by Mark Anthony
Mika gripped the young woman's shoulder fiercely. "Who, Alys? Who is it you see?"
Alys's cry of anguish froze Mika's blood. "Oh, Robart! What have they done to you?" The young woman collapsed into Mika's arms, sobbing.
"Who… who is Robart?" Mika finally managed to ask.
Marga's voice was so faint Mika had to strain to hear it. "Robart was Alys's lover. He was executed by the inquisition almost a week ago."
Mika swallowed the metallic taste of fear, trying to grasp the implication of Marga's words. The sound of murmuring brought her head around. Alys was chanting the queer melody once more.
"Whose kisses drown me,
With sweet, cold breath…"
Mika watched through the grimy window as the peasant woman led her blankly staring daughter away down the muddy street. There was little hope Alys would ever recover her sanity. The imagined sight of her dead lover-or perhaps real, Mika dared to think after her strange experience in the charnel house-had struck too deep a blow to Alys's psyche. Mika had visited the asylum in II Aluk more than once. There she had seen men and woman who, like Alys, had also witnessed things so unspeakable their minds were shattered. Lost Ones, they were called- lost, because they never found their sanity again.
Mika shivered, wishing there was someone there to hold her, to speak geRtle words of comfort and help her forget the day's disturbing events. But there was no one. She felt utterly and completely alone. She lifted the golden locket that hung around her neck and opened the tiny latch. Inside was painted a portrait, small as a robin's egg, of a young man with kind brown eyes. Suddenly Mika found herself shaking-not with sorrow-but with anger.
"Why, my love?" she whispered bitterly. "Why did you leave me? How could you leave me alone in this dark and terrible world?"
Somehow she had always forgiven little Lia-she was just a child-but Geordin was her husband. He should have clung to life. But he had given up. Geordin had died, abandoning her.
Mika clutched the locket tightly, tears of rage streaming down her cheeks. "How could you be so cruel, Geordin?" she said hoarsely, choking on her words. "How dare you leave me alone like this?" She jerked the locket from around her neck. The gold chain snapped. At long last she spoke the words that burned inside her. "I… I hate you, Geordin!" she cried, hurling the locket across the room. "I hate you for leaving me alone!"
Sobbing, she collapsed into a chair, curling herself into ball like a small, frightened child.
An hour later, as the blood-red sun waned slowly on the western horizon, a courier entered the room to find Mika in that same position. He cleared his throat.
"Ahem."
Startled, Mika leapt to her feet, seeing that she was no longer alone. She roughly wiped the dampness from her pale cheeks.
"I am sorry to disturb you, my lady," the courier said with a half-bow. He was clad in a frilly suit of pale blue silk, and he wore a powdered wig.
"Not at all," she finally managed to voice the words.
The courier went on in a bored tone. "I am pleased to inform my lady that the baron has requested her presence at the keep this evening. A carriage awaits outside, and he has sent my lady this gift." He snapped his fingers, and a page with a powdered face and rouged lips scurried into the chamber carrying a puffy mound of satin the exact lavender hue of Mika's eyes. He plopped it down on the table. It was a gown.
"May I inform the baron that my lady will be accepting his invitation?"
Mika's lips started to form the word No. She didn't dare visit Caidin at the keep again. It would be tantamount to a rabbit paying the wolf a house-call. Abruptly she halted. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a dull glint of gold on the floor-the locket. Again a wave of bitter loneliness swept through her. The voice that spoke hardly seemed her own.
"Tell the baron I will gladly accept his invitation."
The courier bowed again, retreating from the room with the page.
"What have I done?" Mika whispered in a quavering voice, but it was too late. The courier had gone, and she was expected.
Twilight was wrapping its thick, gray mantle around the spires of Nartok Keep as Mika stepped from the carriage. The smooth satin of the gown felt almost delicious against her skin, and the thought that something the baron had chosen now touched her body so intimately made her feel vaguely wicked. The white-faced page led her through labyrinthine corridors, so that soon she became utterly lost. At last they stopped before an ornately carved door. Mika stepped through it and found herself in a chamber richly appointed with crystal, gold- threaded damask, and gilded wood. Baron Caidin rose from a divan of crushed velvet to greet her.
"My lady," he murmured in his rich voice. "You look ravishing."
He kissed her hand lingeringly. She started to snatch her hand away, then stopped. Why shouldn't she wish to be touched and caressed after so many years alone? The baron glanced up at her, surprise and delight apparent in his vivid green eyes. Gripping her hand, he led her deeper into the chamber. He poured her a glass of dark, ruby-colored wine. She gulped it down.
"More," she breathed, holding out the goblet.
He arched an eyebrow wonderingly, then complied. Greedily, she drained the glass. Warmth flowed through her, dulling the horrors of the day and the regrets of the past. At last she set the empty goblet down. The baron regarded her with a bemused expression. He wore only a pair of tight-fitting breeches and a loose white shirt unlaced at the collar. She could easily make out the muscular lines of his chest beneath the delicate material.
For a moment Mika wondered if she should leave. The baron was a dangerous enigma to her. On her last visit to the keep he had displayed great kindness for an ill servant. Yet this was the same man, she knew, who was waging a brutal inquisition in his fief- dom-an inquisition that had stolen the life of Alys's lover and left her a Lost One with a shattered mind. Then there was Wort. Why had Caidin warned her to stay away from the bell tower? Did he truly believe that his half brother might harm her? Or did he have some other, darker motives she could not fathom?
Caidin gestured to a table set with gold and crystal. "I thought we could dine together, my lady."
Slowly she shook her head. "No, Your Grace."
He regarded her in puzzlement. "I'm sorry, my lady?"
Satin rustling softly, she approached the baron. "I am not hungry for dinner, Your Grace." She reached out and ran a finger along the smooth line of his jaw.
His expression was one of total shock. He looked almost like a small, startled boy whose secret dreams had wonderfully and quite unexpectedly come true. The baron's lips parted in a toothy grin. Languidly, Mika shut her eyes. Strong hands moved down the sides of her body, and warm, moist breath caressed her neck. It had been so very long since she had been touched this way.
"My beautiful doctor."
The voice filled her senses. For the space of a heartbeat, Mika found herself trying to picture a face-the face of a man with kind brown eyes. But all she could envision was darkness. Reflexively, she reached up to touch the gold locket that always hung at her breast. Instead her fingers closed around a warm, strong hand. Slowly she opened her eyes.
"Your Grace…"
Her words were willingly drowned in the passion of his embrace.
In her private chamber, Jadis slipped out of her customary green-gold gown to stand naked before a full-length mirror. Tonight was the perfect night to pursue her investigations. She had managed to neutralize the troublesome little gnome by leaving a large jug of wine outside the door of his room. As she had expected, the little cretin had been unable to resist drinking it, arid had fallen asleep, thanks to the small amount of powder Jadis had mixed into the wine. Nor did she expect any interference from Baron Caidin. She knew he-was presently busy with his latest romantic quarry-the golden-haired doctor from the village. Why he had chosen her, Jadis did not know or care. The doctor was pretty enough in a pale, fragile way, but Jadis had always found innocence dreadfully uninteresting. Innocence was easily se
duced, and then what was one left with? A clumsy amateur in the intricate art of desire. For that game Jadis preferred opponents with far more skill and experience.
Briefly, she admired her lithe, copper-skinned figure in the mirror. She was about to turn away when she noticed something that made her frown.
"What is this, love?"
She studied a single flaw that marked her otherwise perfect skin. It was a dark spot just beneath her left collarbone, some sort of bruise. She rubbed the spot, but there was no pain. After a moment of hesitation, she shrugged. No doubt she had hurt herself slightly in her explorations of the keep. But it was nothing to worry about.
Her form undulated, reshaping itself, and in seconds the black werepanther stalked to the chamber's open window and leapt outside.
Enjoying the graceful strength of her panther form, Jadis loped easily down the steep side of the crag upon which Nartok Keep perched. Night had fallen, but the sky was clear, and the moon was just rising above the horizon to cast its gauzy illumination over the land. Skirting around the village, she moved like a windswept shadow northward across the rolling heath. She saw no signs of activity as she went. No one dared travel about Nartok by night. Except for werecats, Jadis amended mirthfully.
Soon she reached a low hill rising above the moor, its crest surrounded by a rusting, spiked fence. The cemetery. Quickly she padded through the gate and made her way toward the graves. Using her sharp claws, she pulled herself up the trunk of a dead tree and curled in the hollow between two branches. Her eyes glowing in the darkness, she watched the graves below. Jadis did not know what she expected to see, but she had a strong feeling she would see something.
She did not have long to wait. A faint, scrabbling sound reached her sensitive ears. Moments later, the dirt covering dozens of the graves, those belonging to victims of Caidin's inquisition, began to churn. A pale hand broke through the surface of one. It clawed at the dirt. More hands broke through the damp soil. In moments dozens of clutching hands and pallid arms rose up from the earth as though this was not a cemetery but some sort of grisly, blossoming garden. The hands scratched at the soil, and slowly an army of corpses rose out of the ground. Mold covered their rotting flesh, and dirt clung to their lank hair and tattered clothes. The corpses began shambling forward. Zombies. Jadis's pink nose wrinkled at the stench of their bloated flesh.
Shuffling listlessly, the throng of zombies marched through the graveyard. All stared with blank eyes. Some dropped gobbets of flesh or even loose fingers 0I ears behind them as they passed. When the last had clambered from his grave and stumbled out the cemetery's gate, Jadis jumped from the tree. She
Jadis followed the gruesome cavalcade across the moor. Soon a dark shape hove into view. It was the mysterious tower, now almost complete. Jadis slunk around the spire, her fur blending seamlessly with the night, watching as the zombies converged on the vast stone construction. The animate corpses began pushing ponderous blocks of stone up wooden ramps and sliding them into place atop the tower.
The undead moved clumsily as they went about their mindless labor. Two zombies bearing armfuls of tools collided with each other. One stumbled away, oblivious to the chisel embedded in her forehead, while the other tried vainly to pull out the crowbar that skewered his torso. A zombie woman shuffling toward the tower stepped in a trough of wet mortar. She lurched to a halt, her leg stuck in the rapidly setting cement. The decomposing woman strained, trying to pull out her foot. With a ripping sound her entire leg tore free of her body. Blithely, the zombie woman hopped forward on her one remaining leg.
A dwarven zombie waved a flaccid arm toward the dirt-encrusted corpse of the man that guided a wooden crane. A ponderous block of stone hung from the end of the stout boom.
"Drop… here.. the dwarven zombie groaned.
He started to point to a nearby pile of stones, but his rotting hand chose that moment to fall off, landing at his feet. The dwarf stared dully at the hand twitching on the ground. Slowly, he looked up.
"Uh… oh…" he moaned.
The wooden crane swung into position. The block of stone dropped, crushing the dwarf to a gooey pulp beneath. Next to the block of stone lay the dwarf's still-pointing hand.
Worms dropped from the mouth of the zombie man controlling the crane as he smi|ed. "Right… on… target…"
Jadis twitched her whiskers with satisfaction. Now she understood the purpose behind Caidin's false inquisition. He was executing supposed traitors simply as a means to gain corpses to transform into zombies-zombies who emerged from their graves each night to work on building this tower. Yet this begged a crucial question. Why was Caidin going to such elaborate lengths to build the tower?
Jadis's flesh rippled fluidly as her limbs lengthened and her dark fur vanished. Human once more, she scooped up handfuls of dirt and rubbed them over her naked body and through her hair. In moments she looked little different than the zombies. Slumping her shoulders and staring dully forward, Jadis shuffled toward the tower. The other zombies paid her no heed as they went about their mindless labor. She joined several who pushed a heavy block of stone up one of the wooden ramps. When they reached the top of the wall, she slipped away. The moonlight afforded a clear view of the construction.
So-it was a tower of war. Strong buttresses braced thick walls. Narrow windows slits were designed to make it easy to fire arrows at approaching targets. Overhanging ledges with holes created machicolations for dropping hot pitch onto enemies below. Jadis frowned. How would a tower of war in Nartok allow Caidin to defeat King Azalin in far-off II Aluk? It was a riddle she could not solve. Having learned all she could for the moment, Jadis moved to the ramp to head back down.
"Stop…" a slurred voice croaked behind her.
Jadis froze, then slowly turned around, keeping her face expressionless. A zombie man lurched toward her, dropping stray bits of putrid flesh as he moved. Jadis swore silently. Even in this state of decay, the zombies Caidin had created were still surprisingly sentient!
"Where… you… go?" She could hardly make out the zombie's words. His mouth was filled with dirt and worms.
"Down," she mumbled thickly.
"No…" the zombie groaned. "Come… with… me."
Panic jabbed at Jadis's heart. Limply, she shook her head. "Down," she mumbled again.
The zombie advanced on.her. A dozen more shambling corpses appeared out of the gloom behind him. If she changed into her werepanther form she could destroy perhaps half of them. That would not be enough.
"Why… you… disobey?" The zombie's slurred voice sounded suspicious. "Come!"
Jadis did not dare refuse a second time. Nodding stonily, she joined the others and shuffled after the zombie. He led them to the top of the wall.
"Must… carve… stone," he groaned. "Make… smooth."
While the zombie foreman watched, the other zombies clumsily picked up hammers and chisels and began chipping away at the stone blocks, squaring their edges so more blocks could be set on top of the wall. Jadis followed suit. She picked up a hammer and began chiseling away at the stone. Soon her hands were blistered, and her shoulders throbbed painfully. The zombies around her worked tirelessly, never ceasing. If she were to stop to rest, even for a moment, they would know she was not one of them.
"You can't fall asleep, love," she murmured hysterically under her breath. "No matter how lovely it sounds. If you fall asleep, they'll tear you to bits."
Biting her lip to stem the pain in her burning hands, desperately trying to shrug off her weariness, she kept chiseling. Eventually she drifted into a dark delirium, a waking nightmare filled with the endless clanking of steel on stone and the suffocating reek of rotten meat.
Suddenly Jadis looked up. The zombies were setting down their tools and shuffling away. Pearly light glowed on the distant horizon. It was almost dawn. Shuddering in relief, she set down her own hammer, stretching her throbbing shoulders.
"Back… to… coffins," a zombie moaned.
The z
ombies tottered down the wooden ramp to the ground and began lumbering back toward the cemetery. Jadis took the chance to slip away. Moments later the lithe werepanther loped across the moor, quickly leaving the gruesome procession of zombies behind. As she headed toward the keep in the misty gray light, a wry thought crossed Jadis's mind. Caidin ought to thank her for helping build his blasted tower.
Fourteen
Wort parted a gauzy veil of cobwebs. It had been months since he had last come to the forgotten storeroom to gaze upon the ancient tapestry. His breath caught in his chest. He had forgotten how beautiful the angel was.
The weaving drooped upon the stone wall. At least a third of it had rotted away over the centuries, and the rest was stained dark by smoke and the passing of time. Once the scene must have been a sylvan glade in the golden light of the morning sun. Now it was a garden swathed in the shadows of dusk. Yet in the midst of all that murkiness drifted the angel. A single ray of sunlight slanted down from a high window, illuminating the pale oval of her face. Her violet eyes gazed out serenely, and her rosebud mouth bore the faintest trace of a smile that was dreamy, and knowing, and hinting ever-so-slightly of love.
"How can it be her?" Wort whispered in amazement. For centuries this tapestry had hung here. Yet somehow it was her. He reached out and carefully traced a gnarled finger over the angel's white- gowned form. "Mika," he sighed. Carefully, he reached up to lift the tapestry off the hooks that fastened it in place.
A short while later, Wort painstakingly hung the tapestry on the" wall of his chamber high in the bell tower. He stepped back, making certain it was not crooked. For a startled moment he almost thought the diaphanous shift the angel wore was fluttering. A thrill raced through him. Was the angel somehow coming to life? He sighed. It was only a draft blowing through chinks in the stone, stirring the tapestry.