by James Lowder
Ganelon stared at the burly Vistana with undisguised hatred on his face. Bratu returned the angry look in kind, a sneer curling his lips. The gypsy was twice the size of the younger man. His arms were nearly as muscled as Ganelon's legs. However, Ganelon had never walked away from a fight in his life, particularly over an insult even remotely connected to Helain.
Ambrose had tended Ganelon's bruises and cuts enough times to know that a scuffle was imminent. Moreover, he'd seen the younger man pounded unconscious enough times to know that he stood little chance against Bratu. So he redirected Ganelon's attention to the carpet with a simple comment: "None of the miners' families would pay for this, but I think Helain would like it in her room."
The carpet was looted from Duke Gundar's castle on the night he was murdered," Magda noted. She lifted a corner and ran her slender fingers over the abstract pattern. "Or so claimed the man who traded it to me. I don't believe that, though. Gundar would not have owned anything so beautiful, even if only to tread upon."
She mouthed a silent word and chased it from her lips with her fingers, an old Vistani curse upon the memory of the slain nobleman. Magda had traveled for more than a decade in that tyrant's domain before assassins cut him down and his territory was divided up between his equally monstrous neighbors. Long ago she had vowed to curse his name once for every hour of sorrow he had inflicted upon her and her small tribe, which she had cobbled together from the few Vistani left alive in his domain. Gundar had been dead for sixteen years and would be dead a dozen more before Magda fulfilled that vow.
Ambrose began haggling over the carpet's fair price, which would be paid to the Wanderers in salt. Hard currency was difficult to come by at the mine, even for Ambrose, but that was no problem to the Vistani. Few sources for salt existed in the lands hereabouts, and they could trade the stuff again at the border for an additional profit.
Bratu did the bargaining for the tribe, as such activity was below Magda's station. Instead, the older woman saw to it that the other items the Vistani wished to trade were brought in and laid out for Ambrose's consideration. Ganelon watched as a girl carried in an array of more mundane wares: pots and pans, clothing, a large wooden chest. She carted even the heaviest items with ease, a bored look on her pretty face.
"Careful with that, Inza," Magda said, as the girl let the wooden chest drop to the floor.
"Of course," she replied sweetly. Though I would surely care for it better if it were my own."
Magda sighed her disapproval. "Have you not given up on it yet?" She went to the girl's side and laid a hand on her shoulder. "What do you own that deserves such a thing to hold it?"
"Nothing yet." Inza ran her delicate fingers across the top of the chest, upon which was carved a lone wayfarer encircled by a riot of greenery. "But some day I will."
Seeing the two side by side, Ganelon realized that Inza must be the raunie's daughter. The resemblance was so strong that they might have been the same person distorted through a lens of thirty-five years, one that restored the mother's gray hair to raven black, her care-worn face to its youthful beauty. Only their eyes shattered the illusion. Inza's green eyes did not bring to mind the sea's fathomless depths. In them Ganelon glimpsed the verdure of the deepest forest, a sunless labyrinth of creeper and vine. The effect was mesmerizing.
Ganelon didn't realize he'd been staring until he found both mother and daughter looking at him with something close to revulsion on their faces.
"Sorry," he murmured, abruptly turning his attention to the tops of his boots.
But the women didn't react. Ganelon had only just begun to wonder why when he heard the scrape of iron-shod boots behind him. He spun about and saw the real object of their loathing.
Azrael, Lord Soth's seneschal, emerged from the darkness of a shadow-draped corner. How he'd got there Ganelon couldn't imagine, though he accepted the dwarfs presence without hesitation. Such weirdness was becoming all too common around Veidrava, from sightings of dead riders to rumors of what lay hidden within the mine's gigantic Engine House.
The dwarf was grinning, an expression so exaggerated that it made his bone-white mustache and mutton chop sideburns bristle like an animal's whiskers. Cheerful malice glinted in his brown eyes. "I've had dreams about this day," he said in a throaty whisper. "How long's it been, eh, Magda? Twenty years? Twenty-five?"
"Thirty-two," the raunie replied. "Still not enough for my taste." She held her right hand before her, fingers loosely curled. Suddenly she was holding a club. The cudgel was as long as her forearm, its wood dark and knotted. Bratu was at her side now. Both he and Inza brandished silver-bladed knives.
Azrael laid one meaty hand on Ganelon and tossed him aside. The young man crashed into a crate of apples. He lay there for a moment, stunned.
"Enough."
Two tiny orbs of orange flame-eyes, Ganelon realized numbly-flickered like marsh lights in the same gloom-locked corner from which Azrael had appeared. A wave of unearthly cold rolled out from the shadows, harbinger of a figure armored in seared and ruined plate. His single word of command had been enough to halt both the seneschal and the Vistani. His presence was enough to compel Ambrose to his knees. Though he had never seen Lord Soth before, Ganelon realized it could only be the master of Nedragaard Keep and joined the shopkeep in that show of subservience as quickly as he could manage. "Great lord," he murmured.
Soth ignored the merchants. He focused instead on the Vistani. Bratu and Inza lowered their knives and averted their eyes as a sign of respect. Magda, however, kept her club raised. She met Soth's gaze evenly, without the slightest hint of surprise or alarm. "Greetings," she said. "What is it you wish from me?"
"Your skull," Azrael growled. "I need something to throw at the rats that keep getting into my pantry."
Magda sighed, but did not look away from Soth. "Your time alone in your almost-home has made you forget about courtesy," she said. "Even we thieves without title know to leave our animals outside."
I'll eat your heart!" Azrael snapped.
"Then, at least you would possess one," she replied.
Azrael took a step toward the raunie, but she drove him back with a feigned swipe of her club. Azrael had felt the touch of that enchanted wood once, not long after Magda had first gained the weapon. The single blow had knocked him unconscious. He had no desire now to see what worse damage she could do after three decades of practicing with the thing.
Soth gestured toward the open door, beyond which a number of other Vistani from Magda's tribe had gathered. There was a hound there, too, a large, snarling thing that was only restrained by the strong arms of three men. "Outside, seneschal," he said. "What I have to say to the gypsies does not concern you."
Azrael paused, mulling over some reply, but never gave it voice. Muttering a curse under his breath against all Vistani, he slowly exited the store. Both Inza and Bratu followed the dwarf outside, as did Ganelon. Only Ambrose hesitated. He stood in the doorway, staring at the sunlit world beyond, and trembled.
Finally he turned, head bowed and hands clasped before him. "Pardon me, great lord, but there is a sick woman upstairs. I do not want to leave her alone. She is asleep now, but when she awakens she might rant and-"
"She is his ward," Magda interrupted, "and he takes his responsibility toward her quite seriously."
"I vowed to care for her as my own," added the shopkeep nervously.
Soth dismissed the topic, and the man, with a wave of his gauntleted hand. "Go to her, then. You could scarcely comprehend what will be said here. Before you depart, though, swear an oath to me upon the woman's soul, that you will not repeat anything you overhear."
Ambrose spoke the oath, then scurried up the stairs, wheezing and huffing all the way.
"What a world this might be if everyone's vows were as inviolable," mused the master of Nedragaard.
"Had you honored your pledges as a Knight of Solamnia. Lord Soth, this world would not exist."
The fallen knight turned sharply.
"We are speaking of you now, lady, of promises to me that you have broken."
"Then we have nothing to discuss." Magda finally released her grip on the cudgel, and it vanished. "Seven years ago I vowed that my Wanderers would no longer repeat what we know of your infamous past, even to you. In return, you promised to keep us safe from the assassins Malocchio Aderre dispatches across the border to slaughter us."
She pinched the sunburned flesh on one arm. "I am still alive, eh? So I assume that you've kept your end of the bargain. That you can no longer recall the details of your existence before you came to this gods-forsaken place-well, that should be proof enough that we have kept our word."
"I captured one of Aderre's spies," Soth replied. "He had been ferreting out my history, and someone provided him with some bits of truth."
Magda nodded. "I do not question that. Only the truth could have roused you from your waking slumber upon the throne. But there are others beside my tribe who claim to know your origin."
"Others?"
The Thorns of the White Rose. It's said they know even more about your life before unlife than I do."
"Who are they?" Soth rumbled.
"Bandits and warriors, mostly drawn from the Iron Hills elves," Magda said. "They serve a reclusive general called the White Rose."
"To what end?"
"The general's name should be explanation enough, Knight of the Black Rose. They wish to see you defeated, perhaps destroyed. I don't know how they learned of your history. I've never met their leader But even the most insignificant thief in their ranks knows the story of your life. Perhaps their general is an old adversary of yours, eh?"
"Perhaps." Soth paced for a time, hands clasped behind his back. From outside came the sounds of an argument and a dog's frantic barking. Neither Soth nor Magda reacted. Both had confidence that their followers could handle themselves.
Finally the death knight spoke again. This White Rose might indeed be funneling information to Aderre, but I am not convinced your people are without blame in this. I will require proof of your loyalty."
"Loyalty has never bound me to you," Magda said coldly. "From the moment you entered my family's camp in Barovia and forced me to be your guide, we have been linked only by necessity and self interest."
"And fear," Soth added.
"Once," Magda agreed. "But I am no longer the girl you abducted from her grandmother's vardo. I have seen darker things than you, done more terrible things than you might suspect. Self interest is all that binds us now."
Soth bowed his head in acknowledgment. "Of course. Then we need to be clear on this fact alone: it is in your best interest to side with me in this fight, Magda Ilyanova Kulchevich. Do not mistake my patience with an old ally's sharp tongue for weakness."
That last comment took Magda by surprise. "Ally," she repeated, and the hard lines of her face softened just a little. She slipped her blouse off her right shoulder, exposing three long scars. Time had paled the marks, but not erased them. The gargoyle's slash," she said. "From the battle in Strahd's castle. It still aches when the weather changes."
"I wish I could remember the fight more clearly," Soth said.
As the tale was beyond the scope of her promised silence, the raunie told him of their escape from Castle Ravenloft, how she battled one of the vampire's living gargoyles while he defeated the red dragon guarding the castle's exit. As Magda related the tale, she paced around the room in a slow but deliberate pattern. Her movements elaborated some of the story's more subtle descriptions, until words and gestures had been woven into a single voice chronicling the battle.
Soth noticed that the candles lighting the room were dancing with her. Figures formed in the tiny flames: a young girl, a twining dragon. Soth even recognized himself, a knight of fire cloaked in smoke wisps. Magda had used the same magic to tell the story of her ancestor, the Vistani hero Kulchek, on the first night Soth had met her. Shadow play. That was what her grandmother, Madame Girani, had called it.
Before he murdered her.
Before she cursed him with her dying breath.
It was Madame Girani's face the death knight saw in the candle flames now, her voice he heard from Magda's lips. "You will never return to Krynn again, though your home will always be in view.' "
"I tire of this," Soth said, breaking the spell of the dance and the memories it had revived. "You will attend a meeting with Aderre, to demonstrate to him that our alliance is intact."
"I am nothing to him," Magda said. "Just another gypsy to be butchered."
"Then he is a fool. Did not your grandmother trap me in this wretched place with her curse? Do you not have the same powers?"
Soth didn't wait for an answer, but strode to the door and called for Azrael. To his surprise, the dwarf was laughing as he entered the store. "Hey, Magda," he said between chuckles. "Your mutt tried to bite that miner's feet off. Pulled off the sole of his boot trying to get at him."
"I will be meeting with Malocchio Aderre three days from now," Soth informed the dwarf as he directed him toward the shadowy corner. "You will arrange it."
"Are we going to kill him?" the dwarf asked eagerly.
"You are not attending," Soth replied. "Your time will be better spent discovering the identity of the White Rose." He grasped Azrael's shoulder, and the two disappeared into the darkness.
Inza and Bratu came in a moment later, Ganelon between them. The young man was limping heavily. His left boot had been torn apart.
"That beast went crazy again," Inza began. "It attacked him and wouldn't stop. You really should destroy that thing before it kills someone."
Magda came to Ganelon and knelt before him. She examined his foot, wiping away the blood with the hem of her dress. The sole of his foot was gray. Odd scratches crisscrossed the heel and arch.
"There is nothing I can do to help this," she said, backing away quickly. "I am truly sorry."
That's all right. Ill be fine," Ganelon said, then started up the stairs. A small splash of blood marked the fall of his left foot on each step.
Bratu scratched his head. "You've healed dog bites before. Why can't-" Magda silenced him with a look.
"Those wounds are not the mark of any hound," the raunie said softly, once Ganelon had reached the balcony. "Besides, we have other matters to tend to." She turned to her daughter. "Call a meeting of the tribe."
"For what purpose?" Inza asked. "To strengthen the oath you swore to keep Lord Soth's history secret."
A scowl crossed Bratu's face. "There is no need for that, is there?" He absently ran his hand across the top of a crate. His fingers came away coated with the dust that settled over everything near the mine. "And these people call us unkempt, eh?"
From across the room, Magda was studying the man. He feigned an ease he clearly did not feel. The muscles at the back of his neck were tight enough to break boards over. "How much did he pay you?" she asked.
To his credit, Bratu did not lie or try to hide his crime. In fact, he puffed out his chest as if he had actually accomplished something noteworthy. The money was more than enough for the little I gave him," he said. "Some of that wasn't even true." "You broke your word," Magda said.
Bratu glanced at Inza. He hoped to find support in her eyes, but the raunie's daughter kept her attention focused on the wooden chest. The man's confusion quickly became defiance. "An oath to a dead man is not an oath," he said. When he saw that he was making no headway on that tack, he swiftly took another. "We owe nothing to Soth!"
Magda turned her back on her tribesman. The oath you swore was to me," she said. All emotion had fled her voice. She stood as still as a statue. To all who wish to hear, to man and-"
"Magda, no!" Bratu shouted.
"And to beast-"
The burly Vistana rushed toward her. "In mercy's name!"
"I declare you Oathbreaker."
On the upper floor, Helain screamed herself awake. Ganelon and Ambrose tried to comfort her, but to no avail. Her shrieks drowned out their g
entle words and underscored Bratu's pleading.
"Inza," he cried. "Make her take it back. Help me."
The girl looked up from the carvings on the chest. There is nothing I can do," she said, fingers lightly tracing the twining vines and leaves.
"It is done," said Magda. "It cannot be undone." She told her daughter to leave Ambrose a note about the trade, then left the store.
Inza set to work on the note, ordering the shop-keep to use the chest as a container for the salt owed them for the carpet and other items. "They wouldn't appreciate it anyway," she said brightly. "I know now what I'll store in it, too."
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Bratu fell to his knees at Inza's feet. He clutched at her skirts. "Make her take it back," he begged. "If you don't, 111 tell her there were others."
"No, you won't," Inza said. There was a sudden edge to her voice, a viciousness that stopped Bratu's blubbering. He looked up into her green eyes and found them empty of everything except anger. "There are worse things than the Beast, you know."
"What will I do?" he whimpered. "What will I do"
Inza walked into the store's shelving, strolling up and down the aisles until she found what she was looking for. She returned to Bratu and dropped a knitting needle into his hands. "The Beast may just be a myth, of course. But if it isn't, this may help."
She did not turn away as Bratu raised the needle to his ear and drove it in, first the right, then the left. Howling, he dropped the Moody spike to the floor. He rocked back and forth, hands clasped to the sides of his head. After a time, he looked up at her with fear-wide eyes and rasped, "The Beast! Oh, Inza, I can hear it whispering!"
Four
Azrael trusted the dark.
It had spoken to him many times over the years, in many different places, and while the dark always told the truth, it never used the same voice twice. Sometimes its voice was masculine, sometimes feminine. Occasionally it was strident, more often sonorous and vibrant. The dark told Azrael things he should know and, more importantly, things he should do.