The Last Aerie

by Brian Lumley

  And so she took up her new life and duties, and quickly learned all that was required of her, at least with regard to her mundane responsibilities, within the manse.

  Then, before the next sundown, as she lay in her bed and wondered about Nestor where he slept somewhere overhead, suddenly she heard his call, or felt it, and knew that he wanted her. And climbing the spiral staircase to his chambers, she entered his bedroom …

  Only to discover that two others were there before her!

  Nestor saw the look on her face and quickly cautioned her: “Say nothing. Do not offend me or mine. These girls are here to be instructed—by you! For although they are beautiful, they have forgotten the part which made them innocent and beguiling women. For there is innocence even in sex, but there is no satisfaction in sex with such as these, whose nature it is to be promiscuous. That is why you are here: to teach them the art of innocence, naiveté.”

  She was bewildered. “But I don’t have that art.”

  “But you do, for you satisfy me. And when they have learned it from you, then part of my life, at least, shall be complete.”

  “You want me to show them how to—?”

  “Yes,” he cut her short. “I want you to show them everything, Glina, while you still can. For as yet you’re more woman than vampire, and I have been bored in my bed for far too long. My needs are not well served here.”

  Now at last she saw her true position in Suckscar. But she was his thrall and must obey. And she did.

  And so the last flickering spark which yet remained in Glina Berea, which might even have been rekindled into love of sorts, however dark and strange, died in her that time. For she knew that whatever course her life took from this point forward, she would never forget the events which had befallen her: the fact that she was now a vampire, the similar fate of her mother and father, the monstrous burning of her child.

  Probably, the time would never come when she might take her revenge. But if it ever did—

  Then she would take it …

  4

  Wratha’s Vow-Gorvi’s Proposition

  In the heights of Wrathspire, Wratha the Risen brooded. Like a great black cloud she brooded, roiling and rumbling and constantly threatening rain. Except the Lady Wratha’s rain burned like acid! Six months and more she had been this way, while her thralls went in fear of their lives. Plainly she was distracted and they had learned to leave her that way. Only break into her train of thought and draw her back to reality, however briefly … all hell would break loose! She would fly into a rage, hurl abuse and other things, and rush through the manse like a lunatic storm, bowling everything over in her passing and issuing the direst threats left, right, and center, at all and sundry.

  For Wratha had a great many things on her mind which demanded her utmost concentration and mental coordination; or so she was given to excuse herself—which in itself was strange, for as a Lady of the Wamphyri she scarcely required to make excuse for anything! But it was obvious that in fact her coordination was in tatters and her concentration nonexistent. Something, it seemed, was stretching the Lady’s nerves to breaking.

  She had lost all interest in the administration of Wrathspire, so that her lieutenants had never known such freedom in the running of the place. No domestic problem or dispute could be permitted to disturb her, no slightest whisper or unaccustomed jangle of sound, no unexpected footfall. She fell behind in her self-allotted duties (mainly the all-important overseeing of the aerie itself), and the orders-group meetings which had always been such a regular feature of life in Wrathspire became fewer and fewer, until they ceased entirely.

  Her males—almost all of them, from the lowliest novice to the most senior lieutenant—began to take advantage; likewise her vampire women. Lustful affairs, which Wratha had kept to a minimum for all that she knew her thralls must amuse themselves as best they could, swiftly gathered impetus; schedules suffered as a direct result; Wratha scarcely noticed.

  Her love thralls could not satisfy her; when the best of them failed her, she murdered him in her bed. And the others grew thin.

  The aerie quickly went to pieces. Grotesque siphoneers in their discreetly curtained niches developed sores and parasitic infestations, and the water they drew up from Guilesump’s wells became less than pure, because their wayward keeper serviced a woman instead of the flaccidly insensate creatures in his keep. Foetal warriors waxing in their vats went untended, and one of them even slumped, expired, and eventually stank, because no one saw fit to drain the huge corpse of its corruptible wastes and morbid fluids. Cooks in their kitchens made do with what little was available, but the manse’s fare was less than satisfactory. Pantries and cold-storage rooms stood empty, likewise the granaries. Flyers went mewling hungry, and in the raids on Sunside were wont to grow weary and unreliable.

  And through all of this, apparently unaware, Wratha merely brooded …

  But during the long days when the rest of the stack slept, then she would sit up and send her thoughts down into Suckscar, to worm their way into Nestor’s dreaming mind. Before, this had been little more than an amusement: it had titillated Wratha to read his sleeping thoughts (or occasionally, when he was with a woman, his lustfully active thoughts; but rarely, because more often than not his women bored him, which pleased her). But now … it was no longer an amusement but an agony, and the Szgany girl Glina was the source of Wratha’s pain. For she had known Nestor as a man, while Wratha had not.

  She was an artless shad at best, this Glina, yet apparently there was one art which she had mastered: the pleasuring of the necromancer Lord Nestor Lichloathe of the Wamphyri; mastered it to such an extent that Suckscar’s new Lord even required her to instruct his other women in order that they, too, might satisfy him. Except they were mainly incapable of instruction, for they had long since lost what Glina retained: that very artlessness which Wratha so despised!

  It was that she was naive, or pretended to be because it pleased him. Her sex was always fresh, quivering, half-afraid, yet full of longing. She was a woman but continued to play the girl, the innocent, so that her Lord would need no other. For when he was with her he was the untried youth again, jerking erect as he stroked her teats or bruised them in his passion.

  It was as if he remembered a time when love—human love, Szgany love—had been something other than lust and was trying to recapture it. Or … perhaps it was that he remembered some other lover, not this Glina, and was trying to recapture her!

  And as soon as that thought came to Wratha, then she knew she was on the right track. For it made sense out of a paradox: how Nestor could fancy—and continue to fancy—this merely homely creature when he was surrounded by girls of Vasagi the Suck’s choice; for Vasagi had installed most of the women who dwelled now in Suckscar, and for all that he’d been a monster in his own right, the Suck had had an eye for beauty. But the difference was this: that Glina had actually loved Nestor upon a time. And for all that she had been a novice herself, still she had taught him all he knew. Now … he knew other things, but still he remembered how it had been with Glina. While his brain may have forgotten much of his past, his body continued to remember. And not only Glina, but someone before her.

  Oh, Wratha knew their history well enough; she’d stolen it right out of their minds! She knew that Glina had been Nestor’s Sunside lover, for she had seen pictures from his past replayed a dozen times in the eye of his mind. But more than this, she knew there was a fury in him when he made love to Glina, which he would rather expend on this unknown Other. Some unrequited love out of his unremembered past? It could only be …

  Whoever she was, this Other, it seemed to Wratha she was worthy of serious consideration; for if Nestor Lichloathe had found and brought back Glina out of Sunside—and out of his more recent past—then one day he might also find and bring back the Other, too, from a yet more distant period. And what then? All of Wratha’s plans gone up in smoke? No, not at all, for by then Nestor would belong to Wratha!

&nbs
p; As for this Glina: what was she? Simple: she was nothing! What, this ungainly Szgany peasant? She was a flame that would soon flicker and die; a piece of tarnished property, a tool to be used, blunted, and eventually discarded. Ah, but if or when Wratha should ever set eyes on this Other, be sure she would know how best to deal with her! And she would deal with her, most certainly.

  It was her vow …

  In that same six-month period of twenty-six sunups, Nestor’s fame or infamy as a necromancer had spread through all of the stack. In every manse from Guilesump to Wrathspire, his talent was the subject of gossip and speculation. The former among the lieutenants of the Wamphyri and lesser thralls, and the latter among the vampire Lords themselves.

  Canker Canison was mainly to blame for spreading the word. Pleased to call himself Nestor’s friend, he was “proud” of the comparative newcomer and desired to see him elevated among his peers. For the dog-Lord had the dubious gift of scrying future times, and he had foreseen that Nestor’s talent would make him very powerful, a force to be reckoned with in the last aerie.

  And Canker was right.

  Late one sundown after a full night’s raiding on Sunside, when the Lady and all the Lords were safely returned to their various manses, the lieutenant Grig Lichloathe made report to Nestor in the quiet room where he rested from his bloody work. There the Lord of Suckscar stretched out in a huge wickerwork chair, sipped coarse Szgany wine, and watched the grey glimmer of a false dawn creeping on the distant crags. Nestor was reluctant to go to his bed because for months his dreams had been made wretched by recurrent erotic visions … mainly of Wratha the Risen. Over and over he would revisit Wrathspire’s roof to play out that scene where Wratha had fallen into his arms, but only to escape from him when she felt his surging ardour.

  And when he started awake from dreams such as this, all drenched in sweat and whining his frustration—and with the soft curve of Wratha’s breast still warm in his tingling palm—then Nestor would put aside all thoughts of his other women, Glina included, as if they were nothing. For he knew now what he wanted, if not how to get it. Also, he was prideful. Wratha had made a fool of him once, and Nestor wasn’t about to let it happen again.

  The trouble with Wratha the Risen was this: she liked to toy with her men, and all the men of Wrathstack knew it. Still, Wran Killglance would have her if he could, and Gorvi the Guile if he thought it would strengthen his hand. As for Canker Canison: the dog-thing had openly admitted that he would swap half of the whelps in Mangemanse—even his own flesh and blood—for just one good ride on Wratha! But there was her reputation to consider, which was that of a certain spider: the sort that lures a male with her sex before she devours him! How may one mate with a man-eater? With a great deal of care, the Lord of Suckscar was sure …

  These were some of the necromancer’s thoughts as his man Grig Lichloathe approached, bowed, and shuffled his feet until he had his master’s attention. And finally: “What is it?” Nestor spoke softly, as was now his wont.

  “A flyer has landed in the main bay, Lord,” Grig answered. “Turgis Gorvisman is here with a message from his master.”

  “From Gorvi?” Nestor lifted an eyebrow. “And have you left the lieutenant waiting?”

  “Yes, Lord.”

  Nestor stood up. “Then take me to him. Let’s see what’s on the Lord of Guilesump’s mind.”

  In a walled staging area over the landing bay, Turgis Gorvisman prowled to and fro, three paces this way and three back, between six of Nestor’s senior thralls. They were armed and he was not. It would not have been seemly—indeed, it would not have been allowed—to bring a gauntlet into another’s manse. A huge man, as most lieutenants were, Turgis’s message was brief and his voice a fair imitation of the rumbling growl of a Sunside bear as he said, “Lord Nestor of Suckscar, my master Gorvi the Guile proposes a meeting with you. He would discuss business: a matter of mutual interest, which might possibly lead to huge profits for both of you.”

  “Indeed,” Nestor answered, inclining his head. “And the nature of this … business?”

  The other shrugged, and growled wryly, “Hah! That will be the night, when Gorvi the Guile shares his thoughts with lieutenants or lesser persons! But this much I know: my master has heard it rumoured that you are a necromancer, with the power to talk to dead men.”

  Nestor nodded. “He wishes to avail himself of my talent, then. And where will this meeting take place?”

  “In Guilesump, naturally.”

  But: “Ah, no!” Nestor shook his head, and smiled a slow, knowing smile. “If at all, it will take place here, in Suckscar.”

  “I very much doubt it,” said the other. “For the Guile seldom leaves his manse except to raid on Sunside, or when he inspects his creatures where they prowl abroad near the foot of the stack. He prefers accustomed places, in order to maintain a measure of control. He takes no chances.”

  “In this we are not dissimilar,” Nestor replied. “Now go back and tell your master that I’ll meet him an hour from now out on the boulder plains, due north of Wrathstack and just a mile from its foot. In fact, we’ll meet in the shadow of the stack itself.”

  “At sunup?” The lieutenant’s gaze went out over the wall and across the mighty gulf of air, high over Starside to the barrier mountains.

  “The sun never shines on the boulder plains, fool,” Nestor retorted, but quietly. “Anyway, we’ll be meeting in the shadow of the stack, as I said.”

  “I heard and understood you,” the other answered. “But I also know that Gorvi hates to be abroad when the sun rises over Sunside. It is his nature.”

  Nestor turned away. “It is the nature of each and every one of us to fear the sun,” he said. “Also, it’s our nature to argue, and to have our own way. Gorvi desires to talk business with me; very well, I’ve named the place and time. Just the two of us. No gauntlets, lieutenants, or warriors. If this is satisfactory, he’ll be there. If not …”

  He made to go back inside.

  “I can only tell him what you have said,” Turgis nodded, and started down a ladder to the landing bay. “Who knows, he might even agree.”

  Nestor paused, glanced over his shoulder, and stared into Turgis’s eyes before he disappeared from view. “Those are the arrangements,” he said. “If Gorvi doesn’t like them, he can wait a six-month before approaching me again. Time is in short supply. I can think of better ways to waste it than in arguing meeting places with Gorvi the Guile.”

  “So be it,” the other’s answer came back to him.

  And in a little while, Turgis Gorvisman launched out and down from Suckscar …

  Gorvi was there. Nestor had watched from a north-facing window and had seen the Guile speed out upon a flyer. Only Gorvi could look like that: a great evil scarecrow of a man hunched in the saddle, his cloak flapping like the wings of a huge black bat. The other Lords were sinister, naturally, but Gorvi the Guile was sinister.

  And with certain reservations, Nestor had sped after him.

  For of course, Gorvi had been the one who would have made trouble for Nestor when first he came here out of Sunside. And it was Gorvi who had suggested a trial period, following which Nestor would either be accepted … or dropped. Probably from a very great height!

  Well, it hadn’t come to that, but neither had Nestor forgotten. And now the Guile wanted something from him. All well and good—but nothing for nothing, be sure.

  Nestor landed his flyer on a shale hillock some seventy yards from where Gorvi stood beside his own beast. Dismounting, he glanced all about, and turned his eyes on Wrathstack a mile away. Possibly they had been seen flying out and were even now spied upon. He felt the shields go up in Gorvi’s mind and applied his own. Their thoughts were now guarded.

  And striding out towards each other, they and their long shadows soon came together in the greater shadow of the last aerie. They looked at each other a moment or two: Gorvi tall, slender, with the dome of his skull-head shaven except for a single central loc
k with a knot hanging to the rear; dressed in black, as always, so that the contrast of his sallow flesh made him look fresh-risen from death; and his eyes so deeply sunken they were little more than crimson jewel glimmers in their black orbits, yet shifty for all that. And Nestor: not quite so tall but well fleshed out and handsome as hell, and open as a door left banging in the wind … or open by Wamphyri standards, at least. Then:

  “Well?” said Nestor. “And do you have business with me? Or is it that you’ve decided I didn’t quite ‘get there’ after all, and now you’d like to throw me out to fend for myself in the stumps of the fallen stacks and scramble for a living in the scree and the rubble of Starside?” And he laughed a quiet, humourless laugh. “Ah, but that will be the day, Gorvi!”

  “That’s all over and done with.” Gorvi’s voice was oily as ever as he held up a slender but wickedly taloned hand in a gesture intended as placatory.

  “Forgotten by you, perhaps,” Nestor answered in his quiet fashion.

  Gorvi threw up his hands. “I came out here against my best instincts to meet you as a friend, a colleague, even a partner! Now tell me: how may I make known to you the details of the … the matter in hand, if you insist on scowling, carping, and mulling over ancient, best-forgotten scores? Anyway, what are you complaining about? You did ‘get there’ in the end, didn’t you? What? And if I had not set a limit on your ascension, can you honestly believe that the others would not have done so?”

  Nestor smiled his slow, cold smile and said, “Don’t waste my time, Gorvi. Why don’t you get to the point? What is it you want from me? Who do you want me to … examine?”