The Source by Brian Lumley

‘If a person is eaten and it is not desired that he or she becomes a vampire, then the remains of the meal go to the refuse pit along with all other garbage. Consider that a stack or aerie may house a thousand or more – creatures – and you get something of an idea of the contents of a refuse pit. Gasses are of course generated in large volumes. These are the gasses which are usually burned close to their source, in the bowels of the stack. Wamphyri conduits are leaky systems at best, and if gasses such as these were allowed to escape . . . the atmosphere in the rest of the aerie would be quite intolerable.

‘Also to be found in the lower levels are the stables of the gas-beasts. These are what their name describes them to be: living gas bladders, as mindless as the cartilage creatures. Their single function is the production of gas. They are fed on coarse grasses and a little grain; obviously, the gas these beasts produce is close to methane; I don’t think I need to explain further than that. . .

‘Water:

‘Now, I said that in their way the Wamphyri are scrupulous. The Lady Karen bathed frequently, as often as I myself. I watched her bathing and it was as if she tried to scrub the taint out of herself, which of course she never could. But she didn’t stop trying. Oh, she talked hard to her retainers, but what was she inside but a poor frightened girl? At least, she had been.

‘Anyway, you’ll appreciate that water does not rise as readily as gas. In our world it has to be pumped uphill, or “rammed” under pressure, or else it arrives by aqueduct from a source higher still. The aeries have their catchment areas, inward-sloping skins on all levels, channelling rain water into great barrels with overflow systems into other barrels. In the event of a great downpour, wells at the foot of the stacks are filled to brimming. When all reservoirs are filled, then the skins are allowed to hang loose like flags. In fact they’re woven with the various Wamphyri sigils and so act as their banners as well. But the rains are infrequent and if an aerie were under siege this system alone would be unreliable. That’s why there’s a back-up.

‘You’ll understand the meaning of “capillary attraction”? The way sap rises through a stem, or water between sheets of glass? The Wamphyri use capillary attraction to lift water from their wells to the tops of their aeries. The tubes through which the water passes are quite literally capillaries – those same narrow tubes which connect veins and arteries. Real capillaries, Jazz, whose owners lie in placid heaps of pseudolife in secret rooms high in the aeries. Secret because the Wamphyri will not tolerate their creatures except in their proper places. They know the difference between acceptable and unacceptable, you see. And the proper place for a thing whose veins hang down inside pipes through half a mile or more of stack is, obviously, at the top of such a stack. And so, because they’re unseemly, the Wamphyri hide them away.

‘I stumbled across just such a room and its inhabitants in the Lady Karen’s aerie. That’s all I can remember of it: that I found it, and then that someone found me and took me out of there. I had fainted. My mind hasn’t retained anything of the episode except the fact that it happened. And this was only retained – as a warning, I suppose – in case I should forget totally and wander back that way again. Needless to say, I never did wander back that way again.

‘Also to be found in the lower regions: the pens of the warriors. The warrior creatures are kept, like lions in a Roman amphitheatre, close to starvation. Or they would be except for one thing: like the Wamphyri, they don’t need to eat. When they do eat, their food is invariably meat, preferably living. They are pure carnivores, created to tear, maim, kill – and devour. Their reward in battle is to be allowed to glut themselves. They fly into battle, launching themselves from the stacks and squirting through the sky like giant squids; but if they’re victorious, they soon become far too bulky to fly back again to their aerie and so return across the boulder plains as best they can. Apart from battle proper, the Wamphyri also use them during sundown for the rounding up of Travellers. Then, too, if they are successful, they’re allowed the occasional titbit.