by Hall, Ian
Before leading his would-be assassin off, Ivan turned to me with one final word. By the way his eyes drilled me, I know he attempted to brand the command into my brain. I set my spine, having already proven my ability to thwart my changer’s will.
“Return to the Keep. Maintain your normal routine: confine yourself to the east wing, curtains drawn. Have the kitchens prepare your meat rare; that should stem any…” he stole a glance to Gregory, who kept his head bent but I knew his ears were perked, “relapses of your illness. I will be two days on my expedition.”
“I will try to manage in your absence,” I said as my belligerent farewell and waved him off like a nagging bee.
I stayed a while longer beside Stardust, watching with one eager eye until Ivan’s silhouette was lost to the shadows.
I killed the horse once I passed the next village. Its blood stemmed my need, and its flesh would sustain the villagers for many days. I had no interest in naming horses; they were as subservient to me as I deemed Tomas. Just a necessary part of the Order’s place in the world.
We became hungry, we fed.
My immediate Elder listened to my reasons for choosing Tomas, the third son. His features remained unchanging, his expression sullen and bored.
“Enough,” he said at last. “I care not. Each of the sons are but a fraction of the father, and the Lucescu line has diminished because of Apostol’s demise.”
“I was unable to stem the father’s end,” I tried to argue further, but got waved down by the Elder’s hand.
“No matter.” He settled in his seat, crossed his fingers, and looked up at me. “We have more pressing matters. Have you heard news from Kiev?”
“I know of none,” I shook my head. “The sickness has stopped travel between towns.”
“Boran Pugachev’s son, second in the Igmar Hetman’s line has succumbed to the blood sickness. Forlan, your peer in Kiev, has not reported to the Order since the plague’s arrival. I fear his demise, and need you to clear up any mess. If we cannot get a Lucescu on the Hetmanate, then an Igmars from Kiev would be a worthy alternative.”
I nodded. “Your will, of course.” I immediately wondered how I, Ivan Vyhovsky, had suddenly been elevated in the Order. “Although there are others of the Order already inside the city.”
The Elder’s face fell sullen, and I worried if I had overstretched my bounds. “We have had no word from Kiev since the sickness. I fear the worst.”
I suddenly saw the urgency of the situation. I knew at least six of the Order in Kiev by name.
“Ivan?” he reached forward to grab my sleeve. “Don’t enter the city officially. We need this done in the utmost secrecy. If the Order is discovered in Kiev, we will be forced to hold back on many years planning.”
“I will use discretion, Great One.”
“Remember your Jesuit days in Lviv?”
Transported back forty years, I smiled at the distant memory. “Yes, sire. I remember Lviv well. My days in the Jesuit Collegium were a peaceful time.”
“Then find robes and travel as a Jesuit. I need to find the truth, and to be sure, so many of our Order are silent, I fear we have been discovered. Perhaps worse.”
Kiev lay another fifty miles to the north, and the road not of the best quality. Given a new horse by the Elder, I rode for most of the way, then travelled on foot the last few miles, comfortable in my Jesuit smock. I found the southern gate closed, barred against any incomers, so I did a quick scout, and found a trader’s gate on the east side.
The best place to hear gossip would be in the market and taverns, so with the stalls before me, I browsed, hopefully keeping most of my face in the folds of my cowl. As a priest, I was often asked for blessings, which I repeated from memory. I countered their gratitude with discreet questions. Within moments, I heard the word ‘Boran’ linked with ‘demon.’ I winced, knowing that this did not sound like good news for the Order. It only took a drink in three taverns to confirm the worst of my fears. The town lay full of the story.
Boran Pugachev, in a wailing grief for his son’s death, had struck out at the apothecary – my friend, Forlan – and caused him severe physical harm. When visited the next day, the wound had healed beyond human ability. In a rage, Boran had hacked at Forlan’s head. My friend, of course, in his death, had turned to dust.
It seems that Boran had more guile than I had suspected. Every associate of Forlan’s had been caught and jailed, each alone in a cell. An arrow fired through the door had been the device of discovery. If they survived, they were beheaded. If they suffered, Boran’s physicians attended their wounds.
From earwigging the buzzing of the taverns, the number of the dead totaled over fifty, but I knew that had to be an exaggeration.
I could not believe that Boran could have been so fortunate to net all members of the Order in Kiev, but since none had reported to the Elders, I had to accept the possibility.
Sleep had been one nuisance I’d been glad to be rid of since my turning. I required very little of it in order to keep my strength. This allowed hours to my studies never afforded to me in human life. By candlelight, I poured over the leather-bound volumes my mother had lovingly acquired for my amusement; the great philosophers Plato and Socrates, the poets Sappho and Vergil…all lifelong friends to a solitary boy. By these tomes, my thoughts and heart were molded; I could only wonder what their fertile minds would make of my transformation.
As the sun made its first appearance, the curtains brightened to a faint amber glow. I teased myself with Ivan’s promise that my aversion to daylight now lay a useless remnant of my former life. The temptation to test it had me swooned. Drunken with the prospect of watching the dawn come to its full glory, I set aside my book and made way for the window.
My fingers barely touched the coarse fabric of the curtains when I heard a gasp behind me. Nicolette, my personal handmaiden, hovered at the threshold of the east parlor. I gasped at her almost nakedness, sheathed in a gossamer thin cotton nightdress, her waist-length, ebony hair free of its usual, unbecoming pins.
Surely, she believed herself alone at this hour, the master of the house still abed. I knew my servant often crept into the parlor, making use of the piano while she believed I lay tucked away. Many times her music had woken me prematurely; she played well and so I allowed it, listening from my chamber.
But today, Nicolette’s gall was unmitigated, scolding me as if I had been the one caught red-handed; skulking about in places I ought not to be.
“Mr. Tomas, what are you doing? You shouldn’t linger so close to the window; daylight is upon us!”
I made a haughty show of clapping my hands together. “The curtains are filthy with dust, Nicolette. Am I to use them to hide from the sun only to choke on the thick air? I’d say I’d do better to die quickly than to slowly suffocate.”
The maiden’s notorious temper rose as dangerously as the dawn. “I pounded the curtains within an inch of their lives just yesterday, Mr. Tomas. I assure you – they are quite clean.”
Her smoldering glare elicited my transient appreciation for the lovely creature; Nicolette had always had a mind of her own and never feared to speak it. No doubt her fire, as much as her beauty, prompted my father to hand-select her as my personal servant. When I turned fifteen, Apostol disposed of the weathered spinster that had attended me in my youth and employed the much more vivacious Nicolette in her stead.
Unknown to my mother, the new maid’s duties encompassed responsibilities never undertaken by her predecessor. Father did not want my appearance to keep me from enjoying the full scope of my rank. Though I’d often wondered what Apostol would do should the lowly house servant yield him a bastard grandchild; then easily dismissed it as his concern and not my own.
Nicolette’s tendency to misconstrue our arrangement as something more than commerce did concern me occasionally. As such, she allowed herself privileges her position did not account for. That obstinate streak could become somewhat tiring when my temperament lay
darker; luckily for her, today my mood seemed quite sanguine.
I pointed to the drapery. “You missed a spot.”
Nicolette charged to the window, flattened her hand and gave the curtain three solid smacks; no doubt, fantasizing it was my face.
She wiped her hands together and sneered, “Clean.”
“Perhaps next time I am away, you will spend more time at your chores and less at my piano.”
The stone expression fell away, replaced by a child’s dread of punishment.
“You didn’t think me deaf, my dear?”
At that, her rebellion flared again. “Deaf? Not as much as wasteful, Mr. Tomas. It is my duty to care for your possessions, is it not? I would be slipshod to allow this fine instrument to sit, unused, collecting dust.” She crossed her arms again. “And we all know of your disdain for dust.”
Her rebuke struck home. In truth I had been neglectful in making use of the piano mother had so painstakingly tried to instruct me on. After many years, I became proficient at finding the notes. But, still the music eluded me. Nicolette – the lowly maid – on the other hand, was something of a prodigy in that regard.
“Well then,” I said with a grand sweep of my arm toward the piano, “get to work.”
Nicolette’s arms fell gracelessly to her side, a warrior dropping her shield. She fluttered like a butterfly to the bench, her nightdress billowing enchantingly as an iridescent wind. As soon as her fingers stroked ivory, she and the instrument became one being.
I molded myself to the chair, book folded over my chest, and listened behind closed lids. Monteverdi’s opera, L’Orfeo, suffused the room and I got swept to another place and time. I opened my eyes to see Nicolette enraptured within it. Her body tensed and convulsed with every chord, her face set in a mask of ecstasy. That piano was more her lover than I could ever be; and I realized a sudden envy to feel what she felt.
I had tasted Victor’s essence and knew beyond a doubt that something of him remained alive in me. In my partaking, a bit of his soul had fractured and joined with mine.
Slowly I stalked closer to her. I dare say Nicolette, on the verge climax, heard nothing of my coming. She startled to my first touch as I pulled the nightdress down from her shoulder.
Her nimble fingers grew still and the piano’s last note vibrated off to silence. She breathed a fortifying breath; not one of anticipation but of resignation. Once again my beautiful housemaid had misinterpreted my intentions for her. I had indulged in Nicolette’s skin enough to last a lifetime; now I wanted what lay beneath.
I bent to her neck, piercing flesh and encouraging the blood with my suckling lips. As her jaw fell slack and her body succumbed, I drank her music into my veins. She was an empty husk as I lifted and carried her to the bed. Glassy eyes stared up at me, but enough light remained that I knew I had stopped in time to spare her life.
While she slept off her stupor, I claimed the bench and rested my fingers upon the keys. Nicolette’s soul stirred within me, not quite conducting a symphony, but certainly there seemed to be an understanding of the rudiments now in my fingers. As the piano sang to my touch, I marveled at my own ability. In taking that part of her into myself, I could now do this thing which I could never do before.
At that moment, the full promise of my new life truly opened up for me.
The Elder took the news with more emotion that I’d anticipated. “Such members will be difficult to replace.” He paced the room, his wooden sandals clicking on the earthen floor. Suddenly he turned to me. “If I remember, your training in the Order was not the most thorough.”
I nodded. I had been a member only a few months when the Romanian Cossacks had entered Lviv. Hurriedly thrown into their midst, and handed a frantic instruction; ‘Get close to their leader.’ Two years later before another member of the Order approached me. I had thought myself alone in the world.
“Those were turbulent times.”
“Yet you successfully performed a turning on Tomas Lucescu.”
“Not the most beautiful.”
“Yet, you turned him just the same. There is another skill I would have you teach to the new Lucescu.”
“Yes, sire?”
He motioned me down a short corridor, and I instinctively knew I stood underground. A door at the end opened out into a small cave. He spent the next few minutes lighting small lanterns around the dark stone walls. “There is an ancient teaching which might ease Tomas’s vulnerability. It is called the Path of the Wraith. A true member of the Order neither looks for trouble nor encourages it, and this new skill may be a way to keep the Lucescu line alive.”
I stood in silence and watched the Elder talk to me as never before. I had always known him as aloof and almost unapproachable. Now he seemed definitely frightened, and passing on the new skill must have been important, for we lost no time in getting down to my instruction.
For the rest of the day I learned the basic method of the Path of the Wraith, then that evening, loud beatings on the cottage door announced an angry mob outside.
The Elder turned to me, his face panic-stricken. “Were you followed?”
“No, Sire, I ran some of the way, I could not have been followed, I assure you most vehemently.”
He pointed to a small hatch on the rocky wall which I had not noticed before. “Run!”
“What about you?”
“I have a fire to set. I will be right behind you. When you reach the open countryside, find yourself a fitting victim to practice your new skills on. Once you are happy with your technique, return to Tomas.” He set off for the door to the house. He looked once over his shoulder. “Never return here. Our Order is finished in Kiev.” His voice sounded cold.
I had never felt so alone.
I opened a small hatch and crawled inside the tunnel. Inside it lay dark but dry. Using my hands as eyes I scurried along, soon reaching a wooden door. It had a ring of grey light around it. I listened for a second then pushed it open. With just a glance around, I sped off, faster than any human eyes could see.
I knew I had to return to Moshny, so encountering a route to the east, I ran for miles, confident that I had outrun any pursuit.
The next morning I entered the small town of Glochad. My Jesuit smock got me instant welcome, and I distributed many blessings as I made my way into the town.
I found myself in the only tavern in town, and it sported a decent beer and a passable stew. The conversation in the tavern lay on mundane topics, and there were no dark rumors to spoil my breakfast.
Before noon, I got back into the countryside again, determined to find my ‘victim.’ Based on the fact that I would have to turn the person, then manipulate them, I determined that a good-looking wench would at least make the job interesting.
In the second hamlet I encountered, I got my chance. Pulling weeds from a small garden in the shade of her hamlet knelt a young girl, barely sixteen. She looked comely, no more, but she was young enough to be endearing to me. I thought of taking her away from her farmhouse, then decided that I’d need privacy for my administrations anyway, so I walked up to the front, and hammered on the door.
The door opened, and a face appeared. Immediately I knew where she’d gotten her looks. Her mother seemed quite delightful, and with a decent bath, would easily have passed my crude criteria.
“Good morning, friar,” she said, holding the door tightly, barring my entrance.
“Good morning, lady. I seek the man of the house.” I lifted my foot. “My sandal is torn, I seek some binding, that is all.”
A stranger being treated with such suspicion was rare, and I’m sure the blood sickness had something to do with it.
She forced a smile. “Alas my husband died. The plague took him.”
I leant forward, my breath effusing her face. “Stand still, and listen to me. Do you live here alone?”
“No.” Her face looked full of fear, but she could not move because of my command. “My daughter, Alexi, lives with me, no one else.”
I had the information I needed. With a strong hand, I forced the door wider, and strode past her quivering form. “What is your name?”
“Samara.”
“Well then, Samara, get Alexi in here. I want to take a look at you both.”
By early evening, no news had come to me about poor Ivan’s trampled body, so I assumed he had made it out alive. I hoped that Bruno had at least gotten in a good kick or two before Ivan bested him, a broken rib, a shattered femur; some measure of vicarious retribution.
Nicolette awoke as the last of the day’s light faded. Though weak, she seemed mostly unharmed and I realized immediately I had stumbled upon an easily replenished food source. I felt sure Ivan would have much to say about that; not that it mattered.
The maid’s glorious fire had dimmed to an ember, a fact that troubled me but not overly. With a heavy, lumbering gait and slouched shoulders, she presented my evening repast. The meat looked pink and the wine finely aged but my lavish feeding earlier in the day had dulled my appetite for human food.
“Here, sit,” I said to Nicolette, pointing to the chair beside me.
Quite out of character, she dropped her chin to her chest and failed to meet my eyes. “I am to dine at the servant’s table. It is my place, Mr. Tomas.”
“Your place is where I tell you to be.”
Without further objection, she slid into the designated chair, eyes affixed at some invisible curiosity on the table. I shoved my tray over to her.
“Eat.”
“That is your meal, Mr. Tomas.”
“And I am not hungry. Best not let it go to waste; or is your concern for that limited solely to my piano?”
Still Nicolette did not lift her eyes. My frustration for her began to rise.
“Are you so attached to your ration of bread and cheese that you crave nothing heartier?”
“I am a servant; I am grateful for my share.”
Less honest words had never been spoken; Nicolette’s late-night raids of the pantry were well known to my family, tolerated only at the bidding of my gentle mother. Such thievery ought to have been repaid with a dagger to the throat. And yet the Lucescu’s had turned a blind eye.
