The Chaos Curse by R. A. Salvatore Read Free Book Online

Kierkan Rufo had been a priest of Deneir, not Oghma, and yet, because of his brand, Dean Thobicus had determined that Oghman priests should prepare and bury the body. By custom, Rufo’s body had lain in state for three days, and now it was time for the final preparations.
    Berdole fumbled with his large belt ring, finally finding the long-necked key that fit the heavy door. With some effort, he opened the lock and pulled the door wide.
    A damp, musty smell, tinged with the scent of decay, rolled out at the two. Except to put Rufo’s body inside, this structure had not been opened since the death of Pertelope in the late fall.
    Curt lit and hoisted his lantern, but motioned for Berdole to lead the way in. The muscular priest obliged, his hard boots stomping noisily on the bare stone floor.
    The vault was large, perhaps thirty feet square, supported at ten-foot intervals both ways by thick columns. A single window, right of the door, allowed some sunlight to trickle in, but the glass was filthy and deeply set in the thick stone, and the illumination was meager. A series of stone slabs lined the center of the room, all but one empty.
    On that slab, between the two columns farthest from the door, lay Kierkan Rufo’s body beneath an unremarkable shroud.
    “Let us be done quickly,” said Berdole, pulling the pack from his back. His obvious nervousness did not sit well with his smaller companion, who looked to Berdole the Brutal for protection.
    The two did not bother to close the door as they moved in, and neither noticed the soft rush of air as an invisible creature glided in behind them.
    “Maybe he threw up enough blood so this will not take so long,” Berdole said with a halfhearted chuckle.
    Curt snickered at the grim humor as well, knowing that jokes might be his only defense against his abhorrence of this task.
    High in a corner of the mausoleum, on the opposite wall and to the right of the door, Druzil sat and scratched his doglike head, muttering curses under his breath. The imp had tried to get into this place since Rufo’s body had been put here, thinking that he might somehow recover at least a portion of the chaos curse from the corpse. Too many priests had been around then, including one of the leading members of the Oghman order, and so Druzil had waited, thinking he would just break in after the others had left. He found the door locked, though, and the window blessed, so that he did not dare enter.
    The imp knew enough of the human rituals to understand what the two men now meant to do. They would drain the blood from the body and replace it with a smelly, preserving liquid. Druzil had overheard that Rufo could not be given a proper Deneirian or Oghman burial, and the imp had hoped that the priests wouldn’t waste their time with this pointless embalming. Druzil thought of swooping down -and stinging the men with his poison-tipped tail, or of hitting them with magical spells, burning their behinds with little bolts of energy to chase them away. It simply was too risky, so all the imp could do was sit and watch and mutter silent curses.
    Every drop of blood that the priests took from Rufo’s body would be a little less of Tuanta Quiro Miancay the imp might recover.
    Berdole looked at his partner and took a deep breath, holding up the large needle for Curt to see.
    “I cannot watch this,” Curt admitted, and he turned away and walked past a couple of the slabs, near the other set of columns.
    Berdole laughed, gaining confidence from his friend’s weakness, and moved beside the slab. He pushed the shroud away just enough so that he could pall out Rufo’s left arm, pushing back the black robes that Rufo had been dressed in and turning the arm so that the exposed wrist was up.
    “You might feel a small pinch,” the muscular priest joked lightly to the corpse, drawing a disgusted groan from Curt.
    From the far rafters, Druzil chewed his bottom lip in frustration as he watched the large needle go against