by Brian Lumley
Such reasoning, or unreasoning, was a word game that Malinari played with himself, perhaps to reassure himself …
Then there was this other, the one like a spindle, tall and thin, whose mind seemed singularly weird. Malinari had touched upon it that time in Xanadu, but only in passing; a tentative, cursory probe at best. Indeed, he had scanned the entire group, but since at the time he had been intent upon making an escape, there had been scant opportunity for any kind of in-depth probing. And as for the tall one—the “precog,” yes—his mind had seemed as open as a book, yet at the same time blank as a page as yet unwritten!
For it appeared that his mind held few memories for Malinari to steal—only his present thoughts, as fleeting as the moment—as if he made room for the future by obliterating the past, or as if for him time worked in reverse! Patently he remembered the past, but the focus of his mind was on the future. Definitely a very peculiar mind, and a talent that was stranger yet.
And again Malinari was prompted to ask himself: What use is a skill which is so unreliable? And if the future is so devious as to defy interpretation, how then may one use it to any great advantage … ?
They were all members of this E-Branch, these people, these esoteric defenders of their world, their Earth. Liz, a telepath like Zek before her. And Chung, with his batlike radar. Trask, who knew “the truth”—but who yet might be led astray, if one possessed the skill for it—and the precog, who had little or no faith in his talent at all!
These four, and how many others? For there were others, Malinari knew that for a certainty. So much at least he’d had from Zek’s mind before killing her: the fact that there were others. At least one more had been here with the group this very night, not long ago and not too far away. His signature was very faint and previously unknown—or at least Malinari had not separated it out before tonight—yet was vaguely familiar. If this were Sunside he would hazard a guess, indeed he would wager upon it, that this one was Szgany! That much he would know, if not where he was hiding. But this wasn’t Sunside …
And finally there was one other, absent now from the group, whose signature Malinari remembered from Xanadu. He remembered it … but wasn’t able to detect it, not tonight. Which was as well. For whereas Liz was a burgeoning mentalist Power of some potential, that one, Jake—the one she’d called out to in her terror of the mushroom garden under the Pleasure Dome—he was already a Power, a very real PRESENCE in the psychic aether!
Malinari remembered how, when Liz was trapped in subterranean Xanadu, she had cried out into the psychic aether for help; a pitiful cry from an impossible situation.
Moreover, he remembered how he’d gloated, while using his own superior mentalism to send her this message: Ah, no, little thought-thief No one can help you now. You thought to use your mentalism against me, but Malinari has used it against you! I have lied to Ben Trask—impossible! But I’ve done it—and I have located and lost your locator. As for your marvelous precog: be scans the future but senses only confusion, for the death and destruction that be foresaw was not mine but his own, and yours, and Xanadu’s. Now you cry out to this Jake—your lover, perhaps?—but where is he? Oh, ha ha haaaaa!
That had been his final message to her, yes, before he had been obliged to concentrate on the job in hand: to destroy this E-Branch utterly. But at the time he had professed or pretended to know much more than he’d actually known of these people. And for all Malinari’s telepathic skill and experience, he had only once before come across a mind with a signature like Jake’s—a veritable whirlwind of esoteric numbers, symbols, and formulae—and that, too, had been in Sunside/Starside.
Aye, and Malinari remembered that one only too well. His name—his hated name—had been Nathan, and he’d been a scourge on all of Malinari’s works. On his, and Vavara’s, and even Lord Szwart’s. If the likes of Nathan were here, and if E-Branch numbered such as him within their ranks … what then?
And again Malinari found himself wondering about the escape of these oh-so-tenacious people from incendiary Xanadu and from all the traps he’d laid for them there. How had it happened? It should have been impossible. Liz should never have escaped from the guardian of his garden, and as for the bomb he’d planted in the elevator, which wrecked his blister aerie: that should have taken care of at least two of them, including their leader, Ben Trask. Yet all had lived through it with barely a scratch. Malinari knew that for a fact. Soaring overhead as he made his own escape, he’d seen them alive in Xanadu’s gardens. But even then they had been in direst peril from the inferno that was Xanadu; which yet again they’d escaped, as witness their presence here.
Nathan and Jake … one and the same? No, never. The first had been a Sunsider born, his psychic aura unmistakably Szgany. While just as undeniably, Jake was of Earth, of this world; for his aura—however briefly touched upon—had spoken of cities, science, and sophistication as opposed to forests and foraging, and the artless “innocence” or “naïvety” of Sunside’s nomads.
Not one and the same, then. But two of a kind? It began to seem likely. Able to come and go in the wink of an eye, and so effect these apparently miraculous escapes. And that signature of constantly mutating, meaningless numbers. Perhaps they were more than just a signature; it could even be they were a Power in their own right. Meaningless for the moment, yes—meaningless to Malinari—but who could say what the future might or might not bring? If ever this Jake should fall into Malinari’s hands (or if he could be lured into them), what then? And what hope for mankind, on this or any other world, if Nephran Malinari were to gain control of a talent such as that?
“Malinari?”
He lurched against the parapet wall, starting at the sound of her voice and instinctively reinforcing his shields to guard his thoughts. Not that Vavara’s mentalism was any match for his own, but Malinari knew how treacherous certain of his thoughts had been, and how they might have betrayed him. And:
“What’s this?” she said sweetly, as he turned to face her. “A guilty conscience?”
Vavara’s guise was radiant, no less than on the night they had dined out together. And though Malinari knew it was only a guise—and despite his earlier excesses with Anna, when he had gone at her endlessly through the long night hours, but yet carefully, so as not to damage her—still he felt the need to possess Vavara … and at once put it aside. She could wear a man to a frazzle, this one, and afterwards, when he lay exhausted …
… In the stumps of old Starside stacks, the gross females of a certain species of spider had similar mating habits. Their tiny mates were never seen except as empty sacks, their thorny parts as dry as dust, forming little piles of debris under the silken webs of their terrible lovers.
Vavara’s question had been barbed; gathering his wits, Malinari smiled wryly as he answered it. “Guilty? But of course I am, always, and I won’t deny it. How can I, for I am Wamphyri! And so are you. But a guilty conscience? Surely not. After all, one must first have a conscience!”
“And yet you started,” she said, moving closer.
He shrugged and answered, “Because I didn’t expect anyone up and about so close to sunset. That glow in the west there? The sun is barely down.”
“That much is obvious,” she answered, “and I know it. Else I were not here—nor you. But you’re an early riser, Nephran Malinari.” (Was there something in her voice? An edge of suspicion, perhaps?)
He shrugged again—sensed her weak, exploratory probe—and redoubled his shields. “My dreams were uneasy.”
“Mine, too,” she told him. “It seems some of these stories you told me—of your failure in Australia, and of the people who chased you from your bubble aerie—have affected me badly. Would you believe, I even dreamed that they were here?”
“Really?” Malinari feigned surprise.
“Indeed! And such was the nature of my dreams that despite the watchers I have on the seaports, tonight I shall send out some of my women to scour the land around.”
Vav
ara’s probes were less exploratory, more aggressive now, and Malinari had had enough. “Let’s hope they find nothing,” he snapped, and made as if to move towards the open hatch.
Quickly putting herself in his way, Vavara said, “But don’t you see anything peculiar in all this? And don’t you agree that it’s a very strange thing, Nephran—even a singular thing, in the light of my dreams—to find you out here in the twilight, all nervous and out of sorts, scanning afar?”
“Out of sorts?” He raised an eyebrow. “Scanning? Why, Lady, I—”
“Ah, no!” Vavara grated, suddenly leaning forward to sniff at him, her guise crumbling. She let it go deliberatety—for effect, he supposed—and in a moment her beautiful eyes were melting into fire, bubbling like cauldrons full of blood, while her leathery black-bat nostrils wrinkled back, gaping as they fed on his odours. “I’m no Lady, Lord Malinari, and never call me that again. I know only too well what I am, and I know what you are! When I dream of treachery, betrayal, and wake up seeking an answer, only to find you up here on the roof, sending your probes out into the night … isn’t it understandable that I should ask myself: to what end?”
“Treachery?” He loomed over her, fighting to stave off his own fury, which had been galvanized by hers, and met her fiery gaze with a crimson look of his own. “Against you, Vavara? Neither by word nor deed! How can you even think it? And as for betrayal: Of what am I accused now? Without me, how would you have fared on this island, in this monastery? Where would you have seeded your deadspawn crop? No, if anyone has been betrayed, surely I am that one: Nephran Malinari, whose hard won monies purchased dark and dank Palataki, wherein to breed your horde—to which you deny me access!”
Vavara scarcely appeared to hear a word he said, but moved closer still, sniffing at him all the harder with her wrinkled, convolute snout.
“You smell!” she grunted, her guise almost entirely dissolved away now, revealing the wrinkled hag underneath; but a hag as strong as three strong men, with a leathery hide, and claws and teeth like knives. “You smell of sex—with one of mine no doubt—and especially of lies. Also of … what, fear? Apprehension? Are you afraid of me, then, Malinari? No, I think not—but you should be! Of what, then? Of something out there in the night, perhaps, which you’ve sensed with your much-vaunted mentalism?”
He might have answered with a blow to flatten her snout, or one to shatter her scythe teeth, but Vavara’s shawl had slipped from her right arm, and he saw that she wore a gauntlet. It was a Lady’s gauntlet—more “delicate” than a Lord’s, and designed for flensing rather than braining or dismembering—but just as deadly against an unarmed man.
Malinari was no coward, but neither was he a fool. And backing away from her, he lied: “I sensed nothing in the night! But is it any wonder that I’m up here scanning abroad? Wouldn’t you do the same if it were you who was being thrown out, obliged to take your leave of this place? I have a ways to go, and so must plan my route.”
She was taken aback. “Plan your route? Take your leave—?”
“But isn’t that what you wanted?” he said. “To see the back of me? Haven’t you told me as much to my face? Ah, but it’s all too visible in your face, and in your attitude, Vavara, without that I employ my ‘much-vaunted’ mentalism to read your mind.”
She stood back a pace, withdrew her weak probes, and rapidly adjusted her own shields. “But—”
“And so you shall see the back of me,” he cut her short. “I leave tonight.”
“Tonight?” Vavara’s features flowed; she was a woman again; she gathered up her shawl and hid her gauntlet in its folds. “I … I had no idea. You said nothing.”
“There was nothing to say. You want me gone, and so I shall go. My only regret, that our past ‘friendship’ means so little; that for all I’ve done to help you, you have offered nothing in return.”
“Meaning my holdings in Palataki?” She narrowed her eyes.
“Exactly. Your holdings … and your women.”
“Hah!” she gave a snort, but by now her features—albeit difficult to ascertain—were those of a beautiful woman again; it was her guise, of course. “You’re nothing more than a thief, Malinari. You take, and only then think to ask my leave!”
“But I did ask,” he answered. “Er, before I took.”
“You asked, and I told you no. Once was enough, with Sara.”
“And so it comes to this,” Malinari sighed. “The parting of the ways.”
“Yes, and we’ll be all the better for it,” Vavara answered. “You and I—and that thing called Szwart—the farther we’re apart, the better we appreciate each other. For as you yourself said but a moment ago, we’re Wamphyri, after all.” Then, changing the subject: “What will you take with you?”
“I brought nothing,” he shrugged, “and I shall take nothing away. I have monies in many currencies … I’ll find a place in Bulgaria, or even Romania. Properties are cheap in Romania, and the tongue is close to our own. Also, I’ve heard tell of crumbling old aeries in the mountains that go wanting for a master.”
“And so you’ll start again?”
“Nothing else for it,” he answered.
“And how will you make away?”
“There are plenty of boats for hire in Krassos town,” Malinari continued to lie, making it up as he went. “I can pay for my crossing … or not, depending on my mood. But don’t concern yourself, I won’t leave any evidence behind. You’ve had trouble enough. I’ll travel by night, rest by day. It’s the only way.”
“And it won’t concern you that I’m so far ahead of you, and presumably Szwart also?” Vavara was frowning now; she was puzzled, plainly unsettled by this sudden turn of events.
“It’s a wide world,” he answered, “peopled with kind hearts and gullible fools. With luck, I’ll even find me another Jethro Manchester.”
“But even so, deadspawn takes time to mature,” she quickly, maliciously reminded him. “And you haven’t the makings. No lieutenant of long-standing, with spores in his blood or a leech in his body, to use in the seeding of a garden. Why, before you’ve so much as started, this island and all the Medi-terranean lands around shall be mine, and England and France Lord Szwart’s. Our original plans are in disarray, and I now must plan for myself. Surely you’ve realized as much, that you are now on your own?”
“All true,” said Malinari, “and I do realize it, of course. But while the rest of this world is fighting your plagues, mine will be brewing all unsuspected. So that in the end it shall be as it has always been, survival of the fittest.”
“The fittest?” Vavara lifted her chin and smiled luminously at him. “Myself, obviously!”
“That remains to be seen,” said Malinari. “But now you must excuse me. I shall be gone within the hour.” And as she grudgingly stood aside, he left her there on the roof …
From his tower room, Malinari reached out with his mentalism to find Sister Anna. He seized upon her signature and told her:
If you would be out of this place—away from this sinister creature and her sisterhood of evil—come to me now. I, Father Maralini, shall leave this place tonight. And of all the sinful women within these walls, you are the only one worth saving. Do you hear me, Anna? If so, then come to me.
Of course she heard him, and came at once. He knew when she was at his door; quickly drawing her inside, he said, “Anna, my dear, do you know the way to Palataki?”
She nodded, then gasped as his cold hands went to her head. “Meet me on the side road where it rises to the Little Palace,” he commanded her then. “Meet me there in the midnight hour. But keep to the shadows and don’t stray too close. The woman Vavara has a man there who would harm you.”
“Yes,” Anna answered, with her eyes rolled up so that only the whites showed … the whites, and also a little yellow that Malinari had put there during her seduction and defilement, and even a few flecks of crimson other than that of normally bloodshot eyes. Seeing it, he knew that she was his th
rall, and that his power was not diminished. A little of his essence was worth a pint of any other’s. So he was wont to tell himself.
“Can you do it?” He gave her a little shake, half-stirring her from the stupor induced by the numbing action of his hands. “Can you get out of here and make your way unseen to Palataki? It’s a distance of some five or six miles.”
“I can do it,” she sighed. “It will be easy. Vavara has me on watch tonight, and so I can slip away.”
“Good!”
And as her eyes rolled down again and blinked at him: “But Father,” she said. “I thought perhaps you’d called me here for … for something else? Something … other?” Leaning closer, she brushed against him until Malinari felt the thrust of her stiffening nipples even through the coarse weave of her habit. And oh, that sly, suggestive smile on her face! It was wicked, that smile, so that indeed he knew his power was undiminished, and that Anna was or would be a vampire! But:
“Ah, no,” he told her, directing her to the door. “Not now, for I must away. Later, perhaps, in Palataki. And Anna—do not call me Father. From now on call me master. Do you understand?”
“Yes, master,” she sighed, as she left him and floated off into the darkness of the monastery …
At about 8:30, as he made his way westward along the coast road to Skala Astris, Malinari heard a motor’s growl and stepped out of the way onto the tinder-dry vegetation beside the road. Vavara’s limo pulled up, its window wound down, and its nun driver leaned her hooded face out into the night.
“What is it?” Malinari recognized the faintly feral glow of her eyes and knew she was Vavara’s true thrall.