Jason grimaced, shrugged awkwardly. And: 'Misha,' he said. A single word, a name, which felt like a great weight rolling off his tongue. Nestor was a hard one; his hands were hard; it wouldn't be the first time he had broken lips just for speaking that name.
The other sat up straighter, pulled air into his chest, let a little of it come growling out. 'What of her?' Nestor's young voice was all gravel now, a man's voice, threatening and inquiring in one. Indeed, a jealous voice.
'As children you three were inseparable,' Jason said, hurriedly. 'All four of us together, all the hours of the day. Me, I was a friend. But you and Nathan, she loved both of you. She still does, I'm sure.'
Nestor slumped down again. 'So am I,' he answered, perhaps morosely. 'And that can't be. And you're right, of course, for that's the trouble in store: Misha. She loves us both, but who the most? If it's me, then it's because I'm a man and can look after her. If it's Nathan, then it's because he's still a child and needs looking after! Well, a real rival wouldn't be much of a problem. I could deal with that. But Nathan? My ridiculous, speechless - or at best stuttering - pale-faced, corn-cropped brother?'
Jason nodded. 'I see now why you've gone your own ways. I saw it begin - oh, four, five years ago? - but didn't really understand what it was.'
Nestor, caught up in his own thoughts, scarcely heard him. There have been times,' he burst out, 'when I might have taken her - even by force!' (Jason looked startled, shocked.) 'Maybe I should have. It might have settled things there and then. But Nathan ... Nathan ... damn him.' I know he only has to smile at her, just smile, and... and...'
Jason stared at him. 'And does he know it, d'you think?'
Nestor sat up again and tossed back his wine in one. 'No,' he said. 'Not an inkling. And now you know why I consider him an idiot. For all his dreaming of other places, and his endless quest for meaning in a handful of numbers, where she's concerned he can't add two and two! And if he could - or if he ever does - what then? If I can't live with him as he is now, how could I ever live with both of them together? What, Misha and Nathan? And who would look the dumb one then?'
'What will you do?' Jason's concern for his father was all but forgotten now.
Nestor poured more wine into their goblets, then snatched up and drank his own as if it were water. 'Ask her to be mine, and soon,' he answered. 'No, tell her she's going to be mine!'
'And if she says no?'
'Then I'm gone, out of Settlement, away from the Szgany Lidesci forever. What opportunity for me here? You're the next chief of the tribe. And shall I be a hunter all my days, grow old by the campfire, and sit there telling stories like your father? Forgive me, Jason, but I see little profit in that. And anyway, what stories would I have to tell? How one day I caught a fish, put a bolt through a rabbit, and skewered a wolf where he crept up on my animals? No, the days of adventure went with the Wamphryi. But me, I wish they were back, and I always have! What good in being strong in a world where even the weakest is my equal? I feel I've a name to make for myself, but how? And where? Not here, for sure. And not without Misha ...'
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'You're ambitious,' Jason told him, his eyes narrow now.
'And is that wrong?'
'You don't much like it that I'll be chief one day.'
Abruptly, Nestor stood up, swayed a little, clutched at the table to steady himself. The trek had been long and he was tired - they were both tired - and the wine was strong. 'Maybe I don't much like anything about Settlement any more,' the words came slurring out. 'Maybe I should leave come what may. There are places to the west, and new territories far to the east. It's rumoured there's even a place beyond the farthest wasteland. But frontiers are few, and time is wasting.'
'You'll take Misha and go?'
Nestor snorted and shook his head. 'No, for her brothers are big lads, both of them! So for the moment it has to be her choice. But with or without her, still I'll go. And if it's the latter, then be sure I'll be back one day.'
Now Jason stood up, but only to take a pace to the rear. 'Be sure you'll be back? But why do you make it sound like a threat? What, will you bring an army with you? To steal Misha? Or ... do you also covet my father's territory?'
'Are you worried?' Nestor scowled. 'For Lardis? But it's you who'll likely be chief by then.'
'And should I be afraid of an old friend?' Jason's look was sour as Nestor's now. 'Aye, and maybe I should.' He shrugged and turned away. 'Anyway, it's high time I was home. My mother will be waiting up for me.'
For a moment Nestor's expression changed, softened; but then he stiffened his back, and turned it on Jason where the other moved off abruptly towards the North Gate and the dark foothills. And as that young friend of his childhood went off, disturbed and soured by their conversation, so Nestor chewed his lip and glanced all around, perhaps to avoid calling out after him ...
Meanwhile, the old meeting place had filled up, and now there was movement, shouting at the East Gate. Lardis and Andrei were here. But in all this great crowd, never a sign of Misha. Where was she? And where Nathan?
Nestor picked up the jar, drained it, wiped his mouth on his sleeve. And: Tonight! he promised himself. I'll have it out with Misha tonight. Or I'll have her tonight, one way or the other. And if there's anything of a man in Nathan - and if he cares for her at all - maybe then he'll yelp and bare his teeth!
Jason had disappeared now, out through the North Gate and into the night, on his way home to Lardis's cabin on the knoll. But here in Settlement ... what was going on? That awful commotion and shouting. And angry, furious shouting, at that! Was it Lardis, bellowing like a stag at the rut? It could only be. His voice was unmistakable.
And pushing his way through the gathering crowd, Nestor went to see what it was all about...
II
Some two hours earlier, eastwards, and not quite twenty miles distant:
... The Lady Wratha climbed down out of the saddle of her flyer on to a high plateau still warm from the sun's last rays. Stepping to the rim, she looked down through hooded eyes on the fires of a Szgany town nestling in the lee of the barrier range; looked down on the fires of Twin Fords . .. and smiled. She smiled with all the delight of a young girl, and lusted after Twin Fords with all the evil of an ancient horror.
And waiting on the rim of the plateau while her band of circling renegades found landing places on the flat, scrubby expanse of rock behind her, she gazed on Sun-side in the twilight of early evening - a sight unseen by Wamphyri eyes for all of fourteen years - and let her mind drift back a little: to her flight from Turgosheim across the Great Red Waste, all along the spine of these unknown mountains, and deep into Old Starside ...
Unlike Turgo Zolte's flight in the time of Shaitan the Unborn, Wratha's had been relatively easy. Where Turgo was pursued and unable to pause for respite, Wratha suffered no such handicap. Which was just as well; her flyers were unused to covering vast distances, and for all her boasting in Vormspire's great hall, her aerial warriors were mainly untried. Oh, no one could doubt that they were superb engines of destruction, but as for flying skills: there had been no way to put those to the test, not in the skies over Turgosheim.
In the end, however, little had been left wanting in performance; all of the flyers had made the crossing; only one of the warriors had been lost.
The plan had been to 'refuel' at the western edge of the secondary range of which Turgosheim was a part, then climb as high as possible on thermals out of Sun-side before commencing the long glide westwards. The ceiling would of course be that altitude where the sun's rays, striking tangentially across the curve of the world, intersected the flight path: not very high initially, for the slow-moving sun had only recently set. Phase two would come when it was calculated that the warriors had expended about half of their energy. At this point they would climb again, to whatever limit the sun and exhaustion permitted, before finally gliding and jetting down into Old Starside.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
The warriors were the main cause for concern. For in the end, having converted much of their own mass into fuel, they might be obliged to draw on their flimsy gas-bladder reserves. Loss of weight would compensate in some small degree, but the equation was still a loser. Lacking energy, buoyancy, and conceivably even will (for while small minds are malleable, their attention span is limited), a fatigued warrior might well gravitate to earth. If and when that was perceived as imminent, the weak one would be sacrificed and torn apart in mid-air, to fuel the rest of them on their way.
In the event, it was Canker's creature that paid the price. The energies consumed in its landing at Vorm-spire - its savage work in the great hall, and the subsequent launching from the spire's shattered window -all had served to deplete it. Thus, at the apex of the second climb, when the warrior was seen to be failing, then Wratha had ordered its dissolution.
Canker had raged (naturally, and to no avail), but in any case his protest was an automatic, instinctive reaction, his stance untenable, and resistance inconceivable. And three to one the other warriors had fallen on Canker's weary creature, dismembering and devouring it in short order. After bone and chitin armour had rained to earth, when all that remained was a thin, skeletal frame drifting at the mercy of the winds, finally the bladders had been drained and the empty rag-thing allowed to spiral down to oblivion.
And replenished, the group had flown on ...
From time to time the Lady, Lords, and their handful of lieutenants would pull cartilage stoppers from wells drilled in the knuckled backbones of their flyers, and sip sparingly on sustaining spinal fluids ...
They took turns to sleep, half of them nodding in their saddles while the rest controlled the beasts and maintained the course ...
On high, the stars glittered like ice-chips; far below, the Great Red Waste seemed endless; the obscenely flowing shadows of the renegades, however faint, diluted and somehow polluted the starlight where they passed ...
Sundown crept towards sunup and they were anxious...
Now, time and again, the propulsors of the warriors would sputter warningly, the beasts would falter, and even the most vicious mind-darts would fail to inspire them. Such creatures could never turn on their mistress and masters, of course not, but it was conceivable that eventually they might seek to kill and devour one another ...
Then, distantly but closing, moonlit mountains rose up to greet the inevitable descent - but wider, higher, vaster mountains far than those of Turgosheim - so that Wratha knew this could only be Old Starside. And, south of the towering range, Old Sunside, too.
All propulsive power stilled now, the wind keened under leather canopies where flyers and warriors alike shaped manta wings and fluttering mantle vanes into gliding aerofoils. And as a thin line of silvery light made a crack on the southern horizon, so they skimmed low and silent over the first peaks of Starside's eastern range ... and spied their first signs of life since leaving Turgosheim!
There on the north-facing flank, in a stony basin lying midway between the foothills and the rearing mountains proper, a circle of small fires sent up spirals of black smoke. Within the circle, figures capered and made intricate, awkward, apparently aimless leaps and twirls. Sounds of guttural, rhythmic grunting, and the jarring clatter of ceremonial crotalae, rose up with the reek of burning wood and dung.
Huh.' Spiro Killglance, flying close to Wratha, sent her a bitter, scornful thought. Trogs.' Two dozen of them, performing their rites.
Her answering thought was darker, more practical, and much more to the point. Meat.'
The warriors were ordered down: two of them would land between the fires and the mountains, so blocking the route of the trogs back to their cavern homes, and the third would make sure that none escaped into the foothills. Propulsors sputtering into hot, stinking life -with stabilizing vanes extended, and tiny saucer eyes in their bellies swivelling to seek landing sites - the monsters came down bellowing and snorting, eagerly to earth.
On the ground, the trog ceremonies came to an abrupt halt. Wide black eyes under dark, sloping foreheads scanned the starlit sky, found hideous shapes circling, rapidly descending. For a single moment, mouths gasped and jaws fell open in disbelief. Then, shuffling and lurching in their fashion - their leathery limbs galvanized far beyond the earlier exertions of their esoteric devotions - the trogs scattered. But all too late.
A dozen flyers sideslipped this way and that, settling to earth like leaves falling in still air, or flat stones sinking in water. They flopped down on springy tendrils which uncoiled from their bellies; and Wratha and her five, and their vampire lieutenants, took battle gauntlets from their beasts' harnesses and climbed down out of their saddles.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
After that... mayhem!
Five, maybe six trogs attempted to slip through the murderous Wamphyri noose which threatened to close them in; three made it past the circle of long-necked manta flyers with their vacuously swaying, diamond-shaped heads; two were left, after running the gauntlet between the warriors snuffling and snorting in the shadow of the mountains, to make it home. But out of two dozen, only two. And as for the rest: It was slaughter where Wratha's renegades scythed among them, their gauntlets red in the flying spray of their havoc. Hoarse screams echoed through the night, became gurgles, guttered into silence like candles snuffed out. It was the work of minutes, three at most, which in the end saw a terrified silence fall over Star-side; a silence broken only by the panting of a trog priestess, grabbed up alive by Canker Canison. Rabid with lust, he tore her rags from her and took her three times in quick succession - once in each opening -before tearing out her throat and crushing her skull. Then, draining blood from her wounds while her heart still feebly pumped, he glared at the others where they watched him. So, she'd been a trog. She was still female, wasn't she?
The rest was routine. Wamphyri, lieutenants, warriors and flyers alike, all took their fill. But shortly, when the edge was off their hunger: Spiro Killglance paused to wipe his mouth on his sleeve, turning it scarlet, and gruntingly inquired, 'What now?'
'Westward,' Wratha answered at once, dabbing a square of coloured Szgany cloth to the perfect bow of her girl's lips. 'The sun will be up soon, and we need to find a place.'
Then we should go carefully,' Gorvi the Guile's voice was oily, insinuating, 'and spy out the way before us. For if Maglore is wrong and the Old Wamphyri lie in wait -'
But Wratha only shook her head. 'No. For all my detestation of that old' thought-thief, still Maglore is right. When did you last see trogs out in the open in Turgosheim? Speaking for myself, never! Because we, the Wamphyri, are in Turgosheim. But here? ... they take no precautions but cavort grotesquely by the light of their fires, and when we fall on them flutter in every direction, like Sunside chickens! No, there are no Wamphyri in Old Starside. Not until now, at least.'
Replete, then they had rested an hour before mounting up to fly west. The warriors, sated but not glutted, were ordered into a reverse arrowhead formation, one on each flank and the third to the rear. And thus the Wamphyri returned to the long forsaken territories of the Wamphyri...
As time had passed and the air grew brighter moment by moment, so the jagged shapes and twining contours of the barrier range had stood out that much clearer, until finally the rays of the rising sun had lit golden on the very highest peaks. And as Wratha's anxiety had risen up in her again, so she'd seen Karenstack, the last aerie. But scattered all about that lone fang - lying there in total disarray, like dismembered stone giants with their stumps scorched as by colossal fires - she also saw the vast sprawls of rubble which were all that remained of the other ancient aeries.
But... the one stack remained.
And before the sun could burn her renegades, Wratha led them into the hugely frozen yawn of a cavern launching bay as big as the largest Turgosheim manse, which opened in the east facing wall of the stack two thousand and more feet above Starside. And dismounting there in that high, empty, echoing place:
'See to the warriors and flyers,' she had instructed the lieutenants, 'then see to yourselves. I don't know how far the sun will rise; it may light upon half of the aerie, for all I know! So find rooms for yourselves - without windows! Or if they have windows, be sure they face north.'
Then, with her five following on behind, she had set out to explore the rest of the stack.
They climbed.
The aerie seemed to go up forever, and Wratha tried not to show the awe she felt. She knew she could house five hundred thralls and lieutenants in this upper third of the stack alone! And below, where the great honeycombed butte widened into its base?
Why, given a hundred, two hundred sundowns, the place could be filled with an army and stand impregnable! With its great height, it was a giant watchtower on all Starside, which none could approach unseen - especially not from the east. For Wratha had no doubt but that they would come one night, out of Turgosheim to track her down. Except they'd be weary, and their blood thin, and their warriors spawned of feeble, watered-down stuff. While she ... she would be Wratha! Wratha the Risen, but risen higher than ever Maglore, Vormulac, Devetaki and all the others together could ever imagine.
So she pictured it; but for now, all she had was this aching, echoing, empty shell of a stack.
Dust lay thick; the bone water pipes had come apart in places, and likewise the complicated gas-channelling systems; cartilage stairways were creaking and dangerous, and required earliest possible attention. At windows cut through solid rock, black bat-fur drapes were all fallen into moulder, and in the empty storerooms rotting cocoons had long since slumped into sticky, molten-silk puddles. The great red spiders were still here, however, to spin more cocoons as they were required.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
As for the workshops: they were in good order, and their hollowed vats huge as any in Mangemanse or Suckspire. With the assistance of Canker and Vasagi, crafty masters of metamorphism both, Wratha could have good stuff brewing here in no time. But the basement granaries would be empty, the gas-beast chambers and methane pits reduced to so much dust and bone-shard, and the water in the wells lively with all manner of creeping and swimming things. Oh yes, it would be a long time before the stack could be put back to rights. But when it was, what a fortress then!
And glancing at her companions through half-shuttered eyes where they gawped and strutted in the vast rooms of the upper levels, Wratha had thought: Mine, all of this - eventually. Except she kept the thought to herself, of course.
The upper levels ...
At first sight of them, then Wratha had known that this was a Lady's stack, that its last inhabitant had been female. For one thing, there were mirrors here: plates of gold hammered perfectly flat, polished to a high sheen, giving warmth and life to the features which they reflected. And they had been female features, certainly; for Wratha knew that while all of the Wamphyri Lords were vain, only the vainest would ever adorn his walls with such as these.
No, for generally mirrors were deemed dangerous things, which in the olden times had been known to reflect death (in the form of sunlight), as easily as life! Long ago, in Turgosheim's Sunside, Wratha had even owned a silver mirror; this despite that all such lethal devices and metals had been forbidden to the Szgany since time immemorial. Well, and now she could look upon her face again, admiring once more the beauty she'd clung to for over a century. But who last had looked in these mirrors, she wondered? And had she been beautiful, too?
She had been slim, beyond a doubt! For in the biggest bedroom of the largest suite on the penultimate level, there Wratha found several dresses, or what had been dresses. They were falling into decay now, but if Wratha had been alone and in the mood ... she was sure they'd suit her figure perfectly well. So, she had been shapely, this Lady, and young; or having all the outward trappings of youth, at least.
Her bed was still here. Built high and wide, of great heavy slates, its polished wooden steps and carved headboard remained intact. Wooden rails, too, suspended from the high ceiling on chains, with golden rings which once held sheerest Szgany curtains. But all gone now, turned to dust, and ropes of cobwebs hanging in their place. Likewise the bed's covers: all blotched with lichens and fluffy mould.
As for the rest of the room: There was an onyx water basin, with bone pipes descending from the roof's exterior gutters, or from some long-shrivelled siphoneer's place; narrow shelves of fretted cartilage, filled with all manner of worthless knick-knacks and baubles under an inch of dust, Szgany stuff mainly; airing cupboards with gas jets below, and other pipes leading off to heat a great stone bath ... big enough for two?
With whom had she shared it? Wratha wondered, allowing herself a smile. Or was she a Lady in every respect? But no, for Wratha knew all about Wamphyri 'Ladies'. This one had not stinted herself but had taken pleasure in all her little luxuries. This one had lived!
Sniffing the air as she moved through the cavernous apartments, Wratha had felt ever more at home here; but at the same time she'd felt that the five with her were more and more like alien invaders of her privacy. Until at last:
'Out of here!' she'd rounded on them. 'This is my place. All of these upper levels which we've explored, they're mine.'
'What?' Gorvi the Guile had exploded. 'Are you insane? Why, there's room here for all of us! Our lieutenants, too, and all the thralls we care to muster!'
For all that his words were snarled, the Guile's voice was oily as ever. Tall, slender, and with the dome of his head shaven except for a single central lock with a knot hanging to the rear; always dressed in black, so that the contrast of his sallow flesh made him look fresh risen from death; with eyes so deeply sunken in their sockets they were little more than a crimson glimmer, yet shifty for all that - this was Gorvi. He was sinister, but who among the Wamphyri was not? And he cowed Wratha not at all.
'My lieutenants!' She wrinkled her nose and glowered at him. 'And all the thralls 1 care to muster! But... did I hear you call me insane?' Now she also glared at the brothers Wran the Rage and Spiro Killglance. 'But madness is their speciality, surely?' And, redirecting the blaze of her scarlet eyes to Canker Canison where he prowled like a dog, sniffing the floor. 'Nor am I too certain of him!'
'Now hold with these insults!' cried Wran, his eyes flaring dangerously, but not without a certain shrewd intelligence. 'For at best they're a blind - eh, Wratha? And Gorvi's right: we all should have a say in this.'
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'No!' Wratha turned on him, on all five of them. 'Now you hold, all of you, and listen! I was the one who schemed and plotted, and drew you all together, and brought you here out of Turgosheim unscathed. Why, but for me you'd be skulking in your hovels still. Mange-manse, indeed! Suckspire! Madmanse! My place was the best of the lot - a worthy spire - and so I lost the most. Well, now I've regained it. So here's how it will be:
'Gorvi the Guile. As your name can't help but hint, you are an insular creature, little trusting of your fellows. You are crafty and would not feel safe in a manse without a bolt-hole. I make no accusations but merely state the facts. Therefore, take the wide and spacious base of the stack - say, the two lowest levels? - for your own. This will give you a dozen escape routes from your windows out on to the plains. Also, you will have control of the wells, whereby you are guaranteed our aid in the event of any future attack from Starside's bottoms. At the same time, however, it means that the wells will be your responsibility, and to judge by the rest of this place they'll be bound to require your most urgent attention. A task for the first of your thralls, to be recruited in the next sundown.
'Wran and Spiro. Despite that you are brothers and even twins - who among the Wamphyri normally despise each other - you two prefer to be together, within certain limits. So be it: choose yourselves apartments in the several levels immediately above Gorvi's, where the width of the stack should provide not only ample accommodation but also plenty of room for privacy. I fancy you will be well suited. Also, from what I saw of the crumpled ruins which litter this region, your area of responsibility will be great indeed! Namely, control of the refuse pits and methane chambers. For I noted that almost every one of those former aeries was burned and broken in the same section, and I can't doubt but that this stack is of a similar design.
'Vasagi. You were ever a loner, no less than I myself. I suggest you take the next levels down from my own. No fear of claustrophobia, with all this air surrounding us! Your warriors, when they are made, may have joint use of my vast launching bays. In return for which, I may require some small assistance in the fashioning of creatures of my own. As you see, I acknowledge your mastery of the metamorphic arts .. .
'Ah, but I acknowledge yours no less, Canker, and would also enlist your aid! You shall be central among us, occupying the levels between the brothers and Vasagi. This way, when the moon rides on high, we may all share your ... singing, and the ... delights of your devotions together! Alas, not much in the way of duties, but what is that to an artist like you?'
Canker was not fooled, nor any of the others; they knew that apart from his skill in the fashioning, the only reason he was here was to make up the Lady's numbers. But the levels she had assigned to him required an overseer, certainly, and at least she'd apportioned the rest of the duties, displayed her powers of reason (however warped), and reinforced her leadership. In the end they must accept, but meanwhile:
'No need to go rushing off immediately,' she'd told them, while they thought it over. 'Outside, it's sunup. Our lads will have seen to the beasts, and to themselves. All will have their heads down by now, and we should do the same. We've come a long weary way, and nothing more to get excited about till the sun sets. So find beds for yourselves - several levels down, I'd suggest - and catch up on all the sleep you've missed. Come nightfall, we'll all of us have work.'
'On Sunside?' Canker had grinned and winked.
'Aye,' she'd answered. 'Where else?'
It had been like a promise, which above all else placated them ...
Then it had been sundown. And almost as quickly as that, or so it seemed.
For Wratha and the others had been weary as never before in their long lives, their sleep deep and dreamless, undisturbed even by calls of nature. This latter was not strange; such was Wamphyri metabolism that their bodies wasted very little; what was consumed was transformed.
Once, towards twilight, Wratha had come half-awake with some weird fancy or anxiety niggling either at her or the vampire within her. For a moment, opening her eyes, she'd thought to see sunlight blasting in through the undraped window! ....ut it was only moonlight. And propping herself up she'd seen the auroras writhing over the Icelands, and Starside's barren boulder plains turning a uniform, ashen grey as clouds covered the moon. Then, remembering that she'd made her bed in a room facing north, Wratha had relaxed. And hearing Canker's mournful howling rising from some nether place of his choice, she knew what had lured her from sleep and gladly returned to it.
But the next time she came awake, that was because she knew! Knew that the last glint of gold was gone from the peaks of the barrier range, that all of Starside lay in shadow, and that the others were even now stirring, called up from their sleep by the long night just beginning. And her eyes blinked open like shutters thrown back, and her forked tongue moved luxuriously, sensually, in the thirsting tunnel of her mouth.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
Sundown! And now she would see what this new but ancient land had to offer.
Knowing that the others would be just as eager to be up and about, Wratha had no time to spare. In the launching bays she'd found Gorvi and Vasagi mustering their lieutenants and rousing their beasts, and in a little while Canker, Wran and Spiro had joined them. Gorvi had been surly.
'The climb is crippling!' he'd complained. 'But I won't be making it again. While the rest of you slept I went below, looked my place over, and saw what you have not seen: that the sun strikes only these higher levels. Wratha, you are welcome to them! But down there, I have launching bays of my own, and stables for my flyers. When we return I'll take my creatures below. As for the wells: you're right, they are foul. When I have the material, then I shall make a creature to eat the slime and purify the water.'
'You have no complaints, then?' Wratha was pleased.
Gorvi shrugged, and grudgingly replied: 'Only that I must dwell in the basement, as it were, and see to the wells for all to share. As for my levels, apartments, facilities: they are or will be ample. But all this talk of responsibilities prompts me to inquire: just what are your duties, Wratha? I mean, now that you've risen to the top, as it were...'
'I shall house and tend the siphoneers,' was her immediate response. 'A place of these dimensions will need more than one, for no use having water if you can't deliver it.' She frowned at Gorvi. 'What? And do you imply that I would shirk responsibility?'
Without waiting for an answer, she turned to the brothers Wran and Spiro. 'And did you inspect your levels, also?'
Despite that they were physically identical (or perhaps because of it), the twin bloodsons of Eygor Kill-glance affected opposing styles and mannerisms: one was loutish, the other a 'gentleman'. In the main their allegedly inherited 'madness' was also affected, though this was a matter for conjecture and argument among the Wamphyri. Undeniable, though, that in Turgosheim the destructive rages of Wran had been notorious, giving licence to the general consensus that he, at least, was quite insane.
As for their disparity in appearance: paradoxically it was Spiro who went in rags and sandals, with a strip of cloth upon his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes, while Wran dressed impeccably in a cloak and finely Grafted leather boots out of Sunside. Physically, their looks were nothing extraordinary: broad in the shoulder and narrow in the hip (if running a little to fat), they stood six and a half feet tall. A small black wen on the point of Wran's fleshy chin, together with his elegant dress, distinguished him from his brother.
But it was the ragged one, Spiro, who answered Wratha's question about an inspection of their levels:
'Briefly, aye,' he glowered, as was his wont. 'We, too, have a serviceable launching-bay for flyers and warriors, and like Gorvi we'll move our beasts down there at first opportunity. But it seems that when this place was deserted, the gas-beasts were left behind to die and rot in their chambers. Now their dust is everywhere, drifted into every nook and cranny, and clogging all the ducts. As you know, impurities can cause blockages, stenches, even explosions. Which means that before we can hope to bring back light and warmth to the stack, all must be made clean, the walls of the chambers polished, the pipes flushed to discover the leaks, and all repairs made safe.'
Wratha nodded. 'Well, in one more sundown - two at most - we should have thralls enough for all such work. Meanwhile, we'll have to live with it. Ah, but as I recall, luxuries were also scarce in Turgosheim!' And to Canker:
'How about you? Do you have complaints, too?'
He shook his head, set his mane flying. 'None!' he barked. 'I have a small but useful workshop, a launching-bay, and veritable mazes of apartments on all levels. My windows are wide and face north, with suitable balconies from which I may ogle the moon. When I sing ... the walls reverberate with choruses all their own, and my rooms are filled with sound! All I need now is a bitch to warm my bed, a bone to sharpen my teeth on, and I shall be content!'
'You shall have all of that and more,' Wratha nodded, and turned to Vasagi the Suck. 'Last, but by no means least?'
Vasagi had no voice as such. Below his dark, flattened, convoluted nose his face was a trunk of pale pink flesh which tapered into a quivering proboscis. But the Suck had developed his sign-language to an extraordinary degree; there was meaning in his slightest glance, each turn and tilt of his head, every wrinkle of his forehead or flutter of his long, tapering fingers. So that between this and his telepathy, which was an art shared by all of the Wamphyri to one degree or another, his 'voice' was as clear as any other's and clearer than most.
I have no complaints, he answered as 'simply' as that, with a complicated shrug that said it for him. Except Wratha could swear that she also 'heard' him say: However, and if or when I do have complaints, then you shall hear of them first, Lady.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
If there was a threat in it, she ignored it for the moment. But she would not forget it. Meanwhile, there was enough to keep everyone occupied.
'Mount up!' Wratha cried. 'Up, all, and into the air -warriors, too! The sun is off the peaks and it's twilight on Sunside. And now, if Maglore has it right, we shall see what no one else has seen for all of fourteen years.'
With which they had headed west over the boulder plains, then south across the mouth of the great pass and the glowing hemisphere of the legendary hell-lands Gate, finally to this very plateau where now -
- Where now Wratha's renegades landed and joined her on the rim. And as they returned to earth and the present, so did the Lady's thoughts ...
There!' she said, pointing. 'Look there!'
Below them, maybe three miles distant in the lee of the twilight mountains, a Szgany town or more properly a village stood on slightly elevated ground between twin streams which tumbled down from the heights. Southwards, the streams joined up and formed a river through the forest; to east and west, at ancient fording places, stout wooden bridges spanned the cascading waters. The lands thus enclosed, between mountains on the one hand, streams on the other, were sufficient to support the township.
Szgany! Vasagi's facial anomaly quivered his anticipation.
'Women!' Canker fell to his knees and might have offered up thanks to the moon in his fashion, but Wratha stopped him with a glance.
Thralls galore!' Gorvi's whisper oozed his delight. 'And fresh lieutenants to oversee them in their duties.'
'Flesh for the shaping,' Spiro scowled. The first small nucleus of our army. But a town as big as this? Why, Turgosheim never saw the like!'
'And all ours,' Wratha nodded. 'But I think you'll find this a small place, compared with what's waiting out there!' She threw her arms wide as if to enclose all of Sunside, and their greedy scarlet eyes took in something of its span: The curved horizons to east and west, and between them a dozen and more campfires clearly visible, dotting the darkening land like glowworms as far as the eye could see. Broad forests lying dark to the south, and beyond them furnace deserts, cooling now under banded amethyst skies. In all, a vast expanse.
'How many of them?' Wran, who was normally silent except in a passion, spoke up. The Szgany, I mean. Ten thousand, do you think?'
'What?' Wratha smiled at him. 'Why, even in Turgosheim's Sunside there are that many! No ... fifty thousand, and more!'
Spiro gripped his brother's arm. 'Just think, Wran! Fifty thou ...!' But the words were choked off as his emotions overcame him. He cleared his throat. 'Our tithe will be massive!'
Tithe?' Wratha laughed, a young girl's laugh, which in the next moment became a woman's voice again, indeed a Lady's. 'No tithe-system here, Spiro. We take what we want!'
'Oh?' said Gorvi. 'But if they're so many, surely they can fight us? We only talk of building an army; they are already an army!'
Wratha shook her head. They are Szgany, yes, but it seems that in fourteen years they've become as territorial as we ourselves. See how they've settled, divided their lands, built their towns. Fight, did you say? With what and against whom? Against each other, perhaps, but not against us. Have you forgotten the trogs we fell upon in their devotions? The Wamphyri are no more, Gorvi! We are the stuff of legends!'
Gorvi was astonished; for this time his natural duplicity - his devious mind, which usually examined every angle, expecting trouble from whichever quarter - had worked against him to obscure the simple facts, which Wratha had made clear. 'But of course.'' he said, his face agog. They are unprepared. They don't know we're here, or even that we exist!'
'But they will,' Wratha told him, 'eventually. And then it will be as it was in Turgosheim, too late - for them! Then they might choose to fight, by which time we shall be too many. Which is why we start by increasing our numbers ... start now, tonight!'
Then why do you keep us waiting? Vasagi might look alien, but his eager thoughts were all Wamphyri.
'Simply to remind you why we are here," Wratha answered. 'I know you have certain needs, all of you; also that you must put them aside, for the moment. Now is no time for wasteful self-indulgence, but for structuring our future. Tonight we kill, but only to rekindle! Tonight we destroy, in order to create! Canker -' she turned to him, '- take as many women and make as many vampire babies as you will, until you are exhausted. But remember this: the rest of us will be making thralls! Bring a Szgany slut back to your manse, by all means, but your flyer has room for just two passengers. And we shall be taking back fine young Szgany flesh, for the making of lieutenants. Enough. I hope you take my meaning ...' She turned to Wran.
'Wran, you are handsome tonight, as ever. A fine cloak and boots, and your good gauntlet at your belt. Ah, but should you rage, your cloak and boots will be ruined with blood! Aye, and your every effort wasted. So kill by all means, slay with your gauntlet all you will, but remember this: a dead man is only a dead man. Not until he has something of you in him will he rise up again, trek for Starside before the rising sun, and be your thrall in the bowels of the stack. Now, your rages are legendary, I know, but not tonight, Wran, not tonight. Instead, let it be like this: don't maim but make each kill a clean one, for we've no use for thralls who are cripples. And every time you slay, take a little something, a sip, from your victim - but at the same time give a little something back! That way you'll make useful vampires, Wran, not useless corpses.'
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
She looked at the rest of them. The same applies to all, of course . ..
'Now: these are the instructions you should give to those who become your thralls: that when they rise up undead and flee from the rising sun, they should bring with them into Starside grain from their storehouses, nuts and fruits, tools and other metal things - but never silver! -and any woven items which they can carry. They can bring them on their travois or carts, through the great pass; which is why this place makes a good choice, because it is close to the pass ...' She paused for a moment's thought. And eventually: 'Well, I think that covers it.'
They began to turn away, head for their flyers, but she stopped them. 'No, wait: two more things.
'I remember a time - oh, long ago - on Turgosheim's Sunside, when I was a Szgany titheling. A captive of the Wamphyri, I was given into the charge of a young lieutenant and taken up on to his flyer's back. Then ... I killed him! Any live prisoners you take, make sure they're either tightly bound or unconscious, or both!
'Finally, don't let the warriors glut themselves. A morsel here, a tidbit there, sufficient only to fuel themselves and no more.' She nodded sharply. There! Is all understood?'
All was understood. Again Wratha's nod. 'Good! Now let their fires guide you down to what will be glory for you, hell for them. And if all goes well, later there's maybe a treat for you...'
The Szgany of Twin Fords scarcely knew what had hit them. Two of the warriors landed at the bridges, destroying them in seconds, and the third towards the junction of the rivers, from where it herded fleeing villagers back towards the town. The flyers were guided down closer to Twin Fords itself, to encircle it in a ring of lolling grey primordial shapes. Largely harmless when grounded, still these manta-shaped beasts were fearsome to look at, and they had orders from their riders to roll upon and crush anyone who came too close. They could eat flesh, of course, but were instructed not to; their food consisted of a special preparation, which Wratha hoped soon to manufacture on Starside.