by James Lowder
The Svalich Road passed through Barovia’s center, bisecting the tiny collection of two-and three-story buildings. A squat, dilapidated mansion stood just outside town, and a sagging church of stone and wood, its bell tower shattered, rested away from the village to the north. Forest pushed in on the houses and fields from all sides, and the river that earlier had come so close to the road now bordered Barovia to the south. Both the road and the river continued to the west. The river formed a large pool before snaking into high, craggy hills. The road led to a castle that crouched on a massive spire of rock overlooking the village.
“Castle Ravenloft,” Magda whispered. She wrapped her arms around herself, but Soth was unsure whether she did so to stave off the chill night air or because of the sight of the ancient, brooding fortress.
It wasn’t only the castle that drew Soth’s attention as he looked out over the valley. In a band several hundred feet wide, a ring of fog circled both Barovia and Castle Ravenloft like a protective wall. “More fog,” he hissed. “So Strahd is the one who brought me here from Krynn.”
“No,” Magda said. “The ring of fog is a defensive barrier for the village and the castle. Strahd uses it to detect and control who enters or leaves the area.” She rummaged in her sack and withdrew a stoppered glass vial. A thick purple liquid filled the small container.
After drinking the bitter fluid, she continued. “The fog is a powerful poison. If you do not drink an antidote-one only we Vistani have permission to create-the poison works into your lungs and your heart. Then, if you try to leave the village without Strahd’s permission…” The Vistani let the sentence trail off.
“It is fortunate I do not breathe,” Soth said as he started toward the barrier.
Magda hurried after the death knight. When they reached the edge of the fog, Soth hesitated. “Tie your sash around your wrist-tightly.” When Magda did not jump to the task, he added, “If you do not, I will be forced to hold your arm as we pass through the fog.”
The death knight had to say little more. Soth took the other end of the cloth and said, “Keep this tight between us. If I feel it loosen while we are in the fog, I will grab you by the throat and hold you that way until we are in the village.”
They emerged from the fog to the north of the village and kept to the trees as they made their way toward the high, steep hill that held the castle. Just as the sun was tossing its last feeble rays over the mountains to the west, Soth and Magda heard voices close at hand.
“Hurry!” someone shouted, panic making his voice shrill. “The light is almost gone!”
“Get the rope over that branch!”
The death knight moved silently through the trees, Magda at his side. At the forest’s edge, near the sagging church Soth had observed from the rise, a group of ten stout men milled. One tried time and again to toss a rope over a high, sturdy branch of a gnarled tree that stood in front of the abandoned building. Most of the men had dark hair and dark eyes, and sported long, drooping mustaches; Soth himself had worn a mustache like that once, as did all the Knights of Solamnia on Krynn. Their rough wool vests and heavily accented speech marked these men as rustics, however, not noble-born warriors.
“Give me that,” one of the villagers snapped, taking the rope from his compatriot. This man, unlike the others, had blond hair and blue eyes. He was also clean-shaven, and, instead of heavy work clothes, wore long red robes faded with age and in a size too small for his bulk. He held the rope in his pudgy fingers and looped it over the branch with a single throw.
Hidden in the trees, Magda closed her eyes. “A hanging,” she murmured. “Probably someone caught stealing from a boyar.”
The men had turned expectantly toward the village. Being near the forest as the sun set obviously upset them, for they continually glanced into the woods. Gloaming had not yet turned to full night when a man mounted upon a spirited chestnut gelding charged up the dirt and cobblestone road leading from the main cluster of buildings. A small figure was tied behind the horse, and he bounced and rolled painfully.
“At last!” one of the villagers cried, and the group raced toward the rider. The gelding came to a stop not far from the tree, and the unlucky prisoner was pulled to his feet.
He stood four feet tall, from the tip of his bald pate to the iron heels of his boots. The rough treatment had torn his pants to ribbons, and bloody scrapes covered his bare chest and steel-muscled arms. His hands were tied behind him with enough rope to bind several men. The captive struggled against the bonds like a madman being dragged toward captivity.
“You are making a very, very large mistake,” the little man growled. He took a deep breath and stopped struggling. “Let me go now and we can forget about this whole stupid misunderstanding.”
“Ah, a dwarf,” Soth said softly. “This world is not so unlike my own.”
Magda looked puzzled. “Do you mean there are more of those freaks where you come from?” she asked. “There are few like him in Barovia.”
As Soth pondered this, the chubby villager in the red robes struck a torch and held it toward the captive. “You must pay for your crimes.”
By the light of the torch, Soth saw that a swollen bruise held one of the dwarf’s eyes shut. His face was as scratched as his chest, and a steady stream of blood ran from his flat nose. The gore matted the close-cropped brown mustache that dipped beneath his nose and joined with his muttonchop sideburns. Oddly, the dwarf was smiling at the man in the red robes. “Really,” he advised, “we’ll all be happier if you let me go now.”
“Let’s just get this over with,” one of the other villagers said, glancing nervously at the bats darting overhead.
The rest of the group murmured their assent, and the dwarf was pushed toward the hanging tree. As the villagers draped the noose around the criminal’s neck and tied the other end to the horse, Soth turned away from the spectacle. “Come,” he said to the Vistani. ”I’ve seen enough.“
Magda gladly followed the death knight away from the clearing. As they made their way deeper into the forest, the ominous sounds of the hanging were replaced by the gentle chirping of crickets. Magda let the familiar sound calm her.
“By all that’s holy, no!”
A scream split the air, then a growl rolled, loud and low, in the night.
“Run, you fools, run!”
A snarl echoed from the scene of the hanging. Screams, first of one man, then of two more, cut through the darkness. The sound of a horse shrieking in pain came hard upon these awful cries, followed by the awkward crashing of someone running blindly through the woods.
Without a word, Soth turned back toward the commotion. Magda stayed close to him as he moved through the darkness. Both the death knight and the Vistani were surprised when the man in red robes burst toward them from behind a huge fir. The man waved a torch in front of him.
The scene in the forest froze in a weird tableau. Magda crouched in a defensive position. Soth, his head cocked slightly, stood stiff and still, though his cloak flapped silently behind him. A few feet away, the red-robed man leaned forward, off balance but motionless, staring at the death knight with panic-filled eyes. Soth saw something else in those eyes: recognition. The red-robed man was not just startled, but horrified because he recognized the death knight.
Just as suddenly as the villager had burst upon Soth and Magda, he fled into the forest, his torch bleeding a trail of light.
The death knight considered chasing the robed man, but the terrifying yowl that came from the clearing pushed that thought away. Instead he turned in the direction of the hanging.
A surprising scene greeted the death knight and his guide. The horse and five of the villagers lay near the hanging tree, their corpses shredded and bloody. The other rustics were nowhere in sight. In the center of this carnage sat the dwarf, bruised and battered but free of the ropes that had been wrapped around his hands and coiled around his throat. As he pulled on one of his iron-soled boots, he whistled tunelessly.
&nb
sp; With the slowness of one just awakened from a long nap, he stretched and reached for his other boot. He stopped moving abruptly and wrinkled his nose in disgust. “More farmers?” he muttered, letting his boot drop to the ground. The dwarf crouched low, almost onto his hands and knees, and sniffed the air. “Come on out of there so I can see what you are.”
He was looking toward Soth and Magda, though they were quite well hidden by the thick-needle firs around them. The Vistani tried to shrink back into the forest, but the death knight stepped forward.
“And the other one,” the dwarf said, squinting after the Vistani.
“Now, Magda,” Soth ordered when the woman hesitated. She moved from her hiding place, her hand straying to the dagger in her sash.
“Vistani!” the dwarf hissed as he saw the olive-skinned, dark-haired woman. He growled deep in his throat and tensed as if ready to spring. “I should have known you’d be agents of the count.”
Magda drew her dagger, and the dull moonlight pushing through the clouds made the metal blade glow. The dwarf took a wary step forward.
“Enough,” Soth said. “The girl is my prisoner, and I am no servant of Strahd Von Zarovich.”
The dwarf snorted and shrugged his shoulders. “A Vistani woman and… hmmm.” He studied Soth, taking measure of the death knight with his one good eye. His face betrayed his interest in the newcomer. Not a hint of fear showed in his stance.
Nodding toward the castle, the dwarf said, “You certainly aren’t one of his walking corpses, Sir Knight. They can’t say much other than his name. Shows his ego, don’t you think-having zombies that can only groan or say ‘Strahd’?”
Soth watched the dwarf closely as he sat back down and struggled with his other boot. “Did you do this to the villagers?” the death knight asked.
Wiping some blood from his brawny arms, the dwarf smiled. “Not all this is mine, if that’s what you mean,” he replied. “I warned ’em, though. ‘If you try to hang me, you’ll be sorry,’ I said.” He glanced at the dead bodies. “And so they are.”
“How?” the death knight asked emphatically.
Having finished with his boot, the dwarf was now doing what he could to straighten his tattered pants and daub away the blood. “You’re new here.” He laughed and looked up at the Vistani. “I’m right-er, Magda, wasn’t it? He’s new to the duchy, isn’t he?”
The Vistani, her silver-bladed dirk still clutched tightly in her hand, remained grimly silent. Her gaze wandered from corpse to gruesome corpse, and whenever the dwarf made a sudden movement, she brandished the weapon before her menacingly.
Not fazed in the least by either Magda’s hostility or Soth’s silence, the dwarf returned to the task of cleaning himself up. After doing what he could for his clothes, he walked from body to body, looking for anything worth stealing. Most of the villagers’ rough-woven clothes were shredded beyond use, but the dwarf managed to salvage a sleeveless wool vest from one of the corpses and a brightly patterned blanket from the horse. As he draped the latter around himself like a cloak, he turned to the death knight. “Is there something else I can do for you? I mean, you’re not hanging around. here just to watch me rob corpses.”
“You said I was a newcomer to this land. Why do you think that?”
The dwarf moved closer to the death knight. When he got near Soth, he pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders. “Look,” the dwarf said in a conspiratorial whisper, “there are two things I’ve learned about Barovia in the time I’ve been here. First rule: Don’t ever ask strangers about themselves. Most of the people I’ve met here have dark secrets they’d rather keep hidden. They’ve done things worse than you or I might ever think of doing-well, you anyway. And some, maybe even most, don’t like people prying into their business.”
He stood back and glanced around as if someone might be listening. “For example, I know you’re not mortal-don’t ask how, ’cause I won’t say-but I’m accepting that for what it is. I’ve seen stranger things than you around here. Not many, of course.” When Soth did not comment, the dwarf shrugged.
“Why are you telling me this? Are you so certain I am not a spy for Strahd Von Zarovich?” Soth asked.
A smirk crossed the dwarf’s face. “The second thing I learned about Barovia is: Don’t have anything to do with the Vistani. They tell the count everything they learn about strangers, and harming ’em is like insulting Strahd to his face.” He nodded toward Magda. “If she’s learned anything about you, Sir Knight, you should take her back into the forest and make certain no one sees her again. Just a suggestion, mind you. Free advice from someone who’s been stuck in this hell for quite some time.”
Magda, who still stood a few feet away, nervously gripping her dagger, took a step back toward the forest. “Something’s coming,” she hissed. “From the direction of the village.”
“Can’t be the yokels,” the dwarf said. “They never leave their homes after sundown if they can help it. Too many things like you and me roaming about.”
A distant clatter of wooden wheels and the roar of horses’ hooves pounding steadily on stony ground sounded from the direction of the village. Two lantern lights flickered in the darkness, and the clatter grew louder.
“It’s a carriage,” Soth said, staring into the night with his glowing eyes. “Two horses, dark as pitch.” He peered down the road. “I do not see a coachman.”
“Oh! Bloody-” The dwarf started for the trees. “I told you, didn’t I? Bloody Vistani!” With a burst of incoherent cursing, he disappeared into the forest.
Soth drew his sword and turned to Magda. “What is it?”
The woman did not have the time to answer before the carriage came to a stop in front of the broken-down building. The black horses stamped in agitation, snorting and tossing their heads. No coachman had directed the horses along the road from the village, and no hands touched the carriage door as it opened invitingly.
“Strahd’s carriage,” Magda managed to say at last. “Just like the stories! He sends it for you!”
“For us, Magda,” Lord Soth corrected. “Don’t think I would leave my charming guide behind.”
SIX
Strahd Von Zarovich stood before a massive fireplace, one arm resting on the mantel. A few logs burned in the hearth, but the light they gave off scarcely illuminated the count let alone the cavernous room which he now occupied. The lord of Barovia leafed absently through a book of poetry. As he turned each time-worn page the smile twisting his cruel mouth grew wider and wider.
“Ah, Sergei. You always were a hopeless romantic.”
The book had been penned long ago by Strahd’s younger brother, Sergei, and the verses it contained were all dedicated to a single woman, his beloved Tatyana. The cause of the count’s smile was not the poems themselves, for they were like everything Sergei had created in his tragically short life-beautiful and full of heartfelt sentiment. No, it was knowledge of the futility of those exclamations of love that amused him so. Sacred vows had never bound the lovers in wedlock; Strahd knew this because he himself had murdered his brother on the day he was going to wed Tatyana.
An all-consuming desire for the girl had made it so that Strahd could think of nothing other than the gentle, loving Tatyana. The thought that she was to be wed to his hopelessly naive sibling had only fueled Strahd’s hunger for her; he had spent his days in a foul temper, roaming the halls of Castle Ravenloft, hoping to catch a glimpse of his beloved. At night he had pored over arcane tomes, hoping against hope to discover some charm that would win Tatyana’s heart for him.
At last the unrequited desire had driven Strahd to forge a pact with the forces of darkness, a pact to be sealed with an act of fratricide. He had concluded his bargain on the day Sergei was to be married, with an assassin’s dagger sharper than any he had ever seen. With his brother’s murder, Strahd had gained powers that could be imagined only in nightmares, but even those new strengths could not sway Tatyana’s love.
When Strahd had reveale
d his desire for her, Tatyana had ended her life rather than spend a single moment in his embrace.
Strahd closed the book sharply. Tatyana had no idea that now, almost four hundred years after her death, he still inhabited the castle… still desired her.
He tossed the book onto the fire, and its ancient, dry pages flared and burned. Impatiently the count paced the stone floor.
Yes, the dark powers Strahd had bargained with so many years past had given him much in return for Sergei’s death. He never felt the pall of sickness or the weight of old age. In fact, he had ruled Barovia for the lifetimes of five men. The count had devoted much of that time to arcane study, and the dark secrets he had uncovered in that pursuit granted him sway over the living and the dead.
Barovia, the duchy over which the Von Zaroviches had ruled for many years, had paid for the count’s bloody deeds, balancing Strahd’s triumphs with its suffering. Soon after Sergei’s murder, the duchy was drawn into a netherworld of mists. Strahd soon found he could not cross the borders out of Barovia, though he gained the ability to prevent others from leaving the domain. He became absolute master of the land, yet that victory soon grew hollow. Few of the peasants and boyars who populated the scattered villages offered Strahd much of a challenge; that was why the count anticipated the times when beings such as Soth would appear in Barovia.
“I wonder if my guests are comfortable,” Strahd said softly as he approached a window. The count looked out at the road twisting and clawing its way up the mountainside to his castle. Near the bridge that crossed the River Ivlis, the carriage, marked by the twin lamps on its front, moved steadily onward.
The master of Castle Ravenloft closed his eyes and concentrated. Just as the driverless carriage obeyed his will, the minds of those within the coach stood as open to him as Sergei’s book of verse. He considered the Vistani woman first. As he had expected, terror clouded her mind, yet a part of her intellect resisted the fear, a core of bravery she bolstered by repeating ancient tales of Vistani heroes. The stories couldn’t block out the terror completely, though. That fear would be useful to Strahd, especially when it was heightened by the little shock he had in store for Magda.