By dawn, nothing had changed. Nosferatu slept next to the tube, covered in robes. As soon as the sun began to set, he rose and resumed the journey. Just after midnight he rode to the top of a high dune and paused as he peered to the south. There appeared to be a silver mist on the horizon. He didn’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the same view he’d had for the past ten nights. Any change had to be for the better.
He pushed the mounts forward, the two camels dragging the tube struggling to keep up with him. After an hour the mist seemed no closer, and Nosferatu began to fear it was an illusion. Even after several more hours the silver apparition still hovered over the horizon, but lower and closer, he saw a dark line on the ground. Just before dawn the line was close and he knew it indicated vegetation— the edge of the desert. And where there was plant life there would be people.
And where there were people, there would be blood.
It was completely dark. As black as the inside of his tube. Vampyr turned his head to and fro, trying to find any light, while his hands explored the large stone that lay across his thighs, pinning him in place. How long had he been unconscious? He had no idea, but the hunger was gnawing at him.
He tried with all his superhuman might to move the stone off his legs but to no avail. His legs didn’t feel injured, but he couldn’t move them. After several more attempts to free himself, he laid his head back on the stone floor and closed his eyes.
Vampyr had no idea how long he stayed like that, trapped in his own Labyrinth. Days at least. Perhaps a week. The hunger grew stronger with each hour that passed. He tried several times to free himself, each attempt draining him of energy.
Sometimes he thought he heard voices, but in his weakened state he wasn’t sure if they were real or delusions. His soldiers didn’t know where he was and, even if they did, he knew they would not come for him. Ruling by fear had its disadvantages.
There was a noise and Vampyr turned his head, straining to hear. Something was moving in the dark, coming slowly closer. He heard voices and now he was sure they were real. Young voices, speaking Greek.
“Help me,” Vampyr cried out in the same language.
There was total silence in response.
“I know the way out,” Vampyr yelled. “If you help me, I will get you out of here.”
Vampyr couldn’t make out the whispered words the youths exchanged. He knew they had to be hungry and scared. He sniffed, picking up their scent. He felt the hunger surge, but he fought to control it.
“Who are you?” a fearful voice queried.
“A caretaker of the tunnels,” Vampyr lied. “I know the passages. I will help you escape.”
There was more whispering and Vampyr reined in his impatience. What choice did they think they had even to be discussing it? One of the youths was crying, a girl, and someone hushed her angrily.
A decision apparently made, he could hear the youths making their way toward him in the darkness. He called out several times so they could find him. He directed them to the stone across his thighs. With their help, he was able to push it off. He staggered to his feet. He knew the exit from the Labyrinth was right behind him.
The blood scent of the fourteen youths all around him was overpowering.
Vampyr reached out and grabbed the closest, a young girl. He wrapped one hand over her mouth while he tore into her neck with his teeth. He savored the blood flowing into his mouth even as he heard the leader of the youths just a few feet away demand he show them the way out. Vampyr slowly backed up, the girl in his arms, unseen in the darkness. His back hit the swinging stone and he passed through into the tunnel beyond.
He pressed the stone shut while he finished draining the girl. He lowered her body to the floor and turned, making his way back the way he had come so many days before. The torches that lined the corridor had burned out and he picked his way carefully, several times having to step over stones knocked loose by the earthquake.
After several minutes he saw a glimmer of light ahead and knew he was approaching ground level. The light grew stronger and he reached the wooden door leading to the palace. The frame around the door had buckled and he could see starlight through the cracks. With a mighty shove, he yanked it open and walked into the courtyard.
The palace was destroyed. What had taken over seventy-five years to build had been destroyed.
Vampyr slowly turned, taking in the ruins. He sniffed the air and his nose confirmed what he had suspected — not only was the palace destroyed, it was abandoned. Centuries of work building an empire undone in one moment.
Vampyr wandered through the remnants of his once magnificent palace. There were bodies here and there, some killed by the earthquake, others in the fighting afterward. The palace had been looted and stripped bare — even his throne had been stolen.
Vampyr went behind the throne room, to a secret passageway hidden by a rotating stone similar to the one leading to the Labyrinth. He passed through, then down a set of stone stairs to a thick wooden door, which he unlocked with a key hanging from a chain around his neck. He entered, locking the door behind him. Inside the chamber, set on a stone pedestal, was his black tube. He crawled into it, pulling the lid shut.
Vampyr slept for fourteen straight days, recovering.
On the fifteenth night, he arose. He left his lair and went back to the Labyrinth to feed. Catching another of the youths was easy, as they were slowly starving to death. Sated from the two feedings in two weeks, Vampyr went back to the surface to ponder his future, leaving the twelve surviving Greek youths trapped in the Labyrinth without a thought.
The tall tower had been destroyed in the earthquake. He sat on the pile of rubble that was all that was left of it and looked about. He could see smoke from fires slowly rising into the air. He had kept a tight leash on the people of Crete for over a century. He was enough of a realist to understand that leash could not be put back on.
He went below the palace to his hidden tube chamber. He barred the door and climbed inside. He set the control panel as he had watched Aspasia’s Shadow do, except adjusting the time for a shorter amount. Then he shut the lid on his ruined empire.
Nosferatu had been forced to leave Nekhbet’s tube for three days while he ranged the edge of the jungle in search of blood. On the third night he came upon a small hunting party and turned the tables on them over the course of the next two nights, taking down four of their number, a pair each night, to feed on.
Gorged, he returned to where he’d left Nekhbet’s tube. He knew he could wake her and feed her human blood, but then they would be back where they were before. She would still age more rapidly than Nosferatu because she’d been more completely drained of her original half-Airlia blood more than he. He needed the blood of the Gods, and that was not possible just then.
The camels had refused to go forward shortly after entering the jungle. Nosferatu had been forced to release them so they could go back to their beloved desert. He slept next to the tube that day, robes and blankets covering him, the noise of the daytime jungle all around. When darkness fell he packed up all he had, tying everything to the top of the tube. Then he grabbed hold of the harness, looping the straps over his shoulders, and leaned into it.
Nosferatu made it a half mile into the jungle that first night.
The second night he did slightly better, covering almost a mile.
The third night he quickly fed, got back in harness, and pushed forward into deepest, darkest Africa for another mile.
And so he moved south, pulling his love behind him, blazing a narrow trail through the thick jungle.