Dreamlands 5: Questers for Kuranes: Two Tales of Hero and Eldin

by Brian Lumley

  After that, in short order, the S.W.I.E. showed Hero the ghost of Eelor Tush, a Baharnian vintner who’d journeyed to the edge of dream itself in the discovery of his rare wines; the spectral remains of Tark the Tall, mountaineer extraordinaire, whose recent expedition on the south face of Hatheg-Kla in the stony desert had been the talk of all the dreamlands (especially after his party, with the sole exception of Tark himself, had fallen to their deaths from the mountain’s flank; indeed fallen up the mountain, for Hatheg-Kla is that sort of place); and finally the shade of Geerblas Ulm, fearless and fabled descender into holes, first man to ever clamber down a rope to the bone-strewn floor of the ill-regarded Pit of Puth. And always Hero was aware that the same figure and face were somewhere present in the vicinity, mingling with the mobs come to gawp at the ghosts of this string of unfortunate personalities.

  And so fascinated and involved had Hero become with these ocular excursions that it took some little time for the fact to dawn that here he was back in the Leery Crab (from which he’d never in fact strayed), seated beside the Seer, who sipped at his muth as before. “Enough?” inquired that worthy, between sips.

  “Quite enough.” Hero nodded. “And I thank you for what you’ve shown me. What’s more, I believe I’m onto something. Now make haste with that muth and get busy.”

  “Eh? Busy?”

  “Searching for Eldin, of course, alive or dead. But alive, if you value my continued friendship.”

  The Seer drained his mug. “I shall proceed by yak to the western flank of N’granek, which I’ll search most diligently,” he promised.

  “Good!” said Hero. “And when I’ve done with a spot of business—maybe even while I’m dealing with it—I’ll make myself available for searching the eastern flank. Before we go our separate ways, however, perhaps you’ll tell me: when exactly was Shallis Tull’s demise?”

  “Eh? Tull? He disappeared, oh, all of three or four months ago. One of the vampire’s first victims, as it happens.”

  “And The Silver Fish? What became of her?”

  “Sold in auction, the monies going to Tull’s old shipmates.”

  Hero nodded and asked no more. They stood up and the Seer left a small (a very small) tip on the table, and in single file they took their leave of the place. Or would have, except that Lippy Unth was waiting just beyond the door.

  “Hero,” said the huge black man rumblingly. “I’ll take that, if it’s all the same to you.” He glanced warily at the bomb in Hero’s hand. Behind him stood Gooba and friend, along with a goodly number of scar-faced patrons.

  Without pause Hero struck sparks and lit the fuse, which at once commenced sputtering and smoking and of course burning down. Everyone except Lippy, who seemed nailed to the quay’s stone flags, burst into furious activity, diving this way and that like so many trapped rats, taking cover wherever such might be had. Some went so far as to dive headlong off the pier into the scabfish-ridden scum of the harbor. Lippy, as stated, merely teetered on his heels, his olive features somehow contriving to turn a dark gray.

  “This?” said Hero, innocently, holding up the smoking bomb in plain view. “Take it, by all means!” And he tucked it into Lippy’s wide trouser band under his bulging belly.

  Finally Lippy unfroze, snatched the device from his trousers, lobbed it out across the greasy water. In doing so he noted how light it was; noted, too, that when it splashed down it didn’t sink but bobbed—exactly like the green glass floats which the fishermen used to buoy their nets! What’s more, there was a smudge of fresh black paint on Lippy’s hurling hand …

  “Hero!” he howled a moment later, when he’d had time to draw sufficient breath. But by then Hero and the S.W.I.E. both had quite vanished away.

  HERO DECIDED HE’D CARRY OUT an aerial search for Eldin, and he knew exactly who he’d enlist to aid him in this venture: someone with a sky-ship, obviously. Night had settled and the Quayside Quaress was alive with music, lights and laughter as he hurried along the dockside. At the door he bumped into the very man he sought, Chim Nedlar himself, master of the Shark’s Fin sloop.

  “Ahoy there, Cap’n!” Hero called out in a voice darkly jovial.

  The other peered at him a moment in the gloom, then chuckled. “Ahoy, Hero! So we get to have a drink together after all!”

  “Later, maybe,” said Hero. “But right now I’ve need of your boat.”

  “Eh?” Nedlar seemed uncertain. “But I’ve given my lads shore leave for the night. Whatever it is, I’m sure it can wait till morning.”

  “No.” Hero shook his head. “It can’t. My friend and fellow quester Eldin the Wanderer is wrecked somewhere on N’granck, where the foothills meet the mountain. I’ve come here, to the Quaress, to borrow a bit of gear, and then I was on my way to find you. By being here you’ve saved me the trouble. Don’t worry, I’ll pay you well for your time and the hire of your sloop. As for being shorthanded: how many crew do you carry?”

  “Myself and two—when they’re here,” said the captain. “She’s easy in the handling, the old Shark’s Fin.”

  “But built for speed!” said Hero. “Which is what’s required. And the wind’s dropped, and we’re both of us sailors. Man, I reckon we can handle her well enough on our own. Now, look, while I get me an aiming-lamp, maybe you’d like to pick up a bottle or two? Then while we search we can pull their corks, eh?”

  Chim Nedlar brightened a little. “And perhaps you’ll tell me a handful of your tall tales?—er, while we search, I mean?”

  “A deal’s a deal.” Hero nodded.

  As Chim made his way to the bar to buy booze, Hero’s eyes narrowed a little. He watched the other’s broad back disappear into the crowd …

  Then someone tugged at his elbow and a foul, familiar female voice blasted in his ear: “Hero, by all that’s unspeakably clean and healthy!”

  “Buxom Barba!” he returned, recoiling from her breath.

  Gigantically bosomed, gap-toothed from many a fistfight, and beaming very unbeautifully, Barba grabbed and hugged him. He felt his ribs give a little and fought free. “And Eldin?” she said, punching Hero mightily in the shoulder as she glanced this way and that. “Now, where’s my favorite boy?”

  “Lost,” said Hero, and he explained the other’s possible plight. “That’s why I’m here, to borrow one of your stage-lighting devices.”

  She went and brought one for him: a lantern with a curved lens, to throw the light in a beam. Onstage, the amazon Zuli Bazooli’s dance was made that much more sensuous where now only five lights played upon her gleaming body instead of the customary six. “My thanks, Barba,” said Hero. “I’ll not forget you.”

  “When you find him drag him back here for a drink!” she shouted, as he hurried toward Chim Nedlar waiting at the door …

  AFTER THAT IT TOOK TEN MINUTES to get aboard the Shark’s Fin, cast off, and climb up into the night sky, and in a little while the gentle breeze off the sea was hushing them inland toward N’granek. Hero fixed up his searchlight in the prow, and Chim let his vessel drift along silently under half sail, crossing Baharna’s hinterland plateau toward the central peaks. Then the captain joined Hero as he scanned the way ahead, and each pulling a cork they drank a little wine. The stuff went straight to Hero’s head, which in the circumstances was perhaps to be expected.

  “The engines are off, bags three-quarters full, altitude steady,” said Chim. “Twenty minutes or thereabouts and we’ll be over the foothills. Then we can start hallooing and hope your friend hears us, and your searchlight can double as a depth gauge. There are fangs aplenty I wouldn’t care to bang into. Closer to N’granek I’ll start up the engines, gain a little altitude, head for the eastern flank. If Eldin the Wanderer’s there he should see or hear us. I still think it would have been better by daylight, but—”

  “But he’s lived through one night out there already,” said Hero. “If he’s still alive. So by now he’ll be a bit desperate—especially if he’s hurt. That’s why it couldn’t wai
t till daybreak.”

  “Of course, of course,” said Chim, falling silent and thoughtful.

  “Oh?” said Hero in a little while. “Is there something? Did I perhaps snap at you just then?”

  Chim shrugged. “Only because you’re under stress,” he said. “But I suppose in the circumstances you’ll not be much for recounting your adventures. A shame. For it’s my hobby, you know: listening to swashbuckling yarns. And with such as you aboard … why, to hear firsthand accounts of your adventures would be … but probably not at a time like this, eh?”

  Hero looked at him sideways. “I’ve nothing against it,” he said. “Indeed, it might help pass the time.” At which … it was as if a chill breeze blew on the back of Hero’s neck, so that the short hairs stiffened there and made him shiver. He looked to see what had caused this sudden, icy gust, and there—

  —Not three paces away, there stood a burly, bearded figure, peering in a puzzled fashion across the gunwale and out into the night! At first Hero almost cried out, for he thought that it was Eldin. But then he saw that for all its burliness the figure was ephemeral as fluff, less than a shimmer on a hot day. Rightly so, for it was the not entirely unfamiliar ghost of Shallis Tull! Its familiarity had two sources. One: this was one of the apparitions that the S.W.I.E. had shown to him; and two: it was the ghost he’d seen in his dreams during the crossing from Celephais to Oriab. What’s more, it seemed to Hero that the specter was a warning …

  “Ah!” said Chim Nedlar, “You see him, do you? From where I’m standing he’s the merest outline. You see, it’s all in the angle. Well, nothing to be afraid of. He’s perfectly harmless. Give you a start, did he?”

  The ghost quit its peering, wandered off along the deck and into the wheelhouse. Its face looked out for a moment through a window, and then gradually faded away …

  “Eh?” said Hero, shaking himself. “A start? Aye, a bit of a one.” He looked hard at Chim and his eyes had gone a fraction glinty. “Though why that should be I can’t really say—since this was once his ship! P’raps I should have expected him.”

  Chim nodded. “Oh? And you know all about him, eh? Aye, the old Shark’s Fin was once The Silver Fish; I thought it wiser to name her anew. I mean, it’s one thing to be haunted but quite another to advertise the fact! How much trade d’you think I’d do if my customers knew this was Tull’s old vessel?”

  “Not much, I suppose,” said Hero. “But doesn’t it—he—bother you? Aren’t you a bit chary of him?”

  “He’s a ghost.” Chim shrugged. “And gradually fading as all ghosts do. I see less and less of him. Another week or two and there’ll be nothing left of him at all!”

  “But he’s the victim of a vampire.” Hero was coldly logical. “I mean, what of the legends? What if he should come back in vampire guise and vampirize you?”

  “Hah! Twaddle! Stuff and nonsense!” Chim snorted. “Superstitious claptrap!”

  “Oh?” Hero feigned a look of surprise. “You’re not a superstitious man, then?”

  “Me? No, of course not.”

  “And yet you admit that your boat’s haunted …”

  Chim narrowed his eyes. “I—”

  “Indeed, it is haunted, for just a moment ago we both saw the ghost.”

  Chim sputtered. “A common or garden ghost is one thing,” he declared, “and a vampire quite another. The first I believe in, not least because I’ve seen it, but the other—”

  At which point the Shark’s Fin bumped shudderingly into something, and from down below there came the rumbling echo of falling boulders. “Crags!” Hero cried, aiming his searchlight down into darkness.

  “Fangs!” Chim leaped to the wheelhouse, got the flotation engines going.

  They’d been lucky, merely brushed a pinnacle and blunted its stony tip. But sure enough they’d drifted well into the foothills, and southward rose the central peaks, where N’granek was lord and master. Gaining altitude, the ship bore them up above the danger zone.

  “East,” said Hero a little breathlessly. “Tack east now, while I sweep with my beam and we will both call out as we go. If Eldin’s somewhere down there he’ll see and/or hear us.”

  East it was, searchlight flashing, voices calling, and down below a thin mist crawling on the crags and in the hollows. But never the sight or sound of Eldin the Wanderer. And after a while: “Let down your anchor,” said Hero gruffly. “It’s dawned on me that if he’s hurt, he may well be gathering his strength to make reply. I’d hate to overshoot him and leave him cold and broken in the mist.”

  Chim Nedlar did as instructed; the Shark’s Fin swung gently at anchor some thirty-five feet over the crags, with frowning N’granek as backdrop, shrouded in a mist made yellow by the rising moon. And for an hour Hero aimed his lamp this way and that, until its oil was all used up; and all the while the two men bellowing their lungs out—to no apparent avail. “I’m hoarse,” Hero finally admitted.

  “Me too,” replied the other.

  They drank wine, Hero perhaps a little too much.

  Then the Shark’s Fin’s master spotted a tear in the inside corner of the quester’s right eye, and another forming in the left. He nodded his understanding, said solemnly: “You think he’s a goner, right?”

  Hero looked away.

  “You’ve adventured a lot together, you two,” Chim prompted.

  “Aye.” Hero’s voice came gruff from where he averted his face. Then, with more animation: “Adventured? Hah! That’s not the half of it! How many men have been to the moon, Chim? We went there, got turned to moon rock—almost, and returned to tell of it. What do you know of Lathi and Zura? They’ve been enemies and allies both—until now I don’t quite know what they are! We’ve chased horned-one pirates aboard Admiral Dass’ flagship, burned old Thalarion to the ground, sailed dreamland’s skies on the life-leaf of a Great Tree. Adventure?”

  “Go on,” Chim Nedlar urged. “Tell me more. Only paint a fuller picture, Hero. These are mere scraps you’re tossing me.”

  And so Hero began to talk.

  It was the wine, his grief, the misty night. It was his loneliness. And of course it was Chim’s urging. The man was a good listener: he was like a sponge, soaking up all that Hero told him. But he was much more than a mere sponge.

  Hero told of his part in the destruction of Yibb-Tstll’s avatar idol in the Great Bleak Mountains; and of how he’d lulled the eidolon Lathi with a lullaby, thus enabling her hive city to be razed to the ground. He talked of the aerial plank-walk he’d taken, with Zura’s zombie-pirates’ swords at his back, and of his rescue from that miles-high tumble by Gytherik Imniss’ night gaunts; and he told of the time he’d been vented from the bowels of Serannian in a great gust of scented flotation essence, when again Gytherik’s grim of gaunts had plucked him from gravity’s “fell” clutches.

  And as time passed and his tales grew more detailed, so their telling became an almost automatic process; it was like siphoning water: one suck to get the thing going, and that’s your lot till the lake’s dry. Tonelessly, with neither affection nor detestation, he told of trials both titillating and terrifying; and all the while it seemed that he unburdened himself, that a great weight was lifted from him as each tale was told. And strangely, as each tale was told, so he forgot it—utterty, so that it didn’t even cross his mind to wonder why—as he went on to the next story.

  Worse far, however, than the mental depletion taking place in Hero, was the physical one. He was growing … flimsy! The more he divulged of his life and loves, his adventures and misadventures, his windfalls, pitfalls and pratfalls, his lucky and losing breaks, the less of him there seemed to be. It was as if Chim Nedlar were absorbing his substance as well as his words. And yet, once started, there was no stopping. His life came out in an endless stream, like a vein slashed through. And the water of a tepid tub turning pink, then red, as the poor doomed soul lies back and oh so gently expires. But there was no blood, no pain, and very little of conscious awareness of the murde
r taking place. Of Chim Nedlar’s murder of David Hero, Hero of Dreams.

  No blood, no—for Chim was not that sort of vampire.

  But a vampire he was, to be sure.

  “More! More!” he gloated—and bloated as he fed on Hero’s heroics. “Except … tell me more about Eldin, too, and Limnar Dass, Gytherik, Kuranes, oh, and all the others you’ve known. I want to know all of their adventures, too!”

  Hero looked at the other through eyes that swam like small fishes in a bland bowl ocean. Chim Nedlar, grinning, drooling, his fat face full of spittly teeth, his eyes pinpricks of passion in a puffy mass of dough. Chim, all swollen with Hero’s stories. No—with Hero’s life!

  And now Hero knew (however dimly) what he’d more than half suspected anyway. Except it was too late to do anything about it. And anyway, did he want to do anything about it? This way there’d be nothing of him left at all for Zura. And certainly it was painless enough. But what would the worlds of dream have been like without Eldin? It was something he hadn’t intended to discover.

  Maybe there were dreamlands ulterior to this one, and maybe he’d meet up with Eldin again in one of them. Why not? They’d named the old lad Wanderer, hadn’t they? A ways to wander yet, perhaps. Now, there was a thought!

  “More! More!” Chim demanded, his voice a gurgle.

  “One last tale,” Hero whispered, the merest shadow of a man where he sat with his pale head lolling on the gunwale, his barely opaque hand listless where it tried to grasp and lift his bottle, but wasn’t quite solid or strong enough to manage it. “The last one, Chim—for it’s this one!”

  “This one?”

  “Aye.” Hero nodded. “The story of how I came to Oriab in search of a monster—and found him!”