Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (Necroscope #6)

Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (Necroscope #6) Page 7

'I've heard it's cold,' the other answered. 'It isn't harmful, if you keep your distance. But you must never touch it.'

Shaitan was curious, however, and said he must see this hell-gate.

They climbed the low crater wall and stood at the rim, and looked down upon the ball of cold white fire within. The trogs were blinded and staggered this way and that. One tripped and fell, landing on a ledge close to the white glare. Terrified, he put up a hand to fend it off. His hand touched the surface of the dazzle, sank into it ... and he cried out in his guttural fashion as the hell-gate dragged him in and swallowed him whole!

The trog was gone, and only his strange slow cry came echoing back. Shaitan believed he could see him down there, a small frightened figure, dwindling, but the light hurt his eyes so that soon he must look away.

And he said: 'This shall be the punishment for those who offend me three times. Three times, aye - for I am forgiving, as you see.'

'A fitting punishment,' Vidra fawned upon him.

'As well you think so,' Shaitan answered. 'And as well you mark my words. One: you told the Hagi about me. Two: you told Dezmir Babeni how I had honoured his daughter. Do not wrong me a third time.' His voice was dark, and very frightening.

'And there shall be other punishments,' he told them all. 'For I am Shaitan who can make men undead. Any who would do me harm, let them think on this: I shall take their blood and bury them deep in the ground. And when they awaken, they shall lie there and scream forever, until they stiffen to stones in the earth.

'Also, that land there to the north; I perceive that it is icy cold. No fit habitation even for such as we. Therefore, let him who would deny me beware. For in my house there shall be no warm bed or woman-flesh for him; no kind master to guide and instruct him; neither wonders to be witnessed, nor mysteries revealed. For I shall banish him north, to freeze in the ice all alone.

'But for him who would obey me in all things, and be my true servant and thrall, a rich red life forever! Aye, even unto death - and beyond! So be it...'

'Where shall your house stand, Lord?' Ilya Sul ventured with a shiver, as they left the Gate behind to cross the wide mouth of a pass where the light from Sunside was a pale purplish haze in the' V of the split range. 'For this seems a desolate place - a plain of boulders, lacking rivers, where lichens live and scrubby grasses - with wolves in the mountains and bats in the crags, but never a man.'

There are men of sorts,' Shaitan answered him. 'Under the mountains, in their caverns, dwell trogs. They shall provide - they shall be - my food. Until we are established. But on Sunside there is life galore! Common fare will suffice, at first, but the true blood which is the life lies beyond the mountains. And in all the nights yet to be we shall hunt. As for my house: it shall stand east of here a ways, for I am drawn east.' Then, looking sharply at Sul: 'But do you doubt me?'

'Never, Lord!'

They trekked for several miles, and came to a region of stone stacks worn out from the mountains, which littered the plain like the petrified stalks of gigantic mushrooms. Their bases were fortified with scree jumbles, but in their columns were ledges and caverns, many of which were vast as halls.

Shaitan admired these stacks, for they were very grand and very gaunt. And: 'One of these shall be my house,' he said.

Sul answered him: They are like the aeries of the mountain eagles!'

And: 'Aye,' said Shaitan. The aeries of the Wamphyri!'

And so Shaitan set to and commenced the building of his house. The task was huge; only a vampire and his thralls, with their longevity, could ever have accomplished it. And Shaitan would build not only a house but an empire of vampires.

He recruited trogs out of their caverns in the lee of the mountains, and sent his lieutenants into Sunside's nights to hunt and recruit Szgany. And in dark chambers in the base of the stack which he had chosen, he experimented with his own metamorphic flesh and powers to furnish himself with all of his requirements.

He bred trogs which were no longer trogs but cartilage creatures, whose minds were small and bodies elastic. From these he made leathers and coverings for the aerie's exterior stairways, and articles of furniture for his rooms. And all of them still living a life of sorts, gradually petrifying and becoming permanent in their places. He mated men with trog women, the issue from which was not seemly. He got foul, bloated things, all gross and mindless - but even these were not wasted. In nether caves he bred them into gas-beasts, for the heating of the stack, or into Things-Which-Consume, for his refuse pit.

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He took mindless vampire flesh and experimented with it; he would imitate the aerial prowess of the great bats, build flying creatures, soar out from his aerie upon the winds. At first he knew failure, but later he provided his flyers with the metamorphosed brains of men, that they should have something (but never too much) of volition. All of which creatures, nascent and full-formed alike, were Shaitan's thralls.

Word of his works went abroad, even into Sunside. And now Starside was double-damned and shunned utterly ... by men, at least.

But by now the Szgany of Sunside had problems other than Shaitan and his night-raiding lieutenants, for in the west the swamps were an entire spawning ground for monsters! Foolish men and innocent creatures went down to the scummy waters to drink, and things other than men and wolves came up from that place. So that in the first twenty years several beings who were very like unto Shaitan had come across from Sunside to build their houses in the rearing stone stacks. And because they were even as strong as him and much of a kind, he made no protest but let them build. In any case, there was space enough among the many stacks, so that even Shaitan was unable to lay claim to all of them; and, just across the mountains, there was food and entertainment for all.

And it happened that at this time Shaitan's lieutenants went a-hunting, and brought back from Starside a certain man of their master's previous acquaintance. And as he went among the captives, inspecting them, he knew this one at once. Why, there was still a scar in his shoulder, put there by this very man, which Shaitan had kept as a reminder of that first night on Sunside! For the man was none other than Turgo Zolte, not quite so young but just as proud and independent as ever.

Shaitan laughed and hung him in chains, tormenting him at will from that time forward. But the man had a trick: he could turn pain aside, much like Shaitan himself. And in his fashion, Shaitan liked Turgo for his pride and bravery: the fact that he would not cry out but rather faint from his agonies. So that in a while he took him down and made him his chief lieutenant ... which was an error.

For Turgo was strong in many ways, and had this streak in him which would not accept thralldom to any creature. Let the Lord Shaitan drain him all he would, to the very dregs of his blood, but while he lived he would be his own man. Which were feelings he kept very much to himself; likewise the fact that on Sunside he had been the great vampire hunter, who in twenty years had learned many a diverse thing about the swamp-born menace. There was, for instance, a white metal, also the root of a certain plant, both of which were common on Sunside and poison to vampires. Perhaps even to Shaitan himself ...

And so Turgo grew close to the Wamphyri Lord Shaitan, who placed his trust in him. And if Shaitan had a brother it might well be Turgo Zolte, except ...

Turgo had no blood-lust. Or if he had, then it was special and deeply hidden ...

Eventually Turgo took Ilya Sul aside and spoke to him. And because Turgo was strong, Ilya listened to his treason - that they should kill Shaitan in the approved fashion, but with the new skills which Turgo had learned. 'I've made a long knife of silver,' he explained, 'to take his head! And I can devise a hardwood spear, with a barbed silver point. Silver will hold Shaitan in place while I rub him with oil of kneblasch root, which will poison his flesh. Then we'll burn him.'

'And Shaitanstack will be mine?' Sul was greedy.

'Of course,' Turgo shrugged, 'for you deserve it.' But he intended no such thing; for Sul was contaminated and his blood changed, and in the end he must go the same way as his master.

Then Turgo sought out Vidra and said much the same things to him, to which the other agreed readily enough. But when Turgo's back was turned, then the traitor went straight to Shaitan ... who listened, smiled and nodded grimly, and did nothing ... but merely waited.

And down in his workshop, forbidden now to all others, he worked with an angry zest upon the flesh of trogs and men, designing a great abomination. And where Shaitan's cartilage creatures were for the fashioning of useful things, and his flyers for conveyance and scanning out the land around, and while all of his creations served to supplement his works in one way or another - even his flaccid siphoneers and puffing gas-beasts - this new monster writhing in its vat was a thing entirely apart. Indeed, it seemed nothing so much as a death machine.

It was just such an instrument of death! For fearing the treachery of his thralls, Shaitan had brought into being the very first Wamphyri warrior! And fashioned in part from his own metamorphic flesh, the thing was his in every part, mind and body alike. So that when in due time Turgo and the others came to find and destroy him, this was the nightmare he called down upon them. And no one - not even a dozen Turgo Zoltes - could stand against this. His knife, spear, oil of kneblasch, all were useless to him.

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Then Vidra Gogosita cried out to Shaitan, reminding him of his warning. But Shaitan in turn reminded Vidra of his warning, telling him that this was his third and last great treachery.

Vidra was frozen, astonished! How had he offended?

His offence lay not in the direction of his treachery, but in that he was treacherous. Also, in the very fact that he had warned of Turgo Zolte's intended insurrection: Turgo, whom the Lord Shaitan had befriended. That was a bitter taste on Shaitan's forked tongue, and Vidra had put it there.

Without further ado he was taken to the Gate and tossed yelping into its glare, protesting his innocence to the last, and so disappearing there ...

As for Ilya Sul: Shaitan drained him of his life's blood until he was pale and dead, then took him out into the boulder plain where his trog army dug a deep grave in the stony ground. And as time passed and the first rays of the sun shone through the great pass, and as Sul cried out and would rise up, naked and undead, so Shaitan said:

'I have made you a vampire. The sun is the proof, which burns you even as it burns me. But you need not fear it, for you shall feel its rays never more. You sought to do me great harm, Ilya, but I am a kind master and shall not hurt you in any degree, except that I shall put you from my sight.'

Then, at his signal, Sul was hurled screaming into the hole, which the trogs filled in with rocks and earth. There let him lie forever,' said Shaitan, gravely, shielded by his bat-fur cloak from the risen sun. 'Even until he stiffens to a stone. So be it!'

And he turned to Turgo Zolte, who stood there pale, bound and scowling, saying: 'You ... are a special case. For you were only a man and I liked you. Oh, you suffered some small torment in my care, but I drank not of your blood. As I am what I am, so I allowed you to be as you would be, to see if time could sway you to my cause. It amused me to have a man - not a vampire, nor even a thrall, but a mere man - among them that are mine. Well, my amusement is at an end. I am no longer ... amused.'

They went back to Shaitanstack, where Turgo was thrown into a dungeon to repent a while. A very short while.

Then the stack's master came to him and said, 'Vidra Gogosita is gone into unknown places, a land beyond. Call it hell, if you will. Ilya Sul cries out from the dark earth, and sometimes it pleases me to listen to him. But upon a time I decreed three punishments, one of which remains untried. You are a hard man, Turgo Zolte, but only a man for all that. If I send you north as a man, then you'll die - but too quickly! Wherefore I shall first make you a vampire.'

Turgo was bound to the wall, with his feet dangling inches above the stone floor. Shaitan reached up and cut him down, so that he collapsed in great pain, drained of his strength. Then Shaitan went down on his knees beside him, and gloomed upon him with his scarlet eyes. And his anger was very great. 'I treated you as my brother, even my son,' he said. 'And you would repay me by killing me! It would be fair and just if I killed you in your turn, but I want you to freeze in the ice and repent your iniquities.'

Turgo looked at him and knew his time as a man was up. But while he was a man he would never bow to Shaitan. And he said, 'Me, your son? You could never father a son, you swamp-thing! You only look like a man, but your tongue is a snake's, and your blood is the blood of trogs, dupes, thralls. Your familiars are bats full of lice, and the clean sunlight boils your flesh like a snail in its shell. Hah! I, Turgo Zolte, Shaitan's son? No, for I am the son of a man!'

The other was no longer capable of controlling his anger; his parasite creature amplified his passion by ten; his jaws cracked open and his great mouth gushed blood from torn gums as teeth grew out of them like bone sickles. Handsome one moment - even with his blood-hued eyes, handsome - in the next he was the embodiment of all horror. And his passion incensed that of the creature within him, which now was him.

He went to his knees beside his victim, used red-spurting talon claws to tear, prise open his chest, and laid his razor nails upon the pipes of Turgo's pounding heart. None of which meant anything to Turgo, because he was already in the pit of oblivion. But as Shaitan saw his innards, his blood, the very circuits of his life ... something new happened.

His creature went into spasm within him. It gripped his spine, put out suckers into his veins and organs to revel in his, its, passion. Shaitan coughed, gagged, felt a rising in his gorge, something creeping in the contracting column of his throat. He choked the thing out: a pale sphere no bigger than an eyeball.

It shimmered; it was alive with flickering cilia; it fell in a froth of spittle to Turgo's open chest. And in the next moment it turned scarlet ... and was gone, soaked into him!

Shaitan reeled to his feet. He felt dizzy, nauseous; he knew instinctively that this thing - whatever it was - was irreversible as the breathing of swamp-born spores. Which was reason enough to see it out to its end. And so he left Turgo lying there unconscious, with his chest laid open and bloody, and the scarlet vampire egg burrowing in him and hiding in his flesh ...

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Turgo Zolte recovered; his torn flesh healed, and quickly; he was Wamphyri!

And he hated Shaitan as no creature was ever hated before. Shaitan knew it, and would say to him: 'But you are my son - my true son - which is why I now name you Shaithar Shaitanson. You are not the ugly spawn of trogs, many of which I have made and put down, but Wamphyri! Oh, you had a father before me, but he made you mortal. And I have made you immortal. Why then do you despise me?'

'I was what I was,' Turgo would growl in answer, from where he hung in chains of silver. 'And I preferred it. You have made me other than that -'

'- More than that!'

'- Which disgusts me. I spit on your name and won't take it! Nor will I drink the blood of men.'

'Oh, but you will, eventually, or wither and die. The blood is the life.'

'Not my life.'

'Fool!'

'Ordure of blood-sucking bats!'

And always Shaitan would be enraged. But he could not kill him. For Turgo was his son, of a sort.

In the end he turned him loose, sent him forth, banished him out of Shaitanstack. Not to the north, for he would watch his progress. No, he merely turned him out on to Starside, to make his own way in the world.

Turgo went to Sunside but could not stay there. The Szgany pursued him; the sun threatened him; his foetal vampire tugged at his will, so that if he stayed he must kill. He did kill - but only to live on beast-blood. Finally he sought out men vampirized in the swamps, recruited them, returned to Starside and gathered together an army of trog thralls. And in thirty years he built Shaith-arsheim, but well away from the aerie of his so-called 'father'. And so in the end Turgo did take his great enemy's name, calling himself Shaithar Shaitanson ... by which to remember his 'father' the better and hate him all the more.

By then Shaitan's house was finished and furnished; his banner - a skull head with horns - fluttered from the high ramparts of his aerie, and he was known on both sides of the mountains as Lord Shaitan of the Wamphyri. Which pleased him greatly.

Turgo was still a lesser Lord, and much given to nightmares. One night he dreamed he drank Szgany blood, and when he woke up it was true. In the night he had taken from his odalisque, a girl stolen from a Sunside tribe. He could deny it no longer: he was Wamphyri! Then, blaming Shaitan and loathing him more yet, he devised a sigil of his own: Shaitan's horned skull-head - but split in two halves by a silver axe!

Shaitan saw how he was abhorred and bred more and better warriors. Turgo bred them, too, as a safeguard. And through all of this men came lurching from the vampire swamps to build their aeries in the stacks. Their industry was great, so that they had little time for wars.

Two hundred years flew by and the Wamphyri were mighty and many. Too many ...

Now, on Sunside, the Szgany had become Travellers, nomads, Gypsies who went from place to place by day, and slept in deep forests or caves at night. And for them it was as bad or worse than the aftermath of the white sun. The Wamphyri gave them no peace; night after night they raided; the toll of blood was monstrous!

While on Starside ... Shaitan saw his error in permitting the other Lords to wax so strong and so many. He determined to make sons for lieutenants, bloodsons, which he would get out of comely women. In this way he would overwhelm the Wamphyri Lords and keep them down. He made a harem of six Szgany women, took from them and gave to them. And his vampire sons and daughters were many. Of the latter, when they were ripe, he used them in their turn; for his own flesh was the sweetest. Which would be the way of it with vampires down all the ages ...

And Shaitan begat Shaithos Longarm, Shailar the Hagridden (who was half-mad, for insanity was a curse which the Wamphyri would never eradicate), Shaithag the Harrower, and many others. And his egg-recipient son, now Shaithar Shaitanson, begat Shielar the Slut, Turgo Toothbreaker, Zol Zolteson, and Pedar Slough-skin, who at the age of thirteen contracted leprosy during a Sunside hunt. And thereafter Pedar (also 'the Leper') killed Szgany women on sight and went only with trog females.

And in the great aeries of the Wamphyri the other Lords begat egg-sons and bloodsons of their own, made vampires and warriors galore, and generally filled their stacks with beastliness of every description. Lagular Ferenczy begat Nonari the Gross, whose left hand was a great fist, its fingers fused into a club; Lagular also begat Freyda Ferenc, who for her pleasure suffocated men with her sex. Freyda was a Mother of Vampires, who in a single confinement produced an hundred eggs, being so depleted during the which that she died. But the eggs of Freyda, all save one, were gross and diseased and likewise expired; the one fused with Bela Manculi, a Szgany thrall, who became heir to Freydastack.

And Pedar the Leper begat Tori Trogson, who went on all fours and became Lord of Trogstack. And Shielar of Whorestack brought forth Thador Thornskull; she then made a warrior with an Organ, and died of fornication in the Thing's embrace. And so Thador became Lust-lord of Whorestack. But from that time forward it was generally agreed among all the Wamphyri that none would make monsters with the parts of men, for Shie-lar's creature had proven difficult to put down.

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And as the many Lords and fewer Ladies proliferated, so they degenerated; even the Wamphyri, going from evil to evil and descending from depth to irredeemable depth ...

Eventually all of the greater aeries had masters or mistresses; the lesser stacks were occupied; there was no more room in all the vampire heights for men and their sons, their women, thralls and creatures. Some built their aeries in the sheerer crags of the barrier range, looking out on Starside; but they were prone to avalanches, brought about by enemies. Also, they were scorned as worthless Lords, who had not proper aeries of their own. And finally they warred for possession of the lofty stacks, until the winds over Starside were filled with flyers and warriors which fought in the dark sky under blue-glittering stars, and did battle in the higher ramparts of the great aeries.

And gongs sounded as warriors were brought mewling out of their vats and launched into battle all untried; the drums of war pounded, and banners flew from all the stacks, displaying the sigils of their masters; vampire destroyed vampire, even sons and brothers, as the boulder plains and the lands around the great aeries were drenched in blood and littered with the grotesque and shattered corpses of fallen beasts.

Even Shaitan came under attack, but he was clever and defended his aerie, and went not out to war. But as various Lords were weakened in stacks close by, then he would swoop on them and put them down. And in this manner a cluster of aeries all came under Shaitan's command.

When his strategy was seen, the others called a truce and came upon him as a single force. Surprised, Shaitan found himself trapped in the higher levels of Shaitan-stack. The flyers of his enemies were landing in his launching bays; he was cut off from his warriors; their warriors landed on his roof to seek him out!

He was forced out of a window and exposed upon the highest ledge. Flyers closed in, to knock him from his perch. He formed the metamorphic flesh of his hands into great suckers wherewith to clasp the sheer face of the stack, and went in this fashion to find a secure niche. But a warrior, dashing itself into the wall close by, shook him loose. Then, by dint of his great will -coupled with the tenacity of his vampire tenant, which dared not allow him to be broken in such a disastrous fall - Shaitan stretched his flesh into an airfoil and swooped, in a fashion, to earth. Even so he crashed down, but was not greatly harmed.

And meanwhile his forces had regrouped under his lieutenants, and Shaitanstack had not been taken.

So Shaitan was the first of the Wamphyri to fly in his own right. Which seemed hardly strange to him, for he fancied that upon a time, somewhere and when, he had known the power of flight before ...

The stack wars continued for a hundred years; men and monsters were born and died fighting; the fashioning of flyers and warriors became an art, and Wamphyri numbers were decimated in all the reek and roil and mindless slaughter. And this was the era in which the Szgany of Sunside stepped back from the brink and breathed again, reorganizing their lives and what little was left of their society. Except it couldn't last.

For Shaitan was now the undisputed Lord of Vampires, the high magistrate to which lesser Wamphyri Lords took their disputes for his judgement. And as the clamour of war subsided, so the period of mercifully infrequent raids on Sunside was over, and the nightmare sprang up again with renewed consistency. For now the Wamphyri must see to the replenishment of their ravaged and undernourished aeries, whose sustenance roamed on Sunside.

For sixty years this was the way of it: three thousand sundowns of horror and misery, while Shaitan doled out hunting permits and took his tithe of trembling flesh from whatever the others brought back. But in the same sixty years, his egg waxed in Shaithar Shaitanson, once Turgo Zolte, and made him a crafty vampire indeed. And Shaithar was strong; likewise his sons, Zol Zolteson and Turgo Toothbreaker. And all of them together, they hated Shaitan worse than any other.

The Lord of Vampires knew it, for he had his spies in all the aeries. And when the coup came at last he was ready to put it down, with never a loss to mention. Then he brought Shaithar to trial with his sons and their lieutenants, and banished them north to the Ice-lands - all of them that were of his own egg.

They were allowed flyers, certainly, and a female thrall or two, but neither provisions nor beasts to spare and never a warrior between them. So they launched themselves north, and held to that course a spell -before swinging east to follow the spine of the barrier range into lands unknown. Shaitan's familiar bats brought him word of their deception, which was no great surprise. For this, too, he had foreseen.

And he said to himself: Ah, Turgo Zolte, what a son you could have been! Why, we could have ravaged this entire world together, you and I! But 1 have already shown my weakness for you in banishing you when by rights I should kill you, and I know now that you must die, else return one day to plague me with your mischiefs. Well, so be it...

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Even as he thought these things, his warriors were aloft and spurting through Starside's night skies, falling towards their prey where Shaithar and his outcasts winged east. And Shaitan reached out to mind-jab his beasts, commanding that they: Destroy them to a man.'

And riding east, exiled, expelled, Shaithar was Turgo Zolte once more. Oh, he was Wamphyri, but his intentions were human so far as he could determine. A pity there was no room now for humanity on Starside.

His plan was simple: find a new home for his small group in the east, far beyond the Great Red Waste which was known to lie there. Perhaps something of their old humanity could still be salvaged from what they had become. Perhaps they could find a new way to live.

Turgo was in no hurry; his flyers were already burdened; he would not exhaust them by spurring them on. To what end? To crash in the Great Red Waste and to go on foot till the rising sun found them out and reduced them all to tar? Better to take them up to their ceiling, then glide them on whichever thermals were available, and so conserve their energies. Which he did.

Shaitan's warriors, coming from behind but still some way off, saw the small knot of flyers spiralling up towards the stars; they too must climb; their propulsors throbbed and gas sacks inflated, and their mantles extended to give them lift. But flyers were fashioned for flying and warriors for warring; they had not the endurance for prolonged pursuit. Shaitan must sacrifice them. Do not return, but destroy them utterly, was his final command, over such a distance that he barely reached them. But it was enough.

Turgo's party flew on, gliding down the wind ... but now they spied behind them the instruments of Shaitan's wrath. They urged their flyers to greater effort, sped out across the Great Red Waste. The warriors pursued, gaining however gradually. But in the south the mountains were no more, only flatlands of rust-red sand, beyond which showed spokes of sunlight stroking the sky! Sunup, soon!

And the golden fan was even now slanting over the rim of the world, and Turgo must fly lower, ever lower, to avoid the deadly rays. His creatures were tired, their energy expended; Shaitan's warriors, too, but in them there was only one goal, one requirement. No need for conservation: this was their last mission.

Then, beyond the Great Red Waste, Turgo spied a secondary range of mountains, with deep gashes and gulleys facing north, where the sunlight could never reach. There.' he mind-called to his people. In the lee of the mountains. Build your aeries there.

But they knew from his tone that he would not be with them. And what of you?

My flyer is finished, he told them. Anyway ... I've done with running away. Now go!

Shaitan's warriors were almost upon them. As Turgo's people sped off into the shadows of the lesser range, he turned back, passed between the pursuers

(but barely), hauled on his reins and climbed for the fading stars - and climbed into blinding sunlight! And the warriors followed at once!

The vampire stuff in them was very strong, for they were of Shaitan's fashioning - which was also their weakness! The sunlight ate into them that much deeper, pitting their flesh into craters and steaming them away. All but one fell, exploding as their skins shrivelled and gas bladders ruptured. Turgo was likewise burned and blistered, until finally he could take no more. Then he guided his hissing beast into a dive, down to the shade of the mountains.

Too late, for he was blind! Fly on, he ordered his creature. Into the east, as far and as fast as you can. For he knew that one warrior yet survived; he could feel its tiny, savage mind intent upon his destruction; he would lure it from his people.

And he did, for thirty more miles: lured it to a place where mists came writhing out of the earth, drawn up by the risen sun, where once more the mountains crumbled into bogs and quagmire. There at last Shaitan's warrior caught him, and tore him and his flyer both. And Turgo Zolte, his flying beast and the warrior, all three, surrendered what was left of life and crashed down into the swamps.

Turgo's flight from the stacks of the Wamphyri had been long and long, but he was of the line of Shaitan and carried a leech grown from his egg. When Turgo died Shaitan knew it. And he sighed, once ... and then forgot him.

But on the gluey bed of the eastern swamp Turgo's torn body rotted down and was buoyed up with gases trapped in its tissues, and floated to the surface. And there in the weeds and the quag, black fungi sprouted in his flesh, which as they ripened put out drifting spores from their gills.

The vampire is tenacious...

PART THREE:

Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers

Now

I

That was the way of it,' the Historian thrall Karz Biteri intoned, pleased to be moving towards the end of his period of instruction, when he could pass on these recent tithelings down the line for assignation ... or whatever. 'It was the end of Turgo Zolte, called Shaithar, but it was also the beginning of Turgosheim and a new era of Wamphyri domination. Far in the west Shaitan might have certain doubts with regard to the continuation of Turgo's people, but it suited him to suppose that they had died along with their leader; anyway, he had plenty of problems to deal with closer to home. This last is also supposition, but we do have the Seer-Lord Mendula Farscry's written word in support of the theory, for which reason it must stand.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'Mendula Zolson - better known as Farscry, and later "the Cripple" - was Wamphyri that time more than two thousand years ago; indeed he was the first bloodson of the bloodson of Turgo Zolte himself! But in Mendula the secret arts were very strong; his mother had been a Szgany witch-wife, whose talents came out threefold in her son. And Mendula had the power to read minds at a great distance, and scry out scenes afar. In this he was not so far removed from the current Lord Maglore of Runemanse, a powerful thought-thief and seer in his own right. But... I must not stray from my subject.

'In his youth, Mendula developed a crippling bone disease which twisted him in his joints, bent him over, and made him useless in the hunt or fray; which was why his mind turned to learning instead of more physical pursuits. And such was Mendula's inspiration to discover and record the history of all the Wamphyri, that he even invented glyphs in which to write it down; without which the present Lords of Turgosheim must rely on all manner of legends, immemorial myths, and word of mouth handed down father to son. And the Lords would be the first to admit that they don't much lean toward that sort of thing; neither are they inclined toward the unravelling of glyphs, which is my good fortune .. .

'And so, clever as he was, Farscry the Cripple was made clumsy and vulnerable by virtue of his deformity. But he was safe from the torments of others because he dwelled in Vladsmanse, the house of his younger brother, who valued Mendula's sound advice in all manner of things. And he lived mainly to work on the histories, as I have said, also to mind-spy for his brother, likewise to keep his scryer's eye on the brooding west, where the olden Wamphyri had their aeries in the stacks of Starside. And so Vlad Zolson was Mendula's brother and protector.

'Which brings us almost to the end of the pre-histories, because after Mendula died there was no one with the power to scry on the western Wamphyri and record their works. But there were always Lords who were interested in Mendula's writings, and so some small measure of understanding of his glyphs was passed down. All of which came to me in my turn, so that now I am the Historian.

'Of the history of Turgosheim: I may say that I am writing it in Farscry's own glyphs, from immemorial legends and a few fragments of pictorial tapestries and skins which have survived all the years flown between. It will be my duty to instruct you further in these ancient matters, those of you who are fortunate enough ... enough to ... to win places for yourselves in the service of the Lords.'

Karz Biteri paused a moment to scan over the faces of his class of tithelings, seeing them as a blur of sun-browned flesh and dark Szgany eyes, and trying not to remember them. No, for he knew there were some faces here which he'd never see again. Except that from a certain point of view, they might be said to be the lucky ones...

The Historian licked his suddenly dry lips, blinked his eyes rapidly, and scanned their faces again. They were all so young, so strong! For the moment. But ... better not to dwell upon it. And so:

'As for now,' he continued, somehow keeping his voice from trembling, his words from blurting out, '- now we must return to Shaitan:

'Well, eventually Shaitan's lust for power, his greed, maladministration, and - for all that he was the self-appointed "Justice" - his injustices became too much. The others rose up against him in a body to be rid of him, and he was overwhelmed. Some suggested he should go to the Gate; others insisted he be walled up under the barrier mountains, or buried on the boulder plains to "stiffen to a stone" in his grave. Ever the slippery one, somehow he swayed them to the least of his own prescribed punishments and was banished north.

'They also cast out a crony of Shaitan's, one Kehrl Lugoz, who went with him. But with these two out of the way the unity of the Wamphyri quickly dissolved; they returned to feudalism, warring, inbreeding and the insularity of their stack communities. Since when until the present day, such has been the enmity between them that none have sought or had time to expand their empire beyond its olden boundaries. They do not even know that we are here. But...

'... We, at least, have reason to believe that they are no longer there! For the last eighty years' (he made no mention of 'years' as such but said 'four thousand sundowns') 'since Maglore the Mage's ascension to Runemanse, he has listened and watched in his fashion, like Farscry before him. Eighteen years ago he reported a mighty war; the cause was not certain, but it seems that in the aftermath the obliteration of the olden Wamphyri was almost total! Then, fourteen years ago, there was a bright white light in the sky far to the west; there came a thunder which heralded warm, black rains, and the more sensitive among the Lords of Turgosheim even reported that they felt the earth shaking under their feet.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'After that, from then till now ... nothing! The Lord Maglore has proposed a theory: that some great magician among the survivors of their war brought down such a DOOM on their heads that none escaped. Perhaps he is right, but there are certain hotbloods among the younger Lords who would put his theory to the test. They say: "If a handful of the olden Wamphyri remain, then let them pay for the crimes of their ancestors!" And they say: "We were thrown out, upon a time, but now the gauntlet is on the other hand! We are in the majority, and they don't even know that we exist! We shall fall on them like rain on dust to dampen it down - permanently! For now it is our time! Time we went home again, to Starside and the lofty aeries of the Wamphyri!"

'Aye, for Turgosheim confines these young Lords, who are restless and hungry for expansion into more seemly manses and aeries of their own. They feel their burgeoning strength and would vie with one another, and day by day they make practice and flex their muscles. For the time being all of this gauntlet-rattling is verbal; but soon, if they can't go abroad to make war, who can guarantee that they won't make it here? It wouldn't be the first time - no, nor even the tenth - that Turgosheim was torn with internecine war!'

Karz Biteri's voice fell to a hoarse whisper. Taken in the grip of his subject, he was no longer the Historian but a commentator on current events: a dangerous pastime at best, and more so for a thrall. Even so, he wasn't voicing his own specific fears but those of his master, Maglore of Runemanse, who was himself much given to rumination and often out loud. 'Even now,' Biteri continued, 'in the secret caverns of certain of the larger manses ..." He paused and glanced nervously all about, cautioning: '- this next is rumour, you understand, which may not be repeated - warriors designed for aerial combat are mewling in their vats! Abominations which have been forbidden ever since that creature of Shaitan's slaughtered Turgo Zolte in the swamps, on the day his people came fleeing out of the west to make homes for themselves in ... in the ...'

He paused again and once more cast all about with startled eyes, this way and that. Had someone come into the room unseen? Suddenly, for all the flaring of the gas jets and the searing glare of their mantles, it seemed darker. But then, it always seemed darker when a Lord was about.

Karz Biteri gulped and his parched throat clenched in upon itself like a fist. But somehow he croaked out the last few words: 'Homes for ... for themselves in ... in the dark clefts and crags.'

And as the echoes of his words died away, now the unseen intruder made his - no, her - presence known, and flowed into view from the shadows. Seeing and knowing her, Karz gulped that much harder and fell to his knees. 'My ... my Lady!'

This was a public place in the lower levels, set aside for aspiring lieutenants, thrall nurses, manse-managers, beast victuallers, brewers, and other specially talented thralls such as Karz Biteri. Honeycombed with lesser rooms, it was a sprawling cavern system which looked out over eastern Starside towards the sunless and forbidding Icelands. At the current hour one would not normally expect to find any Lord or Lady in this vicinity; there was precious little here for them, or so Karz Biteri had always supposed. And this close to sunup (even though the sun could not harm them in the depths of Turgosheim) they usually preferred to be in their own apartments. But right here and now the presence of the Lady Wratha was living, or undead, proof of the unpredictability of the Wamphyri.

Wratha the Risen: she was herself like a ray of sunlight falling upon some dark jewel. At least, that was her guise. But Biteri knew that on occasion she looked far more like something risen up from hell! For indeed she had returned from hell, or its brink, this ex-Szgany girl who was now a powerful Lady of the Wamphyri.

She laid a hand upon his bowed, balding head and her perfume fell on him cloyingly. 'Up, Historian,' she sighed. 'What? And is this not a free place? You have every right to be here, you and these tithelings of yours. But I was passing by, on my way through the levels to Wrathspire, and I heard something of your words as you instructed these ... young people.' She drew him to one side, while he fluttered his hands and said:

'My ... my words, Lady? But there was nothing of any deliberate mischief in them. I merely recounted the histories, what little is known of them, in accordance with my Lord Maglore's command. It is part of the induction, and ...'

'I know these things,' she stopped him with a glance.

'But I thought that something which I heard was more of the present than the past, and I wondered at the presumption of any thrall that he should so speculate upon the affairs of his superiors.'

'My Lady,' again Biteri went to his knees, almost collapsing there this time. 'If I have ... offended?'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'Up!' she hissed, almost dragging him to his feet. 'Perhaps you have offended. But if so ... well, you are not my thrall to punish, and as yet I've no reason to repeat what I heard.' She glared at him, and her huge eyes opened a fraction wider. Their fire held an almost physical heat, which would normally be contained beneath the scarp of carved bone worn upon her brow, and subdued by small circular plates of a deep blue volcanic glass fixed to her temples in front of her conch-like ears. But when she opened wide the doors to those furnace eyes, like this ...

She saw the cold sweat on Biteri's brow, the pounding of a vein in his neck, and inquired: 'Do you fear me, Historian?'

'I am but a thrall,' he gave his stock answer, the only entirely safe answer. 'Here in Turgosheim, the Wamphyri hold sway. If I do or think incorrectly I may die, or worse! Wherefore I fear no one but myself, for my own actions underwrite the terms of my existence. I repeat: in Turgosheim the Lords, and of course the Ladies, hold sway.'

'Only in Turgosheim?'

'And in all the world,' he added hurriedly, 'when the sun is down and shadows creep. As for me: things are as they are, and mine is not to fear but to obey.'

'Then obey me now,' she told him, her voice low, languorous, deadly dangerous, 'and make no more speeches of warriors mewling in their vats. Ah, I know where you have heard these whispers - which are the fears of old, old men, whose learning has stunted their manly appetites - but put them out of your mind. Aye, while yet your mind is your own.'

'Of course, Lady, yes!' he answered, following her where she moved back towards the tithelings.

She paused and took his arm, as if he were the friend of a lifetime, saying, 'Do you know, Historian, but just as Maglore has you, I too had a trusted thrall upon a time. Oh, I've had many such, aye, but this one was ... very special. No hard and thorny lieutenant, but a soft-skinned song-bird out of Sunside. Yes, it's true: he bathed me and sang me songs! Alas, but the many intimacies I allowed him were not enough; he would be my husband and lord it over Wrathspire as my equal! For he was a strong, comely young man, and what was I but a woman, after all?'

She let go his arm and suddenly her voice was cold as ice. 'Well, he's not much for singing now, though I'll admit he grunts a bit. For now when I go to my bed, the bulk of his warty hide guards my doorway, and what small part remains of his brain cringes from the lash of my thoughts!'