by Brian Lumley
Again Harry cried out, not in protest at the numbing sensation in his arm and shoulder—though that was a cold-burning pain in itself—but by reason of the bomb bursts of fire that were melting his mind, the agonising brilliance of the migraine that was killing him.
And his cries were answered.
Dust spiralled up from burial plots all around, especially from a grave some small distance beyond the four marked with skull and crossbones symbols, whose headstones stood like sentinels in a roughly delineated semicircle around the place where Harry kneeled in dirt and leaf-mould. It was the dust of forgotten men—of men long dead! The dust of bones fretted by grave worms and acidic soil, ground down by time and set aside by the action of gravediggers at their grim duties. The dust of flesh perished beyond corruption, withered, desiccated, and sifted to the surface on cold, careless shovels. This whirling dust devil—suddenly sentient and full of purpose—rushed in upon Harry as if to smother him!
But the Necroscope wasn’t its target.
The dirt in Billy Browen’s grave erupted as the thing from the stars finally emerged in full. Its form seemed lightweight, almost as if it had no weight at all, as it rose above the plot and wafted into the air; and yet it took Harry with it, lifting him to his feet as his eyes grew dull and began to glaze over—
—Which was when the dust devil hit!
It slammed into, stuck, and layered itself upon the undulating star-thing, settling an inch thick on the billowing shape and causing it to whip, trying to dislodge the dust but shaking free the Necroscope instead. And now another ethereal deadspeak voice—a voice that Harry had never heard before—reached him through the general psychic uproar from every part of the graveyard. It came to him more clearly by reason of its source being close to hand: namely the plot which had first issued the dust, the lifeless organic materia of a once-man, now clinging to the panicking star-thing. Harry’s unshielded thought processes with regard to what was happening were deadspeak, of course, and:
A once-man? the newcomer’s spirit answered, all unbidden. Aye, Necroscope—and a once-pirate, at that!
Sprawling in the dirt, then backing away from the frantic star-thing on all fours, finally clambering to his feet, albeit unsteadily, to put a handful of staggering steps between, Harry shook some of the numbness and burning cold out of his hand and arm and mumbled: “Who are you? But never mind: whoever you are, you have my thanks!”
Thanks, too, to whatever force had severed the telepathic, hypnotic connection between him and the creature, relieving the incredible pressure on Harry’s metaphysical mind, where already far fewer suns were bursting into novas. And before his unknown benefactor could reply, as Harry found himself once more capable of reasoned thought—and that with a greatly reduced amount of pain and effort—he hazarded a guess and answered his own question:
“You and these others here, surrounding Billy’s grave: you are the ones who jumped ship in a rowboat, when the rest of the crew were surrendering to this thing’s allure. You made arrangements to be buried here when life was done, perhaps thinking to use yourselves as a barrier between the world of living men and the evil intelligence of a parasitic being from the stars. Am I right?”
The being he referred to was moaning, groaning in his mind now. Ohhhhh, Necroscooope! You seek to murder me, but too late. They come for me, out of the stars. I feel them close. And when they have taken me up—when I command a ship again—you and this world where I have languished for so long, you shall know such suffering, and I shall know satisfaction!
The creature tried to float in Harry’s direction; weighed down in dust, it flopped, floundered. Nothing of brightness was any longer visible; the clinging debris of long-dead men closed out the light and natural energy of the sun. The thing’s colour in a handful of places where its convulsions dislodged clots of dust showed leaden grey in the brief moments before that unrelenting organic debris flew back and adhered once again.
And meanwhile the unknown ex-pirate was answering Harry’s questions:
As to your first: who I am or was does not matter; I am no longer, except as one who waits for better things. Your second: the four who lay closest to Billy’s grave—no longer here but long since moved on—were indeed the four who fled the ship in its final hours; each made his arrangements even as you surmise. Your third, however, that they came here to use themselves as a barrier to hem the thing in, is a noble thought incorrectly ascribed. We were pirates, Harry, who in the main cared not a jot for our so-called “fellow men!” The four were drawn here by the creature’s allure: to the end of their days they still felt it, and when it was time they came here to die, just to be near it! Aye, and myself “in the same boat,” as it were. But I had lived the longest and there was no space for a plot any closer to the vampire . . . to that evil, glorious golden sky-thing . . . !
“You admired it; you even desired it?” Still backing away from the star-creature, Harry shook his head in disbelief.
No more than you yourself, Harry. No, I didn’t desire it—but I felt its power, its allure, even when far away from it. I had known it for too long a time: first when we rescued it from the sea, then aboard the Sea Witch, finally in young Will Moffat’s jungle bolt-hole, when the creature held Zhadia in thrall, using her body and wasting it.
At last the Necroscope knew who he was. “You are the lone survivor of the six who deserted Black Jake during his search for Will Moffat after Will took Zhadia and ran off!”
Now you have me, the other replied, and Harry detected a loss of power in his deadspeak voice; also that it now seemed to come from an indeterminate location and gradually increasing distance. First I deserted the Sea Witch, and then I fled from that devil Jake’s onslaught on young Will’s refuge. I was the lone survivor, aye, but I couldn’t flee far enough . . . not from the golden thing’s allure! Fortunately, as it grew weaker, my plot lay beyond its reach; yet even so, I would have wished to be closer! And now I see your next question, and once again you are correct: the thing reached out its siphons to the four who were buried closest—even to their dead bodies in all of their corruption—from which it has drawn sustenance down all these years!
“The hollow plots!” Harry gasped, shocked despite that he had guessed correctly. And now there were other questions that he would ask, except:
Now I feel strange, said the other, his deadspeak failing, coming to Harry as from far away. And I think: perhaps it is my time to move on! But thanks to you, at least I have touched the vampire thing: held it close, enveloped it, albeit in insensate dust. It even seems possible that where I am bound my soul will no longer hunger after it! I can only hope so. . . .
With which his voice faded to nothing and he was gone.
Meanwhile the leaden grey thing had shaken itself free of dust, and summoning the last of its alien energy it lunged for the Necroscope. Harry’s Möbius math was intact; he conjured an invisible door—
—But he didn’t put it to use. Once again frozen, held in stasis, the grip of a paralysing power, he swayed to and fro in the one spot, doing his level best to keep his balance. On this occasion, however, it wasn’t the alien parasite that controlled him but others more powerful yet, and the thing itself was held immobile no less than Harry.
Then down from the dull sky came a beam no more vital than a ray of sunlight, but one that defeated gravity absolutely. Up went the once-golden thing, faster and faster into empty space, and Harry heard its dwindling shriek, the reason for which came almost at once as another telepathic voice announced itself:
Fear not for we mean you no harm. But we have searched for this evil one for long and long. He and his kind made war on us—indeed, on all of the universe’s many races—and long since lost the battle. He is the last of his kind; all the others are restrained, contained. Like them he will be held in stasis with neither mental nor physical contact, lacking all forms of nourishment, until his energies devolve and his materia is consumed by the infinite void. We will not kill him, who can by no
other means die, but let time perform the task for us.
As for you: a warning! Be mindful how you use your powers, which are great; use them only for the benefit of others, avoiding the inducements of all evil beings—such as this one—who may only seek to perform their grievous works through you!
Thus we counsel you. You are a chosen one, but immature as yet in the ways of the Higher Mind. And now farewell. . . .
And as the pale but powerful beam from above switched off, the Necroscope allowed his knees to bend and slid into a seated position with his back to a leaning headstone. . . .
Later, Harry conversed with the graveyard’s spokesman:
“Why didn’t you warn me? Your silence was deafening!”
We had ourselves been warned, said the spokesman. Also, we didn’t know what we were dealing with; or rather, what was dealing with us! We suspected some kind of vampire, but an eater of the dead as opposed to the living. And against vampires, Harry, well you have proved yourself invincible.
Harry frowned. “You had yourselves been warned? By whom?”
By the creature itself! “Only speak of me to the Necroscope—” the star-thing told us, “—only alert him to his danger, and I shall send forth my siphons after you!”
Harry shook his head. “He was bluffing. He didn’t have the strength.”
We didn’t know that, but we did know that you are invincible!
“No.” Again Harry shook his head. “I’m not, and that thing very nearly proved it!”
For which . . . well, how can we say we’re sorry? Obviously, sorry can never be enough. The spokesman was downcast, humbled; if he had eyes to cry, they would have.
But relenting, Harry disagreed with what the spokesman had said. “Because of all you have suffered, ‘sorry’ will more than suffice. Surely it’s enough that you have left the world of the living behind and know only the bitter cold and the darkness of death in a crumbling box, without also being threatened there?”
Still, we were mistaken and we are sorry.
“No need.” The Necroscope shook his head. He had spoken his last on the matter. . . .
He took the Möbius route to Hartlepool’s ancient harbour, where he leaned on the weathered stone wall and looked out across the water. The sea was flat calm where, as the sky lightened, rafts of gulls floated in the sudden flash and sparkle of sunlight on the ripples, and the world felt fine indeed.
Harry said as much to anyone who would listen. Then, when no answer was forthcoming, he spoke directly to Erik “Scarhelm” Haroldson, to thank him for his warning—and again received no reply. But it wasn’t that the Great Majority had soured on him. Not now, and not ever.
No, it was just that Erik was no longer here, neither him nor his Viking crew. Oh, their bones would be down there still, but as for their souls—
—Finally Erik had won them the right to move on.
To Valhalla? Well why not? Listening hard, the Necroscope even believed he heard the cries of the Valkyries. It was only the seagulls, but Harry pretended otherwise. . . .
End Piece: Old Man with a Blade
It was Edinburgh in the summer but could as easily be any city or place anywhere at any time, in any season since time began.
The old man with the blade, that long, curving ever sharp blade, was on the lookout, as usual, for fresh—or maybe not so fresh—victims. They had it coming eventually; but the way he looked at it they had done it and were doing it to themselves! Victims of their own stupidity . . . but in an equal number of cases victims of their genes; for as often as not, that was where it started.
Take for instance the old boy in the wheelchair pushed by his haggard-looking wife. A classic case of who would go first: him with his Alzheimer’s—prompting him to stick his fingers in electric sockets, because he couldn’t remember what they were—or her worn down by the weight of caring for him, whose problem was in his genes, inherited from his father, who in turn had got it from his father . . . and so on. But both of them eventually, if not just yet.
The old man’s curved blade tingled with a life of its own; its owner sensed it lusting after the lives of others—even of this harmless pair—but not yet. He leaned towards them anyway as they passed him by on the pavement, sniffing at them to make sure he wasn’t mistaken. He wasn’t, which in its way was disappointing; better them than some young couple. But then again it wasn’t his lot to discriminate.
The street was as good as empty; on this early Sunday morning most folks were still abed or only just stirring. But there were, of course, those who were driven to be up and about. Like that middle-aged man who had just come out of the tobacconist’s shop, already tearing the film from his pack of cigarettes, and then the silver foil, his hand trembling where it groped in his pocket for his lighter.
The old man with the shining blade stepped closer, smelled the smoke from that first long drag, heard the addict’s sigh of relief . . . and also the cough welling up from the diseased lung of which, for the moment, the smoker wasn’t aware. But he would be, oh he would be! As the curved blade tingled again, a little more determinedly now, the old man nodded to himself, thinking, “We’ll give him a year, my faithful friend, or perhaps a little less.” And he patted the long handle of his blade.
A little farther down the street, a bearded derelict wrapped in a torn blanket mumbled to himself where he lay in a shop doorway. Sucking the last few drops of wine from a brown bottle in a paper bag, he flopped back into a shady corner and waved a fluttery greeting to no one in particular. Grey vomit had hardened to crusts on his blue-veined naked feet.
“Ah!” said the old man with the tingling, sentient-seeming blade, also to no one in particular. And lifting the blade from the leather saddle on his shoulder, he reached into the doorway and touched the derelict’s dirty neck. With his eyes closed and flesh numb, the bum saw and felt nothing at all . . . but then he wouldn’t have anyway. And:
“Next winter,” said the old man as he strode on along the street. “We’ll see you again next winter.”
Disease, drugs, drink, and occasionally accidents. And the absolute harvest of war, naturally. And always the old man with his shining blade: always Death, of course. He moved on.
The city was beginning to come awake now, daylight brightening. The old man wasn’t especially fond of daylight: he suffered it but it didn’t really fit the image of one who preferred to have things happen in the dark of night. However—and once again—it wasn’t in his power to discriminate. . . .
There was a fancy wine bar with an ornate varnished mahogany facade, opaque, small-paned bull’s-eye windows, and a hanging sign above the recessed, arched-over double doors that read simply: “B.J.’s.” As the old man with the blade drew level with the doors they opened; a girl, beautiful, darkly gypsyish, with eyes that shone in the shaded doorway, ushered a young man into the daylight. She leaned forward to kiss him, a temporary farewell, left him on the street and closed the doors on him.
There was something about the young man. He blinked in the morning sunlight and lifted a hand to shade his pale face, his eyes that seemed a little distant, dazed and disorientated. The old man thought it possible that he knew that look: he believed he’d seen its like before: often, on the faces of men who were lost or bent on suicide!
And yet . . . there was something else about this particular young man, so the old man with the scythe leaned closer, sniffing out the other’s origins, essence, nature, destiny. But then a singular thing: just for a moment he thought he saw the young man’s faraway eyes focus and look back at him! And more, it was as if the young man knew him, as if they were old friends!
Indeed they were old friends!
The scythe no longer tingled but shivered, and its master, the oldest man of all, shivered with it and jerked away, quickening his silent steps along the still mainly empty street. Ah, he knew this one now, remembered him for all the work he’d done for him; knew also that he would never be required to accommodate him. Oh, his time would com
e eventually—well, possibly—but not now and not in this world. That was not this one’s destiny. But there were other old men with blades, a great many of them, in all the many worlds where life had taken root.
One of them would accommodate this one—this Necroscope, this Harry Keogh—well, eventually. Or possibly? Death stroked his living scythe to calm it, then paused to cast a glance back along the almost empty street. And then he nodded to himself.
For apart from a small dust devil where it collapsed close to the wine bar’s entrance, and the dirty naked foot protruding from a shop doorway, the street was empty, yes.
And the old, old man moved on. . . .
