by Brian Lumley
The air over the castle was full of tiny bats. I saw them against the moon, flitting in their myriads, their concerted voices shrill and piercing. Was that how the Ferenczy would come: flitting like a great bat, a stretchy blanket of flesh falling out of the night to smother me? I shrank down, gazed fearfully up into the vault of the night sky. But no, surely not; his fall had injured him and he would not yet be ready to tax himself so greatly; there must be some other route with which I was not familiar.
Ignoring the bats, which came down at me in waves, but not so close as to strike or interfere with me, I went to the perimeter wall and looked over. Why I did this I can’t say, for it would take more than any mere man to climb walls as sheer as these. Fool that I was—the Ferenczy was no mere man!
And there he was: flat to the wall, making his way agonizingly slowly, like a great lizard, up the stonework. A lizard, aye, for his hands and feet were huge as banquet platters and sucked where they slapped the walls! Horrified to my roots, I stared harder in the dark. He had not yet seen me. He grunted quietly and his huge disc of a hand made a quagmire sound where it left the wall and groped upward. His fingers were long as daggers and webbed between. Hands like that would pull a man’s flesh from his bones as if they were plucking a chicken!
I looked wildly about. The bubbling cauldrons of oil were positioned at the ends of the span, where the great hall joined the towers. Rightly so, for who would suppose that a man could crawl under the flying buttresses and come up that way, with nothing but the gorge and certain death beneath him?
I flew to the closest cauldron, laid my hands on its rim. Agony! The metal was hot as hell.
I took my sword belt and passed it through the metal framework of the tilting engine, then dragged device and cauldron and all back the way I had come. Oil splashed and drenched my boot; one foot of the tilting bench went through a rotten plank and I must pause to free it; the entire contraption jerked and shuddered through friction with the planking, so that I knew Faethor must hear me and guess what I was about. But finally I had the cauldron above the spot where I had seen him.
I glanced fearfully over the parapet—and a great groping sucker hand came up over the rim, missed my face by inches, slapped down and gripped the coping of the wall!
How I gibbered then! I threw myself on to the tilting device, turned the handle furiously, and saw the cauldron bearing over towards the wall. Oil spilled and ran down the cauldron’s side. It met the hot brazier and caught fire; my boot went up in flames. The Ferenczy’s face came up over the rim of the parapet. His eyes reflected the leaping flames. His teeth, whole again, were gleaming white slivers of bone in his gaping jaws, with that flickering abomination of a tongue slithering over them.
Shrieking, I worked at the handle. The cauldron tilted, slopped a sea of blazing oil towards him.
“NO!” he croaked, his voice a broken bell. “NO—NO—NOOOOOO!”
The blue and yellow fire paid him no heed, ignored his cry of terror. It washed over him, lit him like a torch. He wrenched his hands from the wall and reached for me, but I fell back out of harm’s way. Then he screamed again, and launched himself from the wall into space.
I watched the fireball curving down into darkness and turning it day bright, and all the while the Ferenczy’s scream echoed back up to me. His myriad minion bats flocked to him mid-flight, dashing their soft bodies against him to quell the flames, but the rush of air thwarted them. A torch, he fell, and his scream was a rusty blade on the ends of my nerves. Even blazing, he tried to form a wing shape, and I heard again that rending and crackling sound. Ah, what sweet agony that must have caused him, with his crisp skin splitting instead of stretching, and the burning oil getting into the cracks!
Even so, he half-succeeded, began to glide as before, and as before struck a tree and so went spinning and crashing through the pines and out of sight.
He left a few sparks and scraps of fire drifting on the air, and a host of scorched bats skittering crippled against the moon, and a lingering odour of roasted flesh. And that was all.
Still I wasn’t satisfied that he was dead, but I was satisfied that he wouldn’t be back that night. It was now time to celebrate my triumph.
I doused the fire where it had taken hold of dry timbers, shut down the burning braziers, and went wearily to Faethor’s living quarters. There was good wine there which I sipped warily, then gulped heartily. I spitted pheasants, sliced an onion, nibbled on dry bread and swilled wine until the birds were done. And then I dined royally. It was a good meal, aye, and my first in a long time, and yet … it lacked something. I couldn’t say just what. Fool, I still thought of myself as a man. In other ways, however, I still was a man!
I took a stone jar of proven wine with me and went unsteadily to the lady in the locked room. She did not desire to receive me, but I was in no mood for arguments. I took her again and again; in as many ways as entered my head, so I entered her. Only when she was exhausted and slept did I, too, sleep.
And so the castle of Faethor Ferenczy became mine …
Chapter Ten
HARRY KEOGH’S NIMBUS OF BLUE FIRE BURNED BRIGHT IN THE stirless glade over Thibor’s tumbled mausoleum, and Keogh’s incorporeal mind was aware of the passage of time. In the Möbius continuum time was a very nearly meaningless concept, but here in the first low foothills of the Carpatii Meridionali it was very real, and still the dead vampire’s tale was not completely told. The important part—for Harry, and for Alec Kyle and INTESP—was still to come, but Harry knew better than to ask directly for the information he desired. He could only press Thibor to the bitter end.
“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 …
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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 l’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 towers. 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 half-way 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 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.”
