by Brian Lumley
The ranks of wolves began to thin out as they drew closer to the castle’s walls. Moving forward, it was not until the Wallach stood in the very shadow of those walls that he saw the castle’s simple defences: a trench fifteen feet wide and fifteen deep, excavated right down to solid rock, the bottom furnished with long pointed stakes set so close to each other that any man falling in must surely be speared. Then, too, he saw the door: a heavy, oak-boarded, iron-banded affair extended at its top to form a drawbridge. And even as he looked, so the door was creakingly lowered, heavy chains rattling as the trench was bridged.
In the opening thus revealed stood a cloaked figure holding before him a flaring torch. Behind the glare of that brand, little could be seen of features but a blur; all that Thibor could make of them was their paleness, and a vague awareness of grotesque proportions. He had his suspicions, however, and more than suspicions — which were fully borne out on the instant that the figure spoke: ‘And so you have come — of your own free will.’
Thibor had often been accused of being a cold man with a cold, emotionless voice. It was something he had never denied. But if his voice was cold, this voice might have issued from the grave itself. And where Thibor had found the voice soothing in the first instance, now it grated on his nerves like the ache of a rotten tooth, or cold steel on a living bone. It was old — hoary as the mountains, and possibly entrusted with as many secrets — but it was certainly not infirm. It held the authority of all dark knowledge.
‘My own free will?’ Thibor dared to look away from the figure, saw that he was quite alone. The wolves had melted into the night, into the mountains. Perhaps a single pair of yellow eyes gleamed for a moment under the trees, but that was all. He turned back to face his host. ‘Yes, of my own free will…’
Then you are welcome.’ The Boyar fixed his torch in a bracket just inside the doorway, bowed a little from the waist, stood to one side. And Thibor crossed the drawbridge, made to enter the house of the Ferenczy. But in the moment before he entered, he glanced up, saw the legend burned into the age-blackened oak of the arched lintel. He couldn’t read or write, but the cloaked man saw his glance and translated for him:
‘It says that this is the house of Waldemar Ferrenzig.
There is also a sign which dates it, showing that the castle is nearly two hundred years old. Waldemar was… he was my father. I am Faethor Ferrenzig, whom my people call “the Ferenczy’.
There was a fierce pride now in that dark voice, and for the first time Thibor felt himself unsure. He knew nothing of the castle; there might easily be many men lying in wait; the open door gaped like the maw of some unknown beast.
‘I have made preparations,’ said Thibor’s host. ‘Food and drink, and a fire to warm your bones.’ He deliberately turned his back, took a second torch from a dark niche in the wall and lit it from the first. As flames caught hold, so the shadows fled. The Ferenczy glanced once at his guest, unsmiling, then led the way inside. And the Wallach followed.
They passed quickly through dark corridors of stone, anterooms, narrow doorways, into the heart of the tower; then up a spiralling stone stairway to a heavy trapdoor in a floor of stone flags supported by great black timbers.
The trapdoor stood open and the Ferenczy gathered up his cloak before climbing through into a well lighted room. Thibor followed close behind, allowing the other no time to be on his own. As he emerged into the room he shivered. It would have been so very easy for someone — to spear him or lop off his head as he came up through the trapdoor. But apart from the pile’s master, the room was empty of men. Thibor glanced at his host, looked all around. The room was long, broad, high. overhead, a ceiling of timbers was badly gapped; flickering firelight showed a slate roof above the ceiling; missing tiles permitted a glimpse of stars swimming in smoke from the fire. The place was somewhat open to the weather. In winter it would be bitterly cold. Even now it would not be warm if not for the fire.
The fire was of pine logs, roaring in a huge open fireplace with a chimney built at an angle to pass through an exterior wall. The logs burned on a cradle of warped iron bars, twisted with the heat of many such fires. At the fire’s front, six spitted woodcocks were roasting over red ashes. Sprinkled with herbs, the smell of their flesh was mouth-watering.
Close to the fireplace stood a heavy table and two chairs of oak. On the table were wooden platters, eating knives, a stone pitcher of wine or water. In the centre of the table the roasted joint of some beast still smoked. There was a bowl of dried fruits, too, and another containing slices of coarse dark bread. It was not intended that Thibor should starve!
He glanced again at the wall with the fireplace; its base was of stone, but higher up it was of timber. There was also a square window, open to the night. He crossed to the window, looked out and down on a dizzy scene: the ravine, dark with close-packed firs, and away in the east the vast black forests. And now the Voevod knew that he was in a room of the castle’s central span where it crossed the narrow gorge between the towers.
‘Are you nervous, Wallach?’ Faethor Ferenczy’s soft voice (soft now, aye) startled him.
‘Nervous?’ Thibor slowly shook his head. ‘Bemused, that’s all. Surprised. You are alone here!’
‘Oh? And did you expect something else? Didn’t Arvos the gypsy tell you I was alone?’
Thibor narrowed his eyes. ‘He told me several things — and now he’s dead.’
The other showed not the slightest flicker of surprise, nor of remorse. ‘Death comes to all men,’ he said.
‘My two friends, they’re also dead.’ Thibor hardened his tone of voice.
The Ferenczy merely shrugged. ‘The way up is hard. It’s cost many lives over the years. But friends, did you say? Then you are fortunate. I have no friends.’
Thibor’s hand strayed close to the hilt of his sword. ‘I had fancied an entire pack of your “friends” showed me the way here…’
His host at once stepped close to him, less a step than a flowing motion. The man moved like liquid. A long hand, slender but strong, rested on the hilt of Thibor’s sword under his own hand. Touching it was like touching living — snakeskin. Thibor’s flesh crawled and he jerked his hand away. In the same moment the Boyar unsheathed his sword, again with that flowing, liquid motion. The Wallach stood disarmed, astonished.
‘You can’t eat with this great thing clanging about your legs,’ the Ferenczy told him. He weighed the sword like a toy in his hands, smiled a thin smile. ‘Ah! A warrior’s weapon. And are you a warrior, Thibor of Wallachia? A Voevod, eh? I’ve heard how Vladimir Svyatoslavich recruits many warlords — even from peasants.’
Again Thibor was caught off guard; he hadn’t told the Ferenczy his name, hadn’t mentioned the Kievan Vlad. But before he could find words for an answer:
‘Come,’ said his host, ‘you’ll let your food grow cold. Sit, eat, and we’ll talk.’ He tossed Thibor’s sword down on a bench covered with soft pelts.
Across his broad back, Thibor carried a crossbow. He shrugged its strap from his shoulder, handed it to the Ferenczy. In any case, the weapon would take too long to load. Useless at close quarters, against a man who moved like this one. ‘Do you want my knife, too?’
Faethor Ferenczy’s long jaws gaped and he laughed. ‘I desire only to seat you comfortably at my table. Keep your knife. See, there are more knives within reach — to stab the meat.’ He tossed the crossbow down with the sword.
Thibor stared at him, finally nodded. He shrugged out of his heavy jacket, let it fall in a heap to the floor. He took a seat at one end of the table, watched the Ferenczy arrange all the food within easy reach. Then his host poured two deep iron goblets of wine from the pitcher before seating himself opposite.
‘You won’t eat with me?’ Thibor was suddenly hungry, but he would not take the first bite. In the palace in Kiev, they always waited for the Vlad to lead the way.
Faethor Ferenczy reached along the top of the table, showing an enormous length of arm, and
deftly sliced off a corner of meat. ‘I’ll take a woodcock when they’re cooked,’ he said. ‘But don’t wait for me — you eat whatever you want.’ He toyed with his food while Thibor fell to with some zeal. The Ferenczy watched him for a little while, then said, ‘It seems only right that a big man should have a big appetite. I, too, have… appetites, which this place restricts. That is why you interest me, Thibor. We could be brothers, do you see? I might even be your father. Aye, big men both of us — and you a warrior, and quite fearless. I suspect there are not many such as you in the world…’ And after a short pause, and in complete contrast: ‘What did the Vlad tell you about me, before he sent you to bring me to his court?’
Thibor had determined not to be taken by surprise a third time. He swallowed what was in his mouth, and returned gaze for gaze across the table. Now, in the light from the fire and flickering flambeaux in jutting brackets, he allowed himself a more detailed inspection of the castle’s master.
It would be pointless, Thibor decided, to make any sort of guess at the age of this man. He seemed to exude age like some ancient monolith, and yet moved with the incredible speed of a striking serpent and the lithe suppleness of a young girl. His voice could sound harsh as the elements, or soft as a mother’s kiss, and yet it too seemed hoary beyond measure. As for the Ferenczy’s eyes: they were deep-seated in triangular sockets, heavy-lidded, and their true colour was likewise impossible to fathom. From a certain angle they were black, shiny as wet pebbles, while from another they were yellow, with gold in their pupils. They were educated eyes and full of wisdom, yet feral too and brimming with sin.
Then there was the nose. Faethor Ferenczy’s nose, along with his pointed, fleshy ears, formed the least acceptable part of his face. It was more a muzzle than a nose proper, yet its length stayed close to the face, flattening down towards the upper lip, and pushed back from it with large nostrils slanting upwards. Directly underneath it — too close, in fact — the man’s ridgy mouth was wide and red against his otherwise pale, coarse flesh. When he spoke, his lips parted just a little. But his teeth, what the Wallach had seen of them when the Ferenczy laughed, were big and square and yellow. Also glimpsed: incisors oddly curved and sharp as tiny scythes, but Thibor couldn’t be sure. If it was so, then the man would seem even more wolf-like.
And so he was an ugly man, this Faethor Ferenczy. But… Thibor had known ugly men aplenty. And he had killed plenty of them, too.
‘The Vlad?’ Thibor carved more meat, took a swig of, red wine. It was vinegary stuff, but no worse than he was used to. Then he looked again at the Ferenczy and shrugged. ‘He told me that you live under his protection but swear him no allegiance. That you occupy land but concede no taxes. That you could muster many men but choose to sit here brooding while other Boyars fight off the Pechenegi to keep your hide whole.’
For a moment the Ferenczy’s eyes went wide, seemed flecked in their corners with blood, and his nostrils gaped in an audible grunt. His top lip wrinkled and curled back a little, and his jagged peaked eyebrows crushed together on his pale, high forehead. Then… he sat back, seemed to relax, grinned and nodded.
Thibor had stopped eating, but as the Ferenczy brought himself under control, so he carried on. Between mouthfuls he said, ‘Did you think I’d flatter you, Faethor Ferenczy? Perhaps you also thought your trickery would scare me off?’
The castle’s master frowned, wrinkled his nose into ridges. ‘My… trickery?’
Thibor nodded. ‘The Prince’s advisors — Christian monks out of Greek-land — think you’re some sort of demon, a “vampire”. I believe he thinks so too. But me, I’m just a common man — a peasant, aye — and I say you’re only a clever trickster. You speak to your Szgany serfs with mirror signals, and you’ve a trained wolf or two to do your bidding, like dogs. Hah! Mangy wolves! Why, in Kiev there’s a man leads great bears around on a leash — and he dances with them! And what else do you have, eh? Nothing! Oh, you make shrewd guesses — and then pretend that your eyes have powers, that they see over woods and mountains. You cloak yourself in mystery and superstition up here in these dark hills, but that only works with the superstitious. And who are most superstitious? Educated men, monks and princes, that’s who! They know so much — their brains are so bursting with knowledge — that they’ll believe anything! But a common man, a warrior, he only believes in blood and iron. The first to give him strength to wield the second, the second to spill the first in a scarlet flood.’
A little surprised at himself, Thibor paused, wiped his mouth. The wine had loosened his tongue.
The Ferenczy had sat there as if turned to stone; now he rocked back in his chair, slapped the table with a long, flat hand, roared his mirth. And Thibor saw that indeed his eye-teeth were like those of a great dog. ‘What? Wisdom from a warrior?’ the Boyar shouted. He pointed a slender finger. ‘But you are so right, Thibor! Right to be outspoken, and I like you for it. And I’m glad you came, whatever your mission. Wasn’t I right to say you could be my son? Indeed, I was right. A man after my own heart — in perhaps more ways than one, eh?’
His eyes were red again (only an effect of the fire’s glow, surely?) but Thibor made sure that a knife lay close at hand. Perhaps the Ferenczy was mad. Certainly he looked mad, when he laughed like that.
The fire flared up as a log turned on its side. A smell of burning wafted to Thibor’s nostrils. The woodcocks! Both he and his host had forgotten them. He decided to be charitable, to let the hermit eat before killing him. ‘Your birds,’ he said, or tried to say, as he made to get to his feet. But the words tangled themselves up on his tongue, came out slurred and alien sounding. Worse, he couldn’t force himself upright; his hands seemed glued to the table top, and his feet were heavy as lumps of lead!
Thibor looked down at his straining, twitching hands, his nearly paralysed body, and even his horrified glance was slow, filled with an unnatural languor. It was as if he were drunk, but drunker than he’d ever been. It would require only the slightest shove, he was sure, to send him sprawling.
Then his eyes fell upon his goblet, the red wine from the pitcher. Vinegary, yes. That and worse. He was poisoned!
The Ferenczy was watching him closely. Suddenly he sighed and stood up. He seemed even taller now, younger, stronger. He stepped lithe to the fire, toppled the spit and steaming birds into the flames. They hissed, smoked, caught fire in a moment. Then he turned to where Thibor sat watching him. Not a muscle of Thibor’s body would answer his mind’s desperate commands. It was as if he were turned to stone. Droplets of cold sweat started out upon his brow. The Ferenczy came closer, stood over him. Thibor looked at him, at his long jaws, his misshapen skull and ears, his crushed snout of a nose. An ugly man, yes, and perhaps more than a man. ‘P-p-poisoned!’ The Wallach finally spat it out. ‘Eh?’ the Ferenczy cocked his head, looked down on him. ‘Poisoned? No, no,’ he denied, ‘merely drugged. Isn’t it obvious that if I wanted you dead, then you’d be dead — along with Arvos and your friends? But such bravery! I showed you what I could do, and yet you came on. Or are you simply stubborn? Stupid, maybe? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re brave, for I’ve no time to waste on fools.’
With a great effort of will, Thibor forced his right hand spastically towards a knife where it lay on the table. His host smiled, took up the knife, handed it to him. Thibor sat and trembled with the strain of his effort, but he could no more take that knife than stand up. The entire room was beginning to swim, to melt, to flow together in a dark, irresistible whirlpool.
The last thing he saw was the Ferenczy’s face, more terrible than ever, as he leaned over him. That bestial, animal face — jaws open in a gaping laugh — and the crimson forked tongue that vibrated like a crippled snake in the cavern of his throat!
The old Thing in the ground sprang awake…! His nightmare had awakened him, and something else.
For a moment the Thibor-creature thrilled with the horror of his dream, before remembering where, who and wha
t he was. And then he thrilled again, the second time with ecstasy.
Blood!
The black soil of his grave was drenched, gorged with blood! Blood touched him, seeped like oil through leaf-mould, rootlets and earth and touched him. Drawn by the instant capillary action of his myriad thirsting fibres, it soaked into him, filled his desiccated pores and veins, his spongy organs and yawning, aching alveolate bones.
Blood — life! — filled the vampire, set centuries-numbed nerves leaping, brought incredible, inhuman senses instantly alert.
His eyes cracked open — closed at once. Soil. Darkness. He was buried still. He lay in his grave, as always. He opened the sinuses of his gaping nostrils, and immediately closed them — but not entirely. He smelled the soil, yes, but he also smelled blood. And now, fully awake, he carefully, far more minutely, began to examine his surroundings.
He weighed the earth above him, probed it with instinct. Shallow, very shallow. Eighteen inches, no more. And above that, another twelve inches of compact leaf-mould. Oh, he’d been buried deep enough that time, but in the centuries between he’d wormed his way closer to the surface. That had been when he had the strength to do so.
He exerted himself, extended pseudopods up into the soil like crimson worms — and snatched them back. Oh, yes, the earth was heavily saturated with blood, and human blood at that, but… how could that be? Could this be — could it possibly be — the work of Dragosani?
The Thing reached out its mind, called softly: Dragosaaaniiii? Is it you, my son? Have you done this thing, brought me this fine tribute, Dragosaaaniiii?
His thoughts touched upon minds — but clean minds, innocent minds. Human minds which had never known his taint. But people? Here in the cruciform hills? What was their purpose here? Why had they come to his grave and baited the earth with — Baited the earth!