The Keep

Cuza heard himself stammer. "I—I've studied it for years. Many years." He found his mind had gone numb, frozen. All the things he had wanted to say, the questions he had pla

"I had almost expected you to be wearing evening clothes."

The thick eyebrows, growing so near to each other, touched as the visitor's brow furrowed. "I do not understand 'evening clothes.' "

Cuza gave himself a mental kick—amazing how a single novel, written half a century ago by an Englishman, could so alter one's perceptions of what was an essentially Romanian myth. He leaned forward in his wheelchair. "Who are you?"

"I am the Viscount Radu Molasar. This region of Wallachia was once mine."

He was saying that he was a feudal lord of his time. "A boyar?"

"Yes. One of the few who stayed with Vlad—the one they called Tepes, the Impaler—until his end outside Bucharest."

Even though he had expected such an answer, Cuza was still aghast. "That was in 1476! Almost five centuries ago! Are you that old?"

"I was there."

"But where have you been since the fifteenth century?"

"Here."

"But why?" Cuza's fear was vaporizing as he spoke, replaced by an intense excitement that sent his mind racing. He wanted to know everything—now!

"I was being pursued."

"By Turks?"

Molasar's eyes narrowed, leaving only the endless black of his pupils showing. "No. By ... others ... madmen who would pursue me across the world to destroy me. I knew I could not outrun them forever"—he smiled here, revealing long, tapered, slightly yellowed teeth, none of them particularly sharp, but all strong-looking—"so I decided to outwait them. I built this keep, arranged for its maintenance, and hid myself away."

"Are you..." There was a question Cuza had been burning to ask from the start but had dared not; now he could contain himself no longer. "Are you of the undead?"

Again the smile, cold, almost mocking. "Undead? Nosferatu? Moroi? Perhaps."

"But how did you—"

Molasar slashed a hand through the air. "Enough! Enough of your bothersome questions! I care not for your idle curiosity. I care not for you but that you are a countryman of mine and there are invaders in the land. Why are you with them? Do you betray Wallachia?"

"No!" Cuza felt the fear that had been washed away in the excitement of contact creep back into him as he saw Molasar's expression grow fierce. "They brought me here against my will!"

"Why?" The word was a jabbing knife.

"They thought I could find out what was killing the soldiers. And I guess I have... haven't I?"

"Yes. You have." Molasar underwent another mercurial shift of mood, smiling again. "I need them to restore my strength after my long repose. I will need them all before I am again at the peak of my powers."

"But you mustn't!" Cuza blurted without thinking.

Molasar flared again. "Never say to me what I must or must not do in my home! And never when invaders have taken it over! I saw to it that no Turk ever set foot in this pass while I was about, and now I am awakened to find my keep overrun with Germans!"

He was in a foaming rage, walking back and forth, swinging his fists wildly about to punctuate his words.

Cuza took the opportunity to lift the top off the box to his right and remove the fragment of broken mirror Magda had given him earlier in the day. As Molasar stormed about, lost in a rage, Cuza held up the mirror and tried to catch Molasar's reflection in it. He could glance to his left and see Molasar by the stack of books on the corner of the table, but when he looked in the mirror he could see only the books.

Molasar cast no reflection!

Suddenly, the mirror was snatched from Cuza's hand.

"Still curious?" He held up the mirror and looked into it. "Yes. The tales are true—I cast no reflection. Long ago I did." His eyes clouded for an instant. "But no more. What else have you in that box?"

"Garlic." Cuza reached under the cover and pulled out a clove. "It is said to ward away the undead."

Molasar held out his palm. There was hair growing at its center. "Give it to me." When Cuza complied, Molasar put the clove up to his mouth and took a bite, then tossed the rest into a corner. "I love garlic."

"And silver?" He pulled out a silver locket that Magda had left him.

Molasar did not hesitate to take it and rub it between his palms. "I could not very well have been a boyar if I had feared silver!" He seemed to be enjoying himself now.

"And this," Cuza said, reaching for the last item in the box, "is supposed to be the most potent of vampire banes." He pulled out the cross Captain Woerma

With a sound that was part gasp and part growl, Molasar stepped away and averted his eyes. "Put it away!"

"It affects you?" Cuza was stu

"PUT IT AWAY!"

Cuza did so immediately, bulging the sides of the cardboard box as he pressed the lid down as tightly as he could over the offending object.

Molasar all but leaped upon him, baring his teeth and hissing his words through them. "I thought I might find an ally in you against the outlanders, but I see you are no different!"

"I want to see them gone, too!" Cuza said, terrified, pressing himself back into the meager cushioning of his wheelchair. "More than you!"

"If that were true, you would never have brought that abomination into this room! And you would never have exposed it to me!"

"But I didn't know! It could have been another false folk tale like the garlic and the silver!" He had to convince him!

Molasar paused. "Perhaps." He whirled and stalked toward the darkness, his anger cooled, but minimally. "But I have doubts about you, Crippled One."

"Don't go! Please!"

Molasar stepped into the waiting dark and turned toward Cuza as it enveloped him. He said nothing.

"I'm on your side, Molasar!" Cuza cried. He couldn't leave now—not when there were so many unanswered questions! "Please believe me!"

Only pinpoint glints of light off the surfaces of Molasar's eyes remained. The rest of him had been swallowed up. Suddenly, a hand jabbed out of the blackness, pointing a finger at Cuza.

"I will watch you, Crippled One. And if I see you are to be trusted, I will speak with you another time. But if you betray our people, I shall end your days."

The hand disappeared. Then the eyes. But the words remained, hanging in the air. The darkness gradually receded, seeping back into the walls. Soon all was as it had been. The partially eaten clove of garlic that lay on the floor in the corner was the only evidence of Molasar's visit.

For a long while, Cuza did not move. Then he noticed how thick his tongue was in his mouth, and drier than usual. He picked up the cup of water and sipped from it; a mechanical exercise requiring no conscious thought. He swallowed with the usual difficulty, then reached for the box to his right. His hand rested on the lid awhile before lifting it. His numbed mind balked at facing what was within, but he knew he eventually must. Compressing his strictured mouth into a short, grim line, he lifted the lid, removed the cross, and laid it before him on the tabletop.

Such a little thing. Silver. Some ornate work at the ends of the upright and the crosspiece. No corpse affixed to it. Just a cross. If nothing else, a symbol of man's inhumanity to man.

From the mille