by James Lowder
Magda moved to the old woman’s side. She placed a gentle hand on Madame Girani’s stooped shoulder. “Andari wanted me to sell myself to a wealthy boyar from the village. When I said no, he left me in the caravan alone with the pig. I had to break a crystal bowl over the man’s head to convince him to leave me alone.”
Madame Girani sighed and clutched her gnarled walking stick more tightly. “I have told you before, Andari, I have plans for your sister. The tribe is large enough to support a storyteller, and I want Magda to be the one to fill that role.”
“I only thought to gain the tribe a little more gold from a giorgio ’s fat purse,” he replied sullenly. Andari dropped to one knee and gathered up a few of the gold coins scattered in the dirt. “This is for you.”
The old Vistani woman did not reply. Instead she stared at the armored man who had appeared at the edge of the clearing; it was as if he’d materialized out of the darkness, so abrupt was his coming. As the tall man drew closer, the firelight revealed him to be a knight clad in ancient armor. The damage from many battles marred the delicate ornamentation on the breastplate, which was also blackened from the touch of intense heat. Yet those scars could not hide the beauty the armor had once possessed.
A long purple cloak hung heavily from the stranger’s shoulders and draped behind him almost to his knees. A tassel of long black hair topped his helm, which was as ancient and as ruined as the rest of his armor. Of the man himself, only his eyes shone from beneath the plate mail. He entered the camp with the haughty self-assurance of a wealthy boyar, his tread slow and confident, like the relentless progress of fall into winter.
“Welcome,” Madame Girani said. “This is the camp of my tribe, and I offer you its shelter.”
Lord Soth bowed slightly and rested a hand upon the pommel of his sword. “I accept that offer.”
Andari gawked at the stranger. At his side, Magda stiffened at Soth’s sepulchral voice. Like all Vistani, she knew that unnatural creatures stalked the forests of Barovia after sunset, and this might well be one such monster. She reached for the silver-bladed dirk hidden in her wide sash.
“He is under the protection of the master,” Madame Girani whispered, placing a bony hand on Magda’s arm. The young woman relaxed, though her eyes did not leave the death knight.
The two women, standing side-by-side as they were, appeared to Soth as age-distorted reflections of one another. Both Magda and Madame Girani were dressed in long, flowing skirts and snow-white blouses with billowing sleeves. They wore colorful sashes wrapped about their hips. Large bracelets circled their wrists, and glittering gold rings dangled from their ears. And, even though Madame Girani’s hair was silver and pulled back from her face, the death knight could see that once it had been as dark as Magda’s halo of curls.
The similarities went beyond their physical appearance. In the eyes of both Vistani women Soth saw determination and fearlessness. Whereas Andari was clearly frightened by the death knight, Magda and Girani appeared to accept him for what he was. These women know much, Soth decided, but they are not to be trusted completely.
“The night is growing chill,” Magda noted after a moment. “Come, giorgio, warm yourself at our fire.” She moved toward Soth, but the death knight held up a gauntleted hand in warning.
“I have no need of such comforts. I want only information.”
“You will have that,” Madame Girani offered as she turned her back on the death knight. With slow, deliberate steps, she made her way to a chair set close to the dying fire. “Andari, you will play for our guest. And, if we are so honored, Magda will dance.”
Andari balked at the suggestion. “Magda never dances for-”
“Of course I will,” the young woman interrupted. “Get your violin, Brother. I will dance a tale of Kulchek the Wanderer.”
With obvious dismay, the musician unwrapped his instrument and tuned the strings, running a finger mournfully over the slight damage inflicted earlier. Magda stood at Madame Girani’s side, helping her settle a fringed shawl around her thin frame. Soth remained at the clearing’s edge. When Andari appeared ready to begin, the old woman motioned to the knight. “Enjoy the dance, then we will talk.”
The death knight crossed the clearing to stand near the fire, away from Madame Girani. When Magda gestured to a chair near the old woman, Soth shook his head. “I am quite comfortable here,” he said flatly.
The song Andari chose started slowly, but it seemed to take possession of Magda from the first note. Eyes closed, she swayed to the music, her body writhing with a grace known only to the elves of Krynn. Her lips moved as if she were speaking to some unseen lover, and Soth tensed, expecting some sorcerous attack.
“She speaks some of the tale that goes with the dance,” Madame Girani offered reassuringly from across the fire. “It is long and she does not know the entire tale yet.”
As the tempo increased, the words were forgotten. The Vistani beauty whirled with greater speed and started to circle the fire. Magda’s skirt spread and swooped as she twirled, and her bracelets jangled together, adding their rhythm to the violin’s.
Despite his suspicions, the death knight found himself mesmerized by the woman’s dancing. Long ago, when he’d been alive, Soth had loved little as much as music and dance. Of course, Magda’s wild flamenco was quite unlike the stately, formal ballroom steps of which he used to be fond. Still, the fallen knight found himself missing the mortal life that had been stolen from him by his curse.
The fire flared. At its center, the flames took on the shape of a man. In one hand the man-image gripped a club, in the other a dagger. A hound of smoke was at his side. Soth’s sword had cleared its sheath before Madame Girani had a chance to say, “That is part of the storytelling, a shadow play for those who don’t wish to watch the dance.”
Magda continued to whirl, blithely unaware of the weapon in the death knight’s hand. Soth stared at the fire, watching as the man and his hound battled a giant formed from a gout of blood-red flame. It was then that Soth noticed how the shadow play mirrored the young woman’s dance. When Magda whirled faster, the combatants exchanged furious blows; they circled each other warily when her movements slowed.
The spell Magda had cast with her grace was broken when she danced too close to the knight. The unearthly cold that always radiated from Soth’s long-dead body washed over her, even through the heat of the fire, chilling her to the core. The woman did not stop her dance, but for an instant her steps were clumsy and out of time. The thread of the tale was lost. The fire engulfed the flame-born hero and his hound.
Luckily Andari finished the tune then, and Magda could hurry to Madame Girani’s side. Because Soth had been watching Magda so intently, he had not noticed the old woman studying him closely all through the dance. “Good night, children,” Madame Girani said. The other two looked surprised by the abrupt dismissal, but did not argue. Magda bowed to Lord Soth and smiled as graciously as she could-though her concern for the old Vistani was clear on her face. Andari hurried into the caravan, his precious violin in his arms.
When they were gone, Madame Girani stood stiffly and headed for a wagon at one end of the semicircle. “We will talk elsewhere,” was all she offered as an explanation to the death knight.
The caravan she entered was the largest of the tribe’s seven. The old woman had a wagon to herself; a single, small bed-no more than a pile of blankets, really-was crammed into the crowded interior. The rest of the space was filled with jars and vials of every description, some filled with powders, others with liquids. Animal skins hung from the ceiling, blocking much of the light from the single oil lantern dangling in their midst. A few books with tattered, chipped pages and greasy leather covers lay piled in one corner. Cups filled with dice, bones, and other assorted small items were scattered everywhere.
A gilt cage, large enough for a young child, stood near the Vistani’s bed. The gap between its bars was narrow, and the bars themselves sturdy. Serpents wrought of silver twined
around the base, their heads merging with the bars. The cage’s top was a single bloated snake, coiled around and around until its mouth opened at the very pinnacle. Soth had seen similar cages used on Krynn to house exotic birds. The thing trapped in this one was nowhere near so mundane.
“I see you are admiring my pet,” the old woman said. She picked up a broom handle and ran it along the bars.
The creature’s squeal sounded like a pig’s, but the string of half-finished words that followed were definitely in some exotic human tongue. The thing gripped the bars with brown fingers and toes that curled completely around the metal, like a monkey’s tail around a branch, shaking the bars hard enough to make the cage dance in place. Small wings, feathered like a dove’s, beat the air in the cramped prison, then folded against the thing’s scaly body. The face it pressed into the gaps was round with fat, but it had no nose, no ears-only a single red-rimmed eye and a large, slobbering mouth.
“A wizard traded it to me long ago for some information.” Madame Girani shrugged. “I still don’t know what it is, but every now and then it murmurs things in its sleep-secrets and spells and words of power. I learned the sorcery you saw tonight, Magda’s shadow play, from its rambling.”
Again she rattled the bars, and the creature spit out a string of words that sounded hateful, even if Soth did not comprehend the language in which the thing spoke. Madame Girani chuckled at the tirade, then dropped a heavy blanket over the cage. The creature’s muffled squeals continued for a moment, then the wagon subsided into silence.
In the center of the squalor, directly under the lantern, rested a small table bracketed by two chairs. Madame Girani hobbled through the mess, deftly avoiding the bundles of clothing and packets of feathers cluttering the floor. She took a seat on one side of the table and motioned to the other chair, opposite her. “I will tell you what I can, Lord Soth of Dargaard Keep,” she said in a whisper that sounded like tearing paper.
The death knight nodded, showing no reaction to the old woman’s use of his name. He’d purposefully neglected to reveal it when he’d entered the camp; it was obvious now such precautions were futile in this strange land. “You may find sitting so close to me uncomfortable. The cold of the afterlife clings to me like a sickness.”
The old woman laughed mirthlessly. “The chill of death seeps into my old bones with every sunrise and every sunset,” she said, knitting her fingers together on the tabletop. “Your aura can do nothing to me that time has not already accomplished. Please, sit.”
Soth accepted the invitation. “The wolves in your forest are quite large,” he noted without preamble.
Madame Girani nodded. “The wolves are but half as ominous as the other creatures that prowl these woods, but little in this land could harm you, Lord Soth.”
“And what land is this?”
“The duchy of Barovia.”
“Barovia,” Soth repeated pensively. “I have never heard of this place. Is it part of Krynn? A level in the Abyss, perhaps?”
“Though I have traveled much with my tribe, I know nothing of either of those places,” the old Vistani said. “Barovia is simply… Barovia.”
The death knight fell silent as he considered the reply. Madame Girani smiled and toyed with one of her bracelets. “The Mists brought you here, did they not?” she asked after a time.
“Yes. One moment I was in my castle on Krynn, the next I was surrounded by a fog. When it receded, I was on a hill a few miles from here.”
“Were you alone?”
Secretly, Soth frowned beneath his helmet. “I am alone now. That’s all that needs concern you.”
Madame Girani took the rebuke mildly. Her smile never faltered as she sank back in her chair. “I promised to answer what questions I could, Lord Soth, but I am an old woman who needs her sleep. Is there anything else you wish to ask?”
“Who controls the Mists?”
“I do not know,” came the answer. “Some say the Mists are a mindless force, pulling people from different places and bringing them to Barovia. Others claim that there are dark powers directing the Mists.”
“Dark powers? Is Strahd one of those beings?”
The question seemed to surprise the old Vistani, Soth thought, but she did her best to conceal it. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Can’t you read minds?” the death knight asked. “You knew my name when I did not offer it to you, so why do you not know this information as well?”
Madame Girani scowled, and the folds of wrinkles on her face knitted together, almost obscuring her dark eyes. “I had my grandchild dance for you, had her call up the shadow play, to show you we are a magical people. It was easy enough to discover your name.”
Folding his arms across his armored chest, Soth repeated his earlier question. “Who is Strahd?”
“Some information comes at a high price in this land,” Madame Girani answered.
Soth slammed his fist onto the table. A pattern of fine cracks snaked across the wood like a slowly expanding spiderweb. “I do not carry gold, and I have nothing to trade with you.”
“Ah, but you do,” the old woman said slyly. “We Vistani travel a great deal. Over the centuries my people have learned that there is one universal currency: information.”
She stood, grabbed one of the worn books lying in the corner, and tossed it onto the table. It flipped open of its own accord. Two columns of cramped script marked each page. “This is a list of the true names of all mages in the faraway land of Cormyr, magical names that can be used to control those men and women. No magic-wielder in that country would dare harm a Vistani of my tribe, because I could give that true name to an enemy.”
“I will never part with any knowledge that would grant you power over me, old woman,” Soth said, brushing the book away from him. It closed with a thump as it landed on a pile of feathers.
“I would be foolish to expect you to, Lord Soth,” Girani said soothingly. She returned to her seat. “But you realize I must have something in return for what I can tell you.”
“What do you wish to know?”
Count Strahd had dispatched a vague set of orders to the Vistani camp: learn what you can of the knight, but do not anger him or reveal too much about me. The Vistani often served Strahd in such matters, and they were skilled in gathering information from unwary travelers. The undead warrior was far from unwary, however, so Madame Girani had to consider her answer carefully.
“Tell me what you will. A heroic deed you once performed. How you came to be as you are now, perhaps,” she said. “And I will relate to you what I can of Strahd.”
The death knight scanned his memory for a suitable story-one that would satisfy the Vistani but tell her nothing that could be used against him later. “In the three and a half centuries I have walked as one of the undead, I have forgotten many proud moments from my life,” he began. “But I can tell you this. I was once the bravest of the Knights of Solamnia, the most noble in the Order of the Rose. My heroic deeds were told in song throughout Krynn, from the sacred glades of Sancrist Isle to the temple of Istar’s kingpriest.
“My fall was long, and it started the day I set out from my home for a Knights’ Council in the city of Palanthas, the most beautiful city on Krynn. Along the way, my thirteen most loyal knights and I rescued a party of elven women from some brigands.”
The memory washed over Soth, and the shabby caravan faded from his sight. “I was married,” he continued, his voice sounding almost mechanical as he related the remembered events unfolding in his mind, “but my eye was drawn by the beauty of one of their number, an elfmaid named Isolde. On the long journey to Palanthas, I seduced the beautiful, innocent elf. She was to become a Revered Daughter of Paladine, a priestess of Krynn’s greatest god of Good, but I corrupted her!”
An image flickered to life in Soth’s brain: in a sunlit glade, he held Isolde close, her long, golden hair streaming over his arms, her face radiant. Though he could no longer feel the stirring of lust, the
death knight was overtaken for a moment by remembered desire.
“My bonds to another,” Soth noted, “did nothing to lessen my desire for her. I offered to give up everything for Isolde-my status as a knight, my place in Solamnic society… my honor.”
“Honor was important to you?” Madame Girani asked, breaking Soth’s concentration and scattering the memories gathered before his mind’s eye.
Forcing away his annoyance at the interruption, Soth said, “One oath was sacred to all who filled the ranks of the Knights of Solamnia: Est Sularus oth Mithas. My honor is my life.”
The death knight clenched his hand into a tight fist. “I gave up my honor for Isolde,” he noted. “Before I reached Palanthas, I sent orders to my seneschal, who had remained at the keep to look after my affairs. He was to murder my wife, slit her throat in our bed, and dump her body into a chasm that lay near the castle. The deed was done. It seemed that I had solved my problems in ridding the world of my shrewish wife, but Isolde fell ill in Palanthas. She was pregnant with our son.”
Waving his hand to dismiss the matter, Soth concluded quickly. “The elven women revealed my crimes to the Knights’ Council, and they tried me as an adulterer and murderer.”
The death knight leaned forward across the table menacingly, but the old woman did not shrink back. “Now,” he said, “who is Strahd?”
“Count Strahd Von Zarovich is ruler of Barovia,” Madame Girani replied without hesitation. “His castle, called Ravenloft, stands on a mountainside. It overlooks the village of Barovia, from which the entire duchy takes its name.”
Soth nodded. “This Strahd is a powerful necromancer, is he not?”
“Strahd does not control the Mists that brought you here, if that’s what you mean,” she said. A worried look crossed the old Vistani’s face again. The death knight pressed too hard for information she was forbidden to offer. “Some say he dabbles in the arcane. He is shrouded in rumor and mystery.”