THAT A THING LIKE THIS could lift its massive bulk even an inch from the earth, let ; alone fly, seemed patently impossible; yet here ! it spurted against the star-spattered horizon like I an alien, aerial slug. Just looking at it, details were branded on Nathan's feverish mind: | Of grey-mottled flesh, with fish-scale armour gleaming metallic-blue in starshine . . . of gas- | bladder clusters bulging like strange wattles or nests of morbid tumors from both sides of the segmented, flexible spine, constantly shrinking and expanding, regulating the monster's bal ance . . . of cartilage hooks, sawing appendages, and chitin grapples in the shape of crab claws. But over and above everything else the evil pseudo-intelligence of its swivelling, searching saucer eyes in that vastly sloping prow of a skull! Only fifty yards away now, it had spotted the three men. Propulsors blasting, the vampire warrior lowered its head and zeroed in on them! ABOUT THE AUTHOR BRIAN LUMLEY'S VAMPIRE WORLD VOLUME THREE Brian Lumley was born in the coal-mining village of Horden, County Durham. At the age of twenty-one, he was called up for National Service and was assigned to the Royal Military Police. He subsequently joined up and in his twenty-two years of service travelled widely. BLOODWARS A devotee of horror and fantasy fiction all his life, he began writing while still in the army in the 1960s and his first stories were published in America. His early influence was that of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos cycle of fiction. After returning to civilian life in 1981, Brian Lumley became a full-time writer and began working on his longer, more ambitious novels: first the Psychomech trilogy, then individual novels such as Demogorgon and House of Doors, culminating in the highly original series of bestselling vampire novels, the five Necroscope books. Blood Brothers and The Last Aerie, also published in ROC, are the first two volumes of this new trilogy, Vampire World, which is a spin-off from the Necroscope series. Bloodwars is the last volume in the trilogy. Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi and Return of the Deep Ones and Other Mythos Tafes are also published in the ROC series. With more than thirty books and over a hundred short stories published in English, Brian Lumley has also had his work translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese and, most recently, Polish and Czech. His story 'Fruiting Bodies' won the British Fantasy Award for the Best Short Story and he has also been the recipient of Fear Magazine's Award for Necroscope III: The Source. A ROC BOOK ROC For Steve Jones. Published by the Penguin Group Thanks for giving me the Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London WB 5TZ, England Penguin magic words. You'll note Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia that I gave them back Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2 . . . to Zek! Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England First published 1994 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Copyright © Brian Lumley, 1994 All rights reserved The moral right of the author has been asserted Roc is a trademark of Penguin Books Ltd Filmset by Datix International Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic Set in 9.5/11.5 pt Monophoto Melior Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser PART ONE Earth I Outside, Inside Returning from an early lunch at an Indian restaurant just a five-minute walk away from E-Branch HQ in the heart of London, Ben Trask sweated inside and out. Inside, from the curry which was still searing his mouth and throat; outside, from the unusually warm May weather. The noonday sun blazed down on him from a sky as vast and blue as the Ionian which he hoped his visitor from another world was enjoying, because Trask sure as hell was not! In fact, ever since Zek Foener and Nathan Kiklu (or Nathan 'Keogh', as the Necroscope preferred to be called now) had gone off to the Greek Islands a few days ago, Trask had been right out of sorts with himself, and with everyone else in his top-secret ESPionage organization. He thought about the two, worried about them equally ... but for different reasons. About Nathan, because he was probably the most valuable and certainly the most - what, unique? - man in the world; even in two worlds. And about Zek, because he loved her. At his age (Trask snorted), finally to have fallen in love! Not that he was ancient, and he certainly wasn't 'past it', but . . . it compJicated matters. And with Zek in the Greek Islands, things seemed even more complicated. That silly old saw which has it: 'out of sight, out of mind', had it backwards as far as Trask was concerned. She was out of sight, all right, but she'd never been more in his mind than right now .. . And even as he thought it, the thought itself was like an invocation: Deep water ... the salt sea .. . weeds and sediment obscuring Trask's vision - no, Zek's vision/ - and the pain in knew that the darkness was only the absence of Zek. In which his/her chest . . . heart hammering, vision bJurring, lungs case, it might last forever. screaming for air! Sweet Jesus, she was drowning! And she Then the elevator shuddered to a halt, the doors hissed open was Jetting him know about it in the onJy way she could ... for and Trask stumbled out into the main corridor ... Zek was one of the world's finest telepaths. . .. Which was — flooded? BEN! The word exploded into his mind like a bomb. TRY An inch of water went sluicing into the elevator! Now what NOT TO FEEL .. . TOO . .. BAD .. . ABOUT . . . IT. the hoJy . ..? 'Zek!' he yelled out loud, and could actually taste the water There were espers in the corridor. Trask recognized faces flooding into his/her mouth. without considering the amazement — the relief, the .. . what? GOO D... B Y E . . . BEN...! . . . triumph, jubilation? — written on every one of them. Trask staggered, whirled, fell, and felt his knees slam down There was a smell of ocean, seaweed, salt. The smell matched hard on the dusty pavement. But it didn't hurt. Nothing hurt the taste of Zek in Trask's mind. So that once again he asked except the fact that Zek's telepathic voice was dead in his himself: now what the holy . ..? mind. And that Zek herself-? The tall, cadaverous, usually melancholy figure of the Across the road, people were staring. A car's horn blared precog lan Goodly loomed into view; but now his eyes were and its astonished driver gazed down at Trask where he alight with elation. He grabbed Trask's arm, husked, 'Ben — kneeled half-on, half-off the road. Then the car swept on by he's done it! Nathan's done it!' and people came running, questioning. Someone asked if 'Done it?' Trask found it hard to gather his thoughts, Trask had been hit. He shook his head, got to his feet and concentrate his mind. Goodly was wet, splotched; he smelled of staggered again. A young couple grabbed him, held him sea-water just like the entire corridor smelled of it. His upright, and the girl asked, 'Are you all right?' trousers were drenched from the knees down and clung to his Numb, he nodded. He was all right, yes. But Zek -? thin calves. And now David Chung, Branch locator, had It was mid-May 2006, and under the hot sun Trask was arrived on the scene; he, too, was soaked from head to toe, cold. Sweat rivered his face and stuck his shirt to his back, yet and grinning like an oriental lunatic. he was cold. Cold in his mind, from the feel and the taste of 'Done what?' Trask demanded, looking from one to the the deep salt water, but far colder from the memory of Zek's other. 'What has Nathan done? And, anyway, he's somewhere telepathic voice, crying there and dying there, in his mind. in the Ionian with ... with Zek.' And finally losing it: 'Why Cold from the sudden emptiness of . . . everything. 'Zek!' doesn't someone tell me what the fuck - is going -on - here!?' He shook the young couple off, shouldered people aside, They were in the Greek Islands, Ben,' Goodly suddenly saw started to walk along the pavement and ended up running, and how close Trask was to shock. But he also knew how difficult ran sweating and shivering down the sidestreet to the back of it would be to shock a man who always knew the truth, a the hotel whose top floor housed E-Branch HQ. He found the human lie-detector like the current Head of E-Branch. And, private door; after the sunlight it was like night in there; there looking at him, Goodly thought to himself, he's improved, was only the darkness until he used his pass-card to enter the hardened with age and time. Oh, Ben has soft, human edges, elevator with its electric ceiling light. And even then it was too, but the man inside - the mind, soul and personality, the id dark; but that was in his mind, and he — is diamond-hard. Trask was about five-ten, just a pound or two overweight, . . . I thought half of the Mediterranean was coming through mousey-haired and green-eyed. His broad shoulders sloped with them!' just a little, his arms dangled somewhat and his expression Trask grabbed him, said, 'But how did it happen? Don't we was - what, lugubrious? Or maybe that was a direct result of know anything about it? Christ, I take an hour off for lunch, his talent; for, in a world where the simple truth was everything goes mad!' increasingly hard to come by, it was no easy thing to possess a 'Nathan said a few words before we put him under,' Chung mind which could not accept a lie. This was an election year, answered. 'But we had to put them out of it for a while. They and Trask's current gripe was with politicians. Watching were exhausted and in shock - especially Zek -and it might party-political broadcasts, he would frequently burst out: 'The easily have developed into something worse.' trouble with these people is that they never lie! But they never 'So what exactly did Nathan say?' Trask headed for the Ops tell the truth, either!' room with the others in tow. And now he was staring hard at Goodly, asking, 'What was 'It seems it was a party of Tzonov's thugs,' Goodly took up that you said? They were in the Ionian? What the hell do you the story. 'Nathan's Special Branch minders were taken by mean?' surprise - and murdered! Nathan and Zek ran for it, into the Goodly knew there was only one way to tell it, and so sea. More of Tzonov's people were waiting for them; they had answered, They were there, yes, Ben. But just a few minutes wetsuits and spearguns and were already in the water; for all ago, Nathan brought them back!' we know at this stage, the entire operation was launched from Trask's jaw fell open. Not without an effort, he closed it the sea. But when the chips were down and there was no other and said, 'He brought them —?' way out, Nathan did his thing. Except. .. there was probably a '— Brought them back here, yes,' Goodly nodded. 'Through lot more to it than that.' the Mo'bius Continuum.' 'Oh?' Trask glanced at him, and pressed on into the Ops And now Trask's jaw dropped open all the way, so that room, where a small knot of espers was gathered around a pair once again he must close it before gasping, The ... of six-foot tables. Continuum?' At which the truth finally dawned on him; if not Goodly followed on behind, nodding. There had been some in regard to Nathan, certainly in respect of Zek. The fact that pretty weird stuff going on here. Stuff that told us these two she was alive! He'd known it was the truth, of course, even as were in trouble.' He gave a shrug. 'So we did what we could Goodly said the words, but it seemed so far beyond his for them.' Goodly was wont to understate things: his British wildest hopes and dreams that even Trask had held back from phlegmatism. But the precog's 'pretty weird stuff statement letting it register. Just a moment ago he'd known that Zek told Trask a lot: namely, that there was still a lot he hadn't Foener was dead — he had literally heard and felt her die - been told. and yet now .. . 'All of this in an hour?' he said, as the espers around the As Trask's feet touched earth again, he snapped out of it tables moved aside to make room for their Head of Branch, and demanded to know: 'Where are they? Are they okay? And and Trask came to a halt between a pair of prone figures Zek - is she okay?' apparently asleep in hastily made-up beds. David Chung answered him. They're sedated. We've fixed 'In a lot less than an hour,' David Chung put in. 'Let me tell up a couple of beds in the Ops room. But it was a close thing. you about it. . . They were in the sea. And when they came through 'Myself, lan, Geoff Smart, we all got the message at the said, formed into something solid - a golden dart! Oh, it was same time: that something was wrong. With me, it was faint as a wisp of yellow smoke - pretty insubstantial stuff - Nathan's earring — the thing came alive in my hand! I can't but it was real. And then . . . it left the screen!' say what it was for Smart, but he's an empath and he's done a 'It what?' Trask's frown knotted his forehead. lot of work with Nathan; maybe he sensed the trouble they 'It left the screen,' Goodly repeated. 'And it passed out were in even at that range. And of course lan reads the future, through the wall of the room and was gone.' and apparently he'd "seen" me plugging in the computer in 'Gone? Gone where?' Harry's room. So we went there, and I plugged it in. Then — it Geoff Smart the empath had arrived from somewhere. was the same as before: the numbers, equations, whatever; I'm Having heard what had been said, he now put in: 'I think no mathematician, so you tell me! But it was all on the screen. that's something you'll have to ask Nathan, when he comes Except it wasn't quite the same. This time, the numbers came out of it.' together, fused, formed into something else. Something that Trask glanced at the speaker. Smart was something less was . . . I don't know, solid? Well, almost solid.' than six feet tall, sturdily built, red-haired, crew-cut; he Trask had taken Zek's wrist; feeling the steady pulse, he looked like a boxer, aggressive, but was in fact mild- issued a sigh of relief. ZeJc, you spoke to me. When you mannered. What he lacked in looks found compensation in thought it was aJJ over, I was the one you spoke to! It meant what Trask called his 'withness': his intense ability to relate. an awful lot to him. Then, as if it were his first breath in a His talent was empathy, in which capacity he had worked week, he filled his lungs to bursting; finally, frowning, he very closely with Nathan. It was odds-on that Smart would be looked at Chung. 'Something solid, you say? On the computer correct in his as yet unspoken estimate of what had occurred. screen?' But unspoken or not, Trask read the truth in it anyway. Goodly took up the story again. 'Do you remember those 'You're telling me that this dart - went looking for him?' golden darts, Ben? I mean, when Harry died?' Smart nodded. 'And found him! That's my bet. I think it's 'Of course I remember them.' been in there - in the computer - just waiting for him. Which is 'And the one we saw entering into the computer? In fact, why none of you ever messed with Harry's room all this time, the computer showed it to us, right?' because you could sense it in there. Why not? You're all espers, Trask nodded, stepped away from the tables and beckoned after all. But when Nathan got here, the thing revealed itself. the others back. 'Let them breathe, for Christ's sake!' And to And given a power source at last, when Chung plugged it in .. .' Goodly: 'What about it?' '.. . The dart went home.' Trask finished it for him. 'Went The way I see it,' Goodly answered, 'that dart or whatever it home to Nathan.' was, it's been waiting in there. Before, the computer seemed Again Smart nodded. That's how I see it, yes.' to be running off its own power; you'll remember, it wasn't 'It finished the job that we had started on him,' Trask plugged in? Well, whatever it was that powered the display continued almost to himself, staring in something approaching that time - call it a "ghost", if you like, or an "echo" of Harry awe at the young man on the second bed. 'It gave him the Keogh — it must have just about burned itself out. But this Mobius Continuum and made him complete. But .. . this was time it was tapping a legitimate power source, which boosted his first time ever? And still he was able to find his way back what was left of it. So . . . this is what we saw: here — and bring Zek with him?' 'The numbers stopped dead on the screen and, like David 9 8 Nathan smiled nervously, looked at them each in his turn, David Chung spoke up. 'He wasn't entirely on his own. I and last but not least at Zek. She smiled reassuringly, mean, I think maybe I had something to do with it. Or rather, reminding him, 'You've done it once.' that this had something to do with it.' He held up Nathan's He nodded. 'When I had to, yes.' golden earring in the warped shape of a Mobius loop. 'A Trask was anxious and said, 'Look, if you want to postpone vampire Lord called Maglore gave this to Nathan before he this ...' escaped from Turgosheim. I think Maglore was using it to spy 'No,' Nathan cut him off. 'Let it be now. There's no time on him. But as a locating device the earring works both ways. left. If I can do it, it will give me the edge I'll need back on Nathan must have homed in on it, and that's how he found his Sunside.' way back here . ..' Trask looked at them all standing around him. Looked from David Chung stepped forward, grinned self-consciously, face to face, and then at Zek Foener and the Necroscope Nathan and said, 'Nathan, I...' and stuck out his hand. They clasped Keogh, lying tranquillized in their makeshift beds. Finally he forearms in the Szgany fashion, and Chung stepped back grinned and shook his head in wonder. And to Smart, Goodly again. Then, as if at a signal, the espers backed away from and Chung, he said, 'So, all three of you had a hand in it, right? Nathan where he stood in the centre of the room. God, what would we do without you? What would any of us And it was time. anywhere do without you?' His steady gaze spread to encompass Utter silence fell, and the expressions on all faces grew the rest of his espers. 'And I do mean all of you.' tense, expectant. Nathan felt the force of their minds It was the finest compliment he had ever paid them ... concentrated upon him from where they stood in a circle but at a safe distance. And feeling their eyes - their minds - on The plan was simple: Nathan had revisited Sir Keenan him like that, and concerned that they might in some way Gormley's resting place to 'fix' its co-ordinates in his mind, interfere with the process, he closed his own eyes to shut and also to tell the ex-Head of Branch that he was them out. But he couldn't close his mind. Indeed, he must experimenting with the Mobius Continuum. Now, having open his mind - returned to E-Branch HQ, he would attempt a Mobius jump to — Open it, and conjure the numbers vortex! Gormley's Garden of Repose. In the event that something And at once - instantaneously, so rapidly that the effect went wrong, David Chung would be ready with Nathan's sigil almost unnerved him - Mobius equations commenced to earring to guide him home. And so that it would be more in mutate on the screen of his metaphysical mind. It was the keeping as a genuine scientific experiment, other Branch vortex, and yet it was not the vortex. The numbers, characters members would be in situ at Gormley's memorial, to time and symbols were the same but the pattern was not. There any lapse between Nathan's jump from HQ and his arrival in was no actual whirlpool of numbers as such, but an ordered the Kensington cemetery. march of evolving calculi and ever-changing equations, like All was now in place. It was 9.00 a.m., and the mid-city the emerging answer to a question of immense complexity, temperature was already climbing; Nathan, Trask and a unravelling onto the screen of some gigantic computer. majority of E-Branch agents were in the Ops room, every But the big difference was this: Nathan was no longer single man of them with a film of sweat on his brow although ignorant, no longer innumerate. He now knew what he was the air-conditioning was up full. Finally Trask said, 'Well, son, looking for, and how to control and use it. And suddenly it and now it's all yours.' 10 11 was there, and he froze it: the Big Equation, framed on the natural innocence and compassion, the soulfulness of the screen of his mind like a page of print-out. Frozen there, yes, mind behind the face. So that without being Keogh's spitting for a single moment, before it dissolved and warped ... and image, still the visitor 'felt' like him. These had been Trask's formed a door. thoughts the first time he'd laid eyes on Nathan, and nothing A Mobius door! had occurred to change them. As for what was happening And Nathan sensed that it was here, that it was real. His here: that could only confirm these thoughts beyond any eyes snapped open and he saw it, there in the room with him, further doubt. a single pace away. And he knew he was the only one - the Nathan viewed the Mobius door and stepped forward. The only man in the world - who could see it. act was almost robotic, automatic, instinctive; as if he were The next scene would be remembered forever by everyone drawn to the door, as if the place beyond it lured him who witnessed it. They were intent upon Nathan; they drank irresistibly, which of course it did. Then, glancing just once at in every aspect of him, his looks, dress, stance, even Trask and the others - something of his feelings, perhaps, until the picture of the - He took a final, unsteady but resolute pace . .. right out of man entire was etched into their extra mundane minds: this world. Standing erect, head high, staring a little to one side, and He was there - and he was gone! They saw his right foot, with his bottom jaw falling open a fraction as he became calf, thigh, half of his body and face disappear, and the rest of aware of something far beyond the sensory range of the rest, him follow into nothingness. The Necroscope Nathan Keogh Nathan Keogh was an imposing young man of twenty or was no longer in the room. Just motes of dust drifting in the twenty-one years. His simple clothes, of this world, were sunlight through the window blinds, flowing into the vacuum nothing special, but the man inside them was. He was the where he had been. Necroscope, who talked to dead men in their graves and so Easily stated, but astonishing to the witnesses. An agent had access to all the secrets of the past — perhaps even of the on the briefing podium almost forgot to say his magic word future — and yet had no real time to explore or use such into his handset, and only just remembered in time: 'Now!' knowledge to his own best advantage. Not yet, anyway. And the answer came back at once from the Kensington Nathan was something more than six feet tall. He had an crematorium: 'Now!' athlete's body: broad shoulders, narrow waist, powerful arms The man on the podium frowned at his handset. 'Yes, now, and legs. His eyes might be very slightly slanted, or perhaps it for Christ's sake! Why are you repeating me? He's just done it. was only his frown, the look of rapt attention on his face as he He's just gone in.' gazed at the mainly Unknown, which to the rest, with the And again the answer, in a brief burst of static: 'Who's exception of Zek, was completely unknown. His nose was repeating you? I'm telling you! He's just come out! He's here, straight and seemed small under a broad forehead flanked by now!' high cheek-bones. And over a square chin which jutted a No time-lapse at all, not to them. But to Nathan: little, his mouth was full and tended to slant downwards a He stepped in through the metaphysical Mobius door, and fraction to the left. In others this might suggest cynicism, but entered a place beyond all places, beyond all times, yet not in him. Rather, the opposite. encompassed by and encompassing space-time itself. It was For, looking at Nathan, Ben Trask knew the 'truth' of him, not the same as - could not be likened to - any experience which had to be revenant of his father, Harry Keogh: a he'd ever known before. Even the first time he'd been ... 12 13 those wonderful words of evocation: 'Let there be light!' Or if here, with Zek, less than twenty-four hours ago, it had been such words had been spoken ... then this was the source of different. At the very least there had been water then, a great everything, the initial singularity from which THE ALL had spout of Ionian sea-water which had entered the Continuum shone out in a great and glorious beginning! under its own pressure, dispersing to . . . wherever. Now there And as that thought dawned, at a stroke, so Nathan hit wasn't even that. upon the greatest secret of all, which had taken his father a There was nothing! veritable lifetime to discover. But it was only a thought, It was a place of utter darkness: perhaps even the Primal which he hadn't recognized as the truth .. . Darkness itself, which existed before this universe or any What he did recognize was this: that empty as this 'place' parallel universe such as Nathan's began. Except there wasn't was - and as far removed from man's laws as could be - still only an absence of light, but an absence of everything. Nathan it had laws and forces of its own. For even now he could feel might well be at the entirely conjectural core of a black hole one such force working on him, trying to move, remove, or (his E-Branch tutors had dealt with certain of the basic dislodge him from this unreal place back into the real. But theories of cosmology, at least); except a black hole has Nathan had a will of his own and wasn't about to be moved enormous gravity, and this place had none. No gravity, no except in the direction he desired. time (and therefore no space), no light. Not a place obeying 'Behind' Nathan, if mundane directions had any meaning in one single Law of Nature or Science, and therefore a place such a place, the Mobius door closed. And, remembering his outside the Universe we know. And yet existing within the purpose here, he pictured the Garden of Repose in Universe we know, for it had twice been conjured by a Kensington which was his target destination. It had been his common — or an uncommon — human being; by the plan to 'picture' Sir Keenan Gormley's memorial marker, to Necroscope Nathan Keogh. As for Nathan's father: Harry had focus upon the plaque and use it as a different kind of been an habitual user, almost an inhabitant, of 'the place'. marker, but he now saw that this wasn't necessary. Both central and external, the Mobius Continuum was For no sooner had the crematorium in Kensington entered nowhere and it was everywhere; from such a starting point his thoughts, than he found himself in motion and knew that one might go anywhere, or go nowhere forever. And it would he was headed in that 'direction'. It was as if he were drawn be for ever, for in this timeless - environment? — nothing along a route, though whether in a straight line, a curve, up or would ever age or change except by force of will... which was down . . . it was impossible to say or even guess. But a fact that Nathan knew without knowing how he knew it. But definitely he felt the first tentative tugging of some force then, how does a moorhen chick know how to swim? It was in other than the Mobius Continuum's rejection forces. Not even his mind, his blood, his genes. a tugging, as such, but more a gentle pressure that seemed to A 'place', then, this Mobius Continuum: which might well want to guide him. He'd known something like it before when be its best, indeed its only description. But Nathan's tutors tracking the Mobius loop symbol from Zakynthos in the had also touched upon theology, especially that of the Aegean back to E-Branch HQ. Then it had been his lifeline - Christian religion. And Nathan sensed that in some way this Zek's, too - and, remembering that, he felt in no way might even be a 'holy' place. If so, then little wonder he'd threatened. been put to such pains to discover it. For it must be a very He simply went with the motion, the feeling, following it private holy place, in which no God as yet had uttered to its source: the co-ordinates of Keenan Gormley's Garden 14 15 of Repose in Kensington. And, like seeing a light at the end of Oh? But surely, Harry's mistake made him inhuman! It's what a tunnel, so Nathan sensed the way ahead and accelerated his cost him his humanity! But he knew that the other wasn't metaphysical motion by willing himself . .. that way, towards going to let him get away with that. it. And as if he'd been walking and had suddenly broken into A clever man learns by his mistakes, Sir Keenan answered in a run, he sensed that he was moving that much faster. So a little while. By his own mistakes, and by those of others. In incredibly fast indeed that he was there! your case, by your father's. You have a long way to go yet, And going from the incalculable 'velocity' of thought to son, but Godspeed. And take care along the way, Nathan. stationary in less than a second - yet feeling no discomfort Take care along the way . . . whatsoever - Nathan conjured another Mobius door and stepped across the threshold. After that, and during the next twenty-four hours, which was Light! Such brilliant light that he gasped and screwed his all the time he had left: eyes tight shut. And gravity! Nathan staggered a moment as Nathan used the Mobius Continuum and the markers or co- his feet touched solid earth and his legs trembled where they ordinates which were his ever-growing coterie of dead friends took his weight. Then someone said, 'Now!' And eager hands constantly, until the geography of this strange world was no reached out to steady him. longer just a series of contour lines, trigonometrical points, And despite that time had seemed to pass during Nathan's watercolour oceans or bland white ice-caps in the pages of an trip from E-Branch HQ to Kensington, this was that same atlas, but a living, breathing source of constant wonder, moment when the voice of the esper on the podium made his astonishment, even awe. For the difference between this world all-important mistake, and asked his all-important question: and his own was like that between garlic and honey; and not 'Yes, now, for Christ's sake! Why are you repeating me?' simply in the sense that one was sour and the other sweet (not Which sounded now from a handset in the Kensington necessarily, for Sunside had its sweetness too), but that in crematorium where Nathan stood. Important for this reason: it almost every other instance they were poles apart. Indeed, was the first proof positive that 'time' in the Mobius they were parallel dimensions apart! Continuum is non-existent. Only in the mountainous regions was there any real 'Well done, Nathan!' Someone gasped his amazement, his similarity, of flora and fauna, if nothing else; but even the congratulations. While in the Necroscope's deadspeak mind: mountains were different in a world where the sun shone on Well done, son! Sir Keenan Gormley applauded his efforts. both sides of the range! For this Earth was one world - a And now .. . more than ever you feel like your father. complete, continuous system; one system, like a living creature In answer to which, Nathan was quick to inquire: As he in its own right - while Sunside/Starside, as its name might was in the beginning, or at the end? suggest, had often seemed like two. Sunside was a place of For a moment the other was silent, but Nathan sensed his light, warmth, love and life; while Starside was cold and shudder. Then: It's true, Harry made mistakes. Sir Keenan gloomy, full of obscene black hatreds, bitter feuds and gave a deadspeak nod. But don't forget, mistakes are what loathsome undeath. How could it possibly be otherwise? The make us human. one housed the Szgany, Nathan's people, while the other was And, almost as if his experience in the Mobius Continuum home to the Wamphyri! had soured his mind, making it caustic and cynical (though in But Earth - this parallel Earth - was wholly beautiful, and fact it was simply nerves), again Nathan's rapid riposte, that, despite that, certain of its people were not. So 17 16 Nathan thought at first, anyway, before he'd seen the . . . In a town called Bonnyrigg, not far from Edinburgh, industrial wastelands of Eastern Europe, and those regions there had lived a small boy who lost his puppy under the closed off to men forever because of their seething nuclear wheels of a speeding car. But for Harry Keogh's 'skill', the pup pollution ... would have stayed lost. Who could gauge the enduring Harry Keogh had had a great many friends among the pleasure that a mongrel dog's life had brought into the world dead, and now they all wanted to speak to Nathan. In one of a boy, a youth, a man, even a family? For Paddy was alive way it was new to him: the Szgany dead of his home world still - the dog and his master both, grown up now - and Nathan had wanted nothing to do with him, although he had often had been to visit them. heard them whispering to each other in their graves. But on But while on the one hand Paddy was only a mongrel dog, the other hand it seemed very familiar, for the ostensibly Harry Keogh's first experiment with necromancy, on the other 'primitive' Thyre of Sunside's furnace deserts had been eager hand there had been men, too, called back into life by his 'art'; to know him from the first, when he had gone out into the even a pretty young girl called Penny. All of whom had sweltering desert to die, only to find the will to live and a known the hell of dying twice, needlessly, because of Harry. goal or worthwhile direction in which to aim his life. And yet, not all of the people he'd touched in this way had The realization of his deadspeak had supplied the will to been victims. live, while his goal had been the Mobius Continuum (though at In the Zarundului mountains of Romania, Nathan talked to that time he'd had no knowledge of it, except that it was a Thracian Warlord called Bodrogk, and to his wife, Sofia . . . some great secret which hid itself in the mathematical maze or rather, to what remained of them. For they were no more of of the numbers vortex). Well, and now that he had tamed the flesh but a few handfuls of dust blown away on the winds the vortex, the Mobius Continuum was his to explore at will. of the world. But because they'd died here, they remained here So the two talents went hand in hand, while Nathan's still, to tell Nathan of his father's works. And none of the dead telepathy was a bonus which his father had not known; or at that he had spoken to or would speak to had more praise for least, not until the last of his days. But as for other esoteric Harry than Bodrogk the Thracian and his wife Sofia. talents, Harry Keogh had not gone wanting. Indeed, he had In the dark of night, in the ruins of an old castle under a explored and practised one such 'art' (namely, the waxing moon, their deadspeak voices thin as air appraised resurrection of men out of their immemorial dust) which, in him of Harry Keogh's works: how the Necroscope had gone the light of what Nathan had learned of Earth's religions, up against the last of the fabled Ferenczys here - Janos, the might only be considered blasphemous. For it was one thing bloodson of Faethor - and won! And Nathan knew the story that rotting cadavers should feel empowered to will must be true, not only because the dead were telling it, but themselves up from their graves for the love of others, but because the very name Ferenc was a curse in his own world, another entirely that the long dead should be called back too. As were all the names of the Wamphyri! into life against their will, and raised up out of their very But when Nathan learned of the things this Janos had done salts, dust and ashes by a sorcerer for his own dark purposes. — of the men he'd called up from their sacred dust to torture Yes, a monstrous talent, this necromancy. And yet without them for their secrets, and of their long-dead women which it... he'd used for other purposes - then finally his mind was decided on the subject: Necromancy was a talent he 18 19 would not pursue. In any case, it was abhorred by the Thyre and the dead alike: from his friends in E-Branch and from and the dead of the Szgany alike, which was why the latter the teeming dead in their graves across the world. And so he had avoided Nathan: because he was the son of the hell- spanned the world in his efforts to track down any who had lander, Harry Keogh. It was the last legacy of his father, which known Harry Keogh, in order to vindicate his father and re- in his own world at least Nathan still must live down; either establish his reputation. live it down, or prove that Harry's reputation in this respect In point of fact, it wasn't an absolute requirement that was unwarranted. Nathan visit their last resting places in order to talk to the But in this world, now that the Great Majority had finally dead; it would be far easier to reach out a deadspeak probe, befriended him: seek them out across all the miles, and do it that way. But Nathan visited a graveyard outside of Ploiesti in Romania, that had not been his father's way. The first Necroscope had whose dead had risen up on his father's behalf against never been the one to 'shout' at the Great Majority; when he Securitatea thugs in the days of Ceausescu. They were still had desired to speak to a dead man, then he had gone to 'see' there and they still remembered, and made him welcome. His him. Except in matters of extreme urgency, it had seemed father was a legend to them, and they swore that despite the the polite thing to do; and so it seemed to Nathan. timidity of the Great Majority in general, they had never In this respect, too, he must use extreme caution. A good turned their backs on Harry Keogh. many of Harry Keogh's dead friends lay in graves or other What? But Harry had been responsible for the removal of a resting places within perimeters which had enclosed the great cancer out of their earth: the termination of Faethor once USSR. Even with the Mobius Continuum to command, Ferenczy himself, and his expulsion into the infinite abyss of Nathan knew enough to restrict his visits to places such as future time - indeed, into Mobius time. For within the these. Just as there were espers in the West, so there were Mobius Continuum, Harry had sent the incorporeal spirit of 'talented' men in the East - and most of them belonged to the master vampire Faethor winging down future time- Turkur Tzonov! streams with only his mind intact and no possible hope of But so many dead people to visit, because this might be rescue. Such had been the Necroscope's loathing of vampires his last chance; so many of them who he must talk to. And ... and such was his son's loathing of them . .. all to be seen to in little more than twenty-four hours: a day, a He visited a cemetery not far from Newcastle in England's night and a morning. Because that was all the time Nathan north-east, to talk to a prostitute Harry had known. Pamela's had left.. . one regret was that she had never known his father 'that' way . . . In this world, at least. ... but she had known and liked him enough to dig her way To most men, his itinerary - the amount of work he packed out of her grave for him when he was in trouble. It had into those few short hours - would have been exhausting; happened at a time shortly before Harry had been driven out without the Mobius Continuum it would have been of (or had chosen to leave) this world for Starside, when the impossible. Nathan was Szgany, however, and accustomed Necroscope had been up against a monster in human guise by to the seemingly interminable hours of day- and night-time the name of Johnny Found. With Pamela's help -and the help on Sunside/Starside, where each day/night cycle was of others of the teeming dead, Pound's victims all - Harry had equivalent to a week in the parallel world of Earth. In this destroyed him right there in that graveyard. respect, he could and did drive himself to an almost insomniac So Nathan learned of his father's works, from the living extent. 20 21 But when all or as much as possible was done, and Nathan returned to E-Branch HQ after one last trip - to a graveyard in the north-east of England where he'd talked awhile and said a fond farewell to a personal friend, the revenant spirit of a small II girl called Cynthia, dead before her time - then, even he was Trouble at E-Branch - The Mobius Route weary. It showed in his face as he stepped out of the Mobius Continuum into Harry's room, where David Chung was no longer required to act as a homing beacon, for Nathan had the co-ordinates now. And it also showed when he reported to Ben Trask, as he had been instructed to do after each Mobius trip ... The Head of Branch wasn't looking too good himself. Trask's voice was more than a little testy when he reminded: 'It's Friday, Nathan, and we've a plane to catch - you, me and a couple of minders. There'll be more of our people waiting in Belgrade, in case Turkur Tzonov is watching and has agents there. In fact, you can bet your life he has! And while we're on the subject of Tzonov: you may not know it, but I worry when you're away from here on your own - that you might stray too far into his territory, that he might somehow trap and kill you. So maybe you'd like to tell me why you've kept me waiting? I was beginning to think you'd left it too late. Our plane leaves in just three hours' time. It's a standard flight of around two and a half hours; maybe you can catch up on some lost sleep in the air. Frankly, you look like you could use it.' But Nathan shook his head and said, 'No, I don't think so. Flying isn't for me. I don't really care for airplanes.' It took the wind right out of Trask's sails. He frowned and said, 'What the —?' 'I wasn't much for riding on Wamphyri flyers, either.' Nathan's smile was wan, despite the tan he'd picked up in the Ionian. 'And in a way planes are just as bad - perhaps worse. It was exciting enough at first, I suppose, but .. . let's face it, nothing that heavy should jump that high! So why don't you take David Chung to Belgrade, and I'll do my sleeping here and catch up later?' 'You'll catch up -?' 23 'Later,' Nathan repeated it. 'My way. As soon as you're in Nathan slept, but Trask was too excited to do anything but the Refuge at Radujevac .. .' sit at his desk, shuffle paper and try to keep his mind off After a moment's silence: 'Your way . . .' Trask said. The what was coming next, in just a few hours' time. For to way he breathed the words, they were like a sigh. And in dwell upon it . . . he knew he'd get no work done at all! that same instant of time, both men realized how much the Trask had been in a good many strange places and had done older envied the younger. But then, perhaps in an attempt to a good many strange things — the strangest! - but this was to disguise the fact, Trask asked, 'Does it come that easy to venture into a place where only a handful of men had ever you now?' been, one which shouldn't even exist, except in the fevered 'It's getting easier, yes.' dreams of theoretical physicists or abstruse mathematicians. 'With Harry, it was like walking, talking, breathing. But The Mobius Continuum! Only let him think of it . . . off he he'd had practice.' would go again, into crazy dreams and fancies of his own. 'And I'm getting it.' But only fancies, because there was no imagining how it 'You .. . you brought Zek here that way. I mean yesterday.' would really be. Trask had had plenty of time to think about it; the idea In the end, he pushed the paperwork aside and went to the should be old hat to him, but it wasn't and never could be. Ops room. This was to be the stepping-off point for 'You just, well, brought her here, from Zakynthos.' Romania. It was empty now, but in about three more hours That's right, I did.' Nathan wasn't boasting; in the main, it ... was still a mystery to him, too; he was just stating an anything They would all be here, E-Branch in its entirety, or with but simple fact. And even without his telepathy, somehow the sole (the soul?) exception of Anna Marie English, eco- he knew what was on Trask's mind, what was coming next. path, who for some months now had been working with the 'Son, do you think ...' Trask began, and squirmed a little in kids in the Romanian Refuge, and at the same time making his chair. He hated to obfuscate and liked all things clear- the way ready for Nathan. Even the Minister Responsible cut. Perhaps it was his talent working in reverse. '- I mean, would be here, because this was something he'd never seen, in his time your father took quite a few people with him either. along the Mobius route. But it's something strange to me, an But Ben Trask had seen it, even before Nathan: experience I can never know . .. Isn't it?' That time at Harry Keogh's place not far from Bonnyrigg, 'It's still strange to me, too,' Nathan answered. 'And yet his 'last refuge' on Earth, when the Necroscope had reached attractive, maybe even addictive. Do you want to try it?' the end of his time in this world. Trask had seen Harry in his 'I . . . I don't know.' Trask began to shake his head, then Wamphyri mode - had witnessed something of a vampire's stopped and nodded. 'Yes, I want to try it. This could well weird metamorphosis - and sometimes he nightmared about it be my one and only chance.' still. But as for the Mobius Continuum: that was something 'And do you trust me?' you didn't see, unless you were the one who conjured it. But This time there was no hesitation. 'Yes, of course I do. you could see it in use, certainly. You know I do.' Remembering the way Harry had looked that night when Nathan shrugged and smiled again. 'So be it,' he said. the Branch burned his house, Trask shivered again. Jesus! And so it would be . . . The Wamphyri overlords of Nathan's world - or of Starside at least - were like that? He knew that they were, of course; 24 25 indeed, that they were worse than that. For Harry had fought Your world is safe, Ben, Harry had told him in his mind. the evil within himself all the way down the line, and I'm not staying here. according to Nathan even into Starside itself. But the And: Starside? Trask had wondered. Wamphyri: they gave free rein to their passions, their lusts, Harry's mental shrug. There's nowhere else. their evils. They were evil incarnate. At which he had released Paxton and let him fall to the As so often before, one last picture of Harry Keogh came earth like the piece of rubbish he was, and at the same time let floating to the surface of Trask's memory. It was a scene Trask know that the war was over. But it hadn't been over for from that same, sad, terrifying time when the Necroscope Paxton. had almost but not quite succumbed to his vampirism: Snatching up his crossbow, again the telepath had tried to An esper called Geoffrey Paxton - a treacherous telepathic shoot Harry, at which the Necroscope had disappeared into dog who should never have been inducted into E-Branch in the Mobius Continuum. And that had been the first time Trask the first place - had tried to kill Harry, tried to shoot him had ever seen it, close up, in actual use: with a crossbow. Failing, he had fallen prey to Harry, and With the deceptively sinuous grace of the Wamphyri, Harry almost to the creature within him. had stepped or flowed backwards away from Paxton and into . There in the garden of his burning house, the vampire -the .. nothing! And to Trask and the E-Branch agents in the Wamphyri Lord, Harry Keogh - had picked Paxton up like a garden, it had seemed that he had simply ceased to be. stuffed toy, examining him eye to eye, face to face. One Paxton's bolt had shot forward into the misty swirl of Harry's fragile human being, albeit a piece of trash, up against vacuum and been eaten up by it, leaving the telepath panting: 'I someone who had been the most human being and was now a got him! I'm sure I got the bastard! I couldn't miss!' monster. Paxton, gape-jawed and bulge-eyed, his trembling, But the mist where it had closed on the Necroscope opened cold-sweating flesh only inches from the white-gleaming, up again, and a clotted, gurgling, apparently incorporeal voice salivating gates of hell. had come out of it, saying, 'How sorry I am to have to Harry's face, his mouth ... that crimson cavern of stalactite, disappoint you.' stalagmite teeth, glistening and jagged as shards of broken At that, Trask had snatched a breath of hot, smoky air, as a glass. What? The gates of hell? All of that and worse. clawlike hand with nails like rusted fish hooks reached out of And Trask had thought: Paxton is a piece of candy, a empty space, closed over Paxton's head and dragged him sweetmeat, a Coconut Flake. He's something to munch on. shrieking out of the garden and out of this world. Then ... Why, Harry could bite his face off if he wanted to! Following Harry might oh so easily have killed the telepath, but he which, the thought had occurred: Maybe he does want to! hadn't. Instead, moments later, he'd delivered him back to the Maybe he will! garden: a man bereft of his telepathy. Which was the last The memory persisted, with Trask shouting, 'Harry, don't!' favour that the Necroscope had ever done for E-Branch and And the Necroscope slowly closing those monstrous, the world in general. mantrap jaws, looking up in the ruddy illumination of the Following which: a brief exchange of words - an burning house and glaring at Trask across the misted garden. acknowledgement of the friendship they had known - and Then: Harry had said, 'Look after yourself, Ben.' 26 27 Trask remembered it so well. The way he'd felt: confusion, Half-truths aren't good enough. Anyway, this is E-Branch. pity, shame. And his last futile attempt to find another way: There isn't a man here I wouldn't trust with my life, let alone 'Harry, wait!' my thoughts.' But again the Necroscope had used a Mobius door to make 'Your mind was very clear,' Nathan told him. 'So clear, it his exit, and for the last time Trask had seen him step was like I was there with you. You were frightened when sideways into another place, space, time. If there'd been a you saw my father. And seeing him in your mind, I knew rope, it might well have been the Indian rope trick . . . if why.' there'd been a trick! But there was no trick, and the magic was Trask nodded. 'He was Wamphyri, yes - but he was strong, all mathematical. too. He never gave in to it, not once.' Look after yourself, Ben ... That's what everyone keeps telling me,' Nathan answered. Again, in the eye of memory, Trask saw Harry standing 'It's as if you were saying: "If it should come to the worst, there - a monster, yes, but a man for all that - followed by a remember that your father never gave in to it".' replay of his eerie disappearance. Then dreams and memories 'Maybe we are saying that.' Trask didn't deny it. 'Nathan, gradually fading ... until suddenly, even startlingly, the Head even now you don't fully understand what a weapon you are. of Branch was back in the empty Ops room ... And if you were Wamphyri, too? If you should become . .. Where now a hand fell on his shoulder! Wamphyri...?' Trask gave a massive start, half-turned, saw the Necroscope There was no way Trask could know it, but quite apart standing there! But it was a newer, younger Necroscope, from Tzonov and the Opposition, there were other men, right himself startled by the older man's reaction to his presence there in London, who had thought that selfsame thought. The and drawing back from him. Until Trask regained control and big difference between those men and Trask was this: that he took his arm. was able to live with it. . . 'Nathan, I'm sorry! I was just thinking about your father, and ...' But here he paused, as the look on the other's face With the exception of Zek Foener, out in the city arranging a gave him away. Nathan already knew what Trask had been flight home to Zante in the Ionian, the majority of E- thinking about. Branch's available agents were gathering in the Ops room 'Your thoughts, memories, were so strong ...' He shrugged when lan Goodly on the Duty Officer's desk took the call by way of excusing himself, but in no way negligently. from the Minister Responsible. As soon as the caller's identity Nathan knew better than to enter another man's mind was confirmed, the precog asked him, 'But aren't you unbidden. 'I knew they'd be about me, or about my father. supposed to be here, Sir?' You should learn to guard your thoughts, Ben. Especially in 'Listen,' said the other, urgently. 'Don't ask me if I'm your line of business. Better if you'd kept that hypnotic guard supposed to be there. Tell me if they are still there?' on your mind, which you had in Perchorsk.' They? Trask and Nathan?' Trask gave his head a rueful shake. 'No, I made mistakes in 'Of course! I mean, have they gone into . .. has Nathan ... Perchorsk. A few, anyway. It seems that the act of blocking are they on their way to the Refuge?' access to my mind took the edge off my talent. Tzonov and 'In another fifteen minutes, yes. They're waiting for a call company couldn't see in too well, but my vision was obscured from Chung to say he's arrived. He's Nathan's beacon, as you too! I'm only interested in the truth, Nathan. should know.' 28 29 'I do know! Now listen ... Mr Goodly, isn't it? We may be in 'You're only risking your job. Not to have mentioned it for some trouble.' would be to risk -' Suddenly the precog knew what had been bothering him '- I know,' the Minister cut him off. 'But I'm doing it, right? all day. It was this, and the Minister Responsible was on the Give me credit for that at least!' point of telling him about it. 'Shit!' he said, which wasn't 'So go on.' like him at all. The flight had a tail wind and got into Belgrade fifteen 'What?' minutes early. And of course Trask and Nathan weren't on it. 'Get on with it,' Goodly snapped. 'Make it as fast as you So CMI smelled a rat.' can. And don't worry, I'll follow what you tell me.' Of 'CMI?' Goodly frowned at the phone. 'Are we talking course he would, for he knew the gist of it already: that about Combined Military Intelligence?' CMI was supposed to Trask and Nathan - certainly the latter - were in great have shut down all of twelve years ago, but among the other danger. And so he would be attentive as never before. intelligence agencies it was common knowledge that they The Minister took the precog at his word. Speaking were as strong and devious as ever. rapidly, breathlessly, he said, 'Goodly, other people know 'Nathan is a Big Gun on the loose,' the Minister answered. about Nathan. They know about him, and they have come to 'Nobody is in control of him. He's not even of this world, and . . . a decision! But I don't agree with them. It could cost me his only interest is to get back to Sunside - at present! But my job, but I don't agree. Do you understand?' what we've always been worried about is this: will that be 'Yes. Go on.' the end of it? Will he stay there? We had the same sort of 'You don't know how relieved I was when Trask spoke to problem with his father, do you remember? How many times me just a couple of hours ago and said that Nathan was has Ben Trask said what a weapon Nathan would make? And taking him along the Mobius route. Because these people now he's just such a weapon! Of course CMI is interested. had fixed it that Nathan wasn't going to make it out of the They were going to make him an offer: seduce or "recruit" airport in Belgrade! That way they could blame it on the him, if you like, away from E-Branch. But that was before he Opposition.' got the Mobius Continuum ...' 'Wait,' Goodly cut in. 'He only just got it. So how come they Goodly sucked in air so that it hissed between his teeth. got to know about it so quickly?' On the other end of the line, 'They were going to stop him going home! But .. . with he could almost hear the Minister's groan ... which was as prejudice?' good an answer as any. The Minister 'Responsible', indeed! 'Extreme! So when I heard that Nathan would be - What? Then: 'For Christ's sake, Goodly! I have a job too, you Making his own travel arrangements? - it was a weight off know! I mean, do you think I'm a law unto myself? Man, my shoulders.' there's always someone watching the watchers! If anyone 'I imagine it would be!' Goodly growled, which wasn't should know that, you people should.' like him either. 'How come you haven't mentioned this . . . 'Get to the point,' Goodly snapped. 'So Trask and Nathan this Belgrade reception, before now?' weren't on the plane. What's next?' 'What would it profit anyone? I would have told Trask -of 'Your place is next. By now they'll know we're trying to course I would - if he hadn't brought these other arrangements give them the slip. Just suppose you were looking for to my attention. But don't you know the risk I'm taking right Nathan, where would you go next?' now?' 31 30 r 'My place? You mean this place? E-Branch HQ?' 'Of course! heads turned in a weird sort of slow-motion to see what all The Belgrade party will have spoken to their London the fuss was about. controller, who will have seen to it that others are on their The fuss was about him, shouting, 'Ben, Nathan - get the way to you even now. What's more, by now their orders will hell out of here! I mean now! The Minister was on the be quite specific!' 'Christ/' 'What is it?' blower. CMI has men on their way here, and they're after 'Nothing,' said Goodly, slamming down the handset. But in Nathan!' fact it was quite a lot. For the precog's talent had been 'What?' Trask's mouth yawned open in a gasp, but he galvanized into action, and in his mind's eye: knew Goodly like his own brother and his mind was quick to pick up the precog's warning; he recognized the truth of The elevator doors bursting open . . . a handful of muscular, what Goodly had said. And to Nathan, urgently: 'Son, can hard-eyed, grey-uniformed paramilitaries spilling out into the we go now?' corridor. Some of them carrying stubby automatics, others Nathan closed his eyes, frowned his concentration, shook with machine-pistols or folded down submachine-guns. his head. 'No. It's early and Chung is still mobile. Also, he Goodly running towards them, being stopped and pinned up was supposed to call us and we haven't heard from him yet. against a wall by two of them. Their voices clipped, gritty, as He could be in a car or something; there could be people they aslted him: 'Your boss, and the one called Nathan - around. We have to emerge somewhere safe.' where are they?' And him telling them: 'In the Ops room/' In his mind's eye, Goodly saw the elevator doors hissing Jesus! The Ops room! open! Then go somewhere else!' he yelled, as he rushed Before the precognitive vision had cleared from his mind, back out into the corridor. Til stall them.' Goodly was out of his chair, out from behind the Duty And they were already there — a handful of paramilitaries Officer's desk, and into the corridor. The spinal corridor was with weapons enough to start a small war! But Goodly a little less than fifty yards long, thirty from the Duty knew how to handle it, because he'd already seen it. Careering Officer's room to the Ops room at one end. Racing that way, down the corridor, he flew straight into a pair of them. Goodly's eyes were drawn to the elevator's indicator lights. Grabbing him, they pinned him to the wall and asked: 'Your Originally, the elevator had been part of the hotel downstairs. boss, and the one called Nathan - where are they?' Now there was only one stop: the top floor, E-Branch HQ. But 'In the . . . in the Ops room!' Goodly gasped through a the floor indicator lights still worked as before, and the cage compressed windpipe, where an arm was pressed to his had just started on its way up! throat. It could be, of course, that it was an E-Branch agent, a late 'Where?' arrival, coming to see Trask and Nathan off. Except Goodly 'Down there.' He flapped an arm towards the wrong end didn't think so. Bursting through the swing-doors into the of the corridor. But at that end, CMI agents were already Ops room, he saw a circle of espers standing there, shaking checking out the rooms. While at the other end, the Ops hands with Nathan and the Head of Branch. No one seemed room doors had been thrown open and a group of espers in a hurry; Goodly was moving and thinking so fast that was emerging into the corridor. everyone else appeared to be stationary; their Goodly found himself thrust aside, and followed on behind the paramilitaries as they ran crouching towards the Ops room. Esper protests were ignored; Ben Trask's mindspies 33 32 r were pushed out of the way as the CMI men went through Goodly knew that Garvey was reading the CMI leader's the swing-doors with Goodly right behind them ... mind. But that one was staring — no, grimacing - at the ... But in the room . .. there was only a swirl of dust-motes expression on Garvey's face. For the telepath was still spiralling in a stray beam of sunlight through the slatted grinning, and deliberately. Which was a sight to see; or a sight windows. not to see, if you weren't in the know. 'You,' said the Platoon Commander, prodding Garvey with 'You.' A CMI agent prodded Goodly with his machine- his weapon, but carefully. 'Shut - your - /ace!' He continued to pistol. 'You lied to us.' He was about five-ten, blocky, broad- stare at Garvey's . .. what, expression? shouldered, red-haired and crewcut. A typical bully-boy, he 'Or what?' said Garvey. 'You'll murder me? And all the rest had to weigh about one hundred and eighty pounds. His green of us? This is E-Branch HQ. Don't you know everything you eyes were set a little too close together, and his lips were say and do here is being recorded, including the fact that you fleshy, the bottom one slightly pendulous. wrecked the elevator's security system to get in? Not only you, Goodly scowled and brushed the gun aside. Other espers but the people who sent you - you're all in the shit!' had come back into the room to stand watching, silent, with Paul Garvey was tall, well-built and still athletically trim, their arms folded on their chests. Now that Trask and Nathan despite the fact that he was fifty-one years old. Sixteen years were out of it, things were different. It was as the Minister ago he had been good-looking, too ... before going up against Reponsible had said: these men had specific orders. one of Harry Keogh's most dangerous adversaries, a 'Did you hear what I said?' Sputtering and suddenly red in necromancer called Johnny Found, and losing most of the left the face, the man with the machine-pistol - their Platoon side of his face. At the time and on a number of occasions Commander? - again turned his weapon towards Goodly. since, some of the best plastic surgeons in England had worked 'I heard,' Goodly answered, in his piping but in no way on him until he looked half-decent again, but a real face is intimidated voice. 'I always lie to people who break into made of more than just flesh scavenged from other parts. private property, and to thugs who threaten me! So do all of Garvey's face had been rebuilt from living tissue, true, but the the people here. You and one of your men assaulted me in the muscles on the left didn't pull the same as on the right, and corridor. And you'll pay for it. You're CMI, right? Well, you'll even after all this time the nerves still didn't connect up too be dragged over some pretty hot coals for this.' well. He could smile with the right side but not the left. For The other cocked his weapon, and his men followed suit which reason, and even though the other espers were used to it, and pressed forward. But Paul Garvey, a full-blown telepath, Garvey would normally avoid smiling altogether - and avoid had stepped up alongside Goodly. Now Garvey grinned and all other facial expressions, too. said, 'He's wrong-footed, doesn't like being accused, can't do But when Garvey stopped smiling and actually scowled, like anything about it. They came to do a job and came too late. now .. . They have no more business here. Anything else would be The Platoon Commander gulped and made a visible attempt right outside their jurisdiction. And this one is already to pull himself together. Then he applied the safety catch on worried about your threats. He cocked his gun to show you his weapon and backed off a step. He blinked, looked away how big and brave he is, but now he's worried that maybe from the telepath, took out a plastic-laminated we'll report him for that, too. Because in fact he's chicken- shit!' 35 34 From deep in his mind, unbidden, it was as if some inner card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Goodly. And, voice answered with a query of its own: And where will they quoting parrot-fashion, he began: This was a CMI operation. be this time tomorrow? For that matter, where wiJJ you be, You are required by law not to reveal -' Goodly, my boy? It was his talent working, he knew, except '- Out!' Goodly cut him short. 'You and your gorillas, get even a precog can't see too far into the future. And sometimes, your backsides out of here - now!' like now, he was loath to even try ... The Platoon Commander grew yet more red in the face, puffed himself up . . . and let it all out in a grunt of frustration. Nathan was used to it by now, but not Trask. And after a single He turned to his men, scowled, and indicated with a jerk of glance, Trask's first taste or feel of the Mobius Continuum, he his head that it was time to leave. But Goodly wasn't finished doubted if he ever would be used to it. Or if he would want to be. with them. What do you think? Nathan asked him. For even thoughts Think about this,' he said. 'You are required, by a law that had weight in the Mobius Continuum, and Trask 'heard' them makes the Official Secrets Act look like a joke from a as sharp and clear as speech in the more mundane world. Christmas cracker, to forget you were even here! Why, you Quick to catch on, he answered: When I'm a-a-able to think, might even be persuaded to forget you were born! Because then I'll let you know! for all you know, your boss — or maybe his boss — is fitting Nathan's chuckle was his only answer. But Trask was too you all up for prefrontal lobotomies right now!' busy sensing the Mobius Continuum all around him - The CMI agents filed out of the room, along the corridor, absorbing or experiencing what he could of it - to feel any real into the lift. It was Goodly's first chance to count them: a half- resentment. And it was for him much as it had been for only a section, eight men. The espers had had them outnumbered. handful of human beings who had travelled here before him, But Paul Garvey said, 'We had them out-everythinged! Not so that when he was capable of thinking, he thought much the much brain-power there. And yet, if Nathan had been here, same thoughts as them; even the same as Nathan himself had they had orders to take him. Or if they couldn't do that, to kill thought: him.' I was in the Ops room, with Nathan, until we took a step - 'You got that out of their minds?' out - of there. Now we're here, on the other side of a Mobius 'Yes.' Garvey nodded. 'But just Nathan, which meant I door. Except.. . where the helJ is 'here'.'? could afford to mouth off a bit. No big deal, for like I said - For 'here' lay darkness, the Primal Darkness itself, as it had their leader was chicken-shit.' existed before the universe began. It was a place of absolute 'I have to report this.' Goodly's face was grim; heading for negativity, not even a parallel plane of existence, because the Duty Officer's room, he looked even more cadaverous nothing existed here. At least, not under normal conditions. If than usual. But as he got there the phone started cheeping. there was ever a place where darkness lay upon the face of the It was David Chung at the Refuge in Romania. And when deep, this was it. And Trask was struck by the thought: he heard Goodly's voice: 'Okay, lan, I'm home and dry. There Perhaps this was where God was born, be/ore he took his first was a spot of trouble at the airport, but finally I'm here. step into the universe of light. Perhaps that's how the physical Nathan and Trask can ... they can come on in.' universe started, when He split it off from this dark and Goodly breathed a sigh of relief, said, 'Yes, they can.' metaphysical void. For, indeed, the Mobius Continuum was Except - without form, and void. - Where the hell were Nathan and Trask? 37 36 sole remaining link with Sanity, Reality, Humanity. Trask To say that Trask was astonished would be to belittle the couldn't actually see him, but he could feel and sense him range of emotions which swept over him; indeed, and apart there. He knew the truth of the other. And for the moment from that same handful of fellow voyagers, his was a new that was all he knew in this awesome no-space-time. emotion, designed to fit an entirely new experience. Even the Exhausted of mundane thoughts (or thoughts that made Necroscope Harry Keogh (despite that he had been first) and sense in a nonsense or extramundane environment), Trask's his Necroscope son Nathan had never felt like this. For they fear rapidly expanded into a kind of hysteria, but one which had understood at least something of the Mobius Continuum lacked the frantic motion of commonplace panic. He simply - they had imagined and conjured it — while Trask's mind dared not move, because he couldn't be sure where motion - was of the world, albeit a world in which Truth was the guide even the smallest motion - would take him. Moving .. . from and Truth the gate. here one might go anywhere if one knew the route, or go And, if anything, that made it worse, for he understood the nowhere forever. Which might well be Trask's fate if Nathan Truth of the Mobius Continuum: that it was apart from the deserted him. And to be lost here would mean lost forever; for world of men, and apart from all human existence and even in this timeless, spaceless non-environment nothing ever conjecture, except in the secret minds of long-dead changed except it was willed, and there was no will here mathematicians and the 'magic' of mystics and metaphysicians. unless it were brought here by someone who strayed into this And yet he was here, and he felt it! place, or someone who came here and knew how to There was no air, but neither was there any time, so that manipulate it. Someone like Nathan. Trask didn't need to breathe. And in the absence of time, And at that a new thought occurred to Trask, or new to him space itself was absent. These essential ingredients - these at least: prime constituents of any ordinary universe of matter — had Nathan, we shouldn't be here. It isn't our place. Rather, it no existence here! Yet Trask remained intact. He didn't isn't mine. His mental whisper was frightened, which Nathan rupture, disintegrate and fly apart, because there was nowhere sensed at once. to fly to. Easy. His own thoughts were calm, controlled. Take it Trask knew the truth of it: that he was NOWHERE. But that it easy. Weren't you the one who wanted to do it? Well, and was also the place where Every-Where and -When had had now you're doing it. their beginning. The birthplace of universes! The womb of But I'm not meant to be. I shouldn't be here. worlds! The singularity before time began! Are you sure of that? He might have shouted his alarm, his shock, his own Trask wondered about that. Was he sure of it? But why version of 'Eureka!' except Trask was only one discoverer, wonder, when he knew the truth of it at once? Yes, I'm sure. not the discoverer. But he believed he knew now what men There are forces here. It isn't such a - what, vacuum? - as meant when they said they'd 'seen the light'. For he had seen you've painted it. I feel ... currents? And they're beginning to the darkness. move me, trying to repulse or expel me. Trask's 'voice' was And in that darkness, suddenly, he was afraid. His grip was tremulous with his ever-increasing panic. tight and growing tighter on Nathan's unseen arm. Unseen, Calm down, Nathan told him again. I have you. You're yes, yet remembered on the photographic negative of his safe. I've wondered about those forces you feel. You know retinae like a slowly fading flash of light. Nathan, his when you're waiting at a red light? How you feel the energy 38 39 Not a lot, Trask answered, sensing movement. Ion Goodly in the throb of the car's engine, just waiting to thrust you doesn't much like the future. It's just something that happens forward? Well, I think this is the same thing. It's your own to him. Come to think of it, it's something that happens to all power you feel. It must be, because nothing happens here of us. It's inevitable as dying. Maybe that's what he doesn't except by force of will. like about it. He'd much prefer to take his chances not It wasn't exactly the truth — only a guess at best — but knowing . .. Trask was in no fit state to repudiate it. Being here, his only They moved rapidly towards a point of light that expanded desire was to be out of here. Like a small boy riding a in a moment into a shimmering door. And Nathan brought rollercoaster. Where are we going? them to a halt close to the threshold. Light sprang forth from In a little while, Perchorsk. beyond the time-door, a pulsing blue light which was yet That pulled the older man together in a moment. WHAT? warm and in no way artificial. The light of life! Trask would But he sensed Nathan's shrug. have known the truth of it, of course, without being told. But The last place anyone would expect us to turn up. At the standing or being at the threshold with Nathan, both of them core. But only for a moment. In and out again. Let them see silhouetted in the warm blue glow, he asked anyway: us, then not see us. Nathan's mental voice was cold, grim now, The future? Our future? Man's future? And the blue reminding Trask very much of his father. I want Turkur threads? Tzonov to know who he's been dealing with. After what he's After a short pause Nathan answered, and his whisper was done to Siggi Dam, and what he would have done to me and no less awed than Trask's. The threads ... are men! he said. Zek, I want him to worry. They are the lives of men . .. And, drawing Trask closer to the But why? You won't be here. threshold - indeed, onto the very threshold -he added, See! He doesn't know that. Anyway, I'm Szgany and I owe him. That's you, Ben, the blue thread of your future life! But Perchorsk! Beyond the future-time-door, all was a chaos of millions of In and out, that's all, Nathan replied, determined. filaments of blue light, and Trask saw that one of them had its Sufficient that they see us. It can't do you any harm, either. origin in his own being, streaming out from him like some Turkur will think twice before he tries any more fast ones on weird ectoplasmic extension and dwindling to a bright blue you or E-Branch. thread as it hurtled into the future — his future. Another sped Do you know the . .. the way there? out from Nathan, out and away into the ever-widening haze of Oh, yes. I was there, remember? But on the way, there's tomorrow ... something else I would like you to see. For some time they gazed upon the panoply of the future; a Trask was calmer now, but found difficulty in not being minute or an aeon? .. . Trask couldn't say. But eventually: able - in not requiring - to breathe. Really? And what would Even here, time grows short, Nathan said. At least, I feel it's that be? so. Anyway, I know well enough where my future is leading The past, Nathan answered. And the future! For I've me. Back to Sunside/Starside. discovered Harry's time-doors, but I haven't crossed a threshold Trask made no answer. Suddenly dumbstruck by the beauty yet. And don't worry - I'm not going to. Not yet. I fust want to (and not least by the knowledge) of what he was see it again. And Ben, just think what lan would give to be your shoes right now. 41 40 flux of the numbers vortex. But please, Ben, don't shout. Don't seeing, he'd become aware of a sound: an almost angelic even think. I have to get the co-ordinates right, that's all. Then, chorus, an orchestrated, interminable Ahhhhhhhh! It could letting the door collapse in upon itself, he backed off a little only be in his mind, for he guessed that time must be as silent and conjured another. This one was less unstable, but not as the Mobius Continuum itself. Of course, for if the sound of entirely so. Volatile and slowly consuming itself, it seemed to all the future were present, that would be an unbearable smoke, drifting a little as Nathan fought to hold it in place. tumult. Finally it firmed up; Nathan immediately stepped through and And all of those blue life-threads weaving away into took Trask with him ... tomorrow and tomorrow, sighing in Trask's mind; and some of the threads growing dim and blinking out as men died, Into Perchorsk. Into the complex under the Urals. Into while others burst from nothing into brilliant neon-blue life as the mighty cavern sphere known as the core! their owners were born. Trask felt he could stand here watching for all time. He was standing here for all time - all future time, at least. But there's the past, too, Nathan told him, guiding him to a past-time-door. Except that beyond this new threshold, instead of multiplying, spreading out and away forever as the human race expanded, the neon life-threads narrowed down, condensed, fell back into a well of nebulous light at the dawn of Man's ascendancy. And now the mystical Ahhhhhhhh sound seemed reversed, fading into the history of humanity .. . In a little while - or maybe after a long time — Nathan said, And now, Perchorsk. Before Trask could protest, he found himself mobile again, and experienced what felt like a split-second of intense acceleration as his guide and companion simply went to Perchorsk in the Urals. They were there in a moment, coming to an instantaneous, effortless halt. Nathan conjured a Mobius door . .. .. . Which warped and fluttered like the flame of a candle in a draft! And suddenly Trask remembered. Too close/' he shouted at the top of his voice, a crushing, deafening, devastating avalanche of sound in the Mobius Continuum! 'We're too close to the Gate!' Numb from the vibratory effect, Nathan hugged Trask close. I know, he said. Everything is wrong here, even the 42 was empty of people, with the exception of a handful of white-smocked, red-splashed bodies where they lay Ill grotesquely crumpled and lifeless, close to the master console. They had been scientists and were only recently The Gates: Perchorsk and Raduj'evac dead, a minute or two at most. Nathan knew this with the sure instinct of a Necroscope; he felt the confusion, disbelief, panic of people who had known that death was a thing that only happens to others . . . which is what we all believe until it happens to us. Trask and Nathan had been here before and knew this Nathan and Trask had emerged from the Mobius door on nightmare place only too well: this alien cavern, eaten out of the outermost rim of a Saturn's-ring system of platforms, the solid rock of a mountain when the Gate was formed in where a perimeter catwalk encircled the core around its the awesome vacuum of a nuclear implosion, this equator. And, as good fortune would have it, they'd emerged subterranean terminal or subway station to a parallel world behind a shielding plate of aluminium fixed to the walkway's called Sunside/Starside. rail, making it a vantage point where they were hidden from the view of the rest of the core. The shield had smoked-glass It was like being in a cavern, but that was where any windows through which, if ever the Gate should be opened similarity ended. The rock had been hollowed into the shape up, it could be viewed without the customary dazzle. But of of a perfect sphere, a giant bubble well over a hundred and course the Gate wasn't likely to be opened up . . . was it? twenty feet in diameter. The curving shiny-black wall all Some ten feet higher and sixty feet away, around the gradual around was glass-smooth except for the gaping mouths of curve of the glossy-black wall, a landing fronted the perfectly energy 'wormholes' which riddled it everywhere, even in the circular mouth of a shaft running at forty-five degrees upwards domed ceiling. And at the centre of the core . . . the Perchorsk into the rock. A railed stairway clung to the wall, with wide Gate itself, encased in a huge carbon steel shell some thirty steps descending from the landing to the catwalk. Reaching feet in diameter, whose three welded sections were supported out from the perimeter, a spidery gantry with an overhanging on massive hydraulic rams. Those rams could apply terrific walkway formed a bridge to the inner catwalk with its pressure to hold the fused sections together in one mass, if consoles, computers and corpses - and its glaring white light. that were ever necessary. While within this protective Light, yes: three giant cat's-eye slits or wedges of light (defensive?) shell of steel, the Gate supported itself, floating shining out like solid bars from the four-foot gaps in the there dead-centre, right where it had been born in a melting carbon steel shell, where the mighty rams had drawn back pot ofalien energies. and torn the welded sections apart, leaving strips of weld At least, that was the scene which the two Mobius intruders hanging down like the rind of some strange metal fruit. And had expected to see; that was what they had seen the last the alien light came flooding from the Gate, of course, time they were here. But now: exposed like the blind, free-floating eye of a gigantic Cyclops. Around the spherical steel 'egg' which contained the Gate, Or the all-seeing orb of some colossal shewstone. Or maybe a suspended catwalk ten feet wide had been drawn back in the seething evil of Pandora's Box — standing open! sections to allow for the egg's hatching. The catwalk was equipped with consoles, computers, viewscreens, but 44 45 Gate from Sunside/Starside, Tzonov's plan had been But this was the static picture, a first impression following discovered and passed on through diplomatic channels to the the darkness of the Mobius Continuum, as when a light is Russian Premier; since when nothing much had appeared to be switched on and the contents of a room print themselves on the happening. Now it was becoming apparent that indeed things viewer's eyeballs. Static, motionless, soundless . .. until, as had been happening. Gustav Turchin had been busy and this Nathan and Trask realized they were actually here, suddenly it was to have been the culmination of the Premier's efforts, the erupted into life! Then - realization of Turchin's goal: to catch Turkur Tzonov and his - A veritable chaos of sound, motion and deadly action! people red-handed and round them up. But it was equally The men on the inner walkway were not the only dead obvious that Tzonov, the head of the Opposition - Russia's E- bodies here, and more were being made even now, so that it Branch - had seen it coming; this firelight in Perchorsk had to was immediately apparent what was happening: that Premier be the result of his contingency planning. Gustav Turchin had done with his softly-softly approach and There were five uniformed, heavily armed men on the was going straight for the throat; he was attempting to beard gantry. Under fire from the railed landing above the Turkur Tzonov in his den. Beard him? He was trying to kill perimeter walkway, three of them strained to haul a trolley him! laden with an assortment of weapons and ammunition 'Christ!' Trask yelped, as automatic gunshots echoed and towards a gap in the steel shell - in fact towards the Gate - bullets ricocheted from the metal trim of the catwalk. 'We've while their two colleagues gave them covering fire. walked into a war! And Turchin ... not a word of warning from Now that Trask and Nathan's eyes had grown accustomed to him!' As more bullets spattered, he grabbed Nathan's arm. 'God the sudden brightness, the brilliant glare of the Gate itself, Almighty! Let's get out of here.' which was dazzling even through the smoked-glass window, But Nathan, crouching down, said, 'Wait! I have to see.' they could see that these would not be the first of Tzonov's 'See what?' Trask gasped, but in fact he already knew what. men to cross the threshold. Others of his soldiers had already Nathan wanted to see Turkur Tzonov, what he was up to, what passed through the 'skin' of the dazzling sphere, its event was going on here. The Perchorsk Gate connected with horizon, and were visible on the other side as glowing slow- Nathan's world in a parallel universe, and the Gate stood open. motion silhouettes against a uniformly milky backdrop. They The Russian's intention had been to invade Sunside/Starside were strung out, a straggling line of burdened, luminous with a crack infantry platoon loyal to himself; to colonize the figures dwindling into the alien white distance, leaving only vampire world, open it up as a vast new satellite of Mother a handful of their colleagues in the foreground to beckon Russia and sack it for its precious metals, thus financing a eerily, with an agonizingly slow urgency, to those still outside resurgence of expansionism and old-style communism here on where they crossed the gantry. Earth, in what had become a politically, ecologically and A white-smocked technician or scientist emerged from financially bankrupt USSR. During the course of which, hiding behind the curve of the Gate. With his hands over his Premier Turchin would be assassinated and replaced by a new, head to signify surrender, spreadeagling his body against a 'democratically elected' leader of that vast region's polyglot section of the steel shell, the frightened man inched his way peoples - Tzonov himself, of course! into view. One of the men on the gantry saw him, turned the That had been the state of play some four months ago. But ugly, blued-steel snout of a machine-pistol in his then, when Nathan had come through the Perchorsk 47 46 the gantry spanning the gaps in the Saturn's rings, a twin- direction, and let go with a burst of a dozen rounds. It was mounted Katushev cannon suddenly swung into action. The murder, pure and simple, totally unnecessary; obviously the weapon was situated against the wall on a supporting soldier and his colleagues had been hand-picked by Tzonov. platform; it sat there like an armoured blister of steel, on a The scientist jerked and shuddered as smoking-hot lead tripod of shock-resistant legs. Quiescent until now, its electric stitched him across and back, passed through him and motor droned into life, the grey-domed hood cracked open, fragmented against the carbon steel, and then ricocheted from and as the assembly telescoped back on itself, so the operator the metal back into his body. His white smock turned scarlet in in the heavily plated bucket-seat came into view. Seeing who a moment. And staggering forward, crumpling as he went, he the gunner was, none other than Tzonov himself, Nathan and fell to his knees at the rim of the platform, then tilted forward Trask gave simultaneous gasps of shock. This man would be and nosedived into sixty feet of thin air between the stanchions menacing enough without deadly armaments, but at the firing and rams. And his querulous dead-speak voice was added to controls of a Katushev .. .? that of the others near the console. Turkur Tzonov was part-Turk, part-Mongol, all man. Nathan had no time to comfort them, could only watch. More Definitely an 'Alpha' male, his was an outstanding mind men came at the run down the circular shaft onto the landing. housed in an athlete's body. His grey eyes were the sort that They joined those already there in firing at the soldiers on the could look at and into a man - literally. They were the gantry, pouring lead at them. One of the latter was hit in the instruments of his telepathy. chest, went down kicking and screaming, twitched and lay The Russian's eyebrows were slim as pencilled lines, silver- still. But they had almost got the trolley to the Gate, a few blond against the tanned ridges of his brows. He was bald, but more paces would do it. Sparks flew from the gantry where this was so in keeping with his other features as to make it bullets splintered against the metalwork, and the two covering appear that hair was never intended. Certainly it wasn't a sign soldiers returned fire. of ill-health or aging; he glowed with vitality, and the only As yet more men came through the entry shaft onto the anomaly lay in the orbits of eyes whose hollows seemed landing, so a group of eight broke off from the original party bruised from long hours of study or implacable concentration. to go clattering down the stairs onto the perimeter walkway. The purple was a symptom of his talent. Tzonov's nose was But when they were only halfway down, that was when things sharply hooked, probably broken in some accident or fight. really started to heat up. Most likely the latter, for the head of Russia's E-Branch was Nathan had been hoping to see Turkur Tzonov, and that devoted to the martial arts. His mouth was well-fleshed, if a Tzonov would see him. He had wanted to remind the man just little too wide, above a strong square chin. His small pointed who it was he'd treated so badly, and who he might still have ears lay flat against his head. It was undeniable that Tzonov to deal with in the future — also of the price to be paid for was good-looking, but the overall picture was of a too-perfect what he had done to Siggi Dam. So far the Necro-scope had symmetry. been disappointed, but no longer. The Russian was here after Even as the shock of seeing him receded, so the Katushev's all; except, now, if Nathan were to show himself, it might motor whined as Tzonov traversed the twin barrels of his easily work out that he'd be the one who paid. Trask, too, of weapon from its target at the core's centre until it lined up course, because they were together. Beyond the stairway to the with the scaffolding supporting the railed landing under the entry shaft, on the far side of entry shaft. The men on the landing and those descending 48 49 the stairs had seen the movement and were frantic to take Pale-faced, Nathan nodded. He stood up, however shakily, whatever cover they could. Those still on the landing made to closed his eyes, conjured a door. Trask also stood up, and as dive headlong into the shaft; those on the stairs hurled their top halves came into view, so Tzonov saw them. themselves over the rail to land on the perimeter walkway. They saw his mouth fall open, and a moment later the mad And Tzonov ignored the squad on the walkway, aiming delight that lit in his eyes as his lips formed a single word: right through them at the spidery scaffolding. 'You.1' Nathan and Trask saw the expression on the Russian's face 'Shit!' Trask said, as the Russian traversed his weapon and as he applied pressure to the Katushev's triggers, and 'good- lowered its smoking barrels. looking' or not, it was a look of sheer malice. His lips drew Nathan tried to hold the door but couldn't concentrate. He back from his perfect teeth in a death's-head grin, and the could feel the Russian's eyes on him where they centred him cords of his neck stood out in ridges where they met his in the Katushev's cross-hair gunsights. Also, the proximity of collarbone. Then . .. the grin turned into an animal snarl! And the Gate was interfering; the door wouldn't form properly; his the Katushev went whoof, whoof, whoof! grip on the thing was too shaky. Men were blown apart as exploding steel gutted them and 'Nathan,' Trask breathed. And again - but much more used them to colour everything yellow, scarlet, grey, brown. urgently — as Tzonov squeezed the trigger-grips, 'Nath-aaan!' Their liquids splashed everywhere as the scaffolding was ... And the firing-pins slammed forward on to empty reduced to so much twisted, smoking metal. Those on the chambers! They knew it immediately from the look of instant landing who hadn't made it into the shaft went sliding from fury on Tzonov's face: the Katushev's magazine was empty. the slumping structure into the bowl of the core, or hung on It gave Nathan the breather he needed. As Tzonov swung like grim death to the warped metal rails or the teetering out of the bucket-chair down on to the perimeter ring and skeleton of the platform. made a run for the gantry, so the Necroscope collapsed the Tzonov laughed his scorn at them, glanced at the Gate and first door and conjured another, also unstable, against the saw that his men were through its skin with their trolley-load solid rock wall of the core. of arms. Two of them waited on the far side, beckoning to him in But in the smoke and turmoil - with the agonized screams the Gate's weird slow-motion. He would be the last of them to of the dying in his ears, and the moans of the dead in his go through. Whatever else the Russian was, he wasn't a metaphysical mind - Nathan's concentration was still lacking; coward. The savage grin slipped from his face as he elevated he hadn't yet mastered the MSbius Continuum, couldn't afford the snouts of the Katushev's barrels and put two more rounds to be distracted. And as Tzonov ran out midway on to the into the screaming, mangled mess on the landing platform. gantry, paused to unsling an automatic rifle from his shoulder Behind their fragile shield, Nathan and Trask ducked down and balance its butt on his hip, so Nathan's door slid sideways and covered their ears as shrapnel flew everywhere. A six- along the wall until it overlapped the mouth of a thirty-inch foot length of scaffolding pipe whipped end over end through diameter energy wormhole, a smooth-bored shaft in the the air and tore the top half of their aluminum cover away in a otherwise solid rock. The door's outline at once shrank to a shriek of tortured metal. The smoked-glass window went with circle and seemed sucked into the narrow shaft ... where it it. immediately firmed up. 'Now can we get out of here?' Trask yelled, surprised that Nathan had taken a step after the door. Looking into the he could hear himself over the ringing in his ears. 51 50 r wormhole, he could see that it was now stable. Having the shaft, then fell into a crouch, spun on his heel and hosed receded these few extra inches from the influence of the lead at the main console. Hot white sparks flew from metal, Gate, it was safe to use. And 'Ben!' he called out to the older and Tzonov used them to trace a path across the shattering man. 'Let's go!' instrument panels. He knew where to hit, and when he Trask came from behind his aluminum cover, saw Turkur found his target was rewarded with a display of arcing blue Tzonov crouched on the gantry, aiming his rifle. And, 'Shit!' electrical fire. Corroborating his accuracy, there came a he said again. squeal of straining metal and triple jets of steam blasted from the bases of the hydraulic rams. And the three massive 'You first,' Nathan told him, as Tzonov opened up on them. sections of carbon steel eggshell began to crank shut. 'First what?' Trask howled as bullets buzzed all about and Bullets fragmented into hot splashes of lead where they sponged from the wall. Nathan made no reply but thrust him struck against the superstructure of the gantry close to the headfirst into the wormhole, and as Trask disappeared yelping Russian's feet. Cursing, he turned and fired a long burst into Mobius space-time, the Necroscope took one step back into the entry shaft, then raced for the narrowing glare of and dived headlong after him ... the Gate where two of the sections were slowly coming On the gantry, Tzonov's eyes bugged and his jaw fell together. Desultory, sporadic fire followed him as he passed open. For long moments, almost absent-mindedly, he continued through the event horizon and seemed sucked into the to hose a vicious stream of lead down the wormhole into unknown. But as the huge metal sections ground closer which he'd seen Trask and Nathan disappear. Then his jaws together and the light was reduced to three flickering arcs or snapped shut and his face darkened, twisting in fury. He fans, which were finally shut off, so the firing died away. knew it simply wasn't possible for men to wriggle out of sight Then, apart from a feeble glimmer of white light from that fast. They weren't in the wormhole, not any longer. They gaps in the shell where torn welding had fallen away, all were . .. somewhere else. was darkness. And as the rams shut down and hissed into And Tzonov knew where; or, if not where, he at least knew quiescence, all was silence, too . .. except for the moans of what. Obviously Nathan had inherited his father's talents, or the dying, and the unanswered, unanswerable queries of the Trask and British E-Branch had helped him to rediscover recently dead .. . them. Like Harry Keogh before him, he too had learned the secret of teleportation; he could move himself instantly, at Moments earlier: will, from one place to another without physically covering Even within the Mobius Continuum, still Nathan could the distance between. Or rather, he knew shorter, faster feel the disturbance of hot lead from Tzonov's weapon. routes. Until he collapsed the door behind him. And then all he Tzonov's finger came off the trigger and the gun's obscene could feel was Ben Trask. chattering died away, leaving only its echoes and the moaning Na-Na-Nathan? Trask's query was a telepathic pant, a of wounded men. But from the shaft behind the shattered, half-snatched breath, a prayer issued into the alien smoking landing-stage came a clatter of booted feet. Time darkness. But in another moment it became a cry of panic: was running out for Tzonov, and he had a journey of his own Nathaaaan! to make. The Necroscope went after him, grabbed him, said It's He lifted the muzzle of his gun, fired a short burst into 53 52 okay! Take it easy, Ben. I'm with you. And reaching out with I don't know, maybe a full platoon of his men? - maybe his metaphysical mind: And David Chung is at the Radujevac more - have gone through the Perchorsk Gate. When we got Refuge. We can go there now. there, there was a small war going on! Premier Turchin Jesus! Trask gasped. Nathan, thank God you're there! I must have decided to pull the plug on Tzonov, but Tzonov mean, I was wondering: 'What if Tzonov hits him?' I'm sorry, had wind of it. Being who he is, the talents he employs, that son, but it wasn't you I was thinking of. I was thinking of me, wouldn't be too hard. So no more softly, softly, catchee stuck in this place forever. I ' d go crazy in an hour. No, Jess monkey. Tzonov is on his way to Sunside/Starside right than that. I'd probably already be crazy! now, with enough men and firepower to blow hell out of Even as he 'spoke' they were in motion, as Nathan tracked just about anything that gets in his way!' his earring sigil to Romania. And in another moment (or in Nathan gave him a strange, knowing look - perhaps a no time at all, whichever way one wishes to think of it) they look of derision, certainly of denial - but said nothing. were there. Nathan conjured a door and stepped through it, 'Which means,' Chung said, 'that Nathan will be wanting to dragging a stumbling, staggering Trask after him. get on his way, too. And as soon as possible.' The light was subdued; Nathan's eyes accepted it without And another voice, female, said, 'Maybe even sooner than blinking. David Chung stepped forward and helped support that.' Trask, whose face was drawn. Anna Marie English, an ecopath (and probably the only Trouble?' Chung was at once solicitous. 'A bad trip?' ecopath, sui generis, because for all Trask's years with E- 'You could say that,' said Nathan grimly. Branch, he had never come across another talent like hers), He and Trask had emerged from the Mobius Continuum had entered the room silently. Looking at the two arrivals, into a small square box of a room no more than three and a she said, 'Ben. Nathan.' Then, speaking directly to the former, half metres across, with dim fluorescent lighting in the low and with a deal of urgency in her voice: 'Have you talked to ceiling and no outside windows or furniture. Just four white- David? Do you know about the problem at the airport? painted walls and David Chung, and Nathan's golden Mobius CMI?' loop earring. Seeing it in Chung's outstretched hand, Nathan Trask looked at her and thought what he'd thought so often took it back, slipped it into place in the lobe of his ear. before. Anna Marie was a Branch esper: English by name and nationality, but scarcely an English rose. She was invariably Trask was his own man again, although his voice was still ... what, lacklustre? Well, that would be putting it mildly. a little shaky. 'Put it this way,' he said. 'I won't be Enervated, pallid, dowdy; even this current bout of urgency volunteering for the Mobius route again!' Then, seeing the seemed a strain, almost too much for her to handle. It was her look on Nathan's face: 'But that was only one bad thing, and talent, Trask knew, and felt sorry for her. But on the other there's much worse.' hand, maybe he shouldn't. At twenty-four the woman had Nathan took it up. 'We had to get out of E-Branch HQ in a looked fifty, and now, at forty, she still looked fifty! Which hurry. I would have come here directly, but you weren't in had to be good news for Mother Earth. situ. There are a good many places I could have gone to, but I Ecologically aware, Anna Marie's premature aging had wanted to see Perchorsk again. So we went there, and . .. we been held in abeyance by the planet's partial recovery from saw -' He looked at Trask. the industrial and nuclear ravages of the last century. As the The older man cleared his throat. Turkur Tzonov and, oh, Earth shrugged off its illnesses, so she caught up with 55 54 her true age - but in reverse! She had been 'worn out' as a Trask grunted and said, 'Tzonov was pretty desperate the teenager, and was now an 'old' forty. But at the current rate of last time I saw him, about .. . what, two minutes ago? He's remission the day might yet dawn when she was a 'young' out of it by now, though, on his way to Starside. But I know sixty! what you mean: his agents will be active as ever, carrying As for her talent (could it really be considered a 'talent', out whatever policies he left behind. As for CMI: I expect Trask wondered, or was it more properly a curse?): as an lan Goodly will be stirring it for them right now! But in any empath feels for others, so Anna Marie felt for the world; she case, don't worry, Nathan won't be held up here. Not if all was as one with Mother Earth. As Antarctica was drained of goes according to plan.' He looked at her questioningly, and its mineral wealth, so she was drained of energy. As the rain she nodded. forests were raped for workable timber or even fuel, she too And leading the way out of the room into the Refuge's felt violated, burned up. She knew a little of the agony of complex, she answered, 'It's all in hand. Except . .. wasn't every dolphin still being killed illegally by the Japanese, and Nathan going to bring arms with him?' could count the number of kills in the liver spots or wrinkles 'I still am,' Nathan told her. 'Everything I need is back at on the dry, desiccated skin of her spindly arms. When a huge, E-Branch HQ. Until I go back for it.' nuclear-powered cargo vessel sank in the Pacific, her bones But Trask was quick to point out, 'Ah .. . maybe it won't ached to the slow seepage of radiation outwards across the be as easy as that, Nathan. Not after what's happened.' And ocean floor. And as fresh holes gaped in the ozone layer, so to Anna Marie: 'The plan was that once Nathan had the her ulcers ate their way through Anna Marie's guts. Refuge's co-ordinates, he'd be able to come and go — ' he But working out here at the Refuge in Romania, at least she shrugged - 'at will. Then he would ferry his arms, in, piece was doing something good, worthwhile. And as well as by piece, along the Mobius route. That's all there was to it. helping these poor kids and young people, she was also Maybe he'll still be able to do it; it all depends on E-Branch, helping herself. They were Earth's children, after all, and she the situation back home.' was caring for them. Trask liked to think that maybe, in its As he finished speaking, they arrived at the administrative own way, the Earth was returning the favour . .. office in time to catch the first chirrup of the telephone. It 'CMI?' Finally he answered her. 'I know about them in was E-Branch from London, lan Goodly asking for Trask. London. But .. . have I missed something?' He looked ques- Anna Marie handed the telephone over. tioningly at Chung. 'Ben here,' Trask said. And, 'Are we scrambled?' 'CMI were at the airport in Belgrade, too,' Chung told him. They were, and Goodly told him about the rest of the visit 'And they were obviously disappointed that I'd showed up by CMI. They were after Nathan,' he finished off, 'with without Nathan - very disappointed. They questioned me for orders to take him if they could, or to kill him!' quite some time. It's why I was late getting here.' Trask nodded absent-mindedly, and said, 'Someone's afraid 'It could mean a lot of trouble still to come.' Anna Marie of him, even as we were afraid of his father.' And glancing took it up. 'And then of course there's Turkur Tzonov. He has at Nathan: 'And just as mistakenly. But how did they know men in Romania too. So the way I see it, we can't keep we were getting ready to ship him home to Nathan here too long. He won't be safe here. Not if CMI or Sunside/Starside?' the Opposition - or both - are desperate enough.' 'Would you believe . .. our Minister,' (and Goodly gave an imitation cough) 'Responsible? I have to admit, though, that 56 57 he seemed genuinely upset. And you have to remember, it before Nathan could get out, but I'm not going to take any was the Minister who warned me that CMI would be calling chances. The merest hint of danger at your end, and we wait on E-Branch in the first place. Thinking back on it, I recall it out until he can start again.' that he mumbled something about setting watchers to watch Nathan touched his elbow. 'You'll be wasting your time on the watchers?' the telephone,' he said quietly. Again Trask nodded at the telephone. 'Right. At E-Branch Trask looked at him. 'Eh?' we're all big fish. But when it's something as important - or 'Zek is still there, in London,' Nathan reminded him. 'Have as potentially dangerous - as this, then there are even bigger her called in. She can be my early warning system. No need fish, even sharks! They're called Advisers to the Inner for the telephone. Phones can be put out of action.' Cabinet: top-level, stone-cold "thinkers" specializing in Trask thought, Yes, and so can Zek! finance, world affairs and security, internal and external. Lots Nathan read it not only in his mind but his eyes, too. And of brain but not an ounce of heart in the whole bunch. You he was quick to agree. 'You're right, of course. Use the can bet your life that somebody up there, someone a lot bigger telephone.' than our Minister, set this ball rolling. Well, that's as may be, On the other end of the line, Goodly had managed to catch but whoever he is, he's obviously as prone to making a little of what was being discussed. Now he said, 'Zek mistakes as anyone else. Killing Nathan would have been one walked in just a moment ago. She's been in town, making hell of a big mistake, and for a hell of a lot of reasons!' arrangements to fly home. She's with me right now and says Turkur Tzonov was just such a reason, of course, but Trask she wants in on this.' wasn't going to talk about him right now, not even on a Trask uttered a disgusted, barely audible, 'Oh, fuck!' scrambled telephone. And Goodly said, 'Zek asks me to say "and the same to 'So what's next?' Goodly asked. 'And is there anything we you"!' can do at this end?' 'Very well,' Trask knew he wouldn't get the best of it with 'Nathan's arms and ammo,' Trask answered. 'Still safe and Zek Foener. Having fallen in love with her, he didn't even sound?' want to. 'So break down the weapons into easily handled 'Hidden away,' Goodly said. 'CMI didn't find them. And if batches. The Ops room will be perfect; plenty of room for they had, so what? We're E-Branch; we're entitled.' Nathan to work in. Zek can give him the okay as each batch is 'And where are CMI now? Are they watching, listening, made ready. He'll home in on her and, well, do his thing.' interfering?' Glancing at Nathan, he offered an apologetic shrug. 'Not that we can discover.' 'Okay,' Goodly answered. 'Give me time to secure this 'Right,' Trask grunted. This is what I want you to do. place, and then Zek will get back to you — or rather to Temporarily immobilize the elevator, and make E-Branch Nathan. Say, fifteen to twenty minutes?' secure. Put a man on the roof to watch for choppers. And 'Right,' Trask told him, and put the phone down. And others on the street, just watching. Also, I want you turning to the others: 'We have maybe twenty minutes.' He personally on the telephone to me from start to finish, looked at Anna Marie. 'Is that time enough for us to see your continually, so we can talk each other through all Nathan's end of the operation?' comings and goings, until he's got all of his stuff out of there. She nodded. 'Come on.' I know it's highly unlikely that CMI could get a team back in The Refuge was a school, a hospice, a sprawling home in there 58 59 the woods for fifty Romanian kids aged sixteen to twenty. Above ground, the Refuge sprawled in three tiers, like a Following the collapse of the disastrous Ceausescu reign back modern, half-buried ziggurat against the face of a cliff once in the late eighties, as Romania gradually opened herself up to carved by the Danube but now standing well back from the Western influences, so E-Branch had worried certain Powers- river's swirl. The lower level was built on pylons sunk into the That-Be into building a place here on the wooded banks of the scree; between the pylons, reinforced concrete walls had been Danube, not far from Radujevac. The siting of the Refuge had frescoed into autumnal patterns and shapes. An outsider would not been arbitrary: it stood guard over the mouth of a probably think it unlikely that there was a cellar back there, resurgence, where a subterranean river, a tributary of the though certainly anyone approaching the wall too closely Danube, surfaced after its dark journey from a source would hear a low whine of turbines when it rained or the cloud somewhere in the foothills of the Carpa(ii Meridiona/i, the ceiling lay low on the foothills; especially in the winter months, Transylvanian Alps. And the resurgence itself was the source when the resurgence powered the Refuge's heating and of all Earth's vampire myths and legends, indeed, of all lighting systems. Outsiders, however, were kept well back vampiric infestation of this planet. behind gardens and a high perimeter fence right on the rim of For it was here, some miles up the lightless borehole of the the river. The entire location was a 'Sovereign Base Area', a sump, that a second Gate opened into this world. And this small British enclave on foreign soil. Gate, too, connected with Nathan's parallel world of Having first run the gantlet of the Refuge's security or Sunside/Starside. Thus the Romanian Refuge served two 'purification' systems, water from the subterranean sump now purposes: it was a refuge for a handful of victims of Ceau- resurfaced below the east-facing wall into a large lily pond. sescu's nightmarishly draconian policies, whose traumas had From there it made its way to the Danube via a deep concrete been such that, after all these years, they still required help; sluice, forming a slow, shallow stream in the dry season, but but more than that, it was a barrier against further incursions running to something of a torrent when the rains came. of the yet more nightmarish Wamphyri, and all the horrors of So the Romanian Refuge fulfilled its prime objective, and its Starside. staff only half-jokingly referred to themselves as 'Guardians of In the bowels of the place, beneath its foundations, the the Gate'. But the kids in their care weren't simply a cover. river's rush had been diverted, channelled, controlled. There They had always been well-cared for and, as long as Anna were monitors down there, to register the presence of Marie English was in charge, the same level of care was anything which might prove inimical to mankind. And there guaranteed. Orphans, cripples, socially deprived kids (one was . .. machinery which permitted the entry but not the exit might call them all of these things, and even 'inmates' in of anything bigger than a minnow or small eel. Any man or certain cases): they occupied the Refuge's two upper tiers. creature not of this world, coming from the underground Gate Their classrooms, workshops and recreational facilities were in and flushed down the river, would find other than safe refuge the lower tier, along with the staff accommodation, directly here. And alive, dead, or undead, the thing would undergo above the site of the original resurgence. But the infrequent something other than a metamorphic change. Electrocuted, whine of turbines was lost in a massively reinforced and gutted, boiled and ground down, eventually he, she or it soundproofed concrete floor. would emerge as so much mush or paste to be dried out and The room where Trask and Nathan had emerged from the incinerated. In this matter, as never before, E-Branch had been very specific .. . 60 61 Trask had been rotating their duties here for as long as the Mobius Continuum was little more than a storage room off Refuge had existed. These were the men who would handle the inner corridor of the central tier. Anna Marie had ordered it the machinery down in the guts of the place, if ever that cleared out so that Nathan would have ample room in which should become necessary, and they were also the men who to work. Her admin office was on the same level, with a huge would escort Nathan to the Gate in the lightless bowels of window facing south. Looking out of that window, Chung, the foothills. (Lightless with the exception of the Gate's own Trask and Nathan had gazed across the sunlit river into enigmatic glare, of course.) Bulgaria on the one hand, and Yugoslavia to the east. But There were five of them, three of whom had already borders no longer mattered a great deal, and so the scenery visited the Gate. That had been two weeks ago, when the was simply 'country'. water-level had gone down after a long dry spell. But the From the admin office they had gone down into the good weather had continued and they now considered it Refuge's lower level, and in a gymnasium where an instructor safe to take both Nathan and his weapons up the resurgence worked out with some of the kids they'd looked east through and into ... into another world. Into his own world, of patio windows across a wide balcony set with tables and course. Or at least take him as far as the threshold of that chairs, to where the gravel drive wound across gardens and world, from where he would go on alone. into the trees, right up to iron security gates set in the high As Nathan was introduced to them, so a Romanian youth fence. The place would be generally secure, at least. But not came running with a message from Chung: E-Branch was from determined men. secure. Nathan could commence ferrying his weapons into And that was when Trask had decided: 'It all looks far too the Refuge ... peaceful out there - but it isn't!' It was his talent working, telling him that this was all a lie. 'We're observed. The The Mobius jumps were no problem at all, and each time Refuge as a whole is under scrutiny. Probably Tzonov's Nathan used the Continuum, so it got easier. There was no people. Or CMI —' and quoting Anna Marie: '— or both. longer any sensation of 'speeding' to a place, he simply You're right: we have to get Nathan out of here ASAP.' 'went' there. They didn't bother to visit the basement (Anna Marie told And E-Branch HQ was where he went, where lan Goodly Trask that in any case it was all very quiet and ominous down had seen to the readiness of what was to become his there, like the stomach of some hungry, patiently hibernating Sunside arsenal. Nathan had picked up a case of beast), but left David Chung back at the admin office to take fragmentation grenades, compact flame-throwers normally calls and went up to the Refuge's top level. There, Trask met used in rat-infested sewers, nite-sited, infra-red, laser-guided some of the staff, people who actually were what they machine-pistols, three llmm SLRs, inches-accurate to three- appeared to be: teachers, nurses, physio-and quarters of a mile, a pair of light-weight, 30mm rocket- psychotherapists, people who cared what they were doing, launchers, ammunition galore. He had also developed a and for the kids they were doing it for. But among these certain fondness for a new model all-metal crossbow used in specialists were others, ostensibly 'under instruction'. And quarrying, forestry and the Canadian logging camps. The these were Trask's men, seconded to E-Branch from Special half-inch bolts were full of plastic high-explosive and Forces, security-vetted and sworn to secrecy. could bring down a pine tree faster than any chainsaw. They were ex-Navy men, cavers, spelaeologists, experts in Fired into a trunk from a safe distance, the core of the bolt subterranean exploration and underwater equipment, and would 63 62 detonate 1.5 seconds after impact. On Sunside, crossbows were weapons Nathan had always known and respected, but IV The Way this model was something else. He'd picked up six of them. All in all the weight of these armaments came to around five Home hundred and eleven pounds, but Goodly had bagged them in lots of one hundred pounds. Five trips to and fro, with espers loading Nathan's arms into his arms at the London end, and Trask and Chung offloading them in the Refuge. If CMI or anyone else knew about it they weren't making any noise, and the job was done in less than five minutes ... 'That's it,' said Nathan breathlessly, after the last trip but one. That's the weapons part of it, anyway.' 'What's that you say?' Trask cocked his head on one side quizzically. 'What else is there?' 'Just someone who wants to say goodbye to you before she goes home for a while. And she's asked me to take her there - my way. But she wants to stop off here first.' 'She's asked you to -?' Trask drew air in a gasp. 'Nathan, wait .. .!' But too late, for the Necroscope had disappeared into thin air. A moment later he was back, setting down Zek on the floor as dainty as a dancer. And she passed from his arms into Trask's just as easily. Nathan was also carrying her suitcase. 'Zek doesn't seem to have your problem with it,' he told Trask. 'With the Mb'bius Continuum, I mean.' 'Ben.' She smiled, never giving Trask a moment to regain his equilibrium. 'I'm going home for a while. Back to Zante. I want a little time to think over what we talked about.' David Chung coughed self-consciously and slipped silently from the room, but Nathan stayed. He knew what it was all about and felt no embarrassment. 'What we —?' Trask looked at her in his arms and drank her in. Zekintha Foener was beautiful; she always had been and Trask supposed she always would be. At five-nine, she was about an inch shorter than he himself, but where looks were concerned he had been at the back of the queue while she'd been right up front. Named by her Greek mother after Zakinthos, the island where she had been born, Zek was 65 slim, leggy, blonde and blue-eyed. It was obvious from her .. . true? That's not just a talent you've got there, Ben Trask. colouring that she'd taken a lot more after her German father. It's a life style. Sometimes when you look at me . . . I have to Or maybe she'd taken after her Greek island birthplace itself, admit, I've looked into your head once or twice. And there for Zakinthos was the Isle of Flowers. She must be, oh, some was only one other person who ever thought of me like that. forty-nine or fifty years old now. Not that anyone would ever Well, I've spoken to Jazz, and he doesn't want me to be alone.' guess; she could just as easily be thirty-six or -seven. Trask's heart gave a leap. 'You've made up your mind?' Zek had her faults ... but they had always been there, and for She nodded. 'I think so. Now I need a break to just ... well, Trask's money they only served to enhance her. It was these to think about it. The logistics of the thing. You see, I love smallest of small flaws that made her perfect -perfect in his my island, too, and I have to say a long, slow goodbye to it.' eyes, anyway. Her mouth, for example, with its soft, naturally Nathan was getting impatient and Trask knew it. He moist lips just a fraction too full, which tended to tremble a returned Zek's kiss and said, 'But right now a fast goodbye, little when she was angry. And the uneven jut of her jaw, also right? Very fast!' And to Nathan: 'Okay, she's all yours - so to when she was upset, which seemed slightly more prominent speak. And look after her!' on the right. .. Nathan smiled his slow, introspective smile and said, 'You Abruptly, she brought him right back down to earth. needn't worry, Ben. I love her too - but differently. Apart 'Don't tell me you've forgotten?' Again her smile. from her colours, Zek could be my mother.' An outsider And Trask at once reddened up. 'No, I haven't forgotten. hearing that would probably find it strange: her colours were But... will you be safe back home?' Nathan's, and in that respect she could easily be his mother. 'Nathan is the one everyone is out to get,' she answered, her Except he thought of himself as Szgany, and so her colours smile fading. 'Once he's gone, they'll forget about me soon were alien to him. Moreover, Nana Kiklu (his real mother) enough. And probably about all of us.' was dark-eyed and raven-haired, a Traveller, a Gypsy. But Two of the cavers came into the room to collect a bundle of speaking his mind was part of Nathan; so that the way he'd arms and ammo. One of them paused a moment, looked at said it, Zek knew his comment had nothing to do with her Trask and Nathan - and at Zek, wonderingly - and said, 'Anna age, everything to do with his feelings. And she felt Marie says it has to be soon. Well, we just want you to know: complimented. we'll be ready any time you are.' 'I'm ready,' she said. And again Trask watched it happen: 'Give me a minute,' Nathan told him. The way the Necroscope's eyes changed from a deep 'You're that eager?' sapphire blue to the cloudy blue — the near-mystical blue -of 'Wouldn't you be? I'm going home!' English summer skies, as he conjured a Mobius door. And he The other smiled, however uncertainly. But Trask thought: nodded just once at Trask as he drew Zek to him and guided Would you still smile if you knew what he's going home to? her in a certain direction, stepping to one side with her, And as the cavers left the room he released Zek and told her, almost as if they were dancing .. . but stepping into 'Be careful, and stay in touch. Let me know when you're ready. nothingness. Then: Or not ready? I mean, I know I'm not that much of a catch, There was a sudden rush of air into the spaces they'd but -' occupied, and apart from Trask the room was empty ... 'You're an awful lot of a catch.' She kissed him. 'You're 66 67 David Chung, with a cordless telephone in his hand, beat spare parts for the SLRs. An ex-Navy type, checking to see Nathan back into the small room by maybe a second and a that they'd got it all, picked up these last few items. But in half. 'It's lan Goodly,' he told Trask. 'For you - urgent!' the corridor, as they headed for the sump . .. And a moment later Goodly was piping in Trask's ear: . .. They bumped into Anna Marie. T equipped some of 'Ben! Something bad is on its way!' the instructors with walkie-talkies, sent them out into the 'At E-Branch?' Trask's voice rasped his anxiety. woods and approach roads,' she said breathlessly. 'No. Out there. At the Refuge!' 'Mercifully, there are damned few roads up here! But I'm Trask trusted the other's talent to the limit. He didn't getting reports of furtive strangers in the neighbourhood, question him further, except to say, 'When?' and a couple of callsigns haven't got back to me at all. Ben, I 'Any time now!' don't like it.' 'Who is it?' On their way down to the basement he told her about his 'I can't see it too clearly. Just explosions - shouting - call from lan Goodly. 'None of us like it,' he said. 'Not you, violence! And Ben - I don't see you. You and David Chung, me, or lan. If this is Turkur Tzonov - I mean, if his people you're not there!' are involved - then they're taking one hell of a risk. 'But we are here!' Something that could blow up into an international incident. 'Not in the immediate future.' And if it's CMI . . . I understand how Nathan could frighten Trask felt the short hairs at the back of his neck stand on people: a man with his powers, coming from an alien world end. 'Death?' of vampires. But how come they're suddenly vindictive? 'God, I don't know! But before I've always known you'd be How come we've had no wind of it? It's why we're in the there - in my future, I mean - now you're not...' intelligence game, after all — so we can know what's going Nathan saw the expression on Trask's face, said, 'What is down before anyone else. But not this time. It's as if it?' someone had been hiding, watching, waiting, looking for the 'Get down to the basement, the cellars, whatever the hell main chance. But the main chance to do what?' they call that place down there . .. the sump, yes. Go now, Anna Marie hobbled on spindly, hurting legs, having Nathan. And you too, David.' difficulty with the concrete stairs down to the lowest level. 'And you?' Chung's face was suddenly shiny with sweat. 'Have we grown lax, Ben?' He knew it must be bad. The Branch? Possibly. But once Nathan's out of here we 'I'm coming.' Trask nodded, 'but not without one of these! have to tighten up again. I have to tighten up - if they give He snatched up a machine-pistol from the floor, one of the me the chance.' few remaining items of weaponry in the room, and slammed a They? The manipulators? The puppeteers?' There was full magazine into its housing. 'Now come on, let's go!' more than a little scorn in her voice. 'We should have taken it The phone was dead in Trask's hand. He hooked it into his all away from them long ago. Our world still needs saving, breast pocket and let it dangle. Ben, and no one is making the effort. Not much of an effort, Nathan tucked a box of ammo under his arm and slung an anyway. It makes nonsense of everything. If we can't do SLR over his shoulder. Chung grabbed up a pair of black- anything for our own world, isn't it a bit presumptuous of us to metal crossbows still in their oiled wrapping. And that was it: try and save someone else's?' only a small ammo box to go, and a package of 68 69 fuss . ..' The Minister paused a second as if to think 'But if we were the bosses,' (Trask had thought it over a something over, and in the next moment the pitch of his good many times) 'who would there be to watch us?' voice went up several notches, almost to an hysterical level: 'Who watches them?' There was logic in her bitterness, 'Trask, CMI are out there, at the Refuge! They're listening in but Trask knew the 'truth' of his argument. Absolute power, on this, at your end and in London both. I'm not party to it, and all that...' Trask, you have to believe me! But if you don't co-operate, 'As for Sunside/Starside,' he ignored her retort to examine they have orders to —' And the phone went dead. the rest of her question, 'you know as well as I do that if the Trask understood. It was supposed to have been an order, vampire world is taken by the Wamphyri, ours could well but the Minister had turned it into a warning. Following his be next. It's Nathan's world that's under threat now, yes . .. pause, his last words had been rushed, almost shouted, but tomorrow and tomorrow?' near-hysterical, and at the end Trask had heard a second Before she could make an answer, if she would - voice - perhaps military? Certainly authoritative, angry - as The phone hooked in Trask's pocket chirruped insistently, its owner snatched the phone from the Minister's hand. causing him to start. 'Shit!' Trask said under his breath. But not so quietly that it By then they were down into the sump of the place, went unheard. where through the course of centuries the resurgence had 'It's all coming to a head, right?' David Chung's face was eaten away the bedrock of the cliff into an overhanging, shiny now with sweat. echoing grotto. Now the mouth of the cave and the course of 'Let's see Nathan off.' Trask nodded. Then it's our necks the gurgling, shallow stream it emitted were roofed over and we'll have to worry about.' He was thinking about lan enclosed in an electrified wire-mesh 'tunnel' hung with Goodly's warning, that he and Chung had no immediate powerful lamps. And away from the roots of the cliff the future. But Nathan had read his mind, and: watercourse had been diverted, lined with reinforced 'I can take you out of here,' the Necroscope said. 'I have concrete, and channelled into a system of man- or the co-ordinates of a dozen different places. Anywhere you vampire-traps. want to go. E-Branch?' A door in the wire-mesh stood open where warning lights 'Christ!' Trask groaned. The Mobius Continuum . .. again?' showed a reassuring green; the power was off. Men were But Chung was all for it. 'Why not?' he asked eagerly. 'I waiting in the tunnel, and some of them had pulled on the mean, if you think we're in danger here .. .?' trouser-bottoms of rubber wetsuits in preparation. Nathan, 'Both of you,' said Nathan, as his eyes went through their Trask and the others joined them, and in the mouth of the weird metamorphosis. And catching hold of their arms, he cave Trask paused to answer the phone. He recognized the drew them through a Mobius door ... Minister Responsible's voice immediately, and at once said: ... And out again into E-Branch HQ. Thanks a lot!' His voice was bitter, choked. ... The Ops room. 'Trask, there's no time for recriminations,' the Minister ... Now an encampment of the enemy! told him. Which served to corroborate what Goodly had lan Goodly was there, his face a mask of shocked said: it was coming soon. 'Now listen and listen good. This realization. So was the Minister Responsible, red and is from the very top. Do you understand? The very top. raging. You're not to go any further with your plan. Nathan isn't to use the Gate. You have to hand him over now, without any 71 70 (Trask hadn't known his call was from E-Branch HQ; it was a did have their orders, and Nathan was at the heart of it. From place the Minister visited only rarely.) And half a dozen espers beneath the podium, an ominous, answering ch-ching sounded wearing as many expressions, and a handful of CMI thugs, over all other sounds, and just as Nathan propelled his their weapons to hand but mercifully not at the ready. The companions over the threshold of his door, so a stream of Minister had his back to the trio when they appeared out of deadly lead scythed across the room, accompanied by the thin air. He was flailing his arms and shouting something deafening, snarled obscenities of rapid-fire. unintelligible at a uniformed man with a cordless telephone in Even as he entered the Mobius Continuum, Nathan was hit his hand. in the shoulder. It spun him over and over in darkness, But the precog lan Goodly had 'known' where they would lighting up his mind with flashes of red pain. And Trask and come through and was looking directly at them, yelling, 'For Chung, holding grimly to him, likewise spinning and actually God's sake, go! Get out of here!' feeling it: his lack of co-ordination, the sickening whirl of Even as Goodly shouted his warning, the Minister Nathan's psyche, until he was able to steady himself and ask: Responsible turned and saw them. Still a few years from Where now? retirement, he was small and grey, sparse but sprightly. Red- That he had asked told its own story: his shock, dis- faced one minute, in the next he turned pale as he recognized orientation. The fact that he'd been hit. The pain was in his Trask, Chung and Nathan, and his single atypical comment mind as surely as it would be in his words if they'd been was: 'Jesus!' spoken. 'Out of here!' Trask grated in Nathan's ear, repeating How badly? Trask was anxious for him - for Nathan this Goodly's expert advice. But at the same time, as the muzzles of time, not himself. And this despite that, if the Necroscope's CMI weapons swung in their direction, he cocked his wound was fatal, the Head of E-Branch might easily be stuck machine-pistol, which made a typical ch-ching sound as the in the Mobius Continuum forever. It was a measure of Trask's first round was picked up and rammed into the breach. He friendship for, his dedication to, even his love of the son of couldn't fire the thing - wouldn't, not while there were espers Harry Keogh. Likewise of David Chung's when the locator in the room; and whether for good or bad reasons, the CMI said: men were only carrying out their duty, after all — but it was a 'Nathan — hang on! Don't go under.' And yet again the warning. If this was to be a firefight, it would be a firefight. insane gonging, the painful reverberation of spoken words in The bullets would be flying in both directions. the elemental, echoing nothingness of the Mobius Continuum. And the warning was taken. CMI agents scattered in all I don't think it's bad, Nathan told them. But I need to know directions through the Ops room; espers hit the floor, taking where to take you. Time's running out. I mean, at the Refuge. what cover they could; the Minister Responsible and senior What about Zek's place on Zante? CMI officer present, who were closest to Trask and his party, No! Trask cautioned him against it. Whatever this thing is took staggering steps backwards and put up their fluttering with CMI, she's not involved in it, not yet. And you're right, hands. we're running out of time. Goodly foresaw trouble at both It was all the distraction Nathan had needed. He conjured a ends, and no future for me and David at any end! Not in this Mobius door, grabbed Trask and Chung's elbows and swung world, anyway ... them off-balance, aiming them at the invisible metaphysical portal. But CMI weren't just playing a game; they 73 72 With which his talent took over and showed him the whole instrument panel, setting them to automatic for the duration picture, the whole 'truth': that while there was no future for of the coming expedition. them in this world, Earth wasn't their only choice. What about That was how it was for a moment. Then: Sunside/Starside? Trask's phone chirruped insistently. It was one of Anna Nathan read Trask's thoughts; but one didn't need to be a Marie's men out in the grounds of the Refuge; he had had telepath to do that, not in the Mflbius Continuum. You want his walkie-talkie patched through by someone in the to . . . to come through with me? administrative office. 'Anna Marie!' His voice came over high- That has to be it, Trask answered. It's the only answer. 1 pitched, excited. There are men out in the grounds. I don't don't feel about ready to die, but if there's no future for me in recognize them. They're doing something at the frescoed this world ...? wall. Oh, Christ, they've planted . .. charges? And now Chung had understood all of this, by which time the fact they're taking cover!' had also dawned that it wasn't a good idea to speak — and lan Goodly's 'explosions' sounded clear in Trask's certainly not to shout — in this place. So that now he imagination. But not only in his mind, for a moment later: thought: Couldn't lan be mistaken? The awesome blast that sounded then filled the hollow, But Trask said, Oh, and can you remember the last time he acoustical echo-chamber of the Refuge's basement and cavern- was mistaken? housed sump with hammer-blows of concussed air, and was The Mobius Continuum was getting to Chung, plus the accompanied by a fireball that blazed into blinding existence knowledge that Nathan had been hurt and might well need in the far, front-facing wall. In the next split-second, the attention. And it was a fact that Chung couldn't remember the wall burst inwards, allowing the fireball to expand into a last time Goodly had been wrong. For which reasons: Back to star of incandescent destruction, while the force of the initial the Refuge, he groaned. explosion hurled flaming debris - chunks of concrete, Nathan had the co-ordinates - masonry and twisted metal - deep into the basement. Pieces - And they were there, as quickly as that. of hot, smoking concrete cartwheeled between floor and - He guided them through his fresh-formed door. ceiling and came crashing through the wire-mesh to splash - Into chaos! down in the shallow stream or land at the feet of Trask and They emerged in the cave-mouth at exactly the same spot the others where they shrank from the shock of the blast. where they'd been all of a minute earlier. And they emerged The two ex-Navy types, who had been working at the in time to experience at first-hand lan Goodly's 'explosions .. . console which controlled the sluice and various unseen shouting . . . violence!' But not for thirty seconds yet. engines and devices, had been picked up and tossed aside, Anna Marie English and an ex-Navy type were waiting, disappearing behind a mushrooming wall of fire and smoke. their expressions (even Anna Marie's) showing pure Perhaps they had screamed as debris rained down to bury astonishment as Nathan, Trask and Chung appeared out of them, but if so their screams had gone unheard, lost in the thin air, the first stepping lightly while the others stumbled, reverberations of the explosion and a burst of automatic gasping their relief at being back. Two of the cavers had gunfire from the gap in the shattered wall, where now the moved deeper into the sump; the remaining pair were outside daylight was filtering in through a black smog of smoke and the wire-mesh cage where they worked at the dials on an dust. 74 75 'Jesus Christ Almighty!' Trask shouted over the din. And: shadows, mobile on the wall of the cave, as two armed, gas- 'What the hell? God, someone is going to pay for all of -' masked men entered at the run. Silhouetted against the smoky 'Sir!' An urgent voice echoed from the back of the cave. lighting of the wire-mesh tunnel, Trask saw that they wore 'This way. If you're coming, come now.' civilian clothing, the anonymous grey of CMI. As yet, 'Come on, let's go,' said Anna Marie, her face pale as however, they hadn't seen him. Then .. . death. . . . A third man, unmasked, joined them; and Trask froze as Those two men back there.' Nathan held back.They were he heard this one say, 'Okay, where are they?' For it was a going to help me. And now they're gone.' His voice was voice he recognized. A lot older than he remembered, true (of shaky from more than the mindless violence; he could hear course it would be), but the same clipped, efficient, cynical the whispers of the recently dead, all the fear and the doubt and self-serving voice he had known all those years ago. Yet and the dread of the endless dark. even though his talent told Trask it was so, still he had to be Trask saw how he held his left shoulder, and the scarlet sure, even at the risk of life and limb. Which was why he seeping through his fingers. 'Are you okay?' waited with the door only half-closed, knowing that if they 'Yes ... no,' the other answered, shaking his head spotted him and started shooting - and if a few lucky rounds undecidedly. 'I mean, this was for me.' should get into the tube - then he'd be finished. 'So don't waste it!' Anna Marie hissed. 'Now let's go.' 'A bunch of them came running in here,' a gruff, muffled She's stronger than she looks, Trask thought, following voice answered the first. They can only be back there. If the after her. And behind them in the reek and the turmoil, more three of us open up together, hose the place down, we'll gunshots and shouting as men came clambering over the probably get them all. And remember, our orders concerning rubble, their faces smudged but their eyes eager as they the one called Nathan are clear: we're to kill him. If the others scanned the basement. get taken out in the process, so what?' At the back of the cave, unseen until now, a solid plug of 'I don't much care about the others,' that eager, oh so well- concrete stood wall to wall and floor to ceiling. It was fitted remembered voice snarled in return. 'But as for the alien - my with a steel manhole or 'airlock' three feet in diameter to the orders are to take him alive! Now cover me ...' The owner of left of the stream. The stream itself came gushing out of a the voice crouched down and came loping through the steel spout of roughly the same diameter, but set lower in the writhing smoke into the cave, following the course of the wall, some twelve inches above the sluice. Two more outlets sluice. Trask had his machine-pistol, and it was still cocked. where they flanked this central jet were dry: the outflow was Apply a gentle pressure to the trigger . .. this one would bother insufficient to warrant their operation. him no more. But he couldn't do it, even though he now knew The airlock door stood open and Trask helped Anna Marie who or what he was dealing with. For if Harry Keogh had to slide through, then directed Nathan, Chung and the caver spared this man - despite all he'd done or tried to do to him - to follow after. Trask went last, and as he grasped handles on who was Trask to take his life? the door and swung his feet into the tube Anna Marie called And still he waited. back to him from the other side: Tendrils of smoke cleared, and now the man was only a few 'Close the door after you, Ben. Just yank on the handles.' paces away. Trask's eyes were accustomed to the gloom; he He reached out again and did so, feeling the circular door looked, saw, knew that he was right. And at the same time the settle onto oiled hinges. But before swinging it shut he saw man spotted him on all-fours in the airlock. Their 76 77 Trask knew how he would feel if he were suddenly robbed eyes met, narrowed, bridged a gap of years. And Trask of his talent: he would want it back. And Paxton? Did he remembered again that scene in the garden of the old house want his telepathy back? Or did he want more — a whole lot outside Edinburgh: more — than that? As an esper with E-Branch he had read The Necroscope, Harry Keogh, monstrous in his drooling, the Keogh files, of course. And he'd been right there at the halloween, halogen lantern-eyed Wamphyri mode, holding in finish, during Harry's last days in this world. one hand a small, thin, dried-up, withered-looking prune of a So . . . Paxton had known the Necroscope's capabilities; man ... called Geoffrey Paxton/ indeed, he'd experienced Harry's talents first-hand. He knew Paxton the mind-flea, an E-Branch telepath, but treacherous about the Mobius Continuum (Harry had taken him there, to to a fault; indeed, to every fault in the book! He had been the most private place in or out of the world, where he had maybe twenty-seven then, was in his early forties now. But fixed his mind), and about Sunside/Starside, the vampire while the weaselish face and eyes — and certainly the voice world. At the end, he'd known too that Harry was a vampire. — were the same, Paxton's body appeared to have undergone One of the undead - but the only one who could talk to the something of a metamorphosis of its own. Deprived by the truly dead. The only one in the world, yes ... Necroscope of his telepathy, Paxton had had to develop other . . . At that time. talents, not mental or parapsychological but physical. Forced But now there was another, Nathan. And Paxton knew to work for a living, he'd been obliged to become more nearly about him, too. Thrown out of E-Branch, the ex-esper had the man. And Trask thought, Why, he's looking in good wormed his way into CMI, which with the exception of the shape! His body, at least. .. Branch was the last of the covert government intelligence But the mind was the same as ever. Still devious, still full agencies. And he'd done it specifically to keep a watch on the of hatred, still lusting after revenge. Revenge against Harry mindspies. For if there was a way — any way at all - for Keogh . . . or his heirs! And once again Trask recognized the Paxton to get his telepathy back, it would have to be through truth of it, and as easily as that the mystery was solved. Trask's E-Branch. And if there was a chance to add to that Paxton of CMI! Sixteen years it had taken him to get in shape, talent or enhance it.. .? Then be sure he would take it. climb to the top, become a high-ranking officer in the Well, and now his time had come; opportunity had knocked Department of Dirty Tricks. And all that time he'd been at last. Perhaps this son of Harry Keogh could put right what watching E-Branch and waiting, always waiting. his vampire father had put wrong. But that wasn't the end of Vindictive? God, yes, he was! Trask thought. But as it by a long shot, for it was also Paxton's chance to take his vindictive as this? To have worked all these years for this? Or revenge! Right here and now, looking at the man face to face, was there more to it than simple revenge on Harry Keogh and Trask knew the truth of it: that that was exactly how it was. whoever followed after him? Harry had considered Paxton a Paxton would use Nathan if he could, and if he couldn't he'd mind-flea, an irritation, an itch he couldn't scratch without kill him. Trask knew it, yes ... surrendering to the monstrous parasitic Thing inside him, ... And Paxton knew he knew. whose prime objective had been to make him Wamphyri. But To recognize and evaluate Paxton had taken only a second, in the end he'd found a way, had entered Paxton's mind and and a lot less than that to forecast his reaction. Next to the made a few adjustments there. So that when at last he'd Necroscope himself, Trask had been Paxton's worst enemy. scratched the telepathic itch, Paxton's talent was no more. The Obviously he still was. So that, as the ex- Necroscope had erased it. 78 79 telepath swung his weapon towards the airlock and squeezed Anna Marie had locked the inner door and was crouched the trigger, Trask was already closing the door on himself and with her ear to it. They're doing something on the far side,' yanking the handles to lock. He heard only the start of it as she said. 'Preparing more charges, maybe? But it will take the cavern filled with the lunatic chatter of sudden death, but longer. They have to be careful not to bring the whole place certainly he knew when the door itself was hit: the clamour down.' was deafening as bullets flattened themselves on steel only a And one of the cavers asked nervously, 'So who's going?1 few inches from his face. The three of us,' Trask answered at once, but he glanced at Trask pushed at the shut door and slid backwards down the Anna Marie, waiting for her to say: smooth bore of the tube a few inches until eager hands 'Four,' as she straightened up. 'I witnessed that mayhem grabbed his legs and pulled him through. The tube was about back there, that cold-blooded murder! Whoever was seven feet long, the thickness of the concrete wall, and fitted responsible, he won't want witnesses.' with handles at the sides to give purchase. Trask supposed Trask gave it only a moment's thought, then: that the airlock would be the weakest part of the system. The 'Okay,' he said. 'I was going to ask you to come anyway.' doors could be blown off. It wouldn't take Paxton long to cut 'Oh?' or blast his way through. 'Yes. You see, the leader of that ratpack back there is Nathan, Chung and Anna Marie were waiting with the three Geoffrey Paxton. Apparently he's with CMI now.' remaining cavers. In the white, artificial light of the inner 'Hold on a second,' another caver growled. 'I mean, we've cave, the faces of all six looked drawn, their features etched in been pretty patient here, but don't you think it's. time fear. And looking at them, Trask thought: Only one way out someone told us what the hell's going on? Nobody told us now. But again Nathan had been listening. we were going to war! As for this bloke -' he stared at 'I can still take you somewhere else,' he said. 'It would only Nathan - 'the way he comes and goes ... shit, we're take a moment to set you down in Edinburgh or Hartlepool. Or completely in the dark! All we know is that we're working the Greek Islands, if you like!' for you, Mr Trask. But are you doing something wrong here, Trask shook his head. 'Son, we all have our talents. Anna or what? Isn't CMI a government outfit?' Marie, Chung, myself and you. Especially you. Well, lan 'Let's get underway,' Trask answered, 'and I'll tell you as Goodly is talented, too, and I trust him as well as I trust we go.' myself. If he says I have no immediate future here, then As the cavers made ready their equipment, so Anna Marie obviously I can't stay here. And anyway, can't you see what a applied a field dressing to Nathan's shoulder. His wound was a strange thing that was for him to say? No "immediate" future? deep groove along the firm, rounded muscle of his upper arm. Does that mean there is a future for Chung and me, but a Almost a burn as opposed to a cut, the bullet had self- distant one? And does that mean we're to make our way to cauterized its own damage. Criss-crossing an earlier burn Sunside/Starside, and then return at some later date?' he'd come by only two days earlier in the Greek Islands, the Nathan nodded. 'I was faced with the same problem once. result was a stiffening of the shoulder. Mercifully, that was My future was foreseen, and I was told it would come about all. even if I tried to avoid it. The future is like the past: And in a little while the party set out up the course of the immutable. It can't be avoided, therefore it's better not to underground river ... know it.' 81 80 Twenty-five minutes later, following the main watercourse 'And when it comes to coming back home again?' This deep into a subterranean cavern system, the seven were up to from one of the other cavers. their thighs in ice-cold water and Trask had told a much- But Nathan could only shake his head, shrug and say, 'I abbreviated story of an alien world and the vampire creatures can't make any promises. If you knew the Wamphyri like I who dwelled there. Where he might have erred, Nathan was do, you wouldn't make any either.' there to correct him. Also, Trask had detailed the reasons why 'But there's a chance?' Nathan must get back there — not only to save his world, but 'Better than a chance. There is a way back for all of you, but possibly ours, too - and had even put forward his theory about for the moment it's blocked. And anyway, we can't be sure of Paxton: the ex-telepath's reason for wanting to take Nathan the reception you'd get at this end. But later, if there's to be a alive . . . or dead, if only for revenge against Harry Keogh. later, I can always take you back to the Starside Gate, yes.' At first, the thoroughly down-to-earth trio of cavers had The cavers looked at each other. And in a moment: Then it seemed sceptical, but Trask's talent occasionally worked both looks like we're coming with you,' their spokesman said. ways: he not only read the truth but the truth was read in him. Which coincided with a muffled roar like distant thunder This was one such occasion. Gradually his demeanour and from far back along the way they'd come. And: There goes tone of voice got through to them, so that as the party sloshed the airlock,' Chung groaned. its way upstream they heard him out without comment. In any By now they were waist-deep in blackly swirling water, case, they'd seen the cavern of the Gate - and what it heading for a dry ledge to one side of the watercourse. contained - following which . .. Trask's explanation seemed as Behind them, they towed a pair of light-weight rubber good as any. And when finally he was finished: dinghies with tiny but powerful outboard motors, and a long 'But didn't Miss English say that those CMI people buoyant rubber sausage fitted with zipper pockets. At a push, wouldn't want any witnesses?' The caver spokesman's voice the dinghies could take three passengers; the sausage was a echoed in the cathedral-like acoustics of the place, and in the floating transporter: Nathan's weapons and other goods had light of powerful torches his face told of his fears. 'Well, been stowed in its pockets. we're not just witnesses, Mr Trask. Those were our 'Seven of us,' the caver spokesman said. 'Six in the colleagues, friends who died back there! And what about us? dinghies, and one hanging on behind the sausage. I'll kit-up.' Do we get to enter this other world, too? Or will you leave us And as they climbed on to the ledge: This is where we lose down here to face whatever's coming?' our pursuers, for now anyway. There are spare dinghies and Trask looked at him, then at Nathan, and said, Things have air-tanks in the Refuge, but if they want to follow us beyond moved too fast. I haven't had time to think it out. I can't say this point they'll have to go back for them.' what will or won't work.' There were six prop-assisted aqualungs on the ledge, and They can come through with us,' Nathan answered. They're Trask found himself feeling a little claustrophobic just looking sending me home, and carrying my weapons, after all. I at them. But as the caver spokesman struggled into a wetsuit wouldn't want them to come to any harm. And anyway, Lardis vest, again he reassured Trask: Tor the final leg of the trip. A will be able to put them to good use; he'll be needing good sump some fifty feet end to end, but totally submerged. We'll weapon-training instructors.' assist you through, of course. And believe me, we're lucky. The water-table has never been this low. Any other time, we'd have been swimming long before this.' 82 83 From back along the course they'd followed, as they got took up positions between their guides and hauled themselves carefully into the dinghies and started the motors, they could hand over hand along the line. So they came to the cavern of hear echoing sounds of splashing and hoarse voices; these the Gate. There, on a dry ledge, they stripped down, and one of were left far behind as they lowered their heads and entered a the cavers took the smallest of the wetsuits and a lung back long lake of black water, where the ceiling came down to only through the sump for Anna Marie. Assisted by the caver a few feet. spokesman and his 2 I/C, she was the last to come through. And feeling the weight of the Carpathian foothills Before entering the water with her, Anna Marie's escorts miraculously suspended overhead, as they followed a string partially deflated the sausage transporter and made it fast to of luminous bobbing corks into an apparently endless the end of the line. As for the dinghies, they were simply cast darkness, each and every one of the seven fell silent. And it off and left to drift downstream. And finally all seven of the was as much as they could do not to hold their breaths . .. party stood in the cavern of the Gate. The cavers had been here before; however strange, this was But the darkness wasn't endless. nothing new to them. But while they hauled on the line and For a full half-hour they forged at low speed against the recovered the sausage, Nathan's small arsenal and various flow of the river, sometimes with the walls in sight and items of dry clothing, the other four stood gazing all about, sometimes when even the ceiling receded out of view. But plainly in awe of the place. Mainly they looked at the Gate - or eventually the cavern narrowed down into something of a rather, they shielded their eyes from its glare. bottleneck, where a dark shingle beach rose inches out of the The Gate. It looked nothing like a gate in the common water. And to one side of the beach, where the wall was split meaning of the word. Instead, it was the very duplicate of that with a massive crack, there the water had a glowing, milky gigantic sphere of alien white light down in the core at sheen to it, as if lit by some strange submarine fire. Perchorsk. Except here, the bulk of its mass seemed lodged in Nathan recognized that soft but somehow unwelcoming the low ceiling, or grown there like a massive blister of cold glow well enough. 'Beyond that crack in the wall there,' he fire. said to Trask, 'stands the Gate.' And to prove it, if only to The way home,' Nathan said simply, but his words were a himself, he conjured a Mobius door - which at once warped sigh, perhaps even a prayer. and collapsed in upon itself. As it had been in Perchorsk, so it Looking at him Trask thought, And this time there really is was here in the bowels of the earth: the close proximity of the only one way out. Gate interfered with the space-time matrix, and with the If Nathan heard him, he made no answer ... Mobius Continuum, of course. After beaching the dinghies, two of the cavers pulled on vests and fins and set off at once into the water. Swimming to the crack in the wall, they upended and disappeared into the glowing depths. Behind them, they trailed a luminous nylon line made fast to a knob of rock projecting from the wall of the cave. In only a minute or two they were back and signalling that Nathan, Trask and Chung should enter the water. In wetsuits and wearing aqualungs, the three 84 PART TWO Sunside/Starside I Starside Staring with squinting eyes all about the cavern of the Gate, Trask thought, We might already be in another world! And those (he shrank from the shapes of several dripstone anomalies) must be its inhabitants. 'Once inhabitants,' Nathan told him in a whisper that somehow managed to echo. 'But not of this world, Ben. Starside. And, no, we're not there yet.' The cavern was roughly the shape of the interior of a rugby ball, half-full of water and big as a church. The black, inward- curving walls were ribbed like a gigantic throat, with cracks and crevices here and there where the water had eaten into the rock strata, shallow ledges at various levels, and black tunnels two to three feet in diameter, where the mouths of a great many magmass wormholes -alien energy channels - disappeared into the otherwise solid bedrock. And seated, crouched or crammed into several of the higher niches, where they had doubtless escaped from rising water in times of flooding, Trask's 'inhabitants' leered out in stony silence. Or at least, they were silent to Trask and the others. But not to the Necroscope. For when Nathan had spoken to Trask out loud, of course his words no less than his thoughts were deadspeak. His words and thoughts alike, they always were deadspeak — except when he shielded them. And the long- dead creatures of the cavern had heard him. Moreover they knew him, or his sort, at least, for he was not the first living man who had spoken to them in that way. Another had been here before him. And because of that other, the 89 dead of the cavern responded in a way which Nathan had The other seemed astonished. His very presence — his grown to expect: previous nature — was enough in itself to cow the thoughts Hah! Returned, are you? Well, and the first ever, be sure. of most of the other dead people here. What was this Nathan Ah, but it took you long enough/ What? Nigh on a thousand anyway but a pup, and a human pup at that? Whose man sunups, I'd suspect. Still, what is time to such as us? This from was I? Why, I was my own man, of course -called Cezar a nightmarish, mummy-thing jammed tight in a niche, where Bitesthrall. dripstone had fused it in position like a weird embryo in a But Nathan knew well enough how the Wamphyri named womb of gleaming calcium. A hideously misshapen skull, their thralls, and so could work it out for himself which whose empty eye-sockets reflected the glare of the Gate, Lord this one had served. Bitesthrall? But you've given protruded from the grotesque stalactite. Frozen in true death, yourself away, Cezar, he said. You were in thrall to Menor the yawning jaws were wolfish and toothed like a carnivore. Maimbite, who died in the battle for The Dweller's garden And indeed this had been a carnivore — Wamphyri! Or a on Starside. Yes, and it was my father who killed him! lieutenant on the brink of ascendancy, at the very least. But Now the other really was astonished. You are little more now it was just a dead thing. Yet still it seemed to leer at than a boy, he gasped, and yet .. . you know so much! How is Trask and his party with a permanent, imperishable it you know so much? When a man passes through the malignancy. Starside Gate, he is gone forever. Yet your knowledge of Starside is plainly considerable. But ... did you say that Startled at first, Trask now stepped closer to the wall of the Menor is dead? Truly? cavern and gazed up at the monster. Obviously it had The caver spokesman, suddenly aware of a strange silence, crouched there like this for a very long time. 'What, a statue? said, 'Well, what now?' His colleagues were equally Or is it the real thing?' Even asking it, he knew that the mystified, not least by Nathan's expression as he stared at creature was or had been real, alive, of course. His talent told the freakish thing in its high niche. him that much. But he did not have Nathan's talent, could But Trask, Anna Marie and David Chung all knew what scarcely imagine that even now the Necroscope and the now: that Nathan was speaking to a dead man, or something ossified thing were conversing: which had once been a man. Espers, they sensed something 'Oh, it's the real thing,' Nathan quietly answered. 'Withered of it at least. away, shrunken down and encased in stone, but definitely 'In a minute,' Trask whispered, stepping back a pace from real.' And then, to the long-dead lieutenant: I'm not who you Nathan but never taking his eyes off him for a moment. 'But think I am. That one was my father. He passed this way before right now .. . would you mind keeping quiet for a while?' me, on his way to Starside. He was Harry Keogh, and 1 am his Among the several things he hadn't told them was this, that son, Nathan. Nathan was a Necroscope. The concepts of telepor-tation and Indeed? And like father like son, you would follow in his parallel universes were difficult enough, without that he footsteps, eh? Well, if he went to Starside, then your father's should ask them to also believe in a man who conversed with Jong dead and gone from both worlds! Now begone. For this is the dead! a private place. Dead, yes, Nathan had meanwhile answered Cezar's It wasn't usual for the dead to be so surly, abrupt, rude. But question. A thousand sunups ago, aye. And all of the olden this wasn't one of the usual dead. Unperturbed, Nathan Wamphyri with him. inquired: Whose man were you, anyway? 90 91 So you were hurled into the white gaping maw of hell. A deadspeak gasp: What, all of them? Shaithis, Fess, Nathan nodded grimly. Through which you sank down into Lesk? Not Lesk the Glut, surety? this place. All of them, Nathan told him. He knew the names Cezar Aye, the other grunted. But when I got here the water was mentioned, for they were like old curse-words among the high and dark and swift. And so I crept up here onto this ledge Travellers of Sunside. and waited, waited, waited. Soon I was too weak to swim, And that one who was here that time, your father, he did even if I could swim, and the cold and the damp had stiffened aJJ this? all my joints. Starvation . . . I was not yet Wamphyri but a He helped to do it, certainly. lieutenant .. . even a vampire's longevity could not sustain me And suddenly Cezar guffawed. But that old bastard Menor through the rigours of this place. And like all of these others, I Maimbite, dead, eh? Oh, hah hah hah/ feared the water mightily. Finally I was as you see me now, You didn't much care for your master, then. stiffened to a stone, or very nearly so. And that was the end of Cezar stopped laughing on the instant, and grunted, Care Cezar Bitesthrall . . . He uttered a deadspeak sigh, and after a for him? I hated his black heart! He caught me licking a moment continued, And you? Do you really intend to go in woman of his, cut out my tongue and made her eat it. And: the other direction? What, and are you then a madman? Ah, There,' he toJd me, 'now she's tasted your tongue with both but it will take real magic to keep you alive in Starside! her mouths - as I'm sure she's tasted your sex!' Then . . . he Except - and yet again his gasp - No, not so! For They are no throttled her, and took me to the Starside Gate. more, The Old Wamphyri, dead and gone forever. But. . . is it Nathan had real experience of the Starside Gate and knew really so? what that last meant. At least, he had experience of the Gate They were gone for a while, Nathan answered. whose dome showed above the ground. Something over three Eh? Explain! years ago he'd seen it when accompanying Lardis Lidesci on The Old Wamphyri are dead, aye. But in the east, beyond his annual pilgrimage into the gaunt, aching emptiness which the Great Red Waste, others were waiting out their time. Now was then Starside. And just a few months ago he'd passed they are back in Starside, in the last great aerie of the through it into Perchorsk. Moreover he'd had E-Branch's Wamphyri. I go as my father went before me: to destroy them Keogh files read to him and knew there were two Gates. The who destroy mine. upper Gate had been created when a Russian experiment, the But your name: Nathan Keogh? The first, however rare, is a Perchorsk Projekt, backfired and blasted a grey hole between Traveller name, be sure .. . but Keogh? Ah! I remember: your parallel dimensions; the second was a thing of nature, lodged father's name. And he - beneath the first in what was once a pit and so invisible from — Was a hell-lender, yes. Nathan nodded. But my mother the surface by virtue of its manmade twin. Since time was a Kiklu, Szgany. immemorial, the lower, natural, original Gate — which had The other sighed his partial understanding, and said, its exit here in this subterranean cavern in Romania - had been Myself, I was of the Szgany Stengi, based fifty miles east of used infrequently and according to circumstance as an the great pass. There were Kiklus in my tribe, too . . . He fell instrument of Wamphyri punishment, revenge or simple silent, as if memories of the olden times were proving too cruelty, into which the Lords of Starside had tossed enemies, much for him. But in another moment his deadspeak voice vanquished foes and disobedient thralls. had turned hard as his calcium sheath: Huh! All such things 92 93 we won't be far behind. We'll go through together, or as are done with now. Even life itself, done with. I was Szgany . . . close together as possible.' I was made undead ... possibly, I might even have been Then, as Trask and the others set to it, he turned again to Wamphyri.' But all of these years in this place, frozen in the true the dripstone thing in its stalactite tomb: Who were you? death . .. it's as if all my life were a dream. And you have Bah.' (The vampire Lord's voice was sour.) Rather, what disturbed it. Because of you I know the truth of it: that it was am I now, that a mere child has power over me while I wasted. You've brought me no comfort, Nathan Keogh. stand impotent, a stone which was once a man and more At which another voice — but a much harder, darker, even than a man, even a Lord of the Wamphyri! angry voice - broke in: 'But that was then and this is now.' Nathan lapsed into Comfort? Is that what you're all about, Cezar BitesthraJl? common speech, which in his case was deadspeak, of course, Comfort? What, and you a lieutenant of the Wamphyri? Hah! but easier. 'You were a man. You were Wamphyri. But now But Menor erred when he apprenticed you! Even here, in this you are a fossil. This is probably your last chance to talk to a dreary place, we have comforts enough. And we've had enough man of the living world, even of two worlds. Will you of talk, too. Now, still the chatter and let this fool go on to his waste it?' sure death in Starside. The other considered his words; while from behind Nathan: Nathan located the source of the voice: a dripstone bulge in 'Now what the hell -?' The caver spokesman snatched the wall where a gleaming calcium 'candle' seven feet tall back his hand from where he had passed a box of ammunition seemed lodged in an ancient crevice under fang-like festoons up into the glare of the Gate. He'd been distracted by the of stalactite formations. The sheath was semi-opaque, glass- sight and sound of Nathan talking to something locked in like; beneath it, frozen ferocious features were barely visible. the dripstone; talking to it as if it lived and might even But now that Nathan knew the source of the voice, he also answer him back. The light .. . seemed to suck at me!' knew the nature of its owner: 'Of course,' Trask told him. 'In the same way that it takes Wamphyri! these weapons from us, so it will take us. It's like an 'Nathan!' It was Anna Marie, breaking into his thoughts, invisible conveyor-belt, or an elevator to another world.' He drawing him back from his deadspeak communications. passed up a self-loading rifle butt-first, watched the stock He glanced at her. 'Yes?' disappear into the glare and felt first the attraction, then the 'We can't stay here. The cold. And the time. We'd planned fierce, irresistible suction as the weapon was drawn from for you to go through in three days' time; by our calculations his hand and into the Gate. 'Just don't let your fingers touch — based on what little we know - that would make it sunup the surface, that's all - unless you want to be the first of us on Sunside. But right now . .. the sun is sinking towards the into Starside . ..' barrier mountains even as we speak. And we don't know how Who is there now in Starside to remember me? The ex- long the journey through the Gate is going to take.' Lord of the Wamphyri wondered in Nathan's mind. Nathan turned to Trask. 'While I talk to them, you could 'No one, in Starside,' Nathan answered. 'But weren't you a begin by passing my weapons up into the Gate. According to Traveller first? Didn't you ascend in the usual way? You the files, they will be drawn up, go right through, slide down must have had your tribe like everyone else. Maybe sons of the dome of the underground Gate in Starside. And your sons are alive even now, on Sunside?' 95 94 could never be thralls to such as this. What? Why, he was I was a Ferenc, said the other gloomily. We were outcasts, even usurped and thrown from his seat in Starside, else why supplicants. Metalworkers, we made war gauntlets for the is he here at all?' Wamphyri. We had a 'pact' with them — hah! I was taken Occasionally deadspeak conveys more than is said. But when I was seventeen. No human offspring from my loins, now the Ferenc's fury couldn't be more in evidence if he Nathan Keogh. were alive and free of his stalactite sheath: Why ... you . .. But as the thing in the stalactite had mentioned the name insolent... little ... pup//.' Ferenc, so a massed groan of horror had gone up from others 'Oh, be quiet.' Nathan climbed up to the encysted figure among the cavern's inhabitants who, until now, had been and rapped with hard knuckles against the dripstone. 'And silent. Ferenc! A curse in itself, the very word. And the object think on this, Ferenc. If ever I should pass this way again, I of their terror had heard their deadspeak moaning. might easily bring a hammer and chisel with me and chip Aye, a Ferenc/ he told them. And even now ... well, quite away at you until you're no more. And when all of your obviously it means something, to be what I have been. That is pieces are rounded to pebbles in this dark river, and your why I find comfort, however cold, even in a place such as this. evil essence dispersed far and wide, what will you have of The very knowledge of your fear comforts me . .. that as a "comforts" then, eh? And how many trembling thralls?' dead thing, even now I strike terror into your hearts. You But from the other there was no answer at all, except quaking leathery trogs and Traveller cowards/ For such as you, perhaps a far faint whimper .. . even to be in the same company with myself ... it's an honour! 'Nathan.' Anna Marie was looking up at him. 'The time.' And for as much as a stone thing may have thralls, all of you And Trask said, 'Son, it's not getting any warmer in here. are my thralls from this time forward. So be it! We'd best be on our way.' Nathan bridled. This dead thing - Ferenc, Wamphyri, Nathan got down, said, 'Very well. But that —' he glanced whatever — he should not have named Travellers cowards. up once last time at the horror in the crack, and glared at the The Szgany were never that. And so: 'Pay him no heed,' he thing - 'was something I had to do. And anyway, my time told the ghosts of everyone who was ever trapped here. 'For if wasn't wasted. Like my father before me, I've learned he is the greatest of you all, then he is also the greatest something.' coward! What, Wamphyri? Strong and fearless as ten men? 'Oh?' Oh? But if so, how is it he's still here? Or is it that he feared 'Yes. That in death - even the true death - the Wamphyri the water as much as the rest of you? - Aye, and maybe feared it even more! Now let me tell you something: are just as loathsome as in life or in undeath!' 'Since time immemorial this watercourse has been the route by which certain "brave" Wamphyri Lords invaded the hell- 'How ... how do we go about it?' The caver spokesman's lands, so becoming a pestilence in both worlds. But in this voice shook a little. world they were small,' (which wasn't entirely true; small in Trask shrugged. 'You came close to answering that one number, perhaps) 'and kept small by the efforts of mere men! yourself just a few minutes ago. Reach up, jump, and let the But this one — this Ferenc — was too small to even venture into Gate do the rest. It will take you in, pass you through.' the water! His supplicant blood ran true to the very end, aye. 'Which will take . .. how long?' And how is that for a coward? Such as you 'We're not sure,' said Anna Marie. And Nathan told her, 'If you go first we can help you.' 97 had no weight at all. This place was real enough; no She moved between him and Trask; they lifted her up; she metaphysical continuum this but a physical reality, the held up her arms and was taken effortlessly from them. And as crossover between parallel universes. And where the Mobius she slid into the white glare, they heard her gasp, drawn out Continuum might have been that Element in which God said: almost interminably as she disappeared. Trask followed 'Let There Be Light', this might well be the Light itself. A immediately, so that as Anna Marie's feet passed into the misty light, white as snow but of an even temperature, so that glare, he was already jumping and reaching out after her. the cold of the cavern was soon left far behind. 'Quickly!' Nathan told Chung and the cavers. 'Let's all go And so the seven fell upwards into an apparently endless through together.' The cavers jumped almost as a man, and as white somewhere. And such was the silence, each of them a man were taken up. And Nathan and Chung were last. could hear the uneven, nervous breathing of the others, and But as the others had disappeared into the sphere of white perhaps even the beating of their hearts ... light, so Nathan had remembered one who wasn't here. And also, he remembered his own Misha: the misery she must be Even knowing it must come, their resurgence was something experiencing, not knowing what had become of him. No need of a shock. Anna Marie first: she passed through the skin of for Zek to go through that. Quickly he reached out for her, and the Gate, then half-slid, half-rolled down the curve of the made contact in the moment before he felt the Gate sucking at resilient dome on to the heaped jumble of Nathan's armoury, him. Then . . . it was the work of that single moment to pass on where his weapons had come to rest on a bed of stony debris the information: that Ben Trask was on his way to Starside. that formed a shelf around the sphere's perimeter. And in But Zek's answering mental cry — of denial, astonishment, those same few moments she saw that the sphere of white pain — was shut off even as she issued it. . . light was lodged like a plug in a massive hole, or a child's marble pushed down into sand by the weight of a finger. After the initial suction, that first weird tug-o'-war between Directly overhead, the lower hemisphere of a second globe gravity and the Gate's attraction, the feeling of being drawn seemed suspended in the same shaft, looking almost identical up, of the defeat of gravity itself, disappeared completely. It to the Gate as it had appeared in the ceiling of the cavern of was simply a drifting sensation, but of drifting upwards, like a petrified monsters. A distance of only five or six feet swimmer surfacing after a dive. separated the two singularities. So that Anna Marie couldn't Looking up - or ahead? - Nathan and Chung could see the help wondering: or should I think of it as a duality? But in any others as in a shaft of white light, seemingly floating there, case, she knew that the top half of that uppermost Gate stood unsupported. Anna Marie was in front, followed by Trask, open to the air, glaring out on the vampire world of Starside. then the cavers in a triangular formation. And they were all And all around her in the scree and rubble, and cut in the looking down or back at Nathan and Chung. wall of the shaft itself, were those alien energy wormholes In its way, Trask thought, it's as strange as the Mobius that she had seen in the cavern of the Romanian Gate - so that Continuum: the weightlessness . .. the sensation of emptiness as Trask came through she found wind to shout, 'Ben, look ... the effortless mobility. But now, instead of moving from out! The wormholes!' For they were glass-smooth; only fall place to place, we're moving between worlds! into one . . . it might take a long time to get out again. If ever. Unlike the Mobius Continuum, however, such thoughts 98 99 But in a moment Trask was on his feet, assisting the well onto the surface. The rest of us string ourselves out disorientated cavers as they came through, and finally Chung along the route, and pass the weapons along and up to him. and Nathan. Then, as they dusted themselves down: Finally he helps us to get out, me first, then Anna Marie, and 'From now on we have to mind how we go,' Trask told the rest of you in whatever order you prefer. them, his voice steady but echoing. 'When Harry Keogh came 'On the surface, we each take what weapons we can carry this way he tried several of these wormholes before he found and get clear of the upper Gate. That might take more than one that connected with the surface. But he was only one man one trip, but it has to be done. It's not simply that the and there are seven of us. Avoid holes that slant downwards; weapons are important - of course they are - but it's also that they twist and turn, could easily make a sudden descent. Look Nathan can't . . . er, he can't work to best effect too close to for upward-leading holes. But in any case go slowly, and take the Gate. But I warn you now: we won't have any time to no chances. And the first man to see daylight overhead -' look about and gawp. When I looked up the last nine or ten '- or starlight,' Nathan put in grimly. feet of wormhole, looked into the sky of Starside, I saw stars Trask looked at him and nodded. 'Or starlight, yes ...' And up there. If it isn't sundown it's pretty damned close! Now, are he left it at that. there any questions?' They separated along the scree ledge, chose wormholes, The caver spokesman said: That second Gate, on the went headfirst into them, first in the glare of the Gate, then in surface? That's our return route, right?' the light of pencil pocket torches. And Trask was the one who 'Right, but not yet. Oh, we could use it all right, but we found the way up. There were probably several, but he was can't guarantee our reception at the other end. In Perchorsk, first, and the route that his wormhole took fitted Harry they've learned to be extremely cautious of things that come Keogh's description (which Trask had read time and again) through the Gate. So cautious they might easily kill you in precisely. half a dozen different ways before you even got to say hello! Especially now. You've seen that stuff back in the Refuge, It climbed gently at first, not so steeply as to cause him to down in the sump? Well by comparison, that's pretty tame .. .' slide back. In a little while it swung left, then rose marginally 'And once we're away from the Gate - what then?' more steeply. A short, claustrophobic climb, before the bore Trask looked at Nathan, who said, Then it's my problem. levelled out and swung right. Following which . . . it shot up But this is my world and I know . . . oh, several routes out of almost vertically! And looking up as from the bottom of a here into Sunside.' shallow well - And before they could ask any more questions, Anna - Starlight. Marie said, 'We're wasting time. And there's also something Trask backed off, returned to the main shaft and the glare of you may have forgotten.' the Gate, called for the others. Anna Marie, Nathan and one of 'Oh?' Trask looked at her. the cavers were already there. Chung and the other two cavers Turkur Tzonov and his men could well be in the vicinity. soon came crawling backwards out of wormholes. How long is it since you saw him enter the Gate in 'This is it,' Trask told them, indicating the mouth of the exit Perchorsk? And how long would it take him to walk into Starside. 'As to how we go about it: Nathan goes first, and through? Or haven't you worked it out?' I'll be right behind him. I'll help him up out of the Trask did so, and quickly. 'Maybe three and a half hours 101 100 since we saw him go through — it's hard to gauge. But we The perceptions of the visitors were at first baffled, know he was walking, while we were transported. Also, my disorientated by the contrasts of what might easily be watch stopped during transit, and -' considered a surreal or even hallucinogenic landscape; except '- All of our watches stopped,' the caver spokesman told it was all too real. Perhaps because of the alien nature of the him. place, their eyes were first drawn to those one or two features And Anna Marie said, 'Whichever way we look at it, which were most readily acceptable. Like the mountains. Tzonov can't be too far away from us.' She inclined her head Behind the Gate, maybe two miles south, the barrier upwards. 'Either he and his men are closing with the Gate's mountains rose gaunt and grey from foothills and scree exit right now and will soon come through onto the boulder escarpments, up sparsely-clad slopes, over crags and plains . . . or they're already here, somewhere overhead, buttresses, through ravines and saddles to sloping plateaux and perhaps heading for the barrier mountains and the great pass sharp-fanged peaks that were rapidly fading from amethyst to into Sunside.' ash-grey silhouettes in the twilight before true night. The Trask nodded. 'First priority, then: as soon as we're out, we immense range sprawled east on the one hand, west on the choose personal weapons and hang onto them. But the last other as far as the eye could see; its peaks marched away to far thing we need is a firefight on Starside! Okay, let's horizons, merged with them, passed into purple velvet distances and disappeared at the rim of the world. But for all that the range displayed many of the mundane features of Twenty minutes later they were out, and Nathan's single Earthly mountains, still these peaks were most obviously alien; glance all about had confirmed the fact that he was home, or they felt cold and alien. And Trask found himself thinking, as close to it. For, of course, Starside of the barrier mountains at least one other had thought before him: Only take away the could never be considered 'home' in the real sense of the word. trees under the timberline . .. these could well be the mountains Not to men, anyway. of the moon! As for the six newcomers to this place: Closer, maybe two to three miles south and a little east, the All very well for Trask to warn against gawping. But this mouth of a canyon - the great pass - opened onto the barren was a different world, and weird. Staring all about, what boulder plains. Apart from this pass, where in ages past the Trask and the others saw was this: barrier range had cracked open, the march of the mountains First, the Gate. seemed entirely unbroken. And so the mountains and the great The dazzling white hemisphere was perhaps thirty feet in pass through them, and the hush of twilight, were in the main diameter and set in a crater like the raised rim of a volcanic acceptable to human perceptions. But as for the rest of blowhole. All around its perimeter, penetrating the earth and Starside: the crater walls alike to a radius of over sixty feet, magmass To the west there was only the sparsely-wooded flank of the wormholes gaped everywhere. The seven had emerged from mountains, and at the foot of the range the boulder plains one such hole and now must be careful where they stepped; rolling north, turning blue then dark blue into a mainly the walls of the holes were glass-smooth, and some were very featureless distance. But directly to the north, to the far north, nearly perpendicular. Their depth was entirely conjectural. the blue turned smoky black and the earth was a darkness shot Away from the Gate itself: through with dull silver streaks. There, under 102 103 the weird weave of ghostly aurora and the glitter of unknown in the glare of the Gate, casting concentric rings of shadows constellations like blue ice-shards frozen in the vaulted dark outwards from the central point of illumination. Well away of the skies, the surface of what might be a sullen sea, or from the Gate they were like eerie white sentinels, and farther possibly a sheet of glacial ice, made a misty mirror-image of still they were grey ghosts gradually merging into the powder- the alien heavens. And if the mountains belonged on the blue background. moon, then this was a picture of some cold and dying planet Weathered into weird shapes, many of the boulders were way out beyond Arcturus .. . grotesque as gargoyles, so that the overall effect was surreal, A chill wind had come up; blowing from the north, it was like a painting by Salvador Dali. All it would seem to lack gradually eating its way through the clothing of the seven to was a focal point, an 'object' of form or structure so striking as their very bones. They felt it and shivered, but not only on to distract the eye from what might otherwise be considered the outside . . . for it was a chill of the soul. its monotony. And out there, some eight or nine miles east Sensing (or perhaps reading) their thoughts, Nathan told and two to three north, indeed that singularity existed. them: For even at that distance the seven could make out a nest of That wind blows off the Icelands. In the olden times, when squat, mist-wreathed columns like some immense Stone- a vampire Lord was found wanting, sometimes the others henge - like the stumps of a ring of gigantic, petrified would banish him north. Such errant Lords suffered various mushrooms, or the mighty pedestals of toppled, cyclopean forms of punishment: to be driven north, possibly to a statues - rising up from vast heaps of scree and stony debris. freezing death; or to be buried alive out on the boulder And tumbled down on the alien earth itself, half-buried in the plains; or maybe to be hurled into the hell-lands Gate, from riven soil, the shattered bodies of the fallen gods, all formed which no one ever returned. Well, not until now.' into tumuli or strewn into dog-legged mounds of rubble about The seven had taken up Nathan's weapons. As he led them the bases of the naked stumps. away from the hemisphere of white light, he paused for a But central in this primal fossil forest a mighty stack moment to point east and a little north. Now that the painful remained, unscathed by earthquake or any device of man or glare of the Gate was behind them and their eyes had grown monsters: the last great aerie of the Wamphyri! And: 'Karen- accustomed to Starside's preternatural gloom, their view of stack,' Nathan whispered, in awe of that incredible fang. 'Or the boulder plains was that much clearer. And there to the whatever they've named it. . . now.' north-east of the Gate, of all they had seen so far, the barren And Trask and the others gazed their fascination, however boulder plains - and what stood or lay in a vast jumble upon morbid, across all the misted miles to that lone kilometre-high them - were the most surreal of all. sentinel rock, still standing there in the east among the rubble The boulder plains were just what the term implied: of the fallen aeries, where Harry Keogh had brought them seemingly endless plains reaching out from the barrier crashing down onto the boulder plains. Then Trask, Chung mountains to the northern horizon under its writhing dome of and Anna Marie were given to wonder: But if this is only the shimmering auroras. They might be the bed of some aeon- last of the aeries - and not the greatest by any means - then dead ocean, like the misnamed mares of the moon. But how must it have looked when all of the stacks were standing? scattered far and wide across them, like clods of earth thrown And all of their inhabitants alive . . . or undead? haphazardly down on the bed of a dried up lake, boulder piles Trask couldn't take his eyes off that alien skyscraper and individual rocks stood starkly silhouetted 104 105 stepped in after them - And Trask, Chung and Anna Marie tower, so that he stumbled over small rocks as Nathan led the were left alone on the boulder plains. way even farther from the Gate's glare. Possibly the stack (or stacks, as once were), had weathered out from the barrier range But not for long; maybe a minute and a half, at most. And and been left standing there like a series of mighty buttes as then — the mountains themselves retreated. Certainly, they had been a natural feature of this place, at least until the first of the 'Jesus!' Trask gasped, as a ragged shadow flitted close vampire Lords had commenced work on them. But now, overhead. His eyes scanned skyward and his machine-pistol especially in its upper sections or levels, this last great aerie of made its typical metallic ch-ching sound as he instinctively the Wamphyri looked anything but natural. What? With all of cocked it. And: 'Bats!' he whispered, as he spied what spied those chimneys and causeways? Those towers, turrets and upon them. flying buttresses? Those landing-bays, balconies and ... 'Desmodus.' Anna Marie's breath was ragged. 'Pretty much windows? Behind which, even as Trask gazed, faint the same as the vampires of Earth, but big.' She, too, cocked glimmering lights were flickering into being one by one! her weapon. Or was that simply a whim of his imagination, a trick of the 'Big?' David Chung was quick to follow suit. 'Why, those spectral light, a mirage of the twining mists which draped the things must be three feet across, wing-tip to wing-tip!' distant menhir? 'But not especially dangerous.' Anna Marie had regained 'No mirage, Ben,' Nathan told him. 'Look the other way, her composure. 'Oh, if there was only one of us, injured, across the barrier mountains.' Trask and the others, they all then they might attack. But right now they're merely curious. looked, and saw that the sky over the mountains was now We're strange to them. They didn't expect to find us here. indigo, shot with fading shafts of gold, and that the shafts Shh! Listen!' formed a slowly turning fan like the spokes of a phantom There were half a dozen of the giant bats, and now they wheel. Then the fan seemed to fold in upon itself, and faded in were circling, calling to each other with shrill, barely audible a moment to a memory in the mind's eye. And: whistles; barely audible to human ears, that is. But miles 'Sundown,' Nathan told them. 'The true night. And time we across the boulder plains their cries would certainly be were gone from here. Those lights in Karenstack ... the heard by others of their ilk . . . and perhaps by others not Wamphyri are up and about. Perhaps they're already abroad in quite of their ilk. And maybe not too many miles away, at Sunside. But if not they soon will be, and we stand directly in that. their path. Now wait a moment...' 'The advance guard,' said Trask, his throat suddenly dry. He conjured a Mobius door, which shrank a little from the 'Aerial observers, trackers, bloodhounds.' proximity of the Gate, then firmed up and stood steady. 'Good, 'Right,' Chung choked the word out. 'And look, here come we can go.' He turned to the cavers. 'You first. If not for me, the masters of the hounds!' He pointed a shaking hand. you wouldn't be here. So I want to make sure you're safe. In the sky, barely half a mile away, a pair of weirdly Form a ring and hold on to each other ... and, well, just hold pulsing manta shapes blotted out the stars as they on. But no questions, and no talking. Just . .. bear with me.' descended from on high ... and they were headed directly Then, expanding his door, he guided them through it, and for the three espers where they stood, frozen like rabbits in the glare of headlight beams, on the cold uncaring plain of boulders ... 106 107 But now that Vormulac Unsleep and his aerial vampire army were flown west on their crusade against Wratha the II Risen, and Maglore left to his own devices in the mighty gorge of Turgosheim, this was just the stroke of good fortune On the Plain of Boulders he'd been seeking! Indeed, for if that oh so crafty Nathan was back in Olden Sunside, why, then Vormulac's progress might yet be spied upon, and Maglore heir to all the lore of a hitherto unknown land! 'Nathan!' Maglore had stood up straight and sniffed at the air, gazing all about in the gloom of deserted Madmanse. Twenty-five to thirty minutes earlier, in Turgosheim: 'Why, it is as if I can even smell you!' It had been that Maglore the Mage was down in Mad- 'Nathan Paleblood?' The hulking Karpath's eyes had manse, or what had been Madmanse when the Killglance narrowed as Maglore rubbed claw-like hands together, brothers, Wran and Spiro, had resided there; down in that chuckled and headed for an upwards-leading stairwell. 'What haunted, cobwebbed, bat-shrouded mausoleum of a place, of him, master?' inspecting it as a prospective extension of his own Rune- At which Maglore had paused and looked back, his manse. He'd been there with his lieutenant, Karpath crimson eyes flaring up in the dark. 'Paleblood? Nathan Seersthrall, making diagrams of the manse and measuring Paleblood? But you mean Nathan Seersthrall, surely?' certain of its rooms which he might use as metamorphic vats. And Karpath had backed off a pace. 'I . . . I used to think of For Maglore had many monsters to fashion, and the space in him as Paleblood, master - because he was so pale, and his Runemanse was all but used up. blood so weak.' But down in Madmanse - where even now the dread spirit 'Oh?' Maglore's voice was deep, dark, clotted. 'But this ... of its murdered one-time master, Eygor Killglance, seemed to this urge to apportion names worries me somewhat, Karpath. waft on a gloomy aether - suddenly the grey fur at the back of For it's outside your jurisdiction. In Runemanse, only Mag- Maglore's neck had tingled and stood erect, and for a moment, lore names the creatures which are his. In all such matters the however brief, a symbol had blazed up bright in the eye of his Wamphyri are jealous to a fault, which I'm sure you know. seer's mind. This symbol: So . . . is it perhaps that you anticipate your ascension? Do you lust after my egg, Karpath?' 'Master,' the other trembled. 'Master, I —' '— This much I promise: when I decide that the time is ripe to invest another with my powers, you shall be the first to know.' It was Maglore's sigil, by which every other Lord and Lady of Following which, without pause, the Seer-Lord Maglore the Wamphyri knew him. But it was also the sigil of another, had proceeded alone to his room of meditation ... gone from Maglore's ken for some seventeen sunups now. And now ... returned? Was it possible? The Seer-Lord's ... And in that room: window on Olden Sunside/Starside returned to life, or Maglore's shewstone stood upon a slender onyx base to undeath? 108 109 one side of a work bench. Seated at the bench, he might So the Seer-Lord's 'window on an unknown world' had been simply turn and place his hands upon the instrument of his closed. But it was a weird thing, because despite that Nathan's scrying or far-seeing talent. Except the device was of no aura was gone, the feeling had persisted that he was not dead. stone or crystal as such, but a metal precious in the world And Maglore had wondered: What, then? Undead? Is he beyond the Starside Gate, yet common in the vampire world. locked in that metamorphic sleep which ever precedes the Shaped in gold, it was in fact a weighty model of Maglore's vampire condition? Has he at last succumbed to the seduction sigil: a twisted loop, ten inches long and five wide, compact of vampirism? Does Wratha or one of hers have him? yet massy - and potent! This was the medium through which He had not known the answer then, but now: Maglore concentrated enhanced Wamphyri powers to contact 'Ahhh!' For as his hands touched the sigil and his mind sped and 'speak' to his various spies in Sunside, and with which he west, there surely burned Nathan's flame! The youth was had hoped to follow the adventures of Nathan in Olden alive, he was — back? - from wherever he had been. And Sunside/Starside. Maglore's lodestone earring still secure in his ear, mere inches To that end, when Nathan had lived here a while in from the centre of his brain. Runemanse - not as the Seer-Lord's thrall or familiar, but Maglore closed his burning eyes and concentrated, more nearly as his 'friend' - Maglore had made him a gift of a concentrated - and in a moment looked out through Nathan's golden earring in the same design, but only an inch long; not eyes .. . and looked upon the boulder plains of far Starside, only a practical but also an appropriate gift, for the Mobius and in the distance that looming menhir which was the last loop was Nathan's symbol, too. Indeed, when first he had great aerie of the Wamphyri. He looked and knew it as the come here, the youth had worn a twisted leather strap upon home of Wratha and her renegades, even as Nathan knew it. his wrist. More than this, he knew what was uppermost in Nathan's And some four months ago, when the Seer-Lord had mind: the utter destruction of Wratha and all like her, and arranged Nathan's 'escape' from Turgosheim on an aberrant, everything they stood for. And: ill-tempered flyer, then the earring had gone with him: 'Strong,' Maglore sighed. 'Ah, strong! What, Nathan "Pale- Maglore's 'window' on a far-off land of legend. And the blood"? No, not this one.' Then . .. youth all unsuspecting of the Seer-Lord's motive. At least, . . . The picture of the mighty stack faded, and in its place that was how it was supposed to have been. But scarcely had . . . an ephemeral portal formed of golden shimmering smoke! Nathan arrived in Olden Sunside in the west than contact had That was how Maglore saw Nathan's Mobius door. And as been broken. And now Maglore remembered how it had been: Nathan stepped forward and entered that door, so the Seer- Lord felt something of its power: How then as now he had sensed ... something, rushed to his A whirlpool of symbols, which Maglore had known before. room of meditation and pJaced trembling fingers upon the The esoteric guardian of Nathan's secret mind: the incredible golden sigil. How he had let his mind drift out from numbers vortex. But not quite the same, no, for now those Turgosheim, then hurtle west at the unthinkable speed of symbols were ordered; they had intelligence and flowed with thought/ A flight which he had terminated when he'd seen a will of their own. Or perhaps with Nathan's will? Yes, for how lifeless was the sigil, a strangely twisted mass of heavy Nathan was their master! metal and nothing more . . . for the moment, and as far as But as Nathan had stepped through that metaphysical Nathan was concerned, anyway. 110 111 door, so he'd been snatched from Maglore's mind, had While down in Madmanse, in an airless, diseased, disused disappeared out of this universe. Yet, however tenuously, refuse pit, sealed up for more than fifty years: their minds were still linked, so that Maglore felt himself That which upon a time had been Eygor Killglance sat or moving with Nathan ... but at such an astonishing speed! slumped against a nitre-streaked wall. But while up above in Indeed, even as fast as Maglore's thoughts themselves. And as Runemanse the Seer-Lord Maglore's appearance was more or before, Nathan was in control... less human, that of Eygor in his pit was nothing less than a Maglore gasped, snatched his stiffened fingers from the nightmare. loop and staggered back a pace or two. Shocked, his eyes For the long exanimate ex-Lord of Madmanse was a vast stood out from their orbits in vast amaze. For he knew that and monstrous anomaly, an amalgam, a welding together of Nathan had moved himself - or had physically removed everything unwholesome into one being, one creature. himself - from the plain of boulders to some other place. And Anthropomorphic, yes; manlike, in outline at least; but with he had been in complete command; he'd known what he was that any past or present connection with humanity must surely about. be at an end. For Eygor's metamorphism had long since Then, much like a child whispering in the dark, Maglore 'absolved' or removed him from the frailties of form and reassured himself: 'But didn't I once say he had powers, this aspect of mundane mankind. one?' And recognizing, if not understanding, his fear - gazing Much like the beings in the Romanian cavern of the Gate, all about his room of meditation, to make sure no one had Eygor Killglance might at first be mistaken for a strange seen — he quickly regained control of himself. stalagmite formation, a fantastic dripstone creation of Nature. But as his mind cleared and his breathing grew less ragged, But on closer examination (if any person were morbid enough suddenly he felt weak . .. made weak, perhaps, by Nathan's that he might actually desire to examine such a thing), one strength? Or by abstinence? Well, at least there was a remedy would soon discover feverish differences. For example, the for that. petrified creatures in the cavern of the Gate were not eighteen He reached out for Karpath where he went about his duties feet tall and composed of fused bone, black mummied flesh, elsewhere in Runemanse, and asked him, Karpath, are there knobs of gristly cartilage and plates of gleaming-blue chitin. fresh ones? Nor had they additional mouths in their dripstone bodies and Indeed, master, the other answered at once. Men and limbs, to complement the ones in their faces. But there in that women both. gloomy Madmanse pit — a cobwebbed cathedral of a place, Then send me a strong man. Later, seek out Orlea and tell vast and high-vaulted, whose walls dripped slime and nitre - her . . . I am young again, and I have my needs. such were Eygor's form and aspect. And Karpath answered. So be it, master. But when Mag- The floor around him was a clutter of anomalous debris, lore withdrew his probe the lieutenant grinned in his morbid humped, fibrous, boggy. Spongy bones and white-shining fashion, for he knew what were the Seer-Lord's needs. As for cartilage remains gleamed everywhere, like a boneyard of the first, the blood is the life. And as for the second ... extinct monsters; of which the ex-Lord of Madmanse had . . . To live is to lust... been one, of course. And because he had been intelligent, Wamphyri, he had also been the worst of them. The shape and delirious design of this thing slumped in a 112 113 kneeling position and half-welded to the wall were terrible in But Eygor was Wamphyri and did not die. Well, not themselves: its horny fossil feet, shrivelled, leathery thighs, immediately. For a six-month he lived on muck and bones arched back and shoulders, and misshapen, screaming skull. and, while his metamorphic flesh remained pliable, gathered The huge head was thrown back, jaws frozen in some to himself the remnants of dead constructs: the armour of unending rictus; a withered arm lay upon a ledge, ending in a warriors, debris of cartilage creatures, marrow of monsters. talon that drooped from a wrist thick as a man's thigh; Planning to break out, he made a giant of himself. But the blackened bones protruded from dusty, fretted flesh. refuse pit was as deep as his sustenance was bad, and Eygor's This was Eygor the once-Lord, and once feared more than strength waned even as his size increased. And of course he any other creature in all Turgosheim. Eygor, whose was blind. contemporaries had named him 'Killglance' because of that He fashioned eyes for himself, but they were poor things mordant talent which enabled him to murder men with the and lacking in power; all of their special evil had been sheer poison of his looks alone; whose own bloodsons Wran burned out of them. Finally, starved and stiffening, Eygor and Spiro had so feared him, that in the end they'd murdered had slumped against the wall and moved no more. But while him in this pit. Except there is murder and murder, and the evil and hatred were gone from his eyes, still they burned Eygor's had lasted long and long. bright in his undying mind. For just like the minds of That he'd deserved it was undeniable, for Eygor was the common men, those of vampires, too, go on beyond death. And cruellest of creatures. He had desired that his sons should be just as the evil power of his mind had been vast during life powerful, feared in Turgosheim even as he himself was and undeath, so it continued in the true death. Which perhaps feared. But in order to make them strong he had been ruthless explained the morbid atmosphere of Madmanse; for, if only and his brutalities unbearable. Wran and Spiro had feared in mind and spirit, Eygor Killglance dwelled there still. .. their Lord and father, aye, but more than the man, they'd When for a while the Necroscope Nathan Kiklu lived in feared his evil eye. Maglore's Runemanse, Eygor had spoken to him in his For they had seen him use it against the Szgany, and had dreams, lured him down into deserted Madmanse, even watched his human victims shrivel and die in the withering attempted to bargain with him. For the thing in the pit had furnace of his gaze. And for all that they were Wamphyri in eavesdropped on the deadspeak conversations of dreaming their own right, they too had tasted the bile of Eygor's glance, Thyre ancients in their cavern mausoleums under the drifted and knew that his power was exponential; the more he used it, sands of Sunside's deserts, and he understood Nathan's the stronger it grew. Today he killed only men, but tomorrow power over the dead: that they would even leave their graves .. .? at his command. And his proposition was this: And so for him there was no tomorrow. His bloodsons had If Nathan should see fit to bring him back to life — if only deadened his senses with strong drink, poisoned his food with long enough to take revenge upon his sons - then the silver; and while he lay in his stupor they blinded him! When Necroscope could ask what he would of him, and be heir to he leapt shrieking awake, then they'd taunted him and led him Eygor's greatest mystery: the secret of his killing eye! That blundering through Madmanse right to the rim of this very pit had been Eygor's Wamphyri vow, his promise for the future, . . . and over it! And at the last, when he lay broken at the which Nathan had spurned. bottom, they had choked the pit with boulders and sealed it. But ... Eygor knew that the future was a long and 114 115 that the Necroscope Nathan was back. All the dead of devious thing, and that what stands today often falls Starside knew it, too. And as his aura washed out from him, tomorrow, or most certainly the day after that. At the moment as it was felt and his light was seen in the otherwise uttermost Nathan did not need an extra talent; he had sufficient of his darkness, so would the dead of Sunside know it. own. But tomorrow and tomorrow ...? But there were others yet more special who had known of Then what had been Eygor's killing eye in life became his Nathan's return from the moment he moved away from the seeing eye in death, so that he followed the youth's adventures influence of the Gate onto the plain of boulders. His nephew from that time forward; even up to the time when Nathan fled wolves knew it: Blaze, Dock and Grinner. He had named the to his old home in the west. But after that... first and wisest of these for the white, diagonal stripe across .. . Nathan's passing, or what Eygor had taken for his his grey forehead, as if the fur there was marked with frost. passing, had been like a cold wind blowing in the pit-thing's Dock was the one with a stump of a tail, where an angry mind. And like the guttering of a distant candle in the dark vixen had found cause to chastise him when he was a cub. night of death, Eygor had seen Nathan's light go out. Which While Grinner was the one with an uneven temper, whose could mean only one thing: that the Necroscope was no more. black-gleaming upper lip was wont to draw back from his Except (and as Eygor himself had once pointed out): the teeth, so that it might seem he was grinning. All three of future is a long and devious thing, and history often repeats them, they knew he was back for sure. itself. And in that selfsame moment during Maglore's inspection And waking in their barrier mountains den - blinking of Madmanse, when he had paused and lifted his head, sniffed triangular yellow eyes and yawning, knowing in their way and sensed Nathan's return . . . so too had Eygor sensed it! that it was twilight, and their mistress moon would soon be But where Maglore had breathed Nathan's name, Eygor in the sailing on high - they simply acknowledged his return and bowels of the place could only deadspeak it: Nathaaan! Like were glad, or as glad as wolves may be. Nor were they the the soughing of the wind in an aerie's battlements, or the last of Nathan's 'relatives' to know ... sighing of a ghost in its refuse pits. But perhaps most special of all, dreaming in their cavern For Nathan was there in Eygor's mind; far away, true, but mausoleums, the revered and mummied Ancients of the shining with his unique light as before, so that Eygor knew Thyre knew that he was back; for among the dead of the him at once. And the pit-thing's all but forgotten desire to be desert folk he was as great a legend as his father had been to up and about in the world of the living returned immediately, the Great Majority of mundane mankind, in an alien world an for the Necroscope Nathan was his one hope of revenge entire dimension away. Nathan, who had brought light into against his bloodsons, Wran and Spiro. their darkness, translated their works and appraised their And as if the thought of his sons had galvanized Eygor's living descendants of a continuity of sorts in a place beyond dead flesh, albeit momentarily, there had sounded in the pit a death. creaking as of rusted hinges; and before all fell still and eerily If there was a single place in Sunside more safe than any silent again, a single streamer of dust had come drifting down other, it must be with the Thyre. For dwelling so close to the from the high, cobwebbed ceiling . .. sun, they had never known the terror of the Wamphyri except in the lore and lives of the Szgany, with whom they The Wamphyri Lord Maglore of Runemanse and the ex-Lord occasionally traded. Being telepathic - albeit secretly, so that Eygor Killglance were not the only ones who knew men had never suspected their talent — the Thyre and 116 117 their dead had more readily accepted Nathan's deadspeak, carved from light. The cave was cracked right across its thus enabling him to become their spokesman among the width, but the slow seep of centuries had filled the gap with living. crystals which had hardened to stone. Light still found a way Which was how he knew exactly where to take the cavers in from somewhere overhead, but to get here must pass for safety, and who would welcome him in that place. through the quartz; hence the hazy, softly luminous glow. So that even as Maglore the Mage recoiled from the Power of Stalactites of crystal festooned the ceiling, and glowing the now purposeful numbers vortex, drew back claw-like dripstone mounds like candles of light reached up from the hands from his golden sigil, and wondered at Nathan's floor. And all around the cave's perimeter, in alcoves and velocity as he sped - where? And through what weird niches, on shelves and ledges carved from the stone itself, lay medium? - the Necroscope had already used the Mobius the Ancients of the Thyre in their last resting places, slowly Continuum to reach his destination. And guiding his charges becoming one with the dust of ages. out through a Mobius door, and holding on to them as they While the three cavers got a grip on themselves as best they staggered this way and that, gasping their amazement, he might, the Necroscope quickly crossed the floor to Rogei in sighed his relief that the co-ordinates had not misled him. his niche. Finding him among all the others was no problem; Except, of course, he knew that it was more than mathematics the Ancient's deadspeak led Nathan directly to him. And close which had guided him safely here. Then, as if to confirm it: up, as Nathan drew near, Rogei knew that indeed this was Nathan! And this was one deadspeak voice which he would more than a mere thought. never forget, the first such voice which had ever deigned to You .. . you really are here.' His deadspeak gasp of acknowledge him. Nathan . . . you were absent, gone away astonishment was as real as if Nathan had heard it with his from us, even out of the world. Then, a moment ago, you ears. came back, but far away on Starside. I cannot be mistaken, 'Yes, I really am. But I can't stay, not just now. I will be for I sensed you there. Yet now .. . you are here! Or is it that back, though, if only to collect these friends of mine.' your telepathy has outstripped you? If so, then your You have brought others here? Of your own kind? But now instructors among the Thyre should be congratulated, that Rogei was frowning. you have learned to project your mind with such clarity. For I There was nothing else for it,' Nathan told him. 'I came at a would swear t h at you are more than a mere thought. time not of my choosing, and even as we speak - or if not now, It was the philosopher Rogei, a Thyre Ancient; and this then very soon - the Wamphyri will be raiding on Sunside. was his resting place and that of many another like him. The I've got to help my people, but I can't look after these others at Cavern of the Ancients, one of the many mausoleums where the same time. They're simply not prepared for Sunside . . . I the Thyre entombed their most revered: a great, glowing cave can't take them there ... not when the Wamphyri are there. buried deep in a desert gorge, but a cave unlike any other. And so I propose to leave them here, for now.' Overhead, splitting the sandstone ceiling wall to wall like You would help your people? But how? the slit pupil of a cat's eye, a slash of white quartz seemed Nathan showed him a variety of weapons — showed him how they worked, and their effect — but all in his mind. And they were a wonder to Rogei, who could scarcely believe their powers of devastation. And at last he understood something of the places Nathan had been to, and the things he must have seen. 118 119 These weapons are not of Sunside, he said. No, and neither lands. But how would I ever have got there in the first place if are they of Starside. And so, if they are not of this world .. .? not for Thikkoul the Astrologer, who read my future in the The hell-lands? And he saw in Nathan's dead-speak mind that stars? And so you see, it was you who set my feet upon the he was right. path.' 'That first time I was here —' Nathan let his thoughts fly Should I be proud of it? Rogei sounded gloomy now. back in time - 'you told me I was a Necroscope. Well, and so 'You were proud of me, upon a time.' was my father before me. I discovered his world, his people, 1 still am. Indeed, 1 love you! But with all of this blood their weapons — the means by which to save my people! and thunder in your heart, what will be the end of it? You Now I'm back, and I've brought those weapons with me. For seek to destroy the Wamphyri, you say. But is that possible? the first time the Szgany can meet the Wamphyri on their own Or have I found my lost son only to lose him again in a terms - with blood and fire!' great and terrible bloodwar? Rogei drew back from the pictures in Nathan's head, which 'Am I a son to you, then?' It was an incredible honour. were a tumult. For deadspeak often conveys more than is I wish you could have been. You felt like one, when you spoken or visualized, which in Nathan's case meant all of the were here and working among the Thyre. pent up hatreds of his young manhood. 'I saw my tribe Then ... you won't lose me,' Nathan promised, and hoped decimated and my home destroyed,' he growled. 'It was a he could keep his word. miracle that anyone survived, a miracle called Lardis, our But before anything more could be said: chief. Well, now I have to see if he still survives, and do what 'Nathan!' The caver spokesman had stopped worrying I can to even the score.' about Nathan's penchant for talking to dead things. 'Someone For a moment Rogei was silent, his empty eye-sockets is coming ...' gazing blindly on Nathan where he stood. But then he said: Nathan knew where from. The Cavern of the Ancients And is this the youth who came wandering into the desert to had an exit out on to a sheer cliff face, with worn and die, only to find purpose in the Cavern of the Ancients? crumbling sandstone steps descending into a gorge. But The same youth,' Nathan answered, 'and the same purpose. there was also a tunnel that connected to a Thyre community It has always been the same, I suppose, but I lacked the drive called Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. Out of great respect and the means. Life seemed hopeless, even pointless; I for their dead, the Thyre kept a discreet watch over their thought I'd lost everything; I was wrong, much had been resting places. This would be a guardian, whose duty it was to saved. And now at last I've found the means — all thanks to attend the Ancients in their mausoleum. you, Rogei.' The cavers were hushed now; Nathan, too, as soft, cautious Tome? footsteps sounded from an ascending shaft. A moment later 'You gave me a reason to live, showed me the way. and a figure rose up into view. Female, she blinked curious Through you I met Shaeken, and through him sought out olive eyes with large, lemon-green pupils. But just inside the Ethloi the Elder, who knew numbers. It was Ethloi who told cavern she paused, froze, poised as if for flight. She leaned me that if one day I could find a way to control the numbers forward on her toes, lifted her chin and sniffed at the cavern's vortex and show it ordered in my mind, as pictures upon a musty air. In her slender hands she carried a bow at the tapestry, then that I might discover a key. Well, he was right ready, nocked with a long arrow. She saw the three cavers - and I did discover it, not in this world but in the hell- saw Nathan, too - only a moment after they had seen her. 120 121 He chose weapons for himself, conjured a Mobius door ... She wore a red skirt and sandals, nothing else. Her small then paused and looked at Atwei again. And: 'Sister,' he told breasts were loose, pear-shaped, slightly pendulous. Her her. 'I've been to strange places and learned strange things. ears were large; mouth and chin small; nose wide and Don't be afraid ...' flattened, with dark-flaring nostrils. Alert, she held herself Because he willed it, his words were deadspeak - which trembling erect. Graceful, her demeanour was somehow Rogei heard and to which he answered: Take care, Necroscope! regal. And she was young. Atwei knew nothing of that, but in Nathan's mind she felt Her youth showed in her large eyes, shining there with a the rush and roar of the numbers vortex and was afraid despite brilliant clarity under the horny ridges of her eyebrows; also in his warning ... especially when he turned to one side, stepped the gleam of her limbs, whose sheen was the natural product forward a pace - of Thyre body oils. Brown as a nut, but at the same time - And disappeared . . . smooth, like all her race she was slender to the point of emaciation. .. . And re-emerged on the boulder plains, in the vicinity of 'Atwei!' Nathan recognized her at once, and stepped the hell-lands Gate. And indeed it was as if all hell had been forward. Her mouth fell open and she shook her head in let loose! disbelief. At the same time he felt her probing his identity, The scene was fantastic. A few minutes earlier there had and knowing she was not mistaken. She had known for been only the glaring hemisphere of white light, the boulders some little time, but had scarcely dared to believe. Now ... ranging outwards across the gaunt wastelands, and in a misted she took a trembling step towards him, then paused and distance the toppled aeries of the Wamphyri, where looked at the cavers. Karenstack, or what had been Karenstack, stood tall and 'Friends,' he said. central among the stumps of the fallen stacks. But now: At which she dropped her weapon and flew across the floor Ben Trask and David Chung were each down on one knee, of the Cavern of the Ancients into his arms ... but in the next aiming into the sky and hosing fire and steel at a circling moment drew back and stood upright, head down, hands Wamphyri flyer. And skimming towards the pair, weaving clasped in front of her. And: That was unseemly, she said. from side to side as it avoided the jagged crests of rock He took her into his arms again anyway, and said, 'Little jumbles and the jutting fangs of lone boulders, a second manta sister.' flyer reached out its prehistoric neck and spatulate head, and 'Brother,' she answered. Which was as much a the pouch in its underside yawned open where the neck joined compliment as Rogei calling him son. the body. But Nathan had no time, and she saw the turmoil of Seated in ornate saddles at the bases of the flyers' necks, interests in his mind. His people, however, were uppermost. Wamphyri lieutenants leaned forward and urged their mounts And she knew why. Outside in the open desert, and in on. Having no knowledge of guns, they heard the hellish Sunside, and especially in Starside, it was sundown. chattering of the weapons but had no idea of their firepower. 'Care for my friends here,' he told Atwei, releasing her. So far they had been lucky; despite the awesome size of their 'And don't worry, I'll be back for them.' It seemed very little mounts, neither the flyers nor their riders had yet taken a hit. by way of explanation — little enough to say after almost Or it could be that the shooting had only two years' absence — but explanations must wait. Meanwhile, there were other matters which could not. 122 123 just begun - or that the aim of the gunmen was off - or yawning mantrap lined with cartilage hooks, whose fetor perhaps that the flyers had been hit but it hadn't registered. they could smell and almost taste, it was that close! Trask Nathan looked for Anna Marie; she stepped out from shouted something incoherent and blazed away until his behind a boulder and started firing; the recoil of her weapon magazine was empty, and still the thing bore down on them. was such that it threw her backwards, so that she stumbled Nathan could see its rider's eyes: feral yellow and red in and fell. And the flyer swooping low over the boulder plains their cores - with bloodlust! The man knew he was going to veered a little and headed straight for her! drink red tonight, take thralls for his master or meat for the In the moment after stepping out of his Mobius door, manse's provisioning. And he laughed as he commanded his Nathan had loaded his weapon. Now he called out: 'Anna mount: Take them! Or knock them down, at least! Marie - to me!' She saw him and came stumbling in his Nathan heard him, his unsubtle telepathic command, and direction. And again the flyer veered from its course, arching so knew to counter the flyer's reaction to it. 'Get down!' he its wings and settling towards them where she tripped and fell shouted, pushing Anna Marie aside and hurling himself in against him. Forward of the corrugated belly, its under-slung the other direction, rolling in the dust. The gaping pouch pouch opened wider yet. passed between them, literally scooping at the dirt as the Chung was still firing at the other creature, where now it arches of manta wings passed over them with feet to spare. had stopped circling and was side-slipping this way and that, Then .. . the great beast turned its head to look back as its like a flat stone sinking in water, bearing its rider gently to diamond shape cleared them. earth. But Trask had seen Anna Marie and Nathan's danger and In so doing, it presented Nathan with a shot he couldn't had turned his machine-pistol on the beast and rider resist. He brought his crossbow to bear, squeezed the trigger. threatening them. The flyer was hit in the leading edge of a The rider lieutenant was also looking back. He threw back wing, and its tapering neck reared up and back as a neat line his head and laughed as Nathan's bolt zipped under the of holes stitched themselves into its rubbery grey flesh. But arched wing and entered the flyer's neck fifteen inches back still it came swerving between the last pair of boulders, its air- from its head. What, a mere crossbow bolt? And buried in trap wings actually brushing their domes as the beast closed all that muscle? The sting of a stink-gnat to a creature huge with its would-be targets. and insensitive as a flyer! And he at once yanked on the By now the rider knew there was something wrong; he had reins and turned his attention to Trask and Chung where heard the spattering impact of bullets, felt the shuddering of they frantically reloaded. his mount as it skewed this way and that. And in his mind he'd None of this taking more than a second. felt something of the brute's dull pain, the damage to its Then- vampire flesh. But he wasn't Wamphyri, just a lieutenant, with - There sounded a muffled explosion, not a gunshot, as no real rapport with his mount. If necessary, he would drive Nathan's bolt exploded with force enough to fell a large the flyer to the limits of its endurance. Indeed he must, for his pine. The flyer's neck blew apart in gristle, cartilage, grey Lord and master Gorvi the Guile would require an accounting. flesh and red ruin, and sent a spray of blood flying on the Dripping fluids from its wounds, the beast fell towards boulder plains. Completely severed from the neck, the head Nathan and Anna Marie. The saucer eyes in its hideously commenced a crimson-spraying cartwheel to earth, and as human head glared at them; its pink-lipped pouch was a the neck collapsed downward and struck the stony ground, so the blanket-like body jackknifed and rose up, hurling 124 125 the rider free. Behind him, even as he flew, almost three and a could only be a party of Travellers (Szgany Lidesci, probably, if half tons of rubbery meat, membrane and alveolate bone their weapons were anything to judge by) on their way over crashed down shuddering and raised a cloud of dust. The beast the boulder plains to make a surprise attack on the last aerie. had been a small one of its kind. Meanwhile: They would know that at sundown Wrathstack was empty of The other flyer had settled to earth and its rider had all but thralls and mindless guardian creatures. With their new dismounted. He came at a run, but ducking, weaving, aware weapons they would attempt to destroy Gorvi's earthbound now that the group of people on the boulder plains weren't guardian warriors in the scree and rubble at the foot of the typical Sunsiders. Behind a rocky outcrop, he helped his stack, enter Guilesump and poison his wells, and so forth. fellow lieutenant to his feet. The man was shaken but not Maybe they could break into Mad-manse and destroy the seriously hurt; metamorphic vampire flesh shrugged off minor Killglance twins' gaslings in their chambers, and so bring cuts and bruises without regard. down the entire stack with a mighty explosion! It had been But on high - almost as high as an aerie itself and disguised done before, as witness all the toppled aeries of the Old amidst the clouds - a third manta shape rode the night Wamphyri. Indeed, in an age immemorial, it had even been thermals, and its rider was different again. Nor was he alone. tried in Turgosheim. Behind him, mantle fluttering and propulsive orifices And yet ... only a handful of them? No, even with their sputtering, an aerial nightmare pulsed like a monster octopus superior weapons their task was impossible; unless they were a against the stars: a warrior, accompanying Gorvi the Guile and suicide squad - and Gorvi wouldn't put that past the Lidescis, his men on their way to Sunside. But Gorvi was Gorvi, and either! having detected strangers on the boulder plains, he'd sent his Or perhaps they had simply come to discover the lie of the lieutenants to investigate while he stood off. Now . . . he heard land for some future invasion. With the rest of the Lords (and the chatter of gunfire, saw the flickering fire of the guns and the bitch Wratha, of course) already raiding on Sunside, the sensed the shock and astonishment in the minds of his way had been clear for a covert expeditionary force to make its lieutenants. way unseen over the boulder plains, and so discover a safe Gorvi knew something was very much amiss, but the height route for later use. It had long been a matter of some concern was too great even for his vampire eyes to make out anything to Gorvi that Guilesump was open to attack from the bottoms in detail. So now he sent: Destroy all opposition. Take ... prisoners. See to it! Then, having made contact, he at once . . . He was brought rudely back from his musing by his received news from one of his men on the ground: a series of man's urgent mind-call: Master, what now? frantic, chaotic mind-pictures which brought the entire thing And: Attack' Gorvi ordered at once. Send in my familiar into something of perspective: bats to flush them out and your flyer to crush them. What, do A flyer had been downed, crippled or dead ... His you call yourself a lieutenant? Use your head, man — or lose lieutenants faced human beings, but not Szgany! . .. There it! For all their weapons, these people are only human -/odder! were men and one woman on the ground, pale creatures who So be about your work and never fear. For I, Gorvi, am coming. appeared weak, but they were armed with incredible weapons And to his warrior: Down! he sent. Down onto the plains. ... Even now Gorvi's men were under fire! Deflate your bladders and descend. Prepare to create your All sorts of ideas ranged through the Guile's mind: most powerful exhaust stenches, with which to sicken them Despite what his man had said, Gorvi suspected that this 126 127 who oppose me and mine. And think on this: when all is done, there wiJJ be a reward. Aye, for I shall feed you the very best of tidbits - the ones that scream when you crunch them! Ill Violent Homecoming Riderless, using rocky outcrops and hillocks of stony debris to shield its bulk, the flyer came skimming across the boulder plain. It had only one purpose; its vampire master, dismounted now, had sent only one telepathic command from where he went afoot among the scattered rocks: Fall on them! A command that Nathan had heard. But Trask and Chung had taken refuge in a cluster of boulders close by; it would be no easy thing to prise them out of there, or to fall on them, and their ability to fire out was unaffected. Their location was a natural vantage point. Nathan and Anna Marie, however, remained out in the open and so were an easy target. And the flyer was headed for them. Anna Marie saw the brute coming, forming its wings into vast scoops, deliberately stalling itself. Its intention could not be clearer. Panicked, she made to hobble away; Nathan caught her arm and said, 'No, not that way.' He conjured a door, pulled her in after him, took her to a place he knew. It was a flat-topped bluff to one side of the mouth of the great pass, with an easy scramble down to safety. Lardis Lidesci had brought him here once to watch the sun rising on the last aerie. And steadying her, he said, 'You should be safe here. If all goes well, I'll come back for you. If not ... well, Sunside lies beyond the pass.' It was as much as he had time for. And then he went back for Trask and Chung. Frustrated, the flyer was making a low, hovering pass over the cluster of boulders where Nathan's colleagues were 129 sheltering. They cradled their weapons but were saving horde as they wove this way and that, while in fact there ammunition and waiting for further developments. Emerging were only six of them at most. Yet such was their speed and from the Mobius Continuum close to the nest of boulders, erratic patterns of flight, as individuals they presented near- Nathan yelled, 'Hold your fire!' But as he sprinted towards impossible targets. them, he saw the two vampire lieutenants creeping up on Nathan had reached the jumble of rocks where Trask and their flank. Chung had taken cover. If he squeezed his way in with Skidding to a halt and pointing, Nathan shouted, 'On your them, it might well prove difficult to conjure a Mobius door right! Down in that hollow!' Which was a moment before the within the confines of their sanctuary. No, he must first get lieutenants sprang into view and came loping, zigzagging them out of there. towards the clump of boulders. Then: 'Ben, David!' he called to them. 'Out here, to me. Out in A shadow passed over Nathan where he stood undecided the open.' And he worked frantically to reload his crossbow. ... and a second shadow; and at the same time he heard a Then, as a pair of the bats swooped chattering on him, he sound to fill his veins with ice water: the sputtering throb of a ducked down and glanced skywards . .. and glimpsed what Wamphyri warrior's bio-propulsive vents! And oh how he he had known must be up there. Just a glimpse, for the thing knew what that meant; so that his mind and blood froze as he was still high overhead, and there was already more than felt himself carried back, back in time - back to that night in enough happening on the ground to keep Nathan occupied. Settlement, when Wratha's raiders had left the town in ruins. But the throb of propulsors was louder now, and the first The night his brother Nestor had been taken by the faint reminder of that nightmare stench from the past was Wamphyri, when Nathan had seen Misha with Canker falling like some vile rotting rain all about. Canison and thought that she, too, had been stolen away into Momentarily distracted, at last Nathan finished reloading. Starside. The night a warrior reduced Nona Kiklu's house to Then, scanning the boulder-strewn landscape all around, he rubble, leaving her son to believe that his mother was ... saw: 'Nathan - for Christ's sake!' Trask's shouted warning A flyer, coming in low; the biggest so far and armoured. snatched him out of it - or back into it; Trask's shout, and the And its rider, vulture-like, hunched forward in the saddle; a obscene snarling of automatic weapons. Nathan's eyes weird scarecrow figure with eyes so deeply sunken under focused. He saw the vampire lieutenants closing with the jutting black brows they were little more than a crimson boulder clump, saw them hurl themselves headlong in glimmer. Angular and deathly corpse-like in his figure and superhuman dives up over the protective rock barrier ... and riding posture - yet radiating power, a devious strength - it saw them slam to a halt in mid-air, even thrown backwards was perfectly obvious that this one was no mere lieutenant. by the twin streams of smoking steel that slammed into them! No indeed, for he was a Lord of vampires. Wamphyri! The two vampire lieutenants were out of it, incapacitated, if It was the first time Nathan had laid eyes on Gorvi the only for the moment, but Gorvi's lesser familiars were not. Guile, one of the renegade Lords who had fled Turgosheim They came shrilling from the west, no longer as mere trackers with Wratha the Risen; nevertheless, he knew him from a but more nearly as hounds: harriers! Not in the least clumsy description he'd had from Maglore in Runemanse: for their size, the giant Desmodus bats seemed like a The dome of his head, kept shaven save for a single central lock, with a knot hanging to the rear. His sallow, 130 131 parchment features (again Nathan was reminded of a leprous perhaps the detonator was faulty, the bolt a dud? But then a vulture) and shifty sunken eyes; and hands Jike skinny claws, dull crump! As if a boulder had toppled and fallen to earth. but full of a true Lord's strength. And dressed in black, head Nathan looked: to toe, always, with his black cloak flapping like tattered Not six feet away, the flyer's huge but patently human wings .. . face at the end of its ten-foot neck gazed at him in vast Oh yes, Gorvi the Guile. Definitely. amaze - a sort of vacant astonishment - in the moment Braver now that their vampire master was here, the great before it twisted into an agonized mask, threshed left and bats formed a cloud, came shrilling in a flurry of thrumming right, opened its jaws and emitted an ear-piercing shriek! wings. Nathan's crossbow would be worse than useless, Then... wasted against them. Doubly frustrating, their buffeting ... The creature's membranous air-scoop wings pounded at made it impossible to set his sights on the larger, higher the air as if to bear it up, up away from its pain, which was targets. inescapable. The thing skewed wildly to the left, tilted, But the riderless flyer was also back, appearing as from allowed Nathan to see close up the damage his explosive nowhere, hovering into view over the tops of nearby bolt had done: the gaping hole that rained pink fluids, where boulders. Nathan kneeled, took aim . . . and the great bats at the flyer's head and neck had been half-severed from the once struck against him, knocking him off-balance. As he body. There was scarcely enough muscle left to hold the head sprawled, so the rest of the flock fell towards him - erect, and nothing at all of strength or will. - And Ben Trask, seeing his chance as the bats crowded The beating of the wings slowed to a quiver as the beast together, opened up with his machine-pistol. Three of the six commenced a staggering, stalling glide. A tilting wing-tip literally exploded in mid-air, torn into bloody fragments by got snagged between tall boulders, turning the flyer like a the ferocity of Trask's firepower. And the rest of them pivot. Its grotesque head sank down, touched crumbling scattered in disarray, shrilling their alarm as they swerved earth, dug in and ploughed a furrow. The long neck concer- left and right, and made off into the maze of leaning rocks. tinaed, buckled at the point of injury, and snapped with a Why do you wait? Nathan heard Gorvi's furious mind- soft cartilage crack! Dust rose in a cloud as the manta wings shout, which the vampire Lord directed at the riderless flyer. flopped uselessly and the carcass slewed to a shuddering Finish it! Settle on them! Smother them with your bulk and halt. drive your thrusters down between the rocks to crush them! Nathan looked at the weapon in his hand and felt The thing came, arching its wings, gentling to earth. And awesomely powerful; he tightened his grip on it, shook it in between the segments of its underbelly, rubbery landing the air, and shouted his triumph through bared teeth. His appendages uncoiling like quivering nests of sentient worms! elation was shortlived, however; warrior stench thickened in Nathan knew he couldn't miss; he simply raised his gun-hand, a moment, and again a monstrously pulsing shadow blotted aimed at the juncture of neck and body above the slit of the out the stars in its passing. pouch, and squeezed the trigger. And as the flyer came drifting Trask and Chung emerged from their nest of boulders. towards the clump of boulders, so the bolt flew home. Nathan saw the looks on their faces as they crouched down, Nathan turned his face away; it seemed a long time; shrank back, stared slack-jawed above and behind him. He spun on his heel and saw ... his worst nightmare. Throbbing obscenely in mid-air, a Wamphyri warrior! 132 133 With its air-trap mantle fluttering and its gas-bladders fully saucer eyes, and their placement: in the sloping prow of the inflated, the warrior's sputtering bio-propulsors emitted clouds skull, the softer membrane of the undermantle, and flanking of stench-vapour as it turned and came pulsing and rumbling the propulsors in the anal region, where a spiked tail flailed over the barren boulder plains. Like the two downed flyers like a mace and acted as a rudder ... this monster was 'small' of its kind; but despite that it flew, it . . . It was only fifty yards away now, and it had spotted the was not a 'flyer' as such. In its delirious design it was not three men. Propulsors blasting, the warrior lowered its head dissimilar to Sunside's small, lake-dwelling, harmless fresh- and zeroed in on them! water octopuses: its body sack was rather more elongated, and Crush them! Let their pulp stain those boulders crimson! its tentacles more properly launching thrusters than Gorvi's mind-cry galvanized Nathan to activity. Jerking to his appendages for walking or groping for shrimp prey in the feet, he glanced at his crossbow, knew there was no time to pebbles of a pool. But its principal dissimilarity lay in the eyes reload. Then Ben Trask grabbed his elbow and Nathan . .. their shrieking madness ... their malign intent... their jumped six inches in the air. number! 'For Christ's sake!' Trask yelled over the rumble of the And in its size. For even a small warrior is not small. warrior's propulsors. 'Nathan -- get us out of here!' Nathan recognized his error: one of comparison. Distance And to one side, David Chung gasped, 'God! I just don't had fooled him, causing him to compare this Thing with a believe it!' Gorvi's lieutenants — their leather-clad bodies creature of Nature; distance and perspective. For the warrior holed and both of them leaking red from a dozen wounds — was all of a hundred and fifty yards away, at which distance had appeared from behind the clump of boulders, staggering (and quite apart from its multitude of saucer eyes) the idea of but yet advancing on the three. Trask, on the other hand, had it was still acceptable - barely. And given that the safety seen vampires close-up before, and he believed it well enough. margin was narrowing even now, for a little while at least a While overhead, leaning forward in the ornate saddle of his man might retain sufficient composure to think of such a thing flyer, Gorvi himself stabbed a trembling, outraged claw of a in terms of other animals. But as it pulsed closer ... there was hand at the three and commanded his warrior: Now! Crush no real comparison. them now! Aye, and those idiot, weakhng thraJJs of mine with That a thing like this could lift its massive bulk even an them! inch from the earth, let alone fly, seemed patently impossible; Chung was quick to get a grip of himself. Even as Nathan yet here it spurted against the star-spattered horizon like an conjured a Mobius door, the Chinaman turned his machine- alien, aerial slug. Just looking at it, details were branded on pistol on Gorvi's lieutenants; at point-blank range he literally Nathan's feverish mind: tore them apart. His spray of bullets punched crimson lace- Of grey-mottled flesh, with fish-scale armour gleaming holes in their leather armour, across and back, up and down. metallic-blue in starshine . . . of gas-bladder clusters bulging They were swatted like flies, knocked flat on their backs on like strange wattles or nests of morbid tumors from both sides the stony ground. of the segmented, flexible spine, constantly shrinking and And Trask opened up on the warrior. Less than twenty-five expanding, regulating the monster's balance . . . of cartilage yards away, the thing had opened its jaws. Inside . . . it wasn't hooks and sawing appendages, and chitin grapples in the so much a mouth as a cave of daggers! Trask was shaken but shape of crab claws. But over and above everything else, the held his aim directly into that gaping maw. And evil pseudo-intelligence of its swivelling, searching 134 135 slime-dripping teeth flew in shards as steel met bone in to fight alongside Wratha and the others, else it might just as shattering collision, none of which deflected the warrior from easily be Turgis Gorvisman lying here all full of holes and its course by an inch. his blood leaked out! Nathan had his door. Holding it steady, he grabbed Trask's On the other hand . .. well, he was a one to look out for, arm, Chung's too. that Turgis. Gorvi couJd have left him in charge of Guilesump, But the warrior was almost upon them. Grunting its except by now he'd probably have been at it with one or challenge and intent on ramming them against the clump of another of Gorvi's females - or several of them! Huh.' A man boulders, it came head on. Trask snarled his fear, aimed at the couldn't trust anyone these days. foremost cluster of gas-bladders, let fly with a final spray of But the strange and sudden absence of these alien bullets. And as bladders exploded like grenades and the thing interlopers - or their corpses at least - was a puzzle. Gorvi screamed, swerved, and turned the armoured mass of its flank had seen them here; he was sure he had seen his warrior to the fore, so Nathan yanked on his colleagues' arms and crash into them. As for their awesome weapons, why, for all dragged them off-balance into the Mobius Continuum. he knew they could be trained on him even now ... In the void of the Continuum, Trask panted his relief as he . . . He at once crouched down, sent a cautious vampire fingered his torn jacket and knew that the sleeve had been probe into the maze of boulders. Their aura - their scent - ripped off on one of the warrior's scales . .. would soon give these humans away, if they'd somehow managed to wriggle back in there: the warm salty scent of Gorvi's warrior sprawled, for the moment winded, in the lee untainted blood. But no, they weren't there; only an oily smell of the boulders. Scales had been wrenched loose, several eyes now, and a trace of their human breath hanging sweet on the and launching limbs crushed, and more bladders burst in the still air . . . and lingering smells of cloth and hot steel, too, collision with the rocks. The nightmare beast's air-trap mantle from their clothing and their weapons. Alien smells all, but was holed in several places along its left flank, but not so nothing of the flesh and blood people who had made them. badly it wouldn't mend. First, however, it must rest, feed, Gorvi snarled his frustration, cursed his misfortune: to fashion fresh bladders from its metamorphic flesh; that is, if have lost two flyers, a pair of lieutenants, a warrior damaged its master desired it should ever fly again. and depleted. Well, at least the last might still be salvaged. Gorvi had landed. Furious, the vampire Lord approached And so: Feed! he commanded the beast. and examined the space between his construct and the The monster's permanent prow eyes (permanent as boulders where he hoped to find the crushed remains of his opposed to the rudimentary metamorphic sensors in its dead foes - whatever they had been! And yet, that space was underbelly and other parts of its anatomy) immediately empty. swivelled in Gorvi's direction. Blank black disks which should Well, not quite empty, for the bodies of his thralls were scarcely be capable of reasoning intelligence as such - more there at least, all crumpled, broken and dead . . . or undead. properly receptors for the tiny brute mind within - they yet For even now they were not completely beyond repair, if displayed all the evil of a warped mutant sentience, a Gorvi so desired it. Except he did not desire it, not for this deviousness whose source lay in Gorvi himself. The warrior pair of unworthy dogs! As well that he'd sent the best and was after all his construct, and therefore imbued with the longest lasting of his lieutenants ahead of him into Sunside, Guile's essence. 136 137 \ Feed? He could sense the beast's querying hesitation, its from the start. What, to join up with Nestor and Canker, both dull apprehension. But surely these are yours, Master? of whom hated him, Wratha who despised him, and the Gorvi snorted, nodded his skull-like head. They were mine, Killglance twins who were mad, on this less than predictable aye, but now I give them to you. So feed and grow strong. soiree (more likely a bloody campaign) against the resourceful Take these thralls of mine but leave the flyers where they are; Lidescis? It had been, indeed, more than a feeling of let them rot here.' Do not glut, but fuel and repair yourself. uneasiness: rather an aura of foreboding, a doom-laden Then, when you are fit for it, make your way back to atmosphere hanging over Wrathstack itself, ever since the so- Guilesump. called 'Lady' had broached the thing, this onslaught against the The warrior's launching limbs surged into motion, turning it Szgany Lidesci. Or perhaps it was simply that dwelling in the about. The saucer eyes in its great armoured head focused as stack's 'basement', as it were - in Guilesump, level with the one on the gutted lieutenants. Powerful jaws gaped and saliva scree jumbles and so open to attack from the ground — Gorvi slopped from leathery lips as a forked tongue thick as a man's had come to feel more and more vulnerable. Whichever, thigh tasted, then snatched, first one shattered body and then tonight he'd held back, determined to be last into the field of the other. As a chameleon takes flies, so the Guile's battle- battle. construct took the dead lieutenants. Huh! Much good it had done him, for now this. And perhaps And if Gorvi's promise of a few minutes ago had ever this, too, was an omen, a warning that he was as well out of it. registered at all, it was now forgotten — wiped out, And certainly he was out of it; for there was no way he would obliterated from the monster's one-track mind — in the brief join in any grand battle without a strong force of lieutenants, but passionate rapture of its feeding-frenzy. For these 'tidbits' thralls and warriors about him. Not for the sake of the battle neither screamed nor made any sound at all when they were itself, at least. Oh, let the others seek glory all they would . .. crunched. But their flesh was soft and succulent for all that. Gorvi could do without battle-scars! What, cowardice? No, While his construct refuelled itself, the Guile returned never, for he was Wamphyri! But he was also the Guile, and he thoughtfully to his nodding flyer, climbed into the saddle and well deserved his name. urged the beast aloft. So far the night was a disaster. First, in Wherefore he would watch the others a while and see which Guilesump, there had been several unforeseen administrative way it went; and however it went, at the end of the night Gorvi tasks: morbid fluids to draw off from a stillborn warrior lest would have his own tale to tell: of how he had quashed a sneak the thing go rancid in its vat; quarrelsome thralls to cow; an attack on the last aerie, while Canker and Nestor and the rest ill-tempered woman to chastise. (Well, these things would were rutting, counting coup and glutting themselves on form the substance of Gorvi's excuse, at least, if ever Wratha Sunside booty. And aye, this way he'd yet be a hero in his own and the other Lords should find fault with him or query his right! tardiness. But that was unlikely; for knowing he would be Sunside, he ordered his flyer as it gained height. Cross the 'delayed', Gorvi had dispatched not only Turgis but others of dome of the hell-lands Gate, climb on the wind off the his lieutenants and a good many aspirant thralls ahead of him Icelands, and follow the foothills west. Then up into the to join the Lords and Lady in this their joint venture: an all- western peaks and through them, and down on to Sunside's out attack on the Szgany Lidesci.) flank. There we'll land in the foothills and see what we shall But .. . he'd felt uneasy about tonight's mass raid right see .. . 138 139 Only two 'scanners' remained active, and then barely: a From their vantage point on the flat-topped bluff in the mouth pseudo-eye in the thing's blunt prow skull, and another at the of the great pass, Nathan, Trask, Chung and Anna Marie - all base of a spine in its flail-like rudder. Linked to the four of them together - had watched Gorvi's take-off and had rudimentary brain, these would keep watch. Any abrupt or seen him set his course west. Down on the boulder plains, inexplicable change in the warrior's immediate surroundings, however, his damaged warrior was still very much in and it would come snarling awake! evidence; its roaring and grunting echoed up to them, and Nathan knew that much, at least, for he'd learned a lot puffs of exhaust gases rose like vile smoke rings from its about Wamphyri warriors and guardian creatures in Tur- venting. gosheim. And now, atop the bluff, he asked Trask and The four couldn't know it, but the bodies of the vampire Chung: 'I take it you left the weapons hidden away in those Lord's lieutenants were even now undergoing a process of boulders?' The two men glanced at each other, could only digestion, their leather gear and all. But they had merely shrug. And Trask said: whetted the warrior's appetite and his attention was now 'We couldn't go on the offensive and look after the centered upon the vastly sprawled corpses of the flyers. Both weapons. Survival had to come first, Nathan.' were as 'dead' as undead vampire things can be, despite that The other's nod. 'I understand, of course. But until that they had that in their blood which would keep them 'alive' for warrior heals itself and moves off - which could easily take as a long time yet. But since a good deal of that blood had been long as the rest of this sundown, or three days Earth-time - I spilled, the flyers were dead to all intents and purposes. daren't go back for the guns. So we have to make do with Depleted, dead .. . and deserted. But the warrior was mindful what we've got.' of Gorvi's last command — that it must not glut itself - and 'But our friends the cavers took their loads with them,' dared not disobey it. The creature felt very little of and Chung pointed out. 'Er, wherever you took them, I mean.' understood even less about physical pain; but even as an Again, Nathan's nod. 'Right. But before I can go back for 'infant' or unformed thing still waxing in the morbid fluids of them, I have to carry you to safety in Sunside. Or what its vat womb, it had felt the sting of its master's corrective should be safety, except .. . well, it's night now. And so I mind-darts, and knew how he could bring all of its functions have one or two things to check out before I can move you. It to a shuddering, cringing halt with just a single stab. shouldn't take too long, but until I'm done you must keep a So the flyers were out of the question, and meanwhile the low profile and wait for me here.' warrior had clear instructions which it must follow as a t duty to He conjured a Mobius door, stepped through it and Gorvi the Guile, its master, and to Guilesump, his manse: to rest a disappeared ... while, replenish its gas-bladders and propulsive system, and let its metamorphism seal the holes in its membranous aerial mantle. ... And reappeared in the Cavern of the Ancients. Then to fly back to the last aerie and its pen in the stem of the Atwei and the three cavers were still there, also a young stack. And since sleep is the best way of conserving energy and Thyre male. And so were the sacks of arms which the cavers the greatest aid to any healing process - for vampire flesh no less had brought with them. Nathan had no time for explanations. than human -the monster closed its eyes, slowed its metabolism, 'Atwei, stay here with my friends,' he told her in her own shut down the bulk of its sensory apparatus, and slept. tongue. And, taking up one of the bundles, he was gone again - 141 140 rear and the far side. Also, they'd strategically mined all of the - To the bald, rounded plateau of Sanctuary Rock, where major entrances with barrels of crude but effective that landmark refuge backed up on Sunside's foothills at the gunpowder. So that the Rock was now a sanctuary, makeshift edge of the forest to the west of ruined Settlement. Nathan had encampment, lethal trap and escape route all in one. chosen the Rock because its dome was a vantage point from As for the Rock's location: which he should be able to spy out the lie of the land east and For fifteen to twenty miles around this was Lidesci west along the flank of the barrier mountains, the region which territory, which Lardis Lidesci had always guarded jealously he'd once called home. And travelling there through the and protected with his life - especially against the night raids Mobius Continuum, he had remembered it as he had known it of the vampire Lords of Starside. And it was the Necroscope's all his young life. guess that if tonight the Wamphyri could be found anywhere The dome of the Rock towered more than two hundred feet on Sunside, then that.. . over the slope of a stony hill. It was like a huge oval boulder, .. . But in the moment that Nathan emerged from the toppled over on its side, half-buried in a hillside that climbed Mobius Continuum, he knew that there was no 'if about it. For through pines and birches, and bramble and blackthorn they were here even now. They were actually here - at undergrowth. Above the rock the green belt was narrow, Sanctuary Rock! shaded and gloomy where it wound with the contours of the Far to the south, across the sprawling expanse of night-dark foothills. Rising steeply across its width, its foliage grew woods and the furnace desert which lay beyond, a curved sparse at the feet of frowning cliffs. Below, the patchy woods horizon was silhouetted against a band of molten yellow light descended into a thinly swirling mist, levelled out and fading upwards into pink and amethyst, then light- and dark- thickened into forest proper, finally faded with distance into a blue, finally black reaching back to the sky overhead, where grey-green fuzz of soft-edged canopy and the gently mobile the stars were as shards of blue ice frozen in alien (but, to concentric contours of false, misted horizons. Nathan, familiar) configurations. Or, at least, the sky should As to why the place was called 'Sanctuary' Rock: be black . .. In the olden times - indeed since time immemorial - the ... But it should not be shot through with lances of coloured Szgany had hidden from Starside's vampires in the roots of the light, and dotted with nightmare shapes that sputtered Rock; hidden in the guts of the boulder, which was mainly explosively or glided silently through the black smoke rising solid in its body and dome, but hollow as a rotten tooth in its from oily fires and the exhaust trails of careening rockets! base. And now the Szgany Lidesci not only hid there, but lived Sanctuary Rock was suffering a concerted attack, and there, too. They also 'lived' in Settlement, which was no great following the silence and darkness of the Mobius Continuum, distance away, but at night invariably withdrew to the safety of it was as if Nathan had stepped forth into hell itself! the Rock. Down there on the sparsely wooded slopes at the foot of the Over the years the Lidescis had burrowed extensively to Rock, close — too close — to the gaping entrance to the main make the place more nearly inhabitable. And they had opened cavern system, there were warriors on the ground. One of up a maze of passages, granaries, animal pens, private them, the biggest one, seemed crippled. It was burning, habitations for family units, storage facilities, even roaring and hissing like a herd of rutting shads, and heaving recreational areas. They had tunnelled their way from a huge its forequarters this way and that on an overhung entrance and various connected cavern systems under the eastern rim of the Rock, right through to the 143 142 apparently broken spine. Its hindquarters were writhing, a the dome of the Rock and six hundred above the forest - mass of flames where Travellers had poured oil on the thing circling like vultures over some soon-to-be corpse - the and fired it. But there were lesser warriors, too: smaller, less Wamphyri Generals themselves rode the night air, blotted out cumbersome, undamaged as yet and very, very dangerous ... the stars in their wheeling, and gazed down through red and and enraged, of course. rapacious eyes on the efforts of their army. There were five Even as Nathan watched, one of the things rose up on its of them mounted on armoured flyers, and five first- forward thrusting limbs and fired a short burst from its lieutenants in attendance on lesser beasts. propulsors. Seeming to bound in the air, it crashed down Aware of their presence from the moment he vacated the among a group of the Rock's defenders, crushed several of Mobius Continuum, Nathan had automatically taken cover in them to the earth, commenced snapping at the rest. Its chitin a clump of gorse growing in the scant soil of a deeply scarred clubs, pincers and slabbers wove menacingly in all directions. depression. Now, having appraised himself of the situation, Nathan also saw flyers down there on the ground, half a he looked skyward again to see what the Lords were up to - dozen of them at least, but they were all positioned well back — And none too soon, for they were spiralling down from the forward edge of the battle area. Ideally situated for towards the dome of the Rock, approaching the flat, central relaunching, facing downhill on the narrow trails leading to area of its plateau as they prepared to land. This was to be the Rock, they waited for further instructions. Their masters, their command position, from which they'd manoeuvre their lieutenants and senior thralls had dismounted and went afoot men and monsters on the ground. like infantrymen, shadowing and directing the battle-engines The entire scene had been stunning to Nathan's senses from which were the warriors. the very first moment. The roaring of beasts and screams of Other flyers and warriors were in the air, probably less than men carried up from below on air warmed by fear, fire and two dozen of them in all, but seeming to Nathan to swarm in fighting. The shrill whistle or occasional shriek of unreliable their hundreds. They were not quite the height of the dome of missiles, and the deafening blasts of sound and blinding the Rock, so that in fact he looked down on them, silhouetted explosions when they burst against vampire flesh, or, more against firelight and the flaring, multicoloured trails of frequently, empty air. The stench of sulphur and of warrior rockets. Only a handful of the warriors were big ones, but the exhaust gases drifting in poisonous grey and yellow clouds smaller variety was versatile and full of a terrible vitality. through the night; and the mind-searing sight of nightmare Nathan saw two of them go spiralling down, propulsors shapes throbbing or undulating in the star-spattered sky. But sputtering, thrusters uncoiling, to land near the base of the over and above everything else, the knowledge that they were Rock on its western approaches. Well, they'd achieve very his people down there, fighting and dying for the Rock, and little there. Uninhabitable and therefore undefended on that for human existence itself. flank, the Rock was solid and its face sheer; it sank straight Stunning to Nathan's senses, yes ... but the vampire Lords into the stony ground. On the other hand, it wouldn't take would soon be landing! long for the warriors to get airborne again and turn their For long moments frozen, at last Nathan was galvanized monstrous energies to the eastern flank . .. into frantic activity. Shaking out some of the arms from his While overhead, maybe two hundred and fifty feet over bundle, he saw what he'd got there. Fragmentation grenades; a 30mm twin rocket-launcher, fully loaded; a light-weight 144 145 flame-thrower, and a machine-pistol and ammo. He yanked the rocket-launcher free, stuffed grenades into his pockets, IV crammed what he could of the rest of the stuff back into the bundle and shoved it deep into the roots of the gorse. Nestor The first flyer was coming in for a landing. It was one of the lesser beasts, commanded by a lieutenant. Nathan stood up and came head and shoulders above the gorse. He'd gone entirely unnoticed so far (or so he thought), but for some little time had been shielding his mind while intercepting the telepathic For something less than an hour now, Lord Nestor Lich- messages of the Wamphyri Lords - and those of one Lady, their loathe of the Wamphyri had known it: the fact that his mainly leader! unremembered brother (his real brother, aye, his 'blood' Safety down on this great boulder, we'll see so much more brother, but a brother in name only, and his Great Enemy to clearly, she was saying. But it seems to me our forces on the all other intents and purposes) was back in Sunside/Starside. ground are already costing the Lidescis dear, and pushing them In precisely the same moment that Maglore of Runemanse had back into their holes. By the time we send down another three known it, and the mummied, monstrous Eygor Killglance in or four warriors, we'll have them in full rout. After that, if we his refuse pit, and the dead and dreaming Thyre, and Nathan's can only get a beast inside the Rock . ...' She left the rest of it nephew wolves, so too had Nestor known it, and just as unthought. surely as the rest. The Lady Wratha's great mount was coming in immediately Except, and paradoxically, Nestor had found it harder to behind her lieutenant's lesser beast; the rest of the Wamphyri credit, for he had believed that he was his brother's murderer! Lords followed on behind, descending in a loose 'V formation. Indeed he had known that Nathan was gone forever, banished But next in line after Wratha the Risen was one whose from this vampire world into the Starside Gate, from which thoughts grew more anxious and confused moment to moment, neither man, monster, nor any creature of nature or the vats who now sent her this urgent message: had ever yet returned. It must be so, for all of seventeen, even Wratha! Back off! Don't land! There's someone there! An eighteen sunups ago, Nestor's first-lieutenant Zahar enemy - even a Great Enemy! Aye, and he's dangerous! Lichloathe had reported the fact of it: that, acting on Nestor's Recognizing that telepathic voice at once, Nathan thrilled orders, he'd tossed Nathan into the Gate and sent him to hell! with a variety of emotions, not least horror. For its owner was Since when, and until this very night, Nestor had been certain his twin brother — Lord Nestor, of the Wamphyri! of it. For with his brother's departure, one other curse at least had been lifted like a yoke from his shoulders ... which now was back! The numbers vortex! That cryptic, madly whirling dust-devil device of symbols, figures and cyphers which, bursting out from the core of his twin's weird mind, had often overflowed into Nestor's dreams, too; Nathan's mind-shield, wherein as a child he 147 had used to hide himself away, now revealed him as a light in loud, knowing that Nestor would 'hear' them despite the the night, or as the smell of Traveller campfires floating on wind's bluster. But for all that he had answered in the the breeze off Sunside reveals a campsite, or the frenzied affirmative, still he'd been concerned. What was Nestor's buzzing of carrion flies a piece of rotting meat. purpose, he'd wondered, asking such a question at a time and Nestor had first sensed the thing as he and the others in a place such as this? crossed the spine of the barrier mountains midway between Then the necromancer had looked at him, a frowning, even the great pass and Settlement. But .. . behind him? Its source disapproving glance across the gulf of air. And shuttering his had been behind him, in Starside, in the vicinity of the scarlet eyes somewhat: But ... have you never disobeyed me? Starside Gate. Now what would a man of Sunside be doing The other had given his head a fervent shake. 'Nor shall I there? And what would a dead man be doing anywhere? But ever, Lord!' then, as they had descended into Sunside's foothills, so the For a moment Nestor had held his gaze, eye to eye in the mountains had blocked it out a little; and, supposing it to have night, across the squalling updrafts, scarlet to feral yellow. been a rogue memory out of times best forgotten (for what And he'd known that his lieutenant spoke the truth. For Zahar else could it be, since Nestor's Great Enemy was no more?), Lichloathe feared his master's art and the pain it could bring he had tried his best to do the same: shut it out of his thoughts. not only in this world but also in the next. Not even the dead But as the massed might of Wrathstack spurted and pulsed were safe from one such as he: a necromancer who tortured west, like a flock of shadows against the greater shadow of them for their secrets, causing them pain in their dead flesh as the mountains, so the thing had been there again, swirling in if it were alive. But in the course of the last four to five Nestor's vampire mind and stronger than ever before! For months Zahar had learned to fear him even more, when such a where in past times the vortex had been disordered, chaotic, change was apparent in him that, by comparison, Zahar's insensible, now it had direction and was purposeful. previous master Vasagi the Suck had seemed a friendly, even a And yet if his Great Enemy was in fact alive, then what merry creature. was happening here? For first Nestor had sensed him close to Gazing at Nestor however briefly (for it is not seemly to the hell-lands Gate, and now . . . far to the south, in the desert look upon the Wamphyri too long or too openly), staring at beyond the forests and savanna? It made no sense. No man him where he sat forward in the saddle and leaned a little into (and certainly not a dead one) can be in two places at once! the wind, this is what Zahar saw: Then Nestor had felt an urgent need to reprimand, or at A man changed immensely. Two and a half years ago he least to question, his man Zahar, and had called him up had been a six-footer, and now was almost seven. He'd been alongside, the better to speak to him. And riding the night a tanned by the sun, and was now pallored by the night, and by little apart from the main force, without so much as glancing at his condition; for his flesh had taken on the leaden look of his great grim lieutenant, Nestor had inquired of him in his undeath. His Szgany eyes had been dark, naturally ... but not softest 'voice': for long, a day at most; the Change That Shapes had taken Zahar, are you faithful? him that fast! Wamphyri, aye - he'd been a natural! And eyes "To you, master? Always.' Zahar spoke the words out red as fire. And yet .. . perhaps not as 'natural' as might at first be imagined. For he covered his leaden flesh as if ashamed of 148 149 it, swathing himself in black, head to toe, so that his eyes beyond the Great Red Waste. There was Szgany blood to be burned out over a mask of black cloth. Shame or denial, spilled, undead armies to build. Aye, and soon there would whichever; but even as a Lord freshly ascended — through all be powerful invaders to be killed. That was the way of the pain, frustration and uncertainty of his vampire things: crush or be crushed. metamorphosis - still Nestor had retained something of his So the delights of dalliance were put aside, and now the Sunside heritage. And for a while, for all that he'd become black-draped creature who rode the night wind alongside more and more Wamphyri, still he had been the man. Zahar had precious little of the man in him, but a great deal Sufficient that when he went hunting in Sunside one night of the vampire. More than that, however, there was with the dog-Lord Canker Canison, he'd come back with a something which Zahar couldn't fathom. An unspeakable sweetheart out of earlier times: the girl Glina, who had loved terror? (Nestor's lieutenant scarcely dared think it, and he him. Ah, but that had been the last of his humanity. For where must never be overheard thinking it!) But ... some morbid now were Glina and the child she brought with her out of fear, perhaps, gnawing at his master's necromantic mind? Sunside? . . . Zahar's glance was too bold! Likewise his thoughts, Zahar knew well enough, for he had been witness and more however much he would shield them! Dangerously bold, than witness. The child was dead, all burst into tatters from aye! He knew it and looked away, forced his mind to opaque, the force of his descent on to the rocks at the foot of meaningless meanderings. That way was the safest.. . Wrathstack; and Glina burned by the sun, and likewise fallen Reading most of Zahar's thoughts anyway, Nestor had from on high; her body walled up with stones in a crevice known that his man would never dare lie to him. But to be west of the great pass. All of which by Nestor's command, if sure: not his hand, and the change still taking place in him. Zahar, he said, now listen. That night when I crashed on All of this running concurrent with his affair with Wratha Sunside, and you thought that 1 was lost forever. You the Risen, during which his step had seemed lighter, his spirit captured him, my Great Enemy, and told me how he uplifted. But their 'love' had been as false as Wratha herself awakened in the moment that you tossed him into the Gate. was false . . . or as Nestor was false? In any case, it had not But are you sure - absolutely sure - that he disappeared into lasted. For by then he had discovered his necromancy: that he the Gate? could speak with dead men, and torture them for their secrets. 'Yes, master -' and hastily' '- but all in accordance with And when that had become known to him, his change had your orders!' taken a new direction; it was a darker Nestor who stalked the And: Of course, Nestor had nodded in a little while. Of night, and moved like a ghost through the mazy ways of course . . . But after Zahar had fallen back in line: Suckscar ... Again that disturbance of psyche, that thrill of awareness, Oh, they saw each other from time to time even now, that recognition of the vortex! It was here! He, Nathan ... Nestor and Wratha, and went to each other in their beds; for was here! they were Wamphyri and had their needs. But the first It came and went: a surge from far across the forest, to allegiance of a vampire Lord is to himself; he seeks security, the south-east, then - nothing. As if a candle had been lit, provides for his longevity. This was no time for lovers, when however briefly, then snuffed. And at once a second flare- winds of war were blowing out of the east from up, but fainter, from across the mountains in Starside. So 150 151 that Nestor had wondered: one Great Enemy, or should that forest, to a cave in the bank of a river where he'd slept and be two? . . . Or three? Or was it all in his head? dreamed fever dreams through the long Sunside day. And And then he had wondered: was that it? Was his mind while he moaned and nightmared, so his leech had going as well as his body? For Nathan and his numbers vortex commenced a healing metamorphism deep within his weren't the only curse on Nestor Lichloathe, and the thing in damaged flesh. his body struck far more terror than any imagined condition of With the night he'd crossed into Starside, and there in the his mind. Ah, yes! For unlike the questionable nature of the barrier mountains had been met by his man Zahar and Canker latter, the thing in his body was indisputably real. Canison. Apparently none the worse for wear (well, a couple Yet both curses had the same source: a night of ill-omen of scratches and a scar or two, the deepest of which he might some eighteen sundowns gone, when he and Zahar went a- keep as a souvenir), but saying nothing at all of how he'd hunting in Sunside ... hunting for his Great Enemy, Nathan, survived the previous day and night, Lord Nestor had returned and for a treacherous Lidesci bitch called Misha. to Suckscar, his manse in the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. Then, as the Wamphyri Lords and their aerial army headed Following which . . . he scarcely desired to remember what for Sanctuary Rock, so Nestor's mind drifted back in time, had come after that. Not here and now, with so many keen recalling all the terrors of that night, but scarcely wishing to Wamphyri minds around him. It could well be that he'd remember all the fearful times passed between ... remembered too much already - but he doubted it. The minds of the others were intent upon what was to be, not what might The dog-Lord Canker Canison, who from time to time read have been. the future in dreams, had warned Nestor not to go; but the But Zahar Lichloathe (once Sucksthrall), flying in line necromancer would have none of it. His Great Enemy was in somewhat to the rear of his master, remembered that time just Sunside, and Nestor intended to have it out with him. as well as Nestor. He guarded his thoughts as best he could, Canker had been right and the raid was a disaster. Nestor's be sure, but he remembered all the same ... flyer was crippled, half of its face shot away, its small brain seriously damaged. Nestor, too, was badly wounded, half- In Suckscar (named by and after Vasagi the Suck, its one-time blinded by silver shot from a Lidesci shotgun. Only sheer master), the necromancer Lord Lichloathe had very quickly Wamphyri tenacity and willpower had kept him in the saddle fallen into something of a routine, but one known only to as his dying beast glided south, losing height over the forest. himself, at first, and strange for a Lord of the Wamphyri. Then the crash .. . unconsciousness . . . a slow awakening. Perhaps even morbidly so. Zahar remembered the background Some pain, best ignored. The Wamphyri turn pain aside, details: mainly; they suffer in silence while their parasites see to the Penultimate of the stack's great manses, situated beneath mending. But the place of awakening: a leper colony! Wrathspire, which was the very tip and towered more than Leprosy! Great bane of vampires! half a mile over the rubble and scree, Suckscar had been a Nestor had fled before the fear and loathing of it, and also dingy, doom-fraught place before Vasagi's — demise? - and before the killing rays of the rising sun, deep into the Nestor's ascension. Even by Wamphyri standards, it had been doleful, with an aura all its own ... or the Suck's. A cold one - entirely unfathomable except by his peers, 152 153 and often by them, too - Vasagi had been a monster among his odalisks from the rear, because they could not bear to monsters. The victim of a hereditary bone disease, when a look him in the face! surge of growth in his jaws and teeth had threatened to Well, and they'd bear it even less after the duel. For in an outstrip the metamorphic flesh of his face, then he'd simply act as merciless as it was monstrous, Wran had severed extruded them. Which is to say, he'd stripped his upper jaw Vasagi's proboscis, leaving him only a red-spurting sleeve for of teeth, unhinged the lower jaw, withdrawn all flesh from the a face. Except, of course, the vampire women of Suckscar offending bones and so been rid of them. And in their place would never see that awful sight, for this was a fight to the he'd shaped his face to a tapering pink tentacle, tipped with a death . . . or rather, it should have been. flexible needle siphon, not unlike the proboscis of a bee. This In any case, Wran had left the Suck broken and bloody, was a weapon he'd used with remarkable dexterity and in a pegged out on the slope of a south-facing foothill; left him variety of ways: sliding it into the finest vein to draw off there in the twilight, in the dawn mists of Sunside, to await blood, or through an eardrum or eye deep into the whorl of a the rising sun and an agonizing death. Since when and to brain to vampirize, instruct, cripple or kill. date, no one in the last aerie had seen or heard of him. There Speechless because of his self-inflicted deformity, the Suck again, neither was he missed, except perhaps by the Lady had become a master of mime; but he was also a mentalist Wratha, who had counted him an ally ... second to none, so that between gestures and telepathy he was But in Suckscar (which for his own reasons Nestor had not always understood . .. when he wanted to be. Keeping mainly renamed) Vasagi's aura had lingered on; his people continued to himself and to his manse, however, Vasagi had little use to be morose, alienated and sparing both of speech and the for speech of any sort, but preferred his privacy. Similarly, he utilities ... for a while, at least; until they were used to Nestor. had seemed to prefer austerity. Then: When Nestor had ascended to Suckscar after Wran the The young Lord Lichloathe had changed all that. He was Rage killed (or incapacitated?) Vasagi in a Sunside duel, he'd no cold creature but a man out of Sunside, and his likes and been dismayed at the lack of lighting, heating, the inadequate lusts more nearly a man's. The vampire Lord Vasagi the water supply and the sparsity of facilities in general. The Suck, when he'd taken a woman, had fucked and feasted at fixtures were all in place but mainly turned off or stopped up, the same time, penetrating not only with his member but also for Vasagi had not availed himself of these common utilities. his siphon, in breast, throat, or root of tongue. While bedding Likewise the lives of his thralls, be they fledgling vampires or with him had been a very painful affair, with Nestor it should lieutenants alike: austere. And because Vasagi was 'dumb', be a pleasure. Since he was mainly innocent of women, they too were quiet, sparing of speech, cowed where they Vasagi's odalisks had instructed him in their various ways, crept through Suckscar. and Nestor had been an avid pupil. Until soon enough, with And while it's a fact that all vampire thralls fear their the assistance of the Szgany girl Glina Berea, he in turn masters, Vasagi the Suck's (especially his females) feared him instructed them. more; for with his alien features - crimson eyes, weird snout As for Suckscar: and stabbing siphon - he looked far more an insect than a Nestor turned on the water which, drawn up from Gorvi's man. In the days before their Sunside duel, Wran the Rage wells, was processed by Wratha's siphoneers in Wrathspire; had often taunted Vasagi that he only ever mounted he had the gas inlets cleaned and refurbished as required, drawing off his share of gas from the methane chambers of 154 155 Madmanse to give Suckscar additional light and warmth; and What? (he'd wanted to know as he hurriedly, tremblingly despite that it might be considered a luxury, not a necessity, dressed himself). And did his most trusted lieutenant now spy he even saw to the few requirements of his thralls, so that on him in the privacy of his own apartments? Well then, from their lives, too, were not entirely lacking in comforts. now on these rooms were forbidden to him and all others; nor But in turn he demanded obedience absolute, from thralls would Zahar enter with any message unless Nestor first called and lieutenants alike, with harsh and occasionally fatal for him. Moreover, there would be no more telepathic penalties for any who failed him. And because Nestor's word communication between the two unless Nestor himself was law, and his law was strict, they did not fail him. And initiated it; and should Zahar ever feel the need to encroach everything in Suckscar was his: his people and creatures, even upon Nestor's mind unbidden, in however small a degree . . . Vasagi's warriors still waxing in their vats, were now Nestor's let him first discover the secrets of flight, for he would surely to do with as he desired. find himself hurled from one of Suck-scar's windows! Zahar It had been a period of adjustment in Suckscar and, for had never seen him so wroth .. . Lord Lichloathe's thralls, in large part one of contentment ... But he was aware that the replenishment of fuel for the (though it should be understood that 'contentment' and Lord's fire-hole was an on-going task, so much so that a thrall 'happiness' as such have no real place in the lives of thralls). was employed to that end only, carrying Szgany charcoal to But in any case the basic needs of their existence were much Nestor's bathroom. And he did know that Nestor drew off a improved . . . in the beginning, at least. .. deal of water from the catchment sluices, so as to leave ... Until Nestor had discovered his necromancy; and siphoned water free for the use of the manse generally. It could especially later, following that night when he and Zahar had only be that Nestor bathed himself frequently -very frequently! gone a-hunting together, across the barrier mountains in But to what end? A man can only be so clean, after all. Sunside. Or perhaps he cleaned more than his body? Perhaps he Since when, things had deteriorated. Not so much in the would also cleanse his soul. But of what? Deeds performed maintenance or 'morale' of Suckscar itself, but more properly in which even a hardened lieutenant might find unwholesome? its Lord and master. His moods had grown changeable as the For Nestor was a necromancer. And Zahar had used to think: winds (but not his expression, which was ever grave), and his Surety the terrors and torments of life are sufficient, without thralls had commenced to go quietly again, as in the days of that men shouJd be tortured in death, too? Which were of Vasagi. It was, as Zahar had been quick to note, as if a morbid course thoughts that he kept to himself as best he might. spell was upon him . . . or a morbid dread within. Or was it that Nestor cleansed himself of innocent blood? If Once, hurrying to Nestor's private rooms with a message so, then he must be the first Lord of the Wamphyri to admit from the necromancer's friend and neighbour in Mange- his guilt! Aye, for the others revelled in it! Ah, but there's guilt manse, the dog-Lord Canker Canison, Zahar had discovered and there's guilt, and Zahar remembered the woman Glina and his master naked, bathing, and apparently engaged in a most her bairn . .. Except that was another thought best kept to minute examination of his person, the skin of his forearms himself. and thighs. So engrossed was he, that for a while Zahar's Then there was the matter of Nestor's needs. He had only presence had gone unnoticed. But when it was, then Nestor ever stinted himself in respect of his women when he was had been furious! 156 157 going to Wratha on a regular basis, for he would save his pale these days. The blood is the life, and Nestor was energy for her. Before their affaire, however, and in the period scarcely living it to the full. of gradually declining passion which had followed it, Nestor On the other hand, he'd been looking forward with some had not gone short. Despite that Vasagi had been no great anticipation (or . . . foreboding? It was hard to tell) to this raid beauty himself, he'd had an eye for good-looking girls and had on the Lidescis. And Zahar recalled how, in the early dawn taken his fair share out of Sunside. Along with the Suck's twilight some hundred or so hours ago, Nestor had called him leech, Nestor had inherited them and tried them all; indeed, to his south-facing room of repose. It was a rare thing, these he'd tried one of them - one of the first - too far, and depleted days, to be offered audience with the necromancer in his her even unto death, or undeath. Then, lest she rise up from rooms - but it was also worrying. One could never be sure her fatal sleep Wamphyri, an unwanted Lady, even a mistress what Nestor had on his mind. On this occasion, however, he'd in Nestor's manse, Zahar had advised that she be carried into merely craved company, the presence of someone other than the barrier mountains, pegged out to await the sunrise, and so himself. Also, he had desired to talk a little. destroyed. And his master had agreed. A great window in Nestor's room of repose looked out over the boulder plains to the barrier mountains, whose topmost So, no lack of women to warm Nestor's bed, neither before peaks were edged with yellow now, as the sun rose far to the nor after his grand romance with Wratha. Yet ever since south. Many hours yet before that furnace orb would blaze returning from Sunside on foot following that hunting trip, he between the peaks on Wrathstack itself, and even then only seemed to have lost all interest in Suckscar's females; or if not on the bleached or calcined south face of lofty Wrathspire. all, then most. Long before that, Wratha's black bat-fur curtains would have And his appetite ... been drawn against even the smallest hurtful ray, and the Nestor had never much cared for it red. When must needs, Lady herself removed to some darker, safer place. then he'd have it, but lightly-cooked meats generally sufficed. As for the other manses: despite that the sun never shone Except (and here a curious thing), when he did take it live, then he would ensure that the donor died immediately on them, generally their vampire masters took to their beds at afterwards - not undeath but the true death -that the corpse was sunup, and slept their fill in the wake of the long night. But cleansed, flensed, and the flesh roasted before it went to the Nestor was and always had been different. He feared the provisioning! And always, and only, for the consumption of deadly power of the sun, aye, but it fascinated him warriors whose constitution was such that they could digest nonetheless. And he would often sit in his room of repose to and dispose of almost anything. watch that poisonous golden stain creeping on the distant And yet . . . he lusted after blood like all of them. Zahar crags, and stay there till the last possible, unbearable knew this quite definitely, for he'd raided with Nestor on moment, when he would seem to hear a far faint seething, as Sunside and seen him kill with the best — and with a bloody of acid eating stone. zest — which is a sure gauge of Wamphyri vitality, for And that was where Zahar had found his master when invariably the blood-lust of the kill runs commensurate with Nestor called for him, seated at the great open window, with the scarlet thirst. So why not in Nestor? Whatever the answer, the baffles thrown wide, gazing into the south-west at the it probably explained his leaden pallor. Even for a Lord of the gold-rimmed barrier mountains. Wamphyri, Nestor Lichloathe was undeniably In a little while Nestor had said to him, 'You know that 158 159 died in a great and terrible war. And in their shattered stumps, I've told Wratha the location of a Lidesci stronghold, called evidence of smoke, terrific heat, explosions. For in that Sanctuary Rock . ..' It had not been a question but a statement forgotten time, the sun also shone in Starside!' of fact. 'I know this "myth", Lord,' Zahar had answered. 'Except I The stack has lesser channels of communication, as well am older than you, begging your pardon, and know it for a you know, Lord,' Zahar had answered, carefully. Thralls fact. I was a child in Sunside, eight or nine years old, and -' mend the water and gas pipes between the manses, and carry 'Wait!' Nestor had looked at him again, a curious glance out work on the high faces replenishing water-catchment this time. 'First tell me . . . do you miss it?' skins, sigils, pennants. Sometimes they strike up conversation. 'Miss what, Lord?' Zahar's frown. The word is that we attack tonight!' 'Your childhood. Your ... humanhood? Do you miss Sun- 'All of us, aye,' Nestor's nod. 'You, me, Grig, Norbis, Lexis, side? You were stolen by Vasagi, and changed into ... you. Asabar, and the best of our aspirant thralls; the Lady Wratha But all so recent - a little over three years? Surely you and her lads; likewise, Lords Spiro Killglance and Wran the remember how it was. Now tell me, Zahar. Do you miss what Rage, Gorvi the Guile and Canker Canison. Plus a force of you had and what you were?' warriors - indeed aJJ the warriors, barring only those fresh Mystified, Zahar could only shrug. 'I am a vampire, Lord. I weaned! The very best blood of the stack, and only a handful have what I have, what Vasagi - and you, Lord - have given of trustee thralls left behind, to see to our manses in our me. If I am fortunate . . . if I am very fortunate, why, I might absence.' go on forever! Or, if not forever, for a very long time. But in The Lidescis are doomed, Lord!' all honesty I cannot say, I do not know, if I "miss" anything. At which Nestor had gripped the arms of his chair, and There are things which I crave, certainly. But then . . . I am a turned his face sharply towards him. 'Oh, really? Are they? vampire, Lord.' You're sure of that? But they're a tenacious people, Zahar.' Then why do I miss it, eh?' The timbre of Nestor's voice 'So are lichens tenacious, Lord, yet you may scrape them was suddenly deeper, full of a strange melancholy. 'Why is it from the rocks on the heel of your boot.' that you remember, without caring, while I who have 'Yet lichens don't die in the sunlight! Look there, the barrier forgotten almost everything . .. care so much?' mountains: there are lichens in the peaks. They live where we 'You care about Sunside? About the Travellers?' Zahar had may not.' offered a shrug. 'Not hard to fathom. The Szgany are your 'Likewise the Szgany, but -' (and here Zahar had frowned) - livelihood, future, longevity. The blood -' 'but the sunlight is a natural thing, not a Szgany weapon.' Without looking at the other, Nestor had held up a hand to 'It was upon a time,' Nestor brooded, turning his gaze on still his tongue. And said wearily, 'Do not tell me that it is the the barrier mountains as before. 'I . . . I seem to remember a life, for I know it. But I ask you to consider this: could it also myth or legend - a story out of another time - when I was a be the death?' small thing, or even before I was born. And the legend was Zahar had been baffled, but then he'd braved a smile. 'We ... this: that before Wratha and the rest of us, there were other are playing a word game! Am I correct, Lord?' vampires here. Quite obviously it was so; signs of their At first Nestor had given his head a shake, but in another habitation are all around, and of their decline, their demise. moment he'd nodded. 'Of course.' This is but one aerie, the last aerie, but sprawling on the And from Zahar, ruefully: 'I'm not so good at them, Lord. boulder plains for all to see lie the skeletons of others that 161 160 Even at the best of times Vasagi spoke infrequently — not to 'As you will it, naturally.' say curiously.' 'Recently . . . I have denied them.' 'Hmm!' Nestor had mused. And then, returning to the 'And yourself, Lord.' previous theme: 'No, I don't "care" about the Szgany, and Again Nestor's swift glance. 'Have they gone to others? To especially not the Szgany Lidesci. Not any longer.' you? To other lieutenants? Other men? Common thralls?' 'Despite that they were your people?' But Zahar realized at Zahar had backed off a hasty step. 'But . . . they would not once that that was a stupid thing to ask of one of the dare! What, your women? Go to other men? And what man Wamphyri. And: 'Of course not, Lord,' he'd continued of yours would hope, or try, or have nerve . . . I mean -' immediately. 'You care only for yourself. And for your manse 'I know what you mean: my reach is long, my hand is of course, and . .. for those in your care?' heavy and hard.' Again Nestor had looked at him. 'Did I not care for Wratha Again Zahar's sigh. 'Yes, Lord.' the Risen.' 'Am I too hard?' Zahar's smile had vanished. Convoluted thinking and (How to answer that? Say yes and be considered soft? Say argument aside, he must be careful how he answered that one. no and have Nestor prove him wrong right there and then, This is merely a game, Lord? I mean .. . am I to speak perhaps by removing another of his fingers?) 'You are openly?' precisely as hard as required, Lord. No more, no less.' There had been no emotion of any sort in Nestor's scarlet At which Nestor had looked at him and grinned mirthlessly. gaze when he'd answered, 'Oh, yes. I demand it.' 'Clever! You are good at word games, Zahar - well, considering And Zahar had discovered his throat to have gone a little that Vasagi was so difficult to speak to, and the nuances of dry as he said, 'Perhaps ... perhaps it was not so much "care" his speech so hard to grasp. But still you've not answered my as "lust", Lord?' Then, wincing inwardly, he had waited. question. You averred that "the blood is the life". And in my But Nestor had not appeared to take offence, and without turn, I asked: "Can it also be the death?" How do you answer?' too much pause: 'Is there no love in vampires, then?' Zahar was stalled. 'I have no answer. Your riddle defeats 'I have heard of it, but I never saw it.' Glad to be on a me. How can blood be death? We drink to live, not to die.' different tack, Zahar had sighed his relief. 'And if what we drink is tainted?' But: 'Do you love, Zahar?' 'Poisoned, Lord?' There are women in your manse, Lord . . . other than your Nestor's shrug. 'Poisoned if you will, yes.' own, of course! I go to one of them, yes. But love her ...?' 'With silver, or kneblasch?' 'Women other than my own?' (Still no emotion in Nestor's Nestor's look had been doleful, and Zahar suspected that voice or on his face.) 'But al) of them are mine, surely?' he'd missed his master's meaning. But after a moment, 'As are we all,' Zahar had quickly agreed. 'But you don't abruptly, 'Put all that aside,' the other said. 'Except you must call on all the manse's women, for not all of them are worthy. believe me when I tell you that there are worse poisons than And of course I know your preferences.' silver and kneblasch .. .' Nestor nodded. 'I have my harem, yes.' Then for a while he had sat in silence, Zahar waiting on his 'Indeed, Lord.' word. Until: The word game is over. I won .. . but yet may 'But sometimes they go wanting.' lose. Now tell me about this Sunsider myth, when the sun shone on Starside.' 162 163 into the methane chambers, reduced the stacks to rubble! Zahar nodded, then shook his head. 'It was not the sun, but When all was finished, the few Wamphyri survivors flew off a man with the power of the sun.' and exiled themselves in the Icelands . ..' 'Eh?' Again Nestor's sigh, for it appeared he'd been holding his 'The sun shone out of him!' breath a while. And: The tumbled stacks!' he'd whispered 'Out of his eyes? His mouth? His arse? Make sense!' once again. The blackening. The great stone corpses crumpled 'I only know what I remember, Lord,' Zahar had protested. 'I to the plain .. .' And looking at his lieutenant: 'Zahar, in this was but a boy, and you were not yet born. Things get warped regard your memory matches my thoughts precisely. For I too in the retelling.' had heard this legend; except I had forgotten it, as I've 'Perhaps I was born after all.' Nestor had sat up again. 'Do forgotten most things.' At last he had showed more than the you mean the time when the clouds burned red over Starside, usual animation, and Zahar had congratulated himself that and a wind from hell blew through the great pass into he'd excited his master. Sunside, killing men and trogs alike? This man from the 'Is it important, Lord?' hell-lands had something to do with that?' Nestor's frown; his wrinkled forehead and pursed lips. 'I 'No, before that, four years at least. Alas, I don't know the don't know. But one thing for sure: Wratha and the others details, or who or what was involved.' have it wrong. For they believe it was a Szgany suicide squad, Agitated or impatient, Nestor sat back again and fidgeted. raiding through the pass at sunup, who exploded the aeries in 'Tell it anyway.' their bases and blew them to hell! Well, for the moment we'll 'The man was a hell-lander, who came from beyond the let them continue to believe it. But — did you never mention Starside Gate. He joined his son who was here before him. this "myth" to Vasagi?' That one was called The Dweller and the Wamphyri feared Zahar's shrug. 'As we have agreed, Lord, the Suck was not him greatly. He kept a garden in the western heights, talkative. And anyway, it is generally the case that Wamphyri between the mountains and the foothills. The Wamphyri Lords are not much given to conversation with mere banded together against him, raided on him in his garden. lieutenants. Er .. . which is not to say that you lower yourself, They were met with fierce opposition! The Dweller and his Lord, but that -' father used the power of the sun - do not ask me how, Lord, 'Yes, I know,' Nestor had cut him off. 'But lower myself? for I don't know — to destroy the vampire army in the air. Of course I don't lower myself. What? It is that you are Defeated, broken, a handful of survivors flew home to their elevated! Consider yourself fortunate.' aeries on the boulder plains. Except the stacks were no more! 'I do, Lord.' All bar this one, the last aerie, in those days called Then also consider this, but consider it an order: never Karenstack after the Lady who dwelled here, they lay broken speak of these matters again, except to me if or when I desire on the plain. As to why this one was spared,' (Zahar's it. What I know can't hurt me, and what my "colleagues" do apologetic shrug) 'alas, I don't know ...' not know won't concern them. Understood?' 'Ah!' Nestor's sigh. The fallen aeries!' 'Yes, Lord.' 'Indeed, Lord. For The Dweller and his father were here Following which, Nestor had mused darkly but out loud: 'It first. They were magicians with the power to move seems there were Powers in those days, some of which might instantaneously from place to place, without consideration of even have transferred to the present. It will bear looking into.' distance. They destroyed the gas-beasts, poured naked sunlight 164 165 man had appeared as if from nowhere. He wore a strange 'Is it your thought that there may be magicians among the mask with protruding, reflective eyes, and carried upon his Szgany Lidesci even now, Lord?' shoulder a device like a long box .. . which he seemed to be At which Nestor had given him the strangest look of all aiming at the lead flyer! Heeding Nestor's warning, however, before answering, 'I think there may well have been one, yes. Wratha was already in contact with that creature's rider: At least until that night we went a-hunting together, you and I, Whoever he is, gather him up in your beast's pouch, she on Sunside.' And then he had very grimly repeated, 'Aye, I commanded. Spill him into space over the rim of the rock! think there just might have been one, at least...' Moving to obey - jockeying his mount forward on arched air-trap wings - the lead rider closed with his victim. But in All of which - uneasy? - conversation had taken place some the next instant. . . hundred or so hours ago, in Lord Nestor Lichloathe's room of . .. madness! And mayhem! repose in Suckscar. But now Zahar must drag his mind back to the present, the here and now, the fact that just a moment ago he'd 'heard' his master issue a mind-warning to Wratha the Risen: Wratha! Back off! Don't Jand! There's someone there! An enemy - even a Great Enemy! Aye, and he's dangerous! Danger! And the first duty of a lieutenant is to protect his Lord and master! Zahar urged his flyer forward, alongside Nestor. And he looked where Nestor was looking. Front and left, the Lady Wratha's huge, ornately saddled manta flyer was descending towards the flat, plateau-like dome of that great boulder or massively rounded outcrop called Sanctuary Rock. Directly in front of her, her first- lieutenant's creature was about to touch down. More yet to the left - paralleling Nestor but slightly higher, so forming an awkward 'V behind Wratha - Canker Canison stood in his saddle, hauled on his reins, and barked a string of vivid curses. Eager as ever, deliberately stalling his flyer so that it would lose height more quickly, the dog-Lord was anxious to be down. And following on behind these three, Wran the Rage Killglance in Nestor's slipstream, his brother Spiro in Canker's and their chief-lieutenants, of course, forming the trailing legs of the 'V. But suddenly visible in a patch of crevice-grown gorse, directly in the flight- or landing-path of the foremost flyer, a 166 PART THREE Wamphyri.' I Canker and Siggi Only minutes ago, the Wamphyri had circled high over Sanctuary Rock before commencing their spiralling descent. And mirrored in the dog-Lord Canker Canison's feral yellow, crimson-cored, night-sighted eyes as he looked down, the great weathered dome had appeared as the skull of a fallen colossus: the scant patches of gorse and bramble were all that remained of the ancient giant's hair. But apart from this coarse vegetation in the suture-like cracks and crevices, the flat pate had seemed as bald and as empty of life - and of death - as it was of thoughts; a safe high vantage point from which to observe the fighting. That was how it had looked, certainly: all calm and serene on the plateau of the Rock, though there'd been no lack of war and death below. Except that had been minutes ago, while this was now. And now ... madness and mayhem! Even if the dog-Lord had dreamed it in advance, if he'd forecast it through his oneiromancy - which this time he had not - still Canker would scarcely have credited its reality. But standing tall in his saddle, cajoling his stalled flyer as it formed air-traps of its manta wings and let down its coiled thrusters to reduce the shock of a forced landing, he had seen it with his own eyes and so must believe it: A man, standing there in the night-dark gorse on the plateau of the Rock, with a long box or tube-thing balanced on his shoulder, and wearing a bulge-eyed mask over his head and face ... standing square in the path of Wratha's man Goban, at that; and Goban all set to make a landing. 171 Then .. . Lord Nestor Lichloathe pointing and gesticulating, man might pick off a small scab, and hurled it to earth. while the man in the gorse aimed his long box at Goban's Sideways, it ripped through the base of the flyer's neck, mount. shearing flesh and saddle trappings alike and stripping meat, It had been gloamy in the starlight on the dome of the membrane and cartilage from the leading edges of the wings. Rock; it might even have been dark, if not for the intermittent Upwards, it sliced through the saddle like a knife .. . and flaring of Lidesci missiles skittering wild in the sky, and the sliced through Goban, too! Rider, saddle and all were hurled glow of firelight reflected from a handful of clouds. But what upwards in two parts, literally torn asunder! is the night to Wamphyri eyes? Nothing, and the twilight A two- to three-foot section had been chopped out of the even less. Canker had been able to see well enough. flyer's spine. All control was gone and apart from the undead Also, he had 'heard' Nestor's warning, and Wratha's nature of its blood the thing was quite literally dead in the air. instructions to her man: that he should brush this fool from The eyes in the almost-human head at the end of its long, the rim of the rock. Goban had at once spurred his flyer slowly slumping neck glazed over; its pink worm thrusters forward in a swoop. But then: convulsed spastically, then coiled themselves up, back into A burst of light like a miniature sun, issuing from the box their body cavities; it swerved this way and that as its wing- on the man's shoulder; a spear of light reaching out, but swift arches began to collapse . .. but still it came gliding forward. as a snake's kiss and tipped with bright metal. It left a vapour Nathan ducked down, scrambled to avoid a drenching rain trail and hissed like a warrior, and its bite was yet more of fluids as the flyer's rubbery bulk and nests of twitching deadly! Goban's mount's pouch was open, to grasp this thrusters scraped by barely overhead. And with its tapering madman and sweep him before it over the rim. But flyer and tail vibrating like a crippled snake, tearing up the gorse as it rider, they never reached him. went, the thing headed for the rim and the shattering fall The 'spear' took the flyer in its pouch, situated where the beyond it. long, tapering neck widened into the body, directly under the But Nathan's headgear - the rocket-launcher's nite-site saddle. It sped deep into the cartilage-hooked, mouth-like targeting set - had been knocked askew on his head. Down on pouch and was deflected upwards, penetrating the flesh of his knees in the gorse, elated by his success, he worked the flyer between pouch and saddle — where it detonated. frantically to get it realigned. Finally he was striking back . . . Armour-piercing and packed with ultra-high-explosive, the at the Wamphyri! There was another rocket waiting in its rocket would have stopped a half-track. By comparison, the tube. All it required was his finger on the button. alveolate bones and membranous flesh of the flyer were like However momentarily, the Lords and Lady were in disarray. tissue paper; they would absorb bullets easily enough, and a Following on in line of descent behind Goban's mount, good many bullets at that, before enough liquid was let out Wratha's creature had instinctively reared back from the flash that the creature was seriously hurt. But a 30mm rocket is of light and its concussion. Jolted, she clung to the twin something else. Nathan had seen the results of explosive pommels. On her left and drawing level with her, Canker's crossbow bolts in the flesh of flyers, but he'd seen nothing like flyer was skittish, afraid. Its thrusters groped nervously for a this. hold on the Rock; an arched wing-tip touched down, and The blast was star-shaped and struck out in all directions. Canker felt himself tilted in his saddle. Cursing, lashing out Downwards, it unhinged the beast's pouch as easily as a with a booted foot at his mount's flank, the dog- 172 173 Lord leaped free, swung from the bony leading edge of a about them . .. their powers, hybridisms, animalisms. In that wing, let himself fall sprawling in the gorse. In another moment, he knew what he was facing . . . and that he was a moment his flyer touched down and Canker was on his feet- dead man! - And Nathan saw him! Canker came loping, reared up snarling, tall and taller They saw, and knew, each other! than a man. Nathan tried to shake Misha awake . . . no use. The dog-Lord knew him, but not from where or when. He tried to ward the dog-, fox-, wolf-thing off. Canker sniffed Nathan, on the other hand, remembered only too well where at him, cocked his head on one side, dripped saliva from his and when. It was a nightmare he would never forget: jaws and looked at the girl in Nathan's arms. And: Tours?' he That night in Settlement ... the first time Wratha and her growled. renegades raided there ... Nona Kiklu's house had been Nathan put Misha behind him, but the dog-Lord grabbed levelled by a warrior, and Nathan knocked out. Later, coming him and tossed him aside, as easily as that. And: 'No, not to his senses, he had found his girl, Misha Zanesti, lying yours — mine!' he said. unconscious in the rubble. Half-carrying Misha, staggering After that, Nathan had known no more - until he had towards a break in the stockade fence, he'd heard a panting woken up to find Misha gone. And if Canker had her? It and a patter of padded feet from behind him. And looking was a horror he nightmared still: the sight of Misha in this back - It had been this one, Canker Canison! beast's arms, and Canker stripping her rags of clothing from Canker: only to look at him was to know that there'd been a her. dog, fox, or wolf in his ancestry. Or possibly a combination. A nightmare he would never forget, flashing once again in He was loup-garou — a werewolf! And the first time Nathan a series of vivid, kaleidoscopic pictures across the screen of had seen him, his error in this respect had been wholly his mind. Neither would he forget the vow he'd made that understandable; for he had thought that this was one of night: that he wouldn't rest until the dog-Lord was nothing Settlement's domesticated animals: but a puff of black smoke and a foul stench drifting on the This great wolf-shape, coming out of the destruction of sullied air. Settlement's main street and making straight for him . . . And now they were here - he and Canker were here -face seeking human company in order to escape the invasion of the to face in the gorse not fifteen paces apart... Wamphyri. But then he'd noticed that this 'wolf seemed The telemetry was right; Nathan centred Canker's chest, enveloped in a drifting cloud of mist, and that it was more his heart, in the luminous cross-hairs of his nite-site lenses biped than quadruped! ... and squeezed the trigger. The thing loped towards him with an aggressive, forward- Canker saw it coming. It was as if he dreamed while still leaning eagerness . . . it only paused to cock its head and turn awake! A flash of waking oneiromancy. A glimpse into his its great ears this way and that, listening . .. or when it went immediate future: nothingness! An empty blackness. Death? on all fours in order to sniff the earth. The cores of its eyes Nestor Lichloathe witnessed the whole thing. He saw the were scarlet and glowed like lamps in the dark. And then burst of brilliant white light from the devastating box-like Nathan saw that the mist wasn't surrounding this creature but weapon on his Great Enemy's (his brother's) shoulder, and issuing from it! the gleaming warhead extending itself at magical speed on a The Wamphyri .. . Nathan had heard campfire stories smoking stem of white hot fire towards Canker. He saw the dog-Lord dive for cover as the missile hissed between 174 175 him and his skittering mount to slam into his first-lieutenant ... silver mistress out of the moon. Who will care . .. care for (one of Canker's 'pups', as he called them) upon his flyer, still you now?' airborne but about to touch down behind him. After that: Well, and that one touched down, all right, but in several Only the nothingness which Canker had foreseen. The crimson pieces! Nestor didn't know exactly where the spear empty blackness. But it was not the emptiness or the had driven home, but the lieutenant's lesser flyer was driven blackness of the true death. Then, as Canker's leech downwards like a swatted moth by the force of the blast, its commenced to work its metamorphism and heal his broken back broken. And its rider ... he literally rained to earth! skull, so the darkness formed into a dream. And his dream Then: was to remember how She had come to him, and the Fully in command again, and furious, Wratha sent her beast memory was of all that had occurred in the four months surging forward towards the man in the gorse. Its pouch passed between ... clamped shut on his shoulder, weapon and all, and he was dragged kicking and fighting like the madman he must be It had happened after Nestor was lost on Sunside, when he towards the rim. made his way back across the barrier mountains on foot, and For a brief moment Nestor felt pride: this was his brother, called for his man Zahar to meet him in the peaks with a spare flyer. Canker, too, had been waiting for and had Nathan, and he was the great and powerful enemy that Nestor received that call, and flew out with Zahar to greet the had named him. No shame in being wary of this one! Nor any necromancer and congratulate him on his safe return. point in hating him now, for at last he was gone. How he'd But flying back to the last aerie, as they'd passed low over come back . . . it no longer mattered. For he certainly wouldn't the hell-lands Gate: be coming back from this. A diversion! A female figure had stepped down from the Gone, yes. Gone over the cliff as Wratha's creature opened crater rim of the Gate, to go stumbling and fumbling out on to its pouch and let him fall. For a moment he hung there, the boulder plain. But . . . an entirely human woman, here? suspended against the far faint glimmer of the distant horizon, Landing, the three had approached her, Nestor and Zahar and then he was no more: a stone sent hurtling into the abyss. curiously, but Canker in total amazement, awe, wonder! But . . . Canker lay where he'd fallen in the gorse. The dog- Transfixed, the dog-Lord, as his eyes soaked up the beauty Lord hadn't stirred! Nestor gentled his beast to earth; he of this utterly astonishing creature. And she was beautiful, dismounted, ran to his friend. There was blood on Canker's her colours alien, her clothes (if clothes they were and not a leather tunic, also in the coarse wolf's hair of his head. He'd weave of mist and sheerest cobweb) light and lighter than cracked his skull hard against one of the dome's jagged moonbeams. At which Canker had known what she was, suture-like fissures. Even a vampire's brain can be shaken what she must be. insensible. Szgany? No, never! Some freakish albino Traveller woman, Nestor cradled Canker's head and looked into eyes even whose colours had been absent from birth? Impossible -why, now glazing over, closing. Canker didn't see him; only a her eyes were bluer then the vault of the sky on a clear day! picture in the eye of his own mind, which Nestor clearly read And as for her design, and the rest of her colours: there. And: She was a statuesque, unheard of silvery blonde, and her 'Siggi!' Canker sighed, as he fell unconscious. 'My silver 176 177 skin was pale, unblemished, perfect; likewise her features. But she'd seemed innocent of knowledge itself! Not ignorant, Long-limbed, her flesh was firm beneath undergarments of no - not with her astonishing grace and beauty; for a clod of sheer silk, which were clearly visible under the swirl and waft earth is ignorant, while silver shining Luna has knowledge of a gown wispy as butterfly wings and far less than opaque. to light the world! - but innocent of the ways of the world! Those looks, colours, garments! Oh, yes, Canker had known And yet, well, not entirely innocent. Certainly she had what she was, all right. known how to charm Canker ... But that had come later. Long and long now he had dreamed his oneiromantic First he must instruct her in - oh, almost everything! dreams of her, his silver mistress in the moon! For the dog- In the ways of the stack, the aerie as a whole; and then in Lord (no less than his grey wolf cousins running wild in the the ways of Mangemanse, wherein she was now Mistress, mountains) worshipped the moon on high and serenaded her second only to Canker himself. Mistress, aye, and only a in her tumbling orbit. And on a balcony in Mangemanse, in woman, not even Wamphyri! Wrathstack the last aerie, he had even constructed a mighty Hah! - 'only' a woman, indeed! But never before a woman organ of hollow bones, whose music accompanied him when such as this one. he sang to her. And all this because he had dreamed of her: And so he had set about to teach her. Except . .. how to that one day she would answer his call and, lured by his instruct someone he could not even speak to, who had no music, step down from on high to be with him in knowledge of the Szgany/Wamphyri tongue? Which had Mangemanse ... been something to give him pause. Until, for knowledge, ... Which now she had! Canker had substituted use. His moon mistress had no use There had been no question of arguing the point with him. of the tongue - yet understood every word! Canker knew what he knew: that beyond any slightest shadow A thought-thief, aye. A mentalist. The moon beings had of a doubt, this was his silver mistress from the moon. And if no spoken language as such, because they conversed mind to Nestor or Zahar had disputed Canker's authority in this matter mind - when they so desired. And when they did not, then - especially if they had disputed his proprietary right - then they obscured their thoughts in impenetrable mental mists. there would have been trouble. It was so; Canker couldn't get into her mind for the great But no, they had recognized his right of ownership - or if banks of fog that she conjured there! But only natural, after not that, they'd been too astonished (perhaps fortunately) to all. No maiden of worth would let her beau see what was on deny him either his dreams or his rights — and Canker had her mind, surely? For women have their lustful thoughts just carried her off to Mangemanse. Carried her off literally, for as surely as men. Canker knew that for a fact: his vampire when he had first approached her near the Starside Gate, she women were whores from one set of lips to the other, and had taken one look at him and fainted away in his arms. kissed and sucked with both! Obviously (he had thought), she was overwhelmed to have But sex? With such as Canker's moon mistress? Unthinkable found him so soon, the one who'd lured her down from her . . . at first. What? But she was untouchable, a goddess! He had temple on high . .. and him so handsome and all. made her so. And she sat upon her throne of fine carved But in Mangemanse she had soon recovered from her cartilage in the dog-Lord's most private of private chambers, swoon, and in a little while Canker had known that indeed he and of all the men and monsters in Mangemanse, his was the was not mistaken. For plainly she had no knowledge of things only form she ever saw and she was for his eyes only - at first. here in the world of men and the Wamphyri. What? 178 179 Except, what good is a goddess without her worshippers? hurtling world on high? But quite apart from Canker's 'logic' And if she were a goddess, then surely Canker was a god -or in this respect, there were also the looks of the man, his would be, if he was not found wanting. And so he must woo colours and demeanour. He glowed no less than Siggi her, win her over, convince her of his godhead; he must herself, and what little hair he displayed was silver-blond as become god-like in her eyes! And not only in the eyes of his Siggi's own; his slender eyebrows, haughtily tilted, silver moon mistress, but in the eyes of the manse entire. highlighting the tanned, sharp-etched ridges of his brows. Well, he was that already. Or if not a god, a Lord, certainly. Then there was his nose, sharp-hooked (broken, the dog- But to own a goddess for his mate! Ah, his most improbable Lord suspected, perhaps in a fight; it had mended that way dream come true! and Turkur had kept it so, possibly as a trophy; except he was Her name was Siggi. Leaning over her as she slept her fitful not Wamphyri and so should have no say in the matter; yet sleeps, and slipping into her mind during those few, brief there was this Power in him that caused Canker to think of moments when her guard was down and the mind-mist rolled him as such, a Lord in his own right), which for all its lack of back a little, Canker had learned that much at least. And in convolutions gave him the look of a warlord. Aye, and with another world (the moon, it could only be) she had known an his well-fleshed mouth above a strong square chin, and enemy whose name and face formed the core of all her cheeks so very slightly hollowed, he was not entirely nightmares. Even now, in Canker's care, she feared him, and unhandsome, this proud and haughty warrior-priest of the moaned his name when silver pearls of perspiration formed moon. gleaming on her brow. A warrior-priest, proud and haughty ... Turkur! Haughty. Turkur Tzonov! Twice now that word had commended itself to the Lord of A strange and alien name, unheard of among Szgany and Mangemanse as descriptive of this Turkur Tzonov, and twice Wamphyri alike. But one which Canker's silver moon too often. Siggi feared his memory; or was it his reality that mistress would never forget; nor Canker, now that he knew it. she feared? She had come down to Starside from the moon. And growling low in his throat, peering into her cringing, And might not this Turkur follow her? What magic did he shuddering mind, he'd even seen the face of this moon have, this moon-priest? And if he should come to claim Siggi monster as Siggi remembered it: back, how might Canker answer the challenge? The broad bronze dome of his head, smooth and hairless, 'With all my heart .. . with all my blood . .. with all my yet glowing with vitality to match the flesh of his face. And in sinew. With all my Wamphyri strength . .. with my oneiro- stark contrast the purple, deep-sunken orbits of grey, mancy ... with my lycanthropy. With everything I own, and penetrating eyes which, for all that they were human, all that I am! Neither man, monster nor moon-thing - no child nevertheless contained an inhuman Power. Eyes that could of Nature, or of the vats, or any alien world - shall ever part look into, or even through a man, which would make this one us. I, Canker Canison, swear it by my teeth, my balls, by the a great leader among men. Impressive ... among men. But very blood that thunders in my veins!' Canker was Wamphyri! Still, he sensed the moon-man's And rushing to a north-facing window and glaring at the extraordinary fascination, his weird allure. hurtling moon; 'Let him come, this Turkur. Proud and And quite definitely he was of the moon; where else would haughty? Canker will show him proud and haughty! I'JI eat Siggi have known and feared him, if not in that 180 181 his eyes and face, and send him home on a great black flyer, And all the time he kept her upon a pedestal, far above all blind and red and smoking from his wounds, and screaming in earthly desires, and never a single carnal thought in the dog- the night!' Lord's cesspit vampire mind, not about Siggi; for she was It was his Wamphyri vow ... his silver moon mistress, whose flesh was holy of holies, and he was only a great dog. He would not corrupt her, nor Siggi got used to him. She even got used to his guardian change her in any way. And when she went to her bed, creatures which prowled the mazy corridors of his manse Canker would be there, asleep upon a pallet outside her when their master was abed or hunting in Sunside. She very door. For instead of a dog-Lord, he'd become like unto a soon 'acclimatized'; which is to say she accepted her lot, for watchdog. And a faithful dog at that. to a mind vacant as hers, this was all she had ever known. But with or without her memories, Siggi was still Siggi The manse and all its monsters were home, and Canker her and a lustful woman. Because Canker was all she knew protector. Moreover, he adored her. And for all the (because she had nothing for comparison), she wanted him; knowledge that she had lost, stolen from her mind in the and anyway, he was almost as much man as dog. In the end magmass bowels of Perchorsk by the madman Turkur she seduced him, and even suspecting it might destroy her Tzonov, still Siggi retained her sensuality, her overpowering led him to her bed. Astonished, believing he dreamed a most animal magnetism, that essence of womanhood which was marvellous albeit forbidden dream, he went to her. hers in abundance. Then, knowing her flesh was frail, Canker was gentle And she needed. In all her life since she was fourteen, Siggi with her; perhaps too gentle, so that she must become the had not gone without a man. She could not remember them now, aggressor. At which the great and terrible beast was but she remembered how; she knew how. And as always, and as conquered; not alone by beauty, but also by urges as alien is the case with most sensual women, she felt the attraction of and powerful as his own, until he became a toy for a woman power. In Mangemanse there was only one Power, one raw out of another world. source of furious energy, and its name was Canker Canison. As Innocent in her way, Siggi couldn't know it, but in toying for his 'pups', his bloodsons, lieutenants, thralls: oh, they were men with Canker Canison she toyed with her very soul... - despite the taint of their master's animalism — but Canker himself was magnificent! And to a mind wiped clean of ideals — Canker must show his moon mistress to the stack, to the of the idea of Man the beatific, the noble, the honourable — Canker aerie as a whole, to all the Lords and chiefest of the was the ideal! f lieutenants, and even to the Lady Wratha . .. most certainly to Romantic? The dog-Lord was that. He would take her to the her. north-facing gallery which housed his incredible instrument of Hah/ Let that one see a real lady! hollow bones, adjust the baffles to let in the winds that blew Except it was not the dog-Lord's way to welcome visitors off the Icelands, and play his mighty organ with all the verve, into his manse. Mangemanse was a secret place, and its if not the skill, of a veritable maestro. And while the rest of wolfish master kennel-proud. So he spoke to the necromancer Wrathstack groaned at the resulting cacophony, Siggi the Lord Nestor Lichloathe in neighbouring Suckscar, his one moon mistress would laugh and applaud, and even be brought to true friend in all Wrathstack, and with some few small tears by the joy of Canker's music - or perhaps by its pain. But misgivings Nestor made the arrangements. The Lords and he would never suspect it, for she knew he played for her. Lady were invited up — or down in Wratha's case — into 182 183 bow bolts, and ballistae-hurled fireballs was phenomenal. So Suckscar, to a grand reception in honour of Siggi, Canker's that just like Lardis's people, the Szgany Tireni had survived silver moon mistress. without returning to the wild and becoming Travellers. But a reception for a commoner, a thrall, a 'mere woman'? But on this occasion, the raid had been successful, and a Even a woman from another world? It was unheard of! And number of thralls had been taken alive without cost to the yet the Lords were curious, each and every one of them. And Wamphyri; yet another reason to celebrate. And in accordance Wratha the Risen even more so. with Canker's instructions, Nestor had mentioned in passing So it was that in the eleventh sundown following Siggi's the fact that the dog-Lord would present the new Mistress of arrival in Starside, her reception took place in Suckscar and Mangemanse at that same affair, a reception of sorts in the vampire Lords and Lady came to discover the nature of Suckscar, which Nestor would host. Canker had of course this remarkable creature who had so captured the dog-Lord's made himself scarce at the time, so avoiding any banter or previously rabid heart and monumental imagination. Nor questions in this respect. With his sense of the dramatic, he'd would their curiosity be disappointed. wanted Siggi to come as a complete surprise. Which she would Siggi had not been seen when Canker first brought her to ... the last aerie. And even if she had been, then, slumped across The time had been set: four hours before sunup, allowing his saddle in a swoon, she would have been thought just plenty of time for strutting, wagering, eating and drinking another captive taken by force out of Sunside. No one but before all must depart in the early dawn, back to their various Nestor Lichloathe knew how Canker's silver mistress looked, manses and the security of their dark places. Nestor had retired her stunning colours, shape, or fabulous design in general. to Suckscar to make the necessary arrangements. Wratha and Nor would they, until the last possible moment. her chiefest lieutenants would come down on foot out of Canker was a sly showman, even as sly as the fox in his Wrathspire, and the dog-Lord and his whelps were well- mixed ancestry; he had a sense of the dramatic and acquainted with the way up from Mangemanse (though in fact appreciated the delicious tingle of anticipation, the sudden Nestor knew they would come by flyer, and late, of course, in shock of revelation, the stunned astonishment of denouement. order that Canker could make his entry in accustomed style). He revelled in upstaging all other actors at every given As for the rest: opportunity: in this instance, Siggi's reception. And since Wran and Spiro Killglance and their men could not come posturing was integral to his character, Canker was never on through Mangemanse (Canker would never allow it) and so time. He preferred the grand entrance. must fly; and Gorvi the Guile could scarcely be expected to Nestor Lichloathe had announced the reception (or more climb almost half a mile vertical out of Guilesump, which properly a gathering, in celebration of the success of a recent meant he too would use a flyer. A landing-bay must be made alliance of the Lords in their efforts to turn Wrath-stack into a ready, with lieutenants and thralls in attendance to handle the fortress proper, and their thralls and creatures into an army) flyers. following a raid on the Szgany of Tireni Scarp some eighty Nestor had seen to everything; it was no great effort; he miles west of Settlement. Under Yanni Tireni, their leader, the owed the dog-Lord this much, at least. folk of Tireni Scarp were ferocious as the Szgany Lidesci; Came the time appointed. they didn't have Lardis Lidesci's weird weapons, but their Deceptively dandyish, Wran the Rage was first up. skill with lures and pitfall traps, and their accuracy with silver-tipped, kneblasch-soaked cross- 184 185 Accompanied by his first- and second-lieutenants, Wran was covered, like a child in swaddling clothes - almost as if he magnificent in a wolf-grey cloak, crimson cummerbund, black were ashamed of his flesh — or as if he were shy of some bat-fur trousers and leather boots; he sniffed the air blemish or other .. . superciliously and tweaked the small black wen on his chin. But on the other hand, well ... Nestor's ascension to a Lord His brother, the ever-scowling Spiro Killglance, followed of the Wamphyri had been lightning fast, when the Change close behind. As was his wont, he dressed in rags; likewise That Shapes had moulded him like a soft candle in a flame. It his men. Nestor greeted them in the landing-bay, instructed had seemed that he was a natural, a vampire born, but perhaps his thralls in the temporary stabling of their beasts, and had a it had been too fast and something had been burned out of him lieutenant escort them down into the great hall beneath his other than his humanity. Or there again, it could be that private quarters. recognition, awareness of his vampire condition had changed Minutes later, as the gauntly sinister Gorvi the Guile and him, the fact that his universe had now expanded beyond all his lieutenants made their approach, Nestor's man Grig previous boundaries. It was ever traumatic, the Change That reported Wratha's arrival by internal stairwell. The Lady was Shapes, but sometimes more so. In which case, he might yet acquainted with this route into Suckscar; Nestor's guardian change back again and be what he had been (not human, no, creatures were accustomed to her; in any case, he had for that was gone forever, but vigorous and ... what, alive ordered that there be no let or hindrance, and so she had again? Well, undead, at least), when finally his blood had passed in safety with two of her men. settled down and his vampire leech had determined his Which left only Canker and his pups, and his silver moon destiny. mistress, of course. But all of the others were in Suckscar a Or was it something else entirely? Where now was the zest good half-hour before Canker put in his appearance, and and the lust and the dark thrill of being: the thrill of being during that time Nestor had done his best to entertain them, Wamphyri? It had been vibrant in him; he had revelled in it. despite that in the main he despised them. Even without his parasite's drive, his own had been as a Well, he scarcely despised Wratha the Risen, but appeared roaring fire in him, so that he'd blazed with its heat and glowed more than a little wary of her, and kept his mind shielded red in his dark heart. Wratha knew, for she had felt it there. from her probes at all times. Being female she was curious, And she had loved him, in and out of her bed. Loved the touch and more than mildly peeved; in the last few weeks their and the smell and the very thought of him. But all gone now. affaire had all but fizzled out; she was unable to explain the And ah!. .. she missed it. change come over her former lover. Not only was Nestor's She missed it but .. . not that much. For one erection is much attitude radically different but also his character, even his like another, and a man is only a man, after all. The fire had mien. He seemed to have assumed the guise of a mystic, a burned too brightly, that must be it. Which was a concept that recluse, like one of the gaunt old men of Tur-gosheim; or Wratha could accept: the idea that perhaps she, the Lady rather, like a young Vormulac Unsleep or a Zolteist ascetic herself, had sucked it out of him; that she, Wratha the Risen, like the Seer-Lord Maglore. Indeed, Nestor's change was had reduced him to less than her needs, until she no longer had startling, especially to one who had known him as Wratha need of him at all. had known him. Nothing remotely ascetic about that Nestor, She could accept that, yes. not as Wratha had known him. But: And yet... This sudden fad of his for wrapping up, keeping himself ... What if she was wrong? 186 187 . .. Which was a timely recollection, for surely that was What if Nestor shielded his mind, not to hide his weakness, Canker's great bark of a laugh even now? but to protect a strength, a passion beyond her comprehension? As the echoes of that uproarious laughter came drifting Beyond her Wamphyri comprehension, because everything down into the banquet hall, the Lady Wratha gave a mental that was human in her had long since fled the seething, searing nod of recognition and exasperation. For, aye, indeed it was corruption of her leech? Was that it? Did he yet retain a Canker's laugh, preceding the dog-Lord as lightning precedes capacity - an entirely human capacity - for love? For the true, the thunder . .. living love? For love inadmissible by virtue of his nature? For love unrequited? For a love out of his mainly unremembered past.. .? Which was a concept Wratha could not accept, never! That she had exhausted him - fine. But that some other had distracted or abstracted him - never! There had been this Szgany wench, Misha, a Lidesci bitch out of his vague and shadowy past. When Nestor's mind had been more accessible, Wratha had discovered her there, still in his thoughts despite that he was Wamphyri. And for all of the past that his damaged mind had forgotten, he'd remembered her well enow, and his hatred for the one who had stolen her from him. That was why he'd gone with Zahar that time into Sun-side, to settle an old score. Almost three months ago, aye, and he'd never been the same since. For all her much vaunted mentalism, Wratha never had discovered what happened that time. But now that she remembered it, she could clearly see how it coincided with his change. All of which had gone unnoticed at the time, for events of moment had been crowding thick and fast. .. ... Such as the reunification of the aerie under Wratha, the foundation of supplicant Szgany tribes east of the great pass, the creation of a tithe system similar to the one they'd known in old Turgosheim, from the proceeds of which to build their armies against the chance of some future invasion. Events of moment, aye, and all coming at more or less the same time. Not to mention a few of lesser importance; such as the dog-Lord rinding his so-called 'silver moon mistress' all lost and alone, wandering on the boulder plains in the vicinity of the Starside Gate .. . 188 torque of finely worked gold. Depending from this golden harness, ropes of plaited bat-fur formed a smoky curtain to her II knees - smoky, but by no means opaque. For as she moved, so the ropes would sway, revealing a soft curved breast or brown Wratha, Wran, Spiro nipple, rounded hip and smooth thigh, delicate arms and hands where they broke through. And so (and quite deliberately, for Wratha was proud of her skill), she scarcely kept herself secure from viewing. It was a distraction, which kept the Lords from scanning her mind by occupying theirs. Paradoxically, but not unusually, Wratha's eyes were least in As the echoes of Canker Canison's laughter died away, evidence. Protected by a scarp of carved bone upon her brow, Wratha returned from her mental meanderings, glanced all their fire was subdued by the ornamentation of blue glass ovals about Nestor's banquet table, and contained herself as best she at her temples and matching earrings in the fine-furred lobes of could. The heat of her inward conjecturing, specifically with her ears. This, too, was deliberate; for if Wratha's deceit were regard to Lord Lichloathe (the resurgent possibility of a rival at all visible, then surely it was in her eyes. Which is to say lover in Sunside), had not been so great that it had wrought that, however inarticulately, nevertheless the Truth of her any noticeable physical change in her. To all intents and being was shouted from them, so that she must make every purposes - and with the acceptable exceptions of her conch- effort to deaden their unquiet voice and disguise their undead like ears, convolute snout, scarlet eyes and divided tongue - evil. Slightly protuberant - until she was enraged, when they she was just like a young and beautiful girl; the practised and bulged - they gave away that which the Lady would keep effortless metamorphism of her leech hid the monster under secret or at least hidden, and so formed her most vulnerable the skin. feature. But in any case, hers was a grotesque deceit. Indeed, it hid it well, so that no one - not even a Lord of the Apart from which, and the usual anomalies of vampirism, Wamphyri — would suspect the century of time which she Wratha might well be Szgany (which indeed she had been, had lived, not until she was angered sufficiently that the upon a time): a clean-limbed Gypsy girl from Sunside, whose monster became ascendant and the facade of her skill was flesh was still untried. But beauty is only skin-deep, and so stripped away. Then ... much for looks . .. ... The Lady's change at such times was legendary, a The Lady sat at one end of the long table with her chief veritable transformation, an incredible katabolism: like lieutenants flanking her. Gorvi and his two sat along one side, watching the ten-day decay of a ripe apple to a spotted which they shared with Spiro and his ruffians. Nestor, Grig mouldering fungus lump, but all accelerated or compressed to and Zahar occupied the other side, along with Wran the Rage a period of ten nightmarish seconds. And then it would be and his pair. But at the dog-Lord's request, the head of the seen that indeed the female of the species is the most table had been left free for him. Spread before them were dangerous, and the most venomous! But for now: various appetizers: halved wolf- and bear-hearts floating in The monster was hidden, and Wratha was beautiful. blood; suckling shad basted in its mother's milk; Nothing of the leadenness of the Lords about her! Her skin was pale as milk, unblemished. Her jet-black shining hair fell in plaits to her shoulders, which were fitted with a 190 191 again, then turned to howling as he threw back his head, went various joints, rare-roasted and thick-sliced, from the same to all fours and, in order to give full vent, shook from head to mature beast; bowls of fruit and pitchers of weak ale. Spoils toe. Finally the ringing echoes died away; Canker fell silent of the tithe, naturally, but nothing ostentatious; not so much a and flowed upright, shook himself again - an entirely banquet as a buffet. voluntary action this time, as if to shake off a mood - and Nestor Lichloathe was on his feet; he too had heard glanced all about his host's great hall. Then: Canker's laughter from on high, and his gaze rested upon a 'My Lord Nestor,' he panted. And to the rest: 'My Lords, and balcony overlooking his great hall, with a corridor behind Lady. I am genuinely sorry I'm late, but as you know I've no that led to the landing bay. Sure enough, the dog-Lord was sense of timing. Why, I was probably late at my own there, and with him his silver moon mistress ... what little whelping! And if I'm lucky I may even be late to my grave. As was to be seen of her, as yet. Why (Wratha thought), she was for these little gatherings of ours, too infrequent by far, it must as much covered - all swathed and shielded from the sight of seem that I'm always late! Wasn't it so at Wran's reception in men, and of Wratha - as Nestor himself! Wrathspire that time, when he'd rid us all of Vasagi the Suck? The Lady stared, as did the others, but Nestor paced to the Two and a half years ago, as I recall, but I remember it well! sweep of his great stone staircase and called up to Canker: That was when the young Lord Lichloathe first came among 'Come down, my friend. Alas, but you're late and the food is us out of Sunside, and fell heir to Suckscar. Aye, and fortunate cold.' for Canker that he did. For it was Nestor who taught me the 'I had a little trouble,' Canker barked, lying with great moon music with which to lure my silver mistress down from proficiency. 'A creature of mine went mad, and I saw it as my the moon. And I learned his tune and perfected my art, and personal duty to slaughter him for the provisioning. But -' he likewise perfected my organ of warrior bones hoisted up from shrugged, - 'it was bloody work, and afterwards . . . all to be olden battlefields. But it was at Wran's reception that I first made tidy. And so you must excuse us that we're late.' broached the idea, tootling a small Szgany flute for your He led his mystery woman down the stairwell, with two amusement. And you were amused, of course, for you thought great shaggy lieutenants - a pair of his 'pups' - following me mad . ..' His lips curled back from great wolf jaws and he close behind. These were not the dog-Lord's bloodsons as grinned a toothy grin, then held up a massive paw. such (his children born in Mangemanse were all infants as 'Now don't deny it -' (though no one had) - 'you thought me yet), but when Canker took thralls out of Sunside, he usually crazed, a victim of the moon as my father before me. But no, picked wolfish-looking ones, so that in other circumstances the moon is not my tormentor but my friend and mentor, who these two might easily have been his bloodsons. As leader of sent me dreams of a silver mistress: a message from the moon! the pack - patriarchal, as it was - all of the dog-Lords's thralls For I have a talent - oneiromancy, with which I read the future and lieutenants were his 'pups', of course. and the truth in dreams - and knew that she was real. And hour At the bottom of the sweeping staircase Canker paused for on hour, night after night, I played my moon music and sang effect, turned to Nestor and bowed stiffly. He was dressed all to her on high, knowing she would heed me and come down to in red: red vest and cloak, and baggy red breeks. The hair on be mine in Mangemanse . .. which she did! his head shone red to match the cores of his eyes; it was the fox in him, of course, but startling nevertheless. Nestor had never seen him so well-groomed. But in another moment the dog-Lord's wild wolf laughter rang out 192 193 '.. . Indeed!' he snarled, cutting all such inference short. 'For 'But here I have been remiss, for I've kept her to myself. just as I lured her down from the moon, so she has lured my Indeed, I shall continue to do so - and let him die most egg out of me. Accept her, for she has ascended, this Lady, agonizingly who dares so much as lay a hand, or even and is Wamphyri!' considers such an act!' The soft black leather of his lips again Crimson-eyed, she clung to the dog-Lord's arm, smiled drew back to display the gleam of elongated canines, and a however vacantly yet in no way naively, and showed them her low, threatening growl escaped his throat. But a moment later: pure white teeth. And they saw in the ribbed deeps of her 'As for the fact of her being,' he continued, 'it's high time you scarlet, yawning mouth, how already the dark cleft of Siggi's all knew what I've done, what Canker has achieved with his pointed tongue was deepening for division .. . moon music and in his "madness". Wherefore, lo and behold, I give you Siggi!' The dream had been Canker Canison's and yet it had involved Until now she had been wrapped in a robe of purest white others - especially the Lady Wratha - and had been dreamed albino bat-fur, her face hidden behind a shimmering veil as from their point of view, as if seen through their eyes as hanging from a crown of figured cartilage. As the dog-Lord well as Canker's own. Though rare, this was hardly strange to finished speaking, however, he took the crown from her head him; it had happened before and was phenomenal of his and gave it to one of his whelps, then carefully unfastened the oneiromancy, which allowed him to see the truth of his robe and lifted it from Siggi's marble shoulders, until she stood dreams. This time, he'd seen how Wratha's concern for Nestor there almost exactly as first seen in the dim false dawn of Lichloathe was much like his own, despite that their motives Starside and the preternatural glow of the hell-lands Gate. were different. For while his was born out of love for the man Almost exactly as first seen. But of course that had been (so far as the Wamphyri are capable of brotherly love), hers some three months ago . .. was based mainly in love of self, which nevertheless requires And: 'Behold!' Canker said again. 'She is awake!' And to a the confirmation or consummation of another. That was why man, and a woman, they knew what he meant. For despite that she could be dispassionate about Nestor one moment and as yet she was still his silver moon mistress, and her colours furious the next, when she wondered if there was some other alien and beautiful beyond reason, they could each of them see and remembered this 'Lidesci bitch' in Sunside. that this would not, could not last. As for Canker: he knew there was another, also that Silver-blonde her hair, and skin a fading gold . .. aye, for Nestor's old scars were itching again, those mental scars out of now. And desirable in her various parts to drive men wild, his mainly forgotten youth. However obliquely, Canker and true. But rumour had had it that her eyes were blue as the sky Lord Lichloathe had even talked about it on occasion: about under the northern auroras, and plainly they were not. So that Nestor's Great Enemy among the Szgany Lidesci. What's Wratha knew she was no longer the only Lady in Wrathstack. more, the dog-Lord knew that Nestor had tried to put this 'Awake!' Canker barked again, a single word - but all of unknown rival down, with near-disastrous results! So that them knew what it meant: Wratha the Risen's suspicions had only confirmed what That Siggi had been asleep. And a long, cold, breathless Canker already knew: that indeed there was an unknown sleep at that: the sleep which changes life to undeath. woman in Nestor's past. Moreover, he'd drained her to the dregs, or, if not that, his But . . . it was all a very tangled skein, and anyway passion had been such that. .. 194 195 Canker's head hurt ... and the night wind was cold where it On the left flank and a short distance to the rear, Spiro and whipped back his hair, driving a thin trickle of blood into his Wran Killglance watched Canker free himself, straighten up in eye .. . and - the saddle and loll there like a drunkard, and thought as one -What? man: Damn it to hell! He tried to sit up and couldn't budge but an arm. Loosely Twins, it was no great feat to share their thoughts while lashed to his saddle, he was face-down on the one side, bent in keeping them guarded from the others. And: the middle, and legs all a-dangle on the other. And viewed The man-hound Jives! Wran the Rage grunted. down below before it faded into mist and smoke and What did you expect? Spiro scowled across at his brother. distance, a scene straight out of hell! That a knock on that great thick wolf-head would kill him? Explosions - bright, glaring, blasting, but louder and WouJd that it had! That way, at least something wouid be deadlier far than anything the Szgany Lidesci had used salvaged from this night. before - their smoke and roaring voices drifting up on the Aye, you're right. Spiro's mental nod of agreement. Quite a night air, along with the howl of maimed warriors and the lot salvaged, come to think of it. For I'd have been up into dying sputter of failed propulsors. And mewling flyers limping Mangemanse in a trice, and all that's his would be mine! aloft on blazing wings, only to go tumbling back into fire Wran's lewd grin. What, all of it? He licked his lips and and smoke. A warrior airborne, its bladders exploding as a flashed a picture of Siggi at his brother. Including this? shrilling rocket scored a direct hit; the crippled beast All of it! answered the other. floundering to earth, where ant-like figures fell upon it with Wran's grin slid away as if wiped clean off his face in the oil and torches, and turned it to a living bonfire. A frenzied, slipstream of air. Spiro's attitude irritated him greatly these metallic cachinnation as of giant cicadas, accompanied by days, had done so ever since he made his first kill with his stuttering flashes of bright white light and the death screams evil eye. But it hadn't always been so. Back in Turgosheim of men and monsters ... but mainly of thralls, lieutenants, those many years ago, the twins had been united in mutual flyers, warriors. fear and hatred of their father and his killing eye, until at last In short, a rout! they'd murdered him. But now .. . And: 'What. ..?' Canker wondered again, this time out loud. .. . The longer Wran lived in close proximity to his brother Flying alongside, Nestor Lichloathe knew that he was in Madmanse, and the more he looked at him, the more he conscious and called out, 'Canker, your left hand and arm thought to see the spitting image of their father, old Eygor are free. I tied your left foot with a slipknot. Only reach Killglance himself, looking back at him out of Spiro's killing down and tug on the rope, your leg will come free. eyes. Which was a thought he not only kept from the rest of Meanwhile, and as you've no doubt gathered, we're on our the Wamphyri but also (or especially?) from his twin. way home.' And then more viciously, through grinding teeth, Well? said Spiro abruptly, as if ready for an argument. '... where I suppose we'll look at each other stupidly, lick And caught off-guard for a moment, Wran finally repeated our wounds, and count our fucking losses!' him: Well? Was there a question? The necromancer was more animated, certainly in his You know there was. I said t h a t in the event Canker had emotions, than Canker had seen him in a three-month. But the been seriously incapacitated, then I'd take Madmanse and all dog-Lord had a headache and problems enough of his own . .. that went with it. And you . . . said nothing, which seems to me to pose a question in itself. Do you disapprove? 196 197 Wran's mental shrug. Not really. For who knows, maybe we ing to elongate vertically, as beneath her leather armour the have been cooped up together too long, both in Tur-gosheim healthy bloom of her flesh turned leaden as a Lord's and her and in Wrathstack. And it was always the plan that you would cheeks shrank inwards to age her to gauntness. The have a manse of your own some day. But this Siggi . . . is a lot convolutions of her nose had taken on much clearer of woman. Would you keep her all to yourself, too? A bit definition; its flat flange turning darkly moist, with nostrils greedy, isn't it? that flared and gaped. The overlapping leaves of her leather Oh? And do you fancy her? Spiro was scowling even breastplate collapsed like a last sigh as, beneath it, her breasts harder now. But I thought Wratha was your meat? flopped to flaccid dugs. Again Wran's shrug. Wratha will suit me fine, if she can be But her eyes were the worst. For while Spiro had the tamed. But you saw her when all went crazy back there? Oh, killing eye, the Lady Wratha's were pure poison. And she can fool men looking the way she does, like a young beneath the visor upon her brow, they had become as blobs wanton out of Sunside. But when she's wrathful.. . of hellfire, as if they'd been peeled to bleeding and drawn ... And his mind flew back some ten to fifteen minutes in half out of their sockets! time, to picture Wratha as they had seen her atop the dome of Even among the Wamphyri - whose mutations were many the great rock in those moments before and after she forced and whose metamorphism allowed transmutation into endless their attacker over the rim to his death: varieties of form - few manifestations were as ghastly as Her cry of rage - turning to a cackle even as she turned to a Wratha the Risen's change when she was threatened and her hag - as she urged her mount forward and issued her mental leech took the upper hand. And: command: Grasp him, lift him, dump him from the edge! And Aye, when she's wrathful . .. Wran said again, musingly. Wratha's monstrous metamorphosis; not only in the tone of As for me, I merely rage. But Wratha - (he could only shrug her voice but also in her face and figure. helplessly) - is monstrous! Wran had witnessed it before, as had Spiro and Canker - Spiro agreed. That says it all — especially coming from aye, and Gorvi, too, wherever he was now - some three and a such as us, her peers, as it were. half years earlier, at an extraordinary meeting of the But on the other hand this Siggi, Wran returned from his Wamphyri in Vormulac Taintspore's melancholy Vormspire in reflections, whether she hails from the moon or not, is mainly Turgosheim, at which Lord Vormulac (called Unsleep) had woman — albeit a lot of woman! Oh, she'll be Wamphyri presided. And Wran knew that it was Wratha's vampire leech eventually, aye, but a-ways to go yet before she has the reacting to her emotions, her shock and anger, by pumping its measure of such as Wratha. Then . .. she'll be some Lady, essence into her veins in the same way that lesser mortals Spiro. And will you be able to handle her, d'you think? pump adrenalin. It was her parasite's response: to gird the Spiro had never been quick on the uptake, but now he was. Lady for whatever trial was in the offing. But the change it Bastard! You don't fool me! I don't have her yet, and already wrought in her was seen as terrible even by the utterly terrible you're drooling over her! His thoughts were vehement, almost Wamphyri, even by Wran the Rage himself: 'shouted'. For the girl was gone from her saddle in a matter of And: Be careful! Wran's mental voice was a hiss of moments, and in her place . . . a witch! warning. Guard your thoughts! Wratha had gained spindly, craggy inches in height, seem- They are guarded, damn you! Best guard yourown-from me! 198 199 Calm down, calm down, Wran chuckled darkly (though in destroyed like clumps of rag! I mean, we know they can work all truth he felt a good deal less than merry, even darkly metals, these people .. . but miracles? merry). Don't you know when your own brother is having a Spiro was silent for a moment, then said, The necromancer joke with you? As for Mangemanse and Siggi: they are yours if knew he was there. the opportunity should dawn. But until then .. . Eh? And suddenly Wran's mood, as he fell silent, seemed far The madman on the dome of the rock. Lichloathe cried out more ominous, so that Spiro felt obliged to prompt him: Well? to Wratha in the moment before she would have landed, ... Brother, the more I consider it, Wran continued after a warning her off. He knew that this - what? A 'Great Enemy', he while, the more certain I am we've made a big mistake: joining called him - was there. up with Wratha and the others again, I mean. With the Guile .. . Perhaps he saw him! well, that's different. We know where we stand with him: we But no one else saw him. How so? Huh! If I had seen him don't give him an inch, ever! But these others . . . He pulled a first, and if I'd been quicker thinking, I might have used my wry face. killing eye on him. But things were happening so fast. .. How d'you mean? Wran thought about it a moment, then said, There's more to Well, just look at the mess they've dropped us in tonight! the young Lord Lichloathe than meets the eye. Another Frankly, the reason I was having a joke with you was to take mistake: that I ever introduced him into Wrathstack in the first my mind off our losses. Why, there's almost half as much dead place. What? In the last three-month he's gone as weird, meat back there about the foot of that rock as there is undead reclusive and silent as Vasagi the Suck in his time! Well, we stuff in Wrathstack! all know what happened to Vasagi. He should take care, this Huh! Spiro grunted. D'you think I don't know it? What use to necromancer, lest he go the same way. build armies, ju st to send them into that sort of hell? The But not yet? Lidescis won't break, we should have learned that by now. Wran's shrug. You can find fault with him, challenge him if They won't break for Wratha or for anyone else. We should you want. After all, it's you who needs a manse of his own, not leave Lardis and his lot till last, convert the rest, then bury the I. Also, we're supposed to be allies, remember? And what if Lidescis under such a mass of vampire flesh that even they Wratha and the dog-Lord's premonitions about Vormulac can't resist! Unsleep are correct? It might be as well to remain unified Wran had to agree, and admitted: We lost some good under Wratha . . . for the time being, at least. But when things lieutenants, some good meat, down there in the smoke and the are resolved, however they're resolved — stink. And damn it, I still haven't worked out what happened! - That will be time enough, Spiro finished it for him. Aye, it was quick, Spiro gave a mental nod. That mayhem None of which was overheard by the rest, for, like Canker atop the rock, before Wratha pushed that lunatic off the edge of Canison, they were all concentrating on their own problems . .. the cliff - him and his lightning-box! And then all hell breaking loose below. Until then, it seemed our forces on the ground It had been Nathan's plan to get off a shot at Canker, conjure a were doing well. Mobius door and get out of there on the instant. But several But their weapons! Wran shook his head. I saw warriors things had conspired to stop him. His consuming hatred of the dog-Lord had demanded that he at least make 201 200 Necroscope was angry. With himself, yes, but mainly with an attempt on his life, but the knowledge that his brother was the Wamphyri. among these Wamphyri Lords had probably served to distract In the Mobius Continuum he controlled his still hurtling him and deflect his aim. Also, he found it difficult as yet to body, headed for well-known co-ordinates, emerged in the concentrate on physical action while exercising mental main entrance cavern to Sanctuary Rock, perhaps four control over the metaphysical Mobius Continuum. It would hundred feet from where he'd been dropped from the rim .. . come with time, but he wasn't yet the master which his father ... Into an echoing, babbling blast of noise and ruddy, had been. torch-cast light, a smoke-wreathed turmoil of frenzied activity And with both rockets fired, then the Necroscope had been and a combined sulphur, kneblasch and sweat-stench like in trouble. There were grenades in his pockets, but the standing at the brink of hell! launcher's shoulder-clasp had caught on his jacket and he was Men were at work, organized by a gangling, simian central unable to rid himself of the thing. And then that monstrous figure who stood on a flat-topped, dais-like boulder and woman had been there (a 'Lady', he supposed, and therefore shouted commands at teams of cursing, sweating Szgany. the Lady Wratha), and there had been no time left to do Lardis Lidesci, there could be no mistaking him. And as for anything. A moment more and he'd felt himself gripped by the the men he commanded: shoulder, driven forward, released into free-fall, and then into They were his people, and they were Nathan's people. Here full-fall! in the main cavern entrance, maybe sixty of them; the rest In one respect, however, Nathan was like his father, and - were out there in the night, doing battle with vampire thralls exactly like him - when his life was threatened, then he was at and warriors, risking and giving up their lives in the unequal his best. Knowing about death - what it was, and what it was red-raging contest between good and evil, the bloodwar not - Nathan had the utmost regard for life, especially his between humanity and the Wamphyri. But those of them here own. So that he'd found it less than astonishing how the in the cavern: they hauled small carts carrying makeshift proximity of death mobilized him for life. bamboo rockets that trickled coarse black gunpowder propel- Freeing himself at last of the rocket-launcher's tube, kicking it lant from dangerously short fuses. Or they formed a sweating, away from him, Nathan had tumbled head over heels in mid-air grimy chain-gang, passing buckets of kneblasch-laced oil while plunging towards the base of the Rock. Then, instinctively hand-to-hand out into the fearful, lurid, hoarse-voiced night; curving himself like a leaf, and after a moment of rocking from while others on ladders rammed dangling, rope-like chains of side to side, he'd found himself falling face-down, and that the fuse into the dark ominous recesses of high ledges, or heaped stony, scree-littered slope at f the foot of the Rock was rushing small squat barrels in trenches along the walls. Taken as a towards him at a fearful velocity! group, these men formed a support and supply team for the But no hesitation this time: he'd forced mutating Mobius front-line troops, but they were also the rearguard in the equations onto the screen of his mind, conjured a door event that the action spilled back into Sanctuary Rock itself. directly in his hurtling path and fell straight through it . . . 'Keep it moving!' Lardis's bull-voice roared out ... and in into the merciful darkness of the Mobius Continuum. And the next moment, as his dark eyes swept across the panorama none too soon, for in the next second he would have smashed of frantic activity, so they settled on Nathan. Then his mouth down to stain the scree black with his blood in the blue fell open and his eyes bugged, and he pointed a shaking, starlight. And knowing how close he had come, the astonished, disbelieving hand. 202 203 The Necroscope had no time to spare; he broke through believed for quite some time now was proven beyond a the garlic-reeking chain-gang, ran forward, caught Lardis's doubt: that Nathan Kiklu was in fact a son of the long dead arm as the other jumped down from his dais. 'Lardis .. .' Harry Hell-lander, called Dwellersire. For there had only 'You!' the Old Lidesci gasped, his bloodshot eyes still huge ever been two who could come and go like that: Harry and and round. He scarcely believed it, but had to. 'Nathan Kiklu! his changeling son, The Dweller, both of whom were dead. But .. . where from this time?' Instinctively, suspiciously, he But what is in the blood is in the blood, and quite obviously it narrowed his eyes. 'And how?' had come out in Nathan, too. 'No time to explain.' Nathan shook his head. 'But I have The riddle was at last solved, and the solution indisputable. men with weapons: fantastic weapons, Lardis! Except ... they Which in turn meant. .. that there was hope yet! are strangers; I mean, they look and sound strange, these . . . If Sanctuary Rock could survive the night! Lardis gave men. And if I bring them here now, your own men might himself a shake, snatched a torch from the hand of a mistake them for enemies. There'd be no time for questions, retreating man, looked for the dangling end of a rope fuse and my friends could be killed.' where it snaked down from explosive charges in the high, 'Not while I'm here.' Lardis shook his head. inward-curving walls. Then stay here, and I'll be back,' Nathan told him. But: 'No,' Nathan told him, taking the torch from him and 'Eh? Back?' Lardis gaped - jamming it in a crack in the dais boulder. 'I said we had - And gaped even wider, actually staggering a little, as weapons.' Nathan took a step to one side and half-disappeared, then He took grenades from his pockets, handed one to Lardis, stepped back and was whole again! Because in that moment, ran towards the entrance whose walls flared red from the as he had been about to depart, so Nathan had heard a fires outside and reverberated to the sounds of battle. Lardis sputtering blast of propulsors, and there'd sounded a looked at the deadly egg in his hand and remembered the last rumbling and roaring from immediately outside the yawning time he'd held one: when the hell-lander Jazz Simmons had cavern entrance. been here, oh, twenty-one years ago! Lardis hadn't much A small Wamphyri warrior had breached all of Lardis's cared for the things then, and still didn't, but he knew what defences and was out there even now, about to break in. they could do. Gritting his teeth, he ran after Nathan . . . to Brave men came running, stumbling, retreating into the where the Necroscope had skidded to a halt in the very temporary safety of the cave; even the bravest of them knew entrance. that it meant unavoidable, nightmarish death to go up against Just outside, turning its great savage head this way and something like the Thing outside. And: that, a metallic-gleaming machine of death - yet a creature of 'Back!' Lardis yelled, as a monstrously evil shape bulked flesh and blood, a vampire construct - coughed and snarled as huge against the glaring night, beyond the mouth of the its small but incredibly vicious brain considered the cavern. 'Everybody back into the escape tunnels.' Recovering possibilities for additional mayhem. Even as it did so, Nathan from what he had just seen - not the threat outside but 'heard' a mental order from its lieutenant commander out Nathan's almost-disappearing act - he was quickly in charge there in the night: again. For in any case this wasn't the first time that he'd seen Enter the cave.' In the name of your maker Wran the Rage, it, and now that Nathan was back he suspected it wouldn't be you are ordered to kill, ravage, destroy/ Be about your work! the last. Also, he knew that what he had 204 205 And as the horror bunched its thrusters beneath its bulk 'How long was I?' he asked. It had seemed like ages. and prepared to propel itself forward into the cavern, Nathan 'Ten minutes at most,' Trask answered him. 'It's grown a held up his grenade where Lardis could see it, twisted its cap little darker down there on the plains, but the stars have and yanked on its fuse-pin to prime it. They were small, compensated; they seem that much brighter, bigger. Our these hand-hurled bombs: only two and a half inches long, friend down there hasn't moved much, not that we've noticed.' like large eggs. Small, heavy, deadly! Effective far beyond He meant the wounded warrior. There again, we've not been anything that was available in Jazz Simmons's time. But doing much moving either. Nor are we feeling any warmer.' Lardis couldn't know that as he imitated Nathan's actions, and Inactivity had chilled their blood. together they tossed their grenades right down the warrior's 'I'm moving you -' Nathan told them, - 'into battle! But first throat. we need arms. Three-fifths of our arsenal is temporarily Then Nathan grabbed Lardis's arm and dragged him beyond reach. So first we have to pick up what's left. Hold behind a stalagmite stump. And two seconds later: onto each other, and if you think it'll help you might try Crump! Crump! Two muffled, shuddering detonations as closing your eyes.' He conjured a door and guided them the grenades exploded. One of them went off on its way to the through it one after the other, then stepped through after them creature's stomach, ruining many of its vital organs; the other — in the back of its throat, letting out a blast of hot white light, a — And took them to the Cavern of the Ancients. lick of fire and spurts of steaming plasma through a blackened The trio of cavers were still there; also Atwei, and several hole where its thyroid cartilage had been. It also shattered the Thyre males from Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. When beast's spine and shocked its tiny brain to a standstill. Nathan and the others appeared as if from thin air (indeed, The warrior's gaping mouth and nostrils issued thick from thin air), all of the Thyre with the exception of Atwei yellow smoke; its head was thrown up by the blast; the were startled. One of them even cried out. But as Atwei propulsors flanking its anus fired one last time in nervous stepped forward and said, 'Nathan,' so he was recognized by reflex reaction, to send it in a clatter of chitin scales halfway all of them, including a Thyre elder. But: up the external face of the Rock, where finally the thing shut 'No time.' He wearily shook his head. 'Not for explanations down. And as its grotesque, lifeless body came cartwheeling or for anything else. Later, maybe. Until then .. . Atwei, will back to earth some small distance away, so Nathan and Lardis you continue to care for my friends? These three men and this felt the ground shudder under their feet.. . woman?' But there was still no time to spare. She nodded. Of course we will, brother. Nathan dug two more 'eggs' out of his pocket and handed Nathan turned to Trask and Chung where they stood, them to Lardis, said, Til be back,' left the other standing staring all about in open astonishment. 'Ben, David - are you there as he conjured a Mobius door and passed through it - both familiar with the rest of these weapons?' As the cavers handed over the two remaining bundles of arms and - To the sentinel bluff where it stood close to the mouth of ammunition, the espers nodded their confirmation. the great pass and looked out over the foothills to the boulder 'Very well,' Nathan said. 'But since we can't afford to lose plains of Starside; also to Anna Marie English, Ben Trask anything else, let's do it here.' and David Chung, all of whom gasped and started in unison They broke open the bundles on the sandy floor and made as he appeared. their choice of weapons: grenades, ammunition for 206 207 their machine-pistols and three crossbows, one of which was for Nathan himself. In all the coming and going, he seemed to have lost his original weapon. Ill But quickly scanning what was left, the Necroscope felt a The Battle at the Rock sinking sensation as he realized how little there actually was. And how much time it would take to teach the Szgany how to use flame-throwers, self-loading rifles, rocket-launchers. In fact, he never would be able to teach them to fire the latter; there were only half a dozen rockets, and none to waste in practice. No time to worry over that now, however. A second Lardis Lidesci and Andrei Romani made an odd pair: the one or two more to pick up a carton of a dozen exploding bolts, a born leader, hot-headed, full of fire, vision, action; the other and they were ready. And: cool, calm, calculating, a friend and adviser. But both of them 'Let's go,' said Nathan, and took Trask and Chung to were fighters to the last drop of their blood; they'd been the Sanctuary Rock - closest of friends all their lives; they were united, as all of Lardis's Szgany Lidesci were united, in their hatred of the - Where Lardis Lidesci and one other old friend of the Wamphyri. Necroscope's were waiting for them ... It was their apparent disparity that made their relationship so successful. Despite that the Old Lidesci frequently accepted and acted upon Andrei's advice, he would never admit it, and for all that Andrei despaired of his leader's volatile temper - Lardis's tendency to leap before looking -he knew it was the reason the Szgany Lidesci continued to survive. Lardis came of seer stock and something of that art was in him. Andrei had seen evidence of it before: an uncanny knack of knowing when things weren't quite right, enabling him to calculate the odds in advance of calamity. Which was why Andrei kept his advice to a minimum and acted mainly as Lardis's principal support, his right-hand man, and why the other valued him above all other men, because he had the effect of cooling his too-hot blood when, without him, it might boil over. So their partnership worked, and so the Szgany Lidesci survived - or had survived, until this night... Their looks were different, too. Andrei Romani was a lithe, rangy man ('skinny', Lardis liked to call him), with nothing of fat but a great deal of muscle on his shoulders, 209 arms, striding legs. The years had cost him a lot of hair but For he was old now, or at least starting to show his age. little else; his dark Szgany eyes were still keen, and his aim Two-thirds of a lifetime spent fighting the Wamphyri would with a crossbow deadly. That's why Andrei was back in the age any man before his time. Another year or two and his cavern entrance even now, to replenish his quiver with bolts. only son, Jason, would have stepped into his shoes, except.. . For outside, the hand-to-hand fighting was fierce and bloody! . . . Jason had been taken in that very first raid, almost And: Hand-to-hand, he thought, hurrying to a wooden three and a half years ago, since when no man had heard of barrel of ironwood bolts close to Lardis's command position. him. Seeing Nathan tonight had brought it all back to Lardis; Aye, and it's all down to crossbows these days, now that the alas, that it had brought more than Jason back, and the last of The Dweller's shotgun sheJJs are used up. But, for all thought that he too might be alive. For Nestor Kiklu, that Andrei's shotgun - his 'weapon out of another world' - Nathan's brother, had also been taken that night - and he had was alien and more than twenty years old, it had long been his been heard of! pride and joy and he still kept it clean, oiled, polished . .. 'just Lardis had seen it for himself, some seventeen, eighteen in case'. sunups ago: As for 'old', well, men grow old faster than machines, and Nathan Kiklu had returned from allegedly fantastic they're that much harder to repair, too. Lardis Lidesci could adventures in the mythical east, beyond the Great Red Waste, tell you all about that, who, for the first time in his life, had where he'd dwelled a while in the gorge of Turgosheim as a commenced to feel rheumatic twinges, or 'growing pains', as companion or 'familiar' to Lord Maglore the Mage, in the he was wont to call them, in his knees and elbows. self-styled magician's Runemanse, an aerie of the Wamphyri. But ... What else can he teJJ me? Andrei wondered, spying There, discovering that the powerful Vormulac Unsleep and his leader through the smoke and turmoil, and noticing a the other would-be warrior-Lords of Turgosheim were intent certain look on his face . . . as if he'd seen a ghost. upon the imminent pursuit and punishment of the Lady Andrei went over to the other where he had moved to the Wratha and her renegades (in short, an invasion of Nathan's central boulder and leaned against it, took his arm and stared own Sunside/Starside, and the unthinkable bloodwar which into his eyes, and fired off questions without saying a word. must accompany or even precede it), Nathan had stolen a And he wondered about the Old Lidesci: how he was, his flyer with which to make his escape west. heart, health, his mind, stability. The hell of it was, that was That he had come out of Turgosheim unscathed, untainted, all he ever did: wonder. For there was never time to inquire. had seemed a miracle in its own right ... but that he'd done so Lardis was short, barrel-bodied, near ape-like in the great in the saddle of a Wamphyri flyer? A fantastic adventure, length of his arms. His lank black hair framed a weather- indeed, but one which Lardis had heard from Nathan's own beaten face where a flattened nose sat uncomfortably over a lips, so that he'd accepted it. . . mouth missing several of its worn, uneven teeth. Under And no sooner had the youth returned than he had taken a shaggy eyebrows, Lardis's dark brown eyes glittered his wife; or rather, she'd taken him! His girl, Misha Zanesti, had mind's agility, even as the man himself remained agile despite waited for him long enough, and her father, Varna, had seen his stumpy shape, rheumatism and the inescapable fact of his to it that she would wait no longer. Then, in the deep twilight mounting years. before the night, as the couple had returned from their nuptial trek, back to Sanctuary Rock - disaster! 210 211 But in that precise moment, Lardis had got off a shot which Lardis had gone out from the Rock into the night to meet he was certain found its mark. Whether or no, the injured them and hasten them home. And so he'd seen it for himself flyer had lifted off into the mist, and nothing more seen of and had witnessed the weirdness of it: beast or rider. Nathan and Misha, returning aJong a foothills track to the Following which, it should have been over - but wasn't! For Rock; but descending towards them out of the twilight's mist, breaking through the mist, the second flyer had snatched a pair of Wamphyri flyers! Their riders could be Lords ... Nathan up and made off with him! And just like Jason and lieutenants? Lardis didn't know, but he knew what they were Nestor before him, neither had he been seen to this day, so after. And these young lovers out in the open, unprotected and that Lardis had suspected he was dead ... unsuspecting. Then ... Until tonight. ... They'd felt the throbbing of the mist-damp air, glanced But if Nathan still lived, then what of Jason, Lardis's son, skywards, seen hell descending out of the stars! One beast lost so long ago? And what of Nestor - The Lord Nestor, as he and rider had gone after Misha, the other after Nathan. Lardis was now, or as Lardis had last seen him: with his face torn to had seen the girl take a tumble into a covered pit, a trap for a splash of blood against the mist-grey night? flyers and warriors alike. She might be shaken, even a little Except . . . Lardis hadn't really recognized him then. Not hurt, but at least she was safe for the moment. And so Lardis then, and not for some little time. It was only later, when he had gone after Nathan, head over heels down a scree-slide! went to his bed, slept, and nightmared the thing through, that Slithering on his rump and heels, he had actually passed he'd seen that awful face again: scarlet-eyed and bloated with under one of the flyers where it floated down upon Nathan, its black hatred; but young and proud for all that, and in outline great manta wings formed into air-scoops! Then Lardis had at least the very image of the one he'd come to kill! Then, in collided with Nathan, and a moment later the pair of them had his dreams, Lardis had known. come to a halt at the bottom of the slope. But relentless as He'd suspected that Nathan knew, too, but Nathan had no some grotesque, sentient shadow and almost as close, the flyer longer been here to ask. And of course Lardis had never dared had been right there behind them. speak to Nana Kiklu about it, and certainly not to Misha .. . Lardis was first on his feet; he'd turned his shotgun on the ... Poor Misha! She'd got back her lover, only to lose him flyer, discharged it point-blank into the creature's eyes -once, again! The strength of the girl, that she hadn't fallen apart twice! The thing's high-pitched scream; the frenzied lashing from it all. And all of it beginning to connect up in Lardis's of its bloodied head, left and right; the insane pounding of its mind, solidifying there, making sense at last: wings! Immeasurable satisfaction! And yelling like a madman, Nestor Kiklu: a vampire Lord . .. And this sudden attack on the Old Lidesci had reloaded and aimed his weapon again — Sanctuary Rock, which had always been the Szgany Lidescis' but this time at the vampire Lord himself where he fought to best kept secret. Of course Nestor had told them! But why not control his injured mount. before? He'd probably been one of them since the time he was Which was when the mist had lifted a little, and Lardis -and stolen away! Nestor and Nathan ... rivals for Misha Zanesti. Nathan, too - had seen just exactly who it was rocking in the Was that it? Nathan's love had brought him back, most saddle of his agonized beast: definitely - and against all odds, at that -but Nestor? Nathan's brother, Nestor! Lord Nestor, of the Wamphyri! 212 213 Nathan's Jove and Nestor's - what, hatred? But they were still gleaming on it. 'As for bolts.' Nathan held up a fistful. 'Use twin brothers, born of one womb in the same hour! Ah, but these — but careful how you handle them, and don't drop them! Nestor was Wamphyri now! Blood brothers, aye ... When you go out, stick close to Lardis and watch his back.' 'What is it, my friend?' Andrei Romani's anxious inquiry 'When we go out .. .?' Andrei's mouth had difficulty drew the other out of it; out of the past and his morbid staying shut, even when he wasn't speaking. reverie both, and back into the fear-fraught present. 'What That's right.' Nathan nodded. 'Into the thick of it. Now have you seen? What's wrong, eh?' listen: if you come up against warriors, Lardis has the answer Lardis looked at him. 'Not what I've seen, but who.' right there in his hands.' He indicated the grenades. 'As for 'Who?' these bolts: they'll kill thralls, lieutenants, even flyers - and 'Aye,' Lardis's curt nod. 'And not what's wrong, but right -I they'll kill them dead!' hope!' Lardis pocketed the grenades, took the second of Nathan's 'Will you explain?' three crossbows and a fistful of explosive bolts, and growled: 'Let these explain!' said Lardis, and showed him Nathan's 'Is there a plan?' grenades. But before the other could say a word: 'No, let him Nathan shook his head. 'Only to destroy our enemies, and explain!' And Lardis pointed across the cavern. save the Rock.' Nathan, Trask and Chung had emerged from the Mobius 'Sounds like a good one to me.' Lardis and Andrei headed Continuum against the wall of the cavern, where Nathan had for the cavern entrance, where again the sounds of battle put in his first appearance. Andrei took in all three at a were on the increase. But when Nathan and the others didn't glance, but mainly Nathan. And like Lardis, he knew him at follow, they looked back - once. 'What? But that's Nathan Kiklu!' he gasped before - And saw that the Necroscope and his hell-lander friends falling silent, lost for words. were gone .. . The three came hurrying through the hustle and bustle, but this time not unnoticed. A group of sweating, grimy, sharp- .. . Up into the foothills directly above the Rock, from which eyed men stepped forward, pinioning their arms as they drew vantage point to look down on the fighting and take their pick close to Lardis. The Old Lidesci quickly cautioned them: 'Now of opponents. And: hold! For I know these men. They're friends. Be about your 'Those flyers.' Trask pointed. 'Down there on the trails business.' where they lead to the Rock. There must be seven or eight of Andrei still couldn't speak, and he noticed that the two them, maybe more. With all this smoke and fire, it's hard to with Nathan (one of whom, the small yellow man, looked a tell. But if we could take out the flyers .. .' very strange specimen indeed) seemed similarly shocked, Nathan shook his head. 'Not all of them. There are stumbling, incapacitated. But it only lasted a few seconds. lieutenants down there, too. If we cut off their escape route, Then- they can only stand and fight . . . I mean to the very end. And — Nathan and Andrei grasped forearms in the customary that would mean more Szgany losses. Szgany greeting - and so did the strangers, with Andrei and 'Half of them, then,' said Chung. Then, when those monsters see what's happening to their mounts, they'll likely Lardis both! Not so strange after all. And: make a run for it! Okay, take us down there, Nathan, and let's 'Andrei,' said Nathan, 'put that down.' He took Andrei's see what we can do.' crossbow and handed him a new one - brand new, the oil 214 215 And again Nathan felt the power of these weapons from Perhaps surprised, the Necroscope looked at him, frowned. another world, and thrilled to it! Well, and why not? As the 'You're ready?' Wamphyri and their creatures, thralls, lieutenants took 'Not really, but as ready as I ever will be.' Chung's grin was pleasure in destroying men, so he could rejoice in destroying nervous. them. What was their warcry? Wamphyri! Wamphyri! Nathan Now Nathan seemed worried about it. There's still so much felt like shouting, 'Human! Human!' you don't know. I mean, there are traps down there, He chose another target: a second grey head, nodding and camouflaged pits in the earth: flyer-traps, mainly, but warrior- mist-wreathed, maybe thirty yards away. Except. .. someone traps, too. Don't make a mistake and fall into one. And don't was coming, crouching low, panting. Someone whose eyes get too much blood on you! It isn't especially active in itself — were feral yellow, glowing like gold in the dark. A lieutenant! unless it's from a Lord or senior lieutenant, which could be Nathan snatched his crossbow from his belt ... nocked its dangerous in your eyes, nose, mouth - but, well, you can't be wire, loaded the bolt ... was aware that the vampire was too careful...' almost upon him. He lifted his arm and hand, head and eyes, 'Son,' Trask told him, 'you had better believe that we'll be and saw a flame-eyed demon with jaws gaping and arms careful! We fought with your father on Earth, remember? And outstretched, rushing at him! we were careful there, too. Just get us down there. The sooner He squeezed the trigger - then hurled himself backwards this is over the better.' and to one side. The lieutenant mewled like a mad thing as he 'Very well, but keep within hailing distance. Then, if you staggered, snatched at the bolt in the right of his chest and see lieutenants or thralls coming, you can call for me.' Without tried to draw it out. Sprawling in the dirt of the trail, Nathan more ado, he conjured a door, guided Trask through it- turned his face away. And with a sound like a crack of doom, - And out into a part of the flyer launching-area which was flesh and innards went flying in all directions and half a man farthest from the Rock, where monstrous grey shapes nodded staggered this way and that upon the old trail, before in the mist not very far away. Then: 'Good luck, Ben,' Nathan collapsing in grotesque and bloody disarray .. . told him, leaving him there. Behind Nathan, lost in the smoke and rolling mist, there It was Chung's turn, and Nathan dropped him off a little were other explosions, dim flashes of light. But these weren't closer to the rock, but in a place where there was no sign of the soft-sounding pyrotechnics of Lardis's inferior human - or rather inhuman - activity, just continuing sounds of gunpowder. They came with a series of crisp cracks, which fierce fighting from the near-distant Rock. And finally the even the swirling mist couldn't deaden. It had to be Trask and Necroscope located himself at the head of the column of Chung, about their deadly work. Good! flyers, so that he would be the first to note any retreat of the From the other direction, however, towards Sanctuary Rock: lieutenants from their front-line positions. hoarse cries of rage and terror, screams, the throb and sputter of Nathan chose a flyer, ran towards it through drifting smoke warrior propulsors, the occasional whine and careening flare and reek, lobbed a grenade that bounced and rolled to a of a rocket run wild. But Nathan knew that Lardis was there; standstill directly under the flyer's nodding head. A moment he had heard at least two explosions which could only be caused later . .. the detonation was so vicious that it stripped the by grenades. The Old Lidesci had already expended his most creature's face of flesh, hurling back its head so violently that effective weapons — necessarily, Nathan was sure. the tapering neck was broken in the whiplash. 216 217 Also, at the base of the Rock itself, where that colossal The Necroscope's blood was up, and up there in the front boulder's roots buried themselves in the earth — half-hidden in line he knew that blood was being spilled — good clean the natural camouflage of scree-grown vines and shrubbery Szgany blood, some of it; spilled or perhaps changed forever. — a second battery; this time of stone-hurling engines and The idea of transferring himself into that zone was terrifying, giant crossbows with bolts formed of young, arrow-straight, but that was why he was here. If he didn't at least try to make stripped-down pines. Sunside/Starside safe for his people, then what was the point? While inside the covered pits: beds of slender stakes, He used the Mobius route back up into the foothills for harpoon-tipped to catch and hold any flyer, warrior or orientation, then transferred down onto the approach trail to vampire thrall that might fall on them; and recesses in the the main cavern entrance. walls, where men could wait with buckets of oil, and flints Maybe one hundred and twenty yards from the foot of the and candles at the ready. massive outcrop, a defensive arrangement of covered pits and Most of the pits on the level were on fire, their withe trenches had been dug in the hard earth and rock. In plan, the frames of twisted straw and gorse camouflage going up in pits formed two concentric semicircles, ringing the entrance smoke and flame into the reeking night. Meat . . . was in. They were eccentrically positioned, so that any advancing steaming in several of them, while others were simply smoking, enemy who avoided the first row must run right into the blackened holes in the earth. The hot air was full of death second. smells that caught in men's throats, making them choke, retch On the ground, however, and due to the declining terrain, . .. the Rock's defences presented an even more complicated Nathan had emerged from the Continuum behind the picture. Enemy forces approaching from the forest (the south) Rock's defenders, where the fortified wall faced first the must push uphill towards the Rock, while those from the east trench, then the twin rows of pits. Since the men on the could follow the more or less even flow of the foothill Rock's side of the wall were all facing the other way, he'd contours. Lardis had known this, too, when he'd dug his pits; stepped (as it were) into existence all unseen. And now for it was why in addition he'd drug a trench behind the pits on the first time he saw evidence of the hand-to-hand fighting: the level ground. And that was where the thick of the fighting how it had washed to and fro over this very spot. Obviously, was taking place even now. the warrior which he and Lardis had dispatched in the cavern But pits and trenches were not the Rock's only defences. entrance had been accompanied by vampire thralls led by Thirty yards within the inner circle, a low dry-stone wall had lieutenants; there were a number of corpses littering the been built, with upward tilting, kiln-glazed pipes of clay stony ground ... many of them without heads. The ones with cemented in position every other pace, providing launch-tubes heads were human, his own people: Szgany killed in the for the stems of Lardis's rockets: the Old Lidesci's missile fighting. battery. The wall was mainly dry-stone to allow for rapid Their wounds were horrific, the work of Wamphyri gauntlets. rebuilding in the event that it was breached, flattened by the Flensed faces, chests laid open through flesh and ribs, throats sheer bulk of a warrior. And every other pace, were stout ripped out, literally.' Even through a swirling ground mist it wooden stakes with their points sharpened to needles, also could be seen that the earth was stained black in the fire- and facing outwards to impale onrushing monsters. starlight, and the whole area stank of brutal butchery and blood .. . 218 219 ... It had been scenes such as this — scenes as violent, mind- supple leather. He had seemed like part of the landscape, at stunning as this - that had driven Nathan from his cause and one with Nature. His hooked nose, sharp as a kite's beak, but course in the first place, out into Sunside's furnace desert to lacking its cruelty; his brow, with the flat slope of a wolf's, yet die; only to discover the Thyre, his ability to talk to the dead, broad enough to accommodate a good brain, and wide, and fresh hope for the future. And now ... this was that future, inscrutable eyes; his thin lips, and dark grey shoulder-length and he must fight to come to terms with it, get a grip on hair. Nikha had reminded Nathan of nothing so much as a lean himself, his soaring emotions. He didn't have the time to stand and rangy hunting owl. and consider what had happened here; it could all too easily And Eleni . .. Maybe twenty, twenty-one years old, and happen again, if he simply stood still and let it! typically Szgany. All lithe and sinuous; movements smooth as But terrible memories had been set in motion, and terrible oil; shiny black hair, and skin tanned to a glow. She'd seemed scenes out of a none too distant past. Inescapable as a recurrent as wild - even wilder - than her brother; given the chance, and nightmare, Nathan viewed them as a ghostly tableau against in a better world, Eleni would be ever vivacious and live her the equally surreal swirly-smoking backdrop of mist, fire and life to the full. Her mouth had been generous and sensuous at blood-splashed night: one and the same time, with a laugh that was husky and That time when he'd searched for his brother, stolen by a teasing, but never quite seducing. Because when finally she did flyer out of ravaged Settlement.. . love, the chosen one would get it all. And because at that time Nathan had thought that Misha was dead (or worse far, stolen out of Settlement into Starside by The Szgany Sintana, true Travellers in Sunside's forests, had Canker Canison), he had even considered becoming that one. befriended him. And in turn Nathan had made them a promise: But it hadn't worked out that way. if he couldn't find Nestor, then he would join them where they Following their trail through the night to where the forest planned to establish a permanent camp at the edge of the met the prairie, at last he'd seen the carts and caravans of the sprawling savanna dividing the forest from the furnace deserts. Szgany Sintana sheltering under mighty ironwoods. Their fire The reason they would settle there was simple: that much had been a welcoming splash of leaping light holding back the closer to the sun, and distant from the barrier mountains, it had shadows in the space under the trees. seemed unlikely that the Wamphyri would venture there. That It had welcomed Nathan, aye .. . but in the same way that it had been the reasoning, anyway. had welcomed others before him! And when Nathan was done with his searching, that's where The Wamphyri! he'd found them - or what was left of them. They weren't there now, but the evidence of their having Nikha Sintana, and Eleni, his sister: their faces and the faces been was unmistakable. Nathan remembered it as if it were but of their people haunted Nathan still. a moment ago: Nikha: young in years, old in his ways, wild as the woods He stood under the ironwoods, where the dusty ground had and gentle as its creatures . .. but hard in the ways of survival. been swept free of needles to form a small clearing in its own So it had seemed. The actual number of his years had been a right. But in the shadows, bloated black shapes like secret hidden in the agelessness of his penetrating, intelligent windblown weeds went lumping and fluttering low along the brown eyes, and in skin weathered to a ground, hiding from him in dark places. Then, as he heard a chittering in the night and started in 220 221 recognition of the sound . .. something wet dripped down and the wall, so protecting their superiors. And, shouting splashed on his forearm where his sleeves were rolled up. instructions, all of them urged action from a warrior where it Looking down, he saw that his arm was red; likewise the earth had fallen into the pit. under his feet. And looking up - A small one of its sort, the creature floundered. It was - He saw the tree's strange ripe fruit, all dripping their caught on harpoon flukes and several of its gas-bladders had juices, strung up by their heels with their throats slashed, ear to been ruptured. In the event of it freeing itself, however, this ear.' superficial damage wouldn't impede its fighting ferocity, its The drained corpses of the Szgany Sintana, swaying there monstrous thirst for blood, war. Indeed, its frustration would on creaking ropes under the branches of the ironwoods .. . and make it yet more ferocious! But jammed awkwardly in the all festooned with black Desmodus bats, Wamphyri familiars hole, it had difficulty bringing its thrusters and propulsors into so glutted with blood they couldn't fly . . . and these play. Hence the thing's roaring, the occasional sputter of its loathsome, bloated monsters falling or flopping to the ground propulsors and jets of noxious fumes issuing from the pit. and scuttling off into the shrieking night! Even as Nathan and Lardis watched, so the creature got its monstrous head up over the rim, and the glare of the red eyes The shrieking night... in its bony, prow-like, chitin-scaled slope of a forehead Instinctively, Nathan crouched down and shot a terrified threatened the defenders at the wall with a nightmarish death. glance overhead - as if expecting to see a body dangling by its Its propulsors fired again, and the horror jerked halfway out of heels and dripping blood. But it was only a Szgany rocket gone the pit. off-course which showered sparks on him and whistled off into Nathan had two grenades left. Handing one of them to the mist. Its shrieking had startled him to life, except it wasn't Lardis, he said, 'Now!' the only thing that shrieked - or roared? They squeezed through a breach in the wall, ran forward, Looking around, perhaps in desperation, Lardis had seen the were met by eager lieutenants loping the other way, in Necroscope. 'Nathan, quick!' anticipation of their warrior's imminent attack. But Andrei He ran to the knot of defenders at the wall, joined Lardis and Romani and other defenders were right on their leader's heels; his men. Lardis pointed east, to the trench, pits and the crossbow bolts flew in the night, passing far too close by swirling mist beyond. 'We've fought them off once, twice. The Nathan's reckoning. A lieutenant was swatted from his feet first wave came with the warrior that we destroyed at the and blown to bits before he hit the ground. A flame-eyed thrall entrance, and the second was made up of thralls on a suicide cursed and spat where he writhed upon the earth, tugging mission. Those who are left are mainly lieutenants, but they frantically at ironwood bolts in his chest and belly. Snarling are the most dangerous. And they've called down another men fell on him with sharp knives, hammers, stakes. warrior. Look!' Nathan and Lardis left the hand-to-hand fighting behind, A handful of tall grey figures moved in the mist around the arrived at the pit, armed their grenades. Lieutenants came at perimeter of one of the innermost pits. From the sinuous, the run out of the smoke and mist; the pair lobbed their loping flow of their movements they were plainly lieutenants. grenades into the pit, then turned and fled. Andrei was still Along with them, a half-dozen vampire thralls held up leather with them; he fired the last of his explosive bolts into a shields against incoming bolts from the defenders at lieutenant's shoulder and joined them in flight. 222 223 Behind them there was an explosion, the sharp crack of a In that respect: it would be as well if Anna Marie English bolt. And: Now! Nathan thought. and the others were at least offered the opportunity to see it, The warrior roared its triumph as it bunched its thrusters, too, and so know what they were into. With that in mind, and its propulsors sputtered into life . .. but just a moment too Nathan collected them from the Cavern of the Ancients. When late. Twin blasts tore the night, accompanied by brilliant they were all together again and perfunctory introductions flashes of light and an agonized mewling, as chitin scales and concluded: chunks of raw flesh shot skywards. The detonations had 'Very well,' said Lardis Lidesci, nodding grimly where he cracked the thing's carapace, setting fire to its mantle and surveyed the littered battlefield. 'And now let's be at it...' gas-bladders. Lesser explosions and the flames that roared up to hurl back the shadows — and the mewling that climbed the All of which had been something less than thirty-five minutes scales to a continuous high-pitched screaming -signalled the ago. But on high, over the barrier mountains, and heading monster's finish. (some limping) home, the Wamphyri were still feeling bruised Then, arriving back at the wall, Nathan 'heard' it: the Lady by their defeat; and Wratha was still raging, albeit in her secret Wratha's raging, and her final command from her vantage mind. Raging and rotating the facts of the night - those known, point on the dome of the Rock. and others as yet unknowable, but facts nevertheless because Fools! Weak fools! What? And have mere men - the they had happened - in the depths of her secret vampire Szgany Lidesci - defeated you yet again? Get out of there, thoughts. those of you who may. Flee! Flee for your Jives, aye! For we, She should be grateful to Nestor, that he had warned her not your masters and I your mistress, would have words with to land as she made her descent, but she was not. How had the you ... back in Wrathstack! Wratha's promise, or threat, necromancer known there was danger? How had he, a was all too evident in the grating of her hideous mind- veritable infant among the Wamphyri, seen or sensed that croak. which she had not? What? But he'd been a Lord for less than three years! So, he spoke to dead men - so what? That one on ! top of Sanctuary Rock had been very much alive! But no Nathan took Lardis's arm. They're pulling out. They've had longer. enough. It's all over. For now, anyway ...' What was this thing with Nestor and the Szgany Lidesci? Lardis looked, snarled his triumph, then shook his fist j and Again, a picture formed in the Lady's mind: of the one on the laughed like a lunatic. Nathan was right: lieutenants | and Rock, him and his deadly tube .. . Nestor's Great Enemy? And thralls were vacating their positions, slinking back into the mist, much like Lardis Lidesci before her, Wratha wondered at the making for their flyers. But from back along the trail, out of the connection: blood and sulphur reek, the night and its leaping shadows, there Nestor, Misha and a Great Enemy. Or a Great Rival? Was sounded a sudden stuttering of automatic fire: Trask and Chung, that it? Was he still mooning over this Traveller shad Misha? picking off vampire thralls where they tried to make their escape. Was that why he'd finally set himself against the Szgany Nathan used the Mobius Continuum, picked up his friends, Lidesci, because he had a rival among them? But if so, why transferred them back to Lardis and the defenders at the wall. wait so long? Also, Wratha had thought that that had been all They were safe now, all of them .. . well, from the over and done with, following Nestor's last abortive strike Wamphyri, at least, if not from the nightmare of what must against this so-called 'Great Enemy'. And it follow. 224 225 still didn't explain how he had known there was danger on the wheeling on the wind and coming up alongside to where Rock's roof. Was Nestor using her to his own ends, she Wratha and the Lords spearheaded their reduced forces. Gorvi wondered? Using the rest of them, too, as a punitive force in and his flyer, alone. 'Have I missed something, I wonder?' he some private feud? In which case, tonight's losses were all continued, quieter now. 'Well, perhaps it were better missed at down to him! that! It appears you had problems.' He seemed to And raging still, she told herself: Very well, let's see how he commiserate, but in fact they knew he gloated ... reacts to this. Then, opening her mind for all to see and hear, . . . Until he looked back at the tattered remnants of the and using her mentalism to the full, she cried: army that had left Wrathstack, and especially at what was left Now hear my vow! I, Wratha the Risen, make it, and I shall of his own contingent. Then: keep it. From now on it is sacred to me, and I make it so that 'What!?' Gorvi gasped. 'But ... how have you protected my you all may know it and call me Wratha Vow-breaker if I do men and creatures, Wratha? What has become of them?' His not keep it. I shall destroy the Szgany Lidesci. By skill or words were supposed to be accusing yet sounded as a wail: trickery, wit or sheer unbendable will.. . by the blood that is the cry of a wrongful child who knows he's about to be the life, I shall destroy them! Wratha had made such vows smacked. before, but never out in the open where she could be held to Where - were — you - Gorvi? Wratha's growl sounded in them. Ah, but no one would have to hold her to this one, be his mind, and the mental voices of all the others with her. sure! Gorvi would babble an answer — a well-rehearsed excuse As she had spoken, so Wratha had cast a sideways glance at concerning a deadly force of strangers on Starside's boulder Nestor. At him, and into his mind — or at least she had tried. plains - but before he could do so there came a diversion: But his mind was clamped shut as a lichen to its rock, A giant Desmodus bat, one of Wratha's familiars, appeared impenetrable. He sat there, pale as new lead, in his saddle, his out of the east in a whirring of tired wings and settled to the body swathed and his face cowled, and rode the night wind. neck of her mount. There the creature clung, exhausted, And never a sign that he had even heard her, he was that cold. finally folding back its black membrane wings and chittering Or seemed to be. Until: a faint - but not that faint - message. And Wratha at once All mine who are able, to me! he called abruptly. There's a j deed straightened up rigid in her saddle. must be done. Any who are injured, damaged, get on i back to the The language of bats ranges from the faint to the fantastic, last aerie and wait on my return. from barely audible to seeming silence . . . in the ears of He and his peeled off, swooped southwards; and letting a common humanity. But to the Wamphyri each note is distinct tail-wind off the Icelands take them, they quickly dwindled to and has meaning. And the meaning of Wratha's familiar was gnats in the clouds scudding high over Sunside's forests. clear. It was one of two creatures which she'd positioned as Astonished, Wratha and the others let them go and carried on sentinels in the eastern peaks at the edge of the Great Red homewards. But the Lady wondered: What now? Is he also a Waste, her early-warning system against a surprise attack out madman, this necromancer? of Turgosheim - Before she could consider it further: - Which was why it was here now! 'Ho, Wratha!' came a shouted (yet somehow restrained) So that Gorvi the Guile was the only one among them who greeting across the gulf of air. 'And all you others there! But a actually felt a sense of relief as a certain dreaded name took sorry looking lot if ever I saw one!' It was Gorvi the Guile, form in the suddenly whirling chaos of Wratha the 227 226 Risen's mind. But even his relief was only temporary, for the worst fears of each and every one of them were suddenly come true. Then . . . IV ... The Lady's jaw fell open and her eyes stood out like Vormulac lamps in her gaunt and haggard face. And she beat her breast and cried her frustration: 'Why now? Why now?' Until finally she croaked the very last name that any of her colleagues had ever wanted to hear: 'Vormulac!' What of him? Wran the Rage 'gasped' in her mind, In Turgosheim, Maglore the Mage had been busy for a night unwilling to believe it despite that he knew. and a day; which was the equivalent of an entire week in a He's crossed the Great Red Waste, she answered, speaking parallel world currently beyond Lord Maglore's ken. He'd to all of them at once. He's here, in the east of Olden Starside, been busy ever since the warrior-Lord Vormulac Taintspore even now. Our mortaJ if not our immortaJ enemy ... Lord (called Unsleep} had ventured forth from melancholy Vorm- Vormulac Unsleep of Turgosheim. Him and his, aye. And they spire, and from the gorge of Turgosheim itself, into the are many! unknown west with his vampire army. That had been in the twilight before the night; and how Maglore had gloated where he watched from the roof of Runemanse, as his supposed 'colleagues' and all their creatures vacated the gorge to fly west in the shadow of the mountains, bound for a legendary land of plenty beyond the Great Red Waste. In the eye of memory he could see it even now: the beginning of that grand crusade, and all the pomp and splendour of Vormulac's marvellous exit from Turgosheim. (Marvellous, aye. Especially in the greedy eyes and heart of the Seer-Lord Maglore, who had vowed in the hour of their departure that once they were out, Vormulac and the others would never get back in! - which were thoughts he'd kept to himself, of course.) But quite apart from his ambitions, to actually witness that exodus had been a wonderful experience. To stand there on the roof of promontory Runemanse with Karpath Seersthrall, his right-hand man, watching first the flypast, then the departure; to see the massed might of Turgosheim 'on parade', as it were, under its many generals, and all of them under Vormulac's over-all command. The gradually burgeoning whorl of that aerial army within and 229 level with the rim of the gorge as, emerging from the since ostensibly they had been the spur for this allegedly landing-bays of individual spires and manses, the punitive expedition, that was only to be expected. For, in fact, contingents filled their spaces within the soaring ranks. Awe- all six of them were fled into the unknown west, where they'd inspiring! hidden themselves away for more than three years now, and The gleam of polished leather body-armour, iron-studded where Vormulac and his army hoped to seek them out to trappings, golden ornamentation; the raucous banging and punish them for treason against all of Turgosheim's blaring of drums, gongs and horns from the various aeries, Wamphyri. where common thralls made noise to speed their masters But in fact they had committed no such heinous crime, nor (and mistresses) to victory in far foreign places; the rumbling any crime at all, or only a middling one at best. For in truth cough and sputter of warrior exhausts ... Wratha and her gang had only ever sought to be what they Then to see the great spiral unwind as Vormulac Unsleep were: Wamphyri! Which, by reason of Turgosheim's politics, himself led the column westwards out of the gorge; to was a sort of treason in itself. Against Zolteism. recognize and check off the various sigils, standards and And: Hah! Maglore thought. Zolteism, indeed! pennants fluttering in the vile slipstream of propulsive gases, Turgo Zolte had been the father of them all, the founder of where they passed level with Maglore and dwindled into Turgosheim, who had fled with his children out of the west distance: from the wrath of Shaitan the Unborn. But all of that was Vormulac's own 'hanging man' emblem, Grigor (the Lech) history, an immemorial legend. As for Zolteism: that was Hakson's odious 'rampant rod', the virgin grandam Deve- Turgo's legacy, and some would say his curse. For of all the taki's 'grin-scowl mask', the Lady Ursula Torspawn's 'Szgany Wamphyri who had been and were to be, Turgo was the one bells', Lord Eran Painscar's 'spiny gauntlet', Lord Tangiru's who had denied himself to do battle with his leech. He had 'warrior-tooth necklace', Zun's 'bloodied tusks', and Lady been and had continued to be his own man even unto death, Zindevar Cronesap's 'spitted pig', (in fact a spitted man, right following which the creed of Zolteism was passed down to down to the apple in his mouth!) and many another. them who survived him in Turgosheim. They had all been there: The blood is the life, aye - but in moderation. To lust after Lorn Halfstruck, Lord of Trollmanse; Lady Valeria of power, territory, thralls and possessions is the way of life - in Valspire; Black Boris, who kept trog mistresses; Lord Wamus moderation. The thrill of the kill is a joy - but all in (pronounced 'Vamus'), whose far-reaching, folding claw- moderation and according to rules. That was the essence of tipped arms were in fact membranous pinions, for his Zolteism: to deny one's parasite, keep it in its place, and be metamorphic skill was such that he effortlessly maintained master of one's own urges, one's own destiny. the guise of a great bat; Lord Freg of Fregscarp; Laughing Moreover, Turgo's creed had been seen to make sense; the Zack Shornskull of Zackspire, oh, and at least a dozen and a Szgany of Turgosheim's Sunside had become so reduced in half more. number that the bloodwars must cease, or the Wamphyri Noticeable if only by their absence (curiously, Maglore themselves die out from lack of nourishment. For in the had actually found himself looking for them), were such as beginning, in Turgosheim's youth, the interstack wars had Wran 'the Rage' and Spiro Killglance, Wratha the Risen, been many and the toll in human lives, in Szgany beasts and Canker Canison, Vasagi the Suck, and Gorvi the Guile. But vitals in general, enormous. Without that Zolteism was enforced, the blood itself would soon become enfeebled, run 230 231 cold, run out! Thus, if the vampire Lords would live, so must That was why the Seer-Lord merely considered using the the creed. And of course the weakest of them had been eager Mobius loop sigil: because the last time he'd done so . . . well, to embrace it - or if not the weakest, the wisest, certainly. it had been to discover that the crafty Nathan was oh so much It was all history now, aye, but the creed had survived, and more crafty than Maglore had ever guessed. Oh, he had long Maglore the Mage had been a 'true Zolteist', an 'ascetic', all of suspected that Nathan was a weird one, but never the extent of his days. Well, within limits, of course. Maglore and Devetaki his weirdness! Still, with all of those unknown miles between - Skullguise, even Vormulac Unsleep himself: ascetics of sorts. and the Great Red Waste itself as a buffer zone - where would For these three had been Turgosheim's secret triumvirate, its the harm be? But being a 'mage' of sorts, and certainly a seer, regulators, who recognized the folly of depleting Sunside to the Maglore respected the talents of others; and despite that he dregs. And, besides, life had been good for them in their was Wamphyri and knew no real fear (or so he told himself), mighty manses, towering high over Turgosheim's lesser knolls for the time being he curbed his curiosity with regard to and hovels .. . Nathan and turned instead to Vormulac. ... Until Wratha the Risen and her renegades had made For prior to Lord Taintspore's departure, his old 'friend' and warriors that flew, and with them had flown out of Tur- colleague Maglore had given him a good-luck piece: a golden gosheim into the fabled west! That was their crime: that of ring for his ear ... in the shape of a twisted figure of eight, their own admission, Wratha and her outlaws had stolen Maglore's sigil! Surely a sign of undying, even undead forbidden flesh out of Sunside from which to build millennia- friendship, that a man honour another with his own talisman, banned constructs. Also, that they had cheated in the tithe in the sign of his house and being? And so, in precisely the same order to further improve their get. But it was not why way that Nathan Kiklu wore a ring of gold six inches from the Vormulac had ordered his massive war effort, culminating centre of his brain, so now Vormulac Unsleep, absent vampire these three years later in a so-called 'crusade'. No, that had Lord of melancholy Vormspire, wore another. been done out of fear. An hour and a half had passed since Maglore last expended Fear that indeed a fabulous land of plenty lay far to the psychic effort on that powerful image, that abstract symbol of west, beyond the Great Red Waste, and that the Lady would alien mathematics; during which interval he'd taken sustenance utilize its riches to build an invincible vampire army of her and satisfied ... other appetites. Now, replete and a deal more own. And fear that she would return one night, and wrest relaxed, he would try again. Turgosheim from its rightful leaders. For in her time she'd Vormulac, yes. made a habit of rising up and returning, this Lady; which was So thinking, and closing his mind to everything else, he why they had named her Wratha the Risen ... rested long, talon-like hands on the massy, gleaming, strangely In his room of meditation, these were some of the thoughts twisted loop of gold, and sent his seer's probe winging west in that passed through Maglore's mind as he gazed upon his search of the warrior-Lord Taintspore. golden sigil shewstone and considered putting it to use. And in another moment... Where was Wratha now, he wondered, and where Vormulac? And how would it go when they met - or collided? And where Vormulac Unsleep's mood was black as his soul would be, if for that matter was Nathan, Maglore's 'window on an he had one. The flight out of Turgosheim and across the unknown world'? 232 233 Great Red Waste into these unknown western parts had been His thralls, his lieutenants, and even his women, were arduous, to say the very least; in fact, and in proper similarly cropped, and several younger Lords had emulated perspective, it had been a hair-raising, nail-biting, apparently the fashion, not least Laughing Zack Shornskull of Zackspire. endless nightmare of a journey! Vormulac's forelocks, having lost most of their jet sheen Of course, Lord Vormulac would never dream of admitting through long years of sleeplessness, were iron-grey as if such to any of the lesser Lords (and certainly not to a Lady); covered in dust; they were plaited and finished with lead throughout, he had appeared the Great Leader, entirely weights which dangled onto his nipples. His eyes, not quite unshakable, utterly inscrutable: the warrior-Lord Vormulac of uniformly crimson but marked with yellow flecks, were Turgosheim. But to himself . . . on several occasions he had close-set and deepsunken in ochre orbits. His nose was wished that he'd never set out, and there'd been as many long, slender and sharply hooked at the bridge. Its times again when he'd thought he would never see it through. convolutions and the gape of its nostrils were less marked Known for his fits of melancholy as well as for his might, than in most Lords, but its great length was a singular now that most powerful Lord of the Wamphyri looked more anomaly; its tip came down almost to the centre of his upper morose, withdrawn and doom-fraught than ever; yet at the lip, lending his looks a hawkish severity. same time - seated upright and solid as a rock in the saddle Severe, yes, yet melancholy, too. Some said it was a lost of his flyer, at the head of what had been an awesome army - love had robbed him of seventy years' sleep; others had it he seemed more determined, too. For he'd made a vow of that he feared to sleep, lest starting awake he might find vengeance those three long years ago, after Wratha had himself a leper, as his old master before him. Only combine flown the coop, and he wasn't about to deny himself the the two theories, and something of the truth would be pleasure of sealing it now. known. Vormulac himself had mastered the art of not dwelling Vormulac was a huge man, almost seven feet tall. He was upon it . . . except when he slept. Which was why he didn't. no strict adherent to Zolteism, but neither was he a glutton. Nor had he slept this last sunup, but had weathered out He had not dealt his fellow Lords ill, not even in his prime. an entirely wretched day in the shade of the barrier His forces had never attacked - other than in the defence of mountains, sitting in a cave with only the meat of trogs and a Vormspire - but when on occasion he had been obliged to cup of vile mushroom wine for consolation; and thoughts of make war, then it had been utter and ruthless; Vormulac was red revenge, of course. Against Wratha, whose fault it was a hard man. Eighty years ago, he'd lain Gonarspire and that he was here at all. Trogmanse to waste, bound their masters in chains and hung Now, flying west again in the early hours of sundown, he them out to dry where the sun's hot smelt would discover found himself looking back on the misadventure - so far as it and dispose of them. Since when, the gorge had stayed had proceeded - with something of relief, and thanking relatively free from internal feuding. whichever star he was born under that things had not been Despite that Vormulac had ascended to Vormspire all of worse ... one hundred and twenty years ago, he kept his head shaved and wore the forelocks of a common thrall. A creature of First the planning, which had not been of the best. But lifelong habit, what had suited his old master Engor Spore- Vormulac's generals had thought: If Wratha the Risen son in an earlier age continued to suit Vormulac to this day. 234 235 pursued ambition, she was herself pursued out of frustration, managed it in total secrecy, with mainly untried men and revenge and fear. Not only differences, but positive monsters, and no apparent effort all of a hundred and fifty advantages - to the Lady, that is. sunups ago, then there can't be that much to it! How can we And one more advantage, which Vormulac was only now fail with all the thought and effort that we're putting into it, beginning to take into account: Wratha had fled knowing that and having the choicest materials out of Sunside with which to she would be pursued. So that by now .. . work? ... Surely three years had been time enough for her to take Then, as if simply thinking these things had been enough, adequate precautions? Wherever she was now - in whatever the very idea of failure had been put aside; thought and effort manse she called home — the place would be a fortress, be had become less than adequate; liaison and cooperation sure. But fortresses have fallen before, and so would this one between the manses had broken down as the vampire Lords when Vormulac found it. Then . .. there would be war: a vied to create the finest contingent of men and fighting bloodwar, aye, if only to pay the Lady back for all of his creatures for Vormulac's aerial army. The thrill or 'glory' of troubles. the coming venture (and anticipation of its successful Now, in the eye of memory, the warrior-Lord reviewed conclusion, of course) far outweighed any niggling doubts with those troubles, which had started as early as stage one: the regard to the possibility of failure. In short, the Lords and refuelling stop on the westernmost jut of the eastern range ... Ladies of Turgosheim were grown over-confident. But contrary to their beliefs, and prior to Wratha's departure Wratha had stopped there, too, at the beginning of her flight from the gorge, she had worked in close (albeit covert) liaison into the west. After she'd gone, Vormulac had sent his with her conspirators. And because their departure had been lieutenants to check the place out. They'd found signs of her an escape from dire punishment, they'd put that much more halt: spilled meal from her flyers' feedbags, beast-droppings, effort into it. It had only looked easy by virtue of its simplicity: various other signs. Yes, her creatures had refuelled A handful of aerial warriors and a dozen or so of themselves there . . . and so had Wratha and her renegades, as lieutenants and flyers ... not much in the way of logistical witness the discarded clothing of several thralls. After she and problems there; a fuelling stop in the western heights of the her lads had drained the thralls of their lifeblood, then their mountains, before attempting the Great Red Waste; finally the cadavers would have gone to the warriors. There had been just mighty leap westwards, into the unknown. four of those, one of which Vormulac remembered very well Simple, aye ... indeed. The differences had been these: that Wratha the Risen's The handiwork of Canker Canison, that had been a terrible party had been small, while Vormulac commanded a polyglot construct. It had all but wrecked the Great Hall in Vormspire, and potentially unruly army. That her constructs were and would have wrecked Vormulac and the others, too, if they comparatively light creatures and built for flight, because she hadn't escaped into boltholes! It had been as a direct result of had dispensed with weapons, ornamentation, and almost every that nightmare that the Lords had proved so zealous in the other unnecessary encumbrance or accessory of war and death construction of their own warriors. But Lord Unsleep couldn't in favour of the basic requirements of life; while the warrior- fault them there; he had built a Thing or two himself in the last Lord Unsleep's creatures were weighty, and armoured to the three years. And not all of them successful, either. hilt for battle. And that while she 236 237 But of the seventy fighting creatures that did finally set out the issue of their vats, but knew nothing of co-operation. Also, that night from Turgosheim with Vormulac Taintspore, his a good many of them were rivals; there were old feuds to be fellow Lords and Ladies, and their one hundred and twenty settled, and old scars still itching. Why, they would never have lieutenants and thralls - they had been warriors . ..! come together at all, if not for Vormulac's crusade. And what ... Aye (he thought gloomily), and two-thirds of them too with all the jostling, the jibes and the taunting . .. the suddenly hungry, too hot-blooded, too loaded-down with armour-plate electric tension . .. the throb of hot blood ... nerves balanced on and all manner of fearsome but unwieldy appendages, too! a knife-edge ... tempers fraying! Chitin-plated gouges, grapples, retractable claws ... Huh! Flyers tilting this way and that, their vampire riders cursing, Just how unwieldy had been seen at that first landing. shouting, hauling on the reins; all desperate to discover a patch Wratha's choice of a refuelling stop had been a flat summit, of dust in which to flop down. Warriors accidentally colliding a mainly sheer-sided plateau where the last of the peaks and as they made their approach runs, then doing it again, but rockpiles tumbled to the smoking ochre desert which formed deliberately, as finally the tempers -of men and beasts both — a skirt around the Great Red Waste. For her purposes the shattered into shards! Wamphyri! place had been ideal, because she'd landed less than two And in the midst of the melee, the first bloody scuffle; then dozen creatures in all. But for Vormulac . . . a disaster! For he two, three . . . an uproar! While on the rim of the rock, many was attempting to land one hundred and seventy, and there of the thralls, lieutenants, flyers and warriors who were simply wasn't room. already down, found themselves pushed into space as a There might have been space enough, if the generals had massive tug-o'-war over the provisions milled to and fro, this proceeded in an orderly fashion. But as the Lords at the rear way and that. The plateau was a high one; some who fell from of the column -had seen those at the front landing, so it had the rim (those of them skilled in metamorphosis) had time to become apparent that the choicest of the laid-up provisions form airfoil shapes and save themselves. Most of the flyers would go to the first down. In all likelihood, the last down survived, of course, and several of the warriors; but others would get nothing at all! And between here and Olden injured in the fighting simply plunged to the scree and boulder Starside in the unknown west - if that alleged Land of Plenty bottoms, where for them the crusade came to an abrupt end . .. existed - there was nothing but the Great Red Waste; Finally the dust had settled, and Vormulac stamped here and neither'food of any sort, nor drink, nor any sustenance at all there, shouting, clouting, browbeating the rest into submission other than what they carried. Which meant the beasts, of and demanding the presence of the idiot planner whose idea it cours^ ... and the men themselves. had been to refuel here, en masse. That task had gone to Zestos Then, breaking ranks, all of the Lords and Ladies alike had Kalkas, a lesser Lord who now appeared to be absent. There vied to be first in line for food after Vormulac. And in the was a man of his, however (Gaul Kalksman, a minor ensuing melee ... the warrior-Lord himself had been fortunate lieutenant), doing his utmost to look fierce as he stepped not to get run off the edge of the plateau! forward in answer to Vormulac's call. Then it had come out What a mess! how Zestos and his senior lieutenants had been swept from the It should have been orderly, yes - but the Wamphyri are rim; Gaul had witnessed it with his own eyes, which now were greedy and territorial; each man or woman for him- or herself, nervous, wary. and to hell with the hindermost! They had practised rattling their gauntlets, aye, and parading their creatures, 238 239 'Huh/ Then it appears you've ascended,' Lord Unsleep had keep old Maglore company. The blood we seek is only for the told him without further ado. strong. You Lords are responsible for your men, as they are for 'But... perhaps my Lord Kalkas is alive down there!' their beasts, within your own contingents. During the journey, 'He might have been alive up here,' Vormulac had at once any who are lost through weakness .. . are lost. Make good use growled. 'But not for long! For if he were alive, I would bind of them before surrendering their scraps to the Great Red him in chains myself and hurl him from the rim! The fool!' Waste. We go.' And after a moment's thought: 'I have a suggestion ...' With which, he'd lifted off on his flyer, found a thermal and 'Yes, my Lord?' risen up until a band of orange light cracked the southern Take a flyer, descend, find Zestos. Cut out his parasite and horizon. So much for altitude; any higher and they would accept its egg.' catch up with the sun, and it with them! At that, Gaul's feral eyes had seemed to light with a red So Vormulac had headed west, while behind him the whorl internal fire, pre-empting his actual ascension. 'Yes, my Lord. of his army had straightened itself out like the coils of some Indeed!' strange aerial snake. And before too long, the stench of acid 'And listen,' Vormulac had told him. 'You're lucky. You're vapours had come drifting up from the Great Red Waste ... one of his and I should kill you, too, but I need a man to lead his contingent - what's left of it!' Vormulac couldn't know it, but despite all of Wratha the 'Yes, my Lord.' With which, Gaul Kalksman (Kalkson, Risen's advantages three years earlier, she too had experienced now) had scurried off to find a flyer .. . difficulties. Canker's warrior had been the most heavily armoured of her party's constructs, and it had used up a deal of But at that, it hadn't worked out too badly. Three flyers and energy and suffered some small damage in rescuing Wratha six warriors lost over the edge, four more of each damaged on and the others from melancholy Vormspire: the landing, the landing, three Lords and some seven lieutenants either killed fighting, the relaunching. But out over the Great Red Waste, accidentally or slain in the fighting, along with perhaps fifteen the thing had paid the price in full. thralls. As for those injured in the fray: they had been put to Its loss had scarcely been mourned (well, with the possible death, and so became part and parcel of the provisions they'd exception of the dog-Lord himself, and then not for very long); fought over. It seemed only right. its vital fluids and flesh had served to fuel the rest of them on By then the sun had been well down; the hurtling moon their way. was up; the refuelling had been attended to. And no time to Likewise with Vormulac's army. For, less than eight hours spare, for no man knew how wide was the Great Red Waste, a after setting out, Devetaki Skullguise had drawn up alongside hundred or a thousand, or five thousand miles. But all knew and called in his mind: Vormulac, it appears there's a small how long was sundown. Morning must not find them in flight, problem. A creature of mine is nearing exhaustion. Perhaps it but flown over the wastelands and landed in the west. Then: was injured in all that huffing and puffing at the plateau. I 'We take off in order!' Vormulac had shouted for everyone thought it prudent to let it fall behind a little and so conserve to hear. 'Once up, spread out, make room. The sky is wide. its energy. What would you have me do? But keep the same ceiling. I go first, and the rest follow on. Devetaki had been wearing her scowling half-mask, ample Fainthearts .. . may fall out now, go back to Turgosheim, evidence of her displeasure. But there had been nothing for 240 241 The stars had been like foggy ice-chips on high, in the it except the obvious answer: Are any of your other constructs poisonous vapours rising from the open sore of the Great in need of sustenance, Lady? If so, bring them up front here. If Red Waste . .. not, then as you slip back to the weak one, be so good as to Vormulac had despaired, if only to himself ... pass on the word .. . Far, faint cries had come drifting up out of the fetid fog - Devetaki had understood him well enough: since her warrior like the wailing of souls in hell - as even more exhausted was doomed, best to let the others make use of it. And as she'd constructs descended to the red-smouldering death of the reined back to let the various Lords and Ladies pass her by, so wastelands .. . she had informed them: I'll be sending a weary creature up But as the first crack of hazy golden light appeared on the front; doubtless the extra effort will finally exhaust him. If any southern horizon, so Lord Unsleep had spied ahead a rising of your warriors would benefit from a good meal ... you are moon all bitten in half, as if by some cosmic monster. And welcome. Never let it be said that the mistress of despite that his view was obscured by fading fumes, he knew Masquemanse is mean. it was no monster gnawing at the moon but the spires of And falling to the rear, she had ordered her tired beast to distant mountains. The barrier mountains of Olden Starside! speed for the front, for: We shall be landing soon, when for And straightening in his saddle, he'd sent back: We've you there'll be tidbits galore! Propulsors throbbing, the thing done it! The worst is over! We've crossed the Great Red had immediately spurted ahead . . . to its doom. For as the last Waste! Now spare your creatures and glide, for we need to of its propulsive gases were burned, several larger warriors fell lose height. No need to worry; these poisonous fumes are to and in short order incapacitated, separated and finally thinning, and there's only the sun to fear now. devoured it. Only a well-gnawed skeleton and half a dozen 'Only' the sun! But Lord Unsleep had known that his sky- sections of blue-glinting carapace had been left to go tumbling snake's tail was many a mile long, and he'd wondered if they into the acid reek of the wastelands ... would all make it. . . It was a scene which would be repeated many times, until, towards the end, even healthy creatures would be sacrificed in Not all of them had. order that the rest might survive. A great many warriors, aye, Many hours later, alighting in the shade of the barrier so that now only thirty-seven were left. Flyers had been lost, too. Weary from inhaling the reek, they had choked, stiffened, mountains, Vormulac had climbed a crag to a vantage point gone spiralling into a bubbling red oblivion; and nothing for it from which to gaze east and watch them come in. And but that their riders go with them, lieutenants and common peering through eyes still sore from the reek of the vampire thralls alike. wastelands, he had seen a golden stain spreading on the But as for the rest, survive they had; for a night that seemed higher peaks, and had known that a fan of deadly light was an eternity yet felt, paradoxically, too short by far. The Lords even now lowering itself as the sun commenced its tortuous had food in their saddlebags, which they devoured. They had climb up over Sunside's rim. water in skins, which they drank. And when these had been He actually watched while that fan swept lower and lower, used up, they unplugged cartilage stoppers in the knuckled and saw its beams dispersing the mists over the plains spines of their flyers, to sip sparingly on vital fluids ... between the mountains and the rough red desert. But the Like the Lady Wratha's party before them, some had slept mists were not all that those rays would disperse. The while others maintained the course ... 242 243 men and beasts at the very tip of the sky-snake's tail didn't Exhausted beasts had been seen to as best possible and stand a chance. They were weary (unto death?); the flyers given shelter in shallow caves; thralls, too. Had circumstances were exhausted and the warriors depleted of gases and been different, common vampire thralls such as these might substance both. well have expected to become one with the provisioning. A Mainly they were drifting in, on membrane wings that no good many lieutenants had died, however, and others had longer had any lift in them, which threatened to collapse at ascended to the seats of lost Lords. These thralls were lucky: any moment; or suspended from fluttering, half-empty they would replace dead or elevated lieutenants. Some had buoyancy-bladders, whose essence had been drained off to even been 'promoted' that same day; their Lords had taken fuel their coughing, sputtering propulsors. They knew they small measures of sustenance from them, in return transfusing should lose altitude, but in fact were fighting gravity. For, copious doses of their own vampire essence. Thus, a dual once down, there'd be no getting up again, just a series of purpose was served. inevitable crashes in the rusty red earth. And thus the seemingly interminable day had crept by in Forming the very tip of the tail, four men and flyers had the dreary dank of trog caverns and the life-preserving shade herded a small knot of forsaken warriors from as many of the rearing barrier mountains ... different contingents. The latter had been too tired even to squabble. Of these dozen men and creatures, the very last All of these things had been 'seen', 'felt', or 'experienced' by pair - being also the highest - had been first to succumb. the Seer-Lord Maglore in his talisman shewstone in Rune- Yellowed by sunlight, then browned, blackened and incinerated manse. These and others: such as the onset of night, and to smoke and smoulder, the scorched debris that once was a Vormulac's mounting-up and departure from the trog flyer and rider had drifted to ochre earth. Then it had been the territories to journey still farther west; his soaring climb on turn of a warrior; its gas-bladders exploding, mantle bursting bitter night thermals into the heights, from which to gaze into flames, armoured body plummeting like a stone to down on a hitherto unknown Sunside — unknown to Lord shattering extinction. And finally a seething of smoke in the Unsleep, at any rate. The way his previously repressed brightening sky, even an explosion or two, as an unrelenting sun Wamphyri senses came awake! How he'd smelled strong caught up with the rest of them at a stroke. Szgany flesh down there in the dark and the silence: the very Vormulac had felt no remorse, only annoyance that his materiel and even the ordnance of the bloodwar to come. army was so depleted ... But there was something that Maglore had not seen, which Vormulac himself had never suspected. It was simply this: that They had harboured in trog caverns behind the foothills. one of two sentinel Desmodus bats, Wratha's familiars, had Blood of the submen wasn't much to their liking, but beggars witnessed the arrival of the aerial army out of Turgosheim. can't be choosers. The warriors weren't fussy, and the flyers The Lady had positioned them some two hundred and were happy to subsist on lichens licked from the rocks. Rest fifteen miles apart: one at the very tip of the range, the other was what they had needed most. Only Black Boris, who back in the heights where the mountains burgeoned into a true in Turgosheim kept trog mistresses, had seemed happy with barrier. The first creature had seen Vormulac's arrival, yes, the way things were working out. Having taken a firm young but hastening west with its warning had failed to see the party female alive, Boris was soon in fine fettle; he had food and of trogs out hunting in the grey twilight before the fanny all in one. 244 245 dawn. And it had only become aware of their nets, hurled questioned the Szgany survivors of the hand-to-hand fighting, skywards into its flitting path, when it was far too late. then interrogated a badly injured lieutenant and several Perhaps something of its shrill, piercing cry - of fear and vampire thralls. Before that, however, there was the burning warning both — had crossed the many miles to its sentinel of the dead - alJ of the dead, Szgany and vampires alike. And twin, but not enough to act upon; not until the warrior-Lord's not on any funeral pyre, but in a blazing pit: a warrior-trap invading army became visible to it, too. Which was why that was already an inferno. Without ceremony, the bodies Wratha got her warning late; for despite that her second were wrapped in sacking and bundled into the flames. First, creature had near-exhausted itself in the frenzy of its flight, five of the Rock's brave defenders, while many old friends still Vormulac was only hours behind when it alighted on the looked on with lowered heads and recalled other, perhaps neck of the Lady's flyer ... better times; then, after a barely decent interval, fourteen dead (or temporarily incapacitated) thralls; finally the grotesque By now (having seen the warrior-Lord on his way again), remains of seven lieutenants. As they burned, a handful of Maglore the Mage was eager to scan Nathan once more. Lardis's men tossed resinous pine branches into the pit to fuel Withdrawing from Vormulac's mind, he cast his probe again, the fire. but this time with a more youthful target in mind. And a more But as the lieutenants' bodies and pieces went into the useful one? Possibly. As yet, Maglore had no great knowledge flames, Lardis had been quick to beckon his men back from of the legendary western Sunside; perhaps by now his the edge. This was just a precautionary measure; the dead 'window' on that unknown world had settled down and was no lieutenants had all been young men, ex-Szgany, vampirized longer doing ... well, whatever it was that he had been doing. and promoted within the last three years; it seemed unlikely And Nathan so rapt upon what he was doing, that when that there would be much of undead Wamphyri monstrous- Maglore oh so tentatively entered his mind he noticed nothing ness in them. Nor was there, but better safe than sorry. The at all of his presence there ... flames consumed them without incident.. . Lardis was jubilant - albeit quietly. Tonight's toll of It wasn't that Lardis Lidesci was a normally vicious or vampires was far and away the best that the Szgany Lidesci vindictive man, but that he never missed an opportunity to had ever achieved. The cost, however had been great. The glean even the smallest piece of information on the doings, the lives of five good men and true was too much to pay, even for coming and goings, the evil works of the Wamphyri. It was a victory such as this. But the discovery of the Rock by one of his mechanisms for survival. And, like his father before Wratha and the vampire Lords . . . that was the worst blow of him, Lardis was an excellent survivor. all. It took the edge off the Old Lidesci's triumph. Anna Marie English wasn't able to watch, which was hardly On the other hand, Nathan's return - and these fighting hell- surprising. Lardis gave her into the care of a Szgany woman to landers he'd brought with him (for such they must surely be), be taken into the Rock and instructed in its ways. These were and the incredible weapons they had brought with them - also the ways of survival, of course. .Everything was survival these were wonderful things! Indeed, there was nothing in the with the Szgany Lidesci. world Lardis would enjoy more than to sit down right here But Nathan, Trask, Chung and the three cavers accompanied and now with Nathan and the newcomers and hear their story. Lardis and Andrei Romani, as first they examined and Except ... there was business he must see to first. The sort of business that wouldn't wait. 246 247 There had been men hurt in the hand-to-hand. Crossbows, had suffered. And unlike those who had gone to the fire rockets and shotguns (when there'd been shells for the guns) before him, this one was no fledgling recruit. No, not by any were fine at a distance, but in any melee a Wamphyri gauntlet means. A much older man - a changeling to the point that he was superior. An ironwood bolt through the eye or heart may might almost be Wamphyri - there was no question but that be a clean way for a vampire to go, but for a man to have his he had come out of Turgosheim along with Wratha and the face ripped off, or to be disembowelled, or to lose a limb and others. bleed to death, is something else. That was how Lardis's five Lardis, Andrei and Nathan looked up at him on his cross, brave ones had died: trying to hold their minced guts in. And waiting for him to recover consciousness. But to Trask, it was also why they'd been first into the fire: so that their Chung and the others, where they stood back among a women wouldn't see them like that. A man has his dignity. crowd of silent, watchful Szgany, it seemed unlikely that he As for questioning and examining the surviving defenders: ever would. Perhaps at that Trask should have known better, that was another precautionary measure. It was always for he at least had known his fair share of horrors such as important to ensure that the men had not been injured in any this, albeit in another world. way, especially by being bitten. For the poisonous bite of the In the pulsating glow of the fire-pit, the crucified man was Wamphyri is often quick-acting, and even the bravest man as gory a sight as could be imagined. He had been brought might find himself suddenly reluctant to admit of . . . well, a down by Andrei Romani, stopped by an explosive bolt shot slight neck injury, say . .. into the muscle of his right shoulder. Either the bolt was The captured thralls were tied to crosses bedded in the faulty or the blast went awry, else he were surely a dead earth, not for the sake of cruelty but because it was the best thing; but in any case the detonation had cost him his right way of keeping watch over them. Even tied up, they could arm and all the flesh of his right breast. His upper ribs were slip away like snakes into the thinnest ground mist. Their all sprung on that side and stuck out red and black, and interrogation didn't take long; they hissed and spat and above the empty socket and shattered shoulder, his face and writhed, but answered no questions at all. Why should they, neck were a blistered black fusion of scorched flesh. when they knew what was their lot? Perhaps if Lardis had the But as the men on the ground waited, so finally the left time he would be much more persuasive, but since the eye opened, and the merest crack in the roasted meat where location of Sanctuary Rock was no longer a secret .. . the Old the right eye should be. And there was an eye in there: a Lidesci had other plans for tonight. Well, and hadn't he blob of sulphur flecked with red, just like the left. Not quite always been a Traveller at heart? Wamphyri, no, but he might have been if he'd lived. Except Unemotionally — having been through all of this before, he knew he would not live, for Lardis Lidesci intended and knowing there was no alternative - he ordered the otherwise. And as he slowly became aware and lifted his grimacing, squirming thralls put down as cleanly and head: painlessly as possible. Shot through their hearts point-blank 'Who are you?' Lardis wasted no time. and by marksmen, they never knew what hit them, nor ever 'Go fuck a shad!' the other wheezed, coughing blood and felt the furnace heat of the fire-pit. mucus. Unlike the thralls, he wasn't merely tied to the cross Finally it was the turn of the injured lieutenant, except but was nailed there, truly crucified. Since his right arm was 'injury' was scarcely the word for the monstrous damage he missing, silver wire had been looped under his chin to 248 249 under his clout. This con .. . conversation is all very - ah! Ah! support his head. But it also constricted his throat and made - very well. But it gains me nothing. I desire to be dead. Will it hard for him to speak. No ordinary man would even have you make it clean?' tried. Lardis, Andrei, even Nathan, all of them had heard much Lardis shook his head. 'I'm a man, not a thrall. I don't fuck the same plea before. But this was important to Lardis. Tell shads.' me the truth, and I'll make it clean.' 'And I'm a lieutenant!' the other spat. 'I have pride!' 'Your ... your boy was a brave one, but he's dead.' 'Very well, then - Lieutenant,' Lardis nodded. Til ask you Lardis closed his eyes and breathed a sigh - of agony, again: who are you?' relief, who can say? 'And ... and was his death clean, too?' 'Since I'm doomed anyway, it can't hurt to tell you,' the 'Clean, aye,' The one on the cross nodded. 'He tried to other answered. 'I'm Turgis Gorvisman, last lieutenant out of escape, failed, climbed Wrathstack to a high place, jumped. Turgosheim.' He killed himself. He was your son, Lardis.' 'What, Gorvi the Guile's man?' Perhaps he knew more, even a lot more, but Lardis was 'What of it?' Turgis struggled a little on his cross, then satisfied. Truth be known, he was even grateful. 'And now gasped and hung still. While full-fledged Wamphyri have you can die,' he said. 'Except.. . will you die cleanly?' ways of stilling their pain, their lieutenants are not so Turgis looked down on him. 'For myself, I say yes: indeed I fortunate. welcome it. But I have been with Gorvi for long and long. My Lardis shook his head. 'Just a pity you're not him, that's blood is changed, even as I am changed.' all,' he said. 'For I would dearly love to have Gorvi himself Lardis, Andrei, Nathan, all three stepped back; and more up there in your place!' yet, well away from the foot of the cross. Lardis nodded to The other narrowed his one good eye, stared down on men on the flanks. They lassoed both ends of the horizontal Lardis and said: 'You'll be the Lidesci, then. Lardis the Chief.' bar with good ropes, and waited. Others with crossbows came 'Aye,' (again Lardis's nod) 'and I fancy it was Gorvi who forward ... but when Turgis saw them he commenced to took my son.' writhe and spit again. He was tormented in two directions, 'You didn't know for sure, then?' Turgis writhed a little, then tortured by pain and terror both. He wanted to die, but his coughed up more blood. 'Well, now you do. The first time we blood didn't! raided on Settlement, aye. Gorvi took your son; I remember it And: 'Now!' said Lardis. well. He sent me down into the town with the ( others, while he Three bolts flew home - straight to Turgis Gorvisman's attacked the house on the knoll. He likes to keep to himself, does heart. He cried out once, then flopped down on his nails and Gorvi. Likes to keep out of trouble, too.' hung still. .. 'And Jason - my son - is still there, in Wrathstack?' The .. . For a moment! Old Lidesci tried to keep the anxiety, the eagerness, the need Then his belly and chest burst open, and a nest of white to know out of his voice, but failed. worms lashed and squirmed amidst the crimson of his innards! A Turgis gagged, turned his head this way and that, and thing of white siphon arms, like some grotesque aquatic vibrated for a moment like a crippled snake against the anemone, it tossed the rags of his flesh aside, drew blood from upright of his cross. Urine smoked where it dribbled from faltering veins, sprayed scarlet all about as if pissing on unseen foes! Indeed it tried to - but they were out of harm's way. 250 251 The men on the ropes waited no longer but hauled on the cross until it toppled lengthwise into the fire-pit. And, very shortly, a protracted hissing and a plume of black smoke were PART FOUR all that remained of Turgis Gorvisman ... Further Incursions - Factions - In Runemanse, Maglore the Mage slowly withdrew his hands Skirmishes - Counting Coup - Nathan from the Mobius sigil, his mind from Nathan's, his seer's probe back across those thousands of miles to its home in his vampire mentality. And for a long while, he simply sat there with the pictures of what he has seen gradually fading in his inner eye . .. but not in his memory. Of the things he'd seen: he might easily have guessed some of them in advance, certainly with regard to Vormu-lac's crusade. But others would have been quite impossible to imagine; impossible to believe, if he hadn't seen them with his own eyes. Well, through the eyes of another, at least. Nathan's mind might well be obscured, but his eyes were crystal clear. Maglore didn't have to know what he was thinking to see what he was seeing. In Olden Sunside/Starside, the Szgany fought back. What's more, they sometimes won! Now that Nathan was back (from wherever he had been these months), perhaps they would win that much more frequently. Maglore had feared the return of a great army one night, out of the west. Maybe he would be wiser to fear the return of just one man. Maybe he should never have let that man go in the first place. But what had Nathan been except a strange Szgany youth, a weird, blond-haired, blue-eyed pet, a freakish familiar? So it had seemed. And now . . . a mistake? There again, Maglore comforted himself, the man who never made a mistake never made anything. On the other hand, neither had he lived to regret it. . . I E-Branch - Turchin - Tzonov Fifteen hours after the battle at the Rock - in a parallel world beyond the Starside Gate, a world where it was 10 p.m. in London and midnight in Moscow - three Heads of Department had a meeting of sorts at the London headquarters of E-Branch. The three were the Minister Responsible, whose name was known to a small handful but never used, lan Goodly, temporary Head of E-Branch, and Gustav Turchin, Premier of the loosely named and very loosely connected Soviet Alliance, also known as the USS or Union of Soviet States. A fourth person was present — not in any official capacity but because she was the only person now living on Earth who had ever been to Sunside/Starside, which was in the main the subject of the meeting. lan Goodly had asked Zek Foener to be there, but she had already decided to fly in on the first plane out of Zante. The others had made no objection. Perhaps they might have if they had known what was on Goodly's mind. Or perhaps, on the other hand, they'd made no objection because they did know what was on his mind, for something of the sort was on theirs, too. Introductions had been brief to the point of perfunctory; communications were secure; Premier Turchin's larger than life image was on the big screen of the Ops room's central console. The other three were seated in padded swivel-chairs within the console's operational perimeter. Sixteen hundred miles away in Moscow, Turchin was looking at them on just such a screen. The Russian Premier was short, blocky, and looked 255 unshakable as a Sumo wrestler. It was his image, and not only I hate to remind you, but that is a nightmare scenario: that on the screen but also in real life. Considering all the Tzonov or someone like him should pass through the problems of the massive territory he presided over, he had to Perchorsk Gate into Starside. Wonderful, if we could be sure look that way. What with escalating food riots in Kasakh-stan, he or they would stay there, but terrifying to think they might terrorism in the Ukraine, Mafia-style gang-wars in Moscow come back ... and what they might come back as!' itself, territorial disputes far and wide, and the accelerating 'Premier,' the Minister cut in. 'I know you've heard much the decay of law and order just about everywhere, he must at least same thing before, but do you take our meaning? Mr Goodly give the impression of toughness. His lips were thin and and I - everyone at E-Branch - we have had to deal with this compressed under an angular nose; his dark eyes were restless sort of thing before; we know what we're talking about. You've under bushy black eyebrows that crushed together in a frown; come in on this a lot later, whereas we have been with it from the corners of his mouth were turned down — because he the beginning, for a great many years. And you must never hated being in the wrong. But then, so did they all. And not a forget that while there are two routes into this parallel world, man of them had had anything good to report. Indeed, they there are also two ways out. Now you've let Tzonov go in there each of them felt a certain relief if not downright satisfaction at with a platoon of trained men, and —' the discomfort of the others. '— As you have "let" your Mr Paxton go in!' It was Zek Foener knew this, of course, and thought: The Turchin's turn to cut in. 'And with just as many trained men, if Germans have a word /or it: 'Schadenfreude'. not more! What's more, it appears Paxton has brought down Each of the men had stated his position — or in effect, the roof of that underground river behind him, however made his confession, if not of guilt, then of incompetence in temporarily! Also, I didn't "let" Turkur Tzonov do anything. one degree or another - but also knew that the others were at Why, the way you have it, anyone would think he had my least equally to blame. Laying blame wasn't the purpose of authority!' the exercise, however, but to untangle the very complicated 'I'm not accusing.' The Minister held up his hands placat- skein of things back into something of order. It was ingly. 'Just stating facts. But now we have Ben Trask, David imperative that they unravel that skein, and quickly, for a Chung, Anna Marie English and a bunch of pot-holers, and a frightful pattern was beginning to emerge. half-company of paramilitaries, lost between two worlds. 'Briefly, then,' said Turchin, after a silence that had already And that's too many. Too many of them who can and just lasted for several long seconds. 'Clearly, I was right to take my might come back as vampires! And if it's Tzonov? What, softly, softly approach with Turkur Tzonov. For, as I've stated with his powers and ambitions?' previously, I was already on to him and it was only a matter 'And if it's Trask, Chung, or English, with theirs?' Turchin of time. As it now works out, it was your pushing me that countered. 'Or this Nathan, this . . . this Necroscope?' speeded up the process. In moving my own men into Zek Foener said, 'This is getting us nowhere. Surely the Perchorsk, I alerted Tzonov and made him jump the gun. In point is that good men and bad ones have crossed over, and one way a bad thing, perhaps, but in another ...?' He shrugged its the bad ones we don't want to come back. Or if they do, and looked to the others for their opinions. we want to know that we can stop them when they get here. 'Meaning he's out of it now, lost in another world?' This Have I got it right? And isn't it also that we'd like to get our was Goodly. But the precog's face was sour as a lemon. 'Sir, friends, the good ones, out of there if that's at all possible? I mean, get them out unchanged? Get them out as men?' 256 257 'Zek has said it all,' Goodly's high-pitched voice fluted out. The Minister took a deep breath, said, 'Very well.' And after 'We know what's on your mind, Sir, and we agree with you: a moment's thought: those Gates must be closed, and this time permanently. But 'Originally, Paxton was my idea. A bad one, as it turned not before we've got our friends back. What happens to out. He had a talent - telepathy, in which he was very gifted - Tzonov, Paxton and their men... we couldn't care less. But we but he was too much of a loner to fit snugly into an do care about our friends.' organization such as E-Branch. And the fact of the matter is Turchin nodded. 'So, despite that you've just this minute that I needed a watcher to watch the watchers. E-Branch told me that too many of our people have gone through looked out for my country's security, among other things, and already, now you're contemplating sending even more. Is that did a wonderful job of it. But being what it was, there was it?' always the chance that someone in the Branch might go 'Yes.' The Minister nodded. 'But a joint effort, our best rotten. It wasn't impossible by any means; after all, it had shot. And if it doesn't work ... time enough then to close the happened before - and to a Head of Branch, at that! -the time Gates permanently.' Norman Wellesley turned traitor. Talents such as E-Branch 'Huh!' Turchin's mouth turned down more yet. 'Oh, yes -a employed for good ... might conceivably be employed in the joint effort - but only because I have the Gate, eh? Because opposite direction, and devastatingly; or for personal gain, this Mr Paxton of yours has blocked the way to the one in whatever. Romania?' He looked pointedly, searchingly at the Minister. 'Paxton would be a Branch operative, responsible to Head 'Now tell me, don't you think it is time I knew a little more of Branch, naturally, but mainly responsible and reporting to about this man? Oh yes, I know: CMI - for your eyes only — me. This wasn't just my idea, but fitted in well with the and definitely not for mine! But aren't we in a little too deep thinking of others higher up. So Paxton entered E-Branch. To for all that cloak and dagger stuff now? There's no more cold make a long story short, he didn't fit in; the others sniffed him war, and certainly not between we four.' out almost from square one; he especially fell foul of Ben The Minister was suddenly looking uncomfortable - very. Trask, and more especially of Harry Keogh. 'But I still can't talk about —' 'Paxton . .. fucked up!' The minister shrugged 'Oh, yes, you can,' Goodly told him. The Premier is right. apologetically. 'Excuse the expression, but right now it seems The stakes are too high for cover-ups. E-Branch was less the only one that fits. Rightly or wrongly, he was responsible than diplomatic in its eagerness to get a hold of Nathan, and for the death of the then Head of Branch, Darcy Clarke, and Premier Turchin was less than effective at stopping Turkur would have been responsible for the Necroscope's death, too, Tzonov dead in his tracks. We've owned up to our errors, so except Keogh was a different kettle of fish. But we mustn't now it's your turn. Because I have to admit, I'm interested in forget that, at the time, we were trying to kill Keogh! So in a Paxton, too. I thought he'd stopped being a thorn in our side a way it wasn't a personal thing: you could say it was Paxton's long time ago, when Harry left us. And now this. But, let's duty to kill him. But Keogh wasn't about to die, not that face it, in your official capacity you have to be "responsible" easily. Paxton failed; the Necroscope was multi-talented and for a lot more things than just E-Branch. So let's have it all got into his enemy's telepathic mind; he did something to him out in the open, and then maybe we can move on.' that killed his talent, robbed him of his mind-reading skill. 'Afterwards, Paxton came to see me. He was a broken 258 259 'Just recently? Damn little!' Goodly snapped. man, and I have to admit to feeling partly responsible ...' The 'Gentlemen,' Turchin said, holding up his hands. Minister paused and shuffled uncomfortably, but in a little And Zek added: 'Let's keep it impersonal. If you fight now while continued: 'Remember, I am responsible for E-Branch: you'll only be wasting time. And it's not our time to waste, not only for what the Branch does, but also for its security. but Ben's, David's and all the others'.' And Geoffrey Paxton knew a hell of a lot about the 'Listen,' the Minister told all three, a hint of desperation organization and all its members. I thought it would probably showing in his voice, 'ever since I found out that CMI were be a good idea to retain a measure of control over him, to interested in the Branch over and above what one would continue to be his paymaster. After all, it's unusual for a dog to normally expect - and especially interested in Nathan - I've bite the hand that feeds it. That was my reasoning, anyway ... been trying to discover what was going on. Goodly -' he There was an opening in CMI. I got him work there in an turned to the other - 'Wasn't it I who warned you they'd be administrative capacity, watched him for five years until coming for Nathan here at HQ? Look, Paxton is his own boss eventually I was satisfied he'd settled down and wasn't going within the organization . .. well, more or less. I mean there is to be a problem. But CMI has its own Command and Control an over-all Officer Commanding — but he no more structure - and its own rules. One of which is that when a man suspected Paxton than anyone else. The raid on the HQ and gets promoted to Command level, he also gets a change of the trouble at Radujevac were the first he knew of it. Paxton name; it's a simple security measure. I had already lost track of was doing his own thing, don't you see?' The Minister paused Paxton, but would have anyway as he went up in the world.' to mop his brow, and after a moment continued: 'Paxton has a Goodly asked: 'How far up?' flat in the city. We've checked it out, and at last we're The Minister glanced at him coldly, then back at Turchin on beginning to understand. It's full of stuff on E-Branch, the screen. He took another deep breath and said, 'As an full range of the Branch's talents; on Harry Keogh, the organization, CMI is split three ways. From the bottom up: Necroscope's origins and what he was capable of; and on the Administration; Operations; Command, Control and Gates at Perchorsk and Radujevac, almost everything you Instruction. Paxton performed so well on the Command level have on file right here at HQ. Remember, Paxton worked that they were reluctant to let him work in a field capacity. He here! He didn't have to lift any of this stuff; he was required persisted in volunteering, however, and eventually got a to know it! He knew Harry Keogh well enough, for sure!' transfer - and yet another new name: would you believe Goodly frowned. 'An obsession?' Smith? No one outside CMI could keep track of him after that, 'I think so.' The Minister had cooled down a little. 'He which is the whole idea, of course. CMI Ops has three wanted his talent back. Harry Keogh had robbed him of his branches, three Officers Commanding. And Paxton, or "John telepathy, and he wanted it back again. A vampire took his Smith" . . . is now one of them.' talent away from him, so perhaps a vampire could return it. 'It didn't take you long to find out about all of this. About And Paxton knows there are vampires in Starside . ..' This Paxton, I mean.' Goodly's tone of voice sounded close to time the Minister thought he was finished, but Goodly didn't. accusing, and the Minister at once rounded on him. 'So he was interested in Nathan, the son of Harry Keogh. 'Mr Goodly, you've known me for more than twenty years! But .. . how did he find out that Nathan had come over? I Is there no trust left?' mean, that he'd come through the Gate into Perchorsk?' 260 261 The Minister slumped in his chair. 'Yes, you're right. I had Turchin spoke up. 'Do you threaten your superior?' to tell CMI. I mean, I had to! E-Branch and CMI are all we Goodly looked long and hard at the screen. 'No.' He shook have left in the line of national security. If anything was to go his head. 'Not a threat, but a promise. And if you're unwilling wrong we would need a back-up and CMI would be it. So I to help us out of this, I make you the same promise. Look, it's had to bring them in on it! And, of course, Paxton got to know quite obvious that you're a good man. Ben Trask thinks so, about it; it switched him on; it was what he'd been waiting for. anyway, and that's good enough for me. You are trying to Now he could stop playing and start pursuing his real goal, to help your country, and we're trying to help our friends. But get his talent back. In this world . . . or in some other.' neither side can succeed alone. So in helping us you'll be Turchin was looking mystified. 'But if he knows about the helping yourself, because if you don't ... well, come what Radujevac Gate — if all he wants to do is cross into Starside may, I personally guarantee that E-Branch won't be helping — why hasn't he tried it earlier?' you out of anything again. Not ever.' The Minister threw his hands in the air. 'I don't know! Finally Turchin smiled. 'That kind of loyalty means Maybe he wanted to be sure. Maybe he was waiting until he something to me. It's my kind of loyalty! But you know, Mr had a full hand. Maybe the rest of it was literally an obsession, Goodly, my entire country expects my loyalty. And between just a crazy idea he was playing about with -until he found out the three of you, you've made it all too plain where my duty about Nathan - the son of Harry Keogh, the man who'd caused lies. The Radujevac Gate is closed, for the moment. And now all of his problems in the first place. I believe we must close the one in Perchorsk, too.' 'It must have seemed too good to be true; it confirmed what Zek was on her feet at once. 'But not until Ben Trask and Paxton had always suspected, for another Necroscope had the others are out!' come into our world out of Sunside/Starside. And now he, Turchin shook his head. 'I can't promise that. There will Paxton, was tired of waiting. If he wanted to get his talent back have to be a time limit on it.' - and maybe other talents, too - he knew where he had to go. 'But you won't stop us from going in?' Her gasp - the way But there could also be a revenge motive. He'd failed to kill her face lit up - told Turchin a great deal. Keogh, so maybe he could get his boy instead. But not until he Again he smiled. 'No, I won't stop you. Indeed, you'll get had what he wanted out of him. Just how he would go about all the help I can give you! It won't be like the last time you that, I can't say - and maybe Paxton can't either! Maybe he's went through into Starside, Miss Foener.' And as quickly as it playing by ear. Anyway, beyond this point it's all conjectural had come, his smile fell away. 'How things have changed, eh?' and you're as wise as I am. The rest of it is known . . .' The 'For some, maybe.' Goodly was quick off the mark. Minister was through. 'Unfortunately not for others. Have you forgotten so soon? 'All very pat,' said Goodly softly, after a while. Siggi Dam was forced through that Gate, too. But we'll be 'You don't believe me?' The Minister looked at him again. damn lucky to find her!' 'Yes, I do because my talent tells me nothing is going to And frowning thoughtfully, Zek said: 'Or unlucky?' change around here. You're going to be the Minister The Minister Responsible was now much more at ease, Responsible for quite some time to come. Which also means however. 'Yes,' he quickly put in, 'but that was Turkur that whatever you're doing wrong, or mistakenly, was done Tzonov's doing. Things have changed, and for the better, due with the best of motives. Because if it wasn't.. . the Branch has mainly to the efforts of Premier Turchin.' And then, a knack of dealing with its enemies.' 262 263 more businesslike: 'Very well, Sir, you'll set a time limit. hours after the battle at Sanctuary Rock. By no means a And upon its expiry the Gate will be closed. But how will protracted period, not in the whirl of political and diplomatic you do it? I mean, it's been tried before, you know.' activity following on the debacle at Radujevac. But in the Turchin shook his head. 'No, they tried to destroy it — from world of the vampires, that same fifteen hours had seemed a within, with nuclear weapons! But I said we'll close it, and we long, long time indeed. A great deal had happened there, will — under a million tons of rock! You can thank your Mr involving some politics but almost nothing of diplomacy ... Paxton for the idea. He may have made a very temporary thing of it, but my solution will be permanent! Surely nothing of flesh and Turkur Tzonov, along with Staff-Sergeant Bruno Krasin and blood can withstand the weight of a mountain?' his somewhat reduced section of thirteen men — including 'You'll bring the roof down on the place?' Goodly pictured the effeminate yet sadistic locator Alexei Yefros, who but for the Perchorsk complex: that vast, spherical cavern at its core. his talent might best be classified 'excess baggage' - had Riddled with magmass wormholes, the whole place could passed through the Perchorsk Gate some two and a quarter easily be made to collapse in upon itself - and upon the Gate, hours before Nathan and his party entered the Radujevac blocking it forever. 'But how much time will you give us?' Gate. Therefore it might logically be concluded that they 'How much time will you need?' would arrive in Starside first. But in the context of abstract Zek ventured: Three days?' space-time mathematics, considering the complexities of Turchin shrugged, seemed bemused. 'Certainly, my dear. white, black and grey holes, and passageways between worlds But... will that be enough?' and indeed universes in general, there was sufficient disparity 'Three, er, Starside days?' Returning his shrug, she tried to that they arrived last. Even in Earth's mundane science, it is look innocent and failed. accepted that a straight line is not the shortest distance 'Three weeks?' Now Turchin was plainly staggered. 'After between two points. In any case, Tzonov and his men had what you've told me about that place, the dangers it harbours?' gone on foot, carrying their weapons, while the Necroscope's But the Minister Responsible was nodding. They might party had been 'conveyed' between worlds, and all of their well need all of that and more, yes,' he agreed. equipment with them. Eventually Turchin gave in. 'As you will, twenty-one The fighting between Gorvi the Guile's warrior and days. And when will your party set out?' lieutenants and Nathan's party had been over for something ( Tomorrow,' Goodly answered, 'or the next day at the very more than an hour when Tzonov's section emerged from the latest.' And although he was cringing inside, he doggedly uppermost of the Starside Gates; emerged into starlit night, deciphered a brief, echoing precognitive glimpse of the naturally, and stepped down from the crater rim onto the eerie, future. Tomorrow or the day after, it's got to be. After that, foreboding, blue-tinged boulder plains. It was a stroke of bad and for as far as I can see right now, there will be nothing luck, but Tzonov had always known that the chance of it much Jeft for us here. Not for me and Zek, anyway. .. being sunup was only a little better than two to one against. On the other hand, Tzonov's men were trained and their All of which conversation had taken place some fifteen egomaniac leader 'knew' that Starside's vampire men and creatures could be stopped. All it took was firepower, and he had plenty of that. The once-Head of Russia's E-Branch wasn't looking for that sort of confrontation, however, not 264 265 mistaking his signal; he throws off those esoteric numbers at this time, and certainly not on Starside; his coming here at and symbols of his like a dog shedding fleas!' He nodded his all had been a course of last resort, which he had been forced head west and a little south, almost at right angles to their to take. And that in turn meant that the sooner he made his direction of travel. 'He's that way, across the mountains.' way through the great pass into Sunside and safety the better. 'Huh!' Tzonov grunted. 'He's on Sunside with the Szgany To conquer and convert a world, first conquer its weakest — or Gypsies to you. But you waste your talent on that one. inhabitants. Oh, I know, you found him easily enough up there in the Tzonov's knowledge of the vampire world was Urals; but it won't be so easy the next time. Nathan had to go rudimentary, but he did know that the Gate stood close to a on foot then, but no longer. He is a Necroscope and has his pass through the barrier mountains. Standing at the base of father's talents. We want to get somewhere, we walk. But he the crater wall, and shielding his eyes from the glare of the . . . simply goes there. He can be here, there, everywhere; Gate, he scanned carefully along the silhouette of the star- you'd get dizzy just looking for him! You are a locator and limned range of towering peaks and high plateaux until he I'm a telepath, and our talents come in very handy. But his are spied a deep cleft, a little to the east of his location. It must amazing — and deadly! That's the reason I issued that order be the pass, where the mountains were split to their roots. on the way in here, that he's to be shot on sight.' And as Krasin lined up his suddenly silent men in three As he finished speaking there came a weird hissing and a ranks, Tzonov pointed out the way for them. Setting out, coughing rumble from somewhere to the left and a little Alexei Yefros kept pace with Tzonov, a short distance behind behind them, an animal articulation as opposed to any kind of the squad. mechanical sound. Signalling the squad to keep a low profile, Yefros was a thin-faced weasel of a creature, a misogynist Bruno Krasin at once scaled a jagged, leaning boulder, put nite- with bright, narrow, blackbird eyes, a thin nose and lips, and site binoculars to his eyes, and scanned the land eastwards a very ugly sadistic streak. His hair was shiny-black and and to the rear. In another moment, as the noise sounded stuck flat to his scalp as if painted there. His reflexes were again, Krasin's jaw fell open in a silent gasp and he signalled fast, his movements quick, nervous, but rarely fumbling. Tzonov to join him. The squad kept going as Tzonov climbed Tzonov had looked into his mind on a number of occasions up beside his senior man, while at the foot of the boulder and knew it for a cesspool; the man's sexual proclivities were Yefros waited nervous as a cat in the shadows. ... unusual, to say the least. 'What is it?' Tzonov whispered, taking the binoculars from Tzonov had never made friends easily, and Yefros was not his 2I/C. In his perception, Bruno Krasin was the perfect a man he would have chosen anyway. But the locator had military underling; the blood of Cossack forefathers ran been in Perchorsk when Gustav Turchin made his move and, strong in him. Dark-skinned, wiry, long-limbed and as fit as knowing which side his bread was buttered, he'd fled with Tzonov himself, Krasin was tall, thirtyish, square-jawed, Tzonov and the rest to the Gate at the core of the complex. hard-eyed. As a boy, he had been indoctrinated in the ways Anyway, they were espers together and Yefros much of an obsolete ideology by his hard-line communist father, an admired Tzonov, which was why the latter suffered his ex-officer of the KGB. It was entirely in keeping that Krasin company. Also, there could be no question but that as a was one of Tzonov's most trusted men. locator Yefros was one of the best; a fact which he was now able to prove. 'Your "alien" is here,' he told Tzonov. 'There can be no 266 267 Now he hissed a warning: 'Shh!' but offered no other reply. mouth of the pass. From behind but gradually fading, the He scarcely needed to; Tzonov would have to be blind not to uneasy rumbling of the warrior followed them most of the see the thing. His own gasp was audible - indeed visible - as way . .. his breath plumed in the cold night air and the horizontal sweep of his binoculars jerked abruptly to a halt. Then: In the pass, several surprises were waiting. Because of the low 'A warrior!' he breathed, cold sweat gleaming on his brow. trajectory of the sun and the elevation of the barrier range, it Until now the thing had been hidden by the terrain; it lay in a had been night on Starside for some hours now; but it soon slight depression, in the lee of a cluster of boulders where became apparent that on Sunside darkness had fallen much Gorvi the Guile had left it. Tzonov could make out the more recently. heaving motion of scales as the thing breathed, the jetting of Following a barely discernible trail through the scree of hot air through nostrils six inches wide, the glimmer of shattered boulders tumbled from the heights, in something starlight on chitin. 'We had better get after the men, Bruno,' less than an hour the squad passed through a dog-leg defile he whispered. 'And from now on the order is absolute silence!' and saw ahead . .. the very last trace of a sunset? Strange, until 'What is it?' Yefros called up to them, his nervous voice Tzonov remembered that a day and night in the vampire echoing out and away. As if in answer, they heard for the world were the equivalent of a whole week in his. The sun third time that primal, threatening rumble of sound. And, hod set on Sunside, but a slowly fading crack of amethyst magnified in the lenses of the nite-sites, Tzonov saw an light yet remained to show where it had sunk down out of armour-plated, prow-like head lift listlessly from the earth, sight. Pale though that glow was, it threw the walls of the pass and a flicker of eyes like scarlet lamps in the — face? — of the and the distant crest of a rising saddle into silhouette. And in disturbed monster. so doing it became, as it were, the 'light at the end of the Tzonov handed the binoculars back to Krasin, glanced tunnel' for Tzonov's men. This world, even this pass into down once, furiously, at Yefros and jumped. Landing Sunside, had seemed full of morbid alien auras - rightly so. expertly, soundlessly, in the dust, he straightened up and But now in the glow of this faint crack of light the spirits of grabbed the locator by the throat, cutting off any further the men were lifted; they even began to exchange small talk - questions. And: 'Fool!' he hissed. 'Locator? Oh, and do you albeit in whispers. want to be located? If you would go on Jiving . .. keep . . . The second surprise was nothing of nature but an artifact, fucking ... quiet! Releasing the other, he thrust him away and perhaps of men. But Tzonov, who knew some few things at told him: 'Catch up with the section — but quietly!' least about this vampire world, had his doubts. For some time As Yefros threw a narrow-eyed, accusing glance at his he had been keeping himself apart from Yefros, walking at the superior and stumbled away, rubbing at his throat, Krasin head of the section with Krasin. Now, he called for the locator came down from his observation point. In a barely audible to join them, and in the light of electric torch-beams they whisper he said, 'I think the thing's asleep! We may have picked out the rough-hewn features of a towering edifice. disturbed it a little, that's all.' Here, where the bed of the gorge had narrowed to a They hurried to catch up with the rest, and in the blue- bottleneck at the foot of sheer canyon walls, the east face had tinged night of Starside, made all possible speed for the been carved into a rearing keep or observation post ideally sited to guard the pass; or perhaps it was a 268 269 Wamphyri way-station, where lieutenant slave-takers had moved from feature to feature, getting the feel of it. He took in rested during the long trek back to Starside with Szgany its awesome starlit gauntness, its texture of blue-gleaming captives. Tzonov's understanding, however, was that the last stone (which looked and felt more like bone), the inhuman members of the Old Wamphyri had died out sixteen years ago soullessness of bleak, frowning facades; its battlements carved when nuclear missiles had been fired into Starside from of solid rock, notched into gaping embrasures, or merlons Perchorsk. Which meant that this castle could only be a relic thrusting up into towers and turrets; its flying buttresses, and of old times and no longer in use. the menacing chutes of its gargoyle corbels. But on the other hand ... Tzonov had seen a warrior creature 'Well?' Tzonov said again. back there on the plain of boulders, and he'd had it from Siggi Torch-beams reached out, swept up and up the face of the Dam how Nathan had been punished, even banished from great keep. Ledges in the virgin rock had been carved into Sunside/Starside, by a new breed of Wamphyri. Indeed, it had massive steps, causeways climbing from one level to the next. been one of Tzonov's fears (ostensibly, at least) that Nathan Vertiginous arches made bridges to parts of the architecture might be a spy for vampire masters, sent to check out the lie which were otherwise inaccessible, where the overhanging of the land before the Lords themselves came through. Also, face jutted or generally obstructed; cowled window-holes as Tzonov and the section had climbed the foothills' gradient gloomed like dark eyes in the star-silvered stone, frowning to the pass, he and Bruno Krasin had paused and turned for a down on the midgets ogling from the shadows. moment to gaze out over Starside. Far in the northeast they'd 'Well?' spied a distant stack, and Tzonov knew that he hadn't 'Wait,' Yefros muttered peevishly. He still hadn't forgiven imagined those flickering lights and the smoke going up. Tzonov, and wanted him to know it. Also, he wanted his There might not be as many of the Wamphyri as before, but talent appreciated. Why should Tzonov get all of his there could be no denying that they were here. And . . . it was admiration, while Alexei Yefros got nothing in return? sundown, their time. Looking into Yefros's black eyes, Tzonov read the locator's Tzonov shrugged off a feeling of foreboding, dismissing it thoughts, his disappointment: that his superior had such scant like an itch between his shoulder-blades, and gave his regard for him. Maybe in future he should treat him more attention to the great gaunt keep. In any case, he felt sure his kindly — while he needed him, anyway. But for the time men had the measure of anything they might find here. being: he knew that Yefros was doing his job, that he was Nothing that lived could possibly face up to their weapons. diligently 'searching' the keep, and so kept his peace. And the Except .. . he'd seen film of the early Perchorsk encounters, locator continued his mental exploration. and now remembered some of the things that had come The structure started maybe fifty feet up the cliff face, half- through into the core. They had been stopped, yes, but it way to the top of a lone, projecting stack. In the chimney hadn't been that easy . . . between cliff and pillar, stone steps were visible zigzagging The men were waiting for him to say something. He turned upwards to the mouth of a domed cave. Presumably this to Yefros and asked, 'Well, what do you make of it?' cavern entrance was extensive, with its own passageways into The locator was peering at the castle built into the face of the keep proper. Higher still, the fortifications spread outwards the cliff, concentrating upon it, searching through its massive across the face of the cliff like a weird stone fungus, covering walls. Nervously alert, bird-like, his shining black eyes Nature's efforts with the lesser but more purposeful works of . . . men? Well, men of sorts. 270 271 But plainly the builders of the keep weren't here now. No merlon had been shaped into a stone dragon, with a gaping figures moved on the battlements or on the stairways; no mouth that formed a circular corbel chute. But these dragons lights shone in the windows, turrets or high balconies. The were of no mundane design; they had the lean bodies of place was deserted, which Yefros now confirmed: wolves poised to leap, the folded wings of bats, and the faces 'No one is in there. It's empty. But there are - I don't know - . . . of men. Well, of monsters at least. echoes?' Huge, ages-blackened, iron-studded gates leaned open on 'Echoes?' Tzonov waited. rusted hinges. Embellished with the same awesome dragon Yefros shrugged. 'It's as if the keep itself were undead. As motif, their welcome seemed cynical, to say the least. The if the very stones waited ...' squad went through them at the run in teams of four: one left, 'But you sensed, or located, no one, nothing?' one right, two covering; a breathless pause of five seconds to Yefros looked puzzled, undecided, even harassed. But secure positions, then a leapfrog movement forward as the finally he answered, 'No, I located . . . no one.' It was the first next team followed on. Tzonov, Yefros and Krasin came on time Tzonov had seen him uncertain of his talent. behind, moving from one secured position to the next. And so By now Tzonov was convinced that the place was even into the courtyard, and from there to the steps and cavern more ancient than he'd at first thought. In the old times there entrance; finally into the keep itself. had been wars between the Wamphyri Lords, blood-wars, Sprawling across the face of the cliff, the keep's extensive when this keep would have been a fortress proper. It certainly surface area was greatly disproportionate to its depth. The seemed unlikely that a structure like this - so well fortified builders hadn't hollowed out the cliff to any great extent but and apparently impregnable - had been built to fend off had used natural caves wherever possible. Quite obviously, common Szgany tribesmen! But there was no reason why and just as Tzonov had supposed, the place must have been a 'common' men couldn't defend it. way-station and observation post. Dust lay thickly layered That's our refuge till morning,' he said. 'Which in turn wherever time or the elements had deposited it, with never a means we have three days here, Earth-time.' And turning to foot- or claw-print to disturb it other than the fresh, sharp- Krasin: 'See to it.' etched imprints of combat boots. Krasin gathered the squad to him in a semicircle, allowed The men relaxed a little. Defensive points were manned; those who wished to smoke to do so, told them: The place wood was gathered; in less than half an hour, smoke and seems deserted. In you go, search and secure - but carefully! cooking smells went up from chimneys cold for fifty years. Sort out defensive positions, and prepare a roster for guard Tzonov said nothing, but as he looked at the great girth of the duties. Then back out here to gather fuel. Among this rubble fireplaces and the size of the rusted iron spits, he couldn't help there are trees fallen from the heights. Gather wood and let's thinking: The last time that people cooked here, people were have some fires going. Then we'll break out the rations. Any cooked here! questions? No? Then get to it...' It was a nightmarish thought . .. but not nearly as At its base, where the stack stood free of the cliff and nightmarish as the huge mummified grey thing which one of formed the keep's foundation stone, it was surrounded by a the men discovered in a previously unexplored observation wall whose ends joined up with the cliff face. The wall was of tower, where access had been difficult, due to fallen masonry. massive masonry, stood twelve to fifteen feet high, and was Tzonov was with Krasin when the shuddering soldier crowned with merlons and embrasures. Every other 272 273 inch thick. Protection against the cold, during monotonously reported his find, and was at once arrested by the man's long nights of duty in the keep? Possibly. answer to Krasin's abrupt: 'What is it?' The most puzzling feature in Tzonov's estimation was an 'It's something I found, sir. I . . . stumbled against it - upward-projecting, featureless nodule at the base of the touched it - and it's dead. But what it is? Well, it isn't a man neck; its short stem was knuckled like a spine, but its bald, ...' bulbous terminal might easily be a second cranium, with a They returned with him to his discovery, and on the way smaller brain housed in a skull only half the size of a normal Tzonov called for Yefros to accompany them. In the tower human head . .. over the gorge they shone their torches where the soldier 'Alexei.' He glanced up at the locator. 'What do you make pointed, and Tzonov understood what he'd meant. Quite of this?' definitely, the thing was not a man. But a long time ago, it Yefros was standing beside him, gazing down on the might have been several men. thing in disgust. 'I don't know.' He shook his head. 'But there The thing was as big as a horse, but . . . there could be no was once a theory, mainly fallen into disrepute now, that further comparison with anything of Earthly origin. Except certain dinosaurs evolved secondary brains in their spines to perhaps men. Its many legs and feet, and single pair of arms control their armoured tails. They were too big and and hands, were short and stubby but manlike. Rather: if lumbering; it was Nature's way of balancing the deficiency men wore them, they would not look out of place. of slow thought processes and reflexes. This, however -' he The thing had fallen over on its side and died there. It must shook his head again, gulping audibly as he backed away - be dead, for it was partly mummified ... the dry air had kept 'is nothing of Nature. I believe it is the echo I talked about. It it from corruption. Tzonov got down on one knee, shone a was made by men, and it was made . . . of men? Yes, and a torch on the thing close up. Take three men, cut them across long time ago. And one more thing, Turkur. It isn't dead yet! their bodies about nipple height and fold them forward at the Not quite dead, anyway ...' waist one behind the other. Then fuse them, chest to buttocks In the last few seconds, Tzonov had become aware of a and so on, all three into one. Now take the excised material sick smell rising from the shrivelled, crumpled thing. and mould it into a long, flexible neck, with nothing much of Externally it was fairly well-preserved. But internally .. .? a head but a mouthful of grinding teeth, rudimentary nostrils Now, as an eyelid cracked open in the near-mummified neck, and ears, and (most importantly) a great many eyes along the and others in the blob of a head, he kicked himself neck and tapering nub of a head, so providing your - your backwards away from it, sprawling in the dust. what? Your alien, six-legged centaur? Or simply your observer? - your thing, anyway, with the means to scan in Some of the eyes were black sockets, dribbling a thick, every direction simultaneously. tarry, morbid substance; others were yellow with pus. But That was what this abomination was: a Wamphyri one at least was clear . .. and stared directly, however construct, a sentinel whose sole function had been to keep vacantly, at Turkur Tzonov! His talent was instinct in him. watch over the gorge. Except its eyes were fused shut now in Even sprawling there, he could read the thing's feeble mind merciful death. So it seemed. as clearly as a living man's, and actually felt the faint pulse of The entire - creature - was covered in thick, leathery skin; thoughts which it sent hurtling towards Starside from the where this had desiccated and cracked open, it was seen to telepathic ganglion in its secondary brain: be more in the nature of animal hide an eighth of an Master ... my Lord . .. there are ... men . . . in the ... keep! 274 275 That was all. But the rotting eyes of the undead horror continued to follow the four as they left the turret and descended gratefully into the company of other human beings II ... Reconnaissance In a little while they returned with flame-throwers and burned the watcher where it lay. Later still, Tzonov ordered his own sentries to be especially wary for the duration of their stay. After all, he knew that the creature had transmitted a final message to someone, There was no way that Turkur Tzonov could know it, but a somewhere. In that last, however, he was mistaken. The thing few scant minutes after he and his half-platoon had left had tried, certainly - but uselessly. And, just like the blazing Starside to enter the mouth of the great pass - and therefore observer itself, as chemical fire reduced it to roiling smoke and into the shelter and doubtful safety of the gorge's shadows greasy ashes, Tzonov had no way of knowing that its message and shielding rock walls - the Lady Wratha and her much had not and could never be received. depleted Wrathstack army passed half a mile beyond the He himself had been able to 'read' the thought by virtue of glaring hemisphere of the Starside Gate, on her way back to his eye-to-eye telepathy. But as for anyone else: the creature the last aerie. The dimly flickering lights that Tzonov and could only communicate with its master, whichever Lord had Krasin had seen in that solitary stack's windows were 'built' it. Wratha's beacons guiding her home. And the maker and master of the watcher, the great Lord But if he and his section had entered the pass only a Shaithis of the Wamphyri, had been dead now for more than minute or so later, then despite all of their human ingenuity sixteen years ... and much-vaunted firepower they might never have entered it at all. For then Wratha or Canker, Gorvi, Wran or Spiro, or even some senior lieutenant, might well have detected the aroma of human flesh, picked up human thoughts, or by some other means unique to their individual Wamphyri senses or talents, become 'aware' of the presence of men in Starside. Or there again, perhaps not. Certainly the Lady and Lords had more important things on their minds; indeed, it could well be that Tzonov and his men owed their survival to Wratha's concern for her own. For the Lady's eyes scanned Starside's skies this night, not its land. And her senses were alert for intruders, not refugees. Do you have a plan? Wran the Rage's query entered Wratha's mind undisguised, urgent and anxious. With a battle in the offing, there was no time for bluff and bluster. 277 settling them his way! He bound far greater Lords than you in He could rant and rage all he wanted then, but little use for chains, and strung them up by their heels for the sun to fry! such now. Hah! Only be sure he'll do it again, here, tonight, if you don't Aye, she sent back. But only if you and Spiro, Gorvi and listen to reason. Canker - and the necromancer Nestor Lichloathe, whatever Gorvi the Guile had been silent for some time. Fallen out that one is up to, and wherever he is now - will agree to put of favour with the rest, he had to mind his words. But at last yourselves, your men and monsters at my command. Then I he felt obliged to ask, So what is this plan of yours, Wratha, may have a plan. and how do we bring it into being? And anyway, what At your command? makes you think you're so much smarter than us when it Of course. (Her curt mental nod, and an eyebrow lifted as if comes to plotting wars? Just like his real voice, his mental in mild surprise.) As Lord Taintspore commands ,his army out sendings seemed to ooze, insinuate, and cling like glutinous of Turgosheim, so I shall command the forces of the last aerie. tar. And j u st as Vormulac has his generals, I shall have mine. Hah! she snorted in return. And now the so-called 'Guile' What? And didn't we always plan it that way? says his piece - as if he has the right! But a fairer question Huh/ Spiro Killglance scowled across the gulf of air. We might be: 'Where was Gorvi this night, when the best of his should put ourselves and our men under the orders of a men were being slaughtered at Sanctuary Rock? woman? And where has that got us so far? Tonight, for What!? he commenced to bluster. But if you'd only hear instance. Was that an example of your leadership? my story - Wratha's scowl was no less severe. My shell is that of a No time for stories, Gorvi! Wratha cut him short. Time for woman, aye, but my leech is a vampire no less than yours. And action, and barely enough time, at that. Very well, you ask I am all Wamphyri.' As for leadership: would you even know why I am smarter and I'll tell you: because I'm a woman! All that Lord Vormulac was here, if not for me? And as for right, you have your guile - but I have my woman's wiles, all tonight: so the Lidescis waylaid us. It has happened to the doubled and redoubled by my leech! And I was never the best.. . dullard, believe me. As a girl on Sunside I killed a lieutenant. Spiro wasn't satisfied. But in a fight? You're not built for it, And fresh risen as a vampire I did away with his brother. Wratha. Built for other things, certainly; built to be under a Then, to be a Lady, I - usurped? - Karl the Crag. All by my man, to . . . accommodate him? But did you think to fuck them wits alone, where muscle would not suffice. So tell me: who all to death? Tussling with a man in your bed is all very well, better to lead you now, when sheer numbers may whelm you Lady, but going up against a gang of them wearing gauntlets is down, and all the tenacity and willpower of a world will not something else again! Now tell me, what do you really know of suffice? The simple truth is that none of us is experienced in fighting? war. For in Turgosheim we were too soft for too long; we To command is not to fight, fool! Her retort was stinging in have almost forgotten how to wage war! In the years since I its intensity. To command is to direct the fighting! And we ascended there have been damn few feuds, let alone wars! aren't talking about a skirmish or even a battle, but a war - a And as for the Szgany we knew: they were the most docile of full-scale bloodwar! Listen, Vormulac is a warlord born ... but creatures. That's why these Lidescis continue to get the better you? When you and your brother were wetting yourselves if of us: because we're not used to resistance. .. . your father so much as glanced at you, Lord Unsleep was settling blood feuds in Turgosheim - and 278 279 And as Wrathstack loomed ever closer, so she went on to Finally, she paused and swept hot red eyes over all of them. lay the foundations of survival. Until: There, I'm done, she told them. You may fall in with me or simply .. . fall. And in the morning wake with the sunrise - In a little while, hand-picked lieutenants and warriors began to find it shining in your eyes! But make up your minds quick, to peel off from the main aerial formation and go winging for we'll soon be home and I've orders to give. And then you'll down to those strewn, blackened, exploded stumps of Star- see if I have a plan or not. side stacks whose names were long forgotten, and shortly Canker Canison was still groggy from the knock he'd taken, after that Wratha and the rest arrived back in Wrathstack. but it was his turn to say his piece. Wratha, I'm with you! he But even before they landed in their various bays, their barked in her mind. My head's still singing and I can't think a orders had been received and acted upon by rear parties left in damn, but you're the only thing that's held us together so far, charge of the manses. and individually we're finished for sure. So what will you have In Guilesump, Madmanse, Wrathspire and Mangemanse - me and mine do? Order away, Lady. and especially in Suckscar, from which for the moment and Wratha turned to scan the hag-ridden sky under its canopy possibly for some time to come, the necromancer Lord Nestor of blue-glittering stars. She looked upon her 'colleagues', all Lichloathe was absent; which meant that his thralls and grim in their saddles where they rode for the Northstar, whose lieutenants were more than usually anxious for their own pharos eye gleamed down on Wrathstack, silhouetted now and the manse's safety - lights grew dim and blinked out as against the shimmer of the northern aurora. Silent, scowling, gas-jets were plugged and mantles hooded, and smoke ceased the Wamphyri Lords rode the wind, and to a man they were coiling from the chimneys as fires were extinguished. Cooking aware of the truth in Canker's words. But the Lady would have smells, escaping from the kitchens to the open air, were it from their own lips, their own minds. And the rest of you? wafted this way and that, dissipated by frantic wings of she said. What of you others? What of you, Wran, Spiro, Gorvi? Desmodus; all other culinary activity came to an abrupt halt. Will you stand like giants, or fall like swatted flies? All signs and sigils, pennants and heraldic devices were Wran had his pride, but he was not a fool. And in a little taken down and replaced by a handful of mouldering, while: Say on, Lady, came his mental grunt. Followed by indecipherable rags out of ages past. Water-catchment skins Spiro's rasped: So be it! And finally Gorvi's grudging: Any were removed, and likewise replaced by tattered, decaying plan has to be better than none. leathers. All signs of recent usage - of external stairs and There was no time for Wratha to take pleasure in their causeways, platforms, turrets and such, and, after the various submission, their admission that they needed her skills as a f parties had landed in their manses, of the landing-bays leader. If anything, she felt a sensation of relief and nothing of themselves — were disguised or camouflaged, which included elation, and so steered well clear of gloating as she began to the removal of main supports and ironwood stanchions, and outline her plan. Very well. Now listen: It's my belief that the indiscriminate scattering of dust and debris where bays Vormulac is no more than an hour and a half away, at most. had been polished by the constant slither and thrust of Which means we have a lot to do and very little time in which to flyers' bellies. So that in less than an hour the stack had do it. If you follow my instructions to the letter, we may survive taken on an appearance of disuse to the point of dereliction .. the first assault. After that, it's in the hands of fortune and the . exactly as Wratha required it. fates, if you believe in such. Personally, I believe in me — and so must you! This is how it shall be . . . 281 280 And not only lights and fires, smoke and smells, but even roost, where in future they would lord it over the entire the thoughts of the stack's diverse inhabitants - Lords, colony. And so the Lord Unsleep's creatures entered lieutenants, thralls and creatures alike - were stilled. From the Wrathstack - basement of Guilesump, up through the broad levels of the — Whose massive walls muffled to indecipherable squeaks Killglance brothers' Madmanse, and from Canker Cani-son's and squeals their panic cries of shock, surprise, and sudden Mangemanse through Suckscar and Wrathspire to the latter's death, and the brief flailing of membrane wings to the topmost turret, such telepathic silence reigned as never couJd fading echoes of a flutter ... be heard. Wrathstack . . . was dead! Or seemed it. A second trio of Vormulac's creatures had stooped on the tumbled aeries of the old Wamphyri lying broken on the Perhaps Lord Unsleep's great bat familiars, his aerial scouts, boulder plains, exploring them in the exposed, exploded should have known better, and perhaps not. There was after areas of their shattered stems and bases. But delving too all something of the bat in the Wamphyri, too, not to mention deeply, they fared no better than the others. Netted by other creatures, such as the wolf and, in Canker's case, the lieutenants and trampled by warriors, their cries were trapped fox. But more devious far, there was also that of men in them. in dust and rubble and lost in the ruins of blackened They were or had been men; they had the minds of men, and basements. No word of Wratha's whereabouts would reach therefore Man's intelligence, his cunning and tenacity, but Turgosheim's army through the medium of Desmodus, at vastly enhanced by their vampire leeches. And where cunning least. and tenacity are concerned .. . Wratha, of course, was a And indeed, a half-hour later, neither a creature nor a woman. sound, nor even a thought betrayed the Lady, but an effect of And so, to Vormulac's advance intelligence agents, his fickle Nature that announced her presence even a dozen familiar bats, where they scouted out the way some ninety miles away, and so went far beyond Wratha's or anyone minutes ahead of the main body of his army, Wrathstack else's control. .. looked as Wratha intended it to look: empty and derelict. Even her own familiars seemed wild, untamed, without Ten miles east of the great pass into Sunside, Lord Vormulac purpose in their flitting, side-slipping, weaving and plummeting Taintspore had landed his army in the heights of the barrier courtship flights in and about Wrathspire's towers and turrets. mountains, on what was once a mighty lava flow, now a But sensing the approach of strangers, outsiders, the initial series of gently sloping plateau summits, like a giant's curiosity which these indigenous bats displayed quickly causeway rising from east to west and gradually angling turned (or appeared to turn) to anxiety for their colony, their south into the fanged caldera of the dead volcano. From territory; and as three of Vormulac's creatures commenced there, he and his most valued confidante, the so-called circling Wrathspire's ramparts, so the aerie's own inhabitants 'virgin grandam' Devetaki Skullguise, along with Laughing bolted for familiar cranny entranceways into the stack and Zack Shornskull and Lady Zindevar Cronesap (who would disappeared within. much prefer to eschew her mainly derisory cognomen and Plainly, they weren't much for defending their territory, go simply under the name of Zindevar), mounted fresh these great cowards! Vormulac's scouts set up a derisive flyers and went up again to find a place to perch, spy out chittering and made to follow the stack's bats to their very the land, and confer a while in private. But after they found a landing site in the topmost peaks 282 283 these western regions free of Wamphyri influence. Indeed, the of the ages-worn caldera - and when they gazed out from their Seer-Lord Maglore had been sure that the last of the Old high vantage point on all of this unknown land - what they saw Wamphyri had died out some eight hundred sunups ago, in a cut conversation to a minimum. Far to the south, the rim of the terrible holocaust wrought by a magician in their midst who world was outlined against a haze of faint starlight, its curve had called up Things beyond his control. silhouetted by a dim sickle of amethyst light growing dimmer But what if Maglore was wrong and the Old Wamphyri by the minute, residual of sunset. And at the foot of the barrier mountains, ranging out and away to the savanna and the far survived to this day? What a greeting Wratha would have had furnace deserts, all of Sunside's forests spread like a dark from them! The theory might also serve to explain these green ocean under ever-brightening ice-cluster stars. From east campfires; for if there were vampires here - and if their reign to west, as far as the eyes (even Wamphyri eyes) could see, had been unbroken since time immemorial - then of course a that fertile tract with its promise, and much more than a majority of the tribes would be supplicant... promise, of human life. All of these were points which Vormulac and his generals For there in the woods, campfires! Four sets of them: two to chewed over in the peaks, before Laughing Zack Shornskull the east, one directly below, and another a mile or so west. Not said: There is of course a simple way to find out. Take a the fires of trogs, no, for here in Old Sunside the aboriginals handful of chosen men and monsters, fly down on the most were as their Turgosheim cousins: night creatures, cave- isolated of those fires and take prisoners. It's something that dwellers, Starsiders. Wherefore these must be the camps of must be done anyway, if we'd feed our men and beasts. Then, men. They could only be! Hot human blood for Lord if the people down there aren't supplicants already, they damn Taintspore's army, to fuel his war on Wratha the Risen! soon will be! And a heavy tithe to pay, too, I fear.' And Zack, Except . . . if Wratha and her renegades were here, then what a squat, barrel-bodied tub of a Lord, chuckled deep in the back sort of men were these western Sunsiders, that they lit her way of his throat, as was his wont. There was never any humour in with fires to guide her to them in the night? Had she brought Zack's 'mirth', but he chuckled anyway. them to heel so quickly, then, in the space of only two or three Before Vormulac could answer, Devetaki exclaimed: 'Look years? Were these the fires of supplicant tribes, as the Szgany there!' And all heads turned north, where she pointed. Which of Turgosheim's Sunside? Or was it that Wratha and her lot, was the moment that Wratha was discovered; or if not the like so many of Vormulac's men and creatures, had failed to Lady herself, her fortress stack at least. And: 'See!' said make the crossing from east to west, had been devoured by the Devetaki. 'See! Now tell me, is that an aerie, or what?' rising sun, or had fallen into the reeking acid lakes of the Great Erratic in its orbit, the pale disk of a blue and silver moon Red Waste? seemed on a level with their eyes over the cold northern In which case, these people would never have suspected horizon. Perhaps it was lit by the Northstar, or by starshine in Wratha's existence in the first place, and so would continue general, or its own surface was of reflective rocks. Whichever, their simple lives as always. Which might possibly explain and despite that the sun was down, the moon sailed over these apparently careless fires, but in turn posed another Starside like a softly glowing bubble in the sky. Except... question: why so few fires? Or was there another, entirely . . . It seemed stabbed in its belly by a mighty spire, by the different, infinitely more threatening solution to this puzzle? topmost fang of the last aerie! And just as that telltale moon Back in Turgosheim, the venerable Maglore had declared 284 285 had informed Vormulac of his safe passage over the Great Red 'Aye, six of them,' she answered. 'I sent three along the Waste, so now it informed on Wrathstack, which was Sunside flank, as far as they could go and still return in the otherwise camouflaged by night and dark and distance. first quarter of the night. Don't expect them back yet a while. 'And down there!' cried Devetaki, whose eyes were keener The others went out over the Sunside forests, to see what that the rest put together. 'There, to the west. That glowing they could discover of secretive Szgany! With a bit of luck, light in the Starside foothills. What of that? See, it throws a they'll ignore campfires such as these we've seen as being the plume of foxfire out across the plain of boulders.' For she had work of supplicants, and seek out the furtive ones in the spied the Starside Gate. forests. If such men are to be found, then my bloodhounds Vormulac frowned, snapped his fingers. 'I sent a team of will find them, be sure!' great bats ahead, along the spine of these barrier mountains,' he Vormulac gave a grunt, perhaps of disappointment. 'This said. 'Six of them - but only five returned. They reported a last-mentioned trio of yours: they, too, might take hours in great wonder: a ball of cold white light, half-buried in the the performance of their task?' foothills. The familiar who was lost strayed too close to the She shrugged mannish shoulders. 'As long as it takes. Is it light, was blinded by it and eaten up. Such was my translation important?' of their report. That -' he nodded his great head in the direction The warrior-Lord glanced at her, wrinkled his nostrils a of Devetaki's pointing finger - 'is perhaps the Thing which they very little, otherwise was not intimidated by the Lady reported. No doubt we'll find out more as we journey west. Ah, Zindevar's decidedly male aura. For the atmosphere about her but I sent six more to spy out the land across the plain of was ever pervaded with this manly odour: a cloying stench of boulders and see if they could discover ought of Wratha the sweat and muscle which all her many perfumes together Risen. So far they've not returned - not a one of them!' He could not hope to obscure. Despite her years, whose number turned cold, suspicious, gold-flecked scarlet eyes on the distant fell not far short of Vormulac's hundred and fifty, she looked stack. And as Vormulac's frown deepened, so his eyebrows youngish or in her middle-span at most, which said a deal for drew together over the bridge of his hawk nose. Then, to her lifestyle. Zindevar was no Zolteist, no great 'ascetic'. Zindevar Cronesap: Indeed, and in her leather armour - for all that her face was 'My Lady, what of your own familiars, which you brought rouged and painted under her visor, and the telltale girth of with you out of Turgosheim? I trust you instructed them as I her bust and behind - she looked far more the warrior than a required of you?' good many of Vormulac's handsome young Lords! Zindevar was a 'Lady' in name only; no more or less than Eventually he answered her: 'It could be important, aye. any Wamphyri Lady, except she made no effort to hide the For I would like to send a few more bats to spy on that tower truth of her aspect, the facts of her lifestyle - which in any there, and on those lesser mounds lying scattered all about.' event were plainly evident in her face and form. What looks He indicated the lone stack far out on the boulder plains: a and shape she had worn on the day of her ascension, she'd dark fang now and hard to make out, for the hurtling moon kept. They were scarcely desirable to men, but in Zindevar's had ridden on and the auroral curtain wove too high to make case this was just as well. With the exception of a small a silhouette. And humped on the plain in disarray, those dark handful of fighting men, her male thralls and lieutenants were and enigmatic remains of which he'd spoken. eunuchs; which, and apart from breeding stock, all men shouJd be, according to the Lady. 286 287 He turned to Devetaki Skullguise. 'My Lady, do you have bestow his egg. His vampire daughters vied with each other, bats with you? Or if not, do you know of any other who naturally, to see which one would become Wamphyri and a brought his familiar creatures with him out of Turgosheim?' Lady. In all likelihood, they would be Wamphyri anyway, but Devetaki answered with a nod, her gold-filigreed, frowning the one who got his egg would be first among them. Now, half-mask glinting with reflected starshine. 'Yes to your however, when they saw Devetaki and knew how their father second question, my Lord Unsleep ... probably. I can't be was taken with her, she soon became the victim of their certain, of course, for a great many of us made the crossing jealousy. and we each looked to our own contingents. But to hazard a For if he should fall 'in love' with her, who could say but guess: did you ever know Wamus of Wamscarp to venture that in the heat of passion she might not receive his egg, and anywhere without his familiars? Why, Lord Wamus is him- so usurp them all? To cut a long story short, she was self a great bat, or as close as he can get!' challenged by the strongest of his girls; she was offered an 'Good!' Vormulac was pleased. 'As always, your advice is ironwood knife while her opponent wore a gauntlet; she the very best, Devetaki, and your common sense easily stabbed the other to the heart and took her head, but in the outweighs the so-called "talents" of so many of your fighting lost the right half of her pretty face, flensed from the contemporaries.' He smiled a rare, appreciative if gloomy cheekbone. smile at her. Til talk to Wamus.' The Lord of the manse had heard the commotion and came The virgin grandam, probably as old and wise in the ways to see. Enraged at the loss of one of his five daughters, furious of Turgosheim (if not in these new, foreign parts) as at the spoiling of Devetaki's face, and driven to an absolute Vormulac himself, had been a favourite of his for decades. frenzy by the sight of so much blood spilled in his own manse, She had long been a member of the gorge's covert yet all without his permission, he suffered a brainstorm and governing triumvirate; its other members being Maglore the collapsed. He was old, after all. And his leech, doubtless Mage, and the warrior-Lord Unsleep, of course. So Vormulac believing it was all up with him, produced an egg which issued was well-acquainted with Devetaki's history. He knew she from his mouth. professed Zolteism as a creed, and much like himself was As the pearly thing skittered this way and that upon the an ascetic ... within the limits of Wamphyri nature, at least. floor, the surviving daughters scrabbled to attract or otherwise Devetaki Skullguise was no girl but a mature woman, obtain it: by scooping it up, by attempting to fall upon it with regal of stature, proud but not haughty. As to the privileges their mouths, even by opening their bodies to it. But the blood of her title: she was neither a virgin nor, in the matriarchal is the life . .. and Devetaki was drenched in blood! Sensing her sense, a grandam. She desired no bloodsons or daughters to strength, the egg knew that it had found a worthy host. It fight over Masquemanse when she was gone (not that she turned scarlet in the moment that it touched her; it flowed like intended to go for a while), for she'd seen more than enough of living liquid to the raw pulp of her face! And as the others tore that as a thrall. their hair, the egg soaked into her. Devetaki was Wamphyri! Gifted with a rare beauty, red-headed, long-limbed, full- And three sunups later, when the Lord of the manse died, breasted and unblemished, Devetaki had been taken in the she ascended to a Lady ... tithe as a girl. Alas, she'd gone to a manse whose master Then, one by one, without too much ado, she did away with had daughters out of diverse females but no sons. Also, he the other sisters and so became sole heir to one of the had no special odalisk, no 'wife' as such on whom to 288 289 mightiest manses in Turgosheim. And from then on she made stuck so close and copied his thrall's hairstyle, and pretended it plain how she had got her egg; not through the seduction of a comparable status - so that all in all it might be a good thing her Lord or by usurping him, or through any act of lust or to put him out of sight a while. 'love', but simply because the vampire seed had 'known' who 'Are you suggesting that you personally investigate that should be its rightful recipient. And to this day she had never stack out there?' The warrior-Lord's iron-grey moustaches admitted to being an odalisk in the first place. Hence 'virgin'; twitched a very little where they dipped to meet his goatish and the 'grandam' in her title referred to her long years as beard. It was a sure sign of his displeasure (Vormulac did not mistress of Masquemanse, not to her progeny, for there was care to be advised by lesser men), but Zack chose to ignore it. none. 'Have you something against the idea?' As for 'Skullguise': the cognomen resulted from a small 'Nothing at all - on the contrary, I like it! A warlord should affectation. When Devetaki's mood was good she wore a appreciate those among his generals who take the initiative. smiling half-mask over the naked bone; when it was sour or Perhaps you would like to command the crusade entire?' serious she wore a frowning half-mask; but when she was Now Zack backed off a little. 'My only desire is to save most angry - then she wore no mask at all. time, Lord Vormulac.' 'Good! Then be on your way. And Zindevar here can go Vormulac's praise had obviously pleased her. Saying nothing with you, to organize a party of her own to investigate those at all, she turned her face away and took her smiling mask fires. I've matters to talk over with Devetaki.' It was a cursory from her belt to replace the scowl she'd been wearing. dismissal, which this time Zack had the common sense to On the other hand, Laughing Zack Shornskull (despite his recognize. A nod of his head to Devetaki, another to customary chuckle) was not pleased at all. 'Lord Vormu-lac,' Vormulac, and he made for his flyer. Zindevar likewise, but he said, 'time's wasting. Why send more bats to look at that scowling as she went. lone tower when you can send men? If Wratha is there, and When they had gone, Vormulac said: 'He irritates me.' unless she has built herself a powerful army ... why, my 'Because you're forty years older, wiser, stronger,' Devetaki contingent alone has her measure! And if she did have such an told him. 'It's that Zindevar who irritates me - the crone! Now, army, do you honestly believe she'd still be in hiding? No, not what matters are these you would discuss?' Wratha - she would be fighting!' 'Eh? Ah, no - that was mainly to be rid of them, though Vormulac, for all that he was the warrior-Lord, knew as there are things to talk about, certainly. Devetaki, I think I much about true war as the others: very little. He was expert at may go down with Zindevar and see what's what with those settling feuds and putting down insurrection, but his fires. Similarly, I want you to take a reconnaissance party and knowledge of logistics, strategy — the science or basic go on ahead, perhaps as far as that light in the foothills. elements of war - was rudimentary, to say the least. He did Except I would caution you: mind how you go. Aye, for I know, however, that he had men and beasts to feed, and must value your company and friendship as much as your counsel. find adequate shelter for them before sunup; and that he must And now, give me the benefit of your good advice and tell yet fight a bloody war, whenever that should come. me: what else should I do to ensure that all runs smooth?' But he also knew Wratha was devious to a fault, and that Laughing Zack probably underestimated her. And with regard to Lord Shornskull himself: Vormulac was finding it irksome, the ways in which this fool aped him - the way he 290 291 Two things only,' she told him without pause, 'and let these were Lord and master of the entire stack — why, he could suffice. One: always insure that your men and creatures are build, house and command such an army, that... fed and watered; that they have what small pleasures are due . .. But then, so could a woman! them, and sleep out of harm's way where the sun may not find Zack's lustful territorial thoughts - the inspiration of his them. Two: hold tight your rein on spoilers and troublemakers; leech - subsided as quickly as they had risen. For in his these Lords were feudal before our time, and would be again passion he'd hit upon an inescapable truth: that if Wratha was without that we curb them.' here, then she was here! No Lord or Lady of the Wamphyri He nodded. 'Devetaki, as always you are my right arm. And could ever have resisted it, the opportunity to reign over an now let's get to it...' aerie such as this. To reign supreme! But on the other hand, this was only one stack, and all the They took a little longer coming than Wratha had thought, vast expanse of this new Starside still unexplored. Wratha and there were not so many of them. Also, they came in and her five had fled out of Turgosheim that time; was it something of stealth, or 'quietly' at least. Which is to say: possible that they all inhabited aeries such as this, strewn far they, too, kept their minds shielded. Which was all to the and wide across these boulder plains? In which case, they good: no telltale thoughts issued out from the last aerie, and would not have had time to build their armies, not yet! As a no sly alien probes sought entry. The telepathic aether seemed colony, working together, perhaps, but not as individuals, sterile. Too sterile. constantly vying with each other. From on high, Laughing Zack Shornskull looked down on So perhaps one of the rebels was here. Or, in the case of the upper ramparts of Wrathstack and thought (to himself), I the Killglance brothers, maybe two of them. But which? don't like it! Nothing stirs - well, except for those ancient Zack signalled his party to move in closer — especially his penants, all sluggishiiy aflutter — neither a thought nor even a eager warriors, who had stood well off so as not to alert with bat; yet a place as massive as that must surely have its the throb and sputter of their propulsors - and continued to colonies? And he chuckled, however grimly. A trap? An circle the upper levels. And gradually losing altitude, he sank ambush? Or is she simply hiding? What disaster could have through the sombre night until the blue-tinged, white befallen the Lady, that the proud and haughty Wratha -even calcined fangs and sloping roofs of Wrathspire rose up like a Wratha the Risen - has gone to earth like some Sunside fox? castle within his spiral, and the bone-embellished base Or . . . could it be that the place is truly deserted? plummeted far below. But this massive, mighty stack — deserted .. .? And still nothing stirred, neither a breath nor a thought. So And as easily and as suddenly as that, Zack's great wide that Zack was given to think (but far less secretively now): grinning mouth was moist and flowing with saliva — lust! Deserted, aye, it could well be. But men and monsters had For the aerie itself! For in Turgosheim, Zackstack was the been here upon a time, certainly, as witness the windows, veriest pimple by comparison; like a heap of pebbles in the balconies, chimneys, flying buttresses, platforms, causeways, bed of the gorge, and only marginally taller than Lorn and .. . Halfstruck's Trollmanse! But this place ... why, it could easily . .. And landing-bays! equal, or even contain, one third of all Turgosheim's great Why send in thralls or lieutenants to examine the stack, manses! If a man were Lord here - if a single man when there were warriors to do the job? And laughing his most sinister laugh, Lord Shornskull opened his mind and 292 293 called them in, and ordered the first of them down into the yawning cavern mouth of the largest of the uppermost bays. Then, even as the creature descended, hovering at the rim Ill of the bay with mantle fluttering, gas-bags inflated and Starside Ambush - Nestor's Enquiry — propulsors angling this way and that, Zack 'heard' it: the Canker's Discovery faintest echo of telepathic terror, a telltale gibbering in the psychic aether; like the whinny of a cornered goat as the wolves close in: No, no.' He mustn't find me here! Please Jet him go away ... awaaay! Wratha! She was here after all! Alone! Undefended! All eyes were on Wrathstack, and not one of them watching And: In! Zack ordered his construct without further pause. the fire-blackened ruins of the tumbled stacks of the Old Its propulsors fired once; landing limbs uncoiled, reached out; Wamphyri where they littered the plain of boulders for miles the great armoured body settled to the polished rim of the bay. all around. Since the closest of these shattered stumps and the Fascinated, Zack's aerial troops looked on, all eyes zeroed in mounds and tumuli of their debris lay something more than a on the landing-bays, windows, balconies, precarious mile away, and the more immediate visual lure of the last causeways. If the great aerie had defenders, surely they must aerie and the drama about to be enacted there was so strong, show themselves now? Yet all was still, silent. Somewhere this was scarcely surprising. But as Zack's forces approached within, the Lady hid: Wratha the Risen, a woman at bay! And and carried out cursory examinations of the ledges and Laughing Zack would drag her in chains, naked and begging, landing-bays on the various levels, while Zack himself stood before Vormulac Taintspore for his not-so-tender mercies. off to survey and command the activities of his party, so a But Wratha had heard that last! Again her terror was such massed emergence and launching was taking place from she could not contain it, but once more issued a futile appeal several of the fallen stacks. to faithless fates: Please don't let him find me! Please make him Most of Wrathstack's major entranceways were in the east- go away'. facing wall of the aerie; Wratha's ambush came from the And: In, alJ of you! Zack ordered his troops. There are west. And as the rumble of Zack's warriors' propulsors landing-bays on aJl levels — use them! Find her! Find Wratha disguised the throb and stutter of Wratha's, so the gauntly and bring her to me. It's possible she's alone, but any with her looming mass of the aerie itself served to hide their approach ... destroy them! Feed them to the warriors to fuel them back to from view. the barrier mountains. But do not harm Wratha, not a hair of Zack had five warriors: three of his own and two her head. For I fancy Lord UnsJeep has plans of his own for borrowed specifically for this detail. One of the latter was a her! giant of a beast of Vormulac's design and construction: in Zack's estimation, too unwieldy by far. The rest of them were smaller, but devastatingly fearsome creatures for all that. He also had six flyers in addition to his own; they carried three lieutenants and six senior thralls, the latter mounted two to a beast. 295 Zack's mount would have been pierced through - and maybe Accompanied by a flyer and two thrall 'minders' or Zack himself! Even the best possible scenario would have commanders, the giant warrior had proceeded to the base of seen him bucked out of his saddle into thin air! And: the stack and was about to land in a vast landing-bay only a Oh? And who Jaughs now, eh, Zack? Wratha's mocking few hundred feet over the boulder plains. The remaining mental voice, taunting him from somewhere within. warriors and their commanders had taken up roughly But not for long, Lady! he answered with a snarl, turning equidistant hovering positions close to platforms, his startled mount to one side and stalling it into a clumsy entranceways and landing-bays as suitable or available in the glide ... which was a single moment before he heard the first length of the stack. Laughing Zack himself attended his own dull rumble of angry, alien propulsors. warrior where it had landed in Wratha's main bay and was And round from behind the great fang of Wrathstack they using its chitin prow as a battering-ram to force massive came, full of deadly intent, riding a breeze out of the northern inner doors. Hearing the doors groaning and straining under Icelands and spacing themselves to provide individual the brutal attack, Zack's grin was broad as his lustful face .. . challenges to Zack's lesser creatures: four of the most for a while ... nightmarish constructs he had ever seen! From their aspect ... Until suddenly it became apparent to Lord Shornskull alone — without that Zack sensed the fearsome focus of their just how precipitant was his laughter. For from close at hand tiny minds, or saw the scarlet bloodlust in their eager, and without warning, Wratha's mental command entered his swivelling saucer eyes — he knew the defenders were skull with all the sharpness and force of a Szgany crossbow experienced in battle. And where his own forces were mainly bolt. No timid, tremulous shuddering and cowering now, as expeditionary, exploratory, these were full of purpose, a grim that treacherous 'voice' of hers cried: determination, and knew their enemy. Strike them.'... strike them NOW! A pair of flyers, too, their lieutenant riders alert and Zack hadn't quite landed; his flyer's wings were hugely- observant in their saddles, gliding out from fortifications on arched air-traps, and its thruster-cum-landing tentacles were Wrathspire's roof to direct the warriors. And in the last great extended, reaching for the rim of the bay. But instinctively, aerie itself, a hundred minds coming sharply awake, even as Wratha's voice and message registered, Zack backed uncloaking as their owners went to work with a vengeance! his mount out over the gulf of air, away from the face of the More flyers emerging from secret exits below and rising on stack — which probably served to extend his lifespan a little. the Icelands wind ... and a veritable cloud of small but deadly Over the landing-bay, like lashes over an eye, heavy sections aerial warriors suddenly appearing as if from nowhere! (In of harpoon-tipped, rusty iron grille were held aloft on ropes fact, there were only five of the latter: three released by the depending from various windows. The ropes were frayed Killglance brothers from a hidden bay in Madmanse, and two from years of disuse, but many of the grille sections had been sent out by Canker Canison from the rear of Mangemanse. But welded to the vertical face by the action of nitre -which did all appearing together, they seemed like a cloud to Laughing not include those directly above the central landing area. Zack.) Suddenly those sections were released, their ropes hissing Back off.' - Get out of it! He sent his telepathic command as they uncoiled from narrow windows, and the harpoon with all the force of his vampire mind. They've set a trap, an heads slammed down in line to strike sparks from the ambush! polished rock of the bay. A moment earlier, the long neck of Too late! 296 297 exertions and roared their triumph as they stripped the giant to His warrior, trapped in Wratha's landing-bay, raged like the its alveolate bones and strewed its guts far and wide. mad thing it was and vented furious propulsive gases, but to Several of Zack's lieutenants and thralls had effected no avail. Barbed pike-heads came stabbing from niches in the landings in the stack's bays. Some managed to escape, others walls and through holes in the floor, tearing at its gas-bladders didn't. Zack saw a flyer about to launch; a handful of and slashing at its undulating mantle. Mainly unhurt though defenders emerged from niches to scramble beneath it and definitely incapacitated, finally the stupid thing answered its cling on to or hack at its launching limbs; the flyer tilted over master's command and backed out of the bay. Taking the the very rim, flapped its manta wings to avoid toppling, was dangling grilles with it in a jumble of buckled iron, it flopped held back and down by the sheer weight of numbers clinging free of the stack and fired its propulsors to stabilize its flight. to its belly. As its rider was bucked cursing from his saddle, But with air whistling through holes in its mantle, and most of other defenders rammed pike after pike into the flyer's belly, its buoyancy gases escaped from ruptured bladders, the before its thrusters were sliced through and it was allowed to doomed warrior's ungainly retreat was erratic to say the least. fall... Howling its frustration, it quickly capsized, commenced a One of the remaining three warriors had landed on a spiralling, accelerating dive, slammed headlong into one of sabotaged platform; defenders of Madmanse released chains, Suckscar's causeways at its junction with the stack and burst knocked loose weakened stanchions, sent the thing like a bomb! Steaming hot plasma painted Suckscar's slanting plummeting. But some clever thrall had learned a lesson from strata red; great gouts of blood washed outwards in a scarlet Lardis Lidesci; before the warrior fell, it had been drenched flood, and ran in a torrent down the wall of the aerie; loose in oil and torched! Now a fireball lit the dark night air, scales, chunks of smoking meat and chitin shards spun lazily hissing and screaming, puffing jets of blue and white fire as it in the gulf of air. And as the huge body crumpled to the near- plunged to earth. vertical wall, clung for a moment and then began to fall, its Wratha's flyers, coming from above, attacked Zack's. They raw flesh left a crimson skid-mark where it slipped and swooped; their riders lowered clusters of weighted, razor- slithered; until finally it struck a projection and was deflected sharp hooks; Zack's thralls were gripped through leathers and outwards and down, end over end into eternity. flesh, ripped from their saddles, and dashed against the The rest of Zack's party were faring no better. Close to the aerie's wall . . . or simply allowed to fall. If they had been base of the stack, Vormulac's giant construct had somehow Wamphyri, they might have shaped metamorphic flesh for been driven from the rim of Gorvi the Guile's landing-bay and flight. But they were only men. attacked in mid-air by speedier, more manoeuvrable creatures. A clump of gleaming hooks swung close to Zack himself. With its gas-bladders ruptured and listing badly, it had been Too close; he felt the vibration of the air as the weapon forced down on the boulder plains. Damaged in the crash- whistled by his head and ripped a chunk from his flyer's landing, it had lain helpless as all three of Gorvi's ground manta wing. And that was enough for Laughing Zack. warriors closed in. These earthbound constructs, unhampered Away, and run for the barrier mountains! he called to men by the clumsy bladders and skirt-like mantles of their aerial and beasts alike, but needlessly. Even a brave man knows cousins, were heavily armoured and hideously agile. Built and when to flee, with or without orders. The survivors -two equipped for infighting, they grunted their warriors, one listing badly, and three flyers, including Zack's own, one of which was minus its rider - turned 298 299 away from the last aerie and made off . . . or would have. kicked a while, regained their normal shape, then hung still. But even Wratha had not foreseen the rest of it. The flyer had clamped its rubbery pouch shut on Zack to From out of the north-east, some pulsing, spurting thing expel all air, and even a vampire must breathe or suffocate. zeroed in on Zack's damaged warrior, ducked beneath the Lord Shornskull was no exception. A moment more and .. . listing hulk of its body and sliced its bladders tip to tail with he was not dead, but very unconscious. So he remained twin rows of erectile dorsal spines! A construct of Vasagi the until, two hundred and fifty feet over the boulder plains, Suck at his monstrous best, the warrior had been designed with Nestor hauled on his reins to bring his mount out of its just such a purpose in mind: the disposal of other aerial dive, and commanded the creature: Drop him! warriors. Except Vasagi was gone now, and Nestor Lichloathe Zack's body fell like a stone, burst like an egg, spattered ruled in Suckscar! the dirt and pebbles black in the starlight. His parasite Wratha had come out onto a balcony to see the last of it. It leech, itself injured and knowing it was all up for him, fled was Nestor, aye, returned now from whatever lone mission had his shattered body. One of Gorvi's warriors, coming to diverted him in Sunside. Nestor upon his flyer, all swathed and investigate, failed to see the leech and crushed it flat. cloaked as usual, his face masked except for his eyes, burning Thus Zack suffered the true death and knew only darkness. with some inner passion or incendiary knowledge. And For a while . . . accompanying him, his best out of Suck-scar. Survivors of the defeat at Sanctuary Rock, they were eager to give good ... Until the necromancer Lord Nestor Lichloathe of the account of themselves and so balance the odds. But with what Wamphyri 'spoke' to him in his fashion, and said: little was left of Zack's lot, there was scarcely enough work for ZacJt Shornskull. Ah, but you're a mess now! I might even them. sympathize and leave you in peace, /or I never knew you in Nestor's warriors fell on Lord Shornskull's sole remaining life and so have nothing against you in death ... but alas, it beast and dismembered it in short order, and his riderless flyer can't be. For there are things you know which I must know, went the same way. One lone thrall and flyer, first away from before I may leave you to sleep the last long sleep. the ambush, had put sufficient distance between to effect an And: What. ..? said Zack. Who . . .? escape. Which left Laughing Zack himself. Did you not feel me before I even spoke to you? Nestor's As Nestor's warriors zeroed in on his flyer, and fired on all deadspeak voice oozed like tar. Strange, that, because the rest of propulsors for a multiple ram, Zack reverted to character, them do. threw back his great head and laughed loud at Nestor across The . . . the rest of them? The rest of who? the gulf of air. But in the moment before the collision he The rest of the dead. They know when I am near, for I can loosened his cloak, divested himself, and launched from his feel them trembling in my mind! It is my art, you see. And the doomed flyer's back. Three-quarters of the way to earth he dead /ear me for it. achieved metamorphosis, formed webbing between his arms Zack had known he was dead, or at least he had very much and legs, flattened his body to an airfoil - all in vain. For even suspected it, in that pitch black interval before his mind was as he slipped into a controlled glide, so Nestor's flyer swooped awakened again. For, regaining consciousness in the last on him. moment before crashing to earth on the boulder plains, he'd Snatched from mid-air, Zack was gripped in the flyer's belly known that no man, not even a vampire, could pouch with only his left arm and leg protruding. These 301 300 heart and eat it raw! And despite the weirdness of Lord survive such a fall. Yet now - it seemed he was alive after all! Shornskull's situation (or perhaps because of it? For if, in fact, Alive, aye, but blind and crippled and . . . empty? For he he were truly dead, then what harm could anyone, even sensed that even his leech had deserted him, he'd come so Vormulac, do him now?), he allowed himself a chuckle: the close. But: worst possible error! For a moment later: Closer them you think, Zack, Nestor told him. For you are I see you need convincing, Nestor sighed. But I'll admit, I dead, and I am the necromancer Nestor Lichloathe. admire your tenacity: to laugh from the throat of death. There was no feeling - none whatever — in any of Zack's Don't you mean, in the face of death? said Zack. limbs. It might even be that he had no limbs. Or that there was And Nestor's answer more doleful yet, You do need no life in them. Which would be the case, naturally . .. if he convincing, don't you? Now listen - do you feel this? were really dead? Where . . . am I? At last Zack did feel something: a breath of air - and a sweet In Suckscar, to which I've lifted you up. In Wrathstack, one at that - blowing cool in his face. Like the breath of some which you invaded. gasping Sunside woman, trapped on the run, stripped of her Wrathstack! Named after Wratha the Risen! Well, Zack had skirt and thrown flat, feeling his weight come down on her and got that right, at least. And a thrall had escaped to get word of his first probing stab in the moist sleeve of her cunt. her whereabouts back to Vormulac. Huh! Cold comfort to You've a vivid imagination, Nestor told him quietly. But Lord Zack Shornskull, who was either dead ... or in the inaccurate to say the least. I merely breathed on you. I don't company of a madman! take it red too often, and my breath is sweet. But tell me, why His thoughts were deadspeak, of course, and Nestor heard don't you breathe on me, eh? Or even spit on me, if you like! them. No 'either' about it, Zack, the necromancer told him, in Why don't you at least try, Zack? his most gentle and his most terrifying voice. You are dead to 1...1... the world - but not to me! And now I have some questions /or Because you can't, can you? Ah! But if only you could see you, some small points which we would clarify. what I can see! Then you'd know for sure why you can't We? breathe, see, feel. (Nestor's voice was the merest whisper now, Myself, the Lady Wratha, the Killglance brothers, Canker but one that burned in its intensity.) Shall I show you? and Gorvi, of course. H-h-how can you show a blind man anything? And Vasagi? I am a necromancer, Zack. You can hear my voice and feel Ah, no! For he is gone, and I have taken his place, his my breath, my .. . touch? And when I concentrate, why, then manse. you may even see what I see! Like so: Ah! 'Suckscar.'' Zack saw - and screamed! Even Laughing Zack. Screamed Correct. I like the name, which isn't out of place after all. like that same Sunside slut he'd raped. His very first, she'd Vasagi sucked with his beak and I with my mind. He sucked been, after he ascended and achieved his full measure of from veins and I from brains . .. even dead minds. I suck metamorphism. Ah, that was a fuck! Shagged dry first, then knowledge, Zack, and you have what I need! So let's be at it. sliced to the ribs as he turned his tool to a cartilage-toothed The first of my questions: How many men, monsters and flyers, saw! Not so dry then, but wet and hot on his quivering bone... has Vormulac Unsleep, and where is he camped? Aye, a madman! Zack answered at once. What? I should tell you where Vormulac is? Why, he would tear out my 302 303 Conjured deliberately, the memory of her agony served as a None. Our forces are depleted. There's the provisioning to balm for his own. consider. You'll be eaten. Really? said Nestor, as Shornskull's mental shuddering Lords are not eaten! Zack was aghast. Their essence may subsided. Did you do that, Zack? My, but you were a hard transfer! Something of them - however little - may get into one in your time! Not so hard now, though. Indeed, you're lesser creatures. Is that a fitting end for a Lord? Continuity even a bit soft in places, eh? And again he showed Zack . .. to without consciousness? Zack! The wobbling, soggy mess that had been a man. In wartime, Lords are eaten, Nestor contradicted him. And But by now the other was sobbing, and Nestor very much we are at war. You won't infect any of ours ... but if you did, suspected that he wouldn't need to torture him, not this one. so what? They are already vampires, every one. As for your For he had already tortured him by showing him the truth of Wamphyri essence: that will be well distributed. Ground his condition. Zack knew now why he couldn't breathe: down fine with the meat of lesser men ... why, the warriors because a man needs lips and a face and a throat to breathe. won't notice the difference! And he knew why he felt nothing: because when your limbs You . . . are a monster! Zack's final protest. and your body and your head are so much jelly, you can't feel Aren't we all? Nestor's answer. anything — because you are dead! It was true, and finally he Then, as Laughing Zack's shattered remains were removed, believed Nestor. so Wratha stepped forward, spat upon them, and cried her Then you may believe this, too, the necromancer told him. derision. 'Who laughs last, laughs loudest - eh, Zack!' Just as you felt my breath on the raw red smear of your face, so But Lord Shornskull couldn't hear her, and Nestor didn't you would feel my hands on your broken body and most bother to translate ... sensitive parts. That is my art! And believe just one more thing: I can return to you tenfold all the pain you ever gave -all Nestor told Wratha everything he'd learned from Zack: the the pain of this vampire world - again and again and again! warrior-Lord Vormulac's whereabouts, the strength of his For answer, the monster Zack Shornskull continued to sob. army, the fact that almost every Lord and Lady in Tur- It was as much as he could do. Except: gosheim - with the exception of Maglore the Mage, who had Do — you - believe me? Nestor must have an answer. remained behind as caretaker - had joined Lord Unsleep's Yes/ Yes! Yes! Zack sobbed. And he sensed Nestor's talon crusade against her; following which she went off with the hands draw back from where they were poised, and he felt others, escorted from Suckscar as was only right and proper, to that they drew back ... reluctantly? make her plans. Only the dog-Lord lingered, and Nestor Following which, he answered the necromancer's could tell from Canker's expression and actions (his irritable questions, every one, and Nestor knew he answered true ... whining, the way he touched his ear tenderly and shook his great wolf's head) that something was amiss. At the end of it, Zack wanted to know: What's to become of 'What's wrong?' he wanted to know, when he was sure that the others were out of his manse. 'Where are those high me? And he sensed the negligence in Nestor's answer, his spirits of yours now, Canker? Why is your bark changed to a deadspeak shrug: whine?' What else can become? It's over. 'But I might easily ask the same of you!' Canker snarled I'll be buried? Burned? Or what? I am - or was - a Lord of the Wamphyri, after all. Have I no rights? 304 305 by way of an answer. 'Indeed, in the last four to five crestfallen. 'Perhaps . . . perhaps if I tell you, then you'll tell months, why, I might have asked it a dozen times!' me?' Nestor nodded wearily, beckoned the dog-Lord to a chair. 'No.' Nestor shook his head. Himself stood gazing from a window at the black-fanged 'Why not?' The dog-Lord frowned, his spiked eyebrows silhouette of the distant barrier range. 'Aye, things have coming together over his snout. changed,' he finally said. 'We've sniffed war a while now, 'Because there's no answer to what ails me. And since it and finally it's come. Nerves have become frayed ... even can't be helped, there's no point in mentioning it. But that's friendships, it appears.' not to say I can't listen to you. Didn't you say it yourself, that This has nothing to do with fighting and war,' Canker friends are for listening?' growled, coming directly to the point. 'You've not wanted The other loped to his chair and flopped into it. And: 'I hate my friendship for quite some time now. Since it's nothing this,' he said, his voice a low growl. that I have done, it has to be something with you. Well, This impasse?' friends are for listening, so now it's my turn to ask: "What's 'An impasse may be breached. No, this .. . condition!' wrong?"' 'Your condition?' Nestor looked at him, opened his mouth - looked away Canker sat up straighter, looked directly into Nestor's eyes. and said, 'I can't tell you. But I can tell you this: if I've kept 'My friend, you've heard how the others talk about me, behind away from you, or kept you from me, it has done you no my back?' harm.' Nestor shrugged. They talk about me, about each other. 'A riddle?' There's no peace or satisfaction in any of them . . . or in me 'If you like.' . . . or in you! We're Wamphyri!' 'I don't!' And again Canker whined, fingered the injured Canker clawed at his ear again, shook his head more side of his face and head again, especially his ear, shook his violently yet. But in a little while he grew calmer. 'You know head and blinked rapidly. of course that my father went baying mad? His ear went soft That knock you took?' Nestor was solicitous, as best he on the inside, began to stink and leaked his brains. He'd seen could be. it coming - for he was oneiromantic, too - so that when his 'Maybe, maybe not,' said the other. favourite bitch dropped me, he named me after his affliction - And smiling with his eyes (for they were all that could be Canker - as if I were to blame for it! Or . . . as if I were the seen of his face behind the gauze of his mask, in the shade of spawn of it? When I was yet a pup, he mounted a flyer and his cloak's high cowl), Nestor gave a wry chuckle and said, flew off into the sun. His talent came to me through his seed, 'Now who makes riddles? It's as if we played word games!' and his vampire egg through a fond fatherly kiss. But am I Canker yelped, 'Huh!' But although the necromancer's also heir to his madness?' hidden smile had seemed wan, it was all it took to perk him Finally Nestor understood. 'Is that what's bothering you? up a little. He grinned a foxy grin in return, sprang up from You think you're mad?' his chair, shook himself like a great dog as was his wont, and 'Going mad, aye,' Canker growled. 'Maybe ...' made to approach Nestor at the window. But the other at 'Ridiculous!' (But in all honesty, Nestor wouldn't have once shrank back. At which Canker was more than ever wagered on it.) 'What you? Crazy? Crazy as a fox, perhaps!' Canker's feral-cored eyes were suddenly miles away, 306 307 vacant except for a distant glimmer. 'But I have had such r dreams, Nestor - such dreams as even I can't believe! My silver mistress in the moon . . . I had thought there was just the one .. . but perhaps the moon is full of them! To hell with 'You know it is, Lord.' this war! Once more I'm driven to play upon my instrument Then you are concerned for his welfare?' of bones, and do homage to the goddess of the skies . ..' 'Of course, Lord.' He was on his feet again, eyes blazing now. And now 'Ah, but what is it that concerns you?' Nestor most definitely would not bet upon the dog-Lord's Zahar was the victim of a word game, but one with a point, sanity. He sent out a call to his first-lieutenant, Zahar: Come. as he now saw. Having admitted his concern for Nestor, now And said to Canker, 'Mangemanse needs you, my friend. It's he must say why . . . or perhaps not. For a 'true' lieutenant time you went down and saw to things. Hell will have to would never give his master away, after all. 'You know I may wait, for the war is here. My man Zahar will see you out.' not tell you that, Lord,' he protested. 'My master would send But the other grabbed his arm, pleading with him, 'Nestor, me soaring like a Szgany kite from his highest window - my dear young Lord out of Sunside, you must tell me — am I except I'm a good deal heavier than a kite, and not so mad? Is the moon eating at my brain?' airworthy.' Nestor saw a way to reason with him. 'Did Wratha and the 'But something ails him? - Don't deny it, for I've seen how others call you mad when first you mentioned your silver you shun him ... ah!' And Canker snapped his fingers. 'But it's moon mistress? Yes, they did. Even I found it strange. But tell true: you do shun him! Why, this place was full of life, or me now: is she real or not, your Siggi? And now . .. are you undeath at least! But now, it's gloomy as melancholy saying you've dreamed of others?' Vormspire in the gorge of Turgosheim. Very well, so you 'One other! More woman than girl, mature, but a beauty won't tell me what's wrong, despite that my only interest lies beyond imagining!' in putting it right. Then tell me this instead: what happened Then your madness is not yet proven. Call her down, if tonight, on Sunside? Where did you go and what did you do?' you must. And if she comes —' Zahar was confused; the dog-Lord was so quick, his '- Then I'll know that I'm sane!' questions coming thick and fast; Zahar couldn't guard his 'Exactly.' mind and tongue both. Since his thoughts were transparent to Zahar came and Canker, at least partially appeased, left f the other, he must blank them out. But before he could do so with him. he felt Canker's telepathic probe ... only for a moment, until But when they were well away from Nestor's private Zahar conjured thoughts of warmth and softness, safety and rooms, Canker said, 'Zahar, your master is my friend. Do sleep: such thoughts as a foetus might think in its mother's you believe that?' womb. It did the trick, but how much had the dog-Lord seen? 'I have seen it, Lord.' Zahar's tone was cautious. 'How may Judging by his disappointed expression, not much. I doubt it?' And: 'Huh!' Canker grunted. 'Well, and so you are indeed a Canker nodded. 'Just so. And I fancy that you are a good good man and true - which is as it should be. Protect your and true lieutenant and love him .. . well, as much as you master's interests, say I, and who knows but that one day you may. Is it so?' might even get his egg!' At which Zahar Lichloathe could scarcely contain the look of horror which threatened to twist his face, the stab of terror he felt in his heart. 308 309 But no harm done, for the dog-Lord had not noticed, Then what was the point of it? Revenge? But for what? And apparently... anyway, wouldn't that be the sweetest revenge of all: to eat your enemies? But no, the necromancer Lord Nestor Canker had noticed. And he at least had kept his thoughts to Lichloathe had other ideas and gave his men other orders. At himself as he'd probed Zahar's mind and spied on all the his command his monsters had quit their wrecking and vivid memories which flashed there; memories of Nestor's ravaging, and headed for the open savanna, and his men where raid after the ignominious defeat of the Wamphyri at Sanctuary they had spread themselves out around the low fence enclosing Rock: this secret community .. . had set fire to the place! A place at the edge of the forest, where the mighty iron- And as the flames roared up and the surviving inhabitants woods grew to the rim of the savanna, beyond which the attempted to escape into the night-dark woods, instead of furnace deserts sprawled south. A place under the trees, of taking prisoners or recruiting thralls, Nestor had caused his low-roofed construction, as if huddling or hiding there. And a men to throw them back into the fire! place that Nestor had known about, obviously. But here a weird — distortion? - of memory; of Zahar's Not so strange, Canker thought; despite the lad's amnesia, memory, at least, for Canker was merely reviewing what he there were still things he occasionally remembered from the had glimpsed in the lieutenant's mind: old days, from his time as a Szgany youth in the tribe of Lardis Those terrified figures fleeing - some stumbling, even Lidesci. And as the dog-Lord proceeded down into Mange- crawling - from the flames, but only to be thrown back again. manse, he scanned the screen of his own memory, recalling Able-bodied? No, not a one of them! There was no fight in the rest of what he'd read in Zahar's unguarded mind: them. They were weak, crippled, broken people, these. But Of Nestor's flyers' silent landing a little way out on the crippled by the warriors? Ravaged by the heat of the savanna, where a hummock of crabgrass half an acre square conflagration? Broken in their bones by flying debris from guaranteed an easy take-off; of his handful of men fanning their collapsing houses? - Or what? out to surround the dark huddle of lodges beneath the trees, Their silhouettes against the leaping flames: grotesque, while he brought up his eager fighting beasts from where misshapen, twisted - incomplete? At first it had seemed that they waited like storm clouds in the starlit sky. And of his their clothes must be in tatters, but ... this was no distortion! command, that the warriors crash down indiscriminately For suddenly it had dawned on Zahar that they themselves through the forest's canopy! How they brought down massive were the tatters!!! branches with them, and crushed many of the furtive-seeming And now it dawned on the dog-Lord, too, and as simply dwellings into the floor of the forest. Then: and as devastatingly and as mind-blastingly as that, he knew: The hoarse-voiced screams that at once went up from the That Nestor had burned a leper colony! wrecked houses .. . the frightened bellowing of domestic The rest of it - total understanding of Nestor's predicament beasts in their pens, and the squawk and flutter of chickens in - came like a clap of thunder, even as Canker descended into their coops . .. the uproar of the warriors where they Mangemanse. And, shivering and shuddering, he went to his proceeded with their deadly work! Except here a surprising, rooms and called for one of his pups, a trusted lieutenant, to perhaps even astonishing thing: the necromancer's strict attend him. Then: mental command going out to his warriors and thralls alike, The internal route up into Suckscar,' he told his man in that they must not eat of the flesh of these men and beasts! 311 310 something of a whimper, or a whisper at least. 'Have it sealed tonight, at once, now! No one shall pass that way IV Devetaki's again; nothing shall pass that way, not even air or light!' 'Yes, Lord,' said the other, gawping. 'Is that all?' Lure Canker nodded absent-mindedly, then gave himself a shake. 'No, something else. Wratha the Risen may call for the Lords, myself included, to attend her war-council. All well and good, except I may not hear her; I'll be at my devotions in the cavern of my instrument. I want you to listen for her call, and alert me when it comes.' Some thirty-five minutes earlier, Devetaki Skullguise and her 'Yes, Lord.' small reconnaissance party had landed on the boulder plains in Then be about it.' the vicinity of the glaring hemisphere Gate. A cursory, purely The other departed. But on his way from the dog-Lord's visual examination of the phenomenon had told the Lady apartments, loping through the mazy passageways and halls of nothing, but acute Wamphyri senses had warned her to leave Mangemanse, he gave a massive start. Coming from behind well enough alone. Whatever the Gate was, at present it was him, passing him by, and filling all the manse with its quiescent and probably better that way. throbbing ululations, such a long-drawn out, mournful howl Before landing, she and her men had spied Gorvi's warrior of a cry as never before was uttered! Doleful and doom- where it lay recuperating in the lee of a boulder clump; failing fraught, finally it tapered to a sob and died away. to recognize her but sensing that she was Wamphyri, it had The lieutenant shook his head worriedly, and went about issued vile gases and a warning honk, but made no violent his duties as instructed . .. movement. Patently the thing was injured, which meant very little; sometimes an injured warrior was all the more dangerous. Since she had brought no fighting beasts of her own with her, only the speediest flyers on what was mainly an exploratory trip, Devetaki ignored the creature for the moment but sent a messenger back to Vormulac to report its location. There was sufficient meat here to fuel Lord Unsleep's beasts through all the long night ahead and for some time to come. His men would have other needs, however. Taking off again, she had ventured south for the mouth of the great pass, and rising above it to a position approximately central in the width of the range, had sensed human thoughts in the darkness of the canyon yawning below. Landing on a plateau east of the pass, Devetaki had cautioned her thralls to silence while she, a highly skilled 313 mentalist, attempted to 'listen-in' on the minds of those below. even worried, but mainly full of an alien self-confidence. That they were not Szgany was immediately apparent, for Strong men: soldiers! And all of them with a good the Szgany of Sunside had long since learned to shield their understanding of discipline, strategy, tactics - the very stuff of minds from Wamphyri probes. Come sundown, they were their profession! They had all of those skills which the Lords expert at suppressing, disguising, diffusing or thinning their of Turgosheim had long forgotten; yet these were common thoughts; they became moths, owls or foxes in the night. men! Also, in olden times in Turgosheim, they'd had a trick of Or uncommon men? smearing themselves with foul oil of kneblasch, so discouraging Self-confident, aye, but an alien self-confidence, as she had investigation; but as often as not the stink itself had located already noted. And now Devetaki looked closer: them, and the oil could always be removed. Oh, the Szgany They had weapons and slept with them; or if not with them, were wise in the ways of the Wamphyri, and vice versa; they kept them so close to hand it made no difference. Several wherefore, these men in the pass were not Szgany. But if not of them dreamed of war, and of using those weapons. Except . Travellers, Starside trogs or desert Thyre - and definitely not . . Devetaki could scarcely credit what they dreamed; surely vampires - then what? these were fantasies! But then, was it also a fantasy that these Ah, but these were strange new lands, perhaps inhabited men had come into her world through the portal of the glaring by stranger people! As well to listen to their minds a while, Starside hemisphere, that cold white globe bedded in its crater Devetaki thought, and see what she could glean. on the boulder plains? And again she thought of Maglore the But what she gleaned . .. was fantastic! Mage in Turgosheim, and what he had said of the Old Two of the minds were powerful, talented, skilled in the Wamphyri, that there had been magicians among them who .. . psychic arts. One was a seer, a locator: he could scan afar to ... called up Powers they couldn't contain, which was the discover other minds, enemies. And even though he was beginning of the end. For in a cataclysmic war, such weapons sleeping when Devetaki 'visited' him, still she must be careful were brought to bear against them that they were destroyed in not to announce her presence. Ah, and his mind was dark, too; all of their houses ... treacherous, cunning. In the olden parlance, a 'magician', this Then, but more carefully yet, Devetaki went back to the one, and sinister. mind of their commander. And probing however gently, she And the other .. . was little different! Except not only was read his purpose here: conquest! No less than Wratha when his mind very powerful, he himself was a Power - or saw she had fled from Turgosheim, and no less than Vormulac himself as such, at any rate. A commander of men, he should now, this one would subdue this entire world and bring it make a fine lieutenant. And all of the men with him were his; under the sway of his home world beyond the Starside Gate. he was their commander! His talent .. . was Devetaki's! A But no, Devetaki saw that she was wrong. It had been his mentalist, he could read minds 'at a glance', and accurately. purpose to usurp Sunside/Starside, perhaps for alien masters, But the glance was all-important; he needed eye-to-eye but that was before they banished him or caused him to flee contact to see in through the windows of the mind. from them. A pair of them, then: magicians! Now he had another purpose. He would still conquer this And the men with them? A dozen at least, some wary, vampire world, yes - but for himself! Why, this one's daring, his ego and aspirations were as 314 315 great as those of Wratha herself. Even as great as Vormu- before that - remembered her body, breasts, buttocks, and the lac's. Possibly as great as Devetaki's! Nor was it blind oh so sweet suction of her sex - his dream was a nightmare, an ambition; he knew what he was up to, what he went up against expression of his guilt, which he would never have admitted . . . something of it, anyway. And just like his men, he put his during waking hours. Of course not, for Siggi had been a faith in the power of those alien weapons. traitor after all. Siggi the clever, the awesomely talented, the Devetaki must probe deeper, but he wasn't long asleep and incredibly beautiful — reduced to a vegetable, bereft of all she must be careful not to disturb him. That sensitive mind of knowledge except the most basic instincts: her recognition of his might possibly discover her there. Or if not his mind, being, her telepathy (which in any case lay in the structure of perhaps that of his locator companion. her brain, not in anything she'd learned), her sexual Thus it was that concentrating, concentrating, a Lady of the awakenings. She'd been like a child again when they were Wamphyri gazed upon Turkur Tzonov's innermost dreams and through with her, a shivering, trembling innocent. Mentally ambitions ... innocent, at least. It had been achieved with the aid of a machine, a Turkur dreamed, but at first his dreams were obscured by 'technological marvel' . . . or a monstrosity, however one some strange intervention, by a presence which watched albeit chose to view it. In his dream, Turkur remembered how from afar. For a while he tried to distance himself from it, lovely Siggi Dam had looked, lying there drugged and mainly which had no more effect than floundering through a swamp unfeeling, but conscious where she waited for them to switch to escape one's own shadow; for like a mote in the eye the on the machine. And he remembered Yefros telling him: presence was always there, until in the end he ignored it. 'It's much like a computer - we don't have to delete it all. He dreamed a little of the past, something of the present, We can start at the beginning, with . .. her birth?' and snatches from a vague and uncertain future. The past was And his answer: 'No, Jet her keep it. We all need to know fact, however disappointing; the present took form as directed that, for it's part of the will to survive. Without it she'd be by past events, if not exactly as Turkur would have it; but the nothing but a bag of plasma. She has to have something of future .. . could yet be as he willed it, if he willed it hard will, so that she'll know to run, hide, be afraid. As for her enough. childhood, most of that can go. But her sex, her first arousal, And since dreams are the clearing-houses of the conscious and the way she has developed - or over-developed — she can mind - where not only the desires but all the suppressed guilt keep those things. Siggi was good at it, and it might even keep of the waking world gains expression and the balance is her alive a while, in Starside . ..' adjusted accordingly - much of what he dreamed was The dream moved on but stayed focused on Siggi. Siggi: nightmarish, so that he tossed and turned a little in his bed in bundled stumbling through the Gate, caught by the grey hole's the keep in the pass. And all that he dreamed was 'observed' seemingly gentle but nevertheless irresistible attraction, and by Devetaki Skullguise. drawn in; walking in a weird slow-motion, wonder-ingly into a From the past, Turkur dreamed of the telepath Siggi Dam: hazy white distance and diminishing in size as the distance of how she had acted and looked after he and Alexei Yefros increased. Then: Siggi pausing, looking back, trying to come had downloaded her brain, the night they sent her through the back, and failing! Her discovery that the Gate was a one-way Perchorsk Gate. But because he remembered other times ride, and of the immundane forces that allowed her to move in one direction only, forward into the 317 316 fare. Why, the Szgany worked metals and could probably unknown. But then again, almost everything had been duplicate these death-dealing devices, these 'guns'! With unknown to this newborn Siggi. And finally the last they'd Tzonov leading an army of resurgent Szgany (if the men of seen of her: her tiny running figure, a shimmering blue and this western Sunside had ever been under the heel of the silver and platinum-blonde mote on the solid yet hazy-white Wamphyri in the first place, which wasn't as yet proven), then horizon, gradually disappearing into it. the renegade Wratha would be the very least of Vormu-lac's Siggi gone. Through the Gate. Into Starside ... Then, as if problems. Turkur's memory, his psyche, his subconscious self could bear it Two: quite apart from their military skills and the definite no longer, the dream moved on, drew closer to the present: threat of their technology, these men were from another world Snatches from the fighting in Perchorsk ... Turkur's men and had full, fantastic knowledge of it. And there was a white- against Gustav Turchin's forces ... The sheer, unholy glaring gateway into that world down there where the devastation unleashed by the weapons of both sides .. . foothills met the boulder plains! Moreover, and based on what Turkur's escape into the Gate ... His first astonished Devetaki had read in Tzonov's subconscious mind, the many impressions of Starside when he and his team emerged from and diverse inhabitants of that world were generally weak and the glaring portal onto the plain of boulders. Devetaki viewed had little or no belief . . . in vampires! Even better, as yet only all of these things, and learned something of Turkur Tzonov's a select handful of them knew about this world, aspirations, too. Sunside/Starside. Obviously there was a lot more to be He had failed to become a true Power in his own world -for learned, for instance: how could a place like that have bred the moment. But if he could somehow tame this world, men like Tzonov? But that was for the future. For Devetaki's starting first with the Szgany of Sunside, and eventually future! bringing the Wamphyri themselves to heel.. .! Three: these alien soldiers were newcomers here. If they What? Why, the unbelievable, towering ego, the stupendous should fall into Wratha's hands, their military knowledge and audacity of the man! (But nevertheless, Devetaki made a technology would go with them. Even Vormulac and his army mental note: he would make a fine thrall, this fellow, even a out of Turgosheim would have no great advantage then - if he lieutenant, but he must never be offered or allowed to acquire had one now! an egg! For if this Turkur Tzonov should ever become Four: only deprive these men of their leader - and possibly Wamphyri ... what chance then for the rest of them? Nor was Yefros, too - and they'd be like chickens without heads: the virgin grandam's introspective query entirely sarcastic.) running around and squawking a great deal, but without It was a new feeling for Devetaki, even a new emotion: to getting anywhere. That would make them easy prey; literally stand in awe of another's grandiose ambitions and be aware prey, for there was an army to be fed. Or, if Tzonov's men that he could probably achieve them. Or rather, to know that should prove too valuable for use in the provisioning, then he had been capable of achieving them . . . they (and their weapons, of course) could always be recruited. Plainly she must have him. Maybe even both of them, And what chance for Wratha then? Tzonov and Yefros together. And she had reasons galore: Oh, the reasons why Devetaki should at least attempt to One: they must not be allowed to reach Sunside with these kidnap these two talents were many and obvious; not so alien weapons and their superior knowledge of war- obvious how to go about it. But the virgin grandam was a woman no less than Wratha, and her mind moved in equally 318 319 see me. I can't come to you because the men frighten me, and devious circles. She was well aware of the weaknesses of so does Alexei. But I know you. We trusted each other once. men, and how to use them to her advantage. This Siggi Dam, You need me now, Turkur. I know about this place ... its for instance. Tzonov thought she must be dead by now, and daaangers. he was probably right. But he couldn't know for sure. Perhaps 'Siggi?' She had got through to him at last. He continued to Devetaki could convince him otherwise. sleep but his mind was locked-on to his dream and the false She issued orders to her men, mounted her flyer and, images planted there by Devetaki. In fact, the Lady was keeping well clear of the keep, flew down into the pass. And somewhat surprised to discover just how susceptible his mind winging silently through the night, she thought: was. Telepathic, demanding, threatening in his waking hours, The weaknesses of men, aye - especially strong men, when he was used to contacting and probing the conscious minds they think they are safe and secure in their strength. But she of inferiors but lacked a defence against her subconscious was thinking of one such weakness in particular: their superiority. curiosity ... And Devetaki was proud of her mentalism. In Turgosheim one time, when she'd caught the Seer-Lord Turkuuur! Maglore creeping silently through her thoughts, Devetaki had At first it was only a whisper in his dreaming mind, but warned him: Hands off my mind, Maglore! Drift in the one that grew louder and gained definition apace with its shallow thoughts of others all you will and catch what sprats insistence. Turkuuur . .. Turkuuur! you can. But beware the swirJy deeps, for there dwell great Again he saw pictures of Siggi, planted in his dreams (or and vicious fishes! And Maglore had moved on at once. For he released from the wellspring of his memory) by Devetaki had known her telepathic power and accepted her as his peer; Skullguise. Siggi in the swirling tatters of what had once while this one, this Turkur, accepted no one as his peer been her night-attire, in which she'd been dressed when she apparently. Therefore, he would not believe he was being went through the Perchorsk Gate; but just as beautiful as manipulated; he would reason that his thoughts, even his ever, and as innocent of knowledge. Or perhaps not. subconscious thoughts, were wholly original to himself. And Presumably she had learned something of this world, or she he would be curious. Ego + curiosity = weakness. could never have survived. 'Siggi?' Turkur mumbled again, twitching more violently Turkuuur! ... And suddenly her telepathic voice firmed up. yet. 'Where? How?' Turkur - you're in danger! Devetaki had developed the theme of his dream; now she 'What? Danger?' He mumbled in his sleep and fidgeted was sparing in its direction, merely guiding Turkur's stream awkwardly in his sleeping-bag by the hearth of a great of thought and letting him follow the trail - and hoping, of fireplace, in which embers were still glowing red. Deep in his course, that he would follow it all the way. I'm in the pass. subconscious mind, however, he knew that he was safe; there But there's danger, Turkur. You didn't need me before, but were sentries in the keep's courtyard and watchers in its now you do. Don't leave me here in the dangerous dark. For if turrets. But human watchers now, not Things left over from you do, who wiJI care for you in this new world, and who will some nightmare past. care for me? Would you have some coarse Gypsy for your Turkur, I'm in the pass. I saw you arrive and remembered companion in Sunside, or would you have me? you. And I remember Alexei .. . But I can't come to you; It was a seductive argument. Tzonov almost started those men, soldiers, they frighten me. I don't want them to 320 321 'In the pass,' Yefros whispered, as they unzipped their bags, awake, and Devetaki knew it was time to move on. pulled on combat boots and stood up. 'Definitely. I can feel The beacon of Alexei Yefros's locator mind was impossible her there.' to miss. His talent worked against him as Devetaki located 'She survived!' Tzonov could scarcely believe it. 'Maybe him in roughly the same vicinity, probably the same room, as the British got it wrong and this place isn't so deadly after all. Turkur Tzonov and carefully probed his subconscious But no, I can't see that. Perhaps she's simply lucky.' thoughts. She pictured the machine which she had seen in 'I heard her speaking to you.' Yefros's voice was sibilant in Tzonov's mind, and let Yefros shape his own dream from the the silence of the keep. 'Even sleeping I located her. Her image. telepathy . .. the machine certainly didn't take that from her! He saw the machine and, hooked up to it, lying on a She's seems to be afraid of the men, and she's afraid of me, surgical trolley, Siggi as she'd been that night: clad only in her too.' He licked his lips, relishing the idea. It pleased Yefros gauzy night-things, more beautiful than any woman he had that someone feared him. ever known (or any man), and entirely accessible. Except .. . Tzonov finished dressing, glanced at the other. 'She fears Tzonov was there and anything like that was out of the the filth that's in your mind,' he said. 'No disrespect to your question. But her mouth, so tempting .. . the valley between talent, Alexei, but your ... personality? That leaves a lot to be her breasts . . . the various openings of her body. desired. To Siggi's way of thinking, anyway.' And Devetaki thought (if only to herself), Hah! He has the They were in a room approximately one hundred feet above mind of a vampire Lord if not the physique! Little wonder the bed of the pass. The room was one of a series cut back these two were outcasts in their own world. But in my world from a natural ledge under a massive overhang and walled .. . what you would have done to her, Alexei, my lads would with masonry from the rim up to the outward curving rock do to you - except you would probably enjoy it! face. Beyond the wall and arched window-spaces lay empty And in the guise of Siggi Dam, Devetaki sent into the air. An archway led out on to a walled balcony looking down psychic ether a message that both of these talents would hear: on the pass. I'm in the pass, Turkur. But I'm afraid of your soldiers — and Sharing the room with Tzonov and Yefros, and hearing of Alexei Yefros! their movements and something of their conversation, Bruno Both of them came starting awake together, and both with Krasin had also come awake. While Krasin knew of their the same name on their lips: 'Siggi!' talents, he himself was of mundane perceptions and could Her picture was receding in their minds, but a fleeting echo scarcely comprehend them. He understood the physical well was still there: Turkur, I'm in the pass towards Sun-side. I was enough — especially in a military context — but ESP was on my way back to the Gate on the boulder plains when I saw metaphysical and so beyond him; he tended to forget about it you. But I'm afraid, Turkur, afraaaid! until he saw it in actual use. Devetaki had got her as nearly as possible right; she had 'Who survived?' he said, coming easily to his feet. And: been the very essence of Siggi Dam. Now that Tzonov and 'Am I needed?' He looked at the two espers, their faces Yefros were awake, however, she knew her subterfuge glowing dull red in reflected firelight. couldn't continue. She could no longer be Siggi but only a 'Siggi Dam survived,' Tzonov told him, going out onto the presence, and then only to the locator. So she became a balcony. 'She's hiding somewhere down there in the pass, in presence, but nothing more than that, in the location that she'd the direction of Sunside. We're going to find her and bring already chosen. 322 323 her in. Her telepathy is still powerful and she could be of them. It strikes me we'll be a long time in this vampire extremely useful - to us.' He had almost said 'to me', but world. A little economy now may later be seen to make a lot didn't want to show his specific interest. Right now he of sense.' He spoke without too much animation, but couldn't wasn't ready to admit that interest even to himself, despite resist raising an almost effeminate eyebrow as Krasin checked that something of what she had conveyed to him lingered out his own short-barrelled, laser-targeting, 10.2 mm self- over. Something about a companion? Would he prefer the loading rifle. company of a coarse Gypsy woman to her? That was a Krasin didn't notice, but Tzonov chuckled and said, 'Ah, question he could answer later, and so he put it to the back of yes, Alexei. Nasty macho weapons for a nasty macho world! his mind. But you are right about the economy bit. We must be careful Yefros and Krasin joined him on the balcony, stared how we spend our firepower.' His own weapon was a down into darkness. South, the very faintest of afterglows machine-pistol, and as he spoke he moved a lever from 'rapid' silhouetted a narrow horizon; it was less than a smudge to 'semi-automatic' fire. Now he must pull on the trigger for above the inky well of night. But Siggi's thoughts had been each individual shot required. powerful and she was probably close. 'Somewhere down They descended to the ground floor of the keep, quietly there,' Yefros mused. And to Tzonov: 'If she sees you, she'll through rooms where the men were billeted and down dark, come to you.' echoing stairwells, occasionally using external stairways under 'How do you know she's -?' Krasin started to say, a clear-cut swath of coldly glittering stars where the towering frowning. He checked himself at once. A stupid question; canyon walls met the sky. Yefros had simply known, that was all. In the courtyard they were challenged by a member of the 'Do you have her?' Tzonov glanced at the locator. prowler-guard who loomed out of the shadows, his weapon at Yefros's eyes were glinting bright in starlight. 'A presence, the ready. Krasin congratulated him, and quietly told him: that's all.' 'We're going out for a while. Until we're back, make sure your 'But you know it's her, right?' This from Krasin. Without weapon is on safe. You wouldn't want an itchy, nervous knowing it, he had asked the one question that they hadn't. trigger finger to slip and blow your superiors to hell, now And he followed it up with another: 'Is she on her own?' would you?' There was no humour in his remark, and a sharp Tzonov blinked his penetrating eyes, glanced at his metallic click in the darkness signalled the prowler-guard's section commander and shrugged. 'Siggi spoke to me, mind immediate compliance. to mind. Alexei got something of it, too.' Another prowler was at the massive gates; Krasin spoke to 'A presence,' Yefros said again. 'Just the one, yes.' him briefly, and the three moved out into the pass. Tzonov gripped Krasin's elbow. 'Come with us, anyway.' It was eerily quiet, so that even the whirring of a tiny bat's And to Yefros, 'Check your weapon.' wings sounded unnaturally loud before the creature sped away The locator took out a small calibre, high-powered into the night. Then, with their torch-beams sweeping the way automatic, checked the clip, replaced it in its shoulder- ahead, and following the scarcely recognizable trail along the holster. More suited to a woman's hand, still the pistol had scree-littered canyon floor, the three searchers gradually stopping power. Krasin tried not to sneer as he asked: 'Is that increased the distance between themselves and the keep - and it?' the keep's far greater store of firepower, of course .. . Yefros answered, 'If a single bullet will stop a man, I can't see much sense in using ten, twenty, an entire stream 324 325 own right; and with her long legs, proud breasts and red hair .. .Which was precisely what Devetaki Skullguise wanted. flowing, she looked every inch a warrior queen of ancient And one hundred yards farther down the pass, behind a Earth. It was a disguise, of course, the product of that leaning boulder where she oh so patiently waited, that Lady metamorphic art which allowed all of the Wamphyri uncloaked her telepathic mind (but just a little, the merest effortlessly to maintain a more or less human guise. But when crack, and so revealed nothing of her true identity, but simply threatened or gearing for action .. . the promise of her presence). And: ... That same metamorphism was changing her even now. There!' Alexei Yefros hissed. The locator went into a half- Into the monstrous destroyer which she really was! The great crouch and pointed with his torch, whose beam dispersed gape of her jaws, and the flickering bifurcate tongue which with distance and fell short of lighting up Devetaki's hiding- they housed; the quivering, bat-like convolutions of her place by some fifteen to twenty yards. As Tzonov and flattened nose; the hellfire heat of her burning gaze! And the Krasin's torch-beams joined in, however, the half-buried sickly mist pouring from her pores, and called up writhing boulder stood out as a leaning, irregular blot against the j from the riven earth, as if the pass itself were a tortured, living greater dark. creature! Then, to add to the confusion of these three aliens in her \ world — aware of the mentalism of one of them, and the 'A rock?' Krasin grunted. psychic prowess of another - Devetaki opened her own 'A place to hide,' Tzonov corrected him. And to Yefros: 'I vampire mind all the way to hurl a gurgling, phlegmy thought heard it, too, Alexei. And you are right, she's there!' at them: They moved forward, left the trail, clambered towards the Fools! Why, I know what you would do even as you boulder. As they went Tzonov called out in a low voice, proceed to do it! 'Siggi, it is I, Turkur. I heard your call and I've come for you. Tzonov tested her anyway, pulled the trigger of his Don't be afraid.' But in the next moment ... the female who machine-pistol and sprayed the space where she had been -or emerged from behind the boulder certainly wasn't afraid, , tried to spray it. But his weapon was still on single-shot and and she most definitely wasn't Siggi Dam! fired off just one round, and in the moment that he fired it Devetaki had acted: a flowing, swirling dislocation of space j that moved her like a wraith — as if she floated to one side The sight - the jolting shock - of her abrupt appearance without physical effort - back behind the boulder. So that in the glare of their converging torch-beams stopped all Tzonov's lone bullet scarred the rock, struck sparks from its three men dead in their tracks. Her face froze them; its flinty surface and did no harm at all, while Devetaki's vampire 'smile' was awesome. For the Mistress of Masquemanse was mist swirled mockingly around his ankles, then his knees. wearing her frowning half-mask. And while the leaden side Then: a vicious, mechanical ch-ching! as Krasin cocked his grimaced, its counterpart grinned! And both of her eyes, in f rifle and ran forward in a crouch to skirt the boulder, and his the face and the socket of the half-mask alike, were red as harsh, practised, authoritative cry of, 'Flush the bitch out!' clots of blood and glowed with an internal, an infernal fire! And Yefros's terrified, stuttering squeal, 'M-m-mother of Krasin, in no way a believer, breathed, 'Jesus!' Yefros, as his jaw fell open, gasped, 'Not Siggi!' But Turkur Tzonov, cocking his machine-pistol, said simply, chokingly: 'Wamphyri!' Devetaki was dressed in exoskeletal-styled battle-gear, all gleaming leather and sculpted, flexible cartilage. Her gauntlet looked alive on her hand, like a vicious spiny beast in its 327 326 God - more of them!' as his talent came into play and located skywards and grasped the trailing trappings of her beast's other minds where suddenly they sprang into sharp focus. harness. It bore her away laughing into the mist and the Thus, in a matter of minutes, both Tzonov's locator and his darkness. military commander had called on deities in whom they had Now Tzonov's frantic gasping and cursing joined Krasin's, no faith, and who certainly would have none in them. and both were almost drowned out by Yefros's woman's Before Krasin could get close to the boulder and attempt to shrieks as the night and more than the night pressed down 'flush the bitch out', the psychic ether came leaping alive. on them. And the air of the pass seemed full of swooping Take them! And Tzonov scarcely needed eye-to-eye contact motion. No, it was full of motion! now; Devetaki had deliberately fired her order for all to hear ... No longer mere shadows, a pair of manta flyers came and especially Turkur Tzonov, to further increase his speeding along the bed of the pass, one out of the south, the confusion. And you, creature - come, take me up! other from the north. Eager figures leaned forward in their At which the darkness came alive, too! saddles; feral eyes gleamed yellow, and ivory teeth dripped Something huge and grey, previously unnoticed, disguised saliva into red-ribbed caverns of horror. by the night and a backdrop of rubble and jagged canyon Yefros had made his way back to the trail. Arms and legs walls, pushed itself upright on a nest of wormlike thrusters, frantically pumping, the terrified locator was heading for arched its wings, stretched its neck and launched out and the sanctuary of the keep, whose eye-socket windows and down from a sliding scree mound; a great manta shape cliff-hewn balconies were lit up now in the yellow-flaring drifting on the night air, angling for Devetaki's boulder. light of hastily fired torches. Viewed through Devetaki's Tzonov would line up his sights on the thing but was mist, however, the flickering golden fireflies seemed far away distracted by Yefros's shrieking; likewise by Krasin's curses indeed - and much too far for Alexei Yefros. and the deadly diatribe of his weapon; and in any case, One of Devetaki's lieutenant's flyers had veered from Devetaki's flyer was only one thing! Where to fire first for Tzonov's view into the deep shadows of the rearing east best effect? At the Lady, of course, if only she were visible. wall. The other, coming through the 'tunnel' of the pass But in this clinging, sickly mist, in all this confusion, in the from the north, was rapidly losing altitude, stalling, arching flitting shadows of more nightmare flyers, which even now its membranous wings as it settled towards the running soared overhead, blotting out the stars and drawing Krasin's figure of Yefros. Like the grasping limbs of some unthink- fire . ..? ably huge carnivorous insect, or the feelers of a hideous, Tzonov found his voice at last, and in the temporary lull sentient anemone, a nest of worm-like thrusters was uncoiling while Krasin slapped a fresh magazine into his rifle's housing, from a belly cavity, palps quivering where they reached out shouted: 'Back to the keep!' His voice was hoarse, even after the unsuspecting locator. But as mount and rider went terrified — drifting by, fully intent upon their prey, so they presented - But the virgin grandam's was fearless, full of a monstrous Tzonov with a target he couldn't miss. anticipation as she told him; Ah, no, my pretty! Falling to one knee, he took careful aim at the leather- Briefly - so swift and sure in her movements that Tzonov clad back and side of the figure in the saddle .. . barely had time to swing the muzzle of his weapon in her . . . And just a moment too late sensed rather than saw his direction - Devetaki emerged again from hiding, sprang own doom almost upon him! It came swooping from the shadows in the overhang of 328 329 the canyon wall - the flyer he'd lost sight of! And where its Them?' tapering neck joined a corrugated underbelly, a vast scoop Krasin nodded. Then you didn't see anything.' Perhaps it lined with cartilage hooks was yawning open to receive him! was for the best. He desired to command men, not leaning towers of jelly! Tzonov straightened up, swung his machine-pistol to face 'What happened?' the corporal asked, as they set off back the threat, squeezed the trigger. With a rrrip of gunfire, hot along the trail. lead was hurled into the gaping belly-pouch - but Tzonov Krasin paused, bent to pick up Yefros's pistol from where might as well be firing at a jellyfish. He dropped his weapon, turned to run and felt the shadow of the flyer falling on him the locator had dropped it, called back to the men in the rear, like a tangible weight as its head and long neck passed 'Somewhere in those rocks there's a machine-pistol. If you overhead. can see it, bring it in. If not, forget it. It will keep till In the next moment the jutting, drooling lip of its pouch morning.' And to the corporal: 'As for Comrades Tzonov smacked into the back of his thighs between knees and and Yefros, I ... don't think you'll be seeing them again.' buttocks, and he was folded and scooped up as easily as that. And he strode out for the keep. Before clammy, alien flesh closed on him, Tzonov had time But in the next moment he paused again, half-turned and for a single, hoarse, meaningless cry of protest. And the last gripped the corporal's arm, drawing him close. 'If you should thing he saw as the cartilage-barbed clamp of the pouch see them, however, you have my permission - no, my orders - meshed shut, was the spastically kicking figure of Yefros to shoot on sight! For, you see, it won't be them. It might snatched up and jerked aloft, his head and right arm lost in a look like them, but believe me it won't be.' writhing of greedy, triumphant claspers ... And there was a deep, deep shudder in Krasin's voice that the corporal had never heard before ... Soldiers came running, the searchlight beams of their torches cutting swaths of white light through the thinning mist. Bruno Back in the keep, Krasin fortified himself with several mugs Krasin heard their shouts and squeezed himself out from a of good American coffee, then held an O-group with his four clump of boulders where he'd taken shelter. Dusting himself NCOs. down, he made stumblingly for the ancient trail, came face to Tzonov and Yefros are gone,' he told them. Taken by the face with one of his corporals. creatures of this world. From now on, that's how you will 'Sergeant?' The corporal glanced nervously all about, and think of this place: as an alien world whose people can his party took up defensive perimeter positions. But Krasin snatch you up just like they snatched them. Except that's not had seen everything that had happened and knew it was much how it's going to be and we won't be caught out again. But too late for that sort of thing. Too late for Tzonov and Yefros, those two .. . were talented. Their minds were different from anyway. ours. I believe it's what let them down, and lured them into an 'Sergeant?' the corporal said again. 'What about Comrade ambush. Tzonov, and that thin fellow, Yefros?' 'Well, we're talented, too - at living in the field and off the Krasin realized how shaken he must look. He got a grip of land, but especially at staying alive! Now, you've all been himself, stood up straighter, and asked, 'Did you see anything briefed; you know that this is a vampire world; you would of it? Anything of . . . them?' have been sent here anyway, eventually, with or without Turkur Tzonov. And I would have been with you: 330 331 The thing was a bracelet an inch wide, eighth of an inch your beloved Sergeant Krasin, mother and father both, to thick. And it was solid gold. 'Yes, that too.' Krasin nodded. look after you! Yes, and I know what my children need. 'Gold is a common metal on Sunside. It's one of the reasons 'Now listen, the vampires of this world live on Starside. we were coming here, before we were forced to come here. That's north to you: that barren place where we left the Gate. And it's another reason to go on living. We won't be They live there and can't abide the sun, which kills them. So marooned here. It won't be long before others follow us south is where we are headed. But if you ever want to get to through, or until we can return through the underground Gate. Sunside, if you ever want to see its rivers, forests and game After all, it was Tzonov who was on the run, while we were — and chase its wild Gypsy women - first you've got to live only following orders. If we go home carrying our own weight through one hell of a long night. Of which there are at least in this stuff ... you can stop worrying about being traitors. two "days" still to go! We'll all be heroes!' He looked from face to face. 'Anything 'Very well, at first light we move out, for as I've said, the else?' sun will keep them at bay. But between times we have to be But there was nothing. extra careful. For every man who sleeps I want one awake, 'Okay, let's get the heavy stuff set up. Two machine-guns, a on the lookout. And I don't want anyone on his own. Drink rocket-launcher, flamers, too. I want weapons on all the all the coffee you like, but when you're on duty stay awake balconies, and nite-sites on that ribbon of sky overhead and alert. They know we're here now, and after talking to throughout. Let's turn this place into a real fucking fortress!' Tzonov and that snivelling Yefros - well, they'll probably And to himself: We'll have to, if we want to see it through know all about us, too. But they'll also know about our until the morning/ weapons. For Krasin knew he'd never be able to forget the 'smile' on 'Now I saw Tzonov fire point-blank at a flying beast, and I the female's face — how her flesh had flowed and changed — myself fired this weapon of mine into the bellies of several, but as she'd stepped into view from behind that boulder . .. we didn't nearly stop them. Not with a machine-pistol, no, . . . And she was only one of their women! nor even with a rifle. But I'm betting a grenade-launcher would stop just about anything they've got! And here's Only? (Devetaki smiled, however, grimly where she something else to keep in mind: I fancy that while their flyers 'listened' to Krasin's thoughts from her vantage point, high on are just huge, dumb animals, their riders are — or were - the rim of the canyon wall.) Only a woman, do you say? Well, men. If you knock them out of their saddles, its possible their a woman, I'll grant you - but only? Hah/ Wamphyri, my alien mounts will run as wild as riderless horses. friend, Wamphyri/ 'Okay, that's about it. Maybe they'll come back and maybe But she liked Krasin for all that and considered him a man. they won't, but if they do I want to meet them with force, let Aye, and he would have made a fine lieutenant, too ... and them know what they're up against. They have their own perhaps still would. But two out of three wasn't bad — special brand of hell, these bastards, but they haven't seen - Not for starters, anyway . .. ours yet, not by a long-shot . ..' Finally, he paused. 'Any questions?' A lance-corporal took something from a pocket, handed it over. 'Feel the weight,' he said. 'It was buried in the dust and dirt of my billet. I found it under my sleeping-bag.' 332 the constant stream of flyers, lieutenants and thralls we're sending down? Well, they'll all get their fill. We stunned as V A Lady many of the Szgany as were required — about half of them, as Vormulac stated, but mainly the old, the unskilled, the Schemes barren and the burdensome - and sent the rest into the woods while we took our fill. Drained carcasses are being brought back for the warriors, though not enough to fuel them through another complete cycle, I fear ...' Vormulac nodded. 'But we got your message concerning the injured creature on the boulder plains. Excellent! When Devetaki, Vormulac and Zindevar arrived back in the lava you've rested awhile and taken a little sustenance, I'd be flow heights within half an hour of one another, and eventually obliged if you'd guide our beast-minders and their starveling came together in a vast, horizontal shaft of a cavern which warriors to the very spot. This way the entire army will be was once the extinct volcano's blowhole or safety-valve, now fully fuelled for the fighting that lies ahead.' the warrior-Lord's temporary headquarters. At which Devetaki cocked her head knowingly on one side, Lord Unsleep and the Lady Zindevar seemed well pleased and inquired: There is to be fighting, then? Oh, really? So is it with themselves (or, in Vormulac's case, and in the light of his that I'm only hearing the good news? And what about the bad? perpetual melancholy, as 'pleased' as he'd ever seemed); the I saw no sign of Laughing Zack Shornskull as I flew in. What fires observed on Sunside had indeed proved to be the of him and his? I seem to recall him boasting that his permanent camps of supplicant or fief Szgany ... the 'tithe' contingent alone would have Wratha the Risen's measure. Can they had paid this time had been in blood! something have happened to change his mind, do you think? 'We took half.' Vormulac dolefully detailed the outcome of Did Wratha's "measure" exceed his calculations?' She was all his and Zindevar's joint venture. 'Half of everything, that is, innocence. including the people. They were docile enough, if a little Vormulac scowled down the hook of his nose. 'It strikes me surprised. Wratha and her lot weren't due for three sundowns you've heard all about it! Am I right, Lady? Well, the man yet, but their Szgany supplicants thought we'd come out of the was a braggart and a fool — but at least he was our fool! His last aerie - or Wrathstack, as that fang out there on the plain of loss is sufficient a blow without all this sniping and sniding.' boulders is known — on some special collecting round. By the 'He was our fool?' Devetaki repeated Vormulac's words time they'd got it worked out that we weren't a bunch of inquiringly, despite that she already knew. 'His Joss, did you lieutenants out on a spree, and that in fact they couldn't say say? So everything I've heard is true: Laughing Zack will who we were, it was too late. Even so, there was little or no laugh no more. And his troops?' resistance; Wratha, Canker, Gorvi and the Killglance brothers Vormulac sighed. 'A thrall made it back.' seem to have them well trained. There was no word of Vasagi, And Zindevar put in: 'Upon a flyer.' though, so it seems the Suck's gone the way of all flesh. But Devetaki's scowling mask was entirely in keeping with her there is a new Lord among them: a fellow called Lichloathe. mood as she glanced disdainfully at Zindevar. She not only Lord Nestor Lich-loathe of the Wamphyri - a necromancer, considered the other Lady her social inferior, but also a apparently!' Zindevar took up the story: 'Doubtless you've observed 334 335 social climber who liked to have her nose - and indeed her 'And I would have you feed my hungry warriors!' He puffed say - in just about everything; to the point where in order to himself up. 'And I'd have you do it now. Unless you would be heard she would deliberately introduce trivia into prefer that I personally feed them - perhaps on your lads out of otherwise serious conversations. And in an untypically Cronespire? What, "lads" did I hear myself say? No, eunuchs, scathing tone, the virgin grandam repeated her: 'Upon a flyer, most of the poor bastards! And how are we to suppose they Zinde-var? Really? Well, I scarcely supposed he'd walked!' will fare in the fighting, eh? Why, I couldn't put them up And, ignoring the other's spluttering, she turned back to against women, let alone men!' His words rang true in Vormu-lac. 'What's the word?' whichever sense. The warrior-Lord made no bones of it. 'If we're to believe Zindevar was furious; she couldn't speak. She stormed out our sole survivor, Wrathstack's a veritable fortress. The aerie from the mouth of the blowhole and began screaming harshly houses all of them, and they fight as one. Their creatures are for her lieutenants and beast-minders to attend her. lean, mean, experienced and fighting-fit; they swarm like Gesticulating and shouting, she disappeared from view. hornets to repel their enemies. Shornskull's losses were . .. Devetaki couldn't help but snigger, and even Vormulac must what, total? And Wratha's were nil. In short, it was a turn away or break into a smile. But finally he controlled shambles.' himself and said, 'Now out with it, Lady. What's on your Devetaki nodded. 'Aye, yet I find myself in disagreement mind?' with you, if only on one point. It wasn't a total loss. We did 'Wratha's fortress could well end up her mausoleum!' get something out of it: knowledge. We know they're Devetaki was down to business at once. 'Consider: the place definitely there. Also . ..' But here she paused to glance stands several miles — what, nine, ten? — out on the barren sideways at Zindevar. Reading that glance, Lord Unsleep boulder plains, clearly visible for miles around. Set watchers saw that Devetaki had something to say, but not in front of and .. . why, she couldn't even send out a bat without we'd see the glowering Cronesap. it!' 'Also,' (he cut in, diplomatically) 'I think you're looking 'True.' Vormulac frowned. 'But by the same token we can't tired. What's more, your weariness makes you just a little get near without she sees us. She has the elevation.' disagreeable, Devetaki. But the Lady Zindevar here is well- Devetaki held up a finger. 'But I fancy we've taken her by fed and her men provisioned. Wherefore I suggest that she surprise - our coming at this time, I mean. Her Szgany goes to seek out the injured Wrathstack creature, and leads supplicants didn't even know who you were. So they weren't our hungry warriors to their supper. Also - I suggest she does prepared, and I think that she's the same. It would be my guess it now.' that the Lady's had no easy time of it, keeping her renegades Zindevar had missed none of the interplay. Still stinging from each other's throats, and that they've only recently joined from Devetaki's sarcasm, she drew apart and hissed: 'Hah! forces in the fullest sense.' And do you have favourites, my Lord?' Vormulac was mystified. 'But is that a good or bad thing? 'No!' he hissed back. 'But it appears I have generals who And if they were not unified before, but are now, what spit and snarl at each other when they'd do well to save their difference does it make? As individual Lords, they would have venom for our enemies!' built up their individual forces. And Wrathstack is a vast 'I would hear the rest of what Devetaki has to say!' she place; I have our lone survivor's assurance that it could house snapped. all of us and ours. For all we know, it could be filled 336 337 with men and beasts from top to toe - just waiting to pick us 'Because I'm clever?' off!' 'For one thing ... but also because you're already Wamphyri,' Devetaki put on her smiling mask. 'Just waiting, aye,' she he growled, 'and would not be obliged to ascend over my dead said, mysteriously. body! But aye, you're a clever one. Instead of explaining the 'Eh?' meaning of the things you've been saying, and telling me 'Now tell me this: who can afford to wait the longest?' what I should do, you're waiting for me to beg it out of you.' To wait the . ..?' She smiled, and her mask and face alike matched up. 'It's And quietly, Devetaki inquired: 'Is she not in siege?' just that I like to feel appreciated,' she said. And more 'What?' His great jaw fell open. seriously: 'We're not much good at this, are we?' 'Where is her sustenance? Where are her provisions?' 'Eh? At what?' He walked her out into the night, and they 'Why, in Wrathstack!' stood at the rim of the lava flow, like a series of waterfalls 'No.' The virgin grandam shook her head, then changed frozen to a standstill on their way to the boulder plains. her mind and nodded. 'Her immediate provisions, aye . .. but This warring.' later? In Sunside, that's where. And how will she supply and Vormulac looked at her in the light of the stars. 'Because resupply her creatures? If her army is huge, she'll need to we've forgotten how,' he said, as gloomy as ever. These feed it - and we'll be in the way, waiting for her. Except we'll thousands of years we've followed the ways of Turgo, be well-fuelled. And I say it again: if her army is vast -' because we had to. Unlike these vast western territories Devetaki shrugged - 'then I fancy we won't have long to wait.' which we're now opening up, our place in Turgosheim and 'How so?' our own Sunside were small concerns. If we'd destroyed all 'Wratha's no fool. She knows the lie of the land; we don't. of the Szgany to fuel our wars, in the end we'd have eaten By now, she'll probably know our strength; we don't as yet each other. The end of the Wamphyri, aye! So we suppressed know hers. She has all Sunside mapped, knows its forests our vampire leeches as best we could and .. . grew weak! and favourite hunting grounds; we haven't and don't, not yet. Weak in the ways of blood, the ways of war, the natural She has all the long, long night ahead: forty hours and more ways of the Great Vampire.' to go, before she — indeed we — must take to the shade.' She nodded. 'Between you and me, then, you're saying At which Vormulac got in: 'But so do we have that!' that Wratha was right to flee Turgosheim?' 'She is settled and we are not. And where will you puyt Again his solemn glance. 'Between you and me, Devetaki, your army when the sun comes up?' Devetaki's logic was the Szgany of our Sunside are grown vile! Their blood is devastating; she'd always been good at word games . . . at bad. We took all the fight out of them, and all the goodness, tactics, as Vormulac now saw. too, a long time ago. In Turgo's time we lived on the blood He grunted and scratched his beard. 'Upon a time, I had a of men — men like Turgo himself — who fought back! But wife,' he said. 'I lost her to a vile disease. Well, enough of now in Turgosheim we've become as fleas on a dog's back. love. Now, for all that I'm a follower of Turgo Zolte, I have Except the dog is mangy. The blood is the life. But if it's bad my lust . .. from time to time, you understand. But I tell you, blood ... ?' Devetaki Skullguise, that if ever I wanted a woman for wife — 'And now?' Devetaki grasped his arm, and her slender which I don't - it would be you.' fingers were urgent where they bit into his grey flesh. 'Is it 338 339 too late, or can we reverse it? If we win this war — conquer Now, straightening up, he said, 'But Maglore must be Wratha and this new Sunside/Starside — can we stop the rot?' something of a fatalist, too, for I remember he also told me — His glance was more penetrating now. The rot? Do you feel and I think I agree with him — "So be it; perhaps it is as well it, too, then? I thought that I was the only one. I thought it was to leave it at that.. ." Well, and perhaps it is.' just me, gloomy old Vormulac Unsleep.' Devetaki shook her head. 'I think not. Better if we weed it She shuddered. 'Ah, no, my Lord. For I too have felt it -and out once and for all, then start afresh here in these clean for years! And I've seen it: the way in manifests. The autisms, western territories . . . " Or perhaps in another pJace, far animalisms, mutations and madness. In short, the decline of away, where the vampire's taint is scarcely known, and the the Wamphyri. Did you know, I liked Wratha upon a time? blood of men and beasts alike is sweet and clean. Which was Why, I believe I still do! Because she's "clean" in a way that a thought that she kept to herself, of course. most of us can never be. Clean, spirited and original. What's 'Weed it out?' He looked at her, as if to gauge her meaning. more, I envy her what she's had here, and what we must put 'How? When? Where?' an end to. For the rot's in her, too, or if not in Wratha the 'Here. In all the battles to come. Whenever the opportunity Risen, certainly in her renegades. The dog-Lord Canker arises,' the virgin grandam answered, drawing him aside, Canison, for instance, more animal than man. And as for the away from his army where its various contingents were Killglance brothers: why, even their father's terrible eye was a camped. And in an undertone: 'My Lord Vormulac, the rot is weapon! And -' in us, too. Now believe me that this is nothing personal, but '- And,' Vormulac cut in, 'Wratha's supplicant Szgany have the Lady Zindevar is a corruption in herself, as is any it that Spiro is now heir to old Eygor's killing eye!' creature who goes against nature to that extent.' Devetaki shrugged. 'Can we be surprised? And what of 'Eh? I can't see that. There have always been women who Vasagi the Suck with his rampant acromegaly, his amazing are drawn to women.' miming, telepathy, metamorphism? I'm glad that he has gone, 'Aye, but it scarcely leads to strong men! And remember, and not simply because he's my enemy! What? Why we're all she's no underling but a leader.' our own worst enemies, and dangerous ones at that! But not as 'Are you sure this isn't your leech speaking, Devetaki? Is it dangerous as these I've mentioned.' that you envy Zindevar something or other? Her manse in Vormulac nodded and said, 'Our own worst enemies, aye. Turgosheim, perhaps?' We always have been. It's nothing new. Isn't it what Zolteism 'Do I envy Zindevar? You think I might envy Cronespire, was all about? To deny our leeches and be men? But we can't when I have Masquemanse?' Devetaki shook her head. 'But be men because we are Wamphyri! Old Maglore had it right. I let me go on, let me try to convince you of this ... this remember he once told me: creeping disease that has come among us, crippling us more '"We're not true masters, but slaves to our parasites. In all the time.' And after a moment: Turgosheim, only a blind man or a fool would ask why beings 'Look at Wamus. He's brought his bloodsons with him, and who could live as long as the Wamphyri usually live so short! both of them the same as their father: more bat than man! Such is our nature, however, and jealousy, hatred and lust - Why, they're outside of nature, Vormulac — even the nature and blood, of course - our way of life."' of the Wamphyri! And what of Lom the Stunted, whose Just for a moment Lord Unsleep had looked worn out. knuckles drag on the floor? Or Grigor Hakson and Black Boris, whose lechery —' 341 340 But again Vormulac stopped her, saying: '- Now hold! For Szgany slut while we wage war? So I would counsel you surely there's lechery in every man!' thus: keep Maglore the Mage for a "friend" if you like, or 'Like theirs? If something so much as looks like a cunt, better by far keep him as your spy — for certainly as a seer Grigor is into it. And Boris shags with trogs: a rival for the and mentalist he has no peer - but as a leader with powers? ... dog-Lord, that one! Nor are they alone in their vices. And we That is hardly fitting. No, this is how I see it: talk of "ascending" to a Lord or a Lady. What, ascension? 'Lord Vormulac Unsleep shall be the Emperor, the virgin But surely it's a foul descent, to disease, deformity and grandam Devetaki his adviser, and the Seer-Lord Maglore madness! But we - you and I, my Lord - were never that his shewstone — for scrying on his lands and possessions way. And there are others among us who are likewise ... afar to keep them safe. We can surely value Maglore, without "clean." They should be spared.' that we elevate him to a position of power. For after all 'Spared?' we're Wamphyri!' And Devetaki gave what she hoped Obviously she must speak it out loud, or in a whisper at sounded like a light-hearted laugh. The two of us watching least. 'Send out the freaks into battle! Send them out first, so each other should be quite sufficient, without that we must that they may take the brunt of it. When it's over, those who watch him also!' survive will have been weakened. That will be the time to Vormulac wasn't sure. He frowned and tugged on Mag- strike, to do your weeding.' lore's twisted loop sigil where it dangled from the lobe of To cut out the rot?' his ear; that golden symbol of the Seer-Lord's mysticism, 'Exactly! And we'll start again, repopulate Turgosheim given to him by Maglore for good luck. But... Devetaki was with our own, and develop these new territories as best they usually right, and so: should be. But always with a tight rein on population, and a 'Let me think on it,' Lord Unsleep growled. 'Meanwhile, sharp eye out for freaks and degenerates.' we have other things to talk about. And while we talk, let's 'But Turgosheim will remain our seat?' walk together among my generals, and so inspire them with 'Why not? The Centre of Empire, certainly, to which we'll our presence .. .' return from time to time, for the worship of our people!' Vormulac felt himself carried away with the idea. 'I see it 'Devetaki!' Maglore spat out her name as if it were essence of clearly: the Grand Triumvirate, controlling all from their seat kneblasch. 'So-called "virgin" grandam! So-called Lady! in the gorge of Turgosheim!' Treacherous, scheming, back-stabbing whore! Spawn of a 'Eh?' Devetaki's turn to exclaim, to question. 'Triumvirate? leprous spore! May your blood turn to acid and scorch your But... can you possibly mean Maglore?' leech to a cinder!' 'But hasn't the Seer-Lord always been one of us? Doesn't His own blood was up; he stamped, shook a fist, cupped a he even now keep the gorge for us and see to its servicing in talon-like hand under the rim of his Mobius sigil shewstone, our absence? Isn't he our oldest friend?' to sweep it from its onyx-stemmed table. The table itself Devetaki put on her frowning mask. And, darkly and went toppling, so that Maglore must reach and out to save it quietly, she said, 'I have often wondered about Maglore. For before it struck the floor and shattered. And the gleaming, where some go too far, he goes too short. Long on lore and strangely twisted mass of his sigil thudded heavily down on to runes and magic, short on guts, drive and vision. Where is he a pile of parchments and skins, and lay there all unrepentant. now but in Turgosheim, tending the hearth like some 342 343 Maglore was alone in his room of meditation, which was lieutenant reported, the Seer-Lord had regained control of just as well. If Karpath or another lieutenant or thrall had himself, though he still raged inside. been there, certainly the unlucky one would have suffered 'Yes, Lord?' The hulking Karpath stood before him. some small harm, and perhaps even a large one. For even as 'How goes the work?' Maglore wasted no time. the Seer-Lord reached out to save his table, still the scarlet 'As you ordered, Lord, we work from the bottoms up. Lorn lamps of his eyes were glaring all about for some lesser Halfstruck's Trollmanse fell at once. The dwarf had left only thing on which to vent his fury .. . and they spied just such a one lieutenant in charge, who we discovered spent from a thing, within easy reach at that: surfeit of Lom's women. His plasma was not Wamphyri; it His marvellously detailed clay model of Turgosheim, churns now in a vat, along with most of what we found of complete with all its spires and manses, including Vormulac Lord Halfstruck's thralls. Pregnant women were dealt with, to Taintspore's melancholy Vormspire - and Devetaki's insure that nothing of Lorn survives, and also to fuel your Masquemanse, of course. And striding to the workbench own creatures. Wherefore it only remains for you to imprint where the model reposed, Maglore issued a curse through the stuff in the Trollmanse vats, and eventually you'll have teeth like a tight-meshed man-trap, to snarl: warriors to send out far and wide across Turgosheim's 'A plague on your house, Devetaki! And more than a bottoms.' plague - a fist!' With which the Seer-Lord brought his 'Good! And the lesser hovels? Mordslump, Zackstack, clenched hand smashing down, so that Masquemanse was Wensknoll and the rest? I hope that, in all of your rendering stripped from the rim of the gorge and crushed down into the down, you've not forgotten to do a little recruiting?' meticulously moulded clay of its bottoms. The clay had Karpath shook his great head. 'We have forgotten nothing, desiccated somewhat; the turrets and towers fell apart; the Lord. You'll discover all the recruits you need herded together bulk of the flattened manse did not compress but flew in in the base of Madmanse, the best of the stuff out of the lesser chunks. If this were the real Turgosheim, it could only be houses. With their Lords flown, they were as easily gathered that a meteorite had struck home with shattering force to up as fatherless children. Only descend, take what you will strew bits of Masquemanse across half the gorge. and give back of yourself ... your thralls shall teem!' Maglore felt something of the sympathetic 'magic' of his Maglore allowed himself a mirthless chuckle. 'It seems I act (though in fact his trembling sprang more from his rage), could easily exhaust myself, imprinting all of this good stuff and rushed from his room of meditation and through the into the faith — into my faith, that is! Why, I must be sure not corridors of the vast promontory turret which was Rune- to give more than I take, lest I swoon from my depletion! Very manse, until he could gaze from a window on all the star- well, then let the work continue. Except -' silvered bight of the gorge. He gazed at Masquemanse, of 'Yes, Lord?' course, intact despite the destruction of its simulacrum ... Maglore took him to the window. 'Look there!' which served to promote a further bout of cursing and fist- Karpath followed the line of the other's pointing finger. shaking. 'Masquemanse?' Eventually, exhausted by his emotions and determined The same. See to that next, and then return to your work upon a far more substantial revenge, Maglore called for his down below.' man Karpath, only just returned to Runemanse from certain 'You want to invade Devetaki's place, and ...' 'duties' in the shadowy bed of the gorge. By the time his 344 345 '... I want to destroy Devetaki's place!' Maglore grabbed And so it would be, but a long night to go before then ... him by the shoulder, his long nails digging in. 'I want to sack it utterly, break off its balconies, knock out its windows into Vormulac's army was sprawled all down the ancient lava the gorge, topple its chimneys and leave promontory river; where the rock formed folds like frozen falls, behind Masquemanse a veritable ruin, uninhabited and the petrified spume and ages-stilled columnar gush, shallow uninhabitable! And all of her thralls and creatures reduced to caves and weathered-out pockets gave shelter and cold monsters shambling in the bottoms and guarding the passes! comfort to men and beasts alike. The various contingents And her entire house a burned-out shell where the dust kept to themselves; men hurried here and there, pursuing the gathers in drifts and the winds mourn, but only the winds! orders of their Lords or Ladies; an orderly stream of flyers For I most certainly shall not. Indeed and from now on I'll continued to launch — or land, whichever was the case — on not hear her name mentioned, neither hers nor Vormulac their way to, or returning from, the banquet of blood on Unsleep's!' Sunside. Such was his vehemence that Karapth was taken aback. 'It The belly-pouches of returning flyers invariably disgorged shall be done, of course, Lord Maglore .. . but as you're surely corpses, which were dragged away to makeshift warrior pens. aware, Devetaki — I mean, she — left a strong body of men The flyers had been fed on Sunside greenstuff and honey and monsters guarding the place. And Masquemanse is laid-up for Wratha and commandeered by Vormulac, and heavily fortified. Moreover -' Zindevar's forces, more sparingly, on unappetizing lights and '- Her wells are in the bottoms.' Maglore waved his protests giblets: human flesh, naturally. Thus all creatures - manlike or aside. 'Poison them! Kill off her siphoneers. Then, when her otherwise, man-shaped or monstrous - had been or were in the people are sick, attack from the rim of the gorge. Take up my process of being fuelled, as best possible in the circumstances. young hungry warriors on to the rim even as I wean them And apart from the loss of Lord Shornskull's reconnaissance from their vats, and break through the roof of Masquemanse party, all seemed to be going reasonably well. into its heart. By then our flyers, recruited from the other Silent for a while, the warrior-Lord and the virgin grandam spires and manses, will be too many to count. We shall strike walked together and approached the latter's contingent, where Masquemense full in the face, driving in through every Devetaki had made camp in the lee of a small, crumbling landing-bay and window! So the night shall be spent, and all secondary cone. There, she called for one of her lieutenants to resistance crumbling away as our aerial assault on the face of attend her, and as he approached and bowed, said to him: The the manse continues. Then, as our men penetrate deeper and Lady Zindevar prepares to launch . ..' (and in an aside to press on up through the manse's levels, finally we'll withdraw Vormulac, 'One has to admire her scrupulously fair attitude: our forces on the rim. The last of the bitch's thralls shall think only observe the way she leads her own warriors to supper to escape by that route, up on to the roof - only to discover first!') Then back to her man: 'Go with the Lady and guide her that the sun has risen, barring their way with golden fire!' with all speed to the injured creature which we spied on the They'll melt,' said Karpath, shuddering. plain of boulders. And when she's safely there, return at once.' Too true,' said Maglore with a curt nod. They'll melt, aye - 'Yes, Lady.' Her man nodded, and went to mount a flyer. and all of the Lady's dreams of empire with them! So be it.' 'What's this, co-operation and concern?' Vormulac raised an inquiring eyebrow. 'What, for Zindevar Cronesap?' 346 347 'In her current rage she might overshoot and fly across the shape of crippled enemy warriors, but also with Jiving tribute!' rim of the world!' Devetaki answered sourly. 'Not that I Vormulac looked at her more closely where she led the way would care a bit, but your warriors — and mine — would go through a weathered, crumbling section of the secondary hungry.' cone's wall into a shallow caldera. 'Are you saying you took Vormulac grinned in his fashion, but said, 'Oh, well, recruits? Well, excellent! But why didn't you mention it Zindevar has her uses. Did I tell you, her familiar bats before?' returned — most of them?' 'Because Zindevar was there. I trust her as far as I could 'Not all of them?' Devetaki looked away for a moment, and throw her, and confide in her to that same extent. Yes, I found called loudly after her lieutenant: 'Be sure and take a beast- men in the great pass to Sunside, and took recruits which I minder with you, and our warriors also. Ensure that a chain is now claim for my own. It is my right; for as my Lord will established, so that all of Lord Unsleep's creatures follow on doubtless recall, I fuelled his starveling army on a creature of in turn . ..' mine out over the Great Red Waste, by reason of which my Now Vormulac saw the point of Devetaki's shouting. forces are reduced •- or were. Let this serve to even up the 'Which were the tasks I gave to Zindevar, right?' score. Behold!' 'But you are so sweet on her.' Devetaki looked up at him. Watched over by a senior thrall, Turkur Tzonov and Alexei 'You ignore that she ignores your orders!' It was true, Yefros lay huddled in the shadow of the wall. The latter's eyes Zindevar's fury had overridden common sense. Some two were closed, head lolling. Tzonov, on the other hand, was hundred yards down the lava slope she was just this moment wide-awake, alert, staring all about. Giving a great start as the airborne; her own warriors were spurting aloft in her wake, Lord and Lady came into view, he stood up, bowed his head but not a one of the other contingents' fighting beasts. Thus, and kept it low, stared at the ground under their feet. she ignored Lord Vormulac's orders, apparently, or had 'Subservient!' Vormulac approved. forgotten them in the grip of her fury. 'Not a bit of it.' Devetaki touched Tzonov under the chin, Vormulac sighed. 'Very well — but you must let me handle drawing up his head. 'Clever, more like!' affairs such as this in my own way. Yes, your suggestion The warrior-Lord stared, and Tzonov looked up and back - with regard to the freakish and aberrant, including a certain eye-to-eye! Directing her thoughts closely (which was Lady, is a good one, but I am in command here. Only let it be scarcely necessary, for Vormulac's telepathy was minimal), noticed that you have more than your share of influence . .. Devetaki was into the Russian's mind in a moment: It wouid they'll all be jealous - even the men - no less than Zindevar!' not serve my purpose if this great Lord were to learn that Devetaki put on her smiling mask, but a moment later was you're a mentalist. Nor would it serve yours to have those businesslike again. 'What of her bats?' knowing eyes put out! Vormulac shrugged. 'It appears that some went missing.' Tzonov lowered his gaze at once. The virgin grandam nodded. 'A voracious place, 'Clever?' Vormulac repeated. 'How so?' apparently, where Lords and men and beasts alike - and even 'Just a suspicion,' Devetaki told him. Then, changing the small familiar creatures - go out only to be eaten up, by subject: 'But... don't you see anything strange?' Wratha or whatever! Yet some of us do venture forth, fulfil 'I see a great deal that's strange! These men are neither our duties and return; not alone with news, or bounty in the 348 349 As Yefros began to choke in Vormulac's grip, the warrior- trogs nor Szgany. Also, in my youth on Sunside - ah, but that Lord lowered his arm, let him crumple to the earth. Tzonov was a long time ago! — I once saw a dead desert nomad, and was quick to catch the locator and let him down more so I know that they're not Thyre either. So what are they?' gently. After all, they were in this together - and up to their 'I've no idea,' Devetaki lied, pretending ignorance. 'But this necks in it, at that! is a strange region, which appears to be inhabited by even Vormulac turned to Devetaki. These suits they wear: stranger races!' She shrugged. Til find out all about them — tough stuff! Not as coarse as Szgany weave, yet stronger eventually.' far.' Vormulac looked Tzonov up and down: his penetrating grey Again her shrug. 'All kinds of benefits seem likely, aye.' eyes (which once again the Russian quickly and wisely averted); his silver-blond eyebrows and tanned, healthy flesh; 'I notice you've not yet converted this one?' He glanced at the broad bronze dome of his head, hinting at a formidable Tzonov, who continued to avert his eyes judiciously, not intelligence. His sharply-hooked nose, as stern if not as long as alone in deference to Vormulac's stature, but also because Vormulac's own, lending him a hawkish appearance; his small, Devetaki watched like a hawk. pointed ears lying flat to his head, and the too-perfect 'Easy to do, but impossible to reverse,' was her response. 'I symmetry of his face as a whole, whose left and right halves want him free-thinking, for a little while at least. For as were alike as mirror images. And his build: athletic, powerfully you're aware, as a thrall he'll say what I want him to say, do muscled, oiled to a perfect flexibility, yet tight as a coiled as I direct.' spring. 'Not always the case,' Vormulac grunted. 'He looks like a A handsome specimen, this one. If there were tribes such as strong one to me. But I concede your point. You desire that this on Sunside, then they'd really be worth fighting over! And he retains his individuality in order that you may better Vormulac could readily understand Devetaki's determination understand his mind.' to keep him. He'd make a lieutenant and a half; possibly a 'Before I make it mine, aye. To see as he, or as his kind decent plaything, too, after he'd put on some weight, height sees may be of benefit.' And then, because eventually she and the cold grey cloak of undeath. As for his companion: might be obliged to reveal the truth: 'Also . . . I think it's Casually, the warrior-Lord put Tzonov aside, causing him to entirely possible that they're talented, these two; there's stumble a little. And, stooping, he took the unconscious Yefros something of an aura about them. And while conversion to by the lapels of his jacket, jerking him up off the ground and vampirism has been known to amplify certain talents, it has holding him aloft, legs dangling, where he could glare directly the effect of suppressing others. For far too long the Wamphyri into his crumpled-seeming face. But . .. there was no have destroyed what may not be recreated. Er ... but this, comparison here. Why, the two were dissimilar as wolf and surely, was one of several conclusions arrived at during the weasel! Or master and servant? And where Tzonov seemed course of our recent conversation, my Lord?' intact, as yet entirely human, Vormulac could scarcely help but Vormulac scratched his head. 'Was it? Why, yes, I believe it notice a pair of familiar punctures, purple gashes in the lesser was . . . " He seemed satisfied. 'Very well, I leave it in your man's neck. Devetaki had converted this one at least: plainly he capable hands, Devetaki. Do as you will, and discover what slept the sleep of change. you can.' 'But one thing I can tell you now,' she said quickly, as he turned away. 350 351 'Oh?' And despite that he felt a sudden warning chill, as if a cold 'Their weapons are devastating!' wind had blown on his spine, Vormulac thought to himself: 'Really? And yet you returned unharmed.' Well, and what does it matter that she's disfigured? For after 'My superior mentalism! Entering their minds, I saw what all, beauty is only skin deep in all of us. And picturing was in store for me and mine. Avoiding it, I survived and Zindevar and Wamus, and others who were even less lovely, took prisoners to boot.' All of which was the truth. And he concluded: Aye, and a good deal shallower in some! leading him out of the crater, Devetaki glanced back once Which only served to show the warrior-Lord's own shallow over her shoulder at Turkur Tzonov, her scarlet eyes telling nature: that his Wamphyri awareness was so easily confused him: Never fear, for I shall be back, my pretty. And then we'll by the virgin grandam's treacherous 'logic'. talk some more. And for once in her life and undeath, the virgin grandam 'And they were in a pass leading to Sunside? But how was glad of her disfigurement and mask both; lest the scarcely many of them?' concealed, self-satisfied writhing of her mouth become 'Oh, a dozen more at least. And armed to the teeth.' obvious in the ice-blue glittering starlight... 'What, with stakes of wood, knives, spears, crossbows?' Devetaki shook her head. 'Ah, no. Their weapons are astonishing! I can't describe them. Best if you yourself were to see them in action.' 'I should go up against them?' Oh, if only it could be arranged! And it could have been, if I'd had more time to think it out. But no, for if by chance you had survived . .. The virgin grandam's mind was shielded as never before - like an ironwood kernel in its shell - as she answered, 'Ah no, not you, my Lord! As Commander-in- Chief, you would only attend as an observer. But. .. Lord Wamus, perhaps?' They stood alone on the lava slopes. He looked at her and smiled, but grimly. 'I see. You're thinking we should send out the "freaks" into battle, to test the way ahead.' Devetaki's smiling mask was well in keeping as she slowly nodded her head and gazed unflinchingly back at him. And Vormulac thought she even looked beautiful in the starlight. Or he might have, except he knew what lay beneath the gold- filigreed lead: the leering hideousness of flensed bone, the naked truth under the lie of the Lady's mask. But even he did not know all of the truth, and therefore none of the lie. 352 'provisioning' of Masquemanse, had been guaranteed. The Lady's gauntly jutting promontory of an aerie was by no VI means a hovel; her 'fair share' of the Sunside tithe had been considerable; while very occasionally her men and creatures Devetaki: Her Schemes Coalesce - might find it necessary to scratch and scrape, their mistress Nathan: After the Battle at the Rock had never gone without. On the other hand, the lesser knolls and crevices of recently ascended vampires and the middling manses of young up-and-coming Wamphyri Lords and Ladies commanded a much reduced get out of Sunside, and frequently were shabby, even impoverished. Thus (and especially with Vormulac in the role of tithes- All of the Wamphyri were territorial; all of them were greedy, master), Turgosheim's secret triumvirate had established and scheming and intent upon their own survival. With their kept a rein on the gorge and its inhabitants - and upon metamorphism, their metaphysical powers, magnified themselves! When one has only sufficient for himself and his emotions, vastly inflated egos and vampire tenacity - with all immediate household, all instinctive or leech-inspired notions of these driving forces which were theirs by virtue of their of feuding, territorial expansion and empire-building become parasite leeches — they understood that success meant power academic; finally, they assume the status of fantasies. Plots are meant survival! Wherefore infinite success might well mean still plotted, but they are rarely acted out. immortality. But even in common men power corrupts, and Of course, in a society whose continuity is based on absolute power corrupts absolutely. And in the Wamphyri? principles of conservation, the rules must be seen to be obeyed Like all megalomaniacs, they only perceived the corruption, by everyone. Lord Vormulac, and Maglore the Mage, too, were the evil, the perversions of others; or, should an individual known to be fairly strict adherents to Zolteism: 'ascetics'. So glimpse an aberration in himself, his preference would be to Devetaki and everyone else had believed, even as her partners blame it upon, or assign it to, his leech, depending on the in the triumvirate had believed it of each other - and of circumstances. Thus, while acknowledging the dubious Devetaki herself . .. benefits of their parasites, still they decried their insatiable Turgosheim was yesterday, however, and this was here and appetites or 'vices'. Contrarily, and while a victorious Lord now. And this . .. was freedom! Or it could be, if she and her would revel in 'his' triumph, in the event of defeat he would leech played it right. What Devetaki had disclosed to just as readily heap curses upon his 'thin-blooded' vampire. Vormulac was true: she envied Wratha and her renegades what Devetaki Skullguise, the virgin grandam of Masquemanse, they'd had here, and what they could have had eventually, was no different. In Turgosheim it had made sense to live an without Turgosheim's intervention. But what she had ordered life: to 'exist' as governed by the tithe system. By no necessarily failed to disclose was far more to the point: that if means an austere existence, it had scarcely been an opulent she herself could have it - for herself - then she wouldn't for a one. Nevertheless, Zolteism had suited Devetaki: the creed moment hesitate. Even now, the thought made her shudder made clear how each should live commensurate with his or deliciously: to be Empress of these vast and sprawling her needs. Thus the requirements of her house, the territories and all that went with them ... and perhaps other places much further afield. 354 355 Moreover, it wasn't impossible that she'd come across the These were some of the Lady's thoughts (kept hidden from key to unlock just such airy ambitions, in the shape of Turkur the warrior-Lord, of course), as the pair approached the camp Tzonov. Precisely how she would turn that key - in what of Wamus behind a time-tattered curtain of white volcanic ingenious lock - was hard to say just yet, but it was in her pumice, the fragile spume of the lava river's ancient falls. And hand, be sure. And Vormulac Taintspore himself approved of it just as Devetaki became aware that she'd been lost in thought there. for too long: Vormulac: currently, and however unknowingly, he was 'You are quiet, Lady,' rumbled Vormulac, as if reading her Devetaki's tool; but a heavy one and unwieldy. If she should mind - which mercifully he wasn't. 'Quiet and thoughtful. I've slip and miss her stroke, he'd prove a sharp one, too! Despite seldom found it easy to fathom you. So tell me: what is it that that he had gone along with her so far, still she must be wary. you're pondering?' Her time would come when she'd used him to whittle the 'I was thinking,' she answered at once, 'how best .. . how others down, removing all who might possibly have her best to advise you in respect of Wratha's containment.' measure. Laughing Zack Shornskull might have been one 'Is she contained?' such, but circumstances had seen to him without her help. 'Not yet, and that's the problem.' With any luck, Wamus would be next; and as for Zindevar . .. Then have you thought it out?' she simply must go, and straight to hell if at all possible! After 'Possibly .. .' (And now Devetaki must really think on it, that: and quickly indeed.) But in a moment: 'If Wamus should Any and all of the other Lords would consider themselves survive the coming battle at the keep in the pass, then we'll let superior over a 'mere' woman (Devetaki wondered how him hold it. For remember: as things stand now Wratha may Wratha had fared, and felt a certain kinship); but by then, yet venture out unseen from Wrathstack in its lower levels, hopefully the bloodwar would have worn their forces down a below our horizon and, keeping her head low, speed for the little. The aspirations of Black Boris went little further than a pass. With Wamus or his survivors in the keep, we'll be able harem of trog mistresses, and Grigor the Lech had similar to deny her passage into Sunside via that route at least. That weaknesses; Devetaki was sure that if she struck while they will leave only eastern and western routes open - which we'll were whoring it up, she could take them out with a minimum also block, naturally. Even now we stand in the way of her of trouble. easterly excursions; obviously, she frequently heads in this Eventually, of course, even Vormulac would see the lie of direction to collect the tithe from her supplicants across the the land: how the virgin grandam gathered survivors of defunct mountains. So if we station a sufficiency of men and warriors contingents to her own, to reinforce it, and how she had begun here, this will be the second supply route we've obstructed; to draw apart from him. This would probably split the army and possibly Wratha's main route, at that. As for the as yet out of Turgosheim into two uneasy camps, both of them unseen, unknown regions in the west, beyond the great pass, obliged (for the time being) to remain united and concentrate and the strange cold glaring light of that. . . that what? A their efforts against Wratha, their main priority; at least until fallen star?' Wrathstack had fallen. By which time the warrior-Lord would 'Is that what it is, do you think?' have decided how best to deal with Devetaki, and she would She shook her head, sending her red hair flying, and, lying, know how best to use the bonus talents of Turkur Tzonov. said, 'I don't know what it is. But as for the west -' '- That is for you and I to explore!' Vormulac exclaimed 356 357 with some animation. 'Together, I think.' back to Turgosheim. Ours would be exhausted from all the Devetaki shrugged. 'Why not? After all, we are the best of patrolling, watching, flying and possibly fighting. For companions! And when we've taken the high ground - namely, remember, we don't know what else we might yet come up these barrier mountains, from east to west - and if we locate against.' observer units out on the plain of boulders, consisting of our 'Such as?' fleetest flyers and lieutenants in tune with their Lords' 'Such as those men from - I mean of course those men in - receptive minds. .. why, Wratha's every twitch will be relayed to the pass.' (She had caught herself only just in time, before us! Thus we'll have her covered from all points.' saying, 'those men from another world'.) 'So you see, before 'Only two things she can do after that.' Vormulac nodded. we could get after her, we would have to build ourselves up 'Or possibly three, if we include a slow and highly again. And meanwhile Wratha would be converting all of our improbable suicide by starvation. She'll attempt to break the good stuff in the gorge of Turgosheim.' siege, fly into Sunside and glut her starveling lads in some Vormulac scratched his head and made an unhappy growling lush land of plenty; or . . . she'll consume Wrathstack's sound. 'Huh! You make it all so complicated!' provisions in one last massive fuelling, and hurl herself into 'War is complicated!' Devetaki insisted. 'But the answer is battle!' simple: we'll send back a stiff complement of men and The latter, if I know Wratha.' Devetaki nodded. That's warriors to the eastern tip of the range. They can shelter precisely what I meant when I guessed we wouldn't have during daylight in the same trog caverns where we rested up long to wait before this war got well and truly underway. after our crossing. Hah! And we know who would find that She's Wratha the Risen, remember? And she's wrathful as to his liking: Black Boris is our man! Then, should Wratha ever, be sure! She won't lie low for long. But if I may ignore attempt flight to the east, Boris and his contingent would your creeping starvation solution - which I'm sure she would intercept and bring her crashing down in the Great Red not contemplate - there is a third possibility, and real, Waste.' however improbable.' Lord Unsleep, for all his habitual melancholy (not only a 'Oh?' morbid but a self-generating condition, Devetaki felt sure), That she'll sit tight in the stack till the last minute, then gut had been attentive to everything she said. 'Good!' he said. the rest of them to fuel her own, and finally make a break for 'And now can I take it our plan of containment is complete? it!' Then I'll reiterate: We'll have watchers on the plain of 'She'll run for it? But where?' boulders, keeping an eye on Wrathstack. We'll put a party Again Devetaki's shrug. Turgosheim?' down into the pass, so preventing Wratha from sneaking into 'What, back across the Great Red Waste? With my army Sunside for provisions. We'll leave a strong force of men and hot on her heels? And the Seer-Lord Maglore waiting for her beasts here, to deny her access to her - or should I say, to our in the gorge, with all the good stuff we left behind to bring to - supplicant tribes, and we'll locate other siege components bear against her?' Vormulac couldn't see it. in the western heights. Finally, we'll station Black Boris and 'Maglore is an old fraud!' Devetaki snorted. 'She'd crush his lot in the eastern trog caverns, so cutting Wratha off if she him in a trice - or convert him to her cause! Nor would we runs for home.' be "hot on her trail", not immediately. Eventually, perhaps.' Even as he spoke the words, the warrior-Lord's gloom had 'Explain!' seemed to lift a very little; but as he finished, frowned, 'Her beasts would be well rested; they would make it 358 359 'Not at all!' She shook her head. 'It's why you have and his face fell further yet, she saw that he was morose as generals: because you can't fight the entire war on your own.' ever. 'What is it, my Lord?' She touched his arm. 'But here comes Wamus now. Shall you 'Where's my army?' he answered. 'I lost some before we'd tell him, or shall I?' even left our homeland, others where we paused to refuel, and 'I shall task him; you shall describe the task and define its a good many more over the Great Red Waste. Laughing Zack difficulties. After all, you've been there and I haven't.' is no more, and now I am contemplating sending Wamus to Seeing the warrior-Lord and Devetaki through the fretted his doom, or at best into a terrific scrap where -if your report curtain of pumice that provided a screening facade to his lava on these weird weapons is correct - he's bound to suffer cavern camp, Lord Wamus headed in their direction with his severe losses. Nor is that the end of it. You, my good lieutenant 'bloodsons in tow. Though well-acquainted with Devetaki, seem intent upon the removal of the .. . unfortunate Vormulac and his self-appointed aide, still Wamus screened Lady Zindevar, and any and all others who deviate from your them in advance; the pair felt a high-pitched whistle - a bat- "norm". Thus, even before the bloodwar begins in earnest, like trill or chittering — striking them at all points and with the bulk of the fighting still to come, I see my army being bouncing off, carrying the details of their identities infallibly whittled down left, right and centre.' back to the weird being that was Wamus. A moment later and Devetaki sighed - but understandingly, not impatiently. 'I the singular examination stopped; Wamus stepped closer, see now your concern for those in your command. Is that all it acknowledged Devetaki with a nod of his head, and is?' She sighed again. 'For a moment I thought it was some performed a stiff, formal bow in deference to Vormulac. And: insurmountable problem which I had not foreseen. But in any 'Lord Unsleep?' he inquired. war men and beasts are bound to be lost, my Lord, while in 'Wamus.' The other nodded a gloomy greeting. 'I see you this one . . . at least we can ensure that the brunt of the are settling in. But not too well, I hope, not just yet! Now tell damage is suffered by those we can best afford to lose. Why me, have you provisioned your men, flyers and warriors? Are not look at it this way: the weakest make the supreme they well-fed, up to strength - fighting fit?' sacrifice for the good of the strong - indeed, for the survival of 'All is in order, thank you, and . . . I see you have work for the Wamphyri!' me and mine?' Vormulac narrowed his eyes. 'I was talking mainly of the It was less than telepathy or prognostication; more rapid dissolution, the dispersal, of my army: the fact that at properly, a bat-skill: the anticipation of certain requirements this rate I'll soon be left naked, with only my own and a in the moment before they become physically apparent. As the handful of lesser contingents to hand! I was not complaining bat is equipped to calculate an arrow's flight-path, thus about the "sacrifices" of war! Why, if I didn't know you avoiding a collision, Wamus was aware that this was better, Devetaki, I might think you were twisting my words.' something more than a friendly visit. He had known it from 'But I shall continue to twist them!' she said. 'Or, if not the moment he glimpsed the warrior-Lord and the Lady twist, I'll supply the correct words. Dissolution? Dispersal? I Devetaki through gaps in the pumice curtain, and Vormulac's think you mean "deployment", my Lord. The tactical mode of greeting had confirmed it. Fortunately, however, positioning of your forces to their best effect.' Wamus was not in the habit of avoidance; he would not shirk 'Yes, you're right -' (Vormulac was starting to feel irritated his duties. Therefore, and without waiting for his leader's that she was 'right' so often) - 'but when they're apart from me, affirmation: out of sight, I know I shall feel that I'm losing control.' 361 360 while they had partial metamorphism, only the Wamphyri 'Good,' he said, giving a curt nod, 'for I deplore inactivity. had truly mastered it. What is required of me?' As for Wamus's mastery: he was, to all intents and While Vormulac told him, Devetaki took the opportunity to purposes, a bat. Some six feet tall, sleekly furred, sharp- scrutinize Wamus and his sons through half-shuttered eyes. headed and with pointed ears curving inwards to the skull; Despite that Wamscarp was one of Turgosheim's major thin as a rake, but flexible as a whip and light as a feather to manses - an echoing cathedral of a place in a stalagmitic boot; with 'hands' that reached to his knees, and arms webbed cavern system located high in the wall of the gorge - still its to his body with folding, furred, membranous pinions, so master was something of an unknown quantity; of a solitary that, opening them, the webbing formed air-trap wings; with nature, he was rarely seen in public. Now, as she looked him a quivering, convoluted snout, taloned extremities and over, however covertly, Devetaki found herself much in crimson pinprick eyes . .. Wamus was a bat! accord with his self-imposed insularity. But where the creature itself is as one with nature and That Wamus was of human origin was obvious; his therefore acceptable, Lord Wamus's imitation made him anthropomorphism was plain to see, despite that his meta- hideous even in the eyes of his contemporaries. He was a morphism tried hard to obscure the fact. In this respect, man, but he was also a great bat no less than Desmodus; and, Wamus and Vasagi the Suck had been two of a kind: they had being Wamphyri, he was a great deal more than both. As for both practised their metamorphic skills to such an extent that his bloodsons, there was nothing to choose between them and flux was effortless and instantaneous. Vasagi, when the their father; if anything, their faces and forms were even less acromegalic extension of certain of his facial bones became acceptable. grotesque, had extruded them in deference to his own freakish The Lady's observations had taken no more than a moment design. Wamus, long enamoured of the unerring aerial instinct or two, and meanwhile Vormulac had outlined the task in of bats and determined to achieve similar skills, had guided hand. It was now Devetaki's turn to speak. Describing the his metamorphism in that direction. location of the keep, she offered to lead Wamus and his Almost all of the Wamphyri could fly; though a few, like raiders to the canyon's rim directly overhead. Because Lorn Halfstruck, were earthbound of their own choice. Some Vormulac was aware of the deadly weapons of the party in flew with great skill, others less dexterously; a handful the pass (and also because Devetaki did not wish to appear performed clumsily, and only when there was no other option, too determined with regard to Wamus's removal), she was when flight was an absolute necessity. Metamorphic flux not remiss in explaining the perils of the mission. Finally she allowed transformation of shape; various designs, aerofoils concluded: and leaf-shapes, had proved successful. Should a flyer be 'Lord Unsleep saw at once that this was a task which you crippled during an aerial collision (or, in the light of alone were equipped to undertake. From the bed of the pass prevailing hostilities, during an attack by warriors), then, and faced with superior weapons, it might seem impossible. depending on the altitude, a vampire Lord or Lady rider might But the keep stands in the sheer face of the canyon from reasonably expect to launch from the injured beast and make a which it was carved, and you may go where lesser "flyers" safe descent. Conversely, lieutenants and common thralls may not. To such as you, access should be no more difficult would certainly crash to their deaths. For than entering into your own Wamscarp. By window or balcony .. . whichever you may choose.' 363 362 Wamus fares when faced with these deadly weapons of Wamus looked at her, and she at once guarded her secret yours.' mind. He made no attempt to probe her, however, but merely But as they parted company, Devetaki was aware of inquired, 'Entry may not be gained by use of common flyers? Vormulac's hooded eyes upon her. More to the point, she Are there no landing-bays?' also felt his feeble, inferior telepathic probe - and turned it 'None,' she answered. The keep, while fairly extensive, is easily aside ... an observation post or way-station, nothing more. But it's also an important vantage point, securing the pass. Also, you In a cavelet off Nana Kiklu's care-cave, where she saw to the should know that great honour attaches: Lord Unsleep and I requirements of the elderly whom Lardis Lidesci had given are agreed that in the event of your taking it, you shall keep it. into her charge, Nathan slept in his Misha's arms 'like a dead Thereafter the pass shall be named "Wamus Pass", and the man'; which wasn't at all the cliche that it sounded. For, as keep in the canyon, "Wamskeep"!' Nathan knew only too well, the dead do 'sleep' from time to Wamus drew himself up, filled his lungs, and for a time, not only to escape the ennui of their condition, but to moment his tiny eyes glittered more brightly yet. But then, rest their ever-questioning minds. For when inquiring mind - blinking rapidly, he said: 'Vormulac and ... you? The virgin a no longer physical but metaphysical factory of questioning grandam of Masquemanse, called Skullguise? Do you say and reasoning, of calculation and conception -is all that you are agreed? But how is it you have the right, Lady?' remains, then, uninterrupted, the mental pursuits of a person's 'As the warrior-Lord's chief adviser, I have it,' Devetaki lifetime follow exponential curves almost to infinity. But answered. while most questions have answers and problems solutions, The other nodded, blinked again and thought on what he'd others appear insoluble or form merely the nuclei of even been told. 'And .. . the keep shall be mine -?' greater problems. And even dead minds can become '- To use to our mutual advantage,' she reminded him. exhausted. 'And .. . my name shall be on the keep and on the pass?' As for Nathan Kiklu, or 'Keogh', as he now rightly Vormulac put in, 'In honour of your victory, yes.' considered himself: his mind and body were anything but 'So be it.' Wamus bowed from the waist. 'Only allow us a dead, although they felt it, and especially his body. For in the few hours' resting time and we shall be ready. I go to make my plans.1 last two 'days' Earth-time — parallel Earth, the Earth beyond the Starside Gate - Nathan had performed the physical work 'And I to take nourishment in Sunside,' Devetaki told him. of at least two men, and the metaphysical work of just one 'Shall we meet here, then, in a matter of — what, six hours?' man before him: his father, the Necroscope Harry Keogh. Wamus nodded. 'Midway between now and midnight, aye.' And where work such as that was concerned, Nathan was the And bowing again to Vormulac, he and his bloodsons turned only one who could perform it, for he was the new and went back through the time-carved pumice curtain into Necroscope. their temporary camp. But for all that he was physically exhausted, or perhaps Then Vormulac said to Devetaki, 'Lady, there are things I because of it, his sleeping mind - galvanized by the events of must see to: the setting up of ambushes, blockades and the recent past and the mixed emotions evoked by his return observation posts and so forth. Call me when you've eaten to his homeworld - went on in a whirlwind spiral of and rested, and I'll be ready. We'll see how well or badly recollection, reflection, even re-acclimatization to the old- 364 365 the Rock's defensive systems fell behind, and a path through but-new environment of Sunside/Starside. It might best be the scree-strewn approach lay clear ahead . .. thought of as a kind of jet-lag, but between universes as . . . A sudden eruption! From Sanctuary Rock's main cavern opposed to continents. And as the sprinter continues to run in entrance! Nathan should have been expecting it, for it wasn't his sleep, or the long-distance cyclist goes on pedalling, so the first time, after all. Word of his return had found its way Nathan continued to dream, to remember, and even ... to back to his mother in the Rock, where she cared for the communicate, eventually. Szgany Lidesci's old ones. And knowing that her son was Not unnaturally, his most lucid memories, and the happiest alive, right here and now ... nothing in earth, air, fire or water ones, were uppermost in his mind: he dreamed of the could have kept Nana Kiklu from him! Not only his mother occurrences following immediately upon the battle for but Misha, too, his young wife who shared Nana's duties with Sanctuary Rock, after Gorvi the Guile's lieutenant, Turgis, her: both of them came at a run, then stumblingly, finally had undergone interrogation by Lardis Lidesci - and after halting even as the men halted. And Nathan looked at them he'd uttered his last curse and died the true death in a Szgany looking at him. firepit. Misha was desperate to be in his arms; her breast heaved and And because it was all so fresh, the dream was as real as her eyes were full of him, and full of a mist that threatened to life, more nearly a vivid recollection than a dream proper . .. brim over, too. But she held back in deference to his mother, who stepped forward and slapped him! -Then gazed at her Wearily, they made their way back to the Rock across a stinging hand in wonderment and burst into tears! And no one, battlefield mainly cleared of the debris of war. A warrior not even Nathan, had ever seen Nana do that before! burned in its own fats, kept going by the blazing faggots But he knew why, and so did all the others. So that Nana which Lardis's men tossed into the heat and the stench .. . A was the only one who was surprised! Then the pile-driver flyer seemed grotesquely perched upon an agony-arched force of her as she flew into his arms, so that he must lean framework of red-glowing, skeletal cinder wings, its long forwards to meet her or be knocked off his feet. And feeling neck gradually slumping in the melt, parting from its body her against him, knowing she was safe - and therefore that he and issuing sooty scraps and sparks that drifted to the sky in a was safe - as his eyes transferred to Misha. Misha, who was column of smoke . . . A lieutenant's bloodied gauntlet lay calmer now and waiting her turn, but who nevertheless had where he had left it; his clenched fist, severed from the wrist that look about her that said, you are realJy for it now, my lad! by a keen machete, was still inside. Finally Nana released him and, half-flinchingly, blinking his Noticing this loathsome relic in passing, Lardis growled: eyes, Nathan turned to Misha. Then . . . all the men with him 'Have someone deal with that, Andrei, if you please. I want bursting into nervous laughter as she cocked her head, no bits left over to contaminate the clean earth. No, for I narrowed her eyes and wagged a finger, gave a strange, swear by my star that the very air these bastards breathed was whimpering little cry and fell into his embrace; fell to with a tainted forever!' barrage of kisses that threatened to slurp his face off! And Lardis, Andrei Romani, a handful of the Rock's senior men finally Nathan knew that he was home. and Nathan, Trask, Chung and the three cavers, they all Before they could go off together, however: 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 366 367 'Nathan,' growled Lardis. 'We've things to talk about. Me constant temperature, and alveoli cavelets to house Lardis's and mine, you and yours. Time later for . . . well, proper people, it was quite literally a sanctuary - or had been until greetings. But much to say and do, and little enough time as it now. Above the chalky base, however, the material of the is. The ladies will have to understand.' Rock was a hard sandstone turning to granite halfway to the 'How long?' Nana and Misha were at once anxious. And dome. Since geology was an unknown science, the Lidescis Misha protesting: 'We, too, have questions, things we want to could scarcely be expected to know that the whole Rock was know!' Then, giving Nathan that look again: 'I thought you an extinct volcano's plug which had weathered out and were gone forever — dead, undead, drained of life: a flame- 'toppled' from on high, to where it now stood on its head. eyed thrall in Wrathstack!' But the Rock's caverns extended upwards only to the But his mother shook her head. 'She knew you weren't, and sandstone level, and to the rear as far back as the foothills' so did I.' bedrock; so that while, on the one hand, the Rock had seemed 'You knew?' He looked from one to the other. a safe place, on the other, it had been a trap. Which was why His mother shrugged. Her eyes were dry now, but sarcasm the Old Lidesci had cut escape routes through the chalk and dripped as she said: 'Of course! The sun continued to come sandstone to the overgrown rising ground of the foothills on up in the mornings, didn't it?' both sides: cramped tunnels that were large enough for men, And Misha smiled and added, 'And the stars shone bright difficult for anything as bulky as a vampire Lord, and quite as ever at night!' Szgany fondness. impossible for their constructs. If ever the Wamphyri, their Then Nana again: 'Very well, go and talk. But Lardis, only thralls or monsters should invade via the main entrance, for an hour - I hold you to it!' He was possibly the greatest Lardis would escape through his boltholes and use crude but Szgany leader ever, whom even the Wamphyri held in some effective gunpowder to bring the entire thing down on regard ... but still it was an order. And without waiting for an whatever was behind him! answer, the two women went off. Then: Lardis had a large low-ceilinged cave high up and to the 'Come,' said Lardis. 'I have rooms in the Rock.' But as he rear of the maze of caverns and fissures that formed Sanctuary lead them in through the main entrance, the Old Lidesci Rock's interior. Since opening the place up, exploring and turned and said to no one in particular, and to everyone, occasionally excavating its extensive systems, room had been 'Except for essential duties, get your heads down. Pass it on: made for all of the Lidesci tribe. But only the fortunate few, you're to get what sleep you can, for before too long I'll be with 'apartments' on the rim, close to the external wall or face having you all up again. So start dusting off your carts and of the Rock, had natural light and 'rooms with a view'. This travois, you lads. Aye, for we'll all be Travellers again by occurred where the Rock was pitted right through to its cysts morning!' or caves, forming windows or air shafts to the outside world. Most of Sanctuary Rock's friable, chalky base was buried in In the higher caves these windows made excellent view- the roots of the foothills rising to the barrier mountains. ports, allowing observation of the countryside all around. As Water action in some earlier age had carved most of its leader of his people, Lardis could have had an airier place; cavern systems; what else could be excavated by hand had instead, he had denied himself and apportioned all of the been, and it was scarcely surprising that Lardis had found perimeter rooms to the old folk and families - which was evidence of prehistoric habitation. Even now the Rock made typical of him. But an excellent camp and fortress; with its 368 369 even stranger than the unspent years. And he was no longer at least his place was large, with room to accommodate all of pale but a tan different again from the weathered-in look of his senior men whenever Lardis called a meeting. the Szgany: the result of his time spent in the more frequent Here it would be dark, black as the pit, but for candles in daylight of Earth, especially the light of the Greek islands. niches in the walls. One of these was lit but guttered low; Finally: Lardis, leading the way with a flaring torch (also with a 'Necroscope!' Lardis Lidesci declared decisively. warning to keep heads low), touched fire to the other candles And Kirk Lisescu added, with a wink and a nod in Nathan's and set the place to glowing yellow. Now the group could talk direction, 'Aye, and your father's son right down to that and make proper introductions. faraway look in your eyes!' Feeling compressed, if not claustrophobic, Nathan sat Kirk sat on Lardis's left, and was rewarded with an elbow in opposite Lardis at a huge, low, oval table. Everything was his ribs. 'But that's knowledge that stays right here!' Lardis low; the ceiling, an uneven blotchy surface scant inches cautioned him sternly. 'It's for us to know - for us in the know overhead, was festooned with stalactite nodes which would - and no one else!' He glared all around the table. 'Nana Kiklu raise unpleasant lumps if they should come into sudden, lives with us; she's a good woman whom I'd protect with my accidental contact with a man's forehead or face. Ben Trask life, even as she protected my own Lissa upon a time! No sat on Nathan's left, David Chung on his right; the three rumours, no wagging tongues, no sniggering old biddies who cavers sat next to Chung, with four of Lardis's men opposite. begrudge Nana her looks and would definitely begrudge that There were faces Nathan knew of old, others he had rarely she once loved the Necroscope, Harry Keogh!' seen, or never. But he was certainly glad that Andrei Romani Lardis could be outspoken, which was how he preferred it. was there; and the wiry hunter Kirk Lisescu, grinning ear to It was out in the open now and no more pretending. 'Anyway, ear and eager to have a word with his young friend as soon as her Hzak was dead - and died a brave man, of the vampire shit the opportunity presented itself. in a Lord's bloody gauntlet, which poisoned him - and the For of course to the ones Nathan knew, he was a new Lidescis were reduced. By my own orders, widows were Nathan! First, his absence of three long years, when he'd taking new husbands, and widowers new wives . . . so why wandered among the desert-dwelling Thyre and dwelled in shouldn't Nana? It wasn't her fault she fell for Harry Hell- the Seer-Lord Maglore's Runemanse in Turgosheim; now his lander! So then, let no man criticize Nathan or his mother, and absence of months, since the time when he'd been stolen away certainly not his father! Without Harry Keogh we were all by a Wamphyri flyer and no one had known if he were dead dead men long and long ago. Well, like father like son: it or alive - or somewhere in between. And on both occasions could be that without Nathan we'd be dead tonight — or changes in him, some fairly dramatic and others less so, but stumbling over the boulder plains to Wrathstack - or turned to startling anyway to the few who had been close to him in the living slime in some Lord or Lady's vats!' old days. Again he glared all about. 'Is it understood? All regarding For one, he was no longer a bumbling, blushing boy but a Nathan stays here. Nothing of it goes outside. If a man of you man, and one as rare as silver or mirrors or kneblasch in an has trouble with that, leave now - but when you go, leave aerie at that! And for another, he was no longer blond as new anything you heard behind you! If not, you'll have me to deal straw, but wore grey streaks in his temples that loaned him with later ...' No one moved, nor even shuffled. years he'd not yet lived and an air of esoteric knowledge 370 371 'I couldn't help noticing that there were a great many of 'Good!' said Lardis. them. The Wamphyri themselves weren't much in evidence - And Andrei Romani, on Lardis's right, said: 'Good, aye! not on the ground, at least - but their men and beasts . ..' He And so what, anyway? He's not the only bastard here — I'm let it hang in the air, unspoken. one myself, and both of us good 'uns!' It was the emphasis he put on themselves that told Lardis The rest of them laughed (including, Nathan couldn't help what this was about. And now the Old Lidesci must find a but notice, Trask and Chung!) But the three cavers sat silent, way to tell him what he wanted to know - without telling the looking mystified. They might glean something from all of others. this; at least it gave them the opportunity to hear the Szgany 'We've heard rumours out of the east,' said Lardis slowly, tongue used more extensively, and perhaps pick up a few grinding out the words. There were always supplicant tribes in words. But in any case they were Nathan's men, and so the east - cowardly dogs! Well, Wratha and those other should stay with him in his group, where he could translate blood-suckers have started them up again! What's more, it or instruct as required. seems the Wamphyri are united again; they've been building As for the subject of Lardis's stern warning and Andrei's their forces without let-up. Also, we've been hearing that good-hearted joking: there's a brand-new Lord among them. We don't know too Nathan wasn't embarrassed. He might have been, long ago, much about that one as yet, but what we do know isn't good. but no longer. Both the living, and the dead of another world, Rumour has it that he's a necromancer! He's supposed to have its Great Majority, had explained to him how there was been seen by some of Karl Zestos's people, rummaging in the nothing to be ashamed of in his father. On the other hand, old mounds and tumuli in the woods. It's only to be expected, I there was a certain something about his ancestry -more suppose . . . of a necromancer!' (There: he'd done it!) properly, his family - that disturbed him; something which And Nathan nodded to show he understood. Understood remained undisclosed as yet. Desiring it to stay that way, he that Lardis knew his brother Nestor was a vampire, and not now took the initiative and said: 'Lardis, before we begin: a 'merely' a vampire but also a Lord. And now . . . a little information, if you'll oblige me - to bring me up to necromancer? It made sense, in a way: his father's talent was date?' coming out in Nestor just as it had in Nathan. But whereas in The way he said it made Lardis look at him in the Nathan it had been for the good . .. flickering candlelight. For, surely, information was what they The Old Lidesci had kept it to himself so as not to hurt were here about, unless there was some secret meaning? And Nana Kiklu, and so as not to damage Nathan's credibility. His there was, for it was written on Nathan's face plain to see by reasons were obvious: the Old Lidesci where he sat directly opposite. Wherefore Lardis must give Nathan his head, to see where the lad would While it was not forgotten among the Lidescis how Harry gallop. And so: 'Aye?' he said. 'Go on. What is it you would Keogh (called the Necroscope, or Harry Hell-lander, and know?' occasionally Harry Dwellersire) had joined with his son The Tonight was a fierce battle,' Nathan said. The Wamphyri Dweller to destroy the Old Wamphyri and reduce their aeries came here, to Sanctuary Rock .. . which is something new?' to rubble, it was also remembered how in the end Harry had Lardis nodded. 'Indeed, for it seems they've found us out at become Wamphyri! If it should now be learned that Nestor last. I anticipated it years ago, and we'll move out later was this 'brand-new Lord' in Wrathstack, and not only a Lord tonight.' but a necromancer too .. . 373 372 ... Perhaps that quaint old adage, 'like father, like son', might take on a new and frightening meaning! And how would that affect Nathan? Necroscope now, aye .. . but what PART FIVE about tomorrow? Would it make any difference that he had Nathan: been born before Harry Keogh became Wamphyri? Would anyone remember that, or even consider it, when they a Champion for the Living, discovered that his brother was a monster? a Dreamer for the Dead Even Lardis himself had lost sleep worrying about it; and if he didn't love Nathan like a son, and if he hadn't lost his own son ... but he did and he had, and that was that. Nathan was still looking at Lardis, but the tense look had finally gone out of the Old Lidesci's face. The secret was theirs to share between them; theirs alone, for the moment at least. Lardis relaxed, nodded and said: 'Very well, I think I'm ready for a proper introduction to these friends of yours, Nathan, and then we'll hear your story. If memory serves, the one you told us last time was pretty damn good, but I've a feeling this one is going to top it! Only let's get on without delay, for your mother's given us an hour, no more.' He rubbed his chin in mock concern, grinned and said, 'A bit of a girl, your mother, in her time. I won't be the one to cross her, be sure!' The introductions, somewhat stilted and complicated by language differences which required interpretation in places, followed ... I OJd Contacts Renewed Glancing left and right at Trask and Chung, Nathan spoke to the Old Lidesci: 'As they were my father's friends before me, these men are my friends. Hell-landers, if you like, but despite what Zek Foener told you, it isn't really hell. I've met Zek, incidentally, and she remembers you with great fondness!' 'Ahhh!' Lardis's long drawn-out gasp. 'But. .. you actually met Zekintha? Is she well? And Jazz - ah, how that one could fight! They should have come together and stayed here! In fact, I think they did get together. Why, I was almost jealous of him upon a time .. . er, it was before Lissa, of course! Jazz and Zek: their blood was good and hot, very nearly Szgany. And their children would have given us new life right across Sunside.' Nathan nodded wryly; Nana and Misha would be lucky to see him in just one hour. Lardis made a wonderful audience (like a small child, all agog), but just like a child he would be full of questions. Best to ignore them and get on with it, except - well, the Old Lidesci must be told about Zek and Jazz. And so: They did get together,' he said. 'Zek ... remains, and she's well, yes. She took me to Jazz's grave, in a place so beautiful you'd scarcely believe. I was pleased to . . . go there with her.' (He had almost said something else: that he had been pleased to meet Jazz and speak with the hero of so many of Lardis's tales of the old days, but Lardis and the others wouldn't have understood. To mundane minds a man may only 'meet' someone in the flesh, not at that someone's graveside.) 377 Changing the subject, Nathan clapped a hand to Ben Trask's languages. I know a little - not much, a word here and there - shoulder. 'This man is as brave as they come in any world, and of most of them. But yours is a strange world and . . . I have without him I couldn't have returned; why, he even came with to admit that I've surprised myself!' me to help you destroy the Wamphyri!' Which was true as far For once it was Nathan who knew the 'truth' of it. 'It's your as it went. 'He is called Ben - and Lardis, Zekintha misses him talent,' he said. 'I've noticed that all espers have this knack very much in the hell-lands! Theirs is a new thing, too soon with tongues, especially mentalists. Myself, Zekintha - others broken. Ben has a talent: he sees the truth of things. Only lie to too, I suspect. Matching words to thoughts makes it that much him, he'll know your betrayal. Show him a false trail, he'll easier. In you, Ben, it's the fact that you're a human lie- choose the right one.' detector: you know the truth of things, even the truth of Lardis studied Trask anew; but what was to study? If Zek words. I can't explain it any better than that. lan Goodly has found him good, then he was good! it, too, and .. . David?' He looked at Chung. 'And this small yellowish man is David,' Nathan continued, 'I'm getting most of this, yes.' Chung nodded. 'I've never and grasped Chung's arm. 'You've much in common with him, questioned my skill. Chinese parents, English upbringing, Lardis: he sees afar. He is a seer! As the talent was in your some German and a little French in school - the rest just ancestors and remains in your blood, so it is in David.' seemed to come naturally.' Looking from Trask to Chung and back again, Lardis 'No.' Trask shook his head. 'Metaphysically! Nathan has to nodded. 'All good things, these strange skills of yours, and we be right: it's our ESP.' can use them. Aye, for the Wamphyri are talented, too. Well, They settled down and Nathan indicated the silent, as yet welcome to Sanctuary Rock, Ben and David. A pity you won't astonished, even shaken, cavers. They were seated on his get to know it any better, but we'll soon be out of here. Now right beyond Chung, between the Chinaman and Kirk Lis- that Wratha and her lot know we're here, it's no longer safe.' escu. But here Nathan found himself embarrassed; he had Trask nodded, and carefully, haltingly - mainly in the met these men at the Romanian Refuge; since when, things Szgany tongue - said, 'Thank you for accepting us. Obviously, had moved so fast he hadn't had time to get to know them. Nathan has your complete confidence. That's not hard to Even their names escaped him now. understand: his father, Harry Keogh, had mine those long Their spokesman, aware of Nathan's difficulty, said: 'I'm years ago. I knew him when he was . . . just a man; and John Carling. My friends are Jim Bentley and Orson Sang- afterwards, before he came back to Starside. Nothing changed ster. I think we all understand a little of what's being said, him — not the real Harry - not even at the end.' but nothing of what's going on. As for this - this what? This 'I know,' Lardis answered, 'for I was there at the end!' And parallel world? It's just a nightmare! What we've seen so far then, in a surprised tone: 'But . .. you speak our tongue! Not is unbelievable! But for the fact that we're all cavers, used to very well, but you speak it. I noticed it before: when we joke, being underground .. . well I'm pretty sure we'd all be out of you laugh! Now, how is that?' here on the double! Except we wouldn't know where the hell Trask shrugged; he looked somewhat mystified himself. 'I we were running, or what we'd be likely to run into! At least have a way with tongues. In my world there are many these people here are friendly and . .. well, people!' Carling was a compact, capable looking man; small, wiry, 378 379 dark haired and crew-cut. His hands were large and strong, and Franci, were dead, killed in a recent attack on Settlement. and he used them for emphasis when he spoke. He had a Seeing Nathan's confusion - guessing what he'd been about small mouth, straight nose, slightly hollow cheeks. If his hair to ask - Andrei nodded, said, 'Gone, aye, like so many before were longer and his skin a shade darker, he could pass for them. They were two of a team on decoy duty in old Szgany. Settlement. They'd been setting small fires and burning beast- Jim Bentley was also slender and agile, but stood two or flesh, sending cooking smells up to lure the Wamphyri down. three inches taller than Carling. He had a lop-sided mouth, a And it worked. There were a lot of the bastards that night, nervous grin, red hair and brown eyes. A deep, crescent but what with Dimi Petrescu's exploding powder and our moon-shaped scar on his forehead was the legacy of some rockets and all, the Settlement team had their measure. One minor caving accident. of our rockets hit a warrior in the gas-bladders and set them Orson Sangster was the odd man out. Heavy-set for a caver, and his mantle on fire; crashing down, the beast was half- he was long-armed and lumbering, and shared many features stunned on impact. Ion and Franci went to fling boiling tar on with the Old Lidesci, who might best be described as 'simian'. him. But ... there was more life in the devil than they'd Also like Lardis, his looks were deceptive; a good disguise for thought.' his sharp mind and ready wit. Andrei's eyes had shone misty in the candlelight. Now, as Ben Trask found himself feeling sorry for the three, said: he gave himself a shake, he said: 'Well, that's how it goes.' 'When we get the chance, I'll fill you in more properly on And Nathan felt him blank it from his mind so that it what you've got yourselves into. But if I tell you that what wouldn't creep back again . . . not until the next time. It was happens here could well determine the future of our own sobering, saddening, and it brought the situation home to world, then you might appreciate that this is bigger than all of everyone, with the exception perhaps of the cavers. us. But in any case - like it or not - you're in it for the Out of respect, Nathan waited a moment before starting to duration. Listen in and make your best effort to learn the tell his story, but once underway he progressed with some language. We could be here for some time to come.' speed and wasted as little time as possible. Picking up the tale While Trask was speaking, Nathan had been looking at from where Lardis must have left it at the time, he told how Lardis's senior men. He was well acquainted with Kirk he had been taken by a flyer whose lieutenant rider, for some Lisescu and Andrei Romani, of course, but the rest were new unknown reason, had thrown him into the glaring hell-lands to him. Also, it seemed that several of the old crew were Gate. On the other side, in a place called Perchorsk, he'd absent. been taken prisoner but had managed to escape. In enemy So, before beginning his story — directing his gaze at territory, hell-lander Travellers (this part was greeted with Andrei, who sat silently now, apparently lost in thought - utter amazement by Lardis and his men. What, Travellers in Nathan began to inquire, 'What of your ...?' — and the hell-lands? And Nathan knew that he'd have to go into immediately paused. It was his telepathy, which he'd learned greater detail some other time) had befriended and hidden from the Thyre to use sparingly, so avoiding intrusion into the him until Trask and his organization could pick him up and minds of others. Andrei's thoughts had been so strong, convey him to a place of safety. however, that they'd almost spilled over, making Nathan's Then, with the assistance of his new-found esper friends, inquiry unnecessary. Almost without trying, he'd read his Nathan had discovered his Necroscope connections. answer in the other's mind: that the Romani brothers, Ion 380 381 Learning his father's art of 'going places', he had become the 'They're from here, d'you mean? From Sunside/Starside?' ultimate Traveller! Now, by use of a second Gate, he had Nathan nodded. 'Originally, yes. Indeed, the chief of the managed to return home, bringing back hell-lander weapons tribe I spent time with - I lived in his caravan a day and a with him, hopefully to defeat the Wamphyri. As for Trask, night - was a direct descendant. He was the last of his line, of Chung and the others: they were here mainly by accident, but the true Szgany blood, and carried the history of his also because they desired to destroy the Wamphyri. Not forefathers with him. Likewise, it will go with him to his unnaturally, the hell-landers in general thought of the Gates as grave. And I know that you will say it's as well.' a monstrous threat to their world and desired to close them Lardis frowned. 'Really? How do you mean?' forever, and as soon as possible. Nathan shrugged. 'He was a Ferengi!' Therefore Trask and the others must go back to their own Lardis's eyes bugged. 'Ferengi? A Ferenc, d'you say?' He world without delay and while they still could, but not before turned his face aside and spat again. The Ferencs were cursed they had trained Lardis's men in the use of their amazing in prehistory, since time immemorial! There were always weapons. Later, upon their return to the hell-lands, and if it Ferencs among the Old Wamphyri. Fess Ferenc was one such, was at all feasible, they would continue to send guns and and I saw him once during a raid: a giant, bulge-headed and ammunition through until the Gates were closed. block-jawed, his bones all wrong and talons for hands. But... Nathan also mentioned that the leader of his hell-lander the Szgany Ferengi?' enemies from Perchorsk had also come through, with a good Nathan nodded. 'But all myths and legends now - to them! many men, and that they had weapons too. The Szgany should Ancestral memory: of a time when their Lord was big in his be aware of this, that not all foreigners were good sorts. As castle, and they went out across the world to do his bidding. for Turkur Tzonov, Nathan scarcely cared what happened to They remember the places where their ancestors came from: him at all, but it would not be a good thing if his weapons fell the Gates where they emerge into the hell-lands!' into Wamphyri hands. Lardis said: 'We have our legends, too. We know that as 'Or into the hands of the Lady Wratha's collaborators, her long as the Wamphyri have been, they've had three dire supplicants beyond the great pass,' Lardis rumbled when punishments for transgressors against their own "laws". Or, in Nathan had done. And he spat into the dust of the floor. other words, they've had three especially unpleasant ways of Nathan frowned. 'I had forgotten about them. Perhaps I'll have getting rid of their greatest enemies! They were banished to to see what can be done about Tzonov after all. I have my own the north, to die of hunger and cold in the Icelands. Or they reasons for hating him, but I had hoped it would be '•• out of my were buried undead in deep pits out on the barren boulder hands. Apparently not. ..' plains, till they stiffened to stones in the earth. Or they were 'What about these Gypsies, these hell-lander Travellers?' hurled into the Starside Gate, and sent to hell forever - for no Plainly Lardis was fascinated by the idea. Nathan pondered a one ever came back from there! Aye, and sometimes their moment, looked for the best way to tell it, and finally said: thralls would go with them. Is that what you're telling me: that They are true Travellers. Aye, Szgany — or their ancestors the hell-lands Travellers were supplicant Szgany?' were, at least. And in the hell-lands, too, they're called Nathan nodded. 'Some of them must have been: unvampir- Szgany, or Zigeuner .. . they have various names. The Star- ized, in order that they could keep watch during the hell-land side Gate has been there a long, long time, Lardis.' days, which are shorter and more frequent than ours, to ensure their Lords slept in safety.' 383 382 Lardis looked at him for long moments. 'Just legends, you too comfortable. Before midnight - long before — we shall be say. But are you sure that's all they are, Nathan, these Lords, on our way out of here; where to . . . is my business. Sunup in this strange world you've visited - just legends?' will find us in a new camp, which will be soon enough for Trask cut in, 'We believe so. Harry Keogh tracked the last weapon-training and what-all. of them down, and killed him. That one was a Ferenczy, too. 'But you six, or seven if the woman was here ...' Lardis But Harry must have got too close, which was his undoing.' held out his long arms as if to encompass Carling and 'Indeed!' Lardis nodded. 'It doesn't do to get too close to colleagues, then did the same towards Trask, Nathan, Chung. the Wamphyri!' He looked at Nathan. 'And so, when this old 'Listen, I'm not much of a one for saying thanks: there's never chief who sheltered you goes down into the ground, it will be been a lot to say thanks for! Still, it's plain to me that your the end of his line?' being here saved us all tonight. I know that as soon as my 'Of the direct line, yes,' Nathan answered. lads get the chance, they'll want to celebrate and have a do; And Trask smiled and said: 'But not of the Ferenczys.' aye, and rightly so, for it's been a long time at that! Then 'Eh?' Lardis frowned. 'Come again?' you'll be made welcome, be sure!' 'It's a common name in my world,' Trask told him, and he And as his men lit torches and prepared to leave the cave, looked at Andrei Romani. 'Especially in Romania!' Lardis called out: 'Oh, yes, and another thing. I give you fair Andrei drew breath in a great gasp. 'Where? What did you warning: there's a bunch of fine, brown-limbed lasses here, say?' and many of them without men. So watch your step, you Nathan stepped in at once. 'It's true enough, Andrei. In the hell-landers! For believe me, they will be wanting to make hell-lands there's a Gate - indeed, the original Gate -that you welcome, too!' opens into a country called Romania. And the Travellers, His chuckles followed them out into the mazy ways of the Gypsies, Szgany, Zigeuner, call them what you will, they are Rock ... known collectively . . . as Romany!' Andrei was agog. He glanced this way and that, said to Nathan made a small rasping sound in the back of his throat, Lardis, 'Should I be insulted? Did ancestors of mine go into then clearly spoke a name, however strange: 'Thik-koul!' For the hell-lands as vampire thralls?' a moment disturbed, he struggled a little and turned over in But again Nathan was quick off the mark. 'Not necessarily. his sleep. Misha, wide-awake, made room for him, then went Romani is a common name, after all — you'll forgive my back to cradling him when he'd settled down again. saying so, I'm sure. But all along the mountain flank dwell Her arm went across his body; she pressed her breasts to Romanis, in no way related to you . . . or remotely at best.' his back; her hand found his manhood where it lay limp now. Andrei said, 'Phew.'1 and sat back. It was always a wonder to her how an item so small and soft Trask checked his watch and warned, 'Your hour is up.' could grow so large and hard, and so swiftly! But making Lardis stood up. 'Enough for now. We're all of us on our love to her this time had been too much for him; physically knees. It has been a hard enough day for us Szgany, so it exhausted even before the act, afterwards he had fallen must have been — what, "hell"? — for you lot!' He grinned straight into a deep sleep. It wasn't his usual way, she was through crooked ivory teeth, but in a moment was serious sure — not that she'd ever had him long enough to know his again. 'I'll have someone show you your places. Get your usual way! — but she had understood. Emptying heads down by all means, but try not to make yourselves 384 385 himself into her had created this void in him: no movement, deaf; and among the living, there was only one man who could no thought, nothing but the salving surf of relief rolling over receive, see, hear it. Or perhaps two, if Nestor were included; sharp reefs of body and mind. Except Nathan's was a special except his talent took on a different form, where incoming mind and a stranger to inactivity. And so, in a very little transmissions were not voluntary. No, not at all. while he had started to dream. Nathaaan! And then, more clearly, homing in on the Now he was doing it again, and because she loved him Necroscope at last: Nathan, is it really you? But then, who else Misha wondered what he was dreaming about this time. As if can it be? in answer: Thikkoul!' he said again. It was a mumble fading And who else could this be but Thikkoul, a Thyre into silence - and into a peculiar stillness! Indeed, he lay so astrologer whose talent was to the precog lan Goodly what very still that she knew he must be listening. Goodly's was to some fairground faker! Thikkoul: who had But to what...? read Nathan's future in the stars, and read it true, however obliquely. Nathan remembered what Thikkoul had told him: Nathaaan! how first he would be reunited — albeit briefly - with his It came as from a million miles away, a voice remembered mother and Misha, before disappearing from the world (from as if from a million years ago; so it seemed to the Necroscope. this world), 'as in the blink of some monstrous glaring eye!' Yet how may a man recall to mind a voice he never before And indeed he had gone out of this world: tossed half- heard in life, whose owner was dead before he was even conscious into the glaring eye of the hell-lands Gate by born? A normal man - or normal mind - may not, except Nestor's vampire lieutenant. perhaps in flashes of ancestral memory, if a man believed in 'But you didn't foretell my return?' such things. But normal minds are incapable of Because 1 looked no farther! And after ail, why should I? communication with the dead. For when you are gone, you are gone! In my experience the Nathaaan! The voice came again, like an echo out of space total absence of a man indicates his demise. In all truth, and time, but far more insistent than any dream; and the Nathan, I had expected to talk to you again, but from our Necroscope had learned to know the difference. Which was respective resting places. In any case, are you sorry that I was why, for the third time in his sleep, he spoke the name of his wrong? real yet incorporeal contact: Thikkoul!' Except this time he 'No, of course not. And I'm not blaming you: your reading repeated it to himself, under his breath, in a language known was accurate. It's simply as you said: reading the future is a as deadspeak, which was now as natural to him as breathing. devious thing. That a point will be arrived at is inevitable, but Had there been living minds in tune with Nathan's at that how we arrive there is up to time and the tides!' moment (in fact there were several which were trying to The tides? contact him), they would doubtless be mystified by a sudden 'An expression from another world.' Except Thikkoul had blackout — the fact that where Nathan's subconscious mind seen it in his mind even before he could begin to explain. For had been, there was now a void. For only the dead could hear the Thyre were amazing mentalists all, and their Great deadspeak. It was like radio without a receiver, or rather, the Majority had been practised in deadspeak long before the receiver was in Nathan's head. It was like semaphore to a advent of Harry Keogh into their world. blind man, or a distant shout to a man stone- Another world! And didn't you always go in search of one? So why did you return? 387 386 'Because this is my world, and because everything I love is Of course, said Thikkoul, if disappointedly, and Nathan here.' sensed his slow deadspeak nod. Of course. And I really can't Also because everything you hate is here, 1 fancy. blame you that you do not wish to know. For after all, the The Wamphyri? Oh, yes! And we may have the means to future of any man, even the Necroscope, can only be so long. destroy them at last...' But here Nathan paused, for even in .. the seclusion of deadspeak that was something he didn't want 'But if I should change my mind -?' to go into. Anyway, he wasn't sure of the details himself — - Yes, yes, that's understood, said Thikkoul. And after a except that the less anyone knew of them, dead or alive, the moment: I've interrupted your sleep enough. Only remember better. Which was why he now changed the subject: that I'm here if ever you should need me. Thikkoul... how did you know I was back?' 'I will,' Nathan answered, and felt Thikkoul's incorporeal What, you? The one man who stands between life and probe dwindling to nothing in his metaphysical mind. In death? Like a bridge between alien nations, a messenger another moment the deadspeak void had disappeared, too, and between different spheres of existence, an envoy of the the Necroscope's dreaming mind was open again ... otherwise unknown? When you went from us, a solitary candle blinked out; when you returned, it burst back into ... Open to those several others who had been trying to reach flame! I would have tried to contact you earlier, but at first him ever since his return to his home world some hours ago, we did not dare believe. who had known that their best chance would come when he 'We?' slept. Various obstructions — for one, the mass of the barrier Myself, and all of your friends among the Thyre ancients mountains; for another, the fact that Nathan's mind was either with whom you have spoken in the past, whose word you fully occupied or totally empty, a deadspeak void; and for a passed on to their descendants among the living. But in the third, the fact that he slept in the Rock, though close to its Cavern of the Ancients, in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, outer perimeter - had so far kept them from him. But while Rogei, Shaeken and others were suddenly excited! Via they waited they had talked among themselves, as was their deadspeak, they spoke to their colleagues in other places. To wont. Tolmia, and to Ethloi the Elder in Open-to-the-Sky, who In previous times it had scarcely been necessary for them to passed the message on: that in fact you had returned! So it communicate in this current fashion: living together and as finally reached me, Thikkoul the Stargazer in the Hall of joint leaders of the same pack (in itself a situation unthinkable Endless Hours, in River's Rush. And of course I had to speak among previous packs), and brothers out of the same litter, to you, and offer my services. daily contact had more than sufficed. Recently, however, 'Your services?' bitter circumstances had forced them apart, which was the Oh, yes! For now that you have a future - why, I can read it reason they contacted Nathan now. That, and to welcome him for you! But I admit, it's for myself as much as for you: to see home. the stars again, through the eyes of the Necroscope! He had been listening to their telepathic conversation for Nathan thought about it. 'It could be invaluable,' he said several minutes before true cognizance dawned: that it wasn't eventually. And then, rather more cautiously: 'But on the a dream but a reality. Had he been awake, Nathan would have other hand, since whatever you see can't be changed ...? I made the connection at once; his own telepathy had long mean, since what will be, will be ...? developed to that degree where he recognized the 388 389 began slotting themselves into place in his metaphysical mind. thoughts of others for what they were, no longer as the vague The reason his wolves had always called him 'uncle'. Surely it static or mental interference which he had known as a child. was as they themselves had often declared it to be: because he His telepathy and his deadspeak (different talents yet plainly was their uncle! The reason why he'd always been aware of analogous) had always been present in him but undeveloped them as other than 'just wolves', and had exercised some through lack of practice, or lack of sympathetic minds on power over them (and they over him): because they were of whom to practise. The dead wouldn't speak to him, and apart one origin with him, one blood. The reason why they had from 'his' wolves, he had known no telepathic contact — or always seemed to watch over him as best they could: because perhaps some, but only with Nestor, which was not an 'their father would have wished it', even as they'd tried to tell uncommon phenomenon between Szgany kith and kin. him, upon a time! In his travels, however, the 'nomadic' Thyre had opened up both of these esoteric channels to him, and in Ben Trask's And sleeping still, he remembered something else they had parallel world he had finally used his talent to befriend the tried to tell him, which thrilled him to his very core! For he teeming dead in a way superior to all his expectations in knew now that he was not the only Necroscope: what Harry Sunside. For as far as Nathan was aware — and with the Keogh had passed down to him, and in a yet more morbid exception of the Thyre, of course - the Great Majority of his manifestation to Nestor, had also been passed to Nathan's own world had not changed in their attitude: desiring no truck nephew wolves. with him at all, they continued to shun him. Wherefore these It had happened on the night of Wratha's very first attack on communications he intercepted now, since they were not Settlement, when she and her renegades had flown from Thyre sendings and could not be Szgany deadspeak, were Karenstack (as the last aerie had been known then) over the telepathic. barrier mountains and down into Sunside for the first time; But to speak mind-to-mind with such as these! It resolved a and Nathan recalled what his wolves had revealed to him in question of old concern whose answer, while it had been the aftermath of that raid, during a similar exhausted sleep: made apparent in Trask's world, was one that might only be Things have come to pass, they had told him. Strange and verified here. And this communication was that verification. monstrous creatures are come to dwell in Starside's last great It was something that Nathan had always questioned, while aerie, out of which they raid on Sunside. The woods and in his heart knowing that it was true: his weird 'relationship' mountains are no longer safe, neither for wolves nor men. with certain members of the grey brotherhood, the wild These are problems for which we have no answers, but... children of the night, the wolves who inhabited there is one at least who might know. Sunside/Starside's barrier mountains. But a relationship in the And Nathan had said, 'But there is no answer to the true and fullest sense of the word, as was now apparent. For Wamphyri.' Nathan's older brother - not Nestor 'Kiklu' or whatever he You may be right. You may be wrong. But our mother called himself now, no, but a blood brother nevertheless, a speaks to our father, who is your brother. If anyone would true son of Harry Keogh and a woman of his Earth - had been know, he is that one. And so we go to speak to the one who The Dweller himself! And The Dweller had been a werewolf! suckled us. Even as Nathan slept on, the last pieces of an old puzzle 'Your mother, a she-wolf?' Aye, where her bones lie bleached in a secret place . .. 390 391 The shake of a deadspeak head. It was Blaze again. In aJI It had been before Nathan discovered his talent, before he Sunside/Starside there are only five who give off numbers had even known what a Necroscope was. There was no way like that, and only five who can read them. If another mind he could have understood their ... what, riddles? But now ... were to touch yours - as mine touches it now - then he might oh, now he understood well enough: that they, too, in their experience your numbers vortex. But to us it has always been wolf way, were Necroscopes! Necroscopes, all three of them - a clear signal, revealing your whereabouts. Alas, not only to and just as Nathan talked to his dead, so they talked to theirs! us, but also . . . to your brother Nestor! 'Dock', so called because his tail had been shortened by an 'Five of us,' Nathan answered. 'Myself, the three of you, angry vixen when he was a cub. And 'Blaze', after the and Nestor. All of the one blood!' diagonal white stripe across his forehead, as if the fur there The nod of a wolf head — the flash of its white stripe - was marked with frost. And 'Grinner', whose upper lip was given to curling, so that his teeth were always bared, even to registering as clearly as if Blaze were here right now. And friends. Nathan's wolves: 'his' wolves - his nephews! Nathan could see him as he'd known him since his childhood: Even now they heard his thoughts, and answered them: his eyes brown as dark wild honey in the twilight, but feral Uncle, Blaze growled, coughed, barked in his mind. And so yellow at night. Lean and muscular; surefooted as a mountain you've come back at last. You and your numbers! There could goat, but fleeter far. And intelligent? Oh, way beyond the be but one source. average intelligence of the pack! Except for individual 'My numbers?' Nathan frowned. markings and habits (Dock's tail, or lack of one, and Did you not know? But they issue from you like light from Grinner's less than affectionate grin), all three of them were a beacon; not so much during the day, but most certainly much of a muchness. Of course they were, for they were of when you sleep! the same litter, the one blood. As was Nathan of that blood. It That gave Nathan something to think about, something to made sense. ponder when he woke up and all of this reverted to a dream Yet something — indeed, several things - made very little or, if he was lucky, to memory. For if the numbers vortex sense or none at all. 'Nestor has a numbers vortex, you say? made him apparent to his wolves, then how transparent was My brother gives off numbers?' he to others? Half-forgotten things, which had disturbed and His numbers aura is a weak thing and slowly fading, but worried him at the time of their occurrence, now stirred to we know him by it all the same. Aye, for our senses are keen, renewed life: and we use them to their full - both our senses and his aura - In the world beyond the Starside Gate, Siggi Dam - not a to avoid him! Now Blaze's wolf voice was a low growl, and locator but a telepath — had discovered him easily enough. bitter. And the last time he was here in Sunside his vampire brother 'Because he's Wamphyri?' Nestor had known his whereabouts precisely. But ... the That and more. Nestor and those others in the last aerie, for numbers vortex? was that it? The metaphysical mathematics a while now they've been our problem, too. he'd been born with: his betrayer? From now on he must 'Wait!' said Nathan. 'I must be straight on this. If Nestor suppress it, especially now that he was back with Lardis and has numbers, why don't I know it? Why can't I read them? the Szgany Lidesci. The last thing he desired to be was a Why have I never sensed them? I mean, Nestor hated beacon for the Wamphyri! numbers!' It was so, and now Nathan remembered something Nestor had used to say: that a number was the count 393 392 of fish he had caught, and division was the share-out after a - It was a numbers vortex, that same mad cone of numbers; day's hunting, and multiplication was something rabbits had yet not the same. For while Nathan's vortex was made up of real numbers - from the simple 'gate' marks of the Szgany mastered without once using their fingers and toes! system, to all the cyphers, symbols and algebraic jumble of He doesn't know he has them - or if he does know, then he alien, parallel worlds - his wolf nephew Blaze's vortex was doesn't care to know. He blames you, Nathan, for the composed in its entirety of wolf numbers: paw marks, numbers in his head! He always has! For when you are near it scratches, moon and star symbols, clusters of five or six sets Nestor's vortex going, and he doesn't much care for the rocks, pine trees grouped in threes and fours. The grey whirling in his brain. 'How can you know this?' brotherhood 'counted' only those things that had meaning or Because it's much the same for us. We have numbers, too, use to them! But no meaning at all to Nathan. but no use for them! What was in our father is in us; it's why Yet the ebb and flow and whirl of the thing was not we are different, clever. But to be what we are doesn't without direction .. . indeed it appeared to be all about require us to know everything that he knew! And Nestor is direction. Nathan's own vortex had always seemed to hint of the same. Can you not try to understand? Ah, but you were vast distances spanned in a moment, and of all time being far easier to talk to, upon a time! Nathan sensed great NOW. Also, there had been this sense of worlds far beyond. frustration in the other, a certain urgency. But he must have All a puzzle then, but of awesome relevance now: his this out. numbers had proved to be the source material of the Mobius 'I was easier to talk to because I didn't understand; I Continuum itself! Could there be a similar case here? For simply accepted! Now I am beginning to understand. But I that familiar feeling of worlds beyond was very real — and tell you this: just as I've never sensed Nestor's numbers, of their direction! Nathan found it of great interest; he would neither have I sensed yours, Dock's, nor dinner's!' have liked to study it longer . .. A despairing wolf shrug. I have tried to answer for Nestor. .. . Except Blaze shut it down before he could even begin. Perhaps I am right, perhaps I am wrong. I say how I see... This gets us nowhere. Again his frustration was showing 'And your numbers? Why haven't I sensed them?' They are through, so that Nathan dropped the subject and asked subdued, dormant. Our mother told us, 'Hide them! They are instead: unnatural! Your father had numbers, too, and where is your 'Where are you now, and why did you seek me out?' father now? Gone in a bang and a great flash of light!' As To say hello ... also to warn you, and to seek your help. cubs we put our numbers aside. What were they anyway but Though how you may help is beyond me. You are too full of a distraction? your own problems, your own questions. Let me answer yet 'Could you recall them? Show them to me?' My numbers? (A another of them: I am high in the mountains. wolf groan.) But what a waste of time! Now tell me, 'Hello to you, too, then, Blaze high in the mountains -who Uncle: have you returned to fight the Wamphyri, or to upon a time was far less irritable! - and Grinner, Dock, if play with numbers? 'It's important.' you're listening. But you know that if I can help you with Very well, but I must be brief. Watch! Nathan 'watched' - something I will. First, what did you want to warn me about?' and he saw! Conjured out of nowhere - About the Wamphyri, of course! 'Of course, but I already know about the Wamphyri.' 395 394 Oh? Well, you know about Wratha and hers, at least. Have 1 not stated as much? Wratha and the others eat Ice melted on Nathan's spine, and trickled there. 'Are you wolf-hearts, kidneys, and cubs basted in their mothers' milk! telling me there are more?' Would you not call that problematic? It's why my brothers Come from the east, aye ... and I have split the Great Pack three ways. We were a horde on the mountain slopes: too easy to trap! They chased us over 'When?' cliffs; they brought down avalanches upon us; they used A day at most. cubs for lures, and knew that their mothers would follow to 'How many?' their doom. They are a plague! More than we can count! But we are wolves, not good with They always were, in the old times, too.' numbers. 'I wasn't here then. The ice trickled faster. 'You've seen them?' 'Nor was I, but the Szgany have legends. Men live a long Your nephew Dock has seen them. Dock is the leader of the time, if they're lucky, and they keep records.' Nathan frowned. pack that holds the high ground beyond the great pass. Dock 'But. .. Nestor has hunted you, you say?' has seen them at a place called Stone-Like-a-River, where Nestor himself? I cannot truly say. But the others - all of they camp in great numbers. Grinner, too, has seen something them! Or if not them, then their thralls. What odds, Nestor is of them. His pack holds the ground from this side of the pass one of them? And as for him . .. there are worse things than to the heights over Twin Fords. My pack runs in the west, the hunting of the grey brothers. Members of my pack have from Grinner's boundary to a place over Tireni Scarp. Beyond seen him where he digs among the relics of his own kind, to - that. .. lies the territory of a dangerous old bitch-wolf! She's a '- I know!' Nathan cut in. 'I know . .. what Nestor does. I common wolf- yet uncommon! Fiercer than a dog, much! know what he is, a necromancer. I heard it from the Old Leader of a fine pack, aye! But we hold each other in mutual Lidesci. Nestor . .. can't help himself. As for his hunting: he respect, and confine ourselves to our own places. This way has even hunted me! He caught me, too, for a little while.' there are no disputes, skirmishes. The grey brotherhood is a Which is why you've been away? brotherhood. 'Or a sisterhood?' Nathan smiled. She is a rarity. 'Yes, locked away, a prisoner in a strange place. Finally I (The other's wry shrug.) Nathan's levity had been brief. 'But escaped unharmed. But . . .' Nathan could only shrug and you yourself have not seen these eastern Wamphyri?' repeat, 'Nestor isn't responsible. He can't help himself.' 1 talk to Dock and Grinner: Isn't it enough that they have Of course not: he's Wamphyri! seen them? That last was like an arrow in Nathan's heart, and Blaze Nathan nodded. 'Of course. And I may tell you this, the had felt it go home. I am sorry, Uncle . . . invasion of these creatures isn't unexpected. It's the reason I Me, too. (A new voice: Grinner's.) brought strange weapons out of a strange land, with which to And me. (And this was Dock, but faintly and from much fight them! If you'll work with me and the Szgany - the grey farther away, in the heights beyond the great pass into brothers would act as observers, and the Szgany as fighters - Starside.) that would be invaluable!' Then for a while Nathan was silent, mulling over all he'd I guarantee our assistance. (A great flood of relief.) been told by Blaze. But eventually he asked, 'What advice 'You've had problems?' did your mother give you, that time when you went to see her where her bones lie bleached?' 396 397 She was the one who said we should spJit the pack, Blaze Nathan was at once alert, his mind probing the deadspeak answered. Which was wise of her. And we've been that way aether. And in the north, Starside ... was that a presence, an ever since. Well, and it worked /or a while. Thinned out, we intelligence, listening? If so, it kept a very low, and a very could hide that much more easily when the vampires came a- suspicious profile. Nathan gave a grim nod. Til try to hunting. But now, with the in/lux of these newcomers from remember that,' he said. 'But for now, farewell.' the east. .. they will be the horde! Then, from Dock far away, the wag of an unseen tail stump 'Until they, too, are thinned out.' Nathan nodded. 'And and a far, faint, whispered, Keep safe, Uncle! already we've started.' And: Aye, from Grinner, who liked to keep things short. Grinner came back with some eagerness, and Nathan could With which they were gone. almost see his bared fangs gleaming white, salivating in the But Nathan was not alone, and he knew it. . . starlight. I for one know that you have started! I am in the mountains between Twin Fords and the pass. I saw the Wamphyri come like a cloud out of the last aerie, heading west for Settlement or Sanctuary Rock. Ah, yes, but they were a much more ragged cloud when they returned! Then Blaze, infected with his brother's excitement: And I saw the fires of the battle! Thunder and fire-lights in the sky, and noises like splitting rocks! Nathan smiled a thin cold smile. 'Oh, yes. They got the worst of it this time.' And every time, from now on? 'Let's hope so. Contact me when you have news or difficulties. And remember what I said: as of now we work together. Keep watch on the movements of the Wamphyri. You are the eyes of the hawk, and the Szgany are its talons!' And what of you, Nathan, in the scheme of things? What will you be: the warhawk's beak? 'I hope to be, aye.' We will keep watch. (The nod of a wolf head and the flash of its blaze.) Enough for now. Except . . . I should warn you. Be careful how you use your deadspeak. For Nestor has it too. With him . .. it's different: the same and yet the opposite. Like the light of the moon and the light of the sun: one is cold and the other is warm. But Nestor listens to the thoughts of the dead, and eavesdrops on their conversations - and on yours, when you use deadspeak! He could be listening even now. Indeed, I'm sure he is. 398 Sunside's Great Majority, Jasef had always seemed to be on his side, invariably to the consternation of his colleagues. II And so - quietly, not daring to speak or even think too clearly - it was the Necroscope's turn to eavesdrop. And once New Contacts Tried, and again, if Misha had been awake, she would have sensed her an Old Contract Denied husband 'listening' to something. In fact, to the furtive whispers of the dead. Back again! (An audible shiver - or shudder? — in the incorporeal voice.) Doesn't Sunside/Starside have enough of monsters? Misha too was fast asleep by now, clinging to Nathan, Bah! (Jasef Karis.) You make me want to be sick, the Jot of automatically adjusting to his body-shape as he lived in you! Why, for all that he's a youth and human, the Thyre dreams that were much more than mere dreams, which caused revere him! You have heard them: their Elders gone from him to moan and mumble a little as he turned in his sleep. them as we are gone from ours, the way they speak of him! Brief glimpses of the mountain heights, of a fleet moon Nathan's a hero to the dead of the Thyre! And to their living. tumbling on high, and the throats of the grey brothers a-throb Does it take unmen of the furnace deserts to recognize the with weird, unearthly ululations, their song of adoration. For, saviour in our midst? For believe me, this one will be the like all natural creatures of the night in any world, they saving of the Szgany — if you'll let him! How can you lie there worshipped their silver mistress moon . .. and ignore him, when your very children among the living are The howls faded away and were gone, and Nathan had been at risk? He is your one hope: the continuity of the Szgany, and the only one to hear them. the guardian of your graves, those of you that have them! Or perhaps not the only one, for his conversation with Nathan understood the last few words well enough. Since Blaze, Dock, Grinner had been telepathic after all, not dead- time immemorial, the Szgany had burned most of their dead, speak, which is private. Sleeping, Nathan had had little or no certainly those killed by the Wamphyri; it was the only safe control over eavesdroppers. The teeming dead knew that he way. But if a man or woman died in an accident — or of had returned, of course, and despite having no great faith in sickness or old age, or if they were revered among their him - or perhaps because of it? - and trusting his necromancer people and it was deemed safe - then they might be given a brother even less, they had listened to his conversation with decent burial. Some tribes even had their own places of the wolves in morbid fascination: much as a bird watches a interment: mounds, tumuli or cavern systems. Unmarked snake. But one among them at least was vociferous. graves out in the forests must be numerous, and Nathan Nathan knew his voice of old; why, he even remembered a wondered if Jasef Karis had his own place somewhere out name - Jasef Karis! - but not where he remembered it from: there. It seemed likely, for where a majority of these dead some old dream out of the past. Jasef Karis, yes. But a mere voices were literally thin as air (proof that their owners had name did not give him rank or authority in such matters. been burned to nothing, or that they were long gone from the Perhaps one day Nathan would go to him personally - if the world of the living), some were louder and even substantial: the rest of the Szgany dead would let him! For, of all more recently dead, more focused, more 'together' 401 400 with their mortal remains. And Jasef, although his was the Jasef Karis! Or earn yourself the detestation of the Great voice of an old man, was of the latter. Majority throughout the length and breadth of Sunside.' Do As for the more freshly dead, such as those killed in the not defy us in this! fighting at Sanctuary Rock: as yet they'd be confused and Us? But I hear only one voice - yours! And what of the unacquainted with their new, dark, incorporeal environment, rest of the dead? Or is it that you're all truly dead, in your and so unable to speak out. Nathan hoped to have friends minds as well as your bodies? And what will you do, shun among them eventually, when the truth of their situation had me if I speak to him? Damn me, but that will hurt! I cradled sunk in, but for now he could only suffer the alienation of the Nathan Kiklu as a child - would you have me turn from him Great Majority - and suffer in silence, covertly, if he wished to now? listen to their conversations. But . .. (another voice, tremulous,) . . . he talks to wolves, . . . So much for the Thyre, one dead voice was saying now, Jasef! And they use deadspeak, too, for we can hear them! with an irritating air of assumed authority as false as his What manner of a man may converse with a wolf? And what ingratiating tone. We knew the desert folk all our lives, yet did manner of a wolf, for that matter? not know of their mentalism! They kept that from us, and A man with the same blood! Jasef snapped. His father was doubtless other secrets, too. For what good reason? So that we the Necroscope. And their father was the Necroscope's son, would continue to believe that they were ignorant desert trogs? The Dweller! What could be more natural than that? Don't Well, and what is it they've been hiding out there in the your nephews and nieces talk to each other? Wouldn't they furnace deserts all this time, eh? And in how many other ways talk to you, if they could? do they make fools of us? Answer me this, why should we put The self-appointed spokesman was on him in a flash. our faith in the opinions of such deceivers as the Thyre? And Werewolves! He talks to werewolves! The Dweller, their if this Nathan is a hero to them, then be sure it's to their father, was a vampire. Everyone, the living and the dead benefit, not ours! alike, knows it. Why, those wolves are The Dweller's blood- And now it was Jasef's turn again: Benefits? You talk of sons! What, and will you tell us they're not vampires, too? benefits? Man, we're dead! We derive no benefits! The only And what about tomorrow? Wamphyri, aye! ones who can win out of Nathan championing them are the But now Jasef was silent, for the spokesman had found the living: your sons and their sons! Who gives a damn that the weak spot in his argument. Or one of them, at least. And a Thyre are secretive? And who cares what they've got in their second one was just around the corner. deserts? They're a race apart, like the shambling trogs in their What's more, and far more to the point, the spokesman Starside caverns. And did you envy them their existence, too? continued, sensing that the argument was won, Nathan's Well, I say enough of this. If Nathan KiJdu comes to me brother is most certainly Wamphyri - and a necromancer to looking for answers, 1 for one shall supply them! What? Why, boot! So, what are we left with? We've listened to your his mother cared for me all my days -the last of my days, arguments, Jasef, all the points in favour; so be so good as to anyway. More care than I ever knew before. What was in hear ours, the points against: Nona Kiklu is in her son: the lad's a good 'un! That is my One: Nathan has lived among the lying Thyre and has opinion .. . doubtless learned their sneaky ways. Two: he has even lived Now the apparent spokesman for the dead, his voice with the Wamphyri and come through it. . . unscathed? Three: trembling in fury and perhaps something of fear, too: 'Ware, he came out of the cast on a vampire flyer .. . and 402 403 like the fools they are, our living descendants accepted him I was there! Cowardly, wrong-headed, power-mad Arlek back among them! Four: his brother is a vampire Lord and his Nunescu. I remember now: you wanted Lardis out of the way nephews are werewolves. Five: his Wamphyri masters have so you could lead the tribe and be a Wamphyri supplicant! followed him out of the east, and now ravage on Sunside What's more, I saw how the Lidesci dealt with your treachery. among our children! And is that last a coincidence? I think But at least he put you out of your misery before tossing you not! This Nathan is the harbinger of doom! on to the cleansing fire! Silence from Jasef, but a thoughtful one. It's .. . not true! Arlek choked, sobbed. And now the tremulous one again: We can't take the risk. But it is! And as you were a coward in life, so you're a We daren't chance talking to him. He will know us: our coward in death. And would you still be a Wamphyri whereabouts, graves, caskets and urns. His brother is a supplicant, Arlek? Do you still give in so easily? Or is it that necromancer! We'll have to leave it at that, for now. Later, you'd pay Lardis back, even after all this time? Would you see perhaps, if it is seen that - him destroyed, and all the Szgany with him, because you were And so it's decided, the spokesman cut in, with something of destroyed - for your treachery? satisfaction. Jasef, you will not talk to this Nathan Kiklu, on And as Arlek continued to sob, so the tremulous one -but not penalty of — so tremulous now - wanted to know: How, pay him back? - On penalty of nothing! Jasef spat. For now, at last - I know By keeping from us the only man who can save our you! children! Jasef thundered, despite that he was less than a sigh. You ... know me? But the spokesman for the Great By denying us access to the Necroscope Nathan! Majority didn't sound nearly so sure of himself now. Yet still Nathan could hold himself back no longer. 'Jasef. I thank he blustered: What can you mean? In what way do you know you,' he spoke up, and felt shockwaves ripple through the me? ranks of the dead. 'I don't know you but I feel that I should. And a sharp edge in Jasef Karis's voice as he answered, I Just as soon as I get a chance, I'll come and introduce myself know you! Aye, for I recognize your voice, even as I knew it in properly. Whatever it is you would tell me can keep till then, life all those years ago — Arlek Nunescu!* by which time the dead may have learned to trust me.' But I. . . I. . . Some of us trust you now, son! A hitherto unheard voice A coward and a traitor in life, and the same in death, or so it spoke up, but uncertain of itself, unused to its circumstances. seems. Where've you been hiding, Arlek? You, Arlek Those of us who were . . . who were killed in the fighting. It's Nunescu, who would have sold his leader to Shaithis of the just that it's taken a while to sink in, that's all - our situation, I Wamphyri! mean. But we know that if you'd been on hand a little earlier, a A lie! The other's deadspeak shout of denial. The old fool few more of us might still be alive. These others - these - what, lies! old timers? - they've forgotten what they had in life and have Old fool, possibly. So a good many folk believed, anyway. come to accept what they have in death. That's why they're But a liar? Never! And you're the one who would have sold scared: in case they lose that too! But us recent ones, we feel Lardis Lidesci himself to Shaithis. I cannot be mistaken, for we've nothing left to lose. Well, except contact with what's been left behind. We * The Source by Brian Lumley, RoC Books 1989. 405 404 certainly don't want to Jose that. And that . .. why, that's willingly! What? But we'd been slaves to the Wamphyri you, Nathan/ from teat to tomb, and they had treated us cruelly! They sent And from some little distance away, but strong in the us against The Dweller in his garden, who could have deadspeak aether as they'd always been in life: Aye, and punished us severely. But he said, 'Stay with me, and earn there are others, Nathan, men who amounted to something, my protection.' Then, when the Wamphyri came and we who'll put their faith in you. If you're good enough for wily were dead, when Harry Dwellersire and his changeling son old Lardis Lidesci, then you're good enough for us! For said, 'Come - up out of the earth and fight them that killed without you, why, who would there be to keep us up to date you,' - you could not have held us back! Not only for the on the doings of Andrei, eh? We don't know about these love of the Necroscope and his son, but for our pride, our others, but give us a chance to stay in touch with the living, souls. Then there was pain, aye. But myself, I say the pain we'll take it whatever the cost! was as nothing. I would do it again, today, now! The Szgany It was the dead Romani brothers, Ion and Franci, speaking to call us unmen, but when the Necroscope called us up out of Nathan from their cave-tomb near Settlement. We'd have the earth to fight the Wamphyri... then we were men! spoken up earlier, except what we heard made us sick! But You trogs are men, sure enough! (Ion and Franci Romani, since you've now seen fit to talk to this rabble and make so united that their voice was one.) Certainly, you fought like your presence known - and answer their so-called 'charges' men that time. We had a common enemy - the Wamphyri - and — well, it seems only right that we should get a word in, too. leaders in common, too: Harry Keogh and his changeling We're the Romanis, or we were, and we're with you! son. Now there's Nathan, another son of the Necroscope, By now the dead were in a tumult, split into two camps whose enemy is the same as before. by the various pressures within them. Even the ghosts of 'Well,' said Nathan, still dreaming, 'that's true as far as it Starside trogs joined in, who in certain ways were more goes, but this time it's not just the Wamphyri. Men have come akin to men than the desert-dwelling Thyre. A phlegmy out of a strange land into Sunside/Starside, some of whom are grunt, and: monsters no less than the vampire Lords! No, not in their A thousand sunups gone, (came the dull deadspeak shape or form, but in their minds! I've been to that world of thoughts of one such Neanderthal), this Nathan's father and theirs, and returned with some of their weapons, though his brother The Dweller called us up out of our cavern hardly sufficient to give me the upper hand. And so my task is niches to fight for them. Our joints were made supple again, doubly difficult: to clear our world of the Wamphyri once and and pur skin caused to bend without cracking. But still for all, and to right certain wrongs done in another world, and so there was a pain in it unlike the pain of living, and a horror make both places safer for our children. Now, if there's that in worse than the blackest nightmare! I for one don't wish to my motives which you find questionable, by all means know this Nathan; for to know his father was to love him ... continue to deny me access to the knowledge gone down into and to love the Necroscope was to do his bidding. Now I'm the earth with you. But if you find justice in my actions, then done with walking, breathing and all such. Now I'm be my friends. Except I promise you this: that whatever my satisfied to cling to the earth and stiffen to a stone, and father or The Dweller did in the past, and whatever my brother dream my fading dreams. does now, I shall never call you up out of the earth! If ever you But another trog voice had it: That tells only the least of come to me, it will be . . . " (He almost said, 'of your own free it. A great many of us answered the Necroscope's call - and will', but then thought better of it)'... because you want to.' 406 407 Again a tumult of incorporeal voices — most of them thin as mind but of the soul. Or of soullessness? Telepathy of a sort, air and far less substantial - crowded into the void which yes, and yet different; not deadspeak, which is the art of the Nathan's deadspeak had left behind; but rising above the rest, Necroscope, but ... something in between? A horror and filled with a new authority, the tremulous one, some chief certainly, but as much horrified as horrifying. A creeping or elder of forgotten times, made himself heard: cold oozing in Nathan's subconscious 'awareness' as pus in a Nathan, you have touched us. It is one of the reasons we running sore, as if to cleanse itself by contact with the pure. would have nothing to do with you: because we knew we A malignancy which yet recognized its own nature and knew would be touched. For you never knew the Necroscope Harry Nathan's as its opposite, but remembered however vaguely, Keogh, despite t h a t he sired you. But we knew him, and I remotely, inaccurately, a time or phase or circumstance other can tell you this: in the end, he wasn't all warmth and light. than the nightmare of now - a place in the unknown past — But you ... are warm! And you . .. are light! A blanket on a when things had been different. cold night, a candle in the darkness. Now leave us be, for And remembering, it knew his mind! So that, however we've much to consider. empty, the feel of his mind galvanized activity in the all but Nathan, like his father before him, would never be one to erased, echoing caverns of its own. Until, yearning to fill the defy the dead. Obediently, he withdrew, and the void behind emptiness, finally it - she - must know ... him filled with fading deadspeak whispers ... Nathaaan? A whisper at first, a question, uncertainty. Time passed and Nathan fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. And again Nathan's attitude of listening, of subconscious This wasn't unusual; he rarely dreamed in the true sense of the concentration, rapt attention. word but rather used the time (albeit subconsciously, and Nathaaan! frequently without remembering the details) to explore the He felt her probe, knew her identity, recognized the mutation problems of his waking hours, and to 'listen' to the whispers that had occurred, the nightmare metamorphosis; knew too of the dead. But not on this occasion, for this was a sleep of that he should not answer her, should indeed shun her, deny exhaustion. her the right to invade his thoughts. But at the same time he His numbers vortex shield was down, a mere wisp or curl knew the complications of her condition; above and beyond of ciphers, as opposed to the accustomed whirlwind of which, he of all people was aware of the curse of ostracism, esoteric formulae (which, paradoxically, left him wide open to the desperate loneliness of the outsider. Of course, because for some, yet mainly invisible to one at least: his vampire brother a large part of his life Nathan had been just such an outsider. Nestor); his mind was empty of deliberate thoughts and 'Siggi? Siggi Dam?' therefore receptive as a sponge; he slept in the arms of his Nathaaan! (Her sigh, like the exhalation of some poisonous love 'like a dead man', drawing strength from what food he'd cloud - by which he knew that he could not be mistaken: Siggi had at his mother's table, and from the loving warmth of was a vampire.) Misha's body and being. Ah, no! She snatched at him, clung to him at once with a But along with the warmth was a cold, too, and while the fierce energy. Not merely a vampire, Nathaaan . .. Wamphyyyri! former was an entirely natural thing, the latter was . . . The cold was there — the terrible burning cold of her condition something other. A metaphysical cold, a chill not only of the - which was in fact an alien heat; for out in 408 409 the spaces between the stars even a 'dead' sun is hot, and in the thing Turkur Tzonov desires to see is you, Siggi. You have no aching cold of undeath the heat of the blood is a roaring reason to fear him now. He is only .. . only a man.' furnace! And now she was the one to see his meaning. And I ... am 'Siggi,' he said. 'Siggi... I'm sorry.' Wamphyri? Why? 'Yes.' Innocence, in a vampire! No, not innocence, but the lack of Canker will protect me, when he is done with serenading knowledge. For her mind was as empty as his had been just a the moon. But until then I'm alone. I am alone, Nathaaan, for few moments ago. Except his had been the emptiness of this place is not my place. Except.. . with you out there, I am exhaustion, while hers was that of deprivation. She had been not alone. deprived of her past.* 'Wrong.' (Again he shook his head.) 'You should fear me, Fiercely eager, she grasped upon that at once. Nathan -do Siggi, as I must learn to fear you.' you know? But we were . .. friends? Like deadspeak, telepathy often conveys more than is said. 'You don't remember any of it?' And yes, Nathan knew. But how to explain it? There are No . . . yes . . . no . . . perhaps. Did you love me? different kinds of vampire, Siggi,' he finally told her. 'And I In his sleep, Nathan smiled a sad smile. 'No ... yes . . . no .. . don't know which is the worst. The one that got you perhaps!' He remembered something Zek Foener had once - the first one that got you, in a place called Perchorsk — told him, 'about his mother and Harry Keogh. And like an was a machine. But without the men who built and used it, echo out of the past: 'Forces beyond our control threw us the machine itself would be nothing.' together. But yes, we were friends, however briefly.' I — don't — understaaand! (The wail of a lost child.) Then we still are. For in this place I have no friends. Only 'Your ... your mind was sucked dry.' (He could only tell it food. And there's no pleasure in food that screams! the way it was.) 'And you were thrown out of your own With which the ice was back on Nathan's spine - cold ice world into this one. You survived, except you survived in this time — as he was reminded of who or what he was the worst possible way: you are Wamphyri!' talking to; and he knew who or what he should not be talking Perhaps something of it had come back to her. Partial to. recognition at least - of the crawling horror of her existence 'Friends, then,' he answered, even though it was a lie. 'For - washed over him, and Nathan felt Siggi's shudders, of loathing as long as it lasts.' and of ecstasy both, racking him, filling him with their freezing And finally: fire. Until: A machine, aye, she finally said. A ' vampire — but Now I rememmmbenr! she said with some animation, some the men who used it were worse! excitement. You . .. escaped? And I helped you. Then- 'Yes.' He could only agree. Another thrill of horror, as she added. They stiJI are! Now, I would escape. Nathan knew what she meant. They're here, yes.' 'From Canker?' (If so, then Nathan could well understand They have come for meeeee! it! The dog-Lord was his sworn enemy, and he would kill him 'No.' He shook his head. 'I should think the last person or if he could.) Run from Canker? Ah, no, for he loves me! Not from - The Last Aerie, by Brian Lumley, RoC Books, 1991. Canker, no, but from this place, this world which is not my 410 411 are, Nathan! said a deep, dark, gurgling deadspeak voice from world, back to my memories. Anyway, you can't kill him. No the depths of his sleeping mind, bubbling and festering there man may kill the dog-Lord! No, for he's the strong one, like a sucking swamp. Don't you find it odd, my son? That Nathaaan. He adores me, but I fear his strength, I /ear . .. his while I am able to eavesdrop on your conversations with things ways. And I must flee him, out of here, back to my memories. dead as I am dead, your conversations with the Jiving are quite Confused, she contradicted herself. beyond my range? Oh, I hear what you have to say to them, for Nathan was sad for her, mad at himself, hateful of Turkur despite that they are alive, the thoughts that accompany your Tzonov. But he must try to make her understand. 'Siggi, all of words are deadspeak; you're the Necro-scope, after all! But I that is beyond you now. There's no returning; you are what cannot hear their answers! No, for they exist in a different you are. Men will not accept you.' world now - or rather, I do. Peculiar, aye... You accepted me, upon a time. And painful, too: that I who was once so very much a part of 'You were a beautiful woman. I was a man.' your world - alive! Alive! Or undead, at worst -should now You were innocent. And afterwards . . . your thoughts were find myself excluded entirely from that oh so agreeable estate. warm. You did not think of me as a sucking thing. But now But death comes to all of us, I suppose. Given time, even a man . . . I am a sucking thing! such as I must stiffen to a stone, and undeath turn to the true With which he knew that she was mad, that the mazy death. Except - as you and I well know - death is not always corridors of Siggi's mind weren't merely empty but bereft. the end. Or it doesn't have to be, eh, Nathan? And when there Fear was the cause, and fear the spur which prompted her to are wrongs to be put to rights, what then? Are we so different, seek an out now. But of what was she afraid? He sensed my son? You, who would avenge the deaths of so many nothing of fear for Canker. And as for her present Szgany, and I, who would avenge my own? You, who would circumstances, they were all she had of memory. She saw the rid your world of all of the Wamphyri forever (why, it seems question in his mind and answered: almost greedy of you!) and I, who desire to destroy just two of He - he - has come for meeeee! them? 'Turkur?' And he saw from the way she cringed that he was Only call me up, I shall be your most powerful ally! And right. 'But you've nothing to fear from him, not now, not when it's over I'll go down again, ju st a mound of bones in a when Canker is your protector.' refuse pit in Madmanse, in Turgosheim. Just think of the Canker! Nathan's words had been like an invocation, benefits: to fight fire with fear, and destroy with a glance! For spawning an image and more than an image in her mind. The you have my word, Nathan: when Eygor walks again, called up moon music fades .. . The dog-Lord returns . . . He must not by the Necroscope, yours shall be the power, and none shall find me speaking to another! . .. You shall be my secret ... stand against my killing eye, which I shall gift to you! And we shall be . ..? From the first word Nathan had known who it was, the only 'Friends, yes - if there's a way.' (He knew there wasn't, but one it could be, with his ghastly, gurgling, suggestive, hid it from her for pity's sake.) insinuating, inveigling and very nearly hypnotic voice. Take care, Nathaaan. Powerfully talented in death, even as he'd been in life, Eygor 'You, too, Siggi.' Killglance of the Wamphyri, an ex-vampire Lord, reached And she was gone . . . 413 How very odd, how very peculiar, how very talented you 412 out with his deadspeak across all the miles from Tur-gosheim, 'Cleansing?' Nathan found his voice at last, if not the to offer again his terms, as once before he'd offered them in strength of will to wake himself up. 'Your gaze, cleansing? As Maglore's promontory aerie, Runemanse. acid cleans, maybe - except it would sear my mind, too!' Because Nathan was deeply asleep, his mind was receptive, No, no, no! Not my gaze, yours! And you would be using it if not to Eygor's unthinkable suggestions, certainly to his only for . . . well, for good, yes! Can't you see the wonderful insidious probe, his evil presence. And triggered by the other's irony in it? Isn't it what you want: to destroy the Wamphyri? voice, pictures were conjured to the mirror of Nathan's memory 'Oh, yes, but not if I must make a monster of myself! Just - from another time, a different dream -of a nightmare Thing in look what your "talent" has done to you. Just see what's its Madmanse pit: become of your eyes.' It leaned or slumped against the wall like some strange And, flinching, Nathan looked again at that mind-picture of stalagmite formation - much like the creatures in the cave at Eygor Killglance as he'd seen him before - let his gaze crawl the Radujevac Gate, without their sheaths of glazed dripstone slowly over all eighteen or more feet of that monstrous, - but its shape was much too irregular and its texture darker mummified anomaly of fused bone, black, corrugated flesh, than the salty, nitre-streaked, natural stone wall. It was .. . that knobs of gristly cartilage and massive plates of blue-gleaming monstrous amalgam, Eygor Killglance! And even as the chitin like the armour of insects, but insects grown to tanks in picture registered on the screen of Nathan's mind — as his the armouries of the not-so-alien world beyond the Starside feverish gaze once more took in the Thing's gigantic size, Gate. Anthropomorphic, certainly, which was all that could be freakish proportions, and the grotesque, almost enquiring said of Eygor's relationship to humanity. For while men may angle of its head, fused like a melted candle to the wall - so have a similar shape, they do not have additional mouths in... the eyes in that head began to crack open! And as before, various places. Nathan could well understand and believe their power to kill! But quite apart from the diseased overall design of this At that, Nathan would have snatched himself awake, but the monster, the most terrible thing was the knowledge that it was hypnotic strength of Eygor's deadspeak, his awesome Eygor's own design! This was how, towards the end, the mentalism, was such as to paralyse and hold him rooted; like a loathsome Thing in the pit had shaped himself! Those horny man on the edge of sleep who knows he should move but fossiled feet and shrivelled leathery thighs; those withered cannot, not even to save his life! And yet again, as the clotted arms that terminated in talons; the arched back, and those gurgle of Eygor's mind spanned all the miles between, so the jutting shoulders, and the misshapen screaming skull thrown monster pleaded his position, pressed his ' case, and proposed back and fused to the wall by nitre, jaws frozen in some his potentially lethal contract: everlasting rictus. Oh, he'd not wanted this desiccation, this Yes, Nathan. My killing eye: it can be yours! Do you gradual deterioration, this death, never that, but the rest of it remember, in Turgosheim, how we . .. discussed it? Ah, you was the very essence of Eygor! think you don't need me now, Nathan, but you will. Just think: And finally those eyes, now fully open, exactly as the the power of your mind, the mind of the Necroscope, coupled Necroscope remembered them from a previous dream. And to the seething, searing energy of my eyes! Even the remembering, he heard again Eygor's words just as then, Wamphyri would shrink to a stench, would be blasted to indeed, as Eygor repeated them now: shreds in the cleansing beams of your gaze! Only see how I cry, Nathan, because my sons blinded me, 414 415 because my eyes are blind and white. Ah, but upon a time the Nathan! Ah, and didn't I warn you upon a time: beware right one was filled with blood! See! And at once, the right eye of what you would call up to a semblance of life, lest some the gargoyle dripped scarlet. While the left was full of pus! And things may prove harder to put down? now the left one turned yellow and swollen, like a boil about to 'Rogei! Thank God for you!' For it was Rogei of the Thyre, burst. And Nathan knew that if it did and the poison splashed of course, that dead old . . . man in the Cavern of. the him, then he'd be infected, heir to the monster's powers! Ancients. The first of the dead to recognize Nathan and And: Only call me up so that I may take revenge on my speak to him openly, even to the extent of saving his life. bastard bloodsons, Eygor begged him, and the power can be Twice, in fact: then and now. Nathan's thoughts were dead- yours as easily as that! Do it, Nathan! Do it now! speak, and in answer: Eygor was there in Nathan's head, frantically seeking out the The shake of an incorporeal head, Rogei's denial. No, the metaphysical mechanism - the Necroscope's esoteric art — the first time it was your life, this time your soul - possibly. But power to cancel death and return him to undeath! did I hear you offer thanks to a god? Didn't your god die at CALL . . . ME . . . UP! the time of the white sun? So you told me, at least. Nathan could do it: he could call the dead - this monster Nathan was still shuddering from his encounter with himself - up out of the earth, out of death. And for the very Eygor; he didn't want to go into that now: that the god he had first time he actually knew he could do it! Twice in the past he called upon was an alien god, and the phrase a frequent had done it, but without knowing. Or perhaps on those - and frequently empty — benediction from an alien world. occasions they had come of their own accord, out of their love The Thyre were far less familiar with their god; but still, for him. But this One did not love anyone or thing, and so must maybe Rogei would understand if he said: be brought up — by Nathan's art. 'Perhaps I meant Him Who Listens, if that is permissible?' He . . . must. . . be . . . brought... up! Certainly, for He listens to everyone. And everywhere! So The massive weight of Eygor's mentalism .. . maybe the wise old Rogei had heard the Necroscope's His hypnotism .. . thoughts about an alien world after all... His terrible eyes . .. As Nathan's nerves settled down, he changed the subject: Nathan tossed in his fever; his mind burned. In the depths 'Why did you seek me out? - Not that I don't appreciate it.' of his mortal soul, a darkness seethed. But: Because I was concerned. For long and long, ever since No!!! No, Nathan! the time you left us, I searched for you with my deadspeak. I It was as if with that cool but urgent thought, a scented knew that you were, that you lived. But it has grown to be a breeze, a mental fragrance, a waft of fresh air blew across habit. Now that you are back — despite that it's unseemly his burning brain, bearing away the stench of the thing in its - still I search! Except . .. perhaps it's no longer unseemly, Madmanse pit, in Turgosheim. And: for we all would know how you fare. But all of that is a No, came the thought again, but sighing its relief now as feeble excuse; I had no right; 1 invaded your privacy. Forgive the danger receded, as Nathan unfroze, drove Eygor out and me. the monster's raging voice echoed into a distant denial, a 'Forgive you? Rogei, continue to seek me out. And promise sobbing curse, a fading, chittering hissss! me that you will, please do!' Then he was gone, and the timely intruder spoke again, As you will, Nathaoan ... however severely: 417 416 ... 'Nathan?' 'Yes?' Ill 'Nathan!' He started massively as he felt a hand on his shoulder, The Return of Vasagil The tugging insistently. 'Who —!' Death of Nana Kiklu He sat up - sprang upright from the waist in a tumble of furs! And it was Misha. And he was drenched in sweat. And she was wet, too. Wet, worried, and huge-eyed where she stood beside their bed. 'You were nightmaring,' she told him breathlessly. 'But I was so tired . . . I took a long time to In Wrathstack, strange forces were in motion. wake up. By then you'd calmed down. I got up, heard The dog-Lord Canker Canison had blocked passageways sounds in the Rock, came to wake you ...' leading up from Mangemanse into Nestor Lichloathe's Suck- Nathan heard sounds, too. A stirring in the guts of scar. And in Suckscar, Nestor's favourite flyer had apparently Sanctuary Rock, movement, and an echoing voice that cried: gone mad, reduced to rubble the cartilage walls of its pen, 'Gather up your things, whatever you will take with you. destroyed a launching-bay's safety barrier and launched of its We're to move out within the hour. Lardis's orders. So own accord; all of this before the warrior-Lord Vormulac gather up your stuff, for we're on the move.' Unsleep's observation posts were in place, so that the escaped And from the far corners of the labyrinth, other voices flyer had gone undetected, unmolested as it fled south-west by faintly echoing, but crying the same sad message. south for Sunside. 'Gather up your things . .. your things .. . things.' Also in Suckscar: Nestor's morbid mood was grown out of 'We're moving out. .. moving out.. . out.' all proportion, as if to encompass his entire manse. And The Szgany Lidesci would be Travellers again. despite that Wrathstack must soon come under siege, there was an unaccustomed air of inactivity about Suckscar - a nameless sense of futility, a breathless, creeping expectancy - with Nestor himself a gaunt grey ghost, listlessly issuing orders that carried little of their former authority; neither weight of will, nor terror of Lord Lichloathe's necromancy. For, much like the master himself, his lieutenants and thralls moved as if stricken with the same weird malaise ... On the other hand, down below in the shadowy levels of Guilesump: Gorvi the Guile was anything but listless; indeed, his basement manse was witness to a frenzy of industry hitherto unknown! Complaining warriors were hauled prematurely from their vats, cauldrons of urine and wastes were set above the many corbel-chutes over the entrances (with faggots below all ready to be fired), spiked 419 grilles were fitted to windows and bays, and ground-based she wouldn't even consider, for then she knew what must next warriors stationed in the scree-canyon gantlets, where Gorvi be considered. And she remembered how Nestor's love-thrall ordered them to hide and wait in ambush. Glina had puffed into fire and smouldered in the seethe of the Likewise in Wran and Spiro's Madmanse: except here, too, a sun. She had been a comparative newcomer, but Wratha? noticeable difference. For the Killglance brothers no longer Even her bones would calcine in the sun's blast, and all her worked in unison; Wran's forces defended the north-and south- liquids steam away in a trice! eastern half of Madmanse, and Spiro's the western half. And if Then Wratha shuddered; aye, even Wratha. For she knew it were not for the fact that at last Vormulac had come out of how Vormulac would deal with her, even as he had dealt with the east, then possibly they'd be at each other's throats even others before her. Lord Unsleep's sigil said it all: a hanging man, now. It had much to do with Spiro's killing eye: the fact that he or what remained of one - a tarry skeleton wrapped in chains - had it while Wran did not. For Wran had always enjoyed with rotting black flesh sliding from its bones! playing 'big brother', and Spiro wasn't about to let him 'Lord' it But she must not dwell on that .. . there was a war to plan ... any longer. They were equals or they were nothing. Except the others would be waiting for her call, to learn Wratha's they couldn't be equals, for Wran considered himself superior. strategy, or lack of one! She felt momentary anger - with And Spiro felt slighted, for he was the one who had inherited herself - that she'd allowed her thoughts to stray when there his father's killing eye. From Spiro's point of view: Wran was so much to do. But these were strange times as well as should now consider himself a junior partner, for the boot was dangerous ones, and it took fortitude simply to stand up on the other foot. And from Wran's ... straight and bear the weight of things. Or did she mean the . . . He remembered old Eygor, the way his cruelty had weight of years? Suddenly, the Lady knew how long she had grown apace with his power. And already Spiro was full of a lived .. . and at once felt the angry-squirming of her leech! new confidence, so that while Wran was apprehensive about A long time since that had happened; it served to remind the fighting to come, his brother seemed to welcome, even to her, and only just in time, that she was Wamphyri! invite it. Naturally, for it would give him the chance to Cunning - tenacity - longevity - Wamphyyyri! exercise his heart-bursting glance, his killing eye. Ah, but What? How long she had lived? She was not old but young, when the fighting was done, however it went, what then? a mere girl! And while there was blood she would always be Would history repeat itself, Wran wondered? Not if he could young! help it, for he'd felt the lash of his father's glance once too Her leech settled down again and began pumping its often. The first time he felt his brother's would be the last - for vampire essence into her veins. Its host was strong; it had Spiro. But it might not even come to that, or it might come nothing to fear; the long red years stretched out before both of sooner than that. And from now on, Spiro must never turn his them. back on Wran the Rage ... And yet, even as the Lady began to make her plans, still she So much for Madmanse. While in Wrathspire: found herself listening to the stack. It sounded, or felt, all Only the Lady Wratha remained unchanged. Only Wratha wrong. Her telepathic probe went out from her .. . feeling ... the Risen, risen highest of them all, was her own person. And feeling. that was just as well for she had a war to plan, and a war that Gorvi was a coward; he sweated to block himself in, she dared not lose. Indeed, losing was an outcome without realizing that he also blocked his escape routes! 420 421 ure; the Wamphyri, under Shaitan the Unborn, had returned Wran and Spiro's thoughts were hateful — of each other as out of the Icelands and there had been danger. But they never much as their enemies! All previous slander to the contrary, had raided on Settlement. Not at that time, anyway. however, the brothers were not mad, except as berserks. But as And while the Szgany Lidesci had scattered into the woods, for the dog-Lord in Mangemanse, Canker and his infernal Lardis and a small party of his senior men had gone to hold a moon music - that same, simple Szgany tune played over and war conference with Harry Keogh, his son The Dweller, and over, louder and ever louder on his instrument of bones - oh, the Lady Karen in a place called The Garden. But they had he was mad, and growing madder by the minute! That clout he arrived at The Garden too late: Karen and the Necroscope had taken seemed to have been the last straw to break a shad's were already at war, and The Dweller and his pack .. . were (or dog's) back. Or his brain. only wolves. And finally there was Nestor. But at least Lardis, Andrei Romani and a small handful of But from neighbouring Suckscar's no longer handsome, others had been there to see the end of it: the brilliant flash of indeed scarcely visible young Lord Lichloathe, behind his white light in the vicinity of the Starside Gate, the mighty mummy or cerecloth wrappings, only an echoing mental thunderclap that shook the mountains to their roots, the weird silence like a sullen veil over his thoughts, a cloud of gloom lightnings, and the roiling, writhing mushroom-cloud that that had nothing to do with the coming war. Perhaps it was his spilled its hot red and yellow guts as it rose nodding to the necromancy (a suspect art at best), which gave him that sky. And then the warm winds blowing through the passes out doomful air. But certainly the change in him was like night of Starside, bringing a creeping sickness and in some cases into day. And for a single moment Wratha felt some strange death. emotion or poignancy deep inside which she could not fathom. A small price to pay, in the end; and it had signalled the Regret, perhaps -? end, certainly - of the Wamphyri! For they had been there, the - That he was not the man she'd thought him? last of the vampire Lords, dead centre in the fireball when it But of course he wasn't; he was only a boy! And as for his blazed into life! Shaitan the Unborn, and Shaithis his Misha on Sunside: how quickly things could change. Wratha descendant, survivors out of the Icelands, but survivors no couldn't give a damn for this Misha now. Nor for the Lidescis more. They and all of theirs had gone up in the sound and the as a whole. Time to rekindle that fire later, if there should be a fury, until nothing was left of them. Alas — or perhaps not — later, when this rabble out of Turgosheim had been dealt with. Harry and Karen, and The Dweller too, had gone with them. Except it would never be dealt with, not if she failed to hold And for fourteen joyous years the Wamphyri were no more — her war council. - Until Wratha and her renegades had come raiding out of Enough! the east... She sent her familiar bats winging, to call the others up into All of which was a story Lardis had repeated yet again, in Wrathspire ... the night, to Nathan and his hell-lander companions and to anyone else who would listen, as the Szgany Lidesci trekked Travellers again. by the light of the stars along an old forest trail, heading south It had been a while, almost seventeen years, in fact, since and a little east from forsaken Sanctuary Rock. And: Lardis Lidesci last sent his people out into the forest trails 'You were four then,' Lardis told Nathan after a long from Settlement. Then . . . it had been a precautionary meas- 422 423 bly, Nathan thought, something of the intricacies of a man's silence. 'You and Nestor. My Jason was somewhat younger, mind, too). But after a moment the Old Lidesci nodded, and Misha Zanesti too. You probably don't remember. You albeit with a frown, and said: 'Very well. Later, perhaps ...' should ask your mother. I had split the tribe into small 'Where is my mother now?' Nathan asked. 'I think I might parties, sent them out into the woods. Nana had an able- like to speak to her.' bodied man with her, her sons - that is, you and Nestor -and Towards the rear of the column, with Misha and a bunch old Jasef Karis the seer. But it was the end of Jasef, that trip. of the old 'uns.' Lardis jerked a thumb over his shoulder. 'I He was old, and he'd grown too soft in Settlement, in Nana's gave 'em a handful of good strong lads, to haul their travois care.' and such.' Jasef Karis! And Nathan's 'dream' came flooding back. 'Lardis!' And Nathan said, 'I'll catch up later, then,' and stepped to he said, in such a startled tone that the Old Lidesci at once one side, letting the column pass him by. Then, as the long drew to a halt as Nathan grasped his arm. 'If I tell you a name line of Travellers moved past him, he stood with his back to a .. .?' tree and tried to order his thoughts. Easier said than done, for 'Eh, a name? What name?' there was a lot on his mind. 'Arlek Nunescu!' Weapons, for one thing. 'Hah! And where did you hear that name, I wonder? Arlek Nathan seemed to have lost one of the special crossbows Nunescu was a traitor! He would have sold me — us, all of somewhere or other; with all the action he'd been engaged in, us - to Lord Shaithis of the Wamphyri! But myself and Jazz that hardly surprised him. It might turn up later. As for the Simmons, we caught him out. Well, in those days there was other five: Lardis and Andrei had one each, Nathan had only one sort of justice — rough! Arlek paid the price in full. claimed another, two more at least had been deposited So what of him?' somewhere along the trail from Radujevac to Sanctuary 'Nothing,' Nathan shook his head; but it confirmed that his Rock, most probably in the cache of two bundles stashed in dream had been real, all the same. 'And this Jasef Karis: he the boulder clump on the Starside plain; or perhaps in the was in my mother's care, you say?' bundle that he had hidden in the gorse atop the Rock. No, 'Aye, Jasef the old thought-thief. A seer and a mentalist, he cancel that last; he couldn't remember any crossbows among was. Perhaps there was something of the Wamphyri in him, that lot. And since they hadn't been in the bundles from the but much watered down. He died on the morning of the hell- Cavern of the Ancients, they could only be out there on fires at the Starside Gate. So why all these inquiries, eh?' Starside's boulder plains. Well, and they could stay there, Too much to explain now,' Nathan told him. And too '• many with whatever other weapons had been in those temporarily of Lardis's men about, who mightn't care to be reminded of abandoned bundles, until morning. Even with his powers, Nathan's other talent: that he talked to dead people - even in his Nathan wouldn't consider a Mobius-jump into the immediate sleep! Not so bad that he could, well, go places in a single instant vicinity of a wounded warrior! If the bundles had been out in of time; no, for that was all to the good; any fool could see the the open ... maybe it would be worth a quick visit and snatch. usefulness of that! But this other thing he did .. . was something But not if it meant scrambling among the rocks for them. else. Then there was the rocket-launcher that had gone over the Lardis looked at him in the forest gloom through wise old edge of the Rock with him. That must be written off: eyes well used to penetrating the Sunside night (and possi- 424 425 shattered into bits, without a doubt, when it struck bottom. brought them down: explosions in the gas-beast pens and Which left one other launcher, also in the boulder plains methane chambers. cache. And atop the Rock: fragmentation grenades, a And of course, Lardis had verified it often enough: that the lightweight flame-thrower, a machine-pistol and ammo. Necroscope Harry Keogh had somehow sent the rays of the They, too, would have to wait, at least till the moon was sun blasting in through windows, bays and every crack and up; Nathan scarcely fancied stumbling about up there in crevice, into the heart of each stack in turn, until they'd the starlight. exploded in their lower levels like so many bombs. He had seen what personal arms his party of hell-landers Well, Nathan held no great sway over the sun, but he knew carried: John Carling had a self-loading rifle; the other cavers there were more ways than one to cause explosions. Dimi had machine-pistols; likewise Trask, Chung and Anna Petrescu's explosive powder - gunpowder, in fact, but of a Marie. And most of them were now equipped with poor quality - mightn't have the power of the real stuff, but it fragmentation grenades stuffed in their pockets. Lardis had would certainly cause a flash and a bang. As would a couple also re-equipped himself with grenades, but no one else had of fragmentation grenades, for that matter! been allowed to touch them. The rest of the Old Lidesci's Deprive Wratha of her base: at best she'd be killed, and at senior men could wait until morning, when Nathan or one worst forced into a fight with Vormulac and the others out of of the E-Branch people might find the time to do a little Turgosheim. Nathan must give it some thought... rudimentary weapon-training. But not much, not while more And thinking, as his ideas gradually took shape and form, than half of Nathan's arsenal was scattered in difficult or he watched the seemingly endless Lidesci line go by. They dangerous places. were in small parties or packets: a few caravans, a great many In the shadow of his tree, Nathan gave a sharp nod. That travois; family groups, couples, singles; low-talking women, was as much planning as he could do for now: either wait long-striding men and hushed children. All wary, sharp-eyed for full moonlight, or sunup, and then at his best opportunity in the mercifully cloudless night, trekking under the cover of recover the arms, and in so doing make the Szgany Lidesci trees that leaned protectively over the ancient track, but yet strong as never before. But for how long? The ammunition able to see in fine-filtered starlight. wasn't going to last forever. By the time it came down to the And beasts: muzzled shads and yellow-eyed wolves - not real thing, hopefully the two warring Wamphyri factions grey brothers as such, but brothers to the Travellers, certainly. would have already taken the best part of the job out of his All well spaced out, humans, beasts, watchdogs; so that in the hands. event of an attack, each group might break for cover That was about as much as he could hope for. independent of the others. About a half-mile of them, mostly But at the same time Nathan did have something of a silent, guarding even their thoughts in the treacherous night. plan, albeit a dangerous one, which might speed his task up Wheels, travois poles, pots and pans all muffled; minds somewhat. Some three and a half years ago, he'd muffled, too, generally. Fearful in a way, yet paradoxically accompanied Lardis on what had then been an annual strong. Strong under Lardis Lidesci, a survivor in his way no pilgrimage to the last aerie, when he'd visited not only less than the Wamphyri. Or even more so. Karenstack (now Wrathstack), but also seen the tumbled, Which was the subject of a conversation even now about to fire-blackened remains of all the other aeries of the Old take place forward of the line, where Anna Marie English had Wamphyri. And seeing those fallen giants, it had been easy joined Ben Trask in the gap left by Nathan ... to see what had 426 427 him that indeed Vormulac and a mighty army out of Tur- 'Survivors,' Anna Marie said under her breath, striding out gosheim were here and the bloodwar already commenced. with Trask and David Chung some few paces apart from Now it would be as it had been in the old days: as warring Lardis's party. Only a moment or two earlier, Trask had vampire factions depleted each other, so they would refurbish been talking in lowered tones to the Old Lidesci, asking him themselves upon the Travellers. Wanton, indiscriminate destruction of human life! Or if not its destruction, its hideous i alteration to suit the requirements of the Wamphyri. . . various questions: : Then a mood had come over Lardis and he'd paced apart for Why were the Lidescis trekking in the night? Wasn't it a while, and his silent men had let him be. Trask, too, moving dangerous? apart to where Anna Marie English had fallen in beside him Yes, but better than waiting for Wratha to gather together and just a moment ago muttered her one-word comment: 'Survivors.' : Trask glanced sideways at the ecopath and was at once her forces and launch an all-out attack. For she now knew ; arrested by something odd, something new, that he couldn't the location of Sanctuary Rock. quite put his finger on. Starlight seemed to suit her; in the Where were they going; were there other places of sanctu night she looked almost .. , attractive? And it was that, simply ary in the woods to the south? that - the spring in her step, her newly awakened -what, /oie de vivre? - that Trask found strange. For it seemed that indeed ; Sunside/Starside suited her! Nor were his thoughts There was a leper colony at the edge of the woods, where deliberately unkind; rather, they were 'truthful'. For it was the nature of her talent that she should not be attractive, but '• reflect the aura of her surroundings. She was an ecopath, the the forest met the savanna fringe that extended south some ecopath, after all. Her nature - or un-nature? - was the nature miles to the furnace desert proper. South was away from of her environment. On Earth she had felt each new ecological the Wamphyri and towards the sun; also, the vampire Lords disaster as a hammer-blow to her psyche, even to her physical feared leprosy, a disease their metamorphism found imposs being. And yet here . .. ible to handle. The colony wasn't guaranteed to keep them j 'Who, survivors?' Trask asked her. The Lidescis?' away, not by any means; Wratha probably wasn't even 'Oh, they are.' Her silhouette nodded. 'For they're human. aware of the existence of the place! But it had been a lucky ( We are survivors, yes, our race as a whole. But I was talking place in the past, and hopefully its luck would still be about the Wamphyri. In fact, I was thinking out loud.' holding. 'One word,' Trask answered, '"survivors" - but enough to What would they do there? give me the impression that you admire them?' They would make camp close to the colony, dig in, build 'That's your talent.' She smiled. 'You saw the truth in what I makeshift defences. At sunup, still some thirty or more hours said. For of course I admire them! I admire their form, their away, Lardis would give a briefing; then there would be vitality, their tenacity, at least.' weapon-training, and an apportioning of the Necroscope's amazing arms and ammunition. But since the lad was himself a weapon, Lardis must wait and see what he had in mind. Indeed, for to know him was to be certain that something was brewing in there! But, at the same time, Lardis's optimism following the battle at the Rock seemed to have dissipated somewhat; despite the advantages of the Necroscope's weapons from another world, and his recently-acquired powers, still the future looked grim. For Lardis knew the worst of it now: Nathan had told 428 429 Trask glanced at Lardis some little way away. 'It's a good 'Well, maybe it's not as dramatic as all that! And of course I job he can't understand everything we're saying!' could be wrong; perhaps I'm simply feeling the raw youth of She shrugged. 'If Lardis understood it fully, I think you would the place. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what...' find he'd agree. Their form - as a life-force, albeit a force for But: 'What?' he gasped, as the night back along the trail was evil - has been very successful, indeed admirable.' 'Come again?' split by a flash of light and a sharp crack' — definitely an '. .. But the real survivor,' (she was determined to finish, explosive bolt — and the sound of panicked screaming came and took his arm, gripping it for emphasis) 'is this world!' clear on the still night air. 'What the hell.. .?' 'You said "has been".' Trask was fascinated. He knew that Trask had an electric torch; using it to light the trail, he her talent could not be put aside lightly. 'The Wamphyri "have went stumbling back the way they'd walked. Nathan was back been" successful? Now what are you getting at? And what do there somewhere. It could only have been him, using his you mean, this world is a survivor?' crossbow. 'Because it's young, it's strong,' she said. 'Unlike the Earth, But on what? our Earth, Sunside/Starside hasn't yet been poisoned to its core. It can fight back for - oh, a long time yet.' The planet can fight He . . . and she, had witnessed the abortive battle at the Rock, back?' 'Exactly. It can recover. I feel it will recover!' Trask and afterwards he had used superior mentalism to penetrate frowned. 'From what?' Lardis Lidesci's triumphant - and triumphantly open mind, She looked at him as if in surprise. 'From the "white sun" - and so knew his thoughts: that his people must now become or the grey hole - that gave the moon its wobble, changed the Travellers again. Then, they had waited ... planet's orbit disastrously, created the barrier mountains, Eventually, they had seen the Szgany Lidesci leave their furnace deserts and frozen Icelands. Recover from the Great warren, the direction in which they headed, and by a Red Waste suppurating away like some gigantic sore far to circuitous route had gone ahead to lie in ambush. And it had the east, which I can feel even from here! And recover —' pleased him to know that he could achieve what Wratha and '— From the Wamphyri?' He saw that he was right. She nodded the rest of her pack of dogs had failed to achieve: to strike at and said, 'Even from them. It's just a feeling I have, Ben.' the Lidescis and feed on their good strong blood! Oh, he had f 'Just a feeling?' known whose blood he would prefer - whose blood he must 'It's my talent. I feel that ... that even without our finally slake his vengeful burning thirst upon, if only to intervention, they're on the decline.' Her voice was a sigh. satisfy a craving come into being some two and a half long 'The spring in your step?' He inclined his head question- years ago — but that must wait on a more opportune time, and ingly. 'Because you feel the years dropping away, you think it for now be satisfied — somehow signals the decline of the Wamphyri? Like, maybe - Satisfied to take by stealth that which Wratha and the they overstepped Nature's welcome? Survivors no more?' others, including Wran the Rage Killglance (ah, Wran the She shrugged . .. and was her bone-dry, brittle self again. Rage! Wran, Wran, Wran.' The name burned like some mordant poison in a mind now utterly deranged) . .. which they had failed to take by force. For he was that monstrous being called Vasagi (once the Suck), and his consort was the Lady Carmen Who-Should- 431 430 Not-Be, but who was. And theirs was an errand of vengeance, movements, even their heartbeats, almost to nil. Their eyes not against the Szgany Lidesci, but Wrathstack, certain of were shuttered, too, shielding their telltale scarlet glow; yet whose inhabitants were shit in their eyes, their mouths and still they 'saw' through the closed, furry lids. They 'breathed' their putrid hearts, made yet more putrid by their loathing of with the pores of their bodies, but made no vampire mist, lest them. their scent was in it. They were not required to think or to It was Wran who was Vasagi's fixation, his Great Hatred: probe each other's thoughts, for their plan was simple; there Wran who had done his best, or his worst, to kill Vasagi; was no need for repetition. while paradoxically it was the necromancer Lord Nestor Thus they were near-invisible, as one with the darkness of Lichloathe who was the Lady Carmen's. Paradoxically, the woods. It said a lot for Vasagi's metamorphic skill, in because it was Nestor who had saved Vasagi's life that time in which he was past-master and which he'd taught to Carmen. the Sunside foothills! But that was then and this was now, and They imitated the very night! They were the forest and the the dire privations of the years flown between had drawn these writhing, silvery ground mist. They were the rich brown earth outcasts together in their common cause: revenge! and damp, swirling air. They were not there ... For while Lord Vasagi and the Lady Carmen had suffered, The head of the column had passed them by, then the silent, those others in Wrathstack had lived life to the full without a shuffling column itself. Armed men had been present with thought for such as the once-Suck, ruined in his body, raped every group, or interspersed between groups. Guard wolves of his leech and pegged to a hillside as the sun came up. And had come close, sniffing in the trees, but sniffing nothing; for who had given a damn for Carmen, whom Nestor's grave there was no Szgany blood on Vasagi and Carmen — not yet errors of lust and gluttony had in the first instance elevated, — who had survived on the blood of trogs for long and long. only so that he might later reduce her to a stain? Except she And finally the tail-end of the column came into view: a was not reduced but was Carmen Who-Should-Not-Be. And party of old ones, mainly, in the care of two women, Vasagi was ... Vasagi! 'protected' by three brawny but inexperienced youths .. . and So they'd waited on the woodland trail, these two oh so long quite a gap between them and the party of mature armed men forgotten and oh so recently returned, Vasagi and Carmen; that had passed a short while earlier. This final and most waited for the good strong blood which is the life. And their vulnerable group had fallen a little behind. sinister purpose was as much a matter of warped : pride - to do Many of the old ones rode a creaking open cart hauled by a what Wratha and the others had failed to do - _ • as for the rich team of shads; while, assisted by the women, the less fragile red blood itself. But it would be good, that blood, most certainly, of the party walked or hobbled. The youths grunted and and sustain them while they saw j what was what and which sweated a good deal, straining to drag heaped travois. Their way the wind blew, and made their secret plans. crossbows dangled from their belts. To Vasagi and Carmen Vasagi had waited on one side of the trail, where the old Who-Should-Not-Be, all of this looked very tempting, very track bottlenecked between close-grown stands of iron- good .. . woods. On the other side, in the utter dark of the trees, . .. Too tempting, too good! Carmen was as a statue carved of night. And they had drawn And in unison, without any command being given, they down the shutters of their minds and reduced their came to life .. . and it was as if the forest woke from a dream to a waking nightmare! They, Vasagi and Carmen, 433 432 — looking the other way, mumbling together, or lolling sleepily were the nightmare! The darkness under the trees on both on their cart — weren't even aware that anything was sides of the trail pooled, flowed into mobile, swift-moving happening. But Nana and Misha had seen! stains, formed a pair of red-eyed fiends whose sinuous For long, wasted moments they'd clung together, movements were fleet as wispy clouds against the stars, paralysed by the sheer shock of the attack, but as Vasagi's rushing inwards upon the old ones, Nana and Misha, and the scarlet eyes scanned and settled upon them, so they were three young men! panicked into activity. Then, screaming their loudest - The latter were the first, because they had weapons and screaming not only their horror but an unmistakable warning were young, strong. Even as they sensed their danger, cried - they instinctively ran in different directions; for they knew warnings, let go of travois poles and reached spastically for that the monster could not target both of them at once. Nana their crossbows, so the vampire Lord and Lady fell upon ran to one side, skirted Vasagi, leapt nimbly forward along them. And it was slaughter, pure and simple. the trail. Misha threw herself under the cart and clung to the Despite that Vasagi and Carmen wore no battle gauntlets (or boards. rather, because they lacked them), they had formed their hands into talons with nails like sharpened chisels. Slicing her Vasagi was undecided. He could turn the cart over, first target above his belt, Carmen cut the youth inches deep certainly . . . it would be worth the effort, aye, for the girl was a beauty. But so was the older woman, and both of them full through his soft leather jacket and coarse shirt. Crying out, of rich red blood! trying to hold his guts in, he fell gasping, writhing to the ground. And Carmen kicked his weapon out of reach. Vasagi He made up his mind and pursued Nana, leaning forward had meanwhile torn out the throat of a second youth, so that and /lowing in that sinuous, gliding, unnerving lope of the his soon-to-be corpse sprayed red even as it vibrated in its master vampire. And breathing a mist, and calling up a death spasm and crumpled to the dark earth of the trail. ground mist out of the shuddering earth, he rapidly closed The third young man was backing stumblingly away. Slack- the gap between. But at last, in answer to Nana and Misha's jawed, babbling, he tried to load his weapon with fingers that piercing screams, there sounded pounding footsteps; the shook like leaves in a gale. But Vasagi sent: Ah, no! directly party of armed men was returning along the trail! into his mind, flowed forward, took the crossbow from him and Issuing from Vasagi's pores and from the earth alike, his tossed it aside. Quick as thought, Carmen joined him, took the vampire mist was as good as any he ever made. Even as he youth's face into her hideous 'hands' and breathed her essence caught at the fleeing woman's hair, jerking her to a halt and into his gaping mouth. As he collapsed, paralysed with terror, dragging her to her knees, so his mist enveloped her, clinging she caught him up and bore him away into the woods. And like damp cold sweat. But coming the other way, and almost Vasagi sent after her: Drink deep! colliding with Vasagi where he snatched up the fainting And you, my Lord, she answered, flowing as darkness back woman into his arms ... into the dark woods with her prey. And indeed he intended to, ... An armed youth, all wild and ragged-looking in his but from which of these human vessels? From whom? anxiety! Blue-eyed and yellow-haired, shiny-damp with mist All of this had taken but a moment. Many of the old ones and the sweat of horror, he gasped his shock and disbelief as he saw: 'Mother!' the youth cried, snarling his hatred and swinging his weapon in Vasagi's direction ... but yet hesitating to 434 435 pull the trigger! If his crossbow had been of an orthodox kind, menced to slake her awful thirst - at last it was time to take he would have fired it, certainly. But Vasagi wasn't aware of the edge off his own hunger of more than two long years. For his good fortune. goat-meat and trog-flesh will suffice when there's nothing Dropping the woman and lashing out all in one smooth else, but there's no real substitute for the sweet red juice of movement, Vasagi caught Nathan a glancing blow, but humanity. sufficient to send him flying. And stooping over the fallen And Carmen (even Carmen, a fearful Lady of the youth he glared into half-glazed, startling blue eyes . . . which Wamphyri!) turning her scarlet-smeared face away, shuddering at once snapped back into furious focus! Then — as the Thing that was Vasagi fed himself on the mercifully - Vasagi reared back as the youth's weapon-hand and arm unfeeling figure, the melting shape, and finally the shrivelled swung determinedly up from the earth to point his wet- corpse, that was once Nana Kiklu. gleaming crossbow at him a second time. Only this time he The rending! — The grunting and slobbering! — the pink- fired it. The bolt missed Vasagi by a hairbreadth and went tinged steam that rose up from it...! whirring off into the night. Ah, but this one would never shoot at a Lord of the Wamphyri again, be sure! Misha, witnessing the departure of Carmen and Vasagi, had Vasagi stooped to grasp the other's throat, fully intending to come out from under the cart and gone to Nathan where he rip out the pup's windpipe, chords and flesh and Adam's apple, writhed on the misted trail, clutching at his throat and all in a welter of spurting red . . . only to release him in the choking. The two youths who had pulled the travois were next moment, shocked rigid by a flash of light and shattering quite dead; their colleague was missing, as good as dead. explosion from behind and somewhere overhead! Finally Nathan could speak and croaked: However momentarily, the flash had lit the forest track with 'My mother?' He looked wildly all about through the a dazzle of white fire, leaving one of the lower branches of an clearing mist. 'Nana?' ironwood splintered, as if struck by lightning, where Nathan's Misha had no answer for him, not even a shake of the head. explosive bolt had shattered it some twenty feet above the She knew that he wouldn't accept it even if she told him. ground. And finally, bending under its own weight, with a Looking at her - seeing the drained look on her face — he got tortured squeal of torn timber, the weakened branch came to his feet and automatically, uselessly, dusted himself down .. crashing down! . but in a little while stopped and reeled like a drunkard. And: The earth shook as the branch smashed down, blocking the 'Nana?' he said again, hopelessly. trail. And beyond the dust and debris of its falling, figures Suddenly there was no strength in him, and he went to his came running with flaring torches and sweeping beams of light knees, crumpling to one side. Misha fell with him, cradling like mirrored sunlight ... but in the dark of night? his head with her breasts. 'Oh, Nathan, my Nathan .. .' It was all too much for Vasagi! 'N-N-Nana?' It was a sob, almost the wail of a lost child. Snatching up the unconscious woman, he left the trail and But in the next moment it was a choked, outraged roar of fled, or flowed, into the dark maze of the woods and followed sheerest rage, madness: Carmen's scent through the night. But when he was well clear 'Motheeer! Nanaaaaa.' Naaa-naaaaaaa!' of the Lidescis - and when he came upon Carmen waiting in a The party of armed men had arrived. They saw the clearing, where already she'd com- bloodied bodies, guessed the rest. And in a little while Ben 437 436 'War,' Nathan panted, gritting his teeth. 'Aye!' And his Trask and David Chung came running, their torch-beams empty blue eyes mirrored the ice-cold starlight. flashing, and Lardis Lidesci not far behind, cursing vividly. And mustering all the strength of his blasted, bereaved, Nathan took Misha's face tenderly in his hands. agonized mind, he hurled a question, a taunt and a challenge Unashamed tears washed his own gaunt visage as he begged after the unknown Wamphyri thief who had stolen that which her, 'Which way? Did you see?' His voice was the merest was precious beyond words: whisper. You! Bastard Thing! Mother-killer! Who are you? Who is it She pointed into the woods — then grasped his arm as his I must seek out to kill? face twisted into a snarl and he seemed to lean that way, as if Eh? came back a mental grunt, perhaps surprised. A tugged by invisible forces. 'Nathan, no!' Szgany mentalist — and powerful! Is it you, freak? Blue-eyes, He got up again, shakily. 'But I have to. I must.' And in his yellow-hair? I see that it is. And she was your mother, was metaphysical mind: she? Well, and now we're kin, Blue-eyes - for her blood runs Nathaaan! His sweet mother, calling to him. His poor in my veins, too! Oh, ha-ha! And so you'd seek me out to kill brave Nana, unafraid even now. And the awful truth like a me, would you? But that's been tried before! There came a hammer-blow to his reeling mind, that she spoke to him in grim chuckle, gradually fading, and finally a hoarse, chilling his mind! And the fact that it wasn't telepathy. whisper: Very well, if you're that tired of life, then seek me 'Ma?' The word fell from his lips like an echo from long, out. I look forward to our meeting. But don't forget to ask for long ago, when another Necroscope had mourned his mother, me by name ... in a dim and distant world. . . . By the name of Vasagiiiii! And now her words were warm, and Nana's smile was Vasagi! A name to ring, raucous as a cracked bell, in the warm in the deadspeak aether: Nathan, son. Try not to feel so Necroscope's mind forever. Or if not forever, for as long as it torn. For there was no pain, none at all. And even now we've took to still it. Then, to himself, a promise: Vasagi, you are not been put apart. No, for now I'm another voice to talk to in doomed! I swear it. . . your pillow. I always knew you were your father's son, Except it was not to himself, for the Necroscope's every Nathan. And what the Necroscope Harry Keogh did, you can thought was deadspeak. And: do again. Aye, for all of us, the living and the dead alike . .. All in good time, Nana told him softly. But first, me. 'Look!' Trask pointed. 'You, Ma?' The anger fled out of him in a moment, for the High overhead, and rising, a pair of manta shapes pulsed moment. through the sky. Wamphyri flyers, scudding like clouds Oh, indeed. For while I'm dead, son, we really have to be against the stars. They were there, and they were gone, lost sure I'll stay that way. Find me, and give me to Lardis. He'll over the horizon of treetops. know what to do. Nathan snarled, stumbled a pace in the direction the flyers Nathan moaned, staggered, and finally resigned himself to had taken. He would conjure a Mobius door, leap into the sky, it. He stepped aside from the others, conjured a door and go after them! But: followed Nana's voice to where her body lay crumpled on the No, Nathan, not in haste or hatred. That way you're fallible. forest floor. And when he saw her, if he hadn't known that it Your father was fiery, too, sometimes. But not when he made was her, then he never would have known .. . war. Then he was cold. He took her back to Lardis, handed her into the Old 438 439 Lidesci's arms ... and passed out cold under the glittering stars. Ben Trask and Misha caught him, and lowered him on to PART SIX one of the travois. And: 'Thank God for that!' Trask said. Battle Stations! Misha looked at him, until he explained, 'Where Nathan is now, there's no more pain. Not for a little while, anyway.' Lardis gave a grunt and said, 'And no war either — for a little while, at least. Eh, Ben Trask?' The other shook his head grimly. 'Not yet,' he answered, 'but it's as well to let him rest. For the war will come soon enough, you can be sure of that.' Looking at the poor shrivelled thing in his arms, then at the man on the travois - his drained face, for the moment drained, whose looks were now more than ever Harry Keogh's - Lardis gave a nod of his gnarled old head. Oh, yes, he was as sure of that as he'd ever been of anything ... I Wratha's War Counci] -The Attack on the Keep - New Arrivals Lolling on the jolting bed of a travois, with a skin tossed over him against the chill of the Sunside night, and his young wife Misha walking alongside, the Necroscope slept a sleep of total exhaustion; this time a far more emotional than physical fatigue. Finally burned-out if not actually bereft, there was no room for dreams in the closed-down vaults of his mazed mind now - or rather, no energy for them. Neither dreams, thoughts nor even esoteric, whispered conversations .. . nothing to disturb him. This was a healing sleep, for a wound as deep as the soul. The Great Majority knew, of course, and were silent; they had felt Nathan's grief; their whispers no longer echoed in the deadspeak aether. And for the first time in what seemed a very long time, the Necroscope was finally at peace - - But the rest of Sunside/Starside was not. Out on the boulder plains, Vormulac's observation posts were being set up in ages-fretted ossuary piles or the rubble of crumpled aeries, wherever man and beast could find shelter from the grim grey light of the coming day. It made little or no difference that the sun never shone on the boulder plains; the mere proximity of that furnace orb was enough of a threat in itself. When the barrier mountains turned golden in their peaks, that would be the signal for the warrior-Lord's creatures to cower down and sleep, however uncomfortably, irritably, in whatever shade they could find. It was the way of the vampire. And far down the spine of the barrier range, beyond the 443 even his eyes were scarcely visible in all the wadding! dog-leg pass, Black Boris pulsed east with his company of Patently, his art had warped him irretrievably. This was lieutenants, thralls and warriors, to make camp in the caverns Wratha's conclusion, at least. of the trogs. Black Boris, at least, was not too displeased with And despite that Wrathstack had drawn first blood in the his lot. war with Turgosheim - namely, the rout, rack and ruin of While in the great pass itself: Lord Shornskull and his party - it was obvious to Wratha Lord Unsleep and Devetaki Skullguise landed and hid away that this was a desultory, even dispirited gathering. Lacking their flyers, and crept silent as shadows to find an Canker Canison's outrageous antics especially, there was advantageous position from which to watch Lord Wamus's nothing to give it cohesion, not even mutual irritation. invasion of the gorge's guardian keep. With a cursory wave of a slim hand, she bade them And fifteen miles east of the pass, a veritable swarm of welcome and be seated, and inquired of no one in particular: vampires settling to what remained of Wratha's stunned The dog-Lord?' supplicant Szgany tribes, sacking, raping and looting 'Flown out,' said Nestor, low-voiced. 'I saw them from a indiscriminately, putting on fat and gathering provender window in my room of repose - Canker and his moon against the coming day and all the bloody nights that were yet mistress - heading south and a little west, perhaps for the to be. For in the final analysis, the warrior-Lord had seen little great pass.' or nothing to be gained out of the conservation of these Wratha nodded, and snapped: 'Well, then, it seems we snivelling supplicants; since Vormulac must in any event provision his army, it were best done at Wratha's expense. must pray that Canker's lieutenants are free of their master's Moreover, it pleased Lord Unsleep to know that in using up burgeoning affliction! My Lords, in case it's escaped your these people he destroyed in short order what must have cost notice, we have an aerie to secure and defend against the Wratha no small amount of time and effort to implement! hosts of Vormulac!' Therefore, all in all, such slaughter seemed the logical 'No use to bare your fangs at us, Lady!' Gorvi lashed out, decision. Or the logic of the Wamphyri, at least. And in any noticeably less unctuous than usual. 'For we are here. event. . . gratifying? Canker's the one who's absent!' As for Wratha herself: All of them, with the exception of Nestor, glared at one Even now, in Wrathspire, that Lady was making decisions another. But in that quiet way of his, the necromancer of her own ... merely said, Time is wasting.' And with a shrug: 'If Canker returns, he returns, and if he doesn't, he doesn't. What With the exception of Canker Canison, Wrathstack's Lords had difference does it make? His men are fierce fighters all.' all come up to Wratha's war council. Gorvi grudgingly (he felt Again, Wratha's nod, and her sigh as she let out far safer in Guilesump, where he'd taken additional, personal, something of her pent air. 'Very well, then let's to it. And as and secret precautions against the stack's invasion); the for Canker: I had nothing for him, anyway. Now you see why Killglance brothers awkwardly, distanced from each other by I allotted him Mangemanse in the first place: it's the least reason of Spiro's 'superior talent'; and Lord Nestor Lichloathe important of all the manses, and central - it's the easiest to gloomily, as was his wont. Indeed, such was the necromancer's defend!' morbid fascination with death, he now more than ever 'Good!' Spiro slapped the table, his scowl like the blaze of hot shrouded himself in cerecloth robes, till coals. Then we can get on? What do you have for me and mine?' 444 445 Wratha raised an eyebrow. 'Eager, are you?' generals .. . but what if he'd sent ten? Lady, I tell you we were 'I have achieved my father's killing eye,' Spiro answered, lucky!' 'and I can feel its power growing even now! Time it was Before Wratha could spit an answer, Nestor sighed through tested to the full.' He looked several inches taller and wore a his wrappings and said, 'My Lords, Lady . . . do we really dirty eye-patch over a bruised, purple-blotched right eye and have time for these word games, this carping?' cheek. Swollen and discoloured, his left eye was a red-veined Wratha glared at him, then snapped at Wran: 'Of course I blob of sulphurous hate. have other work for you! But since your arrival here, pale and Wratha stared at him a while and said, 'Your father's eye, shivering, my first thought was to boost your flagging morale Spiro? And so it would appear. Well, and now you must use it .. .' to best effect! Wherever your manse's defences are weakest, Wran's jaw dropped. He pushed back his chair and made as there make yourself available. And in the event of an attack, if to spring to his feet. unleash your scathing eye upon the raiders! Glare them from 'Oh, not just you!' Wratha threw her arms wide. 'But all of their saddles - burst their hearts and obliterate them with a you! Utterly out of sorts, worn down in spirit, when by all glance - before they can so much as think of landing!' rights you should be geared for war. Gorvi the so-called Guile 'Alas,' Wran spoke up, smiling sarcastically and plucking at in a cold sweat, his former cunning noticeable by its absence, his wen. 'I am gifted with no such skills, but merely rage a displaced by panic. Spiro Killglance almost too eager for war, little. Will you also tell me my duties, Madame?' which makes him irresponsible and easy prey to possibly fatal She nodded curtly. 'Your duty is the inspiration of your errors. And Nestor Lichloathe as cold and quiet as one of his forces. Show them that your furious madness is not without beloved corpses! What a sorry bunch! But you three ...' purpose, but directed at enemies who may not stand before the (Wran, Spiro, Gorvi). 'Is this that same band of renegades I rage of Wran!' led out of Turgosheim that time? Oh, it is, be sure - but grown Her words prompted him to puff himself up a little. But in a fat and idle. What's needed is more of the spirit you showed moment he scowled and asked, 'Is that all? Have you called us then. What? For then Vormulac had every advantage, where here to instruct us in the obvious, in what is second nature to now he has only the weight of numbers. We are the ones us? If so, it seems a great waste of time to me!' sitting pretty in a fortress impregnable! So wake up! Rise up Wratha's turn to scowl. 'My, but you Lords are edgy! Now from this morbid mood in which you wallow!' tell me, have I led you astray so far? Are your manses full of 'So, then!' Wran huffed and puffed. 'Now everything comes good Sunside stuff to withstand Vormulac's siege, or what? clear! We are to blame for this fix we're in! We are the ones at And listen ...' She put up a slender hand to a conch-like ear. 'Is fault, us Lords! Fat, idling cowards, the lot of us! Dull, that the wind or the ghost of Laughing Zack Shorn-skull I hear? dispirited dimwits! And Wratha the Risen the only one capable Now whose great works were these, I wonder — yours or mine?' of reasoned thought. Are these the insults we must suffer? Is Wran's scowl became a snarl. 'And do you also take credit that what you're saying, Lady?' for that fiasco at Sanctuary Rock? And I would remind you: She looked at him and lifted a knowing eyebrow, and her Zack Shornskull was just one of Vormulac's look said it all: Ah! But just listen to you raving. As if it serves some purpose. And in a while, out loud and yet quietly, 'Remember, those are your words, Wran Killglance, 446 447 flawed design. Ah, but only look at them now! Huh! It not mine ...' And a little louder: 'Well then, what's it to be? scarcely takes a genius to fathom how they were brought Do you hear me out - or don't you?' down .. .' Wran glared at her for long, silent moments, but finally All the heat had passed out of Wran in a moment. Looking lowered his voice to growl, 'Go on, then! We're listening . ..' to Wratha for advice, he said, 'But what would you have me Wratha got up abruptly from her bone-throne, strode to a do? We need the methane for the kitchens, heating, lighting.' window and beckoned the Lords to follow. And when they She nodded. 'By all means, let's use this fire to warm our had joined her, she pointed out and down at the starlit piles hands - but I for one refuse to sit on it a moment longer! Not of the tumbled stacks of the Old Wamphyri, strewn over the when it threatens to burn my tail! Two beasts in three must Starside plain in all directions. Then: go, leaving plenty of well-aired space between the remaining 'Aye,' she said, turning her gaze on Wran. 'And indeed I pens! Now tell me, do I have it right? Are the chambers and do have work for you - all to be attended to be/ore this war pens all on the perimeter?' continues! Else it could be too late ...' 'Aye.' Wran nodded worriedly. 'Of course: to simplify the 'Eh?' He frowned. venting of excess gas.' Those fallen aeries all have one thing in common,' she Then "simply" vent it!' she told him. 'As much as may be went on, 'one weakness which brought them down.' spared! And keeping only a handful of pens occupied, drain 'Oh?' the rest of the chambers and stave them in, so that gas can't 'Don't you see it?' accidentally gather there. Finally, until this war is over, keep That they are fallen, certainly!' only sufficient beasts for minimal lighting, heating, cooking. She shook her head. That they were caused to fall! I've We see well enough and there are other ways to keep warm, known it since the day we arrived here, and I should and burning meat for greedy thralls was always a luxury at certainly think that you would know it too: you and Spiro of best.' all people, since you're living on hell's very doorstep! Also, I 'I should simply release my beasts and let them drift out on know that this stack is no different; it has the same fault; it the air?' too can be toppled, brought down onto the boulder plains.' Their function is to manufacture gas,' Wratha answered. Nestor stood apart from the others, at another window. But That's all they do, and when they stop they die. You have no his strange, quiet voice was magnetic and claimed their choice but to release them . . . or would you rather have attention as he said, 'Wratha is right. I've spoken to the liches Vormulac send in a suicide squad to fire them in their pens? I of men who told me how it was that time. But . . . let her can see it now: each beast setting the next ablaze -and the finish, and then I'll have my say.' methane chambers popping one by one - till all goes up in a The gas-beast pens,' said Wratha, which was explanation in titan blast! And finally, this last great aerie of the Wamphyri itself. But without waiting for comment, she pressed on: 'All left teetering on a central stem, or slumping to a stump like of the pens on one level, side by side with the methane these other toppled ruins!' storage chambers; pens and chambers alike huddled together, And now Nestor's voice, gloomy and quiet as ever: 'Your like chicks in a nest - in one nest, Madmanse! And in this picture isn't a pretty one, Lady, but it is accurate beyond a instance, well-named at that! For upon a time, these other doubt. Moreover, Lord Unsleep isn't the only one we need to gutted aeries of the Old Wamphyri were of a similar worry about. No, for I know how it was that time, and that 448 449 myths and legends. Men can't control the sun, Nestor. That even now events are swinging full circle. History repeats ...' there's a spark of truth in it . . . who knows? Maybe they 'Explain,' she said sharply. massed an army in the mountains - men with mirrors, or He went back to the table and sat down (wearily, Wratha weapons such as those the Lidescis use - and blasted the thought). She and the others followed him, waiting for him stacks with reflected sunlight. But even then, it seems to continue. And eventually: 'I talk to liches, as you know,' farfetched to me.' he said. 'And from them and other sources I've learned Nestor shrugged. 'Well, I've warned you. And I have something of the recent history of this place. A thousand something else, for Wran. In their war against this Sunside and more sunups ago there was a war .. . but not between wizard that time, the Old Wamphyri used gas-beasts as the Old Wamphyri. No, because for once they were united weapons, exploding them in the faces of their enemies. Since against a common enemy. A very terrible enemy, aye: a Vormulac Unsleep has set up watchers on the plain, and Sunside wizard! And it was him who toppled the aeries one Wran has beasts to lose, I thought it was worth mentioning.' by one, and laid them low on the boulder plains.' Wran grinned, and for once nodded appreciatively. 'What?' Gorvi's eyes had narrowed to slits. 'D'you mean a common man, a Sunsider, Szgany? A man did all that? 'And one last thing,' said Nestor, but very quietly now. How?' 'Oh?' Wratha waited. 'A man, or men, aye.' Nestor nodded. 'But common, never! This wizard's son . . . he comes and goes!' Nestor groaned, Haven't I said they were wizards? As to how they did it: flapping his bandaged hands uselessly. they caused the sun to shine on Starside, and guided its rays 'He does what?' (This from Spiro.) into the great stacks, to the methane chambers and gas-beast 'He . . . he moves!' Nestor cried. 'He moves instantly, from pens.' Then, seeing Wratha's puzzlement, he paused. place to place. Even miles - a great many miles - in as little 'A thousand sunups gone?' she queried him. 'But ... what time as it takes to tell! He flits like a thought - but in body as has that to do with here and now? And what do you mean: well as mind ...' events are swinging full circle?' And in a little while: 'Ah!' said Gorvi, breaking the sudden That wizard had sons,' said Nestor, 'one of whom silence with his sigh. And drily: 'Well, there you have it. inherited his powers, much as Spiro got his father's killing Didn't I always say that Canker's condition was contagious?' eye.' Nestor took no offence apparently. He stood up, staggered, 'And?' Wratha prompted him. headed for the exit. He would descend along a well-known The wizard's son still lives!' Nestor turned his head route into Suckscar. But at the archway exit, as if remembering abruptly, and stared at Wratha through the slits in his his manners, he turned and looked back. 'I take it you have wrappings. 'You even saw him, Lady, atop Sanctuary Rock! nothing for me, Madame?' His voice was hoarse, pained. Why, you knocked him from the rim, which should have put For a moment her heart went out to him ... handsome an end to him! But no, he lives there still, on Sunside. For a young Lord Nestor, as had been! She wondered what ailed while he was . .. elsewhere - wherever wizards go, don't ask him, then put it aside at once. Whatever, it was none of her me - but now he's back, and dangerous!' concern; she had problems of her own; they all did. 'Nothing,' For long moments she gaped at him, then slowly shook her head. 'It seems to me your liches have lied, or told you 451 450 she said. 'Except you make your best preparations for war.' Skullguise's abduction of his leader, still he could sleep in this 'I am prepared,' he answered, and left. place! But Krasin was as hard as they come; he knew that his 'Which leaves me,' said Gorvi. staying awake could not help matters; far better to be up at the crack of dawn, full of energy and clear-headed from a good Wratha got her thoughts together, turned her gaze on the night's sleep. Guile, and in a moment said, 'Just you, Gorvi, aye. Well, you must guard your wells, and ensure that the water is plentiful. So he slept in the glow of a hearth fire, and trusted the For there's nothing quite like boiling water for poaching the watchful men he'd left awake. If this were Russia, Krasin flesh from a would-be invader's bones! We must all be knew he would feel secure in the knowledge that nothing thankful my siphoneers are in fine fettle. And of course you could slip by them. must secure the bottoms; only let a man of Vormulac's in But this was not Russia ... down there - we'd have kneblasch in the water for sure! Also, I foresee a veritable rain of bodies into your territory, men A corporal and a private soldier kept watch from their vantage and beasts alike! Make sure your earthbound warriors know point on the jutting balcony of a slate-roofed turret halfway up the difference between friend and foe. Should fighting men or the face of the keep. Located centrally between the yawning creatures of Wrathstack fall, give them succour if you can cavern entrance and the topmost watchtower, the turret and return them to the battle with all speed. And our enemies projected from the riddled face of the gorge like the beak of a . .. but I need not tell you how to use them.' bird of prey. Beneath the sloping slate canopy of the roof, the She looked from face to face. 'As for myself: my roof is men were the bird's eyes. Their own eyes gleamed blue in well-guarded, with warriors, pitfalls, traps. My landing-bays starlight, flowing down to them from the winding ribbon of are gantlets for any brave fool who would try them. My glittering ice-chip stars overhead. The men had been there for lieutenants and thralls will not fail me but fight to the death - five hours now and were tired; one more hour to go before for should they fail to fight, they'll die more terribly yet! hand-over of duties, when they could go to their beds and There. Now we must wait a while, and see what's what.' sleep. With which the war council was over - but the wars were One hundred and fifty feet below, the courtyard sprawled, only just beginning .. . blue-tinged and black-shadowed under its massive walls; a cigarette's telltale glow lit the darkness where shadows In the keep in the great pass, Bruno Krasin's night-guard had gathered; faint footsteps and a hoarse-whispered challenge settled into their duties and were watchful. Trained soldiers, echoed up from a prowler-guard making his rounds. And a they watched the ground for men and scanned the air for moment later a second glow-worm cigarette joined the first, flying beasts. But the keep was literally a fortress, and in a the two seeming to flirt where the shadows pooled close to the world as primitive as this the weapons of Earth were keep gates. devastating; so that despite the loss of Tzonov and Yefros, of The night was quiet. From far away, the occasional hoot of whom the common soldiers had known very little and an owl; now and then a red-eyed moth half as big as a man's understood even less, Krasin's men felt strong, capable and hand, whirring in the darkness and staying close to the canyon sure of themselves. wall to avoid the attention of bats; a sentient-seeming ground Krasin himself felt sure of them. Indeed, it said a lot for mist floating over the bed of the pass, its hesitant tendrils his faith in them that, having witnessed the Lady Devetaki writhing, evaporating, apparently repulsed 453 452 by the gates of the keep. Then the owl falling silent; the last But overhead, where the beam played on ancient wooden moth whirring away in a fan of powdered wings; the silence beams and badly gapped heavy slate tiles ... just darkness, closing in more yet... no stars. To break it, the corporal in the turret shuffled and Clouds? Zorin wondered. But a moment ago . . . he was commented, 'Private Bykov appears to be late with his signal.' sure he'd seen stars through the gaps in those tiles. And He leaned out across the balcony, craning his neck to stare up over the pass, the sky seemed clear. at the topmost tower, aimed his torch at it and pressed its stud. The sloping roof projected almost to the full extent of the The beam reached out, picked out a gaunt stone facade and balcony. Zorin leaned backwards, stood on booted tiptoes, ink-blot windows. But although the corporal waited, there was aimed his torch-beam upwards along the slope of the roof no answering flash. ... and saw something stir! 'Asleep,' his 2 I / C answered. 'But do you blame him, It was as if the roof was furry, inches deep in moss or Corporal Zorin? Why, secure in that high tower, who can lichen, mobile as Zorin moved his beam across it — until he possibly threaten him?' realized that it was mobile! Then he gave a gasp and reached The other answered with an irritable grunt, switched off his for his machine-pistol, but far too late. torch. 'I shall charge him anyway. He wasn't put up there for Inverted on the roof - head-down, spreadeagled, inching his security nor even ours, but for the safety of the whole forward like some sentient slug on a rock - Lord Wamus of keep. From such a vantage point, Bykov can see everything: the Wamphyri formed a deadly living blanket. But feeling the pass in both directions, the approaches to the keep, the the light of the corporal's torch on him, he lifted his head, courtyard and the movements of the prowler-guard .. . opened his scarlet eyes, and hissed right into Zorin's face! everything. Or he would see it if he wasn't asleep!' No more than fifteen inches separated them, eye from eye. As if to punctuate Zorin's words, a pebble and some mortar Zorin's 2I/C had heard his corporal's gasp and seen his or fine grit fell from on high, clattered against a ledge, went hand snatch at the machine-gun's strap across his shoulder. plummeting into the deeps. But while the corporal gave a start, Now he saw something else - something unbelievable - that his subordinate merely chuckled and said, 'So, he's not caused him to snarl his terror and grab with jelly fingers for sleeping after all, but merely distracted.' his own gun: a pair of huge, flat, webbed hands with long, 'Eh?' The corporal frowned. 'Distracted?' bony fingers and nails like fish hooks! Hands that reached 'Vasily Bykov carves stone with that army knife of his,' the out over the scalloped rim of the roof, grasped Zorin's head other explained. 'It's his hobby. I would guess that he's just and lifted him bodily from the turret! His wildly kicking this minute brushed a handful of chips from that window- legs slid from view; his choked-off cry came burbling from ledge up there.' above ... followed at once by his hurtling body, tossed into Zorin's frown deepened. 'He should at least have seen my the gorge! And Corporal Zorin's scream went on and on, torch-beam, and answered it.' 'Oh-ah-aaaaah!' all the way down, until he hit the bottom. A half-seen shrug from the darkness of the turret. 'Perhaps Panting his terror, alone now in the turret, the private his batteries are faulty. I've had to change mine twice!' There soldier used his gun to prod at a loose tile immediately came a click and the turret was lit from within. Zorin glanced overhead; it shifted and went sliding into space. And back from the balcony to where his subordinate aimed his mercifully, the stars were visible again in the gap it left - beam into his own face, making it look devilish. or perhaps not so mercifully, for the darkness was closing in even now. 454 455 The light from the starlit gorge was being shut out as if But against what? Where was the target? Where the enemy? someone slowly drew a curtain; the soldier held his breath All movement ceased; breathing stilled; silence reigned. A and lowered his gaze towards the balcony . .. where Lord man lay dead, crushed to the courtyard's bedrock, his blood Wamus had come into view head-first, arms reaching, slithering and brains spattered outwards like a sticky halo round his like some rubbery jellyfish, flowing over the rim of the roof head, or a painted peacock's-tail design without its beauty, into the turret! Upside down, he gripped the scalloped rim without its life. And in the higher watchtowers no slightest with his great bat's hands and unfurled himself to the floor. sign of movement or recognition of tragedy, and in the And for a single moment, a vampire Lord crouched there courtyard no one so much as noticing the lichen-like patterning with his hunched, black-veined, bat-canopied back to the on the sheer walls, or the sentient creep of certain surfaces. terrified soldier, who finally pointed his gun and made to Then: squeeze the trigger. Hurried movement in the interior of the keep; the clattering But a ragged, leathery arm and hand reached down through of more booted feet; Bruno Krasin and a handful of men the hole left by the slate to snatch the weapon from his appearing from the dark yawn of the entrance cavern, like ants from the jaws of a picked skull, pausing briefly to look palsied hands. And up there, another face like Wamus's was about, then hurrying down the exterior steps. And a host of glaring down. Meanwhile, the vampire Lord himself had wide-eyed faces peering from the lower balconies and windows. turned inwards. 'What?' Krasin shouted as he pushed the prowler-guard The soldier gazed into the nightmare's furnace eyes, felt the out of his way and looked down on the corpse of Corporal steamy copper-tasting breath from its convoluted, flattened Zorin. And again: 'What?' bat-snout and yawning red-ribbed cavern jaws, and tried to 'He fell,' someone mumbled. will his nerveless legs to turn him around and run ... back into 'Or he was thrown!' someone else choked out. 'He screamed, the core of the keep, down through its endless stone but it was — I don't know — the way he screamed! He was stairwells to the courtyard, out into the company of other men terrified, I guess, but not just of falling ...' . . . or better still into another world, his own, where he knew 'Shut up!' Staff-Sergeant Krasin rounded threateningly on he would wake up at last, for things like this only happened the speaker, although he suspected he was right. And a in bad dreams. Except, and exactly like a bad dream, his legs moment later, turning his gaunt face up to the night, the wouldn't move, but felt nailed to the hewn rock floor. platoon commander let loose with his bull voice: 'Now hear me: Wamus, however, suffered no such constraints. He moved we're on intruder alert for the rest of the night, right through till — so swiftly and efficiently that the soldier never even saw dawn. If you want to live, do exactly as I tell you. If something the movement or knew what it signified . .. moves and doesn't answer your challenge, shoot it! No second warnings. Any doubt whatsoever, you shoot the bastard dead!' Down in the courtyard, booted feet were running; hoarse He aimed a powerful torch up the face of the keep. 'You voices shouted; torch-beams swept the bed of the pass, north up there, in the upper towers and turrets: what the hell and south, and reached up to scour the canyon face, the happened? You, Raikin.' (Zorin's 2I/C.) 'How did the corporal looming facade of the keep, the sky itself. Automatic fall?' But there was no answer, and somehow Krasin hadn't weapons made their definitive and very threatening ch-ching! expected one. sounds as they were readied for action. 456 457 his spine by inches, punctured his right lung and passed right The third vantage point from the top was simply a natural through him. It too ricocheted, and Wamus felt its burn cave fronted by a rough stone wall. Access was via a precarious against his right breast. exterior staircase carved from the rock. Inside, at the back of What result Krasin had expected would be difficult to say; the cave, there was also a steep, dark stairwell which in some he couldn't be sure what he was firing at, might even be other time must have connected up various parts of the keep; it making a fool of himself. It didn't matter; he wasn't about to was choked now and impassable. But pale in the glare of take a chance on losing any more of his men. The bottom line several torch-beams, a pair of anxious faces could be seen was that their lives were his life. In any case, the result he got peering down at Krasin from behind the wall: a flame-thrower was astonishing. team, positioned there so as to offer maximum protection from aerial attack. Wamus let out an ear-piercing screech that took over from 'Well?' Krasin yelled, adding his beam to the criss-cross the echoes of Krasin's fusillade. His nightmare shape detached pattern of moving light. 'Did you see anything?' Except, even itself from the sheer rock face, kicked outwards, formed as he shouted, Krasin himself saw something! arched wings and glided for the balcony. His lashing tail acted Krasin's eyes were as keen as his memory. A true soldier, like a rudder and seemed almost to propel him to his target; a only show him a battle-zone and his mind would instantly, taloned 'hand' closed over the head of one of the keep's instinctively lock-on, every detail recorded. Earlier, he had defenders; the man was dragged shrieking out across the committed the face of the keep to memory without even balcony and dropped. knowing he'd done it. But a moment ago, as his beam swept the Wamus sped out of the sweeping beams of light and was naked rock to light on those faces behind the balcony, it had lost to sight; the dropped soldier crashed down sickeningly picked out, however briefly, a detail previously unseen. Ergo, a and his screaming ceased. Krasin was shouting: 'Light up the new detail: a large, raised, ragged patch of something that keep, the entire face of the fucking place! We need to see looked like moss or lichen, close to the observation cave with what else is there! Anything that isn't right, shoot the fucking the balcony. And when he swept the beam back the other way thing!' to double-check — And fifty yards away on the other side of the gorge, where — Then he gasped and narrowed his eyes, hunched down it bottlenecked, Devetaki and Vormulac looked on, watching and grabbed a rifle from one of his men. And: 'All torch-beams the action from behind fallen rocks at the top of a scree on the area around that cave!' he snapped. For he'd seen that jumble. In the darkness with their Wamphyri eyes, they saw the patch was closer still - and closing! what Krasin and his men could not hope to see: the injured, Bruno Krasin was a marksman. On a count of three he got enraged Wamus turning in a tight circle - then speeding back off three shots, all of them finding their target. The first bullet to avenge himself! And not only Lord Wamus, but one of his hit Wamus in the airfoil webbing between his left arm and side; bloodsons, launching from a dark crevice, stooping like some passing through the soft membrane of the webbing, it splayed weird bird of prey to the cave where his father had suffered to a hot, rag-edged disc of metal against the rock. On the hurt and indignity! rebound it did more damage, tearing out a fist-sized chunk of But he was seen. Converging torch-beams picked him out furry but mainly unfeeling flesh. The second bullet slammed as his wings arched and he hovered over the cave's wall; into Wamus's thigh, splintering and lodging its fragments deep automatic gunfire sounded; the surviving defender of the cave in alveolar bone. The third missed finally got his act together and lashed out with a 458 459 gouting, searing, thirty-foot blade of white and yellow fire Out of the fire and smoke, tapering skyward, a pale, pulsing which caught the bat-thing squarely and hurled it screaming tentacle of leprous flesh quivered and shuddered where it out over the pass in a ball of scorched, frantically lashing formed; another shot out sideways, knocked a man from his limbs and blazing membrane. feet and dragged him screaming towards the blazing mass. But The volatile liquid stuck, burned, ate like acid into fur, skin he was lucky; even as his combat-suit trousers smoked and and metamorphic flesh. The great bat uttered shriek after alien licked into blue flames, the tentacle released him and his shriek as it flopped down the face of the cliff, leaving a trail of colleagues were able to haul him out of danger. By then, an fluid fire wherever it made contact and driving back the entire nest of blue-grey appendages was lashing frantically in shadows to the corners of the courtyard as it crashed down. the roiling heat as the flame-thrower team continued to hose But Krasin and his men weren't about to leave it at that; searing death on the melting thing that had been Wamus of the forming a semicircle, they pumped round after round into the Wamphyri. roasting, shrilling vampire, and only stopped when it stopped Finally the hideous commotion stopped; the gouting chemical jerking and twitching. By which time Wamus was back. fire died to a flicker; black, stinking smoke, sparks and sooty But bleeding copiously, made erratic by his pain and fury, scraps gushed up into the night, and the shadows began to Lord Wamus's return was ill-conceived in the face of odds and creep again in the courtyard under the keep. weapons such as these. He appeared from the south, out of the But from within the keep: darkness of the pass, and at once targeted a man on top of the Muffled automatic fire .. . then screams ... and a flash of hot courtyard wall, where he watched the spectacle of Wamus's white light behind a window-space, preceding the coughing burning bloodson. The soldier sensed Wamus's presence a detonation of a grenade that shattered part of the keep's facade moment too late. Horror fell out of the sky and folded him in, outwards in a shower of stone and rotten mortar! and before he could cry out, Wamus's elongated jaws closed on 'Let's have some light!' Krasin roared, and his men again the back of his neck and severed his spine. But even as the turned their electric torch-beams on the face of the keep. vampire Lord dropped his victim and relaunched, he was seen! Up there, framed for a split-second in the eye-socket hole of Alert, a soldier in the courtyard cried a warning, elevated his a window, the awesome silhouette of Wamus's second automatic weapon, fired from the hip and loosed a stream of bloodson! The thing launched, plummeted like a stone, then hot lead. Shuddering from a score of hits, Wamus was released something that flailed and went 'Ah-aah-aaah.'' as it astonished to suddenly find himself weak, drained of energy! fell: a third soldier sent plunging to his doom. Defiant, intent upon scathing among his tormentors, he Krasin's men crouched low, hurled lead into the sky, tried to swooped towards them and was literally hurled back by the anticipate the flight-path of the bat-thing where it swooped weight of lead they poured into him . . . which at once dragged only inches overhead, then gained altitude as it headed for the him down! And with his membranous webbing collapsing to wall of the keep close to the gates. They saw its red, swivelling rags, he fell in a tangle. eyes and heard its chittering laughter -its vaguely human, yet A flame-thrower team was now on hand; they stepped utterly inhuman laughter - as it sped for the darkness of the forward, one carrying a tank and the other operating the hose, pass and safety ... and Wamus became an inferno! But he was a Lord, and the ... And didn't quite make it! thing inside wasn't going to capitulate that easily. Two figures - two entirely human figures - had entered through the keep gates. Down on one knee, one of them 461 460 aimed a rocket-launcher and, at point-blank range, squeezed But they weren't that good, my Lord, as we've seen. And as the trigger. A lance of yellow light and a ball of white fire ... for men ... (He sensed her mental shrug.) Freaks, at best. But the chittering laughter was drowned out in a deafening blast useful freaks: they tested those weapons for you, and you've of sound greater than any gone before. Chunks of smoking seen with your own eyes the utter devastation they wreak. meat and blazing membrane sprayed outwards, and all around Huh.' he grunted. And am I supposed to be reassured? a warm red rain spattered black on the ancient stone. Devastating? Is that how you describe that flame-hurler? After that: Awesome is the only word for it! And if it were used on us? . . . It took a while for Bruno Krasin and his men to realize To which she slyly replied, Ah, but if it were used by us - that it was over, but it would take the rest of the night for their against Wrathstack? nerves to stop jumping. Narrow-eyed, he glanced at her sideways where they lifted As for their nightmares: they'd retain those for however up out of the pass. Another of your schemes, Devetaki? Perhaps long they had left... 1 rely too heavily upon your advice. Oh, it's no great burden, (She was self-serving in translating On the other side of the pass, unseen, a Lord and a Lady made his meaning.) And anyway, what are friends for? As for the flitting shadows among the darker shadows, where they keep and its defenders: they can wait until morning. returned to their flyers. The great grey, vacantly nodding Morning? Sunup, d'you mean? But how may we work at beasts were waiting under an overhang, where a compacted sunup? scree-slope made an ideal launch-site. But before going to her I have a prisoner, an informant, remember? At the crack of flyer, Devetaki searched for a moment among a scattering of dawn those fighting men will head for Sunside. But a mile loose stones near a jutting, weathered outcrop. down the pass our forces will be waiting. It will be light, but What is it? Vormulac enquired. What are you looking for? as yet there'll be no sunlight! Those men will feel safe; on the In the moment before my captive was taken, he dropped his contrary, they'll be ours! And their weapons, too ... weapon here, she informed him. Then, stooping to pick Good! Vormulac's sour grunt. At last, I gain something! something up: Ah! Good fortune at Jast! It's still here! And That makes a change! I grow weary of the many ways in quickly joining Vormulac - observing him through hooded which my army gets thinned out. eyes as he checked his flyer's trappings — she gingerly To which she answered, No, my Lord, it gets weeded out - hooked the machine-pistol to her flyer's saddle. If only she which was surely your intention? were practised in the use of the thing ... but that was a thought And after a while: Your intention, perhaps, he said, but very she dared not even think! Glancing again at Vormulac, she quietly, very ominously, and in his secret mind. saw that she need not concern herself; the warrior-Lord was Except, of course, his mind was no secret to Devetaki, not lost in thoughts of his own. with her superior mentalism. But this time she knew better As they mounted up and launched, he gloomily sent: Again, than to let him know she'd heard him ... I am depleted. Three good men gone the way of all flesh, or most flesh, at least. His telepathic voice sounded very grim, a Back in the courtyard of the keep, Bruno Krasin had sent men low mental rumble. to assess losses within the keep itself. Now he stood Darkly, Devetaki returned: Did you say 'good'? And 'men'? 462 463 flanked by heavily armed corporals, where he eyed the Six fatalities all told. The night wasn't halfway through and newcomers who had arrived in time to dispose of the third Krasin was down to seven men! Signalling a brief vampire. Their bearing suggested that they were military acknowledgement, he turned to the newcomers and rasped, types, but their too-casual, too-civilian-styled uniforms placed Two more guns? I could use fifty!' And the funny thing was, them squarely in a paramilitary category. he really would be glad to have these two along. In this alien 'I'm Bruno Krasin,' the Russian introduced himself in world of vampires, not only was their firepower a bonus but it was good to see a pair of genuinely human faces! English bluntly. 'Platoon Commander Krasin to these men. I wasn't aware that your British E-Branch had a paramilitary 'Let's go inside,' he said, shivering. 'I have a fire and we section.' can talk. I need to know more about you. Anything you know about this place will probably be useful. We'll have to pool 'It doesn't,' the senior man replied. 'We're CMI — or we everything we know.' were.' They skirted the remains of the burning vampire where its 'Were?' But even though Krasin tried to maintain a cool, stench continued to go up to the sky, and made for the steps unshakable attitude, still his eyebrows had gone up at to the cavern entrance. Then, pausing with his foot on the mention of CMI. It was also news to him that this more bottom step, Krasin asked, 'What's your name, anyway?' mundane British intelligence agency had any knowledge of, 'Paxton,' said the other, 'Geoffrey Paxton. A Big Gun in interest in, or connection with Sunside/Starside. Combined Military Intelligence - until recently, when I found 'Were, yes.' The other nodded. 'Now we're outcasts. Much out about this place. Mainly about the gold. Now they can like yourself, I imagine? What, mercenaries? You can only keep CMI. All I want is to be rich!' be from Perchorsk: Turkur Tzonov's men? Perhaps you'd In fact, Paxton wanted a whole lot more than that; indeed, better take us to him.' he wanted everything he'd lost and more yet - and believed But Krasin slowly shook his head. 'Take you to Tzonov? I he knew how to get it, and intended to get it on his own terms don't think you would want to go, even if it were possible . ..' — but as an explanation for being here, what he'd said to Briefly he explained his meaning. Krasin must suffice for now. The Russian should understand 'I see,' said the other, quietly thoughtful when Krasin was greed well enough; he would accept Paxton's motives without through. 'A pity. There was a time when Tzonov and I would hesitation. have had a great deal in common. On the other hand . . . I take Which was just as well, for he certainly wouldn't it that you're in command now?' understand or accept the other ... 'Huh!' Krasin grinned wryly, humourlessly, and offered a fifty-fifty shrug. 'For as long as I last, yes. But since getting here ... we've seen some weird stuff.' 'So what's your next move?' 'Sunside, just as soon as it's light.' 'Can you use two more guns?' Before Krasin could answer, a senior corporal appeared in the mouth of the cavern entrance to the keep and called down to him: 'Sergeant! In the upper levels, we found three more dead men, sir ...' 464 gloom and take his mind off things a while. Also, it would let his generals see that he was an adventurous and innovative II commander in the fullest sense of the word. First, however, he must inform Wamus's contingent of the At the Leper Colony - loss of their leaders, and invest them with a new one: one of The Fall of Sanctuary Rock — Devetaki's several senior lieutenants. The Lady had an abundance of them; she herself had 'chosen' the fledgling Lord; Tzonov: Escape! he already slept the sleep of change. The fact that from now on Wamus's contingent would have strong connections — even affiliations? — with Devetaki had not failed to impress itself upon Vormulac. It simply did not concern him; he was Commander-in-Chief; the virgin grandam had merely taken on another secondary role, that of weaning When Devetaki and Vormulac got back to the main camp on along a new Lord, thus ensuring that Wamus's men and the lava falls, it was only a few hours before midnight. The creatures continued as one body and remained intact as a warrior-Lord's observation posts had been established out on fighting force .. . the boulder plains; his fighting contingents had returned So that while Vormulac gathered information from the other replete from the massed Sunside raids; the army's provisioning Lords, and attended to the minutiae of command, Devetaki was now complete. There was sufficient good fresh flesh in found herself free for an hour to inspect the progress and well- storage to see men and beasts through the night and coming being of her own lieutenants and thralls, and to visit her alien day, and meat afoot to last another night at least. captives under guard in a crumbling secondary cone. Along with Vormulac's other generals, Zindevar Cronesap Alexei Yefros was still asleep; he shuddered and moaned in made report. The Lady's familiar bats had returned out of the red, ravaging dreams; he would wake up eventually, entirely in west with news of a large Szgany encampment; they'd seen thrall to his mistress Devetaki. Turkur Tzonov prowled to and fires and a great deal of human activity; Zindevar's fro, a fur thrown across his shoulders, his dark mind seething interpretation was that there had been a battle, or, if not war as with plans of escape and the retention of his humanity. Ah, he such, then violent blood-letting of one sort or another. Due to was devious, this one . .. well, considering that as yet he was obvious limitations in communication, she was able to supply entirely human. Watching him from a distance (or rather, only an approximate description and location for the site: a listening to his thoughts), Devetaki smiled. Then, putting on massive outcropping boulder or knoll situated in the Sunside her smiling mask, and taking Tzonov's machine-pistol with her, foothills some eighty miles west of the great pass, something she went to him. less than two hours' flying time away. There was that which she would discuss with him. Since he Since the night was still young, and Vormulac edgy about was so intent upon his freedom and his continuation as an things in general, he decided to investigate. For, after all, Lord entirely human being, maybe they could come to some Unsleep would not sleep, not even come sunup, and he and arrangement? The virgin grandam would deny, renege upon Devetaki Skullguise had already determined on a joint venture any such agreement, of course, but not until she had what to explore the regions west of the pass. This seemed as good a time as any; it might serve to dispel Vormulac's 466 467 There was just one survivor, dying of his burns; but while she wanted. Or until she had disposed of what she did not he lived, Lardis must talk to him. And despite Uruk Piatra's want. delirium of pain, he desired to answer the Old Lidesci's And from now on Devetaki would keep the alien close beside questions and tell of the part he had played in the downfall of her, leashed and muzzled, like some strange and vicious pet. At at least one of the Starside Lords. But first his own hoarse, least until the most opportune moment, when, with a flourish - coughing question: - But yet again she must guard her thoughts. For such as they 'Lardis, tell me - am I the last?' He had been blinded, not were, they could easily get her pegged out on a peak as the sun by his disease but by the flames. But Lardis had made rose over Sunside, and steamed away in its cleansing glare. introduction, and Uruk had identified himself. That last had Or, on the other hand, they could win her a whole world been necessary; there was no other way a man could know; or perhaps even two ... the leper's burns were terrific, and he clung to life only by the strength of his will. So that Lardis found himself Less than two hours later — secure in the knowledge that thinking: Wratha and her renegades were confined by siege to the Uruk Piatra, aye, Uruk Long-life, they called you, which you last aerie of the Old Wamphyri - Devetaki, Vormulac and a always cJaimed was a misnomer. And yet here you are, Jast dozen each of their lieutenants and men, escorted by a pair after all of you poor unfortunate lepers — in this colony, at of small, powerful warriors throbbing on the flanks, least. And out loud he confirmed it: 'You are the last, Uruk, followed the spiky spine of the barrier mountains west, aye. However things go with the Wamphyri, I'll not be beating keen eyes scanning for landmark Sanctuary Rock. the bounds out this way again.' While seven miles south and a mile east, where the forest 'It was your father built this place,' Uruk reminded him. 'The gave way to savanna, Lardis Lidesci and his Travellers had Lidescis are blessed . .. their stars are the warmest of all the come finally to the leper colony under the last great stand of stars in the cold, cold sky. And yet ... not all the Lidescis are ironwoods. Or rather, they'd come to the place where the blessed . ..' colony used to stand, but where even the ironwoods stood Perhaps he rambled: 'Not all of the Lidescis were blessed?' no longer. What could Uruk mean? The Lidescis as a family, or as a Lardis couldn't believe it; it wouldn't sink in; his eyes tribe? He could only mean the Szgany Lidesci, or a member of refused to accept it. The smell of death, the devastation, the the tribe, for with Jason gone the only true Lidesci was Lardis sheer wanton destruction of it all! But the evidence was himself; and Lissa his wife, of course, through marriage. unmistakable: trampled underbrush all around, crushed Fascinated, Lardis leaned forward a little, the better to hear the shrubbery and vegetable gardens where warriors had raged, other's broken whisper. 'Say on, Uruk, if you can. What is it their hideous lingering stench; and the simple, most obvious you would tell me?' and damning fact of all: that the terrified inhabitants of this 'Are we . . . alone?' place had tried to flee the holocaust, only to be herded or They were out on the prairie, a short distance from the still thrown back into the inferno. For their grotesque, blackened smouldering quarter-acre of the colony, where even the bodies, many still burning, were all lying close to the ironwoods had been reduced to blackened totems. Uruk had perimeter. It was the work of the Wamphyri, certainly - but been found with his rags burned into his flesh, sprawled in the how, why, what had induced them to come here, risking muddied pool of the colony's spring. Wrapped in a infection from the one human disease that they feared? 468 469 blanket, he had been carried out here, where Lardis had come were lepers, and their 'kindness' was in no way a kiss of life but a bane, a blemish, a blight. to talk to him. When they coughed, they did not avert their faces; their Lardis nodded, despite that Uruk couldn't see him. 'We're breath went into his wounds. The balms and ointments they alone. My men are . .. mazed. They sit about the smoking used were theirs, mixed with their hands. They ladled the ruins and feel the horror of it. You people were helpless, water he drank and prepared the soup he ate, and generally crippled, dying. You were dead, or as good as: corpses that did whatever they could for him .. . glad in the knowledge that yet walked or stumbled. Even without the Wamphyri, there their mercy would kill him, and knowing that it would kill was no hope for such as you. So why did they do this? What him their way; that they had made a pJague-bearer to carry could they hope to gain from this? They could not . .. use you. their curse back into Starside with him, to the last great aerie What reason could they have had? Or are the Wamphyri of the Wamphyri! utterly without reason?' He had been feverish; crying out in the night, he'd named -'Not . .. not they.' The merest twitch of Uruk Piatra's blistered, himself as Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri, once Nestor of the blackened head, because he hadn't the strength to shake it. 'Not Lidescis. And at Uruk Piatra's urging, the young Lord had they, Lardis Lidesci ... but he! And aye, we knew his motive spoken of deeds and named names. There was this Nathan well enough: it was revenge!' Then he told his story: among the Lidescis - Nestor's great enemy - and this Misha Some nineteen, twenty sunups ago . . . a lone flyer crashing in who had betrayed him. But Wratha the Risen would make the forest in the twilight before the night! Its rider was a them all pay. Yes, and so would Nestor, now that Nathan was vampire Lord, with tiny pellets of silver shot lodged in his no more, now that he had been sent to hell! If he had been sent ravaged face. Likewise his mount, its face half blown away and to hell! hanging in shreds. The work of a Lidesci weapon, no doubt, for Then, tossing and turning in his fever, Nestor had ranted who else but Lardis's people could boast these weapons out of an and raved at someone called Zahar, making vile threats and alien world? Hurled from his saddle, the young Lord had constantly demanding reassurance that his orders had been suffered in his fall through the trees. Any ordinary man would carried out and this Nathan hurled into hell... have been killed, but this one was Wamphyri! And Uruk Long-life So the night had passed, and in the false dawn the young had seen a way to pay the Szgany Lidesci back for all the years Lord's fever had broken; he'd woken up and gone blundering they'd supported the colony. And not only the Lidescis but the off into the grey misty forest. If he died on Sunside . . . so Szgany as a whole; all of them would benefit from a simple what, he died. But if he made it back across the barrier yet extraordinary act. . . of mercy! But there's mercy and there's mountains into Starside - mercy . . . And so the lepers had cared for this one who had - Who could say? A plague of leprosy could not take all of crashed down into the forest. They had cleansed his wounds, the Wamphyri; it never had before. But certainly they would balmed him, teased the silver shot from the raw flesh of his be slowed down, and the Lidescis and Travelling folk in face, bandaged his sore, bleeding places. They had treated him general would earn something of a respite from them. as one of their own, and with their nubs of hands and grey The one thing that Uruk and his people hadn't taken into scale fingers had succoured him through the long night. account was the possibility of Nestor's return. For in all the Except he was not one of theirs but Wamphyri, and they long years of the colony's existence, no vampire had ever come here of his own free will. Until now ... 470 471 A fever, Lardis thought. His brother, too, last time he was here. Almost from the first few words, Lardis had known what One a /ever of the body, the other of the soul. And when he's was coming. What, twenty sunups ago? The day of Nathan's awake, must 1 tell him that Nestor did this? I suppose I must. marriage to Misha? The night of Nestor's attack on his So that where the one has lost his Jast vestige of humanity, the brother, when Lardis himself had crippled that flyer with a other may put aside any last remaining thoughts of love, pity, load of silver shot, and even got off a shot at Nestor? Both of and do what must be done. Brothers, aye: bloodbrothers from them good shots, apparently! Well, and now he knew the the same womb. But different from the start, and never more so whole story — also knew why it had been for his ears only: than now. While out loud, he said, 'Take me to him.' because Uruk Long-life had not wanted it known that an ex- Ben Trask and most of his 'hell-lander' companions were Lidesci was the author of this deed tonight. Not that it was the there with Nathan, but no one more concerned about the fault of any human agency, and certainly no man of the youth than Trask. 'It can only be grief.' He stood up as Lardis Szgany Lidesci was to blame; but in any case, Lardis approached. 'He loved his mother dearly. Grief, passion, understood. fatigue . .. you name it. These last few days, Nathan has been He nodded his head, and whispered gruffly, 'My thanks to through a hell of a lot - and in more worlds than one! Now, he you, Uruk Piatra. But now . . . I'm at a loss. For there's needs care and attention.' nothing I can do for you in return.' Again that twitch of Uruk's scorched head, and once more 'Then care for him,' Lardis answered, looking down on the his tortured whisper: 'There is . . . something.' Necroscope where he moaned, sweated, shivered. 'We'll aJI And Lardis knew what it was. 'But it seems too cruel,' he have to take care of him. For after all, Nathan's your one hope said, 'to end it like that. For one whose life has known of ever getting out of here, and he's our one chance of ever hardship enough already.' living here! And one way or the other, I'm sure it's close now. 'Would you make that one's death . .. harder still? I desire I can feel it thickening like the air before a storm. Everything it, Lardis Lidesci. And by . . . by your hand?' has a turning point, and every war reaches a climax. It's 'Very well,' Lardis could only agree. 'Afterwards, well, the coming, I know it. . . " He turned away. others must burn - those who are not burned already. You 'What will you do now?' Trask called after him. know why, Uruk. But I shall see to it that you are buried in a Lardis looked back. 'We have to make camp, build shelters secret place out on the savanna.' of sorts, prepare defensive positions.' He shrugged. 'We 'Ahhh!' Uruk answered in a dying sigh, the last living, know how. This isn't the first time.' breathing sigh he would ever utter. And with that the matter 'And us?' passed out of Lardis's hands. For which he was glad .. . 'Care for yourselves, and for Nathan, as best you can. As For long minutes Lardis sat there before covering Uruk's the camp takes shape, spread yourselves — and your face. Until suddenly he became aware of Misha standing over weapons, of course - around the perimeter. Then sleep as him. She hadn't been there for long, he was sure; she'd heard peacefully as you may. I shall set a watch. We won't be nothing of his conversation with Uruk. Her primary concern caught napping again. Not this night, anyway.' lay elsewhere, unconscious under a fur on a Szgany travois. The Wamphyri have been here once tonight?' Trask 'How is he?' Lardis asked, standing up and groaning as he appeared doubtful; he wasn't privy to Lardis's knowledge felt his joints crack. about this most recent atrocity. 'In a fever,' she told him. 'I'm worried about him.' 472 473 The very same.' She nodded and, turning, she looked back Lardis nodded. 'Aye, but you must let me be the authority into the grey, penetrating, calculating eyes of Turkur Tzonov on the Wamphyri. Take it from me, they're not likely to where he sat at the rear of her long saddle. 'But I've someone return tonight. On the other hand, we won't be taking any here who knows the truth of it, who has told me how chances.' extremely unlikely it would be to meet up with such weapons As he went off to rouse his men and get them working, a here.' drizzling rain started to fall, hissing among the last smouldering 'What do you suggest then?' For Vormulac had indeed fires ... come to rely upon her far too heavily. 'Why, that we go down and see what's to be seen! For if It had started to rain over the barrier mountains, too, where there's been fighting, patently there was resistance. Perhaps the warrior-Lord Vormulac Unsleep and Devetaki Skullguise Wratha has softened them up for us, in which case we may gentled their manta flyers down out of a lowering sky, and profit from her losses.' called down their lieutenants, men and warriors to the rim of 'Good! And do you care to lead the way?' a scarp high over Sanctuary Rock. Devetaki laughed, and launched, and behind her Turkur Then, sniffing the damp air and scanning the dreary night Tzonov held tight to her waist, and heard her whisper in his with vampire eyes and senses: 'This has to be the place,' mind: Ah, my pretty! But those are good strong hands! And is Vormulac grunted. 'Even up here I can smell the smoke of the rest of your body so strong? Perhaps we']] look into that fires, the reek of furious fighting, the sweet scent of Szgany Jater. Ah! Do you trembJe? WeJJ, then, have no fear but be of blood. Zindevar's familiar creatures were right: down there stout heart . .. for remember, we have an understanding, you was a battleground, and recently!' and I. In tune with Tzonov's telepathic mind, her words were He and Devetaki sat in their saddles not far apart, their for him alone. voices echoing hollowly in the still, damp darkness. But hers On arched air-trap wings they floated, stalling and gliding was low and thoughtful as she answered: 'Your senses are by stages, descending through the mist and the night until the acute as ever, my Lord. But there is blood and blood. Myself, Rock came more clearly into view. Losing altitude rapidly at I smell more than Szgany blood. Oh, men died down there first, they then glided in a lazy spiral, finally came down and tonight, it's true - but so did vampires!' landed in the lower foothills on Sanctuary Rock's approach Vormulac gazed redly across at her where she sat wreathed routes. And as the Lord and Lady, their men, and Turkur in mist and drizzle. 'What do you think?' Tzonov dismounted from their flyers, so the rumble and sputter of warrior propulsors died away, and the pair of She glanced at him. 'Wratha's last throw at provisioning, fighting beasts put down on top of the Rock itself. before we close our jaws on her?' Signs that others had been here before them were all too 'And she had to fight to take her share?' He was puzzled. obvious. Despite Lardis Lidesci's best efforts at cleaning up, 'How so, when so far we've encountered only supplicants?' The the lesser debris caused by Nathan's alien weapons was men in the pass were not supplicants.' 'Ahhh! You think visible everywhere: soggy scraps of iron- and gold-studded there are more of these weaponed humans down there! leather, a broken sandal and shattered gauntlet, blood- Now that you mention it, Lady, you could be right, for indeed spattered patches of gorse and heather. And as the rain I smell more than blood in the air. A sulphur reek, as when stopped and the writhing mists rose up, the silence was Lord Wamus fell at the keep in the pass!' 475 474 'We?' Devetaki looked at him sideways and shook her head. almost a living thing that Vormulac and Devetaki probed with 'What, do we keep wolves and do our own howling? We go all of their vampire senses. against nothing, my Lord. Our men and monsters go up against Until: 'No one here,' said Vormulac shortly. 'Not now.' But whatever awaits them, which by my reckoning isn't much. Devetaki shook her head, and whispered, 'They are artful, these Wratha has worn them out, which is why they hide in the rock. people. They have retained what Turgosheim's Szgany See, their traps are all sprung or burned up, their defences are surrendered long ago: their pride, their individuality, their skill unmanned. They wait like chickens in a coop — to have their in concealing themselves - bodies and thoughts alike — their necks wrung!' freedom! Oh, they're here, be sure of it! Hiding in that great rock They passed through the outer semicircle of warrior-traps there — I sense them! Some of them, at least. And now I begin (many of which were still smoking, and some issuing the to see it as it must have been.' He glanced at her. 'Your female hideous stench of burnt flesh), skirted the inner pits, finally intuition?' 'If you will,' She tossed her head. 'Should I go on?' arrived at the dry-stone wall where Lardis's makeshift rocket- 'Huh!' But he nodded his great head anyway, and followed her launching tubes stood empty and idle, fronting the mighty where she made for Sanctuary Rock on foot. cavern entrance or 'mouth' of the Rock. And indeed, it was not Herded along by lieutenants and thralls, Turkur Tzonov unlike a pock-marked face, that huge skull of a boulder. As the went with them and stuck as close as he dared to Devetaki. clouds began to break up, its round window eye-sockets His machine-pistol swung from a strap across his shoulder ... gleamed blue in the ice-shard starlight, and its mouth wore a but its magazine was hooked to Devetaki's belt. frozen yawn or grimace. Like a skull, and dead as a skull. No 'Wratha and her gang of renegades must have known that lights were visible anywhere; the Rock might well be deserted. these people were here,' Devetaki began to outline her theory. Except - 'Ah, but Wratha also knew that they were fierce fighters! '- There!' said Devetaki. 'Did you not feel it: a tremor of Well, no matter; as long as Wratha had supplicant tribes in the terror? They watch us from those window-holes. And they're east beyond the pass, she need not attack the people of this defenceless as newborn babes, else by now they'd have fired a great rock and risk expensive losses. But eventually, when she bolt or two.' discovered that we were come out of the east -' At which Vormulac immediately felt vulnerable, and joined '— Then she must provision her aerie!' Vormulac finished it Devetaki where she kneeled in the lee of the wall. 'So, then,' he for her. 'And she did some of that provisioning here! Yes, I said. 'And to flush them out —?' see it . . . " And then, more gloomily: 'Which means that we're '— We send our lieutenants and men in, aye.' She nodded. too late. Any good stuff has been stolen into Starside, to the 'But first, and to ensure that we're not sending them into an last aerie.' ambush . ..' She turned her burning gaze on the high rim of the 'But not all of it!' Devetaki sniffed the air. 'I tell you, I sense Rock and sent: Come, my brave one. For your mistress them in there, deep in the rock!' Devetaki has work for you! And now that they were closer to that massive boulder: 'So Then from on high, the answering roar of her warrior and do I,' Vormulac had to agree. 'But ... how many? And more the sounds of its propulsors sputtering into life; a dark shape launching from the Rock's rim, and a second blasphemous importantly, what are we going up against sight unseen?' outline close behind as Lord Taintspore followed suit and ordered down his own creature. 477 476 Landing room between the defensive positions and the Rock which would take their bulk. The lieutenants and thralls were itself was limited; both beasts came down clumsily; they exploring lesser caves and burrows, all well within the labyrinth. There was no resistance ... because there was no one hissed and spat at each other, jostling awhile until Vormulac to flush out! Oh, there had been: men, minds, human lures, and Devetaki intervened. Then, turned hind-on to the cavern, within the Rock, whose function Devetaki had read to they were ordered to prepare their most noxious gases for perfection; she'd used no less a ploy herself! But they were release under pressure within the Rock. Poisonous fumes at there no longer. Now they plunged along Lardis's boltholes to once began to fill the labyrinth of tunnels and caves, venting secret exits where the steep slope of the foothills met the in steamy jets from several lower windows, cracks and Rock's worn-smooth stone; and now they struck flints to send crevices. sparks flying into multiple trails of Dimi Petrescu's powder, And from within . .. terrified thoughts! The desire to run, trails that led sputteringly back into the heart of the Rock. flee, escape! A great leaping, a mad rout of thoughts, this way White-blazing, hissing, smoking fire ran like small bright and that ... panic! Devetaki's superior mentalism picked up all rivers through claustrophobic confines. And all of these eager, of these emotions and knew them at once -for lies! Ah, and almost sentient tongues of hungry flame licking their way back indeed these people were artful, yes! But this time they went to an instantaneous feast of sudden, explosive, crushing death; too far. all of them eating distance and darkness as they raced to their What? Did they really think to play their games with the targets. virgin grandam herself, the very mistress of deception? And The base of the Rock was itself a massive mine! There were she knew that there was nothing in the rock but death. She sacks of Dimi's powder in cracks in the ceilings, barrels of it in knew it, but on the other hand ... Vormulac did not. caves around the perimeter, drifts of it in walled-off corners 'I hear them now!' he chortled, his voice a clotted gurgle of and niches in the narrow tunnels! anticipation. And to his men: 'Spread out. Take them as they And: Now! Devetaki 'heard' the exclamation in her mind. emerge!' And again: Now! Two separate but equally triumphant cries 'Ah, no!' Devetaki saw her chance. 'They're too proud for going up; and although she couldn't foresee the outcome and that, my Lord. These people would rather die than surrender wouldn't be able to understand it, certainly not the mechanics to a stench. If we want them, we must drive them out. Here, of the thing, still she found herself borne along on the waves let me send in half of my brave lads.' of excitement generated by these mental declarations of Vormulac glared at her. What? Would she upstage him to victory. So much so that she reiterated them: the last? 'Mine go first!' he cried. 'Yours . .. may follow on.' Now! - and waited to see what would be. And to his dozen lieutenants and thralls: 'In, and sort it But she'd been careless, and Vormulac had heard her. out!' 'Eh?' Scowling suspiciously, the warrior-Lord turned gold- Driving the warriors before them, Lord Unsleep's dozen flecked scarlet eyes on her. 'Now, did you say? Now what?' sprang to obey. Devetaki's six followed them in, but the rest But it wasn't Devetaki who answered him . . . it was as if stayed close to their Lady. And from within the Rock: was Sanctuary Rock itself answered; first with a series of lesser that a sigh, the thrill of pleasurable anticipation, the sure explosions, then several colossal ones! knowledge that a trap was about to be sprung? Devetaki knew The earth shook. A hot wind blew from the cavern mouth, that it was, but Vormulac had heard nothing. The warriors were inside, deep into the larger tunnels 479 478 showering pebbles and grit everywhere; lesser gusts hissed Putting on her smiling mask, she glanced at Tzonov in pressured jets from windows and cracks. The windows lit meaningfully and tossed him his weapon's magazine. up as white and orange flames spilled out from them. The Vormulac reached for her with hands that could tear her grimace on the face of the skull became a rictus of agony, or throat out. Bulge-eyed, he stumbled towards her. Blood rained a snarl of vengeance, as the porous chalky rock of the lower down his forehead and dripped from his hawk's nose; his levels was fractured and blew outwards in crumbling chunks. moustaches hung heavy with blood and his grinding gash of a 'What?' Vormulac stood up, his bottom jaw falling open. mouth was full of it. He was almost upon her, and Devetaki Devetaki asked no questions but crept away, calling her standing there with one slender arm held out to keep him back six remaining men after her. - as if it possibly could. Turkur Tzonov went with them, cringing down into himself At the last moment she stepped back, and Tzonov stepped as Sanctuary Rock continued to erupt, spouting smoke and forward. He aimed his weapon and drew back the cocking fire as its innards were torn out. Gutted in its soft chalk lever — ch-ching! Vormulac moved to brush him underbelly, it was finished, and the last and biggest explosion contemptuously aside, and Tzonov let fly with a dozen of all saw the end of it. hammers of hot lead that thundered death and destruction At the outer row of pits Devetaki stopped to look back. where they ripped through the vampire-Lord's armour into his Vormulac came stumbling, clutching his head, bleeding from a chest, hurling him back and down! cut where a flying rock had struck him. He looked dazed, With his heart in pieces inside him, Vormulac Unsleep lay disbelieving. And behind him the Rock went down, a million on his back, looked up at the stars and wondered what had tons of it settling into its own foundations, tilting this way happened. He was still wondering as Devetaki's lieutenants fell and that, easing into the earth like a great egg tapped gently on him with their murderous gauntlets, and reduced his head to on a flat stone and left balancing there. The Rock went so much pulp. But he was perhaps the greatest of the Lords of down, and overhead a signal rocket went up, high into the the Wamphyri, and they knew it. Despite that Vormulac was now cloudless night sky, where it terminated in a great dead, he was not nearly dead! orange starburst. Before the Thing inside him could recover and activate itself What that last might signify, the virgin grandam couldn't in a final frenzy, they dragged him to a firepit and toppled him say — unless it was the death of the Rock. One thing was in. In the bottom of the pit, embers were glowing still; close to certain: it wasn't the end of death this night. hand, a small pile of Lardis's tarred torches, left unused after 'Devetaki! Devetaki!' The warrior-Lord staggered closer. the fighting with Wratha, would soon bring the embers back to 'My men, my monsters . .. and you knew!' And he would life. make her pay, right now, if that were possible. But it wasn't. Vormulac went up in fire, smoke, and something less of a 'My Lord, you have become a burden,' she told him with a commotion than Devetaki had expected. Nevertheless, just to sigh. 'But I've no time for speeches or recriminations. Men be absolutely certain, she waited until it was finished. Then she come and men go, and we're keeping destiny waiting. But looked for Tzonov . .. don't be disappointed, for even now I serve you well. After . . . And at first failed to see him! As her lieutenants had all the long sleepless years that you've known, finally the busied themselves with Vormulac at the pit, so the alien had greatest, longest sleep of all is upon you. And so, farewell!' taken his chance and slipped away. Then a thrall pointed him out, scrambling up a slope towards a bluff or 480 481 back at the run. Uruk Piatra would have to wait for his decent outcrop of solid rock, where dark fissures showed in the cliff burial, but Lardis was sure he wouldn't mind that now. face. Devetaki saw his scheme at once: tucked away in a crack or shallow cave, he could take out her men one by one as often He made for an awning under a tree on the camp's perimeter where he knew that Misha looked after Nathan, with Trask as she sent them in after him! His devastating firepower would and others of the Necroscope's party in attendance. High time destroy them as easily as he'd dealt with Vormulac. the lad was back on his feet. It wasn't that Lardis considered One of her more adventurous thralls was after him even he was being coddled, but simply that his talents were needed. now, scrambling with a vampire's strength and agility up the Lardis had friends back at Sanctuary Rock, and he wasn't slope. But at the top Tzonov turned, aimed, and put two shots about to lose more good men to the vampires of Starside. close together into his pursuer's heart. The thrall cried out, Especially not these men. threw up his arms, and came tumbling head over heels down Even as Lardis arrived at the makeshift shelter, Nathan was the steep slope. stirring. He had heard the disturbance in the camp, sensed that In a rage, Devetaki looked all about — and saw what was something was afoot. At first disorientated, his strange blue required: a second pile of tarred faggots close to one of the eyes finally focused on Misha, and the first word on his lips pits. She gave orders, chose an easy route up the slope, and, was a name: sticking to the shadows, went after Tzonov. And her fury was 'Nana?' But a moment later he knew that it hadn't been a such that she even forgot to change her mask .. . dream. 'Lad!' Lardis couldn't wait a moment longer. 'Nathan,' he At the place at the southern edge of the forest, where once a panted hoarsely. 'There's trouble at the Rock!' leper colony had huddled under the ironwoods, a gaunt-faced 'What?' Nathan was on his feet now, unsteady but rapidly Lardis Lidesci had supervised the layout of his overnight camp gaining ground. Trouble?' He was wan and shaken, but the before walking out under the stars to where Uruk Long-life lay heat of his fever had finally burned itself out. wrapped in a blanket. It had been Lardis's intention to honour 'Andrei and Kirk are back there,' Lardis explained. They his promise and bury Uruk with his own hands. volunteered. And now there's been a signal rocket. When we But having found a spot at the top of a low, grassy left the Rock, it was all primed-up as a trap for Wratha and hummock, and before commencing to dig, some strange her lot, should they return. Well, and it seems they have. But premonition had caused Lardis to look north . .. and a moment those two brave lads are still back there, and you are the only ago he'd seen the brilliant bomb-burst of the signal rocket over one who can bring them out.' Sanctuary Rock! The flare-up had been dimmed by distance Now Nathan's mind focused. He stood straighter, and his and a little moisture lingering in the air, but the Old Lidesci resolve tightened to twin fists of iron in his guts and in his knew that he couldn't be mistaken. In corrobora-tion, a lookout heart. For a moment there was a brief surge of pain, a wash of on a low rocky outcrop close by hallooed down to him: 'Lardis, misery, grief, and then a greater surge — of hatred! For the the Rock!' Wamphyri. Other lookouts up in the ironwoods around the camp must Lardis saw his expression, his attitude visibly changing, but have seen it, too. Lardis heard their shouts, and set off couldn't know what it meant. Time was of the essence. The Old Lidesci grasped Nathan's arms and snarled through 482 483 clenched yellow teeth: 'Lad, do you know where you are? Human thoughts were often light as thistledown, floating. But Have you understood what I said?' the thoughts of vampires seethed! They were heavy, clotted, Nathan shook him off, glared at him. 'Yes, I understand!' thick as tar. Both sorts were here. And now his turn to grab the Old Lidesci's arms. 'Andrei and Kirk Lisescu's mind felt stunned, and Andrei's was full of Kirk: where will they be?' curses. But their confusion following the devastation which The escape tunnels at the sides of the Rock, halfway up the they'd wrought on the Rock had left them open, not only to the slope, where the trees begin . . .' Necroscope's probe, but also to the Wamphyri. Whichever Lord Nathan nodded, pushed him away, stepped free of the group or Lady was down there now, they would be able to find Andrei and looked up at the stars. They were his orientation. Now he and Kirk as easily as Nathan had found them. It galvanized him knew where he was, and he'd known the Rock's coordinates to activity. since childhood. Focusing on Andrei, he entered the Mobius Continuum and Misha flew to him, said, 'Nathan!' went to him - He kissed her and pushed her away, but gently, and said, - And emerged to the east of Sanctuary Rock in a tangle of 'Yes, I'll be careful.' bushes and gorse that threatened at any moment to go sliding Trask said, 'Can I help? Listen, why not take me with ...' right into a yawning, grinding, groaning black fissure left by But Nathan had already moved, stepping forward into the Rock's settling! nothing, into nowhere — Andrei was cursing low but vividly, clinging to the roots of gorse and shrubs, his legs flailing uselessly in loose soil and — And into everywhere! Into the Mobius Continuum, the unstable earth. Nathan had emerged a little above him in a source of The All, which existed before anything else existed, patch of gorse, which alone arrested what must otherwise be a except perhaps The One whose mind it was! He stepped into fall .. . and that was exactly how he would play it. that space between spaces, which is the junction of everywhere 'Andrei!' he called down to the older man. 'Look here!' and when. Stepped in, chose his coordinates ... and stepped out The other gasped, looked, said: 'Eh? Nathan?' - 'Let go,' Nathan told him. 'Don't fight it - go with me.' - Into the foothills over Sanctuary Rock. And without further explanation, he himself let go and Down there: smoke going up from several of the pits west of plunged down on Andrei! the Rock, one fire at least still burning, and a heavy reek of 'What? Let go?' The other couldn't believe it. 'Have you sulphur rising on man- or monster-made thermals. But as for gone mad?' In these circumstances, it was easy to forget just the Rock itself . . . it had settled! Boulders, loosened by the massive convulsion of earth as the Rock's lower levels who he was speaking to. But Nathan crashed into him and tore concertinaed on themselves, were still tumbling from the him loose anyway slopes all around, and even up here in the foothills Nathan - and at once conjured a door beneath them and fell into could sense minute tremors of the earth. it- But he could sense more than that. Extending a telepathic - And out again east of the Rock, close to Kirk Lisescu. probe, he found vampires — Wamphyri! And human thoughts, This time the ground was firmer; they emerged in a stand of which was what he had hoped to find: thoughts to home in on. trees. Andrei made an unintelligible sound, sat down in a The difference was like night and day. clump of brambles and stuck his hands deep into the soil. 484 485 And there was Kirk, a dark blot in the starlight, panting his mind as he'd known it all those years ago. He was sure he and wide-eyed, already halfway out of the trees and had the co-ordinates. He jumped - scrambling madly up the sliding face of the slope ... until he - And emerged in the interior of the cave, where even now recognized Nathan's voice, calling: 'Kirk, don't be afraid. It's someone moved in the smoky darkness, stamping out a torch. me, Nathan!' Whoever it was, he sensed Nathan in the moment he emerged Then he came sliding back down into the trees where and their eyes met in the flare of another blazing faggot where Andrei and Nathan grabbed at him. 'What in the name of . it landed at their feet. ..?' Kirk whispered, slack-jawed. 'How in . ..?' But by now Their eyes met, their minds locked, and they both knew! both he and Andrei knew what in the name of, and how. Made aware, alert as never before - galvanized by terror - And without pause Nathan conjured a door and took them Tzonov moved like greased lightning. Grabbing Nathan's arm, up into the foothills again, for orientation and a breather. he rammed the hot muzzle of his weapon up into the soft flesh Except no sooner were they there — under Nathan's jaw. And: 'You!' he breathed. - Gunfire, from below! The frenzied chatter of an For answer, and however bitterly, Nathan said the first automatic weapon! But who? Whoever, he was an entirely thing that came into his head. 'I . . . I came to rescue you! To human being, certainly. Nathan could try probing him, take you out of here.' Because their eyes were still locked, the except the time taken might prove to be the difference Russian knew exactly what he meant — also that he could do between life and death. And: it. Of course he could; Tzonov had seen him do it in 'Wait for me,' he told the others - as if there was anything Perchorsk. And if that wasn't proof enough ... well, he was else they could do - and took the Mobius route to the old here, wasn't he? Traveller trails east of the Rock — More torches were lobbed, came hissing, looping the loop, - Where just fifty yards from the firepits, he looked up at bouncing and showering sparks. Figures moved furtively in the lower escarpments as again the darkness was slashed by the mouth of the cave, just beyond the bottleneck. Tzonov bright, staccato flashes of light and the savage rrrrip! of coughed as acrid smoke snatched at his lungs, and said, 'Very automatic fire. Up there, the night seethed with the bloodlust- well, do it. Get us out of here!' ing thoughts of vampires, and even now a red-flaring torch And, hugged close to the Russian, with the hard hot muzzle of was bobbing among them, igniting other torches. But why? Tzonov's machine-pistol pressing up into his throat, Nathan What use did vampires have for torches? Darkness was had no choice. He did it... better than daylight to them! Nathan Mobius-jumped to the foot of the cliffs, some hundred yards from the activity. And now he knew the place; as a child he'd played with his brother Nestor and with Misha and Jason Lidesci in those selfsame caves and crevices, where now someone had taken refuge. The night was alight with the torches of vampires. They were igniting them, and throwing them into a certain narrow- necked cave. Nathan knew it well. He pictured it in 486 step out, and collapse it before Tzonov could fully emerge. And in the 'mundane' world of Sunside, what would remain Ill of Turkur Tzonov after that? A weapon and a pair of arms, and perhaps a lower leg, sliced off above the knee? And if in Tzonov: Taken Again - the moment of the death-dealing act, there should occur one Misha: Made to Understand last nerveless twitch of the Russian's trigger finger? All of this flashing through Nathan's metaphysical mind, even his secret mind, as he forgot a simple yet all-important fact: that in the immeasurable echo chamber of the Mobius Continuum, even secret thoughts have weight! And the Russian was no mean mentalist in his own right. To Turkur Tzonov, the Mobius Continuum was much as it was to anyone else - astonishing, frightening, an experience Just try it.' Tzonov's own thoughts gonged viciously. But beyond experience, bearing no comparison to anything gone you'd better be sure that if I'm going to die, you're coming before. He was blind, weightless, lost in a darkness utter. And with me, Necroscope! yet, for all his human ignorance, there were things he felt, Andrei and Kirk were waiting; theirs was by no means a things he knew instinctively: that the Continuum was infinite, secure location; Nathan went to them, knowing he would and that in a way beyond comprehension it was sentient have to move on, and that Tzonov would know it, too. Oh, (therefore infinitely sentient?), and that he, Turkur Tzonov, the Russian might want to kill him, but he wouldn't be able to had no right to be here. Only one human being had that right, do it just yet. the Necroscope himself, and he had earned it. Anyone else They emerged on the crest of a false plateau, beneath the was either a guest. . . or a trespasser. first real cliffs that went beetling up and finally reared into The Continuum would expel him if it could, or otherwise the barrier mountains. And Andrei and Kirk were still there, dispose of him, lose him in places, spaces, undreamed of; he of course, knee-deep in a writhing ground mist, anxious for knew it as surely as he knew his own name, knew also that his Nathan until the moment of his return - then yet more anxious one hope of survival was Nathan Keogh. Like others before when they saw his fix. him, he clung to the Necroscope, and kept his machine-pistol 'What the hell...?' Andrei started forward. But Nathan, jammed up under his chin. Feeling the hard, warm metal squirming in the Russian's iron grip, waved him back. 'No,' he there, Nathan knew that any slight increase of pressure on the said. 'Do nothing, make no move. This man will kill me if you trigger would spread his brains across eternity! He could do push him too far. He's a hell-lander, but he isn't a friend. Let's only as Tzonov had ordered him to do: take him out of there. see what he wants.' But to where? To Lardis Lidesci, Trask and the others, and An esper, Tzonov understood almost everything of what risk Tzonov killing one or all of them? To some place in the had been said, knew that for the moment he was in no great Sunside forest, and leave Andrei and Kirk defenceless in the danger. And now that he felt reasonably safe, a plan took foothills? Wherever he took Tzonov, the Russian had the shape in his mind. He knew that his men - if any of them upper hand; he wasn't going to let go of Nathan just yet. An survived - would still be trapped in the keep in the pass. idea played in the Necroscope's mind: to conjure a door and Come daylight they'd strike out south, and eventually emerge from the pass into Sunside. That would be the ideal 489 488 place to link up with them again. The Necroscope could take Riding that vampire mist and settling towards their target on him there, a simple one-to-one proposition. And once they arched air-trap wings behind Tzonov, a pair of Wamphyri flyers had zeroed in on him and Nathan! Their long necks were were there: goodbye, Necroscope! But if Tzonov allowed these outstretched and their saucer eyes unblinking. And their riders . Travellers to be taken along, too - they might fancy their .. chances during transit, or immediately after. Him! A powerful vampire voice, female, echoed in the minJs And in any case Tzonov couldn't let them live. They knew of both men. That one - the hairless one! And Tzonov knew that him now as Nathan's enemy. If circumstances were such that telepathic voice as he would know a lover's kiss, or an enemy's he was caused to stay in this world longer than he intended to - hatred - for he had known her, and in both senses! and if he should bump into these men again -they would want And this time it was no artful ploy of Devetaki Skullguise but to know what had become of the Necroscope. They were the the real thing — Siggi Dam! Except the real thing was now only witnesses that Tzonov had ever been with Nathan, and just as deadly in its own right; or, considering the incredible knew the circumstances of their being together. They'd name being who was Siggi's escort, it was a good deal worse! him as the Necroscope's murderer. Which by then he most He had no choice. Releasing Nathan, he whirled about-face surely would be. and brought up his gun; the machine-pistol jerked in his hands, Nathan was in the Russian's mind. He saw the whole thing and spitting fire and fury at the closest flyer and rider. His best knew what was coming. All thoughts with regard to his own shots burned deep grooves along the flyer's neck; others safety fled at once; he knew that Tzonov couldn't kill him yet, not expended themselves uselessly in the yawning pouch, or and get back down into Sunside to wait for his men. 'Run!' he chipped soft cartilage from the leading-edge of a wing. yelled at his friends. 'Now! Both of you!' The ground mist was The beast's rider - who in Tzonov's eyes looked like an swirling more yet, and for the first time - even as he shouted - intelligent, upright wolf! — hauled on his reins and presented his Nathan became aware of the texture of that mist: how it clung mount's corrugated underbelly. Tzonov threw himself flat as and felt against his skin. And from deep inside a warning voice the creature's pouch, thrusters and belly passed harmlessly but was telling him, The Russian isn't the only danger here! too close overhead, then got up on one knee and took aim at the Tzonov shifted his grip to Nathan's throat, his windpipe. Iron second flyer and rider. fingers dug in as the Russian swung his weapon's ugly muzzle It was Siggi, but such a Siggi as Tzonov could never have after the ducking, weaving figures of the Travellers where they expected to see! Wamphyri, and beautiful - horrifically fled through the thickening mist. But sensing the Necroscope's beautiful - beyond words! Yet even now ... was that fear he sudden tension, and feeling the spasm of fear — which wasn't saw in her flaming scarlet eyes? Fear, yes, and loathing! fear of Tzonov — that stiffened his body and limbs, he glanced Somehow she remembered him still. Well, fear and loathing were into Nathan's sapphire-blue eyes at point-blank range; which emotions he could deal with. Her weakness gave him strength. was the same as looking through a window into his mind. But As she turned her mount aside, Tzonov gritted his perfect if Nathan's eyes were windows, they were also mirrors! teeth, narrowed his eyes, and took careful aim ... and was Nathan was thinking ... absolutely nothing! However momentarily, his mind had gone blank, a wasteland of shock. 491 But his mirror eyes told the whole story: 490 hit from behind as the Necroscope flew at him in a headlong faint glimmer of morbid excitement, unthinkable anticipation in her changeling mind? But of course, for she was dive! Wamphyri! Why? .. . Nathan would never be able to say. But whatever Then, hallooing into the mist, the darkness and the echoing she was now, Siggi Dam had suffered enough at the hands of night, Nathan called for Andrei and Kirk. In a while, they this man. And anyway, she considered Nathan her friend. And found courage to answer him; he collected them, and took what the hell - she had saved him, upon a time, them via the Mobius route back to Lardis's camp . .. hadn't she? Tzonov cursed and went flying but retained his gun. And in There on the rim of the savanna, there were a good many the next moment he was back on his feet. Furious, he'd take people whom Nathan must speak to. First Misha, to tell her - any target he could get now. And the Necroscope himself was even to show her - what must be made known to her. For, if closest and most readily available. Grinning viciously, Tzonov he expected her understanding as well as her loyalty, she must grunted, 'Goodbye, Gypsy!' be given to understand: that her husband was more than even Even as Nathan conjured a door he knew he was too late, so she had suspected him to be. And when that was done he must that what came next was almost an anticlimax: speak to Lardis, Trask, anyone else with wisdom enough to A bolas of three, eight-inch, razor-sharp hooks came whirling guide him in the ways he intended to use himself. And finally, out of the mist and wrapped itself around Tzonov's upper last but not least, he must speak to . . . oh, a Great Majority of body. The Russian's weapon was jerked aside, its shots others, who were no longer so lively. deflected. He screamed as the hooks skewered him through But first Misha. combat-suit, flesh and muscle, and screamed again, louder, Having delivered Andrei and Kirk safe into the arms of more desperately yet, as a thin line attached to the bolas Lardis, and cutting all of the Old Lidesci and Ben Trask's tightened and he was drawn up into the air. questions short - promising them that he would tell them all And from above, Canker Canison's grunt of monstrous that had transpired at Sanctuary Rock just as soon as he satisfaction in Nathan's mind: Got you, my friend! Got you at possibly could - Nathan walked with Misha out on to the last! What? And did you think to find my silver moon prairie a little way. mistress, steal her away and make her your own? If so, then The night was more than halfway through; it had been a now you have found her. Ah, but you've found Canker, too! long, long night for both of them; Nathan's tiredness was now Tzonov dropped his gun, howled his agony and clawed entirely physical, and therefore something that he could fight. uselessly at the web of ropes that whirled him like a top as Misha on the other hand was sleepy beyond fighting. She they unwound themselves. He would try to unhook himself if would gladly surrender herself into the Necroscope's arms, he could, which was about as possible as lifting himself by his and fall asleep with him in the long grasses if he so desired it. own bootstraps. Suspended like an animal carcass on meat- But that wasn't Nathan's plan. Despite that he loved her hooks, he was drawn up into the mist and vanished — but his desperately, he intended to make her more tired yet - to make fading screams came back . .. oh, for a long time. her head whirl, to weary her emotionally as well as Nathan's door had collapsed. He reached out a telepathic physically, with feelings she'd never before experienced — probe, searched for vampires and found nothing but Canker and so be sure that she would sleep. Because he had work Canison's rapidly evaporating mental aura and fading chuckle. That and the Lady Siggi's relief, and . .. the first 493 492 to do, and his young wife couldn't be allowed to intrude while this respect he was wise beyond his talent and could gauge only he did it. too well the pitfalls of probing the thoughts of loved Also, knowing what he was, what he could do, Misha might ones. rest peacefully in the knowledge that her man was 'truly 'Now tell me,' she said. 'How am I to stop worrying about invulnerable'. Oh, he wasn't, but in a little while she would you? Will you ever be with me long enough that I can stop think he was. And so, hugging her close in the chill of the worrying?' night - in the light of a rising moon, under ice-blue stars as He hugged her tighter still and said stumblingly, 'Misha, cold as their colour but warmer far here than in Starside - he listen. I'm trying to tell you .. . you have to understand that .. . turned to face north and looked back at the barrier mountains, that we go against the Wamphyri.' a scalloped rim on the horizon, and at the Northstar over She offered a small frown, shrugged and said, 'But haven't we always?' Wrathstack, that star of ill-omen glittering there, and said: 'Misha, I've told you what I do, but I haven't shown you. 'Yes.' He was patient. 'We always have. But this time it has to You of all people should know. You have the right. I'm not be different. This time all the vows we ever made - all of the the boy, the youth, the man I was. We've scarcely had time to Szgany since the beginning of what we call our "history" - know each other, not the new people which we've become. And must be realized! This time we fight them all the way, until I know how you have worried about me for far too long. It's they're finished forever. We have to, because I want what time you stopped.' every man of the Travellers ever wanted: to be able to love his She smiled at him, that elfin look from their childhood, woman every night without hiding in a hole in the ground. To beguiling, mischievous, loving. A little girl in the sparkling watch my children grow up and know they'll be mine always, river shallows, innocent in her nakedness, teasing him to come not just future fodder for a vampire Lord and his beasts, or to her in the water. And later, years later: her hair dark as materials for his vats of metamorphism.' night, velvet, which in the light of the sun shone black as a She nodded. 'I've heard Lardis say much the same thing - raven's wing. Her eyes, so huge and deeply brown under often ...' Too often, perhaps. And yes, he could see that Misha black, expressive, arching eyebrows, that they too looked needed convincing. black. Her mouth: small, straight and sweet under a tip-tilted 'Misha,' he said, 'in that world beyond the Starside Gate nose which, /or all that it flared occasionally in true Gypsy which we called the hell-lands, Ben Trask promised me a fashion, had nothing hawkish or severe about it. Her ears, a weapon to fight the Wamphyri even as Harry Keogh and his little pointed, pale against the velvet of her hair where it fell son The Dweller fought and destroyed them before we were in ringlets to her shoulders. Misha the girl, who was now born. And he kept his word - Trask gave me that weapon! Misha the woman and his wife. Now I must discover the best way to use it.' The vision from the past faded, and he saw her face as it 'I have seen your weapons,' she said. 'Very impressive -and was now: mature, lovely, longing. For peace. For children. very limited.' She was wise beyond her years, but she had read For a chance — hope against hope — to live out her life, to only half of his meaning. live out their lives in freedom, side by side in a free world. All 'My love,' he said, holding her by the shoulders, looking of it was there in Misha's look, so that he didn't have to read deep into her eyes, sending her a telepathic message that even her mind. Not that he ever had or ever would, for in a child or the least talented person in the world must surely hear, The weapon I'm talking about. . . is me.' 494 495 'What ...!' Her gasp, as her hand flew to her mouth. 'Nathan, Everything began here, he told her. This is what was left I heard you speak - when you weren't speaking!' when time and space flew outwards. In a way, it's the centre. But I was. Misha, I have things to show you. You have to It seemed the simplest explanation. know who 1 am, what I am. The shake of her head. I don't understand. 'I . . . I'm talking to myself!' she said. 'In my head! But I'm Don't try to, just believe. not thinking my own thoughts!' He opened a past-time-door and held her on the threshold, He shook his head, smiled and said, No, you're hearing me! where their shimmering life-threads of blue light uncoiled And I can hear your thoughts, too, if I so desire. But I don't out of their bodies and went falling into the past, back into and I won't. It's part of the weapon which I am, which I'll use what had been, into the misty blue Origin of Human Life .. . against the Wamphyri. Do you want to see more? and of life that was less, or more, than human. For there were a good many crimson threads among the blue: vampires, of At first she couldn't answer, but then she nodded. 'Oh ... course. yes!' Misha saw him limned in the light of their lives and the 'Then close your eyes, and keep them closed. You know misty blue pulse of the past, and asked: that I . . . go places? You've seen me. But in between those What is it? What are we seeing? Where . . . is it? places is a secret place. A place inside and outside time and Our past, yours and mine, he told her. These blue threads, space. You won't be frightened?' He conjured a Mobius door. they are us. They were us! I can follow my life-line, I think, 'Not if I'm with you.' even to its source in my mother's womb. But what is the use? 'You'll feel that you're floating, like this ...' He drew her I can't materialize in the past. Only The Dweller could do through the door with him. that. This was to show you — to try and explain - what this 'Nathan, I. . . AHHHHH!!!' Her voice gonged in the primal place is. Now, are you ready to look into the future? night of the Mobius Continuum - but she kept her eyes tightly She was eager now. Oh, yes! closed. He closed the past-time-door and opened a door on the Hush! he told her. In this place, words are Jike hammers, future. It was different, and it should have been glorious -the and they hurt. But thoughts are Jike words, which we can expansion of mankind into an ever-brightening future -but it hear. Anyone could be a mentalist here, except no one else was saddening. For the scarlet lines were there as before, but can come here. Now, imagine the deepest, darkest cave you closer than before, encroaching on the blue. And even as ever saw. No Jight at all, no sound, nothing. And you are a Nathan and Misha looked on, many of the blue threads were moth floating in the dark. Do you have it? blinking out of being, snuffed like candles, wrapped around Yes, I think so. and extinguished by the Wamphyri! Open your eyes. Misha read in Nathan's thoughts what it meant, and sadly Ahhhhh! asked him, Can you go there, too? It seems to me a good It's all right! Don't cling so. Hold my hand. I have you. place to avoid! But if it's the future, how may we avoid it? There! I think I can probably go there, yes, he told her. Except it She was filled with wonder, and her Voice' was the very smallest thing as she said, This is a very strange place, would be dangerous, for the future's a devious thing. But in Nathan. An understatement, but what else was she to say? any case, I can't materialize there. So what would be the 497 496 the Szgany were not as particular as the Thyre about point? What will be will be. Or as his father had used to say: protecting their names - that indeed, casual introductions What will be, has been .. . were quite in order - or she would not have asked in the But will it be . . . like that? first place. That's how it must be - how it is - until we can put a stop 'Misha,' Misha said, however faintly, her pretty jaw hanging to it. I haven't looked too far. Perhaps I haven't dared. But there is someone who might advise me. Maybe I'll have to slack as finally she found her feet and gazed about in open speak to him after all. . . later. astonishment at the Cavern of the Ancients: And now the hardest part of all: Misha, now I'm going to The domed ceiling of yellow sandstone with its cat's-eye take you somewhere else, out into the furnace desert. We gash of white quartz crystal, that let in the moonlight like a have friends there. ghostly swath across the floor; the crystal stalactites depending The Thyre? from the ceiling, and dripstone humps of crystal like frozen Fine people, he told her. Not at all like you might have men all seated in a circle. And in niches carved out of the imagined them to be. walls, actual frozen men, but frozen in the rigidity of death: He closed the future-time-door, chose co-ordinates, went the mummied ancients of the Thyre. out across the savanna and the furnace desert - without None of which was new to Nathan, who was eager to get crossing them - to a certain canyon, white in the light of a on. 'Atwei, excuse my impatience,' he said, 'but will you hurtling moon. And as Misha staggered where he gently set speak to the elders for me? I have a very great favour to ask of her down, he spoke telepathically to that faithful one who he them.' And in her mind he showed her what that favour was. knew would be waiting. And she told him yes, certainly he 'Of course I will speak to them,' she said. 'For am I not could bring his lady there ... one of them?' ... Into the Cavern of the Ancients! 'You?' He was taken aback. 'But you're a girl!' He spoke in This time Misha did stagger, quite helplessly, and would haste, but intended no disrespect and she knew it. have fallen if Nathan hadn't supported her. And: 'What?' She She smiled, and explained: 'My status is a token of their looked all about. 'Where ...?' respect! For you are my brother, Necroscope.' 'A sacred place,' he told her, 'where the Thyre remember It was no small compliment, and he accepted it as their dead. For their dead are here.' gracefully as he knew how. The Thyre ... honour me. But The place was lit by candles, a great many, in the niches of Atwei, I need to speak to my wife. Will you go now, and the revered dead all around the walls. And in the centre of the see the elders personally?' dusty floor - Atwei, Nathan's Thyre 'sister', seated at a small 'Of course.' She began to turn away, then turned back. 'I, table, with the remains of a meal spread before her. She came too, have a favour to ask.' to her feet at once, and almost ran to him ... then remembered 'Then ask it.' she was Thyre and came in less haste, which was seemly. 'Another time, some time when there is time, I would like 'Nathan, brother. And . . .?' She knew who, of course, for you to meet my mate, my husband, Alaia - Al-ay-ee-ay. It he had already 'spoken' to her. But it might seem unseemly to would be our pleasure to have you share food with us, all have spoken of another behind her back, as it were. four of us together.' Especially this other, Nathan's wife. Also, Atwei knew that Nathan smiled and was glad for her, and for a moment 498 499 speak. No pain for me, my son, he said, for I am beyond that forgot the weight of two worlds pressing down on him. But now. Oh, there is one who couJd hurt me, it's true; you know then: 'I didn't even know!' he said. And as his smile faded: him well enough.' But as for you . . . it would be my pleasure. 'Time, yes; only see how much of it has flown, sister, and Yes, I believe these oJd bones can be made to move again, if how things have changed. And there are a great many things only one last time. still to be changed. But yes, when there is time, then it would Nathan had walked Misha towards a special niche with its be our pleasure and an honour to eat with you and yours.' dusty ledge and crumbling tenant: Rogei, the first of all the She was pleased and lowered her head, then turned and ran dead to openly converse with him. Rogei the Ancient, in this from the Cavern of the Ancients. In a little while they heard his last resting place. And placing a hand gently on Rogei's her feet pattering briefly in a tunnel that Nathan knew fragile chest, Nathan told Misha, 'But I don't have to be just descended to the first Thyre colony he'd ever visited, called one man, Misha. I have Lardis and the Szgany Lidesci. I have Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. Ben Trask and his people. And I have ... other friends, up in Then Misha looked at him and blinked. 'Brother?' Nathan the mountains; you'll be meeting them, too, in a little while. If nodded and told her. 'I'm honoured to be her Szgany brother, I so desire it, I can even have an army. But that last... that last yes. Atwei is my Thyre sister. When the Thyre found me depends on them.' dying, she was the one who nursed me back to health.' 'Them?' She hugged close to him. For suddenly she'd Again she staggered a little, and said, 'My head is reeling!' sensed something different in his voice: a strangeness? A very 'Now see.' He steadied her. 'I've shown you these things so uncharacteristic coldness, certainly. that you won't worry about me when we're apart, as we must 'Misha,' he continued, 'there's something that only Lardis be apart if I'm to work against the Wamphyri. Now that and a few of the others know about me. They know ... yet you've seen some of the things I can do, and the power of don't know; because they can't know, not with any real those weapons out of the hell-lands .. .' understanding! They accept it, and then they forget it. And '... But you're still only one man,' she cut him off, and at because I'm just a man, they accept me without thinking about once fell silent. For she knew his purpose now; also that she this other ... business. That's because they don't want to think would never stop worrying about him, not as long as there about it. But you are my wife. You should know, because you was danger in the vampire world. must live with me.' And he knew that he must show her the rest. It was why She looked into his eyes, this way and that, as if to see if he'd brought her here, to the one place - the one man - who anything were hiding in them. 'Is it so very terrible, this thing could do it for him; or rather, who would do it for him, about you? If so, it's strange I never noticed it before. Is it like willingly and without question. Except, like his father before your mentalism, something new?' him, that wasn't Nathan's way. The teeming dead were his He shook his head. 'No, I've always had it. Ever since we friends; he would never take from them, or expect of them were children. I can't remember a time without it. But you beyond that they give him their friendship. And if what he see, I could hear them talking to each other even then, and wanted meant pain or even the smallest hurt, then he simply now they talk to me, too.' wouldn't want it. 'Them? They? Your secret army?' He was so quiet, and his Rogei knew his thoughts, of course, for they were dead- eyes so strange. 'Nathan, I think I'm a little frightened.' That broke his mood, brought him out of it. Fear was the 501 500 last thing he wanted, not in Misha. If he showed her now, - Nathan! said Rogei. Farewell! But it was the way that she might think him a monster. He would proceed more he said it, his deadspeak voice hoarse with some nameless slowly, take her to the barrier mountains, introduce her to emotion. his wolves and let her see the rest of the strangeness first - Nathan looked back, and Misha's eyes followed suit, and save the strangest till last. glancing towards the source of some half-sensed movement: 'Put it aside,' he said, almost sighing his relief as he the flickering light of the candles, perhaps? But no, it turned abruptly away from Rogei. wasn't that. 'But you said -' Rogei the Ancient lay in his niche as before. Except ... 'No, let it be. It can wait.' his skull head had turned to look at them through empty 'Nathan!' She put her hands on her hips. socket eyes, and one slender skeleton hand was raised in a And: She's right, you know, said Rogei, that extinct old gesture of farewell! man of the Thyre. Right to be annoyed - even as I am It was the first time that Nathan had seen it for himself. annoyed! The last time you were on the run, it was from Life But now he knew beyond any further doubt that it was itself, and this time it's from Truth! What is she, a weakling, true. And Misha ... she also understood. this woman of yours? And are you a weakling, too? I think As she collapsed with a sigh into his arms, Nathan told not. Show her, my son - or let me show her. Rogei: I don't know if I should thank you or what. 'Who are they, who talk to you?' Misha would not be Nor do I! I did what I thought was right. His bony hand moved, not now. fell loosely to his side; his head lolled on the crumbling Nathan held out his arms helplessly. 'Them,' he said, his column of his neck; he was just a dead thing. eyes moving about the cavern, its niches and ledges. These .. .' 'She'll be all right,' Nathan said. The mountain air will 'These,' she looked. These .. . dead creatures?' revive her. And anyway, you're right: she had to know.' The Thyre,' he said. 'Not creatures but men. Oh, different Was it. . . unseemly? from the Szgany, I know, but still men. And Starside trogs, Nathan shook his head. 'I can't believe you ever acted in too. And our own people; I mean, the dead of our people, an unseemly way in your whole life, Father,' he said. 'And yes.' certainly not in death.' With which, he carried Misha through 'You .. . talk to them?' the waiting door . .. 'Don't ask me to prove it.' But: Let her ask you! said Rogei. For you can prove it! .. . And out again into the heights over old Settlement. But 'Nathan, I —' as she stirred in his arms, he sent: Blaze, where are you? 'Come on,' the Necroscope said, conjuring a door. 'Let's go Closer than you think, Uncle! Between Settlement and and talk to some wolves of the wild - my nephews! Perhaps if Twin Fords that was. In the heights with your nephew I can make you believe in that. ..' Grinner, where we rest. A few miles, which to you is as 'Wolves? Your nephews? Nathan, I -' nothing. He had moved her back to the centre of the cavern; now And you know where I am? he would take her into the Mobius Continuum again. But as Indeed! I know ... directions, yes! Myself and my brothers, he made to do so - we all know the directions. Nathan understood: his nephews had the dog or wolf 503 502 sense of direction, but enhanced by the blood of the Necro- These are the same wolves,' he told her. 'In this world scope, come down to them through The Dweller from Harry they're long-lived - not so in the hell-lands. But here, they Keogh. He'd sensed it in them before, in their wolf-equivalent have no natural enemies. Not in these heights, which are of the numbers vortex. Where he had mastered metaphysical their places.' numbers — the maths of space and time - their expertise lay But: We have enemies now, Blaze told him, padding closer, in orientation. Blaze had known instinctively where he was. and sitting facing him. And these mountain places are no But his was a two-way talent; Blaze's own co-ordinates stood longer ours alone. Uncle, Dock is no more! out so clearly in Nathan's mind that he could pinpoint the Nathan's jaw fell open. 'What? Dock? How .. .?' wolf's location within inches. Wait, he said, and went there. Grinner had come, too; he sat with his head cocked on one side, grinning at Misha, in his fashion, who crept closer Misha came to as he arrived and carried her into the moon- into Nathan's arms. And shivering, she said, 'You do talk to and starlit saddle between peaks where Blaze and Grinner them!' had met up to rest a while. For they and their divided pack 'Shhh.'' he hushed her. This is important.' And to Blaze: had been about their allotted duties: keeping watch on the 'What about Dock? He has the high ground beyond the pass, comings and goings of the Wamphyri. Dock, too, beyond the am I right?' great pass; he had performed the same duties, but closer to He had it, aye. A nod of that unmistakably wise wolf the temporary camp of the vampires out of Turgosheim -too head, with its blaze of frosted fur. He watched the Wamphyri, close. Dock's story was a sad one, which Nathan had still to their movements, him and three of his best. They watched learn. close up . .. too close, Uncle. Nathan spread his jacket and sat the bemused Misha down Nathan felt sick; such losses were too great to bear; his on a flat-topped boulder. It finally got through to her where mother - Nana, whom he loved so dearly - and now this she was — and in whose company — and she made to spring faithful one, Dock, with his bristly stump of a tail. Gone up again! But Nathan sat beside her, put his arm around her forever ... and held her in position. . .. But not too far, Uncle! Dock's deadspeak voice in 'You have nothing to fear from them,' he said. These have Nathan's mind! For a moment it stunned even the Necroscope. always been "my" wolves.' But why? Blaze inquired. How else could we have known? 'Your wolves?' She glanced at him out of the corner of her He is our brother. He is our brother, Uncle, just as your eye, and again, but fearfully, at the animals surrounding mother is your mother. And he is right: they are not gone too them. 'I . . . I always thought that was a false memory, or a far away. dream out of childhood. I remember a strange rare time; there was snow on the barrier mountains; the wolves came down Of course, for as Nathan should know only too well, death isn't like that. and you and Nestor .. . you played with them! We were just children at play. No one else saw. When we went home and I Misha had stopped trembling. She looked at them all, the told my father, he laughed! I didn't talk about it again. And grey brothers, all ringed about the rock where she and afterwards . . . I thought it was a dream, that it hadn't really Nathan sat. And he was talking to them; to these two happened. Also, I seem to remember that you talked to them.' leaders, anyway! And Grinner with his head cocked, and that sly slavery look on his face ... that almost human look. 504 505 Until suddenly she remembered a myth or legend from her They have places out on the plain of boulders, from which childhood. Perhaps more than a legend, for Lardis Lidesci had they spy on the last aerie. But as yet their main force is in the mentioned it time and time over again. But then again, Lardis east, for they have not crossed the pass; not in any great was full of stories. numbers, and those that did cross have gone back. We think About The Dweller in his garden over Starside. A man — a they will wait out tomorrow in caves, and at sundown spread hell-lander - who had become a wolf! Indeed, a werewolf! out all along the ridge of the mountains. Then all of the grey More than that, he'd been Wamphyri! A creature with brothers will be in trouble, with nowhere safe for us unless Nathan's powers: a mentalist, a teleport, a wolf . . . a vampire! we flee far into the west, or down into Sunside's forests. And And these wolves of the wild . ..? the Travelling folk will have problems of their own. The Dweller's children!' she gasped aloud. 'If you come into Lidesci territory, men won't hunt you, I Nathan looked at her where she clung to his arm, and saw can promise you that!' what flashed across her mind. And they saw it reflected in his We know it, Uncle ... own mind, too. Like a question there, but such a question that Suddenly the pack was restless; the grey brothers and he scarcely dared to ask. Blaze answered it anyway: sisters stirred as one. Blaze and Grinner stood up, however We are not Wamphyri. Something of them is in us, perhaps, reluctantly. And: Time we were on our way, said Grinner. as it is in most of the Szgany of Sunside. But the essence - Now we must hunt to live. that which makes them what they are — is not in us. The And Nathan nodded grimly. 'So must I,' he said ... but in Dweller, our father, was Wamphyri, b u t he was different. He his mind, for them alone: But mainly I hunt to kill! kept that of the wolf, and that of the man, but nothing of the They understood. Good hunting, then. Blaze bared his vampire, not after his change. Or if he was Wamphyri, fangs, and turned away. nothing of it got into us. We had it from our mother that he They melted into the shadows, were gone into the crags would not bring vampires into the world, but only wolves. . . and gulleys in a moment. A few heads turned; triangular eyes And Grinner said, Your mate fears me, and all I have is an flared in the darkness and blinked out. It was as if they'd itch behind my ear, and all I want is that she scratch it! never been there at all. Almost absent-mindedly, Nathan reached out to scratch the But from far away (or so it seemed): One last thing, Uncle. It place behind Grinner's ear, and Misha watched in amazement. was Dock, his deadspeak. The Wamphyri of the last aerie 'A wild wolf!' she said. kept supplicant Szgany in Sunside's forests east of the pass. 1 Nathan nodded. 'But with a mind clever as a man's - and suppose you knew that? stranger than you could ever guess!' Then, to Blaze, as Misha Yes, Nathan sent. Traitors to their own kind. What of gingerly fondled Grinner's head: 'I can't tell you how sorry I am them? about Dock. I mean, I know he's still here, but - he isn't here.' The army out of the east descended on them, destroyed We know. Blaze acknowledged his grief. And in a moment: them in great numbers! They are no more. Those who Would you know about the Wamphyri? survived are fled deep into the woods. That wasn't why Nathan had come here, but knowledge was Then they got their just deserts. Nathan could find little of always useful. 'What of them?' pity for them. Indeed they did! Dock barked. But what happened to me and mine was unjust! I make no complaint for myself, but 506 507 my bitch goes without a mate. You said you wouJd hunt? Yes. IV 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 A Plan of Campaign - where the Wamphyri butchered us, and ate the smelting hearts Final Arrivals - Dead Allies 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.. . 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 509 the horizon and through the heart of the planet. So there isn't through the night and coming day, Vormulac has decimated likely to be much activity for the rest of the night. And I have Wratha's supplicant tribes east of the pass.' it on good authority that the army out of Turgosheim is 'Just how .. . huge is this army?' Lardis was cautious. making camp for the coming day in dead volcanoes and 'Hundreds strong,' Nathan told him. 'All of our hell-land caverns east of the pass.' weapons together won't nearly be enough.' 'Oh?' Lardis grunted. 'On whose authority, exactly?' Lardis's face fell further yet. 'And Vormulac's error?' But Nathan looked at him in that certain way, and Lardis 'His gluttony!' Nathan answered with a shudder. The rest shrugged and immediately fell silent. This wasn't just any of the tribes east of the pass will be scattered and in hiding man who was talking. 'I also have it,' Nathan continued, 'that by now. No more easy pickings for Vormulac - but he still the last aerie is in siege; Wratha the Risen is confined to has to feed his army!' Wrathstack; Vormulac Unsleep has watchers positioned on Ben Trask cut in: 'So what's your plan?' the boulder plains to report on her movements. If she or any 'First, to get those weapons all together,' Nathan told him. of hers takes leave of the stack, they'll be set upon and 'For which I'll need both you and David. You know exactly destroyed at once. There'll be no more excursions out of where you put those guns in that clump of boulders close to Wrathstack, not without someone suffering the consequences.' the Gate. Once we're finished talking, I'll go back and check The Necroscope didn't yet know that Vormulac was dead, but that it's safe. And then .. .' in any case what he had said was still correct in its essentials. 'We're with you.' David Chung spoke up. 'We can be in 'Huh!' Lardis grunted. This warrior-Lord out of the east has and out in a few moments.' cut off her supplies; she can't get at us without fighting him! Nathan nodded. 'If the way is clear, yes. Then, I'll need But if he is the greater of the two evils, how does that benefit Andrei and possibly Kirk. They know Sanctuary Rock better us?' than anyone else. The Rock is still stable - I hope! I left a fair Nathan's turn to shrug. 'At least while they're standing each cache of weapons up there, on the dome of the Rock. other off, they won't have quite so much time to hunt for us. Hopefully, they suffered no damage when the Rock sank And come daylight, both parties will be in siege — pinned down on itself.' down by the sun! But we won't be, and we'll have to use every That must have been a sight to see!' Lardis breathed. T scrap of daylight to our best advantage. The sun is the single should have been there. Andrei has talked about it, but to tried and true weapon which has never let us down. As for have seen it. . .!' Vormulac: I fancy the warrior-Lord has made a big mistake.' And Trask said, 'Andrei has also mentioned this, er, hell- 'How so?' Lardis frowned. The Old Lidesci would give lander you tangled with? From his description it could only anything to know where the Necroscope had been and how be Turkur Tzonov.' he'd come by his knowledge, but it was sufficient that he had And now Nathan's face was grimmer yet. 'It could only it. And quite obviously Nathan wanted to get on; there were have been him, yes,' he answered. still things he would attend to this night. Andrei's turn to speak up: 'It was Canker! Kirk and me, we The Turgosheim army is - huge!' Nathan must rely on what saw some of it. The dog-Lord's got him, aye.' he'd learned from his wolves. 'In order to fuel it But the Necroscope shook his head. 'No, it was Canker who took him, but it's a Lady who has him now. The Lady Siggi Dam!' He looked at Trask. 'Knowing what Tzonov has 510 511 done, and for all that I know he's evil, I couldn't have wished So that when next the Wamphyri come hunting, they'll find worse on him .. .' nothing. Absolutely nothing!' But Lardis grunted, 'An enemy is an enemy!' As always (or 'Explain,' Lardis demanded. as he always appeared to be) the Old Lidesci was iron. 'I can't,' Nathan answered. 'Not without breaking a trust. And anyway I don't know if my plan will be accepted . . . by 'What's done is done ... now we get on with what's still to be certain others. But it may be, and so, if the time should done.' come, we must be ready; which is why in the morning we'll And Nathan agreed with him. The rest of tonight, when I play this game of mine. Like children, yes. Like all the have the weapons, we go to work on the Wamphyri. And children, and for the children. And for the future of all of the again it will be me, Ben, David . . . and perhaps you, John Szgany, if they are to have a future ...' Carling?' He nodded to indicate the caver. That is, if you'd It was all beyond Lardis, but he didn't press it. Nathan was like to be in on it? I can only use men who are familiar with their one hope now, especially since Sanctuary Rock was no these weapons.' more, and so they must play it his way - including his Now Chung frowned. 'We . . . are going to attack the mysterious 'game'. Wamphyri, right?' Nathan looked at Trask and Chung. 'How long to get 'Hit and run,' Nathan told him. 'Guerilla warfare. I saw film ready?' of it at E-Branch HQ in London.' He explained his intentions, The two glanced at each other, and Trask said, 'I suppose and Trask excitedly said: we're as ready as we'll ever be right now. Give us a moment to That would work!' check our weapons, and —' 'It would certainly confuse the hell out of them,' Chung 'No weapons,' Nathan shook his head. 'Not going out, agreed. anyway. But coming back ... with any luck, you'll have a lot That's my intention, yes,' Nathan said. To confuse them - more than you can handle!' and also to kill the black-hearted bastards!' He showed his Trask nodded, licked his lips and said, Then we're ready teeth. 'As many as possible!' And then, more calmly, 'For you when you are.' see, I . . . I gave my word to someone that I would kill a few of Nathan stood up, stepped away from the fire and glanced at them for him at least. But the idea will be to use our weapons the sky, the stars in their eternal wheel. And: 'Give me a few as sparingly yet effectively as possible.' moments,' he said. Which was as long as it took him ... 'Very well.' Trask nodded. 'It's a plan of sorts, anyway. . . . To make a Mobius jump out on to the plain of And it will certainly show these monsters that they're not boulders, close but not too close to the Gate, yet close invulnerable, or even safe from attack. In fact it will probably enough that he felt its repulsion - a weird deflection even come as a hell of a shock to them! But suppose we get within the Mobius Continuum — which caused his exit door to through the rest of the night intact - what then?' warp and waver as he stepped through it onto Starside. And a Tomorrow morning we . . . we practise a game,' Nathan moment more to clamber up onto a natural causeway of answered. The Szgany Lidesci, all of us. A very special boulders and scan the land all about for the Wamphyri or game.' their creatures. 'Oh?' Lardis grunted. 'We'll have time for playing games, Shielding his eyes against the near-distant glare of the will we? What, like children d'you mean? Hide and seek?' Gate, he looked north and believed he saw .. . was that a 'Exactly like that!' Nathan nodded. 'Hide and seek, yes. 512 513 Almost automatically, instinctively, he began to study the manta shape, pulsing against the weave of the northern maths of the problem - until he realized what he was doing auroras? Perhaps, but if so it was at least a mile away, or even and knew that he didn't have the time for it, and that anyway more. So much for eyesight ... but there were other senses, too. there was no requirement. Then he collapsed his door and Nathan put out a telepathic probe and felt ... something? moved a few paces farther away from the Gate, where he No, nothing - not of the Wamphyri anyway - not nearby. He paused to scan the sky again. The flyer was still there, but if was edgy, that was all. But certainly the psychic aether was anything the distance had increased. There was no danger that alive with their echoes, their afterimages, the slime-trails of he could see, and so . . . their having been here, the taint of their existence. Faint . .. He returned to the camp on Sunside, held his new door thoughts reached him from far across the boulder plains ... steady as he guided Trask and Chung inside, and so others from the mountains east of the pass, and ... again that transferred them to Starside. There, when they'd recovered sensation of - of what? Held breath? Or was it simply him - from their momentary disorientation, he led the way to the Nathan himself - holding his breath? clump of boulders where all three men saw what had He checked his location. He wasn't too far from the clump happened to Gorvi the Guile's warrior. Its awful debris was of boulders where Trask and Chung had taken refuge and strewn across the uneven ground; bloodied, blue-grey chitin stashed their weapons. Then, there had been an injured scales as big as dinner plates were scattered everywhere ... warrior to contend with. But no sign of that creature now . .. gnawed cartilage .. . grooved, white-gleaming bone . .. and the He climbed back down from the rocks, ran halfway towards churned, dark-stained earth. A great many creatures had the clump, brought a halt and conjured a door. This time it disposed of the one, in a mighty and monstrous provisioning. was more stable, but still it trembled a little. Nathan decided They walked among the remains of the thing, with the to try a little experiment and turned the door in the direction starlit silence of Starside pressing down on them — of the Gate; its trembling increased and he could feel the - Until Trask whispered: 'God, what a nightmarish place! Gate's resistance, the way it pushed at his door. It was like the Let's collect the guns and get out of here!' nervous, fluttering activity of a small magnet with its like pole 'We must consider ourselves lucky,' Nathan told him. The too close to the like pole of a large magnet; the big one would guns might easily have been discovered. But even beast- turn it around if it could, then suck it in! But if it couldn't turn minders would have kept well out of it while a frenzy such as it around it would simply repulse it, shoot it away like a bullet that was in progress!' from a gun, into unknown places. In E-Branch HQ, Nathan Then, as the three approached the entrance gap into the had read the Keogh files. He knew that his father had done just clump — something suddenly appeared there! Two of them! that: conjured a door too close to the Perchorsk Gate, and 'Ben?' been hurled into space! And he wondered: Trask started and cried out. Chung, too; even the Necro- If a door was big enough, strong enough, and the mind that scope felt his blood run cold - and in the next moment warm - made it was powerful enough - which would give way first, as finally he recognized the voice, figure and telepathic aura the metaphysical Mobius Continuum and the mind that of Zek Foener, and understood what he'd sensed when last he controlled it, or the hyperspatial, transdimensional Gate? was here, what or who it was that had held its psychic breath. Zek Foener and lan Goodly. 514 515 The location of the cache: inside the Starside Gate! Zek She literally flew into Ben's arms; and the spindly, cadaverous and Goodly had dismounted well within the tunnel, and had precog wasn't far behind, first clutching Trask's hand, then left the cart in neutral at the other end of a length of nylon grasping Chung to him in an entirely uncharacteristic hug. rope, the last six inches of which protruded from the Thank God!' Goodly piped. 'Thank God it's you!' hemisphere of white light. They had done this because Nathan was the only one to keep a level head. 'The guns,' Goodly's talent had foreseen some small problem on the he reminded them. 'Get the weapons!' And while Trask and boulder plains: the lone flyer which both Nathan and the Chung entered the clump and re-emerged, he gave Zek a hug newcomers had seen in the aurora-shot distance. And so, as and clasped hands with Goodly. Then — soon as Nathan wanted to do it, he could take someone back - All four linked arms, holding tight to the Necroscope as there to the Gate, haul the cart through, and recover the he conjured a door, guided them through its invisible portal weapons. and took them back to the Sunside camp ... But something was obviously puzzling him, and now he gave it voice. 'We've always known that the Gates were Between them, Zek and Goodly told their story, how Gustav oneway systems,' he said, 'but now we know something else Turchin had let them use the Perchorsk Gate to come through about them.' into Starside. It had been Zek's intention to contact Nathan 'Oh?' Trask waited for him to continue. telepathically as soon as they emerged on to the plain of Nathan nodded. 'Obviously they can be used more than boulders, but the sight of a flyer in the alien sky of the once, but only in the same direction! Zek has been through vampire world had changed her mind; she hadn't dared use the Perchorsk Gate twice.' her mentalism until she could be sure that the Necroscope 'Absolutely right!' Zek put in excitedly. 'For a while, we alone would hear her. thought that lan might have to come through on his own, or And as the flyer had passed overhead, heading out across maybe with other espers from E-Branch. But lan's a precog, the boulder plains, Zek and the precog had taken refuge in the and he had seen both of us coming through from Perchorsk! nest of leaning boulders - where they had stumbled across As soon as we got out there from London, I knew he was Ben Trask's cache of weapons. At that, they had known that if correct; close up, I could actually feeJ the pull of that white Nathan lived he must return here sooner or later, but they'd monster; no repulsion whatsoever. It seems it was something scarcely expected it to be so soon. that Harry himself didn't know: that while you can't return Also, and where weapons were concerned, there was now a through the same Gate, you can use that Gate more than new cache which Nathan would have to recover at some time once. It's like the circulatory system of the heart, with in the future. For Zek and Goodly had come through the oneway valves to stop blood flowing downhill between beats. 'white tunnel' from Perchorsk aboard a battery-powered cart or The blood circulates time and time over but can't back-up on buggy, one of three that Per-chorsk's scientists used to trundle itself. So if I wanted to, I could use the lower Starside Gate to heavy instruments from place to place around the core; still go to Romania, and the Perchorsk Gate to come through into aboard were two Russian-built machine-pistols and a small Starside, over and over again!' wooden box of one hundred and twenty golfball-size 'But,' said Trask, looking thoughtful, 'doesn't that mean grenades. Buggy and weapons had come courtesy of Gustav that if you had used both Gates to get here, you'd probably be Turchin. stuck here forever? Zek Foener, are you trying to tell me that you were willing to consider that risk?' 516 517 She hugged his arm. 'Not really, Ben. Remember, the Starside - came here, lived here - before the Perchorsk Gate Romanian Gate is temporarily out of action; we couldn't came into being. The Dweller was very special, that's all. In have used it anyway. So I suppose what I'm telling you is the Mobius Continuum, he . . . he knew the directions of that I trust lan's talent, and that he hadn't foreseen that kind places, even of parallel universes.' of disaster . ..' He looked at Zek and Goodly, and almost accusingly 'Then what kind of disaster has he foreseen?' Trask asked: 'Why did you come? It could cause - I don't know - glanced at Goodly. complications?' The precog shrugged, looked uncomfortable. 'I've only Goodly explained why, and there were several reasons. For covered what had to be covered,' he piped. 'I've never trusted one, he had 'seen' that they would come. Two, they'd desired the future and don't intend to start now. Don't ask me to look, to use their knowledge and talents in the fight against the Ben - and especially not in this place! But when I'm needed, Wamphyri. Also, they'd come to bring their weapons — and then you'll know you can rely on me.' a warning: that Turchin would close Perchorsk permanently Trask continued to look thoughtful. 'So . . . that time when in just two and a half to three Sunside days' time. And finally Harry Keogh used the Gate at Perchorsk to escape from us - a second warning, different but no less important — certainly or rather, when he removed his potential plague from our no less ominous — that Geoffrey Paxton had followed Nathan world - in fact he could have used the Romanian Gate a and the others through into Sunside/Starside, where he second time?' planned to regain his 'stolen' telepathy. 'Yes,' Zek told him. 'Except it's the way we think he'll try to get it back,' Goodly Trask nodded, and said, Then I think perhaps he did know gloomed. 'For you see, we didn't tell Turchin our worst fear: about it. But he was Wamphyri, and he was just cussed that perhaps Paxton desires to be Wamphyri!' He shrugged enough to want to do it his way, despite - or because of - all helplessly. 'But that's what we're obliged to believe. We had the odds against him. To go out in a blaze of glory on a big an empath go over Paxton's place, get a picture of his motorcycle, shouting "To hell with you" at the whole damn psychological profile. And quite simply, Paxton is Keogh- world!' crazy! In a way, he hates the very thought of Harry, and And: 'Huh!' Lardis Lidesci grunted appreciatively. 'That anything or anyone to do with him, for what Harry did to sounds exactly like Harry Hell-lander to me!' him; but in another way, he loves the idea of the Til tell you what really sounds like him,' Trask continued. Necroscope's power. Harry Keogh was a telepath, a teleport, 'If Harry did know about the Gates, if he suspected deep finally a vampire. Paxton will try to do it in reverse: become down inside, with that intuitive grasp of his, then what he did a vampire, regain his telepathy, use Nathan to discover the - to use both Gates, and so get himself stuck here -would be Mobius Continuum. It's his obsession . ..' the perfect way to ensure that he could never bring the 'Power-mad!' Trask nodded. 'He always was, right from the plague of vampirism back into our Earth. That would be start. And that's before he's Wamphyri! Just think of it: if he exactly Harry's kind of sacrifice ...' actually got those things he craves, and then took them back After a moment, Goodly said, 'Was that how The Dweller to our world. Earth would have a scarlet emperor! And God did it, do you think? Came and went between here and our help us, but if that's what he wants, he can certainly find it world on a regular basis?' here!' 'No.' Nathan shook his head. 'The Dweller found Sunside/ 518 519 'He's a madman,' Nathan summed it up. 'You just don't get give that word new meaning. Except he would not be taking to be a Lord of the Wamphyri as easily as that. But it's a very and using blood but spilling it, wasting it. The blood of vampires: Wamphyri blood! simple thing to get drained, eaten, enthralled, or changed First, however, there were those he must speak to, and to utterly into . .. something else. Anyway, let's forget him for him it was like going to church to offer up a prayer. Except, of now. There's still a lot to be done and time is wasting.' course, he had no church but only a private shrine with a secret Then he quickly went on to detail most of what had door. The legend carved upon that door was 'dead-speak', and transpired during the course of just one night, since his the Necroscope held the one and only key. But knowing how return to the vampire world. He finished with Turkur the Great Majority value their privacy, he took the Mobius Tzonov, how the Russian esper had been taken by Canker route out into the desert and chose a lonely place under the Canison and Siggi Dam, and concluded: 'I think we can stars, where any intercourse with the dead would not be safely say that Tzonov is no longer a problem. For all that disturbed by the tumult of the living. he's an evil, resourceful man, there's no coming back from And where before, indeed for all of his young life, Nathan where he is now. I was privy to something of what Siggi was had been shunned by the teeming dead, at last he found them thinking when Canker snatched him. Frankly, I wish I hadn't to be his wholehearted allies. For recently one had come been ...' And after a moment's silence: among them who would have it no other way. And Nana Kiklu 'As for Paxton, we'll face that problem when or if it comes had always been - and in death as in life would continue to be - up. But nothing else has changed, except we now have two a force to be reckoned with. When Nana's voice had been extra "weapons" to add to our list. I mean Zek and lan, of added to those of her son's friends among the dead, and when course.' she had argued on his behalf, then any last trace of opposition 'And now?' Lardis Lidesci was finally over the fact that had finally crumbled away. Zek Foener was here again, back in the vampire world. Later Now the dead could talk to him, and he could ask them for he would introduce her to Lissa, and if it wasn't too painful their blessing on the bloodwars to come. He wanted nothing they might even talk about Jazz, The Dweller, Harry Hell- more for now, but that they think it over and seek in their lander, the old times . .. but all of that must wait until sunup. memories - even their racial memories - for anything which For there was still work to be done tonight. might be of assistance in the crusade against the Wamphyri. 'Now?' The Necroscope Nathan Keogh was looking at For the Necroscope knew that all of Sunside/ Starside's Lardis in that new, grim way of his. Looking at him and knowledge lay buried in the ground or blowing in the wind, agreeing with him: 'Now we carry on with what we were dust to dust or ashes to ashes, and that the soil and the sky doing .. .' knew all that had been. After that: a trip to the dome of Sanctuary Rock with Kirk And of course there were those who would speak to him at once - urgently, now! - whom he could only thank and promise and Andrei, to collect the remainder of the hell-land weapons, that he would indeed speak to them as soon as possible, but for and finally it was time to wage war. the moment must use his resources, especially his time, to best Long ago, in the half-mythical, crimson history of advantage. For the night-time had always belonged to the Sunside/Starside, the Lords of the Wamphyri had christened Wamphyri, and now he intended to take it back from them! their inter-aerie feuds 'bloodwars'; now, Nathan intended to 520 521 How many times - on how many nights of terror - had that After Thikkoul, the leper Uruk Piatra had spoken to Nathan; warning cry rung out in the camps of Sunside's Szgany: but this time the Necroscope had been especially attentive. 'Wamphyri! Wamphyri!' A cry of warning, aye, but also the Uruk's burned, crumbling shell of a body still lay unburied on battlecry of the vampires themselves; except to call it a the sandy mound where the Old Lidesci had left it; but 'battlecry' was to glorify it, where in fact there'd been no glory in because Uruk had a plan, the teeming dead ignored the miles it at all. A cry of slaughter, more like. Battles? Oh, there had between in order to introduce him to Nathan. And the leper's been a few, but in the main - at least until the Old Lidesci's plan was simple. Once, not so long ago, he'd tried to use the time - the only course of survival had been flight. And so, one disease which plagued the people of his colony as a weapon way or the other, tonight would be a night to remember. For against the Wamphyri. Now he would do it again: a matter of the Szgany and the Wamphyri both. A night when the personal sacrifice, but one whose cause was just. And because Travellers did not flee but came, killed, melted away and came Uruk would brook no argument, in the end Nathan could only again! bow to his wishes. It would be as the leper wished it. The Great Majority were taken with Nathan's vision. And And finally there was a new deadspeak voice; but in their way they cheered him on. He got their blessing and previously unheard, it was a voice so dour, melancholy and their deadspeak promise both: that if the time came when he doom-fraught that it hushed all the others to silence in a required their assistance, then that he need only ask . .. moment. Its timbre, texture and evil resonance were such that It was everything that he'd wanted, and with that Nathan the Necroscope could not mistake their source, neither Nathan would have taken his leave of them; but still there were those nor the Great Majority with him. Which was why they had among them who insisted that he listen to them, if only fallen silent. For this was the voice of a vampire -indeed, briefly. Jasef Karis was one; there was that which he must Wamphyri! speak of - a secret out of the past, and perhaps important. But Nathan would not talk to him, not in this place where he Jasef understood Nathan's eagerness to be off on his mission had spoken to the decently dead and gone, but yet felt that he to claim back a little of the enormous debt owed by the should speak to him, if only to know what was on the Wamphyri. And so his scrap of secret knowledge must keep monster's mind. To that end, he excused himself and followed for now, even as he'd kept it for all of seventeen long years. the voice to its source, the place where its owner had died . .. . . . In a firepit at Sanctuary Rock! Then there was the Thyre ancient, Thikkoul the Stargazer. If only Nathan would take him out again under the stars -if only Necroscope .. . (Vormulac's voice was even more mournful he could see the stars again through the eyes of the than it had been in life: like the moaning of the wind into Necroscope - Thikkoul felt sure that the future could be made which his smoke had passed.) I learned of you through the to reveal itself and Nathan would know the way to go. Except dead, who did not deign to speak to me. Hah! I eavesdropped both of them (and the precog lan Goodly, too) knew that the future isn't like that. Immutable as the past, it may not be on them anyway, and discovered their deadspeak whispers to changed or even tampered with, but will be as it will be. And be full of the Necroscope, Nathan Keogh: a man who talks to the way it will be is best left unknown. For, as had been the dead. Even to Vormulac Taintspore, called Unsleep — who proved time and time again, tomorrow is a devious place . .. once was undead but now is truly dead, and 522 523 sleeps only too well! Of secret skills and talents, I thought I'd 'I showed myself to you — now show yourself to me.' seen them all. But this . . . is something new. A man who Vormulac did as requested, and Nathan saw the very brings comfort to crumbling bones in rotting shrouds and duplicate of his earring in the lobe of the dead vampire's lifeless dust in old clay bottles - even to an ancient, evil thing conch-like ear! like me/ That makes twice you've started, Necroscope, Lord Unsleep 'I'm not here to comfort you, Vormulac,' Nathan told him. pointed out curiously. Now say, what is it that concerns you? 'Indeed, I would not be here at all, except you said you wanted 'Only that he's made fools of both of us,' Nathan answered revenge on your own kind, the Wamphyri, and especially on grimly. that one called Devetaki Skullguise, a Lady. Well, and so do I He? Maglore? want revenge on the Wamphyri — for all the Szgany they ever The same. That's not merely the Seer-Lord's sigil but his killed or changed, and forever! In fact, I desire to destroy them shewstone — which we have worn like fools only inches all! So any advice or knowledge you impart that gives me an from the cores of our brains! What we have seen, so has advantage . . . it will be more than welcome. Even though you Maglore. What we have thought, he was privy to.' yourself are not.' But to what end? In order to watch over us, and know what Nathan ... said the other thoughtfully. And you speak is become? without fear, as if you were used to conversing with one such 'That's one way to put it, yes,' Nathan answered. 'But far as I. Not merely a dead man, but a vampire Lord. Hmmm - more to the point: to spy on us, and know our every move. Nathan/ Now say, have 1 not heard that name before? Can you He is Wamphyri, after all, and so no better or worse than any use your deadspeak, perhaps, to show yourself to me? of you.' The Necroscope saw no harm in it, and so showed himself For long moments Vormulac's deadspeak presence - his to Vormulac. 'I am that one, yes,' he said, 'who was the Seer- Wamphyri aura - was gloomier than ever. Then: Hah! And I Lord Maglore's so-called "familiar" in Runemanse.' left him to his own devices in Turgosheim. An error, as it Ah! Vormulac responded. I remember: you stole a flyer and would seem. I see it all now: by now, the gorge entire fled back into Sunside . . . or west, as it now appears. And you belongs to Maglore! And his sigil no good-luck piece but a are the Necroscope, eh?' (A grim chuckle.) But it would break traitor to sit in my ear and listen to my thoughts! Upon my old Maglore's black heart to know what he let slip through his return — if I returned — that wily old rune-mage would know fingers! Even if I had not remembered you, still I would know my every move and counter it with maximum efficiency! you from the ring in your ear: Maglore's sigil. Why, I myself Bah! Is there nothing of honour? wore just such a twisted loop, which the Seer-Lord gave to me At which Nathan gave a snort of his own. 'What, are you in friendship. playing word games with me, Vormulac? A Lord of the At which Nathan gave a start, for he remembered something Wamphyri, asking a question like that? Honour, indeed! And that David Chung had said to him. And: 'I ask a favour of you,' yet I promise you this: Maglore wields a two-edged sword.' he said, in the next moment. Eh? How so? What, you ask a boon of me? 'Because he's not the only mentalist in Starside, that's how 'You desired to speak to me, didn't you?' so. Would you see the shape of Turgosheim now?' Indeed, I did: ask away! 524 525 Because deadspeak often conveys more than is said, Vor- my deadspeak hid itself. If Maglore had once suspected my mulac knew his meaning. Indeed I would! talents, he would never have let me go.' 'So be it...' He 'Jet' you go? And Nathan concentrated on the warped shape of the loop of Nathan nodded. 'As I now realize. To be his shewstone in gold in his ear, and hurled a telepathic probe east . . . far to the the west - even as you have been his shewstone!' east . .. across all of Starside and the Great Red Waste . . . to If only I could live again, Vormulac moaned, then. Ah, to Turgosheim at the end of the world. And: know what I know now, and live again! Devetaki Skullguise, 'Maglore in his apartments in promontory Runemanse,' the so-called 'virgin' grandam . . . I would line up my lads to Nathan whispered. 'Secure in his triumph and open in his have her one by one. I'd melt her leaden masks and pour the thoughts, for who remains to spy on them now? No one, for liquid down her lying throat! Virgin? I would know where to Lord Taintspore and his generals are off on a mighty crusade drive the longest stake of all - and let her writhe upright on an against Wratha the Risen in the west. The Seer-Lord gazes out ironwood prick, and steam to a stain as the sun rose over from his window. And you're right, Vormulac: Turgosheim is Sunside! And as for Maglore: I would drench him in oil, weight his entirely! Maglore the Mage is master now! He commands! him with stones, and hurl him from Turgosheim's rim - and set His forces are taking all of the great aeries, spires and manses. a torch to him, to light his shrieking descent! But alas ... The His sigil flutters everywhere, from the walls of the lowliest fury went out of his voice in a moment, which sobbed now, hovel in the bed of the gorge, even to the frowning heights of and moaned as before: ... My life is done, and all hope of melancholy -' revenge dead with me. No! 'Not necessarily,' Nathan told him. 'You asked me to come '- Vormspire itself, yes! As for Masquemanse: Devetaki's here for a reason, but I cannot linger, for time is wasting. So place is now a vast scar on the face of the gorge. Maglore has now advise me however you will, or say nothing ever again. settled a few old scores with her, be sure!' But whichever you do, do it quickly.' Little I care for that, Vormulac grunted. Indeed, I welcome You'll help me to redress what was done to me - help me the news. It is something to thank the Seer-Lord for, at least! take my revenge - even from beyond the grave? But Vormspire! Ah, Vormspire .. .! And angrily: Do you seek 'No, Lord Taintspore — my revenge, not yours. But if you deliberately to torment me, Necroscope? can find pleasure in that...?' 'Yes,' Nathan said again, without hesitation. I suppose it must suffice. Very well, listen: Devetaki is How do 1 know you're not lying? Obviously, Maglore treacherous. I've given it some thought. It must be her plan to instructed you well. Why, I believe you could play word murder all of my generals one by one, and so command my games with the best of us! How is it that you read him so well, army out of Turgosheim. and over such a distance, while he reads nothing of you? 'That sounds like a good plan to me.' 'I was his one great failure,' the Necroscope answered. 'My Are you always so cold? Is there no humour in you? mentalism was better than his. It was ever the same, even in This from you? Your very deadspeak is ice! Maglore told me Runemanse. He would attempt to read my mind, only to have about you: even Vormspire was a living tomb, a mausoleum to me read his! He read my dreams instead, but found little of use a lost love. And if you lived as long again, do you suppose it in them. I hid my telepathy from him, and would change you? In Turgosheim you were a great shroud covering the gorge with your misery. So don't 526 527 wnere t shall be waiting to meet them.' Not if you tell it over again, to those generals whom the Oh? But you're careless with your plans, Necroscope! Does Lady would destroy! (There was sinister cunning, typical of it not trouble you that I know them? all the Wamphyri, in Vormulac's voice now.) For then they'd Nathan's cold smile. 'And who will you tell them to? You turn on her at once! have no friends or allies now, Vormulac. You have nothing Tell it to them? How? It's dangerous enough to play word and no one - except me. And when our business is done, you games with the dead of the Wamphyri - such as yourself -but won't even have that. For I have better things to do than waste utterly impossible with the living or the undead! I was my time with such as you.' fortunate that time, with Maglore. What do you suggest: that I Then be about your work, for I am done with you. Let me seek audience with these leaderless Lords, to inform them of simply wish you luck, and get yourself gone! Devetaki's treachery?' His deadspeak voice dripped sarcasm. But Nathan shook his head. He'd give no jot of satisfaction Audience? Vormulac grunted. No, scarcely that! Oh, they'd to a vampire, nor accept any offer of alleged friendship. 'It's see you, all right - and eat your heart before you uttered a not that you wish me luck,' he said, 'but that you wish evil on word! But you are a mentalist, Necroscope! And there's all of them who have survived you! You see me as the Great something of that in all of them . .. Destroyer that you wish you still were. Worse, you hope that It was an idea at least: to use his telepathy to create when my work is done, I shall be destroyed, too.' dissension and cause insurgency in the ranks of the He was right, but Vormulac was finished and would say no Wamphyri. To get them fighting each other, even as they now more. Nevertheless, before Nathan returned to Lardis's camp fought with the last aerie — which, since war and he thought to hear one last sigh from the deadspeak aether. It territorialism were in any case second nature to them, was Lord Unsleep, his final 'sentiment': shouldn't be too hard. Nathan gave it a moment's thought, That perhaps now he really would sleep, but he hoped that then nodded grimly. 'Perhaps I'll be able to work something he wouldn't dream ... out, after all. So what else do you suggest?' Vormulac's deadspeak shrug: Let me think. And after a moment: Do you know that Devetaki used weird weapons to kill me? Are you aware of their source? 'Are you?' Nathan countered. A force of strange and powerful Szgany - or perhaps not Szgany, but men, anyway - in the keep in the great pass. Devetaki has already used one such man and weapon . .. against me! To destroy me! And I fancy that she'll try to take and use the others, too, 'I know about these strange men,' Nathan answered. 'Also ,about their weapons. But I have weapons of my own. Now that the strangers are without leaders, I may be able to 528 PART SEVEN Settling Scores - Further Skirmishes Dreams and Dooms I Nathan's Guerillas - Seeds of Suspicion When Lardis Lidesci saw the Necroscope walk out onto the savanna where Uruk Piatra lay wrapped in his blanket, he followed after him and caught up as the youth took up the lifeless body into his arms. And after Nathan had explained: 'But . . . is this what Uruk wants?' Even the hardened Lardis was shocked by the Necroscope's explanation. 'It will be no bad thing,' Nathan answered, 'to know that in life he was helpless, but in death a deadly weapon. It's the way of the dead, Lardis. What they did in life they continue to do after death, albeit to no effect. Except through me there is an effect. And Uruk wanted to see the Wamphyri Lords destroyed! For you and the Lidescis, Lardis, who all these years have provided for Uruk and his people in their sickness and seclusion, and for every Traveller everywhere. It is what he wants, yes.' 'You're certain?' Nathan sighed. 'I have spoken to him, and he to me. Uruk wants to do this for the reasons I've given, and I want to be his instrument in this sacrifice . . . for my own reasons.' 'Because a Kiklu did this thing?' Lardis knew how Nathan was torn; and yet again he was reminded that this was no ordinary man, but the son of the Necroscope, Harry Keogh. Which was why he stood back, and said, 'Then speak to Uruk again, for me, and tell him I never knew the better man, leper or no.' In any other world this might seem a very dubious compliment, but not here. 533 Nathan did as Lardis asked, however silently, then carried saw its owner, on the night of Wratha's initial attack on Uruk with him through a Mobius door -' Settlement. Jason Lidesci, Lardis's son, with whom Nathan - And out again on to the boulder plains half-way to the last had grown up! aerie: dark and dreadful Wrathstack glooming there, some 'Jason,' he said. 'Where are you?' miles away, in blue-lit starlight, silhouetted against its eerie Close, but we've been closer. I wouJd have spoken be/ore, backdrop of a writhing auroral curtain. And: but to what good end? Now is different, for at least I can give Are we there? Uruk inquired. you some advice. My body rests in a crevice in the earth, 'No, but I know the way,' Nathan told him. 'For I've been where Gorvi put me one night after I . . . after I had spoken here before, with Lardis, on his treks. He used to come here in with your brother Nestor, who is now beyond redemption! I'm the old times, the good times.' down in the earth, Nathan — where I belong, as all vampire There']] be good times again. things belong - slowly stiffening to a stone among stones, 'I pray you are right. But let me look and listen. There may be aye. But don't feel sorry for me, for I am glad that I'm here vampires here: watchers from the army out of the east.' now. Better here than in Guilesump/ The place is not far from The Necroscope put out probes from his metaphysical mind the Starside Gate, but do not seek me out. I'm one with the and at once sensed Siggi Dam and others, in Wrathstack ... dark and the cold and the earth. and more vampires on the plain of boulders, hiding there, but 'Jason, I . . . " But there was nothing, no words, to express none in the immediate vicinity. He made a second Mobius- the way the Necroscope felt. Since deadspeak conveys more jump, this time to a cluster of ruins, the stump of a toppled than is said, however, it was in any case unnecessary. aerie, only a mile from the broad base of Wrathstack. Hush, said the other, and listen: Again, his probe went out, and discovered ... one of Gorvi Upon a time I was Gorvi's man, but for a thrall I was the Guile's ground warriors, and a lieutenant, and a handful of rebellious. To punish me, he put me to work tending the thralls, deep down in the ruin's basement! An ambush for wells. No man knows the guts of Guilesump better than I do. Devetaki's army (for surely by now the Lady was in Now look upon my mind, and see the secrets of the sump! command), should any of its elements venture this way. He Nathan looked, saw, and felt horror creep again upon his couldn't linger, not here. spine, even as it had crept in promontory Runemanse. Except Nathan knew the layout of a stack. The design of all the the Seer-Lord Maglore's Runemanse had known something of aeries would be much the same, here, as in Turgosheim. But light, at least, while the nether pits of Guilesump were entirely even a simpleton would know that the only possible place for lightless. It made no difference; Nathan saw with a vampire's a well is in the earth, in the very bowels of the stack -Gorvi eyes - the dead eyes but living memory of Jason Lidesci... the Guile's domain. Except . .. where exactly? No good to ... Saw the siphon-tubes, hollow bones like pipes, materialize in darkness, or a place of deadly danger. descending from the low ceiling to the dark water, letting He mentioned the problem to Uruk, and of course his down the jelly-like veins which they contained - human deadspeak went out across all of Starside - and was heard. veins, the Necroscope knew, of some monstrously Nathaaan . .. metamorphosed siphoneer high overhead in Wrathspire's attic And the Necroscope gasped, for he would know that -into the water to soak it up. He saw the mindless swimmers: sighing deadspeak voice immediately, anywhere, despite that flat and fan-shaped, like lichen spores grown huge, their three and a half years had passed since the last time he 535 534 countless cilia flickering to propel them through the water, great task, and the taking of the last aerie, into her hands. cleansing it of microbes, scum, dust, fallen spider- and fly- And after all, it was only right. For by now, hers was the specks, and foulness in general. greatest of all the contingents, consisting of her own forces, And he saw the ledges where once Jason had worked, and Lord Wamus's, which she'd commandeered, and now removing cobwebs, sweeping dust and scraping slimy cavern Vormulac's otherwise leaderless force, which had been a growths from walls and ceilings. But the last aerie was under small army in its own right. So the vampire Lords (and the siege and there were no thralls here now; Gorvi had other Ladies, for there was still Zindevar Cronesap, Ursula Tor- work for them. spawn and one or two others to contend with) had finally 'Perfect!' he said, and took the co-ordinates direct from succumbed to the virgin grandam's leadership. Jason's mind. And because he could feel the stirring of thralls Zindevar was with her now, and Devetaki had just this and monsters in the roots of the fallen aerie whose ruins gave moment finished explaining to that Lady her plan: a female him shelter, he lingered no longer but conjured a Mobius door conspiracy to remove all power from the Lords and rule as a into Wrathstack - matriarchy! The Ladies would have it their way for once .. . - Into the subterranean cave of Gorvi the Guile's wells. And and for always! Ursula Torspawn might perhaps rule in without pause, despite that he was blind here, he knew Turgosheim (which was after all a piddling place); Zindevar precisely where to spill Uruk Piatra's corpse into the dark could choose between eastern Sunside/Starside, from the trog water! After that, a moment to say his farewell, conjure caverns in the east to the great pass, or the as yet mainly another door, and return to Sunside ... where Trask and Chung unexplored territory west of the pass; Devetaki would be waited for him. happy to take the other half. 'You have no preference?' Things had swung round so Nathan had been right: Devetaki Skullguise now commanded rapidly that Zindevar was still suspicious. Vormulac Taintspore's army out of Turgosheim. In gloomy The land is vast.' Devetaki shrugged. 'But who knows, in a trog caverns at the eastern tip of the barrier mountains, Black hundred years' time we might argue over it? It will take that Boris was the only Lord who was not aware that Lord long at least to explore and tame it!' Unsleep slept at last, neither him nor a handful of watchers Zindevar saw the logic of that and laughed - and was out on the boulder plains; but the rest of them knew. That serious in a moment. 'Devetaki, you have a deal. But some of Vormulac had lived and died a true warrior, in a massive these men may prove hard nuts to crack. However, and since battle with a savage Szgany tribe west of the great pass. He'd it appears you've already cracked the hardest .. .' And gazing killed fifty before he himself was overwhelmed, staked and at the virgin grandam, Zindevar's eyes were hooded. beheaded (according to Devetaki's story), and even then the Devetaki ignored the remark, apparently - but putting on liveliness within him was not finished; there'd never been her frowning mask she looked out across Starside. 'I can smell such an eruption of evil as when Vormulac went up in flames! morning,' she said. 'Oh, sunup is way off as yet, but it's But as finally the Szgany savages were driven off, Vormu- coming. And there's work for you tomorrow.' lac's last message had passed from his mind into Devetaki's: 'Eh? For me?' his plea that she take command of his army and tame these 'For you and yours, aye,' Devetaki looked at her. 'There are terrible heathen regions. Thus he had given this men in the pass with strange weapons. They are a superior breed of Szgany, who were exploring Starside when we came 536 537 dark browns, greens, but mainly greys, to blend with the from the east. Knowing that we would pick them off in the volcanic colours of the mountains, their shadowy crags and open, they took refuge in an ancient keep in the pass. Vormulac slopes - and with their cheeks, foreheads, hands daubed in gave Wamus the task of clearing them out, but the bat-Lord the stain of plants and soot of fires, they appeared as failed and paid the price. He and his bloodsons with him.' desperate a trio as Lardis ever saw. Now Zindevar's suspicions ran rampant. 'Oh? And is it that Looking at the Necroscope's guerillas from some short I should pay the price, too?' 'Not a bit of it. I took one of these men prisoner, and so distance away, the Old Lidesci folded his hands over his know their plans. Come sunup they'll head south for Sun-side chest and thought: Aye, best look out, all you Lords and and safety. Ah, but the pass is as a dog-leg! This side is Ladies, for here comes hell! darkness and that side is light. You'll ambush them there, take All of Lardis's people knew about the Necroscope's weird them for your own, grow mighty with their weapons.' powers now, and most of them were there to see the heroes Zindevar was astonished. 'You do this for me? Why not off. They formed a silent ring about a central fire, but stood take the men, their weapons, the pass for yourself?' well back, allowing plenty of room, so that when Nathan 'This is the sign of our pact,' said Devetaki. 'I make it formed his Mobius door it would not suck them in. This was willingly, so that you can see I'm genuine. Now listen: there a fable spread by Lardis to allow the Necroscope his privacy. are only a handful of these men, but their weapons are Too many people were aware of him, wanted to talk to him, mighty. However, a crafty ambush should do the job, and touch him. The saviour of the Szgany, possibly; he was there are none so crafty as Zindevar of Cronespire. What's definitely becoming a legend among Lardis's people, no less more, when you take them you take the pass itself: from that than he was among the Thyre. time forward it shall be "Zindevar's Pass", and the keep shall Nathan stood with head down, eyes closed, in conversation be "Croneskeep"!' with Grinner. East of the pass, Dock's survivors kept watch 'You . .. would make me strong!' Zindevar's gasp said much on the Wamphyri. Grinner had joined them; in the last seven for her mixed emotions. hours he had crossed the pass, climbed into the heights, 'But exactly!' said Devetaki. 'How can we hope to hold a taken temporary command: a massive effort. The army out of world if we're weak? Where's the profit in a weak alliance?' the east had settled in now; sunup was less than twenty hours While in her secret mind: away; apart from a handful of marauders from various Whichever way it goes, you and yours will be reduced in contingents, who had gone down into the east of Sunside to the fighting. I shall see to that. Nor is your contingent the forage for flesh in the forests, the main body of vampire invaders was here. strongest by any means - What? A handful of hairy women Through Grinner, Nathan had passed on his requirements to lieutenants and a bunch of cringing eunuchs? I'll be waiting as Dock's vengeful grey brothers; noting his needs, they'd you come out of the pass, when you are at your weakest. chosen various vantage points; Grinner passed the Zindevar heard none of this; she saw only that Devetaki coordinates, which entered Nathan's metaphysical mind clear had removed her frowning mask, replacing it with the one as a picture, so that he knew he could home in on them with that smiled ... the directional instinct of ... why, of a wolf, of course! And: 'Ready!' he said at last. Having eaten and rested a while, Nathan, Trask and Chung As he formed his door, Trask and Chung moved closer, were ready and armed. Dressed in typical Szgany garb - 538 539 formed a triangle with him. Then the darkness, down the slope. I'll drop you off first, Ben, then David, and weightlessness and even temperature of the Continuum, and a take my own position at the end of the line. Spaced out fifty moment later the cold and starlit heights over Starside! yards apart, that will make a line one hundred yards long. Simultaneously, Trask and Chung drew breath in twin And everything beneath us will be swept down onto Starside's gasps, aimed their weapons. But the Necroscope at once foothills. Let Devetaki Skullguise pick the bones out of that!' cautioned them: 'No!' Trask, however, had already blocked The Necroscope's phrasing was perhaps unfortunate, Trask Chung's aim with his own body; he'd read the 'truth' of the thought; it seemed to him not at all unlikely that indeed the situation, that this was an ally. Lady would pick the bones out of that! Nor would she let the For there on a bluff high over Starside, it was only the 'evil' meat go to waste ... visage of Grinner who greeted them. And silently, whiningly, 'Afterwards,' Nathan continued, Til pick you up and we with his head cocked on one side and fangs showing, the move to location number two.' He explained what was 'wild' wolf passed on more details of the vampire required. encampments to his blood-uncle, Nathan Keogh. And without further ado, they made the jump - The party farthest to the east . .. camped under a slope of - And emerged at Grinner's precise co-ordinates. Above sliding shale . . . only a handful of pines, and an outcropping them, the gaunt grey crags, escarpments, peaks; solid ground, boulder or two, protect them from a mighty avalanche! If you all of it. But below them, exactly as Grinner had foretold: a and your strange new weapons were able to bring down steep surface of sliding shale, built up over many years, and Sanctuary Rock, you'll have no trouble causing havoc there! only held back from sweeping down on to Star-side by a Also, the Lord who killed Dock . . . that one is located behind narrow band of pines, a compacted scree barrier, and jagged a fall in the frozen lava river, where he will keep his men and outcrops which were the volcanic stuff of the mountains creatures from the dawn's sunlight. But we have discovered a themselves. blowhole into which you can pour your liquid fire from And beneath that - in a thicker band of trees and under the above. Marvellously intelligent, Grinner had read the nature protective cover of shallow ledges - the movements of men of Nathan's weapons right out of his mind! and beasts . .. the mewling of complaining warriors ... a flyer Nodding grimly, the Necroscope noted the co-ordinates of launching even now ... the starlit glint of armour! an ancient fumarole over a lava cliff; and in the caves below Nathan dropped off Trask, then Chung, made another (according to Grinner's information), a large body of men and jump and looked back - and signalled! monsters. Smiling however coldly, Nathan glanced at the As their pins were pulled, the grenades made a triple ch- compact flame-thrower slung over David Chung's shoulder ... ching, almost but not quite an innocent sound in the still of 'Anything else?' (He was aware of startled glances passing the Starside night. And, drawn by gravity, the deadly eggs between Trask and Chung, as he spoke to his 'nephew'.) were lobbed, and went bouncing downhill as the Necroscope Not for now. In and out, Uncle! Do not overstretch collected Chung, and paused at Trask's location to watch the yourself. These are vampires and react with speed! That was outcome — which was devastating! Dock's mistake, and we have lost enough of kin . .. Good The first two grenades went off almost together, right in advice - especially from a wily wolf! the mass of compacted scree, and a split-second later the Nathan explained the task to his colleagues, then said: third exploded just beyond the precarious barrier. Not only 'First, the avalanche. Grenades, I think. We simply roll them 540 541 the concussion of the triple blasts, but also their reverberating the other, right down the throat of the blowhole. And taking detonations rang out and echoed back to shake the up the flame-thrower - even as the first muffled detonation mountainside, and the entire surface of the slope immediately sounded - he sent liquid fire roaring straight down into the beneath the three men at once began to move! unseen caverns beneath. They scrambled hurriedly backwards, away from the sliding Nathan and Trask had stepped cautiously to the edge of the ground to the solid rock above, where they sat with jaws 'falls', a weathered cliff of lava, and waited there with their hanging open, very nearly appalled by what they had done. weapons at the ready. They felt the volcanic rock under their The mountain commenced rumbling! Fifty yards west and a feet shudder twice, and in another moment smoke and fumes hundred and fifty east, the mountainside was on the move! came pouring from the dripped candle-fat curtain of the falls The scree barrier caved in before a wave of cascading rocks, fifteen feet below. Screams sounded . . . a hideous bellowing ... dirt and shale, and the line of scraggy trees was uprooted and the pitiful mewling of flyers. But somewhere in there, deep without pause or mercy! The piled debris of the heights, in the suddenly chaotic darkness, Dock's murderers, who had undisturbed for decades by anything louder than the mournful eaten him, might survive still, and Nathan felt no pity. howling of a wolf or the pull of an eccentric moon, now found An eruption of smoke and sulphur stench from breaks in the itself stampeded by an uproar manufactured in another world! curtain, and a spew of monstrous life emerged! Human Avalanche! And it was all (or even better, or worse) that the (inhuman?) torches blazed as vampire thralls beat at Necroscope had hoped it would be. It wiped the side of the themselves to put out the flames, and spilled breakneck down mountain clean, right down to solid bedrock. The stand of the course of the solidified lava river. A small warrior came pines stood no more but was swept away; the vampire coughing into view; puffed up, confused, furious and perhaps encampment ceased to be, was caught up, rolled under, hurled even a little frightened, it fired its propulsors to get aloft. But down and buried. Men and beasts uttered startled cries, but its aerial gas-bladers were on fire; exploding one by one, they only a few found time to scream, mewl, or rumble. A second blew the creature to and fro in mid-air, until suddenly it lost flyer, riderless, lofted itself out of danger, but more from its balance, capsized, and went crashing down among the astonishment or instinct than fear, for there had scarcely been howling men. To add to the confusion, Nathan and Trask time for fear to register. tossed grenades into the mefee. In a way it had been merciful. 'More than they deserved,' Then, as Chung continued to pour fire down the blowhole, a Nathan told no one in particular. Then, because he had learned trio of bulky, scorched, shouting lieutenants came scrambling something about himself, he stiffened his resolve for the next into view. There could be no mistaking such as these for attack. This one would not be so merciful... common thralls. They were huge men; they wore leather armour studded with gold; war-gauntlets swung from their They emerged from the Mobius Continuum at dinner's precise belts, and their eyes were feral yellow, cored with red. While co-ordinates and went straight into action. David Chung loped they were not yet Wamphyri, the time would come when they to the grotesque molten-candle rim of a fuma-role some might be - if they survived. But Nathan didn't intend that they eighteen inches in diameter, unslung his flamethrower, primed should. the pilot light and laid the deadly cylinder aside, then pulled At the Necroscope's signal, Ben Trask opened up with his pins and dropped two grenades one after machine-pistol. His fire scythed among the disorientated vampires. Two were cut down . .. and were back on their 542 543 feet almost as quickly; with such as these, simple bullets a long time; his tokens brought him no girls. The Seer-Lord wouldn't get it done. But Nathan's vendetta, especially with had ample females, and Grigor wanted to trade young males. these vampires, was a personal thing, and his weapon was Maglore needed men for work he was carrying out in something special. Runemanse - the excavation of living- and work-areas -and As the three lieutenants limped to the side of the lava falls Grigor wanted the girls . . . for his own purposes. They didn't and came scrambling, one lurching, up a moonscape jumble call him 'Grigor the Lech' for nothing. of rocks towards their attackers, Nathan took careful aim and This was the selfsame Lord, Grigor the Lech: tall, thin, slate- fired his first bolt. It took his target through breastplate, grey, shifty- and slant-eyed, his black topknot shiny with sheathing muscle and ribs, and knocked him backwards on to grease - human fat, as Nathan well knew. A loathsome Lord of the man immediately behind him. A split-second later, the the Wamphyri. But more than that: this was the creature or the detonation of the explosive bolt killed both of them, while the master of creatures who had killed Dock for food! third was drenched in their blood and draped in red and black He was naked; he carried a young woman, obviously shreds of gristle. Before he could recover, Trask lobbed a Szgany; she was naked, too - and recently dead. Her suffering grenade. rang in the Necroscope's metaphysical mind! The dead-speak By the time the flash had burned itself out on their retinae, aether shuddered with it! She wasn't hurting now, but the and the detonation had stopped echoing off the mountains, torture she had known would burn in her memory for a long Nathan's guerillas saw only a grotesque disassembly: a time, perhaps forever. crumpled torso and a tangle of meat barely identifiable as the Hush now! Nathan told her. Let it go. For aJI of that's innards of a man, steaming on the rocks. behind you now. And you're not aJone, wait and see. Only Jet But some fifty yards away at the eastern end of the lava them in, and you'll have friends galore. I for one would falls, other men and monsters were now streaming like consider it an honour. Afraid for now, the girl couldn't answer. hornets from a broken hive, out of caverns unaffected by But she had heard and would remember. David Chung's firestorm. Even as Trask opened up again with The sheer power of Nathan's emotional sending was such, his gun, a small warrior fired its propulsors and throbbed however, that she wasn't the only one who heard. Grigor could aloft, and a lieutenant leaped to grab his flyer's trappings as not know what the psychic disturbance signified, but his the beast skittered skywards. It seemed a good time for the vampire probe tracked its source instantly. His grey-gleaming guerillas to make an exit. Except — head jerked up; his scarlet eyes swivelled like some weird Who? What? How -? A vampire Lord appeared from the chameleon's to light on Nathan and the others at the rim of the wreck and reek of the cavern immediately below their vantage lava falls. Then he glanced at the girl in his arms — a lifeless rag point, and probed the night with senses more than the usual thing, a mere distraction — and tossed her down. She went five. He must have been in a partitioned, private area that slipping and sliding down the stone river, gathering speed until hadn't suffered Chung's cleansing fire. And this was the one - she hurtled over a lesser rim and plunged from view. With a the man himself - that Nathan wanted. little luck, no creature would find and devour her. He knew him at once. Eighteen months ago in Runemanse, And: 'Eh?' Grigor grunted. 'What? Men?' As if they could in Turgosheim, Nathan had been present at a meeting of not possibly be the source of this disaster. Maglore and Lord Grigor Hakson of Gauntmanse. Grigor's Nathan had reloaded his crossbow. Now, without knowing luck in the draw for the get-out of Sunside had been bad for why - or without consciously thinking it, in a 545 544 moment of red rage — he cried, 'Aye, men! Szgany! Szgaaany!' Lidesci came running. 'How did it go?' Then he stepped back And feeling his passion, Ben Trask and David Chung joined a pace, for he'd smelled warrior! him: 'Szgany! Szgany!' 'It went well,' Nathan answered, steadying his colleagues Lieutenants and thralls had meanwhile climbed up onto the where they swayed and staggered. The Mobius route was far lip of the falls and came running, crouching; small dizzying, even to esper minds. And before Lardis could warriors were in flight, circling; a flyer and rider came question further: swooping, setting the night thrumming with vibrating air-trap 'Where are Zek, lan Goodly, Andrei Romani?' wings. Several of Lardis's men had followed him; he sent one of Nathan got off a shot at Grigor, but his hands were shaking them to find Andrei and the two latest arrivals in Sunside. with rage and the bolt flew wide by inches. Striking rock, it And while the Necroscope waited, he told Trask and Chung, was deflected into the air and there detonated with a blinding 'Get what rest you can. Don't worry about me — I'll be flash and loud report. It was enough for Grigor the Lech; he resting, too, as soon as I have a chance. But not until I've took cover at once. caused a deal more havoc!' Trask opened up on the oncoming vampires, scything their 'What do you want with Zek?' Trask was worried for her. legs from under them, and Chung torched the air above, 'She and Goodly left weapons at the Starside Gate, mainly driving the flyer off-course. But they'd done all they could grenades,' Nathan answered. 'We're running low and should here and knew it. As Grigor stuck his head out from behind an try to recover them while we can. Just the one jump, Ben, and outcrop, Nathan would make one last effort to get him. 'A then Zek is out of it; I won't use her again if I can avoid it. But grenade!' he cried huskily. 'Give me a grenade.' she and I are both telepaths. We can stay in contact with each 'I'm out,' said Trask and Chung, as one man. 'We've used other while simultaneously watching the boulder plains. them all.' And Trask added, 'Nathan, those warriors are Remember, I can't get too close to the Gate personally, not descending!' and use the Mobius Continuum. But in any event, I won't take The Necroscope groaned his frustration - and grew calm in Zek along if lan says it's going to be in any way dangerous. a moment. Then, aiming his telepathic thoughts direct into Okay?' Grigor's mind, he sent: We go now, but we'll be back. Tonight, Trask nodded. 'Look after her, that's all.' maybe. Tomorrow and tomorrow, certainly. AJways! Misha came and Nathan walked aside with her a little way. And despite that his mentalism surprised Grigor, still he Tomorrow morning, you're all mine,' she said. 'Hero or not - sent back: Bastard Szgany dogs! You are dead men! You and Necroscope or whatever-you'll lie with me out on the savanna, whoever you serve! in the clean sunlight and sweet long grass, and like it!' Oh? Nathan returned. No, you are wrong. VormuJac was 'I'll love it!' he told her huskily, hugging her close. 'But the the one to die. And if Devetaki has her way, the rest of you night isn't over yet, and -' Lords will be next! '- You still have work, I know. How is it going?' Warrior stench was falling all around; a monstrous shadow 'On the Starside slopes of the barrier mountains, we spilled came sputtering across the lava falls. Nathan conjured a door, a deal of Wamphyri blood!' guided Trask and Chung inside - 'And more to spill?' - And out again at the Sunside camp. His exit area was in a 'A lot of it.' roped-off clump of trees; a cry went up, and Lardis 'Where next?' 547 546 'After I've recovered a new cache of weapons ... the last let Lardis test just one; it caused a flash, made a loud noise, aerie.' felled a small tree. The Old Lidesci was satisfied. He and his 'Wrathstack?' Her jaw fell open. 'Nathan, that's -' senior men, the cavers and Nathan's party received four each of '- Dangerous? Living here is dangerous! But I've seen a these deadly eggs, which used up half of them. The rest of them free world, Misha - or almost free - and I want the same for were to be treated like gold - or on Sunside, like silver! us. While Wrathstack and the barrier mountains, Tur- The remaining ammunition - explosive bolts, and bullets of gosheim and Starside remain safe habitat for vampires, that various calibre - was shared out between the men with hell- free world simply can't be. We've been their sustenance for land weapons. David Chung had proved himself more than far too long and now it's our turn. So while I may, I'll strike at proficient with a flame-thrower and retained it; the other them - again and again!' 'torch' went to one of Carling's cavers. Nathan ordered the She kissed his mouth to a standstill, breathlessly said: remaining rocket-launcher wrapped up in an oiled skin, along 'Whatever you say - but tomorrow you're mine.' with its warheads. If the time should come, he would use it 'But not in the long grass.' himself. And so, finally, the weapons had been apportioned. 'Where, then?' Then Trask took Nathan aside and said, 'Why so keen to 'In a place you won't believe.' get these arms distributed?' That place?' She meant the Mobius Continuum, and Nathan looked at him. 'Was it that obvious?' looked wary, uncertain. To me it was. If anything happens to you, you want to be But he smiled and told her, 'No, but we'll use it to get there - sure these weapons will be put to the best possible use.' unless you like the idea of a long, long walk across the furnace Nathan nodded. 'I'm going into Wrathstack again,' he said. desert!' At which point, the timely arrival of Zek, Goodly, and 'Oh, I'll be in and out as quickly as possible - but accidents Andrei Romani saved him from further questions ... sometimes happen.' 'You are going in,' Trask repeated him, with the emphasis The recovery of the weapons at the Gate went without on you. 'On your own? Why that nightmarish place again?' incident. Out on the boulder plains to the north-east, there Nathan's shrug was perhaps fatalistic, but in no way were signs of some activity: strange shapes in the sky, and careless. 'I'm going in alone because I can't risk taking anyone what sounded like the echo of a distant explosion, but with me,' he said. 'I have to be able to get out fast. As for why I'm nothing in the immediate vicinity. Nathan stood off from the doing it: well, we've given the army out of the east something to Gate with Zek, and let the other men drag the buggy out on worry about, so now I want to even up the score a bit.' to the crater rim and collect the weapons. When they were 'But didn't you do that with Uruk Piatra? Lardis told us all through they toppled the buggy down on to the faintly about it.' phosphorescent plain, wheeled it into a small clump of rocks 'Yes, but Wratha and the others in the last aerie don't know and did their best to disguise it. Then they rejoined Zek and about Uruk, not yet. I want to do something that's a lot more Nathan, and he took all three back to camp. immediate, dramatic. Something they'll remember, to play on The Russian-made hand-grenades proved simple things to their nerves and throw them off-balance.' While he spoke, he use; they were armed by twisting small projecting fins until pocketed extra grenades. the internal mechanism began to tick like a clock; then, for 'You'll be careful, of course.' best effect, a count of three before hurling. Nathan Nathan nodded. The worst thing about it is I'll have to 549 548 use Zek again. I know I promised not to, but I need a lookout. She'll be on the boulder plains, in a safe place, just watching, or rather "listening", out for me.' II 'And if something goes wrong? She could be trapped Assault on Wrathstack -The there? Is that why you wanted me to get some sleep?' Dog-Lord's Dire Predictions 'You know it isn't. I hadn't thought it out, that's all.' And of course Trask knew it was the truth. 'Then I'm glad I didn't sleep,' he said. 'Because I'm coming with you.' Nathan couldn't deny him. They went and found Zek . . . Out on the boulder plain, the Necroscope found a suitable Nathan used deadspeak to contact Jason Lidesci. Jason, how is place to leave the two - the vacant ruins of a toppled stack the stack arranged? Not Guilesump, but the rest of the levels. on the very fringe of the miles-wide cluster of ancient Where are the gas-beasts situated? Wamphyri tumuli — and went on alone. Keeping well clear of Jason came back at once: In Madmanse. The Killglance Gorvi's ambush party, he emerged several hundred yards brothers have control of gas production. They have the levels away from Wrathstack's scree- and rubble-bedded base, and over Gorvi's. You'll recognize the gas-beast pens from their moved quickly into the shadow of a massive boulder. The round windows: not windows at aJJ but vents.' They surround numbers vortex swirled in his metaphysical mind, shielding Madmanse in an almost complete circle, like a ring that dips it and ready at a moment's notice to conjure an escape route. from south to north and follows the slant of the rock strata. But with less than seventeen hours to sunup, he should be This effect is most pronounced in Suckscar — named first after comparatively safe. Vasagi the Suck, then for the sloping 'scars' where soft rock In Wrathstack, and wherever Gorvi's ground-based has weathered out. The rock of the gas-beast level in creatures lurked now, the vampires would sense dawn's Madmanse has to be soft, too, for the vents are far too regular approach. From personal experience in Turgosheim, Nathan to be natural; they were tunnelled in ages past by the knew that the Lords and Ladies, and common vampires Wamphyri! alike, normally took to their beds in the hours before sunup. Nathan could see the ring of circular openings that banded Maglore himself had been a rare exception. But in the last Wrathstack like a bracelet. The pens were on the perimeter, aerie, the barrier mountains, Turgosheim, and wherever and so there must be access to them from within .. . and, as he vampires were to be found, they'd be sleepy now. Indeed the now saw, from without! For looking closer in the blue-tinged Necroscope knew they were; their thoughts were vague, starlight, he could make out ledges and bone and cartilage disjointed and fragmentary where he probed them with a scaffolding on the stack's exterior — for maintenance, of light telepathic touch. But ... perhaps not all of them? There course! It was all he needed to know. were rather more active minds, well-guarded, on the other Except: Vasagi the Suck? he sent, his deadspeak hoarse as a side of the stack. snarl. He dwells up there, near the top of the stack, where its In any case, satisfied, he contacted Zek. All's well? sides are worn into scars? Yes. Ah, no — no longer! Suckscar was Vasagi's place, but now it And it was time ... belongs to . . . another. 551 Vasagi was usurped? There was something here that Vertigo did not concern him; he knew that even if he fell, it Nathan couldn't understand. would be through a door into the Mobius Continuum. But Usurped, no — he was killed by Wran the Rage! And Suck- still he proceeded cautiously to the third circular shaft ... scar went to your brother, the necromancer Nestor Lichloathe! where the night air shimmered with expelled methane, and But .. . that can't be, Nathan said. Why, this very night, the reek of a gas-beast was all too evident! From within, soft Vasagi has murdered my mother, Nona Kiklu, in Sunside.' sighing sounds. I can only report what I've heard from the dead of Nathan fingered the grenades in his pockets and was Wrathstack, Jason answered. For I was already dead when tempted, but knew now that his original plan wouldn't work. Vasagi and Wran duelled on Sunside. Two flew out, but only He had wanted to emulate his father, Harry Keogh, and cause Wran returned. a devastating simultaneous or chain-reactive explosion that Nathan would like to explore the riddle further but must would bring down the stack in its entirety. But Wrathstack let it go for now. In any case, the dead of Wrathstack would wasn't right for it. Even if all the gas-beast chambers had be vampires; in death as in life they would be liars; perhaps been occupied, still the sheer girth of the stack would have they had lied to Jason, too. protected it. The outer caverns would be blown away, most Jason had heard his thoughts, of course. Quietly he said, I certainly, but ninety per cent of the stem would be left intact. know that you don't incJude me in that. For it had been more than any merely explosive force that No, of course I don't, Nathan told him. the original Necroscope had used; it had been the almost The other's deadspeak sigh. nuclear power of the furnace sun itself, which had instantly My thanks, Jason, Nathan sent - eaten into the rock of the many fallen aeries, like some — And jumped, to within two hundred yards of the base vengeful, cleansing acid! And so . . . it seemed a lesser plan of Wrathstack. Now the last aerie of the Wamphyri towered was now in order. Any action was better than none. over him like some monstrous menhir, a dizzy pile rising up Beyond the occupied gas-beast chamber, the cartilage and up, taller than the mightiest building of Trask's Earth catwalk spanned the mouth of a landing-bay camouflaged and broader at its base than three city blocks. But Nathan had with hanging nets of woven rope. Nathan felt sure that even precious little time to feel awed or even afraid. this close to sunup there were bound to be watchers just A moment for orientation . .. and he jumped, up onto a inside. He made a Mobius-jump across the gap, which set the high ledge in the face of Madmanse, close to the wide rim or catwalk swaying a little on the other side as it took his sill of one of the vents, which was all of seven feet in sudden weight. Balancing himself, without further pause he diameter. From within, nothing. No sound, nor even the went on to the next vent. This chamber was also occupied, noxious smell of a gas-beast. The chamber was empty. which decided Nathan upon his course of action: Disappointed (and aware that he was exposed on the Grenades into each of the two 'loaded' chambers, and two naked face of Wrathstack), the Necroscope crouched down more into the landing-bay itself. Anyone within the bay and hurried along the ledge, which was precarious in places would see him in the moment that he tossed his grenades ... where it narrowed or sloped towards the sighing gulf of air. and then they wouldn't see him. If there were survivors, let Forty paces took him to a second gas vent, likewise innocent of them worry about that! If there were none, so much the sounds or smells. Here the ledge tapered out, and he must better; still, the rest of Wrathstack's monstrous inhabitants clamber down onto a flexible walkway of cartilage. 553 552 bundles of hooks weighted with large stones. Flintstones, the would be inconvenienced, and more than a little concerned Necroscope was sure. And pictured on the screen of his mind, over what had happened here. The unfortunate but mainly the rest of it was clear: insensitive gas-beasts would surely be destroyed and their The beast would be towed to its target, then cut free to drift chambers reduced to rubble. With a bit of luck, the landing- lower. As it descended, the flyer would sweep overhead, raking bay itself would suffer damage and even destruction. the living bomb with razor-sharp hooks! The clatter and clash Nathan knew the co-ordinates of the first occupied chamber of metal and flints against metamorphic flesh; a tearing of and the landing-bay, and he had been here long enough. But bloated leather and simultaneous striking of sparks; the sudden first: hiss of pressured gases! Then, the deafening, searing blast and A quick probe in Zek's direction . . . Is all well? outrageous rush of heat and stench! Yes. And almost immediately, with a thrill of horror: No! The picture faded in Nathan's mind, but not before it had Look! reminded him of why he was here. The flyers, riders and their He read it in her mind, knew where to look - then saw it for grotesque cargoes were heading south; one a little to the west himself: of south, the other a little to the east. Their target destination: Coming out from behind Wrathstack - at his own level but Vormulac's (now Devetaki's) observation posts, of course. It some three-quarters of a kilometre away - a fantastic sight! A explained why so many methane chambers were empty. And gas-beast, swollen with its own gases, puffed up and soon two more would be empty, if they existed at all! grotesque. A living balloon in tow behind a pair of lieutenants He took a grenade, twisted the fins, listened to the ominous mounted on straining flyers, their necks outstretched with ticking start and without pause hurled the deadly egg right into effort! While in the Necroscope's mind Zek shouted: And the vent. Then, without waiting, a Mobius-jump ... back to the behind you! He looked the other way, to where a second beast first occupied vent. And the second grenade was on its way was now hauled into view from behind the eastern flank of the into the stack. Another jump . . . to a spot central on the stack. cartilage catwalk in front of the camouflaged landing-bay; two For an anxious moment, Nathan thought that the appearance more grenades armed and lobbed, one after the other, through of these creatures must have to do with his presence here, but the mesh of the hanging nets just inside the mouth of the bay. in the next moment he knew it wasn't so. It was just a There was movement in there, and Nathan opened his mind coincidence. And as his nerves settled down again, he shrank to let in the startled thoughts of those who guarded the way. back into a crevice in the aerie's wall and remembered those Astonishment! Shock! Outrage! BJoodJust! - Fear? Yes, mysterious explosions he'd heard out on the boulder plains. because, for all these thralls knew, Nathan might be only the Now he knew, or strongly suspected, what they had been. first of a huge invading task-force, which had somehow He had likened the floating gas-beasts to weird balloons; in managed to creep up on them unseen. But of course he couldn't fact they were bombs! And his mind went back to the stories stay here. Lardis used to tell: of the battle at The Dweller's garden when He backflipped from the catwalk into empty air, flattened the Wamphyri had used just such tactics against Harry and his body, conjured a door and hurtled through it . . . found his The Dweller. Now, peering from his hiding place, Nathan co-ordinates and stepped back into normal space, where could see the payloads at the end of long taut lines, where they hung from the flyers' saddles: 555 554 Zek and Trask were waiting. And: 'Watch!' he breathed. armed with a self-loading rifle and sniperscope, which he Which was about as much as he had time for. aimed into the sky at some twenty degrees. Without looking, Four bright flashes lit the south-facing wall of the last aerie, Nathan knew what Trask's target would be. Reaching up, he a third of the way up. From the explosions on the flanks came pulled the barrel of the gun out of alignment. stabbing gouts of fire, secondary flashes, hurtling chunks of 'No,' he said, glancing at the triangle of flyers and gas-beast rock and clouds of smoke and rubble. Centrally, twin bursts of maybe a mile away, and drawing closer by the moment. 'Let light and fire shook down an avalanche of loose debris from them go. It suits our purpose to let them reach their destination. above and both sides of the landing-bay; fragile walkways They're on their way to bomb Devetaki's observers, probably a went plummeting; fractured slabs of rock teetered outwards, suicide mission. I'm not against these monsters killing each falling in a deceptive, distance-wrought slow-motion into other, and anyway it saves ammunition!' space. Trask nodded, however reluctantly, and said, 'As you will. Then came the cracks! of the detonations, sharp as knives in So what's next?' the silence, echoing out over Starside to the barrier mountains 'I'm ... tired,' said Nathan, and Trask saw it in his face. It and back again. And the rubble blasted out or shaken free of was going to take a long time for the Necroscope's system to the stack was still falling, bringing down a tangle of flying catch up on all the energy he'd expended; one or two days, even buttresses from lower levels, more walkways, various ramps Sunside days, wouldn't do it. 'I want to get some sleep,' Nathan and man-made staging areas, all going down in a mighty went on. 'Normal undisturbed sleep, with my wife in my arms roiling of dust and a rumble like thunder onto the scree slopes and nothing to think about or worry over. I need — oh, I don't at the foot of the stack. know - eight hours at least. After that, sunup will be so close It went on for a long time . .. that we can guarantee the vampires will be at their lowest ebb. When it was over, the landing-bay was a gaping hole twice That's when we'll hit them again.' what it had been; the ruptured vents on both sides were black, And with that they returned to the camp of the Lidescis ... and issued twin columns of smoke; one-sixth part of the south- facing wall had been wiped clean of all artificiality. Natural Apart from the night watch, the camp at the edge of the rock remained, showing a uniform grey among a variety of savanna slept. But in the last aerie - despite that a perhaps dull ochres, greens, blacks and yellows. It served to show how imagined stain of light was already washing the southern the outer sheath of that great fang had been changed and horizon, lying like a luminous mist between the peaks - festooned by its vampire tenants over the long centuries of Wratha and the vampire Lords were still awake. Time their habitation. Likewise its interior: carved, hollowed and enough for sleeping when the peaks themselves turned from whittled out like an old branch full of earwigs. A rotten old wolf-grey to gold, but for now there was much to occupy branch, yes. And Nathan found himself thinking yet again: If them . . . or to occupy their evil minds at least. old Dimi Petrescu's powder - common gunpowder, in copious Wratha was on the roof of Wrathspire. Attended by a amounts — could sink Sanctuary Rock, and if I knew exactly small, personal warrior - a bodyguard which kept itself where to locate it in Wrathstack for maximum effect.. . mainly to the shadows — she paced to and fro, wandering But his thoughts were suddenly interrupted as Trask said, aimlessly in and out of the battlements, towers and turrets, 'Maybe we can capitalize on the situation.' He was pausing now and then to gaze south and wonder what the 556 557 army out of Turgosheim was up to now, and what its next metamorphic flesh couldn't deal with. Let her will the ... the move would be. But quite apart from the constant nagging marks away, and they would be back in a matter of hours. Let worry of the bloodwar - the fact that Wrathstack was under her scrub the silvery scales from her forearms and calves until siege, and not only that but actually coming under a form of her flesh was red under the clean pink of a young girl, and attack, if the inexplicable explosions in Madmanse were they would return just as soon as Wratha's leech repaired her anything to go by - there were other, more personal matters to skin. Yes, she could scrub till her flesh was numb .. . except it concern her. For her vampire instinct told her that all was not was growing hard to tell when it wasn't numb, in those certain well with Wratha herself. Except .. . she knew that it was more areas. Under her left breast, the fingers of her right hand, her than mere instinct. right thigh where it curved into a once-smooth buttock . .. Beside a semicircular stone structure on the south-facing And all of this dating from a time, the start of it all, just rim of the sloping plateau, where an ironwood gantry and hoist four sunups ago. But her forearms . .. the Lady Wratha had stood to one side, its dangling chains clanking in a breeze off prided herself on her young girl's arms! And now she wore the Icelands, she paused at a door to peer inside. In there, a pale cream gloves to her elbows: thin leather trogskin, peeled grim reminder of the history of this place: from living arms, softened and bleached in urine, and scented A massive cage of deadly silver, all tarnished and dark- with oil of roses. It was infuriating, and it was worrying. So stained. Its bars were an inch thick, welded, reinforced with that on occasion Wratha had wondered if . . . but that was iron; the effort of some Szgany metalworker long gone into air impossible. She'd had no contact with ... there had been no or earth . . . or the belly of a beast, or the vats of its Wamphyri sign of infection in . . . in all Wrathstack. master. How many enemies or victims, Wratha wondered, had Nestor. some ages-forgotten Lord locked in that cage, hoisted on high, She put the thought aside like so many others. A niggling and swung out over the rim of the stack to await the dawn? It doubt, that was all. If only he wouldn't wrap himself up so. It had been Vormulac Taintspore's wont in the past to do much was his art, she knew. Nestor talked to the dead, and imitated the same thing. And in the future? their cerements . .. But she must not dwell on such things, and so put it aside But the original thought would not stay put aside: . . . for now. What had been had been, and no man -or woman - He, too, hid his flesh. knew the future. The present had surprises enough! And But she had seen his body . . . his beautiful body. She had terrors, too. Terror, in the black heart of a vampire. It seemed even loved it, frequently. She had rubbed his liquids into her strange to Wratha, wrong somehow, that she should feel skin, sipped them from his jerking shaft. But 'love' had died, afraid. But not of men, not of the army out of Turgosheim, not as all things (except vampire things) must; finally she'd of anything outside her own body. Afraid of something within stopped seeing him, shortly after his brief 'sojourn' in Sunside . it. . . .. Wratha bathed frequently. And recently, ever-increas-ingly. No, he had stopped seeing her! But why had he stopped It wasn't that she was unclean, (how could she be when she seeing her, when his Just had been such a fire in him? was so scrupulous?) but that she felt unclean. And all because He had sensed her dwindling desire for him, that was it. of a blemish or two . . . or three. Persistent blemishes that her Except it had not dwindled, until recently. vampire leech couldn't shift, that her The bloodwar had intervened. 558 559 That, too, was a recent thing. master in an open-roofed annexe to one side of the landing- It was the nature of vampires, to love and leave! bay, where the Guile stood well back and watched others of And was it also the dog-Lord's 'nature', to build a wall of his men burning corpses. The stinking black smoke went up, stone between himself and his once-great 'friend'? Never a roiling under a domed ceiling, until it was sucked out around word of explanation out of Canker, who now went about his a tangle of wreckage into the night. business with such a hangdog expression. And in Suck-scar, 'Huh!' said the gaunt-visaged Gorvi as he turned and saw all of Nestor's thralls creeping like ghouls, the general air of his visitors. 'This is where I boil up lead, water, piss and fats infirmity about the place, the sense of descending doom... with which to repel invaders.' He waved a skeletal hand at a 'My Lady!' Wratha gave a massive start, and spun, cursing, row of fire-blackened cauldrons lining a wall, then indicated on her heel. It was a thrall come up out of Wrathspire to find the roof. 'Once there was a crack in the ceiling, a natural her. His eyes were full of some strange terror, but not of his chimney ... now a gash, and dangerous! Why, all that scrap mistress. scaffolding up there could fall in at any time!' The poisonous And he brought a message from Gorvi the Guile. glance he cast at the Killglance brothers said it all: that in his Following which, Wratha's eyes were filled with the same opinion, they should bear the blame for what had happened dark dread .. . to the methane chambers. It was the Guile's way of distracting from his own possible negligence. The Lords and Lady flew down into Guilesump. All were 'Not only an oily bastard but a cheeky one!' Wran snapped. there except Nestor who (according to his man Zahar) had And Spiro glared through eyes which were now thoroughly retired to bed early, leaving instructions that he was not to be dissimilar. Canker seemed subdued, however, and Wratha disturbed. The Lady Siggi was likewise missing, but her even more so, when she said: Those burning bodies. Your absence was excusable. Siggi had not as yet ascended in the message said there was a dead leper in the wells: one dead fullest sense of the word; as the dog-Lord's mistress, her role leper. But I see three corpses.' was in any case secondary; her conversation was limited and Gorvi shrugged. 'Just the one leper, aye .. . but it took a not entirely . .. well, sensible. Also, she was grown very pair of clean thralls to carry him up here. Or should I say beautiful - no, extremely beautiful - so that Wratha didn't want once-clean? What? Should I let them infect the entire stack?' her there anyway. 'Idiot!' Wran shouted. 'What difference does it make how Wratha, the dog-Lord, Wran the Rage and Spiro Killglance many thralls you burn now? The stack's water is infected, were met by one of Gorvi's lieutenants just inside a landing- and that means the whole damned aerie! Wrathstack in its bay in Guilesump's central level, a hundred and fifty feet over entirety is infected!' the sloping scree jumbles. Debris from the Madmanse To hell with Wrathstack! Wratha thought numbly, but kept explosions was still being cleared from the entrance; flanking the thought well-guarded. Wratha herself is infected! Nestor, platforms and stanchions were no longer in evidence; other too. Indeed, Nestor was the first. Yet ... how can it be? And external fixtures sagged and looked ready to tumble into space out loud, frowningly; at any moment. 'Gorvi, how frequently do you inspect the wells?' As yellow-eyed thralls manoeuvred their flyers aside and 'A prowler-guard looks in on the wells every two to three tethered them, Gorvi's man took the four callers to his hours,' he answered breathlessly. 'Normally, I'd have a man 561 560 or men down there all the time, to keep the place immaculate. — and then bring it to your attention? And did Wran and Spiro But .. . these are not normal times! And I must man the bomb their own gas-beasts, too? But isn't it obvious: we are all gantlets.' the victims of some weird warfare!' Slowly but surely, Wratha was growing angry. Now that And this time the truth was obvious. Wran saw it at once, the shock — the fact of her condition was known to her and however reluctantly said, 'He's right. The pens and beyond any further doubt — she could begin to react to it. chambers might possibly have been an accident - only jus t This Gorvi . .. ah, what a great liar! Every two to three possibly - but the landing-bay? There was no gas in the hours? But Lord Lichloathe had been suffering for — oh, a landing-bay!' good three-month since first he began to wrap himself in But Wratha snarled, 'A moment ago, Gorvi would have rags! Three months! The stack must be steeped in plague! given you the blame in order to lessen his own neglect!' Wratha's reaction, typical of her leech, was beginning to And Canker shook his head and growled, 'We are at war make itself plain in her face, form and voice as she hissed: — indeed, besieged - yet here you stand bickering among 'How is it then that I seem to recall, and not so very long ago, yourselves! Hah, and you dare to call me mad! Well, make up advising you to watch your wells most diligently? Did I not your minds and decide what, if anything, is to be done, and say that, given half a chance, our enemies would poison the then let me know! Meanwhile, I'm through wasting my time wells with kneblasch? Well, and it appears I was wrong - for here. My instrument of bones is finished, perfected at last, and they have poisoned them with the body of a dead leper!' Her I want to try it out before sunup.' He shook his head again, voice had risen to a shrill of impotent fury. Or perhaps not worriedly, slapped ineffectively at his ear, whined his impotent, for Gorvi was here within arm's reach. frustration (his pain?) and headed for the exit. The Guile would answer, but couldn't seem to find the Spiro Killglance followed him, snarling, 'Extra vigilance! right words. They were all against him: Spiro with his deadly Who or whatever's to blame for these affairs, we must catch killing eye, the rabid Canker, Wran with his rage mounting him out and punish him! Give him to me, to blast with my eye!' in him even now, and Wratha, whose own furies made strong 'Vigilance with regard to this ... this pestilence, too!' Wratha men whimper! was quick to call after them. 'Look for the signs, and if you so 'Gorvi the Guileless!' that Lady stormed, grown very tall much as suspect leprosy .. .' But deep inside she shuddered. and thin (the young girl quite disappeared now), with her Wran pointed his finger straight at Gorvi's nose and said, skin wrinkled and crimson eyes bulging hideously. 'And are 'Gorvi, this isn't finished. You have been saved by you also gutless? I seem to remember the necromacer Nestor circumstances alone: the fact that Madmanse has likewise Lichloathe calling you that upon a time. Are you so weak suffered a weird and inexplicable attack. But how can there you can't admit the truth, even when it is known to everyone be any excuse for a leprous body in the wells? So be advised: around you? Gorvi, you ... have . .. neglected .. . your . . . that when this bloodwar is over, however it goes, my war and wells! In these most difficult of times, you may well have yours begins. You and I shall see it out together - on Sunside!' poisoned us all!' Wran left, and Gorvi stood alone with a furious Wratha. 'Including myself?' he panted, backed up against the wall To her, he said, 'Lady, I am not at fault!' as they turned on him in a body. 'Is it likely? Think what you are saying, Wratha! Think, all of you! Would I knowingly — or even negligently — allow the wells to be poisoned 562 563 And in all honesty, despite her rage, she couldn't see how of a tune in it, though far more a dirge than the original he could be. Calming herself a little, and shrinking back to a Szgany love song. And Nestor thought: I gave him this tune. girl, she said, 'Is it possible that this body has been there a Why is it the Wamphyri murder everything? There was long time? Might it have got stuck under a ledge, out of sight, nothing of humour in his inwards-directed question. only recently floating into view?' In a little while Canker saw him, and sent: Well, and do I 'Wratha.' He flapped his hands. 'I have swimmers! They are make progress? His thoughts had been morose; they fit and well even now! That corpse was put there, deliberately brightened a very little at sight of Nestor. and recently, within the last three hours.' For as long as the necromancer could remember, the dog- And: Nestor! she thought again. But how could he fit into Lord had been his one friend, the only creature he could truly this? And anyway, she wasn't even sure that he was . . . a trust. Indeed, Canker had been far more friend to him than he leper. But she knew who would be sure. Except, how could to Canker. For on occasion, Nestor had considered a time she inquire of the dog-Lord without explaining her when Canker would play the part of a mere lieutenant - to suspicions? If Canker Canison had wanted to say something, himself. But that was all in the past now. There would be no he'd have said it by now. But no, he'd left this place in short such time; no future at all, not for Nestor Lichloathe. Anyway, order, eager to be out of it. He was loyal as a pup, that one — to he would not hurt the dog-Lord now, not by word or deed. Nestor. Your music is excellent, he answered. With a talent such as So . . . why not ask Nestor himself, direct? And if he said yours, no wonder you've called maidens down from the moon/ yes, then kill the bastard! Except... Gorvi broke into her thoughts. 'Wran intends to kill me!' Aye? 'He rages,' she answered, 'as is his wont. We all rage, as if I didn't come to listen to your music. If so, I could do it someone had planned it. So maybe you're right, Gorvi, and an from a window in Suckscar. alien force is at work. Anyway, let's leave it at that for now. Canker nodded, continued to work his baffles, create his It's all we can do. But from now on, no more errors!' awesome noise. I know why you came: because you could not 'I swear I'm not to blame!' he called after her, as she in turn come down into Guilesump. I/ they'd seen you there ... it left... might all connect. As you have connected it? A little later, Canker played moon music. Nestor (who was Guilesump, no. But the rest? It wasn't hard. I pity you, my not in his bed and had not intended to be) heard him, took a friend. And I have wept: that we can no more run on Sunside flyer and went down to the north-facing wall of Mange- together, like foxes among the chickens.' Well — (He shrugged, manse, where it was pitted into great bays and windows, like and for a moment his music was sourer still) - it was all the bones of some ancient skull or toothless jaw. Since it was coming to an end, anyway. not his intention to land, he caused his mount to form air-trap Oh? wings and, hovering on a wind rising in the north, he gazed Again Canker's nod. I scry the future in dreams, Nestor, as on Canker across a gulf of air, where the dog-Lord worked his well you know. And for us . . . there is no future. baffles to make the bones of monsters sound and fill the aerie For us? You and I? with his 'music'. The Wamphyri! Canker barked. It's finished, all of it. As always, it was a cacophony; there might be something 564 565 How soon? What? Canker came to the rim of the bay and leaned out. In Soon. Madmanse, Nestor told him. The gas-beasts and methane Myself? chambers. That was him. Nothing specific. Don't ask, for you can't change it. Anyway, And in Guilesump? (The dog-Lord had considered the I'm not always right. possibility that that might have been an effect of Nestor; but You'll tell me nothing more? if the necromancer said it wasn't, then it wasn't.) About the future, no. His music soared and the aerie Of course he was in Guilesump! I burned the leper colony shuddered. The very air seemed to vibrate; dust came on Sunside; what happened in Guilesump was his reply! I trembling from the high ledges. cannot be mistaken . . . I have felt his numbers . . . he . . . he Then tell me about this bane, which burns like a cold fire in comes and goes! Everything that has happened to me - all me, devouring me as a fire devours the forest! Why have they that is wrong in my life - I can trace it back to him. And called it the 'hundred year death', when its spread is so swift Canker, he knows everything! About me! More, far more, and wicked? than I do! I have to kill him, my blood brother, and question Canker kept on playing, but between the notes Nestor could him with my necromancy, so that I too may know ... hear his sobbing. In some it's a slow thing, the dog-Lord said, everything! but in others - lightning fast! It's as if it were waiting to be And again Canker thought: They call me mad! But loving triggered, like a bolt in a Szgany crossbow. And in you, the Nestor Lichloathe (and .. . missing him, already?), he did his bolt is shot. best to keep the thought to himself. So what will you do? Find There's nothing I can do? him, and kill him, as I've said. In Sunside? How may I advise you? Finally, Canker stopped playing. His Nestor nodded. He has a day to live — or I have. Your own great wolf's eyes were wild, wet, red; his muzzle quivered with brother? Your blood brother? He was my brother. Now, I'm some strange emotion. What words can I say? When my father Wamphyri. And he is my Great Enemy. knew the end was close, he shagged his bitches one by one, For a moment, a great wave of sadness washed out from saddled a flyer and made for the sun. Myself: I shall head for the dog-Lord on the rim of the landing-bay. Then a second the moon, to do battle with its puny priests for the love of its wash . . . of pain! His ear! His aching head! The thing that ate maidens! But you ... you're you, Nestor, and I may not advise into his brain! It, too, came and went.. . you! Maybe you'll be killed anyway, in the bloodwar. And as Canker slapped at the side of his head, Nestor said: But out on the gulf of air, Nestor shook his head. If I'm to We're a mess, you and I! die, it'll be my way. Aye, Canker agreed. But you are right: it's as well to end Oh? things as they have been, to die as we have lived. All my life I All of this stems from one act, one deed, one betrayal. have worshipped my silver mistress moon. Now I'll go to her, That old itch on Sunside? and join the great ranks of wild wolves and dogs and foxes The same. gone before me. You have loathed for long and long, which Your Great Enemy? is a disease in itself! Well, at least that's something you can My brother, aye. He comes and goes. He was ... even here! cure! I wish you good hunting. 566 567 r Nestor said no more, for there was nothing more to say. He So maybe Wratha wouldn't kill Lord Lichloathe after all. If reined back, sought a rising thermal, and went up and up, into this Great Enemy of his was real, perhaps Nestor should be Suckscar. And in a little while, from below, the sounds of the allowed to deal with him in his own fashion — and at the same dog-Lord's moon music sounded again . .. time perform a great service for Wrathstack. Anyway, there was enough dissension in the aerie as it was; and what would Wratha had eavesdropped on all they'd said. Wratha's excuse be if she did kill Nestor? And what if his Initially their thoughts had been 'loud' to compensate for condition should be seen before she could dispose of his Canker's music, but they'd both appreciated the danger in that. corpse? It was general knowledge that they'd been lovers. After a while, however, they hadn't much cared. A sad She remembered a legend of old Turgosheim, the story of conversation between genuine friends. Apart from Devetaki Lord Kalk Ingrison. Kalk had been shunned as a leper for more (and that a long time ago), Wratha had never had a friend. In a than one hundred and forty years, and for that same period of way she was jealous of the situation, while in another she was time had used his amazing metamorphism to hold the disease at afraid of it. It might even seem to defy logic — except her bay! For Kalk, the blood really was the life: he had required it Wamphyri 'logic' had already defined it: as the loyalty that a by the gallon, to fuel his metamorphism! But following the dog gives to his man. But Canker was only part-dog and all introduction of an early form of the tithe system, his plasma Wamphyri, wherefore his own safety had been paramount; intake had been so reduced that it was the end of him. In the finally he had wavered and built his wall. space of a single night he'd withered to a husk and crumbled Now that she knew the whole truth, Wratha was surprised into pieces - and his very leech had been discovered riddled to discover so little of anger in herself; not towards Nestor, with leprosy! anyway. And wryly she queried the logic of that, too. What Ah, but he had survived for a hundred and forty years! And was it, then: the boundless 'love' that exists between a bitch if Kalk Ingrison could do it, so could Wratha. Except, first she and her man? Scarcely! But even lacking the human ability to must survive a bloodwar. Well, only time would tell about that. understand it, at least she could appreciate the facts in the As for Nestor: if he survived his rendezvous with this nameless case: that as soon as Nestor was sure of his condition, he'd enemy, his so-called 'blood brother'... stopped seeing her. And he had been careful to keep himself .. . But that, too, must be left to fate and time. apart from all of the others, too. Unlike some Wratha could As for now: Wratha could hear the sighing of the sun even name (if they had been in his shoes), the necromancer had not through a thousand miles of planet's rock, and she was certain deliberately tried to spread his curse abroad. that the southern sky was lightening by the minute. If she was As for this Great Enemy of his - well, and perhaps even in to be strong enough to repel the invaders out of the east, she this he was right! 'Weird warfare', Gorvi had called it. A must have rest; likewise her leech, in order to find strength to 'special talent', according to Nestor: of a man who could move defend her from the thing in her blood. instantly from one place to another, even miles apart, without She took to her bed, where she tossed and turned for long covering the distance between! How else might one explain and long, aware of all the evil of forgotten millenia. It was in the damage to a Madmanse landing-bay, or a leprous cadaver in the very rock: a cement of horror that held the last aerie erect Gorvi's wells? (Or a man thrust from the rim of a mighty against gravity, time, and all the immemorial hatred of boulder to his death, whom Nestor claimed was still alive?) 569 568 Sunside's Szgany. But for how much longer? The dog-Lord's which the oddly deficient yet malevolent and vindictive mind predictions seemed ominous. An end to all this? Well, behind the crimson eyes had at once made itself known — forewarned is forearmed. - As that of Siggi Dam! But how may one forearm oneself against the Very End? And everything had come flooding back, to fill the dull Or was the knowledge simply there to be used as a last unfeeling void with unbearable truth: the truth of his situation. resort (a last chance for glory, perhaps?) by someone wise But only the incomplete truth, as he understood it: enough to accept its inevitability? Once again, only time That he'd been poisoned by the paralysing bite of great would tell. . . spiders, and was now in a weird half-comatose condition, cocooned and stored by those same creatures against an Uppermost in Turkur Tzonov's mazed mind was a memory so uncertain future, a time of need when he would become ... monstrous it could only be a nightmare; a bad dream which their food? might yet be in progress. He remembered ... And at that precise moment, as suddenly Tzonov knew that . . . A place of dusty gloom and creeping, jewel-eyed evil. this was not a nightmare but a reality, the here and now: Ah, Held down by men with the strength of giants, and watched no! Siggi told him, smiling like a shark to display her white over by a woman with eyes red as a desert sunset, he'd needle teeth and scarlet gums. Not their food, Turkur - but suffered the bites - a great many bites - of creatures he could nourishment for their young! no longer bear to think about! And all of this in addition to the Their ... their young? The thought floated out from his agony, indeed the delirium of pain, from his torn body. frozen brain encased in ice. Since when, this dreary, bleary malaise — this sinister state And in return she sent him an even colder picture, which of being, of body and mind — from which, try as he might, he showed him exactly how it was, and how it would be . . . could not raise himself up. He floated, light as a feather, yet Then, as his mental screaming commenced, and went on and heavy as lead, in a material void whose only substance was on, climbing ever higher along the scales of madness, the Lady the disjointed, fuzzy imagery of his own mind. Or rather, such Siggi snuffed the candle and floated away into darkness, had been its substance, until recently someone else's mind had leaving him with this one last thought: impinged. You are their incubator, Turkur! Even though you cannot In itself this wasn't strange. Tzonov was a telepath; he had feel them, they are in you even now. So save your screams for experienced the thoughts of others; they were usually later when you really will feel them, and all too keenly! accompanied by fear - great fear - of himself! Yet now, he Following which he was alone with the dark and the was the one who was afraid. numbness and the madness, and Siggi's laughter slowly fading. He had thought it was the darkness, for the unknown dark But not really alone, for an alien multitude was right there with is a fearsome place. But the owner of the curiously naive yet him . .. intrusive mind had lit a candle - following which she'd been a stranger no longer! For then, looking into eyes that bored into his own like crimson drills (this despite that he seemed to meet their gaze through a misted window), Tzonov's telepathy, if very little else, had sprung alive! At 570 it; now perhaps you'd care to explain our ingloriously diminishing rank and file, and the apparent lack of leadership!' Ill Up on the rim of the cone, Devetaki and the other Ladies formed a matriarchal trio whose elevation in rank seemed Devetaki Quells the Lords - emphasized by the terrain; they stood high above lesser Nathan: Further Visitations personages. Devetaki had been wearing her frowning mask, a bad enough sign in itself. But now, before answering the Lech's rabble-rousing queries, she removed her mask and scanned the assembly with a coldly horrific visage. This unmasking of her flensed face was a sure sign of her vast displeasure, so that In the camps of Devetaki's generals on the north-facing she was not required to raise her voice as she answered: slopes of the barrier mountains, there was trouble ... 'So, Grigor. We have a bloodwar, and the first time you're certainly there would be trouble if Zindevar Cronesap, blooded you squeal! Well, I suppose it was only to be Ursula Torspawn and the virgin grandam herself were not expected. When a man gives up so much of his time and there to face it down. For the mood among the lesser Lords energy to wenching, he cannot have a great deal left to devote was one of insurgency, and Devetaki scarcely required her to fighting. Indeed, I have it on good authority that at the time superior mentalism to sense it. Which was why she now of the attack you were astride some Traveller whore stolen out addressed a meeting of all her generals, within the natural of Sunside. Is it not so?' amphitheatre formed by an extinct volcanic cone close to her Grigor looked astonished. He opened and closed his mouth, own headquarters. then drew himself up to his full height. 'We were told to make The principal troublemaker was Lord Grigor Hakson, called camp for the coming day.' (His voice was strident now.) the Lech, who, in answer to Devetaki's ostensibly innocent air 'Naturally, I took this to mean that the activities of the night of surprised inquiry in the face of this undeserved hostility, were finished! Now tell me: since when is it unlawful to use a was first to voice his concern. But there was little or nothing of woman out of Sunside? And anyway, what has that to do with lechery in Grigor now — only a righteous fury. our army's failure to make inroads on Wratha the Risen in her 'We had an army!' His voice rang out from the central aerie or the weird, dangerous inhabitants of the lands south of area of the cone, where he stood ringed about by restless, these mountains?' scowling contemporaries. 'We flew out of Turgosheim under Devetaki sighed before repeating him: 'So, you took it to the banners of a mighty army! Where is it now? And where mean ...' And here she paused. 'But did you not also take it to are our successes, by way of trade for these considerable mean that you should post a watch? Also, just how many of losses? If Vormulac Unsleep were here, he would answer these weird and dangerous Szgany attackers set upon you in for these several failures. But Vormulac is not here, nor is your camp? A hundred, fifty . . . a dozen? Just what sort of a he anywhere! No, he is simply another casualty of his own mighty horde was it that caused such devastation in the camp poor planning and utterly ineffectual command. You, of Grigor the Lech?' Devetaki, were his right-hand man, or woman - indeed, his Grigor fumed. They had the advantage of surprise and adviser. And you, madame, chose to take upon your superior weaponry! And they had taken up an inaccessible shoulders the glory and responsibility of leadership. Well, so strategic position from which to launch their attack.' be 573 572 learning a simple lesson? And Grigor, do not pretend that you 'Inaccessible?' She contrived to look puzzled. 'But what of would question Vormulac in this fashion. Why, the mere your flyers, warriors, lieutenants, thralls? Are you saying that suggestion would find you fed, balls first, to his favourite you could not bring a single one of your men or creatures to warrior - as well you know! Ah, but it's easy to be brave after bear against these vile, murderous attackers? Or is it that you the fact! And Grigor, try not to splutter so; it only serves to were simply unprepared? Or perhaps your men and beasts illustrate your dismal inefficiency. For if you can't even were all . . . well, should we say otherwise engaged, as you defend yourself verbally, quite obviously you would be easy yourself, Grigor?' And for a second time: 'Inaccessible? What, prey to far more physical attacks — as you have been/' like Wratha in her soaring aerie, do you mean? But out in the 'Physical attacks?' he blurted, the words slurring from his open, on the lava slopes? Again I ask, just how many of these mouth in an almost drunken fashion. 'Lady, I've had more dangerous, incredibly vicious Travellers were there? Er, three than enough of a tongue-lashing from you! And if it's a is the number which I have heard bruited - but of course I physical attack you'd like to see . . . " He came striding, know that this must be a joke! What, three common men out thrusting through the ranks of Lords and senior lieutenants, to of Sunside, Szgany, against the might of Grigor Hakson?' a place directly below Devetaki and the other two Ladies. But Grigor sputtered, but giving him no time to recover, Deve- when it seemed he was about to climb up - taki went on, 'As for their "inaccessible position", I take it you 'Hold!' said Devetaki. While in her mind she called out: mean that this overwhelming force of three wild and heavily Come, my darlings.' And her darlings came. weaponed supermen had discovered the weakness of your Devetaki's camp was in the immediate vicinity; when she defensive positions — that is, assuming that you had planned had heard the first rumbles of trouble, she'd been wise enough to man such positions; also assuming that you'd checked to to call her generals here, and not go to them. While they were see if such positions existed in the first place and, if so, that a fine body of Lords, still they were mainly on their own, they couldn't possibly become available to an enemy - and supported by only a small handful of lieutenants. But the that somehow, despite all of your most sensible precautions, virgin grandam was not on her own. the barbarians were nevertheless able to use them to their own There came warning grunts and a nervous throb of propul- advantage!' sors, a clatter of chitin scales and a thudding on the shallow Grigor was now genuinely furious. His face had turned a outer walls of the fretted cone. Behind Devetaki, Zindevar and purplish grey, his chest heaved, his eyes were wide and wild, Ursula, and to left and right of them, ugly snouts were pushed and he had difficulty speaking. 'I had camped my men and up into view. A pair of small warriors reared, to look down on creatures beneath the frozen lava flow to provide protection the gathering with suspicious, swivelling eyes. Flanking them, from tomorrow's sunlight! But . . . do you speak of defensive a large body of minders, lieutenants and thralls came positions? Now tell me, Lady: since when have the Wamphyri scrambling, ringing the cone about. There were men of required to so much as consider defensive positions?' Vormulac's contingent among them, seconded now to 'Since now!' Devetaki remained calm, but her voice had Devetaki; also, there were her own lieutenants, several of hardened. 'Since my Lord Vormulac is no more, murdered by Wamus's and Ursula Torspawn's men, even a handful of the very Szgany who attacked you ... or if not by them, by Zindevar's ferocious women. others of the same blood! What? Are we incapable of And Devetaki knew that if she wanted to she could do 575 574 lers. Aye, it all added up - to a very satisfying situation, in away with a majority of these Lords right here, right now, and Devetaki's eyes. Well, with certain reservations. A shame she never be concerned with them again. And she would have . .. had a bloodwar on her hands, that was all. Else now she might except she needed them to fight the bloodwar. achieve her life's ambition, all in one fell swoop. She looked down on them: And in those dangerous moments while Devetaki gazed Lord Eran Painscar, with the ribs and flesh of his left side down on the restless Lords, there was a sombre silence broken laid open, displaying his pulsing organs encased in bags of only by the hot snort of one of her warriors .. . metamorphic skin. Lord Eran had kept this hideous wound or .. . Until, putting on her scowling mask, finally the virgin trophy to remind him of the even greater pain of his enemy - grandam ordered her creatures down from the wall. But stay whom he had killed by cutting out his spine entire. close to hand, she sent, for I may yet need you! Unlikely now, Hesta the Hermaphrodite, whose liquid features alternated but as well to let these cowed Lords know what was what. between a demure, eye-fluttering pout and a bestial snarl, and Well, she'd done that, all right. Like chastised children, they whose hands were slim and manicured at the ends of arms like were surly but silent; they knew their place in the scheme of a bear! things now. It seemed a good time to make her peace with Lord Tangiru the Grunt, who swore that he'd never told a them, starting with Grigor Hakson. lie in his life. Well, and it was true; one does not say much of 'Very well,' she said, staring straight down at him. 'We anything without a tongue. know where we stand, and you believe that I've made a fool of Lorn Halfstruck the dwarf, whose arms were long to you. But you are wrong, for I am in total agreement with you! compensate for his shortness of leg. He had hands like clubs Ah, surprise on your face, Grigor! But why? For the only of knotty ironwood, and a great passion for striking detractors mistake you made was to blame me - and that out of in their most delicate parts. Three times when he had frustration, I know. I was Vormulac's adviser? Indeed I was! considered himself insulted, Lorn had reached out and But think - how many losses had we suffered if I had not castrated the offenders with his bare hands. been? Even the best adviser may only guide a fool.' Devetaki looked down on all of these Lords and twenty or so And before he could speak: 'As for the rest of it, you're more, but not nearly as many as before. In Turgosheim there right. Mistakes have been made. But didn't you ask it had been some thirty-six Lords; now they were down to - yourself: since when do the Wamphyri require defensive what? Twenty-eight? Of course, Maglore was not here, and positions? It's in our attitude, Grigor, don't you see? For while Black Boris was in the trog caverns in the east. But there had in Turgosheim we were the masters - Wamphyri, whose word also been a good many real, however contrived, fatalities. was law - here we are only enemies! And not only to Wratha Wamus, for example, Laughing Zack Shornskull, Vormulac but to Sunsiders who have learned to fight back! Oh, she had himself: gone the way of all, or most, flesh. And others lost tamed a few of them — hah! A precious few - and made them crossing the Great Red Waste, and several more from internal her supplicants; which we were unlucky enough to discover feuding or other causes. Most recently, Lord Zun of Zunspire from the onset... (called Zun the Lips, despite that he had none): swept to 'Unlucky?' (A lesser Lord's puzzled query.) 'How so?' oblivion with most of his men and creatures in a great Devetaki lifted her crimson gaze from Grigor to sweep it avalanche whose dust had not yet settled, which was over all the assembled Lords, and answered: 'Because from rumoured to be the work of these same guerilla Travel- that time forward we knew it would be easy - and we were 576 577 many jaws had fallen open. This was something new, that wrong! For while a supplicant is easy meat here, as in hadn't yet dawned. Or it had, but mainly on Devetaki herself. Turgosheim, the rest of these western Szgany are fierce A near-perfect example of how Turgosheim's immemorial fighters all. If we had come up against the fighters first, then constraints had stunted natural Wamphyri instincts: that the we'd have been on guard — as we will be from this time question of spoils, of ownership, of territory had not forward. But now let me tell you how else it will be from this previously arisen. time forward. Tomorrow night .. . we go against Wrathstack!' 'My proposal,' said Devetaki, while still their horizons And from the Lords: 'What, the last aerie?' And: 'Wrath- expanded. 'That you Lords band yourselves, your men and stack? That impregnable place?' Until someone called out: beasts together into five or six invincible groups, divide the 'As Laughing Zack Shornskull went against it, d'you mean? stack between you, choose your target levels - and have at it! Oh? And where's Zack now, eh?' And whosoever survives to take this or that level or levels -' Devetaki gave a shrug. 'The choice is yours: to sit here and '- Keeps them!' Grigor gasped. starve, or to go against Wrathstack. Now listen: the 'Indeed!' said Devetaki. 'Just and well-deserved rewards for supplicants are gone, used up, and only the fighters remain. a fight well-fought and a bloodwar well-won! Just think of it: Also, we're no longer a surprise; they're ready for us. Now, at for when it's over there'll be vampire flesh enough to fill your the moment, we're well-fed and our fighting beasts are bellies and your vats, and furnish your new manses richer far fuelled. We are fit for war. And provided we keep a watch than anything you had in Turgosheim!' during the coming day - on Wrathstack, to hold it in siege, A growled, grunted, but mainly appreciative murmur went and on our own flanks, to keep them safe — tomorrow night up from almost every quarter. Except: will be our first and best opportunity to take the last aerie and 'And your part, Lady?' one voice rang out. 'Where shall you make it ours. So, how do we go about it?' And before they be in this great and bloody melee? And what shall be your could answer: reward?' 'Let me tell you,' Devetaki continued. 'But first . . . do not 'I have already chosen my target,' Devetaki replied. 'The speak to me of Laughing Zack Shornskull. He was a madman! topmost levels and spire itself - for that's where I'll find What, one Lord against an entire aerie? He deserved to die! Wratha! That is . . . unless you would care to face that Lady?' A shame he took so many good men and creatures with him, But there was no answer. that's all. But tomorrow night . . . I, Devetaki Skullguise 'At first,' Devetaki continued, Til stand off, observe, personally guarantee that tomorrow night will be different. I command. Free of the fighting, my eyes shall see what you guarantee it! For then you'll not only be fighting for your have missed, and my mentalism will reach out and guide all lives, for revenge, and for glory -but for profit! For territory! of you in your endeavours. In this respect I shall watch over For the last aerie itself!' my children like the very virgin grandam that you've named 'What?' said Grigor, frowning. 'What are you saying?' me! But then, as the fighting moves within the stack and so 'I'm talking about the last aerie,' Devetaki insisted. 'A beyond my range and control, I shall join my troops in the single mighty stack whose capacity is almost as great as loftiest of all levels, and so be in the thick of it. My reward - Turgosheim in its entirety! And if - no, when - we have shall be Skullmanse! At the "head" of the stack, where else?' conquered it, whose shall it be?' 'Eh?' Grigor the Lech was not alone in his amaze; a good 579 578 There arose an immediate babble of protest, which Deve- and their even weirder weapons? I saw the three who caused taki cut short at once, with, 'See here: the great battle is not yet me such grief, and they were like no other Szgany I've ever begun, and yet you're arguing already! Now listen, and mark seen! Now how do we fight such as them, when they come my words. When all of this is over, we shall do as Wratha and go like shadows?' tried to do: first recruit Szgany supplicants, then tame She narrowed her eyes. 'Here, they come and go like Sunside. A task that will take years! Our blood-children will shadows,' she said. 'Here in these barrier mountains, where fly back to Turgosheim, to care for our manses in our absence, they know all the trails and hidey-holes. But do you think and insure they do not fall into foreign hands. Our holdings they are likely to come adventuring across the boulder plains, will be vast, and all the resources of this brand new Sunside to the last aerie itself? Also, I've taken one of them prisoner, ours! And in those early years, why, there'll be no time for and he has . .. told me things.' She shrugged. They have a feuding among ourselves . .. what, with all the works we'll leader, these irritating Sunsiders. But my captive, now my undertake? The hunting and taming? The tithe-routes to set up true thrall and disciple, knows where to find him - always! He and manage; and all the lesser stumps of stacks around going has a talent, you see, this new thrall of mine: he sniffs men wanting for masters, each one of them greater than many a so- out. And when Wrathstack is fallen, then he'll sniff out the called manse in Turgosheim? Territory galore, and all for the leader of these guerillas .. .' taking!' 'You have it all worked out,' said Grigor, however grudgingly. Devetaki had the Lords now, and knew it. She had painted 'Indeed,' said Devetaki. 'But isn't that what a leader is for?' them a glorious (however false) picture, and it lured them like And to the rest of them: stink-gnats to foul-smelling snapper plants. But she knew that 'Post guards. Let's make sure we suffer no more incursions - even now they'd be able to see at least one major loophole, no more losses - this night. Likewise tomorrow; for we must and so continued: always remember, daytime is their time! That's it, then. A long 'Men will die, of course. Oh, yes, some of you Lords will day lies ahead. Get your rest while you may, my Lords, but die! But isn't that always the way of it? Only the strongest save the best of your provisions till next the sun sets. For then, survive. Ah, but think of the profits to those survivors: with well-fuelled men and beasts, we ride on Wrathstack!' masters not only of their own manses in Turgosheim, but As the Lords departed back to their camps - some of them every one of them shall also be the victorious Lord of a level eager and excited, and others muttering - Zindevar told or two of that mighty stack out there on the boulder plains!' Devetaki: 'Do you know, you almost had me convinced, too?' She threw a dramatic arm and hand to the north, which a host And Ursula Torspawn - slight as a Szgany girl, and even of scarlet eyes greedily followed — until she continued: dressed like one, but Wamphyri all the way — said, 'Some 'So, how will you name your fine aeries, eh? Eranscar! —. will survive, of course.' Trollsump! — Gruntmanse!' And finally, gazing on Grigor 'But greatly weakened,' Devetaki answered. 'And by then, if again and deliberately donning her smiling mask, 'Lechlodge?' all works out, we'll have control of some of these weapons that But he was already hooked and wouldn't rise to any more Grigor mentioned, which I have seen in use. For before we baiting, except to say: 'Very well, Devetaki, and so much for attack Wrathstack, Zindevar here will have secured the the last aerie. Wamphyri against Wamphyri . . . we know how to fight that war! But what of these strange Sunsiders 580 581 pass - and what it contains! Remember, I have a man, the mountains was definitely brightening; Zindevar and Ursula same captive I spoke of, who understands those weapons.' returned to their individual camps. Watching them go, Devetaki Still her Lady colleagues looked uncertain, until the virgin thought: Fools! Greedy fools! But she kept the thought to grandam sighed and said, Try to see the whole picture: herself. Then, gazing west, she sought out a distance-misted 'The great pass secured, ours. A number of superior Szgany glimmer where the foothills met the barren boulder plains: a thralls recruited, their weapons in our hands. Wrath-stack pale luminosity that lay like a glow-worm in the night - the taken and only a handful of Lords surviving ... for a while. Starside Gate. The bulk of our army out of Turgosheim — say half of it? - For despite the alleged 'greediness' of her sisters, Deve- intact, its men and beasts at our command. The fighting just taki's ambitions were greater far than theirs. Why be satisfied over, and the bloodwar won. But do we stop there? with a mere stack, a mountain range, a piddling gorge, when 'No, we sweep on - sweep over - the last of the Lords! And she could have a world entire? And why be satisfied with one finally, the apportioning. Zindevar: we've spoken before, you world when she could have two? Her smiling mask glinted and I, concerning territories. Now I have a new proposal for lead-grey and shimmery blue in the gradually dimming light you, which I think you'll like.' of the stars, but the eyes behind the mask were red as ever. Zindevar narrowed her eyes and grunted, 'Oh? Do you Even as red as lust. think so? Then say on.' And as red as blood, of course . .. 'The great pass shall be yours to take and keep, as previously agreed.' Devetaki nodded. 'But in addition . .. It was five hours before the dawn when Nathan woke up. what say you have all these barrier mountains east to west, to Misha had crept out of his arms some two hours earlier, but explore, carve out, inhabit? Why, it should keep you busy for she had let him sleep on. Indeed, when the others would have a century!' woken him up, she insisted that he sleep on! Zindevar made no reply for she was struck dumb. Ursula, 'He's taking it as the dry earth takes rain,' she'd told them. on the other hand, was not so taken with things. 'It seems I 'Because it's required. I don't want my husband to crack like have happened late upon these discussions, these plans of the earth. Also, if he wants to find fault that he wasn't yours . . .' awakened, he can find it with me. So don't worry.' 'Ah, no, Ursula!' said Devetaki. 'Do not be mistaken or feel And when Lardis Lidesci had stomped forward and told in any way slighted; you were taken into account from the her: 'You're coming between him and a bloodwar!' start. Zindevar is here to corroborate it when I tell you that 'Good!' she'd snapped back. 'Now go away!' we had already apportioned Turgosheim to you, in its And he had done just that, muttering: 'Huh! So she takes entirety! Every stack, stump and manse, the whole gorge! over where his mother left off! Hard women are the poor Myself, I shall have the last aerie and all the stumps of fallen lad's lot, it would seem!' stacks around. For we are equals, even sisters of sorts after all. But in fact Misha's instinct had been right in more ways And so the grand triumvirate lives on, but as a matriarchy than one. For even now, as Nathan slept, things were now! Hah! And why not? The Lords have lorded it long shaping; the dreams of the Necroscope were never as those enough.' of ordinary men ... Their talks were at an end; the sky over the barrier 583 582 At first, sensing as Misha sensed, how much Nathan needed Oh? A friend, I take it? his sleep - a sleep of recuperation, of physical and mental (Nathan's deadspeak nod.) And one with a wonderful talent. revitalization; of recovery, from his efforts and his losses For like you, Thikkoul, he sees into the future -something of both; of adjustment, to reassert the balance of his being -the it, at least. But he can't read the stars. And in any case, our living and the teeming dead alike had granted him the peace stars are alien to him. But the two of you together . . . it may he so desired. But Nathan had asked a favour of the desert- be that we'll get a truer picture. dwelling Thyre, which they had considered and now would Then I look forward to meeting your friend. But when? answer. The grey brothers of the wild were watchful on his Soon, Nathan promised ... behalf, and they had news for him; and there was a restless Thikkoul's deadspeak carrier faded, but there was another to handful among the dead, too, who were no longer willing to replace it. Nathan. (The eager, even urgent, voice of Jasef be kept waiting. They must speak to him, and now. Karis, an old champion of the Necroscope among Sunside's Great Majority.) If you would visit this Thyre stargazer, Nathaaan! It was the voice of Thikkoul the long-dead Thyre surely you must come and see me? For the past is at least as Stargazer, who read the future in the eternal stars. He'd read important as the future. Or, if we may not meet .. . well, on Nathan's future for him, too, upon a time (and accurately, my own ground, as it were, then let me tell you what I know however obliquely), so that the Necroscope was wary of him; here and now. It makes no difference to me -but it might make or if not of Thikkoul, of his talent and of the future itself, a great deal of difference to you and the Lidescis. Indeed, to all which had proved as immutable as the past. With or without the Szgany! the stars and those who might try to read them, the future was a You, too, Jasef, Nathan told him. As soon as I can, I'll devious thing; it had its own way of being as it would be. attend you. But - (and here his voice became very grim, very And: Nathan, said Thikkoul. Your mind was a void, so that cold) — first I have work to do in the barrier mountains. I knew you slept well and deep. But now, as you grow Very well. (Jasef's sigh of frustration.) But don't leave it too stronger, your numbers vortex swirls as before; I know that long, Necroscope .. . you receive me, and we must speak! Since your waking hours The deadspeak aether cleared, and the dried leaves whispers are filled with works, I come as before - of the teeming dead faded, to make room for the telepathic - In my dreams, Nathan answered him. Yes, I hear you. sendings of the living: the wag of a familiar tail and a low And you know why I've come? growl in Nathan's metaphysical mind. It was Grinner, who To show me the future, yes - even though we can't change also knew deadspeak and had listened to the Necroscope's it. conversation with Jasef: Thikkoul seemed breathless now. Nathan, recently ... there Uncle, a word of warning: you succeeded too well in these have been portents/ I, too, dream, but I don't understand what barrier mountains. Best to put back your plans a while. You I see. You can be my eyes and show me the stars again, may not come here now, not if you would live another day! wherein the secrets may be fathomed. Where are you? Nathan was eager to talk to this one. You think it's that important? We spy on the Wamphyri, as you ordered, Grinner told Oh, indeed! him. In the mountains, east of the great pass as before. But Then I'll come to you. And if I may, I shall bring someone these are worried creatures, Uncle; they take no chances; with me. 585 584 over each of their camps they have set a watch, and warriors All of them? Her voice echoed her amazement. You can are hidden in the crags and crevices. Even with your talents bring . . . all of them? you may not come among them unobserved. Also, they have I can only try. One-Who-Scans! We have sensed him, his probe. He knows Tomorrow? But where? Will I see you? you, knows where you are. Where are you? A locator? It could only be Alexei Yefros! And Nathan In the Cavern of the Ancients. wondered how many others of Tzonov's party had been taken. Then you won't see me. But you can pass on my message. Maybe he should speak to Zek and Trask. Knowing that he Some small sadness, before she answered, Of course. was asleep, he willed himself to remember all that was being At sunup I'll take my people to Crater Lake. It's a trial, communicated to him when finally he woke up. What else do that's all. I'll take them - then return them to their forests in a you have for me? moment. A reception isn't necessary, and it shall be as if we Nothing. Apart from the watchers, the vampires prepare for were never there. I only mention it as a courtesy. sunup. They are hidden away. They will sleep in the shadows And do you know how to find Crater Lake? of the mountains. Oh, yes! A very beautiful place, which I remember well. I My thanks, Grinner, Nathan told him. But it's hard to take only have to close my eyes and I can see it like yesterday. your advice. I have scores to settle ... And I know the co-ordinates. We know. But they won't be settled if you become a He sensed her nod. I will pass on your message. Farewell, victim! Be as a wolf, Uncle: creep up on your prey and strike Nathan. him when he least expects it - not when he's prepared. Farewell Atwei, my sister . .. Nathan nodded. You're right, of course .. . At this point Nathan rolled over in his sleep and his arm Then you won't put yourself in jeopardy? fell across the empty space where Misha had lain. However No, not yet at least. Anyway, there are a great many other vaguely, her absence registered in his sleeping mind, causing things that I must see to. Tomorrow, perhaps, in the daylight, him to question it and increasing his awareness. His thoughts when the Lords lie sleeping. went out, searching . .. but they didn't find Misha! Good! Grinner barked, his telepathic probe fading .. . Instead they found someone else, who by now was ... But only to be replaced by another - the Necroscope's practised in the invasion of the Necroscope's secret mind. Thyre 'sister', Atwei. Nathan, can you speak to me? Nathan recognized him at once, and despite that he was still To you? Any time. asleep, conjured the vortex to cloak his thoughts in numbers, Good news! she told him. The elders of the Thyre are in which was where he gained the upper hand. In Turgosheim, agreement; if Sunside is threatened, then even the furnace this had always been the way of it: that his telepathy was deserts come under threat, and the Thyre themselves! superior — to Maglore's! It was why he continued to wear Wherefore you need no longer hold yourself to old pledges. If his golden earring, because where certain areas of his mind you would bring your people to us — if you need to use were forbidden to Maglore, nothing of Maglore's was forbidden Thyre colonies as safe, temporary harbours — so be it. We to him. place our faith in you, Nathan. You have our blessing. And now Nathan gazed on the Seer-Lord's innermost Tomorrow, Nathan answered, unable to hold back his sigh secrets, and saw how utterly the gorge of Turgosheim had of relief. I practise my people tomorrow. fallen into his grasp . .. except for one part, one place. 587 586 Madmanse, that sinister, gloomy, ghost-ridden mausoleum of A warning? However convoluted Eygor's Wamphyri a dwelling, like a hollow pedestal supporting Maglore's own conversation — his word games — might prove to be, any promontory Runemanse! And Nathan read in the Seer-Lord's information had to be better than none. Nathan's thoughts mind how his failure to annexe and inhabit Mad-manse were deadspeak, and: irritated him. It was not that the place was uninhabitable, Indeed! Eygor agreed. Yet plainly you would prefer that I rather that it was already inhabited - by the undead spirit of leave you to your own devices. Very well, I get me — Eygor Killglance! And for all that Maglore was the self-styled Wait! The Necroscope stopped him, even as he pretended to 'mage', he could neither exorcise the thing nor bear to be near withdraw. Except I would remind you, Eygor, that the last it. Quite obviously Eygor must have been a monster among time we spoke you tried to lure me into calling you up. That monsters, that not even others of the Wamphyri could abide to sort of thing won't work a second time, be sure. dwell where he had dwelled! But that was nothing new; Then you're a fool, for I would be your ultimate weapon! Nathan knew what Eygor had been. I would be a fool, certainly, if I believed you! But now ... perhaps Maglore sensed that he was discovered Enough! I don't know why I put myself to the effort. Now, or about to be. In any case his probe withdrew, was drawn do you want to hear what I have to tell you, or not? back across all the miles, to Runemanse on the craggy rim of If there are no strings, then I'll listen. Turgosheim ... There are many new arrivals among the dead of ... And in its turn was replaced - by the monster of monsters Turgosheim, killed defending their manses against the himself! incursions of Maglore of Runemanse! They, at least, are not You are unkind, Eygor's deadspeak crawled like a slug in above speaking to me. And their message is simple: Maglore Nathan's dreams. Such thoughts do you no credit, Necro- would make himself master here - of all Turgosheim! scope. Do I come in siJence, furtive as a thief in the night, Nathan's turn to shrug. He's that already. It was always creeping in the corridors of your secret mind like the Seer- his plan. Now tell me something I don't know. Lord? No, for I am open in my approach, well-mannered, and (A pause, then Eygor's hideous chuckle, as black as sin in never a sign of menace. Why, I would not be here even now the deadspeak aether.) Ah, but you're not as clever as you ... except I sensed Maglore's probe go out and desired to know make out, Necroscope! Or maybe you are. So tell me: what what he was about. And so he spies on you, eh? Ah, and he will be Maglore's next move? knows your powers, Nathan, and would destroy you if he I haven't given it much thought. Time for that when I've could! You should fear him, Necroscope, for he's sly, that one. time for Maglore himself. But in you I have nothing to fear, eh, Eygor? Nathan made (Feigned astonishment.) But .. . aren't you the so-called no attempt to hide his sarcasm, his disgust. You are innocent 'saviour' of your people? Can't you see that once Maglore has as a child, right? filled the gorge with fighting beasts, then he must feed them! He sensed the other's deadspeak shrug. We've had this Or is it that your duties don't extend so far as Turgosheim? conversation before. (Eygor was surly now; he pretended that Only your western Szgany are worthy of your protection, eh? he'd been slighted.) Very well, you don't want to speak to Now Nathan saw the other's meaning: that in order to someone whose only desire is to help you. Someone who keep Turgosheim for himself, Maglore must begin to raid in brings words of wisdom - and a warning! force on Turgosheim's Sunside. No more tithe system, which had been bad enough in itself, but a monstrous bloodbath! 588 589 He is not so stupid! he gasped. What? But he could is it you fear? Do you fear for the Szgany? But there is decimate the eastern Szgany! nothing of humanity left in Turgosheim! Only Maglore, Oh? Ha-ha! No, MagJore is not stupid at all! And yet he whom I would destroy. will decimate them, at Jeast until he can be certain that And your bloodsons? Vormulac's army is crushed or otherwise incapacitated and If they should return, yes. will not return. Only then will he endeavour to maintain a Nathan nodded. If and when they return - and if I survive balance, and let the Sunsiders live and multiply in order that what is yet to be — then it might be time to talk again. he may live. But be/ore then? Even tomorrow night? The Meanwhile . . . I've given you enough of my time. Also, the blood is the life! dead have only recently seen fit to talk to me; I can't Nathan could scarcely control his anger. Why do you tell me jeopardize their faith in me by having to do with such as you. these things, Eygor? To torment me? I can't contain what's Leave it at that, then, said Eygor, sighing. But I've seen happening here, let alone in Turgosheim! You know there's no inside your head, Necroscope, and know it can be done. There way I can stop him. is . . . such a power of mind in you! Only accept my gift — Eygor's deadspeak nod, and his phlegmy grunt of scarcely my talent would be yours in a moment, to use for the good of concealed anticipation: Exactly! You can't stop him. But I can all the Szgany. - if you'll only call me up! And you would be up again, in the land of the living. That again, Nathan's 'voice' hardened. All a subterfuge, to Only until you willed me down. get you up out of your pit. How can I be sure of that? To work on your behalf! What? (Again the sinister, clotted quality of Eygor's dead- Liar! No vampire ever worked for another. speak voice.) But yours is the power, Necroscope - power To take revenge on a certain scrawny old bastard in over the dead - and what am I but a crumbling old dead thing, Runemanse, then, Eygor howled, who all these years has eh? threatened to annexe Madmanse and make it his own! A vampire thing, said Nathan. But Nathan shook his head. Think again, Eygor, he said. Aye, and one who feels the rising sun even now. And so I Oh, I don't doubt that you would kill Maglore, and anyone get me back into Madmanse, in Turgosheim. else you could lay your hands on, but when last we spoke Nathan felt Eygor's presence shrinking, the foul fog of his your only desire was to murder your bloodsons Wran and thoughts rolling back, the final echo of his voice like a Spiro! You are as changeable as the wind, except you blow to shudder in the deadspeak aether, coming from a long way suit the situation! Nothing strange in that - you're Wamphyri. away: Until we speak again, Nathaaan . .. For long moments there was silence, until finally Eygor's gurgling, even suppurating deadspeak voice sounded again, Stirring under the canopy of his makeshift shelter under the saying: Necroscope, you are an infuriating man. I have trees, Nathan opened an eye, then both of them. His dreams offered you the greatest weapon ever in your fight against my were already fading, so that he wondered which, if any, had own kind. And all I ask is to be up and about in the land of the been real, and which had been . . . dreams. Rolling over, he living again - however briefly - to right the many wrongs scanned through the forest, across the prairie, to the furnace which were done me in life. Now tell me: what desert. And then he knew that the last of them at least had 590 591 been real. For Eygor was right: the sun was rising. However 'With the tall gaunt one, who scries on future times?' slowly, a pale stain was spreading on the far horizon, and the 'Him and one other.' Nathan nodded. 'And I can only do it familiar star-clusters in the sky were just a little dimmer. while the stars are still clear over Sunside.' The camp was coming awake. A member of the watch 'And this other?' went by, yawning, grinning at Nathan where he lay. It was 'You don't know him,' Nathan said. 'He's Thyre - and he's Andrei Romani. 'How goes it, Necroscope?' dead.' 'Call me Nathan,' he answered, with a smile. 'Nothing has Lardis opened his mouth but said nothing. lan Goodly was changed. Let it be just like before.' already coming, making his way through the trees. But then Andrei shrugged. 'The other has a ring to it. It's like a title.' he would be, of course .. . 'Aye,' said a gruff voice from the side. 'But there's only one title that counts round here - and I'm it!' It was Lardis, seated on a tree-stump unnoticed. Lardis, who for all his pretended pride was armed to the teeth, alert, the very embodiment of a guardian angel, sitting where he'd sat out the hours since Misha left Nathan's bed, watching over the sleeping form of . . . well, of the Necroscope, aye. Nathan sat up, yawned in answer to Andrei's yawn, asked: 'Is the camp awake? I mean, all of it?' 'Most,' said Lardis. 'Except you and your people from the hell-lands, mainly. They said you should sleep - then used it as an excuse to get their own heads down!' Nathan yawned again. 'They do right, for they're going to be busy enough from now on. No more trouble in the night?' 'None.' Nathan stood up. 'Then let's have them all awake, Lardis. For it's time they learned this new game. For the moment we'll call it "Going Places". But if or when the Wamphyri Lords ever come looking for us, then we'll call it "Hide and Seek".' 'Games!' Lardis grunted - and wondered why the Necroscope looked at him and grinned that way. But before he could ask: 'Where's lan Goodly?' Nathan was serious again. 'While you are mustering the camp, I've somewhere to go, something to do.' He glanced at the sky. 592 — To corroborate and perhaps explain the things that I might see? I remember, yes. But how is he to know what I IV see, without deadspeak? Smiling, Nathan answered: Not only shall I be your eyes, Out of the Future, Out of the Past - Thikkoul, but also your voice! He lay down on the slope of a Going Places - Trouble in the Pass dune and indicated that Goodly should seat himself alongside. And out loud he said: 'Now what of your premonitions? What have you felt that so disturbs you?' All my life I loved the stars, Thikkoul answered, allowing time for Nathan to repeat his words in a whisper, for the Nathan took Goodly to meet Thikkoul of the Thyre; literally a precog's benefit. The moon, the sun, the stars — all of the 'meeting of minds', if nothing else, and even then the precog phenomena of the heavens - were as a plan to me; the plan of must take Nathan's word for it. what has been, and what is to be. As a boy, I thought I merely As for Thikkoul himself: he was little more than a bundle remembered the past, but when certain of the things I saw of venerable rags in a niche lit by a single constantly came to pass, then I knew that in fact I read the future! flickering candle, in a subterranean mausoleum tended by In the night, underground in one of the colonies, even in a respectful Thyre descendants, the inhabitants of River's Rush. closed, darkened room, I could feel the moon and stars above Though the Thyre colony was two thousand miles east of me . . . I sensed how the moon was lured in her orbit by the Lidesci territory and twenty miles into the desert beyond the bulk of our planet; also by a stranger force whose focus lies savanna, the distance was of no concern, the journey beyond the barrier mountains, in Starside. And as the moon instantaneous. was lured, so was my mind, but by all of the heavenly Nathan did not go directly to the Hall of Endless Hours; bodies! So that even when I could not see them, still I could such an abrupt intrusion would have been unseemly, and feel their great wheel and whirl! And ever aware of their anyway, he knew that the Thyre of River's Rush would presence — even though they were frequently invisible to me probably make a great fuss of him. It wasn't that he was — still I could read something of their awesome portents. above their devotion - or above returning it - but simply a As it was in life, so in death. For as you know well enow, matter of time. The days when he could linger in the Thyre Necroscope, the passions of our lives go on, even into the colonies for 'endless hours' were long since over. ultimate darkness. And now that I am dead, still I can feel But there was a place in the desert where he'd once lain out something of the things that will be, in the wheel of the stars . under the night sky and spoken to Thikkoul via dead-speak, .. so that the astrologer had seen through his eyes and read his As Thikkoul paused, so Nathan 'translated', and then future in the stars. That was where he took Goodly, and where inquired again: 'What is it that you feel?' the mind of Thikkoul was waiting for him. The strangest thing! the other answered, his deadspeak so I knew you would come, Necroscope, Thikkoul was eager faint and shivery that Nathan's flesh prickled. For instead of to make his presence known. the stars in their eternal revolutions, I feel this very earth Thikkoul, said Nathan, I have my friend with me, of whom we've spoken. He is here - 595 594 itself moving, leaning towards the sun! The weight of the don't know what. As to your future, the future of the moon is felt as always, and likewise that of the alien force Szgany in general - I saw nothing! This other thing is too beyond the barrier mountains, but now a third, irresistible great; it intrudes, obscures, overwhelms, so that the rest is as force is present, which even a world entire must answer! nothing by comparison. And Goodly was equally at a loss ... Nathan was baffled, and Goodly awed - by the thought of what he was listening to, the words of a dead man; but The whole thing had taken minutes; Lardis would scarcely mainly by a thrill of cognizance that ran through his body have had time to muster the entire camp; there was time for and brain as Thikkoul's words registered to conjure a another visit. This time Nathan had no co-ordinates, and so previously unrecognized stream of coconscious thought: the must inquire: /asef, where are you? fact that he, too, had felt or precognized just such a The answer was a place in the forest, the woods west of movement of the earth! Settlement, where a glade formed the southernmost point of The Necroscope saw something in Goodly's face and was an equilateral triangle, with the abandoned Lidesci town to at once concerned. 'What is it?' the north-east and Sanctuary Rock in the north-west. This 'Just that I . . . know what he means,' the other answered. was the spot where Jasef Karis had died of a heart attack 'For I've felt it, too — except I didn't know it until now!' when Nathan and Nestor were only four years old, and it 'What, that the earth is turning?' was also the spot where Nana Kiklu had buried him. 'No,' Goodly shook his head. 'That it will turn! But . .. Not only that, Jasef's spirit husked as Nathan and lan what can it mean?' Goodly emerged from the Mobius Continuum into the glade, Still speaking out loud, Nathan returned to his deadspeak. but it's also the place where I witnessed a wonder, a thing 'Thikkoul, do you have any idea what it means?' known only to me all these long years. But you're a man Perhaps if I could see it in the stars .. .? now - aye, and your father's son to boot - and it's high time 'Very well, but I warn you that they're fading now.' you knew. You would have known before, but they daren't That's when I liked them best, in the twilight before the let me speak to you; the Great Majority, I mean. Well, you dawn. can't really blame them for that. For Harry Hell-lander was a Nathan looked on the stars, and his metaphysical mind necromancer in the end, and it appears that Nestor takes was one with Thikkoul's ... after him. They had to be sure that you weren't the same, ... For a moment, until his head reeled and he drew apart in that's all. something of shock. And: Nathan and Goodly sat down in the faintest flush of dawn There, said Thikkoul. You felt it, too. The turning of the light on the fallen branch of a dead, ivy-clad tree. The world.' But.. . did you also see it? Necroscope was alert, intense, and Goodly mystified. But 'See what?' Nathan felt a strange dizziness quite unlike the precog knew enough to stay silent and let Nathan get on any sensation he'd ever known before. with whatever he was doing. And using deadspeak now, The stars moving in the night sky, from south to north as Nathan inquired of old Jasef Karis: the earth turned! Thikkoul's deadspeak was full of wonder. What was it, fasef, that it's been on your mind so long? Nathan shook his head. 'No, I saw nothing. But was it . . . It was a strange morning, that one, Jasef answered. I had the future?' been sick for some time, even years. But what is sickness Something of the future, the other groaned. But this time I 596 597 when you're on the run from the Wamphyri? Anyway, we all Harry Hell-lander's spinning descent into - into what, sicken and die sometime. So, it was a strange morning; aye, eternity? — speeded up and left me behind. But in the but before the morning I'd had an even stranger dream moment after his corpse had sped away and disappeared - during the night. Except it was so real, I was sure it wasn't '- An explosion of golden light!' the Necroscope gasped, just a dream! this time out loud, which caused Goodly to start. 'And a rush TeJJ me about it, said Nathan. of golden splinters like living darts, hurtling in a hundred Jasef's deadspeak nod. In my own time, my own way. Now different directions and blinking out, escaping into ... into Jet me think . . . And in a moment: I remember coming awake, other places!' thinking, This could be the last time I'll ever wake up!' For But if you know this much, perhaps you know it all! something was very wrong; my arms pained me as if in some 'No,' Nathan answered, 'but I've a feeling that this is the great cramp, and my chest hurt as if it were crushed by part I must know, so please tell it.' boulders. Why, it was all I could do to open my eyes! Well, I was still dreaming, Jasef continued, but now in a Above me was the oiled skin that Nona had draped over moment the scene had changed, to Nona Kiklu's four-year- low branches to keep the rain off. But I ' d rolled aside and old twins in a blanket under a tree. To you, Nathan, you and lay uncovered, drenched and shivering. I was hot on the your brother Nestor! And suddenly, appearing out of inside, cold out, yet sweating from the pain in my chest. I nowhere, one of the golden darts, which hovered first over thought it was probably the end of me, as I've said, but I one sleeping child, then the other. The pair of them stirred in didn't have to be a seer to know that! their sleep - at which the dart stopped hovering! There were Except . . . I knew I must tell someone about my dream! two little sleeping heads in that blanket, one dark and the And I knew it must be Nona, of course. My dream of- other blond, and the dart seemed to have made up its mind. It - Of a corpse, smouldering, its fire-blackened arms flung lanced down . . . it entered a small head! But there was no wide and steaming head thrown back, lifeless, tumbling end scream, no scar, no blood, nothing but a smile on the face of over end into a darkness shot through with brilliant ribbons of that sleeping innocent! blue and green and red light — indeed descending or The blond head.' Nathan nodded. 'My head, yes, it must retreating into this tunnel of twining streamers! A tortured have been. I was asleep, and in any case too small to know or thing, but no longer suffering, unknowable as the weird remember. But that was only the first time it happened. Since things of dream so often are. And yet . .. there was then there's been another time, in the hell-lands, beyond the something vaguely familiar about it, about him! Then, as my Starside Gate. Now it starts to make sense; those darts have dream drifted me closer, finally I knew who and what he been my protection!' was.' Oh? said Jasef, quietly. Are you sure? But if that were the And Nathan said: My father, Harry Keogh! case I needn't feel concerned, for it would explain How do you know? (Amazement.) Did I make it so obvious? everything. It would even explain .. . you! What worries me The shake of Nathan's head. No, but I've seen it before. Is is that it's not the case! there more? It stopped Nathan dead in his tracks. 'What?' Jasef didn't question what Nathan had said, but went on: That golden dart entered into Nestor, Nathan! That fragment of your father went to him! Nathan felt dizzy, disorientated; a different sensation 599 598 learned to Ben Trask. Trask, if anyone, would know the again to the one he had known in River's Rush, when he'd felt truth of it. But after he'd heard it Trask could only shake the turning of the world. 'But ... how is it then that things have his head. 'If you tell me the truth of something, I'll know it at worked out this way?' he asked. 'For I know now that my once,' he said. 'Also if you tell me a lie. But you're only father was . . . good! Anything of Harry Keogh that went to guessing, and so I'm at a loss, the same as you.' They left it at Nestor, it could only be good!' that. Which might explain something of the fears of the Great The game was a simple thing. On flat ground a little way Majority, said Jasef. For what you got from your father out on the savanna, Nathan formed the Lidesci tribe up into a naturally - as a child inherits bones, colour, shape - was good, fairly tight-packed circle, two to three figures deep. The yes. Undeniably so. But what Nestor got. .. ring was maybe fifteen paces across. Family groups stayed 'All that was bad in the Necroscope? Is that what you're together, likewise, couples and friends as best possible. A saying? All that was brewing in him . . . at the end?' long rope was passed around the circle, so that everyone Possibly. could take hold of it, and then Nathan explained: 'No, I can't believe that.' Nathan shook his head. 'Those 'If ever we're threatened by the Wamphyri, as soon as we golden shards .. . I've seen them. They weren't evil; they were have the first warning, we hurry here and take up this rope. Harry! One of them entered into me, too, and gave me the So remember your positions. Now, this rope is your lifeline. solution to the greatest problem of my life!' Don't let go of it!' As he stepped to the centre of the circle Then perhaps the darts were simply forces or POWERS. where all could see him, mothers took up their children and And the way they would develop was in you and Nestor husbands held onto the rope and wives both. yourselves. If that is correct .. . well, we have seen how it 'You may have heard something of what I can do,' Nathan developed in him! It's just th at I wanted you to know. In the said. 'Some of you, maybe a lot of you, have even seen it. final battle - and you know what that must be - it's as well that And a few have gone with me into . .. another place. But it's a you're aware of what you are up against. For the one thing you very dark place and doesn't feel the same as here. It feels do have, whether you get it from your father or not, is your like you are falling, but you're not. So in this other place, it's compassion, Necroscope! It's your greatest strength, but it best to keep your eyes closed. Also, it's best not to talk, and could be your greatest weakness, too. not even to think. Close your eyes and keep silent now.' Jasef was finished, and having nothing more to say he fell They did so, and he said, 'Now this time is just a trial. silent. But Nathan continued to ponder his words. Was it When I join the circle and pull on the rope, I want to see possible that Nestor had got all the evil in Harry, the dark how fast you can walk - don't run - towards me.' He did so, instincts of the uncontrollable Thing within? And might it not and just like trusting children the Lidescis followed his explain his lifelong predilection, an apparently morbid instructions to the letter. As they passed him, he tapped yearning or inclination towards the Wamphyri? If so, it would their arms saying, 'Good! That's fine. Just keep going. That's seem that Nestor had been doomed from the beginning. very good.' Until they stood clustered together in a group But still Nathan couldn't believe it. . . with their eyes still closed, holding onto the rope. 'Open your eyes,' said Nathan. 'Now I'm going to position Back at the camp, Lardis wasn't quite ready for Nathan's game. men and women among you who have been in my secret Nathan used the extra time to explain what he'd place before you. As you see, they're not afraid. Neither 600 601 the Thyre are remarkable people. Soon they'll be up and must you be.' The party from Earth took their places in the new about, out of their deep caverns, working in the oases. Now circle, likewise Lardis, Andrei, Kirk and Misha. And Nathan I'll tell you what's so wonderful about it. It's because - said, 'This time it's no practice but the real thing. And believe 'Let me guess!' Misha stopped him. 'It's because . . . on the me, you're going to a wonderful place! Just hold onto the rope edge of the forest we were in darkness, the twilight before and remember what I told you, that you may feel like you're the dawn, while here ... now we stand in sunlight!' Sunup, floating or falling - but you're not, and it's only for a few yes, and the dazzling southern horizon as fiery as a perfect moments.' spiral nebula viewed edge-on, whose golden central blister Nathan conjured a door and guided them through it; it took threatened to supernova at any moment and burn an entire no more than forty-five seconds maximum. The savanna was galaxy. But it was a false impression, for as ever this would empty, and Nathan followed his charges into the Mobius be a long, tortuously slow rising. And the slower the better, Continuum .. . for the longer the day. ... and led them out again into — Nathan smiled and nodded. 'Exactly right. For we're a '- A wonderful place!' Misha gasped. One of the first out, good many miles south of where we were. Even at night - she had opened her eyes at once. Of the rest of the Lidescis: a even if the Wamphyri knew where we were - they probably good many had sat down abruptly as the return of gravity wouldn't follow us here. South is towards the sun, and unbalanced them. Others staggered a little, blinking their eyes therefore dangerous. But as close as this to sunup . .. they'd in the unexpected light; all clung to the rope. Some of them - a never chance it!' small handful and mainly curious children - had in fact opened Looking all around, he saw the children going down to the their eyes within the Mobius Continuum; Nathan had heard water's rim, and said, 'A wonderful place, yes — but don't let their gasps of awe, even terror. These were the ones who clung the little ones stray too far, for we can't stay. The Thyre have more tightly yet to the rope, and plumped down that much done us a favour: we have the use of this place in time of more abruptly as gravity returned! Several little ones cried danger. So let's not abuse their hospitality. This time was their shock, their alarm - shortly turning to cries of wonder, in simply a visit, an opportunity to try out our escape route in turn rising to a swelling babble as the Lidescis gazed all about. case the time should come when we have to use it in earnest.' They stood on the fertile rim of Crater Lake, rising like a He needn't have worried about the children, for Anna false plateau from the surface of the furnace desert. All of a Marie was with them. Indeed, it seemed she couldn't be mile across, with a raised inner caldera, the place was most separated from them, especially the orphans. Lardis called probably an old meteoric crater. To the west, a river entered them all together again anyway, and formed them up; they through caverns in the base of the crater wall, formed a great played the Necroscope's wonderful 'game' again; Nathan blue lake within the basin, emptied through a gap in the reef- returned them to the temporary camp at the edge of the like central node, and so down into the earth again. It was the forest... Great Dark River which, during his travels among the Thyre (it seemed several ages ago), Nathan had followed even 'Wolf!' Zek Foener cried out, her hands flying to her temples, beyond this place, under the sprawling Great Red Waste, and an amazed expression on her face. so into Turgosheim's Sunside. Nathan had been momentarily distracted, surrounded by Now he calmed his charges. 'A Thyre place,' he said. 'And 603 602 Lardis and his senior men, who seemed intent on pounding stood, stiff-legged on the rim of a sheer cliff that fell away for his back to a pulp: their way of congratulating him on his hundreds of feet! The intention of the vampires was clear: this new and apparently foolproof safeguard against the wolf of the wild was prey. Whether he fell to his doom or they Wamphyri. But within a few seconds of emerging from the hacked him to death made no difference: wolf-heart was a Mobius Continuum, Zek was on duty, scanning the area delicacy, and meat is meat whatever its source. telepathically to ensure that nothing had changed during their Nathan had emerged from the Continuum just a few paces to short absence. one side of the tableau. The lieutenant immediately sensed Now Nathan stepped quickly to her side, touched her, and him, crouched low, swung towards him and lifted his gauntlet was at once in contact with her telepathic probe. It was defensively. Simultaneously, the thrall edged closer to the Grinner - trying to contact Nathan, not Zek! snarling wolf at the edge of the cliff. But Grinner was Uncle .. . Necroscope . .. I'm trapped! wounded, panting his pain, his side torn and bloody. His Zek reeled, and cried again: 'Wolf! For a moment I ... I energy was about used up. He had strength for a final leap, thought it was my Wolf, except he's dead in another world.' perhaps into eternity. 'No,' Nathan told her. 'Not your wolf, mine! Grinner, yes, A rock jutted on the rim, almost teetering there. Nathan was in trouble with the Wamphyri, on Starside! separated from Grinner by this volcanic node, also by the He read the co-ordinates right out of dinner's mind, but lieutenant — who now took two swift paces towards him! before he could act on them picked up a second probe trying Nathan swung his crossbow to and fro. Shoot at the thrall, to make contact with him! It was Jasef Karis's dead-speak. and he himself would be at the mercy of the lieutenant. Fire at Nathan! There are newcomers among the teeming dead! the lieutenant, and it might be too late for Grinner. He sent a Men, some of them! In the great pass - a battle! mental picture of his intentions, and an urgent question: Have The great pass .. . Turkur Tzonov's men, it could only be. you the strength? Nathan had intended to meet them in a few hours' time, at Yes, Grinner answered — and acted! the Sunside end of the pass. Now, on the gloomy, winding He leaped for the rock, bounding to its uneven apex. The floor of the canyon, they must be under attack from Deve- thrall swung his gauntleted fist while Grinner was in midair, taki's forces, her final throw before sunup. but Nathan had already triggered his bolt. Passing close to the A wolf of the wild on the one hand, and human beings on lieutenant, it struck the thrall in his shoulder and threw him the other - yet Nathan didn't hesitate; or only for a moment, off-balance. The crossbow thrummed empty in Nathan's hand, to speak to Lardis: and the lieutenant laughed in his face, showing the great gape 'Get some men ready ... eight of them .. . with hell-land of his jaws. He reached out to grab the Necroscope by the weapons .. . wait here!' Then he loaded his own crossbow throat, drawing his gauntlet back to strike a killing blow. But: with a now precious exploding bolt, conjured a door, and was Now! Nathan sent. gone — The bolt in the thrall's shoulder exploded, cut short his - To a place in the barrier mountains, on Starside. agonized mewling, sent a spray of scarlet up into the startled It took just a moment for the picture to sink in, but it was a air. Grinner made his second leap, struck both Nathan and the near-fatal moment: lieutenant square-on, so that all three fell in a tangle A lieutenant and a senior thrall, one red-eyed and the other feral, both gauntleted, closing in on Grinner where he 605 604 over the rim. The intended blow never fell on Nathan. The Lardis and his men were ready; among them, Trask, lieutenant's scarlet eyes bulged and he tried to grab the cliff Chung, Carling, Andrei and Kirk. 'Trouble in the pass,' Nathan told them breathlessly, as he reloaded his crossbow. face with his gauntleted hand. Briefly he clung, then slipped. 'Men against monsters. But be careful: we might yet find But Nathan and the wolf had already fallen away from him, problems with both sides! Remember, these were Tzonov's through a Mobius door. men.' Before the door collapsed behind them, they heard the He took them to the pass, where as yet dawn's light crept lieutenant's shriek dwindle to a flutter of air . . . slowly from the south. At the southern end of the pass where it opened into Sunside, no sign of trouble. Nathan made a ... And angrily, Nathan asked: How? second jump, deeper into darkness, and as his party emerged I failed to take my own advice, Grinner answered. I told you — to hold back, and myself went forward! Three grey brothers - A powerful reek of gunpowder, drifting white smoke, were with me, but when the vampires appeared I played the and a stumbling, sobbing figure moving towards them lure and separated myself from the rest. I was trying to spy through a pale, writhing ground mist. A survivor, human. out a few of their hiding places for you, for the morning. But in the broad ribbon of sky overhead where the walls of Those two followed after me; 1 was just a wolf and they would the pass went up, there were things that were not human! try to take me. The lieutenant was lucky enough to strike me Two manta shapes, Wamphyri flyers, pulsed against the with his weaponed hand. Finally, exhausted, I called for help thin and weary stars. One of them had no rider; it listed, and and you heard me. the webbing of its wings seemed patterned with spangles No, someone else heard you, Nathan answered. And you where starlight gleamed fleetingly through tattered were lucky, too, for she's known wolves before, that one. membrane. The other creature was a little lower and carried But Grinner didn't answer - or only with an awed silence, two riders, one of whom was female. Seated forward of the as he experienced the Mobius Continuum. And, held fast in long saddle - wearing armour and a half-mask of lead - she Nathan's arms, the great wolf whined, growled, finally was obviously a Lady of the Wamphyri. Behind her, the panted: slighter male figure held on as best he could. Uncle . .. directions/ The half-mask told Nathan the Lady's identity; quick as What? thought he fell to one knee, aimed his weapon at the I sense them . .. here! Everywhere I've ever known . . . all swooping manta shape as it slipped north into the shadows the time I have lived, and times as yet unlived! This place is of the pass. But too late, for she'd gone. And disgusted with all places, all times! Directions, yes! This place is - himself that he'd let the chance slip, 'Devetaki!' Nathan everywhere! My father's world, and yours, and others! They grunted. are here, too; and forces that fight with the moon; and He cast a telepathic probe, caught only her anger as she powers that were born in the stars! DIRECTIONS! shielded her mind. But her passenger wasn't as adept as Nathan would know more, but had no time for it, not now. Devetaki; Nathan could hear him as clear as day, telling her, He returned to the camp, emerged from the Continuum That was him down there on the bed of the pass! The one and at once put Grinner down. And to Zek and Misha as that Tzonov and I told you about! Now you've seen for they stepped anxiously forward: 'See to him. He's not that yourself how he can simply appear like that! You can forget badly hurt.' 607 606 those weapons, Devetaki, for with the Necroscope and his even be dangerous. Not the men, no - not the human corpses - fighters down there .. .' but some of the fallen lieutenants had been vampires for . . . But: 'Be quiet, fool!' she cut him off. 'Can't you heed your oh, a long time. It surprised Nathan to find more females than own warnings? He listens - with his mind!' males. Then, looking at them, it dawned on him who or what Then the silence was shattered as several of Nathan's these evil-looking women had been: Zindevar's creatures, aye. colleagues opened up with their automatic weapons, sending a The Necroscope remembered her reputation from his stream of bullets uselessly after Devetaki, and another into Turgosheim days. And proving it was simple: the one or two the sky where the half-crippled flyer gained altitude. Higher men were eunuchs! still, two more flyers appeared in the ribbon of sky, wheeled Meanwhile, the remainder of his party, with the exception of on the wind and sped north. Lieutenants of Devetaki, Trask and Lardis, had arrived. There's work for you here,' probably. Nathan told them. 'All of these bodies must be burned. But be 'Hold your fire!' Ben Trask shouted over the din. 'It's a careful, and don't touch the vampires or their creatures.' He let waste of ammunition!' The firing ceased, and its echoes Andrei Romani and Kirk Lisescu show them how to pile pine came bouncing back from the canyon walls like a gradually branches fallen from the heights against the corpses, and as receding drum roll. . . they saw to it, went back to Trask and Lardis. Trask went to talk to the sole survivor, and Nathan took The single human survivor of the fight, a slim, nervous- Andrei and Kirk forward with him into what had been the looking CMI Operative, was talking. 'So that's what it was all battle-zone; a short jump of a hundred and fifty yards down about: greed, a chance for promotion . .. but mainly stupidity, the pass, to a misty depression just a quarter-mile south of looking back on it. Well, I wasn't the only one. Paxton fooled the dog-leg bend. And there they found the ugly debris of just about everyone in his command, even the people above war. him. I was close to him, I admit it - as close as anyone - but I There, too, they stood still in the thin, swirling mist, while didn't realize how badly gone he was, how obsessed, until the the Necroscope 'listened' in his fashion. Nothing lived here cavern of the Gate at the Refuge . ..' that he could tell, not any longer. At least, there were no 'How did Paxton and his team get there so quickly?' Trask thoughts to detect with his telepathy - but the deadspeak wanted to know. aether was alive with fear and bewilderment! That was The operative looked at him, shrugged. 'He knew that an always the way of it, and it would be no use trying to talk to enemy - he called him an "alien" - had defected to E-Branch these recently dead. They would be confused for some time to from somewhere in the Urals, and that he would be heading come. for the Refuge at Radujevac. Borders don't count for a lot Burning flyers and a small aerial warrior lay crumpled these days, as you know, and CMI had safehouses in where they'd fallen or been blasted to a standstill and hosed Bucharest, Belgrade, other places. Paxton had been out there with liquid fire; their smoke drifted up, making the air vile. for some time, just waiting for it to happen. But no one in his Several small craters still issued wisps of smoke where command, his "select group", as he called us, knew just what grenades had exploded. The rocks were spattered red. The he was up to or how far he would go. He did initially have faces of the men, where they had faces, were filled with orders to stop this alien returning to . . . wherever.' Again, his frozen terror. shrug. This place, I suppose. But after The bodies were ... terrible! And some of them might 608 609 we had taken the Refuge the orders were suddenly rescinded.' 'He has no idea what that bite means, then? No, of course Trask nodded. 'But that didn't stop him.' he doesn't, else Trask would know.' 'No. Where the way was blocked he blasted his way Lardis nodded. 'He's an innocent, poor bastard! But he's through. He found spare air-tanks, inflatables, everything strong, too, else that bite would have put him down. It's the we needed, in the Refuge. He took his entire team up the worst possible combination: a strong physique and a river to the shining Gate thing. And that was when . .. when vampire's bite. He would be a menace!' I found out that he was raving! But too late by then. He was Then let me know when you're ready, and I'll call Trask so, I don't know ... plausible; he looked sane! He told the away.' men they were going through into another world, and that Again, Lardis's nod. they'd come back rich. Except they had probably seen Meanwhile Trask had asked, 'Where's Paxton now?' through him by then; they weren't much interested in rich. 'Dead,' said the CMI man. 'I don't know what his game They had wives, children, homes, lives to live. was, but after the fighting started he took off after the 'When they got awkward, he . . . he simply shot them! All leader of those nightmarish women. Him and Bruno Krasin, of them, except me. But I knew I'd be next if I gave him any Tzonov's 2I/C. They chased her into a cave back there. kind of argument. I didn't know why he'd spared me until I There were a couple of explosions - grenades, I suppose - saw Starside. Then I knew. It isn't the kind of place you'd and the cave came down on them. Nothing could live through want to be alone in . . . " that.' Lardis called Nathan to one side, and whispered, 'This one 'You've been lucky,' Trask nodded, and for the first time isn't a survivor.' noticed how the man kept rubbing at his neck, the ugly 'Oh?' craters there. So . . . maybe he hadn't been so lucky after all. 'See how he rubs his neck? He has punctures there, Slowly, then, Trask stood up and moved apart, and Lardis beginning to fester. He's been bitten by some lieutenant gave Nathan a certain look. during the fighting. He'll be just another plague-bearer, if we 'Ben,' Nathan called out. 'Can I speak to you a moment?' allow it. But of course we can't.' Trask went to him and they turned away. But before Nathan nodded but said, 'Let Trask finish questioning Nathan could speak, Trask said, That man. I think -' him. And when you do it, be merciful. Don't let him know '— I know what you think,' Nathan cut him short, grabbed it's coming. He isn't to blame.' his arm. 'None of us are,' said Lardis, showing him the hilt of a From behind came the chopping sound of a meat cleaver razor-sharp machete in his belt. 'Don't worry, he won't feel a and a short, gurgling cry. thing.' Then silence ... 'Does Trask know?' 'I don't think so, or he wouldn't sit so close.' As Geoffrey Paxton surfaced through the dark, choking 'That's odd. Trask usually knows the truth of things.' flotsam of unconsciousness, he studied the various pieces 'The truth is that this one is not yet a vampire,' Lardis floating by: scraps of memory, bits of the past, all leading to answered. 'But he will be when next he wakes up. If he were his present situation. He was aware of an urgency in himself, to wake up. Except he won't.' without knowing what it signified. In the misty and mainly unexplored zone which lies between the alpha and omega 610 611 states of consciousness, that area between vacancy and the world of men; but that was as nothing now, while his tenancy of mind, he yet felt impelled to advance his rate of dream, his grand plan, was everything. Keogh had been (or ascent, like a scuba diver short on air. And in fact he was could have been) all-powerful, but didn't know how to control short on air — and even shorter on time as an entirely human his talents. They controlled him; so it seemed to Paxton. But being. this time it would be different. If he were a vampire he would And so he lay in the rubble of fallen rocks, dirt, dust, in know how to control it, how to get back his telepathy, stolen the back of the cave, and 'dreamed' his past, or fragments of it: by a vampire .. . how to extract the necessary knowledge, His childhood, when he was ever aware of his developing from Nathan Keogh, to make himself a Necroscope! telepathy, and increasingly aware of the hypocrisy all around ... His coming here to Sunside/Starside ... and his him; his failure to understand that the world doesn't turn on subsequent search for an instrument of change to bring about what is thought but what is said and done. His gradual his own metamorphosis into that most powerful of creatures - opposition to mankind, a turning inwards, an acceleration of Wamphyri! The attack in the pass . . . he could have been self-appreciation, egotism. Knowing that he was talented, killed and all schemes at an end! ... But, no, there'd been a and his search for a royal road to power. His time with E- warning: flyers glimpsed in the sky immediately before the Branch, and his eventual rejection by the Branch, coming hot attack. And that had struck him as strange: that they would on the heels of the war with the Necroscope, Harry Keogh. give themselves away like that. Or had they underestimated Paxton's part in that war: his telepathy against the the alien weapons? Or . . . had they simply been betrayed? awesome powers of Keogh's metaphysical mind, and the fact Whichever, forewarned is forearmed; when the vampires had that he hadn't stood a chance! And afterwards, the sprung from ambush, Krasin's men had excelled in accounting knowledge that he'd stood face to face with just such a for themselves. Oh, they had died, but they had accounted for POWER as he sought, an even greater POWER than any themselves. he'd ever imagined. And from then on his lust for that Then, in the battle, the moment Paxton had waited for. A POWER. But how to achieve it? The Necroscope had stolen — female, hideous, obviously Wamphyri, had her manta mount or switched off - his telepathy. blown from under her. He had seen her crawl into a cave — The Necroscope: a man, a monster, a vampire .. . yet weak but so had Bruno Krasin! And Paxton had known that Krasin (in Geoffrey Paxton's eyes) in that he'd allowed his enemies would kill her. Well, so would he, but there's killing and to banish him from his own world, or one which he could have killing. Not all of her must die. Something of her - of her inner made his own. If Paxton had been in his position, he would not species - must live. In Paxton! have been banished. By now the world would be his. But in the cave, before he could act, that idiot Krasin It would be his! tossing a grenade! Paxton had barely managed to dive behind And so the plan forming, and finally the chance he'd been a shielding hump of rock. And as he'd stood up in the smoke waiting for: to restore his telepathy, reverse his misfortunes. and stink of the explosion, Krasin had pulled the pin on a The coming of the son of the Necroscope! second grenade! Paxton had seen his one great opportunity Between times, Paxton had worked, elevated himself in disappearing before his eyes! At which his outrage - and his weapon - had spoken for him. Tossed back against the wall of the cave, his uniform tunic gouged 612 613 crimson in a dozen places, Krasin's arms were flung wide ... Paxton searched for his weapon .. . gone. Lost under all this the grenade went bounding toward the narrow entrance ... an debris. Stooping, stumbling, careful of his aching head, he uproar!. .. and darkness. moved further into the cave, his torch-beam flickering before Out of which Paxton, the great survivor, now clawed himself him, picking out the way. And there - inch by monotonously slow inch towards the present, the here - There she was! Except she had no head. That was and now, the one proof positive of continuing sentience and missing; her right arm and flabby right breast, too. And the life: consciousness. cave wall close to where she lay was spattered red. Dead. Consciousness! He woke up! Paxton knew as much as most men about the Wamphyri, And coughed in the sulphur and cordite stench, the but not everything by any means. And just like most men, he claustrophobic confines of the collapsed cave. He felt the knew and remembered the myths better than the facts. He had weight of rocks and dirt pinning him down, the multiple hurts wanted her alive, to bargain for her life. He had wanted her to of cuts and bruises, the whirling of his scattered senses ... but, give him what he needed to be Wamphyri! Little chance of more than anything else, the darkness. And so he knew that he that now. was still in the cave, while his pain told him that he was still He sat down on a rock to rest a while and think. The beam alive. of his torch roved over Zindevar, the tattered stump of her fat He moved, and the rubble moved with him. The dust rose neck - and he saw it move! He swung the beam back again, up, making him cough some more. He used hands crusted with held it still with a hand that refused to be still but shook as in blood to pick rocks off his chest and body. Laying them aside, a palsy. Zindevar's neck was pulsing, throbbing, expanding - he lifted his head, felt nauseous and laid it down. And in a little as something struggled to find its way out! while lifted it again. And suddenly Paxton wasn't so sure about what he wanted, Airlessness! Was that why he couldn't breathe properly? Or or even why he'd wanted it in the first place. And there in the was it just the weight of the mountain pressing on him? And cramped confines of the cave, Zindevar's vampire leech the darkness. Paxton put aside more rocks, sat up, freed his emerged; that blind, cobra-hooded thing, trailing mucus from limbs and felt them in turn. Nothing broken; just cuts and the bloody red tunnel of her neck. She was dead but life went bruises, and a bump like a hen's egg on the back of his head. on. The vampire is tenacious. He remembered a pencil torch in his pocket. God (in whom The thing sensed him (his warmth, blood, humanity, he didn't really believe) please let it be undamaged! And in a availability, something), and came crawling, undulating. And moment a smoky beam of light lancing through wreathing Paxton was sure now what he did not want! Oh, and however cordite stink and trickles of dust from overhead. The interior briefly, he was as sane as the sanest of men, as he drew a long of the cave was intact; only the entrance had been brought knife from its sheath in his belt. He jammed his torch in a crack, down. pointing at the horror, took his knife, and pinned the leech to Close to the wall of the cave, Bruno Krasin's uniformed legs the dirt floor. Which only served to accelerate the process. and lower trunk stuck out from beneath ten tons of large rocks; The leech whipped to and fro as he jerked back away from his legs and a dark, wet stain. Well, the Russian had been dead it; it issued its egg, which came skittering out of the torch- anyway. But what of the woman - or the 'Lady'? - whom they'd beam into darkness. That pearly, flickering, oversized chased in here? planktonic thing - no bigger than his fingernail, but quite deadly — somewhere in the dark, with Paxton. 614 615 Sobbing, he scrambled for the torch and knocked it flying. Its beam went out. And something cold crept on his hand, flowed up his right arm inside his shirt, went from his armpit V across his nipple to his neck. It moved like lightning! He Dreams of the Dead - EthJoi's Symbols -Terror slapped at it, at himself, futilely. It was on - it was in -his ear! PAIN! in Turgosheim/ Agony to make him dance, scream, slapping madly at the side of his head again and again, bounding this way and that. Someone was pouring acid into his ear, his brain, melting his head away! He stumbled this way and that, howling his torment .. . until once again his head made contact with It was the dawning of a new day, and, conceived perhaps out something. of urgency and frustration in the face of a period of impending Something mercifully hard. inactivity, a new idea had likewise dawned. Darkness. Nathan's original plan had been to wreak maximum havoc in Again ... the vampire camps during the long daylight hours. But according to Grinner — who, while recuperating, continued to relay periodic reports from Blaze and others of the grey brothers in the mountains, thus keeping Nathan updated on Wamphyri activity - this was now out of the question. Starside of the high passes and peaks, in the permanent shadow of the barrier range, the Lords of Turgosheim had trebled their pickets and, despite that it was day, were alert as never before. Devetaki had seen for herself something of the fantastic talents of her Szgany foe - a man Alexei Yefros had called 'the Necroscope' — and had taken appropriate measures. Further forays against the camps at this time would be sheerest folly, if not actually suicidal. Thus Nathan found himself stalemated by his own success, and only two days left before Gustav Turchin would close Trask and his colleagues' escape route to Perchorsk. These were Sunside days, of course, which relieved some of the urgency, if not the frustration. And if it came down to it, in the face of some insurmountable difficulty, Nathan could always transport Trask, Zek and the others to within an ace of the Starside Gate, wish them luck and see them on their way. That would mean the end of their obligations to him, yes, and vice versa. But . .. the Necroscope's emotions were 617 very mixed on the subject; friends like these would be hard to Chung with work to do - work which only they were equipped come by in any world; he didn't look forward to it. Following to carry out: the locating of other Traveller groups in the which, and if matters were not resolved by the time they left, forests to east and west - he conjured the first of several the rest would be in his hands entirely. But for now there was Mobius doors ... a new day and Nathan must dream up some new ideas ... He asked Grinner to relay amended orders to all of his grey Starting at Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, the closest of all brothers, and withdrew them to safe positions from which to the Thyre colonies, Misha and Nathan commenced visiting a keep a wary eye on the Wamphyri without putting themselves long itinerary of suitable refuges. Contacted by Nathan in at further risk, then considered other options and objectives - advance, Atwei was there to meet them in the deep sandstone such as Wrathstack. gorge where the Necroscope had first conversed with the But here, too, he was disadvantaged. Twice, he had struck at philosopher Rogei. Then the gorge had been a dry, the last aerie, whose inhabitants were not fools. To go against inhospitable place. Now . . . it was very different. the stack again would be to take an enormous risk; only On Nathan's last visit, when he had brought members of his emerge from the Continuum in the wrong place at the wrong party here after their arrival through the Starside Gate, he had time - disaster! And in any case, Nathan actually desired that not stepped outside the mausoleum except through a Mobius Wratha and the others should not be utterly disadvantaged door. This time Atwei had begged him to come to the gorge when it came to the all-out war which must ensue at nightfall. itself, because she wanted him to see it. The more evenly matched the opposing sides, the more Her reason was simple: against its rear wall, the gorge was damage they'd be able to inflict on one another. now a small but flourishing oasis full of shrubs, flowers, bees, Which meant that since he dare not attack, his single hives and honey; all thanks to Nathan and to the artisan alternative course of action - action of a sort, at least - was to Shaeken and the gardener Tharkel. Upon a time, the take defensive measures. And he had the full span of a Necroscope had relayed the words and works of these two Sunside day in which to perfect and complete them. Thyre ancients to their living descendants, with the result that Dressed in the best Szgany clothing he could beg or borrow, Shaeken's Water Ram was now operational, pumping life- and accompanied by Misha, all scrubbed and attired in her giving water up from the Great Dark River; and Tharkel's finest, he set out to visit the Thyre, to explain and explore the gardening and bee-keeping theories and skills had not been feasibility of his plan, which was far simpler in outline than it lost beyond the barrier of his last long sleep. would be in execution. But if it were at all possible, then 'But the Water Ram keeps breaking down,' Atwei told her before the onset of night, in some one hundred hours' time, visitors. 'And so the people of Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs Nathan intended to move not just one tribe (albeit the biggest) are working on Shaeken's "Hydraulic Hoist".' She shrugged into the comparative safety of the Thyre colonies, but as many her thin brown shoulders. 'Alas, that the things that men make surviving Traveller pockets as he could locate. Except he .. . break! And that when they do, there's nothing for it but knew that he should first have the blessing of the Thyre that we use muscle and put machines aside. It is very hard to themselves. keep the oasis going.' At which Nathan remembered Before leaving the temporary camp, he explained his something. mission to Lardis and the others. Then, leaving Zek and It had seemed a big, important thing when first he saw it in Trask's world, but now seemed dwarfed to insignificance 618 619 by the events of the long night. Anyway, it would be 'But the Szgany do have such skills,' Nathan answered. something by way of repayment for the very great favours he 'And you can avail yourselves of them. With Thyre mirrors to must ask of the Thyre. Standing some way apart from the focus the sunlight, and engines like this in caverns in the oasis, seeing movement in the greenery, he turned to Atwei ground, the desert could be made to bloom!' and asked her: 'Are any of the elders in the oasis? The other Petais's jaw had fallen open. For once he had no words, elders, I mean?' and so said nothing ... 'Petals, grandson of Rogei is there,' she answered. 'Petals who was so hard on you when first you came among us. Will The visit went well, with all of the remaining elders of Place- you speak to him? He would be honoured!' Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs agreeing to a man that the new oasis 'He became my friend in the end.' Nathan smiled. 'Bring in the gorge would make an ideal harbour area for threatened him here into the sunlight, if you will, for I have something to Travellers. It was by now generally accepted that the threat to show him. I'll be back.' And to Misha: 'It will only take a the Szgany was also a threat to Sunside in its entirety, moment.' Before they could query him, he conjured a door including the people of the furnace deserts. and disappeared into thin air - Nathan thanked them humbly, and asked permission to - And was back again by the time Petais (thin as all the visit the Cavern of the Ancients. He would speak to Shaeken Thyre, and bald before his time) had been introduced to and Tharkel, and let them know how their visions had come to Misha. Nathan had brought with him a small box, whose fruition; also to show them the steam-engine. He would keep location he had marked among the ammunition boxes in the his visit as brief as possible. Permission was granted, of temporary camp. Now, if the box's contents had come through course. undamaged .. . But in the Cavern of the Ancients: They had: a tiny brass model steam-engine with a shining Nathan, strange times! said Shaeken and Tharkel together, steel flywheel and a chain drive-belt, and a square magnifying almost talking over the top of each other. For we have glass in a frame. It took only a moment to fill the boiler with dreamed weird dreams! Which wasn't in itself peculiar; water from Petais's waterskin, then Nathan placed the engine Nathan knew that the dead grow weary much like the living, on a block of sandstone and positioned the glass against a and that they sleep, too, and dream much as they did in life. pebble where its lens trapped the sun and focused it on the 'You, too?' Still, he was mystified, yet perhaps shouldn't be boiler. too surprised; these were strange times, and when better for The sun was very hot; in a little while the safety-valve portents to have power? 'What are these things you've began to whistle; Nathan barely touched the flywheel and the dreamed?' His reasons for being here, to tell them about the engine chugged into life. The piston hammered to and fro and oasis and the steam-engine, were temporarily forgotten. the spokes of the flywheel became a blur! I have dreamed . . . of water! said Shaeken. And to Petais: 'A little water, and sunlight of which you And so have I, said the other, breathlessly. Water to turn have ample, equals energy! This is only a small thing, a the desert green! model. But with a big one, coupled to Shaeken's hoist —' he Now Nathan remembered why he was here. 'But you must glanced at Atwei and smiled,'- no more aching muscles!' know that these weren't just dreams,' he said. 'Water was your 'We have not the skills!' Petais protested. Thyre lifelong fascination, both of you. You, Shaeken, in understanding of metalworking would not run to this!' 620 621 that you were a visionary, and saw the importance of the 'How so?' Great Dark River under the desert: its bounty if it could be We spoke of water, Shaeken answered, and Thikkoul brought to the surface. And you, Tharkel, because you were a spoke of a great turning of the world. gardener who explored the nature of growing things. In a way Tharkel took it up: It was almost as though . . . it was as if you worked towards the same end, and your obsessions we animated each other! As if we were linked up, dead mind stayed with you in death as in life. What you have dreamed is to dead mind, each vision building upon the one gone before! what you felt — an oasis that flourishes even now in the gorge As if our total, Shaeken went on, was greater than the sum beyond the cliffs which house this mausoleum!' And now he of our parts. told them his news. But: Nathan was surprised to hear such an expression. 'Do you That is all exciting, said Tharkel, except it does JittJe to know,' he said, 'but that sounds like Ethloi the Mathematician explain our dreams. Yes, our obsession was with water, and speaking? I talked to him in Open-to-the-Sky, in the Cavern perhaps the water flowing in the oasis, pumped up by of Long Dreams. That was .. . oh, a long time ago.' Shaeken's Ram, has shaken his old bones and stimulated his Ethloi who knows numbers? Shaeken said. Of course, for I mind. But my dream was of a world of water, with the desert was the one who sent you to him. You should speak to him itself pushed back for mile upon mile! Why, I even dreamed again, for those were Ethloi's words that I spoke! of a fountain! 'Oh? Is he in on this too? And are his dreams filled with 'But isn't that the same obsession?' said Nathan, with a visions and portents?' deadspeak shrug. 'Water, springing from the dry earth?' Indeed! And we know that he desires to talk to you. Oh? said Tharkel. From the dry, dead earth, do you mean? 'He hasn't said as much.' Aye, for the fountain I dreamed was on Starside, where it was He's a humble man; Ethloi's numbers are humble, and lit by a soft white light! yours are legendary! Also, there were a great many who And Shaeken said: Also, I dreamed of thunderclouds in the would speak to you first, Nathan. He did not wish to waste sky over the desert and great rains, which seemed to me to your time with his 'puny symbols'. corroborate Tharkel's dreams, yet neither one of us can reason 'He said that?' it out. We do not know what these things mean! Yes. Nathan shook his head, frowned, and said, 'I don't 'Symbols? Not numbers?' understand either. Are you trying to tell me you've seen into Symbols. Water symbols. The waters that flow between some kind of future? If I had heard it from Thikkoul -' the worlds'. That's what he said. Thikkoul! they both cried at once. But we have spoken to Then I shall be with him shortly, for Open-to-the-Sky is Thikkoul! And Shaeken explained: You must remember, next on my list.' Necroscope, that the Thyre are telepaths in life, and this, too, When will you go there? continues after death. All of the Ancients of the Thyre are 'Now, if you'll excuse me?' now more frequently in contact than ever before. And Of course, Tharkel and Shaeken told him in unison. And practice, as they say, makes perfect. What is more, all of the may the One Who Listens go with you ... Thyre dead seem filled with visions and portents! Oh, yes, we have spoken to Thikkoul, and recently. And you are right: it Nathan and Misha returned to the Lidesci camp. It was to appears our talents complement each other! 622 623 There's none like this one,' Lardis told him. 'He's Harry have been a brief visit, to check on Zek and Chung's progress Hell-lander's son - and he has his father's talents!' The legend before continuing with their round of Thyre colonies; except of the original Necroscope was known far and wide, there had actually been a deal of progress, and Nathan must throughout all of Sunside. look into it. Namely, Zek had picked up human thoughts in After that: the easiest way to explain their presence here the forests to the east, near the ruined, deserted town of Twin was for Nathan to give a practical demonstration. He issued Fords. David Chung had felt something, too, and after Lardis the usual cautions — told Karl to close his eyes, ignore any had sketched a rough map of the area, Chung was able to dizziness, keep still - and after the other had followed his pinpoint the source. instructions, took his arm and walked him two paces forward 'It can only be Karl Zestos,' Lardis grunted, 'or his ... survivors, if Karl's dead. The last I heard, Karl led a small ... And two thousand miles east and sixty south! band of Twin Fords folk. Sometimes they lie low in cliff It was Crater Lake, but Nathan couldn't stay. He returned caverns; at others they hide out in the woods; by day they with Karl to Lardis and the others, and waited until Karl had travel and scavenge, of course.' taken several deep breaths and adjusted to events. Finally the Their thoughts were very well guarded,' Zek said. truth of it sank in, and the necessary arrangements were 'Rightly so,' Nathan told her. 'If it had been night, you completed. It had been Karl's intention that towards night his would have had your work cut out to find them at all!' people should make for caves in the cliffs behind Twin Fords; And Lardis asked, 'Will you go to them?' now they would wait here for Nathan. There were perhaps a 'At once, if only to take Karl a little cheer. I like him. He dozen Szgany Zestos in the small camp, mainly women and a asked me to join him, upon a time. But now . . . he might be a handful of children. The rest, the able-bodied men, were out bit suspicious. I mean, it's a strange thing that I'll be showing hunting. him.' 'How many people?' Nathan wanted to know. 'Take me with you,' said Lardis, nodding. 'If Karl should Karl's mouth turned down. 'We were a town upon a time,' find something "suspicious" about me, I'll box his ears! I can he said. And, when the truth of that registered in their remember when his father, Bela, was boss .. .' memories, 'Now there are thirty-two of us all told. The dozen Taking Chung, Lardis and Andrei with him, Nathan made a or so that you see here, and the rest out earning their keep.' jump seven miles east, from where Chung was able to narrow the location of the camp down a little. Nathan's second jump 'I can move you all in a single trip,' Nathan said. 'And I will, took them to within one hundred yards of their target. Then tonight! Not as far as Crater Lake; maybe Crack-in-the-Rocks. Lardis and Andrei went off on their own through the bushes, I'll keep Crater Lake as a refuge of last resort. As for tonight... I and finally hallooed for Nathan and Chung to join them. calculate that for the first half of the night, at least, the Karl Zestos was just as Nathan remembered him: Wamphyri will be occupied with their bloodwar. After that, longhaired, jut-jawed, black-eyed and thin as a pole, but they'll need to replenish, to restock what they've lost or strong. Which was just as well; in the years flown between, destroyed, refill their temporary camps with thralls and flesh. If even the strongest of men had fallen. 'I would know you Wratha and the others in Wrathstack survive, they will be in the anywhere,' Karl said, locking forearms with the Necroscope. same position: they'll require to refuel. Except they won't 'With your blond hair - a little grey now, I note - and your discover anything of nourishment in Sunside, not tonight.' blue eyes, there can't be a great many like you.' 624 625 Karl passed on information of other survivors to the east, and then Nathan transported Lardis and the others back to camp. The Necroscope's last words to Karl before leaving were these: 'Be ready when I come. There may not be much time ...' With Misha, Nathan visited Open-to-the-Sky. They received the customary Thyre welcome, and in a little while Misha became the first and probably the last Szgany woman to enter the Cavern of Long Dreams. Indeed, of all the Szgany, the Necroscope himself was the only one who had been there But before Nathan could comment, Ethloi continued, Which in before her. While Misha sat quietly and experienced the my dreams always seems to go hand in hand with this: mystical atmosphere of the mausoleum, Nathan conversed with Ethloi, who told him: You could have spoken to me from afar, Necroscope. That wasn't my father's way, Nathan answered, and except that it can't be helped, it won't be mine. Here . . . I am close to you. That's how friends should talk. But time is short, and I have heard that you have something to tell me. I shall value Now Nathan said, I know that one, at least! It is myself, or your advice even as I valued your teaching that time. the symbol by which I know myself. But the other . . . I can't My teaching? My numbers? Hah! The other brushed the say. He shook his head. The wavy lines look like water ... compliment aside. But I have seen yours, Nathan! In fact, I Ethloi's deadspeak nod. And I have dreamed of rivers that was the student, never the teacher, except I had not the wit to flow between the worlds! understand the lessons! There are no such rivers. Ridiculous! Nathan answered. And anyway, my numbers I know. were born in me, while yours came from learning. But I've been told your dreams are diverse, and that currently . . . For the moment at least, it was all beyond the Necroscope, these are not numbers that you've dreamed. frustrating beyond reason. If Ethloi's symbols were numbers, it Symbols, aye! Ethloi whispered. Like, and yet unlike, the might be puzzled out. But there were no numbers here, just symbols you once showed to me in your vortex. If there is circles, arrows, water. You could have picked up this water meaning in them, you might know it. If not . . . perhaps I am theme from Tharkel and Shaeken. wasting your time. But as you know, we ancients share our Yes, but I don't think so. thoughts, and our knowledge puts on growth like dripstone And that design, (it was impressed on Nathan's mind as if on a skeletal stalactite. branded there) could it be . . . a machine? It somehow Nathan was fascinated. Show me these symbols. reminds me of the steam-engine; it has a feeling of pistons, And this is what Ethloi showed him: pressure, movement, power. Ethloi showed him the symbols again, with the Mobius 627 Strip laid over or intertwining with them. The Mobius Strip ... taken them. And as before, in a sea of bracken, he threw a skin like the symbol for eternity ... like the Mobius Continuum over the bole of a fallen tree and made it fast to projecting itself: a joining in the fabric of Everywhere and -when, where branches to keep the sun off. And they took their fill of love, all other places and times come together. A junction of worlds drank wine and ate bread and cheese, just like before. But or indeed, of universes. But . .. rivers that flow between before they slept, she took his head on her breasts and, cradling worlds? him, said, 'Didn't I say you'd remember our first "little house" It was on the edge of the Necroscope's mind like a familiar for the rest of your days? Didn't I tell you that I would see to word that teeters unspoken on the tongue. For a moment his it?' metaphysical mind appeared to grasp it, then let go. And as it It seemed a long time ago, but Nathan remembered it well. slipped away, dissolving to nothing, he sensed all of the same 'You did and you did,' he answered dreamily. 'And I did, and I old frustrations mounting, until he felt he must shout, strike always will.' out, physically shake them off. The feeling passed, and: Then they slept... I'll think on what you've shown me, he said slowly. Presently, it was time to go . . . ... And the Necroscope came awake with something -someone - oozing in his mind! He knew him at once, and felt him So the day passed. withdrew like a snake slithering between stones. But by now Together with Misha, Nathan visited as many of the Thyre he knew that he'd had enough of this one. colonies as were suitable as temporary Szgany refuges, and Without waking Misha, he stole a short distance apart from not one turned him down. It was time that men got to know her through the bracken, put up his hand to the twisted loop of the ways and customs of their desert brothers and learned to gold in his ear, and sent a thought winging for Turgosheim: appreciate them, and vice versa. And the best friends are those Maglore, I know you. Who else could it be of all the who make themselves available in time of need. From this Wamphyri, on the prowl when the sun is up? You kept strange time forward, there would always be a much closer liaison habits, for the beast-thing that you are.' between Szgany and Thyre. An era was over; the time when For a moment there was no answer, but then the other put the Thyre of the desert were considered unmen was past. aside all pretence and said: And so we have made fools of each And the Necroscope was as good as his word. In the night other. You of me in Turgosheim, when you hid from me your Misha had told him that tomorrow she would lie out in the true nature, your powers, and me of you, ever since that night sun with him, in the long prairie grass, but he had told her when you thought that you 'fled' from me. But I will admit, there was a better place. And there was: the place where he Nathan, that 1 was the bigger fool, for there was that in you and she had crept into each other's arms just five months ago, which I should have seen and explored when 1 had the chance. on the day they were married. Oh? Nathan answered. And have you seen enough now? One third of the way through the morning (more than You'll agree that I've given you plenty of time, surely? For you seventeen hours into the long Sunside day) Nathan called a see, you didn't make that much of a fool of me, Maglore. I've break and carried Misha there via the Continuum, to the spot known about you for some time, and you have only seen what east of Sanctuary Rock where their nuptial trek had I wanted to show you. 628 629 The other was silent, and Nathan continued: Anyway, it's past doing it for himself? Well, at least those young men were over now. From now on you'll get as little from me as you do men by comparison! Scum of the earth - indeed, vampires, aye - from Vormulac, which is to say, nothing/ Except where but men next to you, Maglore! Men next to you! Vormulac is dead, I am very much alive! The part about Maglore's impotency was a lie, of course, but And now Maglore hit back, sneering: Ah, ungrateful creature, that too was the way of the vampire, and perfectly acceptable in I know well enough that you're alive - and just how much their taunting and wordgames; and the Necroscope had always ah've you are! His mental chuckle was black as pitch. Ask been good at matching taunts. yourself this: who was it sent his Jove-thralJ to you, in order Maglore was furious. His telepathic aura seethed with his to instruct you? You virgin! You innocent! You have that to hatred. If I could ... if I could but reach out across all of the thank me for, at least. But now something you'll never thank miles between, he choked the thought out. me for. Think on this, Nathan: I was with you the night you 'Ware how you threaten, Maglore! Nathan too was enraged, were wed, and again just an hour or so ago! Oh, I have not but somehow managed to control it. His telepathic voice was enjoyed your woman, your .. . Misha? (Nathan could picture a hiss, as if spoken through clenched teeth. For you're the mocking flutter of the other's furry eyelashes.) I have not impotent in more ways than one. No, you can't reach out, and known her with my own member, no -but I have enjoyed you there's no tool of yours can harm me here. But as for me ... enjoying her! Eh? the other gasped, sensing a threat. Since the game was up, the Seer-Lord would let his And quietly now: I go where I will, Nathan told him. And spiteful nature hold full sway; whatever he had put over on indeed I do reach out - at will! I speak to the dead ... who the Necroscope, he would now use it to belittle him. It was listen to me/ But I'm sure you know all this by now. Except the way of the Wamphyri: if they could not torture their . . . do you know it all? How little do you know, Maglore? victims physically, they would do it mentally. This time, And again: Eh? But what's to know? however, his mockery went too far; Nathan was no longer a Oh, you long suspected that I conferred with some other in shivering thrall in promontory Runemanse, but his own free Turgosheim, but has it not dawned on you with whom I man - and a power! conferred? No, you may not 'reach out' and strike at me, but I Listen to me, he said. So, you have enjoyed spying on me come and go as I will; I talk to the dead, who advise me; from afar. You've enjoyed my pleasures and hope that by through me, they seek revenge on the living! Yet how may the telling me about it they'll be reduced. But you're like a dead harm the living? Or is there something more? Do you spoiled child, Maglore! Because you cannot have all your remember, Maglore, how you told me that Runemanse was own way, you seek to subtract from the lives of others. Hah! haunted? And you're the one who counted yourself superior to the Runemanse? the other gasped. Haunted? other Lords! Aye, and I remember your silly model of Tur- Or, if not Runemanse itself, Nathan went on, then gloomy, gosheim, its spires and manses: how you would hurl your so- shadowed Madmanse in the levels below? No, you may not called spells and imprecations against the houses of your strike at me, nor even reach out to touch me from this time betters when you thought that they had slighted you. But in forward. Look! (He slipped Maglore's sigil from his ear and fact they never had slighted you; indeed, they rarely so much pushed it down into a heap of humming beast-droppings.) as noticed you! What, doddering old Maglore, who sent young men to service his wenches because he was way 630 631 of men and monsters alike. And through the talents of Zek There! And will you read me now? Well, good luck to you! May Foener and David Chung, he was able to locate, advise and the stink-gnats entertain you - you have comparable minds, make arrangements for the safety of a good many more after all. And so I'm free of you, Maglore. But .. . are you free? Travellers. Survivors of Tireni Scarp and Mirlu Township Free? the other gibbered. Why I rule now in Turgosheim! All were discovered in the west, and told to prepare for is mine! What do I care for Madmanse? evacuation; others to the east fell in with Nathan's plans. Care? Ah, no. (Nathan was enjoying it now.) But fear? Ah, The Necroscope was relieved to discover large numbers of yes! Travellers in the woods, even though the majority of them There's nothing to fear in Madmanse! Just an old and trusted only to themselves and kept hidden away. But that was crumbling dead thing. Eygor may not harm me! probably as well; after all, it would be impossible to move all Really? Nathan's voice was a sly whisper. Can you be sure? of them to safety. Still, it was heartening to note that while Well, we shall see .. . Wratha and the others had been resident in Starside for three Maglore pulled himself together and snarled: When next we and a half years — a period of prolonged Wamphyri meet, Nathan Seersthrall, you are a dead man. Or a man depredations - still the tribes flourished. changed forever into something hideous! And on that theme - the theme of burgeoning against all But: I doubt that we shall ever meet, Nathan told him. I odds - something else had become very noticeable; not only to doubt that I shall ever speak to you again, not in this world. Nathan, but to everyone who had previous knowledge of it. Nor am I your thrall — but you may one day be mine. For after 'What do you make of it?' Ben Trask asked Nathan at Lardis's all, I converse with the dead! camp. Nathan, I. . . The Necroscope smiled and shrugged. 'Well, it's plain to see .. . Farewell, Maglore. I leave your sigil, your shewstone, what Andrei Romani makes of it, at least! But, then Andrei where it and where you belong - in the shit of a beast! Spy on doesn't know her as we do.' that, if you will. The subject of Trask's inquiry was Anna Marie English, the He withdrew his probe, and the telepathic aether fell silent previously wilting ecopath. In tune with the Earth (this earth, on the instant. too, apparently) to such an extent that her own physical well- being was governed by her unique 'talent', an incredible The Sunside day was a long one, worth more than four of metamorphosis now seemed to be at work in her. She was parallel Earth's days, but the time was not wasted. There was growing . . . younger! Previously drab, arthritic, stumbling good, genuinely restful sleep to be had; there were visits and and bleary-eyed — in short, grown old before her time - now arrangements to be made; there was a handful of teeming the years seemed to be falling off her. dead whom the Necroscope must speak to. Not least his 'During the night,' Trask said, 'no one noticed her. She was mother, Nana, who considered herself the most fortunate of with us, that was all. And now, because they'll see her as she is all the teeming dead in that she still had her son and, through now, in the morning light, this is how they'll think of her from Nathan, Sunside and the Szgany. now on; they won't realize that there's been a change in her. But Through his wolves in the heights, Nathan kept a watchful, back on Earth a week ago ... well, you saw how she was. She wary eye on the Wamphyri. Through deadspeak contacts such never would have made last night's trek. A few miles would as Jason Lidesci, he updated himself on the necrology have been enough to cripple her. But take a look at her now ...' 633 632 Nathan looked. According to Trask, during other the present. 'Well, this is a young world; an unspoiled world, conversations, when the ecopath had been twenty-four she'd at least. Ignore the Wamphyri, and the "Nature" of this world looked fifty. When Nathan had first met her just a few months is healthy. However briefly, Anna Marie is now part of ago, she'd been forty but still looked fifty! It had seemed to Sunside/Starside, and so reflects its quality.' say a great deal for her home world, that after years of Trask nodded. 'I thought that might be your solution. But it ecological depredations Mother Earth was struggling to be feels wrong to me. It could be wishful thinking, of course, but back on her feet; a fact that seemed mirrored in Anna Marie's I would like to think she reflects what's still to come.' 'vitality', the abeyance of her physical decline. It had meant 'Only time will tell.' Nathan's shrug was perhaps a little that men were learning to abide by rules of ecological careless, which was hardly intentional. But as Trask was conservation and sensible husbandry of a planet's resources, suddenly aware, the Necroscope's mind was on other things ... albeit the parallel planet beyond the Gate. So what was going on here? The worst of it was, Nathan couldn't tell anyone where he Anna Marie was forty-one but looked thirty-five! She had planned to go or what he would do there. But, put aside her thick-lensed spectacles and hearing-aid; her subconsciously, Orlea's plight - her situation in Runemanse eyes and hair shone; her liver spots were little more than as Maglore's 'companion' - had bothered the Necroscope for a freckles. She who had limped now held herself upright, her long time. The Seer-Lord had not changed her (not during head high, and the defect in her hip was barely noticeable. Nathan's time with him, at least), for he had valued her Her movements were flowing, her limbs seemed supple, and humanity; with Orlea, as with Nathan, he had been assured of her hair — bounced! When she smiled, her teeth gleamed! his own 'superiority'. Anna Marie wasn't beautiful, but she was undeniably attractive. But Orlea's story had warmed Nathan in soulless Certainly, Andrei Romani was attracted. He stood watching Runemanse; he still remembered the way she had asked after while she taught a small group of orphaned children a game Sunside's children, and suspected that she'd mourned the out of the hell-lands: Ring-a-Ring o'Roses. Children had been warmth and light of times forever past. Well, and if what he Anna Marie's life ever since the Romanian Refuge: which planned worked out - reminded the Necroscope of someone else who had loved - But even if it failed to work out, why should she suffer children . . . in Turgosheim's Sunside. So she had told him, the .. . the hospitality of that loathsome Lord of the Wamphyri a anyway. moment longer? She'd told Nathan she loved Maglore that Orlea, Maglore's love-thrall in Runemanse. For a time she time, but he had suspected it was a love born out of madness had been Nathan's lover - albeit wrapped and gifted to him - or of the fact that the Seer-Lord was her only protection in a by Maglore. A gift he daren't refuse at first, until in a while place void of the light and love of humanity. Well, now there he hadn't wanted to! It had lasted . . . for a time, until the was a choice, something other than Maglore's dubious Seer-Lord had put a stop to it. Just part of the evil old 'protection', if Orlea would only avail herself of it. Wherefore: bastard's game, his plan to corrupt Nathan, subvert him to his In the afternoon, after eating and sleeping, Nathan made cause ... sure he was up before Misha in the camp at the edge of the 'Well?' said Trask. forest. This was deliberate; he couldn't tell her his mission 'Umm? Oh, what do I make of it?' Nathan came back to 635 634 for obvious reasons. She wouldn't understand his motives, or that room in his time. But what of Maglore? Even the Seer- might think she understood them too well! He didn't want to Lord must sleep at times, and midday was as good a time as deceive her, but neither could he hurt her. If he could get Orlea any. Also, when Maglore had ... when he had wanted Orlea, out of Runemanse, he would place her in a small Thyre colony he had used to call for her. Her room had been hers alone, until later he could move her back into Turgosheim's Sunside. where she'd known complete privacy. A singularly rare thing, All of this kept secret, of course. But ... it was all hit and miss, in Runemanse! all ifs and buts. For example: if ought should happen to him, Nathan dared not probe telepathically - but neither could he Orlea would be stuck with the Thyre; but even then, would stand here, wavering on the rim like a boy desperate to swim that be any worse than a life of ever-increasing morbidity and who fancies the water is too cold. He made up his mind - madness in promontory Rune-manse? No, of course not. made to conjure a door, too - and in that selfsame moment Nor could Nathan mention his mission to Trask or Lardis; so saw them: Maglore and Orlea, together on the low-walled much as hint at it, they would try to dissuade him. Rightly so, platform of a balcony one tier down from his own position, for if anything were to happen to him ... what price then, gazing out over Turgosheim. He saw them, and they .. . Lardis's dreams, his hopes? And what of Trask's chance of sensed him! His surprise had served to focus his thoughts returning home? Nathan supposed he was being selfish; but upon them; as their presence had registered in Nathan's mind, how, if he worked for the well-being of another? Also, he so had his in theirs. Galvanized, their heads cranked back; remembered Orlea so well; she had been like a breath of fresh their widening eyes swivelled up to glare the shock of air in the otherwise vile atmosphere of Runemanse. It was recognition into his own. even possible she'd saved his sanity, so that the very thought of You! Maglore's mental croak rumbled in Nathan's head. her still trapped there was abhorrent to him. And: And so, saying nothing to anyone, he walked out a little way Nathaaan! Orlea hissed, her eyes like lanterns in the on to the prairie, conjured a door, and moved - balcony's shade, flaring to match the Seer-Lord's own! — To the rim of Turgosheim, within the fortifications of the Gasping his horror, Nathan thought: I should have known roof of the rearing turret that was Runemanse. It was past it! She was here too long. She was Maglore's for far too Jong! noon, but the sun was still 'high' in the southern sky; its rays And the Lady Orlea looking at him with uniformly scarlet burned on the upper ramparts. The hour was such that in most eyes, her ruby lips slowly forming into a smile that displayed of the conquered manses a majority of men and monsters alike eye-teeth like small curved knives. would be sleeping. Yet still Nathan guarded his secret mind, And the Seer-Lord pointing a taloned hand, snarling: 'See, shrouding it in numbers as he moved swiftly to the low parapet now! Didn't I tell you he comes and goes like a ghost?' Except wall, leaned across it and looked down on gloomy, smoking, the Necroscope knew that Maglore's spoken words were vapour-wreathed Turgosheim. merely a subterfuge, a ruse, a cover for his unspoken query He knew that he had the co-ordinates and could find his way and command: Where are you, dull and stupid beasts, so- directly into Orlea's locked room. It was simply a matter of caJled 'guardians' of the roof? My enemy is upon me even now! familiarity; and certainly (he felt the blood rising to his face at Come . .. see to him .. . destroy him.'!! the thought) he had been familiar enough with This had always been Nathan's main advantage over Maglore: his ability to read the mage's thoughts while guarding his own. But even if he had not 'heard' Maglore's 637 636 command, he most certainly would have heard the grunts of But as the roof's grotesque guardians came scurrying like startled inquiry and scrabbling of horny feet on the vast flat great grey spiders, he stepped back from the rim and in through roof. So that, turning from the rim, he saw his second error: his Mobius door, and without pause collapsed it behind him. that he'd failed to credit the oh so clever Maglore with even a And as he returned to the temporary camp of the Lidescis in his modicum of intelligence. Or if not that, then that he had own Sunside those thousands of miles to the west, he could started to put too much faith in his own powers, until he scarcely help but view his threat (which at best was believed they'd made him invincible. What? But naturally braggadocio) with dismay. Aye, for with all Turgosheim and its Maglore would post guards here! Even in his great triumph conquered denizens at Maglore's command, the Seer-Lord's he would know better than to leave unguarded a possible triumph might easily last a very long time indeed! route of entry into Runemanse. Soured by what he had seen, saddened by Orlea's conversion Doubtless these creatures of Maglore's had been stationed to vampirism, the Necroscope must leave it at that. in the squat turrets that knobbed the wall at the rear of the For now, at least... promontory, where it bottlenecked into a mighty bridge of rock. The wall with its turret battlements, and the precipitous gulf itself, kept Runemanse safe from attack from the great plateau that sprawled for seven miles to the south before sloping down into the wooded foothills of Tur-gosheim's Sunside. The guardians had been keeping watch outside the wall and to the south, on the lookout for any creeping incursion; but Nathan had arrived here instantly, north of the wall and within its demarcation. Wherefore the guardians, in tune with their Lord's mind, had been unaware of the Necroscope's presence until the moment Maglore himself sensed it. They were not warriors so much as personal guards, produce of Maglore's vats, but of recent construction and utterly nightmarish aspect! And vampires, of course. The Necroscope had never seen anything quite like them before, so that for a moment they unmanned him. They were spidery things, many-armed and -legged - but their limbs were those of men, with grapples and pincers in place of hands and feet! Ravenously hungry, they came scuttling at great speed and in red-eyed rage from the shadowy doorways of their turret observation posts. Nathan gathered his wits, conjured a door, glanced down at Maglore one last time and called out, 'Enjoy your triumph while you may, Maglore of Runemanse - for it won't last long.' PART EIGHT Bloodwars! I Timescan - Two Fly Out - Stormclouds on Starside Nathan had no choice but to forget about Orlea, just as he'd been obliged to forget about Siggi Dam. His interest had lain in setting them free, but they were beyond that now. They had become irretrievably part of the vampire world; they were vampires, and he was sworn to destroy them. For the first two-thirds of a long but less then interminable afternoon, he was quiet to the point of withdrawn. But as the sun dawdled east on its low, slow trajectory, almost imperceptibly losing height, he gradually came out of it. And if his moods were noticed and people wondered about them, nothing was said. For after all, the Necroscope had many problems. But moods or none, he worked because he had to. Chosen men were trained in the use of alien arms (a good many weapons had been salvaged from the battle in the pass), and transported via the Mobius Continuum into the several camps of Traveller groups who could not bring themselves to trust or accept Nathan's invitation. As support teams, these trained men would add firepower to Szgany determination, helping the loner parties to withstand whatever the coming night might have in store. Through Grinner (now much improved, and eager to be rid of his dressings), Nathan was kept updated on affairs in the barrier mountains, on the boulder plains and Starside in general. Despite that it was sunup, there had been some movement: Devetaki had replaced the observation posts destroyed by Wran the Rage's bombardiers, and she'd also 643 dispatched men and creatures into selected areas west of the all those three. They didn't come of their . . . well, I hate to great pass. Flying low over the plain of boulders, and safe in sound like a vampire, but they aren't here "of their own free the constant shade of the mountains, they had established a will". They got caught up in things, that's all. And now, well, number of camps in trog caverns behind the Starside they at least are leaving - and no argument.' foothills. It was all part of the continuing containment of Trask set his jaw stubbornly. 'Don't think you'll shake me Wratha in the last aerie, of course, but the Necro-scope was and Zek that easily, or Chung and Goodly - or even Anna more concerned about the Gate; he worried about the Marie, for that matter! We're espers, and you need us. We proximity of the vampire camps to that all-important portal. were a team on Earth — our earth - when you helped us out Finally he took Trask aside to tell him, 'Ben, I don't see with that problem in the Nightmare Zone, so we'll continue to how you can help any more. It might be a good idea to get be a team here. We're staying until we have to go!' you out of here while we still can. I can have Grinner send a 'Even until it's too late?' wolf or two to check on movement near the Gate. Then, if the 'If it comes to it, yes. But I don't think it will. You're Harry way is clear, I can get you, Zek, and the others as close as Keogh's son, Nathan . ..' possible, and from then on you're on your own.' 'Is that a recommendation? You put faith in that, do you? Trask nodded. 'And you, Nathan? Won't you be on your The Wamphyri killed him in the end.' And again Nathan own, too? But we have two whole days, Sunside days, before thought of just how close he, too, had come, and how we have to get back, before Turchin brings the weight of the recently. Simple carelessness. But on Sunside/Starside, that mountains down on that place in Perchorsk. And the longer was all it took. the better, if Zek and lan are to use the Romanian route.' Zek was looking for them; she saw them where they stood 'Two days less travelling time,' Nathan answered. 'Through at the camp perimeter, under mighty ironwoods, and came the Gate, I mean ... provided, of course, that the route to the hurrying. She looked lovely as ever - but they saw that she Gate isn't blocked.' held a hand to her temple, where the corners of her eyes were 'What, your way blocked?' Trask cocked his head. 'Are you creased in a frown. David Chung was right behind her. joking?' 'Nathan,' she said, closing with the pair. 'You are being 'I can only get so close,' Nathan reminded him. 'But watched!' Devetaki's creatures don't suffer the same restrictions.' Now, David Chung joined them, and said, 'She's right. I picked more than ever, the Necroscope was aware of the constant up a locating probe, one that I'd know anywhere. The last danger he was in; he knew that the Lords and Ladies were time I came up against him was west of the Urals, when we aware of him! snatched Nathan from the Russians. It's Alexei Yefros!' Trask shook his head. 'We've talked about it and we're all Nathan nodded. 'In thrall to Devetaki, yes. It hardly of the same mind. While you can use us, we want to stay. surprises me. We saw them together in the pass.' And by "we", I do mean all of us. I'm including John Carling, Chung nodded. 'But his talent is that much better now. He Jim Bentley and Orson Sangster. They're good men, and they can switch it on and off like a light! I've fancied there was a can handle guns. They —' locator at work for some time, but he's been dodging me.' '— No.' Nathan shook his head, cut Trask short. 'Least of 'He's a vampire,' Nathan pointed out the obvious. 'Even as a,lowly thrall, his talent has been enhanced.' 645 644 be somewhat similar to those of a wolf — minus the hunting Again Chung's nod. 'And you're the one he's on to. His instinct, of course. probe is a carrier -' Waiting for the cavers to get ready, Nathan made a quick '— For Devetaki!' Zek finished it. And again her hand jump to a spot just one hundred yards west of the glaring went to her temple. 'She's ... powerful!' hemisphere Gate; he felt its strange repulsive forces acting 'Stop it!' Nathan told her at once, reaching for her hand, on his door, which was beginning to warp even as he exited. dragging it from her face. 'Don't interfere with that one! But he was there for the merest moment — sufficient to scan Devetaki's the leader of the Turgosheim army. And that the plains in all directions, and send tentative telepathic speaks for itself. She'll know it immediately if you break into probes inwards to the barrier mountains and the great pass, her probe - and then she'll try to hurt you!' He had seen enough and eastwards to the petrified lava camps of the Wamphyri women hurt, and worse than hurt. Murdered, and worse than before conjuring a second fragile door and getting out again. murdered. He looked around. 'Where's lan Goodly?' He had detected the Wamphyri everywhere, but none of They found Goodly; Nathan came straight to the point, and them close enough to cause any real concern. He knew, the precog agreed with him. The cavers are out of it.' He was however, that things could change in very short order, so matter-of-fact about it. 'I don't see them here from now on.' couldn't delay the departure of the cavers a moment longer. 'Is that all?' Nathan asked. And Goodly frowned. Zek had fashioned a rope collar and lead for Grinner — who 'It's all vague,' he said. 'It doesn't firm up until it's closer - hated it! But it was the easiest way. closer in time, I mean. But I'm going with you to the Gate. Oh, Nathan took the wolf's- lead in one hand and guided and Grinner, too.' Grinner and the triple-linked men, Carling, Bentley and 'You see that?' Sangster, with Goodly bringing up the rear, through his 'Yes, and I'm ready.' Which meant they were going now! entirely invisible door ... Zek went off to tell Carling and the other cavers to get ready, . . . To Starside. and Nathan called for Grinner. The great wolf came, tongue lolling. The men were used to it now, if not Nathan's nephew wolf. Why me? he wanted to know. Coming out of the Mobius door almost at the run, John Carling It's foreseen, Nathan could only shrug. and company went loping, with their packs bouncing, to the Good! For I wanted to see that place again. low crater wall, helped each other up, paused for a moment in The Starside Gate? the sighing white illumination of the Gate to look back. Its glare Yes, but also the other place. The Between Place! was such that the Necroscope and Goodly saw the three as The Mdbius Continuum? Why? dark silhouettes that waved, turned away ... and were gone. They had their instructions: to tell Turchin and E-Branch that To smell the directions! others could soon be coming through, both in Perchorsk and Wolf mind-pictures were weird, full of scents and in Romania. sensations, spacial and even temporal currents. But there was little or nothing of numbers in it, and whatever else it was, 'On their way home,' Nathan sighed, and glanced at the Necroscope had neither a nose for it, nor the mental Goodly. But the precog was staggering, which wasn't an compass required to understand it. The thought did cross his after-effect of their brief Mobius trip! 'What is it?' Nathan mind, however, that the senses of a homing pigeon must was at once solicitous. 647 646 There, Uncle! Grinner's telepathic voice was a hushed Goodly straightened up, steadied himself, shook his head. whimper. 'It will keep,' he said, 'until we get back.' What now? Nathan asked. Grinner had noticed nothing. He was still fascinated by the Don't you feel them? The directions? Gate, the fact that the three men had vanished within it. He Directions to where? stared at it with his ears pricked up, his head cocked To . . . other places. But one place especially. Your father's curiously to one side. Gone, he said. To the world of my father's father. Except. . . there are other ways than this! world, Nathan - the world of Harry Dwellersire! Nathan was interested in that, but: It might make sense at that. For after all, Grinner was a We can't stay here any longer, he told the wolf. The One- child of The Dweller; he and Blaze, and poor Dock, too. And Who-Scans will find me if we do, and the Wamphyri will The Dweller had travelled between worlds without using the know my business. That's something I can do without. Gates at Perchorsk and Radujevac. Indeed, there'd been no Nathaaaaan! There were other voices invading his mind Gate at Perchorsk at that time, and the one underground in now; the voices of Thyre Ancients, speaking out from their Romania was still undiscovered. tombs in the burning deserts. He knew the first of them at So, had Grinner inherited something of his werewolf once: Tharkel the gardener, but excited as never before. father's metaphysical talents, or was it simply his wolf's or Nathan, I was dreaming again, and . .. you were there! dog's sense of . . . well, direction? Or a combination of both? Yes, he answered, I am here. Nathan knew that he had to look into it, but he would drop No, no! Tharkel shook his head. I mean, you were there -at lan Goodly off first. He did so, then at once returned with the place of the fountain! Grinner into the Mobius Continuum. A fountain of light? The Starside Gate? Was that what this But it was a fruitless exercise. Grinner had something of was all about? But before Nathan could ask or comment: his father in him, certainly, but he didn't have his metaphysical Necroscope! And this was Ethloi, equally excited. Forget maths and wolf numbers just weren't sufficient. I can feel the about Tharkel's fountain for the moment — unless it's way, he growled in Nathan's mind, but I don't know ... how to significant of a spring — for you are standing at the very go there! There is no way to walk, to run. No way to smell the source! trail. No spoor to follow. 1 am lost.. . here. The source of what? (Nathan couldn't stay here any longer, Nathan tried scanning Grinner's mind more deeply, his and his frustrations were mounting.) sensations rather than his thoughts, but it didn't work out. Where you're standing now - right now, at this very There was a peculiar feeling of sorrow or anxiety for the loss moment - is the shore of a lake! And at your feet, I see a sea of the mountains, the moon and stars, the trees of the of stars! And in their centre, a brilliant sunburst! timberline, the rearing crags and moon-silvered passes: namely, 'A sunburst?' Nathan repeated him out loud. 'A lake? A sea all of the familiar points of reference by virtue of which a of stars?' wolf of the wild is a wolf - and also an awareness that was And: 'Yes,' said Goodly, reeling again. totally unwolf-like - but never a hint of the real direction of The answers could be sought later; right now, Nathan had parallel Earth. to get his charges out of here. Conjuring a door, he led man You can't show me the way? and wolf through it and made to return to Sunside. But on the But I can! Grinner protested. It's ... there! (It was as if he way: pointed, but there was nothing there, just the emptiness of 648 649 this is difficult for you, but you'll just have to believe me when I the Continuum.) Except . .. there's no way to get to it! Now tell you that... that you really shouldn't fool with the future.' his anxiety and discomfort were such that he was beginning to Now it was Nathan's turn to be stubborn. 'I'm not going to pant and whine. Nathan knew the other's frustration and call you a coward,' he said, 'but there are some things we have sensed there was no answer for it, not yet at least. to know. And I've been putting it off just like you, and for the Regretfully, but unwilling to prolong Grinner's distress, he same reason.' conveyed him back to the camp. Where Goodly was waiting. Tutting it off?' Giving Grinner into the hands of Misha, to care for him, 'What we can't put off,' the Necroscope answered, 'not any Nathan asked the precog, 'What was it all about? I mean, more. For it's creeping up on us even now. But me, I believe what was it you felt, back there on Starside?' in forewarned, forearmed. You can help me — you're about the 'What did you feel?' Goodly countered. only one who can help me - or you can step aside. It's up to 'Are you so afraid of the future that you can't answer a you.' simple question?' Nathan's frustrations were starting to spill 'You'll . . . go there?' The cadaverous, gaunt-faced precog over. backed off a pace. 'Yes,' Goodly answered. 'Sometimes I am. It's not knowing 'And I'd like you to go with me.' Nathan nodded. 'I don't what might come about that worries me, it's understanding it.' know what I'll see, or even if I'll understand it. But you and Nathan had heard all this before. 'But you did see the future, well, there's something between you. So maybe —' something of the future?' ' — I . . . don't know,' said Goodly. 'And anyway, what 'I saw, and felt... something strange.' good will it do? You can't materialize there, can't 'The world turning? The wild rush of water, like a river "experience" it. You can only travel through it!' between the worlds? Gardens in the desert?' 'As far as it goes, yes.' Again, Nathan's nod; but a curt one 'All of those things, yes. Yet nothing definite. The only this time, and decisive. The meaning was obvious. sure thing is this: you won't be moving any more of us back to 'And if it doesn't go . . . far?' the Gate. Not until the end, anyway.' Then I'll know it's all for nothing anyway! But it won't 'How do you know that?' matter, for I'll have nothing to lose.' 'Because I saw it, and it's the only thing I know for certain. Goodly relaxed, shrugged, said, Then I'll go with you.' At the end, we're all in it together.' Goodly's eyes had a And he sighed, adding, 'You don't know how much of a faraway look; they were hazy as a river with the morning sun temptation it's been, or how hard I've had to fight not to ask on it, unblinking, as if gazing on the unknown and you!' unknowable. Nathan was astonished. 'What? But aren't you the one who 'When?' The Necroscope could feel the short hairs rising at always -?' the back of his neck. '- Yes!' Goodly cut him short. 'Even so, we have a saying: 'Soon,' said Goodly. "better the devil you know". And if I had been able to go there, 'Was it dark or light, day or night?' instead of having to wait for it to come to me ...' 'It was night,' Goodly answered with a sigh. 'And yet it was They both felt something of trepidation then, as the ... it was morning, too!' His eyes cleared and he shook his head. Necroscope made ready to conjure a door. Which was when 'Nathan,' he said, when he could properly focus again. 'I know Ben Trask came over. 'What's happening?' he asked conver- 650 651 sationally, his face wide open . .. until he saw their looks and expanding, hazy-blue and endless horizons of tomorrow. And knew that something really was happening. even (or especially, or only) in the Mobius Continuum, 'We're going to have a look at something,' Nathan answered human eyes could not gaze on that scene without human ears before Goodly could speak. But glancing from man to man, hearing a sound that was not there but born of the awesome immensity of the vision: an angelic chorus, an orchestrated, Trask knew the truth of it anyway. interminable Ahhhhhhhh! 'Is it wise?' he said. But not everything was angelic beyond the door. There 'No.' They both shook their heads. And Nathan added, 'But were scarlet threads, too, among the neon blue (and green, we have to know.' And the fact of it was, Trask wanted to and even golden threads!) For this was Sunside/Starside's know too .. . future, and it seemed the vampires had a future, too. Wamphyri! Goodly said, clinging fast to Nathan as the In the Continuum, Goodly had second thoughts, knew a Necroscope launched himself into the future. Those red moment's panic when he felt motion and knew that Nathan threads are vampires! was heading for a future-time door. It was strange; in ordinary Yes, Nathan answered. The greens are trogs, and the space-time he could sense the future; but here, so close to it, he golden ones ... must be Thyre! Of course, for our futures are couldn't! Because this place was the future . .. the present, too mingling even now. ... and the past. A junction of all times and places. They sped down the time-stream; blue threads grew dim And he wanted to know, How do we get back? and blinked out (or worse, turned red) as men died or were We have blue life-threads, in effect life-lines. They are us! changed. And yet there was hope, too, as other threads burst When we've seen what we want to see - if there's anything to from nothing into brilliant blue life, as people were born. Red see - we follow them back. threads approached, veered off, came again; none of it made You ... you can do that? any sense, except it told of struggles to come. Scarlet threads Yes, I fee) that 1 can. Else 1 wouldn't go. clustered close, a horde of them! They fell back, blinking out And . . . I can do it? of existence by the handful. But then: Just keep a good hold on me, Nathan told him, where they Nathan jerked to a halt, and Goodly almost fell out of his stood framed in the blue light from the threshold of the door. grasp, almost fell into the future! There, somewhere in not too And Jook ... there it is, all of it, going on forever. All we have distant time-to-come, they pinwheeled like twin spiders on to do is find out how long we go on! neon-blue threads, or fallen mountaineers on their ropes. Despite that the light from the door was blue, it was warm. Except it could be seen that all of the strength was in Goodly's Not physically warm, just .. . warm. And Goodly knew why. rope, in the precog's life-thread; for where it blazed on into an It was the light of human life! For even as he stood or floated undetermined but ever-expanding future, Nathan's had come to there in the metaphysical void, a blue thread of light - like a an end! Behind them their threads - both of them - went living neon filament, a weird ectoplas-mic extension of winding back to 'the present'; before them ... only Goodly's himself - issued endlessly out of him, and another out of thread went on, seeming to beckon him. But now, to him, its Nathan, seeming to unwind indefinitely into the future. twining looked sinister where it merged into the distant haze. Beyond that time-door was the future: a chaos of hundreds of The feeling of hanging from ropes was so real that Goodly thousands of blue threads, all heading for the ever- cried out, 'DON'T LET GO!' His words gonged awesomely, 652 653 mentally in the metaphysical void. But Nathan said: enough, even though they'd conveyed something else entirely: It's not a question of Jetting go. I . . . I can't 'let go', for the fact that he wouldn't be the one to complain if she tended the thread is me. And this is where it ends. to his needs, too! And she had known it; that for the first time For a moment Goodly was silent while they spun there, in her life someone wanted her. turning endlessly at Nathan's end. Then: And Misha . .. had complained bitterly, tearfully, but not Let's get out of here, he said, quietly ... until the others had gone. The Necroscope had moved her last, after explaining that if there was danger, her presence would Back at the temporary campsite, Nathan was more withdrawn only place him in greater jeopardy. After that, Nathan, Trask, than ever. Misha could get nothing out of him, nor could any Zek, Chung and Goodly - and Grinner, of course -had been of the others. But as the shadows grew longer and the sun alone in the camp, in the twilight before the night. Then for a sank ever lower, until the gap between its rim and the horizon while, weary from all his works and alone with his thoughts, was only a little greater than its diameter, again he snapped Nathan had sat apart from the others ... out of it. Meanwhile he conversed, however briefly, with But shortly: Thikkoul the Thyre Stargazer, and was reminded yet again: Zek came to him and said, 'You probably know it already, We're only given to see what will be, not how it will come Nathan, but I'll remind you anyway: Harry Keogh inspired just about, or what comes after. such loyalty in his time, and your brother The Dweller. Their Hope springs eternal; something of it, anyway. Even if the friends couldn't be persuaded to leave them, either. And they Necroscope could not save himself, he had his friends to won their battles! Perhaps it bodes well, right?' But Zek had think of, his loved ones, the Szgany as a race. Also, his missed the point, for they had lost their last battle. And of nephew wolf Grinner had come to him and reported: The course, she hadn't seen what the future had shown to him. Wamphyri are stirring in the barrier mountains. Even before He said nothing but looked at the sky, in which the first stars the last gold has slipped from the peaks, the bloodwar will were beginning to glitter over Starside. And the biggest of be on in earnest! them was the ice-shard Northstar, star of ill-omen, like an evil It was time now to move the Travellers to safety. It must be eye watching over Wrathstack. Just seeing it there - its cold now, for Nathan could not say how much time there would be blue radiance — was like an invocation. Grinner coughed once, later — or even if there would be a later. The task took longer low in his throat, lay back his head and howled a moment, then than he'd thought, but when he was done, all of the Szgany waited for an answering howl to come echoing through the who would go were in the safe-keeping of the Thyre. In the woods, and others from further afield. They carried his barrier mountains, only the peaks were gold now, and the message, even to the barrier mountains: that the night would gold was swiftly fading. Nathan would like to move his 'alien' soon be here, and all of its dangers. friends, too, if they would go. But as he had suspected, with And back from the mountains came another message, but one exception, the espers were all of a single stubborn mind: this time carried on the telepathic aether: The Wamphyri Lords they would stay with the Necroscope and see it out. under Devetald prepare to launch against the last aerie.' Anna Marie English was the exception; at Andrei Romani's Nathan had heard it, too, so that Grinner's confirmation was request, she'd gone with him to a Thyre sanctuary. There are scarcely necessary when he said: Uncle, it begins ... so many children with no one,' he'd told her. 'You are gentle and can tend their needs.' His words were valid 654 655 An hour earlier, Wran and Nestor had departed Wrathstack Down there, the handful of members of a thrall observer on a south-westerly course. Behind them they towed gas- group gesticulated, stabbed pointing fingers at the oncoming beasts, ostensibly to bomb the most westerly of Devetaki's flyers and gas-beasts, then took cover or scrambled for flyers. observer posts on the boulder plains. And indeed they would The warrior was up; without pause, it blasted for Wran in bomb it, but that was only part of their overall and the lead. Towing a gas-beast, it was hard for Wran to individual schemes. Each of them suspected the other's true manoeuvre. Still, he managed to turn his straining mount on motives, and finally, as their target became visible up ahead: its side as the warrior sped by, its spines tearing holes in the You're fleeing, right? said Wran. membrane webbing of a manta wing. But neither was Wran Nestor shook his mental head. I'm taking my last chance to idle. Even tilting dangerously in his saddle, he swung a bolas settle an old, old score - on Sunside. Of all people, you, of hooks that got caught up in the warrior's bladders, ripping Wran, should understand my position. In your time, you've two of them wide open on its left flank. settled scores of your own. It is . . . oh, a question of honour, I Bravo! Nestor grunted, hurling his own bolas, seeing it fly suppose. I was betrayed, and if I'm now to die I want to true and turning his face away. The stricken warrior throbbed know that he dies first! He glanced across the gulf of air. where it redistributed gases to maintain its balance. But as But on the other hand, I think that you are truly fleeing, escaping gas mingled with air to form methane, so Nestor's which isn't like you. What, cowardice? From Wran the bolas hit home and struck sparks . .. Rage? I might expect such from Gorvi, but you? . .. There came the great whuuump! of ignition as the The other's shrug. As you're surely aware, I'm no coward, warrior burst into flame from stem to stern. Roaring its pain, Nestor Lichloathe - but neither am I a fool! Nor, despite its fury, the thing angled anal propulsors, keeled over, came rumour, am I entirely insane . .. but my brother is! Along headlong in an inverted suicide-dive to batter its tormentors with his power, his madness waxes. Whatever is to befall from the sky. Before it could reach them, more bladders the last aerie, sooner or later Spiro will turn on me. Aye, and exploded; it tilted towards the ground; its roaring became a that murderous eye of his can blind, maim, kill! whine of frustrated lunacy as, with all propulsors blasting, it So what will you do? smashed down in flames from three hundred feet and burst I won't be the first Lord of the Wamphyri to strike out on apart in steaming chunks and a crimson spray! his own. The land west of here is unknown, unexplored, by After that it was easy. Two mounted flyers were off and vampires at least. I'll lie low till things cool down, then see running, and another, panicked, had launched without a rider. how the land lies. Maybe Spiro will get himself killed. I Both escaping riders were thralls, not even lieutenants. They hope so, for it will save me the trouble! wouldn't have stood a chance against true Lords, and knew it. Talking of trouble, Nestor answered, there's just such up Good luck to them, Nestor commented, cutting loose his ahead! gas-beast, which joined Wran's in settling towards the earth. I've seen it, said Wran. Are you ready? Down below, a lone flyer hauled half-heartedly on its tether. In For answer, Nestor swung a bolas of flints and iron. a nearby clump of boulders in the centre of the depression, The 'trouble' was a small warrior, propulsors blasting, skins had been stretched over a framework of ancient even now spurting aloft from a crater-like depression in the boulder plains, only two miles short of the Starside foothills. 656 657 bones to form the post's accommodation. Presumably, there It was also a fortuitous event - if not for Wran. For in a were at least two more thralls cowering inside. cavern in the crags close by, someone had made his temporary But their luck's out.' Wran grunted, paying out a line home; an awesome someone, a someone who hated Wran weighted with a net of hooks and flints, and raking the gas- with an all-consuming passion. In fact there were two of beasts until they screamed and split open from internal them, male and female (so far as sexual distinction matters pressure. Twin blasts followed, and the Lords were glad of in the Wamphyri), but his was the driving force. And the their elevation as smoke-rings hurtled up on superheated undying force that drove him was revenge! thermals. Down below . .. the scoops of a freshly gouged It was a coincidence, then, a trick of fate, Wran's landing double-crater issued smoke; a handful of smouldering scraps here; yet something which had been bound to happen sooner drifted on the turbulent air; a shattered, blazing flyer crumpled or later, one way or the other. For if he had not strayed into down into its funeral pyre. There were no signs of survivors. the territory of his enemy, be sure that his enemy would Nestor and Wran split up. West for me, said Wran. But I have come for him. And in a while, as Wran sat with his won't forget you. Who could have foreseen all this, that time I back to an outcropping rock and let his thoughts drift, brought you out of Sunside? perhaps dwelling on future problems, a far more immediate It was my intention to kill you, Nestor answered coldly, For problem crept up on him. the way you 'initiated' me. Vasagi scarcely dared believe his luck; if a state of grace Oh, I know that. Wran tossed his head. Well, who can say? exists for vampires, then that was what he felt. It was every There's always tomorrow and tomorrow. dream he'd dreamed for two and a half long years, every But: Not for me, said Nestor. morbid desire he'd conceived since his fateful duel with Then I'll not wish you luck. Wran on Sunside. And now it was his to savour to the full. Of course not. Why lie now? And with all the powers of his mentalism restored, blocking Wran laughed and sped away. You did well, Nestor, for a the lustful outflow of his thoughts to less than the flutter of a bare-arsed whelp out of Sunside! moth, he moved in the shadows and was a shadow, until he stood close to Wran, but still unseen, unsuspected in the dark. Nestor made no answer, but set his course for the heights Then, unshielding his mind: over Settlement... Ah, see, he said. You've learned nothing. A skilful creature may still creep up on you unseen, even to within striking Wran's mount had suffered damage in the brush with the distance — except this time there's no foolish Szgany youth to aerial warrior. They weren't serious injuries, but bad enough give warning through his clumsiness! that he would like to examine them, perhaps apply spittle to Perhaps Wran had been asleep, or drifting with his the torn areas of membrane wing, and rest the flyer for an private thoughts, dozing; whichever, it took only a moment hour or two before continuing his flight west. for the oily, oozing message to sink in. When it did ... Preoccupied — knowing that the bloodwar was (or would . . . He snatched for his belt, his gauntlet - which wasn't be) behind him, and all the forces of the opposed Wamphyri there! It was hanging from the saddle of his snoring flyer! factions concentrated at Wrathstack - he saw nothing of He went to spring to his feet, but a great taloned hand came danger in landing in the barrier mountains ten miles west of down on his shoulder, holding him effortlessly in place. Settlement. But it was a mistake. 658 659 And eyes — but such eyes — gazed down on him, red and glint of battle-gauntlets and sheen of polished leather armour rapacious from under a cowl black and blacker than night! was visible in every nook and cranny of the gaunt, rearing Again he would stand up, but a second shadow had face of the stack. appeared out of nowhere and stood at his right. His salivating, Devetaki's parley-thrall came on. His mount arched manta elongating bottom jaw fell open. He croaked, 'What? Who wings, rose up on winds off the Icelands; a mote against ...?' Wrathstack and the writhing of northern auroras. It flew on a But he already knew who. Knew too that it was impossible, level with the sun-bleached turrets of Wrathspire, gradually yet real. Knew that this one was dead - the true death - yet descending in a zigzag to and fro across the face of the last stood here cowled and smiling, with his mind at least, for his aerie. face was invisible. And his smile was so monstrous it put even Wratha herself came out on a jutting balcony and called: the worst of nightmares to flight! You - why are you so eager to die? And 'Vasagi!' Wran answered his own question, in the You have me wrong, Lady (the thrall was nervous but moment before the female brought a large stone crashing well-rehearsed). Devetaki has sent me to talk. My pennant down with all her might onto the crown of his head ... flies the truce ... we]], for what it's worth and however brief a time. But I may not sit here a]] day; an army waits on your Devetaki launched her forces in two great waves, with only word. ten minutes between them. But as for the contingents she'd If Devetaki would ta]k, Wratha answered, then let her sent out along the spine of the mountains, they remained at present herself. Let her come of her own free will to my roof. their posts. For theirs was a different role, to be determined She knows me, and that my word is good. later, at the direction of the locator Alexei Yefros. But the thrall shook his head. It is not the custom for a Bone horns blared; drummers beat on the sounding conqueror to talk to the conquered! Devetaki waits to see what membrane of wattles along the sides of their flyers' wi]J be her get for letting you and yours Jive. outstretched necks, causing their mounts to stutter and honk, Bah! said Wratha, but without malice. Your virgin grandam pacemakers for their own pulsing manta wings; pennants would have me surrender, then cut off my head and melt my streamed out from the spined backs of aerial warriors bringing body! She seeks to spare herself the bothersome ritual turmoil of up the rear, and the throb of their propulsors was like thunder the fray - and all of the losses which must surely result. Indeed, in the settling dusk. Way out in front, three miles or more in she seeks to spare herself, not me, for my forces and position advance of the leading wave, a lone flyer and thrall rider sped are superior! Wherefore, if Devetaki Skulfguise has _ the heart to the fore. The rider carried a slender lance; at its tip, a for it, let her come on. For I am secure in Wrathspire. pennant displayed clasped hands: the sign of truce or The thrall's careful shrug, and his not so careful answer: But conference. you are only one of several rebels, Lady, and I must speak The last aerie was no longer disguised as an uninhabited with the rest. Side-slipping, his flyer descended until it was shell; Wrathstack displayed the sigils of its tenants, and its level with Suckscar. Wratha had seen Nestor fly out with Wran levels were alive with lights, its chimneys roaring with fire, and knew he would not be back (knew, too, that if Wran did smoke and stench. Aerial warriors waited to launch from all not return within minutes, he must likewise be counted out of of the major bays; flyers and riders were likewise positioned in it); but she wondered if Lord Lichloathe had left his manse as lesser launching-bays and heavily defended ledges; the best possible defended. 660 661 He had, for now Devetaki's messenger called loudly across heir to his father's eye. And if she doubts me, here's the proof. the gulf of air to Nestor's right-hand man Zahar, where he He crouched down in the mouth of the bay, glared hatred stood framed in a broad window. 'You there, Lieutenant! I and pus, and murder and shit, and sheer disruptive would speak with your Lord and master on behalf of the CORRUPTION from his terrible eyes. And the thrall and his Commander of an army from the east. Her name is Devetaki flyer scarcely knew what hit them! Skullguise, which I'm sure you'll recognize.' The flyer crumpled, disintegrated, flew apart in tatters, and 'A Lady?' Zahar called back. 'But you must bring her on at the parley-thrall burst open as if sliced by a sharp knife from once! My Lord Lichloathe, a mighty necromancer, loves only crotch to mouth, so that his guts bloomed on the air even as one thing better than a corpse — and that's a good fuck! his riven corpse commenced to fall. Moreover, Lady Commanders have always been one of his And up in Wrathspire, Wratha sighed and thought: preferences.' Well, that's that. Now for the night's real business ... 'Alas, then he's out of luck,' the thrall answered back, more at ease than when conversing with a true Lord (or Lady). 'Devetaki isn't called the "virgin grandam" for nothing. Depending on Lord Lichloathe's other preferences, however, she might well consider finding him a well-greased lance to sit upon - upright, of course!' 'Begone,' Zahar told him haughtily. 'I watch the skies for enemies, not stink-gnats.' 'Surrender your manse and live!' offered the thrall. 'On your way, wretch!' growled Zahar. Less than a mile and a half away now, dark storm-clouds were gathering in the south. Except Wratha knew they were not clouds but simply a crowded sky. And from where she stood on a flexing cartilage gantry, to one side of her main landing-bay, the curving double fronts looked like a scythe blurred from the speed of its approach! Meanwhile, the parley-thrall had side-slipped down to Madmanse, and now called on Spiro in the yawning funnel of a bay: 'My Lord, the Lady Devetaki calls on you to surrender. Give up your manse and retain your miserable life!' Successful so far, he was now full of himself. Or as full as he ever would be . . . Does your Lady have contact? Spiro sent, directly into the thrall's vampire mind. Is she touching you even now? Indeed, Lord, the other answered. Why, she directs me. Then tell her this, Spiro snarled: that Spiro KillgJance is 662 And there were weak spots, certainly. Devetaki had been quick to detect a lack of morale in the defenders of Suckscar, II nor had she found any truly powerful mind there; the penultimate level obviously lacked a Lord, just as she had The Whelming of the Stack - suspected when her parley-thrall had spoken with a mere Vasagi's Story - lieutenant. And so this alleged necromancer Lord Lichloathe Desertion, and Just Deserts was either a figment of wild imagination, or he was himself a lich, dead and departed. Similarly, the men of the basement levels seemed singularly lacking in guts, and the sump was extremely ill- defended. The various gantlets cut through scree and rubble were not so much traps for invaders as for defenders! Devetaki had Tangiru the Grunt land his mightiest warriors on Devetaki stood off and directed the righting. Her flyer was a the piled ramps at the sides of the gantlets, where their sheer huge construct fashioned of several men, stretched and mass was sufficient to collapse the walls inwards, smothering warped, metamorphosed and reshaped, redesigned in the who or whatever waited in ambush, and effectively blocking soup of a Masquemanse vat in Turgosheim. It was the same any possible future escape route. beast which had borne her safely over the Great Red Waste She couldn't know it, but Gorvi the Guile had already made seated in a natural saddle formed of cartilage flanges (once his escape along a subterranean watercourse which he'd scapulae) where an elongated, many-knuckled neck met discovered during his very first night of occupation, three and shoulders that curved into mighty manta wings. Insect-like, a half years ago. No doubt the tunnel had been excavated in the body was formed of a trio of stretched torsos, joined end the olden times as a bolthole for some previous tenant; this to end, with three massive hearts to circulate the thin blood. wasn't the first bloodwar on Starside, not by a long shot. Specially designed to glide, the wings had an enormous span, Gorvi had resurfaced something more than a mile and a with the once-normal skeleton of arms, legs and grotesquely half north-east of Wrathstack, amid the rubble and in the extended fingers and toes showing through the sheathing, shadows of a toppled aerie where he kept a well-fuelled flyer grey-gleaming membrane. The creature was all heart, muscle, tethered and waiting. Now, keeping low, the Guile was already alveolate bone and flexible cartilage, but mainly wing. speeding east out of trouble, intending to return to the Gorge Behind Devetaki, Alexei Yefros clung like a leech to the of Turgosheim to see how things stood there. long horny saddle, which he gripped with knees and heels As for the rest of the rebels: while aiming his vampire-enhanced locator probe at Wrath- Wran's thoughts were noticeable by their absence, as was stack to seek out its principal centres of activity and its largest, fiercest bodies of fighting men and monsters. Thus by the Rage himself, but his loathsome brother more than a process of elimination, the Russian's scrying was an covered for Wran's desertion. Spiro Killglance's evil eye was invaluable part of Devetaki's intelligence; while she used her devastating, and Madmanse was left pretty much alone while mentalism to direct the battle and read the thoughts of the the rest of the manses attracted a maximum of attention. As aerie's defenders, Yefros channelled his skills to discover the previously reported by the parley-thrall, Wratha stack's weak spots. 664 665 was in residence in the topmost levels; she wasn't remiss in she performed lazy, drifting spirals round the great fang of sending out a continuous stream of vitriolic taunts, mainly Wrathstack, with all the action clearly visible below. directed at Devetaki. Also, in the third manse down, that The minutiae of the battle, however, were neither visible matchless hound, that inimitable lunatic Canker Canison! At nor known, for there was just too much going on. For first he'd been plainly visible in his main landing-bay, instance: down on the sprawling boulder plains, where they fighting off invading forces alongside the best of his 'pups', extended from the foot of the stack, Gorvi's ground-based but at the rising of a tumbling moon he'd made an exit from warriors had long since given up trying to distinguish friend the fray. Immediately thereafter, and no doubt inspired by the from foe. Now, if it fell out of the sky, it was an enemy. Their frenzy of a sudden thunderous uproar of crazed sounds from thrall minders were either fled into Guilesump or dead from all the rear of the stack, Canker's defenders had redoubled their the snapping and snarling; the plain was littered with all the efforts! Their ferocity was such that Devetaki felt obliged to gory debris of the undead, now truly dead. It was as if a mad forecast heavy losses in that arena. painter had taken up a giant brush and daubed the grey and So then, lieutenants galore - thralls, warriors and an barren boulder plains scarlet! And across this landscape of apparently endless stream of flyers and riders issuing out of death, the warriors rumbled, glutted yet still killing and the many bays like hornets from a nest — but a dearth of true feasting, bloated but never satisfied and ever lusting; and no vampire masters, the Wamphyri themselves. Well, they were one to say them nay, and the dumb beasts themselves too fled and that was all there was to it. All to the good, it made frenzied to know when to stop. the virgin grandam's task that much easier. Obviously the Still the sky rained mauled and mangled horror. Bleating deserted lesser denizens of the various manses were already flyers with broken wings crashed down; their thrall and much demoralized; with no one to whip them on, it wouldn't lieutenant riders were tossed or leaped from their saddles, be long before they began reckoning the value of their only to be maimed and devoured by lunging, blood-crazed undead skins. beasts. Aerial warriors with blazing gas-bladders went Meanwhile, the bloodwar was in full swing; the defences sputtering and shrieking across the sky like semi-sentient of certain levels and manses would soon be swept away, shooting stars; now and then they would careen to earth in crumbling to nothing, while others were as yet best avoided. mewling red and black tangles, adding to the turmoil. (After all, why expend good blood and effort externally But the gantlets had been breached; Tangiru the Grunt and when, with any luck, internal routes would soon be opening Lord Eran Painscar led a surface attack on Guilesump and, up?) Take Guilesump, and work up into Madmanse. Take despite a molten machicolation from the corbels, fought Suckscar, and work down into Mangemanse. And finally, through to the interior! Up into the stack they struck, and take Wrathspire itself - up from Suckscar and down from the down into the bowels of the place, to the sump itself and the plateau roof - until last, but certainly not least, the very prize aerie's wells. Devetaki Skullguise had warned them to leave herself: Wratha! the wells alone, but the Lords were on the sack now and what So Devetaki rode the thermals high above the fighting and they couldn't take, they'd destroy. considered her options, and pointed out the way for her They sliced through a hanging garden of siphons (in fact, troops. But as for her own ever-expanding contingent (which the extruded veins of Wratha's siphoneers, which drew up had formed the bulk of the second wave), they'd been kept water to Wrathspire and from there supplied the entire stack), back; they now circled and protected her in the sky where poisoned the wells with piss, kneblasch and silver 666 667 dust, and generally made a shambles of the place ... but the crush on the few steep stairwells. The roof was taken, and expensively. Eran Painscar was gutted by a warrior (fatally in part secured, but Ursula's troops had been reduced to a this time), and all Tangiru's bones were broken in a booby- handful - which Devetaki thoughtfully replaced with her own trap; it was a pitfall, and the things in the pit made small work people . .. of him. Their passing was scarcely mourned; their lieutenants Only then, landing on the roof herself, in a corner free of fought more viciously yet, in the knowledge that two at least fighting, she dined on the hearts of three freshly-slaughtered would ascend to Lords, but first must face a bloody ascent captive defenders, fed and rested her great flyer, transferred to through the basement levels of Guilesump. a second mount and was soon airborne again. But during her Higher, Suckscar was taken! Zahar, Grig and two lesser short visit to the roof, Devetaki had not failed to notice the lieutenants gave way under the simultaneous assault of half a silver cage and its hoisting gear, which she'd found most dozen great warriors that perched in bays and windows to fire appropriate . .. their propulsors into the manse. Burned or poisoned, Nestor's While down below, in the sixth hour of the night, Guilesump demoralized thralls succumbed in droves to Hesta the Herm, was finally taken; at which, a lesser struggle at once broke out Lom Halfstruck and Grigor the Lech where they secured the between rival lieutenants, over who should now ascend in landing-bays, landed a squadron of flyers and fighting men, place of Lords Eran and Tangiru! and commenced slaughtering the sick and mazed defenders But in the next manse up, Spiro Killglance had already had out of hand. enough. He was mad, aye, but not that mad; his power was Alas for Grigor, on his way to 'inspect' his get in women, he waning with each withering blast from his killing eye; he knew met up with a child of Vasagi's vats and stepped on a carpet by now that Wran would not be back. His brother was dead or which was not. Instantly enveloped by the Thing and fled, and Spiro suspected the latter. (What's more, he guessed drenched in digestive acids, he was badly eaten into by the that the bloodwar wasn't the only reason for Wran's flight!) time he managed to hack himself free - only to be snapped up But Spiro was only one Lord and Mad-manse was vast; he by the monster's twin! Finally, this latter creature was couldn't be everywhere at once; the more he used his eye, the dispatched by others of Suckscar's invaders; when they less destructive the result. He wasted his inheritance here, and opened it up, Grigor was discovered a jumble of clattering would be wise to seek a new and glorious future in fields afar. bones. So much for the Lech. Later, when Devetaki heard the For by now (he thought), Wran was well on his way back to news of his demise, she would don her smiling mask, however Turgosheim, to re-establish himself in advance of any return briefly . .. by other survivors. Well, and Spiro would soon be hot on his The roof of the last great aerie of the Wamphyri was now a tail . . . to punish him, aye, for cowardice in the face of an bloody battlefield; even Wrathspire's sloping plateau, issuing enemy, and foul desertion of duty! So thinking, and while the smoke and jets of flame from burning creatures, awash in battle raged on, Spiro rested his eyes for an hour, then saddled blood, guts and urine as Wratha's men and beasts and Ursula his best flyer and a spare, and flew out on the night wind. Torspawn's invading forces saw it out hand to hand. By now Suckscar had been secured; Lom and Hesta had The stack had its limitations and was less than impregnable commandeered new flyers and re-entered the fray raging after all. Exits from Wrathspire onto the roof were few; around Wrathstack's exterior; seeing and recognizing Spiro, Wratha had difficulty resupplying her fighters there, and when finally it came to retreating, many of them died in 668 669 from all five stumps. Spiro stood tall, shook a great fist, glared they zeroed in on him. Devetaki saw them go and knew their threateningly all about; but the others had had enough. He danger and gave no warning. Both of them were freaks and laughed long and loud, then headed east, and no one else got in had always irritated her. Half a dozen other, lesser Lords his way or even considered doing so. Not for many a mile, joined them where they ringed Spiro in, each whirling a bolas anyway. of glittering hooks. And behind him, its thunder dwindling, the bloodwar for Spiro gathered his nightmare energies to him and located Madmanse, Mangemanse and Wrathspire raged furious as them behind his vengeful eyes. He ducked low in his saddle as whirling death whistled overhead - and at once leaned forward as it sliced the air close behind! But sooner or later they'd get In a collapsed cave, two-thirds of the way through the pass to him; he'd be pierced through and through, dragged from his Sunside, Geoffrey Paxton worked like a madman at a great saddle and dropped. Enough! wall of boulders where they blocked his way to freedom. He hunched astride his mount like a monstrous toad, settled Hands bleeding, nails broken and clothing torn, he wondered his gaze on Lorn the Dwarf and fixed him with his eyes, as in why he wasn't exhausted; also wondered why he wasn't blind the sights of a weapon. Lorn sat rigid as a rod and couldn't in the pitch-darkness. In fact, he knew why, for there was a look away! Spiro's eyes were magnetic and drew his gaze; weird hunger on him, and an even weirder thirst - which they issued a seething mental bile that sped down Spiro's line wasn't for ordinary sustenance - but the human part of his of sight like a hawk stooping to its prey! mind continued to query such seeming anomalies. And Lorn . . . burst like a bomb! Scarlet froth flew every Well, he supposed he would get used to most of them soon which way as his guts escaped at once, from every exit and in enough, if not to the hunger. Of course, if he were to get too all directions! It was as if he'd been a bubble of blood in a vacuum, whose skin had dissolved in a single moment, letting hungry . .. there was always the headless body of Zindevar where she lay crumpled in the rear of the cave, or the crushed the void suck him apart. corpse of Bruno Krasin. But Paxton wasn't that hungry . .. 'Hah!' cried Spiro, and rapidly reduced two lesser Lords, and their mounts, to shreds. Then Hesta the Herm wheeled into ... Not yet. view, and it was his or her turn. Ho, great half-and-haJ/ling! And then there were other hungers: for life (or undeath), Spiro called out with his mentalism. And do you have any last for power, and definitely for revenge. As for life, he clung to it words? with the tenacity of the vampire. Revenge? Well, as far as he You .. . you bully! Hesta pouted - but was unable to look knew, the son of Harry Keogh was still alive, and so revenge away. Do your worst! was by no means impossible. Power? That would come when And Spiro did. He flicked his head forward as if to lend his he had his telepathy back; he was a step closer in that mind-bolt greater velocity, speeding it on its way. For a long direction, at least. And this had always been his plan, after all: moment Hesta's eyes stood out from his/her skull, and he/she one step at a time. screamed: 'Sp - !' Just 'Sp - !' before dying. But the way of it! Again, he attacked the wall of boulders, hurling rubble to Hesta's manicured hands and female feet shot from their limbs, the rear of the cave as he burrowed his way towards the night while his/her head blew off at the neck! And the grotesque and freedom and destiny. corpse sat still awhile, then toppled from its saddle and cartwheeled down the night, spraying red 670 671 For somewhere out there, in Sunside/Starside, he knew sis. In the long ago, this mode of speech had become necessary that he could satisfy all of his hungers in one and the same after Vasagi had extruded the diseased teeth and bones of his throw, and that after that - lower jaw, replacing them with a sleeve-like proboscis or siphon tipped with a fine, retractable hollow probe: an - Then that there probably wouldn't be any satisfying him excellent weapon or tool for feeding, but useless for common ever again . . . speech. That proboscis was no more; severed by Wran during their Sunside duel, it had been reduced to a red-rimmed hole in To give him credit, Vasagi (no longer the Suck) had been the ex-Suck's face. And looking up at his dark silhouette very patient. In one way he'd been patient, at least, but in against the wheel of the stars - the glowing fire of his eyes, another he had acted hastily; because he had many things to which was all that Wran could make out - he wondered what do and Wran the Rage was only one of them. But Vasagi and sort of face was there now, in the seething darkness under his Carmen had dined royally, and their meal had been of the cowl. essence — or flavoured with it — of everything dearest to a And because Vasagi had asked it, Wran also wondered if he vampire's stomach. Namely, the blood of another vampire; in could speak. But his mouth was dry as old bones; his tongue fact, Wran's blood, and especially that of his leech. And since was glued to the roof of his mouth; he was barely strong cutting his parasite out of him would probably have sufficed enough to give his head a trembling shake. And even that was to render him once more unconscious, Vasagi had not an agony he would not have believed, which threatened for a delayed the meal but performed the required butchery while moment to sink him once more into oblivion. His back' His Wran still lay in a heap, with his head all dented from ravaged spine, out of which Vasagi had torn his leech, to Carmen's blow. Which was also the reason why it had taken devour its juices! him so long to wake up. The damaged head, the loss of so Good, said Vasagi. I don't require you to speak, only to much blood (which had not gone wasted), and of course the removal and wringing-out of his leech; much like squeezing Jisten; for I've a story to tell. A tale of trial, and now - of oranges, except oranges don't writhe and slither and try to tribulation! And who better to tell it to than a principal escape. character who featured at the tale's beginning, and as we now But despite that his leech was gone, its essence remained in see has stayed to its end? Indeed, to his end .. . his blood as it had always been, and being Wamphyri (or And sitting down almost within reach of Wran, who had not having been) he was not yet dead. Indeed, and if there were the strength to reach, and gazing out over Starside reflectively, someone to care for him, he might even survive, though in the manner of the storyteller - while, close by, Carmen fed much reduced in spirit and no longer a Lord as such. So that, gorse-flowers, honey, and possibly the crushed, empty sack of as Wran groaned and awakened, and opened eyes as scarlet Wran's leech to a pair of tethered flyers - Vasagi began: as ever, if lacking in intensity, Vasagi could sympathize with There was a duel, on Sunside, to the death, of course, and him in part — though only in a very small part. only one could survive and return home in triumph to the last For Vasagi knew how Wran felt; indeed, upon a time, he'd great aerie of the Wamphyri. The combatants were Wran the felt much the same and worse, and in similar circumstances. Rage Killglance, a wretched creature of little or no refinement, Can you speak? Vasagi spoke with his mind as always, and the noble Vasagi, called the Suck. The outcome should with elegant weavings of his fingers and hands for empha- have been certain, would have been, but for 672 673 night is a long one, and Vasagi was determined. And one a trick of fate: the intervention of a callow Szgany youth, who thought and only one kept him going - as it has done ever since seriously disturbed the balance of events. So much so that the - that Wran the Rage still lived! noble Vasagi was defeated. And not only defeated but ... Before the dawn he came through a high pass, discovered a disfigured, defaced! That were a shameful thing: to be deep crevice in the rocks, crawled inside to sleep. Except his deprived of one's very face, and by refuse such as Wran. sleep was disturbed! Even as the sun crept higher, a flyer Well, one would think that the maiming of Vasagi, and his landed and a thrall (some Lord's lieutenant) pegged out a grotesque disfigurement, would be enough. Oh, he must also woman much as Vasagi had been pegged out. But when the die, of course .. . but surely in a manner worthy of his status, lieutenant departed, then Vasagi cut her free — and found her his place in the scheme of things. Put him down by all means, to be one of his own, Carmen out of Suckscar! It was as if Wran but let him keep what little was left of his dignity. The and the others would eradicate every trace of him and his! Wamphyri are, after all, regal creatures. Some of us, anyway . . He rescued the woman to be his companion, saw that she . would be a Lady, and in the next sundown commenced the But Wran, was not - is not - one of them. Nor will he be, long trek west. For the noble Vasagi knew what he was about, until relieved of the monstrous burden of his flesh. Soon, ah, and that all was not yet lost. Far from it. soon! However: The trek took long and long; the way was hard; only the So Vasagi was raped of his leech, and the leech milked of flesh of trogs sustained them. Vasagi was without his its egg, and with a grand sense of the 'comical', Wran the Rage metamorphism, which had been fabled, retaining only his bequeathed this noble seed to that same callow youth who, tenacity. But his tenacity was enough. however inadvertently, had saved his miserable life. 'Enough!' Finally, they came to the vampire swamps far to the west of (you will say.) 'Now Vasagi can be allowed to die in whatever is the barrier mountains, and Vasagi cultivated black and left to him of peace. Wran will take his head in one clean especially ugly mushrooms until they were ripe and released stroke, and that will be that. ..' their spores - which he breathed! He already had vampire flesh, Oh, really? of course, which would resist the spores if it could. And it did But no, Wran pegged him down on a hillside to await the for long and long. But finally a spore took; it must be strong rising sun, to melt there in its poison ray, and fled back to indeed; Vasagi felt its strength and rejoiced! Starside before the dawn. Except - what Fate gives, Fate He fed it the blood of beasts, and of his consort Carmen ofttimes takes away! And that same Szgany youth (him again, (given of her own free will), until finally he felt his aye) tore out Vasagi's pegs from the earth, and set him free. So metamorphism flow back into him! Ah, but it was a long time now you know how it came to pass that Vasagi survived, and I in the coming, and hardships all the way. Aye, and more to can be sharp about the rest of my tale. come, during the long trek home. Vasagi crawled into a deep cave and stayed there all the Then, in the western foothills of Starside, a rare thing! hours of day. With night he killed a small creature (and, ah! Vasagi came across a starving flyer. A vampire creature, loose the agony of eating — and through that loathsome hole in his in the wild and left to its own devices. And intelligent, aye! face — after so many years of drinking}; but at least he was Vasagi fed the beast, returned it to full health; why, he even strengthened. And all through the night he climbed the learned its name! Oh, yes, for it had a name, which it mountains, only sleeping when exhaustion overcame him, and eating what and when he could. But .. . the Starside 674 675 remembered from when it was a man. Karz Biteri, fled from winding the rest of its length about the outcrop until it was Runemanse in Turgosheim, and from his master, Maglore the firmly anchored. Sick from pain, and made impotent by Mage. So much the noble Vasagi learned, and no more. But weakness, Wran could only watch as she wrapped his feet from now on he had a beast to share his and Carmen's burden, with another length, which she made fast . . . to the saddle of albeit a very weird beast, which refused the blood of men and Vasagi's flyer? trogs and only ate the flesh of animals, gorse-flowers, and wild And in a little while Vasagi continued: honey. Upon a time, the Lords - and the Lady, too - of Wrath- Well, their relationship was a strange thing; scarcely that of stack had poked fun at Vasagi, naming him a freak because beast and master at all! For this creature had a mind of his his face and 'voice', his elegant and dexterous mode of own. But companionship and need drew him to Vasagi, and communication, were so radically different from theirs. But the ex-Suck's need drew him to the flyer. But their none of them had laughed louder than Wran. And, as stated, understanding was simple: they were their own 'men', and Wran was responsible for reducing Vasagi to a genuine freak, whatever came of their partnership, when it was done, it was with only a hole for a face! Well, since Vasagi had been done. named for a freak, and also since he'd never much cared for So, by stages, Vasagi and the Lady Carmen, and Karz the physical looks one way or the other, deeming it a vanity in flyer, came back to this central region of Sunside/Starside. creatures who have the power to change their looks so easily, And when they were here they found a place to live - just a he now determined to become a freak! And none had been cave, but it was enough - and Vasagi waited and watched, to more gifted in the metamorphic arts than Vasagi. see what would be. For olden enemies were on their way from He stood up, stood tall, and gazed down on Wran. My tale Turgosheim in the east, and the outcome would be interesting. is told, and it's a true one, of which 1 am the living proof. But meanwhile, Vasagi reached out with his restored The Wamphyri have long made creatures in their own image, mentalism to the last great aerie of the Wamphyri, to Suckscar but 1, Vasagi, have gone one better, and made myself in the and certain of its creatures. Among them a flyer, but just a image of one of my creatures. Behold, and know that I am flyer, and not like Karz at all. Upon a time, however, this had Vasagi of the Wamphyri - now Lord Vasagi the Gape! been an exceptional beast in its own right, and faithful. The He opened his cloak .. . then opened his body! very mount that Vasagi had flown to Sunside the night of his Wran's agony was all but forgotten in those astonishing duel with Wran! And it was still faithful! When Vasagi called, moments of revelation. Not the revealing of Vasagi's identity, it broke out of its pen and hurried to be with him. So that now for of course that was already known, but the limitlessness of both Vasagi and his Lady had mounts to ride into Sunside and Wamphyri metamorphism, now taken to the limits. And prey upon the Szgany, as of old. when Wran saw Vasagi, he knew that he was not merely the Which brings us to the present. .. very master of metamorphism, but also that he had passed Meanwhile, Vasagi's Lady had done with feeding the flyers beyond the limits of sanity itself. And because Wran knew and came to where her Lord sat with the broken, ravaged there can be no reasoning with madness, he didn't even try, Wran. She carried lengths of thin, cutting, near-unbreakable but merely lay there, staring with eyes that scarcely believed, Szgany twine, spun from Kursgrass, one of which had a noose and his jaws distended in a rictus of awe. that she placed over Wran's head, 676 677 Vasagi had said that he had made himself in the image of Szgany youth' made me a Lady, and then would deny and one of his own creatures. Now Wran knew what he meant. destroy me. Well, and you've had your revenge, my Lord. Upon a time (it seemed an age ago), he'd gone down into Aye, he nodded in her mind, and ah . . . it was sweet! But I Suckscar with Spiro, the dog-Lord Canker Canison and Nestor take your point. So let's seek out this Nestor, shall we? Lichloathe, and had seen one of Vasagi's guardians of the And climbing on the night wind, they made for Sunside ... stairwells. And Vasagi was ... similar. Under the hood of his cloak, thrown back now, Vasagi had Meanwhile, Gorvi the Guile rejoiced that he was off and eyes but nothing else of a face. For beneath the shiny-black, running! Nothing behind him but a great many empty miles, utterly flat, nostril-slitted flange of a nose, a fat-muscled neck and nothing ahead but a last crumbling knuckle in the flowed like a column directly into the chest. But central kinked spine of the barrier mountains, the Great Red Waste, between the nipples, and from there down to the crotch, which and eventually a mainly vacated Gulf of Turgosheim. Back in was merely a junction for the legs and no longer housed the last aerie, Wratha and the others would probably believe genitalia, great rubbery vertical lips opened like a door, he was dead and devoured, and his bones littering the displaying Vasagi's pulsing innards! At the back, sheathed in boulder plains. If so, good! But he was fairly sure that none muscle, his ribs must be hinged to the spine - but at the front had seen him make his escape, and he was certain no one they formed meshing teeth that drooled and snapped at Wran! else knew of his bolthole escape route. And anyway, it And: Ahhh! said the monster. I could eat your face - eat all seemed unlikely they'd send a posse all the way back to of you - but I won't. What? When there's the sweet fresh dung Turgosheim just for one man. of a beast going stale under my flyer's tail? Or, I might peg Therefore, as the last crags fell away and the mountains you out to await the dawn, except it is too far off. Also, I was flattened to earth - when all that should lie ahead was pegged out upon a time - Carmen, too — so that we know it's emptiness, the seething red wastelands and their reek - it not necessarily fatal. But that rope around your neck . . . came as no small surprise when Gorvi saw in the sky ... Is! another flyer, and heard the gleeful mental chuckle of its Without another word, Vasagi closed his cloak, put up the rider: hood, turned and took Carmen on his arm, and walked her to Ho, Gorvi! Well, and wouldn't we know it! Gorvi the the waiting flyers. Wran thought to struggle against his bonds, Guile, fugitive! All on his ownsome, and on the run, his and was at once stilled by a thousand small knives in his head full of thoughts of dear old Turgosheim! What, back: the severed nerve-endings where Vasagi had cut out his homesick, are you? Our bloodwar was a bit too much for you, leech. The pair mounted up . . . and launched! eh? All that nasty fighting and such? Something bounded and spurted red against the rocks, then Gorvi did some very quick thinking (but this time kept it lay still. And in a while Vasagi used a knife to cut the line, to himself). And in another moment: The bloodwar's over, and sent Wran's headless body spinning. And: Boris, he answered. And I'm the only survivor of any Done! he said, his voice a sigh in Carmen's mind. importance. There may be others come straggling eventually You, but not me, she answered. No, for a certain 'callow -thralls and a lieutenant or two - but that's all. The two sides were too evenly matched, you see, and wiped each other out. 678 679 'Really?' said Boris, assuming the gawp of an idiot. (He was there'd be no getting out of this. He knew it, and at the end, as closer now, and didn't require to use his mentalism.) Then the his mount slipped under, he reached down to grasp the saddle gawp slipped from his face. 'Yet a moment ago . . . why, I'd and went down with it. have sworn you were wondering if they'd send anyone after In a little while his parasite rebelled (the tenacity of the you, to settle the score in Turgosheim.' vampire?), causing Gorvi to relax his grip. Or perhaps it Gorvi knew the game was up; he whirled a bolas of vicious wasn't so much his leech's tenacity as the powerful corrosive hooks, and released them towards Boris. His target hunched action of the acid: the fact that his fingers were dissolving to down in the saddle, caused his mount to swerve, gave way. slime, knuckle by knuckle, and detaching themselves from his And with a snarled obscenity, the Guile shot through the hands. Whichever, very little of him made it back to the breach and headed directly out across the Great Red Waste. surface. Glancing back over his shoulder, he was surprised to see Black And what little there was didn't last too long ... Boris smiling a knowing smile .. . until he sensed a mental command shoot skywards: Resupplied from Suckscar, Devetaki's forces attempted an He's all yours. Bring him down! invasion downwards into Mangemanse, only to find the way Gorvi didn't look but leaned far forward along his mount's blocked, and, like the rest of the manse, impregnable in the straining neck and commanded it, Fly! Fly as never before! short-term. All of Canker's defenders, in whichever quarter, But a mile or two out over the Great Red Waste, when at fought as mad dogs; for the time being, the dog-Lord was last he heard the rumble of propulsors growing louder, then he safe. Not so Wratha. Routes from Suckscar up into the had to look. There were two of them, two small, highly ultimate manse were plentiful, as were landing-bays and manoeuvrable aerial warriors. One fell like a stone directly windows for access, and stairwells and passages within. towards him, the other in a steep spiral, holding back a little to Under attack from both Suckscar and the roof, Wrathspire was see which way he'd jump. It would make little or no difference eminently accessible to the invaders. Wratha's forces were anyway; however he jumped they'd be too fast for him. confined, compressed within, while she herself was slowly Indeed, and by the time he'd thought it, they were already on but surely floated up towards the roof on the froth of battle. him! Down below, Madmanse fell! The desertion of both of the The torpedo went straight through his mount's left wing, Lords Killglance had utterly demoralized their thralls; they leaving it singed and fraying. The other flattened its spiral, got had continued to fight, however half-heartedly, because there beneath Gorvi, raised erectile spines along its back, and sliced was no alternative. Probably doomed to end their days as his flyer open the full length of its belly. That was more than warrior meal, it would be as well to die gutted in hand-to- enough, and down they went. And Gorvi's staggering, hand combat, as in some creature's guts, or soup in a vat of stumbling mind wondering how this could possibly be metamorphism! happening to him. Thus only Mangemanse and Wrathspire remained, with He was still wondering when they splashed down in a both Canker Canison and Wratha the Risen in residence, and smoking, searing acid pool. But even if he'd had the time to the rest of the last aerie (with the exception of a handful of form an airfoil and leap free, there'd be nowhere to fly. He inaccessible pockets of resistance) was now Devetaki's. Her stood on his flyer's back as it boiled, bubbled and sank, and forces had suffered losses, of course . . . but tried to figure it out. But with all the guile in the world, 680 681 she was glad of them! Keeping her generals in the front of the brow was grown dim, and her flesh had lost much of its fighting, she had seen the bulk of them go down, never again customary youthful lustre. Devetaki found it odd that even in to rise. The handful of surviving Lords were of little defeat a women such as Wratha should be so subdued (so consequence; they'd be like pet dogs following her to heel, cowed?) and said as much. Then, as if remembering the fighting for the crumbs she dropped. Gorge of Turgosheim - the fact that they had been friends Now, in the fifteenth hour of the night (even the virgin there upon a time . .. well, friends of sorts, within limits - grandam was astonished at the scale and speed of her Wratha looked at her and quietly said: success), she gathered her forces out of the sacked, fallen 'So I look down in the mouth, do I?' She shrugged, and in a manses, and concentrated them on Wrathspire. But she left while continued, 'Well, that's how it is: one day up, and the one bolthole to the roof clear, and kept back her troops from a next day down.' And now a grim cold smile. 'This is a down certain turret, where she'd been informed of a lone flyer day, that's all.' saddled and ready for flight. And as fire and the occasional 'True,' Devetaki answered, 'but the last of them, I fear.' screaming thrall gouted from Wrathspire's windows, and And putting a leather-clad arm around Wratha's shoulders, as roiling black smoke poured from every exit, Devetaki landed if to hold her up, she walked with her towards the rim of the there, gave Alexei Yefros into the care of thrall bodyguards, high plateau roof. Wratha was wan; she slumped down into stationed herself close to Wratha's flyer but out of sight, and herself and seemed very fragile. Devetaki was not deceived waited. And eventually Wratha came. (if any deception were intended), and her men stayed close to She came panting, scurrying through the battling crush, and hand. in her urgency to be away never once paused to wonder why But the worst of the fighting was over now, and the victors she wasn't recognized or stopped. She had been recognized, mopped up. Devetaki knew she was secure, and Wratha at her of course, but Devetaki's orders were plain and simple, and mercy. Of which there was very little. Eventually they came to left no room for errors: Wratha the Risen must not be harmed! the open turret that housed Wratha's silver cage. Then, seeing She is mine! And now she truly was. where the virgin grandam had taken her, Wratha started and As Wratha entered the turret she saw her flyer stretched made to draw away. But Devetaki's men took her and, when there, leaking life from a throat slit to the spine, all flopping their mistress nodded, put her in the cage, fastened its door, and gurgly, and definitely finished with things. And she also and made to hoist her aloft. At which Wratha cried out: saw Devetaki. Wratha's gauntlet, clogged with flesh, was on 'Devetaki! We were friends, you and I — I even . .. admired her hand, strapped to her arm - but in another moment, so you, and tried to pattern myself after you. I still admire you! were two of Devetaki's strongest lieutenants, one to each arm, You are the winner, after all. Of everything.' and a third man behind her with a sharp ironwood stake in the 'It's true.' Devetaki put on her smiling mask. 'But what's small of her back. Devetaki stepped forward and quickly took this? Do you seek to plead with me? You were the rebel, the kneblasch dispenser which she had known would be Wratha. You are the one who caused all this.' hidden in Wratha's robe, and so the Lady was disarmed. Wratha shook her head. 'No, I won't plead. My time is up, And despite that she was thwarted and her plans in ruins, and I know it. But I want you to know, Devetaki, that I won't for the first time in Wratha's life there was no wrath left in hold anything against you.' her. The glow beneath the cartilage scarp on her Devetaki nodded. 'You are pleading, then, in your subtle fashion?' 683 682 Again Wratha shook her head. 'No, it's just that . . . all my Then, shutting out Wratha's shrieking, cackling laughter life I have hated, one thing or another. And now that it's over where she was hoisted up and swung out under the gantry, . . . I wish there had been more love in it, that's all.' Devetaki swept regally away, and stumbled only a very little . .. 'Love?' Devetaki raised an eyebrow. 'True love, you mean, as the Szgany know it? Among vampires? Is there such a thing?' 'We were Szgany, upon a time,' Wratha answered sadly. Later, when Devetaki had regained her composure and called That time is past.' Devetaki smiled. her generals to her, she saw that Ursula Torspawn was 'Kiss me once, through these bars,' Wratha begged. Then missing. Her first thought was that Ursula must have gone they can hang me up to wait for the sun.' down in the fighting, but one of that Lady's lieutenants 'Eh?' Despite that Devetaki was wearing her smiling mask, assured her it was not the case. 'Her flyer suffered some she frowned. 'A kiss?' injury,' he reported. That was what she told me, as she limped 'A fond farewell,' said Wratha (and began to gather a gob of off south.' phlegm at the back of her throat). 'If nothing else, it will show 'South?' Devetaki was suspicious. There'd been times that we can die with a flourish, flamboyant as our lives.' Her recently when Ursula had given her some funny little looks. voice was choked - but with the phlegm, not from emotion; or 'What lies south, except the barrier mountains? Did she have a a cold, cold emotion at best. fresh mount back there? Why didn't she land on the roof?' The virgin grandam cocked her head. 'I think I like that, Ursula's lieutenant looked blank, or perhaps surprised by aye! So be it.' And stepping to the cage, avoiding the silver Devetaki's outburst. The roof was awash with blood and bars, she pressed her mouth to Wratha's - who, quick as fighting,' he answered, 'of which my Lady had done her thought, straightened up, caught Devetaki through the bars share, but in the sky. I have no doubt she'll be back and spurted phlegm into her convulsing throat! Then, as immediately.' Devetaki choked and struggled, Wratha massaged her throat 'Huh!' Devetaki breathed heavily. 'Well, and perhaps she until the loathsome stuff was down, finally biting her mouth will. We'll have to wait and see.' Then she set about to detail and tonguing the wound! And as Devetaki jerked free, Wratha her plans concerning in part an indefinite siege on threw off her robe to display her nakedness . . . and a great Mangemanse, but mainly the saturation and subjugation of deal more than nakedness! Sunside by vampire forces. For now that Wrathstack had all The signs of her curse were plain; Devetaki saw them and but fallen, the locator Alexei Yefros had come up with a her eyes stood out; she pointed, gabbled something scheme to bring this guerilla, the so-called Necroscope unintelligible, turned aside and hurled the contents of her Nathan Keogh out of hiding . .. stomach into a corner of the turret. And finally: 'Hang the hag!' she cried in her fury, her fear, as tears dripped from her Crossing the barrier mountains a little west of the great pass, eyes and bile from her mouth. 'Hang the plague-ridden bitch Ursula Torspawn was glad that she'd deserted. A pity she on high, to wait for the rising sun!' And sucking furiously hadn't thought to do it earlier, that's all, when there was still (fearfully?) on her torn lips, she spat the contaminated blood time to fly back across the Great Red Waste and return to away. Then: Cleanse me! she commanded her shuddering Turgosheim all in the one night. For in Tormanse in vampire, willing it to be so; though whether it would be, Turgosheim, she'd left sufficient of thralls and creatures remained to be seen. 684 685 behind that she could start up again and be a power, while here she was devoid of power - and at the mercy of Devetaki! Hah! Small mercy there! But cunning? Aye! And Ursula Ill cursed herself that she'd watched it all happening without seeing anything, until Devetaki herself had let it be known Nona, Nestor, Nathan - Confrontation/ what she was about: the 'elevation' of the Ladies ... a 'grand matriarchy'! Hah! No such thing — she would be Empress! Where was Zindevar Cronesap now? And what of Ursula Torspawn, now that her contingent was reduced to a handful? Oh, yes, she'd be next on Devetaki's list, be sure. Except when Earlier: the power-crazed slut looked around for her, she'd be nowhere Unobserved (it might even seem, ignored), the Necroscope to be found. and his party had followed the ebb and flow of the bloodwar in Ursula's plan was simple: since she couldn't make it back to and around Wrathstack. To any outsider they must seem a Turgosheim tonight, she'd use the night to hole up, to feed and singularly disparate team: a light-skinned, blue-eyed man of rest herself and her flyer, then wait out tomorrow in some Sunside, four psychically talented people out of a weird dark and bitter crevice of a place further east. And tomorrow parallel world, and a Starside wolf of the wild. But Nathan, night, skirting Black Boris at the eastern extreme of the Trask, Zek, Chung and Goodly - and Grinner, of course -were barrier mountains, she'd get a good start back home. After a team and there was this mainly unspoken (their situation was that, all would be in the hands of fate. But right now ... scarcely conducive to chatter) but sensed camaraderie between At the back of her saddle was a bundle of clothes. Ursula had them. always affected Szgany looks and ways, had kept her girlish Nathan had stuck close to Ben Trask; lan Goodly and David shape and Gypsy mannerisms. Let her get out of this battle- Chung had passed the time in low-toned conversation; Zek's gear and into her patterned skirt, forest-green blouse, and apparently inseparable companion had been Grinner. For in crudely-fashioned shad-leather boots, shake down her black the devillish-looking wolf's own 'words', as conveyed to hair, shape her flattened vampire nose a little and quench the Nathan: This one knows the Grey Brothers. She knows how to fire of her eyes... she felt certain she could go among them like a be with a wolf!' It was a compliment, of course. genuine waif of the woods, all unnoticed; well, except by the Their vantage point or observation post had been a room in men. Easy to lure a couple of likely lads into the darkness, the stump of a collapsed stack whose jumble lay a mile and a refuel herself, and carve a little fresh meat for the return trip. half north-west of the last aerie. Open on two sides and minus That was all there was to it. Risky? Well, perhaps - but not its ceiling or roof, still the remaining walls were massive, and as risky as staying with Devetaki. That one would not stop the one that faced Wrathstack had a vast window that provided now until she had it all, and what she couldn't have .. . she'd an excellent view of the battle. Nathan would rather have been destroy. Ursula could only hope that, when she failed to return elsewhere, of course (namely, with Misha), but his reason for to the fighting, Devetaki would assume her dead of an being on Starside was simple: to watch the fighting as best he accident or misadventure. At which the virgin grandam would might, and determine the next phase of his campaign against most likely rejoice ... whichever side was the winner. 687 After nine hours it had been obvious which side that must That last might be a clue in itself: for of course they were be. Wrathstack was issuing fire and smoke from most of its aware of the Necroscope now, and knew him for a powerful levels, and the shattered debris of battle was beginning to destructive force in his own right. That they would come strew itself across the boulder plains even as far as the ruins after him and clash with him sooner or later was a bygone from which the Necroscope's party kept score of the fighting. conclusion - indeed a foreseen conclusion! - as Nathan had Several injured, riderlesss flyers had already crashed down seen it during his brief trip with lan Goodly into the future. within a one hundred yards radius of their hideaway; finally, Except . . . he didn't much care to speculate what that one such creature had fluttered to earth with a lieutenant still 'conclusion' would involve. The word itself conveyed a rocking in the saddle. Mazed and stumbling, the man had made termination, but of what? His life? So it had appeared when it a short distance away from his crumpled mount before he and Goodly had been left spinning in time, 'at the end of his himself collapsing face-down in the dust. The fact that he'd tether': the blue life-thread that literally tethered him to a made it there at all seemed a sure signal to the huddle of physical existence. humans that they should now move on. Finally - unsettled, anxious and frustrated as ever -Nathan Via the Mobius Continuum, Nathan had then taken his party had returned his party to the now deserted camp at the edge up onto a plateau in the barrier mountains midway between of the forest, where they would sleep and take it in turn to Twin Fords and Settlement, where Zek and David Chung keep watch. Nathan himself, teamed up with Trask, had employed their talents (and the Necroscope his) to scan along taken the first three-hour watch. While the others slept, the the range and try to find out what was going on. The enemy pair had also taken the opportunity to talk. was camped there for certain; from the lava falls beyond the 'We seem a long way from, and a long time since, Earth,' great pass even to a point some miles west of Settlement, they Trask had opened. 'My Earth, I mean. And in fact we have were scattered in a dozen or more secure locations in small but come - oh, a very long way - an entire universe! But on the by no means negligible parties. Grinner's fleet-footed, night- other hand, the whole thing has taken little more than a night prowling pack of covert observers, and that of his brother Blaze, and a day, your time. So paradoxically, I suppose we might had already confirmed this fact; also that for the moment the say that time has flown!' vampires were keeping a low profile and seemed unaccountably Nathan had nodded, and a phrase remembered from immobile, inactive . . . as if they waited for something. But for Trask's world, which hadn't made much sense to him then, what? had suddenly sprung to mind. 'Doesn't time fly when you're Perhaps Devetaki had kept them in reserve for use, in the having fun!' he said, however drily. But now the phrase was event that the bloodwar against Wrathstack went wrong or entirely appropriate - especially the way he'd used it! In fact, took longer than she expected; maybe they would form a and as he now saw, that was the entire point of the thing. So blockade if Wratha should attempt to resupply herself out of maybe the sarcasm of their two worlds at least wasn't that Sunside. But Nathan didn't think so. There was something very dissimilar. ominous about them, still and silent in the night, with their Trask's turn to nod, and to grin, but he quickly sobered seething minds all guarded from telepathic intrusion, and their and followed up with: 'You haven't said a lot about your trip senses alert for any sign of attack upon themselves. with lan Goodly. Was it really that bad?' Nathan looked at him with that disconcerting, blue-eyed gaze of his, open as the sky, and thought carefully before 688 689 'As I'm trying not to be. Like your saying: hope springs he answered. Because, in the moment of Trask's question, eternal.' he'd realized that he had been thinking carefully about that 'But does it really?' trip ever since returning from it. 'It was — I don't know, a 'For myself, yes. Let's face it, if I didn't believe I'd come dead end? It seemed to be, anyway. But I can't be sure. And through this, what would be the point? But for you . . . I don't of course I don't want to be sure! After all, I've been shown know. I'll be glad when you've all had enough and I can take the future before, and by an expert. And he was wrong.' you out of here.' Trask remembered the story from the Necroscope's debrief at 'But you must know we have to see it through? It isn't just E-Branch HQ, London, England, Earth, some five months ago. Thikkoul, the Thyre Stargazer?' your world, Nathan, but ours too. When - if - we get back to Nathan glanced at the ice-chip stars and said, The same. our own place, we'll have to report on things here. And if our Thikkoul saw me disappearing through a great glaring door, report isn't just exactly so . . . then the bloodwar you've seen "in the blink of an eye!" And I'll never be able to forget the so far won't even nearly match the one that's to come.' tone of his deadspeak voice when he said: "Then .. . you are Nathan stared at him. 'You think so? But how so? Surely gone!"' Gustav Turchin will close the Perchorsk Gate, and you espers 'But you weren't.' will continue to guard the one at Radujevac. Won't that 'But I was! Gone out of this world, into yours - through suffice?' the Starside Gate.' Then Trask told him about the Chernobyl Sarcophagus: 'But you weren't "gone".' Trask insisted. 'You lived on. It how a nuclear curse had been visited on Earth by man's was just that you were no longer here.' stupidity. 'So they built a wall round it and a roof over it,' he That's right,' said Nathan. 'And that's why I can't be sure went on, 'thick enough to keep all of that weird heat in. It was — and why I'm glad I'm not sure — about what we saw in quite a while ago. But just containing it wasn't enough; they future time. If Thikkoul could get it wrong, so can I. Oh, he still had to know what was going on inside -that nothing else saw the future, all right. But not the way the future saw it! was going to escape! So every now and then they open the So maybe lan Goodly is right, about the future being wall and go back in. They have to be sure, you see? sentient. Certainly it appears to protect itself; it's jealous of 'And it will be precisely the same with Sunside/Starside. being known; it does come to pass - of course it does, and Except, while a meltdown can't think for itself, the Wamphyri must - but in its own way.' can and do. And while the nuclear monster in that 'What will be has been?' sarcophagus can't deliberately try to break out .. .' He paused, That, too,' Nathan answered, 'but we're not allowed to but he had made his point... know it. We were fashioned to be of three - and only three - 'In that event, this whole world will suffer.' dimensions; the fourth does its damnedest to keep it that 'It would be ruined!' Trask corrected him. 'As you know, way. So people like Thikkoul, Goodly and myself, we're rightly or wrongly, we used nuclear weapons to bring one of kept guessing. And it's done so expertly - so deviously? - our own wars to an end. From time to time there's been the that we're even a little, and sometimes a lot, afraid of it.' threat of such usage ever since. But men have to live on the 'As you are now?' planet, and finally they're seeing sense. Good news for my 691 690 world, yes .. . but this one? The men of my world don't have the right one. Tell me what this is, and I'll know at once if to live here; to them this is an alien place, and if some of you're lying to me. But when you don't know yourself? Why, them knew what we already know . . . I don't think they'd I'm not even sure if this diagram is a question or the answer even wait to see how it works out! And honestly, I can't say I to one!' blame them. That's another reason why we're staying: to see Nathan was disappointed, but understood Trask's it through with you, and to know how to report at the end of explanation of his inability. And it dawned on him: of course it.' Trask didn't know! This thing was of the future, and the 'If you get back.' future was devious and deliberately obscure! 'We're putting our faith in you.' Again they changed the subject, and for long hours talked Nathan waved his hands helplessly. 'But I can't work of other things ... miracles!' Their watch passed quickly. On Starside, the bloodwar had Now, despite himself and the mood of their conversation, been raging for a little over thirteen hours; before sleeping Trask did grin, and broadly. 'Oh, really?' he said. 'I think Nathan made a quick Mobius-jump to see how things stood. some of us might disagree with you!' Then he stopped It was much the same as before, except the fighting now smiling and sighed. 'But . . . if you really can't work a seemed to be concentrated around the aerie's summit and the miracle, then we'll simply have to trust to luck - or to the stack's central levels. It would be another two to three hours future?' before Devetaki caught Wratha, locked her in the silver cage In the Necroscope's mind, the subject had become depressing and hoisted her on high. and so he changed it. 'What do you make of this?' he asked. Nathan returned to camp but was unable to sleep. He And taking a sliver of charcoal from their small fire, he drew found himself torn two ways. He hadn't seen enough of Ethloi's 'engine', as he had come to think of it (the Misha - could never see enough of her - yet spent the night mathematician's enigmatic diagram that so reminded him of separated from her; and no way to tell how many nights were pistons and pressure, motion and power), on the pale inner left to them. But Devetaki Skullguise had a locator whose wall of a piece of bark. special assignment was the whereabouts of the Necro-scope, 'What am I supposed to think of it?' Trask asked. 'What is Nathan Keogh. If he went into the desert, to Misha in the new it, anyway?' oasis at Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, Yefros might locate That's what I hoped you'd tell me,' Nathan gloomily him there. All of the best-kept secrets of the Thyre would answered. And he attempted to explain the inexplicable, the then be in jeopardy: their intelligence and the location of their hidden meaning in the thing which all the Thyre ancients colonies, their vulnerability ... and their availability. had been trying to get over to him without understanding it Previously, the Wamphyri (not unlike the Szgany, much to themselves. 'I had hoped that if anyone would recognize it, Nathan's great shame) had considered the Thyre no better you would.' than desert trogs: inferior creatures scarcely fit for That I'd know the "truth" of it?' consumption. Only let them discover the truth of it - it might 'Why not?' well mean a disaster! The dull trogs of Starside caverns were 'Because you don't know it,' Trask answered. 'And left mainly to their own devices because they were dull, because they don't know it. Show me an algebraic equation unfeeling, incapable of resistance. What use to with two solutions, one right and one wrong, and I'll choose 692 693 torture creatures who couldn't appreciate the pain? Where the dead had ever done that before! And through all Nana's tears - pleasure in hunting beings who didn't have the sense or shed for him - he knew that she had, and that he, Lord Nestor opportunity to hide? Why fuel oneself on trog blood, when Lichloathe of the Wamphyri, had heard her. It was why he there was always the sweet flesh of higher human beings? was here, for in fact he'd been on his way to find and kill And as for trog women . .. well, there had never been a great Nathan when her crying had drawn him down out of the sky. many vampires of Black Boris's persuasions. What's more he had found his brother (the faint but definite But only let them get to know the Thyre . .. trail of his numbers vortex, at least) and had known that It was unthinkable. Nathan lay sleeping only a handful of miles away. So why But indeed thinking about it - and between times turning he'd answered Nana's cry at all was something of a mystery to over and over in his head the puzzles and enigmas posed by him, which Nestor couldn't fathom because the humanity was the esoteric dreaming of dead Thyre ancients - finally the flown out of him and he was Wamphyri. Necroscope drifted into a deep sleep, and stayed that way for Then, when she was able, Nana told Nestor the story of his three solid hours. And because his friends (especially Atwei) life, which no necromancer's threats might ever have wrung among the not too distant Thyre knew that he needed his from her, and slowly but surely the gaps in his damaged sleep, they made no 'unseemly' intrusions through the medium memory began to fill themselves in. Except, it would make no of their mentalism, and it was a credit to Sunside's Great real difference to him (or so he thought), for the baby, boy and Majority that they didn't disturb him either, despite that one young man he'd once been were alien to him now, even of their number, and a special one at that, was herself different identities. And he was the Lord Nestor, of the disturbed almost to distraction ... Wamphyri. Close to a deserted Szgany trail through the forest, not So Nestor stood, then sat, and listened, while out of the many miles from the camp, Nana Kiklu had a visitor at the cold, cold earth something of warmth struggled to find its way low mound of earth where Lardis had dug a hole and burned into him, as Nana tried to warm him with memories that were her, then buried her ashes. Her visitor's predicament - and no longer his. His mother's purpose, a delaying tactic, was Nana's, that she couldn't hug him, comfort him, hold his head apparent, even transparent, yet there was more to it than that; to her breast - brought her to incorporeal tears that she for Nana had never been one for deceit, and was beyond it somehow kept from spilling into the deadspeak aether. But now that she knew the truth of the grave. Yet still the she could feel him, or his presence certainly, and knew the necromancer sat there, like a small but very dreadful boy at his feeling for a sign of his power and a symptom of his mother's knee. And while the greater part of him rejected her, predicament both. other parts soaked up her words like rust loosened by oil, as For despite that he was able to speak to her, using his own the ghosts of memory's faded pictures were retouched with morbid version of deadspeak, and that she felt his presence, living colour and texture on the screen of his mind. there was no warmth in him and he was not a Necroscope. And perhaps somewhere deep inside, the dry cogs of The next best thing, then? Or the worst possible thing. And: forgotten intelligence, mental machinery, began to mesh at Mother? he said wonderingly, in his breathless whisper of last, and wheels creakingly to turn ... a deadspeak voice, where he stood at her grave. Did you ... did you call out to me? Wonderingly, aye, for none of the 695 694 Thus Nathan slept on through the night (though shortly he'd before him, when Boris and his man drifted free of the crags be up and about again), and for the moment knew nothing of directly to the fore, blocking his way and facing him head-on. Nestor at Nana's graveside. And: What have we here! Black Boris called out gleefully with While in Starside: his mentalism, when the fugitive was still some distance apart Only Mangemanse continued to hold out with any measure from him. But I do believe it's Spiro Killglance! My, how you of success. Throbbing with Canker's moon-music and his rebels flee the fighting - like bats from a leaking aerie.' 'singing', and defended by beasts, lieutenants and thralls (the But Spiro had quickly recovered, and at once returned: Or dog-Lord's 'pups', who in truth could only be likened to mad female trogs from a cavern, when Black Boris drops his pants? dogs), Mangemanse seemed impregnable. But on high, Boris's turn to be surprised. This was a Spiro he had not Wratha the Risen - who also had been known to use the word seen before. Obviously, the years flown between had given 'impregnable' from time to time - cackled like a madwoman him a little self-confidence; something must have, for sure! behind silver bars and set her cage to rocking, and Why, it appears you've been spying on me! Boris chuckled Wrathspire itself seemed all set to fall to the invaders from as Spiro sped closer. Anyway, it's a real treat to see that the east. you've developed a sense of humour at Jast - though much While in the east, where the jagged spine of the barrier too late, I'm sorry to say. But at least you can die laughing. mountains broke into spurs, sank to earth and buried itself at 'I intend to,' Spiro was now close enough to shout. 'Well, last, Spiro Killglance flew towards the last jumble of smiling, at least.' And his bloodshot, deep-sunken eyes turned tumbled rocks that marked the eastern extreme of the range. skywards as he heard the warrior's propulsors start into life. Dressed in his customary rags - with the tails of a blood- Then, as the thing came squirting out of the clouds into view, spattered head-band streaming out behind him - he thought Spiro saw what a monster it was. Albeit of the smaller little or nothing. A wingspan to his left, his spare flyer glided variety, it was viciously equipped: a real test, at last, for his effortlessly on breezes out of the north, and lulled by the fresh-forged weapon. interminable throb of powerful manta wings, Spiro's power- 'And are you still smiling?' Black Boris laughed over the crazed mind was for the moment weary . .. and blank. throb and sputter of the warrior's discharge. Likewise Black Boris's mind, blank, except he deliberately 'Oh, there are smiles and smiles,' Spiro answered, gathering contrived to keep it so, in order to take Spiro by surprise, his alien energies as the warrior came curving down on him even as he'd taken Gorvi. For having received warning of from the star-splashed sky. Spiro's approach from Desmodus bats recruited in the trog Now Boris was close enough to see Spiro's face — more caverns as familiar creatures, Boris and a lieutenant were especially, his eyes — and to know where he had seen such hiding in the last of the crags, crouched there astride flyers that before: in the face of Spiro's father, the abominable Eygor hovered on the turbulent updrafts; while high overhead, Killglance! But that had been long and long ago, and surely . .. obscured by a scud of clouds, a keen-eyed warrior floated on '.. . Surely I have inherited them at last!' Spiro snarled, fully-inflated bladders, shadowing them and monitoring Spiro's hunching down in his saddle. progress. Only one warrior this time, aye, for following the The warrior was closing with him, zeroing in. Its many attack on Gorvi, Boris was satisfied that one was enough. eyes were fixed on him .. . then fixed on his eyes! It could And indeed Spiro was surprised, no less than Gorvi 696 697 Sp-Spiro, Boris managed to send at last, I . .. Z was onJy not look away! And: Aye, come and get it! Spiro thought, the carrying out my duties .. ..' while wondering if he really had the measure of this But did you have to enjoy them so? nightmare thing. I... Spiro was in the middle, Boris and his lieutenant to the fore, Enough! I'm in a hurry. and the warrior curving down out of the sky to the rear. Issuing mental commands, and reinforcing them by hauling He hurled his second bolt, and it was as if Boris and his on his reins and turning his mount sideways on, Spiro never mount had run full tilt into a mountainside. They crumpled once took his eyes off the descending monster. Levelling out up, and their debris went fluttering to earth in rags and ruin. of its dive, it sped towards him. Spiro was its target — and it And: East, Spiro commanded his beasts without pause. was his as Spiro's eyes underwent a weird and hideous East and Turgosheim. For I've a gorge to populate and rule. metamorphosis. One eye bulged crimson; the other narrowed And whosoever thought Eygor KillgJance was a Power ... to a sulphur-dripping slit. Then - well, just wait until he sees Spiro! - He let go his energies all in one massive blast! Spiro's mind-bolt was not visible, but its effect was! Far to the west and on Sunside: The warrior opened its cavern jaws, as if to snap him from Nana and Nestor sensed Nathan's gradual awakening. the sky. But its jaws kept on opening! The flesh stripped back Nestor felt the strengthening whirl of his brother's numbers from its 'face', its flanks, back and belly. Erectile spines vortex, and Nana .. . simply knew. Yet both of them held detached from the creature's true spine and flew like darts in back from any sort of action: Nana from warning the Necro- all directions. Gas-bladders exploded outwards from under scope, because that could only accelerate the inevitable chitin scales and went flapping away like torn sails. The confrontation, and Nestor because he wanted to hear his alveolar bone and cartilage skeleton began to buckle as its story out in full. musculature was stripped away, and breaking in pieces it flew The twin beliefs that formed Nestor's single obsession and past a triumphant Spiro in a hail of black excrement and major misconception, that Nathan was a Great Enemy from crimson plasma! years long forgotten, and that the woman Misha Zan-esti had Flew past him . .. directly into Boris and his man! Boris betrayed Nestor to be with him, were so deeply ingrained in avoided the worst of it, but his lieutenant was less fortunate. his scarred mind that hearing the truth from Nana was much Sliced open by free-flying scything teeth and whirling spines like listening to a pack of lies - which made it hard to and knocked out of his saddle, he went twirling down the explain why he continued to listen, but he did. Perhaps it night. His flyer, ripped in its membrane wings, body and was the weird, calming effect of her voice, the same in death neck, limped away towards the tumbling crags. as in life, which more than anything else stirred memories in Which left Spiro and his spare flyer, and Black Boris, of him; or perhaps he was simply tired, drained by the disease course, alone in the sky ... that even now burned the life out of him. Whichever, Nestor And: There are smiles, and there are smiles, Spiro's mental sat still and listened as his mother expanded her story into a voice was a sinister rumble now in Boris's mind, where the genuine delaying tactic, now that she knew her other son was trog-fancier sat blood- and shit-streaked astride his startled awake. mount. Boris would turn aside but couldn't; Spiro's eyes held So both of them kept their thoughts to themselves, him like a fly in a spider's web. 698 699 excluding the living and the dead alike, silent and secretive as Centrally, however, Mangemanse continued to hold out. lovers whispering in the Sunside night... Several airborne warriors held the manse in siege, cruising to and fro, or standing off and hovering on grotesquely inflated Coming more fully awake, Nathan sniffed suspiciously at the bladders. And in the levels immediately above and especially air. Typical of his Szgany background, this action served to below that obstinate manse, there was still a deal of warlike remind him who and what he was - originally. Oh, he was the activity where internal fires burned behind windows like eyes, son of the Necroscope, Harry Keogh, but he was also Szgany, a and smoke poured from scorched, slit-like nostrils. Best evidence that Mangemanse continued defiant came man of Sunside. All of his old feelings of alienage in his own in the form of Canker Canison's moon music: an uproar of land were gone now; Trask and the others were the aliens here. nerve-shredding proportions, a cacophony that swelled on But they were also his friends and allies. the bitter wind from the north and poured out from the rear Nathan yawned and looked around a small clearing lit by of the stack as from a hundred lunatic organists. It reached flickering yellow firelight, then threw back the cured skin that out to Nathan more than a mile away, passed over him and was his blanket, stood up and glanced into a clear night sky. rebounded from the astonished barrier mountains themselves! The position of the stars told him the hour of the night, and Unbeknown to the Necroscope, this was the dog-Lord's that he'd slept his three hours to the full. Although it wasn't prelude to flight, when Canker would launch for the moon to do much, for the first time in a long time he felt that he'd actually mortal battle with its priests for all of the silver goddesses had some rest. lan Goodly, David Chung and Grinner had which he knew he'd find there. What Nathan did know or taken over the watch. The former sat close to the fire with a suspect was that, by now, Siggi Dam and the rest of Canker's wolf of the wild sprawled at his feet; Chung stretched his legs people must be stone-deaf, or at least as mad as their Lord. at the edge of the clearing; Zek slept on, and Trask had just Nathan had seen enough and returned to Sunside. He took settled to sleep close by. with him a picture in his mind of all those men and monsters Nathan stepped to Goodly and said, 'I'm going to see how milling on the roof of the last aerie, and wondered what things are going at the last aerie. I'll be . . . as long as it takes, a Devetaki Skullguise's next move would be. Indeed, he knew few minutes at most.' what it must be but refused to dwell upon it. Best to answer The precog looked up and nodded. In the ruddy firelight, it when it came ... half-shadowed, his face looked even more skull-like. Then we Back at camp, he sat by the fire and spoke to the locator can talk,' he said, in that way of his. And Nathan knew that Chung. 'When I woke up, I thought I sensed something they would indeed be talking, and that therefore he was safe to north of here. How about you?' make his jump. He went out onto Starside, to a different location this time, Chung shrugged, but not negligently. 'Yes and no. I keep scanned the last aerie, and saw that things had changed. There getting a feeling that someone is out there, and once or was no fighting in the uppermost levels, and most of the fires twice I've seemed to detect mind-smog. But it could be were out. Smoke-blackened landing-bays, windows, various nerves. This is some nervy place! Anyway, it was nothing cracks and crevices transformed the head of the stack into a substantial.' pitted skull; the plateau roof was alive with massed movement Nathan nodded and turned to Goodly. 'What do you see?' but no sign of hostilities. These men and creatures were The precog looked at him. 'Ahead of us? Something so obviously the victors, and Wrathspire the vanquished. big, it won't register. That's as much as I can say.' 701 700 That could mean anything.' tube of silver foil around a small ball-bearing, with the ends 'That's the way it is. The future can be anything. Especially sealed off. When you roll it lengthwise, it wobbles, goes fast here.' then slow, because its centre of gravity is changing. This isn't a 'Oh?' precise - what, analogy? - because the opposed centres of 'It feels all wrong. It is all wrong!' gravity of Sunside/Starside are fixed; which is to say, the rope 'What is?' Nathan was interested. It was a rare thing to see between the balls on the bolas isn't a rope at all, but an lan Goodly agitated, as he was now. unbreakable, unbendable bar of invisible supermetal. That's This world!' The other threw up his hands. 'I mean, this why the balance is all wrong; there is no flexibility.' parallel place! The sun, moon and stars. In my own world I Goodly gave a nod, of partial understanding at least. To cut did a little amateur astronomy. Not a lot, but enough to know it short, during daylight hours -' that this place is all wrong. We don't see nearly enough of '- The world is turning more slowly,' Nathan finished it for the sun - yet the days are longer than the nights! And the him, 'and the days are longer. That's why the stars seem to moon tumbles, which means it has an eccentric orbit or move so queerly, and it also accounts for the moon's tumbling. rotation or both. Also, I've watched the stars, which move The moon is just like the ball-bearing in the Mexican jumping quickly, then slowly. Or we do.' bean, trapped in the silver foil of a complicated gravita ...' Nathan nodded. 'I've always known these things - every He cut it short as David Chung suddenly jerked alert and Traveller has - without knowing what they mean. But now came to his feet. 'Oh-oh!' he said. And Grinner likewise gave a . . . I think I do. Remember, we had little or no science. Then, in start as Nathan and Goodly quickly stood up. Chung followed your world, I took in a lot of learning in a short time, and up with: 'He's back, Nathan - and fixing a powerful probe on certain things stuck in my mind. The thing is, I've never had you!' my father's instinct for these things; most of what I know Nathan sent a telepathic thought winging - and immediately came from my studies on Earth, or from the dead . . . or from made contact. He knew the other at once, and his location! Harry's dart. In your world, I had the time but I didn't have the Gasping, he reached for a machine-pistol hanging by its strap maths for it. Now I have the maths but I don't have the time. But as from the bough of a fallen tree. But Goodly said: 'No! You're I said, I think I do understand .. . certain things.' going to need that,' and pointed to the loaded rocket-launcher 'Go on,' said Goodly. in its oiled skin. The precog was trembling like a leaf, his eyes The Starside Gate - the original Gate, at the bottom of the wide and wild. crater - was a black hole that went wrong. When it fell on Zek and Trask had come awake. Trask wearily mumbled, this world it created havoc, did a lot of damage. Changing from 'Eh? What ...?' But Nathan had no time for explanations. His a black to a grey hole, it had a new kind of gravity, a special brother Nestor was at Nana Kiklu's grave - gravity that becomes apparent and intrudes when I try to — And Nestor was a necromancer! form a MSbius door too close to the centre. Anyway, the Gate's gravity and that of this planet hold each other like It was the last throw of Nestor's parasite, a final attempt by his balls on a bolas, at the opposite ends of a rope. The true weakened, leprosy-infected leech to regain ascendancy: the gravity of the planet has been interfered with, which causes denial of Nana Kiklu's truth. When Nana had reached that its eccentricity. When I was at E-Branch, someone showed point in her story where it became clear that Misha Zanesti me how to make what he called a Mexican jumping bean: a had been Nathan's woman right from the start, and 703 702 in the damp earth and ashes of Nana's shallow plot, torturing never Nestor's, everything his evil Wamphyri nature was her for esoteric knowledge - exactly what the necromancer had based upon had seemed set to crumble, and Nestor himself to desired him to think! The hunt was over, for Nathan would admit the error of his ways, like a child confessing a small now come to him. crime. Except in him the crime would have been enormous - his life dedicated to a lie! And Nathan did come ... with a rocket-launcher seated on But the vampire is tenacious: Nestor must be made to cling his shoulder! to his beliefs, for his power was tied to them. And the vampire is jealous, possessive, territorial: if he once gives up Nestor was surprised at the speed of Nathan's reaction. something which is his, where will it end? Must he then Despite that he knew his brother had the power to 'come and relinquish everything? And the vampire is the ultimate liar, to go', Nathan's almost instantaneous appearance in that small whom the truth is anathema. For the one great truth is that clearing, in the cold blue light of the stars, astonished him the host is not master of his own destiny but the puppet of his where he came slowly to his feet. And at his feet, Nana's leech, and dances to the tune of an alien intruder. And above grave all undisturbed, so that Nathan knew he'd been fooled all the vampire is Evil, and must oppose Good as surely as into coming here. But with the launcher on his shoulder and black challenges white, day night, the sun the stars. his finger on its trigger, maybe he wasn't such a fool after all. So that when Nana had told him: You can't put them apart. They faced each other across Nana's mound: blood brothers, Not even by killing them. Especially not by killing them! but as different - more different - than any brothers before Love will out, even in death. For as I know as well and better them. Nathan was a little over six feet tall, but his brother than most, what we did in life we continue to do in death. could give him ten inches more. The first was blonde, fair of And they will be lovers to The End! Even as I love you, with skin, with eyes of a sapphire-blue; the other was morbid- a mother's love for her son! - then his leech, its essence, the grey, raven-haired and crimson-eyed. And of course, the chemical governor of his blood, his brain and every enhanced Necroscope was entirely human. Wamphyri emotion, had fought back. He looked upon his brother, the two of them motionless, NO! NO! NO! And at last his cry out loud: 'NoooooooF and Nathan's finger unflinching on the trigger. But for all that And the deliberate opening of his mind, the pouring forth of he was fuelled by hatred, by a dire loathing and natural dread venom into the mental aether, the unutterable stench of pus of the Wamphyri, he knew he couldn't make the first and last and poison in his vampire probe where it sped direct to the move, couldn't pull that trigger. Despite what he'd seen in source of the cursed numbers vortex .. . Nathan in the camp- future time, it was out of the question .. . he couldn't do it! clearing, only a few miles away. Not with his mother's pitiful deadspeak cries ringing out in And Nana's incorporeal tears at last spilling over, uncaring his metaphysical mind: Nathan, no! Nathan! You would never now except for her boys, for the love of both of them, despite forgive yourself! that one was grown to a monster. But her soulful supplications weren't for him alone. Nestor. This was what Nathan had heard or sensed through two Son. Everything 1 told you is the truth. If you must die, then simultaneous media: his brother's rage and his mother's die. But not this way, I beg you. This way you'll be cursed by anguish. With the result that he had jumped to a logical but the dead for all eternity! incorrect conclusion: that even now Nestor rooted like a pig And: 'So, little brother,' Nestor sighed, his voice muffled, 704 705 a panting rasp from behind gauze wrappings. And inclining his head, he went on, 'My Great Enemy, you - a mere man! Betrayer, thief, plague in my mind and curse on my being — IV you? Such a flimsy thing as you? Well, your mother pleads The Death of Nestor - for you, and rightly.' Intuition - Deai With a Devii.' Nathan daren't so much as blink, but he could speak. 'And for you, Nestor. She pleads for you, too.' Nestor stepped aside from the mound, edged closer, and his eyes seemed to drip fire. 'But I don't need her pleas.' 'Nor I, while I hold this weapon. You saw it used before, on the dome of Sanctuary Rock.' The whup! . .. whup.' ... whup! of mighty membrane wings as Nestor scarcely seemed to move — yet stood all of a long pace dark manta shadows blotted out the stars and mentalist voices closer! 'Why should I fear death, even the true death? I'm spoke in the trembling aether: doomed anyway, as a leper, Nathan. That, too, is your fault.' So, Nestor! (It was the voice of Carmen Who-Should-Not- 'No, I'll not be blamed for that,' Nathan answered. The Be.) And how is my handsome lusty Lord, after all this time? Szgany give blame where it's due, but by the same token they For upon a time you made a Lady out of a poor thrall - you also know how to accept responsibility for their actions. They loved her to death, or undeath! And while she slept you don't accuse their fellow men out of spite. But then, neither pegged her out where the sun would find her. But the Lord have they leeches to appease!' He could have bitten his Vasagi found her first. As we have now found you! tongue, but couldn't help it; it was tit for tat; he'd fallen into She came from the south, skimming the trees, wild and the mode of Wamphyri argument automatically, giving blow weird in her saddle, her scarlet jaws agape! Her flyer dipped for blow. . . . its belly-pouch yawned open . .. Nestor had nowhere to 'Are you saying I'm less than a man?' Nestor was no more run, and suddenly his legs had no strength to carry him! Full- than two paces away now. waxed, his disease was out of control, running rampant 'I'm saying you're Wamphyri,' Nathan croaked from a through his system. bone-dry, gulping throat. 'Which means that you can't win, 'Down!' Nathan yelled. And, astonished, Nestor knew that for your greatest battle is already lost!' his Necroscope brother shouted at him! He fell beside Nana's And: Nathaaan! Nana wailed. Nestooor! mound, and Carmen's flyer came on. The tendrils of a mist began to coil from under Nestor's But a powerful mentalist was in Nathan's mind, reading the cloak, lapping his feet. 'You are my Great Enemy!' he secrets of his awesome weapon there. And: Carmen, beware! breathed, and the mist was also in his breath. Now he stood That one is dangerous; he will surely kill you! It was Vasagi, only a single pace away, at arm's length, and his eyes were whose telepathic voice Nathan would know anywhere. like magnets that held Nathan's in an iron grip. But the Vasagi, his mother's murderer! There was blood and a mutual Necroscope's finger was still cold on the trigger of his death-vow between them, and this Carmen was a creature of weapon. And: his. 'It seems we must have it out,' husked Nestor. Except — Before, when he faced Nestor point-blank, nothing short of - Suddenly they were not alone! a direct, full-frontal attack could have induced the Necro- 706 707 scope to pull the trigger of his rocket-launcher. Now, nothing Wamphyri! Folding a wing and rolling over sideways, he could have stopped him! Heeding Vasagi's warning, Carmen flexed his body like a steel spring and hurled Vasagi from the swerved and flew off at a tangent, gaining elevation to clear saddle. the trees at the side of the clearing. Vasagi the Gape fell. He fluttered through the higher Aiming twelve inches ahead of her middle, Nathan squeezed foliage, smashed through lower branches, thumped down in off his missile - which hurtled home along a path of sizzling, dark green undergrowth. The fall might well have stunned a blinding fire. There came a flash and a hot blast, and Carmen man, but never a vampire Lord. A mist issued from the night- cleared the trees . . . in small pieces and a scarlet spray! And dark forest and Vasagi was in it. Nestor, too, continued to Carmen-Who-Should-Not-Be, was not. Her mount, its thorny manufacture his mist, and the clearing lay deep in milky white. spine gouged by a great bite where the saddle had been, issued Then: a single shrilling bleat and crumpled head-on into the trees. Go! said Nana to Nathan. Go now, while you may. While overhead: But as the Necroscope conjured a door, he saw the writhing One of you is weak as a sick wolf-cub, Vasagi sent, as he mist part as his brother Nestor flowed upright from it and began side-slipping his flyer to earth, and the other is merely hurled himself upon Vasagi - where the Gape had tried to human, Szgany, and now weaponless: scarcely a match for creep up on Nathan! And: Vasagi. But Vasagi was not the one who threw down the Go! Nestor repeated Nana, even as he grappled with the gauntlet! monstrous Vasagi. This one is mine. Upon a time I gave him His mount settled like a leaf on a still day, or a flat stone life; a mistake I'll now try to correct, before my own wasted through water, slipping from side to side with its manta wings existence and body are finished. So go while you can, little arched into air-trap scoops. But despite that Carmen was dead, brother, and consider yourself lucky! still Nathan detected two alien minds in the telepathic aether. Nathan went, but not too far. Time seemed to blur ... lan The other . .. belonged to Vasagi's flyer! Goodly was waiting at the camp for Nathan with what he 'Karz!' Nathan gasped. 'Karz Biteri!' And at last his old friend needed, or what the precog knew Nathan would be needing knew him, too: Nathan Seersthrall, called Kiklu, who had . . . he was so sure of himself, he twisted the grenade's fins as flown him to freedom out of Runemanse in Turgosheim. Then: he thrust it into Nathan's hand. All of which took perhaps five No! said Karz to Vasagi. I may not take you down. We have or six seconds; the next four would be crucial. journeyed far enough together, you and I. Amazingly, a One: Nathan took the grenade and trusted to the future -or vampire flyer defied its Lord and rider! rather, to the understanding Goodly had with the future. Take me down now! Vasagi's voice was a grunt, a threat, as Two: He conjured a door and sped back to the unequal Karz plied his wings and rose up a little. combat in the clearing. No! Karz denied him yet again. I have had more than Three: he vacated the Mobius Continuum into a waist-deep enough of you, Vasagi. As of now we go our own ways, you sea of mist that lapped like blue-tinged milk but had an ugly and I. It was always our agreement. living (or undead) texture to it. Somewhere in there, Nestor Vasagi was furious. Beast, I order you — take me down! and Vasagi struggled even now. Nathan sensed Karz's mental shrug. So be it. . . Four: his time was up and he must use the grenade! And somewhat higher than the treetops, Karz did an utterly Meanwhile: unthinkable thing and reneged on a Lord of the Ten seconds is life or death in hand-to-hand combat, 708 709 especially when the combatants are Wamphyri! Nestor was still - but from the shock of violent action, and otherwise weak, made weak by his disease, but Vasagi was at the peak unafraid - finally the Necroscope went to his blood brother, of his power - made even stronger by his madness. And in and found his crushed and broken body in the mist. his madness, he hadn't once paused to consider the reason for Don't touch! Nestor warned him. As Vasagi is unclean, so his opponent's weakness; he knew only that he was under am I. Indeed, I am twice-tainted. attack, and must retaliate. Vasagi had no gauntlet; indeed, 'Wait,' Nathan husked, and went to the camp, and returned Nestor wore his gauntlet, taken for his own after Vasagi's duel with a cured skin to carefully wrap his brother, who seemed with Wran: just another infuriating factor, on top of the death so small, so shrivelled now. And: Th-there,' he said, his voice of Carmen, which had served to madden the Gape even breaking and surprising him. 'W-w-warmth for you, and further. Being raked with his own gauntlet as Nestor tackled protection for m-m-me.' And cradling the other's head, he him had been the last straw! And knocking Nestor down - thought, I haven't stuttered in a long time. and falling on him to enfold his upper half in vertical jaws 'Ahhh!' Nestor breathed out loud. 'Now I remember - how all of three feet long - had been Vasagi's answer to injury once I was your protection!' His head lolled, but he lived on added to insult. and the fire in his eyes flickered still. But instead of (or as well as) feeling pain in the What to do! What to do! Nathan felt crushed inside, even as necromancer's mind, as the Gape's metamorphic flesh Nestor was crushed. But his mother told him: You know what plunged a thousand small siphons into him to draw off his to do. And her tears were hot as his own, albeit in his mind. vital fluids, Vasagi had sensed ... what, satisfaction? Even 'She has it right,' Nestor whispered. 'But quickly, while I ... triumph? By which time his leech had known that Nestor while I have it right! Such pain should never be, and it will go was a leper! And even in the act of gutting the other, and on and on, and I'll fight it to the end, because there is that of tearing out his parasite in pieces, Vasagi had recoiled, let go the vampire in me even now, what little Vasagi left me . ..' his death-grip on Nestor, and flowed upright in the lake of 'Nestor -!' their mutual mist. 'Do it . . . do it now.' Nestor twitched and jerked beneath his Five: and just a little late, or at the precise optimum blanket. moment, Nathan lobbed his grenade into the convulsing And Nathan gathered him up and took him there - ten mass of Vasagi's innards and hurled himself backwards, thousand miles south, to a brilliant blue sky high over the away from that reeling monstrosity! endless furnace deserts! And a golden orb like the hearth-fire Astonishment and a point-blank refusal, an inability to of some alien God standing high on the southern horizon. comprehend, to believe, registered in Nathan's mind — along Then: with Vasagi's, Eh? What? - before a muffled blast and flash 'It's done!' Nathan said, his physical voice lost in the of brilliant white light signalled the Gape's end. fluttering air, as they fell like stones and he pushed Nestor Nathan felt himself ... splashed! Not his flesh but his away from him. clothing, and with trembling fingers began to strip himself So be it, said the other. naked. And: Falling through a door, Nathan emerged below in the shade Aye, Nestor gasped in his mind, let nothing . . . Jet nothing of of a sun-scorched outcrop, and watched Nestor . . . of that one cling to you! His telepathic voice was so very weak that Nathan knew he was finished. And trembling 710 711 been in Nathan already, and he had not needed; not until that plummet down the blinding sky like a meteorite at noon. He time in the Mediterranean, when at last a door had been left a trail, white at first, rapidly turning black, which boiled opened for him! And all that time his dart waiting, buried in for a moment and was gone. And Nestor gone with it. the heart of a dead machine at E-Branch HQ, ready to spring The blanket flapped empty wings, like a strange mad bird to life at the moment of his greatest need. tumbling to earth. Just how much of the future was known, then - how much Then: had been charted - by those incorporeal inhabitants of A flash of gold! A golden dart spearing down from the sky Mobius-space, Mobius-time, those pieces of the Necroscope - from Nestor! And Nathan had seen just such a dart before. It Harry Keogh? Or was it a mystery even to such as them? Had struck home, found its target and came home, like a soft silent they been allowed a glimpse along Nestor's blue life-thread, arrow to the Necroscope's head ... to see it turn scarlet? 'Instinctively', Nathan knew they had; also that they must have known the end of it: how, when the Intuition! The very essence of intuition! His father's intuition, hour was right, Nestor's hitherto wasted dart .. . would come which in Harry Keogh had made him a Master of Numbers home to him! and of the Mobius Continuum! It was everything that had And the hour was right. Sunside/Starside's hour of greatest been missing from Nathan's makeup, his personality; that need. Now! which he might have had right from the beginning - if Nestor He stepped naked out of the shadow of the rock and felt had not needed it more than he did! the heat of the desert under his feet. And with his head It was the instinct to know these things and to understand ringing with new thoughts, he conjured a Mobius door and almost everything else that had baffled Nathan to distraction. returned to the night. . . Nestor had not been the strong but the weak one, and the dart had 'known' it . . . instinctively! That was why, on the day of Keeping his mind shielded as best he might, Nathan went to Harry's death, the dart had gone to Nestor. Even Nestor's dark the oasis at Place-Under-The-Yellow-Cliffs and alerted and tortured future had probably been known, but as a Atwei, who found clothes for him. He didn't dare to stay, not descendant or 'continuation' of the Necroscope Harry Keogh, even to speak to Misha, but at once returned to his hell-lander he must be given a chance. Except Nestor had not been like colleagues in their camp - Harry or Nathan but had his own nature - or the dark side of — Where indeed all hell seemed to be breaking loose! Ben his father's? Whichever, he was omega to Nathan's alpha, and Trask acted as co-ordinator, frantically directing the efforts once his course had been set, there was no help for it but that of Zek and David Chung respectively where they listened in the dart must see it through with him. on, or tracked . .. who else but their vampire enemies, who And Nestor's instinct, his intuitive empathy since finally were on the move? And Grinner was in telepathic childhood, had been for the Wamphyri! Because of that he contact with Blaze and the grey brotherhood somewhere in would have ascended to a Lord anyway, even without the the barrier mountains, receiving a mass of information and dart; but with it . . . little wonder his awakening had been so warnings, but unable to pass them on with clear definition to swift, his metamorphosis so all-consuming! anyone but the Necroscope. Nathan saw it all now: he understood those shards, those They're coming, Uncle! Grinner barked in Nathan's mind, fragments of his father. They were guides to see him and his as he saw him materialize. Those in the foothills: they've brother on their way through life. But the knowledge had 713 712 spread themselves out along the range, beating upwards into My thanks, Karz, Nathan told him. But this is my fight and the peaks and driving the grey brothers before them! And the I have to stay here. others from the last aerie, that vampire army out of the east: Karz sensed his determination, and perhaps something of the sky is thick with them, on their way to Sunside! his power. Can you win? A mass attack on the Szgany, it could only be. Now that I can try. I have weapons that .. . that I can't even begin to Wrathstack (with the exception of Mangemanse, if Canker explain/ Canison continued to hold out) had been taken, Devetaki Good fortune then, said Karz, and my thanks. For seeing Skullguise would use the rest of the night to monstrous how strong you are, yet again you've given me strength to go advantage! She'd be looking for Nathan, of course, but while on. I, too, have a fight to fight. searching for him her troops would rain terror on Sunside. Nathan nodded. Yet the last time we spoke, you only Indeed, that was probably a major part of her plan, so that the wanted to die. Necroscope would be drawn into the open. But no longer, not yet. For now I have a mission — in the 'Alexei Yefros is onto you, Nathan!' Zek and Chung called east! Aye, now that Turgosheim is empty . . . or almost empty. out almost as one voice. 'Not only that,' Chung added, 'but he Maglore? has been on you all the time you've been away. At a site a few The same. Karz sounded grimly determined. And since I'm miles north of here — your mother's grave? — and even out in on my own again, I go there now, tonight. the desert; in fact, wherever you go! Yefros was one hell of a Too late, Nathan told him. The night's half done. The sun locator before, but now that he's a vampire . ..' will find you out before you clear the Great Red Waste. Nathan was aghast. 'Are you telling me he knows about the Is it so? Then I must wait on another chance. Thyre?' Nathan thought fast, for he had enough to do here. But on the 'Maybe not about them,' Chung answered, 'but it's an even other hand, how long would it take? The answer was simple: bet he knows where you've moved all those Szgany groups! no time at all! Karz, he sent. Land out there if you trust me. That Even I would know that: I can feel their massed minds in the hummock on the rim of the savanna. And even as Karz came night, away in the south, like a soft-glowing cloud of fireflies. down, he went there himself, via the Mobius Continuum. And ... ahhh!' Chung gasped, crouching down as a dark and How . ..? said Karz, astonished, uncoiling his belly thrust- pulsing manta shape passed overhead. And: 'Jesus!' the locator ers as he settled to earth. And: What. ..? continued, 'But that's not all I feel!' Nathan said, 'Upon a time, you carried me out of Trask was down on one knee in a moment, his SMG aimed Turgosheim to safety, regardless of the risk to yourself. A up towards the stars. The Necroscope stopped him with two favour for a favour, Karz. Now I'll take you back.' He climbed words: 'No, Ben!' Not even the fleetest of the enemy's flyers up into the saddle. 'Lift me up.' And in a moment they were could have got here that fast. This could only be Karz Biteri. airborne. 'You do trust me, then?' And to confirm it: In Turgosheim, and ever since. But about returning there: Nathan, Karz sent, from where he hovered on a night wind. didn't you tell me ;'ust a moment ago the sun would find me Devetaki's army is on its way. The aether seethes with their out over the Great Red Waste? lust! You're in great danger, but I can take you out of here. He There's another route. So if you really do trust me, do did not know how good the Necroscope was at taking care of exactly as I tell you, however strange it may seem.' himself. Nathan told him, and Karz obeyed. Gaining altitude, and 714 715 folding back his manta wings, he sped like an arrow for Karz angled his great head to watch the Necroscope turn earth, and passed through the biggest door that Nathan ever over twice in mid-air before flattening out - and disappearing conjured! A second door lay only an instant away, but in the through an entirely invisible Mobius door! Then Karz Bitteri, moment Karz soared through it - once a man and perhaps still a man, soared alone in the - WHAAAT? It wasn't only the way they'd got here that reeking updrafts out of Turgosheim ... confused him, but also the sight of the place. Turgosheim,' said the Necroscope, and realized It had taken a minute, maybe two. Nathan scarcely considered immediately that it wasn't what Karz had expected. the time wasted as he materialized back at the camp. But Turgosheim, right enough .. . but deserted? Oh, really? Trask and the others might disagree. 'Nathan, what's going They floated high above the rim of the gorge, while down on/' Zek started as he appeared, then grabbed his arm. below the signs of war were plentiful. Black smoke coiling 'Something I had to do,' he answered. 'And here?' from burned-out stumps in the gloomy bottoms, and fires He loosened her fingers, looked her steadily in the eyes. still ablaze in many a manse in the towering, honeycombed She knew how tense she must appear, slowed down and walls. So that even to a dazed Karz Biteri it was all too clear calmed herself. And: 'Remember,' she said, 'that it's different what had happened here. Maglore had his opportunity /or for you. But we aren't. . . we don't... we're not -' glory, and like any or aJl of the Wamphyri... '- Necroscopes? All right, I'm sorry,' Nathan said. 'And I '... He couldn't resist it,' Nathan finished it. 'Yes, I know. know I shouldn't just leave you like that. But I have a feeling What did you expect, Karz? That the place would be derelict, that everything will be fine. It's going to be okay.' wind-blown, dead except for Maglore?' Ben Trask had heard their conversation, likewise the precog Something like that, aye. and locator. All of them eased off and gathered to Nathan, and Nathan shook his head. 'Not so. There are thralls and Trask asked him, 'Are you going to explain?' creatures galore down there. Only the Lords and Ladies are 'Let's get round the fire,' Nathan answered, and they did. missing. Except, as you rightly suppose, Maglore in Rune- And when they were settled: manse. So . . . do you still intend to stay here? What will you The aerial vampire army is on its way from Wrathstack,' do now?' Nathan started. 'Also, they have several advance parties made A mental shrug. I shall hope that my time will come, Karz up of those camps in the Starside foothills; by now they could be answered, then take my chance for glory - and revenge -even in the high peaks. Devetaki has Alexei Yefros, whose talent has as MagJore has taken his. been enhanced by his vampirism. They know where I am - or Then before I go I had better warn you,' Nathan told him, where we are - and they probably know where a good many 'that there may not be a lot of time. Things are going to Szgany are, too, all gathered together for them in Thyre harbour happen, Karz. Things of great moment.' areas like bunches of grapes! But there are a lot more of the They can only be an improvement, said the other. But you, Travellers right here in Sunside, hiding in the forests, and Nathan - these amazing powers of yours? they'll be more difficult to find and flush out. Also, what 'Alas.' Nathan shook his head. 'I've neither the time nor the Devetaki doesn't know: several pockets of humanity in the means to explain them. But indeed, they are the weapons I forests are equipped with weapons out of Earth, and men who mentioned. Farewell, Karz!' He tumbled himself from the can use them. That's the current situation. Now, timings: saddle. 716 717 'If the foothills parties come right for us, they'll be here in a he said, 'despite that the best-laid plans ... and all that. What I little over an hour. If they hold back and wait for Deve-taki's mean is, the future will be, but it's always governed by the main force, we'll be safe here for at least two and a half hours present. So I simply can't tell you what to do - or even not to more. So there's no need for panic right now. But there are do anything - but only to do what you must. In other words, still some thirty-odd hours of night and morning twilight left Nathan's scenario seems sound to me. And if the future before sunup, when Nature swings over to our side. And a lot doesn't like it, it will be changed accordingly. There's only can happen in half a Sunside night. one thing I know for sure: that something big is coming. Oh, 'Now listen: the vampires can't trap us! For we have our I've said it before, I know, but it's so big it obscures own talents, which are equal to theirs. Zek and I are able to everything else. And it has to do with what Nathan's dead "hear" them; Grinner smells them out; David knows where Thyre friends told him.' they are, and lan can sometimes see what's coming. And if Nathan nodded and excitedly took over. There was they get too close, I can move us out of here. So in general -as something he'd been wanting to show them, and now seemed an overview? — that's about the scheme of things. the perfect opportunity. 'Let's take another look at that, then.' 'But the overall, original plan wasn't to hide from them or He found the piece of bark he'd drawn on for Trask, and evade them, but destroy them, utterly! And if we fail to see it showed them Ethloi's no longer mysterious symbols, for this through, then all this is for nothing - especially now that time his new-found intuition prompted him to make changes. Devetaki knows there's something south of here, namely my 'The arrows suggest movement,' he said. 'From "A" to "C", desert-dwelling friends the Thyre! But the south spells or from one to three. But if you number the phases like this,' danger to a vampire, and we have to hope she'll think twice (He scrawled with a piece of charcoal) 'it's at once apparent before committing her forces in that direction. Which leaves that this .. . isn't an engine!' us with one conclusion: that she intends to saturate Sunside, flush us out, add our talents to hers and consolidate her position tomorrow night. That's how I see it, but I could be wrong and only time will tell .. . unless you can tell me otherwise.' 'Us?' Trask stared at him. 'You're the ones with the talents!' Nathan answered. 'We have two hours maximum to formulate new plans - but sweeping plans - to decimate and even destroy any last trace of Wamphyri contamination. Let's start with you, Ben. Do you find any fault in what I've said? Was it a true or a false scenario?' And now the whole thing was simplicity itself. But to be Trask shrugged. 'The best I can tell you is that you yourself absolutely sure, the Necroscope explained it anyway, then believe in it,' he answered. 'But as you've already said, time went on to describe the system as: 'An unending, self- alone will tell.. . that is, if lan Goodly can't tell in advance.' perpetuating cycle, which gives total protection to two worlds He looked at the precog. but damages and depletes neither. It's just like the Goodly was gaunt as ever. 'We have to plan, of course,' 718 719 all teJJ the same story: the flyers out of Wrathstack are coming Mobius strip which I was shown superimposed over this in great waves, turning the sky black! diagram: a single system transcending and blending disparate There can't be that many! Nathan was perplexed. dimensions, yet interfering with neither one of them. The strip A wolf shrug. Wolves are sometimes like men, or dogs: was my father's life; it became my symbol and saved my life; they like to exaggerate. They bark at shadows ... now it will be the salvation of a world, even a universe . ..' Zek had got something of this, and now said, 'There isn't a Listening and looking, Trask's ja w had fallen open as he peep out of them. They're not talking, and they're shielding recognized the 'truth' of this thing. Finally he jumped to his their minds.' feet. 'But this presupposes that we're going to get back to our 'Radio silence!' said Trask. own world. We have to, in order to initiate it!' Nathan looked at him, but Trask shook his head. 'An Earth Nathan grinned wolfishly at him, at all of them, and said, tactic,' he said. 'Apparently it applies here, too.' 'Did you ever have any doubts, any of you?' And frowning, Chung said, 'There are a great many of One of them had, at least. lan Goodly said, 'It's possible, of them. But it's a funny thing . . . I mean, if this Devetaki course, that Gustav Turchin has figured it out for himself. creature is mainly interested in you, Nathan, then why doesn't Which would mean our return isn't necessarily a foregone she concentrate her forces on us? Why are they spreading out, conclusion ...' evenly, like a great blanket?' As they pondered that, Nathan said, 'Now has to be as good 'Are they?' Nathan was keenly interested, anxious. a time as any. I can take a quick look at the Gate, and, if it's 'Yes. From the petrified lava falls beyond the great pass, safe, move you out there right now on the first leg of your trip their front extends many miles west of here.' home. Then we can be sure that this —' he indicated the 'Like a miles-long wave rolling in on a beach,' Zek said, diagram - 'will definitely happen, whether Turchin has already half-closing her eyes and reaching out with her mind. thought of it or not. At least one of our problems — your main Nathan's turn to frown as he added, 'Or like a net, being problem — will have been solved.' draped over us . . . " Suddenly he was worried. 'But what if Zek reached out and patted his hand. 'But yours will still they go right on over us, and head out into the desert, to the remain. Haven't you given up trying to get rid of us yet, harbour areas and the Thyre? I've placed a good many Nathan? Don't you know it's not going to be that easy?' hundreds of men, women and children in Thyre colonies out He sighed out loud and said, 'Very well, but from now on there, all on a line roughly east to west. Devetaki's wave you've got to stay close together, all four of you, and at all would hit them more or less simultaneously, and there's no times. From this moment on, I've got to be able to move all of way I can be in four or five different places at the same time!' you in one bunch, and at a moment's notice.' It was Trask's turn to calm him down. 'Son, take it easy. 'Agreed,' said Trask. 'And meanwhile?' You painted a picture a few minutes ago, and it was a true one 'Now.' Nathan looked at them in turn. 'I could use a as far as it went. There's nothing more to be done right now. If situation report.' He patted Grinner's head where the wolf of you make a Mobius-jump out into the colonies to alert your the wild lay close by. people and the Thyre, Yefros will know of it at once. For you I've lost my observers, Grinner said. The grey brothers are can't make a move without stirring up your numbers vortex, scattered in the mountain heights, broken up by the vampires in and it gives you away every time. But if or the foothills. But the reports of several individuals 720 721 comes into it. One thing I can guarantee, though: I'm not when the first vampire wave passes over us, heading out about to reach the end of my tether just yet awhile across the desert, then you'll know the worst of it and that will be your signal to take some kind of action to save your The Necroscope wasn't trying to sleep, wasn't trying to do people. Until then you can't give the show away.' anything. He literally cleared his mind, relaxed and took a Nathan nodded. 'And after that - if it happens - I'll have no mental breather - and slept. After a few moments, when Zek more than half an hour to visit all those Thyre locations and said something to him in a low voice, his only reponse was take my people out of there. Except, this time I won't make when his hand slid from his chest to nestle open-fisted in the any mistakes, but move them right away from here: east, to grass by his side. A glance into his mind disclosed the 'white the very limits of the barrier mountains, and fifty miles out noise' of human sleep prior to the dream-state and a into the desert! Devetaki won't be able to reach them there, dispersing, collapsing whirl of numbers as mental exhaustion not and get back to Wrathstack before the sun rises again.' returned him to the basic state of mind. Trask nodded approvingly. Mentally, even possessing his metaphysical mind, the Goodly, on the other hand, merely grunted and turned his Necroscope was little more than a mote now, drifting face away. Nathan looked at him until the precog felt his wherever the eddies of dreams and fancies might take him. gaze and returned it. And: Trask draped a blanket over Nathan's shoulders, looked at 'Well?' said Nathan. the others and shrugged. 'I feel weary, too. Tension, and 'We've arrived at the one conclusion we had to arrive at,' anxiety, I suppose. Let alone all the physical stuff that he's Goodly said. 'And as you can see, the only action we can take been going through. God only knows what his talent is taking is what we would have taken anyway, without all the out of him! We can let him be for an hour or so, recharge his discussion! The talk is fine and let's us all know where we batteries, so to speak - but let's all of us stay on the alert. And stand, but the future is narrowing down on us and will be as as soon as we have something, we wake him up.' it will be. Just don't believe for a moment that we're in Grinner seemed to understand. He got up, loped to the rim charge, because we're not. And don't forget, the Big One of the clearing and began circling, sniffing the air, 'listening' keeps getting closer minute by minute.' not only with keen, mobile wolf ears, but with who could tell 'But you still don't know what this Big One will be?' how many other wolf senses, all tuned for danger. Zek and Goodly shook his head. 'Good or bad, I can't say. I only Chung likewise began pacing back and forth, their wild know that it's close, and we're all in it together. But I have to talents reaching out into the north, to discover whatever they remind you, Nathan - even though I hate to remind you -of might. what we saw in future-time, you and I. I mean, I'm not And lan Goodly sat by the fire not far from Nathan, worried for myself, but...' glancing at the sleeping Necroscope now and then, and 'I know what you mean,' Nathan stopped him. 'I've already perhaps trying to catch the occasional glimpse . . . of other been into it with Ben here. Now, I don't want to think about it things. any more until it comes.' He threw a dead branch onto the fire, leaned back against Eygor Killglance wasted no time; his previously developed the bole of a fallen tree and closed his eyes. 'In fact, I just want to clear my mind of all this and see what else rapport with Nathan took him direct to his target's mind, 722 723 and the monster's panic and confusion told of the state he was even now he digs his way down to me/ He comes to discover in, in his Madmanse pit in Turgosheim. and disassemble me in this stifling, stagnant, nitrous place. To Necroscope, what terrible thing is this you've wrought? break me up, burn what will burn, and scatter the rest to the What have you done to me? Eygor's deadspeak voice was as four corners of Turgosheim! Because he fears old Eygor as evil as ever, like the methane-belching slurp and gurgle of a never before with a fear that you gave him, Necroscope/ It's all quagmire, but his anxiety was very real. your doing, your fault/ And only you can put it right; only you Nathan knew him at once, of course, and despite sensing can ... call me up? (The last a whisper, even a prayer?) Eygor's genuine but as yet unexplained alarm, returned: Oh? Not good enough, said Nathan, while in his secret mind he And is this a new approach, Eygor? Are you claiming to be turned it over. He had never once deliberately called up a dead the victim of some act of mine? creature - though past events and now his 'intuition' told him What — did — you — tell - Maglore.'? the other hissed. that indeed he had the power. Yet on two occasions the dead Which had the effect of jogging Nathan's memory, and had returned of their own volition, to come to his aid in bringing alive the screen of his mind until Eygor saw its desperate circumstances. And when he was safe they'd gone pictures. So! (His voice was black as pitch.) And now all is down again, 'of their own free will'. So, apparently, the talent explained. worked independent of Nathan himself: it was that the Great Then explain it to me. Nathan gave a mental shrug. Majority's love of his father had transferred to him because, You threatened him with me. Do you deny it? like Harry before him, he was the single light in their eternal No, it was a word game. He taunted me and 1 returned fire. darkness. Eygor Killglance on the other hand couldn't come He made threats, and I — up, because even if Nathan were threatened there wasn't — Threatened him with me, aye/ Eygor finished it for him. enough love in the vampire — indeed not any - to motivate Except it was more than a word game to him. Maglore knows and mobilize him! He must therefore be brought up by the your powers, Necroscope, and those he doesn't know he incredible regenerative power of the Necroscope. suspects. You hinted that he wasn't yet safe from a dead old And (it now occurred to Nathan) why not? Why not fight thing in a pit, that in certain circumstances - under the right fire with fire? Hadn't he been the one to stop Trask shooting at conditions - a ghost may be more than a mere ghost. To you the flyer, rider and gas-beast bomb out of Wrathstack, because this was a word game, a careless jest or taunt, as it would be to he liked the idea of vampires destroying each other? Wouldn't many a Lord of the Wamphyri. But to Maglore? this be the same? And didn't Maglore deserve all of it and Nathan knew what he meant: that Maglore of Runemanse more, for what he'd done to Karz and Orlea and hundreds of was a seer, a supernaturalist even beyond the scope of others; not to mention what he would do to Nathan if ever he Wamphyri knowledge and talents; a believer in omens, signs had the chance? and sigils, dooms and damnations. Of course he was, else Nathan's mind-shield slipped a little as he became engrossed Nathan's threat had carried no weight! But how much weight with the idea; Eygor read him, and urged, fust think: what hod it carried? better way to stop the old bastard raiding on Turgosheim's His thoughts were deadspeak, and Eygor was in tune with Sunside? Give him something better - or worse — to think them. Oh, I con tell you that, all right, the monster said. A lot about, eh? At the moment the Seer-Lord is of weight! A world of weight/ The weight of all the rubble and boulders that choke the throat of my pit! For 724 725 glutted, and all his creatures, too, but sooner or later he'll need world of the Jiving? Nothing but revenge on Maglore, who to reinforce Turgosheim blood with fresh stuff out of Sunside. dares to covet Madmanse, and my bastard bloodson Spiro, Do you really want to wait that long? who blinded and murdered me! As for Wran .. . he's dead, How long? Nathan wanted to know. you say? Good! But I wish that I had got to him first! When he's finished with me, I should think! Right now I'm Nathan was half-convinced. Eygor's killing eye would the one thing that stands between Maglore and an easy mind make a powerful addition to his arsenal of metaphysical and peaceful dreams! Except ... there is one other he'll be weapons. If I make a deal with you .. . how will you give me needing to deal with soon enough. your eye? Oh? Only let me into your mind, and it shall be done! I sense it, said Eygor. My own flesh and blood, returning out Except Nathan knew that upon a time his father had made of the west. One of my bloodsons - Spiro! a similar mistake. Again Eygor read him, and said: But how Out on the boulder plains the teeming dead were listening to may I possibly harm you? I'm dead in Turgosheim and you their conversation. Now Jason Lidesci said: It could be that are alive in the west! he's telling the truth, Necroscope. Wrathstack has all but Give me your eye now, Nathan answered, and if or when fallen, but Spiro is not among the dead. The other brother, Maglore reaches you in your pit, or Spiro makes it back Wran, is dead, and raging still! But not Spiro. across the Great Red Waste, then I'll call you up. He has fled the fray, Eygor insisted. He's on his way back What?! (Eygor was outraged.) What is that for a bargain? to Turgosheim even now! The only one you'll get from me, the Necroscope answered. If it's true, Jason continued, then you have real trouble on For long moments Eygor was sullenly silent; he was over a your hands — for Spiro has inherited his father's evil eye! barrel, and knew it. But eventually: So be it, he said, The victims of that eye lie scattered around the foot of however grudgingly. Sleep on, Nathan, but leave your mind Wrathstack . . . open to me so that I may invest it with mine. Vampire victims, Nathan said. I feel nothing for them. Nathan did as instructed, and knew evil dreams a while ... No, but you do feel for the Szgany of Turgosheim's Sun- side, Eygor reminded him. So how's it to be, Necroscope? Then: Will you not call me up to put paid to both Maglore and Done! said Eygor. Spiro? And remember, you don't come out of this empty- Suddenly Nathan's brain seethed; there was an unholy handed. We'll strike a bargain: not an eye for an eye, but an power in him; he felt it there, like a cancer in his mind, eye for a moment of life, or however long it takes me. eating away at the good in him. Eygor had put something Nathan was tempted. There was nothing of a healthy into him: the power of his evil eye, of course. And Nathan nature in Turgosheim for Eygor to corrupt; he felt sure that knew that the monster in his pit had hoped it would make the Thing in its Madmanse pit could handle both Spiro him as evil as Eygor himself. Killglance and Maglore the Mage; if only he could be sure Given time, perhaps it would! that once Eygor was up, he could be put down again as With a cry of alarm, Nathan sprang awake ... easily... But you have the power! Eygor was persuasive. And, anyway, what is there for an old dead thing in his pit in the 726 - swerving and dancing overhead. There were four of them, advance reconnaissance, probably recruited in Wrathstack. Trask's machine-pistol made its distinctive ch-ching sound as V he cocked it, but Nathan was wide awake now and stopped Shaking the Web - Siege on Settlement him. 'Save your ammunition. They're more or less harmless. You can't get them all, and in any case their failure to report back would tell Devetaki just as much.' But as the bats made off, Nathan held back a curse of frustration. In all likelihood he probably could have got them all - and all it would have cost was a glance! On the other Ben Trask had been about to wake the Necroscope. Leaning hand, he didn't have the measure of his new 'talent' yet; it over Nathan, touching his arm, Trask felt the brief vibration might be as well to use it sparingly lest it grow on him. Another that shook him - then heard his cry of alarm as he snatched glance (but at the star-strewn sky) told him he'd been asleep for himself sideways away from Trask! Then . .. his eyes opening well over an hour. 'What's been happening?' wide, wider . . . as something monstrous stirred behind them, Chung was first to answer. 'Flyers have landed, warriors something awful and awesome about them in the shifting too, in the Sunside foothills, perhaps twenty-odd miles east of firelight! Trask jerked upright and made an inarticulate, here.' (Twin Fords, Nathan thought.) 'Also due north,' questioning sound in the back of his throat. He went to step (Settlement and/or Sanctuary Rock) 'and other parties in the back a pace - and found himself lifted bodily from his feet west.' (Tireni Scarp and Mirlu Township, or what burned and and hurled back! His heart felt as if someone had jabbed it shattered ruins were left of those locations.) 'And there've with a live electrode! been plenty more landings, too, all regularly spaced out along Zek and lan Goodly had seen something of it; they made the barrier range.' to go to Trask, but Nathan was there first. His eyes were 'Only in the foothills?' normal now. 'Ben! Are you all right?' 'No.' Chung shook his head. 'Small packets have been Trask got up slowly, staggered, looked at the Necroscope putting down every few miles or so into the woods, forming a curiously, cautiously, and gasped, 'Jesus Christ! How the . ..? sort of grid system. Getting closer all the time.' What in the name of ...? Something hit me!' Nathan nodded. 'Like the squares of a large silk net settling Nathan said nothing but he knew. Knew, too, that from gently to earth right across Sunside. Only it's not silk, and it now on people must tread warily about him, try not to take won't be gentle, not for long . ..' him by surprise - and never shock him! Zek read something They're still mainly silent,' Zek told him. 'With no apparent of it in his mind and said, 'Ben, this is all part of it. ..' or specific interest in our group.' 'Part of the Big One.' Goodly came to her help. 'An Nathan looked at Goodly, who gave a shrug. Time is -' important part.' '— I know!' Nathan cut him short. 'It's narrowing down.' Chung had arrived from the perimeter; Grinner loped at And Grinner took the opportunity to put in, My grey his heels. 'Something's coming right now,' the locator said. brothers are scattered throughout the heights. The vampire 'Nothing big, but nasty as all hell!' Whatever had happened army has mostly passed over them .. . was put aside for now, as in the next moment: Chung was alert as never before. 'North of here, but Bats - huge Desmodus bats with wingspans a yard across 728 729 'Yes,' said the locator in a moment. Their net is being approaching fast in a direct line .. . something .. . coming at dragged out into the desert, but it's staggered now. And this is us straight as an arrow!' their main spearhead. They're pushing on us!' There came a distant throb of propulsors and, carried on a soughing breeze out of the north-east, the crack1 crack' 'Or on the Thyre harbours,' Nathan groaned. 'Place-Under- The-Yellow-Cliffs. . .the new oasis.. .Atwei.. .Misha.'' crack' of automatic fire to disturb the night's comparative 'You can move Misha and the Lidescis,' Trask told him. silence. 'And pinpoint their hideout!' Chung warned. 'It's beginning,' Nathan said. 'But this time, at least my 'Another five minutes maximum and we'll have to move people have the means to fight back.' on anyway,' said Zek. 'I don't understand,' said Chung. This oncoming party is 'How big is this spearhead?' Nathan felt his anger growing just another thread in the net that's being laid down. I don't again, a burning behind his eyes, despite him trying to keep get the feeling that we're a specific target. Why are we being them cool. ... what, ignored?' 'Not big,' Chung said after a moment. This net of theirs is 'It's like they're waiting for us to show our hand,' Trask really stretching them. The bloodwar cost them heavily.' said. And Nathan agreed: The Necroscope made up his mind. Til move Misha, Lardis 'They're trying to draw me into it. And meanwhile the net and the Lidescis. Then ... we'll defend Place-Under-The- — or web — spins itself ever wider over Sunside.' Yellow-Cliffs. We have to. I won't have vampires in the 'Very close now!' Chung's voice showed his alarm. 'Are Cavern of the Ancients. The Thyre would never forgive me. we just going to sit here?' And to me, their culture is at least as important as any of this In the north, spied over a horizon of tall trees, several . ..' menacing manta shapes scudded with the last handful of He conjured another door, and they were on their way .. . clouds. And: Time we were on our way,' said the Necro- scope. But even as he spoke, he felt an unaccustomed anger — even rage - deep inside, and his eyes felt hot where cold The Thyre were expecting them; therefore so were Lardis, sweat stood out suddenly upon his brow. Briefly he fought Misha and the Szgany Lidesci. The best of the Thyre mental- with emotions that were his, yet alien to him. The urge to ists, Atwei included, had been keeping surreptitious, stay and fight, and try out his dreadful eyes? But before the sporadic watch on the Necroscope and his friends - and on urge could win, he conjured a Mobius door and guided his the Wamphyri, of course. companions through it - Lardis and his people were waiting in the new oasis, ready — And took them out five miles into the night-dark desert to play Nathan's game of 'hide and seek'. And Nathan told — where, as they exited from the Continuum into sand and them, This time I'm taking you far enough away that the brittle scrub, Zek clapped a hand to her forehead and gasped: vampire army can't possibly get to you. Not tonight, anyway.' They weren't ignoring us after all! Or they're not now, But as they took up their rope in preparation, Lardis and anyway! Their minds are open; messages pass between Kirk Lisescu spoke up almost as one man. 'We're not going.' them; they recognized your signature - the numbers vortex, 'What?' Nathan looked at them. Nathan - and they know we've moved!' 'We're fighters and we have weapons,' Lardis growled. 'But are they still advancing?' He looked at Chung. And Kirk added: 730 731 'We're sick of hiding and not knowing what's going on. Out There are people scattered there, afraid, inexperienced. It's there in the forests there are Szgany who could use our skills. likely they're in trouble and could use our help.' We've been idle too long. Take the rest of our people where Nathan frowned. 'Supplicant territory? Vormulac wiped you will, but take Lardis and me where the fighting is!' most of them out - and I thought you were glad to see them Nathan looked around and Lardis knew what he was go!' looking for. 'Andrei will stay here, help protect the Thyre. They're Szgany!' Lardis snapped. This could be our Since you and your friends are going to be here a while, I opportunity to win them back from the Wamphyri forever.' know he'll be safe enough. Also, he has this woman - this 'You're sure you'll be all right?' Anna? - who will stay with him.' 'No, but there again, I've never been sure of that in fifty So, Andrei Romani had been hooked at last, and Anna years! Enough talk. Take us there.' So Nathan took them - Marie English had found a new cause: the Thyre. Nathan was - To a place due south of the lava falls on Starside, but on this glad both ways. Anyway, he had no time to argue; he side of the barrier mountains, the foothills, where they sloped supposed he must consider himself fortunate that Misha down into the forest in supplicant territory. From perhaps a wasn't giving him problems, too! Except, she was! 'I'm staying mile away there came shouts, crashing sounds, a veritable here with you,' she said. And her tone told him she'd brook no uproar. The Old Lidesci nodded his grim approval. denial, that nothing would shift her. He could only shrug his 'Supplicants they might have been in their time, but it seems shoulders helplessly. they're fighting well enough now!' And to the Necroscope, And so, leaving Trask and his colleagues in the oasis with 'You'll know where to find us come morning.' He clasped Lardis and Misha, and telling the Old Lidesci, Til be back for forearms with Nathan. Take care, lad.' 'Go to it, Lardis,' you and Kirk . . . be ready,' he led the rest of the Travellers Nathan told him in the terminology of an alien world. Then, into and through the Mobius Continuum — as if realizing his error: Tear down the mountains, old friend!' - To Crater Lake far in the east, and sixty miles out in the He watched the pair slip silently into the woods, then returned supposed desert 'wasteland'! Devetaki couldn't possibly get to the starlit oasis — here before dawn; should she be so foolish as to try it, she'd - And arrived with only a minute or two to spare. never make the return journey home again to the last aerie! Of all the Thyre, Atwei was the one who had chosen to Word of the Necroscope's coming had gone out in advance wait with Trask and the others. They're coming,' she told him. of him (barely), passed telepathically down the line of Thyre 'I know.' He nodded. 'We make a stand here, in the oasis. colonies by Atwei and other powerful Thyre men-talists, so Upon a time my father defended a garden such as this, with that his arrival was anticipated. No time was wasted in just such weapons and friends as I have. But especially handing over his charges into Thyre care, and he returned friends: men and a woman - even the same woman - out of an immediately to Place-Under-The-Yellow-Cliffs. alien world. It seems . . . seemly?' Armed to the teeth with hell-land weapons, Lardis and Kirk Atwei was reluctant to leave. Nathan asked her, 'How were waiting. 'Where do you want to go?' Nathan asked them. many routes go down under the earth, to your colony?' 'East of the great pass,' said Lardis, without hesitation. 'Several. The one you know lies through the Cavern of the Ancients high in the cliffs there, at the back of the oasis. I won't tell you the others. What you don't know -' 733 732 '— Can't hurt the Thyre?' nodded in unison; they all had grenades. 'Good luck!' said 'Or you,' she answered. 'My people have turned the secret Nathan. ways into traps! If the vampires attempt to descend ...' He needed elevation, room to focus his eyes - his anger, Nathan understood. The routes were booby-trapped. 'And hatred - on the warrior. It seemed like madness, but there the Cavern of the Ancients?' was nothing else he could try. He transferred himself to the 'The way stands clear for you and yours.' narrow ledge in front of the tunnel to the Cavern of the Nathan shook his head. 'It won't come to that. I'll take my Ancients, and from there sent a stream of mental abuse friends . . . oh, somewhere else. But the Wamphyri -' directly into the warrior's tiny brain. And: '- We'll be ready for them, if they dare descend.' I'm here, he told the thing. Right here on the cliff, you He took her — and Zek and Misha, too, despite all their ugly son of all that's filthy! You steaming issue of a cesspit! protests - up into the Cavern of the Ancients, and returned to The nightmare thing circled to the far side of the canyon, the oasis. A moment later, spied as silhouettes against a starry but its eyes swivelled to focus on Nathan. It slipped below horizon, the vampires came! the rim of the cliffs, turned inwards, commenced a run on him! This was how he would take the warrior out of the 'It would seem ... just two flyers!' Trask husked. fight. Behind him, the tunnel wouldn't take its bulk; below 'And their thrall riders,' Chung noted. 'But up there . . . " A him, the others were free to engage the flyers and riders. dark blot circling in the blue-tinged sky, its booming thunder And they were engaging them! Gunfire and the shattering reaching down to them in the moment of Chung's warning: a blast of a grenade; a flyer shrilling like a baby, lifting up on warrior, small of its sort, but deadly. shredded, blazing wings, then crumpling back out of sight; a They'll see the oasis.' Goodly knew it, of course. Knew grounded lieutenant or thrall yelling, 'Wamphyri, Wamph -!' what was coming, too. He could hear the uproar, see the fire, Drowned out and changed by the obscene chatter of a smell the blood! machine-pistol to a scream that jarred like syrup on a bad They have back-up!' Chung shouted, as the warrior's main tooth. propulsors fired and it began a spiralling descent towards the The warrior came on, and Nathan took a long shot with oasis. 'A mile or two back ... more of them!' his crossbow. If he found his target, it made no difference; it 'Ben,' Goodly gasped, his Adam's-apple wobbling, 'we're was less than a pinprick to this thing. How he hated the to take the flyers and riders. You, me and David. But the bastard! His lips drew back from his teeth and his brain warrior is Nathan's!' seemed to burn as he fell into a crouch; his loathing was Chung was carrying his flame-thrower. Nathan asked him, poison that must be out of him! Almost without knowing it, 'Do you have fuel for that thing?' he fired his mind-bolt! 'A little, and then there's this!' A machine-pistol. They all The warrior gurgled - made a weird, somehow questioning had machine-pistols, compact and easy to handle. But Nathan sound - but kept coming, except now it had a visible list to had only a conventional Szgany crossbow ... plus a weapon the left. From below came the flash of a grenade, which lit he'd not yet put to the trial. up the warrior's prow. Nathan saw its forward-facing eyes - 'Grenades?' (The flyers were diving on the oasis, and the raw craters streaming bJood and brains! - and its jaws gaping warrior circled the gorge just above the rim of the cliffs, its open in a rictus of agony! He could scarcely take it in as the many evil eyes swivelling this way and that.) The three thing tilted more yet, swerved off-course, 734 735 'When will they get there - and how few?' and instead of climbing to clear the rim, dipped towards the 'Any time now!' Atwei told him, her eyes huge and floor of the ravine. A moment later, at seventy or eighty unblinking. 'No more of them than were here.' miles an hour, it slammed into the sheer cliff and burst into a There were a handful of Szgany, Karl Zestos's people, at welter of flying chitin scales and crimson scrambled guts. But Crack-in-the-Rocks. Nathan knew he could move them out in Nathan knew it had been dead before it hit, from the one packet. He might even leave them there if the Thyre had moment he'd lashed out with his killing eye. booby-trapped the several narrow entrances. Crack-in-the- As Atwei, Zek and Misha came running along the passage Rocks would not need much defending. He began to conjure a from the Cavern of the Ancients, he went down to the oasis. A door, paused to crush Misha to him as she flew into his arms. riderless flyer limped off over the desert towards the Take care,' she told him breathlessly. 'If anything happens distantly leering Northstar, and David Chung was using up to you, I'll never forgive you!' And then, looking at him more the last of his fuel on things that crackled and sent up black closely: 'Did you get smoke in your eyes? Your right eye is smoke as they burned. bloodshot.' 'But more flyers are on their way,' the locator said, his fire 'Probably, yes. Or a little dirt, maybe . . . " He kissed her, dying even as he spoke. And lan Goodly gasped, 'Nathan, you have work and over her shoulder looked at Trask in time to see him elsewhere!' begin frowning again. But saving the moment, Goodly said: 'Will you be all right here?' Nathan looked at the three. 'Nathan, I'm coming with you.' 'Yes,' Trask answered. 'Especially if you take us up into Another kiss for Misha - rough, almost hurtful, something to that tunnel mouth before you go. It looks easy to defend: remember - and then they were on their way . .. flyers can't land there, and it's more or less safe from warriors.' Trask was wearing that curious speculative frown In the Mobius Continuum, Nathan asked, Why did you come? of his again. 'And while we're talking about warriors, I —' Is it that close? '- No time for that now.' Nathan shook his head. 'Later, Just that I saw that I would come, Goodly's mental shrug. when I understand it better myself.' Also, if I'm with you, you'll be the first to know it if something He took them up into the mouth of the tunnel and, looking extraordinary happens. Everything hinges on you, Nathan. out anxiously over the ravine and oasis, asked Chung, 'I Or on Devetaki, Nathan answered. I get the feeling she's don't suppose you can tell me where the next spearhead is?' setting me up. Atwei stepped forward. 'I can. The elders are passing Almost certainly! Now that Wrathstack's gone, you're her messages up and down the line. The psychic aether is full of biggest threat. them! But of course the Wamphyri hear them, too, and so But how can she hope to trap me? She can't fix me in one our secret is out. Unless the vampires are stopped, their place long enough to do anything! bloodwars must now carry to us.' Then logically she has to cover all places. If I were her, I'd Nathan took her arm, but gently. 'Where will they strike?' station troops at all of your co-ordinates. 'Strike? I can't say. They seem too few for a task-force. She doesn't know them all! But they're advancing on Crack-in-the-Rocks, forty miles But if she makes you move often enough, she'll soon east.' 736 737 know an awful lot of them. Maybe she doesn't know your be certain the vampires would know he'd moved on, he choices are - well, almost infinite . . . deliberately made a brief appearance on the surface before They emerged from the Mobius Continuum at the geological heading for Place-of-the-Beast-Bones. fault which the Thyre called Crack-in-the-Rocks. In ages past, Place-of-the-Beast-Bones was one of the few mistakes that great plates of bedrock had folded, pushing up through lesser Nathan had made during an incredibly busy Sunside evening. strata and deep desert sand to form granite outcrops. Beneath Now - not necessarily too late - he had realized the error; also the earth in this place, far underground, the principal Thyre that going there at this time might possibly compound it. That watercourse, called the Great Dark River, flowed east through was a chance he must take. The error was geographical and countless canals over eel-infested shallows of shattered lay in the colony's location, only thirty-eight miles south-east bedrock, under mighty arching ceilings of impervious stone. of the great pass: well within Devetaki's reach. Worse, as a That was where the Thyre had their colony, in caverns on the surface settlement, it was vulnerable to attack. banks of the winding river. Nathan could have transferred Set in a stony desert depression, the colony was housed in directly into caves he remembered from his travels with the flat-ceilinged caverns in the walls of a canyon cut by the Thyre, but he'd wanted to see the nature of the attackers and resurgent Great Dark River. Where the strata had been sluiced their numbers first. away by water action, fossils of mighty prehistoric creatures There were just two of them, flyers and riders, still were revealed: hence the name of the place. But in the canyon airborne in the great dark bowl of the sky, where they blotted walls, descending tiers of wide ledges would make ideal the stars in their criss-crossing. But they'd sensed the swirl of landing and/or launching sites for flyers and warriors alike. Nathan's numbers vortex as he vacated the Mobius And there were no sub-surface escape routes; where the river Continuum, and so knew he was there. A mentalist himself, plunged back into the earth again, its course was an he sensed their telepathic transmission flash north, reporting inhospitable, unnavigable borehole. his presence. Possibly Nathan's earlier visit-to deposit a small community So, another of his co-ordinates was now known to them. of forest-dwelling Travellers here - had been monitored by the Good! Let them thin themselves out even more as they Wamphyri; if not, they would certainly know the location of attempted to cover all of them, which was patently the place now. Which meant that Place-of-the-Beast-Bones impossible. But these were thoughts he kept to himself. was going to need defending - which in turn meant a further 'Observers,' he said to Goodly. 'I doubt if they'll land. series of dizzying Mobius-jumps, collecting armed men from There's nothing here for them.' other locations! But as Goodly pointed out along the way: Earlier, Nathan had moved Karl Zestos's people here, plus Or you could have moved the Thyre and the Szgany out of two of Lardis's men armed with weapons of Earth. Now, there; except ... that would make the place a Wamphyri without pause, he took the precog down into the earth, where stronghold if or when they ever get to it. But in actual fact I first he checked that indeed the routes from the surface had don't see that any of this does any harm. J mean, surely by now been camouflaged and booby-trapped, and that the Thyre and Devetaki has got the message: that she can't possibly cover all the Szgany Zestos were as safe as possible from attack. of your co-ordinates? The more places you visit, the thinner she Then he relieved one of Lardis's men of his weapon - a self- has to spread her net — or web! And all the time the night is loading rifle — and transferred out of the place. And to moving on towards morning. 739 738 'Settlement!' Goodly hissed, staggering as his hand went to And the Big One? his brow. 'It. . . it will be Settlement!' That, too. Nathan bared his teeth and said, 'Well, that's good enough And she - I mean Devetaki - will be involved in it? for me! That's where it all started, more than three and a half The very cause of it, yes. years ago. Now let it finish there, one way or the other!' Finally the job was done, and Nathan satisfied that he had Andrei Romani and Anna Marie English had come up from put as many armed, trained men into Place-of-the-Beast-Bones the subterranean colony. Pushing forward, Andrei said, as he could spare. But as he and the precog stepped from the 'You're not leaving us out of this one. Indeed, if it's going to Mobius Continuum back into the Cavern of the Ancients, he be Settlement, then a/1 of the Lidescis will want to be in on it! shook his head worriedly. The Wamphyri aren't stupid,' he There are caches of Dimi Petrescu's powder there, pitfalls, said. 'Especially Devetaki. She's got Yefros, and together warrior-traps ... rockets! We can put up a real fight!' they're plotting something. All that's happened so far is only a Trask grabbed Goodly's arm. 'Settlement? You're sure?' small part of a much greater scheme.' The precog nodded. 'Yes.' In the Thyre mausoleum, Atwei, Trask and Misha and the And Trask said grimly, 'All of us, then, and we'll need all others were waiting for him; now they could update him in person. the Earth-weapons you can get together. Nathan, we'll be a focal point of resistance that the Wamphyri can't resist!' 'Zek and I have managed to pinpoint Devetaki and Yefros!' There was nothing else to be said. With the exception of Chung told him excitedly. 'She's directing all of this from a Misha (whose only talent was to love Nathan dearly), and plateau over the great pass, midway between Sunside and Anna Marie English who wanted to stay with the Thyre, Starside. Large vampire contingents are en route to most of Nathan moved them to Settlement. Then he collected the Szgany Lidesci from Crater Lake, the Szgany Zestos from the Thyre colonies, but the bulk of them have put down on Crack-in-the-Rocks, weapons from wherever he could find the rim of the forests.' them. Zek added: They're maintaining their net formation -' What with all the explaining he must do en route, it took And Trask finished it:'- Covering as much territory as the best part of two hours, until he was sick and disoriented possible. There's a lot of fighting in the Sunside woods, from it. . . even the Necroscope, disoriented! Nathan: all those Travellers who didn't trust you to move But by the time he was finished, Andrei Romani already them to safety. Meanwhile we're here, armed and dangerous . had everyone working at a frenzied pace in the shattered old . . and useless!' His voice was sour. 'I know now how Lardis town. When finally the Wamphyri came, Settlement would be felt.' ready for them ... Suddenly the Necroscope was desperate; he simply couldn't be everywhere at the same time; and he could see no end to it. 'I have to draw their fire,' he said, 'and lure them away from Hours passed; reports reached Nathan from the Thyre: the both the Travellers in the forests and the Thyre colonies.' Wamphyri had definitely stopped advancing on them across 'But that's exactly what Devetaki wants!' Zek told him. the night-dark desert. It looked like their colonies were safe, Then let's give it to her!' Nathan growled, and his voice at least for tonight. The vampires had not moved off entirely, hardly seemed like his at all. His blood was up now, and however, but rested in the forest fringes where they met the behind his sore eyes his mind ached from the pressure of it all. . . or from something else. 741 740 savannas. They were still within striking distance, even now. Zek Foener had the right answer. 'Keeping you guessing,' As for the bulk of Devetaki's forces: David Chung reported she said. 'Waiting for you to panic. Watching to see which plenty of furtive movement, mainly hidden under what Trask way you'll jump.' had termed 'radio silence.' But as time went by, so Zek and And: 'Shaking her web,' said Trask. Trying to tangle you up Chung began to piece together a picture of what was or startle you into doing something against your better happening. judgement. Maybe trying to force your hand.' The words had Devetaki's 'web' was more truly web-shaped now: concentric seemed to leap to his lips unbidden, surprising even him. semicircles of vampire elements, flitting or spurting over the Nathan turned to him. 'How, forcing me? How can she forests, taking up planned positions and hemming Settlement force me to do anything by not moving?' in where the old place nestled in the lee of the foothills. Other Trask couldn't answer; but suddenly the precog lan Goodly 'covert' contingents had landed in the heights overlooking the was pale in the gouting firelight. 'Who said she isn't moving?' town, but vampire mists were not in evidence; the virgin he said. And his great wide eyes went outwards to the night. grandam kept her movements discreet as possible. In the next moment Wamphyri 'radio silence' was broken In the town itself: discretion was flown to the wind! The — indeed shattered! Zek, whose mind was wide open, reeled men couldn't be expected to work by starlight alone in what from a sudden telepathic onslaught. But not against her; the the Old Lidesci had long since transformed into a deadly trap vampires were simply 'talking' to each other, and their for men and beasts alike! Andrei Romani had lit fires - messages could scarcely be clearer: literally beacon fires - by which the men worked. Bomb- Ignore the Szgany! They'll keep. But take the Others, the hurling ballistae and giant crossbows were back in working outsiders, the talented ones/ order; fragile-seeming rocket-launching frameworks They have weird weapons but their numbers are few. (complete with their all-too-frequently treacherous missiles) And the harsh, threatening sendings of some lesser Lord: had been hauled into position where stockade walls had been You lieutenants, you thralls: success means glory! But failure destroyed; men with amazing alien weapons patrolled equally means death! This last I can promise you, and by my own treacherous catwalks atop swaying walls. And Nathan Keogh, hand! Wherefore you have everything to gain, nothing to lose. called the Necroscope, was at an utter loss to explain why Devetaki wants the Necroscope, and the female mental-ist nothing was happening. His nerves were on edge ... but especially! Take them alive! nothing was happening. Settlement was full of people, lit up 'She wants me!' Zek gasped, and groped in a pocket for a brighter than at any time in four years; it was surrounded by lone bullet which she'd placed there right from the beginning. vampires . . . and nothing was happening! She'd been the property of a Lady once before, but not a Lady Nathan called Trask and the other espers together to ask like the one who commanded this army. them: 'What in hell is - or isn't - going on? Why is Devetaki Nathan had heard the sendings, too. His mouth was dry as a waiting? The twilight before the dawn is only seven hours hard-baked river-bed as he looked at Zek, Trask, the others away. Sunup in less than twelve hours' time! What is she from Earth. Uppermost in his mind was a picture of Ethloi the doing? The way her web is laid down, she could hit us with Ancient's diagram of a device to close the Gates forever, the one wave after another endlessly, until eventually we'd be saving of one world at least. Which meant the saving of Trask overwhelmed. What is she doing?' and the others' lives was imperative. 743 742 'I have to take you -' he began, but they were already A flyer came pulsing over leaning stockade walls; its crouching down, taking up positions, spreading out. lieutenant rider's visage was the leering, blood-lusting mask And David Chung's warning a malediction in the suddenly of a primal beast where he leaned forward in his saddle, electric atmosphere, as a mist rolled down from the foothills swinging a bolas of vicious hooks and seeking victims. Zek and swirled in through gaps in the battered stockade, and the was halfway across a rubble-strewn square. The lieutenant air grew heavy, and a growing rumble of thunder which saw her and his jaws gaped wider yet in nightmarish wasn't thunder sounded from the forests and mountains: anticipation as he swerved his mount in her direction. 'Here they come!' Skimming lower, the beast arched air-trap wings; its belly- pouch yawned open. The Gate on Starside! NO! Nathan sent directly into the lieutenant's mind. Feral The thought was like a brand burning in Nathan's brain: he eyes glanced his way, opened wide, were immediately trapped had to get his friends to the Gate, and now! In one sense, the by his eyes! And: No - you - fucking - DON'T! the Necroscope felt like a traitor - the thought of leaving the Necroscope told him, crouching down and unleashing his Szgany Zestos and the Lidescis to battle on alone - but in mind-bolt. another, there was the chance it would have the beneficial Still seeking a place to hide, a hole in the ground, any side-effect of diverting the attack. For right now, Devetaki scrap of cover, Zek saw it happen: saw the lieutenant cave in wasn't much concerned with common Travellers: it was as if crushed by a giant hand ... saw scarlet gush from ears, Nathan, Zek and the other alien talents that she wanted to eyes, mouth ... saw his head compress into his chest, and his recruit. upper torso into his lower body, before he was swatted like a Also, Nathan himself wasn't going. Not very far, anyway, fly sideways from his saddle! But the flyer came on. and not for long. He would be back just as soon as he saw She twisted the fins on a grenade and forced herself to the others through the Gate. Except, even as he worked it stand tall, stand still and wait. The flyer's belly-pouch was out, they were scrambling for previously arranged vantage zeroed on the middle of Zek's body; there were only inches to points. Then, to further distract him: spare between the lip of the pouch and the lapping white lake A warrior crashed down from a suddenly leaden sky on of the vampire ground-mist; Zek lobbed her grenade, and top of a ramshackle structure that only roughly resembled a threw herself flat. The flyer scooped at empty air, then closed house. Obviously this creature had instructions to destroy its pouch and rotated its manta wings for elevation. any Szgany refuges. Its furious bellowing turned to roars of It passed over Zek, climbing into the reeking air . . . agony as the flimsy shell collapsed, pitching it into the pit ... And pressured smoke jetted like steam from the waiting below, where it impaled itself on sharp six-foot scalloped gash of the flyer's pouch, in the split-second before stakes. Gas-bladders burst and released their stench; the internal lightning gutted the creature, driving lances of fire doomed creature's propulsors fired sporadically and sputtered and shards of steel up through its spine! Its rubbery neck into silence; some brave Traveller loped forward, hurled a torch slumped at once; its mighty manta wings began to fold that spun end over end like a ring of fire, -before falling upwards; collapsing like a pack of cards, it drifted on, rapidly directly into the pit amid a chaos of tortured vampire flesh and losing height as it disappeared in mist and distance. splintered timbers. The ensuing blast hurled the Necroscope By which time Nathan was at Zek's side, looking this from his feet, but he was up again in a moment. 744 745 way and that to locate the others. And by then, too, the night bottom of the crater, was stronger far than that of its was alive with the throb of propulsors, dark with the pulsing Perchorsk twin; Nathan's Mobius door writhed like a snake, shadows of flyers, shocked to full, awful awareness by the threatening to warp back out of existence as he hastily guided urgent shouting of men, the stutter and cough of automatic his charges out on to the barren boulder plains. If he'd tried to weapons. get any closer than this, he knew there would have been a Trask had seen the incident with Zek, the flyer and rider. problem. What he didn't yet know was that he and his friends To hell with his position on the stockade wall! With his heart had a problem anyway. in his mouth, he came running - Without pause as they cleared the door, Zek, Trask, Chung - As behind him, that section of the great fence buckled and and Goodly crouched down and went running towards the fell inwards, and the ugly shape of a warrior was silhouetted blinding hemisphere of cold light. Caught up in the urgency of against the misted forest, its pincers and stab-bers all mobile the moment, Nathan ran with them; he was intent on seeing as it prepared to launch itself upon Settlement's defenders! them safely on their way, Zek and lan to Romania, Trask and Rockets were hastily aimed and fired; Travellers tossed Chung to Perchorsk. Perhaps too intent .. . And perhaps, too, grenades; a burst of automatic fire ripped into exploding gas- all of the action back in Settlement had glutted their bladders before the heat of a rocket's exhaust turned the sensibilites, blunted their natural talents. monster into a raging inferno. Clumps of boulders, silhouetted in dazzle from the Gate, A moment later and Goodly stumbled out of the smoke and appeared as concentric rings of menhirs going out across stench with David Chung close behind. 'I knew it was time Starside towards the northern auroras, also to east and west, and that you wanted us,' he shouted at Nathan. 'David knew and south to the foothills and barrier mountains. Facing the where to find you!' Gate, the rocky terrain reflected its brilliance. By contrast, Nathan took them with him through a Mobius door . .. just away from the Gate, the shadows of these boulder clumps forty paces, to where Andrei's men worked at a battery of four were etched as sharp as knives and black as pitch — ideal makeshift rockets. 'When you've finished with those,' he told hiding-places, as Zek and Goodly could testify. And not only them, 'try these.' Retaining Zek's machine-pistol and the for men. grenades in their pockets, the five dumped the rest of their After a handful of long, loping paces, the group passed alien weapons and ammunition on the ground. Where Trask between two such clusters ... and at once sensed the shadows and his colleagues were going, they wouldn't be needing them moving there! It was very much a group thing: a sudden any more. shared awareness, a sensation of intense danger. In actuality it That was the idea, anyway. was the relaxation of massed vampire minds -the opening of Then Nathan took them to Starside .. . channels of communication - the springing of the trap! Checking his co-ordinates, the Necroscope got them as close to the Gate as possible: maybe forty-five yards north-west of the low crater wall and its core of white light, like the shining eye of some blinded, paralysed Cyclops gazing upwards into the Starside sky. The weird interference of the Gate, amplified by its proximity to the natural Gate at the 746 places all around, more vampires appearing, very sure of themselves, unhurriedly moving closer. VI The Big The lieutenant was a mentalist; Zek and Nathan's eyes met in grim acknowledgement as they heard his thoughts fly south: One.' We have them, my Lady! And Devetaki's answer: I know .. . well done ... hold them there ... I'm on my way! The Perchorsk Gate,' Trask snapped. 'You've used it one way, Nathan - but only one way. So you can use it again. You Goodly's 'Ahhh!' was all the warning they got, as in the can come with David and me, through into Perchorsk!' precog's mind: Breaking into a run, the five made for the crater wall -and Jesus! Of course she knew that Nathan's choices were again skidded to a halt. They were cut off. Vampires were infinite.' Alexei Ye/ros had told her as much! That's why she emerging from the magma ss wormholes all around the Gate, had to narrow his choices down and bring him here - to the where they had been waiting in ambush. Two concentric rings Gate! of vampires, and the five caught between them. Nathan was thinking just one thought, one word: Trapped! Nathan was frustrated, afraid, angry; his eyes were burning Zek and Chung, too: their talents likewise springing to the in his face, hurting him with their stored energy. 'All of you fore as the ambushers lifted their 'radio silence'. Zek's get behind me,' he said. 'Don't look at my face!' The mentalism: the telepathic aether vibrant with the presence of unaccustomed, ugly tone of his voice - its threatening quality monstrous minds! Chung's lodestone skill: locating the - caused them to obey at once. Behind him, the four formed a source of the threat - and discovering it all around them! small circle facing outwards; Trask took Zek's weapon and As they came to a startled, stumbling halt, Trask saw the switched it to short burst; the familiar ch-ching! rang loud in truth written on all their faces and gasped, The clever bitch! the unnaturally quiet night as he cocked it. Zek passed him a She made us jump from the fat into the fire.' spare magazine which he pocketed, sure that he'd be able to 'Better than that,' the Necroscope told him. 'She knows it's use it. The trouble was that it took too many bullets to knock the one place I can't jump back out of! Not this close to the these bastards down, and even then they wouldn't stay down! Gate!' And now Nathan understood the reasoning behind In front, towards the Gate, a row of vampires - mainly Devetaki's small detachments in the Starside foothills. These thralls — were up out of their magmass wormholes; others were the same men! Their mission: to disperse the grey were still emerging. Behind, among the scattered rocks, the brothers into the heights, then to deploy here, keep silent, night was alive with sinuous motion and the gleam of feral wait. eyes. The nearest of them was less than forty-five feet away, He looked back the way they had come, between the and their numbers were . . . far too many. boulder clumps, and saw figures moving languidly, even But Nathan had the answer to that. 'Beware!' he told them, tauntingly, into view out of the shadows; a bulky lieutenant, sounding more like one of them now. 'My eyes contain the well over six feet in height, and two male thralls, all three of power of life and death.' It was no idle boast. them wearing murderous gauntlets. And from rocky hiding- 'Oh, really?' said the lieutenant, with an oily, glutinous 749 748 chuckle. 'Yet here we stand, untouched. Powers you surely wormholes; the lieutenant was loping for cover; thralls were have - we are all witness to that - but you are not the long-dead scattering under the hot gaze of a man who was suddenly a Eygor Killglance, nor his cowardly bloodson Spiro!' monster. From behind a clump of boulders, briefly a target The lieutenant was in command here. Swat him and the rest appeared; a thrall, who whirled a bolas over his head. Nathan would be a rabble; they might panic, attack en masse, was too late to catch him in the act; the man ducked back out overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers. But show him of sight; his hurled weapon came whipping through the air something unpleasant, give him an example, teach him a towards the group of humans. Goodly cried his pain — before lesson ... the bolas hit him! Nathan crouched down and concentrated his hatred into his The thing had three vicious, six-inch, razor-sharp hooks. eyes. His face became a tortured mask; his lips drew back Two of them clanged together, catching harmlessly in the from his teeth; he glanced at the thralls to left and right of the precog's clothing; the third whirled around him and hooked lieutenant, hurled two bolts in rapid succession, and snarled: itself through his trousers into his inner right thigh. Goodly 'Die, then!' went down yelping. And they did. The blurred glint of more bolas; a man stepped from cover The one on the left threw wide his arms and opened his to release his weapon; Nathan struck at him with his killing eye mouth to scream - but only blood emerged as his skull caved — but nothing happened! in, driving his brains out forcefully through eyes and ears! And I take it back! Eygor told him. I take back my eye! Liar! the one on the right coughed a single unintelligible word, then Cheat! You have robbed me of my vengeance, robbed even a staggered, hands fluttering like trapped birds. His body dead thing of his one tomb, however inglorious! For Maglore vibrated, his ribs and spine making audible crackling sounds as shaJI give me many tombs, and all of them depleting me! His bones shivered into shards. Finally he crumpled, shuddering to men are into my pit even now! You've doomed me, who did earth like a lightning-struck tree! you no harm! And Nathan ... Jiked it! Vampires were creeping back out of their wormholes, their There!' he said, his hideous face split by an even more rockpile hiding places. Trask's machine-pistol came coughing hideous grin. But in the next moment: alive in short, staccato bursts; three thralls howled as they Necroscope! (A well-known voice in his head.) Bring me up were knocked backwards, disappearing below the smooth rims now. Your promise! Do it now, Necroscope/ - for the fiend of their chute-like refuges. Perhaps they would slip all the way to MagJore has broken into my pit! the bottom, shoot into the subterranean Gate and end their days No! said Nathan, while still his intelligence was his own. as dripstone fossils in a Carpathian foothills cavern. This eye of yours is a power, it's true, but it's also a nightmare Then, abruptly, the chatter of the machine-pistol came to a - which you knew when you gave it to me. So stay in your pit, halt; Trask swore as he tossed aside the empty magazine and Eygor. For after all, It's the best pJace for you! slapped a new one — the last one — into its housing. And the WHAT? Necroscope knew that he must have Eygor's eye. All of this in the Necroscope's metaphysical mind, while in Give it back! the physical world: When you bring me up. But it's now or never, Necroscope, The vampires were slipping back into their magmass for they are on me! And they will break - me — in - pieces! Coil me up now or it's the end of you .. . and of meeeee! 750 751 Damn you! Nathan ground his teeth. Damn your black heart The mist grew thick where it swirled from the pit; the ropes to hell.' Very well then, hear me now, Eygor Killglance. I went taught, stretched, snapped at the rim! All save one. The command you: come up from the dead. Be alive, mobile in the last of Maglore's thralls reached up a hand to him, gasping, world of the living - and return to me your eye! 'Master, he lives! He . . . uh!' Then his eyes went wide, his And: SO BE IT! said the other, his lunatic laughter ringing rope also parted . . . he was gone! Eygor's mist swirled where out through all the deadspeak aether ... he had been. And Maglore likewise gone. Gone in a trice from the rim of And in Madmanse, in Turgosheim: the pit. Gone up through haunted Madmanse, into Rune- The Runemage Maglore leaned on the shallow wall of an manse, where he called - where he shrieked and gibbered -for ancient refuse pit amid the piled rubble of excavation, and his lieutenants, his men and monsters, and ordered them down called down, 'Well, how goes it?' For just a moment ago into Madmanse in a body, to do battle with the dead and alive there'd come a lull in the murmur of excited voices reaching and undead thing that was Eygor Killglance! But: up from the reeking gloom, where his thralls had discovered Ah, no! Not yet, my friend, Eygor told him. I'll not be the incredible fossil, the gigantic amalgam that was Eygor coming for you just yet. Live awhile, Maglore, and see what I Killglance. learned down here in the bowels of the rock: about the fusion 'Do you not hear me?' Maglore raised his voice. 'I asked, of disparate things, and the skills of artistic creation! No, no, what have you discov ...' At which point, he paused open- don't think it - I would not put you apart from the world, nor mouthed in the middle of a word, as a vast sigh went up or even apart from me. Instead I shall make you a part of me! was sent up (sent, yes) by a mighty, monstrous mind into his Watch me if you will, Maglore — if you dare -while I put on mind! In that selfsame moment Maglore knew, even before flesh in the Gorge of Turgosheim! the previous babble of thrall voices became a ripple of horror, Eygor had already 'put on flesh' in his pit: the flesh of and the ripple an uproar, and the uproar a mad scramble for Maglore's thralls. But how, in what way? What manner of the dozen ropes that hung down into the pit. thing was he now? Maglore went to a window, to peer down For suddenly there was mist down there in that mausoleum with seer's eyes through the fogs and reek, into the gloomy gulf. pit where no mist should be, a cold, cold mist that writhed up Turgosheim: all of its creatures in all its manses were into the shaft, even to Maglore at the rim. He felt it . . . and felt Maglore's now, except Eygor. But then, who would want what was in it! Faces appeared - the faces of men coming Eygor? And the Seer-Lord shuddered - even Lord Maglore of faster up the ropes than ever they'd gone down - gasping men, the Wamphyri, shuddering at the thought of the fate of his panting men, not screaming but saving their breath for thralls in that pit - and shuddered again at the thought of what climbing, as they fled the nightmare that was - by now had surely come up out of that pit! '- Eygor!' Maglore breathed, snatching himself back from Then, down in the bottoms .. . what? A resurgence? Maglore the low wall, aware that his limbs had turned to rubber. And: 'saw' it, he sensed it: an outflowing, certainly. An exudation — Maglooore! came the answer. What, and do you dare invade a spewing out like pus from a boil - from the lower levels of me in my own manse, Maglore? Madmanse, down its ramps and through its gantlets, into the Sounds from below - a strenuous grunting, a squelching, scree and rubble of the bottoms. Good! For several of the crunch of ancient bones under some monstrous weight! Maglore's warriors prowled down there, set loose 752 753 Such a horror as this, loose in Turgosheim! And the Seer- in the bed of the gorge to keep him safe. Because they were Lord knew who to blame: that sapless freak Nathan! Except his he knew their minds and could follow their progress as he wasn't sapless but a power - and such a power! they, too, sensed this ... eruption, and rushed to investigate. Maglore's dreadful premonitions multiplied themselves He was with three of them - well, in part, given the limited tenfold, even as Eygor Killglance was at this very moment capacity of their minds - as they came upon this strange new putting on flesh and multiplying himself! Hurrying to his force, this swift-flowing Thing. With them, aye, as one by one landing-bay, Maglore bumped into Orlea. they blinked out, or became one with it! What was it Eygor 'My Lord, what is it?' The Lady's eyes were wide. She felt had talked about? The 'putting on' of flesh? And the fusion of the terror in him, in this place, in all Turgosheim. He thrust disparate things? And what had he threatened? I shall make her aside; she must take her chances with the rest. you a part of me! What? The absorption of creatures - even 'I've this and that to do,' he said. 'Don't bother me now. men - within himself? All vampires were eaters of life; indeed, There's . . . oh, I don't know, some small trouble below, in the the blood is the life! But this ... was something else. bottoms.' He did indeed have things to do: saddle a flyer, fly Maglore's throat was dry. Perhaps he was mistaken. He deep into the gorge, see how the nightmare progressed, its must try again to penetrate the mists and reach his monsters' rate of acceleration. He should visit the highter spires and minds. He did .. . and met a different sort of monster! Ah, no! manses, advise their barricading, their defences. Could they Don't be in such a hurry, Maglore! the Thing told him. Your be defended? Could anything be protected? If not, he must turn soon enough .. . flee west and report this invasion-from-within to whoever The creature - this loathsome, flowing mass - was now at commanded whatever was left of Vormulac's army. One thing the gates of the squat, square gargoyle hump of Trollmanse, for certain: The Thing-That-Had-Been-Eygor could not follow Lorn Halfstruck's place, or what had been his place, on the him there, over the Great Red Waste! And no one in the west bed of the gorge. Now its inhabitants were lieutenants and knew of his treachery. thralls of Maglore's. Indeed his man Karpath was there in Perhaps he should not even delay to inspect the bottoms, residence - caretaker, 'master' of a manse of his own at last - but go there now, far into Wratha's land of milk and blood and or until the Seer-Lord deemed otherwise. Or until something honey in the west. Except he couldn't set out tonight; dawn else deemed otherwise. was too close; he must fly to the western extreme of the range And Maglore sent directly into Karpath's mind: Beware! A and find a place to hide during the long day, then set off west Thing approaches across the bottoms. It is at your gates even at sundown. So great was Maglore's terror of Eygor Killglance! now! He was in such a hurry, so preoccupied with his problems, The answer came at once: that he scarcely noted that a mount was waiting in the landing- Lord, there are no gates! They are fallen! And I . . . have bay, unattended, saddled and ready for flight. Climbing into a seen this thing! Trollmanse, too, must fall; it cannot stand! saddle that he hadn't seen for years, he gave the silent, Maglore stood aghast. Karpath, listen to me. Do as I - nodding beast only a cursory glance, then dug in his heels, Too late! said the other, his faint, unequal mental voice a urging the creature to flight. groan. Then silence. A vacuum . .. which swelled at once into But airborne, when he would descend, the flyer ascended; it an obscene chuckle! Eygor's, of course. gained altitude, cleared the rim and rose up on Enough! Maglore no longer felt safe in his own manse! 754 755 Turgosheim's queasy thermals! Now what in the name of ...? from hurled Wamphyri weapons; the vampires must step out Down, he demanded. Skim the bottoms. 1 will observe. into the open to direct and release their bolas. Whenever this Except: happened, either Nathan with his killing eye or Trask with So, Maglore, I have you at last, Karz told him: an almost his machine-pistol would cut them down. Trask was low on electric shock to the Seer-Lord's system! You who, having bullets; the only advantage of Nathan's weapon was that its made a man into a monster, never trusted to climb upon his results were permanent. back - and with good reason. He stalled, tilted, commenced a 'Is that what I felt when I woke you up?' Trask asked him. nosedive into the gorge. But I have seen what is happening The Necroscope glanced at him (but carefully) with a face here, and it suits my purpose admirably. For now I make a that was now totally alien: shrivelled and hateful, even monster out of you! luminous with evil power. 'Yes. It was instinct in me, as it is in Maglore clung on for dear life, or grim death. Drained by Eygor Killglance.' fear, he knew he wasn't up to metamorphosis. He didn't have Trask didn't understand that last, so said nothing, but Zek the energy to change his shape to an airfoil and fly. Not a read Nathan like a book; she squeezed his arm where he 'physical' sort by Wamphyri standards, he'd only rarely used crouched beside her in the hole. She knew what he feared: the art, and then in his youth. that the eye's influence would be too strong for him; that 'Karz Biteri - once-historian to the Wamphyri!' Maglore having resisted all else life in the vampire world could throw choked the words out loud; they were whipped away by dark at him, finally he'd succumb to this. 'You're stronger than wind and dank fog. Below, the humped gargoyle bottoms that,' she whispered. took on shape through the wreathing mists; also, a mobile 'Oh?' He didn't look at her, but his voice was a low purr, a half-acre of horror that rumbled over the bed of the gorge full rumble, a growl. of terrible intent! It was composed of many things, none of 'Yes, for you have your father's strength.' Zek knew she them clean, healthy or alive in the truest sense of the word. was right to believe it. After all, like Harry before him, Debris of long-dead warriors, flesh of men, the undying mind Nathan had saved her life. of the maniac Eygor. The precog lan Goodly did nothing (he had no weapon), Karz was done with this world. But at least he was said nothing, did his best not to feel the agony of the great avenged. He flew straight for the centre of the mobile Thing, barbed tine in his thigh. It couldn't be removed here; Zek feeling only a momentary horror when it pulsed and turned had wrapped it with strips of cloth from her skirt; its many eyes upwards to him, and sent the flung spume and amazingly, she'd stopped the worst of the bleeding. While froth of its tossing to meet and engulf him. Also to engulf his David Chung comforted him, the precog could only grit his once-master - empty now of thoughts and words, runes, sigils teeth and wait for the Big One. Nodding, feeling faint, his and symbols - plunged to his death in a moment and blended head swaying, he groaned it out loud: with filth and oblivion ... The Big One . . . coming!' 'What?' Chung couldn't believe his ears. 'Do you mean While thousands of miles to the west, at the Starside Gate: this isn't it?' The Necroscope and his charges had taken temporary The tumbling moon had come up. Silver, bloated, it floated refuge in a shallow depression with a hard earth rim and a well above the horizon; its full face told mockingly of a low wall of stones. What cover they had protected them 756 757 probability, he and his friends would go with it, perhaps into a sunup that was still six or seven hours away. But the moon place where life simply couldn't exist. Two magnets, their like itself - its strange, eccentric orbit — told more than that, to poles facing each other, pushed or held apart by equal forces. Nathan, if to no one else. But if they were driven towards each other, there must come a So close to the Gate, trapped here between two camps of point when something had to give. vampires, unable or not daring to make use of the Mobius The Necroscope decided to try an experiment. At the Continuum, and vulnerable to viciously cruel weapons if he moment nothing was happening, had been happening ever should try to make a break for it in either direction - which since they took cover here. The vampires seemed happy was out of the question anyway, because of Goodly — the enough simply to harrass them, hold them in situ, make them Necroscope had found time to think. Rather, his intuitive keep their heads down. But that was self-explanatory: these maths, both physical and metaphysical, had been at work creatures hemming Nathan and the others in knew better now within him. than to show themselves too frequently. The fugitives had Before . .. he'd often wondered at the weird physical been in possession of a handful of grenades which they had properties of his vampire world, where some of the 'universal used, unfortunately, less than effectively. But there were fresh laws' he'd discovered in Trask's world didn't seem to work, or blast marks around several of the wormholes near the Gate, where they had been bent out of shape by the advent of an and there must have been some damage, at least in the immemorial 'white sun' that fell out of the sky and buried surrounding boulder clumps. itself in the bottom of a crater - the original Gate. And he'd Also, there was no urgency on the part of the ambushers likened the world's wobble to that of an ill-balanced bolas, now, no need to take any further action. Devetaki Skullguise whose connecting rope had stiffened to a bar of unbreakable wanted these fugitives alive, and she would soon be here. Her metal. main forces were pulling out of Sunside, all heading for The maths of the thing was now clear in his mind; he Wrathstack. David Chung was able to guarantee that last: the simply 'knew' it, without knowing what to do with it or even siege of Settlement had been lifted, and the fighting stopped. if there was anything he could do with it. Knowing that it There was no profit wasting good flesh and effort now that takes twelve thousand bricks to build a house doesn't get it the birds were flown, especially since they'd flown into the built. Knowing that E = Me2 isn't enough in itself to create a trap! Sunup was still a long way off, but the vampires knew it brief but very destructive star in your garden. On the other was coming and would feel a lot safer Starside of the barrier hand, how often had he been told 'numbers don't do anything, mountains. they simply are'? Time and again, by everyone from the So Nathan had time on his hands, however little . .. mainly innumerate desert-dwelling Thyre to a highly He let his numbers vortex swarm free, to surround his mind sophisticated Earth mathematician. And he was the living with a maelstrom of once-esoteric equations. Except, of proof that all of them were wrong! course, they were no longer secret to him. Only call them Which was why now, as once before, he wondered what down onto the computer screen of his brain, he could decipher would happen if he conjured a door so strong it challenged the all of them in as much time as it takes to tell. alien, immutable gravitational force of the Gate or Gates? If he But even the vortex warped away from the Gate's influence, were to make one of his 'usual' Mobius doors in the disturbed by its proximity: the physical affecting the immediate vicinity of the Gate, it would tremble, collapse, metaphysical. But if the metaphysical were stronger? Could and get sucked into the Gate or hurled away from it; in all 759 758 Could his friends provide the extra bit of mortar that he it affect, even overpower, the physical? Certainly! Hadn't the needed to hold his bricks together? All of their metaphysical Necroscope proved it every time he'd travelled in the energy together, against the Gate? Continuum? The mathematics of the problem was right there, The moon was fully up now, and borne on a wind from the waiting for him to unravel it. But at a time and in a place like this, why even bother? north-east (it could only be from Wrathstack) came a tumult It was partly instinct, intuition, but more than that it was of sound: thunderous music and an indescribably mournful what the Thyre had told him, and what Goodly had howling. It was like an omen on the Necroscope's decision - corroborated. In fact, and if it worked, it was the Big One. The or maybe a warning of Devetaki's imminent arrival! 'She's very, very Big One! The correction of a disordered world, almost through the pass,' Chung gasped. 'Fifteen minutes at which had gone wrong when an alien body mutated to a the outside!' dimensional singularity (or multiplicity?) and fell on Starside! Nathan quickly explained what he would do, but he needed Again he thought of what Thikkoul and others of the dead their help. The immovable centre of gravity at the core of the Thyre ancients had told him, remembering the way Thikkoul world would be his fulcrum; the invisible, unbend-able force it had expressed what to the Ancient was an unthinkable concept: exerted on the Gate would be his lever; effort would come Instead of the moon, the sun, the stars in their eternal from the combined energy of their minds, concentrated upon revolutions . . . I feel this very earth itself moving, leaning the most powerful door he'd ever conjured. And the task - towards the sun.' And: The turning of the world, Nathan! - Would be to turn a world, correct its eccentricity, make Stars moving in the night sky, from south to north with the the stars move through the sky, and turn a night into morning! turning of the earth! They didn't understand, but neither did they question him as Also what Goodly had said when Nathan had asked him they stood up and linked arms, and glared back at the glaring when the Big One was scheduled, night or day? He'd Gate through narrowed eyes; all of them with the exception of answered that it would happen in the night, and in the Trask, who must mind their backs while they worked. morning! Watchful, he stayed down between their legs, weighing his Was there a clue there? Of course there was! precious magazine and wondering how many bullets were left Nathan's numbers proved it; he held the equations steady on in it, then forgetting to wonder anything as the Necroscope the screen of his mind and followed them through, saw their fortified his numbers vortex and conjured his Mobius door! solution and knew its truth! Except ... his mind simply wasn't 'Now!' Nathan said, as the thing warped and fluttered and big enough, wasn't strong enough. He knew the number of rippled like water in his mind. They held, and glared, chewed bricks it would take to build his house, but he had no mortar! their lips, and weighed their minds against the weight of the Unless the mortar of his anger, and the strength of Eygor's evil Gate. And held, and the door held with them! It shaped up; it eye, and — glowed with the energy of their combined effort; it was '- And our strength?' Zek's hand closed over his where it visible! was clenched, trembling. 'Our combined strength?' He knew For the first time ever, people who were not of the what she meant. He'd heard the idea broached back at E- Necroscope Harry Keogh's flesh saw a Mobius door: a hole Branch HQ in her world: in times of extreme danger, the joining of ESP talents into one super-ESP identity, one POWER. 760 761 'My God! My God!' Zek heard the moaning of the wind, in nothing, going nowhere, and everywhere. But it fluttered and the moaning of a hundred vampire voices in her head. like a flag; it must collapse at any moment, or be hurled away, The world was turning and a far faint flush limned the high or be shredded and drawn into the Gate. But it didn't and it peaks of the barrier mountains. wasn't, for Nathan held it with his mind and Eygor's eye - the Then, through all the telepathic tumult of fearful vampire most powerful combination of wills to ever exist in the vampire world. moanings, one voice sounding loud and shrill with the And: 'Hold it!' Nathan husked. 'Hold it!' realization of what was happening and who was making it And: 'Yes,' Goodly gasped the single word. 'Yes! happen. Devetaki Skullguise, commanding: KilJ them! Do it And: 'A black cloud in the heights over the pass,' Trask now, be/ore they doom us, each and every one! said. Then: 'Cloud, nothing! It has to be Devetaki!' The And up out of the magmass wormholes came five feral- ruination of everything, if she should get here first. It eyed thralls, and out from behind the boulders stepped the galvanized the Necroscope to greater effort. And as Trask's lieutenant and others of the ambush crew. Trask knew he machine-pistol barked a single shot, and barked again, Nathan couldn't possibly have more than three or four rounds left, but groaned: he'd make every one of them count. He would have to, for 'Push! We have to do more than just hold it - so push!' Nathan was out of it and must continue confronting the Gate with his irresistible door. And the world continued to turn, the And: 'Yes,' said Goodly. 'Yes!' wind to howl, the thunderous music from Wrath-stack to blare Trask thought he felt the ground trembling under his feet like the trumpets of hell. where he kneeled, but nothing was happening. Nathan's The whirl of a bolas: crack1 And a thrall, leaking brains metaphysical door had firmed up and shone and shimmered from a hole between his eyes, went toppling. like a fiery portal, but that was all. The energy the four were Another bolas: crack! Trask took his eye out. burning made the air hum, but nothing had changed. Trask The lieutenant came loping, ducking, weaving. He wore a groaned, saw motion in the corner of his eye - the glitter of a gauntlet. Crack! The man spun round in a complete circle; his whirling bolas - snapped off a shot and brought the thrall eyes went to the scarlet-pumping hole in his shoulder; he kept down before he could release his weapon. But a moment later coming. Crack! He was knocked over backwards, flipped and Trask saw a different kind of motion, an impossible kind from his shoulders where they hit the dirt, came springing to of motion: his feet. Crack! And this one took him in the heart, which The moon, performing a slow curve across the sky! Not its finally swatted him. weird orbit, but a curve from south to north! The five thralls were closing from the direction of the Gate. 'Jesus!' Trask sobbed raggedly, the breath catching in his Seeing Trask aiming at them, they crouched low, spread out, throat as a wild wind blew out of nowhere, tugging at his hair. came zigzagging towards the fugitives. One of them made a 'Oh, sweet Jesus!' The very vault of the heavens seemed to be sideways leap when he saw Trask lining up his sights; moving; the ice-chip Northstar was receding over the last somehow, he got between the Gate and Nathan's door. His great aerie of the Wamphyri; the rest of the stars were body was illumined in a golden glow for a split-second — like following on behind, uniformly marching south to north a flash of lightning - before he disintegrated like a sheet of across the sky! paper in a shredder! He was there and he was gone, disrupted, 'Push!' Nathan's voice was a whisper. vanished without trace! 'Yes!' Goodly's too. 762 763 The others came on; Trask squeezed the trigger; the bolt now fought for his brother. Oh, their names were legion, flew forward and - nothing! which they sang to Nathan like a battlecry, even knowing Zek touched Trask's head, managed to grin at him even that he couldn't answer, for he was engaged in a battle of his through her tears as she passed something down to him -her own. bullet. 'Fuck it!' she said. He yanked back the bolt, pushed the As for the vampires: the blinding dust of dead men was in bullet home with his thumb, looked at her. His heart was in his their eyes, choking dust in their nostrils, throats, ears. And mouth. The vampires from the wormholes were coming. they knew how unequal was the battle - because dead men One of them started to swing his bolas and Trask didn't can't die twice. But Devetaki and hers did not know that, not think twice. Crack! The man went down, spraying red. yet. Half a mile away, towards the pass, the sky had turned black All she knew was that the world was turning, the peaks of with flyers. Devetaki! But the world was still turning, the wind the barrier mountains gleamed golden in her wake, and the still howling, the defenders of two universes still standing to furnace sun was rising like a great blazing meteor to fry her the end. Except this was the end, surely? eyes and scorch her undead bones! Ahead of the rest, she But if so, why had the vampires from the magmass stopped came swooping over and through and around the glare of the advancing? What was that look on their faces? What could it Gate, driving her mount in what was very nearly a suicide mean? Trask glanced behind - and saw what it meant. That the dive right at the group of aliens in the shallow depression. dead of Starside weren't about to let this happen, not to the Nathan saw her coming and his gaze, his mind, his strength Necroscope Nathan Keogh! was diverted from the glowing Mobius door -which at once Trask's jaw fell open. The vampires from the rockpiles were collapsed! There was nothing he could do about it; he fighting with dead men ... with mummified pieces of men ... couldn't concentrate on two problems at the same time, and with the desiccated debris of men! It was a rebellion of the Devetaki was now the most immediate threat. He went into dead against that which must never be; the destruction of their his killing crouch and glared doom and destruction at the one champion in the world of the living. Lady, her flyer, Alexei Yefros where the Russian locator The teeming dead, not called up but come up of their own hung on behind her. accord. All of the countless Szgany who over a thousand years The merest pulse of his former power, there was little of had trudged the dreary road to the aeries of the Wamphyri and strength in it; fuelling the door had drained him to the dregs. never made it, suffering the true death out here on these barren Still, his mind-bolt was not entirely without effect: Devetaki boulder plains. All the victims of vampire bloodwars long gave a small choking cry, yanked on the reins to haul back forgotten by the leaning menhirs of Starside. All the ragged her mount's head, climbed up, up into a sky no longer black, scraps and dust of men long gone, knowing that they must where now the stars were the merest flecks of flickering light come up to a semblance of life at least, else life itself had not - been worth it. - And yet a sky blacker than the blackest night to Devetaki, Jason Lidesci was their leader; albeit a slender lich, he was a for she was blind! Blind, her eyes ruined ... yet she saw quite true Lidesci to the end. But there were many others the clearly. Saw that it was the end. Sensed cessation. Felt Necroscope had never known. Glina Berea was among them, finality - as her soaring blinded beast lofted her into sighing, who in her time had vowed vengeance on Nestor, and searing sunlight! 764 765 'Ahhh!' Devetaki herself sighed wonderingly, groped for of vampires had been hard-earned. Still, it was a credit to the her scowling mask, didn't quite make it. And at last the pain Old Lidesci's powers of observation that in those weird (but briefly), the rapid devolution: a drift of smoke and slow, moments as the stars commenced their march across the sky, silent rain of smouldering ashes. Along with a faster rain, of and the horizon was suddenly aglow with a dawn all of six leaden trappings, leather, iron and a few charred bones. hours early, he had noticed something strange about one lone, Alexei Yefros, not long a vampire, fell with the saddle, lovely woman. shrieking until he hit, then lying still. The sun would do the Then, as she'd made 'casually' away (for she too had seen rest. what was happening, and knew that survival depended upon The sun! For it had risen on Starside, and despite that finding a deep, dark place to hide from a sun gone mad), Nathan's door was no more, it was still rising. And the moon a Lardis had asked the young leader of the group: 'Who is she?' strange pale orb where it hung in the sky, no longer tumbling. And his tone of voice had been such that the other had And in the north, Wrathstack a golden finger pointing toward forgotten for a moment the miracle that was taking place, to a glorious future, or perhaps at the North-star, more properly a blurt: 'north' star now: a blink of silver against faded auroras ... 'A stranger, a survivor. What does it matter? She's a girl who'll breed children to replace the many we've lost or given The dawn had happened first and fastest, of course, Sunside away ... Aye, and a curse on our cowardly leaders for that!' of the barrier mountains. It had come as something of a 'And she came to you as you see her now? Unmarked, surprise, to say the least; not least to the Lady Ursula clean, and in good clothes?' Torspawn. Standing a discreet distance from her funeral pyre, 'Aye. What of it?' Lardis Lidesci wondered very briefly who she'd been, then put At which Lardis's eyes had narrowed, and he'd signalled to her out of his mind forever. She'd been Wamphyri, definitely, Kirk Lisescu. 'Her bells make no sound!' else at the end there'd been much less of a commotion. 'Bells? Decorations that make pretty noises? Man, we were In fact, nothing had gone right for Ursula. Earlier, she'd supplicants; we wore no silver!' taken up with a party of ex-supplicant Szgany, and trembling 'But she does - except her bells don't ring. Because they in every beautiful limb (from fears which weren't entirely aren't silver - they're lead! Kirk!' That last loudly, feigned and so served to lend her story veracity), she had told explosively, so that Ursula would hear him. She did, and how she was the lone survivor of a family group slaughtered knew that it was all up. The sun was rising in the night, and by the Wamphyri. That had been several hours ago, shortly she was in the camp of the enemy. Then: the dark of Ursula's after the party itself had survived an attack, which made eyes turning red! And a spontaneous eruption of dagger teeth, Ursula's story doubly acceptable. If she had known it at the as the gape of her jaws yawned open to house them! time, however, she might have tried her luck elsewhere. The Kirk Lisescu had put three shots into her as she turned to skirmish had made these people-extra vigilant; they clung run, but still she'd made it halfway up a hillside before the together; she'd not had a chance to lure anyone away and . .. sun caught up with her. Aye, and a hell of an uproar then! For tend to her needs. she had been a vampire for . . . oh, for a long time. What's more, these were the folk that Lardis Lidesci and When most of the din was over, they'd tossed branches Kirk Lisescu were helping, and Lardis's reputation in respect over what was left and torched the lot. . . 766 767 It was much the same for Paxton, caught in the sun's golden of the last aerie - the bone-song from Wrathstack's dark side net halfway back to Starside, in a broad section of the great continued. For the dog-Lord Canker had witnessed a pass where sunlight never penetrated before. The same, but it wonder, and knew that he, Canker Canison, was its author! could have been worse. For Paxton was a very recent convert, The moon-priests were so afraid of him that the lunar orb and it might have taken a lot longer. itself had turned pale! At first he had felt the furnace heat on his back: the way his Canker's throat was raw but his song was at an end; now hair grew hot, the stretching and splitting of skin already torn he could fly to the moon to claim her for his own! Deaf and from digging his way out of the collapsed cave, the sudden bleeding from his ears, Canker went stumbling to find the and rapid blistering of his ears and neck. Then, without Lady Siggi and say a fond farewell, and tell her that soon he thinking what he was doing - as if the seething golden stain would return with all her silver sisters. And he knew where crawling through the bed of the pass wasn't evidence enough - to find her. She was bringing on the hatchlings in the cave he'd turned to see what was wrong. of spiders. A moment later ... he'd been blind, and all the skin peeling Normally Turkur Tzonov's screams would have led Canker from his eyeballs! Then his screaming and tottering to and to Siggi at play, but he no longer heard them; stumbling and fro, the heat of his body turning the space inside his clothes to moaning, he heard'nothing but his bone-song, despite that he a furnace, his flesh beginning to broil. But moving blindly in was not playing! And Siggi, poor Siggi .. . would she even and out of shadowed areas, it might easily have lasted for know him? It seemed unlikely, for she had bathed in his light hours . . . if he hadn't got his ankle trapped between boulders too long, and was no longer sensitive to mundane things. and broken it, so that he flopped there in full sunlight. And While Canker . . . he was too sensitive by far! And his head that way it had been easy on him. hurt, and his ears. And the singing, the singing! It seemed the His unbearable agony put an end to him; by the time the stack itself was swaying, as if his playing had shaken the sun moved on a little, the shadows found his clothing stuck to foundations or the great fang itself danced to the tune in the rocks with black tar. Gluey hands, with some bones Canker's head. showing through, protruded from the frayed cuffs of his And now the sun was fully up, standing higher in the sky combat-suit... than ever before, and its rays lit on all Starside. But Canker in the dark of his manse couldn't know it, or that golden rays In Wrathstack, Wratha had seen the sun come up so swift were even now eating into the very heart of rock that had she'd known she was insane; which of course she was. Her known the horror of ages, the works and working of vampire crazed cackling was now at an end, however; her cage swung Lords, the harrowing and hollowing of unhallowed hands. All on high, almost empty, its silver-lattice floor dribbling a the shocks the stack had taken: the centuries of tunnelling reeking oily substance into the abyss. and endless whittling of Wamphyri inhabitants, explosive On the south face of the stack, scorch marks and a few heat of fires and blast of alien bombs. And last, but by no puffs of smoke were all that remained of the Mangemanse means least, the thunder of the dog-Lord's songs. siege, while the last scrap or two of bubbling, smouldering, All it had needed was a push, albeit the push of a giant. devolving matter went spiralling down to the blood-soaked The shifting of the earth, causing the stack to rock, and the scree and rubble slopes. And yet - while still the sun rose up Great Destroyer sun, burning out every last trace of evil and its light cut deeper yet, searing all down the length vampire influence until the rock itself was calcined. And 768 769 now the pull of a moon in a strange new orbit. It was all too darkness, to discover who it was that slowly shut out the much. light, and how. He found a room with windows - Wrathstack went down in rubble, rot and ruin, crumbling as Which closed themselves one by one as he arrived! And it toppled, its various levels splitting apart and crashing down yet no drapes had been drawn for there were none. The holes onto the the shuddering boulder plains, adding its terrible in the solid rock walls had simply sealed themselves ... tonnage to all the tumuli of olden stacks gone before. because the walls weren't of rock! And: At last, there was no last aerie . .. WELCOME HOME, BLOODSON, said Eygor, from all around him. FLESH OF MY FLESH - RETURNED AT Earlier, in Turgosheim: LAST TO MY FLESH! Spiro Killglance had left his second mount spreadeagled on In answer to which: 'No!' said Spiro, drooling spittle on the the rim of the gorge, utterly exhausted from its flight, while floor, in the moment before the room which wasn't a room in he descended first into promontory Runemanse, looking for a manse that was only a manse on the outside closed on him Maglore, then into Madmanse. But the aeries were empty; the to make him one with it. . . gorge itself seemed devoid of life and even undeath; nothing And shortly: stirred in that haunted old place. Six hours of night left - and Eygor quicker, more fluid, Haunted, aye, by Spiro's demented father, Eygor. Oh, how elastic, than any creature before him. And hungry! Spiro had feared that old devil upon a time, but no more. He was dead, undead, alive; he was an animal, an Now, indeed, he felt grateful! What? But he had inherited the amalgam, an all-consuming organism. He was an cruel old bastard's evil eye, and even the Seer-Lord Maglore animalgamism, and hungry! But Sunside meant blood, and was in hiding from him. Laughing, and hearing the echoes the blood is the life! reverberate away and back (which changed the tone A thing whose tendril extensions and frothing extrusions somehow, until the laughter hardly sounded like his at all), he reached down into every crevice, spire and manse in went to the choked refuse pit where he and Wran had trapped Turgosheim, Eygor pulsed up through Runemanse on the rim their father after they had blinded him. He went there - and and gushed like a lake of living lava onto the plateau that found the pit dug out! sloped to Sunside - where he flowed headlong into the And the silence of the place unnatural - breathless? -and searing gaze and golden rays of the sun. And where evil eyes nothing exactly the way Spiro remembered it, as suddenly were concerned, to Eygor Killglance especially, nothing could what little light there had been began to dim. But how? There be more lethal than the burning yellow eye of that ultimate were no curtains at the windows in the perimeter rooms, and orb! no one to draw them if there had been. And the stone floors What happened then was lightning-fast - a total, instant rubbery under Spiro's feet ... and the walls and dripstone katabolism, the dispersal of the Eygor-Thing into vile gases columns feeling damp, slimy, even sweaty to his touch. Like that mushroomed up in a cloud as if some mighty explosion raw meat. But stone doesn't beat like a great heart, or pulse had occurred, though that was not the case — a chain reaction and shudder when you touch it! of dissolution, going down into Turgosheim wherever Eygor's The light continued to dim. Spiro ran on trembling legs tendrils reached, transforming them to slime, dust, finally the from room to unremembered room, breathing stale air that very elements of their constitution. tasted ... already breathed? Looking for the source of the And Eygor, and indeed Turgosheim, were no more; just a 771 770 barren gorge remained, where the shadows were driven back as the sun rose higher still... At that same instant, but several thousands of miles away, Epilogue as the rumble of Wrathstack's fall subsided, the Necroscope and his party stood in an awesome silence at the Gate, where all around the landscape was dotted with smoking ashes. But after a while, the precog lan Goodly said, 'Nathan. I. . . I'm sorry, I mean, I -' In the Mobius Continuum, Grinner said: 'I know,' Nathan nodded. 'It's soon now, right? "The end Why, Uncle? Since we've done this before, is there any of my tether.'" point? Goodly looked away, but Nathan only smiled. And his I hope so, Nathan told him. You see, back there on Starside, at smile and his eyes were his own, for the awful Power within the Gate, I discovered something I really should have known had gone with Eygor's going, dissolved with the monster's before, except this time I had the 'intuition' to recognize it: the dissolution. fact that there are many different types of doors. Thikkoul of the They carried the precog a safe distance from the Gate and Thyre knew it a Jong time ago but without knowing that he knew Nathan conjured a door, and took them back to Settlement. it! He told me: 'I see doors ... but liquid, drawn on water, formed There he called for Grinner and, as the wolf came loping, of ripples. And behind each one of them, a piece of your future . ..' spoke to his friends. 'If this fails,' he said, 'you know where My doors are commonplace compared to others that exist, or the Gate is. And you still have time. But I won't say that can be caused to exist. goodbye, and don't you say good luck! The first is premature Other doors exist? Grinner seemed surprised. Without that and the last just doesn't count. The future has it all worked you make them? out for me, one way or the other.' That's the whole point, Nathan answered. Some that exist, Smiling again, at Goodly, he conjured another door .. . and others that are made. Of course, I've known for some time now that there were future- and past-time doors, and doors that I could conjure to get me into and out of the Mobius Continuum. But I'd never thought to make a door here, within the Continuum itself! You see, the Continuum is like a large manse, with many rooms I've never visited. Perhaps I'm not supposed to, for I've only been shown one of those rooms - two, if you include Sunside/Starside. I. . . don't understand, said Grinner. But you will. Your father knew those doors, and so do you; you sniff them out. Except you don't understand them! You're a wolf of the wild, who understands trails and tracks and spoor. You understand ... directions! 773 Ahh! said Grinner. My father's world - and yours, Uncle. journey) the vampire swamps were drying out, cracking open Exactly. Nathan nodded. You showed me the way before, in their beds, cleansed by the sun. And in all the length and but there was no trail /or you to follow. I had not made one! breadth of the vampire world, no vampires existed - at least, so Now, if you show me it again, I'll remember it always as one far as men knew. But that was not to say that men wouldn't of my co-ordinates. keep watching. Not while Lardis Lidesci lived, anyway! But it's there. It's right there! Grinner told him, pointing the Nor was the transformation confined to the swamps; water way. released from the Icelands, drifting in clouds on high, bringing Without pause Nathan made his door, and as it opened felt great rains to the scrubland savannas and lesser precipitation a warm sweet wind rush out of it to ruffle his hair . .. one of even to the deserts, had already turned the land green as far as the many winds of Earth! Then, as he stepped through the most of the Thyre colonies. All of which processes of an door with Grinner, he thought: 'The end of my tether - in the altered Nature, and others, would go on for a long time yet. parallel dimension of Sunside/Starside at least. But if lan So things were very different, not least at the place where Goodly and I had gone on awhile, then we would have come the adventurers were gathered together: the Hell-lands Gate, to where it starts again!' on Starside. Scarcely a gate to hell now, and no longer a Gate And on the other side of the door: in any sense; or a one-way Gate at best, of sorts, and utterly He knew where he was at once; a place he'd found magical, impassable to man or beast . . . or vampire! No longer a Gate, which now he had found again, but in a magical manner: a no, but a lake; and all the stars of night mirrored in its shining, sunlit hillside overlooking Zek's house at Porto Zoro on the whirling surface, whose waters formed small whirlpools that island of Zante in the Mediterranean. Standing in the shade of went down through the magmass wormholes to the a gnarled old pine, the Necroscope breathed deeply of resin- subterranean Gate, and on into another world. As the laden air and gazed out across the incredibly blue Ionian. But Necroscope had pointed out: an unending cycle, protecting the as for Grinner . . . he sat down abruptly on his rump and privacy and integrity of two worlds, but depriving neither. A whined. For all of his directions were gone now, and he was closed circuit, much like the Mobius strip itself. For the waters the stranger in a strange far land. would return, of course, from the great dam in Perchorsk, 'It's all right,' Nathan told him, stroking a flattened, whose torrent had been diverted into the now abandoned trembling ear. 'We won't be here long.' Projekt by Premier Gustav Turchin! Just long enough to talk to Gustav Turchin ... A fountain of light, reaching up a hundred feet into the Starside night, illuminated by the Gate at its core, and raining And six months later, Earth-time: its soft white waters on the land and into the lake! Of all the It was night-time, and again they stood by the Starside wonders in the vampire world, surely this was the greatest of Gate, except now they must find a new name for the land all? north of the barrier mountains, and perhaps even a new name Nathan thought so, certainly, where he crushed his Misha so for the barrier mountains! Now they were only a barrier in the tightly she held her breath; and Lardis, Trask, Zek, Goodly, sense that they obstructed eager Travellers, holding them back Chung, Kirk, Grinner and Blaze. And especially Andrei. but from a rapidly developing territory and a land free of the greatest wonder to Andrei was not the lake vampires. In the far east and west (at least as far as men had yet to 774 775 itself but the firm-bodied woman who laughed and danced and pirouetted, there where wavelets lapped a once-dust-bowl shore — - A woman far younger than her years, whose name was Anna Marie!