As the Merlin spoke, he also wove a seductive visual picture in Marieko’s mind of a dark wasteland where the nosferatu ruled. A dominion of sere and leafless lands, haunted trees, scorched earth, and the skeletal ruins of abandoned cities, some with perpetual fires burning and others that glowed radioactive in the dark. Such meager life as could survive the breaking of the food chain, and the extinction of tens of thousands of species, lived according to a cycle of black, starless nights, and shroudsheeted days of windswept gloom, black rain, dust storms, and dirty snow. Such humans as remained, ragged and wide eyed from the trauma, died at the side of the cracked ribbons of what had once been highways as the scavenger pickings of the vanished civilization were rapidly exhausted.
“Dig deep, Victor. Hoard the power and the technology. Wait out the storm and then emerge, dominant and victorious.” The Merlin swilled a little more schnapps and grinned like a jovial conspirator. “Doesn’t it all seem tempting?”
In the country of death, the undead rode on hard iron as modern lords in gleaming armored vehicles, sweeping past the remnants of self-destructed humanity, with feudal banners flying and a thousand years of institutional dread and imposed terror to contemplate. The only well-fed and healthy humans were those in the underground pens, and, to a lesser degree, the slave laborers in the Urshu/nosferatu-controlled reconstruction camps.
“I’m offering you a world for nosferatu, by nosferatu, without the need to ever again hide from humanity because humanity has been completely and permanently reduced to the subservient role.”
Marieko was suddenly repulsed. Not so much by the concept but by the brutish and totalitarian ideas of implementation. “I’m sorry, Merlin-san, but you have gone
too far. The Nazi flags and Stalinist banners are redundant. Such images will only play as retro kitsch and nothing more. My own people, the Japanese, learned that lesson in the atomic fire. You still haven’t watched enough television. You’re bringing too much of the fifth century—and what you saw in the aftermath of the comet—to your seductive little vision. Times have changed.”
“Are you telling me humans have improved in the last fifteen hundred years?”
“Not in the least, but they’re different. They move so much faster.”
Renquist nodded in agreement with Marieko. “For a full half century they lived under the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction.”
The Merlin still seemed fully convinced he was right. “It matters not what they might live through or under, or at what speed they live it. They still have the same desires, don’t they, the same susceptibilities? You can attest to that, can’t you, Victor? You’ve lived among them for almost a thousand years. Have humans changed so radically?”
“It’s hard to say how much they’ve changed, since I have naturally had to adapt to those changes.”
“But you would agree there are far too many of them?”
Marieko was surprised to see Renquist all but smile. “Oh, yes. There are far too many of them.” She was even more surprised when Renquist quickly rose to his feet. “But on that point of agreement, I think it’s a good time for me to leave you. I think we’ve exhausted most avenues of discussion for this night.”
Renquist started for the door, and this seemed to be a surprise even for Taliesin. “But I don’t have your answer.”
Renquist turned in the doorway. “Of course you have my answer. You already know it. The only reason you wanted me here was to confirm what you already knew.”
Renquist paused, and a momentary and demonically teasing grin flickered behind his eyes. “If you don’t know, Old Merlin, then your bluff may very soon unravel. You don’t mind me calling you ‘Old Merlin,’ do you?”
“What was going on in there?”
Renquist adamantly shook his head. He was attempting to make his mind as blank as possible, to exclude the Urshu from his thoughts, and Marieko had to do the same. “We shouldn’t talk about it. We shouldn’t even think about it. I don’t know from what distance he can read our minds.”
“If he’s so powerful, he will know everything anyway.”
Renquist interrupted her. His manner was less than kind. “Listen carefully, Marieko, because this is all I’m prepared to say. When Fenrior first told me he intended to kill the Merlin after he had studied him, I was shocked. I protested. The Merlin obviously knows this, and that’s why he wants to win me to his side. The only thing he reveals by this is that he may not be as invulnerable and all perceiving as he wants us to believe. That is why I still maintain my silence. It may be hopeless, but I don’t think it is.”
“And what about me? Why does he interfere in my dreams and bring me running to him?”
“Maybe he thinks we have some kind of bond or coupling.”
Marieko’s mouth grew very small. “That’s a highly patriarchal attitude.”
“Taliesin is a high patriarch, even if he is sterile. It could be another weakness. As far as possible you and I have to think in paradox and disinformation. If the Urshu is using us as his window on a particular facet of the world, we have to afford him the most distorted possible view.”
They had reached the point on the stairs where, if
Marieko were going to her room, and Renquist to his, they should have parted company. A sudden impasse imposed itself. Renquist, when leaving his room to confront Taliesin had given no thought to what he might do after that, and it appeared Marieko had been just as narrowly focused. Renquist had assumed he would probably seclude himself with his thoughts. Even having complete freedom of action after so many alarms and excursions, down the full length of the British Isles was something of a novelty. Fortunately, Marieko was bolder than he was, right at that moment, and he was spared everything but a simple decision. “Perhaps I could come to your room. We could summon a thrall and we could feed.”
Renquist slowly nodded, commencing the game. “Perhaps you should.”
Marieko shrugged, equally offhand, continuing the game. “One way to thwart a mind reader is to turn off the mind and let the flesh and its needs hold sway.”
Marieko prided herself on her reactions, but even she wasn’t sure for a moment how she came to be seeing everything from an unhealthy vantage point, sprawled in a corner and twisted up against the wall, while Renquist scuffled with three nosferatu in the middle of the room. The only thing she remembered prior to that was Victor opening the door to his room for her and ushering her inside. She had been violently slammed sideways and out of the way. Once again, it appeared Victor was the elected target of Highland skulduggery. The three assailants might well have taken Victor completely by surprise had they not expected him to return to his room on his own. That Marieko had walked in first had upset their deadly applecart. No sooner had Marieko managed to straighten up than she both recognized the attackers and saw the full unpleasantness of their intentions. Duncanon and a brawny Highlander wrestled with Renquist while the small bald Morbius from the laboratory danced round them, keeping his distance. Apart from his size,
Morbius took no part in the fight because he was clutching a mallet and a foot-long iron spike. The plan had obviously been for Duncanon and the Highlander to seize the unsuspecting Renquist, hurl him to the floor, and before he could gather his wits to put up a fight, drive the spike through his ribs and into his heart. Marieko coming into the equation had, however, spoiled all that, and the deadly trap had degenerated into a staggering, snarling free-for-all.
Marieko decided to upset the plan still more. The onetime sword of Hideo Matsutani lay on top of a dresser in its ivory sheath, next to a large Jacobean glass jug. Victor’s damned water. Duncanon, Morbius, and the Highlander were so focused on Renquist, they failed to notice when Marieko commenced her move. Loath as she was to touch a blade that had once been Kenzu, need dictated, and the sword was already unsheathed and describing a precise arc that terminated in Morbius’s throat as the small nosferatu, the alleged accomplice of Ruthven, turned and realized his last moment was upon him. Marieko had swung with all the grace and tidy style of a French executioner of the sixteenth century. Morbius’s head remained in place for a full second until it toppled, freeing a short fountain of dark blood and noxious spray. The head rolled for about two feet across the floor before it came to a halt. The body attempted to crawl toward the head, feebly trying to reunite the two for recovery and reconstruction, but Marieko put a stop to this by bringing the sword firmly down into his heart.
The slaughter of Morbius caused a sharp, shocked freeze in the action, which Renquist used to break free of Duncanon and the Highlander and snatch up his walking cane. A twist and flick, and the secreted blade was a naked eighteen inches of Milanese steel. Without hesitation, while the hollow wooden shaft was still falling, and Marieko had yet to pull her own blade out of Morbius’s back, Renquist had driven the point unerringly
into the Highlander’s left eye. Ultimately the eye would recover, although a new one might never grow, dependent on the extent of the damage, but this didn’t minimize the bleeding or the agony. The nosferatu dropped his claymore and pressed both hands to his face, but blood still flowed between his fingers as he staggered from the room. To Marieko’s eternal wonder, Renquist actually let out a short laugh of delight. In far less time than it took to grasp what had happened, the tables had been immaculately turned on Duncanon. His trap had reversed itself, so he now found himself facing Renquist one-on-one, but with Marieko at his back with the Bushido sword ready to take him.
His head lowered and claymore held level, Duncanon retreated, seeking to protect his back, but the room wasn’t large enough to give him the space he needed. Marieko also began to circle, but Renquist stayed exactly where he was with his back to the door. “So who gave you your orders, boy? Was it your laird, or did you make this little adventure up all by yourself?”
“I can spot m’ own enemies.”
“Can you now?”
“Tha’ I can.”
“Can you also spot when you’re beaten, and ask for quarter?”
“I ask quarter from no man.”
Renquist raised his blade slightly. “Then I’d commend you to make the most of your last few moments.”
“Ye’re powerful big wi’ th’ talk when it’s two on one.”
“I seem to recall you thought you needed three to take me.”
“An’ where would ye be if ye din’a ha’ th’ lassie t’ back y’ play?”
Renquist’s lip curled. “So now the ruse has failed, you have the audacity to appeal to honor?”
Marieko took a step forward. “Defend yourself, Duncanon. I’ll take you.”
Renquist shook his head. “Give me the sword, Marieko. This one is mine, by right.”
Marieko would have been profoundly pleased to have thrust Victor’s sword straight through Duncanon and be finished with the arrogant little whelp, but Renquist was correct. He did have the right, the prior claim on Duncanon, and after just the slightest hesitation, she tossed the sword of Hideo Matsutani over Duncanon’s head to Renquist, who caught it deftly. Duncanon glanced at Marieko. An evil smile was spreading across his face, and his fangs were slowly extending, exceptionally long and gleaming white. “Ye made a mistake there, lassie. Ye should’a kept y’ sword. Now all ye can do is watch while I gut y’ fancyboy.”
Duncanon’s breath was in Renquist’s face. It smelled of whisky, and bloodshot eyes told of recent feeding. Was the young one hyped on microfungi and a fresh kill? He might maintain the pose of fearing nothing, but even a fresh, wild, young one like Duncanon might need to steel himself before he actually did away with another of his kind. Particularly when the method was to be the hammered stake, an end that not only terrified most undead, but also disgusted them as a gruesome and degrading way to go. After catching the sword tossed by Marieko, Renquist had shifted blades into opposite hands. The Bushido blade was in his right and the thin straight blade of swordcane in his left. As he made the exchange, Duncanon saw a chance to rush him and took it, but Renquist was able to block the downward swing of the claymore, intended—had it struck home—to cleave his skull clear to the jawbone. He caught Duncanon’s single blade close to the hilt between his two, and after a short trial of strength, was able to push him back and away. Without making a big thing of it, Renquist also took a step back so he was halfway out the door of the room. “You were already bested by a horse.”
Duncanon snarled at the taunt and again rushed Renquist
in the hope that a second furious downward slash would succeed where the first one had failed, but Renquist was able to block it and again take a step back, out the door. Using the two eccentrically matched blades, Renquist found he was having to quickly evolve a highly unorthodox and ad hoc style, a hybrid of formal Japanese and the hard Italian art of rapier and poniard. He jabbed at Duncanon with the point of the samurai sword. “Did you ever hear a blade sing, boy? Ever fancy you sensed an elusive metallic purring as though the steel were anticipating the strike? Did you ever feel a kinship of soul with a weapon?”
In addition to an eclectic and fabricated style, Renquist also had a strategy. His goal was to lure Duncanon out of the room and into the narrow corridor, where he would find himself at a distinct disadvantage. To swing the long, cumbersome claymore required space. It was a weapon of the outdoors, the battlefield, and the crossroads at midnight. It did not serve its master well in the nooks and crannies of an architectural rabbit warren like Fenrior. The ploy depended on keeping Duncanon angry, and burning his energy by forcing him to bring the fight to Renquist. His youthful fury and nosferatu bloodlust would distract him from noticing he’d been effectively confined until it was too late, and to feed that fury, Renquist went right on talking as he repeatedly jabbed with the Matsutani. “This has the reputation of being an ‘evil blade.’”