The Taker-Taker 1

by Alma Katsu

  Through the overseer, Adair gained entrance to all the special chambers in the castle. He got to see the room that held the old man’s ceremonial robes, packed away in chests, and the buttery, filled with stocks of all the foods made on the estate. The most eye-popping, however, was the treasure room, filled with the cel Rau family’s share of conquest: crowns and scepters, gem-studded adornments, coins of strange mint. The sight of so much property and so many possessions put Adair in mind of the written alchemic recipes: the gigantic castle in the faraway land was such a waste. It was criminal to have such treasure and not put it to good use.

  Weeks passed with Adair rarely seeing the physic, though one night the physic sent word for Adair to attend a ceremony in the great hall. The young man watched as the physic signed declarations that would have a binding effect on everyone who lived on the estate. Next to the old man’s right hand stood a heavy seal. Lactu brought out each proclamation, read it aloud, and then laid the sheet before the physic for his signature. Then the overseer would drip scarlet wax below the physic’s scrawl, into which the old man would press the seal with the family crest—a dragon wielding a sword. Later Lactu explained to Adair that it was the seal that conveyed the cel Rau rule of law: because the lords often died while away from the property and without their heirs properly introduced to the Romanian authorities or even the overseer, signatures were meaningless. Whoever held the seal was recognized as lord of the estate.

  Weeks turned into months. Adair would have been happy never to return to Hungary. He enjoyed the dual benefit of being treated like a favored son while escaping the physic’s attentions. In his free time, he practiced swordplay with the guards, or rode through the hamlets. He discussed what he saw with the overseer, deepening his understanding of the property and its many aspects, such as the cultivation of crops, the production of wine, the care of livestock. Adair believed Lactu came to hold him in regard, but the young man didn’t dare share any details of life back in the keep. He returned Lactu’s affection tenfold but greatly feared what the overseer would think of him if he knew what he had suffered, or that he helped the old man in his practice of the dark arts. He longed to tell Lactu of their master’s evil nature, but couldn’t think of a way to do so without implicating himself, and he was loath to lose the overseer’s affection.

  One night, late in the season, Adair was woken by a presence in his bedchamber. He knew as he lit a candle that he wasn’t alone, but nonetheless was startled to find the physic standing at the foot of the bed.

  His heart pounded at the memory of the horrors the man was capable of. “Master, you surprised me. Are you in need of my services?”

  “I have not seen you in so long, Adair, I wanted to look upon you but, I swear, I would almost not recognize you,” he said in his brittle rasp. “Life here has agreed with you. You’ve grown. You’re taller—and stronger.” There was a look, a flash of the old temptation in the physic’s eyes that Adair didn’t wish to see.

  “I’ve learned much in my time here,” Adair said, wanting to show the physic that he hadn’t been idle while out of the old man’s gaze. “Your estate is magnificent. I do not understand how you can bear to be away from it.”

  “Life here is too quiet for my tastes. I think you would find it so yourself, in time. But that is why I have come tonight, to tell you that we will not stay much longer. Summer is fast approaching, and I am needed back in Hungary.”

  The old man’s words alarmed Adair. He’d known this time would end but somehow had deluded himself into believing that it would go on forever. Adair tried to keep the panic from showing on his face. In the meantime, the old man glided to his servant’s bedside, searching his features. He reached over and drew the blanket away, exposing Adair’s chest and abdomen. Adair steeled himself for the touch, but it did not come. Instead, the old man looked at the young man, his hunger palpable, but he seemed content with just the sight of Adair’s body. Or maybe Adair’s maturity gave him pause, for after a long minute, he turned and left the room.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Upon returning to the physic’s keep, Adair expected that life would continue as it had before, but that proved to be impossible. Too much had happened to him. He was controlled by a notion that he could not expunge from his head, especially during the daylight hours when the physic wasn’t around to dominate his thoughts. Adair could not forget what he’d seen at the old man’s estate: the massive stronghold itself, the bountiful fields, the treasure, the servants, the serfs … The only part missing was a liege, and all that stood in his way were two simple things: the seal, now hidden somewhere in the keep, and the old man’s death.

  The seal could be found with a little persistence. Killing the old man was another matter. Adair had thought about it many times during his years of imprisonment, turned it over in his mind and tinkered with each detail, but dismissed it in the end as a mad dream. Every time the old man had laid a hand on Adair, either in anger or lust, the servant had smothered his humiliation by vowing that one day he’d make the physic pay. But it was the memory of that brutal attack with the poker and the months of agonizing recovery that had kept Adair from acting.

  Years had passed since that beating, however, and Adair had grown considerably. The physic was no longer quick to raise his hand and, while he continued to look at Adair with desire, his approaches were few and calculated. And Adair’s hatred of the old man had been with him for so long, it was as natural as breathing. His thoughts had grown more precise, the need for revenge more ferocious and undeniable. He hadn’t realized how completely he had changed until one evening as he buried another dead wench. He looked on her lovely body and realized that this last taboo had fallen away. He could easily assault that empty form—but what he really wanted was to ravish the lifeless body of the physic before burying him in the wet ground. And, what’s more, he would be glad for having done it. He felt no fear and no revulsion. He had forsaken the last shred of his humanity. All reserve had been stripped away, layer by layer, like an animal skinned by a hunter. He had become a ready match for the old man, and the thought made Adair happy for the first time in years.

  The first step was to secure assistance. Adair needed allies, villagers who already hated the physic, who was in league with their Romanian oppressor. Adair had to find those villagers who held a grudge against their overlord and would be willing to take their fury out on the physic, an easier target than the count. If he could prove the physic had committed crimes against the villagers, crimes the count could not defend, then the count would be forced to look the other way if their vengeance took the form of murder. It was a matter of finding the right people, choosing the right trespass, and producing the necessary proof.

  Adair went into the village one day to look for the religious authorities, who seemed a likely choice for his purpose. In the abbey, Adair found a young monk, spared from the rigors of the field and pink all over, like a newborn. The cleric seemed surprised to find the wicked physic’s servant standing in his doorway, but when Adair fell to the cleric’s feet, begging his counsel, the young monk could hardly refuse. They sat together in the solitude of the abbey and he listened as Adair poured out his remorse for being a servant of the village’s oppressor. Adair explained that he was forced to serve against his will. Without dwelling on the circumstances, Adair went on to express repulsion for serving such a wicked and unrepentant despot. When the monk started to reassure him—hesitantly at first, but then the words coming more freely—Adair knew he’d found the ally he was looking for. As a final touch, Adair hinted at dark sins the physic and the count had committed. The monk assured Adair that he could return at any time to further unburden himself.

  And so Adair did. The second time he went to see the monk, he described how he’d been sent by the physic to kidnap a child. The monk’s face grew pale and he drew back, as though confronted with a viper, when Adair described the location of the gypsy wagons; the monk confirmed that the gypsies had fled without an explanatio
n. “I assume he intended to use the child for one of his fiendish potions but to what effect, for what cause, I cannot say. It must be the devil’s work, mustn’t it, to require a human sacrifice?” Adair asked in an incredulous voice, making himself sound as innocent and repentant as he could muster.

  At that point, the monk begged him to stop, not wanting to believe what he was being told. “I swear it’s true,” Adair said, dropping to his knees. “I can bring proof. The parchment on which the spells were written, would that be proof enough?” The monk, stricken, could only nod his head.

  Adair knew it was a simple enough trick to smuggle the papers out of the keep during the day while the physic was asleep, but the next day as he went to gather his evidence, his hands still trembled as he reached for them. Don’t be foolish, he chastised himself. It’s been years. Are you a man or still a frightened boy? Tired of being haunted by fear and humiliation, he snatched up the papers with a certain ruthlessness, rolling them tightly before slipping them in his sleeve. Without a word to Marguerite, he set out for the abbey.

  The young monk’s eyes lit up when he read the faded words written on the parchment. He apologized to Adair for doubting him as he handed the papers back and instructed Adair to return them swiftly to the keep, and alert him should the physic begin planning another murderous crime. However, he needed time to work up a scheme to capture the heretic who was, after all, an ally of their liege. Adair protested: the physic was in league with the devil and didn’t deserve one more day of freedom. But the monk’s resolution was tottering; he was obviously having trouble screwing up his courage for so bold a move against the count. To shore up the monk’s resolve, Adair promised to be back with more proof of witchcraft.

  That evening, the physic’s company was agony. Adair jumped whenever the old man gave him the slightest look askance, sure the physic could sense that Adair had touched his precious parchments. While the old man searched through his papers for the spell he needed, Adair fidgeted, certain that the physic would find something amiss: a bent corner, a smudge, the smell of burning lavender and incense from the abbey. But the old man continued calmly about his work.

  Shortly after midnight, the old man looked up from the worktable.

  “Do you still wish to read, boy?” he asked, pleasantly enough. It seemed strange to Adair that the old man would bring this up, so suddenly. Still, if Adair gave any other response, the old man would know something was wrong.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I suppose tonight is as good as any to begin. Come over here, and I will teach you some of the letters on this page.” The physic crooked a finger at him. Chest squeezing, Adair rose from the floor and walked to the old man.

  The physic eyed the small space left between them. “Closer, boy, you will not be able to see the paper from there.” He pointed to the spot next to him on the floor. Sweat broke out across Adair’s brow as he sidled closer. No sooner had he slid next to the old man and bowed toward the paper than the old man reached up and grasped Adair’s throat with an iron claw. He couldn’t breathe as the fist closed around his windpipe.

  “Tonight will be a very important night for you, Adair, my fine boy. Very important,” he crooned, rising from his seat, lifting the young man into the air by the throat. “I did not think I would keep you in my employ this long. I had planned to kill you long ago. But despite your one serious offense, you have grown on me. You’ve always had a certain savage beauty, but you have also been more loyal than I thought possible. Yes, you’ve done better than I would have guessed from that first night I saw you. And so I’ve decided to keep you as a servant—forever.” He slammed Adair into the stone wall as though he were a rag doll, Adair’s head cracking against the rocks. The strength left his body. The old man lifted him, carrying him down the stairs again, to the privacy of the subterranean chamber.

  Adair fluttered in and out of consciousness as he lay on the bed, aware of the old man’s hands on his face. “I have a precious gift to give you, my rebellious peasant boy. Did you think I could not see it in your eyes, but of course I could …” Adair panicked at the old man’s words, worried that the physic could read his mind and knew of the pact with the monk. “But once you have received this gift, you will be unable to refuse me anything ever again. This gift will bind us together, you will see …”

  The old man drew very close, studying his servant in a terrifying way. It was then that Adair noticed an amulet hanging from a leather cord on the physic’s neck. The old man wrapped his hand around the amulet and snapped the cord, protecting the amulet with his two hands from Adair’s view. But Adair had gotten a glimpse of it in the meager candlelight: it was a tiny silver vial, detailed with the minutest fretwork and its own miniature lid.

  Somehow, with his withered fingertips, the physic managed to pull off the lid, revealing a long needle that served as a slender stopper. A viscous copper-colored fluid clung to the needle, forming a fat droplet on the tip. “Open your unworthy mouth,” the physic ordered, holding the stopper over Adair’s lips. “You are about to receive a precious gift. Most men would kill for this gift or would pay vast sums. And here I am about to waste it on a clod like you! Do as I tell you, you ungrateful dog, before I change my mind.” He needn’t have struggled: the needle was slight enough to force over Adair’s lips, and he jabbed the needle into Adair’s tongue.

  It was more the shock than the pain that made Adair thrash against the physic, the shock of a strange numbness taking over his body. It froze the young man’s heart in terror, and with the instantaneous appreciation that he was in the grasp of something demonic. As pressure dropped in his body, his heart began to beat more and more rapidly, desperate to push the dwindling supply of blood to his starving limbs, his brain, his heart. All the while, the old man pressed down on him, heavy as stone, mumbling unintelligibly and certainly in the devil’s tongue as he performed another strange act on him, this time with needles and ink. Adair tried to throw off the old man but could not budge him, and within a minute no longer had the strength to try. His lungs collapsing, he could no longer draw breath. Convulsing, choking, bucking against the bedding in the throes of death and bluing cold … Adair felt as though he were being buried alive, locked inside a body that was spiraling downward, failing.

  A fierce will inside Adair resisted death. If he died, the old man would never be punished, and more than anything else, Adair wanted to see that day.

  The physic studied Adair’s face in the throes of death. “So strong. You have a strong will to survive, that is good. Glower with hatred for me. That is what I expect, Adair. Your body will go through the final stages of dying; that will hold your attention for a while. Lie still.”

  When Adair’s body could not save itself, it began dying. It started to stiffen, trapping Adair’s consciousness inside. As he lay there, the physic spoke of how he’d been drawn into alchemy—he didn’t expect Adair, a peasant, to understand the allure of science—how his training as a physic had opened the door. But beyond alchemy, he had joined the few, the most astute, who moved beyond the secrets of the natural world to the supernatural world. Changing base metals to gold was an allegory, did Adair understand? The true seers sought not to change materials of the earth into finer things, but to change the nature of man himself! Through mental purification and applying himself solely to the knowledge of alchemy, the physic had moved into the ranks of the most knowledgeable, the most powerful men on earth.

  “I can command water, fire, earth, and wind. You’ve seen as much—you know it’s true,” he boasted. “I can make men invisible. I have the strength of my youth—that has surprised you, hasn’t it? Actually, I am stronger than I used to be; sometimes, I feel as strong as twenty men! And I have command over time, too. The gift I’ve given you”—his face broke into a hideous display of superiority and self-satisfaction—“is immortality. You, my near-perfect servant, will never leave my employ. Will never fail me. Will never die.”

  Adair heard the words as
he was dying and hoped he’d misunderstood. To serve the physic forever! He begged for death to take him away. In his panic, he blocked out the rest of what the physic was telling him, but it didn’t matter.

  There was a last thread he heard as the blackness swallowed him up. The physic was saying there was only one way to escape from eternity. There was only one way to be killed, and that was by the hand of the one who had transformed him. By his maker, the physic.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When Adair awoke, he found he was still in the physic’s bed, the old man lying close in a deathlike slumber. Adair sat up, feeling peculiar. It was as if everything had changed in his sleep, but he couldn’t say precisely how. Some changes were evident: vision, for instance. He could see in the dark. He saw rats milling about in the corners of the room, climbing over one another as they ran the length of the wall. He could hear every single sound as though he were right beside the source of the noise, each sound separate and distinct. Smell was the most overpowering of all, though; odors clamored for his attention, most of all something sweet and rich, with a hint of copper, on the air. He couldn’t identify it, no matter how it teased him.

  Within a few minutes, the physic stirred, then bolted awake. He noticed Adair was in a stupor, and laughed. “Part of the gift, you see. Wonderful, isn’t it? You have the senses of an animal.”

  “What is that smell? I smell it everywhere.” Adair looked at his hands, the bedding.

  “It is blood. The rats, they are fat with it, and they are all around you. Marguerite, sleeping above. You can also smell minerals in the rocks, in the walls surrounding you. The sweet dirt, the clear water—everything is better, cleaner. It is the gift. It elevates you above men.”