From a Letter of Dr. Ludvikus Frel to His Brother

In the environs of Heturn, the 24th day of March

My dear Brother,

To-day, after these long five years, I must once more take up the pen and write to you—for the first time since that calamity which plunged an entire nation into mourning, and which deprived you and Helga of both your sons, those brave wearers of the purple uniform; after which you implored me never again to address you, finding in my labours at the Arch-Royal Academy a share of the guilt for the Restorer’s resolve to dispatch his ill-fated Armada. I write to you now because you are the last man in the world who remains to me in any manner close, and the only one with whom I may share the impressions of what befell me this very day.

This afternoon, having concluded my luncheon, I seated myself—as I have done on every afternoon of this week—at the escritoire beside the fireplace in my sitting room, and applied myself once more to the study of the Guntrelander Uber and his Dinosaurs, lifting my eyes from the volume from time to time only to look through the rain-moistened window upon the deserted hills before my house, and to imagine the age when those enormous reptiles of which I read once roamed upon them. Little did I suspect that, at a certain moment, upon the minor road that winds across the hills toward Figlis—a road upon which for weeks one might see neither carriage nor living soul—I should behold, if not dinosaurs, then something scarcely less astonishing.

A golden carriage drawn by four white horses adorned with purple plumes upon their heads was advancing toward me from the direction of Figlis; and as it drew nearer, I could plainly discern the golden torches and the crown upon its roof, as well as the coachman clad in a purple uniform, wearing a great tricorne hat. Yes, there could be no doubt: the road passed directly beside my house, and it was evident that the carriage would roll past my very window.

The sound of the horses’ hooves grew ever louder, overpowering even the rain, together with the occasional crack of the coachman’s whip; and laying my book wholly aside, I stood by the window, contemplating the extraordinary spectacle. After a few minutes I could behold them in full splendour directly before me—and not only that, but through the gold-framed window of the carriage I could see quite clearly the unusual, somewhat pointed, unmistakably Lisverburgian profile—whose upper lip seemed to continue in a single line toward the bridge of the nose, while the lower was drawn inward and slightly turned downward—of a fair-haired young woman wearing spectacles, seated within, concerning whose identity scarcely a single doubt could any longer be entertained.

At that moment, precisely before my house, the doors of the carriage were opened, and from them descended two figures: the first, clad in a white gown with a purple sash, was indeed the Archqueen herself, who with an expression of curiosity surveyed the landscape around her, holding a map in her hand; the second was another figure in a purple uniform, without doubt her guard and attendant. While the Archqueen remained before the carriage, looking alternately at the map and at the surroundings into which she had arrived, this uniformed attendant made his way directly toward my door; and deeming it courteous—since I may already have been observed at the window—I opened the door to him before he might knock.

“Does Doctor Ludvikus Frel, vampirologist, reside here?” asked the man in the purple uniform the moment I opened the door.

“My respects, I am Doctor Frel. Pray enter, sir,” I replied.

“Nothing less,” answered the soldier. “Her Majesty, Archqueen Karolina-Louise, has come to see you.”

A few moments later, the Archqueen of Sigisland entered my house.

“Good day, Doctor,” were the first words she spoke, in a voice at once lilting and resolute, hurrying through each of those purely formal expressions with an energetic briskness. “Pray forgive me for not having announced myself.”

Five minutes thereafter she was seated in my sitting room beside the fireplace, having first surveyed, with an attentive and inquisitive expression, all the books and other objects that filled my library and the remaining corners of the room. I served her a forest tea, which she declared she found pleasing and of an interesting flavour, whereupon she at once proceeded to the matter at hand.

“Doctor Frel,” she said, holding before her a bundle of papers she had brought with her, together with a pen and an inkwell, “forgive me that I cannot remain longer in your beautiful house and drink more of your excellent forest tea; I have many duties this day, and you must answer several questions for me without delay.”

We were alone in the room, for she had instructed her guard to await her outside.

“Pray proceed, Your Majesty,” I replied. I suspected she would inquire into my work at the Arch-Royal Academy, a labour from which I had been absent for five years past.

“Well then, this is what I wished to ask you,” she said, fixing upon me a serious and somewhat troubled gaze, whose depth was made more striking by the prominence of her cheekbones in relation to her eyes. “I endeavour to ascertain, as precisely as possible, the truth concerning vampires, so that I may enact a legislation which shall not be unjust toward these beings—many of whom, as we hear, long to return to their native land of Sigisland, and among whom there appear to be some who have in secrecy remained living within it—and which shall at the same time guarantee to others that they will be safe from them.

“I have heard that you were employed at the castle of Hoshwellen, upon—what was it called…”

Here she released a brief yet notably loud breath through her nose, as though to lend particular emphasis to what she was about to say, and at the same moment blinked.

“—The Investigation of the Dangerous Nature of Vampires, Its Causes, and the Means of Its Removal. Yes, that is correct; I have remembered the title well,” she added with a smile.

“The members of the Academy with whom I have spoken were able to provide me only partial information concerning your researches; and I have also heard that a great number of your collaborators upon that project—and I am truly grieved by this—perished with the Armada, where they had gone to observe and document, upon the soil of Guntreland, the behaviour of vampires during the revolutionary period.

“I have further been told that the final opinion of your commission concerning the nature and the danger of vampires was never formally delivered, but that many of your views—those which were published—were employed in the arguments of Archking Ferdinand regarding the existence of a vampiric–lycanthropic conspiracy for the dominion of the world, and its culpability for the Revolution, as well as for the bloodthirsty and anti-human secret aims attributed to that Revolution.

“I would therefore ask you now to tell me,” she continued, looking at me through her spectacles directly in the eyes, speaking slowly and striving to preserve a warmth of tone despite her evident agitation—betrayed by the loud cracking of her fingers—“whether you possess knowledge not contained within the official documents; or whether any of your opinions were expressed under political pressure, if the State found it necessary to possess a scientific justification for its struggle against vampires, and you therefore ascribed to them certain characteristics in whose existence you were not yourself fully convinced.”

“If you did so,” she went on, “I understand you, and I do not blame you. You served your Archking, as you must now serve me; and I shall most certainly not punish you even if you acted in a manner not fully in accordance with… scientific ethics. That is for the organs of the Academy to judge, and not for me. Yet I must be just toward all my subjects, direct and indirect alike, and for that reason I must know the whole truth.”

“Your Majesty…” — her question truly filled me with unease, for I was in truth uncertain what the precise answer to it might be; and this discomfort was further sharpened by the thought of your own bitterness toward me, for in the vampirological researches in which I had taken part you perceived a link in the chain that led to Ferdinand’s decision to wage a mass war against the vampiric–lycanthropic conspirators, and thus also to the launching of the Armada and to its ruin.

“The truth is,” I continued, “that in those years there prevailed in the air a strong disposition against vampires; that the State laboured under deficit and the Court under heavy debts, while their castles shone in ever-greater splendour. Later came the Guntrelandic Revolution itself, which called into question the inviolable sovereignty of the Congress rulers, and thereby the prestige of the Sigisland Archking over all other sovereigns. Yes, there existed a decision to expel the vampires from the Archkingdom and to confiscate their estates; the Archking the Restorer—may eternal glory and the candle’s flame attend his memory—resolved upon this from the very moment of his ascent to the throne, and regarded the defence of humankind against vampires as his mission in a manner almost mystical.”

The Archqueen listened to me with great attentiveness, regarding me with concentrated gaze through her spectacles and knitting her brow.

“As for the Department of Vampirology and the conclusions at which it arrived,” I went on, “I laboured within it from its very foundation, when, as a newly graduated student, I was selected as one of its laboratory assistants, until the time when, as you know, I came to stand at its head as the first Doctor of Vampirology bearing an Arch-Royal diploma. We examined everything that had ever been written on vampires, from the works of physicians and learned men to the folk legends of all regions of the world, endeavouring to cast new light upon that which was already known.”

The Archqueen’s gaze, which never left me, made plain how keenly interested she was in my account.

“Yes, we examined also the corpses of vampires, as well as of humans who had been bitten by vampires; persons who had suffered a vampire’s bite were brought to us immediately after the event, so that we might observe all changes that manifested themselves in them. We likewise possessed animals of every kind, which we caused vampires to bite, in order to study the effects of such bites. We provided vampires with the blood of different persons, to determine whether a vampire who had drunk the blood of an organist would behave differently from one who had drunk the blood of a pickpocket; whether the conduct of a vampire was altered by having consumed the blood of a calm professor as opposed to that of a fiery sailor; and which traits, talents, or inclinations of men might be transmitted together with their blood.

“Regrettably, we were unable to establish any regularity—at least none sufficiently certain to be regarded as proven. Better results were obtained in our investigations into the effects of administering the blood of various animals to vampires, which indeed demonstrated that vampires acquire differing characteristics depending upon the species whose blood they drink; yet the blood of none of these animals could sustain their life by itself, nor could, over any extended period, the blood of those who had died of old age.

“It was likewise established beyond all doubt that a vampire who drinks the blood of a lycanthrope—one such creature having been provided to us by the King of Guntreland—without the least uncertainty becomes a drakopyre.”

“You have not yet answered my question,” she said after I had remained silent for several moments, appearing at once eager to learn as much as possible of the vampiric matter, and yet anxious to obtain with speed all the information she required, so that she might the sooner attend to the next of the affairs of State that pressed upon her. “Do vampires, in your opinion, truly constitute a danger to other human beings in the manner set forth in the official positions of the Academy—positions which, it must be said, furnished much of the scientific foundation for the policy toward vampires pursued by my esteemed predecessor?”

“Well, Your Majesty,” I replied, “if there exists a population that requires the daily consumption of human blood in order to survive, it cannot be denied that such a population represents a constant danger to its fellow citizens.” This was an incontrovertible fact.

“But that danger could be removed,” the Archqueen asked, looking at me through her spectacles, while both in her eyes and in her voice there was reflected at once a hope that I would affirm her words and a desire to persuade me of their correctness should I fail to do so, “if it were ensured that vampires might obtain the blood they require by non-violent means, without any person’s life or health being endangered, would it not?

“If they were permitted to purchase blood from humans on a voluntary basis, at a price fixed in advance; if people were educated to understand that it is not dangerous to give their blood to vampires; might not all be satisfied—those who would gain an additional income, and vampires who would obtain blood? Vampires do not require an excessive quantity of human blood, am I correct? And if blood is drawn from a person without physical contact with a vampire, there is then no particular danger to the human?

“Furthermore, new occupations could be opened to vampires, guaranteeing them the means to earn the money required to purchase blood; and such occupations might be carried out at night, which would suit vampires well. By extending the productive portion of the day, the wealth of the people would grow more rapidly—which is to the benefit of all.

“What other dangers do vampires pose to humans? The Academy has written that the drinking of blood poured beforehand into a glass cannot compensate vampires for the satisfaction they derive from drinking blood from the neck of their dying victim. Is this true, or was it merely necessary to believe it in order to enact a law for the expulsion of vampires? If that is so, I understand even that—only tell me.”

She raised her eyebrows and regarded me gravely in the eyes.

“I would venture to say, Your Majesty, that it is my opinion that even were all the measures of which you have spoken to be fully implemented, they would not remove the danger to humankind inherent in the fact that vampires require human blood in order to survive; for when, for example, a vampire should find himself without the sum of money necessary to purchase blood, or when a human, for whatever reason, should refuse to sell his blood at the established price, and the vampire should at that moment feel an irresistible need for blood, the instinct of self-preservation—which belongs to every living being—would inevitably assert itself, and that vampire would become a mortal danger to all who happened to be in his vicinity.”

“I do not agree that this constitutes a sufficient reason for the banishment of any being from the State,” replied the Archqueen, somewhat hesitantly yet with enough conviction in her words. “A man who is not a vampire, were he dying of hunger and unable by any other means to obtain food, would likewise kill another man in order to feed himself; yet this does not mean that every man is a danger to every other man, but only that it is necessary to create conditions in which no one is compelled to resort to violence in order to obtain that without which he cannot live. In the final instance, the police would be present to protect any person attacked by force by a vampire, just as they already protect citizens from every unlawful assault. But no matter. Answer me my other question.”

“At once, Your Majesty. Only permit me to remind you that a vampire is more difficult to subdue than an ordinary man, and that this would therefore present a correspondingly greater task to the police—without any intention on my part to disparage the strength or competence of Your Majesty’s constabulary. As to your question: yes, most certainly, a vampire experiences far greater pleasure when drinking blood from the neck of his victim than when doing so from a glass or a bowl, or from some less vital part of the human body; all our researches have confirmed this. You will be justified in recoiling from this, but the Academy, by order of the Archking, once demonstrated this in practice; for a certain pamphleteer who glorified the Guntrelandic Revolution and sought to found a secret society akin to the Underground Republic, and who was therefore condemned for high treason… was delivered to one of the vampires who participated in our researches.”

On the Archqueen’s countenance there indeed appeared an expression of profound disgust: she grimly contracted her brow, drew her eyebrows together, narrowed her eyes, and turned down her lower lip. I had expected such a reaction, for it was known to me that upon her accession to power Karolina-Louise had pardoned all those condemned to death, commuting that penalty to perpetual confinement; she had even retained corporal punishments—such as the rod or flogging—only in cases where an offender chose them of his own will in preference to imprisonment or a fine. Her strongly negative reaction to what she had heard did not, however, signify that she had lost her desire to continue the argument.

“Well then, that does not mean that vampires would be incapable of abstaining from such pleasure, just as all men abstain from pleasures that are punishable or harmful,” she said, in a somewhat sterner and less animated tone than before, and it was evident that she reproached me in earnest for the things that had occurred within the Academy.

I merely inclined my head, unwilling to contradict further a now visibly ill-disposed Archqueen, although I was not entirely convinced that it was safe for humanity to rely upon vampiric restraint from pleasure. Nevertheless, I still felt compelled to add one more thing:

“You have heard as well, Your Majesty, of what the vampires, together with the dogs, have done to Their Guntrelandic Highnesses…”

“I have heard,” the Archqueen interrupted me in a stern voice. “But there it is a revolution, and all behave cruelly and savagely, not only the vampires, do they not?”

“You are right, Your Majesty; yet still… it seems to me that all the cruelties of the revolution are conditioned precisely by the necessity of feeding the needs of so many vampires for ever more and more blood, so that they might not turn upon their own—as they themselves say—good republican fellow citizens; and that these violences, as economic crisis and the instability of prices in Guntreland continue to grow, will for this very reason become ever greater. For although general misery at first glance suits the vampires, by making the price of human blood cheaper—which, according to some, is also one of the concealed aims of the vampiric-werewolf conspiracy—even the Guntrelandic vampires themselves, unless the stories be true that Blutwig, even now and despite the blockade, secretly supplies his Guntrelandic counterparts through hidden channels, will find it by no means easy, amid all their other expenses, to finance their constant need for blood on a regular basis, especially if the revolutionary government should no longer be able to pay them, for their nocturnal labour in the service of the State, the full market value of the blood required for a single month…”

“I have heard all this hundreds of times already, and I have my own opinion upon it,” said the Archqueen somewhat nervously. “Proceed with your researches.”

I then spoke, wishing to justify our work, toward which I perceived that the ruler harboured ethical objections: “It was exceedingly difficult to separate legend from reality, superstition from science. Take, for example, the question of the weakness of vampires in the presence of royal blood; for it was said that even Munhstenfluve himself always comported himself with great unease in the presence of the Archking, that vampiric nobility, even at the height of its power, avoided the then capital of Ferdinandshafen, and that it was precisely a profound fear of the Archroyal person that prevented the vampires, during their period of strength in Sigisland, from inflicting far greater harm upon mankind than they in truth inflicted.

What, then, did the blood of the rulers of the continents have in common, rulers of whom it was not known that they were related to one another by blood, nor that they descended in blood from their predecessors, or who had even, in their own lifetimes, risen from among common men to become crowned monarchs, as is, for example, possible in Bautia? Is it—as many folk legends of all continents claim—that all crowned heads of the world and all dynasties descend from the same ancestors, whose blood is such that it harms vampires, and which only vampires—and werewolves by their scent—can perceive and fear? Does there exist some quality of blood, inherent either in the blood of some men or of all men, which only a vampire or a werewolf can sense and fear, and which arises if—whether it be any blood or only that of special origin—that blood has circulated within the body of a man who bears a crown, that man whose body has grown accustomed to sovereign splendour, whose soul has grown accustomed to the obedience of all to his will? Is it sufficient that a man be crowned, live as a ruler, or be obeyed by all, for his blood to become dreadful to werewolves and vampires; or is only the blood of those of a particular lineage suited to provoke such a reaction? Or is this a fear”—the Archqueen once again regarded me with an expression full of interest, though it was evident that the memory of the experiment I had earlier described to her had not faded—“which only vampires and werewolves biologically feel toward crowned authority, akin to the awe that men experience in the presence of a monarch, only a hundredfold stronger?

Be that as it may, on one occasion the Archking himself attended the work of our department, and then we attempted experimentally to examine the celebrated weakness of vampires in the presence of royal blood: the vampires we had brought first sought by every possible pretext to prevent themselves from being led into the small chamber in which the ruler was present; and when they were forced inside—yes, such was the command of His Majesty—and when the Restorer cut his own finger with his dagger in order to let forth some of his blood, and when he poured that blood upon the vampire’s face, a rash appeared upon the vampire’s skin and the creature all but screamed with pain. With a rash, though milder, the vampire also reacted to the blood of two of the Archking’s relatives; but when the same vampire was in the same manner brought into contact with the blood of other men who were not of the Archroyal lineage, no such reactions appeared.”

As I spoke of this, I observed that upon the Archqueen’s face there returned the expression of disgust she had worn a few moments earlier—this time even more pronounced.

“Is it true that a human whom a vampire bites may himself thereafter become a vampire? I have read that in Guntreland they claim this to be mere superstition. But you conducted an experiment, with a man condemned to death, and he truly became a vampire after being bitten by one? It was that pamphleteer? And then he revived afterwards?” she asked, with visible hope in her eyes, her countenance suddenly brightening—though it was not clear to me why the Archqueen should feel pity for a pamphleteer who had written against Archroyal authority. Then, not waiting for my reply, as though by the very force of her words she wished to incline my answers toward those she desired, she continued in a single breath: “I have no objection to a human allowing himself to be bitten by a vampire and becoming a vampire himself, provided only that he chooses this of his own free will, because he truly wishes to become such. One must merely ensure that no one be bitten against his will, and that will be the task of the police. And that this right not be granted to persons of violent disposition, there would have to exist some form of evaluation of character.”

The Archqueen seemed almost to ask and answer her own questions, and her manner of reasoning—particularly the idea that humans might themselves choose to become vampires—filled me with astonishment.

The case of Ginter was indeed the crowning achievement of the work of the vampirological department, for it demonstrated beyond any doubt—albeit in a single instance—that the folk belief according to which a human bitten by a vampire may become a vampire contains complete truth.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” I replied with undisguised pride. “We have confirmed that from a human bitten by a vampire a vampire may indeed arise; and this is no longer attested merely by simple peasants, uneducated provincial policemen hungry for attention from the capital, alchemists of antiquity, or old forgetful women who have mingled fairy tales with memories, but also by the scholars of the Archroyal Academy, who stand under obligation to their diplomas, to science, and to the progress of mankind to proclaim as truth only that which reason cannot dispute. It was not, however, the pamphleteer, but a highway robber—yet the result was achieved.”

I then described to her all that had occurred, the tale which you have heard so many times: how a certain Abraham Ginter, condemned to death for highway robbery, was brought to the Academy, where the vampire employed in our researches bit him upon the upper arm, in a manner which, according to our prior experiments, would have caused neither death nor significant consequences to the bitten man beyond infection around the wound; how, after several hours, Ginter fell into a fever, and after yet several more hours of dreadful agony and horrific screams, it appeared to us that he had breathed forth his sinful soul; how his body remained for weeks locked in the mortuary, into which only the directors of the project—Doctors Luwv and Stiller, both of whom later, alas, perished with the Armada—were permitted to enter; and finally how, on a date I remember to this very day, the fifth of July, we heard a terrible cry from the cellar, where we found, upon the mortuary table upon which he leapt rather than lay, a vampire who bore vampiric teeth, eyes, and ears, yet possessed the hair and nose of Abraham Ginter, even the scars from the sword wounds he had received during his career as a highwayman, as well as the bite upon the upper arm which had made him a vampire.

Here the Archqueen interrupted me with a question: “Are you certain it was the same man? Might it not be that the doctors who alone had authority to enter the mortuary removed the true Ginter and brought in a vampire resembling him, inflicting upon him wounds and scars in the same places as Ginter bore them? Archroyal physicians acting under the authority of the Archking could surely have accomplished such a thing.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” I replied, “but I am convinced that it was precisely the same Abraham Ginter. Not only did he retain many of the same features of the face, which remained unchanged despite his transformation into a vampire, but there were other matters as well. While he worked in the following months as a chemical assistant on the night shift—for many chemists, devoted to their labour, remained in the laboratory long after midnight—his aged parents would occasionally visit him, and from our friends in the chemical laboratory we heard details of these conversations, in which Ginter spoke intimately with his parents of all manner of small matters from his childhood and youth that no one save he himself could have known. And yet he was a vampire, a true and proper one, exhibiting all the qualities proper to vampires: the absence of sleep, the avoidance of daylight, and the need for human blood, which we obtained from those condemned to corporal punishment. I myself harboured doubts, as Your Majesty has now expressed, that some deception might be at work—until something occurred which removed all uncertainty regarding the identity of Abraham Ginter.”

I looked upon the ruler’s face, which now shone with complete interest, fixing her features in a serious half-smile and rendering her blue eyes wide and illuminated with a particularly vivid light. Then I told Her Majesty what I had told you, that which closed within me all room for any interpretation other than the one we, as Archroyal vampirologists and men who do not gamble with scientific truths, had embraced.

“For while Ginter, bound in chains, awaited the arrival of the vampire who was to bite him, he and I remained alone in the chamber for five minutes. I began to speak with him, wishing thereby to ease his fear; and being unable to comfort him in any other way, I told him—whispering, ostensibly so as not to disgrace my family before any possible eavesdroppers, but in truth so as to gain his trust through intimacy—that my great-uncle had himself become a vampire after being bitten by one, and that thereafter he had always said it was the best thing that had ever happened to him. This was a fabrication, uttered solely to give hope to that unfortunate man, and no one but he could have known it, for I remained beside him afterwards until the life within him was extinguished for the first time after the vampiric bite, and my great-uncle was never mentioned even once before any other persons. And yet, when several months later I encountered the vampire Ginter in the chemical laboratory, he said to me, the moment he saw me, with a roguish smile: ‘Your great-uncle was a very wise man!’ That is proof that it was the same person and the same personality. I never again had the opportunity to speak with him, for a few days later there occurred the explosion in the laboratory in which he, as is well known, perished. That is the whole truth, Your Majesty,” I concluded.

“Most sorrowful,” said the Archqueen, who appeared genuinely saddened by Ginter’s fate. “And you said that there was also some pamphleteer condemned to death whom a vampire… put to death. Did he too return from the dead as a vampire?” she asked me.

Alas, I was obliged to tell her the truth: we did not even grant him the chance. For the Archking—at that time, when the masses of the lower estates had far more reasons (and had already shown inclinations) to embrace the ideas of revolution than they do today, in this age of categories—had personally decreed that it constituted a danger to the state to allow political enemies of the Archkingdom to become vampires, even within so controlled an institution as the Archroyal Academy; and thus his body was pierced with a hawthorn stake after the vampire had drunk from it all the blood it contained.

“We had, Your Majesty, three other persons condemned to death for non-political crimes whom vampires dealt a mortal bite to the neck and who remained for more than a month in our mortuary, yet none of them became vampires; and before Ginter, as I have said, we had a further number of men whom vampires bit upon the upper arm and other less dangerous parts, and who suffered nothing beyond infection. It is therefore evident that there exists some cause—whether on the side of the bitten or on that of the one who delivers the bite—upon which it depends whether a bitten man will become a vampire. Yet we had before us too small a number of cases from which to derive a law, for after Ginter’s transformation the authorities ceased to send us condemned men. Thus the only course remaining to us was to return to the study of earlier cases of vampiric transformation reported by local authorities, cases which were invariably shrouded in obscurity and contradictory testimony—an altogether thankless task, given that the last of these transformations had been recorded as far back as the one hundred and thirty-second year.

There also existed beliefs that a vampire decides by the force of his thoughts whether his victim shall become a vampire; yet such notions we were compelled to reject as wholly magical and unscientific, for no explanation could be given for them. Nor were there any arguments which we could demonstrate in support of the thesis that a vampire bites in a different manner those whom he wishes to transform from those whom he does not.

On the other hand, many corpses which had already come into our possession after their natural death or after violent deaths unconnected with any vampire bite, and which our vampires bit only after death, definitively proved what scientific theory already obliged us to acknowledge as true: namely, that one who has already released his soul prior to the vampiric bite cannot be transformed, even if that bite occurs immediately after death caused by other means. Thus all tales of the vampiric transformation of those already dead must be either fabrications, or the result of unskilled judgment as to whether the man was in truth already dead at the moment of the bite.”

“All of this sounds exceedingly interesting,” said Karolina-Louise, still wearing upon her face that attentive and serious half-smile, with the same bright gleam in her eyes.

“You are right, Your Majesty—interesting, and yet…” I hesitated, but felt it my duty not to withhold what I had for several minutes wished to say. “Your Majesty, if I have understood you correctly, you have said that you would not object to vampires biting humans and making them vampires, provided that the human in question were not violent and that he consented to it. But, Your Majesty, does not a greater number of vampires in your Archkingdom at the same time mean a greater need for the blood of other men, greater concern and hardship for all your subjects? Forgive me for asking this, but as your subject I feel obliged to offer you my best counsel, which speaks firmly against permitting such a possibility. If you ask me, we have no need whatsoever of vampires in Sigisland,” I concluded at last, fearing her reaction, for it is known that the Archqueen at times possesses a most difficult temperament.

“So far as I know,” replied the Archqueen, “the number of vampires in Sigisland has never exceeded one percent, and so long as they remain so few there should, presumably, be no problem with blood.” I had the impression that she was answering herself rather than me. “Nor do I believe that very many people will wish to become vampires, especially since vampires are not at all beloved in Sigisland, if I rightly understand the views of my people on this matter. Should such a problem ever arise, I am certain that we could then alter the rules, if that were in the interest of my people.” It seemed that she was striving to convince herself of what she was saying, and that she succeeded in doing so to a considerable, though not the fullest possible, degree.

She then put to me the following question:

“And tell me,” she continued, “what is the situation with the vampires of antiquity who were said to fly? Did they truly exist, and do they exist anywhere still? The Encyclopedia states that distinguished doctors wrote of them.”

“There were legends from all parts of the world,” I replied, “as well as drawings from pre-Congress antiquity and records compiled by physicians whose word is held in esteem by science, such as Birotus and Pemus, concerning the former so-called rulers’ vampires, who were accustomed to the blood of human rulers and who flew upon wings like those of bats; vampires to whom not only could daylight do no harm, but who allegedly could not be slain by any means other than the driving of a hawthorn stake through the heart.”

“The Encyclopedia says nothing about their having been rulers’ vampires, nor about their being accustomed to the blood of human rulers!” the Archqueen exclaimed in surprise.

“It is true, Your Majesty, that this was not published in the Encyclopedia,” I answered, “for the Restorer—our great sovereign, eternal be his glory and Archroyal honor—held that such unverified and legendary matters ought not to be entered into an Encyclopedia intended for the enlightenment of all his direct and indirect subjects, especially since they might introduce confusion concerning the indisputable and scientifically proven fact that royal blood can overcome all vampires of the present age. There even existed a text entitled The Hierarchy of Vampires, which spoke of the origin of such beings, yet not a single copy of it has been preserved, not even in the Archroyal Library. What remains to us are only the most varied conjectures, founded upon folk legends, yet these are filled with magic and with claims that cannot possibly be true, for reason does not accept them. Jerg of Wedlhof and Jens of Torzdorf are the most renowned names of such vampires mentioned in the legends. It is also believed that vampires themselves conceal many secrets concerning their own kind, and that they do not reveal them even at the price of their lives.”

At this point the Archqueen nervously drew from her pocket a golden watch, upon which the engraved letters KL and a crown above them could be seen, and glanced at the time. “I have only a little time left, so we had best hasten with this,” she said more to herself than to me, and then turned her eyes to her papers.

“Your Majesty…” I said, somewhat hesitantly, though I hoped it did not show, “perhaps you might obtain fuller answers to all the questions you have from a certain colleague of mine, who employed… methods… which the rest of us in the Department of Vampirology did not employ. He may know things that are not yet known to us. I do not know whether you have ever heard the name Steiner, Zacharias?”

“I am acquainted with him—unfortunately,” Karolina-Louise said in a tone that suggested she was weary even of thinking about that man, rolling her eyes slightly. “When I summoned the representatives of the medical sub-category for consultations regarding the medicines we are to send as aid to the people of Guntreland, he offered—of his own accord—to prepare, free of charge, a formula for a poison against vampires that we might send there in great quantities.” She spoke with an expression of restrained revulsion, and in her voice one could sense as though she were reliving the mingled condemnation and disbelief provoked by such a thought, and especially by the fact that he had even imagined she might have need of such a thing. “Why do you believe he might be able to give me answers that you cannot? What were these methods he employed? I trust he did not torture vampires, or something of that sort?” she asked suddenly, frowning even more deeply.

It was not pleasant for me to answer, yet the sovereign was in fact very close to the truth—indeed, the truth exceeded her words. “In truth, Your Majesty, no one knows what Steiner did with his vampires; but when one knows that a man from whom so many words of hatred toward the entire vampiric race could be heard was left for days at a time alone with vampires bound in chains, furnished with… an Archroyal diploma granting him, in the name of science, amnesty for whatever he might do to these persons, and with all others forbidden to disturb him in his work—then one must inevitably contemplate possibilities which are most certainly unpleasant for a person of compassion such as Your Archroyal Majesty to imagine…”

The Archqueen appeared disheartened. She fell silent and nervously snapped her fingers while staring at the floor, and then said, as if speaking more to herself than to me, “I wish I could remain ignorant of what he did—but I may be compelled to learn it. If he has discovered something that will clarify the questions I have regarding vampires, then I must hear it in order to know how to act, whatever I may think of him and of his methods. Where might I find this Steiner now? Does he still work in the Department of Vampirology?” she asked, looking at me through her spectacles.

“Steiner left his post and retired when Warsing assumed the headship of the Academy, for Doctor Warsing, as a great adherent of Enlightenment principles, having intuited the things Steiner had been doing, made it clear without ceremony that he would not tolerate such a person within the Academy, and that he would not be scrupulous in the means of removing him should he fail to withdraw of his own accord. After the reforms of Your Majesty, Steiner began to move within the circles of your opponents, particularly that of Baron von Austenberg, of whom he is now a follower. It is likely that, with the Baron’s assistance, he found his way into the delegation of physicians that had the honor of advising Your Majesty, for it is scarcely probable that either the Academy or the Archroyalist Medical Society would have invited him of their own will into so representative a delegation. If you wish to find him, you will find him in the Baron’s entourage.”

“Thank you. Farewell, Doctor,” she said once more in that lilting voice, though concern was plainly visible upon her face, marked by the way she looked down as she departed, blinking thoughtfully and pressing her lips together. (…)