Tales of Ravenloft (ravenloft)

by David Wise

  Soon, the bridge was in sight, and Anatole felt a twinge of success before he heard the galloping horses approaching from behind. Throwing himself to the right, he scrambled for the trees, but a dappled mare cut him off, the hooves just barely missing his feet. He heaved sideways, but a whip cracked across his sore shoulder, slicing open tunic and flesh. Pain! Grabbing hold of the knotted end, Anatole pulled with all of his strength, and the startled rider came flying off his mount. Sprawling, the man struck the road flat on his face and went still. Too still. Anatole dropped the whip in horror.

  The mob gushed through the city gates, and another rider called out," Beware! He killed Raymond!"

  Howling for vengeance, the crowd charged forward. Trying to flee, Anatole was cut off by the horsemen who now raced in a circle around him. The villagers rushed closer, and the hermit glanced everywhere, praying for a miracle.

  That was when the sky turned purple, as if with twilight. Shouting their confusion, the crowd paused to stare at the dimming sky. This was impossible! It was but minutes after noon!

  Anatole, too, looked upward and saw a slice of the blazing sun disappear into darkness, an encroaching black curve extending deeper and wider. What the. . an eclipse! The moon was coming between the sun and the earth, giving them night in the middle of the day. But that was impossible! The moon was only a crescent last night. How could. .

  Ohmigodsno.

  A few of the villagers turned to go back to the village, and staggered as they saw an empty road stretching out of sight to the distant sea. Ghostly echoes of crashing waves rose faintly.

  Sensing this was his only chance, Anatole started to edge away, but could not step from the road. Something invisible, perhaps the air itself, forbid escape from the highway.

  Now breath fogged from cursing mouths, and tendrils of thickening mist rose from the cobblestone road. As the lunar orb claimed the last of the sun, night enveloped the world. Stars appeared overhead, and mountains rose on each side of the dense, primordial forest. Clutching his misshapen head, Anatole felt his mind reel. Time and distance no longer seemed to have meaning. The world was warping around him like clay in the hands of a mad child.

  And then the awful silhouette of the huge horse and its ghastly nonhuman rider blossomed on the high horizon, the savage pounding of the iron hooves rumbling the ground like an approaching earthquake, a descending avalanche.

  As one, the crowd screamed in fear and fury. The horses bucked and threw their riders to the hard pavement, and one man cried out as he held his twisted leg, his mount charging off into the distance. Despite their terror, half the villagers stood motionless, watching death approach. The rest forced hands into pockets to grab good-luck charms or wards, and thus broke free of the paralysis.

  Shouting orders, the village guards assumed a battle formation. Levers were cocked and a dozen crossbows twanged, sending a flurry of arrows through the cold air. Neat holes appeared in the billowing cloak of the horseman, one arrow striking him in the shoulder, the shaft sinking to the feathered fletching. One bolt, particularly well aimed, lanced straight through the collar, notching the stiff white linen at the back of the neck.

  In response, the rider drew a hand-held sickle from within his cloak, and the horse bared its perfectly square teeth, grinning like an exhumed skull.

  More arrows and bolts were unleashed, with the same useless results. Again the soldiers fired, making the horse their target this time. The barbed quarrels jammed into the ebony flesh of the animal, and ribbons of red blood trailed behind the galloping nightmare beast. Illuminated by starlight, the silver ornaments of the headless rider twinkled like the firmament itself. Whitish steam poured from the flared nostrils of the behemoth horse, the thunder of its approach shaking the very stones in the road. And now there was something moving behind the giant horseman and his bedamned stallion. Flying black globes, which bobbed and gamboled in wild abandonment.

  His back against the invisible barrier, Anatole could do naught but watch this final tableau of horror unfold. As if sensing the futility of conflict, three of the townspeople threw away their weapons and ran down the road toward the sea. But the rest bravely raised their swords and axes, preparing for battle.

  The reverberations of the hooves grew deafening, and then the horseman and his mount were among them. Swords stabbed, and axes swung, missing, always missing. But the silver sickle rose and fell with inhuman accuracy, and headless bodies toppled over, gushing life fluid and smashing apart the orderly ranks of the mob.

  Then the things aft of the pair came out of the fog and into horrifying view. They were heads. Disembodied heads sailing through the air like nimble cannonballs. Hair whipping in the wind, the dead snarled at the living, exposing teeth yellowed with age and cracked to jagged stumps. One even grinned humorlessly as it bit a soldier's arm, exposing bone. Anatole gasped. It was Hans! These horrid things must be the amassed victims of the horseman, now serving as his unholy minions. Dead, they had become mute slaves of their killer.

  A standing man sliced the flying head of a woman apart with his sword, and the rest of the aerial servants changed course to converge on him. The snapping and gnashing of the hundreds of teeth almost drowned out his piteous wails of agony.

  Wheeling about, the headless horseman galloped inches away from the sweating Anatole, his sickle killing frozen villagers to the left and the right, but not touching the terrified hermit. In the manner of carrion birds, the flock of heads followed their diabolical leader, sailing around Anatole as if he were a rock in a river. And then the freak understood.

  He was the bait for the trap! The horseman wanted the whole town out here on the main road during the eclipse, where he could slay them in one great battle. A bloody harvest of lives to feed his lust.

  Whips cracked at heads and horse. Swords parried. Crossbows twanged. Axes slashed. The sickle flashed and bodies fell.

  Then from the cloying mists a different head appeared out of the darkness, that of a silently laughing woman. Her countenance was fiendish: slanted cat-eyes with square goatlike pupils, no ears, fanged teeth, mottled reptilian skin, and hair a nest of wriggling, hissing snakes that spit in fury at everything!

  Moving directly before a stevedore fumbling to reload his crossbow, the eyes of the hideous head glowed greenish, and the man froze abruptly. Anatole could see that his eyes jerked wildly about, and his muscles bunched and writhed beneath his leather apron. Yet he moved not a bit. And the hermit realized it was as if the fellow's very bones had been fused into a single mass. Trapped on his own immobile skeleton, the helpless man could only twitch as the other heads swarmed around him, their broken yellow teeth biting and tearing and ripping him to pieces.

  With a high-pitched whinny, the great black stallion once more charged through the pandemonium. The ruby-dripping sickle of the horseman struck like deadly lightning. Arrows flew everywhere, striking nothing. Breath fogged. Torches flared blue. Clothing was ripped. Swords clanged. Screams. Oh, the screams! And the horrible animal growls of the flying heads. It was chaos! Madness!

  Crying aloud in shame and fear, Anatole covered both ears and dropped to his knees, trying to blot out the massacre around him.

  The slaughter seemed to last forever.

  Eventually, Anatole roused from his stupor. Silence. Moving almost against his will, the hermit rose and faced the foggy roadway. It was a charnel house. Bent and broken weapons lay abandoned everywhere. Decapitated bodies were piled atop each other. Only partially obscured by the swirling mists, one stood directly across the roadway from him, supported by the unyielding barrier like some hideous scarecrow. The head was nowhere to be seen. Some of the villagers were torn limb from limb, others split asunder, and each was ravaged by endless bite marks, their tattered clothes in pieces, exposing the chewed flesh underneath. A sob of anguish wracking him, Anatole gulped a breath, and the coppery stench of fresh blood filled his lungs.

  Turning to be sick, the freak leaned against the cold barrier still confin
ing him to the death arena. His fault. It was all his fault! The horseman had used him like a worm on a hook, played him like a pawn. . but no, for he was still alive. He had not been sacrificed with the rest. Unharmed and alive! Why? Because he had unwittingly helped the midnight rider? Or perhaps, maybe, even this darklord of the road could feel some small measure of compassion and mercy for one such as he.

  Then suddenly Anatole heard galloping iron hooves once more. Turning, he saw the silver blade flash downward. Hot pain took him as the sickle brutally struck, removing his good ear, gashing his normal eye, and slicing his disfigured face to bits.

  Reeling from the attack, the youth vaguely saw a shaft of golden sunlight appear, dispelling the graveyard mists. The eclipse was over. Numb from shock, Anatole heard the leviathan horse neigh a taunting laugh and then canter away, taking its silent master back to whatever hell he had come from. Weeping aloud, the freak stood trembling amid the desecration, holding the bleeding ruin of his face in those perfect-perfect hands. He would survive, but made ten times more ugly than before, rendered unfit for even the lonely swamp by this departing 'gift'of his dark benefactor. Anatole would leave this place of death, leave his lonely swamp, find another dwelling somewhere…

  But would the horseman follow him, use him to bait another town? Dare he go anywhere to find a home? And suddenly, the broken youth knew the answer to his earlier question. Did hell have compassion and mercy? Oh, yes. Most certainly.

  But in its own dark way.

  The Weaver's Pride

  Welse, guild weaver of Arbora, tried to hide his disgust at the acrid stench of the half-naked old Abber nomad who fingered through the goods in his shop. Did the nomads ever bathe? he wondered. Perhaps there were no pools of water in their lands. He had heard tales enough to understand the strange haunted looks in the eyes of those who dwelled there, and the stoic acceptance they had of their fate.

  "It's fine cloth," he said slowly, hoping the nomad would understand. The nomad scratched his armpit, and Welse hoped he would pick something less fine, for above all else he prized the work he had done on the mauve-and plum-colored blanket. The red and white silken threads that ran through it gave it a delicate look and feel, one unsuited to a nomad's life. Welse almost hoped the man had brought nothing to trade, but it was unlikely. Nomads did not come to Arbora empty-handed.

  A weaver did not deal with the nomads often. Usually the Abber nomads brought strange metals and gemstones from their lands, trading for the practical items they needed for their tribe. It always astonished Welse how unsettled, almost frightened, the nomads seemed among the orderly houses and tree-lined streets of Arbora, and how quickly they returned to the ever-shifting terrain of the country all of Nova Vaasa called the Nightmare Lands.

  The Abber turned his attention to a pile of colorful scarves and skirts, reaching for them with his filthy hands. How much would Welse have to clean after the grimy man left?" If you show me what you've brought, we can agree on a price," Welse said with some irritation.

  "You best," the nomad commented.

  Welse adjusted his flowing tunic on his shoulders and tied the contrasting woven belt more tightly. Like all Arbora weavers, Welse wore his own creations. So did his wife, his daughter, and his four sons, weavers all of them. There was no family as prosperous in all of Arbora, and every bit of the wealth had been earned. "My family is," he replied with honest pride.

  "Trade for this?" The nomad drew what seemed to be a dirty length of silk from the pouch on his belt and handed it to Welse.

  When Welse examined it closely, he saw that the strand was actually a braided chain of perhaps a dozen thinner filaments that glowed with a strange silver sheen. He had never seen a fiber so delicate. He unbraided the end of the chain and examined a single filament, finding it incredibly strong, with an elasticity that astonished him. Though he longed to keep it, he handed it back to the nomad. "Nothing," he replied sadly. "Too small an amount. I am sorry."

  The nomad grinned and pulled something else from the pouch, a glowing cocoon of the silver threads. He handed it to Welse. "More," he said. "Many more."

  Welse looked at the cocoon. "Many more?" he asked.

  The Abber smiled, his teeth surprisingly white and sharp for one so old. He held out his hands, indicating a pile half his height and as wide as his outstretched arms.

  "We trade," Welse said.

  The nomad returned the following day with two of his tribesmen. Each carried a pair of huge leather sacks. Welse had already cleaned out one of the great metal cauldrons he used for boiling silk. As the nomads emptied their sacks into it, the cocoons expanded, filling the container and overflowing onto the floor. Even here, before Welse had unraveled the cocoons, before he had a chance to use his skill on them, the strands were magnificent. Welse was almost certain that, if he closed the doors, the pile would shed its own silver light.

  He paid the nomads in coin rather than goods. He was pleased to see that the old man purchased only his most durable weavings, blankets and clothing that would serve his tribe well through the winter — if there was a winter in that cursed land, Welse reminded himself. Later he heard that the nomads spent every coin he had given them to purchase knives, axes, and other tools. A strange people, Welse thought, yet they had brought him such an incredible find.

  No one else in his family would touch this weaving, he declared, for he alone had the skill to work with strands so fine. He boiled a small amount of water and threw in the first handfuls of cocoons. As they hit the water and sank into its heat, Welse thought he heard the insects inside cry out in pain. Later, when he unraveled the cocoons, he found no creatures within, as if the strands had absorbed their spinners completely.

  He spun the filaments together, threading his loom with them, then beginning the weaving. Days passed. Welse paused only when hunger made him weak or when Ronae, his wife, or Geryn, his oldest son, intruded to try to coax him to rest. He ignored them, and the intensity of his gaze made them retreat and leave him to his work.

  When he'd finished, he had woven a thin cloth the length and height of three men. Welse hung it behind the counter in his shop and let no one touch it. In some lights it almost seemed to reflect the form of an admirer, and the shop was always crowded with people who came to gaze longingly on it then leave with another purchase.

  But there were others who came as well. Some were coarse men who had no use for Welse's fine garments and who dressed in hides they had tanned themselves. Others were wealthy and purchased their clothing from the master weavers in Kantora and had no use for locally designed goods. The former made threats, the latter offers that weeks ago Welse would not have refused. Now, with a stubbornness his family could not comprehend, he refused to consider any offers.

  One evening, Welse had left the shop in the care of his wife while he ran an errand. As he returned, he saw a crowd of people milling outside of it. Had someone taken his treasure? Furious, he pushed his way through the bystanders and went inside.

  The body of a man lay across the entrance way. Welse's wife was on her knees beside it, still clutching the knife she had used to kill him. Though Ronae had borne him five children and worked tirelessly at his side, she had always had a gentle temperament. He crouched beside her. "Ronae," he called gently. "Ronae, what happened here?"

  She pressed herself against him, trembling in his arms. Her breath came in shallow puffs, and Welse knew she as still in shock. "The man tried to steal the cloth. I grabbed the cutting knife from the counter and yelled for him to stop. And then. . "She paused and hugged him more tightly.

  He pushed her gently away, looking directly at her as he said," You killed him. Had he been caught, others would have done no less."

  "Yes, but he would not have died had the cloth not moved."

  "Moved? "

  "It moved, I tell you. I. ."

  "Hush," Welse repeated more forcefully. "Not a word about that. "He sent Ronae home in the company of their daughter and answered the questions the
authorities put to him. Afterward, he left his two oldest sons in charge of the shop and went home to get the whole story from his wife.

  By then Ronae had calmed, or so her speech made it seem, though her story was no less fantastic. She said the thief had been standing outside, waiting until the shop was empty before coming inside. "He said he needed yarn, not finished goods. I went in the back to find the black and red he needed. When I returned, he was behind the counter, trying to untie one corner of the silver cloth. I picked up the cutting knife and threatened to stab him."

  Welse could well imagine the force of her threat. Though she had the strength to bear five children and would fight to the death to protect any of her family, mice gnawed at their bread because she didn't have the heart to set traps in the larder.

  "He laughed and grabbed my arm, holding it back. I would have dropped the knife except the cloth moved."

  "Was the door open? "

  "No. And the cloth did not move like it would in a breeze. It rose as if the corners were on string and covered the man's face. He released his grip on me so quickly that my knife went in. Even after I cut him, he continued to pull at the cloth. When he fell beyond its reach, the cloth grew suddenly rigid as if trying to touch him. I dragged him away from it, and that was when he died."

  "Ronae, you were hysterical. Listen to what you're saying."

  "It moved! It sucked the air out of that man's body the way a vampire sucks the blood of his victim. Get rid of it, Welse. Get rid of the cursed thing before it destroys all of us."

  Get rid of it? How could Welse consider such a thing when it was his most magnificent creation, such a product of his skill that he seemed to have woven a part of his soul into it? Poor Ronae was hysterical or she would never ask such a thing of him.