Necroscope: Invaders e-1

by Brian Lumley

  ‘And he probably was, but alas I was not there to see it. For my master and his allies were the losers. Malinari, Vavara, and Szwart, they were whelmed under, their great aeries sacked, their possessions looted, and their thralls and creatures converted.

  ‘Well, as was the way of it in those days, they were banished north to the Icelands forever. And I, Korath Mindsthrall, my master’s chief lieutenant… I went with them, of course.

  ‘As to how it happened:

  ‘In the beginning, Nephran Malinari was short of friends. And this had always been the case, ever since his mother Illula flew off into the sun and left him Malstack for his own. It was his weird talent that cost him the “companionship” of the other Lords and Ladies. They could not trust him; they even feared to be close to him, who could be into their minds so easily. Also, his stack was a mighty fortress filled with men and beasts, and it was suspected that his ambitions reached beyond his station. Which of course they did, like the ambitions of all of them who were Lords. For lust, greed, and territorialism were ever their way of life.

  ‘But isn’t it true that a man who cannot make friends will usually make enemies? And as easily as that, the rumours sprang up: that Malinari was searching out allies and making ready his aerie for a bloodwar to rival the mythic wars of yore. But when I say “easily”, that is not to say quickly; I would remind you that time is of small concern to the Wamphyri, and in fact the enmity that developed between The Mind and the others took decades in its shaping.

  “Thus, when Malinari ravaged among the supplicant Vadastra clan on the night that I was taken and my people destroyed, his terrible tithe-gathering venture wasn’t solely of his initiation or invention; Lord Doombody was also provisioning, and likewise the rest of the vampire Lords.

  ‘Aye, for the simple truth of it was that they each feared each other. And fear fuelled fear, do you see?

  ‘So naturally when The Mind first observed how his mentalist talents had isolated him, indeed he commenced searching out others who might also be under threat, to enlist their aid. Nor were they hard to find:

  ‘The Lady Vavara, for one, but I use the term “Lady” where she would not because I have seen and been close to her; and to see her… There never was a more perfect definition of femininity, though whether or no she affected her outward appearance (as, for instance, did Shaithis, by means of metamorphism), of that I have no knowledge. But I find it hard to ascribe so much beauty to Nature alone. Yet if she was Nature’s handiwork… then why was that work so perfected in a female of the Wamphyri? It is a paradox to which I have no answer.

  ‘So, I have seen and been near her — too near and once too often, for I believe it was Vavara bade Malinari ram me in this pipe! — yet I cannot recall her clearly to memory. Perhaps that in itself defines her beauty: that its power is such as to maze common men, and no less common women. But here another paradox: for despite that she was that beautiful — a beguiler, a gorgeous witch, a sensuous sorceress — still she was unsure of

  herself, uncertain of her beauty. I can offer no other explanation for her habits, that a goddess (albeit a demon goddess) such as she was so offended by the concept of beauty in others that she could not bear it, and so was wont to remove the breasts, lips, noses, and other parts of her female thralls to make them ugly!

  ‘There, in a nutshell, we have Vavara. And just as my vampire world was separated in two parts that were opposites, Sunside and Starside, so was she separated: her luminous exterior from the dark and swirly deeps within.

  ‘She was Malinari the Mind’s first choice as an ally; not because he lusted after her but because he knew that certain of the other Lords did. And Vavara had determined she would not be any Lord’s woman, nor would she ever take a man until she found one who was at least her equal in desirability. An unlikely occurrence, for she was the one who had described Shaithis — generally considered godlike — as a mere “lump” of a man! Oh, she took men, be sure, but they were her thralls and easily disposable in the unlikely event of complications.

  ‘And Vavara, too, had heard rumours of a bloodwar in the offing, and also how Lesk the Glut had been boasting of what he would do to her after he’d sacked Mazemanse, her spindly, fretted, many-spired aerie where it stood not far from Malstack and Lord Szwart’s Darkspire. How he would put out her ruby-red eyes to kill their fascination, singe her eyebrows, her long lashes, and the hair of her head to make her a hag, then fuck her every opening into great holes fit only for shads in the rut. Hah! So much for Vavara’s “beauty”, if Lesk the Glut had his way! Is it any wonder she sided with Malinari?

  ‘And finally there was Lord Szwart. But if I have found it difficult to describe Vavara, how then shall I portray Szwart who was and still is literally indescribable? For, of course, all three of them are extant still…

  ‘… I see by your silence that you would have what I know, despite that I know so little. So be it; what knowledge is mine shall be yours, no more nor less.

  ‘As to who or what Szwart is: the best that I can offer — he is Wamphyri! But he is the essence of Wamphyri, distilled or filtered by the foulness of his forebears, mutated beyond recognition not by Nature but by necessity, more leech than Lord, and a fly-the-light in the fullest sense of the word.

  ‘The flickering light of candles, torchlight, firelight — the light of man-made combustion — these are the only kinds of light his eyes can bear, and even then not with complete impunity. But if the light matches the fire of his eyes he is fairly safe. Brighter than that, he knows pain! And any who would give Szwart pain… let him first pierce himself with silver dipped in kneblasch, fasten boulders to his neck, slit his wrists, and leap from the topmost battlements of the tallest aerie.’ Then he might be safe from Szwart.

  ‘And only let someone declare enmity towards Szwart — let him broadcast his aversions or discuss them with his peers, and then have his words find their way back to the night-black master of Darkspire — and no matter who this loudmouth might be, whether high or low in the Wamphyri pecking order, be sure that Szwart would do his damnedest to put a stop to such mutterings.

  ‘Aye, and when Szwart did his damnedest… ‘There was one Narkus Stakis, Lord of Narkslump, a collapsed pile on the western fringe of the clump, who from the onset of all the rumour-mongering and side-choosing had voiced abroad his detestation of Lord Szwart. Precisely why he held Szwart in such low esteem, who could say? Perhaps he’d had wind of Lord Doombody’s provisioning and other preparations for war, and the accompanying rumour that Drama! intended to root out all “deviants” (which is to say his enemies, real and imagined) from the ranks of the Wamphyri.

  ‘If that were a fact, then the proximity of Szwart’s Darkspire to DramaTs Dramstack in the core of the clump would seem certain to make Szwart just such an enemy. For if Lord Doombody

  wished to expand territorially (assuming that this was his real purpose) he must first annex Darkspire, Szwart’s gloomy, shadow-shrouded manse across too small a gulf of air. And so, and also because Drama! controlled a large percentage of Starside power, the very inferior Narkus Stakis had determined to side with him — whether or no Dramal required him as an ally.

  ‘Alas for him that he made known his decision, especially his disinclination towards Szwart…

  ‘Lord Szwart was black; his aerie was black, and shadowed for the most part by mighty Dramstack; his warriors and flyers were black, and the black of night was his medium. Lord Stakis’s Narkslump, more a great cleft knoll than a stack proper, stood in the western fringe of the cluster and low to the earth, and its silhouette against the northern auroras was more a ragged hump than a fang. Gloom was its constant companion.

  ‘On the night that Narkus died a great drift of cloud obscured the moon and stars, and Starside was never so dark. The clouds sweeping north out of Sunside were black and swollen in their bellies, pregnant with rain that lashed at the aeries of the Wamphyri. There had been fantastic lightnings over the barrier mountains, and the wide fores
ts of Sunside would be awash in the aftermath of the storm. Not a good night for raiding on the Szgany, not with the air full of ozone, when careless flyers and riders might so easily attract hellfire from the sky, to singe them and send them plummeting. For which reasons most of the Lords and Ladies stayed to house. Most of them.

  ‘But throughout the night several watchkeepers in aeries near the western rim, where they looked down on Narkslump’s split dome, had noted how Lord Stakis’s nightlights — the braziers within his battlements, behind the merlons and embrasures, and the torches in his watchtower turrets — were going out one by one, as if extinguished by the torrential rains. Except they were still going out long after the rains were done.

  ‘Came morning; the Wamphyri stayed abed while the accursed sun rose up and up, to its zenith, when the spires of the highest stacks were lit by its rays, and many-layered curtains were drawn against its lethal heat. The day passed as all days must; soon it was night again, and the Lords and Ladies up and about. Lights burned in all the aeries — except Narkslump.

  ‘And slow but sure the truth became known. A small handful of thrall survivors came on flyers and on foot, over the barren boulder plains to neighbouring Scarstack and Lurelodge, begging refuge from the master and mistress respectively of those middling manses. A body of men flew out from Scarstack to Narkslump and down into its landing bays. And later, in the midnight hour, they reported back to Lord Oulios the Scar on Narkslump’s condition as they had found it. Also on Narkus’s condition, as they had found him, his three lieutenants, and the body (or bodies?) of his thralls.

  ‘Word spread swiftly abroad, to all the stacks of the Wamphyri. And now certain things were remembered from the previous night:

  ‘In Dramstack, when the rains were at their worst, how the aerie’s Desmodus colony was startled from its roost. A thousand great bats, all chittering and panicked for no apparent reason, whirling, colliding, and scolding where they circled the fretted ceiling of their cavern lair. And Lord Dramal Doombody, nodding in his private chambers, startled awake by confused mental messages from these bat familiars: A dark shadow — a stranger, doubtless an enemy — has passed close by. Though he was cloaked in darkness, we sensed him, his eyes burning on Dramstack. They seethed and were full of hatred!

  ‘But Dramal’s watchmen, huddling miserably in their draughty turrets and cold stone niches, and his flightless guardian warriors, rumbling behind the earthworks and on the boulder-strewn approaches to towering Dramstack, had seen nothing but a fleeting shadow: that of a cloud, they said. And cold, wet and dull, they failed to wonder why the shadow had sped west rather than north.

  ‘And so Dramal had ordered his familiars: Go back to sleep! You

  nightmared. The pounding rain and lightning shook you loose from your dusty perches. No stranger is come to harm me or mine in Dramstack.

  ‘Not him or his, no…

  ‘A similar disturbance had been recorded in Karl Szorkala’s Karlspire. And further west, in the grounds of Lady Sasha Lureswain’s Lurelodge, one of her earthbound warriors had reared up and buffeted ineffectually at a dark blur of a shape that fluttered to a landing just beyond the bounds of Sasha’s demesne — in Lord Stakis’s territory, aye.

  ‘So to the report of them that flew from Scarstack to Narkslump, when they returned to Oulios the Scar in his high place. Narkslump was intact, as were its flyers and warrior creatures, all dutifully in their places, however nervous, unattended, and unfed. Vampire thralls, however — male and female, eunuchs and fighting men alike, some twenty in all — lay dead in their beds or at their various places of duty: in the walls and corridors, on the causeways, and in Narkus’s harem. Likewise Narkus himself and his three lieutenants, all dead in their quarters.

  ‘Well, Narkslump was scarcely a fortress such as towering Dramstack. And Narkus lorded it — or he had used to — over a mere dribble of men and monsters compared to the greater Lords in their lofty aeries. Even a small invasion force, if its components were stealthy and well ordered, could have infiltrated Narkslump’s defences under cover of the storm. But that wasn’t the way the survivors in Scarstack and Lurelodge told it.

  ‘According to one of them, a sentry on the night in question:

  ‘“The night was dark and overcast; residual rain dripped from roofs, buttresses, causeways, overhangs. I was cold, wet, uncomfortable in my niche. And I admit that I stayed well back, to avoid getting wetter still. But it was also a night of shadows. When I came out one time to scan abroad, I looked down on the lower ramparts where a colleague was keeping watch. Failing to see him, I assumed that he too was avoiding the worst of the drench. But I did see a shadow — or I thought it was a shadow — that flowed swiftly along the walkway and disappeared into a niche, then returned and continued along the ramparts. A stain, a blot on the stone, a shadow, aye… but mobile?

  ‘“There again, the clouds were fleeting and there were so many shadows, and I have only a thrall’s eyes. A lieutenant’s eyes might have been keener, better suited, but lieutenants do not guard the walls. My Lord Stakis’s eyes would certainly have noted any weirdness or peculiarity, but he was in his chambers. ‘ “When next I looked out and down, my colleague’s brazier was out; a hiss of steam rose up; I assumed that there had been more rain, or my friend had been negligent of his fire. And the night was even darker.

  ‘ “My duty station was lit fitfully by twin torches ensconced under slate awnings that fended off the rain. I replenished them with fresh faggots before returning to my niche and snuggling deeper yet. Time passed; perhaps I heard a grunt or call — a gurgled cry? — from the north flank. But in any case I ventured out again, to the northernmost point of my picket, where I leaned from an embrasure to look down on the adjacent flank. In the misted gloom of a landing bay, there was no watchman to be seen, but the steam of his extinguished brazier rose up!

  ‘ “It was time I made report. But only recently recruited, my vampire skills were weak; I was not yet linked to my master. If I cried out with my mind alone, Lord Stakis would not ‘hear’ my alert, and deep within the rock he couldn’t possibly hear my voice. Wherefore a dilemma: should I desert my position and go to the Lieutenant of the Watch, who I knew to be a very difficult man? And if I did, and nothing was found amiss, what then?

  ‘ “I leaned out again and looked down… and at once drew back! For traversing the scarp directly below me — coming diagonally upwards across the treacherous, rain-slick face of the rock and scarcely pausing to negotiate the way — I had spied a lumpy shadow like a dark blot against the lesser darkness. But did I say dark? The shadow was block! And where it merged with other shadows it disappeared completely, only

  to emerge a moment later, always climbing towards my battlements station.

  ‘ “Now I knew to run and make report — or at least to run, if nothing else! But already the shadow was stretching itself, groping like the fingers of some phantom hand towards the merlons between myself and the entrance to Narkslump’s east wing. Even if I ran this unknown thing would be there first, perhaps waiting for me. Neither was there any other route of entry — nor of escape — from my position on the outer face.

  ‘ “Now, I am not a man to shrink from any normal darkness. Murky gloamings and the weird nebulosities of Sunside bogs had never frightened me. But this was no ordinary shadow. There was something sinister, knowing, clever, about it; it moved as on a mission, and in my heart I knew I couldn’t stop it. Only let me try… it would certainly stop me! But as yet it didn’t even know that I was there. Or at least, I hoped that was the case.

  ‘ “And as quietly as possible I crept into my niche, drew as far back as I could go among the spiders and beetles — then farther yet until the sharp rock of the split scraped my chest and my back — and finally held still, so very still, there in the dark and the dust.

  ‘ “And eventually something came.

  ‘ “Do not ask me what it was, but it came and was a part of the darkness. And while I couldn’t see it, I
knew it was there. Then—”

  ““Indeed I am here!’ A voice came to me like the rustle of leaves, so close I felt the breath of it! And it continued: ‘I see you are afraid, and that is good. Be afraid, my friend, and make no outcry. Stay here for long and long in this tight crevice, while I go about my business, and I won’t harm you. But if you come out… ah, that would be a brief but very unfortunate affair. So then, do we have an understanding?’

  ‘“I could only nod, and though I saw nothing at all, still the shadow saw me. ‘Good,’ it husked, and spoke no more.

  ‘ “Then I was alone again — and pleased to be alone — for long and long…

  ’”… How long I cannot say. But when I dared to come out I saw that my torches were expired, and looking closer I saw they had been capped — put out — deliberately. And not only my torches but all the lights in Narkslump, till tip to toe the aerie stood in darkness most utter.

  ‘“Then when I went inside I found what I found, and discovered the hidy-holes of a handful of others with tales to tell much like my own. Following which… can you blame us that we fled that haunted place, and came with all dispatch here…?”

  ‘That was the thrall’s story, and the other survivors with him agreed with everything he said. But survivors of what?’

  Since the answer to Korath Mindsthrall’s final question was obvious, a reply seemed unnecessary. But Harry Keogh answered him anyway, saying, Survivors of Lord Szwart, of course.

  Harry’s words — more definite, decisive in Jake Cutter’s mind — startled him from the reverie induced by Korath’s narrative; from what had seemed like a dream within a dream, where everything that the ex-vampire lieutenant described had seemed as real as if Jake himself had been there, in another time and another world. And:

  ‘What? Where?’ Jake gave himself a shake. And looking all about he saw debris: the buckled stanchions and shattered concrete slabs fallen from the ceiling, the partly-gleaming, scorch-scarred rim of the monitor conduit rising from the sullen swirl of dark waters. That was where this fragment of the history of a vampire world had its origin: that ugly pipe where Korath had died the true death, which still contained his bones, sloughed clean and washed white by the water. And Jake shuddered.