pulled out to the sides, splintering and tearing the wood as
though it were no more than a thin sheet of parchment
A. Salvatore
A man stood there, wearing the uniform of a Carradoon city guardsman and an expression of sheer
horror, his mouth frozen wide in a silent scream, his eyes bugged out so far that they seemed as
if they would fall from his face.
Ghost burst through the broken door and fell over him. The man's skin transformed, aged, under the
creature's ghostly touch; his hair turned from raven black to white and fell out in large clumps.
Finally the guardsman's voice returned, and he screamed and wailed, flailing his arms
helplessly.
Ghost ripped at him, tore at his throat until that revealing scream was no more than the gurgle of
blood-filled lungs,
The creature heard a shuffle of feet, looked up from the kill to see a second man standing beyond
the foyer, in a doorway at the other side of the house's small kitchen.
"By the gods," this man whispered, and he dove back into the far room and slammed the door.
With one hand, Ghost lifted the dead man and hurled him out the shattered portal, halfway across
the barnyard. The undead creature floated across the floor, savoring the kill, yet hungry for
more. His form wavered again, and he walked across the room and through another closed door.
The second man, also a city guardsman, stood before the wicked thing, swinging his sword
frantically at the horrid monster. But the weapon never touched Ghost, slipped right through the
insubstantial, ethereal mist the creature had become. The man tried to run away, but Ghost kept
pace with him, walked past furniture that the man stumbled over, walked through walls to meet the
terrified man on the other side of a door.
The torment went on for a long and agonizing time, the helpless man finally stumbling out into the
night, losing his sword as he tumbled down the porch steps. He scrambled to his feet and ran into
the dark night, ran with all speed for Carradoon, howling all the way.
Ghost could have, at any time, re materialized and torn the man apart, but somehow the creature
felfthat he
The Fallen Fortress
17
enjoyed this sensation, this smell of terror, even more than the actual killing. Ghost felt
stronger for it, as though he had somehow fed off of the horrified man's emotions and screams.
But now it was over and the man was gone, and the other man was long dead and offered no more
sport
Ghost wailed again as the thin sliver of remaining consciousness considered what he had become,
considered what wretched Cadderly had created. Ghost remembered little of his past life, only that
he had been among the highest paid killers in the living realm, a professional assassin, an artist
of murder.
Now the creature was an undead thing, a ghost, a hollow, animated shell of evil energies.
After more than a century of being in possession of the Ghearufu, Ghost had come to consider
mortal forms in a much different way than others. Twice the evil man had utilized the powers of
the magical device to change bodies, killing his previous form and taking the new one as his own.
And now, somehow, Ghosf s spirit, a piece of it at least, had come back to this plane. By some
trick of fate, Ghost had risen from the dead.
But how? Ghost couldn't fully remember his place in the afterlife, but sensed that it was not
pleasant, not at all. Images of growling shadows surrounded him; black claws raked the air before
his mind's eye. What had brought him back from the grave, what compelled his spirit to walk the
earth once more? The creature scanned his fingers, his toes, for some sign of the regenerative
ring Ghost had once worn. But he distinctly remembered that the ring had been stolen by Cadderly.
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Ghost felt a call on the wind, silent but compelling. And familiar. He turned glowing eyes up
toward the distant mountains and heard the call again.
The Ghearufu,
The malignant spirit understood, remembered hearing the melody from his place of eternal
punishment. The
18
R. A. Satvatore
Ghearufu had called him back. By the power of the Ghearufu, Ghost walked the earth once more. At
that confused, overwhelming moment, the creature couldn't decide if that was a good thing or not
He looked again to his shriveled, gruesome arms and torso, wondered if he could withstand the
light of day. What future awaited Ghost in such a state? What hopes could the undead thing hold?
The silent call came again.
The Gheantfyt!
It wanted Ghost back—and by its power, the creature's spirit could surely steal a new form, a
living form.
In Carradoon, not so far from the farmyard, the horrified guardsman stumbled to the closed gate,
screaming of ghosts, crying for his slaughtered companion. If the soldiers manning the gate held
any doubts about the man's sincerity, they needed only to look into his face, a face that appeared
much older than the man's thirty years.
A large contingent of men, including a priest from the Temple of Ilmater, rode out from
Carradoon's gate less than an hour later, hell-bent for the farmhouse, prepared to do battle with
the malignant spirit Ghost was far gone by then, sometimes walking, sometimes floating across the
fields, following the call of the Gkearufit, his one chance for deliverance.
Only the cries of the nighttime animals, the terrified bleating of sheep, the frightened screech
of a night owl, marked the ghost's passage.
Step Over A Dangerous line
The dawn had long since passed, but the room Cadderly entered was darkened still, shades drawn
tight to the windows. The young priest moved to the bed quietly and knelt, not wanting to disturb
Headmistress Pertelope's sleep. If Headmaster Avery had been Cadderly's surrogate father, then
wise Pertelope had been his mother. Now, with his newfound insight into the harmonious song of
Deneir, Cadderly felt that he needed Pertelope more than ever. For she, too, heard the mysterious
notes of that unending song; she, too, transcended the normal boundaries of the clerical order. If
Pertelope had been beside Cadderly in his discussion with Thobicus, then his reasoning would have
been bolstered, and the withered dean would have been forced to accept the truth of Cadderly's
insights.
But Pertelope could not be with him. She lay in her bed, deathly ill, caught in the throes of a
magical enchantment gone wild. Her body had been trapped in a transformation
19
20
R. A. Salvatore
somewhere between the smooth and soft skin of a human and the sharp-edged denticles of a shark,
and now neither air nor water could satisfy the headmistress's physical
needs.
Cadderly stroked her hair, more gray than he remembered it, as though Pertelope had aged. He was
somewhat surprised when she opened her eyes, which still held their inquisitive luster, and
managed a smile in his direction.
Cadderly strained to return that look.
"You must recover your strength," he whispered to her.
"I need you."
Pertelope smiled again, and her eyes slowly closed.
Cadderly's sigh was one of helpless resignation. He started to turn away from the bed, not wanting
to tax Perte-lope's depleted strength, but the headmistress unexpectedly spoke to him.
"How went your meeting with Dean Thobicus?"
Cadderly turned back to her, surprised by the strength in that voice, and surprised also that
Pertelope even knew he had met with the dean. She had not been out of her room in many days, and
on the few occasions Cadderly had come to visit her, he had not mentioned his upcoming meeting.
He should have expected that she would know, though. As he considered the revelation, he reminded
himself that she, too, heard the song of Deneir. She and Cadderly were intimately joined by forces
far beyond what the other priests of the library could even understand, joined by a communal
bathing in the river that was their god's song.
"It did not go well," Cadderly admitted. "Dean Thobicus does not understand," Pertelope reasoned,
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and Cadderly suspected that the headmistress had suffered many similar meetings with Thobicus and
other priests who could not comprehend her special relationship
with Deneir.
"He questioned my authority in branding Kierkan Rufo," Cadderly explained. "And he ordered that I
hand the Ghearufu..." Cadderly paused, wondering how he might
The Fallen Fortress
21
quickly explain the dangerous device. Pertelope squeezed his hand, though, and smiled, and he knew
that she understood.
"Dean Thobicus ordered me to turn it over to the library supervisor," Cadderly finished.
"You do not approve of that course?"
"I fear it," Cadderly admitted. There is a will within the artifact, a sentient force almost, that
may overcome any who handle it. I, myself, have had to struggle against the alluring calls of the
Ghearufu since I took it from the assassin's burned body."
"You sound arrogant, young priest," Pertelope interrupted, her emphasis on the word "young."
Cadderly paused to consider the response. Perhaps his feelings could be considered arrogant, but
he believed them nonetheless. He could control the force of the Ghearufit, had controlled it to
this point, at least Cadderly realized that he held a special insight now, a gift from Deneir,
that others of his order, with the exception of Pertelope, seemed to lack.
"That is good," the headmistress said, answering her own accusation. Cadderly eyed her curiously,
not quite understanding where her reasoning was leading.
"Deneir has called upon you," Pertelope explained. "You must trust in that call. When you first
discovered your budding powers, you did not understand them and you feared them. It was only when
you came to trust in them that you learned their uses and limitations. So it must be with your
instincts and your emotions, feelings heightened by the song that ever plays in your mind. Do you
believe that you know what is the best course concerning the Ghearufit?"
"I know," Cadderly replied firmly, not caring that he did indeed sound arrogant
*And concerning Kierkan Rufo's brand?"
Cadderly spent a moment considering the question, for Rufo's case seemed to encompass many more
edicts of proper procedure, procedures that Cadderly had obviously
22
R. A. Salvatore
circumvented. "I did as the ethics of Deneir instructed me," he decided. "Still, DeanThobicus
doubts my authority with good cause."
"From his perspective," Pertelope replied. "Yours was a moral authority, while the dean's power
over such situations comes from a different source."
"From a created hierarchy," Cadderly added. "A hierarchy that remains blind to the truth of
Deneir." He gave a chuckle, unintentionally derisive. "A hierarchy that will hold us in check
until the cost of a war with Castle Trinity multiplies tenfold, a hundredfold."
"Will it?"
It was a simple question, asked simply by a priestess who had not the strength to even rise from
her bed. To Cadderly, though, the question's connotations became quite complex, implicating him
and his future actions as the only possible answer. He knew in his heart that Pertelope was
calling upon him to prevent what he had just predicted, was asking him to usurp the authority of
his order's highest ranking priest and bring Castle Trinity's influence to a quick end.
Her coy smile confirmed his suspicions.
"Have>ott ever dared to overrule the Dean?" Cadderly
asked bluntly.
"I have never been in such a desperate situation," the headmistress replied. Her voice sounded
weak suddenly, as though her efforts to be strong had reached their end.
"I told you when you first discovered your gift," she went on, pausing often to collect her
breath, "that many things would be required of you, that your courage would often be tested.
Deneir demands intelligence, but he also demands courage of spirit so that intelligent decisions
can be acted upon."
"Cadderly?" The quiet call came from the door, and Cadderly looked back over his shoulder to see
Danica, her face grave. Behind her stood the beautiful Shayleigh, elven maiden, elven warrior,
from Shilmista Forest, her golden
The Fallen Fortress
23
hair lustrous and her violet eyes shining as the dawn. She made no greeting to Cadderly, though
she had not seen him in many weeks, out of respect for the obviously solemn meeting.
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"Dean Thobicus is looking for you," Danica explained quietly, her tone full of trepidation. "You
did not give the Ghearufu..." Her voice trailed away as Cadderly looked back to the bed. to
Pertelope, who appeared very old and very tired.
"Courage," Pertelope whispered, and then, as Cadderly looked on with full understanding, the
headmistress peacefully died.
*****
Cadderly did not knock and wait for permission to enter the office of Dean Thobicus. The withered
man was sitting back in his chair, staring out the window. Cadderly knew that the dean had just
received news of Headmistress Pertelope's death.
"Have you done as you were instructed?" Thobicus snapped as soon as he noticed that Cadderly had
entered, and by that time, Cadderly was already up to the man's desk.
"I have," Cadderly replied.
"Good," Thobicus said, and his anger faded, replaced by his obvious sorrow for Pertelope's
passing.
"I have bid Danica and Shayleigh to assemble the dwar-ven brothers and Vander by the front door,
with provisions for the journey," Cadderly explained, popping on his blue, wide-brimmed hat as he
spoke.
"To Shilmista Forest?" Thobicus asked tentatively, as though he was afraid of what Cadderly was
about to say. One of the options Thobious had offered to Cadderly was to go out and serve as
emissary to the elves and Prince Elbereth, but he didn't think that was what the young priest was
now hinting at
24
R. A. Salvatore
"No," came the even answer.
Thobicus sat up very straight in his chair, a perplexed expression on his hollow, weathered face.
He noticed then that Cadderly wore his hand-crossbow and the bandolier of explosive darts. The
spindle-disks, Cadderl/s other unconventional weapon, were looped on the young priest's wide belt,
next to a tube that Cadderly had designed to emit a concentrated beam of light
Thobicus considered the clues for a long while. "You have turned the Ghearufu over to the library
supervisor?" he asked directly. "No."
Thobicus trembled with mounting rage. He started to speak several times, but wound up chewing his
lips instead. "You just said that you had done as you were instructed!" he roared at last, in as
furious an outburst as Cadderly had ever seen from the normally calm man. "I have done as Deneir
instructed," Cadderly explained. *You arrogant... you,.. sacrilegious—* Tliobicus stammered, his
face shining bright red as he stood up behind the desk.
"Hardly," Cadderly corrected, his voice unshaking. "I have done as Deneir instructed, and now you,
too, are to do Deneir's bidding. You will go down with me to the front hall and wish my Mends and
me good fortune on our all-important mission to Castle Trinity." The dean tried to interrupt but
something that he did not yet understand, something intruding into his very thoughts, compelled
him to silence. Then you will continue the preparations for a springtime assault," Cadderly
explained, "a reserve plan in case my friends and I cannot accomplish what we set out to do." "You
are mad!" Thobicus growled. Hardly.
Thobicus began to argue back—until he realized that Cadderly had not spoken the word. The dean's
eyes narrowed and then popped wide as he came to realize that something was touching him—inside
his mind!
The Fallen Fortress
25
"What are you about?" he demanded frantically.
You need not speak, Cadderly telepathically assured him.
"This is..." the Dean began.
"... preposterous, an insult to my position," Cadderly verbally finished for him, sensing and
perfectly revealing the words before Thobicus ever spoke them.
The dean fell back in his chair. Do you realize the consequences of your actions'? he mentally
asked.
Do you realize that I could shatter your mind? Cadderly responded with all confidence. Do you
further realize that my powers are bestowed by Deneir?
The dean's faced screwed up in confusion and disbelief. What was this young upstart hinting at?
Cadderly held no love for this ugly game, but he had little time to handle things the way the
proper procedures of the Edificant Library demanded. He mentally commanded the dean to stand, then
to stand on the desk. Before he knew what had happened, Thobicus found himself looking down at the
young priest from a high perch.
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