‘Looking for your keys,’ said Aleksei.
‘You won’t find anything there.’
But Aleksei already had, in one of the drawers: a bunch of five different-sized keys on a large iron ring. They looked medieval compared with the keys of modern locks, but they evidently did their job. He snatched them up and headed back to the door he had come in by.
‘No, Aleksei!’ shouted Iuda after him, but Aleksei was already gone.
He came first to the tattooed monster with which he had spoken. It was sitting down again, but looked up when it heard Aleksei approach.
‘The pain has stopped,’ it said.
‘Good,’ replied Aleksei, but though the word was intended for the voordalak, the sentiment behind it was relief that the tsar must have spoken to Wylie – and that meant the tsar was safe.
Aleksei tried one of the keys in the lock, but it didn’t work. ‘Do you know which one it is?’ he asked.
‘No,’ said the vampire, shaking its head. Then it leapt to its feet with sudden realization. ‘You’re freeing me?’
‘I’m freeing all of you,’ he said, moving on to the second key. It was bizarre to hear himself saying it. How many voordalaki were there down here? He had seen over a dozen, but there would be more in other caves. Once they had taken their revenge on Iuda – Cain, as they knew him – then they would be free to revert to their normal way of living; living off the blood and flesh of humans. Did he really care? Not enough. They deserved some chance of retribution, but after that they would fend for themselves. If they attacked humans, then humans would destroy them – so it had been through the centuries. Aleksei himself would gladly assist in their extermination, but not today.
The third key did the trick. The door swung open. The vampire stood there, considering its freedom, wary of it and perhaps of Aleksei too.
‘They’ve got Cain cornered in there,’ said Aleksei. ‘But they’re afraid of him.’
‘We were all afraid of him, but not now.’ The creature ran out of its cage. Aleksei instinctively took a step back, but it didn’t seem to notice. ‘We’ll need more help,’ it said.
They carried on down the corridor and soon came to where Aleksei had encountered Raisa Styepanovna. She was sitting in her chair, reading. Aleksei glanced into the mirror again, but saw only the empty cave and its incongruous furnishings. Of the woman whose beauty was so obvious when he looked at her directly, there was nothing. He ran over to her, lifting up her hair to find the fetter around her neck.
‘Sir!’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘You presume too much.’
Aleksei had already found the small lock. There was only one key in the bunch that could possibly fit it, and she was free in moments. Aleksei rushed on, now with two vampires in tow. He opened the cages of the three voordalaki that had been fed on vegetables, but they seemed even more fearful now that the gates were open than they had been before. Aleksei had no time to convince them of their good fortune.
He could do nothing for ‘Prometheus’. There were no locks on his manacles. They had been forged as single rings of metal. They must have been hammered into shape after his wrists had been slipped inside them.
‘There’s no time,’ said Aleksei.
‘We’ll do what we can later,’ the tattooed vampire told him.
Lastly, they came to the cell of the creature that had attacked him – that had camouflaged itself so effectively against the wall. Aleksei was wary to go near.
The voordalak whose screams had led Aleksei down into this pit in the first place spoke. ‘We’ll deal with it,’ it said. ‘There are many others of us down here. I’ll release them all. Cain will not escape.’
Aleksei looked at the creature. It was absurd to trust a vampire, but if they were not to be trusted then it would be foolhardy to stay. Their hatred of Iuda seemed genuine enough, and that would make their actions over the next few hours pleasingly predictable.
Aleksei nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said, then turned and ran back up the tunnel which he had descended scarcely an hour before.
‘Thank you!’ he heard called from behind him, but he did not stop to look back. He didn’t stop to check the tiny scratch marks he’d left to guide his way out; instinct told him the correct path.
Only when he saw the light of day streaming in through the end of the tunnel and finally made it outside – pressing himself against the cliff face to avoid falling from the narrow ledge – did he stop, and take in huge, grateful lungfuls of the cool, fresh Crimean air.
CHAPTER XX
THE ROYAL PARTY HAD LEFT THE CITADEL BY THE TIME ALEKSEI returned to it. It was the right thing to do – Wylie might have been tempted to stay and wait for Aleksei to emerge from the caves, but his duty was to ensure that the tsar got safely away.
They were almost halfway back to Bakhchisaray when Aleksei caught up with them. They had stopped and dismounted at the Uspensky Monastery, which they had passed by on the way up to Chufut Kalye. The previous day the tsar had attended a Mohammedan ceremony in the khan’s palace. Earlier today he had been taking tea with Jews, and now he was going to visit an Orthodox chapel. It was not a reflection of the make-up of his nation as a whole, but the Crimea had had too many masters over the years to settle upon any one god.
The most remarkable thing Aleksei observed was the dutiful calmness with which Aleksandr was continuing his activities. He asked the usual, polite questions of the priests and the monks, and showed great interest in the architecture. Like so much in the area, the monastery was built into natural caves in the rockface. For a moment, Aleksei feared there might be some subterranean path back to Iuda’s lair, but it was unlikely. They were on the other side of the valley from Chufut Kalye, and any tunnel would have had to go around it, or underneath it. It was at that moment that the tsar first caught sight of Aleksei, across the open courtyard. Only a raised eyebrow indicated he had any recollection of the events they had both witnessed that day.
Wylie caught up with him as they were all treated to an impromptu lecture on the history of the building from one of the older priests.
‘You’re all right then, I see,’ he said.
‘Nothing broken,’ said Aleksei.
‘You can imagine my relief when His Majesty returned.’
‘How is he?’
‘He seems perfectly well; a little distracted perhaps. He won’t tell me anything of what happened.’
‘Did he explain his absence?’ asked Aleksei.
‘He just said he’d gone exploring and complained that Colonel Salomka had panicked.’
‘I suppose he wasn’t down there for very long.’
‘You met Cain?’ asked the doctor.
Aleksei nodded.
‘What happened?’
‘Some of his experiments got a little out of hand.’
‘You mean…?’ gasped Wylie.
The priest had taken them to a long flight of steps that led up to the chapel itself. He had begun to ascend. Aleksandr was just behind him, followed by Tarasov and Salomka. Aleksei and Wylie were next.
‘I don’t think Richard Cain will be making any more presentations to the Royal Society. Even so, I’d very much like for us all to be off these damned mountains before nightfall.’
‘Of course,’ said Wylie. ‘Did His Majesty witness any of this?’
‘No, I sent him away almost…’
In front of them, Tarasov and Salomka suddenly rushed forward. The priest turned back to see what the commotion was. Aleksandr had collapsed. Tarasov loosened his collar and Wylie dashed forward with a bottle of sal volatile, which he waved under the tsar’s nose. Aleksei felt his own approach was a little more practical. From his pocket he fetched a small flask of brandy, from which the tsar took a grateful sip. The whole incident was over in moments, and the tsar was back on his feet before any but those in the closest proximity to him could even notice what had happened.