Mark Anthony - Tower of Doom

Wort limped silently down the narrow village street. He clutched his black cloak tightly around himself, keeping to the murk and shadows. He felt a strange giddiness. As a child he had lived in terror of the monsters said to stalk the night. No more.

"Now I am the monster," Wort whispered gleefully.

The thought left him strangely elated. No longer did the fear he instilled in others cause him regret. Fear was power. He knew that now. It was a truth he had embraced when Castellan Domeck's bloodied glove had fallen from the magical bell. He wasn't certain where the dark realization had come from. Perhaps it was the voice that had been whispering to him of late-the voice he was beginning to think issued from the bell itself. It did not matter. Everything was crystal-clear to him now. The folk of Nartok had branded him a monster. Caidin had deemed him one. By acting as a monster he would gain his revenge against them all for the suffering they had inflicted on him.

He came to a run-down building on the edge of the village. In contrast to the silent dwellings around it, this structure's grimy windows flickered with light, and coarse laughter drifted on the air. A weather- beaten sign hung above the peeling door. Wort could just make out the lettering in the cast-off light of the windows. The Wolf's Head Tavern, the sign proclaimed. Below these words, as if further explanation were somehow needed, was the crudely drawn head of a wolf, severed at the neck and dripping gore. Wort noted the sound of angry voices, followed by the clinking of pewter mugs and more laughter. Uncoiling his bent back, he craned his neck and peered through one of the glowing windows.

In the dingy room beyond, a half dozen men sat around a knife-scarred wooden table, drinking and gambling with dice. By their unbuttoned blue coats and the sword belts and sabers slung over the backs of their chairs, they were knights of the baron, but their drunken behavior was anything but knightly. A plump tavern maid sloshed ale into dented tankards. One of the knights snaked an arm around her waist. She slapped his hand and wriggled away, though not before treating the man to a fatuous smile.

"Where is he, my friends?" Wort whispered, as though the pigeons in the keep's bell tower could somehow hear him. "I heard him speaking down in the courtyard today, telling his companions he would come to this place tonight. But where-"

Another man stepped into view. Like the others, he wore the blue livery of a. knight. He was a handsome man with long golden hair. Smiling lustily, he swept the barmaid into his arms. She shrieked but made only a perfunctory effort to free herself from his grasp.

"There he is," Wort breathed. Hatred glittered in his bulbous blue eyes. He recognized the knight as the one who had almost trampled him with his charger on the muddy road outside the village. The barmaid gazed rapturously at the handsome man, dull-witted adoration shining on her plump face.

"She thinks you magnificent now, Sir Knight," Wort seethed quietly. "But soon you will know what it is to be an object of loathing. Just like me."

Wort turned from the window and slunk toward a blocky shape behind the tavern. He pushed open a wooden door and slipped inside'. The loamy scent of horses filled his nostrils. He rummaged in the pocket of his cloak and pulled out a.small object. It was a metal cylinder fashioned in the shape of a candle. Wort's brow furrowed in concentration. Suddenly a flickering flame sprang into being on the tip of the cylinder. Golden light illuminated the interior of the stable. Wort had discovered the silver candle some years ago in the forgotten storeroom in the keep, along with the enchanted book and the tapestry of the angel. Quite by accident he had learned that if he held the candle and imagined it was lit, a flame would appear on its tip. No matter how long it burned, the flame would never go out until he imagined that the silver candle had been extinguished.

Wort lumbered past stalls of sleeping horses until he found a white charger chomping drowsily at its feedbag. This was the one-the horse that belonged to the golden-haired knight who had almost ridden him down. Wort unbuckled one of the beast's saddlebags. He pulled another object from the pocket of his cloak. It was a leather glove, stained with blood. Wort stuffed the glove deep into the saddlebag. Yes-this was what the voice had told him he must do. He refastened the buckle. Sinking down on the hay, he rested for a moment. The steep trek down from the keep was tiring for his malformed legs.

"You don't mind if I share your stall for a minute or two, do you, my friend?" Wort asked the horse. The beast only continued its placid chewing. "No, I thought not." Wort's eyes fluttered shut as he leaned back against the wall. "You know, my friend, I warrant you'll soon have a new master…"

Somewhere a rooster crowed. Wort's eyes drifted open. Dim gray light filtered through chinks in the stable's walls. Suddenly he sat up in cold dread. He must have fallen asleep! He leapt to his feet, then froze.

A man's voice chortled outside the stable. "Looks like your purse is lighter than it was yesterday, Logris, while mine seems strangely heavier. You never were lucky at dice."

"At least I'm lucky at love, Adaric," another man replied jovially. "That's a game your dice won't help you win."

Panic seized Wort. He recognized the second voice. It was the golden-haired knight! Quickly he searched for some means of escape. The stable door rattled as someone undid the latch. With growing dread, Wort realized there was no other way out. In desperation, he dived into a pile of hay and hastily tossed handfuls of dusty grass over himself.

Light flooded the stable. Trading more good- natured slurs, the two knights entered. Wort cringed inside the pile of hay, not daring to breathe. The knights seemed to move with maddening slowness. Finally they led their steeds outside. Wort heard the clattering of hooves fade away. He crawled out of the haystack, but his relief was quickly replaced by new apprehension. He still had to traverse the village and the steep road up to the keep-without the mantle of darkness-before he reached the safety of his bell tower.

"You are a fool, Wort," he grumbled to himself.

There was nothing else he could do. Swathing himself tightly in his voluminous cloak, he left the stable, hoping that this time the villagers would not see him for what he really was. He kept mostly to dank alleys. Though the crimson orb of the sun had risen above the horizon, the shadowed paths he tread seldom saw its rays. Wort picked his way through fetid heaps of garbage and gurgling rivulets of filthy water. Rats scurried back and forth across the way, chittering hungrily. Once, protruding from a pile of refuse, he saw a human'hand. Swallowing hard, he hurried on.

The alley dead-ended.

Wort muttered a curse under his breath. Then a thought struck him. Looking up, he saw that the buildings here were roofed with tiles, not thatch. Using his powerful arms, he pulled himself up a rough stone wall to one of the rooftops. Used to high places, he moved more easily along the roof, stooping to stay low. He saw villagers trudging through the streets below, but their cheerless gazes were all bent toward the ground. None saw the hunchback creeping along the rooftops above. Ahead, Wort thought — he caught a glimpse of another alley leading toward the village's edge. He kept moving.

That was when he saw her. Transfixed, Wort halted, peering down at a woman who walked below. Despite her dark dress and the severe knot into which she had bound her pale hair, she was beautiful. Though delicate, her face was curiously strong, like the visage of an exquisite porcelain doll. Most wonderful were her eyes. Even from above Wort noted that they were the rare, deep violet of a winter night. Impossibly, she somehow maintained an air of dignity and grace as she picked her way through the squelching muck of the street, carrying a black leather satchel.