The Chaos Curse Read Online Free PDF

Nameless,” he said, referring to a poor leper he had once met on the road outside Carradoon. “I was thinking of all the other Namelesses in Carradoon and all around Impresk Lake. The wealth of the dragon’s hoard might bring great good to the land.” He looked at Danica squarely. “The treasure might give all of those people names.”
    “It will be more complicated than that,” Danica reasoned, for both of them knew well the equation of wealth and power. If Cadderly meant to share the riches with the impoverished people, he would find resistance among those “gentlefolk” of Carradoon who equated wealth with nobility and rank and used their riches to feel superior.
    “Deneir is with me,” Cadderly said calmly, and Danica understood at that moment that her love was indeed ready for this fight, ready for Thobicus and all the others.
    Several priests worked furiously over Kierkan Rufo on the cold, wet ground outside the Edificant Library’s front door. They wrapped him in their own cloaks, disregarding the chill wind of early spring, but they did not miss the brand on his forehead, the unlit candle above the closed eye, and even the Oghman priests understood its significance, that they could not bring the man into the library.
    Rufo continued to gag and vomit. His chest heaved and his stomach convulsed, tightening into agonizing knots. Blue-black bruises erupted under the man’s sweating skin.
    The Oghman priests, some of them powerful clerics, enacted spells of healing, though the Deneirians did not dare evoke the powers of their god in this man’s name.
    None of it seemed to work.
    Dean Thobicus and Bron Turman arrived together at the door, pushing through the growing crowd of onlookers. The withered dean’s eyes widened considerably when he saw that it was Rufo lying outside.
    “We must bring him into the warmth!” one of the attending priests shouted to the dean.
    “He cannot enter the library,” Bron Turman insisted, “not with such a brand. By his own actions was Kierkan Rufo banished, and the banishment holds!”
    “Bring him in,” Dean Thobicus said unexpectedly, and Turman nearly fell over as he registered the words. He didn’t openly protest, though, Rufo was of Thobicus’s order, not his own, and Thobicus as dean, was well within his powers in allowing the man entry.
    A few moments later, after Rufo was ushered through the crowd and Thobicus had gone off with the attending priests, Bron Turman came to a disturbing conclusion, an explanation of the dean’s words that did not sit well with the Oghman. Kierkan Rufo was no friend of Cadderly’s; in fact, Cadderly had been the one to brand the man. Had that precipitated the dean’s decision to let Rufo in?
    Bron Turman hoped that was not the case.
    In a side room, an empty chamber normally reserved for private prayers, the priests pulled in a bench to use as a cot and continued their heroic efforts to comfort Rufo. Nothing they did seemed to help; even Thobicus tried to summon his greatest healing powers, chanting over Rufo while the others held him steady. But, whether the spell had not been granted or Rufo’s ailment had simply rejected it, the dean’s words fell empty.
    Blood and bile poured freely from Rufo’s mouth and nose, and his chest heaved desperately, trying to pull in air through the obstruction in his throat. One strong Oghman priest grabbed Rufo and yanked him over onto his belly, pounding at his back to force everything out.
    Suddenly, without warning, Rufo jerked and turned so violently that the Oghman priest went flying across the room. Then Rufo settled on the bench and calmed strangely, staring up unblinkingly at Dean Thobicus. With a weak hand, he motioned for the dean to come closer, and Thobicus, after looking around nervously, bent low, putting his ear near the man’s mouth.
    “You… you invi… vited me,” Rufo stammered, blood and bile accompanying every word.
    Thobicus stood up straight, staring at the man, not