I AROSE with Vancha a couple of hours after midday and commenced my training in the shade near the cave entrance. Harkat watched us with interest, as did Mr. Crepsley when he woke early that afternoon. Vancha started me off with a stick, saying it would be months before he tried me with real weapons. I spent the afternoon watching him flick and stab the stick at me. I didn't have to do anything else, just observe the movements of the stick and learn to identify and anticipate the various ways an attacker had of using it.
We practised until Evanna returned, half an hour shy of sunset. She said nothing of where she'd been or what she'd been up to, and nobody enquired.
"Having fun?" she asked, entering the cave with her entourage of frogs.
"Heaps," Vancha replied, throwing the stick away. "The boy wants to learn to fight with his hands."
"Are swords too heavy for him?"
Vancha pulled a face. "Very funny."
Evanna's laughter brightened the cave. "I'm sorry. But fighting with hands - or swords - seems so childish. People should battle with their brains."
I frowned. "How?"
Evanna glanced at me, and all of a sudden the strength went from my legs and I fell to the floor. "What's happening?" I squealed, flopping about like a dying fish. "What's wrong with me?"
"Nothing," Evanna said, and to my relief my legs returned to normal. "That's how you fight with your brain," she said as I gathered myself together. "Every part of the body connects to the brain. Nothing functions without it. Attack with your brain, and victory is all but assured."
"Could I learn to do that?" I asked eagerly.
"Yes," Evanna said. "But it would take a few hundred years and you would have to leave the vampires and become my assistant." She smiled. "What do you think, Darren? Would it be worth it?"
"I'm not sure," I muttered. I liked the idea of learning magic, but living with Evanna wasn't appealing - with her quick temper, I doubted she'd make an understanding or forgiving teacher!
"Let me know if you change your mind," she said. "It's been a long time since I had an assistant, and none ever completed their studies - they all ran off after a few years, though I can't imagine why." Evanna brushed past us into the cave. Moments later she called us, and when we entered, we found another feast waiting.
"Did you use magic to get it ready so quickly?" I asked, sitting down to eat.
"No," she replied. "I simply moved a little faster than normal. I can work at quite a speed when I wish."
We ate a big dinner, then sat around a fire and discussed Mr. Tiny's visit to Vampire Mountain. Evanna seemed to know about it already, but let us tell the story and said nothing until we had finished. "The three hunters," she mused once we'd brought her up to date. "I have been waiting for you for many centuries."
"You have?" Mr. Crepsley asked, startled.
"I lack Desmond's clear insight into the future," she said, "but I see some of what is to come - or what might come. I knew three hunters would emerge to face the Vampaneze Lord, but I didn't know who they'd be."
"Do you know if we'll be successful?" Vancha asked, observing her keenly.
"I doubt if even Desmond knows that," she said. "Two strong futures lie ahead, each as possible as the other. It's rare for fate to boil down to two such evenly matched eventualities. Normally the paths of the future are many. When two exist like this, chance decides which the world will take."
"What about the Lord of the Vampaneze?" Mr. Crepsley asked. "Have you any idea where he is?"
"Yes." Evanna smiled.