The Last Aerie (12 page)

Nestor’s gaze was attracted to the dome of the ceiling, where on several occasions he’d sensed some strange, furtive activity. Now he saw what it was: a colony of giant Desmodus bats! For in the darkest corners and the gloom of deep ledges (from which locations their spillage could neither intrude nor disgust), Wrathspire’s lesser
habitants
clung like dense black cobwebs or fragments of a shroud to walls and ceiling, causing the darkness to crawl there. Even as Nestor watched, a party of latecomers entered through a window, chittering shrilly as they dispersed to various parts of the living blanket. Vampires all, though not of the human strain, these were Wratha’s familiars. And Nestor wondered—but in no way morbidly—if he would be heir to just such a colony, five levels down in Suckscar.

While making these observations, Nestor had continued to eat, until now he was replete. Sighing, he stripped a last morsel of tender flesh from the thigh bone of a wolf-cub, glanced round the table … and paused in his chewing. Every eye seemed rapt upon him: the way he had disposed of his food. Finally he put down the gleaming bone, ran his fingers through his hair to clean them, and glanced at Wran questioningly. The Rage seemed to find something amusing; he stifled a laugh and merely grinned, and took another sip from his jack. But Wratha, no less fascinated than the others, raised an eyebrow and said:

“Well, at least
one
of us has an appetite!” Which galvanized the rest of her guests to something of activity, at least. For now they, too, took up their skewers …

In a little while, as all of them about the table joined Nestor in swilling wine and picking at various tidbits, Wratha stood up and rapped for attention. “My Lords,” she began, dryly, “we are gathered here to honour a special person upon a rare and special occasion. Namely: the reception of Wran Killglance on his return out of Sunside, where in the night he had business with Vasagi the Suck. Alas, Vasagi is no more. I now call upon Wran—called the Rage, and rightly—to tell us all, and spare no detail of trial and triumph in the telling.” She sat down. It had been a standard opening; the Lords among them had all heard much the same before in Turgosheim, usually from Vormulac Unsleep, master of melancholy Vormspire.

Wran sat up straighter, and made as if to begin. At which … an interruption! It was a sound or series of sounds: a burble of notes, piping trills, as of Sunside birds—issuing from a stairwell. At first an odd fluting, soon it turned to laughter, and then the two interspersed. Curious whistles, and gales of raucous laughter! And:

“Canker Canison!” Wran scowled, before that one had even presented himself. But in another moment he appeared, with one of Wratha’s thralls bowing him in. Nestor looked, saw him, and his jaw dropped. So this was the missing Lord. But a Lord? The others around the table were mainly human—or born of woman, at least—but this one? Oh, there was
something
of humanity in him, but there was a great deal more of something else!

Later, Nestor would learn a little of Canker’s history, his unutterable
lineage
: that somewhere in his ancestry there had been a fox, dog or wolf. Whichever, the creature had probably strayed from its normal hunting grounds on Sunside or in the mountains and wandered into the swamps east of Turgosheim to drink. There it had become infected by a spore and emerged a vampire changeling. After that, the possibilities were several:

It had bitten or savaged someone, and so passed on a canine strain of vampirism. Or … inside the beast, a leech had developed from the vampire spore, whose egg later transferred to a man or woman, who became Wamphyri and ascended in Turgosheim. Or … some vampire had sired a litter on a dog bitch, she-wolf, or vixen; not necessarily by miscegenation, probably by biting the creature when she was pregnant. Or—in the case of someone like Canker—perhaps even sexually …

Whichever, evidence of this—mongrel—ancestry had been apparent in the line ever since, and never more so than in Canker Canison. Standing upright and leaning forward (his normal posture), he was tall as a tall man but his limbs were all out of proportion. Shoulders, thighs and chest were massive, while forelegs were slender, sinewy, wolf-like.

Canker’s hands … were hands; but his knob-like, thickly padded feet were plainly paws. Instead of nails, his hands and feet alike were equipped with claws. Face and head, while basically human, were also disturbingly doglike, with long jaws and canine teeth, triangular eyes, and pointed ears which were mobile, expressive, and thickly furred. Named after the disease of the inner ear which had driven his father baying mad and caused his suicide, Canker, by use of his metamorphism (also by physically sculpting them), had caused the lobes of his own ears to be fretted into curious and intricate designs, which included his sigil, a sickle moon.

Canker’s hair was a wiry, foxy red; his eyes, too, though in dusk or darkness they could as easily turn yellow and feral. His gait was more a long-striding lope than a walk proper, and from time to time he would fall to all fours, then push himself upright with sinuous ease. When he laughed there was more than a hint of howling in it, and the gape of his jaws was enormous. Then, too, he would throw back his head and shake from tip to toe …

He was laughing now, mainly at the long-suffering expressions on the faces of his peers. But as the dog-thing’s laughter died away, so his spiky eyebrows came together in a frown over his long, much-convoluted snout, and his voice became a growling rumble. “Eh, what? And have you started without me?”

“The first gold is on the peaks, Canker,” Wratha observed, without turning a hair. “It is you who are late. For someone who observes the future in dreams, you scarcely seem to observe the present at all; you have no sense of occasion! But now that you are here, won’t you be seated?”

“Late?” He sniffed the air, glancing here and there about the table. “Am I? In which case you must excuse me. I serve the moon, as well you know, and my industry on Her behalf is great. In honour of my silver mistress in the sky, I am constructing … an instrument!” He lifted a bone flute to his moist mouth, blew several ear-piercing notes, then loped to a chair midway between Nestor and Spiro. And seating himself, Canker tossed down the flute upon the table. “This was my inspiration.”

The flute rolled to a rocking standstill in the middle of the table between Nestor and Gorvi the Guile; the latter picked it up, examined it, and said: “You found inspiration in this? A Szgany toy?”

“No.” Canker shook his head and scowled. “Only the pattern is Szgany. But
I
made this flute—of bone! Szgany flutes are of reed, and they break too easily. This one’s notes are purer, because the bore is perfect. Then, having made it, I remembered all the times I had flown over the boulder plains and seen the remains of olden battles. Why, in places the plains are a veritable boneyard! The wars of our ancestors were bloody indeed! Men and monsters alike have died out there, and for a thousand years their bones have bleached under the cold stars, made silver by the moon in Her passing.

“And I thought: those bones have worshipped Her, too, but all in silence. They have
worshipped
my silver mistress, whose light has shone on them through all the centuries! And remembering this flute—or Szgany toy, if you
insist
,” (he scowled at Gorvi), “— I knew what I must do. And I have started!

“In my house are many windows facing north, the Icelands, and the cold winds that blow. I shall build baffles there, in the central level, to gather the winds
within
my manse! There, too, I shall build my instrument.” He looked at the bone flute where Gorvi had put it down. “For if a mere “toy” such as this, in combination with lungs such as mine, can make music fit for the ears of men … how then a mighty orchestra of bones, and the lungs of the very wind itself? So shall I worship Her on high, while Wrathstack thunders to the songs of the long dead and forgotten!” He fell quiet and glared all about the table.

Gorvi nodded and put the flute down, and murmured wryly, “Fit for the ears of men, aye …”

“What?” Canker had heard him. His ears were sensitive to a fault.

But Gorvi only shrugged. “I was merely … savouring the phrase? Your appreciation of music goes deeper than we had suspected, Canker.”

The other sat back again, loosely in his chair, and likewise shrugged. “It’s a means to an end, that’s all: to lure my silver mistress from the sky, and make Her my mistress proper.” He held up a cautionary, protesting hand. “No, no! Not the moon itself, but the one who dwells there, who … who
calls
to me.” He saw the looks that passed between them, gave himself a shake and sat up straighter.

Then too, as if for the first time, he noticed Nestor and Gore Sucksthrall. “But what’s this? Do common thralls and lieutenants attend your reception, Wran?” And turning his head the other way: “Do you sup with servants, Wratha? Or is it perhaps that they’re the main course?” And he leered at Nestor.

Wran said, “Canker, you are plainly exhausted. Gore Sucksthrall here is a lieutenant, sure enough, but Nestor? This one has ascended: he has an egg. Indeed, he has Vasagi’s egg, for the Suck has no more use for it! But I’m surprised you didn’t sniff it out for yourself.”

“Ahhh!
The vampire egg of Vasagi? This boy?” Canker leaned closer to Nestor and sniffed cautiously, as if at suspect meat. But in a moment: “Yes, I see you’re right!”

“And now if you’ll hear me out, I’ll tell all,” said Wran.

The others were all ears, except Nestor himself. He knew the tale well enough and could afford to let his attention wander a little. It didn’t wander too far, however, for diagonally across the table, Gore Sucksthrall was glaring pure poison at him from furious, blazing eyes!

III

Lord Nestor of the

Wamphyri

Wran kept it short:

“Vasagi and I, we flew off in different directions from Madmanse and Suckscar. Our arguments had been one too many, and our enmity seemed insurmountable. This was the only honourable way to settle it: man to man on Sunside. For weapons we had our gauntlets, nothing else. I saw Vasagi flying at a distance. We acknowledged each other, a nod of the head. And even at that range he sent a thought:
I hope you’ve said your last farewells, Wran. If not, too late now. For only one of us can return. Alas, it won’t be you!

“I thought to make some derisory answer but the distance was increasing. Despite Vasagi’s superior mentalism, he probably wouldn’t hear me; my range was not so extensive. In that respect, who among us is—or was—equal to Vasagi? Having no speech as such, his telepathy supplemented his ridiculous miming! Still, his words had served as a warning. Not that I feared him, you understand, but he had reminded me of his skill as a thought-thief. From then on, I would keep my own thoughts very well guarded.

“I landed on Sunside east of the great pass, and maneuvered my flyer back into a thicket of tall trees growing on the hillside. In front was a bluff. When all was done I could call my creature forward and launch without hindrance. And then I waited.” He paused.

“You … waited?” said Gorvi. “You didn’t hunt for him?”

Wran shook his head. “My thought was that he would hunt for me. If I moved about, changing my location, it would only make his task more difficult. And the sooner we came together the better. And so I waited … well, for a little while. But this was Sunside and I could smell the smoke of a Szgany campfire not long extinguished; so that suddenly, the urge was on me! Oh, it’s true I was here for different game this night of nights, but I saw no harm in mixing business with pleasure.

“I went to my flyer and cautioned him to be still, quiet, and wait for me. I forbade any sort of commotion, for whatever reason. Then I headed east on foot, through the foothills. The smoke stench came from that direction; it was faint due to distance and the dispersal of small winds; its source might be as much as seven or eight miles away. That was nothing, for I had an entire night at my disposal. Also, I made no effort to hide my tracks but left a strong spoor. That way, if the Suck should discover my flyer, he would be able to follow my trail without difficulty. But I kept my thoughts constantly guarded, for if he sensed my confidence, it might caution him to keep back.

“Well, eventually I found a small family group of Travellers where they sheltered in a cavelet. My first knowledge of them came when I stumbled across the male having a piss in the dead of night a little way from the cave. When I found him he was half asleep …
fully asleep when I had done! The sleep of the undead. By now, enthralled, doubtless he’s following me through the pass. Later I’ll find him making his way to Wrath-stack, wailing like a banshee and gnashing his teeth where he stumbles across the boulder plains. I hereby lay claim to him. But last night…