08 - Bloodwars by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Horror, Vampires, Fiction
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 1995-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

2

New Contacts Tried, and an Old Contract Denied

Misha too was fast asleep by now, clinging to Nathan, automatically adjusting to his body shape as he lived in dreams that were much more than mere dreams, which caused him to moan and mumble a little as he turned in his sleep.

Brief glimpses of the mountain heights, of a fleet moon tumbling on high, and the throats of the grey brothers a-throb with weird, unearthly ululations, their song of adoration. For like all natural creatures of the night in any world, they worshipped their silver mistress moon …

The howls faded away and were gone, and Nathan had been the only one to hear them.

Or perhaps not the only one, for his conversation with Blaze, Dock, and Grinner had been telepathic after all, not deadspeak, which is private. Sleeping, Nathan had had little or no control over eavesdroppers. The teeming dead knew that he had returned, of course, and although they had no great faith in him—or perhaps because of it?—and trusted his necromancer brother even less, they had listened to his conversation with the wolves in morbid fascination: much as a bird watches a snake. But one among them at least was vociferous.

Nathan knew his voice of old; why, he even remembered a name—Jasef Karis!—but not where he remembered it from: some old dream out of the past. Jasef Karis, yes. But a mere name did not give him rank or authority in such matters. Perhaps one day Nathan would go to him personally—if the rest of the Szgany dead would let him! For of all Sunside’s Great Majority, Jasef had always seemed to be on his side, invariably to the consternation of his colleagues.

And so—quietly, not daring to speak or even think too clearly—it was the Necroscope’s turn to eavesdrop. And once again, if Misha had been awake, she would have sensed her husband “listening” to something. In fact, to the furtive whispers of the dead.

Back again! (An audible shiver—or shudder?—in the incorporeal voice.) Doesn’t Sunside/Starside have enough of monsters?

Bah! (Jasef Karis.) You make me want to be sick, the lot of you! Why, for all that he’s a youth, and human, the Thyre revere him! You have heard them: their Elders gone from them as we are gone from ours, the way they speak of him! Nathan’s a hero to the dead of the Thyre! And to their living. Does it take unmen of the furnace deserts to recognize the saviour in our midst? For believe me, this one will be the saving of the Szgany—if you’ll let him! How can you lie there and ignore him, when your very children among the living are at risk? He is your one hope: the continuity of the Szgany, and the guardian of your graves, those of you that have them!

Nathan understood the last few words well enough. Since time immemorial the Szgany had burned most of their dead, certainly those killed by the Wamphyri; it was the only safe way. But

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