by Brian Lumley
“Runemanse? Turgosheim? I know them well enough,” the vampire answered. “I know what I may do and what is forbidden, the places where I may pass safely and those where I must never go. For unlike you I am not ‘privileged’ in that respect.”
Nathan climbed wooden stairs to peer out through a high, round window. Looking west and a little south, it gave him a good view of all Turgosheim. “Maglore says he will not change me,” he said, half to himself. “He wants me for a friend. It seems he desires that I should retain my Szgany initiative.”
Sniggering, the other followed him up the stairs. “What?” he said. “You’re to be his friend, you say? Well, and he’s had ‘friends’ before, has Maglore. I’m not so sure I envy you your clean blood after all. Here in Runemanse … some things are easier for a vampire.”
Nathan read his mind, however loosely. There was a great red hunger in him, and also a great fear, of Maglore. But there was pain, too, and curiosity, and a longing like the ache for a loved one who is far away, or lost forever. Which Nathan understood only too well. “Have you been here long?” he said.
“Who counts the time?” the other shrugged, and looked at Nathan through seething eyes. “We seem of an age, or I might be a year or two older. But I came here when I was sixteen, out of Sunside. Perhaps I might live-so long again. And how’s that for a nightmarish thought? Why, if I were not a vampire, I would throw myself down from this window for the guardian warriors to find broken in Turgosheim’s bottoms when the sun lights on the barrier mountains! Ah, but I am a vampire, and tenacious! I might do it, but my weird blood won’t let me.”
“Do you drink the blood of innocent men?” Nathan supposed he was taking a chance with a question like that, but asked it anyway.
“Rather the blood of girls and women!” the other answered gurglingly, out of a phlegmy throat. “Sometimes, when the tithelings come, we are given our share. Maglore tries to keep his creatures happy, at least. The females will pass from hand to hand; we share their blood and bodies, until their lust is as great as our own. And the males are shared by Maglore’s women. Those who are to be kept are then given employment under the supervision of Maglore’s lieutenants or senior thralls, while any who are deemed unworthy … are drained, and their bodies go to fuel the manse.”
“Fuel?”
“The provisioning,” the other nodded, flame-eyed and grinning, however grimly. “A manse can’t run on air and water alone, you know. But why waste time with questions? If as you say your movements are to be unrestricted, and you’ll have access to all of Runemanse’s chambers, workshops, and storerooms, why, you’ll soon enough see for yourself!” His answer seemed like a threat in its own right, so that Nathan didn’t ask him to elaborate but looked out through the great round window.
And after a moment: “Do you have a name?” he inquired.
“Nicolae,” said the other. “Nicolae Seersthrall … now. And you?”
“Nathan. Nathan Kiklu.”
“Ah, no!” the other grinned again. “You are Nathan Seersthrall. For here in Runemanse, we are all brothers and sisters. To keep your second name would mean you were a free man, which you are not. No one in Turgosheim is free.”
“Turgosheim,” said Nathan musingly, continuing to scan the gorge through the empty window. “All of its spires and manses. Can you name them?”
“Why should I?”
“Because I would consider it a favour,” Nathan answered. “Which one day I might return.”
Nicolae Seersthrall shrugged. “I doubt that you’ll be in any position. Also, it’s a waste of my time. But on the other hand—and as I believe I said before—who counts the time in Runemanse?”
He settled down on the great stone windowsill, where his arm touched Nathan’s—the merest touch. But: “Ahhh!” he said, half-sigh, half-gasp, and Nathan knew why. For where Nathan’s flesh was warm, vibrantly alive, Nicolae’s was cold as clay.
“And yet you are not undead,” Nathan said, drawing a little apart.
“No,” the other shook his head. “I have never been ‘dead’. I am merely changed, the lowest of the low. Vampire blood has contaminated my blood, that is all. But to touch one such as you, whose blood is clean … is thrilling nevertheless! And it will be even more so for Maglore’s women! That’s something for you to avoid, if you can, Nathan Seersthrall.”
“I know nothing of women,” Nathan shook his head. “Or … very little.” Half apologetically, he shrugged.
“What?” Nicolae laughed. “You are a virgin?” But his face went deadly serious in a moment. “Never tell them that, do you hear me? For if you do, they’ll not let you alone for a minute but seek to suck you dry of more than just your blood! And despite all of Maglore’s commands, they’ll get you in the end!”
Nathan said nothing but simply nodded, and after a while Nicolae looked out over Turgosheim. “Very well,” he said. “And so you would know about this place …”
He pointed to the east, right across the three-mile mouth of the gorge to where the mountains fell down to the Starside plains. “As you see, the barrier range was like a long, edible root, out of which some giant took a great bite—or a bight? But several of his teeth were stumps and others were missing entirely, and so a number of stacks and spires were left standing in the ‘bight’ of the gorge, like pulp in the ‘bite’ of an apple.” He let his arm swing to the right, south-east through an arc of thirty degrees. “There against the far wall of the ravine, the scrapings which those great teeth missed:
“In fact they are stacks weathered from the old face of the gorge. Stacks, spires, and sometimes chimneys, where the fault has not quite managed to break away from the bulk of the cliff. Tonight, despite that the vats of the Wamphyri are bubbling with a vengeance, the light is good; smoke and steam have not obscured the view; a wind over Starside’s plains is drawing the vapours away. But in any case it would make no difference; I would know the various spires and manses from their shapes alone, or from their fires, whose colours are distinct. To the left of the group, that one with the flaring yellow gas jet is Cronespire, the lair of the Lady Zindevar. Aye, and from the brightness of the flare you can see how hard she works tonight…”
Nathan looked at him. “At what does this Lady … work?” He had guessed it but desired corroboration.
“At her vats, of course,” Nicolae’s glance was scornful. “At the shaping of human flesh into other than human flesh. At the making of monsters—out of men!”
“Warriors?”
“Warriors, flyers, creatures,” said the other. “The Wamphyri are building an army! But … do you want to know about Turgosheim, or don’t you?”
Nathan nodded, and Nicolae continued. “Next in line after Cronespire, a hand’s span south, or so it appears from here—that great stack of stone standing all askew in a lesser bight of its own, haphazardly piled as by an infant balancing shards of slate—is melancholy Vormspire. Note the paleness of its lights, like glow-worms, or the foxfire on a corpse left unburied. Vormspire is the aerie of Lord Vormulac Unsleep, perhaps the mightiest of all the Wamphyri. But the stack’s illuminations are ever dim, its aspect shrouded, and its vampire master morose. Vormulac and Maglore are ‘friends’, or as friendly as the Wamphyri ever get to be.”
Nicolae’s arm traversed south. “There, where the bight curves west along the rear wall—that series of caverns like sockets in some weathered, freakish skull carved from the face of the hollow cliff itself—is Gauntmanse. Its lights, fires and smoke have a uniformly purple tinge, which among the Wamphyri is the colour of sexual prowess. Lord Grigor is the master there, or “Grigor the Lech”, as he’s better known. One of the “younger” Lords, Grigor’s cognomen says it all: for as fast as the Lech acquires female tithelings, so he wears them out! In Gauntmanse, young girls have withered to hags in the space of one long night…”
So it went: Nicolae pointed out the more prominent spires and manses, naming them all and detailing many of the characteristics of their mas
ters and mistresses. His discourse covered Zunspire, Masquemanse, Tormanse, and many others along the rear wall, until the angle of observation became too acute. Then he looked into the gorge itself, where numerous lesser stacks and knolls made gargoyle humps among the shadows of Turgosheim’s lower reaches. “Down there dwell the lowly Lords and certain newcomers, and others who merely aspire. Yet even in the depths some Lords are well-established and powerful among the Wamphyri, who have chosen to live there for reasons of their own. One such is Lom Halfstruck, master of Trollmanse. His place is that square, squat knoll there, with turrets in its corners and red lanterns in their windows. Lom is a dwarf among the Wamphyri, whose legs are stunted. He says that since he was born close to the earth, it suits him to stay there, and he scorns the soaring aeries of the others …
“… But there,” Nicolae Seersthrall blinked twice, and turned his feral gaze from the gloomy gorge of Turgosheim inwards upon Nathan. “There’s a lot more, but that’s enough for now.”
Nathan nodded and said, “Despite that you’re no more than a prisoner here, you seem to have acquired a great deal of useful knowledge.”
Nicolae’s turn to nod and sigh. “I’ve spent many a long hour at windows such as this one, overlooking Turgosheim,” he said. “But in Runemanse there are things to look into as well as out of. I tidy Maglore’s rooms, all of them. In one of this workshops he keeps an amazing model of the gorge, where all of its spires and manses are represented. For the Lord Maglore is a mage and seer, and believes in the magical, mystical things. If another Lord is spiteful towards him, Maglore utters curses against the likeness of his manse, to bring down a doom upon it! Also, being a mentalist, the model helps concentrate his mind when he sends out his thoughts to spy upon his contemporaries. It provides the targets for his mind-darts.”
“You should be careful,” said Nathan, “that he does not look in your mind!”
“Why would he?” said the other, with a small start. “For what am I, after all? I am nothing!” But still he drew back a little, in sudden alarm. Then: it was as if a wind had blown in through the window; the pair felt an inner chill; and in a moment Nicolae’s alarm was very real. “Maglore!” he snatched a breath.
There was a shadow in the room, at the foot of the stairs, one of many cast by the flaring of the kitchen’s gas jets. This one had been there for some little time, though neither Nicolae nor Nathan had noticed it until now. But it wasn’t just a shadow, for as finally their eyes focused upon it, they saw that its own were scarlet. And: “Maglore, indeed!” it said.
Nicolae was on his feet in a moment and flying, gibbering down the wooden stairs so quickly as to shake them. But Maglore trapped him at the bottom, gripped his shoulder in one clawlike hand and drew him yelping to a halt. “Not so fast,” he murmured in a doomful voice. “For one who talks so readily to strangers, Nicolae, you don’t do nearly enough talking to your master.”
“My tongue ran away with me!” The other was in a state.
“Oh?” Maglore answered. “Well, and now it may run away from you entirely. Indeed, I might bite it right out of your face!”
Nathan had stood up. Looking down on Nicolae and Maglore, he could read the Seer Lord’s passion. Despite Maglore’s quiet tones, his anger was enormous. Starting down the stairs, Nathan said: “Master, it was I who asked the questions. If I had not, Nicolae could not have answered them. I asked only about Turgosheim and meant no harm. And his answers seemed likewise innocent.”
Maglore glanced at Nathan as he reached the bottom step, then glared at Nicolae again. “If he speaks so readily to you, perhaps he would speak with others—but of what? The room of the miniature, perhaps, where by use of small spells and conjurations I try to put right what wrongs are worked against me? Ah, but there are those among the Lords and Ladies of Turgosheim who would seize most swiftly upon that, whose belief in the magical, mystical things is no less than mine!”
“I would never work against you, master!” Nicolae denied it, wriggling like a worm in Maglore’s grasp. “But to talk to this Nathan … why, he is yours! In Runemanse, we are all—each and every one of us—yours!”
“But we are not all so nosy,” Maglore answered.
Nathan took a chance and said, “If Nicolae is in any way guilty, then so am I. But I say again, we are innocent, master.”
Maglore released Nicolae and thrust him stumbling away, but fixed him with his eyes and held him incapable of flight where he came to a trembling halt against the wall. And growling, the Seer Lord answered Nathan, “You may be innocent—possibly. But this one …?” He continued to glare at Nicolae. Moreover, his upper lip had wrinkled back from his eye teeth like the muzzle of a dog, and his fangs showed metamorphic growth where blood crept on ivory down from the ruptured gums.
“But since nothing is forbidden to me in all Runemanse,” Nathan spoke hurriedly, gasping the words out, “what could he tell me which I cannot discover for myself?”
Slowly, very slowly, a little of the fire went out of Maglore’s eyes. He had seemed huge, awesomely powerful, but now in a moment shrank down into himself and was merely … old. Then, to his errant thrall, he said: “Ah! Now see how he pleads for you, Nicolae. Yet if the boot were on the other foot, and if I were to give you leave, you would have his blood in a moment! What it is to have compassion, eh? Why, if I don’t take care, I can see this Nathan beguiling all of Runemanse with his winning ways!”
Nicolae, cowering to the wall, nodded his eager agreement. “Oh, he’s a one to watch, master, be sure!”
Maglore gave a phlegmy chuckle, then stood up straighter. “Oh, I am sure—but you’re the one I’ll be watching, my lad! Now begone, you scummy, treacherous thing!”
Nicolae licked his lips, slid along the wall, fled wailing past Maglore and out of the kitchen. His footsteps receded into distance, pattering through his master’s rooms …
Nathan took the opportunity to repeat, “I meant no harm. Nor do I think that Nicolae meant any harm.”
Maglore nodded. “I’m satisfied that you didn’t. But that one—is a beggar! This time I have let you intervene on his behalf. But let’s have it understood: I don’t welcome such interference. And I would advise you, Nathan: even one who is to be my … friend, should know when to step carefully.”
Nathan said nothing, and in a little while Maglore asked him, “Have you begun your exploration of Runemanse?”
“Your rooms, yes.”
“My rooms?” Maglore arched an eyebrow. “Do you always take people at their word?”
Nathan shrugged—he hoped not negligently—and said, “Only liars may not be taken at their word, master.”
Maglore blinked and slowly nodded, then laughed and slapped his thigh. “Aye! It must be true! Well, well—and so you are good at word games! And we shall get along famously. I look forward to many long conversations with you, Nathan. Except now I have things to do. A creature of mine lies damaged in its vat and I have repairs to make, lest a deal of hard work is wasted. And so I say again: go and explore the manse, or seek out your room and rest, and when I call for you come to me. Ah, but when I call, then make haste! Never keep me waiting, Nathan. Now, do you understand all?”
“Yes, master.”
Maglore turned away, and at once turned back. “Perhaps I have already warned you, but if not I do so now: avoid my lieutenants if you can, for they are impatient men and unkind. Aye, and you must also avoid my women, who are patient beyond words and only too kind! And if you follow my meaning and my advice, all will be well…”
Runemanse was a queer mixture of rocks, mainly volcanic, whose outer sheath was of quartz and feldspar fused to granite. Many of its caverns were natural, formed from cysts of expanding gas trapped in the ancient magma as lava cooled to rock. But where softer pumice had formed in the primal flux, there the Seer Lord’s thralls were at work even now, tunnelling in the body of the place like maggots in an apple.
Nathan found his “room” (a small cyst or cavelet, in fact,
situated directly below Maglore’s own expansive apartments but unconnected except through the central stairwell with its hideous guardian), set back from the perimeter of the great hall at the furthest reach of a corridor hewn through the fibrous pumice of an old lava run. There were several other rooms off that corridor; their low, arched entries lacked doors but were equipped on the inside with screens of animal skin stretched over cartilage frames, which kept their interiors private from the view of casual passers-by. Nathan’s room, however, had a wooden door with a peephole and a latch … but no key. Still, it was privacy of a sort.
Directed there by a slender young female thrall—a waif-like creature no less than Nicolae, but a vampire for all that, whose eyes were luminous in the darker places and cunning when Nathan found them observing him—he quickly examined his accommodation, or more literally his prison: a room four paces by five, paved with featureless, irregular slabs, with a bed under the high window and a small curtained area containing a crude commode and chamber pot. Low-burning gas jets in the walls gave flickering light but very little of warmth.
From the bed he stepped up into the deep, curtained window embrasure, opened the drapes and found the gap barred. Just as well; beyond the bars the drop was vertical and terrific! Looking out, the view was almost exactly the same as from Maglore’s kitchen window overhead, which solved the problem of orientation. Then, climbing down again, Nathan found his vampire guide sitting on the rough blankets of his bed. He had left her outside the open door, without indicating that he desired company. But these creatures had minds of their own, and came and went like smoke.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” he told her. “But now I intend to sleep.”
“Well,” she indicated his bed with a languid hand, “you have a bed. It’s good for sleeping, among other things.” Her smile was enticing as she slowly unfastened her blouse, showing Nathan the inner curves of her breasts. But her flesh was sallow, and her eye-teeth long, white and sharp. Fascinated, he stared at her where she stretched like a kitten, and saw the stains of her aureoles under thin material forced up into sharp, twin peaks by the stiffening of her nipples.
