Mark Anthony - Tower of Doom

Wondrous realization struck him. "I'll be rich," he whispered greedily. "Richer than Baron Caidin. Richer than King Azalin." His nose twitched fiercely. "I'll be surrounded by gold!" He reached into the chest to pick up his magical coin.

The lid slammed down with a violent boom!

Kraikus stumbled backward, then slowly lifted his right arm. The wrist was cut off in a ragged stump. The splintered ends of two bones gleamed white against torn flesh. Blood spurted out in arcs of liquid crimson. Kraikus stared numbly at the gory stump, too shocked to feel pain. He jerked his head up to see the lid of the chest open again, like a dark, hungry mouth. The chest rose into the air and floated toward him with sinister deliberation.

"No," Kraikus choked. "Stay away from me…"

He lurched to his feet and stumbled backward, clutching the stump of his wrist. Blood pumped through his fingers. The chest drifted closer. It tilted forward. Something tumbled out, falling to the floor with a wet plop! It was his own hand, still clutching the glowing coin. Kraikus retreated. He was starting to feel the pain in his wrist now-sharp, exquisite, soul-tearing. His shriek rose to the high-vaulted ceiling.

"Get away!"

There was a creaking noise behind him. Madly, Kraikus glanced over his shoulder to see another trunk behind him with its lid opening. The other chest was almost upon him. Kraikus fell back in revulsion, his heel slipping in the blood that slicked the stone floor. Flailing, he tumbled backward into the open trunk. The other chest tipped. A glittering shower of silver and gold cascaded down on the treasurer. It was raining coins. A.burst of manic laughter escaped him.

"Surrounded by gold!" he shrieked.

Coins piled heavily on top of Kraikus, filling the trunk, crushing him with their terrible weight. A piercing pain spread throughout his body. He could feel his chest collapsing. Kraikus's last thought was of how cool all the coins felt against his skin, how wonderfully smooth. Then, along with the clinking of gold and silver, came the percussion of popping bones. The lid of the trunk slammed down, sealing Nartok's treasurer and all his precious coins inside.

In the moonlight that filtered into the belfry, Wort watched as a small object fell from the inside of the cursed bell. He greedily snatched the thing up from the moldy straw. It was a gold coin, sticky with blood.

The tower's bells swung wildly back and forth, toiling the death of Nartok's treasurer. Wort grinned in dark satisfaction. He bore no particular enmity toward Kraikus-that is, no more and no less than he bore toward all the folk of Nartok. It had simply been good fortune (or had it? he wondered, gazing up at the silent, cursed bell) that, while prowling about the keep, he had seen the coin fall from the treasurer's pocket. Sensing it would make a perfect token for the Bell of Doom, he had retrieved the coin.

Abruptly, the frenzied tolling stopped. Quiet mantled the bell tower once more.

"It has begun, my friends," Wort whispered excitedly to the pigeons that fluttered about him. "My final vengeance. But what now? What action do I take next?" He squatted down on the rotting straw to ponder his next move.

There was a harsh squawk, followed by a soft thud! Wort's head snapped up. He stared at the gray shape of the pigeon that had dropped to the floor in front of him. Its neck was bent at an unnatural angle, broken. A second pigeon fell beside the first, and a third. Both stared with dull, lifeless eyes, their necks violently wrenched. Wort looked up in shock. A dozen pigeons whirled slowly in the air above him, but not under the power of their own wings. Each was frozen, its beak gaping and silent. One by one the dead birds dropped to the floor.

"My friends…" Wort gasped in anguish.

He reached out toward the poor broken birds, then suddenly hesitated. The pigeons lay in a pattern. Their gray bodies and splayed wings formed the shapes of letters, spelling out a word: MORE.

"But how…?" Wort did not need to finish his question. His gaze rose to the cursed bell. Suddenly his sorrow was replaced by exultation.

"Of course," he whispered excitedly, leaping to his feet. "It is a message. If I am to gain vengeance against Caidin, one token will not do." He gripped the blood-stained coin tightly. Gradually, a dark plan unfurled in his mind.

Wort scrambled down the ladder to his chamber below the belfry and opened the trunk next to his pallet. He drew out a small wooden box and set the bloody coin carefully inside. Then he returned the box to its place. Cackling to himself, he curled up on his musty pallet and went over things in his feverish mind. He was not certain which thoughts were his own and which were whispered by the dry, ancient voice. Nor did he care. At last he drifted into the dark waters of sleep.

Wort woke with the dawn and made his way downstairs to find, as he did on every third day, the basket of brown bread and jug of water that were left outside the door of his tower. Taking these back up to his chamber, he broke his fast,sharing some of the crumbs with the surviving pigeons that clustered around him.

"Do you think she will come today, my friends?" he asked the mist-gray birds. He was answered with a soft chorus. "Truly? Well, I hope that you're right. I find… I find that I am lonely when she is not here."

Wort closed his eyes for a moment, picturing the pale oval of the doctor's face, glowing like the angel who drifted in the ancient tapestry. Sometimes Wort did not see Mika for several days, and then, just when he had given up hope of her ever returning, he would once more hear the gentle rapping at the tower's door. Rushing down, he would find Mika waiting, and she would explain with grave eyes that she'd been detained by a bad outbreak of fever in the village, or that she had just had to attend to a village woman going through a long, difficult birth.

Happily, there were also times when Mika managed to come several days in a row. Often she brought things with her-flowers to brighten his dismal chamber, or honey cakes, or a gameboard with carved wooden pieces to play Castles and Kings. Wort had never played the game before, but Mika seemed to draw upon an endless reservoir of patience as she explained the complex rules to him.

It was midday this time when he heard a faint rapping echoing up from below.

"She's here!" Wort exclaimed, jumping to his feet.

In vain, he tried to smooth down his matted brown hair and brush bits of straw from his threadbare brown tunic. He flung open the trapdoor in the center of the floor, threw down the length of rope coiled next to the opening, and clambered down to the bottom of the bell tower. In one swift motion, he sprang from the rope and opened the door.

Mika gasped in surprise, holding a hand to her breast. Then she laughed. "I'm happy to see you, too, Wort." She was clad in a dress of thick gray wool. She had thrown a heavy sky blue cloak over her shoulders against the autumn chill. She carried a straw basket in her arms.

"Please, come in, doctor," Wort said, attempting a clumsy bow. His grin was a trifle mischievous. "I've been practicing my opening gambits in Castles and Kings. I think you might not find me so easy to beat today!"

Mika arched a single eyebrow. "Is that so? Well, I'm afraid you'll have to wait until another day to embarrass me. Today we're going on a picnic in the woods."

Wort stared at her. He had never been on a picnic before. In fact, he had no idea what a picnic involved, but he grinned at Mika all the same.

"I'll need my cloak," he said gruffly. He hobbled quickly upstairs to the belfry and grabbed the garment, but as he turned to head back down, he paused. The cursed bell brooded darkly among the rafters. A strong feeling of… disapproval seemed to radiate from it.