The Source

by Brian Lumley

  “Ah!—but I see the question in your eyes, Jazz. You’re thinking: whichever Lord created them from what? But haven’t I told you that they are masters of metamorphosis? Their creatures—all of their creatures, which take the place of machines in their society—were once men!

  “Don’t ask me the hows of it; I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think I could bear to know them. What I do know I’ll pass on to you, as time allows. But right now you’ve asked me what it was like for me when I first came here, and I’m telling you that the first things I saw—two of them—were Wamphyri warrior creatures. I saw them first, before anything else, in the same way you would notice a pair of cockroaches among ants. One: because ants are tolerable, while cockroaches are not. And two: because cockroaches are that much bigger, and so much more ugly!

  “Two of them, out there on that rock-strewn plain under the moon and stars. And I couldn’t believe their size! That they were fighting things was obvious: take a look at a picture of Tyrannosaurus Rex in a book of prehistoric animals and you don’t need to be told he was a warrior. These creatures were like that: with their weaponry, armour-plated, in all their utter hideousness, they couldn’t be anything else. It was only when I saw that they were quiescent, controlled, that I dared to take my eyes off them. Then, having observed the ‘cockroaches,’ as it were, I looked at the ‘ants.’ Seen in contrast, beside the warrior creatures and flying beasts, that’s what the Wamphyri looked like: ants. But they were the masters, and the monstrous giants their obedient slaves.

  “Try to picture it:

  “Out on the boulder plain, these two mountains of armour-clad flesh. Closer, a half-dozen flyers, all craning their necks and swaying their heads to and fro. And closer still, a few paces away from the shining dome of the Gate, the Wamphyri themselves come here to punish one of their own, a transgressor against the Lady Karen’s laws. I saw them, stared at them in a mixture of awe and morbid fascination, and they stared back at me. For they were here to thrust someone into the Gate, and the last thing they’d expected was that some other should come out of it!

  “There was Karen herself, and four subordinates—‘lieutenants’ if you like—and one other who was ugly as sin and draped in chains of gold. Now gold is a soft metal, as you know, Jazz, and easily broken. But not when its links are thick as your fingers! There was more gold in those chains than I’ve ever seen in my life in any one place, in one mass, and yet this Corlis who was decked in them wore them like tinsel! Corlis, that was his name; he was huge, a brute, and stark naked except for the gold. No gauntlet on this one’s hand, for he was in shame. But though he stood there naked, unweaponed, still his red eyes burned furiously and unrepentant!

  “The four who surrounded him were big men, too, but smaller by a head than their prisoner; they carried long sheaths of leather strapped to their backs, and in their hands slender swords. The sword, as I’d learn later, is a shameful weapon; only their evil gauntlets are considered honorable and fitting tools for hand-to-hand combat. Also, these swords were tipped in silver. And all four of them were pointed at Corlis, who stood there panting, his head lifted high, engorged with rage.

  “Behind their prisoner, and shielded from him by the four who guarded him, stood the Lady Karen transfixed. Sighting me, her red mouth had fallen open. Now, I’ll tell you something, Jazz—something which no woman should ever admit, which I hadn’t admitted, not even to myself, until that moment. Women are envious creatures. And the good-looking ones more so than others. But now I admit it because I know it’s true. Except I didn’t know how true until I saw this Karen.

  “Her hair was copper, burnished, almost ablaze; it reflected the white light of the dome like a halo over her head, bounced like fine spun gold on her shoulders, competed with the polished bangles she wore on her arms. Gold rings on a slender golden chain around her neck supported the sheath of soft white leather which she wore like a glove, and on her feet sandals of pale leather stitched in gold. Over her shoulders a long cloak of black fur, skilfully shorn from the wings of great bats, shimmering with a weave of fine golden stitches, and about her waist a wide black leather belt, buckled with her crest—a snarling wolf’s head—and supporting, on one rounded hip, her gauntlet.

  “A woman, an incredibly beautiful woman; or she would have been, if not for her scarlet eyes. Who or whatever these people were, she was one of them; indeed she. was the mistress of this group, their Lady. And before too long I’d know what they called themselves—Wamphyri!

  “She came forward, around the group standing there, and approached me where I crouched by the crater wall, with the half-space of the Gate at my back. Close-up she was even more beautiful; her body had the sinuous motion of a Gypsy dancer, and yet seemed so unaffected as to be innocent! Her face, heart-shaped, with a lock of fiery hair coiled on her brow, could have been angelic—but her red eyes made it the face of a demon. Her mouth was full, curved in a perfect bow; the colour of her lips, like blood, was accentuated by her pale, slightly hollow cheeks. Only her nose marred looks which were otherwise entirely other-worldly: it was a fraction tilted, stubby, with nostrils just a little too round and dark. And perhaps her ears, half-hidden in her hair, which showed whorls like pale, exotic conches. But golden rings dangled from their lobes, and all in all, and for all her weirdness and contrasting colours, still there was the look of the Gypsy about her. I could hear the jingle of her movements, even when there was none to hear …

  “‘Hell-lander,’ she said, in a tongue I wouldn’t have known without my talent to rely on. Languages are easy when you’re a telepath. But what I couldn’t recognize in her spoken words, I read in her mind—and she knew it at once! Her pale hand, crimson-nailed, flickered toward me, pointed, accused: ‘Thought-stealer!’

  “Then she narrowed those blood-hued eyes of hers, and when next she spoke her tone was thoughtful. ‘A woman, from the hell-lands. I have heard of men, wizards, coming through the portal, but never a woman. Perhaps it is an omen. I could make good use of a thought-stealer.’ She nodded, came to a sudden decision. ‘Give yourself up to me, and all your secrets, and I’ll protect you,’ she said. ‘Refuse me, and … go your own way, without my protection.’ But behind her as she spoke I could see the leers and the lusting stamped clearly on the faces of her henchmen. I thought quickly—for my life! If I didn’t go with her, wherever, then where could I go? Was there anywhere to go? Or … if I didn’t go with her, then where would I be taken?

  “‘I’m Zekintha,’ I told her. ‘And I accept your protection.’

  “‘Then you may call me the Lady Karen,’ she tossed her head, setting her hair ablaze where it bounced. ‘Now stand aside a little way. We’ve business here.’ And to her aides: ‘Bring the dog Corlis forward!’

  “Karen’s men shoved their prisoner to the fore; even chained, he might have turned on them, but their silver-tipped weapons pressed him close. They took off his chains, and as the last of these was being removed—

  “It was the moment he’d been waiting for!

  “Knotting that last length of chain about one great fist, Corlis whirled, flailed, sent his warders dancing back. Before they could gather their thoughts he’d released the heavy chain, sent it crashing into them. In another moment he laughed—a mad, reckless laugh—and leaped for the Lady Karen to snatch her up. ‘If I’m to be a victim of the portal, Karen, then so are you!’ he cried.

  “So, in the same way you brought Karl Vyotsky here, Jazz, Corlis had determined to take the Lady Karen out of here.

  “Now, clutching Karen to him, Corlis had almost reached the shallow crater wall. Here men were after him like hounds, but he had the advantage. It seemed that my one hope in this strange world was about to be removed from it. But Corlis hadn’t reckoned with me. As he dodged Karen’s retainers and the mouths of magmass holes, so he came close to where I crouched. Karen was kicking and biting him, but it made little difference. She was Wamphyri, but she was a woman, too. Finally, with the Lady tucked under one
arm, Corlis saw his chance and bounded straight for natural steps of stone where they climbed the crater wall. He was now within three or four short paces of the Gate. But as he lumbered past me, so I reached out my leg, and braced it … it was a simple as that.

  “He tripped; Karen went flying free, almost fell into one of the gaping magmass wormholes. Corlis got up on one knee, glaring his hatred and frustration at me. I was almost within reach of him. His arms reached for me and I backed away—but. God, Jazz, those hellish arms kept reaching! They stretched like rubber, straining after me, and I could hear the tearing of muscles and ligaments! His face—God, his face—it opened like a hinged steel trap, with rows of needle teeth that were visibly growing and curving out of his jaws! I don’t know what he was becoming—something utterly invincible, I’m sure—but wasn’t about to give in to him. Not to that.

  “My SMG was in my hands, had been there all the time. But I’m not a soldier, Jazz, and I had never killed. Against this, however, I had no other choice. I cocked the gun, (don’t ask me where I found the strength, for my muscles were jelly) and squeezed the trigger.

  “Well, as you know, bullets don’t kill them—but they do make a mess of them. The stream of fire I turned on Corlis was almost a solid wall of lead. It turned his trunk scarlet, punched holes in his chest and hideous face, blew him back away from me and sent him sprawling, flopping like a wet rag. And admidst the chattering madness of my weapon, everything else seemed frozen. In the relative quiet of Starside, that gunfire. must have sounded like the laughter of hell! And only when the magazine was empty did the noise abate, allowing its echoes to come thundering back from the hills.

  “Stunning, the effect—but then the tableau unfroze. urged on by Karen where she came to her feet, her men leaped toward Corlis. He sat up!—I couldn’t believe it, but he did. Already the holes were healing in his body, his bloody face sealing itself. He saw them bearing down on him with their silver-tipped swords and looked wildly all about. There!—a magmass hole; he stood up, all lopsided, crouched, sprang, went sprawling towards its dark mouth. In mid-air one of Karen’s retainers caught him; a sword flashed silver; Corlis’s head sprang free! His trunk crashed forward, spurting blood from its severed neck. Corlis’s dive took his twitching body down the magmass wormhole and out of sight. But his head lay grimacing, gnashing its evil teeth, where it had fallen.

  “Karen gave a cry of disgust, stepped forward and kicked the vomiting thing into another hole. Whatever Corlis had done, it must have been very bad. Scarlet stains were all that remained of him …

  “Karen looked at me, looked at the smoking gun in my hands. Her red eyes were wide now, making her face seem paler still. As well as the gun, she was aware of the rest of my kit; she couldn’t keep her gaze from straying to my packs, the nozzle of the flamethrower hooked to my belt, the sigil on the left-hand breast pocket of my combat suit. The latter finally impressed itself upon her and she stepped closer, peering at the crest. It was a hammer and sickle, of course, crossed with the bayonet of an infantry unit. Some small soldier had sacrificed his suit for me.

  “But it signified much more than that to the Lady. She pointed, stretched herself tall—perhaps in outrage—and spat words in my face. They came much too fast to be anything but a gabble; I read them in her mind:

  “‘Is that your banner? The curved knife, the hammer and the stake? Do you mock me?’

  “‘I mock no one,’ I answered. ‘This badge is merely—’

  “‘Be quiet!’ she added: ‘Also beware, for if your weapon so much as snaps at me, then I’ll feed you as a tidbit to my warrior creatures!’

  “My gun was empty and I didn’t dare try to reload. In a moment of inspiration I held it out, offering it to Karen; she at once shrank a little back from it. Then she scowled, knocked the gun aside, reached out and hooked her scarlet fingernails into the stitching of my pocket. She tore the offending blazon from me and tossed it away. ‘There!’ she said, and: ‘Do you denounce these signs?’

  “‘I do,’” I answered.

  “She nodded, became calm. ‘Very well,’ she said, —‘but be thankful I’m in your debt. You can tell me why you wore that—that insult—later.’ And she turned from me and made a motion to her men, who hurried down onto the plain and mounted-up on their flyers.

  “Karen made to move after them but I stood still, uncertain of what I should do. She saw my indecision, said: ‘Come, they’re waiting for us.’

  “She took me to one of the nodding, lolling creatures. It had been Corlis’s, I thought, for upon its back, where the neck stuck out, a cage of metal was bound in position. ‘Climb up and get in,’ Karen told me, but I couldn’t. I backed away, shook my head. My fear seemed to give her a lot more confidence—not that I thought she needed any!

  “She laughed: ‘Then ride with me.’

  “We went to the next unoccupied beast. Beneath its harness it wore a purple blanket huge as a carpet; the harness itself was of black leather with golden trappings, and the saddle at the base of the flyer’s neck was huge, soft and sumptuous. The thing lowered its neck and Karen grasped nodules and harness, drew herself easily aloft and into the saddle. I could scarcely bring myself to touch that alien flesh. She reached down, grasped my fevered hand in her own cool one, and with her help I mounted-up behind her.

  “‘If you get dizzy, cling to me,’ she said. And then we flew to her aerie. I can’t say more than that about the flight for my eyes were closed most of the way. And I did cling to her, for there was nothing else to cling to.

  “The aerie was a horrible place. It … Jazz?” Zek leaned across and looked at him. In his mouth, the cork tip of a cigarette stuck straight up in the air. Even as she smiled her soft, slow smile, a puff of wind blew half an inch of cold ash loose onto his chest, which began to rise and fall in a steady rhythm. And he had said he wouldn’t be able to sleep! Well, it was better that he get his rest. Better that she get some, too.

  But she wondered how much of what she’d said had gone in.

  As it happened, most of it had. And Jazz’s opinion of her hadn’t changed. She was a hell of a woman …

  The next fifteen miles weren’t so easy and Jazz began to understand what Zek had meant by “back-breaking.” After what he’d been through prior to and since leaving Perchorsk (and his own world) far behind, something a little less than three hours of sleep hadn’t seemed a great deal. Not in the way of preparation for this, anyway. The trail had been rough, winding up into higher foothills where tumbled scree made the going a veritable obstacle course; it had soon started to rain, a deluge which eventually petered out just as Lardis called for the second break. Here there were dry, shallow caves under broken ledges of rock, into which most of the Travellers dispersed themselves. Jazz and Zek likewise, peering out from their cramped refuge while the sky cleared and the low, unshakable sun began to aim its wan but still warming rays into their faces again.

  From this vantage point, as the air cleared and the sun sucked up and steamed away a swirling ground mist, Jazz was able to see why Lardis had chosen such a difficult route. Down below a forest stretched deep and wide, away out onto the Sunside plain. Crisscrossed with rivers tumbling from the mountains, the deep, dark green of the woods told of an almost impenetrable rankness. Up here the rivers were still streams, easily forded, but down below they tumbled through gulleys, joined up, finally broadened into wide watercourses winding through the forest. Good for hunting and fishing, certainly, but no good at all for trekking. The choice had been as easy as that: a difficult route or an impossible one. And of course the foothills did command a view of all the land around, a factor much to Lardis’s liking.

  “This time,” Jazz told Zek, “I believe I’ll sleep.”

  “You did last time,” she reminded him. “Are you beginning to feel the strain?”

  “Beginning to feel it?” He managed a grin. “I’m looking for a muscle that doesn’t ache! And yet the Travellers have these damned cumbersome travois to lug aroun
d, and I don’t hear them complaining. I suppose it’s like you said: I’ll get used to it. But I’d hate to think what it would be like for anyone who was unfit, or maybe an older person, stranded here.”

  “I wasn’t so fit,” she reflected. “But I’ve had more time to get myself broken in. I suppose in a way I was lucky that the Lady Karen got me first. And then that she was … well, a ‘Lady’, or as much of a one as her condition would allow her to be.”

  “Her condition?”

  “She has Dramal Doombody’s egg,” Zek nodded. “The Wamphyri Lord Dramal was doomed from the day he took a leper—which was how he came to be named that way. I’ll explain:

  “Leprosy is also part of the Travellers’ lot. They are prone to it. Passed on, inherited or simply contracted from another leper—don’t ask me. I don’t know anything about the disease. But when its symptoms start to show in a Traveller, then he’s kicked out. It happens now and then: his tribe simply abandons him. Or her. Dramal, in his youth five hundred years ago, took a female leper. She had the disease but it hadn’t started to show yet. The vampire Lord found her comely; he cohabited with her in his aerie; too late he discovered her curse.”

  Jazz was puzzled yet again. “You mean she passed it on to him? But I’m amazed that any of these terrible creatures have survived at all! Quite apart from the fact that they continually war with each other, they drink the blood of Travellers, have sex with Traveller women, generally leave themselves wide open to all sorts of diseases.”

  “And yet,” Zek answered, “in their own way they’re scrupulous. The true Wamphyri Lord or Lady is, anyway.”

  “Scrupulous?” Jazz was taken aback. “Are you serious?”

  She looked at him, stared unblinking into his eyes. “Cockroaches are also scrupulous, in their way. But all in all, the Wamphyri are … choosy, yes. Their retainers, their henchmen—generally Travellers who’ve been changed, vampirized but not given an egg, like those two you saw with Shaithis—they’re not so fussy. But as for ‘leaving themselves wide open to disease’: that might be true if they were wholly human. But as you’ve seen, they’re not. Once a man is vampirized his body becomes invulnerable to disease. That’s why they live so long. Even the aging process is defeated.”