by James Lowder
The road swept away from the chasm's brink, passing through an elaborate garden and a large graveyard. Time and neglect had obliterated the boundaries between the two. Weeds covered the graves. Climbing roses, their blooms as black as the unseen moon overhead, entangled memorial statues and stormed the walls of crypts long ago robbed of their dead. The wind hissed through trees of overripe fruit. The gusts mixed the tang of a harvest gone to rot with the smothering fume of grave mold.
"Last chance to come up with a better lie about your mission here," Azrael shouted as the carriage passed through a crumbling gatehouse and onto the isthmus that led to the castle. "Soth finds spies annoying, but bards make him angry."
The wind picked up suddenly, shifted to the west. It howled now like an enraged animal-no, carried the howls of something unhinged with fury from within the keep itself.
"Th-that sound," Gesmas stammered. "Is it Soth?"
"You'd better hope not."
An extensive section of the castle's outer curtain and the ground beneath it had slid into the chasm, leaving a break in the isthmus that was now spanned by a wooden bridge. The carriage rattled across the planks and into the bailey. On platforms overlooking the courtyard, a trio of armored dead men kept ceaseless, senseless watch, Gesmas could not imagine what purpose their patrol served. A general would have to be mad to lead an army against Nedragaard.
The sound Gesmas had taken for the howl of a single creature fragmented into several distinct voices. Each member of the unseen chorus proclaimed its outrage in shrieks that echoed in the night:
"He hears us still!"
"He attends us not!"
"The fire-blasted rose has turned inward, away from us, away from his damnation."
"But he will stir, sisters. The first dark in the light's hollow will wake. Once more will he feel our song's lash upon his unbeating heart."
An apparition manifested in the open doorway. The ghostly figure was slim and clad in a flowing gown. Her face was that of an elven maiden, composed with sharp angles that would have been unattractive on a human. On elves, though, the features hinted at a sort of geometric perfection. Gesmas felt a weight on his heart that had nothing to do with his injuries.
"He is here," the apparition announced in a soft voice, so unlike the piercing shrieks that rang through the hall behind her. "It is time."
"It's time when I say so," Azrael snapped. The dwarf walked through the phantom as if it were nothing more than an errant patch of mist.
The face that had been so lovely a moment before was now a mask of fury. The gentle curves and perfect angles were gone, replaced by a riot of sharp teeth. "Eater of dirt!" the banshee wailed. "We will make you suffer!"
"How many of you are there in 'we' today?" asked the dwarf lightly. "Three? Thirteen? Three hundred?" He turned and gestured to Gesmas. "Come on. She, and however many sisters she has at the moment, can't hurt you. They used to be banshees. Soth's inattention has reduced 'em to harmless spooks. There's supposed to be a certain number of 'em, but they can't even decide on how many that should be."
One of the dead riders lay skeletal hands on Gesmas and shoved him through the apparition. The banshee howled her impotent rage at the violation. The sound shook the spy as he passed through. Her chill form clutched at him, trying to seize his living warmth even as it shrank from his coarse physicality. He emerged, breathless and shivering, in an immense entry hall.
Twin stairways climbed the walls of the vast circular room, leading to a balcony opposite the main doors. The balcony might once have been a musicians' gallery. Now the only music in the hall came from the banshees' keening song. The unquiet spirits hovered in midair or wove frenzied patterns through the chandelier suspended from the ceiling's center. All the candles in those triple rings of iron were lit. Their radiance diluted the gloom that choked the hall, but could not vanquish it.
Upon a dais shrouded in the hall's deepest shadows sat a worm-eaten throne, and upon that throne hunched a suit of armor. The plate mail appeared empty, deserted. The once-bright metal was blackened with soot and age. Tatters fringed the purple cloak draped over the armor's shoulders. The tasseled helmet drooped forward. Only the faint lights flickering in the helmet's eye slits betrayed the fact that something lurked within that fire-blasted metal skin.
"On your knees," Azrael said, and the skeletal guard forced Gesmas to the dirty stones. The dwarf turned to the throne and bowed with overstated deference. "As you commanded, mighty lord, I have brought you the stranger."
The banshees ceased their keening and turned to the dais. Their faces grew even more horrible with anticipation. The skeletal warrior, Soth's loyal retainer of old, seemed to share their anxiety. Gesmas felt its bony fingers tighten on his shoulders.
Finally, Soth stirred upon his dilapidated throne. The twin flickers of orange light that were his eyes flared. Or perhaps the hall grew suddenly darker. All heat, all hope, drained from the room. It was as if those things flowed into Soth, fuel for his terrible gaze.
"Speak."
The voice was hollow, deep beyond imagining. Gesmas felt the word more than heard it. He opened his mouth to reply, but only croaked something incomprehensible. The breath had vanished from his lungs. Fear had consumed it.
"Speak!"
Azrael elbowed Gesmas in the side, causing him to cry out. Only the skeletal hands on his shoulders prevented the prisoner from falling forward. "Mighty lord," he wheezed, "I don't know what-"
"Your name," said Soth. "Your mission."
Gesmaa could almost feel the sharp corner of Azrael's smirk jabbing him. He knew that the dwarf was waiting for him to trip up, to anger Soth by some misstep he could never avoid. Perhaps Azrael had lied to him about Soth's hatred of bards. The dwarf was, after all, commonly described in Sithicus as an unrivaled liar.
Gesmas had nothing to fall back upon, no secret knowledge or flash of insight to guide him. So he told the truth.
"I am a spy."
A sound echoed from Soth's helmet, a soft exclamation equal parts surprise and mirth. "What have you tried to steal from me, honest thief?"
The second of the skeletal warriors came forward. It held up the spy's worn saddlebags. Azrael tore away the buckles and leather straps holding them closed. Paper cascaded onto the floor. "Mighty lord, he-"
"I did not ask you, seneschal," Soth interrupted.
The banshees sniggered at the rebuke. There were only four now. The rest had disappeared.
"He has returned," said one.
"Returned to his duty," added the second, hovering close by Azrael's side.
"Returned to his torment," a third hissed.
The hideous quartet chorused, "Returned to us."
Soth ignored the unquiet spirits, if he heard them at all. He had focused on Gesmas. "What did you try to steal?" he prompted.
"Your story."
"Who is your master?"
"Malocchio Aderre."
Slowly Soth raised one hand. A thick lace of cobwebs fell away from the gauntlet it had draped for bo long. Fingers that had not moved in years gestured stiffly for the prisoner to approach the throne.
Gesmas rose, reclaimed the saddlebags, then gathered up the pages Azrael had scattered. The combination of the pain from his ribs and his fear of Lord Soth swelled into waves of dizziness that washed over the spy every few halting steps. When he came upon a section of floor that appeared translucent, insubstantial, he mistook it for an hallucination born of his lightheadedness. But Azrael grabbed his arm and steered him around it. Gesmas looked questioningly at the dwarf, whose only reply was the same oily smirk he'd worn since arriving at the keep.
As he continued across the hall, Gesmas noted more bits of his surroundings that did not appear entirely corporeal. A large piece of the stone stairs to the right was missing-not crumbled or fallen, simply not there. Other small sections of floor fluctuated between opacity and translucence. Poised over the center of the circular room, the ponderous iron chandelier fluttered like a mir
age. The ceiling where the massive metal rings should have been anchored gaped black and vacant. The chains reached up to nothing.
Gesmas gave up trying to understand the strangeness around him. He took in the details of his odd surroundings with an uncharacteristic indifference. It was almost as if he were watching the events unfold from a distance, like one of the inconstant phantoms floating over the hall. That detachment, and little else, made it possible for Gesmas to approach Soth's throne, to stand so close to the death knight that he could discern the original decoration on his fire-blackened armor.
An intricate pattern of roses and kingfishers laced the blasted metal. Dust, soot, and age had obscured some of the blooms, annihilated some of the finer detail on the birds' wings. Still, the design retained enough of its old beauty to suggest the knight so feared, so fearsome, had once known peace and honor.
"Tell me my story," Soth said to the prisoner. "Tell me who I am and how I came to this place."
Gesmas climbed the three broad steps one at a time and set the saddlebags down on the dais. Fragments of broken glass littered the stone, winking like earthbound stars. Only now did the spy note the six iron ovals gaping on the walls behind the throne. Malocchio Aderre himself had warned him about the mirrors once cradled in those framer, enchanted glass that allowed Soth to venture into his own memories and follow his life down the myriad paths it might have followed. Obviously, the lord of Sithicus no longer needed such things to sustain his reveries.
As he retrieved the first pages from the saddlebags, Gesmas wondered vaguely if Soth's daydreams were any more bizarre than the stories he'd collected. He doubted it.
"I learned this tale from the elves of Hroth," Gesmas said. He squinted at his own scribbled notes and began to read: " The thing known as Soth first appeared some thirty-two years ago, in the land of Barovia. As such a powerful being could not have escaped the notice of the bards that wander these haunted realms, he could not have existed before that time. Strahd von Zarovich, lord of Barovia, must have created Soth, conjured him with dark sorcery. This would explain why Soth is never seen but when he is fully armored. In truth, the metal skin is empty, cursed mail that turned against the sorcerer who first brought it to life.' "
"Untrue," the banshees hissed. "Untrue!" There was no conviction in their exclamations, though. Lake Soth, they seemed uncertain of the truth.
For a moment Soth considered the claims. "I recall this Strahd von Zarovich," he said, "and know that my way to this cursed realm passed through his demesne. As to the rest, it is easy enough to prove or disprove...."
Soth slipped his gauntlet forward, exposing the slightest sliver of his wrist. Gesmas did not get a clear look, though the little he saw of the strangely corroded flesh told him that the lord of Nedragaard could be no living thing.
"Ah," said Soth. "There can be no question that I am more than just a hollow metal skin. What other tales do my people tell of me?"
For several hours Gesmas related all that he had learned. Most of the stories were obviously false, easily disproved in Soth's grim presence. The banshees both supported and refuted the very same claims. Sometimes the phantoms contradicted each other, sometimes even themselves. Azrael remained silent, though Gesmas could not help but notice the dwarf squirming uncomfortably whenever his master displayed any interest in the tales.
A few similar reports drew the most attentive responses from Soth. These stories claimed the lord of Nedragaard Keep had come from a land far from Barovia or Sithicus, a place called Krynn. In that kingdom of light and hope Soth had perpetrated some terrible crime-the slaughter of his brother and sister, the assassination of a saintly cleric, even the destruction of the gods themselves. The tales could not agree upon which acts were true, which merely fiction, but all seemed to conclude that Soth's infamous deeds had cursed him with an eternity of unlife.
From time to time as Gesmas spoke, banshees would vanish and appear, their sum as changeable as their ghostly frames. During the stories of Soth's supposed past in Krynn, however, the banshees always numbered thirteen.
His voice little more than a hoarse whisper, Gesmas came to the last of the tales he had collected. It told of Soth's passion for an elf maid named Isolde, a passion so intense that it inspired the once-noble knight to betray both his marriage vows and the chivalric order to which he had dedicated his life. Disaster and disgrace followed, with the murder of Soth's wife and expulsion from the knighthood he so loved. As was so often the case in tales of unbridled appetite, the ending proved tragic.
" 'Lord Soth confronted fair Isolde in the main hall,' " Gesmas read wearily. " That he would come to accuse her of infidelity should have been little surprise, for surely no man can trust once he himself has broken sacred vows. At the same moment as he gave voice to his jealous fury, a tremor rocked the castle and the triple-ringed chandelier crashed to the floor. Fire swept the hall, trapping-' "
A thunderous clatter rang out. Gesmas gasped and dropped the tattered parchment. He turned to find that the chandelier had fallen. It lay twisted upon the cold stone flags. Above the debris hovered thirteen silent banshees. Thirteen skeletal warriors stood at attention around the fallen iron rings. Their grinning faces seemed to flicker crimson, illumined by some blaze all out of proportion with the few guttering candles scattered about.
Trapping Isolde and the infant she clutched in her milk-white hands," said a sepulchral voice. Slowly Soth rose to his feet. The cobwebs fell from him like a rotted winding sheet. The lord of Sithicus was not reading the spy's report, but speaking an uncorrupted memory.
The gods, ever merciful, left the once-famed knight a chance to prove his heart held something more than hatred," Soth continued. "From the flames, the elf maid begged for him to save then-son. But his anger and his pride would not allow him to act. He turned away and let them perish."
As Soth completed his recitation, the banshees began a song yet again. Only now their terrible voices sang as one:
"And in the climate of dreams
When you recall her, when the world of the dream
expands, wavers in light.
when you stand at the edge of blessedness and sun,
Then we shall make you remember,
shall make you live again
through the long denial of body."
Azrael grabbed Gesmas roughly by the arm. "Who gave you this tale?"
The banshees' song, which continued to catalogue Soth's crimes, made it hard for Gesmas to think. "I-I can't remember." He fell to one knee, his twisted leg jutting painfully to one side. Frantically he rifled through the fallen pages in search of the one that held the final tale. "There were so many stories . . ."
The Wanderers," Soth said. "Only they know my true history."
Azrael's smirk was gone. He licked his lips nervously, then said, "Do not tax yourself, mighty lord. If you suspect Magda's thieves of betraying you, I can deal-"
"No. I have slumbered too long, forgotten too much of myself." Soth flexed his gauntleted fingers, then tightened them into fists. "It is time I take back the reins of my fate."
The death knight descended the stone steps. He surveyed the hall's disorder-the missing stairs, the oddly insubstantial sections of floor. "I will call upon Magda and her tribe come sunrise," Soth announced over the banshees' keening.
"And I will dispose of the prisoner," Azrael offered. There is still some room in the dungeons for-"
"No," Soth snapped. "He will be put to work in the mines." He turned his glowing eyes on the spy. "Consider that a reward, honest thief. You may yet live a while there. My thanks for delivering these . . . entertainments."
Two of the skeletal soldiers approached the dais and took hold of Gesmas. "Have the dungeons emptied, as well," the spy heard Soth order. "Ransom any nobles or merchants. Put the rest to work until they can buy their own freedom. That is how a knight treats his prisoners, Azrael. Take note."
Gesmas felt Lord Soth's unblinking gaze follow him across the hall. "No ransom f
or you, though, honest thief," Soth noted as the spy passed close. "I have not forgotten who you serve."
In the rubble-strewn bailey of Nedragaard Keep, Gesmas watched the night dwindle. Exhausted, numb with fear and pain, he stared at the horizon and waited for dawn to break. But the darkness was reluctant to lose its grip on the land. By the time the skeletal warriors had carried out Soth's orders to empty the prisoners from the dungeon, Gesmas had begun to wonder if the light would ever return to Sithicus.
A heavy wagon arrived just as the last of the filthy wretches was herded into the bailey. A trio of gruff, well-armed soldiers took command of the prisoners without a word being spoken, an order given. Whatever arcane means Soth had used to summon the transport must have conveyed his wishes to the drivers, as well.
Gesmas was the first into the wagon. Those prisoners able to walk crowded in after him, forcing him to the back of the box, as far as possible from the single barred window in the door. The invalids were stacked onto the floor like cord wood. The stink of excrement from these ragged men made the gorge rise in the spy's throat. Their weeping, festering wounds-the obvious result of lash and rack and other, more exotic devices- made Gesmas glad that Azrael's plans for him had been undone
One of the three soldiers entered the wagon and closed the door behind him. There was no threat of revolt; the prisoners either stared at the armed man with wild, unfocused eyes or averted their faces whenever he looked their way. No one spoke as the wagon lurched into motion. Gesmas wondered if they had all lost their tongues-until he realized that most were likely deaf from months or years of exposure to the banshees' shrieking.
Once the bedlam of Nedragaard receded, the steady tread of the horses began to sooth Gesmas. It seemed that his truthfulness had saved him after all. He was out of Azrael's grasp, going to a place where he would have a chance to keep himself alive. Work in the mines would be hard, maybe fatal, but he might live long enough to escape. His leg would disqualify him from the most treacherous digging. He might even get the opportunity to care for the ponies and other animals that hauled the carts. That had always been his true calling, anyway.