The Ferenczy was watching him closely. Suddenly he sighed and stood up. He seemed even taller now, younger, stronger. He stepped lithe to the fire, toppled the spit and steaming birds into the flames. They hissed, smoked, caught fire in a moment. Then he turned to where Thibor sat watching him. Not a muscle of Thibor’s body would answer his mind’s desperate commands. It was as if he were turned to stone. Droplets of cold sweat started out upon his brow. The Ferenczy came closer, stood over him. Thibor looked at him, at his long jaws, his misshapen skull and ears, his crushed snout of a nose. An ugly man, yes, and perhaps more than a man. ‘P-p-poisoned!’ The Wallach finally spat it out. ‘Eh?’ the Ferenczy cocked his head, looked down on him. ‘Poisoned? No, no,’ he denied, ‘merely drugged. Isn’t it obvious that if I wanted you dead, then you’d be dead – along with Arvos and your friends? But such bravery! I showed you what I could do, and yet you came on. Or are you simply stubborn? Stupid, maybe? I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you’re brave, for I’ve no time to waste on fools.’
With a great effort of will, Thibor forced his right hand spastically towards a knife where it lay on the table. His host smiled, took up the knife, handed it to him. Thibor sat and trembled with the strain of his effort, but he could no more take that knife than stand up. The entire room was beginning to swim, to melt, to flow together in a dark, irresistible whirlpool.
The last thing he saw was the Ferenczy’s face, more terrible than ever, as he leaned over him. That bestial, animal face – jaws open in a gaping laugh – and the crimson forked tongue that vibrated like a crippled snake in the cavern of his throat!
The old Thing in the ground sprang awake . . . ! His nightmare had awakened him, and something else.
For a moment the Thibor-creature thrilled with the horror of his dream, before remembering where, who and what he was. And then he thrilled again, the second time with ecstasy.
Blood!
The black soil of his grave was drenched, gorged with blood! Blood touched him, seeped like oil through leaf-mould, rootlets and earth and touched him. Drawn by the instant capillary action of his myriad thirsting fibres, it soaked into him, filled his desiccated pores and veins, his spongy organs and yawning, aching alveolate bones.
Blood – life! – filled the vampire, set centuries-numbed nerves leaping, brought incredible, inhuman senses instantly alert.
His eyes cracked open – closed at once. Soil. Darkness. He was buried still. He lay in his grave, as always. He opened the sinuses of his gaping nostrils, and immediately closed them – but not entirely. He smelled the soil, yes, but he also smelled blood. And now, fully awake, he carefully, far more minutely, began to examine his surroundings.
He weighed the earth above him, probed it with instinct. Shallow, very shallow. Eighteen inches, no more. And above that, another twelve inches of compact leaf-mould. Oh, he’d been buried deep enough that time, but in the centuries between he’d wormed his way closer to the surface. That had been when he had the strength to do so.
He exerted himself, extended pseudopods up into the soil like crimson worms – and snatched them back. Oh, yes, the earth was heavily saturated with blood, and human blood at that, but . . . how could that be? Could this be – could it possibly be – the work of Dragosani?
The Thing reached out its mind, called softly: Drago-saaaniiii? Is it you, my son? Have you done this thing, brought me this fine tribute, Dragosaaaniiii?
His thoughts touched upon minds – but clean minds, innocent minds. Human minds which had never known his taint. But people? Here in the cruciform hills? What was their purpose here? Why had they come to his grave and baited the earth with -Baited the earth!
The Thibor-creature whipped back his thoughts, his protoplasmic extrusions, his psychic extensions and cringed down into himself. Terror and hatred filled his every nerve. Was that the answer? Had they remembered him after all these years and come to put paid to him at last? Had they let him lie here undead for half a millennium simply to come and destroy him now? Had Dragosani perhaps spoken of him to someone, and that someone recognised the peril in what was buried here?