by Brian Lumley
The Lady’s observations had taken no more than a moment or two, and meanwhile Vormulac had outlined the task in hand. It was now Devetaki’s turn to speak. Describing the location of the keep, she offered to lead Wamus and his raiders to the canyon’s rim directly overhead. Because Vormulac was aware of the deadly weapons of the party in the pass (and also because Devetaki did not wish to appear too determined with regard to Wamus’s removal), she was not remiss in explaining the perils of the mission. Finally she concluded:
‘Lord Unsleep saw at once that this was a task which you alone were equipped to undertake. From the bed of the pass and faced with superior weapons, it might seem impossible. But the keep stands in the sheer face of the canyon from which it was carved, and you may go where lesser “flyers” may not. To such as you, access should be no more difficult than entering into your own Wamscarp. By window or balcony .. . whichever you may choose.’
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Wamus looked at her, and she at once guarded her secret mind. He made no attempt to probe her, however, but merely inquired, ‘Entry may not be gained by use of common flyers? Are there no landing-bays?’
‘None,’ she answered. The keep, while fairly extensive, is an observation post or way-station, nothing more. But it’s also an important vantage point, securing the pass. Also, you should know that great honour attaches: Lord Unsleep and I are agreed that in the event of your taking it, you shall keep it. Thereafter the pass shall be named “Wamus Pass”, and the keep in the canyon, “Wamskeep”!’
Wamus drew himself up, filled his lungs, and for a moment his tiny eyes glittered more brightly yet. But then, blinking rapidly, he said: ‘Vormulac and … you? The virgin grandam of Masquemanse, called Skullguise? Do you say you are agreed? But how is it you have the right, Lady?’
‘As the warrior-Lord’s chief adviser, I have it,’ Devetaki answered.
The other nodded, blinked again and thought on what he’d been told. ‘And .. . the keep shall be mine -?’
‘- To use to our mutual advantage,’ she reminded him.
‘And .. . my name shall be on the keep and on the pass?’
Vormulac put in, ‘In honour of your victory, yes.’
‘So be it.’ Wamus bowed from the waist. ‘Only allow us a few hours’ resting time and we shall be ready. I go to make my plans.1
‘And I to take nourishment in Sunside,’ Devetaki told him. ‘Shall we meet here, then, in a matter of — what, six hours?’
Wamus nodded. ‘Midway between now and midnight, aye.’ And bowing again to Vormulac, he and his bloodsons turned and went back through the time-carved pumice curtain into their temporary camp.
Then Vormulac said to Devetaki, ‘Lady, there are things I must see to: the setting up of ambushes, blockades and observation posts and so forth. Call me when you’ve eaten and rested, and I’ll be ready. We’ll see how well or badly
Wamus fares when faced with these deadly weapons of yours.’
But as they parted company, Devetaki was aware of Vormulac’s hooded eyes upon her. More to the point, she also felt his feeble, inferior telepathic probe - and turned it easily aside …
In a cavelet off Nana Kiklu’s care-cave, where she saw to the requirements of the elderly whom Lardis Lidesci had given into her charge, Nathan slept in his Misha’s arms ‘like a dead man’; which wasn’t at all the cliche that it sounded. For, as Nathan knew only too well, the dead do ‘sleep’ from time to time, not only to escape the ennui of their condition, but to rest their ever-questioning minds. For when inquiring mind - a no longer physical but metaphysical factory of questioning and reasoning, of calculation and conception -is all that remains, then, uninterrupted, the mental pursuits of a person’s lifetime follow exponential curves almost to infinity. But while most questions have answers and problems solutions, others appear insoluble or form merely the nuclei of even greater problems. And even dead minds can become exhausted.
As for Nathan Kiklu, or ‘Keogh’, as he now rightly considered himself: his mind and body were anything but dead, although they felt it, and especially his body. For in the last two ‘days’ Earth-time — parallel Earth, the Earth beyond the Starside Gate - Nathan had performed the physical work of at least two men, and the metaphysical work of just one man before him: his father, the Necroscope Harry Keogh. And where work such as that was concerned, Nathan was the only one who could perform it, for he was the new Necroscope.
But for all that he was physically exhausted, or perhaps because of it, his sleeping mind - galvanized by the events of the recent past and the mixed emotions evoked by his return to his homeworld - went on in a whirlwind spiral of recollection, reflection, even re-acclimatization to the old-
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but-new environment of Sunside/Starside. It might best be thought of as a kind of jet-lag, but between universes as opposed to continents. And as the sprinter continues to run in his sleep, or the long-distance cyclist goes on pedalling, so Nathan continued to dream, to remember, and even … to communicate, eventually.
Not unnaturally, his most lucid memories, and the happiest ones, were uppermost in his mind: he dreamed of the occurrences following immediately upon the battle for Sanctuary Rock, after Gorvi the Guile’s lieutenant, Turgis, had undergone interrogation by Lardis Lidesci - and after he’d uttered his last curse and died the true death in a Szgany firepit.
And because it was all so fresh, the dream was as real as life, more nearly a vivid recollection than a dream proper . ..
Wearily, they made their way back to the Rock across a battlefield mainly cleared of the debris of war. A warrior burned in its own fats, kept going by the blazing faggots which Lardis’s men tossed into the heat and the stench .. . A flyer seemed grotesquely perched upon an agony-arched framework of red-glowing, skeletal cinder wings, its long neck gradually slumping in the melt, parting from its body and issuing sooty scraps and sparks that drifted to the sky in a column of smoke … A lieutenant’s bloodied gauntlet lay where he had left it; his clenched fist, severed from the wrist by a keen machete, was still inside.
Noticing this loathsome relic in passing, Lardis growled: ‘Have someone deal with that, Andrei, if you please. I want no bits left over to contaminate the clean earth. No, for I swear by my star that the very air these bastards breathed was tainted forever!’
Lardis, Andrei Romani, a handful of the Rock’s senior men and Nathan, Trask, Chung and the three cavers, they all walked together, many of them shakily, stepping carefully near warrior-traps left untouched by the fighting, whose camouflage of fresh-cut gorse and green-woven withe showed intact through the thinning mist. But as the last of
the Rock’s defensive systems fell behind, and a path through the scree-strewn approach lay clear ahead . ..
… A sudden eruption! From Sanctuary Rock’s main cavern entrance! Nathan should have been expecting it, for it wasn’t the first time, after all. Word of his return had found its way back to his mother in the Rock, where she cared for the Szgany Lidesci’s old ones. And knowing that her son was alive, right here and now … nothing in earth, air, fire or water could have kept Nana Kiklu from him! Not only his mother but Misha, too, his young wife who shared Nana’s duties with her: both of them came at a run, then stumblingly, finally halting even as the men halted. And Nathan looked at them looking at him.
Misha was desperate to be in his arms; her breast heaved and her eyes were full of him, and full of a mist that threatened to brim over, too. But she held back in deference to his mother, who stepped forward and slapped him! -Then gazed at her stinging hand in wonderment and burst into tears! And no one, not even Nathan, had ever seen Nana do that before!
But he knew why, and so did all the others. So that Nana was the only one who was surprised! Then the pile-driver force of her as she flew into his arms, so that he must lean forwards to meet her or be knocked off his feet. And feeling her against him, knowing she was safe - and therefore that he was safe - as his eyes transfe
rred to Misha. Misha, who was calmer now and waiting her turn, but who nevertheless had that look about her that said, you are realJy for it now, my lad!
Finally Nana released him and, half-flinchingly, blinking his eyes, Nathan turned to Misha. Then … all the men with him bursting into nervous laughter as she cocked her head, narrowed her eyes and wagged a finger, gave a strange, whimpering little cry and fell into his embrace; fell to with a barrage of kisses that threatened to slurp his face off! And finally Nathan knew that he was home.
Before they could go off together, however:
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‘Nathan,’ growled Lardis. ‘We’ve things to talk about. Me and mine, you and yours. Time later for … well, proper greetings. But much to say and do, and little enough time as it is. The ladies will have to understand.’
‘How long?’ Nana and Misha were at once anxious. And Misha protesting: ‘We, too, have questions, things we want to know!’ Then, giving Nathan that look again: ‘I thought you were gone forever — dead, undead, drained of life: a flame-eyed thrall in Wrathstack!’
But his mother shook her head. ‘She knew you weren’t, and so did I.’
‘You knew?’ He looked from one to the other.
His mother shrugged. Her eyes were dry now, but sarcasm dripped as she said: ‘Of course! The sun continued to come up in the mornings, didn’t it?’
And Misha smiled and added, ‘And the stars shone bright as ever at night!’ Szgany fondness.
Then Nana again: ‘Very well, go and talk. But Lardis, only for an hour - I hold you to it!’ He was possibly the greatest Szgany leader ever, whom even the Wamphyri held in some regard … but still it was an order. And without waiting for an answer, the two women went off. Then:
‘Come,’ said Lardis. ‘I have rooms in the Rock.’ But as he lead them in through the main entrance, the Old Lidesci turned and said to no one in particular, and to everyone, ‘Except for essential duties, get your heads down. Pass it on: you’re to get what sleep you can, for before too long I’ll be having you all up again. So start dusting off your carts and travois, you lads. Aye, for we’ll all be Travellers again by morning!’
Most of Sanctuary Rock’s friable, chalky base was buried in the roots of the foothills rising to the barrier mountains. Water action in some earlier age had carved most of its cavern systems; what else could be excavated by hand had been, and it was scarcely surprising that Lardis had found evidence of prehistoric habitation. Even now the Rock made an excellent camp and fortress; with its
constant temperature, and alveoli cavelets to house Lardis’s people, it was quite literally a sanctuary - or had been until now. Above the chalky base, however, the material of the Rock was a hard sandstone turning to granite halfway to the dome. Since geology was an unknown science, the Lidescis could scarcely be expected to know that the whole Rock was an extinct volcano’s plug which had weathered out and ‘toppled’ from on high, to where it now stood on its head.
But the Rock’s caverns extended upwards only to the sandstone level, and to the rear as far back as the foothills’ bedrock; so that while, on the one hand, the Rock had seemed a safe place, on the other, it had been a trap. Which was why the Old Lidesci had cut escape routes through the chalk and sandstone to the overgrown rising ground of the foothills on both sides: cramped tunnels that were large enough for men, difficult for anything as bulky as a vampire Lord, and quite impossible for their constructs. If ever the Wamphyri, their thralls or monsters should invade via the main entrance, Lardis would escape through his boltholes and use crude but effective gunpowder to bring the entire thing down on whatever was behind him!
Lardis had a large low-ceilinged cave high up and to the rear of the maze of caverns and fissures that formed Sanctuary Rock’s interior. Since opening the place up, exploring and occasionally excavating its extensive systems, room had been made for all of the Lidesci tribe. But only the fortunate few, with ‘apartments’ on the rim, close to the external wall or face of the Rock, had natural light and ‘rooms with a view’. This occurred where the Rock was pitted right through to its cysts or caves, forming windows or air shafts to the outside world. In the higher caves these windows made excellent view-ports, allowing observation of the countryside all around. As leader of his people, Lardis could have had an airier place; instead, he had denied himself and apportioned all of the perimeter rooms to the old folk and families - which was typical of him. But
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at least his place was large, with room to accommodate all of his senior men whenever Lardis called a meeting.
Here it would be dark, black as the pit, but for candles in niches in the walls. One of these was lit but guttered low; Lardis, leading the way with a flaring torch (also with a warning to keep heads low), touched fire to the other candles and set the place to glowing yellow. Now the group could talk and make proper introductions.
Feeling compressed, if not claustrophobic, Nathan sat opposite Lardis at a huge, low, oval table. Everything was low; the ceiling, an uneven blotchy surface scant inches overhead, was festooned with stalactite nodes which would raise unpleasant lumps if they should come into sudden, accidental contact with a man’s forehead or face. Ben Trask sat on Nathan’s left, David Chung on his right; the three cavers sat next to Chung, with four of Lardis’s men opposite.
There were faces Nathan knew of old, others he had rarely seen, or never. But he was certainly glad that Andrei Romani was there; and the wiry hunter Kirk Lisescu, grinning ear to ear and eager to have a word with his young friend as soon as the opportunity presented itself.
For of course to the ones Nathan knew, he was a new Nathan! First, his absence of three long years, when he’d wandered among the desert-dwelling Thyre and dwelled in the Seer-Lord Maglore’s Runemanse in Turgosheim; now his absence of months, since the time when he’d been stolen away by a Wamphyri flyer and no one had known if he were dead or alive - or somewhere in between. And on both occasions changes in him, some fairly dramatic and others less so, but startling anyway to the few who had been close to him in the old days.
For one, he was no longer a bumbling, blushing boy but a man, and one as rare as silver or mirrors or kneblasch in an aerie at that! And for another, he was no longer blond as new straw, but wore grey streaks in his temples that loaned him years he’d not yet lived and an air of esoteric knowledge
even stranger than the unspent years. And he was no longer pale but a tan different again from the weathered-in look of the Szgany: the result of his time spent in the more frequent daylight of Earth, especially the light of the Greek islands. Finally:
‘Necroscope!’ Lardis Lidesci declared decisively.
And Kirk Lisescu added, with a wink and a nod in Nathan’s direction, ‘Aye, and your father’s son right down to that faraway look in your eyes!’
Kirk sat on Lardis’s left, and was rewarded with an elbow in his ribs. ‘But that’s knowledge that stays right here!’ Lardis cautioned him sternly. ‘It’s for us to know - for us in the know -and no one else!’ He glared all around the table. ‘Nana Kiklu lives with us; she’s a good woman whom I’d protect with my life, even as she protected my own Lissa upon a time! No rumours, no wagging tongues, no sniggering old biddies who begrudge Nana her looks and would definitely begrudge that she once loved the Necroscope, Harry Keogh!’
Lardis could be outspoken, which was how he preferred it. It was out in the open now and no more pretending. ‘Anyway, her Hzak was dead - and died a brave man, of the vampire shit in a Lord’s bloody gauntlet, which poisoned him - and the Lidescis were reduced. By my own orders, widows were taking new husbands, and widowers new wives … so why shouldn’t Nana? It wasn’t her fault she fell for Harry Hell-lander! So then, let no man criticize Nathan or his mother, and certainly not his father! Without Harry Keogh we were all dead men long and long ago. Well, like father like son: it could be that without Nathan we’d be dead tonight — or stumbling over the boulder plains to Wrathstack -
or turned to living slime in some Lord or Lady’s vats!’
Again he glared all about. ‘Is it understood? All regarding Nathan stays here. Nothing of it goes outside. If a man of you has trouble with that, leave now - but when you go, leave anything you heard behind you! If not, you’ll have me to deal with later …’ No one moved, nor even shuffled.
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‘Good!’ said Lardis.
And Andrei Romani, on Lardis’s right, said: ‘Good, aye! And so what, anyway? He’s not the only bastard here — I’m one myself, and both of us good ‘uns!’
The rest of them laughed (including, Nathan couldn’t help but notice, Trask and Chung!) But the three cavers sat silent, looking mystified. They might glean something from all of this; at least it gave them the opportunity to hear the Szgany tongue used more extensively, and perhaps pick up a few words. But in any case they were Nathan’s men, and so should stay with him in his group, where he could translate or instruct as required.
As for the subject of Lardis’s stern warning and Andrei’s good-hearted joking:
Nathan wasn’t embarrassed. He might have been, long ago, but no longer. Both the living, and the dead of another world, its Great Majority, had explained to him how there was nothing to be ashamed of in his father. On the other hand, there was a certain something about his ancestry -more properly, his family - that disturbed him; something which remained undisclosed as yet. Desiring it to stay that way, he now took the initiative and said: ‘Lardis, before we begin: a little information, if you’ll oblige me - to bring me up to date?’
The way he said it made Lardis look at him in the flickering candlelight. For, surely, information was what they were here about, unless there was some secret meaning? And there was, for it was written on Nathan’s face plain to see by the Old Lidesci where he sat directly opposite. Wherefore Lardis must give Nathan his head, to see where the lad would gallop. And so: ‘Aye?’ he said. ‘Go on. What is it you would know?’