Tapestry of Dark Souls
Page 1
A troubled land.
An innocent child.
An inexorable fate.
Then the sounds began. Shrieks. Raucous, horrible laughter.
A light flickered beyond the hole he’d made in the floor. His terror grew as the sounds swelled; the screams echoed, deafening, and the footfalls pounded angrily on the stones above. Jon’s mind flashed briefly on the threat of the floor caving in, or his being drawn into the rasping orgy. The undead spirits would suck the blood from his veins, and the cloth would absorb what was left, as it had his mother.
The noise stopped.
The chanting stopped.
The breathing stopped.
The truth was swept away by words the man in the shrine above spoke. “Silver man.”
From somewhere deep in the silence above him, Jon felt an insistent wordless warning. For an instant his terror returned, but he fought it back. “Father,” he whispered and smiled.
From the acclaimed author of Mina and Nocturne comes Tapestry of Dark Souls, the story of a young man who finds that safety and a future do not lie in a town under the rule of terrifying evil.
Ravenloft®
The Covenant
Death of A Darklord
Laurell K. Hamilton
Vampire of the Mists
Christie Golden
I, Strahd:
The Memoirs of a Vampire
P. N. Elrod
To Sleep with Evil
Andria Cardarelle
Tapestry Of Dark Souls
Elaine Bergstrom
Scholar of Decay
Tanya Huff
TAPESTRY OF DARK SOULS
The Covenant
©1996 TSR, Inc.
©2007 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Represented by Hasbro Europe, 2 Roundwood Ave. Stockley Park, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB11 1AZ, UK.
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Cover art by: Erik M. Gist
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6470-3
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v3.1
Dedicated with love
to Carl,
who let me share his dream.
Contents
Cover
Other Books in This Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Part I: Leith Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Part II: Jonathan Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Part III: Silverlord Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
The following tale is told on the oldest scroll preserved by the Order of the Guardians. Its edges are charred, though the tale itself is intact.
Skya, a woman of the Abber nomads in the Nightmare Lands, first saw the meadow-thorns. Her shaman says that the land drew her to them.
She had been fishing with others of her tribe on the Ivlis River, west of their encampment. Their nets had snagged a few fish, enough to tease them with hope that more would follow. They recited ritual thanks to appease the land and reset their snags. Below the narrow gorge where they spread their nets, young children played in the warm, sandy shallows. Older ones, meanwhile, stood guard, their spears ready to pierce any of the gray water snakes and poisonous leeches that hid in the murky Ivlis waters.
The day was hot and deathly still. A charged heaviness hung oppressively in the air, and the few white clouds that dotted the sky were darkening and gathering in a slowly shifting spiral. The hunters knew the danger of these signs and started back to the riverside camp. But the fishermen, intent on their work, their view of the sky obstructed by the sandy cliffs of the river basin, remained at their toil too long.
The sky suddenly blackened. The wind screamed a brief, terrible warning only moments before hail fell from the clouds, covering the dry earth with a steaming coat of ice. The Ivlis, warm and placid only moments before, became a torrent of swollen white-foamed rapids.
Women clutched their children and scrambled up the icy banks to safety as the furious waters clawed at the earth behind them. Skya, burdened by her young son, lost her footing. She managed to toss the child to safety before she slipped down the bank into the center of the rapids and was swept downstream. Filthy water filled her mouth and blinded her, and, more than once, the hungry current pulled her under.
To die between the pounding hand of the river and the rocky ribs of its bottom would make her a slave to the land, a ghost tossed on its tempestuous whim. Determined to escape such an end, Skya ripped off her water-laden skirt and managed a few strong strokes, enough to grasp a scrubby sapling at the river’s edge. But the river had already exposed the roots and the trunk broke free, plunging into the raging current.
Skya pulled herself as high as she could onto the narrow trunk. Vapor rose suddenly from the water, thicker than any fog or mist. It closed around her, obscuring her view of the banks. With her arms outspread on the thorny branches, Skya let the river take her where it would.
She should have died from the cold, but the land decreed otherwise. As quickly as the storm grew, it died. The sun shone and the air warmed once more, but the turgid river didn’t relent. Unable to reach the shore, Skya traveled for hours, growing more exhausted in her constant struggle to cling to her shifting float.
Then, the fabled Death Mists loomed before her—a pulsing fog. Alive. Eternal. The edge of the world. Skya’s tribe had never ventured into their unknown darkness. None would dare. Drowning was preferable to the consuming mists and the emptiness beyond. Fear gave Skya desperate strength, and she twisted toward shore, abandoning the sapling at the first rocks on the river’s edge.
Skya crawled onto dry land and kissed the earth beneath her, thanking it for sparing her life. She was far from the encampment, deep in a place of purple sky and whispering insects. But she was Abber, strong enough to survive alone until she came across others of her kind.
The sun was suddenly gone, and the terrain, flat and covered with coarse sand grass and wildflowers, offered no shelter. Skya dug a shallow pit in the sandy
soil. She filled it with grasses, burrowed into the center of them and, putting herself at the land’s mercy, slept.
Skya woke late the following morning to a meadow vastly changed. The silver-topped grasses were choked by thorn bushes, which bore heavy-scented white flowers. The blossoms, glowing in the brilliant sun, drugged her with their scent. Skya’s vision pulsed. A humming in her ears drowned out even the sound of her own voice as she considered aloud what she must do. She had intended to follow the river back to the homelands, but the river had vanished beneath the endless meadow. Reeling with confusion and weariness, Skya returned to her burrow and slept once more.
The next waking brought another change. The glowing blossoms were folding and withering, replaced by a fruit that ripened from pale green to glistening black as she watched.
Famished and thirsty, Skya sampled a handful of the gleaming fruit and found the berries marvelously sweet. Reciting ritual thanks for this gift, she began to eat. The berries stole her hunger and her thirst. The air seemed lighter, the summer sun warmer. The buzzing in her ears quieted. Picking the berries, she walked to the edge of the meadow, but no longer desired to abandon it.
Days later, her tribe discovered her. Her lips and fingers were black from the juice, her eyes vacant.
By now only a few of the cloying white flowers remained on the plants. Nonetheless, the tribe guessed the dangers the land held and refused to walk among the plants or taste the berries. Time meant little to the Abber, living where days and seasons changed by the moment, and so they camped some distance from the meadow and waited. Skya was alive. Perhaps the land would choose to free her.
They didn’t have to wait long.
The meadow began to shake, the land to crack.
And from the deep crevasse that formed in its center, a swarm of noisy blue locusts rose and covered the sky. The insects settled on the bushes, stripping the leaves from the plants with the same swift hunger that Skya had known. The insects feasted throughout the day, growing fat and laying eggs on the berries that rotted on the ground. Then the swarm rose in a single dark cloud that disappeared into the black Death Mists at the edge of the world. The eggs hatched that night. The following day the slugs consumed what was left of the fruit, then spun tiny cocoons as soft as the catkins that bloomed after the first snows.
That night, the moon rose and every small cocoon glowed in its light. Skya gathered a handful of them and carried them to the Abber camp.
The tribe craftsmen dumped the cocoons in a clay pot of boiling water, then unrolled the silken threads. The shaman wove a tight chain with his fingers and studied the result. The chain was strong, more elastic than bowstring gut or fishnet fiber. He rolled a cocoon between his thumb and forefinger, unraveling the glowing strands to study the tiny creature inside. But he found nothing, empty air. “The land has given us a miraculous treasure,” he pronounced and ordered a harvest of the cocoons the following day.
At sunrise, the entire tribe descended on the field. There, with the tenacity of the locusts, they gathered each cocoon. Some were used for bowstrings, others for nets. The rest were traded to a traveler from Arbora in Nova Vaasa in exchange for wool cloth and, as a special honor, a necklace of gold for Skya, who had discovered the land’s rich gift.
Though the necklace was finer than any worn by another of her tribe, Skya had no use for it and gave it to her eldest daughter. For the rest of her life, Skya treasured only one thing—the iridescent ball of string she kept clutched in her palm. What comfort she took in this reminder of the meadow-thorns, no one ever understood.
In Arbora, a weaver fashioned the fibers into a shimmering gray cloth. Though it was the height and width of three men, the cloth was light as a spiderweb, thinner than the finest silk. Those who saw it felt a strange covetous longing in their hearts, but no one could meet the weaver’s price. Men tried to steal it, women to seduce him into parting with it, but the weaver wouldn’t, couldn’t, let it go. He took to sleeping with it hidden below his pallet, a knife clutched in his hand.
On pain of his life, the weaver finally sold the cloth to a wealthy Nova Vaasan lord for a sum that would support him for two lifetimes. But, like so many others who had touched its shimmering folds, the weaver pined in torment without his marvelous creation. Eventually, he left Arbora, intending, no doubt, to steal the cloth from its new owner. He was never seen again, and the cloth vanished mysteriously into shadow and legend.
PART I
Leith
After all that has happened during my many months in this desolate place, I am certain the tapestry called me.
My husband Vhar and I had been traveling to an autumn fair in the seaport of Vezprem. I could describe our house, our town, the family that even now must wonder where we have gone, but why dwell on what is lost? The story of the tapestry is all that is important.
I was certain we had missed some turn on the unfamiliar road, but, as Vhar reminded me, “Leith, you have no skill with maps.” My repeated suggestion that the ill-repaired road couldn’t possibly service the seaport only made him violently angry. No, it was better to keep silent and hope that Vhar would see his mistake in the morning. If we continued on this route, we would never reach Vezprem in time to buy a selling space—one we desperately needed. Even if the port’s sales were good, we still faced a winter of privation.
Such reminders only stoked Vhar’s anger. His name meant “bristle”, and it was most appropriate. Our village called him the “red man”—red hair, ruddy face, and a temper just as fierce. He wasn’t well liked, but always respected. Such men usually are. When he courted me, he did so with such single-minded passion that I didn’t see how mismatched we were until long after our vows were made. I was as stubborn as he was loud, and if we had devoted half the effort to work that we did to fighting, we would have been wealthy.
At least there were only two of us to feed, I reminded myself as we rode along on that dry and empty road. I tried to take some comfort in the sad fact that we had no family after five years of marriage. Our only child had been stillborn two years before: the one time I ever saw my husband cry. My fingers brushed over the fertility amulet I kept in my pocket. Vhar and I hoped that it might have already been successful, but it would be days before I could be truly sure. As I contemplated this, I heard a warning hiss from Vhar.
The road became rougher and its incline increased. Brown granite cliffs rose to the right of us, baking in the harsh afternoon sun and throwing their dry heat over the steadily narrowing road. To our left, the cliffs fell sharply to a plain covered with dark and twisted trees. A hard wind blew across the plain, pitching the treetops back and forth angrily. And ahead of us towered jagged and forbidding mountains.
I had never heard of this harsh land between our home and the sea, and thought of last night’s strange fog as we rode on. Vhar was beginning to doze beneath the wagon’s tarp. Though I now knew we were on the wrong road, I didn’t disturb him. I wasn’t certain we could find our way back, even if we turned around.
In spite of the danger of the rock-strewn road, I shook the reins to hurry the horse along. An odd hunger had awakened in me; I told myself it was from the heat of day or the stark grandeur of the land. But even then, I knew it was something darker, more implacable, drawing me forward. Rounding a steep embankment, I pulled up quickly. A pile of boulders, sheared from the cliffs above, obstructed the road. The wagon couldn’t go on. I peered past the obstruction, seeing that soon after it, the road ended at the base of a ruined castle—a castle I had mistaken as a mountain peak before. The fortress’s jagged stone battlements stood silhouetted against the brilliant sky.
Crumbling and apparently abandoned, the castle seemed to have perched so many eons on its rocky precipice that it had become one with the earth itself. A great rent cut through its outer wall nearly to the outcropping at its base. Perhaps the place had been prosperous once, perhaps even part of the defense of the scrub plain beneath it. Now it seemed little more than an ancient ruin.
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The hunger deepened.
Vhar, now awake, joined me on the seat and stared at the castle with his mouth ajar. “Perhaps we are lost,” Vhar whispered to himself. My breath caught short: the fear in Vhar’s voice left me cold.
But Vhar’s fear meant less than my hunger. Somehow, that castle drew me, inexorably, a passion I’ve grown only too accustomed to now. A terrible exhilaration took hold of me. Even while I dreaded what I might find, I felt compelled to enter those desolate walls. Jumping off the seat, I climbed over the pile of boulders and started up the path.
“Where are you going?” Vhar called. “Come help me turn the wagon before brigands show up.”
I whirled, one hand pointing to the crumbling ruin. “Look at it, Vhar,” I called. “No one lives there.” I turned and, lifting my skirts with one hand, ran up the path toward the massive wooden doors of the fortress.
Vhar was running behind me now, so I quickened my pace. I remember thinking, perhaps for the first time, that he was a selfish, childish fool, and I wouldn’t let him stop me. He called my name, then screamed it. I ignored his cries.
Up ahead, a pair of gray-cloaked figures rushed from the narrow gateway and down the hill toward me. I slowed my steps, sudden fear entering my heart. One of the men carried a rope, and the other pointed beyond me. They rushed past, one hesitating long enough to lay a hand on my arm. “The man will be all right,” he said and ran on.
I turned. Vhar had vanished over the edge of the cliff, but I could still hear him alternately calling my name and crying for help. I watched long enough to see the robed pair uncoil the rope and lower it, then spun with odd disregard and continued my climb to the high stone walls. My pace slowed only when I reached the castle’s shadow. There I halted, shivering with something more than the sudden chill. I felt, for a moment, paralyzed, and managed only one step forward. Then, as abruptly as it came, the fear lifted, replaced by a hunger too strong to control. I ran through the half-open doors.