Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (Necroscope #6)

Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (Necroscope #6) Page 8

And Karz shuddered deep inside as he remembered what he'd heard of the guardian of Wratha's bedchamber: that it once was a handsome Szgany thrall, whose ambitions had been bigger than his member. And he was reminded of an old thrall adage: 'Never attempt the seduction of your master, neither by word nor deed. Remember: seduction was only the first of his disciplines!'

But Wratha's voice was light again as she commanded, 'And now you must show me these likely tithe-lings of yours, fresh out of Sunside.'

The Historian couldn't deny her. What she suggested went against the general rule, but she'd caught him preaching less than orthodox lessons, which gave her the upper hand. And now she would inspect the tithelings, likewise unorthodox, but what could he do? Nothing, except step aside as she went among them smiling like a girl: the Lady Wratha, dead and buried ninety-five years ago, but undead all the years flown between.

As she turned her eyes away from him, Karz could only marvel at this thing anew. He was forty-five years old and looked seventy, while she was more than one hundred years but looked only twenty - at the moment, anyway. It was her vampire, he knew, moulding her metamorphic flesh to the shape she desired, presenting her as fresh and vital as life itself. Ah, but only anger her and the thing inside would respond instantly, a transformation which even the greatest of the Lords would avoid at any cost! For Wratha was no simple Szgany girl, and it astonished the Historian that she ever had been - if she ever had been.

He thought on what Maglore the Seer had told him of her:

Wratha had been a Sunsider, living in a small tribal community with her father. The leader's son had wanted her, but her father, a strong man in his own right, said she should have the husband of her choice. Being contrary as well as beautiful, she wouldn't make a choice but scorned all of the tribe's young men alike. When her father died, the leader made it plain that her choice had now narrowed down: she could be his son's woman, or she could be listed for the tithe. It was simple as that.

Not so simple after all, for she ran off! Angered beyond reason, and despite the pleas of his son, her tribal leader put her on the tithe list. If she wouldn't go to his son, then let her go to the vampires.

She lived wild in the hills awhile and managed to avoid the first tithe. Like her father before her, she was opposed in every way to vampire supplication and believed they should be fought, destroyed, even followed Starside of the mountains and put down in their manses. Madness! For at sunup, warriors were let out to roam on the floor of the gulleys and ravines of Turgosheim, to keep the Wamphyri safe from attack through their most vulnerable hours. And anyway, how may you kill men who are already dead?

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Well, there were ways, but on the few occasions they had been tried - when lieutenants and lesser Lords had come over the mountains at sundown to collect the tithe, been ambushed, dealt with - Wamphyri retribution had always been swift and merciless. The last of these 'risings', which had taken place some forty years ago, was still told of around the campfires; but the heroic insurgents in question, and their tribe to its last member, were no more. The story itself was still the ultimate deterrent.

In any case, Wratha was captured, kept prisoner, tormented and threatened (but never harmed physically, neither marked nor sullied, for that was not the sort of tribute one paid to the Wamphyri), and finally handed over at tithe-time to collector lieutenants on their tithe routes through the tribal territories. But somehow, during her captivity, she had managed to obtain and conceal a small amount of kneblasch oil and a packet of silver filings upon her person ...

At that time and to the present day it was the practice of the collectors to march most of the tithelings back to Turgosheim. Special cases (beautiful girls, strapping youths, clever musicians and men skilled in the working of metals) went on the backs of flyers. In this way they were spared any small ravages which might occur en route, so ensuring their pristine presentation. Wratha's hands were loosely bound; she was strapped into the long saddle behind the pilot-lieutenant of a flyer; at the last moment the leader's son came to sneer, and tossed up to her a small bag of belongings.

On their way back to Turgosheim, she got her hands loose and began to stroke her captor's back, and to whisper sensual suggestions in his ear. He was an aspirant but in no way Wamphyri; once a Sunsider himself, he found this beautiful Szgany girl's attempt at his seduction pleasing; he made no objection to Wratha's stroking and her fondly beguiling words .. and all the while she worked kneblasch oil into his broad back, and now and then fingered the handle of the ironwood knife which she'd discovered in the bag given to her by the man she'd spurned.

The pilot lieutenant's blood was infected with vampirism, of course; he was in thrall to the Wamphyri generally, and to his own patron Lord especially. And this was the source of his downfall: his own tainted blood, which made possible Wratha's poisoning of his system. She worked the kneblasch deep into his spine, his back and shoulders, until he grew at first fatigued, then ill where he began to rock in the saddle. The tree-line was below them and the dark peaks beckoned, but his hands trembled on the reins and his body was clammy with the sweat of fever.

'You are sick!' Wratha told him, feigning concern. Take us down before we crash, and let me care for you until you're well again.'

Gripped by this dread lethargy, he began to do as Wratha suggested, settling his flyer down towards the trees. But deep within he suspected that she was the source of his discomfort, and instead of landing squared his shoulders to fight off whatever it was that sickened him. Which was when Wratha used her knife, driving it into his back to the hilt. In fact the knife had been given to her as an instrument of mercy, so that she could take her own life. But that wasn't her way. Indeed, life had never been so dear to her.

She wrenched the ironwood blade this way and that in the lieutenant's back, until he cried out and his spine arched in agony. Then, as he slumped sideways in the saddle, Wratha toppled him into space. He crashed down in the pines, and a moment later his flyer followed suit. Unhurt, Wratha jumped free and went to look for him where she'd seen him fall. She found him under the canopy of the trees, groaning and badly broken, and hurled dust of silver in his face until he breathed it in. And as he coughed and choked, so she stabbed him again and again: in the eyes to blind him, then in the heart to make an end of it. And finally she set about dismembering him.

But in the twilight hours before sunup, the light of her fire was seen by a late patrol out of Turgosheim. Suspicious riders came winging to investigate - and discovered Wratha burning the lieutenant's pieces!

She was retaken - this time knocked unconscious -and so at last was brought in with the other tithelings. Except of course where they were innocent, she was guilty of this 'heinous' crime against the Starside Lords, and naturally her life was forfeit. No question of what should become of her, or to whom should go the task of execution. For her thrall victim had a brother, also a lieutenant...

The other tithelings were assigned, but Wratha was handed over to Radu Cragsthrall, to do with as he wished, so long as his final act was to kill her. Radu was the brother of Lathor, the lieutenant she had killed. But he was also thrall-in-chief to Karl the Crag, and dwelled in Cragspire. Karl was a rock of a man, Wamphyri through and through, but of all that a capricious Nature had given him in physical strength, she had taken back in wits. In short, he was a dullard.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

And Radu paraded Wratha proud and naked before his Lord Karl, listing all the many things he would do to her, before she paid the ultimate price; which list was long and detailed. At first Karl applauded his chief lieutenant, but Wratha had caught his eye and was not cowed by Radu's threats. Hers was a stunning beauty, with hair blacker than night and eyes to match, legs long as sundown, pointy breasts, and a behind firm as an apple. And her mouth was a special delight: shaped like a crossbow's wings, pouting, and fitted with a soft dart of a tongue whose sting ... Karl might not find displeasing. A dark Gypsy jewel, she tilted her breasts at him, so that he lusted after her.

Radu saw the girl's ploy, ceased numbering his intended torments, knocked her to her knees. She cried out and fell against Karl where he sat, and hugged his legs to her breasts. And as she begged his protection, so Radu rushed upon her. But the Lord Karl of Cragspire held up a hand ... simply that, but more than enough. Which was when Radu, stalled, had made what could so easily have been a fatal error. 'She is mine!' he had snarled. 'She was given to me!'

'Aye,' Karl nodded his great head. 'Just as you are mine, given to me. But with the heat of your words -this which you would do to her, and that which you will do - you have set my juices working, and I would try her first. So tell me: do you make objection?' And all the while Wratha hugging his thighs, saying:

'Save me, Lord! Save me! I killed his brother because he would have taken me, to which end he landed his flyer in the hills. But am I to be given to mere thralls, while even the greatest of Wamphyri Lords goes wanting?'

Radu calmed down. Blood was in his Lord's eye and a dab of spittle at the corner of his mouth. True, Karl was a great fool and easy to handle when he was at peace with the world, but when his mood was sour ... then the vampire in him took over. No sensible idea to turn him sour now. And so he said: 'Do I make objection? No, of course not, Lord - except that she is unworthy! But if it will amuse you, have her first by all means, and instruct her in your ways. For after all, what better teacher could she have?'

'Exactly,' Karl growled, and that was that.

Then ... the Lord Karl took his time about the 'trying' of Wratha, the while becoming enamoured of her. Finally she bowed to being vampirized by him, which was inevitable: stuff of his got into her from his kisses and embraces, also from those acts which she performed to entertain and ensnare him. However and for all of which, she let herself be Karl's thrall only insofar as that without him she was doomed, and no further. Her will was that strong, and in Wratha's case his was that weak. But at least as Karl's paramour her life was spared - for the moment. A respite she must put to good use.

Now Karl knew he must let Radu have Wratha in the end; or if not 'must', then 'should'. She had been rightly condemned to death by Radu's hand, and Karl could only lose face among his Wamphyri peers if he prolonged matters. And so he was in the dilemma of being, as it were, in thrall to a thrall. And meanwhile Wratha pleaded that she would do anything to avoid her fate, if only Karl could show her the means of her delivery. She did not wish to die but live forever ... with Karl, in Cragspire, of course.

The time came one night when she fell asleep in his arms, crying how she loved him and must be with him always. And Karl determined that she would be. Draining her to the last drop of blood while first she slept, then swooned, and finally died, he laid her prone in a private room and crossed her arms on her breast; then called Radu to see what he had done. 'There,' he said. The sentence is carried out. What does it matter who killed her or how? She is dead. Soon she will be undead, and mine, wherefore you need no longer concern yourself.' Dullard that he was, he didn't see the glint in Radu's eyes, or the way his chief lieutenant choked back his anger.

For Radu was no fool; he'd seen for himself the strength of Wratha's will, her tenacity, her lust for life. Now, for the moment, she was dead, but when - if -she rose up again, then she would be even stronger. And no room for both of them in the service of Lord Karl of Cragspire then ...

So that when Karl was out and about seeing to his affairs, Radu took Wratha down into a secret place away from the spires and manses and prepared a chamber for her. And the chamber was a niche at the back of a deep dark cave, which he walled up with many tons of boulders, even bringing the entrance crashing down with his furious energy. So that at last the sentence was carried out, and Radu was satisfied.

Later, when Karl returned to Cragspire and found Wratha's room empty, he raged a while. Radu could only shrug and look mystified. A flyer was missing: obviously Wratha had woken up, stolen the beast, flown off. Perhaps they could track her down? They tried, Radu, Karl and two lesser lieutenants, to no avail. Then, because it would soon be sunup, they returned to Crag-spire. It was possible Wratha had tried to go back to Sunside. Well, too bad. By now the sun would be melting her away.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

But in fact it was only melting the poor flyer, which Radu had ordered south for as long and as far as it could fly. And so life returned to normal in Cragspire, while in a walled-up niche in a blocked cave in a deserted ravine, death returned to undeath ...

Wratha woke up!

She woke up with a small cry, in darkness like that of the tomb ... and could see as if it were daylight! She could see in fact that this was a tomb - hers! And in a moment she knew what had happened, and even guessed something of how it had happened and who was chiefly responsible. Then for a while she wept, tore her hair and beat her breast, for she believed that already she could feel herself turning into a stone, petrifying in the earth.

Madness swiftly followed. She screamed and tore at the wall of boulders, which shifted ominously and threatened to roll inwards and crush her. Then, sobbing, she sat and hugged herself, and wondered how long the air would last; certainly the jumbled rocks were airtight, sealing her in like wine in a jar.

But ... what did the air matter? Even when it was putrid she would live on, for she was a vampire now and could not die twice except she die as a vampire: by the stake, the sword and the fire. Which meant that in a century - or two, or three - she would quite literally stiffen to a lonely fossil here in the earth. But long before then, in days or weeks, she would be so weakened that movement was impossible, when she must simply lie here remembering her miserable life, and loathing the miserable creatures who had brought her to this unthinkable end.

Her madness returned! She cried out, shriek upon pealing shriek! Until it seemed to her that out of the very walls of rock far faint echoes ... came back to her?

But echoes? In an airless tomb?

Then Wratha sprang up and searched the cave top to bottom, end to end, what little space had been left for her to search. And at last she found a hole no wider than her shoulders, no higher than the distance between her chin and the top of her head, out of which came a breath from gulfs beyond. A breath of fresh air!

She went head-first into the hole: a nightmare of suffocation, of wriggling, inching forward until exhausted, then resting as best possible, at whichever tortured angle, before starting again; and never knowing when the passage would come to an end, but knowing that if it did there was no way back, no way to wriggle in reverse. And so like a snake she progressed through the pressured rock, with all the tons of the mountains overhead weighing down on her.

Eventually there was a cave, with other cavelets leading off. On hands and knees, fingernails broken, bloodied, Wratha explored every crack and crevice. At ground level, nothing; all of the lesser caves were dead ends. But there, confined in darkness, entombed in rock, her vampire senses were at their best.

She was not Wamphyri, no, for no egg or spore was lodged within her body, but she was a vampire: the vampire thrall of Karl of Cragspire. His thrall - hah! But they would see about that! He had used the entrances of her body, her very throat, for his amusement, and she had absorbed the liquids of his lust like old, dry leather sucking at oil. And this was her reward. Well, and she knew who she must blame as well as Karl. And she did. And he would know of it, if only she could find a way out of here ...

She rested awhile, and when she was still felt once more the flow of air across her dirty, rock-scarred body and torn hands, and on the cold-sweating mounds of her bruised breasts and buttocks. And yet what pain she felt was small, and all the while her fear receded. She had no egg, no, but her body was infected nonetheless. The tenacity of undeath complemented her own, and heightened her senses in a like degree. Moreover, the wounds of her hands were healing, and where new flesh grew it was paler but stronger than before. And she felt a certain sinuosity in all her limbs, as if they had a new flexibility. Now when she walked, she would seem to flow, and move with an evil grace. And even her beauty would be greater than before - unless she became mummified first!

She sprang up with a new energy, turned her face to the cave's ceiling, searched for the lungs of this place. And sure enough a hole was there, like a chimney going up. Ah, but it would take some climber to reach it! She started up the wall of the cave, and at once discovered that she was just such a climber! Her fingers and toes found secure holds in the smallest of cracks; the muscles of her arms were springy as the green branches of trees; she did not seem to have any weight at all! And clinging like a leech, she inched her way up the scarred rock interior and across the cave's ceiling.

And so Wratha progressed. But slowly, oh so very slowly ...

She had been sealed up in the first third of sundown, and was out again by the next sundown ... but so depleted that her hunger raged like a fire in her heart. And emerging on to the dry and dusty plains of Starside, in the shadows of the eastern range, Wratha's first thought - indeed her only thought, for the moment -was of sustenance.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

She located a trog cavern, from which the first leathery inhabitants were even then emerging into the gloom, and took one on the spot. He was only a trog, but blood is blood. And from the moment of the piercing, when her freshly lengthened, keenly serrated eye-teeth bit into his neck and found the spurting jugular, Wratha knew the meaning of that immemorial Wamphyri phrase, 'the blood is the life!'

The trogs made no protest as she drained the life of one of theirs. She was a vampire, thrall and servant of the Wamphyri. What could they do? Only interfere and the rest of the monsters would fall on them with all their might, like an avalanche out of the crags. Anyway, they rarely suffered in this fashion, for the human leeches of Turgosheim were far more fond of the sweet flesh of Sunsiders. It must be hoped that this attack was the exception to the rule. And as Wratha moved on, they dragged the drained corpse of her victim into their cave and burned it, for even trogs had come to know the nature of vampires ...

Strengthened, Wratha made for Turgosheim, for the passes leading to Sunside. It was sundown and the Wamphyri were awake in their manses and abroad on their flyers. But she knew that their warrior creatures were confined in their pens under the crags and spires, which gave her heart. And keeping always to the deepest shadows, eventually Wratha approached a pass.

Here the ground rose sharply, from the bed of the vast gorge which housed Turgosheim to the mouth of the pass, and there was no cover to mention. She couldn't risk it, not with the high beacons flaring red and orange, and lights burning in all the manses, and flyers overhead where aerial patrols came and went through the pass. Time to rest, and move on in the hour before sunup. Which she did, finding shelter under a shelf of rock away from the trail through the pass ...

... The hissing and roaring of hungry warriors brought her awake. They had been let loose from their pens into the gorge where they roamed at will. When two came together they would challenge and rear up but not strike; their Wamphyri masters had lodged commands in their small brains, forbidding fighting among themselves; they were, quite simply, watchdogs. And they were not watching for other warriors.

For centuries ago, when the tithe system was first established, a party of Sunsiders had come through the mountains at high sunup to seek out and kill the Wamphyri in their manses. And they had actually achieved some small measure of success - the deaths of several lieutenants and thralls, the capture of a lesser spire, the murder of its Lord and master - before the surprised habitants of Turgosheim had put them down. Since when, this daily release of monsters into the gorge had become a matter of habit, passed down all the years between.

Emerging from shelter, Wratha spied the loathsome grey-blue bulk of a warrior moving in the darkness close by! She fled with all speed for the pass; scenting her, the creature roared and snorted all the more and followed after; she might have made it ... but another warrior was waiting in the mouth of the pass itself!

Wratha was trapped between them. They came upon her mewling, and glaring murderously with their crimson, night-seeing eyes. She could flee no more, and so simply stood and waited. At least they would make a quick end of it. But snuffling and snorting, and issuing their vile stenches, the warriors came no closer. They had her full scent now and knew that she was vampire stuff no less than they themselves. And Wratha moved between them into the pass ...

Sunup came and Wratha proceeded south, but in the deep, twining ravine which was the pass she felt nothing of the sun, merely spied its light spreading through the sky overhead like a pale stain. And all the long day she marched the route of the tithelings and kept her burgeoning vampire senses alert for any strange or inimical thing. So she came to the descending slopes of Sun-side, where rather than brave the furnace sun she rested in the opening of the ravine till sundown. And in the twilight she bathed in a tumbling stream, then made her way through the long night down to the place where her tribe had built a small town on the Wamphyri tithe-route within the border of its territories.

Avoiding the watch, she moved silent as a wraith to the leader's house of woven withes and skins, where she found him home and abed. His wife was many years dead; he lived on his own and in a slovenly fashion; his loud snoring caused Wratha to smile, for she knew that this was his last sleep. But her smile was awful in the night, having nothing of warmth in it and even less of humanity. And standing naked in the shadows of his room, she called his name but softly.

He grunted and came starting awake, demanding: 'Who is it?'

'Wratha!' she answered, moving into the moonlight where it flooded through his window, but keeping her feral eyes hidden for the moment.

'You!' he gasped, seeing her outline, and that she was naked. And, coming more nearly awake: 'But... you?'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'I escaped!' she told him in a low whisper. The Wamphyri think I'm dead. Tonight I must rest, and before sunup go off into the forest like a wild thing to hide there all my days.' She intended no such thing.

He sat up straighter in his bed. 'You ... you dared come back here? Why, you'll bring them down on us like-'

'Only for the night, as I've said,' she answered, cutting him off. 'And anyway, they don't even know I'm alive ... you poor blind fool!'

'What?' He sat there astonished as she moved closer to his bed. 'Me, blind? What are you saying?'

'You who would give me to his son, when all that I really wanted ... was you!' It was a ploy: words to immobilize him, keep him from exclaiming too loudly. She lifted his blanket, stole beneath it, pressed herself against him. She was a vampire, strange and sensual. He felt her body's weird heat, which was cold at the same time, and grew dizzy from her fascination.

'But... I was old,' he stuttered. 'And you...'

'You were the leader!' she answered, her stroking bringing him burning alive, jerking like a hooked fish in her hand. And in a moment:

'Let me ... let me feel you,' he husked, with his coarse hands on her body. She allowed it - until he bent his head to kiss her breasts. And then she saw the throb of his neck where her caresses had caused the blood to course like a river, and he heard the hisss of her breath as her hand slid from his member to the seed-swollen source of his lust. Then, as she tightened her grip with a vampire's strength, and as her nails dug in, he tried to draw away... too late!

He saw her eyes yellow as molten gold in the night, saw the moonlight gleaming white on her mouth of knives, hich she closed on his windpipe to sever it. Perhaps, in the instant of her striking, he issued the small scream of a gelding, cut off along with his air and, less rapidly, his life ...

... And perhaps, in the smaller house alongside his own, his son Javez heard or in some way sensed his father's small scream. At any rate he woke up, and listened awhile to the silence, then came padding to investigate.

Wratha, a child of the night, saw Javez in all detail; he saw only shadows and moonbeams in his father's room, and a humped outline moving under the blanket. But he also heard the sounds of Wratha's hungry suction. It sounded like something else: like his father was with a woman! Which he was, but not in the way Javez thought it. The younger man's jaw fell open as he began to back out of the room.

Wratha stuck her head further out, tossed back her hair, and in a 'shocked' voice said, 'Oh! - Javez!' Which spoke volumes, however falsely.

He knew that voice at once, and his eyes started from his head as he whispered, 'Wratha?' Then, jaw lolling more yet, he choked: 'Father.1' And blood surging, he leaped to the bed and tore aside the blanket. What had been his father lay there ...

Stunned, Javez fell back, tripped, would have fallen. But Wratha was standing beside him, smiling her smile. She held him upright, watched his face, mouth and throat, all working in unison, doing nothing. And the knob of Javez's throat going up and down like some strange dumb bird's wattle, as he gathered saliva to cry out. But before he could gather enough -

- She showed him a splinter of ironwood stripped from a shattered tree in the mouth of the pass. And: 'Do you remember?' she said, dragging him by the hair back on to the bed with his father. 'You gave me a knife like this, upon a time - to kill myself, I suppose. But no, I used it for another purpose. And now I give it back.'

'Wratha-a-o-a!' he gurgled, as she drove the splinter deep into his groin, and drew it out; into his shuddering belly, and drew it out; into his heart, and twisted it there, and wrenched it until it broke . .. Then, when all was still, she kissed them both gently, upon their clammy foreheads, and left them sprawling in their blood where they had died ...

In the morning they were found; the tribe built up the campfire and burned them, and elected a new leader. A search was made, but nothing was found. And no one slept for long and long, because they suspected a vampire had come to them out of the swamps. They were wrong, for she had come from Starside.

And now she was on her way back.

In the hills Wratha waylaid a hunter in the night, killed him, and drew sustenance from his red-pulsing lifestream. And each time she appeased her hunger in this fashion, so the changes in her metabolism accelerated, and her undead vitality went from strength to strength. Her vampire senses developed; she felt the restless, eerie zest of the vampire and a renewed, replenished Just for life - albeit for the lives of others. In the way such passions took her, she knew that she was rare; it was as if she were a vampire born. Perhaps some credit was due Karl of Cragspire, for he contained a leech within him, grown from an egg, whose essence had mingled with Wratha's.

In the next sunup she went down into the stony gullies and bottoms of Turgosheim, between the spires of the Wamphyri with their massive scree jumbles, and under the very fapades of their manses fretted in the glooming faces of soaring ravines and jutting crags. And no warrior bothered her where she flitted like a shadow to the base of Cragspire, whose guards kept watch on the ramps and in the entranceways. Guards, aye, but thralls for all that; but Wratha was more than any mere thrall now, for she went under her own direction.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

She climbed Cragspire at its rear, to an unguarded lower level, then came up onto a walkway of cartilage grafted to the stack's exterior. The walkway spiralled steeply for the heights but there was no one there to stop or challenge Wratha. Higher, the spire was hollow in many of its parts, so that she entered within and proceeded all the faster, from hall to hall, stairway to stairway.

She knew the rooms where Karl's lieutenants kept their Szgany odalisques, and the closets where the women kept their clothes. And dressed in just such a sheath, which revealed far more than it concealed, finally she made her way to the Lord of Cragspire's quarters. And all the spire asleep now except for those with duties, whom Wratha had known to avoid.

But in all three of the approaches to the penultimate levels under the seared ramparts of the spire itself, there she found small warriors on guard, protecting their master's privacy. And in the third such entrance-way, because her patience was used up, she approached the tethered monster openly, with her head held high. The creature blinked its many eyes at her and shuffled, but merely grunted and made no move to stop her. For the beast recognized Wratha: that she had used to come and go with the spire's master. And HE had instructed that this one should be allowed to pass, with no interference. It was an order which had never been rescinded. Also, the master's scent was on Wratha, even in her blood.

And she passed the armoured bulk of it by, where its pincers and stabbers worked unceasingly at thin air, and its cavern of a mouth chomped however vacuously.

And so Wratha came to Karl in his rooms, and knew where to find him asleep. Except he wasn't asleep, for the vampire in him had warned of someone's approach. And entering his bedroom, she found Karl waiting for her. Then ...

... His astonishment was great! He drew her to him, lifted her up, gazed upon her from every angle. There was no word in his mouth, which gaped. And Wratha ... she had been beautiful before, even as a lowly thrall (though in truth, she'd never been lowly). But now ... everything about her was a man's fondest, darkest dream. Just looking at her, Karl knew she could make even the most erotic dream reality. And he saw with every glance what he had made: such a vampire!

Aye, and he knew what he had missed all this time . ..

She took off her dress for him and sat on his great knee, and as he fondled her, he was now more thrall than she - far more. Then, when he would have her, she made him wait and told him everything, sparing no detail.

Hearing her out, Karl's rage flared to match his inflamed passions. For just as Wratha had guessed it, so now the Lord of Cragspire likewise knew the author of this thing. His eyes bulged and his snout flattened back and grew ridged and convoluted, like that of a great bat, while the teeth sprouted in his jaws like scarlet scythes! Until he came roaring to his feet with a name on his bloodied lips:

'Radu!'

'But my way,' she insisted, clinging to his arm. 'Do it my way.'

'He dies tonight, now - the death he planned for you - changed to a vampire and buried forever. Not in a cave, no, but in a grave fifty feet deep, whose construction I shall supervise personally. Especially its filling!'

'Ah, no,' she advised, 'for as we've seen, even the best-buried persons sometimes return. And Radu is a traitor you must be rid of always. Do it my way.' And she told him her way. Karl listened, and smiled in his fashion; which in the circumstances was hardly a smile at all. Then: He called for Radu, who got dressed and attended his Lord at once, wondering what it could be, at this hour of sunup. And in Karl's quarters Wratha was hidden away, watching and listening to everything.

'Lord?' Radu stood before Karl's great bone chair.

Karl's crag of a body hunched there, his scarlet gaze accentuated by the uneven flaring of gas jets in the walls. Such was his doomful silence, that for a moment Wratha feared he'd lost the words. But then: 'It is ... it is this business of the Szgany thrall, Wratha,' Karl growled, breathing heavily as he reined back on his Wamphyri rage. 'I am finding some difficulty sleeping, because it puzzles me. And you know how I hate a mystery.'

Radu shrugged (negligently, Wratha thought), and without Karl's leave seated himself upon a carved stool. 'Where's the mystery, Lord? Strong-willed in life, she remained unchanged in undeath. Rising up from your fatal kiss, she stole a flyer and departed Cragspire, Turgosheim, the world entire. She flew south for Sun-side, into the risen sun. She is no more.'

Karl nodded. 'So we have supposed,' he answered, breathing easier now. 'So you ... have suggested.'

Now Radu detected the edge in his Lord's voice and came to his feet. Again his shrug, not so negligent now, as his eyes slid this way and that. 'But the evidence was such -'

'- What evidence?'

'Eh? Why, her absence - the missing flyer!'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'Ah! That evidence.' Karl fingered his chin, studied Radu intensely.

And for the third time Radu's shrug, now absolutely genuine in its bewilderment. 'But ... what other evidence is there?'

Karl nodded again, and sighed deeply. Then, apparently changing the subject, he said: 'Do you know, the other Lords see me as a dolt?'

'What, you, Lord?' Radu's attempt at astonishment was less than convincing. 'I cannot believe it.'

'Oh, you can, you can! You've heard it said, I'm sure.'

'Never, Lord! Why, if ever I heard such a ..."

'... And yet I fancy,' Karl stopped him short, 'that among my ancestors was a scryer of considerable skill. An oneiromancer, perhaps, and one of great power! Which is why I cannot sleep - because of my dreams.'

'Dreams, Lord?'

'Of treachery, aye!'

Radu said nothing, but waited. For after all, a dream of treachery is still only a dream. And in a while, Karl continued: 'Do you see that skin there, on the table? That chart of Turgosheim and all the lands around?' He pointed to a table close by. 'Look at it closely. For I have marked it.'

Radu stepped to the table, checked the chart, and his eyes were drawn irresistibly to a certain secret place - but secret no more, for Karl had ringed it with a line of black dye! Radu staggered back a pace, regained control of himself as best he could, and said: 'I ... I see your mark.'

'Come,' Karl crooked a finger, beckoning. 'Come here, where I can look upon your face.'

Radu stood before him.

And Karl's voice was very soft as he said, 'Now admit it to me: that you have buried her there, as I saw in my dreams.'

Stunned, Radu opened and closed his mouth but said nothing. So that Karl warned him: 'Better if you tell me with your own tongue, while still you have one.'

Radu remained dumbstruck.

Karl sighed and spread wide his arms, as in a gesture of defeat. 'Then, Radu my would-be son, we must go and dig there, you and I. And all of my thralls and trogs to boot, digging in a certain blocked cave. Until we have dug up what you put down. Then, if my dream has not lied to me ... you shall replace her there in the cold, cold earth, forever. But if you'll be brave and tell me with your own lips how it was, and so save me the trouble ...?'

'But...!' Radu's dam had cracked at last.

'Oh?' Karl cocked his head and looked at him, looked into him. But Radu only hung his head. It was an admittance of sorts - but not good enough.

'Very well,' said Karl, in a voice which was softer yet. 'Then go to my bed and bring me the sharpest of those crossed swords from where they decorate the wall. Alas, they are not very sharp, but sharp enough in a strong hand. The one is of iron and the other silver. I dislike silver as well you know, but its grip is of bone and it is the sharpest, and the other hangs there red with rust. So bring me the silver sword.'

Radu looked, saw the dull glimmer of gaslight on ancient Szgany weapons. 'Swords ..." he said, tonelessly.

'Do it now,' said Karl.

Radu brought the sword. And as he returned with it to Karl many thoughts passed through his mind. To leap on him and kill him ... hah! - what madness - try killing a warrior! To kill himself, then, which was far more feasible. Or ... perhaps he should try to brazen it out; for surely Karl knew nothing for a fact, not yet, and all of this was a trial by nerves. Later, if it came to the worst, Radu could always make a run for it. That is, if there was to be a later ...

By then he was back in front of his master's chair, and the time for action, perhaps even for thinking, was past. Karl reached out a hand. 'The sword,' he said. 'Put it down.' Radu did so, and his master took it up - but carefully - by the bone hilt.

Then Karl stood up, and Radu backed off. But: 'If you so much as think of running,' Karl warned, 'I shall take you down into the bottoms and let the warriors fight over you. Now kneel beside the stool there.' That was easy, for Radu's knees were giving way. 'Good!' said Karl. 'And place your hands behind your back, and clasp them. Then lower your neck across the stool. Even so ...'

'Master, I ...!' Radu's eyes bulged where he stared at the stone floor.

'Aye?' Karl's inquiry was almost casual.

'If I say nothing, I lose my head,' Radu gabbled. 'And if I speak the truth - even though I have done nothing for myself but everything for you - still I lose my head! Where is the justice?'

'Tell me the truth,' Karl said, 'and I swear that I shall not harm you in the slightest degree. Neither myself nor any man or monster in all Turgosheim.'

Radu knew better than to try bargaining, not with his neck across a block. And now his dam broke and the words flooded out of him. 'It is ... as you have dreamed it! But she was Szgany filth; she was not good enough; she made your bed a mire!'

'Ahhhh!' said Karl.

Radu heard the swish as the sword went up, and screamed, 'Master! Your word, not to harm me: neither yourself nor any man!'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'Indeed,' said Karl.

Sensing in that final moment the presence of some other, Radu's eyes swivelled up - even as Wratha's silver sword came slicing down. And in the instant of death, still Radu didn't believe who he saw standing there ...

Then it was done, Wratha's way, and in every instance but one Karl had stood by his word. For neither himself nor any man of Turgosheim had killed Radu Cragsthrall.

But a monster ...?