Tower of Doom

Sixteen

Baron Caidin paced the length of the Grand Hall, his thumb stroking the darkly mottled Soulstone. The stone was now filled with the life-forces of over a hundred villagers. It was ready-and in two days the tower would be ready as well. Then at last it would be time to set his plans in motion.

He paused to pour himself a glass of wine, setting the stone down on an ornately carved table. Suddenly a faint spark of emerald light sizzled around the stone and plunged into the wooden surface of the table. The table shook, scuttling a few inches across the marble floor before becoming still. Caidin snatched up the stone.

"I had better be more careful," he whispered in fascination. "The stone is so full it is nearly overflowing."

He slipped the stone into a pocket. Abruptly the gilded doors of the Grand Hall flew open. Caidin spun on a heel. Surprise played across his regal visage, followed by smug awareness.

"My lady," he said with a white-toothed smile.

Even in her woolen dress of drab gray, the golden- haired doctor looked radiant. "Your Grace," Mika said breathlessly, rushing toward him. "I must talk to you."

Interest flickered in Caidin's green eyes. "My lady, it is dangerous for you to have come here."

She shook her head fiercely. "I know it wasn't you who committed the murders, Your Grace. That's why I came." She took a deep breath. "I… I think I know a way for you to prove your innocence."

Caidin raised a dark eyebrow. This was a curious turn of events. He reached out and took her hands. "Tell me, my lady."

Abruptly she pulled away, showing her back to him. "First… first you must promise me something, Your Grace." Her shoulders were trembling.

The baron stroked his oiled beard. Was the naive doctor actually attempting to weave some little web of intrigue? Very well, he would play along with her little charade. "You have only to ask it, my lady," he said gravely.

Slowly she turned around, her gaze intent. "Then swear to this, Your Grace. Mo matter what I tell you, you will do nothing to harm Wort."

Caidin clenched his teeth to keep from cursing aloud the bastard's name. Evidently the doctor still pitied the wretched hunchback. Her expression was resolute. It was clear she would say nothing more without his promise.

"On my honor as a baron, I swear it, my lady," he lied with perfect conviction.

She nodded. "This morning, three Vistani came to visit me…"

With growing interest, Caidin listened as Mika explained what the gypsies had revealed to her. At last she fell silent, her face pale.

"What… what are you going to do, Your Grace?" she asked finally.

"This," he replied. He drew her in close to his lean body and pressed his lips burningly against hers. Only for a fraction of a second did she resist, and then he knew that his corruption of the good doctor was almost complete. He swept her into his strong arms. She clung to him desperately, trembling like a small animal, as he bore her from the Grand Hall to his private chamber.

Later, as twilight gathered its purple mantle around the keep, Caidin sprawled among the tangled silk sheets of his bed. He held a crystal wine goblet upon his chest, its base cool against his bare skin. After hours in his embrace, Mika had left at last to return to the village before sundown. He pondered again what the doctor had told him. A bell that killed whenever it was rung-a fascinating relic, and Wort had been putting it to devious use. Now Caidin would use it against Wort. All these years he had not dared to kill his brother for fear that the Old Baron's secret would be revealed. Now, however, he could expose Wort as the fiend behind all the recent gruesome murders, and the folk of Nartok would kill the hunchback themselves. The Old Baron's secret would die with him.

"At last I'll be rid of you, Wort," Caidin crooned. He hurled the empty glass at the far wall, it struck a tapestry, then fell, shattering with a brilliant sound.

"Ouch!" came a muffled voice from behind the tapestry. "That hurt, Your Grace!"

Behind the weaving a strange lump slid to the floor, landing with a thump! A small purple form crawled from beneath the bottom edge of the tapestry on all spindly fours.

"Pock!" Caidin growled in annoyance.

"Your Grace!" Pock scrambled to his feet to offer a sweeping bow.

"Have you been spying on me again, you little maggot?"

"Of course not, Your Grace!" The gnome's pale eyes grew as big as saucers in a less-than-convinc- ing display of innocence. "I didn't see a thing, I swear. I only just arrived through the secret passage. The Lady Jadis is on her way to your chamber. I thought you might like to know."

Caidin swallowed his annoyance. "Strange as it may seem, you are correct, Pock. You may go now."

"You're welcome, Your Grace!" Pock slipped nimbly behind the tapestry. "By the way," the gnome's muffled voice came from behind the thick cloth. "Did you know that you look like a cross-eyed werefish when you pucker up for a kiss?"

This time a heavy bronze urn struck the far wall, but the shape behind the tapestry had already disappeared into the secret passage. Caidin did his best to forget the impudent little gnome. He needed to have a cool head when he faced Jadis.

Rolling out of the tousled bed, he pulled on a pair of tight-fitting buckskin breeches. Caidin knew well enough that Jadis had learned about his troop of zombies building the tower on the moor. Even Pock was not dim-witted enough to drink the cask of wine Jadis had left outside his door. Given the gnome's considerable experience with the sodden condition, it had been simple for him to feign drunkenness. Then Pock had followed Jadis to the cemetery and the tower.

"She is crafty, Your Grace, this pretty little kitten," Pock had reported afterward with a lascivious grin.

"That 'pretty little kitten' is a werepanther, Pock," Caidin had replied flatly. "She could gut you with once swipe of her paw."

"I know!" the gnome had said excitedly. "Isn't she marvelous, Your Grace?"

Caidin reached for a shirt to pull over his bare torso, then paused. Why not let his appearance disarm her? The baron knew well that there were few- if any-men in the realm of Darkon handsomer than himself. He dropped the shirt.)

A soft rap came at the chamber's door. Caidin moved toward the portal. As he did, he glimpsed a reflection of himself in one of the chamber's windows. The glass was ancient and warped, its surface flawed with imperfections, and the reflection gazing back at him seemed hideously distorted. One side of his torso was squat and compressed, the other stretched out to bizarre proportions. Worst of all was his face, a twisted mockery that looked more like one of the grotesque masks the villagers wore for the Festival of the Dead than any human visage.

The knock came again, moire insistent this time. Shuddering, Caidin managed to break himself away from the strange image of himself in the glass. It was only a reflection. There was no threat in it. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

The Lady Jadis gazed speculatively at his naked chest. "Have I come at an inconvenient time, Your Grace?"

He smiled broadly. "Not at all, my lady. Won't you come in?"

With a murmur of acceptance and a whisper of golden silk, she stepped into the chamber. Caidin poured them each a glass of wine. The hairs on his neck prickled. He could feel her gaze running over his back. The Kargat spy was a cool-headed professional, but she was a woman as well. He smiled to himself. Turning back, he handed her one of the glasses of wine.

"Your Grace, I've come to express my dismay at the turn of events in your fiefdom. The rabble have shown themselves for the animals they are."

Caidin nodded gravely. "Thank you, my lady." In satisfaction he noticed a rapid throbbing in the hollow of her swanlike neck. "Despite these troubled times, you need not fear for your person. I will keep you under my watchful eye, my lady."

A smile fluttered about her smoke-red lips. "I'm certain you will, Your Grace." She sipped her wine delicately. "Of course, the affairs that beckoned me to your land are nearly in order. Soon they will reach their conclusion."

"Indeed. Does this mean you will soon be departing my barony?"

"I'm afraid it does, Your Grace," she said demurely.

Caidin scowled at this. He found himself suddenly annoyed with this game of cat and mouse. "Come, my lady, let us forgo this little charade," he said suggestively.

"Your Grace?"

"You feign astonishment very well, Jadis, but truly you must know that your performance is wasted on me."

"I see."

"I grow bored with this game. I will do you a favor, my lady, and save you precious time. Tell your master that I seek to sit upon his throne. Tell him that I have slain my own subjects under the guise of a false inquisition to create a legion of zombie slaves. Tell him that I have used them to raise a dark tower for a purpose known only to myself. Tell him all these things. It will do.him no good."

Jadis smoothed her elaborately coifed black hair. "Very well, Your Grace. You wish to be candid. Then let us both be. You know as well as I that King Azalin could send an army here at a moment's notice, a force strong enough to take this keep apart stone by stone, and you with it. He suffers your machinations only so long as he is amused. As soon as that amusement wanes, he will cast you aside like a broken toy."

Caidin grinned. "And only then will Azalin realize that it is too late, that sometimes toys can turn against their masters, and that a tower in the provincial hinterlands can indeed challenge his great castle of Avernus in far-off Il Aluk."

Interest danced in her eyes. "I should thank you for the time you have just saved me in my investigation, Your Grace."

He bent his head toward her. "I can think of a way you might demonstrate your gratitude, my lady." He closed his eyes and felt her warm breath against his lips.

Suddenly four lines of searing fire traced themselves across his chest. Crying out in pain and surprise, Caidin stumbled backward. His bare chest bled from four parallel gouges. The wounds were not deep, but they did sting fiercely. Jadis flexed her hand, and for a disconcerting moment he thought her fingers ended in claws.

"Damn you to the Abyss!" he snarled, clutching at the scratch marks. Blood oozed through his fingers.

"I am sorry to be so cruel, Your Grace," she purred. "I thought it important for you to learn that one cannot always have everything one desires."

With sensual grace she drifted from the room. With burning eyes, Caidin watched her go, his breaths coming in short, painful gasps.

"You are wrong about that, Kargat," he spat. Yet for a troubling moment, he wondered if he had perhaps given away too much in his confidence. He quickly dismissed the thought. There was nothing Jadis could do to stop him now.

"Pock!" he bellowed. "Show yourself quickly, you wretch, or I'll pound your thick skull. I need you. Now!"

Jadis purred deeply.

She had concealed herself atop a high ledge outside the baron's chamber, the dark fur of her werepanther form blending perfectly with the surrounding shadows. Her little encounter with the baron had been quite intriguing. His overconfidence played right into her hands. Or her paws, as the case may be. Now all she had to do was wait to see what move he made next.

The door of the baron's chamber flew open. Caidin stepped out, clad now in a purple coat and gray breeches. He strode forcefully down the corridor. Jadis waited until he rounded a corner, then leapt to the floor. Silently, she padded after her quarry. She winced slightly as she moved, allowing herself a low growl of discomfort. The peculiar bruise below her left collarbone had grown larger over the last few days. It still did not hurt-in fact, it was oddly cold and numb-but it hampered her movements. She supposed she must have injured herself more seriously than she had thought.

Jadis kept out of Caidin's sight. She could easily trace his footsteps. Soon she rounded a corner and watched as Caidin entered the dark archway that led to the dungeon. Two blue-coated guards saluted him as he vanished into the darkness. This time there would be no circumventing the guards.

The first guard never knew what hit him. Jadis leapt from the shadows, striking him from the side. Her fanged maw clamped around his neck. She shook her head violently, and his spine snapped like dry kindling. He slumped to the floor. Tail twitching, she spun around. The other guard swore, staring with wide eyes as he fumbled to draw his saber. He was woefully slow. Jadis pounced, knocking him to the floor. He was a brawny man, but his struggling was useless against the muscular werepanther. She raked her hindpaws across his belly, spilling his guts onto the floor. Blood spurted out of his mouth. Almost casually she bared her fangs and tore his throat apart.

She paused to lick the blood from her paws-she hated it when they were sticky. Satisfied, she slipped through the archway, leaving behind the mutilated remains of the two men. She padded through the dim labyrinth of the dungeon, her eyes piercing the gloom like emerald lanterns. The last time she had tread these dank corridors they had echoed with screams and moans. Now they were filled with tomblike silence. Yet if Caidin had slain all the prisoners for his mysterious purposes, why had he ventured down here? Jadis was determined to find out.

It was the light of their eyes that gave them away.

She turned to see a dozen crimson sparks bobbing down a darkened side passage. Despite their ungainly bodies, the creatures moved so stealthily even her sensitive ears might not have warned her of their advance. With cries of bloodlust, a half dozen goblyns leapt from the mouth of the passage into the wavering light of a smoking torch. Rags that might once have been clothes draped their twisted bodies, arid.they clutched barbed spears in arms knotted with tnuscle. Their flesh was a sickly green, and their bulbous heads were dominated by grinning maws filled with needle-sharp teeth. Swiftly they surrounded the black werepanther, their crimson eyes glowing murderously.

Jadis scratched her claws against the stone floor, sharpening them. She tensed, waiting for the right moment. As one, the goblyns lunged for her. Uncoiling her powerful limbs, shedeapt over them and landed gracefully, turning to see the goblyns crash into each other in the spot where she had crouched a moment before. Two of the creatures howled in agony and stumbled away, clutching the spears that protruded from their stomachs. Both fell to the floor, dead. The other goblyns untangled themselves and turned toward Jadis. They advanced more carefully this time. Goblyns were stupid, but they were riot completely without cunning.

A goblyn lunged at her with its spear. Jadis leapt easily out of its path. Growling, she whirled quickly, only to have another spear jabbed in her face. She ducked it narrowly, then backed away. The long spears made it impossible to get close enough to slash at the goblyns with her claws. Her tail brushed the rough stones of the wall. She had little room to retreat. Grinning toothily, the four goblyns drew their spears back, ready for the plunge.

Jadis tensed her limbs as if to spring. Hastily, the goblyns waved their spears upward as though to strike at her underbelly. But it was a feint on her part. Staying low instead, Jadis charged, crashing into two of the goblyns. Their spears flew from their hands and clattered to the floor. She broke one creature's neck with a lazy swipe of a paw, then sank her teeth into the skull of the other, piercing its brain. Whirling, she saw the other two goblyns lunge. She sprang high. Landing atop the two goblyns, she bore them to the floor. They struggled desperately, trying to sink their sharp teeth into her flesh. She beat them to it, ripping out their throats with swift precision.

A heartbeat later it was over. Jadis sat back on her haunches, observing as the eyes of the goblyns flickered like dying coals, then went dark. She turned and slunk swiftly down the corridor, following Caidin's scent. Jadis's black-velvet ears twitched, homing in on a sound? a faint noise floating on the dank air. Voices. She quickened her pace. Suddenly she halted, shrinking into a dark alcove. A dozen paces away, an iron door swung open with a shriek of rusted hinges.

"That is truly all, darkling?" a low voice demanded. "I have only to place the Soulstone upon the altar to invoke its power?"

"That is truly all," a wheedling voice replied, raising the hackles on Jadis's back. There was a pause. "You need me no longer. Will you not release me?"

Laughter rang out on the foul air. "We shall see, darkling."

Baron Caidin stepped into the corridor, pulling the iron door securely shut. Jadis froze. Caidin strode past her hiding place. In moments he was gone. The dark air seemed to swirl and coil about the werepan- ther's form. Moments later a woman with coppery skin walked down the corridor, moving gracefully on bare feet. Jadis reached the iron door. She noticed a small opening in the wall low to the ground. Kneeling, she peered through the hole. Her eyes needed no torchlight to make out the squalid chamber beyond.

"Greetings, Velvet-Claw."

Jadis gasped at the high-pitched voice. "How do you know that name?" she asked warily.

"I know many things."

A form that might once have been a man scuttled into view. Jadis curled her lip in revulsion. Filthy tatters of cloth clung damply to skeletal limbs as dark and gray as ashes. His colorless eyes bulged, staring madly, as if he gazed upon some unseen world of nightmares. By the tarnished earring he still wore, she knew him to be a Vistana. Suddenly she remembered Caidin's words. He had referred to this creature as darkling. Jadis had heard of such beings-cast-out Vistani, pariahs of the gypsy clans, whose souls were willingly consumed by evil.

Jadis steeled her will. "Is that why you're here? Because you know certain things of value to Baron Caidin?" Broken laughter grated against cold stone. "Of course, Velvet-Claw. Why else? I certainly do not stay here because I like the food." The cadaverous gypsy snaked out a bony arm and snatched up a mushroom-colored beetle. He popped the insect into his mouth and crunched down with alacrity.

Jadis swallowed her unease. "I have a bargain for you, darkling. You badly want your freedom, don't you?"

A wary yet intrigued grunt was her only reply.

"Here it is then. I have the power to free you from your ceik But first you must tell me what you and the baron were speaking of just a moment ago."

A silence ensued. Finally, the darkling spoke. "I cannot do that, Velvet-Claw. The truth I speak for Caidin is his truth. Your truth is something… different."

Jadis frowned. She had no time for riddles. "Then we have no bargain." She started to move away from the opening.

"Wait!" The gypsy went on in a hissing voice. "I cannot tell you what words I spoke for the baron. You see, I can barely remember them now that he is gone. That is the nature of the Sight. Yet I could tell you something else… something that would grant you the means to defeat him."

Jadis had little to lose. "Done." After a long pause, the darkling spoke in an eerie, almost chantlike voice; "You must journey toward the dawning sun, Velvet-Claw. I see… I see the shadowed forest surrounding you. Do not fear- there is no creature here more fearsome than you. Venture onward. Then… ah, yes… then the trees part like a dark curtain. There it looms before you. The broken remnants of faith forgotten. Shattered dwelling of old gods… cursed gods so ancient they forgot their own names long ago. It is… it is a… cathedrair There was a long silence. At last the darkling spoke again. Now his voice seemed hoarse and weary, as if he had just undergone some great exertion. "That is all the Sight will reveal to me, Velvet-Claw. You must journey to this ancient cathedral. I do not know what you will discover there-only that it will grant you the means to destroy Baron Caidin."

Jadis's eyes glittered suspiciously. "Is that it?"

"That is your truth, Velvet-Claw."

At last she nodded. "Then the bargain is complete."

She stretched out a hand, and suddenly sharp claws sprang from each of her fingertips. She slipped one of her talons into the door's rusted lock. It was time to fulfill her end of the deal.

A short while later, the werepanther leapt through the window of her private bedchamber. Onyx fur rippled, and in moments the woman Jadis stood in the cat's place. A strange thrill fluttered in her heart. Somehow, she sensed that the darkling had indeed spoken truthfully to her. Whatever this ancient cathedral was, she was certain she would find something of importance there. Humming to herself in satisfaction, she turned to pick up her gown of green silk from the bed. As she did, she caught a glimpse of her naked body in the silver mirror. A chill spike plunged deep into her heart.

"It cannot be, love," she whispered to herself in disbelief. "It cannot."

She reached out and tentatively touched the livid mark that darkened the flesh beneath her collarbone. It had grown even more, and now, quite clearly, had assumed a distinctly ominous shapethe shape of a skeletal hand.

The darkling cringed in the shadowed mouth of the slimy drainpipe, waiting for twilight to fall. His eyes had grown too used to darkness, and the light of day was painful in its brilliance. At last the burning eye of the sun sank beneath the distant horizon. Chill blue shadows mantled the countryside. The shriveled Vistana crawled from the drainpipe, picking his path down the rocky slope of the tor to the rolling plains below.

Cackling happily, he hobbled across the moor. How wondrous it was to be free again. He wondered where he should go, what he should do. There were so many more relics of darkness he had learned about, so many objects besides the stone and the bell that were capable of wreaking massive strife and woe, and glorious mayhem. He would see them all unearthed from their ancient tombs. That would show the others once and for all how foolish they had been to cast him out. But first, perhaps, he would find some throats. Yes, that was it-some smooth, lovely throats to snap and crush with his long, shriveled hands. That was what just what he needed to revive himself after such long confinement. His mirth bubbling weirdly, he pushed his ravaged body on, into the purple gloaming.

Suddenly the darkling paused. With a gasp he turned around. His pale eyes shone as round as moons in the dimness. "No," he croaked. "No, you cannot be here. I would have seen your coming long ago."

"That is not so, Accursed One." Three figures stepped from the cold gloom. "Your powers have diminished since you were banished from the clan. We blinded your Sight, so that you would not sense our coming."

The darkling shuddered violently. This could not be happening. He thought he was finally free! "Varith, Karin, Riandra-please, do not harm me. I will leave this domain, yes? I will go far away. You will never see me again!"

The Vistana women cast back the hoods of their cloaks, revealing three faces-one fresh and young, one full in bloom, one wrinkled by time. Sorrow and pity shone in their wise eyes.

"We cannot allow that, Accursed One. We cannot let you bring your darkness to another land, as you did to our clan. It must end here."

The darkling spun around, desperately searching for an escape, but the gypsies had surrounded him. He fell to his bony knees. "I beg you!" he pleaded piteously. "Let me be! I will try… I will try to live in the Light once more."

The eldest of the three gypsies clutched her walking staff tightly. "It is our wish, Accursed One, that you dwell in the Light as well. But it is too late for you to do so in this existence. It is far too late."

The jeweled rings each gypsy wore began to pulsate-one with leaf-green brilliance, one with dusky- blue radiance, one with midnight-purple darkness. Holding the glowing rings before them, the Vistani closed in.

The darkling's cry of primal agony rent the night. Abruptly it ended, its echo drifting through the rising mist. The three gypsies stepped back, sorrow and pity written across their disparate faces. The three jeweled rings were quiescent once more.

On the ground in their midst lay the darkling. A silver, rune-covered dagger protruded from his sunken chest. His frozen hand still clutched the knife, and his pale eyes stared upward, gazing no longer on nightmares, but simply on emptiness.

"Has he found an end?" Riandra asked in a chantlike voice.

"He has found an end," young Karin replied firmly.

Ancient Varith knelt and covered the darkling's pale eyes with two dark leaves. Slowly, leaning upon her staff, she rose. "He is Accursed no longer, but dwells now in the Light." Tears streamed freely down her wrinkled cheeks. "Fare thee well, Brinn. Fare thee well, child of Vistani."

Drifting tatters of mist coiled about the dead body of the darkling, concealing it in a damp gray shroud. A sharp wind blew the fog away. The corpse was gone. Karin bent to pick up the silver dagger. The knife glimmered dully in the half-light as she slipped it carefully into the leather sheath at her hip. Then the three women turned away, vanishing into the deepening night.