by James Lowder
The fireball struck. Hissing as it was engulfed in magical fire, the first creature fell to the ground, an unmoving, charred husk. The lethal attack took in the shuffling things around that one as well. Suddenly, the flaming corpse exploded, showering all the remaining zombies with fire. Three more of the monsters were soon burning, their bodies covering the hillside with dark, foul-smelling smoke.
Of the two remaining undead, one wore no armor whatsoever. This zombie was clad in a long robe, one like those worn by some priests or monks on Krynn. The death knight dispatched this one first. He raised his sword high and swung it down in a two-handed blow. With a sickening sound, the blade tore through the zombie’s shoulder, continuing through bone and desiccated flesh before exiting from the hip on the other side of the body. The robe-clad zombie managed one more step before its body split into two writhing halves.
The howl of wolves sounded over the hillock once more as the last zombie stopped, just out of sword’s reach from Soth. This one wore no helmet, but the rest of its body was covered in ancient armor. Emblazoned on the breastplate was a raven, its wings spread wide in flight. Wisps of long blond hair hung in places from the zombie’s rotting scalp, and much of its face was covered with skin, making it look far more human than any of its compatriots.
Soth, his feet still held by the two disembodied arms, presented his sword in a defensive stance. Yet the expected attack never came. The wolves cried out again, then the zombie turned and shuffled down the hill. Passing its burning kin, the creature repeated a single word over and over again. “Strahd,” came the strangled hiss. “Strahd.”
The zombie waded into the forest. The monstrous wolves also faded into the trees one by one until only a solitary beast remained. This wolf glared at the death knight, and the small fires on the hillside made its eyes sparkle malevolently in the night. Soth met that savage stare with his own unblinking gaze.
At last the wolf turned and retreated. As he hacked the clutching hands from his ankles, Soth could hear the wolves barking and yelping as they spread out in the forest, heading west. The death knight knew their noise was meant for him. “Follow,” they were saying.
The death knight tossed the writhing limbs and bodies onto a pyre. He bolstered the fire with chunks of the shattered tree, though the wood did not burn even half as well as the undead flesh. The blaze sent even more thick, pungent smoke into the night sky.
A few stars winked against the carpet of black, but their positions seemed random to Soth. Gone were the Dark Queen, the Valiant Warrior, all the constellations that defined the night sky of Krynn. Gone, too, were the black and red moons. Only a single gibbous orb, its light reflecting brightly, hung overhead.
“I am far from Krynn,” Soth said. After a pause, he added, “But I will not return there until I find Caradoc, until I know where he has hidden Kitiara’s soul.”
To the west, a wolf howled long and low.
The death knight sheathed his sword. “Your master lies at the end of your trail, and he might be of aid to me in finding my wayward servant,” he said. “I will follow and let you take me to this ‘Strahd.’ ”
• • •
Bony, age-spotted hands caressed the crystal ball like a lover. The milky white glass glowed slightly under their touch. The ancient artifact would reveal nothing to the casual observer. To the scarred fingers weaving intricate patterns upon it, however, the crystal ball had much to say.
“Urrr,” the ancient mystic groaned pensively. He closed his blind eyes and rubbed his fingers over the globe with more urgency. The light from the crystal grew more intense, casting ominous shadows over his wrinkled face.
The old man removed his hands from the glass suddenly, almost as if he’d been burned. With jerky movements, he reached for the parchment and the feathered quill pen that lay nearby. He turned his sightless eyes, as white as the crystal orb, to the paper and started to write.
The lines wandered across the page, some sentences crossing over others, some curling almost in a circle around the parchment’s edge. Yet the mystic’s hand never strayed from the yellowed paper, and, for those used to reading his scrawl, the message was quite legible.
When the old man finished writing, he swayed for a moment, then lowered his head to the rutted tabletop. “Let us see what you have learned,” came a silken voice from the other side of the room.
With a word of magic, a half-dozen candles burst into flame. A slender hand gloved in kidskin lifted the candelabra that held the wax sticks. Warmly their light flowed across the stone floor and onto the table where the mystic lay, exhausted. The possessor of the voice reached into the pool of light and gently lifted the parchment.
Two have arrived, the message began, one of great power, both of great use. The sins of ancient wrongs unforgiven bring them to your garden, though they know neither the Dark Powers nor the place to which they have been brought. Boarhound and boar, master and servant; do not hope to break their pattern. Honor it instead.
The graceful man placed the candelabra on the table, the parchment held absently before him. His eyes bore a vacant, distant look, and his lips were turned down in a slight frown. His dark clothes and his long black cape swallowed the light striking them, but the large red stone that dangled on a chain of gold from his neck reflected the candlelight sharply. Tracing his high cheekbone with a single finger, he stood elegantly, lost in thought. At last he reached down and stroked the old man’s snowy head.
“It is a shame your visions cannot provide you with more specific messages, Voldra,” Count Strahd Von Zarovich said, though he knew the mystic could not hear him. The old man was as deaf as he was blind. “At times like this I almost wish I hadn’t torn your tongue out. Ah, well, it cannot be helped. We could not have you revealing my secrets to the villagers if you escaped, could we?”
The count crumpled the parchment and tossed it into the empty fireplace. The paper burst into flames. “Boarhound and boar,” Strahd repeated as he opened a hidden panel in the stone wall. In the tiny alcove he placed the pen, ink, and crystal ball. “Intriguing.”
The mystic stirred and reached out for the crystal ball. “Urrr,” he groaned plaintively when he found the table empty before him.
The globe was Voldra’s only means of contact with the world. It provided the old man, who had been deaf and blind from birth, limited glimpses into life beyond his sheltered mind. The orb granted other gifts, as well. The mystic had never learned to write; in the farming village where he’d lived much of his life, there was little need for such skills. The crystal ball allowed him to join pen to paper and make meaningful, if somewhat vague, statements.
The wordless, strangled cries of his prisoner hardly touched Strahd’s consciousness as he crossed to the iron door and left the barren cell. His mind was coiling itself around the notion that the two strangers might prove useful to him. The count had known one of them was quite powerful even before Voldra’s scribbled message; no being with strength of will or spell entered the duchy without Strahd’s knowledge.
Strahd knew that the zombies he’d sent to test the newcomers’ strength had been destroyed. He knew, too, that the weaker of the two strangers had fled into the forest before the battle. The wolves were following that one, herding him toward the castle.
The other would prove more of a challenge. The thought excited Strahd; it had been a long time since a problem worthy of his serpentine intellect had presented itself. The thing to do now, he decided as he paced with stately grace down the lightless corridor, past the sobbing prisoners in their filthy cells, was to gather more information.
FOUR
The tearful keening of a violin filled the clearing and twined with the moonlight in the forest. The man playing the sad, rustic melody tapped his foot in time with his bow’s movement. Nearby, two dozen men, women, and children sat in the glow of a campfire. The small crowd swayed to the music as if they were cobras mesmerized by a serpent tamer’s flute.
Seven caravans were drawn int
o a semicircle around the forest camp. Ornately carved, brightly painted creatures and designs covered the large wagons, and these now served as a backdrop for the young man playing the violin. The multicolored scarf tied around his head and the similarly dyed sash girded about his thin waist blended in with the garish wagons. His tight black pants and the white shirt hanging open at his neck were in contrast to them.
As the song wound to its conclusion, the musician picked up the tempo. He played the last few bars boldly, in defiance of the piece’s somber tone. Three notes plucked, pizzicato, from the strings concluded the tune. After, all was silent in the midnight forest save the crackling campfire. The musician expected no applause, for these were his nephews, cousins, and grandparents who were listening to him play. Their thoughtful silence told Andari his music had touched them, and that meant almost as much to him as the coins that sometimes rewarded his performances for strangers.
The young man wrapped his violin in a thick, embroidered cloth, stolen yesterday from a village nearby. He took meticulous care of the instrument. It had been handed down from father to son for five generations now, and he intended to give the violin to his own eldest boy when his fingers were too cramped to play.
“No! Leave me alone!”
The woman’s shout startled Andari into dropping the precious heirloom. Had the violin not been covered by the cloth, the stone it struck may well have gouged a hole into its exterior. A small chip was the only damage the instrument sustained, yet it was enough to send Andari into a rage.
“Magda!” he shouted, cradling the wounded violin in his arms like a child.
The sound of glass shattering erupted from inside one of the wagons. “Get away from me!” Something heavy thudded against the wall of the caravan, and the door flew open. “Go back to your fat wife!”
A young woman stood framed by the lantern-lit doorway. Her raven-black hair fell in loose curls to her shoulders, and she shifted a lock of it away from her eyes with a defiant toss of her head. High cheekbones lent her expression a hard edge, despite her full, soft lips and inviting green eyes. With those eyes she cast an angry look back into the wagon as she gathered her long skirt in one hand, revealing slender legs. The way she leaped down the wagon’s three wooden stairs told of her skill as a dancer.
“Damn you, Magda,” Andari cursed. In two long-legged strides he was at the woman’s side. With one hand the musician clutched the violin to his breast, with the other he grabbed Magda’s shoulder. “Look what you’ve done! Your screeching made me drop my violin!”
A short, balding man peered from the noisy wagon. His face was pale, and drops of sweat worked their way down his forehead into his beady eyes. With a shrug, he straightened his shirt. As he did up the expensive silver buttons ornamenting the white cotton, he said, “She’s not for me, Andari, not unless I want to be murdered in my bed.”
Violently Andari shook the young woman. “I told you to be friendly to him, didn’t I?”
Magda slapped her brother across the face. The men and woman nearby paid no attention as they wandered away from the campfire toward their own wagons. They had seen similar scenes between Andari and his sister before; there was no need to interfere. “You can’t make me bed such a lout-not even for my keep,” Magda said, her voice low and taut with anger.
His shirt buttoned tightly over his sizable paunch, the balding man emerged from the caravan. “I would have paid handsomely for a wench as comely as you,” he offered. He scowled and rubbed the back of his head. “For hitting me with that bowl I ought to have the constable whip you. You’re lucky I’m an affable fellow.”
Andari smiled obsequiously. “Indeed, Herr Grest,” he purred. “Have no fear. We will see Magda is punished for her ill treatment of you.”
“Whatever,” the little man replied absently. He looked the beautiful woman up and down. Anger flushed her tan face, and her green eyes flashed like a storm at sea. Even after her insults, the boyar found those large eyes inviting. They were the kind of eyes a man could drown in…
Grest shook his head. “I could have made you a wealthy woman.” That said, he sighed and turned to Andari. “My horse, boy. I should get back to the village right away.”
The young musician’s false smile dropped. “Are you certain you do not wish your fortune told, Herr Grest? Or perhaps you would prefer the company of one of my cousins?” He eyed the purse tied to the merchant’s belt; it wasn’t often the tribe allowed strangers, who they called giorgios, into camp. To let this one escape with his purse intact would be a shame.
“Just get my horse,” Herr Grest said drily. He looked away from the semicircle of wagons into the darkened forest. “I’m a fool to be traveling at night… but I thought the journey would be worth the danger.”
“Go get the gentleman’s horse,” Magda snapped. Andari tensed to strike his sister. She dropped her hand to the wide sash that bound her waist, and he paused. Andari knew from experience that she had a dirk secreted there.
“My sister does not understand the ways of the world,” Andari noted as he turned to retrieve the boyar’s horse. He rubbed a long, white scar on the back of his hand. “Do not think we Vistani are all so naive.” The musician ran to his wagon, placed his cloth-wrapped violin on the steps, and disappeared behind the caravans.
An uncomfortable silence settled between Magda and Grest, then the young woman smiled. “There may be something I can offer you, after all,” she said coyly.
Magda walked to the family wagon and, careful to avoid touching Andari’s violin, grabbed a small burlap sack that lay near the opening. The bag’s contents jingled as she returned to the giorgio ’s side.
“There are subtle ways to make you irresistible to young girls,” she murmured, pulling a tiny pouch from the sack and holding it up for inspection. “Slip a pinch of this into a beautiful woman’s wine and she will be at your command. Of course, it does not work on we Vistani.”
Herr Grest considered the pouch. “Rubbish,” he grumbled. “Love philters are for those too old or ugly or poor to have a woman they want.”
Smiling thinly, Magda dropped the item back into the sack. Better that he didn’t buy it, the Vistani thought. Grest is the type who would hunt for the tribe once he’d discovered that the powder was only so much ground bone. “Perhaps this charm, Herr Grest. You are a brave man to travel through Barovia after sunset, but even the boldest would be well advised to carry one of these.”
She held up a long leather cord, and the silver charm at its end glittered seductively in the firelight. On the shining teardrop, a single eye was engraved, half-lidded and malevolent. “It’s a ward against the dark things that prowl these woods by night.” Magda lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Zombies, werewolves, even vampires cannot see you when you wear this.”
From the way Grest’s beady-eyed gaze locked onto the silver amulet, Magda knew that she had a prospective sale.
“How much?” the giorgio asked, his hand gliding toward his purse.
“Thirty gold.”
“Rubbish,” Grest countered. “Fifteen at the most.”
Magda shook her head, setting her raven-dark hair dancing around her face. The charm did have some power, even if she was exaggerating its strength. “I’m only offering it to you at that price because of my unfortunate rudeness before.
If you won’t pay what it’s worth, though, I-”
“Thirty it is, you charlatan.”
As the transaction was being completed, Andari returned with the horse, saddled and ready to go. Grest had snatched the silver amulet from Magda’s hand, and after dropping two handfuls of gold coins into the dirt, mounted. “I would have paid twice that for a night with you,” he said to the beautiful woman as he wheeled his horse about and headed down the narrow path leading into the forest.
As Grest’s mare reached the edge of the wood, it reared nervously, reluctant to leave the safety of the campfire. The balding man angrily kicked his heels into the horse’s flanks.
“Come on, you bastard. Get moving.” The mare stared into the bushes at the clearing’s edge, its eyes wide with fright. Grest kicked it again. After pawing the ground a few times, the horse bolted forward.
A figure, even darker than the darkness in which it was hidden, shifted slightly. The death knight turned back toward the Vistani camp, resuming his watch. He had pursued the wolves through the forest for hours, over dark-watered streams and through brush as tangled as a madman’s mind. Some miles back, the monstrous guides had ceased their howling, which was replaced by the faint sound of music. Soth had followed that sweet sound here to the small camp.
At first he had assumed the gypsies gathered around the campfire to be an illusion or the human guises of the foul denizens of the Abyss. During the hour or so he had spent watching the men and women, the death knight had abandoned this notion; it seemed clear these were merely humans. Now Soth waited for someone to reveal himself as leader of the ragtag troupe-perhaps even this “Strahd” of whom the zombie had spoken. The young man named Andari obviously had some power over the others, but no one seemed to fear him. No, he was not the one who kept the tribe together.
Unaware of the glowing eyes that watched him, Andari continued to berate his sister. “You won’t steal. You won’t dance for strangers. Your stories are worth nothing to the tribe.” The young man kicked Magda in the side, and she fell to the ground. “You are lucky Grest bought that amulet or you would be sleeping in the woods tonight.”
“Magda’s fate is not for you to decide.”
The young man spun around to face the shriveled old woman who had made that terse pronouncement. “Madame Girani,” he said, color rising to his cheeks in embarrassment. “I do not presume to speak for you, but Magda-”
“Heeds my word, not yours.” Madame Girani set her cold gaze upon Andari, and her blue eyes leeched the heat from the man’s soul. Cowed, he extended a hand to his sister. “Good,” the old Vistani said as the young woman stood and brushed the dust from her skirt. “Now, what is the trouble?”