Death Angel's Shadow (26 page)

From the balcony Kane saw that twilight was growing deeper. He swore in frustrated anger then, realizing that Naichoryss had doubtless laid his all but lifeless body near her own in the castle crypt. And now he knew that his chances were slim of discovering her resting place before darkness called Naichoryss forth. Wearily he stumbled back into the darkening hallway, intent on reaching the crypt while Altbur's mistress yet slumbered.

He lacked the strength to win a race with nightfall. In a patch of light from the newly risen moon, Naichoryss stood awaiting him. Her beauty had not faded under that rough caress of time which had separated Altbur Keep of her spell from the ruin in which they now met. At least that unearthly beauty was not a trick of the mirage, Kane mused.

Her hungry lips smiled as she held out her white arms in welcome. "So I find you already up and about, Kane. Were you so eager to taste your new existence that you had to rush off without me? Perhaps..."

Her smile melted with distress then as Kane reached her. "Something's wrong!" she cried in horror. "You're still alive! You're not..."

"Yes, something is very wrong!' Kane smiled mirthlessly. "Despite your best efforts to the contrary, there's some little life left within me! Enough to recognize the world of the living once again! Enough so that your sweet invitation to join you in the crypts of Altbur Keep no longer tempts me!"

Her cameo face was a mask of dismay. "I don't understand! It's not possible that a mortal could stand living before me after he has known my kiss! Drop by drop I had taken from you your vitality. You were too weak then to resist last night as I sucked from your lips the very essence of your life force. It seemed that your body was already growing cold in my arms when I carried you to the crypt before dawn."

Naichoryss broke off pensively. "I laid you in the coffin beside my own. Those two had been set aside so long ago for myself and for the husband whom I was never to meet."

Kane sank onto a window ledge and gazed upon the vampire with brooding eyes, his thoughts hidden beyond their blue depths.

Naichoryss stood in silent contemplation, studying him. Somewhere in the shadows sounded the beat of velvet wings, while in the comer a rat rustled cautiously through dry leaves.

"I think I know now," she mused. "You recovered from your wounds so fast--even the scars are fading. Then it seemed that I would never sap your life force, though I drank of it each night. It was unnatural for a human body to replenish its lifeblood so rapidly. And only an extraordinary vitality could break the spell of my death kiss and fight its way back from the abyss of eternal night.

"The night spirits speak at times of one who bears the name of Kane. One of the first men, they say he is--a man cursed by the gods because he rose in rebellion against his creator, because he was first to bring violence and death to the paradise in which primeval man was nurtured. This Kane was given the curse of immortality--doomed to wander the earth for eternity, never to know peace, but to bring evil and destruction wherever he walked--until he might himself be destroyed by the violence that be had been first to give expression. That men might know him for what he is, Kane was marked with eyes of a killer."

Awe was in her voice. "An immortal body would be quick to heal any wounds that were not immediately fatal. Nor would it show age. Probably it would maintain itself in the exact condition it had known when the curse was pronounced.

"There was something unnatural in you, Kane--I had sensed it all along, but I had chosen to ignore it in my dreams for us. Now I see I was a fool to discount the whispers of the night winds."

Kane shrugged, still silently brooding.

Desperation edged her voice. "Stay with me, Kane beloved!" Naichoryss appealed. "You have only to cease this pointless resistance and surrender to my kiss! Please don't fight to break my enchantment again! Surrender to me just this last time, and then you will awaken to be my lover, my master, for eternity! I swear to you, we shall be lord and lady of Altbur Keep! We shall reign together here until the stars fall spinning into the sea of night! Our love--together in a world without age, without pain!

"Do these ruins oppress you now? Then gaze upon their sublime tranquility through the eyes of the undead! Did you prefer Altbur Keep in its former splendor? Our spells will restore it to all the magnificence in which you have lived these past days! If it is your whim, we can bring our entire realm back to its old glory and reign together in state, while in the outside world kingdoms rise and crumble!"

Laughter. Laughter of bitterness. "A mirage," Kane murmured. Naichoryss hurried in alarm. "Mirage? The resurrection of Altbur Keep of my youth? Not so, Kane! To you and me it shall be altogether as real as these ruins are to its now! You spent days within the shelter of its ancient walls, attended by servants' long bleached bones, nourished by its food and drink, clothed in the luxuries of past centuries! Wasn't all of that real to you then? Can you truthfully say in your mind which vision of Altbur Keep is real and which one dream?"

"Reality and dream are often impossible to distinguish," mused Kane. "Philosophers have argued that reality is nothing more than man's personal interpretation of the microcosm in which he moves. Perhaps life then is only a dream from which death will awaken us.

"But you have misunderstood me, Naichoryss. Misunderstood me from the beginning, I think.

"Death. The mystery of death. Is it oblivion or a now adventure? Does it bring peace as so many have claimed? Is it some higher plane of existence? Is it a rebirth? So much has been theorized of death, but so little is known. I've spent years at a time brooding over death. Sometimes I exult in my defiance of death, other times I ache with a yearning to fathom this forbidden mystery. In circles. Pointless circles.

"When I first regained consciousness here, I sensed that something was unreal with Altbur Keep. My curiosity was stimulated and I stayed on, even when I met you and later recognized you for what you are. You see, I could have broken your spell, I think--at least at first. Only I was so curious. Curious to sample death at last for myself.

"And I suppose I came as close as any man can come to knowing death, and yet return to life with that knowledge.

"But I found that death was a mirage. A promise on the horizon. Distant, unattainable. A vision of strange pleasures and mysteries. And once attained, there is only a waste of bare sand.

"Boredom is the nemesis which has stalked me without rest over the centuries. Life, unfortunately, tends to repeat its favorite and dullest patterns with monotonous regularity. Death seemed to me a new adventure--an escape from a world of which I grew weary ages ago.

"But death--or at least the variety of death in which you so nearly ensnared me--is only another endless waste of tedium. An eternity spent either hidden in a crypt, or else in haunting these forest choked ruins--or in reliving a stagnant dream of the past. The proposal strikes me as a greater boredom than any I have yet encountered!

"And so I found that in death I sought a mirage--only a mirage! It was this realization that sparked my rebellion to death and gave me strength to return to the world of life! This knowledge that now demands that I leave you and the world of Altbur Keep!"

Naichoryss appeared to tremble in the moonlight, her beauty flickering with warring emotions. "I see then that I cannot break your will. Even now you are too strong to succumb to the enchantments that held you earlier."

For a moment rage replaced tragedy in her voice. "If I can not make you my consort, you can yet become my victim! This time I can tear open your soft throat and drink every crimson droplet of blood from your veins! Yes--and leave you a dry hulk for the ghouls to fight over and devour! This has been the fate of all others who have intruded within my realm! You're too weak now to deny me should I desire your life!"
Kane's eyes glowed dangerously; his hand strayed toward swordhilt. "Don't force my hand, Naichoryss!" he snarled. "My stay with you has proven interesting and I bear you no grudge. Interfere with my departure and Altbur Keep will lose its mistress!"

Kane thought for an instant the vampire would hurl herself upon him, but instead Naichoryss chose to sigh. "Perhaps I should. I don't know. One way or another, it would be an ending."

She drew herself up proudly; an aristocrat does not forget her breeding. "Still I don't believe you'll be quick to forget my kisses, Kane." Her smile was resigned. "Go on and leave me now if your mind is made up! Take your chances getting past the ghouls and Jasseartion's soldiers! Only leave now before... while my hospitality lasts!

"But remember always that I am here in Altbur Keep. And when your existence grows more arduous than you can bear--when memories of my embrace, my kisses torment you in your dreams--remember then that two coffins await in the crypts of Altbur Keep! Remember the peace to be found in one, the love that ties dreaming of you in the other! And then, Kane beloved, come back to me here!"

Kane eased himself from the window ledge. "I'll remember. But don't delude yourself by expecting my return. Altbur Keep taught me something, and I won't travel this one road again."

"Are you certain of that, Kane?" Mockery had returned to her voice now.

"Good-by, Naichoryss," was his answer.

Cautiously Kane picked his way down the slope from the lonely ruins of Altbur Keep. If he avoided the deserted village, there should be little chance of encountering any ghouls in the few hours left before dawn. Then sleep in a tree perhaps during the day. A rabbit or two would do wonders toward improving his condition. Once past the Chrosanthian border... Several possibilities suggested themselves to him.

He paused at the base of the hill to glance back, thinking of the beautiful child of death who walked those forgotten hallways alone. Kane knew full well the agony loneliness could be--understood the pain Naichoryss had felt when he had left her there alone in the moonlight.

Pain? Can the dead feel pain? Tears from dead eyes would coldly sparkle in the moonlight.