"How many of you are there in 'we' today?" asked the dwarf lightly. "Three? Thirteen? Three hundred?" He turned and gestured to Gesmas. "Come on. She, and however many sisters she has at the moment, can't hurt you. They used to be banshees. Soth's inattention has reduced 'em to harmless spooks. There's supposed to be a certain number of 'em, but they can't even decide on how many that should be."
One of the dead riders lay skeletal hands on Gesmas and shoved him through the apparition. The banshee howled her impotent rage at the violation. The sound shook the spy as he passed through. Her chill form clutched at him, trying to seize his living warmth even as it shrank from his coarse physicality. He emerged, breathless and shivering, in an immense entry hall.
Twin stairways climbed the walls of the vast circular room, leading to a balcony opposite the main doors. The balcony might once have been a musicians' gallery. Now the only music in the hall came from the banshees' keening song. The unquiet spirits hovered in midair or wove frenzied patterns through the chandelier suspended from the ceiling's center. All the candles in those triple rings of iron were lit. Their radiance diluted the gloom that choked the hall, but could not vanquish it.
Upon a dais shrouded in the hall's deepest shadows sat a worm-eaten throne, and upon that throne hunched a suit of armor. The plate mail appeared empty, deserted. The once-bright metal was blackened with soot and age. Tatters fringed the purple cloak draped over the armor's shoulders. The tasseled helmet drooped forward. Only the faint lights flickering in the helmet's eye slits betrayed the fact that something lurked within that fire-blasted metal skin.
"On your knees," Azrael said, and the skeletal guard forced Gesmas to the dirty stones. The dwarf turned to the throne and bowed with overstated deference. "As you commanded, mighty lord, I have brought you the stranger."
The banshees ceased their keening and turned to the dais. Their faces grew even more horrible with anticipation. The skeletal warrior, Soth's loyal retainer of old, seemed to share their anxiety. Gesmas felt its bony fingers tighten on his shoulders.
Finally, Soth stirred upon his dilapidated throne. The twin flickers of orange light that were his eyes flared. Or perhaps the hall grew suddenly darker. All heat, all hope, drained from the room. It was as if those things flowed into Soth, fuel for his terrible gaze.
"Speak."
The voice was hollow, deep beyond imagining. Gesmas felt the word more than heard it. He opened his mouth to reply, but only croaked something incomprehensible. The breath had vanished from his lungs. Fear had consumed it.
"Speak!"
Azrael elbowed Gesmas in the side, causing him to cry out. Only the skeletal hands on his shoulders prevented the prisoner from falling forward. "Mighty lord," he wheezed, "I don't know what-"
"Your name," said Soth. "Your mission."
Gesmaa could almost feel the sharp corner of Azrael's smirk jabbing him. He knew that the dwarf was waiting for him to trip up, to anger Soth by some misstep he could never avoid. Perhaps Azrael had lied to him about Soth's hatred of bards. The dwarf was, after all, commonly described in Sithicus as an unrivaled liar.
Gesmas had nothing to fall back upon, no secret knowledge or flash of insight to guide him. So he told the truth.
"I am a spy."
A sound echoed from Soth's helmet, a soft exclamation equal parts surprise and mirth. "What have you tried to steal from me, honest thief?"
The second of the skeletal warriors came forward. It held up the spy's worn saddlebags. Azrael tore away the buckles and leather straps holding them closed. Paper cascaded onto the floor. "Mighty lord, he-"
"I did not ask you, seneschal," Soth interrupted.
The banshees sniggered at the rebuke. There were only four now. The rest had disappeared.
"He has returned," said one.
"Returned to his duty," added the second, hovering close by Azrael's side.
"Returned to his torment," a third hissed.
The hideous quartet chorused, "Returned to us."
Soth ignored the unquiet spirits, if he heard them at all. He had focused on Gesmas. "What did you try to steal?" he prompted.
"Your story."
"Who is your master?"
"Malocchio Aderre."
Slowly Soth raised one hand. A thick lace of cobwebs fell away from the gauntlet it had draped for bo long. Fingers that had not moved in years gestured stiffly for the prisoner to approach the throne.
Gesmas rose, reclaimed the saddlebags, then gathered up the pages Azrael had scattered. The combination of the pain from his ribs and his fear of Lord Soth swelled into waves of dizziness that washed over the spy every few halting steps. When he came upon a section of floor that appeared translucent, insubstantial, he mistook it for an hallucination born of his lightheadedness. But Azrael grabbed his arm and steered him around it. Gesmas looked questioningly at the dwarf, whose only reply was the same oily smirk he'd worn since arriving at the keep.
As he continued across the hall, Gesmas noted more bits of his surroundings that did not appear entirely corporeal. A large piece of the stone stairs to the right was missing-not crumbled or fallen, simply not there. Other small sections of floor fluctuated between opacity and translucence. Poised over the center of the circular room, the ponderous iron chandelier fluttered like a mirage. The ceiling where the massive metal rings should have been anchored gaped black and vacant. The chains reached up to nothing.
Gesmas gave up trying to understand the strangeness around him. He took in the details of his odd surroundings with an uncharacteristic indifference. It was almost as if he were watching the events unfold from a distance, like one of the inconstant phantoms floating over the hall. That detachment, and little else, made it possible for Gesmas to approach Soth's throne, to stand so close to the death knight that he could discern the original decoration on his fire-blackened armor.
An intricate pattern of roses and kingfishers laced the blasted metal. Dust, soot, and age had obscured some of the blooms, annihilated some of the finer detail on the birds' wings. Still, the design retained enough of its old beauty to suggest the knight so feared, so fearsome, had once known peace and honor.
"Tell me my story," Soth said to the prisoner. "Tell me who I am and how I came to this place."
Gesmas climbed the three broad steps one at a time and set the saddlebags down on the dais. Fragments of broken glass littered the stone, winking like earthbound stars. Only now did the spy note the six iron ovals gaping on the walls behind the throne. Malocchio Aderre himself had warned him about the mirrors once cradled in those framer, enchanted glass that allowed Soth to venture into his own memories and follow his life down the myriad paths it might have followed. Obviously, the lord of Sithicus no longer needed such things to sustain his reveries.
As he retrieved the first pages from the saddlebags, Gesmas wondered vaguely if Soth's daydreams were any more bizarre than the stories he'd collected. He doubted it.
"I learned this tale from the elves of Hroth," Gesmas said. He squinted at his own scribbled notes and began to read: " The thing known as Soth first appeared some thirty-two years ago, in the land of Barovia. As such a powerful being could not have escaped the notice of the bards that wander these haunted realms, he could not have existed before that time. Strahd von Zarovich, lord of Barovia, must have created Soth, conjured him with dark sorcery. This would explain why Soth is never seen but when he is fully armored. In truth, the metal skin is empty, cursed mail that turned against the sorcerer who first brought it to life.' "
"Untrue," the banshees hissed. "Untrue!" There was no conviction in their exclamations, though. Lake Soth, they seemed uncertain of the truth.
For a moment Soth considered the claims. "I recall this Strahd von Zarovich," he said, "and know that my way to this cursed realm passed through his demesne. As to the rest, it is easy enough to prove or disprove…"