Necroscope

He sensed a mental shrug. Then, I say it again, you would be Wamphyr. There is no other way to know it all.

'But you have a history,' Dragosani insisted. 'Five hundred years you've lain here - yes, I know that - but what of the five hundred before you died?'

Died? But I did not die. They might have murdered me, yes, for it was in their power to do so. But they chose to. The punishment they chose was greater far. They merely buried me here, undead! But that aside... you want to know my history?

'Yes!'

It's a long one, and bloody. It will take time.

'We have time, plenty of it,' said Dragosani - but he sensed a restlessness, frustration in the unseen presences. It was as if something warned him not to try his luck too far. It was not in the undead thing's nature to be pressured.

But finally: / can tell you something of my history, yes. I can tell you what I did, but not how it was done. Not in so many words. Knowing my origins, my roots, will not help you to be of the Wamphyri, nor even to understand them. I can no more explain how to be Wamphyr than a fish could explain how to be a fish - or a bird how to be a bird. If you tried to be a fish you would drown. Launch yourself from the face of a cliff, like a bird, and you would fall and be crushed. And if the ways of simple creatures such as these are unknowable, how then the ways of the Wamphyri?

'May I learn nothing of your ways, then?' Dragosani was growing angry. He shook his head. 'Nothing of your powers? I don't think I believe you. You showed me how to speak to the dead, so why can't you show me the rest of it?'

Ah! No, you are mistaken, Dragosani. I showed you how to be a necromancer, which is a human talent. It is in the main a forgotten art among men, to be sure, but nevertheless necromancy is an art old as the race itself. As for speaking to the dead: that is something else entirely. Very few men ever mastered that for a skill!

'But I talk to you!'

No, my son, I talk to you. Because you are one of mine. And remember, I am not dead. I am undead. Even I could not talk to the dead. Examine them, yes, but never talk to them. The difference lies in one's approach, in their acceptance of one, and in their willingness to converse. As for necromancy: there the corpse is unwilling, the necromancer extracts the information like a torturer, like a dentist drawing good teeth!

Suddenly Dragosani felt that the conversation was going in circles. 'Stop!' he cried. 'You are deliberately obscuring the issue!'

/ am answering your questions as best I might.

'Very well. Then don't tell me how to be a Wamphyr, but tell me what a Wamphyr is. Tell me your history. Tell me what you did in your life, if not how you did it. Tell me of your origins...'

After a moment:

As you will. But first... first you tell me what you know - or think you know - of the Wamphyri. Tell me about these 'myths', these 'old wives' tales' which you've heard, on which you appear to be something of an authority. Then, as you say, we shall separate the lies from the legend.

Dragosani sighed, leaned his back against a slab, lit another cigarette. He still felt he was getting the run-around, but there seemed little he could do about it. It was dark now but his eyes were accustomed to the gloom; anyway, he knew every twisted root and broken slab. At his feet the piglet snorted fitfully, then lay still again. 'We'll take it step by step,' he growled.

A mental shrug.

'Very well, let's start with this: A vampire is a thing of darkness, loyal subject of Satan.'

Ha, ha, ha! Shaitan was first of all the Wamphyri - in our legends, you understand. Things of darkness: yes, in that night is our element. We are . .. different. But there is a saying: that at night all cats are grey! Thus, at night, our differences are not so great - or are not seen to be so great. And before you ask it, let me tell you this: that because of our proclivity for darkness, the sun is harmful to us.

'Harmful? It would destroy you, turn you to dust!'

What? That is a myth! No, nothing so terrible - but even weak sunlight will sicken us, just as strong sunlight sickens you.

'You fear the cross, symbol of Christianity.'

I hate the cross! To me it is the symbol of all lies, all treachery. But fear it? No...

'Are you telling me that if a cross were held against you - a holy crucifix - it wouldn't burn your flesh?'

My flesh might burn with loathing - in the moment before I struck dead the one who held the cross!

Dragosani took a deep breath. 'You wouldn't deceive me?'

Your doubts tax my patience, Dragosani.

Cursing under his breath for a moment, finally Dragosani continued: 'You cast no reflection. Neither in a mirror, nor in water. Similarly, you have no shadow.'

Ah! A simple misconception - but not without its sources. The reflection I cast is not always the same, and my shadow does not always conform to my shape.

Dragosani frowned. (He remembered the leprous tentacle from that time almost twenty years ago.) 'Do you mean that you are fluid, unsolid? That you can change your shape?'

/ did not say that.

'Then explain what you did say.'

Now it was the turn of the old one in the ground to sigh. Will you leave nothing of mystery, Dragosani? No, I'm sure you won't...

But now Dragosani was doing some thinking for himself. 'I believe this may answer two questions in one,' he said while the other pondered. 'Your ability to change into a bat or a wolf, for example. That's part of the legend, too. If it is legend. Are you a shape-changer?'

He sensed the other's amusement. No, but I might seem to be such a creature. In fact there is no such thing as a shape-changer, not that I ever encountered...

Then ... it seemed that the old one had come to a decision. Very well, I will tell you: what do you know of the power of hypnotism?

'Hypnotism?' Dragosani repeated, continuing to frown. But then his jaw fell open as he saw the truth, or what might be the truth, in a sudden flash of realisation. 'Hypnotism!' he gasped. 'Mass hypnotism! That's how you did it!'

Of course. But while it fools the mind it ca

Dragosani remembered the leprous tentacle again but said nothing. He had long ago decided that dead (or undead) things which talked in men's minds might also be masters of deception. Anyway, he had other questions to ask:

'You can't cross ru

Hmmm! I may have an answer to that one, too. In my life I was a mercenary Voevod. And aye, I would not cross ru

While the other offered his explanation, Dragosani had been building up to the big one. Now, without pause, he tossed it in: 'You drink the blood of the living! It is a lust in you, which drives you on. Without blood you die.

Your utterly evil nature demands that you feed on the lives of others. The blood is the life.'

Ridiculous! As for evil: it is a state of mind. If you accept evil you must accept good. Perhaps I am out of touch with your world, Dragosani, but in mine there was very little of good! And as for drinking blood: do you take meat? And wine? Of course you do! You devour the flesh of beasts and the blood of the grape. And is that evil? Show me a creature which lives, which does not devour lesser lives. This legend springs from my cruelties, which I admit, and from all the blood I spilled in my lifetime. As to why I was so cruel: it seemed to me that if my enemies believed I was a monster, then that they would be reluctant to come against me. And so I was a monster! If my legend has lasted so long and grown so fraught with terror, who may say I was wrong? 'That doesn't answer my question. I - ' And I ... am tired now. Do you know what it takes from me, this sort of inquisition? And do you think I am one of your corpses, Dragosani? A suitable case for necromantic examination?