James Lowder - Knight of the Black Rose

Satisfied with the stitchwork, Magda set about sewing the rest of the hem. After that, she would patch the few holes in the gown. It wouldn’t be the type of dress to make men follow her with their eyes, but that didn’t matter to her anymore. In her present circumstances, such concerns as romance or beauty seemed frivolous. One needn’t worry about turning heads if keeping one’s own was a matter left unresolved.

Azrael stuffed the last of the bread into his mouth. “You’re not like the other Vistani I’ve run into,” the dwarf mumbled absently. “Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. I mean, it’s obvious you’re not a spy for the count.”

“Hardly,” Magda replied, not looking up from her work.

Strahd’s treatment of the woman on the way to the tower had been cold at best, openly contemptuous at times. When Azrael had noted that they were short on supplies, the count had led them on a detour to a lonely farmhouse near the fork of the River Luna. There Magda and the dwarf were ordered to present themselves as Strahd’s agents. The peasants knew that anyone possessing the lord’s seal had to be granted whatever they requested; all the pair had to do was ask for the food, clothing, and weapons they required. When Magda balked at the notion of taking food from people who likely had little to spare, Strahd flew into a rage. Only Soth’s presence tempered the vampire’s wild anger.

At last done with the repairs, Magda turned her back on the dwarf and shrugged the dress on over her shoulders. She let the blanket drop and smoothed the red cloth over the curve of her hips. When she turned around again, the dwarf was eyeing her lustily. She reached for the cudgel that lay at her feet.

“No need for that,” the dwarf said quickly. “Sorry if you don’t like the way I was looking at you, but… well, you are quite attractive for a human.”

Magda left the weapon where it lay. After all, if Azrael threatened her, she always had her silver dagger close at hand. She’d moved it from her sack to her boot after the battle with the gibbering guardian; Vistani superstitions were clear on such matters. Only a fool ignored the prompting of such a warning.

Feeling secure, she packed her needle and thread in her burlap sack. Along with a small loaf of bread and a jug of sweet cider, the sewing items were all she’d asked of the terrified old woman who lived in the cottage they visited. Azrael had demanded all the food he could carry, as well as blankets, a new tunic, and a pack for his new belongings.

The Vistani tossed the colorful but ill-gotten blanket she’d used to cover herself back to the werecreature. “Thank you for the compliment and the use of this.”

“Why do you think the club’s so special, if you don’t mind me asking?” the dwarf asked without prelude. After Magda explained the tale of Kulchek the Wanderer, Azrael snorted. “If that was the cavern he visited, then his skull was probably stacked with the rest. The blob with all the eyes must have eaten him.”

Magda refused to rise to the bait. “Strahd said the thing returns from the dead somehow after it is killed. What makes you think Kulchek didn’t kill it before?”

“And the portal that was supposed to be there?”

The woman waved the question away with a flick of her hand. “Perhaps there was a portal there once, but the magic sustaining it fell away.”

Momentarily rebuffed, the dwarf turned to rummage through the basket of food again. “Your great hero left his special club behind, eh? Doesn’t seem likely to me. I mean, if it was magic, he’d have taken it with him.”

Planting her hands on her hips, Magda said flatly, “You saw what the cudgel did to the guardian of the portal. Perhaps I should test it out on a shape-changer.”

Azrael laughed, a growling sound that made Magda wonder if the dwarf again was transforming into his badger form. “Magic sticks’ll do you no good against things like me,” he said when the laughing fit had subsided. “Oh, maybe that cudgel’s more than just a bit of wood, but don’t rely on it.”

Warming to the subject, Azrael got to his feet and straightened the brocatelle tunic he’d taken from the peasants. The heavy, colorful yarns that made up the garment lent the dwarf the look of a court jester. “Take the lout who ran into me on the road near Barovia village the other night,” he began. “I hid in the bushes at the side of the road, waiting for an easy mark. When this boyar came riding along, I leaped out looking like a half-badger-teeth and claws and all that. Does he run? Does he draw a sword? No, he whips out this pendant and waves it at me.”

A fit of laughter seized the dwarf, and he doubled over in mirth. “ ‘Oh,’ I growls, ‘don’t do that no more. You’ll make me hurt myself laughing at you.’ ”

Magda sat in shocked silence. In a daze, she rummaged through her small sack and withdrew the pendant she had sold to Herr Grest the night Soth had attacked her tribe. She’d told the boyar that the little piece of jewelry possessed the power to shield the person wearing it from creatures of the night. It’s actual powers were much less impressive: It made the person wearing it invisible to mindless undead, creatures like zombies or living skeletons, things without free will or human intelligence.

“Hey, you’ve got one just like his,” Azrael said, pointing at the drop of silver on the end of the chain.

“It’s the same pendant,” she corrected. “I got it from that boyar’s kin. The villagers are blaming that murder on my tribe.”

The dwarf chuckled. “They won’t have many warm bodies to put on trial after Strahd gets through with your lot.”

“I won’t be one of them,” the Vistani insisted as she slipped the pendant on. “Once we cross into Gundarak, there’s no way I’m ever coming back to Barovia.” She packed the rest of her belongings into her sack. “By the way, are you wearing that motley tunic all the way to Gundar’s castle? His guards would see you coming ten leagues away.”

“The count says there’s some old armor in the basement.” The dwarf picked at a loose thread of azure yarn. “I’ll get a mail shirt and use this as padding.”

“I wouldn’t trust Strahd’s word on anything,” Magda murmured under her breath.

Azrael groaned. “But you trust Soth? At least Strahd is open about his plans. You can be sure he will do as he says.” Spreading his arms wide, the dwarf added, “Do you know what this place used to be? The fortress of a local nobleman. When the noble stole tax money, the count had everyone in his household killed. Was it a surprise? Certainly not.”

“What’s your point?”

A wide smile played across Azrael’s face, making his muttonchop sideburns bristle like whiskers. “A predictable person is a lot less dangerous than one who tosses surprises at you.”

Magda slung her pack over her shoulder and took a last look around the musty tower room. “You’re as good at giving advice and sharing your ‘wisdom’ as any Vistani fortune-teller I’ve ever met. Do you ever follow it yourself?”

Azrael didn’t answer for a time. After he finished repacking his food, he noted, “If I followed half the advice I give, do you think I’d be here myself?”

Caradoc was finally growing accustomed to seeing the world at a tilt. His head still lolled on his shoulder, unsupported by his broken neck, but in the time since Soth had attacked him, the ghost had become less aware of the odd angle at which he viewed things. At times his mind compensated for the injury, straightening the landscape and the horizon he saw. Then there were the minutes and hours when Caradoc couldn’t even walk because of the vertigo that gripped him, times when he couldn’t tell up from down. Luckily, those attacks were growing less frequent, and the ghost was certain that, given time, his mind would adjust.