by Brian Lumley
‘Misha,’ he continued, ‘there’s something that only Lardis and a few of the others know about me. They know … yet don’t know; because they can’t know, not with any real understanding! They accept it, and then they forget it. And because I’m just a man, they accept me without thinking about this other … business. That’s because they don’t want to think about it. But you are my wife. You should know, because you must live with me.’
She looked into his eyes, this way and that, as if to see if anything were hiding in them. ‘Is it so very terrible, this thing about you? If so, it’s strange I never noticed it before. Is it like your mentalism, something new?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’ve always had it. Ever since we were children. I can’t remember a time without it. But you see, I could hear them talking to each other even then, and now they talk to me, too.’
‘Them? They? Your secret army?’ He was so quiet, and his eyes so strange. ‘Nathan, I think I’m a little frightened.’
That broke his mood, brought him out of it. Fear was the
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last thing he wanted, not in Misha. If he showed her now, she might think him a monster. He would proceed more slowly, take her to the barrier mountains, introduce her to his wolves and let her see the rest of the strangeness first -and save the strangest till last.
‘Put it aside,’ he said, almost sighing his relief as he turned abruptly away from Rogei.
‘But you said -‘
‘No, let it be. It can wait.’
‘Nathan!’ She put her hands on her hips.
And: She’s right, you know, said Rogei, that extinct old man of the Thyre. Right to be annoyed - even as I am annoyed! The last time you were on the run, it was from Life itself, and this time it’s from Truth! What is she, a weakling, this woman of yours? And are you a weakling, too? I think not. Show her, my son - or let me show her.
‘Who are they, who talk to you?’ Misha would not be moved, not now.
Nathan held out his arms helplessly. ‘Them,’ he said, his eyes moving about the cavern, its niches and ledges. These .. .’
‘These,’ she looked. These .. . dead creatures?’
The Thyre,’ he said. ‘Not creatures but men. Oh, different from the Szgany, I know, but still men. And Starside trogs, too. And our own people; I mean, the dead of our people, yes.’
‘You .. . talk to them?’
‘Don’t ask me to prove it.’
But: Let her ask you! said Rogei. For you can prove it!
‘Nathan, I —’
‘Come on,’ the Necroscope said, conjuring a door. ‘Let’s go and talk to some wolves of the wild - my nephews! Perhaps if I can make you believe in that. ..’
‘Wolves? Your nephews? Nathan, I -‘
He had moved her back to the centre of the cavern; now he would take her into the Mobius Continuum again. But as he made to do so -
- Nathan! said Rogei. Farewell! But it was the way that he said it, his deadspeak voice hoarse with some nameless emotion.
Nathan looked back, and Misha’s eyes followed suit, glancing towards the source of some half-sensed movement: the flickering light of the candles, perhaps? But no, it wasn’t that.
Rogei the Ancient lay in his niche as before. Except … his skull head had turned to look at them through empty socket eyes, and one slender skeleton hand was raised in a gesture of farewell!
It was the first time that Nathan had seen it for himself. But now he knew beyond any further doubt that it was true. And Misha … she also understood.
As she collapsed with a sigh into his arms, Nathan told Rogei: I don’t know if I should thank you or what.
Nor do I! I did what I thought was right. His bony hand fell loosely to his side; his head lolled on the crumbling column of his neck; he was just a dead thing.
‘She’ll be all right,’ Nathan said. The mountain air will revive her. And anyway, you’re right: she had to know.’
Was it… unseemly?
Nathan shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you ever acted in an unseemly way in your whole life, Father,’ he said. ‘And certainly not in death.’ With which, he carried Misha through the waiting door . ..
.. . And out again into the heights over old Settlement. But as she stirred in his arms, he sent: Blaze, where are you?
Closer than you think, Uncle! Between Settlement and Twin Fords that was. In the heights with your nephew Grinner, where we rest. A few miles, which to you is as nothing.
And you know where I am?
Indeed! I know … directions, yes! Myself and my brothers, we all know the directions.
Nathan understood: his nephews had the dog or wolf
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sense of direction, but enhanced by the blood of the Necro-scope, come down to them through The Dweller from Harry Keogh. He’d sensed it in them before, in their wolf-equivalent of the numbers vortex. Where he had mastered metaphysical numbers — the maths of space and time - their expertise lay in orientation. Blaze had known instinctively where he was. But his was a two-way talent; Blaze’s own co-ordinates stood out so clearly in Nathan’s mind that he could pinpoint the wolf’s location within inches. Wait, he said, and went there.
Misha came to as he arrived and carried her into the moon-and starlit saddle between peaks where Blaze and Grinner had met up to rest a while. For they and their divided pack had been about their allotted duties: keeping watch on the comings and goings of the Wamphyri. Dock, too, beyond the great pass; he had performed the same duties, but closer to the temporary camp of the vampires out of Turgosheim -too close. Dock’s story was a sad one, which Nathan had still to learn.
Nathan spread his jacket and sat the bemused Misha down on a flat-topped boulder. It finally got through to her where she was — and in whose company — and she made to spring up again! But Nathan sat beside her, put his arm around her and held her in position.
‘You have nothing to fear from them,’ he said. These have always been “my” wolves.’
‘Your wolves?’ She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, and again, but fearfully, at the animals surrounding them. ‘I … I always thought that was a false memory, or a dream out of childhood. I remember a strange rare time; there was snow on the barrier mountains; the wolves came down and you and Nestor .. . you played with them! We were just children at play. No one else saw. When we went home and I told my father, he laughed! I didn’t talk about it again. And afterwards … I thought it was a dream, that it hadn’t really happened. Also, I seem to remember that you talked to them.’
These are the same wolves,’ he told her. ‘In this world they’re long-lived - not so in the hell-lands. But here, they have no natural enemies. Not in these heights, which are their places.’
But: We have enemies now, Blaze told him, padding closer, and sitting facing him. And these mountain places are no longer ours alone. Uncle, Dock is no more!
Nathan’s jaw fell open. ‘What? Dock? How .. .?’
Grinner had come, too; he sat with his head cocked on one side, grinning at Misha, in his fashion, who crept closer into Nathan’s arms. And shivering, she said, ‘You do talk to them!’
‘Shhh.” he hushed her. This is important.’ And to Blaze: ‘What about Dock? He has the high ground beyond the pass, am I right?’
He had it, aye. A nod of that unmistakably wise wolf head, with its blaze of frosted fur. He watched the Wamphyri, their movements, him and three of his best. They watched close up … too close, Uncle.
Nathan felt sick; such losses were too great to bear; his mother - Nana, whom he loved so dearly - and now this faithful one, Dock, with his bristly stump of a tail. Gone forever …
. .. But not too far, Uncle! Dock’s deadspeak voice in Nathan’s mind! For a moment it stunned even the Necroscope.
But why? Blaze inquired. How else could we have known? He is our brother. He is our brother, Uncle, just as your mother is your mother. And he is right: they are not gone t
oo far away.
Of course, for as Nathan should know only too well, death isn’t like that.
Misha had stopped trembling. She looked at them all, the grey brothers, all ringed about the rock where she and Nathan sat. And he was talking to them; to these two leaders, anyway! And Grinner with his head cocked, and that sly slavery look on his face … that almost human look.
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Until suddenly she remembered a myth or legend from her childhood. Perhaps more than a legend, for Lardis Lidesci had mentioned it time and time over again. But then again, Lardis was full of stories.
About The Dweller in his garden over Starside. A man — a hell-lander - who had become a wolf! Indeed, a werewolf! More than that, he’d been Wamphyri! A creature with Nathan’s powers: a mentalist, a teleport, a wolf … a vampire! And these wolves of the wild . ..?
The Dweller’s children!’ she gasped aloud.
Nathan looked at her where she clung to his arm, and saw what flashed across her mind. And they saw it reflected in his own mind, too. Like a question there, but such a question that he scarcely dared to ask. Blaze answered it anyway:
We are not Wamphyri. Something of them is in us, perhaps, as it is in most of the Szgany of Sunside. But the essence - that which makes them what they are — is not in us. The Dweller, our father, was Wamphyri, but he was different. He kept that of the wolf, and that of the man, but nothing of the vampire, not after his change. Or if he was Wamphyri, nothing of it got into us. We had it from our mother that he would not bring vampires into the world, but only wolves…
And Grinner said, Your mate fears me, and all I have is an itch behind my ear, and all I want is that she scratch it!
Almost absent-mindedly, Nathan reached out to scratch the place behind Grinner’s ear, and Misha watched in amazement. ‘A wild wolf!’ she said.
Nathan nodded. ‘But with a mind clever as a man’s - and stranger than you could ever guess!’ Then, to Blaze, as Misha gingerly fondled Grinner’s head: ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am about Dock. I mean, I know he’s still here, but - he isn’t here.’
We know. Blaze acknowledged his grief. And in a moment: Would you know about the Wamphyri?
That wasn’t why Nathan had come here, but knowledge was always useful. ‘What of them?’
They have places out on the plain of boulders, from which they spy on the last aerie. But as yet their main force is in the east, for they have not crossed the pass; not in any great numbers, and those that did cross have gone back. We think they will wait out tomorrow in caves, and at sundown spread out all along the ridge of the mountains. Then all of the grey brothers will be in trouble, with nowhere safe for us unless we flee far into the west, or down into Sunside’s forests. And the Travelling folk will have problems of their own.
‘If you come into Lidesci territory, men won’t hunt you, I can promise you that!’
We know it, Uncle …
Suddenly the pack was restless; the grey brothers and sisters stirred as one. Blaze and Grinner stood up, however reluctantly. And: Time we were on our way, said Grinner. Now we must hunt to live.
And Nathan nodded grimly. ‘So must I,’ he said … but in his mind, for them alone: But mainly I hunt to kill!
They understood. Good hunting, then. Blaze bared his fangs, and turned away.
They melted into the shadows, were gone into the crags and gulleys in a moment. A few heads turned; triangular eyes flared in the darkness and blinked out. It was as if they’d never been there at all.
But from far away (or so it seemed): One last thing, Uncle. It was Dock, his deadspeak. The Wamphyri of the last aerie kept supplicant Szgany in Sunside’s forests east of the pass. 1 suppose you knew that?
Yes, Nathan sent. Traitors to their own kind. What of them?
The army out of the east descended on them, destroyed them in great numbers! They are no more. Those who survived are fled deep into the woods.
Then they got their just deserts. Nathan could find little of pity for them.
Indeed they did! Dock barked. But what happened to me and mine was unjust! I make no complaint for myself, but
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my bitch goes without a mate. You said you wouJd hunt?
Yes.
Then hunt some for me (Dock’s low, threatening growl), in the place of the lava river east of the great pass. For that is where the Wamphyri butchered us, and ate the smelting hearts of me and my bravest!
And: I’ll hunt them there, Nathan promised him, with his eyes closed and his teeth clenched. Be sure that I will.. .
IV
A Plan of Campaign -Final Arrivals - Dead Allies
Back at the temporary camp, Misha was so weary that she could barely find strength to curl up under the stretched skin of an upturned travois and go to sleep. Nathan marked well her exact location, then sought out Ben Trask and Lardis Lidesci.
They were seated round a campfire with David Chung, Anna Marie English, Andrei Romani and the caver John Carling. At first, Nathan wondered about the advisability of the fire, but since the gutted heart of the old leper colony was still smouldering less than a hundred yards away, and sending up columns of dense black smoke into the night air, Lardis saw no harm in allowing one or two rather more friendly fires. Also, the Old Lidesci felt a lot more secure with the hell-landers around; their extraordinary weapons had given him heart.
Nathan sat down with them, and at once opened with: ‘It’s time we struck back. I think I have something of a plan, but I need to know what you think of it.’
This was what Ben Trask had been waiting for. Trask had known from the moment of Nana Kiklu’s death that it was coming, and soon. Now, seeing the grim set of Nathan’s jaw in the firelight - a look which reminded him more than ever of the Necroscope Harry Keogh -he knew that it was here. And so: ‘Let’s hear what’s on your mind,’ he said.
‘We’re well through midnight, fast heading for morning,’ Nathan answered. The Wamphyri know that, too; indeed, they’re more surely aware of it than we are. They can feel the steady motion of the sun, its gradual climb, even beyond
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the horizon and through the heart of the planet. So there isn’t likely to be much activity for the rest of the night. And I have it on good authority that the army out of Turgosheim is making camp for the coming day in dead volcanoes and caverns east of the pass.’
‘Oh?’ Lardis grunted. ‘On whose authority, exactly?’
But Nathan looked at him in that certain way, and Lardis shrugged and immediately fell silent. This wasn’t just any man who was talking. ‘I also have it,’ Nathan continued, ‘that the last aerie is in siege; Wratha the Risen is confined to Wrathstack; Vormulac Unsleep has watchers positioned on the boulder plains to report on her movements. If she or any of hers takes leave of the stack, they’ll be set upon and destroyed at once. There’ll be no more excursions out of Wrathstack, not without someone suffering the consequences.’ The Necroscope didn’t yet know that Vormulac was dead, but in any case what he had said was still correct in its essentials.
‘Huh!’ Lardis grunted. This warrior-Lord out of the east has cut off her supplies; she can’t get at us without fighting him! But if he is the greater of the two evils, how does that benefit us?’
Nathan’s turn to shrug. ‘At least while they’re standing each other off, they won’t have quite so much time to hunt for us. And come daylight, both parties will be in siege — pinned down by the sun! But we won’t be, and we’ll have to use every scrap of daylight to our best advantage. The sun is the single tried and true weapon which has never let us down. As for Vormulac: I fancy the warrior-Lord has made a big mistake.’
‘How so?’ Lardis frowned. The Old Lidesci would give anything to know where the Necroscope had been and how he’d come by his knowledge, but it was sufficient that he had it. And quite obviously Nathan wanted to get on; there were still things he would attend to this night.
The Turgosheim army
is - huge!’ Nathan must rely on what he’d learned from his wolves. ‘In order to fuel it
through the night and coming day, Vormulac has decimated Wratha’s supplicant tribes east of the pass.’
‘Just how .. . huge is this army?’ Lardis was cautious.
‘Hundreds strong,’ Nathan told him. ‘All of our hell-land weapons together won’t nearly be enough.’
Lardis’s face fell further yet. ‘And Vormulac’s error?’
‘His gluttony!’ Nathan answered with a shudder. The rest of the tribes east of the pass will be scattered and in hiding by now. No more easy pickings for Vormulac - but he still has to feed his army!’
Ben Trask cut in: ‘So what’s your plan?’
‘First, to get those weapons all together,’ Nathan told him. ‘For which I’ll need both you and David. You know exactly where you put those guns in that clump of boulders close to the Gate. Once we’re finished talking, I’ll go back and check that it’s safe. And then .. .’
‘We’re with you.’ David Chung spoke up. ‘We can be in and out in a few moments.’
Nathan nodded. ‘If the way is clear, yes. Then, I’ll need Andrei and possibly Kirk. They know Sanctuary Rock better than anyone else. The Rock is still stable - I hope! I left a fair cache of weapons up there, on the dome of the Rock. Hopefully, they suffered no damage when the Rock sank down on itself.’
That must have been a sight to see!’ Lardis breathed. T should have been there. Andrei has talked about it, but to have seen it…!’
And Trask said, ‘Andrei has also mentioned this, er, hell-lander you tangled with? From his description it could only be Turkur Tzonov.’