finished the simple statement, all conviction had flown from his voice. He felt Rufo's will inside his head, compelling him to surrender, imparting a sense of hopelessness.
Romus Scaladi had always been a fighter. He had grown up an orphan on the tough streets of Sundabar, every day a challenge. And so he fought now, with all his own will, against Rufo's intrusions.
Green bolts of searing energy burned into his hand, and his holy symbol was knocked away. Both Scaladi and Rufo looked to the side, to the smiling Druzil, still perched on the body of the Deneirian.
Scaladi looked back helplessly as Rufo grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward, the vampire's face only inches from his own.
"You are strong," Rufo said. That is good."
Scaladi spat in his face, but Rufo did not explode with anger, as had Thobicus. The chaos curse guided this vampire, kept him focused on what was best
"I offer you power," Rufo whispered. "I offer you immortality. You will know pleasures beyond ..."
"You offer damnation!" Scaladi growled.
Across the foyer, the Deneirian screamed, then went silent, and Thobicus feasted.
"What do you know?" Rufo demanded. "I am alive, Romus Scaladi! I have chased Deneir and Oghma from this place!"
Scaladi held his jaw firm.
"The library is mine!" Rufo went on. He grabbed Scal-adi's thick hair in one hand and with strength that horrified the Oghman, easily tugged the man's head back. "Carradoon shall be mine!"
"They are just places," Scaladi insisted, with the simple and undeniable logic that had guided the man all his life. He knew that Rufo wanted more than the conquest of places. He knew what the vampire desired.
"You can join me, Romus Scaladi," Rufo said, predictably. "You can share my strength. You like strength."
"You have no strength," Scaladi said, and his sincere calm seemed to rattle Rufo. "You have only lies and false promises."
"I can tear your heart out!" Rufo roared at him. "And hold it up, beating before your dying eyes." Histra came into the foyer then, along with a couple of her zombies.
"Would you be like them?" Rufo asked, indicating the zombies. "Either way, you will serve me!"
Scaladi looked at the wretched zombies, and to Rufo's dismay, the priest smiled. They were corporeal animations and nothing more, Scaladi knew, had to believe with all his heart. Secure in that faith, the man looked Rufo straight in the vampire's blood-red eyes, straight in the vampire's drooling, animal-like face.
"I am more than my body," Romus Scaladi proclaimed.
Rufo snapped the Oghman's head back, shattering neck bones. With one hand, the outraged vampire heaved Scaladi across the foyer, where he crashed into a wail and crumpled at its base.
Histra hissed wickedly, and Thobicus chimed in, a horrid applause as the two circled their master. Caught up in the frenzy, Rufo dismissed Scaladi's damning words and hissed and snarled with all his wicked heart.
Chapter Ten
"... more than my body," came a whisper from the side. The three vampires stopped their macabre dance and song and turned as one to the broken priest, propped on his elbows, his head flopping weirdly.
"You are dead!" Rufo declared, a futile denial of the priest's words.
Scaladi promptly corrected him. "I have found Oghma."
And the man died, secure" in his faith.
Outside the library, Percival hopped excitedly from one branch to another, hearing the torment of those still alive inside. The squirrel was down to the ground, just outside the door, when Rufo slammed it shut before Scaladi.
Now Percival was high in the trees, as high as he could go, chattering frenetically and leaping from branch to branch, turning wide circles about the grove. He heard the screams, and from one window on the second floor, he heard, too, the song of Deneir, the prayer of Brother Chaunticleer.
The screams were louder.
The Nature of Evil
The trail meandered around a wide expanse of rock, but Danica was growing impatient. She went to the stone abutment instead, looked up its thirty-foot height, and carefully began picking her way up along a crack in the stone.
Dorigen came to the spot beneath her. The wizard was talking, but Danica, concentrating on hooking her strong fingers in cracks and picking rough spots where she could set her feet, wasn't listening. Soon after, the agile monk lifted her hand over the lip and felt about, finally grasping the thick base of a small bush. She tested her weight, then, convinced the bush was secure, used it to pull herself over. From that vantage point, Danica got her first look at the Edificant Library. It