Mark Anthony - Tower of Doom

Jadis scratched her claws against the stone floor, sharpening them. She tensed, waiting for the right moment. As one, the goblyns lunged for her. Uncoiling her powerful limbs, shedeapt over them and landed gracefully, turning to see the goblyns crash into each other in the spot where she had crouched a moment before. Two of the creatures howled in agony and stumbled away, clutching the spears that protruded from their stomachs. Both fell to the floor, dead. The other goblyns untangled themselves and turned toward Jadis. They advanced more carefully this time. Goblyns were stupid, but they were riot completely without cunning.

A goblyn lunged at her with its spear. Jadis leapt easily out of its path. Growling, she whirled quickly, only to have another spear jabbed in her face. She ducked it narrowly, then backed away. The long spears made it impossible to get close enough to slash at the goblyns with her claws. Her tail brushed the rough stones of the wall. She had little room to retreat. Grinning toothily, the four goblyns drew their spears back, ready for the plunge.

Jadis tensed her limbs as if to spring. Hastily, the goblyns waved their spears upward as though to strike at her underbelly. But it was a feint on her part. Staying low instead, Jadis charged, crashing into two of the goblyns. Their spears flew from their hands and clattered to the floor. She broke one creature's neck with a lazy swipe of a paw, then sank her teeth into the skull of the other, piercing its brain. Whirling, she saw the other two goblyns lunge. She sprang high. Landing atop the two goblyns, she bore them to the floor. They struggled desperately, trying to sink their sharp teeth into her flesh. She beat them to it, ripping out their throats with swift precision.

A heartbeat later it was over. Jadis sat back on her haunches, observing as the eyes of the goblyns flickered like dying coals, then went dark. She turned and slunk swiftly down the corridor, following Caidin's scent. Jadis's black-velvet ears twitched, homing in on a sound? a faint noise floating on the dank air. Voices. She quickened her pace. Suddenly she halted, shrinking into a dark alcove. A dozen paces away, an iron door swung open with a shriek of rusted hinges.

"That is truly all, darkling?" a low voice demanded. "I have only to place the Soulstone upon the altar to invoke its power?"

"That is truly all," a wheedling voice replied, raising the hackles on Jadis's back. There was a pause. "You need me no longer. Will you not release me?"

Laughter rang out on the foul air. "We shall see, darkling."

Baron Caidin stepped into the corridor, pulling the iron door securely shut. Jadis froze. Caidin strode past her hiding place. In moments he was gone. The dark air seemed to swirl and coil about the werepan- ther's form. Moments later a woman with coppery skin walked down the corridor, moving gracefully on bare feet. Jadis reached the iron door. She noticed a small opening in the wall low to the ground. Kneeling, she peered through the hole. Her eyes needed no torchlight to make out the squalid chamber beyond.

"Greetings, Velvet-Claw."

Jadis gasped at the high-pitched voice. "How do you know that name?" she asked warily.

"I know many things."

A form that might once have been a man scuttled into view. Jadis curled her lip in revulsion. Filthy tatters of cloth clung damply to skeletal limbs as dark and gray as ashes. His colorless eyes bulged, staring madly, as if he gazed upon some unseen world of nightmares. By the tarnished earring he still wore, she knew him to be a Vistana. Suddenly she remembered Caidin's words. He had referred to this creature as darkling. Jadis had heard of such beings-cast-out Vistani, pariahs of the gypsy clans, whose souls were willingly consumed by evil.

Jadis steeled her will. "Is that why you're here? Because you know certain things of value to Baron Caidin?" Broken laughter grated against cold stone. "Of course, Velvet-Claw. Why else? I certainly do not stay here because I like the food." The cadaverous gypsy snaked out a bony arm and snatched up a mushroom-colored beetle. He popped the insect into his mouth and crunched down with alacrity.

Jadis swallowed her unease. "I have a bargain for you, darkling. You badly want your freedom, don't you?"

A wary yet intrigued grunt was her only reply.

"Here it is then. I have the power to free you from your ceik But first you must tell me what you and the baron were speaking of just a moment ago."

A silence ensued. Finally, the darkling spoke. "I cannot do that, Velvet-Claw. The truth I speak for Caidin is his truth. Your truth is something… different."

Jadis frowned. She had no time for riddles. "Then we have no bargain." She started to move away from the opening.

"Wait!" The gypsy went on in a hissing voice. "I cannot tell you what words I spoke for the baron. You see, I can barely remember them now that he is gone. That is the nature of the Sight. Yet I could tell you something else… something that would grant you the means to defeat him."

Jadis had little to lose. "Done." After a long pause, the darkling spoke in an eerie, almost chantlike voice; "You must journey toward the dawning sun, Velvet-Claw. I see… I see the shadowed forest surrounding you. Do not fear- there is no creature here more fearsome than you. Venture onward. Then… ah, yes… then the trees part like a dark curtain. There it looms before you. The broken remnants of faith forgotten. Shattered dwelling of old gods… cursed gods so ancient they forgot their own names long ago. It is… it is a… cathedrair There was a long silence. At last the darkling spoke again. Now his voice seemed hoarse and weary, as if he had just undergone some great exertion. "That is all the Sight will reveal to me, Velvet-Claw. You must journey to this ancient cathedral. I do not know what you will discover there-only that it will grant you the means to destroy Baron Caidin."

Jadis's eyes glittered suspiciously. "Is that it?"

"That is your truth, Velvet-Claw."

At last she nodded. "Then the bargain is complete."

She stretched out a hand, and suddenly sharp claws sprang from each of her fingertips. She slipped one of her talons into the door's rusted lock. It was time to fulfill her end of the deal.

A short while later, the werepanther leapt through the window of her private bedchamber. Onyx fur rippled, and in moments the woman Jadis stood in the cat's place. A strange thrill fluttered in her heart. Somehow, she sensed that the darkling had indeed spoken truthfully to her. Whatever this ancient cathedral was, she was certain she would find something of importance there. Humming to herself in satisfaction, she turned to pick up her gown of green silk from the bed. As she did, she caught a glimpse of her naked body in the silver mirror. A chill spike plunged deep into her heart.

"It cannot be, love," she whispered to herself in disbelief. "It cannot."

She reached out and tentatively touched the livid mark that darkened the flesh beneath her collarbone. It had grown even more, and now, quite clearly, had assumed a distinctly ominous shapethe shape of a skeletal hand.

The darkling cringed in the shadowed mouth of the slimy drainpipe, waiting for twilight to fall. His eyes had grown too used to darkness, and the light of day was painful in its brilliance. At last the burning eye of the sun sank beneath the distant horizon. Chill blue shadows mantled the countryside. The shriveled Vistana crawled from the drainpipe, picking his path down the rocky slope of the tor to the rolling plains below.

Cackling happily, he hobbled across the moor. How wondrous it was to be free again. He wondered where he should go, what he should do. There were so many more relics of darkness he had learned about, so many objects besides the stone and the bell that were capable of wreaking massive strife and woe, and glorious mayhem. He would see them all unearthed from their ancient tombs. That would show the others once and for all how foolish they had been to cast him out. But first, perhaps, he would find some throats. Yes, that was it-some smooth, lovely throats to snap and crush with his long, shriveled hands. That was what just what he needed to revive himself after such long confinement. His mirth bubbling weirdly, he pushed his ravaged body on, into the purple gloaming.