'Calm down,' Harry told him at once, 'and speak English. Forget that the people holding you are dead. Just think of them as my friends, who'll do anyt hing they have to in order to protect me.'

'G.o.d - I can smell them!' Eugen wailed, and Harry suspected that he wasn 't getting through to him. He hardened.

'Look, you were going to hand me over to the KGB -who in turn would ha ve tortured me for things they want to know, then killed me! So why should I go easy on you? Now you can get a grip on yourself and start answering my questions, or I give up on you, get out of it and leave you here with t hem.'

Eugen struggled a little, then sat very still as the movements he'd made s tirred up fresh waves of tomb-stink. He could feel dead, rubbery fingers holdi ng his arms. His eyes were still tightly closed. 'Just tell me one thing,' he said. 'Am I mad? G.o.d - I can't breathe.'

'That's another thing,' Harry told him. 'The longer you're here, with my friends, the more chances you're taking with your health. Diseases proliferat e in the dead, Eugen. You're not only smelling them but you're breathing them , too!'

Eugen's head lolled and Harry thought he was about to pa.s.s out. The Nec roscope slapped him, twice, hard, front-and back-handed. The agent's eyes s napped open, glared, then swivelled left and right as his situation re-impr essed itself upon his mind and his momentary rage shrank down again.

The Zaharias held him. They were kneeling inside their exposed tomb, re aching out of it to pinion his arms and hold him down where he was seated w ith his back to their sarcophagus. And they 'looked' at him with their glaz ed, dead fish eyes. The Romanian agent at once turned his gaze away from th em, looked straight ahead, at Harry.

The Necroscope was down on one knee in front of Eugen, staring hard at him, and behind Keogh other dead - things - formed a half-circle amidst t he rank gra.s.ses, brambles and tombstones. Some of these were mummied fragm ents, sere and shrivelled, dry as paper. But others were . . . wet. And al l of them moved, trembled, threatened, however mutely. The friends of Harr y Keogh. A group of them were gathered about the p.r.o.ne form of Corneliu, w ho had fainted from a combination of shock and the agony of his broken wri st.

All of this Eugen took in. And at last the trapped, terrified agent asked: '

Are they going to kill me?' 'Not if you tell me what I have to know.'

'Then ask it.'

'First you can get these off me,' said Harry, and he held out his hands with Eugen's handcuffs still in place. 'The dead are great at taking hold an d refusing to let go, but not much for fumbling about with things. They're n ot as nimble as the living.' Eugen stared at him and wondered who was the mo re frightening, the dead or Harry Keogh. The Necroscope was so matter-of-fac t about things.

Ion Zaharia reluctantly released Eugen's hand so that he could get the ke y out of his pocket. But Alexandru, Ion's brother, was taking no chances; he gripped the agent's neck in his elbow and clung that much tighter. Finally Ha rry was free of the cuffs, and rubbing his wrists he stood up.

'You're not leaving me here?' Eugen's face was white, with eyes like hol es punched in papier-mache.

Harry shrugged. "That's up to you. First answer my questions, and then we 'll see what's to be done with you and your unpleasant little friend here.' H e crossed to Corneliu and recovered his air ticket, cigarettes and matches, t hen came back, kneeled down again and took back his pa.s.sport from Eugen. 'And the first thing I want to know,' he said, 'is will I still be able to use th is? Or will there be people looking for me at the airport? What I'm saying is : were you two alone on this, or do others of the Securitatea work for the KG B?'.

'They might do, I don't know,' Eugen answered. 'But we were on our own on this one. They got in touch with us - a telephone call, it's easy - and told us what plane you'd be on from Athens. We were to pick you up, hold yo u until someone came to collect you. There's a flight due in from Moscow at 1:00 p.m.'

'So ... I should be able to go on back into Bucharest and simply board my plane?'

Eugen looked surly, said nothing - until Ion pushed his hideous face ver y close and held up a warning finger. And: 'Yes! For G.o.d's sake!' Eugen gasped.

'G.o.d?' said Harry, reaching into the agent's pocket for the keys to his car. Harry wasn't sure he still believed in G.o.d, and he certainly couldn't u nderstand why the dead should, not in the 'heaven' which they had been grant ed. But they did, as he'd discovered in several conversations. G.o.d was hope, he supposed. But while Harry wouldn't personally describe as a blasphemy th e mere fact of the Deity's spoken Name, still it set his teeth on edge heari ng it as an exclamation from one such as Eugen. 'And you know all about Him, do you?'

'What?' said the other, as Harry stood up again. 'About who?' It was as Harry had expected: Eugen knew nothing about Him. 'Well, I'm going now,' said Harry, 'but I'm afraid you're staying right h ere. You and Corneliu. Because I know I can't let you walk, not just yet, any way. So you'll remain the honoured guests of my friends until I'm well out of it. But once I'm safely airborne, then I'll let these people know they can r elease you - and themselves.'

'You'll ... let them know?' Eugen had started shuddering and couldn't contro l it. 'How will you let - ?'

'I'll shout,' said Harry, with a mirthless grin. 'Don't worry, they'll hear me.'

But what if he starts shouting first? Ion Zaharia asked as Harry walked ou t of the graveyard.

Then stop him, Harry answered. And: But try not to kill them. Life's pre cious, as you know well enough. So let them live what they have left. And an yway, they're not worthy to be in here with such as you . . .

Harry drove very carefully back to Bucharest, parked the car in the airpo rt car park and locked it, and pressed the keys into the soil of a large flow erpot in the booking lounge. Then, just five minutes past his actual reportin g time, he handed in his ticket and luggage. It was the same as when he'd com e in: no one looked at him twice.

The Olympia Airlines plane took off just eleven minutes late, at 12:56.

As it turned its nose south for Bulgaria and the Aegean, Harry was rewarded by the sight of an Aeroflot jet going in for a landing. There would be a bri ght-eyed couple of lads on board just dying to get their hands on him. Well, so let them die.

Forty minutes later, with the Aegean just swimming up into view through the circular windows, Harry reached out with his deadspeak to the cemetery outside Ploiesti. How are things?

All's well, Harry. No one's been in here, and these two haven't been a pr oblem. The big one did faint, eventually. His small friend came to, took one look, and pa.s.sed out again!

Harry said: Ion, Alexandru, all of you -1 don't have the words to thank yo u.

You don't need any. Can we just leave these two where they are now, and .

. . dig ourselves in again?

Harry's nod was reflex as he reclined his seat and lay back a little. The dead in the Romanian graveyard picked it up anyway, and began to disperse ba ck to their resting places. Thanks again, Harry told them, withdrawing his th oughts and allowing himself some small relaxation for the first time in ... w ell, in a day at least.

Don't mention it, was their response.

Harry tried to get Faethor. If he could contact the others as easily as that, communication with the long-dead father of vampires should be no problem. After a few seconds of concentration, he got through.

Harry? I see you are safe. Ah, but you're the resourceful one, Harry Keog h!

You knew I was in trouble?

(Faethor's mental shrug). As I've told you before: I sometimes overhear things. Did you want something?

It seemed to me we might save ourselves some time, Harry answered. / hav e nothing to do right now, and in a little while my head will be full of the clutter of friends and the atmosphere of a friendly place - not that I'm co mplaining! So I thought maybe now would be a good time for you to tell me th e rest of Janos's story.

There's not much more to tell. But if you wish it. . . ?

I wish it.

And: Very well, my son, Faethor sighed. So be it.

As has been told, I was away for three hundred years. Three centuries of blood! The Great Crusade was only the start of it; later I served Genghis K han, and then his grandson Batu. In 1240 I a.s.sisted and delighted in the tak ing of Kiev, and in burning it to ashes. Eventually it was time for me to 'd ie' . . . and return as Fereng the Black, son of the Fereng! Then, under Hul egu in 1258, I helped bring down Baghdad. Ah, such years of bloodshed, pilla ge and rape!

But the Mongols were on the wane, and by the turn of the century I had forsaken them in order to fight for Islam. Oh, yes, I was an Ottoman! Me, a Turk, a Moslem ghazi! Ah, what it is to be a mercenary, eh? And with the T urks, for one and a half centuries more, I revelled in blood and death and the sheer glut of war! In the end, however, I had lived with them too long and so was obliged to desert their cause. Ah, well, and it was crumbling an yway.

And so finally I returned and put Thibor down (as has also been told), then took me off into the unchanged and unchanging mountains to seek out Janos and see how well he had kept house for me.

In the interim, however, I had kept my ears open. Wamphyri ears are deli cate instruments, be sure, and miss very little. Aye, and they had always be en alert for news of my sons, Thibor and Janos. Well, of the former we know.

And of the latter?

Where Thibor had been greedy for blood, Janos had been simply greedy. I n my time abroad he had had many interests, but mainly he'd been a thief, a pirate, a corsair. Does it surprise you? It should not: for the Barbary pi rates had their origin in petty princelings who rose up during the Christia n-Moslem conflicts of the Crusades. That then had been Janos's chiefest bus iness during the time of my absence: a grand thief on the broad bosom of th e Mediterranean, to loot them who had looted others! And now he's a sailor again, eh? Well, and why not? Oh, he knows the se a well enough, that one, who now for a profession brings up treasure from t he ocean and digs for it in the islands around. Hah! And who, pray, would k now better where to find it - since he was the one who laid it down, more t han five hundred years ago! And what was that all about, you may wonder, th at great squirreling for nuts, as if some fearsome winter were about to des cend? But it was, it was! Aye, just such a winter: for Janos had worked har d at his art to look well into the future, and had not liked what he saw there.

For one thing, he had doubtless seen my return, and he did not need to look to know how I would deal with him! And so he had made provision for an other time, far beyond the hour of my revenge. This present time, of course , when he is up again and about in the world of men.

But (you may ask) my revenge for what? The loss of Marilena was three t o four hundred years in my wake, and I could have killed him then for that; so what now? I will tell you: First, for his desertion from my cause. To go a-pirating he must first v acate my house. Second, for his treatment of my Szgany. For in the early yea rs of my absence he had kicked out the Szgany Ferengi and reinstated the fil thy Zirra, whom I had cursed! Third and last, but not least, for the way in which he greeted me, when at last I was returned.

On my way I had gathered faithful Gypsies to me, who had remembered me through all the years of my exile. Not the originals, no, for they were dus t, but the sons of their sons. Ah, they remember legends, the Szgany! But w hen I went up to my castle I went alone, by night, for a task force would b e too obvious and could only appear threatening.

Alas, when I was come there I saw the place a ruin. Well, perhaps not qu ite so bad, but near enough. The battlements were broken; earthworks without were untended; the repair in general was bad. Left to fend for itself throu gh much of my absence, the place had suffered. But Janos, done with pirating now and returned to other pursuits, was to house. And just as I had tried t o follow his career, so he had followed mine.

He knew I was coming; guards were out, with clear instructions; I was cha llenged, and upon identifying myself . . .

. . . Was set upon!

They had sharpened hardwood staves. They had crossbows with wooden bolt s. They carried the curved long knives of the Turks. Silver they had, too, on their weapons, and garlic in which to steep them! And each party of men, they had casks of oil, and torches with which to fire it! . . .To burn wha t? I ask you.

I fled them, up into the crags and for many a mile in the high places. I limped, scurried, cried out in some great pain, kept barely ahead of my pur suers. They knew I was injured and that they would have me. Janos sent out his entire household to hunt me down. But ... I merely lured them. What, Faet hor Ferenczy, with his tail between his legs, running from Zirra sc.u.m?

Aha! For while they were out chasing me, my own small but faithful Szga ny army were up and into my house, into all of its stations and down behind its earthworks! And high in the peaks I turned on my trackers, laughed and slew a few, then launched myself into the night and glided down to my cast le as of old. And there I discovered Janos trapped, and brought him to his knees.

The Zirras, when they came straggling home, were met by mine who slew t hem out of hand. Some escaped the slaughter and word went out; in a little while no more came; the survivors had fled into the night and the countrysi de around, to become travellers once more as of old ...

And it was then I discovered Janos's several subsidiary interests, with which he had occupied himself while I had been away. Then, too, I saw how severely I had underestimated him. My castle had been built upon the founda tions of another, earlier house, whose bas.e.m.e.nts Janos had uncovered. And h e had seen to it that these were extended, outwards into the roots of the c rags around, down into the rock of the mountain itself. To what end?

There lay the measure of my underestimation. Janos had told me he desir ed to be Wamphyri ... ah, but how he had desired it!

Now in those days necromancy was an art. Certain common men had discov ered the way of it; they practised it much as a vampire might, but without his natural instinct for it. Janos knew I was a crafty necromancer and wo uld emulate me, but I had declined to teach him my techniques. Wherefore h e had determined to discover methods of his own. Doubtless he'd consulted with many necromancers, to learn their ways.

The extensive cellars of the castle were mazy and secret, whose stairs and pa.s.sageways were known only to Janos and a handful of his men, all of whom were now either fled or dead. But I went down with him to see what h e had been about, and there discovered tomb-loot from all Wallachia and Tr ansylvania and the lands around. No, not treasure as such, but tomb-loot!

Do you know that in prehistory it was the way of men to burn their dead and bury their ashes in vases? Of course you do, for the habit has survive d. Why, there's as much burning as burying even to the present day! But the Thracians, they had entombed a great many of their dead in this fashion, a nd Janos had been busy digging them up again! And once more you will ask: t o what end?

To inquire of them their secrets! To fetch the dead to life and torment them for their histories! To invest their very ashes with flesh which he cou ld torture! For the Thracians were heavy in gold, and as I have said, Janos was greedy. Nothing is new, eh? An hundred, two hundred, even three hundred years later necromancers were still calling up spirits in order to discover their treasures. Your own Edward Kelly and John Dee were two such, but faker s both of them. I consulted with them in my time and know this for a fact.

As for Janos's method, it was simplicity in itself: First remove a burial urn to his castle vaults, where by use of those art s he had mastered its salts might be reconst.i.tuted; chain the poor wretch so obtained and torture him for knowledge of his kith and kin, the locations of their graves, etcetera, and their h.o.a.rds in turn. And so forth. In the pursui t of which policy, Janos had ama.s.sed a veritable graveyard of despoiled pots and urns and lekythoi, such as to fill several large rooms!

Intrigued, I demanded a demonstration of his art. (For you will unders tand, this was not necromancy as the Wamphyri might use it but something n ew - to me, anyway.) And Janos, knowing I had still to deal with him and s eeking to please me, proceeded. He tipped out salts upon the floor, and by use of strange words in an Invocation of Power - lo and behold - conjured from these cinders a Thracian woman of exceeding beauty! Her language was archaic in the extreme but not beyond understanding; certainly it was not beyond my understanding, for I was Wamphyri and expert in tongues. Moreov er, she knew she was dead and that this was a great blasphemy, and begged of Janos that he not use her again. From which I knew that this b.a.s.t.a.r.d so n of mine not only called up the dead into former semblance, but had more uses for some of them than simply to question them as to the whereabouts o f buried treasure.

How grand! My excitement was such that I had her before allowing him t o reduce her back to ashes!

'You must teach me this thing,' I told him. 'That is the least you can d o to atone for your many sins against me.' He agreed and showed me how to mi x certain chemicals and human salts together, then carefully inscribed two s ets of words upon a stretched skin. The first set, alongside an ascending ar row, thus, ,was the invocation as such, and the second, marked ? , was the devolution.

'Bravo!' I cried then, when I had the thing. 'I must put it to the test.'

'As you see,' he indicated all his many jars and urns, 'you have a wide choi ce.'

'Indeed I have,' I answered, gravely, and stroked my chin. And before h e knew what I was about, I drew out a wooden stake from beneath my cloak an d pinned him! This did not serve to kill him, no, for he had a vampire in h im; it merely immobilized him. Then I called down some trusted men of mine from the castle and burned Janos to ashes even while he frothed and moaned and eventually screamed a little. Aye, and when these ashes of his - these essential salts - were cool I had them sifted, applied his several chemical powders . . . and used his own magic to have him up again!

And did he scream then? You may believe he did! The heat of the fire, a mercifully short travail, had been nothing compared to the unendurable agony of the fact that he was now and eternally and utterly in my power! So I tho ught ...

But alas, his screaming was not borne of this knowledge but of a wrenchin g, a tearing, a division of being - which I shall explain in a moment.

But oh, to see those clouds of smoke puff up from his dry, dusty remains - a great upheaval of smoke and fumes - from which stumbled Janos, naked an d screaming. But ... a miracle! He was not alone. There with him, but entire ly apart, was his vampire: my spittle grown to a live thing, but a creature with little or nothing of its own intelligence.

It was leech, snail, serpent, a great blind slug, and all unused to going on its own. It, too, mewled, though I know not how. But I did know the answer to the riddle: in burning Janos I had burned two creatures, and raising him up again I had also revitalized two - but in their separate parts!

Then ... I had me a thought. I brought forward my cowering men and comm anded them that they take Janos and hold him down. 'And so you would be Wam phyri, eh?' I said, approaching him with my sword. 'And so you shall be. Th is creature here is a vampire but has very little of a brain. It shall have yours!' He screamed again, once, before I took his head. And splitting his skull, I took out from it his living, dripping brain.

You can guess the rest, I'm sure. Using Janos's own process and keeping his body apart, I devolved his head and vampire both into one heap of ashe s, which I placed in an urn among the others. And then I laughed and laughe d till I cried! For if by any fluke he should be brought back now, it would be as ... as what? A clever slug? An intelligent leech? Why, it would amus e me to call him up again and see!

But alas, that was not to be, for in the end he'd thwarted me. The skin upon which he'd written his runes had been resurrected skin, flayed from a victim. I had directed my runes of catabolism through the very skin from w hich I read them, and so when I'd sent Janos down the skin, too, had crumbl ed into dust! Well, the Words of Power were tricky and I had not learned th em except the single name of an ancient dark G.o.d of the outer spheres. Howe ver, I still had my b.a.s.t.a.r.d son's body.

So I burned that, too - aye, a second time - and sent pinches of it out to the four corners of the earth, and there dispersed them on the winds. That wa s the end of it. I had done with Janos. And now I have done with my story . .

12.

First and Second Blood

As Faethor finished, so there came a cabin announcement: the plane was now descending towards Athens. Harry said: Faethor, in another ten to fifteen minutes I'll be on the ground and into the bustle of the airport. I've noticed that you've been growing weaker - yo ur voice - and put it down to distance and the sun full on the ruins of your house. Soon I'll be on my way to Rhodes which is more distant yet. So this is probably my last chance to say a few things.

You have something to say? (Harry pictured Faethor raising an eyebrow.) First . . . I owe you my thanks, Harry told him, but second, I can't hel p but remind myself that without you in the first place none of this - Thibo r, Dragosani, Yulian Bodescu, and now Janos - would ever have happened. OK, so I'm in your debt, but at the same time I know you for the black-hearted t hing you have been, and for the monsters you've sp.a.w.ned in my world. And I'd be a liar if I didn't tell you that in my opinion you're the biggest monste r of them all!

I consider it a compliment, Faethor answered, without hesitation. Is ther e anything else you require to know?

A few things, yes, said Harry. If you destroyed Janos so utterly, how come he's back? I mean, what trick did he work - what dark magic did he le ave behind him - to bring him back into the world? And why did he wait so long? Why now?

Is it not obvious? Faethor sounded genuinely surprised by Harry's nai'v et6. He had seen the far future and laid his plans accordingly. He had know n / would put him down, that time when I returned to the mountains. Yes, an d he knew that if he came back in my time I would find a way to do it again ! And so he must wait until I was gone from the world. Time is but a small thing to the Wamphyri, Harry. As to how he worked this clever trick: It was those accursed Zirras! Aye, and I know it was them, for I've had i t from my own faithful few, who mutter in their graves much like other men. I 'll tell you how it was: Long after me and mine were gone from the castle on the heights, certain of Janos's own returned and placed his vampire ashes in a secret place whic h he'd prepared against just such an eventuality. For he'd learned other mag icks in my three hundred years' absence, of which this was one. He'd had Zir ra women in his time, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d of mine, and sown his seed far and wide.

The three-fingered son of a son of his would one day feel his allure and go up to the old castle in the mountains . . . but it would be Janos who came d own from it! So he planned it, and so it has come to pa.s.s . . .

And all the treasure he'd looted from ancient tombs, did you never find i t? Harry pressed. Didn't you search the place, your own castle?

I searched a little, Faethor answered. But have you not listened? The trea sure was elsewhere, buried again or sunken in the sea, until this later time w hen he could have it up.

Of course, Harry nodded, I'd forgotten.

As for searching the place in its entirety: no, I did not, not every hole the dog had digged. I no longer felt that it was mine but that he had fouled it. I could smell him, even taste him, everywhere. The castle had his mark o n it, where his despicable sigil was carved into the very stone: the red-eyed bat, rising from its urn. He had used the place and made it his own, and I w anted no more of it. Shortly, I moved on. As for my own history after that ti me, that does not concern you.

So the castle still stands, Harry mused in a little while. And in its ro ots . . . what? Does anything remain of Janos's 'tomb-loot', his experiments with necromancy? I wonder. For after all, it appears that's where he came f rom in this most recent resurgence . . . And Faethor knew that Harry was thi nking of another castle in the Carpathians, but on the Russian side, in a re gion once called the Khorvaty and still called by some Bukovina. For that ha d been Faethor's home, too, upon a time, and what had been done there and le ft there to scream and fester in the earth had been monstrous; so that Harry knew there was a grave peril in certain ruins.

I can understand your concern, the vampire told him, but I think it is u nfounded. For my place in the heights over old Halmagiu and Virfurilio is no more. It was swept away, all in a magnificent thunder, in the October of th e year 1928.

Yes, I remember that, Harry answered. / heard it from Ladislau Giresci.