Sixth Moon, 351
"Lady Ilona, how can you be so blind? Sergei I can understand; he's been tottering around in a lovesick haze for the last year. But you should be able to see the folly of it."
"Whether it was a mistake on Tatyana's part or not, time will tell, but your reaction has made her and Sergei very upset. And on the day before their wedding, too."
I'd lost all desire to continue on the subject. "If they're so upset, then go and comfort them. In fact, I think you would best serve the court if you confined your concerns to the upcoming ceremony rather than this matter. There must be much for you to do yet."
"It is being seen to, my lord," she said coolly.
That voice again. I was hearing it more and more often, and each time it grated harder on the ear than the time before. I hated the sound of it, and the gods help me, I was beginning to hate its source, but Ilona returned my look, stare for stare, without wavering. There were damned few people who could still do that these days.
"Do you really expect me to stand to the side and condone foolish behavior in my own house?" I finally demanded.
"The girl was only being generous - "
"She had no right to throw away her jewels on some pig of a peasant! By the gods, those were the ones I gave to her!"
"Meaning they were hers to give in turn."
"Meaning I entrusted them to her care as part of the family heritage. They belonged to my mother and hers before her and so on. Tatyana might have been unaware of their true value, but not Sergei. Yet instead of stopping her, he publicly approved of it. The whelp has no idea the door he's left open."
"I'm sure arrangements can be made to get them back - "
"Of course they can, but that's not the point.
She shouldn't have debased herself so, particularly before the rabble. Now she won't be able to put a foot outside the gates without some muck-covered beggar crawling all over her. Everything will be recovered, rest assured, but I'll see to it that the filth that laid hands on her is flayed alive for his insult."
"It was but a remembrance of childhood play - "
"If grabbing her and beating her head against the floor in some sty of a tavern is play, then she's well rid of the motherless animal."
"But until she comes to that realization, how do you think she'll feel when she finds out what's happened to her old friend? Do you think it will please her to hear of it? Will she respect you for causing injury where she sought to bring healing?"
My hands had balled into fists, and I was hard-pressed not to use them. Gods, but I wanted to smash something, anything or anyone, just then. Instead, I backed away and forced them open. "Very well," I said in a much quieter tone.
"I'll have someone buy back her jewels and cause no harm to the - the... man."
Her lips parted for another comment, then snapped shut. She knew when she was ahead.
When she'd gone, I threw myself into the chair before my overloaded study table and spent a very long time glaring at nothing. Anger such as I'd never known before burned through me from the bones outward. I felt that if I held on long enough to the chair arms, they would kindle into flame from the heat.
Much as I loved Tatyana, today she'd exasperated me beyond ail patience by giving her jewels away to some begging brute out of her past. He'd been just cunning enough to compare her good fortune in life to his own lot and then played upon the guilt he'd created in her. She'd turned everything over to him without a second's thought. It was the most idiotic and irresponsible act I'd ever heard of, but Lady Ilona was right. Any reprisal from me against the peasant would serve no constructive purpose. The damage was done.
But I was still angry.
I could talk to the girl, but instinctively shied away from that ploy. Earlier, she'd been so enmeshed in her good mood for helping her old "friend" she'd been unable to really hear me. There was no reason to expect that she'd be any more receptive now. She was yet too inexperienced in the realities of the world to understand why I was so furious over what she'd done.
Tatyana needed someone to... guide her. Sergei was hardly the one to do it, though. For all my talks with him, he seemed unable to grasp that generosity was a dangerous liability. Had he entered the priesthood as he should have done, his pet charities would have been properly regulated by time-honored and proven checks and balances. As it was, the income from his own lands was constantly being drained away, and I could see the time arriving when he'd be living off charity himself.
My charity.
Of course, I'd support him. It would not do for my enemies to see a Von Zarovich in rags and somehow contrive to use him as a weapon against me. But, while I trusted Sergei to be too loyal and smart to be turned to obvious betrayal, I knew there were other, more subtle ways to create a traitor. He was still a pious man and a stranger to deception. As went the axiom, so went Sergei; he was a sheep vulnerable to any wolf who could put on a kindly face.
And Tatyana... gods, if Sergei fell into some waiting trap, then what might happen to her?
After the wedding, they were planning to travel back to our ancestral lands so Tatyana might meet the rest of the family. I couldn't rely on my brother Sturm to keep things under control; from his letters to me, it was apparent that he thought Sergei could do no wrong. Bad enough, but the most intolerable thing of all was the simple fact that Tatyana would no longer be here. I might never see her again.
Oh, I could persuade them to stay easily enough. Their affection for me would respond to a well-placed word or two. But would that be any better? Op to now, I'd been just able to bear seeing the two of them together, even steal a moment when I could forget about Sergei and pretend that she loved me only. But after the wedding... knowing that tomorrow night she would be in his bed, knowing that she'd be finding a virgin's delight in his clumsy maulings... it sickened and disgusted me beyond all measure. How much longer could I continue to hide the truth from her?
Not long.
But I'd have to, perhaps forever.
As surrender had been, black despair was once an alien concept to me. Now I was as familiar with both as with my own features, for there they were in my mirror, gaping back at me every day.
*****
The sun was well down and my rooms dark and close despite the tall, open windows of the bed chamber. I paced over to them, searching for and not finding any breath of fresh air. Only very rarely on this side of Mount Ghakis did the wind drop away to nothing, and it usually meant a storm was coming. Stepping through the windows onto the courtyard overlook, I peered up at the night sky but saw no sign of threatening clouds yet.
All was quiet within the keep. I could just make out the shadow shapes of the guards on the western curtain wall. Theirs was a soft enough job these days.
Castle Ravenloft was one of the best located and most nearly impregnable fortresses I'd ever seen. Alek was of the opinion that the only way it could ever be taken was from within, and it was a necessary point of pride for him that such would never happen while he was steward.
He'd returned from his latest ambassadorial tour several days ago to resume his duties, making sure all was running smoothly for the wedding. He was still not happy about the many guests that had come crowding through the gates in the last week. For all his searching and sniffing, he'd not turned up anything conclusively suspicious about any particular house and had taken this as a personal failure. For my own part, I was satisfied that if anyone was actively plotting mischief, he or she would see that Alek was there to block the plans.
If they were wise, they would cancel them.
The air being the same inside as out, I returned to the study and lighted some candles. The books Alek had brought back six moons ago had proven to be highly unusual and uncommonly advanced. Most of the lore in them was quite incomprehensible, and that which I did understand was... dark. I suspected that the original writer of the books had participated in a number of ceremonies that would have met with disapproval from most of the magically talented. Certain diagrams, ingredients, and even the sound of the words of power made me decidedly uncomfortable, but the spells themselves were fascinating.
And frustrating. During this time I experimented relentlessly on the most simple of them and met with failure again and again. As for the more complex spells, I was unable to even translate their titles; the language was outside my magical vocabulary. The reason behind this was to prevent any overly eager apprentices from jumping ahead in their education, thus heading off a disaster before its occurrence. The popular legend I'd heard about this concerned a student who attempted to summon some form of invisible servant. When it came, the thing was invisible all right - and rather hungry. Suffice it to say, the student lived just long enough to deeply regret his precipitate act.
The candles burned low and began to gutter. The shadows jumped as each flame struggled to remain alive against the flood of melted wax. Another night was slipping away from me. My last night. My last chance to have her.
Blackness surged up and clouded my brain for a time. This had happened before and was now becoming more frequent. I had thought it was simple illness before realizing it was but another part of my growing despair. Secret and safe in some hidden cache within me, the blackness was always ready to rush forth and resume gnawing at my soul like a starved monster. It was a long-suppressed hatred toward Sergei, toward the life I was trapped in, toward life itself.
Shuddering, I pushed it back. Time was short. I could waste none of it wallowing in such a useless self-indulgence.
I bent over my book and tried to draw sense from it once again.
Two of the candles succumbed and went out at the same time, casting the page in darkness just as some of the words were becoming clear in my mind. Impatiently, I grabbed up the book to take it to better light. The pages were stuck together now, probably by some errant blob of wax. I parted them. Carefully. The words - suddenly crystalline - jumped out at me.
A Spell for Obtaining the Heart's Desire.
Gods, why couldn't I read this one before this moment? I'd gone through these books a hundred times. Perhaps the constant study was needed in order to obtain understanding. Perhaps only now was my mind able to discern the more difficult facets of the Art.
And this spell... this was the one I needed, had searched so long to find. My heart raced so from the possibilities that my chest ached.
I looked at the list of ingredients, for without them it was pointless to start.
Bat's wool, ground unicorn horn... yes, yes, I had those.
The candle flames flickered again. A curl of smoke drifted into my eyes. I blinked them clear and resumed reading.
Bat's wool, ground manticore spike... That wasn't right. I started over.
Rat's skin, ground manticore spike... On the fourth reading I saw that it was useless. The spell's protection was too strong for me to break through. The last candles danced, flickered, and went out. I was in total darkness. I didn't bother trying to replace them. What was the point?
Heart's Desire. More like heart's breaking. It was hopeless. The answer to all my problems, the cessation of all my agonies, was in my hands, but I was utterly unable to use it. I might have to study for years before - Hopeless. Hopeless. Hopeless.
It was too much to bear. I blundered over to the study table and slammed the useless thing down with all my strength. I wanted to slam other things, break them, tear them apart, tear the whole keep apart starting with my idiot's collection of magical studies.
Blindly, I scrabbled for the offending volume. I'd begin with it.
"That's a very old book. You should handle it more carefully."
The voice - coming from everywhere and nowhere - took me cold. My back hairs shot up, but long training overrode the initial shock, and I dropped to a fighting crouch, dagger in hand, before the last words were out.
"Who's there?" I thought it might have been Alek's voice. Only he would have grit enough for such a prank, but I wasn't sure.
"You ought to know." Tatyana's voice now, yet not her. It was behind - no, in front of me. "You called me," she continued, the sound moving first one way, then another. "I heard your hate. I am here to give you your Heart's Desire."
"Stand still!" My tone was rather too harsh. Even in my great anger earlier, I would not have spoken to her so. And as for what she was saying to me... "Tatyana?
Show yourself!"
Sergei laughed, in such a way as he'd never laughed before. "You could not tolerate the sight."
It was then I knew this to be an illusion born of magic. Whatever spoke to me was using their voices, hoping to frighten me by their very familiarity. But I was no trembling child to fear a noise in the night. I was - The laughter grew, filling the rooms, filling my head. I clapped my hands over my ears, dropping the dagger. Whatever was with me would not be vulnerable to such an insignificant weapon.
I was dealing with something far beyond my experience in magic and needed no wise teacher to tell me it was deadly. Yet it wouldn't have come without some type of summoning on my part, which meant I had a portion of control over it.
Dispelling it was no problem; I knew how to do that easily enough, if I chose.
"Strahd," Ilona now. Whispering. "You called me. Don't you want your Heart's Desire?"
"Don't you want your Heart's Desire?" Tatyana sweetly echoed.
"Or will you let her go to your brother?" asked Sergei.
"Will you let me go to your brother?" Tatyana questioned mournfully.
Gods, it knew exactly what to say to me.
"Will you let her go?" Alek demanded.
No... she will be mine, I whispered in my own mind. I couldn't not at least think it.
They heard me. And laughed.
"What will you do to get her?" Alek again.
I refrained from answering, but it accurately picked up on the question in my mind: what might be required from me in turn?
"Nothing beyond your means or skill, Strahd." I would have sworn it was Alek's voice, but for the fact that he'd never spoken to me with anything remotely like the contempt I heard now. "Shall we begin?"
I gestured vaguely toward the table, wanting to buy more time to think. "But the rite... I've not..."
"Nothing beyond your means or skill," said Tatyana in a tone that only an expert courtesan could use without insult. I felt her hand - or something like her hand - caress my face in a feather-light touch. I even smelled her scent on it.
"Nothing beyond your means or skill," Sergei sneered, and the hand slipped down to close upon my throat. It was much larger now and smelled of battle-sweat, blood, and oiled leather.
I grabbed for the hand. It was gone as if it had never been. "What are you?"
The voices merged and separated around, above, through me. They took on weight with no substance and pressed upon me. My heart... pounded... labored. My blood seemed too chill and thick to push through my veins, and I cried out against it.
The voices laughed at my pain, and in that sound they seemed to assume a single, huge shape.
I was in total darkness. The shape was darker.
It writhed and twisted and pulsed without rhythm - pleasure from pain, pain from pleasure - and it murmured of things still darker than itself, things I knew and things I did not, things that should never be said and were said anyway, and with each word it grew and grew, until the room was filled with its presence, and the sheer bulk of it pressed me down so that my knees crashed into the floor, and I was pushed flat, and the weight ground at me with pressure so great I couldn't scream, not even in my mind.
Then it was gone.
I rolled on my back, clawing at my chest where iron bands yet seemed to squeeze upon me and felt... nothing. No broken ribs, no burst heart - Not yet. But the next time. The thing would return and crush me into - I knew it now. Knew what it was. We were old, old friends.
Death was in the room with me.
My heart turned leaden; it would collapse in upon itself by its own heaviness.
It labored hard against my breastbone. Futile effort in the face of the inevitable.
Death stirred around me like an ocean's tide.
I fought to drag in one more breath.
Death washed over and... receded. For the moment.
"Have you come for me?" If so, then take me and be damned.
Nothing. I waited for many terrible, slow heartbeats. Then: "I have come... on your behalf," it answered, using all the voices at once.
This was some last trick. A final taunt before dragging me into the Abyss.
"You have fed me well," it continued.
Gods, but wasn't that true. All those years of war. How many had I killed in the cause? What did it matter now?
"You are due your reward."
Yes, I thought bitterly. Another death for Death. What other fate was there for a blood-steeped warrior when there were no more battles to fight?
"Your reward, Strahd Von Zarovich," it emphasized.
Reward?
Then the voices assumed a secretive tone. "You hunger for your brother's betrothed, for your lost youth. I shall remove the rival from your path, and you shall age not one day more..."
Sergei gone, time removed as an adversary, Tatyana turning to me as I'd dreamed a thousand times over. My Heart's Desire. It must be a lie. Had to be. Could Death lie? Why not? But why should it even bother? What was I if not one more mortal to fall spiraling into its bottomless maw?
"... if you do as I tell you."
There it was. The parley, the bargaining, the trade. What did it want of me?
What could Death possibly want from me?
"Nothing beyond your means or skill," Tatyana said clearly.
The iron bands about my chest eased. I sucked in air, gasping, coughing. It had pulled back, but was not gone. It was waiting for my answer. I had no way of knowing for how long.
Not long.
It waited. Silent. I could hear nothing but the pant of my breath and the tiny creak of my own joints as I sat up.
It waited. One minute. Two. I wiped sweat from my brow. My skin was colder than stone.
It waited... then began to draw back. I felt it going. Going with my only chance.
My last chance.
Tatyana.
Going.
"What must I do?" I whispered.
It stopped.
Turned.
And laughed.
*****
My fingers were shaking and so icy I could hardly feel them, but I managed to strike flint and iron, one against the other, and the tinder caught on the first spark. I lighted a fresh candle from the brief flame, then used it to light others.
The study looked the same as before. Felt the same. There was no sign that anything had been in here with me. It was gone; but I sensed - or imagined - it hovering close by, like someone listening from the next room.
The shaking subsided after I downed a healthy dose of tuika. More potent than wine, it warmed the belly and soothed the nerves. Much as I disliked dealing with the Barovians, I had to acknowledge that they knew how to make a good brandy.
With restored light and vision, the reality of what I'd just been through should have faded like a dream upon waking, but not so for me. It had happened, and I had listened to the thing with a fearful eagerness. Some of its instructions made no sense, but ofttimes in magic, one must perform rituals with no discernible purpose to them. It's a foolish practitioner who ignores them or discounts their importance.
This was dark magic. I was on the threshold of true necromancy, yet oddly calm about the fact, as though someone else were about to make the crossing for me, as though I would reap the benefits and someone else would pay the price.
There would be a price. No bargain was without one, but I knew I'd be able to pay it. And cover for it. A bluff here, a lie there, a blatant misdirection; it was hardly different from the statecraft I was presently engaged in with the other ruling families.
But the benefits - to not age one day more was one thing, but to have Tatyana... she was worth any price. If Death had wanted my very soul, I'd have given it up for her. She would turn to me and smile and laugh for me alone. She was springtime and summer rain, autumn color and winter stillness. And by tomorrow night she would be mine.
The harsh scrape of metal on stone jolted me from my dream of love. Very close.
From the bedchamber. No, just beyond it. I glimpsed a man's shape moving away from the open windows.
One of my swords hung on the wall by my bed. It was in my hand and I was through a window in a few short seconds. I was in time. He'd gone but five yards along the courtyard overlook and, hearing me come out, stopped and turned to look at me.
Alek Gwilym.