James Lowder - Knight of the Black Rose

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 was worthy of a domain, Soth never considered heeding the words of his goodly reflection. Instead, he raised his hand and uttered a word of magic that would surely end the conflict.

Dark fingers of energy snaked from Lord Soth’s fingers toward the silver-clad knight. Before they hit their target, though, Peradur threw himself in front of the blast. His speed was amazing, all the more so for his armor. The youth took the attack full in the chest, the black bands staining his white armor and blotting out the holy symbols painted there. The energy insinuated itself through the hole hammered into Peradur’s breastplate and found the boy’s noble heart. As the fingers seized that heart, he cried out, not in fear or pain, but in a humble, reverential plea to Paladine.

Tears in his eyes for his wounded wife and dead child, the mortal Soth cradled the youth in his arms. “You have lost,” he said to the death knight. “Thus you have made your new domain.”

Most of the crowd bowed their heads and turned away, becoming pale and insubstantial as they scattered into the tent city. Likewise, the bustling tent city became silent and ghostly, fading before the death knight’s eyes. Clerics came forward to bear Isolde and Peradur away, while thirteen knights-Sir Mikel and the others who had followed Soth in the time before the Cataclysm-surrounded their silver-clad lord and consoled him. They walked in slow procession toward the rose-red walls of Dargaard Keep.

As the small group entered the keep, a pall fell over the land. Even Soth felt the chill that swept around him, breaking up the misty images of the tent city, scouring the rocky ground clear of signs of habitation or commerce. Then, as if shrugging on clothes of mourning, Dargaard Keep itself grew dark. Its rosy walls became black and crumbling. The pennants disappeared from the towers, and the sounds of music and laughter were replaced by the mournful keening of banshees.

The death knight glanced up into the night sky that spread suddenly over the ruined keep. What he saw there told him that he was not back on Krynn, though the castle looming before him resembled Dargaard. Only one moon hung in the velvet-black heavens: Nuitari, the orb of evil magic. Had he been on Krynn, Lunitari and Solinari-the red and the white moons-would certainly have been there to represent the Balance.