Mark Anthony - Tower of Doom

"A monster," Wort finished for her. "That's what they said, isn't it? That in the bell tower there lived- a monster."

She nodded gravely. "Yes."

Wort lurched closer. "So you put two and two together and thought you would come to get another glimpse of this hideous creature, is that it?"

The woman retreated farther, only to find herself backed up against one of the belfry's arched windows. "No," she breathed.

"Then you came in search of some perverse thrill, yes?" Wort demanded sinisterly. "Or perhaps you came to examine the monster, to make a study of it. I've heard talk. They say that you're a doctor." He indicated his twisted body. "Perhaps you find my horrible form… fascinating."

Sudden fire replaced the alarm in her purple eyes. "No," she said fiercely. "That's not it at all. I came here…" deliberately, she took a step nearer him "… I came here to thank you." She reached out and touched his gnarled hand in a gesture of gratitude.

Wort snatched his hand back, clutching it as if it had been burned. Now he was the one retreating. "This is my tower," he snarled. "You have no business here. Get out!"

The woman sighed. "As you wish. I was wrong to have come here without invitation. Again, I only wanted to thank you." She moved to the trapdoor.

As she bent to descend the ladder, the dappled sunlight spilling through the belfry's windows alighted like glowing sparks upon her skin and hair. Once again, Wort was struck by her resemblance to the radiant angel in the long-forgotten tapestry-the angel whose night-deep violet eyes were so full of compassion he had once dared to believe they might hold enough even for him.

"Wait," he said hoarsely.

The woman looked up expectantly.

He frowned. Mow that he had her attention, he did not know what to say. He swallowed hard. "Why… why bother to thank me? Why do you even care?"

Straightening, she fixed him with a direct expression. "I know what it is to be mocked, you know. I myself have been an object of laughter, and scorn, and now-as you yourself have witnessed-even of fear." She walked slowly to a window, gazing through the intricate wrought iron at the keep's soaring towers.

"People fear the unfamiliar," she went on. "I think it's because it makes them realize that the world is. greater and far more complex than they could ever possibly understand. That makes them feel vulnerable, and terribly, terribly small." She turned around, a rueful smile touching her lips. "In the city of II Aluk, they feared a woman bold enough to become a doctor. Here in Nartok it is a man who is… shaped differently than others."

Wort realized he was shivering. Was this woman in truth an angel? He ran a hand through disheveled hair and across a face marked by deep lines-lines that made him seem far older than the man of three- and-thirty years he was.

"Do you truly not fear me?" he whispered in amazement.

She returned his gaze unflinchingly. "No, I do not."

For a moment they gazed at each other in silence. At last the woman spoke with mock chagrin. "You know, I've utterly forgotten my manners. My name is Mika."

He swallowed hard before managing to find the words to reply. "I am… I am called Wort."

"Wort." She repeated the word. "I am glad I came here today, Wort."

Mika smiled warmly. Hesitantly, Wort returned the expression. It was more grimace than smile, but it did not seem to disturb her. Suddenly she reached out to touch the hump that contorted his shoulders into their unnatural shape.

"You know, I am a doctor," she said softly. "Perhaps I could help you."

The warmth drained from Wort's chest. "Help me?"

She nodded nervously. "I might be able to… operate on your back. To make you appear normal."

Fury blazed to life in his eyes. The happiness he had felt only a moment ago now seemed a cruel lifetime away. Mika took a step back and gasped.

"Ah, then you do find me hideous," he said ominously. "Of course, I should have known. You are a doctor. It is your compulsion to seek out the diseased. Is that not so?"

Mika shook her head, her jaw working soundlessly.

"Tell me, do you wish to perform some kind of dissection on me?" Wort went on coldly. "I've heard doctors favor such experiments. Perhaps you can make a fascinating study of my deformities, or perform operations on me that you have only dared to try on animals." His voice built to a roar. "Then your brilliance will win you accolades from your counterparts in the city, and you will be scorned no more, but heralded as a great scientist-as one who transformed a monster into a man! Is that it?"

"No, Wort," she whispered sorrowfully. "You're wrong. I only want to help."

"If you want to help, then you can leave me alone!" he thundered. "I do not need your pity, doctor. Nor do I need your healing ability. Go!"

Quickly she moved to the ladder, but before descending she turned to give him one last pointed look. "I will go because you have asked me to," she said quietly. "But know this, Wort. I do not go out of fear." She disappeared through the trapdoor.

Howling in rage, Wort slammed the trapdoor shut.

"She is no angel!" he shouted, clenching his hands into fists. "She thinks me a monster; she is no different from the others." Wort lumbered to the bell ropes. "Yes, I will be healed someday-someday soon-my way!"

He pulled something from the pocket of his tunic. It was the cinnamon-brown lock of the contessa's hair. He tied it about the rope of the cursed bell, then tugged fiercely. The vast tolling of the bell shook the stones around him. As Wort had witnessed once before, the dimness before him roiled like an angry sea. Three black-robed figures surfaced in the darkling air. They drifted smokelike above the floor. This time, however, Wort was not afraid.

"You have summoned us, bellringer." The three spirits spoke in echoing unison.

"There is your token." Wort pointed to the lock of hair. "Take it. Take it and fulfill your curse!"

The three spirits bowed solemnly. "It will be so." Like mist before a wind, the apparitions dissolved. The lock of hair faded with them. A voice whispered in Wort's mind. There are no such things as angels…

The Contessa Sabrinda stretched languorously on the satin sheets of her bed, clad only in a diaphanous nightgown.

"Farewell, my love," she murmured.

Baron Caidin leered licentiously at her as he finished buckling on his sword belt. He leaned over her, and she felt his moist breath in her ear. "Farewell," he whispered.

Sabrinda closed her eyes, listening to her lover's bootsteps retreating from the room. She drowsed for a time in contentment. Then she roused herself from her bed to make her preparations for the morrow. She opened her wardrobe and chose a gown of dove-gray silk with silver brocade, laying it carefully over the back of a velvet chair. She turned to sit at her gilded dressing table, rhythmically brushing her hair with her favorite ivory-handled hairbrush. She paused in midstroke.

"That's odd." Setting down her brush, she reached out to pick up a lock of hair on the dressing table- her own hair by its length and color-which had been braided into a ring. Her frown of puzzlement gave way to a wicked smile. "I suppose this is a token left by my lover," she mused. She slipped it onto a finger. Soon Caidin would be thusly wrapped around her finger as well. Then, one night she would whisper casually into his ear that he should grant a fiefdom to one of his knights-a Sir Beacham by name-and surely the baron would comply.

"Then I can stop pretending to love the loathsome man," she crooned to herself, "and you and I can be together forever, my beloved Beacham." Smiling at her own genius, she reached down to pick up the brush.

Sabrinda froze, staring at the mirror before her. In its reflection she saw the gray dress that she had laid out rise into the air, stretching its empty sleeves toward her. Gasping in horror, the contessa stood and whirled around. Fluttering, as if wafted by some unseen wind, the silk gown drifted toward her.