completely. Dirt and stone shot from the hole in bursts, then that, too, stopped. Magda paced back and forth, gnawing at her fingernails, watching for any sign of the werecreature. For his part, Soth appeared to calmly watch the Luna flow past, though he was actually scanning the area, watching for any sign of Strahd’s minions or the strange beasts that lived in the river.
At last the badger trundled out of the hole, his fur coated with dirt. Ignoring Magda completely, he went to Soth’s side. Letting the transformation flow over him once more, Azrael shifted into his beastlike form. “The wall of iron lies not far below the surface,” he reported, brushing the large clumps from his fur. “Little more than your height, mighty lord.”
“Then begin to uncover it,” Soth said, a hint of excitement creeping into his voice. He turned to the Vistani. “Help him.”
Azrael, still in his half-badger form, shredded the hard-packed layer of dirt and stone on the surface. Magda trailed behind him, clearing the loose earth to the side. Like a statue, Soth stood motionless as the pair opened a wide swath of ground. Hour after hour wore past, with the death knight observing the toil of his allies. Yet Magda and Azrael did not complain; the Vistani wanted escape from Barovia, from Strahd’s wrath, more than anything, and the dwarf wished to prove himself a worthy servant.
The moon had reached its zenith before the death knight ordered them to stop. “You have uncovered enough of the door for me to open it now,” was all he said.
As the werecreature and the young woman fell back, their hands caked with dirt and cut by stones, their hair matted with sweat, the death knight held his closed fists toward the earth. A blue light wreathed his gauntlets, spinning and growing in intensity as he chanted. Slowly Soth opened his hands, palms down, and the energy flowed from them to the newly broken ground. The earth trembled as if some long-dead leviathan were waking and shrugging off the mantle of soil that had settled over him in his millennium of slumber.
The blue light flowed from Soth’s hand in crackling bands now. The bands spread out like fingers, working their way into the ground. His arms shaking, the death knight began to turn his palms face-up. The fingers of energy responded, tightening their grip on the still-hidden door.
It became clear why so much of the ground had needed to be cleared. Even with but a foot or two of earth to displace, the strain of magically forcing the doors open showed on the death knight. Soth arched backward, straining to move his hands.
The swelling, trembling ground made a sound like thunder, and as the fingers of energy pulled the door open, another noise was added: the groaning of the metal gate. The cacophony reminded Soth of the cries made by tortured souls in the Abyss. Anything within a mile of the fork would undoubtedly hear the racket.
A dark crack shot across the bulge, swallowing stones and dirt. Deftly the fingers of energy slipped into the crack and forced it wider. With one final surge of effort, the death knight turned his palms to the midnight sky. The doors burst through the ground and swung wide, showering the area with debris.
The blue light disappeared as Soth walked to the edge of the stone-lined tunnel. “Come,” he said wearily. “I long to be free of this accursed place.”
ELEVEN
The tunnel sloped steeply at first, and the going was treacherous. Water dripped from the stone walls and ceiling, then ran in foul rivulets down the floor. Patches of pale, rank-smelling lichen grew everywhere. More than once Magda slipped and nearly fell, and even Azrael, in half-badger form and moving on all fours, lost his footing twice. Only Lord Soth traversed the corridor as if it were level ground.
“It looks like it goes on forever,” Magda whispered, holding high the torch she had fashioned out of driftwood and reeds. The guttering flame showed that the slope gradually evened out and the walls narrowed so that the trio would soon have to go single file.
The death knight walked more quickly. “If the portal at the tunnel’s end will take me to Krynn, I will gladly cross the breadth of the Nine Hells to reach it.”
Azrael followed close behind Soth as he entered the narrow section of the tunnel. Magda came last, the flame from her torch licking the ceiling. Although the death knight had closed the massive doors behind them and they had passed no holes big enough for anything but rats along the way, Magda had a nagging suspicion that something followed them just beyond the reach of the torchlight. Time and again, a sharp crack or low gurgle made the Vistani spin around and hold her torch out like a talisman. But if anything lurked in the corridor, it contented itself with following the trio at a distance.
At length the hallway grew wider, and soon the werebadger and the young woman flanked Soth again. The tunnel veered sharply to the right, and halfway around the bend Azrael skidded to a halt. “I smell bones,” he growled. He stood up as tall as his stumpy legs would allow and sniffed the fetid air. “Bones but no meat.”
At the end of the curve yawned an arch of jet-black stone, and beyond that, a vast chamber. The room was huge, lined with black stone columns that rose higher than Magda’s torch would illuminate. Every few paces along the walls, torches hung in iron sconces. The wood was shriveled and warped. After a few false starts, the Vistani succeeded in lighting a dozen or so of these, and their combined light washed over the chamber.
Magda looked up and saw row upon row of filled sconces climbing toward the ceiling. “The room of the torches,” she said in awe, “where Kulchek fought the guardians of the portal.” She looked around. “There’s no guardian here now, though.”
Bleached bones lay scattered in heaps toward the room’s center, the piles broken by the rotting remains of wooden trestle tables. The bones were surrounded and partially covered by patches of filth. Magda was disgusted by the sight, but the grisly remains drew Azrael like a tavern drew layabouts. The werebadger lifted a brittle leg bone and studied it carefully.
“Human… male… not too old. That’s my guess.”
He turned the bone over and over in his hairy paws. After sniffing it once, he bit down upon the end. The thing crunched unpleasantly, and Azrael chewed it, his mouth opening noisily with each bite. “Feh. Ancient, too. Not a bit of marrow left in ’em.”
Soth paid little attention to his companions. The death knight carefully studied the walls, running his gauntleted hands over the cold stone. Once he stopped and traced a long, straight crack in the masonry, but when it turned out to be nothing more than a fissure in the wall, he moved on. Both Magda and Azrael were caught up in their study of other things in the room-a store of rusted swords having captured the Vistani’s eye, and a few bones of newer vintage having aroused the werebeast’s senses.
But Magda and Azrael offered little of interest to the sinister eyes that opened only a slit to study the intruders. One eye, then two, then a dozen, blinked away a cover of filth and dust, then stared up at Soth from the dirty stone floor.
“Aiyeee! Look at this!”
Pleasant surprise made Magda shriek, and her smile told of a wonderful discovery. Pushing aside a broken sword, one that was as old as Strahd’s ancient castle, the Vistani grabbed a gnarled wooden club. It was short, only as long as Magda’s forearm, but the knob on its end was twice as large as her fist. “A cudgel. It’s very old. Do you think it might-”
“There’s nothing here!” Soth shouted from across the room. “No portal. No door other than the one through which we entered.”
Azrael dropped the skull he was toying with and looked up sharply. “Perhaps I could help you search, mighty lord. My senses are quite keen, you know.”
As the werebeast stepped away from the scattered bones, the pile of dirt that lay between him and the death knight heaved up from the floor. As the filth fell away from the thing, its true form was revealed. A cloudy, viscous glob made up its body, and its shape shifted constantly, like something made of water. Tentacles of ooze flailed around it, disappearing from one part of the creature to reappear somewhere else on its body. It had no face to speak of, though it had the features of dozens.
Two hundred eyes, some large and staring, others small and heavy-lidded, covered the creature. Only a few of these were fixed on the intruders. The rest scanned the room and peered into the darkness that filled the corridor, looking for other foes. Around the eyes gaped dozens of mouths. These held a myriad of expressions, most
