by Brian Lumley
Ah? said Thibor, his interest quickening. But I’ve already told you that story. Are you telling me now that
are you saying it took effect?
Beware, Harry Keogh! Dragosani interrupted. Tell him no more. I heard the tale, too, when the old liar told it to you. If that unborn child as was is now a man, he’ll be in thrall to Thibor! Aye, even though his master’s dead! Can’t you see? This devil would see himself alive again — in the body and mind of this new disciple!
You… dog! Thibor howled. You are Wamphyri! Does that mean nothing to you? We may fight among ourselves, but we do not divulge our secrets to others! You are damned for all time, Dragosani!
Old fool, I’m that already! Dragosani snarled.
‘Very well then,’ Harry sighed. ‘I can see I’m wasting precious time. That being the case, I’ll bid you —‘
Wait! Thibor’s voice was all burning anguish. You can’t tell me just so much and leave it at that. That’s.
inhuman!
‘Hah!’ Harry snorted.
A trade, then. I shall finish my story, and you shall tell me if the child was born and lives. And… how he lives. Agreed?
Harry guessed he’d said too much already, which in itself might be as good a reason as any for going on. There were now four principal things he must try to discover. One: the full range of a vampire’s powers. Two: how, exactly, Thibor might try to use Yulian Bodescu. For Dragosani seemed to think it was possible for Thibor to resurrect himself, in Bodescu. Three: the rest of Thibor’s story concerning the occurrences a thousand years ago at the castle of Faethor Ferenczy, so that he might know if anything of evil yet remained in that place. And four:
how to kill a vampire, but definitely!
As to the last: Harry had thought he knew that much eight months ago, when he’d waged war on the Château Bronnitsy. But looking back now he saw that Dragosani’s death had only come about through a fortunate combination of events. For one thing Dragosani had been blinded: his eyes had been ruined by a reflected mind-bolt when Max Batu’s stolen talent had rebounded on him from one of Harry’s zombies; for of course Harry had had his zombie Tartars, his shock troops, for back-up in that affray. It had been one of them, called up from the preserving peat, who’d hacked Dragosani’s head from his shoulders; and another who’d pinned his parasite vampire to his chest with a wooden stake when it deserted his shattered body. Harry couldn’t have done all of these things, maybe not any of them, on his own. In fact, Harry’s only real ace had been his mastery of the Möbius continuum: when he’d been very nearly cut in half by machinegun fire, he’d fled his dying body and dragged Dragosani’s mind in there with him. In the Möbius continuum he’d hurled Dragosani through a past-time door, which had led the necromancer back to Thibor in his grave. And there an ‘earlier’ Dragosani had lured up and killed Thibor, never dreaming that with the same stroke he had also determined his own fate. As for Harry’s incorporeal mind: he’d gone forward, found his son’s life-thread and joined with it, lay with it in the womb of Brenda waiting to be born. She had been his lover, his wife, and now, in a way, might even be considered his mother. His second mother.
But what if he had left Dragosani’s mind in his corpse back at the Château? How long would that broken body have stayed a corpse? That was conjectural.
And Harry wondered: how had the surviving Russian EBranch members dealt with what remained when all the fighting stopped? What had they made of his zombies? It must have seemed utter madness, an absolute nightmare! Harry supposed that after he left the Château along the Mobius way, the Tartars had fallen once more into quiescence.
Perhaps by now Alec Kyle had the answers to these questions, learned from Felix Krakovitch. Harry would find out eventually, but for now there were fresh problems. Foremost among them: how much dare he tell Thibor about Yulian Bodescu? Very little, he supposed. But, on the other hand, by now the extinct vampire had probably guessed all of it for himself. Which made any continued secrecy pointless.
‘Very well,’ said Harry, finally, ‘we trade.’
Fool! Dragosani cut in at once. I had given you some credit, Harry Keogh — I thought you were cleverer than that. And yet here you are attempting to bargain with the devil himself! I see now that I was unlucky in our little contest. You are as big a fool as I was!
Harry ignored him. ‘The rest of your story then, Thibor, and quickly. For I don’t know how much time I have…’
*
The first time the old Ferenczy came, I was not ready for him. I was asleep; but exhausted, half-starved, it’s unlikely I could have done anything anyway. The first I knew of his visit was when I heard the heavy oaken door slam, and a bar was dropped into place outside. Four trussed chickens, alive, full-feathered, squawked and fluttered in a basket just inside the door. As I roused myself and went to the door, Ehrig was a pace ahead of me.
I caught him by the shoulder, threw him aside, got to the basket first. ‘What’s this, Faethor?’ I cried. ‘Chickens? I thought we vampires supped on richer meat!’
‘We sup on blood!’ he called back, chuckling a little beyond the door. ‘On coarse meat if and when we must, but the blood is the true life. The fowl are for you, Thibor. Tear out their throats and drink well. Squeeze them dry. Give the carcasses to Ehrig, if it please you, and what’s left goes to your “cousin” under the flags.’
I heard him starting up stone steps, called out: ‘Faethor, when do I take up my duties? Or perhaps you’ve changed your mind and deem it too dangerous to let me out?’
His footsteps paused. ‘I’ll let you out when I’m ready,’ his muffled voice came back. ‘And when you are ready.
He chuckled again, but more deeply in his throat this time.
‘Ready? I’m ready for better treatment than this!’ I told him. ‘You should have brought me a girl. You can do more with a girl than just eat her!’
For a moment there was silence, then he said, ‘When you are your own master you may take what you like.’ His voice was colder. ‘But I am not some mother cat to fetch fat mice for her kittens. A girl, a boy, a goat — blood is blood, Thibor. As for lust: you’ll have time for that later, when you understand the real meaning of the word. For now… save your strength.’ And then he moved on.
Ehrig had meanwhile taken hold of the basket, was sidling off with it. I gave him a cl6ut which knocked him protesting to the floor. Then I looked at the terrified birds and scowled. But… I was hungry and meat is meat. I had never been a squeamish one, and these birds were plump. And anyway, the vampire in me was taking the edge off all points of mannered custom and nicety and civilised behaviour. As for civilisation: what was that to me? A Wallach warrior, I had always been two-thirds barbarian!
I ate, and so did the dog Ehrig. Aye, and later, when next we slept, so did my ‘cousin’.
The next time I came awake — more strongly, surging awake, refreshed from my meal — I saw the Thing, that mindless being of vampire flesh which hid in the dark earth under the floor. I do not know what I had expected. Faethor had mentioned vines, creepers in the earth. That is what it was like. Partly, anyway.
If you have seen a squashy octopus from the sea, then you have seen something like the creature spawned of the finger which Faethor shed, fattened on the flesh of Arvos the gypsy. The one thing I cannot comment upon was its size; however, if a man’s body were flattened to a doughy mass… it would spread a long way. The matter of Arvos had been reshaped.
Certainly the groping ‘hands’ which the being put up were stretchy things. There were also many of them, and they were not lacking in strength. Its eyes were very strange: they formed and unformed, came and went; they ogled and blinked; but in all truth I cannot say that they saw. Indeed, I had the feeling they were blind. Or perhaps they saw in the way a newborn infant sees, without understanding.
When one of the thing’s hands came up from the soil close to where I lay, I cursed out loud and kicked it away — and how it shot down out of sight then! How well an
other might fare I could not say, but the vampire thing was certainly wary of me. Perhaps it sensed that I was a higher form — of itself! I remember how at the time, that was a very shuddersome thought.
Faethor had this way with him: he was devious, sly as a fox, slippery as an eel. That was how I considered him, feelings brought on by sheer frustration. Of course he was that way: he was of the Wamphyri! I should not have expected him to be any other way. But quite simply, he would not be ambushed. I spent hours waiting for him behind the oak door, chains in my hands, hardly daring to breathe lest he hear me. But let hell freeze over, he would not come. Ah! But only let me fall asleep… a squealing piglet would wake me, or the fluttering of a tethered pigeon. And so the days, probably weeks, passed.
I will give him his due: after that first time the old devil didn’t let me get too hungry. I think to myself now that the initial period of starvation was to let the vampire in me take hold. It had nothing else to feed on and so must rely on my stored fats, must become more fully a part of me. Similarly, I was obliged to draw on its strength. But as soon as the bond was properly formed, then Faethor could begin to fatten us up again. And I use that phrase advisedly.
Along with the food, there would be the occasional jug of red wine. At first, remembering how the Ferenczy had drugged me, I was careful. I would let Ehrig drink first, then watch for his reaction. But apart from a loosening of his tongue, there was nothing. And so I too drank. Later I would give Ehrig none of the wine but consume it myself. That, too, was exactly the way the old devil had planned it.
Came the time when, after a meal, I was thirsty and quaffed a jug at one swig — then staggered this way and that before collapsing. Poisoned again! Faethor had made a fool of me at every turn. But this time my vampire strength buoyed me up; I held fast to my consciousness, and sprawling there in my fever I wondered: now what is the purpose of this? Hah! Only listen, and I’ll explain Faethor’s purpose.
‘A girl, a boy, a goat — blood is blood,’ he’d told me that time. ‘The blood is the life.’ Indeed, but what he had not told me was this: that of all pulses of delight, of all founts of immortality, of all nectar-bearing flowers, that one source from which a vampire would most prefer to sip is the throbbing red rush of another vampire’s blood! And so, when I had succumbed more fully to his wine, then Faethor came to me again.
‘Two purposes are served here,’ he told me, crouching over me. ‘One: it is long and long since I took from one of my own, and a great thirst is on me. Two: you are a hard one and will not submit to thraldom without a fight. So be it, this should take all of the sting out of you.’
‘What… what are you doing?’ I croaked the question, tried to will my leaden arms to rise up and fend him off. It was useless; I was weak as a kitten; even my throat found the greatest difficulty simply forming words.
‘Doing? Why, I sit me down to my evening meal!’ he answered, gleefully. ‘And such a menu! Blood of a strong man — spiced with the blood of the fledgling vampire within him!’
‘You… you’ll drink from… from my throat?’ I stared up at him aghast, my vision swimming.
He merely smiled — but a smile hideous as any I ever saw him make — and tore my clothes. Then he put his terrible tapering hands on me and felt my flesh all over, frowning a little as he searched for something. He turned me on my side, touched my spine, pressed it again, harder, and said, ‘Ah! The very gobbet, the prize itself!’
I would have cringed away from him but could not. Inside I cringed — perhaps that child of his within me cringed, too — but externally my skin merely shivered. I tried to speak, but that also had grown too difficult. My lips only trembled and I made a moaning sound.
‘Thibor,’ the old devil said, his voice level as if in polite conversation, ‘you’ve much to learn, my son. About me, about yourself, about the Wamphyri. You are not yet aware, you fail to perceive all the mysteries I have bestowed upon you. But what I am, you shall be. And the powers I possess, they too shall be yours. You have seen and learned a little, now see and experience more!’
He continued to balance me on my side, but propped up my head a little so that I could see his face. His magnetic eyes held me, a fish, speared on their pupils. My blurred sight cleared; the picture sharpened; I saw more clearly than ever before. My body and limbs might well be made of lead, but my mind was sharp as a knife, my awareness so keen that I could almost feel the change taking place in the creature who leaned over me. Faethor had somehow, for some reason, heightened my perceptions, increased my sensitivity.
‘Now watch,’ he hissed. ‘Observe!’
The skin of Faethor’s face, large-pored and grainy at best, underwent a swift metamorphosis. Watching it I thought: I have never known what he looks like. And even now I won’t know. He is how he wants me to see him!
The pores of his face opened up more yet, pockmarks cratering his flesh. His jaws, enormous already, elongated with a sound like gradually tearing cloth, and his leathery lips rolled back until his mouth was all bulging, crimson gums and jagged, dripping teeth. I had seen Faethor’s teeth before, but never displayed like this. Nor was the metamorphosis complete.
It was all in the jaws, in the teeth, in the nightmarish
Then, for a long time, I knew no more.
For which, as you might suppose, I was not unthankful.
At first, when I regained consciousness, I thought that I was alone. But then I heard Ehrig whimpering in a shadowed corner — heard him and remembered. I remembered the comradeship we’d shared, all the bloody battles we’d been through together. Remembered how he had been my true friend, who would gladly lay down his life for me — and I mine for him.
Perhaps he remembered, too, and that was why be whimpered. I did not know. I only knew that when the Ferenczy had fastened his teeth in my spine, Ehrig was nowhere to be seen.
To say that I beat him would not do his punishment justice, but without Faethor’s vampire stuff in him he would certainly have died. It could be that I consciously tried to kill him; I can’t say about that, either, for the episode is no longer clear in my mind. I only know that when I was done with him he no longer felt my blows, and that I myself was completely exhausted. But he healed, of course, and so did I. And I conceived a new strategy.
After that…here were times of sleeping, of waking, of eating. Outwardly, life consisted of little more. But for me these were also times of waiting, and of patient, silent scheming. As for the Ferenczy: he tried to train me like a wild dog.
It started like this: he would come silently to the door and listen. Strangely, I knew when he was there. I would feel fear! And when I became afraid, then he would be there. At times I could feel him groping at the edges of my mind, slyly attempting to insinuate himself into my very thoughts. I remembered how he had communicated with old Arvos over a distance and did what I could to close my mind to him. I think I succeeded greatly, for after that I could sense a frustration other than my own.
He used a system of rewards: if I was ‘good’ and obeyed him, there would be food. He would call through the door: ‘Thibor, I have a pair of fine piglets here!’
If I answered: ‘Aha! Your parents have come visiting!’ he would simply take the food away. But if I said:
‘Faethor, my father, I am starving! Feed me, pray, for if not then I shall be obliged to eat this dog you’ve locked in with me down here. And who will serve me then, when you are out in the world and I am left in charge of your lands and castle?’ Then he would open the door a crack and place the food inside. But only let me stand too close to the door and I would see neither Faethor nor food for three or four days.
And so I ‘weakened’; I grew less and less abusive; I began to plead. For food, for the freedom of the castle, for fresh air and light, and water to bathe myself — but most of all for separation, however brief, from Ehrig whom I now detested as a man detests his own wastes. Moreover, I made out that I was growing physically weaker. I spent more time ‘asleep’, and came le
ss readily awake.
Finally came the time when Ehrig could not wake me, and how the dog battered on the door and screamed for his true master then! Faethor came; they carried me up, up to the battlements above the covered hail where it spanned the gorge. There they laid me down in the clean air under the first stars of night, pale spectres in a sky I had not seen for far too long. The sun was a dull blister on the hills, casting its last rays over the spires of rock behind the castle’s towers.
‘He is likely starved for air,’ said Faethor, ‘and maybe simply starved a little, too! But you are right, Ehrig — he seems weaker than he should be. I desired only to break his will a little, not the man himself. I have powders and salts that sting, which should stir him up. Wait here and I’ll fetch them. And watch him!’
He descended through a trapdoor out of sight, leaving Ehrig to hunch down to his vigil. All of this I saw through eyes three-quarters shuttered. But the moment Ehrig allowed his attention to wander I was on him in a trice! Closing off his windpipe with one hand, I snatched from my pocket a leather thong which I’d earlier removed from my boot. I had intended it for the Ferenczy’s neck, but no matter. Wrapping my legs round Ehrig to stop him kicking, I looped the thong round his neck and yanked it tight, then made a second loop and tied it off. Choking, he tried to lurch to his feet, but I slammed his head so hard against the stone parapet that I felt his skull shatter. He went limp and I lowered him to the timbered floor.
At that moment my back was to the trapdoor, and of course that was when the Ferenczy chose to return. Hissing his fury, he came leaping up light as a youth — but his hands were iron on me where he took hold of my hair and grasped the flesh between my neck and shoulder. Ah, but strong though he was, old Faethor was out of practice! And my own fighting skills were as fresh in my mind as my last battle with the Pechenegi.
I kneed him in the groin and drove my head up under his great jaw so hard that I heard his teeth crunching. He released me, fell to the planking where I leaped astride him; but as his fury waxed, so waxed his strength. Calling on the vampire within, he tossed me aside as easily as a bale of straw! And in a moment he was on his feet, spitting shattered teeth, blood and curses as he came gliding after me.