Invaders

by Brian Lumley

  I want to know about Malinari, said Harry. And Vavara and Szwart. I want to know all about them, from the beginning.

  And Korath eagerly answered: None knows their stories better than I. But … such tales will take time in the telling.

  I have time, said Harry. Well, within certain limits. And so do you. You have an eternity of time.

  One question, said the other.

  Ask it.

  Why?

  Because I would exterminate them and all that they stand for, Harry answered, truthfully and ruthlessly. Their kind are not wanted in this world.

  Good! said Korath, his voice gurgling with phlegmy anticipation. Why should they have life, having deprived me of mine? In Starside we acknowledge four states of being/unbeing. These are, one: the void before birth. Two: the time of warm-blooded life such as the Szgany of Sunside enjoy it. Three: a “higher” condition known as undeath, when a man’s existence might possibly reach to eternity. And four: the true death, which is nothing less than a return to the primal void. But I, Koratb, have found the last to be a lie. It is a darkness, aye, but never a void. The true death is an absence of motion, but not of mind. I think! I am! But immobile, forgotten, lost in the long, long night, I have no peace. So why should the ones who put me here have peace? Why should they have anything? No, I will not lie to you, Necroscope.

  Then get on with it, said Harry. Begin with Nephran Malinari, since be would seem the most dangerous.

  Wrong! said Korath. For each is as bad as the others. Why do you think they were banished out of Starside?

  Doubtless I’m about to find out, said Harry. But I’ll warn you now: while time is not of the essence, don’t try to spin it out. I’m not long on patience and could be about better things. Is that understood?

  It is indeed, the vampire answered. Then:

  Without pause Korath got on with it; and by virtue of the nature of deadspeak—also because the ex-lieutenant’s tale was illustrated with vivid mind-pictures—Jake found himself listening in. Along with his mentor, he soon became absorbed in the narrative … .

  “It was hundreds of years agone,” (Korath began) “though to me, having spent so much time in the ice—frozen and stilled, and preserved even in my thoughts—it stands out in my memory like yesterday. Or perhaps yestereve.

  “I was of the clan Vadastra; indeed, I was the son of the chief, Dinu Vadastra. Our place was in the forest many miles to the east of the great pass into Starside. We toiled in gathering and growing, in the breeding of domesticated livestock, and in hunting and fishing. Being settled—untike the majority of the Szgany, who are nomads—there were no bounds for my father to beat. In any event we were not troubled by foreign settlers; indeed our land was shunned by all the neighbouring tribes. For you see, my people were supplicants who gave of their goods (a portion, or ‘tithe’ as you would say) to Lord Nephran Malinari, called Malinari the Mind, out of Malstack in Starside.

  “Now, do not ask me if I enjoyed our situation. I was born to it and knew no other way. Likewise the Vadastras as a tribe; only the old men of my people had been travellers, who in their time had known the ways of the true nomad. The life of the supplicant suited them to perfection; the Wamphyri had no use for ancient, withered flesh or desiccated blood. And so the elders were safe so long as they could work, gathering the wild honey and fruits of the woods. My father was also safe, for while he had not as yet grown long in the tooth, still he was the chief of his people, whom Malinari had appointed keeper of the tithe … for which reason he was greatly feared and in most matters obeyed without question. In most matters, aye.

  “And my father, Dinu Vadastra, was a hard man: tall, broad, and a bully. When lesser men complained of the ‘theft’ of their wives, sons, or daughters taken in the tithe, he would deal very harshly with them. Why, they might even find themselves listed as troublemakers and, regardless of the draw, destined for Malinari’s great aerie when next his tithesmen did their rounds.

  “There was a girl I loved … at least I think I loved her, but all such things are a mystery to me now. Love? That is for the warm ones. Now there is—or there was—only lust. When my master and his lieutenants hunted among the so-called ‘free’ tribes of Sunside, oh, then there was lust! Ahhhhhhh!

  “But please forgive me my meandering mind. For I see that you do not wish to know that … .

  “As for this young girl whom I may or may not have loved, more anon. Let it suffice for now to say that she was my downfall. The first of them, anyway … .

  “Now understand, Malinari was not greedy—at least, not when the Wamphyri were at peace with one another and no bloodwar was raging—but he was ever choosey. His tithesmen, lieutenants all, knew that he wanted only the best out of Sunside. No curdled honey, bitter plums or scrawny beasts for Malinari, and no snaggle-tooth boys or bow-legged girls, either. And my father was always hard put to fix a ‘fair’ tithe. He might on rare occasion slip in a barrel of less-than-best plum brandy, a crippled shad or a brace or two of game left hanging just a day or so too long, but never anything outrageously offensive. And he was the same in his dealings with human flesh.

  “Loners, if they saw our campfires in the night and came down from the barrier mountains to warm themselves, were ever welcomed. They would be given food and drink—aye, and a lot of the latter—before being tapped on the head and laid aside for the tithe. And if the cart or caravan of some lone traveller’s family group should happen onto Vadastra territory, well that were reckoned a bonus. For then fewer of our own would be needed for the list.

  “We were some three hundred and eighty. The number rarely rose by more than a dozen or so, and when it did was as readily reduced. In any given year, perhaps fifty babies would be born; with any luck half would grow to adults while the rest would be borne away into Starside. My Lord Nephran Malinari … was reputed to have a sweet tooth for basted infants.

  “But I must not jump ahead of myself, for at that time he was not my Lord as such. Or rather, I was not as yet in thrall to him.

  “Where was I? Ah, yes: the tithe:

  “Married men who sired no children for a year or two were wont to find themselves shortlisted. And as for women who were barren: their future, or lack of such, was guaranteed. Likewise any troublemakers, of course. Thus the tribe maintained itself, barely, and the tithe saw to it that we were never too large or small. Once in a three-month Malinari’s tithesmen would come on their flyers over the mountains from Starside, and now and then the master himself would accompany them on their visits.

  “And now to this girl, whom I may even have loved.

  “My father kept her back from the tithe, for me. Alas that he had crossed so many of his own people, who suspected that he was biased in certain of his duties—in the quarterly drawing of the tithe-markers, for instance—and there were plenty who would pay him back, who would like to see his loved ones on the list. Or rather his loved one, this selfsame Korath, whose poor mother had died giving birth to him.

  “But the girl Nadia … she and her mother were gatherers, as were most of our women, and both of them were among the comeliest of Vadastra females. Nadia’s father had been a talented hunter, until nine months agone when his marker came up in the draw. That had been that, if not quite as easy as that.

  “For he was young and strong as a bull shad; he had to be knocked down, bound in all his limbs, and even gagged before he would be still! And because of accusations he’d made concerning my father—the way Dinu had looked at his wife—there might be some who suspected that their chief had ‘fixed’ certain matters in his own favour. Make of that what you will, but I won’t deny that from then on Nadia’s mother was Dinu’s … or should I simply say that she submitted to Dinu, and leave it at that? But his? His property? His obedient woman? Ah, wait and see … .

  “The fact was that Melana Zetra had loved her husband, and when she was over the horror of his being taken in the tithe—and when she was close to my father, and after she had covertly investi
gated the way he worked the list—then she made up her mind to act. I cannot state Melana’s reasons for doing what she next did; perhaps it was madness brought on by grief, but if so she had hidden her condition extremely well. Or then again, she may have been crazy like a fox and simply biding her time.

  “My best theory is that she would be with her husband, Banos, again, regardless of the conditions, and had determined to sacrifice herself to that end. Banos had been taken by Malinari of the Wamphyri; now Melana would be taken also. But along the way she would settle a few old scores. The Szgany can be devious in their own right, and I cannot help but wonder if that is where the Wamphyri get it: is it perhaps in the blood? For the blood is the life, after all.

  “But if this secretly incensed or maddened Melana would be with her husband in Starside, why not make it a family affair? What of her daughter, Nadia? Would she be safe on her own with the Szgany Vadastra, or better off in Starside with her mother and father? Being comely, it was unlikely she’d be fodder; why, given time she might even become a Lady! Could it be any worse to be undead with the Wamphyri than to live under the constant threat of being stolen away or eaten by the Wamphyri? And what of an informer? Might not he, or she—as a supplicant in the fullest, truest meaning of the word—gain favour in the red-litten lamps of their eyes? I suspect it was a mixture of all of these imponderables that motivated the maddened or scheming Melana to do what she did next.

  “The time of the tithe was at hand, and Dinu Vadastra had calculated correctly that Malinari would come with his lieutenant tithesmen out of Starside. It had been some time since The Mind himself had deigned to venture forth from Malstack across the barrier mountains into the velvet of Sunside’s night.

  “The skies were clear and the moon tumbling on high; all the familiar constellations were twinkling in the smoke of our signal fires, while low over the barrier mountains the star of ill-omen—the Northstar, which lights the aeries of the Wamphyri—bathed the peaks with its silvery-blue ice-chip gleaming. A fine night, aye, for some … .

  “ … As it might have been for me if not for my now barely-remembered love of Nadia Zetra. Still, I cannot blame her, for I am sure that Nadia knew nothing of her mother’s plan. If she had … it’s more than likely we would have fled from our fate, becoming loners; or we might have journeyed west and joined up with some band of true Travellers in their constant evasion of the Wamphyri; or perhaps we would have been happy simply to be free a while, together she and I, and let the future take care of itself. Oh, a great many possibilities, if Nadia had known.

  “As for my father: if be had so much as suspected … then Melana’s life were forfeit long before the first of Malinari’s flyers touched down on Vadastra soil. But of course none of us knew, except Melana herself.

  “And so to the preparations.

  “All was in order. As the dusk settled in, Dinu had called for the tributes (in fact the ransom, for the life of the clan Vadastra) to be displayed on trestle tables to one side of the clearing, where he had tallied them as was his wont. Six barrels of oil, six of white wine and six of red; six of good plum brandy (and all of it good plum brandy, mind, because Malinari was coming), and six more of wild honey. A pair of young bull shads, freshly butchered, fifteen brace of pigeon, and five of wild boar; and a very special prize indeed: a live, caged wolf of the wild, a bitch at that, and pregnant to boot! The Wamphyri are especially fond of wolf cubs basted in their mother’s milk, and of heartof-wolf and wolf meat generally, which they swear by as an aphrodisiac and positive aid to their longevity. As if they needed such!

  “And meanwhile Dinu’s specially chosen squad of bully boys was out and about, to ensure that certain other tributes—of the human variety—were not fled. For while the tithe-markers were already drawn, the unfortunate parties had not been named for fear that they would make off into the night. Thus, as the time drew nigh, the wailing of mothers and daughters, the curses of men and the sobbing of their sons could be heard in and around the camp, as one by one the various listed ‘names’ were informed of their misfortune by Dinu’s tithe-takers.

  “Some were already known, of course: the troublemakers in their cages, and outsiders who had wandered inadvertently onto Vadastra territory. But the three males, three females, and six infants of the clan itself, their naming was left to last, for the reasons stated. Then they were gathered in by Dinu’s bully boys, chained and gagged before they could voice any great complaint or cause commotion, and tethered to await the coming of the tithesmen and their vampire master, Lord Nephran Malinari. As for the babies: they were wrapped in bundles on the trestle tables, along with the other wines, victuals, and sweetmeats.

  “Myself: I was with Nadia, ‘safe’ in my father’s caravan. From peepholes in the withe walls, silently and scarce breathing, we watched and waited as instructed. For my father liked to keep his prized ones (I still find the idea of ‘loved ones’ hard to envisage) well out of sight of the Wamphyri, so as not to arouse their interest. Likewise Nadia’s mother, Melana Zetra; Dinu had advised her to remain out of sight, hidden in her caravan, lest being comely she attract unwanted attention.

  “And in the fifth hour after sundown they came.

  “The skies had been clear, as told, and only a warm breeze, like the breath of the dreaming forest, to tease the flames of the campfires and stir the branches of the trees about the central clearing. But the Wamphyri have their own weird ways with nature; they work their will on air, earth, and water as acid works on metals, etching them to their design.

  “We had seen it all before: the mist gathering on the high peaks and rolling down like some vaporous avalanche, all milky-white in the moonlight. The sudden flurry of cold air down from the barrier mountains, beating on the flames of our fires as if to smother them, and lashing the gentler winds of the forest to frenzied flight. And suddenly, from behind the peaks, the first stain of dark clouds writhing blindly out of the north, feeling their way like snaky fingers and obscuring the glittering Northstar as they came.

  “And in those clouds, riding on high, swooping and fluttering like withered leaves caught in a flurry—yet unlike leaves directed and with purpose—the scaly flyer mounts of the Wamphyri!

  “And oh, the moaning and gibbering of those plague winds, as the creatures that rode them—and the Ones who rode them—came on, gliding, descending, trapping the air in the scoops of their webby membrane wings, and settling to the foothills over Vadastra territory … except, as by now you have surely reasoned, these lands were Vadastra in name only.

  “For in fact they belonged to Lord Nephran Malinari of the Wamphyri. And Malinari had come to collect his tithe … .”

  19

  MALINARI

  In the gloom of the wrecked sump, in the dark of Jake’s dream—which was in fact much more than a dream, indeed a metaphysical connection through Harry Keogh to an ex-lieutenant of the Wamphyri—Korath Mindsthrall continued his story:

  “There were vampires and vampires. In Starside’s great aeries of the Wamphyri as were, I saw some who were hideous beyond description, too monstrous to look upon even through a thrall’s eyes.

  “In general they would keep to their manlike outlines, but would shape their various parts to their own design. Their ears were often carved and fretted into fanciful sculptures; convolute nostrils might be pierced and hung with rings of gold; arms lengthened to extend their reach in battle, and teeth permanently enlarged until speech itself was difficult. Lords frequently kept battle-scars as trophies; a flayed cheek might be made to heal so that the white of the bone showed through; a gouged eye could be grown elsewhere than the face.

  “In those days there was a young Lord called Lesk the Glut because of his appetites. Stolen as a child out of Sunside, he grew to a youth, became a lieutenant, eventually slew his master for his leech. But Lesk was a madman, and the stolen leech only enhanced his madness. When his murdered master’s familiar warrior hesitated to answer to Lesk’s command, he actually did battle with the th
ing … and killed it! He won the fight but lost an eye, which he grew again upon his shoulder.

  “Organs such as these were rudimentary. Some Lords deliberately affected an extra eye at the nape of the neck … sufficient to give warning of an attack from the rear. And these eyes would be lidless, so that they could never close in sleep.

  “I mention these things so as to illustrate the hideousness of which I have spoken. But in fact those Lords—and occasionally Ladies—who affected such alterations or mutilations were usually the weakest of their kind; they only made themselves to look ugly so as to present more fearsome facades in battle, and so perhaps to avoid battle entirely.

  “Take for example Volse Pinescu, called Lord Wen, which was surely the greatest possible misnomer. What, just one wen, when in all likelihood Volse was the ugliest of all the Lords of the Wamphyri? For it was Lord Wen’s habit to foster hairy blemishes, running sores, and festoons of boils all over his face and form in order that his aspect would be that much more terrifying. Do you see? No clean man or thing would strike him for fear of the drench which must surely ensue!

  “Even amongst the highest ranking vampire Lords, there were several such as Lesk and Volse. But then again, there were also those who had no need for such deceptions and affectations. And Nephran Malinari was one of them.

  “For he was vain and he was handsome … ah, but this, too, was a facade in its way. For The Mind was a monster underneath, even as monstrous as his mind, if you’ll forgive this puny play on words. But at least in his appearance Lord Malinari was less the beast and more the beautiful human being; more truly, well, ‘lordly,’ as it were. But for something so very terrible to be so beautiful, surely that were the ultimate deception?

  “Back to that night:

  “Seven great flyers had landed on the rim of a broad ledge, a false plateau in the foothills overlooking Vadastra territory. Malinari’s mist (for you may be sure it was of his manufacture) rolled down to flank him and his, then spread out and descended to the forest. It was met by a lesser mist that sprang from the soil and woodlands themselves, so ringing in our rude homes and their central clearing. And all about us a sea of white-lapping mist; and in the clearing itself a ground mist—but unlike any natural mist, sentient and sickfeeling—writhing and twining about the cabins and long-immobilized caravans where the latter were all propped on their empty axles. Malinari’s thoughts were in the mist; they felt things out, searching for treachery. But there was none. Or at least, not towards Malinari.