throbbing shoulders.
'Back… to… coffins,' a zombie moaned.
The zombies tottered down the wooden ramp to the ground and began lumbering back toward the cemetery. Jadis took the chance to slip away. Moments later the lithe werepanther loped across the moor, quickly leaving the gruesome procession of zombies behind. As she headed toward the keep in the misty gray light, a wry thought crossed Jadis's mind. Caidin ought to thank her for helping build his blasted tower.
Fourteen
Wort parted a gauzy veil of cobwebs. It had been months since he had last come to the forgotten storeroom to gaze upon the ancient tapestry. His breath caught in his chest. He had forgotten how beautiful the angel was.
The weaving drooped upon the stone wall. At least a third of it had rotted away over the centuries, and the rest was stained dark by smoke and the passing of time. Once the scene must have been a sylvan glade in the golden light of the morning sun. Now it was a garden swathed in the shadows of dusk. Yet in the midst of all that murkiness drifted the angel. A single ray of sunlight slanted down from a high window, illuminating the pale oval of her face. Her violet eyes gazed out serenely, and her rosebud mouth bore the faintest trace of a smile that was dreamy, and knowing, and hinting ever-so-slightly of love.
'How can it be her?' Wort whispered in amazement. For centuries this tapestry had hung here. Yet somehow it was her. He reached out and carefully traced a gnarled finger over the angel's white- gowned form. 'Mika,' he sighed. Carefully, he reached up to lift the tapestry off the hooks that fastened it in place.
A short while later, Wort painstakingly hung the tapestry on the' wall of his chamber high in the bell tower. He stepped back, making certain it was not crooked. For a startled moment he almost thought the diaphanous shift the angel wore was fluttering. A thrill raced through him. Was the angel somehow coming to life? He sighed. It was only a draft blowing through chinks in the stone, stirring the tapestry.
'I am letting my imagination have its way with me, Lisenne,' he said as a cloud-gray pigeon fluttered down to land on his outstretched hand. 'She does seem very real though, doesn't she? Mika will be. very surprised, I think. Don't you agree?'
The pigeon replied with an amiable coo. Wort tossed the bird into the air, and it winged away to roost in the rafters. Deciding it would be a good idea, to practice his endgame in Castles and Kings in anticipation of the doctor's next visit, he turned to open the trunk by his pallet.
Wort froze, staring. The ancient tapestry was not the only new weaving in his chamber. Stretching across the room's narrow window was a spider web. Drops of moisture clung to the silken strands, glittering like diamond-fire in the light of the westering sun. The weaver of the web still clung to its creation. Above the spider, the perfect spiral of the web was broken by a pattern spelling out three words in pearlescent strands: RING IT, WORT.
He jerked his head up, gazing at the ceiling. He could feel it. The sensation poured from the belfry above like foul water dripping between floorboards. Disapproval.
Shaking, Wort knelt before the ironbound trunk and drew out a small wooden box. He opened the box and took out some tokens. Only one of the objects was stained with blood-the gold coin that had belonged to Nartok's treasurer. The other tokens were as yet untainted. Wort had stolen them over the last week, prowling around the keep and village. There was a belt belonging to the villager's tanner, whom Wort had seen brutally beat a young apprentice for a trivial mistake. There was a hat he had stolen from a drunken highwayman he found passed out in a ditch beside the road. And there were two shoes-a man's and a lady's-which he had pilfered from a pair of adulterous courtiers who had ventured into a grove for a wicked liaison.
There were more tokens besides-rings and bracelets, knives and tools. The objects belonged to peasants, craftsmen, and nobles. Despite their disparate classes, all the people to whom the tokens belonged had one thing in common. Wort had observed each of them to be cruel, or selfish, or licentious, or brutal, or greedy.
A cold gust of wind whistled through the chamber. Wort raised a hand before his face, blinking. Dust, straw, and feathers whirled on the wind. Suddenly the flotsam began clumping together in midair, coalescing into three shapes. In moments, three vague forms outlined in moldering straw and stray feathers floated before Wort. The wind brought a chorus of angry voices to his ears.
Why have you not rung the bell?
Wort shrank away from the sinister forms. 'I have not summoned you!' he cried. 'How can you be here before me?'
These are but images, nothing more. The voices of the spirits whispered on the wind. Why have you not rung the bell? You have many tokens…
'I'll ring it went I wish,' Wort snarled. 'Do you hear me? When I wish it. Go back to your bell and wait!'
The wind rose to a howl. We grow weary of waiting!
Wort pressed his hands to his ears, trying to block out the shrill voices. It was no use.
You are afraid, bellringer. Why? Why do you refuse to ring the bell? Tell us!
Shuddering, Wort pointed to the tapestry.
Ah, it is the doctor! the voices on the wind hissed in understanding.
Wort let out an anguished groan, rocking back and forth on his knees. 'Why, spirits? Why must she care so much what happens to me? Why could she not have left me alone after I helped her in the village? I could have killed them all by now. I would have the tokens I need to gain my vengeance! But I cannot '
Yes, Wort. You sense the truth. She would condemn you utterly for what you must do to make yourself whole. The voices surged dizzyingly through his brain. That is why you must forget her…
'Forget her?' Wort choked. 'How can I forget an angel? How can I forget that she wants to heal me?'
Perhaps she can heal your body, Wort. Only we can heal your soul. In the end, her love means nothing
Wort's heart leapt. 'What did you say?' he gasped.
The wind rose to a deafening shriek. Her love means nothing, Wort! Nothing!
'Love?' Wort whispered the word as if speaking it for the first time. His eyes bulged. At last, it all made sense in his tortured brain-the way she had returned to the tower despite his violent outburst, the gentle words, the flowers she brought, her patience in teaching him new games, the hours spent talking in the dappled light of the belfry. Then there was that day in the woods, when she gently touched his shoulder, and then… yes, her soft lips brushing against his cheek. He had been too blind to realize it before. Now it was perfectly clear. He knew what he had to do.
Wort lurched to his knees, shaking his fist at the straw effigies. 'Go back to your blasted bell!'
Why resist us, Wort? In the end, you will ring it again.
He pulled the magical silver candle from his pocket. Ignited by his rage, fire flared to life. 'I said begone!'
Heed our words, Wort, you will Wort thrust the blazing candle at the three hovering forms. Straw and feathers burst into crimson flame. In moments the three figures were transformed into writhing columns of blazing fire. Turning, Wort slashed at the spider web in the window. Flames licked at the silken strands, consuming them, crisping the fat insect in the center. Cold wind whipped wildly about the chamber-mad, howling- then suddenly died. Dark cinders drifted to the floor-all that remained of the three effigies of the spirits. The silver candle sputtered.
Slowly, Wort picked up the box of tokens. He fingered the myriad objects. Suddenly he heaved the box into the trunk. He did not need them anymore.
'I must go to her, my friends,' he whispered to the fluttering pigeons. 'I must tell her that I finally understand!'
Wrapping his cloak around his twisted form, Wort dashed from the chamber, pausing only once to glance over his shoulder at the tapestry of the pale angel drifting through the darkened garden.
'I love you, too, Mika,' he whispered. Then he vanished into the shadows of the bell tower's stairwell.
Wort found her sooner than he had hoped. He was lumbering through a small, little-used courtyard, making his way toward the keep's gates, when he heard the bright sound of laughter. A moment later the laughter came
