One for the Morning Glory

by John Barnes

  Scenting the living, the vampires had been gathered near the doors; as the doors swung open, the sun, low in the sky, stabbed far into the room, and there were horrid screeches as the light hit them. But only two fell dead in the beams; the rest, shrieking and moaning, staggered out of the light. Clearly most of them, like Calliope, were not undead yet.

  Amatus yanked the doors closed again. He sat down next to Calliope, and she slumped against him. Gently, he brushed her hair—still filthy but already seeming softer—back from her cheek. "Are you awake? Can I do anything to make you more comfortable?"

  "You can give me your cloak. You hauled me out here in my nightgown, Highness, and though I'm grateful, I'm cold. How is your hand?"

  "Not as well as it could be. You had sharp fangs." He took his cloak off and wrapped it around her; she tore a strip from her nightgown and bound his hand, carefully and neatly. "Have you ever done this before?" he asked.

  "Tied up a wound, or been a vampire? The former was one of the things that my guardian thought a king's daughter should know." She snuggled against him. "I'm cold. You know, I remember all of it, and I surely wish I didn't."

  Amatus glanced around, reflexively concerned that Calliope not speak of her true parentage where she might be overheard.

  She had fallen asleep against his shoulder for a while, but as the sun sank, she stirred and woke. He blew his whistle again; this time he thought he heard distant shouting and crashing.

  "This is not the way these tales end," Calliope said firmly.

  "This is not the way that things end when they get to be tales," Amatus said, "but since ours is not yet told, we cannot count on it. There were a hundred dead princes on the thorns outside Sleeping Beauty's castle, and I'm sure many of them were splendid fellows."

  There was a nearer, louder burst of crashing and banging inside, and Amatus noted that the broad yard below was now falling into shadow; the shadow of the building behind was now reaching toward the wall of Calliope's house, and in a little while would begin to climb the wall toward them—and then, in a few swift moments, they would be in darkness, and just as the first stars appeared the vampires within would burst out onto the balcony.

  He put his arm around Calliope. "They're getting lively in there," he said. "Hunger, I suppose. It never occurred to me that this could be an attack of vampires, because no one ever died—but once a person was cured in the house (or even once a cured person was carried into it) the place had acquired a little of the white magic from the cure, and the vampire could not return to it. But how could it be that the vampire never killed anyone at the first feeding?" Belatedly, he realized that Calliope had said that she remembered everything. "You know who it is, then. Who?"

  Calliope sighed and leaned against him. "Prince Amatus— Highness—if we die here, the answer would cause you great pain to no purpose. If we survive—then there will be time. I will tell you this much, however; there is only one, and because it detests its own nature and being, and would not wish its fate on anyone else, it has tried not to feed on more people each night than you are able to cure. If you had been summoned here the first day, my servants and I might have been safe, but before anyone knew it was already too late. You must understand that—"

  There was a series of grinding crashes and thuds from within, and the sound of heavy things falling down stairs; then a rhythmic hacking noise that went on, growing louder and louder, and then more thumping and yelling.

  "I wish Wassant had stuck around, and I suppose Cedric will be hard on the poor fellow," Amatus said. "Not his fault at all, though." He was not sure he believed this, but he did not want to die with a grudge against any friend.

  The shadows were now reaching up the side of the building; the Prince checked all three of his pismires and laid them out carefully, chutneys already cocked. "I have heard it said that being shot will knock them down, and make holes in them, though doing little other harm. And perhaps I shall be lucky enough to hit ones who are still living and they will not rise till the following sunset, so I may win us some time. Besides, white magic was worked in the threshold, and that too may slow or harm them. Just the same, I'm afraid it will be settled with the blade—and those doors are wide enough for three of them to come through. It will not be long."

  "Highness," Calliope said, "may I have one of the pismires?"

  "If you wish. I suppose it frees my hand for the escree."

  She shook her head. "No, Highness. I cannot choose for you, but I can for myself. I have been a vampire, or as near one as I could be and still return—the last feeding tonight would have finished me, and I would have been feeding in the city myself shortly after. I will not be made a vampire; the pismire is for me, if you fall."

  Amatus looked into her eyes—a most remarkable shade of sea gray—and he saw nothing there but courage and firmness. "I trust your judgment," he said. "Take this pismire, and, if it comes to that, use it. I shall try to do the same for myself."

  The shadow was now just below the balcony and creeping up toward them even as they watched. The sunlight still on them carried no warmth and now Amatus wished his cloak thicker and larger for Calliope, for she was shuddering with the cold.

  "Soon," he whispered.

  "Thank you for rescuing me."

  "But I have not . . ."

  "You rescued me from the worst of it."

  There were many crashes, and wild yells—then many furious voices on just the other side of the door. Amatus set his escree where he could seize it the instant he dropped the pismire, and lifted the pismire to where its ball would go straight through the chest of a normal man coming through the door.

  As the last rays of the sun fell on it, the door flew open.

  There stood Duke Wassant, bloody and powder burned, but grinning from ear to ear, big and wide as life. "For the sake of all the gods, Highness, don't pull that trigger or they'll be writing ballads about us both forever."

  Carefully, Amatus pointed his weapon at the sky, and gently released the chutney back to the safe position. "Wassant—then all that noise—"

  "Was myself and some of my men. And naturally the Twisted Man knew you were in danger and turned up in the process, and good old Slitgizzard came with him; Sir John just chased the last half dozen of them up into the attic, Highness. We took as many alive as we could, and opened as many windows as possible so that the undead would die and the rest would retreat from us; there are several that we will need you to heal, though that had best wait until tomorrow morning when you've got the sun to restore you."

  "You've done well," Amatus said. "I may yet forgive you that bit with the grig." The Duke flushed till red shone through his small black beard, and both of them laughed.

  After a moment the Duke said, "You both must be freezing. It's plainly been days since there's been a fire in this house. I'll have someone get to it at once. Welcome back to your house, Lady Calliope, and I'm sorry for the condition we've put it in."

  "All's forgiven if you can find a way for a lady to have a hot, private bath, Duke," she said. "And I do hope that among the servants—"

  "There were deaths, lady, but few of them, and I can only beg your forgiveness, for we had little time—"

  She inclined her head gravely to him, and he fell silent. Then she said, "I did not question your judgment, my dear old friend; I only wanted to ask that you make the living as comfortable as possible in their bonds until morning comes and our Prince can cure them. But as you must have guessed, this house is the first place that the vampire stops every night, and it will be here within a couple of hours, and you must be ready—and I would like a bath, and a meal, before then."

  She swept past him into the house with more dignity than one might imagine a young woman in a torn nightgown and a borrowed half-cloak could muster. Amatus followed, and shortly all were gathered around a fire in Calliope's main dining room. Duke Wassant's cook—a talented fellow who everyone said was the main reason for the Duke's figure—had come over in haste, alon
g with some hastily grabbed supplies, and improvised some astonishingly good food in a time so short that it was ready almost before Calliope came down from her steaming tub and hasty dressing.

  It had made a considerable difference. Her face was still pale, but there was a pink sheen from scrubbing. Her teeth were white again, and when Amatus kissed her cheek, her breath was sweet and her hair—not yet fully restored, but clean and combed—smelled of flowers.

  For a long time they did nothing but eat and sigh with relief. Sir John had joined them, having secured the attic, and though the Twisted Man ate little, he consented to sit at the table with them and take a little soup, bread, and wine. It was as good an evening as there had been in a long time.

  But Amatus ate little, for he knew that there would be dark doings later that night, and Calliope had warned him on the balcony that it would bring him unhappiness. He looked from friend to friend and wanted to throw himself at each of them and be comforted; he thought of the balcony from which he and Calliope had been released, where she said the vampire landed each night.

  "Borrow no trouble, Highness," Sir John said, beside him. "I took the liberty of sending a messenger for something, and if you will not eat, then you can be our entertainment."

  He handed Amatus an instrument case—his own nine-string palanquin, the Prince realized. He took it out, tuned it, found it satisfactory, and idly strummed a few chords.

  "We have some time until the vampire arrives," Calliope said. "If I may request—"

  "Yes?"

  "Would you play 'Penna Pike'?"

  The fire crackled and burst, and the candles in the room seemed to waver just as if a cold breeze had blown through. Everyone in the room—even, perhaps, the Twisted Man, just a little—seemed to hold breath.

  They are wondering if I am not yet over Golias's death, Amatus realized, and much as they loved him too, they are hoping that I am, for we cannot mourn forever. And more than that, it is time.

  He had stayed in touch, roughly, with what was happening to ballads, and so he knew about the new ending of "Penna Pike," which gave an account of his doings, and of Golias's death, although he privately thought it was not an adequate version, for it omitted the other Companions, and Calliope and Sir John. Well, perhaps he could improvise a verse that included each of them—he had always been good at such things.

  He strummed, and the palanquin felt as if it had come alive in his hand. He began to sing, and for no reason he knew—songs are that way—"Penna Pike" took him. He added the verses it needed, changed a few things that had always annoyed him, and in all made it his.

  It seemed, as he played, that he felt Golias standing at his shoulder, and that somewhere in the middle, he remembered the one time as a child he had lost his temper and shouted that he was never going to learn anything—only to find that the next day he spent copying, one thousand times, Superabo ob conabor—"I will conquer because I will try"—in perfect lettering, on parchment, before the Royal Alchemist would speak to him again. Somewhere inside, a door opened, a wound closed, a note rang true. When he had finished, he saw faces wet with tears.

  "What you sang of me is too much," Sir John Slitgizzard protested.

  "And of me, Highness," Calliope said. "I was little more than a passenger on that voyage."

  Duke Wassant heaved a deep sigh and said, "I hope this afternoon may pay for it to some extent, but I know now I shall always regret not having gone along."

  Amatus bowed his head slightly, as Golias had taught him, for "if you have made a good thing, it should be honored, even if you do not yourself feel worthy of the honor."

  He played for a while longer, rather well, he thought, but not with the magic that had enlivened "Penna Pike." It was no matter; magic could come when it wanted to.

  For right now, he was with his friends, safe and warm, and the plague could be ended soon enough. Amatus had been wracking his brain for people who had died in ways that might make a vampire, but he had no idea. He was only grateful it was not Golias, for that would have been unbearable.

  6

  The Early Dew

  The palanquin was long since put away in its case, the fire banked, and the candles extinguished, and the sliver of moon that had pursued the sun through the day was about to set over the roofs in front of them as they sat in Calliope's bedroom, the doors open to the winter chill, waiting for the vampire. Beside the doors stood Sir John Slitgizzard and the Twisted Man, each with garden trellises laced with garlic, ready to bar the vampire's way back out. Calliope, wearing a garland of dried garlic blossoms, lay in her bed, seemingly asleep, for they wanted nothing to seem unusual until the vampire was well inside.

  Grim and silent as death itself, Duke Wassant stood by with a hooded lantern, a supply of rosewood stakes, and a sharp ax.

  And crouched in a little alcove, ready to step between the vampire and the bed, Amatus waited with stake and mallet.

  The moment the way back out was barred, the Twisted Man and Sir John Slitgizzard would seize the vampire and wrestle it down. Then Amatus would stake it, and the Duke would strike its head off, and after they burned the rest of the corpse in the fireplace, they would fill the mouth with garlic, and bury the head at the nearest crossroads. It was the way vampires had been disposed of in the Kingdom since anyone could remember, and children had learned the procedure just as they learned what words were said at weddings, how to carry on their parents' trade, and not to allow anyone too young to drink of the Wine of the Gods.

  As Amatus sat on his heels, his back against the wall, he kept turning over the last conversation they had had with Calliope. Just before putting out the candles, she had refused their requests, again, that she tell them who the vampire was.

  "I will say this, for I have been down that road. It is repulsive and disgusting to the vampire itself—in some ways that is the very worst of it. It will long for release—"

  "Can we not at least say he or she?" Duke Wassant had demanded.

  Calliope shook her head, and the red silk of her hair flashed in the candlelight, but the swirl of color was as out of place as real red silk would have been at a funeral. "There will be a moment of deep shock when you see who it is. You must rehearse in your own minds that you will nevertheless do what needs to be done. You may trust me absolutely that no life remains in this vampire—it is absolutely undead—and that it is in the deepest pain and longs only to be properly released. It may well thank you at the moment you stake it, and bless you with the last bloody foam from its mouth."

  "Are we lost, then, if we begin to talk to it? Does it have power to ensorcel us?" Sir John asked.

  "Not according to the books, Sir John," Amatus had said. "They can fascinate the unwary in the way that a snake can fascinate a rabbit—which is to say, sometimes but not always, and it cannot possibly fascinate all of us at once. It might make one of us freeze for a moment, but it will not make any of us act on its behalf."

  "Just the same," Calliope said, "and knowing you probably won't take this advice, I would suggest that we not talk to it. Even if it sincerely begs for the mercy of a killing, the urge to continue undead may overcome it and it may try some trick for which we are not prepared."

  Now Amatus sat, shifting his weight now and then between his attached right and detached left foot, and wondered. He knew he had had more than enough clues, for he had run through the list of people it might be many times, and the name had seemed to hang upon his tongue without his being able to speak it. This must mean that he knew but would not let himself know.

  There was no one he hoped it was and there were many he hoped it was not.

  Vampires, according to the old books, could be made in many ways. Suicide sometimes would do it, or a father's curse, if the stars were wrong, the motive evil, and the person already bent that way. Sometimes it might be something as simple as an improper burial. Occasionally a thoroughly evil person, rotten to the bone, desiring only to live forever and not caring who was harmed, might actually wis
h to become one, and this was almost always enough in and of itself.

  And there was the long list at the back of the book: things that had been known, now and again, to make a vampire: thwarted lust and longing for vengeance; murder in the course of incest; dying in childbirth in the Temple of the Dead; an all-consuming passion for one who had died, leading to pining to death in close proximity to the grave; seduction by promises of pleasure followed by debauch and murder; an unconsummatable love affair with a ghost; many other things, some so odd that it was hard to imagine they could ever happen twice.

  For the many-thousandth time Amatus ran over the list. At least it could not be his father, or Cedric, or Roderick, for all of them waited one floor below, with a reserve force of guards. If they did not catch and destroy the vampire, they would at least see who it was.

  Something dark and flapping shot across the moon, at first like a bird. Vampires had no wings—how they flew was only one of the many open questions about them—but they were partial to flowing clothing, which hid the distortions in their bodies. It moved across again, and now he could see it was a human figure, standing upright, clutching a cape or cloak about itself.

  Another swing across the moon—it was much larger now—and then it was visible. It did not flap or fly, nor did it appear to walk on air; it stood upright and moved, wrapped in its dark cloth, straight in at the window, growing larger and larger. The Twisted Man and Sir John stepped to the side and picked up their trellises.

  The last moments before it lighted were the worst, for now he could see the bare, horny feet protruding from the heavy cloak, and how they were twisted into terrible claws. The single hand that stuck from the cloak was much too big, twice the size of the creature's face, and like the claw of some poisoned and distorted sea creature.

  There was no sound as it came in through the window; the cloak fluttered but did not flap. There was the whiff of an old, wet tomb, and the vampire swept in to stand in the puddle of moonlight.