James Lowder - Knight of the Black Rose

The banshee closest to Soth threw back her head and laughed. Her twelve sisters picked up the cackle. They whirled about the large entry hall that served as Soth’s throne room. Their howling echoed from the stone walls of the circular hall, up the twin stairs that climbed to the balcony, even up to the vaulted ceiling. Anyone within a mile of the keep could have heard the terrifying cacophony through the hall’s shattered doors, but few mortals ever ventured close to Dargaard Keep and the banshees’ wailing would drive even the fiercest creatures from the rocky cliffs.

A banshee moved closer to Soth, her fine-featured visage twisted with hatred. The gods penned the book of your punishment in the blood of two murdered wives and the tears of your own dead child.

The banshee was close enough that Soth could have reached out and struck her if he’d wished. Her face was fleetingly that of a beautiful elven woman. Though her eyes were pale, a slight hint of purest blue shone in them. The wild hair wreathing the creature’s head had been golden long ago. Even the banshee’s lithe movements belied a grace that was granted to elves alone. That flash of beauty passed quickly, though, and the elfmaid was once more a spirit without substance, a luminescent, perverted image of the lovely being she had been.

Your fate is written in that book, Soth of Dargaard, the banshee hissed. It is set down in those pages. You will know treachery!

The ranting of the unquiet spirit had little effect upon Lord Soth, for he no longer felt the sting of conscience or the unsettling fear of the future that plagued some men. The conflagration that had long ago blackened the walls of Dargaard Keep had taken his life. Those on Krynn who’d had the misfortune to cross paths with the lord of Dargaard called him a “death knight,” and the title carried more terror than that of ghost or ghoul or banshee.

“No such book exists-on Krynn or in the heavens. I have made my own destiny.” Soth dismissed the banshees with a wave of his hand. “I gladly take both credit and blame for all the evil I have done.”

And you have done great evil, the nearest banshee wailed. For you were first dark in the light’s hollow, expanding like a stain, a cancer.

Another added her inhuman voice. For you were the shark in the slowed waters beginning to move.

A third and a fourth sang their affronts over the words of the others. For you were the notched head of a snake, sensing forever warmth and form; the inexplicable death in the crib, the long house in betrayal.

The words circled back on themselves, weaving a deafening volume of infamy. At the point when the sounds became an unintelligible scream, a single banshee’s voice rose over the others. For you were once the bravest of the Knights of Solamnia, the most noble in the Order of the Rose. Your heroic deeds were told in song throughout Krynn, from the dwarven halls of Thorbardin to the elf-wrought spires of forest-cloaked Silvanost, from the sacred glades of Sancrist Isle to the temples of Istar’s kingpriest.

Soth scowled beneath the helmet he wore. “You do your task badly,” he said in a voice that sounded as if it came from deep within the earth. “Paladine made you banshees and sent you to haunt my castle. Every night for seven times fifty years, you have been the Father of Good’s accusing mouth, telling me of my failings.”

Suddenly the death knight stood. His ancient armor did not creak. His long cape swirled behind him, but did so in absolute silence. “Your vapid accusations bore me. Only memories cause me pain, and your prattle does nothing to return the most welcome past to life in my mind.”

One of the banshees screamed. The twelve other spirits took up the screech, adding their own weird voices to the chorus. You desire to remember your sins? You must be growing to enjoy the pain! the spirits wailed. We are undone even in this!

“I desire only diversion,” the death knight said at last. He gestured to something hidden in the shadows next to his throne. “After all, that is why I brought Kitiara here.”

With surprising gentleness, Soth pulled aside a shredded, bloodstained cloak. There, half hidden in the mist now drifting in patches across the floor, was the corpse of Kitiara Uth Matar.

Impatience washed over Soth again. “I will have you with me again soon,” he said to the corpse, his voice strained. He bent down and caressed a bloodless cheek. “You will be able to break the pall hanging over this ruined keep, dark heart.”

You will tire of her as you did your other wives, the banshees began. Her end will be-

“Enough!” Soth rumbled, and the banshees backed away. The death knight looked around the room, noting the weak sunlight that bled through the ruined doors, the lengthening shadows that crept across the scorched hall. Those things, along with the mist that was growing thicker with each passing moment, told Soth the day was near its end. “Caradoc has been gone for hours. He will rue this delay!”

Perhaps the battle between the Dark Queen and Raistlin ended before Caradoc could capture the soul, a banshee offered softly. Both Takhisis and Kitiara’s half-brother have reason to keep her in the Abyss.

Clasping his mailed hands together before him, Soth paced across the throne room. His footfalls made no sound on the stones. Neither did his boots stir the mist that curled in through the shattered doors and cloaked the blackened floor. The banshees withdrew into the shadowy corners of the hall as the death knight made his way to the stairs and began to climb. “I go to look for signs of the battle’s outcome,” he proclaimed without looking at the spirits. “Let no one disturb the highlord’s body.”

No windows allowed sunlight entrance to the keep’s hallways, but the death knight could see quite clearly in the darkness. He saw the ancient stone walls and the cracks climbing them like ivy. Even a small rat-thin from starvation and deaf from exposure to the banshees’ constant keening-that ventured meekly from a hole did not go unnoticed. The creature fled when Soth got close, driven away by the unnatural cold radiating from the undead knight.

Stiffly Soth marched down the pitch-dark corridors, thinking aloud about suitable punishments for his tardy seneschal. “Perhaps I should change his clothes to rags,” Soth said. “He was a fop in life, more concerned about brocades than blades, and death has not changed him a bit.”

A warped door on rusted hinges marked the end of the hallway. It groaned long and loud as Soth shoved it open. The room beyond was small but seemed the larger for the gaping hole where the wall had crumbled long ago. Playful breezes swept in from the breach, stirring up the dust and dirt that covered the floor. Because of the view it afforded, this place had been a guard post once. Dargaard Keep no longer had real need of sentries. The reputation of the castle’s lord was more effective at keeping people away than the strongest, dwarven-built walls. Nevertheless, a lone figure walked a post in the rubble-strewn room.

“Ah, Sir Mikel,” Soth said distractedly. “Stand aside.”

The armored figure ceased its pacing. Sir Mikel’s rusty armor was as ancient as Soth’s and hung loosely on his skeletal body. Scabrous yellow ribs shone through the gaps in the knight’s breastplate, and his worn boots hissed and thumped across the floor as he walked. An eyeless, fleshless skull stared out from a raised visor. As the skeletal warrior studied him, Soth wondered if some tiny part remained of the knight’s soul. Mikel, like all thirteen of the Solamnic Knights who had aided Soth in his crimes, had been damned to serve the death knight for eternity. The flesh had abandoned their skeletons long ago, and their individuality had fled them as well. Now, unless Soth gave them orders to follow, the knights ceaselessly walked the posts where they had died.