Wolves of Dacia - Chapter Seven – The Pythagoreans

[Miki Yamuri]

Chapter Seven – The Pythagoreans

(Wolves of Dacia – Anthony Burns, 2008, all rights reserved)

Daybreak did little to alleviate the gloom of the ancient, desolate temple complex in its deep glade, shadowed by the mountains, though it was a source of no small relief to the tired and terrified band of Roma who were gathered there. The gradual diminution of the darkness caused an equally unhurried decrease in the fear of what horrors it might conceal, inspiring Dorin and a few intrepid volunteers to conduct a reluctant but necessary search of the ruins. This had revealed a merciful absence of German soldiers, skulking predators, or anything even more dreadful, and had even turned up some unexpected blessings, although they did not instil any sense of comfort in the discoverers:

“Is that the last of them?” asked Dorin, as two young men carried a long wooden crate out of one of the temples and into the open, where over a dozen more already stood. Most of them had been opened and inspected, revealing tins of food, army ration packs, first aid supplies, bundles of tent poles, canvasses, and blankets. One of them contained a cache of bolt-action M1895 rifles, almost certainly old hand-me-downs from the last war, but in serviceable condition and well supplied with ammunition. A few of the more adventurous Roma men had already availed themselves of these arms and had taken up sentry duty at the approaches to the glade, but most of the community were giving these mysterious crates a wide berth, and waiting on Dorin and the elders to decide whether they constituted divine providence or satanic bait.

“It’s the last, Rom Baro,” confirmed one of the bearers, wheezily. “Doesn’t half weigh a ton … Could be more guns. What do you reckon of it? Could all this stuff be stolen, and someone’s keeping it up here till they can sell it on the black market?”

“More than likely,” replied Dorin, though not with full confidence. “This place has an ill reputation, and that only among the few who even know of it. A gadje criminal might think it the ideal location to store their stash.”

“Sure they might … and that weird singing we heard on the way up here was the criminals’ weekly choir practice, was it?” asked Mihai, showing little regard for his leader’s efforts to clutch at morale-boosting straws.

“It has been known for criminals to disguise as mulos, in places where the police and customs officers are as superstitious as the peasants,” argued Dorin, peevishly but not very hopefully. “In ancient China-”

“This is modern Romania, and what passes for police here is the damned SS, and some little bird’s telling me they ain’t likely to wet their pants over a bunch of gadje crooks in silly costumes.”

“So what are you afraid of, then?” asked Dorin, breaking into a humourless vein of irony. “If your mysterious singers were, in fact, mere crooks, then no doubt the Germans will slaughter them, and we can inherit their stash.”

“What I meant was that no-one would be fool enough to try a stupid con like that with the SS. In that case…”

“The woods are in fact crawling with mulos? All the better: they’ll slaughter the SS, we can but hope.”

“Yeah … and come here for dessert, if we don’t make tracks. I suppose Serghei and Andreea haven’t turned up, yet? Didn’t reckon so,” he added, gloomily, in acknowledgement of the various dismal shakes of heads that his question had elicited.

“Maybe they had to lie low. We’ll wait, anyway, before we decide whether or not we’re moving on. Get that crate open, lads. If we should end up having to scatter our company, I’d as soon have as many of the men armed as possible.”

After a quick application of pocket-knives to the nails securing the lid, the crate’s contents lay open to view, and did indeed include rifles and rounds, as well as a slim, sealed envelope. Dorin’s trepidation fought with his curiosity, but given that he was the only extensively literate member of the present company, his sense of duty joined the battle and curiosity won out. He picked up the envelope, slit it with his knife, extracted two sheets of paper, and read aloud:

“‘The Black Triangle Militia extends its greetings to the Roma people.’ Interesting start … ‘Having determined that increasing enemy activity in this area would force your community into hiding, and realising this to be the most likely location, we have taken the liberty of providing supplies to help you through the present crisis. These supplies will be regularly renewed if you, for your part, will assist us. Our resistance forces, though effective, are limited. During the day we are particularly over-stretched and unable to guard all of the approaches to our headquarters. Please refer to the enclosed map, on which we have marked the locations of concealed guard posts that we require to be manned during daylight hours. Each contains a radio transmitter unit to be used for signalling our headquarters, should the enemy attack from those directions. In return for manning these watch points and providing advance warning, should it be necessary, you will enjoy our continued protection and support. However, please do not attempt to locate our headquarters, nor to leave the temple precincts during the hours of night. Doing so would put yourselves at no inconsiderable risk, and would risk drawing attention to and compromising the security of our operations, which we are not prepared to tolerate.’ No signature, unsurprisingly,” he commented, switching the papers around in his hands and turning his attention to the map. “These ‘posts’ are spread over a wide area, by the looks of it. Still, they look like they might be reachable, if we did decide to-”

“Hell’s teeth, Dorin; you’re not seriously considering- ?” interrupted Mihai, his voice the loudest and least ceremonious among a now general hubbub of dismay, though not forceful enough to check the calm, if grim certainty of Dorin:

“Hadn’t I better? We came up here with no plan but to escape those butchers, and if we go back there are hundreds of them just waiting to finish the job. The same applies even if we cross the borders, though we’d be lucky to make it so far when we leave the cover of these hills and forests. Unless you know of somewhere we can hire ourselves a fleet of planes to take us to Switzerland, then if some resistance cell are minded to offer us an alliance it might just be our best-”

Dorin was already shouting to be heard over a growing number of protesting voices, but it was not those that interrupted him on this occasion: rather, it was the sight of a new arrival approaching them from the doorway of the main temple. Though he was not the sort of restless, damned spirit they had dreaded the possibility of encountering in that place, his glassy eyes and ashen face suggested that he may recently have suffered a glimpse of Hell, if not an actual residency. The fact that this tortured face was a familiar one was of no great comfort:

“Serghei? It’s good to see you alive,” said Dorin, leaving the sentence hanging, as he found he lacked the will to say “and well” with any conviction. “How did you come to be inside that temple, though?”

“The tunnel … That’s where it came out. The catacombs,” he clarified, in a broken, hollow voice, which did no more favours for the general state of morale than the words it conveyed. Even Dorin was not immune to a brief thrill of loathing at the notion of his friend having been forced to seek refuge among the ancient dead, but stifled it for the sake of a far more pressing issue:

“What about Andreea? Were you separated?”

“Separated … Not exactly,” he answered, earning a few premature expressions of horror and sympathy from the onlookers. “We were … There was this officer.”

“One of those swine shot her?” asked Mihai, giving a coherent voice to the collective sense of outrage.

“No: a Romanian officer. Said he was with the resistance. Andreea was … There was a rockfall,” he declared, not with the ring of absolute dishonesty, but with an air of sudden inspiration which was by no means conducive to trust. Though he seemed aware that he had struck an unconvincing note, he soldiered on: “She was hurt. Had to go back with this officer, to the resistance headquarters, so that their doctor can have a look at her.” This explanation did little to satisfy the multitude or quiet their mutterings, Dorin and Mihai being among the chief sceptics, although only the latter was outspoken:

“Sorry to hear that, mate. I, err, suppose it must have been pretty serious … yes?”

“It … might,” replied Serghei, guardedly but feebly.

“Only I was thinking, seeing as how these resistance folk have left us these here medical supplied, it seems a bit strange they should take her to their-”

“Never mind. What about this officer?” asked Dorin, as keen to learn more as he was to spare Serghei any further pain, whatever he might have been concealing. Troubling though it was, there would be time to raise the point when he was a good deal calmer and less defensive. Especially since there were more urgent matters that he might be more inclined to speak about. “Do you trust him?”

“Not sure,” replied Serghei, grimly, but with a little less anxiety. “He saved us both from the SS, there’s no denying. Can’t say as I warmed to him, smug old bastard … but he did save my daughter’s life … twice, maybe. I suppose there’s no reason all of God’s gifts have to come wrapped in appealing packets.”

“Which brings us neatly back to the subject of these ‘appealing packets’,” said Mihai, sweeping his arm in the direction of the crates. “It feels wrong as Hell to me, but I’m not Rom Baro, thank the Lord. Desperate we may be, but we don’t know sod all about these supplies: not where they came from, who they might have belonged to … Those rifles might have been used by soldiers who’ve died in battle, for all we know. Anyone here fancy using a dead man’s weapon?” After several shudders and mumblings of distasteful denial, he resumed: “Didn’t reckon so. If this place isn’t already swarming with evil spirits, that’s as good a way as any of bringing them out to play. Still, it’s your call, Dorin.”

“Our ancestors, thankfully, taught us ways and means of dealing with evil spirits,” replied Dorin, in a tone that all could hear clearly and know that a firm and final decision was in the offing. “Sadly, they had less to teach us about dealing with men wanting to kill us, though fate has furnished us with no shortage of those. When our people were slaves, those that escaped would sometimes hide out in these mountains, and did what they had to in order to survive. We’re going to do no less. In any case, we can hardly leave until Serghei’s daughter is back with us, although-”

“Pardon me,” interrupted Mihai, with minimal effort at courtesy, “but Serghei isn’t the only one here with a daughter.”

“You won’t do Nicoleta any favours by taking her on a mystery tour of the wilderness, and since you daren’t go near any towns or villages, that’s your only other option. I’m not happy about this in the least, but we’re not exactly spoilt for choice, and on the whole I’d sooner live to deal with my unhappiness. Let’s get these tents set up … over by the trees, I think,” he added, mainly for the benefit of Mihai and his many sympathisers, but not without some consideration for his own feelings. “We may have to live within sight of these pagan charnel-houses, but we’ll wait until the bullets are raining down upon us before we even think about seeking sanctuary within those walls.”

************

Since parting with her father at the tunnel junction which, according to the colonel, would take him to the refugee camp, Andreea’s journey had been less than enjoyable: blindfolded, and frequently stumbling in spite of the steadying influence of Dragomir’s hand (which may have often failed her as a support, but did add a keen sense of child-like humiliation to an already wretched experience), she would have found it impossible to have traced her route back even if her escort had not, for good measure, led her along a deliberately over-complicated route, taking unnecessary detours that added greatly to the duration of their tedious trek. After about an hour that felt like several, during which the only conversation they exchanged were the directions he occasionally issued to prevent her from walking face-first into walls, she heard a faint, continuous sound from ahead: a low rumble, which gradually increased in clarity and volume and became the unmistakable sound of a shallow but fast river, giving her a glimmer of hope that the underground excursion might soon be at an end, although the air remained discouragingly still. A minute or so later, and the sound increased dramatically, and acquired a hollow, echoing quality. Dragomir brought them both to a halt, and began to untie her blindfold.

“Enough of that, I think. You’re a clever girl,” he remarked, with exacerbating good humour, “but unless you have a photographic memory then I sincerely doubt you could ever lead anyone back this way. Et voila!”

In spite of this attempt at an impressive revelation, Andreea’s immediate view upon having her vision restored was less than awe-inspiring: two rows of dull, flickering orange lights hung in the gloom, vaguely illuminating the stone bridge which they ran along the length of, and which Andreea and her escort stood in the middle of. As her eyes made the double adjustment to finding her sight restored and finding the light so hopelessly inadequate, the scene resolved into something that did better justice to the colonel’s tone. The bridge itself was nothing special: a plain, narrow causeway, flanked at regular intervals by flaming torches on tall poles, but the prospects surrounding it, caught in shadowy, tantalising glimpses by the wavering torchlight, made up for its mundaneness. It spanned a cavern of natural rock, carved by the vigorous subterranean river that rushed beneath them, but at its far end was a regularly-shaped doorway in the cave wall, some twenty feet high, and the carvings that surrounded it were no work of nature. On either side of it, like huge sentries, were two goddess-like figures in high relief, dressed in classical-style long gowns, the outer skirts of which curled and tapered outwards like leaves or petals. Across the top of the doorway and the graceful, emotionless stone faces was a sculpted entablature, bearing the image of a strange, hybrid creature: it had the body, the tail, and the symmetrically outspread wings of an eagle, but was topped off with the upper torso and head of a man in ancient, oriental-style dress, bearded, and in profile.
Dragomir handed her the flashlight, and as she passed the beam over these sculptures, genuinely fascinated, she could distinguish many finer carvings, like hieroglyphics, inscribed upon the flat surfaces. It seemed a magnificent, but very eclectic collection of styles, and she was on the point of requesting some enlightenment from her infuriating guide when a new distraction became apparent to her: low thuds, like drumbeats, either distant or muffled. As they seemed to originate from below, the latter seemed the only possibility, albeit a confusing one. She directed the beam into the water, and without much searching discovered several long, black wooden caskets, suspended just below the river’s surface on long ropes that descended from a pulley system high above. They were plain, unadorned crates, but their shape, their incongruity, and the persistent, erratic knocking sounds emanating from them combined to a blood-curdling effect, and with only the smallest sense of rationalist absurdity she found herself reaching for the protective charm the colonel had given her: a gesture that was not lost upon him.

“You can dispense with that,” he announced, in his well-worn, mildly exultant tone of superior knowledge. “They can’t harm you.”

“Those are … what I think they are, then … and this is where they … sleep?”

“Not precisely. This is their prison. Oh yes; like any society they have their codes and laws, though execution is never practised. I wouldn’t accuse them of moral superiority on that score, mind you. In spite of being immortal, they are rife with weaknesses. A sufficiently aggressive baby could kill one of them during the day, so they’ve never managed to sustain a large population, in consequence of which-”

“It would be bad for morale for them to kill each other. You needn’t explain it as if I were a baby. As you tactlessly reminded me, I do have some insight about the thoughts and feelings of a small, despised community. I’d be far more interested to know why they dangle their prisoners in the river.”

“Well surely you’ve heard the myth that vampires can’t cross running water? Only a half-truth, as it transpires. They could cross this bridge easily enough, but if they fell in … The spiritual energy that they draw so easily upon in the night air – call it undetectable radiation, for the sake of argument – does not flow so readily through sunlight, and seems to be almost completely disrupted by running water. Without that energy, they haven’t the strength to escape, whether by force or transmutation.”

“I thought they got their energy from blood.”

“My research suggests otherwise. More than likely, blood is solely an organic energy source they occasionally need to sustain they physical forms. As I understand it, they’ve been known to survive without it for years, with all of their supernatural powers intact, but it’s an excruciating ordeal: a prolonged fast causes them to literally wither away, till eventually the body is too wasted to contain their spirits, then death comes in earnest. It may sound like sloppy biology,” he added, in somewhat peevish consideration for her sceptical looks, “but I haven’t undertaken this study lightly.”

“It sounds a charming subject, but do consider that if you’d asked me only a few hours ago if I believed in mulos, the answer would have been a resounding ‘no’. Having been hypnotised and savaged by one, needless to say … Actually, can we just drop this subject and get the hell out of here?”

“Certainly, but first; what do you think of our temple?” he asked, gesturing towards the elaborately carved doorway. Andreea could sense another hoop being held out for her to jump through, but found it easier to submit to that minor humiliation than that of appearing an ignorant peasant in her guide’s eyes. Besides which, if he had actually brought her on this trip because he felt she might be of some possible use, suddenly appearing useless might not be the wisest of moves.

“Well … I’d say the statues definitely look as if they might be Dacian,” she stated, cautiously, “but that symbol over the door looks Assyrian, or Persian.”

“Very good. It’s a faravahar: a symbol of the Zoroastrian faith which flourished in Ancient Persia, and was one of the first religions to emphasise that every human being has the inner potential to achieve immortality. Zalmoxis must have spent some time over there. You’ve heard of him, of course.”

“A Dacian god?”

“The Dacian god, my dear: head of the pack, or pantheon, to accord the upstart a little dignity. For he wasn’t born to godhood: just to the normal, mundane life of a Transylvanian peasant-boy, which wasn’t a whole lot different in the sixth century BC to what it is now. Hardly the life for a young man of an enquiring mind, who kept hearing the talk of merchants who had been to Greece, Egypt, and even as far as China, seeing all of the wonders of civilisation. In the end, he ran away from home. He meant to reach Athens, but some slave-traders kidnapped him en route, and he ended up being auctioned in the marketplace on the Greek island of Samos. By astounding good fortune, the foremost scientist of the age happened to be in need of a new servant that day.”

“Archimedes?” suggested Andreea, out of her historical depth but keen not to show it.

“Good guess, wrong century,” he replied, with only a trace of disappointment. “Pythagoras is the name you are looking for. The father of mathematics, and the founder of a sect who believed that the study of numbers and their application to both the natural and supernatural worlds would in time supply them with all of the secrets of the universe, including eternal life. Oh, I can’t blame you for looking at me like some drivelling maniac,” he added, accurately summing up her expression. “No doubt you have me down as some raving, demon-summoning alchemist. The alchemists and astrologers of the Middle Ages did indeed try to copy the experiments of their ancient predecessors, but being ignorant hacks, all they did was bring the whole field of supernatural science, as well as their shoddy methods, into disrepute. After that, scientists became more cynical, and gave up on such lofty ambitions, preferring instead to study the physical laws of this universe alone. The disciples of Pythagoras, though, were not mere witch doctors. Like Tibetan monks, they were as serious and methodical in their spiritual lives as they were in their scientific, and when their meditations gave them visions and insights, they analysed them as meticulously as they analysed natural phenomena, that they might learn the laws that governed the spiritual universe as well as the natural, and how to make best use of both. Zalmoxis was a particularly apt student, and found favour with his master. Not only was he given his freedom: he was also sent to travel the civilised world to accumulate greater knowledge for the sect. He visited Egypt, Babylon, Persia, studied at the feet of scientists, philosophers, and sages, and although the secrets he learned may not have solved every riddle of creation for him-”

“He met some kindly mulo who at least solved the riddle of eternal life for him?”

“Hardly. The vampires came later, and not by design: merely an infectious side-effect of the true formula for immortality, which he did at length discover and brought back with him, though not to Samos. The Pythagorean sect may have dissolved in the years he was away, or perhaps Zalmoxis simply felt his new powers would be better employed in lording it over his old homeland. He returned here, won the peasants over with his knowledge and psychic parlour-tricks, had this temple constructed, and continued his experiments. He wasn’t, by all accounts, the sharing type, but he did select a few choice disciples to join him in his pseudo-divinity, which did not involve biting them in the neck. The first vampires were the product of an attempt to short-cut the experiment, the true immortals using their own blood as a second-rate substitute for the correct elixir. He considered them unsatisfactory even as junior officers, although the ease with which he could mentally dominate them made them quite useful as guard dogs … at night, anyway. Their great weakness, compared to the true immortals, is certainly their wretched capacity for storing the radiation they draw upon. That makes them vulnerable to everything that disrupts the source, be it sunlight, running water, or even trinkets and charms.”

“So … I could, in all seriousness, fight off one of those slavering, shape-shifting mutants with a mouldy old breadcrust?”

“With that attitude, I fear not, unless the baker had specifically baked it as an anti-vampire weapon. These spiritual energy fields are not an innate property of any inanimate object, however ‘religious’ or ‘magical’ it may be, unless the focused contact of a sympathetic mind has ‘charged it up’, so to speak: either that of the maker or that of the user. A machine-printed Bible, for example, in the hands of an atheist-”

“Would be about as useful as a roll of toilet paper?”

“Aptly, if crudely put.”

“And how, exactly, did you become such an expert in this field?” she asked, with reinvigorated suspicion.

“As with any field, my dear, by research and observation.”

“Including experimentation?”

“A certain amount of experimentation, I admit. Does that shock you? I thought you were supposed to be a biologist.”

“Perhaps experimenting on live, sentient beings was reserved for my final year,” she replied, with dry contempt.

“Sympathy for our undead friends? Then perhaps it would comfort you to know that the only subjects I used in any painful or deadly experiments were taken from this prison, and most of these,” he declared, with an emphatic sneer, while waving his arm in the direction of the caskets, “came from an irreproachable source: those soldiers … barbarian invaders, to give them their deserved title, were not the first of their kind to trespass on our territory. If you still consider my actions inhuman, you might at least concede that they were, at least, less obscene than the so-called medical experiments which they have been performing on your people, in the detention camps … not a subject it would give either or us any pleasure to dwell upon. Come along, now, and reserve judgement on me until later.”

He took back the flashlight and led the way over the bridge and through the great doorway into a long chamber that, though smaller and more extensively constructed than the last, still had a wild and cavernous aspect. The floor was paved with stones; and a dual row of plain granite columns with square bases had been added to support the ceiling, but the walls were of bare, natural rock, although it seemed to have been hewn back to an extent on both sides, widening the cave. Halfway along the length of the chamber there was an open doorway in the right wall, and at the far end was a narrow, arched, doorway, closed with an iron door. To Andreea’s disappointment, Dragomir led them in the direction of the right-hand exit, but since he had been so forthcoming on the subject of the main entrance, she saw no harm in requesting a little background information on this unassuming little archway:

“What’s down that way, then?”

“Nothing,” he stated, flatly and so forbiddingly that her natural instinct to challenge such a barefaced lie was cowed into submission. In cold silence they went on, passing through to a spiral stairwell that took them upwards, through the layer of natural rock and ascending through strata of stonework; at first of close-packed, roughly-cut, unmortared stones which extended for a few metres until they arrived in a layer of larger, regular, mortared stones, of medieval construction. Within this area, and particularly as she passed by a closed oak door, she became aware of the muted but unmistakable sound of an electrical motor, which seemed a fairly positive sign that they had finally reached the headquarters of this alleged resistance unit, although of actual human activity there were no sounds whatsoever. They continued upwards, the bare stone walls acquiring flaking plaster and occasional narrow, pointed-arch windows that looked out upon a steep, wooded valley on one side; and on the other a stone courtyard surrounded by linked structures in a bizarre medley of architectural styles: classical colonnades topped with medieval timber-framed upper storeys, supported by gothic buttresses, and towers with conical fairytale roofs clashing with the green copper dome that sat atop the widest, most central of the towers. Around the courtyard, stacks of shoring timbers, scaffolding poles, stones, bags of cement, and miscellaneous debris testified to ongoing restoration or maintenance work, although no actual builders were in evidence, in spite of the morning being well advanced.

“Nice castle you have here, My Lord,” she commented, with just a hint of acid, as she hoped to elicit a verbal reaction rather than a deeper sullenness between them.

“My family’s, rather than mine,” he replied, impassively. “I don’t imagine it was ever intended that I should inherit this place. We haven’t inhabited it for generations, and the memories of that time … See that tower across the courtyard?” he asked, pointing out of the nearest window in the direction of the domed tower. “When my distant ancestor first arrived here, in the sixteenth century, the above-ground Dacian temple was only a basic structure: just an observation platform and a few monoliths in astronomical alignment, not unlike Stonehenge in Britain. He realised what it meant – that the secret of immortality discovered by Zalmoxis required certain celestial conditions – so he had the stone circles destroyed and that damn great observatory built in their place. In its day, it was state-of-the-art.”

“It still seems rather an extreme act of archaeological vandalism just for the sake of casting a few silly horoscopes, if you’ll pardon my scepticism.”

“I rather like your scepticism, and I certainly can’t fault your logic. There are indeed celestial bodies that produce more than visible light: dead stars and distant galaxies emitting radio waves, electromagnetic radiation, and energy that isn’t even detectable on any instrument yet invented, such as that which keeps your mulos on their toes. Such emissions, and a precise gravitational alignment of the solar system focusing them upon this location, were what my ancestor needed to locate, but his instruments were too primitive and his medieval astrology too full of nonsense and superstition to give him any useful guidance. Our floor, I believe,” he announced, opening a door that led them into a long corridor, lined throughout with dark wooden panels elaborately carved in a Dance of Death motif. “By the time he was dead, this castle had been expanded to its present size and many more facilities for study had been added, yet he was no closer to achieving his goal.”

“And you believe that someone who lived a thousand years before him could have succeeded where he failed?” she asked, genuinely curious, though with an irrepressible note of incredulity.

“You should know better than to think of human progress as a linear thing, my girl. Knowledge is lost as well as gained as time goes by, and the Ancient Greeks were certainly no fools when it came to astronomy. They even had computing machines, though not the electronic things we’re developing these days: intricate mechanical devices, capable of precisely calculating planetary movements. Quaint to us, perhaps, but far more sophisticated than anything my poor ancestor had at his disposal.”

“I suppose you have something even more sophisticated here these days?” He seemed about to answer, but caught himself on the verge of it, closed his mouth before it could utter the indiscretion, and after a few moments replied with a very guarded and unconvincing air:

“Why do you imagine that, Miss Petrescu? Astronomy is hardly a typical or useful activity for a resistance unit.”

Well, I don’t know … but might it have something to do with the way that every time the subject of this supposed immortality experiment comes up, it’s all you can do to stop yourself drooling in anticipation? she thought, but managed to keep her actual answer free of both sarcasm and truth:

“I just thought that … you must have some advanced equipment here, if you’re hoping to cure me of that mulo’s bite.”

“Of course. Do forgive me. I shouldn’t worry about it, though. The risk is practically non-existent by now, having shown no sign of mutation, though I’m sure your father would appreciate a professional second opinion.” She had the distinct and disquieting sense that he was repaying her insincerity in kind, but was in sore want of the nerve to challenge him. In spite of the comparative brightness, space, and airiness of her new surroundings, her mind felt no less oppressed than it had been in the catacombs, and certainly no safer. The sepulchral silence of this supposed paramilitary headquarters gave her suspicion plenty of material to work with, although her reason fought back with the argument that the colonel would not, for obvious reasons, have escorted a stranger right to the centre of their operations, and probably meant to lodge her temporarily in some quiet area of the sprawling castle until his colleagues were prepared to attend to her.
This seemed to be confirmed as he stopped; drew a set of old keys from his tunic pocket; unlocked a door that she had not even seen, so expertly was it camouflaged within the rest of the gruesome wall carvings; and motioned her to enter what proved to be a well-appointed bedroom, though with an unpleasantly musty atmosphere which seemed almost as old as the medieval furniture and desiccated books that lined the heavy wooden shelves. A single window of small, dirty, diamond-shaped panes looked out onto the valley. As Andreea, much to the elation of her creaking limbs, sank down upon the ornately carved bed, Dragomir opened the window in an attempt to air the room, letting in a tempestuous mountain wind that pulled several books from their shelves and scattered their pages far and wide, in a freezing tornado of dust and Latin calligraphy. He quickly closed and fastened the window, leaving the room marginally less crypt-like and a good deal colder and messier, and looking like a book antiquarian’s worst nightmare.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he said, rather awkwardly. “I’ll see what can be done about getting you food and fresh clothing. The plumbing here is nothing to write home about, except in very short expletives. I’ll have some hot water and towels sent up for you, at any rate.”

“Thanks, but couldn’t I just see your medic … maybe after a short rest?” she added, having reflected on her myriad aches and her protesting stomach.

“Of course, but it will be some hours before she is available.”

“Your medical officer is a woman? Is that typical for the resistance?”

“I can’t speak for other units, but most of our senior echelon are women: the scientific corps, and the officers of the security corps. Our director prefers it that way. She values a certain … empathy with her inner circle.”

“I thought you were the boss,” she replied, and instantly regretted it, as she had not meant it as a taunt and thus gained no satisfaction from the grim look it wrought upon Dragomir’s face. “I, err … I only meant, seeing as how this is your castle, that you might-”

“A flattering assumption, my dear, but it would precious little sense for an ‘inside man’ to also be the leader,” he interrupted, with mild though ill-concealed resentment. “I would cheerfully have avoided such a role, I don’t mind admitting. Noble families are accustomed to employing spies, but one would much sooner not have to do one’s own dirty work.”

“Then why- ?”

“It’s my very rank that fits me for the role, ironically: my influence and connections, not to mention my assets, enable us to get hold of the supplies and equipment we need to run this place.”

“Actually, I meant why didn’t you stop the SS from coming this way? Is your ‘director’ going to be happy that you let them get so near to your HQ?”

“Not close enough to be a threat, and whatever report the survivors of that unit make to their superiors will sound like a deranged fantasy. That, my dear, is another advantage of sharing our quarters with the living dead, to say nothing of their security services. In any case, we need to keep up our numbers of test subjects. Some of our recent experiments have been … costly, and not pleasant. Think what you like,” he added, as her face resumed a very distasteful expression, “but this is not some cruel whimsy of mine. I won’t deny my academic curiosity, but Miss Bendice has pressing reasons of her own for wishing to study their nature.”

“Is she the director?”

“Indeed, and however you rate my ethics, arbitrary sadism is not her style at all.”

“I’ll try to find that reassuring. You’re off, then?” she asked, as Dragomir made for the door, pausing at the threshold.

“For the present, and I’m afraid I shall have to lock you in.”

“I’m not likely to try wandering round this place alone.”

“Much as it would give me pleasure to take you on trust, I’m not likely to take any chances. There are secret and sensitive projects underway here, and the less you know of them, the more likely you will be allowed to leave here in due time.”

“They’d kill me?” she asked, with grim unamazement.

“They’ll do whatever they need to in order to safeguard their interests. So, alas, will I. Try to get some sleep, or if that fails, catch up on your reading,” he suggested, waving an hand in the direction of the ancient books and storm-tossed pages that littered the floor and surfaces.

“That ought to be fun. I haven’t read any Latin since I was sixteen,” she said, dryly, reflecting on how Father Vadim, with well-meaning clerical zeal, had insisted upon drilling her in the rudiments of this dead language even though she had been determined upon a career in science.

“Then you’re long overdue some revision,” he remarked, stepping back into the corridor. As farewells went, it was unceremonious at best, though he evidently felt that it fulfilled his duties as host, as he followed it up by closing the door, turning the key, and marching off down the corridor, his footsteps soon receding beneath the howling of the wind and the rattling of the aged casement. Those sounds, along with her mental agitation, conspired to keep her wide awake in spite of her weariness and willingness to sleep away the time she was compelled to wait. To occupy her restless mind and stave off morbid imagination, she turned her attention to one of the books that had best survived the general massacre.
Flicking through it idly, she encountered several crude, medieval woodcuts depicting occult symbols, demons, biblical scenes, and miscellaneous esoteric subjects that did not excite enough interest to put her to the trouble of perusing the accompanying text. At length, however, her eye was caught by an illuminated page, which made up in drama and lavish detail what it lacked in astrophysical accuracy. It showed the World as a flat disc, pierced through its centre by an immense tree. Its roots extended deep into an underworld infested with wolves and serpents; while its branches reached into the firmament, gloriously depicted in stars of gold and silver leaf. Within these branches many warriors were assembled, bearing the crude but magnificent weapons and armour of ancient Scandinavia: swords, axes, warhammers, round helmets with eye-guards, chain mail, and round shields emblazoned with golden runes. These gods, or valkyries, or whatever they were, were in a battle formation of sorts, and all looking in the same direction: along a great rainbow, the arc of which extended from the surface of the World to a distant star, larger than the rest and illustrated in a deep red. Coming along this rainbow to meet the warriors was a host of shadowy figures, their vague shapes barely implying men and horses in a battle charge. They were close to being mere phantoms, but were wreathed in flames, which lent their miasmic forms a very threatening aspect.
No part of this scene was instantly familiar to her, although the title of the page, finely worked in gold calligraphy, helped to put it in perspective: Ragnarok; the end of the World in the ancient Norse religion. The accompanying Latin text was simple enough for her to understand in its epic, declamatory style. The trickster-demon Loki, personification of deceit, envy, and malice, had been imprisoned by the gods for his treachery, but was to be released by the efforts of his offspring . As these apparently included a giant sun-devouring wolf, a serpent large enough to encircle the World, and the Queen of Hades, Andreea did not feel up to calling them “children”. In revenge for his imprisonment, the malevolent entity would seek to destroy creation with the aid of reinforcements from Muspell, the realm of fire, who would charge across space over a bridge of light. Once battle was joined, the surface of the Earth would be devastated with fire and poison … and although the main text went on, Andreea’s attention was drawn to a handwritten note in the margin alongside the passage she had just read. Although it too was medieval in origin, it was at least written in Romanian, archaic but understandable:

It is reported that one Da Vinci, engineer to the Duke of Milan, has devised means whereby poisoned vapours may be deployed against the ships of the Duke’s enemies, and weapons of blasting fire that will render the greatest cannons of the heathen Turk as feeble in comparison as the bow and arrow is to them. Even now, every battlefield in Christendom, Islam, and the Orient is as a scene from Hell, the stench of brimstone vying with that of blood. With such means as these, what more remains to fulfil the Sibyl’s prophecy but the summoning of the Avenger himself?