‘I am myself!' I raged. And I grabbed Ehrig by the throat.

And now as I drew him close, I noticed for the first time the yellow glow in his eyes. They were the eyes of an animal; mine, too, if he spoke the truth. Ehrig made no effort to resist me; indeed, he went to his knees as I applied greater pressure. ‘Well then,' I cried, ‘why don't you fight back? Show me this wonderful strength of yours! You said I should try you, and now I take you at your word. You're going to die, Ehrig. Aye, and after you, so too your new master — the very moment he sticks his dog's nose into this dungeon! I at least have not forgotten my reason for being here.'

I grabbed up a length of the chain which had bound me to the wall and looped it round his neck. He choked, gagged; his tongue lolled out; still he made no effort to resist me. ‘Useless, Thibor,' he gasped, when I relaxed the pressure a little. ‘All useless. Choke me, suffocate me, break my back. I will mend. You may not kill me. You cannot kill me! Only the Ferenczy can do that. A fine jest, eh? For we came here to kill him!'

I tossed him aside, ran to the great oak door, raged and hammered at it. Only echoes came back to me. In desperation I turned again to Ehrig. ‘So then,' I panted, ‘you are aware of the change taken place in you. Of course, for if it's plain to me it must be plainer still to you. Very well, but tell me: why then am I the same as before? I feel no different. Surely no great change is wrought in me?'

Ehrig, rubbing his throat, came easily to his feet. He had great bruises on his neck from the chains; other than this it seemed he suffered no ill effects from my manhandling; his eyes burned as before and his voice was doleful as ever. ‘As you say,' he said, ‘the change in me has been wrought, as iron is wrought in the furnace. The Ferenczy's flesh has taken hold of me and bent me to its will, as iron bends in the fire's heat. But with you it is different, more subtle. The vampire's seed grows within you. It grafts itself to your mind, your heart, your very blood. You are like two creatures in one skin, but slowly you will meld, fuse into one.'

This is what Faethor had told me. I sagged against the damp wall. ‘Then my destiny is no longer my own,' I groaned.

‘But it is, Thibor, it is!' Ehrig was eager now. ‘Why, now that death no longer holds any terrors, you can live forever! You have the chance to grow more powerful than any man before you! And what is that for destiny?'

I shook my head. ‘Powerful? In thrall to the Ferenczy? Surely you mean powerless! For if I'm to be his man, then how may I be my own? No, that shall not be the way of it. While yet I have my will, I shall find a way.' I prodded my chest and grimaced. ‘How long before... before this thing within commands me? How much time do I have before the guest overpowers the host?'

Slowly, sadly I thought, he shook his head. ‘You insist on making difficulties,' he said. ‘The Ferenczy told me it would be so. Because you are wild and wilful, he said. You will be your own man, Thibor! It shall be like this: that the thing within cannot exist without you, nor you without it. But where before you were merely a man, with a man's frailties and puny passions, now you shall be —‘

‘Hold!' I told him, my memory suddenly whispering monstrous things in my mind. ‘He told me... he said

that he was sexless! He said: "The Wamphyri have no sex as such." And you talk to me of my "puny passions?"'

‘As one of the Wamphyri,' Ehrig patiently insisted, as doubtless the Ferenczy had ordered him to insist, ‘you will have the sex of the host. And you are that host! You will also have your lust, your great strength and cunning

— all of your passions — but magnified many times over! Picture yourself pitting your wits against your enemies, or boundlessly strong in battle, or utterly untiring in bed!'

My emotions raged within me. Ah! But could I be sure they were mine? Entirely mine? ‘But — it — will — not — be — me!' Emphasising each word, I slammed my balled fist again and again into the stone wall, until blood flowed freely from my riven knuckles.

‘But it will be you,' he repeated, drawing near, staring at my bloodied hand and licking his lips. ‘Aye, hot blood and all. The vampire in you will heal that in a very little while. But, until then, let me tend to it.' He took my hand and tried to lick the salt blood.

I hurled him away. ‘Keep your vampire's tongue to yourself!' I cried.

And with a sudden thrill of horror, perhaps for the first time, I began to truly understand what he had become. And what I was becoming. For I had seen that look of entirely unnatural lust on his face, and I had suddenly remembered that once there were three of us. .

I looked all around the dungeon, into all of the corners and cobwebbed shadows, and my changeling eyes penetrated even the darkest gloom.! looked everywhere and failed to discover what I sought. Then I turned back to Ehrig. He saw my expression, began to back away from me. ‘Ehrig,' I said, following, closing with him. ‘Now tell me, pray — what has become of the poor mutilated body of Vasily? Where, pray, is the corpse of our former colleague, the slender, ever aggressive... Vasily?'

In a corner, Ehrig had tripped on something. He stumbled, fell — amidst a small pile of bones flensed almost white. Human bones.

After long moments I found voice. ‘Vasily?'

Ehrig nodded, shrank back from me, scuttling like a crab on the floor. ‘The Ferenczy, he... he has not fed us!' he pleaded.

I let my head slump, turned away in disgust. Ehrig scrambled to his feet, carefully approached. ‘Keep well away,' I warned him, my voice low and filled with loathing. ‘Why did you not break the bones, for their marrow?'

‘Ah, no!' said Ehrig, as if explaining to a child. ‘The Ferenczy told me to leave Vasily's bones for... for the burrower in the earth, that which took shape in old Arvos and consumed him. It will come for them when all is quiet. When we are asleep. .

‘Sleep?' I barked, turning on him. ‘You think I'll sleep? Here? With you in the same cell?'

He turned away, shoulders slumping. ‘Ah, you are the proud one, Thibor. As I was proud. It goes before a fall, they say. Your time is still to come. As for me, I will not harm you. Even if I dared, if my hunger was such that

but I would not dare. The Ferenczy would cut me into small pieces and burn each one with fire. That is his threat. Anyway, I love you as a brother.'

‘As you loved Vasily?' I scowled at him where he gazed at me over his hunched shoulder. He had no answer.

'Leave me in peace,' I growled then. ‘I have much to think about.'

I went to one corner, Ehrig to another. There we sat in silence.

Hours passed. Finally I did sleep. In my dreams — for the most part unremembered, perhaps mercifully — I seemed to hear strange slitherings, and sucking sounds. Also a period of brittle crunching.

When I awakened, Vasily's bones had disappeared.