by Brian Lumley
Kirk Lisescu tugged urgently at his elbow. 'Get on with it,' he whispered. 'He grows weak. Get what you can out of him and then make an end of it.'
Vratza scowled down on them. 'I have a vampire's ears,' he growled, 'in which your whispers ring like shouts! Anyway, you are right: I am weak and fading fast. You should go away now and let me die. That is what I wish.'
'A few more questions,' Lardis told him, 'and then I'll see to your wishes personally.'
'No! No!' Vratza protested, groaning. 'It is… it is enough. I… I am finished.' He hung his head, slumped down on his spikes.
Lardis nodded, but grimly. 'So you're finished, are you?' he repeated the other. 'Yes, and I'm the village idiot, lured away from a nest full of eggs by a partridge with a "broken" wing!'
Vratza said nothing but simply hung there, even when Kirk took up his spade again.
Lardis waited a little while, then said, 'Vratza, listen to me. We can't stay here but must move on; all of us, the entire village. And we certainly don't intend to take you with us. Now, you are going to die, I make no bones about that. But how you die is up to you. This is your choice:
'Answer a few more questions, and then go cleanly, without even knowing it. Or hang there till morning when the sun comes up, and suffer the worst of all possible deaths — for such as you. Now listen: you are right and I've had dealings with vampires before. I have seen and heard the likes of you melting in sunlight: the swift blackening and peeling of your skin, the black smoke boiling as your fats begin to melt, the awful screaming as your guts rupture and your eyeballs start out upon your cheeks. After an hour, two, three at most, you will be a black and tarry rag-thing hanging there, with all your bones protruding and your black skull frozen in a final scream! Is that what you want, Vratza Wransthrall?'
Vratza twitched a little but made no answer.
'So be it,' Lardis nodded. And: 'Men, bind this creature more firmly yet, with good silver wire round his arms, legs and neck. And knock a few more nails in him, so that he won't jerk himself loose when the sun's first rays hit him. Then clear the village. We're moving out, right now, within the hour.' It was a bluff, of course, but Vratza didn't know that.
'Wait.'' The vampire's scarlet eyes shot open as he began to strain again, but less powerfully, against the spikes where they pierced his flesh. Then, panting, genuinely exhausted, he hung there glaring at Lardis as before; but helplessly now, hopelessly. And:
'I'm good as dead anyway,' he choked the words out. 'Your silver is in my blood. But… do I have your word? Will you make a clean end of it?'
Lardis nodded, and growled: 'Which is more than you ever granted.'
Vratza lay back his head against the cross, closed his eyes and breathed deep, and said, 'One bolt won't be enough. I was Wran's thrall for long and long. I've come very close to being Wamphyri…'
Lardis nodded again, and quietly said, 'So I've noted. Be sure we'll take care of it.'
'Then… ask your damned questions and be done!'
To one side of the cross and a little behind it, just out of sight of the crucified vampire, Andrei Romani's brothers placed loaded crossbows in readiness on the now empty table, and Kirk Lisescu snapped his shotgun shut. They didn't want Vratza to see their preparations, in case he should resolve to remain silent to the end. But, strangely, there was no hatred left in them now — not for this one, who was finished — just a grim determination.
And Lardis said: 'You've told us about this Lady Wratha, who is the leader of the six. Also about your master, Wran the Rage. Now tell me about the rest. Who are they, and how may we know them?'
Vratza levelled his head and stared out bleakly across ravaged, smouldering Settlement. And as if he were speaking to the night:
'Gorvi the Guile is one of them,' he said. 'As his name suggests, he's smooth and slippery as oil. Then there's Spiro, Wran's brother, called Killglance. They are twins, Spiro and Wran, whose Wamphyri father had the evil eye. In his youth he could kill men — kill the Szgany, burst their hearts — just by looking at them! The brothers have tried it, too, though as yet with no success to mention. Also, there's Lord Vasagi, or Vasagi the Suck, as he's known. I will not try to describe him but… you will know him anyway, when you see him. Last but not least there's Canker Canison, who sings to the moon and leans to the fore, loping like a dog or a fox, but upright on two legs…'
A choked cry — half-gasp, half-shout — rang out from the flickering shadows a little beyond the range of the fires, and Nathan Kiklu stumbled into view, his eyes fixed on the terrifying yet tragic figure on the cross.
Standing in the shadows of an upended cart opposite the dull-glowing fire-pit, listening to all that Lardis had asked and every answer that Vratza Wransthrall had given him, Nathan had been witness to everything. Until a moment ago his eyes had been like misty mirrors: full of starlight, firelight, strangeness. But now, suddenly, he was alert as never before. Coming forward to stand beside Lardis, he gazed up hard-eyed at the wretched creature on the cross. And:
'What was that?' he said, his clear youth's voice contrasting with the coarseness of the night, cutting it like a knife. 'About a dog or a fox, a loping thing? Canker Canison, did you call him?'
The vampire angled his huge head to look down on Nathan. He recognized him: this was one of the first faces he had seen when he regained consciousness, before the questioning commenced. Then… the youth had seemed terrified; he'd backed off a pace and stumbled, moved away to where Vratza's scarlet gaze couldn't follow. Even now he was unsteady on his feet, but no longer awed.
And so Vratza was brought to this: even children dared to gaze upon him now, without cringing!
Curling his fleshy upper lip, the vampire snarled and showed Nathan his twin-tipped tongue and dagger teeth. But still the youth stood there. Until finally Vratza smiled — if what he did with his face could be called smiling — and said: 'I was your age, when I was taken in the tithe. Since when… I've come a very long way.' He glanced at Lardis. 'Aye, even to the end.'
Lardis put an arm across Nathan's shoulder. The lad has… he has an interest in all of this,' he said. But looking at Nathan, he knew it wasn't a healthy one.
'Oh?' Vratza cocked his head a little on one side, questioningly.
Nathan's mouth twitched in the left-hand corner. 'It… it's my girl. This dog-thing, Canker, knocked me down and took her from me. Since when… she hasn't been found.'
'Ah!' said Vratza, matter-of-factly. And as if Nathan no longer existed, his red eyes swivelled to look at Lardis. 'Is it done? Am I finished?'
Lardis nodded; Kirk Lisescu and the others took up their weapons, came from behind the cross into view.
Vratza saw them, and fire and blood sprang into his eyes together. He opened his nightmare jaws and hissed, vibrating his forked tongue in the red-ribbed cavern of his throat.
'No, wait!' Nathan shrugged free of Lardis's arm, pointed a steady hand and finger at the monster on the cross. 'I want you to tell me: about Canker Canison, and about Misha. How will it be for her?'
'No!' Lardis got in front of Nathan, throwing up his arms as if to ward off some horror; indeed, to ward off a very real horror. 'Vratza, don't tell him anything! Your time has come.' He glanced at his men where they took up their positions, and nodded. But the vampire was already speaking — to Nathan.
'My last act,' he said, in a voice which bubbled like tar in a volcanic pit, 'to curdle your dreams now and forever. You ask about Canker? And your girl?'
'Yes,' Nathan had to know. But behind him the men were lifting their weapons, aiming them.
'Canker takes women for one thing only,' Vratza gurgled. 'To use them. And when he has used them — in whichever of the many ways he favours — then he worries them, as a wolf among goats!'
'Be quiet!' Lardis roared.
A crossbow thrummed and its bolt took Vratza close to the heart, burying itself in his torn and bloody chest until only the flight protruded. He jerked massively and coughed up blood, then suc
ked at the air — and continued to speak! And with his voice rising to a shriek, and finally a gale of mad laughter, he said:
'Boy, do you see this shaft in me, how it tears me? So she is torn, even now. And Canker's shaft is just as vicious. Be sure he'll fuck her heart out! Oh — ha, ha, haaaaa!'
Nathan staggered to and fro, his face pale as a papery wasp's nest, with dark punched holes for eyes and mouth. And as a second bolt joined the first (though still not on target, for the men were shooting in haste to shut Vratza up, and so missing their aim), the youth whispered:
'And now… now I want you to die.'
Kirk Lisescu granted Nathan's wish. Twin blasts, coming in quick succession, turned the vampire's head to pulp as silver shot removed any last trace of a face.
Blood flew in gouts and splashes; booming echoes came back thunderously, first from the stockade's walls, then from the hills; Lardis dragged Nathan roughly aside, out of the red rain. 'You don't want that on you,' he gasped. 'What? Even the air that bastard breathed is tainted!'
Again Nathan shook him off, then staggered away into the night to be sick. Once, hearing shouting, he looked back and saw the cross and the thing upon it as a black silhouette against the glow of the fires — but the silhouette was hideously mobile!
Vratza Wransthrall had told how he was close to becoming Wamphyri, and he'd been right. Undead meta-morphic flesh formed nests of writhing tentacles which sprang from his guts, chest, and all the massive parts of his body. Whipping and vibrating, they lashed themselves — lashed him — to the cross's upright and horizontal bar. But the men had lassoed both arms of the cross and were hauling on it furiously, until it leaned over and toppled into the fire-pit.
Nathan heard the hiss, saw white smoke or steam rising, which he knew would soon turn black. Lardis had it right: in an hour, Vratza would be reduced to a stench and a final puff of smoke. Nothing more would remain of him -
— Except, of course, that monstrous picture which he'd painted in Nathan's head. And that might very well last for a lifetime.
Meanwhile, Nathan's stomach in its entirety desired to be out of him…
Afterwards: Nathan went back to his mother's house and dug in the ruins. He wasn't satisfied that the searchers had done everything in their power. And in order to be absolutely certain, when he was finished with the house he laid bare the floor of the barn. And found nothing, not even a bloodstain.
He stood on the spot where he'd last seen Misha in the embrace of a snarling red-eyed fiend, hung his head, gritted his teeth, clenched his fists. But he didn't cry. No, he told himself, I'll shed no tears until I've shed his blood, taken his shaggy head, smeJJed the stench of his burning hide and seen his last black trace go drifting on the wind!
It was his Szgany vow.
He slept again, and before the dawn went to the Zanesti house where it stood undamaged. Misha's father and surviving brother were there, pale as ghosts, sitting in silence. Before, they hadn't much cared for Nathan; now, her father cradled his head and cried on it. But Nathan wouldn't. And Misha's brother (perhaps thoughtlessly, but surely he could be forgiven) said, 'She never knew a man; she'd been with no one; she wasn't even whole. Once, I would have killed the man who looked at her like that! And now I would kiss him — because Misha had loved him.' And he'd looked at Nathan, perhaps hopefully.
But the youth could only shake his head and say, 'Always remember, you have each other." Which, while he'd not intended it that way, caused them to see that Nathan had no one. Before they could say anything he left them and went looking for Lardis, only to discover that the old Lidesci had experienced the selfsame doubts and returned to his ruined cabin on the knoll.
Nathan joined him there, where Lardis had been at work again in the wreckage. He came across him sitting in what had been his garden, with eyes as vacant as his soul, staring south, waiting for the first glimmer of light to make a silver stain on the far faint curve which was the rim of the world. And when at last Lardis sensed him there, blinked life back into his eyes and looked at him, then Nathan said:
'What will you do, Lardis? Will it be as you told it to Vratza Wransthrall? Will you trek with your people, and turn them into Travellers as in the old days, to keep them from the Wamphyri?'
Lardis shook his head. 'Some will move on,' he answered, gruffly. 'Can you blame them? But I will stay here. Not "here", you understand, but in Settlement. And I fancy a good many will stay with me. Maybe that way, by adopting at least this one of the Wamphyri's methods, we'll defeat them in the end.' 'By adopting their methods?'
Lardis nodded. 'When the Wamphyri have something, they fight to keep it. Especially territory. They are fiercely territorial, Nathan. In the old days, most of their wars were for territory, for the great aeries, the Starside stacks. Oh, they were for blood, too, and for the sheer hell of it; but mainly they were about territory. It's what drove them to go against The Dweller, and why they were destroyed. And now, finally, it's why they've returned.'
'And how will you keep Settlement?' 'By defending it! This sunup you'll see activity as never before in Settlement. So much to do… I shouldn't be sitting here… I must get on down!' He stood up.
Nathan touched his arm. 'I won't be seeing it,' he said, shaking his blond head. 'I'm heading east.' Lardis was disappointed. 'You're deserting me?' 'Never that,' the other answered. 'I came to find out what you would do so that eventually I'd know where to find you. But first I must find Nestor.'
'Nestor?' Lardis's eyebrows peaked. 'Why, anyone would think you weren't there last night! Nestor's gone into Starside, Nathan, in the mouth of a flyer. Look, I've no time for this and so must speak plainly: Nestor's dead, or worse than dead! Can't you get that into your head?'
Nathan followed him down the first flight of steps cut in the steep side of the knoll. 'But you wounded the flyer with a bolt from one of the great crossbows,' he replied. 'What if it crashed? In fact, I dreamed that it crashed — on the wooded slopes over Twin Fords.'
Lardis turned to him. 'You dreamed it? What, and are you a seer? Since when?'
A seer? Am I? Nathan wondered. No, I don't think so. But my wolves talk to me, and sometimes I hear the dead whispering in their graves…
He shrugged. 'No, I'm no seer — but I know how to hope when hope is all that's left. And I fancy you do, too, Lardis. Isn't that why you came back up here: to dig again where you have already delved enough, even knowing you'd find nothing?'
After a moment Lardis sighed and nodded, turned away and continued on down. 'Then you have to go,' he said. 'Except — if your star is good to you, and likewise mine to me — you'll promise to come back one day and be my son.'
'I feel I'm that already,' said Nathan, lying yet at one and the same time, and however paradoxically, remaining sincere. For certainly the old Lidesci had been as much a father to him as any he had ever known. And yet behind Lardis's back where Nathan couldn't be seen, he frowned wonderingly. Because just for a moment then he'd seemed to remember something else from last night's dream… something which his wolves had told to him? Some connection between his father — his real father, Hzak Kiklu — and theirs? Some blood relationship between the two? And was that why they called him uncle?
Still unseen, Nathan shook his head in bewilderment. But how could that be? For quite obviously, their father had been a wolf!
It was all very mysterious and puzzling. But then, that was frequently the way of it with Nathan's dreams: some things appeared as real and solid as the ground under his feet, while others were vague and ephemeral as ripples on a pool, or frost on the high peaks before the dawn. Some things he remembered, and others he was glad to forget, mainly because he couldn't understand them. Best to fasten on what he perceived as real, he supposed, and leave the fanciful stuff to its own devices.
It was a mistake, but all men make them. Especially when they are under pressure. And Nathan was no exception..
In the hours after dawn, as Nathan trekked for Twin Fords, the thought or question wo
uld frequently recur: But why would they take my mother?
He would understand — and detest his understanding of it — if she had been raped, vampirized, murdered out of hand. For after all, so many had been. But taken? Nana Kiklu was no mere girl. On the other hand, she was or had been a warm and beautiful woman. Her sons had always thought so anyway, and without prejudice — especially Nathan.
But.. did the Wamphyri take people indiscriminately? Were they so insensitive of human life that they would simply take, defile, use or waste whatever, whoever, was available? Perhaps they were and did.
Or perhaps it was just that they followed a simpler set of rules: blood is blood, and flesh is merely flesh. For when a hunter is hungry, is he concerned that the rabbit he shoots should have pleasing marks? Does he really care if it is past its prime? And what about the sandal-maker? What difference does it make to him which beast supplies the leather for his sandals, as long as it's supple, hard-wearing stuff?
But on the other hand, the Wamphyri were or had been men, and the 'beasts' they hunted were likewise men — and women! So that they didn't just hunt for meat, or even for stuff to fashion into monstrous undead creatures, but for… other reasons, too. And so Nathan would always come back to that, and end up wondering if Nana shared the same fate as Misha Zanesti. If Nana had been taken.
And if she hadn't? Then what had happened to his mother, and where was she now?
Nathan had seen a monstrous, massively armoured warrior creature ravaging destructively in the streets of Settlement, and knew that these Wamphyri fighting beasts were carnivores, indeed vampires in their own right. Maybe that was the answer: a horrific answer, to be sure, but a quick end at least. Could it be that the same monster which flattened their home had also snatched up his mother? If so, she would have been dead instantly. But never a trace of her, nothing, not even (Nathan was obliged to consider it, however flinchingly) a splash of red.
