THE GOLEM WAS SEVEN FEET TALL AND SIX FEET wide. Unlike the golems outside, who had been shaped with finesse like Greek statues, this brute was pure power. Broad, crude, and hewn together with thick slabs of clay muscle, it stood at the end of a narrow hallway before a door shaped like an open scroll. It wore a steel helmet, an armet with visor removed. The metal guard covered its mouth and a layer of steel shielded its forehead. No scratching off letters here. I wondered what they would do if they ever had to deactivate it. Shoot it with a tank maybe.
Next to me, Peter pointed to the floor, where a small stone fire pit with the fire already laid out waited before the golem. To the side sat a box of matches. “There is a price for using the circle.”
“What is it?”
His voice was soft. “Knowledge. That is the keeper of the circle. You must light the fire and tell it a secret. If your knowledge is worthy, the golem will open the door for you.”
“And if the golem doesn’t like the knowledge?” Was it too much to hope it would chide me and send me to bed without my supper?
“It may kill you,” Weiss said.
“If you lie, it will know,” Peter said. “The flame will turn blue.”
Lovely. The golem’s fists were bigger than my head. All it had to do was grab me and squeeze and my skull would crack like an egg. The hallway was too narrow to maneuver. My speed wouldn’t do me any good.
“We will wait here.” Weiss pointed to a small stone bench a few yards away. It faced the golem so they would have front row seats if it decided to use me as a punching bag.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Peter murmured.
And stare into Ori’s dead eyes every time I closed mine? No, thank you.
I crossed the floor, picked up the matches, and struck one. A tiny flame flared. Carefully I brought it to the fire and let it chew on the piece of paper in the center of wooden kindling.
A low rumble started in the center of the golem, a rough grating sound of rock grinding against rock. Two pinpoints of sharp light flared in its cavernous sockets.
I sat on the floor.
The golem shuddered. One huge columnar leg lifted and stepped forward, shaking the floor.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The golem stopped before the fire and bent down. Tiny flecks of stone or dry clay broke from its shoulders and fell into the fire, igniting into brilliant white sparks. Slowly, ponderously, it crouched, its steel mouth guard only three feet from me.
I looked into its eyes. “Let me into the circle, and I will tell you the story of the first vampire.”
Behind me, clothes rustled as the two rabbis sat on the bench.
I picked up a stick and poked the fire with it. “Long ago there lived a man. He was a great man, a thinker, philosopher, and magician. We’ll call him Roland. Roland once had a kingdom, the most powerful kingdom in the world, a realm of magic and wonders. His ancestors brought people out of savagery into an age of prosperity and enlightenment and he was very proud of what his family had achieved.
“Roland had many children, for he had lived a very long time, but his favorite was his youngest son, let’s call him Abe. He was Roland’s only child at the time. You see, Roland had a habit of killing children when they rose against him, so Abe was the only one left.
“Everything went along splendidly, but the kingdom’s people had pushed their magic too far. They disrupted the balance between magic and technology. Tech came, interrupting the flow of magic. The waves of technology attacked Roland’s kingdom, pulling it apart the way magic now pulls apart our world. He counted on his son to help him. But Abe saw it as his chance for freedom. In the chaos of tech waves, Abe betrayed his father and fought him for power. The war between them ripped their kingdom to shreds. Abe lost, and took his followers into the wilderness, proclaiming he would make his own nation, greater than his father’s fallen realm.
“Eventually Roland failed his people. The mighty kingdom had fallen and its ruler lost everything. He hid from the world, choosing to live alone on a mountain, spending his days in meditation.
“Meanwhile Abe’s nation of nomads grew larger. They lost most of what they knew. Philosophy and complicated magic were no longer important—survival was. Abe had a son and his son had sons, two boys. We’ll call them Esau and Jacob. Esau was the oldest. He prided himself on being a great warrior and a hunter of men and beasts. Truth is, Esau was a thug, but he was stronger and more powerful than ordinary thugs and he made the best of it.
“The older nomads told stories of the wonders of Roland’s fallen kingdom. Rumor had it that when Roland went to his mountain, he took the treasures of his realm with him. Among these treasures was a set of clothes made from the skin of a mythical beast and permeated with the fragrance of a lost valley. A hunter who wore this garment could hunt and capture any animal he wished. Esau, being an enterprising guy, decided to get his hands on these clothes. After all, how much trouble could one old guy be? So Esau got his supplies together and headed for Roland’s mountain.
“Put yourself into Roland’s shoes. Here he was, a man who’d lost everything, and now his own great-grandson shows up and tries to rob him. And more, his great-grandson, the fruit of his family tree, is an ignorant thug. In Esau, Roland saw the reflection of his people’s fate—all of their knowledge lost, all of their achievements squandered, as they reverted to primitive brutality.
“Roland saw red, and Esau died before he could land a single blow. But that wasn’t enough. Roland had a lot of frustration to vent. He raged at his great-grandson, at his fallen kingdom, at the world. He wanted to kill Esau again, and so he dragged him back from the brink of death and murdered him a second time. Again and again Esau died, until finally Roland stopped to take a breath and realized that Esau was gone. His body remained, but his mind had died. Instead Roland found a mindless creature, neither alive nor dead. An undead with its mind completely blank, like a white page.
“Roland discovered that he could control this empty brain with infinite ease. He could speak through Esau’s mouth and hear what the undead heard. A host of possibilities occurred to Roland and he decided it would be convenient for him if people thought that Esau had murdered him. He dressed the creature that used to be his great-grandson into the magic garment Esau had come for and sent the undead back to its family, controlling its every move and spinning wild tales of his own death. He used Esau to torment Abe’s nomads. He wanted to destroy Abe and all of his descendants.
“Eventually Esau grew fangs and developed a terrible thirst for blood. Years later the once-king put those fangs to a test. He lured Esau’s brother to a meeting under the pretense of reconciliation, and there he unleashed the full fury of the undead on Jacob, letting Esau tear into his brother’s neck. But Jacob had worn an ivory collar and Esau’s fangs failed to sever his jugular.
“With time, Esau’s body changed. He grew claws. His hair fell out. His body turned gaunt and he scuttled about on all fours like an animal. Roland released him into a cave, where the bodies of his ancestors and his children lay interred. Starving, the first vampire haunted the cave until a brave man finally put it out of its misery.
“Such is the true story of the first vampire.” I got up. “It’s not really all that secret. There are echoes of it in the Bible and in the Jewish scholarly writings. Abe is gone, and so are his children. But Roland, he still lives. Outlived them all, the old bastard. He’s made more undead and he’s rebuilding his power, waiting for a time to resurrect his kingdom.”
I pricked my finger with my throwing knife. A single drop of red swelled on my skin. I leaned toward the golem and whispered so quietly, I could barely hear myself. “And his blood lives on as well.”
I touched the blood to the golem’s chest. It rocked back, as if struck. Stone screeched, dust puffed. The golem spun, backed to the door, grasped the stone with its massive hand, and pushed it aside, revealing a dark room beyond it.
I walked past it into the darkness. Behind me the stone door slid shut.