group, who had listened to Thobicus's warning concerning Cadderly, looked to each other and shrugged, sharing a common fear that Cadderly might actually be the one behind all of the strange things that were going on about them. None of the leaders - of either order - had been seen all day, and both Thobicus and Bron Turman had been missing for two full days.
It was rumored, though none of this group could confirm it, that half a dozen lesser priests had been found dead in their rooms this morning, lying peacefully - under their beds! The priest who had told the group this startling news was not the best of sources, though. He was the newest member of the Oghman order, a small, weak man who had snapped his collarbone in his very first wrestling match. It was common knowledge that this man did not wish to remain in the order, and his appeals to join the Deneirian order had not been received warmly. So when they had encountered him early in the day, his belongings in a sack slung over one shoulder and his eyes squarely on the front door, the six did not panic.
Still, there was no denying that the library was strangely quiet this day - except in one corner of the second floor, where Brother Chaunticleer was holed up in his room, singing to his gods. Not a soul stirred in the headmasters' area. It was strangely quiet and strangely dark, even for the perpetually gloomy place; barriers had been constructed over nearly every window. Normally the library housed nearly eighty priests - before the disaster of the chaos curse, well over a hundred - and at any given time, five to thirty visitors. The guest list was small now, with winter just giving way, but so was the list of priests who had gone to Carradoon, or Shilmista.
So where was everybody?
Another troubling sensation that the six priests could not ignore was the subtle but definite feeling that the Edificant Library had changed somehow, as though the gloom about them was more than a physical feature. It was as if Deneir and Oghma had moved away from this place. Even the midday ritual, in which Brother Chaunticleer sang to both the gods in the presence of all the priests, had not been performed in two days. Romus himself had gone to the singing priest's room, fearing that Chaunticleer had taken ill. He found the door locked, and only after several minutes of pounding had Chaunticleer called out, telling him to go away.
"I feel as if someone has built a ceiling above me," one of the Deneirians remarked, following the suspicions of Cadderly that Dean Thobicus had implanted. "A ceiling that separates me from Deneir."
The other Deneirian nodded his agreement, while the Oghmans looked to each other, then to Romus, whoNras the strongest cleric among them.
"I am certain there is a simple answer," Romus said as calmly as he could, but the other five knew that he agreed with the Deneirian priest's assessment of the gods. This library had always been among the holiest of places, where priests of any goodly faith could feel the presence of their god or goddess. Even the druids who had visited had been surprised to find an aura of Syl-vanus within the walls of a man-made structure.
And for the priests of Oghma and Deneir, there was, perhaps, no holier place in all of Faerun. This was their tribute to the gods, a place of learning and art, a place of study and recital. The place of Chaunticleer's song.
"We will wrestle!" Romus Scaladi announced surprisingly. After a moment of shock, the Oghmans began to bob their heads in agreement, while the Deneirians continued to stare dumbfoundedly at the stocky Scaladi.
"Wrestle?" one of them asked.
"Tribute to our god!" Scaladi answered, pulling off his black-and-gold vest and fine white shirt, revealing a eldest bulging with muscles and thick with dark hair. "We will wrestle!"
"Oooo," came a woman's purr from the back of the chapel. "I do so love to wrestle!"
The six priests swung about hopefully, every one of them thinking that Danica, the woman who not only loved to wrestle, but who could defeat any priest in the library, had at last returned.
They saw not Danica, but Histra, the alluring priestess of Sune, dressed in her customary crimson gown that was cut so low in the front that it seemed as if her navel should show, and