Necroscope - Deadspeak Part 3

'Well, I was born here, under the mountains,' he said, his voice as sof t as his deceptively soft mouth. He smiled and flashed perfect teeth; so th ey should be, Gogosu thought, in a man only twenty-six or -seven years old.

'Born here,' Vulpe repeated, 'yes ... but it's only a dim and distant memory now. My folks were travellers, which accounts for my looks. You recogniz ed me from my tanned skin, right? And my dark eyes?'

'Aye,' Gogosu nodded. 'And from the thin lobes of your ears, which wo uld take a nice gold ring. And from your high forehead and wolfish jaw, w hich aren't uncommon in the Szgany. Oh, your origins are obvious enough, to a man who can see. So what happened?'

'Happened?' Again Vulpe's shrug. 'My parents moved to the cities, settl ed down, became "workers" instead of the drones they'd always been.'

'Drones? You believe that?'

'No, but the authorities did. They gave them a flat in Craiova, right ne xt to the new railway. The mortar was rotten and shaky from the trains; the plaster was coming off the walls; someone's toilet in the flat above leaked on us ... but it was good enough for workshy drones, they said. And until I was eleven that's where I'd play, next to the tracks. Then . . . one night a train was derailed. It ploughed right into our block, took away a wall, bro ught the whole place crashing down. I was lucky enough to live through it bu t my people died. And for a while I thought I'd be better off dead, too, bec ause my spine had been crushed and I was a cripple. But someone heard about me, and there was a scheme on at the time - an exchange of doctors and patie nts, between American and Romanian rehabilitation clinics - and because I wa s an orphan I was given priority. Not bad for a drone, eh? So ... I went to the USA. And they fixed me up. What's more, they adopted me, too. Two of the m did, anyway. And because I was only a boy and there was no one left back h ere,' (yet again, his shrug) 'why, I was allowed to stay!'

'Ah!' said Gogosu. 'And so now you're an American. Well, I'll believe yo u . . . but it's strange for Gypsies to leave the open road. Sometimes they get thrown out and go their own ways - disputes and what have you in the cam ps, usually over a woman or a horse - but rarely to settle in towns. What wa s it with your folks? Did they cross the Gypsy king or something?'

'I don't know. I was only a boy,' Vulpe answered. 'I think perhaps they fe ared for me: I was a weak little thing, apparently, a runt. At any rate, they left the night I was born, and covered their tracks, and never went back.'

'A runt?' Gogosu raised an eyebrow, looked Vulpe up and down yet again.

'Well, you'd not know it now. But they covered their tracks, you say? That 's it, then. Say no more. There'd been trouble in the camp, for sure. I'll give you odds your father and mother were secret lovers, and she was promis ed to another. Then you came along so he stole her away. Oh, it happens.'

'That's a very romantic notion,' Vulpe said. 'And who knows? - you could b e right.'

'My G.o.d, we're ignorant!' Gogosu suddenly exploded, beckoning to the ba rman. 'Here's you and me chatting in this old tongue of ours, and your two friends bewildered and left out entirely. Now let me get you all another drink and then we'll have some introductions. I want to know why you're here, and what I can do to help, and how much you'll pay me to take you to some real ruins!'

'The drinks are on us,' said Vulpe. 'And no arguments. G.o.d, do you expec t us to keep up with you, Emil Gogosu? Now slow down or you'll have us all u nder the table before we've even got things sorted out! As for introductions , that's easy:'

He clasped the shoulder of the American closest to him. "This great gang ly one is Seth Armstrong, from Texas. They build them tall there, Emil, as y ou can see. But then it's a big state. Why, your entire Romania would fit in to Texas alone three times over!'

Gogosu was suitably impressed. He shook hands with Armstrong and looke d him over. The Texan was big and raw-boned, with honest blue eyes in an o pen face, spa.r.s.e straw-coloured hair, arms and legs as long and thin as po les. His nose was long over a wide, expressive mouth and a heavy, bristly chin. Just a little short of seventy-eight inches, even seated Armstrong c ame up head and shoulders above the others.

'Hah!' said the hunter. 'This Texas would have to be big to accommodate such as him!'

Vulpe translated, then nodded in the direction of the third member of his group. 'And this one,' he said, 'is Randy Laverne from Madison, Wisconsin. I t mightn't be so mountainous up there, but believe me it can get just as cold !'.

'Cold?' said Gogosu. 'Well, that shouldn't bother this one. I envy him all that good meat on his bones - and all the good meals it took to put it there - but it's not much use in climbing. Me, I'm able to cling to the rocks snug a s a lichen, in places where gravity would get him for sure.'

Vulpe translated and Laverne laughed good-naturedly. He was the younges t and smallest (or at least the shortest) of the three Americans: twenty-fi ve, freckle-faced, way overweight and constantly hungry. His face was round and topped with wavy red hair; his green eyes friendly and full of fun; th e corners of his eyes and mouth running into mazes of laughter lines. But t here was nothing soft about him: his huge hands were incredibly strong, a l egacy of his blacksmith father.

'Very well,' said George Vulpe, 'so now we know each other. Or rather, you know us. But what about you, Emil? You're a hunter, yes, but what else?

'Nothing else!' said Gogosu. 'I don't need to be anything else. I've a sm all house and a smaller woman in Ilia; in the summer I hunt wild pig and sell meat to the butchers and skins to the tailors and boot makers; in the winter I take furs and kill a few foxes, and they hire me ,to shoot the occasional wolf. And so I make a living -barely! And now maybe I'll be a guide, too. Why not? -for I know the heights as well as the eagles who nest in 'em.'

'And the odd ruined castle? You can show us one of those, too?'

'Castles abound,' said Gogosu. 'But you told me there are guides and guid es. Well, so are there castles and castles. And you're right: anyone can show you a tumble of old boulders and call it a castle. But I, Emil Gogosu, can s how you a castle!'

The Americans Armstrong and Laverne got the gist of this and became ex cited. Armstrong, in his Texas drawl, said: 'Hey, George, tell him what we 're really doing here. Explain to him how close he was when he talked abou t Dracula and vampires and all.'

'In America,' Vulpe told the hunter, 'all over the world, in fact, Transy lvania and the Carpatii Meridionali are famous! Not so much for their dramati c beauty or gaunt isolation as for their myths and legends. You talked of Dra cula, who had his origins in a cruel Vlad of olden times . . . but don't you know that every year the tourists flock in their droves to visit the great Dr akul's homeland and the castles where he's said to have dwelled? Indeed, it's big business. And we believe it could be even bigger.'

'Pah!' said Gogosu. 'Why, this whole country is steeped in olden lore and superst.i.tious myths. This impaler Vlad's just a one of them.' He leaned clos er, lowered his voice and his eyes went big and round. 'I could take you to a castle old as the mountains themselves, a shattered keep so feared that even today it's left entirely alone in a trackless place, like naked bones under the moon, kept secret in the lee of haunted crags!' He sat back and nodded hi s satisfaction with their expressions. 'There!'

After Vulpe had translated, Randy Laverne said, 'Wow!' And more soberly: 'But... do you think he's for real?'

And the hunter knew what he'd said. He stared straight and frowning into Laverne's wide eyes and instructed Vulpe: 'You tell him that I shot the last man who called me a liar right in his backside. And you can also tell him thi s: that in these ruins I know, there's a great grey wolf keeps watch even tod ay. And that's a fact, for I've tried to shoot him, too!'

Vulpe began to translate, but in the middle of it the hunter started to l augh. 'Hey! Hey!' he said. 'Not so serious! And don't take my threats too muc h to heart. Oh, I know my story's a wild-sounding thing but it's true all the same. Pay me for my time and trouble and come see for yourselves. Well, what do you say?'

Vulpe held up a cautionary hand and Gogosu looked at it curiously in the moment before it was withdrawn. It had felt strange, that hand, when he'd g rasped it. And there'd been something not quite right about it when Vulpe ha d clasped the gangling Armstrong's shoulder. Also, Vulpe seemed shy about hi s hands and kept them out of sight most of the time. 'Now wait,' said the yo ung expatriate Romanian, reclaiming the hunter's attention. 'Let's first see if we're talking about the right place.'

'The right place?' said Gogosu, puzzled. 'And just how many such places do you think there are?'

'I meant,' Vulpe explained, 'let's see if maybe we've heard of this castle of yours.'

'I doubt it. You'll not find it on any modern maps, and that's for sure. I r eckon the authorities think that if they leave it alone - if they just ignore it for long enough -then maybe it'll finally crumble away! No, no, you've not hear d of this place, I'm sure.'

'Well, let's check it out anyway,' said Vulpe. 'You see, the deeds, terr itories and history of the original Dracula -I mean of the Wallachian prince from whom Dracula took his name - are well chronicled and absolutely authen tic. An Englishman turned the fact into fiction, that's all, and in so doing started a legend. Then there was a famous Frenchman who also wrote about a castle in the Carpathians, and possibly started a legend or two of his own.

And finally an American did the same thing.

'Now the thing is, this American - his name would mean nothing to you - has since become very famous. If we could find his castle ... it could be th e Dracula story all over again! Tourists? Ah, but you'd see some touristi th en, Emil Gogosu! And who knows but that you'd be chief guide, eh?'

Gogosu chewed the centre of his moustache. 'Huh!' he finally snorted; bu t his eyes had grown very bright and not a little greedy. He rubbed his nose , finally said: 'Very well, so what do you want to know? How can we decide i f the castle I know and the one you're looking for is one and the same, eh?'

'It might be simpler than you think,' said Vulpe. 'For example, how long h as this place of yours been a ruin?'

'Oh, it blew up before my time,' Gogosu answered with a shrug - and was a t once astonished to see Vulpe give a great start! 'Eh?'

But already the American was translating to his friends, and astonishmen t and wonder were mirrored in their faces, too. Finally Vulpe turned again t o the hunter. 'Blew up, you say? You mean . . . exploded?'

'Or bombed, yes,' said Gogosu, frowning. 'When a wall falls it falls, but some of these walls have been blasted outwards, hurled afar.'

Vulpe was very excited now, but he tried not to show it. 'And did it have a name, this castle? What of its owner before it fell? That could be very impo rtant.'

'Its name?' Gogosu screwed up his face in concentration. He tapped his for ehead, leaned back in his chair, finally shook his head. 'My father's father h ad old maps,' he said. 'The name of the place was on them. That's where I firs t saw it and when I first decided to go and see it. But its name . . . it's go ne now.' Vulpe translated.

'Maps like this one?' said Armstrong. He produced a copy of an old Roman ian map and spread it on the table. It soaked up a little beer but otherwise was fine.

'Like this one, aye,' Gogosu nodded, 'but older, far older. This is just a copy. Here, let me see.' He smoothed the map out, stared at it in several pla ces. 'Not shown,' he said. 'My castle is not shown. Just a blank s.p.a.ce. Well, that's understandable enough. Gloomy old place. It's like I said: they'd like to forget it. Legends? You don't know the half of it!' And a moment later: 'Ah hhr he jerked back in his seat and clutched at his forehead with both hands.

'Jesusr cried Laverne. 'Is he OK?'

'OK, yes ... OK!' said Emil Gogosu. And to Vulpe: 'Now I remember, Gheo rghe. It was . . . Ferenczy!'

Vulpe's bottom jaw, and those of his friends, fell open. 'Jesus!' said Laver ne again, this time in a whisper.

'The Castle Ferenczy?' Armstrong reached over and grabbed the hunter's forearm.

Gogosu nodded. 'That's it. And that's the one, eh?'

Vulpe and the others fell back in their seats, gaped at each other; they a cted bewildered, confused or simply astonished. But at last Vulpe said, 'Yes, that's the one. And you'll take us to it? Tomorrow?'

'Oh, be sure I will - ' said Gogosu,' - for a price!' And he looked at Vulpe's hands where he'd spread them on the table, holding down the map. Vu lpe saw where the hunter was looking but this time made no attempt to hide his hands away. Instead, he merely raised an eyebrow.

'An accident?' the old Romanian asked him. 'If so, they patched you up rat her cleverly.'

'No,' Vulpe answered, 'no accident. I was born like this. It's just that my parents always taught me to hide them away, that's all. And so I do, except fr om my friends . . .'

Because of the mountains, the sun seemed a little late in rising. When it did it came up hot and smoky. At eight-thirty the three Americans were waiti ng for Gogosu on the dusty road outside the inn, their packs at their feet, p eaked caps on their heads with tinted visors to keep out the worst of the sun . The old hunter had told them he'd 'collect' them here, at this hour, though they hadn't been sure exactly what he'd meant.

Randy Laverne had just drained a small bottle of beer and put it down to one side of the inn's doorstep when they heard the rattle and clatter of a local bus. These were so rare as to be near-fabulous; certainly the arrival of one such demanded a photograph or two; Seth Armstrong got out his camera and started snapping as the beaten-up bus came lurching out of the pines and down the serpentine road towards the inn. The thing was a wonderful contraption: bald tyres, bonnet vibrating to a blur over the back-firing engine, windows bleary and fly-specked. The dri ver's window was especially b.l.o.o.d.y, from the eviscerations of a thousand su icided insects; and Emil Gogosu was leaning out of the folding doors at the front with a huge grin stamped on his leathery face, waving at them, indic ating they should get aboard.

The bus shuddered to a halt; the driver grinned, nodded and held up a ro ll of brown tickets; Gogosu stepped down and helped the three strap their pa cks to running-boards which went the full length of this ancient vehicle. Th en they were aboard, paid their fare, collapsed or were shaken into bone-jar ring seats as the driver engaged a low gear to let the one-in-five downward slope do the work of his engine.

George Vulpe was seated beside Gogosu. 'OK,' he said, when he'd recover ed his breath, 'so where are we going?'

'First the payment,' said the hunter.

'Old man,' Vulpe returned, 'I've this feeling you don't much trust us!'

'Not so much of the "old" - I'm only fifty-four,' said Gogosu. 'I weather easy. But even so, I didn't get this old without learning that it's sometimes best to collect your pay before the fact! Trust has nothing to do with it. I d on't want you falling off a mountain with my wages in your pocket, that's all!

' And he burst into laughter at Vulpe's expression. But in another moment: 'We're going down to Lipova where we'll pick up a train to Sebis. Then w e'll try to hitch a ride on a cart to Halmagiu village. And then we start cl imbing! Actually it's a longcut. You know what that is? The opposite to a sh ortcut. You see, the castle is only, oh, maybe fifty kilometres from here as the crow flies - but we're not crows. So instead of crossing the Zarundului we're going round 'em. Can't cross 'em anyway; no roads. And Halmagiu is a good base camp for the climb. Now don't go getting all worried: it's not tha t much of a climb, not in daylight. If an "old man" like me can do it, you y oung 'uns should shoot up there like goats!'

'Couldn't we have taken the train from Savirsin all the way?' Vulpe want ed to know.

'If there was one scheduled. But there isn't. Don't be so eager. We'll g et there. You did say you had six days left before you have to be in Bucures ti to catch your plane? So what's the hurry? The way I reckon it we should b e in Sebis before noon - if we make the connection in Lipova. There may be a bus from Sebis to Halmagiu, which would get us there by, oh, two-thirty at the latest. Or we hitch rides ... on trucks, carts, what have you. So we cou ld get in late, and have to put up there for the night. Any time after four is too late - unless you maybe fancy sleeping on the mountain?'

'We wouldn't fancy that, no.'

'Hah!' Gogosu snorted. 'Fair-weather climbers! But in fact the weather is fair. Too d.a.m.ned warm for me! There'd be no problems. A big tin of Hunga rian sausages in brine - they come in cheap from across the border - a loaf of black bread, a cheap bottle of plum brandy and a few beers. What? ... a night under the stars in the lee of the crags, with a campfire burning red and the smell of resin coming up off the pines, would do you three the wor ld of good. Your lungs would think they'd died and gone to lung heaven!' He made it sound good.

'We'll see,' said Vulpe. 'Meanwhile, we'll pay you half now and the rest when we see these ruins you've promised us.' He took out a bundle of leu an d counted off the notes - probably more money than Gogosu would normally see in a month, but very little to him and his companions -then topped up the h unter's cupped palms with a pile of copper banis, 'shrapnel' or 'sc.r.a.p metal ' to the three Americans. Gogosu counted it all very carefully and finally t ucked it away, tried to keep a straight face but couldn't hold it. In the en d he grinned broadly and smacked his lips.

That'll keep me in brandy for a while,' he said. And more hurriedly: 'A sh ort while, you understand.'

Vulpe nodded knowingly: 'Oh, yes, I understand,' and smiled as he settled back in his half of the seat.

From behind, the strident, excited voices of Armstrong and Laverne gre w loud to compensate for the rumble and clatter of the bus; in front an ol d woman sat with a huge wire cage of squabbling chicks in her lap; a pair of hulking young farmers were hunched on the other side of the central ais le, discussing fowl-pest or some such and arguing over a decades-browned c opy of Romanian Farming Life. There was a family group in the rear of the bus - all very smart, incongruous, uncomfortable and odd-looking in almost -modern suits and dresses - possibly on their way to a wedding or reunion or whatever.

To Vulpe's American companions it must all seem very weird and wonderfu l, but to Gheorghe to George - himself it was . . . like home. Like comin g home, yes. And yet as well as poignant it was also puzzling.

He'd felt it ever since they got off the plane a fortnight ago, somethin g he'd thought burned out of him in the fifteen long years since his doctor had taken him to America and come back without him. He'd wanted it to be bur ned out, too, that bitterness which had come with being orphaned. For in tho se first years in America he had hated Romania and couldn't even be reminded of his origins without retreating into black depression. It was one of the reasons he'd come back now, he supposed: to be able to shrug off the shroud of the place and finally say, 'There was nothing here for them . . . nothing here for me ... I escaped!'

In short he had expected the place, the entire country, to depress him and make him bitter all over again - but for the last time - and that afterwards he really would be free of it, glad that it was gone and finally forgotten. He had felt that he'd be able to get down out of that plane, look around and shr ug and say to himself: 'Who needs it?'

But he'd been wrong.

What pain there'd been had quickly drained away; instead of feeling alie nated it was as if Romania had at once taken hold of him and told him: 'You were a part of this. You were part of the blood of this ancient land. Your r oots are here. You know this place, and it knows you!'

Especially here on these dusty roads and tracks under the mountains, the se lanes and forest ways and high pa.s.ses, these valleys and crags and forbid ding desolations of sky-piercing rock. These dark woods and rearing aeries.

Such places were in his blood, yes. If he listened hard enough he could hear them surging there like a tide on a distant sh.o.r.e, calling to him. Somethin g was calling to him, certainly . . .

'Tell me again,' said Gogosu, digging him in the ribs.

Vulpe started and was back in the bus, drawn down from his flight of fanc y. If that's what it had been. 'What? Tell you what?'

'Why you're here. What it's all about. I mean, I'm d.a.m.ned if I can unders tand you vampire-fanciers!'

'No,' said Vulpe, shaking his head, 'that's why they are here.' He tilted his head back, indicating the two in the seats behind. 'But it's only one of m y reasons. Actually . . . well, I suppose I really wanted to know where I was born. I mean, I lived in Craiova as a boy, but that's not the same as being un der the mountains. But up here . . . I guess this is it. And now I've seen it and I'm satisfied. I know what it's about and what I'm about. I can go away no w and not worry about it any more.'

The other reason you're here, then,' the hunter insisted. 'This thing about ruined castles and what all.'

Vulpe shrugged, sighed, then gave it his best shot: 'It has to do wit h romance. Now that's something you should understand easily enough, Emil Gogosu. What, you? A Romanian? Speaking a Romance language, in a land as full of romance as this one? Oh, I don't mean the romance of boy and gir l -1 mean more the romance of mystery, of history, of myths and legends.

The shiver in our spines when we consider our past, when we wonder who we were and where we came from. The mystery of the stars, worlds beyond our ken, places the imagination knows but can't name or conjure except from old books or sc.r.a.ps of mouldering maps. Like when you suddenly remembered the name of your castle.

'It's the romance of tracking down legends, and it infects people like a fever. Scientists go to the Himalayas to seek the Yeti, or hunt for Bigfoot in the North American woods. There's a lake in Scotland - do you know where I mean? - where every year they sweep the deep water with echo-sounders as they seek evidence of a survivor out of time.

'It's the fascination in a fossil, the proof that the world was here and t hat creatures lived in it before we did. It's this love man has for tracking t hings down, for leaving no stone unturned, for chipping away at coincidence un til it's seen that nothing is accidental and everything has not only a cause b ut a result. It's a synchronicity of soul. It's the mystique of stumbling acro ss the unknown and making it known, of being the first to make a connection.

'Scientists study the fossil remains of a fish believed to be extinct fo r sixty million years, and pretty soon discover that the same species is sti ll being fished today in the deep waters off Madagascar! When people got int erested in the fictional Dracula they were astonished to discover there'd be en a real-life Vlad the Impaler . . . and they wanted to know more about him . Why, he might well have been forgotten except that an author - whether int entionally or otherwise - gave him life. And now we know more about him than ever.

'In England in the 6th Century there might have been a King Arthur - and people are still looking for him today! Searching harder than ever for him. A nd it's possible he was just a legend.

'Right now in America - right across the world, in fact - there are soci eties dedicated to researching just such mysteries. Me, Armstrong and Lavern e, we're members of one of these groups. Our heroes are the old-time writers of books of horror whose like you don't much find these days, people who fe lt a sense of wonder and tried to transfer it to others through their writing.

'Well, fifty years ago there was an American author who wrote a novel of dark mystery. In it he mentioned a Transylvanian castle, which he called th e Castle Ferenczy. According to the story the castle was destroyed by unnatu ral forces in the late 1920s. My friends and I came out here to see if we co uld find just such a pile. And now you tell us it's real and you can actuall y show us the tumbled boulders. It's a perfect example of the kind of synchr onicity I've been talking about.

'But if you've romance in your soul . . . well, perhaps it's more than just that. Oh, we know that the name Ferenczy isn't uncommon in these parts . There are echoes from the past; we know there were Boyars in Hungary, Wal lachia and Moldavia with the name of Ferenczy. We've done a little research , you see? But to have found you was ... it was marvellous! And even if you r castle isn't really what we expect, still it will have been marvellous. A nd what a story we'll have to tell our society when we all meet up again ba ck home, eh?'

Gogosu scratched his head, offered a blank stare.

'You understand?'

'Not a word,' said the old hunter.

Vulpe sighed deeply, leaned back and closed his eyes. It was obvious he'd been wasting his time. Also, he hadn't slept too well last night and believe d he might try s.n.a.t.c.hing forty winks on the bus. 'Well, don't worry about it, ' he mumbled.

'Oh, I won't!' Gogosu was emphatic. 'Romance? I'm done with all that. I'

ve had my share and finished with it. What? Long-legged girls with their wob bly b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Hah! The evil old blood-sucking Moroi in their gloomy castles c an take the lot of 'em for all I care!'

Vulpe began to breathe deeply and said, 'Umm . . .'

'Eh?' Gogosu looked at him. But already the young American was asleep . Or appeared to be. Gogosu snorted and looked away.