Tales of Ravenloft

The Crucible of Dr. Rudolph van Richten

As Darkon's heavens deepened past indigo, receding beyond the ruddy backward reach of dusk, sinewy vapors slid between the trees and churned into dim mirages on the old forest road. Shadows lost their confining edges, merged, and thickened. To scorn shelter in the land of the Mists after sunset was deadly folly, but for one traveler, the promise of a bright hearth and a warm bed had already slipped into darkness.

Dr. Rudolph van Richten turned and grimaced at the burden lashed to the rump of his horse: the stiffening corpse of a dark-haired young man.

"We may both be ghoul meat tonight, but I'll catch your people before the flesh eaters find me, Vistana!" he spat with a great deal more conviction than he felt.

The lean, middle-aged herbalist searched the diminishing horizon ahead, desperate for any sign of a brightly painted vardo. He'd ridden hard since morning, yet the gypsy caravan had somehow outdistanced him anyway. There was no other route they could have taken from Rivalis, but he had seen no sign of them all day. Still, Van Richten rode on doggedly, as fearless of the impending night as a lamb of the chopping block. The Vistani had kidnapped his beloved child Erasmus, and all the torments that might descend out of the night were nothing compared to that loss!

As Tasha trotted along the eclipsing lane, Van Richten scanned its overgrown borders. He spotted a slender oak branch that hung by a feeble tether of bark; the bough snapped off cleanly in his hand as he guided Tasha past it. Draping the reins over the saddle, he trimmed and peeled the wood into a crooked pole about as tall as himself. Then, grasping the coarse linen shirt of the lifeless Vistana, he ripped free a wide swath, which he wrapped about the end of the staff and tied off, fashioning a long torch. Now for the courage to light it.

Overhead, the leafy ceiling cast a net of opaque shadow over the horse and rider, reducing the gritty road to a colorless strip that withered into void just ahead. A deathly hush smothered the forest, and the lonely staccato of Tasha's hooves rose in the silence, growing painful to Van Richten's ears. He vainly wished she could walk above the ground so they might slip through the woods without sound, but with every step, even her saddle creaked in betrayal. All creatures of the day were deep in their lairs, while things that creep in the night were just rising, pricking up their ears at the isolated clip-clop in the spreading blackness.

The anguished father wondered if he could keep the path without a torch. They were alone, and he wanted to remain so. Dr. Van Richten was just a peaceful herbalist from a small village — no match for danger — and only the torturous vision of Erasmus drove him on. A man who braves the Darkon night, went the saying, will see wondrous things before he dies. Until now, that had been an old preacher's proverb, spoken with a chuckle. . and behind safely bolted doors.

The merest suggestion of a queer noise implanted in Van Richten's ear, and a cold shiver wrung his spine. A dim wisp of light flashed in the nearby underbrush — or so he thought. He ogled the dark spot, but spied nothing beyond the murky flank of the road. A shadow flitted by Van Richten's stirrup. His eye darted after the motion, but caught only a snatch of gyrating mist. He blinked and squinted at the depthless surroundings, then shivered again.

"Perhaps it's only the echo of light a man sees when he closes his eyes," he murmured hopefully.

Tasha expelled a tense, low whinny and turned her sleek head in the same direction.

She had seen something, too.

Another phantom spark flickered in the eaves of the weald, then faded. With a start, Van Richten turned toward it. A scattering of pinpoints ignited nearby, dying as quickly as he looked their way. He glanced to the other side of the road, where more pale fires kindled beneath the brush. Their numbers multiplied, and soon a greenish glow slithered through eerie silhouettes of thicket, illuminating the undergrowth in a faint pall.

Another shadow rolled by underfoot, spooking the horse, and the rider nearly lost his balance as she shied from it. "Easy, Tasha, easy girl," he urged, soothing the mare with a stroke on her gray dappled neck. "It's only mist and faerie fire." Tasha threw back her head and snorted anxiously, stamping one hoof and then another.

"I suppose I must light the torch," Van Richten muttered, putting down the reins once more and reaching into the chest pocket of his wooly coat for a small, spring-loaded spark block. He squeezed the roughened strip of steel against the small flint bar, compressing the spring, then released it. The file scraped across the surface of the block as the spring uncoiled, releasing a flurry of brilliant sparks.

"I hope we're alone, girl," he remarked to Tasha. "This torch will. ."Van Richten caught his breath and held his tongue.

Something had whispered in the mist below.

Tasha's ears snapped forward, angular and trembling, and her muscles went taut between Van Richten's legs.A blood-chilling, unnatural moan fluttered the horse's muzzle, inducing an ominous tingle under the man's skin. Instinctively he pocketed the spark block and caught up the reins. Then Tasha's ears went down flat. .

With a sharp heave her equine scream splintered the silence, piercing Van Richten's heart with icy dread. The mount reared up and leaped as if she would climb into the air, nearly flipping onto her back. Van Richten madly flung down the torch, seized her mane with both hands, and leaned into the cringing saddle, clutching with all the strength his four limbs could muster. The unhinged animal bucked and spun in blind, reckless hysteria, filling the air with shrieks that wound higher with every convulsive breath. Meanwhile, the Vistana corpse behind Van Richten flailed wildly on Tasha's haunches, striking the doctor with blows from its floppy limbs. With each thrash, Tasha's sturdy mane slipped further through Van Richten's fingers. For a moment he experienced a queasy weightlessness, until he and his mount collided with a barrier of pine trees, brutally knocking the wind from him. Tasha writhed against clawing needles and lunged away with another scream, leaving the doctor entangled in the branches, ripping free of his clasping legs and wheeling out of sight while he plunged headlong into a pulpy thicket.

For a long and dizzy moment, Van Richten lay oblivious in the wet and thorny bed, but fear that Tasha might whirl back and trample him provoked him into action. He rolled out of the bushes and into the road, now illuminated in the subtle blaze of faerie fire. He frantically searched around him for stampeding hooves, but Tasha rampaged in another direction. The thought struck Van Richten that she might bolt back to Rivalis and leave him stranded, so he crawled stupidly toward her, still unsure of his feet.

The mists suddenly parted, and a bolt of horror shot through him — Dr. Van Richten abruptly drew up on his knees and threw his hands to his mouth.

Even as Tasha ferociously pitched herself into the air, a swarm of short, pudgy humanoids leapt and clung to her! The lunatic horse squirmed and kicked furiously, yet the little fiends only vaulted in greater numbers. Beneath Tasha's piteous screeching, a babble of clicks and hisses passed between the diabolical villains as they hopped along the ground, fearless of her hooves, and flung themselves upon her. They hung from her legs and shoulders and haunches by their teeth, their stumpy, digitless limbs twitching as she vainly sought to shake them off. The miserable beast began to sway and founder, until at last her forelegs folded. She buckled to the ground with a rough heave, and the horde swept over her.

Van Richten clutched at his heart and cried "Tasha!" in spite of himself. In response, a half dozen of the unnatural creatures turned and looked at him, kneeling in the middle of the mist-swirled road.

With gigantic, bulbous eyes creased by slitted pupils, they gazed at the man. Noses did not protrude between those bulging orbs; their mouths were nothing more than holes from which tubular black tongues spat, lizardlike, and their horrid faces were sewn with cruel stitches into hooded body suits of heavy cloth. They were constructs, the doctor perceived through his haze of terror; grotesque manikins infused with the baleful life-force of some malevolent power. He shook uncontrollably under their glassy examination. Both repulsed and fascinated, Van Richten gaped into the raptorial eyes of the dolly abominations, and they in turn regarded him stonily.

The sinister fabrications began to hop toward him.

"Think, Van Richten, think!" the man sputtered, falling back to his posterior and crawling away, crablike. The little creatures fanned out and toddled closer, chattering to one another with short clicks and pops of their spitting tongues. As the nearest doll-beast bobbed on its stumpy legs and prepared to leap, Van Richten clawed at the cold dirt behind him, his will teetering. Then by chance his hand fell upon the torch. Instantly his fingertips recognized the object, and renewed hope spurred him to motion.

Gigantic eyes like theirs were obviously designed for perfect darkness. If he could light a fire. .

The doctor rolled to his knees and scrambled to his feet, seizing the pole as he rose; the length of the shaft slid through his grasp until the knot of rags butted against his fist. With a clumsy pivot, he turned to face his foes and shoved his fingers into the pocket that housed his spark block. The bobbing predator sprang like a flea, landed face-first upon Van Richten's lower leg, and thrust its mouth against him. To his horror, he felt a spiny point wriggle and probe its way through the thick cloth of his trousers, seeking the meat of his calf. The intruder found a soft spot and thrust inward, sending Van Richten into a frenzied dance, yelping and kicking his distressed limb outward, each snap of his knee growing more forceful than the last. Finally, with a pop the tiny creature dislodged and tumbled into the bushes.

A second assailant bobbed frenetically and lunged at Van Richten, but he swatted it aside before its tongue could impale him. Two more leapt, but he snarled and swung the base of his staff, connecting with one in midair and sending it end over end in the opposite direction; the other he grabbed by the hood and flung into the woods. Now the man no longer waited for his enemies' advance, but charged into their moon faces, kicking one on the run and sweeping his weapon across the shoulders of two more. At the end of the charge, he spun and faced them again — this time with the spark block in his hand. He lowered the torch head, raised the block, and squinted against the imminent burst of sparks.

Without warning, an impact from behind sent Van Richten sprawling to his face; the rest of the pack had interrupted its repast upon poor Tasha to bring him down. They tackled the human with surprising force and sent him forward, his arms outstretched before him. A feeble streak of crackling flint embers arced through the air, but none of them caught on the torch. The doctor struck the ground heavily, and the shock of the blow bounced the spark block from his fingers. Tiny bodies stormed like rabid vermin across Van Richten's back, and a dozen fleshy drills rent his clothing and bit into him.

Agony sliced through him like blistering-hot wires, wrenching a scream from his astonished lips as a host of wriggling intruders burrowed and squirmed under his skin. Still he crawled forward, scratching at the dust as still more tiny monsters piled on and pierced him with their dagger-tongues. Desperately he swept his arms back and forth over the ground, until finally his searching fingers fell upon the spark block. As his thumb fumbled for the file, his other hand drew the rag knot closer. The mounting torment on his back began to unhinge his mind. His extremities numbed as his head began to swim. His thumb slipped clumsily across the steel file, and the tool flipped over in his hand.

A jabbing probe lanced his spine and spasmed inward, eliciting a sharp, involuntary arching of his punctured back. Every muscle in his body locked, and he clenched the spark block in his palm, squeezing the file tight against the flint, then snapped his fingers wide. The steel strip scraped across the stony block as he freed it, sending up a fountain of light.

The probing tubes within Van Richten's torso hesitated. He gasped with hope, then clutched and released the spark block again. A bright shower of kindled stone skittered across his palm and the torch beside it. Blisters swelled on his skin as the sparks found soft flesh, but he began to pump the firemaker zealously, generating a dazzling display of light bursts. Soon the burning welts on his hand supplanted the torture on his back, and he realized that the invaders had fled his body. Still he raked at the flint until at last the linen torch flared to life. Van Richten climbed drunkenly to his knees, planted the tip of the staff in the road, and pulled himself to his feet. His smoky torch sent up a dirty ribbon of soot and cast a yellowish glow over the bushes around him, jittering with scurrying foes. He stared dazedly after the movement until the pounding in his ears subsided. Slowly the internal cacophony diminished, only to be replaced by a grating snuffle behind him.

Van Richten weakly turned about and squinted through the torch light, only to crumble back to his knees and groan hopelessly at the approaching faces of two walking dead men!

“He who braves the Darkon night indeed sees wondrous things before he dies," Van Richten moaned. The zombies waxy skin sagged from the bone beneath their eyes, puckering about the neck and cracking at the folds. Their splintered teeth were clogged with dirt beneath wide-cleft, blackened lips. Brittle hair tangled in wiry chaos atop their seeping heads, sometimes bordering upon an encrusted patch of sloughed-off scalp, and rotten clothing clung pointlessly to meatless bones wrapped in torn, leathery skin.

"Whatever you are," he pleaded, "I beg of you. Raise me to living death if you must, but leave me the will to avenge myself upon the Vistani. . "

The dead men halted and hovered silently over him, radiating frigid oblivion, then spoke, moving their lips in unison. "I am the voice of Lord Azalin," they croaked through moldering vocal cords.

The Wizard-King! Here? "L–Lord Azalin?" stammered the man.

The king was a powerful wizard, but to detect the plight of a subject at the very borders of his domain, let alone come to the rescue, was astounding. He must have used his magic to animate the dead men and make them perform his will.

"Identify yourself," the dead ordered monotonously.

"I am Rudolph van Richten."

Another corpse joined the pair from behind — this one a female, with her throat torn open. "I know you," claimed all their flayed lips together, some with a hiss, others with a croak. "You are a physician of Rivalis."

"Yes, Lord Azalin. Thank the gods you are here!" exclaimed Van Richten, fighting down the rush of bile in his mouth at the sight of scrolling eyes and air-dried bones.

"Do not rejoice, Van Richten. There is no mercy for those who defy curfew. Only one thing stays your death: curiosity. What are the Vistani to you?" Another zombie shuffled up and joined the chorus. Van Richten stared dumbly at the ribboned stumps of its fingers, worn away from digging free of the earth.

"Speak! What are the Vistani to you?" they all asked in sepulchral tones.

The man's gaze sank to the ground as the story formed in his head. "They came yesterday, to my house in Rivalis, and demanded that I treat one of their tribe: Radovan Radanavich — that man there. "Van Richten pointed a trembling finger at the raven-haired Vistana, who lay in a heap beside Tasha's scored, crimsoned haunches. "But he was too sick. I couldn't save him."

Van Richten's throat constricted as the memories focused. "He was the son of their leader. She accused me of letting him die, and she threatened to curse me. I told them they could have anything of mine if they would withhold their terrible powers. And when I awoke this morning, I found that they had chosen to take my son!" The doctor halted, swallowing his rage like a shard of broken glass.

"Old Belandolf — my neighbor — saw them go west," he finally growled. "I've chased them all day, but they're faster than I expected. "More zombies lumbered into the simmering circle of faerie fire, which now outshone the dwindling embers of cloth on the torch, and he could hear the graceless shuffle of even more approaching.

"The Vistani do not travel the roads," intoned the raspy chorus. "They travel the Mists. Most likely they are in Barovia by now, for they are Strahd von Zarovich's toadies, and he grants them asylum."

"Barovia? But that must be four or five days'ride from here."

"For them it is not an hour's walk."

"Then my son is lost!" moaned Van Richten.

"Most certainly," returned the manifold voice of Azalin. "So, how would you avenge yourself, if you could? "

"I — "He paused, unprepared. "I don't know, but I'd figure something out."

"Would you. . murder them? "

"I am a doctor. I don't know how to kill anything! I. . I hoped to simply steal back my son. I may have seen more than forty winters, but I can still move quite stealthily."

"You cannot even follow the Vistani at a distance, let alone approach them unnoticed," retorted the undead assembly. Still others were arriving; there must be twenty or thirty of them now.

Van Richten felt a prickle of irritation. "How can I know what to do when I haven't done something before. Without knowledge, one can learn only through experience — "

"And thus are foolish mages killed."

"I'm not a fool, I'm a desperate father! Besides, Lord, I learn quickly, and as a doctor I am sure that knowledge is power."

The forest echoed with the throaty laughter of desiccated vocal cords; the doctor felt spiny icicles form in the pit of his stomach. "Indeed, Van Richten, it is the purest power, but one must wield it only when one has acquired it."

Van Richten blustered with ill-acted bravado and claimed, "I am here, after all!"

"Well said. I am of a mind to help you to your revenge, for I cannot tolerate the devil Strahd's gypsy poachers in my lands. Besides, it will be interesting to see if this dead Vistana of yours can guide you through the Mists."

"You can restore his life?" cried the doctor with sudden hope and awe. "That would be perfect! Surely the Vistani will return my boy if Radovan is returned to them!"

"I did not say I would restore his life. . "

The chorus began to whisper, first in unison and then in dizzying counter-rhythms that blended into an acidic hiss. Ebony coils of smoke belched from their mouths and slithered across the ground, coalescing into a shiny, scaly cord that wormed its way into Radovan's mouth in search of his unbeating heart. When the ebony tip curled and sank between his lips, the chanting subsided and Radovan's eyes fluttered open. He wobbled to his feet and stood crookedly, for his spine had snapped when Tasha had fallen. The youth's slack-jawed, listing face was flushed with chalky blue, and his chestnut eyes rolled back, white, while his swollen tongue punched between his teeth and waved in the air as if it were lapping at the remains of the inky smoke that had animated him.

"Fetch the bridle of the horse," commanded Azalin's multitude.

Too numb to question, Van Richten stumbled to Tasha and knelt beside her still head. Her icy blue eye lay open wide in motionless terror. He stroked her jaw, shot with oozing sockets, and mumbled," I'm sorry, girl." A pang of guilt stabbed him as his hand caressed the velvety lip. Gently he unstrapped the bridle and slipped it off her muzzle.

"Put the bit into the mouth of the Vistana," ordered the voices.

Van Richten looked at Radovan, perplexed. "You want me to put the bridle on him? "

"Correct."

". . Will he not attack me? "

"By my will, no unliving thing may touch you this night." Van Richten squinted at Radovan, then at the mortified congregation. Finally, he scanned the darkness around him. "And what about the ghoulies in the bushes? "

"Your perceptions are sharp, Doctor. The blood hunters are indeed not undead. But all things in Darken, living or otherwise, are at my command and will not accost you. Now, obey me!"

"You have even that much power, Lord Azalin?" uttered Van Richten, stricken by the thought. "How do mortals possess such omnipotence? "

"Obey me!" commanded the multitude.

"Yes, Lord." Van Richten stood before Radovan and searched the lolling, dark irises; they returned his gaze in a cadence of movements, but no glimmer of sentience shimmered behind them — nothing except perhaps some instinctive craving for some forgotten thing, long gone. Gingerly, the doctor reached out, grasped Radovan's cold chin, and forced the bit of the bridle between his crusty lips, pinning back the wagging tongue. He slipped the muzzle strap over the top of Radovan's head and cinched it behind, letting the rest of the harness and reins dangle to the ground.

The deathly voice of Azalin instructed," Obey me! Hold this minion's reins and he will heed your commands. Learn if he can guide you through the Mists. Report to me, Van Richten, if you return."

Dr. Van Richten reluctantly took up the reins. "Radovan?" he whispered, but the gypsy made no reply.

"Radovan," he repeated, louder. "Take me to your people."

The zombie lingered a moment longer, then turned its back on the doctor and paused again.

"Radovan! Damn you, take me to your mother!" With that, the bridled, emaciated scout staggered forward, and as one, the undead mob turned and followed. Gray tentacles of mist embraced and drew them all into a blind fog, leaving the netherworld of faerie fire and blood hunters behind. Van Richten's walk among the dead stretched into a time-trapped phantasm, a shuffling nightmare in which his leaden feet slavishly ignored the constant, desperate urge to flee. There was little to see as he trudged squeamishly behind his ghoulish beast of burden, and all he could hear was the funereal shuffle of the lifeless herd, so he stared glumly at Radovan's broken back, unwillingly reliving the Vistana's last moments of life.

"I didn't kill you, Vistana," Van Richten asserted.

"Blood on my hands washes clean! Find your people," he growled. "Find them now?”

In response, a breeze swelled and broke the mists, swiftly scattering them to reveal the foothills of an unfamiliar, mountainous region. Van Richten searched the terrain around him and wondered at stark, keen-ridged peaks to the east, carving a jagged horizon in the starry sky. The heavens behind them were vaguely blue, portending morning's advance, but dawn was at least an hour off.

Slowly, the size of the undead horde around him dawned on Dr. Van Richten. A great host of them — perhaps a hundred! — stood by in a huge crescent. They gibbered with ravenous urgency while their mindless presence pressed against Azalin's invisible barrier, grasping for a seam with an unconscious, unliving will of their own. Only Radovan looked away from Van Richten, to the south, along a grassy road that led over a knoll. His tongue began to writhe under the bit of his bridle, rattling the metal rod against his yellowish teeth.

"You've found them, haven't you?" breathed Van Richten, and as if they understood his words, the legion of corpses turned and lumbered toward whatever lay over the ridge.

What to do! The undead would shred any living thing they found. What if a farm lay beyond the ridge? Even if the kidnappers were there, was this what he wanted? What if the zombies should attack Erasmus?

Van Richten dropped Radovan's reins and jostled through the moving throng of undead. They groaned hungrily at him, but let him pass. He crested the hill and looked down a short expanse, into a glade of poplars, where he spied the twinkle of a campfire. The leafy cover of the glade around the bivouac did little to hide the rounded roofs of three large wagons.

It was the Vistana caravan.

The undead mass lurched forward, grasping with their claws and grumbling in incoherent agitation, but as they neared the camp an alarm went up. From within the advancing mob, Van Richten watched the gypsies rush about, casting glittering dust into the air and making frantic gestures. Two dark-haired men swung thick staves at the first zombies to reach the camp, beating them to the ground. Another cadaver cast itself upon a defender and the two of them went down. The man began to scream as it bit into his shoulder. A young girl snatched up a heavy staff and jabbed it sharply against the ghoul's ragged skull, knocking the head from its shoulders. Meanwhile, the dead circled the encampment, but their inward progress halted as the gypsies completed a warding circle.

Sharp commands rose above the grunts and sighs of the thwarted zombies as they huddled on the perimeter. Van Richten sought their source and finally sighted a hunchbacked old woman. It was Madame Radanavich, rushing among her people, snapping out orders and reinforcing the perimeter with somatic hexes of her own. As he looked upon her frightened yet resolute face, Van Richten seethed in vexation. Without a plan, he parted the wall of undead and crossed the warding line. Two of the tribe moved to halt him, but fell back amazed when they recognized him.

"Madame Radanavich! Thief!" he charged.

"Dr. Van Richten!" gasped the wrinkled woman. "How came you to Barovia? Have you set these flesh-eaters upon us? "

"Where is my son? Give me my son!" he cried in answer.

Radanavich looked over the zombies, then back at Van Richten with hardened eyes. "No! The boy is forfeit by your own agreement and by your own incompetence."

"Return him to me or I'll — I'll unleash the dead upon you," the doctor threatened.

Two burly males seized the doctor, and the old Vistana laughed cruelly. "Your brainless minions cannot touch us, Van Richten," she sneered. "We know their ways better than you."

"I want my son, witch." Madame Radanavich hobbled up to the prisoner and gazed into his pale blue eyes. "We sold the giorgio child for fair profit. He now belongs to Baron Metus." She gestured to the east with her head. "If you want the child back, deal with him."

"Sold Erasmus?" gasped Van Richten. "Why, I will — I will — "He struggled against the rough hands that held him. The old Vistana laughed.

"What will you do, little doctor? Your companions can't reach us, and it's a wonder you even found us — " She paused and frowned. "How did you find us? Only the Vistani can travel the Mists."

In spite of his predicament, Van Richten realized it was his turn to smile. "Radovan showed me the way," he replied, grinning enigmatically.

"Radovan?" she sputtered, taken aback. "My Radovan?" She began to cast worried glances toward the undead. "Dr. Van Richten, where is my son? "

"Call him," whispered Van Richten coolly. "Call your son."

"No!"

"Then I will. Radovan! Radovan, come to me!"

The dead Vistana pressed to the fore and halted at the warding circle. The gypsies who held Van Richten cried out and released him, backing away from the sight of their lifeless fellow, who weaved like a broken doll, a horse's bridle in his mouth. Madame Radanavich wailed and wrung her hands, moaning," Black gods, black gods, my poor son!"

Van Richten rushed to Radovan, seized his reins, and snarled," Here's your son, witch! Don't you want him back? I've brought him for you!" The doctor flipped the reins over the dead gypsy's head and began to pull him across the invisible barrier. Radovan's feet remained planted where they were, but his body folded unnaturally from his severed spine — he seemed to look at Van Richten as if to plead not to be pulled so, but the man tugged harder. Finally, with a stumble, the zombie crossed the line.

"He is inside the circle!" yelled a young Vistana girl. Now Radovan staggered past Van Richten and moved toward his mother.

"Stop!" she cried, making a sign against her son, but he continued toward her.

Van Richten caught the reins and held them, and Radovan paused. "Tell me where to find my son!" demanded the doctor, and the entire army of undead pronounced it with him. "Where is Erasmus?" they asked in unison.

Madame Radanavich's expression changed from fear to horror and finally to fury. She pointed two fingers and a thumb at the doctor and hissed," I curse you, Rudolph Van Richten, with all the power I have to lay you low! Live you always among monsters, and see everyone you love fall beneath their claws, starting with your son!"

Erasmus is the slave of Baron Metus, and he will be forever. "She laughed hysterically and cried," The baron is a vampire!"

"No!" cried Van Richten in horror. "No! A vampire! NO!" Hatred burst his heart, transporting him beyond reason, and he blathered," You curse me, Madame Radanavich? You curse me? I say, feel the power of that oath redoubled upon you — I curse you! I will have my son back, as you have yours!" He threw down the reins and cried," Go to her, Radovan!"

Van Richten turned upon all the terrified gypsies and screamed," I curse you all! Living dead take you as you have taken my son!" To the zombies he bellowed," Take them! Take them all!"

The army of undead writhed on the circle, pressing against it with inflamed determination, until one of them suddenly broke through where Radovan had crossed. Then another penetrated the ward on the other side of camp. Screams of alarm went up among the tribe as the circle collapsed and the mass of voracious corpses swarmed over the camp. Some of the living futilely swung weapons or tried to flee before collapsing under the rush of starving, oblivious carnivores. The Vistani's terrified wails rang through the countryside as the ghouls chewed upon their raw human flesh. The stench of fresh meat thickened the air, and slowly it penetrated Van Richten's delirium of rage — he gaped in shock as Radovan tore the bit from his mouth and began to devour his own mother before her bulging eyes.

"Stop!" he shouted, but the feeding frenzy was long beyond control. "Stop!" he bawled again, then ran from the butchery, leaving the undead to finish their human repast with smacking lips and licking tongues. He careened down a footpath, away from the carnage, crashed into some bushes, and lay there retching in utter misery. Soon his dry heaves gave way to sobbing, and he wept until dawn.

"I am a murderer," he confessed woefully," and I will never be the same."

When the sun began to cast its beams among the peaks of the mountains, brightening their snowcaps with blue-white radiance, Van Richten sat up and wiped his eyes and mouth. There, in the wilds of Barovia, far from home, he realized that he had survived the night. It was more terrible than he could have imagined, yet still he lived.

Dr. Van Richten looked toward the east. Somewhere out there, his son remained the prisoner of a vampire. It was said that those creatures must sleep by day, and if Erasmus had somehow survived the night as well, perhaps Van Richten might still find him! Weakly he stood, then staggered off to climb the rocky slopes. He would find this Baron Metus, and nothing would daunt him, ever again!

It is with some measure of trepidation and yet infinite resolve that I, Rudolph van Richten, begin this journal as I begin a new life — if "life" I can call it. In truth, I am more like an undead creature, for all that I knew of life is gone, and I am most assuredly a foul murderer.

Madame Radanavich's tribe is slaughtered by my hand, for I set doom upon them like vicious dogs upon a fallen beast. My son, whose rescue was my only chance for vindication — for redemption itself — is dead, again by my hand, for he was transformed into a monster by the vampire Metus, and it was I who drove the killing stake through his tender heart. My beloved wife Ingrid is dead, and still again I am to blame, for I threatened Baron Metus before fleeing Barouia, and he preceded me to Darkon and vented his wrath upon her!

I should have died that night on the Ludendorf Road, when the blood hunters attacked, and perhaps I did, for all that is left of me is hatred and malice, which inflame my spirit beyond mortal limits! Because of Metus, I have dipped my hands into blood whose taint shall never leave me! I am forever lost to the night, belonging only among those whom I would obliterate with my own bare hands!

If Death will allow me to be its champion but once — if I may only live to see Baron Metus delivered into everlasting darkness — I will gladly yield what "life" remains in me. I'll make no claim to heroism in the assassination of the fiend, but if even one person is spared my agony by the destruction of Metus, then I may rest in peace. .

Rudolph van Richten

Rivalis, Darkon

King's Calendar, 735