Lord Soth

by Edo Van Belkom

  Chapter 31

  The tremors shook the ground for hours.

  All through the city of Istar, screams could be heard.

  Men, women and children cried out in agony and terror as cracks opened beneath their feet, swallowing them where they stood.

  No one was safe.

  Nowhere was safe.

  The land itself was opening up, devouring entire families, entire homes, whole rows of houses, like some angry maw that was as insatiable as it was terrifying.

  The sky had gone from blue to black, and was now tinged with red as it rained fire and destruction onto what was left of one of the greatest cities on the face of Krynn.

  In the temple, the Kingpriest refused to concede defeat, refused to admit that his own righteous pride had brought on the wrath of the gods.

  Like a madman, he still held out hope that the gods would come to their senses and plead for him to ascend to the heavens and take his rightful place alongside them.

  “Is this the sign?” he shouted over the noise and rumble of the absolute chaos going on around him. “Is this the prelude to my ascension?”

  He had hardly finished uttering the words when a ball of flame as big as a mountain streaked across the sky.

  Chapter 32

  The keep’s guards had been warned of Soth’s approach long in advance of his arrival. When he rode over the drawbridge, the portcullis was raised and waiting for him to enter.

  Soth looked around, surprised at the expressions on the faces of those who had come to greet him. They all looked as if they were seeing a ghost.

  Of course, such a reaction was understandable because Soth was to have never returned from his quest, but he saw it somewhat differently.

  To his mind, they were all looking at him in this way because he had come back early and caught Isolde in the middle of an infidelity. The thought renewed the anger within him, making his blood run even hotter.

  Soth dismounted. The people around him said nothing. The inside of the keep was filled only with the sound of his horse, which was snorting harshly while doing its best to remain standing after the long, hard ride. Soth walked among the people gathered in the entrance area, his boots and armor clanking with each step.

  “Where is my wife?” he bellowed.

  “Sh-she is in her chambers, milord,” said Parry Roslin, captain of the guards.

  “With whom?” he said, placing a strong right hand around Roslin’s throat.

  “She is with your son, I believe.”

  Soth pushed Roslin roughly aside. Some of the guards moved hesitantly to Roslin’s aid.

  “Here I am, here I am,” came a voice from somewhere on the upper levels of the keep.

  Soth heard that voice and the madness swirling within his mind intensified twofold.

  “My lord, what brings you back so soon?” she said, coming into the entrance area with Peradur in her arms.

  “Glad that I have returned, I see,” Soth said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Isolde seemed confused by this. “Of course I am glad to see you, but what of the quest?”

  “The quest,” he smiled. “You mean, what of my death?”

  “I do not understand,” she said, shaking her head.

  “Of course you don’t. You don’t understand how I’ve come to see the light. But now I know how you’ve been unfaithful to me … since the beginning.”

  “What are you talking about?” Isolde’s voice was broken and disjointed with fear. Her eyes were glassy, on the verge of tears.

  “Oh, how well you play the innocent,” Soth said mockingly, his voice sounding hollow and chilling, as if it had already been touched by death. “Even now as I confront your unfaithfulness.”

  “What?” she said, truly surprised. “I’ve never been unfaithful to you.”

  Soth said nothing, his mind too clouded by rage to hear anything other than the taunting words of the elf-maids that had been echoing in his ears ever since he had returned to the keep:

  She sees every man as her lover …

  And she loves every man she sees …

  Lord Loren Soth, Knight of the Rose,

  Lord Cuckold of Dargaard Keep.

  “I’ve never been unfaithful to you,” Isolde repeated, her voice begging him to believe her. She began to move away from him, stepping backward into one of the keep’s larger halls.

  Soth rushed forward. “Liar!” he cried, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing her heavily to the floor.

  Isolde fell backward, clutching Peradur close to her breast. When she came to a stop, she looked up at Soth with wide eyes that were filled with terror and disbelief.

  A loud roar could be heard outside the keep, shaking it roughly as it thundered past. In seconds the tremendous sound faded, replaced by the pungent smell of burnt wood and leaves, and other things that could not be named. The sky dimmed as the light from the sun was blocked by a layer of smoke.

  Soth and Isolde paid little attention to the event as they were too involved in what was happening within the keep to care.

  “What is the matter with you?” she asked, her voice edged with as much anger as terror. “I am your wife! I bore you a son!”

  “A son, you say. Not my son! How are you so sure the child is mine?” asked Soth, towering over the fallen woman, forcing her to crawl awkwardly backward with a single hand just to keep her distance.

  Soth’s words struck her heart like a dagger. The tears she had been holding back streamed from the corners of her eyes. “How dare you accuse me,” she said. “I loved you always. You saved my life. How could I ever do anything to hurt you?”

  “You lay with me while I was still wed to Korinne. If you ignored one oath of matrimony, why should I believe you would honor the one you swore to me?”

  “After Korinne was with child I wanted to leave the keep. But you, you were the one who wanted me to remain. You asked me to stay here so that you could be unfaithful to Korinne.”

  Peradur had begun to cry, wailing loudly after listening to his parents argue for so long. The child’s cry reverberated through the keep, which had quickly emptied after the extent of Soth’s anger had become apparent. It was possible that there still might be people in the hall peeking around corners, but if they were there, they were keeping themselves well hidden.

  “So, you accuse me,” said Soth, “when it is you who make a mockery of our marriage, bedding any man you please.”

  “By the hand of Mishakal,” Isolde whispered. “What demon possesses you?”

  “Do you even know who the child’s father is?”

  “You are his father,” Isolde said softly between sobs. “You are.”

  “Treacherous, deceitful, lying witch!”

  Isolde said nothing. Instinctively she crouched onto the floor to protect her child, and wept.

  Soth stepped forward, drew his sword.

  Isolde looked up.

  “In the name of Paladine,” she whispered. “No, please—”

  At that moment the keep was rocked by the shock waves created by the impact of the fiery mountain-sized ball as it slammed into the unsuspecting city of Istar.

  Like everywhere else on Krynn, Solamnia heaved from the impact. The keep began to crumble. Jagged cracks began to appear along mortar lines between the bloodstones. Items throughout the keep toppled from their places. The keep was filled with the sounds of clattering steel, smashing pots and the cries of people caught by falling debris.

  The floor of the hall in which they stood began to split apart. The shaking of the ground caused Isolde to stumble backward onto the floor with the baby cradled in her arms.

  “Help me,” she cried, trying to rise up.

  Soth shook his head. “Help you who have betrayed me so completely?”

  She raised a hand toward him, but instead of assisting her, he turned his back on her.

  The ground rumbled once more, shaking the keep to its very foundations.

  Isolde screamed.

 
; Soth turned around just in time to see the great chandelier hanging above the hall come loose from its mount. As if in another dimension, or shrouded in some spell, the chandelier fell slowly, seeming to fall inches at a time, taking forever to reach the floor.

  Instinctively, Soth was compelled to do something to save her. He began moving toward Isolde, but like the chandelier itself, he could hardly move fast enough.

  In the end Soth was left helpless and could only watch as the chandelier’s ornate silver and gold swords, crowns and roses, impaled Isolde, nailing her to the jagged floor of the hall, unable to move.

  In an instant, all Soth’s maddening rage was gone.

  He looked at his wife, saw the blood flowing freely from her wounds and open mouth, and could only think of how he had failed her utterly.

  “Take him,” came the ragged, garbled voice of Isolde.

  Soth looked over at her and saw that despite her injuries, she had been able to protect the child from harm. She extended her arms, and held the blanket-wrapped child up to him.

  “Take him,” she said again.

  Soth knew he should take the child and care for him, protect him from the ravages of the Cataclysm, and shelter him from all the hardships of life that would surely follow such devastation. But as he moved forward to take hold of the child, he heard a voice whisper in his ear.

  It was a male voice, strong and powerful and unlike anything he’d ever heard on the face of Krynn. Hearing it now, he knew it could only be the voice of a god.

  Our children shall bleed for our sins.

  Soth stopped in his tracks.

  It all made sense to him now. He had suffered for the sins of his father, and instead of accepting his fate and rising above it, he had only compounded his father’s sins by committing even more ghastly ones of his own. His sins were far worse than anything his father had ever done. If he saved Peradur now from the flames, it would only be to give him a life of misery and shame as he would be destined to suffer for the sins of his father, and those of his father’s father. And as he suffered, he would commit sins of his own, worse than Soth’s.

  It was a never ending cycle.

  But not if Soth chose to break it. He could end the cycle.

  He took a step back.

  The chandelier’s candles toppled and rolled across the floor. The flames licked at Isolde’s robes and in seconds set them alight.

  “Save him,” Isolde begged as the flames began to obscure her face.

  Soth remained still, impassive.

  “Save your son!” Isolde’s voice came out of the flames as if it had already become disembodied, an ethereal thing in the midst of so much destruction.

  Soth did not answer, nor move to save the boy.

  The fire continued to work its way over her body, chewing at her arms and finally engulfing the shrouded child in flames.

  Then the fire began to spread outward from the center of the hall, flowing like water through the keep, up the walls and across the ceiling.

  Finally, the voice, Isolde’s voice, shouted a curse upon Soth, the words seeming to come from somewhere above the flames.

  “You will die this night in fire,” she said. “Even as your son and I die. You will live one life for every life your folly has brought to an end!”

  There were more words, but Soth didn’t hear them.

  All he could hear were the screams of incredible agony and pain coming from all corners of the keep.

  He tried to block out the horrifying sound.

  But could not.

  Farold, Kern and Caradoc felt the ground shake and stopped their horses in their tracks.

  They could see Dargaard Keep in the distance, its roselike towers a welcome sight after such a hard and eventful journey.

  But as they stood there looking at the keep in all its glory, they felt the ground give way beneath their mounts and a rush of hot air push against their faces.

  “Look there!” shouted Kern, pointing to the sky.

  A huge fiery mass, one as big as a mountain, streaked across the darkened sky, leaving a trail of bright yellow-orange fire in its wake.

  The trail of fire burned white hot, then turned to smoke, blocking out the sun and leaving the land eerily dimmed.

  “Is this it?” asked Farold.

  “Is this what?” asked Kern.

  “The Cataclysm,” answered Caradoc.

  Indeed, these were cataclysmic events. The land itself seemed to be trembling as if in fear that the end might be near.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Farold. “Only the gods can produce fire where it cannot be. Surely the burning sky can be nothing but the powerful manifestation of the gods’ wrath.”

  “Wrath?” asked Kern, aghast. “Against Lord Soth?”

  Farold nodded. “Against Soth, against the Kingpriest, against all of the people of Krynn.”

  “Soth could have stopped this,” Caradoc said in disbelief, almost as if he were asking a question.

  “The Kingpriest’s powers of persuasion proved stronger than Soth’s strength of will.”

  Just then, the keep itself burst into flames.

  “Merciful gods, no!” cried Farold.

  Caradoc and Kern leaped onto their horses. Caradoc waited, then lifted a stunned Farold behind him onto the horse’s haunches. All three knights rode hard toward the keep.

  In minutes they were close enough to see the devastation that the flames were inflicting upon the keep. It seemed that every inch of it was on fire. Even places where flames simply were not possible burned brightly.

  The stones themselves were ablaze.

  The knights tried to get nearer to the keep, but the intense heat and flames continued to push them back until they were forced to move away and helplessly watch it burn.

  But even as they watched the fires slowly die, gouts of flame began shooting up from the ground behind them, forcing the knights forward in the direction of the keep.

  “What’s happening?” shouted Kern.

  “We are part of the keep, part of Soth’s world. We belong inside.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “The gods won’t allow us to be spared,” answered Caradoc, his voice surprisingly calm, as if he knew his deeds would eventually catch up with him and he would be made to suffer as his lord had. “Our destiny is too closely linked with Soth’s. We cannot escape the flames.”

  The fire was all around them now, pushing them ever closer to the keep.

  With flames behind them and a burnt but clear path ahead of them, they were pushed across the bridge and into the smoldering keep.

  Once inside, the fire suddenly began to burn anew as rivers of flames streamed down the bleeding stone walls.

  And then, like the rest of the knights in the keep, they gave themselves up to the flames …

  Joining Lord Soth.

  The fire continued to burn.

  All around him flames shot up from the floor, ringing him in fire. But no matter how hot and intense the flames were, Soth remained untouched by their flickering tongues.

  Like a doomed man on his way to his own execution, Soth exited the hall, leaving the burning mass of his wife and son behind.

  He walked through the flaming keep, ignoring the dying people around him.

  “Help me, milord!” cried a laundress.

  “You could have stopped th—” said a guard, his words cut off by the flames eating away at his throat.

  Soth continued on, seemingly unaffected by the magnitude of the tragedy, toward his throne room.

  The place where he would die.

  When he arrived, he found the entire room engulfed with flames and filled with thick black smoke. But as he walked toward his throne, a path opened up for him across the floor. When he reached the throne he turned around, took one last look at the devastation—the devastation that he could have prevented—and sat wearily down on his throne.

  He breathed a final smoke-filled sigh, and waited for death to claim him.


  The flames were upon him in seconds.

  He did not scream.

  Epilogue

  When at last, after days of burning, the flames died down, Dargaard Keep—once the pride of all Solamnia and one of the wonders of Krynn—was little more than a black and charred husk retaining its roselike shape, but none of its former glory.

  There had been some who escaped the flames. They had managed to leap from the burning keep and across the yawning chasm surrounding it. But those survivors were few, as most of the inhabitants had succumbed to the flames, dying horrifically only to be reborn as wraithlike beings who haunted the keep in the service of its lord.

  Lord Loren Soth.

  The Death Knight.

  Weeks later, some signs of life returned to the grounds around Dargaard Keep. While the land surrounding the keep, once green and lush, had been blackened by ash and become almost devoid of life, some flowers had begun to bloom.

  In the charred garden within the keep and on the grounds around it, black roses bloomed, their thorns long and sharp and quite painful to the touch.

  Travelers sometimes picked the odd, gloomy flowers, but never more than one or two at a time. And most important of all, never did they linger afterward for fear of attracting the attention of the lord of the keep and incurring his wrath.

  Lord Loren Soth.

  Knight of the Black Rose.

  As the sun set on the gray plains of Solamnia, the flame-blackened drawbridge leading into the keep rumbled and was slowly lowered across the chasm.

  In silence, Soth’s thirteen retainers, former Sword, Crown and Rose knights, appeared through the archway under the raised portcullis. They were skeletal warriors now, still loyal to their lord, even in death. They exited the keep mounted upon their horses, which had also been transformed by the flames, for yet another nocturnal patrol of Nightlund.

  Soth sat on his throne. The walls of the keep that surrounded him were black and charred by the fire. Soth’s armor had also been blackened by the flames.