by James Lowder
“The knight is still on edge from his journey,” Strahd said amiably. His eyes remained locked on the woman, on the soft white flesh of her shoulders. “Let us retire to the hall for a little food and some entertainment.”
“I do not require food,” Soth noted hollowly.
Strahd placed a hand on the death knight’s shoulder. “But the young lady does,” he said. “And I am certain you will find the entertainment to your liking.”
With a single, long stride, Soth stepped from the count’s grasp. The fact that the nobleman’s hand, though gloved, looked none the worse for its contact with his form did not escape the death knight. “I do not see the need, Count. I want information, not diversions.”
Magda froze, afraid to disturb the tense silence that settled on the room. Strahd and Soth remained a few feet apart, their gazes locked. Without raising his arm, the count secretly traced a pattern in the air with his fingertip. Neither the knight nor the Vistani noticed the casual movement.
A high keening rang out in the next room, the sound of a violin played masterfully. The music crept into the hall where Strahd and his guests still stood. “Ah, he’s started without us,” the count noted, feigning mild surprise.
As the mournful music continued, a look of puzzlement crossed Magda’s face. “There was no one else in there a moment ago… and there is no way into the room except through here.” She moved to the open door and peered into the massive hall where she had changed clothes.
Three crystal chandeliers of enormous size lit the room. Pillars of stone stood at attention along the white marble walls. The long wooden table dominating the hall was covered by a fine satin tablecloth, as spotlessly white as the ceiling and walls. The clothes Magda had tried on-and the rags she had discarded-covered the table close to the door; place settings for three, along with steaming dishes of meat, soups, and vegetables, lay at the opposite end.
The food and the dishes had not been there when Magda had changed clothes a few moments earlier, yet the Vistani barely noticed the roast or the red wine, even though her stomach was quite empty and her head light from eating so little during the day. No, her attention was riveted by the lone figure at the other end of the hall.
The musician stood before a massive pipe organ, framed by two mirrors that ran along the wall from the floor to the ceiling. A multicolored scarf covered his head, a black scarf protected his neck, and a sash girded his thin waist. His black pants were torn and dotted with blood, as was the billowing white shirt he wore. His head bowed, the man moved stiffly as he played his ancient violin, for all the world like a mechanical toy Magda had seen once in the village.
His song ended, the musician lifted his head. Magda screamed, “Andari!” then staggered a few steps forward.
The Vistani was at her brother’s side before she saw how sickly he looked. His usually dark skin was pale, his eyes watery and unfocused. “Andari?” When he did not respond, she placed her hand against his cheek. It was cold and bloodless.
“Your brother barged into the village late this afternoon, warning everyone about the creature that had destroyed Madame Girani,” Strahd said from the doorway. He turned to Soth. “As I told you earlier, I am quite disappointed in that tribe’s treatment of you. Girani’s kin will be hunted down and destroyed for the insult. Andari is only the first.”
The room swam before Magda’s eyes. She reached up to steady herself against her brother, who had just lowered his head to begin another tune. “Do not be concerned, Magda,” she heard Strahd say. “Because you have cooperated with Lord Soth, I will spare you.” The voice seemed to come from far, far away.
With a soft cry, the woman crumpled to the floor, unconscious. As she fell, Magda jerked the violin from Andari’s grasp, but the being who was once her brother failed to notice. He moved his bow over the air just as if he were still holding the heirloom once so dear to him.
Strahd sighed. “My surprise seems to have exhausted her completely.”
“Why do this?” Lord Soth asked, though he was unmoved by the woman’s plight.
“Exactly as I have said. Andari came into the village, trumpeting what transpired at the Vistani camp. He was eavesdropping on the old woman’s caravan, so he knew all that was said between you and Madame Girani. I learned of this, decided you had been insulted, and chose to make reparations for that slight in the manner you see before you.” Strahd strolled casually into the hall. “Is the payment sufficient?”
Soth followed his host. “Yes. It will do.”
Strahd’s mood seemed to lighten greatly. “Fine,” he said. With a flourish, he tossed his cape over one shoulder and bent down to take the Vistani in his arms. He lifted the unconscious woman easily. “I will see to Magda. There are empty rooms upstairs where she can rest. Remain here, if you don’t mind, and I will return shortly. There is much for us to discuss.”
Without waiting for a reply, the count walked away, the girl held firmly in his arms. “I believe you will find the wait worthwhile, Lord Soth,” he added as he reached the door. “I have something very valuable to offer you.”
The sound of Strahd humming the tune Andari had played came from the adjoining room, then from the spiral stairs. When the noise had grown faint, the death knight crossed his arms over his chest and gazed around the room.
The death knight studied one of the large mirrors towering to either side of the massive pipe organ. For the first time in many years he saw himself-scorched armor, flowing cape, burning orange eyes-yet his own reflection was not what interested Soth. A moment earlier, Strahd had lifted Magda and walked past that same mirror. As the count had passed the silvered glass, he had cast no reflection.
Soth pondered this as he walked to Andari’s side. The Vistani was still fingering the air where the strings should have been and moving his bow mechanically back and forth. With care, the death knight removed the black scarf covering the man’s neck. His throat had been torn open, and the flesh around the gaping wound hung in tatters.
“Yes,” Soth said softly, “the count is a man of many surprises.”
Gently the death knight replaced the scarf, then retrieved the fallen violin. After placing the instrument in the Vistani’s hands, he sat at the long table. In a room filled with melancholy music, the death knight waited for his host to return.
The door to the bedroom opened of its own accord as Strahd approached. Like everything else in Castle Ravenloft, it recognized its lord and master.
A single four-poster dominated the room. The white sheets were musty and moths had damaged the gauzy cloth that hung from the canopy, but in the light from the room’s single torch the bed looked luxurious. The count lowered Magda onto the mattress. His face half in shadows, he stood back to admire the woman.
The Vistani’s hair had fallen loose. The raven curls spread around her head in a stark contrast to the whiteness of the pillow. Strahd’s eyes followed a line from her cheeks, pale from shock, to the gentle curve of her neck and bare, tanned shoulders. He ran his tongue over his cruel lips. An involuntary hiss escaped those lips as a wave of lust swept over him.
The woman’s eyes fluttered open, and the sight that greeted her was far more horrifying than the one that had sapped her strength earlier. Strahd loomed over the bed, surrounded by sheets of moth-eaten gossamer. His eyes were closed, but his mouth was open wide enough to reveal sharp white fangs.
Magda screamed when Strahd grabbed her. “I should kill you for what you know,” he hissed. His eyes were open now and glowed red.
With the discipline of hundreds of years of existence as a vampire, Strahd Von Zarovich fought the urge to drink deeply of the Vistani’s blood. Plenty of other unfortunates filled the larder the count kept in the dungeons; he would sup on one of them before the night was through.
“The dark powers smile on you this night, girl.” Strahd let her go. “I have a use for you. Listen closely.”
Magda scuttled backward on the bed, her dress riding up her legs as she moved. When
she had pressed herself against the wall and drawn her knees up to her chest, Strahd continued.
“Now that you are comfortable,” he said smoothly, the mesmerizing purr coming back into his voice, “I can state my generous offer.” Strahd smiled. “I want you to continue as Lord Soth’s guide. In return for this service, I will allow you to live.”
“W-Where am I to lead him?” Magda managed at last.
“The death knight will be undertaking an errand for me,” the count replied. “You will lead him to his destination and report back to me each day through an ensorcelled brooch I will give to you.”
As best she could, Magda forced the fear from her eyes and stilled the trembling of her hands. “We Vistani live to serve you, Your Excellency,” she said evenly, letting her body relax. The lie was spoken with the same practiced air that had served her well in selling useless trinkets to boyars in the village; Strahd was no uneducated shopkeeper, however.
Strahd was amused at her false humility. He took her chin in his hand and looked deeply into her eyes. “I think you realize I am a man of my word, Magda. Serve me well, and you will be rewarded.”
The count crossed the room. “Do not leave here until I call for you,” he said. “I will tell Lord Soth you are resting after your long trek.”
Strahd closed the heavy door but did not lock it. This could be a test of sorts for the Vistani, he decided. If she followed his command and remained cloistered until the sun set tomorrow night, she could be trusted to carry out further orders. If she disobeyed… well, the castle was very well guarded, and the creatures that patrolled the halls during the day would tear her to bits.
Content with the plan, Strahd paced quickly through the halls. He entered a small room without knocking, startling the lone figure who occupied it.
“My lord,” Caradoc said. The ghost bowed, but his broken neck made the gesture look more comic than courtly.
Strahd gestured for the seneschal to rise. “Lord Soth has arrived,” the vampire murmured, a hint of malicious glee in his words. “He is everything you said he would be.”
SEVEN
The sound of the count’s voice flushed a rat from its hiding place on the landing that spread out just ahead of the vampire and the death knight. The bloated, mangy creature squinted at the pair in the stairwell. Its beady eyes shone red in the faint light from Strahd’s candelabra.
“Ah,” the count said, genuinely pleased, “you do your job well.”
After a long, wavering squeal, the rat waddled ponderously to a crack in the masonry. Strahd, satisfied with the report he’d just received, continued walking into a small hallway off the landing. “The rats are but one of the things that guard my home,” he said to Lord Soth casually.
Soth had become increasingly aware of quiet, steady sobbing as he followed Strahd. At first it seemed like one voice, but as they moved through the castle he realized it was people crying out together.
The noise emanated from the corridor that branched to Soth’s left. Pools of putrid water fouled its floor, and black beetles the size of the pommel on the death knight’s sword scurried everywhere. From behind the decaying wooden doors lining both sides of the hall, weeping and pleading melded into one mournful chorus.
These were the first signs of human life the fallen knight had detected in his tour through Castle Ravenloft. The place was huge but seemingly as bereft of people as Soth’s own keep. If Dargaard had its collection of banshees and skeletal warriors, Strahd’s keep was home mostly to rats and spiders and very little else-at least little that the death knight had seen.
In all, the place struck Soth as a monument to decay. Paintings and statues filled many rooms, but all the artwork had been ravaged by time. Strahd had pointed out the keep’s chapel, a huge room that once had housed a magnificent collection of stained glass windows. Now the windows were broken or boarded over. The chapel itself was littered with shattered benches, its altar unused.
Strahd looked behind him and saw his guest staring into the hallway that contained his larder. The vampire frowned and unlocked the iron-braced door before him. “This way, if you please, Lord Soth. I want you to meet a man who holds information you’ll find most intriguing.” The death knight forced his attention away from the pleading of Strahd’s victims and followed his host into a large room. The door closed with a resounding thud.
“Good evening, Ambassador Pargat,” the vampire lord said. He held his candelabra up high, but its light was too feeble to illuminate the entire room. “I have brought you a visitor.”
Wary of treachery, Soth tensed and gripped the hilt of his sword. There was no telling what the room housed.
Strahd frowned. “He must be sleeping.” When he saw the death knight’s militant stance, he added, “Have no fear, Lord Soth. The ambassador can do no one harm as he is now.”
At a word from the vampire, torches all along the walls of the large room burst into flame. Apart from the doors standing at the center of three of the chamber’s sides, nothing manmade adorned the cold stone walls. Lichen and green-tinted ichor oozed from between the blocks and pooled on the floor. A few spider webs, as big as Soth and as geometrically precise as Palanthas’s streets, clouded the corners. If the spiders were larger than normal, the death knight could not tell, for they remained hidden. That the unseen web-builders were unusual seemed confirmed by the good-sized rats that hung in the webs, paralyzed and encased in silk.
The ambassador lay at the room’s center, surrounded by a framework of metal as intricate as the giant spider webs. The device squatted on eight legs wrought of thick steel. Bands of silver stretched between these legs, suspending the man above the floor and holding his limbs fully extended. A series of weights, pulleys, and counterweights hung over the prisoner, attached to a bronze axe blade and a bristling array of daggers, some silver, some bronze.
“I repeat: Good evening, Ambassador Pargat.”
The prisoner started awake and mumbled something incomprehensible. Again Strahd frowned, hard lines creasing his face. “Is that the best you can do? I’m afraid it’s not good enough by half.”
Ambassador Pargat began to whimper pitiably as the lord of Castle Ravenloft glided to his side. The vampire placed the candelabra on the floor, then stroked his chin in thought. “Ah,” he exclaimed at last. “We’ve damaged your tongue, have we?” He idly fingered the razor-edged silver blade that hung over Pargat’s face. “I should have foreseen this problem.”
As the vampire removed the bloodstained silver blade and exchanged it for a fresh bronze one, Lord Soth came forward to examine the torture device. When the ambassador saw the newcomer standing over him he pleaded and cursed and whined. Soth could not understand the man’s garbled words, but his meaning was clear by the desperate panic in his eyes.
Strahd absently gestured toward the prisoner. “Lord Soth, this is Ambassador Pargat. He is a messenger from Duke Gundar, who rules a bordering duchy called-creatively enough-Gundarak.”
A thin man and not very tall, Ambassador Pargat seemed, nonetheless, quite strong; the metal framework groaned when he pulled against it. The manacles Strahd had placed around his wrists, waist, and ankles were composed of an odd sort of webbed steel, more flexible than chains, but just as effective. Pargat’s buttonless white shirt was shredded, and its blood-rimmed holes revealed a few wounds, pink, healthy skin elsewhere. The same was true of his ravaged leather boots and breeches. All the holes were aligned with the blades that hung threateningly from the frame.
“I do not enjoy torture,” Strahd said apologetically. He stood back and seemed to reflect.
Soth was certain the count was admiring his own handiwork. “It looks to be an ingenious creation,” the death knight said.
With a ragged sigh. Ambassador Pargat stopped pleading.
“It is quite simple, really,” the count began, warming instantly to the topic. “The weights and pulleys move the blades. They can keep the machine in operation for hours without anyone here to maintain it.�
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The vampire circled the metal frame, fussing over the blades and adjusting the tension on the weights. “You may have noticed some of the blades are silver, others merely bronze. That is because Ambassador Pargat is a lycanthrope, a wererat to be precise.” He shifted to the prisoner’s head and ran a gloved hand along his cheek.
Soth touched one of the ambassador’s wounds, making the man flinch and choke back a scream. “The silver blades cause him pain, the others cannot because of his unnatural healing abilities as a werecreature.”
“Just so.”
Now Soth circled the machine. “And you take a silver blade away for every piece of information he gives you?”
A smile slithered across Strahd’s features. “Just the opposite. For every item about his master he reveals, I add a silver blade. Sooner or later the pain or the sheer number of wounds will kill him.” He stroked the prisoner’s blood-caked hair. “I’m certain Pargat would like it to be sooner. This gives him… incentive to reveal all he knows quickly. Correct, Ambassador?”
Pargat’s words were incomprehensible, but the tone identified them as a string of curses. “How rude,” Strahd said with mock indignation. Pointedly he replaced the bronze blade over the prisoner’s left eye with a silver one.
Soth studied the man’s features. Pargat’s pale blue eyes were watery, his thin face taut with pain. His nostrils flared, making his thin nose look deformed and his wispy mustache bristle like whiskers. A large, gaping slice in his cheek revealed white, broken teeth and the remains of his tongue. Whenever the man tried to speak, the wound bubbled with saliva and blood. “What information does this man have that might interest me in the least?” Soth asked.
Placing a hand on the death knight’s arm, Strahd smiled. “There is but one way for you to escape this hellish place, and that is through a portal-a rare gateway between this and some other world. Ambassador Pargat knows the location of one of these rare gateways.”
“This man knows of a portal back to Krynn?”