he had been persecuted - unfairly, by his reckoning - and he thought of the two Oghman priests he had so easily dispatched.
Oghman priests! Wrestlers, warriors, yet he had tossed them about without effort!
Rufo felt as though he had been freed of those living limitations, free to fly and grab at the power that was rightfully his. He would teach his persecutors. He would...
The vampire stopped fantasizing and reached up to feel the brand on his forehead. An image of Cadderly, of his greatest oppressor, came clear to him.
Yes, Rufo would teach them all.
But now, here in the cool, dark confines of his chosen bed, the vampire would rest. The sun, an ally of the living - an ally of the weak - was bright outside.
Rufo would wait for the dark.
The highest-ranking priests of the Deneirian order gathered that afternoon at Dean Thobicus's bidding.
They met in a little-used room on the library's fourth and highest floor, an obscure setting that would guarantee them their privacy.
Seclusion seemed important to the withered dean, the others realized, a point made quite clear when Thobicus shut tight the room's single door and closed the shutters over the two tiny windows.
Chapter Five
Thobicus solemnly turned about and surveyed this most important gathering. The room was not formally set up for an audience. Some of the priests sat in chairs of various sizes; others simply stood leaning against a bare wall, or sat on the weathered carpet covering the floor. Thobicus moved near the middle of the group, near the center of the floor, and turned slowly, eyeing each of the thirty gathered priests to let them fully appreciate the gravity of this meeting. The various conversations dissipated under that scrutiny, replaced by intrigue and trepidation.
"Castle Trinity is eradicated," Thobicus said to them after more than a minute of silence.
The priests looked around at each other, stunned by the suddenness of the announcement. Then a cheer went up, quietly at first, but gaining momentum until all the gathered priests, except the dean himself, were clapping each other on the back and shaking their fists in victory.
More than one called out Cadderly's name, and Thobicus winced each time he heard it, and knew that he must proceed with caution.
As the cheering lost its momentum, Thobicus held up his hand, calling for quiet. Again the dean's intense stare fell over the priests, silencing them, filling them with curiosity.
"The word is good," remarked Fester Rumpol, the
second-ranking priest of the Deneirian order. "Yet I read no cheer in your features, my dean."
"Do you know how I learned of our enemy's fall?" Thobicus asked him.
"Cadderty?" answered one voice.
"You have spoken with a higher power, an agent of Deneir?" offered another.
Dean Thobicus shook his head to both assumptions, his gaze never leaving Rumpol's. "I could not collect the information," he explained to them all. "My attempts at communion with Deneir have been blocked. 1 had to go to Bron Turman of Oghma to find my answers. At my bidding, he inquired of agents of his god and learned of our enemy's defeat."
That information was easily as astonishing as the report of Castle Trinity's fall. Thobicus was the dean of the Edificant Library, the father of this sect. How could he be blocked from communion with Deneir's agents? All of these priests had survived the Time of Troubles, that most awful period for persons of faith, and all of them feared that the dean was speaking of a second advent of that terrible time.
Fester Rumpol's expression shifted from fear to suspicion. "I prayed this morning," he said, commanding the attention of all. "I asked for guidance in my search for an old parchment - and my call was answered."
Whispers began all about the room.
"That is because ..." Thobicus said loudly, sharply, stealing back the audience. He paused to make sure they were all listening. 'That is because Cadderly has not yet targeted you!"
"Cadderly?" Rumpol, and several others, said together. Throughout the Edificant Library, particularly in the Deneirian order, feelings for the young priest were strong, many positive and many negative. More than a few of the older priests thought Cadderly impetuous and irreverent, lackadaisical in the routine, necessary duties of his station. And many of the younger priests viewed Cadderly as a rival that they could not compete against. Of the thirty in this room, every man was at least five years older than Cadderly, yet Cadderly had already come to outrank more than half by the library's stated hierarchy. And the persistent rumors