that I might use, I want to know of it.'
She readily nodded. 'You have my word.'
'Too easily given, madam. It is a great task I have set before you.'
'Often the greater the task, the easier it is to give promise. If we find such a path as you hope for, then we have nothing to lose by informing you of it and much to gain.'
'I am thinking you believe it to be impossible, therefore you agree so swiftly.'
'What does it matter to you how quickly I agree, so long as I choose to agree?'
'Madam, you have no choice in the matter. Your people finding a path out for me is conditional to their freedom within my lands. All who enter must know this and treat it as they would all my other laws. Can you guarantee that?'
'It will become the same to us as the air we breathe-for one small boon.'
Bargaining, always bargaining for one thing or another, it was as much a part of them as their own skin. 'What boon?'
'I ask only that the Lord Strahd does not… harm the Vistani.'
I began to frown. She knew far too much.
She made a deprecatory gesture. 'Our blood is rich with our past, but there is not enough of it. Our people are few, and our children too precious to lose. Death is too common a companion on our road.'
'Your point?'
'Have you not other springs to drink from? The more of us you allow to live, the more eyes and ears you have searching for your escape.'
Again I looked hard upon her, for the sating of my appetite was no light matter to me. 'So long as my laws are obeyed.'
'It shall be so.'
I eased my gaze. 'So be it, then.'
'It is done.' She fell silent, waiting, apparently the bargaining was concluded. For her.
'I now have a question. What was the purpose of the dance? You asked me to wait until it was done, so do not dismiss it as unimportant.'
'It is part of Vistani magic and very important. When we were clear of the Mists, we knew Barovia could trap us, as you are trapped. We sensed the danger of forgetting ourselves and the lives and lands we've known outside your borders; it is part of the nature of this land for people to lose the past they once had.'
'So I have noticed.'
As the years passed and new generations appeared to supplant the old, I observed that the very memories of my people altered. Before they had gradually died off, the old soldiers who had served with me knew that they had come in as part of a conquering army, but were vague on exactly where they had originated from and what it had been like. Their descendants listened to their war stories and knew that a larger world lay beyond the Mists, but they were singularly incurious about it. For them, all that was the whole world was Barovia and nothing else. I was the only one who now saw clearly-much too clearly at times-and remembered what had once been.
I had always harbored a determination on finding a way out, of discovering a passage through the Mists as had these Vistani. By doing so perhaps then I could completely break the land free of the imprisoning spell, or at the very least break free of the spell myself. Certainly over time I had applied every scrap of knowledge and skill in the magical arts that I knew to achieve this, reaping only failure again and again.
This might have now begun to change though. The arrival of Madam Eva and her little train of vagabonds seemed an unlikely source of freshened hope for me, but after so many years of a stalemate I would welcome them and allow them unheard of freedoms-so long as they could provide knowledge in turn.
'Such forgetting does not happen with you,' she said. 'You remember things your people do not. Your memory is protected. We would create that protection for ourselves.'
'It sounds a most difficult task.'
Madam Eva shook her head. 'Pah, 'tis already done.'
'I should like to know how.'
'It is in our songs, in our dances and music. It fills us through and through, strengthening us.'
'You drew the power from the land itself, did you not? What is the construction behind that?'
She shrugged. 'It is what we do, like walking. Do you explain to a child how to place his feet? No. He does it himself with some guidance.'
'And one must be Vistani to accomplish this casting?'
'So far as I know.'
I had a strong feeling that the gleaning of knowledge would not at all be an easy thing. 'Another question: why did you come here at this of all times?'
'We always travel, no matter the season.'
'Madam Eva, I believe you understand my meaning. Answer me.'
She said nothing for quite a long while. I could hear the very burning of the candles flames as they consumed the wax. 'You may not believe.'
'I have learned to believe in many things of late.'
Another shrug. 'Very well. We had to come at this turning of the wheel, to give warning that important changes are afoot, Strahd of Barovia.'
'What changes?'
'For you, for Barovia, other places.'
'What changes?'
'I can only tell you what the cards have told me.' Tied to her belt was a small silk bag, which she now opened. She drew out a deck of cards, the like of which I had not seen before, but instantly recognized.
'A tarokka deck,' I said.
I'd heard all kinds of rumors about their power of foretelling the future. It was said that only the bravest dared to ask for a reading from them. Sometimes they gave only hints on several possible futures, other times they told of exact and unchangeable events. It takes courage-or blind foolishness-to dare to see what lies ahead on one's path.
Each card had a picture on it, symbolizing many different aspects of life and death. The decks were such that only the person who had made them could use them. Flashing brilliant colors in the candlelight- green, gold, blue, red-they seemed to spark with light of their own as Madam Eva nervously shuffled them.
'You know how they work?' she asked.
'Yes.'
In theory. I had several treatises on them in my library, written by people who had devoted whole lifetimes to their study, but that is not the same as seeing them. I had never tried to create a deck for myself, for the universal warning in each book stated that it was not a job for dilettantes. Though I was hardly inexperienced, my focus was in another direction, so I had left well enough alone.
'You are going to give me a reading?'
'It is something you need to know. Before we even thought of crossing the Mists I had a falling of the cards such as I had never seen. Disaster and doom await all unless… you are the key, Strahd von Zarovich.'
'To what?'
'I cannot be over-clear, for it might bring about the disaster you must prevent.'
I understood her reasoning, how such things worked. By its nature I had to respect the limits imposed, but it still chafed. 'Then what can you tell me?'
'Here-' she placed a small table between us, and gave the cards to me. They felt very heavy and hot in my hands. 'Shuffle them, then turn the top card up and place it in the center.'
I did so. It was the card known as 'The Darklord,' showing a twisted bestial figure on a throne. The colors were somber purples, blacks, and greens.
She frowned at it and looked at me. 'This represents you, the ruler of Barovia.'
'Not very flattering,' I commented.
'Shuffle, then turn up the next card, and put it below the Darklord.'
This one was 'The Beast,' with the silhouette of what looked to be a wolf in human garb howling against a bilious full moon.
