Kolomyya was a railhead and meeting point for four tracks, from Khust, Ivano-Frankovsk, Chernovtsy and Gorodenka; every other building seemed to be a warehouse or storage depot. It wasn't hard to find one's way about; the industrial and commercial sides of the town were distinctly separate. The four men Dolgikh followed had driven to the town's main telephone exchange, parked outside and gone in.
Dolgikh parked his Fiat, stopped a passerby and asked about public call boxes. ‘Three!' the man told him, obviously disgusted. ‘Only three public telephones in a town as big as this! And all of them constantly in use. So if you're in a hurry you'd best make your call here, at the exchange. They'll put you through quick as a flash.'
In about ten minutes Krakovitch and his party had left the exchange, got into their car and driven off. Their tracker had been torn two ways: to follow them, or find out who they'd contacted and why. Since their car was bugged and he could always find them later, he'd decided on the latter course. Inside the small but busy exchange he'd wasted no time but asked for the manager. His KGB ID had guaranteed immediate co-operation. It turned out that Krakovitch had called Moscow — but not a number Dolgikh was familiar with. It seemed that the head of E-Branch had required higher authorisation for something or other; there had been some talk of blasting, and the big man in overalls had been very much involved. Krakovitch had allowed him also to use the phone. That was as much as anyone at the exchange knew of the matter. Dolgikh had then asked to be put through to Gerenko at the Château Bronnitsy, to whom he'd passed on all that he had learned.
At first Gerenko had seemed confused, but then:
‘They're working directly through Brezhnev's contact!' he'd snapped. ‘Not through me. Which can only mean that they suspect! Theo, make sure you get them all. Yes, including that construction foreman. And when it's done let me know at once.'
Tracking the bug he'd planted, Dolgikh had arrived at the depot of a local civil engineering firm in the town just in time to see Gulharov and Volkonsky loading a box of explosives into the boot of their car while Krakovitch and Quint looked on. Obviously the big Russian foreman was now a member of their team. Equally obvious, their contact in Moscow had cleared the use of materials for blasting. While Dolgikh still did not know what they intended to destroy, he did have an idea where it was. And what was more, that was as good a place as any for them to die.
While Theo Dolgikh was thinking back on the day's events, Carl Quint's mind was similarly engaged; and now that the broken fangs of Faethor Ferenczy's castle once more appeared through the dark, motionless pines, so his memory instinctively homed in on what he and Felix Krakovitch had found there during their first visit this morning. All four of them had been present, but only he and Krakovitch had known where to look.
The place had been almost magnetic in their psychically enhanced minds: the exact spot had drawn them like iron filings to a magnet. Except they were not filings, and it was not their intention to get stuck here. Quint remembered now how it had been.
‘Faethor's castle,' he'd breathed, as they came to a halt at the very rim of the ruins. ‘The mountain fastness of a vampire!' And in the eye of his mind he'd seen it again as it must have been a thousand years ago.
Volkonsky would have gone clambering into and amongst the crumbling stone blocks, but Krakovitch had stopped him. The ganger knew nothing at all of what was buried here, and Krakovitch didn't intend to tell him. Volkonsky was down to earth as any man could be. At the moment he was committed to assist them, but that might change if they tried to tell him what they were doing here. And so Krakovitch had simply warned, ‘Be careful! Try not to disturb anything…‘ And the big Russian had shrugged and climbed down again from the tumbled mass of the decaying old pile.
Then Quint and Krakovitch together had simply stared at the place and touched its stones, and let the aura of its antiquity and its immemorial evil wash over them. They'd breathed its essence, tasted of its mystery and let their talents lead them to its innermost secret. As they had picked their way carefully, almost timidly through the fallen rubble of ancient masonry, suddenly Quint had come to an abrupt halt and said huskily, ‘Oh, yes, it was here all right. It still is here! This is the place.'
And Krakovitch had agreed: ‘Yes, I sense it too. But I only sense it — I don't fear it. There's no warning to bar me from this place. I'm sure that there was a great evil here, but it's gone now, extinct, utterly lifeless.'
Quint had nodded, sighed his relief. ‘That's my feeling, too: still here, but no longer active. It's been too long. There was nothing to sustain it.'
Then they had stared at each other, both of them thinking the identical thought. Finally Krakovitch had given it voice. ‘Dare we try to find it, perhaps disturb it?'
For a moment Quint had known fear, but then he'd answered, ‘If I don't at least discover what it was like — at the end, I mean — then I'll wonder about it for the rest of my life. And since we're both agreed that it's harmless now..
And so they had called up Gulharov and Volkonsky to the place where they stood, and all four of them had set to work. At first the going was easy and they used makeshift implements and their bare hands to clear away masses of loose dirt and rubble. Soon they'd revealed the inner core of an ancient stone staircase, with the steps winding on the outside. The stone had been scorched black with fire and was scarred by jagged cracks as from great heat. Apparently Thibor's plan had worked: the spiral stairwell leading downstairs had been blocked by blazing debris, burying the vampire women and the unfortunate Ehrig alive. Yes, and the burrowing proto-thing too. All of them, buried alive — or undead. But a thousand years is a long time, in which even the undead might truly die.
Then Volkonsky had got his massive arms around a great block of fractured rock and eased it upwards from the rubble which seemed to completely choke the stairwell. Suddenly it had come loose, at which Gulharov had added his own not inconsiderable muscle to the task. Together they'd heaved the block up and over the rim of the excavation — at which the debris at their feet had sighed and settled down a little, and a blast of foul air had rushed up into their faces!
They'd jumped back, startled, but still there had been no threat in it, no sense of impending danger. After a moment, taking Gulharov's arm to steady himself, the big Russian foreman had stepped down from the already uncovered stone steps onto the now dubious surface of the material blocking the descent. Still clinging to Gulharov he'd stamped first one foot, then the other — and at once gone down with a cry of alarm up to his waist in the stuff as it suddenly shifted and gave way under him!
Then the earth had seemed to rumble and shudder a little; Volkonsky had clung to Gulharov for dear life; Quint and Krakovitch had thrown themselves flat and reached down from above to grab hold of the ganger under his armpits. But he'd been quite safe, for already his feet had found purchase on unseen steps below.
And as they'd all four watched in astonishment, so the choking debris around Volkonsky's thighs had settled down, collapsing in upon itself, sinking like quicksand into the hollow depths of the stairwell. Hollow, yes! The stairs had not been completely choked but merely plugged, and now the plug had been removed.
‘Now it's our turn,' Quint had said when the dust had settled and they could breathe freely. ‘You and me, Felix. We can't let Mikhail go down there ahead of us, for he has no idea what he's up against. If there is still an element of danger attached to it, we should be the first ones down there.'
They'd climbed down beside Volkonsky, paused and looked at each other. ‘We're unarmed,' Krakovitch had pointed out.