Quickly, mindful of the morning’s approach, he concentrated and assumed his bat form. The flute posed no problem. The bat that was Jander flew swiftly back toward the castle.
In the chapel, safely removed from the sun’s rays, Jander spent most of the day engrossed in carving the flute. His eyelids drooped sometime during the middle of the day, and he lay down in one of the pews. He would only nap, he told himself as he pillowed his head on his arm and cradled the almost finished flute. Just a few moments, just to rest his eyes …
“Why did you never play for me in the asylum?” came a voice sweet as sunlight. Jander’s eyes flew open. Anna was sitting beside him in the polished wooden pew, looking at the beautifully carved flute with interest.
Jander blinked against the sunlight that streamed in through the stained glass windows. A rainbow of colors turned the chapel into an artist’s palette of hues. The altar was ready for a service, its polished silver holy symbols winking in the violet and aqua light from the windows. The place was filled with peace and a quiet and restrained joy. Jander recalled a line from one of the poems: Thy love is not one hue only, but a rainbow; for infinite are thy follower’s joys.
“It’s beautiful, Jander,” Anna said warmly, a delighted smile on her dear face. She held it out to him. “Play something for me, will you?”
He hadn’t played for centuries; he had been unable to bring himself to try. Yet here, in the holy, radiant chapel, with Anna watching him eagerly, Jander found the courage to raise the flute to his lips. He took a breath, pursed his lips, and blew.
A discordant shriek issued forth, the sound of something in terrible, wracking pain. The flute twisted in his numb hands, turning into a foul black worm that writhed and hissed. Horrified, he dropped it, and it slid away from him. The entire room was swathed in a malevolent darkness, much more evil than simple night. Things crouched in the shadows, and Jander, even with his infravision, could see only the red gleam of eyes. The elf groped for Anna, his hand closing on leathery flesh. A monstrous, contorted creature wearing Anna’s clothing laughed at him, and the stench from its gaping, dripping jaws caused him to gag.
“Now you see the world as I did for over a century! How does it feel to be mad, Jander Sunstar?”
With a cry, the vampire bolted upright. He was still alone in the ruined chapel. The day was winding down toward dusk. Nothing had changed. Trembling, Jander looked at the flute. He was determined to finish it despite the nightmare.
“Anna,” he whispered, “I didn’t know what a torment it was to you … forgive me.”
An hour later, he had finished the flute. It looked nothing like the ornate instrument in his nightmare, something for which Jander was quietly grateful. He still was afraid to raise it to his lips. Angry at his cowardice, he shoved the instrument in his belt and descended the stairs. He returned to the entry hall and wandered down into what he discovered was the main dining hall. A huge table, covered with dust, and dozens of chairs filled the room. Two sideboards, painstakingly tooled, flanked the table. It was the large object at the far end, covered with a sheet, that caught Jander’s attention.
He had never seen anything like it, and he approached curiously. He removed the covering. The thing was made up of many hundreds of small pieces. A variety of pipes crowned its top, and many layers of ivory were laid next to one another like teeth. A bench was placed directly in front of it, and there was another row of objects below it.
“I see you have found my plaything,” came Strahd’s voice.
“What is it?” Jander asked, fascinated.
“It is a musical instrument,” Strahd explained. Jander felt a hesitation in the other’s manner and raised a curious eyebrow. “It is called an organ. The music it makes is very beautiful, very strong, and very … powerful. I used to be quite the virtuoso on it. That was a long time ago, however.” He made as if to replace the covering, but Jander laid a hand on his arm.
“Could you play something for me?” he asked. “I loved music too, once. These halls are very silent. I should like to hear you play.”
Strahd seemed torn. Jander could tell that part of him longed to caress the instrument once again, to make it sing after all this time. Yet there was also apparently pain in the performing. Strahd hesitated so long that Jander felt certain he would refuse. To his surprise, the vampire said, “Very well. I would ask that you forgive any sour notes I might strike. It has been a long time.”
As if he had done so for centuries, Strahd seated himself at the massive organ, flipping the tails of his black outfit back with an automatic gesture. His long fingers twitched like spider legs as he placed them over the keys. Jander felt his own body tighten in response to the tension he could feel emanating from the other vampire.
With a blast of music like the sound from the gods’ own horns, the organ sprang to majestic life. Sound rolled through the dining hall in sonorous waves, thrilling Jander to the core of his being. Haunting, demanding, beautiful, the music that flowed from Strahd’s hands was all this and more. It was a magnificent thing, the organ music, and Jander was moved.
The piece Strahd performed was awe-inspiring in its magnitude, laden with sorrow and majesty. Jander listened, closing his eyes to aid his concentration, and allowed his body to respond as it would to the powerful pull of the music. The song ended, but Strahd was clearly loath to relinquish the instrument, and his fingers wandered idly over the ivory keys.
Jander’s own fingers wandered down to his belt and the wooden flute. The nightmare haunted him yet, daring him to play. Filled with a wondrous fear, he raised it to his lips.
He did not need to breathe to continue his undead existence. Speech required a deliberate intake of breath, but Jander had not filled his lungs as he now did for many a decade. Breathe in he did, and pursed his lips on the flute.
A sweet, pure sound issued forth, a bird’s call to the rumbling waterfall of Strahd’s organ. The count looked up, and something like delight mingled with surprise on his pale face. Together, the vampires created spontaneous music. The clear tones of the flute danced and skittered like light over the organ’s deep chords. Sometimes the music was gentle, rippling, peaceful. Other times it swelled and burst like the waves crashing onto the shore, a vampiric music that reflected the inner pangs of its creators, the harmonies of the damned incarnate.
Simultaneously they finished their songs, and the silence pressed on their ears. They exchanged glances, and Jander could read his own pain in Strahd’s dark eyes.
They could make music, but it was not the music mortals made. Mortals could never infuse their innocent instruments with the kind of wild pain and savage triumph that he and Strahd had just achieved in their duet. They had, for an instant, lost their pain in expressing it. The music had taken them away from their undead state, and they had exulted in the sensation.
In the uneasy quiet, Strahd lifted his hands from the organ keys and folded them neatly in his lap. He looked down at them, examining the long, sharp nails with a casualness that belied the emotions Jander felt lay beneath the surface. Strahd had been moved, and by something other than murder, power, rage, or grief. He had been moved by beauty, and, for a moment, he and the elf had been kindred spirits.
The count raised his eyes to meet Jander’s once more, and there was merely the cool cunning in them that the elf was beginning to know only too well. The moment had passed, but it was not forgotten. Strahd seemed to sense that he had somehow revealed some vulnerable portion of his soul, so he deliberately changed the subject.
“Enough of this,” he said brusquely, yanking the covering over the instrument with what seemed to Jander unnecessary vigor. “We have not talked as we promised one another we would. Let us go to the study, where, I see, you have been spending much of your time, and you can tell me if my home is to your liking thus far.”
“I have many books yet to read, Your Excellency, but the ones I’ve seen so far have been … interesting. I notice that there are a few that are in a st
range type of shorthand,” Jander commented as they climbed the stairs.
“Ah, yes. Those are my personal records. I invented the shorthand.”
“It’s very difficult to decipher. Could you teach it to me?”
Strahd glanced at the elf. “Why?” The question was sharp, cold.
“I’m still looking for a record of my lady,” he said. “I hoped that I would find something of use, but nothing’s turned up yet.”
“Ah, I am sorry indeed. Of course I will teach you,” Strahd offered. “Provided—” he paused and his tone sharpened “—that you begin teaching me. I have learned much about vampirism on my own, with no guide whatsoever. Yet you can tell me more.” They had arrived in the study, and Strahd sank down in one of the chairs, waving Jander into the other. “Now,” ordered the count, “call the wolves.”
Jander bristled at Strahd’s tone, but forced his resentment down. He closed his eyes, and let his mind wander in search of a lupine brain. Gently he touched a wolf in the main entryway. Come visit me, friend, he told it. Jander sensed another one keeping guard in Natasha’s room, and he likewise bade it come.
A few moments later, a gray wolf and a black one trotted into the study and sank down at the elf’s feet. The count’s thin lips twisted in a smile.
“Now, I shall call them,” he said. He placed the tips of his long fingers together and slitted his black eyes. The wolves inclined their heads in his direction, and one of them whined. They rose and went to him, one of them pawing at his chair.
Jander concentrated again. This time it was much harder to get through to the wolves’ brains. He could feel Strahd’s presence in their minds. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts. The wolves grew agitated, their ears flat against their heads as they glanced from Strahd to Jander. Finally, cowed and obviously in pain, they crept trembling to Jander’s feet.
Strahd’s eyes flew open, and there was anger in their depths. “How did you do that?” he demanded.
Jander kept calm. “Control of animals and people is based on a vampire’s will. All I did was—”
“Do you imply that I am weak-willed?”
“No, Your Excellency,” Jander answered, a bit taken aback. “You are younger than I am and have had little practice. I was a slave for many years. I learned how to do what I do because it was the only way I could escape my master. Survival and freedom are good incentives, more so than a desire to play parlor tricks with animals.”
Strahd held Jander’s gaze for a moment, then nodded his dark head once, slowly. “I grant you that.” He leaned back in the chair and placed his feet on the small, low table in front of him. Jander, a little confused, followed suit. The fire blazed in the hearth, and the two wolves dozed contentedly in its warmth. Jander could not help but be struck by the cozy normalcy of the scene, twisted only in that these two “drinking companions” drank blood instead of claret.
At length, Jander broke the silence. “Why can I no longer feed on animal blood here?” he queried. “For five hundred years, I have suffered no harm from it. Yet, here it makes me ill.”
Strahd did not answer at once. “Things are different in Barovia.”
“Well, that’s rather obvious, but why? You claim to be ‘the land,’ Strahd. What’s going on in this place?”
The count’s jaw tightened. Jander had touched a nerve. He was resigned to that; there was no other way to get answers than to keep nudging the other vampire.
“We are our own world, here in Barovia,” said the count slowly. “Yet we are no world. It is my belief we are in an altogether unique plane of existence. I do not think you will find Barovia on any map. At least, not anymore.” He opened his dark eyes and looked at the other vampire. His expression was bitter. “Would you believe that I was once a noble, just warrior, Jander?”
This twist in conversation was not what Jander had expected. His confusion must have registered, for Strahd smiled thinly. “I see you have difficulty with the concept. Do not worry about insulting me, I have the same problem believing it myself. Things do change, do they not?
“If you can suspend your doubt, cast me in the following role. I was a warrior, and my causes were good. I united many countries; I defended many people. I fought fairly and well, and my army was without parallel. I grew up with a sword in my hand, and I came close to death so many times that I cannot even count them all.
“Then, all the fighting was done, and suddenly there was no place for me anymore. I had become obsolete. I was used to leading warriors, not governing common folk, and even though I came from a long line of rulers, I had no wish to rule a country. My parents had died, and I was the eldest. The choice was not mine. So it was that I found myself the lord of Barovia.”
Strahd rose and began to pace. His features, however, betrayed no inner turmoil. “At that time, Barovia was part of …” His beautiful voice trailed off, and confusion played about his eyes. He laughed a little. “Do you know, I cannot recall the name of my own homeland?” He paused, his eyes unfocused, trying to remember. Then he shrugged it off. “No matter. It is not important. No doubt, the land wishes me to forget.”
Jander went cold inside despite the heat the flames emitted. The land wished Strahd to forget his country? Dear gods, was the place truly alive? The idea that he might forget Waterdeep and Evermeet filled him with fear. Painful though the memories might be, they sustained him. Another thought stabbed at him. Suppose the land wanted him to forget Anna? He made a silent vow to consciously remember her and his quest for revenge on her behalf.
“Suffice to say that I was the law, and my laws were not kind.” Strahd’s liquid-silk voice startled Jander out of his reverie, and the elf refocused his thoughts. “I woke up one morning and discovered that my youth was gone. Vanished, and I had nothing to show for it.”
“Surely,” Jander offered, “your victories brought you comfort.”
Strahd’s upper lip curled contemptuously. “Comfort? The people hated me, and I could not have cared less about them. There was no solace. Only Death awaited me. Then … I had another chance at my youth.”
A curious thing happened. Strahd’s voice went soft. It became gentle, filled with a tenderness that Jander would never have expected from him. His eyes, too, lost their calculating stare and became almost human. His angular face with its high cheekbones relaxed in reverie. “I met her. Her name was Tatyana, and she came from the village. Another came between us, destroyed any chance that we might be happy together.
“I despaired. How could I fight against this youth, this bright young warrior who stole the only thing I ever loved?” Strahd’s mask had slipped, and Jander knew that he was glimpsing the mortal man who had lived, a long time before.
“I prayed for guidance, for revenge. And my prayers were answered. Death Himself appeared to me, and I made a bargain with Him—a pact, sealed with the blood of my rival, whom I slew on his wedding day to Tatyana.
“He had so enchanted Tatyana that she chose to follow him in death. The guards tried to kill me, but their arrows bounced harmlessly off my body. Death had not claimed me, but life had forsaken me.
“Thus was my pact with Death sealed, and my reward given. Somehow the land became no longer merely Barovia, but the strange, different realm into which you had the misfortune to stumble. So you see, Jander Sunstar, my friend, I understand your loss. I, too, am trapped here. I have not crossed the misty borders; always, my steps lead me back here, to the castle and its memories.”
There was something unspoken in Strahd’s tale that Jander could sense. He had lied somewhere in that story. Tainted as the tale was, the truth was much more horrible.
Once, when Jander had been alive, he had found a corpse that had been dead for a long time. The skin seemed taut and firm; yet when the elf prodded it tentatively with his sword, it burst open and began to writhe with maggots. That was the image his mind flashed to him when Strahd finished his story. Like the corpse, the tale appeared unpleasant but whole, still human on the outsi
de. Jander knew that if he probed deeper, the dark reality of the tale would explode into the light like maggots from a corpse.
“I’M SORRY, ANNA. I FOUND NOTHING.”
In his dream, Jander leaned against the ornate mantel in the study. His arms were folded across his chest, and his gaze was on the carpeting. The elf didn’t want to look at Anna. Somehow, he felt he had let her down, even though he had spent each afternoon for the last two weeks poring over every book he could read.
“It’s all right, my love.” Her voice was sad, though, and when Jander turned to look at her he found her sitting quietly in one of the red velvet chairs. “It’s not your fault.” She met his gaze and smiled sweetly, though her eyes were shiny with unshed tears.
His heart breaking, he went to her and laid his golden head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his bright hair. “I’ve read everything in here that I can. Strahd has even taught me how to read his own shorthand. There are no records, no documents—nothing that I can trace to you.”
“But you are learning the history of my land.” Jander grimaced and pressed his face against the cool cotton of her blue skirt. That was true enough, although Barovia’s was not a pleasant past.
“Perhaps there are answers to be found here in the castle,” the sweet voice continued. “Perhaps very close at hand.”
Jander lifted his head from her skirt and looked up. “Were you here in Castle Ravenloft?” She smiled mysteriously at him and did not answer. “Anna, were you here?”
He awoke in the study, his body stiff from sleeping in the chair. The elf stretched, wincing, then buried his head in his hands. His efforts consistently failed to yield fruit, and his dream-punctured sleep was hardly restful. Exhausted, he rose.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the door to Strahd’s private room. For a moment he wondered just what it was that the count guarded so jealously behind that locked and magically sealed door. Unfortunately Jander had promised his host not to pry. He rubbed his eyes, replaced the book he had been reading when he fell asleep back on the shelf, and left. If Anna wanted him to continue exploring the castle, he would do so.
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