Tower of Doom

Twenty

With a grunt, Caidin pulled himself to his knees. Deep in his chest, he could feel the broken ends of several ribs grating sickeningly against each other with each ragged breath he took. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he staggered to his feet. Wort was gone. The wretched hunchback had fled like the coward he was.

"The bell has been rung, my brother," Caidin said aloud between gritted teeth. "You can run from me, but you cannot run from the spirits of the bell." Laughter rumbled low in his chest. It hurt, but he did not care. A panicked thought occurred to him. Hastily, he checked the pocket of his coat to make certain the Soulstone had not been lost in the fall. His fingers found its reassuringly smooth surface. He smiled, walking stiffly toward the spiral staircase. It was time to finish things once and for all.

A scream echoed up from below. A moment later, an anguished voice bellowed, "Mika!"

With a rush of alarm, Caidin recognized both voices. Wort was still in the tower-and still alive! Somehow, the doctor was here as well. Was the hunchback assailing her? Swiftly, Caidin drew the knife at his hip-an ornamental blade, but nonetheless sharp and deadly. "If the spirits of the bell will not kill you, Wort," he snarled, "I will do it myself." Ignoring the grinding noise of his broken ribs, he dashed to the stairwell.

Wort turned with agonizing slowness. It was as if he moved, not through air, but chill mud. The ghostly apparitions had left a paralyzing numbness in his limbs. He could only watch with bulbous eyes as the three dark spirits surrounded the terrified doctor. "The bell has been rung," one of the smoky forms intoned in its reverberating voice. "The price for our blood must be paid," spoke another. "Blood for blood," whispered the last. "That is the curse." Shaking her head wordlessly, Mika backed up against a stone wall. There was nowhere to go. The spirits reached out their translucent arms. "What is this?" a voice cried out. Caidin burst out of the archway of the stairwell, a glittering knife clutched in his hand. "It is him you are to slay!" Caidin pointed the knife at Wort. "Not the doctor. She is mine!" "That is not so." The spirits' eerie susurration hissed from all directions. "The token has led us to this one. Her blood belongs to us." Caidin lunged toward the spirits. But as one the three shadowed cowls of their robes turned toward him, and he froze in midstep. His emerald eyes bulged. He tried to move, but to no avail. "Fear not. You can have her corpse when we are through." The spirits turned toward the doctor. A strange calm descended over Mika's face. She braced her shoulders and raised her chin, as if facing a fate she no longer feared. Pressing her eyes shut, she gripped the gold locket at her throat.

"I am coming, my loves," she murmured. "Wait for me but a little longer." The spirits of the bell fell upon her, enfolding her in their darkness. The two brothers could only stare, tormented by their powerlessness. For the last time an image came to Wort of the shining angel floating in the twilight garden of the ancient tapestry. Now night had fallen, and it seemed there was no place in all its darkness for the radiance of angels.

A deafening shriek rent the air. It was a cry like none ever voiced by a living creature, a scream so vast and wounded that it pierced Wort to the quick, stripping away all the layers of his being to expose the naked soul.

Then, like dark tatters of mist blown before the winds of a gale, the three spirits spun away from their victim. Sparks of violet brilliance crackled about their dusky forms. As the humans watched in awe, the apparitions began to swirl wildly in the air above the doctor, as if caught by an invisible cyclone. Shreds of darkness tore away from their robes.

"No!" the spirits screeched. "It cannot be! Her heart is untainted by the least speck of darkness."

The cyclone whirled faster. More shreds of shadow ripped free. Their voices blended together to form a keening chorus.

"How can there dwell in this land one whose soul is truly pure? But we cannot harm her. It must be so!"

Their shrieks rose to a stentorian roar, shaking the foundation of the tower. The three onlookers clamped their hands to their ears, but still the dreadful voices of the apparitions flooded their senses, drowning out all other thoughts. "The curse is broken!" the spirits wailed, f Purple magic sizzled around the apparitions, shredding the dark substance that formed them. The i cowls of their robes ripped away. The mortals gaped i. in horror. The spirits did indeed have faces. Yet they [were not the shriveled, cadaverous faces of death. They were the faces of children-pale and perfect, like porcelain dolls. In that moment Wort realized the horrible truth. He had known only part of the history of the bell before. Long ago, when ordered by the wicked king to do the impossible-to forge a bell of bronze and silver-the vengeful smith had used the I blood of the king's three sons to make the two metals bind. Wort had always assumed that the three princes had been grown men at the time. Now he | knew that was not so. The king's sons had been children. Yet the ancient malevolence that shone in the I glowing eyes of the spirits was like none that had i ever glimmered in the gaze of a mortal child.

The dark cyclone whirled impossibly fast, casting off violet sparks in a shimmering fountain. Suddenly it began to contract, as if it were a murky whirlpool draining into some distant, unknown space. "Father, we come to you!"

With a clap of thunder, the dark funnel collapsed in on itself. The purple radiance vanished. The spirits ь were no more.

High in the dark tower of war, the bell forged of bronze and silver hung silently at the end of a thick iron chain. Suddenly it twitched. It was still for a brief moment. Abruptly it twitched again, more violently this time. Then, with a sound like lightning, the bell cracked. A dark fluid began to ooze from the jagged crevice. It quickened into a torrent running thickly down the side of the bell. Blood.

The groan of metal echoed on the dusky air. With a loud snap! a link broke in the heavy iron chain that supported the bell. The instrument lurched precariously, tilting to one side. Slowly, the link gave away. Like a stone cast into a dark pool, the bell plunged into the pit below.

"I don't need the bell to kill you, Wort," Caidin snarled. Violence shone in his eyes. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus grin. For a moment, the baron looked more animal than man. He advanced on Wort, clutching the knife.

Wort scrambled backward. He looked wildly about for anything he might use as a weapon to defend himself. There was nothing. Frantically, he tried to gain his feet, but his numb legs would not support his weight. He fell back to the hard floor. Caidin loomed over him.

"You have not made this easy, my brother," Caidin hissed. Insane rage twisted his features. Now, the baron was anything but handsome. "But I enjoy challenges."

Caidin raised the knife. Wort lifted an arm futilely to ward off the blow. Mika's scream pierced the air.

"Die, Wort." The baron spat out the words.

The knife never descended. With a resounding crash, the stone ceiling high above gave way under some terrible, unseen force, bursting apart and crashing downward in a spray of jagged rubble and shards of broken rock. Through the breach plunged an object-dull, gleaming, ponderous. The bell.

There was only a split second to react. Wort heaved his body to one side, rolling out of the bell's path. Caidin jerked his head up, his eyes wide. Defiant laughter ripped itself from his chest.

"But I am to be-"

The baron's final word was lost in a deafening clang! as the bell crashed down upon him.

Wort covered his head with his hands, cringing as a cascade of falling stone pelted him. Gradually the rain of rubble dwindled. Like fading thunder, the final tolling of the bell rumbled into silence. Slowly, Wort shook off his shroud of rock dust and pebbles and staggered to his feet. He looked up to see Mika staring at him. The falling dust had left her paler yet, making her wide violet eyes seem almost impossibly luminous.

"Are you… are you hurt?" Wort managed to gasp.

Numbly, she shook her head. The same could not be said for Caidin. The lower half of his body lay crushed beneath the heavy bell. His hands were clenched into claws, and his green eyes bulged upward. Agony had twisted his face into a gruesome death mask. Wort slowly knelt beside the dead baron. With trembling fingers, he reached out and shut the staring eyes forever. He gazed at his hand, amazed at his own actions.

"You were wrong, my brother," he whispered. "See? You are gone, and yet I remain. Perhaps we were not bound together after all, you and I, save that both of us were monsters."

A shadow fell over him.

"He was the monster, Wort. Not you."

He looked up to see Mika. Her gown was a barely recognizable mass of tatters, her smooth skin was marked by red weals and dark bruises, and her face was smudged with dirt and tears. She was utterly beautiful. No matter what happened to her, no matter what she did, Mika would always be as beautiful as an angel. It was her nature. Just as it was his own nature to be… what he was.

"You're wrong, Mika," he replied hoarsely. Oddly, he felt a sort of peace. He knew what he was now, and in the full knowledge and acceptance of that truth there was a curious reassurance.

She started to protest, but he held up a hand, silencing her. Something had caught his eye. Next to the baron, amid the dull-gray rubble, was a stone unlike the others. It was so small that he might not have noticed it, save that it was darkly mottled and perfectly smooth. He could have sworn that he detected a shimmering aura' of green light about it. He reached out and picked up the stone. It felt heavy and warm in his grip.

"What is this?" he wondered aloud.

"It must be the enchanted stone," Mika breathed.

He looked at her speculatively. "Enchanted? How so?"

Mika's gaze drifted to the hideous face of the baron. Quickly she looked away, swallowing hard. "It's called the Soulstone. The baron used it to drain the life-forces of his prisoners before he falsely executed them for treachery."

Wort looked at both stone and doctor in turn. "How do you know this?"

"There is…" With a shuddering breath, she corrected herself. "There weis a spy in the keep, one of King Azalin's secret Kargat. Her name was the Lady Jadis. Caidin intended to attack the king with this tower. Jadis told me how he planned to do it. The stone… the stone was the key."

Wort rose, his brain working feverishly. Caidin had planned on attacking King Azalin with the stone? It must be powerful indeed. He clutched "the thing tightly in his hand. Perhaps he could use this power to his own advantage somehow.

"Tell me more." he demanded.

With growing interest, Wort listened as she spoke of what she had learned from the dying Kargat-how Caidin had planned to use the life-force contained within the Soulstone to animate the tower, causing it to advance to the king's fortress of Avernus, crushing any army that stood in its way.

"But how did he intend to transfer the life-force within the stone into the tower?" Wort asked.

Mika shook her head. "I'm not certain. Jadis…" a frown creased the mask of dust and grime that covered her forehead. "Jadis mentioned something about an altar."

Wort snapped his fingers. "Yes! I saw it above, in the summit of the tower. There was a hollow in the altar, exactly the size of this." He gazed at the stone that rested in his palm. It was hard to believe that so much power resided within such a small object.

"It was a hideous plan." Mika shuddered, glancing one last time at the dead baron. "But now it will never-come to pass. It is over, Wort." Her violet eyes met his own. "We are both free now." She held out a hand toward him.

Wort recoiled. "Don't touch me," he snapped, eyeing her warily.

Confusion flickered across her face. "What do you mean, Wort?" She took a hesitant step toward him.

He scrambled back over a pile of rubble. With sudden certainty, he knew that he must not let her lay a hand upon him. "Don't come any closer. I've seen… I've seen what your touch does to creatures of evil."

"What do you mean?" she gasped.

"You witnessed it yourself, Doctor. It happened when the dark spirits of the bell attempted to grasp you. Your innocence repelled them. Your radiance drove them back. Your very goodness destroyed them." He shook a misshapen fist at her. "I will not let you do the same to me."

"What about.your back?" Mika said desperately. "I have studied the operation. I can heal you, Wort. I am certain of it. Please listen to me." She stumbled toward him, sobbing. "I can make you whole!"

His voice dripped venom. "I am whole."

Mika stared mutely.

"Though I despised him, I owe my brother this. He has made me see myself for what I am. Not for what I could have been, and not for what I might be-but for what I truly am." He raised weirdly long arms above his head in a gesture of exultation. "I am a, creature of evil, Doctor. I am a being of utter darkness." His voice rose to a crescendo. "I-am-a- monsterF

He dropped his arms, jabbing a crooked finger at her. He uttered but a single, hoarse word. "Go."

Mika clenched her hands to either side of her head. "Please, Wort!"

He spat the word again. "Go."

Her voice rose. "I beg you, Wort-do not turn me away!" Trembling, she reached her arms out toward him. "I… I…"

For a moment he almost thought she was going to say the words, I love you. Had she done so, those words might have wounded him, might have burrowed deep into his chest to pierce his heart, might have made him fall to his knees and, weeping like a child, cling to her as her cool hands soothed away his maddening fury.

Wort did not have the opportunity to find out. She fell silent as a forbidding new sound throbbed upon the air. At first it was a thrumming, so low that Wort felt it more than heard it, vibrating beneath his feet and deep inside his chest. It was as if some huge hand were drumming against the earth, beating out a tattoo. The sound grew rapidly louder. Wort lumbered to the door of the tower. After a moment's hesitation, Mika followed. Both stepped into the gloomy day outside.

At first Wort could see nothing in the misty air. Then his breath caught in his throat. Figures appeared out of the fog, lurching toward the tower. They came from all directions, more of them with each passing moment, walking slowly, clumsily toward him. Even before he caught the first fetid wisps of charnel house air, he knew what the figures were.

"Zombies," Wort croaked.

Still more of the creatures shambled out of the mist. The land itself shook with the weight of their footsteps. He heard a choking sound from Mika behind him, but he did not turn around. He could not tear his gaze from the sea of zombies. A spasm of realization passed through his body. There were actually some among the approaching undead whom he recognized.

There was Castellan Domeck, dirt clinging to the countless slashes that showed through his tattered uniform. And Contessa Sabrinda, clad in a worm- eaten gown, her face dark and swollen. There, too, was the bloodied form he knew to be Nartok's treasurer, and the dead-eyed tanner, and the two lovers, still hand in hand, their bodies pierced by a hundred thorns. All of the people he had murdered with the bell were there, risen from the grave, shuffling toward him. But there were hundreds of other zombies. Thousands. He could not possibly have slain them all.

One last time, the dark voice whispered mockingly in his mind. All whom the bell had ever slain, all who had paid the price of its curse, all who had ever died at its grisly tolling during the centuries of its existence, were climbing from their tombs to march upon the tower. They were coming for Wort. They were coming for vengeance.

"No," he whispered.

"Wort, what are they?" Mika cried shrilly.

"No," he said it again, louder this time. "I will not let them take me!"

The zombies stretched out their rotting arms as they drew nearer. Mika dashed toward the gray stallion tied next to the door. The beast snorted, staring with wild eyes at the approaching throng of undead. Unfastening the reins, Mika climbed into the saddle.

"Come on, Wort!" She gestured frantically for him to mount behind her. "We can outrun them! We'll be safe once we're away!","No…" Dully, he shook his head. He could not take his eyes off the zombies. He could see hatred gleaming in their dead eyes, hatred and murder.

"Wort!" Mika cried plaintively. The frightened horse danced skittishly. Somehow she guided it toward him. "Please. Before it's too late. Come with me!"

Suddenly he knew what he had to do. His lips parted in a feral smile. He turned toward Mika. "You wish to help me, Doctor?" he growled. "You wish to save me? Very well, then!" He glanced at the zombies. They were closing in. "Let them follow you, not me!"

With a hand he struck the stallion's rump. The beast sprang into a gallop, its hooves pounding as it fled the tower. But the zombies approached from all directions. The horse could not avoid them. Mika screamed, holding on to the creature's mane in terror as it wheeled about.

Laughing, Wort dashed back into the tower. He knew the zombies would not possibly harm Mika- she was too innocent, too pure. But he hoped the doctor would occupy them long enough for him to do what he must. Gripping the Soulstone tightly, he clambered up the tower's steps. Chest heaving, he reached the top chamber. Lurching to the altar, he slapped the stone into the waiting hollow.

"Walk, tower!" he commanded. "Take me away from here!"

Green incandescence burst to life about the stone, engulfing it in a crackling sphere of magical fire. Wort stepped back in alarm, but the cool fire did not burn him. Suddenly tendrils of emerald magic sprouted from the shining stone to coil about the altar, tracing the arcane symbols in its surface until they too glowed with green fire. Slowly, the altar began to rise into the air. Like shimmering vines, more tendrils of magic snaked out from the floating altar, undulating across the floor of the chamber and traveling up the walls. The sizzling tendrils burrowed into the tower's stones like brilliant serpents. In moments the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the whole tower, was ablaze with crackling emerald magic. The acrid scent of lightning permeated the air.

Wort cowered as blazing bolts of energy arced back and forth across the chamber, accompanied by the roar of thunder. He was too slow. A crackling ray of magic plunged into his chest, passing completely through him. His body went stiff as the arc of magic that pierced his torso slowly lifted him off the floor. Frozen utterly still, flesh tingling as if pricked by a thousand cold needles, Wort hovered in midair next to the altar while countless bolts of green lightning sizzled back and forth across the chamber.

Abruptly the tendrils of emerald magic flared brilliantly. Wort squeezed his eyes shut, but it was no use. Green radiance flooded his-brain. He was awash in a sea of liquid emerald fire. Then all went dim. Wort tumbled to the floor, rolling just in time to avoid being crushed by the altar as it did likewise. Slowly he dragged himself to his feet, panting for breath. All trace of the green magical energy was gone. For a panicked moment, Wort feared that the magic had failed.

That was when he felt the floor lurch beneath him. He almost fell, gripping the altar to steady himself. The tower shook again. A low groaning throbbed on the air. The floor began to rock up and down, almost like the heaving deck of a ship.

Carefully, Wort made his way to the narrow slit of a window. A howl of glee escaped him. Outside, the land moved steadily by. He peered downward and saw that the tower had raised itself upon two massive stone legs. These surged up and down, pounding the ground with terrible force as the tower strode swiftly across the moor. Wort clapped his hands together.

"I have done it!" he cried jubilantly. "I have-"

His words abruptly trailed off. Through the window he saw something that froze his blood. It was the sharp edge of a cliff. Before him lay Morrged's Leap. Wort knew the defile well. There, so long ago, he had saved Caidin's life. It was a thousand feet from the edge of the precipice to the sharp, jagged rocks below. And the tower was heading straight for it.

"Stop, tower!" Wort shouted. "Turn back!"

The rhythmic swaying drew the cliff closer.

"Halt!" Wort cried desperately. A thought struck him. The tower had responded before when he had gripped the stone. Perhaps he needed to do so again. With a flicker of hope, he turned toward the altar.

He had not heard them climbing up the stairwell.

They shambled into the chamber in a ghastly flood. They had not wasted time on the doctor after all. The zombies. In seconds they surrounded him. He struggled fiercely as their clammy hands closed upon him. Rotting flesh tore in his fingers; his hands sank into their decomposing bodies. There were too many of them. They continued to spill from the stairwell in a rank, crushing tide. Hundreds of them.

"No!" Wort shrieked. "Don't you understand? The tower is heading for the cliff. We'll all be killed, you fools!"

Dark laughter bubbled from Wort's chest as the zombies sank their dirty claws into him. It was he who was the fool.

"Don't you see, Wort? They don't care. They're already dead!"

More twisted laughter escaped his lips as the zombies began to tear him apart.

Mika clutched the stallion's tangled mane, trying desperately to stay oh the courser's back. The beast screamed as it whirled around, but in every direction its wild eyes saw the same horrible sight-hundreds of zombies. They shuffled by in varied states of decay. The stench that rose from them was so thick Mika thought it would drown her. Yet none of the animated corpses seemed to take note of her or the panicked horse. All shambled unceasingly toward the tower.

A terrible grating of stone on stone shook the air. Slowly, ponderously, the tower began to rise. Those zombies that had just been stepping through the doorway fell, striking the ground with wet thuds. Mika's amazement at this turn of events barely registered in her reeling mind. The stone spire rose higher into the air, revealing two massive pillars of stone beneath. Emerald lightning sizzled, coiling about the thick columns. Suddenly one of the gigantic columns lifted itself off the ground and swung forward. The tower tipped at a precarious angle. Mika screamed. It was falling!

The second column rose and swung forward, striking the ground with a boom! The tower moved forward. At last, realization pierced the fog that clouded Mika's mind. The spire was not raised upon two columns, but two massive legs hewn of stone. The ponderous stone legs moved forward. The massive construction lurched up and down as it began to move across the moor. The dark tower of war was walking.

Mindlessly, the zombies streamed after the moving spire. The weighty stone feet came down upon them, crushing dozens to an oozing pulp with every step. The other zombies seemed not to notice. Thfey continued to swarm after the tower. Like a weird, armless giant of stone, the tower lumbered onward.

The gray stallion could not find passage through the roiling sea of undead. As if caught in a dark rapture, Mika watched the tower stride across the moor. It was almost… glorious. She did not notice the edge of the cliff until the tower was almost upon it. Then she clamped a hand to her mouth, unable to tear her eyes away from the grim spectacle. One stone leg stepped over the precipice. For a moment, the tower tottered precariously. Then slowly, almost majestically, the tower toppled over the cliff. For a long moment, the only sound was the low moan of the wind. Then a violent tremor shook the air.

Mad with fright, the stallion reared onto its hind legs. Mika grabbed at the creature's mane, but her fingers were torn loose. Like a rag doll, her body was hurled through the air. For a second it seemed as if she were flying. Then she struck the ground with violent force, fire exploding in her shoulder. A single thought, like the feeble flame of a dying candle, flickered through her brain. I am coming, my loves. Then all went dark.