Area 51: Nosferatu-8 (20 page)

"And the seventh son?" Nosferatu asked. "The next Watcher of Giza?"

"Hidden away. I have taught him what he needs to know and when I am gone he will take over. But for now, I am the Watcher of Giza. I do not fear you nor do I fear death, for I have done my duty."

"I have not come here to kill you, old man."

Kajik shrugged. "So you say. Do you know some of my order now hunt your kind?"

"What do you mean?"

"There are those in my order who see your kind as an abomination that should not be allowed to walk the Earth. So they hunt you."

"I thought you were just supposed to watch?"

"That is our mandate, but some have grown weary of just watching. They search things out."

Nosferatu laughed. "It would be most unfortunate for any of these Watcher-Hunters to find me. For them, not me."

"Perhaps that is what Vampyr thought until Tyrn, what you call a Watcher-Hunter, found him in Greece."

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Nosferatu leaned forward. "What of Vampyr? What happened?"

"He fought among the Spartans for many years. Rumors of a very strange man among the Greeks began to grow and were passed on by members of my orders to our headquarters. Then Tyrn began the long search. He caught up to Vampyr in Greece while the Spartans were conducting a campaign against another city and convinced the Spartans to turn on him."

"Vampyr's dead?" Nosferatu could not believe such a thing after so many years.

He remembered Aspasia's Shadow speaking of Vampyr fighting to the south.

"The Spartans would not allow Tyrn to kill him. But they cut off his hands and set him off into the wilderness with no clothing or supplies. That was years ago. I think he would have died by now."

Not Vampyr, Nosferatu thought. "His hatred is too strong for him to die."

Kajik shrugged once more. "I tell you only what I know. There is much in the world I do not know."

"Vampyr killed the four remaining Airlia Gods here?"

Kajik nodded while continuing to whittle.

"Tell me something, Watcher."

Kajik stopped whittling and waited.

"You know what happened to Vampyr. Your order exists around the world."

"My order has people in many places," Kajik confirmed.

"What of the other Airlia Gods?" Nosferatu asked. "Where are they?"

Kajik carefully put the stick on the floor, then looked up at Nosferatu. "Why do you want to know?"

"You don't serve them, correct?"

"We will never serve them," Kajik said.

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"Then what is the purpose of your order?"

There was a long silence in the hut, before Kajik spoke once more. "It is our mandate to watch."

"Who gave the mandate?"

"At the First Gathering, after the fall of Atlantis, those who were there gave it."

"Men. Like you?"

"Yes. Priests who had escaped Atlantis and who would not serve the Gods ever again after the great betrayal."

Nosferatu thought back to his childhood and the First Age. "Those at that First Gathering had been abandoned by the Gods. Other priests were chosen, many brought here to serve. Maybe to other places. But not those who formed your order. Have you ever considered that?"

"What difference does it make?"

"It means your order was founded out of bitterness."

"So?"

"What is born in hatred is doomed to fail."

"Who are you to say that?" Kajik demanded. "Why do you think those like Tyrn hunt you? Are you any better than the Gods?"

Nosferatu squatted so he was at eye level with the man. "Yes. Because over the years I have learned much. I just want to be able to live in peace. And have my love live. That is all most people ask, isn't it? But as long as the Gods exist, that can never be.

"So I ask you once again, Watcher, what is the purpose of your order?"

Nosferatu did not wait for an answer. "I will tell you why you only watch. Fear.

Your ancestors— those who founded your order—knew they could not fight the Airlia Gods, so they decided only to watch. It was a decision based on fear.

They should have decided to fight them."

Kajik's dark eyes stared at Nosferatu, whatever

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thoughts he had to what he was hearing hidden behind them. "Fight and die?"

"This"—Nosferatu waved his hand about the hut—"is living? I have been here before. Nothing has changed here. But the world out there"—he pointed out the door of the hut—"is changing."

"What do you want from me?"

"I have been told that some of the Airlia—those led by Artad, along with him—sleep in a place called China. Is this so?"

"Yes."

"Do you know where exactly? I was told a place called Qian-Ling but that means nothing to me."

"He sleeps underneath a mountain made by men."

"Like the pyramid?"

"That I do not know."

"What else do you know about Artad's sleeping place?"

"A Watcher-Hunter passed through here during the time of my grandfather. He was looking for more information on you and others like you. He told my grandfather there is rumor of Undead near where Artad sleeps."

Nosferatu had never considered that there would be others besides Vampyr. He was still, assimilating this startling news for several moments. Then he asked,

"Where is Aspasia?"

Kajik simply pointed up.

"What does that mean?"

"He is not on this planet. He is sleeping among the stars."

Nosferatu slid his legs out from under him and sat down, feeling the weariness of the years he had already lived. Aspasia was inaccessible. It was as likely that Artad was too, even though he was in the place called China.

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But that there might be other Undead there gave him hope of perhaps enlisting some allies, in addition to Alexander and his army. Aspasia's Shadow's plan might simply be a distraction, another role of the dice; but that didn't mean Nosferatu couldn't turn it to his own advantage.

Nosferatu took leave of Kajik and returned to the army. Alexander led the army north and east out of Egypt and toward Babylon. They crossed the Tigris and the Euphrates and met Darius once more in battle at Gaugamela. Once more Alexander was victorious and once more Darius fled, although this time he escaped Alexander but not death as he was slain by two of his own generals.

Nosferatu found that following an army on the march made for excellent feeding because of the number of camp followers, on whom no one kept a close eye.

However, he was still dismayed at the slowness of the advance. It was four years since he'd left Greece with Alexander and they were still within the known world. He spent many of his nights wandering local villages and cities trying to learn more of the world to the east and listening for any mention of the land of China and of other Undead. But nothing.

At his urging Alexander moved forward in the winter of 331, an unheard-of thing, and captured the Persian capital of Persepolis. He burned the city, ending the Persian Empire.

With access to the Persian court records, Nosferatu found the first mention of a land that might be China. Far to the east and north of a huge mountain range.

There were drawings of flying dragons and other odd beasts and tales of a strange people with yellow skin and slanted eyes. He was discouraged to see the distances drawn on

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the maps and the number of kingdoms still between him and his objective.

Alexander didn't care. They finished the winter outside the sacked remains of the Persian capital as his emissaries went to all the surrounding kingdoms and demanded tribute lest they face destruction. By winter's end his domain stretched from Greece to Afghanistan to Turkistan to Carthage. He was essentially the ruler of the known world.

It was to the unknown world, however, that Aspasia's Shadow's imprinting and Nosferatu's urging pushed him. Any other ruler at such a young age would have been content to govern and reap the rewards of his hard labor. But Alexander was not the ruler of his own mind.

In 326 he crossed the Indus River and invaded the Punjab.

Nosferatu could finally see the high mountains to the north, apparently impassable, blocking him—and Alexander's army—from the goal of China and Qian-Ling.

At that point what Nosferatu had long feared finally happened, the army rebelled. They had been away from home and loved ones for almost a decade in an age when the average life span was barely three decades. They refused to continue and no amount of coaxing or threats by Alexander could make them go a step farther.

Nosferatu stood on the bank of the Indus and watched as the hastily constructed fleet of Alexander set sail, to go downriver and then into the Indian Ocean and on to the Persian Gulf and eventually home.

He did not join them. He turned his face to the north and headed toward the white peaks that seemed to touch the ceiling of the sky. He would try to reach Qian-Ling on his own.

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CRETE: 331 B.C.

Nosferatu, who knew Vampyr well, was right. Vampyr's hatred had kept him alive when the Spartans had sent him out of their camp, naked, handless, without any supplies, and frighteningly depleted of blood. All he had was his xithos, which Acton had hung around his neck on a scabbard, saying he had earned the weapon.

Vampyr had staggered through the forest, weaving his way among the trees. A wounded animal, simply seeking some place to hide. The first day he'd burrowed under the previous winter's leaves, his body wracked with pain, real and phantom from where his hands ought to be. How could flesh that was not there cause pain?

he'd wondered in bewilderment.

He had judged the humans wrongly, he'd realized those first weeks after he was maimed. They were more cunning and determined than he had imagined. He promised himself he would never underestimate them again.

It took all he had learned over the many years and the training of the Spartans for him to survive his wounds and the handicap of not having hands. He fed on children, the old, the weak, those he could overpower most easily. And he made his way south, knowing he needed to get back to his tube, to go into the deep sleep. It took him two years to cross southern Greece. Then another year before he managed to make his way on board a ship to Crete.

He found the island fragmented, the kingdom he had once ruled a distant memory that most believed never really existed. He went to the ruins of his old palace, to the hidden chamber behind the throne room. Using a

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stick gripped between his teeth, he set the controls, and then crawled in, managing with great difficulty to put the leads around his arms and legs. Then he went into the deep sleep, his mind filled with thoughts of revenge.

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CHINA: 325 B.C.

Nosferatu walked among the stone people, a shadow in the darkness. The statues that lined the dirt road on either side glared down on him, their faces forever set in anger. They were a warning, a silent message sent to those in the area to stay away from the mountain to which the road led.

Nosferatu could see the peak looming directly ahead, the destination that Aspasia's Shadow had told him to seek so many years and miles ago. Nosferatu had gone north out of India and skirted the foothills of the Himalayas, following them around to the west, as the few locals he talked to late at night recommended. He'd crossed hills and vast deserts, sometimes going for long periods without feeding until finally the massive mountains were to his right and he was moving east once more. He came upon a well-worn trading route, one that would not be called the Silk Road for hundreds of years, but was already in use by intrepid souls willing to attempt the dangerous journey.

He fed upon stragglers and upon those who wandered too far from nightly encampments. His primary impression of China was one of vastness. Seemingly endless deserts rimmed by mountains. He heard there was an ocean to the east, but very far away.

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The Silk Road ended at the city of Xian, which those he had talked to around the fire in encampments had told him to seek. A local warlord ruled in Xian and there appeared to be no centralized government, indicating to Nosferatu that the word "China" was merely a geographical, rather than political, term. He'd spent several weeks in Xian, listening at night to words spoken in darkened taverns, learning the language and feeding to rebuild his strength after his long, arduous journey.

Few spoke of Qian-Ling and then only in whispers. There were supposed to be evil demons around the mountain protecting it, and if one did get past the demons, the story was that those who went in never came out. It was not very much different than what was spoken of the Giza Plateau. When the moon was darkest he departed Xian for Qian-Ling.

Nosferatu paused between the statues and looked up. Three thousand feet high, the mountain was much larger than the great pyramid he had seen in Egypt. It was perfectly shaped, its rounded shoulders graced with terraces filled with plants and trees leading to a rounded top.

Nosferatu sensed movement in the darkness. He made himself as still as the statues. There was someone out there, stalking him. He'd been hunted before, by humans when he had stayed too long in one place and fed too often. They never stood a chance of capturing him in the dark and he always made sure to hide well during the day. But this was different. His pursuer wasn't a clumsy group armed with swords and carrying torches.

Nosferatu moved quickly to one side of the road and hid next to one of the statues. He turned his head slowly, peering about, while also listening closely.

He heard a slight rustle of cloth to his right front. There. Also in the darker place at the base of a statue was a figure. Staring

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back at him. Nosferatu realized with a start that the other could see him just as well in the dark. He knew then that he had found another like him, another Undead.

Then he realized there was more than one. He turned his head to the left and saw another figure. Slowly turning in a circle, Nosferatu saw that he was surrounded by half a dozen silent figures, all of whom held weapons, short swords carried at the ready.