Chapter VIII

 

We made our way down a narrow pathway, surrounded on both sides by the rough-walled interior of the cave. The one thing that no one had thought to bring was a flashlight. So we stumbled through the darkness in single-file, occasionally cursing the darkness and each other for stopping too suddenly or not walking swiftly enough, or those behind us for walking too swiftly. After we had walked for a while, Matt finally asked what I felt he should have asked long before that moment, "So, what did you find out about the Slairva?" He asked this matter of factly, in the same way that one asks if it is raining.

 

"Not much," I answered as I participated in the parade in the darkness, "except that it’s interesting that you and I associated him with Dracula."

 

"Why is that?"

 

"Well, the name of ‘Slairva’ appears to have been associated with Vlad the Impaler, the model for Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Vlad Dracul, as I’m sure you know, was the father of Vlad the Impaler. The two of them together make up the common vampire myths known to be associated with the figure of Dracula. Both Vlad Dracul and his second son, Vlad the Impaler, who succeeded him, fought wars against the encroachment of the Turks in South-Eastern Europe in the 15^th century. The wars of Vlad the Impaler, however, began to go badly after 1461. For no logical reason, Vlad launched an attack against the Turks, hoping to drive them out of the Danube River Valley. Initially the war went in Vlad’s favor, but the Turks regrouped and quickly pushed Vlad back to his castle in Transylvania, where he found himself without allies against the Turkish assault. Of course, this is the beginnings of the Ottoman Empire’s hold of the Balkan territories, which lasted until the First World War."

 

"And all this has to do with the Slairva because?" Matt asked sarcastically.

 

"The top military aid to Both Vlads appears to have been named Slairva. In fact, some sources, rare though they are, name a Melekim Slairva as the single military advisor who talked Vlad the Impaler into his failed assault against the Turks."

 

"You’re telling me that Melekim Slairva brought down Dracula?"

 

"I’m telling you that both names are identified with each other in the official history of the locals. What that ultimately means is anybody’s guess. Although ..."

 

"Although what?" Matt and the others demanded in what seemed a single chorus.

 

"Slairva, or someone of that name, is said to have migrated to the Duchy of Muscovy and assisted Ivan Vasilyevich."

 

"So?" everyone again demanded in unison, since it was impossible for everyone not to hear the conversation between me and Matt.

 

"Oh, in stereo," I said in an obvious attempt at being a smart a*s, "Ivan Vasilyevich is better known as Ivan Grozny, Ivan the Terrible."

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Vlad Dracul dies in 1447. We’re pretty certain of the date. His son, Vlad the Impaler, died somewhere around 1476."

 

"And?" they all asked once more in harmony.

 

"Ivan the Terrible wasn’t born until 1530 and he died in 1584. Melekim Slairva was one of his generals. A Melekim Slairva has been a general in Eastern European affairs since the first quarter of the fifteenth century and his name was finally silenced in 1948, when the Soviets finally shut him up."

 

"How did they do that," Sara asked.

 

I remember thinking that this was a very intelligent question. "Well," I answered, "they apparently sealed him up in a cave, very much like the one we’ve opened."

 

"That’s okay," Matt said bravely, "I’ve brought enough crosses for all of us."

 

"You mean crucifixes, don’t you?" I asked.

 

"What?" he replied.

 

"Crucifixes. You know a cross with the image of a crucified Jesus on it. Crosses don’t work on vampires, only crucifixes do. And by the way, they don’t work either. They were a literary invention created by Bram Stoker."

 

"Who?" someone asked from the darkness.

 

"What do you mean ‘who?’" I asked, "Bram f*****g Stoker, the author of Dracula. He used the crucifix as a means of poking fun at what he thought was the superstitiousness of Roman Catholicism as well as providing a cautionary tale for an enlightened English society– you know, "superstitions are stupid, but don’t be so eager to shake off superstitions," that sort of thing. Either way, crosses, crucifixes, have no effect on vampires. The myth is older than the religion. Actually, Bram Stoker helped to develop the myth that Dracula became a vampire by having sex with Satan. That’s why the cross weakens him in the novel. Satan being evil is repulsed by what is holy. And of course a crucifix, to most Christians, by that I mean Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, is holy.

 

"So what does kill a vampire?" a voice that sounded like Glen asked.

 

"Well, that’s the problem," I responded after a moment, "different cultures have different methods."

 

"Are there any methods that are common to most cultures?" Carson demanded.

 

"I only know the cultures that I know. It would be irresponsible for me to overlay the few cultures that I have familiarity with on every other culture."

 

"You know what I mean," he rebutted.

 

"Apparently, the method of killing a vampire seems to be trial and error. Whatever keeps him down is what works. It’s that simple. I mean the whole stake thing, for instance, was never meant to be a permanent cause of death. It merely served as a means of pinning the vampire to the ground so that he could be dealt with. Oh, and incidently, not just any old stake will do. It has to be a particular kind of wood. Oak is generally a favorite in the mythology. Basically, it’s whatever wood that the locals believe was used to construct the cross on which Christ was crucified. "

 

"So how is a vampire dealt with?" Glen asked.

 

"Basically you chop off his head and burn the body."

 

"So how do we stop him should he appear," Tara asked. To which Matt laughed, causing the rest of us to laugh in a nervous echo.

 

"There are no such things as vampires," Matt asserted. "They are mythological constructions designed the scare the young of primitive cultures so that they conform to the sociological norms of that society."

 

"Then what is it that you expect to find?" she demanded of him.

 

"A tomb. A monument. Something that proves that these legends and myths have some historical basis.

 

"If he does exists," I assured her, "we only have to find a way to chop off his head. That shouldn’t be that hard."

 

"And how do we do that?" she demanded with a laugh.

 

"Hey, if I had all of the answers, where would all the fun be?" I replied, never once betraying the fact that the brief lecture on vampire folklore, as well as the ensuing question-and-answer period had filled me with a sense of dread and foreboding. I was nervous in spite of my external calm, which no one could see in the thick blackness through which we moved. We walked for what seemed like hours in the dark, narrow tunnel of a cave. Continuing to step upon one another as we trudged through the heavy burden of blackness.

 

"Ouch! Sonofa..." I heard ahead of me, "What the hell is this?" We all stumbled forward, quickly finding ourselves herded upon one another. "It’s a dead end!" I heard the same voice, which sounded desperate, informing the rest of us of what he had discovered. I knew the voice, it was Matt. He was clearly unhappy that the cave apparently led nowhere. I, however, was personally relieved that there was nothing to find other than a dead end. I was literally turning around to find the reverse path that led back to the opening from which we entered when I heard a loud crashing sound. It was Matt, who apparently began to kick at the means of the blockage, "You sonofabitch," he shouted as he slammed at the obstruction with the heal of his foot, "I haven’t come this far for nothing!"

 

Some of those who stood between me and Matt attempted to comfort him in an endeavor to restore a momentary sense of sanity to his obvious moment of insanity. He merely declared over and over again that he would not be beaten, not this close to discovering something of note. "Goddammit!" he shouted as he kicked. He uttered a litany of other forceful expletives, which I will not mention. I will only say that it was during this profane invocation that I had managed to weave my way through the crowd and the darkness to where he was standing.

 

"Look man," I said as I pulled him away from the wall, "did you really expect to find a legend? I mean, yeah, Heinrich Schliemann excavated the city of Troy out of a legend; but honestly, how many of us get to be that fortunate? It was worth a trip and we made it. There is no Lair of the Slairva. Let’s go home. We came. We saw. We found nothing in particular. That’s still a paper waiting to be published."

 

Matt seemed to be comforted by my words and turned with me to head back in the direction from which we came. Suddenly, and without warning, he turned back to the wall and kicked at it, "You sonofabitch!" he bellowed as he kicked at it one last time– and I really wish that he never kicked at it that one last time because this particular kick was dissimilar from all of the preceding ones. The others merely produced a loud clashing-sort-of-thumping noise. This final kick produced a tiny, but noticeable, glint of light that shone weakly from behind the wall. Matt shook me off and kicked at it again. More light made its way into the cave. Then Carson and Glenn and others began to kick at the barrier, which eventually crumbled before the combined might of the onslaught of fascination and obsession.

 

We quickly broke our way through the obstruction, finding ourselves greeted by a wide-open valley, surrounded by the large hills that supplied the cave which allowed us entry to this point. Directly in front of us there was a castle, or at least a building that I would imagine could best be described as a castle since it was surprisingly smaller than what I had expected. In truth, it appeared to be more of a large house than a small castle. Nevertheless, it was castle shaped and constructed out of stone.

 

"Holy hell," someone behind me uttered, "what the hell is that?"

 

"The Lair of the Slairva," Matt said confidently, "See? I told you it was here," he said to all of us, though I had the distinct feeling that he said it more to me.

 

After a moment of us gazing upon the newly discovered castle, I decided to put forth a simple question, "So, what now?"

 

"What do you mean ‘what now?’" Matt refuted.

 

"I mean, what do we do now?"

 

"We investigate," Matt countered almost before I finished my question, "What else would we do?"

 

"I don’t know," I answered, "maybe go back and assemble a real team of experts in this sort of thing.

 

"We have a team of experts," Matt rebutted.

 

"No," I insisted, "we have a team of friends who were invited to take advantage of a big-a*s grant. That hardly makes us experts. It merely makes us opportunists."

 

"Tara, you talk to him," Matt shifted direction in an obvious attempt to embarrass me in front of the group, "you’re the only one he pays attention to these days."

 

"Leave her out of this," I demanded, feeling my face flush. After a breath I once more attempted to employ logic, "Look, what difference does it make if we examine it now or come back later. It’s our discovery. We can prove that. Why don’t we come back when we are better prepared?"

 

"As you say," Matt said coolly, "If now or later doesn’t matter, then why not now?

 

"Why not later," I retorted.

 

"Tell you what," Matt offered, let’s let the majority decide, after all, we are Americans. We should have a reverent respect for democracy. What do you all say? Do we investigate now or do we come back later?"

 

One by one, everyone agreed with Matt. The basic defense was something like "Why the hell did we travel all this way just to turn back once we discovered something ."

 

I had no rebuttal and I admitted as much. Then I was surprised by the one voice that I valued above all others. "Doesn’t anyone else find it strange," Tara interceded after a long silence, "that there was a figure around here, legend or not, that the locals walled in, not once but twice?"

 

"And?..." Sara asked sarcastically.

 

"And?" Tara replied peevishly, "What do you mean ‘and?’ I would think that the ‘and’ is obvious: why are we so eager to waltz into what the locals felt the need to shut off?"

 

"Destiny," Josh said.

 

"The history books," Glenn said.

 

"No," I interjected, "I think that she’s right."

 

"Of course you do," Tiffany said sarcastically in my direction. "You said it yourself, this could be our Troy. The Lair of Slairva could turn out to be the Troy to our Schliemann.

 

"Schliemann’s Troy was buried by sand and time, not by intention," I offered, "What we are moving toward was deliberately cut off from its surroundings. Tara’s right, we should probably take that seriously."

 

"Goddammit!" Matt interjected, "this is no more than a monument to a myth. You’re the historian. Can’t you be a little less superstitious and a little more objective?"

 

"And you’re the one who studies Mythology. Why do I know more about the mythology of what we are looking for than you do? And why am I the only one us who takes the mythology seriously? I’m as objective as I can be, but I’ll admit it, I’m scared. This is all way too freaky. I would think, given the circumstances, that a proper sense of shock and awe would be appropriate about now. The fact that you don’t fills me with a certain level of concern."

 

"What are you saying?"

 

"All I’m saying is that we’ve found the myth that you were looking for. Unless you expect that myth to get up and walk around, then we should be able to at least get back to the inn, take a shower, or whatever they have, eat sardines, cheese and some sort of coarse bread, and come back later."

 

"You know," I heard from a plurality of voices behind me, "I think he’s right. Why can’t we go back and get some supplies and then come back. We have the grant. We have the intension. We have the discovery. No one can take it from us at this point. Everyone around here knew that we were looking for the Lair of Slairva and we’ve found it."

 

"We came looking for Slairva. I’m not going anywhere until I’ve found a body." Matt was adamant that we go forward, and he had allies in the group. I was adamant that we come back later, and I also had allies. In the end a compromise was struck: some of us would go back and some of us would journey forward. For some reason, we thought that the most just splitting of the group would be a blending of the groups. By that I mean that some of us who wanted to return to the inn ventured to the castle, and some of us who wanted to venture to the castle returned to the inn. There were nine of us and it was a split-decision. Matt, who wanted to go on, went on; so did Glen, who also wanted to go on; Carson went on, though he wanted to return; I also went on, even though I wanted to return (I felt that it was somehow cowardly to go back even though my head and my heart agreed for the first time in history, both shouting to get the hell out of there); and Tara came along with us. Pauletta, who wanted to go along, simply because Matt was going, returned; as did Josh who also wanted to explore the castle; Tiffany and Sara both wanted to return. We made our goodbyes, then we parted company.