‘Then, one evening, the first barrels of new wine were delivered from Morstar’s vineyards. The entire court drank heavily. Some strange magic had wormed into the grape that year. The wine was potent but induced a kind of madness. I drank as heavily as anyone else did. A fire ran through my veins, and conjured ill thoughts in my head. I became lustful, but at the same time spawned a terrible contempt for my wives and even my accustomed concubines. I sprawled in my throne, while my courtiers cavorted around me, and I could not fight the vision of Gahrazel’s inhuman beauty, which arose constantly and provocatively before my inner eye. I considered what a new and stimulating experience it would be to touch his scaled flesh. I would find a way to slake my lust upon him.
‘I went at once to the shrouded apartments of the lamia, and here informed him of my desire. As I spoke, his pale flesh turned an even deadlier white, like that of the blind, white cobras, which crawl the tombs of kings. He hissed and rose up from his couch, and said to me, “Remember your promise, Arax. Remember the words I spoke to you. Once you have taken hold of my arm, I am as good as yours, for that is the way of my people. I cannot resist it, but I beg you to resist, for once you have touched me, I may never go back to the cool green caverns of the Colurastes. I will be doomed to slither through the world of humankind, devouring in a lust of hatred. Know this, and leave me be.”
‘But I was a drunken fool, and Gahrazel’s advice was wasted upon me. I reached for his arm, and once my fingers had curled around his warm flesh, he uttered a shuddering hiss and threw himself upon me.
‘That night, I learned of things no man could, or should, imagine. But in the morning, the green of the land curled up on itself and fled away, from the borders of Tinsantrel to the far foothills of Morstar. Every tree became a stark skeleton and every field a barren waste. The hills themselves crumbled into tiny stones. All the people and creatures of Tinsantrel began to wither and die. This was because the dreadful lamia feasted upon their souls. He was right: he could not contain his evil cravings. The Singing Falls became still, and their song, made homeless, haunted the streets, wailing dismally.
‘Eventually, even the name of Tinsantrel faded from the lips of the people beyond the hills. It was nothing more than a dead wasteland, its former glory forgotten by all.
‘This then is the curse of Gahrazel, the potent, devastating curse of a true Colurastes. Not only did he kill this land, but also erased its memory from history. Neither did his vengeance cease there, for the people of Vaengir are in his thrall, and daily must emerge from death to enact a meaningless life for his entertainment. But Gahrazel too is a prisoner here. Any stray soul he senses abroad in the wilderlands is subject to his will, owing to the power he has over the land. He waits for a deliverance, of which I cannot speak. When he attains this freedom, Tinsantrel will live again.’
Hailaz watched in amazement as Arax’s head drooped back towards his breast and his spell-bound body froze once more.
Gahrazel stretched and stood up again. ‘The air in here is foul, Prince Hailaz. Let us return to my balcony.’
Numbly, Hailaz obeyed. He was torn by the story he had heard. Gahrazel’s spite was fearsome, but then he had warned Arax of what would happen.
When they were once again in the sunlight, overlooking the market, Hailaz said, ‘And what is to happen to me, Gahrazel? Will you feast on me too, so I’ll become a mindless hunk of clay like Mahor and the rest?’
‘Sometimes, I take pity on the most wretched and weak of this world,’ Gahrazel answered. ‘I pitied you even as you tried to cross the wilderlands. Therefore, I will give you a choice. You may either resume your journey, in an attempt to reach human civilisation or you may stay here with me, but I will not take your life. I have to say that it is impossible for you to survive the wilderlands. You would starve and thirst before you could find your way out. Far better you resign yourself to your fate and remain here.’
‘But this city is hideous!’ Hailaz cried. ‘A place of the dead. The wilderlands can be no worse. I found my way here and I can find my way back.’
‘I lured you here. You would require my complicity even to reach the country now dominated by the Fenelix, who incidentally would slaughter you immediately you set foot on their soil. They watch the border, for they know no-one can live in the wilderlands, nor cross it.’
Hailaz considered this information. ‘Can you really not reverse your own curse? Leave this place. Together we could journey to a new land. With the aid of your powers, surely we could succeed?
‘And leave my people?’ Gahrazel said bitterly. ‘I have nowhere to go in this world, Prince of Lyye. As I have lain with a son of man, the Colurastes would not have me back to taint their blood. I would be doomed to haunt the shadowed corners of the world, preying upon the hapless travellers who came within my power. There is no escape for me. At least here I can curb the vile desires that would consume me completely once I left Tinsantrel’s boundary.’
‘But do you really have to become this predatory thing?’ Hailaz asked. ‘What happened here was not really your fault. Is there no way you can be freed? You were the victim of a bored king. Kings consider themselves above all other men. They can often seek their amusement in cruel ways. I know this only too well from what I beheld with my own eyes back in the Halls of Lyye.’
A troubled look crossed Gahrazel’s face. ‘Hailaz,’ he said, ‘I would welcome your company. There would be much for you to study here. Stay with me. I beg you, do not ask how I might be freed.’
‘But why not?’ Hailaz asked. ‘It is a living death for you here. I would gladly free you if it were in my power to do so. Why do you not desire it?’
Gahrazel sighed. ‘Because, if you offered, I would accept it.’
Hailaz leaned against the sun-warmed balcony, and gazed down at the bustling scene below. ‘There is nothing for me beyond the wilderlands,’ he said, ‘but I have no wish to live the rest of my days in a city of the dead. Together, we could travel to far lands, and see many wonders. I feel that surviving the fall of Lyye was a preordained event. I have been given another chance at life. Gahrazel, tell me the secret that I may release you.’ He did not look at the lamia, but could feel those strange eyes beating upon his turned back like a physical force.
‘Give me your soul,’ Gahrazel whispered. ‘If I take it without your consent, the curse continues. But should you give me your whole essence, willingly, I shall be free of it.’
Hailaz went cold and the sun seemed to darken. He turned round and gazed into Gahrazel’s black eyes. He could not look away; his strength seemed to run out of his spine like a hot fluid. What have I to lose? he thought. What good is my soul to me? I am unsure I even have one.
Hailaz felt as if he was sinking into the lamia’s enormous black eyes. They were ready to engulf and devour him with an ancient hunger. ‘Take it then!’ Hailaz blurted. ‘I will accept the consequences.’
Gahrazel’s eyes leapt like jewels in the sunlight and with the speed of a striking snake, he did not question Hailaz’s offer, but dragged him down to the marble tiles. His body transformed, so that from the waist downward he became a mass of glistening coils that wrapped themselves around Hailaz’s body in constricting strength.
Hailaz expelled a moan. He felt that every bone in his body would be crushed. The lamia fixed his lips upon the prince’s own, and breathed into him a toxic sigh. Hailaz’s body jerked within the coils. His whole being was lashed by waves of ecstasy, pain, lust and revolting horror. Gahrazel was no longer remotely human in appearance. He had no real gender. He was simply a purpose, and the purpose was to devour, to suck the life and soul from his prey. After that, would come darkness and cold for eternity.
Hailaz screamed, and Gahrazel swallowed the sound and its terror. In his mind, Hailaz begged for release. He withdrew his offer. He would take his chance in the wilderlands. But it was too late, for by that time he was already dead.
Gahrazel lay beside Hailaz in the late afternoon sun, panting and
bloody, his eyes shining in repletion. Impotent whimpering fell from Hailaz’ bitten lips as the city began to crumble. Time swept back like a tidal wave over the land. Life stirred in the sleeping soil of Morstar, as in a lazy, green undulation, a mantle of verdure crawled towards Vaengir’s fast-falling stones. Skeletons, long blown to dust, caused a thick miasma on the air, the fire died in the palace columns and, in his ruined apartments, a mad imprisoned king bubbled out his last words.
Wrapped in Gahrazel’s embrace, Hailaz breathed deeply. In the air, carried far, was the faint scent of burnt flesh and timber. It was the perfume of the ruins of Lyye.
As the sun sank on that first day of the reawakening of Tinsantrel, a small brown mare kicked up her heels and galloped among the powdering blocks of a dead city. As she left the fallen roadways in the direction of the city gate, she shied. Slithering along the grassy path, strangely entwined, two serpents wound their way out of Vaengir.
Nocturne: The Twilight Community
Carmia painted her short manicured finger-nails red, bright red. Yawning, glancing in the mirror where the bedroom looked ghostly and ill-lit behind her, she twisted her smooth-skinned hands beneath the light and watched her nails gleam wetly. This task accomplished, she studied herself carefully in the glass, adopting a variety of different poses. There were no flaws that she could see. She was like a dress shop mannequin, with paste white teeth, round shadowed eyes, a froth of hennaed curls and lips that pouted a handbook of promises. Her makeup appeared to have been applied with an airbrush. Carmia was very much like a living doll. The world was her nursery and she came to life at night.
She stood up, smoothed her thighs and bent from the waist to sort through the pile of clothes laid out on the bed. Her selection made, she wriggled her tiny hips into a skin tight pair of black jeans. Tonight she would go down town to Batwings, the bar where her friends gathered, the only crowd it was prestigious to be in. Carmia had worked hard to be accepted into it. She knew that her friends were already congregating in the shadows, their voices murmuring like a distant sea. Spangled social vampires, their hands wet and warm around the glasses of wine they press to their moving lips, drunk with their own concocted beauty, always talking. Their laughter is low and sounds cruel. It is without humour, a keen and deadly blade. Occasionally, as a she-wolf might lift her nose from her kill and the tearing jaws of her sisters, one of them looks up, gazes briefly into one of the many mirrors, and smiles.
Carmia’s high heels clicked a coquettish staccato along the pavement. She hummed a bright and tuneless melody in time to her steps. The evening felt warm and oily around her. Smoky-warm smells drifted to her nose from the town. Even though she had missed her bus, her spirits were high and bouncy. Tonight, she felt powerful and beautiful. She could ignore the acid gnaw of hunger in her belly. Beauty had a price. All the girls in the Crowd were so thin. They lived on a diet of amphetamines, alcohol and nicotine. Carmia felt uncomfortable with the drugs aspect of this regime, and consequently concentrated on starving herself to achieve a similar appearance. She wanted to be a lean huntress like the others, her nerves and her body as taut as a wire. The other girls called themselves she-wolves. They referred to the men as stags, which meant they were ultimately for consumption.
As Carmia approached Batwings, the raucous, febrile sounds of human recreation flung themselves out through the door. For a moment, it sounded like a pack of hysterical caged wolves, with a herd of deer poking their snouts in through the bars. For an even briefer moment, Carmia considered going home. Then her hand was pressed upon the glass door and it opened beneath a slight pressure. She must go inside.
Carmia went directly to the bar and ordered a glass of white wine, which was warm and sour. Turning round, she surveyed the crowd. A black-haired girl named Jeanette waved to her frantically from the corner. Carmia glanced around herself. There was no-one more interesting to talk to. She sauntered over to Jeanette’s corner. ‘Hi, Jan, what’s new?’
Jeanette narrowed a pair of eyes that Carmia considered were already uncomfortably narrow. ‘Not much. Nobody’s dead, anyway!’
Carmia secretly despised Jeanette, and was perplexed as to why she was so popular with the Crowd. Jeanette, in Carmia’s opinion, strove to appear mystical, but failed abysmally. She was drunk most of the time and this did not help the image of neo-Egyptian Queen. It took more than make-up to be exotic. Sometimes, Carmia felt sorry for Jeanette, although Jeanette’s witty, if cruel, observations concerning the other girls in the Crowd were always entertaining.
‘I heard that Maggie found out Anton’s been seeing another girl,’ Carmia mentioned in a casual manner. The sharing of gossip was a currency among the Crowd.
Jeanette smiled. ‘Old news, sweetheart. Of course Maggie’s upset about it, but their relationship hasn’t been right for weeks, has it? She really is a most whining girl. Never could see what Anton saw in her. She’s hardly attractive, after all, and makes the most abominable noise when she’s eating.’
Another girl joined them, having overheard the remarks. She was spangled, slender and blond and her eyes shone with the fanaticism of the apprentice vampire. ‘That reminds me, girls,’ she said in a high voice. ‘Did you know Shirley’s parents have kicked her out of home? She’s been staying at my place this week. Gone over to her sister’s tonight to fix up a bed for a few months. She’s not working, you know. Can’t say I blame her parents, though. A week was enough for me! Stroppy little cow! I shan’t be sorry to see the back of her.’
‘That Marina is as bad,’ Jeanette commented, her face lighting up in preparation for a full-scale assault.
‘She’s really pretty,’ Carmia said, regretting the words the moment they left her lips. She quite liked Marina.
‘Can’t stand her!’ Jeannette snapped. She thinks she’s God’s gift on high heels! As if smoking those expensive cigarettes impresses anyone. She makes out she’s Val’s best friend, but all Marina wants is that emaciated little creep of a boyfriend of hers. Mind you, Marina’s never had any taste concerning men.’
Carmia found her attention drifting. At one time, she’d felt proud to be part of such conversations, but tonight, she found the mean attitude stifling. She let her eyes wander around the bar. Familiar faces. Her lip curled, showing her trim white teeth. She saw men she had slept with, others she had tried to seduce. Of the latter category, there were few. She was not exactly proud of that fact. She was disappointed that none of her romances had ever lasted. The initial delicious spice had always faded to leave behind a thing that was like tasteless meat. These men could not really inspire her. They were only interested in the possessions they could acquire, and they boasted too much about nothing. In fact, they were embarrassing, for all their fashionable clothes and cool demeanour.
Carmia shuddered. A changing wind swept silently over the heads of the throng. Carmia felt it. Deep inside her, a primal instinct sniffed the air and noticed something that left an uncomfortable impression in her psyche. She felt hungry, dry-mouthed hungry. In her soul. She felt like she wanted to run and scream, barefoot, naked. The jumbled images in the bar bucked before her eyes. Shocked, she shook her hair, cleared her head, feeling in a far away place in her mind that she must be sickening for something.
She raised her eyes. Everything still seemed the same. Jeanette and the other girl still barked and jabbered behind her, their eyes and their glasses of wine sparkling, catching the light. The noise in the bar hadn’t changed, but the atmosphere had - subtly. Something had arrived. Carmia could not tell what it was, nor interpret the tingling in her toes and fingers, but she looked around calmly, waiting.
And there it was.
Across the room, leaning on the bar, crumpled money in his hand, a man she had not seen before was purchasing a drink. He became aware he was being watched, because his eyes flickered quickly in Carmia’s direction.
He’s a god, she thought, staring. She had sampled and smoothed the bodies of every fascinating male who frequented the pla
ce, but now she had discovered someone new. She had never encountered such perfection. He was everybody’s idea of perfection. Should she go over to him? No, the others! She almost growled in her throat. A quick glance over her shoulder reassured her. They still chattered, hadn’t noticed. She glanced back at the bar. Yes, he was still there. Tall, straight-limbed, a golden aura round his head. He had thick hair the colour of corn sheaves and agates. Carmia whined softly and ran her tongue over her lips. The man stared back impassively. Man? No, too young - he was merely a boy. Fresh and clean, untouched. Perfect. Carmia wanted him. More than she had ever wanted anything in her life. The thrill of the chase was upon her.
‘Carmia!’ Jeanette shook her. ‘You’ve gone pale. What’s up? Are you feeling OK?’
Carmia looked round into Jeanette’s cruel, amused eyes and the red, red smile that was equally cruel. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘It’s just hot in here, that’s all.’ Turning away, she took a hasty swig from her glass and almost choked, which prompted a sly sneer from Jeanette. ‘This wine is vile stuff,’ Carmia said, wrinkling her nose. ‘Think I’ll buy something else, otherwise I will be ill before the evening’s out.’ She pushed her way to the bar.
Where had he gone? Anxiously, Carmia looked round the crowd. Damn, damn! No sign of him. Oh, nobody else had got to him yet, surely? He was hers now. She had marked him. Petulantly, she ordered a whisky; straight with ice, feeling angry and cheated as she threaded her way back to the others. Men smiled at her and addressed her in coaxing tones, but they were not her prey, and she hardly noticed them.