already found him ... ?
Well, he had no proof of that, nor even a shred of evidence as yet. But there was always tomorrow, and Daham Drakesh was a sincere believer in another old edict: that a stitch in time saves nine.
Egon had told him now, upon a time in the vampire world, the great Lord Shaitan the Unborn had stood off and let lesser Lords fight a great bloodwar, until all of them were depleted, made weak by their efforts. Then how he'd picked them off one by one, until he was the undisputed Lord of Lords. It had been a story worth listening to, and a lesson worth learning.
But how much better, how much more ironic, if Shaitan the Unborn had set those lesser Lords to fighting, if he had deliberately planned it so that they performed the bulk of his work for him? And who could say, perhaps he had! And perhaps Daham would do the same. The ultimate agent provocateur, yes.
History repeats ...
Al of which were thoughts that passed fleetingly through the vampire Lord's mind as his visitor, Major Chang Lun of the People's Army of Red China, tried in vain to make himself comfortable in the austere cavern that served the last Drakul for living space.
There was an alcove cut back into one wall. Within it a long, lidded box like a linen chest fitted snugly into the seven by two foot recess. A bench, its polished top was scattered with cushions of a coarse local weave. This was where Drakesh had seated the Major, upon his own bed in fact - which was inside the box. Normally at this hour, Drakesh would be inside, too. Alas that on certain rare occasions, such as this one, he was obliged to make allowances.
And while Chang Lun's 'host' brought tea and foul Tibetan biscuits from a secondary cave, the Major sat and narrowed his oval eyes, staring all about the dim, somehow smoky interior of this place. It wasn't smoky, he knew, yet seemed full of drifting shadows and the shimmery mobility of a scene viewed through smoke. Perhaps it was an effect of the indirect daylight filtering in through narrow slits hewn right through the great thickness of the far wall, the only indication that Daham Drakesh's apartments were on the outer extremes of the monastery.
Chang Lun had inquired about those narrow windows before. In other keeps in other lands they might easily be mistaken for ancient arrow slits, but in fact they were Drakesh's clock. The light crossed the room in dim, barely perceptible bars, forming patterns on the wall above the alcove where Chang Lun sat. According to the shape and brightness of the patterns and the time of year, Drakesh could immediately determine the hour to within two or three minutes.
'And at night?' (the Major had asked him one time).
'I have a certain affinity with the night,' Drakesh had at once answered. 'It is an art of mine instinctively to know what is the hour. I take pride in it - a vanity, I know. But as the setting of the sun is a marvel, and its rising even more so, we should likewise pay attention to the darkness that lies between the two.' Pseudo-mystical garbage ...
... The Major felt himself slumping and sat up straighter. It was always the same: this place seemed to drain him of life. Huh! The blood is the life,' indeed!
Tea,' said Daham, entering as if from nowhere, and causing the dingy air to shift and shimmer into new patterns.
'And there are Somangha biscuits, should you require refreshment.'
The tea is welcome,' the Major offered his curt nod. 'As for
Himalayan grass seeds in milk paste - '
' - Each to his own,' Daham nodded his understanding and placed a brass tray on a circular wooden table. Then he pulled up a three-legged stool and seated himself facing his visitor. 'Soup, cheese, biscuits, bread: you would probably starve on a diet such as that. But to the Tibetan, more than sufficient.'
The Major smiled thinly. 'But you are not Tibetan.'
'Polish, originally,' Drakesh was frank. 'When my mother died and my father returned to his native Romania, I went with him.
There I - what, heard the call? - I knew I had a mission in life. And so I came here and built this mission, this monastery. Think what you will of it, and of me; I have my devotees. You saw some of them at a phase of their devotions.'
'Indeed I