Necroscope V: Deadspawn

He gazed on them, and upon the naked human figures crucified in their midst. And while the great grey wolf had no way of knowing it, he, his father and Shaitan the Fallen, all three of them, shared a common problem: their memories were impaired. But where in Shaitan the deficiency had localized itself and was stable, and where in Harry Sr it gradually improved, in Harry Wolfson it grew worse from moment to moment, and would not improve until he was a wolf entire.

But for now faint memories stirred: of the woman in the hard ground who had suckled him, of a man on a cross who was his father, and of a girl likewise crucified who had been an ally. Also of a battle long, long ago, in a place called the garden, which had been the end of one life and the beginning of another; and of a second, more recent battle in the same place, in which he and his grey brothers had no part but were only observers. He remembered now how he had planned to fight in that battle, on the side of the two who were crucified, but… he didn't remember his reasons. In any case, it would have made no difference; they'd done their fighting in the air and their warriors were huge, and he and the pack were only wolves. Yet still he felt that he'd somehow failed these poor, crucified creatures: the man unconscious on his cross, and the woman, awake, inured and even resigned now to pain, but not immune to her own black hatred.

Back in the foothills, one of the brothers lay back his head and howled at the moon rising over the mountains. In its lower quarter, the moon was golden with reflected light; soon it would be sunup. Another howl, echoing up to accompany the first, caused Harry Wolf son to issue an instinctive thought: Hush: Be quiet! Let the sleepers sleep on.

His brothers heard him, and so did the Lady Karen.

Dweller? Her thoughts were faint, shielded from the minds of the sleeping vampires. But they evoked a flood of memories, however blurred. Harry Wolf son knew she spoke to him.

I am that one, he finally answered. And again, I… was that one. But now he must know the truth and asked her: Did I… betray you?

The fight? (A shake of her head, telepathically sensed.) No, that was doomed from the start. Your father and I, we had already seen our futures: golden fire burning in the Mobius Continuum! As for our enemies: we thought we'd seen the end of them, too, but we were mistaken. For it appears that their futures don't lie here in Starside but in the world beyond the Gate. Pictures accompanied her words — a scenario straight out of the Necroscope's and her own trip in future time — and wondered if he would understand them.

He did, and: I'm sorry. But his memories were sharper now and coming faster. My father should have known better: to read the future is a devious thing.

Aye, she agreed. I thought the golden fire might be that of the sun. But no, it was only… fire. They both burn, it's true, but Shaithis's will burn the worst, because it is his. I hate the black bastard!

He saw the logs and branches heaped beneath her. Shaithis will burn you?

What's left, when his warriors are through with me. And even in a wolf's mind, she read horror.

Is there anything I can do? Harry Wolfson came closer, on his belly, creeping between thralls where they lay in an open circle around the two central black tents.

Go away, she answered. Back into the mountains. Save yourself. Become a wolf entire. Eat what you kill and never bite a man or woman, lest they suffer your fate!

But… we were together at the garden, he said. And in his mind she saw again the fire and death and destruction.

Yes, but you were a power then. You and your weapons. But no sooner that last thought than suddenly there was another in her head. One of revenge. Does anything remain of your armoury?

His mind was wandering again; he looked this way and that and wondered what he was doing here; his recently pregnant bitch would be hungry where she waited for him. Armoury?

He couldn't remember, so she showed him a picture. Can you bring me one of these?

Some two hundred yards away out on the boulder plain, a sated warrior snorted in its sleep. Harry Wolfson snaked back into the shadows, loped for the foothills to rejoin the pack. A single thought came back to Karen before the connection was broken. Farewell!

And hanging there in her pain, in the night and the chill of Starside, she thought: He won't remember. But she was wrong.

He came again, but barely in time; came with the clouds from the south, with the first warm rain, with the grey light glowing in the sky beyond the mountains. He came with the false dawn, before the true dawn of sunup, and braved the circle of thralls where now they scratched and muttered in their sleep. And climbing the logs and branches of Karen's pyre, he stood upon his hind legs, face to face, as if to kiss her. But her mouth gaped like a gash in her metamorphic face, and what passed between the two was not a kiss.

Wizard, Necroscope, wake up!

Harry gave a start as Shaithis's thoughts lashed him like a whip; his thoughts, and then his spoken words: 'Your torment will soon be over, Necroscope. So open your eyes and say goodbye to all of this. To your Lady, your life… to everything.'

Harry's thoughts had something of form and order; his mind was almost healed; his body, not nearly so. Silver was present in his vampire blood like grains of arsenic, so that his broken flesh and bones couldn't mend. But he heard Shaithis taunting him and felt a splash of rain, and opened his soulful eyes in the dark grey predawn light. Then, he almost wished he was blind.

Lieutenants of Shaithis were up on ladders, bringing Karen down from her cross. Her head rolled this way and that and her limbs flopped loosely as they tossed her down on a blanket upon the stony ground. Shaithis turned from Harry's cross, went to his tent and slashed through its ropes, collapsing it like a deflated balloon.

'And so you see, Necroscope,' he crowed, 'how I intend to honour my promise. For perceiving that you now see, hear and understand all, this time — for the last time — I shall take her in the open. No thrill in it for me, not any more; this time my labours are all for you. And when I'm done, then you shall witness how my warriors deal with her! As well to keep one's creatures happy, eh? For after all, they too were men, upon a time.'

The rain came on harder and Shaithis issued commands. His thralls ripped the collapsed tent into two halves, then used its torn skins to cover the faggots of the torture pyres. It would not do for them to get too wet. Shaithis had meanwhile returned to the foot of the cross; Shaitan, too, from his own tent. More leech than man, the Fallen One's eyes were glowing embers in the shadow of a black, corrugated cowl of flesh.

'It's time,' he said, his voice a phlegmy cough, 'and the Gate awaits. I say have done with all this. Put the woman on her pyre and burn them.'

Shaithis paused. He was reminded, however briefly, of his old dream. But dreams are for dreamers, and he was weary now of all dark omens — especially his ancestor's warnings. 'This man was the cause of my exile in the Icelands,' he answered. 'I vowed revenge, and now I take it.'

They glared at each other, Shaitan and Shaithis. There in the Gate's white dazzle, their eyes blazed where they measured one another. But finally the Fallen One turned away. 'As you will,' he said, but quietly. 'So be it.'

The clouds were flown and the rain had stopped. Shaithis called his thralls to light torches. He took a torch and held it up to Harry on his cross. 'Well, Necroscope, and why don't you call up the dead? My ancestor has told me that in your own world you were their champion, and I saw you call up crumbling trogs in the battle for The Dweller's garden. So why not now?'

Harry hadn't the strength for it (which his tormentor knew well enough), but even if he were strong he knew that the dead wouldn't answer him. No, for he was a vampire and they had forsaken him. But in the foothills behind the Gate, a grey shape fretted and whined, prowling to and fro, to and fro; and the pack watching him intently through feral eyes, where they lay with their tongues lolling and ears erect. The great wolf's memory was imperfect and his nature devolving, but for now he understood the Necroscope's every thought. In a bygone time, as a human