"No."

  "Any ideas why and how it came to be here?"

  He made a throwing away motion with one gloved hand, as if to dismiss me and my questions, his gaze still riveted ahead. Unless I read him wrong, he looked hungry. The sating of appetite would be far more complicated for him than for me. His greedy lust was for knowledge, something not always easily obtained. This plane of existence in this pocket of reality was ever stingy with its secrets.

  Our mutual silence lengthened. After all these years we did not have that much to say to each other. We already long knew what things upon which we agreed; the rest usually devolved into pointless bickering about which we were both quite bored. He finally turned back to his horses, going to the pack animal and tugging at the ties of something large and bulky strapped to its back. The cloth-shrouded bundle dropped heavily to the snow in a familiar way. Shroud was an excellent description, for it did cover a body.

  Azalin threw back the rough fabric, revealing the ragged form of a man dead for about a month. I dimly recognized the face as belonging to a drunken thief who'd tried to break into a house in Vallaki one night during the last new moon. Unfortunately for him, I'd caught him in mid-invasion and administered my justice accordingly. He'd been very drunk, else he wouldn't have been so foolish as to be out after sunset. So soaked was his blood with cheap wine it had given me a pleasant period of lightheadedness that I hadn't felt in many decades; that was the only reason I recalled his features out of so many thousands of others.

  Azalin must have stopped at the Vallaki burial grounds along his way to make a disintemment.

  I watched him proceed with the raising ritual. It's a complicated process, but he had honed it to a fine art with much practice and was very quick about it. Not long after, the thing began to ponderously twitch with a parody of life. It sat up with a groan as month old air rushed out its gaping mouth. Considering the appearance of the corpse, I was glad that breathing was no longer a necessity for me.

  The dead thief woodenly rose, shedding clumps of snow and earth and trudged toward the border, with Azalin in its wake. He stopped at the edge, but his zombie continued on under his direction, breaking past the last drift of Barovian snow and plodding through the long, wind-blown grasses.

  "Wherever this land's origin, it must not have been winter there," I observed.

  He did not reply, his concentration focused on the zombie. Its white, sightless eyes were open, and Azalin would be using them to magically see what was within its range of view. He was linked to the thing in a similar manner as I employed when using my crystal ball.

  The zombie continued down until it reached a flat valley running between the land saddle and the foot-hills of the huge mountain.

  "What do you see?" I asked, for the creature was becoming too distant for me to clearly follow its progress.

  Azalin took his time replying. "Nothing of interest," he finally muttered. "Grass and brush. It's very windy."

  That I knew already. The pervasive winds did not assault us, though, seeming content to remain on that side of the border. The snow was something else again, making a creeping foray into the new land. If it was winter in Barovia, then it would be winter everywhere else as well.

  Azalin abruptly shook his head and dropped back a few steps. I watched him narrowly, for he was not one to exhibit weakness at any time. He recovered and pushed forward until he was right on the border; for all the world he looked like a hungry child peering into a bake shop window.

  "What is happening?" I demanded, getting the strong feeling that something was wrong.

  He made an unintelligible snarl and continued to stare down the path his zombie had trod in the grass. I also looked long and hard, but even my night vision brought me no sign of his creature.

  "I've lost contact with it," he said after a moment. For him to admit any kind of weakness was highly unusual. "I'm going to follow it in."

  Here he glanced at me, almost as if to seek permission, but more to get my reaction to his announcement. This was as close as he'd come to a reference to the Forlorn incident. After that unpleasant business with the goblyns, he'd shown no further interest in quitting Barovia for its neighbor, which was of some relief to me. The last thing I wanted was for him to take charge of his own land.

  Dare I take the risk once again? Perhaps he would find this place more hospitable and set himself up as its ruler.

  On the other hand, my curiosity was as great as his. If something had dealt with his zombie, chances were it might prove as dangerous to Azalin. Quite a cheering thought, that.

  The risks for both of us seemed equal at this point.

  I shrugged as if unconcerned. "Do as you please."

  Without further delay, he stepped forward into the grass, shaking the snow from the hems of his robes. He paused after ten paces, carefully looking and listening. I knew he would be alert to any magic in the air as well as trying to re-establish contact with his servant. Another ten paces and nothing happened.

  "Can you see it?" I called after him.

  "Not yet."

  The wind kicked up to a higher force, and he had to lean into it to keep his balance. It would greatly restrict his ability to hear anything. Ten more paces, fighting the rising wind for each one of them.

  "Well?" I shouted.

  He made a dismissive waving motion, too occupied trying to stay on his path to answer. The wind howled around him, tearing at his clothing. He struggled mightily against it, and I got the impression he was going to try some spellwork to make the weather more accommodating to exploration. He started to pull a scroll from one of his pockets—

  Then Azalin staggered as though struck by a large, invisible fist. The force of it was enough to lift him right from the ground and send him flying high and far. Arms flailing and legs kicking, he arced straight over my head and landed with an audible thud, sprawling gracelessly in the snow, his rich robes in much disarray. I hurried over in time to see the look of vast surprise flashing across his face, but that was soon supplanted by anger as he recovered from the assault.

  I looked down at him and tried to hide my amusement at his indignity with bright curiosity. "It seems your presence is not welcome there," I concluded.

  "Impossible," he snapped, struggling to his feet. I didn't offer to help.

  "Then what else could it be?"

  He sneered. "Maybe it was more goblyns."

  "It looked more like a backlash effect, which means someone interfered with your hold on that thing. They cut off your control, lured you in, then gave you a bloody nose for your trouble."

  I must have been living up to my name, for the devil was certainly in me at that moment. His red eyes flashed on me for an instant, his expression that of pure, naked hatred. I had seen it before and was unimpressed.

  To his credit he managed to hold in his temper and not try anything foolish. He smoothed his facial illusion back to its usual lines of disdain and turned from me to the new land.

  "Going to make a second try?" I inquired, all interest.

  In answer he strode forward and crossed in—by exactly one pace.

  "Any sense of another's presence?" I asked after a moment.

  He shut his eyes and—evidently straining as if to hear distant sound—shook his head. "There is a… I can't quite…"

  Then I heard it—a kind of voiceless whisper, the sort that can only happen when spoken directly into one's mind. I recognized it, having heard something very similar centuries ago when making my bargain with Death.

  "Arak," it said.

  I saw by Azalin's reaction that he "heard" it, too. He quietly stepped back across the border.

  "What is the meaning?" I murmured, staring out over the new land's wind-blasted landscape.

  He shook his head. "I think that is the name of this place. Arak."

  As he spoke the name the conviction came to me that he was absolutely correct. I grunted a short acknowledgment. We were both too used to the vagaries of the Art to question this strange mental missive. "Do you plan to study this place?"

  "Of course I will."

  "After the business with Forlorn, I got the impression you were not especially interested."

  "Only after I'd exhausted all the other lines of investigation it had to offer. With Arak's appearance, I can now repeat what I have done and compare the two with what I know about Barovia, then see if any useful answers reveal themselves."

  "Will you require more laboratory equipment?" When it came to such material supplies, Azalin was a bottomless pit of necessity.

  "I'll inform you if I do."

  "Have you any initial hypothesis to prove with all this research?"

  "It has to do with the conjunction phenomenon."

  He'd spoken of his pet theory a few times in the past. He had the idea that our plane occasionally joined itself with others, including the one belonging to the elusive Oerth. In this manner outsiders were able to enter, but the openings must be in one direction only and but temporary in nature. If the gates were a permanent and obvious fixture in the other planes, there would be far more newcomers invading Barovia.

  "My thought is that it may be possible for whole sections of lands from outside to be drawn to this plane," he said.

  "Why?"

  "That remains to be discovered, but it may be for a similar reason why so many bandits and the like are transported here by the Mists. It could be triggered by some harrowing negative event centered around a single powerful individual, a reverse conjunction, if you will."

  "On a very large scale. It seems rather much to center around a single person."

  "Yet you are here; your isolation generated the night of your brother's wedding."

  A reminder I did not welcome. "And what about Forlorn?"

  "That worthless creature skulking in the castle apparently collected enough negativity with its pathetic crimes to cause the surrounding lands to break away—or perhaps the Mists came for it."

  After several years of poking and prodding, I eventually discovered the existence of Forlorn's reigning lord. "Creature" was as accurate a description as it could hope to have, being an unlikely hybrid. At night it was a ghost and by day one such as myself, its movements limited. By common consent Azalin and I generally ignored the wretch, and it returned the favor.

  Azalin continued, "I shall attempt to find the reason behind Arak's appearance here."

  I silently wished him luck in that endeavor, for he would certainly need it.

  "I am of a mind that other lands may also come to join themselves to Barovia in this plane, like pieces of a table puzzle. Gather enough together and one might understand the whole picture."

  "That could take centuries at this rate."

  He sniffed. "Neither of us is going anywhere."

  "My exact point," I dryly returned.

  He deigned not to respond to that, and I took my leave skyward, riding the winds along the new border, going over the ground I had viewed in the crystal. Nothing interesting presented itself. If Azalin's optimism about discovering anything useful paid off, well and good, but I had serious doubts. He'd failed far too often in the past for me to start bolstering myself with hope at this late date. The idea of sharing eternity with his abrasive company was a dismal one, but unless some other change happened besides the bringing of new inmates and property into the prison, it looked to be the future for us both.

  My instincts were that the Barovian peasants here would simply accept the continuation of the land into Arak without question, the same as the mining communities in the south had accepted Forlorn. I had sent declarations out to the boyars in the area, advising anyone against crossing that border owing to the danger presented by the goblyns. I did not forbid the activity entirely, only cautioned that they would do it at their own risk. It's been my experience that once any given activity is prohibited it becomes irresistible bait to lure the foolish into trying it. Though it was a way of clearing out the mental deadwood, I preferred to cleave to my own less wasteful methods. I despise the squandering of perfectly good blood.

  The recovery and exhibition of additional goblyn bodies over the years proved to be an excellent determent to would-be explorers and emigrants and inspired the boyars to willingly cooperate in the assembling of a loose domestic militia along the border. When the weather permitted they gathered at least once a moon to do battle drills, and the cultivation of sword fighting skills came to be the fashion among the upper class families. Very impressive, though I doubted if any of them could stand more than five minutes in the heat of real combat before running like rabbits.

  Still it was good for their morale to let them think they were loyally able to defend Barovia against all threats. When it came down to it, I was the only real defense for the country; these irregulars were little more than a delaying tactic, though they were not informed of that unpleasant reality.

  Not knowing what possible danger awaited in Arak, would have to institute the same policy in the north, prepare for the worst, and hope nothing truly serious happened.

  Over the next few months, from the comfort of Castle Ravenloft, I oversaw Azalin's efforts to solve the mystery of Arak. I kept my viewing distanced enough so as not to provoke his suspicions, yet I was able to keep fully abreast of his activities. I was not unaware of his hidden ambitions toward seizing Barovia away from me and was glad of this new distraction for him, though the thought of him taking over another land was not at all pleasant. The threat—however undeveloped at this point—existed, though, so I took pains to stay informed and alert.

  He made several attempts to explore Arak using his zombies to no effect before finally hiring a party of explorers. They discovered what I'd already found out through my crystal, that the things he had sent had dropped in their tracks the moment they were beyond his sight, as if another force had taken them over and neutralized them. Except for the unburied and rotting bodies, there was no sign of habitation and no explanation of who or what had caused the backlash.

  His expedition went missing the following day.

  I was asleep, of course, and only got a terse report from him about the incident. He had waited in vain for their return, finally going in himself to see what had happened but found no sign of them. Their trail simply stopped. He found the remains of a long cold campfire, but all evidence of their passage, gear, animals, and all, had vanished. There wasn't even a trace of a footprint left.

  Azalin swiftly returned with no idea of what became of his hirelings. This interested me mightily, for aside from this one act the land appeared to be more deserted than Forlorn, lacking even a haunted castle as a sign of a past population.

  The exploratory sojourns ended after this, for no other Barovians could be persuaded to take the risk, and he was reluctant to put his own precious person forward. Then there was the fact that he was less interested in identifying the dangers hidden in the long grasses than working out the actual mechanics of Arak's appearance in our plane. This required slow, patient plodding work, for which he was well suited, though he needed my services often enough. I spent much time in his manor house laboratory helping him devise and test new spells, some of them simple but massive, others disastrously overwrought and doomed to failure. We did not always wait until a solstice or even an equinox to engage in experimentation. It now went on more or less constantly—as did the failures.

  Time after time the nagging voice of hopelessness flailed my brain, telling me our efforts were futile; we were trapped here together for good. When my spirits were beaten down enough to listen to it, I would work out possible strategies for destroying Azalin. A daunting task, attempting to kill that which was already dead.

  When it came to magic he was my superior, but I had the advantage of being able to learn new spells. Certainly his assassination would be one sure way of avoiding the prophesied war. If once he lost all hope of escape and chose to cut his losses and take over Barovia, war would surely come. I'd prepared for it in many subtle ways, but one cannot anticipate everything. If he attacked, he would play upon my daylight helplessness, and no delaying defense within or without my castle would stand long against him.

  Even if I chose to violate the laws of hospitality, made the first move, and managed to obliterate his desiccated body, his life-force would only leap to another vessel unless I found a way to trap it. To truly be rid of him I needed to find where he secreted his essence of Self. It wasn't something he would just leave lying about; he'd be quick to notice an intrusion, so I had to tread carefully. I spent weeks at my crystal until my eyes blurred and shoulders cramped and my head seemed ready to split from the effort of concentration. Inch by inch I went over his manor house and the surrounding grounds, always being careful to stay out of his way during my search. But for nothing. I could not find it.

  I did manage to locate his secret journal, which was something to celebrate. He had a very well-concealed private chamber he'd dug out in the cellars of the house that he'd wisely neglected to mentioned to me. I knew he had to have such a place since he had cast many spells over the area as proof against my prying about. As I increased my skills in the Art, I was able to get around them for a time and took what advantage I could. The chamber was loaded with protective trips and traps to alert him to both magical and physical intrusion, so I couldn't actually enter the place… his servitors could, though.

  On those nights when he was otherwise engaged away from the house, I would distantly control one of his zombies to enter the chamber, take down the book, and flip the pages for me one by one. Azalin had encoded the lot, writing in an unfamiliar lettering, but that did not stop me from faithfully copying down each and every line as I sat miles away in my study.

  That done, I set myself to do a bit of translation and after months of slow, patient, plodding work discovered the key to his code. Some of his journal entries were very sprightly in their candid observations. I knew he hated me, but it was quite entertaining to actually see the true depth of it as well as follow his plans for what he would do to me once he had escaped Barovia. I also found his plans for trying to take Barovia for himself. Assassination was foremost in his mind for putting me out of the way, and he had devised a dozen different means to do it. I noted them all and quietly prepared subtle counter-measures against them.