by Brian Lumley
This has nothing to do with fighting and war,’ Canker growled, coming directly to the point. ‘You’ve not wanted my friendship for quite some time now. Since it’s nothing that I have done, it has to be something with you. Well, friends are for listening, so now it’s my turn to ask: “What’s wrong?”’
Nestor looked at him, opened his mouth - looked away and said, ‘I can’t tell you. But I can tell you this: if I’ve kept away from you, or kept you from me, it has done you no harm.’
‘A riddle?’
‘If you like.’
‘I don’t!’ And again Canker whined, fingered the injured side of his face and head again, especially his ear, shook his head and blinked rapidly.
That knock you took?’ Nestor was solicitous, as best he could be.
‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said the other.
And smiling with his eyes (for they were all that could be seen of his face behind the gauze of his mask, in the shade of his cloak’s high cowl), Nestor gave a wry chuckle and said, ‘Now who makes riddles? It’s as if we played word games!’
Canker yelped, ‘Huh!’ But although the necromancer’s hidden smile had seemed wan, it was all it took to perk him up a little. He grinned a foxy grin in return, sprang up from his chair, shook himself like a great dog as was his wont, and made to approach Nestor at the window. But the other at once shrank back. At which Canker was more than ever
crestfallen. ‘Perhaps … perhaps if I tell you, then you’ll tell me?’
‘No.’ Nestor shook his head.
‘Why not?’ The dog-Lord frowned, his spiked eyebrows coming together over his snout.
‘Because there’s no answer to what ails me. And since it can’t be helped, there’s no point in mentioning it. But that’s not to say I can’t listen to you. Didn’t you say it yourself, that friends are for listening?’
The other loped to his chair and flopped into it. And: ‘I hate this,’ he said, his voice a low growl.
This impasse?’
‘An impasse may be breached. No, this .. . condition!’
‘Your condition?’
Canker sat up straighter, looked directly into Nestor’s eyes. ‘My friend, you’ve heard how the others talk about me, behind my back?’
Nestor shrugged. They talk about me, about each other. There’s no peace or satisfaction in any of them … or in me … or in you! We’re Wamphyri!’
Canker clawed at his ear again, shook his head more violently yet. But in a little while he grew calmer. ‘You know of course that my father went baying mad? His ear went soft on the inside, began to stink and leaked his brains. He’d seen it coming - for he was oneiromantic, too - so that when his favourite bitch dropped me, he named me after his affliction - Canker - as if I were to blame for it! Or … as if I were the spawn of it? When I was yet a pup, he mounted a flyer and flew off into the sun. His talent came to me through his seed, and his vampire egg through a fond fatherly kiss. But am I also heir to his madness?’
Finally Nestor understood. ‘Is that what’s bothering you? You think you’re mad?’
‘Going mad, aye,’ Canker growled. ‘Maybe …’
‘Ridiculous!’ (But in all honesty, Nestor wouldn’t have wagered on it.) ‘What you? Crazy? Crazy as a fox, perhaps!’
Canker’s feral-cored eyes were suddenly miles away,
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vacant except for a distant glimmer. ‘But I have had such dreams, Nestor - such dreams as even I can’t believe! My silver mistress in the moon … I had thought there was just the one .. . but perhaps the moon is full of them! To hell with this war! Once more I’m driven to play upon my instrument of bones, and do homage to the goddess of the skies . ..’
He was on his feet again, eyes blazing now. And now Nestor most definitely would not bet upon the dog-Lord’s sanity. He sent out a call to his first-lieutenant, Zahar: Come. And said to Canker, ‘Mangemanse needs you, my friend. It’s time you went down and saw to things. Hell will have to wait, for the war is here. My man Zahar will see you out.’
But the other grabbed his arm, pleading with him, ‘Nestor, my dear young Lord out of Sunside, you must tell me — am I mad? Is the moon eating at my brain?’
Nestor saw a way to reason with him. ‘Did Wratha and the others call you mad when first you mentioned your silver moon mistress? Yes, they did. Even I found it strange. But tell me now: is she real or not, your Siggi? And now . .. are you saying you’ve dreamed of others?’
‘One other! More woman than girl, mature, but a beauty beyond imagining!’
Then your madness is not yet proven. Call her down, if you must. And if she comes —’
‘- Then I’ll know that I’m sane!’
‘Exactly.’
Zahar came and Canker, at least partially appeased, left f with him.
But when they were well away from Nestor’s private rooms, Canker said, ‘Zahar, your master is my friend. Do you believe that?’
‘I have seen it, Lord.’ Zahar’s tone was cautious. ‘How may I doubt it?’
Canker nodded. ‘Just so. And I fancy that you are a good and true lieutenant and love him .. . well, as much as you may. Is it so?’
‘You know it is, Lord.’
Then you are concerned for his welfare?’
‘Of course, Lord.’
‘Ah, but what is it that concerns you?’
Zahar was the victim of a word game, but one with a point, as he now saw. Having admitted his concern for Nestor, now he must say why … or perhaps not. For a ‘true’ lieutenant would never give his master away, after all. ‘You know I may not tell you that, Lord,’ he protested. ‘My master would send me soaring like a Szgany kite from his highest window - except I’m a good deal heavier than a kite, and not so airworthy.’
‘But something ails him? - Don’t deny it, for I’ve seen how you shun him … ah!’ And Canker snapped his fingers. ‘But it’s true: you do shun him! Why, this place was full of life, or undeath at least! But now, it’s gloomy as melancholy Vormspire in the gorge of Turgosheim. Very well, so you won’t tell me what’s wrong, despite that my only interest lies in putting it right. Then tell me this instead: what happened tonight, on Sunside? Where did you go and what did you do?’
Zahar was confused; the dog-Lord was so quick, his questions coming thick and fast; Zahar couldn’t guard his mind and tongue both. Since his thoughts were transparent to the other, he must blank them out. But before he could do so he felt Canker’s telepathic probe … only for a moment, until Zahar conjured thoughts of warmth and softness, safety and sleep: such thoughts as a foetus might think in its mother’s womb. It did the trick, but how much had the dog-Lord seen? Judging by his disappointed expression, not much.
And: ‘Huh!’ Canker grunted. ‘Well, and so you are indeed a good man and true - which is as it should be. Protect your master’s interests, say I, and who knows but that one day you might even get his egg!’
At which Zahar Lichloathe could scarcely contain the look of horror which threatened to twist his face, the stab of terror he felt in his heart.
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But no harm done, for the dog-Lord had not noticed, apparently…
Canker had noticed. And he at least had kept his thoughts to himself as he’d probed Zahar’s mind and spied on all the vivid memories which flashed there; memories of Nestor’s raid after the ignominious defeat of the Wamphyri at Sanctuary Rock:
A place at the edge of the forest, where the mighty iron-woods grew to the rim of the savanna, beyond which the furnace deserts sprawled south. A place under the trees, of low-roofed construction, as if huddling or hiding there. And a place that Nestor had known about, obviously.
Not so strange, Canker thought; despite the lad’s amnesia, there were still things he occasionally remembered from the old days, from his time as a Szgany youth in the tribe of Lardis Lidesci. And as the dog-Lord proceeded down into Mange-manse, he scanned the screen of his own memory, recall
ing the rest of what he’d read in Zahar’s unguarded mind:
Of Nestor’s flyers’ silent landing a little way out on the savanna, where a hummock of crabgrass half an acre square guaranteed an easy take-off; of his handful of men fanning out to surround the dark huddle of lodges beneath the trees, while he brought up his eager fighting beasts from where they waited like storm clouds in the starlit sky. And of his command, that the warriors crash down indiscriminately through the forest’s canopy! How they brought down massive branches with them, and crushed many of the furtive-seeming dwellings into the floor of the forest. Then:
The hoarse-voiced screams that at once went up from the wrecked houses .. . the frightened bellowing of domestic beasts in their pens, and the squawk and flutter of chickens in their coops . .. the uproar of the warriors where they proceeded with their deadly work! Except here a surprising, perhaps even astonishing thing: the necromancer’s strict mental command going out to his warriors and thralls alike, that they must not eat of the flesh of these men and beasts!
Then what was the point of it? Revenge? But for what? And anyway, wouldn’t that be the sweetest revenge of all: to eat your enemies? But no, the necromancer Lord Nestor Lichloathe had other ideas and gave his men other orders. At his command his monsters had quit their wrecking and ravaging, and headed for the open savanna, and his men where they had spread themselves out around the low fence enclosing this secret community .. . had set fire to the place!
And as the flames roared up and the surviving inhabitants attempted to escape into the night-dark woods, instead of taking prisoners or recruiting thralls, Nestor had caused his men to throw them back into the fire!
But here a weird — distortion? - of memory; of Zahar’s memory, at least, for Canker was merely reviewing what he had glimpsed in the lieutenant’s mind:
Those terrified figures fleeing -some stumbling, even crawling - from the flames, but only to be thrown back again. Able-bodied? No, not a one of them! There was no fight in them. They were weak, crippled, broken people, these. But crippled by the warriors? Ravaged by the heat of the conflagration? Broken in their bones by flying debris from their collapsing houses? - Or what?
Their silhouettes against the leaping flames: grotesque, misshapen, twisted - incomplete? At first it had seemed that their clothes must be in tatters, but … this was no distortion! For suddenly it had dawned on Zahar that they themselves were the tatters!!!
And now it dawned on the dog-Lord, too, and as simply and as devastatingly and as mind-blastingly as that, he knew:
That Nestor had burned a leper colony!
The rest of it - total understanding of Nestor’s predicament - came like a clap of thunder, even as Canker descended into Mangemanse. And, shivering and shuddering, he went to his rooms and called for one of his pups, a trusted lieutenant, to attend him. Then:
The internal route up into Suckscar,’ he told his man in
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something of a whimper, or a whisper at least. ‘Have it sealed tonight, at once, now! No one shall pass that way again; nothing shall pass that way, not even air or light!’
‘Yes, Lord,’ said the other, gawping. ‘Is that all?’
Canker nodded absent-mindedly, then gave himself a shake. ‘No, something else. Wratha the Risen may call for the Lords, myself included, to attend her war-council. All well and good, except I may not hear her; I’ll be at my devotions in the cavern of my instrument. I want you to listen for her call, and alert me when it comes.’
‘Yes, Lord.’
Then be about it.’
The other departed. But on his way from the dog-Lord’s apartments, loping through the mazy passageways and halls of Mangemanse, he gave a massive start. Coming from behind him, passing him by, and filling all the manse with its throbbing ululations, such a long-drawn out, mournful howl of a cry as never before was uttered! Doleful and doom-fraught, finally it tapered to a sob and died away.
The lieutenant shook his head worriedly, and went about his duties as instructed . ..
IV Devetaki’s Lure
Some thirty-five minutes earlier, Devetaki Skullguise and her small reconnaissance party had landed on the boulder plains in the vicinity of the glaring hemisphere Gate. A cursory, purely visual examination of the phenomenon had told the Lady nothing, but acute Wamphyri senses had warned her to leave well enough alone. Whatever the Gate was, at present it was quiescent and probably better that way.
Before landing, she and her men had spied Gorvi’s warrior where it lay recuperating in the lee of a boulder clump; failing to recognize her but sensing that she was Wamphyri, it had issued vile gases and a warning honk, but made no violent movement. Patently the thing was injured, which meant very little; sometimes an injured warrior was all the more dangerous.
Since she had brought no fighting beasts of her own with her, only the speediest flyers on what was mainly an exploratory trip, Devetaki ignored the creature for the moment but sent a messenger back to Vormulac to report its location. There was sufficient meat here to fuel Lord Unsleep’s beasts through all the long night ahead and for some time to come. His men would have other needs, however.
Taking off again, she had ventured south for the mouth of the great pass, and rising above it to a position approximately central in the width of the range, had sensed human thoughts in the darkness of the canyon yawning below. Landing on a plateau east of the pass, Devetaki had cautioned her thralls to silence while she, a highly skilled
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mentalist, attempted to ‘listen-in’ on the minds of those below.
That they were not Szgany was immediately apparent, for the Szgany of Sunside had long since learned to shield their minds from Wamphyri probes. Come sundown, they were expert at suppressing, disguising, diffusing or thinning their thoughts; they became moths, owls or foxes in the night. Also, in olden times in Turgosheim, they’d had a trick of smearing themselves with foul oil of kneblasch, so discouraging investigation; but as often as not the stink itself had located them, and the oil could always be removed. Oh, the Szgany were wise in the ways of the Wamphyri, and vice versa; wherefore, these men in the pass were not Szgany. But if not Travellers, Starside trogs or desert Thyre - and definitely not vampires - then what?
Ah, but these were strange new lands, perhaps inhabited by stranger people! As well to listen to their minds a while, Devetaki thought, and see what she could glean.
But what she gleaned . .. was fantastic!
Two of the minds were powerful, talented, skilled in the psychic arts. One was a seer, a locator: he could scan afar to discover other minds, enemies. And even though he was sleeping when Devetaki ‘visited’ him, still she must be careful not to announce her presence. Ah, and his mind was dark, too; treacherous, cunning. In the olden parlance, a ‘magician’, this one, and sinister.
And the other .. . was little different! Except not only was his mind very powerful, he himself was a Power - or saw himself as such, at any rate. A commander of men, he should make a fine lieutenant. And all of the men with him were his; he was their commander! His talent .. . was Devetaki’s! A mentalist, he could read minds ‘at a glance’, and accurately. But the glance was all-important; he needed eye-to-eye contact to see in through the windows of the mind.
A pair of them, then: magicians!
And the men with them? A dozen at least, some wary,
even worried, but mainly full of an alien self-confidence. Strong men: soldiers! And all of them with a good understanding of discipline, strategy, tactics - the very stuff of their profession! They had all of those skills which the Lords of Turgosheim had long forgotten; yet these were common men!
Or uncommon men?
Self-confident, aye, but an alien self-confidence, as she had already noted. And now Devetaki looked closer:
They had weapons and slept with them; or if not with them, they kept them so close to hand it made no difference. Several of them dreamed of war, and of using those weapons. Except … Dev
etaki could scarcely credit what they dreamed; surely these were fantasies! But then, was it also a fantasy that these men had come into her world through the portal of the glaring Starside hemisphere, that cold white globe bedded in its crater on the boulder plains? And again she thought of Maglore the Mage in Turgosheim, and what he had said of the Old Wamphyri, that there had been magicians among them who .. .
… called up Powers they couldn’t contain, which was the beginning of the end. For in a cataclysmic war, such weapons were brought to bear against them that they were destroyed in all of their houses …
Then, but more carefully yet, Devetaki went back to the mind of their commander. And probing however gently, she read his purpose here: conquest! No less than Wratha when she had fled from Turgosheim, and no less than Vormulac now, this one would subdue this entire world and bring it under the sway of his home world beyond the Starside Gate. But no, Devetaki saw that she was wrong. It had been his purpose to usurp Sunside/Starside, perhaps for alien masters, but that was before they banished him or caused him to flee from them.
Now he had another purpose. He would still conquer this vampire world, yes - but for himself!
Why, this one’s daring, his ego and aspirations were as
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great as those of Wratha herself. Even as great as Vormu-lac’s. Possibly as great as Devetaki’s! Nor was it blind ambition; he knew what he was up to, what he went up against … something of it, anyway. And just like his men, he put his faith in the power of those alien weapons.
Devetaki must probe deeper, but he wasn’t long asleep and she must be careful not to disturb him. That sensitive mind of his might possibly discover her there. Or if not his mind, perhaps that of his locator companion.
Thus it was that concentrating, concentrating, a Lady of the Wamphyri gazed upon Turkur Tzonov’s innermost dreams and ambitions …