As the day expanded across the sky, and breakfast came and went, the terrain grew rougher. The mountains were on both sides of them now, but still a respectful distance back from the river they were following. There were more trees now, too, between the open farmlands and climbing up the blue hazy slopes that edged the valley.
When they stopped for lunch, Illya noticed a clock in the station and pointed it out to Napoleon. "Set your watch ahead an hour," he said. "If I hadn't been half asleep at the border I'd have remembered then. Hungary is on the same time as the rest of Europe, but Rumania is on Turkish Standard."
"Marvelous," said Napoleon. "Have you ever thought of hiring on as a professional guide?"
"That's all right, Napoleon," said Illya comfortingly. "You'll feel better with a hot bath and some fresh clothes. We'll be arriving in Brasov about sundown, and a short drive back into the mountains will have us at our destination."
"You drive," said Napoleon. "You know the country."
"Eclary will be meeting us in Brasov with the car," said Illya, "and he will drive us both."
"That's the technician who was working with Carl, isn't it? Did you pick up any data on him?"
Illya shrugged. "Young, but reasonably competent. Native of the area, educated in Cluj, no particular politics. Training in history and folklore—all this according to Djelas. The competency is my own opinion, based on the fact that he has not been found sitting in the woods bled dry by this mysterious menace that got Carl and two other natives of the area who should have known better."
"At least he hadn't when we left Budapest," said Napoleon. "When he meets us at the station, I'll be confident in him."
* * *
About mid-afternoon they crossed the Rosul Pass amid dark pines and craggy rocks, and shortly before dusk they came down from another mountain towards Brasov. Away to their left ran grasslands and another range of foothills; but close on their right the Transylvanian Alps rose to rugged white-topped peaks.
It was dark when they left the train and looked around for their host. Some minutes passed in the waiting room of the station and Napoleon was on the verge of calling him on the U.N.C.L.E. transceiver when a light voice behind them said tentatively, "Domnul Solo? Domnul Kuryakin?"
He turned, and saw a girl with bluegray eyes and an uncertain smile which came and went like a light bulb that was not snug in its socket. She was casually dressed and wore a black beret at a jaunty angle on her short, dark hair. She came about up to Napoleon's chin.
"Da," said Illya. "Were you sent by Domnul Eclary?"
Her eyes widened. "Domnul Eclary? Oh, I see what you mean. No, I am Domnisoara Hilda Eclary, if that is what you mean. I was working with Carl on this vampire problem."
Napoleon decided he liked her. She was the first person he had talked to since this had started last week who openly and casually spoke of what everyone else seemed unwilling to think about. He smiled at her. "Do you call it that in your reports?"
She snorted. "Of course not. My superiors in Bucharest are very wise in the ways of their world, and would make everything fit it. But here it is a vampire. Your job is to find that it is really something else, so that Bucharest, Budapest, Geneva and New York can find the proper heading to file it under. Here and now, we are dealing with a vampire. Do you have a better or more descriptive name for it?"
Napoleon looked at the question for a while, and finally said, "Well...I guess not."
"Bring your luggage," she said. "The car is out here." And she started briskly towards the door.
* * *
Twenty minutes later they were rolling south through the outskirts of the city, towards the mountains. The old black Poboda was laden with three suitcases and a trunk full of items which were not only somewhat more than standard for tourists, but which would have given any customs official in Europe heart failure.
The headlights splashed yellow across the narrowing road which wound up into the night. The stars were sharp and clear, but there was no moon. There would be none for another few days. Pine trees rose as black shapes along the road and flicked by like telephone poles. There were no other cars.
As the last of the houses slipped behind them and the mountain darkness rose ahead, Illya asked, "How far it is it to Pokol?"
"It will take us about three hours," said Hilda obliquely. "The road is narrow and sometimes we must go slowly."
"Well," said Napoleon, "we've read the reports that were filed on your investigations here. And one impression I felt more than any other was that they omitted a great deal. You didn't dare tell Budapest that you thought you were up against a vampire..."
"Would you?" she asked. "I like my job."
"If I really believed we were after a vampire, I would tell New York. I would tell them why, and..." His voice trailed off doubtfully.
"... And they would suggest you needed to be replaced. No, Mr. Solo, I do not believe you will find a wampyr, one of the undead, when everything has been learned. But in these mountains, with what has happened, do not be ashamed to think of it as a vampire until you can prove something else. The village is not far from the city in miles, but it has been out of the tide of the present for long years. The old ways are strong in Pokol, and it is easier to do as your father did than to think of new ways."
"I can see this," said Illya. "It is often the same way in our country. But do they still cling even to their old bogies?"
"The natives believe many strange things," Hilda said. "Perhaps it is the country, perhaps it is the mountains. Perhaps it is the mass of unquestioning belief that sets eyes in the darkness and strange things in the forests at night. But do not make fun of the people who live here and know the place until you have lived here, and seen and felt what they see and feel."
The road was quite narrow now, and the pines were a black wall pressing close along the edge of the headlights. The road rose and turned, following a wandering route deep into the heart of the mountains. Napoleon looked up at the night, craning his neck to see the stars, frosty sharp and clear.
"It's cold for April," he said conversationally.
"Not for here," said Hilda. "It could very well snow again anytime in the next month. Remember, we are high in the mountains and getting higher, and we have no Mediterranean near to keep us warm."
The night was so clear, the starlight showed Napoleon little patches of white under the trees. Probably patches from the last snowfall, he thought. There was a moment of nerve-end tension when he saw what looked like the figure of a man with a rifle crouching beside the road, and another moment of relief when the car turned suddenly and the headlights showed it to be a bush. Napoleon looked closely at it as they passed, but saw no indication that it had ever been anything else.
The night seemed darker, for some reason, and the woods looked somehow menacing. Napoleon suddenly felt how large the darkness around them was, and in a brief mental picture saw as if from an airplane the great area of the mountains, with a tiny speck of light lost in the loneliness like a buoy in the middle of the boundless sea.
It seemed a long time later that Hilda spoke again. "Domn Kuryakin, there need be no reference to the country of your birth. The passport with which you have been supplied lists you as American. Let it stand. Pokol is far from the modern world, but not so far that they know nothing of her latest rulers. There is little love for the conquerors here. These are simple people, and direct. They love, they hate, they fear. But they continue to live. We have been a conquered people many times in the past—but this is not something one can come to accept. Before Rumania began, we were conquered by Attila the Hun, who used this land as a base while he sacked the treasure-houses of Europe from the North Sea to Rome. Ancient legends put his treasure stores in these mountains. But Rumania is not a rich country. Wealth only flows through to line the pockets of those who rule us."