by Mike Allen
I am going insane. Stop this. It’s just an animal.
“Hey!” Corlan bawled suddenly at the motionless wolf, and waved his arms.
The wolf lowered its head, then turned from him. It padded off into the passage, not hurrying, neither startled nor enraged.
As it moved, its gait was slow and heavy. If it had been human its shoulders would have sagged. The ruffed head hung down. Halfway off into the dark, just before the darkness swallowed it, Corlan saw it pause. He heard it drinking, sluggishly and not for very long, then it slunk on, dragging its feet now, it seemed to him, as though exhausted.
In the end Corlan snapped off a piece of candle from the last of the posts, lit it, and went after the wolf. A short distance, and there was an old glazed clay bowl on the floor, which held the liquid the wolf had been drinking. Pink in colour—milk, Corlan thought, mixed with and curdled by blood.
Closed doors lined the passage. At the end the corridor branched both left and right, but either side was only a wreckage of smashed stone. There was another wide arched doorway in between, this slightly open. The wolf had gone in there; Corlan could smell it. Hesitating outside, he heard it jump up on something, and then settle. He heard it sigh, the same mournful sighing which the House Veltenlak constantly gave. The wolf must have copied it. Corlan did not enter the room.
All this while horror stayed fast inside him. As the wolf had, it seemed to be settling itself, lying down, making itself comfortable within his body, his soul.
He was so weary now. As if he had not eaten, not slept, was ill or wounded, or a slave worn thin with thankless, awful labour, and no hope anywhere, none. No chance at all.
Two: Day in Night
Non Qmnis Moriar—
Behold the voiceless wordless voice proclaimed.
It flung aside the curtains of unknowing and there, before him, lay an infinite vista. But it was a view without a single image in it.
Behold…
Non Omnis—the inscription, time-gnawed or hacked away.
BEHOLD—
Corlan woke, sitting bolt upright, like a puppet yanked into position on strings. His head rang and the room cartwheeled. He was back in the bloody kitchen. He could not recall returning here. Perhaps he had never left it, only got up and eaten the food—the bowl stood empty that had held the soup … or had it held curdled blood and milk? Crumbs on the table, the decanter of gin one quarter less. So, got up, eaten, drunk, lain down again and slept, dreamed of roaming the stenchful ruins, lighting fires, while some maleficent entity fastened upon him. Utter nonsense.
Deep in his sinews he felt the horror stir. He resisted instinctively, since it did not exist.
The old woman—Teda?—was creeping into the kitchen, sparing him a solitary glance fraught with misgiving, or—could it be compassion?
Corlan rose, nodded to her, and went out into the courtyard behind the other, broken kitchen, to relieve himself, and wash his hands and face in the cleaner pockets of the rain.
These procedures did little for him. He felt like death. He had a fever, he thought. But never mind that, today he must get on. If he could buy a handful more food, some drinkable water, he could continue on his journey to the eastern borders. This was his only method now he had become an outcast. Or, he supposed, he could go back and give himself up to the army, let them strip him of all honour and shoot or hang him amid the trees.
He found Teda had brought him a cracked china cup of coffee, and his eyes filled with sentimental tears. Through them he glimpsed the crooked distortion of her hands. What was it? Old age and rheumatism, no doubt. He thanked her and drank and said, “There’s a wolf sleeps in this house.”
“Yes,” she said, softly. “That is Hris.”
“Hris—a wolf. A choice pet.”
“Not a pet. Always about. In former days.”
He downed the coffee like medicine. “You mean, do you, when your master was—alive.” If ever he was alive, Corlan added to himself. But deep within his body or his brain, the horror twitched, nearly lazily now, comfortable with him. Shake it off. “Who was this master?”
“We don’t speak of him.”
“Why not?”
“It is—” she left a long gap. She said, “There are partings, sir. Severences.”
True, he thought. Death severs people. But The Master was not people—he did not die. He remained, and drank his coffee—blood—or else dined on the flesh and skeletons—of human things.
Corlan got up again and staggered, must hold on to the table to keep himself upright. A fever. Damnation—to be ill when it was so urgent to travel far away—
“You’ve been generous,” he said, “but I’ll be off in an hour. Is there any food I might buy from you—”
She had gone. He had not seen her go.
Swaying, he allowed himself to sit down again. She had refilled his cup, and he had not seen that, either. He drank it. It did not taste as if poisoned. From somewhere he must wrestle back his strength.
* * *
During the day, the castle was no better. Wan light interruptedly yet perpetually splintered through its narrow window-spaces and cracks, littering the stony floors.
Every so often a gushing sigh, or whisper, indicated the stone-dust which poured out of ceilings and walls. In certain spots it ran like water from a tap.
He had meant to leave within the hour, but had felt so weak and sick he had not yet attempted it. An appalling nervousness of going outside again into the forest began to assail him. He had resorted to biting his nails. He had not done this since he was a young boy in his father’s cruel presence.
Corlan did return to the hall. It was as he recalled, though more bleak and empty in daylight. Scattered all over lay the shreddings and grains of the bones of rodents, while in all the spider-nets, dead spiders and their unconsumed prey became dabs of sticky tar. The hearth contained burned logs and the blackened glass of the destroyed lamp. He had done that, then. Crazy. God knew what might have happened—the filth-clotted chimney catching alight—he seemed to hear it crash … The armorial motto was less evident by day. We do not altogether die.
What about the wolf—Hris? Corlan forced himself up the stair and went along the passage, both of which seemed shorter, in height and length, than during the night. Yet he took an age to walk up and along them.
The bowl was still there. Most of the pink disgusting blood-milk was gone now.
He reached the door under the arch. In the chamber beyond dusty webs hung down like draperies. There was a gaunt bed, with four upright carved posts. The wolf lay there; it was real. As he stared at it, it opened one sluggish eye, which by day was a smoky amber. It watched him, not moving, as he, leaning on the door-frame, did not move either.
“Is he real too, Hris?” Corlan asked the wolf. “Your master? The undead lord. Risen like Christ out of some tomb. Devouring me. Eating me alive. And you, poor bloody animal. Draining you dry, and everything here. So many little corpses, bones—drained, sucked inside out.”
The wolf’s eye shut. It was clearly too tired to bother with him.
Corlan turned and went away.
Partly down the stair, every step seemed suddenly to spring upward at his face. Almost fainting he clung to the bannister.
Outside, within the dark deep of the forest, silence spread its towering wings like an unseen, unheard, non-existent wind.
* * *
In the larder, when he unearthed it, he discovered some pieces of unidentifiable meat, kept cold enough, but unmistakably nibbled by something: just conceivably the band of dead rats lying about. A beggar had no choice. The loaf was the same, somewhat mouthed. And he was stealing too, from the old couple, who had in their way been helpful. For God’s sake, he must shoot something in the forest. Although, in the vicinity of the schloss he had seen nothing animate, nor made out even the call of birds.
He found it difficult to think, let alone plan. Inertia, depletion. But he must get out, now, instantly. He sat down on a s
tool, and rested his head on the wall.
Corlan was in this position when Teda and Tils came creeping back into the room. They looked at him, he believed, with a kind of bemused contempt.
But the old woman was polishing some glasses, and Tils put a black, webbed bottle on the table. Uncorking this, he exhumed a blood-black wine.
Tils beckoned Corlan to the table, where the old woman now placed the nibbled loaf and a grey slab of curious cheese she unwrapped from a cloth.
Her hands. They appeared as if they had been broken, every bone, then set awry.
“It is pleasant,” said Tils, “for us to have a little company.”
Teda too sat down, though at a slight distance, ready to wait on them. But “Like the days that are gone,” she murmmured.
“But surely,” said Corlan, “those days are still here.”
“No, no, done for ever,” said Tils, drinking deeply.
It was a fine wine, metallic and strong. Corlan was cautious with it, but beginning to feel it made him rather better. His hands steadied, some focus had come back to his vision and brain.
“But this is your joke,” he said coldly. “Your nameless master never died.”
Tils’ head went up. A flash of what—anger? hurt?—for a second ignited in the dullness behind his eyes.
“Not so. He died.”
Corlan flung off any restraint with the wine. He too drank deeply. He said, “Perhaps once, long ago. He died then, whoever he was, and is, your master of Veltenlak. After which—once again he was—animate, shall I say.”
“Ah,” said Teda softly. “Ah.”
Tils put down his glass and gazed into the wine’s thick residue. “The gentleman means that after death, we rise in spirit.”
“No, I don’t mean that. I mean your master—I’ll call him for his house, shall I, since you won’t say his name—Herr Veltenlak—is undead. A vampire or some other sort of thing. A ghost even, that preys on humankind without any respect or care, dishonourably, uncleanly, and seldom without unneeded pain. He likes to cause pain. He likes to play, like a cat. Hunting is a sport to him. And men are his quarry. Which must mean that I am, now, I suppose.”
He waited. What would happen? Tils did nothing. But Teda rose and brought the wine and refilled both their glasses, and then sat down again at a distance.
Dust rushed from the ceiling. A minute scatter of stones dropped with it, clicketing across the table like thrown dice.
“Veltenlak even devours his own castle,” said Corlan. “He’s eating it up.”
They did not reply.
In God’s name, they were not old, but ancient. Tils two hundred, she not far short.
Well, finish the glass, then get up. Take them, and myself, by surprise. Leave the ruin. God—surely I can?
By day the undead creature should not be able to follow him. Corlan visualized the resumption of his grueling trek into exile. The desolation that there awaited him. A cloud of weakness unfurled. His eyes darkened.
As he surfaced from the lapse, he heard Tils begin to speak again, as if from another room.
“I must tell you, sir, he is gone. I will tell you how and when, and why. You should be told. For some it is no matter. But you—”
”Because I resist—” Corlan inadvertantly broke in.
“You must hear me out. It was just over one year back, a few months more. When she lost our child—”
Corlan again interrupted, unable not to.
“Who lost a child?”
“I,” said Teda, in her soft, dead-leaf voice. “My first. Tils’ child, it was. We were only seventeen. It was a terrible thing.”
“Wait.” Corlan stood. The chair screaked along the stone floor. The wine kept him upright. “Say to me again the age at which you lost your child—last year.”
“Why, at seventeen, he and I both. We were very young.”
“Christ,” said Corlan. “Oh, Christ on his cross. Why are you lying to me? You’re lunatics. Or I am.”
“She says the truth,” said Tils. “Be calm, sir. I’ll tell you. There is nothing else to do.”
* * *
Tils at no point named the Lord of Veltenlak.
At no juncture, even by letting a few words slip, did Tils describe the physical appearance, the age, the manner or personality of his master. Tils did not protest or imply that his master had been noble, or kind, or even wronged.
Tils outlined only what, according to Tils, had gone on one year and two months in the past.
However, he started his narrative with these sentences:
“We were not unhappy. The schloss was mighty, built many centuries. Everything of the best. And the woods full of game. There was a lake with fish, and swans, and wild duck would come. Five wells there were in the yards, each with pure sweet water. And the cellar of the most wonderful. This wine I brought from there. It was laid down in the time of the last true king. It tastes of steel and gold. There are others that taste like rubies and blackcurrants, and white wines like apples and honey and silver.”
* * *
“We belonged to the estate, you will understand. Our parents had worked the fields, or with the livestock or vines…”
They were thought fit, Tils and Teda, to serve in the house. And then they were married. He married them, their master, as was usual. It was a nighttime wedding. A great many other servants, of course, worked in the house. There was a lot to do. But the tasks of Tils and Teda were not menial and always there was good food and drink, shelter and luxury. They felt themselves inexorably secure. The power and might, worldy (and otherwise) of their master, hovered over them always, the pinions of a giant eagle.
And then. Ah, then.
One evening late in autumn there was a strange, thick, greenish sunset, and out of this ominous twilight a column of riders advanced with, walking before them, iron figures in the black robes of priests.
Not many ever came to the castle. The stronghold lay in a wild region, and had, too, a dark reputation that for a great while had safeguarded it. It must seem the master, freely and supernaturally, could range where he wished after prey. (Though Tils did not specify this, it was inherently indicated. For how else did the predatory being nourish himself. Corlan had inferred the servants themselves were never troubled. Probably the vampire assumed some animal shapeshift or semblance. Or grew invisible. Of such talents the undead were capable, in legend. And Corlan himself was now preyed on by an element irresistible and unseen, detectible only by the hideous results it produced of witless lassitude and an almost self-satisfied despair.)
When the procession of priests and horsemen pressed up from the forest, the castle grew alert and uneasy.
Night was imminent, and although Tils did not stress that his master was most active between sunfall and rise, Corlan had concluded it would be so. And therefore the visitors, whatever their nature or intention, must wish to meet with him.
Were the humans in the house really afraid? Despite their serfdom and inbred loyalty, their faith in their lord’s powers, they were.
They had some cause.
In an era of monsters, the arm of the Church that rallied to deter them was militant, obdurate. Sadistic. Fire to fight with fire.
“We are, you see, like infants before them. The aristocracy and the priests, equally,” said Tils. “Both hold a sword above our heads. We cannot deny, must not withhold. Yet he—was like our father. And these ones were—” Tils paused. It was Teda, his ancient young wife, who whispered the single phrase. “Like the Devil,” she said. “Like the Devil.”
The priestly crusaders thrashed their way into the master’s chamber, high up in the König Ragen, a tower which, a month after these events, collapsed and crashed through into the body of the house, just missing the great hall—as if it had tried, yet failed, to crush the heart out of the place.
“Above us we heard them at work. Something was done. Even he could not evade them—”
Corlan thought, How not? He was the bloody De
vil, not they. But he did not now interrupt.
It appeared the soldiers and the priests got hold of the Master of Veltenlak. Held down with and by some form of alternate sorcery, in this case named Godfulness, they stripped and flayed him. Undead, yet he was alive enough to feel.
“We heard his cries, terrible shrieking. It was not fear,” said Tils in sorrowful pride. “He feared nothing. It was only agony.”
At length they smashed the master’s jaw, poured boiling mercury into his throat and guts, struck all his bones to shards, and at last, in the hour before dawn, smote off his head with a consecrated sword. After which, there in the upper room, they burned his body.
“There was no smell of flesh,” said Tils. He waited, courteously.
Teda spoke; this was her cue? “Only the odour of fire.”
Then she got up and tottered out of the kitchen, away into the house.
Tils said, “We lost our baby seven hours later. All the other women in child here lost the fruit of their wombs, through that day, and the next night.”
Nevertheless, the priests examined everyone yet living. Every servant must parade before them, and even the part-dead aborted women were carried roughly in. Each was stripped bare, as he had been, perused for blighted marks, given a crucifix to kiss. A few had signs, abnormal birthmarks or warts, or else were too shocked and frightened to embrace Christ on his cross. All of these were shot, slung together in a heap by the lake, and also burned.
Tils and Teda, along with twenty others judged clean, merely simpletons, were allowed to exist. When at last the invaders went away, the castle was left much as it had been.
As autumn waned to winter, and after the König Ragen fell down, a huge lethargy replaced the terror and confusion. When winter commenced, all the house began, in slight or dramatic, always persistent ways, to disintegrate. Birds died and spun from the sky. The swans perished, and the fish, and the lake turned foul, and in another summer’s heat dried up. Just as did all the courtyard wells. Trees nearby began to fail. In the farther forest things died, plants, beasts. The very light grew sickly. Of the castle retainers many determined to leave. None succeeded in getting far. They would sink down, often less than thirty metres from the walls, and never again climb to their feet.