E-Branch - Invaders Part 27

'Or it was one of the sources. For, of course, Malinari was right: what's in the blood will out in the flesh. But it takes two to make a bloodson, a vampire born of woman, and The Mind's mother was a Szgany healer, whose power was in her hands.

Do you understand the principle? She could cure the sick and the fevered by holding them, stroking them, by balming them with her lullabies and her loving touch. Ah, but I see that there are such in your world, too ... faith healers, yes. And I also see 302.

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that some are fakers, here as in my world. But Illula was the real thing.

'So, hunting in Sunside one night Giorgas found Illula the Healer - who had no man, for she had given her life over to her calling - and saw that she was beautiful. He had heard of her; the Wamphyri had their spies in Sunside, and little escaped the notice of the Starside Lords. However, there was no requirement for a healer in Giorgas's manse or in any of the aeries, for common ailments were unheard of among the Wamphyri, whose systems are so imbued with evil that lesser evils can gain no foothold. I exclude, of course, the various mutations, autisms, metamorphisms and madnesses with which the Great Vampires were ever afflicted, if afflicted is the right word. For apart from lunacy - oh, yes, and leprosy, the so- called "bane of vampires" - these other conditions were rarely considered illnesses at all; they were simply facts of life and longevity. For where men in their old age are p.r.o.ne to aches and pains, vampires in theirs are p.r.o.ne to all manner of weirdness.

'At any rate, while Illula's skills were of little use to Giorgas, her beauty - not to mention her virginity, which was a rarity in females of an age, even in Sunside - was a sure fascination.

And of course he had the latter from her, then had her to wife.

Yes, for Giorg as wanted sons to manage his aerie, and where better to get them than from a handsome woman? According to Lord Malinari, his sire was not without good looks himself; which perhaps accounts for The Mind's darkly handsome appearance.

'Ah, but the rare combination of Malinari's parents' talents accounted for a lot more than his merely physical attributes ...

'So, Illula the Healer was vampirized, and of course suffered the sleep of change. When she awakened, she was Wamphyri!

And Giorgas's manse now had both master and mistress. But if men should be careful in choosing their wives, how much more careful in the making of vampires? Especially Great Vampires. 'Anyway, Illula was Wamphyri, and a deal of Giorgas's essence was circulating within her; even the first nodes and filaments and foetal foulness of a parasite leech, gathering to her spine to suck on its marrow. That is ever the way of it. But as if to compensate for such depredations, the burgeoning vampire invariably accentuates the senses of the initiate. Not only the five mundane senses, but also - when such enhancement is of benefit to the parasite - any additional senses ...

'Illula and Giorgas shared a bed and, of course - being his wife now and a Great Vampire in her own right - sh e clung to him through long Starside days, when the spires of the tallest aeries glowed golden in the seething rays from Sunside. And when her Lord started or moaned in his sleep (for even the most terrible of the Wamphyri are p.r.o.ne to nightmares, and some even more so, which usually spring from memories of their own conversions or initiations), then she would employ her healer's hands to soothe his brow and her soft-crooned lullabies to drive away whichever terrors invaded his dreams. But in the twilight before the night - when despite her ministrations he would come awake showing little or no benefit from his rest - then Illula would be nonplussed; and Lord Malin, he would l aze around Malstack as if suffering from a crippling malaise ...

which he was. And she was it.

'The fault lay in her once-hea ling hands, her once-calming songs, her once-balming presence. For now, enhanced by Giorgas's vampire essence and her ascension, her healing powers were reversed. Before, where Illula had given life - or at least given it back - now she drew it off. She battene d on it like ... why, like a vampire, naturally! For even if she would have it otherwise, her vampire would not. And there n ever was a vampire who gave of life, nor would there ever be.

'Thus Giorgas's life-force was drawn from him, and while he grew weak she grew strong, and her vampir e stronger still. Wamphyri, aye, and what a monster she would have made. Except that wasn't to be.

'For she was pregnant by Giorgas, and on the day he died gave birth to a boy child whom she called Nephran, because 305.

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that is the Szgany word for a wrong that may not be righted.

And she knew that bringing this child into the world was wrong, but her mothering instinct made her keep him. As for his surname: certa in tribes (Illula's being one such) used "ari " as an alternative to "son". Thus instead of Malinson, he became Nephran Malinari.

'And as he grew to a man so the strange mixture or mutation of the joint skills of both of his parents - that which had been in their blood - came out in his flesh and grew with him. But unlike his father's half-mentalism, Nephran's was whole and wholly monstrous, and unlike Illula's healing touch, his was an evil life-devouring Power right from the beginning. And in combination these altered talents matured into the form which made him what he was and what he still is: Malinari the Mind.

'His love of music, he got that from his mother. Likewise his blinding headaches: she also pa.s.sed those down to him. For, as a healer in Sunside, that had been her payment - or lack of payment - for the good works she did: something of the illnesses of her patients transferred to her, presumably so that they might be cured! But in Nephran the se migraines were made worse, complicated by the tumultuous, pounding thoug hts of others.

'Well, and there we have the man. As for his mother: 'As time pa.s.sed Illula's mind slowly slipped from her ... or at least, the problems started with her mind. But gradually she developed so many illnesses in her body, boils and bruises, cankers and gangrenes, aches and pains and general disabilities, that her vampire was hard put to keep up. Let her parasite cure one disorder, another would spring up in its place. In Illula's more lucid moments, she would try to explain these things away: they were all the ailments she had cured in Sunside, now coming out in her. For her capacity for good had been robbed from her, and with it whatever was in her that kept these evils at bay.

'She might have died a slow death, or Malinari might have seen fit to put her away, but it didn't come to that. Illula's time was up and she knew it. When her son was eighteen she gave him Malstack, took a flyer and flew back to Sunside in the twilight before the dawn. Over the barrier mountains the sun found her, and she and her flyer both paid their dues in smoke, steam and stench.

'Well, and so much for Nephran Malinari's beginnings.' With which, finally, Korath was finished. For a while, at least...

Korath, you've done well so far, said Harry. But his deadspeak voice was noticeably fainter now. And before the extinct vampire could begin preening, Jake queried: 'Are you all right, Harry?'

I am ... called to many places, the other answered. I can be me as a boy, and as a man, or I can stand off and, w atch myself as I was. But I'm not much for doing what's alread y been done. And there are places to be where I need to be a lot more completely than I am here. None of which will make much sense to you, I know. But physically, I can effect v ery little here, except I do it through you.

And Korath added, hopefully: And through me?

But Harry shook his incorporeal head. You are less than I am.

You can affect nothing, unless someone were foolish enough to let you get too deep into his mind, into his bones- which isn't going to happen. Jake, be warned: this Korath was a four&tild;hundred-y ear-old vampire. If you should ever need to speak to him again, don't open your mind to him, not all the way. Never let him in, or you could end up carrying him. with you forever.

And Jake shivered, hugged himself and said, 'Don't let it worry you. I can't see me returning to this place without d.a.m.n'

good reason.' And the water gurgled darkly, and the sump stank of nitre and stale explosives, of horror and death and crumbling, shock-stressed concrete.

Then ... you are finished here? Korath's doomful voice trembled. And is this my fate, to be left alone down here forever? Why, you have not even thanked me, much less pardoned me for being what I was made to be!

Thanked you? Harry said, his voice still far-distant and faintly 306.

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echoing. Pardoned you? How many women did you rape and vampirize when you and your master %unted' the Szgany in Sunside? How many good men have you killed with your gauntlet and your bare hands?

Agghhh! Korath cried. And: Ah, no, don't ... don't remind me!

he pleaded. That wasn't me! Or it was, but I was driven to do these things. I was driven by ... driven by my ... (But here he came to an abrupt, stumbling, tongue-biting halt.) ... By your leech? Harry finished it for him. Your leech, Korath? And then to Jake: Do you see what I mean? Nothing more devious than a vampire, even whe n he's dead. This one had dev eloped a leech and was ready to as cend. And Malinari was right to recruit him, for he was obviously the right stuff.

'But he is dead now/ Jake answered. 'And being dead, what more mischief can he possibly get up to?'

I sometimes wonder if you listen at all! Harry told him. / can only hope you'll remember some of this when you're awake.

'Lord, who would want to?' Jake replied, then shivered and hugged himself tighter yet. 'And talking about being awake - or, if not awake, at least out of this place - aren't we just about finished here?'

Jake, (Harry sighed) try to get this foxed in your stubborn head. I'm not sure I'll be back. I may not be able to come back.

So while I am here you had better be taking in everything you can. And whatever else you do, remember that in future time I've seen your blue life&tild;thread crossed by the red of vampires. So, like it or not, one way or the other it's coming.

And Harry's deadspeak voice - despite that it was fainter yet - was so sincere, so urgent and fraught, that finally Jake had to take note of what it was telling him. With which he resigned himself yet again, and said: 'So ... what's next?'

Korath isn't finished, Harry answered, with something of a sigh - but different this time because it was a sigh of relief, not one of frustration. We still don't know how he - how they - ended up here. We've only heard half of the story, and we still don't know very much at all about Vavara and Szwart.

Jake might have contradicted him, for he had learned something of Vavara and Szwart himself, from Lardis Lidesci.

Before he could speak, however: Nor are you going to know much about them! (Korath's surly voice.) Not from me, anyway. For you are ungrateful, and I have spoken my last. But: Not your last and not nearly enough, Harry told him. Bl.u.s.ter all you like, Koratl, but I say you will speak.

Oh, and are you then a necromancer after all? Korath queried, sarcastically. If so, perhaps I should point out that I've neither living nor dead flesh for you to worry with your pincers and hot irons.

That's very true, Harry replied. But I think I could probably find a bone or two, washed clean in this pipe - if I were a necromancer. But I'm not, and anyway there's no need. For you know as well as I that as little as you are now, if we take our leave of you then you'll be even less. Or is our company worth nothing? In which case we must a.s.sume that you prefer this endless darkness, this eternal silence, and leave it at that. And leave you for ever and ever.

After a long moment it seemed that Korath sobbed, but very quietly. Until finally he answered: But you're a cold and cruel one, Harry Keogh.

And Harry told him, Ah, but I had good teachers. And they were vampires, too. So say on while you still have the chance, Korath, and while we are still here to bear you out...

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309 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.

A Dark Lady ... and a Darker Lord 'Fuelled by blood, Nephran Malinari's bloodwars were a terrible scourge on humanity/ Korath picked up the threads of his story. 'For as long as he ravaged on Sunside to provision fortress Malstack, so must the rest of the Wamphyri forage, lest Malinari's army so outstrip theirs as to whelm them under. Thus the Szgany suffered as never before - at least, not for sixty thousand sunups-' (twelve hundred years) 'since the mythic and immemorial time of Shaitan the Unborn's great wars, before he was unseated and banished north to the Icelan ds.

'The Mind's foes were many, his friends few. Even the latter were not his "friends" in the human sense of the word, that sort of comradeship being so rare among the Wamphyri as to be a myth in its own right! But at any rate, his dubious allies were Vavara - a Lady in all but name, for she would not accept that men call her "Lady" for fear it might damage her status by making her seem less than a Lord - and Szwart, which was the only name that suited a Thing such as he. Szwart, which means darkness! For indeed he was darkness, literally the darkest of all the Lords of the Wamphyri; something which I shall endeavour to explain in a little while. But for now, so much for Malinari's allies. Oh, there was a handful more, but Nephran, Szwart and Vavara (who insisted upon the status of a man despite her obvious, indeed devastating feminine charms and attributes), they were the generals, the triumvirate, the Big Three.

'Then there were The Mind's foes, the enemy proper; first and foremost, Drama! Doombody, the most powerful of the Wamphyri of that period. Some thirty years earlier, at the pinnacle of his power, Drama! had contracted leprosy from a comely Szgany woman in whom the disease had seeded itself but was not yet manifest; since when he had accepted to be known as "Lord Doombody". For, of course, his body was doomed, no matter how long it might take the great "Bane of Vampires" to run its course.

'As to Dramal's surname prior to his long-term but inevitably lethal error, I have no knowledge. But I do know that his aerie, Dramstack - one of the most ma.s.sive of all the stacks - was generally avoided as a pesthole, even in my time. Nathless, before Dramal's leprosy began wearing on him - which is to say, for the duration of Malinari's war - he shared his stack with a lesser "colleague", Lord Zaddok Zangastari, who had the topmost ramparts and the aerie's penultimate level (called Zadscar, because it was his headquarters, and also because of its external figuration of slanting gouges) for his own. Not that Zaddok was in any way careless of his health, but this sharing was an expedience of war: since Dramstack (including Zadscar) stood close to Darkspire, Lord Szwart's manse near the centre of the clump, it were better that two armies occupy Dramal's vast aerie, thus presenting a powerful front across the dividing gulf and threatening Szwart's forces with a partial siege at least.

'But as for battle tactics ... I cannot admit to any great authority. These things I mention were overheard and remembered from those occasions when Nephran's war-council of three - himself, Szwart, and Vavara - met in whichever of their aeries to consider and order the ongoing hostilities. So let me not stray but get on with naming names: 'After Dramal and Zadok came Lord Belath, a young Lord who had just the one name, with no sire's name and no cognomen.

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Perhaps there was some secret in his ancestry that he did not wish divulged. As for a descriptive name or device which might best characterize him - there were some who fancied him "Belath the Beast", though I'm certain that no one ever suggested it to his face. Need I say more?

'But if Belath were beastly, then what of Lord Lesk, known as Lesk the Glut? For Lesk was a young berserker, only recently ascended, who was given to abandon himself as totally in battle as in his gluttony. Easily offended, he had even been known to take umbrage at his own personal warriors! If they were idle in answering his call, Lesk would work himself into a frenzy, challenge them to combat and beat them soundly ...

before returning them to their basics in his vats of metamorphism. And when his fury was in abeyance and his mood improved, then he would find time to rebuild them all over again. Thus, while The Glut could never be reckoned one of the great schemers, he was most certainly a mighty engine of destruction.

'Nor were the vampire Lords alone in their awful strength and monstrous habits; many of Starside's Ladies were certainly their peers in malign intent, and a deal more devious and treacherous in their scheming. Vavar a, who too k sides with Malinari (we shall get to her, aye), was only one such; there were plenty of others who came close equals in malevolence. For example: Lady Jemma Freydaskith, of Hagspire .

'But surely the name of her manse says it all! Jemma was a hag, and a l.u.s.tier, more ancient, wicked and withered hag there never was!

Similarly, and where the name of her aerie describes her nature, surely the Lady's surname describes its origin. For there was only ever one Freyda among the Wamphyri, and that was Freyda Ferenc in the days of Shaitan the Unborn. Jemma Freydaskith knew the myths a.s.sociated with that Lady's name; she likewise a.s.sociated them with her own peculiarities of habit - her idiosyncrasies? - and so claimed direct descent from that ancient line. Now normally this would be disputable; the Wamphyri were bad record-keepers; living so long (some of them), history was yesterday to them; they saw no point in looking back beyond their own immediate forebears. But Jemma was reputed to be more than seven hundred years old!

Since no one else had memories of that primeval time, who was there to dispute her claim?

'Anyway, while true histories, pedigrees and lineages were scarcities among the Wamphyri, certain myths were such as would live forever. Just so, and the myths surrounding Freyda Ferenc - while the Lady herself was long gone into oblivion - were of that order. Obviously she had been a Ferenczy, which in itself loaned authenticity to Jemma's claim, insofar as the Ferenczys were present in every Starside myth and legend (or at least the few that existed), even the most ancient of them.

And what with Jemma's - predilections? - it seemed certain that something of Freyda's blood had found its way down the ages to her.

'For Freyda Ferenc had been gross of face and form, a veritable troll, with the thick skin of a trog and the fangs of a warrior! Men, even the most powerful of Lords, shrank from her person (likewise from her smell: she never washed) since for her hideous pleasure she was known to suffocate male and female thralls alike with her s.e.x! Which of itself was surely quite enough to make her a legend in her own time and a mythical figure in mine ... but there was more.

'Freyda was that merciful rarity: a Mother of Vampires who, when she was ripe and in her final confinement, produced an hundred eggs, being so depleted during the which that she withered to a wisp and expired. But her sp.a.w.n, all save one egg, was diseased and likewise died. The lone surviver fused with Bela Manculi, a Szgany thrall, and Bela became heir to Freydastack.

'And so to the final proof of Jemma's lineage, if such were needed: her sire had been Lord Bela Belari, or "Bela's son" - an ancient in his own right - which might well make Jemma the great-granddaughter of Freyda Ferenc! Anyway, and having eschewed her father's name, "Freydaskith" was what Jemma had 312.

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called herself for thirty-five thousand sunups, during which her life-style had more than adequately supported her claim to the noxious ancestral connection in which she revelled ...

'I have digressed! Yet by your silence I'm encouraged that I have interested you- '-But on the other hand I sense your impatience, too, so now let me get on with it - which I would, gladly, except there is one more Lord of that era who was or is worthy of mention ...

'Shaitan the Unborn, before his banishment, had spread his sp.a.w.n far and wide in Starside. And in those mythic times there were even Lords who were more trog than man ... which in itself speaks of Shaitan's depravity. But there again, among the Wamphyri, miscegenation, incest, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, and other perversions could scarcely be considered uncommon. And anyway, who am I to criticize? For Shaitan was after all the first of all, with no one to show him the way when he strayed or say him nay when he erred.

'Thus, despite that he was gone, his line lived on. Bloodsons and a few -daughters bore Shaitan's name and likeness down the march of years. And each and every one of them proud of the connection, even as he had been proud in his time, with a pride that knew no shame, for which ultimately he had paid the price. But his heirs cared nothing for that, cared only that they were sp.a.w.n of the sp.a.w.n of Shaitan the Unborn, the first Great Vampire, the one true Lord and sire of the Wamphyri.

'And just as the first of his vampire progeny had borrowed from their ill.u.s.trious forebear's name in the earliest days of Starside mythology (Lords and Ladies such as Sheilar the s.l.u.t, Shaithar Shaitanson, Shailar the Hagridden, Shaithag the Harrower, Shang Shaitari, and Shaithos Longarm), so in my time his descendants - or perhaps I should say descendant, for by then there was only one of "pure" or direct line of descent - continued this great vanity. And that one's name was Shaithis.

'Shaithis was a "young" Lord then, little more than a hundred years of age. But of course he could be as young or as old as he willed it; simply a matter of rigidly controlled metamorphism.

And Lord Shaithis - who took no other name or sigil, but deemed his t.i.tular connection a blazon and statement sufficient in its own right - willed himself forever young and handsome.

'So he was, indeed beautiful, despite that he was as evil as any of the Great Vampires, and probably more so than most of them; and clever, too, skilled in controlling the lesser Lords, who were a rabble, adrift, and of little strategic consequence under Drama! Doombody. And not only men, but Shaithis was also good with monsters. His vats bred many a nightmarish warrior.

'These and other attributes of leadership were proven during the course of Malinari's bloodwar of a thousand sunups, so that Shaithis rose even to the rank of Dramal himself, becoming his right-hand man and equal. And while many Lords were lost in that holocaust of blood, Shaithis went from strength to strength, until everyone supposed he would be a Power one day ...

'And he probably was, but alas I was not there to see it. For my master and his allies were the losers. Malinari, Vavara, and Szwart, they were whelmed under, their great aeries sacked, their possessions looted, and their thralls and creatures converted.

'Well, as was the way of it in those days, they were banished north to the Icelands forever. And I, Korath Mindsthrall, my master's chief lieutenant... I went with them, of course.

'As to how it happened: 'In the beginning, Nephran Malinari was short of friends. And this had always been the case, ever since his mother Illula flew off into the sun and left him Malstack for his own. It was his weird talent that cost him the "companionship" of the other Lords and Ladies. They could not trust him; they even feared to be close to him, who could be into their minds so easily.

Also, his stack was a mighty fortress filled with men and beasts, and it was suspected that his ambitions reached beyond his station. Which of course they did, like the ambitions of all of them who were Lords. For l.u.s.t, greed, and territorialism were ever their way of life.

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3*5 'But isn't it true that a man who cannot make friends will usually make enemies? And as easily as that, the rumours sprang up: that Malinari was searching out allies and making ready his aerie for a bloodwar to rival the mythic wars of yore.

But when I say "easily", that is not to say quickly; I would remind you that time is of small concern to the Wamphyri, and in fact the enmity that developed between The Mind and the others took decades in its shaping.

"Thus, when Malinari ravaged among the supplicant Vadastra clan on the night that I was taken and my people destroyed, his terrible t.i.the-gathering venture wasn't solely of his initiation or invention; Lord Doombody was also provisioning, and likewise the rest of the vampire Lords.

'Aye, for the simple truth of it was that they each feared each other. And fear fuelled fear, do you see?

'So naturally when The Mind first observed how his mental-ist talents had isolated him, indeed he commenced searching out others who might also be under threat, to enlist their aid. Nor were they hard to find: 'The Lady Vavara, for one, but I use the term "Lady" where she would not because I have seen and been close to her; and to se e her ... There never was a more perfect definition of femininity, though whether or no she affected her outward appearance (as, for instance, did Shaithis, by means of metamorphism), of that I have no knowledge. But I find it hard to ascribe so much beauty to Nature alone. Yet if she was Nature's handiwork ... then why was that work so perfected in a female of the Wamphyri? It is a paradox to which I have no answer.

'So, I have seen and been near her - too near and once too often, for I believe it was Vavara bade Malinari ram me in this pipe! - yet I cannot recall her clearly to memory. Perhaps that in itself defines her beauty: that its power is such as to maze common men, and no less common women. But here another paradox: for despite that she was that beautiful - a beguiler, a gorgeous witch, a sensuous sorceress - still she was unsure of herself, uncertain of her beauty. I can offer no other explanation for her habits, that a G.o.ddess (albeit a demon G.o.ddess) such as she was so offended by the concept of beauty in others that she could not bear it, and so was wont to remove the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, lips, noses, and other parts of her female thralls to make them ugly!

'There, in a nutsh.e.l.l, we have Vavara. And just as my vampire world was separated in two parts that were opposites, Sunside and Starside, so was she separated: her luminous exterior from the dark and swirly deeps within.

'She was Malinari the Mind's first choice as an ally; not because he l.u.s.ted after her but because he knew that certain of the other Lords did. And Vavara had determined she would not be any Lord's woman, nor would she ever take a man until she found one who was at least her equal in desirability. An unlikely occurrence, for she was the one who had described Shaithis - generally considered G.o.dlike - as a mere "lump"

of a man! Oh, she took men, be sure, but they were her thralls and easily disposable in the unlikely event of complications. 'And Vavara, too, had heard rumours of a bloodwar in the offing, and also how Lesk the Glut had been boasting of what he would do to her after he'd sacked Mazemanse, her spindly, fretted, many-spired aerie where it stood not far from Malstack and Lord Szwart's Darkspire. How he would put out her ruby- red eyes to kill their fascination, singe her eyebrows, her long lashes, and the hair of her head to make her a hag, then f.u.c.k her every opening into great holes fit only for shads in the rut. Hah!

So much for Vavara's "beauty", if Lesk the Glut had his way!

Is it any wonder she sided with Malinari?

'And finally there was Lord Szwart. But if I have found it difficult to describe Vavara, how then shall I portray Szwart who was and still is literally indescribable? For, of course, all three of them are extant still...

'... I see by your silence that you would have what I know, despite that I know so little. So be it; what knowledge is mine shall be yours, no more nor less.

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