I have gone ahead of myself.
We took him there, to the foothills of the Carpatii, and there he was lowered into his hole four or five feet deep in the dark earth. Wrapped in massy chains of silver and iron, he was, and the stake still in him and nailing him secure in his box. He lay pale as death, his eyes closed, for all the world a corpse. But I knew that he was not.
Night was falling. I told the soldiers and priests that I would climb down and behead Thibor, and set a fire of branches in his grave to burn him, and when the fire was dead fill in the hole. It was dangerous, witchcrafty work, I said, which could only be done by the light of the moon. They should now retreat, if they valued their souls. They went, stood off, and waited for me on the plain.
The moon, thin-horned, rose up. I looked down on Thibor and spoke to him in the manner of the Wamphyri. ‘Ah, my son, and so it is come to this. Sad, sad day for a fond father, who bestowed upon an ingrate son mighty powers to be wasted. A son who would not honour his father’s ordinances, and is therefore fallen in the world. Wake up, Thibor, and let that also which is in you waken, for I know that you are not dead.’
His eyes opened a crack as my words sank in, then gaped wide in sudden understanding. I threw back my cowl so that he might see me, and smiled in a manner he must surely remember. He marked me and gave a great start. Then he marked his whereabouts — and screamed! Ah, how he screamed!
I threw earth down upon him.
‘Mercy!’ he cried out loud.
‘Mercy? But are you not Thibor the Wallach, given the name Ferenczy and commanded to tend in his absence the lands of Faethor of the Wamphyri? And if you are, what do you here, so far from your place of duty?’
‘Mercy! Mercy! Leave me my head, Faethor.’
‘I intend to!’ I tossed in more dirt.
He saw my meaning, my intention, and went mad, shaking and vibrating and generally threatening to tear himself loose from his stake. I put down a long, stout pole into the grave and tapped home the stake more firmly, driving it through the bottom of the coffin itself. As for the coffin’s lid, I merely let it stand there on its side in the bottom of the hole. What? Cover him up and lose sight of that frantic, fear-filled face? ‘But I am Wamphyri!’ he screamed.
‘You could have been,’ I told him. ‘Ah, you could have been! Now you are nothing.’
‘Old bastard! How I hate you!’ he raved, blood in his eyes, his nostrils, the writhing gape of his mouth.
‘Mutual, my son.’
‘You are afraid. You fear me. That is the reason!’
‘Reason? You desire to know the reason? How fares my castle in the Khorvaty? What of my mountains, my dark forests, my lands? I will tell you: the Khans have held them for more than a century. And where were you, Thibor?’
‘It’s true!’ he screamed, through the earth I threw in his face. ‘You do fear me!’
‘If that were true, then I should most certainly behead you,’ I smiled. ‘No, I merely hate you above all others. Do you remember how you burned me? I cursed you for a hundred years, Thibor. Now it is your turn to curse me for the rest of time. Or until you stiffen into a stone in
the dark earth.’
And without further ado I filled in his grave.
When he could no longer scream with his mouth he screamed with his mind. I relished each and every yelp. Then I built a small fire to fool the soldiers and the priests, and warmed myself before it for an hour, for the night was chill. And eventually I went down to the plain.
‘Farewell, my son,’ I told Thibor. And then I shut him out of my mind, as I had shut him out of the world, forever.