Empire of Fear

by Brian Stableford

  ‘What of the medicine which made the aitigu?’ asked Noell. ‘You no longer make it, I assume, to save those in direst need from the silver death?’

  For the first time he had the satisfaction of seeing Kantibh startled, and even the solemn black vampires who silently flanked him gave some slight suggestion of surprise – but then Kantibh glanced briefly at the door, and Noell knew that he had remembered Berenike.

  ‘That secret was buried, long ago,’ Kantibh told him. ‘The aitigu who were ancestors to your Attila betrayed the trust that was placed in them. They had not wisdom, because they were not finished. Ekeji Orisha commanded that the secret be forgotten, and the arokin among the elders have erased it from their minds.’

  ‘It does not seem to be forgotten in Europe,’ observed Noell, drily.

  ‘It is buried,’ repeated Kantibh, ‘and gone forever from the world.’ By this crude insistence, the Persian told Noell the most valuable thing, in his estimation, that he had so far learned. It told him that it was possible – even likely – that the vampires of Europe were not made in the same way that their ancestors had been made in Adamawara. If that were true, he thought, then not all the ways in which vampires might be made were known in Europe. Perhaps – was it possible? – the way in which Attila had made vampires was not fully understood by the elders of Adamawara.

  ‘Perhaps it is better so,’ said Noell, with soft and silky insincerity. ‘But when the armies with their cannon come to conquer Adamawara, they will surely want to dig it up.’ He knew as he said it that it might be a foolish thing to say, but he could not resist the temptation. For more than a hundred days, it seemed, these men had put him to the question when he was helpless to resist, and heaven alone knew what he might have told them. He wanted to say things to them now which might cause them a little discomfort, if he could.

  Again, all three of the squatting men reacted, but not with any exaggerated alarm.

  ‘What army do you mean?’ asked Kantibh, coldly.

  ‘I do not know,’ Noell told him, boldly. ‘But you must know from what Quintus and I have told you that it can only be a matter of time. It may be the Fulbai, or other black tribesmen, or it may be the Mohammedans from the Arab nations, or it may be white men from Gaul; but in the end, they will come. So many others have come, have they not? One day, conquerors will come, with machines of death more powerful than any that the tribesmen have. You already know, I think, how hungry the Ashanti and the Edau are for guns. How long will it be, do you suppose, before the Oba of Benin and his soldiers decide that they need bend no longer to the will of the Ogbone?’

  ‘Where the Ogbone are,’ said the elemi called Aiyeda, speaking in a voice like rustling leaves, ‘the will of Olorun is. The Mohammedans may cross the desert, but they cannot cross the forest lands, which belong to Egungun. No one can. Ours is the heart of Olorun, and the breath of life. If you doubt it, you have not wisdom.’

  ‘The silver death is no threat to vampires,’ Noell told him. ‘Perhaps the Fulbai and the Mohammedans are helpless to cross the forest, but a legion of vampire knights would be an army of a different kind. One day, an army of the aitigu will come. ’

  ‘An army of the aitigu cannot march without blood, ’ said Kantibh, as though it settled the matter, but Aiyeda held up a hand to command him to be silent.

  ‘In your land,’ said the Oni-Shango, ‘Common men and aitigu are locked in enmity. You have told us this. You have told us that the common men of Gaul will rise against the aitigu and destroy them all. Which is your true prophecy? The one which you voice now, in cunning wakefulness, or the one which Shigidi brought from your mouth?’

  ‘I am not, alas, a prophet,’ Noell told him. ‘The future holds many possibilities.’

  But Aiyeda turned his head slightly, to signify his rejection of this statement. For him, there was only one future, whose shape was determined by his dark gods. To Aiyeda, a prophecy derived from god-guided dreams was worth infinitely more than any saying of a waking man, and he must have listened very carefully to what Noell had said while babbling in his dreams. Suddenly, Noell felt a small stab of contempt for the elemi, who did not know the true worth of reason. Perhaps it was a matter yet to be settled, who truly had the happiness of wisdom, and who did not.

  In fact, as Noell was quick to notice, it seemed from the way that Kantibh then took up the conversation again that future possibilities and probabilities were of some concern to the people of Adamawara, and that the elemi were not entirely content to rely on the messages of dreams, whether his or their own.

  ‘With every year that passes,’ said Kantibh, reverting again to Latin. ‘Gaulish ships come further south. It is said that some have already sailed around Africa to reach India. Why is this happening? Is it because your emperor hopes to extend his rule across this continent?’

  ‘I think not,’ said Noell. ‘The vampires do not like the sea. They never like to travel in small numbers, and seem uneasy with the thought that if they are pitched into the sea they will sink to the bottom in their strange deep sleep, there to be devoured alive by the grateful fish. A few vampires in charge of a loyal army do not fear mutiny, because everyone knows what a punishment would be visited upon mutinous soldiers, but the crew of a ship might always sail away to some safe haven. The ocean is vast, it seems, and there are too many islands upon it. The vampires who rule Gaul rarely trust themselves to the ocean, and they are content to leave the captaincy of ships to common men.’

  ‘Is it only common men, then, who have brought their ships to the Afric shores?’ asked Kantibh.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Noell told him. ‘The bravest of them love to sail the oceans because it frees them a little from vampire rule. It is common men who have learned how to make their vessels bigger and more clever, by combining the square and triangular sails. It is common men who are ambitious to enrich themselves by trading, and ambitious to discover new lands. The vampires have sometimes tried to stop voyages of discovery, but they are not entirely united in that purpose. Even the Spanish and the Portugese, whose adventures were severely inhibited in my father’s time, now venture forth freely, to compete with the British and the Dutch. But British ironwork is the best in the world, and the Dutch make the best ships, so it is the northern nations of Gaul which accomplish the greatest things upon the sea.

  ‘Some sea captains dream of finding another great continent on the surface of the globe, where Christian men might establish an empire of their own, to be defended against vampire invaders in the way that the Mohammedans defend their desert wilderness. Perhaps the vampires, under force of necessity, will take to the sea, in time, but the ships whose journeys are measuring the full extent of your shores are extending the interests of common men for now. It is of little concern to Ogbone.’

  ‘All which exists is the concern of Ogbone,’ said Kantibh, coolly. ‘Ogbone is the great guardian of the world, which makes it a fit and lawful place, and secures the well-being of the brotherhood of tribes.’

  ‘We have different ideas of well-being, I think,’ said Noell, still trying to find a vent for his spite against these men, who had abused him while he was helpless. He knew that his words were reckless, but for the moment he did not care.

  Aiyeda reached out a claw-like hand to touch Kantibh’s arm before the Persian could reply, and spoke again, in Uruba. ‘The gods have given us Ogbone,’ he said, ‘to make order in the world. There is a brotherhood of tribes, though there are many tribes in the world who do not know it. One day, all the tribes will accept Ogbone, and all men will know the will of Olorun. The aitigu who betrayed Ogbone will be called to account by the risen dead, and Oro will destroy the guilty. We are the breathers of life, and without us the tribes are beset by shame and strife. You do not know it, but Shigidi has helped you tell us the truth of the future. There will be war, in all the parts of the world where the will of the Ogbone is not there to contain it; that war will destroy the tribes which have set themselves outside the brother?hood, and thos
e which remain will accept the guidance of the elemi.’ He looked directly at Noell, his staring eyes as black and bright as a bird’s. ‘Do you know no ancestors of your own?’ he asked, softly. ‘Have you no babalawos, no arokin, to describe the shape of the future and the past?’

  Noell was surprised by the question. ‘We have a holy book,’ he said, ‘which tells us that we are descended from Adam and Eve, who lived in Eden, but were expelled for a sin they committed, whose stain upon the soul of mankind saddened the God which made us. The same book tells us that God sent his son to redeem us, and show us the way to Heaven, and it is promised that the son of God will return to earth again, to put an end to our troubles.’

  ‘We know the book,’ said Aiyeda. ‘But you do not believe it?’

  ‘No,’ said Noell, reluctantly, though he did not know why he should be reluctant. ‘I do not. Quintus is a believer, who trusts God and Jesus.

  I cannot. For me, past and future are alike unknown; the latter yet to be made by the hopes and desires of men. ’

  ‘And the vampires of Gaul?’ asked Kantibh. ‘What do they believe?’ ‘That,’ said Noell, ‘I cannot tell you. They have set their own pope upon the throne of St. Peter, and rule the Church as they rule all else in Gaul and Walachia, but their beliefs are not the same as the beliefs of common men. They keep the secret of their own beliefs because it includes the secret of their nature. The early vampire lords were not Christians, but pagans. Later, a few encouraged the Christian belief that vampires were demons, because it helped to make men fear them. Nowadays, they pretend instead to belong entirely to the Christian world. The new Churchmen preach the doctrine that men and vampires each have their place in God’s scheme, and that God has ordered the estate of each kind. But I cannot tell you what the Borgia pope really believes, and can only say that his is not the True Faith, but a masquerade.’

  ‘The truth is in Adamawara,’ said Aiyeda. ‘Without that wisdom, and the guidance of their ancestors, a tribe has no finished men, but only wayward children, who do not know how to live.’

  ‘What tribute do you extract from the tribes outside this valley, to whom you send vampires to serve as wise men?’ asked Noell.

  ‘None by force or obligation,’ said Kantibh. ‘They send many gifts, but it is neither asked nor expected. The wise ones return to the tribes as of right, for they are the ancestors of those tribes, and to them they belong in part, though they belong also to Adamawara.’

  ‘Do you produce everything that you need, here in the valley?’

  ‘Everything that we need,’ said Kantibh.

  ‘Do you smelt iron?’

  ‘No. We have little need of iron, for we do not make cannon, or any of the other follies of your world, but we have iron tools, sent to us by the Uruba, and tin from the Jawara.’

  ‘You know of the iron of Gaul, and the things which we make with it? Weapons and machines are not counted among the things which you need?’

  ‘They are not,’ replied Kantibh, dismissively. ‘It is the frailty of common flesh which gives you such regard for the products of your ingenuity. If your vampires love iron and the things which it makes, it is because they fear the common men whom they rule. Here, there is no fear, and no need of iron.’

  Noell looked again at the black vampire Aiyeda, who was still watching him intently. He knew full well, as he looked at those birdlike eyes which measured him, that he was telling them as much with his questions as with his answers, but it was a blade which cut both ways. Now that he was awake and aware, there was a great deal that he might discover, simply in finding out what they wanted to say to him. He still did not know what they thought of him, or what they intended to do with him. He was not even certain, now that he saw what they were like, what he ought to want of them, or what he might obtain if he was clever enough. But he would see Ogo-Ejodun; that much at least was promised. As for the making of heart of Olorun, which none was permitted to know, and the medicine which had been forgotten, he must wait to see what might be learned.

  ‘I am tired,’ he said, truthfully. ‘No more questions now. You will return, I suppose?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the Persian, smoothly. ‘We will return.’

  FIVE

  Noell sat tiredly upon his rough bed, regretting now its roughness. With the return of consciousness and sanity had come the return of petty discomforts and annoyances – small aches and pains. But it was not the things which he could feel which caused him most anxiety; it was the parts of his body to which feeling had not yet returned.

  The silver death had almost lost its grip on his flesh, but the stain still lingered in his lower legs and in his feet, whose numbness made it difficult for him to walk. He was eager to leave this grey cell and begin the work of exploring the house into which he had been taken – and after that the valley of Adamawara – but his body’s work of self-repair had not yet run its full course.

  When he pulled his right ankle up on to his left thigh, where he could conveniently massage it, he looked anxiously at the ashen mottling, which was in some places under the sole only beginning to fade. There were places on his left foot where the stain was still very black, and when he jabbed such places with his fingernails, which had grown long during his illness, there was no sensation of sharpness and no pain. He could feel the pressure, but only as a dull presence.

  Was this, he wondered, what vampires felt instead of pain, when they were so minded?

  His eye was caught then by the bundle of his possessions which had been placed in the room, at the foot of the bed. In an open pack, on top of other things, was the box which contained the microscope and its various accessories. It lay on top, he presumed, because it had been investigated carefully by his hosts.

  He pulled the box towards him, and found within it a small knife, whose blade was as sharp as a razor, and which he used for slicing thin sections of plant and animal tissue. Carefully, he placed the blade beside the darkest area of his foot which he could find, and he began to draw it across, scraping a thin sliver of flesh. He could feel the cut distinctly enough, but it was not painful.

  The first piece which he removed was only skin, almost translucent, and only slightly stained with black. The greatest concentration of abnormal colour was deeper, and he had to take a second cut before he produced a thin layer of flesh which was almost jet black in hue. The cut bled sluggishly, the blood discoloured purple, but it did not hurt.

  He placed each of the two slivers on glass slides, and then dipped his finger in the water-jug beside his bed. He dabbed a tiny drop of water on to each slide, with practised delicacy, and then laid other slides on top, so that the thin pieces of flesh were trapped.

  Quickly, he set up the microscope on the wide stone sill of the window, assembling the pieces rapidly but carefully. The light was well-nigh perfect, the sky bright and clear with the sun high above. It was easy to catch sufficient light with the concave mirror beneath the stage to let him see what there was to see.

  At first, he was disappointed. The first slide was very like many other pieces of skin which he had examined, with just a little diffuse colour. Even the second was less interesting than he had hoped, but he could see that the black colour was not evenly distributed within the flesh; it belonged, in fact, to structures which looked oddly like spiderwebs. He had seen their like before, when investigating certain moulds. So the silver death was something which invaded the body, and grew within it. It was a living thing, a kind of mould. What, then, of the changes which came into the body with it? What determined the loss of feeling in the affected parts? How was it responsible for that long, strange sleep, like and yet unlike the sleep into which vampires went when they were hurt?

  His mind went back to the explanation of his ideas which he had tried to give to Leilah in Burutu. Was it possible that the silver death changed the atoms of human flesh in some way, to make them more like the atoms of vampire flesh?

  He looked at the microscope quizzically, wondering whether it wou
ld show him more, if only he knew exactly what to look at. But it could not tell him what flesh was made of, or how one kind of flesh differed from another. It could show him the different appearances of skin and bone, muscle and blood, but not the difference between commoner and vampire.

  Was it possible, he wondered, that the heart of Olorun was nothing more than another kind of mould – found, like the silver death, in Adamawara and nowhere else? He could not believe it. It was not so simple. And yet the making of vampires was not so simple a matter as his father had thought, either, for however the elemi gave the heart of Olorun to the wise ones who earned it, it was not by common buggery or any other form of sexual intercourse. Nevertheless, it was not Satan, or any Uruba counterpart, who came from outside the earth to import his demons into the flesh of men; of that he was certain. Whatever took the place of the black semen of Satan, about which Guazzo wrote with such relish, it was something of this world, not of any supernatural realm.

  The truth, he told himself, was supposed by Francis Bacon to be manifest, if only we could cast down the idols of false belief, which prevent our seeing it. My father thought that he had cast down those idols, and that what remained was naught but buggery, but he was wrong. There is one more idol yet to be broken, but I do not know its name.