Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 19

'-He will, in tile moment of my pa.s.sing.'

'You will... communicate?'

'He will know. We Drakuls are special that - ah! Ahhh! - that way.'

'Now the Ferenczys,' Radu growled. 'How many?"

Karl's eyes were starting out and grey sweat oozed on his face and bald head. 'I think I want to die now,' he said.

'I am in total agreement,' Radu answered. 'But I want to know how 186.many Ferenczys. Do you not want me to know? For after all, it was a Ferenczy did this to you. He could have finished it, but left you to fry in tomorrow's noon sun. And even these rocks would not have sheltered you then."

Three, that I k now of,' Karl coughed out the words. "Waldemar, Faethor's father, had two sons. The one is gone and only this b.a.s.t.a.r.d Faethor remains. But he, too, has two sons, called Thibor and Janos. Ask me no more. My time is come."

'What do you know about them, Faethor's sons?' "You are cruel. Hah! Ri diculous! Of course you are, as am I. We are Wamphyri! But still, in these circ.u.mstances, you are cruel.'

'No,' Radu denied it. 'They were cruel - the Ferenczys - to me and mine, and now to you. Now tell me what I would know, and all of this is at an end.'

'You - ahhh-h-h! - you must know that you are d.a.m.ned?' "Yes, but you first. And your brother, and most of all the Ferenczys. Now tell me.'

Thibor is Faethor's egg-son. A fierce Wallach even before Faethor took him, he's now a Voevod for the Wallachian and Russian princes. Janos is Faethor's Szgany bloodson. He has been a corsair ever since the Great Crusade. As for - oh! A-ah-ohhh! Faethor himself: he is in thick with the Mongols. Look for him there.' There?'

'Wherever they are. It is all I know. But whatever you do - ah! ArAA.'-killhimforme!'

'No,' Radu shook his wolfish head. 'For myself." He stood up. 'Now hold still.' He stepped astride Karl and stood on his hands, then signalled to his lieutenants, one of which carried a curved Saracen sword. His other man lay on Karl's lower body to hold it in place, while the one with the sword raised it on high. It was all very quick. And: 'Ooohhhaaarrr... r Karl's great cry commenced, but got no further. His head flew free. Then- -His lower trunk burst open and the man who lay on him was tossed aside! The dog-Lord jumped nimbly clear of the confusion, and the lieutenant with the bloodied sword backed off. But before matters could further deteriorate, Radu got down on one knee and struck sparks to silk. All went up in flames.

His men piled dead branches, but from a distance, because Karl's uproar was monstrous. Mindless leprous tentacles lashed the night as at first his metamorphic flesh refused to succ.u.mb. For, despite that his leech was no more, Karl's flesh had been Wamphyri for long and long. He willingly gave way to his agony and pa.s.sed beyond it, but his body would not - until the heat became too much for it, and the great twining anemone of alien flesh began to melt Then in a little while, 187 all that remained was the smoke, stench, crackling and popping.

And the dog-Lord's smile was grim and terrible as the commotion died down, and he approached and warmed his hand s by the fire of Karl Drakul's pa.s.sing. For by his reckoning Karl should be happy. He'd lasted sixteen hundred years, after all! No mean feat, not even for a Lord of the Wamphyri.

That was the way of it, at Ain Jalut...

Radu slept on, but now he was like a man between dream and waking, caught in the limbo that precedes reality. Except for him his dreams were reality: memories out of a past that continued to direct his future.

And the pages of history were still turning.

... Large contingents of Qutuz's army commenced a withdrawal into Egypt, and Radu and his party went with them; for his part in the defeat of the Mongols he was offered citizens.h.i.+p, Mameluke protection, land if he desired to stay. He told Qutuz that he would make his home in Tunisia, in an ancient redoubt which he knew to exist high in the mountains.

The Sultan warned him that Tunisia was now Hafsid territory, and, in the hinterland, Taureg! The Tauregs were notorious dogs of the desert who could not be trusted by any man. If Radu wished it, however, Qutuz would arrange an escort to see him to his chosen destination; for there were bandits on the land and pirates in the sea, and this was no fit time for an honest man to be journeying abroad.

Indicating his 'pups,' Radu told Qutuz he had dogs of his own, but he would appreciate an escort nonetheless.

As for Radu's plan: Since he could not return to Wallachia (because of Thibor, who as a Voevod would have an army behind him), or to pirating (for once bitten, twice shy), or anywhere north of the Mediterranean, where the Mongols were still a power despite that they were on the wane, instead he would try his luck in Africa.

The African routes were opening up, and Radu had heard of fortunes in gold and ivory and slaves. And where there's great wealth, there's also the need to protect it. Also, he felt limited in his wanderings; the world was a big place and this was his chance to explore a large part of it.

Given fine Arab horses by Qutuz, Radu and his men spent a six-month 'taming' (but in fact 'training') them, getting them used to their new masters. No easy task; the horses sensed the wolf in Radu and were reluctant to accept him, but finally they succ.u.mbed. Then it was time to head west His sea-escort disembarked Radu, his men and horses on the African coast south of Tunis. The dog-Lord had been here before of course, with Belisarius. He knew where he was going, and how to get

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there. Radu's pack was made up of just three lieutenants and fifteen thralls; they looked very grand in the ornate saddles of their white Arab horses, protected from the sun beneath silk-ta.s.selled canopies. In their black pantaloons and flowing, gold-fringed robes of black silk - with their curved swords in jewelled scabbards, and their fingers dripping gold - they must surely be the emissaries of some rich eastern Sultan or Turkic king.

So thought a large scouting party of black, brown and yellow-clad nomads who had seen them land from camouflaged observation points. What the nomads had not seen was how fierce were the eyes of these rich strangers, burning above their heavily-veiled lower faces.

Evening was turning to night as Radu's escort saluted him and set sail; shadows were already s.h.i.+fting on the land ... and some of them moved most oddly. Radu smiled in his grim fas.h.i.+on. 'Now we have a sec ond escort,' he pa.s.sed the message on to his men. 'Be at the ready, but make no sudden move. Let's see what this is about, and who these people are.'

Zaghounan was twenty-five miles inland to the west. After twelve miles, when it was night and a half-moon had risen, and the ground turned hard and stony, Radu made his camp. Though a watch was scarcely necessary (the ears of his men were acute as those of watchdogs), he posted a guard. He knew that if he did not - and if his silent 'escort' took it as a sign of weakness or stupidity and decided to attack - then he would have a fight on his hands. Since these were probably local people, it would be a bad start It was important that Radu be allowed to set up his base here as Waldemar Ferrenzig before him, in the ruins on the mount.

Then when he was properly established, he would strike out into the heart of Africa itself.

But as Radu sat with his men around their fires, reports began to come in from his watchdogs (wolfish lieutenants) who were ranging the land around. Their 'escort' outnumbered them by a handful . They had camels and some ponies, and were probably Taur egs. Even so, they could still be local; in any case, they were bandits. And they were gradually closing ranks, encircling the camp.

Radu decided to pre-empt matters. Loping out a little way into the rough land around, he stood tall, threw back his head and howled long and loud to the half-moon. And when the echoes had died away, he called out 'I know you are there, you desert wolves. But as you see, I am a wolf myself, and all my men. So if you want to die this night why keep us waiting? We have nothing against dying. But if you are merely curious, and if you would talk, I have nothing against that either! The night is chill, and we have warm fires. Your chief and his guard would be welcome. So come forward ... unless you are cowards. I am one man. as you see. Do not fear, for when you walk with Radu you are safe.'

(Well, scarcely. But for the time being, anyway...) A minute pa.s.sed, and another. Then shadow s gr ew up out of the night. Three of them. Veiled, cloaked, dark... only their eyes shone, but never as yellow as the dog- Lord's. He met them, held his arms wide in peaceful greeting, escorted them into his camp, to a fire. They sat, threw back their hoods, showed their faces. Blacks, with some Arab in them. Not Tauregs but a breed apart. And: *Who are you?' Radu inquired. "You know my tongue...'

'We know many tongues,' their leader, the tallest of them, answered. This land has had many visitors, a great many conquerors.' He s hrugged. They come and go. But we ... are a tribe. We were always here.'

'And were you here more than seven hundred years ago, when the Germans, the Vandals came? And when the Romans under Belisarius destroyed them?'

The other was taken aback. You know history, stranger. I was not here, no, but my ancestors were.

Numidians, Berbers and blacks out of the southern forests and savannahs. We have something of all of them in us. We are nomads, but not Tauregs.' He spat into the fire.

'One of my ancestors was here, too,' the dog-Lord told him. 'He had my name, Radu, and he fought for Rome, killing Vandals. And where are the Vandals now? Gone forever. But you and I are still here. I think it would be good if, after tonight we were still here...' 'Perhaps,' said the other. 'But you are travelling in the wrong direction. There is a mountain, and we hold it dear. You must skirt it keep well away, else we may not be.. .friends, any longer.'

'I know the place,' Radu nodded. 'It is my destination.'

Again th e other was taken aback.

You know it? Does your ancestor speak to you across the centuries then? Does he guide your feet? And did I hear you say that his name was... Radu?'

'Indeed - a man like a great wolf. I have seen representations of him; his characteristics are evident in me, his descendant. But does he speak to me? Alas, no. But I am a scholar and he left a legend and writings. I have learned about him in my journeys. He was here, in this place - and upon your mountain, I think - in the long ago. Which is why I would visit, and perhaps stay...'

'Wait!' (Radu's night visitors, especially their leader, were agitated now). They argued briefly in a tongue he didn't know, but obviously about him, and then- -Their leader reached out and tore away the strip of black silk from his mouth! Radu had kept it there because of his wolfishnes s, which was p.r.o.nounced - especially at night and under the moon. And: 190.'Ahkkr said the three as one man, as the dog-Lord's men stepped up close and felt for their swords. But he waved them away, and said: 'Now say, what is this?'

'Stand up!' said the leader, himself standing.

Radu did so, and the other saw his height as if for the first time.

'Now smile,' said the visitor. And Radu showed him that wolf's smile in a grin that made him look even more the monstrous dog.

At which his visitors shrank a l ittle, and their leader said. Will you come with us?'

'Where?'

'Will you trust me?'

Well, would he or wouldn't he? But... s o far he read no harm in them. Only astonishment and more than a little awe. So finally he shrugged and said: 'So be it'

Mounted on his horse, alone of his party and side by side with the leader of the nomads, and flanked by his men, Radu rode out into the night. They rode west, direct for the mount Zaghounan. As the peak rose up to blanket the sky, they skirted its southern flank to the winding ramp of access. And all along the way no word was uttered. Then they were there, and the ruins stood stark against the moon.

'Just as I read of it,' said Radu. This is the place. It is as if I remember it' (Which of course he did).

'Indeed it is the place!' said his guide. 'Get down from your horse and see here.'

The party dismounted and the nomad leader showed Radu a great rock, part of the mountain's fang, outcropping from the desiccated earth. He struck fire to a torch, jammed it in the loose soil, and by its flaring light they gazed upon the face carved in the rock- -Radu's face, grinning!

Even the dog-Lord was startled, but in a moment he knew what this was. 'Now let me guess,' he said. "Your people are rare among the men of this land. You are tribal, nomads, aye, but probably a matriarchy. You revere your queens, your princesses. And seven centuries ago in this place, three sisters, princesses, mothers of your race, were set free from bondage by the man on the rock.'

'Yes, yes.r the leader of the nomads whispered. 'His name was Radu. And then... ?'

'He tortured and killed the men who held the three princesses captive. Then he gave them camels to ride back to their people, and sent them on their way.'

'But first?' The other breathlessly pressed him.

'Eh?' Radu c.o.c.ked his head. 'First?'

There was something else he did, this Radu.'

'Ah! He kissed all three... like a blessing. Is that what you mean?'

Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 191 'Indeed,' said the nomad, and took Radu's hand and kissed it 'A blessing, no less th an this.' He stepped back, and said, That Radu, that grandf ather of your grandfathers, was the saviour of our race. The three princesses were the mothers of our mothers. This is our legend: that they returned with a man who worked stone, and described to him their saviour - whose likeness was then chiselled into the rock. Since when this is like a holy place. Or perhaps a place that has been waiting?'

'It need wait no longer,' Radu said. 'I shall live here if it please you?'

'It would please my mother!' said the other.

'Oh?'

'She can trace her line back to one of those sisters that your ancestor saved. Without him she would not have life - nor any of us!'

Then all is well,' said Radu.

'I would bring my mother to see you!' The nomad was eagerness itself now.

'When we have made this place worthy,' Radu told him. 'But meanwhile, give her this. Tell her it was made for me by a Sultan of the Egypts.' Which was true enough. And he took a golden ring from his smallest finger. Its crest, when the nomad turned it into the torchlight was the head of a howling wolf...

Radu never did scathe among the People of the Rock, who claimed all the land and watering holes for twenty miles around. Rather he 'befriended' them, and from time to time protected them from other nomadic tribes and Tauregs alike. And in their turn, they showed him the routes south into Niger and Chad, and south-west into the 'rich' kingdoms of Mali and the Hausa Traders. He took slaves for trading, hired himself out to protect caravans along the trade routes, was rarely to house on the rock of Zaghounan. The sun was ever a curse, of course, but the dog-Lord took precautions; whenever possible he travelled by night, sleeping out the days in the inner heart of his great black tent whose walls were thickly draped. Mercifully, he had never been as susceptible to sunlight as the great majority of Wamphyri Lords...

In his various ventures Radu covered many thousands of miles by horse and camel, mainly the latter, and learned all the Saharan routes from Wargla to Taghaza, Ghana, Gao, Timbuktu and beyond. It took years, even decades, but it was an adventure and earned him a fortune in gold. In 1324 he organized an endless relay of escorts for King Mansa Musa on his pilgrimage to Mecca, and was in control of eleven hundred men to fight off Tauregs and other bandits along the two-thousand-miles route from k.u.mbi Saleh to Augila, where he handed over to the Mamelukes. Paid off in such gold that he couldn't Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 193.

192.carry it all, still he knew it was a pittance to Mansa Musa. Later, in Cairo, the spending-power of the King's retinue - in solid gold - was so great as to depress the local currency!

But this was one of the dog-Lord's last great ventures. He had lived too long in one place; he'd become too prominent; the People of the Rock had grown wary of him, and during one of his long absences they even went so far as to deface his 'portrait' on Zaghounan.

The dog-Lord's dreams had been bad for long and long. His oneiromancy - frequently a gift of great benefit - now seemed a curse. He couldn't go to his bed without recurrent nightmares plaguing him. Nightmares about plague, famine, blood and death. His death, or at least his suspension from life.

Once, waking with a cry, he tore the amber bauble that he wore about his neck loose and hurled it away. He had dreamed of the bauble - but in place of the fly trapped in its golden core he had seen himself Himself, but the merest husk of the man he was now, sleeping but not dead in a resin grave!

Radu paid off half of his pups. There were a great many of them -moon-children all, if not actual werewolves - but they would get by. If not... well, too bad. Some of them dispersed into Egypt, others the Mediterranean.

The ones he kept, however, had a special mission: to buy (or steal) large quant.i.ties of resin from the Greeks and the peoples of the northern Mediterranean sh.o.r.es, and bring it to their master wherever he determined to settle. He gave them money to buy s.h.i.+ps and sent them about their business.

Then the dog-Lord and his coterie went down into Sousse where he purchased a fine vessel. His plan was a simple one as always: to buy himself back into those old territories which he had always considered his own.

For the horseshoe mountains were Hungarian now, and Radu believed that with his wealth he could sway the authorities and become a Boyar and a power there.

In Sousse, however, the atmosphere was strange; he sensed unease and panicky stirrings - the first real intimations that his oneiromantic nightmares were about to come true. It was the late autumn of the year ad 1347, and the Black Death was visiting itself upon the Mediterranean.

s.h.i.+ps out of Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica, were being refused entry into the ports. But plague s.h.i.+ps had already run aground; the rats that infested them had swarmed to dry land; local people were falling ill, developing hideous black pustules, dying.

Radu was immune to human diseases by virtue of his vampire leech... so he thought Likewise his men (certainly his lieutenants and inner coterie), should be immune through his blood. Yet even before setting sail for the Adriatic and Hungary some of his men fell sick, and Radu expelled them from his company. It had been the same in Sunside/Starside some fifteen hundred years ago, even before Radu was Wamphyri: if a man contracted leprosy, the Szgany expelled him. This new disease, this hideous Black Death, seemed so much like leprosy inasmuch as vampires were not immune to it. Maybe even Radu himself, Wamphyri, was not immune to it.

Radu's dreams returned, to 'plague' him, but now they were more than m ere dreams. In them he saw a great rock rising from a canopy of trees; but the climate was cold, 'northern' in the true sense of the word. He dreamed of a den in that high place, and of a ma.s.sive st one coffin within the den which he knew was his...

And meanwhile news was finding its way ash.o.r.e from 'clean' s.h.i.+ps. The Ottoman Turk was dying in his thousands. The Mediterranean Islands, and even Ma.r.s.eilles on the northern mainland, were pestholes. The plague was spreading into Bulgaria, Serbia, Wallachia and Hungary. It advanced day by day and ate up entire towns and villages. It raged out of control, like a monstrous brushfire blown by a relentless wind out of the east. Suddenly Hungary was out of the question, and the sooner Radu sailed - for whichever destination -the better. At least there'd be no plague aboard his s.h.i.+p!

The plague came from the east; Radu sailed west, for Barcelona in Aragon. At the entrance to the harbour, plague inspectors came aboard. The dog-Lord paid a heavy bribe, was cleared for landing, and sold his vessel at a great loss. He purchased horses, carts, caravans - everything at a premium, for plague-fear was at its height - and set out north-west for the Bay of Biscay and English Bordeaux. But his arrival in Aragon had not gone unnoticed; nor had he failed to observe a s.h.i.+p out of Sicily, whose veiled, secretive, closely-escorted master was given an especially difficult time by the 'dedicated' port officials, and doubtless paid a crippling bribe for the privilege of being allowed ash.o.r.e. Indeed just seeing that s.h.i.+p -sensing a definite aura about it that had nothing to do with any plague, or at least, not the Black Death - Radu was keenly interested.

So much so that he sent a lieutenant to follow this Sicilian party, with instructions to join up with him later and report on his findings. Except his man never did join up with him later, nor ever returned...

The journey between ports was three hundred miles; it took thirteen days and exhausted Radu's animals.

Also, en route, the dog-Lord was given a rude reminder that he wasn't the only one determined to prolong the centuried blood-feud with other Wamphyri factions. He had half-expected it, ever since seeing that ominous- seeming s.h.i.+p in Barcelona; but still, under the circ.u.mstances, it came as a surprise.

It was January 1348, and in Toulouse they were beginning to bring out their dead. Carts loaded with the bodies of plague victims came trundling out of the central district to block the approach roads,

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which determined Radu to skirt the town. But in the confusion as he turned his small caravan off the main highway into a forested region- -Suddenly he was under attack!

What they were was obvious: vampires. As for their leader: Wamphyri! How it happened: Radu was seated in the one small box-coach he'd been able to purchase. The sky was grey, overcast; a drizzly rain fell; a ground mist swirled up from the forest floor. And there was... this feeling. The forest way was narrow and Radu's coach was at the head of his column. A plague-cart had sunk to its axles in the mud. And as Radu's driver manoeuvred his vehicle around it Ho, great do.'These words, totally unexpected, seemed to burst in Radu's brain. We almost met in Ainjalutsome ninety years ago. You were fortunate that time, for I had suffered a trivial hurt. Alas, this time you are unfortunate, for I'm fit and well. But your injury mil not be so small!

The ident.i.ty of the sender rang clear as a bell in Radu's mind: that Ferenczy last seen lizarding up the sheer wall of a gorge in the so-called Holy Land! But so close at hand.

'Closer than you think!' Someone was right outside Radu's coach. He heard the neighing of a horse, yanked open the curtains and tried to get his sword from its scabbard. But trapped in the close confines of his box, he knew that his life was in jeopardy; he was the perfect target! To the right, the plague cart blocked his exit. And to the left...

... A great black horse pranced in the trees! Its rider - cowled, tall in the saddle, and dressed in black head to toe - leaned forward, drove his slender sword through the dog-Lord's driver. And kicking the howling thrall out of his way, he clambered from his horse up onto the driver's platform. Radu's door was half-open, but the bole of a tree blocked the way. He yelped for his men!

The Ferenczy looked inside through the view slit and saw him -and laughed from a mouth like a mantrap!

And: "What use to cut you?' he shouted. 'You would only heal. Why, I might as well stab dead men, eh?'

With which he leaned down and speared the bloated belly of a corpse in the plague cart, and drew out his sword all slimed. Then Radu shrank down as he saw what was in the other's mind. And: 'Oh, ha ha ha!' cried that one, his eyes ablaze... as he drove his wet blade through the view slit at an awkward angle, yet still managed to stab Radu in his side. The dog-Lord stifled his pain, drew a knife, thrust it again and again through the view slit. But the Ferenczy was gone; only his sword thrummed there where he'd left it, jammed in the slit.