He rounded a bend in the track and suddenly found himself brought up short. Lying across the path was a dead tree. In life it must have been a king of the forest. The tree's knotted trunk was as thick as the span of Wort's arms. During the night it had finally lost its long battle against rot and had fallen across the track. Wort stared dejectedly at the tree. He could scramble over the trunk easily enough, but no amount of will would get the cart over the obstacle. Nor could he drag the cart around it. The forest was too thick here, the trees too close together. The bell could go no farther.
Wort made a halfhearted attempt at pushing the huge tree out of the road, but it was futile. Panting in exhaustion, he collapsed onto a rock. He buried his face in his hands as an air of gloom descended over him. It seemed he was not destined to have his vengeance after all. He should have known. Fate had never shown him any favor in the past. Why now?
A queer rustling noise intruded on his dark reverie. Dread pricking his skin, Wort glanced to one side to see insects stream out of the forest. There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Rivers of black-carapaced beetles, fire- red ants, and eyeless worms crawled on the ground, forming a thick, writhing carpet. Rapidly the insects swarmed over the fallen tree. In moments the massive trunk was no longer visible beneath the undulating shroud of bugs. More scuttled from the woods, and more. Worms slithered across Wort's feet, leaving behind trails of slime, but he did not shrink away. Revulsion froze him to the spot.
A weird buzzing noise filled the air along with a cloud of fine dust. The swarm of insects was chewing apart the rotting wood. With growing speed the chit- tering mass sank to the ground. Then, as if responding to some unheard signal, the insects began to stream once more into the woods. In moments the last of the vermin wriggled away, disappearing into the leaf litter that had spawned them. All that was left of the dead tree was a scattering of rotting splinters. The path was clear.
Wort rose to his feet. Bloated beetles squished wetly beneath his foot. Gagging, he approached the cart. Almost reluctantly he reached out and stroked the cool surface of the bell. Again peculiar thoughts drifted into his mind.
I wish to be free. Wort I will do anything to be free once more.
He snatched his hand back. Could the bell have…? No, he did not want to know. The path was clear now. That was all that mattered. As he turned from the bell, he felt a warm sensation rush over him, so strong and delicious that it nearly overwhelmed him in a wave of dark pleasure. It was a feeling of… gratitude. As suddenly as it had come, the feeling disappeared. For a moment, Wort weakly gripped the side of the cart, then gathered his strength.
'You're imagining things, Wort,' he muttered to himself. 'Now keep moving, or it'll be your own funeral the bells toll next.'
Strapping himself into the harness once more, he struggle'd onward. Soon, he was again engulfed by the throbbing miasma of pain. It was well after midday when he finally reached the stone watcher, the timeworn statue that marked the path. He paused to wrap himself once more in his dark cloak. From here on it was best to remain concealed.
Though the rutted forest track had been nearly impassable, the deep mud of the road seemed worse. Time and again his feet slipped beneath him, sending him plunging headlong into the stinking muck. Every few hundred yards the cart bogged down in the quagmire, and he was forced to kneel in the slime, digging with his bare hands to try to free the wheels. Several times riders galloped by, the beating hooves of their mounts spraying him with sludge. Not one even bothered to slow down as they passed the hunched man struggling with the heavy wagon. Wort slipped into a waking dream, drifting in a twilight world of pain. How wonderful it would be, he thought, to let go of the burning agony and allow himself to sink down into cool darkness. Yet the distant music of bells continued to pull him onward.
Abruptly a new sound cut through the thick fog that shrouded his mind.
'Are you simple, peasant?' a voice barked. 'I said, what's your business at the keep?'
Wort shook his head, blinking in dull amazement. He stood before the great wooden gates of Nartok Keep. Ruddy light gleamed off the steel breastplate of the guard who stood before him. It was sunset. Yet it seemed impossible that he had completed the journey in one day. Or had it been just one day? Distance or time-or maybe both-had been strangely distorted during the course of his journey. Wort shivered, his mind dizzy.
The guard's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he peered into the shadows of Wort's hood.
Wort licked his parched lips. 'A bell,' he croaked. 'I've brought a new bell for the keep.'
'Who ordered it?' the guard demanded.
Wort blurted the first name that drifted to his brain.. 'Baron Caidin did.'
The grizzled soldier let out a snort. 'You're a liar. The baron does not trouble himself with such mundane matters. Let me see your face, peasant.'
Wort hesitated. Slowly he raised his hands to the cowl that hid his visage. 'As you wish.' He lowered the dark hood.
'By the Master of the Gray Kingdom!' the guard swore, stumbling back in horror. Wort's visage, always homely, was now hideously contorted with exertion. Hastily, the guard made the sign against the Evil Eye. Before, such a reaction would have caused Wort sadness. Now he felt only a strange satisfaction at the revulsion in the other's eyes. He took a lurching step toward the guard, the heavy wagon creaking behind him.
'Let me pass, or I will curse you,' he hissed.
The guard shook his head. 'I… I can't…' His hand fluttered weakly to the hilt of his short sword.
Wort raised a gnarled hand and pointed it at the guard. He grinned evilly. 'Then let this be your curse…'
'No, wait!' the guard cried. 'Please! The castellan will flay my hide if he finds out, but… 'He swallowed hard, then stepped to the side of the gate. 'I'll… I'll let you through.'
Laughter rumbled deep in Wort's chest. 'Wise choice,' he whispered. A new feeling washed over him. Fear was a formidable weapon. Once more he seemed to feel a sensation of power radiating from the-bell. Slowly, his whole body trembling with exhaustion, he dragged the cart into the courtyard of the keep. The guard only watched, the whites of his eyes shining, as he muttered over and over a charm his grandmother had once taught him to ward off curses.
It was midnight.
The cold light of the horned moon spilled through the iron gratings that covered the belfry's arched windows. Rows of sleeping pigeons lined high ledges, their heads tucked under their wings, glowing eerily in the pale illumination. Like some great, deformed bird himself, Wort perched atop the maze of thick wooden rafters that supported the bells.
'Almost done, my friends,' Wort whispered. Several birds ruffled their feathers, then sank back into slumber. Wort finished threading the end of a stout rope through an iron pulley. Below him the rope disappeared through the trapdoor in the belfry's floor. His pulse quickened.
Earlier, as night had mantled Nartok Keep, Wort had managed to push the swathed bulk of the bronze bell from the back of the wagon through the door of his tower. After hiding the cart behind the keep's stable, he had stumbled back to the tower and collapsed in exhaustion. For a time he had slept like one dead, but a vision had gradually invaded his sleeping mind, glowing with brilliant incandescence. Then he had woken, knowing he could wait-it could wait-no longer.
Wort tightly gripped the end of the rope in thick- fingered hands. 'Now it is my turn to fly, my friends.' He leapt off the rafter.
His ragged cloak fluttering like black wings, Wort dropped down through the trapdoor. The rope whistled as it went through the pulley above, going taut as his weight began to lift the object tethered to the other end. Wort dropped through another trapdoor, and another, continuing his descent into darkness. A bulky shape appeared from below and rushed past him, upward. In moments, the bell vanished above Wort's head.
At last Wort's feet touched the ground. Quickly he lashed the rope to an iron ring in the floor, then lumbered up the tower's narrow spiral staircase until he reached the belfry once more. Gasping for breath, he craned his neck to gaze at the bell dangling above his head.
'There it is, my friends!' He clapped his hands together. 'By my soul, it is beautiful.'
The bell hung from one of the belfry's rafters. Moonlight dripped like water off its smooth surface, flowing into the runes carved along its lip. Wort clambered up a rickety ladder and busied himself with securing the bell to its moorings. Only when he was certain that everything was right did he carefully remove the rags that muffled the clapper. He climbed back down. Waves of emotion seemed to radiate from the bell. It was almost as if the thing
