The last rays of the setting sun fell upon the mountain, lighting up the white sandstone at its summit, setting it in stark relief against the already twilight-darkened conifers below. In the high valley, a peasant, dressed in his usual garb of white loose trousers and tunic with broad black leather belt, set down the scythe with which he had been cutting hay, and, looking to the mountain, crossed himself hastily, right to left, before picking up his scythe again and striding on bare feet towards his home, the steep, thatched roof of which could be seen over the next ridge. He did not glance up again, whistling to himself an old doina, a sad, lonely song.
The year could have been 1455, but it wasn't. Or 1815, but it wasn't that, either.
In the town in the valley below, electric lights, not many, were coming on, and a single black automobile was making its way slowly through cobbled streets crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists with string bags hanging from their often rusty handlebars. A variety of clothing styles could be seen, from the traditional costume of the mountain peasant to bright gypsy clothing that stood out in the artificial light among the more usual dress of grey or brown gabardine suits, shabby and patched. The car turned a corner, and moved on past the construction site where an ungainly concrete building was coming into existence, the sign in front promising a new era of prosperity under the profiled photo of King Michael. The driver of the car snorted to himself, and moved on to park near the tiny railway station, humming a bit of jazz.
The year could have been 1945, but it wasn't. It couldn't have been 1948, because then the king's picture would have been gone forever. Let's say it was 1947.
Up on the mountainside, lights appeared in the windows of a curious-looking castle. Unlike King Ludwig's dream house, it could not have been designed by Mr Disney, nor was it one of those towering hulks that loomed over the landscape with menacing reminders of past horrors, like the one in Brasov. This 'castle' looked more like a Mediterranean villa gone mad, with a long, white, rectangular wall surrounding buildings with pagoda-like red-tiled roofs. The effect, though slightly comical in the brooding surroundings, was of reasonable comfort under conditions meant to ensure privacy.
In the window of a downstairs sitting room, a light appeared. Let us follow that light inside, and see what it illuminates...\
If anything.
****************
'Why won't you drink wine like the rest of us?' demanded Elektra, shaking her tawny locks, which gleamed in the lamplight like coiled copper snakes. Her green eyes flashed with amusement.
Dmitri turned his mild gaze on his cousin, his round, brown eyes opened a bit wider than usual, the pupils still darting back and forth in the alien habit he could never lose – he always had the look of an innocent predator. 'Because...I don't...drink...blood, my dear.' He laughed. 'You're perfectly capable of putting an eyedropperful in that Tokay, just to see what effect it would have on me.' He leaned back in the overstuffed chair, and stretched his booted feet toward the fire.
Dmitri looked at home in his own century – the early 19th – in loose white shirt, tight trousers, and riding boots. Elektra, her tastes more eclectic, was having a Chinese evening, and had chosen a silk cheongsam, gold and silver embroidery over Gheorgheni blue. Dmitri hadn't the heart to tell her that cheongsams were designed for less voluptuous figures than her own.
Elektra laughed, and stretched, catlike, before the fire – thus completely spoiling the effect of the cheongsam. 'You are a fool. Moralising about a teaspoonful of blood. Demitasse spoon, more like it. They don't miss what we take. And we pay them richly for it, ' she grinned, 'in shared experience.'
Dmitri shook his head. 'You spoil them for life. You give them a perfect evening – romance, excitement, a soupçon of danger, perfect sensual pleasure – and, at the height of ecstasy, you take the distilled etheric essence of that experience into yourselves.' He frowned into his glass. 'They spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the knowledge of that moment. That is cruel.'
Elektra sighed, and crossed to the table to pour herself a glass of wine from the carafe in which it had been breathing. 'You may be right, but what else are we to do, Dmitri? We have...a task. And it's been a long time. This helps get it done.' She turned on him, demanding, 'What would you have us do?'
Dmitri had opened his mouth to answer when another member of the family strode into the room. Alexei, tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair, dressed in the current fashion, though more elegantly than most, took Elektra in his arms and kissed her briefly on the neck, before looking down at Dmitri, a humorous quirk to his mouth. 'What is that in the bedroom upstairs? Your latest conquest? Really, Dmitri, you have no more morals than an alley cat. Must you bring your doxies home with you? Why can't you leave them in their brothels, like I do?'
Before Dmitri could answer this, Elektra broke out in peals of laughter. 'Oh, Dmitri, up to your old tricks again? Who is she this time? And why bring her here?' Pouring a glass of wine for Alexei, she joined him on the couch, where she leaned against her brother, resting her head on his shoulder, running her painted nails through his thick, ashen hair.
Dmitri took a deep breath, and finally managed to get a word in edgewise – something that was hard to do with his relatives. 'I will introduce the lady later. And Alexei, the word 'doxy' is out of place in this time setting. I believe the word you were looking for was 'chippy'.' More laughter from Elektra.
Alexei frowned as he sipped his wine. 'Another child, I suppose? The stars in conjunction for yet another avatar, or some such?' For answer, Dmitri abruptly rose from his chair and, crossing to the large bay windows, pulled away the heavy drapes that protected some of the inhabitants of the castle from too much direct sunlight.
The vista was breathtaking, and almost as bright as day, as the gibbous moon, nearly full, cast a golden light over the mountainside and valley below. Dmitri stood, feet planted apart, studying it thoughtfully. 'Rose moon tomorrow. And by then, we'll be ready.'
Elektra sniggered inelegantly, and kicked off her high heels to snuggle better against Alexei. 'Aha. Another decade, another attempt at 'him, of whom the writings have writ...'
Dmitri turned to face her, leaning against the broad windowsill, and made a gesture as if to ward off flies. 'Mock. I don't care. At least I'm not a mosquito.'
Elektra, unsurprisingly, stuck her tongue out at him. Surprisingly, the tongue was green – she'd been sucking on a mint.
Alexei shrugged. 'To each his own in this game.' He sat up straight suddenly, and one might have sworn that his ears pricked. 'Has anyone seen Ilya?'
Dmitri, still by the window, shook his head. 'The last time I saw your son was in Berlin, about '43, it was...come to think of it, the moon was full then, too...' Elektra frowned. 'Why are you thinking of Ilya?'
As if in answer, there was a loud banging on the heavy outside door. No one moved, knowing there were servants, but a short while later, there were slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs, the door to the sitting room opened, and Ilya Gheorgheni stumbled in. Elektra looked him over without moving. 'Oh, that was why. Speak of the devil, and he will appear.'
Dmitri sprang from the window to embrace Ilya, who looked over his taller uncle's encircling arm with haunted eyes. He was always thin, but now looked positively gaunt, his hair, white-blond like his father's, falling lankly over his forehead. He was dirty and dishevelled, in a Russian officer's uniform, filthy, its epaulettes torn.
Alexei barked, 'What are you doing in that uniform? I told you to join the Germans.'
Dmitri mumured, 'Welcome home.'
Ilya shrugged, as Dmitri helped him to an armchair and brought him bread, cheese, and wine, which he accepted gratefully. 'Thanks, I haven't eaten in two or three days.' To Alexei: 'I wanted to get back here, Tata. This uniform seemed easier.'
Elektra sniffed. 'At least you could've gotten a clean one. You smell of death.'
Ilya stopped eating for a moment to give Elektra a vulpine grin. 'All uniforms smell of death.' He shrugged. 'But I got this one off a dead Russian...been walking a long time.' Dmitri was about to ask more, but the door opened again, and a plump, matronly woman in a black dress rushed in and threw herself on Ilya, ignoring the dirt and the smell, covering his face with kisses and making him spill his wine.
'Oh, Ilya, Iubitile meu, where have you been? I have missed you so much, you naughty boy, you have not come home for so long, what kept you?' Ilya returned the affection shown, with interest. 'Mama Marya, I'm sorry, but I'm back now.' The lady thus addressed glared at Alexei. 'It is your fault, Excelenta, see what you have done. He is all bones.' Alexei stared at his housekeeper haughtily, but, out-stared, turned to look out the window, feigning indifference.
Dmitri decided to give his nephew over to the care of his doting Mama Marya. 'Here, take him and clean him up. We can talk more over dinner.' Marya eagerly complied, saying as she led him away, 'What do you want for dinner, eh? I know, your favourite, blini. We make blini...' When they were gone, Elektra, embarrassed, unfolded herself from the couch and poured more wine, tossing her head and staring at the moon outside as if it had offended her in some obscure way. When Dmitri took a breath to speak, Elektra held up her splayed hand, imperiously.
'Not now, Dmitri. We aren't in the mood to listen to you now.'
So Dmitri remained silent.
****************
Dinner in the castle was mostly a quiet affair. The shy, freckle-faced young woman with the red hair – less fiery and somehow more natural-looking than Elektra's – was introduced as Lady Isobel Douglass, and promptly ignored by everyone except Dmitri. Elektra might have paid more attention, but as the young woman said little, and was dressed in an unexceptional black evening dress rather than a Regency peignoir, Elektra became bored with what she regarded as utterly mundane beauty, and kept up a conversation with Alexei on the subject of postwar politics, of which she knew quite a lot.Brief excitement was provided when Ilya shouted that there was a cockroach in his salad. This alarming fact could not be proven, as Ilya had suddenly swallowed the evidence, citing a proverb, 'In Russia, even a bug is meat.' Lady Douglass appeared unhappy (not as unhappy as she would have been had she known Russian), but Dmitri took her hand and whispered something in her ear, and the charm or spell he had cast upon her restored itself, so she finished her meal in quiet decorum.
After supper, Alexei announced pointedly that he thought it was time for the ladies to withdraw, so Elektra, with a moue of annoyance, escorted the bedazzled Isobel off to the drawing room, where she gave her coffee and cake and tried to find out what on earth she thought she was doing in Romania.
At the table, Dmitri proposed a toast. 'To Ilya's return!' Ilya, smiling wanly, nodded thanks. Alexei drank the toast, but then said briskly, 'To business. Dmitri, why is there an antigravity saucer on my back lawn?'
Dmitri looked at Ilya and winked. 'I, er, thought I'd go for a ride, Alexei. The moon will be full tomorrow.'
Alexei snorted and spoke with mock patience. 'What difference does it make what phase the moon is in, you idiot child, if you're on the moon?"
Ilya chuckled. 'I know the answer to that one, Tata. And so does Dmitri. The phase of the moon depends on the relative positions of the bodies. As, I suspect, does what Dmitri's planning.' It was his turn to wink.
Alexei leaned back in his chair, turning his wineglass in his hand and thinking. 'Do you really believe that these children of yours will do the trick?'
Dmitri nodded soberly. 'I do. The engineering requires sentience. We know that. And the method you and Elektra are employing...takes too long. By the time you've collected enough for a pattern, the pattern has changed again. This could go on forever.' He stood suddenly, running his hands through his straight black hair.
Ilya poured himself more wine. 'It's not as if we don't have forever, but...'
Dmitri replied softly, in an absent voice. 'But they do not.'
There was nothing to say to that, so they asked the ladies to join them on the rear terrace. The moon had climbed higher in the sky. No longer huge and yellow, it now cast a silver light across the grass...
And on the ridiculous object there. Largish, about the size of a barn, the silver disc sat there, an affront to common sense, with not even a door, window, or glittering array of lights to justify its ludicrous existence. Elektra sighed melodramatically. 'Take your girlfriend, and that stupid spaceship, and go. Couldn't it at least be purple?'
Ilya turned to his uncle. 'May I go along? Feed the dolphins?' He smiled wrily. 'I'm rather tired of this planet.'
Dmitri put his hands on Ilya's shoulders, and looked down into his eyes. 'Not just yet. Stay here.' He smiled. 'Let Marya baby you. You owe her that much.' Ilya's eyes widened, and he nodded agreement.
With a courtly gesture, Dmitri offered Isobel his arm, which she took, looking around her at the night as if she were in a fairy tale. She seemed to think the bizarre ship was only a reasonable substitute for a pumpkin coach and white mice horsemen. Dmitri reached into his pocket, and, taking out a small black object, pointed it at the giant disc and pressed its sides. A light beeping noise was heard, and then a door opened on the upper level of the disc, and a ramp descended in one smooth motion. Dmitri and Isobel mounted the ramp, turned, waved goodbye, then entered the craft, whose doors closed behind them.
Shortly after, the edge of the disc did begin to glow, with coloured lights running around it. The outer edge began to rotate, moving up to a speed in which the colours blended together again to white. Then, slowly, the disc began to rise, hovering a moment, and then shot sharply upwards, stopped, then flew with amazing speed at a tangent.
Alexei, Elektra, and Ilya stood watching until the flying saucer was out of sight, even to a Gheorgheni. Then, sighing, Alexei and Elektra headed back inside, Elektra hanging on Alexei's arm, whispering something that made him laugh.
Ilya stayed behind, gazing up at the moon and what stars could be seen on so bright a night. His thoughts would be hard to describe, for Gheorghenis do not think in words. Images, some bright, some dim, flitted across the inside of his eyes, while the outside saw the moon.
Awhile later, he went into the kitchen to ask for hot cocoa, even though it was midsummer. He had missed hot cocoa in Siberia.
Outside, the moon shone down on the castle, the mountain, the farm, and the town.
It could have been any year, but it was 1947.
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