'How so?'
Mika gazed at her defiantly..Why not speak the truth? 'Wort is the true Baron of Nartok.'
'Is he?' Jadis purred with obvious fascination. She tapped her chin thoughtfully. 'I'll tell you what, Doctor. I have some information concerning your lover, the good baron, which you might be eager to hear. Let us make a bargain. My secrets for yours. What do you say?'
Mika shivered. What sort of information could Jadis mean? There was only one way to find out. 'Agreed,' she whispered.
The two women spoke for a long time in the gloom of the cathedral. First Mika explained why she had come to the cathedral-to find some way to free Wort from the dark power of the cursed bell and to keep him from committing any more murders. Then she spoke of what she had learned about the unusual circumstances surrounding the births of Caidin and Wort.
When it was the other's turn, Mika found herself utterly hypnotized by Jadis's dark revelations. Jadis was a servant of King Azalin of Darkon himself, and had been sent to spy upon Caidin. Mika listened in growing horror as Jadis described in detail all the abominable actions Caidin had taken in his pursuit of the throne of Darkon-from the false inquisition in which hundreds of innocent people had been executed, to the building of the tower on the moor accomplished by his army of zombies.
This was the fiend who had held her in his arms. He had kissed her lips lingeringly again and again. Now the thought made Mika want to vomit.
At last Jadis was done with her tale. 'Can we consider the bargain fulfilled, my lady?' she asked with a smile that was somehow both kind and wicked.
'Yes,' Mika barely managed to choke out the word.
'Then I bid you farewell.' In a surprising gesture, Jadis reached out and gripped Mika's hand warmly. 'You may have saved my life after all.'
Mika smiled wanly. 'And you may have saved my soul.'
As the shadows of afternoon lengthened further, the two women left the cavernous cathedral. Mika mounted the pony once more. The beast let out a frightened snort, and when she looked up Mika thought she saw a black shadow speed into the forest. In a heartbeat it was gone. She nudged the pony into a trot, starting the long journey back.
'How could I have loved such a fiend, my dear ones?' she whispered as she gripped the golden locket. Yet she had not really. The feelings Caidin had instilled in her had been anything but love. At least now she knew the truth. Not only was he a bastard, he was the monster as well. A resolved expression took her face. She was more determined than ever to help Wort.
Behind her, in the silent cathedral, the waning rays of the sun filtered across the dark stone altar. Gradually the angle of the light grew steeper, revealing another row of words carved into the ancient rock:… and by its final tolling will the dead awaken.
Eighteen
In human form, Jadis roamed the corridors of Nartok Keep. Startled courtiers leapt out of her path, revulsion written across their faces. The high-necked dress she wore could no longer conceal the decay that ravaged her body. Livid blotches stained her hands and face, and her glossy hair was falling out in clumps. Walking was arduous now-it felt as if her legs were carved of wood. Her right arm was still functional, but the left dangled uselessly from her shoulder. Even breathing was difficult. She had to make a constant effort of it, forcing her lungs to fill with air and then expel it again in a rank cloud.
A maidservant screamed, dropping a tray of dishes. Wailing in fright, she dashed away down the corridor. Jadis did not notice or care. In minutes she would have the knowledge for which she had journeyed to Nartok. Then she would stumble into the carriage waiting outside the keep-the carriage that would bear her rapidly back to II Aluk. She had only to stay alive in the meantime. When she reached Avernus, she knew, King Azalin would heal her decomposing body.
'You shall see, love,' she whispered to herself. 'You will be more beautiful than ever.'
At last she reached the chamber where a terrified servant had stuttered that she would find the baron. She barged through the door. Beyond was a spacious sitting chamber. Its walls were lined with heavily laden bookshelves, but the other furnishings were spare, limited to a pair of velvet chairs spaced some distance apart. In one of these, Baron Caidin looked up with a bemused expression.
'What? No polite knock, my lady? Have we surrendered all the niceties, then?'
Jadis curled her lip into a snarl. 'As you said yourself, Caidin, this little charade has grown wearisome.'
She hobbled into the chamber as a genuinely startled look crossed the baron's face. Strangely, this gave her some satisfaction.
'What is wrong, Caidin?' she said in a slurred voice. 'Do you no longer find me desirable?'
His eyes narrowed in disgust as he regained his composure. 'I might, my lady, were I a vulture with a taste for carrion.'
Jadis glared at him hatefully.
'But please,' he went on indulgently, 'won't you sit down?'
Caidin gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite him, and this she did clumsily. As she sank down into the velvet cushion, she had the distinct impression that the chair shifted beneath her.
'You seem oddly calm, Your Grace,' she began musingly.
'Oh? Why is that?'
'I would have thought that a baron who was about to be executed by his own subjects might get a bit more apprehensive. I understand the rabble plan on assaulting the keep in force tonight. And in an effort to save their precious, powdered necks, most of the members of your court-ever the pragmatists, you see-plan to join in the fun when the peasants clap you in irons and drag you to the dungeon.'
Caidin pressed his hands into a steeple shape before him. 'Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if the peasants found themselves a bit too preoccupied for an uprising tonight.'
Jadis licked her peeling lips. 'Why is that?'
'Enough about myself,' Caidin sidestepped smoothly. 'What brings you to see me, my lady?'
Gathering her wits, Jadis proceeded carefully. 'We're going to have a conversation, Your Grace, and it's going to go like this. You will tell me something I wish to know. Then I Will tell you something that I am quite certain you yourself will very much wish to know.
'You see, I've learned some interesting details concerning your birth, Your Grace.' Jadis allowed herself a caustic laugh. 'But that title isn't really appropriate, is it?' Smugly, she noticed the flicker of alarm that passed over his countenance. 'Perhaps you can tell me. What is the proper aristocratic term for bastard?'
Caidin's composed expression shattered. 'How do you know that?' he hissed.
'It is unimportant. All that matters is that, somewhere on the edge of your fiefdom, a courier awaits a message from me. His instructions are such that if by sundown tonight he does not receive this message-and indeed it is a simple message, but a single word-this courier will ride hard to I) Aluk and deliver to a select set of nobles some very exciting news concerning Baron Caidin of Nartok.',
Caidin gripped the arms of his chair in white- knuckled fury. Jadis shook with mirth.This was simply too wonderful.
'I will be ruined,' he whispered hoarsely.
'Precisely, Your Grace. If word spreads among the nobility of Darkon that you are a bastard, you are finished. No noble will bend his knee to an illegitimate ruler. In their utter contempt, the nobility will never support you. I would give you two weeks on the throne before you were assassinated. Perhaps less.'
'Very good, Jadis,' Caidin said in open admiration. 'Very, very good. You're right, of course. I would indeed like to know this one remarkable word that would stay the courier's spurs. And let me postulate as to what piece of information you wish to receive in return.' He clenched his hand into a fist. 'Could it be how I intend to depose Azalin in his castle of Avernus with a tower that presently stands in my fiefdom?'
'Your Grace can read my mind,' Jadis replied with mock demureness.
