Molly Stewart's nimbus of blue fire burned bright in the stirless glade over Thago's tumbled mausoleum, and Stewart's incorporeal mind was aware of time's passage. In the Mobius continuum time was a very nearly meaningless concept, but here in the first low foothills of the Carpattii Meridionali it was very real, and still the dead vampire's tale was not totally told. The important part---for Molly, and for Harry Moradian and INTESP---was yet to come, but Molly knew better than to ask directly for the information she desired. She could only press Thago to the bitter end.294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIVLoW3Npst
"Go on," she urged, when the vampire's pause threatened to stretch indefinitely.
What? Go on? Thago seemed mildly surprised. But what more is there? I have told my tale.
"Still, I'd like to hear the rest of it. Did you stay in the castle as Thrulk had ordered, or did you return to Kiev? You ended your days in Wallachia, right here, in these cruciform hills. Why did you?
Thago sighed. Surely it is now time for you to tell me certain things. We made a pact, Molly.
I warned you, Molly Stewart! the ghost of Vladimir Dragan joined in, sharper than that of Thago. Never make a deal with a vampire. For there's always hell to pay.....
Dragan was right, of course. She'd heard of Thago's cunning from the very horse's mouth: it had taken no small amount of guile to defeat Thrulk Benedek. "A deal is a deal," she said. "When Thago has delivered, so will I. Now come on, Thago, let's have the rest of the story."294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ394GurPuQq
So be it, he said. This is how it was....
Something brought me awake. I thought I heard the rending of timber. My body and mind were dull from the night's excesses---all of the night's excesses, of which Thrulk had been only the first---but nevertheless I stirred myself up. I lay naked on the lady's couch. Smiling oddly, she approached from the direction of the locked door, her hands clasped behind her back. My dull mind saw nothing to fear. If she had sought to escape she could easily have taken the key from my clothes. But as I made to sit up her expression changed, became charged with hatred and lust No, not the human lust of last night but the inhuman lust of the vampire. Her hands came into view, and clasped in one of them was a splinter of oak ripped from the shattered door panel. A sharp knife of hardwood!
"You'll put no stake through my heart, bitch," I told her, knocking the splinter from her hand and sending her flying. While she hissed and snarled at me from a corner I dressed, went out, and locked the door behind me. I must be more careful in the future. She could easily have slipped away and unbarred the castle's door for Thrulk----if he still lived. Obviously she'd been more intent upon putting an end to me than seeing to his welfare. Her master he may have been, but that wasn't to say she relished it!
I checked the castle's security. All stood as before. I looked in on Aurel and the other woman. At first I thought they were fighting, but they were not...
Then I went up onto the battlements. A weak sun peered through dark, drifting clouds heavy with rain. I thought the sun frowned on me. Certainly I did not enjoy the sensation of its feeble rays on my naked arms and neck, and in a very little while I was glad to return indoors. And now I found myself with more time on my hands, which I put to use exploring the castle more fully than before.
I searched for loot and found it: some gold, very ancient, in plate and goblets; a pouch of gems; a small chest of rings, necklaces , bangles and such in precious metals. Enough to keep me in style for an entire lifetime. A normal lifetime, anyway. As for the rest: empty rooms, rotting hangings and wormy furniture, a general air of gloom and decay. It was oppressive, and I determined to be on my way as soon as I could. But first I would like to be sure that the Benedek was not lying in wait.
In the evening I dined and drowsed in front of a fire in Thrulk's quarters. But as night drew on it brought thoughts to disturb and niggle in the back of my mind, disquieting ideas which would not surface. The wolves were aprowl again, but their howling seemed dismal, distant. There were no bats. The fire lulled me...
Thago, my son, said a voice. Be on your guard!
I started awake, leaped to my feet, snatched up my sword.
Oh? Ha, ha, ha! that same voice laughed---but nobody was there!
"Who is it?" I cried, knowing who it was. "Come out, Thrulk, for I know you're here!"
You know nothing. Go to the window.
I stared wildly about. The room was filled with shadows, leaping in the fire's flicker, but plainly I was alone. Then it came to me that while I had heard the Benedek's voice, I had not "heard" it. It had been like a thought in my head, but not my thought.
Go to the window, fool! the voice came again, and again I started.
Shaken, I went to the window, tore aside the hangings. Outside the stars were coming out, a moon was rising, and the eerie crying of wolves floated down from distant peaks.
Look! said the voice. Look!
My head turned as if directed by some other's will. I looked up, away to the ultimate range, a black silhouette against the sunken sun's fast fading glow. Up there, a far weary distance, something glinted, caught the rays of the sun, aimed them at me. Blinded by that effulgence, I threw up an arm and staggered back.
Ah! Ah! See how it hurts you, Thago. A taste of your own medicine! Look upon the sun, which was once your friend. But no more.
"It didn't hurt!" I shouted at no one, stepping to the window again and shaking my fist at the mountains. "It merely startled me. Is that really you, Thrulk?"
None other. Did you think me dead?
"I willed you dead!
Then your will is weak.
"Who travels with you?" I asked, surrendering to the strangeness of it. "Not your women, for I have them. Who signals with your mirrors now, Thrulk? It isn't you who casts the sun about."
The mirror flashed at me again but I stepped aside.
My own go where I go, came his voice in answer. They carry my scorched and blackened body until it is whole again. You have won this round, Thago, but the battle remains undecided.
"Old bastard, you were lucky!" I boasted. "You'll not be so lucky the next time."
Now listen. He ignored my bluster. You have incurred my wrath. You will be punished. The degree of punishment is up to you. Stay and guard my lands and castle and all that is mine while I'm gone, and I may be merciful. Desert me....
"And what?
And you shall know hell's torment for eternity. This I, Thrulk Benedek, swear!
"Thrulk, I'm my own man. Even if were in me to serve, I could never call you my master. You must know that, for I did my best to destroy you."
Thago, you fail to understand, but I have given you many things, great powers. Ah, but I've also given you several great weaknesses. Common men, when they die, lie in peace. Most of them.....
That last was some kind of threat and I knew it. It was in his voice, a DOOM delivered in a whisper. "What do you mean?" I asked.
Only defy me and you shall find out. I have sworn. And now, farewell!
And he was gone.
The mirror twinkled once more, like a brilliant star on the far ridge, and then I too was gone....
I had had enough of vampires, male and female. I locked my bedmate of last night in the dungeon with her sister, Aurel and the burrowing thing, and slept in a chair in front of the fire in Thrulk's apartments. Come daybreak and there was nothing to hold up my departure. Except----yes, there were certain things I must do before leaving. The Benedek had made threats, and I was never one to suffer threats lightly.
I went out of the castle, shot two fat rabbits with my crossbow, and took them down to the dungeon. I showed them to Aurel, told him what I wanted and that he must help me. Together we tightly bound and gagged the women, dumping them in one corner of the dungeon. Then, though he protested loudly, I also bound and gagged Aurel and put him with the women. Finally, I cut open the rabbits and threw their crimson carcasses down on the black soil where the flags were torn up.
Then it was a matter of waiting, but not for long. In a little while a tentacle of leprous flesh came to explore the source of the fresh blood; came groping up through the crumbly soil, pushing it aside, and in a trice I took what I wanted. I left Aurel and the women tied up, barred the door on them, and went up into the base of the tower. Above the dungeon the steps wound about a central stone pillar. I broke up furniture, piled the pieces around the pillar. I scavenged through the castle, breaking furniture wherever I found it and sharing the wood between the towers. Then I poured oil on all the timbers of the battlements, in the hall and rooms where they spanned the gorge, down all the stairwells. At last I was done, and the work had taken me halfway through the morning.
I left the castle with my loot, walked out a little way from it and looked at it again, one final time, then returned and set a fire in the open door and on the drawbridge. And never looking back, I began to retrace my steps to Alexandru Sebastian Dorin Dragomir.
At midday et my five remaining Wallachs come to find me. They saw me coming down the cliff-hugging path and waited for me in the stony depression at its base. "Hallo, Thago," the senior man greeted me when I joined them. He looked beyond me. "Aurel and Vladimir, they are not with you?"
"They are dead," I jerked my head towards the peaks. "Back there." They looked, saw the column of white smoke reaching like some strange mushroom into the sky. "The house of the Benedek," I told them, "which I have burned."
Then I looked at them more sternly. "Why did you wait so long before coming to look for me. How long has it been, five, six weeks?"
"Those damned gypsies, the Szgany!" their spokesman growled. "When we awoke, the morning after the three of you left, the village was all but deserted. Only women and children left. We tried to find out what was happening; no one seemed to know, or they weren't saying. We waited two days, then set out after you. But the missing Szgany menfolk were waiting along the way. Five of us and more than fifty of them. They blocked the way, and they had the advantage of good positions in the rocks." He shrugged uncomfortably, tried not to look embarrassed. "Thago, we'd have been of use to no one dead!"
I nodded, spoke quietly: "And yet now you have come?"
"Because they are gone." He shrugged again. "When they stopped us, we went back down to their so-called 'village.' Yesterday morning, the women and kids started to drift off in ones and twos, small parties here and there. They wouldn't speak and looked miserable as sin, as if they were in mourning, or something! At sunup today the place was empty, except for one old granddad chief---a 'prince' he calls himself---his crone and a couple of grandchildren. He wasn't saying anything, and anyway he looked half simple. So, I came up the trail alone, sticking close to cover, and discovered that all the men had gone, too. Then I called up these lads to come and look for you. Truth to tell, we'd long though you were a goner!"
"I might as well have been," I answered, "but I'm not. Here..." I tossed him a small leather sack, "carry this. And you... " I gave my loot to another, "you burden yourself with this. It's heavy and I've carried it far enough. As for the job we came to do: it's done. Tonight we stay in the village; tomorrow it's back to Kiev to see a lying, cheating, scheming Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich!"
"Yuk!" The spokesman held out his sack at arm's length. "There's a creature in here. It moves!"
I chuckled darkly. "Aye, handle it carefully----and tonight put it in a box, sack and all. But don't sleep with it next to you."
Then we went down to the village. On the way down I heard them talking amongst themselves, mainly of the trouble the Szgany had given them. They mentioned putting the village to the torch. I wouldn't have any part of it. "No," I said. "The Szgany are loyal in their way. Loyal to their own. Anyway, they've moved on, gone for good. What profit in burning an empty village?"
And so they said no more about it.....
That evening I went to the ancient Szgany prince in his hut and called him out. He came out into the coolness of the clearing and saluted me. I stepped close to him and he looked hard at me, and I heard him gasp. "Old chief," I said, "my men said burn this placed, but I stopped them. I've no quarrel with you or the Szgany."
He was brown and wrinkled as a log, toothless, hunched. His dark eyes were all aslant and seemed not to see too clearly, but I was sure they saw me. He touched me with a hand that trembled, gripped my arm hard above the elbow. "Wallach?" he inquired.
"That I am, and I'll return there soon," I answered.
He nodded, said, "Benedek!---you." It was not a question.
"Thago's my name," I told him. And on impulse: "Thago----Benedek, aye!"
Again he nodded. "You----Wamphyri!"
I began to shake my head in denial, then stopped. His eyes were boring into mine. He knew. And so did I, for certain now. "Yes," I said. "Wamphyri."
He drew a breath out sharply, let it out slowly. Then: "Where will you go, Thago the Wallach, son of Old One?"
"Tomorrow I go to Kiev," I answered grimly. "I've business there. After that, home."
"Business?" He laughed a cackling laugh. "Ah, business!'
He released my arm, grew serious. "I too go Wallachia. Many Szgany there. You need Szgany. I find you there."
"Good!" I said.
He backed away, turned and went back into his hut......
We came out of the forest into Kiev in the evening, and I found a place on the outskirts to rest and buy a skin of wine. I sent four of my five into the city. Soon they began to return, bringing with them prominent members of my peasant army---what was left of it. Half had been lured away by Vladimir and were off campaigning against the Pechengi, the rest stayed faithful; they had gone into hiding and awaited me.
There were only a handful of the Vlad's soldiers in the city; even the palace guard were away fighting. The prince had only a score of men, his personal bodyguard, at court. That was part of the news, and this was the rest: that tonight there was to be a little banquet at the palace in honor of some boot-licking Boyar. I invited myself along.
I arrived at the palace alone, or that is the way it must've appeared. I strode through the gardens to the sound of laughter and merrymaking from the great hall. Men at arms barred my way, and I paused and looked at them. "Who goes there?" a Guardsmaster challenged me.
I showed myself. "Thago of Wallachia, the Prince's Voevod. He sent me on a mission, and now I am returned." Along the way I had walked in mire, deliberately. The last time I was here, the Vlad had commanded that I come in my finery, unweaponed, all bathed and shining. Now I was weighed down with arms; I was unshaven, dirty, and my forelocks all awry. I stank worse than a peasant, and was proud of it!
"You'd go in there like that?" The Guardsmaster was shocked. He wrinkled his nose. "Man, wash yourself, put on fresh robes, cast off your weapons!"
I glowered at him. "Your name?"
"What?" He stepped a pace to the rear.
"For the Prince. He'll have the balls of any man who impedes me this night. And if you've none of those, he'll have your head instead! Don't you remember me? Last time I came it was to a church, and I brought a sack of thumbs." I showed him my leather sack.
He went pale. "I remember now. I----I'll announce you. Wait here."
I grabbed his arm, dragged him close. I showed him my teeth in a wolf's grin and hissed through them. "No, you wait here!"
A dozen of my own men stepped out of the trees, held cautionary fingers to their lips, and bundled the Guardsmaster and his men away.
I went on, entering the palace and the great hall unimpeded. Oh, yes, a pair of royal bully-boy bodyguards closed on me at the door, but I thrust them aside so hard they almost fell, and by the time they were organized I was among the revelers. I strode to the center of the floor. I stood stock still, then slowly turned and gazed all about from under lowered brows. The noise subsided. There came an uneasy silence. Somewhere a lady laughed, a titter which was quickly stilled.
Then the crowd fell away from me. Several ladies looked fit to faint. I smelled of ordure, which my nostrils was fresh and clean compared to the scents of this court.
The crowd parted, and there sat the Prince at a table laden with food and drink. His face wore a frozen smile, which fell from it like a leaden mask when he saw me. And at last he recognized me. He straightened to his feet. "You!"
"None other, O Prince." I bowed, then stood straight.
He couldn't speak. Slowly his face turned purple. At last he said, "Is this your idea of a prank? Get out---out!" He pointed a trembling finger at the door. Men were closing on me, hands on their sword hilts. I rushed the Vlad's table, sprang up onto it, drew my sword and held it on his breast.
"Tell them to come no closer!" I snarled.
He held up his hands and his bodyguard fell back. I kicked aside platters and goblets and made a space before him, throwing down my sack. "Are your Greek Christian priests here?"
He nodded, beckoned. In their priestly robes, they came, hands fluttering, jabbering in their foreign tongue. Four of them.
At last it got through to the prince that he was in danger of his life. He glanced at my sword's point lying lightly on his breast, looked at me, gritted his teeth and sat down. My sword followed him. Pale now, he controlled himself, gulped, and said, "Thago, what is all of this? Would you stand accused of treason? Now put up your sword and we'll talk."
"My sword stays where it is, and we've only time for what I have to say!" I told him.
"But...."
"But here I am, alive and well, and if I leaned a little on my sword and killed you it would be my right. Not according to your laws but according to mine. Ah, don't panic, I won't kill you. Let it suffice that all gathered here know your treachery. As for my 'mission': do you remember what you commanded me to do? You said, 'Fetch me the Benedek's head, his heart, and his standard.' Well, at this very moment his standard flies atop the palace wall. His and mine, for I've taken it for my own. As for his head and heart: I've done better. I've brought you the very essence of the Benedek!"
Prince Vladimir's eyes went to the sack before him and his mouth twitched at one corner.
"Open it," I told him. "Tip it out. And you priests, come closer. See what I've brought you."
Among the thronging courtiers and guests, I spied grim-faced men edging closer. This couldn't last much longer. Close by, a high-arched window looked out on a balcony and the gardens beyond. Vladimir's hands trembled towards the sack.
"Open it!" I snapped, prodding him. He took up the sack, tugged at its thong, tipped the contents onto the table. All stared, aghast.
"The very essence of the Benedek!" I hissed.
The part was big as a puppy, but it had the color of disease and the shape of a nightmare. Which is no shape at all but a morbid suggestion. It could be a slug, a fetus, some strange worm. It writhed in the light, put out fumbling fingers and formed an eye. A mouth came next, with curving dagger teeth. The eye was soft and mucous damp. It stared about while the mouth chomped vacuously.
The Vlad sat there white as death, his face twisting grotesquely. I laughed as the vampire stuff wriggled closer to him, and he gave a cry and toppled himself over backwards in his chair. The thing had intended no harm; it had no intent. Larger and hungry it might be dangerous, or if it were alone with a sleeping man in a dark room, but not here in the light. I knew this, but Vladimir and the court didn't.
"Vrykoulakas, vrykoulakas!" the Greek priests began to scream. And at that, though few could have known what that word meant, the great hall became the scene of furious chaos. Ladies cried out and fainted; everyone drew back from the huge table; guests crushed together at the door. To give the Greeks their due, they were the only ones who had any idea what to do. One of them took a dagger and pinned the thing to the table. It at once split open, slipped free of the blade like water. The priest pinned it again, cried, "Bring fire, burn it!"
In the pandemonium now reigning, I jumped down from the table, up into the window embrasure, and so on to the low balcony. As I vaulted the balcony wall into the garden, a pair of angry faces appeared in the window behind me. The Vlad's bodyguard, all brave and bristling now that the danger was past. Except that for them it wasn't yet past. I glanced back. The two were now out onto the balcony.
They shouted and waved swords, and I ducked low. Bolts whistled overhead out of the dark garden; one pursuer was taken in the throat, the other in the forehead. The noise from the hall was an uproar, but there were no more pursuers. I grinned, made away...
We camped that night in the woods on the outskirts. Al of my men slept, for I posted no guards. No one came near.
In the morning light we sauntered our horses through the city, then turned and headed west for Wallachia. My new standard still fluttered from its pole over the palace wall. Apparently no one had dared remove it while we were near. I left it there as a reminder: the dragon, and riding its back the bat, and surmounting them both the livid red devil's head of the Benedek. For the next five hundred years those arms would be mine.....
My tale's at an end, said Thago. Your turn, Molly Stewart.
Molly had got something of what she wanted, but not everything. "You left Aurel and the women to burn," she voiced her contempt. "The women---vampire women---I think I can understand that. But would it have been so hard to give them a decent death? I mean, did they have to burn----like that? You could have made it easier for them. You could have...."
Beheaded them? Thago seemed unconcerned, gave a mental shrug.
"And as for Aurel: he'd been your friend!"
Had been, yes. But it was a hard world a thousand years ago, Molly. And anyway, you're mistaken----I didn't leave them to burn. They were deep down under the tower. The broken furniture I piled around the central pillar was to shatter, bring the stone steps down into the stairwell and block it forever. Burn them, no---I just buried them!
Molly recoiled from Thago's morbid, darkly sinister tone. "That's worse!" she cried.
You mean better, the monster contradicted her, chuckling. But better far than even I guessed. For I didn't know then that they'd live down there forever. Ha! Ha! And how's that for horror, Molly? They're down there even now. Mummified, aye---but still "alive" in their way. Dry and desiccated as old bones, bits of leather and gristle and...
Thago came to an abrupt halt. He had sensed Molly's keen interest, the intense, calculating way in which she seized on all of this and analyzed it. Molly tried to back off a little, tried to close her mind to the other. Thago sensed that, too.
I suddenly have this feeling, he very slowly said, that I may have said too much. It comes as something of a shock to learn that even a dead creature must guard its thoughts. Your interest in all of these matters is more than just casual, Molly. Why is that?
Dragan, for so long silent, broke in with a burst of laughter. Isn't that obvious, old devil? he said. She's outsmarted you! Why is she so interested? Because there are vampires in the world---in her world---right now! It's the only answer. And Molly Stewart came here to find out about them, from you. She needs to find out about them for the sake of her intelligence organization, and for the sake of the world. Now tell me: does she really need to tell you the present circumstances of that innocent you corrupted while he was still in his mother's womb? She has already told you! The boy lives---and yes, he is a vampire! Dragan's voice died away....
There was silence in the motionless glade, where only Molly's neon nimbus lit the darkness to give any indication of the drama enacted there. And finally Thago spoke again. Is it true? Does he live? Is he.....?
"Yes," Molly told him. "He lives---as a vampire---for now."
Thago ignored the implications of that last. But how do you know he is----Wamphyri?
"Because he already works his evil. That's why we've got to put him down---myself and others who work for the same cause. And certainly we must destroy him before he 'remembers' you and comes to seek you out. Dragan has said that you'd rise up again, Thago. Now how would you set about that?"
Dragan is a brash fool who knows nothing. I fooled him, you fooled him----so well, indeed, that you helped him destroy himself---why, any child could make a fool of Dragain! Pay him no mind!
Hah! cried Dragan. A fool, am I? Listen to me, Molly Stewart, and I'll tell you exactly how this devious old devil will use what he has made. First.....
BE SILENT! Thago was outraged.
I will not! Dragan cried. Because of you, I am here, a ghost, a nothing! Should I lie still while you prepare to be up and about? Listen to me, Molly. When that youth....
But that was as much as Thago was willing to let him say. A hideous mental babble started up---such a blast of telepathic howling that Molly could unscramble no single word of it---and not just from Thago but also Sam Tabur. Understandably, the dead Mongol sided with Thago against his killer.
"I can't hear anything," Molly tried to break into the din and through it to Dragan. "I can't hear a damn thing!"
The telepathic cacophony went on unabated, louder if anything, more insistent than ever. In life Sam Tabur had been able to focus hatred into a glare that could kill; in death his concentration hadn't failed him; if anything the mental din he made was greater than Thago's. And since there was no physical effort involved, they could probably keep it up indefinitely. Quite literally, Dragan was being shouted down.
Molly attempted to lift her voice above all three: "If I leave you now, be sure I won't be back!" But even as she issued her threat she realized that it no longer carried any weight. Thago was shouting for his life, the kind of life he hadn't known since the day they buried him here five hundred years ago. Even if the others did quieten down, he would go right on bellowing.
Stalemate. And too late, anyway.
Molly felt the first tug of a force she couldn't resist, a force that drew her as a compass is drawn northwards. Molly Jr. was stirring again, coming awake for her scheduled feed. For the next hour or so Molly would have to merge again with the id of her infant goddaughter.
The tugging strengthened, an undertow that began to draw Molly along with it. She searched for a Mobius door, found one and started towards it.
In that same instant of time, as she made to enter the Mobius continuum, something other than Molly Jr. stirred, something in the earth where the rubble of Thago's tomb lay scattered. Maybe the concentrated mental uproar had disturbed it. Maybe it had sensed events of moment. Anyway, it moved, and Molly Stewart saw it.
Great stone slabs were shoved aide; tree roots snapped loudly where something massive heaved its bulk beneath them; the earth erupted in a black spray as a pseudopod thick as a barrel uncoiled itself and lashed upwards almost as high as the trees. It swayed there among the treetops, then was drawn down again.
Molly saw this---and then she was through the door and into the Mobius continuum. And incorporeal as she was, still she shuddered as she sped across hitherto hypothetical spaces toward the mind of the infant Molly Jr. And uppermost in her own mind the single thought: "Ground to clear," indeed!
Sunday, 11:00 A.M.
Bucharest
The Office of Cultural and Scientific Exchanges (USSR), housed in a converted museum of many domes, standing conveniently close to the Russian University. The wrought-iron gates being opened by a yawning, uniformed attendant and a black Volkswagen Variant accelerating out into the quiet streets and heading for the motorway to Pitesti.
Inside the car Eldar Polyakov was driving, with Alik Morozov as front-seat passenger, and Harry Moradian, Alex Picardi and an extremely thin, hawk-faced, bespectacled, middle-aged Romanian woman in the back. She was Carmen Olinescu, a high-ranking official with the Ministry of Lands and Properties and a true disciple of Mother Russia.
Because Olinescu spoke English, Moradian and Picardi were a little more careful than usual how they spoke to each other and what they said. It was not that they feared they'd let something slip about their mission, for she would see more than enough of that, but just that they might err and make some comment about the woman herself. Not that they were especially rude or churlish men, but Carmen Olinescu was a very different kind of woman.
She wore her black hair in a bun; her clothes were almost a uniform: dark gray shoes, skirt, blouse and coat. She wore no makeup or jewelry at all and her features were sharp and mannish. Where womanly curves and other feminine charms were concerned, Nature seemed to have forgotten Carmen Olinescu entirely. Her smile, showing yellow teeth, was something she switched on and off like a dim light, and on those few occasions when she spoke her voice was deep as any man's, her words blunt and always to the point.
"If I were not thinly," she said, making a common enough mistake in her attempt at small talk, "this long ride is most uncomfortable." She sat on the extreme left, Picardi in the middle and then Moradian.
The two Englishmen glanced at each other. Then Picardi smiled obligingly. "Er, true," he said. "Your thinlyness is most accommodating."
"Good." She gave a curt nod.
The car sped on out of the city, picked up the motorway.....
Moradian and Picardi had spent the night at the Dunarea Hotel in the city center, while Morozov had spent most of it up and about making connections and arrangements. This morning, looking haggard and hollow-eyed, he'd joined them for breakfast. Polyakov had picked them up and they'd driven to the Office of Cultural and Scientific Exchange where Olinescu had been getting her instructions from a Soviet liaison officer. She met Morozov the night before. Now they were on their way into the Romanian countryside, following a route Polyakov knew fairly well.
"Actually," he said, stifling a yawn, "this not too surprising. Coming here, I mean." He turned to look at his guests. "I know this place. After that business at Castillo Mikhailov, when Party Leader Brezhnev give my appointment, he ordered me to find out everything I could about---about what happened. I suspected Dragan was at root of it. So I came here."
"You followed his old tracks, do you mean?" said Moradian.
Morozov nodded. "When Dragan have holiday, he always come here, to Romania. No family, no friends, but he come here."
Picardi nodded. "He was born here. Romania was home to him."
"And he did have one friend here," Picardi quietly added.
Morozov yawned again, peered at Moradian through eyes that were a little red in their corners. "So it would seem. Anyway, he used to call this place Wallachia, not Romania. Wallachia is a country long gone and forgotten, but not by Dragan."
"Where exactly are we going?" Moradian asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me!" said Morozov. "You said Romania, a place in the foothills where Dragan was a boy. So that is where we are going. We'll stay at a little village he liked off the Corabia-Calinesti highway. We should be there in maybe two hours. After that," he shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."
"Oh, we can do better than that," said Moradian. "How far is Slatnia from this place we're staying."
"Slatina? Oh, about...."
"One hundred twenty kilometers," said Carmen Olinescu. Morozov had earlier told her the name of the place they were staying---a tough and meaningless name to the two Englishmen---but she had known it very well. A cousin of hers had lived there once. "About an hour and a half to traveling."
"Do you want to go straight to Slatina?" Morozov asked. "What's in Slatina, anyway?"
"Tomorrow will do," said Moradian. "We can spend tonight making plans. As for what's in Slatina...."
"Records," Picardi cut in. "There'll be a local registrar, won't there?"
"Pardon?" Morozov didn't know the word.
"A person who registers marriages and births," Moradian explained.
"And deaths," Picardi added.
"Ah! I begin to see," said Morozov. "But you are mistaken if you think a small town's records will go back five hundred years to Thago Benedek."
Moradian shook his head. "That's not it. We have our own vampire, remember? We know he, er, got started out here. And we more or less know how. We want to find out how George Matei died. The Mateis were staying at Slatina when he had some kind of skiing accident in the hills. If we can trace someone who was involved in the recovery of his body, we'll be within an ace of finding Thago's tomb. Where George Matei died, that's where the old vampire was buried."
"Good!" said Morozov. "There should be a police report, statements---maybe even a coroner's report."
"Doubting," said Carmen Olinescu, shaking her head. "How long ago this man die?"
"Eighteen, nineteen years," Moradian answered.
"Simple death---accident." Olinescu shrugged. "Not suspicious---no coroner's report. But police report, yes. Also, ambulance recovery. They make report, too."
Moradian began to warm towards her. "That's good reasoning," he said. "As for getting hold of those reports through the local authorities, that's your job, Mrs. er....""
"Not Mrs. Never had time. Just call me Carmen, please. She smiled her yellow-toothed smile.
Her attitude in all of this puzzled Picardi a little. "You don't think it's a bit odd that we're here hunting for a vampire, er, Carmen?"
She looked at him, raised an eyebrow. "My parents came from the mountains," she said. "When I am little they sometimes talk about wampir. Up there in Carpatii Meridionali, old people still believe. Once there were great bears up there. And sabertooth tigers. Before that, big lizards---er, dinosaurs? Yes. They are no more....but they were. Later, there was plague that swept the world. All of these things, gone. Now you tell me that my parents were right, there were vampires, too. Odd? No, I not think so. If you want hunt vampires, where better than Romania, eh?"
Morozov smiled. "Romania," he said, "has always been something of an island."
"True," Olinescu agreed. "But that not always good. World is big. No strength in being small. Also, being cut off means stagnation. Nothing new ever comes in."
Moradian nodded, thinking to himself, and some of the old things are things you can well do without....
It had been a rough night for Kate Cowell.
When Molly Jr. had finished her small hours feed, she hadn't wanted to go back to sleep again. She wasn't bad about it, just wouldn't sleep.
After an hour or two of rocking her, then cradling and crooning to her, Kate had finally put the baby down and gone to bed herself.
But at 6:00 A.M. Molly Jr. had been right on time again, crying for her change and another feed. And Kate had known from the way Molly Jr. twisted her little face and clenched her fists that she was tired: she'd been awake through the night, from no cause that Kate could discover. But good? What a good little bird she was! She hadn't cried at all until she was hungry and uncomfortable, just lay there in his cot through the night doing his own thing---whatever that might be.
Even now Molly Jr.'s will to stay awake and be part of the world was strong, but her yawning told her mother that she couldn't. With dawn an hour away, Molly was going to have to go to sleep. The world would have to wait. No matter how fast your mind grows up, your body goes more slowly.....
As Baby Molly went to sleep, Grown-up Molly found herself free and was struck with a thought as strange as any she'd ever had, even in her thoroughly strange existence.
She's leeching on me! she thought. The little bugger's into my mind, into my experiences. She can explore my stuff because there's lots of it, but I can't touch her because there's nothing in there---yet!
She put the extraordinary idea to the back of her mind. Now that Molly Jr. had let her go she had places to go, people---dead people----to talk to. There were things she knew which she was unique in knowing. She knew, for example, that the dead inhabit another sphere; also that in their lonely nether-existence they go on doing all the things they've done in life.
The writers write masterpieces they can never publish, each line perfectly composed, each paragraph polished, every story a gem. Where time isn't a problem and deadlines don't exist, things get done right. The architects plot their cities of the mind, beautiful aerial constructs flung across fantastic worlds and spanning sculpted oceans and continents, each brick and spire and sky-riding highway immaculately positioned, no smallest detail missing or botched. The mathematicians continue to explore the Formulae of the Universe, reducing THE ALL to symbols they can never put on paper, for which mean in the corporeal world should be grateful. And the Great Thinkers carry on thinking their great thoughts, which far outweigh any they had in life.
That had been the way of it with the Great Majority. Then Molly Stewart, better known as the Mollyscope, had come along.
The dead had taken to Molly at once; she had given their existence a new meaning. Before Molly, each one of them had inhabited a world consisting of his own incorporeal thoughts, without contact with the rest. They had been like houses with no doors or windows, no telephones. But Molly had connected them up. It made no difference to the living (who just weren't aware) but it made a great deal of difference to the dead.
Mobius had been one such, mathematician and thinker both, and he had shown Molly Stewart how to use his Mobius continuum. He'd done so gladly, for like all of the dead he'd quickly come to love the Mollyscope. And the Mobius continuum had given Molly access to times and places and minds beyond the reach of any other intelligence in all of man's history.
Now Molly knew of a man whose sole obsession in life had been the myths and legends and lore of the vampire. His name was Miron Savu. How was it going for him now, Molly wondered, in the aftermath of his murder? Sam Tabur had killed him with his evil eye, for no good reason other than that Dragan had ordered it. Killed him, yes, but not Savu's lifelong penchant for the legend of the vampire. What had been an obsession in his life most surely have continued afterwards.
Molly could no longer make headway with Thago, and Thago would not let her get through to Dragan. Her next best bet had to be Miron Savu. How to reach him, however, was a different matter. Molly had never met the Romanian in life; she did not know the ground where Savu's spirit lay; she must rely on the dead to supply her with directions, see her on her way.
Across the road from Kate's flat there sprawled a graveyard hundreds of years old, containing a large number of Molly's friends. She knew most of them personally from previous conversations. Now she drifted towards the lines of markers and occasionally leaning tombstones, her mind drawn by the minds of the dead where they lay in their graves communing. They sensed her at once, knew that it was she. Who else could it be?
Molly! said their spokesman, an ex-railway engineer who'd lived all his life in Clifton, until he died in 1939. How jolly good to talk to you again. Nice to know you haven't forgotten us.
"How are things with you?" Molly inquired. "Still designing your trains?"
The other came aglow in an a moment. I have designed the train! he answered. Do you want to hear about it?
"Unfortunately I can't." Molly was genuinely sorry. "My visit is purely business, I'm afraid."
"Well, spit it out, Molly! someone else exclaimed, an ex-bobby of Molly's acquaintance, late of Sir Robert Peel's time. How can we help you, dear girl?
"There are some hundreds of you here," Molly answered. "But is there anyone from Romania? I want to go there, and I need directions and an introduction. The only people I know there are----bad people."
Voices rose in something of a babble, but one of them cut through, speaking directly to Molly. It was a girl's voice, sweet and small. I know Romania, it said. Something of it, anyway. I came here from Romania after the war. There were troubles and oppressions, and so my elder brothers sent me away to an aunt who lived her. Strange, but I came all this way, then caught is cold and died! I was very young.
"And do you know someone I can seek out, who can perhaps help me on my way?" Molly didn't like to seem too eager to be off, but she really couldn't help herself. "It's very important, I assure you."
But my brothers will be delighted to guide you, Molly! she said at once. It's only since you came that we've all been able to----well, get together again. We all owe you so much.....
"If I may," Molly answered, "I'll come back and talk to you again some time. Meanwhile, I'm afraid I've no time to spare. What are your brothers called?"
They are Timotei and Denis Radu, she said. Wait and I'll call them for you. She called, and in a moment her brothers answered. They were very faint, like voices on a telephone from the other side of the world. Molly was introduced.
"Just keep talking to me," she told the brothers, "and I'll find my way to you."
She excused herself from the company of her friends in the Gloudon cemetery, found a space-time doorway and passed through it into the Mobius continuum. "Timotei, Denis? Are you still there?"
We're here, Molly, and we're honored to be able to help you this way.
She homed in on them, emerged through another door into the gray Romanian dawn. She found herself in a field of grass beside a pockmarked wall fast crumbling into ruins. There were ponies in the field but of course they couldn't see her; they just stood still, shivering a little, their coats shining with drops of dew. Plumes of warm air came snorting from their nostrils like smoke. In the distance, the last lights of a town were blinking out as the sun rose on the eastern horizon.
"Where is this place?" Molly asked the Radu brothers.
This town is Cluj, said Timotei, who was the oldest. This place is just a field. We were in prison---political prisoners----and we ran away. They came after us with guns and caught us here, trying to climb this wall. Now tell us, Molly Stewart, how can we help you?
"Cluj?" said Molly, a little disappointed. "I need to be south, I think, and east---across the mountains."
This is easy! The younger brother, Denis, was excited. Our father and mother lie side by side in the graveyard in Pitesti. Only a little while ago we were talking to them!
Indeed they were, a deeper, sterner voice joined in from some distance away. You're welcome to come and visit, Molly, if you can find your way here.
Molly excused herself---a little hastily but with many apologies---and re-entered the Mobius continuum. In a little while she was in a misty graveyard in Pitesti. Who is it you're seeking? inquired Constantin Radu.
"His name is Miron Savu," said Molly. "All I can tell you is that he died some time ago at his home near a town called Titu."
Titu? Cristina Radu repeated. Why that's nought but fifty kilometers or so away! What's more, we've friends buried there! She was plainly proud to be of assistance to the Mollyscope. Daniela, can you hear?"
Indeed I can! A new voice, sharp and shrewish, answered. And I've the very man right here!
There you are! said Cristina Radu, in a told-you-so tone. If you want to meet someone in Titu, ask Daniela Adamescu. She knows everybody!
Molly Stewart? A male voice now came to the fore. I'm Miron Savu. Do you want to come closer or will this suffice?
"I'm on my way!" said Molly. She thanked the Radus and went to Savu's plot in Titu. And finally, at last in the presence of the vampire expert himself, she asked, "Sir, I believe you can help me---if you will?"
Young lady, said Savu, unless I'm very much mistaken I know why you're here. Last time someone came to me asking about vampires, it cost me my life! But if there's any way I can help you, Molly Stewart, any way at all, just ask it!
"That was Vladimir Dragan who came to see you, right?" said Molly. She sensed the other's shudder. Savu might have no body, but at the mention of Dragan's name he shuddered.
That one, yes, Savu answered at last. Dragan. When I first me him I didn't know it, but he was already one of them. Or as good as. He didn't know it himself, not quite, but the evil was in him.
"He sent Sam Tabur to kill you with his evil eye."
Yes, because by then I knew what he was. That's the thing a vampire fears most: that people will discover who he is. Anyone who suspects----he has to die. So the little Mongol killed me, and he stole my crossbow.294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjgSzsDeXol
"That was for Dragan. He used it to kill Thago Benedek in the cruciform hills."294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiCd1tCGzoO
Then at least it was put to good use! Ah, but when you talk about Thago, you're talking about a real vampire! said Savu. If Dragan, with all of his potential for evil, had lived----alive or undead---as long as that one, then the world would have an incurable illness!294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp7Fik9Zgex
"I'm sorry," said Molly, "but I can find nothing to admire in such monsters. And in any case, there was one greater than Thago, who came before him, and outlasted him. His name was Thrulk, and Thago took his second name from him. Rightly so, for it was Thrulk who made him a vampire. I'm speaking of Thrulk Benedek, of course."294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7DoLLW6Naq
Miron Savu's voice was the merest whisper now as he answered: Indeed, and that was where my interest in the undead really began. For I was with Thrulk when he died. Imagine that, and him a creature at least thirteen hundred years old!294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl1EXmEFRMS
"These are the ones I want to know about." Molly was eager. "Thago and Thrulk. In your life you were a vampire expert; however people might scorn your obsession or look upon you as an eccentric, you studied the vampire's myths, his legends, his lore. You were still studying them when you died, and it's my guess that dying didn't stop you. So where's your research led you now, Miron? How did Thago end up buried there on the cruciform hills? And what of Thrulk between the 10th and 20th centuries? It's important that I know these things, as they relate to what I'm doing now. And what I'm doing relates to the safety and sanity of the whole world."294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBOWHY2kpDm
I understand, said Savu, soberly. But Molly, don't you think you should speak to someone with even more authority? I believe it can be arranged....294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh6q3kKMDPR
"What?" Molly was taken aback. "Someone with more authority than you? Is there such a person?"294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv8DV0ejxdR
Ahhhh! said a new voice, a powerful voice. It was black as the night itself and deep as the roots of hell, and it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Oh, yessss, Moooolllly, there is----or was---just such a one. And I am he. No one knows as much about the Wamphyri as I do, for no one has or ever will live so long. So very long, indeed, that when I died I was ready for it. Oh, I fought against it, be sure, but in the end it was for the better. Now I have peace. And I have Miron Savu to thank for giving me that last, merciful release. Since he obviously holds you in the greatest esteem---as do all the dead, apparently---then so shall I. So come to me, Molly Stewart, and let a real expert answer your questions.294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ13jtmbu68B
Well, how could Molly refuse an offer like that? She knew who it must be at once, of course, and she wondered why she hadn't thought of it herself. It was, after all, the obvious answer.294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0kKf62hHJJ
"I'm coming, Thrulk," she said. "Just give me a moment and I'll be right there....."294Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡasLkZmKwT9
