of his room's balcony doors. Breakfast sat on the table next to Cadderly - extra portions, he noted, and he smiled. They were a bribe, Brennan's way of saying thank you for Cadderry's continued discretion. Fredegar wouldn't be happy with his son if he knew where Brennan had spent the evening.
Cadderly was indeed hungry, and the food looked good, but when the young scholar noticed the Tome of Universal Harmony sitting open on his desk by the window, he realized a more profound and demanding hunger. He took a single biscuit with him as he went to the desk. t
Like so many times before, Cadderly devoured the pages, the blurred words, faster than his eyes could follow. He was through the tome in a matter of minutes, then turned it back over and began again, rushing, almost desperately, to keep the mysterious song flowing uninterrupted. How many times Cadderly went through the work that day, he could not know. When Brennan came in with his lunch, then his supper, he did not look up from his reading, from his listening to the song.
The daylight waned, and still Cadderly pored on. His first thought, when the room became too dark to read in, was to go and light his lamp, but he hated to waste the time that action would take. Hardly considering his actions, Cadderly recalled a page in the tome, a particular melody, and uttered a few simple words, and instantly the room was filled with light.
The stream of the song was broken. Cadderly sat blinking in amazement at what he had done. He retraced his mental steps, recalled that same page, its image clear in his mind. He uttered the chant again, changing his inflections and alternating two of the words.
The light went out.
Chapter Four
Shaking, Cadderly slipped out of his chair and over to his bed. He threw an arm across his eyes, as though that act might hide the confusing memory of what had just occurred.
"I'll see the wizard in the morning," he whispered aloud. "He will understand "
Cadderly didn't believe a word of it, but he refused to listen to the truth.
"In the morning," he whispered again, as he sought the serenity of sleep.
The morning was many hours and many dreams away for the troubled young man.
Percival hopped up to the room's window - no, not the window, but the terrace doors. Cadderly considered the strange sight, for the squirrel's sheer size made the doors look more like a tiny window. It was Percival, Cadderly knew instinctively, but why was the squirrel six feet tall?
The white squirrel entered the room and came beside him. Cadderly extended his hand to pat the beast, but Percival recoiled, then rushed back in, his not-so-tiny paws ripping tears in the pouches on Cadderly's belt. Cadderly began to protest, but one of the pouches broke open, spilling a continual stream ofcacasa nuts onto the floor.
Hundreds ofcacasa nuts! Thousands ofcacasa nuts! The gigantic squirrel eagerly stuffed them into his bulging mouth by the score and soon the floor was clear again.
"Where are you going?" Cadderly heard himself ask as the squirrel bounded away. The doors were closed again somehow, but the squirrel ran right through them, knock-ingthemfrom their hinges. Then Percival hopped over the balcony railing and was gone.
Cadderly sat up in his bed - but it was not his bed, for he was not in his room. Rather, he was lying in the inn's common room. It was very late, he knew, and very quiet.
Cadderly was not alone. He felt a ghostlike presence behind him. Mustering his courage, he spun about.
Then he cried out, the scream torn from his lungs by sheer desperation. There lay Headmaster Avery, Cad-derly's mentor, his surrogate father, spread across one of the room's small circular tables, his chest opened wide. Cadderly didn't have to examine the man to know he was dead and that his heart had been torn out.
Cadderly sat up in his bed - and now it was indeed his bed. His room was quiet, except for the occasional rattling of the balcony doors, shivering in the night wind. A mil moon was up, its silvery light dancing through the window, splaying shadows across the floor.
The serenity seemed hardly enough to chase away the dreams. Cadderly tried to recall that page in the tome again, tried to remember the chant, the spell, to bathe the room in light. He was weary and troubled and had not eaten all that day, and hardly at all