Lycanthropos (31 page)

The hours passed slowly, and still the old man did not move, still the werewolves were held captive by the potent
flowers. Insects and rodents began to feast happily upon the shattered remains of Liam mac Ceorn, but the old man did not shoo them away. He did not move. He dared not move.

As the sun rose, the creatures slowly resumed their human forms, and the old man allowed himself to fall backward upon his weary haunches as the werewolves were replaced by a thin, pale young man and dark-haired woman. A few moments after the change was complete they opened their
eyes and sat up. They looked at the old man and then over at
the carnage a few yards away.

"Your doing, beasts," the old man said, his voice
mingling sorrow and rage.

The woman shook her head and replied in the Latin language, "We know not your tongue, old one. Do you know the
tongue of the Romans?"

"I do," the old man replied in Latin, "for the days when the
Romans ruled our island are a memory to me, though but a legend, to the young. But you are not legends, beasts! You
declare your reality and sign your names in blood!"

The young man was looking at the plants. "What are these weak chains with which you bind us?"

The old man's eyebrows rose in surprise. "You remember, monster?"

"Dimly," he replied, "as through night and fog."

The old man nodded. "What matters the name of the plant? Chains are chains, and these chains shall bind you always." He paused. "Who are you? You are not Britons, surely."

"I am called Ianus the Chaldean," the young man said.
"It is true that I am not a Briton. I know not the land of
my father, nor the name of my father. I know not what I am, nor why I am what I am."

"And how is this?"

"Time, ancient one, time. Memory fades after a hundred thousand sunsets."

"But not yet for me!" the woman said hotly. "For not yet five centuries have passed since
he made me what I am. I
can feel my past crumbling within my mind, and yet still I
know,
still
I know."

"And what do you know, woman?" the old man asked gently,
beginning to feel pity for them despite his hatred and fear,
despite the rotting body whose members lay strewn about the clearing.

"My name is Claudia Procula," she replied. "I am a Roman
lady of a good family, and was content with my life until
Ianus visited this curse upon me."

"And what is your family, Lady Claudia?"

She strained her mind to think for a moment, and then
she shook her head. "Lost, lost. The name is gone, the image
is dying."

The old man looked at Ianus the Chaldean and asked, "Why have you come to Britannia?
Rome
is far from here, and the land of the Chaldeans farther still. Your cities,
Ur
and
Babylon
, are so distant that they are known to us only in
the tales told by the Christian priests."

"I do not know if I am a Chaldean," Ianus replied. "It
is merely what I am called. And we have journeyed here in
search of help."

"Help!" the old man laughed sadly. "Can you not kill on
your own?"

"We do not wish to
kill,"
the woman said. "We wish to
die."

"Yes," her companion agreed. "We wish to die. In Gallia we heard of a great wizard in the
province
of
Britannia
. We
have come to seek him out that he may kill us."

"I am called Myrdden," the old man said, "and the
ignorance of the people leads them to call me a wizard,
though my magic is knowledge and my powers are but the
truths known to the ancients."

Claudia shook her head. "Myrdden is not the name we have
heard."

"I am also called Merlinus, in the Roman tongue."

They looked at each other and then Ianus sighed and
nodded. "Then you are the wizard we seek, Merlinus. Can you
help us?"

"Can you kill us?" Claudia asked.

Merlin shook his head. "I have no such power. But, with the plant, I can control you. I can bind you on the nights of the full moon and I can affix the plants to you, and I
can watch over you..."

And so it was throughout the last years of the life of the wizard, and through the years of the life of his apprentice; but all was lost when the Britannic chieftain Artorius was killed and the Britons were driven into the mountains of
Wales
by the invaders, by the Angles and the
Saxons and the Jutes. The knowledge was lost, the power of the plant was forgotten, the line of Merlin was ended. And as
the sixth century became the seventh, the black nights of the new dark age were again host to the murderous lusts of the creatures, and the painful cycle began again, and the blood flowed, and the wails of mourning rose into the dawn skies, and the years passed in slow and sorrowful progression for Claudia Procula and Ianus the Chaldean, and they wrote their names in blood from Britain to Novgorod to Khanbaluc to the Carpathians, from the fields of France to the plains
of Hungary.

And soon, even Claudia could not remember who she was.

 

The next cycle of the full moon was one week away.

Janos Kaldy lay silently upon the cold stone floor of
the dungeon cell in the
Ragoczy
Palace
, and he stared up at
the ceiling pensively.
Why is it that this minister can strip away the layers of memory and reveal to me what lies
beneath them, and yet I cannot do this myself
, he wondered.
Is it some special skill, this hypnosis, some hidden art?
Certainly not. He speaks to me, has me concentrate on his
voice, has me stare at something, and then he strips away
the layers of time. Can I not do this thing alone, without him? Can I not dig down into the dungeon of my own mind and remember who I am and how I became the thing I am?

Kaldy closed his eyes. Relax, he ordered himself. Breathe deeply. Empty the mind of thought. Allow the images to surface. Do not fight them, do not resist them. Allow
them to float upwards from the darkness. Remember. Remember.

Time passed, and Kaldy lay immobile upon the stone
floor. Blasko sat nearby, watching him, not knowing what his
friend was doing, but knowing that Kaldy could not be
sleeping, for Kaldy never slept, knowing that Kaldy could
not be resting, for Kaldy never tired. Blasko watched in
silence.

Kaldy's eyes remained closed, and for an instant he found himself standing in the crypt in the ruins of the vampire's castle, gazing up at the rafters from which the vampire hung like a spider. "You threaten me with death, foolish
Vroloki,
" the vampire was saying. "Do you not know
that if you were capable of fighting evil, you would not be the cursed creatures that you are?"

PAIN!

Kaldy's body rocked with agony and he felt as if his head were about to explode, but the images continued to
surface, and each new image brought with it a stab of pain.

"I shall keep you here until the end of my days,
demons," Nostradamus was shouting into the still open entrance to the stronghold, "and I shall see to it that you
remain here until the end of time."

PAIN!

Myrdden was binding them with thick ropes and the
flowers were covering them.

PAIN!

"Haitaumash kakoshenkar, mashkamash kakosheshkar."

PAIN!

Desert winds. Sweat and offal. Fear and desire. Youth and hope and trust and

PAIN!

Haitaumash kakoshenkar, mashkamash kakosheshkar. Haitaumash kakoshenkar mashkamash kakosheshkar, haitaumash kakoshenkar, mashkamash kakosheshkar, haitaumashkakoshenkar,mashkamashkakosheshkarhaitaumashkakoshenkarmaskamashkakoshenkarhaitaumashkakoshenkarmaskamashkakosheshkar…

PAIN! PAIN! PAIN!

Kaldy screamed and grabbed his head. He rolled over onto his side and his thin body shuddered. Blasko rushed over to him and took him in his arms and began to rock him as if he were a baby, muttering, "Janos, Janos, poor Janos!"

Janos Kaldy's pain subsided, and he began to weep. He
wept for himself and his long, tortured immortality. He wept
for Claudia. He wept for the thousands of innocent lives he had taken over the long centuries. He wept and wept and wept
.

And the days passed, and Kaldy awaited the full moon, as
Weyrauch pried and
Petra
experimented and Blasko worried and Louisa sulked and Schlacht killed.

And then at last the full moon was less than two days away.

"So?" Helmuth Schlacht asked, as he sat behind his desk and methodically cleaned his pistol. "You have read the report from
Berlin
. What do you make of it?" Schlacht seemed angry, though he had thus far given no indication of the source of his anger.

Weyrauch frowned thoughtfully as he read the brief letter which S.S. headquarters had just received from Professor Langhorst, the internationally known and respected philologist. Petra Loewenstein, who was seated in the chair next to his, craned her neck in an unsuccessful attempt to read the paper which he was holding. "It is...confusing, to say
the least," Weyrauch commented.

"To say the least," Schlacht nodded. "Does it offer a clue as to Kaldy's origins?"

"It may," the minister nodded slowly. "It may at least help us to establish a date for his...well, not his birth, but…"

"Herr Doctor,"
Petra
asked, "may
I...?"

"Oh, yes, certainly, certainly," he replied, handing her
the letter. She read through it quickly, and then handed it back to him without comment. "Any thoughts?"

"No, I'm afraid not," she replied. "I've heard of the Magi from the Christmas story of course...the so-called Wise Men, I mean, but…"

"Has it ever occurred to you, Gottfried, that our friend Kaldy is playing you for a fool?" Schlacht asked.

"N...no, Helmuth," Weyrauch stammered. "Why would you
think...?"

Schlacht allowed the pistol to drop heavily down upon his desk, and both Weyrauch and
Petra
started slightly at the unexpected thud. "Let us review the facts, shall we?" the S.S. officer suggested coldly. "Kaldy agrees to
cooperate with us, agrees to allow you to attempt a hypnotic regression so that we might uncover the source of his power.
He claims, of course, not to know his own origin, a rather unbelievable assertion, in my opinion. And what are the results of the regressions and the subsequent questioning?"

"Well..." Weyrauch began to reply to what he knew to be
a rhetorical question.

"Shut up, Gottfried!" Schlacht snapped. Weyrauch seemed
actually physically to shrink down into the chair as
Schlacht went on. "He tells you a few foolish stories about
Nostradamus and Dracula and Merlin...think about it, Gottfried... a French prophet, a Rumanian vampire and a
British wizard!"

"But Helmuth, I assure you..."

"He has been lying to you, you stupid idiot!" Schlacht shouted. "He has been telling you fairy tales. Astrologers and vampires and magicians! God in heaven, Gottfried, can you really be this gullible?!"

"But…"

"And now, according to Langhorst, he now brings Jesus Christ into his private little joke! The Magi, Gottfried? The goddamned
Magi
?!"

"H...H...Helmuth, he...he didn't say anything a...about
the Lord..."

"Oh, no, of course not," Schlacht spat. "That would have
been too transparent, too easy for us to see through...or should I say, too easy for
you
to see through. It is all
crystal clear to
me."

"Helmuth, please," Weyrauch implored, beginning to sweat profusely. "There are a variety of
interpre..."

"Listen carefully, you dung brain!" Schlacht said as he snatched the paper from Weyrauch's trembling hand and began to read it aloud. "‘The phrase you transcribed, though the transliteration is poor, seems to be in the Gathic language of ancient
Iran
; at least, it is similar to the language used in the Gathas, the oldest section of the Zoroastrian
scripture, the Avesta.'" Schlacht looked up. "Following this so far?" he asked sarcastically.

"Helmuth..." he began cautiously.

"Good." He looked back down at the page. "‘The phrase translates as ‘Conquer the evil within, battle the evil without.' It is, to the best of my knowledge, part of a ritual incantation, or possibly a prayer, of the Zoroastrian priesthood known to us as the Magi, from the Greek
magoi.
The word is related to the Latin
magus,
meaning magician.'" The Colonel looked at his cousin's husband and asked, "A relatively clear series of sentences, don't you think?"