"He is dead," Cadderly remarked when he got beside the young monk.
Danica, sobbing, slammed the man again, the shattered cartilage of his facial bones crackling under the blow.
"He is dead!" Cadderly said more emphatically, though he kept his tone calm and unaccusing.
Danica spun about, her face contorted with a mixture of rage and sorrow, and fell into his arms. Cadderly stared curiously as he wrapped his own arms about her, and Danica jumped back, staring at the young priest in disbelief.
"What?" she stammered, backpedaling even farther, and Cadderiy, noticing the change for the first time, had no answers for her.
His arms and legs, covered in white fur, had become those of a squirrel.
Chapter Fifteen
Mentor
urn it back," Danica pleaded, her voice edged in desperation, her hands trembling at her sides. Cadderly stared helplessly at his squirrelUke I limbs, without the slightest idea of how to begui
JL to reverse the process. "I cannot," he admitted, as much to himself as to Danica. He looked helplessly to her, his gray eyes wide with disbelief and horror.
"I cannot."
Danica moved to him, or tried to, until the pain in her side sent her lurching over. She grasped at the bloody wound in her abdomen just above her hip, and slumped to one knee.
Stubbornly, Danica got back to her feet, one hand held out in front of her to keep her concerned lover at bay.
"That must be tended," Cadderfy pleaded.
"With squirrel arms?" Danica's retort stung the young priest more than she had intended. "Turn your arms and legs back to human, Cadderly. I beg you."
Cadderly stared long and hard at his limbs, feeling deceived, feeling as though his god, or the magic, had led him astray. Danica stood before him, needing him, and he, with the limbs of a rodent, could do nothing for her.
The young priest searched his memory, let page after page of the Tome of Universal Harmony flip through his thoughts in rapid succession. Nothing openly hinted at what he had done, at this transformation, miraculous and damning, that he had somehow brought upon himself.
But while Cadderly found no direct answers, he did begin that distant harmony, that sweet, inspiring song where all the mysteries of existence drifted past him, waiting to be grasped and deciphered. The song rang out a single word to the young priest, the name of the one person who might help him make sense of it all.
"Pertelope?" Cadderly asked blankly.
Danica, still grimacing, stared at him.
"Pertelope," he said again, more firmly. He turned his gaze to Danica, his breath coming in short gasps. "She knows."
"She knows what?" the young woman asked, wincing with every word.
"She knows," was all Cadderly could answer, for in truth, he did not really know what information the headmistress might have for him. He sensed only that the song was not tying to him, was not leading him astray.
"I must go to her."
"She is at the library," Danica argued. "It will take you three . . ."
Cadderly stopped her with an outstretched palm. He closed his mind to the stimuli around him and focused on the song again, felt it flow across the miles, calling him to step into it. Cadderly fell in with the tune, let it carry him along. The world became a dreamscape, surreal, unreal. He saw the gates of Carradoon and the western road leading into higher ground. Mountain passes zipped along beneath his consciousness, then he saw the library fast approaching, came upon the ivy-strewn walls and passed right through them ... to Pertelope's room.
Cadderly recognized the tapestry on the back wall, to the side of the bed, the same one he had stolen so that Ivan could use it in making a replica of the drew crossbow.
"I have been waiting for you to come to me," he heard Pertelope say. The image of the room shifted and there sat the headmistress on the edge of her bed, dressed as always in her long-sleeved, high-necked black gown. Her eyes widened as she regarded the presence, and Cadderly understood that she saw him, with his rodent limbs, though he had left his corporeal form far behind.
"Help me," he pleaded.
Pertelope's comforting smile fell over him warmly.
"You have found Affinity? the headmistress explained, "a powerful practice, and not without its dangers."
Cadderly had no idea what Pertelope was talking about. Affinity? He had never heard the word used in such a way.
"The song is playing for you," Pertelope remarked, "often without your bidding." Cadderly's face revealed