by Brian Lumley
‘Yes they are. Fully. And they’re equipped. But if we can we’ll learn a little more about them before we act. For all that you’ve told us, still we know so very little.’
And do you know about George Lake?
Kyle felt his scalp tingle. Quint, too. And this time it was Quint who answered. ‘We know he’s no longer in his grave in the cemetery in Blagdon, if that’s what you mean. The doctors diagnosed a heart attack, and his wife and the Bodescus were there at his burial. So much we’ve checked out. But we’ve also been there and had a look for ourselves, and George Lake wasn’t where he should be. We figure he’s back at the house with the others.’
The Keogh manifestation nodded. That’s what I meant. So now he’s undead. And that will have told Yulian Bodescu exactly what he is! Or maybe not exactly. But by now he must be pretty sure he’s a vampire. In fact, he’s only a half-vampire. George, on the other hand — he’s the real thing! He has been dead, so what’s in him will have taken complete control.
‘What?’ Kyle was bemused. ‘I don’t —,
Let me tell you the rest of Thibor’s story, Keogh cut in. See what you make of that.
Kyle could only nod his agreement. ‘I suppose you know what you’re doing, Harry.’ The room was already colder. Kyle gave a blanket to Quint, wrapped another about himself. ‘OK, Harry,’ he said. ‘The stage is all yours.
The last thing Thibor remembered seeing was the Ferenczy’s bestial animal face, his jaws open in a gaping laugh, displaying a crimson forked tongue shuddering like a speared snake in its alien passion. He remembered that, and the fact that he’d been drugged. Then he’d gone down in an irresistible whirlpool, down, down to black lightness depths from which his resurgence had been slow and fraught with nightmares.
He had dreamed of yellow-eyed wolves; of a blasphemous banner device in the form of a devil’s head, with its forked tongue much like the Ferenczy’s own, except that on the banner it had dripped gouts of blood; of a black castle built over a mountain gorge, and of its master, who was something other than human. And now, because he knew that he had dreamed, he also knew he must be waking up. And the thought came to him: how much was dream and how much reality?
Thibor felt a subterranean cold, cramps in all his limbs, a throbbing in his temples like a reverberating gong in some great sounding cavern. He felt the manacles on his wrists and ankles, the cold slimy stone at his back where he slumped, the drip of seeping moisture from somewhere overhead, where it hissed past his ear and splashed in the hollow of his collar-bone.
Chained naked in some black vault in the castle of the Ferenczy. And no need now to ask how much of it had been dream. All of it was real.
Thibor came snarling to life, strained with a giant’s strength against the chains that held him powerless, ignored the thunder in his head and the lancing pains in his limbs and body to roar in the darkness like a wounded bull. ‘Ferenczy! You dog, Ferenczy! Treacherous, misshapen, misbegotten —‘
The Wallach warlord stopped shouting, listened to the echoes of his curses dying away. And to something else. From somewhere up above he had heard his bellowing answered by the slam of a door, heard unhurried footsteps descending towards him. And with his cold skin prickling and his nostrils flaring — from rage and terror both — he hung in his chains and waited.
The darkness was very nearly utter, streaks of nitre alone glowed with a chemical phosphorescence on the walls; but as Thibor held his breath and the hollow footsteps came closer, so too came a flickering illumination. It issued in an unevenly penetrating yellow glow from an arched stone doorway in what must otherwise be a solid wall of rock; and while Thibor watched with bated breath, so the shadows of his cell were thrown back more yet as the light grew stronger and the footsteps louder.
Then a sputtering lantern was thrust in through the archway, and behind it was the Ferenczy himself, crouching a little to avoid the wedge of the keystone. Behind the lantern his eyes were red fires in the shadows of his face. He held the lantern high, nodded grimly at what he saw.
Thibor had thought he was alone but now he saw that he was not. In the flare of yellow lamplight he discovered that there were others here with him. But dead or alive…? One of them seemed alive, at least.
Thibor narrowed his eyes as the glare from the Ferenczy’s lantern brightened, lighting up the entire dungeon. Three other prisoners were with him here, yes, and dead or alive it wasn’t hard to guess who they’d be. As to how or why the castle’s master had brought them here — that was anybody’s guess. They were of course Thibor’s Wallach companions, and also old Arvos of the Szgany. Of the three, it seemed to be the stumpy Wallach who’d survived: the one who was all chest and arms. He lay crumpled on the floor where stone flags had been laid aside to reveal black soil underneath. His body seemed badly broken, but still his barrel chest rose and fell with some regularity and one of his arms twitched a little.
‘The lucky one,’ said the Ferenczy, his voice deep as a pit. ‘Or perhaps unlucky, depending on one’s point of view. He was alive when my children took me to him.’
Thibor rattled his chains. ‘Was? Man, he’s alive now! Can’t you see him moving? See, he breathes!’
‘Oh, yes!’ the Ferenczy moved closer, in that soundless, sinuous way of his. ‘And the blood surges in his veins, and the brain in his broken head functions and thinks frightened thoughts — but I tell you he is not alive. Nor is he truly dead. He is undead!’ He chuckled as at some obscene joke.
‘Alive, undead? Is there a difference?’ Thibor yanked viciously on his chains. How he would love to wrap them round the other’s neck and squeeze till his eyes popped out.
‘The difference is immortality.’ His tormentor thrust his face closer yet. ‘Alive he was. mortal, undead he “lives” forever. Or until he destroys himself, or some accident does the job for him. Ah, but to live forever, eh, Thibor the Wallach? How sweet is life, eh? But would you believe it can be boring, too? No, of course not, for you have not known the ennui of the centuries. Women? I have had such women! And food?’ His voice took on a slyness. ‘Ah! Gobbets you’ve not yet dreamed of. And yet for these last hundred — nay, two hundred — years, all of these things have bored me.’
‘Bored with life, are you?’ Thibor ground his teeth, put every last effort into wrenching his chains’ staples from the sweating stone. It was useless. ‘Only set me free and I’ll put an end to your — uh! — boredom.’
The Ferenczy laughed like a baying hound. ‘You will? But you already have, my son. By coming here. For, you see, I have waited for one just such as you. Bored? Aye, that I have been. And indeed you are the cure, but it’s a cure we’ll apply my way. You’d slay me, eh? Do you really think so? Oh, I’ve my share of fighting to come, but not with you. What? I should fight with my own son? Never! No, I’ll go forth and fight and kill like none before me! And I’ll lust and love like twenty men, and none shall say me nay! And I’ll do it all to the ends of the earth, to such excess that my name shall live forever, or be stricken forever from man’s history! For what else can I do with passions such as mine, a creature such as I am, condemned to life?’
‘You speak in riddles,’ Thibor spat on the floor. ‘You’re a madman, crazed by your lonely life up here with nothing but wolves for company. I can’t see why the VIad fears you, one madman on his own. But I can see why he’d want you dead. You are… loathsome! A blemish on mankind. Misshapen, split-tongued, insane: death’s the best thing for you. Or locked up where natural men won’t have to look at you!’
The Ferenczy drew back a little, almost as if he were surprised at Thibor’s vehemence. He hung his lantern from a bracket, seated himself on a stone bench. ‘Natural men, did you say? Do you talk to me of nature? Ah, but there’s more in nature than meets the eye, my son! Indeed there is. And you think that I’m unnatural, eh? Well, the Wamphyri are rare, be sure, but so is the sabretooth. Why, I haven’t seen a mountain cat with teeth like scythes in… three hundred years! Perhaps they are no more.
Perhaps men have hunted them down to the last. Aye, and it may be that one day the Wamphyri shall be no more. But if that day should ever come, believe me it shall not be the fault of Faethor Ferenczy. No, and it shall not be yours.’
‘More riddles — meaningless mouthings — madness!’ Thibor spat the words out. He was helpless and he knew it. If this monstrous being wished him dead, then he was as good as dead. And it was no use to reason with a madman. Where is the reason in a madman? Better to insult him face to face, enrage him and get it over with. It would be no pleasant thing to hang here and rot, and watch maggots crawling in the flesh of men he’d called his comrades.
‘Are you finished?’ the Ferenczy asked in his deepest voice. ‘Best to be done now with all hurtful ranting, for I’ve much to tell you, much to show you, great knowledge and even greater skills to impart. I’m weary of this place, you see, but it needs a keeper. When I go out into the world, someone must stay here to keep this place for me. Someone strong as I myself. It is my place and these are my mountains, my lands. One day I may wish to return. When I do, then I shall find a Ferenczy here. Which is why I call you my son. Here and now I adopt you, Thibor of Wallachia. Henceforth you are Thibor Ferenczy. I give you my name, and I give you my banner: the devil’s head! Oh, I know these honours tower above you; I know you do not yet have my strength. But I shall give it to you! I shall bestow upon you the greatest honour, a magnificent mystery. And when you are become Wamphyri, then —‘
‘Your name?’ Thibor growled. ‘I don’t want your name.
I spit on your name!’ He shook his head wildly. ‘As for your device: I’ve a banner of my own.’
‘Ah?’ the creature stood up, flowed closer. ‘And what are your signs?’
‘A bat of the Wallachian plain,’ Thibor answered, ‘astride the Christian dragon.’
The Ferenczy’s bottom jaw fell open. ‘But that is most propitious. A bat, you say? Excellent! And riding the dragon of the Christians? Better still! And now a third device: let Shaitan himself surmount both.’
‘I don’t need your blood-spewing devil.’ Thibor shook his head and scowled.
The Ferenczy smiled a slow, sinister smile. ‘Oh, but you will, you will.’ Then he laughed out loud. ‘Aye, and I shall avail myself of your symbols. When I go out across the world I shall fly devil, bat, and dragon all three. There, see how I honour you! Henceforth we carry the same banner.’
Thibor narrowed his eyes. ‘Faethor Ferenczy, you play with me as a cat plays with a mouse. Why? You call me your son, offer me your name, your sigils. Yet here I hang in chains, with one friend dead and another dying at my feet. Say it now, you are a madman and I’m your next victim. Isn’t it so?’
The other shook his wolfish head. ‘So little faith,’ he rumbled, almost sadly. ‘But we shall see, we shall see. Now tell me, what do you know of the Wamphyri?’
‘Nothing. Or very little. A legend, a myth. Freakish men who hide in remote places and spring out on peasants and small children to frighten them. Occasionally dangerous: murderers, vampires, who suck blood in the night and swear it gives them strength. “Viesczy”, to the Russian peasant; “Obour”, to the Bulgar; “Vrykoulakas” in Greek-land. They are names which demented men attach to themselves. But there is something common to them in all tongues: they are liars and madmen!’
‘You do not believe? You have looked upon me, seen the wolves which I command, the terror I excite in the hearts of the VIad and his priests, but you do not believe.’
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,’ Thibor gave his chains a last, frustrated jerk. ‘The men I’ve killed have all stayed dead! No, I do not believe.’
The other gazed at his prisoner with burning eyes. ‘That is the difference between us,’ he said. ‘For the men I kill, if it pleases me to kill them in a certain way, do not stay dead. They become undead…‘ He stood up, stepped flowingly close. His upper lip curled back at one side, displayed a downward curving fang like a needle-sharp tusk. Thibor looked away, avoided the man’s breath, which was like poison. And suddenly the Wallach felt weak, hungry, thirsty. He was sure he could sleep for a week.
‘How long have I been here?’ he asked.
‘Four days.’ The Ferenczy began to pace to and fro. ‘Four nights gone you climbed the narrow way. Your friends were unfortunate, you remember? I fed you, gave you wine; alas, you found my wine a little strong! Then, while you, er, rested, my familiar creatures took me to the fallen ones where they lay. Faithful old Arvos, he was dead. Likewise your scrawny Wallach comrade, broken by sharp boulders. My children wanted them for themselves, but I had another use for them and so had them dragged here. This one —, he nudged the blocky Wallach with a booted foot ‘— he lived. He had fallen on Arvos! He was a little broken, but alive. I could see he wouldn’t last till morning, and I needed him, if only to prove a point. And so, like the “myth”, the “legend”, I fed upon him. I drank from him, and in return gave him something back; I took of his blood, and gave a little of mine. He died. Three days and nights are passed by; that which I gave him worked in him and a certain joining has occurred. Also, a healing. His broken parts are being mended. He will soon rise up as one of the Wamphyri, to be counted in the narrow ranks of The Elite, but ever in thrall to me! He is undead.’ The Ferenczy paused.
‘Madman!’ Thibor accused again, but with something less of conviction. For the Ferenczy had spoken of these nightmares so easily, with no obvious effort at contrivance. He could not be what he claimed to be — no, of course not — but certainly he might believe that he was.
The Ferenczy, if he heard Thibor’s renewed accusation of madness, ignored or refused to acknowledge it. “Unnatural”, you called me,’ he said. ‘Which is to claim that you yourself know something of nature. Am I correct? Do you understand life, the “nature” of living, growing things?’
‘My fathers were farmers, aye,’ Thibor grunted. ‘I’ve seen things grow.’
‘Good! Then you’ll know that there are certain principles, and that sometimes they seem illogical. Now let me test you. How say you: if a man has a tree of favourite apples, and he fears the tree might die, how may he reproduce it and retain the flavour of the fruit?’
‘Riddles?’
‘Indulge me, pray.’
Thibor shrugged. ‘Two ways: by seed and by cutting. Plant an apple, and it will grow into a tree.. But for the true, original taste, take cuttings and nurture them. It is obvious: what are cuttings but continuations of the old tree?’
‘Obvious?’ the Ferenczy raised his eyebrows. ‘To you, perhaps. But it would seem obvious to me — and to most men who are not farmers — that the seed should give the true taste. For what is the seed but the egg of the tree, eh? Still, you are of course correct, the cutting gives the true taste. As for a tree grown from seed: why, it is spawned of the pollens of trees other than the original! How then may its fruit be the same? “Obvious” — to a tree-grower.’
‘Where does all this lead?’ Thibor was surer than ever of the Ferenczy’s madness.
‘In the Wamphyri,’ the castle’s master gazed full upon him, ‘ “nature” requires no outside intervention, no foreign pollens. Even the trees require a mate with which to reproduce, but the Wamphyri do not. All we require is a host.’
‘Host?’ Thibor frowned, felt a sudden tremor in his great legs — the dampness of the walls, stiffening more cramps into his limbs.
‘Now tell me,’ Faethor went on, ‘what do you know of fishing?’
‘Eh? Fishing? I was a farmer’s son, and now I’m a warrior. What would I know of fishing?’
Faethor continued without answering him: ‘In the Bulgars and in Turkey-land, fishermen fished in the Greek Sea. For years without number they suffered a plague of starfish, in such quantities that they ruined the fishing and their great weight broke the nets. And the policy of the fishermen was this: they would cut up and kill any starfish they hauled in, and hurl it back to feed the fish. Alas, the true fish does not eat starfis
h! And worse, from every piece of starfish, a new one grows complete! And “naturally”, every year there were more. Then some wise fisherman divined the truth, and they began to keep their unwanted catches, bringing them ashore, burning them and scattering their ashes in the olive groves. Lo and behold, the plague dwindled away, the fish came back, the olives grew black and juicy.’
A nervous tic jumped in Thibor’s shoulder: the strain of hanging so long in chains, of course. ‘Now you tell me,’ he answered, ‘what starfish have to do with you and I?’
‘With you, nothing, not yet. But with the Wamphyri why, “nature” has granted us the same boon! How may you cut down an enemy if each lopped portion sprouts a new body, eh?’ Faethor grinned through the yellow bone mesh of his teeth. ‘And how may any mere man kill a vampire? Now see why I like you so well, my son. For who but a hero would come up here to destroy the indestructible?’
In the eye of Thibor’s memory, he heard again the words of a certain contact in the Kievan Vlad’s court:
They put stakes through their hearts and cut off their heads… better still, they break them up entirely and burn all the pieces…ven a small part of a vampire may grow whole again in the body of an unwary man… like a leech, but on the inside!
‘In the bed of the forest,’ Faethor broke into his morbid thoughts, ‘grow many vines. They seek the light, and climb great trees to reach the fresh, free air. Some “foolish” vines, as it were, may even grow so thickly as to kill their trees and bring them crashing down; and so destroy themselves. You’ve seen that, I’m sure. But others simply use the great trunks of their hosts; they share the earth and the air and the light between them; they live out their lives together. Indeed some vines are beneficial to their host trees. Ah! But then comes the drought. The trees wither, blacken, crumble, and the forest is no more. But down in the fertile earth the vines live on, waiting. Aye, and when more trees grow in fifty, an hundred years, back come the vines to climb again towards the light. Who is the stronger: the tree for his girth and sturdy branches, or the slender, insubstantial vine for his patience? If patience is a virtue, Thibor of Wallachia, then the Wamphyri are virtuous as all the ages.
