Dark of the Sun (58 page)
Authors: Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Tags: #Fantasy, #Fiction, #General, #Historical, #Horror, #Vampires, #Transylvania (Romania), #Krakatoa (Indonesia), #Volcanic Eruptions
“Your people,” said Rojeh.
“Yes. And the foes were the Cimmerians,” he said slowly, the recollections gathering in him and holding his full attention. “They were the ones who killed me, the Cimmerians, since I would not oblige them and die in battle. Over time, they killed all of us Ragosh-ski, including my uncle who helped them.” Birds were beginning their morning carols, and Ragoczy Franciscus stopped to listen to them. “How good to hear so many songs again. I had feared the birds were gone.”
“How many escaped the flames?” As soon as he said it, Rojeh wished he had not spoken.
“I do not know. I had been taken away from these mountains by the time the Erastna left. But I know all the men of the family were executed one way or another, and most of the women. And all of our gods.” He fell silent again. “As many as could fled westward, away from the enemy.”
“The gods were the ones who made you what you are,” said Rojeh; he wanted to encourage Ragoczy Franciscus to talk, since he so rarely said much about his early years. “Your gods were vampires. Does anyone remember that?”
“If they do, they keep their memories in whispers.”
“Would she know the stories told of you if there are only whispers?”
“I would think she would: she would probably know that I was born at the dark of the year, and that one of them—the gods of my people—met me in the sacred grove at the main fortress, many leagues from here, at the Winter Solstice on the night I turned fourteen, and I drank his blood from his palms, which meant I would become like them when I died. If she knows about the citadel, she surely knows of this, as well.” He lapsed into a brief reverie. “I could not see which one it was, but I always hoped it was God Menisho.” His expression changed, shifting his attention. “I have not spoken his name for centuries.”
“But you have not forgot him,” Rojeh said carefully. “Or any of your forgotten gods.” He waited a moment. “Does it bother you to return here?”
“No,” he said, his dark eyes enigmatic as he looked past the mountains into the past. “It did the first time, for it was all still too fresh, too raw, and I was too engrossed in exacting full suffering from the descendants of those who conquered this place.” He sighed. “I made the memory of my family abhorrent, and deservedly so.”
When he did not continue, Rojeh said, “It was long ago and you are not that man now.”
“Ah, but I still have the capacity, and I forget that at my peril.” Ragoczy Franciscus glanced up at the sky, marking the positions of the stars. “Dawn is coming, and we should move on.”
“Does it pain you to hear the stories about your kind?” Rojeh could not help asking; Ragoczy Franciscus rarely said so much about himself and Rojeh was curious.
Ragoczy Franciscus considered the question. “It did at one time, far less now. This is my native earth, and it has a strength for me that nothing can change, no matter what the legends say.”
Rojeh looked down at the ground. “This place where we stand: is this your native earth?”
“No, not yet,” Ragoczy Franciscus said. “But I can sense its nearness; if we keep going, by morning we will not have to stop for the day and seek shelter from sunlight.” He patted his mare on the neck and prepared to remount. “It is not much farther now.”
They continued up the mountain as the sky in the east began to lighten, finally showing the rubicund promise of dawn, which had been their signal to stop, but now Ragoczy Franciscus kept on, his posture in the saddle straight, showing no trace of fatigue. As they topped the ridge of the mountain’s flank, Rojeh called out, “It is getting light. Should we find shelter?”
“No,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “We will soon be where we are going.”
“We have not come this way before,” said Rojeh as they continued along the crest.
“No, nor to this place. This is the hardest to reach of all the fortresses. When we have come to this land in times past, we have arrived from the west, not the east, and gone to the main fortress, in the center of my father’s lands, not here at the edge. But this is where it ended, and it is fitting that we are here.”
“If you mean to let this be your ending.” As kindly as Rojeh spoke, he was challenging Ragoczy Franciscus. “You must do it alone.”
For a long moment, Ragoczy Franciscus said nothing. Then he looked up the face of the crags. “If the land still knows me, I will do whatever it requires.”
“I will not help you to die the True Death,” Rojeh warned.
“I did not think you would, old friend.” Ragoczy Franciscus tapped his blue roan with his heel, moving her to the side of a narrow pathway. “The ground is not steady here; keep to the verge.”
“I will.” Rojeh wanted to know how Ragoczy Franciscus could be so certain about the road, but he held his question for the time being. “How far is the citadel?”
“Less than half a league. You should be able to see it, at the point of that crag.” He held out his arm to show Rojeh where to look, but nothing had the appearance of a fortress; there was only the forbidding face of rock. “So much to remember.”
“I still cannot see it; it must be the angle of the light,” Rojeh said, feeling he had to justify his lack of recognition.
“No doubt,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “The citadel is a ruin. It has been a ruin for more than nine hundred years.” He shaded his eyes in the slanting sunlight. “I know where to look, and what was there.”
“Then I must follow you and trust you will lead us aright, as you always have,” Rojeh said lightly, giving the mule’s lead a decisive wrench to keep him moving.
Ragoczy Franciscus’ crack of laughter was colored with chagrin. “You know that is not so, as well as I do. I apologize for all the times I have taken you into danger; this should not be such a time,” he said as he rode on into the morning toward the ruin of the citadel. A short while later he pulled in his horse at the edge of a low, crumbling wall of rough-hewn stones. Growing trees had forced their roots through the ancient stones, leaving cracks and reclaiming the wall as a part of the mountain. Ragoczy Franciscus dismounted and stood still, looking at the space the line of rocks enclosed, and he said to Rojeh, who had ridden up behind him, “Welcome to my father’s citadel.” He laid his hand on the nearest section of broken wall. “When I was a living man, this was three times my height and had an archers’ walkway.” He started along the perimeter of the wall. “The gate is just ahead. We should go in there.”
“Because it is the gate?” Rojeh was puzzled.
“Because it is easier on the horses and the mule,” Ragoczy Franciscus answered, moving more vigorously as he turned past what might have been the base of a tower long ago.
Rojeh got off his horse and took the leads for the stallion and the mule in hand. “I’m surprised he hasn’t balked,” he admitted, meaning the stallion, for the mule had balked often.
“He trusts you; you have given him good care and you do not fight with him,” said Ragoczy Franciscus. “But he could still decide not to do as you tell him.”
“I am aware of that,” said Rojeh, and said what was troubling him. “If anything should happen to the horses, how would we manage to bring your native earth down from here, if no one will come to this place?”
“We may not leave for a while; we will work something out if we must,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, pointing ahead. “There. You see: the gate.” A wide break in the wall framed by two broad bases. He stepped through the opening, saying, “You are welcome to my father’s citadel.”
Following him into the wide, ill-defined interior of the walls’ outline, Rojeh said, “I am gladdened to be here.”
“And I, and I,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, touching his throat. “It has a power for me, though it is nothing.” He opened the collar of his kandys: where there had been a mulberry-colored weal marking the path of Dukkai’s knife there was now a pale line that was almost visibly fading away.
Rojeh had seen Ragoczy Franciscus’ remarkable restorative powers, but this astonished him. “So quickly.”
“The cut was ready to heal,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, turning slowly in a circle. “I know you cannot tell very much from what is left, but there, in that part of the courtyard, was the stable. It held up to eighty horses, as I recall. There were some paddocks set up outside the stable.” He swung around toward the northwest. “Over there they had the soldiers’ quarters—they were crowded little cells, but the men expected nothing better, and complained no more than most soldiers do.” He stared at a long mound with the suggestion of a roof-line at the far end. “That must have been the soldiers’ dining room.” His next turn left him facing north and the gate. “There were two guard-towers, both three storeys tall. The marshaling yard was where we are standing. And that jumble behind me was my father’s keep.” He faced the south. “Family quarters were there, on the second floor. The main hall was where those two trees are growing. The kitchen was immediately behind the main hall, and the spring that fed all the citadel, and there was a garden behind the keep, and pens for animals.”
“Much like many others,” said Rojeh.
“Truly.” He lowered his head. “In another three or four hundred years, it will be gone. The rocks will be only rocks, and the trees will claim the courtyard, the marshaling yard and the garden as their own. In better years, when there is more grass, we would not see so much.”
Rojeh took stock of the citadel. “We have certainly stayed in worse places.”
“But you are right—winter is coming,” said Ragoczy Francsicus.
“And it will be a harsh one,” Rojeh added. “Perhaps not as bad as last year, but bad enough.”
“If this seems too remote, then perhaps we can go to the main fortress. We could reach it in a day, assuming the roads are passable.”
“This is a very isolated place.” Rojeh gave a sweep of his hand. “Once the snows come, how could we find nourishment here, for any of us?”
There was a long, twisting quiet, then Ragoczy Franciscus laughed. “You are right, of course: these walls are useless, and this crag is too removed from everything to provide anything more than a source of my native earth, which all of my father’s lands can provide.” He strode toward the crumbled keep, saying as he went, “This place has power for me, but nothing else—after twenty-five centuries, why should it have?”
“Then we will move on?”
“I suppose it would be best,” he said thoughtfully. “Tomorrow, then, yes; we can go to the central fortress. There is a settlement near it, or there was ninety years ago. We should be able to pass the winter there. It is not as high, and it is, or was, a crossroad.” Ragoczy Franciscus swung around and took in the whole of the citadel. “It did what it was intended to do long ago. It is time for it to be over at last, so the living may forget.” His vigor was more apparent now, and he moved with the graceful ease that Rojeh had not seen in more than a year. “As I recall, there was a goatherd’s cottage back against the rear wall. Some of that building might still be intact enough to provide us a place for the night.”
Rojeh watched him stride along the stone heap that marked the keep. “In a settlement, there would be opportunities for more nourishment than your native earth provides.”
“No.’ Ragoczy Franciscus stopped.”No, that would not be wise. The people in those settlements have heard tales of those of my blood, and they fear us, and hate us.“He faltered, then went on.”It is not only because of the tales that keep such beliefs alive, it is because of the vengeance I took, so long ago. They told stories of it, and repeated them, adding to the horror as they did, and so now, most of the people of Dacia, Transylvania, whichever you wish to call it, are terrified of all vampires—not without reason.”
“You mean there are more of your blood here?” Rojeh asked, truly surprised by the prospect.
“Not any longer,” said Ragoczy Franciscus and did not elaborate. He resumed walking toward the rear wall, not as energetically as he had at first.
Rojeh followed after him. “What do you mean?”
“It was many centuries ago,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, his dark eyes turning flinty.
“Why should something from so far in the past bring trouble now?” Rojeh persisted, knowing his questions distressed Ragoczy Franciscus. “Does being here remind you of—?”
“It was not a worthy undertaking.” His frown deepened.
“Because it was against your own kind?”
Ragoczy Franciscus stared into the distance. “They and I … There was a campaign, I suppose you would call it; slaughter would be a more accurate word.” He stepped into what had been the kitchen garden; it had long since become a riot of weeds and thickets. “It seemed necessary at the time, but I would not want to have to take such action again.”
“Because of the Blood Bond,” said Rojeh, moving in the same direction Ragoczy Franciscus was walking, drawing the horses and the mules after him.
“Of course,” said Ragoczy Franciscus, stopping once again to peer around an outcropping of rock. He stood for a while, seeing the fallen cottage and noticing the three old wild apple trees that grew through the wreckage of the cottage; the trees held his concentration for a short while, their ordinariness in this place of hoary bloodshed engrossing him. His expression changed slowly and he spoke to Rojeh in a more tranquil tone. “You are right. This is a place of the past. It and I are no longer coalesced as we once were. You and I should go on.” As Rojeh blinked at this unexpected change Ragoczy Franciscus came back toward him. “We will let the horses and the mules graze a bit—there is grass enough to provide them a good meal—and give them water from the well; then we will start toward Castru Rastna.” It was the name given to the settlement near the remains of Ragoczy Franciscus’ father’s central fortress.
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