by Brian Lumley
Zindevar took up the story: ‘Doubtless you’ve observed
the constant stream of flyers, lieutenants and thralls we’re sending down? Well, they’ll all get their fill. We stunned as many of the Szgany as were required — about half of them, as Vormulac stated, but mainly the old, the unskilled, the 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 you’ve rested awhile and taken a little sustenance, I’d be obliged if you’d guide our beast-minders and their starveling warriors to the very spot. This way the entire army will be fully fuelled for the fighting that lies ahead.’
At which Devetaki cocked her head knowingly on one side, and inquired: There is to be fighting, then? Oh, really? So is it that I’m only hearing the good news? And what about the bad? I saw no sign of Laughing Zack Shornskull as I flew in. What of him and his? I seem to recall him boasting that his contingent alone would have Wratha the Risen’s measure. Can something have happened to change his mind, do you think? Did Wratha’s “measure” exceed his calculations?’ She was all innocence.
Vormulac scowled down the hook of his nose. ‘It strikes me you’ve heard all about it! Am I right, Lady? Well, the man was a braggart and a fool — but at least he was our fool! His loss is sufficient a blow without all this sniping and sniding.’
‘He was our fool?’ Devetaki repeated Vormulac’s words inquiringly, despite that she already knew. ‘His Joss, did you say? So everything I’ve heard is true: Laughing Zack will laugh no more. And his troops?’
Vormulac sighed. ‘A thrall made it back.’
And Zindevar put in: ‘Upon a flyer.’
Devetaki’s scowling mask was entirely in keeping with her mood as she glanced disdainfully at Zindevar. She not only considered the other Lady her social inferior, but also a
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social climber who liked to have her nose - and indeed her say - in just about everything; to the point where in order to be heard she would deliberately introduce trivia into otherwise serious conversations. And in an untypically scathing tone, the virgin grandam repeated her: ‘Upon a flyer, Zinde-var? Really? Well, I scarcely supposed he’d walked!’ And, ignoring the other’s spluttering, she turned back to Vormu-lac. ‘What’s the word?’
The warrior-Lord made no bones of it. ‘If we’re to believe our sole survivor, Wrathstack’s a veritable fortress. The aerie houses all of them, and they fight as one. Their creatures are lean, mean, experienced and fighting-fit; they swarm like hornets to repel their enemies. Shornskull’s losses were . .. what, total? And Wratha’s were nil. In short, it was a shambles.’
Devetaki nodded. ‘Aye, yet I find myself in disagreement with you, if only on one point. It wasn’t a total loss. We did get something out of it: knowledge. We know they’re definitely there. Also . ..’ But here she paused to glance sideways at Zindevar. Reading that glance, Lord Unsleep saw that Devetaki had something to say, but not in front of the glowering Cronesap.
‘Also,’ (he cut in, diplomatically) ‘I think you’re looking tired. What’s more, your weariness makes you just a little disagreeable, Devetaki. But the Lady Zindevar here is well-fed and her men provisioned. Wherefore I suggest that she goes to seek out the injured Wrathstack creature, and leads our hungry warriors to their supper. Also - I suggest she does it now.’
Zindevar had missed none of the interplay. Still stinging from Devetaki’s sarcasm, she drew apart and hissed: ‘Hah! And do you have favourites, my Lord?’
‘No!’ he hissed back. ‘But it appears I have generals who spit and snarl at each other when they’d do well to save their venom for our enemies!’
‘I would hear the rest of what Devetaki has to say!’ she snapped.
‘And I would have you feed my hungry warriors!’ He puffed himself up. ‘And I’d have you do it now. Unless you would prefer that I personally feed them - perhaps on your lads out of Cronespire? What, “lads” did I hear myself say? No, eunuchs, most of the poor bastards! And how are we to suppose they will fare in the fighting, eh? Why, I couldn’t put them up against women, let alone men!’ His words rang true in whichever sense.
Zindevar was furious; she couldn’t speak. She stormed out from the mouth of the blowhole and began screaming harshly for her lieutenants and beast-minders to attend her. Gesticulating and shouting, she disappeared from view.
Devetaki couldn’t help but snigger, and even Vormulac must turn away or break into a smile. But finally he controlled himself and said, ‘Now out with it, Lady. What’s on your mind?’
‘Wratha’s fortress could well end up her mausoleum!’ Devetaki was down to business at once. ‘Consider: the place stands several miles — what, nine, ten? — out on the barren boulder plains, clearly visible for miles around. Set watchers and .. . why, she couldn’t even send out a bat without we’d see it!’
‘True.’ Vormulac frowned. ‘But by the same token we can’t get near without she sees us. She has the elevation.’
Devetaki held up a finger. ‘But I fancy we’ve taken her by surprise - our coming at this time, I mean. Her Szgany supplicants didn’t even know who you were. So they weren’t prepared, and I think that she’s the same. It would be my guess that the Lady’s had no easy time of it, keeping her renegades from each other’s throats, and that they’ve only recently joined forces in the fullest sense.’
Vormulac was mystified. ‘But is that a good or bad thing? And if they were not unified before, but are now, what difference does it make? As individual Lords, they would have built up their individual forces. And Wrathstack is a vast place; I have our lone survivor’s assurance that it could house all of us and ours. For all we know, it could be filled
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with men and beasts from top to toe - just waiting to pick us off!’
Devetaki put on her smiling mask. ‘Just waiting, aye,’ she said, mysteriously.
‘Eh?’
‘Now tell me this: who can afford to wait the longest?’
To wait the . ..?’
And quietly, Devetaki inquired: ‘Is she not in siege?’
‘What?’ His great jaw fell open.
‘Where is her sustenance? Where are her provisions?’
‘Why, in Wrathstack!’
‘No.’ The virgin grandam shook her head, then changed her mind and nodded. ‘Her immediate provisions, aye . .. but later? In Sunside, that’s where. And how will she supply and resupply her creatures? If her army is huge, she’ll need to feed it - and we’ll be in the way, waiting for her. Except we’ll be well-fuelled. And I say it again: if her army is vast -‘ Devetaki shrugged - ‘then I fancy we won’t have long to wait.’
‘How so?’
‘Wratha’s no fool. She knows the lie of the land; we don’t. By now, she’ll probably know our strength; we don’t as yet know hers. She has all Sunside mapped, knows its forests and favourite hunting grounds; we haven’t and don’t, not yet. She has all the long, long night ahead: forty hours and more to go, before she — indeed we — must take to the shade.’
At which Vormulac got in: ‘But so do we have that!’
‘She is settled and we are not. And where will you puyt your army when the sun comes up?’ Devetaki’s logic was devastating; she’d always been good at word games … at tactics, as Vormulac now saw.
He grunted and scratched his beard. ‘Upon a time, I had a wife,’ he said. ‘I lost her to a vile disease. Well, enough of love. Now, for all that I’m a follower of Turgo Zolte, I have my lust . .. from time to time, you understand. But I tell you, Devetaki Skullguise, that if ever I wanted a woman for wife — which I don’t - it would be you.’
‘Because I’m clever?’
‘For one thing … but also because you’re already Wamphyri
,’ he growled, ‘and would not be obliged to ascend over my dead body! But aye, you’re a clever one. Instead of explaining the meaning of the things you’ve been saying, and telling me what I should do, you’re waiting for me to beg it out of you.’
She smiled, and her mask and face alike matched up. ‘It’s just that I like to feel appreciated,’ she said. And more seriously: ‘We’re not much good at this, are we?’
‘Eh? At what?’ He walked her out into the night, and they stood at the rim of the lava flow, like a series of waterfalls frozen to a standstill on their way to the boulder plains.
This warring.’
Vormulac looked at her in the light of the stars. ‘Because we’ve forgotten how,’ he said, as gloomy as ever. These thousands of years we’ve followed the ways of Turgo, because we had to. Unlike these vast western territories which we’re now opening up, our place in Turgosheim and our own Sunside were small concerns. If we’d destroyed all of the Szgany to fuel our wars, in the end we’d have eaten each other. The end of the Wamphyri, aye! So we suppressed our vampire leeches as best we could and .. . grew weak! Weak in the ways of blood, the ways of war, the natural ways of the Great Vampire.’
She nodded. ‘Between you and me, then, you’re saying that Wratha was right to flee Turgosheim?’
Again his solemn glance. ‘Between you and me, Devetaki, the Szgany of our Sunside are grown vile! Their blood is bad. We took all the fight out of them, and all the goodness, too, a long time ago. In Turgo’s time we lived on the blood of men — men like Turgo himself — who fought back! But now in Turgosheim we’ve become as fleas on a dog’s back. Except the dog is mangy. The blood is the life. But if it’s bad blood … ?’
‘And now?’ Devetaki grasped his arm, and her slender fingers were urgent where they bit into his grey flesh. ‘Is it
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too late, or can we reverse it? If we win this war — conquer Wratha and this new Sunside/Starside — can we stop the rot?’
His glance was more penetrating now. The rot? Do you feel it, too, then? I thought that I was the only one. I thought it was just me, gloomy old Vormulac Unsleep.’
She shuddered. ‘Ah, no, my Lord. For I too have felt it -and for years! And I’ve seen it: the way in manifests. The autisms, animalisms, mutations and madness. In short, the decline of the Wamphyri. Did you know, I liked Wratha upon a time? Why, I believe I still do! Because she’s “clean” in a way that most of us can never be. Clean, spirited and original. What’s more, I envy her what she’s had here, and what we must put an end to. For the rot’s in her, too, or if not in Wratha the Risen, certainly in her renegades. The dog-Lord Canker Canison, for instance, more animal than man. And as for the Killglance brothers: why, even their father’s terrible eye was a weapon! And -‘
‘- And,’ Vormulac cut in, ‘Wratha’s supplicant Szgany have it that Spiro is now heir to old Eygor’s killing eye!’
Devetaki shrugged. ‘Can we be surprised? And what of Vasagi the Suck with his rampant acromegaly, his amazing miming, telepathy, metamorphism? I’m glad that he has gone, and not simply because he’s my enemy! What? Why we’re all our own worst enemies, and dangerous ones at that! But not as dangerous as these I’ve mentioned.’
Vormulac nodded and said, ‘Our own worst enemies, aye. We always have been. It’s nothing new. Isn’t it what Zolteism was all about? To deny our leeches and be men? But we can’t be men because we are Wamphyri! Old Maglore had it right. I remember he once told me:
‘“We’re not true masters, but slaves to our parasites. In Turgosheim, only a blind man or a fool would ask why beings who could live as long as the Wamphyri usually live so short! Such is our nature, however, and jealousy, hatred and lust - and blood, of course - our way of life.”’
Just for a moment Lord Unsleep had looked worn out.
Now, straightening up, he said, ‘But Maglore must be something of a fatalist, too, for I remember he also told me — and I think I agree with him — “So be it; perhaps it is as well to leave it at that.. .” Well, and perhaps it is.’
Devetaki shook her head. ‘I think not. Better if we weed it out once and for all, then start afresh here in these clean western territories …” Or perhaps in another pJace, far away, where the vampire’s taint is scarcely known, and the blood of men and beasts alike is sweet and clean. Which was a thought that she kept to herself, of course.
‘Weed it out?’ He looked at her, as if to gauge her meaning. ‘How? When? Where?’
‘Here. In all the battles to come. Whenever the opportunity arises,’ the virgin grandam answered, drawing him aside, away from his army where its various contingents were camped. And in an undertone: ‘My Lord Vormulac, the rot is in us, too. Now believe me that this is nothing personal, but the Lady Zindevar is a corruption in herself, as is any creature who goes against nature to that extent.’
‘Eh? I can’t see that. There have always been women who are drawn to women.’
‘Aye, but it scarcely leads to strong men! And remember, she’s no underling but a leader.’
‘Are you sure this isn’t your leech speaking, Devetaki? Is it that you envy Zindevar something or other? Her manse in Turgosheim, perhaps?’
‘Do I envy Zindevar? You think I might envy Cronespire, when I have Masquemanse?’ Devetaki shook her head. ‘But let me go on, let me try to convince you of this … this creeping disease that has come among us, crippling us more all the time.’ And after a moment:
‘Look at Wamus. He’s brought his bloodsons with him, and both of them the same as their father: more bat than man! Why, they’re outside of nature, Vormulac — even the nature of the Wamphyri! And what of Lom the Stunted, whose knuckles drag on the floor? Or Grigor Hakson and Black Boris, whose lechery —’
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But again Vormulac stopped her, saying: ‘- Now hold! For surely there’s lechery in every man!’
‘Like theirs? If something so much as looks like a cunt, Grigor is into it. And Boris shags with trogs: a rival for the dog-Lord, that one! Nor are they alone in their vices. And we talk of “ascending” to a Lord or a Lady. What, ascension? But surely it’s a foul descent, to disease, deformity and madness! But we - you and I, my Lord - were never that way. And there are others among us who are likewise … “clean.” They should be spared.’
‘Spared?’
Obviously she must speak it out loud, or in a whisper at least. ‘Send out the freaks into battle! Send them out first, so that they may take the brunt of it. When it’s over, those who survive will have been weakened. That will be the time to strike, to do your weeding.’
To cut out the rot?’
‘Exactly! And we’ll start again, repopulate Turgosheim with our own, and develop these new territories as best they should be. But always with a tight rein on population, and a sharp eye out for freaks and degenerates.’
‘But Turgosheim will remain our seat?’
‘Why not? The Centre of Empire, certainly, to which we’ll return from time to time, for the worship of our people!’
Vormulac felt himself carried away with the idea. ‘I see it clearly: the Grand Triumvirate, controlling all from their seat in the gorge of Turgosheim!’
‘Eh?’ Devetaki’s turn to exclaim, to question. ‘Triumvirate? But… can you possibly mean Maglore?’
‘But hasn’t the Seer-Lord always been one of us? Doesn’t he even now keep the gorge for us and see to its servicing in our absence? Isn’t he our oldest friend?’
Devetaki put on her frowning mask. And, darkly and quietly, she said, ‘I have often wondered about Maglore. For where some go too far, he goes too short. Long on lore and runes and magic, short on guts, drive and vision. Where is he now but in Turgosheim, tending the hearth like some
Szgany slut while we wage war? So I would counsel you thus: keep Maglore the Mage for a “friend” if you like, or better by far keep him as your spy — for certainly as a seer and mentalist he has no peer - but as a lea
der with powers? … That is hardly fitting. No, this is how I see it:
‘Lord Vormulac Unsleep shall be the Emperor, the virgin grandam Devetaki his adviser, and the Seer-Lord Maglore his shewstone — for scrying on his lands and possessions afar to keep them safe. We can surely value Maglore, without that we elevate him to a position of power. For after all we’re Wamphyri!’ And Devetaki gave what she hoped sounded like a light-hearted laugh. The two of us watching each other should be quite sufficient, without that we must watch him also!’
Vormulac wasn’t sure. He frowned and tugged on Mag-lore’s twisted loop sigil where it dangled from the lobe of his ear; that golden symbol of the Seer-Lord’s mysticism, given to him by Maglore for good luck. But… Devetaki was usually right, and so:
‘Let me think on it,’ Lord Unsleep growled. ‘Meanwhile, we have other things to talk about. And while we talk, let’s walk together among my generals, and so inspire them with our presence .. .’
‘Devetaki!’ Maglore spat out her name as if it were essence of kneblasch. ‘So-called “virgin” grandam! So-called Lady! Treacherous, scheming, back-stabbing whore! Spawn of a leprous spore! May your blood turn to acid and scorch your leech to a cinder!’
His own blood was up; he stamped, shook a fist, cupped a talon-like hand under the rim of his Mobius sigil shewstone, to sweep it from its onyx-stemmed table. The table itself went toppling, so that Maglore must reach and out to save it before it struck the floor and shattered. And the gleaming, strangely twisted mass of his sigil thudded heavily down on to a pile of parchments and skins, and lay there all unrepentant.
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Maglore was alone in his room of meditation, which was just as well. If Karpath or another lieutenant or thrall had been there, certainly the unlucky one would have suffered some small harm, and perhaps even a large one. For even as the Seer-Lord reached out to save his table, still the scarlet lamps of his eyes were glaring all about for some lesser thing on which to vent his fury .. . and they spied just such a thing, within easy reach at that:
