To this day, on the outskirts of Ploiesti, towards Bucharest, there stand gutted ruins, reminders of the mundane horrors of war. The burned-out shells lie like half-buried stony corpses in open countryside, strangely gorgeous in the summertime when the old bomb craters are full of flowers and brambles and wildlife, and ivy climbs shattered walls to turn them a lovely shade of green. But it takes the winter and snow to make the devastation visible, to bring into monochrome perspective the gaunt reality of the region. The Romanians have never rebuilt near these ruins.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIWihD3MaPy
This was where Thrulk Benedek had finally met his end at the hands of Miron Savu during a World War II bombing raid on Bucharest and Ploiesti. Pinned to the floor of his study by a fallen ceiling beam when his home was hit, he had feared the encroaching flames because alive, vampires burn very slowly. Savu, working for the Civil Defense, had seen the house bombed, entered the blazing ruin and tried to free Thrulk---to avail. It was hopeless.
The vampire had known that he was finished. With a superhuman effort of will he had commanded Savu to make a quick end of it. The old way was still the only way. Since Thrulk was already staked, Savu need only behead him. The flames would do the rest, and the ancient monster would burn along with his house.
The things he experienced in that house of horror stayed with Savu for the rest of his life. They were what had made him an authority on vampirism. Now Miron Savu was dead along with Thrulk, but still the vampire stood in his debt. Which was why he would give Molly Stewart whatever assistance he could; at least, that was part of the reason. The rest of it was that Stewart was up against Thago the Wallach.
It wasn't yet winter when Molly Stewart homed in on Thrulk's incorporeal thoughts and emerged from the Mobius continuum into the creeper- and bramble-grown ruin which had been the vampire's last refuge on earth. Indeed, the summer was barely giving way to fall, the trees were still green, but the chill Molly felt might have suggested winter to the bones of any ordinary person. Molly was least of all ordinary. She knew it was a chill of the spirit, a wintry blast blowing on the soul. A psychic chill, which is only felt in the presence of a supernatural Power. Thrulk Benedek had been such, and Molly recognized that fact. But just as surely Thrulk, too, knew when he was face to face with a power.
The dead speak well of you, Molly, the vampire opened, his mental voice sepulchral. Indeed, they love you! That is hard for one who was never loved to understand. You are not one of them, and yet they love you. Maybe it is because you too, like them, are without a body. The voice took on a grim humorous note. Why! It might even be said that you are---undead?
"If there's one thing I've learned about vampires," Molly answered evenly, "it's that they love riddles and word games. But I'm not here to play. Still, I'll answer your questions. Why do the dead love me? Because I bring them hope. Because I mean no harm but only good. Because through me they are something more than memories."
In other words, because you are "pure?" The vampire's words dripped with sarcasm.
"I was never pure," said Molly, "but I understand your meaning and I suppose you're near enough right. Which might also explain why they'll have nothing to do with you. There's no life in you, just death. You were dead even in life. You were death! And death walked with you wherever you walked. Don't compare my condition with undeath---I'm more alive now than you ever were. When I arrived here and before you spoke. I noticed something. Do you know what I noticed?"
The silence.
"Exactly. No cock crowing. No birdsong. Even the droning of bees is absent here. The brambles are lush and green yet they bear no fruit. Nothing, no one will come near you, not even now. The things of Nature sense your presence. They can't talk to you like I can, but they know you're here. And they shun you. Because you were evil. Because even dead, you're still evil. So don't sneer at my 'pureness,' Thrulk. I shall never be alone."
After a moment's silence, Thrulk said thoughtfully, For one who seeks my help, you don't much hide your feelings....
"We are poles apart," Molly told him, "but we do have a mutual enemy."
Thago? Why then have you spent time with him?
"Thago is the source of the trouble," Molly answered. "He is, or was, your enemy, and what he left behind is my enemy. I hoped to learn things from him and partially successful. Now he'll tell me no more. You offered help, and here I am to accept your offer. But we don't have to pretend friendship."
Guileless, Thago said. That is why they love you. But you are correct: Thago was an is my enemy. However much I've punished him, I can never punish him enough. So ask what you will of me, and I'll answer all.
"Then tell me this," said Molly, eager once more. "After he hurled you from your castle in flames, what became of you then?"
I shall be brief, Thrulk answered, because I sense that this is just part of what you desire to know. Cast your mind back then, if you will, one thousand years into the past......
Thago the Wallach, whom I had called son---to whom I had given my name and banner, and into whose hands I had bequeathed my castle, lands and Wamphyri power----had injured me solely. More sorely than even he suspected. That accursed ingrate!
Thrown down from the walls of my castle in flames, I was burned and blinded. Myriad minion bats fluttered to me as I fell, were scorched and died, but dampened the flames not at all. I crashed through trees and shrubs, tumbled in a thousand agonies down the sleep side of the gorge, was torn by trees and boulders alike before striking bottom. But my fall was broken in part by the foliage, and I fell in a shallow pool which put out the flames that threatened to melt my Wamphyri flesh.
Stunned, as close to real death as a vampire might come and remain undead, still I put out a call to my faithful gypsies down in the valley. I know you will understand what I mean, Molly Stewart. We share the power to speak with others at a distance. To speak with the mind alone, as we do now. And the Szgany came.
They took out my body from the still, salving water and cared for it. They carried me west over the mountains into the Hungarian Kingdom. They protected me from jars and jolts, hid me from potential enemies, kept me from the sun's searing rays. And at last they brought me to a place of rest. Ah! And that was a long rest: for recuperation, for reashaping, a time of enforced retirement.
I have said Thago hurt me. But how he had hurt me! I was sorely damaged. All bones broken: back and neck, skull and limbs. Chest staved in, heart and lungs a mangle. Skin flayed by fire, torn by sharp branches and boulders. Even the vampire in me, which occupied most parts and portions, was battered, torn and scorched. A week in the healing? A month? A year? Nay an hundred years! A century, in which to dream my dreams of red---or night-black----revenge!
My long convalescence was spent in an inaccessible mountain retreat, but a place more a cavern than a castle; and all the while my Szgany tended me, and their sons, and their sons. And their daughters, too. Slowly I became whole again; the vampire in me healed itself, and then healed me; Wamphyri, I walked again, practiced my arts, made myself wiser, stronger, more terrible than ever before. I went abroad from my aerie, made plans for my life's adventure as though Thago's treachery had been but yesterday and all my wounds no more than a stiffness of the joints.
And it was a horrible world in which I emerged, with wars everywhere and great suffering, and famines, and pestilence. Horrible, aye, but the very stuff of life to me! For I was Wamphyri....
I built a small castle in the border with Wallachia, almost impregnable, and there set myself up as a Boyar of some means. I led a mixed body of Szgany, Hungarians and local Wallachs, paid them well, housed and fed them, was accepted as a landowner and leader. The Szgany, of course, would have followed me to the ends of the earth---and they did. They did! Not out of love but some strange emotion which is in the wild breast of all the Szgany. Simply to say that I was a Power, and that they associated with me. As for my name: I became Valentin Benedek, common enough in those parts. But that was only the first of my names. Thirty years after my full recovery I became the "son" of Valentin, called Gavril, and thirty years later Gheorghe, then Marius. A man must not be seen to live too long, and certainly not for centuries. You understand?
As for Wallachia: I avoided crossing the border, mainly. For there was one in Wallachia whose strength and cruelty were already renowned: a mysterious mercenary Veovod named Thago, who commanded a small army for the Wallach princelings. And I did not wish to meet him, who should now be guarding my lands and properties in the Khorvaty! No, I would not meet him now, not yet. Oh, I doubted that he would recognize me, for I was changed beyond measure. But if I saw him I might not be able to contain myself. That could well prove fatal, for in the years of my healing he'd been active and was grown strong; indeed, he was in a large part the power behind the throne of Wallachia. He had his own Szgany, but well disciplined, and he also commanded the army of a prince, while I merely led an untrained rabble of gypsies and peasants. No, my revenge could wait. What is time to the Wamphyri, eh?
For a further sixty years I bided my time, contained my activities, was subdued, covert. By now I had access to a worthy force of fighters for payment, fierce mercenaries, and I considered how best to use them. I was tempted to take on Thago and the Wallachs, but any kind of even fight was not to my liking. I wanted the bastard on his knees before me, to do with him as I pleased. I did not want a battlefield confrontation, for I had learned at first hand his wiles and his strength. By now he possibly considered me dead; it were best I continued to let him think it; my time would still come.
But meanwhile I was restless, confined, pent up. Here was I, lusty, strong, something of a power, and I had nowhere to channel my energies. It was time I went further abroad in the roiling world.
Then I heard of a great Crusade by the Franks against the Moslems. The world was two years into its 13th Christian century, and even now a fleet was sailing against Zara. Originally the Crusaders had intended to attack Egypt, then the seat of Moslem power, but their armies were heirs to a long hostility towards Byzantium. The old Doge of Venice, who provided their fleet, and who was himself an enemy of Byzantium, had diverted them first to Hungary. Zara, only recently won by the Hungarians, was retaken and sacked by Venetians and Crusaders alike in November 1202; by which time I was on my way to the key city with a select company of my own supporters. The Hungarian King, "my master," believing I was acting for him against the Crusaders, put no obstacles in my way. When I reached Zara, however, I sold myself into mercenary service and took the Cross, which had been my intention all along.
It seemed to me that the best way to venture out across the world would be with the Crusaders; but if I hoped for instant action, then my hope was in vain. The Venetians and Franks had already divided the city's spoils----they'd argued and fought over them, too, but their quarreling was soon over---and now the Doge and Boniface of Montferrat, who led the expedition, decided to winter at Zara.
Now, the original intention, the prime purpose of this 4th Crusade, had been of course to destroy the Moslems. But many Crusaders believed that Byzantium had been a traitor to Christendom throughout all the Holy Wars. And suddenly Constantinople was within grasp, or at least within reach, of vengeful Crusader passions. Moreover, Constantinople was rich---sinfully rich! The prospect of loot such as Constantinople offered settled the matter. Egypt could wait---the very world itself could wait---for the target was now the Imperial Capital itself!
I shall be brief. We set sail for Constantinople in the spring, stopped off at several places to do various things, and in late June arrived before the Imperial Capital. I will assume you know something of history. For months running to years there were objections, moral, religious, and political, to the city's sack; avarice and lust eventually won the day. All schemes of going on from there to fight the infidel were at last abandoned. Pope Innocent III, who had been in large part responsible for calling the Crusade, had already excommunicated the Venetians for sacking Zara; now he was once more aghast, but both news---and intervention----traveled slowly in those days. And in the eyes of the Crusaders Constantinople had become a jewel, their quest's end, and every man of us lusted after it. Agreement was reached on the division of spoils, and then....
---Early in April 1204, we initiated the attack! All political scheming and pious talk were put aside at last, for this is why we were here.
Ah! And how my fierce heart rejoiced. Every fiber of my being thrilled. Gold is one thing, but blood is another. Blood spilled, blood drunk, blood coursing through veins of fire!
I will now tell you what we came up against. First of all, the Greeks had ships on the Golden Horn to keep us from landing below the walls. They fought hard but in vain, though their efforts were not entirely wasted. Greek fire is a horrible thing---it ignites and burns in water! Their catapults hurled it among our ships, and men blazed in the sea itself. I was scalded, my right shoulder, chest and back burned nearly to the bone. Ah! But I had been burned before, and by an expert. A mere scorching could not keep me out of it. My pain served only to spur me on. For this way my day.
You might wonder about the sun: how could I, Wamphyri, fight under its searing rays? I wore a flowing black cloak in the fashion of Moslem chiefs, and a helm of leather and iron to guard my head. Also, I fought whenever possible with my back to the sun. When I was not fighting---and believe me there were other things to do as well as fight----then of course I kept out of it. But the Crusaders, when they saw me and my Szgany in battle---ah, they were awed! Ignored hitherto, considered a rabble to bulk out the ranks and go down as fodder to fire and sword, now we were regarded by Frank and Venetian alike as demons, as fighting hell-fiends. How glad they must have been to have us on their side. So I thought.....
But let me not go astray. A breach was made in the wall guarding the Blachernae quarter of the city. At the same time a fire broke out in the city in that quarter. The defenders were confused; they panicked; we crushed them and poured over them into the mainly empty streets, where the fighting was not even worth my mentioning.
For after all, what were we up against? Greeks with all the wind knocked out of them; an ill-disciplined army, mainly mercenary, still suffering from years of mismanagement. Slav and Pechengi units which would fight only so long as their chances were good and the payment better; Frankish units whose members were torn, obviously two ways; the Varangian Guard, a company composed of Danes and Englishmen who know their Emperor Alexius III for a usurper with merit neither as a fighting man nor as a man of state. What work there was for us was slaughter. Those who were not willing to die at once fled. There was no other choice. In a few hours the Doge and Frankish and Venetian Lords occupied the Great Palace itself.
From there they issued their orders: the war- and loot-crazed Crusaders were told that Constantinople was theirs and they had three days in which to complete the city's sack. They were the victors; there was no crime they could commit. They could do with the capital, its people and possessions whatever they wanted. Can you imagine what such orders conveyed?
For 900 years Constantinople had been the center of Christian civilization, and now for three days it became the armpit of Hell! The Venetians, who appreciated great words, carried off Grecian masterpieces and other works of art and beauty by the ton, and treasures in precious metals near enough to sink their ships. As for the French, the Flemings and various mercenary Crusaders, including me and mine: they desired only to destroy. And destroy we did!
However precious, if something couldn't be carried or hauled away it was reduced to wreckage on the spot. We fueled out madness from rich wine-cellars, paused only to drink, rape or murder, then returned to the sack. Nothing, no one was spared. No virgin came out of it intact, and few came out alive. If a woman was too old to be stabbed with flesh she was stabbed with steel, and no female was too young. Convents were sacked and nuns used as whores----Christian nuns, mind you!
Men who had not fled but stayed to protect their homes and families were slit up their bellies and left clutching their steaming guts to die in the streets. The city's gardens and squares were filled with its dead inhabitants, mainly women and children. And I, Thrulk Benedek---known to the Franks as the Black One, or Black Marius, the Hungarian Devil---I was ever in the thick of it. The thickest of it. For three days I glutted myself as if there were no end to my lust.
I didn't know it but the end---my end, the end of glory, of power, of notoriety---was already at hand. For I had forgotten the prime rule of the Wamphyri: do not be seen to be too different. Be strong, but not overpowering. Be lustful, but not a legendary satyr. Command respect, but not devotion. And above all do nothing to cause your peers, or those who have the power to consider themselves your superiors, to become afraid of you.
But I had been burned by Greek fire and it had merely infuriated me. And rapacious? For every man I had killed I had taken a woman, as many as thirty in a day and a night! My Szgany looked to me as a kind of god---or devil. And finally---finally, of course, the Crusaders proper had come to fear me. More than all matters of "conscience," more than all the murder and rape and blasphemies they had committed, my deeds had given them bad dreams.
Aye, and they were sore in need of a scapegoat.
I believe that even without Innocent's pious protestations and hand-flutterings and cries of horror, still I would have been persecuted. Anyway, this was the way of it. The Pope had been enraged by the sack of Zara, at first delighted by Constantinople, then aghast when he heard about the atrocities. He now washed his hands of the crusade in its entirety. Far from helping true Christian soldiers in their fight against Islam, it seemed its only aim had been to conquer Christian territories. And as for the blasphemies and generally atrocious behavior of the Crusaders in Constantinople's holy places.....
I say again: they needed a scapegoat, and no need to look too far for one. A certain "bloodthirsty mercenary recruited in Zara" would fit the bill nicely. In secret communiques Innocent had ordered that those directly responsible for "gross acts of excessive and unnatural cruelty" must gain "neither glory nor riches nor lands" for their barbarism. Their names should no more be spoken by good men and true but "struck forever out of the records." All such great sinners were to be offered "neither respect nor high regard," for by their acts they had shown that they were "worthy only of contempt." Bah! It was more than excommunication---it was a death warrant!
Excommunication----I had taken the Cross in Zara as a matter of expediency. It meant nothing. A cross is a symbol, nothing else. Soon, however, I would come to hate that symbol.
We had a large house on the outskirts of the sacked city, my Szgany and I. It had been a palace of some such, was now filled with wine, loot, and whores. The other mercenary groups had turned over their plunder to their Crusader masters for the prearranged spirit, but I had not. For we had not yet been paid.! Perhaps I was in error there. Certainly our loot was an extra incentive for Crusader treachery.
They came at night which was their mistake. I am---or was----Wamphyri; night was my element. Some vampire premonition had warned me that all was not well. I was awake and on the prowl when the attack came. I roused up my men and they set to. But it was no good; we were heavily outnumbered and, taken by surprise, my men were still half-asleep. When the place began to burn I saw that I couldn't win. Even if I beat off all of these Crusaders, they formed merely a fraction of the total body. They had probably diced with ten other equal parties for the privilege of killing and robbing me. Also, if they had guessed what I was---and the fire suggested that they had---quite obviously my situation was untenable.
I took gold and a great many gemstones and fled into the darkness. On my way I carried off one of my attackers with me. He was a Frenchman, only a lad, and I made a quick end of it, for I had not time to tarry. Before he died, though, he told me what it was all about. From that day to this I have loathed the cross and all who wear it, or live in its shadow or under its influence.
Of my Szgany, not a man of them survived to follow me out of that place; but I later learned that two captives had been taken for questioning. As it was I stood off and watched the blaze from afar. And since the inferno was ringed about by Crusaders, I could only suppose that they assumed I had died in the flames. So be it---I would not disillusion them.
And now I was alone and a long way from home. Well, hadn't I desired to see the world?
Now, I have said I was a long way from home. In miles on the ground this statement is seen to be far from correct. But where indeed was my home? I could hardly return to Hungary, not for some little time. Wallachia was no place for me, and my old castle in the Khorvaty, looking down on Russia, was in ruins. What, then, was I to do? Where to go? Ah, but the world is such a big place!
To detail my adventures from that time forward would take too long. I shall merely outline my deeds and travels, and you must forgive me or fill in for yourself any great gaps or leaps in time.
North was out off the question; likewise west; I headed east. It was now the year 1204. Need I remind you of a singular emergence in Mongolia just two years later? Or course not, his name was Temujin---later Genghis Khan! With a party of Uighurs I joined him and helped subdue and unite the first of the rowdy Mongol tribes, until all Mongolia was finally united. I proved myself an able warlord and he showed me some respect. With some small effort I was able to change my features until I looked the part; that is to say I willed my vampire flesh into a new mold. The Khan knew that I was not a Mongol, of course, but at least I was acceptable. And later he would have many mercenaries in his command, so that my participation was in no way a rare thing.
I was with him against the Chin, when we penetrated that so-called Great Wall, and after his death I was there to see the total obliteration of the Chin Empire. I passed my "loyalty" down to Ghenghis's grandson, Batu. I could have offered my services to other Mongol Khans, but Batu's objective was Europe! It was one thing to return a man alone, but another to go back as a general in a Mongol army!
In the winter of 1237-8, in a lightning thrust, we smashed the Russian principalities. In 1240 we took Kiev by storm and burned it to the ground. From there we struck at Poland and Hungary. Only the death of the Great Khan Ogedei in 1241 saved Europe in its entirety; there were disputes about the succession and the westward campaigns were stalled.
Later, it was time for The Foreigner, as I was known, to "die" again. I obtained permission to journey to an ambiguous homeland far in the West; my "son" would join Hulegu in his push against the Assassins and the Caliphate. As The Black Foreigner, Son of The Foreigner, under Hulegu, I assisted in the extermination of the Assassins and was there at the fall of Baghdad in 1258. Ah, but a little more than two years later, at Ein Jalut in the so-called Holy Land, we were delivered a crushing defeat by the Mamelukes; the turning point for the Mongols had come.
In Russia Mongol rule would continue until the end of the 14th century, but "rule" implies peace and my taste for war had grown insatiable. I struck it out forty years more, then parted company with the Mongol and sought action elsewhere.
I fought for Islam! It was now an Ottoman, a Turk! Aha! What it is to be a mercenary, yes? Yes, I became a ghazi, a Moslem Warrior, fighting against the polytheists, and for nearly two centuries my life was one great unending river of blood and death! Under Bayezid, Wallachia became a vassal state which the Turks called Eflak. I could've returned then and sought out Thago, who had moved with his Szekely into the mountains of Transylvania, but I was busy campaigning elsewhere. By the middle of the 15th century my chance had passed my by; the boundaries of the Ottoman state at the accession of Mehemmed II were shrinking. In 1431 Sigismund the Holy Roman Emperor had invested Vlad II of Wallachia with the Order of the Dragon---license to destroy the infidel Turk. And who was Vlad's instrument in his "holy" work? Who was his war-weapon? Thago, naturally!
of Thago's deeds, strangely, I heard with no small measure of pride. He butchered not only the infidel Turk but Hungarians, Germans, and other Christians in their thousands. Ah, he was a true son of his father! If only he had not been disobedient. Alas (for him) but disobedience to me was not his only failing; like myself at the end of my Crusader adventure, he had not practiced the caution of the Wamphyri. He was adored by the Szekely but set himself on a level with his superiors, the Wallachian princes, and his excesses had made him notorious. He was feared throughout the land. In short, he had in every way brought himself into prominence. A vampire may not be prominent, not if he values his longevity.
But Thago was wild, demented in his cruelties! Vlad the (so-called) Impaler, Radu the Handsome, and Mircea the Monk (whose reign was so short) had all tasked him with the protection of Wallachia and the chastisement of its enemies; tasks in which he delighted, at which he excelled. Indeed, the Impaler, one of history's favorite villains, suffers undeservedly: he was cruel, aye, but in fact he has been named for Thago's deeds! Like my name, Thago's has been struck, but the stark terror of his deeds will live forever.
Now let me get on. When I had lived too long with the Turks, finally I deserted their cause---which was crumbling----as all causes must in the end----and returned to Wallachia. The time was well chosen. Thago had gone too far; Mircea had recently acceded to the throne and he feared his demon Voevod mightily. This was the moment I had so long awaited.
Crossing the Danube, I put out Wamphyri thoughts ahead of me. Where were my gypsies now? Did they still remember me? Three hundred years is a long time. But it was night, and I was night's master. My thoughts were carried on the dark winds all across Wallachia and into the shadowed mountains. Romany dreamers where they lay about their campfires heard me and started awake, gazing at each other in wonder. For they heard a legend from their grandfathers, who had heard it from their grandfathers, that one day I would return.
In 1206 two of my mercenary Szgany had come home---the same two taken for questioning on the night of Crusader cowardice and treachery, whose lives had been spared---and they had returned to foster an awesome myth. But now I was here, a myth no longer. "Father, what shall we do?" they whispered into the night. "Shall we come to meet you, master?"
"No," I told them across all the rivers and forests and miles. "I have work to finish, and I alone must see to it. Go into the Carpatii Meridionalli and put my house in order, so that I may have my own place when my work is done." And I knew that they would do it.
Then----I went to Mircea in Targoviste. Thago was campaigning on the Hungarian border, a good safe way away. I showed the Prince living vampire flesh taken from my own body, telling him that it was flesh of Thago. Then, because he was close to fainting, I burned it. This showed him one way in which a vampire may be killed. I told him the other way, too: the stake and decapitation. Then I questioned him about his Voevod's longevity: did he not deem it strange that Thago must be at least three hundred years old? No, he answered, for it was not one man but several. They were all part of the same legend, they all took the same name, Thago. All of them, down through the years, had fought under the devil-bat-dragon banner.
I laughed at him. What? But I had studied Russian records and knew for a fact that this selfsame man---this one man---had been a Boyar in Kiev three hundred years ago! At that time it had been rumored that he was Wamphyri. The fact that he still lived gave the rumor ample foundation. He was a lustful vampire---and now it seemed he lusted after the throne of Wallachia!
Did I have any proof at all in support of my accusations, the Prince asked me.
I told him: you have seen his vampire flesh.
It could have been the loathsome flesh of any vampire, he said.
But I had dedicated myself to seek out vampires and destroy them whenever I found them. I told him. In pursuit of such creatures I had been in China, Mongolia, Turkeyland, Russia---and I spoke many languages to prove it. When Thago had been wounded in battle, I had been there to take and keep a piece of his flesh, which had grown into what the Prince had seen. What more proof did he need?
None. He too had heard rumors, had his suspicions, his doubts.....
The Prince already feared Thago, but what I had told him---mostly the truth, except perhaps concerning Thago's ambition----had utterly terrified him. How could he deal with this monster?
I told him how. He must send for Thago on some pretext or other---to bestow upon him a great honor! Yes, that would do it. Vampires are often prideful; flattery, carefully applied, can win them over. Mircea must tell Thago that he desired to make him Voevod in Chief over all Wallachia, with powers second only to Mircea himself.
"Power? He has that already!"
"Then tell him that eventually succession to the throne will not be out of the question."
"What?" The Prince pondered. "I must take advice."
"Ridiculous!" I was forceful. "He may have allies among your advisors. Don't you know his strength?"
"Say on...."
"When he comes, I shall be here. He must be told to come alone, his army staying on the Hungarian border to continue the skirmishing. Orders can be sent to them later, dispersing them to lesser, more trusted generals. You shall receive him alone---at night."
"Alone? At night?" Mircea the Monk was sore afraid.
"You must drink with him. I shall give you wine with which to drug him. He is strong, however, and no amount of wine will kill him. It may not even render him unconscious. But it will rob him of his senses, make him clumsy, stupid, like a man drunk.
"I shall be close at hand with four or five of the most trusted members of your guard. We'll confine him, naked, in a place you shall nominate. A special place, somewhere in the grounds of the palace. Then, when the sun rises, you will know you have trapped a vampire. The sun's rays on his flesh will be a torture to him! But that in itself will not be sufficient proof. No, for above all else we must be just. Bound, his jaws will be forced open. You shall see his tongue, O Prince---forked like a snake's, and red with blood!
"At once a stake of hard wood shall be driven through his heart. This, for the greater part, will immobilize him. Then into a coffin with him, and off to a secret place. He shall be buried where no one should ever find him, a place forbidden to men from this time forward."
"Will it work?"
I gave the Prince my guarantee that it would work. And it did! Just as I have stated.
From Targovistie to the cruciform hills is perhaps one hundred miles. Thago was carried there at all speed. Holy men came with us all the way, with exorcisms ringing until I thought I would be sick. I was dressed in the plain black habit of a monk, with the hood thrown up. None had seen my face except Mircea and a handful of officials at the palace, all of whom I had beguiled, or hypnotized as you now have it, to a degree.
There in the hills a rude mausoleum was hastily constructed of local stone; it bore no name or title, no special marks; standing low to the ground and ominous in a gloomy glade, as you have seen it, it would in itself suffice to keep away the merely curious. Years later someone cut Thago's emblem into the stone---as an additional warning, perhaps. Or it could be that some Szgany or Szekely follower found him and marked the place, but feared to bring him up or lacked the wit.
I have gone ahead of myself.
We took him there, to the foothills of the Carpatii, and there he was lowered into his hole four or five feet deep in the dark earth. Wrapped in messy chains of silver and iron, he was, and the stake still in him and nailing him secure in his box. He lay pale as death, his eyes closed, for all the world a corpse. But I knew that he was not.
Night was falling. I told the soldiers and priests that I would climb down and behead Thago, and set a fire of branches in his grave to burn him, and when the fire was dead fill in the hole. It was dangerous, witchcrafty work, I said, which could only be done by the light of the moon. They should now retreat, if they valued their souls. They went, stood off, and waited for me on the plain.
The moon, thin-horned, rose up. I looked down on Thago and spoke to him in the manner of the Wamphyri. "Ah, my son, and so it is come to this. Sad, sad day for a fond father, who bestowed upon an ingrate son mighty powers to be wasted. A son who would not honor his father's ordinances, and is therefore fallen in the world. Wake up, Thago, and let that also which is in you waken, for I know that you are not dead."
His eyes opened a crack as my words sank in, then gaped wide in sudden understanding. I threw back my cowl so that he might see me, and smiled in a manner he must surely remember. he marked me and gave a great start. Then he marked his whereabouts---and screamed! Oh, how he screamed!
I threw earth down upon him.
"Have mercy!" he cried out loud.
"Mercy? But are you not Thago the Wallach, given the name Benedek and commanded to tend in his absence the lands of Thrulk of the Wamphyri? And if so, what do you here, so far from your place of duty?"
"Mercy! Mercy! Leave me my head, Thrulk."
"I shall!" I tossed in more dirt.
He saw my meaning, my intention, and went mad, shaking and vibrating and generally threatening to tear himself loose from his stake. I put down a long, stout pole into the grave and tapped home the stake more firmly, driving it through the bottom of the coffin itself. As for the coffin's lid, I merely let it stand there on its side in the bottom of the hole. What? Cover him up and lose sight of that frantic, fear-filled face? "But I am Wamphyri!" he screamed.
"You could have been," I told him. "Ah, you could have been! Now you are nothing."
"Old bastard! How I hate you!" he raved, blood in his eyes, his nostrils, the writhing gape of his mouth.
"Mutual, my son."
"You are afraid. You fear me. That is the reason!"
"Reason? You desire to know the reason? How fares my castle in the Khorvaty? What of my mountains, my black forests, my lands. I shall tell you: the Khans have held them for more than a century. And where were you, Thago?"
"It's true!" he screamed, through the earth I threw in his face. "You do fear me!"
"If that were so, then I should most certainly behead you," I smiled. "No, I merely hate you above all others. Do you remember how you burned me? I cursed you for a hundred years, Thago. Now it is your turn to curse me----for the rest of time. Or until you stiffen into a stone in the dark earth."
And without further ado I filled in his grave.
When he could no longer scream with his mouth he screamed with his mind. I relished each and every yelp. Then I built a small fire to fool the soldiers and the priests, and warmed myself before it for one hour, for the night was chill. And eventually I went down to the plain.
"Farewell, my son," I told Thago. And then I shut him out of my mind, as I had shut him out of the world, forever....
"And so you took revenge on Thago," said Molly when Thrulk paused. "You buried him alive---or undead---forever. That might have served your cruel purpose, Thrulk Benedek, but you certainly weren't doing the world at large any favors by letting him keep his head. He corrupted Dragan and planted his vampire seed in him, and between times infected the unborn Dragos Matei, who is now a vampire in his own right. Did you know these things?"
Molly, said Thrulk, in my life I was a master of telepathy, and in death.....? Oh, the dead won't talk to me, and I can't blame them---but there is nothing to keep me from listening in on their conversations. In a way, it could even be argued that I am a Thrulkscope, like you are a Mollyscope. Oh, I've read the thoughts of many. And there have been certain thoughts which interested me greatly---especially those of that dog Thago. Yes, since my death, I have renewed my interest in his affairs. I know about Vladimir Dragan and Dragos Matei.
"Dragan is dead," Molly told him, albeit unnecessarily, "but I've spoken to him and he tells me Thago will try to come back, through Dragos. Now, how can this be? I mean, Thago is dead---no longer merely undead but utterly dead, dissolved and finished."
Something of him remains even as we speak.
"Vampire matter, you mean? Mindless protoplasm hiding in the earth, shunning the light, devoid of conscious will? How may Thago use that when he no longer controls it?"
A perplexing question, Thrulk answered. Thago's root---his creeper of flesh, a stray pseudopod detached and left behind---would seem the precise opposite of you and I. We are incorporeal: living minds without physical bodies. And it is----what? A living body without a mind?
"I don't have time for riddles and word puzzles, Thrulk," Molly reminded him.
I was not playing but answering your question, said Thrulk. In part, at least. You are an intelligent young woman. Can you not work it out for yourself?
That got Molly thinking. About polar opposites. Was that what Thrulk meant: that Thago would make a new home for himself in a composite being? A thing formed of Dragos's physical shape and Thago's vampire ghost? While she worried at the problem, Thrulk was not excluded from Molly's thoughts.
Bravo! said the vampire.
"Not yet," said Molly. "I still don't have the answer. Or if I do then I don't understand it. I can't see how Thago's mentality can govern Dragos's body. Not while it's controlled by Dragos's own mind, anyway."
Bravo! said Thrulk again; but Molly remained in the dark.
"Explain," said the Mollyscope, admitting defeat.
If Thago can lure Dragos Matei to the cruiciform hills, said Thrulk, and there cause his surviving creeper---the protoflesh he shed, perhaps for this very purpose---to unite with Matei.....
"He can form a hybrid?"
Of course. Matei already has something of Thago in him. He is already influenced by him. The only obstacle, as you point out, will be the youth's mind. Answer: Thago's vampire tissue, once it is in him, will simply eat Dragos's mind away, to make room for Thago's!
"Eat it away?" Molly felt a dizzy nausea.
Literally!
"But---a body without a mind must quickly die.
A human body, yes, if it is not kept alive artificially. But Matei's body is no longer human. Surely that is the essence of your problem? He is a vampire. And in any case, Thago's transition would take the merest moment of time. Dragos Matei would go up into the cruciform hills, and he would appear to come down again from them. But in fact....
"It would be Thago!
Bravo! said Thrulk a third time, however caustically.
"Thank you," said Molly, ignoring the other's sarcasm, "for now I know that I'm on the right track, and that the course of action chosen by certain friends of mine is the right one. Which leaves just one final question unanswered."
Oh? Black humor had returned to Thrulk's voice, a certain sly note of innuendo. Let me see if I can guess it. You wish to know if I, Thrulk Benedek---like Thago the Wallach---have left anything of myself behind to fester in the dark earth. Am I right?
"You know you are," said Molly. "For all I know it's a precaution all the Wamphyri take----against the chance that death will find them out."
Molly, you have been straightforward with me, and I must commend you for that. Now I too shall be forthright. No, this thing is of Thago's invention. However, I would add that I wish I had thought of it first! As for my "vampire remains": yes, I believe there is such a revenant. If not several. Except "revenant" is maybe the wrong word, for we both know there will be no return.
"And it---they, whatever----is in your castle in the Khorvaty, which Thago razed?"
A simple enough deduction.
"But you have no desire to use such remains, like Thago, to raise yourself up again?"
You are naïve, Mollly. If I could, I probably would. But how? I died here and may not depart this spot. And anyway, I know that you will destroy whatever Thago left buried in that castle a thousand years ago---if it has survived. But a thousand years, Molly---think of it! Even if I do not know if vampire protoplasm can live that long, in those circumstances.
"But it might have survived. Doesn't that---interest you?"
Molly detected something like a sigh. Molly, I will tell you something. Believe me if you like, or disbelieve, but I am at peace. With myself, at least. I have had my day and I am satisfied. If you had lived for 13,000 years then you might have understood. Maybe you will believe me if I say that even you have been a disturbance. But you must disturb me no longer. My debt to Miron Savu is paid in full. Ramas bun!
Molly waited a moment, trying to remember what that Romanian word meant, then said, "Goodbye, Thrulk."
And tired now, strangely weary, she found a space-time doorway and returned to the Mobius continuum....
Molly Stewart's conversation with Thrulk Benedek had ended none too soon; Molly Jr. was awake and calling her ghostly benefactor home. Snatched from the Mobius continuum into the infant's artificially-inflated id, Molly was obliged to wait out the baby's period of wakefulness, which continued into Sunday evening. It was 7:30 P.M. in England when finally Molly Jr. went back to sleep, but in Romania it was two hours later and night had already fallen.
The vampire-hunters had a suite of rooms in an old world inn on the outskirts of Ionesti. There in a comfortable pine-paneled lounge they finalized their plans for Monday and enjoyed drinks before making an early night of it. At least that was there intention. Only Carmen Olinescu was absent, having gone into Pitesti to make final arrangements for certain ordnance supplies. She had wanted to be sure the requisition was ready. All of the men were agreed that whatever she lacked in looks and personal charm, Carmen surely made up for in efficiency.
Molly Stewart, when she materialized, found them with drinks in their hands around a log fire. The only warning of his coming was when Alex Picardi suddenly sat bolt upright in his easy chair, spilling his slivovitz into his lap. Visibly paling, staring all about the room with eyes round as saucers, Picardi stood up; but even standing it was as if he'd shrunk down into himself. "Oh-oh!" he managed to gasp.
Polyakov was clearly puzzled but Morozov, too, felt something. He shivered and said, "What? What? I think there is some...."
"You're right," Harry Moradian cut him off, hurrying to the main door of the suite and locking it, then turning off all the lights save one. "There is something. Stay calm, all of you. She's coming."
"What?" Morozov said again, his breath pluming as the temperature fell. "Who is.....she?"
Picardi took a deep breath. "Harry," he said, his voice shivery, "you'd better tell Eldar not to panic. This is a friend of ours----but at first meeting she may come as a bit of shock!"
Polyakov spoke to Morozov in Russian, and the young soldier put down his glass and slowly got to his feet. And right then, at that very moment, suddenly Molly was there.
She took her usual form, except that now the infant was no longer fetal but seated in her mid-section, and it no longer turned aimlessly on its own axis but seemed to recline against Molly, eyes closed, in an attitude almost of meditation. Also, the Stewart manifestation seemed paler, had less luminosity, while the image of the child was definitely brighter.
Morozov, after the initial shock, recognized Stewart at once. "My God!" he blurted. "A ghost---no, two ghosts! Yes, and I know one of them. That thing is Molly Stewart!"
"Not a ghost, Alik," said Harry as he shook the Russian's arm. "It's something rather more than a ghost---but nothing to be frightened of, I promise you. Is Eldar all right?"
Polyakov's Adam's apple bobbed frantically; his hands shook and his eyes bulged; if he could have run he probably would have, but the strength had gone out of his legs. Morozov spoke to him sharply in Russian, told him to sit, that everything was in order. Eldar didn't believe him but he sat anyway, almost falling into his chair.
"You've got the floor, Ms. Stewart," said Harry.
"For the sake of goodness!" said Morozov, feeling a growing hysteria, but trying to stay calm for Polyakov's sake. "Won't someone explain?"
Stewart looked at him and Polyakov. Morozov, I presume, she said to the former. You have psychic awareness, which makes it easier. But your friend doesn't. I'm getting through to him, but it's an effort.
Morozov opened and closed his mouth like a fish, saying nothing, then thumped down into his chair beside Polyakov. He licked dry lips, glanced at Moradian. "Not---not a ghost?"
No, I'm not, Molly answered. But I suppose it's an understandable mistake. Look, I haven't time to explain my circumstances. Now that you've seen me, maybe Moradian will do that for me? But later. Right now I'm short of time again, and what I have to say is rather important.
"Alik," said Moradian, "try to put your astonishment behind you. Just accept that this is happening and try to take in what she's saying. I'll tell you all about it just as soon as I can."
The Russian nodded, got a grip of himself, said, "Very well."
Molly told all that she'd learned since the last time she and Moradian had spoken. Her terms of expression were very abbreviated; she brought the INTESP men up to date in less than thirty minutes. Finally she was done, and looked to Moradian for his response. How are things in England?
"I contact our people tomorrow at noon," Moradian told her.
And the house in Devon?
"I think it's time to order them in."
Stewart nodded. So do I. When do you make your move in the cruciform hills?
"We finally get to see the place tomorrow," Moradian answered. "After that----Tuesday, in daylight!"
Remember what I've told you. What Thago left behind is----big!
"But it lacks intelligence: And as I said, we'll be working in daylight."
Again the Stewart apparition nodded. I suggest you move in on Hartley House and Matei at the same time. By now he has to be pretty sure what he is and he's probably explored his vampire powers, though from what we know of him he doesn't have Thago's or Thrulk's cunning or insularity. They guarded their vampire identities---jealously! They didn't go around making more vampires unnecessarily. On the other hand, Dragos Matei, maybe because he's had no instruction, is a time-bomb! Frighten him, then make a mistake and let him go free, and he'll go like a bonfire, a vile cancer in the guts of all humanity....
Moradian knew she was right. "I agree with you about the timing," he said, "but are you sure you're not just worrying about Matei getting to Thago before we can move against him?"
Perhaps, the apparition frowned. But as far as we know Matei is not even aware of the cruciform hills and what's buried there. But put that aside for now. Tell me, do your men in England know what has to be done? It's not every man who'd have the stomach for it. It's tough work. The old methods---the stake, decapitation, fire---there are no other ways. Nothing else will work. It can't be done with kid gloves. The fire at Hartley will have to be a big one. An inferno! Because of the cellars.....
"Because we don't know what's down there? I agree. When I speak to my men tomorrow, I'll make sure they fully understand. They already do, I'm sure, but I'll make absolutely sure. The whole house has to go---from the cellars up! Yes, and maybe down a little, too."
Good, said Stewart. For a moment she stood silent, a hologram of thin neon blue wires. She seemed a little unsure about something, like an actress needing a teleprompter. Then she said: Look, I've got things to do. There are people---dead people----I need to thank properly for their help. And I've not yet worked out how to break my baby namesake's hold on me. That's becoming a problem. So if you'll excuse me.....
Moradian stepped forward. There seemed some sort of air of finality about Molly Stewart. Moradian wanted to hold out his hand but knew there was nothing there. Nothing of any substance, anyway. "Molly," he said. "Er, give them our thanks, too. Your friends, that is."
Of course, said the other. She smiled a wan smile and vanished in a rapidly dispersing burst of foxfire.
For long moments there was a breathless silence. Then Moradian turned the light up and Morozov drew a massive breath of air. Finally he expelled it, and said: "And now---now I hope you'll agree that you owe me something of an explanation!"
Which was something Moradian could only go along with....
In the Mobius continuum Molly felt a mental tugging; even sleeping, the baby girl's attraction was still enormous. Molly Jr. was tightening her grip, and Molly Sr. was sure that she'd been right about the infant: she was drawing on her mind, leeching her knowledge, absorbing the substance of her id. Soon Molly must make a permanent break. But how? To where? What would be left of her, she wondered; if she were totally absorbed? Would there be anything left at all?
Or would it be possible for her to "become" Molly Jr. by completely taking over her mind? Reincarnation, in effect?
Using the Mobius continuum, Molly could always plumb the future to find the answers to these questions. She preferred not to know all of the answers, however, for the future seemed somehow inviolable. It wasn't that she would feel a cheat but rather that she doubted the wisdom of knowing the future.
For like the past, the future was fixed; if Molly saw something she didn't like, would she try to avoid it? Of course she would, even knowing it was unavoidable. Which could only complicate her weird existence even more yet!
The one sole glimpse she would allow herself would be to discover if indeed she had any future at all. Which for Molly Stewart was the very simplest of exercises.
Still fighting the baby girl's attraction, she found a future door and opened it, gazed out upon the ever expanding future. Against the subtly shifting darkness of the 4th dimension, Earth's myriad human lifelines of neon blue shot away into a sapphire haze, defining the length of lives that were and lives still to come. Molly's line sped out from her own incorporeal being----from her mind, she guessed---and wound away apparently interminably. But she saw that just beyond the Mobius door it took on a course lying parallel to a second thread, like the twin strips of a motorway with a central verge or barrier. And this second lifeline, Molly supposed, must belong to Molly Jr.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjmaEYPH0CS
She launched herself from the door and traversed future time, following her own and the infant Molly's threads. Faster than the lifelines themselves, she propelled herself into the near future. She witness and was saddened by the termination of many blue threads, which simply dimmed and went out, for she knew that these were deaths; and she saw others burst brightly into existence like stars, then extend themselves into brilliant neon filaments, and knew that these were births, new lives. And so she forged a little way forward. Time was briefly furrowed in her wake like the sea behind a forging ship, before closing in and sealing itself anew.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK4x6sOXYVh
Suddenly, despite the fact that Molly was without body, she felt an icy blast blowing on her from the side. It could hardly be a physical chill and must therefore be of the psyche. Sure enough, away out across the panorama of speeding lifelines, she spied one o that was as different as a shark in a school of tuna. For this one was scarlet---the mark of a vampire!293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzATH3lJiG0
And quite deliberately, it was angling in towards his and Molly Jr.'s threads! Molly knew panic. The scarlet lifeline drifted closer; at any moment it must converge with hers and the infant's. Then....293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBb35O0b6Hu
Molly Jr.'s life-thread abruptly veered away from Molly Sr.'s, raced off at a tangent on its own amidst an ocean of weaving blue lines. And the thread of Molly Sr. followed suit, avoiding the vampire's thread's thrust and turning desperately away. The action had looked for all the world like the maneuvering of drivers on some netherworld race track. But the last move had been blind, nearly instinctive, and Molly's life-thread seemed now to careen, out of control, across the skein of future time.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmVKFjY8WaG
Then, in another moment, Molly witnessed and indeed was party to the impossible---a collision! Another blue life-thread, dimming, crumbling, disintegrating, converged with his out of nowhere. The two seemed to bend towards each other as by some mutual attraction, before slamming together in a neon blaze that was much brighter and speeding on as one thread. Briefly Molly felt the presence---or the faint, fading echo---of another mind superimposed on her own. Then it was gone, extinct, and her thread rushed on alone.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOHaOF5nLj0
She had seen enough. The future must go its own way. (Which it surely would.) She cast about, found a door and side-stepped out of time into the Mobius continuum. At once the infant Molly's tractor id put a grapple on her and began to reel her in. Molly didn't fight it but merely let herself drift home. Home to her namesake's mind in Gloudon, on a Sunday night early in the fall of 1977.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg5zNdfNcYh
She had intended to talk to certain new friends in Romania, but that would have to wait. As for her "collision" with the future of some other person: she hardly knew what to make of that. But in the brief moment before its expiry, she was sure that she had recognized that fading echo of a mind.293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyUJHAlCFfs
And that was the most puzzling thing of all.......293Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtu7hGKpoja
