Brian Stableford - The Empire of Fear

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The Empire of Fear

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Brian Stableford

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THE EMPIRE

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OF FEAR

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Brian Stableford

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SIMON & SCHUSTER

LONDON . SYDNEY . NEW YORK . TOKYO - TORONTO

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CONTENTS

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Part One: THE FRUITS OF PASSION

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Part Two: THE SHADOW OF ETERNITY

Prologue, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

Eleven

Part Three: THE BREATH OF LIFE

Prologue, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten

Part Four: THE SEASON OF BLOOD

Prologue, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

Eleven, Twelve

Part Five: THE BLOOD OF MARTYRS

Prologue, One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten,

Epilogue

Part Six: THE WORLD, THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL

One, Two, Three, Four, Five

Acknowledgements

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First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster Ltd in 1988

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

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No reproduction without permission.

Simon & Schuster Ltd West Garden Place

Kendal Street London W2 2AQ

Simon & Schuster of Australia Pty Ltd Sydney

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Stableford, Brian, 1948-

The empire of fear.

I. Title

823'.914[F]

ISBN 0-671-69945-8

Phototypeset in Bembo Roman 101/2/12pt

by Input Typesetting Ltd, London

Printed and bound in Great Britain by

Richard Clay Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

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For my wife Jane

without whose support and encouragement

such a book as this would never have been

thought of, let alone written

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PART ONE

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The Fruits of

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Passion

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'A man who loves a vampire lady need not die young, but cannot live

forever'

(Walachian proverb)

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ONE

---

It was the thirteenth of June in the Year of Our Lord 1623. Warm weather

had come early to Grand Normandy and the streets of London were bathed

in sunlight. There were crowds everywhere and the port was busy with

ships, three having docked that day.

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One of these ships, the Freemartin, had come from the equatorial regions

and had produce from the mysterious heart of Africa, including ivory,

gold and the skins of exotic animals. She had also brought back live

animals, for the prince's menagerie in the Lions' Tower. Rumour spoke of

three more lions, a snake as long as a man was tall, and brightly-clad

parrots which the sailors had taught to speak. There was talk, too, of

secret and more precious goods - intricately-carved jewels and magical

charms - but such gossip always attended the docking of any vessel from

remote parts of the world.

Beggars and street urchins had flocked to the dockland, responsive as

ever to such whisperings, and were plaguing every seaman in the streets,

as anxious for gossip as for copper coins. The only faces not animated

by excitement were those on the severed heads atop the Southwark Gate.

The Tower of London, though, stood quite aloof from the hubbub, its tall

and forbidding turrets so remote from the streets that they seemed to

belong to a different world.

Edmund Cordery, Mechanician to the Court of Prince Richard, was at work

in his garret in the south-west turret of the White Tower. Carefully, he

tilted the small concave mirror on the brass device which rested on his

workbench, catching the rays of the afternoon sun and deflecting their

light through the hole in the stage, and then through the system of

lenses which made up the instrument before him.

He looked up, then stood and moved aside, directing his son, Noell, to

take his place. 'Tell me if all is well,' he said, tiredly. 'I can

hardly focus my eyes.'

Noell closed his left eye and put the other to the microscope. He turned

the wheel which adjusted the height of the stage. 'It's perfect,' he

said. 'What is it?'

'The wing of a moth,' his father replied.

Edmund scanned the polished tabletop, checking that the other slides

were in readiness for the demonstration. The prospect of the Lady

Carmilla's visit filled him with a complex anxiety which he resented.

Even in the old days, she had not come often to his workroom, but to see

her here now would perforce awaken memories which the occasional

glimpses which he caught of her in the public parts of the Tower and on

ceremonial occasions did not recall.

'The water slide is not ready,' Noell said. 'Shall Iâ¦?'

Edmund shook his head. 'I shall make a fresh one when the time comes,'

he said. 'Living things are fragile, and the world which is in a water

drop is all-too-easily destroyed.'

He looked further along the bench-top, and moved a crucible, placing it

out of sight behind a row of jars. It was impossible--and

unnecessary--to make the place tidy, but he felt it important to

conserve some semblance of order and control. He went to the window and

looked out, over the Cold-Harbour Tavern and St. Thomas's Tower, at the

sparkling Thames and the distant slate roofs of the houses on the

further shore.

From this high vantage-point the people in the precincts of the Outer

Ward seemed tiny. He was higher above them than the cross on the steeple

of the church beside the Leathermarket. Edmund's gaze dwelt on that

distant symbol. He was by no means a devout man, but such was the

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agitation within him that he crossed himself, murmuring the ritual

devotion. As soon as he had done it, he chided himself for his weakness

of spirit.

I am forty-four years old, he thought, and a mechanician. I am no longer

the boy who was favoured with the love of the lady, and there is no need

for this trepidation.

This private scolding was a little unjust. It was not simply the fact

that he had once been Carmilla Bourdillon's lover which provoked his

anxiety. There was the microscope on the bench. There was the fact that

he was followed whenever he went about the Outer Ward, so that his every

chance meeting had come under scrutiny. If that were not enough, there

was the ship from Africa, whose master had undertaken a mission for the

Invisible College while fulfilling Richard's demand for new lions for

his collection.

But he had lived with danger for many a year, and had schooled himself

to stay calm. Lady Carmilla was a different matter. His relationship

with her had been a genuine affair of the heart, and it pained him that

she was now doing Richard's work, becoming an intermediary between

prince and mechanician. The fact that an intermediary had been brought

in at all was an overt sign that Edmund had lost favour. He hoped that

he would be able to judge by the lady's reaction how much there really

was for him to fear.

The door opened, and she entered. She half-turned, dismissing her

attendant with a brief gesture. She was alone, with no friend or

favourite in tow. She came across the room carefully, lifting the hem of

her skirt a little, though the floor was not dusty. Her gaze flicked

from side to side, over the shelves with their bottles and jars, the

furnace, the turning-machine, and the numerous tools of the

mechanician's craft.

To many, vampires and commoners alike, this would have seemed a room

full of mysteries, redolent with unholiness - like the alchemist's den

which the unfortunate Harry Percy had made for himself while he was an

unwilling guest in the Martin Tower. The Lady Carmilla probably saw no

very great difference between the work of the wizard earl and that of

the mechanician, but it was always difficult to judge what the opinion

of vampires was regarding the multifarious quests for knowledge which

common men nowadays pursued. Her attitude was cool and controlled. She

came to stand before the brass instrument which Edmund had recently

completed, but only glanced at it before raising her eyes to stare fully

into his face.

'You look well, Master Cordery,' she said, calmly, 'but you are pale.

You should not shut yourself in your rooms now that summer is come to

Normandy.'

Edmund bowed slightly, but continued to meet her gaze.

She had not changed in the slightest degree since the days when he had

been intimate with her. She was already four hundred and fifty years old

- not a great deal younger than Richard - but her beauty had not begun

to fade. Her colour was very white, as was common in the vampires of

northern Europe, and had that lustrous purity - almost a silvery sheen -

which was the unmistakable badge of immortality. No mole or wart, no

scar or pockmark, could mar the perfection of a vampire face. Her eyes

were a deep liquid brown and her hair was jet black, in striking

contrast to her skin. Vampires very rarely retained fair hair after

conversion, even when they had been born with it. Her lips were gently

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rouged.

He had not stood so close to her for several years, and he could not

help the tide of memories rising in his mind. For her, it would be

another matter: his hair was greying now, his skin beginning to crease;

he must seem an altogether different person. But as he met her gaze it

seemed to him that she too was remembering, and not entirely without

fondness.

'My lady,' he said, his voice quite steady, 'may I present my son and

apprentice, Noell.'

Noell blushed, and bowed more deeply than his father.

The Lady Carmilla favoured the youth with a smile. 'He has the look of

you, Master Cordery,' she said. To Noell, she added: 'In the days before

you were born, your father was the handsomest man in England. You are

very like him, and should be proud.' She returned her attention then to

the instrument. 'The designer was correct?' she asked.

'Yes, indeed,' he replied. 'The device is most ingenious. I would dearly

like to meet the man who thought of it. It taxed the talents of my

lens-grinder severely, and I think we might make a better one with

greater care and skill. This is a poor example, as one must expect from

a first attempt.'

The Lady Carmilla sat down, and Edmund showed her how to apply her eye

to the instrument, and how to adjust the focusing-wheel and the mirror.

She expressed surprise at the appearance of the magnified moth's wing,

and Edmund showed her the whole series of prepared slides, which

included other parts of insects' bodies, and thin sections cut from the

stems and seeds of plants.

'I need a sharper knife and a steadier hand, my lady,' he told her. 'The

device shows all too clearly the clumsiness of my cutting.'

'Oh no, Master Cordery,' she assured him, politely. 'These are quite

pretty enough. But we were told that more interesting things might be

seen. Living things too small for ordinary sight.'

Edmund explained the preparation of water-slides. He made a new one,

using a pipette to take a drop from a jar full of dirty river-water.

Patiently, he helped her search the slide for the tiny creatures which

human eyes were not equipped to see. He showed her one which flowed as

if it were almost liquid itself, and tinier ones which moved by means of

cilia. She was captivated, and watched for some little time, moving the

slide very gently with her painted fingernails.

Eventually, she asked: 'Have you looked at other fluids?'

'What kind of fluids?' he asked, though the question was quite clear to

him, and disturbed him.

She was not prepared to mince words. 'Blood, Master Cordery,' she said,

softly. Her past acquaintance with him had taught her respect for his

intelligence, and he half-regretted it.

'Blood clots very quickly,' he told her. 'I could not produce a

satisfactory slide. It would take more skill than I have yet acquired.

But Noell has made drawings of many of the things which we have studied.

Would you like to see them?'

She accepted the change of subject, and indicated that she would. She

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moved to Noell's station, and began sorting through the drawings,

occasionally looking up at the boy to compliment him on his work. Edmund

stood by, remembering how sensitive he once had been to her moods and

desires, trying hard to work out exactly what she might be thinking.

Something in one of her contemplative glances at Noell sent an icy pang

of dread into his gut. He did not know himself whether it was anxiety

for his son, or jealousy.

'May I take these to show to the prince?' asked the vampire, addressing

the question to Noell rather than his father. The boy nodded, too

embarrassed to construct a proper reply. She took a selection of the

drawings, and rolled them into a scroll. She stood up, and faced Edmund

again.

'The court is most interested in this apparatus,' she informed him. 'We

must consider carefully whether to provide you with new assistants, to

aid development of the appropriate skills. In the meantime, you may

return to your ordinary work. I will send someone for the instrument, so

that the prince may inspect it at his leisure. Your son draws well, and

must be encouraged. You and he may visit me in my chambers on Monday

next; we will dine at seven o'clock.'

Edmund bowed to signal his acquiescence; it was, of course, a command

rather than an invitation. He moved before her to the door and held it

open for her. He exchanged a brief glance with her as she went past him,

but her expression was distant now, and inscrutable.

When she had gone, something taut unwound inside him, leaving him

relaxed and emptied. He felt strangely cool and distant as he considered

the possibility that his life was in peril.

It was not even my invention, he thought, angrily. After so many years

of carejul treason, so much endeavour to find the secret of their

nature, am I to be thought too dangerous to live only because I have

seen what another man has devised? Or have they changed their minds

about our scholarly endeavours, and decided to keep watch on all of

Francis Bacon's friends, and the Earl of Northumberland's magi too?

He watched Noell while the boy carefully put away the slides which they

had used in the demonstration. He had enjoyed these last few weeks,

since his son had joined him in his work. As the Lady Carmilla had said,

Noell was very like his father, though he had not yet grown to his full

stature, and his mind was only beginning to quicken with that

inquisitiveness and ingenuity which had made Edmund Cordery what he was.

Alas!, thought Edmund, I had hoped the day might come when I no longer

need protect thee from the truth of my pursuits. Now, perhaps, I must

send thee away, and trust thee to the hands of another tutor.

Aloud, he said only: 'Be careful, my son. The glass is delicate and

sharp in the edge; there is danger of injury on either side.'

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO

---

When the twilight had faded Edmund lit a single candle on the bench, and

sat staring into the flame. He had been turning the pages of Antonio

Neri's Arte Vitraria, which had made the secrets of the Venetian

glassmakers known throughout Europe, but he had found himself unable to

concentrate on the text. He put the book aside, and poured dark wine

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from a flask which he kept in the room. He did not look up when Noell

came in, though he heard the door open and close; but when the boy

brought another stool close to his and sat down, Edmund offered him the

flask. Noell seemed surprised, but took it, then found himself a goblet,

poured a measure, and sipped carefully.

'Am I old enough to drink with thee, then?' he asked, with a hint of

bitterness in his voice.

'You are old enough,' Edmund assured him, deliberately using the less

intimate form of address. 'Beware of excess and never drink alone.

Conventional fatherly advice, I believe.'

Noell reached across the bench so that he could stroke the barrel of the

microscope with slender fingers. He had not had much of fatherly advice,

conventional or otherwise. Edmund had thought it prudent to keep him at

a safe distance from treasonous activities, and from dangerous thoughts.

'What are you afraid of?' Noell asked, matching his father's form of

speech, so that they addressed one another not as parent and child, but

as equals.

Edmund sighed. 'You are old enough for that, too, I suppose?'

'I think you ought to tell me.'

Edmund looked at the brass instrument, and said: 'It might have been

better to keep a machine like this a secret among common men, at least

for a while. Some clever Italian mechanician, I dare say, eager to

please the vampire lords and ladies, showed off his invention as proud

as a peacock, avid for their applause. Doubtless the trick was bound to

be discovered, though, now that all this play with lenses has become

fashionable; and such a secret could not be kept for long.'

'You'll be glad of eyeglasses when your sight begins to fail,' Noell

told him. 'In any case, I can't see the danger in this new toy.'

Edmund smiled. 'New toys,' he mused. 'Clocks to tell the time, mills to

grind the corn, lenses to aid human sight. Turning-machines to make

screws, coin-presses to mark and measure the wealth of the Imperium. All

produced by common craftsmen for the delight of their masters. I think

we have succeeded in proving to the vampires how very clever modern men

can be, and how much more there is to know than is written in the pages

of the Greek and Roman sages.'

'You think that the vampires are beginning to fear us?'

Edmund poured wine from the flask and passed it again to his son. 'They

have encouraged scholarship because they thought it a fit distraction; a

deflection of our energy from resentful and rebellious ideas. They never

looked for the kinds of reward which our learned men have begun to reap.

Great changes are remaking the world: changes wrought by artifice and

discovery. But an empire of immortals loves constancy. Vampires mistrust

the new, whenever it rises above mere novelty. Yes, the vampires are

becoming anxious, and justly so.'

'But common men, without immunity to pain, disease and injury, could

never threaten their dominion.'

'Their rule is founded as much in fear and superstition as in their

nature,' Edmund said, quietly. 'To be sure, they are long-lived; they

suffer only a little from diseases which are fatal to us; and they have

marvellous powers of regeneration. But they are not invulnerable. Their

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empire is more precarious than they dare admit. After centuries of

strife they still have not succeeded in imposing vampire rule on the

Mohammedan nations. The terror which keeps them in power in Gaul and

Walachia is based in ignorance and superstition. The haughtiness of our

princes and knights conceals a gnawing fear of what might happen if

common men lose their reverence for vampirekind. It is difficult for

them to die, but they do not fear death any the less for that.'

'There have been rebellions against vampire rule in Gaul and Walachia.

They have always failed.'

Edmund nodded. 'But there are three million commoners in Grand

Normandy,' he said, 'and less than five thousand vampires. There are no

more than forty thousand vampires in the whole Imperium of Gaul, and no

greater number in Walachia. I do not know how many there might be in

Cathay, or India, or in the heart of Africa beyond the Mohammedan lands,

but there too, common men must outnumber vampires very greatly. If

commoners no longer saw their masters as demons or demigods, but only as

creatures more sturdily made, the vampire empires would be frail.

Vampires say that the centuries through which they live give them a

wisdom which common men can never attain, but that claim has become

increasingly difficult to believe. All but a very few of the new things

in the world are the work of common men: Dutch ships and Dutch looms,

Norman cannon and Norman glass. Our arts mechanical have outstripped

their arts magical, and they know it.'

'Would not the vampires argue that such devices are only useful to make

the world more comfortable for common men - that our mechanical arts are

but a poor substitute for the magical power to remake ourselves, which

they have and we do not?'

Edmund looked carefully at his son, with a certain pride. He was glad

that the boy knew how to handle a disputation. He had given Noell to

other teachers at an early age, thinking it best to keep himself apart

from the boy. In these last few weeks of closer association, though, he

had seen much in the boy's conduct which reminded him of his own habits

and inclinations, and it had pleased him - affection for his son had

never been lacking in him, but circumstances had not allowed him to

bring it to a proper fruition. It seemed likely that they never would.

Perhaps this was his only opportunity to pass on that fraction of the

knowledge he had gleaned which he had never dared trust to another.

He hesitated. But there could be no harm - could there? - in a

discussion and disputation such as scholarly men engaged in for

amusement.

'Vampires have a power,' agreed Edmund, 'which we call a magic power.

But what do we mean by a magic power? Is it magic when we design the

sails of a ship so that it makes headway against the wind? Is it a magic

power which is in the vacuum which we use in pumps to draw water from

our mines? Is it magic which allows silver to dissolve in mercury as

sugar dissolves in water? All these tricks were magic when they were

shown to people who did not known how they were done. Magic is simply

that which we do not yet understand.'

'But a vampire is very different from a common man,' insisted Noell. 'It

is a difference of the soul, nothing to do with mechanical art. The soul

which animates the body of a common man is much less powerful than the

soul which animates a vampire body, and no mere physick will grant it

that power.'

'No mere physick,' echoed Edmund. 'And yet, I wonder. That wizard earl,

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Harry Percy, who was locked in the Martin Tower for so many years,

laboured to make an elixir of life which would make us all the equal of

the vampires. Richard's knights looked on in amusement, and called him

the mad earl--but they watched him very carefully for all that. Richard

was fascinated by his experiments in prophecy and his studies of

alchemical texts. Had Percy's researches ever come close to the means by

which the vampires make themselves, they would have killed him most

expeditiously.'

'The Gregorians believe that vampires are the devil's creation,' said

Noell. 'They say that the vampires hold sabbats at which Satan appears,

and that vampires are more powerful than common men because they are

possessed by the souls of demons, which Satan puts into their bodies

when they have renounced Christ and sworn to do evil.'

Edmund was momentarily alarmed by this speech. It was not wise to speak

that heresy within the Tower walls, for fear of being overheard. Pope

Gregory's condemnation of the vampires might be reckoned a more damaging

rebellion against their rule than any armed insurrection, and the

vampire princes knew it. They had been quick to force a new pope to

condemn Gregory as the foulest of heretics, and had now gone so far as

to place a vampire on the throne of St. Peter, but they had not entirely

stamped out the notion of their demonic status, and perhaps never would.

It was such a fine and lurid story--the kind of forbidden slander in

which every man delighted, whatever he might really believe.

'The orthodox view is that the vampire estate was ordered by God, as

were the estates of common men,' Edmund reminded his son. 'The Church

now tells us that the vampires were granted long life upon the earth,

but that this is as much a burden as a privilege, because they must wait

all the more patiently to enjoy the bounty of Heaven.'

'Would you have me believe that?' asked Noell, who knew well enough that

his father was an unbeliever.

'I would not have you believe that they are devil's spawn,' said

Edmund, gently. 'It is unlikely to be true, and it would be a pity to be

burned as a heretic for casually speaking an untruth.'

'Tell me then,' said Noell, 'what you do believe.'

Edmund shrugged, uncomfortably. 'I am not sure that it is a matter for

belief,' he said. 'I do not know. Their longevity is real, their

resistance to disease, their powers of regeneration. But is it really

magic that secures these gifts? I am prepared to believe that they carry

out mysterious rituals, with strange incantations, but I do not know

what virtue or effect there is in such conduct. I often wonder whether

they are certain in their own minds. Perhaps they cling to their rites

as common men in Europe cling to the mass, and the followers of Mohammed

to their own ceremonies, out of habit and faith. Clearly, they know what

must be done to make a common man a vampire, but whether they understand

what they do, I cannot tell. Sometimes, I wonder whether they are as

much the victims as we of that superstitious terror which they try to

instil in us.'

'Do you believe, then, that there is an elixir - a potion which might

make every man safe from all disease and injury, and delay death for

many centuries?'

'The alchemists talk of a secret wisdom which was known long ago in

Africa, of which the vampires are now the custodians, but I do not know

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whether to believe it. If it were only a magic brew which made vampires,

I think the secret might have escaped long ago.'

Noell stared at the instrument which was before him, lost in

contemplation. Then he said: 'And do you think that this device might

somehow reveal the secret of vampire nature?'

'I fear that Richard thinks so. He is very uneasy. The Imperium is

troubled, and it is said that the Freemartin has confirmed rumours of a

plague in Africa which can kill vampires as well as common men.'

His tone was very sombre, and he was surprised when Noell uttered a

small laugh.

'If we discovered the secret, and all became vampires,' he said,

lightly, 'whose blood would we drink?'

It was a common remark--the kind of ironic jest which children liked to

ask of one another. Edmund was tempted, for a moment, to be flippant in

his turn, and turn the whole conversation in a humorous direction, but

he knew that was not what the boy intended. Noell's laugh had been a

sign of embarrassment--an apology for introducing an indelicate subject.

But if one had to talk about vampires, one could hardly avoid the topic

of blood-drinking, however indecent its mention was supposed to be.

Carmilla Bourdillon had not been ashamed to speak of it - why should the

boy?

'It is another thing which we do not understand,' he said. 'It makes us

uncomfortable. It is not for ordinary nourishment that a vampire takes

the blood of men; it does not serve them as bread or meat, and the

amounts they need are tiny. And yet, they do need it. A vampire deprived

of blood will go into deep sleep, as though badly injured. It also gives

them a kind of pleasure, which we cannot wholly understand. It is a

vital part of the mystery which makes them so terrible, so unhumanâ¦

and hence so powerful.'

He stopped, feeling embarrassed, not so much because of conventional

ideas of indecency, but because he did not know how much Noell

understood regarding his sources of information. Edmund never talked

about the days of his affair with the Lady Carmilla--certainly not to

the wife he had married afterwards, or to the son she had borne him -

but there was no way to keep gossip and rumour from reaching the boy's

ears. Noell must know what his father had been.

Noell took the flask again, and this time poured a deeper draught into

his cup. 'I have been told,' he said,'that humans find a special

pleasure tooâ¦when they offer their blood to be drunk.'

'Not true,' replied Edmund, awkwardly. 'The pleasure which a common man

takes from a vampire lady is the same pleasure that he takes from a

common lover. It might be different for the women who entertain vampire

men, but I suspect that the unique pleasure which they claim to

experience has more to do with the fact that male vampires so rarely

make love after the fashion of common men. Then again, the mistresses of

vampires have the excitement of hoping that they may become vampires

themselves. They seem to beâ¦ favouredâ¦ in that respect.' Edmund

hesitated, but realised that he did not want the subject dropped, now it

had been broached. The boy had a right to know, and perhaps might one

day need to know. He remembered how the Lady Carmilla had looked at the

boy when she told him that he was like his father.

'But perhaps it is true, in a way,' Edmund went on. 'When the Lady

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Brian Stableford - The Empire of Fear

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