Brian Lumley - The Source

'So that was the way this world was: like ours maybe three or four hundred years ago, but in many ways less dangerous, less warlike, less noisy. Mainly people lived in peace with each other, and apart from small territorial disputes they were left alone to farm, fish, and trade off anything extra which they managed to produce. There have been plenty of worse places, and worse times, in our own world.

'Oh, and perhaps I should mention: in that bygone time the world did have proper seasons, shorter days and nights, again pretty similar to our own planet. But then -

Then something happened.

'According to the Traveller legend, a "white sun" appeared in the night sky. It came through the heavens so fast it looked like a bar of fire; it glanced off the moon, speared down and blazed across the surface of the world! As it fell so it shrank, until finally it skimmed across the land in a huge ball of fire, like a flat stone bouncing on water, and came to rest back there beyond the mountains.

'But though it was small, this "white sun", its magic was enormous. It speeded up the moon in its orbit, changed the world's axis, brought into being geological stresses of awesome magnitude. It created these mountains, the frozen lands to the north, the deserts of the south. And for a thousand years after its coming, the surface of this world was more like hell than the friendly place it had been.

The seasons were gone forever, the moon was now a demon flyer that called to the wolves, an estimated quarter-billion people were reduced to a few thousand. The continents had changed, mountains disappeared from where they'd been, were forced up elsewhere; the survivors went through a nightmare of tidal waves, storms, volcanic upheavals — you name it. But they learned to live with it, and eventually the world settled down. Except that now there was a Starside and a Sunside.

'Centuries passed. Who knows how many? Far Sunside became a desert, and Starside… well, you've seen it. Only the mountains and their Sunside foothills could support human life as we know it. People had settled there, started to rebuild, however slowly, crudely. They remembered a few of their skills, used them to start afresh. And meanwhile the swamps, mainly unchanged, had re-stocked with evil vampiric life…

'Explorers went over the mountains, through the passes, saw the frozen wastes beyond. Torrential rains, the howling elements and glacial ice had carved mighty stacks from the mountain flanks, but the land was all but barren. Men couldn't live there. Men, mind you…

Then there came the plague — a plague of vampires!

The swamps overflowed with the damned things. They infested men and animals in unprecedented numbers. Bands of vampirized men roamed on Sunside, murdering by night and crawling into holes during the interminable days. Reduced to near-savagery by Nature's disaster, now this unnatural disaster reduced people further still. Then the tribes rallied, began hunting vampires, killed them as they had in the old days. They used the stake, the sword, fire; they dragged vampires screaming into the open, pinned them down for the sun to fry.

'Finally Sunside was safe again; the swamps became more or less quiescent; the plague was under control. But vampirized men had been driven north through the great pass. Long-lived, they fought with each other for the blood which sustains them. They discovered and lived off the troglodytes in their deep caverns on Starside. Then, as they started to inhabit the stacks, so they became the "Lords" of that dark hemisphere. They built their aeries, called themselves Wamphyri; and with the intelligence of men and the drive of the vampires within them, so at last they began to raid on Sunside. The people they victimized survived by becoming Travellers, and they're still travelling. That's the whole story

'This "white sun",' Jazz said after a while. 'Are we talking about the sphere — the Gate — whatever?'

Zek shrugged. 'I imagine so. It's a space-time gate, right? Not only a distortion of space but a bridge across time, too. Is it possible that what appeared here thousands of years ago was caused by the Perchorsk accident, and that the two are linked through the sphere? An anachronism, as you say.'

'But what the hell was — is — it?' Jazz frowned. 'Back at Perchorsk there was talk of black, white, even grey holes. And you said it tied in with Wamphyri legends, too. How do you mean?'

The Wamphyri legends have it that the "white sun" came from hell — or a place that was hell to them, anyway. In other words, a world where the killing sun was a constant factor, a regularly recurring nightmare from which there was only brief surcease. Up until a time only a few years ago, the sphere we came through from Perchorsk out onto the plain of boulders on Starside was buried. It used to lie at the bottom of its crater, where only its upper surface was visible, beaming its white light up into the sky like a searchlight. It was maybe fifteen to twenty feet deep, surrounded by the crater wall. I had all of this from Karen.

'But just two years ago our time — '

'At the time of the Perchorsk accident?' Jazz was quick to note.

'Yes,' Zek nodded, 'I suppose so. Anyway, that was when a change took place. During sunup, when the Wamphyri stick close to their stacks, the sphere apparently elevated itself up from the bed of its crater until it was positioned as it is now.'

'Explanation?'

Zek's shrug. 'I certainly don't have one. But the Wamphyri saw it as an omen. Their myths have it that any change in the sphere — the gate to the hell-lands — is portentous of great changes in general. Changes they themselves might instigate.'

'Such as?'

'Well, for a long time now they've talked of joining forces and waging war on the Dweller. If they could put aside their own petty squabbles long enough, maybe they'd do that. Also, we were something of a change in ourselves. When Chingiz Khuv started sending political prisoners and other "undesirables" through the Gate as a series of experiments… it was the first time that the Wamphyri had proof that the hitherto half-mythical hell-lands were real!'

Jazz was frowning, chewing his lip. 'Something's wrong here,' he said. 'If the recent Perchorsk accident in our world caused the "white sun" effect thousands of years ago in this one, why didn't we appear through the Gate all that time ago? Another anachronism? A space-time paradox? I don't buy it. It doesn't ring true. Now tell me this: how long have the Wamphyri been using the Gate as a punishment? When did they first start sending transgressors through it?'

Zek glanced at him. 'Why do you ask?'

'Just a thought.'

'Well, as far as I'm aware, they've been doing it right through their history, for thousands of years.'

'See what I mean?' Jazz was sure this was important. 'Up until the time I left Perchorsk there had only been a handful of "encounters" — of which only one was, or had been, a man. A creature of the Wamphyri, anyway.'

Zek shook her head. 'No, he was true Wamphyri, that one. He was Lesk the Glut's heir, Klaus Desculu. He had Lesk's egg, but instead of going off and finding or stealing a stack of his own, he tried to usurp his father, Lesk The Glut is insane; even the Wamphyri recognize that fact, that Lesk the Glut is not responsible. His passions are enormous! He brought Klaus to heel, punished him for ten years — submitted him to incredible cruelties — then banished him through the Gate. He was the one they hosed with liquid fire on the walkway. But I see what you mean. If the Wamphyri have been sending their malefactors through the Gate throughout their history, where have they been going? Not to Perchorsk, obviously, for Perchorsk didn't exist then.'

'Coming this way,' Jazz mused, 'from Perchorsk to here, there's only one exit — onto the boulder plain on Starside. But going the other way… is there more than one exit into our world? One at Perchorsk and another somewhere else?'