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Authors: Brian Lumley

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BOOK: The Source
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“‘What?' I was amazed. ‘But, Lady, will they heed you? I mean, you really intend to order them to leave their battle-gauntlets behind?'
“‘For their own protection!' she smiled her half-human smile. ‘So that they will not be tempted to brawl amongst themselves if their talks get heated. So … no gauntlets—or no admittance. Oh, they'll agree, for they're eager to get this thing underway.
“‘And finally, three: the meeting shall be right here in these chambers—this very hall—with one of my own warrior-creatures in each corner. Stalemate! if they attempt any …
act
, against me, then my creatures will attack! Remember, Zekintha, that for all his strength and his powers, a vampire is only flesh and blood. He
will
die in the right circumstances, under the correct conditions. And melting in the stomach acids of a warrior is one such condition. On the other hand, the Lords will know that if I call upon my creatures without
provocation, then they shall have the right to deal with me in their way: a stave through my body, decapitation, a bath full of blazing oil! As I said; stalemate. Now what do you say?'
“‘I still find it fraught.'
“‘So do I, but it's done. And I may even profit from it. Now look there—'
“Through the window the mountains were blackly silhouetted where a fan of golden sunlight faded behind them in the southern sky. ‘Sundown,' I said. ‘Soon …'
“‘Aye, soon,' she echoed me. ‘When there's a pink rim all along those peaks, then they stir, mount their beasts, glide from stack to stack. They land in the launching levels below, proceed on foot upward through the body of the stack. One at a time, they shall come. My table shall bear … unconventional dishes. Suckling wolf in pepper, hearts of great bats floating in their blood, but blackened by the use of herbs, grassland game from Sunside, and weak mushroom ales from the trog caverns. Nothing to inflame their passions.'
“‘But what is your purpose, Lady?' I was curious—terrified, but curious. ‘I know you wish nothing to do with these Lords. I know that you are … not like them. Could you not refuse them outright? Is there no other place suitable for them to hold their meeting?'
“‘Most of these men,' she answered thoughtfully, ‘have never before set foot in Dramal Doombody's aerie—my aerie, now. I think Shaithis was a visitor, once or twice, in Dramal's youth when they had something in common. They used to hunt women together at sundown on Sunside, just the two of them. Not so much a friendship as a rivalry. But for the others it's an opportunity to see what I've got here. I know that they'd use the visit to study my defences against some future invasion. But if I turned down their request, refused to offer them my … hospitality, that would only provoke them, unite them against me.'
“‘You said you might even profit from their coming,' I reminded her. ‘In what way, profit?'
“‘Ah, yes. And that's where you come in,' she answered. ‘We Wamphyri have powers, Zekintha. You are not alone; I, too, have the ability to steal the thoughts of others. It is of course a talent of my vampire, transferring to me. As yet, however, the art is undeveloped, dubious at best. I can't always be sure that I read aright, and over any great distance it is not worth the effort. Also, because I am Wamphyri, they would know if I probed too deeply. Our vampire minds are similar, do you see? But you are not Wamphyri …'
“‘You want me to listen to their thoughts? And if they should discover me?'
“‘They will
expect
to discover you! What profit in owning a thought-stealer and letting her talent go to waste? But the trick is this; to sneak into their minds without them knowing, with your guard up lest they read yours! Discover you mentally? Possibly; but no real danger, as I've said, for they'd expect as much. But they will not discover you physically for we shall hide you in a secure place. And these are the things I shall desire to know:
“‘Their thoughts and plans concerning myself; whether their meeting here is entirely genuine or simply a ploy to seek out my weaknesses;
their
weaknesses, their uncertainties, if they have any. Look into each of their minds in turn, and see what you can see. Except I'd caution you: don't bother with Lesk the Glut. His brain is addled. His vampire is itself mad. How may one discover truth in a mind as mercurial as that? What?—he cannot make sense of his own thoughts, not from one moment to the next! But he has a strong aerie, and his strength is prodigious, else the others would have dealt with him long ago.'
“‘I shall do my best,' I told her. ‘But as yet you
haven't explained the point of this meeting. What is it that brings them together like this?'
“‘The one they call The-Dweller-in-His-Garden-in-the-West,' she answered. ‘They fear him. Him and his alchemies, his magics. And because they fear him they hate him! He dares set up his home there in the western peaks, midway between Star- and Sunside, without so much as a by-your-leave! He harbours Travellers, too, and instructs them in his weird ways. And any who dare go against him … ah, but
they
have tales to tell!'
“‘And shall you, too, set yourself against this Dweller?' I asked her.
“She looked at me with those blood-hued eyes of hers. ‘We shall see what we shall see,' she said. ‘Now go, sleep, rest your mind. Prepare yourself. When it is time I shall come for you, show you your hiding place. Do well, and I shall keep my promise.'
“‘I won't fail you,' I told her, and went off to my bedchamber. But sleep was a long time in coming …
 
“Then it was sundown. I started awake, heard Karen's footsteps. And she was hurrying!
“‘Come!' she said, taking my hand. That unnatural strength was in her fingers where they drew me up from my bed. ‘Dress—and quickly! The first of them comes.'
“Vampirized Travellers—slaves, leeched to death and returned from that condition by reason of their converted physiologies, their altered organs and functions—had prepared the great hall. The table had been laid, and at one end had been placed the mighty bone-throne of Dramal Doombody. Raised up on a shallow platform, it seemed to yawn down the great length of the table.
“‘There,' said Karen. ‘Your hiding place—
within
Dramal's great chair!'
“I might have protested, but she foresaw it, stilled my babble before it could pour out:
“‘
Have done!
None shall sit upon the throne of
Dramal. I do this to honour the leper Lord, my father and master, whose egg is in me.
Hah!
So they shall suppose, anyway. Myself, I take the great chair at the other end of the table. Between us they are trapped! Their thoughts, at least. Too late now to make other arrangements. I'll brook no argument. Proceed with your part of our plan or get out. And I mean get out! If you're not with me you're against me. Find yourself new chambers within the aerie, or escape from it if you can. I shall not hinder you—but I can't say as much for the others.'
“She knew I couldn't refuse; her vampire was stirring in her, aroused by her excitement. Useless—indeed dangerous—to try to dissuade her when she was like this. I went to the bone-throne.
“God, what a monstrous chair that was!
“It was a cartilage-creature's lower jawbone, as I have said. Perhaps five feet long, the eye-teeth formed hand grips at the front, so that the user's arms would rest along the shining white cartilage ridges which in our jaws house our side or back teeth. Toward the rear of the jaw its sides rose up steeply to the hinge, but of course the upper half was not there. The flat, steep slope at the back of the jaw formed the chair's backrest, against which was normally set a massive red-tasseled cushion. At front and back, the four corners, knobs of cartilage protruded downward, making perfectly symmetrical feet; the whole piece had been intricately carved and arabesqued, like an enormous ivory. And like ivory, it too had once known life—of a sort. Entire, it stood upon its own small stage, beneath which was my hiding hole. I must crawl in from behind, where once had been the trachea, then sit up inside. In there I found a large cushion; I could sit there as in a canoe, upright, with my head and shoulders protruding through into the cavity under the jaw, and look out through the arabesques so artfully cut in the bone. The great red cushion would not obstruct my view for Karen had had
it removed, so that I could view at will every face at the table. It's far easier to know a man's thoughts when you can see his face.
“And so they began to arrive.
“As they came I read their names in Karen's mind. They communicated briefly, mentally, in the fashion of the Wamphyri, exchanging names and boasts. First was Grigis, the least of the Wamphyri Lords. He made out it was a matter of priorities, but plainly he had been sent to test the way.
“
‘Grigis is here,'
he sent, as he appeared from the stairwell.
‘The Wamphyri honour me, Lady, as you see. My stature is such that I am first-chosen to enter your aerie. Alas, I see warriors there, all about the room. What is this for a greeting?'
“‘For your protection, Grigis,' she told him. ‘and for mine. When heads as great as ours meet, they might clash! But for now consider the warriors as decoration, a symbol of Wamphyri power. They have no instructions. While we and the other Lords are still, they shall be still. And now, welcome to my manse. You have entered of your own free will, and I freely welcome you. Be seated. The others are not far behind.'
“Grigis strode to a window, leaned out and made a sign. It was dark, of course, but that is nothing to the Wamphyri. I read in Karen's mind how a second flyer, warily circling, at once turned inward and sped for the launching levels. Then Grigis took his seat, on one side of the table and well away from the bone-throne. Grigis was of course true Wamphyri and awesome in aspect, but he was nothing special among the Lords; pointless to describe him further.
“So the arrivals proceeded: many lesser lights, but here and there a power among them. Menor Maimbite was one such. His blazon was a splintered skull between a pair of grinding jaws. Allegedly immune to kneblasch and silver, Menor was known on occasions like this to carry a small pepperbox of these poisons,
with which to flavour his food. His head and the gape of his jaws were enormous even for a Lord.
“But after a dozen of them were in, welcomed, seated, and while they fidgeted and muttered low among themselves, then the mightiest of them began to show. Fess Ferenc, who stood eight and a half feet tall and needed no gauntlet, for his hands were talons; Belath, whose eyes were ever slitted, set in a fleshless face never known to smile, whose mind was cloudy and cloaked and totally unreadable; Volse Pinescu, who deliberately fostered running sores and festoons of boils all over his face and body, so that his aspect would be that much more monstrous; and Lesk the Glut, who, it was legended, in an attack of his madness, commanded one of his own warriors to fight him to the death! The story went that he'd got under the thing's scales where it couldn't reach him, eaten his way into its brain and so crippled it. But as Lesk left its skull through a nostril, so in a convulsion the beast had snapped at him. He lost an eye and half of his face, where now he wore a huge leather patch stitched to his jaw and temple. But to replace the missing eye, he had grown one on his left shoulder, which he kept bare, wearing his cloak thrown over the right. Lesk took a seat on the left, right next to my hiding place in the bone-throne, which caused me to tremble violently. But I managed to control it.
“Next to last came Lascula Longtooth, who had so refined and concentrated his metamorphic powers that he could lengthen his jaws and teeth at will, on the spur of the moment, which he was wont to do habitually, like a man scratching his chin. And last of all was Shaithis, whose stack was a fortress impenetrable, whose legends were such as needed no embroidery. Of them all, he might
appear
one of the least imposing. But his mind was ice, and every move he made, had made or would ever make was calculated to an inch. The Wamphyri might not greatly respect each other, but every one of them respected Shaithis …
“I had wondered at Karen's dress—or lack of it. If I'd been in her position, unwilling hostess to these monsters, I would certainly have buried myself in clothing, even in armour! She wore a sheath of a gown; it was of a white material so fine and clinging that every ripple of her flesh was visible. Her left breast—and she had beautiful breasts—was bare; her right buttock, too, or very nearly; with no undergarments the effect was shattering. But as the Lords had arrived, so her purpose became clear. Instead of casting about with their eyes and minds,
all
thoughts had immediately centred on Karen.
“Remember: these had been men before they were Wamphyri. Their lusts, however magnified, were the lusts of men. All of them, at first sight, lusted after Karen, which kept their minds from more devious work. I'll not mention the
things
I read in their vampire-ridden minds; as for Lesk the Glut, I refuse to even dwell upon what I read in his!
“And so they were assembled, and so after some small preamble, and after trying the food she'd had prepared for them, then the talks commenced …”
BOOK: The Source
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