Vlad Chapter III: Morning and Lamia.

The sun climbed the horizon with plains of maize leaning to her light. A falcon dove through a cloud break and snatched a sparrow.

Ehrlich watched from the ramparts as village workers arrived and formed a line in the fortress shadow. He signaled the gatehouse, then descended a ladder as the drawbridge lowered.

The workers filed across while Ehrlich counted the tradespeople, artisans, and common laborers. A large woman drew water from a well. A blacksmith stoked a glowing forge, and a maid proceeded to the hall with her cleaning basket.

***

Desponia pressed against her lover, sweeping Luminita's hair from the nape of her neck and inhaling her fragrance. The pearls of Luminita's necklace clicked as she stirred from sleep. She sat up and leaned back on her palms.

"Kiss me," she whispered.

“How enchanting,” Desponia said, lowering her mouth to Luminita’s lips. “Shall we have breakfast afterward?”

“Quail eggs… cheese and porridge. Bread and jam! But where is my clothing?"

“A new wardrobe will soon be yours, Luminita. In the meantime, you’ll wrap yourself in that robe hanging by the mirror."

"What is it?"

"It's called a kimono, a trendy thing in distant lands."

“Kimono,” whispered Luminita as she leaped out of bed and pulled the silk around her body.

“It’s beautiful,” she gushed, “decorated with the moon and the stars!”

“As befits your name, child. Take my hand and follow me down a corridor. There is a guardian I would have you meet."

Desponia led Luminita to a castle door. They stepped into daylight, and the goddess let go with a shrill whistle.

Onyx burst from the tree line, the salivating wolf of the gypsy’s bad dreams. 

Luminita twirled and lunged for the door, the limpidity of her complexion shattering more entirely than a punched mirror. She shrieked and fainted.

The next moment, she regained consciousness and discovered Onyx sniffing her indiscreetly.

"It seems you've won him over," Desponia said with a laugh.

Wide-eyed, Luminita crawled back on her elbows. "I do not think so!"

"Let him learn your scent, girl. It’s better for your protection.”

Onyx goosed his nose between Luminita’s legs.

"Oh! How vulgar!" giggled Luminita.

"Onyx, heel!” Desponia shouted.

The wolf vanished.

"Do not think of me as a complete fool," Luminita snapped. "You're a necromancer, as is Vlad!"

Desponia smiled. "Clever girl. Let's walk together."

"Very well," said Luminita, leaping to her feet. “Zeus’s beard, but that beast gave me goosebumps!" She wrinkled her nose. "Filthy animal."

Following a lengthy walk in the forest, the goddess and her gypsy returned to the castle with Onyx in tow. The wolf faded out and followed them inside.

Desponia led Onyx to her chambers, then called for kitchen workers, asking for venison and a large bucket of water to be left on the floor.

With Onyx situated, Desponia called for her seamstress, Maria.

"How do the materials go?"

"All is in readiness. We wait only for the lady's measurements," Maria said, glancing at Luminita.

“Luminita, remove the kimono and let this woman do her work,” Desponia said.

"Why does she stare so?" Luminita whispered, slipping from the kimono while Maria prepared to measure the gypsy’s bustline.

"Heaven’s stars,” murmured Maria."

With the measurements completed, Maria led Desponia and Luminita through the yard. The workers fell silent, glancing furtively at Desponia and her stately posture. Only when the goddess disappeared through Maria’s workshop did the courtyard’s noises return.

"This clothing is suitable to wear about the castle," Desponia said, pointing to a rack. "Pick something and wear it. The rest will be fitted to your figure by the day's end. We'll soon embark upon a journey."

Luminita frowned. "A journey?"

"Why, yes,” Desponia said, toying with the gypsy’s pearls. "I mentioned it yesterday as we stood in the tavern."

"The tavern?"

"Best not to trouble over details.”

Desponia turned to Maria.

"See that this girl's wardrobe can withstand a frost."

***

They dined in the hall that afternoon. A roasted pig stuffed with walnuts, cranberries, pieces of bread, and pudding lay before them.

Luminita sat back, rubbing her stomach. "Oof, I can eat no more. My seams will burst."

Desponia smiled, "The amount you've eaten should sustain until this evening. I'm about preparation today. Stay close, and you will learn." Desponia rose from the table, just starting through the hall, when a harrowing wail checked her movement.

"My child! My child!" screamed a woman.

The goddess glided to the hall's entrance and peered into the yard.

"It's murder," cried the woman, reaching out to show blood on her hands. "Unholy murder! A demon fed on my child, a thing from hell. My infant lies slaughtered in its cradle."

The woman ran unthinkingly for the armory, pulling her hair and calling her husband’s name.

The goddess lingered at the entrance, her brow furrowing. She called the guard and barked orders.

“Raise the bridge! Double the watch!”

***

Meanwhile, Vlad sank further into his infernal dreams, revisiting war fields and the origins of his vampirism.

Before his dark immortality, Vlad was a humanitarian, choosing logic over superstition and reason over fanaticism. While attending university in Siena, he met an Egyptian student named Ammon. They formed a fast friendship, sharing family histories and telling adventure stories to one another. Ammon spoke of treasures existing in tombs forgotten to time; a cursed place called The Valley of the Kings. He talked of a map passed from father to son through his family's generations until it came to Ammon’s superstitious grandfather, Habib, who destroyed the map for fear of the cursed valley. But specters visited his dreams, and Habib believed that he’d brought forth Anubis, the Egyptian God of The Dead.

Thinking to appease Anubis, Habib redrew the map from memory, placed it in a velvet-lined box, and hid it in a limestone cavern he'd discovered while herding goats.

He prayed that his spectral antagonists would accept his offering and release their 00hold on him. But the spirits continued to haunt him, for they were many, and each asked for children’s blood to palliate their discontent.

Habib’s delusions grew until, at length, he lay on his deathbed, experiencing states of rapture, believing himself a pharaoh and imagining ingots of gold. In his final moments, he revealed the map's location to Ammon's father, Omar, who thought it fanciful but retrieved it and gave it to Ammon as a novelty.

Vlad had listened thoughtfully to Ammon's stories and considered them plausible. Ammon felt sure he could guide an expedition to the valley if Vlad would fund it. They devised a plan together, agreeing to share whatever treasure they might discover equally. Curses are for the dammed!

But, once inside the valley and its smoldering crucibles, they fell victim to the curse. Ammon felt his blood run cold in the malignant corridors where the Litany of Re and the Book of the Gates were shadow murals in the dying light of their lanterns. Vlad felt a hand fall on his shoulder. He lifted his lantern to Ammon's startled face.

"We must leave this place, brother," Ammon said, stepping backward, his eyes full of fear.

But Vlad shrugged him off, pushing on to the antechamber and then to the burial chamber where infinitude awaited. Worse still was his arrogation of the Egyptian book of curses, through which he opened the world of shadows and summoned Desponia from on high to join him in heresy.

It came to pass that Ammon took his own eyes with a dagger, and thus did he rant until those who'd loved him ended his suffering with a rain of stones; a different fate befell Vlad.

***

An appetite for blood grew within him. His mortality drained away, and his cruelty increased until his presence at the head of a column dispirited his enemies.

For here rode the Impaler and his terrible message. Here was the unholy war machine, ready to dip his bread in the blood of all who opposed him.

As the curse grew upon him, Vlad believed his Saxon countrymen collaborated with the Ottoman sultan and his invaders. Vlad ordered a full retreat before the Turkish armies, laying waste to villages and provoking a slaughter unmatched in Romanian history. None before were his equal in savagery. No fiend had meted out more sublime tortures or brought forth such agonies. Nor had the witnesses heard shrieks more bloodcurdling than those of Vlad’s victims.

His soldiers herded the doomed together, forcing them to disrobe, corralling them at spearpoint, man, woman, and child alike. At the same time, others of Vlad's forces hastened to the surrounding forests to fashion impaling stakes. Those prisoners not disrobing quickly enough were hacked with shovels or beheaded with serrated daggers.

The villagers knew their fate well, but as the first prisoners were brought to the reckoning and brutally skewered, a cry of despair filled the spaces between heaven and earth. Many in the queue let loose their bowels. Others prayed while their feet wandered in excrement. Thus were the forests of the impaled erected.