"Begone from our village, monster!"
"The monster tried to kill the girl, did you see?"
"Kill the monster!"
More mud clods struck Wort. He spun around, trying to protect himself, but the blows hailed from every direction. With each blow, the word resonated in his head. Monster. Monster. MONSTER!
Suddenly a fearsome voice let out a bellow of rage. "I wanted to help.r Only dimly did Wort realize the voice was his own. A terrible image flashed before his mind-the burnt ashwife from his boyhood, shrieking as fire licked at her hands, her arms, her bubbling, cracking face. Didn't she understand that he had wanted to help her? Couldn't any of them understand that? It was her fault she had been hurt. Not his. Blinded by mud and hot tears, Wort broke into a clumsy run. Peasants screamed as they scrambled to get out of his way. He did not see them or the horrified looks on their faces. Sobbing, he ran on, leaving the shouts and jeers behind him.
Wort wasn't certain how he made it to the bell tower. He did not remember how many townsfolk had shrunk from him in horror as he climbed the twisting road to the keep and stumbled across the courtyard. The next thing he knew, he burst into his chamber.
"Curse them!" he shouted. Rage ignited in his chest, searing his heart, burning away the self-pity that had dwelt there. "Curse them all!" A cloud of pigeons erupted into flight before him. "Only I would help the girl. Only I! Yet how do they reward me?"
Wort flung open the lid of his trunk of books. He grabbed the enchanted storybook he had been reading, then ripped it in half with the brutal strength of his bare hands. With a silver flash its magic shattered. White-hot fire consumed its crackling pages. Wort had been wrong. All these long years, he had been so terribly wrong.
"I am no hero," he snarled. "No brave knight or handsome prince!"
Swiftly he climbed the ladder'into the belfry. The last crimson rays of the sun dripped like blood through the iron gratings.
"If people wish me to be a hnonster, then that is what I will be!" He grabbed the ropes of the bells. "Beware Nartok," he shouted. "For on this day you have created a monster!"
The bells rang in a darkly dissonant cacophony as a storm of ghost-pale birds filled the air.
Two
When King Azalin of Darkon announced a masquerade at the royal castle of Avernus, each of the countesses, dukes, and petty nobles of the grand city of II Aluk waited breathlessly to learn whether he or she had been invited. Soon after the announcement, mysteriously hooded messengers began appearing at the doors of hilltop mansions and fashionable city redstones to deliver the coveted black and gold invitations to the lucky, while the less fortunate looked on with no small amount of envy. The invitations themselves were exquisite and wonderful things, which strangely and somewhat startlingly vanished in a puff of cool flame after being delivered, leaving only a small disk of thick gold foil, engraved with the Fiery Eye that was Azalin's personal signet. The precious gold tokens were the only means of admittance to what would certainly be the year's most talked-about social event.
Finally, the much-anticipated occasion arrived. As the pale orb of the moon lilted over the turgid waters of the Vuchar Riverrthe favored nobility of II Aluk streamed from the city in gilded carriages and undertook the brief journey to Avernus-an imposing castle that loomed on a rocky hill just south of the capitol. Mo one ever knew what to expect at one of Azalin's masquerades, but it was widely thought that the king was a great wizard, so everybody anticipated something fantastical. One by one the carriages rode the twisting avenue to the castle and were swallowed by the arched gateway. The party had begun.
A woman clad in a gown of emerald-green silk moved with smooth grace through the throng of revelers that Filled the vast ballroom. Her coal-black hair was coiled about her head in an intricate arrangement, and a single, uncommonly large pearl rested gently in the cleft of her bosom, glowing like a tiny moon against the luster of her dark copper skin. With a gloved hand, she held a mask with tilted cat eyes before her face. Behind the false face, her own green-gold eyes glittered with contempt.
The woman was Jadis, and unlike those around her, she was not one of II Aluk's pretentious nobles. She had not come seeking favor from the king, nor entertainment, nor even a fleeting lover. She was Kargat-one of King Azalin's personal spies-and she had come to be assigned her new mission.
Jadis ascended a wide stairway to the promenade that encircled the ballroom. Hundreds of masked lords and ladies danced below in the cavernous chamber, bathed in the crystal-refracted luminescence of countless candles. There was something out of the ordinary about the dancers. They moved in the same complex patterns favored in all of the city's fashionable ballrooms, but Jadis knew this was a dance like none ever witnessed in Il Aluk.
The dancers careened about the red-veined marble floor with wild, jerky movements, like marionettes controlled by a drunken puppeteer. Their heads lolled strangely from side to side as they whirled and spun. The ceaseless smiles plastered to their faces were garish, even grotesque. It was the wine, of course. Dozens of pretty, golden-haired boys moved with fluidity through the throng, bearing trays of goblets filled with the glistening ruby liquid. It was no mundane vintage. The more wine the revelers drank, the more their eyes stared wide, dark, and unseeing behind their masks, as if each were gazing into some secret dream invisible to all the others.
Bored, Jadis turned from the wild dance below, wondering when the summons for her would come. "Patience, love," she whispered to herself. She moved along the marble walkway, letting her gloved hand slip sensually over the golden balustrade. Wicked laughter and wordless sounds of pleasure drifted from sheer-curtained alcoves and dim grottos that lined the promenade. Jadis caught interesting glimpses of activity in each as she passed by.
In one of the grottos, nobles lounged on velvet chaises while handsome attendants-their bare, muscular flesh slick with oil-placed crimson fruits into open mouths. The patrons wore heavy-lidded expressions, sated yet strangely hungry, their lips stained scarlet from the dark juices of the fruit. Within another alcove, men and women clad only in the skins of animals crawled about on all fours, barking, howling, and purring as though they were beasts.
Without warning, an obese man wearing a ridiculous mask concocted of feathers and jewels rushed from a torchlit grotto and held something out toward Jadis.
"You simply must try this," the nobleman said in a gasping voice. "I have never tasted anything so delicious in all my life."
Jadis arched a dark eyebrow. In the man's hands was a raw, quivering heart. His chin dripped blood. She gazed past him into the grotto and saw that a score of other revelers were feasting in delight upon a white unicorn they had killed with their bare hands. Now they tore meat off the carcass with their teeth, their silken gowns and rich velvet coats soaked with blood.
"No, it's all yours. Enjoy yourself," Jadis crooned indulgently.
"Thank you, my lady," the man whispered tremblingly. "I will." He hurried back to the gory feast.
As Jadis watched, a young nobleman wrenched the unicorn's spiral horn from its head. The horn began to glow with pearlescent* radiance. Tendrils of moon-pale light reached outward, spiraiing around the man's body. He threw his head back, trembling as if caught in the throes of deepest pleasure. Back arched, he rose to his toes. The magical radiance from the horn was lifting his body from the ground. Abruptly his trembling turned into violent convulsions. Blood trickled from his ears and mouth. Yet the look of rapture on his face did not lessen. The horn flared brilliantly, then went dim. Like a rag doll, the nobleman collapsed to the floor, stone dead. The horn rolled away. Of course, Jadis thought-only one who is pure of heart should dare touch a unicorn's horn. In moments, several other nobles bent over the fresh corpse to feed.