Necroscope II: Wamphyri - Page 2/17

 

The old Thing in the ground trembled however minutely, shuddered slightly, strove to return to his immemorial dreaming. Something was intruding, threatening to rouse him up from his dark slumbers, but sleep had become a habit which satisfied his every need... almost. He clung to his loathsome dreams - of madness and mayhem, the hell of living and the horror of dying, and the pleasures of blood, blood, blood - and felt the cold embrace of the clotted earth closing him in, weighing him down, holding him here in his darkling grave. And yet the earth was familiar and no longer held any terrors for him; the darkness was like that of a shuttered room or deep vault, an impenetrable gloom entirely in keeping; the forbidding nature and location of his mausoleum not only set him apart but kept him protected. He was safe here. Damned forever, certainly - doomed for all time, yes, barring some major miracle of intervention - but safe, too, and there was much to be said for safety.

Safe from the men - mere men, most of them - who had put him here. For in his dreaming the wizened Thing had forgotten that those men were long dead. And their sons, dead. And theirs, and theirs...

The old Thing in the ground had lived for five hundred years, and as long again had lain undead in his unhallowed grave. Above him, in the gloom of a glade beneath stirless, snow-laden trees, the tumbled stones and slabs of his tomb told something of his story, but only the Thing himself knew all of it. His name had been... but no, the Wamphyri have no names as such. His host's name, then, had been Thibor Ferenczy, and in the beginning Thibor had been a man. But that had been almost a thousand years ago.

The Thibor part of the Thing in the ground existed still, but changed, mutated, mingled and metamorphosed along with its vampire 'guest'. The two were one now, inseparably fused; but in dreams that spanned a millennium, still Thibor could return to his roots, go back to the immensely cruel past...

In the very beginning he had not been a Ferenczy but an Ungar, though that was of no account now. His forefathers were farmers who came from a Hungarian princedom across the Carpathians to settle on the banks of the Dniester where it flowed down to the Black Sea. But 'settling' was hardly the word for it. They had had to fight Vikings (the dreadful Varyagi) on the river, where they came exploring from the Black Sea, the Khazars and vassal Magyars from the steppes, finally the fierce Pechenegi tribes in their constant expansion west and north-wards. Thibor had been a young man then, when at last the Pechenegi wiped out the rude settlement he called home and he alone survived. After that he'd fled north to Kiev.

Never much of a farmer, indeed, far more suited for war with his massive size - which in those days, when most men were small, made Thibor the Wallach some-thing of a giant - in Kiev he sold himself into the service of Vladimir I. The Vlad made him a small Voevod or warrior chief and gave him a hundred men. 'Go join my Boyars in the south,' he commanded. 'Fend off and kill the Pechenegi, keep 'em from crossing the Ros, and by our new Christian God I'll give you title and banner both, Thibor of Wallachia!' Thibor had gone to him when he was desperate, that much was clear.

In his dream, the Thing in the ground remembered how he'd answered: Title and banner, keep them, my Lord -but only give me one hundred men more and I shall kill you a thousand Pechenegi before returning to Kiev. Aye, and I'll bring you their thumbs to prove it!'

He got his hundred men; also, like it or not, his banner: a golden dragon, one forepaw raised in warning. 'The dragon of the true Christ, brought to us by the Greeks,' Vlad told him. 'Now the dragon watches over Christian Kiev - Russia itself - and it roars from your banner with the voice of the Lord! What mark of your own will you put on it?' On that same morning he had asked this question of half-a-dozen other fledgling defenders, five Boyars with their own followers and one band of mercenaries. All of them had taken a symbol to fly with the dragon. But not Thibor.

'I'm no Boyar, sire,' the Wallach had told him with a shrug. 'That's not to say my father's house was not honourable, for it was, and built by a decent man - but in no way royal. No lord's or prince's blood flows in my veins. When I've earned myself a mark, then I'll set it over your dragon.'

'I'm not sure I like you especially, Wallach.' The Vlad had frowned then, uneasy with this great, grim man before him. 'Your voice sounds out perhaps a trifle loud from a heart as yet untried. But - ' and he, too, had given a shrug, ' - very well, choose a device for yourself when you return in triumph. And Thibor - bring me those thumbs or I'll likely string you up by yours!' And that day at noon seven polyglot companies of men had set out from Kiev, reinforcements for the ensieged defensive positions on the Ros. One year and one month later Thibor returned with nearly all of his men, plus another eighty recruited from peasants hiding in the foothills and valleys of the southern Khorvaty. He made no plea for audience but strode into the Vlad's own church where he was at worship. He left his weary men outside and took in with him only one small sack that rattled, and approached Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich at his prayers and waited for him to finish. Behind him Kiev's civilian nobles were deathly silent, waiting for their prince to see him.

Finally the Vlad and his Greek monks turned to Thibor. The sight they saw was fearsome. Thibor had soil on him from the fields and forests; dirt was ingrained in him; he bore a freshly healed scar high on his right cheek to the middle of his jaw, which made a pale stripe of scar tissue that cut almost to the bone. Also, he had gone away as a peasant and returned something else entirely. Haughty as a hawk, with his nose slightly hooked under bushy eye-brows that very nearly came together in the middle, he gazed out of yellow, unblinking eyes. He wore mous-taches and a scraggy, twisting black beard; also the armour of some Pechenegi chief, chased in gold and silver, and an earring set with a gemstone in the lobe of his left ear. He had shaved his head with the exception of black forelocks that hung one to each side, in the manner of certain nobles; and in all his mien, there was no sign that he knew he stood in a holy place or even considered his whereabouts.

'I know you now,' the Vlad hissed, 'Thibor the Wallach. Don't you fear the true God? Don't you tremble before the cross of Christ? I was praying for our deliverance, and you-'

'And I have brought it to you.' Thibor's voice was deep, doleful. He tipped out his sack onto the flags. The prince's retinue and the nobles of Kiev where they stood back from him who ruled over them gasped and gaped. Bones clattered white in a heap at the Vlad's feet.

'What?' he choked. 'What?'

'Thumbs,' said Thibor. 'I had the flesh boiled off them,

lest their stink offend. The Pechenegi are driven back, trapped between the Dniester, the Bug and the sea. Your Boyar army hems them in. Hopefully they can deal with them without me and mine. For I have heard that the Polovtsy are rising like the wind in the east. Also, in Turkey-land, armies wax for war!'

'You have heard? You have heard? And are you some mighty Voevod, then? Do you set yourself up as the ears of Vladimir? And what do you mean, "you and yours"? The two hundred men you marched with are mine!'

At that Thibor took a deep breath. He paced forward -then paused. Then he bowed low, if inelegantly, and said, 'Of course they are yours, Prince. Also the four-score refugees I've gathered together and turned into warriors. All are yours. As for being your ears: if I have heard falsely, then strike me deaf. But my work is finished in the south and I thought you had more need of me here. Soldiers are few in Kiev this day, and her borders are wide...'

The Vlad's eyes remained veiled. The Pechenegi are at bay, you say - and do you give yourself credit for this?'

'In all modesty. This and more.'

'And you've brought my men back with you, without casualty?'

'A handful are fallen.' Thibor shrugged. 'But I found eighty to replace them.'

'Show me.'

They went to the great doors, out onto the wide steps of the church. There in the square, Thibor's men waited in silence, some upon horses but most afoot, all armed to the teeth and looking very fierce. They were the same sorry bunch the Wallach had taken away with him, but no longer sorry. His standard flew from three tall flagstaffs: the golden dragon, and upon its back a black bat with of carnelian.

The Vlad nodded. 'Your mark,' he commented, per-haps sourly. 'A bat.'

'The black bat of the Wallachs, aye,' said Thibor. One of the monks spoke up, 'But atop the dragon?'

Thibor grinned at him wolfishly. 'Would you have the dragon pissing on my bat?' The monks took the prince aside while Thibor stood waiting. He could not hear what was said, but he'd imagined it often enough in times since:

'These men are utterly loyal to him! See how proud they stand beneath his banner?' the senior monk would have whispered in that sly Greek way. 'It could be a nuisance.'

And Vlad: 'Does it trouble you? I have five times their number right here in the city.'

The Greek: 'But these men have been tried in battle; they are warriors all!'

Vlad: 'What are you saying? I should fear him? I've Varyagi blood in me and fear no man!'

Greek: 'Of course you don't. But... he sets himself above his station, this one. Can we not find him a task -him and a handful of his men - and keep the rest of them back here to bolster the city's defences? This way, in his absence, their loyalty will surely swing more rightly to you.'

And Vladimir Svyatoslavich's eyes narrowing more yet. Then - his nod of approval: I have the very thing. Yes, and I believe you're right - best to be rid of him. These Wallachs are a tricky lot. Far too insular...' And out loud to the Voevod: 'Thibor, I'm honouring you tonight at the palace. You and five of your best. Then you can tell me all about your victories. But there'll be ladies there, so see you're washed and leave your armour in your lodgings and tents.'

With a stiff little bow Thibor backed off, went down the steps to his mount, led his men away. At his command, as they left the square, they rattled their weapons and gave a single, sharp, ringing shout: 'Prince Vladimir!' Then they were gone into the autumn morning, gone into Kiev, called the City at the Edge of the Woods...

Despite the disturbance, the unknown intrusion, the Thing in the ground continued to dream. Night would soon fall, and Thibor was sensitive to night as a rooster is to the dawn, but for now he dreamed.

That night at the palace - a huge place with stone chimneys in every room, and wood fires blazing, sprinkled with aromatic resins - Thibor had worn clean but common clothes under a rich red robe taken from some high-ranking Pechenegi. His flesh was washed and perfumed, tanned like leather, and his forelocks freshly greased. He was an imposing sight. His officers, too, were spruce. Though they obviously stood in awe of him, still he spoke to them with some familiarity; but he was courteous to the ladies, attentive to the Vlad.

It was possible (so Thibor had later reckoned) that the prince found himself in two minds: the Wallach would seem to have proved himself a warrior, a Voevod indeed. By rights he should be made a Boyar, given lands of his own. A man will fight even harder if he fights to protect that which is his. But there was that sombre something about Thibor which the Vlad found disquieting. So perhaps his Greek advisors were right.

'Now tell me how you dealt with the Pechenegi, Thibor of Wallachia,' Vladimir finally commanded, when all were feasting. Their dishes were several: Greek sausages wrapped in vine leaves; joints roasted in the Viking fashion; goulashes steaming in huge pots. Meads and wines came by the gallon. All at table stabbed and speared with their knives at smoking meats; short bursts of con-versation would erupt now and then amidst the general clatter of eating. Thibor's voice, though he hardly raised it at all, had carried over all of that. And gradually the great table had grown quieter.

'The Pechenegi come in parties or tribes. They are not like a mighty army; there is little of unity; they have their own chiefs who vie with each other. The earthworks and fortifications on the Ros at the edge of the wooded steppe have stopped them because they are not united. If they came as an army they could cross river and battlements both in a day, carrying all away before them. But they merely probe around our defences, contenting themselves with whatever they can pillage in short, sharp forays to east and west. This is how they sacked Kolomyya on the west flank. They crossed the Prut by day, crept forward in the forests, rested overnight and attacked at first light. It is their way. And so they gradually encroach.

'This is how I saw the situation: because the defences are there, our soldiers use them: we hide behind them. The earthworks act as a border. We have been content to say, "South of these works lies the territory of the Pechenegi, and we must keep him out." Wherefore the Pechenegi, barbarian that he is, in fact holds us in siege! I have sat on the walls of our forts and seen our enemies make camp, unafraid. Smoke from his fires goes up, all untroubled, because we don't molest him on "his" ground.

'When I left Kiev, Prince Vladimir, you said: "Fend off the Pechenegi, keep him from crossing the Ros." But I said, "Pursue the fiend and kill him!" One day I saw a camp of some two hundred; they had their women, even their children with them! They were camped across the river, to the west, quite apart from the other encamp-ments. I split my two hundred in half. Half went with me across the river in the dusk. We stole up on the Pechenegi fires. They had guards out but most of them were sleeping - and we cut their throats in the night without them ever knowing who killed them! Then we set about the camp -but all in silence. I had daubed my men in mud. Any man not daubed was Pechenegi. In the darkness we slew them, flitting from tent to tent. We were like great bats in the night, and it was very bloody.

'When the camp was awakened half were already dead. The rest gave chase. We led them back to the Ros; and them hounding us, eager to catch us at the river, all of them shouting and screaming their warcries! But we shouted and screamed not at all. At the river, on the Pechenegi side, my second hundred lay in waiting. They were daubed in mud. They struck not at their silent, muddy brothers but trapped the howling pursuers. Then we rose up, turned in upon the Pechenegi, slew them to a man. And we cut off their thumbs...' He paused.

'Bravo!' said Vladimir the prince, faintly.

'Another time,' Thibor continued, 'we went to Kamenets which was under siege. Again I had half my men with me. The Pechenegi about the town saw us, gave chase. We led them into a steep-sided gulley where, after we had scrambled through, my other half rained down an avalanche upon them. I lost many thumbs that time, buried under the boulders - else I would have brought you back another sackful!'

Now there was almost total silence about the table. It was not so much the reporting of these deeds that impressed but the stony delivery, which lacked all emotion. When the Pechenegi had raided, raped and razed this man's Ungar settlement, they had turned him into an utterly pitiless killer.

'I've had reports, of course,' Svyatoslavich broke the silence, 'if somewhat vague until now and few and far between. But this is something to chew on. And so my Boyars have driven the Pechenegi back, you say? A recent turn of events? Perhaps they learned something from you, eh?'

'They learned that standing guard behind high walls achieves nothing!' said Thibor. 'I spoke to them and said: "Summer is at an end. The Pechenegi far to the south are grown fat and idle from the little work they've had to do; they do not think we'll come against them. They are building permanent settlements, winter homes for them-selves. Like the Khazars before them, they are putting aside the sword in favour of the plough. If we strike now they'll fall like grass beneath the scythe!" Then, all the Boyars banded together, crossed the river, struck deep into the southern steppes. We killed the Pechenegi wherever we found them.

'But by then I had heard rumours of a greater peril in the making: to the east the Polovtsy are rising up! They spill over from the great steppes and deserts, expand westward - soon they'll be at our doors. When the Khazars fell they left the way open for the Pechenegi. And after the Pechenegi? Which is why I thought - why I dared to think - that perhaps the Vlad would give me an army and send me east, to put down our enemies before they wax too strong...'

For long moments Prince Vladimir simply sat and stared at him from eyes half-lidded. Then he quietly said, 'You've come a long way in a year and a month, Wallach...' And out loud, to his guests: 'Eat, drink, talk! Honour this man. We owe him that much.' But as the feasting continued he got up, indicating that Thibor should walk with him. They went out into the grounds, into the cool autumn evening. The wood smoke was fragrant under the trees.

A little way from the palace, the prince paused. Thibor, we'll have to see about this idea of yours - this eastward invasion, for that's what it would be - for I'm not sure we're ready for that. It's been tried before, you know.' He nodded bitterly. 'The Grand Prince himself tried it. First he tackled the Khazars - Svyatoslav ground them down and the Byzantines swept up their pieces -and then he had a go at Bulgaria and Macedonia. And while he was at it the nomads laid siege to Kiev itself! And did he pay for his zeal? Aye, however many sagas are written about him. Nomads sank him in the river rapids and made his skull into a drinking cup! He was hasty, you see? Oh, he got rid of the Khazars, all right, but only to let in the damned Pechenegi! And shall I be hasty too?'

The Wallach stood silent for a moment in the dusk. 'You'll send me back to the southern steppe, then?'

'I might, and I might not. I might stand you down from the fighting entirely, make you a Boyar, give you land and men to look after it for you. There's a lot of good land here, Thibor.'

Thibor shook his head. 'Then I'd prefer to return to Wallachia. I'm no farmer, Prince. I tried that and the Pechenegi came and made a warrior of me. Since then -all my dreams have been red ones. Dreams of blood. The blood of my enemies, the enemies of this land.'

'And what of my enemies?'

'They are the same. Only show them to me.'

'Very well,' said the Vlad, I'll show you one of them, Do you know the mountains to the west, which divide us from the Hungarians?'

'My fathers were Ungars,' said Thibor. 'As for the mountains: I was born under them. Not in the west but in the south, in the land of the Wallachs, beyond the bend in the mountains.'

The prince nodded. 'So you have some experience of mountains and their treachery. Good. But on my side of those peaks, beyond Galich, in that area called the Khorvaty after a certain people, there lives a Boyar who is ... not my friend. I claim him as one who owes allegiance to me, but when I called in all my little princelings and Boyars he came not. When I invite him to Kiev he answers not. When I express a desire to meet with him he ignores me. If he is not my friend then he can only be my enemy. He is a dog that comes not to heel. A wild dog, and his home is a mountain fastness. Until now I've had neither the time, the inclination, nor the power to winkle him out, but - '

'What?' Thibor was astonished, his gasp cutting the Vlad short. 'I'm sorry, my Prince, but you - no power?'

Vladimir Svyatoslavich shook his head. 'You don't understand,' he said. 'Of course I have power. Kiev has power. But all so extended as to be almost expended! Should I recall an army to deal with one unruly princeling? And in so doing let the Pechenegi come up again? Should I form up an army from farmers and officials and peasants, all unskilled in battle? And if I did, what then? An army could not bring this Ferenczy out of his castle if he did not wish to leave it. Even an army could not destroy him, his defences are so strong! What? They are the mountain passes themselves, the gorges, the avalanches! With a handful of fierce, faithful retainers, he could hold back any army I muster almost indefinitely. Oh, if I had two thousand men to spare, then I might possibly starve him with a siege, but at what expense? On the other hand, what an army cannot achieve might just be possible - for one brave and clever and loyal man...'

'Are you saying you want this Ferenczy taken from his castle and brought to you in Kiev?'

'Too late for that, Thibor. He has shown how he "respects" me. How then should I respect him? No, I want him dead! His lands then fall to me, his castle on the heights, his household and serfs. And his death will be an example to others who might think to stand apart.'

Then you don't want his thumbs but his head!' Thibor's chuckle was throaty, without humour.

'I want his head, his heart, and his standard. And I want to burn all three on a bonfire right here in Kiev!'

'His standard? He has a symbol, then, this Ferenczy? Might I enquire the nature of this blazon?'

'By all means,' said the prince, his grey eyes suddenly thoughtful. He lowered his voice, cast about in the dusk for a moment, as if to be doubly sure that no one heard. 'His mark is the horned head of a devil, with a forked tongue that drips gouts of blood...'

Blood!

Gouts of blood soaking into the black earth. The sun had touched the horizon and was burning red there like... like a great gout of blood. Soon the earth would swallow it up. The old Thing in the ground trembled again; its husk of leather and bone slowly cracked open like a desiccated sponge to receive the earth's tribute, the blood that soaked through leaf-mould and roots and black, centuried soil down to where the thousand-year-old Thibor-creature lay in his shallow grave.

Subconsciously Thibor sensed the seeping blood and knew, in the way all dreamers 'know', that it was only part of the dream. It would be a different matter when the sun had set and the seepage actually touched him, but for now he ignored it, returned to that time at the turn of the tenth century when he'd been merely human and had gone up into the Khorvaty on a mission of murder...

They had travelled as trappers, Thibor and his seven, as Wallachians who followed the Carpathian curve on a trek designed to get them deep into the northern forests by the onset of winter. In fact they had simply come from Kiev through Kolomyya and so to the mountains, but they'd taken all the paraphernalia of the trapper with them, to substantiate their story. It had taken them three weeks of steady riding to reach the place in the very lee of the sheer mountains, (a 'village', consisting of a handful of stone houses built into the hillside, half-a-dozen semi-permanent cabins, and a smattering of gypsy tents of cured skins with the fur inside) which the current incumbents called Moupho Aide Ferenc Yaborov, a mouthful they invariably shortened to Ferenc, which they made to sound like 'Ferengi'. It meant 'Place of the Old One', or 'of the Old Ferengi', and the gypsies spoke of it in lowered tones and with a deal of respect.

There were maybe a hundred men there, some thirty women and as many children. Half of the men were trappers passing through, or prospective settlers uprooted by Pechenegi raids, on their way to find homes further north. Many of the latter group had their families with them. The remainder were either peasant inhabitants of Ferengi Yaborov, or gypsies come here to winter it out. They'd been coming since time immemorial, apparently, for 'the old devil' who was Boyar here was good to them and turned none away. Indeed, in times of hardship he'd even been known to supply his wandering occasional tenants with food from his own larder and wine from his cellars.

Thibor, asking about food and drink for himself and the others, was shown a house of timbers set in a stand of pines. It was an inn of sorts, with tiny rooms up in the rafters which could only be reached by rope ladders; the ladders were drawn up when the boarder wished to sleep. Down below there were wooden tables and stools, and at one end of the large room a bar stocked with small kegs of plum brandy and buckets of sweet ale. One wall was built half of stone, where burned a fire in the base of a huge chimney. On the fire was an iron pot of goulash giving out a heavy paprika reek. Onions dangled in bunches from nails in the wall close to the fire; likewise huge coarse-skinned sausages; black bread stood in loaves on the tables, baked in a stone oven to one side of the fire.

A man, his wife and one scruffy son ran the place; gypsies, Thibor guessed, who'd chosen to settle here. They could have done better, he thought, feeling cold in the shadows of the looming rocks, the mountains whose presence could be felt even indoors. It was a gloomy place this, frowning and foreboding.

The Wallach had told his men to speak to no one, but as they put away their gear, ate and drank, spoke in muffled tones to each other, he himself shared a jug of brandy with his host. 'Who are you?' that gnarled old man asked him.

'Do you ask what I have been and where I have been?' Thibor answered. 'That's easier to tell than who I am.'

'Tell it then, if you feel like talking.'

Thibor smiled and sipped brandy. 'I was a young boy under the Carpatii. My father was an Ungar who wandered into the borders of the southern steppe to farm - him and his brothers and kin and their families. I'll be brief: came the Pechenegi, all was uprooted, our settlement destroyed. Since then I've wandered, fought the barbarian for payment and what little I could find on his body, done what I could where and whenever. Now I'll be a trapper. I've seen the mountains, the steppe, the forests. Farming's a hard life and blood-letting makes a man bitter. But in the towns and cities there's money to be had from furs. You've roamed a bit yourself, I'll vow?'

'Here and there,' the other shrugged, nodded. He was swarthy as smoke-grimed leather, wrinkled as a walnut from extremes of weather, lean as a wolf. Not young by any standards, still his hair was shiny black, his eyes too, and he seemed to have all of his teeth. But he moved his limbs carefully and his hands were very crooked. 'I'd be doing it still if my bones hadn't started to seize up. We had a cart of two wheels wrapped in leather, which we'd break down and carry when the way was rough. Upon the cart we took our house and goods along with us: a big tent with rooms, and cooking pots, and tools. We were -we are - Szgany, gypsies, and became Szgany Ferengi when I built this place here.' He craned his neck and looked up, wide-eyed, at one interior wall of the house. It was a look half respectful, half fearful. There was no window but the Wallach knew that the old man stared up at the mountain peaks.

'Szgany Ferengi?' Thibor repeated. 'You ally yourself to the Boyar Ferenczy in his castle, then?'

The old gypsy lowered his eyes from the unseen heights, drew back a little, took on a suspicious look. Thibor quickly poured him more of his own brandy. The other remained silent and the Wallach shrugged. 'No matter, it's just that I've heard good things of him,' he lied. 'My father knew him, once...'

'Indeed!' the old man's eyes widened.

Thibor nodded. 'One cold winter, the Ferenczy gave him shelter in his castle. My father told me, if ever I passed this way, I should go up and remind the Boyar of that time, and thank him on behalf of my father.'

The old man stared at Thibor for long moments. 'So, you've heard good things of our master, have you? From your father, eh? And you were born under the mountains...'

'Is something strange?' Thibor raised a dark eyebrow.

The other looked him up and down. 'You're a big man,' he said, grudgingly, 'and strong, I can tell. Also, you look fierce. A Wallach, eh, whose fathers were Ungars? Well, perhaps you are, perhaps you are.'

'Perhaps I am what?'

'It's said,' the gypsy whispered, drawing closer, 'that the old Ferengi's true sons always come home to roost. In the end they come here, seek him out - seek out their father! Would you climb up to see him?'

Thibor put on a look of indecision. He shrugged. 'I might, if I knew the way. But these cliffs and passes are treacherous.'

'I know the way.'

'You've been there?' Thibor tried not to seem too eager.

The old man nodded. 'Oh, yes, and I could take you. But would you go alone? The Ferengi's not one for too many visitors.'

Thibor appeared to give it some little thought. 'I'd want to take two of my friends, at least. In case the way gets rough.'

'Huh! If these old bones can make it, surely yours can! Just two of them?'

'For assistance in the steep places.'

Thibor's host pursed his lips. 'It would cost you a little something. My time and...'

That's understood,' the Wallach stopped him.

The gypsy scratched his ear. 'What do you know of the old Ferengi? What have you heard of him?'

Thibor saw a chance for knowledge. Getting information out of people such as these was like drawing the teeth of a bear! 'I've heard he has a great company of men garrisoned with him, and that his castle is a fastness impenetrable. Because of this he swears no fealty, pays no taxes on his lands, for none may collect it.'

'Hah! The old gypsy laughed out loud, thumped the bar, poured more brandy. 'A company of men? Retainers?

Serfs? He has none! A woman or two, perhaps, but no men. Only the wolves guard those passes. As for his castle: it hugs the cliff. One way in - for mere men - and the same way out. Unless some unwary fool leans too far from a window...'

As he paused his eyes because suspicious again. 'And did your father tell you that the Ferengi had men?'

Thibor's father had told him nothing, of course. Nor had the Vlad, for that matter. What little he knew was superstitious twaddle he'd had from a fellow at court, a foolish man who didn't much care for the prince and who in turn was little cared for. Thibor had no time for ghosts: he knew how many men he'd killed, and not a man of them had come back to haunt him.

He decided to take a chance. He'd already learned much of what he wanted to know. 'My father said only that the way was steep, and that when he was there, many men were camped in and about the castle.'

The old man stared at him, slowly nodded. 'It could be, it could be. The Szgany have often wintered with him.' He came to a decision. 'Very well, I will take you up - if he will see you.' He laughed at Thibor's raised eyebrows, led him out of the house into the quiet of the afternoon. On their way the gypsy took a huge bronze frying pan from its peg.

A weak sun was poised, preparing itself for setting over the grey peaks. The mountains brought an early twilight here, where already the birds were singing their evening songs. 'We are in time,' the old man nodded. 'And now we must hope that we are seen.'

He pointed steeply upwards at the looming mountains, to where a high, jagged black crest etched itself against the grey of the ultimate peaks. 'You see there, where the darkness is deepest?'

Thibor nodded.

That's the castle. Now watch.' He polished the bottom of the pan on his sleeve, then turned it towards the sun. Catching the weak rays, he threw them back into the mountains and traced a line of gold up the crags. Fainter and fainter the disc of light flickered with distance, jumping from scree to flat rock face, from fangs to fir clump, from trees back to crumbling shale as it climbed ever higher. And finally it seemed to Thibor that the ray was answered; for when at last the gypsy held the pan stiffly in his gnarled hands, suddenly that dark, angular outcrop he'd pointed out seemed to burst into golden fire! The lance of light was so sudden, so blinding, that the Wallach threw up his hands before his eyes and peered through the bars of his fingers.

'Is that him?' he gasped. 'Is it the Boyar himself who answers?'

'The old Ferengi?' The gypsy laughed uproariously. Carefully he propped up the pan on a flat rock, and still the beam of light glanced down from on high. 'No, not him. The sun's no friend of his. Nor any mirror, for that matter!' He laughed again, and then explained. 'It's a mirror, burnished bright, one of several which sit above the rear wall of the keep where it meets the cliff. Now, if our signal is seen, someone will cover the mirror - which merely shoots back our beam - and the light will be snuffed out. Not gradually, as by the sun's slow descent, but all at once - like that!'

Like a candle snuffed, the beam blinked out, leaving Thibor almost staggering in what seemed a preternatural gloom. He steadied himself. 'So, it would seem you've established contact,' he said. 'Plainly the Boyar has seen that you have something to convey, but how will he know what it is?'

'He will know,' said the gypsy. He grasped Thibor's arm, stared up into the high passes. A glaze came suddenly over the old man's eyes and he swayed. Thibor held him up. And:

'There, now he knows,' the old man whispered. The film went from his wide eyes.

'What?' Thibor was puzzled; he felt troubled. The Szgany were queer folk with little-understood powers. 'What do you mean when you say - '

'And now he will answer "yes" - or "no",' the gypsy cut him off. Even as he finished speaking there came a single, searing beam of light from the high castle, which in the next moment died away.

'Ah!' the old gypsy sighed. 'And his answer is "yes", he will see you.'

'When?' Thibor accepted the strangeness of it, fought down the eagerness in his voice.

'Now. We set off at once. The mountains are dangerous at night, but he'll have it no other way. Are you still game?'

'I'll not disappoint him, now that he's invited me,' said Thibor.

'Very well. But wrap yourself well, Wallach. It gets cold up there.' The old man fixed him with a brief, bright, penetrating stare. 'Aye, cold as death...'

Thibor chose a pair of burly Wallachs to accompany him. Most of his men were out of his old homeland, but he'd personally stood alongside these two in his war with the Pechenegi, and he knew they were fierce fighters. He wanted real men at his back when he went up against this Ferenczy. And it could well be that he'd need them. Arvos, the old gypsy, had said the Boyar had no retainers; who, then, had answered the mirror signal? No, Thibor couldn't see a rich man living up there all alone with a mere woman or two, fetching and carrying for himself. Old Arvos lied.

In the event that there was only a handful of men up in the mountains with their master... But it was no good speculating, Thibor would have to wait and see what were the odds. If there were many men, however, then he would say that he came as an envoy of Vladimir, to invite the Boyar to the palace in Kiev. It would be in connection with the war against the Pechenegi. Either way, his course was now set: he had a mountain to climb, and at the top a man to kill, depending on conditions.

In those days Thibor had been in a way naive; it had not once crossed his mind that the Vlad had sent him on a suicide mission, from which he was not expected to return to Kiev.

As for the climb: at first the going had been easy, and this despite the fact that the way was unmarked. The track (there was no real track, merely a route which the old gypsy knew by heart) climbed a saddle between foothills to the base of an unscalable cliff, then followed a rising apron of sliding scree to a wide crevice or chimney in the cliff, which elevated steeply through a fissure on to a false plateau beneath a second line of even steeper hills. These hills were wild and wooded, their trees massive and ancient, but by now Thibor had seen that indeed there was a path of sorts. It was as if some giant had taken a scythe and cut a straight line through the trees; their wood had doubtless provided much of the village's timber, and perhaps some of it had been hauled up into the mountains for use in the construction of the castle. That might possibly have been hundreds of years ago, and yet no new trees had grown up to bar the way. Or if they had, then someone had uprooted them to keep the path free.

Whichever, the climb along the track through the rising woods was fairly easy going, and as twilight grew towards night a full moon rose to lend the way its silvery light. Spying their breath for the climbing, the three men and heir guide spoke not at all and Thibor was able to turn his mind to what little he'd heard of the Boyar Ferenczy from his foppish court contact.

The Greeks fear him more than Vladimir does,' that loose-tongue had informed. 'In Greek-land they've long sought all such out and put them down. They call such as the Ferenczy "vrykolax", which is the same as the Bulgar-ian "obour" or "mouphour" - or "wampir"!'

'I've heard of the wampir,' Thibor had answered. They have the same myth, and the same name for it, in my old country. A peasant supersition. And I'll tell you some-thing: the men I've killed rot in their graves, if indeed they have graves. They certainly don't bloat there! Or if they do it's from rotten gasses, not the blood of the living!'

'Nevertheless this Ferenczy is said to be just such a creature,' Thibor's informant had insisted. 'I've heard the Greek priests talking: saying how there's no room in any Christian land for such as that. In Greek-land they put stakes through their hearts and cut off their heads. Or better still, they break them up entirely and burn all the pieces. They believe that even a small part of a wampir can grown whole again in the body of an unwary man. The thing is like a leech, but on the inside! Hence the saying that a wampir has two hearts and two souls - and that the creature may not die until both facets are destroyed.'

Thibor had smiled, humourlessly, scornfully. He'd thanked the man, saying, 'Well, wizard or witch or whatever, he's lived long enough. Vladimir the Prince wants this Ferenczy dead, and I've been given the job.'

'Lived long enough!' the other had repeated, throwing up his hands. 'Aye, and you don't know how true that is. Why, there's been a Ferenczy up in those mountains as long as men remember. And the legends have it that it's the same Ferenczy! Now you tell me, Wallach, what sort of man is it who watches years pass like hours, eh?'

Thibor had laughed at that, too; but now, thinking back on it - several things connected, it seemed.

The 'Moupho' in the name of the village, for instance -which sounded a lot like 'mouphour', or wampir. 'Village of the Old Ferenczy Vampire'? And what was it Arvos the Szgany had said? 'The sun's no friend of his. Nor any mirror, for that matter!' Weren't vampires things of the night; afraid of mirrors because they showed no reflection, or perhaps a reflection more nearly the reality? Then the Wallach gave a snort of derision at his own imaginings. It was this old place, that was all, working on his imagina-tion. These centuried woods and ageless mountains...

At which point his party came out of the trees and on to the crest of domed hills where the soil was thin as a whisper and only the lichens grew; beyond which, in a shallow depression, a jumbled plain of stony rubble and brittle scree reached perhaps half a mile to the inky shadows of dark cliffs. To the north it reached up high, that black boundary, forming horns; and to these horns in the light of the moon, old Arvos now pointed a crooked finger.

There!' He chuckled as at some joke. There broods the house of the old Ferengi.'

Thibor looked - and sure enough he saw distant win-dows lit like eyes in the darkness under the horns. And it was for all the world as if some monstrous bat squatted there in the heights, or maybe the lord of all great wolves.

'Like eyes in a face of stone,' growled one of Thibor's Wallachs, a man all chest and arms, with short stumpy legs.

'And not the only eyes watching us!' whispered the other, a thin, hunched man who always went with his head aggressively forward.

'What's that you say?' Thibor was at once alert, casting about in the darkness. Then he saw the feral, triangular eyes, like blobs of gold, seeming to hang suspended in the darkness at the edge of the woods. Five pairs of eyes: wolves' eyes, surely?

'Ho!' Thibor shouted. He unsheathed his sword, stepped forward. 'Away, dogs of the woods! We've nothing for you.'

The eyes blinked sporadically in pairs, drew back, scattered. Four lean, grey shapes loped off, flowing under the moon like liquid, lost in the jumble of boulders on the plain of scree. But the fifth pair of eyes remained, seemed to gain height, floated forward out of the darkness without hesitation.

A man stepped from the shadows, as tall as, if not taller than, Thibor himself.

Arvos the gypsy staggered, seemed about to faint. The moon showed his face a ghastly, silvery-grey. The stranger reached out a hand and gripped his shoulder, stared deep into his eyes. And slowly the old man straightened up and the trembling went out of him.

In the manner of the warrior born, Thibor had placed himself in striking distance. His sword was still in his hand, but the stranger was only one man. Thibor's men -astounded at first, perhaps even a little afraid - were on the point of drawing their own weapons but he stopped them with a word, sheathed his sword. If anything, this was a simple show of defiance, a gesture which in one move showed his strength and possibly his contempt. Certainly it showed his fearlessness. 'Who are you?' he said. 'You come like a wolf in the night.'

The newcomer was slender, almost fragile-seeming. He was dressed all in black, with a heavy black cape draped about his shoulders and falling to below his knees. There could be weapons concealed under the cape, but he kept his hands in view, resting them on his thighs. He now ignored old Arvos, looked at the three Wallachs. His dark eyes merely fell upon Thibor's henchmen and moved on, but they rested on Thibor himself for long moments before he answered: 'I am from the house of the Ferenczy. My master sent me out to see what manner of men would visit him this night.' He smiled a thin smile. His voice had a soothing effect on the Voevod; strangely, his unblinking eyes also, which now reflected moonlight. Thibor found himself wishing there was more natural light. There was that about the features of this one which repulsed him. He felt that he gazed upon a misshapen skull, and wondered that this didn't disturb him more. But he was held as by some mysterious attraction, like a moth to the devouring flame. Yes, attracted and repulsed at one and the same time.

As that idea dawned - that he was falling under some strange malaise or enticement - he drew himself more upright, forced himself to speak. 'You may tell your master I'm a Wallach. Also that I come to speak of important things, of summonses and responsibilities.'

The man in the cape drew closer and the moon shone fully in his face. It was a man's face after all and not a skull, but there was that which was wolfish about it, an almost freakish longness of jaws and ears. 'My master supposed it might be so,' he said, a certain hard edge creeping into his voice. 'But no matter - what will be will be, and you are but a messenger. Before you pass this point, however, which is a boundary, my master must be sure that you come of your own free will.'

Thibor had regained his self-control. 'No one dragged me up here,' he snorted.

'But you were sent...?'

'A strong man may only be "sent" where he wishes to go,' the Wallach answered.

'And your men?'

'We're with Thibor,' said the hunched one. 'Where he ventures, we venture - willingly!'

'Even to see one who sends out wolves to do his bidding,' Thibor's second companion, the apish one, added.

'Wolves?' The stranger frowned and cocked his head on one side quizzically. He glanced sharply all about, then smiled his amusement. 'My master's dogs, you mean?'

'Dogs?' Thibor was certain he'd seen wolves. Now, however, the idea seemed ridiculous.

'Aye, dogs. They came out to walk with me, for it's a fine night. But they're not used to strangers. See, they've run off home.'

Thibor nodded, and eventually he said: 'So, you've come to meet us half-way, then. To walk with us and show us the way.'

'Not I,' the other shook his head. 'Arvos can do that well enough. I came only to greet you and to count your numbers - also to ensure that your presence here was not forced. Which is to say, that you came of your own free mind and will.'

'I say again,' Thibor growled, 'who could force me?'

'There are pressures and there are pressures,' the other shrugged. 'But I see you are your own man.'

'You mentioned our numbers.'

The man in the cape raised his eyebrows. They peaked like gables. 'For your accommodation,' he answered. 'What else?' And before Thibor could reply: 'Now I must go on ahead - to make preparation.'

'I'd hate to crowd your master's house,' said Thibor quickly. 'Bad enough to be an unexpected guest, but worse far if others are obliged to vacate their rightful positions to make room for me.'

'Oh, there's room enough,' the other answered. 'And

you were not entirely unexpected. As for putting others out: my master's house is a castle, but it shelters fewer human souls than you have here.' It was as if he'd read Thibor's mind and answered the question he'd found there.

Now he inclined his head towards the old Szgany. 'Be warned, however, that the path along the cliff is loose and the way a little perilous. Be on your guard for rock falls!' And once more to Thibor he said, 'Until later, then.'

They watched him turn and make off after his master's 'dogs' across the narrow, jumbled, boulder-strewn plain.

When he'd gone into the shadows, Thibor grabbed Arvos by the neck. 'No retainers?' he hissed into the old gypsy's face. 'No servants? What, and are you a simple liar or a very great liar? The Ferenczy could harbour an army up there!'

Arvos tried to snatch himself back and found the Wallach's grip like iron on his throat. 'A ... a manservant or two,' he choked. 'How was... was I to know? It's been many a year...' Thibor released him, thrust him away.

'Old man,' he warned, 'if you'd see another day, just be sure you guide us carefully along this perilous cliff path.' And so they had crossed the stony depression to the cliff, and started up the narrow way carved in its sheer face...