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For a moment there was silence, then he said, 'When you are your own master
you may take what you like.' His voice was colder. 'But I am not some mother
cat to fetch fat mice for her kittens.
A girl, a boy, a goat - blood is blood, Thibor. As for lust: you'll have time
for that later, when you understand the real meaning of the word. For now...
save your strength.' And then he moved on.
Ehrig had meanwhile taken hold of the basket, was sidling off with it. I gave
him a clout which knocked him protesting to the floor. Then I looked at the
terrified birds and scowled. But... I was hungry and meat is meat. I had never
been a squeamish one, and these birds were plump. And anyway, the vampire in
me was taking the edge off all points of mannered custom and nicety and
civilised behaviour. As for civilisation: what was that to me? A Wallach
warrior, I had always been two-thirds barbarian!
I ate, and so did the dog Ehrig. Aye, and later, when next we slept, so did my
'cousin'.
The next time I came awake - more strongly, surging awake, refreshed from my
meal - I saw the Thing, that mindless being of vampire flesh which hid in the
dark earth under the floor. I do not know what I had expected. Faethor had
mentioned vines, creepers in the earth. That is what it was like. Partly,
anyway.
If you have seen a squashy octopus from the sea, then you have seen something
like the creature spawned of the finger which Faethor shed, fattened on the
flesh of Arvos the gypsy. The one thing I cannot comment upon was its size;
however, if a man's body were flattened to a doughy mass... it would spread a
long way. The matter of Arvos had been reshaped.
Certainly the groping 'hands' which the being put up were stretchy things.
There were also many of them, and they were not lacking in strength. Its eyes
were very strange: they formed and unformed, came and went; they ogled and
blinked; but in all truth I cannot say that they saw.
Indeed, I had the feeling they were blind. Or perhaps they saw in the way a
newborn infant sees, without understanding.
When one of the thing's hands came up from the soil close to where I lay, I
cursed out loud and kicked it away - and how it shot down out of sight then!
How well another might fare I could not say, but the vampire thing was
certainly wary of me. Perhaps it sensed that I was a higher form -
of itself! I remember how at the time, that was a very shuddersome thought.
Faethor had this way with him: he was devious, sly as a fox, slippery as an
eel. That was how I
considered him, feelings brought on by sheer frustration. Of course he was
that way: he was of the
Wamphyri! I should not have expected him to be any other way. But quite
simply, he would not be ambushed. I spent hours waiting for him behind the oak
door, chains in my hands, hardly daring to breathe lest he hear me. But let
hell freeze over, he would not come. Ah! But only let me fall asleep... a
squealing piglet would wake me, or the fluttering of a tethered pigeon. And so
the days, probably weeks, passed.
I will give him his due: after that first time the old devil didn't let me get
too hungry. I think to myself now that the initial period of starvation was to
let the vampire in me take hold. It had nothing
else to feed on and so must rely on my stored fats, must become more fully a
part of me. Similarly, I
was obliged to draw on its strength. But as soon as the bond was properly
formed, then Faethor could begin to fatten us up again. And I use that phrase
advisedly.
Along with the food, there would be the occasional jug of red wine. At first,
remembering how the Ferenczy had drugged me, I was careful. I would let Ehrig
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drink first, then watch for his reaction. But apart from a loosening of his
tongue, there was nothing. And so I too drank. Later I
would give Ehrig none of the wine but consume it myself. That, too, was
exactly the way the old devil had planned it.
Came the time when, after a meal, I was thirsty and quaffed a jug at one swig
- then staggered this way and that before collapsing. Poisoned again! Faethor
had made a fool of me at every turn.
But this time my vampire strength buoyed me up; I held fast to my
consciousness, and sprawling there in my fever I wondered: now what is the
purpose of this?
Hah!
Only listen, and I'll explain
Faethor's purpose. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]