by Brian Lumley
‘The egg-shaped item that Nathan had thrown bounced again, into the group of three climbing thralls. And there it exploded in a flash of light as bright and momentarily brighter than the sun itself! Light, heat, and a blast of alien energy that lacerated the flesh of the unfortunate thralls and blew them off the stone stairway, down into the rubble. They were in pieces, dead before they hit bottom. And Szwart hissing and shrieking, reeling on the high stairs where he tried to regain his man-shape, failed, and collapsed again to a slithering stain.
‘All of this shocking, aye, but none so much as what Lord Szwart called out to us as finally he reformed, shaping himself into an airfoil and launching in search of some night-dark place in which to regain his composure:
‘“He was not there!” he shrilled. “He is not here! No man, that one, but a ghost! Perhaps the spirit of all the Szgany we ever took in our lives, all combined in one vengeful ghost!”
‘And Malinari turned to Vavara and said, “Szwart is right. Not that Nathan is a ghost, but that he’s no longer here. For a moment I touched his mind — real in the field of my probes, as real as the shields he raised against me — and in the next moment, gone! So if you think we have seen awesome weapons at work this night, well, now we have seen a real weapon: the man Nathan himself.
But all of this bears thinking about, and I shall give it my gravest consideration.”
‘And despite that The Mind had chosen his words carefully, perhaps because he felt he must retain at least a measure of control, still his sprouting scythe teeth were awash in his own blood where he ground them deep into his lips and riven gums…
‘And Malinari did give it his gravest consideration, as did we all; but no amount of thinking could compensate for our losses, or dream up a successful defence against future depredations by the demon Nathan. Thus that entire night was a disaster, and no guarantee that things were ever going to get any better.
‘We went subterranean. Unthinkable, eh — that the Wamphyri should ever flee from a man? From the sun, aye, but not from a single man! — yet such was the case. If we could not build on high, then we must build below, where the stumps of the toppled stacks were riddled with tunnels, caverns, and places which, in the olden times, were only ever fit for bats and beetles.
‘And despite that our work force was reduced — our flyers, too, and our warriors boiled in their vats — still we had several hundreds of thralls and provisions aplenty.
‘The thralls were put to work; they cleared the debris from ancient diggings, moved our provisions to safety, and built defensive positions on the surface. New vats of metamorphosis were discovered or dug, into which we sacrificed a third of our manpower, the raw materials of our future flyers and warriors. And we commenced keeping a watch… can you believe it? The Wamphyri, vigilant against any further sabotage attempts by this mere man! Moreover, it was more rigidly enforced than any watch that our vanished ancestors had ever kept against each other.
‘But this last was a necessity, for from then on, whenever we raided against the Szgany, we could be sure that retaliation would follow hot on our heels. And Nathan Kiklu — man or ghost or whatever he was — he was everywhere. If we raided in the far western reaches of Sunside, he would soon be there with a party of Lidesci fighters, with “guns,” “grenades” and “rockets”, setting fire to the wings of our flyers, blinding them with silver shot, and knocking our thralls out of their saddles before they could even touch down! Thus, for every man we recruited in Sunside, one of ours was killed by Nathan and his Szgany soldiers. And every forward step was followed by one to the rear.
‘East, west, wherever we struck, Nathan and his men could be there in a trice. How? It was beyond us. Moreover, lie would snipe on us from afar, and shoot our thralls dead in their defensive or watchtower positions. Until my master and his colleagues were obliged to devise a new strategy.
‘Instead of inhabiting just one central area of Starside’s olden ruins, now we spread out and stationed men in every shattered stump and heap of rubble. For one thing was certain: whoever or whatever Nathan was, and for all that he could appear almost magically, anywhere, in extremely short order, he couldn’t possibly be everywhere at once.’ And so we maintained something of our equilibrium, despite that we made little progress…
‘One night my master flew out alone. Returning shortly, he complained bitterly that: “This damned Szgany bastard — he has spies in the barrier mountains! Hah! That is how he knows where we will raid: they watch us fly up from the boulder plains, the direction we take, then make report to him. I tracked them with my mentalism — which is how I discovered theirs!”
‘ “What? They are thought-thieves, these men?” Vavara found it hard to believe. “Mentalists?”
‘Malinari laughed like a madman, and answered, “Even as we are mentalists, aye. So says Malinari the Mind, the greatest of them all. But… they are not men!”
‘ “Not men?” And now Szwart was baffled. “Not men, you say? Then what — trogs?”
‘Malinari gave a wild shake of his head and waved his arms in consternation. “Not trogs, no — but dogs!” ht said. “Wolves of the wild that think like men. Stranger still, they call this Nathan uncle! He is their kin!”
‘ “Then he is a dog-Lord!” said Vavara. “It’s the only possible solution. This hated enemy of ours is Wamphyri! He dwells in the mountain heights, rules on Sunside, and keeps the Szgany for himself. His needs are so slight that the tribes suffer him for his protection. I must be right. Nathan is a changeling.”
‘And Szwart said, “But a dog-Lord? With powers such as he commands? And as for suffering him for his protection — against what? What was there before we came?”
‘My master threw up his hands, crying, “I don’t know! I no longer know anything… except that I am sick to death of this Nathan, of this ruined place, and of all this endless work performed without reward. This work that gets us nowhere…”
‘We took to raiding separately but simultaneously in locations far apart, and we covered our movements with great stealth. For again the principle applied: that Nathan couldn’t be everywhere at once. And at last a small measure of success — which didn’t last long. He couldn’t be everywhere, but his weapons could.
‘From thralls freshly converted we learned how he had disseminated his destructive devices — his guns and grenades, and so forth — among as many of the tribes as possible. And he had taught them how to use them. But these weapons and the “ammunition” they used were not in unlimited supply. From time to time Nathan must replenish them by venturing into the Hell-lands.
‘That in itself posed a question: how was it possible for Nathan to make these trips to the Hell-lands without using the Starside Gate? For the Gate was no longer accessible. Where in our time it had rested in the bottom of a crater in the lee of the foothills not far from the great pass, now it was raised up and stood in the centre of a lake! And that lake of white water had many small whirlpools to suck a swimmer down.
‘Often in our forays across the barrier mountains into Sunside we had seen it there: that fountain of water, all lit from within, rising up high into the night and falling back into the lake.
‘In order to solve that problem, we flew out one night; or rather, Malinari and Vavara flew out, and a few lieutenants and thralls in attendance. For Lord Szwart would not consider going anywhere near such a brilliant source of light, despite that it was cold.
‘Ah, but that was indeed a fortunate trip — for the Wamphyri at least, if not (as it later turned out) for me; though of course I could not know that then. Anyway, during the long day previous, while we vampires slept or carried out our subterranean duties beneath the stumps of the old stacks, apparently the lake had run dry!
‘And there stood the Gate, raised up in its crater socket, like the blind white eye of some fallen Cyclops shining up into the night. But as for the lake and its fountain of milky water: they were no more, not even a trickle.’ The earth was dry, caked, and wrinkl
ed into channels that showed how the water had disappeared down circular boreholes that angled into the bedrock like conduits to hell. A weird thing, this Gate; weird as the tumbling moon or ice-chip stars, and just as inexplicable.
‘Malinari, Vavara and their men had left their flyers in the shadowy foothills between the Gate and the great pass, well away from the Gate itself. Facing downhill on a moderate slope, the flyers were positioned for immediate flight. It was a safety measure, to ensure a quick getaway should such become necessary. And so it may be seen that even among the Great Vampires the Hell-lands Gate was held in no small measure of respect.
‘And separating into small, wide-spread groups, we applied the same caution to our method of approach — moving from boulder clump to boulder clump, and always sticking to the shadows — as we drew closer to the Gate. But we were still some distance away when suddenly my master threw up a warning hand, and issued a mental alarm that reached out to all of us:
‘“Something is coming through the Gate!” his voice hissed in our minds, as we melted back into darkest shadows.
‘And he was correct, of course. He had sensed their alien minds, these men of the Hell-lands (of your world, that is), as they stepped forth onto the surface of our world. Far more importantly, however, Malinari had sensed their unpreparedness. Oh, they had
weapons as devastating as Nathan’s, but for protection as opposed to open aggression. Also, they had little or no idea what to expect in Starside, and to a man their minds were pre-occupied with greed for the heavy, malleable yellow metal that you call gold, which in my world is common.
‘They were thirty-two in number, half of them being soldiers who took up positions on the flanks as the rest formed into an unruly, excited, and chattering body. Then they marched for the great pass. Two of the soldiers rode noisy, wheeled engines that cut the darkness with beams of cold white light; they went ahead to pick a route through the many boulders that litter the area. Keeping still and silent in the shadows, we let them pass right through the various groups of our divided party.
‘Then it was that Malinari apprised us, “These men are not like Nathan. They are like infants, with little or no knowledge of what they are about! Those on the outside — the soldiers — they have weapons. When we strike, we take them out first. Kill them with dispatch. They barely outnumber us and shouldn’t be a problem; this time the advantage of surprise is on our side. As for the central body: these are the minds behind the muscle… puny things by my reckoning, and not a mentalist among them. So be it; they are weaklings and we must take them alive for questioning. Now make ready — in the next few seconds your destiny may change beyond all recognition!”
‘Which of course it did.
‘I cannot describe what next took place as “a battle”, nor even a rout, for none of our victims had time to flee! Surprise was indeed on our side, and add to this our flowing, lightning-strike speed, and our vampire strength, equal in each of us to that of four or five strong men… the result was overwhelming. Hell-landers they were, but they had never seen hell such as we delivered that night.
‘There was some gunfire, soon silenced. We lost a lieutenant and three thralls. The Hell-landers lost everything — their so-called “fighting men”, anyway. As for the two on their “motorcycles”, when they returned to see what was the trouble, and having seen it didn’t stop but headed out onto the barren boulder plains: We picked them off later.
‘The freshly dead were carried back to fuel our vats, the living were taken for questioning by Malinari. I can’t honestly say which group was least fortunate, the living or the dead… the living, I suspect. In the long run it would make no difference; the one group would join the other.
‘What my master learned, however — ah, but that made a big difference! Sufficient to excite Malinari and his Wamphyri colleagues beyond measure. And for me, it was the beginning of the end.. ‘
Korath had fallen silent for a while. When next he spoke it was similar to a sigh in Jake Cutter’s sleeping mind, and deadspeak in the metaphysical Harry Keogh’s:
The rest you know. In a while, when Malinari had extracted and assimilated all he could of knowledge from the minds of the “scientists” and their military leader, it was time to take our leave ofStarside.
Before doing so, The Mind, Vavara, and Szwart made a great many lieutenants; they took them down into undeath, and brought them up again as burgeoning Wamphyri! And they divided between them all the remaining thralls, flyers and waxing warriors, and all territorial holdings, provisions, and so forth.
It was done for spite, out of malice; if the three Great Vampires could not have Sunside/Starsidefor their own, then neither could Nathan and the Lidescis, nor the Szgany as a people — not without they Jightfor it for long and long, and pay for it in blood. And so you may be sure that even now there are new Lords in Starside, while in Sunside the bloodJlows as of yore…
Finally Korath was done, and Harry said, From all you have told us, your lot was not a happy one. And your end was unfair, to say the least. I am glad you finally agree! said the dead vampire. But: —From what you have told us, at least, said Harry. But I am more concerned with what you haven’t toM us, which is probably more important than all the rest put together. The Wamphyri have been here in our world for some time, but it would seem they’ve achieved very little. What are they up to, Korath? What is their plan? You were one of theirs, and so you must know.
Ahhhh! said the other slyly, in a tone that suggested the shake of an incorporeal head. And so to the crux of the matter. But no, what you ask is for me to know and for you to discover, or to guess at for a long, long time, until it is too late. For after all, it is my only remaining bargaining point— the last trick up a poor dead thing’s sleeve. And when you have that, I shall have nothing at all
‘Bargaining point?’ said Jake, just a little surprised by his own voice, after keeping so long silent. ‘But you’re a dead thing! What can you possibly bargain for — what can we give you — apart from a little companionship, a little cold comfort?’
Well, that might be a start…
But the ex-Necroscope intervened and said: You have already had that, companionship and cold comfort, and probably too much of both. It isn’t a healthy thing to spend too much time in the company of vampires. No, there’s no bargain you can strike here, Korath Mindsthrall. Also, I sense that your will is strong. You are dead, but your tenacity is very much alive! Jake, it’s time we were having.
‘I thought you’d never get to it,’ Jake answered.
only hope you remember some of this, said Harry.p>
Tm still not a hundred per cent sure I want to,’ Jake vacillated.
Well, get sure! said Harry, his fading deadspeak voice frustrated and angry. Your entire world depends upon it. And if you can’t remember anything else, do try to remember this:
An incredible wall of numbers — like a computer screen run riot— evolved in the eye of Jake’s mind, its symbols and equations marching and mutating until they reached a certain critical point… and formed a door. A Mobius door! And Jake knew without knowing how that all that remained of Harry was passing through it, moving on to another place, perhaps another time.
‘I… I’m supposed to remember that?’ he said, as the door collapsed and left him on his own in the dank and gurgling sump of the once-Refuge. On his own, but not quite alone. For:
Do not concern yourself, Jake Cutter, Korath MmdsthraU’s leering deadspeak voice came to him out of the sudden inky darkness that enveloped him and the sump and everything, a darkness that was prelude to the light of the waking world. No, for I am sure that we’ll be able to work something out—
— Er, between us?
Jake made no reply, or if he did it was left behind as he went spiralling up and up to the waiting light…
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR Synchronicity
Liz was leaning over him again. ‘Remember what?’ she said.
‘Eh?’ Jake blinked sleep out of his ey
es, groped to brush grit from their corners.
‘You were rambling on about having to remember something,’ she told him. And while he was ordering his thoughts to frame a reply, she quickly went on: ‘And before you ask — no, I wasn’t snooping on you. I came back here to give you a shake; you were mumbling, and I thought you were speaking to me.’ Well, he hadn’t been, but he had been speaking to someone. Harry? Korath? But who the hell was Korath? The name, so familiar one minute, was already meaningless, slipping from the edge of his mind. So that now, just a moment later, Jake wasn’t sure it meant anything at all.
Well, get sure!… get sure!… get sure! (Like an echo, fading in his memory.) And numbers — a swirl of numbers, equations, symbols, like a mathematician’s nightmare — all collapsing to a big Zero, nothing, where before they had meant something.
‘Numbers/’ Jake croaked, forcing the word out of his dehydrated throat. Liz handed him a can of Coke that she was drinking from, and he sat up and swilled his mouth out, then let the fizzing liquid burn and cool and sting all the way down. ‘Numbers?’ Liz repeated him. ‘What about them?’ Awake now, he frowned at her. ‘Are you sure you weren’t in
there with me?’ Then, seeing that look on her face: ‘Okay, okay! Just checking.’ He took another swig, climbed unsteadily to his feet. ‘I think I was dreaming about — hell, I don’t know — all sorts of stuff He looked at his boots, then stooped to touch the bottoms of his jeans and wondered why he thought they might be wet. ‘I can’t remember. A damp place? Voices? Numbers?’
But Liz only shrugged. ‘You tell me,’ she said, and turned away so that he wouldn’t see the look she flashed at the others up front. And over her shoulder she told him, ‘We’re on our way down. Brisbane next stop.’