Spectre Of The Black Rose tols-2 Read online

  Spectre Of The Black Rose

  ( Terror of lord Soth - 2 )

  James Lowder

  Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  James Lowder,Voronica Whitney-Robinson

  Spectre Of The Black Rose

  One

  The story of Lord Soth brought Gesmas Malaturno to Sithicus. Like most travelers who entered that spectre-haunted land, he became entangled in the tale of the thrice-cursed knight in ways more awful than even he could conceive. This was no mean claim, for Gesmas was a man of substantial imagination.

  A talent for recognizing corners where others saw only solid walls had manifested early in Gesmas. Not long from the nursery, he envisioned a system of hillside terraces that tripled the output of his father’s failing vineyard. His family considered such flashes of inspiration adequate compensation for the twisted leg with which the boy had been afflicted. Gesmas questioned neither the crippled limb nor the sudden, unexpected turns of thought that rendered the world so lucid. He understood neither, but recognized that both, in their own fashion, served him rather well.

  The twisted leg saved him, some three years before he entered Lord Soth’s domain, from conscription into Malocchio Aderre’s forces as an infantryman. This often-terminal fate was one shared by many of Gesmas’s fellow rustics. They bore the suffering wrought by his ambitious campaigns against both the rebellious factions within Invidia, led by his deposed mother, and the armies of the powerful lords that surrounded his thickly forested demesne. In this, if in nothing else, Aderre saw eye to eye with the grim and mysterious tyrants who ruled those neighboring states-Alfred Timothy of Verbrek and poison-lipped Ivana Boritsi of Borca, Count Strahd von Zarovich, butcher of Barovia, and, most enigmatic of all, Lord Soth of Sithicus. To them, peasants were nothing more than specie, coin to be spent in whatever fashion they saw fit.

  The same inability to serve should have put a noose around Gesmas’s neck and left him dangling as a warning for all who failed to embody Lord Aderre’s spirit of vigorous conquest. The press gang who had declared him unworthy as a foot soldier got as far as readying a rope. When they scanned the crossroads where they had mustered the locals for review, they found not a single tree suitable for the display of a corpse. As the soldiers stupidly prodded the low scrub at the road’s edge, as if that might uncover some tall and thick-limbed oak concealed there, Gesmas was graced with an insight that saved his life.

  The solution came to him simply, but without any explanation as to why it was ideal. In those moments it was as if his mind observed the world on its own, processing details at improbable speed, then offered up an idea quite independent of Gesmas’s conscious mind. Should Gesmas pause to examine it too carefully, to question its general logic, the answer would lose its clarity and he would be unable to put it into words. Only later, after he had presented the solution and the brilliance of it had become obvious, could Gesmas examine the weave and warp of its making. Such was the case with his escape from the hangman’s noose.

  It was obvious to all that the press gang’s captain was impatient to conclude his business at the Malaturno Estate and reach the nearest town before nightfall. His nervousness had sound cause. Some growers whispered of werewolves hunting in the nearby Mantle Woods. The soldiers spoke of still more terrible creatures stalking the banks of the Gundar River after sunset. Gesmas suspected that both were correct. He knew with certainty that the gang would not enjoy the relative safety of the village of Valetta should they dawdle at the crossroads much longer.

  “I have an idea,” Gesmas said to the captain. “It will help you.”

  The captain, whose name was Dandret, gaped down from his saddle. It wasn’t obvious in his expression if he were shocked at what Gesmas had said, or just startled that the doomed man had spoken at all, particularly to him. It didn’t matter. His reaction would have been the same either way. He lashed out with his riding crop.

  The blow spun Gesmas around. The young man turned back to the captain, a swiftly purpling welt running from his temple to the very tip of his chin. He could feel blood trickling from his split lip, but didn’t wipe it away. Better to let the officer see that he was injured. He would seem defenseless.

  “I can save your life,” Gesmas noted calmly. He hobbled a step closer on his twisted leg. “Please listen, or you’re not going to make it to the village tonight.”

  “That almost sounds like a threat. You’re in no position to threaten, dead man,” Captain Dandret said. A thick backwoods accent blunted every word, betraying the man’s humble origins in the foothills of the Ghost Spires. “You can’t take us all on, and that rabble certainly won’t help you.”

  Dandret gestured over his shoulder at the two dozen spectators loitering nearby, his disdain for them demonstrated in the way he presented the crowd his unguarded back right along with another loudly voiced insult: “Gutless lowlife, the lot of them.”

  Gesmas knew everyone in the crowd: his evil-tempered older brother, a few breathless children who’d run all the way from the neighboring farm, a small mob of sun-addled pickers indentured to the family estate. One of his dogs was there, too, the only creature that seemed at all melancholy about the impending death. His parents hadn’t even protested the execution beyond returning to work once sentence was pronounced. Neither had they denied the spectacle to the servants, who watched the proceedings with the not-so-secret joy of the downtrodden. They welcomed any strife that suggested the Fates frowned upon the wealthy as deeply as they frowned upon the poor.

  Gesmas recognized their silent delight, but what he said to the captain was: “They fear you too much to raise a fist against you, against a soldier of your reputation.”

  Gesmas could almost hear the last word chime happily against Dandret’s ego, and the sound of it roused the soldier’s interest in the young man. Gesmas, of course, had never heard of Dandret before today. The leaders of these press gangs were only slightly longer-lived than the infantrymen they collected. But everything about this man declared his sense of self-importance, from the stiff and imperious way he sat on his horse to the careful patching of his hand-me-down uniform. A brighter fellow might have recognized Gesmas’s words as an obvious prelude to flattery. A brighter fellow also would have realized that no amount of grooming will make a plow horse appear to be a destrier.

  The captain yanked his reins sharply, trying to position himself between the young man and the setting sun. If they knew his reputation here, he intended to play it for full effect, blot out the light like a hero from one of the hill tales his father used to tell. But his nag wouldn’t cooperate, couldn’t make the turn in military fashion. By the time horse and rider slogged a circle back to Gesmas, the moment was lost. Dandret settled for a spot a few paces off his starting point. “Well,” he said irritably. “Out with it.”

  “Drag me,” Gesmas said.

  That was the solution that had appeared to him, the one he presumed would extricate him from this grim situation. Gesmas did not know how, precisely, but he had faith that it would. Now that he had given it voice, he could only watch the crowd’s reaction to that simple suggestion.

  Captain Dandret stared for a moment, waiting for the young man to offer more details. Gesmas remained silent. For an instant it appeared that Dandret was going to lash out again, as was his wont when confused. Fortunately, the gang’s sergeant deflected his attention by blurting out a question: “Uh, drag him where?”

  “That’s obvious. Drag him wherever it is we’re going,” one of the other soldiers supplied. “Instead of hanging him.”

  The press gang and the spectators had moved close, forming a rough semicircle around Gesm
as and Dandret. The pickers nodded slowly as they discussed the proposal. “It’s practical,” one drawled. “They would be here all night throwing together a gallows, since they won’t find a hanging tree anywhere near the road, not for a long ride in any direction.”

  “Why’s that?” a soldier asked.

  The worker deferentially cast his eyes down when answering. “Why, the growers cut down whatever’s near the road, sir. The felled trees are easy to drag to their estates.”

  The sergeant rubbed his chin, a great block of bone and beard stubble. He had obviously finished mulling over the idea. “He’s mad, frightened stupid at the thought of dying.”

  “So why suggest a worse way to go?” the captain said, more to himself than anyone else. He scowled a bit as he examined Gesmas’s proposal, testing it for flaws or hidden hazards. Of course he could find none. That was the point: the offer was flawlessly simple, a perfect solution to the press gang’s problem. More to the point, it was selfless, something Dandret couldn’t comprehend.

  The sergeant unslung the noose from his shoulder. “Why are you even listening to him, Captain? The law says it’s gotta be death by rope for traitors.”

  “Use the rope to drag him,” one of the neighbor children noted helpfully.

  “Just kill him. He’s trying to trick you,” snapped Fayard, who Gesmas had the misfortune of calling brother. The sound of his hate-filled voice was enough to cause Gesmas’s hound to growl and slink to a roadside ditch for safety. “Everyone thinks he’s possessed, the way he comes up with those strange ideas.” He shoved one of the pickers. “Go on, tell them.”

  The young woman mumbled something that could have been either a confirmation or a denial of Fayard’s claim. The captain took it as the former. He could understand and accept possession far faster than he could an unselfish offer from a prisoner. “I’ve heard enough. We’ll take him to the village tonight and pass him along to the Inquest. They’ll figure out what’s wrong with him and deal with the problem appropriately.”

  The sergeant groaned. “Kill him here. Drag him all the way to Karina, if that’s what he wants. But keep us away from the Lord’s Inquest. I don’t like that lot even knowing my name, let alone having to see those awful faces when I testify.”

  The rest of the press gang proffered their opinions, as did Fayard and a few of the pickers. Gesmas maintained his silence. The suggestion had worked its magic, transfigured the scene as completely as an alchemist turning lead into gold. For the strange offer to continue to arouse Dandret’s paranoia, though, Gesmas knew he had to hold his tongue. It was a wise move, as the scene at the crossroads had not yet played itself out.

  The captain finally shouted the debate to a close. His sergeant, though, would not let the issue die. He shook the noose at Dandret and shouted, “These yokels are making a fool of you! If we don’t do our duty and kill this dimwit, well be the butt of every barracks joke from now until the harvest.”

  Dandret didn’t respond, only stared in utter bafflement at his underling. The sergeant misinterpreted that confused quiet as an abdication of command. Rope in hand and a murderous gleam in his eyes, he turned toward Gesmas. He took a step forward, gasped, then toppled face first into the dirt.

  Captain Dandret motioned for one of the other soldiers to retrieve his throwing knife, which was planted almost to the hilt in the sergeant’s back. The prisoner will ride the free horse,” Dandret said as he tucked the knife back into a boot sheath, taking exaggerated care not to nick the polished leather. Tie the sergeant to the trailing horse. Well test out this dragging idea on the way to Valetta.”

  So it was that Gesmas escaped the hangman’s noose and left the Malaturno Estate. His hound followed at a run, dodging rocks hurled by Fayard, who didn’t have the nerve to throw them at the riders. The faithful mongrel had nearly run itself to death by the time the press gang reached the little village of Valetta. It had opportunity to recover, camped dutifully outside the one-room jail where Gesmas awaited the arrival of the Inquest.

  The four judges of the Inquest made an irregular circuit of Invidia, from the Vulpwood in the northwest to the Mantle Woods in the southeast and back again. They took testimony in cases involving treason, sorcery, and any incident pertaining to the wandering bands of thieves and fortunetellers known collectively as the Vistani. The Inquest arrived at midnight wherever it went. The quartet of wagons that made up the somber caravan were always gone before dawn. A month usually separated their visits to any particular village, though a pressing matter would draw them immediately. Gesmas obviously met whatever criteria the judges set for importance. The Inquest arrived that very same night to interrogate him.

  The trial was brief. In nearly total darkness, Captain Dandret, a few of the soldiers, and finally Gesmas himself addressed the Inquest. The judges lingered in the jail’s shadow-sealed corners, asking only a few questions, in voices that were strangely and disturbingly uniform. Only once, at the trial’s conclusion, did Gesmas glimpse a face-eyeless, earless, its nose a small pair of gashes positioned over the larger, mobile gash of a mouth. “Service,” that mouth said. The three other judges confirmed the sentence in exactly the same voice, the same grim tone, like echoes from the darkness.

  It was one of only two sentences proscribed by the Inquest, and far more rare than the other: Death. The judges recognized Gesmas’s talent for what it was, and recognized, too, its potential value to Lord Aderre. Captain Dandret was ordered to escort Gesmas to Loupet Castle, where the young man would become an advisor to Invidia’s master. So it came to pass that Gesmas cheated death and entered the service of Lord Aderre as a trusted envoy-the polite title for a spy. By year’s end Gesmas had traveled more widely than anyone he knew and had seen wondrous and terrible things that plagued him only now and then as night terrors. He had wandered the decaying halls of Castle Tristenoira and gazed at the beast that dwells below that haunted keep in the Lake of Red Tears. His throat had been encircled by the mismatched hands of the flesh golem known only as Adam, and he had broken bread with the three hags of Tepest, whose guests often reposed on the weird women’s table rather than at it.

  Gesmas had been saved more than once by those flashes of insight, which Lord Aderre had taught him to read more carefully. He lacked any significant control over the timing of his visions, but quite often they revealed some scrap of truth about the strange lands and frightening individuals he encountered in the service of Invidia’s master. So it was, until he entered Sithicus.

  From the moment he crossed the border, Lord Soth’s domain confounded Gesmas. In the few days he ranged the forest-choked land, searching for the origins of its mysterious lord, he made one wrong decision after another. His worst mistake occurred at a broken-down inn called the Iron Warden. The owner of that slouching two-story ruin came alarmingly close to tricking the spy into taking possession of the inn’s deed-a virtual death sentence, as Lord Soth himself used the place to recruit unwitting generals for his skirmishes with the feral elves of the Iron Hills. Gesmas’s instincts had encouraged him to trust the innkeep. Only the premature gloating of the man’s mistress, deep in her cups, raving about the atrocities the elves would inflict upon athe new Iron Warden,” saved him at the last instant from the trap.

  Now, as he made his way back to Invidia through a deepening twilight, Gesmas wondered if he had finally exhausted his gift. At the very least, he had used up his interest in espionage. There was no more joy to be had in subverting Invidia’s enemies. He thought about resigning his post, taking up the work for which he had long known himself to be best suited. But Lord Aderre would never allow Gesmas to become master of the hounds for Loupet Castle or any other estate. Aderre found the spy’s tenderness for beasts amusing. He laughed aloud when Gesmas wept over the death of his faithful hound, which had lost its will to live during one of its master’s long absences from the keep.

  “Astounding,” Aderre had said. “You’ve cut men’s throats and cared only for the blood they spilled on your j
acket, yet a dog’s death makes you wail like an abandoned child. You’re better suited to the work I’ve given you, Gesmas. Be glad for it.”

  No, Gesmas decided bitterly as he topped a rise in the narrow road, if Lord Aderre wants me to wear a spy’s cloak, I’ll never convince him to let me exchange it for another.

  The rutted path wound down into a valley, meeting up with a rough stone bridge. Beyond the arch, which spanned a reed-choked offshoot of the Musarde called the Widow’s Tears by the locals, lay the border. Gesmas cursed softly. Something was standing in the middle of the bridge.

  The failing light made it difficult to see clearly, and Gesmas first mistook the thing for an animal-a small bear or a boar, perhaps. The beast would clear out of the way as the horse got closer, he guessed, but he drew his sword just in case. As he reached the bottom of the hill, he saw that the figure stood on two legs. At fifty yards, it was clear that the figure was too short to be a man or elf, too broad and bulky to be a child. A dwarf, then.

  “Oh no,” Gesmas whispered. “Azrael.”

  He reined in the horse sharply. It reared, nearly throwing him from the saddle. The elaborate brace forged for Gesmas by the smith of Loupet Castle made it easier for him to ride, but it couldn’t completely compensate for his twisted leg. As he fought to bring the mount back under control, Gesmas lost his sword. He didn’t pause to retrieve it. The blade would do him no good, not against Azrael.

  “Give up,” the dwarf shouted from the bridge. There’s nowhere to run.”

  The woods were too thick on either side for a mounted man to ride more than a stone’s throw before being blinded or knocked senseless by a low branch. The best option, Gesmas thought, was to race back up the road, to put enough distance between himself and the dwarf to dismount, then to duck into the forest on foot. With a little luck he could later reach the border along the banks of the Musarde or some half-forgotten woodsman’s path. Passing from Sithicus to Invidia would place him beyond the reach of the darkest magic employed by Lord Soth. The minions of that mysterious tyrant would hesitate as well before crossing in pursuit, for fear of drawing the personal attention of Malocchio Aderre.