It was a few minutes longer before the ointment had cooled enough for Gilead to begin the process of rubbing down Northbury’s burnt and reddened skin. The man affirmed again and again that his pain was lessening as it soaked in, but Gilead himself was far more suspicious: the redness settled only very little. He was sure, absolutely sure, that he had gotten the herbs right. Something about this burn must have been unusually hard to treat, or else it was simply more severe than external appearances would indicate. Either way, Northbury seemed content, though he still did not sleep.
The sun had already set, and so it was with the very last dregs of twilight that the other three settled down to sleep as comfortably as possible. With blankets for three people being shared amongst four, it was not a comfortable night. But Gilead had stomached colder nights than that one. Even if he had to bury himself underneath shed boughs from the few surviving trees in those parts, he would survive.
Even trickier was when morning came, and the four of them had to start moving. Northbury was awake when dawn came. As far as Gilead knew, he hadn’t slept all night, though surely some rest must have come to him, for in his movements and attitude he seemed immediately invigorated. That changed as soon as he was on his feet, though. Throughout the dawn hours, Sara and Gilead, and Zahra to a lesser extent, packed up all their things into their individual bags, all while Northbury seemed to shrivel before their very eyes. When he directed them toward the path that would lead them all back to his manor, his voice was even weaker and more miserable than when he’d told them his story the night before.
It was a long and mostly uneventful journey, emphasis on the “long”. Even Zahra and Gilead with his slowly-healing injuries could outpace Northbury in his tottering state. Most of the journey he spent using Gilead in some way, whether that meant leaning on the larger man like a cane or else being physically carried on Gilead’s back. Gilead, of course, did not complain for even a single second. Carrying around sickly old men was merely a part of the job description.
Not that he was entirely free of frustration. In his youth, perhaps, he would have achieved that state of total sinlessness, thinking only of his joy at being able to serve another follower of Christ, but he had fallen long ago. And so, although he was far too sensitive to ever allow the thought to come to the surface, Gilead could not help but think about how this was all delaying him in reaching Carbennic and finding the truth about what had happened there. They were going many miles off-course just to find the manor house, let alone the time lost to slowing down. By his estimation, offering to aid Northbury had cost them half a day, if not more.
Sara had made the same estimation. They stopped at a small brook a short while before noon, the better to freshen up, refill their canteens, and eat a cold lunch of bread and apples, and as soon as Northbury was settled down, she approached Gilead quietly.
“Do you really think you can do something to help them?” she asked. “I thought you needed to know what happened to Carbennic?”
“I have that need, and mightily so. But if I were to turn my nose at those who beg for help, what would be left of me? Less than nothing.”
“So, what, you’re doing it to satisfy your own… conscience? Even if you think there’s no point in it?”
“I never said that,” Gilead replied instantly. “If nothing can be done, aye, then nothing can be done; but we cannot say that until we have tried the thing.”
“Then you have a plan?”
Gilead took a large bite out of the apple that had been sitting, unmolested, in his hand for the last minute, then chewed it slowly and thoughtfully. He liked these new apple breeds: they were so much larger and more crisp than the ones that had existed in his time.
He swallowed the chewed-up flesh, then said, “No.”
Sara slapped him, lightly, on the side of the head. “What the hell is wrong with you? Going into a situation with no plan?”
“I rarely plan. And how could I plan, when I know so little of what is happening? I shall decide on a plan once I have learned more. Even if that plan can be no more than working my paltry leechcraft on them and hoping God will handle the rest.”
Sara bit her bottom lip. “I suppose that makes a degree of sense. But I hope you realize that a lack of planning is risky, if you walk into the wrong situation you could get killed before you even realize what’s happening.”
Gilead shrugged. “I have done my work in that way for fifteen years, so what reason have I to change?”
“Your continued survival is the one thing in this world or any other that may revive my belief in miracles, Gilead,” said Sara. “At least promise me this: be ready for an ambush. Plenty of people will use men like Northbury, telling stories like his, as bait for potential victims.”
Gilead sighed, placing one hand upon the belt of braided hair. “Upon my holy belt and in the name of Iesu, I hereby swear that until such time as the good intentions of Northbury’s family has been proved, I, Gilead du Carbennic, shall remain wary of potential ambush. Art thou fain?”
Sara suddenly looked deeply weary. “That depends on what ‘fain’ is.”
Gilead’s lips peeled back from his mouth in an awful rictus, to which he then pointed.
“Oh, happy. Yes, if there’s one thing I know about knights it’s that you bastards will follow your oaths directly off of a cliff. Thank you, Gilead.”
Sara went back to attending to Zahra, who was having another attack of her sickness, no doubt brought on by so much walking. Gilead ate in silence. Northbury, he observed, was barely eating; only a token amount of food passed his lips. The knight knew a thing or two about determination, but even he questioned how the old man was able to hold on.
In one thing, they were fortunate: when Northbury announced that this particular carriage-rut was the road that led to his manor, and that it was only another mile or so, the sun had only just touched the western horizon. Upsettingly, the western horizon was in the east, going by the old directions. Still, it was a great gift not to have to choose between waiting for the next morning to reach the manor and soldiering on deep into the night. Even Northbury, who looked as though his skin were about to start sloughing off at any moment, got peppy as he closed in on home.
Pearwood hall was, to Gilead’s eyes, both beautiful and immensely fragile. None of it was made out of stone, or even brick, it was all just wood, and it was built so high, four floors or more, that it seemed liable to collapse under its own weight. In his time there had been structures that tall and with that many windows, but they were all buildings of stone blocks and vast archways, being either castle spires or else the high peaks of cathedrals.
Beyond that outward fragility, though, there was a definite sense of decay to Pearwood. The walls weren’t just fragile, they were dirty, the windows barely even serving their purpose of shedding light on the insides due to the caking of dust that covered both the internal and external surface. The grounds were cracked, the plants either dead or overgrown, and at several times the group had to go single-file to avoid walking into thorny brambles. For years, the inhabitants of Pearwood Manor had been surviving, their existence focused on the razor’s edge between life and death, not on paying for a servant staff that could do the all-important work of actually keeping the place maintained.
The front doors of Pearwood loomed over Gilead, Sara, Zahra, and Northbury, the shadows of its archway enveloping them and transforming sunset into bitter dark. Still, Northbury looked almost gleeful as he approached the door-knocker—a wolf’s head holding a heavy brass ring—and signaled his arrival.
“It’s me!” He shouted. “It’s Northbury, I’ve returned with guests!”
Several seconds passed, soon stretching out to almost a full minute. Gilead wondered if they were too late, all the others having already succumbed to their curse. Then, through the thick wood, came a series of loud clicks, the un-doing of a huge and rusted lock.
But the door still did not open. After another long span of waiting, Gilead realized that nobody was going to open the door for him, and so pushed through it himself. Beyond the door was the foyer of Pearwood manor, a vast and open gulf of space, whose air was thick with the scent of wood and dust. There was nobody in sight; Gilead led the way inside, while the others followed nervously behind.
Sara muttered something to herself. “…opened the door?” was what the back half of it sounded like.
Gilead was the one who actually asked the important question. “Where is everyone?”
“Light,” Northbury responded. “Did I not mention that? The curse makes us very sensitive to light; hence the burns that you so kindly treated yesterday.”
“How dreadfully unfortunate,” said Gilead.
“Indeed. What say you to some nice tea in the sitting room? I can make us a warm fire there while we wait for night to come.”
Zahra clung close to her sister. “Do you think they’ll hate me?” she said in Arabic.
“Well, you don’t have to tell them anything,” Sara replied. “Just don’t start glowing, is all.”
The sitting room was on the second floor, and must once have made for an absolutely beautiful place, a whole row of windows along one wall looking out onto the second-floor balcony. The curtains were drawn shut, though, leaving the chamber with barely enough light to navigate by. Gilead graciously took the job of getting the fireplace going—it was already full of hot embers, needing only a little encouragement—while Northbury prepared something called “tea” that Gilead was starting to learn Leedsrealmers were obsessed with.
Before long, the fire was roaring, its dim light and generous warmth spreading throughout the room. The tea was far from a good meal, but it was hot and it tasted nice enough, and Gilead’s troop had brought their own food anyway. They didn’t talk much as night fell: Northbury was reticent to say much, and talking amongst themselves felt rude.
Slowly, the natural sunlight from outside faded away into nothing, leaving them all with nothing but the crimson glow of the fire to provide light. Even the far corners of the room were pitch black, let alone the doorway leading into the rest of the house.
Then Gilead became suddenly aware that they were not alone. Something unnatural was creeping through the shadows, something utterly silent and inhuman. He turned slowly in his chair, not wanting to make any visible sign that he was aware of the malevolence. Gilead peered into the dark, and found red pinprick eyes looking right back at him.
“Oh, there you are,” said Northbury. “I’ve been waiting for you! Gilead, Sara, meet my relatives!”
“Who. Are. They?”
The voice which came forth from the dark was rasping and slow, as though the being to whom it belonged was unused to human speech. Gilead flinched at that sound, going for his sword, but did not draw it. He knew many a victim who had been cursed to bear a horrid appearance, regardless of their true nature.
Northbury stood up and tottered around, making introductions. “And this is Sir Gilead du Carbennic, a knight of the round table! He says that perhaps he can help us. Now, erm, who is that I’m speaking to? My eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be, is that Alma?”
“It’s. Lady. Foster.”
“I’m Alma,” said another voice.
“Lord Foster,” said a third.
“Zebediah,” croaked a fourth.
And on and on, a cavalcade of names. The shadowed parts of the sitting room were stuffed to the gills with Northbury’s relations, all of them impossible to see in the shadowy outskirts of the sitting room.
“Come on then, step forward. It’s just firelight, it won’t hurt you. Let our guests see the pitiful state that we’ve been reduced to.”
There was a moment of hesitation before one of the pairs of eyes started to lumber morosely forward. Shedding its cloak of darkness, a monster emerged into the firelight. Once, long ago, this thing might have been a human being, but no more: it had stretched, arms lengthening until it could walk on its knuckles like a beast, fingers growing into lengthy claws. Its skin was as gray as wood-ash, clinging close to the bone. Lips twitched on top of horrible fangs, the nose had rotted away, lank hair spilled across the skeletal back.
Gilead leapt out of his chair. He had seen something like this before, and every instinct was crying out for violence, but he had to give them one final benefit of the doubt.
“You have greatly understated the severity of this curse, Northbury. Speak sooth or not at all: why did you bring us here? Who was it who brought this curse upon you, and how?”
“There’s no need to be so hostile!” Northbury replied. “Please, I beg you. It was Ruthven, Lord Ruthven! He bade us drink of his blood, but we did not know what would happen if we were left to thirst for it forever!”
Sara gasped, and Gilead silently asked her the obvious question.
“Ruthven is the lord of this land, the one who took over when it was made part of Scrapyard. They say he is a vampire.”
…
At the tip of Gilead’s blade, the foreign knight spoke. “There is in this castle a gentlewoman, and we and this castle are hers, and many others besides. Anon it befell many years ago there fell upon her a malady. And when she had lain a great while, she fell into a measle, and of no leech she could have remedy. But at the last an old man said that she might have a dish full of blood of a maid and a clean virgin in will and in work, and a king’s daughter, and that that blood should be her health.”
And the lady was pale of the brow, with canines sharp and eyes carmine. Clad all in black was she, and from the sun did she shrink and make flight. But Dindrane, Percival’s sister, did take pity upon that gentlewoman. With knife she lifted high, and with knife she let open herself unto a great silver dish.
…
Gilead’s flesh went cold, and his brain ceased to think. Iron was he, not flesh, and with iron hand did he draw his sword.
“Vampire?” his lips pronounced.
“We’re not vampires!” said Northbury. “Not real ones, not proper ones. He made us something wrong, something like him. We shy from the sun, but we cannot drink the blood of man, nor make our forms handsome as vampires are!”
Gilead stared ahead at the first creature to show herself from out of the shadow, but his eyes were blind. They saw not the present, but the past.
…
And with her blood all in the dish of argent did Dindrane reach forth and bless the gentlewoman in the name of God, Iesu, and the Holy Ghost. And the lady was anointed with the blood, and drank of the blood, and was rendered hale by the blessedness of Dindrane’s blood. No more did she hunger.
And Dindrane fell into Gilead’s arms, and swooned. And he smiled like his lips were pulled apart with meat-hooks, and tears were all in his eyes as though they’d been rubbed with black pepper. And he said, “God I thank thee, that this lady has been made whole and hale by the anointing of Dindrane’s blood. And mayest thou take her up into heaven today.”
But Gilead was not there. His heart was too full of rapturous piety to contain him, and so he was gone.
…
“They look vampiric to me,” said Gilead, and his voice was tinny and rigid.
With steps taken verbatim from a sword-master’s manual, he retreated to the fireplace, and not tearing his gaze away from Northbury and the others, crouched down and took up a brand in his left hand to match the sword in his right. His flesh burned at the touch of the too-hot wood, but Gilead did not feel it.
“What did you intend for us to do?” Sara frantically asked.
“I don’t know! Cure us, find some other source of vampiric ichor, something! You are a holy man, a knight, save us accursed souls!”
…
And a priest was summoned, and came, and there Dindrane took her Lord, and was saved. And Gilead wept, but the weeping was of joy, for Percival’s sister was to be now with the Almighty. And as she faded from this world, she spoke one final time.
“Place me on the boat, Gilead. Bury me not, unless it be in Sarras, when you have found the Grail. Find the Grail.”
Twice Gilead would die, and twice would he be reborn. But better he had died a thousand times over with no rebirth in between than to feel ever again the instant when Dindrane took her end.
…
“Gilead, stop, there has to be another way!” said Sara.
“Aim for the heart,” he replied softly. “That is the only way for a vampire.”
The burning brand spilled sparks onto the floor, and the red of its flames was reflected in the stony dark of Gilead’s eyes. The man was gone, destroyed, banished to that place where dead men go. But the knight remained.
“Scuto circumdabit te veritas ejus: non timebis a timore nocturno…”
There are three ways to kill a vampire. Sever the neck. Pierce the heart. Burn the flesh. The knight that remained where Gilead had once stood intended to make thorough use of all three.