when the sun was fully down, burning on other lands, still Thibor might not 'waken' in the sense that men waken; for he was one who might dream for many a year between bouts of that black hatred called waking. It is not pleasant to be a Thing in the ground awake, alone, immobile, undead.
But the rich blood which soaked the earth would waken him, certainly, in that instant when it touched him. Even now the nearness of that warm, precious liquid roused passions in him. His nostrils gaped for its scent; his desiccated heart urged his own ancient blood faster in his veins; his vampire core moaned soundlessly in the sleep it shared with him.
Thibor's dream, however, was stronger. It was a magnet of the mind, luring him to a conclusion he knew and dreaded of old but which he must always experience again. And down in the cold earth in the glade of stirless trees, where the stones of his mausoleum lay broken and matted with lichens, the nightmare Thing dreamed on…
The way widened, grew into an avenue of tall dark pines atop a broad levelled rim of ages-impacted scree. On Thibor's left hand, beyond the straight boles of the pines, smooth black rocks rose vertical through hundreds of feet to an indigo sky strewn with stars; on his right the trees massed, marched down the no longer sheer 'V of the gorge and steeply up the other side. At the bottom water gushed and gurgled, invisible beneath a night-black canopy. The Vlad had been right: given a handful of men — or wolves — the Ferenczy could easily defend his castle against an army. Inside the castle itself, however, things might be different. Especially if the Boyar were indeed a man alone or nearly so.
Finally the ancient pile itself loomed. Its stonework was massive, but pitted, rotten. On both sides of the defile huge towers rose up eighty feet and more; square and very nearly featureless at their broad bases, higher up there were arched, fortified windows, ledges and balconies with deep embrasures, and gaping stone spouts projecting from the mouths of carved gargoyle or kraken heads. At the top of each tower, more embrasures fronted tiled pyramid spires; but with gaping holes showing through, where repairs were badly needed; and over everything a heavy miasma of decay, a dank and clinging patina, as if the very stone issued a cold and clammy sweat.
Half-way up, the inward-facing walls sprouted flying buttresses almost as massive as the towers themselves, which met across the gorge in a single span — like a stone bridge some eighty or ninety feet from tower to tower. Supported by the buttresses, a long single-storey hall with small square windows was constructed of timbers. It had a peaked roof of heavy slates; hall and roof both were in the same generally poor condition as the towers. But for the fact that two of the windows were lit with a flickering illumination, the entire pile might seem deserted, derelict. It was not how Thibor imagined the residence of a great Boyar should look; on the other hand, if he were a superstitious man, certainly he might believe that demons lived there.
The ranks of wolves began to thin out as they drew closer to the castle's walls. Moving forward, it was not until the Wallach stood in the very shadow of those walls that he saw the castle's simple defences: a trench fifteen feet wide and fifteen deep, excavated right down to solid rock, the bottom furnished with long pointed stakes set so close to each other that any man falling in must surely be speared. Then, too, he saw the door: a heavy, oak- boarded, iron-banded affair extended at its top to form a drawbridge. And even as he looked, so the door was creakingly lowered, heavy chains rattling as the trench was bridged.
In the opening thus revealed stood a cloaked figure holding before him a flaring torch. Behind the glare of that brand, little could be seen of features but a blur; all that Thibor could make of them was their paleness, and a vague awareness of grotesque proportions. He had his suspicions, however, and more than suspicions — which were fully borne out on the instant that the figure spoke: 'And so you have come — of your own free will.'
Thibor had often been accused of being a cold man with a cold, emotionless voice. It was something he had never denied. But if his voice was cold, this voice might have issued from the grave itself. And where Thibor had found the voice soothing in the first instance, now it grated on his nerves like the ache of a rotten tooth, or cold steel on a living bone. It was old — hoary as the mountains, and possibly entrusted with as many secrets — but it was certainly not infirm. It held the authority of all dark knowledge.
'My own free will?' Thibor dared to look away from the figure, saw that he was quite alone. The wolves had melted into the night, into the mountains. Perhaps a single pair of yellow eyes gleamed for a moment under the trees, but that was all. He turned back to face his host. 'Yes, of my own free will…'
Then you are welcome.' The Boyar fixed his torch in a bracket just inside the doorway, bowed a little from the waist, stood to one side. And Thibor crossed the drawbridge, made to enter the house of the Ferenczy. But in the moment before he entered, he glanced up, saw the legend burned into the age-blackened oak of the arched lintel. He couldn't read or write, but the cloaked man saw his glance and translated for him:
'It says that this is the house of Waldemar Ferrenzig.
There is also a sign which dates it, showing that the castle is nearly two hundred years old. Waldemar was… he was my father. I am Faethor Ferrenzig, whom my people call 'the Ferenczy'.
There was a fierce pride now in that dark voice, and for the first time Thibor felt himself unsure. He knew nothing of the castle; there might easily be many men lying in wait; the open door gaped like the maw of some unknown beast.
'I have made preparations,' said Thibor's host. 'Food and drink, and a fire to warm your bones.' He deliberately turned his back, took a second torch from a dark niche in the wall and lit it from the first. As flames caught hold, so the shadows fled. The Ferenczy glanced once at his guest, unsmiling, then led the way inside. And the Wallach followed.
They passed quickly through dark corridors of stone, anterooms, narrow doorways, into the heart of the tower; then up a spiralling stone stairway to a heavy trapdoor in a floor of stone flags supported by great black timbers.
The trapdoor stood open and the Ferenczy gathered up his cloak before climbing through into a well lighted room. Thibor followed close behind, allowing the other no time to be on his own. As he emerged into the room he shivered. It would have been so very easy for someone — to spear him or lop off his head as he came up through the trapdoor. But apart from the pile's master, the room was empty of men. Thibor glanced at his host, looked all around. The room was long, broad, high. overhead, a ceiling of timbers was badly gapped; flickering firelight showed a slate roof above the ceiling; missing tiles permitted a glimpse of stars swimming in smoke from the fire. The place was somewhat open to the weather. In winter it would be bitterly cold. Even now it would not be warm if not for the fire.
The fire was of pine logs, roaring in a huge open fireplace with a chimney built at an angle to pass through an exterior wall. The logs burned on a cradle of warped iron bars, twisted with the heat of many such fires. At the fire's front, six spitted woodcocks were roasting over red ashes. Sprinkled with herbs, the smell of their flesh was mouth-watering.
Close to the fireplace stood a heavy table and two chairs of oak. On the table were wooden platters, eating knives, a stone pitcher of wine or water. In the centre of the table the roasted joint of some beast still smoked. There was a bowl of dried fruits, too, and another containing slices of coarse dark bread. It was not intended that Thibor should starve!
He glanced again at the wall with the fireplace; its base was of stone, but higher up it was of timber. There was also a square window, open to the night. He crossed to the window, looked out and down on a dizzy scene: the ravine, dark with close-packed firs, and away in the east the vast black forests. And now the Voevod knew that he was in a room of the castle's central span where it crossed the narrow gorge between the towers.
'Are you nervous, Wallach?' Faethor Ferenczy's soft voice (soft now, aye) startled him.
'Nervous?' Thibor slowly shook his head. 'Bemused, that's all. Surprised. You are alone here!'
'Oh? And did you expect something else? Didn't Arvos the gypsy tell you I was alone?'
Thibor narrowed his eyes. 'He told me several things — and now he's dead.'
The other showed not the slightest flicker of surprise, nor of remorse. 'Death comes to all men,' he said.
'My two friends, they're also dead.' Thibor hardened his tone of voice.
The Ferenczy merely shrugged. 'The way up is hard. It's cost many lives over the years. But friends, did you say? Then you are fortunate. I have no friends.'
Thibor's hand strayed close to the hilt of his sword. 'I had fancied an entire pack of your 'friends' showed me the way here…'
His host at once stepped close to him, less a step than a flowing motion. The man moved like liquid. A long hand, slender but strong, rested on the hilt of Thibor's sword under his own hand. Touching it was like touching living — snakeskin. Thibor's flesh crawled and he jerked his hand away. In the same moment the Boyar unsheathed his sword, again with that flowing, liquid motion. The Wallach stood disarmed, astonished.
