by James Lowder
“Sabak!” the woman cried. “I will avenge you. I will take your body through the portal when I slay these men.”
The silly bardic tale again, the death knight thought. She thinks she is Kulchek, hammering at her foes.
The thing turned many of its eyes to Lord Soth. The watery orbs registered surprise, and the mouths babbled even louder. A thick, writhing tentacle ending in a clutch of pointed digits shot toward the death knight. Soth slashed the arm with his sword. The blow severed the tentacle cleanly but also sent a lightning bolt of pain from his injured wrist to his chest. The sword dropped from his hand with a clatter.
Again the thing studied Lord Soth. The death knight returned the clinical, appraising gaze. As he looked at the mass of eyes-some without pupils, some without irises-a notion took hold in his mind. Perhaps the bardic tale wasn’t so silly after all.
He raised his hands. Although his right wrist fought against him, Soth wove an intricate arcane pattern in the air.
At a single word, a magical command as ancient as the world of Krynn itself, a brilliant light filled the room. The golden radiance was almost a physical thing, with weight and substance-rather like a deluge of clean, fresh water. Soth’s never-blinking eyes smarted at the flash, but the magical light did not blind him. From the ear-splitting shriek that went up from the unearthly creature at the room’s center, however, the death knight assumed its multitude of eyes had not proven as sturdy.
The creature stiffened, and its eyes became white, sightless orbs swimming in its liquid body. After the hundred-voiced scream died away, the mouths were silent for a moment. Then they began to whimper and mewl. That proved enough to break its hypnotic hold over Magda and Azrael.
The Vistani recovered first, blinking away the pain the spell had caused her eyes. She recoiled from the creature before her, but for only an instant. Gripping the cudgel, she struggled to her feet and swatted away the tentacles reaching for her. At the vigorous attack from the Vistani, the sightless thing edged away, positioning its bulk over Azrael.
A shout came from beneath the creature. “Bloody hells! Get this great mound of spit off me!” A horrible sound, like a dull cleaver slicing through raw meat, followed the cry. The thing lurched again, this time away from the dwarf.
Azrael lay on the floor, three of the creature’s mouths still attached to his arm and shoulder. The fanged maws continued to work their teeth deeper into his flesh. It took all the werebeast’s strength to pry the mouths apart. Magda moved to the dwarf’s side and contributed a few well-placed blows.
Soth retrieved his sword, lifting it with his uninjured hand. He warily approached the gibbering thing, studying it as he did so. A thousand waving fingers protruded from the creature now, surrogate eyes searching the room for some escape route, keeping attackers at a distance. Mottled bruises dotted its smooth skin where Magda had struck it, and three puckered wounds marked where Azrael had torn the mouths from its side. One moment the creature appeared as a giant fringed mushroom suddenly pushed up from the filthy floor, the next it was a monstrous, spiky flatworm, slithering along the stones, seeking escape.
“The thing has no scent,” Azrael said, wonderingly. “I would have smelled it when we entered the room, but it just doesn’t have a scent.” He kicked the mouths that lay on the floor. “Has quite a bite, though.”
Magda helped Azrael to his feet, though she kept a wary eye on the creature. “Do you need help, my lord?” she asked of the death knight, who was moving in for an attack.
For a reply Soth stabbed the creature, burying his blade to the hilt. The sword thrust did little to harm the thing; like the injuries wrought by Azrael, the stab wound puckered closed almost the moment the steel left the flesh.
The thing gathered into a ball and slid toward a corner, its thin feelers sweeping over the death knight, trying to read his intentions. When Soth raised his sword to strike again, thick ropes ending with gaping mouths shot from the creature and wrenched the blade from his grasp. Before Magda or Azrael could take a step toward Soth, a single tentacle, this one as thick around as a jungle snake, encircled the death knight’s waist and pulled him to the thing’s side. The creature’s milky flesh pushed up against the knight’s armor. Pulsing skin filled the gaps in Soth’s helmet, sealing out the air.
With his face pressed so close to the monster, Soth could see the ebb and flow of the thick ooze that made up its body, the play of filtered torchlight in its flesh as mouths opened and closed. At the center of the creature lay a lumpy mass, pale but darker than the matter around it.
Soth flexed his arms and snapped free of the dozens of ropy arms binding him. He drove his gauntleted left hand, held open like the tip of a boar-spear, deep into his attacker. The thing tried futilely to push him away, surprised that its attacker had not suffocated, but the death knight was too strong. His arm buried almost to the shoulder, Soth grabbed the pulpy mass that was the creature’s brains and heart. The thing whimpered only once as Soth crushed the life from it, then it slumped to the floor.
When the death knight pulled himself free of the creature’s limp form, he saw that Magda and Azrael were close by. They battered the thing savagely, stopping only when Soth held up a restraining hand.
The Vistani opened her mouth to speak, but a rush of unbearably hot air and the sudden roar of a massive fire superseded her questions. The wall opposite the room’s single door had disappeared, and the gap where it had stood opened onto a vast sea of blue and gold flames. The three walked wordlessly to the edge of the stone floor and looked out. The heat forced Magda and Azrael to shield their faces with their hands; even Soth felt the inferno’s warmth on his dead flesh.
The sea of fire lay hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet down, though pillars of twisting flame leaped into the black sky. The pillars spiraled higher and higher, finally diminishing into wisps of color and light. A whirlpool spun madly below the companions, a blot of red in the expanse of blue and gold. In the maelstrom’s center yawned a circle as black as anything in the lowest depth of the Abyss.
“Th-this is the portal you’re looking for?” Azrael gasped. “It don’t look quite… safe to me.”
“No,” Soth said, almost in a sigh. “This is no portal.”
Magda shook her head. “But the tales. Kulchek found a portal ringed in blue and gold flame. This must be it. The bones. The torches.” She paused, then lifted the cudgel. “Even this. It’s all too close to the tale to ignore.”
“Then after you, by all means,” Azrael growled, motioning to the brink with an open palm.
“Yes,” came a smooth voice from the doorway on the other side of the room. “By all means, Magda, jump.”
Strahd Von Zarovich stood framed by the door-jamb. His hands, clad in stylish kidskin gloves, lay folded over his chest in the fashion of corpses about to be put to rest. He wore the same finely cut clothes he’d worn the night Soth and Magda had arrived at Castle Ravenloft-the tight black jacket over a white shirt, black pants, dark leather boots, and a flowing cloak of ebony silk lined with a similar fabric colored red. A casual, almost amused look hung on Strahd’s gaunt face, and his thin mouth was turned up in a mocking half-smile.
The Vistani looked into the count’s dark eyes and saw sparks of anger, hints of the emotion the vampire lord’s mask imperfectly concealed. Magda also saw her fate in those eyes-a slow death at Strahd’s hands, a death that led to eternal life as one of the count’s slaves.
She spun around and leaped from the precipice.
The air itself seemed to push down on her the moment she moved over the sea of fire. A horrible, abrupt sensation of vertigo made her head swim. Her eyes found the maelstrom spinning below, and she knew in that instant that Soth had been right. This was no portal.
In the same instant, the low collar of her dress bit into her chest. A pained gasp escaped Magda’s lips, then she found herself thrust back into the room. She landed in a heap near the pile of bones at the room’s center, the front of her dress torn sligh
tly from straining against her weight. She dropped the cudgel, then marveled that she’d managed to hold on to it. Finally she looked to Soth.
The death knight stood on the very brink of the flaming abyss, watching her with his glowing, unreadable eyes. His left hand was still extended a little before him, the hand with which he’d plucked her from certain death. Azrael stood at the death knight’s side. The werecreature crouched in a defensive stance, and his earth-brown eyes darted from Magda to Soth to Strahd.
“Too bad,” the count said languidly, stepping into the room. “I would have enjoyed hearing her screams. Anyone clumsy enough to fall into the inferno catches fire long before they hit the flames.” Gesturing at the open wall, the vampire continued. “The guardian you fought was here when I uncovered this place, too. When I killed it-”
“You killed it?” Azrael asked.
Strahd spared the werebadger a withering glance. “Yes, and if we stay here long enough, we will see it rise up yet again,” he said. “When the guardian is slain, the wall opens. Perhaps it was a portal at one time, but not now. A few of my servants offered to… test this particular rumor some time ago. They came to a most painful end.” He extended a slim hand to the woman.
When Magda shrank away from the offered hand, the count shrugged and turned his back on her. “Of course, I could have told you this was a ruse, Lord Soth, had you asked me.” He faced the death knight again. This time the facade of amusement slipped away fully, revealing the anger seething underneath. “But, then, you spurned the hand of friendship I offered, as did this gypsy whore who follows you like a cur.”
Lord Soth walked slowly to Magda’s side. “Get up,” he demanded coldly. Using the cudgel as a brace, she stood, though she never took her eyes from the vampire lord. Azrael, too, crept to the death knight, his extended claws scraping the ground as he loped forward.
“Servitude does not breed friendship, Count,” Soth said. “You treated me like a lackey, an errand boy or hired murderer.”
“And you are no man’s lackey, eh, Soth? You believe you control your own fate?” the vampire lord asked. He smiled, a genuine smile of cruel amusement. “You will learn we are all lackeys of the dark powers that rule this place, chess pieces to be moved about and set against each other.”
Soth curled his hands into fists. “Have you come to set yourself against me?”
“Us,” Azrael said to the vampire lord. Magda held the ancient wooden club before her, an obvious statement of her agreement.
Strahd laughed. “Of course not,” he replied. Bowing slightly and fanning his cape with one hand, he added, “I am here, Lord Soth, to call a truce to our little conflict and to offer myself to you as an ally.”
“Fine,” the death knight said. “Let us leave this place then. We’ll find somewhere more suitable for… allies to discuss their plans.”
Strahd bowed again, this time more fully. He headed for the door, saying, “I have an outpost nearby, a ruined tower. It will be perfect for just such a discussion.”
Soth retrieved his sword and sheathed it, then followed the vampire toward the tunnel. Azrael quickly fell in beside the death knight and the Vistani.
Before he left the chamber, Lord Soth turned to the werecreature. “If you ever try to speak for me or amend my words again, I’ll cut the tongue from your mouth before you can utter a cry of protest.”
Azrael knew it would be foolish to answer, so he simply nodded and fell a few steps behind the death knight. In silence the trio made its way back through the tunnel, to the fork of the River Luna. The weight of dashed hopes hung on their shoulders like cloaks sodden with foul water.
TWELVE
The young man’s screams reverberated through the crumbling tower of Strahd’s outpost on the outskirts of Barovia. The cries for pity became pleas for a quick death, growing more shrill with each passing moment. They filled the tower’s chimneys like gusts of air and entered the midnight sky as little more than haunting moans. The few peasants who dwelt near the abandoned keep had heard far worse coming from the place, so they weren’t unnerved. They were Barovians, after all, and such night-terrors were part of their lot in life. Those who heard the screaming merely checked the braces on their shutters and tried their best to fall asleep, thanking their gods that it wasn’t them in the tower.
The unfortunate prisoner in the ruined keep prayed to his gods, too, but they did not-or could not-grant him a quick death. It was understood throughout the land, and perhaps even the heavens, that Strahd Von Zarovich seldom trafficked in merciful ends.
The vampire lord stood in a large hall on the tower’s ground floor, his back to the fire burning cheerily in the hearth. He held one hand on the forehead of the captive, the other on Lord Soth’s wounded arm. The young man was a gypsy, a Vistani of Madame Girani’s tribe and a cousin of Magda’s. He tried again and again to shake the bone-white fingers from his brow, but each jerk of his head was weaker, less violent. With his arms tied painfully behind him and his torso and legs lashed to a heavy chair, the young man stood no chance of preventing the count from completing his enchantment.
For his part, Soth stood calmly, feeling the warm flow of the gypsy’s life force seeping into his wrist. His hand flexed and his fingers spread of their own accord, as if the energy Strahd was draining from the Vistani was gifting his limb with an independent will. The death knight knew, however, that the necromantic spell the vampire lord cast did nothing but siphon the life from the mortal prisoner and transfer it to him. Soon the wounds he’d gained from the dragon’s jaws would be healed completely. The muscle spasms were but an odd side-effect.
The look on the count’s face told Soth that the vampire enjoyed the workings of this particular spell. Strahd’s dark eyes rolled back and fluttered, showing only their whites. His pale cheeks flushed with color; his cruel mouth stretched into a wide smile of pleasure. The vampire’s fangs had extended to their full length. The long canines gave the count’s thin face a harsh, bestial cast. To a creature such as Strahd, who sustained himself on the life force of others, serving as a conduit for the transfer of such energy was a tantalizing, invigorating experience.
At last the screams faded to whimpers, then even those pitiable sounds stopped. The Vistani’s handsome features changed as Soth watched; the youth’s dark, piercing eyes grew vague and watery, his smooth face became pitted with pock marks and creased with wrinkles. The skin sagged over his cheeks and jaws like wet cloth, and a thin line of spittle slipped down his chin. When Strahd removed his hand from the prisoner’s forehead, the Vistani slumped forward.
“Is he dead?” the death knight asked, rubbing an appraising hand over his healed wrist.
“Of course,” Strahd replied. He pushed the Vistani’s head up and studied his face. “He was the last of Girani’s clan-apart from Magda, of course. When she’s gone…” The vampire let the corpse’s head loll forward again, then wiped his hands together, as if they’d been sullied by contact with the dead man.
Stiffly Lord Soth retrieved the battered vambrace that had covered his lower arm and the gauntlet that he’d worn on the injured hand. The metal of both pieces of armor showed the effects of the dragon’s attack-the vambrace in the scratches and jagged-edged hole in its side, the gauntlet in its crushed joints and the small punctures pitting its surface. “I will go to the basement now and work on my armor,” the death knight said.
“Not just yet, Lord Soth,” Strahd replied. He gestured toward the only empty seats left in the hall-a pair of block chairs that bracketed the glowing hearth. “We should talk for a while. Besides, I can provide you with replacements for those from the tower’s armory. No one has dared loot the place since I… evicted the previous tenant.”
“I prefer to keep these,” the death knight noted. “This armor is ancient, and over time it has become more a skin to me than this other.” He held up his arm, and the withered flesh shone translucent, ghostly.
Taking a seat by the fire, Strahd nodded. “Of course, of
course.” Again he gestured to the other seat. When Soth finally relented and sat down, the vampire lord steepled his fingers. His long, dark nails were as sharp as Azrael’s claws. “You have not asked me why I still seek you as an ally.”
The death knight shrugged. “That seems obvious, Count. You hope to see Duke Gundar inconvenienced, if not slain outright. Now that I’ve proven my strength to you, it is clear I am the one to do this.”
“Just so,” the vampire admitted. “At first I was quite angry. Few dare to challenge me, let alone in my own home.” Rolling his fingertips together, he added, “It’s been quite a long time since anyone of such power entered my realm. Because of that, it was natural for me to underestimate your place in the domain’s web of life.”
Strahd stood and paced before the fire. “The dragon you destroyed is a rarity here, but not irreplaceable, and as far as Gundar’s ambassador is concerned, you managed to trick him into cooperating with us.”
“Pargat told me nothing before he died.”
“But he told me everything when I conjured up his spirit,” Strahd noted happily. “Gundar’s monstrous son had cast a powerful spell over him, making it impossible for him to reveal any secrets to me, but it had power over him only while he was alive. I should have thought of that.”
Strahd’s dark eyes glittered in the firelight. “You proved yourself formidable… I readily admit that. I underestimated your power. To compensate you for that insult, I have healed your wounds and even forgiven you for your breach of hospitality.”