by Brian Lumley
'My father sometimes worries me,' Jason admitted, having washed the trail's dust from his throat with a gulp of sweet wine.
And: 'Huh!' Nestor grunted. 'You should have my problems, for my brother worries me all the time!' His voice was at once sour, a sure sign that the conversation had returned to Nathan.
Jason was hardly taken aback. 'You're too hard on him,' he said.
'You think so?' Nestor raised an eyebrow. Eighteen months Jason's senior, he considered Lardis's son clever but naive; hardly the right kind of man to inherit the leadership of the clan when that time came, and never strong enough to hold it together and make it a power in the world. There was too much of the thinker in him, too little of the doer. 'But Nathan's not too hard on me, right?'
'Nathan, hard?' Now Jason was taken aback. 'But he's soft as a child!'
Nestor nodded. 'He is a child, in some things, aye. And in some ways he's an idiot, despite what your father thinks! But I'm his brother and so know him better than anyone, and there's another, weirder side to him.'
'Oh?'
'We're twins, as you know,' Nestor nodded. 'Not identical, no, but still our kinship goes deeper than ordinary flesh and blood. Far deeper.' He nodded again but angrily, even savagely. 'I mean, I wouldn't mind Nathan dreaming all the strange things he dreams, or blame him for living in his daydreams — just so long as he'd leave me out of them!'
'But how are you part of them?' Jason was puzzled. 'In what way do they concern you? Why, I've never met brothers more dissimilar than you two!'
'Huh!' Nestor grunted again. 'But up here,' he tapped his forehead, 'in our minds, we're not that dissimilar.' He leaned closer. 'Listen, and I'll tell you how it's been for as long as I can remember.' He got his thoughts in order, then:
'Among other things,' he began, 'my brother dreams of numbers. Great waves of numbers, all meaningless, swirling in his head like a river in flood! There's this — oh, I don't know — this fabulous "secret" behind them, which he seeks to discover, except he hasn't a clue where to begin. And so in his sleep he goes through the numbers again and again, endlessly searching them for their secret meaning. All very well, and I'd have no complaint — if only he would keep his dreams to himself!'
'What?'
Nestor nodded. 'Don't ask me how, but I "hear" his dreams! I can see him, feel him there in my head, lost in these damned numbers! Now to me, a number is the count of fish I've caught, division is the share-out after a day's hunting, and multiplication is what rabbits do. As for schooling: I got as much of that as I need — and all I can use — when I was a child. So, if I can't work something out on my fingers and toes, then I'm not interested in it. I'm not one of these so-called "wise men" who tinker with runes and scratch on slates to keep records and histories, or work out the distance to the moon, which they say is another world. I won't be around when the things we do today are history, and as for the distance to the moon: what possible use in knowing that, except to the wolves who sing to her?'
Jason was fascinated. 'You really hear his dreams?'
'Not all of them,' Nestor shrugged, concerned now that perhaps he was saying too much. 'For his mind is deep, like a well, and there's a lot he keeps hidden. Even so, it's full of faraway worlds and dead people….nd numbers, of course! Not that I'd pry, you understand, for if it was up to me I'd have nothing at all to do with Nathan's damned dreams and fancies! But I can't control it. His dreams find their way into mine, so that he's just as big a pest asleep as when he's awake!'
Puzzled, Jason shook his head. 'But how can you be sure? How do you know you share the same dreams? Has he told you? A rare event that, for he scarcely speaks at all!'
'He doesn't have to,' Nestor was tired of the subject now. 'I only have to wake up in the middle of the night in our room, and look at him sleeping there, and I know. Now and then, not very often, I can read his mind as clearly as the spoor of a wild pig. Read it, and hate it!'
'Hate it?' Again Jason was astonished, by the fire in the other's voice, and by his passion. 'Hate your brother's mind? But why? Is he devious?'
But Nestor merely scowled, shook his head, and finally sighed. 'What, Nathan, devious? No, I hate it because he's as gentle and trusting as the doves nesting in the eaves!'
Jason found it all very hard to understand, and not least Nestor's curiously mixed emotions. 'You share your brother's dreams and read his thoughts,' he shook his head in wonder of it. 'Well, the way I see it, it can mean only one thing: that you are true Szgany, Nestor, both of you! For there are mysteries in our blood which even we can't understand. Why, there could even be something of the Wamphyri in you — !' He quickly held up a hand to ward off any protest (though in fact Nestor would be the last to take offence at his remark). '- As there is in most of us, naturally. For in the old days the Wamphyri were like a plague among us, and there are throwbacks even now. My father believes it's the source of all Szgany mysticism: the power of fortune-tellers who read dreams and palms, and seers who scry afar.'
Nestor pulled a face. 'You really believe in such stuff?' Obviously Jason was even more naive than he'd suspected. 'Can you show me one genuine — what, mystic? — in all Settlement? And am I, Nestor Kiklu, a mystic? Not likely, nor would I want to be. No, it's simply that we shared our mother's womb, were born together, and brought up almost as one. Except we're not one but entirely different. And finally… I've had enough of him.'
'Of your own brother?'
'Yes,' Nestor answered. 'Of the trouble he's been to me, and the trouble still to come.'
'Ah!' said Jason. For he believed he understood something of that, at least.
Nestor frowned at him. 'Ah?'
Jason saw his mistake at once and tried to change the subject. 'Back on Starside, you said that Nathan was neither deaf nor daft. And yet a moment ago you called him an idiot. Something doesn't match up.'
Now Nestor scowled. 'A lot doesn't match up,' he answered. 'Like the way you're avoiding saying what's on your mind! Now out with it.'
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 liv
e 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…'
'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 Sunside 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 Sunside 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.
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 Vormspire — 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 pr
opulsors 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.
