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To Nancy, for showing true courage.
THE FALLEN FORTRESS
Copyright ©1993 TSR. Inc. Afl Rights Reserved.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
this book is protected under the copyright laws of the United Steles of
America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of die material or artwork
contained herein is prohibited without me express written permission of TSR,
inc.
Random House and its affiliate companies have worldwide distribution rights in
the book trade for English language products of TSR, Inc.
Distributed to die book and hobby trade in the United Kingdom by TSR Ltd.
Distributed to the toy and hobby trade by regional distributors. Cover art by
Jeff Easley.
FORGOTTEN REALMS is a registered trademark owned by TSR, Inc. The TSR logo is
a trademark owned by TSR, Inc. All TSR characters and the distinctive
likenesses thereof are trademarks owned by TSR Inc.
First Printing: June 1993.
Printed in the United Sates of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-61090
987654321
ISBN: 1-560764193
TSR Inc.
P.O. Box 756
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U.SA
TSR Ltd.
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r
i iNCi) = 30 Miles
Castle CKiNfty
Aballister walked along Lakeview Street in Car-radoon, the wizard's black
cloak wrapped tight against his skin-and-bones body to ward off the wintry
blows whipping in from Impresk Lake. He had been in Carradoon less than a day,
but had already learned of the wild events at the Dragon's Codpiece. Cadderly,
his estranged son and neme-sis, had apparently escaped the assassin band
Aballister had sent to kill him.
Aballister chuckled at the thought a wheezing sound from lips withered by
decades of uttering frantic enchantments, channeling so many tingling energies
into destructive purposes. Cadderly had escaped? Aballister mused, as though
the thought was preposterous. Cadderly had done more than escape. With his
friends, the young priest had obliterated the Night Mask contingent, more than
twenty professional killers, and had also slain Bogo Rath, Aballister's second
underling in the strict hierarchy of Castle Trinity.
2 R. A. Satvatore
All the common folk of Carradoon were talking about the exploits of the young
priest from the Edificant Library. They were beginning to whisper that
Cadderly might be their hope in these dark times.
Cadderly had become more than a minor problem for Aballister.
The wizard took no fatherly pride in his son's exploits. Aballister had
designs on the region, intentions to conquer it given to him by the avatar of
the evil goddess Talona. Just the previous spring, those intentions appeared
easy to fulfill, with Castle Trinity's force swelling to over eight thousand
warriors, wizards and Talonan priests included. But then Cadderly had
unexpectedly stopped Barjin, the mighty priest who had gone after the heart of
the region's goodly strength, the Edificant Library. The following season,
Cadderly had led the elves of Shilmista Forest in the west to a stunning
victory over the goblinoid and giantkin forces, chasing a sizable number of
Castle Trinity's minions back to their mountain holes.
Even the Night Masks, possibly the most dreaded assassin band in the central
Realms, had not been able to stop Cadderly. Now winter was fast approaching,
the first snows had already descended over the region, and Castle Trinity's
invasion of Carradoon would have to wait
The afternoon light had grown dim when Aballister turned south on the
Boulevard of the Bridge, passing through the low wooden buildings of the
lakeside town. He crossed through the open gates of the city's cemetery and
cast a simple spell to locate the unremarkable grave of Bogo Rath. He waited
for the night to fully engulf the land, drew a few runes of protection in the
snow and mud around the grave, and pulled his cloak up tighter against the
deathly cold.
When the lights of the city went down and the streets grew quiet, the wizard
began his incantation, his summons to the netherworld. It went on for several
minutes, with Aballister attuning his mind to the shadowy region between
The Fallen Fortress 3
the planes, attempting to meet the summoned spirit halfway. He ended the spell
with a simple call: "Bogo Rath."
The wind seemed to focus around the withered wizard, collecting the nighttime
mists in a swirling pattern, enshrouding the ground above the grave.
The mists parted suddenly, and the apparition stood before Aballister. Though
less than corporeal, it appeared quite like Aballister remembered the young
Bogo—straight and stringy hair flipped to one side, eyes darting
inquisitively, suspiciously, one way and the other. There was one difference,
though, something that made even hardy Aballister wince. A garish wound split
the middle of Bogo's chest Even in the near darkness, Aballister could see
past the apparition's ribs and lungs to its spectral backbone.
"An axe," Bogo's mournful, drifting voice explained. He placed a less-than-
tangible hand into the wound and flashed a gruesome smile. "Would you like to
feel?"
Aballister had dealt with conjured spirits a hundred times and knew that he
could not feel the wound even if he wanted to, knew that this was simply an
apparition, the last physical image of Bogo's torn body. The spirit could not
harm the wizard, could not even touch the wizard, and by the binding power of
Aballister's magical summons, it would answer truthfully a certain number of
Aballister's questions. Still, Aballister unconsciously winced again and took
a cautious step backward, revolted by the thought of putting his hand in that
wound.
"Cadderly and his friends killed you," Aballister began.
"Yes," Bogo answered, though Aballister's words had been a statement, not a
question. The wizard silently berated himself for being so foolish. He would
only be allowed a certain number of inquiries before the dweomer dissipated
and the spirit was released. He reminded himself that he must take care to
word his statements so that they could not be interpreted as questions.
"I know that Cadderly and his friends killed you, and I know that they
eliminated the assassin band," he declared.
4 R. A. Salvatore
The apparition seemed to smile, and Aballister was not certain whether the
clever thing was baiting him to waste another question or not The wizard
wanted to go on with the intended leading conversation, but he couldn't resist
that bait
"Are all..." he began slowly, trying to find the quickest way to discern the
fate of the entire assassin band. Aballister wisely paused, deciding to be as
specific as possible and end this part of the discussion efficiently. "Which
of the assassins still live?"
"Only one," Bogo answered obediently. "A traitorous fir-bolg named Vander."
Again, the inescapable bait "Traitorous?" Aballister repeated. "Has this
Vander joined with our enemies?"
"Yes—and yes."
Damn, Aballister mused. Complications. Always there seemed to be complications
where his troublesome son was concerned.
"Have they gone for the library?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Will they come for Castle Trinity?"
The spirit, beginning to fade away, did not answer, and Aballister realized
that he had erred, for he had asked the apparition a question which required
supposition, a question which could not, at that time, be positively answered.
"You are not dismissed!" the wizard cried, trying desperately to hold onto the
less than corporeal thing. He reached out with hands that slipped right
through Bogo's fading image, reached out with thoughts that found nothing to
grasp.
Aballister stood alone in the graveyard. He understood that Bogo's spirit
would come back to him when it found the definite answer to the question. But
when would that be? Aballister wondered. And what further mischief would
Cadderly and his friends cause before Aballister found the information he
needed to put an end to that troublesome group?
The Fallen Fortress 5
"Hey, you there!" came a call from the boulevard, followed by the sounds of
boots clapping against the cobblestone. "Who's in the cemetery after
nightfall? Hold where you are!"
Aballister hardly took notice of the two city guardsmen who rushed through the
cemetery gate, spotting him and making all haste toward him. The wizard was
thinking of Bogo, of dead Barjin, once Castle Trinity's most powerful cleric,
and of dead Ragnor, Castle Trinity's principle fighter. More than that, the
wizard was thinking of Cadderly, the perpetrator of ail his troubles.
The guardsmen were nearly upon Aballister when he began his chant He threw his
arms out high to the sides as they closed in and started to reach for him. A
cry of the final, triggering rune sent the two men flying wide, hurled through
the air by the released power of the spell, as Aballister, in the blink of an
eye, sent his material body cascading back to his private room in Castle
Trinity.
The dazed city soldiers pulled themselves from the wet ground, looked to each
other in disbelief, and fled back through the cemetery gates, convinced that
they would be better off if they pretended that nothing at all had happened in
the eerie graveyard.
Cadderly sat upon the flat roof of a jutting two-story section of the
Edificant Library, watching the sun spread its shining fingers across the
plains east of the mountains. Other fingers stretched down from the tall peaks
all about Cadderly*s position to join those snaking up from the grass.
Mountain streams came alive, glittering silver, and the autumn foliage, brown
and yellow, red and brilliant orange, seemed to burst into flame.
Percival, the white squirrel, hopped along the roofs gutter when he caught
sight of the young priest, and Cadderly nearly laughed aloud when he regarded
the squirrel's
6 R, A. Salvatore
eagerness to join him—a desire emanating from PercivaTs always grumbling
belly, Cadderly knew. He dropped his hand into a pouch on his belt and pulled
out some cacasa nuts, scattering them at Percival's feet
It all seemed so normal to the young priest, the same as it had always been.
Percival skipped happily among his favorite nuts, and the sun continued to
climb, defeating the chill of late autumn even this high up in the Snowflakes.
Cadderly saw through the facade, though. Things most certainly were not
normal, not for the young priest and not for the Edificant Ubrary. Cadderly
had been on the road, in the elven wood of Shilmista and in the town of
Carradoon, fighting battles, learning firsthand the realities of a harsh
world, and learning, too, that the priests of the library, men and women he
had looked up to for his entire life, were not as wise or powerful as he had
once believed.
The single notion that dominated young Cadderly's thoughts as he sat up there
on the sunny roof was that something had gone terribly wrong within his order
of Deneir, and within the order of Oghman priests, the brother hosts of the
library. It seemed to Cadderly that procedure had become more important than
necessity, that the priests of the library had been paralyzed by mounds of
useless parchments when decisive action was needed.
And those rotting roots had sunk even deeper, Cadderly knew. He thought of
Nameless, the pitiful leper he had met on the road from Carradoon. Nameless
had come to the library for help and had found that the priests of Deneir and
Oghma were, for the most part, more concerned with their own failure to heal
him than with the consequences of his grave affliction.
Yes, Cadderly decided, something was very wrong at his precious library. He
lay back on the gray, slightly pitched roof and casually flipped another nut
at the munching squirrel.
No Time for Guilt
The spirit heard the call from a distance, floating across the empty grayness
of this reeking and forlorn plane. The mournful notes said not a discernable
word, and yet, to the spirit, they seemed to speak his name.
Ghost. Clearly it called to him, beckoned him from the muck and mire of his
eternal hell Ghost, its melody called again. The wretch looked at the
growling, huddled shadows all about him, wicked souls, the remains of wicked
people. He, too, was a growling shadow, a tormented thing, suffering
punishments for a life villainously lived.
But now he was being called, being carried from his torment on the notes of a
familiar melody. Familiar?
The thin thread that remained of ghost's living consciousness strained to
better recall, to better remember its life before this foul, empty existence.
Ghost thought of sunlight, of shadows, of killing....
8
R. A. Satvatore
The Ghearuju! Evil Ghost understood. The Ghearuju, the magical item he had
carried in life for so many decades, was calling to him, was leading him back
from the very hellfires!
"Cadderly! Cadderly!" wailed Vicero Belago, the Edifi-cant Library's resident
alchemist, when he saw the young priest and Danica at his door on the huge
library's third floor. "My boy, it's so good that you have returned to us!"
The wiry man virtually hopped across his shop, weaving in and out of tables
covered with beakers and vials, dripping coils and stacks of thick books. He
hit his target as Cadderly stepped into the room, throwing his arms about the
sturdy young priest and slapping him hard on the back.
Cadderly looked over Bel ago's shoulder to Danica and gave her a helpless
shrug, which she returned with a wink of an exotic brown eye and a wide,
pearly smile.
"We heard that some killers came after you, my boy," Belago explained, putting
Cadderly back to arm's length and studying him as though he expected to find
an assassin's dagger protruding from Cadderly's chest. "I feared (hat you
would never return." The alchemist also gave Cadderly's upper arms a squeeze,
apparently amazed at how solid and strong the young priest had become in the
short time he had been gone from the library. Like a concerned aunt, Belago
ran a hand up over Cadderly's floppy brown hair, pushing the always unkempt
locks back from the young man's face.
"I am all right," Cadderly replied calmly. "This is the house of Deneir, and I
am a disciple of Deneir. Why would I not return?"
His understatement had a calming effect on the excitable alchemist, as did the
serene look in Cadderly's gray eyes. Belago started to blurt out a reply, but
stopped in midstut-ter and nodded instead.
The Fallen Fortress 9
"Ah, and lady Danica," the alchemist went on. He reached out and gently
stroked Danica's thick tangle of strawberry-blond hair, his smile sincere.
Belago's grin disappeared almost immediately, though, and he dropped his arms
to his sides and his gaze to the floor.
"We heard about Headmaster Avery," he said softly, nodding his head up and
down, his expression clouded with sad resignation.
The mention of the portly Avery Schell, Cadderly's surrogate father, stung the
young priest profoundly. He wanted to explain to poor Belago that Avery"s
spirit lived on with their god. But how could he begin? Belago would not
understand; no one who had not passed into the spirit world and witnessed the
divine and glorious sensation could understand. Against that ignorance,
anything Cadderly might say would sound like a ridiculous cliche, typical
comforting words usually spoken and heard without conviction.
"I received word that you wished to speak with me?" Cadderly said instead,
raising his tone to make the statement a question and thus shift the
conversation.
"Yes," Belago answered softly. His head finally stopped bouncing, and his eyes
widened when he looked into the young priest's calming gray eyes. "Oh, yes!"
he cried, as if he had just remembered that fact "I did—of course I did!"
Obviously embarrassed, the wiry man hopped back across the shop to a small
cabinet. He fumbled with an oversized ring of keys, muttering to himself all
the while.
"You have become a hero," Danica remarked, noting the man's movements.
Cadderly couldn't disagree with Danica's observation. Vicero Belago had never
been overjoyed to see the young priest before. Cadderly had always been a
demanding customer, taxing Belago's talents often beyond their limits. Because
of a risky project that Cadderly had given the alchemist, Belago's shop had
once been blown apart
10
R. A. Salvatore
That had been long ago, however, before the battle in Shilmista Forest, before
Cadderly's exploits in Carradoon, the city to the east on the banks of Impresk
Lake.
Before Cadderty had become a hero.
Hero.
What a ridiculous title, the young priest thought He had done no more than
Danica or either of the dwarven brothers. Ivan and Pikel, in Carradoon. And
he, unlike his sturdy friends, had run away from the battle in Shilmista
Forest, fled because he could not endure the horrors.
He looked down at Danica again, her brown-eyed gaze comforting him as only it
could. How beautiful she was, Cadderly noted, her frame as delicate as that of
a newborn fawn and her hair tousled and bouncing freely about her shoulders.
Beautiful and untamed, he decided, and with an inner strength clearly shining
through those exotic, almond-shaped eyes.
Belago was back in front of him then, seeming nervous and holding both his
hands behind his back. "You left this here when you came back from the elven
wood," he explained, drawing out his left hand. He held a leather belt with a
wide and shallow holster on one side that sported a hand-crossbow.
"I had no idea that I would need it in peaceful Carradoon,'' Cadderly replied
easily, taking the belt and strapping it around his hips.
Danica eyed the young priest curiously. The crossbow had become a symbol of
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