the dragon’s jaws would be healed completely. The muscle spasms were but an odd side-effect.
The look on the count’s face told Soth that the vampire enjoyed the workings of this particular spell. Strahd’s dark eyes rolled back and fluttered, showing only their whites. His pale cheeks flushed with color; his cruel mouth stretched into a wide smile of pleasure. The vampire’s fangs had extended to their full length. The long canines gave the count’s thin face a harsh, bestial cast. To a creature such as Strahd, who sustained himself on the life force of others, serving as a conduit for the transfer of such energy was a tantalizing, invigorating experience.
At last the screams faded to whimpers, then even those pitiable sounds stopped. The Vistani’s handsome features changed as Soth watched; the youth’s dark, piercing eyes grew vague and watery, his smooth face became pitted with pock marks and creased with wrinkles. The skin sagged over his cheeks and jaws like wet cloth, and a thin line of spittle slipped down his chin. When Strahd removed his hand from the prisoner’s forehead, the Vistani slumped forward.
“Is he dead?” the death knight asked, rubbing an appraising hand over his healed wrist.
“Of course,” Strahd replied. He pushed the Vistani’s head up and studied his face. “He was the last of Girani’s clan-apart from Magda, of course. When she’s gone…” The vampire let the corpse’s head loll forward again, then wiped his hands together, as if they’d been sullied by contact with the dead man.
Stiffly Lord Soth retrieved the battered vambrace that had covered his lower arm and the gauntlet that he’d worn on the injured hand. The metal of both pieces of armor showed the effects of the dragon’s attack-the vambrace in the scratches and jagged-edged hole in its side, the gauntlet in its crushed joints and the small punctures pitting its surface. “I will go to the basement now and work on my armor,” the death knight said.
“Not just yet, Lord Soth,” Strahd replied. He gestured toward the only empty seats left in the hall-a pair of block chairs that bracketed the glowing hearth. “We should talk for a while. Besides, I can provide you with replacements for those from the tower’s armory. No one has dared loot the place since I… evicted the previous tenant.”
“I prefer to keep these,” the death knight noted. “This armor is ancient, and over time it has become more a skin to me than this other.” He held up his arm, and the withered flesh shone translucent, ghostly.
Taking a seat by the fire, Strahd nodded. “Of course, of course.” Again he gestured to the other seat. When Soth finally relented and sat down, the vampire lord steepled his fingers. His long, dark nails were as sharp as Azrael’s claws. “You have not asked me why I still seek you as an ally.”
The death knight shrugged. “That seems obvious, Count. You hope to see Duke Gundar inconvenienced, if not slain outright. Now that I’ve proven my strength to you, it is clear I am the one to do this.”
“Just so,” the vampire admitted. “At first I was quite angry. Few dare to challenge me, let alone in my own home.” Rolling his fingertips together, he added, “It’s been quite a long time since anyone of such power entered my realm. Because of that, it was natural for me to underestimate your place in the domain’s web of life.”
Strahd stood and paced before the fire. “The dragon you destroyed is a rarity here, but not irreplaceable, and as far as Gundar’s ambassador is concerned, you managed to trick him into cooperating with us.”
“Pargat told me nothing before he died.”
“But he told me everything when I conjured up his spirit,” Strahd noted happily. “Gundar’s monstrous son had cast a powerful spell over him, making it impossible for him to reveal any secrets to me, but it had power over him only while he was alive. I should have thought of that.”
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
