Mark Anthony - Tower of Doom

"But what if she can do it?" he demanded angrily. "What if I can stand tall, like Caidin? What then?"

The voice whispered again in his brain, but was cut off as a scream shattered the air.

"Mika!" Wort gasped in alarm.

Leaping to his feet, he dashed through the trees. He ran stooped over, using his long arms as a second pair of legs, like some sort of beast. Another scream rang out but was cut short, muffled. Panting, Wort ran faster. Tearing through a tangle of brambles, he found himself on the edge of the small brook. The first thing he saw was Mika's straw basket on the ground. Bright red berries had spilled beside it, glistening like blood on the green moss. A creaking sound drew his gaze.

The dead tree beside the brook was moving. Its rough bark was twisted into a shape that suggested a grotesque human face. Two pits glowed with eerie green light like eyes, and a ragged hole in the trunk gaped like a huge maw, gnashing splintery teeth. Once this had been a living, evil, animate tree-a treant-but as it died it had not been willing to give up its carnivorous appetites. In undeath, it hungered more than ever for flesh and blood. Long ago Wort had read about an undead treant in one of his books-but then it had been only a story. This was all too real.

The treant bent its branches toward a struggling Mika. The doctor fought in vain against the dark roots that snaked out of the ground to entwine her. One had coiled about her mouth, stifling her cries. Another root wrapped itself about her arm. Its tip sank into her flesh. Her body went rigid as her flushed cheeks turned white. The thing was draining her blood.

With a wordless cry of rage, Wort leapt over the. brook and threw himself at the tree. A branch-arm swatted him aside as easily as an insect. He landed hard on the ground, grunting in pain. Damp roots started to encircle his legs. Kicking fiercely, Wort scrambled out of their reach. He turned back to see Mika staring at him with terrified eyes. Her struggling grew weaker as the root continued to drain blood from her body. The treant's maw opened in a terrible grin.

Wort searched the pockets of his cloak frantically, then drew out an object-the magical candle. Focusing his anger, he.created a shaft of searing fire that leapt from the tip of the candle. Roaring like an animal, Wort lunged at the animate tree, swinging the blazing candle like a fiery sword. The shaft of fire bit deep into one of the treant's branch-arms, cleaving it in two. The tree opened its ragged mouth in a scream of fury that seemed to vibrate through the earth. With the blazing candle, Wort hacked at the roots that gripped Mika. The treant screamed again as its roots released the doctor. Gasping, face deathly pale, she stumbled away and collapsed on the mossy ground.

"Mika!" Wort shouted, turning toward her.

One of the treant's gnarled arms struck him hard from behind. He fell forward, and the magic candle flew from his grip. Its flame went out as it struck the ground. Like a cold serpent, a thick root coiled about his body, holding him fast. Countless twig fingers brushed his face, scratching him. A weird creaking that might have been laughter emanated from the treant as it slowly lifted him toward the rotting hole of its mouth, ready to sink its splinter-teeth into his flesh.

Another soundless cry vibrated through the rotten wood, only this one was not fury, but agony. The root let Wort go, and he tumbled to the ground. He dragged himself to his knees just in time to see Mika pull the blazing shaft of the magical candle out of the undead tree. There was a grim expression on her ghostly face and a flinty light in her purple eyes.

Then Mika slumped weakly to the ground. The candle went out-but the undead treant still burned. Tongues of scarlet flame licked up its moss-covered bark. The ancient tree writhed violently. In moments it was engulfed in a pillar of roaring fire. It waved its branches wildly, then gradually grew still as a column of black smoke reached to the blue sky above.

Wort scrambled over to Mika, helping her sit up. "I'll be fine," she said hoarsely. Crimson still oozed slowly from the puncture wound in her arm. She cleaned it with a handful of dry leaves as Wort tore a strip from his cloak for a bandage. The two watched as the burning tree toppled over in a spray of sparks.

"It's dead," Wort whispered grimly. In his storybooks, the heroes had always been jubilant after they slew a beast. All he felt was sick. He helped Mika to her feet, and together the two walked slowly back toward Nartok Keep in the waning daylight.

Pushing open the heavy door, Mika stepped into the dimness of the charnel house. Quickly she clutched a handkerchief to her face against the fetid stench of rot. Here, in this windowless stone building on the edge of the village, corpses were kept until the gravedigger could perform his job. Mika hung a burning oil lamp on the end of an iron chain. Its wavering light illuminated several forms lying upon stone slabs, draped in white burial shrouds, awaiting interment. These days Nartok's gravedigger had more business then he could easily accommodate.

Mika peered under each shroud until she found a body suitable for her purpose-a hale, middle-aged man who was fresher than most of the others. The crude stitches that held his severed head to his neck marked him as a traitor executed by the baron's inquisition. Mika set down her satchel and laid out her tools. She tied a handkerchief, which she had soaked in attar of roses, tightly around her face, although the rank scent of decay still filled her nose and Jungs. At the university in Il Aluk she had spent long hours studying anatomy using the human cadavers that were always in great supply in the teeming city. That morning, when she had asked if there was a dead body which she could dissect, the gravedigger had looked at her strangely with his one good eye. Then she had offered him a gold coin for his trouble, and the look had turned from curiosity to greed. Clutching the coin in a dirty hand, he had led her to the charnel house.

Mika pulled back the white pall. The cadaver lay faceup on the stone slab, staring at her with dull eyes. She tried several times to shut his eyelids, but they kept springing back open, no doubt from rigor mortis.

"I do so hate working with someone staring at me," Mika murmured with a shivery laugh.

With a silver scalpel she made the first incision. After much cutting and sawing, she opened the cadaver's ribcage and removed the organs of his chest-his heart and lungs-which she set on the empty slab behind her. Now she could examine his spine from the ventrum, the belly side of his body. In a small leather-bound notebook she carefully sketched the anatomy of the bones, muscles, and nerves surrounding his spine. If she were to operate on Wort's hunchback, she had to learn such things. Otherwise she might make some dreadful mistake with her scalpel, perhaps paralyzing Wort, or even killing him.

After she finished her drawings, Mika turned the heavy cadaver over on the slab to examine it from the dorsum, the back side. Before continuing, she rested a moment. She pulled a flask of water from her satchel and took a few sips. She had still not recovered entirely from the attack by the animate tree in the forest two days before. Shivering, Mika sipped more water, then put the flask away. She turned to continue her dissection.

The cadaver stared up at her with lifeless eyes.

"That's odd," she said with a frown. "I thought I turned you over." Struggling with the heavy body, she turned the cadaver over on the slab and made an incision down the center of the back. Soon she was busily making more anatomical sketches in her notebook.

A faint sound echoed off the stone walls. Mika paused a moment, listening. Silence. She shrugged and continued sketching. The sound came again-a wet, slapping noise. Slowly, the small hairs on her neck prickling, she turned around. The dead man's heart was beating! She clutched her notebook with white-knuckled hands. The fist-shaped organ lurched across the stone slab, flopping like a dying fish, trailing dark blood.