Spectre Of The Black Rose

Two

Countless pairs of hungry, hunting eyes followed the passage of Azrael's open-air carriage as it careened along the road to Nedragaard Keep. Nothing sprang from the night-cloaked forest or slithered up from the noxious mires that bordered the way. The creatures that stalked the Sithican wilds knew the distinctive sound of the dwarfs trap. The two-wheeled carriage was armored in the teeth of Azrael's fallen enemies. Tusks and fangs and molars chattered nervously at every bump in the road, warning away anyone or anything that might mistake Azrael for a common wayfarer.

Not that many travelers frequented the byways of Sithicus. The land's three main cities-Mal-Erek, Hroth, and Har-Thelen-were largely self-sufficient. The elves who inhabited those gray, joyless places shunned trade, even with their own kind. A plague known as the White Fever, which had swept back and forth across the land like a reaper's scythe for more than two decades, only made the cities more insular. That didn't slow the sickness. It ravaged town and farm alike, sometimes carrying off a single soul, sometimes an entire village.

As Azrael's trap hurtled through a crossroads, it encountered one of the more visible signs of the White Fever's presence in Sithicus. The horse's I hooves and the studded wheels shattered bones and sent up a cloud of pale, choking dust. The crossroads were white with the sun-bleached remains of plague victims. Even isolated intersections such as this held the scavenger-picked leftovers from a dozen or more corpses. During major outbreaks, so many bodies choked the larger crossroads that their moaning, writhing mass halted all but the heaviest wagons. The ways remained blocked until scrounging animals picked the carcasses down to more easily trampled heaps.

Not long after the plague's arrival in Sithicus, superstitious farmers had initiated the practice of tying the sick and dying at the meeting of two roads. The bodies were staked out with each of their four limbs pointing down a different path, in hopes of confusing the plague spirits that supposedly carried the disease. The more sophisticated townsfolk labeled this practice sheer foolishness. They believed that the White Fever spread by sight, since the victim's eyes bulged grotesquely in the hours before death. The townsfolk, too, left bodies at the crossroads, but they didn't stake them out. They beheaded the afflicted, then bundled the head in a burlap sack and placed it atop the corpse's chest. In recent months, the two groups had adopted each others' safeguards, so that now the dying were beheaded and their remains splayed in four directions.

"I'm the only one to survive it," Azrael said as the trap lurched over a skull. He turned back to grin triumphantly at his captive. Over the grim chattering of the trap, he added, "I fought the White Fever for three years. It finally gave up back in 'thirty-six. The plague has slaughtered hundreds, thousands, but it couldn't kill me."

Gesmas only nodded. Scars on the dwarfs face matched those left by the pustules characteristic of the Fever's second stage. A prolonged battle with the Fever might also explain why Azrael had been described as stooped with age in some of the older stories Gesmas had heard. The disease leeched the color from the flesh and the hair, making the victim look ancient before his time. Two decades ago, when the plague was still obscure, its effects might have been confused with old age.

But Azrael had not told Gesmas about his triumph over the White Fever to clarify his understanding of Sithican history. The story was intended to underscore the hopelessness of his situation. The dwarf was really saying: If Death itself couldn't best me, what chance does a spy with a twisted leg have?

The reminder was unnecessary. From the moment Gesmas had come to his senses, he'd recognized the dire nature of his plight. Rust-rime iron shackles clamped his hands behind his back. A rope looped through a metal ring on the carriage floor bound his feet. He could not stand, could maintain his balance enough to sit up only when Azrael slowed the horse-which had occurred only twice in their dash along the lonely road. When Gesmas managed to survey his surroundings, he found the two dead riders trailing at just the right distance to intercept him should he manage to get free of his shackles and the carriage.

The spy's instincts offered no clever vision of escape. The place had blinded his extra-sight, veiled it like the black moon Nuitari veiled certain stars as it made its way across the night sky. The utterly corrupt could view Nuitari's face. For the rest, the only way to "see" the ebon orb was to seek out what it concealed.

Gesmas stared hard into the velvet dome of the night. The constellations were all strange to him, but after a time he perceived a void where it seemed there should be stars. "Is the moon full tonight?" he asked, knowing that his captor would offer some sort of answer, even if it had nothing to do with his question. Azrael seemed to dislike silence.

"From the things you confessed in the song," the dwarf replied, "you should be able to see for yourself."

Gesmas could still taste the dirge's poison in his mouth, though he couldn't recall anything clearly from the time the song started to the moment he realized he was a prisoner, already miles from the border. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "I told you before, I'm no one. Just a bard collecting local stories."

Azrael whipped the horse furiously, though the beast could not have traveled any faster had it been graced with wings. "You'd be better served by a different tale than that," he said. "No bard I've ever met believed himself to be 'no one.' Besides, what storyteller is important enough to make Malocchio Aderre appear with a single shriek for help? I don't really care about that. But what I can't tolerate -" Without warning, the dwarf kicked backward with one foot. The iron-soled boot struck Gesmas in the chest. "I can't tolerate modesty."

Azrael's voice lacked the faintest trace of anger, which unsettled his prisoner even more than the attack. "You confessed to some pretty gruesome deeds," the dwarf continued, as if the conversation were occurring across a cozy dinner table. "There aren't many with your tolerance for bloodshed. I could have used you. Why, I'll wager you've never lost a night's sleep over any of it-the assassinations, the torture…"

"I've done nothing I'm ashamed of."

"Who mentioned anything about shame? Pay attention," Azrael said flatly, then kicked Gesmas again. "Shame is even more useless than modesty."

Gesmas groaned and shrank back as far as his shackles would allow. The burning ache in his side told him that the last blow had cracked a rip.

"You should realize that you've put yourself in this sorry position. Calling on Aderre got Soth's attention, which is no small feat these days. What really grabbed his interest is this." Azrael used the butt of his whip to rap the worn saddlebags at his side. The leather satchels still bulged with the notes Gesmas had gathered.

"They're only stories," Gesmas said, wheezing softly from the pain.

"Only stories-ha! That's all that matters in Sithicus! Soth has barely moved his armored ass off his throne for fifteen years. All he does is brood about the turns his story has taken. And the more he brood, the more marvelous this place becomes."

Gesmas could hardly agree with Azrael's choice of adjectives to describe the current state of Sithicus. As Soth retreated into his own mind, the domain and its inhabitants suffered greater and greater torments. The White Fever was only the first, most persistent trouble. Within a year of the plague's arrival, the wild elves of the Iron Hills began to stage raids against their civilized kin, sowing chaos for its own sake. Even now, the horizon to the east flickered red from a huge fire; yet another farm on the outskirts of Har-Thelen had fallen to the feral elves.

If the tavern talk Gesmas had heard in his travels was to be believed, a leader had gathered together the Iron Hills bands into an army set on driving Soth from Sithicus. This warlord was known only by a symbol: the White Rose. Some within the domain saw the White Rose as a savior. Most understood that commoners would little concern a warrior powerful enough to threaten Lord Soth. These wise folk kept to their own business and hoped any war that broke out would be a brief one. Each new day of Soth's neglect undermined those hopes a little more.

The mere presence of Azrael's escort, dead men astride decaying mounts, marked Sithicus as different from all the places Gesmas had explored on his missions for Lord Aderre. Necromancy and creatures that cheated the grave were factors to be countered in all those places. There were wild, disreputable yarns in some of the kingdoms hereabouts that identified a particular nobleman or general, or even the domain's ruler, as a monster- a vampire, werebeast, or sorcerer of the most vile sort. The world, at least according to these macabre tales, was full of malevolent powers and corrupt souls.

Some of these legends were true, though few who knew their veracity lived for long. Enough were obviously false-drunken inventions or misinformation spread by the tyrants themselves-to allow the peasants in most domains to delude themselves about their strange and sinister environs. In Sithicus, though, the unnatural was so conspicuous, so brazen in announcing its existence, that Gesmas wondered how anyone slept at night.

If Azrael were to be believed, the only thing Sithicans truly feared was him. "I'm their only nightmare," he said whenever the conversation touched upon the horrors of the place.

The third time the dwarf offered up that bit of braggadocio, Gesmas couldn't hold his tongue.

"What about the Whispering Beast?" he asked. "Or the Bloody Shoemaker?"

"Cobbler," Azrael corrected with a snarl. "The Bloody Cobbler. They're both bogeymen, children's stories."

Gesmas almost repeated Azrael's own comment about the importance of stories in Sithicus, but thought better of it. It was foolish and unnecessary to provoke a response. The tension in the dwarf's shoulders, his white-knuckled grip on the reins, told the spy that his captor was lying. It was the same sort of fearful reaction the names had provoked in all but the most reckless locals, and even they would not offer much about the creatures beyond a line or two of fractured verse. That the Beast and the Cobbler frightened a thing like Azrael, a bogeyman in his own right, was reason enough for Gesmas to wonder at their power.

Before the prisoner could summon the courage to ask again about the two horrors, Azrael slowed the carriage to a relatively sane speed. Gesmas levered himself to a sitting position. Groaning at the pain from his ribs, he peered out of the trap.

The road here skirted the Great Chasm, so close that the wheels kicked stones into the rift. The vast scar ran for nearly one hundred miles, north to south, through the heart of Sithicus. It gaped as wide as five miles across in some places, narrowing to less than a mile only at its ends. Light wouldn't penetrate the chasm, even when the sun shone directly overhead. Only sickly, leafless trees grew along its perimeter. They thrust up from the earth like sorry scarecrows to warn travelers away from the rift. With good reason.

The darkness of the Great Chasm quivered with excitement at the approach of the trap and the dead riders trailing it. Each hoofbeat sent a ripple across the gloom. The rattle of tusk and fang from Azrael's carriage was answered deep within the murk by a famished gnashing of teeth.

Gesmas noticed none of this, though he was an observant man. His attention had been drawn to a more astonishing sight: Nedragaard Keep.

A peninsula like the cupped hand of a giant turned to stone held aloft Soth's ruined castle. Granite crags rose up on three sides, fingers picketing the keep from the chasm's greedy darkness. The marvel sheltered within that stony grasp resembled a massive stone rose. The domed central tower had been designed to approximate a tightly closed bud. On all sides, lattice-work bridges led from the main keep to landings opened like leaves. But the rose that housed Lord Soth was blighted. The crimson-tinged stones had been blackened by some ancient blaze. The walls had been breached, the bridges and landings shattered.

The longer Gesmas studied the keep, the harder it became to focus on details. A flickering light drew his attention to a window high up in the tower. One moment, the window appeared intact- a huge circle of stained glass lit from within. The next, it was simply gone. Gesmas blinked and rubbed his eyes. He scanned the tower's face. Nothing. It wasn't that the light had gone out in the room, abandoning the window to darkness. The tower itself had changed somehow. He tried to recall the window's exact location, but the castle blurred in his thoughts until he could no longer remember what he'd been trying to do.

The road swept away from the chasm's brink, passing through an elaborate garden and a large graveyard. Time and neglect had obliterated the boundaries between the two. Weeds covered the graves. Climbing roses, their blooms as black as the unseen moon overhead, entangled memorial statues and stormed the walls of crypts long ago robbed of their dead. The wind hissed through trees of overripe fruit. The gusts mixed the tang of a harvest gone to rot with the smothering fume of grave mold.

"Last chance to come up with a better lie about your mission here," Azrael shouted as the carriage passed through a crumbling gatehouse and onto the isthmus that led to the castle. "Soth finds spies annoying, but bards make him angry."

The wind picked up suddenly, shifted to the west. It howled now like an enraged animal-no, carried the howls of something unhinged with fury from within the keep itself.

"Th-that sound," Gesmas stammered. "Is it Soth?"

"You'd better hope not."

An extensive section of the castle's outer curtain and the ground beneath it had slid into the chasm, leaving a break in the isthmus that was now spanned by a wooden bridge. The carriage rattled across the planks and into the bailey. On platforms overlooking the courtyard, a trio of armored dead men kept ceaseless, senseless watch, Gesmas could not imagine what purpose their patrol served. A general would have to be mad to lead an army against Nedragaard.

The sound Gesmas had taken for the howl of a single creature fragmented into several distinct voices. Each member of the unseen chorus proclaimed its outrage in shrieks that echoed in the night:

"He hears us still!"

"He attends us not!"

"The fire-blasted rose has turned inward, away from us, away from his damnation."

"But he will stir, sisters. The first dark in the light's hollow will wake. Once more will he feel our song's lash upon his unbeating heart."

An apparition manifested in the open doorway. The ghostly figure was slim and clad in a flowing gown. Her face was that of an elven maiden, composed with sharp angles that would have been unattractive on a human. On elves, though, the features hinted at a sort of geometric perfection. Gesmas felt a weight on his heart that had nothing to do with his injuries.

"He is here," the apparition announced in a soft voice, so unlike the piercing shrieks that rang through the hall behind her. "It is time."

"It's time when I say so," Azrael snapped. The dwarf walked through the phantom as if it were nothing more than an errant patch of mist.

The face that had been so lovely a moment before was now a mask of fury. The gentle curves and perfect angles were gone, replaced by a riot of sharp teeth. "Eater of dirt!" the banshee wailed. "We will make you suffer!"

"How many of you are there in 'we' today?" asked the dwarf lightly. "Three? Thirteen? Three hundred?" He turned and gestured to Gesmas. "Come on. She, and however many sisters she has at the moment, can't hurt you. They used to be banshees. Soth's inattention has reduced 'em to harmless spooks. There's supposed to be a certain number of 'em, but they can't even decide on how many that should be."

One of the dead riders lay skeletal hands on Gesmas and shoved him through the apparition. The banshee howled her impotent rage at the violation. The sound shook the spy as he passed through. Her chill form clutched at him, trying to seize his living warmth even as it shrank from his coarse physicality. He emerged, breathless and shivering, in an immense entry hall.

Twin stairways climbed the walls of the vast circular room, leading to a balcony opposite the main doors. The balcony might once have been a musicians' gallery. Now the only music in the hall came from the banshees' keening song. The unquiet spirits hovered in midair or wove frenzied patterns through the chandelier suspended from the ceiling's center. All the candles in those triple rings of iron were lit. Their radiance diluted the gloom that choked the hall, but could not vanquish it.

Upon a dais shrouded in the hall's deepest shadows sat a worm-eaten throne, and upon that throne hunched a suit of armor. The plate mail appeared empty, deserted. The once-bright metal was blackened with soot and age. Tatters fringed the purple cloak draped over the armor's shoulders. The tasseled helmet drooped forward. Only the faint lights flickering in the helmet's eye slits betrayed the fact that something lurked within that fire-blasted metal skin.

"On your knees," Azrael said, and the skeletal guard forced Gesmas to the dirty stones. The dwarf turned to the throne and bowed with overstated deference. "As you commanded, mighty lord, I have brought you the stranger."

The banshees ceased their keening and turned to the dais. Their faces grew even more horrible with anticipation. The skeletal warrior, Soth's loyal retainer of old, seemed to share their anxiety. Gesmas felt its bony fingers tighten on his shoulders.

Finally, Soth stirred upon his dilapidated throne. The twin flickers of orange light that were his eyes flared. Or perhaps the hall grew suddenly darker. All heat, all hope, drained from the room. It was as if those things flowed into Soth, fuel for his terrible gaze.

"Speak."

The voice was hollow, deep beyond imagining. Gesmas felt the word more than heard it. He opened his mouth to reply, but only croaked something incomprehensible. The breath had vanished from his lungs. Fear had consumed it.

"Speak!"

Azrael elbowed Gesmas in the side, causing him to cry out. Only the skeletal hands on his shoulders prevented the prisoner from falling forward. "Mighty lord," he wheezed, "I don't know what-"

"Your name," said Soth. "Your mission."

Gesmaa could almost feel the sharp corner of Azrael's smirk jabbing him. He knew that the dwarf was waiting for him to trip up, to anger Soth by some misstep he could never avoid. Perhaps Azrael had lied to him about Soth's hatred of bards. The dwarf was, after all, commonly described in Sithicus as an unrivaled liar.

Gesmas had nothing to fall back upon, no secret knowledge or flash of insight to guide him. So he told the truth.

"I am a spy."

A sound echoed from Soth's helmet, a soft exclamation equal parts surprise and mirth. "What have you tried to steal from me, honest thief?"

The second of the skeletal warriors came forward. It held up the spy's worn saddlebags. Azrael tore away the buckles and leather straps holding them closed. Paper cascaded onto the floor. "Mighty lord, he-"

"I did not ask you, seneschal," Soth interrupted.

The banshees sniggered at the rebuke. There were only four now. The rest had disappeared.

"He has returned," said one.

"Returned to his duty," added the second, hovering close by Azrael's side.

"Returned to his torment," a third hissed.

The hideous quartet chorused, "Returned to us."

Soth ignored the unquiet spirits, if he heard them at all. He had focused on Gesmas. "What did you try to steal?" he prompted.

"Your story."

"Who is your master?"

"Malocchio Aderre."

Slowly Soth raised one hand. A thick lace of cobwebs fell away from the gauntlet it had draped for bo long. Fingers that had not moved in years gestured stiffly for the prisoner to approach the throne.

Gesmas rose, reclaimed the saddlebags, then gathered up the pages Azrael had scattered. The combination of the pain from his ribs and his fear of Lord Soth swelled into waves of dizziness that washed over the spy every few halting steps. When he came upon a section of floor that appeared translucent, insubstantial, he mistook it for an hallucination born of his lightheadedness. But Azrael grabbed his arm and steered him around it. Gesmas looked questioningly at the dwarf, whose only reply was the same oily smirk he'd worn since arriving at the keep.

As he continued across the hall, Gesmas noted more bits of his surroundings that did not appear entirely corporeal. A large piece of the stone stairs to the right was missing-not crumbled or fallen, simply not there. Other small sections of floor fluctuated between opacity and translucence. Poised over the center of the circular room, the ponderous iron chandelier fluttered like a mirage. The ceiling where the massive metal rings should have been anchored gaped black and vacant. The chains reached up to nothing.

Gesmas gave up trying to understand the strangeness around him. He took in the details of his odd surroundings with an uncharacteristic indifference. It was almost as if he were watching the events unfold from a distance, like one of the inconstant phantoms floating over the hall. That detachment, and little else, made it possible for Gesmas to approach Soth's throne, to stand so close to the death knight that he could discern the original decoration on his fire-blackened armor.

An intricate pattern of roses and kingfishers laced the blasted metal. Dust, soot, and age had obscured some of the blooms, annihilated some of the finer detail on the birds' wings. Still, the design retained enough of its old beauty to suggest the knight so feared, so fearsome, had once known peace and honor.

"Tell me my story," Soth said to the prisoner. "Tell me who I am and how I came to this place."

Gesmas climbed the three broad steps one at a time and set the saddlebags down on the dais. Fragments of broken glass littered the stone, winking like earthbound stars. Only now did the spy note the six iron ovals gaping on the walls behind the throne. Malocchio Aderre himself had warned him about the mirrors once cradled in those framer, enchanted glass that allowed Soth to venture into his own memories and follow his life down the myriad paths it might have followed. Obviously, the lord of Sithicus no longer needed such things to sustain his reveries.

As he retrieved the first pages from the saddlebags, Gesmas wondered vaguely if Soth's daydreams were any more bizarre than the stories he'd collected. He doubted it.

"I learned this tale from the elves of Hroth," Gesmas said. He squinted at his own scribbled notes and began to read: " The thing known as Soth first appeared some thirty-two years ago, in the land of Barovia. As such a powerful being could not have escaped the notice of the bards that wander these haunted realms, he could not have existed before that time. Strahd von Zarovich, lord of Barovia, must have created Soth, conjured him with dark sorcery. This would explain why Soth is never seen but when he is fully armored. In truth, the metal skin is empty, cursed mail that turned against the sorcerer who first brought it to life.' "

"Untrue," the banshees hissed. "Untrue!" There was no conviction in their exclamations, though. Lake Soth, they seemed uncertain of the truth.

For a moment Soth considered the claims. "I recall this Strahd von Zarovich," he said, "and know that my way to this cursed realm passed through his demesne. As to the rest, it is easy enough to prove or disprove…"

Soth slipped his gauntlet forward, exposing the slightest sliver of his wrist. Gesmas did not get a clear look, though the little he saw of the strangely corroded flesh told him that the lord of Nedragaard could be no living thing.

"Ah," said Soth. "There can be no question that I am more than just a hollow metal skin. What other tales do my people tell of me?"

For several hours Gesmas related all that he had learned. Most of the stories were obviously false, easily disproved in Soth's grim presence. The banshees both supported and refuted the very same claims. Sometimes the phantoms contradicted each other, sometimes even themselves. Azrael remained silent, though Gesmas could not help but notice the dwarf squirming uncomfortably whenever his master displayed any interest in the tales.

A few similar reports drew the most attentive responses from Soth. These stories claimed the lord of Nedragaard Keep had come from a land far from Barovia or Sithicus, a place called Krynn. In that kingdom of light and hope Soth had perpetrated some terrible crime-the slaughter of his brother and sister, the assassination of a saintly cleric, even the destruction of the gods themselves. The tales could not agree upon which acts were true, which merely fiction, but all seemed to conclude that Soth's infamous deeds had cursed him with an eternity of unlife.

From time to time as Gesmas spoke, banshees would vanish and appear, their sum as changeable as their ghostly frames. During the stories of Soth's supposed past in Krynn, however, the banshees always numbered thirteen.

His voice little more than a hoarse whisper, Gesmas came to the last of the tales he had collected. It told of Soth's passion for an elf maid named Isolde, a passion so intense that it inspired the once-noble knight to betray both his marriage vows and the chivalric order to which he had dedicated his life. Disaster and disgrace followed, with the murder of Soth's wife and expulsion from the knighthood he so loved. As was so often the case in tales of unbridled appetite, the ending proved tragic.

" 'Lord Soth confronted fair Isolde in the main hall,' " Gesmas read wearily. " That he would come to accuse her of infidelity should have been little surprise, for surely no man can trust once he himself has broken sacred vows. At the same moment as he gave voice to his jealous fury, a tremor rocked the castle and the triple-ringed chandelier crashed to the floor. Fire swept the hall, trapping-' "

A thunderous clatter rang out. Gesmas gasped and dropped the tattered parchment. He turned to find that the chandelier had fallen. It lay twisted upon the cold stone flags. Above the debris hovered thirteen silent banshees. Thirteen skeletal warriors stood at attention around the fallen iron rings. Their grinning faces seemed to flicker crimson, illumined by some blaze all out of proportion with the few guttering candles scattered about.

Trapping Isolde and the infant she clutched in her milk-white hands," said a sepulchral voice. Slowly Soth rose to his feet. The cobwebs fell from him like a rotted winding sheet. The lord of Sithicus was not reading the spy's report, but speaking an uncorrupted memory.

The gods, ever merciful, left the once-famed knight a chance to prove his heart held something more than hatred," Soth continued. "From the flames, the elf maid begged for him to save then-son. But his anger and his pride would not allow him to act. He turned away and let them perish."

As Soth completed his recitation, the banshees began a song yet again. Only now their terrible voices sang as one:

"And in the climate of dreams

When you recall her, when the world of the dream expands, wavers in light. when you stand at the edge of blessedness and sun,

Then we shall make you remember, shall make you live again through the long denial of body."

Azrael grabbed Gesmas roughly by the arm. "Who gave you this tale?"

The banshees' song, which continued to catalogue Soth's crimes, made it hard for Gesmas to think. "I-I can't remember." He fell to one knee, his twisted leg jutting painfully to one side. Frantically he rifled through the fallen pages in search of the one that held the final tale. "There were so many stories…"

The Wanderers," Soth said. "Only they know my true history."

Azrael's smirk was gone. He licked his lips nervously, then said, "Do not tax yourself, mighty lord. If you suspect Magda's thieves of betraying you, I can deal-"

"No. I have slumbered too long, forgotten too much of myself." Soth flexed his gauntleted fingers, then tightened them into fists. "It is time I take back the reins of my fate."

The death knight descended the stone steps. He surveyed the hall's disorder-the missing stairs, the oddly insubstantial sections of floor. "I will call upon Magda and her tribe come sunrise," Soth announced over the banshees' keening.

"And I will dispose of the prisoner," Azrael offered. There is still some room in the dungeons for-"

"No," Soth snapped. "He will be put to work in the mines." He turned his glowing eyes on the spy. "Consider that a reward, honest thief. You may yet live a while there. My thanks for delivering these… entertainments."

Two of the skeletal soldiers approached the dais and took hold of Gesmas. "Have the dungeons emptied, as well," the spy heard Soth order. "Ransom any nobles or merchants. Put the rest to work until they can buy their own freedom. That is how a knight treats his prisoners, Azrael. Take note."

Gesmas felt Lord Soth's unblinking gaze follow him across the hall. "No ransom for you, though, honest thief," Soth noted as the spy passed close. "I have not forgotten who you serve."

In the rubble-strewn bailey of Nedragaard Keep, Gesmas watched the night dwindle. Exhausted, numb with fear and pain, he stared at the horizon and waited for dawn to break. But the darkness was reluctant to lose its grip on the land. By the time the skeletal warriors had carried out Soth's orders to empty the prisoners from the dungeon, Gesmas had begun to wonder if the light would ever return to Sithicus.

A heavy wagon arrived just as the last of the filthy wretches was herded into the bailey. A trio of gruff, well-armed soldiers took command of the prisoners without a word being spoken, an order given. Whatever arcane means Soth had used to summon the transport must have conveyed his wishes to the drivers, as well.

Gesmas was the first into the wagon. Those prisoners able to walk crowded in after him, forcing him to the back of the box, as far as possible from the single barred window in the door. The invalids were stacked onto the floor like cord wood. The stink of excrement from these ragged men made the gorge rise in the spy's throat. Their weeping, festering wounds-the obvious result of lash and rack and other, more exotic devices- made Gesmas glad that Azrael's plans for him had been undone

One of the three soldiers entered the wagon and closed the door behind him. There was no threat of revolt; the prisoners either stared at the armed man with wild, unfocused eyes or averted their faces whenever he looked their way. No one spoke as the wagon lurched into motion. Gesmas wondered if they had all lost their tongues-until he realized that most were likely deaf from months or years of exposure to the banshees' shrieking.

Once the bedlam of Nedragaard receded, the steady tread of the horses began to sooth Gesmas. It seemed that his truthfulness had saved him after all. He was out of Azrael's grasp, going to a place where he would have a chance to keep himself alive. Work in the mines would be hard, maybe fatal, but he might live long enough to escape. His leg would disqualify him from the most treacherous digging. He might even get the opportunity to care for the ponies and other animals that hauled the carts. That had always been his true calling, anyway.

Gesmas shook his head. His duty was to free himself, cross back to Invidia and make his report. Even without the notes, he now knew enough about Soth to satisfy Lord Aderre.

A thud against the wagon's thick side startled Gesmas out of his musings. A second and a third drew the guard's attention. He turned to peer out the door's barred window. An instant later he slumped backward, onto the heap of wounded. A white-fletched arrow protruded from his eye socket.

Prisoners retreated from the arrow as if it might pull itself from the gory wound and fly at them. Their incoherent shouts were drowned out by the sudden screaming of the horses and the pained groan of wood as the wagon struck something. It careened wildly for a moment, then flipped onto its side.

Gesmas reacted quickly enough to brace himself for the impact. It didn't help much. He lay stunned within a bleeding, moaning tangle of limbs. Dazedly he heard the splintering of wood, felt the pile shift as bodies were removed. He kept still, knowing it was better to play dead, to gather his wits and his strength, until he knew what was happening.

The prisoners, both the living and the dead, were removed one by one. Gesmas heard a few words of Elvish spoken, instructions mostly. The dialect was one he'd not heard before. It was thick with gutturals, far removed from the musical language of the city-dwelling elves. The Iron Hills wildings, he realized with a shudder.

The sun was finally rising, the dawn reaching into the wagon through the breach. Gesmas tracked the play of shadow and light across his closed eyelids. There was no telling how many wild elves moved in and out, leading or dragging away the prisoners. He listened intently. Men were weeping outside, and a large fire had begun to crackle. There were no screams, but soon the weeping and the growled Elvish commands dwindled, until only the sounds of the fire were left.

Then he smelled it: the awful stench of burning flesh.

Gesmas opened his eyes and found himself alone in the shattered wagon. The light of the Sithican dawn streamed in through the ragged hole where the door had been. He rolled onto his stomach and crawled slowly toward the breach. Each carefully considered movement seemed to take an hour. Every creak or scrape made his teeth clench until his ears rang from the pressure.

"The fire's for the dead," said a voice at the spy's shoulder.

Gesmas shouted in surprise and spun around. In the shadows at the very back of the wagon, where Gesmas himself had lain but a moment before, stood a tall, masked figure. His form was mostly obscured by a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. They, like his mask, his shoes, and his finely tailored breeches and coat, were all of a uniform hue. It was not a color so much as the ashen remnant left when all color had been leeched away.

The stranger held out his gloved hands, empty palms toward the spy. "Don't be afraid, Gesmas. I didn't intend to startle you."

"Who the hell are you?"

He reached for his mask. Gesmas had seen its like before-padded cloth, the large hooked nose hollowed to hold flowers or herbs or whatever else the wearer thought might ward off plague. "You don't know me," the stranger said. His voice was melodious, the accent cultured. "I'm a tradesman hereabouts."

As the mask came away, Gesmas thought for the briefest of instants that no face lay beneath, only smooth flesh the same pale color as the stranger's clothes. He blinked and saw that he'd been mistaken.

The man would have been considered handsome in any land Gesmas had traveled, and more besides. His fair hair framed proud features. Deep-set eyes returned the spy's nervous gaze with a twinkle of good humor. "I knew the fire, or rather what the elves have sizzling upon it, had frightened you. I wanted you to know that the flames weren't your fate."

"I'd rather you tell me how to get home from here," Gesmas said. "Actually, I can find my own way."

He turned back toward the door, but found the way blocked. The stranger stood framed by the gaping hole, haloed by the rising sun at his back. In the light, his pale clothes proved not so uniform; everything he wore was spattered lightly with crimson, from the tip of his hat to the little case he now held in his gloved hands. Carefully he opened the pale leather like a book. Inside, displayed in several neat rows, were a shoemaker's tools. The tacks, the snips, the small hammer, even the needles and thread had been wrought from pure silver. They, too, were flecked with gore.

"The Bloody Cobbler," Gesmas whispered.

The Cobbler nodded and removed a knife from the case. The blade glinted in the sunlight. "I want you to know that I'm sorry about this."

It was pointless to run, useless to fight. Gesmas knew that. But he had so taken on the mantle set upon him by Lord Aderre, the role of spy and relentless seeker of facts, that not even his fear could prevent him from asking, "What are you?"

"Actually, I'm a who, not a what? The Cobbler leaned close and whispered his name into the spy's ear.

A grim smile spread across Gesmas's face. "Of course."

"I wish there were another way," the Cobbler said as he raised the blade. "But you only get so many chances to walk your intended path."

Later that day, when a group of huntsmen discovered the ruined prison rig, the white-fletched arrows told them most of the tale. Elves allied to the White Rose had attacked the wagon. As was their way, the Iron Hills wildlings took whatever prisoners remained alive and burned the dead, so that the corpses could not be raised through necromancy to serve Lord Soth. The horses were butchered for food. Anything of value from the hitch was stolen.

– They found the body of Gesmas Malaturno within the shattered wagon. His arms had been folded gently over his chest. A look of peace graced his haggard face. Even his twisted leg lay straight, as if death had released him from that lifelong scourge and blessing. The white-fletched arrows did not explain this death; the only wounds upon the spy's body did.

Cleanly, carefully, the bottoms of Gesmas's feet had been cut off.