by The Vampires
PROLOGUE
How It All Began
Over four hundred years ago, a large British merchantman was attacked by Singg pirates off the remote shores of Bangalla. The captain of the trading vessel was a famous seafarer who, in his youth, had served as cabin boy to Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to discover the New World. With the captain was his son, Kit, a strong young man who idolized his father and hoped to follow him as a seafarer. But the pirate attack was disastrous. In a furious battle, the entire crew of the merchantman was killed and the ship sank in flames. The sole survivor was young Kit who, as he fell off the burning ship, saw his father killed by a pirate. Kit was washed ashore, half-dead. Friendly pygmies found him and nursed him to health.
One day walking on the beach, he found a dead pirate dressed in his father’s clothes. He realized this was the pirate who had killed his father. Grief-stricken, he waited until vultures had stripped the body clean. Then on the skull of his father’s murderer, he swore an oath by firelight as the friendly pygmies watched. “I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, and my sons and their sons shall follow me.”
This was the Oath of the Skull that Kit and his descendants would live by. In time, the pygmies led him to their home in the Deep Woods in the center of the jungle where he found a large cave with many rocky chambers. The mouth of the cave, a natural formation carved by the water and wind of centuries, was curiously like a skull. This became his home, the Skull Cave. He soon adopted a mask and a strange costume. He found that the mystery and fear this inspired helped him in his endless battle against world-wide piracy. For he and his sons who followed became known as the nemesis of pirates everywhere, a mysterious man whose face no one ever saw, whose name no one knew, who worked alone.
As the years passed, he fought injustice wherever he found it. The first Phantom and the sons who followed found their wives in many places. One married a reigning queen, one a princess, one a beautiful red-haired barmaid. But whether queen or commoner, all followed their men back to the Deep Woods, to live the strange but happy life of the wife of the Phantom. And of all the world, only she, wife of the Phantom, and their children could see his face.
Generation after generation was born, grew to manhood, and assumed the tasks of the father before him. Each wore the mask and costume. Folk of the jungle and the city and sea began to whisper that there was a man who could not die, a Phantom, a Ghost Who Walks. For they thought the Phantom was always the same man. A boy who saw the Phantom would see him again fifty years after; and he seemed the same. And he would tell his son and his grandson; and his son and grandson would see the Phantom fifty years after that. And he would seem the same. So the legend grew. The Man Who Cannot Die. The Ghost Who Walks. The Phantom.
The Phantom did not discourage this belief in his immortality. Always working alone against tremendous— sometimes almost impossible—odds, he found that the awe and fear the legend inspired was a great help in his endless battle against evil. Only his friends, the pygmies, knew the truth. These tiny people, to compensate for their stature, mixed deadly poisons for use on their weapons in hunting or defense. But it was rare that they were forced to defend themselves. Their deadly poisons were known through the jungle, and they and their home, the Deep Woods, were dreaded and avoided. There was another reason to stay away from the Deep Woods: it soon became known that this was a home of the Phantom, and none wished to trespass.
Through the ages, the Phantoms created several more
homes or hideouts in various parts of the world. Near the Deep Woods was the Isle of Eden, where the Phantom taught all animals to live in peace. In the southwest desert of the New World, the Phantoms created an aerie on a high sheer mesa that was thought by the Indians to be haunted by evil spirits and became known as Walkers Table—for the Ghost Who Walks. In Europe, deep in the crumbling cellars of the ruins of an ancient castle, the Phantom had another hideout from which to strike against evildoers.
But the Skull Cave in the quiet of the Deep Woods re- mained the true home of the Phantom. Here, in a rocky chamber, he kept his chronicles, written records of all his adventures. Phantom after Phantom faithfully wrote his experiences in the large folio volumes. Another chamber contained the costumes of all the generations of Phantoms. Other chambers contained the vast treasures of the Phantom, acquired over centuries, used only in the endless battle against evil.
Thus, twenty generations of Phantoms lived, fought, and died, usually violently, as they folltfwed their oath. Jungle folk, sea folk, and city folk believed him the same man, the Man Who Cannot Die. Only the pygmies knew that, always, a day would come when their great friend would lie dying. Then, alone, a strong young son would carry his father to the burial crypt of his ancestors where all Phantoms rested. As the pygmies waited outside, the young man would emerge from the cave, wearing the mask, the costume, and the Skull Ring of the Phantom; his carefree happy days as the Phantom’s son were over. And the pygmies would chant their age-old chant, “The Phantom is dead. Long live the Phantom."
This story of The Vampires and the Witch is an adventure of the Phantom of our time—the twenty-first generation of his line. He has inherited the traditions and responsibilities created by four centuries of Phantom ancestors. One ancestor created the Jungle Patrol. Thus, today, our Phantom is the mysterious and unknown commander of this elite corps. In the jungle he is known and loved as the Keeper of the Peace. On his right hand is the Skull Ring that leaves his mark—the Sign of the Skull— known and feared by evildoers everywhere. On his left hand, closer to the heart, is his “good mark” ring. Once given, the mark grants the lucky bearer protection by the
Phantom, and it is equally known and respected. And to good people and criminals alike—in the jungle, on the seven seas, and in the cities of the world—he is the Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks, the Man Who Cannot Die.
Lee Falk New, York, 1974
Chapter 1
The Mawitaan newscaster chuckled as he read the next item to his radio listeners. “In closing, here is our silliest story of the day. No, let’s give it the full honor it deserves—the silliest story of the year. It comes from Koqania. You don’t know where Koqania is? Neither do I. Someplace in Europe, I think. Look it up in your atlas, as I will. Anyhow, little Koqania—I’m guessing it’s little— tells us it is being terrorized by a plague of vampires. Not bats, human vampires. And as if that isn’t enough for one day, they go on to say the human vampires are led [the newscaster choked with laughter here], excuse me, are led by a witch. If you kiddies who are listening don’t know what a vampire is, well, we don’t have any in Bangalla, I hope. Ask your daddy to tell you. Ask him about a witch, too. And those Europeans call us superstitious! Heh, heh. Until tomorrow evening at the same time, this is Segundo Togando saying good night and sweet dreams.”
All over black Bangalla, children were readied for bed, and parents explained vampires and witches. Some looked in their atlasses for Koqania. They found the tiny nation in an obscure comer of southern Europe, tucked between mountains.
In the depths of the jungle, in the mysterious Deep Woods, a radio clicked off inside the Skull Cave. In one of its chambers, a powerful radio transmitter was set in the rocky wall. Rex, a blond white boy, and Tomm, his black companion, both ten and both clad only in loincloths, sat on the stone floor with Devil, the big gray wolf.
“Uncle Walker, what are vampires and witches?” asked Rex. Rex, a foundling, was growing up in the Deep Woods as the Phantom’s ward. This name, “Uncle Walker,” which he used for his foster parent, was derived from another name of the Phantom—the Ghost Wh
o Walks.
Standing by the radio panel, the Phantom considered for a moment. Hooded and masked, clad in the skintight costume with two guns hanging from a broad belt that bore his insignia, the Sign of the Skull, he was a powerful, awesome figure to outside eyes. But to these boys and to the little people of the Deep Woods, two of whom stood listening in the shadows of the cave, he was their loving friend and protector.
“Like the man said,” he answered, glancing at the radio panel, “they are silly notions and do not really exist.”
“But what are they?” persisted Rex.
As the Phantom looked at the eager young faces, he hesitated. It was their bedtime and he didn’t want to inspire nightmares. But he’d never refused questions about anything before.
“What is a vampire?” asked a quavering voice from the shadows. “I’d heard tell of witches, more than one, but never of vampires.” This was old Mozz, the Bandar teller of tales. Like most primitive people who cannot write, the pygmies depended on their tellers to preserve the oral history of the tribe. Such tellers as Old Mozz knew hundreds, perhaps thousands, of legends, myths, and histories of their people stretching back into antiquity.
“Is vampire a mystery that must remain hidden for the good of the people or can it be told?” asked another voice in the click-clack language of the pygmies. This was Guran, the pygmy chief, the Phantom’s oldest friend.
The Phantom laughed. “It is no secret and no mystery, only a foolish notion. I didn’t want to give the boys bad dreams, but perhaps it won’t as long as they understand that vampires are not real. Vampires are people, men or women, who are said to live on human blood.”
“Like spiders or mosquitoes?” said Rex excitedly.
“In a way, but not exactly. The human vampire is said to sleep by day in a hidden coffin at which time he is like a dead person. But at night he wakes up to roam the land searching for victims. It is said that when he finds one and takes his blood, the victim then becomes a vampire as well.”
“Perhaps he excretes some manner of poison like the cobra,” said Mozz wisely.
“Perhaps,” answered the Phantom. “It is said, further, that the vampire will never die, and cannot be killed with bullets or knives, but in only one way. He must be found when asleep in the coffin. Then a wooden stake must be driven into his heart. When this is done, he will fade into dust.”
“He lives forever, like the Phantom? Is that so hard to believe?” said Mozz with a dry, rasping chuckle. Guran also laughed. Of all the jungle folk, only the pygmies knew that the Ghost Who Walks was not immortal, and lived and died like an ordinary man.
“That’s not so scary,” said Rex. “What do they look like? Do they have wings like bats?”
“Like ordinary people, I believe.”
“What about witches,” said Tomm, who had been listening wide-eyed all the while.
“Old women, who are supposed to perform black magic and put spells on people and the like. They don’t exist either,” said the Phantom.
“Ah, but is that true?” said Old Mozz who would never contradict the Phantom directly. “The Gooley-Gooley Witch for one, and indeed the Hanta Witch known to your forebears.”
“Enough of this talk,” said the Phantom. “Off to bed with you.”
But the boys, filled with new questions, didn’t move.
“The Gooley-Gooley witch?” said Rex excitedly. “Who was she?”
“I said, enough for tonight,” said the Phantom, and his tone became sharp, unusual for him with the boys. It was obviously a subject he didn’t want to discuss.
“But Uncle Walker,” said Rex.
The Phantom bent down and picked up Rex and Tomm from the floor, one with each hand.
“Good night,” he said gently but firmly, and they knew the time for argument was over. He kissed each boy, then put them back on the floor. They scampered out of the cave, chattering excitedly to each other.
“That place, Koqania, has special meaning for you?” said Old Mozz whose amazing memory was as enormous and infallible as a computer.
“Yes. Frankly, the broadcast gave me quite a start. In an old ruin of a castle there, we have a place, a hideout,” he said. When he used the pronoun “we” he meant the entire line of the Phantoms, all the generations of which he was the twenty-first. He walked along the rocky cave corridor with the bent old Mozz, who moved slowly with the help of a gnarled polished cane. Old Mozz’s cloud of white hair and long white beard glistened in the torchlight. Chief Guran, grown stocky and heavy over the years, walked slowly behind them.
“And do you know why you have a place in those ruins of Koqania?” said Old Mozz.
“It seems to me I once knew, but I’ve forgotten. I was only there once, many years ago.”
They were passing a rocky chamber that contained long shelves of large leather-bound folio volumes, the Phantom Chronicles. On these vellum pages, each Phantom from the very beginning had recorded his adventures and the important events of his life—marriage, births, death.
“Look in there. You will find it written,” said Old Mozz, gesturing.
“What will I find, you who have heard all and forgotten nothing?” said the Phantom. The old man bowed his head slightly to acknowledge the compliment.
“It is best that you read it for yourself,” said Old Mozz with a sly smile. “You will learn something of astonishment.” And the old man left the cave. Chief Guran paused at the cave mouth.
“Mozz is a devilish fellow. He could have told, but he | wished to leave you puzzled.”
“And so he has,” said the Phantom.
“If it is anything of astonishment that I can know, will you tell me?” said Guran, as curious as a child.
The Phantom smiled at his boyhood friend.
“I promise,” he said. And he turned back toward the chamber containing the Phantom Chronicles. Hidden in there was something of astonishment. What could it be?
Chapter 2
Searching for this secret of Koqania, one tale among thousands in these histories of four centuries, was a long task even for the Phantom, who had grown up with these chronicles. From the time his father had first brought him into this chamber and introduced him to the amazing past of his ancestors, he’d spent countless hours with the big books. So he stood now before the podium, reading by torchlight, going through volume after volume, searching for the elusive word, Koqania. And lying at his feet, watching as always with his pale-blue eyes, was Devil, the gray mountain wolf.
Other matters interrupted his reading, and he was to go through a score of volumes before he found what he was looking for. In the meantime, he heard another newscast about Koqania.
“Here we go again. Another report of that plague of vampires led by a witch in Koqania. It is said that fearful peasant farmers are leaving their crops unharvested. Many are fleeing the district. Local authorities scoff at the reports as nonsense.
“Amen to that,” said the newscaster.
In a chronicle dated April 1675, almost three centuries old, he found the first reference to Koqania, written by his ancestor, the eighth Phantom. (This mighty man was the son of the seventh Phantom, who had met, bested, and befriended the great black Emperor Joorikoor, and was the grandson of the sixth Phantom and Natala, Queen of France.) Carefully written in a large firm script on the imperishable vellum was the following.
“At the request of my good friend and chess opponent, the Ottoman Sultan Abu Mahoud, I journeyed to Europe to the tiny barony called Koqania. Here, where the rich caravans of my friend and others were forced to travel to reach the marts of the western world, they were seized by beings described as blood-drinking demons and forced to pay tribute to the owner of the castle at the pass, a beauteous witch.”
The Phantom paused and almost shivered. A witch at Koqania three hundred years ago? He read on.
“As I neared the mountainous country, I heard tales of the Hanta witch, for that is how they called her. Some said her beauty was so intense that it melte
d men’s bones. Others whispered of the vast tribute she demanded of her captives. If they refused or could not meet her demands, they paid with their lives at the hands of her blood-drinking demons. The more I heard of this matter, the more curious I was to see this beauteous witch of Hanta.”
Hanta witch? Hadn’t Old Mozz mentioned that name? “The Hanta witch, known to your forebears.” Did the amazing old man know everything about the four-hundred-year-old line of the Phantoms? He read on in this chronicle of 1675, written by the Eighth.
“When I reached this remote place called Koqania, I found a wild land of high peaks and swift torrents. Large brown bears and gray wolves roamed the thick woods. I met and was forced to dispatch several. In power and ferocity, they seemed the equal of the great cats of our jungle. The barony was sparsely populated. Hamlets were few. The people were suspicious and hostile, not only to strangers I learned, but to each other as well. A pall of fear seemed to hang over the land. When I tried to question them about the witch at the pass, they slammed their doors shut or set their fierce dogs upon me. But I wasted little time with these rude folk, for I was anxious to see the beauteous witch. At length, I reached her castle. It was a huge ancient edifice, set astride a peak like, a great bird of prey. Beneath was the pass through which the caravans must travel to reach the marts. As luck would have it, a battle was in progress when I arrived.
“A caravan from the Levant—a long line of horses, donkeys, and camels with their riders and guards—was at that moment being attacked by a swarm of creatures from the surrounding slopes. They evidently came from the castle. I say ‘creatures.’ They were all clad in fiery red robes and had the appearance of men with the normal complement of arms and legs. But their heads, under iron helmets, were hideous, resembling the gargoyles on the great cathedrals of Europe. If these were the demons, they were well named,, for they fought with an unbelievable fury.
“I watched for several minutes. With their sharp scimitars, they slashed at whatever was closest—men, horses, donkeys, or camels. The caravan guards tried to stem this onslaught, but they were appalled by the fury of these gargoyles, and perhaps by their appearance as well, and began to panic. At that moment, I charged in, a pistol in one hand, my great sword in the other. Surprised, they gave way and started back up the slope, but not before I had dispatched several. I did not stop to talk with the caravan people, but pursued the gargoyles toward the castle; for that was why I had come. The creatures tried to make a stand at several level places on the hill, but I