A Matter Of Taste by Fred Saberhagen (best reads .TXT) 📗

and doubtless (I really never noticed at the time) carrying traces of grave-soil clinging to my cerements.

      My victim gasped—at least he made a most extraordinary sound, for which I can find no better name—and I thought for a moment that he was going to scream. But after that one gasp he was stricken silent, as if from sudden lack of breath. His countenance distorted itself into that indescribable expression that appears only when nightmares come true. In the centuries that have passed since that night, I have grown familiar with the variations of that look.

      Then, galvanized, Ronay abruptly moved, displaying more energy than I had thought his fevered, weakened body likely to possess. Trying his best to push himself up out of bed, and finding his strength unequal to the task, he clawed about him with both hands, as if he hoped to find a weapon. His anguished gaze turned toward his sword and dagger, which lay piled on the chair with his other property, and in a moment he had fallen out of bed in a futile effort to extend his reaching arm that far.

      The floor was stone. Ronay fell hard and lay still for a moment, but he did not lose consciousness. As a result of the fall and his exertion, the wound in his right side had opened again, and I saw the red come welling swiftly from beneath the bandages. My old associate’s face was pale, as pale no doubt as my own, and I experienced some concern that he might even die before I came within reach of him.

      Ronay, keeping his face turned toward me as I continued to advance, tried awkwardly to get away, dragging himself backward on his elbows.

      His lips were livid, his voice was thin and gasping. “Drakulya—no. You are not here. You are a vision, a vision sent by the Fiend!”

      Crying out thus, he failed to realize how far he had moved in his surprisingly rapid backward progress. The chair, top-heavy with his arms and armor, tipped easily when he bumped into it, spilling its burden that crashed with a great noise on the stone floor.

      Moaning, scrambling, Ronay turned his back upon me for a moment, clawing for his dagger. Not that he hoped to stab me yet again. No, he understood that matters had gone beyond that in my case. Rather, when he had grasped the weapon, he turned back toward me, holding the hilt up, making a cross of hilt and blade above his hands.

      “Get thee back to hell!” my former lieutenant shrieked at me. Or, rather, so he tried to shriek. The sound was more like a sob. His voice was failing now, in his extreme weakness.

      I paused, a couple of strides away, considering the fevered wreck before me. Actually, as a result of my own somewhat befuddled state, I had come this far with no firm plan of revenge in mind. Perhaps chief among my mixed feelings at the moment was disappointment. I had naturally wanted to catch Ronay in full possession of his faculties. Now, on the contrary, I was sure that the fool must be totally delirious to imagine that I had come from anywhere but solid earth. I was no evil spirit, but Drakulya, a man. Though slain, a live man still, because I had refused to die.

      I, of course, was conscious of no effect upon myself from all of Ronay’s terrified onslaught of commands and curses. Certainly it would have been hard to find anyone less qualified than he as a spiritual authority. The dagger he brandished was only a crude cross, a sacred symbol held by an evil man. I could have lunged forward and snatched it away from him. But I did not. Nor did I speak. I only resumed my advance—very slowly.

      “Come not to me! You don’t want me!” Now the wretch was almost sobbing. He had no energy remaining to drag himself away. “It was Bogdan who planned your death. He who tortured you, not I! Seek Bogdan! I am innocent!”

      I spoke at last, quite naturally, as I thought. “Oh, Bogdan’s turn is coming, I assure you. And Basarab’s. But yours has come already.” And at this pleasant thought I smiled.

      This coward who had conspired to murder me was gasping continuously now, trying and almost failing to draw breath. And now he threw down his useless dagger and, like a child, tried to hide his eyes. To make the bad dream go away. Standing over him, filled with disgust, I reached down and snatched him up. To me he felt even lighter than a child. I tried what I might do with my grip upon his shoulder and could feel the bones there begin to snap, quite satisfactorily, beneath the pressure of my fingers.

      Of course with all the noise of falling arms and armor he had made, we were bound to be interrupted. Having just completed the mangling of one of my victim’s shoulders, I was about to begin upon another joint when I heard behind me a shout of mingled rage and horror. Turning, I beheld a robed monk, who gazed back at me with astonishment, fear, and fury mingled in his countenance.

      Before anything else could happen, several more monks came running in and, on finding their patient in the grasp of such an apparition, added their voices to the shouts of the first.

      If they were going to do no more than shout, I could ignore these intruders for the moment. I turned my attention back to the subject of my justice. Ronay in my grip looked corpselike, his eyes half-open, breath suspended. I was gazing at him closely to determine whether or not he was already dead when to my surprise I felt my arm seized from behind. The monk who had run in first, a small man foolhardy in his bravery, was interfering. I shook him off with irritation, and he flew back to sprawl across an empty bed.

      To my great disappointment, close inspection confirmed that