Today as I stumbled across the crumbling stones of a rock field, the sharp whistles of some nearby rodents caused my head to snap violently in that direction. I know they are just rodents, watching me from their hiding holes in the rocks, but my nerves are frayed. Any sharp noise has me starting anxiously.
I am not used to such hardship. An English aristocrat raised in the heart of London, whose parents moved me to Vienna at the age of 22, the most arduous task I have ever undertaken before this was stumbling home dead drunk from Herr Grusschen’s pub, the Heart and Feather, on Bär Strasse. One night two rogues tried to rob me as I tripped and swayed over the cobblestones on a darkened street. I brandished my sword, nicked one of the seedy, bearded perpetrators, though more through drunken clumsiness than skill, and managed to drive them off by spewing a stream of slurred obscenities at them and threatening to call for the authorities.
At the time I bragged about the encounter, embellishing the story without mercy, telling my friends about the murderous fiends I had driven off that foggy night.
That life feels a thousand miles away now. I was so carefree, so naive. What did I know then of “murderous fiends”? Nothing. My entire lesson on murder has been taught by the creature, on that dreaded night two months ago when he tore out my love’s throat and nearly ended my own life on the cold, tiled floor of her manor house, as unknowing friends slumbered peacefully a floor above.
The rodents whistle again. I think I am growing accustomed to it. I know nothing of alpine fauna, though it would be nice to catch a juicy, fat rodent and cook it up. I am so tired of rice. My life was once the symphony, the opera, the taverns. I have never hiked this high before. Certainly never carried my own baggage. My feet ache and are covered with blisters, my hands callused and covered with deep, bleeding cracks from the dry air.
July 17, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
Earlier today a rock shifted beneath my feet. Off balance, I leaned forward to compensate, but instead swung forward heavily under the weight of my pack and pitched toward the ground violently. With a painful crunch, I landed face-first in the field of stone, edges of sharp rock cutting gashes in my freezing hands.
I did not rise immediately. I lay there, face pressed against the cold, sharp points, and tried to catch my breath. I am growing so weary, getting clumsy in my fatigue. I have to stop to rest.
It is too dangerous up here to take any chances with exhaustion. I must find a sheltered spot up next to a granite outcrop and set up my pathetic lean-to for the night, even though it is only early afternoon.
I have not been able to sleep. Oh, what I would give for some beefsteak and a stein of ale. Instead I have only salted meats, which I am dreadful sick of, and the never-ending rice.
I must stop now and make a fire, melt some snow, boil the rice … My stomach growls now at the thought of it.
July 20, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
Night comes close behind, blanketing the eastern mountains in darkness, while above the clouds burn bright gold, and then intense pink. On the highest peaks, alpenglow shines, painting the mountains an intense shade of magenta and scarlet.
Too exhausted to go on, I have been watching the brilliant play of light. How beautiful it is up here. How I would love to have watched this sunset with Anna.
But I will never have the chance to. That sudden sickening realization presses in on me. My whole life will be filled with moments like this, beautiful moments made hollow by the lack of her presence. There will be a countless stream of things I will never do with her: picnics in the country, carriage rides in the heart of Vienna, making love beneath a canopied wedding bed.
The brilliant red fades to gray on the peaks. A few minutes ago, I clenched my teeth so hard I bit myself severely. Then unable to control myself I screamed, blood spilling from my mouth and flecking the stone beneath me.
I have not seen signs of Stefan in days. I fear I may have lost his tracks for good. How ever will I find him now?
At least I still have plenty of rice, though I am so sick of it I sometimes feel like pitching it over the mountainside and dancing about like a madman.
I have been feeling stranger and stranger as of late. Whereas first I was full of many aches and pains and cuts, I now find I do not have a scratch on me and though tired, I no longer ache. Perhaps I am just growing fitter, or more careful not to cut myself on the sharp rock, but it feels more than that. I feel braver, stronger, more fearless. And ever more mad than the day before. I fear for my sanity.
July 22, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
An amazing thing happened today. I had all but given up hope of catching up to the creature. I was ready to head back to civilization, eat a real meal in a tavern, when I came upon a narrow crevice in the cliff face along which I was traversing.
A putrid smell issued forth from the shadowed recess, and I peered inside. I gasped. Lying there in a stripe of sunlight was Stefan, or what I thought at first was Stefan.
On its back, pure black as it had been the night it attacked Anna and me, sprawled a dead thing with tremendous claws and hideously pointed teeth. The clothes of an aristocrat adorned the body. I bent low, sure it was my quarry.
The killing blow had come from a ten-inch gleaming stake protruding from the creature’s belly, pinning it to the ground below.
I touched the weapon, a smooth metal spike that felt cool to the touch.
I shall never forget the visage of that dreadful creature there in the crevice. Its eyes (what were left of them, as one had been partially eaten by some animal) were opened wide as if in terror, and the mouth lay open and twisted as if in a scream.
For a long time I stood in the entrance of the crevice, staring down at what I was sure was the murderer of my Anna, feeling at once relieved he was dead and also intensely curious as to what had killed him.
Was this metal spike made of the very same metal Anna swore was able to injure the creature? If so, who had carried such a weapon?
I leaned in closer for a look and was suddenly seized by curiosity to go through the creature’s belongings. I unbuttoned its waistcoat and searched the pockets of its breeches. I came away with several letters and a small pocket-sized journal much like this one.
Retreating from the crevice to read by the bright sunlight, I flipped through the journal.
What I found there left me dumbfounded and amazed.
After reading the entries breathlessly, I learned that this wretched beast in the crevice was not the creature I have been pursuing, but was Ffyllon, the man who had given the letter opener to Anna.
The journal told an impossible story. Ffyllon was impossibly old, and had somehow been alive since the twelve hundreds. One night back then, he and his brother had been working on a written version of the Welsh text, the Mabinogi. As they labored into the wee hours of the night by candlelight, a desperate knock came at the door.
Ffyllon leapt up to admit a bedraggled traveler who complained of starvation. The scribe lived with his brother, Gywnfar, who was a brilliant linguist. The two brothers invited the traveler in and fed him. For three months the traveler stayed with them, talking to both, but mainly to Gywnfar about his work translating ancient texts and his ability to speak over nine languages.
Then one frightful night the scribe came home to find the traveler sitting atop his brother’s dead body, tearing flesh off the bones and devouring it. In a fit of rage, Ffyllon fell upon him, pounding the traveler with fists, cups, plates, and anything else he could find. He even bit the traveler, tearing a great hunk from his shoulder.
But the fight was in vain. One strike across the scribe’s temple knocked him senseless, and the traveler dragged off the brother’s body to eat it elsewhere.
When Ffyllon awoke, only blood remained where his dead brother had once lain. The scribe vowed revenge and left his trade to pursue the mysterious traveler.
Over time, Ffyllon noticed he healed much faster than before. H
e stopped aging. Years went by, then decades, then centuries as he pursued the creature. He learned important facts about the creature, studied its patterns and habits in order to better destroy it. On several occasions he tried to kill the beast, but nothing worked. Not sword, not musket, not drowning. During one of their confrontations in an alley in London, the creature summoned two gleaming spikes from its forearms, and impaled Ffyllon with one of them. A group of theatergoers passed by, and the creature ran off, withdrawing the spike as it did. It took Ffyllon nearly a year to recover from the wounds, instead of his usual few days. He became convinced that this metal, summoned from the creature itself, was the key to destroying him. If it could wound Ffyllon so, with his special healing abilities, perhaps it could wound the creature, as well.
During Ffyllon’s recovery from the grievous wound, he met a group of nomadic storytellers, with whom he stayed while he healed. He told them the story of the creature. In hushed voices they drew away, whispering among themselves. Ffyllon grew full of fear that he had offended and that they would finish him off in his sleep. But instead they produced a gleaming letter opener and gave it to him. The weapon of a hunter, they told him, made from the special metal. He asked where they had obtained it, and they told him many decades ago they had come across the twisted, rotting corpse of a monster, and that knife was sticking out of its belly.
Ffyllon reasoned that, since the blade was left in the body, and the body was indeed dead, in order to kill the creature, the metal had to remain in its body for some unknown extended period of time. Ffyllon himself had only recovered because the creature had run off after wounding him.
Ffyllon’s last entry, dated June 20, 1763, stated that he was closer than ever before.
He had trailed the creature to Vienna, where he learned of its next victim, a young pianist named Anna Gordova. Ffyllon had contacted her, posing as a friend of her uncle. He had given her the letter opener made of the special metal so that she could defend herself if he was not there when the creature attacked. To prepare her, he told her the legend of the creature.
I lowered Ffyllon’s journal and wondered at the tale told therein. He had not been there when the creature attacked, was instead drugged and incapacitated in the rooms above. And the creature had killed Anna. At least he was not able to eat her body.
I think of this poor man crammed in the crevice of rock. He must have continued his quest, leaving Vienna after Anna’s death, and pursued the creature, just as I do. But now he is well and truly dead. His theory must have been correct; the creature stabbed him with one of its gleaming spikes and then left the metal in the wound. The hunter now dead.
My mind cannot grasp the scope of this journal.
Even as I was hunting the creature, so was this poor soul, this man who had turned into a creature after ingesting the beast’s blood.
My heart pounds. I myself have noticed my increased healing speed, my energy and power growing daily. Could it be that I myself somehow ingested the creature’s blood? Could the blood that entered my mouth when I kissed Anna’s hand actually been that of the beast’s from when she stabbed him?
I am terrified.
Will I end up as this poor soul did? Murdered centuries from now in some lonely crevice in the high country, failing in my one mission to bring justice?
Eternal life … even just a few months ago, the thought would have enticed me, seduced me. To be young forever, to feel that powerful, that invulnerable … would have been a blessing indeed.
But now, like this? To endure this eternity without Anna? To be a monster? The thought revolts and terrifies me.
What am I to do?
July 23, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
After a great deal of consideration, I have decided to persist. I will take the mysterious metal stake and fashion a knife out of it at the next town.
All yesterday I searched in circles for any sign of the direction which the creature has taken, but to no avail. The terrain up here consists exclusively of rocks, with no soil to leave tracks. And I know almost nothing of the art of tracking.
Tomorrow I will head down and find a town where a smith can fashion a sharp weapon for me of this metal.
If still I have found no trace of the creature, I will use the scribe’s journal to hunt for other clues. Perhaps the creature has some sort of pattern it follows when choosing victims.
Perhaps I will be able to guess its next move and stop it before it kills again.
July 25, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
I think I am finished. As I was breaking camp yesterday, a small rain of pebbles landed on me from above, where a tremendous granite cliff rose. No sooner had I rolled up my tent canvas than the rain became a torrent, pounding me with ever larger boulders. I lost my footing in the rockslide and careened down the mountain in the wake of it, landing harshly against a stunted tree, my legs devastated by the rocks.
I have lost the use of them. I fear they are badly broken, so swollen and black and blue.
I have lost all my camping supplies, and have only the metal spike, this journal, and my pencil left, which happened to be in the breast pocket of my waistcoat. The remainder of my food is now lost among the sharp-edged rocks.
At least there is water in the form of snow this high up, and a few trickling streams. I shall not want for water. But I cannot drag myself very far. The pain in my legs is great indeed.
Night draws on. I shall have to make myself as comfortable as possible, perhaps in a large crevice in the rock to keep the wind off.
Tomorrow I shall think of some plan of action.
July 26, 1763
Mountains above Vienna
I am stunned. It is a miracle. My legs, broken just two days before, have healed. I have only bruises where once torn flesh and broken bones resided.
I can walk, run, even jump on legs that yesterday were spelling my doom.
I shall start for town immediately.
August 12, 1763
Vienna
I returned to Vienna and to my home to regain strength. I have eaten till I gorged myself, drinking down ale and beefsteak, savoring the delicious flavor of both.
I have been reading the journal left by the scribe, and it has put me in a good state of fright, I assure you. This man, Ffyllon, was but a normal, average man before he ingested the creature’s blood. Over time, he developed certain abilities, including, as I wrote before, the ability to heal quickly.
This must be why my legs rejuvenated themselves so. I now fear more than ever that I am destined to become a thing like the creature and Ffyllon.
Even now I continue to feel better than ever before, full of energy and vigor. Two nights ago, I cut myself shaving and was completely healed in just an hour. Last night I cut myself purposely, far more deeply, on the arm. Today there is no sign of the gash.
Truly, I have inherited some of this creature’s remarkable ability. But its power to change shape? To turn into a shadow? To suddenly grow claws and fangs? I cannot do those things.
Over time, Ffyllon learned to control more and more of his abilities. He writes that the creature can look like anyone it has killed—can change its very countenance to that of another person. Ffyllon could never look like someone else, but he was able to grow claws in emotional moments when he had to defend himself, and over time he could make his skin grow black as shadow, enabling him to move undetected in the darkness.
Can this beast really take on the appearance of other people? The very thought causes hopelessness to bloom inside me. How ever will I kill it if I cannot recognize it?
If I am afflicted with the tainted blood of this creature, then I am more determined than ever to put a stop to its evil. I will use my invulnerability as an advantage and track the beast until my exhausted body breathes its last breath.
August 15, 1763
Vienna
I am not sure where to go next. I have studied and studied the journal of the scribe and have no
ticed patterns with the creature. Apparently he assimilates himself into the life of his future victim, always someone of exceptional talent like my beloved Anna. Once he has won their trust, he … eats them.
A truly gruesome thing. By digesting the flesh of his victims, he can then possess whatever talent they cherished in life. He also gains certain memories and emotions of the victim.
I will build upon Ffyllon’s considerable knowledge and assume that the only thing that can kill the creature may be the special metal which it used to kill Ffyllon. Last week I paid an armorer to fashion a grip on one end of the spike I took from Ffyllon’s body. I am ready to resume my hunt.
I have the tool to kill him; now I just need to find him.
August 16, 1763
Vienna
I have made further study of Ffyllon’s journal. If only I had access to his earlier writings. I wonder where they could be? If not for the summary in the front of the journal, I would be quite puzzled indeed by the diary’s contents.
I have pieced together a few facts: the creature can summon a metal from his very body and use this metal to utterly destroy the victims he does not wish to eat. Ffyllon himself was able to form small bits of this metal. It is gruesome indeed, but he could turn each finger into a metal spike, and then break off that finger if he wanted to fashion a weapon independent of himself. The finger would grow back.
In this way, he could mimic small weapons like the letter opener the nomadic storytellers had given him. The one he gave Anna …
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