by Brian Lumley
‘Go on,’ he urged, when the vampire’s pause threatened to stretch indefinitely.
What? Go on? Thibor seemed mildly surprised. But what more is there? My tale is told.
‘Still, I’d like to hear the rest of it. Did you stay in the castle as Faethor had commanded, or did you return to Kiev? You ended your days in Wallachia, right here, in these cruciform hills. How did that come about?’
Thibor sighed. Surely it is now time for you to tell me certain things. We made a bargain, Harry.
I warned you, Harry Keogh! the spirit of Boris Dragosani joined in, sharper than that of Thibor. Never bargain with a vampire. For there’s always the devil to pay.
Dragosani was right, Harry knew. He’d heard of Thibor’s cunning from the very horse’s mouth: it had taken no small amount of guile to defeat Faethor Ferenczy. ‘A deal is a deal,’ he said. ‘When Thibor has delivered, so shall I. Now come on, Thibor, let’s have the rest of the story.’
So be it, he said. This is how it was.
Something brought me awake. I thought I heard the rending of timber. My mind and body were dull from the night’s excesses — all of the night’s excesses, of which Faethor had only been the first — but nevertheless I stirred myself up. I lay naked on the lady’s couch. Smiling strangely, she approached from the direction of the locked door, her hands clasped behind her back. My dull mind saw nothing to fear. If she had sought to escape she could easily have taken the key from my clothes. But as I made to sit up her expression changed, became charged with hatred and lust. Not the human lust of last night but the inhuman lust of the vampire. Her hands came into view, and clasped in one of them was a splinter of oak ripped from the shattered door panel. A sharp knife of hardwood!
‘You’ll put no stake through my heart, lady,’ I told her, knocking the splinter from her hand and sending her flying. While she hissed and snarled at me from a corner I dressed, went out, and locked the door behind me. I must be more careful in future. She could easily have slipped away and unbarred the castle’s door for Faethor — if he still lived. Obviously she’d been more intent on putting an end to me than on seeing to his well-being. Her master he may have been, but that wasn’t to say she’d relished it!
I checked the castle’s security. All stood as before. I looked in on Ehrig and the other woman. At first I thought they were fighting, but they were not.
Then I went up onto the battlements. A weak sun peered through dark, drifting clouds heavy with rain. I thought the sun frowned on me. Certainly I did not enjoy the sensation of its feeble rays on my naked arms and neck, and in a very little while I was glad to return indoors. And now I found myself with time on my hands, which I put to use exploring the castle more fully than before.
I searched for loot and found it: some gold, very ancient, in plate and goblets; a pouch of gems; a small chest of rings, necklaces, bangles and such in precious metals. Enough to keep me in style for an entire lifetime. A normal lifetime, anyway. As for the rest: empty rooms, rotten hangings and wormy furniture, a general air of gloom and decay. It was oppressive, and I determined to be on my way as soon as possible. But first I would like to be sure that the Ferenczy was not lying in wait.
In the evening I dined and drowsed in front of a fire in Faethor’s quarters. But as night drew on it brought thoughts to disturb and niggle in the back of my mind, disquieting ideas which would not surface. The wolves were aprowl again, but their howling seemed dismal, distant. There were no bats. The fire lulled me.
Thibor, my son, said a voice. Be on your guard!
I started awake, leaped to my feet, snatched up my sword.
Oh? Ha, ha, ha! that same voice laughed — but no one was there!
‘Who is it?’ I cried, knowing who it was. ‘Come out, Faethor, for I know you’re here!’
You know nothing. Go to the window.
I stared wildly all about. The room was full of shadows, leaping in the fire’s flicker, but plainly I was alone. Then it came to me that while I had heard the Ferenczy’s voice, I had not ‘heard’ it. It had been like a thought in my head, but not my thought.
Go to the window, fool! the voice came again, and again I started.
Shaken, I went to the window, tore aside the hangings. outside the stars were coming out, a moon was rising, and the eerie crying of wolves floated down from distant peaks.
Look! said the voice. Look!
My head turned as if directed by some other’s will. I looked up, away to the ultimate range, a black silhouette against the sunken sun’s fast fading glow. Up there, a far weary distance, something glinted, caught the rays of the sun, aimed them at me. Blinded by that effulgence, I threw up an arm and staggered back.
Ah! Ah! See how it hurts, Thibor. A taste of your own medicine! The sun, which once was your friend. But no more.
‘It didn’t hurt!’ I shouted at no one, stepping to the window again and shaking my fist at the mountains. ‘It merely startled me. Is that really you, Faethor?’
Who else? Did you think me dead?
‘I willed you dead!’
Then you are weak willed.
‘Who travels with you?’ I asked, surrendering to the strangeness of it. ‘Not your women, for I have them. Who signals with your mirrors now, Faethor? It isn’t you who casts the sun about.’
The mirror flashed at me again but I stepped aside.
My own go where I go, came his voice in answer. They carry my scorched and blackened body until it is whole again. You have won this round, Thibor, but the battle is undecided.
‘Old bastard, you were lucky!’ I boasted. ‘You’ll not be so fortunate next time.’
Now listen. He ignored my bluster. You have incurred my wrath. You will be punished. The degree of punishment is up to you. Stay and guard my lands and castle and all that is mine while I’m gone, and I may be merciful. Desert me —‘And what?’ And you shall know hell’s torment for eternity. This I, Faethor Ferenczy, swear!
‘Faethor, I’m my own man. Even if it were in me to serve, I could never call you master. You must know that, for I did my best to destroy you.’
Thibor, you do not yet understand, but I have given you many things, great powers. Ah, but I’ve also given you several great weaknesses. Common men, when they die, lie in peace. Most of them.
That last was some sort of threat and I knew it. It was in his voice, a DOOM delivered in a whisper. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked
Only defy me and you shall find out. I have sworn. And for now, farewell!
And he was gone.
The mirror twinkled once more, like a brilliant star on the far ridge, and then it too was gone.
I had had enough of vampires, male and female. I locked my bedmate of last night in the dungeon with her sister, Ehrig and the burrowing thing, and slept in a chair in front of the fire in Faethor’s apartments. Come daybreak and there was nothing to hold up my departure. Except… yes, there were certain things I must do before leaving. The Ferenczy had made threats, and I was never one to suffer threats lightly.
I went out of the castle, shot two fat rabbits with my crossbow, and took them down to the dungeon. I showed them to Ehrig, told him what I wanted and that he must help me. Together we tightly bound and gagged the women, dumping them in one corner of the dungeon. Then, though he protested loudly, I also bound and gagged Ehrig and put him with the women. Finally, I cut open the rabbits and threw their crimson carcasses down on the black soil where the flags were torn up.
Then it was a matter of waiting, but not for long. In a little while a tentacle of leprous flesh came to explore the source of the fresh blood; came groping up through the crumbly soil, pushing it aside, and in a trice I took what I wanted. I left Ehrig and the women tied up, barred the door on them, and went up into the base of the tower. Above the dungeon the steps wound about a central stone pillar. I broke up furniture, piled the pieces around this pillar. I scavenged through the castle, breaking furniture wherever I found it and sharing the wood between the towe
rs. Then I poured oil on all the timbers of the battlements, in the hall and rooms where they spanned the gorge, down all the stairwells. At last I was done, and the work had taken me halfway through the morning.
I left the castle with my loot, walked out a little way from it and looked at it again, one last time, then returned and set a fire in the open door and on the drawbridge. And never looking back, I started out to retrace my steps to Moupho Aide Ferenc Yaborov.
At midday I met my five remaining Wallachs come to find me. They saw me coming down the cliff-hugging path and waited for me in the stony depression at its base. ‘Hallo, Thibor!’ the senior man greeted me when I joined them. He looked beyond me. ‘Ehrig and Vasily, they are not with you?’
‘They are dead.’ I jerked my head towards the peaks. ‘Back there.’ They looked, saw the column of white smoke reaching like some strange mushroom into the sky. ‘The house of the Ferenczy,’ I told them, ‘which I have burned.’
Then I looked at them more sternly. ‘Why did you wait so long before coming to look for me? How long has it been, five, six weeks?’
‘Those damned gypsies, the Szgany!’ their spokesman growled. ‘When we awoke, the morning after the three of you left, the village was all but deserted. Only women and children left. We tried to find out what was happening; no one seemed to know, or they weren’t saying. We waited two days, then set out after you. But the missing Szgany menfolk were waiting along the way. Five of us and more than fifty of them. They blocked the way, and they had the advantage of good positions in the rocks.’ He shrugged uncomfortably, tried not to look embarrassed. ‘Thibor, we’d have been of use to no one dead!’
I nodded, spoke quietly: ‘And yet now you have come?’
‘Because they are gone.’ He shrugged again. ‘When they stopped us, we went back down to their so-called “village”. Yesterday morning, the women and kids started to drift off in ones and twos, small parties here and there. They wouldn’t speak and looked miserable as sin, as if they were in mourning, or something! At sun-up today the place was empty, except for one old grandad chief — a “prince”, he calls himself — his crone and a couple of grandchildren. He wasn’t saying anything, and anyway he looks half simple. So, I came up the trail alone, sticking close to cover, and discovered that all the men had gone, too. Then I called up these lads to come and look for you. ‘Truth to tell, we’d long thought you were a goner!’
‘I might well have been,’ I answered, ‘but I’m not. Here —, I tossed him a small leather sack, ‘carry this. And you —, I gave my loot to another, ‘you burden yourself with this. It’s heavy and I’ve carried it far enough. As for the job we came to do: it’s done. Tonight we stay in the village; tomorrow it’s back to Kiev to see a lying, cheating, scheming Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich!’
‘Ugh!’ The spokesman held out his sack at arm’s length. ‘There’s a creature in here. It moves!’
I chuckled darkly. ‘Aye, handle it carefully — and tonight put it in a box, sack and all. But don’t sleep with it next to you.
Then we went down to the village. On the way down I heard them talking among themselves, mainly of the trouble the Szgany had given them. They mentioned putting the village to the torch. I wouldn’t hear of it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘The Szgany are loyal in their way. Loyal to their own. Anyway, they’ve moved on, gone for good. What profit in burning an empty village?’
And so they said no more about it.
That evening I went to the ancient Szgany prince in his hut and called him out. He came out into the coolness of the clearing and saluted me. I stepped close to him and he looked hard at me, and I heard him gasp. ‘Old chief,’ I said, ‘my men said burn this place, but I stopped them. I’ve no quarrel with you or the Szgany.’
He was brown and wrinkled as a log, toothless, hunched. His dark eyes were all aslant and seemed not to see too clearly, but I was sure they saw me. He touched me with a hand that trembled, gripped my arm hard above the elbow. ‘Wallach?’ he inquired.
‘That I am, and I’ll return there soon,’ I answered. He nodded, said, ‘Ferengi! — you.’ It was not a question.
‘Thibor’s my name,’ I told him. And on impulse:
‘Thibor… Ferenczy, aye.’
Again he nodded. ‘You — Wamphyri!’
I began to shake my head in denial, then stopped. His eyes were boring into mine. He knew. And so did I, for certain now. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Wamphyri.’
He drew breath sharply, let it out slow. Then: ‘Where will you go, Thibor the Wallach, son of Old One?’
‘Tomorrow I go to Kiev,’ I answered grimly. ‘I’ve business there. After that, home.’
‘Business?’ He laughed a cackling laugh. ‘Ah, business!’
He released my arm, grew serious. ‘I too go Wallachia. Many Szgany there. You need Szgany. I find you there.’
‘Good!’ I said.
He backed away, turned and went back into his hut.
We came out of the forest into Kiev in the evening, and I found a place on the outskirts to rest and buy a skin of wine. I sent four of my five into the city. Soon they began return, bringing with them prominent members of my peasant army — what was left of it. Half had been lured away by Vladimir and were off campaigning against the I’echenegi, the rest remained faithful; then had gone into hiding and waited for me.
There were only a handful of the Vlad’s soldiers in the city; even the palace guard were away fighting. The prince tad only a score of men, his personal bodyguard, at court. That was part of the news, and this was the rest: that tonight there was to be a small banquet at the palace in honour of some boot-licking Boyar. I invited myself along.
I arrived at the palace alone, or that is the way it must have appeared. I strode through the gardens to the sound of laughter and merrymaking from the great hail. Men at arms barred my way, and I paused and looked at them. Who goes there?’ a guardsmaster challenged me.
I showed myself. ‘Thibor of Wallachia, the Prince’s Voevod. He sent me on a mission, and now I am returned.’ Along the way I had walked in mire, deliberately. The last time I was here, the Vlad had commanded that I come in my finery, unweaponed, all bathed and shining. Now I was weighed down with arms; I was unshaven, dirty, and my forelocks all awry. I stank worse than a peasant, and was glad of it.
You’d go in there like that?’ The Guardsmaster was
astonished. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Man, wash yourself, put on fresh robes, cast off your weapons!’
I glowered at him. ‘Your name?’
‘What?’ He stepped a pace to the rear.
‘For the Prince. He’ll have the balls of any man who impedes me this night. And if you’ve none of those, he’ll have your head instead! Don’t you remember me? Last time I came it was to a church, and I brought a sack of thumbs.’ I showed him my leather sack.
He went pale. ‘I remember now. I… I’ll announce you. Wait here.’
I grabbed his arm, dragged him close. I showed him my teeth in a wolf’s grin and hissed through them, ‘No, you wait here!’
A dozen of my men stepped out of the trees, held cautionary fingers to their lips, and bundled the Guardsmaster and his men away.
I went on, entering the palace and the great hall unimpeded. Oh, true, a pair of royal bully-boy bodyguards closed on me at the door, but I thrust them aside so hard they almost fell, and by the time they were organised I was among the revellers. I strode to the centre of the floor. I stood stock still, then slowly turned and gazed all about from under lowered brows. The noise subsided. There came an uneasy silence. Somewhere a lady laughed, a titter which was quickly stilled.
Then the crowd fell away from me. Several ladies looked fit to faint. I smelled of ordure, which to my nostrils was fresh and clean compared to the scents of this court.
The crowd parted, and there sat the Prince at a table laden with food and drink. His face wore a frozen smile, which fell from it like a leaden mask when he saw me. And at last he recognised me. He str
aightened to his feet. ‘You!’
‘None other, my Prince.’ I bowed, then stood straight.
He couldn’t speak. Slowly his face went purple. Finally he said, ‘Is this your idea of a joke? Get out — out!’ He pointed a trembling finger at the door. Men were closing on me, hands on their sword hilts. I rushed the Vlad’s table, sprang up onto it, drew my sword and held it on his breast.
‘Tell them to come no closer!’ I snarled.
He held up his hands and his bodyguard fell back. I kicked aside platters and goblets and made a space before him, throwing down my sack. ‘Are your Greek Christian priests here?’
He nodded, beckoned. In their priestly robes, they came, hands fluttering, jabbering in their foreign tongue. Four of them.
At last it got through to the prince that he was in danger of his life. He glanced at my sword’s point lying lightly on his breast, looked at me, gritted his teeth and sat down. My sword followed him. Pale now, he controlled himself, gulped, and said, ‘Thibor, what is all of this? Would you stand accused of treason? Now put up your sword and we’ll talk.’
‘My sword stays where it is, and we’ve time only for what I have to say!’ I told him.
‘But —,
‘Now listen, Prince of Kiev. You sent me on a hopeless quest and you know it. What? Me and my seven against Faethor Ferenczy and his Szgany? What a joke! But while I was away you could steal my good men, and if I were so lucky as to succeed… that would be even better. If I tailed — and you believed I would — it would be no great loss.’ I glared at him. ‘It was treachery!’
‘But —, he said again, his lips trembling.
‘But here I am, alive and well, and if I leaned a little on my sword and killed you it would be my right. Not according to your laws but according to mine. Ah, don’t panic, I won’t kill you. Let it suffice that all gathered here know your treachery. As for my “mission”: do you remember what you commanded me to do? You said, “Fetch me the Ferenczy’s head, his heart, and his standard.” Well, at this very moment his standard flies atop the palace wall. His and mine, for I’ve taken it for my own. As for his head and heart: I’ve done better. I’ve brought you the very essence of the Ferenczy!’