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.Danica was up quickly, thinking to leap atop the monster, but she skidded to a stop, seeing another flaming sphere come to life in the air above the prone troll.An instant later, that troll, too, was shrieking in agony, engulfed by the biting magical flames.Shayleigh held her next shot, sensed movement to the side, and spun and fired-into the troll she had already dropped.The thing went down in a heap again, but stubbornly writhed and squirmed, trying to rise.Danica was on it at once, pounding wildly.Shayleigh joined her, sword in hand, and with mighty hacks, cut off the troll’s legs.Those severed limbs began to wriggle immediately, trying to reattach to the torso, but Danica wisely kicked them away toward the glowing remnant of the campfire.As soon as one of the legs touched the embers, it burst into flames, and Danica scooped it up by the other end, using it as a grotesque torch.She ran across the clearing and shoved the flaming limb into the face of the unburned troll, the amazing monster still thrashing against Shayleigh’s repeated strikes.Soon, that troll, too, was ablaze, and the battle was ended.Dorigen walked back into camp then, inspecting her work on the two flame-shrouded trolls.They were little more than crumpled black balls by that time, and their regenerative process was surely defeated by the wizard’s flames.Danica could hardly bear to look at Dorigen, ashamed of her earlier doubts.“I thought you had run off,” she admitted.Dorigen smiled at her.“I vowed to…” Danica began.“To hunt me down and teach me about loyalty,” Dorigen finished for her, lightly and with no accusation in her tone.“But, dear Danica, do you not know that you and your friends have already taught me about loyalty?”Danica stared hard at the wizard, thinking that Dorigen’s bravery here, and the fact that she had bothered to stay around and aid in the fight, would weigh in her favor once they returned to the library.As she thought about it, Danica realized she was not surprised by Dorigen’s heroics.The wizard had been won over, heart and soul, and, though Danica agreed that Dorigen should pay a strict penance for her actions in favor of Castle Trinity, for the war she helped direct against Shayleigh’s people, the monk hoped that the penance would be positive, in which Dorigen might use her considerable magical powers for the good of the region.“You likely saved our lives,” Shayleigh remarked, drawing Danica’s attention.“I am grateful.”That remark seemed to please Dorigen greatly.“It is but a pittance of the debt I owe you and your people,” the wizard replied.Shayleigh nodded her agreement.“A debt that I trust you will pay in full,” she said sternly, but with apparent confidence.Danica was glad to hear it.Shayleigh had not been cold to Dorigen in any way, but neither had the elf been friendly.Danica could appreciate the elf maiden’s turmoil.Shayleigh was an intelligent and perceptive elf, one who based her judgments on an individual’s actions.She, more than any of her clan, had accepted Ivan and Pikel as true friends and allies, had not allowed typically elven preconceptions concerning dwarves to cloud her judgment of them.And now she, alone among the elves of Shilmista, had seen this new side of Dorigen, had come to where she was ready to forgive, perhaps, if not to forget.That support, as well as King Elbereth’s (and Danica was confident the elf king would accept Shayleigh’s judgment), might prove critical in Cadderly’s forthcoming showdown with Dean Thobicus.“It is almost dawn,” Dorigen remarked.“I have no stomach for breakfast with troll stench in the air.”Danica and Shayleigh wholeheartedly agreed, so they packed up their camp and started out early.They would reach the Edificant Ubrary in just three short days.An Invited GuestDean Thobicus was surprised to find a blanket draped over the lone window in his office the next morning.It ruffled as he approached, and he felt the chill morning breeze, which led his gaze to the floor, to the base of the blanket, where the window’s glass lay shattered.“What foolishness is this?” the surly dean asked as he brushed some of the glass aside with his foot.He pulled out the edge of the blanket and was surprised again, for not only was the glass broken, but the grate was gone, apparently ripped from the stonework.Thobicus fought hard to steady his breathing, fearing that Cadderly might somehow be behind this, that the young priest had returned and used his newfound and indisputably powerful magic on the grate.The iron bars had been new, bolted in place soon after Cadderly had disappeared into the mountains.The dean had explained to the others that it was necessary to ensure that no thieves-agents of Castle Trinity, probably-broke into his office in this time of turmoil and stole off with battle plans.Actually, Thobicus had put the grate on the window not to keep anyone out, but to keep anyone from falling out.When Cadderly had mentally dominated the dean, the young priest had shown his superiority by threatening to make Thobicus leap from the window, and Thobicus knew without doubt that he would have done exactly that if Cadderly had so instructed, that he would have been powerless to ignore the command.Seeing that window now, broken open and with no blocking grate, sent shudders along the thin dean’s spine.He eased the impromptu curtain back into place and turned about slowly, as if expecting to find his nemesis standing in the middle of the office.He found Kierkan Rufo instead.“What are you…” the dean began, then his words were lost in his throat as he recalled that Rufo had just died.Yet here the man was, standing at that curious and customary angle!“Do not!” Rufo commanded as the dean’s hand went up to grasp the blanket for support.Rufo held his own bony hand out toward Thobicus, and the dean felt Rufo’s will, as tangible as a wall of stone, blocking him from grasping the blanket.“I favor the darkness,” the vampire explained cryptically.Dean Thobicus narrowed his dark eyes to study the man more closely, not understanding.“You cannot come in here,” he protested.“You wear the brand.”Rufo laughed at him.“The brand?” he echoed skeptically.He reached up and ran his nails across his forehead, tearing his own skin and scraping away the distinctive Deneirian markings
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