'To be wed, of course!'
Nathan looked at Nana, who nodded. And: 'Yes, whatever you say,' he answered Varna.
'Consider it done then,' said the other. 'Now be off, and enjoy what time you have left as a free man.'
Nana had a large cave close to the main entrance. There, where beams of sunlight shot in through holes in the perforated rock and dust motes drifted like specks of gold, she sat Nathan down on a blanket on a ledge carved in the wall. And while she saw to the needs of two old ladies in her care - in the course of preparing their food - she talked to him and questioned him over her shoulder. In a little while he stopped answering, and Nana saw that he'd stretched out and gone to sleep.
Then, as the old ones ate their food Nana sat beside him. She stroked the lines from his brow, cried all the tears she'd stored up for so long, and loved her son for all the lonesome times she'd missed loving him ...
Nathan dreamed of Maglore, who in any case had never been far from his thoughts since his escape from Rune-manse; an image of the man, the vampire Lord, the monster, had seemed printed indelibly on his inner eye, but faintly, like an after-image.
Maglore in his aerie, in a darkened room, alone, with a smile on his ancient, evil face and his eyes half-closed, and spider hands with spindly fingers resting upon an image of his sigil, the hammered gold loop with a half-twist. Nathan dreamed of the Seer Lord, and knew that Maglore in turn dreamed of him, of Nathan!
He conjured the numbers vortex and washed Maglore away in its seething swirl - and saw the smile on his fading face turn to a scowl - before he drifted deeper into sleep ...
He dreamed of his wolves. They had felt the swirl of the vortex and stirred in their mountain cave. He knew that their yellow eyes blinked in the gloom, and could feel their warmth and smell the musty heat of their curled bodies. But they were tired and he should let them sleep; it was sufficient that they acknowledged his return ...
His freely drifting mind touched upon the deadspeak minds of Sunside's Great Majority: a Jiving mind listening in on the dead. They knew him at once, but the message of their swiftly receding whispers was as vague and mysterious as ever: That one, Nathan!'
'But the Thyre speak for him; they say there's no harm in him, only good.'
'So was his father good, in his time. But in the end?'
'We could tell him much.'
'We daren't!'
Among them was a voice which was very faint. 'I, Iasef Karis, could tell him most of all.'
'And be shunned among the dead forever?' The others were alarmed.
'You are cold and cruel,' the faint one replied.
'But not as cold and cruel as the Wamphyri necromancer who is his brother!'
'He is a vampire. They are not the same.'
'Can Nathan live forever, then? And what will he be when he dies? Ah, and will he stay dead?'
Finally, reluctantly: 'Perhaps you are right,' said Jasef Karis. With which their dead voices faded away entirely as the teeming dead fell silent in their graves and resting places ...
At last it was Eygor Killglance's turn; the leathery amalgam which was Eygor, blind and dead in his pit in Madmanse. But Eygor didn't talk about Nathan, he talked to him. The killing eye, Nathan. It can be yours!' The clotted gurgle of his mind spanned all the miles between. 'Now look, and see what my sons did to me!'
Nathan stood at the feet of the Thing in the pit again, and stared up at its dead face, its closed eyes which even now, in his dream, creaked open! And a pair of blind white orbs huge as the eggs of swans, white as shining marble, wept acid tears on to a fretted, crumbling cheek!
'Only see how I cry,' said Eygor, 'because my eyes are blind and white. Ah, but upon a time the right one was filled with blood! See!' And at once, the right eye of the gargoyle dripped scarlet. 'While the left was full of pus!' And indeed the left one turned yellow, and swelled like a boil about to burst. And Nathan knew that if it did and the poison splashed him, then that he would be infected, heir to Egyor's eyes!
He came shouting awake ...!
But the eyes were gone. The original great white blind glaring eyes (like the eye which Thikkoul had seen in Nathan's stars, perhaps?), the bloody eye and the yellow one, too: gone! Only his mother's eyes, Nana's, were there to greet him where he jerked violently upright. And gazing back worriedly into his, all they contained was love and concern.
For Nathan was more than ever like Harry Keogh before him, and she knew from his mumbling that he talked to ... people, in his sleep; or at least listened to them talking to each other. But mainly she was concerned because of who these people were, and the fact that they were no more ...
Aye, he was more than ever like his Necroscope father, which could be a blessing -
- Or a curse.
Nathan and Misha were married at 'noon', when the sun stood at its highest point far to the south and central over the distant desert. The ceremony was simple; Lardis presided; all of Sanctuary Rock's workforce was present, almost a hundred and forty of them. Times were hard but Lardis had done his best, providing bread and wine and a beast turning on a spit over a fire.
At the high point of the affair the old Lidesci gathered the couple and their parents to him - Misha in white, Nathan in his freshly cleaned Thyre clothing, which by Szgany standards was still exceptionally fine gear -and with Nana standing face to face with Misha, and Varna glowering at Nathan, then Lardis commenced to say the approved words:
'Varna Zanesti, what can you say of this girl, your daughter Misha?'
That she's innocent, unknown by man or monster,' Varna growled. 'Also that she's obedient and good. Far too good for this one!'
Nathan was obliged to back off a step and lower his head. It was all part of the ritual.
'And Nana Kiklu,' Lardis turned to her. 'What have you to say to that?'
'No mere girl is good enough for a son of mine,' Nana answered, tilting her chin and sniffing at Misha. 'I can only hope that their children take more after him.' But not too closely after their grandfather!
Lardis turned to the couple. 'And do you love each other?' They answered yes. 'So you may, and from this time forward you have that right - to love with your hearts and your bodies - for you're now man and wife!'
They kissed; people applauded; everyone enjoyed a little food, and toasted the health of the couple in wine. There was music and the younger ones danced, those who had the strength for it. But at their first opportunity, Nathan and Misha slipped quietly away ...
Their travois was waiting behind bushes under the south-west facing wall of the Rock. There Misha made ;"Nathan look away - Three years is a long time, after ; all!' - while she changed into Traveller clothes and folded her dress into a pillowcase, and discreetly averted her eyes as he likewise changed. It was the Szgany way. Then, dragging the light-framed travois behind them, they went out into the forest. Heading south-east, they skirted the Rock along an old trail, but half-way towards Settlement turned off into virgin woods and found a place where the bracken stood tall.
In the heart of the bracken Nathan put up their shelter, a skin stretched over the bole of a fallen tree, made fast to projecting branches, while Misha cleared the ground and spread their blankets underneath. And with mixed feelings they stood looking at the finished job. Everything seemed to be melting into a blur now for Nathan. He still daren't believe that he had really escaped from Turgosheim; yet here he was, married to Misha, and their first bed ready for them. She didn't seem changed; it might be as if he'd never been away.
'Our home for half a day,' he finally said.
'And for part of a night,' she answered. 'For I won't go back till the stars are out at least. Tonight of all nights, I won't scurry and scuttle in fear of Them.'
Nathan looked ruefully at their rude shelter. 'Not much of a little house, is it?'
She smiled in a way he remembered and loved well enough - a smile she'd kept only for him, which was half-innocent, half-brazen - and answered: 'People have lived, and loved, in worse than this, Nathan. Anyway, you'll remember this "little house" for the rest of your days. I shall see to that.'
Following which ...
... It was as it has always been and always will be between lovers. And for an hour, two, three, they excited, explored and exhausted each other. Misha was mainly innocent, for which they both were glad. And Nathan ... if Misha suspected anything she said nothing. And anyway, he was careful not to 'know' too much. From now on they could learn together, or at least he must make her believe that it was so. It wasn't so much that he deceived her, rather that he would not disappoint her.
And he didn't, not in any measure ...
In the time scale of the world of Nathan's father, the couple stayed in their love nest for an entire day, and one more to go before sundown. Like all young animals paired off, they loved and slept to excess; between times they replenished themselves on bread and cheese from a bundle in the travois.
Three years without each other; now each moment spent together filled the space of an hour apart, and the husks of empty years fell aside. They got to know each other all over again, but more surely now, more certainly: like a broken wall repaired and made stronger. And the extra wrinkle here or line there: all smoothed themselves out, or seemed to, until their faces were the same yet more than before. Nathan had used to think Misha's shape was boyish; now it was all woman. She had likened his yellow hair to sunlight; now it was a misted morning, with some of the gold fading to grey.
Eventually they left their bower and walked to Settlement, which served to revive more old memories. A handful of people were working there; Nathan met some old friends, saw a few new faces. They wandered the forest ways they'd known as children, bathed in the same shingly pool at the river's bend, fell more deeply, truly in love than ever. Back in Settlement they ate a meal with friends, and Nathan stood for a while outside his old home under the stockade's west wall. Some repairs had been made but the place seemed like a shell now; at least there wasn't a flyer trap underneath it; maybe one day Nana would live here again. But live here, as she had used to in better times.
In the shade of the forest as they returned to the bower, suddenly Nathan shivered, paused, listened. There was only the cooing of pigeons. Misha looked at him curiously. 'What is it?'
Frowning, he touched the golden sigil in his ear. Then he shrugged and offered an awkward smile. 'Only the ghosts of memories.' Or the feeling of someone listening, watching, waiting. Instinctively he shielded his mind and conjured the vortex: two perfectly logical moves, of which only the first was a good one. For Nathan didn't know that where the vortex kept certain evils at bay, it lured one other more surely than crows are lured to a cornfield. And even if he did know it would make little difference, for that one was dead.
In any case, and long before they reached their love nest, the feeling had passed ...
Evening fell on Sunside, and the first stars came out as the sky slowly darkened towards night. In their bower the lovers slept, touching all along their length, so close they might be one. In Settlement and other places the first fires were burning even now, lures for Starside's Lords. But the last vampire raid on Settlement had been a while ago; there was no reason why any monster should come hunting here now, and certainly not in this private place. In Nathan's metaphysical mind the numbers vortex whirled, and in its heart the mysteries of the universe were hidden behind countless mutating formulae; as were his secret thoughts. Thus the vortex was his protection -
- And his betrayal.
High in the mountains, in a saddle between peaks where the gold had faded to grey, a Lord and his lieutenant gazed down on Sunside, the first through scarlet eyes and the other with eyes which were feral. The latter was Zahar (once Zahar Sucksthrall, but no longer), and his master was the Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri, an awesome necromancer whose rapid rise to power had made him a living legend on all the levels of Starside's last aerie. Their flyers rested a little apart, nodding their great, slate-grey heads in that curiously vacant way of theirs.
Zahar knew why they had come here: it was a habit of Nestor's to rest here a while, this very spot, and gaze down on Sunside before a raid. Always here, over Settlement. But while he found a constant fascination with the place, he had never once raided in the town. In the past he'd always given the same reason: 'I think ... I know this place. But there's nothing here that I want, not any longer.'
Tonight was different. Wratha had suggested that she and Nestor might raid together, yet he had flown out early with just Zahar in attendance. Just the two of them, without even a warrior. And Nestor's gaze was very keen, even eager tonight as he looked down on the glow-worm flicker of the town's fires; and Zahar sensed within him an eagerness, a strange cold passion, and a purpose.
For a while the lieutenant fidgeted, then asked: 'Do we raid here tonight? Do we recruit? If so we should be careful, for these people have a reputation. Those fires could well be lures!'
Nestor merely glanced at him, but at least the question had drawn him back to earth. 'We hunt,' he answered.
'Hah!' Zahar snorted appreciatively. Tor women?'
'For a couple, male and female,' Nestor's voice was like a low wind out of the Icelands, cold and foreboding. 'A great enemy of mine who went away and is now returned. A treacherous Szgany dog and his bitch, who plotted against me. Even now they are hiding from me, in the woods where they always hid. But I shall find them now as I found them then.'
Zahar stared at him, feared him. Nestor had no background. There was nothing in his past to guide his future. Except this, perhaps, whatever it was. And he was pure as pure Wamphyri! All Nestor knew, he'd learned in Old Starside's last aerie. And despite that the ways of the aerie were hard, he'd learned fast. Add to this the fact that he was a necromancer ... the Lord Nestor's mind and his ways were unknowable.
Still, Zahar thought that he should make some answer. 'How will you find this enemy, Lord?'
Again Nestor's glance, and his grim smile. 'He sleeps and dreams,' he said. 'But I know his dreams, for they penetrate my own like darts.'
Zahar said nothing. He had been right: his master's mind was entirely unknowable.
'Now listen,' Nestor continued with more animation.
'In the twilight before the dawn I sensed his return, and dreamed that I went to fetch him into Starside to punish him. But my dream was ominous, and in the hour of my triumph I fell foul of some nameless fate. Tonight, leaving Wratha to sleep on, I rose early and came down to my apartments, from where I heard the Lord Canker Canison singing to the moon. Because they say he is touched with oneiromancy, I mentioned the dream to him. He howled like a wolf and told me that the future is inviolable; the only danger lies in trying to read or alter it; what will be will be. I agree with that last: what will be will be. Except...'
'Yes, Lord?'
'If aught befalls me, will my enemy go free? I can't bear the thought of that.' He shook his head. 'No, for if I'm destined for hell I want to know that my enemy got there before me, or follows close behind, at least! These are my instructions:
'He is mine and you shall take the girl. If all goes well we head direct for Starside. But if I should come to grief my order is this: drop the girl and take him! Do you understand?' His voice was suddenly sharp.
'Yes, Lord.'
'For I don't mind that she lives, only that he should not! And in no circumstance are they to be allowed to live together. Which is why you will take him and head for Starside. For I've heard of a certain legend, and I'm determined that he shall be the one to test it.'
He explained his meaning in more detail, then continued: 'Zahar, a dream is only a dream and I'm not afraid of it. Nor do I fear anything. But if aught should go astray, don't fail me. For I am the Lord Nestor and life and death are one to me, and even in the worst possible future, I shaJI be back!'
'I believe you, Lord,' said Zahar.
They went to their beasts and mounted up. And Nestor said, 'Now follow close behind, and I'll take you to them.'
Zahar kept his thoughts well guarded where he goaded his flyer into the air. But in the eastern foothills and along the peaks he'd seen banks of mist forming, and knew that the Wamphyri hunted there. While Nestor pursued dreams and ghosts out of his unknown past, they hunted for the good things of life: for the blood which is the life, for women and slaves, and for the sheer joy of it. Huh.' Not much of joy in Nestor. But then, there'd not been a deal of it in Vasagi either! And this one had his egg.
Nestor 'heard' none of this; his damaged mind was full of other things and remembered only those which he wanted to remember. And as his flyer arched its wings and soughed down the wind towards the tree-line, he was maddened by the swirl of alien numbers rushing faster and faster in his brain. Now, at long last, he would track the maelstrom to its source and destroy it - destroy him - forever. As he should have destroyed him in the far, dim, all but forgotten past...
The mist on the mountains. Like Zahar, Nana Kiklu had seen it, too, and had gone straight to Lardis. Now they were out searching for the newlyweds, Nana in one direction and Lardis in the other. He was the one who found them, and with time to spare, or so he thought. But in fact he was just too late.
Arm in arm, they headed for the Rock along a foothill trail. Trudging and weary, they dragged their worldly goods behind them. Lardis saw them, sighed his relief and hurried forward ... only to freeze as the night air throbbed and the starlight seemed to dim a little, and a shadow went wafting overhead! Lardis fell into a crouch, snapped his shotgun shut, and looked up. He saw them - flyers, a pair - banking against the hillside, and stooping towards the lovers like hawks! And now they too felt the throbbing of the air, looked up and saw the swooping flyers. Instinctively, Misha flew into Nathan's arms.
This way!' Lardis bellowed. To me!' They saw him, ran towards him. The flyers veered a little and their belly pouches yawned open; their wings formed arches where they seemed almost to drift down upon the pair.
'Down!' Lardis yelled. 'Get down!'
The flyers were upon them, buffeting them apart; the one which pursued Nathan made to scoop him up; he stumbled and the flap of the thing's pouch sent him flying. It formed its wings into air-traps and hovered, following him where he tumbled down a scree slide.
Frantically, Lardis swung his weapon towards the other beast but daren't fire; Misha was in the way. The creature was almost upon her when suddenly ... she gave a scream and disappeared! She was the victim of one of Lardis's pits! But better that than the other. Far better! She might be injured, but she was safe for the moment. And the old Lidesci launched himself feet-first down the scree slide after Nathan.
Nathan was on his feet. He turned to look back up the slope - and the flyer was there, right behind him! He saw it, and saw that its rider was ...
... Nestor!
Nathan might not know the face - that twisted, snarling visage with its scarlet, glaring eyes - but he would recognize the mind anywhere, however warped and changed it had become. At close range there was no mistaking it; he felt its hatred, and knew that recognition was mutual. Nestor was a Power now, and Nathan's own telepathy that much more enhanced.
You! The word was a hiss, burning like acid as it flowed from Nestor's mind.
'Nestor!' Nathan gasped, as the flyer's head passed over him and its belly pouch yawned. He smelled its stench ... and in the same moment heard Lardis's yell:
'Get down!' A split second later and the old Lidesci came skidding on his heels and his rump, collided with Nathan and sent him flying. The two of them rolled and tumbled; but relentless as a shadow and almost as close, the flyer followed after. They hit the bottom of the slope, and Lardis was first on his feet. Growling like a bear he turned his weapon on the flyer and discharged it pointblank into the creature's eyes - once, twice!
The thing screamed high and shrill, lashed its head left and right, and its wings pounded frantically, uselessly at the air. Then, as a wingtip struck the slope, the beast tilted to one side, which threatened to unseat its rider. Yelling like a madman, Lardis reloaded and aimed at the vampire Lord.
And even if Nathan would wish it otherwise, there was nothing he could do about the rest of it. Dazed and still trying to climb to his feet, he heard the twin shotgun blasts and felt Nestor's agony! And again he and Lardis were bowled over as the stricken flyer's thrusters uncoiled downwards and drove it out and away into the night, with Nestor lolling and jerking in the saddle.
By now Sunside lay under a blanket of mist, and because the main body of Wamphyri hunters were in the east, it could only be a natural mist rising from the woods and rivers of the region. Nestor's flyer dipped low and tore a soft hole in the stuff, which quickly filled in behind it.
Lardis was yelling, 'I got the bastard! I got him in the eyes, like I told you! If my aim had been better I could have taken his head off!'
The mist rolled up and covered them, and passed up the slope. And despite that Lardis had been talking about Nestor, there was only one thought in Nathan's mind now: 'Misha?'
'Come on,' Lardis growled. 'She fell into one of our own pits. And that other flyer may still be around, might even have landed!' Reloading his shotgun, he headed up the slippery scree slope. But even as they began climbing, so Zahar came gliding from above and fell on them. It was as swift as that: the mist opened and the flyer was there.
Lardis got off a shot before he was buffeted aside. He was on his feet again in a moment, aiming at a nodding, mist-wreathed head, squeezing the trigger. And the gun blew up in his hands! One of the old cartridges, a bad one, had finally let him down. Blown backwards and off his feet, he waited for the shock to pass, then struggled upright and looked for Nathan ... and saw nothing but the mist. But in a little while he found the wind to climb the slope.
Misha was waiting at the top, shivering and dishevelled but otherwise unharmed. She took Lardis's hand and helped him up, then grabbed him and looked into his eyes. He could only lower his head and look away ...
EPILOGUE
Unconscious from the flyer's gases, Nathan lolled in Zahar's arms where the vampire lieutenant carried him across the wormhole-riddled terrain surrounding the hell-lands Gate and tossed him down on top of its low crater wall. Beyond that wall, snug as an eye in its socket, the vastly glaring Gate shone with a cold white light, causing Zahar to lower his eyelids half-way shut and put up a hand against the dazzle.
He found a toe-hold and stepped up onto the wall, picked Nathan up and paced forward to the very 'skin' of the shining hemisphere of light. There he paused, looked at the man in his arms and shrugged. There seemed very little of a 'great enemy' in this one, and as any vampire would know, there were better uses for good Szgany flesh than this! On the other hand, his master's warning couldn't be ignored; Zahar dared not fail him who had sworn to return. For Nestor was a Lord and crafty necromancer, while Zahar was only a lieutenant.
Well, time now to get it over with. He cradled Nathan like a child in one arm, and slapped his face until his eyes flickered open. 'What?' Nathan groaned, rolling his head and seeing first Zahar's awful face, and then the blinding light spilling from the Gate! The hell-lands portal, which he knew at once, glaring like ... like 'a great blind eye'!
Zahar grinned at him and said: 'Courtesy of the Lord Nestor. Whoever you are, this world has seen the last of you. But I hope they make you welcome in hell!' And so saying he spilled Nathan out of his arms into the glare, which absorbed him in a moment, effortlessly and without a sound, like an eye blinking away the irritation of a dust mote ...
Far to the east in a blocked pit in Madmanse, the gigantic monstrosity which was Eygor Killglance lay where he had died, slumped against a nitre-streaked wall, and groaned a vast and terrible deadspeak groan. He was dead, the physical Eygor, but his mind of course went on. Except there was no one now to know it, not with any certainty. For like the guttering of a distant candle jn the ultimate darkness of death, Eygor had seen Nathan's light go out. Which could mean only one thing: that the Necroscope was no more.
In the higher levels of the promontory, called Rune-manse, perhaps Maglore 'heard' something of Eygor's groaning; perhaps he 'felt' something of Nathan's passing. At any rate he rushed to his room of meditation and placed his trembling fingers on the sigil shaped in gold, and let his mind drift out from Turgosheim, then hurtle west at the unthinkable speed of thought, which is instantaneous. But the sigil was lifeless now, merely a strangely twisted mass of heavy metal, and Maglore's 'window on an unknown world' was closed. It was weird, because even though Nathan's aura was gone, the feeling persisted that he was not dead. What, then? Undead? Locked in that metamorphic sleep which precedes the vampire condition? Had he finally succumbed to the seduction of vampirism? Did Wratha or one of hers have him? And Maglore sighed. Better perhaps if he had made him his own after all...
In all the dreaming places of the Thyre, suddenly the darkness was that much deeper. For the ancients also knew of Nathan's passing from this world, but they knew a little more than the rest: that he was not dead. For if so he would be one with them, an honoured member of an elite, 'extinct' society, where his dead-speak voice would always be welcome. No, he was not dead but removed from them, taken away, transported to a place from which no one ever returned.
The teeming dead of Sunside knew it, too, and felt safer for it, however shamefully. But men reap what they sow, and in the child there is always that of the father. Perhaps Nathan had posed a threat, and perhaps not. Whatever, it made no difference now for he was gone. And of all of them who had passed into Sunside's air and earth, only Jasef Karis missed him and wished that he had spoken to him.
But not a one of them - not Eygor, Maglore, the Thyre, or all the dead of Sunside put together - could ever have dreamed that they would hear Nathan's dead-speak voice again, or see his candle burning in the darkness as before .. .
Nestor's awakening was slow and painful. His eyes were burning, his back had been very nearly broken, but his mind ... was free of numbers! And with that, it all came back to him:
... His flyer, blinded, with its face half shot away and its tiny brain peppered with poisonous silver pellets. Nestor, too, reeling in the saddle with sightless eyes, his face a raw red mess and consciousness slipping as he fought to command his crippled beast up, away, back to Starside. He remembered a long low glide, and his inability to impress himself on the flyer's mind. The wonder was that the beast had stayed aloft so long.
. .. Then the crash: the whiplash as he was hurled from the flyer's back, his body somersaulting, smashing against the bole of a great tree, falling through branches which snapped under his weight, down to the forest's floor. And the darkness.
Following which: Ministering hands? Kindness? Ointments and bandages, to assist in the healing process which Nestor's leech had already commenced? Brief bouts of consciousness, in which he had known that people moved about him, caring for him, even feeding him a vile soup, which his body accepted readily enough despite that it was not his usual fare. It could only mean that he had made it back to Starside, where Wratha had found him crashed among the great hardy firs of the barrier range below the tree-line, and brought him into the last aerie.
But when he had tried to speak to her, it was not the Lady Wratha's voice which answered him. And because his eyes were so badly damaged and bandaged, he'd not seen the ones who covered his shivering body with blankets to keep him warm, and fed him, and pricked the silver shot out of his face, and generally succoured him through his fever.
Until now, finally, he heard their whispers, and felt once more the pain in his back, the agony of his ruined face. But he held still as they peeled away the bandages, and listened to their whispers tailing off as they sensed that he was awake. Then, despite the pain of tearing scabs, he gradually forced his eyes open and felt pus begin to ooze as something of sight returned. But -
- Was the room dark, or was it his eyes? It was both, he knew. He was healing, but not yet fully healed. For even a dark room would appear as daylight to one who was Wamphyri. But this room seemed full of a thick grey mist, and his eyes burned like fire when he blinked them to clear his vision. Except his vision would not clear. He was half-blind, and a long way yet to go before his vampire repaired him back to new.
He stirred, groaned, moved his limbs and tested his body. And like shadows the ones who had saved him backed off, melted away and out of this misty room of vague grey shapes and musty odours. Their movements seemed strange, stumbling, crippled as badly as Nestor himself and perhaps worse. For he was at least aware of his blood surging and knew that his limbs were his own again. He was weak but would be strong, and given time he would see as well as ever. But not yet for a while.
Now that Nestor was alone he put out a trembling hand to feel his bed, the wall, the edge of a table. All of wood, and warm. In no way the familiar cold grey stone of the last aerie. So what was this place? Where was he and what had awakened him? Deep down inside, some strange instinctive terror grinned and gurgled, and in the eye of memory showed him a picture out of the past: Of a flyer, gouting smoke and steam and shrivelling as its hide split open; then spilling its loathsome fats as the sun ate into it like acid and reduced it to so much slop! The sun ...! Was that what had awakened him, fear of the sun? But why? Where was he ... and what was the hour?
Someone entered the room and Nestor froze, then fought to control his fear as the grey shadow came closer and stood beside his bed. His fear? But of what? He was the Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri! 'What ...?' he gurgled from scabby, tattered lips. 'Who ...?'
'Ah!' The grey shape nodded. 'And so you'll recover and return to Starside. Good!'
But though the voice was warm and not unkind, still its tone was strange, bitter, and ... satisfied? And what was that it had said? About a return to Starside? Suddenly, anger and frustration flooded Nestor. He struggled to a sitting position and focused his damaged eyes until the grey one's misty silhouette filled in a little and his features took on shape beneath the cowl of his robe. But they were still grey features, poorly defined and oddly ... incomplete? The wraithlike figure leaned a little on a crutch which fitted under his right shoulder, and his robe hung like a shroud from his insubstantial frame.
'It's so dark in here,' Nestor said stupidly, or perhaps hopefully.
The other shook his head. 'No, it's light enough. Or will be soon.'
Nestor's pain threatened to engulf him again. He was Wamphyri, but he was still learning their disciplines. As yet he couldn't suppress pain. He fought it back as best he was able, and asked: 'Who are you, and what is this place?'
'My name is Uruk Piatra, called Uruk Long-life,' the grey one answered with a shrug. 'But a misnomer, I fear. And as for this place ... it's a leper colony.'
For a single moment Nestor's brain froze: a leper colony! Leprosy, the great bane of vampires! - but in the next he was galvanized to activity. Then, swinging his legs out from under the blankets, he grabbed the dangling arms of the other's robe. But they were only empty sleeves and couldn't take his weight. They ripped at the shoulders and came away in Nestor's hands where he fell back again onto the bed. And he saw how Uruk's twig arms ended in swollen fungus nubs at the elbows!
After that: a rush of adrenalin - a madness of vampire-induced flight in which all of Nestor's previous agonies were forgotten - a blundering confusion of blind terror as he fled the colony out into the forest. And even then no respite, for in the south the light was improving moment by moment. Grey shapes stood gaunt as ghosts in the mist of Nestor's perception as he rushed this way and that under the trees, trying to avoid them. He crashed among a cage of squawking chickens and wrecked it, fell against a fence and tumbled over it, and felt no pain now but only fear as he careened deeper into the dawn woods in search of a place to hide.
A deep hole in which to find safety from the sun and wait out the long day. A sanctuary in which to rest and recuperate, sleep and dream ... and nightmare, certainly.
About what had been, and what was yet to be ...