Blood Brothers vw-1

by Brian Lumley

  When his strategy was seen, the others called a truce and came upon him as a single force. Surprised, Shaitan found himself trapped in the higher levels of Shaitanstack. The flyers of his enemies were landing in his launching bays; he was cut off from his warriors; their warriors landed on his roof to seek him out!

  He was forced out of a window and exposed upon the highest ledge. Flyers closed in, to knock him from his perch. He formed the metamorphic flesh of his hands into great suckers wherewith to clasp the sheer face of the stack, and went in this fashion to find a secure niche. But a warrior, dashing itself into the wall close by, shook him loose. Then, by dint of his great will — coupled with the tenacity of his vampire tenant, which dared not allow him to be broken in such a disastrous fall — Shaitan stretched his flesh into an airfoil and swooped, in a fashion, to earth. Even so he crashed down, but was not greatly harmed.

  And meanwhile his forces had regrouped under his lieutenants, and Shaitanstack had not been taken.

  So Shaitan was the first of the Wamphyri to fly in his own right. Which seemed hardly strange to him, for he fancied that upon a time, somewhere and when, he had known the power of flight before…

  The stack wars continued for a hundred years; men and monsters were born and died fighting; the fashioning of flyers and warriors became an art, and Wamphyri numbers were decimated in all the reek and roil and mindless slaughter. And this was the era in which the Szgany of Sunside stepped back from the brink and breathed again, reorganizing their lives and what little was left of their society. Except it couldn't last.

  For Shaitan was now the undisputed Lord of Vampires, the high magistrate to which lesser Wamphyri Lords took their disputes for his judgement. And as the clamour of war subsided, so the period of mercifully infrequent raids on Sunside was over, and the nightmare sprang up again with renewed consistency. For now the Wamphyri must see to the replenishment of their ravaged and undernourished aeries, whose sustenance roamed on Sunside.

  For sixty years this was the way of it: three thousand sundowns of horror and misery, while Shaitan doled out hunting permits and took his tithe of trembling flesh from whatever the others brought back. But in the same sixty years, his egg waxed in Shaithar Shaitanson, once Turgo Zolte, and made him a crafty vampire indeed. And Shaithar was strong; likewise his sons, Zol Zolteson and Turgo Toothbreaker. And all of them together, they hated Shaitan worse than any other.

  The Lord of Vampires knew it, for he had his spies in all the aeries. And when the coup came at last he was ready to put it down, with never a loss to mention. Then he brought Shaithar to trial with his sons and their lieutenants, and banished them north to the Icelands — all of them that were of his own egg.

  They were allowed flyers, certainly, and a female thrall or two, but neither provisions nor beasts to spare and never a warrior between them. So they launched themselves north, and held to that course a spell — before swinging east to follow the spine of the barrier range into lands unknown. Shaitan's familiar bats brought him word of their deception, which was no great surprise. For this, too, he had foreseen.

  And he said to himself: Ah, Turgo Zolte, what a son you could have been! Why, we could have ravaged this entire world together, you and I! But 1 have already shown my weakness for you in banishing you when by rights I should kill you, and I know now that you must die, else return one day to plague me with your mischiefs. Well, so be it…

  Even as he thought these things, his warriors were aloft and spurting through Starside's night skies, falling towards their prey where Shaithar and his outcasts winged east. And Shaitan reached out to mind-jab his beasts, commanding that they: Destroy them to a man.'

  And riding east, exiled, expelled, Shaithar was Turgo Zolte once more. Oh, he was Wamphyri, but his intentions were human so far as he could determine. A pity there was no room now for humanity on Starside.

  His plan was simple: find a new home for his small group in the east, far beyond the Great Red Waste which was known to lie there. Perhaps something of their old humanity could still be salvaged from what they had become. Perhaps they could find a new way to live.

  Turgo was in no hurry; his flyers were already burdened; he would not exhaust them by spurring them on. To what end? To crash in the Great Red Waste and to go on foot till the rising sun found them out and reduced them all to tar? Better to take them up to their ceiling, then glide them on whichever thermals were available, and so conserve their energies. Which he did.

  Shaitan's warriors, coming from behind but still some way off, saw the small knot of flyers spiralling up towards the stars; they too must climb; their propulsors throbbed and gas sacks inflated, and their mantles extended to give them lift. But flyers were fashioned for flying and warriors for warring; they had not the endurance for prolonged pursuit. Shaitan must sacrifice them. Do not return, but destroy them utterly, was his final command, over such a distance that he barely reached them. But it was enough.

  Turgo's party flew on, gliding down the wind… but now they spied behind them the instruments of Shaitan's wrath. They urged their flyers to greater effort, sped out across the Great Red Waste. The warriors pursued, gaining however gradually. But in the south the mountains were no more, only flatlands of rustred sand, beyond which showed spokes of sunlight stroking the sky! Sunup, soon!

  And the golden fan was even now slanting over the rim of the world, and Turgo must fly lower, ever lower, to avoid the deadly rays. His creatures were tired, their energy expended; Shaitan's warriors, too, but in them there was only one goal, one requirement. No need for conservation: this was their last mission.

  Then, beyond the Great Red Waste, Turgo spied a secondary range of mountains, with deep gashes and gulleys facing north, where the sunlight could never reach. There.' he mind-called to his people. In the lee of the mountains. Build your aeries there.

  But they knew from his tone that he would not be with them. And what of you?

  My flyer is finished, he told them. Anyway… I've done with running away. Now go!

  Shaitan's warriors were almost upon them. As Turgo's people sped off into the shadows of the lesser range, he turned back, passed between the pursuers

  (but barely), hauled on his reins and climbed for the fading stars — and climbed into blinding sunlight! And the warriors followed at once!

  The vampire stuff in them was very strong, for they were of Shaitan's fashioning — which was also their weakness! The sunlight ate into them that much deeper, pitting their flesh into craters and steaming them away. All but one fell, exploding as their skins shrivelled and gas bladders ruptured. Turgo was likewise burned and blistered, until finally he could take no more. Then he guided his hissing beast into a dive, down to the shade of the mountains.

  Too late, for he was blind! Fly on, he ordered his creature. Into the east, as far and as fast as you can. For he knew that one warrior yet survived; he could feel its tiny, savage mind intent upon his destruction; he would lure it from his people.

  And he did, for thirty more miles: lured it to a place where mists came writhing out of the earth, drawn up by the risen sun, where once more the mountains crumbled into bogs and quagmire. There at last Shaitan's warrior caught him, and tore him and his flyer both. And Turgo Zolte, his flying beast and the warrior, all three, surrendered what was left of life and crashed down into the swamps.

  Turgo's flight from the stacks of the Wamphyri had been long and long, but he was of the line of Shaitan and carried a leech grown from his egg. When Turgo died Shaitan knew it. And he sighed, once… and then forgot him.

  But on the gluey bed of the eastern swamp Turgo's torn body rotted down and was buoyed up with gases trapped in its tissues, and floated to the surface. And there in the weeds and the quag, black fungi sprouted in his flesh, which as they ripened put out drifting spores from their gills.

  The vampire is tenacious…

  PART THREE: Now

  I

  That was the way of it,' the Historian thrall Karz Biteri i
ntoned, pleased to be moving towards the end of his period of instruction, when he could pass on these recent tithelings down the line for assignation… or whatever. 'It was the end of Turgo Zolte, called Shaithar, but it was also the beginning of Turgosheim and a new era of Wamphyri domination. Far in the west Shaitan might have certain doubts with regard to the continuation of Turgo's people, but it suited him to suppose that they had died along with their leader; anyway, he had plenty of problems to deal with closer to home. This last is also supposition, but we do have the Seer-Lord Mendula Farscry's written word in support of the theory, for which reason it must stand.

  'Mendula Zolson — better known as Farscry, and later "the Cripple" — was Wamphyri that time more than two thousand years ago; indeed he was the first bloodson of the bloodson of Turgo Zolte himself! But in Mendula the secret arts were very strong; his mother had been a Szgany witch-wife, whose talents came out threefold in her son. And Mendula had the power to read minds at a great distance, and scry out scenes afar. In this he was not so far removed from the current Lord Maglore of Runemanse, a powerful thought-thief and seer in his own right. But… I must not stray from my subject.

  'In his youth, Mendula developed a crippling bone disease which twisted him in his joints, bent him over, and made him useless in the hunt or fray; which was why his mind turned to learning instead of more physical pursuits. And such was Mendula's inspiration to discover and record the history of all the Wamphyri, that he even invented glyphs in which to write it down; without which the present Lords of Turgosheim must rely on all manner of legends, immemorial myths, and word of mouth handed down father to son. And the Lords would be the first to admit that they don't much lean toward that sort of thing; neither are they inclined toward the unravelling of glyphs, which is my good fortune..

  'And so, clever as he was, Farscry the Cripple was made clumsy and vulnerable by virtue of his deformity. But he was safe from the torments of others because he dwelled in Vladsmanse, the house of his younger brother, who valued Mendula's sound advice in all manner of things. And he lived mainly to work on the histories, as I have said, also to mind-spy for his brother, likewise to keep his scryer's eye on the brooding west, where the olden Wamphyri had their aeries in the stacks of Starside. And so Vlad Zolson was Mendula's brother and protector.

  'Which brings us almost to the end of the pre-histories, because after Mendula died there was no one with the power to scry on the western Wamphyri and record their works. But there were always Lords who were interested in Mendula's writings, and so some small measure of understanding of his glyphs was passed down. All of which came to me in my turn, so that now I am the Historian.

  'Of the history of Turgosheim: I may say that I am writing it in Farscry's own glyphs, from immemorial legends and a few fragments of pictorial tapestries and skins which have survived all the years flown between. It will be my duty to instruct you further in these ancient matters, those of you who are fortunate enough… enough to… to win places for yourselves in the service of the Lords.'

  Karz Biteri paused a moment to scan over the faces of his class of tithelings, seeing them as a blur of sun-browned flesh and dark Szgany eyes, and trying not to remember them. No, for he knew there were some faces here which he'd never see again. Except that from a certain point of view, they might be said to be the lucky ones…

  The Historian licked his suddenly dry lips, blinked his eyes rapidly, and scanned their faces again. They were all so young, so strong! For the moment. But… better not to dwell upon it. And so:

  'As for now,' he continued, somehow keeping his voice from trembling, his words from blurting out, '- now we must return to Shaitan:

  'Well, eventually Shaitan's lust for power, his greed, maladministration, and — for all that he was the self-appointed "Justice" — his injustices became too much. The others rose up against him in a body to be rid of him, and he was overwhelmed. Some suggested he should go to the Gate; others insisted he be walled up under the barrier mountains, or buried on the boulder plains to "stiffen to a stone" in his grave. Ever the slippery one, somehow he swayed them to the least of his own prescribed punishments and was banished north.

  'They also cast out a crony of Shaitan's, one Kehrl Lugoz, who went with him. But with these two out of the way the unity of the Wamphyri quickly dissolved; they returned to feudalism, warring, inbreeding and the insularity of their stack communities. Since when until the present day, such has been the enmity between them that none have sought or had time to expand their empire beyond its olden boundaries. They do not even know that we are here. But…

  '… We, at least, have reason to believe that they are no longer there! For the last eighty years' (he made no mention of 'years' as such but said 'four thousand sundowns') 'since Maglore the Mage's ascension to Runemanse, he has listened and watched in his fashion, like Farscry before him. Eighteen years ago he reported a mighty war; the cause was not certain, but it seems that in the aftermath the obliteration of the olden Wamphyri was almost total! Then, fourteen years ago, there was a bright white light in the sky far to the west; there came a thunder which heralded warm, black rains, and the more sensitive among the Lords of Turgosheim even reported that they felt the earth shaking under their feet.

  'After that, from then till now… nothing! The Lord Maglore has proposed a theory: that some great magician among the survivors of their war brought down such a DOOM on their heads that none escaped. Perhaps he is right, but there are certain hotbloods among the younger Lords who would put his theory to the test. They say: "If a handful of the olden Wamphyri remain, then let them pay for the crimes of their ancestors!" And they say: "We were thrown out, upon a time, but now the gauntlet is on the other hand! We are in the majority, and they don't even know that we exist! We shall fall on them like rain on dust to dampen it down — permanently! For now it is our time! Time we went home again, to Starside and the lofty aeries of the Wamphyri!"

  'Aye, for Turgosheim confines these young Lords, who are restless and hungry for expansion into more seemly manses and aeries of their own. They feel their burgeoning strength and would vie with one another, and day by day they make practice and flex their muscles. For the time being all of this gauntlet-rattling is verbal; but soon, if they can't go abroad to make war, who can guarantee that they won't make it here? It wouldn't be the first time — no, nor even the tenth — that Turgosheim was torn with internecine war!'

  Karz Biteri's voice fell to a hoarse whisper. Taken in the grip of his subject, he was no longer the Historian but a commentator on current events: a dangerous pastime at best, and more so for a thrall. Even so, he wasn't voicing his own specific fears but those of his master, Maglore of Runemanse, who was himself much given to rumination and often out loud. 'Even now,' Biteri continued, 'in the secret caverns of certain of the larger manses…" He paused and glanced nervously all about, cautioning: '- this next is rumour, you understand, which may not be repeated — warriors designed for aerial combat are mewling in their vats! Abominations which have been forbidden ever since that creature of Shaitan's slaughtered Turgo Zolte in the swamps, on the day his people came fleeing out of the west to make homes for themselves in… in the…'

  He paused again and once more cast all about with startled eyes, this way and that. Had someone come into the room unseen? Suddenly, for all the flaring of the gas jets and the searing glare of their mantles, it seemed darker. But then, it always seemed darker when a Lord was about.

  Karz Biteri gulped and his parched throat clenched in upon itself like a fist. But somehow he croaked out the last few words: 'Homes for… for themselves in… in the dark clefts and crags.'

  And as the echoes of his words died away, now the unseen intruder made his — no, her — presence known, and flowed into view from the shadows. Seeing and knowing her, Karz gulped that much harder and fell to his knees. 'My… my Lady!'

  This was a public place in the lower levels, set aside for aspiring lieutenants, thrall nurses, manse-managers, beast vic
tuallers, brewers, and other specially talented thralls such as Karz Biteri. Honeycombed with lesser rooms, it was a sprawling cavern system which looked out over eastern Starside towards the sunless and forbidding Icelands. At the current hour one would not normally expect to find any Lord or Lady in this vicinity; there was precious little here for them, or so Karz Biteri had always supposed. And this close to sunup (even though the sun could not harm them in the depths of Turgosheim) they usually preferred to be in their own apartments. But right here and now the presence of the Lady Wratha was living, or undead, proof of the unpredictability of the Wamphyri.

  Wratha the Risen: she was herself like a ray of sunlight falling upon some dark jewel. At least, that was her guise. But Biteri knew that on occasion she looked far more like something risen up from hell! For indeed she had returned from hell, or its brink, this ex-Szgany girl who was now a powerful Lady of the Wamphyri.

  She laid a hand upon his bowed, balding head and her perfume fell on him cloyingly. 'Up, Historian,' she sighed. 'What? And is this not a free place? You have every right to be here, you and these tithelings of yours. But I was passing by, on my way through the levels to Wrathspire, and I heard something of your words as you instructed these… young people.' She drew him to one side, while he fluttered his hands and said:

  'My… my words, Lady? But there was nothing of any deliberate mischief in them. I merely recounted the histories, what little is known of them, in accordance with my Lord Maglore's command. It is part of the induction, and…'

  'I know these things,' she stopped him with a glance.

  'But I thought that something which I heard was more of the present than the past, and I wondered at the presumption of any thrall that he should so speculate upon the affairs of his superiors.'