by Jack Yeovil
Zschokke had a pike, taken down from the wall. Twenty feet long, it looked manageable in his hands. He prodded at her. Its tip was silver. She stepped back. He was trying for her heart.
Schedoni was sitting up now, wound scabbing over. That was part of the spell. Now she was out of its influence, and she suspected it wouldn't work for her. A thrust of silver and wood through her heart, and she'd be as dead as anyone.
Zschokke came for her.
XXIII
In his bed, Old Melmoth smiled, weak muscles pulling at his much-lined skin. As a boy, he had loved to read melodramas, to see them on the stage. As a young man, he had been the foremost collector of sensational literature in the Old World. Now, on his deathbed, thanks to the magic spells his pirate forefather had brought back from the Spice Islands, he was at the centre of the greatest melodrama the world had ever seen. He pulled the strings, and his puppets schemed, murdered, loved and prowled
Vathek sat by his bedside with his head in his lap, another draft of the will laid out on the clothes. Dr. Valdemar, pulling himself around by his hands, was in the corner, preparing the next infusion.
Outside, it was a dark and stormy night
XXIV
They came out through a door in the fireplace of the grand hall. There was a fight going on. Genevieve, her eyes red and her teeth sharp, was backing around the long table, and Zschokke, the steward, was after her with a pike.
'Do something,' Antonia suggested.
Kloszowski didn't know. He wasn't sure whether Genevieve stood between him and the fortune of Udolpho or not. Maybe her death would take him one step nearer to the mastery of this pile, to the fulfilment of his destiny.
He stepped into the room.
'I am Montoni,' he announced. 'Come back from the sea to claim my birthright!'
Everyone paused, and looked at him.
He stood tall, determined to show through his bearing that he was indeed the rightful heir. His years of wandering were forgotten. Now, he was home, and prepared to fight for what was his
'No,' said another voice, 'I am Montoni, come to claim my birthright.'
It was d'Amato, dressed up as a ridiculous comic bandit, with sashes and a cummerbund, and a sword he could hardly lift.
'Are you crazed?' asked Antonia. 'First you're a revolutionist, now you're the missing heir.'
'It just came to me. I must have had amnesia. But now I remember. I am the true Montoni.'
D'Amato was affronted, and waved his sword. 'You'll never cheat me out of my inheritance, swine. Out of my treasure! It's mine, you understand, mine. All the coins, the mountains of coins. Mine, mine, mine!'
The merchant was a pathetic madman.
D'Amato's sword wobbled in the air. Kloszowski had no weapon.
'Mine, you hear, all mine!'
Antonia handed him a three foot long poker with a forked end. He remembered how d'Amato had abused his beloved. Antonia was a gypsy princess, sold in infancy to the vile Water Wizard, and mistreated daily. Kloszowski held up the poker, and d'Amato's sword clanged against it.
'Fight it, you fools,' Genevieve shouted. 'It's not real. It's Old Melmoth's spell.'
The merchant slashed wildly, and Kloszowski barely avoided taking a cut. He got a double-handed grip on the poker, and brought it down heavily on d'Amato's head, knocking him against a heavy chair.
So much for the usurper!
D'Amato fell in a heap, mumbling.
'It's mine, all mine. I am Montoni, the true Montoni Udolpho'
Kloszowski drew Antonia to him, a strong arm around her heaving shoulders, and kissed the girl he would make mistress of Udolpho.
'I am Montoni,' he said.
He looked at everyone, waiting to be accepted.
'NO,' roared a familiar voice.
The word hung in the air, echoing like a thunderclap.
'NO.'
Zschokke had spoken. He was no mute after all.
'I can stay silent no longer.'
The steward had the voice of a bull. Kloszowski had heard his voice earlier, before nightfall, before the storm. Zschokke had been the bandit chieftain who had robbed the cleric of Morr. He must have known all along that Kloszowski was in disguise.
'I am the true Montoni Udolpho,' he said.
The suits of armour ranged against the far wall came to life, their visors raised.
'And these are my loyal servants.'
They were swarthy banditti, many missing eyes and noses.
'This house and all in it rightfully belongs to me.'
Zschokke thumped his chest for emphasis. The point of the pike appeared between his neck and collarbone, and speared upwards. Zschokke looked at the thing sticking out of him, and opened his throat in a deafening sound of rage.
He was lifted off his feet like a toy, and slid down the pike. Gouts of blood spurted around his face. There was a giant in armour behind Zschokke, hoisting him on his own pike. With the giant had come Christabel, dressed as a bride in a moth-eaten white train and veil. Kloszowski was astonished.
XXV
She finally reached the door, her head pushed first against it, and found it unlocked. For the first time in many years, Mathilda was out of her room. With an effort, cradling her head in her hands, she stood up. There was a window at the end of the corridor, and beyond that she saw the valley.
For an instant, she was her old self×Sophia Gallardi of Luccini×and then she was at the window. Her head broke the glass and the casement, and she fell with the rain towards the slope hundreds of feet below. She felt as if the fall would never end. But it did.
XXVI
Antonia was lost. She no longer knew, nor cared, who everyone was.
Zschokke was twisting like a worm on a fishhook, and the giant was standing like a statue. The armoured banditti clustered around the giant, striking useless blows with maces and swords.
One of the windows blew in, a cloud of glass shards spreading through the hall with the wind and rain. It was more spectacular than the finale of Jacques Ville de Travailleur's Accursed of Khorne; or: Death of a Daemon Lord.
The table was knocked over, disclosing Father Ambrosio, his habits askew, entangled with two of the serving maids and a squealing piglet.
He appeared to be having some form of seizure, doubtless brought about by overexertion. He was trying to dislodge something unseen from around his neck. Antonia believed she saw the red imprint of invisible fingers in the white flab of his neck.
She took Kloszowski's arm, and held him close.
Genevieve, her chin bloody, took Kloszowski's other arm. She seemed to be the only other person in Udolpho who was awake.
'We've got to get out of here,' the vampire said.
'Yes,' Antonia said.
'Now.'
'Yes.'
Kloszowski didn't struggle.
The giant slowly threw his pike like a javelin. With Zschokke still spitted on it, it travelled the length of the gallery and its point sank into the wall about fifteen feet from the floor. The pike sagged, but the servant bandit was pinned fast, blood dribbling from his back.
Antonia wondered about d'Amato. She left Kloszowski to Genevieve, and bent over her former protector.
The double doors flew open, and Pintaldi burst into the great hall, bearing a blazing torch in either hand, shouting, 'Fire, fire!'
'Ysidro,' she said. 'Ysidro, wake up.'
'It's all mine, do you hear? I am Montoni! Montoni!'
'Ysidro?'
He pushed her away, and she stumbled against Flaminea.
'Harlot,' she said, scratching.
The giant was moving fast now, wringing the necks of the bandits one by one, and tossing them in a pile. Christabel was playing the harpsichord in ecstasy, her train flowing in the wind.
'Come on, girl,' said Genevieve, who was tugging at a blank-eyed Kloszowski.
Antonia allowed herself to be led out of the hall.
'Mine, mine'
'Fire, fire!'
XXV
II
Christabel couldn't remember who she really was. It didn't matter. Since she had come to Udolpho, she had been home.
Her new lover had killed Zschokke. Now, he would ravage the rest of her enemies. The last of the steward's bandit crew was down, dead inside his crushed armour.
She slammed the harpsichord lid shut, and held out her arms, feeling the cold caress of the wind on her body.
Ravaglioli was crawling out of the vaults into the hall. She nodded, and the giant stepped on her father's back.
Tanja, the lizard-maid, flicked out a long, forked tongue and caught a fly.
'Merciful Shallya,' said Flaminea as the strangling cord went around her neck. Christabel pulled tight.
'Fire, fire'
Pintaldi tossed a torch into the air, and it came down in burning pieces.
Christabel's train caught light, and the flames licked up around her in an instant, spreading to Flaminea.
'Harlot,' her mother croaked, spitting.
Christabel kept the noose tight, even as the fire grew around them. Pintaldi was right. The flames were cold, and cutting. Pintaldi was on fire himself, spreading his flames everywhere, embracing everyone.
They were all there. Schedoni, Ravaglioli, Vathek, Ambrosio, Dr. Valdemar, Flaminea, Zschokke, Pintaldi, Montoni, the maids. The fires spread throughout the great hall. Another wing would be ravaged before the storm extinguished it all. The giant stood unmoved by the blaze. There were others with him. Flamineo, the Phantom Huntsman. The Blue Face of Udolpho. The Strangling Steward. The Wailing Abbess. The Spectre Bride. The Bleeding Baronet. And many, many more.
Christabel felt her face melting
and knew it would not be forever.
XXVIII
The rain was dying out, and it was nearly dawn.
Kloszowski lay on the ground while Genevieve and Antonia watched the House of Udolpho burn.
'Will it be forever?'
'No,' Genevieve said. 'It'll remake itself. It's a strange spell. Something Old Melmoth whipped up.'
'Was anyone part of the original family?'
'I don't know. I think maybe Schedoni. And Dr. Valdemar is a real doctor.'
Kloszowski sat up, and the women turned to him.
'M-Montoni?' Antonia asked.
He shook his head.
'He thought he was a revolutionist,' Antonia explained to the vampire.
'I am a revolutionist,' he protested.
'It'll pass.'
'But I am.'
Another tower toppled into the ruin, gold gleaming for an instant in the first light before a belch of black smoke obscured it. As one section of the house crumbled, another grew like an accelerated plant, walls piling up, windows glassing over, roofbeams stretching creakily across the spine. The House of Udolpho was unbeatable.
'We can't stay here,' Genevieve said. 'We've got to skirt round the estate, keeping well clear of it. The spell is far reaching, and persistent. Then maybe we can make our way to Bretonnia.'
'Will they go on?'
Genevieve looked at him. 'I think so, Aleksandr. Until Old Melmoth finally dies. Then maybe they'll all wake up.'
'Fools.'
'We all believe in fairy tales,' the vampire said.
XXIX
Alone in his room, Old Melmoth enjoyed the climax of tonight's plot. Fire was always satisfying, always purgative.
The armoured giant was good. He had been an excellent addition. One had escaped. But one was new. A fair exchange. The cast was the same size it had been at nightfall.
Broken Mathilda was back in her room, more altered than ever.
There was just drizzle outside now, and the first blotches of dawn in the sky.
Christabel was screaming as she burned, her wedding dress crumpling and crinkling, melting against her skin. And Tanja was hissing venom in Ambrosio's face, repaying him for his attentions.
Schedoni was cooked where he lay on his platter. Perhaps he could be eaten cold for breakfast. It would not be the first time human meat was served at the table of Udolpho.
He relaxed, and waited for sleep.
It would be interesting to see what happened with Montoni's map fragment. The Black Cygnet's curse had claimed many treasure hunters down through the years. Perhaps Flamineo should creep from his portrait more often, with his hunting dogs, and seek out a new dangerous game.
He had first made his spell in the library, pledging a portion of his soul to the dark powers on the condition that he never be bored again. His early life had been neither tragic nor comic, but merely boring. Now, he was a part of his beloved melodramas, constantly entertained by the dances of his scheming puppets. He drifted, but was brought back by a tiny sound. His door opening.
'Vathek?' he croaked. 'Valdemar?'
Two sets of footsteps, light and surreptitious. His visitors didn't answer him.
He felt the tug of his bedclothes, as they climbed up onto his bed, forcing through his curtains. They were light, but he knew their fingernails and teeth would be sharp, and they would use them skilfully. He heard them giggling together, and felt their first touches. The curtain of his bed collapsed, falling to the floor.
'Melmoth,' he said, with love. 'Flora?'
It had been the final curtain.
PART THREE
UNICORN IVORY
I
Tall, straight trees stood all around like the black bars of a cage. If Doremus looked up, he could barely see the blue-white tints of the sky through the foliage canopy of the Drak Wald forest.
Even at midday, it was advisable to travel these paths with a lantern. Advisable, that is, for the traveller. The huntsman had to forgo safety for fear his light would alarm his quarry.
Calmly, Graf Rudiger, his father, laid a hand on his shoulder to get his attention. He squeezed, pinching too hard, betraying his excitement. He jabbed his head towards the north-west.
Not turning too fast, Doremus looked in that direction, and caught the last of what his father had seen.
Points of reflected light. Like short silver daggers scraping bark.
His father tapped two fingers against Doremus' shoulder. Two animals.
The sparks of light were gone, but the beasts were still there. The breeze was from the north, and they would not get the hunters' scents in their nostrils.
His father silently pulled a long shaft from his quiver, and nocked it in his warbow. The weapon was longer than the reach of a tall man. Doremus watched Rudiger draw back the bowstring, the cords in his neck and arm standing out as the tension grew. The graf made a fist around the fletches of his arrow, and its sharp triangle rested against his knuckles.
Once, on a wager, Graf Rudiger von Unheimlich had stood for a full day with his bow drawn, and, at sunset, struck the bullseye. The friends against whom he had bet had barely managed an hour or so apiece with their bows drawn, and they had forfeited their weapons upon their loss. The trophies hung in the hunting lodge, elegant and expensive pieces of workmanship, finely inlaid and perfectly turned. Rudiger wouldn't have used such trinkets: he put his faith in a length of plain wood he'd hacked himself from a sapling, and in a craftsman who knew a bow was a tool for a killer, not an ornament for gentlemen.
The graf stalked towards the quarry, bent over, arrow pointed at the hard ground. The beasts' spoor was visible now, delicate hoofprints in the mossy, rocky soil of the forest floor. Even this late in the day, there was still frost. Beyond the length of a finger into the pebbly leaf-mulch, the earth was iron hard, frozen solid. Soon the snows would come and put an end to Graf Rudiger's sport.
Making an effort to keep his breathing quiet, Doremus took an arrow of his own and lined it up in his supple bow, pulling the string back two-thirds of the way, feeling a knot of shoulder-pain as he fought the catgut and wood. As everyone kept pointing out, Doremus von Unheimlich was not his father.
The others fell in behind the pair. Otho Waernicke, under special orders not to blunder around like a boar and give the hunters away, wa
s moving carefully, meaty arms tucked around his belly, checking under every footstep for treacherous twigs or slippery patches.
Old Count Magnus Schellerup, the last of the soldiers the former Emperor Luitpold had called his Invincibles, was flashing his thin-lipped skull's grin, the scars that made a tangle of one cheek reddening as the hot blood of the chase flushed his face. The only concessions he made to the passing years were the many-layered furs which made a hunchback of him. Magnus might complain about his old bones, but he could keep up with men forty years his junior on a forced march. Balthus, the thick-bearded guide, and his slender night companion, were the rear guard, along to pick up the pieces. The girl clung to her man like a leech. If Doremus thought about her, he had to suppress a shudder of distaste.
He watched his father. These brief moments were what he lived for, as he neared his prey, when the danger was at its height, when there could be no foreknowledge of the equality of the contest. Count Magnus was the same, hanging back only out of deference for the graf, but consumed with a lust for the honourable kill. Doremus had had it explained to him from the cradle, listened to the stories of trophies won and lost, and still it meant nothing to him really.
A muscle in his arm was twitching, and he felt the bowstring biting into his fingers as if it were razor-edged.
'It's no good if you don't bleed,' his father had told him. 'You have to carve a groove in your flesh just as you carve a notch in your bow. Your weapon is a part of you, just as, when the time comes, you are a part of it.'
To fight the pain, Doremus made it worse. He pulled further, drawing the arrowhead to the circle of his thumb and forefinger, its points scratching the flesh-webbing of his hand. The tendons of his shoulder and elbow flared, and he bit his teeth together, hard.
He hoped his father was proud of him. The Graf Rudiger did not look behind him, knowing his son wouldn't dare fail.
Rudiger stepped around a tree, and stood still, straightening up. Doremus advanced to stand at his shoulder.
