Tower of Doom

One

Wort had lost count of how many years he had lived alone with the pigeons in the old bell tower.

These days, few in Nartok Keep knew who rang the bells each time there was a death in the keep or village. Some spoke of a ghost that lived in the tower. Others believed that the bells themselves were enchanted. Sometimes-when a funeral procession marched through the gates of the keep or when an execution was about to take place-a passerby might glance upward at just the right moment to see a shadow move high in the dilapidated spire. So it was most often whispered that it was neither ghost nor enchantment that animated the bell tower. No, it was a monster.

Wort did not mind the dark superstitions that surrounded the tower. They helped maintain the solitude he favored. No one ever dared come to the spire-except for the unlucky scullery boy who, every third day, was forced to tread alone down a dim corridor to leave a sack of food and a jug of water beside the door that led into the tower. The kitchenwife did not know why these actions were to J›e carried out, only that the order had come from Baron Caidin himself years ago.

Only rarely did Wort set foot outside the demesne of his tower, it had been months since the last occasion.

"It is better here with you, my friends," he said softly to the pale pigeons that drifted down out of the darkness like ghosts to perch upon his hunched shoulder. "You are not afraid of me. Besides, here we have our books."

He hobbled to the battered chest next to his mouse-eaten pallet and threw back the lid. Inside were myriad volumes, some bound in oiled leather, others in purple cloth. Gingerly he picked up one of the books, and began to read aloud from its crackling parchment pages.

" 'As the prince journeyed deeper into the greenwood, he came upon a clear silver font, and being thirsty, he knelt to drink. Even as the first drops of cool water touched his lips, the sky darkened, and thunder rent the air. In moments, a dozen rose vines wove themselves about the prince, trapping him in a thorny cage. He tried to break free, but the thorns pierced his flesh, and blood fell upon the roses, changing the blooms from white to crimson.' 4

Wort turned the page, and suddenly a handful of pale red rose petals fell from the book. Laughing, he caught some as they fluttered toward the floor. As quickly as they had come, the petals vanished in a silver flash, leaving only a faint, sweet fragrance to drift upon the air. He read on.

" 'As the prince watched, the font glimmered with magic. Like a mirror reflecting some distant place, the image of a beautiful woman appeared on its surface. "You have dared to drink from my pool!" the woman spoke in rage. "Know then that the price for such a drink is death…"'"

Slowly, Wort shut the enchanted book and placed it back in the chest. The birds about him cooed expectantly.

"No, I will read no more until tonight, my friends. We will learn what happens to our good prince then."

Wort had discovered the magical book in one of the keep's many forgotten rooms. Sometimes the stories seemed so real that Wort imagined he was the handsome prince or noble knight who was the hero. That helped him to forget. There were times when the thoughts in Wort's mind seemed more twisted and painful than his deforimed back, but the books quieted such thoughts. Of course, nothing was so good as the bells. Their thunderous music seemed to blast the dark memories right out of his head, until all his senses were flooded by their glorious tolling. No, nothing could make him forget like the bells.

There was a time when Wort had lived in the keep with the rest of the baron's court. That had been before Caidin, when the Old Baron had ruled Nartok, when Wort himself had been only a boy. Even then, servants and nobles alike had regarded him with disgust, muttering charms against the Evil Eye as they passed him. As a boy, Wort had never understood why. Then one day the steward had given him the task of polishing a tarnished silver bowl. When he had cleared away the dark grime, Wort had been so startled to see a hideous face staring back at him that he had dropped the bowl, denting it.

"You are as stupid as you are ugly, Wort!" the steward had berated him, boxing his ears. "Don't you even recognize your own reflection, boy?"

Wort had always known that he was different than other children, that he had been so from birth. Now he knew that he was not merely different. He was horrible. From that time on, he had done his best to conceal his appearance to avoid troubling others. For a time It seemed to work. But he could not keep his twisted form covered every moment, and as he grew older, those who glimpsed it regarded him with growing fear.

One day, when Wort was trying to help an ashwife clean the hearth in the Grand Hall, his hood had slipped back. When she saw his twisted face, the ashwife had screamed. In her haste to get away she had fallen into the fire and was badly burned. Several servants came to carry the woman away on a makeshift stretcher. Wort would never forget what one of them-a young man whose eyes had been filled with hate-had hissed at him.

"Look what you've done, you monster."

"I was only trying to help," Wort had choked pitifully.

After that, the steward had forbidden Wort to assist any of the other servants. In the end, it seemed the only way Wort could truly help people was by leaving them alone. With nothing else to occupy his time, he had taken to exploring the sprawling bulk of the keep, making his way down shadowy corridors and through dusty chambers where none had set foot in centuries.

One day he had stumbled upon an entrance into the abandoned bell tower. The bell ropes had rotted away, and the bells themselves had been covered with filth, but despite the tower's dreariness it became Wort's secret retreat. Here there was no one save the pigeons that roosted in the belfry, and- miraculously-they did not seem to fear him. Here there was the power of the bells. The tower had become his only home, as a boy. Now, in the autumn of his thirty-third year, few remembered the hunchback who had disappeared long ago from the corridors of the keep. It was just as well. Wort knew that it was better to be forgotten than feared.

"But today, I must do a dangerous thing-I must go down into the keep, Celia," he said to a pigeon now perched upon his wrist, pecking at the crumbs of bread in his cupped palm. "I must ask Baron Caidin for a new bell. One of old bells has cracked, I fear, and it is causing a dissonance in the minor harmonic."

The bird seemed almost to nod its head, ruffling its feathers in apparent disdain.

"Ah, yes, I see you heard it as well as I. It simply will not do, will it?" The music of the bells had to be perfect to drive the black thoughts away. Wort had to get a new bell, and soon, lest he be overcome by his twisted memories.

Wort tossed the pigeon into the air and watched it flutter up to the rafters. Wrapping himself in his heavy cloak, he lumbered down the cracked steps of a spiral staircase, then locked the tower's oaken door behind him with a heavy brass key. Lurching, he made his way down a twisting corridor. Only a faint gloom filtered its way in through the ivy-choked windows, illuminating thick strands of cobweb and mold-stained walls. Like many parts of the vast keep, these passageways had fallen into disuse over the last hundred years. The number of people who dwelt in Nartok dwindled with each passing year, as if a dark blight was gradually draining the life from the barony. One could almost smell it in the air, pungent and disconcertingly sweet, like the scent of rotting meat. Nartok was dying. However, it had been dying for centuries, and no doubt it would continue to die its slow death for centuries to come.

In his time Wort had explored all of the chambers that lined the corridor, and he found many forgotten treasures-like the enchanted book-within. Most wondrous of them all was the tapestry. He had discovered it hanging on the wall of a musty storeroom. The weaving was moth-eaten and rotting in places, its images obscured by grime. But in the center of the tapestry, shining through the dark tarnish of uncounted years, Wort spotted an angel. Though he could barely make out the garden in which she floated, the angel herself seemed to glow, as if no amount of dust and dirt could dim the inner light of her timeless beauty. Time and again, Wort had gone to the room to gaze upon the angel, for she seemed so peaceful, so gentle. There was so much love in her purple eyes that sometimes he dared to imagine that there might be enough for him.

Wort shook his head. Those were dangerous thoughts. Mo one could love someone as hideous as he. Pushing the image of the angel out of his mind, he hurried on his errand. Making certain the hood of his thick cloak cast his face in shadow, he stepped through an archway into a torchlit corridor. He had reached an inhabited portion of the keep. Cautiously, he made his way from chamber to chamber.

Despite the decay, Nartok Keep was still the heart of one of the richest fiefdoms in all of Darkon. It was particularly famous for its ruby-colored wines, which sold at exorbitant prices in the great city of Aluk to the north. The barony's vast wealth was ostentatiously displayed in every chamber. Chairs of crushed velvet sat next to tables of glossy wood, laden with silver candelabra and crystal vases. Soot- darkened portraits of long-dead nobles stared down from the walls, their hungry, jealous eyes glaring at the descendants who now possessed what had once been theirs.

Finally Wort reached the gilded doors that led into the Grand Hall. The young page given the task of guarding the portal had fallen asleep in his chair. Wort glided with uncanny silence past the sleeping boy. Carefully, he opened one of the gilded doors just enough to slip through, then pushed it shut behind him.

".. and the inquisition continues to uncover traitors in your fiefdom, Baron," a sibilant voice spoke.

Wortquickly ducked into the pool of shadow behind a grotesque marble statue-a dying stag, its neck pierced by a steel arrow. Baron Caidin was in the midst of a meeting. Wort craned his neck to peer through the stag's antlers. Three men stood in the center of the vast, marbled Grand Hall. Beneath their feet was an intricate mosaic embedded in the surface of the floor. Rendered in bits of colored tile, the mosaic depicted an ancient, forgotten battle in gory detail.

"Indeed, my lord baron," said another voice. "I suspect your lord inquisitor could find traitors under a stone if he attempted the feat." The second speaker was a stout, broad-shouldered man with sharp eyes and iron-gray mustaches. He wore the midnight blue military coat of the baron's knights, but the golden braid coiled about his right shoulder indicated his superior rank. "Lord Inquisitor Sirraun appears to have a talent for finding treachery in the most unlikely places."

"And does that disturb you, Castellan Domeck?" Sirraun turned upon the muscular, gray-haired knight. The lord inquisitor was a gaunt man with small eyes and a mocking, almost lipless mouth. His tight-fitting garb of coal black accentuated the unhealthy color of his sallow visage. "Perhaps you have something you wish to hide. I wonder what secrets you might reveal, good castellan, given the encouragement of a skillfully placed hot iron or a few judicious turns of a thumbscrew."

Domeck gave Sirraun a look of open disgust. "I have found that those most interested in discovering the secrets of others usually have the most to hide themselves." He clenched a fist. "No, the best way to avert betrayal is to defend ourselves with sabers, not with Hes."

Sirraun shot Domeck a poisonous look, but before the castellan could respond, the third man interposed himself between the two.

"As usual, your squabbling grows tedious," he said sourly. He was a tall man of graceful yet imposing bearing, dark haired and uncommonly handsome. His short, carefully trimmed beard was glossy with expensive oils, and his eyes glittered like emeralds above a proud nose. He wore a long coat not unlike the castellan's, but far richer. The garment was fashioned of purple velvet with silver trim, its sleeves gashed to reveal crimson silk underneath.

"I am sorry, my lord baron," Domeck grumbled.

"Begging your forgiveness, Baron Caidin," Sirraun fawned obsequiously. "You know that I live only to ' serve Your Grace."

"Yes, you do," Caidin said darkly.

Sirraun's eyes bulged in alarm. The castellan shot him a satisfied smirk.

"Here is my will," Caidin went on in an authoritative tone. "Sirraun, do what you must in the name of the inquisition. A plot to assassinate me festers in my barony-we know that from the prisoners you tortured-and I want every trace of it found and excised." He raised a hand before Domeck could protest. "And you, my loyal castellan, will make certain my knights are prepared to defend me should an attempt be made upon my life. Understood?"

Sirraun and Domeck exchanged looks of loathing, then nodded reluctantly.

"Excellent," Caidin pronounced with satisfaction. "Then I shall expect-"

A sudden cry echoed about the vaulted Grand Hall. The three men looked up in surprise. Wort lurched from his hiding place, reaching behind himself to grab the creature that had leapt on him without warning. A sharp pain bit into his neck. With his powerful arms, he managed to yank the thing off and fling it across the hall.

"Baron Caidin," the creature squeaked as it flew through the air. "I have found an-"

Abruptly it struck a gilded stone column and slid slowly to tine floor.

"— intruder," the creature finished dizzily.

Wort could see now that the creature that had attacked him was a small, wizerted being with purple skin and large, pale eyes. A gnome. It was clad in a frilly white shirt and a frock coat of purple and silver, styled in miniature imitation of the baron's garb. The gnome still clutched the small stiletto with which it had scratched Wort's neck.

"Good work, Pock," Caidin said with a wolfish grin.

"Thank you, Your Grace," the gnome said in a croaking voice. He struggled to his feet, wobbled, then fell back down. "I've always excelled at being thrown."

Wort watched apprehensively as the three men advanced on him. He wondered if he should run. Too late, he saw Castellan Domeck reach out to jerk back the hood of his black cloak. Wort cringed, holding up a malformed hand to shade his eyes from the dazzling brilliance of the Grand Hall's many-candled chandeliers. Domeck stepped back, taking in a hissing breath of revulsion.

"Wort," Caidin said between gritted teeth.

"You know this grotesque creature, Your Grace?" Sirraun said in amazement, gazing at Wort as if he were a fascinating new species of insect.

Pock gained his feet and tottered toward the others. "Do you take the baron for a fool, Sirraun?" he demanded pompously. "Of course he knows his own brother

"Brother?" Domeck asked in curious disgust.

Caidin glared murderously at Pock. A hint of green colored the gnome's purple skin. He swallowed hard. "Er, I think I had better go lie down, Your Grace. The blow to my head must have addled my brains, which isn't all that hard, mind you." Quickly he scurried away, vanishing through an archway.

A knowing smile twisted Sirraun's mouth. "I have heard rumors that the Old Baron sired a bastard or two. Of course, I cannot blame him for keeping such a wretched thing as this a secret."

Wort tried to shrink away from the brutal stares of the others. He found himself backing up against the sharp stone antlers of the statue.

"Leave us," Caidin told the castellan and lord inquisitor. Knowing better than to protest, they retreated from the Grand Hall, though not without* casting a few more contemptuous glances at the hunchback who had been revealed as the baron's half brother.

"I should have you beheaded for this, Wort," Caidin said casually.

Wort tried to sketch a bow, but his twisted form made the action a mockery. "Forgive me, Caidin. I did not mean to disturb you. I leave my tower so sel- domly. I forget… I forget sometimes how things work outside."

"Then do not forget again." Caidin moved to a table and poured himself a glass of blood-red wine, draining it in one draught. He did not offer any to Wort. "Why have you come this time?"

Wort took a trembling step forward. "A small thing, Brother. One of the bells in the tower has cracked, I fear. It causes a dissonance in the harmonics. i would like… I would like a new bell."

Caidin laughed. The sound was harsh and sneering, a strange contrast to the baron's handsome face. " You want something from me?"

"Please, Brother…" Wort stuttered.

"Do not call me that," Caidin warned. "I suffer you to live in the tower, Wort. In my kindness, I have food brought to you so that you need not leave to face the cruel jeers of others. Do you think the debt I owed you once has not been paid many times over? You would do well not to press my generosity. Otherwise…"

Caidin dropped the empty wine glass. It shattered, and several drops of crimsorl wine spilled upon the mosaic embedded in the floor. Suddenly the wine vanished, as if sucked into the mosaic, and as it did so the images formed by the shards of colored tile began to shimmer and move. With eerie silence, the battle played itself out beneath the baron's boots. The two armies clashed. Swords bit deeply, arrows flew, blood flowed in streams of undulating red-ochre tiles. Wort watched in dread fascination, sickened at the carnage played out in the swirling mosaic. At last the images grew still once more.

"What, don't you care for the mosaic, Wort?" Caidin said mockingly. "Its enchantment is quite old, and quite rare."

Jerkily, Wort shook his head.

"Truly? I find it… compelling." A vicious smile curled itself about his lips. "Now leave. And do not disturb me again. Brother."

With a heavy sigh, Wort turned away. He pulled up the hood of his cloak once more and left the Grand Hall, passing servants and courtiers as he shuffled through the keep's corridors. It had been more than a year since he had last spoken to Caidin. He should have known his brother would have, as usual, grown crueler in the meantime. Why that was, Wort could never understand. Caidin had everything-a strong body, a handsome face, a rich fiefdom to rule. Could he not spare his unfortunate brother the cost of a single bell? — As he stepped into the courtyard, Wort saw Castellan Domeck moving across the open square. Quickly, Wort lumbered forward, kneeling in the cold mud and grasping the castellan's black-gloved hand before the surprised man could recoil.

"Please, Castellan Domeck," Wort begged. "You must speak to my brother…"

Domeck's lip curled back. "Get away from me," he snarled. He jerked his hand away, leaving the empty glove in Wort's grip, and strode across the courtyard. Wort stared at the glove as hope died in his heart. Nearby, a flock of pigeons pecked at the mud. "What will I do, my friends?" he whispered sadly. They offered no answer.

A horse clopped by, spattering Wort with mud. As' he gazed at the horse's steel-shod hooves, an idea struck him. Perhaps the blacksmith in the village could help him. A smith might be able to fix the broken bell. Wort hastily stood, absently tucking the castellan's glove into his pocket, then hobbled through the gate of the keep.

It had been years since Wort had been down to the village. He picked his way slowly along the winding road carved into the crag upon which Nartok Keep stood. Far below, the motley collection of thatch- roofed buildings that made up the village lay clustered haphazardly at the foot of the tor. It looked almost as if the meager dwellings were huddled together in fear against the endless landscape of bog, thicket, and dun-colored heath. Perhaps a league west of the village, Wort could see the jagged stump of what seemed to be a tower rising up in the midst of the windswept moor. No road led to the half-finished tower, and no buildings stood near it. it loomed dark and lonely on the horizon like a giant's tombstone.

That must be the tower the folk in the courtyard spoke of, Wort thought.

Often, when the wind was still, the voices of people standing in the courtyard below drifted clearly through the window of Wort's chamber in the bell tower. That was how he first learned that folk believed it was a monster who rang the bells each time the soul of someone in the keep passed on to the Gray Kingdom of the Dead. Of late, the thing he had overheard people down in the courtyard whispering about most was this forbidding tower.

Rumor told how, one night, the ring of stones had appeared without explanation far out on the grassy moor. A shepherd was the first to discover it. He found three of his flock inside the ring of stones, all dead. Afterward, other shepherds told similar tales. Soon it was whispered that the place was blighted. Some said that the ring stood upon a spot known to have been cursed by Vistani after one of their gypsy kindred was robbed and murdered there by a village man. One day several curious boys ventured to the circle on a dare. Inside they discovered Jurgin, the village drunkard, or at least the remains of him. It appeared that much of his body had been consumed by some beast. After that, no one ventured near the circle. Yet each night the ring seemed to grow inexplicably, for each morning when the folk of the village awoke and gazed out their windows, they saw that another layer of stones had been added to the mysterious tower.

So it had gone on, night after night, until now the half-finished tower loomed over the moor, and at sunset its giant shadow stretched like a sinister finger toward the village. What force was raising the tower none could say, nor was it known what would happen when it was finally completed.

The bloodshot eye of the sun was falling toward the horizon as Wort hobbled into the village. Foul- smelling water ran in rivulets down the muddy street before him, its breadth crowded with peasants clad in severe garb of dull gray. A scrawny dog growled as Wort passed by. Gathering his cloak more tightly about him, he hurried on.

He wasn't certain where the blacksmith's shop was, but he listened for the ringing of a hammer. Clumsily, he wended his way through the throng of villagers who pushed carts of radishes and turnips or carried straw baskets filled with eggs. The viscous mud of the street let off a sickening stench. A chill sweat slickened Wort's skin. He wasn't used to being this close to other people. It was almost frightening. Every moment he expected the folk around him to stop in their tracks and point at him. Clad as he was in his thick cloak, however, they paid him no heed.

A puff of acrid smoke filled Wort's nostrils. Op ahead he glimpsed a wooden sign with a horseshoe nailed to it. There! He quickened his pace. Surely the blacksmith would be able to help him.

The crack of a whip sundered the air.

"Make way!" a voice shouted roughly. "Make way, vermin!"

The crowd of villagers abruptly parted as a wagon drawn by four black horses careened down the street. The eyes of the beasts showed white, their sides flecked with foam. The driver cracked his whip again. Wort found himself pulled along with the crowd and crushed up against a building. Panic clawed at his throat as bodies pressed all around him.

That was when he saw the girl.

She was standing in the middle of the street, apparently forgotten by her mother or father, a golden-haired child drawing patterns in the mud with a stick. Her back was to the approaching wagon. She did not seem to hear it.

"She'll be crushed," Wort muttered in alarm. "Why doesn't someone help her?"

The peasants only stared with blank eyes, as if they saw nothing. The galloping horses bore down on the girl. Apparently the driver did not see her either. Or did not care if he did. Without stopping to think what he was doing, Wort forced his way through the tightly packed crowd. People muttered curses at him as he shoved by. He ignored them and fought his way to the fore. The girl in the street dropped her stick. She turned about to face the wagon, freezing in terror.

With a cry, Wort hurled himself through the ranks of the villagers. There was a sound of rending cloth. Dimly he realized his cloak had been torn off. He lunged forward and crashed into the child. She screamed as he fell with her into the muck. The horses and wagon hurtled by, scant inches from Wort and the child whom he protected with his massive arms. Then, with one last crack of the whip, the wagon was gone. A dead silence descended over the street. Slowly Wort stood, pulling the girl to her feet.

"Are you all right, child?" he croaked. She only regarded him silently with grave blue eyes.

Then someone screamed.

"The monster! He has the child!"

Wort looked up in shock. He saw a sea of faces staring at him with disgust, horror, and… hatred. He felt naked without his heavy cloak.

A pale-faced woman rushed toward Wort. "Get away from her, you monster!" she shrieked, snatching the girl roughly from his hands. She dashed away, clutching the girl tightly. The child looked back at Wort, her blue eyes strangely hurt. Then the woman was lost in the crowd. But the throng was not done with him.

"Look at the freak!" someone shouted.

"You should be ashamed!" another screamed.

"Get out of here, you beast!"

Wort reeled as a clod of mud struck him on the back of his head. "I was only trying…" another cold lump of mud hit him in the chest"… trying to help her." The crowd closed in on him. Shouts of fear and anger bore into him like knives.

"Begone from our village, monster!"

"The monster tried to kill the girl, did you see?"

"Kill the monster!"

More mud clods struck Wort. He spun around, trying to protect himself, but the blows hailed from every direction. With each blow, the word resonated in his head. Monster. Monster. MONSTER!

Suddenly a fearsome voice let out a bellow of rage. "I wanted to help.r Only dimly did Wort realize the voice was his own. A terrible image flashed before his mind-the burnt ashwife from his boyhood, shrieking as fire licked at her hands, her arms, her bubbling, cracking face. Didn't she understand that he had wanted to help her? Couldn't any of them understand that? It was her fault she had been hurt. Not his. Blinded by mud and hot tears, Wort broke into a clumsy run. Peasants screamed as they scrambled to get out of his way. He did not see them or the horrified looks on their faces. Sobbing, he ran on, leaving the shouts and jeers behind him.

Wort wasn't certain how he made it to the bell tower. He did not remember how many townsfolk had shrunk from him in horror as he climbed the twisting road to the keep and stumbled across the courtyard. The next thing he knew, he burst into his chamber.

"Curse them!" he shouted. Rage ignited in his chest, searing his heart, burning away the self-pity that had dwelt there. "Curse them all!" A cloud of pigeons erupted into flight before him. "Only I would help the girl. Only I! Yet how do they reward me?"

Wort flung open the lid of his trunk of books. He grabbed the enchanted storybook he had been reading, then ripped it in half with the brutal strength of his bare hands. With a silver flash its magic shattered. White-hot fire consumed its crackling pages. Wort had been wrong. All these long years, he had been so terribly wrong.

"I am no hero," he snarled. "No brave knight or handsome prince!"

Swiftly he climbed the ladder'into the belfry. The last crimson rays of the sun dripped like blood through the iron gratings.

"If people wish me to be a hnonster, then that is what I will be!" He grabbed the ropes of the bells. "Beware Nartok," he shouted. "For on this day you have created a monster!"

The bells rang in a darkly dissonant cacophony as a storm of ghost-pale birds filled the air.