Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

moustached men quit their leaping and high-kicking — in that interval when the fiddlers sipped their brandy before starting up again — then the moon showed its rim above the mountains, whose misted crags were brought to a sudden prominence. And as mouths gaped open and all eyes turned upwards to the risen moon, so the mournful howl of a wolf drifted down to them from unseen aeries of rock.

For a single moment the tableau stood frozen… but the next saw dark eyes turning to gaze at the young man on the caravan steps. He stood up, looked up at the moon and the crags, and sighed. And sheathing his knife he stepped down to the clearing, crossed it on stiff legs, headed for the darkness beyond the encircling wagons.

His mother broke the silence. Her wail, rising to a shriek of anguish, was that of a banshee as she hurled herself from their caravan home, crashed down the wooden steps, came reeling after her son, her arms outstretched. But she did not go to him; instead she fell to her knees some paces away, her arms still reaching, aching for him. For the chief of this band, their 'king', had stepped forward to embrace the young man. He hugged him, kissed him on both cheeks, released him. And without more ado the chosen one went out of the firelight, between the wagons, and was swallowed by darkness.

'Dumitru!' his mother screamed. She got to her feet, made to rush after him — and flew into the arms of her king.

'Peace, woman,' he told her gruffly, his throat bobbing. 'We've seen it coming a month now, watched the change in him. The Old One has called and Dumitru answers. We knew what to expect. This is always the way of it.'

'But he's my son, my son!' she sobbed rackingly into his chest.

'Aye,' he said, his own voice finally breaking, sending tears coursing down his leathery cheeks. 'And mine… mine too… aye.'

He led her stumbling and sobbing back to their caravan, and behind them the music started up again, and the dancing, and the feasting and drinking.

Dumitru Zirra climbed the ramparts of the Zarundului like a fox born to those heights. The moon lit a path for him, but even without that silver swath he would have known the way. For there was guidance from within: a voice inside his head, which was not his voice, told him where to step, reach, grasp. There were paths up here, if you knew them, but between these hairpin tracks were vertiginous shortcuts. Dumitru chose the latter, or someone made that choice for him.

Dumiitruuu! the dark voice crooned to him, drawing out his name like a cry of torment. Ah, my faithful, my Szgaaany, son of my sons. Step here, and there, and here, Dumiitruuu. And here, where the wolf stepped — see his mark on the rock? The father of your fathers awaits you, Dumiitruuu. The moon is risen up and the hour draws niiigh. Make haste, my son, for I'm old and dry and shrivelled close to death — the true death! But you shall succour me, Dumiitruuu. Aye, and all your youth and strength be miiine!

Almost to the tree line the youth laboured, his breath ragged and his hands bloody from the climbing, to the blackest crags of all where a vast ruin humped against the final cliff. On the one side a gorge so sheer and black it might descend to hell, and on the other the last of the tall firs shielding the tumbled pile of some ancient keep, set back against sheer-rising walls of rock. Dumitru saw the place and for a moment was brought up short, but then he also saw the flame-eyed wolf standing in the broken gates of the ruin and hesitated no more. He went on, and the great wolf led the way.

Welcome to my house, Dumiitruuu! that glutinous voice oozed like mud in his mind. You are my guest, my son… enter of your own free will.

Dumitru Zirra clambered dazedly over the first shattered stones of the place, and mazed as he was still the queer aspect of these ruins impressed him. It had been a castle, of that he was sure. In olden times a Boyar had lived here, a Ferenczy — Janos Ferenczy! No question of that, for down all the ages since the time of Grigor Zirra, the first Szgany 'king', the Zirras had sworn allegiance to the Baron Ferenczy and had borne his crest: a bat leaping into flight from the mouth of a black urn, with wings outspread, showing three ribs to each wing. The eyes of the bat were red, likewise the ribs of its wings, made prominent in scarlet, while the vessel from which it soared was in the shape of a burial urn.

Aye, and now the youth's deep-sunken, staring eyes picked out a like design carved on the shattered slab of a huge stone lintel where it lay half-buried in debris; and indeed he knew that he stood upon the threshold of the great and ancient patron of the Zirras and their followers. For it was that same sigil as described which even now was displayed on the sides of Vasile Zirra's caravan (however cleverly obscured in the generally ornate and much-convoluted lacquer and paintwork designs). Similarly old Vasile, Dumitru's father, wore a ring bearing a miniature of this crest, allegedly passed down to him from time immemorial. This would have been Dumitru's one day — had he not heard the calling…

Some little way ahead of Dumitru the great wolf growled low in its throat, urging him on. He paused however, uncertain where the shadows of fallen blocks obscured his vision. The front edge of the ruin seemed to have been tossed (tossed, yes, as by some enormous explosion in the guts of the place) out to and beyond the rim of the gorge, where still a jumble of massive stones and slates were spread in dark confusion, so that Dumitru supposed a large part of the castle had gone down into the gorge.

As to what could have caused such destruction, he had no -

But you hesitate, my son, came that monstrous mental voice, oozing like a slug in his mind, overriding and obliterating all matters of question and conjecture and will. That voice which had completely overwhelmed and taken control of him during the course of the last four or five weeks, making him its zombie. And 1 see that it is as I suspected, Dumiitruuu… you are strong-willed! Good! Very good! The strength of the will is that of the body, and the strength of the body is the blood. Your blood is strong, my son, as it is in all your race.

The great wolf growled again and Dumitru stumbled after. The youth knew he should flee this place, run headlong, break his bones in the dark and crawl if he must — anything but carry on. And yet he was powerless against the lure of that ancient, evil voice. It was as if he had made some promise he could not break, or as if he kept the promise of some long-dead and honoured ancestor, which was inviolable.

Now, guided by the voice in his head, he stumbled among leaning menhir blocks in search of a certain spot; now he went on all fours, clearing away fresh-fallen leaves, damp grey lichens and shards of black rock; now he discovered (or merely uncovered, for the voice had told him it would be here) a narrow slab with an iron ring, which he lifted easily. A blast of foul air struck his face, filled his lungs, made him more dizzy yet where he crouched over the black and reeking abyss; and when at last his head cleared — of the fumes, at least — he was already descending into nightmare depths.

Now the voice told him: Here, here my son … a niche in the wall… torches, a bundle, and matches all wrapped in a skin… aye, better than the flints of my youth… light one torch and take two more with you… for be sure you'll need them, Dumiitruuu…

The stone stairwell spiralled; Dumitru descended nitrous steps, obliged to clamber in places where the stair had collapsed. He reached a buckled floor littered with blocks of fire-blackened masonry; another trapdoor; the descent continued through dankly echoing bowels of earth. Down, ever down, to sinister and sentient nether- pits…

Until at last:

Well done, Dumiitruuu, the dark voice complimented him — a voice that smiled monstrously, invisibly, whose owner was well pleased with himself — his pleasure grating like a file on the nerve- endings of the young man's brain. And suddenly… Dumitru might have bolted. For a split second he was his own man again — he knew he stood on the very threshold of hell!

But then that alien intelligence closed like a vice on his mind; the inexorable process started five weeks ago guided him towards its logical conclusion; the strength of free will flickered like a guttering candle in him, almost extinguished. And:

Look about you, Dumiitruuu. Look and learn what are the works and mysteries of your master, my son.

Behind Dumitru on the stone staircase, the great flame-eyed wolf. And before him -

The lair of a necromancer!

Such things were legends amongst the Szgany, tales to be told about the campfires in certain seasons, but