by James Lowder
A large bottle containing a pink, spiderlike creature bumped against Azrael’s hip. When he picked it up, the creature rammed itself against the glass, trying to get at the dwarf with its long legs and snaking tail. He snarled at the clutching thing, then pushed the bottle out through the grate. The glass bobbed in the moat, then a tentacle wrapped around it and pulled it under.
“Come,” Soth said, ducking slightly to avoid the low, dripping ceiling.
Glowing lichen covered the walls above the waterline. Azrael waded cautiously behind the death knight. He was glad to have a little light to stop him from stumbling against the walls, but he wasn’t all that certain he wanted to see what sloshed against him.
The worst part of the trip for Azrael was the smell. Although he pinched his nose, his heightened senses provided him with a clear report of the foul odors from the offal and refuse floating around him. “The first thing we’ll want to do when we get through the portal is take a bath for a week,” he grumbled. “Or have our noses chopped off.” His voice reverberated up the tunnel.
“If you are not quiet,” Soth replied, “I will perform that surgery right now.”
After a time the tunnel sloped up, leaving the water behind. At first Azrael was glad to be out of the foul-smelling sewerage, but he soon decided that the drier part of the tunnel was no improvement. A dead giant’s rib cage blocked the way at one point, and other, more disgusting things made it difficult for Azrael to struggle up the incline. Of course Soth managed it easily.
“Doesn’t this place bother you, mighty one?” the dwarf whispered.
“It is not so unlike some I have seen in my travels,” the death knight replied. “Besides, to me the world is not filled with the bright colors and sharp smells you sense. I only remember such things from long ago.”
A circle of light appeared in the wall ahead, then laughter, high and shrill, filled the tunnel. Soth edged forward. The light came from a jagged hole, slimy with spilled potions and stinking from the old bits of flesh caught on the stones around its edges. Beyond lay a huge room filled with glassware and coils of metal, ancient skulls and the stuffed carcasses of unnatural creatures. Tables covered with beakers of rainbow-hued liquids stood in a dozen places around the floor. Musty shelves of books bound in leather or wood or more exotic fabric occupied two walls; cases holding collections of powders as well as rare items used in the casting of spells occupied the other two.
There seemed to be no door, no way into the room save the hole from which Soth now peered. Moreover, no torches or magical globes or any other source of light lined the walls, yet a clear yellow light filled the gigantic hall. The illumination was so complete that no shadows hung in the corners, not a single book or vial lay in darkness.
At the edge of this ordered chaos, very close to the entryway into the sewer, a boy sat upon a high stool. This had to be the duke’s son, Medraut. He gazed into a glass-and-steel structure as wide and tall as a door. Level after level of doll-sized furniture and weapons rested between two thick plates of crystal, sprinkled with small holes; the use for these holes quickly became apparent. The boy lit pieces of paper with a nearby candle and stuffed them into the three lowest levels.
“You can’t hide forever, little worms,” Medraut said in a coarse voice. He rapped the glass with his little fingers. “Come out, come out. It’s time to play.”
As smoke filled the levels, things began to twitch about. Soth couldn’t make them out at first, but as the figures scrambled up ladders to escape the smoke, he realized what was happening. Tiny humans! The captives shouted and cursed and shook their fists at the child, but that only made him laugh.
“The game for today is snakes and ladders,” he said, taking a box from a table nearby. “Haderak, you survived this last time, so you needn’t listen to the rules. The rest of you must pay close attention.” Medraut slid a glove onto his hand and grabbed a handful of writhing snakes from the box. Standing atop the chair, he opened a small glass door. One by one, he dropped the snakes into the bizarre doll house. “Each time one of you gets eaten by a snake, I take a ladder away.” Squinting at one figure, he added, “And you have to move forward, not backward, Costigan, you rotten cheater.”
The last snake safely in the maze, he closed the door and settled down to watch. “If you manage to kill one of the snakes, like brave old Haderak, I’ll put a ladder back.” Folding his hands on his lap, he shrugged. “All right, then, off you go.”
The figures scrambled for the tiny spears and swords that stood in racks on a few of the floors. Others hurried away from the snakes they knew would be crawling toward them. The smoke from the burning paper now filled the four lowest levels. “You can run, but you can’t hide!” Medraut taunted, blocking the entrance to the lowest level with a glass slide.
Soth turned away, only to find Azrael shrugging out of his mail shirt. The death knight knew that the dwarf had to take off the mail before he transformed or the metal mesh would strangle him. Still, he cursed the werecreature’s poor planning. The metal clinked and jingled. Luckily Medraut was too engrossed in his game to notice the sounds.
The death knight gestured for Azrael to follow him, then he took one final glance into the room and pushed through the opening. Medraut spun about on his stool the instant Soth entered the room. Although he was the size of a ten-year-old, no one could mistake the duke’s son for a normal boy. His face was pocked from disease, and his teeth were mostly rotten. Running sores covered his bare, grimy legs. Above all, his eyes held a dangerous, maniacal glint.
“Another assassin from Daddy,” Medraut said, leering like an old lecher. “Oh, how fun.”
With lightning-quick hands, Soth formed a spell, but the duke’s son was faster. Before the incantation could leave the death knight’s lips, Medraut summoned his own sorcery. Soth’s mind went blank. A tiny white whirlpool formed in the center of his consciousness, engulfing the words that would call forth the spell he had prepared. Then the vortex grew.
“Why is it you always interrupt my play time?” pouted the boy, jumping from the stool. He reached into his pocket and putted out the materials he needed for another spell-a lodestone and a pinch of dust. “After I turn your arms to ash, I may shrink you down and put you in the maze with the others. Would you like that, Sir Assassin?”
Soth fought against the vortex with all his thoughts, filling it with anger and hatred. A memory of Kitiara, clad in a diaphanous gown, swam into view, and Soth bent his will to closing the whirlpool. His mind thus occupied, he heard Medraut’s words only vaguely, through a fog. The same was true of the echoing yowl that rang from the sewers hard upon the boy’s threat.
With a shriek, Azrael leaped from the hole. He was in half-badger form, his lips curled back from his white teeth in a frightening snarl. Instead of lashing out at Medraut with his claws, though, he struck the boy in the face with his chain mail shirt. The blow sent Medraut reeling backward, into the glass-and-steel maze. It wobbled, then fell over, slamming into a table full of scales and weights. Glass shattered and metal clattered on the stone floor.
Medraut struggled but for a moment with the heavy chain mesh shirt tangled around his head. That was enough time for Soth to overcome the spell. The vortex in the death knight’s mind closed, without having done any real harm to his dark thoughts. As the boy tossed the shirt aside, Azrael’s claws raked across his back. Hard on that blow, Soth cast his first spell. A gust of wind lifted the boy and blew him up toward the ceiling. Then, like a huge hand, it tossed him against a table of beakers and glass tubing. Shards of glass flew everywhere as the snakes and shrunken people darted for cover.
The boy came up smiling, trickles of blood running down his face from a dozen tiny cuts. “You are much better than the louts Daddy usually sends. This is almost fun.” A wand appeared in his open hand, and he pointed it at Azrael.
The werebadger thought to dive out of the way, but the lightning bolt that erupted from the boy’s wand struck him before his muscles transl
ated that impulse into action. He saw the flash an instant before he felt the blow, but by then it was too late. By the time the roar of the attack deafened his ears, he’d been knocked through three tables. The stench of charred flesh and burning fur told Azrael that he was on fire.
The boy giggled and pointed the wand at Soth. Without warning, a man appeared between Medraut and the death knight. He wore a soldier’s uniform-high leather boots, black pants, and a tight red jacket trimmed in white. A silver saber hung at his side, but Soth could tell immediately that the weapon was for show. The man’s hands were coarse and callused, the hands of a butcher not a swordsman.
“Why, Daddy,” Medraut cooed, “you’ve come to watch me finish off your assassins.”
The duke might have been a handsome man once, but now he looked as much a beast as Azrael. His dark hair hung wildly around his head; his beard curled untrimmed around his chin and mouth. Eyebrows thick and matted ran together over his craggy nose, giving his features a perpetually angry cast. Fangs, white and long, protruded over a red tongue and lips. He was a vampire, too, but as unlike Strahd Von Zarovich as noon is to midnight.
“This is no agent of mine,” the duke shouted, lunging at Soth. The death knight swatted away the vampire’s grasping hands and locked his own mailed fingers around Gundar’s throat.
“The master of Barovia sends his regards,” Soth said, tightening his grip.
Medraut waved his hand, and the wand disappeared. “Well, well. An agent of the count.” Righting his stool, the boy climbed atop it to watch the battle. “Daddy, I believe the nice man must be here for you.”
With a curse, Gundar transformed to swirling mist in Soth’s hands. The mist, in turn, slithered down to the floor and hid amidst the broken tables and scattered equipment. “Oh, bother,” Medraut sighed as the death knight faced him once again.
A ball of fire streaked from Soth’s hand! but a shield of blue light flashed into being in front of Medraut. The fireball struck the magical barrier and exploded, splashing liquid flame in a wide arc around the boy. A few of the tables began to burn and one mortar filled with yellow powder sizzled ominously.
Soth took a step forward, ready to bash in the monstrous child’s skull if magic would not serve him, but a blow to his back sent him reeling. From where he lay against a toppled stack of spellbooks, the death knight saw Duke Gundar. The vampire lord crouched like a wolf, bloody spittle flecking his lips, a mad gleam shining in his eyes.
“Oh, Daddy, you’ve saved me,” Medraut murmured, then fell into a fit of coarse laughter.
The boy’s mirth continued as Soth and Gundar came together again. The two dead men locked inhumanly strong hands. Medraut was so caught up in the spectacle that he didn’t notice the stealthy movement behind him. And when the smell of burned flesh reached his nose, it was too late.
Azrael, the left side of his body blackened and blistering, leaped onto Medraut’s back. The boy tried to call a spell to mind, anything that would put some distance between him and the half-dwarf, half-badger thing, but the werecreature did not give him a chance. Held together by Azrael’s claws, the two of them toppled to the floor. Medraut’s scream was like that of a child waking from a bad dream; this nightmare was not banished so easily, however.
Gleefully Azrael tore out the boy’s throat with his teeth, and the scream was drowned by a gurgling flow of blood.
At the sight of his son’s grisly demise, fright played across Gundar’s features. Then, oddly enough, the fear changed to a look of relief. Without a word, the duke again transformed to mist and slipped from Soth’s grasp.
The death knight scanned the room with his unblinking eyes, but the duke was nowhere to be seen. “We have what we came for, Gundar!” he proclaimed. “Let us take the boy to your great hall and open the portal that lies there. If you try to stop us, you will share Medraut’s fate.”
Darkness enveloped the room, and Soth braced for an attack. None came. Instead, a section of a musty, crowded bookcase swung open, revealing a torchlit stairway. “Well,” Azrael said, “that’s a clear enough answer.”
“Can you carry the child yourself?” Soth asked. He heard the werecreature grunt as he lifted the corpse.
“We’d better hurry, mighty one,” Azrael noted, taking a careful step toward the doorway, broken glass crunching underfoot. “Or he won’t have any blood left. It’ll have all run down my tunic.”
When they reached the hallway, the death knight noticed the effect of the lightning bolt upon Azrael. The fur on his left arm and the left side of his chest and face was gone, the skin underneath burned and cracked. His snout had split open; his left eye was closed. Azrael’s arm and shoulder seemed to have suffered the most serious damage. His square, muscular shoulder was bent and twisted, and his arm hung limp at his side. His tunic was covered in blood, but that was from Medraut’s wounds, not his.
“I’ll be better in a couple of days,” was Azrael’s reply when he saw the death knight’s gaze upon him. “Don’t worry, mighty lord, I won’t slow you down.” As if to prove his point, he adjusted the corpse’s weight on his good shoulder and trudged forward. A snarl of pain curled the werecreature’s lip with each step.
They followed the tower staircase until they came to an open door. From there, a wide corridor ran straight into the castle’s main building. Tattered banners, shields embossed with strange heraldic devices, and broken weapons lined this corridor, trophies taken from vanquished foes or symbols of ancient family victories. The hallway ended in a set of double doors. Detailed carvings depicting the castle’s construction filled the doors’ six huge panels.
Like the rest of the castle, the sumptuous main hall was devoid of people. The room was long, with an arched ceiling similar to those in some of the larger ancient temples Soth had seen on Krynn. Thousand-candled chandeliers hung in four places. On a sunny day, their light would be augmented by the stained glass windows that lined one side of the room; the growing darkness outside offered no light and obscured whatever scenes the windows might have held. The wall opposite the windows was lined with statues, all of them capturing Duke Gundar in some dramatic pose. Some were wrought in alabaster, others in jet, but they all showed the master of Gundarak as a heroic warrior.
Azrael shifted the corpse on his shoulder and glanced about nervously. “This has to be a trap.”
Soth shook his head. “Most leaders who display statues celebrating their own heroism are cowards at base. The duke wants us to leave without doing any more damage.”
The death knight walked to the center of the room. The story Strahd had told him made it easy to find the location; a large bloodstain, brown from age, marked the spot where Gundar’s daughter had lain for years, her blood keeping the gateway open. There he took the corpse from Azrael and dropped it to the ground. As Medraut’s blood flowed over the mark left at one time by his sister, a dark circle appeared in the air directly over the corpse. No light seemed to penetrate the blackness of the portal, and Soth could see nothing inside it.
“I come for you, my Kitiara,” Soth whispered.
Without hesitation, the death knight stepped into the circle of darkness. Azrael gasped at his master’s temerity, then gritted his teeth and followed him.
FIFTEEN
A dull blue light shone around Lord Soth. As the death knight watched, the sourceless light spread to a thin strip of ground, revealing a pathway that extended a dozen yards or so. Around this path lay darkness more profound than any he had ever seen.
Azrael appeared suddenly. He, too, was bathed in blue radiance. Crouching at the death knight’s side, he muttered, “Black as Strahd’s heart in here.” He sniffed the air, testing for the scent of any hidden foe. The action only caused his charred nose to ache.
“Stay close,” the death knight said. He started along the path, taking one slow, careful step after another. The werecreature pulled the tunic up to cover his wounded shoulder, then loped along after him. After they’d gone a few steps, an elaborate wr
ought iron gate appeared at the path’s end.
“None shall pass unless they pay my toll,” came a voice from the darkness. The words were thick with the promise of danger for those who disobeyed them.
Soth took another step toward the gate, and a figure slid from the darkness to block the way. The keeper of the gate seemed to be made entirely of shadow, though in silhouette she resembled a very tall woman or, perhaps, an elfmaid. Her arms and legs were long and slender, and she moved with practiced grace. Although the details of her features were hidden, the light from the gate revealed her profile when she moved. Long, flowing hair framed a face with high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and full, pouting lips. She held her chin up, lending her stance an air of casual disdain.
The keeper had one exotic feature that was clear even though she was cloaked in darkness. A pair of twisting, branched horns rose from her head, much like a deer’s, but more elegantly curved. The points on these horns looked as sharp as Azrael’s claws.
“Go no farther,” she warned, pointing at Soth.
The death knight traced an arcane pattern in the air, but when he spoke the word to trigger the spell, nothing happened.
“This is my realm, and your sorcery will not work here,” the keeper explained. She extended a hand into the darkness beyond the path, then withdrew it. After a moment, a huge dog slunk into the light. Like the keeper, the hound was composed of shadow. It had the imposing form and flat skull of the mastiffs Soth had seen in some knights’ castles on Krynn. Yet its stomach was shrunken from starvation; its skin barely hid its rib cage.
The keeper moved toward Soth and Azrael, the shadow mastiff at her side. “The toll for passing along my road is high, but all must pay it.”