Bloodwars

by Brian Lumley

  To work on your behalf!

  Liar! No vampire ever worked for another.

  To take revenge on a certain scrawny old bastard in Runemanse, then, Eygor howled, who all these years has threatened to annexe Madmanse and make it his own!

  But Nathan shook his head. Think again, Eygor, he said. Oh, I don’t doubt that you would kill Maglore, and anyone else you could lay your hands on, but when last we spoke your only desire was to murder your bloodsons Wran and Spiro! You are as changeable as the wind, except you blow to suit the situation! Nothing strange in that -you’re Wamphyri.

  For long moments there was silence, until finally Eygor’s gurgling, even suppurating deadspeak voice sounded again, saying: Necroscope, you are an infuriating man. I have offered you the greatest weapon ever in your fight against my own kind. And all I ask is to be up and about in the land of the living again -however briefly - to right the many wrongs which were done me in life. Now tell me: what

  is it you fear? Do you fear for the Szgany? But there is nothing of humanity left in Turgosheim! Only Maglore, whom I would destroy.

  And your bloodsons?

  If they should return, yes.

  Nathan nodded. If and when they return - and if I survive what is yet to be — then it might be time to talk again. Meanwhile … I’ve given you enough of my time. Also, the dead have only recently seen fit to talk to me; I can’t jeopardize their faith in me by having to do with such as you.

  Leave it at that, then, said Eygor, sighing. But I’ve seen inside your head, Necroscope, and know it can be done. There is … such a power of mind in you! Only accept my gift — my talent would be yours in a moment, to use for the good of all the Szgany.

  And you would be up again, in the land of the living.

  Only until you willed me down.

  How can I be sure of that?

  What? (Again the sinister, clotted quality of Eygor’s dead-speak voice.) But yours is the power, Necroscope - power over the dead - and what am I but a crumbling old dead thing, eh?

  A vampire thing, said Nathan.

  Aye, and one who feels the rising sun even now. And so I get me back into Madmanse, in Turgosheim.

  Nathan felt Eygor’s presence shrinking, the foul fog of his thoughts rolling back, the final echo of his voice like a shudder in the deadspeak aether, coming from a long way away: Until we speak again, Nathaaan . ..

  Stirring under the canopy of his makeshift shelter under the trees, Nathan opened an eye, then both of them. His dreams were already fading, so that he wondered which, if any, had been real, and which had been … dreams. Rolling over, he scanned through the forest, across the prairie, to the furnace desert. And then he knew that the last of them at least had

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  been real. For Eygor was right: the sun was rising. However slowly, a pale stain was spreading on the far horizon, and the familiar star-clusters in the sky were just a little dimmer.

  The camp was coming awake. A member of the watch went by, yawning, grinning at Nathan where he lay. It was Andrei Romani. ‘How goes it, Necroscope?’

  ‘Call me Nathan,’ he answered, with a smile. ‘Nothing has changed. Let it be just like before.’

  Andrei shrugged. ‘The other has a ring to it. It’s like a title.’

  ‘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.

  ‘With the tall gaunt one, who scries on future times?’

  ‘Him and one other.’ Nathan nodded. ‘And I can only do it while the stars are still clear over Sunside.’

  ‘And this other?’

  ‘You don’t know him,’ Nathan said. ‘He’s Thyre - and he’s dead.’

  Lardis opened his mouth but said nothing. lan Goodly was already coming, making his way through the trees. But then he would be, of course .. .

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  IV

  Out of the Future, Out of the Past -Going Places - Trouble in the Pass

  Nathan took Goodly to meet Thikkoul of the Thyre; literally a ‘meeting of minds’, if nothing else, and even then the precog must take Nathan’s word for it.

  As for Thikkoul himself: he was little more than a bundle of venerable rags in a niche lit by a single constantly flickering candle, in a subterranean mausoleum tended by respectful Thyre descendants, the inhabitants of River’s Rush. Though the Thyre colony was two thousand miles east of Lidesci territory and twenty miles into the desert beyond the savanna, the distance was of no concern, the journey instantaneous.

  Nathan did not go directly to the Hall of Endless Hours; such an abrupt intrusion would have been unseemly, and anyway, he knew that the Thyre of River’s Rush would probably make a great fuss of him. It wasn’t that he was above their devotion - or above returning it - but simply a matter of time. The days when he could linger in the Thyre colonies for ‘endless hours’ were long since over.

  But there was a place in the desert where he’d once lain out under the night sky and spoken to Thikkoul via dead-speak, so that the astrologer had seen through his eyes and read his future in the stars. That was where he took Goodly, and where the mind of Thikkoul was waiting for him.

  I knew you would come, Necroscope, Thikkoul was eager to make his presence known.

  Thikkoul, said Nathan, I have my friend with me, of whom we’ve spoken. He is here -

  — To corroborate and perhaps explain the things that I might see? I remember, yes. But how is he to know what I see, without deadspeak?

  Smiling, Nathan answered: Not only shall I be your eyes, Thikkoul, but also your voice! He lay down on the slope of a 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 precog’s benefit. The moon, the sun, the stars — all of the phenomena of the heavens - were as a plan to me; the plan of what has been, and what is to be. As a boy, I thought I merely remembered the past, but when certain of the things I saw came to pass, then I knew that in fact I read the future!

  In the night, underground in one of the colonies, even in a closed, darkened room, I could feel the moon and stars above me … I sensed how the moon was lured in her orbit by the bulk of our planet; also by a stranger force whose focus lies beyond the barrier mountains, in Starside. And as the moon was lured, so was my mind, but by all of the heavenly bodies! So that even when I could not see them, still I could feel their great wheel and whirl! And ever aware of their presence — even though they were frequently invisible to me — still I could read something of their awesome portents.

  As it was in life, so in
death. For as you know well enow, Necroscope, the passions of our lives go on, even into the ultimate darkness. And now that I am dead, still I can feel something of the things that will be, in the wheel of the stars …

  As Thikkoul paused, so Nathan ‘translated’, and then inquired again: ‘What is it that you feel?’

  The strangest thing! the other answered, his deadspeak so faint and shivery that Nathan’s flesh prickled. For instead of the stars in their eternal revolutions, I feel this very earth

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  itself moving, leaning towards the sun! The weight of the moon is felt as always, and likewise that of the alien force beyond the barrier mountains, but now a third, irresistible force is present, which even a world entire must answer!

  Nathan was baffled, and Goodly awed - by the thought of what he was listening to, the words of a dead man; but mainly by a thrill of cognizance that ran through his body and brain as Thikkoul’s words registered to conjure a previously unrecognized stream of coconscious thought: the fact that he, too, had felt or precognized just such a movement of the earth!

  The Necroscope saw something in Goodly’s face and was at once concerned. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Just that I … know what he means,’ the other answered. ‘For I’ve felt it, too — except I didn’t know it until now!’

  ‘What, that the earth is turning?’

  ‘No,’ Goodly shook his head. ‘That it will turn! But . .. what can it mean?’

  Still speaking out loud, Nathan returned to his deadspeak. ‘Thikkoul, do you have any idea what it means?’

  Perhaps if I could see it in the stars .. .?

  ‘Very well, but I warn you that they’re fading now.’

  That’s when I liked them best, in the twilight before the dawn.

  Nathan looked on the stars, and his metaphysical mind was one with Thikkoul’s …

  … For a moment, until his head reeled and he drew apart in something of shock. And:

  There, said Thikkoul. You felt it, too. The turning of the world.’ But.. . did you also see it?

  ‘See what?’ Nathan felt a strange dizziness quite unlike any sensation he’d ever known before.

  The stars moving in the night sky, from south to north as the earth turned! Thikkoul’s deadspeak was full of wonder.

  Nathan shook his head. ‘No, I saw nothing. But was it … the future?’

  Something of the future, the other groaned. But this time I

  don’t know what. As to your future, the future of the Szgany in general - I saw nothing! This other thing is too great; it intrudes, obscures, overwhelms, so that the rest is as nothing by comparison. And Goodly was equally at a loss …

  The whole thing had taken minutes; Lardis would scarcely have had time to muster the entire camp; there was time for another visit. This time Nathan had no co-ordinates, and so must inquire: /asef, where are you?

  The answer was a place in the forest, the woods west of Settlement, where a glade formed the southernmost point of an equilateral triangle, with the abandoned Lidesci town to the north-east and Sanctuary Rock in the north-west. This was the spot where Jasef Karis had died of a heart attack when Nathan and Nestor were only four years old, and it was also the spot where Nana Kiklu had buried him.

  Not only that, Jasef’s spirit husked as Nathan and lan Goodly emerged from the Mobius Continuum into the glade, but it’s also the place where I witnessed a wonder, a thing known only to me all these long years. But you’re a man now - aye, and your father’s son to boot - and it’s high time you knew. You would have known before, but they daren’t let me speak to you; the Great Majority, I mean. Well, you can’t really blame them for that. For Harry Hell-lander was a necromancer in the end, and it appears that Nestor takes after him. They had to be sure that you weren’t the same, that’s all.

  Nathan and Goodly sat down in the faintest flush of dawn light on the fallen branch of a dead, ivy-clad tree. The Necroscope was alert, intense, and Goodly mystified. But the precog knew enough to stay silent and let Nathan get on with whatever he was doing. And using deadspeak now, Nathan inquired of old Jasef Karis:

  What was it, fasef, that it’s been on your mind so long?

  It was a strange morning, that one, Jasef answered. I had been sick for some time, even years. But what is sickness

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  when you’re on the run from the Wamphyri? Anyway, we all sicken and die sometime. So, it was a strange morning; aye, but before the morning I’d had an even stranger dream during the night. Except it was so real, I was sure it wasn’t just a dream!

  TeJJ me about it, said Nathan.

  Jasef’s deadspeak nod. In my own time, my own way. Now Jet me think … And in a moment: I remember coming awake, thinking, This could be the last time I’ll ever wake up!’ For something was very wrong; my arms pained me as if in some great cramp, and my chest hurt as if it were crushed by boulders. Why, it was all I could do to open my eyes!

  Above me was the oiled skin that Nona had draped over low branches to keep the rain off. But I’d rolled aside and lay uncovered, drenched and shivering. I was hot on the inside, cold out, yet sweating from the pain in my chest. I thought it was probably the end of me, as I’ve said, but I didn’t have to be a seer to know that!

  Except … I knew I must tell someone about my dream! And I knew it must be Nona, of course. My dream of-

  - Of a corpse, smouldering, its fire-blackened arms flung wide and steaming head thrown back, lifeless, tumbling end over end into a darkness shot through with brilliant ribbons of blue and green and red light — indeed descending or retreating into this tunnel of twining streamers! A tortured thing, but no longer suffering, unknowable as the weird things of dream so often are. And yet . .. there was something vaguely familiar about it, about him! Then, as my dream drifted me closer, finally I knew who and what he was.’

  And Nathan said: My father, Harry Keogh!

  How do you know? (Amazement.) Did I make it so obvious?

  The shake of Nathan’s head. No, but I’ve seen it before. Is there more?

  Jasef didn’t question what Nathan had said, but went on:

  Harry Hell-lander’s spinning descent into - into what, eternity? — speeded up and left me behind. But in the moment after his corpse had sped away and disappeared -

  ‘- An explosion of golden light!’ the Necroscope gasped, this time out loud, which caused Goodly to start. ‘And a rush of golden splinters like living darts, hurtling in a hundred different directions and blinking out, escaping into … into other places!’

  But if you know this much, perhaps you know it all!

  ‘No,’ Nathan answered, ‘but I’ve a feeling that this is the part I must know, so please tell it.’

  Well, I was still dreaming, Jasef continued, but now in a moment the scene had changed, to Nona Kiklu’s four-year-old twins in a blanket under a tree. To you, Nathan, you and your brother Nestor! And suddenly, appearing out of nowhere, one of the golden darts, which hovered first over one sleeping child, then the other. The pair of them stirred in their sleep - at which the dart stopped hovering! There were two little sleeping heads in that blanket, one dark and the other blond, and the dart seemed to have made up its mind. It lanced down … it entered a small head! But there was no scream, no scar, no blood, nothing but a smile on the face of that sleeping innocent!

  The blond head.’ Nathan nodded. ‘My head, yes, it must have been. I was asleep, and in any case too small to know or remember. But that was only the first time it happened. Since then there’s been another time, in the hell-lands, beyond the Starside Gate. Now it starts to make sense; those darts have been my protection!’

  Oh? said Jasef, quietly. Are you sure? But if that were the case I needn’t feel concerned, for it would explain everything. It would even explain .. . you! What worries me is that it’s not the case!

  It stopped Nathan dead in his tracks. ‘What?’

  That golden dart entered into Nestor,
Nathan! That fragment of your father went to him!

  Nathan felt dizzy, disorientated; a different sensation

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  again to the one he had known in River’s Rush, when he’d felt the turning of the world. ‘But … how is it then that things have worked out this way?’ he asked. ‘For I know now that my father was … good! Anything of Harry Keogh that went to Nestor, it could only be good!’

  Which might explain something of the fears of the Great Majority, said Jasef. For what you got from your father naturally - as a child inherits bones, colour, shape - was good, yes. Undeniably so. But what Nestor got. ..

  ‘All that was bad in the Necroscope? Is that what you’re saying? All that was brewing in him … at the end?’

  Possibly.

  ‘No, I can’t believe that.’ Nathan shook his head. ‘Those golden shards .. . I’ve seen them. They weren’t evil; they were Harry! One of them entered into me, too, and gave me the solution to the greatest problem of my life!’

  Then perhaps the darts were simply forces or POWERS. And the way they would develop was in you and Nestor yourselves. If that is correct .. . well, we have seen how it developed in him! It’s just that I wanted you to know. In the final battle - and you know what that must be - it’s as well that you’re aware of what you are up against. For the one thing you do have, whether you get it from your father or not, is your compassion, Necroscope! It’s your greatest strength, but it could be your greatest weakness, too.

  Jasef was finished, and having nothing more to say he fell silent. But Nathan continued to ponder his words. Was it possible that Nestor had got all the evil in Harry, the dark instincts of the uncontrollable Thing within? And might it not explain his lifelong predilection, an apparently morbid yearning or inclination towards the Wamphyri? If so, it would seem that Nestor had been doomed from the beginning.