by Brian Lumley
Oh, it has been used, my son. Janos Ferenczy’s mental voice chuckled obscenely. You shall see, you shall see. But first, step aside a little. Before you ascend there are those who must descend! Small minions of mine, small friends …
Dumitru crushed back against a side wall; there came a fluttering, rapidly amplified by the chimney into a roar, and a colony of small bats whose hurtling bodies formed an almost solid shaft rushed down and out from the flue, dispersing into the subterranean vaults. For long moments they issued from the flue, until Dumitru began to think they must be without number. But then the roaring in the chimney diminished, a few latecomers shot by him, and all was silence once more.
Now climb, said the Ferenczy, again closing his grip on the mind of his mental slave.
The rungs were wide and shallow, twelve inches apart, and set very firmly into the mortar between stones. Dumitru found that he could carry his torch and, using only his feet and one hand, still climb easily enough. After only nine or ten rungs the chimney narrowed considerably, and after as many again flattened through about forty-five degrees to become little more than an upward sloping shaft. Within the space of a further twenty feet the rungs petered out and were replaced by shallow slablike steps; the “floor” then levelled out entirely and the “ceiling” gradually receded to a height of some nine or ten feet.
Now Dumitru found himself in a narrow, featureless stone passageway no more than three feet wide and of indeterminate length, where a feeling of utmost dread quickly enveloped him, bringing him to a crouching halt. Trembling and oozing cold sweat—with his heart fluttering in his chest like a trapped bird, and clammy perspiration sticking his clothes to his back and thighs—the youth thrust out his torch before him. Up ahead in the shadows where they flickered beyond the full range of illumination, a pair of yellow triangular eyes—wolf eyes and feral—floated low to the floor and reflected the torch’s fitful light. They were fixed upon Dumitru.
An old friend of mine, Dumiitruuu. Janos Ferenczy’s voice crawled in his mind like mental slime. Just like the Szgany, he and his kith and kin have watched over me many a year. Why, all manner of curious folk might come wandering up here but for these wolves of mine! Did he perhaps frighten you? You thought him below and behind you, and here he is ahead? But can’t you see that this is my bolt hole? And what sort of a bolt hole, pray, with only one way in and out? No, only follow this passage far enough, and it emerges in a hole in the face of the sheer cliff. Except … you shall not be required to go so far …
The voice scarcely bothered to disguise its threat; the Ferenczy would not be denied his due now; his grip on Dumitru’s mind and will tightened like a vise of ice. And: Proceed, he coldly commanded.
Ahead of the youth the great wolf turned and loped on, a grey shadow that merged with the greater darkness. Dumitru followed, his step uncertain, his heart pounding until he thought he could actually hear the blood singing in his ears, like the ocean in the whorl of a conch. And he wasn’t the only one who could hear it.
Ah, my son, my son! The voice was a gurgle of monstrous anticipation, of unbridled lust. Your heart leaps in you like a stag fixed with a bolt! Such strength, such youth! I feel it all! But whatever it is that causes such panic in you, be sure it is almost at an end, Dumiitruuu …
The passage widened; on Dumitru’s left the wall as before, but on his right a depression, a trench running parallel, cut in the solid rock—indeed in bedrock—that deepened with each pace he took. He extended his torch out over the rim and looked down, and in the deepest section of the trench saw … the rim and narrow neck of … of a black urn, half-buried in dark soil!
The rim of the urn—like a dark pouting mouth, with lips that seemed to expand and contract loathsomely in the flickering light—stood some five feet below the level of Dumitru’s path. Beyond the urn, the bed of the trench had been raised up. Cut in a “V,” like a sluice, it sloped gently downwards to a raised rim channelled into a narrow spout which projected directly over the mouth of the urn; in the other direction, the V-shaped bed sloped upwards and out of sight into shadows. The raised rim of rock and carved spout above the urn looked for all the world like guttering over a rain barrel, and like guttering they were stained black from the flow of some nameless liquid …
For several long moments Dumitru stood trembling there, gasping, not fully understanding what he saw but knowing with every instinct of his being that whatever it was, this contrivance was the very embodiment of evil. And as he oozed cold, slimy sweat and felt his entire body wracked with shudders, so the voice of his tormentor came again in his staggering mind:
Go on, my son, that terrible voice urged. A pace or two more, Dumiitruuu, and all will become apparent. But carefully, very carefully—don’t faint or fall from the path, whatever you do!
Two more paces, and the youth’s bulging eyes never leaving that terrible urn, nor even blinking—until he saw the place where the trench came to an end: a black oblong like an open grave. And as the light of his torch fell within—what that terrible space contained!
Spikes! Needle-sharp fangs of rusted iron, filling that final gap side to side and end to end. Three dozen of them at least—and Dumitru knew their meaning, and the Ferenczy’s terrible purpose in an instant!
Oh? Ha-haa-haaa! Ha-haaa! Terrible laughter filled Dumitru’s mind, if not his ears. And so finally it’s a battle of wills, eh, my son?
A battle of wills? Dumitru’s will hardened; he fought for control of his mind, his young, powerful muscles. And: “I … won’t … kill myself for you … old devil!” he gasped.
Of course you won’t, Dumiitruuu. Not even I can make you do that, not against your will. Beguilement has its limits, you see. No, you won’t kill yourself, my son. I shall do that. Indeed—I already have!
Dumitru found his limbs full of a sudden strength, his mind free at last of the Ferenczy’s shackles. Licking his lips, eyes starting out, he looked this way and that. Which way to run? Somewhere up ahead a great wolf waited; but he still had his torch; the wolf would back off before its flaring. And behind him …
From behind him, in this previously still place, suddenly the air came rushing like a wind—fanned by a myriad of wings! The bats!
In another moment the crushing claustrophobia of the place crashed down on Dumitru. Even without the bats, whose return seemed imminent, he knew he could never find courage to retrace his steps down the false flue, and then through the castle’s vaults with their graveyard loot, and on up that echoing stone stairwell to the outside world. No, there was only one way: forward to whatever awaited him. And as the first bats came in a rush, so he hurled himself along the stone ledge—
Which at once tilted under his weight!
And:
Ahaaa! said the awful voice in his head, full of triumph now. But even a big wolf weighs much less than a man full-grown, Dumiitruuu!
Opposite the spiked pit, the ledge and entire section of wall that backed it—an “L” of hewn stone—tilted through ninety degrees and tossed Dumitru onto the spikes. His single shriek, of realisation and the horror it brought combined, was cut off short as he was pierced through skull and spine and most of his vital organs—but not his heart. Still beating, his heart continued to pump his blood—to pump it out through the many lacerations of his impaled, writhing body.
And did I not say it would be an ecstasy, Dumiitruuu? And did I not say I’d kill you? The monster’s gloating words came floating through all the youth’s agonies, but dimly and fading, as was the agony itself. And that was the last of Janos Ferenczy’s torments, his final taunt; for now Dumitru could no longer hear him.
But Janos was not disappointed. No, for now there was that which was far more important—an ancient thirst to quench. At least until the next time.
Blood coursed down the V-shaped channel, spurted from the spout, splashed down into the mouth of the urn to wet whatever was inside. Ancient ashes, salts—the chemicals of a man, of a monster—soaked it up, bubbled and bulked ou
t, smoked and smouldered. Such was the chemical reaction that the obscene lips of the urn seemed almost to belch …
In a little while the great wolf came back. He passed scornfully under the bats where they chittered and formed a ceiling of living fur, stepped timidly where the pivoting floor and wall of the passage had rocked smoothly back into place, and paused to gaze down at the now silent urn.
Then … he whined deep in the back of his throat, jumped down into the pit and up onto the runnelled slab above the urn, and crept timidly between the spikes to a clear area at the head of the trench. There he turned about and began to free Dumitru’s drained body from the spikes, lifting the corpse from them one at a time.
When this was done, he’d jump up out of the pit, which wasn’t deep here, reach down and worry the body out, and drag it to the Place of Many Bones, where he could feed at will. It was a routine with which the old wolf was quite familiar. He’d performed this task on several previous occasions.
So had his father before him. And his. And his …
II: Seekers
SAVIRSIN, ROMANIA; EVENING OF THE FIRST FRIDAY IN August 1983; the Gaststube of an inn perched on the steep mountainside at the eastern extreme of the town, where the road climbs up through many hairpin bends and out of sight into the pines.
Three young Americans, tourists by their looks and rig, sat together at a chipped, ages-blackened, heavily grained circular wooden table in one corner of the barroom. Their clothes were casual; one of them smoked a cigarette; their drinks were local beers, not especially strong but stinging to the palate and very refreshing.
At the bar itself a pair of gnarled mountain men, hunters complete with rifles so ancient they must surely qualify as antiques, had guffawed and slapped backs and bragged of their prowess——and not only as hunters of beasts—for over an hour before one of them suddenly took on a surprised look, staggered back from the bar, and with a slurred oath aimed himself reeling through the door out into the smoky blue-grey twilight. His rifle lay on the bar where he’d left it; the bartender, not a little gingerly, took it up and put it carefully away out of sight, then continued to wash and dry the day’s used glasses.
The departed hunter’s drinking companion—and partner in crime or whatever—roared with renewed laughter; he slapped the bar explosively, finished off the other’s plum brandy and threw back his own, then looked around for more sport. And of course he spied the Americans where they sat at their ease, making casual conversation. In fact, and until now, their conversation had centered on him, but he didn’t know that.
He ordered another drink—and whatever they were drinking for them at the table; one for the barman, too—and swayed his way over to them. Before filling the order, the barman took his rifle, too, and placed it safely with the other.
“Gogosu,” the old hunter growled, thumbing himself in his leather-clad chest. “Emil Gogosu. And you? Touristi, are you?” He spoke Romanian, the dialect of the area, which leaned a little towards Hungarian. All three, they smiled back at him, two of them somewhat warily.
But the third translated, and quickly answered, “Tourists, yes. From America, the USA. Sit down, Emil Gogosu, and talk to us.”
Taken by surprise, the hunter said, “Eh? Eh? You have the tongue? You’re a guide for these two, eh? Profitable, is it?”
The younger man laughed. “God, no! I’m with them—I’m one of them—an American!”
“Impossible!” Gogosu declared, taking a seat. “What? Why, I never before heard such a thing! Foreigners speaking the tongue? You’re pulling my leg, right?”
Gogosu was peasant Romanian through and through. He had a brown, weather-beaten face, grey bullhorn mustaches stained yellow in the middle from pipe-smoking, long sideburns curling in towards his upper lip, and penetrating grey eyes under bristling, even greyer brows. He wore a patched leather jacket with a high collar that buttoned up to the neck, over a white shirt whose sleeves fitted snug at the wrist. His fur caciula cap was held fast under the right epaulet of his jacket; a half-filled bandolier passed under the left epaulet, crossed his chest diagonally, fed itself up under his right arm and across his back. A wide leather belt supported a sheath and hunter’s knife, several pouches, and his coarsely woven trousers which he wore tucked into his climber’s pigskin-calf boots. A small man, still he looked strong and wiry. And all in all, he was a picturesque specimen.
“We were talking about you,” their interpreter told him.
“Eh? Oh?” Gogosu looked from one face to the next all the way round. “About me? So I’m a figure of curiosity, am I?”
“Of admiration,” the wily American answered. “A hunter, by your looks, and good at it—or so we’d guess. You’d know this country, these mountains, well?”
“There isn’t a man knows ’em better!” Gogosu declared. But he was wily, too, and now his eyes narrowed a little. “You’re looking for a guide, eh?”
“We could be, we could be.” The other slowly nodded. “But there are guides and there are guides. You ask some guides to show you a ruined castle on a mountain and they promise you the earth! The very castle of Dracula, they say! And then they take you to a pile of rocks like someone’s pigsty collapsed! Aye, ruins, Emil Gogosu, that’s what we’re interested in. For photographs, for pictures … for mood and atmosphere!”
The barman delivered their drinks and Gogosu tossed his straight back. “Eh? Eh? You’re going to make one of those picture things, right? Moving pictures? The old vampire in his castle, chasing the girls with the wobbling breasts! God, yes, I’ve seen ’em! The pictures, I mean, down in old Lugoj, where there’s a picture house. Not the girls, no … sod all wobbly tits round here, I can tell you! Withered paps at best in this neck of the woods, my lads! But I’ve seen the pictures. And that’s what you’re looking for, eh? Ruins …”
Oddly, and despite the brandy he’s consumed, the old boy seemed to have sobered a little. His eyes focused more readily, became more fixed in their orbits as he studied the Americans each in his turn. First there was their interpreter. He was a queer one for sure, with his knowledge of the tongue and what all. He was tall, this one, a six-footer with inches to spare, long in the leg, lean in the hip, and broad at the shoulders. And now that Gogosu looked closer, he could see that he wasn’t just American. Not all American, anyway.
“What’s your name, eh? What’s your name?” The hunter took the young man’s hand and made to tighten his grip on it … but it was snatched back at once and down out of sight under the table.
“George,” the owner of the refused hand quickly replied, reclaiming Gogosu’s startled-to-flight attention. “George Vulpe.”
“Vulpe?” The hunter laughed out loud and slapped the table, making their drinks dance. “Oh, I’ve known a few Vulpes in my time. But George? What kind of a name is George to go with a name like Vulpe, eh? Now come on, let’s be straight, you and I … you mean Gheorghe, don’t you?”
The other’s dark eyes darkened more yet and seemed to brood a very little, but then they relaxed and exchanged grin for grin with the grey eyes of their inquisitor. “Well, you’re a sharp one, Emil,” their owner finally said. “Sharp-eyed too! Yes, I was Romanian once. There’s a story to it, but it’s not much …”
The gnarled old hunter returned to studying him. “Tell it anyway,” he said, giving Vulpe a slow once-over. And the young man shrugged and sat back in his chair.
“Well, I was born here, under the mountains,” he said, his voice as soft as his deceptively soft mouth. He smiled and flashed perfect teeth. So they should be, Gogosu thought, in a man only twenty-six or -seven years old. “Born here,” Vulpe repeated, “yes … but it’s only a dim and distant memory now. My folks were Travellers, which accounts for my looks. You recognised me from my tanned skin, right? And my dark eyes?”
“Aye.” Gogosu nodded. “And from the thin lobes of your ears, which would take a nice gold ring. And from your high forehead and wolfish jaw, which aren’t uncommon in the Szgany. Oh, your
origins are obvious enough, to a man who can see. So what happened?”
“Happened?” Again Vulpe’s shrug. “My parents moved to the cities, settled down, became ‘workers’ instead of the drones they’d always been.”
“Drones? You believe that?”
“No, but the authorities did. They gave them a flat in Craiova, right next to the new railway. The mortar was rotten and shaky from the trains; the plaster was coming off the walls; someone’s toilet in the flat above leaked on us … but it was good enough for work-shy drones, they said. And until I was eleven that’s where I’d play, next to the tracks. Then … one night a train was derailed. It ploughed right into our block, took away a wall, brought the whole place crashing down. I was lucky enough to live through it, but my people died. And for a while I thought I’d be better off dead, too, because my spine had been crushed and I was a cripple. But someone heard about me, and there was a scheme on at the time—an exchange of doctors and patients, between American and Romanian rehabilitation clinics—and because I was an orphan I was given priority. Not bad for a drone, eh? So … I went to the USA. And they fixed me up. What’s more, they adopted me, too! Two of them did, anyway. And because I was only a boy and there was no one left back here”—yet again, his shrug—“why, I was allowed to stay!”
“Ah!” said Gogosu. “And so now you’re an American. Well, I’ll believe you … but it’s strange for Gypsies to leave the open road. Sometimes they get thrown out and go their own ways—disputes and what have you in the camps, usually over a woman or a horse—but rarely to settle in towns. What was it with your folks? Did they cross the Gypsy king or something?”
“I don’t know. I was only a boy,” Vulpe answered. “I think perhaps they feared for me: I was a weak little thing, apparently, a runt. At any rate, they left the night I was born, and covered their tracks, and never went back.”
“A runt?” Gogosu raised an eyebrow, looked Vulpe up and down yet again. “Well, you’d not know it now! But they covered their tracks, you say? That’s it, then. Say no more. There’d been trouble in the camp, for sure. I’ll give you odds your father and mother were secret lovers, and she was promised to another. Then you came along, so he stole her away. Oh, it happens.”