The Elixir

by George Willson

  The person who ran through the forest on this day was not human. Darting between the trees at a ridiculous speed was David Taylor, who appeared to be a twenty-eight year old man with shaggy brown hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in black trousers, shirt, and boots with a long, black riding coat as he had been for over a hundred years now. David was 130 years old this year, and his longevity of life was made possible because he was attacked back in 1775 by a Fempiror of the Tepish Order who changed him. Though too late for his humanity, he was immediately rescued from the Tepish life by a Rastem who gave his life protecting David and gifted David the sword he now held in his right hand, which resembled a Japanese style katana, while the scabbard rode empty on his back as he ran toward his destination to the east. That sacrifice ensured David would forever pledge himself to the Rastem ideals, and though he had made many mistakes over the years, he always held true to his principles.

  Trailing him closely were four people who appeared human as well, but they had no trouble keeping up with David as they chased him, using their hands and feet equally, like animals, to run. Unlike David’s relatively clean-cut look, these four had long, disheveled hair, well-worn shirts and trousers, and no shoes. David had encountered these creatures on and off during his time in the Carpathian Mountains, and they were never safe to face in numbers of more than one, no matter how good he got with his sword.

  These were Mutations – a perversion of the Fempiror race made possible by a Tepish scientist called Abraham Barber, who was David’s cousin before they were changed and forced into separate lives. Similar to the Fempiror in speed, strength, and longevity of life, the Mutations differed in that they could survive in direct sunlight and required periodic ingestions of blood, similar to the mythological vampire. A quick glance behind him also reminded him of their elongated canines which facilitated both their adherence to the legend and their ability to bite into victims to acquire their nutrition.

  While Romania sat to the south now, at one time in history, the country of Wallachia rested south of the country of Transylvania across the southern peaks, and in the 13th century, the rulers of Wallachia had built a castle on those peaks to oversee their country. In the 14th century, this castle, called Poenari, was the main citadel of the Basarab rulers, but after it changed hands a few times, it was eventually abandoned by all except for a single resident.

  The castle was discovered in the 15th century by Vlad III the Impaler who liked the castle’s location as it was extremely difficult for any army to conquer. He had repaired the structure making it one of his main fortresses for a time, and following his death in 1476, the castle was abandoned again except for one person who opted to remain and care for it. No one considered this sole caretaker could possibly be the same person after both abandonments.

  At this point, as David approached this mountain, the castle was not in the best of shape, and the ground under the northern wing was crumbling, making that part of the mountain look more like a cliff than solid ground. David intended to scale the side of the mountain as quickly as possible by making leaps almost directly up the side of the mountain as high as his the strength in his legs would allow, which was quite a distance.

  He reached the mountain face and looked up to a rock outcropping thirty feet above. He crouched to make a leap, but as his feet left the ground, his upward progress was impeded by someone hitting him from the side and throwing him into the side of the mountain under Poenari’s northern wing. He rose to his feet as quickly as he could, though the wind had been knocked out of him, and looked upon someone he only had just learned was still alive and in the area.

  Karian used to be not only a Fempiror, but leader of the entire Fempiror people as its head councilman before he became head of the Tepish Order. With the corruption of power, however, Karian got himself into a tight place where he was surrounded by Mutations and changed into one of them, but unlike the animalistic nature the Mutations possessed, Karian retained his sanity, intelligence, and even learned to control the Mutations he created. They served him like children, which was how he referred to them.

  Like his Mutations, Karian was dressed in a ragged shirt, breeches, and no shoes. Despite his apparent age in his seventies and actual age of over 500, Karian commanded an imposing presence and had lost none of his speed in the intervening years.

  David swung his sword in a vain attempt to cut Karian down and disband the Mutations, but Karian avoided the strike easily and hit David again, throwing him back into the mountainside once more. Dirt crumbled from above in response to the blow. The Mutations kept their distance as Karian circled his prey.

  “I’ll ask you one more time,” Karian growled, “and if I’m not satisfied, I will kill you this time.”

  “I told you,” David breathed, climbing back to his feet and holding his sword weakly before him.

  “You told me nothing,” Karian spat. “You would have me believe you live in Arefu? A little far from home, aren’t you?”

  Arefu was a little town about three miles southwest of the castle on the Romanian side of the Carpathians. He had been to Arefu several times in order to get supplies, so he knew it was not far away. “What’s wrong with Arefu?” David shrugged.

  “Doesn’t explain why you’re so far northeast of it,” Karian said. “Is it this castle? Something special about it?”

  “You chased me this way,” David said. “It’s old ruins, I believe. Nothing special that I know of.”

  “Really?” Karian asked.

  “Oh yes,” David said with a smile, “but I do know there was a lot of Wallachian history here. Did you know a Vlad Dracula?”

  “Not personally, but you’re avoiding the question,” Karian said, clearly losing his patience.

  “Maybe,” David said, sensing a possible opportunity. He swung for Karian again, but Karian was still too quick for him. Even though he continued to try for Karian, the other Mutations remained well outside the fight, like children in a schoolyard.

  Karian managed to get the better of David a third time, throwing him into the mountainside again. More dirt crumbled around him, but this time, the castle groaned far above them as more dirt rained down, but it held its place. Karian grabbed David’s shirt and held him in place against the wall, their faces barely an arm’s length apart.

  “It would be a pleasure to kill you finally,” Karian confessed. “You know that Fempiror blood tastes the best to us?”

  “That’s not comforting,” David said.

  “Who lives here?” Karian demanded stepping back to study David as he spoke. “You?” David did not answer, but his expression betrayed him. He did live here, but he could not have Karian knowing that or his safety would be in jeopardy. Karian smiled, though, reading David’s response. “You do, don’t you?”

  David still didn’t answer, but Karian did not need him to. One of the things that made Karian a great leader was his ability to read people. He was rarely surprised by anyone. “Are you alone?” Karian continued asking while reading David’s face as if he answered aloud. “No? Who is with you? It’s not that Abraham Barber, is it?” David did his best to show nothing, but it was pointless.

  “Thought not,” Karian said. “Who is it?”

  There was the flaw in Karian’s questioning. He could easily read David’s “yes” and “no” answers, but when faced with a real answer, he could decipher nothing. It was clearly infuriating him. He rushed David and pushed him back into the wall. David was more prepared this time, but could not resist the force Karian delivered as Karian held him tight against the mountain.

  “Tell me!” Karian yelled.

  More dirt rained down around them as the castle groaned once more, but this time, the dirt did not stop falling. Karian and the Mutations glanced upward to the structure far above them as the dirt turned into an avalanche, and bricks and mortar fell from the castle walls as the ground moved under it.

  Karian released David as the Mutations scattered in fear from the quaking mountain. Dav
id tried to run away from the chaos, but Karian blocked his path. More rock and brick crashed to the ground around them, but Karian held his ground.

  “If you don’t get out of here,” David warned, “we both die.”

  “I’ve lived for five hundred years, boy,” Karian said calmly. “What makes you think I’m not ready?”

  The ground under the castle finally gave way and the northern wing of Poenari tore loose from the remaining structure and began its crumbling descent within the cacophony of the falling earth. The ground shook from the weight of the moving mountain, and the crashing sound was deafening. David glanced to the woods beyond Karian, and then to the impossible situation behind him. Karian read his face once more.

  “You run into that, you may not come out alive,” Karian warned.

  “If I stay here, I definitely won’t,” David observed, and without a second thought, he sheathed his sword and darted into the deadly rain of earth, rock, brick, and mortar. Refusing to lose his prey in such a manner, Karian darted after him.

  David only had a split second to study the debris scattered across the air over him before he made his first jump to the side of the collapsing mountain forty feet up, finding purchase for an instant before looking upward and making another jump to another outcropping before it crumbled under his weight. He did not pause to consider this as he made his next jump, zigzagging his way up the cliff, desperately trying to avoid the storm of dirt and castle in the air behind him. He made another leap and ended up landing on a piece of the castle wall skidding wildly down the almost sheer vertical face of the mountain. Having lost nearly twenty feet, he jumped again barely getting enough leverage to travel, and found a good handhold before continuing his back and forth path straight up, with a final piece of the castle barely missing him.

  The avalanche was nearly complete and the air over him was clearing up, so he made one final jump and grabbed onto a small outcropping of rock remaining on the face of the newly formed cliff about halfway up the side of the mountain. He glanced down below him to see the castle wing and everything that had supported it fall into a cloud of dirt in the valley where he had been only moments before. He also noticed Karian had followed him and held onto his own piece of the wall a short distance below him. He had to move.

  David pulled himself up and jumped from rock to rock, scaling the mountain more quickly than any climber ever could since he could easily jump thirty to forty feet at a time. He knew he had to go fast since Karian, as a Mutation, would not need to jump or be so careful in his ascent, but simply crawl up the side of the mountain which was another bizarre characteristic of the Mutation.

  David reached the top of the cliff where the ground, with considerably fewer trees and a soft covering of grass, sloped upward to the peak where the entrance to Poenari Castle was. He drew his sword and leaned over the edge of the cliff to find Karian a short distance down, no longer climbing, but staring at him.

  “You know what happens if you reach this edge?” David called out.

  “You give me a dishonorable death,” Karian said with that eerily calm voice he was known for even as a Fempiror. “Then again, I can stay here until daybreak. You don’t have that luxury, do you?”

  David glanced to the east and found the stars in the lowermost portion of the sky had disappeared. It was not sunrise yet, but he only had a couple of hours left. He looked back to Karian, wordlessly and effortlessly clinging to the wall.

  “We have a little time,” David said. “You just have to decide whether I’m still here or if I left.”

  David stepped back for a moment to see what Karian would do. Would he take the chance of chasing after David immediately or would he wait? What David feared, however, is that since he knew David lived in the castle, Karian would simply wait until sunrise, and explore the castle on his own. Karian could do that without any risk at all.

  David looked to the remains of the castle. During his climb, he had veered to one side rather than coming up directly under the collapse. This allowed him to reach the top more quickly than he would have otherwise and let him see the damage prior to going inside. A short distance below the level of the castle, he could see that parts of the floors and rooms remained from the broken wing, but exposed to the elements, they would not remain in any livable shape for long. It would also make keeping Karian out problematic.

  David walked back to the edge and looked down. Karian had not moved. “Comfortable?” David asked. Karian ignored him.

  David decided to make a run for it. He kicked dirt and rock over the edge into Karian’s face. He saw Karian lose his grip for a moment and fall, but he knew the old man would not fall to his death. He was simply caught off guard by being hit in the face with a bunch of dirt.

  He did not wait around to see how Karian handled it, though, but immediately ran as fast as he could toward the castle gates, which were a pair of huge wooden doors high and wide enough to accommodate a pair of fully loaded wagons abreast of each other. Back when humans had held this castle, it would take three of them to open even one of these doors, but as a Fempiror, David was able to open the doors on his own.

  As quickly as he could manage, he had a door open, himself inside, and the door closed and bolted. He ran across the small courtyard to the castle proper and noted to the north, the large opening now present in the outer wall by the loss of the northern wing. Most of the northern wing had been its own outer wall anyway, as the courtyard did not extend around it.

  The collapse, while bothersome, did not come as a surprise to David as it would not come to his charge, since they had previously noted the erosion on that side of the mountain, and the northern wing had moved and groaned during heavy rains. Part of them was always ready for something like this, but it was not entirely unused either.

  David reached the large main doors to the inner castle walls, and while not as large or heavy as the outer doors, they were still impressive in size. Once inside, David bolted those doors as well since the outer doors would provide little protection from a Mutation who could scale the walls anyway. From there, he made his way to the room through the first door on the right.

  The room, like most of the rooms in the castle, was like a suite with an ante room for sitting and visiting, and a bedroom set apart behind a door to divide the two areas. The ante room contained several large wooden bookshelves stocked with books about science, classic works of fiction, and travel to most countries of the world. Two ancient, high back chairs sat around a knee high wooden table in front of a large stone hearth in which a small fire burned. While Fempiror did not require much in the way of heat, even they needed a little something to offset the freezing temperatures of the mountains.

  “Voivode?” David called out as soon as he entered. The bedroom door opened and a skinny, old man with thin, grey hair, and tired eyes walked tentatively into the ante room. David had helped Voivode over seventy years ago in a thunderstorm when Voivode’s horse had bolted during a particularly nasty crack of thunder, leaving him stranded with an overturned wagon. When Voivode perceived David to be one of the Fempiror race, he consented to allow David to stay with him, and David dutifully helped Voivode as he aged beyond his years like father and son. Voivode noted that without David, he would have had some trouble traveling to the various parts of the world to handle his accounts, which served to provide the money he needed to live.

  “David, what happened?” Voivode asked. “Earthquake?”

  “Sort of,” David said. “I was making my rounds of the area when I found some Mutations, fell into a scuffle, and the next thing I know, the little problem we feared would happen actually happened, and the whole mountain started coming down on my head.”

  “Oh no,” Voivode breathed.

  David walked with Voivode out of the room and up a flight of stairs to a series of doors on his left which would have allowed entrance into the wing now sitting in the valley below. Knowing what they would find, he opened the first door he came to and looked out into the
open night air across the tops of the Carpathian Mountains.

  “Oh, my Lord,” Voivode said. “All those books. My old laboratory. That history. All gone.”

  “Yeah,” David said apologetically, and then glanced to what was left of one of the floors to find a familiar face staring dumbly at Voivode next to him. “And this isn’t our only problem.”

  “Voivode Draculya?” Karian said, sounding surprised for the only time David could remember. David drew his sword and held it protectively before him, keeping Voivode behind him. Karian held a bemused smile as he stared at someone he had not seen since the fall of the Felletterusk Empire.

  “I thought you would be dead by now,” Karian said, regaining his usual, calm voice. “If only Vladimir were here, I’d kill him, but I know he’d be happy to kill you first.”

  “Leave him alone,” David warned.

  “I’m not going to touch him,” Karian said. David could read Karian this time, and he could tell Karian had an idea he thought was brilliant. “In fact, I will let you live on a condition.”

  “That you never return?” David asked.

  “Of course not,” Karian laughed. “I want the cure.”

  “There is no cure,” Voivode said.

  “Then you had better find it,” Karian said coldly. “As long as you are working on it, I will keep the Mutations away. If you stop, well … I told David how we feel about Fempiror blood. You’ll be useful to us either way. I’ll return.”

  Without pausing for a response, Karian climbed around the wall and down the side to the ground below. David did not lower his sword or move his gaze until Karian was out of sight.

  “Now what?” Voivode asked. David backed into the castle and closed the door behind them before he put his sword away. He sighed.