"It's that way on other dimensions," Aahz said, "so it is more than likely it was that way here as well."
Harold nodded. "I had heard that as well."
"So what happened?" I asked.
"Count Bovine, who was not a stupid individual, under stood that something had to be changed or his people would wipe out my people, who were his people's only remaining food source."
"Makes sense," Tanda said. "You lose your food, you die as well."
"Exactly," Harold said. "So he struck a deal with the few remaining of my people to take his people away for all but the nights of the full moon, if my people would serve his kind during that time as food."
"And your people agreed?" Glenda asked, sounding as stunned as I was feeling.
"I don't think my ancestors had a choice," Harold said. "Using the magik of this area, Count Bovine put a spell on the rest of my people. Then, using an even more powerful magik spell, he changed his people to cows."
"So while they were cows," Aahz asked, "why didn't your people just kill them all? Seems like it would have been easy."
"It would have been," Harold said, "if not for the magik that keeps us from doing just that, and keeps us from advancing. The magik allows us to do nothing but prepare for the round-up. Month in and month out, for centuries now, we have done nothing else." Harold just shook his head and went on. "Bovine's people became contented cows, careful how they treated us during the full-moon nights when they regained their normal form and had parties. We became the feed animals, content to do nothing but prepare constantly to serve our cow masters. It was survival for us, but not much of one."
Harold glanced once more out the window. The sun was just a minute from leaving the top of the distant mountaintop. "Quickly, follow me," he said, moving toward the bathroom area of his living quarters.
"What happens now?" Tanda asked.
"I become a cow for the night, the vampires roam the castle feeding and killing like the history says happened, and if you don't hide in a magically protected area, they will find you."
I was right behind him when Harold led us into his bath room, opened a cabinet on the wall, touched a place inside the cabinet, and stepped back as a wall behind a toilet started moving inwards.
"This is the most magically protected room in all the castle," Harold said. "Stay in there until I open the door. Under no circumstances come out. Understand?"
"We understand," Aahz said.
I was the first one through the door, with Tanda and Glenda right behind me. Aahz took a moment longer, talking about something with Harold for a moment, then he joined us.
Behind the wall the space had been carved out of solid stone that was streaked in gold. It was warm and lit by the golden glow of the gold from the walls. The entire room was filled with old books, scrolls, desks, chairs, and more antiques than I had ever seen in one place. We were all inside when the guy slid the wall panel closed behind us without another word.
"Not even a wave goodnight," Tanda said.
Glenda moved inside and right to an antique couch against one wall.
"If you don't mind," she said, lying down and closing her eyes. "I think I need a nap."
"Good idea," Aahz said. Then he looked at me and held up a gold-threaded rope that he had gotten somewhere. He put his finger to his mouth to indicate that we should all be quiet. Then he moved over and took an old blanket from another antique.
"I got a blanket here to cover you," Aahz said to Glenda. "Keep you warm for the night."
"Thanks," Glenda murmured, clearly almost asleep.
Aahz moved over to her, motioning for Tanda and me to follow silently. I had no idea what he wanted me to do. Aahz put the blanket over her, wrapping the rope over her as well. Smooth move. She would never know it was there.
He pointed that I should pull the end of the rope that had dropped down against the wall under the couch.
I got on my knees and did just that, then gave the end to him as Aahz pretended to tuck the blanket around her. With a quick knot he tied the rope and stepped back.
Tanda and I both stepped back with him. I didn't know how one loop would hold someone like Glenda, or why she even needed to be held. But clearly Aahz had known some thing I hadn't, which was normal.
Glenda started thrashing, back and forth, back and forth, clearly trying to get out of the bind, yet the golden rope never seemed to tighten or strain in holding her. Then her eyes opened as if seeing a terror I sure didn't want to see.
"What's happening?" I whispered.
Aahz motioned for me to be silent as Glenda's mouth opened into a scream that never really came. Her back arched her up against the blanket and rope, and she held that pose for a good thirty seconds.
It was the longest thirty seconds I had experienced. I couldn't take my eyes off of her and the look of pure terror on her face. Then whatever she was going through was over. She slumped back, closed her eyes, and began to snore.
Aahz motioned that we should move away through the books and old papers and scrolls.
"Okay, what just happened there?" Tanda asked a half-second before I asked the same question.
"Harold gave me the rope to save her from becoming a vampire," Aahz said. "It seems that those left alive last night were the ones they liked."
"So that was why Glenda's body wasn't in that morgue with the others," I said.
"Exactly," Aahz said. "They were trying to turn her, have her join them."
I glanced back at where Glenda was snoring. "So she's not going to be a vampire now?"
Aahz shrugged. "We'll keep the rope on her until morning just to make sure."
"How about for two days?" Tananda asked.
Aahz laughed and said, "Maybe."
As far as I was concerned, we could keep the rope on her for the next month. When it came to Glenda, my motto was better safe than sorry.
Spending the night trapped in the middle of a culture's entire history, afraid that at any moment I might get taken and have my blood sucked, is an experience I would not wish on my worst enemy. The room we were trapped in was huge, with a high, domed ceiling and row after row of shelves full of old books alternating with piles of ancient furniture. Unlike Aahz and Tanda, I was not the scrounge-through-old-things kind of person. Old stuff was dusty and usually boring, as far as I was concerned. I thumbed through a few books and blew the dust off some old scrolls that looked like cookbooks. I decided I didn't want to know what they were trying to tell me about how to cook, so I wandered over to another aisle, found an antique couch tucked off to one side of a pile of furniture, managed to get most of the dust off of it, and lay down.
Tanda and Aahz were reading, whispering to each other about their finds, clearly excited about what they were see ing. I was beyond being excited about anything at this point. I was just tired. Yet for some strange reason (namely vam pire cows and fear of getting my blood drained and ending up naked on a metal table in a morgue), I couldn't get to sleep. Instead I lay there, finally turning onto my back and staring at the high ceiling.
Maybe an hour into the attempt at sleep, it finally dawned on me what I was looking at every time I opened my eyes. On the smooth, stone ceiling surface someone had painted some thing a long, long time ago. Now, in the weird light from the glowing walls, and all the dust of the years, it was faded and almost invisible. But it was still there.
And the more I lay on my back staring at it, the more I realized that what I was seeing was the most important thing in the room as far as we were concerned. It was a map of the entire castle, only it wasn't a map of the current castle, but the layout of Count Bovine's castle.