Lycanthropos by Jeffrey Sackett Page B

Gypsy population, it had been necessary for him to establish an operational headquarters, and the Ragoczy Palace was a logical choice. In addition to its size and splendor, it also had what most late medieval noble residences had: a complex of large, subterranean chambers that had in the past served as dungeons. Under Schlacht’s devoted ministrations, they served this purpose once again. Day in and day out the dungeons were filled with the hundreds of Gypsies who had been arrested the night before, and periodically the dungeons were emptied as these same unfortunates were shipped off to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sorbibor and Treblinka and other cities of death.
    As the door of the dungeon was locked behind him, Gottfried von Weyrauch surveyed the room he had just entered with undisguised trepidation. The walls were built of large blocks of grey stone tinged slightly green by moisture and moss, and though the Germans had installed an ad hoc electrical system into the old palace, the sconce holes that had been sunk deep into the walls centuries before had not been filled in. The ceiling was high, nearly twenty-five feet from the floor, and small windows near the top of the wall, just above ground level, allowed a few rays of the setting sun to enter the room.
    He realized almost immediately that the room itself was merely the entranceway, the anteroom as it were, of a series of ancient cells. At the far end of the room a small wooden door with a small barred window was set into the cold stone wall, and as it was opened by the armed S.S. guard who stood before it, Weyrauch could see even before Schlacht ushered him through that it led to a narrow corridor on both sides of which were dozens of barred doorways. Weyrauch glanced into one such cell as he, Schlacht and Louisa proceeded down the corridor, and he shuddered at the thought of what it must have been like for the poor devils who had been imprisoned here. The doors themselves consisted of iron frames and long iron bars, which afforded an observer a clear view of the entire interior.
    Weyrauch’s nose wrinkled at the unpleasant smells, the stench of dried urine and feces, of unwashed people and filthy cloth, all intermingled with the smell of wet, rotting straw and the sickeningly sweet odor of the ubiquitous population of rats. He did not know if the smells were of recent origin or if they had been absorbed by the stones over the centuries, but the smells seemed to be a permanent characteristic of the dungeon.
    Lord, let me go back to Kappelburg! he prayed miserably.
    Schlacht came to a halt in front of one of the cells and nodded his head in its direction. "These are our guests. The younger one is called Janos Kaldy. The older one is called Blasko. No given name, apparently, which is not uncommon among inferior breeds." As Schlacht spoke Blasko came forward and began to speak rapidly and with obvious agitation in a language which was comprehensible to none of the three onlookers. Schlacht frowned. "Unfortunately, we have already shipped the Gypsies off to, ah, relocation centers, and we have been unable to find anyone who can understand his barbarian tirades." He chose to make only oblique reference to the extermination camps to which the Gypsies had been sent. Now that it was drawing close to sunset and what he hoped would be an observable seizure on Kaldy’s part, he had no wish to waste further time arguing with his cousin.
    "Surely some linguists from the university…?" Weyrauch began hesitantly.
    "No, we’ve tried that already," Schlacht said, shaking his head. "The ones who are still here have no knowledge of this language, and we understand that the ones who would have been of use are Jews, and so are, shall we say, unavailable." He ignored Louisa’s glaring eyes.
    Blasko continued to speak in a desperate, frightened, imploring tone, and he seemed to be shifting back and forth among a variety of languages. Weyrauch shrugged. "I can’t be of