like huge snakes. Smaller tendrils of the stuff wound around Soth’s legs, almost to his knees. The fog covered the shadows and muted the daylight.
“Quickly,” Azrael said. “Kill him! We might still escape from here!” There was panic in the dwarf's voice, and not just from the threat of the Misty Border. He could see himself in the ghost’s place.
Caradoc struggled against Soth’s grip, but the death knight clamped his other hand around the ghost’s throat. His orange eyes flickered as he tightened his grip.
“You will… never… have… Kitiara,” the ghost managed to gasp through the pain.
Soth laughed. “You are hardly in a position to deny me anything, traitor.”
The doomed ghost did not, could not, hope for a better afterlife, but in the instant before he died for a second time, Caradoc saw the mist rising up around Lord Soth. He knew then that revenge had cost the death knight everything. It was enough.
The mist billowed around the death knight in the same instant Caradoc died, his body slipping through Soth’s fingers like fine sand. As it had in Dargaard Keep, the mist filled Soth’s world, blinding him and deafening him. The sun, Azrael, the copse of trees-all were blotted out, as if they’d never really been there at all. For the briefest moment, he dared to hope that the mist would clear and he would find himself back on Krynn, in the burned-out throne room of Dargaard Keep.
A figure appeared in the fog. He was clad from head to toe in shining armor patterned with roses and kingfishers, the symbols of the Order of the Rose. A sash, a token from the woman he championed, girded his waist. The sash was the blue of a clear spring sky, and it matched the color of the eyes that gazed out of his helmet.
Soth tensed at the sight of the knight. The man moved with an easy, confident step, which told the death knight he faced a seasoned warrior. Only one used to the battlefield could move gracefully in heavy plate armor. Yet hope also flared to life in Soth’s mind; the presence of a knight of the Order meant he had found his way to Krynn!
“Follow me,” the knight said, his voice clear and steady and full of resolve. “I have come to rescue you.” He turned and strode into the mist.
Soth followed but took only a few steps before the blanket of fog lifted. He and the silver-clad knight stood next to a busy road. The broad way passed through the thriving tent city that sprawled outside the walls of a castle. Hundreds of knights and priests and merchants bustled toward the keep, and its open drawbridge and gates welcomed them all. The keep was wrought from rose-red stone, its main tower ending in a twisted cap much like an unopened rosebud. Pennants of blue and gold and white fluttered in the wind, and the sound of music and laughter came to Soth’s ears.
“Dargaard Keep!” the death knight said. His mind reeled at the sight of his ancient home.
The mysterious knight stepped forward. “Yes, Soth,” he said happily. “While Dargaard was never like this, it could be, You can make it so.”
A woman came to the knight’s side then. She was thin, with the graceful step of an elf. Her long golden hair hung loose, cascading over her shoulders like warm sunlight. A veil concealed her face, but her eyes shone with beauty and serenity. “My lord,” she said, bowing slightly.
The silver-clad knight removed his helmet so that he could kiss the woman, and Soth gasped. The face was his own, as it had been long, long ago. His golden curls framed his features like a halo, and his mustache was neatly trimmed. His blue eyes shone with wisdom and peace, things Soth had lost many years before his death. Those eyes bored into the death knight like a cold spike as he pulled the veil away from his wife’s face and kissed her.
Isolde! The elfmaid, too, was as she had been before the siege, before the Cataclysm. As she embraced her husband, a smile of joy lit up her face.
The death knight drew his sword. “What sorcery is this?”
“No sorcery at all,” Isolde said kindly. “This is a world where you completed the quest given you by the Father of Good. And since you saved Krynn from the wrath of the gods, these people-” she spread her arms wide in a gesture that encompassed Dargaard and the tent city “-have come to our home to share in your glory. Many in Ansalon honor you as the greatest of the Knights of Solamnia. Some say you will outshine Huma Dragonbane in your lifetime.”
“Bah,” Soth rumbled. “This is all just an illusion, and a poor one at that. Paladine told me that I would have to sacrifice my life to stop the kingpriest.” Yet something in the scene spread before him called to Soth, kindled long- abandoned speculations within his mind. He had been a great knight once, capable of any feat. If the gods presented another chance…
Isolde smiled sweetly at him. “Yes, Soth. The gods of Good are forgiving. To have this, to have me again, all you need to do is kneel before your new home and swear to protect it.”
“Prove you are worthy of your new palace,” the mortal Soth said. “Bow down to the gods of Good.”
The demand stirred a wave of anger in the death knight’s mind, a black wave that washed over the budding hopes for a new life and drowned them. “I bow before no one,” he replied. He stepped toward Isolde. “Is this some test, woman? Some part of the curse you leveled against me that is coming to pass only now?”
The elfmaid shrank back from the death knight, but contempt, not fear, colored her features. “You have always said that your damnation is your own doing, Soth. This is no different.”
A feral smile crossed the dead man’s lips. “You are correct, of course.”
He lashed out, and his sword went deep into Isolde’s shoulder, splashing a gout of blood across her white dress. She cried out in a voice like a newborn’s as she crumpled to the ground. “And your doom has always been your own doing, fair Isolde.”
A bright blade clashed against the death knight’s bloodstained one. Soth looked up at himself; the noble knight’s face was twisted in righteous fury. “Pray that she still lives, fallen one. If you kill in this place, you are damned forever.”
The two exchanged blows, but neither dealt his opponent a wound. Their swords clanged and sparked as they met between the evenly matched foes. All the while, Isolde’s blood soaked the ground beneath her still form. The crowd stopped on the road and pointed, their faces masked with horror. The passing knights drew their weapons, but they could not interfere; such was the way of the Order. A few women moved tentatively forward to tend to Isolde’s wounds, but they were driven back by the fury of the conflict.
At last one young knight did rush forward, having just come upon the battle. “Mother!” the youth cried, tears streaming down his face.
Peradur, the son of Soth and Isolde, was fair of skin, with hair so blond that it was almost white. A look of piety and resolve made his features appear hard for one who’d lived only sixteen years, but his eyes reflected the goodness of his heart. Like his father, the boy wore the armor of a Knight of Solamnia. The metal was painted pure white, and holy symbols of the gods of Good were its only decorations.
Trembling, Peradur removed his gauntlets and laid his hands over his mother’s wound. A faint glow radiated from the youth’s fingers as he cast his tearing eyes to the heavens. The bloody wound closed beneath his touch, and his mother slumped into a healing sleep.
The death knight and his foe came together, so close that the dead man could smell the warm breath of the other through the slits in his helmet. The mortal Soth drew his mouth into a hard line and said, “You still have a chance, fallen one. Lay down your sword.”
The death knight shoved his foe away and looked from the distorted reflection of himself to the youth-his son. Their armor was perfectly kept, their swords glinting like razors in the sunlight. Just as he radiated the chill of undeath, the cold of the Abyss, they were cloaked in an invisible aura of vitality and strength. They were models of knightly virtue, men whose goodness shone in their faces and their deeds.
He hated them with all his unbeating heart.
With a cry of anger, the death knight grabbed his opponent’s sword with his free hand. The blade squealed against his metal gauntlet, but he only tightened his grip on it. With strength no mortal knight could match, he wrenched the blade from his foe and tossed it aside.
Instead of diving for the sword, the silver-clad knight got down on his knees before the death knight. He looked up at him with hope-filled eyes. “You have bested me in combat,” he said. “I will name you the victor if you bow down and give thanks for your power.”
Though he knew this was all some sort of test, some way for the keepers of the Misty Border to decide if he
