by Brian Lumley
“Gorvi the Guile. As your name can’t help but hint, you are an insular creature, little trusting of your fellows. You are crafty and would not feel safe in a manse without a bolt-hole. I make no accusations but merely state the facts. Therefore, take the wide and spacious base of the stack—say, the two lowest levels?—for your own. This will give you a dozen escape routes from your windows out on to the plains. Also, you will have control of the wells, whereby you are guaranteed our aid in the event of any future attack from Starside’s bottoms. At the same time, however, it means that the wells will be your responsibility, and to judge by the rest of this place they’ll be bound to require your most urgent attention. A task for the first of your thralls, to be recruited in the next sundown.
“Wran and Spiro. Despite that you are brothers and even twins—who among the Wamphyri normally despise each other—you two prefer to be together, within certain limits. So be it: choose yourselves apartments in the several levels immediately above Gorvi’s, where the width of the stack should provide not only ample accommodation but also plenty of room for privacy. I fancy you will be well suited. Also, from what I saw of the crumpled ruins which litter this region, your area of responsibility will be great indeed! Namely, control of the refuse pits and methane chambers. For I noted that almost every one of those former aeries was burned and broken in the same section, and I can’t doubt but that this stack is of a similar design.
“Vasagi. You were ever a loner, no less than I myself. I suggest you take the next levels down from my own. No fear of claustrophobia, with all this air surrounding us! Your warriors, when they are made, may have joint use of my vast launching bays. In return for which, I may require some small assistance in the fashioning of creatures of my own. As you see, I acknowledge your mastery of the metamorphic arts …
“Ah, but I acknowledge yours no less, Canker, and would also enlist your aid! You shall be central among us, occupying the levels between the brothers and Vasagi. This way, when the moon rides on high, we may all share your … singing, and the … delights of your devotions together! Alas, not much in the way of duties, but what is that to an artist like you?”
Canker was not fooled, nor any of the others; they knew that apart from his skill in the fashioning, the only reason he was here was to make up the Lady’s numbers. But the levels she had assigned to him required an overseer, certainly, and at least she’d apportioned the rest of the duties, displayed her powers of reason (however warped), and reinforced her leadership. In the end they must accept, but meanwhile:
“No need to go rushing off immediately,” she’d told them, while they thought it over. “Outside, it’s sunup. Our lads will have seen to the beasts, and to themselves. All will have their heads down by now, and we should do the same. We’ve come a long weary way, and nothing more to get excited about till the sun sets. So find beds for yourselves—several levels down, I’d suggest—and catch up on all the sleep you’ve missed. Come nightfall, we’ll all of us have work.”
“On Sunside?” Canker had grinned and winked.
“Aye,” she’d answered. “Where else?”
It had been like a promise, which above all else placated them …
Then it had been sundown. And almost as quickly as that, or so it seemed.
For Wratha and the others had been weary as never before in their long lives, their sleep deep and dreamless, undisturbed even by calls of nature. This latter was not strange; such was Wamphyri metabolism that their bodies wasted very little; what was consumed was transformed.
Once, towards twilight, Wratha had come half-awake with some weird fancy or anxiety niggling either at her or the vampire within her. For a moment, opening her eyes, she’d thought to see sunlight blasting in through the undraped window! … But it was only moonlight. And propping herself up she’d seen the auroras writhing over the Icelands, and Starside’s barren boulder plains turning a uniform, ashen grey as clouds covered the moon. Then, remembering that she’d made her bed in a room facing north, Wratha had relaxed. And hearing Canker’s mournful howling rising from some nether place of his choice, she knew what had lured her from sleep and gladly returned to it.
But the next time she came awake, that was because she knew! Knew that the last glint of gold was gone from the peaks of the barrier range, that all of Starside lay in shadow, and that the others were even now stirring, called up from their sleep by the long night just beginning. And her eyes blinked open like shutters thrown back, and her forked tongue moved luxuriously, sensually, in the thirsting tunnel of her mouth.
Sundown! And now she would see what this new but ancient land had to offer.
Knowing that the others would be just as eager to be up and about, Wratha had no time to spare. In the launching bays she’d found Gorvi and Vasagi mustering their lieutenants and rousing their beasts, and in a little while Canker, Wran and Spiro had joined them. Gorvi had been surly.
“The climb is crippling!” he’d complained. “But I won’t be making it again. While the rest of you slept I went below, looked my place over, and saw what you have not seen: that the sun strikes only these higher levels. Wratha, you are welcome to them! But down there, I have launching bays of my own, and stables for my flyers. When we return I’ll take my creatures below. As for the wells: you’re right, they are foul. When I have the material, then I shall make a creature to eat the slime and purify the water.”
“You have no complaints, then?” Wratha was pleased.
Gorvi shrugged, and grudgingly replied: “Only that I must dwell in the basement, as it were, and see to the wells for all to share. As for my levels, apartments, facilities: they are or will be ample. But all this talk of responsibilities prompts me to inquire: just what are your duties, Wratha? I mean, now that you’ve risen to the top, as it were …”
“I shall house and tend the siphoneers,” was her immediate response. “A place of these dimensions will need more than one, for no use having water if you can’t deliver it.” She frowned at Gorvi. “What? And do you imply that I would shirk responsibility?”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned to the brothers Wran and Spiro. “And did you inspect your levels, also?”
Despite that they were physically identical (or perhaps because of it), the twin bloodsons of Eygor Kill-glance affected opposing styles and mannerisms: one was loutish, the other a “gentleman”. In the main their allegedly inherited “madness” was also affected, though this was a matter for conjecture and argument among the Wamphyri. Undeniable, though, that in Turgosheim the destructive rages of Wran had been notorious, giving licence to the general consensus that he, at least, was quite insane.
As for their disparity in appearance: paradoxically it was Spiro who went in rags and sandals, with a strip of cloth upon his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes, while Wran dressed impeccably in a cloak and finely Grafted leather boots out of Sunside. Physically, their looks were nothing extraordinary: broad in the shoulder and narrow in the hip (if running a little to fat), they stood six and a half feet tall. A small black wen on the point of Wran’s fleshy chin, together with his elegant dress, distinguished him from his brother.
But it was the ragged one, Spiro, who answered Wratha’s question about an inspection of their levels:
“Briefly, aye,” he glowered, as was his wont. “We, too, have a serviceable launching-bay for flyers and warriors, and like Gorvi we’ll move our beasts down there at first opportunity. But it seems that when this place was deserted, the gas-beasts were left behind to die and rot in their chambers. Now their dust is everywhere, drifted into every nook and cranny, and clogging all the ducts. As you know, impurities can cause blockages, stenches, even explosions. Which means that before we can hope to bring back light and warmth to the stack, all must be made clean, the walls of the chambers polished, the pipes flushed to discover the leaks, and all repairs made safe.”
Wratha nodded. “Well, in one more sundown—two at most—we should have thralls enough for all such
work. Meanwhile, we’ll have to live with it. Ah, but as I recall, luxuries were also scarce in Turgosheim!” And to Canker:
“How about you? Do you have complaints, too?”
He shook his head, set his mane flying. “None!” he barked. “I have a small but useful workshop, a launching-bay, and veritable mazes of apartments on all levels. My windows are wide and face north, with suitable balconies from which I may ogle the moon. When I sing … the walls reverberate with choruses all their own, and my rooms are filled with sound! All I need now is a bitch to warm my bed, a bone to sharpen my teeth on, and I shall be content!”
“You shall have all of that and more,” Wratha nodded, and turned to Vasagi the Suck. “Last, but by no means least?”
Vasagi had no voice as such. Below his dark, flattened, convoluted nose his face was a trunk of pale pink flesh which tapered into a quivering proboscis. But the Suck had developed his sign-language to an extraordinary degree; there was meaning in his slightest glance, each turn and tilt of his head, every wrinkle of his forehead or flutter of his long, tapering fingers. So that between this and his telepathy, which was an art shared by all of the Wamphyri to one degree or another, his “voice” was as clear as any other’s and clearer than most.
I have no complaints, he answered as “simply” as that, with a complicated shrug that said it for him. Except Wratha could swear that she also “heard” him say: However, and if or when I do have complaints, then you shall hear of them first, Lady.
If there was a threat in it, she ignored it for the moment. But she would not forget it. Meanwhile, there was enough to keep everyone occupied.
“Mount up!” Wratha cried. “Up, all, and into the air—warriors, too! The sun is off the peaks and it’s twilight on Sunside. And now, if Maglore has it right, we shall see what no one else has seen for all of fourteen years.”
With which they had headed west over the boulder plains, then south across the mouth of the great pass and the glowing hemisphere of the legendary hell-lands Gate, finally to this very plateau where now—
—Where now Wratha’s renegades landed and joined her on the rim. And as they returned to earth and the present, so did the Lady’s thoughts …
“There!” she said, pointing. “Look there!”
Below them, maybe three miles distant in the lee of the twilight mountains, a Szgany town or more properly a village stood on slightly elevated ground between twin streams which tumbled down from the heights. Southwards, the streams joined up and formed a river through the forest; to east and west, at ancient fording places, stout wooden bridges spanned the cascading waters. The lands thus enclosed, between mountains on the one hand, streams on the other, were sufficient to support the township.
Szgany! Vasagi’s facial anomaly quivered his anticipation.
“Women!” Canker fell to his knees and might have offered up thanks to the moon in his fashion, but Wratha stopped him with a glance.
“Thralls galore!” Gorvi’s whisper oozed his delight. “And fresh lieutenants to oversee them in their duties.”
“Flesh for the shaping,” Spiro scowled. “The first small nucleus of our army. But a town as big as this? Why, Turgosheim never saw the like!”
“And all ours,” Wratha nodded. “But I think you’ll find this a small place, compared with what’s waiting out there!” She threw her arms wide as if to enclose all of Sunside, and their greedy scarlet eyes took in something of its span:
The curved horizons to east and west, and between them a dozen and more campfires clearly visible, dotting the darkening land like glowworms as far as the eye could see. Broad forests lying dark to the south, and beyond them furnace deserts, cooling now under banded amethyst skies. In all, a vast expanse.
“How many of them?” Wran, who was normally silent except in a passion, spoke up. “The Szgany, I mean. Ten thousand, do you think?”
“What?” Wratha smiled at him. “Why, even in Turgosheim’s Sunside there are that many! No … fifty thousand, and more!”
Spiro gripped his brother’s arm. “Just think, Wran! Fifty thou …!” But the words were choked off as his emotions overcame him. He cleared his throat. “Our tithe will be massive!”
“Tithe?” Wratha laughed, a young girl’s laugh, which in the next moment became a woman’s voice again, indeed a Lady’s. “No tithe-system here, Spiro. We take what we want!”
“Oh?” said Gorvi. “But if they’re so many, surely they can fight us? We only talk of building an army; they are already an army!”
Wratha shook her head. “They are Szgany, yes, but it seems that in fourteen years they’ve become as territorial as we ourselves. See how they’ve settled, divided their lands, built their towns. Fight, did you say? With what and against whom? Against each other, perhaps, but not against us. Have you forgotten the trogs we fell upon in their devotions? The Wamphyri are no more, Gorvi! We are the stuff of legends!”
Gorvi was astonished; for this time his natural duplicity—his devious mind, which usually examined every angle, expecting trouble from whichever quarter—had worked against him to obscure the simple facts, which Wratha had made clear. “But of course.” he said, his face agog. “They are unprepared. They don’t know we’re here, or even that we exist!”
“But they will,” Wratha told him, “eventually. And then it will be as it was in Turgosheim, too late—for them! Then they might choose to fight, by which time we shall be too many. Which is why we start by increasing our numbers … start now, tonight!”
Then why do you keep us waiting? Vasagi might look alien, but his eager thoughts were all Wamphyri.
“Simply to remind you why we are here,” Wratha answered. “I know you have certain needs, all of you; also that you must put them aside, for the moment. Now is no time for wasteful self-indulgence, but for structuring our future. Tonight we kill, but only to rekindle! Tonight we destroy, in order to create! Canker—” she turned to him, “—take as many women and make as many vampire babies as you will, until you are exhausted. But remember this: the rest of us will be making thralls! Bring a Szgany slut back to your manse, by all means, but your flyer has room for just two passengers. And we shall be taking back fine young Szgany flesh, for the making of lieutenants. Enough. I hope you take my meaning …” She turned to Wran.
“Wran, you are handsome tonight, as ever. A fine cloak and boots, and your good gauntlet at your belt. Ah, but should you rage, your cloak and boots will be ruined with blood! Aye, and your every effort wasted. So kill by all means, slay with your gauntlet all you will, but remember this: a dead man is only a dead man. Not until he has something of you in him will he rise up again, trek for Starside before the rising sun, and be your thrall in the bowels of the stack. Now, your rages are legendary, I know, but not tonight, Wran, not tonight. Instead, let it be like this: don’t maim but make each kill a clean one, for we’ve no use for thralls who are cripples. And every time you slay, take a little something, a sip, from your victim—but at the same time give a little something back! That way you’ll make useful vampires, Wran, not useless corpses.”
She looked at the rest of them. The same applies to all, of course …
“Now: these are the instructions you should give to those who become your thralls: that when they rise up undead and flee from the rising sun, they should bring with them into Starside grain from their storehouses, nuts and fruits, tools and other metal things—but never silver!—and any woven items which they can carry. They can bring them on their travois or carts, through the great pass; which is why this place makes a good choice, because it is close to the pass …” She paused for a moment’s thought. And eventually: “Well, I think that covers it.”
They began to turn away, head for their flyers, but she stopped them. “No, wait: two more things.
“I remember a time—oh, long ago—on Turgosheim’s Sunside, when I was a Szgany titheling. A captive of the Wamphyri, I was given into the charge of a young lieutenant and taken up on to his flyer’s back.
Then … I killed him! Any live prisoners you take, make sure they’re either tightly bound or unconscious, or both!
“Finally, don’t let the warriors glut themselves. A morsel here, a tidbit there, sufficient only to fuel themselves and no more.” She nodded sharply. “There! Is all understood?”
All was understood. Again Wratha’s nod. “Good! Now let their fires guide you down to what will be glory for you, hell for them. And if all goes well, later there’s maybe a treat for you …”
The Szgany of Twin Fords scarcely knew what had hit them. Two of the warriors landed at the bridges, destroying them in seconds, and the third towards the junction of the rivers, from where it herded fleeing villagers back towards the town. The flyers were guided down closer to Twin Fords itself, to encircle it in a ring of lolling grey primordial shapes. Largely harmless when grounded, still these manta-shaped beasts were fearsome to look at, and they had orders from their riders to roll upon and crush anyone who came too close. They could eat flesh, of course, but were instructed not to; their food consisted of a special preparation, which Wratha hoped soon to manufacture on Starside.
But in Twin Fords their arrival had not gone unnoticed: the rumble of warrior propulsors was unmistakable to certain of the older inhabitants, also the amorphous, squid-like silhouettes which blotted out the stars as they passed overhead, and the stench of exhaust gases which fell on the town like the smoke of a hundred corpse-fires. And a concerted sigh of horror went up and was passed on, swelling to a choking cry in the suddenly reeking twilight: “Wamphyri! Wamphyri.”
Issuing a clinging vampire mist as they advanced into the village, the raiders heard that massed cry—indeed, they felt the terror which their presence engendered—and laughed. They fed upon it, and with Wamphyri passions inflamed met the fleeing inhabitants head-on. The result was carnage.
