for the effect of this statement on me but went on. 'And I offer you now, once only, Herr Begener, this choice. Believe me when I say that Natisha is forever beyond you. And believe me when I say that you may leave this night, only by giving me your wish to do so at this time; and that you will never be troubled by me again. If you do not take this offer at this moment it will forever be withheld, and you will choose instead the consequences.' For the briefest amount of time a hint of sadness came to his features, but it was quickly replaced by a wry smile, as if he already knew my answer. 'As I said, you have done well for me, and I feel bound to offer you this option.'
'Is Natisha dead?' I asked, willing to face anything if she was not.
'Not dead,' he answered; 'but beyond you nevertheless.'
'Is she coming to this room now?'
'She is.'
'Then my mind is set; I will stay.'
His eyes were upon me intently; and now that I made my answer, one that he had fully intended me to make, he roared with laughter, nearly tumbling off his chair this time before catching and righting himself upon it. He lifted his glass, which obtained a dark wine, and offered me a toast.
'To true love, then, Herr Begener. Only the truly young and truly foolish may enjoy it.'
At that moment the door to the dining hall opened, and Natisha's father entered.
For a second I was not sure that it was Natisha that followed him in, so unlike her did she appear, but it was nevertheless she. Her face was nearly white, and her entire body seemed shrunken, drained of energy and life. This was Natisha in old age. Her features very much resembled those of her father now, and I would have had no trouble in marking them as father and daughter had I seen her this way before.
Her eyes were dull, but when she saw me she began to shrink to the ground.
'Franz,' Count Mayhew addressed Natisha's father, conferring upon him the name that had obviously belonged to him all along, 'I was just telling Herr Begener that I am a man of my word—is that not so?'
Franz lifted his head slowly and nodded, his dead eyes unmoving. He looked as if he wanted only to sleep the final sleep.
'Shall we tell him of our own bargain, then?'
Franz stood unmoving, his eyes downcast.
'Well,' the Count said, 'I think we should. You see,' he continued, turning to me, 'my long-time servant Franz here and I struck a bargain—one that, in his mind, would save his daughter. And I was quite willing, because it would have caused me no great inconvenience. But a bargain is a bargain, and, alas, poor Franz did not win.' He began to laugh again, but cut it short as that serious tone once again came into his voice. 'But perhaps I should explain, for it is really the story of the entire town of Mayhew.'
Franz made no comment; and when Natisha began to swoon again I was there instantly at her side, cradling her in my arms. To my horror, I felt, even through her gown, a row of ugly raised welts on her back—and on pulling her gown gently aside in that spot I saw that they were huge swelling in the form of a circle of small sharp teeth.
'You immediately think of vampirism,' the Count said, lifting himself from his chair to the floor and beginning to pace up and down before the fireplace as he spoke. 'I have heard those tales and they are crude fairy stories. The truth is, I discovered long ago that my people are capable of providing me youth forever. Unfortunately,' and here he flashed his horrid, sharp teeth, 'at the expense of their own youth. In time they have come to look on it as their fate.'
His face darkened, and he stopped his pacing to stare at his own portrait above the fireplace. 'But a curious thing happened. There have been no children born in Mayhew for almost twenty-five years. Natisha, in fact, was the very last. This, I discovered, would eventually prove disastrous to me since only my own people were capable of providing me with what I need.'
He raised a finger, assuming the grotesque appearance of a university professor giving a lecture. 'You can imagine my anxiety. In a mere twenty years or so my people would no longer be of use to me, and I would begin to grow old! So I set to work, and after nearly two decades of work I discovered what I sought.
'It seems there is a substance that the people of Mayhew could easily pass on to me, but for others to supply it required more radical means. I found that this could be accomplished—but only at great expense to the donor. In theory it would work—but my calculations were crude, and a great precision in the workings would have to be employed.'
He turned to me, and I saw that his joviality was returning. 'That is where you came in, Herr Begener. And my bargain with Franz. You see, if the work was accomplished by the date specified, Natisha would be spared since I would have no need for her. But, alas,' and here he showed his rodent's grin again, 'the silver did not arrive in time. I even went so far as to try, for Franz's sake, the marvelous workings in the dome without this precious metal, but unfortunately without results; though I must say everything else worked perfectly!'
I thought of the two sets of screams I had heard in the night; of the fine red dust on the inside of the dome; of his horrid need, and his mouth on Natisha's back.
'As I said, Herr Begener,' the Count concluded, 'you have done a marvelous job!'
'But he will be going now?' Natisha said weakly. It was the first she had spoken, and her voice seemed to come from a great distance away. But her face was set and her eyes were trying desperately to bring fire into themselves, a fire they no longer possessed. 'As we agreed, he will be leaving Castle Mayhew?'
The Count said succinctly, 'As we agreed, I have given Herr Begener his choice. And, in all flattery to yourself, Natisha, he has chosen to stay.'
'You were to live...' she said in a bare voice, her pale hands seeking to clutch mine and succeeding only in resting upon them.
'Life without you would be death,' I said, and at that the Count began to howl with mirth.
'As good a performance as I could have wished.' He ran to the table and once again held up his goblet of red wine. 'To true love!' he cried. 'But I am anxious to try my new toy.'
I threw myself at him but discovered just how strong his small young body was. He held me easily. A half dozen of his workers arrived, and between their weak hands they were able to drag me from the dining hall and up the long, curling flight of metal stairs to the dome. It was now set ablaze at night by a thousand hand-held torches which glinted sharply off the gold-covered walls, and the dome itself had been partly opened to expose the bright faraway points of a million helpless stars overhead. They brought me up the final stairway to the high suspended platform, its supporting beams, now filled with the purest silver, holding it steady as the Earth itself. They strapped me upon it with silver wires, and I saw beside me on the platform the small velvet couch, as deep red as his wine, where the Count would soon lower his grinning, aged, cursed body.
It was then that I gave a last cry as Natisha, being led away by her Hamlet's ghost of a father, threw herself from the platform to land far below.
And here I stand, with only her name on my lips, as I wait for the Count's pure energies to course through and around me, whipping my body, each atom, to a fine red dust that will whirl round and round this evil dome till the essence is distilled into the howling laughing child who waits greedily beside me and I am no more.
But I will have been; and I know that the passing wind of my being will drive a fine red coat into the golden dome around me which, in all the thousands of years of youth to come, can never be washed away.
The Green Face
Lanois, who listened to the green face in the window, sharpened his knives and wept.
'I will not do what you want this time!'
There was no answer, but when he looked through the window, the Green Face was there, hanging suspended like a perfectly sculpted marble bust, smiling, lit bright green from within, framed by night.
And he did as he was told.
