‘Madman!' Thibor accused again, but with something less of conviction. For the Ferenczy had spoken of these nightmares so easily, with no obvious effort at contrivance. He could not be what he claimed to be — no, of course not — but certainly he might believe that he was.

The Ferenczy, if he heard Thibor's renewed accusation of madness, ignored or refused to acknowledge it. "Unnatural", you called me,' he said. ‘Which is to claim that you yourself know something of nature. Am I correct? Do you understand life, the "nature" of living, growing things?'

‘My fathers were farmers, aye,' Thibor grunted. ‘I've seen things grow.'

‘Good! Then you'll know that there are certain principles, and that sometimes they seem illogical. Now let me test you. How say you: if a man has a tree of favourite apples, and he fears the tree might die, how may he reproduce it and retain the flavour of the fruit?'

‘Riddles?'

‘Indulge me, pray.'

Thibor shrugged. ‘Two ways: by seed and by cutting. Plant an apple, and it will grow into a tree.. But for the true, original taste, take cuttings and nurture them. It is obvious: what are cuttings but continuations of the old tree?'

‘Obvious?' the Ferenczy raised his eyebrows. ‘To you, perhaps. But it would seem obvious to me — and to most men who are not farmers — that the seed should give the true taste. For what is the seed but the egg of the tree, eh? Still, you are of course correct, the cutting gives the true taste. As for a tree grown from seed: why, it is spawned of the pollens of trees other than the original! How then may its fruit be the same? "Obvious" — to a tree-grower.'

‘Where does all this lead?' Thibor was surer than ever of the Ferenczy's madness.

‘In the Wamphyri,' the castle's master gazed full upon him, ‘ "nature" requires no outside intervention, no foreign pollens. Even the trees require a mate with which to reproduce, but the Wamphyri do not. All we require is a host.'

‘Host?' Thibor frowned, felt a sudden tremor in his great legs — the dampness of the walls, stiffening more cramps into his limbs.

‘Now tell me,' Faethor went on, ‘what do you know of fishing?'

‘Eh? Fishing? I was a farmer's son, and now I'm a warrior. What would I know of fishing?'

Faethor continued without answering him: ‘In the Bulgars and in Turkey-land, fishermen fished in the Greek Sea. For years without number they suffered a plague of starfish, in such quantities that they ruined the fishing and their great weight broke the nets. And the policy of the fishermen was this: they would cut up and kill any starfish they hauled in, and hurl it back to feed the fish. Alas, the true fish does not eat starfish! And worse, from every piece of starfish, a new one grows complete! And "naturally", every year there were more. Then some wise fisherman divined the truth, and they began to keep their unwanted catches, bringing them ashore, burning them and scattering their ashes in the olive groves. Lo and behold, the plague dwindled away, the fish came back, the olives grew black and juicy.'

A nervous tic jumped in Thibor's shoulder: the strain of hanging so long in chains, of course. ‘Now you tell me,' he answered, ‘what starfish have to do with you and I?'

‘With you, nothing, not yet. But with the Wamphyri why, "nature" has granted us the same boon! How may you cut down an enemy if each lopped portion sprouts a new body, eh?' Faethor grinned through the yellow bone mesh of his teeth. ‘And how may any mere man kill a vampire? Now see why I like you so well, my son. For who but a hero would come up here to destroy the indestructible?'

In the eye of Thibor's memory, he heard again the words of a certain contact in the Kievan Vlad's court:

They put stakes through their hearts and cut off their heads... better still, they break them up entirely and burn all the pieces...ven a small part of a vampire may grow whole again in the body of an unwary man... like a leech, but on the inside!

‘In the bed of the forest,' Faethor broke into his morbid thoughts, ‘grow many vines. They seek the light, and climb great trees to reach the fresh, free air. Some "foolish" vines, as it were, may even grow so thickly as to kill their trees and bring them crashing down; and so destroy themselves. You've seen that, I'm sure. But others simply use the great trunks of their hosts; they share the earth and the air and the light between them; they live out their lives together. Indeed some vines are beneficial to their host trees. Ah! But then comes the drought. The trees wither, blacken, crumble, and the forest is no more. But down in the fertile earth the vines live on, waiting. Aye, and when more trees grow in fifty, an hundred years, back come the vines to climb again towards the light. Who is the stronger: the tree for his girth and sturdy branches, or the slender, insubstantial vine for his patience? If patience is a virtue, Thibor of Wallachia, then the Wamphyri are virtuous as all the ages . .

‘Trees, fishes, vines.' Thibor shook his head. ‘You rave, Faethor Ferenczy!'

‘All of these things I've told you,' the other was undeterred, ‘you will understand... eventually. But before you can begin to understand, first you must believe in me. In what I am.'

‘I'll never —‘ Thibor began, only to be cut short.

‘Oh, but you will!' the Ferenczy hissed, his awful tongue lashing in the cave of his mouth. ‘Now listen: I have willed my egg. I have brought it on and it is forming even now. Each of the Wamphyri has but one egg, one seed, in a lifetime; one chance to recreate the true fruit; one opportunity to carve his changeling "nature" into the living being of another. You are the host I have chosen for my egg.'

‘Your egg?' Thibor wrinkled his nose, scowled, drew back as far as his chains would allow. ‘Your seed? You are beyond help, Faethor.'

‘Alas,' said the other, lip curling and great nostrils flaring, ‘but you are the one who is beyond help!' His cloak billowed as he flowed towards the broken body of old Arvos. He hoisted the gypsy's corpse upright in one hand, like a bundle. of rags, perched it, head stiffly lolling, in a niche in the stone wall. ‘We have no sex as such,' he said, glaring across the cell at Thibor. ‘Only the sex of our hosts. Ah! But we multiply their zest an hundred times! We have no lust except theirs, which we double and redouble. We may, and do, drive them to excesses — in all of their passions — but we heal their wounds, too, when the excess is too great for human flesh and blood to endure. And with long, long years, even centuries, so man and vampire grow into one creature. They become inseparable, except under extreme duress. I, who was a man, have now reached just such a maturity. So shall you, in perhaps a thousand years.'

Once more, futilely, Thibor tugged at his chains. Impossible to break or even strain them. He could put a thumb through each link!

‘About the Wamphyri,' Faethor continued. ‘Just as there are in the common world widely differing sorts of the same basic creature — owl and gull and sparrow, fox and hound and wolf — so are there varying Wamphyri states and conditions: For example: we talked about taking cuttings from an apple tree. Yes, it might be easier if you think of it that way.'

He stooped, dragged the unconscious, twitching body of the squat Wallach away from the area of torn up flags, tossed old Arvos' corpse down upon the black soil. Then he tore open the old man's ragged shirt, and glanced up from where he knelt into Thibor's mystified eyes. ‘Is there sufficient light, my son? Can you see?'

‘I see a madman clearly enough,' Thibor gave a brusque nod.

The Ferenczy returned his nod, and again he smiled his hideous smile, the ivory of his teeth gleaming in lantern light. ‘Then see this!' he hissed.

Kneeling beside old Arvos' crumpled form, he extended a forefinger towards the gypsy's naked chest. Thibor watched. Faethor's forearm stuck out free of his robe. Whatever the Ferenczy was up to, there could be no trickery, no sleight of hand here.