by Brian Lumley
“He was of the Szgany Lidesci. No longer nomadic, the Lidescis had built a sprawling town or fortification called Settlement. And the first time we raided on them—which was also the last time—ah, but then we discovered the meaning of ‘awesome weapons!’
“Our warriors—which were far more complicated constructs than flyers—were not waxed as yet. We went in with a force of flyers and thrall riders, and a handful of lieutenants to guide the men into battle. Except it wasn’t planned as a battle but a rout, when the Szgany would flee and we would pick off the hindmost. Vavara and Malinari between them made a mist (Szwart was above such devices when he could avoid them; since he could simply merge into the night, he deemed mists unsporting and indeed unnecessary deceptions). But be that as it may, the mist rolled down out of the foothills to swallow Settlement whole. We could see the fitful glow of the Lidescis’ communal fires deep in its clammy heart.
“Then our flyers launched and settled towards the town … and flew straight into the teeth of hell!
“Fortunately, we leaders were not in the forefront of this offensive; instead, alerted by my master who was suspicious, we had held back to observe the initial Lidesci reaction. For when Malinari had sent his telepathic probes deep into the mist over Settlement, he had sensed something strange—a mental silence, an awareness, a threat. And he was right.
“The night came alive with deafening explosions, brilliant flashes of light and shrill screams—not Szgany screams! These were the shrieks of our thralls, and the hissing death-cries of stricken flyers. And echoing up to us from Settlement’s wooden walls came sharp, spitting cracks of sound one after the other, like stones breaking in a fire or saplings snapping in an avalanche. And great, dazzling balls of fire came soaring up out of the mist into a body of flyers that was still descending. Wherever they hit, destruction followed: flyers bursting into flame and blazing thralls leaping from their saddles!
“And finally more aerial fireballs: this time aimed at us, where we looked on in utter disbelief from our ‘safe’ foothills ridge. Then:
“‘Enough!’ And uttering a curse, Szwart spurred his mount aloft and climbed into the night. A true fly-the-light, he had seen and suffered all he could bear; now he retreated from the blinding flares of man-made fireballs.
“Malinari and Vavara, they used Wamphyri mentalism to call off what handfuls remained of our forces, many of whom were too badly damaged to make it back across the barrier mountains into Starside. And as that sorry, scorched, and blistered rabble came limping through the mist—glad to escape from the roil and the reek—so we launched and rose on sulphur thermals, and headed for home … .
“ … And for the surprise of our lives!
“As we fell towards the triangle of rubble wherein we had commenced to build our new empire, we saw what could not be—such devastation! Our central gas-beast chambers, blown asunder, and their occupants in tatters all strewn about, exploded in the blast of their own gasses! And warrior vats ablaze with liquid fire that burned blue to melt the mewling monsters! And even as we circled overhead in stunned amaze, a thunderous explosion that tossed shattered vampire thralls and debris aloft over the battlement walls of one of Malinari’s unfinished constructions (a warrior pen, which never would be finished now), bursting the walls themselves outwards with its force!
“We landed hurriedly, in unaccustomed disarray, and without ceremony my master and his colleagues hurled themselves in their fury upon those thralls who had been left behind to mind our works. But before a single question could be fired, a single thrall executed:
“‘Ho, there!’ A strange voice from on high—but not the harsh tones, warning growl or threatening hiss of the Wamphyri. No, this was the voice of a young man, and entirely human.
“He stood on the ledge of a shattered stump, his back to the sheer rock wall. There was no way up from his position and none down, not without he encounter the Wamphyri or their lieutenants and thralls. And he was tall but slight, with nothing of the bulk of a vampire or the leaden look of a Lord. He was, quite literally, a man—Szgany.
“‘Who are you?’ said Malinari. ‘This Nathan, perhaps? And is this your work? If so you are a dead man!’ I felt my master concentrating, the waves of animosity beating out from him, to enter the stranger’s mind and befuddle it.
“But young as he was, and obviously mad (or perhaps not?) he only smiled a knowing smile, shook his head, and said, ‘Ah, no, my mentalist friend—my mind is shielded. And if Maglore the Mage could not get to me, what chance have you? And you’re right: I am Nathan, and this is my work. Nor have you seen the last of it.’
“Malinari gestured (with his mind); thralls crept towards the broken stairway that led to Nathan’s position. He glanced at them, saw them coming, appeared to ignore them! Meanwhile, the voluptuous Vavara had stepped forward. She was almost physically aglow and issued her ultimate aura of feminine allure. Her mouth blew a kiss and a promise in Nathan’s direction; she smiled up at him on his ledge—the knowing smile of a whore, yet one to cut into a man’s soul, if he had one—and lit the night with the lustful heat of her jewel-green, crimson-cored eyes.
“Tipping back her hood and opening her collar, she shook out her raven hair, then let her long, bat-fur cloak fall open. Her blouse was a simple band of cloth crossing from shoulder to waist, cupping one breast and leaving the other bare. Her flesh was marble in moon and starlight, and that proud, naked, stiff-tipped breast shone with the oils she used. She twirled to send her skirt of ropes flying, then came to an abrupt halt. Tantalizing she stood, with her cloak poised on the air and the ropes of her skirt outflung. Her sturdy legs were spread wide, thighs like pillars, buttocks as round as an apple, darktufted in its dimple where the stem has been plucked and a leaf or two remain. And I stood there drooling my lust, for I had grown just such a stem as might replace it! Then Vavara’s cloak floated back into position and she was covered. But the picture stayed printed on every eye.
“I felt my blood pounding; I might myself have rushed upon her—to my doom—but Malinari’s hand was on my shoulder; he held me back. And this tall, pale Szgany whelp, this Nathan, he looked down on the priestess of lust, looked down on Vavara … and curled his lip!
“Vavara was astonished; she felt her aura repelled as this mere man scorned her, saying, ‘As for you: you should know that I have been tempted by real Ladies! My mind is closed to you no less than to the mentalist there. And by the way, I know all of you. You Vavara, Malinari, and Szwart. You were legends and now you are reality, come back from the Icelands. But if I were you I would return there, and now. There’s nothing for you here but the true death. And like my father before me, who brought down these evil stacks to shatter into pieces on the boulder plains, so shall I bring you down. That is my vow, as a man of the Szgany Lidesci.’
“Through all of this, Szwart had melted himself to a dark shadow on the strewn rubble. Now, flowing like a black and sentient lichen—a living stain—he moved towards the crumbling stairway. By now, too, Malinari’s thralls had climbed halfway up, which was as far as they would ever get.
“‘And you, Szwart,’ said the youth from on high, perhaps fifty feet up the stony skeleton of that ancient stairway. ‘Do you think to sweep over and devour me? As the legend goes, you are akin to the night and can disappear into it. But you and I know that men—and monsters—cannot simply disappear. It’s true, Szwart, isn’t it?’ While he spoke he took something from his Szgany jerkin, twisted it in his hands, lobbed it down, to bounce from step to step. And he said, ‘Well, perhaps it’s true for you, at least. But as for me: I must be on my way. You may not see me, but you’ll definitely be hearing from me.’ So saying, he stepped back into the shadows where the wall angled.
“Lord Szwart flowed over the top of the wall where Nathan had stood, and onto the ledge from which he’d taunted all three of the Wamphyri. Szwart’s darkness gathered there, shifting and seething, then rolled on into the selfsame shadows that hid the madman from view. And
I knew that it was the end for Nathan Kiklu, whoever he had been. Lord Szwart’s protoplasm would envelop him; its strange, metamorphic acids would work on him; he would shrink, devolve, and dissolve to become one with night’s master. Or rather, his liquefied flesh would add to Szwart’s bulk for a while, until it was converted into fuel.
“The egg-shaped item that Nathan had thrown bounced again, into the group of three climbing thralls. And there it exploded in a flash of light as bright and momentarily brighter than the sun itself! Light, heat, and a blast of alien energy that lacerated the flesh of the unfortunate thralls and blew them off the stone stairway, down into the rubble. They were in pieces, dead before they hit bottom. And Szwart hissing and shrieking, reeling on the high stairs where he tried to regain his man-shape, failed, and collapsed again to a slithering stain.
“All of this shocking, aye, but none so much as what Lord Szwart called out to us as finally he reformed, shaping himself into an airfoil and launching in search of some night-dark place in which to regain his composure:
“‘He was not there!’ he shrilled. ‘He is not here! No man, that one, but a ghost! Perhaps the spirit of all the Szgany we ever took in our lives, all combined in one vengeful ghost!’
“And Malinari turned to Vavara and said, ‘Szwart is right. Not that Nathan is a ghost, but that he’s no longer here. For a moment I touched his mind—real in the field of my probes, as real as the shields he raised against me—and in the next moment, gone! So if you think we have seen awesome weapons at work this night, well now we have seen a real weapon: the man Nathan himself. But all of this bears thinking about, and I shall give it my gravest consideration.’
“And despite that The Mind had chosen his words carefully, perhaps because he felt he must retain at least a measure of control, still his sprouting scythe teeth were awash in his own blood where he ground them deep into his lips and riven gums.”
“And Malinari did give it his gravest consideration, as did we all; but no amount of thinking could compensate for our losses, or dream up a successful defense against future depredations by the demon Nathan. Thus that entire night was a disaster, and no guarantee that things were ever going to get any better.
“We went subterranean. Unthinkable, eh—that the Wamphyri should ever flee from a man? From the sun, aye, but not from a single man! Yet such was the case. If we could not build on high, then we must build below, where the stumps of the toppled stacks were riddled with tunnels, caverns, and places which, in the olden times, were only ever fit for bats and beetles.
“And despite that our work force was reduced—our flyers, too, and our warriors boiled in their vats—still we had several hundreds of thralls and provisions aplenty.
“The thralls were put to work; they cleared the debris from ancient diggings, moved our provisions to safety, and built defensive positions on the surface. New vats of metamorphosis were discovered or dug, into which we sacrificed a third of our manpower, the raw materials of our future flyers and warriors. And we commenced keeping a watch … . can you believe it? The Wamphyri, vigilant against any further sabotage attempts by this mere man! Moreover, it was more rigidly enforced than any watch that our vanished ancestors had ever kept against each other.
“But this last was a necessity, for from then on, whenever we raided against the Szgany, we could be sure that retaliation would follow hot on our heels. And Nathan Kiklu—man or ghost or whatever he was—he was everywhere. If we raided in the far western reaches of Sunside, he would soon be there with a party of Lidesci fighters, with ‘guns,’ ‘grenades,’ and ‘rockets,’ setting fire to the wings of our flyers, blinding them with silver shot, and knocking our thralls out of their saddles before they could even touch down! Thus, for every man we recruited in Sunside, one of ours was killed by Nathan and his Szgany soldiers. And every forward step was followed by one to the rear.
“East, west, wherever we struck, Nathan and his men could be there in a trice. How? It was beyond us. Moreover, he would snipe on us from afar, and shoot our thralls dead in their defensive or watchtower positions. Until my master and his colleagues were obliged to devise a new strategy.
“Instead of inhabiting just one central area of Starside’s olden ruins, now we spread out and stationed men in every shattered stump and heap of rubble. For one thing was certain: who or whatever Nathan was, and for all that he could appear almost magically, anywhere, in extremely short order, he couldn’t possibly be everywhere at once! And so we maintained something of our equilibrium, despite that we made little progress … .
“One night my master flew out alone. Returning shortly, he complained bitterly that: This damned Szgany bastard—he has spies in the barrier mountains! Hah! That is how he knows where we will raid: they watch us fly up from the boulder plains, the direction we take, then make report to him. I tracked them with my mentalism—which is how I discovered theirs!’
“‘What? They are thought-thieves, these men?’ Vavara found it hard to believe. ‘Mentalists?’
“Malinari laughed like a madman, and answered, ‘Even as we are mentalists, aye. So says Malinari the Mind, the greatest of them all. But … they are not men!’
“‘Not men?’ And now Szwart was baffled. ‘Not men, you say? Then what—trogs?’
“Malinari gave a wild shake of his head and waved his arms in consternation. ‘Not trogs, no—but dogs!’ he said. ‘Wolves of the wild that think like men. Stranger still, they call this Nathan uncle! He is their kin!’
“‘Then he is a dog-Lord!’ said Vavara. ‘It’s the only possible solution. This hated enemy of ours is Wamphyri! He dwells in the mountain heights, rules on Sunside, and keeps the Szgany for himself. His needs are so slight that the tribes suffer him for his protection. I must be right. Nathan is a changeling.’
“And Szwart said, ‘But a dog-Lord? With powers such as he commands? And as for suffering him for his protection—against what? What was there before we came?’
“My master threw up his hands, crying, ‘I don’t know! I no longer know anything … except that I am sick to death of this Nathan, of this ruined place, and of all this endless work performed without reward. This work that gets us nowhere …”
“We took to raiding separately but simultaneously in locations far apart, and we covered our movements with great stealth. For again the principle applied: that Nathan couldn’t be everywhere at once. And at last a small measure of success—which didn’t last long. He couldn’t be everywhere, but his weapons could.
“From thralls freshly converted we learned how he had disseminated his destructive devices—his guns and grenades, and so forth—among as many as possible of the tribes. And he had taught them how to use them. But these weapons and the ‘ammunition’ they used were not in unlimited supply. From time to time Nathan must replenish them by venturing into the Hell-lands.
“That in itself posed a question: how was it possible for Nathan to make these trips to the Hell-lands without using the Starside Gate? For the Gate was no longer accessible. Where in our time it had rested in the bottom of a crater in the lee of the foothills not far from the great pass, now it was raised up and stood in the centre of a lake! And that lake of white water had many small whirlpools to suck a swimmer down.
“Often in our forays across the barrier mountains into Sunside we had seen it there: that fountain of water, all lit from within, rising up high into the night and falling back into the lake.
“In order to solve that problem, we flew out one night; or rather, Malinari and Vavara flew out, and a few lieutenants and thralls in attendance. For Lord Szwart would not consider going anywhere near such a brilliant source of light, despite that it was cold.
“Ah, but that was indeed a fortunate trip—for the Wamphyri at least, if not (as it later turned out) for me; though of course I could not know that then. Anyway, during the long day previous, while we vampires slept or carried out our subterranean duties beneath the stumps of the old stacks, apparently the lake had run dry!
“And there stood the Gate, raised up in its crater socket, like the blind white eye of some fallen Cyclops shining up into the night. But as for the lake and its fountain of milky water: they were no more, not even a trickle! The earth was dry, caked, and wrinkled into channels that showed how the water had disappeared down circular boreholes that angled into the bedrock like conduits to hell. A weird thing, this Gate; weird as the tumbling moon or ice-chip stars, and just as inexplicable.
“Malinari, Vavara, and their men had left their flyers in the shadowy foothills between the Gate and the great pass, well away from the Gate itself. Facing downhill on a moderate slope, the flyers were positioned for immediate flight. It was a safety measure, to ensure a quick getaway should such become necessary. And so it may be seen that even among the Great Vampires the Hell-lands Gate was held in no small measure of respect.
“And separating into small, widespread groups, we applied the same caution to our method of approach—moving from boulder clump to boulder clump, and always sticking to the shadows—as we drew closer to the Gate. But we were still some distance away when suddenly my master threw up a warning hand, and issued a mental alarm that reached out to all of us:
“Something is coming through the Gate! his voice hissed in our minds as we melted back into darkest shadows.
“And he was correct, of course. He had sensed their alien minds, these men of the Hell-lands (of your world, that is), as they stepped forth onto the surface of our world. Far more importantly, however, Malinari had sensed their unpreparedness. Oh, they had weapons as devastating as Nathan’s, but for protection as opposed to open aggression. Also, they had little or no idea what to expect in Starside, and to a man their minds were preoccupied with greed for the heavy, malleable yellow metal that you call gold, which in my world is common.
