by James Lowder
“Do not trouble yourself over it,” Soth said after a moment. “She has earned her freedom. Besides, she knows little that would be of value to our enemies.”
Azrael gingerly touched his swollen face. “She could warn Gundar of your plan,” he noted.
Soth roused himself from his reverie. “That is not like her,” he replied. “She would put herself in great danger by contacting Gundar-if he is the madman he seems to be. That would be quite foolish, and Magda is no fool.” He paused, pondering her disappearance. “Besides, these are not lands to be traveled alone. She will likely be dead by the time the moon rises again.”
At the sight of the wounded dwarf, a smile came to Soth’s lips. He pointed at the purpled bruise and added, “Though I wonder what creature might be strong enough to best her.”
FOURTEEN
The soft, rhythmic sobbing reminded Soth of the cooing of a dove. He looked up from the keep’s account books, sparing his wife the briefest of glances. “If you cannot control yourself, go into another room, Isolde.”
The elfmaid stopped crying and raised herself ponderously from the bed. Any movement was an effort these days-for she was far along with child-but Soth knew that the tears had not been caused by the strain of the pregnancy. A blue-black welt marred Isolde’s perfect white cheek. Soth winced inwardly at the sight; she had deserved some punishment for her strident nagging, he reassured himself, but perhaps I struck her a bit too hard.
“I don’t know how you can stand yourself anymore, Soth,” she said as she reached the door.
The lord of Dargaard stood quickly, trembling with anger. The feeble remorse that had colored his thoughts a moment earlier was gone, replaced by a cold rage. With a curse, he snatched the leaded glass ink pot from the desk and hurled it at his wife. She ducked out of the room just as the glass hit the door. The ink splattered across the whitewashed walls, and a shower of tiny glass shards rained upon the floor. The sharp sound, Soth mused, was like the laughter of the harlots who had occupied a cell near him in Palanthas’s jail.
He tried to calm himself, but murder was all that he could think of. Caradoc had disposed of Lady Gadria. Perhaps he should do the same with Isolde…
“Gods,” Soth shouted, disgusted with the bloody thoughts, “have I fallen this far?”
The answer stared at him from across the room. Disheveled and scowling, Soth’s image returned his gaze from the full-length mirror that had been the priest’s wedding gift. The disgraced knight found himself drawn to that reflection, mesmerized by the man who stood before him.
His face was haggard and drawn, his blue eyes ringed by dark circles. Waves of unkempt hair hung to his shoulders. His mustache was similarly untrimmed. It framed his mouth but did not hide the split lip he’d gotten the previous night. Like the other men in the besieged keep, Soth drank even more than usual, wine being easier to come by than water after almost two months of captivity. After a long bout of drinking with his retainers, he’d slipped on an ice-slicked stone in the bailey and landed facedown on the frozen ground.
That was what his knights told him, at least. He didn’t really remember.
Soth’s shoulders were stooped from exhaustion. When he wasn’t drinking, he was manning the walls. Not that the Solamnics could reach the keep’s outer curtain; the gorge stood in their way, and any who attempted to lay the foundations for a bridge were driven off with arrows. However, each night the attackers catapulted flaming pitch into Dargaard. It took hours to put out the fires, but the flames always took another house or storage building or wagon before dying out.
Lord Soth knew that exhaustion and hunger and boredom were the besieging Solamnics’ most valued allies; the knights under Sir Ratelif had been camped outside Dargaard’s walls for weeks, but they had accomplished little if one tallied only the physical damage. In fact, with winter now hard upon the land, it seemed as if the keep would be able to wait out the siege. The lawful knights had established a blockade, however, and with each passing hour, Dargaard’s supplies dwindled.
Disheartened, Soth reached for a cloth to cover the mirror. When his hand got close to the glass, he saw something that fanned his anger.
Blotches of ink covered his fingers like the marks of some horrid plague. Soth, loving adventure as much as he did, had never been one for keeping accounts and ledgers. That was what he paid Caradoc and others to do. In the last few weeks, however, he’d become obsessed with maintaining a careful record of their limited rations of food and drink. Now Soth rubbed his ink-stained fingers together, but the black marks wouldn’t come off.
“They’ve forced me to become a clerk,” he snarled, dropping the heavy cloth over the mirror.
He looked at his hands again. His fingers had spent more time wrapped around a mug of wine or a quill pen than a sword’s hilt in the last month. Even though the Measure proscribed daily weapons exercise for all Knights of Solamnia, Soth had done very little in that regard since his trial in Palanthas. Nor was that the only ritual he’d abandoned. Upon joining the Order of the Sword, all knights fasted one day out of seven; Soth could not remember when he’d skipped a meal last, not by choice. He’d also failed to follow the Order’s rules regarding drink and gambling and the chivalrous treatment of women.
These were all minor transgressions when compared to Soth’s failure to worship his deities, those powers that watched over all Knights of Solamnia. Habbakuk, Kiri-Jolith, and especially Paladine protected the Order. It was the ideals these gods personified that drove each knight on to greater and greater deeds. Yet Soth had not visited the keep’s chapel since the siege had begun. In fact, he had stopped praying to Paladine, patron of the Knights of the Rose, on the day he first made secret love to Isolde. Even the sacred vows he’d exchanged with the elfmaid on their wedding day had been said for the sake of convenience alone; if Paladine had heard them, it was not because Soth desired it.
The disgraced knight’s first thought was to blame Isolde for his sorry state. Perhaps she had bewitched him somehow, turning him against the Code and the Measure. But he knew that wasn’t true. She had pleaded with him almost daily from the start of the siege, begged him to raise his voice to the gods and ask for a quest. Only then might he make atonement for the sins he’d committed.
“Isolde!” he shouted, hurrying from the room. The sound of his voice echoed through the halls, but no one came running. Soth had stormed through the keep many times in the last few weeks, drunk and shouting for his wife; those in the castle knew better than to get in his way.
He found his wife straightening things in the nursery. Isolde started at his appearance, and Soth felt part of his soul wither at her fear. She was afraid of him.
“Please, Isolde,” he said, falling to his knees. “Come to the chapel with me and pray. I want to be free of this burden.”
She came to him then and held him close. When he looked at her face, he saw tears streaming down her cheeks, drops of purest silver against the dark bruise on her cheek. “Help me win my honor,” he whispered, “and we will have our life, our old happiness, back again.”
Hours passed, and Soth found himself in the keep’s chapel, the smell of polished wood and the sharp smoke of burning tapers filling his mind. He focused on those smells and methodically closed his consciousness to everything else-the dots of light that swam in the blackness before his sealed eyes; the sound of Isolde’s breathing as she knelt beside him; the rustle of the sacred tapestries; the bitter taste in his mouth. The discomfort in his back and knees from kneeling for so long and the dull ache of hunger in his stomach were more difficult to banish, but they, too, fell away from his thoughts.
Am I afraid to face my patron after so long, the blot of so many sins upon my soul? That was true, he realized, and with that realization he welcomed Paladine into his heart.
A meteor as large as a mountain streaked out of the blue sky. Soth felt its fire burning him, its heat turning his skin to char and ash. He tried to breathe, but smoke scorched his lungs, sen
ding fingers of pain through his chest and throat. As the meteor got closer and the heat grew more intense, his vision blurred. Bubbling like boiling water, his eyes burst and ran down his blistered cheeks.
Then the meteor struck.
Only you can prevent this, something said inside Soth’s mind. The voice was full of love and understanding, and it calmed his frantic thoughts. Such a voice could belong to only one being.
“Is this the hell that awaits me, Paladine?” Soth managed to whisper through lips that an instant ago had felt cracked and scorched. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by pure white light.
You were once a force for justice in Solamnia, Soth of Dargaard, so I will give you a quest, said the Father of Good. Yet know that your sins have been as great as the things you once accomplished for my cause. Therefore, the quest I will set for you will be greatly difficult. Only if you can turn yourself to the Good wholly and irrevocably can you hope to win it.
Another vision filled Soth’s mind then-a crystal-clear image of the Kingpriest of Istar, giving a speech in celebration of a holy day. Framed by an arch of purest alabaster, the kingpriest faced a milling throng. With exaggerated movements, intended for those at the back of the mob, he looked to the heavens and held his hands up. At first it appeared to Soth that the kingpriest was preaching a sermon. The vision focused on the kingpriest’s face, and Soth saw that he was raving like a lunatic. His hands weren’t held to the heavens in supplication; they were thrust toward the gods like accusing fingers.
Like you, Soth, the kingpriest has done much to combat Evil in Ansalon, Paladine said, his voice filled with infinite sadness. Now he has appointed himself mediator between man and the gods. In his pride, he and his thousands of followers will soon demand that we guardians of Good give over to him the power to eradicate all Evil.
“I am to stop him from making this demand?” Soth asked.
Paladine sighed.
Yes. Go to Istar, Soth, and make the kingpriest stop. He does not understand the Balance. By attempting to bend such great forces to his will, he will destroy everything for which he has worked.
That the greatest god on Krynn would tell him of such an important quest stunned Soth, but he managed to say, “I will do all that you require of me, great Father of Good.”
You will be redeemed, Soth of Dargaard, but it will cost you your life.
The vision of the kingpriest faded, but Paladine offered a warning. Know that more depends upon your success than your honor, Soth. If the kingpriest cannot be swayed from his prideful course, all the gods-those who strive for Good and Evil and the balance of the two-will punish the world. The mountain will strike Istar, just as you saw it.
Soth felt the pain of the thousands who would perish if that came to pass. The whole of Krynn would be changed-continents would shift, seas would boil red with blood, and countless lives would be snuffed out. The suffering of those left alive would be more horrible. The kingpriest alone—
If you fail, know that your fate will be more terrible than even that of the kingpriest, the Father of Good promised.
Soth found himself in the chapel once more. Isolde stared at him with wide, frightened eyes.
“I have my quest,” Soth said. His face was flushed with righteous fervor. “I must leave for Istar right away. Paladine himself has given me the power to save all of Krynn.”
“Paladine himself gave me the power,” Soth said. “Paladine himself.”
Azrael sat up and brushed the dirt and pine needles from his back. “What’s that, mighty lord?” he asked softly. “Paladine gave you what power?”
For the first time in hours, the death knight stirred. “What do you presume to know of the god Paladine?” he rumbled.
The dwarf held up his hands before him. “Nothing. It’s just that, well, you mumbled something about him just now. A god, you say?” Picking a tick from his leggings, he squished it between two blunt fingers. “I’ve never worshiped a god in my life, though I wonder sometimes if it wasn’t some evil deity what gave me my powers-you know, just to create some chaos in the city.” He snorted. “Funny, I haven’t thought about that in years, not since before I landed in Forlorn.”
Soth cocked his head, “There is something about this place that… forces memories to surface, ones that I’d thought long forgotten. I find it disturbing, though there seems to be no way to stop it.”
What the death knight did not say was that his memories were growing more vivid with each passing day. Once he’d welcomed such visions, because they fired his emotions and staved off the numbness of eternal unlife. Now, however, they caused him unaccustomed anguish.
After rummaging futilely through his empty pack, Azrael tossed it aside. There was no more food or wine to be had. Even the supplies he’d taken from the unlucky wayfarer on the road yesterday were gone; Azrael wished now that he’d carved up more of the poor fellow’s corpse.
“Some believe that dark powers rule over this place,” the dwarf began. “They’re not quite gods-or so the superstitious say-but they love to torment the poor souls who get stuck here. Maybe these memories are the dark gods tormenting you.” He smiled. “Personally, I don’t believe any faceless ‘powers’ have the least bit to do with anybody’s plight here. As far as I’m concerned, I done this to myself. I think-”
The death knight turned away, ending the dwarf’s rambling soliloquy. Since Magda’s departure, three days past, Azrael had grown more and more open with Soth, as if he had been assured of his place at the death knight’s side. Azrael’s loquacity bored him at times, but Soth found that it kept him from wandering back to his past too frequently or, worse, dwelling upon futile thoughts of Kitiara. Besides, the dwarf was the only pawn he had left.
Soth had been forced to destroy the remaining skeletons himself. As they’d gotten closer to Gundar’s castle, the mindless dead men grew more fractious, less willing to follow the death knight’s commands. They never acted against Soth or Azrael, but they balked at orders.
Only yesterday, a large patrol of the duke’s men had come close to overtaking Soth’s party because the skeletons would not take cover until Azrael had forced them off the road. The death knight knew that it was simply a matter of time until they blundered into another patrol, spoiling what little hope he still had to approach Castle Hunadora undetected. With the dwarf’s assistance, it had been no trouble for Soth to destroy half the skeletal warriors before they’d had a chance to react. The other three had put up a bit more of a fight, but neither Soth nor Azrael gained a significant wound in the brief struggle.
Now he and Azrael were camped at the edge of the pine forest that skirted two sides of Castle Hunadora’s moat. Soth had decided that Gundar was a fool the moment he saw the castle; only an incompetent would let trees grow so close to his home. Even though the keep’s moat was wide and its walls were high and well guarded, such cover would prove invaluable to a trained enemy. Indeed, Soth had been able to cloak himself in the forest’s shadows and study Castle Hunadora for an entire day undisturbed.
The castle rested atop a manmade mound of earth, a gently sloping hill to its front, a steep, rocky precipice to its left. Thick pine forest grew to the rear and right of the keep, a perfect cover for a siege. Hunadora’s walls were of dark stone, with lighter rock framing the arrow loops and crenelations. The main section of the castle was bordered by a square curtain, with small towers at the corners and in the middle of each wall. In turn, a wide moat filled with fetid water circled the walls, its dark surface broken occasionally by a bloated, white-skinned corpse or a pale tentacle slithering into the light.
Protected by the curtain and the moat, a massive tower and a large keep rose high into the sky. Two smaller buildings squatted nearby, their peaked roofs barely pushing above the battlements. Finally, the gatehouses and main portcullis jutted out from the curtain. This was where all welcome visitors to the castle entered, and on this particular day, a silent crowd of peasants milled in front of the gate, awaitin
g admittance. The ragged men and women glanced furtively at the bodies hanging from the gatehouses’ roofs and the dark, inhuman shapes that moved between the crenelations, hidden from the setting sun.
“They’re here to pay taxes,” Azrael noted, following Soth’s gaze. “The duke will keep ’em waiting all night if he has to. He lets two dozen into the gates at a time, so’s his men can keep an eye on ’em.”
“Then we will enter the keep now, while the soldiers are still busy with the rabble,” Soth replied. He pointed to the stone curtain, where a half-submerged grate opened into the moat. “That is where we will enter. If what you’ve said about the child is true, his quarters are likely to be underground, where the screams of his victims will not arouse the others in the keep.”
Azrael fidgeted, trying to think of the proper words for what he wanted to say. “Uh, mighty lord, it may not be, er, in our best interest to face Medraut in his laboratory. I’ve heard that he has artifacts of great power stored there, things he could use against us.”
“We need the blood of either Gundar or his son to open the portal,” Soth replied flatly. “Strahd tells me that the duke is a vampire. So unless you wish to hunt for his coffin yourself…”
Laughing nervously, Azrael moved to the edge of the trees. “Are we going to swim across?” he asked.
Soth did not reply. Instead, he grabbed the back of the dwarf’s chain mail shirt and stepped into the darkness surrounding the trees. An instant later, he and Azrael emerged from the shadows inside the grate tunnel. The dwarf leaned back against the rusty grate. “Mmmm. You could have warned me.”
Cold water swirled above Soth’s knees, almost reaching Azrael’s waist. It was colored by streaks of indigo and yellow and cerulean from the remnants of discarded potions. Fragments of parchment and half-burned figurines of wood floated against the grate’s wide bars. Farther up the tunnel, small patches of flame covered the water where two cast-off chemicals had come together.