E-Branch - Invaders Part 24

Problems Jake doesn't know about, Harry quickly put in. He doesn't need to know. He's having a hard time accepting some of these things as it is, and I don't want to -you know - put any additional strain on his faith in me? Also, if you're to become a spokesperson, it will be on Jake's behalf, not mine.

You see, I have very little of permanence here. Already this is taking 265.

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a great effort of will. As Jake takes on my work there'll be even less need for me, and my presence will become that much harder to maintain. As for Nathan, (a touch of sadness now in that ethereal voice), I've never met him. He received his ultimate awareness through me, it's true, but he was, is, and will always be his own man.

'And I won't be?' said Jake anxiously.

See? Said Harry, a tinge of sarcasm showing. He's one very suspicious man, this Jake Cutter.

'If you're hiding things from me, how can I be otherwise?' Jake countered. 'First Ben Trask and E-Branch, and now you. So what are these problems that I don't know about?'

All in good time, Harry answered. It takes time to become a Necroscope, Jake. With me it was accidental - or perhaps it was in my genes, my birthright? I'm not sure - while with you it's just blind chance. But that blue thread of yours, in future time ... ? (Jake sensed a deeply-etched frown, the shake of a puzzled head). Anyway you're it, or you will be, so get used to the idea.

'I'm it? You mean a Necroscope?'

No, I mean the Necroscope, the other answered. You don't know how rare this thing is! There will be just the one Necroscope, you. In this world, anyway.

'And if I don't want to be "the" Necroscope? If I have my own way to go, which to me is just as important?'

For long seconds there was silence, until Harry said: Then it could very well be that you ca n kiss you r world goodbye. His deadspeak voice was very low again.

'You don't leave me much choice, do you?' Jake answered, a little bitterly. 'Why don't you just - I don't know, like scan the future, use a future-time door, or some such - and see how things turn out without me?'

You're going to have to start listening, said Harry. Look, you can't trust the future. The past, yes, because it'sjbced. But not the future. The one thing I can tell you is that you'll be meeting up with vampires - Wamphri! The question is: do you desire to meet them on your terms, or on mine? With your meagre knowledge, or my experience and skills? ... a.s.suming you can develop those skills, that is.

Jake thought about that, but in fact there wasn't a lot to think about. He believed Harry Keogh now - believed in his own five senses, too - also in certain extra senses, which had now been so compellingly demonstrated - and he completely believed everything that Trask and the others had told him. In total, it left him with only one conclusion: that it was real, and he was up to his neck in it.

And up to his knees in this dark water, and still not entirely sure what he was doing here. But while listening to these dead voices in his head, his dream, Jake had also looked about, obtained a picture of where he was. It could only be that Harry was showing him this place telepathically, for it was in no way dreamlike. It was totally real.

The caved-in ceiling, sagging in places and in others bulging upwards from the furious force of powerful explosives; the collapsed stanchions, great tangles of shattered metal and concrete, cratered from the blast and blackened by fire. And back there along what was once the course of the subterranean river, the way completely blocked where the original cavern's ceiling had succ.u.mbed to man-made convulsions and its own great weight of fractured rock.

Dramatic, but not what we're here to see, said Harry, satisfied now that Jake had at least accepted his involvement, if not the all-important role he was to play in what was to come. 5o now come this way, to where he died.

Harry was in Jake's mind, guiding his feet; all Jake needed to do was follow where the other led: To the solid, twelve-feet-thick, reinforced concrete wall of the dam which contained the dynamoes and sensitive equipment that had once supplied and monitored the Refuge's power.

The once-smooth face of the concrete wall was gouged and pitted, blackened in places, but it was still intact. Built to 267.

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withstand the pressure of the water, it had also withstood the pressure of the blast.

That 5 close enough, Harry said, bringing Jake to a halt where the water was a little shallower. There could well be... remains down there, under the water, that you wouldn't want to step on.

'Remains?' Jake said. But no need, for the more he conversed with the other in this way, the more he was given to understand that, like telepathy, deadspeak frequently conveyed more than was actually said. The remains that Harry referred to were those of the lieutenant or thrall that Malinari and the others had used to block one of the outlets, thus attracting attention to the sump and making possible their escape.

As that fact dawned, Jake stiffened; the short hairs rose on the nape of his neck as he took a pace to the rear, wrinkled his nose in disgust, and swallowed to ease the sudden, involuntary constriction of his throat. The water seemed to gurgle more blackly yet, viscously, around his calves, as he saw the curved rim of a steel conduit projecting from the dam wall.

Perhaps mercifully, he could only see the uppermost curve of the pipe, while the bore itself- and what it contained - remained hidden in the swirl of black water.

Jesus Christ! Jake thought, and at once sensed Harry's reproval: Try not to do that, Jake! For expressions have crept into common speech that never should be.

'But... they stuffed a man, one of their own, in there?' The concept was horrifying. But not nearly as awful as the new voice that now joined the conversation: A man? (that deep ba.s.s voice rumbled and grunted). Was I a.

mere man, then? Korath Mindsthrall, a mere man? Ah, but don't let my name mislead you, for then you might consider me a mere thrall, too! Aye, and so I was at first. But all that was thirty thousand sunups a gone, whenfirst Lord Malinari found me in Sunside. After he recruited me, then, I was his thrall, next a lieutenant, finally Us chiefest lieutenant. I stood alongside Malinari during his years of power, of treachery, when his name was a curse even in the aeries of the Wamphyri! I was banished with him out of Starside into the Icelands, and we suffered the ice together in the company of frozen beasts. I was there with my Lord at the freezing, and at the melt... and this is my reward.

Jake had backed off, found himself a dry ledge of concrete fallen from the ceiling and crept up onto it. He sat there hugging his knees, s.h.i.+vering, but not from the cold. That was only in his dream. The real cold was in his mind, in the awful voice from beyond the grave. Or rather, from bey ond death, for Korath Mindsthrall had n ever known a real grave.

'And is this ... is this your secret?' Jake was appalled, as much by the cold dread, the lo athing in his own voice as by anything else. 'Is this what it means to be a Necroscope, "the" Necroscope: to suffer deadspeak and talk to things like Korath? His thoughts are ...

corruption! Not the things he says but the way they feel. I can't feel you, Harry; you're there in my head but un.o.btrusive, not so much an intruder as a guide. But Korath ... I can feel his thoughts like slugs oozing in my head, polluting my mind!'

He sensed Harry's grim nod of agreement. Exactly. Just as his rotting body polluted this water, before his flesh sloughed from his bones. But this is where he died, and this is where he is. Now maybe you can understand why Ben Trask was reluctant to tell you everything. It's not every man who could bear to speak to the dead, Jake.

'It certainly isn't this one!' Jake gave his head a wild shake.

'In fact, all I want right now is to get the h.e.l.l out of here!' But: NO! NO, WAIT! Korath Mindsthrall begged. Don't go! Don't leave me! Before you there was nothing, only darkness and loneliness, and the sure knowledge that I was shunned. I have listened to the teeming dead whispering in their endless night, and I know they whisper warnings of me: that I am a vampire, a terrible creature best left to its own devices. Well, and so I was a vampire. But now... I have no devices! I have nothing.

Why, even my flesh has melted from my broken bones and is gone from me! Have you no pity, you warm ones? I may not harm you. I am nothing. DON'T LEAVE MEEEEEE!

And just as suddenly the loathing was gone and Jake found himself pitying this Thing. Until Harry told him: 269.

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That, too, is a mistake. Vampires are the greatest cheats and liars imaginable, devious beyond measure. This one, Korath, is no exception. Later, we'll ask him why Malinari chose him - 'his chiefest lieutenant' - to block this pipe, when he had at least three others to choose from. On a whim? Hardly. You don't indenture or instruct someone far as long as Korath Mindsthrall claims he was in thrall, just to kill him out of hand. Malinari had a reason.

NO! Korath howled. That is a lie! No, no -forgive me - not a lie but... but a misconception? Malinari had no reason; he was never required to reason! He was The Mind, and whatever he willed would be done. Flesh was needed to block this pipe, and myjlesh ... it was pliable and available. That was enough. Say no more.

So, said Harry, yourjlesh was pliable- But not that pliable! The vampire cut in. You cannot possibly imagine the agonies that 7...

-And you were compliant.

I was not! (Korath denied it). / did not know! Lord Malinari sent out his thoughts; they touched upon the man who tended this place and understood machines. But The Mind was clever and careful. In Sunside there are Szgany who know when the Wamphyri are near; they close their minds, think no thoughts and so hide themselves from the Great Vampires. Perhaps in this strange new world there would be men like that. Ever stealthy, Malinari ensured that his presence went unsuspected. And he took knowledge from this engineer, and learned the ways of the sump, which was my downfall! My master told me the pipe was a way out. He bade me crawl inside to make sure the way was clear. When my shoulders would not go, he and Vavara and Szwart summoned their furious Wamphyri strength to break the bones in my back and shoulders and drive me home like a stopper in a bottle ...

Zek? Jake? said Harry, and there was something new in his low deadspeak voice. They knew what it was: that he spoke only to them, that he was s.h.i.+elding his thoughts from Korath Mindsthrall. Let me handle this. Zek, it probably isn't going to be pleasant, so by all means leave it entirely to me. Korath will say things you don't want to hear. And so mig ht I.

I'l l absent myself, she answered him at once. I've had my fair share of dealings with vampires, as you know, and I don't need reminding. Jake, I look forward to working with you if or whenever you need me. Meanwhile there are others I should talk to, and let them know you're here. You won't be alone, Jake.

Before the dreamer could answer there was an emptiness in his mind where Zek had been, or not so much an emptiness as an awareness of her leaving. And: 'How about me?' he asked Harry. 'Any chance that I could perhaps "absent myself, too?'

None at all, Harry told him. You don't have to join in if you don't want to, but you should at least listen. If I can, I'll get Korath to tell us his story; or, more importantly, his master's story. And those of Vavara and Szwart, too. If you're going to defeat your enemies, Jake, you need to know them. Why don't you just take it easy this time out and listen in? Learn something about the Wamphyri and their ways, and learn it from the horse's - or the vampire's - mouth? Without waiting for an answer, he spoke again to Korath: I've a mind to leave you 'to your own devices', yes. Just as the teeming dead advise. But that would make me as cruel as the master who crushed you and left you here to die. And so I'm tempted to stay with you a while, and converse with you in your lon eliness, which you must know will last for ever and ever. But on the other hand - having had to do with vampires before - I see no point in talking to one who is bound by his very nature to tell me nothing but lies.

Korath's answering cry immediately went up: Ah! Ah! Have mercy! Have mercy! Pity me, I pray. For a moment then I thought that you had gone, I thought you had left me! Then I felt your warmth - though yours is not so obvious as that of your friend, er, Jake? - and so knew you were still here. Now hear me: I am a gruff and violent vampire, that is true, but I was not always this way. I was made what I am, by Malinari! M ade by him, and now unmade by him. So what more harm can he do me? Who or whatever you are, talk to me. Only allow me to bathe in your light, which burns like a candle in this intolerable darkness, and ask of me what you will. I shall not lie. As men are known to speak the truth on their deathbeds, so I shall speak it from beyond.

I want to know about Malinari, said Harry. And Vavara and Szwart. I want to know all about them, from the beginning.

And Korath eagerly answered: None knows their stories better than I. But... such tales will take time in the telling.

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I have time, said Harry. Well, within certain limits. And so do you. You have an eternity of time.

One question, said the other.

Ask it.

Wry?

Because 1 would exterminate them and all that they stand for, Harry answered, truthfully and ruthlessly. Their kind are not wanted in this world. And: Good! said Korath, his voice gurgling with phlegmy antic.i.p.ation. Why should they have life, having deprived me of mine? In Starside we acknowledge four states of being/unbeing. These are, one: the void before birth. Two: the time of warm-blooded life such as the Szgany of Sunside enjoy it. Three: a 'higher' condition known as undeath, when a man's existence might possibly reach to eternity. And four: the true death, which is nothing less than a return to the primal void.

But I, Korath, have found the last to be a lie. It is a darkness, aye, but never a void. The true death is an absence of motion, but not of mind. I think! I ami But immobile, forgotten, lost in the long, long night, I have no peace. So why should the ones who put me here have peace? Why should they have anything?

No, I will not lie to you, Necroscope.

Then get on with it, said Harry. Begin with Nephran Malinari, since he would seem the most dangerous.

Wrong! said Korath. For each is as bad as the others. Why do you think they were banished out of Starside?

Doubtless I'm about to find out, said Harry. But I'll warn you now: while time is not of the essence, don't try to spin it out.

I'm not long on patience and could be about b etter things. Is that understood? It is indeed, the vampire answered. Then: Without pause Korath got on with it; and by virtue of the nature of deadspeak - also because the ex- lieutenant's tale was ill.u.s.trated with vivid mind-pictures - Jake found himself listening in. Along with his mentor, he soon became absorbed in the narrative ...

'It was hundreds of years agone,' (Korath began) 'though to me, having spent so much time in the ice - frozen and stilled, and preserved even in my thoughts - it stands out in my memory like yesterday. Or perhaps yestereve.

'I was of the clan Vadastra; indeed, I was the son of the chief, Dinu Vadastra. Our place was in the forest many miles to the east of the great pa.s.s into Starside. We toiled in gathering and growing, in the breeding of domesticated livestock, and in hunting and fis.h.i.+ng. Being settled - unlike the majority of the Szgany, who are nomads - there were no bounds for my father to beat. In any event we were not troubled by foreign settlers; indeed, our land was shunned by all the neighbouring tribes. For you see, my people were supplicants who gave of their goods (a portion, or "t.i.the" as you would say) to Lord Nephran Malinari, called Malinari the Mind, out of Malstack in Starside.

'Now, do not ask me if I enjoyed our situation. I was born to it and knew no other way. Likewise the Vadastras as a tribe; only the old men of my people had been travellers, who in their time had known the ways of the true nomad. The life of the supplicant suited them to perfection; the Wamphyri had no use for ancient, withered flesh or desiccated blood. And so the elders were safe so long as they could work, gathering the wild honey and fruits of the woods. My father was also safe, for while he had not as yet grown long in the tooth, still he was the chief of his people, whom Malinari had appointed keeper of the t.i.the ... for which reason he was greatly feared and in most matters obeyed without quest ion. In most matters, aye.

'And m y father, Dinu Vadastra, was a hard man: tall, broad, and a bully. When lesser men complained of the "theft" of their wives, sons or daughers taken in the t.i.the, he would deal very harshly with them. Why, they might even find themselves listed as troublemakers and, regardless of the draw, destined for Malinari's great aerie when next his t.i.thesmen did their rounds.

'There was a girl I loved ... at least I think I loved her, but all such things are a mystery to me now. Love? That is for the warm o nes. Now there is - or there was - only l.u.s.t. When my master 272.

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and his lieutenants hunted among the so-called "free" tribes of Sunside, oh, then there was l.u.s.t! Ahhhhhhh!

'But please forgive me my meandering mind. For I see that you do not wish to know that...

'As for this young girl whom I may or may not have loved, more anon. Let it suffice for now to say that she was my downfall. The first of them, anyway ...

'Now understand, Malinari was not greedy - at least, not when the Wamphyri were at peace with one another and no bloodwar was raging - but he was ever choosy. His t.i.thesmen, lieutenants all, knew that he wanted only the best out of Sunside. No curdled honey, bitter plums or scrawny beasts for Malinari, and no snaggle-tooth boys or bow-legged girls, either. And my father was always hard put to fix a "fair" t.i.the. He might on rare occasion slip in a barrel of less-than- best plum brandy, a crippled shad or a brace or two of game left hanging just a day or so too long, but never anything outrageously offensive. And he was the same in his dealings with human flesh.

'Loners, if they saw our campfires in the night and came down from the barrier mountains to warm themselves, were ever welcomed. They would be given food and drink - aye, and a lot of the latter - before being tapped on the head and laid aside for the t.i.the. And if the cart or caravan of some lone traveller's family group should happen onto Vadastra territory, well, that was reckoned a bonus. For then fewer of our own would be needed for the list.

'We were some three hundred and eighty.

The numbe r rarely rose by more than a dozen or so, and when it did was as readily reduced. In any given year, perhaps fifty babies would be born; with any luck half would grow to adults while the rest would be borne away into Starside. My lord Nephran Malinari ... was reputed to have a sweet tooth for basted infants.

'But I must not jump ahead of myself, for at that time he was not my Lord as such. Or rather, I was not as yet in thrall to him.

'Where was I? Ah, yes: the t.i.the: 'Married men who sired no children for a year or two were wont to find themselves shortlisted. And as for women who were barren: their future, or lack of such, was guaranteed. Likewise any troublemakers, of course. Thus the tribe maintained itself, barely, and the t.i.the saw to it that we were never too large or too small. Once in a three-month Malinari's t.i.thesmen would come on their flyers over the mountains from Starside, and now and then the master himself would accompany them on their visits.

'And now to this girl, whom I may even have loved.

'My father kept her back from the t.i.the, for me. Alas that he had crossed so many of his own people, who suspected that he was biased in certain of his duties - in the quarterly drawing of the t.i.the-markers, for instance - and there were plenty who would have paid him back, who would like to have seen his loved ones on the list. Or rather his loved one, this selfsame Korath, whose poor mother had died giving birth to him.

'But the girl Nadia ... she and her mot her were gatherers, as were most of our women, and both of them were among the comeliest of Vadastra females. Nadia's father had been a talented hunter, until nine months agone when his marker came up in the draw. That had been that, if not quite as easy as that.

'For he was young and strong as a bull shad; he had to be knocked down, bound in all his limbs, and even gagged before he would be still! And because of accusations he'd made concerning my father - the way Dinu had looked at his wife - there might be some who suspected that their chief had "fixed " ce rtain matters in his own favour. Make of that what you will, but I won't deny that from then on Nadia's mother was Dinu's ...

or should I simply say that she submitted to Dinu, and leave it at that? But his? His property? His obedient woman? Ah, wait and see ...

'The fact was that Melana Zetra had loved her husband, and when she was over the horror of his being taken in the t.i.the - and when she was close to my father, and after she had covertly investigated the way he worked the list - then she made up her 274.

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mind to act. I cannot state Melana's reasons for doing what she next did; perhaps it was madness brought on by grief, but if so she had hidden her condition extremely well. Or then again, she may have been crazy like a fox and simply biding her time.

'My best theory is that she would be with her husband Banos again, regardless of the condi tions, and had determined to sacrifice herself to that end. Banos had been taken by Malinari of the Wamphyri; now Melana would be taken also. But along the way she would settle a few old scores. The Szgany can be devious in their own right, and I cannot help but wonder if that is where the Wamphyri get it: is it perhaps in the blood? For the blood is the life, after all.

'But if this secretly incensed or maddened Melana would be with her husband in Starside, why not make it a family affair? What of her daughter, Nadia? Would she be safe on her own with the Szgany Vadastra, or better off in Starside with her mother and father? Being comely, it was unlikely she'd be fodder; why, given time she might even become a Lady! Could it be any worse to be undead with the Wamphyri than to live under the constant threat of being stolen away or eaten by the Wamphyri? And what of an informer? Might not he, or she - as a supplicant in the fullest, truest meaning of the word - gain favour in the red-litten lamps of their eyes? I suspect it was a mixture of all of these imponderables that motivated the maddened or scheming Melana to do what she did next.

'The time of the t.i.the was at hand, and Dinu Vadastra had calculated correctly that Mal inari would come with his lieutenant t.i.thesmen out of Starside.

It had been some time since The Mind himself had deigned to venture forth from Malstack across the barrier m ountains into the velvet of Sunside's night.

'The skies were clear and the moon tumbling on high; all the familiar constellations were twinkling in the smoke of our signal fires, while low over the barrier mountains the star of ill-omen - the Northstar, which lights the aeries of the Wamphyri - bathed 276.

the peaks with its silvery-blue ice-chip gleaming. A fine night, aye, for some ...

'... As it might have been for me had it not been for my now barely-remembered love of Nadia Zetra. Still, I cannot blame her, for I am sure that Nadia knew nothing of her mother's plan. If she had... it's more than likely we woul d have fled from our fate, becoming loners; or we might have journeyed west and joined up with some band of true Travellers in their constant evasion of the Wamphyri; or perhaps we would have been happy simply to be free a while, together she and I, and let the future take care of itself. Oh, a great many possibilities, if Nadia had known.

'As for my father: if he had so much as suspected ... then Melana's life were forfeit long before the first of Malinari's flyers touched down on Vadastra soil. But of course none of us knew, except Melana herself.

'And so to the preparations.

'All was in order. As the dusk settled in, Dinu had called for the tributes (in fact the ransom, for the life of the clan Vadastra) to be displayed on trestle tables to one side of the clearing, where he had tallied them as was his wont. Six barrels of oil, six of white wine and six of red; six of good plum brandy (and all of it oo plum brandy, mind, because Malinari was coming) and six more of wild honey. A pair of young bull shads, freshly butchered, fifteen brace of pigeon, and five of wild boar; and a very special prize indeed: a live, caged wolf of the wild, a b.i.t.c.h at that, and pregnant to boot!

The Wamphyri are especially fond of wolf cubs basted in their mother's milk, and of heart-of-wolf and wolf meat generally, which they swear by as an aphrodisiac and positive aid to their longevity. As if they needed such!

'And meanwhile Dinu's specially chosen squad of bully boys was out and about, to ensure that certain other tributes - of the human variety - were not fled. For while the t.i.the- markers were already drawn, the unfortunate parties had not been named for fear that they would make off into the night.

Thus, as the time drew nigh, the wailing of mothers and daughters, the curses of 277.

men and the sobbing of their sons could be heard in and around the camp, as one by one the various listed "names" were informed of their misfortune by Dinu's t.i.the-takers.