P. Elrod - I, Strahd, The War against Azalin

I doubted it would be that simple.

Magical books were far too few, though, and none, save one, appeared to have any information in regard to my plight. The exception was the book Alek Gwilym, my long dead second-in-command, brought me that final year before everything changed. He had never approved of my studies in the Art, probably a wise foresight of his since it had later indirectly led to his death at my hands.

In that book I'd finally found what I had been searching so long for: A Spell For Obtaining the Heart's Desire. Ideal-except I wasn't far enough along in my studies to be able to read it. That had come to me when Death, summoned by my anger, frustration, and despair, made its visitation and offer, and we sealed our hellish pact. I'd gotten everything I'd wanted, but each desire had its own terrible price.

Age ceased to be a problem for me-though I often had to feed off gutter leavings and luckless peasants to stay alive. Sergei ceased to be my rival-after I had murdered him with the blade of a Ba'al Verzi assassin. And Tatyana became mine-for a few moments of bliss until she…

It is indeed true that one should be very careful with one's wishes, as they are likely to manifest themselves in a most unpleasant manner.

Since then I hadn't opened that particular book.

Common sense told me it was now no different from any of the other magic books in my possession; it had only been used as a tool to lure me into this velvet-barred cage. I was a prisoner with nothing left to offer Death. Possibly I did have one thing of value to bargain with: myself, my life, or the emptiness that was my life. I was reluctant to ask, lest I end up in a worse situation than the one I presently endured.

Was I afraid? I would be a fool not to be.

But this night, the longest in the turning of the year, when powers are afoot and endings and beginnings are all one, with trembling fingers, I carefully opened the book that had started it all. And as before, I flung it across the room with a roar of frustration.

It was unreadable. Useless. Every single page in it had gone black.

Somewhere behind me I heard that damned thing laughing as it had on the night of our bargain. I did not bother to turn, knowing there would be nothing to see. There never was. Death was very good at hiding its face from me.

Midnight drew closer, not the midnight which was marked by any clock, but the true midpoint of the year, the true turning when its wheel is precisely half in one direction and half in another. I launched from my study, consumed by rage and stepped through my bedchamber windows to the courtyard overlook, wrapped in my thickest cloak against the cruel mountain air. The night was still, holding its breath for the next movement in the turn of the year's wheel.

The shoulders of Mount Ghakis were also cloaked, but they were white, not black. There might be a fresh snowfall before morning, further obscuring the road to the castle. It was part of the castle's defenses, helping unwelcome visitors to maintain their distance.

The most formidable of the castle's defenses was the thick ring of poisonous fog surrounding not only its base, but also the underlying village of Barovia as well. No person drawing air could tolerate it for very long upon entering its choking grip, which remained in place, day or night, a significant discouragement to anyone. No one could get through without my express permission and invitation or the antidote-something I fashioned soon after its appearance. Should the unlikely happen and they enter, they would find themselves at the mercies of my various guardians throughout the castle. I could trust them to keep invaders occupied until nightfall when I would have a chance to assess the situation myself.

I turned from the fog drifting around the outside base of the curtain wall and spread my cloaked arms wide, assuming the shape of a bat and taking to the cold heavy air to make a wide circle of the castle. Below me lurked the ring of fog a dozen feet or more high around the base, making the castle seem to float in the clouds. Veering from it, I struck out over the wide pale valley. The snowfall there was smooth, boasting no human trails except for the Old Svalich Road, which was also unmarred by human tread. A dark, thick ribbon marked the River Ivlis. Ice ran along its banks, but not in the center where the flow was still strong.

I had a restless feeling I needed to be someplace, but no clear idea on just where that place might be. I am not often given to such, but this time it kept growing stronger, especially the closer I got to the river. I shifted to the left, toward the lead gray plain that was the Tser Pool, frozen like the river at the edges but not in the middle. The flow of water from the Tser Falls above was too great to allow it.

Still flying, I crossed the river just below the pool- free flowing water is an anathema to me only if I am in direct contact with it-and worked my way along over a dense patch of forest until it was broken up by a narrow road that branched off from the Svalich. Just as it approached the pool, it ceased to be a road at all and devolved into a barely visible trail roughly paralleling the pool. On the right, a bluff of land rose sharply up from the valley floor, the beginnings of this spur of Mount Ghakis. On the left, a wide clearing bordered the pool.

I coasted low and came to land in the field, timing my transformation so my booted feet sank first into the untouched snow as I stretched to fill out my man's form again.

Silence enveloped me as I wrapped my cloak about my body. I knew the deep silence of my crypt, and the lack of sound within my own mind when completely concentrating on some task. This was the windless silence of a winter forest, as though the trees themselves held their breath. No bird stirred in the still air; even the lap of water from the pool was hushed as if it feared to disturb the dead, lifeless air of the night.

The compulsion that drew me seemed strongest here. I looked about very carefully, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Trees, snow, water… and mist. It was very fine at first, but gathering strength even as I watched, growing thicker until a white roiling wall blocked off all sign of the trail.

Midnight, or nearly so.

Then the silence finally broke. I heard the jingling of a bridle, the muffled clop of a horse's hooves in the snow. It came from the direction of the Mists. Rooted in place by this, I eagerly watched to see what would happen. Was I to finally witness one of the invaders entering my land? Might I be able to dart through their portal while it was still open?

Louder came the hoof beats, cantering. Was the rider mad? He must have been so to be going so fast in that white murk. Louder. Faster. A full gallop. Unconscious of the gesture, I reached for my sword. It was not there, of course. I hadn't felt the need to wear one for decades, but old habits linger long.

He was nearly upon me. I stepped out of his way, to the right toward the woods, and barely in time. A dapple gray horse burst out of the Mists, breath smoking, hooves throwing up clods of snow, the rider hooting and shouting like a lunatic as he guided the animal in a great circle about the clearing before reining in. He stopped only a few yards away, facing me. His horse, catching my scent, reared and whinnied in frightened protest, but he snapped a command in a language I did not know and his mount settled again, clearly unhappy with its ears flat to its head, but under control.

The rider, a young man with the face of a cocky devil, regarded me a moment with eyes as black and hard as cut onyx, then nodded.

"Hail, Strahd, Lord of Barovia!" he called.

I was quite thoroughly dumbfounded, but had the self-control not to show it. "Hail, Vistana," I called in return, for that was what he was, a sight I had not beheld in many, many years.