"Afraid not," Mr. Crepsley said curtly.

"Oh, well. I suppose I'll find out when I report to the Hall of Princes and see him myself. I hope you enjoy your stay in Vampire Mountain, Darren. We must get together once the chaos has died down and have a proper chat."

"I'd like that," I said.

"Larten." He saluted Mr. Crepsley.

"Kurda."

He let himself out.

"Kurda's nice," I remarked. "I like him."

Mr. Crepsley glanced at me sideways, stroked the long scar on his own left cheek, gazed thoughtfully at the door Kurda had left by, and again went, "Hurm!"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ACOUPLE OF LONG, quiet nights passed. Harkat had been kept in the Hall of Princes to answer questions. Gavner had General business to attend to, and we only saw him when he crawled back to his coffin to sleep. I hung out with Mr. Crepsley in the Hall of Khledon Lurt most of the time — he had a lot of catching up to do with old friends he hadn't seen in many years — or down in the stores with him and Seba Nile.

The elderly vampire was more disturbed than most of the others by Harkat's message. He was the second oldest vampire in the mountain — the oldest was a Prince, Paris Skyle, who was more than eight hundred — and the only one who'd been here when Mr. Tiny visited and made his announcement all those centuries ago.

"A lot of today's vampires do not believe the old stories," he said. "They think Mr. Tiny's warning was something we made up to frighten young vampires. But I remember how he looked. I recall the way his words echoed around the Hall of Princes, and the fear they instilled in everyone. The Vampaneze Lord is no mere figure of legend. He is real. And now, it seems, he is coming."

Seba lapsed into silence. He'd been drinking a mug of warm beer but had lost interest in it.

"He has not come yet," Mr. Crepsley said spiritedly. "Mr. Tiny is as old as time itself. When he says the night is at hand, he might mean hundreds or thousands of years from now."

Seba shook his head. "We have had our hundreds of years — seven centuries to make a stand and tackle the vampaneze. We should have finished them off, regardless of the consequences. Better to have been driven to the point of extinction by humans than wiped out entirely by the vampaneze."

"That is foolish talk," Mr. Crepsley snapped. "I would rather take my chances with a mythical Vampaneze Lord than a real, stake-wielding human. So would you."

Seba nodded glumly and sipped at his beer. "You are probably right. I am old. My brain does not work as sharply as it used to. Perhaps my worries are those of an old man who has lived too long. Still…"

Such pessimistic words were on everybody's lips. Even those who scoffed outright at the idea of a Vampaneze Lord always seemed to end with a "still…" or "however…" or "but…" The tension was clogging the dusty mountain air of the tunnels and Halls, constantly building, stifling everyone who was present.

The only one who didn't seem troubled by the rumors was Kurda Smahlt. He turned up outside our chambers, as upbeat as ever, the third night after Harkat had delivered his message.

"Greetings," he said. "I've had a hectic two nights, but things are calming down at last and I have a few free hours. I thought I'd take Darren on a tour of the Halls."

"Great!" I beamed. "Mr. Crepsley was going to take me but we never got around to it."

"You don't mind if I escort him, Larten?" Kurda asked.

"Not in the slightest," Mr. Crepsley said. "I am overwhelmed that one of your eminence has found the time to act as a guide so close to your investiture." He said it cuttingly, but Kurda ignored the elder vampire's sarcasm.

"You can tag along if you want," Kurda offered cheerfully.

"No thank you." Mr. Crepsley smiled thinly. "Okay," Kurda said. "Your loss. Ready, Darren?"

"Ready," I said, and off we went.

Kurda took me to see the kitchens first. They were huge caves, built deep beneath most of the Halls. Large fires burned brightly. The cooks worked in shifts around the clock during times of Council. They had to in order to feed all the visitors.

"It's quieter the rest of the time," Kurda said. "There are usually no more than thirty vampires in residence. You often have to cook for yourself if you don't eat with the rest at the set times."

From the kitchens we progressed to the breeding Halls, where sheep, goats, and cows were kept and bred. "We'd never be able to ship in enough milk and meat to feed all the vampires," Kurda explained when I asked why live animals were kept in the mountain. "This isn't a hotel, where you can call a supplier and restock anytime you want. Shipping in food is an enormous hassle. It's easier to rear the animals ourselves and butcher them when we need to."

"What about human blood?" I asked. "Where does that come from?"

"Generous donors." Kurda winked, and led me on. (I only realized much later that he'd sidestepped the question.)

The Hall of Cremation was our next stop. It was where vampires who died in the mountain were cremated. "What if they don't want to be cremated?" I asked.

"Oddly enough, hardly any vampires ask to be buried," he said. "Perhaps it has something to do with all the time they spend in coffins while they're alive. However, if someone requests a burial, their wishes are respected.

"Not so long ago, we'd lower the dead into an underground stream and let the water wash them away. There's a cave, far below the Halls, where one of the larger streams opens up. It's called the Hall of Final Voyage, although it's never used now. I'll show it to you if we're ever down that way."

"Why should we be down there?" I asked. "I thought those tunnels were only used to get in and out of the mountain."

"One of my hobbies is mapmaking," Kurda said. "I've been trying to make accurate maps of the mountain for decades. The Halls are easy but the tunnels are much more difficult. They've never been mapped, and a lot are in poor shape. I try to get down to them whenever I return, to map out a few more unknown regions, but I don't have as much time to work on them as I'd like. I'll have even less when I'm a Prince."

"It sounds like an interesting hobby," I said. "Could I come with you the next time you go mapping? I'd like to see how it's done."

"You're really interested?" He sounded surprised.

"Why shouldn't I be?"

He laughed. "I'm used to vampires falling asleep whenever I start talking about maps. Most have no interest in such mundane matters. There's a saying among vampires: 'Maps are for humans. Most vampires would rather discover new territory for themselves, regardless of the dangers, than follow directions on a map."

The Hall of Cremation was a large octagonal room with a high ceiling full of cracks. There was a pit in the middle — where the dead vampires were burned — and a couple of long, gnarly benches on the far side, made out of bones. Two women and a man were sitting on the benches, whispering to each other, and a young child was at their feet, playing with a scattering of animal bones. They didn't have the appearance of vampires — they were thin and ill-looking, with lank hair and rags for clothes; their skin was deathly pale and dry, and their eyes were an eerie white color. The adults stood when we entered, grabbed the child, and withdrew through a door at the back of the room.

"Who were they?" I asked.

"The Guardians of this chamber," Kurda replied.

"Are they vampires?" I pressed. "They didn't look like vampires. And I thought I was the only child vampire in the mountain."

"You are," Kurda said.

"Then who —"

"Ask me later!" Kurda snapped with unusual briskness. I blinked at his sharp tone, and he smiled an immediate apology. "I'll tell you about them when our tour is complete," he said softly. "It's bad luck to talk about them here. Though I'm not superstitious by nature, I prefer not to test the fates where the Guardians are concerned."