closer to Castle Trinity.
Looking at the destruction, at the side of a mountain torn asunder by hurled magic, Cadderly was glad that Aballister's aim had been misplaced. That did little to comfort the young priest now, though. Inside this mountain waited an unguarded dragon hoard, a treasure that Cadderly would need to see his plans for the Edificant Library, and for all the region, realized. This had been the only major door, though, the one opening they could push carts through to extract the treasure before the next winter's snows.
"The whole opening?" Cadderly asked Ivan.
The yellow-bearded dwarf started to respond in his typically loud voice, but stopped and looked at his brother (who was readying yet another slap), and just growled instead. Ivan had bored through the wall of snow for more than an hour, pushing in blindly at several locations unlii the rock wall behind the snow curtain inevitably turned him away.
"We'll go around." Cadderly said, "to the hole on the mountain's south face that first got us into the place."
"It was a long walk between that hole and the dragon hoard." Ivan reminded him. "A lung walk through tight tunnels, and even a long drop. I'm not for knowing how ye're planning to bring a treasure out that way!"
"Neither am I," Cadderly admitted. "All I know is that I need the treasure, and I'm going to find some way to gel it!" With that, the young priest walked off along the trail, in search of a path that would lead him around Nightglow's wide base.
"He sounds like a dwarf," Ivan whispered to Pikel.
After Pikel's ensuing "Hee hee hee" brought down the next mini-avalanche, it was Ivan's turn to do the head-slapping.
The trio arrived on the south face early the next morning. Climbing proved difficult in the slippery, melting snow. Ivan got almost all the way to the hole (and was able to confirm that there was indeed a hole in this side of the mountain) before he slipped and tumbled, turning into a dwarven snowball and bowling Cadderly and Pikel down the hill with him.
"Stupid priest!" the dwarf roared at Cadderly when the three sorted themselves out far down the mountainside. "Ain't ye got some magic to get us up this stupid hill?"
Cadderly nodded reluctantly. He had been trying to conserve his energies since their departure from Castle Trinity. Every day he had to cast spells on himself and his companions to ward off the cold, but he had hoped that would be the extent of his exertion until he returned to the library. Cadderly was more tired than he had ever been. His trials, especially against Aballister and Fyren-tennimar, had thoroughly drained him, had forced him to delve into magical spheres that he did not understand and, by sheer willpower, bring torth dweomers that should have been far beyond hi^ capabilities. Now young Cadderly was paying the price lor those efforts. Even the weeks of relative calm, holed up in the cave, had not rejuvenated him. He could still hear Deneir's song in his head, but whenever he tried to access the greater magic, his temples throbbed, and he felt that his head would explode.
Pertelope, dear Pertelope, who alone had understood the obstacles facing Cadderly as a chosen priest of the god of the arts, had warned Cadderly about this potential side effect, but even Pertelope had admitted that it seemed as though Cadderly had little choice in the matter, that the young priest was facing enemies beyond anything she had ever seen.
Cadderly closed his eyes and listened for the notes of Deneir's song, music taught him from the Tome of Universal Harmony, his most holy book. At first he felt a deep serenity, as though he were returning home after a long, difficult journey. The harmonies of Deneir's song played sweetly in his thoughts, leading him down corridors of truth and understanding. Then he purposely opened a door, turned a mental page from his recollections of the most holy book and sought a spell that would get him and his friends up the mountain.
Then his temples began to hurt.
Cadderly heard Ivan calling him, distantly, and he opened his eyes just long enough to take hold of Pikel's hand and grab hold of Ivan's beard when the confused and suspicious Ivan refused Cadderly's offered grasp.
Ivan's protests intensified into desperation as the three began to melt away, becoming insubstantial, mere shadows. The wind seemed to catch them, and it carried them unerringly up the mountainside.
Pikel was cheering loudly