Knight of the Black Rose

by James Lowder

  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.”

  “We start our dealings anew?”

  “Just so,” Strahd said, taking his seat again. “I know you seek a portal, a way out of these dark domains. I happen to know where one exists, as well as what rites need be performed to open the gate.”

  The death knight nodded. “Since this portal happens to stand in your foe’s domain, it may be necessary for me to force him to see the urgency of my quest.”

  “We understand each other perfectly, Lord Soth.” The vampire casually reached down and tossed a piece of wood onto the fire, though the blaze warmed neither of the beings who sat before it. “A fair exchange between allies. I give you the location of the portal. You do not restrain yourself from harming anyone who prevents you from reaching that gateway.”

  The conversation soon turned to Duke Gundar and the bloody history of the portal that lay within his home at Castle Hunadora. Like Strahd, the duke was a vampire, but he ruled his land through brute force, not through the subtle tactics of fear favored by the count. Barovians lived in dread of their mysterious lord—or, to be more precise, the boyar class of landholders who did Strahd’s bidding, collected his taxes, and enforced his laws. The poor souls who dwelt in Gundarak feared not only the duke’s army, composed largely of thugs and murderers, but the lord himself. Although they did not realize Gundar was a vampire, the people of Gundarak knew of his rampages across the countryside. His forays at the head of a mob of plundering soldiers had fueled many citizens’ nightmares.

  Those who lived under the long shadow of Castle Ravenloft worked hard to pay their taxes, all in the hope that they might never know what the ancient stone walls held; the men and women of Gundarak knew that, no matter what they did, they might end up a corpse suspended from Hunadora’s blood-soaked battlements.

  The story of Hunadora’s portal was likewise colored by violence. Hundreds of years past, the duke’s young son had quarreled with his sister in the castle’s main hall. Even then, the boy was a foul-tempered reflection of his father, and the argument ended with him bashing open his sister’s skull. No sooner had the girl’s blood wet the stone floor than a doorway of shimmering darkness appeared in the room’s center. Gundar and his son both tried to pass through the gate, but a wall of crackling energy held them back.

  For more than a decade they preserved the girl’s corpse, using dark sorceries to make it bleed steadily. In this way they kept the portal open, but their experiments yielded the duke only disappointments. While any not of the duke’s bloodline could enter the portal without hindrance, neither he nor his son could pass through. At last Duke Gundar tossed his daughter to the crows and let the gate close.

  “The experiments with the gate left their mark on Gundar’s brat son, too,” the count said, stretching his legs as the tale came to an end. “Medraut is forever trapped in a child’s body. The scholars the duke consulted claimed it had something to do with the energies the portal emitted.”

  “Yet the child-monster can be killed?”

  “As far as anyone knows, yes. It is said that his blood—or his father’s—will open the portal again when spilled in Hunadora’s main hall.”

  For a time only the sound of the crackling fire could be heard in the keep. Soth pondered what the count had told him as the vampire lord sat contentedly by the fireside, seeming to doze. Finally the death knight stood. “I will leave in the morning, Count.”

  “Splendid,” Strahd exclaimed. The speed with which he stood told Soth the count had been far from asleep. “I have two final gifts to offer you. The first is advice.”

  The vampire lord moved to the room’s single window and motioned for Soth to join him. “Once, long ago, Barovia was the only duchy in this netherworld,” Strahd began. The death knight reached his side and glanced into the night. “The duchy was surrounded by a border of mist—the same mist that brought you here, Soth. As time went on, the mist carried strangers to my land. It was inevitable that, one day, someone would attempt to find his way back. A few travelers who entered the Misty Border were never seen again. Others simply left the mists in the duchy, reappearing far from where they’d entered.”

  Pointing to the south, the count continued. “That was true until a ghost of great power and great evil breached the Misty Border. When he walked into the mists, a new duchy formed, a land called Forlorn. The dark spirit, whose name has never been told, rules Forlorn… just as other powerful beings rule the domains that formed when they entered the Misty Border.”

  “You believe a new land would form if I entered this border?” Soth asked.

  Nodding, Strahd turned away from the window. “Perhaps. And you would be trapped in that domain forever, just as I am a prisoner within the borders of Barovia.” He poked the fire and watched the sparks rise up the chimney. “A stretch of the Misty Border edges Gundarak to the southeast of Castle Hunadora. Keep to the routes I will provide you, and you will be safe. Stray too far from my map and…”

  The death knight needed no further explanation. “What is the other gift?”

  The count looked into the fire. “Troops worthy of accompanying you through Gundar’s lands.”

  “I have no need of men,” Soth replied. “My thanks, but Azrael and Magda have proven to be somewhat useful. I plan to take only them with me into Gundarak.”

  Strahd frowned, and the look of consternation that crossed his face was sudden and severe. “I was hoping you would allow me to deal with the gypsy and the dwarf. Magda knows far more than I’m comfortable with, and the werecreature has been raiding my villages for some time, flouting my authority.”

  Soth gathered his damaged armor. “They are both pawns,” he said. Turning his back on Strahd, the death knight headed for the basement and the tools that were stored there. “But they are my pawns, and I will not give them up without good cause. As an equal ally in this arrangement, I reserve that right. I’m sure you understand.”

  • • •

  With the screaming finally at an end, Magda found it easier to work. Sighing, she pulled the brightly colored blanket a little tighter around her shoulders, then took a firm grip on the bone sewing needle and went about mending her tattered dress. The garment, which lay draped across her lap, had been a beautiful gown when Strahd had made a gift of it to her. After many days on the road and more than one terrifying encounter, it was little better than the homespun skirt the gypsy had been wearing on the night Soth had kidnapped her.

  “Did you know him?” Azrael asked around a mouthful of bread. He pointed down, toward the room Soth and Strahd occupied. “The gypsy they have down there, I mean.”

  Magda squinted at the crude needle and threaded it. After making a stitch or two in the dress’s ragged hem, she looked up at the dwarf. “My tribe was very small. I knew everyone in it.”

  The clump of bread clutched in one hand, Azrael foraged through the basket at his side. Small wheels of cheese, loaves of bread, a few containers of preserved fruit and hardtack, and even two bottles of wine filled the straw basket to bursting. The dwarf pushed most of this aside, coming up at last with a cold leg of lamb. “You’ll be the last one left soon… if you’re not already.”

  “That matters little,” she replied icily. “Apart from the old woman who led us, there was no one in the tribe who would have mourned me had I died before them—not even my brother.” She went back to her sewing. “If I am the last, I will begin my own tribe.”

  The statement was made with little emotion, as if Magda had been speaking of the last meal she’d eaten or the weather from the previous day. With equanimity she held the dress up to the light of the single candle that lit the highest room in the tower. A skylight, its window long ago caved in by snow, augmented that feeble light with a wide pool of moonlight. The radiance cast a p
ale glow on the few boxes that made up the room’s decor.

  Satisfied with the stitchwork, Magda set about sewing the rest of the hem. After that, she would patch the few holes in the gown. It wouldn’t be the type of dress to make men follow her with their eyes, but that didn’t matter to her anymore. In her present circumstances, such concerns as romance or beauty seemed frivolous. One needn’t worry about turning heads if keeping one’s own was a matter left unresolved.

  Azrael stuffed the last of the bread into his mouth. “You’re not like the other Vistani I’ve run into,” the dwarf mumbled absently. “Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. I mean, it’s obvious you’re not a spy for the count.”

  “Hardly,” Magda replied, not looking up from her work.

  Strahd’s treatment of the woman on the way to the tower had been cold at best, openly contemptuous at times. When Azrael had noted that they were short on supplies, the count had led them on a detour to a lonely farmhouse near the fork of the River Luna. There Magda and the dwarf were ordered to present themselves as Strahd’s agents. The peasants knew that anyone possessing the lord’s seal had to be granted whatever they requested; all the pair had to do was ask for the food, clothing, and weapons they required. When Magda balked at the notion of taking food from people who likely had little to spare, Strahd flew into a rage. Only Soth’s presence tempered the vampire’s wild anger.

  At last done with the repairs, Magda turned her back on the dwarf and shrugged the dress on over her shoulders. She let the blanket drop and smoothed the red cloth over the curve of her hips. When she turned around again, the dwarf was eyeing her lustily. She reached for the cudgel that lay at her feet.

  “No need for that,” the dwarf said quickly. “Sorry if you don’t like the way I was looking at you, but… well, you are quite attractive for a human.”

  Magda left the weapon where it lay. After all, if Azrael threatened her, she always had her silver dagger close at hand. She’d moved it from her sack to her boot after the battle with the gibbering guardian; Vistani superstitions were clear on such matters. Only a fool ignored the prompting of such a warning.

  Feeling secure, she packed her needle and thread in her burlap sack. Along with a small loaf of bread and a jug of sweet cider, the sewing items were all she’d asked of the terrified old woman who lived in the cottage they visited. Azrael had demanded all the food he could carry, as well as blankets, a new tunic, and a pack for his new belongings.

  The Vistani tossed the colorful but ill-gotten blanket she’d used to cover herself back to the werecreature. “Thank you for the compliment and the use of this.”

  “Why do you think the club’s so special, if you don’t mind me asking?” the dwarf asked without prelude. After Magda explained the tale of Kulchek the Wanderer, Azrael snorted. “If that was the cavern he visited, then his skull was probably stacked with the rest. The blob with all the eyes must have eaten him.”

  Magda refused to rise to the bait. “Strahd said the thing returns from the dead somehow after it is killed. What makes you think Kulchek didn’t kill it before?”

  “And the portal that was supposed to be there?”

  The woman waved the question away with a flick of her hand. “Perhaps there was a portal there once, but the magic sustaining it fell away.”

  Momentarily rebuffed, the dwarf turned to rummage through the basket of food again. “Your great hero left his special club behind, eh? Doesn’t seem likely to me. I mean, if it was magic, he’d have taken it with him.”

  Planting her hands on her hips, Magda said flatly, “You saw what the cudgel did to the guardian of the portal. Perhaps I should test it out on a shape-changer.”

  Azrael laughed, a growling sound that made Magda wonder if the dwarf again was transforming into his badger form. “Magic sticks’ll do you no good against things like me,” he said when the laughing fit had subsided. “Oh, maybe that cudgel’s more than just a bit of wood, but don’t rely on it.”

  Warming to the subject, Azrael got to his feet and straightened the brocatelle tunic he’d taken from the peasants. The heavy, colorful yarns that made up the garment lent the dwarf the look of a court jester. “Take the lout who ran into me on the road near Barovia village the other night,” he began. “I hid in the bushes at the side of the road, waiting for an easy mark. When this boyar came riding along, I leaped out looking like a half-badger—teeth and claws and all that. Does he run? Does he draw a sword? No, he whips out this pendant and waves it at me.”

  A fit of laughter seized the dwarf, and he doubled over in mirth. “ ‘Oh,’ I growls, ‘don’t do that no more. You’ll make me hurt myself laughing at you.’ ”

  Magda sat in shocked silence. In a daze, she rummaged through her small sack and withdrew the pendant she had sold to Herr Grest the night Soth had attacked her tribe. She’d told the boyar that the little piece of jewelry possessed the power to shield the person wearing it from creatures of the night. It’s actual powers were much less impressive: It made the person wearing it invisible to mindless undead, creatures like zombies or living skeletons, things without free will or human intelligence.

  “Hey, you’ve got one just like his,” Azrael said, pointing at the drop of silver on the end of the chain.

  “It’s the same pendant,” she corrected. “I got it from that boyar’s kin. The villagers are blaming that murder on my tribe.”

  The dwarf chuckled. “They won’t have many warm bodies to put on trial after Strahd gets through with your lot.”

  “I won’t be one of them,” the Vistani insisted as she slipped the pendant on. “Once we cross into Gundarak, there’s no way I’m ever coming back to Barovia.” She packed the rest of her belongings into her sack. “By the way, are you wearing that motley tunic all the way to Gundar’s castle? His guards would see you coming ten leagues away.”

  “The count says there’s some old armor in the basement.” The dwarf picked at a loose thread of azure yarn. “I’ll get a mail shirt and use this as padding.”

  “I wouldn’t trust Strahd’s word on anything,” Magda murmured under her breath.

  Azrael groaned. “But you trust Soth? At least Strahd is open about his plans. You can be sure he will do as he says.” Spreading his arms wide, the dwarf added, “Do you know what this place used to be? The fortress of a local nobleman. When the noble stole tax money, the count had everyone in his household killed. Was it a surprise? Certainly not.”

  “What’s your point?”

  A wide smile played across Azrael’s face, making his muttonchop sideburns bristle like whiskers. “A predictable person is a lot less dangerous than one who tosses surprises at you.”

  Magda slung her pack over her shoulder and took a last look around the musty tower room. “You’re as good at giving advice and sharing your ‘wisdom’ as any Vistani fortune-teller I’ve ever met. Do you ever follow it yourself?”

  Azrael didn’t answer for a time. After he finished repacking his food, he noted, “If I followed half the advice I give, do you think I’d be here myself?”

  • • •

  Caradoc was finally growing accustomed to seeing the world at a tilt. His head still lolled on his shoulder, unsupported by his broken neck, but in the time since Soth had attacked him, the ghost had become less aware of the odd angle at which he viewed things. At times his mind compensated for the injury, straightening the landscape and the horizon he saw. Then there were the minutes and hours when Caradoc couldn’t even walk because of the vertigo that gripped him, times when he couldn’t tell up from down. Luckily, those attacks were growing less frequent, and the ghost was certain that, given time, his mind would adjust.

  As he stood in the darkest shadows at the tower’s base, Caradoc saw the world as he supposed it really was. The ancient two-story tower squatted atop a steep-sided mound like a dragon upon its hoard. For decades the tower had protected the hill and its owner, but even its sturdy walls had not been able to keep the count from exacting his ultimate re
venge upon its master. Now the place was empty, save for the occasional wanderer who sought it out as ill-considered shelter from the Barovian night, and the rats that scurried openly along the ceiling timbers. Its few windows gaped darkly, like missing scales on a dragon’s hide.

  A dwarf and a woman walked from the tower into the chill predawn air. They deposited small packs at the doorway.

  Soth’s new minions, the ghost thought disdainfully.

  A rusty shirt of chain mail hung well below the dwarf's waist; the motley tunic beneath it poked out at his shoulders and neck. The armor had obviously been meant for a human, but the dwarf seemed unaware how ludicrous he looked in it, much like a young squire pretending to be a knight. The dwarf's features instantly dispelled that image from Caradoc’s mind. There was a feral glint in the dwarf's eyes, and his dark sideburns framed an upturned nose and wide mouth that looked as if they more properly belonged on an animal.

  Clad in a gown of rich red fabric, hastily patched and with an uneven hem, the young woman appeared less threatening than the dwarf. Yet she carried herself with a confidence that unsettled the ghost. She was thin-waisted and lithe of frame, with the muscled legs of a dancer. The scratches crisscrossing those legs and the claw marks marring her shoulder told of a long, hard trek to the tower. The way she kept her gnarled cudgel close at hand revealed her wariness to sudden danger. Though her features were deceptively gentle—green eyes, full lips, and a soft chin—the ghost knew she must possess a reservoir of strength, for she had survived days of travel with Lord Soth and a harrowing escape from Castle Ravenloft.

  “We’ll be leaving any time now,” the dwarf said, scuffing clumps of sod from the ground with his heavy boots. “I dare say the old count won’t want to dally until the sun rises.”

  A brief moment of excitement passed through the ghost at the dwarf's disrespectful tone. If Strahd heard him, there would certainly be a confrontation, and Caradoc yearned to have an excuse to reveal himself and his new alliance to Lord Soth. Then he’ll realize how foolish he was to mistreat me, the ghost concluded, clinging to the shadows.