《A Vampire's Quest》 Chapter One: If It Hadnt Been For That Explosion... ¡°So there I was - hanging from a cliff, armed only with a hairbrush, and surrounded by demons hellbent on converting me to the cause of postmodern literary criticism,¡± the vampire calmly observed, eating another handful of popcorn. I sighed, and planted another fence pole, determined to ignore the undead regaling me with tales of his glory days. Such endeavours were, alackaday, unsuccessful; on the job as I was, I could not leave, and so had to listen as the vampire began to explain exactly what he¡¯d done with the chandelier. But perhaps I should turn about and turn again, retrace our steps a little, and tell you precisely how I ended up trapped listening to the epics of an exanimate anecdotist. And so I take us far, far into the past, to a time long ago - about two weeks back - a time when I was not yet burdened with a knowledge of the existence of the supernatural, and indeed was living my life in blissful ignorance of both it and the inanities it contained. It had all started, as most things do, when the economy collapsed. No one could say precisely why it had happened. Perhaps it was the civil war in the Captaincy of the Corduroy Coast, and its rippling effect on trade; or perhaps it was the sudden disintegration of Democratic Vespuccia, our great southern neighbour. Or then again, perhaps it was merely the serial incompetence of my own country¡¯s leaders. In any event, the economy was gone; and I too was gone, from my old place of employment. Now, to be fair to the poor economy (lying dead upon the ground as it was), it ought to be admitted that it was none of the usual features of a failing economy - the stock market crash, the bottoming-out of the fried bread industry, the prime minister driving an artillery wagon drunk into the garage of the chief opposition leader - that resulted in me losing my job. Indeed, I was holding onto my job just fine, until our main offices were incinerated in a fiery explosion. This took out the entirety of our upper crust, and left the company wandering about headless and, you may imagine, mightily confused. Even then we might have made it, had not the families of the Board of Directors argued that, as they had been expelled from the company (at exciting speeds of two hundred and four miles per hour, over a distance of half a mile), they ought to be entitled to severance. The company, naturally enough, argued that as they had been expelled by means of an incendiary explosion they were not terminated but fired, and therefore no severance was permitted; to which the families replied that while they may have been fired from the building, this resulted in their termination, thereby entitling them to severance. Eventually they agreed to settle the matter in court, with the resulting legal fees bankrupting both parties. You can imagine my trouble. Unemployed - divested, shall we say, of the means by which I might act in the world of my fellows - I was as one dead; and I flitted like a ghost from one place of work to another, seeking in vain to come to life again. Perhaps fittingly enough, after a matter of time I had exhausted all avenues in the realm of the living, and arrived at one of the city¡¯s cemeteries, there to try my luck with the realm of the dead. It was deep beyond the outskirts of town, set high on a hill hidden by trees that had been ancient before I was born, and it showed its great age in every mouldering headstone and rusting, half-fallen fence post. Half the posts had fallen down about the ornate, wrought-iron gate, and the small structure in which they took care of business was in desperate need of refurbishing. As it happened, the owners of the graveyard were looking for someone to work nights. They were a perfectly normal pair of old gentlemen who had been watching over the silent stones for the better part of thirty years - ever since they were out of high school - and, feeling they were getting on in years, wanted someone to take over nights so they could spend the time with their wives and kids.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. An undesirable shift, maybe, but one has little choice when starvation looms, and it was with alacrity that I accepted the job offer. The graveyard keepers heaved a great sigh of relief, then- ¡°And you¡¯ll make sure to keep the gates locked at night?¡± Asked the one. ¡°Oh yes, yes, the gates must stay locked. It is essential, don¡¯t you know,¡± snivelled the other, rubbing his hands nervously. I must confess I raised an eyebrow at this. ¡°Oh? Do you have a problem with thieves?¡± ¡°No, no,¡± snivelled the other, ¡°rather, thieves have a problem with us - so you can¡¯t let them in.¡± ¡°Precisely. They mustn¡¯t come in,¡± concurred the one. ¡°The thieves have a problem with you?¡± I repeated, to make sure I¡¯d heard correctly. ¡°You¡¯ll understand tonight,¡± said the one. The other snivelled in agreement. ¡°Yes, yes, tonight - and remember it¡¯s not ¡®you,¡¯ but ¡®us,¡¯ for now you are one of us.¡± ¡°Indeed. Make sure not to leave till the morning - and we hope you come back tomorrow,¡± the one said, and after giving me some further instructions the pair left. I was rather surprised to have my first shift so early - especially since we hadn¡¯t even discussed, nevermind agreed upon, a start date - but as I have said, times were tight and money was tighter, and in such circumstances it would be foolish to complain about windfalls. My duties, as had been explained to me, were simple: lock the gates, patrol the yard, and maybe do a bit of light cleaning in their office if¡¯n I had the time. I was not to go into the graveyard proper - there were graves, they said, that had yet to be filled, and in the night it would be difficult to avoid falling into them by mistake. I had been given a lantern, one of the older models with trim around the dome, and a truncheon ¡ª and these, I had been told, were to be sufficient; I had been warned, repeatedly, to avoid touching any of the shovels, and not to lay hands on the spirit level. They were easy enough instructions, and would - I hoped - prove easy to follow. And indeed, it was not until the second hour of my shift that I thought it anything other than a normal if slightly eerie job, for the graveyard was some distance from the city, and I had yet to see a soul. It was on my second circumnavigation of the graveyard, as I rounded one of the lower hills, that I heard it - a rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack, the heavy sound of iron slamming into the earth. I froze, and swallowed nervously, then ascended the hill in search of the noise. The wind howled down from the mountains of the north, stirring the snowflakes in his wrath, and the trees - the last of whose leaves clung tightly to the branches - tapped in time with his maddened tune. The frost on the grass crunched softly as I ascended the hill, barely audible - for over and above the crunch of the grass and the roar of the wind and the rustling of trees could be heard that rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack. It continued quite heedless of me, growing ever louder - thwack, thwack, thwack - until there was an almighty CLANG, followed by a gravelly voice cursing. After this the owner of the voice evidently shifted to a stiffer tool, for when the sound resumed it was stronger and yet more pronounced. It was joined by caterwauling - some sort of old mining song, sung raucously and out of tune - only for both noises to cease as I crested the hill. Nobody was there. All that could be seen in the clearing below was a lantern, swinging from the end of a tree branch, and a silent, open grave. Wary, fearful, curious, I descended the hill into the trees. Finding no one in the clearing itself - and having checked behind the trees - I decided to look down into the grave, to see if the interloper had chosen to hide in its depths. There, lying at the base of the grave, was a dead man. He was flat on his back, black plaid overcoat spread out about him, tools scattered to either side. He had evidently been dead for some time - his fingernails had grown out into claws, his lengthened canines were visible, and his face had deteriorated into a grey and indistinguishable mass. I choked back the urge to vomit. Who was he? The graveyard keepers would never have left a body lying in the grave, not without a casket - but then, what if they-? And what if that was why I was not to go into the graveyard proper? And if that was so, or even if it wasn¡¯t, who was digging just a minute prior? No - who was singing just a minute prior? Of all the things to do next to a mouldering corpse- And then the man¡¯s eyes stirred to life. His eyeballs had rotted away, but burning pinpricks appeared all the same, staring at me from out of a head half gone - mottled grey and blue, and so desiccated as to be part and parcel of the very skull. The man smiled, revealing that his canines were far more than unusually long. ¡°¡®Allo,¡± he said amicably, ¡°how can I help you?¡± Chapter Two: If It Hadnt Been For the Grave... The dead man continued to lie there, beaming at me all friendly-like. I merely stood there, mute, struck dumb with terror. At last my silence must have been too much for him, for he repeated his query. ¡°Hello? Howdyhoo? A yoohoo yoohoo wubba-dab-a doo? Anyone up there? How can I help you - and while we¡¯re at it, who are you? I don¡¯t believe I¡¯ve seen you out and about at night before, and I¡¯ve been here a while yet.¡± The mouldering man waited patiently for some moments, moments in which I continued to say nothing, before finally deciding that it was too uncomfortable to carry on a conversation where one of the parties stood above the grave, and the other lay within it. With a single movement - barely even seeming to rise to his feet - he vaulted the six feet out of the pit, landing on the upper earth with an inhuman spring. Up close his visage was far more horrifying. His face was not, as I had first thought, rotting - it was instead made of a rubbery if rather ethereal material, halfway between a newt¡¯s glabrous skin and ancient loam. The rest of his head was plain, almost smoothed out, save for those wicked, wicked fangs and eyes of burning fire. His head tilted at an unnatural angle, a long snakelike tongue licking a lipless maw as he considered me, thinking¡­ And then he caught sight of the trim upon my lantern and the truncheon in my hand and whatever suspicions he had cleared up, and he gave me a grin that showed off his entire mouth of sharpened teeth. ¡°Ah! You must be the new gravekeeper. Yes, the gravekeepers had mentioned to me that they were hiring one - and really I thought they had, for I have seen several men and women of your age floating about after dark¡­ Only their faces were horror-struck when they gazed upon me, and I never have seen them since, so they must have been here for no more than a night jaunt.¡± I had a very good idea as to why they had never been seen since, but the thing, whatever it was, seemed friendly enough, so I held my tongue. Instead I bowed low, and offered my regards. ¡°Indeed. This one is the new¡­ gravekeeper,¡± I said, using his strange term, ¡°but recently appointed, sent to keep the graves at night so that his elders may go home to their wives and rest.¡± The being stepped back into a fantastically ornate bow - not a dip, as mine had been, but a full and proper bow, with the back foot extended and one hand clutched under the ribs. ¡°Ah? An honour, lad, an honour¡­ And may I just say it¡¯s a pleasure to have you - we could do with some fresh blood around here.¡± I froze once more at this pronouncement, and the thing laughed, giving me a pat on the shoulder. The move gave me no comfort, for by it I learnt that his hands, far from having overgrown fingernails, were tipped with claws. ¡°A joke, a joke. We don¡¯t feast upon first contact, you know: dinner should be saved till after coffee, once we¡¯ve gotten to know each other.¡± Then he stretched, his bones making a horrible cracking sound, before grabbing the lantern from off the bough and eyeing the silent landscape. ¡°So you are guarding the graves tonight? The nights are cold and lonely, the breeze beating out a morbid tune, and you would walk these hallowed hills all by yourself? Hmm - Tell me, would you like me to keep you company? Ask, and I shall step over the threshold.¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. I considered this. By now it was clear that the creature - however horrible he might look - intended me no harm, but I was still filled with misgivings at the thought of prowling through a nighttime graveyard with a stranger - and so strange a stranger - and I couldn¡¯t help but demur. ¡°I thank you kindly for the offer, but are you not busy¡­ over there?¡± And I gestured vaguely towards the empty grave. ¡°I was engaged in the serious task of interior decorating,¡± the thing confided, following my line of sight. ¡°Redoing the walls, making the floor a little bit more comfortable - you know how it is. But talking to you, I suspect, will be much more enjoyable; and besides, ¡®tis not like it¡¯s a time sensitive project.¡± By now we had already begun to walk, going back down the hill and once more continuing the round of the grave guard. The darkness danced about our lanterns, occasionally skipping betwixt the two pools of light, and in the distance I heard the call of a Van Der Beak¡¯s Owl. The creature cracked its arms, again, pinwheeling them to get the blood flowing. His lantern spun wildly, the light momentarily blinding me. ¡°So, tell me my lad, why is a youngun such as yourself working in a dull place like this? Not much goes on here after dark, save for the undead waltzing about.¡± The undead waltzing about was plenty intriguing, but I held my tongue and, in a halting voice, poured out my woes to the mottled thing. The creature was a good listener, nodding along, clucking his tongue at the bad parts and making the appropriate noises of approval at the good parts. At last, having heard the story, he remarked, ¡°Now what to do, what to do? You have told me the story of your woes and - ah! I know. Naturally, you must hear my entire life story.¡± ¡°Your life story? Are you not dead?¡± The thing tsked. ¡°The man who merely eats and sleeps is surviving, not living; and consequently it follows that one may live without ever having survived.¡± Unfortunately for him I had been a petty clerk at my past job, and I knew a sophism when I saw one. ¡°It does not follow, as you presume the difference between survival and life is sufficient to posit a divide, whereas reason tells us that the latter comes only from the former¡­ I beg your pardon,¡± I interrupted myself, as something occurred to me, ¡°but did you say without ever?¡± ¡°But of course. I was born dead,¡± my interlocutor idly observed, as he ran his hand along a barren branch. It was difficult to tell if his tone was jocular or melancholy. ¡°And you were buried here, why?¡± I continued my train of thought, still keeping an eye out for intruders as we paced about the graveyard. ¡°Buried here? My dear sir, this is a resting place for the dead. Where else would we go on vacation?¡± I looked about, at the desolate hills, covered with trees that were dying away for winter; at the mausoleum, rising bleak and forbidding in the distance; and at the graveyard¡¯s lake, choked in weeds, where weird white worms were wriggling. An unusual vacation spot, but who was I to speak of the joys of the dead? Meanwhile, the creature continued his train of thought. ¡°Now then, you¡¯ve indicated fairly clearly - if circuitously - that you have little to no desire to hear about the incidence of my birth. Alas! ¡®Tis a fine tale. But fair enough, fair enough; never let it be said that I am not respectful to the needs of my audience. In that case, sir¡­ Hmmm¡­ Ah! You will hear a story of my school days.¡± ¡°I¡¯d really rather not.¡± ¡°Ah c''mon. Dead men tell the best tales - after all, only we can appreciate how difficult it is to make your stories true to life.¡± Chapter Three: If It Hadnt Been For That Paper... It was back when I was freshly dead, back before I quit being a vampire. *** ¡°Hang on,¡± I said, interrupting the undead a mere sentence into his tale. ¡°How can you quit being a vampire?¡± The vampire turned to gaze upon me, his burning eyes shrinking down to a soft glow. ¡°How can¡¯t you quit being a vampire? Think about it for a moment - ¡®job,¡¯ ¡®species,¡¯ the both of them are just words, and differ only by a matter of definitions. And you can always quit definitions.¡± This premise struck me as singularly and sheerly illogical, and I said as much; but the vampire waved me off, merely noting in reply that the conclusion followed from the premises, and thus possessed validity. Incapable of responding, I could only content myself with imagining the vampire impotently throwing his letter of resignation in the face of a surprised Dracula, while the vampire in question, heedless of my ruminations, continued his tale. *** It was back when I was freshly dead, back before I quit being a vampire. This was long after the fair folk had given up on man, and retreated to their abodes at the edge of the sea of dreams; and I, I had just angered a fellow academic. Our dispute happened quite naturally, so much so that I almost didn''t know it had commenced till I was right in the thick of it. I had published a paper on a favoured subject - to wit, the inexistence of human beings - and my fellow academic, incensed by the perceived odiousness of my position- **¡± ¡°Wait a moment, wait a moment, wait just a moment here,¡± I cut in, once more rudely interrupting. ¡°Did you say you wrote a paper defending the inexistence of human beings?¡± ¡°Don''t forget to check under those toppled headstones,¡± the vampire advised, ignoring my query. ¡°They may look like they merely cover a depression in the soil, but that is actually a hole - cleverly concealed beneath the shadows - and used by the ghouls when they want to sneak out for roadkill; a habit which bothers the gravekeepers most dreadfully, for the monsters never clean up after themselves.¡± I grumbled at this lack of reply, but checked all the same. Much to my surprise a slew of slimy, furry things sped out from under the toppled tombstones and skittered off into the night, a severed rabbit''s head flopping to the ground behind them. ¡°Oy!¡± Snapped the vampire, stirred up for the first time since I''d met him. ¡°Pick that up, and bury it properly!¡± ¡°Fah!¡± came the reply from what must have been the ghoul, before a bloody spleen came flying out of the dark. ¡°Every sound metaphysician knows that physical objects exist only in the mind, so once the darn thing¡¯s dead it don¡¯t exist anyway nohow.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not how that works-¡± the vampire started, then, ¡°ah, they¡¯re gone.¡± ¡°Tom will be mighty pissed about the mess - you know how particular he is about the state of his grave dirt,¡± the vampire offered, and then, remembering that I had not the foggiest of clues as to who Tom was, continued, ¡°ah, Tom is our live-in literate lich - he keeps Tom''s Tomb Tomes on the east side of the graveyard. You should pay him a visit later - just make sure not to disturb the dirt.¡± ¡°Right, I¡¯ll remember that - but back to the question. Did you say you wrote a paper defending the inexistence of human beings?¡± ¡°Why yes, yes I did,¡± the vampire replied, with an easygoing swagger. ¡°Do try to keep up, please.¡± ¡°But you''re having a conversation with me, and I''m a human,¡± I pointed out (very reasonably, might I add). ¡°Yes, but you¡¯re misunderstanding the problem. The obvious question is not whether humans are there; the obvious question is whether humans exist.¡± ¡°Are those not one and the same?¡± I asked. ¡°Most assuredly not. It is an indisputable fact that we - that is to say, those of us on the Other Side - encounter humans with a frequency like clockwork; the problem, so to speak, is whether there is anything beneath the surface of that encounter. Who knows what dwells behind the mask, or if there is indeed more than a shadow?¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. By this point my mind, which had been scrambling to keep up ever since it learnt that there was more to this world than just the machinations of man, finally leapt before my eyes, and reminded me that what I thought was reasonable, and why, was by no means what lay in the minds of others¡­ Even if (as was the case here) I was right; and that, should I desire to understand, I would have to step back, listen a little, and seek to comprehend. ¡°Alright, so let me get the story straight,¡± I said, moving my hands about to accentuate my point. ¡°So, you published a paper on the inexistence of human beings?¡± ¡°Yessir,¡± concurred the vampire. ¡°And this stirred your colleague to rage, on account of the odiousness of your claims that humans don''t exist?¡± ¡°Oh, no,¡± the vampire laughed, ¡°no, on that point she agreed with me. What infuriated her was my attempted justification of the claim.¡± *** There I was, preparing a lecture on superstitions about humans in the thirteenth century - did you know they used to believe humans went about wearing tinsel? - when my colleague kicked in the door. At first I mistook her entry for that of a stray wind - she¡¯s only six inches tall, you know - and it was only after I heard the first cries of rage and thought to look over the desk that I saw her, angrily pumping her fist in the air and waving about my paper. I had argued - to my mind, convincingly - in the Periodical of Post-Ontological Perambulations that humans were an illusion, generated by the credulity of the fairies supposedly seeing them. This my colleague had taken exception to, to such a degree that she went to make her displeasure known, personally. *** ¡°Well of course she did. You¡¯re talking to me now, so if that premise was true then wouldn¡¯t it follow that you too are credulous?¡± ¡°The fey who lived before me believed in humans, and the fey who lived before them believed in humans, and the fey who lived before them, and so on and so forth, and it takes an awful long time to root a false idea out of your soul, when once it has taken root.¡± *** She told me, in no uncertain times, that it was entirely irresponsible to selectively posit the existence of illusions for specific physical phenomena; to which I responded that, said physical phenomena depicting things we knew not to exist, it was more than justifiable to posit an explanation for this and only this instance, absent other more compelling theories. She then returned that humans were entirely explainable as audiovisual hallucinations generated by the organic development of houses, thus justifying their inexistence within a salient framework for the explanation of physical phenomena. (At this point in the conversation a ghoul could be heard to distantly call out, ¡°Except physical phenomena don¡¯t exist!¡±, but both of us ignored it.) I reiterated my point, citing my research, to which she reiterated hers. Having thus reached an impasse we did what all scholars do when they discover their findings conflict: we settled things like men. Having prepared for challenges to my scholarly acumen beforehand, I kept a poleaxe over top of the desk - just under my framed diploma - and grabbing it sought to keep my colleague, a pixie, at arm''s reach. The pixie, for her part a veteran wrestler, used only a pair of brass knuckles. We clashed in the middle of the room, axe against fist, and after a swift exchange I regret to say that she proved the swifter, pushing me back and sending me staggering. Unsatisfied with this much she leapt through the air; I raised the poleaxe cross-wise to block; she slammed into it, the blow from her knuckles possessing sufficient force to cleft the haft in twain. As I was now disarmed she did the honourable thing and threw her own weapons to the side, before grabbing me in an attempted single leg takedown (or, more accurately, a single foot takedown, as she was too tiny to grab me around the knee). I fell to the ground, and we rolled - a brutal ball of fearless fists and flashing feet - out the door and down the hall, slamming from wall to wall, knocking the pictures off and sending the stuffed hippogriff flying. At last we fought so long and so far that we rolled, still fighting, into the lecture hall. This turned out to be highly fortuitous, as I was supposed to be delivering my lecture then, and the faculty would have been rather annoyed with me had I missed my lecture because I was settling an academic dispute. As the department head said, ¡°the scholar is always a warrior, and the warrior follows proper timing.¡± Accordingly I multitasked, and delivered my lecture to the students while continuing my dispute with my fellow professor. Smash, smack, bang, went the pair of us as we rolled about the room, brawling, all while I argued with her about the applicability of the Principle of Extension and lectured my students on why late mediaeval fairies thought human females went about wearing really long and pointy hats. One of the dryads fainted as I described what the humans purportedly did to them in December. Another student nearly hurled when we went over mill folklore - his family used to help human millers, according to their inherited histories - and one went into a fit of rage as I described ¡°human¡± records about the leprechaun. Still, the lecture was eventually and finally completed - to great applause, let me add (I even received a commendation from the department for my thorough summary of fairies in ¡°human¡± building motifs) - and, now free, my colleague and I brawled our way out of the lecture hall and down to the dining hall for lunch. Thereupon we took a brief break, to rest and refuel, and once that was done we resumed our fight. I am sad to say it was inconclusive: our fight continued across the school grounds until night, at which point it had to be called off. After dark the trolls and the witchlights and creatures far fouler (like zygothrups, and murklugs, and the Great Glont) come out, and then the scholarship grows far weirder and altogether more uncanny. We were not yet clear on whose argument was superior, however, so we repaired to a restaurant specialising in our favourite cuisine - Vegetable Lamb of Tartary - where we sought to hash out the elements of our dispute over meat and mead. Chapter Four: If It Hadnt Been For That Bet... The mock-up meat went, the mead flew, and the two of us settled in for a late night of disputations. ¡°I understand your concerns, of course,¡± I informed her politely. ¡°Your worry is that if our principles for the investigation of perceptible phenomena are not consonant one with the other, then they risk contradicting, threatening our empirical activities.¡± The pixie slapped the table in enthusiasm. ¡°Precisely! We have two situations - situations involving empirical descriptions of verisimilar phenomena - and you would employ two distinct principles in the analysis of each, depending on the conclusion you desire to bring about. The discrepancy is unsustainable, its publication discreditable to that form of scholarship which is concerned with the search for truth, and not merely the retrojection of justifications for that which we believe to be true.¡± ¡°I resent the accusation of partiality,¡± I sniffed, not altogether upset - for this was not our first rumpus, and she had earlier justly rebuked me for exactly the same fault. ¡°Unlike the similar case - say, for something we know exists, like plants - we know that human beings do not really exist, but merely appear as if they do. Accordingly, I am justified in explaining the inexistence of humans according to arguments invented for this very purpose.¡± ¡°Accordingly? It has been too long since you studied logic, my friend; I suggest you reread your Lewis Carroll. You¡¯ve leapt from one statement to another, and ignored the statement which ought to connect the two ¡ª Why your principle? Why not another, entirely different one? And what about our knowledge of the inexistence of humans - knowledge whose origin we have not yet made clear - leads us to posit a psychic account of them in the first place?¡± ¡°Well, if we know humans don¡¯t exist, but merely appear as if they do, does it not then follow as a possibility - perhaps even a probability, in the emphatic sense of ¡®what is likely¡¯ - that this appearance exists only in our minds?¡± The pixie was unimpressed, though she took a bite of her Barnacle Goose dessert before speaking her mind. ¡°Well it¡¯s a possibility - it¡¯s likely that - oh, you know, it could be - maybe - and so on and suchlike and such equally facile nonsense. Do not invoke possibilities in the face of what is seen and known. No, humans are there; and if we want to explain why, precisely, that is a mistake, we ought to explain why it is a mistake with respect to their being-there. Now, you and I know the truth and are in rough agreement; the question, however, is how this truth is to be derived.¡± Once more we had returned to the crucial impasse - the point on which we had met, and diverged. She insisted that humans were there, and any explanations as to why this perception was illusory must first start with an acknowledgement of this fact; I, for my part, held that the appearance of humans was merely illusory in the first place, and therefore no explanation was required for humans, whether as a category or in specific instances.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. We could not revolve one around the other forever, though, and having failed to settle our disagreement in either the usual manner (with fists) or the unusual one (with words) there remained but one road for us to travel: namely, we would prove which one of us was correct by means of demonstration. Our quest, then, was a simple one: to discover the finest argument against the existence of human beings; or, as the undead unicorn Anselm of Canter-Bury had it, ¡°That proof than which no greater can be conceived.¡± *** ¡°So this is a story about an academic argument?¡± I inquired, grunting a little as I finished digging a hole for the corpse of the rabbit. The vampire, much to my distress, had handed me the shovel - in spite of my protestations that I was not supposed to touch it - and with an apologetic remark about ¡®he who is paid, does the work,¡¯ had returned to uselessly watching. ¡°No, this is a story about an adventure - an adventure occasioned by an academic argument,¡± the vampire replied. ¡°The parameters of our dispute were set, the contours dictated. We were to leave the university in which we had conducted our research in (relative) peace, and travel the land in search of the finest argument for our respective positions.¡± ¡°Makes sense, I guess,¡± I said, as I carefully lowered the rabbit¡¯s corpse into the hole (or, at least, the half dozen disconnected bits I¡¯d been able to find). Beside me the ghost of the rabbit put its paws together in prayer for itself. ¡°Precisely. So I took my invisible sword-¡± ¡°You mean your invincible sword.¡± ¡°No, I mean my invisible sword. Anyways, I took my invisible sword - after a bloody long hunt for it, let me add - and then had to bandage my hands, as I¡¯d grabbed it on the wrong end, after which I set out from the university.¡± *** Naturally, my first step was to cross the sea of dreams and return to the fields of man, for no human - save those of a pure heart - had been allowed into fairyland in nearly an age; and I knew that if I wanted to disprove humans then I ought to head straight to the source, the humans themselves. This was not as difficult as it may sound, for some among the spirits would go flying about at night in the skies of man; the fey of the sea still maintained the web of tunnels that lie under the waters; and the trolls claimed access to ancient and etheric nets which, they said, had once been used by so-called man to communicate across great distances. I, however, preferred to make my journey as quietly as possible - I do not believe it has yet come up in the story, but public belief among the fey is now against the existence of humans, so much so that even my researches into your non-existence were seen as faintly ridiculous - and settled the matter by retaining a L¨¹tzelk?ppe of my acquaintance to send me across the seas by whirlwind. *** And then the story came to an abrupt end, for an ear-splitting scream had echoed across the graveyard.