Chapter 72

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Through the chill autumn wind, two young swordsmen traveled west, over mountains and across rivers.

Eventually, the mountains all but vanished, and they reached a land of waterways woven like a spiderweb, where the wind never ceased to blow. This was the Kingdom of Nedersland.

Creaking windmills were a common sight, as were thickets of reeds taller than a person. The poor soil made the land unsuitable for farming, so the people here mostly made their living grazing sheep and cattle.

To the west lay coastal cities that had flourished since ancient times, but inland, the environment was hardly conducive to making a living.

The Bahnstein domain lay in just such a place: barren land overgrown with reeds.

It was midday, yet the sun shone dimly in the sky, as though veiled in mist. It was a strange day, with noon looking as much like dawn as early evening.

Somewhere among the reeds, an old ferryman sat with his fishing line cast from a dilapidated, seemingly abandoned landing. He looked like the last person left in the world, waiting for death to come.

The two young swordsmen rustled through the reeds toward him.

"Hello."

Ricard offered a greeting. Apparently not dead yet, the old man lifted his straw hat a little and glanced at Ricard and Ice. Then he turned back to the river.

"May I ask you something? Is this the Bahnstein domain? There wasn't a boundary marker."

Ricard and Ice had been asking their way here, but people had grown increasingly scarce, leaving them at a loss.

Without a word, the old man raised a hand as gnarled as an ancient tree and pointed to the opposite bank.

"Could you take us across? We'll pay the fare."

"A futile endeavor."

"Pardon?"

"Every so often, just when I've forgotten about them, heroes come calling. They mean to put an end to the vampire count. But there is nothing there."

"..."

Ricard gazed at the old man, then gave a faint smile.

"We're adventurers. We've come to meet a client. Whether we'll kill the vampire count or not, we don't know how things will turn out ourselves."

The old man glanced at Ricard and Ice once more, then pulled in his fishing line and rose. He climbed into a small ferryboat.

"How much is the fare?"

"Just get in. It's only something to pass the time."

Ricard looked at Ice and shrugged. Together, they boarded the boat.

From the stern, the old man worked the creaking oar, and the boat moved slowly forward.

Then, suddenly, mist began to gather in the middle of the river. It thickened until they could barely see a thing ahead of them. It was uncanny.

What was more, the old man kept rowing for a long time, though the river had not been particularly wide.

CREAK, CREAK, CREAK...

"Looks like some kind of magic."

Ice's voice was flat. An ordinary person would have fallen over in fright.

Then, all at once, the mist lifted. The old man had vanished without a trace, and they had reached the opposite bank.

"Did we just cross the river to the underworld?"

Like Ice, Ricard seemed little impressed. Two uncanny swordsmen to match an uncanny phenomenon.

After pushing hard on the oar to bring the boat right up to the bank, Ricard and Ice stepped ashore. It was a cool autumn noon, and the sun blazed in the sky.

Far away stood a hill, a rare sight in Nedersland, with a small, palisaded castle atop it. They headed straight toward it.

Before long, they reached the village below the castle, which resembled a small manor. Not a soul was in sight. Abandoned vegetable patches, empty cowsheds, doors creaking on vacant houses.

There was no sign of an army or a band of brigands having burned everything and slaughtered the inhabitants. It was simply a decaying village everyone had left.

After taking a cursory look around, Ricard adjusted his sword and headed for the castle on the hill.

"Let's go."

Really, by now they ought to have felt a chill, but neither Ricard nor Ice showed the slightest sign of it. Had they lost all sense of fear, or were they simply that confident?

They climbed the hill and reached what appeared to be Bahnstein Castle. The palisade had rotted and collapsed in places. This place, too, seemed long abandoned.

The castle gates lay on the ground, rotten through. Only the doors to the keep, where the count had presumably once lived, remained firmly shut.

Crossing the weed-choked courtyard, Ricard reached the keep and pounded on the doors. Surely there was someone here.

Presently, however, the doors clunked open on their own. Ricard stepped cautiously inside. There were threadbare carpets, dust-covered furnishings, and cobwebs in the corners.

By all appearances, it was plainly an abandoned castle, but he heard a sound that did not belong.

GURGLE. GURR. GURRRR. GURR.

The sound came intermittently, stopping and starting.

Just as he was wondering what on earth it was, the torches mounted on the walls suddenly lit themselves.

WHOOSH. WHOOSH. WHOOOSH.

They led toward a point at the end of the corridor, as though showing the way. Ricard and Ice exchanged a look, then followed them together.

At the end, they emerged into a room so vast it was more a hall than a dining room. A fire blazed in the hearth, and a long dining table stood alone in the otherwise empty space. It seemed a tremendous waste of room.

The table was laden with all manner of fresh delicacies from land and sea, utterly out of place in an abandoned castle. At its head sat the old ferryman from earlier.

Unlike before, his white hair was neatly combed back, giving him an immaculate appearance, and he wore fine black silk.

He rose and spoke in measured, composed tones.

"Welcome, adventurers. Please, enjoy the feast."

Had some spirit bewitched him? Was he under a spell? Yet Ricard's blade-sharp senses told him this was real.

He and Ice sat in the chairs set out near the middle of the table, facing each other.

First, Ricard looked over the food. A freshly roasted suckling pig and fresh, out-of-season fruit caught his eye.

Where had the ingredients come from, and how had everything been prepared at precisely the right time? It was baffling.

"I cannot eat human food. So do not stand on ceremony on your host's account. Help yourselves."

Looking at the impeccably groomed old man, Ricard asked,

"Are you Count Lehmann?"

"I am."

"The vampire count?"

"Heh heh heh. Indeed."

"Is this some sort of trap? To get fresh blood from young people, I mean."

Count Lehmann smiled and shook his head. Then the strange sound from earlier came again.

GURGLE. GURR.

"My apologies. That is my stomach. I have not drunk blood in over fifty years."

"..."

Ricard blinked. Nothing about this situation made any sense. What was he supposed to say? Was politeness called for? He was too bewildered and dumbfounded to know how to begin.

"Time is relative. What is a lifetime for one may be no more than an instant to another. I believe we have ample time to talk. There is no need to be so flustered."

"Why don't you drink blood?" Ice asked abruptly.

"Ascetic suffering is not the sole province of humans. I seek a long death."

"Why?" asked Ricard.

"There are two ways to take one's own life. One is a swift escape. The other is to see one's resolve through. I do not wish to run away."

In short, he meant to starve himself to death.

What kind of situation was this? Ricard wondered whether this ancient vampire was trying to bewitch him.

Besides, High Vampires were all but immortal. To starve to death, they would have to go hungry for at least a hundred years, or far longer.

It was utterly incomprehensible to a human. To fathom how long they must endure was harder still.

"Leaving the method aside, why do you wish to die?"

"It began with my father. I, too, found it difficult to understand at first. But now I understand. This is our final defiance of God: to turn the curse laid upon us into a blessing."

Somehow, every answer to a question seemed to make more questions branch out. Whether it was pedantry or philosophy, there did seem to be a certain depth to it.

"What curse?" Ice asked again.

"Humans often forget, but we were all human once. The first vampire was human as well. He was the first murderer. And so he was cursed never to die."

"But they die if you cut off their heads."

"That is not death. It is a mishap."

Ricard's eyes shifted as he pondered that. Were the two different? Since they could keep living as long as they drank blood, did that distinguish them from humans, who would eventually die when their time came?

These were questions he could neither readily accept nor readily answer. Lehmann seemed to have reached his own answers and acted on them, but Ricard recalled why he had come.

"I'd like to ask about the commission, but first, why did you entrust it to us? Between the mist earlier and this meal, you seem quite capable."

"As I said, it began with my father. He has not drunk blood for nearly six hundred years. But my younger sister, Lemania, defied his wishes and abducted him. She means to rob him of a noble death. I may be capable of a few small tricks, but I am greatly weakened now. I cannot defeat my sister. That is why I issued the commission."

"Wouldn't death at our hands be a mishap?"

"Better a mishap than theft."

Ricard met Ice's gaze across the table. His eyes said it for him: this would not be easy.

High Vampires were beings of a far higher order than he had expected. He had imagined them merely as powerful monsters, but their understanding reached depths humans could scarcely attain. Apparently, all those years of life counted for something.

Ice, however, was torn. To become a Sword Master, he had to take the final exam, and only special-grade adventurers were eligible.

With the opportunity right before him, backing down was no easy thing.

Lehmann gazed at Ice, then spoke.

"Do you know the essence of the curse laid upon the first murderer, the first vampire?"

"..."

"Guilt. A prison without bars, from which there is no escape. Yet you are laying a curse upon yourself. Achieving your goal will not bring your younger sibling back to life. All that remains will be emptiness."

Lehmann had seen straight into the heart of Ice, into something even Ricard did not know. At this, Ice looked stunned, at a loss for words.

"Salvation may be closer than you think. Perhaps it is right beside you. Is that not so, murderer among murderers, devil among devils?"

Lehmann turned his gaze to Ricard as he spoke.

Ricard regarded him quietly, then gave a faint chuckle. Lehmann had lived far longer than Ricard's previous life and the interval between lives combined.

"I don't know much about salvation myself. Theology doesn't particularly interest me."

"But you have seen it, have you not? A human who found salvation."

He seemed to mean the Nameless.

"I have. But I also learned that not everyone can do it. I'm not sure I can."

"The purer the soul, the deeper its wounds. Love is a curse. Yet it is also a blessing. You seem afraid that tragedy will repeat itself. But what can you do? Even if it tears your heart to pieces, you can only accept it. Your salvation lies there. That is the blessing bestowed upon humans. Acceptance. Surely it is easier than starving for hundreds, thousands of years?"

Lehmann smiled faintly, as though that last remark had been his idea of a joke.

How very strange. Ricard could not understand everything he said, but he could tell there was truth in his words. And to think they came from a vampire, of all beings.

As though he understood perfectly why they could not let go of their suspicions, Lehmann quietly set a small vial on the table and spoke. It held a little yellow oil.

"The fragrant oil that set Ilya the Dragon Slayer on his feet. The pilgrim was none other than Cain, the first vampire. My father received this from him, so it is unquestionably genuine."

"What does it do? Does it give you tremendous strength, like in the legend?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Every medicine is also a poison, and every poison a medicine. Cain is said to have remarked that Ilya's cheerful heart, without a shadow upon it, reminded him of the sunlight he had long forgotten."

Though they had yet to complete the commission, Lehmann left the vial where it was and rose, as if giving it to them outright.

"Go to Harlen. My beloved father, Armand, is held there by the Rose Acrobat Troupe. Grant him an imperfect death, even if you must kill my sister to do it. If my father should succumb to her temptations, I do not think I could bear it either."

Lehmann walked out of the hall, leaving Ricard and Ice alone.

The food on the table had gone cold. Ricard picked up a bright red apple and took a bite. He crunched into it, savoring the flavor. It was astonishingly sweet and delicious.

"We're not going to find out later that this was human flesh or something, are we?"

Ice seemed to have much on his mind, but he smiled at Ricard. Drawing his own dagger, he sliced off a piece of roast suckling pig and ate it. Though it had cooled a little, its flavor was superb.

Apparently untroubled, the two friends ate and drank their fill of the vampire's feast. Once they had stuffed themselves to bursting, drowsiness began to steal over them.

They took Ilya's Holy Oil and went upstairs. Everything else looked like a ruin, but the bedroom was immaculate.

The two lay down for a nap. Yet when they awoke from their long, leisurely sleep, they were on the riverbank. The moon hung in the sky, a rainbow halo glowing faintly around it.

It was as though they had dreamed it all. But the questions Lehmann had raised lingered in their hearts, like that faint halo around the moon.