Brian Lumley - The Source

"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-tasselled 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.

By now the dome of the sanctuary rock had risen up to a towering two hundred feet or more. It was a light, patchy ochre — an enormous sandstone pebble lying on its side — protruding from a hillside that rose through pines, oaks, bramble and blackthorn. Above, the belt of trees was narrow, dark now, rising steeply to cliffs and mountainside; below, the forest spread downward into a thin rising mist, levelled out where the foothills met the plain, disappeared in milky distance. A faint light came from the south, like a false dawn. It wasn't dawn, however, but sundown.