Blood Brothers

by Brian Lumley

  The Thyre don’t kill.

  “Then they’ll chase me away, or carry me into the desert to die.” Suddenly giddy, he closed his eyes for a moment and clutched at the sheer face.

  In which case you have nothing to lose, said the other, grimly, since that is why you came here. But then, knowing his answer had been cruel: No, they won’t harm you in any way. Not if you tell them you were speaking to me. Not if you speak my secret name.

  Already a third of the way to the top, Nathan dragged one leaden foot after the next up the ancient stairway. The ledge was narrow and the sandstone badly weathered. One slip … and none of this would matter anyway. “But I don’t know your secret name,” he said.

  It is Rogei. Ro-gay. Now you know it.

  “You have a good deal of faith in me, I can tell,” Nathan told him. “Perhaps more than I have in myself. And I thank you, Rogei, for telling me your secret name. But can you also tell me why it was secret?”

  It is our way. The other offered an unbodied shrug, which Nathan sensed. In life all of the Thyre are telepathic, among themselves and sometimes with the creatures of the desert, too. Yes, and very rarely we may even “hear” one of you Szgany whose mind is similarly gifted—like you, Nathan. And very often we hear the great shouted thoughts of the Wamphyri! But unlike the Szgany we don’t fear them, for they would never come into these lands which are closest to the sun. Being telepathic our minds are open, yet we would remain private unto ourselves. Wherefore our secret names are known only to those who are closest to us. This way, if a person does not know your name he won’t pry. And thus we remain individuals. It is our way, and that is my best explanation.

  “I think I understand,” Nathan said. “Your secret names protect your privacy.”

  That is correct. But…be careful!!

  Almost at the top of his climb, Nathan’s foot had slipped and he had very nearly fallen. He clutched at a knob of projecting sandstone, regained his balance and clasped himself to the sheer face. And even without lungs, still Rogei gave a sigh of relief:

  What, and are you trying to frighten a dead creature out of his wits?

  Nathan shook his head, stilled his trembling, and gradually straightened up. “No need to be … to be frightened on my behalf, Rogei,” he gasped, his words a tortured rasp. “Do you see what has happened? I stopped myself from falling. Just an hour ago I thought I wanted to die and might even have been glad to fall; but having spoken to you—perhaps there’s some purpose to my life after all. Anyway, I no longer wish to die. I only hope my living will prove to be worth it.”

  For my purposes it will be, certainly! (The other was eager.) For through you—only through you, Nathan—I can talk to my children, to their children, and theirs, and know what is become of them in the land of the living. I will talk to all the Elders of the people, and explain to them the truth of our world beyond life; they always suspected it but had no proof. Now they shall have proof! And I can tell them the secrets of this place, so that when their time is come they won’t fear it. All through you, Nathan, only through you.

  Nathan had reached the place where the ledge became horizontal and stood in the entrance to the first cave. “Secrets? In death? But … what can there be to know? Immobile, incorporeal, doomed to everlasting darkness, what do the dead do in their afterlife?”

  But that is one of the secrets! His dead friend answered at once. However, since you are the Necroscope, I can tell you. I must, for who else can I tell? Ah, and these are things which I have longed to say. Now listen:

  Whatever a man was, thought, and did in life, so he continues to be, think, and do in death. The storytellers make up new stories, which they can only ever tell to the dead. And I have heard some wonderful stories, Nathan! Great thinkers and philosophers—of which, in all modesty, I was one—pursue their thoughts and beliefs to logical conclusions, then exchange their ideas with others of similar leanings. The mystics among us think the deepest, subtlest thoughts of all, and may not be disturbed where their minds fly out beyond the world’s rim; by which I mean they are lost in their own conjecturings. In life, I had a friend who fashioned leather buckets for the wells; now he designs the most wonderful machines, driven by the rivers of the underworld itself, to carry precious water into all the caverns under the desert!

  “You have purpose, then,” Nathan nodded. “Yes, and you achieve.”

  But of what use achievements which bring no benefits? The other drove home his point. Don’t you see? Through you we can pass on this secret knowledge—which is only secret because we have no way to tell it—to all of those we left behind! And so you, too, may achieve and have a purpose.

  Nathan had gone a little way into the first cave. It was more a tunnel, narrow and low-ceilinged, so that he must bend his back. In there, it had quickly grown dark and cold. Uncertain, he paused and felt Rogei looking through his eyes, even as his brother Nestor had once been able to look through them, And: Stop! the other cautioned. This is not the Cavern of the Ancients. The entrance is the next cave but one. You will know it from its ornamentation.

  Retracing his steps, Nathan groped his way backwards out of the cave into sunlight. Almost spent, his thirst was a constant agony; each rasping breath he took sucked more moisture out of his throat, his entire body. Turning, he looked out and down at the gully’s rocky floor … an error; the world seemed to rotate and his head swam dangerously! He went to all fours, waited until he’d regained his balance, then crawled the rest of the way along the ledge to the entrance of the unman fane.

  Unman? Rogei queried. Yes, there have been times when we were called that by the Szgany. For they consider that of all thinking creatures, they alone are the true men. Nathan sensed a shrug. But then, so do the trogs! Aye, and so do the Thyre, I suppose. We all have our pride; but pride is only one thing, and we are alike in more ways than one. The main difference is this: that in our becoming, we followed different paths.

  Nathan could no longer speak; his thoughts had to speak for themselves. I mean no insult, he said, but there’s no help for it. Each and every thought I think, you hear it—everything! There’s nothing I can hide from you.

  He sensed the other’s nod of understanding. It seems unfair, I know. But I was born with my telepathy and practised it all my days, while in you it is a fledgeling thing. And as a Necroscope you are likewise a novice. But these are skills which may well grow in you with time.

  Nathan snorted, perhaps bitterly. Granted, that is, that time is on my side!

  Rogei continued to sense his needs. Of food there is none. But water … there may be a little. Except you must get to it.

  In here? Nathan looked at the cave’s entrance, much larger than the others.

  Perhaps, but deep inside, a long way. And that delirium you so desired is much closer now. Rogei’s mental voice despaired. I can feel the flickering of your flame.

  It would be a shame, Nathan thought wanderingly, to die now when I no longer want to! He stood up, leaned against the arched entrance to the cave, peered with swimming eyes at its weathered carvings. The bas-reliefs were almost as old as the desert and sand-blasted to obscurity, but his trembling fingers could follow their still flowing contours in the stone.

  And for the first time he knew something of awe to match the sensation he had known when he stood on the crater rim of the Starside Gate. From out of the cave, an aura of antiquity flowed over him; from unsuspected deeps a cool breath of air carried a not unpleasant musk and a hint, the merest suggestion … of moisture?

  Water, yes, but deep down below, Rogei said again. Beyond the Cavern of the Ancients. Come in, Nathan Kiklu, Necroscope. We welcome you.

  From some secret inner well, Nathan forced the last drop of spit down his throat, and with it croaked: “We? How many of you? And why are you the only one who has spoken to me?” Staggering out of the glaring sunlight into the cool shade, for a moment he was blind, but in the next he saw the walls of the tunnel extending before him into deepening gloom.


  When we sensed your presence and heard your thoughts and dreams (Rogei answered, from very much closer now), and when we heard how you spoke to wolves so far away—which was not a dream—then we decided upon a spokesman. Since it seemed you were Szgany, and since in my life I occasionally had dealings with the so-called Travellers, I, Rogei, was honoured.

  Nathan leaned forward until he felt he was falling. Then, mustering his feet into reluctant life, he went weaving, stumbling down the high, wide tunnel. Weightless, it seemed as if he floated from wall to wall. But for all that his body was suddenly light, he knew that in fact he was sinking, and each step threatened to be his last. I feel… that I should rest now, he thought! I feel I should rest for a very long time. Except now that it’s time, I’m afraid to do it.

  Then don’t! Rogei’s mental voice was vibrant with alarm. Take it from us, Nathan: while death is not the desert which living men believe it to be, life by comparison is an oasis!

  Nathan nodded deliriously. But this oasis is drying up.

  The passage widened out, became a cave, a cavern. Nathan entered from gloom into light and fell to his knees in drifted dust. Lolling there, knuckles on the floor, shoulders slumped and head swaying, he knew that this could only be the Cavern of the Ancients, a Thyre mausoleum. And from the look of it, it was probably the greatest of them all.

  He craned his neck to look up.

  Across the centre of the sandstone ceiling wall to wall, set into the yellow rock like the slit pupil of a cat’s eye, a gash of white quartz seemed carved from light. The cavern was riven right across its width, which was huge, but the seepage of centuries had filled the gap with crystals which had hardened to stone. Crystal stalactites hung from the ceiling, and glowing humps of it like shining candles reached up from the floor. And all around its perimeter—in alcoves and niches, on shelves and ledges carved from the stone itself—lay the mummied ancients of the Thyre, whose socket eyes gazed back at Nathan where he observed them.

  And: “Here I am,” he croaked, rolling over onto his back, surrendering to the weirdness of it all without further question.

  Again Rogei was anxious for him, telling him: Nathan, you may sleep, but you may not die!

  Oh? he thought back. And will you stop me again? It might not be so easy a second time.

  Brothers! Rogei cried out, this time speaking to his dead companions and not to Nathan. And were we not right? Only feel the warmth of his thoughts? Is he not a light in the darkness? We dare not let him die. And they knew that he was right.

  The massed voices of more than a hundred dead Thyre rose up in a tumult at first, and sighed like a wind in his strange mind: Nathaaan! But they soon saw the error of that and began to speak as individuals, so that shortly he could distinguish them one from another:

  You must not die, Nathaaan …

  Rogei is riiight…

  Szgany youth, you are the light. Continue to shine for us, Nathaaan …

  You are like a bridge between worlds, Necroscope: should you fall, one world is cut off foreeever!

  On and on, so many of them …

  Much like Nathan’s own thoughts, those of the dead Thyre were warm as blankets; they wrapped him where he lay. And with their warmth surrounding him, comforting him, he began to drift into sleep. But Rogei was concerned that Nathan might possibly drift beyond sleep, and even in death the anxiety of the Thyre spokesman was such that it gnawed at him. He must be sure, and take whatever measures must be taken.

  Nathan thought he heard a groaning of antique leather and a clatter as of dry sticks rattling together. It was a curious sound, but not enough to lure him back from what might well be his last sleep. Neither was the hand which at the last clasped his hand. They were small and shrivelled, those fingers, cool and dry … and dead. But the thoughts which accompanied them were warm, so that Nathan was not afraid, as other men would, assuredly, have been.

  The final proof, Nathan Kiklu, Rogei whispered, his awed voice trembling with the wonder of it. A secret which not even I knew! And now rest, Nathan, rest.

  Aye, rest, Nathaaan, the others sighed in unison from their many niches and benches in the walls. Your flame is strong and will not die. But should the spark burn low, we will be here to blow on the embers. And so you may sleep, Necroscope, sleep …

  III

  The Thyre were not people to desert their dead and leave them unguarded against scavengers; a fox or mangy dog might wander here from the grasslands, or a vulture discover the way in. But as Rogei had been well aware from the start, the Cavern of the Ancients was a natural sounding-chamber. Only let a footfall sound within—the snuffle of a beast’s snout, the tearing of old leather or breaking of centuried bones—and its echoes would find their way below.

  Down there, beyond a labyrinth of natural and carved passageways, caves and grottoes, the guardian of the place already knew there was an intruder. Nathan’s rasping words, “Here I am,” had thundered down to him like the shout of a giant; the slap, slap, slap of his sandalled feet had reverberated, and … there had been other sounds, more dreadful sounds. Plainly the ancients were discovered and molested.

  Throughout his long watch the guardian, out of respect for his ancestors, had sat in an antechamber within sight of the sacred cavern. He had not entered it, for even the dust was fashioned of men and thus holy. Towards the end of his watch, hearing the signal trill of a whistle blown far, far below, he had set out to meet his relief half-way. But now, before they could even come together, exchange a few words of greeting and pass each other by, there was this: an intruder had entered the Cavern of the Ancients. Worse, a human intruder, but not of the Thyre breed of humanity.

  Whistling an alarm, a shrill warning which he knew would be taken up by his relief and passed back into the more populated underworld, and sending a thought—Someone has entered the Cavern of the Ancients.—the guardian turned on his heel and sped back silently the way he had come, along a well-worn path climbing through bedrock, limestone, finally into the upper sandstone. And approaching the sacred cavern, he fitted a long arrow to his bow.

  All was silent now; the intruder was still; perhaps he had heard the guardian coming and was lying in ambush! The guardian went cautiously, allowed time for the huge green pupils of his eyes to shrink commensurate to the light in the quartz chamber, and finally entered. He stood stock still, bowstring drawn and arrow pointing ahead, and saw …

  … A man—the intruder, Szgany!—collapsed there on the floor, but not alone. For with him lay a harmless old mummied thing, a clutter of rags and old bones. It was one of the ancients. Desecration!

  The guardian crept closer and aimed his arrow directly at the young man’s heart. He did not know him, but he knew that he should die—for what he had done to the old one, whose smallest bones lay scattered in a thin trail across the dusty floor. The Thyre do not kill men, but this one should die! Except … what had been done here?

  The two were together, sprawled, feet pointing away from each other, right hands touching, indeed clasped. One of them was very dead and had been for, oh, a long time, and the other one was not quite dead. But the Thyre guardian was a skilful tracker who hunted in the desert and often at night, and the tracks in the Cavern of the Ancients were plain for any man to see. The dust lay thick and mainly undisturbed, and the guardian could not be mistaken.

  And putting up his bow he backed off, walking slowly and in his own tracks, and returned to the antechamber to wait for his relief and others of the Thyre, by now alerted. And on his way out, he could not take his eyes off the tracks in the dust of the chamber: one set of footprints coming from the passage to the outside world and leading to where the Szgany youth had fallen to the floor, and the other … was scarcely a trail at all. Just a few scuff marks in the dust, where something light and thin had dragged itself towards the fallen youth, shedding its bones as it went…

  Time to wake up.

  Nathan heard the “voice”, so much like spoken words that he couldn’t differ
entiate, and felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. For a moment he thought it must be his mother, come to get him out of his bed; it had the same kind of warmth. But then, all of the voices which had tried to speak to him recently had been like that. He remembered them very dimly, as if he had dreamed them: their careful probing and questioning. Only that, with nothing of any detail, except that they had all been warm.

  But as he stirred and mumblingly protested his awakening, and the void of his mind began to come alive with true memories, Nathan knew that this couldn’t be Nana Kiklu’s voice for she was dead. At which, activated by the sad thought, the cool hand at once transferred from his shoulder to his brow, where it smoothed away the furrows with gentle strokings.

  “And now you hear me,” the voice said—actually said it—a throaty rasp which nevertheless conveyed both a nod and a smile. A female voice. That of a Thyre female! And all of Nathan’s memories came flooding back at once.

  Even as he gasped, lifted his head and opened his eyes, so the hand moved to cover them. And: “Don’t start so!” the husky voice chided. “There’s nothing harmful here. But… it will be strange,” she warned.

  Nathan tried not to swallow and was reluctant to test his voice; but he must, for his question was instinctive. “Where am I?” Then: relief as the words came out without pain! His throat was moist, flexible, responsive. Which prompted a second question: “How long was I asleep?”

  “Sleep?” she said, slowly removing her hand, knowing now that he knew she was not one of his own. “Is that what it was? More like death’s doorway, Nathan—and you upon the threshold! But now you are in the Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs.”

  He looked at her … and looked away, beyond her. In a way the experience was shocking, in that he had never before seen a living female of the Thyre and had not known what to expect, but in another it was less strange than when he was with his wolves. At least his nurse was—what, human? Well, not animal, anyway. Never a wild creature. Nathan checked himself: that was a line of thought he’d do well to avoid. What had Rogei told him: that even trogs consider themselves true men? This Thyre female was human, of a sort. It was just that she wasn’t Szgany. Another line of thought best avoided.