‘Thank you,’ it said.
Aleksei hopped back up the slope, a little way away from the cave mouth, ostensibly to find a comfortable place to sit, but also wary now that the voordalak was almost free. It certainly needed no more of his assistance. It had freed its legs, and indeed every part of its body but for the head. It kicked out hard with both feet, sending a ripple through its body like an eel flicking its way through the water. Its body tugged against its head and popped it out of the grip of the rocks. It would have been agony for a human – probably fatal. It may have been agony for the vampire too, but it was expedient and would not kill it.
Now that Aleksei could see the creature’s entire body, he realized what a sorry state it was in. Voordalaki, he knew, healed quickly, and this one had had many days to recover from the initial damage done to it by the rocks pounding into its body. But the healing process had not been free to take its natural course, and had done its best within the strictures the fallen rocks forced upon it. The body had healed in much the same way that a limb set at the wrong angle will heal – rebuilt, but not in the form in which it had been originally created.
The creature’s left hand was relatively normal, but its right was bent back at the wrist, almost to a right angle. When it moved its fingers, the bones within its palm pushed forward and caused the skin to rise and fall in sympathy. One leg was shorter than it should have been, between the knee and the ankle, while the other – the one that had been bent back under the rocks, curved out in a huge bow. It must have been broken in over twenty places. The remarkable outcome was that the creature was able to stand with its feet side by side, but it left a gap so wide a child would have been able to climb through its legs.
Its chest was utterly concave, like a mixing bowl from a kitchen. Bone and flesh had not always re-formed in the correct order, and in places ribs could be seen erupting from the skin then submerging back under inches later. The skin itself was very thin, particularly on the left-hand side, and Aleksei could see the slight motion of a beating heart beneath it. Another huge dent was visible in the side of its head, almost reaching the eye. Aleksei was reminded of Major Maskov’s wound.
‘Aren’t you in pain?’ asked Aleksei.
‘Less than I was a moment ago, but I don’t think it’s going to get any better than this.’
‘Perhaps if… if your bones were broken again, they’d have a chance to heal more freely.’ Aleksei had not really considered the concept, and had spoken in some sense out of politeness, but the voordalak took on his suggestion.
It placed its right hand on a large, flat rock and then raised a smaller stone in the other, smashing it down on its upturned fingers. It made a slight grunt as the stone impacted, but the sound was drowned by a horrible crunching as its finger bones were smashed. It lifted its hand and shook it vigorously, as a man would on trapping his fingers in a door. At first Aleksei could see the crushed bones wobbling loosely, but even as he looked they stiffened and the hand opened like a flower to reveal itself once again in its proper form – or close enough.
The voordalak inspected its new hand, looking first at the back, then the front.
‘Thank you, again,’ it said. ‘Though I’ll leave the rest for later.’ It sat on a rock and looked at Aleksei. It was still just inside the cave. The sun had not yet set, and it would not dare venture further out.
‘What happened?’ asked Aleksei.
‘Cain,’ it replied simply.
‘I thought you had him at your mercy.’
‘That was your mistake – and ours. He had assistance.’
Aleksei was surprised, though he knew he should not have been. Iuda would have been a fool not to have someone watching his back. ‘Where were they hiding?’ he asked.
‘Hiding?’ The creature laughed humourlessly. ‘There was no need to hide. You saw for yourself.’ Aleksei said nothing, nor did he understand. ‘One of our own number – Raisa Styepanovna.’
‘Her? But she hated him as much as the rest of you.’
‘It seems not. Somehow he had persuaded her that he would find a way of letting her see herself in a mirror. Perhaps he can – though God knows what she’ll see. She’d been on his side all along.’
‘What did she do?’
‘Once I’d released everyone, we all converged on the main chamber, where you’d left Cain surrounded. He was trying to talk the creatures in there into going back to their cells. They were weak-willed, and he might have done it, but the rest of us were not so easy to assuage. We stood there watching him, saying nothing, except me. All I did was read out the time from the clock, every five minutes, counting the remainder of his life before the sun set and he lost its protection.
‘None of us noticed that Raisa Styepanovna had made her way over to his desk – and why should we care about it if we had? But suddenly she pulled on some rope or lever, and the whole room was flooded with sunlight – not even flooded, it was cleverer than that. There were wide corridors of light that surrounded pools of shadow. Only a few of us were caught so quickly as to be killed, most recoiled into the shade, just where Cain wanted us. Raisa had opened a whole set of curtains that let in sunlight in the exact pattern required – the point at which she stood remained safely unilluminated. Cain must have planned for the eventuality long before.’
‘It relied on Raisa Styepanovna – he was lucky she was there to save him.’ Even as he spoke, Aleksei realized how Iuda had tricked him into releasing the other prisoners, safe in the knowledge that one of them would be his rescuer.
‘Perhaps,’ said the vampire, ‘but even if she had not been there he would have found a way. It was less than ten paces to his desk. He might have made it and released the mechanism himself before we got to him.’
Another realization hit Aleksei as he listened. This was not the only part Raisa Styepanovna had played in recent events. Kyesha had told him it was she who had revealed the location of Iuda’s notebook, and the other information he had needed to contact Aleksei. Perhaps Kyesha’s entire escape had been contrived, and with only one purpose – to bring Aleksei to Chufut Kalye.
‘What happened then?’ he asked.
‘Cain and Raisa discussed what to do. They were considering whether they would be able to round us all up and put us back in our cells, but they decided it would be impossible. Cain said it was time to move on. He lit a taper and disappeared with it down one of the tunnels. She stayed behind, taunting us, telling us that hers was the last beauty we would ever look upon. Cain soon returned. He picked up his notebooks and some other bits and pieces, and they left together. It was difficult for her to pick her way through, always keeping in the shadows. She caught her hand once and let out a scream as the skin burned, but it was nothing. I’ve had worse from you reading that damned book.’
Aleksei couldn’t help but smile at the creature’s stoicism, but he didn’t interrupt the story.
‘They headed off down the tunnel and we waited. Some were unconcerned, saying it would be dark soon, but others knew Cain better. There was a fear that he somehow had worked out a way of flooding the entire cavern with light, but it seemed unlikely. Even if he had, there were plenty of places we could have sheltered until sunset. But that wasn’t his plan. As soon as I heard the first explosion, I realized what he was up to. I knew there wasn’t much time. I ran for all I was worth in the direction they’d gone, dodging the light as much as I could, but it was impossible to avoid it completely. I felt the burns, but they didn’t slow me – it’s something I’m used to.
‘I was only just out of the main chamber when the roof behind me collapsed. There were several routes out, but some of them were blocked already. Again, he’d had it all planned – gunpowder packed into crevices in the rock, primed to entomb us and let him walk free, should the need arise. I came up this way. I didn’t know what I was going to do. It was still light outside, so it was either be entombed or burned. In the end, the choice was made for me. There was an explosion above my head and down came the roof, and that’s where I’ve been for – however long it is.’