I, Strahd: Memoirs of a Vampire: Ravenloft The Covenant

by P.N. Elrod

“Faith makes a miracle and a miracle makes faith,”

The curtain wall was nearly fifty feet high, interrupted by squared-off turrets that rose even higher. As massive as these were, they were made small by the round towers of the keep, the tallest soaring three times the height of the curtain wall. I was astonished not only for the sheer size of the structure, but by the unspoken fact that men—mere men—had designed and built such a wonder.

This was not the rough keep of a mountain warlord, this was the seat of power for a great king … or an emperor. And it was mine.

“I am Strahd. I am the Land,” I said loudly, intoning the ancient epigram. It was part and parcel of the ceremony of possession. The blood welled out, dribbled down my palm, and dripped onto the muddy earth at my feet. “Draw near and witness,” I added. “I, Strahd, am the Land.”

It would be the jewel of the Balinok Mountains, the crown of Barovia, the greatest treasure of all in the long history of the von Zaroviches.

“Draw near and witness. I, Strahd, am the Land.”

Everyone had donned his or her best clothes; some of them even wore shoes.

“I find it interesting, Burgomaster, that you wish to celebrate a day that means I am yet another year closer to my death.”

“I expect my subjects to be honest in their dealings with each other, but most especially with me. The taxes will be collected and turned in each year—all of them. No excuses.”

He had Mother’s warm blue eyes. By the gods, but he was a handsome man, an opinion very obviously shared by all the young, and not a few of the older, female members of the court

Younger, much more handsome, open and smiling—everything that I was not—Sergei reined his horse and dismounted.

He laughed very easily. It might have been irritating had it been for effect, or to cover up an insecurity, but in truth, it was the result of a free and innocent heart, a lightness of the soul that I had inevitably lost in my years of war and slaughter.

I had not even been able to attend the burial of our parents, four years past. Their deaths had occurred during the height of a particularly close and bitter campaign, and I could not be spared. I’d yet to see their graves. In some part of my mind, they were still alive as I’d last seen them three decades ago; Sergei’s presence had driven home the fact that this was not true.

I looked at my brother across the table, where we’d shared our first private meal together, and saw myself in him, myself as I should have been. Not that I begrudged Sergei his own life, but that mine had been all but used up, sacrificed to the demands of duty and obligation.

“It takes a nimble giant to strike so small a target,”

One might as well question whether it is more honorable to kill a roach while it’s holding still or wait until it’s moving. But the fact is, a roach is a roach, and the object is simply to kill it. Five running steps and I’d caught up with this two-legged specimen.

In serious combat, it always pays to have the best quality protection possible.

The particular dilemma of when and if one should use force always seemed to plague the soldier-priests, making me glad I’d been groomed for fighting.

Sometimes it’s better for morale to allow a certain limited familiarity.

“I am the law here,” I reminded him. “If you have any other objections to make, I suggest you carry them to the surviving victims of that village he wiped out.”

His sort of compassion was well placed for a priest, but a ruler cannot afford to be so indulgent.

A rich man thinks all other people are rich, and an intelligent man thinks all other people are similarly gifted. Both are always terribly shocked when they discover the truth of the world.

the woman knew very well how much I detested being reminded of my mortality.

Sometimes it was most difficult for me to bear his company, knowing that all his life lay ahead of him, while most of mine was forever lost.

“Who do you suspect?” “All of them.”

As she approached, I came to see that she was as beyond beauty as a river in spring flood is beyond a drop of water. I felt myself drawn into the flow, swept under by the current. Overwhelmed.

She made me suddenly believe in the folktale of the kidnapped princess raised by peasants and eventually returned to her rightful place in the castle.

“Welcome to Castle Ravenloft, Tatyana. Be welcome and look upon this as your true home, forevermore.” My words seemed to go right to her heart, and her returning smile was like that first glimpse of sun after a bitter winter. All I wanted to do for the rest of my life was keep that smile on her ever after. And then she looked at Sergei. It was as if the sun that had favored me had been all along hidden by a cloud. Its brilliant glory now shone in full upon him … and him alone.

This brought forth another smile, making me wish the garden were a hundred times larger so I might offer her a thousand roses.

Along with the sharp joy of love, I was being cut in two by the razor edge of utter hopelessness, and I was unable to keep the pain from showing. It was worse than any sword thrust, colder and more cruel than a blast of winter sleet upon naked skin. I could have cried aloud from the agony she so innocently gave me.

beyond dishonor, something so shattering it was beyond evil itself.

For all my talks with him, he seemed unable to grasp that generosity was a dangerous liability.

As went the axiom, so went Sergei; he was a sheep vulnerable to any wolf who could put on a kindly face.

As surrender had been, so was black despair 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, gazing back at me every day.

It was a long-suppressed hatred toward Sergei, toward the life I was trapped in, toward life itself.

“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

She was springtime and summer rain, autumn color and winter stillness.

I drank. Deeply. And lived … again.

“Drink of the blood, first from the instrument and then of the chalice.”

It was as if I’d spent my whole life with my senses heavily wrapped in the thickest of cotton bandaging, and only now had it been stripped away, freeing me.

My last sight of myself was of a man utterly consumed by surprise, utterly ludicrous, utterly laughable with his popping eyes and hanging mouth. Myself, Strahd von Zarovich. Faded— Fading— Gone.

In time, she’d realize her love for Sergei had been a child’s infatuation for a pretty toy.

If I’d had to kill a dozen brothers, drink a river of their blood to have her, I would have done so.

No hell could possibly hold worse suffering for me than this.

Laughter for my realization. To age not one day more. I wasn’t going to die. Not tonight, not ever.

Laughter for my anguish. A thousand nights, a thousand years lay before me. Without her. Alone.

They fought me as though I were an ordinary man like themselves, and like ordinary men, they died.

I, Strahd, am the Land.

Like their master, they would find no sanctuary, for I knew every stone, every corner; this was my home. My home … and their graveyard.

Vast powers were mine to command, but arrogance and over-confidence had been the downfall of many others before me.