Necroscope II: Wamphyri

by Brian Lumley

Chapter Eleven

   

  To this day, on the outskirts of Ploiesti, towards Bucharest, there stand gutted ruins, reminders of the mundane horrors of war. The burned-out shells lie like half-buried stony corpses in open countryside, strangely gorgeous in the summer when the old bomb craters are full of flowers and brambles and wildlife, and ivy climbs shattered walls to turn them green. But it takes the winter and the snow to make the devastation visible, to bring into monochrome perspective the gaunt reality of the region. The Romanians have never rebuilt in or near these ruins.

  This was where Faethor Ferenczy had finally met his death at the hands of Ladislau Giresci during a Second World War bombing raid on Bucharest and Ploiesti. Pinned to the floor of his study by a splintered ceiling beam when his home was hit, he had feared the encroaching flames because alive, vampires burn very slowly. Giresci, working for the Civil Defence, had seen the house bombed, entered the blazing ruin and tried to free Faethor - to no avail. It was hopeless.

  The vampire had known that he was finished. With a superhuman effort of will he had commanded . Giresci to make a quick end of it. The old way was still the only way. Since Faethor was already staked, Giresci need only behead him. The flames would do the rest, and the ancient monster would burn along with his house.

  The things he experienced in that house of horror stayed with Giresci for the rest of his life. They were what had made him an authority on vampirism. Now Ladislau Giresci was dead along with Faethor, but still the vampire stood in his debt. Which was why he would give Harry Keogh whatever assistance he could; at least, that was part of the reason. The rest of it was that Keogh was up against Thibor the Wallach.

  It wasn't yet winter when Harry Keogh homed in on Faethor's incorporeal thoughts and emerged from the Möbius continuum into the creeper- and bramble-grown ruin which had been the vampire's final refuge on earth. Indeed, the summer was barely turning to autumn, the trees still green, but the chill Harry felt might have suggested winter to the bones of any ordinary man. Harry was least of all ordinary. He knew it was a chill of the spirit, a wintry blast blowing on the soul. A psychic chill, which is only felt in the presence of a supernatural Power. Faethor Ferenczy had been such, and Harry recognised that fact. But just as surely Faethor, too, knew when he was face to face with a Power.

  The dead speak well of you, Harry, the vampire opened, his mental voice sepulchral. indeed, they love you! That is hard for one who was never loved to understand. You are not one of them, and yet they love you. Perhaps it is because you too, like them, are without body. The voice took on a grimly humorous note. Why! it might even be said that you are. . . undead?

  'If there's one thing I've learned about vampires,' Harry answered evenly, 'it's that they love riddles and word games. But I'm not here to play. Still, I'll answer your questions. Why do the dead love me? Because I bring them hope. Because I intend no harm but only good. Because through me they are something more than memories. '

  In other words, because you are 'pure'? The vampire's words dripped with sarcasm.

  'I was never pure,' said Harry, 'but I understand your meaning and I suppose you're near enough right. Which might also explain why they'll have nothing to do with you. There's no life in you, only death. You were dead even in life. You were death! And death walked with you wherever you walked. Don't compare my condition with undeath - I'm more alive now than you ever were. When I arrived here and before you spoke, I noticed something. Do you know what it was?

  The silence.

  'Exactly. No cock crowing. No birdsong. Even the droning of bees is absent here. The brambles are lush and green but they bear no fruit. Nothing, no one will come near you, not even now. The things of Nature sense your presence. They can't speak to you like I can, but they know you're here. And they shun you. Because you were evil. Because even dead, you're still evil. So don't sneer at my "pureness", Faethor. I shall never be alone. '

  And after a moment's silence, Faethor said thoughtfully, For one who seeks my help, you don't much hide your feelings.

  'We are poles apart,' Harry told him, 'but we do have a mutual enemy. '

  Thibor? Why then have you spent time with him?

  'Thibor is the source of the trouble,' Harry answered. 'He is, or was, your enemy, and what he left behind is my enemy. I hoped to learn things from him and was partially successful. Now he'll tell me no more. You offered help, and here I am to accept your offer. But we don't have to pretend friendship. '

  Guileless, Faethor said. That is why they love you. But you are right: Thibor was and is my enemy. However much I've punished him, 1 can never punish him enough. So ask what you will of me, and I'll answer all.

  'Then tell me this,' said Harry, eager once more. 'After he hurled you from your castle in flames, what became of you then?'

  I shall be brief, Faethor answered, because I sense that this is only part of what you desire to know. Cast your mind back then, if you will, one thousand years into the past. . .

  Thibor the Wallach, whom I had called son - to whom I had given my name and banner, and into whose hands I had bequeathed my castle, lands and Wamphyri power had injured me sorely. More sorely than even he suspected. That cursed ingrate!

  Thrown down from the walls of my castle in flames, I was burned and blinded. Myriad minion bats fluttered to me as I fell, were scorched and died, but dampened the flames not at all. I crashed through trees and shrubs, tumbled in a thousand agonies down the steep side of the gorge, was torn by trees and boulders alike before striking bottom: But my fall was broken in part by the foliage, and I fell in a shallow pool which put out the flames that threatened to melt my Wamphyri flesh.

  Stunned, as close to true death as a vampire might come and remain undead, still I put out a call to my faithful gypsies down in the valley. I know you will understand what I mean, Harry Keogh. We share the power to speak with others at a distance. To speak with the mind alone, as we do now. And the Szgany came.

  They took out my body from the still, salving water and cared for it. They carried me west over the mountains into the Hungarian Kingdom. They protected me from jars and jolts, hid me from potential enemies, kept me from the sun's searing rays. And at last they brought me to a place of rest. Ah! And that was a long rest: for recuperation, for reshaping, a time of enforced retirement.

  I have said Thibor had hurt me. But how he had hurt me! I was sorely damaged. All bones broken: back and neck, skull and limbs. Chest staved in, heart and lungs a mangle. Skin flayed by fire, torn by sharp branches and boulders. Even the vampire in me, which occupied most parts and portions, was battered, torn and scorched. A week in the healing? A month? A year? Nay, an hundred years! A century, in which to dream my dreams of red - or night-black - revenge!

  My long convalescence was spent in an inaccessible mountain retreat, but a place more a cavern than a castle; and all the while my Szgany tended me, and their sons, and their sons. And their daughters, too. Slowly I became whole again; the vampire in me healed itself, and then healed me; Wamphyri, I walked again, practised my arts, made myself wiser, stronger, more terrible than ever before. I went abroad from my aerie, made plans for my life's adventure as if Thibor's treachery had been but yesterday and all my wounds no more than a stiffness of the joints.

  And it was a terrible world in which I emerged, with wars everywhere and great suffering, and famines, and pestilence. Terrible, aye, but the very stuff of life to me! For I was Wamphyri .

  I builded me a small castle in the border with Wallachia, almost impregnable, and there set myself up as a Boyar of some means. I led a mixed body of Szgany, Hungarians and local Wallachs, paid them well, housed and fed them, was accepted as a landowner and leader. The Szgany, of course, would have followed me to the ends of the earth - and they did, they did! - not out of love but some strange emotion which is in the wild breast of all the Szgany. Simply say that I was a Power, and that they associate
d with me. As for my name: I became Stefan Ferrenzig, common enough in those parts. But that was only the first of my names. Thirty years after my full recovery I became the 'son' of Stefan, called Peter, and thirty years later Karl, then Grigor. A man must not be seen to live too long. , and certainly not for centuries. You understand?

  As for Wallachia: I avoided crossing the border, mainly. For there was one in Wallachia whose strength and cruelty were already renowned: a mysterious mercenary Voevod named Thibor, who commanded a small army for the Wallach princelings. And I did not wish to meet him, who should now be guarding my lands and properties in the Khorvaty! No, I would not meet him now, not yet. Oh, I doubted that he would recognise me, for I was changed beyond measure. But if I saw him I might not be able to contain myself. That could well prove fatal, for in the years of my healing he had been active and was grown strong; indeed, he was in large part the power behind the throne of Wallachia. He had his own Szgany, but well disciplined, and he also commanded the army of a prince; while I merely led an untrained rabble of gypsies and peasants. No, my revenge could wait. What is time to the Wamphyri, eh?

  For a further sixty years I bided my time, contained my activities, was subdued, covert. By now I had access to a worthy force of fighters for payment, fierce mercenaries, and I considered how best to use them. I was tempted to take on Thibor and the Wallachs, but any sort of even fight was not to my liking. I wanted the dog on his knees before me, to do with him as I desired. I did not want a battlefield confrontation, for I had learned at first hand his wiles and his strength. By now he possibly considered me dead; it were best I continued to let him think it; my time would still come.

  But meanwhile I was restless, confined, pent up. Here was I, lusty, strong, something of a power, and I had nowhere to channel my energies. It was time I went further abroad in the roiling world.

  Then I heard of a great Crusade by the Franks against the Moslems. The world was two years into its thirteenth Christian century, and even now a fleet was sailing against Zara. Originally the Crusaders had intended to attack Egypt, then the centre of Moslem power, but their armies were heirs to a long hostility towards Byzantium. The old Doge of Venice, who provided their fleet, and who was himself an enemy of Byzantium, had diverted them first to Hungary. Zara, only recently won by the Hungarians, was retaken and sacked by Venetians and Crusaders alike in November 1202; by which time I was on my way to that key city with a select company of my own supporters. The Hungarian King, 'my master', believing I was acting for him against the Crusaders, put no obstacle in my way. When I reached Zara, however, I sold myself into mercenary service and took the Cross, which had been my intention all along.

  It seemed to me that the best way to venture out across the world would be with the Crusaders; but if I had hoped for instant action, then it was a vain hope. The Venetians and Franks had already divided the city's spoils - they had argued and fought over them, too, but their quarrelling was soon over - and now the Doge and Boniface of Montferrat, who led the expedition, decided to winter at Zara.

  Now, the original intention, the prime purpose of this Fourth Crusade, had been of course to destroy the Moslems. But many Crusaders believed that Byzantium had been a traitor to Christendom throughout all the Holy Wars. And suddenly Constantinople was within grasp, or at least within reach, of vengeful Crusader passions. Moreover, Constantinople was rich - wildly rich! Madly rich! The prospect of loot such as Constantinople offered settled the matter. Egypt could wait - the very world could wait - for the target was now the Imperial Capital itself!

  I shall be brief. We set sail for Constantinople in the spring, stopped off at several places to do various things, and late in June arrived before the Imperial Capital. I will assume you know something of history. For months running to years there were objections, moral, religious and political, to the city's sack; avarice and lust eventually won the day. All schemes of going on from there to fight the infidel were finally abandoned. Pope Innocent III, who had been in large part responsible for calling the Crusade, had already excommunicated the Venetians for sacking Zara; now he was once more aghast, but both news - and intervention - travelled slowly in those days. And in the eyes of the Crusaders Constantinople had become a jewel, their quest's end, and every man of us lusted after it. Agreement was reached on the division of spoils, and then - Early in April 1204, we commenced the attack! All political scheming and pious talk were put aside at last, for this was why we were here.

  Ah! And how my fierce heart rejoiced. Every fibre of my being thrilled. Gold is one thing, but blood is another. Blood spilled, blood drunk, blood coursing through veins of fire!

  I will tell you what we came up against. First of all, the Greeks had ships on the Golden Horn to keep us from landing below the walls. They fought hard but in vain, though their efforts were not entirely wasted. Greek fire is a terrible thing - it ignites and burns in water! Their catapults hurled it among our ships, and men blazed in the sea itself. I was scalded, my right shoulder, chest and back burned near to the bone. Ah! But I had been burned before, and by an expert. A mere scorching could not keep me out of it. My pain served only to spur me on. For this was my day.

  You might wonder about the sun: how could I, Wamphyri, fight under its searing ray? I wore a flowing black cloak in the fashion of Moslem chiefs, and a helm of leather and iron to guard my head. Also, I fought wherever possible with the sun at my back. When I was not fighting - and believe me there were other things to do as well as fight - then of course I kept out of it. But the Crusaders, when they saw me and my Szgany in battle

  - ah, they were awed! Ignored hitherto, considered a rabble to bulk out the ranks and go down as fodder to fire and sword, now we were regarded by Frank and Venetian alike as demons, as fighting hell-fiends. How glad they must have been to have us on their side. So I thought .

  But let me not stray. A breach was made in the wall guarding the Blachernae quarter of the city. Simultaneously a fire broke out in the city in that quarter. The defenders were confused; they panicked; we crushed them and poured over them into the mainly empty streets, where the fighting was nothing much to mention.

  For after all, what were we up against? Greeks with all of the wind knocked out of them; an ill-disciplined army, mainly mercenary, still suffering from years of mismanagement. Slav and Pechenegi units which would fight only so long as their chances were good and the payment better; Frankish units whose members were torn, obviously, two ways; the Varangian Guard, a company composed of Danes and Englishmen who knew their Emperor Alexius III for a usurper with merit neither as a fighting man nor as a man of state. What work there was for us was slaughter. Those who were not willing to die at once fled. There was no other choice. In a few hours the Doge and Frankish and Venetian Lords occupied the Great Palace itself.

  From there they issued their orders: the war- and lootcrazed Crusaders were told that Constantinople was theirs and they had three days in which to complete the city's sack. They were the victors; there was no crime they could commit. They could do with the capital, its people and possessions whatever they wished. Can you imagine what such orders conveyed?

  For nine hundred years Constantinople had been the centre of Christian civilisation, and now for three days it became the sinkhole of hell! The Venetians, who appreciated great works, carried off Grecian masterpieces and other works of art and beauty by the ton, and treasures in precious metals near enough to sink their ships. As for the French, the Flemings and various mercenary Crusaders, including me and mine: they desired only to destroy. And destroy we did!

  However precious, if something could not be carried or hauled away it was reduced to wreckage on the spot. We fuelled our madness from rich wine-cellars, paused only to drink, rape or murder, then returned to the sack. Nothing, no one was spared. No virgin came out of it intact, and few came out alive. If a woman was too old to be stabbed with flesh she was stabbed with steel, and no female was too young. Convents were sacke
d and nuns used as whores - Christian nuns, mind!

  Men who had not fled but stayed to protect their homes and families were slit up their bellies and left clutching their steaming guts to die in the streets. The city's gardens and squares were full of its dead inhabitants, mainly women and children. And I, Faethor Ferenczy - known to the Franks as the Black One, or Black Grigor, the Hungarian Devil - I was ever in the thick of it. The thickest of it. For three days I glutted myself as if there were no end to my lust.

  I did not know it but the end - my end, the end of glory, of power, of notoriety - was already looming. For I had forgotten the prime rule of the Wamphyri: do not be seen to be too different. Be strong, but not overpowering. Be lustful, but not a legendary satyr. Command respect, but not devotion. And above all do nothing to cause your peers, or those who have the power to consider themselves your superiors, to become afraid of you.

  But I had been burned by Greek fire and it had merely infuriated me. And rapacious? For every man I had killed I had taken a woman, as many as thirty in a day and a night! My Szgany looked to me as a sort of god - or devil. And finally. . . finally, of course, the Crusaders proper had come to fear me. More than all matters of 'conscience', more than all the murder and rape and blasphemies they had committed, my deeds had given them bad dreams.

  Aye, and they were sore in need of a scapegoat.

  I believe that even without Innocent's pious protestations and hand-flutterings and cries of horror, still I would have been persecuted. Anyway, this was the way of it. The Pope had been enraged by the sack of Zara, at first delighted by Constantinople, then aghast when he heard of the atrocities. He now washed his hands of the Crusade in its entirety. Far from helping true Christian soldiers in their fight against Islam, it seemed its only aim had been to conquer Christian territories. And as for the blasphemies and generally atrocious behaviour of the Crusaders in Constantinople's holy places .

  I say again: they needed a scapegoat, and no need to look too far for one. A certain 'bloodthirsty mercenary recruited in Zara' would fit the bill nicely. In secret communiqu??s Innocent had ordered that those directly responsible for 'gross acts of excessive and unnatural cruelty' must gain 'neither glory nor rich rewards nor lands' for their barbarism. Their names should no more be spoken by good men and true but 'struck forever out of the records'. All such great sinners were to be offered 'neither respect nor high regard', for by their acts they had shown that they were 'worthy only of contempt'. Hah! It was more than excommunication - it was a death warrant!

  Excommunication. . . I had taken the Cross in Zara as a matter of expediency. It meant nothing. A cross is a symbol, nothing more. Soon, however, I would come to hate that symbol.

  We had a large house on the outskirts of the sacked city, my Szgany and I. It had been a palace or some such, was now filled with wine and loot and prostitutes. The other mercenary groups had turned over their plunder to their Crusader masters for the prearranged split, but I had not. For we had not yet been paid! Perhaps I was in error there. Certainly our loot was an extra incentive for Crusader treachery.

  They came at night, which was their mistake. I am - or was - Wamphyri; night was my element. Some vampire premonition had warned me that all was not well. I was awake and on the prowl when the attack came. I roused up my men and they set to. But it was no good; we were heavily outnumbered and, taken by surprise, my men were still half-asleep. When the place began to burn I saw that I couldn't win. Even if I beat off all of these Crusaders, they formed only a fraction of the total body. They had probably diced with ten other equal parties for the privilege of killing and robbing me. Also, if they had guessed what I was - and the fire suggested that they had - quite obviously my situation was untenable.

  I took gold and a great many gemstones and fled into the darkness. On my way I carried off one of my attackers with me. He was a Frenchman, only a lad, and I made a quick end of it, for I had not time to tarry. Before he died, though, he told me what it was all about. From that day to this I have loathed the cross and all who wear it, or live in its shadow or under its influence.

  Of my Szgany, not a man of them survived to follow me out of that place; but I later learned that two captives had been taken for questioning. As it was I stood off and watched the blaze from afar. And since the inferno was ringed about by Crusaders, I could only suppose that they assumed I had died in the flames. So be it - I would not disillusion them.

  And now I was alone and a long way from home. Well, hadn't I desired to see the world?

  Now, I have said I was a long way from home. In miles on the ground this statement is seen to be far from accurate. But where indeed was my home? I could hardly return to Hungary, not for some little time. Wallachia was no place for me, and my old castle in the Khorvaty, looking down on Russia, was in ruins. What, then, was I to do? Where to go? Ah, but the world is a wide place!

  To detail my adventures from that time forward would take too long. I shall merely outline my deeds and travels, and you must forgive or fill in for yourself any great gaps or leaps in time.

  North was out of the question; likewise west; I headed east. It was 1204. Need I remind you of a singular emergence in Mongolia just two years later? Of course not, his name was Temujin - later Genghis Khan! With a party of Uighurs I joined him and helped subdue and unite the last of the rowdy Mongol tribes, until all Mongolia was finally united. I proved myself a capable warlord and he showed me some respect. With some small effort I was able to change my features until I looked the part; that is to say I willed my vampire flesh into a new mould. The Khan knew that I was not a Mongol, of course, but at least I was acceptable. And later he would have many mercenaries in his command, so that my participation was in no way a rare thing.

  I was with him against the Chin, when we penetrated the Great Wall, and after his death I was there to see the total obliteration of the Chin Empire. I passed my 'loyalty' down to Genghis's grandson, Batu. I could have offered my services to other Mongol Khans, but Batu's objective was Europe! It was one thing to return a man alone, but another to go back as a general in a Mongol army!

  In the winter of 1237 - 8, in a lightning campaign, we smashed the Russian principalities. In 1240 we took Kiev by storm and burned it to ashes. From there we struck at Poland and Hungary. Only the death of the Great Khan Ogedei in 1241 saved Europe in its entirety; there were disputes about the succession and the westward campaigns were stalled.

  Later, it was time for The Fereng, as I was known, to 'die' again. I obtained permission to journey to an ambiguous homeland far in the West; my 'son' would join H??leg?? in his push against the Assassins and the Caliphate. As Fereng the Black, Son of The Fereng, under H??leg??, I assisted in the extermination of the Assassins and was there at the fall of Baghdad in 1258. Ah, but a little more than two years later, at Am Jalut in the so-called Holy Land, we were delivered a crushing defeat by the Mamelukes; the turning point for the Mongols had come.

  In Russia Mongol rule would continue to the end of the fourteenth century, but 'rule' implies peace and my taste for war had grown insatiable. I stuck it out forty years more, then parted company with the Mongols and sought action elsewhere . .

  I fought for Islam! I was now an Ottoman, a Turk! Aha! What it is to be a mercenary, eh? Yes, I became a ghazi, a Moslem Warrior, fighting against the polytheists, and for nearly two centuries my life was one great unending river of blood and death! Under Bayezid, Wallachia became a vassal state which the Turks called Eflak. I could have returned then and sought out Thibor, who had moved with his Szekely into the mountains of Transylvania, but I was busy campaigning elsewhere. By the middle of the fifteenth century my chance had passed me by; the boundaries of the Ottoman state at the accession of Mehemmed II were shrinking. In 1431 Sigismund the Holy Roman Emperor had invested VIad II of Wallachia with the Order of the Dragon - licence to destroy the infidel Turk. And who was VIad's instrument in this 'holy' work? Who wa
s his war-weapon? Thibor, of course!

  Of Thibor's deeds, strangely, I heard with no small measure of pride. He butchered not only the infidel Turk but Hungarians, Germans, and other Christians in their thousands. Ah, he was a true son of his father! If only he had not been disobedient. Alas, (for him) but disobedience to me was not his only failing; like myself at the end of my Crusader adventure, he had not practised the caution of the Wamphyri. He was adored by the Szekely but set himself on a level with his superiors, the Wallachian princes, and his excesses had made him notorious. He was feared throughout the land. In short, he had in every way brought himself into prominence. A vampire may not be prominent, not if he values his longevity.

  But Thibor was wild, demented in his cruelties! Vlad the (so called) Impaler, Radu the Handsome, and Mircea the Monk (whose reign was so short) had all tasked him with the protection of Wallachia and the chastisement of its enemies; tasks in which he delighted, at which he excelled. Indeed, the Impaler, one of history's favourite villains, suffers undeservedly: he was cruel, aye, but in fact he has been named for Thibor's deeds! Like my name, Thibor's has been struck, but the stark terror of his deeds will live forever.

  Now let me get on. When I had lived too long with the Turks, finally I deserted their cause - which was crumbling, as all causes must in the end - and returned to Wallachia. The time was well chosen. Thibor had gone too far; Mircea had recently acceded to the throne and he feared his demon Voevod mightily. This was the moment I had so long awaited.

  Crossing the Danube, I put out Wamphyri thoughts ahead of me. Where were my gypsies now? Did they still remember me? Three hundred years is a long time. But it was night, and I was night's master. My thoughts were carried on the dark winds all across Wallachia and into the shadowed mountains. Romany dreamers where they lay about their campfires heard me and started awake, gazing at each other in wonder. For they had heard a legend from their grandfathers, who had heard it from their grandfathers, that one day I would return.

  In 1206 two of my mercenary Szgany had come home - the same two taken for questioning on the night of Crusader cowardice and treachery, whose lives had been spared - and they had returned to foster an awesome myth. But now I was here, a myth no longer. 'Father, what shall we do?' they whispered into the night. 'Shall we come to meet you, master?'

  'No,' I told them across all the rivers and forests and miles. 'I have work to finish, and I alone must see to it. Go into the Carpatii Meridionali and put my house in order, so that I may have my own place when my work is done. ' And I knew that they would do it.

  Then. . . I went to Mircea in Targoviste. Thibor was campaigning on the Hungarian border, a good safe way away. I showed the Prince living vampire flesh taken from my own body, telling him that it was flesh of Thibor. Then, because he was close to fainting, I burned it. This showed him one way in which a vampire may be killed. I told him the other way, too: the stake and decapitation. Then I questioned him about his Voevod's longevity: did he not deem it strange that Thibor must be at least three hundred years old? No, he answered, for it was not one man but several. They all were part of the same legend, they all took the same name, Thibor. All of them, down through the years, had fought under the devil-bat-dragon banner.

  I laughed at him. What? But I had studied Russian records and knew for a fact that this selfsame man - this one man - had been a Boyar in Kiev three hundred years ago! At that time it had been rumoured that he was Wamphyri. The fact that he still lived gave the rumour ample foundation. He was a lustful vampire - and now it seemed he lusted after the throne of Wallachia!

  Did I have any proof at all in support of my accusations, the Prince asked me.

  I told him: you have seen his vampire flesh.

  It could have been the loathsome flesh of any vampire, he said.

  But I had dedicated myself to seek out vampires and destroy them wherever I found them, I told him. In pursuit of such creatures I had been in China, Mongolia, Turkey-land, Russia - and I spoke many languages to prove it. When Thibor had been wounded in battle, I had been there to take and keep a piece of his flesh, which had grown into what the Prince had seen. What more proof did he need?

  None. He too had heard rumours, had his suspicions, his doubts. .

  The Prince already feared Thibor, but what I had told him - mostly the truth, except perhaps concerning Thibor's ambition - had utterly terrified him. How could he deal with this monster?

  I told him how. He must send for Thibor on some pretext or other - to bestow upon him a great honour! Yes, that would do it. Vampires are often prideful; flattery, carefully applied, can win them over. Mircea must tell Thibor that he desired to make him Voevod in Chief over all Wallachia, with powers second only to Mircea himself.

  'Power? He has that already!'

  'Then tell him that eventually succession to the throne will not be out of the question. '

  'What?' The Prince pondered. 'I must take advice. '

  'Ridiculous!' I was forceful. 'He may have allies among your advisors. Don't you know his strength?'

  'Say on. .

  'When he comes, I shall be here. He must be told to come alone, his army staying on the Hungarian border to continue the skirmishing. Orders can be sent to them later, dispersing them to lesser, more trusted generals. You shall receive him alone - at night. '

  'Alone? At night?' Mircea the Monk was sore afraid.

  'You must drink with him. I shall give you wine with which to drug him. He is strong, however, and no amount of wine will kill him. It may not even render him unconscious. But it will rob him of his senses, make him clumsy, stupid, like a man drunk.

  'I shall be close at hand with four or five of the most trusted members of your guard. We'll confine him, naked, in a place you shall nominate. A special place, somewhere in the grounds of the palace. Then, when the sun rises, you will know you have trapped a vampire. The sun's rays on his flesh will be a torture to him! But that in itself will not be sufficient proof. No, for above all else we must be just. Bound, his jaws will be forced open. You shall see his tongue, 0 Prince - forked like a snake's, and red with blood!

  'At once a stake of hard wood shall be driven through his heart. This, for the greater part, will immobilise him. Then into a coffin with him, and off to a secret place. He shall be buried where no one should ever find him, a place forbidden to men from this time forward. '

  'Will it work?'

  I gave the Prince my guarantee that it would work. And it did! Exactly as I have stated.

  From Targoviste to the cruciform hills is perhaps one hundred miles. Thibor was carried there at all speed. Holy men came with us all the way, with exorcisms ringing until I thought I would be sick. I was dressed in the plain black habit of a monk, with the hood thrown up. None had seen my face except Mircea and a handful of officials at the palace, all of whom I had beguiled, or hypnotised as you now have it, to a degree.

  There in the hills a rude mausoleum was hastily constructed of local stone; it bore no name or title, no special marks; standing low to the ground and ominous in a gloomy glade, as you have seen it, it would in itself suffice to keep away the merely curious. Years later someone cut Thibor's emblem into the stone - as an additional warning, perhaps. Or it could be that some Szgany or Szekely follower found him and marked the place, but feared to bring him up or lacked the wit.

  I have gone ahead of myself.

  We took him there, to the foothills of the Carpatii, and there he was lowered into his hole four or five feet deep in the dark earth. Wrapped in massy chains of silver and iron, he was, and the stake still in him and nailing him secure in his box. He lay pale as death, his eyes closed, for all the world a corpse. But I knew that he was not.

  Night was falling. I told the soldiers and priests that I would climb down and behead Thibor, and set a fire of branches in his grave to burn him, and when the fire was dead fill in the hole. It was dangerous, wi
tchcrafty work, I said, which could only be done by the light of the moon. They should now retreat, if they valued their souls. They went, stood off, and waited for me on the plain.

  The moon, thin-horned, rose up. I looked down on Thibor and spoke to him in the manner of the Wamphyri. 'Ah, my son, and so it is come to this. Sad, sad day for a fond father, who bestowed upon an ingrate son mighty powers to be wasted. A son who would not honour his father's ordinances, and is therefore fallen in the world. Wake up, Thibor, and let that also which is in you waken, for I know that you are not dead. '

  His eyes opened a crack as my words sank in, then gaped wide in sudden understanding. I threw back my cowl so that he might see me, and smiled in a manner he must surely remember. He marked me and gave a great start. Then he marked his whereabouts - and screamed! Ah, how he screamed!

  I threw earth down upon him.

  'Mercy!' he cried out loud.

  'Mercy? But are you not Thibor the Wallach, given the name Ferenczy and commanded to tend in his absence the lands of Faethor of the Wamphyri? And if you are, what do you here, so far from your place of duty?'

  'Mercy! Mercy! Leave me my head, Faethor. '

  'I intend to!' I tossed in more dirt.

  He saw my meaning, my intention, and went mad, shaking and vibrating and generally threatening to tear himself loose from his stake. I put down a long, stout pole into the grave and tapped home the stake more firmly, driving it through the bottom of the coffin itself. As for the coffin's lid, I merely let it stand there on its side in the bottom of the hole. What? Cover him up and lose sight of that frantic, fear-filled face? 'But I am Wamphyri!' he screamed.

  'You could have been,' I told him. 'Ah, you could have been! Now you are nothing. '

  'Old bastard! How I hate you!' he raved, blood in his eyes, his nostrils, the writhing gape of his mouth.

  'Mutual, my son. '

  'You are afraid. You fear me. That is the reason!'

  'Reason? You desire to know the reason? How fares my castle in the Khorvaty? What of my mountains, my dark forests, my lands? I will tell you: the Khans have held them for more than a century. And where were you, Thibor?'

  'It's true!' he screamed, through the earth I threw in his face. 'You do fear me!'

  'If that were true, then I should most certainly behead you,' I smiled. 'No, I merely hate you above all others. Do you remember how you burned me? I cursed you for a hundred years, Thibor. Now it is your turn to curse me for the rest of time. Or until you stiffen into a stone in

  the dark earth. '

  And without further ado I filled in his grave.

  When he could no longer scream with his mouth he screamed with his mind. I relished each and every yelp. Then I built a small fire to fool the soldiers and the priests, and warmed myself before it for an hour, for the night was chill. And eventually I went down to the plain.

  'Farewell, my son,' I told Thibor. And then I shut him out of my mind, as I had shut him out of the world, forever.

  'And so you took your revenge on Thibor,' said Harry when Faethor paused. 'You buried him alive - or undead - forever. Well, that might have suited your cruel purpose, Faethor Ferenczy, but you certainly weren't doing the world at large any favours by letting him keep his head. He corrupted Dragosani and planted his vampire seed in him, and between times infected the unborn Yulian Bodescu, who is now a vampire in his own right. Did you know these things?

  Harry, said Faethor, in my life I was a master of telepathy, and in death. . . ? Oh, the dead won't talk to me, and I can't blame them - but there is nothing to keep me from listening in on their conversations. In a way, it could even be argued that I'm a Necroscope, like you. Oh, I've read the thoughts of many. And there have been certain thoughts which interested me greatly - especially those of that dog Thibor. Yes, since my death, I have renewed my interest in his affairs. I know about Boris Dragosani and Yulian Bodescu.

  'Dragosani is dead,' Harry told him, albeit unnecessarily, 'but I've spoken to him and he tells me Thibor will try to come back, through Bodescu. Now, how can this be? I mean, Thibor is dead - no longer merely undead but utterly dead, dissolved, finished. '

  Something of him remains even now.

  'Vampire matter, you mean? Mindless protoplasm hiding in the earth, shunning the light, devoid of conscious will? How may Thibor use that when he no longer commands it?'

  An interesting question, Faethor answered. Thibor's root. - his creeper of flesh, a stray pseudopod detached and left behind - would seem to be the exact opposite of you and me. We are incorporeal: living minds without material bodies. And it is. . . what? A living body without a mind?

  'I've no time for riddles and word games, Faethor,' Harry reminded him.

  I was not playing games but answering your question, said Faethor. In part, anyway. You are an intelligent man. Can '(you work it out for yourself?

  That got Harry thinking. About opposite poles. Was that what Faethor meant: that Thibor would make a new home for himself in a composite being? A thing formed of Yulian's physical shape and Thibor's vampire spirit? While he worried at the problem, Faethor was not excluded from Harry's thoughts.

  Bravo! said the vampire.

  'Your confidence is misplaced,' Harry told him. 'I still don't have the answer. Or if I do then I don't understand

  it. I can't see how Thibor's mentality can govern Yulian's body. Not while it's controlled by Yulian's own mind, anyway. '

  Bravo! said Faethor again; but Harry remained in the dark.

  'Explain,' said the Necroscope, admitting defeat.

  If Thibor can lure Yulian Bodescu to the cruciform hills, said Faethor, and there cause his surviving creeper - the protoflesh he shed, perhaps for this very purpose - to join with Bodescu.

  'He can form a hybrid?'

  Why not? Bodescu already has something of Thibor in him. He already is influenced by him. The only obstacle, as you point out, will be the youth's mind. Answer:

  Thibor's vampire tissue, once it is in him, will simply eat Yulian's mind away, to make room for Thibor's!

  'Eat it away?' Harry felt a dizzy nausea. Literally!

  'But. . . a body without a mind must quickly die. ' A human body, yes, if it is not kept alive artificially. But Bodescu's body is no longer human. Surely that is the essence of your problem? He is a vampire. And in any case, Thibor's transition would take the merest moment of time. Yulian Bodescu would go up into the cruciform hills, and he would appear to come down again from them. But in fact - 'It would be Thibor!'

  Bravo! said Faethor a third time, however caustically.

  'Thank you,' said Harry, ignoring the other's sarcasm, 'for now I know that I'm on the right track, and that the course of action chosen by certain friends of mine is the right one. Which leaves only one last question unanswered. '

  Oh? Black humour had returned to Faethor's voice, a certain sly note of innuendo. Let me see if I can guess it. You desire to know if I, Faethor Ferenczy - like Thibor the Wallach - have left anything of myself behind to fester in the dark earth. Am I right?

  'You know you are,' said Harry. 'For all I know it's a precaution all the Wamphyri take - against the chance that death will find them out. '

  Harry, you have been straightforward with me, and I like you for it. Now I too shall be forthright. No, this thing is of Thibor's invention. However, I would add that I wish I had thought of it first! As for my 'vampire remains': yes, I believe there is such a revenant. if not several. Except 'revenant' is perhaps the wrong word, for we both know there will be no return.

  'And it - they, whatever - is in your castle in the Khorvaty, which Thibor razed?'

  A simple enough deduction.

  'But have you no desire to use such remains, like Thibor, to raise yourself up again?'

  You are naïve, Harry. If! could, I probably would. But how? I
died here and may not depart this spot. And anyway. I know that you will destroy whatever Thibor left buried in that castle a thousand years ago - if it has survived. But a thousand years, Harry - think of it! Even I do not know if vampire protoplasm can live that long, in those circumstances.

  'But it might have survived. Doesn't that. . . interest you?'

  Harry detected something like a sigh. Harry, I will tell you something. Believe me if you like, or disbelieve, but I am at peace. With myself, anyway. I have had my day and I am satisfied. If you had lived for thirteen hundred years then you might understand. Perhaps you will believe me if I say that even you have been a disturbance. But you must disturb me no longer. My debt to Ladislau Giresci is paid in full. Farewell.

  Harry waited a moment, then said, 'Goodbye, Faethor. '

  And tired now, strangely weary, he found a space-time door and returned to the Möbius continuum.

  Harry Keogh's conversation with Faethor Ferenczy had ended none too soon; Harry Jnr was awake and calling his father's mind home. Snatched from the Möbius continuum into the infant's increasingly powerful id, Harry was obliged to wait out his son's period of wakefulness, which continued into Sunday evening. It was 7. 30 P. M. In England when finally Harry Jnr went back to sleep, but in Romania it was two hours later and darkness had already fallen.

  The vampire-hunters had a suite of rooms in an old world inn on the outskirts of lonesti. There in a comfortable pine-panelled lounge they finalised their plans for Monday and enjoyed drinks before making an early night of it. That at least was their intention. Only Irma Dobresti was absent, having gone into Pitesti to make final arrangements for certain ordnance supplies. She had wanted to be sure the requisition was ready. All of the men were agreed that whatever she lacked in looks and personal charm, Irma certainly made up for in efficiency.

  Harry Keogh, when he materialised, found them with drinks in their hands around a log fire. The only warning of his coming was when Carl Quint suddenly sat bolt upright in his easy chair, spilling his slivovitz into his lap.

  Visibly paling, staring all about the room with eyes round as saucers, Quint stood up; but even standing it was as if he had shrunk down into himself. 'Oh-oh!' he managed to gasp.

  Gulharov was plainly puzzled but Krakovitch, too, felt something. He shivered and said, 'What? What? I think there is some - ,

  'You're right,' Alec Kyle cut him off, hurrying to the main door of the suite and locking it, then turning off all the lights except one. 'There is something. Take it easy, all of you. He's coming. '

  'What?' Krakovitch said again, his breath pluming as the temperature plummeted. 'Who is. . . coming?'

  Quint took a deep breath. 'Felix,' he said, his voice shivery, 'you'd better tell Sergei not to panic. This is a friend of ours - but at first meeting he may come as a bit of a shock!'

  Krakovitch spoke to Gulharov in Russian, and the young soldier put down his glass and slowly got to his feet. And right then, at that very moment, suddenly Harry was there.

  He took his usual form, except that now the infant was no longer foetal but seated in his mid-section, and it no longer turned aimlessly on its own axis but seemed to recline against Harry, eyes closed, in an attitude almost of meditation. Also, the Keogh manifestation seemed paler, had less luminosity, while the image of the child was definitely brighter.

  Krakovitch, after the initial shock, recognised Keogh at once. 'My God!' he blurted. 'A ghost - two ghosts! Yes, and I know one of them. That thing is Harry Keogh!'

  'Not a ghost, Felix,' said Kyle as he took the Russian's arm. 'It's something rather more than a ghost - but nothing to be afraid of, I assure you. Is Sergei all right?'

  Gulharov's Adam's apple bobbed frantically; his hands shook and his eyes bulged; if he could have run he probably would have, but the strength had gone out of his legs. Krakovitch spoke to him sharply in Russian, told him to sit, that everything was in order. Sergei didn't believe him but he sat anyway, almost collapsing into his chair.

  'The floor's yours, Harry,' said Kyle.

  'For the sake of goodness!' said Krakovitch, feeling a growing hysteria, but trying to stay calm for Gulharov's sake. 'Won't someone explain?'

  Keogh looked at him, at Gulharov, too. You are Krakovitch, he said to the former. You have psychic awareness, which makes it easier. But your friend doesn't. I'm getting through to him, but it's an effort.

  Krakovitch opened and closed his mouth like a fish, saying nothing, then thumped down into his chair beside Gulharov. He licked dry lips, glanced at Kyle. 'Not .

  not a ghost?'

  No, I'm not, Harry answered. But 1 suppose it's an understandable mistake. Look, I haven't time to explain my circumstances. Now that you've seen me, maybe Kyle will do that for me? But later. Right now I'm short of time again, and what I have to say is rather important.

  'Felix,' said Kyle, 'try to put your astonishment behind you. Just accept that this is happening and try to take in what he's saying. I'll tell you all about it just as soon as I have the chance. '

  The Russian nodded, got a grip of himself, said, 'Very well. '

  Harry told all that he'd learned since the last time he and Kyle had spoken. His terms of expression were very abbreviated; he brought the INTESP men up to date in less than half an hour. Finally he was done, and looked to Kyle for his response. How are things in England?

  'I contact our people tomorrow at noon,' Kyle told him.

  And the house in Devon?

  'I think the time has come to order them in. '

  Keogh nodded. So do I. When do you make your move in the cruciform hills?

  'We finally get to see the place tomorrow,' Kyle answered. 'After that. . . Tuesday, in daylight!'

  Well, remember what I've told you. What Thibor left behind is - big!

  'But it lacks intelligence. And as I said, we'll be working in daylight. '

  Again the Keogh apparition nodded. I suggest you move in on Harkley House and Bodescu at the same time. By now he has to be pretty sure what he is and he's probably explored his vampire powers, though from what we know of him he doesn't have Thibor' or Faethor's cunning or insularity. They guarded their Wamphyri identities - jealously! They didn't go around making more vampires unnecessarily. On the other hand Yulian Bodescu, perhaps because he's had no instruction, is a time-bomb! Frighten him, then make a mistake and let him go free, and he'll go like wildfire, a vile cancer in the guts of all humanity.

  Kyle knew he was right. 'I agree with you on the timing,' he said, 'but are you sure you're not just worrying about Bodescu getting to Thibor before we can act against him?'

  I might be, the apparition frowned. But as far as we know Bodescu isn't even aware of the cruciform hills and what's buried there. But put that aside for now. Tell me, do your men in England know what has to be done? It isn't every man who'd have the stomach for it. it's rough work. The old methods - the stake, decapitation, fire - there are no other ways. Nothing else will work. It can't be done with kid gloves. The fire at Harkley will have to be a big one. A bonfire! Because of the cellars.

  'Because we don't know what's down there? I agree. When I speak to my men tomorrow, I'll make sure they fully understand. They already do, I'm sure, but I'll make absolutely certain. The whole house has to go - from the cellars up! Yes, and maybe down a little, too. '

  Good, said Keogh. For a moment he stood silent, a hologram of thin blue neon wires. He seemed a little uncertain, about something, like an actor needing a prompt. Then he said: Look, I've things to do. There are people - dead people - I need to thank properly for their help. And i've not yet worked out how to break my baby son's hold on me. That's becoming a problem. So if you'll excuse me.

  Kyle stepped forward. There seemed some sort of air of finality about Harry Keogh. Kyle wanted to hold out his hand but knew there was nothing there. Nothing of a
ny substance, anyway. 'Harry,' he said. 'Er, give them our thanks, too. Your friends, I mean. '

  I will, said the other. He smiled a wan smile and disappeared in a rapidly dispersing burst of foxfire.

  For long moments there was a breathless silence. Then Kyle turned the light up and Krakovitch drew a massive breath of air. Finally he expelled it, and said: 'And now - now I hope you'll agree that you owe me something of an explanation!'

  Which was something Kyle could only go along with . .

  Harry Keogh had done all he could. The rest of it lay in the hands of the physically alive, or at least with people who still had hands to accept it.

  In the Möbius continuum Harry felt a mental tugging; even sleeping, his baby son's attraction was still enormous. Harry Jnr was tightening his grip, and Harry Snr was sure that he had been right about the infant: he was drawing on his mind, leeching his knowledge, absorbing the substance of his id. Soon Harry must make a permanent break. But how? To where? What would be left of him, he wondered, if he were completely absorbed? Would there be anything left at all?

  Or would he simply cease to be except as the future esoteric talent of his own son?

  Using the Möbius continuum, Harry could always plumb the future to find the answers to these questions. He preferred not to know all of the answers, however, for the future seemed somehow inviolable. It wasn't that he would feel a cheat but rather that he doubted the wisdom of knowing the future.

  For like the past, the future was fixed; if Harry saw something he didn't like, would he try to avoid it? Of course he would, even knowing it was unavoidable. Which could only complicate his weird existence more yet!

  The one single glimpse he would allow himself would be to discover if indeed he had any future at all. Which for Harry Keogh was the very simplest of exercises.

  Still fighting his son's attraction, he found a future door and opened it, gazed out upon the ever expanding future. Against the subtly shifting darkness of the fourth dimension, Earth's myriad human life-lines of neon blue shot away into a sapphire haze, defining the length of lives that were and lives still to come. Harry's line sped out from his own incorporeal being - from his mind, he supposed - and wound away apparently interminably. But he saw that just beyond the Möbius door it took on a course lying parallel to a second thread, like the twin strips of a motorway with a central verge or barrier. And this second life-line, Harry supposed, must belong to Harry Jnr.

  He launched himself from the door and traversed future time, following his own and the infant Harry's threads. Faster than the life-lines themselves, he propelled himself into the near future. He witnessed and was saddened by the termination of many blue threads, which simply dimmed and went out, for he knew that these were deaths; and he saw others burst brightly into existence like stars, then extend themselves into brilliant neon filaments, and knew that these were births, new lives. And so he forged a little way forward. Time was briefly furrowed in his wake like the sea behind a forging ship, before closing in and sealing itself once more.

  Suddenly, despite the fact that Harry was without body, he felt an icy blast blowing on him from the side. It could hardly be a physical chill and must therefore be of the psyche. Sure enough, away out across the panorama of speeding life-lines, he spied one that was as different as a shark in a school of tuna. For this one was scarlet - the mark of a vampire!

  And quite deliberately, it was angling in towards his and Harry Jnr's threads! Harry knew panic. The scarlet life-line drifted closer; at any moment it must converge with his and the infant's. Then - Harry Jnr's life-thread abruptly veered away from his father's, raced off at a tangent on its own amidst an ocean of weaving blue lines. And the thread of Harry Snr followed suit, avoiding the vampire thread's thrust and turning desperately away. The action had looked for all the world like the manoeuvring of drivers on some otherworldly race track. But the last move had been blind, almost instinctive, and Harry's life-thread seemed now to careen, out of control, across the skein of future time.

  Then, in another moment, Harry witnessed and indeed was party to the impossible - a collision! Another blue life-thread, dimming, crumbling, disintegrating, converged with his out of nowhere. The two seemed to bend towards each other as by some mutual attraction, before slamming together in a neon blaze that was much brighter and speeding on as one thread. Briefly Harry felt the presence - or the faint, fading echo - of another mind superimposed on his own. Then it was gone, extinct, and his thread rushed on alone.

  He had seen enough. The future must go its own way. (Which it surely would. ) He cast about, found a door and side-stepped out of time into the Möbius continuum. At once the infant Harry's tractor id put a grapple on him and began to reel him in. Harry didn't fight it but merely let himself drift home. Home to his son's mind in Hartlepool, on a Sunday night early in the autumn of 1977.

  He had intended to talk to certain new friends in Romania, but that would have to wait. As for his 'collision' with the future of some other person: he hardly knew what to make of that. But in the brief moment before its expiry, he was sure that he had recognised that fading echo of a mind.

  And that was the most puzzling thing of all. . .