A Coven of Vampires

by Brian Lumley

  “Observe!” Arenith Han, a spidery, shrivelled person in a worn, rune-embellished cloak scuttled about, prodding the yaks and examining their gear. “Observe the rig of these beasts—especially this one. Have you ever seen the like? A houdah fixed upon the back of a yak? A houdah? Now, some tiny princess of sophisticate kingdom might well ride such gentle, canopied beast through the gardens of her father’s palace—for her pleasure, under close scrutiny of eunuchs and guards—and the tasselled shade to protect her precious skin from sun’s bright ray. But here, in the desert, the badlands, the merest trajectory of a good hard spit away from Chlangi’s walls? Unlikely! And yet so it would appear to be….”

  He turned and squinted at the uncomfortable ruffians. “Just such a princess, our friends here avow, was out riding in the desert last night. She rode upon this yak, beneath this shade, while the other beast carried her toiletries and trinkets, her prettiest things, which is in the nature of princesses when they go abroad: frivolously to take small items of comfort with them. Ah!—but I have examined the beasts’ packs. Behold!”

  He scattered what was contained in the packs on to the dust and cracked flags of the courtyard—contents proving to be, with one exception, ample handfuls of loamy soil—stooped to pick up the single extraneous item, and held it up. “A book,” he said. “A leather-bound rune-book. A book of spells!”

  Oohs! and Aahs! went up from the assemblage, but Han held up a finger for silence. “And such spells!” he continued. “They are runes of transformation, whose purpose I recognize e’en though I cannot read the glyphs in which they’re couched—for of course they’re writ in the lamia tongue! As to their function: they permit the user to alter her form at will, becoming a bat, a dragon, a serpent, a hag, a wolf, a toad—even a beautiful girl!”

  Hylar Arf, a hulking Northman with mane of blue-black hair bristling the length of his spine, had heard enough. Usually jovial—especially when in a killing mood—his laughter now welled up in a great booming eruption of sound. One-handed, he picked the skinny sorcerer up by the neck and dangled him before the court. “This old twig’s a charlatan!” he derided. “Can’t you all see that? Why!—here’s Thull Drinnis and me alive and kicking, no harm befallen us—and this fool says the girl was lamia? Bah! We took her yaks and we took her, too—all three of us, before Gumbat Chud, great fool, got himself slain—and you can believe me when I tell you it was girl-flesh we had, sweet and juicy. Indeed, because he’s a pig, Thull here had her twice! He was both first and last with her; and does he look any the worse for wear?”

  “We’re not pleased!” Fregg came to his feet, huge and round as a boulder. “Put down our trusted sorcerer at once!” Hylar Arf spat in the dust but did as Fregg commanded, setting Arenith Han upon his feet to stagger to and fro, clutching at his throat.

  “Continue,” Fregg nodded his approval.

  The wizard got well away from the two accused and found the fluted stone stump of an old column to sit on. Still massaging his throat, he once more took up the thread—or attempted to:

  “About…lamias,” he choked. And: “Wine, wine!” A court attendant took him a skin, from which he drank deeply. And in a little while, but hurriedly now and eager to be done with it:

  “About lamias. They are desert demons, female, daughters of the pit. Spawned of unnatural union be twixt, ahem, say a sorcerer and a succubus—or perhaps a witch and incubus—the lamia is half-caste. Well, I myself am a ‘breed’ and see little harm in that; but in the case of a lamia things are very much different. The woman in her lusts after men for satisfaction, the demon part for other reasons. Men who have bedded lamias and survived are singularly rare—but not fabulous, not unheard of! Mylakhrion himself is said to have had several.”

  Fregg was fascinated. Having seated himself again following Hylar Arf’s outburst, he now leaned forward. “All very interesting,” he said. “We would know more. We would know, for example, just exactly how these two escaped with their lives from lamia’s clutches. For whereas the near-immortal Mylakhrion was—some might say ‘is’—a legended magician, these men are merely—” (he sniffed) “—men. And pretty scabby specimens of men at that!”

  “Majesty,” said Arenith Han, “I am in complete agreement with your assessment of this pair. Aye, and Gumbat Chud was cut, I fear, of much the same cloth. But first let me say a little more on the nature of lamias, when all should become quite clear.”

  “Say on,” Fregg nodded.

  “Very well.” Han stood up from column seat, commenced to pace, kept well away from the hulking barbarian and his thin, grim-faced colleague. “Even lamias, monstrous crea tures that they are, have their weaknesses; one of which, as stated, is that they lust after men. Another is this: that once in a five-year their powers wane, when they must needs take them off to a secret place deep in the desert, genius loci of lamias, and there perform rites of renewal. During such periods, being unnatural creatures, all things of nature are a bane, a veritable poison to them. At the very best of times they cannot abide the sun’s clean light—in which abhorrence they are akin to ghouls and vampires—but at the height of the five-year cycle the sun is not merely loathed but lethal in the extreme! Hence they must needs travel by night. And because the moon is also a thing of nature, Old Gleeth in his full is likewise a torment to them, whose cold silvery light will scorch and blister them even as the sun burns men!”

  “Ah!” Fregg came once more erect in his seat. He leaned forward, great knuckles supporting him where he planted them firmly on the table before him. “The houdah on the yak!” And he nodded, “Yes, yes—I see.”

  “Certainly,” Arenith Han smiled. “It is a shade against the moon—which was full last night, as you know well enow.”

  Fregg sat down with a thump, banged upon the table with heavy hand, said: “Good, Han, good! And what else do you divine?”

  “Two more things, Majesty,” answered the mage, his voice low now. “First, observe the contents of her saddle bags: largely, soil! And does not the lamia, like the vampire, carry her native earth with her for bed? Aye, for she likes to lie down in the same charnel earth which her own vileness has cursed….”

  “And finally?” Fregg grunted.

  “Finally—observe the motif graven in the leather of the saddle bags, and embroidered into the canopy of yon houdah, and blazoned upon binding of rune-book. And…” Han narrowed his eyes, “—carved in the jade inset which Thull Drinnis even now wears in the ring of gold on the smallest finger of his left hand! Is it not indeed the skull and serpent crest of the Lamia Orbiquita herself?”

  Thull Drinnis, a weaselish ex-Kliihnite, at once thrust his left hand deep into the pocket of his baggy breeks, but not before everyone had seen the ring of which the wizard made mention. In the stony silence which ensued, Drinnis realized his error—his admittance of guilt of sorts—and knew that was not the way to go. So now he drew his hand into view and held it up so that the sun flashed from burnished gold.

  “A trinket!” he cried. “I took it from her and I claim it as a portion of my share. What’s wrong with that? Now enough of this folly. Why are we here, Hylar and me? Last night we brought more wealth into this place than was ever dreamed of. Chlangi’s share alone will make each man and dog of you rich!”

  “He’s right!” Hylar Arf took up the cry. “All of you rich—or else—” he turned accusingly to Fregg, “—or else our noble king would take it all for himself!”

  And again the stony silence, but this time directed at Fregg where he sat upon his stool of office at his table of judgement. But Fregg was wily, more than a match for two such as Arf and Drinnis, and he was playing this game with loaded dice. Now he decided the time was ripe to let those dice roll. He once again came to his feet.

  “People of Chlangi,” he said. “Loyal subjects. It appears to me that there are three things here to be taken into consideration. Three, er—shall we say ‘discrepancies’?—upon which, when they are resolved, Hylar and Thull’s guilt or innocence sh
all be seen to hang. Now, since my own interest in these matters has been brought into question, I shall merely present the facts as we know them, and you—all of you—shall decide the outcome. A strange day indeed, but nevertheless I now put aside my jury, my wizard, even my own perhaps self-serving opinions in this matter, and let you make the decision.” He paused.

  “Very well, these are the facts:

  “For long and long the laws of Chlangi have stood, and they have served us moderately well. One of these laws states that all—I repeat all—goods of value stolen without and fetched within these walls are to be divided in pre determined fashion: half to me, Chlangi’s rightful king, one third to them responsible for the catch, the remainder to the city. And so to the first discrepancy. Thull Drinnis here has seen fit to apportion himself a little more than his proper share, namely the ring upon his finger.”

  “A trinket, as he himself pointed out!” someone at the back of the crowd cried.

  “But a trinket of value,” answered Fregg, “whose worth would feed a man for a six-month! Let me say on:

  “The second ‘discrepancy’—and one upon which the livelihoods and likely the very lives of each and every one of us depends—is this: that if what we have heard is true, good Hylar and clever Thull here have rid these parts forever of a terrible bane, namely the Lamia Orbiquita.”

  “Well done, lads!” the cry went up. And: “What’s that for a discrepancy?” While someone else shouted, “The monster’s dead at last!”

  “Hold!” Fregg bellowed. “We do not know that she is dead—and it were better for all if she is not! Wizard,” he turned to Arenith Han, ‘”what say you? They beat her, ravished her, pegged her out under the moon. Would she survive all that?”

  “The beating and raping, aye,” answered Han. “Very likely she would. The staking out ’neath a full bright Gleeth: that would be sore painful, would surely weaken her nigh unto death. And by now—” he squinted at the sun riding up out of the east. “Now in the searing rays of the sun—now she is surely dead!”

  “Hoorah!” several in the crowd shouted.

  When there was silence Fregg stared all around. And sadly he shook his head. “Hoorah, is it? And how long before word of this reaches the outside world, eh? How long before the tale finds its way to Kliihn and Eyphra, Yhem and Khrissa and all the villages and settlements between? Have you forgotten? Chlangi the Shunned—this very Chlangi the Doomed—was once Chlangi the bright, Chlangi the beautiful! Oh, all very well to let a handful of outcast criminals run the place now, where no right-minded decent citizen would be found dead; but with Orbiquita gone, her sphere of evil ensorcelment removed forever, how long before some great monarch and his generals decide it were time to bring back Chlangi within the fold, to make her an honest city again? Not long, you may rely upon it! And what of your livelihoods then? And what of your lives? Why, there’s a price on the head of every last one of you!”

  No cries of “bravo” now from the spectators but only the hushed whispers of dawning realization, and at last a sullen silence which acknowledged the ring of truth in Fregg’s words.

  And in the midst of this silence:

  “We killed a lamia!” Hylar Arf blustered. “Why, all of Theem’hdra stands in our debt!”

  “Theem’hdra, aye,” answered Fregg, his voice doomful. “But not Chlangi, and certainly not her present citizens.”

  “But—” Thull Drinnis would have taken up the argument.

  “—But we come now to the third and perhaps greatest discrepancy,” Fregg cut him off. “Good Thull and Hylar returned last night with vast treasure, all loaded on these camels here and now displayed upon the blanket for all to see. And then they took themselves off to Dilquay Noth’s brothel and drank and whored the night away, and talked of how, with their share, they’d get off to Thandopolis and set up in legitimate business, and live out their lives in luxury undreamed….

  “But being a suspicious man, and having had news of this fine scheme of theirs brought back to me, I thought: ‘What? And are they so displeased with Chlangi, then, that they must be off at once and gone from us? Or is there something I do not yet know? And I sent out trackers into the badlands to find what they could find.”

  (Thull and Hylar, until this moment showing only a little disquietude, now became greatly agitated, fingering their swords and peering this way and that. Fregg saw this and smiled, however grimly, before continuing.)

  “And lo!—at a small oasis known only to a few of us, what should my trackers find there but a third beast, the very brother of these two here—and four more saddlebags packed with choicest items!” He clapped his great hands and the crowd gave way to let through a pair of dusty mountain men, leading into view the beast in question.

  “We are all rich, all of us!” cried Fregg over the crowd’s rising hum of excitement and outrage. “Aye, and after the share has been made, now we can all leave Chlangi for lands of our choice. That is to say, all save these two….”

  Thull Drinnis and Hylar Arf waited no longer. The game was up. They were done for. They knew it.

  As a man they went for Fregg, swords singing from scabbards, lips drawn back in snarls from clenched teeth. And up on to his table they leaped, their blades raised on high—but before they could strike there came a great sighing of arrows which stopped them dead in their tracks. From above and behind Fregg on the courtyard walls, a party of crossbowmen had opened up, and their massed bolts not only transfixed the cheating pair but knocked them down from the table like swatted flies. They were dead before they hit the ground.

  And again there was silence, broken at last by Fregg’s voice shouting: “So let all treacherous dogs die; so let them all pay the price!”

  And someone in the crowd: “The fools! Why did they come back at all?”

  “Good question!” answered Fregg. “But they had to come back. They knew that I am a caring king, and that if they failed to return I would worry about them and send out others to discover their fate. And they knew also that with beasts so loaded down with gold and gems, their pace would be slow and my riders would surely catch them. Moreover, they would need provisions for their long trek overland, and extra beasts, and how to purchase such without displaying at least a portion of their loot? And finally they knew that my intelligence is good, that I am rarely lacking in advance knowledge in respect of travellers and caravans in these parts. What if I expected them to return with loot galore? And so they brought two-thirds of it back and left the rest in the desert, to be collected later on their way to Thandopolis….”

  As he fell smugly silent a new voice arose, a voice hitherto unknown in Chlangi, which said: “Bravo, Lord Fregg! Bravo! An object lesson in deduction. How well you understand the criminal mind, sir.”

  All eyes turned to Tarra Khash where he now threw off his blanket robe and draped it over the back of the camel he led; to him, and to the beast itself, which trotted straight to the other three and greeted them with great affection. Plainly the four were or had been a team; and since this burly bronze clout-clad Hrossak was their master…what did that make him but previous owner of treasure and all? Possibly.

  Tarra was flanked by a pair of hulking thugs from the guardroom in the west gate, who seemed uncertain exactly what to do with him. Fregg could have told them; but now that he’d met the Hrossak, so to speak, he found himself somewhat curious. “You’re a bold one,” he told Tarra, coming forward to look him up and down.

  “Bold as brass!” one of the guards ventured. “He came right up to the gate and hailed us, and said he sought audience with the king or chief or whoever was boss here.”

  “I’m boss here,” said Fregg, thumbing his chest. “King Fregg Unst the First—and likely the last. Who are you?”

  “Tarra Khash,” said Tarra. “Adventurer by profession, wanderer by inclination….” And he paused to look at the dead men where their bodies lay sprawled in the dust of the courtyard. “Excuse me, but would these two be called, er, Hylar and Thull?
”

  “Those were their names, aye,” Fregg nodded. “Did you have business with them?”

  “Some,” said Tarra, “but it appears I’m too late.”

  The session was breaking up now and the crowd thinning as people went off about their business. A half-dozen of Fregg’s men, his personal bodyguards, stayed back, keeping a sharp eye on Tarra Khash. Others began to bundle up the treasure in the blankets.

  “Walk with me a little way,” said Fregg, “and tell me more. I like your cut, Tarra Khash. We seldom have visitors here; at least, not of their own free will!” He chuckled, paused, turned and said to his men: “That ring on Drinnis’ finger—I want it. Make sure it’s with the rest of the stuff and bring it to me in the tower.”

  “Hold!” said Tarra. “A moment, King Fregg.” He stepped to blanket and stooped, came erect holding the jewelled hilt of his scimitar. “I’ve a special affection for this piece,” he said. “It belongs in the scabbard across my back. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Fregg gently took it from him. “But I do mind, Tarra Khash!”

  “But—”

  “Wait, lad, hear me out. See, I’ve nothing against you, but you simply don’t understand our laws. You see, upon the instant loot is brought into the city, said loot belongs to me, its finders, and to the city itself. And no law at all, I’m afraid, to cover its retrieval by rightful owner. Not even the smallest part of it. Also, I perceive these stones set in the hilt to be valuable, a small treasure in themselves.” He shrugged almost apologetically, adding: “No, I’m sorry, lad, but at least two men—and likely a good many more—have died for this little lot. And so—” And he tossed the jewelled hilt back with the other gems.

  “Actually,” Tarra chewed his lip, eyed the swords and crossbows of Fregg’s bodyguards, “actually it’s the hilt I treasure more than the stones. Before it was broken there were times that sword saved my miserable life!”