The Last Aerie (58 page)

Rising up, he bathed thoroughly and breakfasted. It was hardly the hour for it, but he felt he should fuel himself on a little something at least. Sunside honey, coarse bread, fresh milk from his udderlings (some of which were once women, others which were still shads, but all of them grown huge through various metamorphic processes), and just a morsel of meat, sweet rabbit from Suckscar’s farm. He still had no real appreciation of manflesh, except in the liquid which is the life: blood.

Then he threw off his robe and got dressed in hisfinest, softest leathers, following which there was little more than an hour left to wait. Prowling his rooms to and fro, he knew what an ardent young lover he must seem to anyone who saw him like this. But no one did see him, except—

—Glina!

She had come up through her spiral staircase and stood in a curtained archway watching him. And Nestor had been so lost in his own thoughts that he had not noticed her. But now:

“Yes, what is it?” And he was surprised to recognize an edge in his voice, as if he were hiding something—as if he, Lord Nestor Lichloathe, should require to hide anything from a common vampire thrall such as Glina!

“I … I thought I heard you call me,” she answered. And he knew it was a lie.

“You came to spy on me.” His voice was quiet, which signaled danger.

“On you, Nestor?” She’d been familiar with him right from the start; when they were together in his bed, he even demanded it. “Why would I spy? All there is to know about you, I already know. Except why you went to your bed so early, and why you’re up already and dressed. Perhaps you have an appointment?”

“Do you question me?” He frowned. “Do you dare?” His voice was still low, but harsher now. “Who have you been speaking to, Zahar?”

“I have not seen Zahar for a day and a half. Is something wrong?” Her voice was full of a genuine concern.

Nestor’s frown lifted, but slowly. Finally he sighed and shook his head. “Nothing is wrong. Go now.”

“You do not… want me?”

“Not now,” (and probably not ever again; for already she palled, without that he’d even been to Wratha as yet). “Later, possibly.” (But only possibly.)

She looked a little sad, hung her head, and nodded. “So be it.” And drawing the curtains behind her, she descended her spiral stairwell. But strangely, Nestor felt a lump enter his throat, causing him to call out: “How fares the little one?”

The footsteps paused and her answer came back: “He is as well as can be. Would you see him? Should I bring him to you?”

“Not now,” he said again. “Perhaps later …” But in truth he had no interest in the child and occasionally wondered:
What is this human baby doing in Suckscar anyway?
It were better if he’d taken Canker Canison’s advice that time, killed her out of hand and let the dog-Lord breakfast on the infant. Except Glina had had her uses then. And perhaps she would again. She was as good and better in his bed than any of the others, anyway…

By the time he had thought these thoughts, she was gone.

But when he went up by a narrow, cobwebbed, disused route into Wrathspire, she was watching him from a shadowy niche. And she knew there was only one place he could be going.

And so Glina continued to know all there was to know about Nestor Lichloathe …

Wratha had promised the way would be easy, but Nestor couldn’t believe how easy. Neither common thrall, lieutenant nor warrior guarded the route from Suckscar to Wrathspire. From the pens in the rear of Wratha’s landing bays, he heard the subdued mewling of flyers; in the level above he was aware of a distant clamour and the frantic clanking of chains, as if some creature knew of an intruder and hurled itself about in a pointless frenzy; in the next level a shadow was glimpsed just the once, which silently, discreetly retreated and vanished.

It was
that
easy.

True, Nestor had kept well away from the main passageways and staircases, so that his route had been circuitous; also a fact that as dawn approached, Wrath-spire’s vampire inhabitants would be taking to their beds, all except for a skeleton staff and watch. But apart from the aforementioned and entirely acceptable exceptions—the mewling flyers, the distant protests of some fearsome guardian, and the fleeting presence of a very discreet shadow—he’d neither seen nor heard anything to inspire fear or flight.

Then, as he approached the penultimate level, he was met by a beautiful vampire girl who bowed and told him she was Wratha’s handmaiden, here to escort him to her mistress. Her dress was thin and deep-cut between her pointed breasts, which showed in all their ripeness when she bowed. She was very shapely: as comely and desirable—perhaps even more desirable—as any of his own women, Nestor thought. And as he followed her, she glanced back at him coyly and said:

“My Lady trusts you met with no obstacle on your way up?”

“None.” He shook his head. “I came by an indirect route. I am discreet.”

“I know my Lady would appreciate that,” she answered. “But had you chosen even the most direct route, it would make little or no difference. Wratha makes you welcome here. As for discretion, my Lady gives orders which are obeyed. When she instructs her thralls, “in this or that hour you will all be in your beds … nothing will stir … I am not to be disturbed”, then the only indiscretion would be to disobey her.”

“I see,” Nestor answered.

He followed her up a narrow staircase, a steeply rising tunnel hewn through solid rock. The light was dim but it made no difference; their vampire eyes saw clear as day. And since she led the way and her dress was short, he saw her nakedness beneath. At the top of the stairs was a landing and a niche, where chains hung empty from the rear wall. Normally a guardian warrior would be stationed here.

They entered a narrow tunnel, and where the way was narrowest she flattened herself to the wall. “You may pass,” she told him, smiling in her eerie fashion. “At the end of the passage you’ll enter a junction with several tunnels leading off, one of which is marked with my Lady’s sigil.”

He made to pass her front-to-front, and her hand at once fell to his member to stroke and clutch it. Fixed there, astonished, he watched as she used her free hand to part her dress so that her breasts lolled free. Then:

“What? And is this your idea of discretion?” he husked, brushing by her at last. “What would your mistress say to this, I wonder?” But for all that his words were a threat, still he was tempted. His blood was up and his member jumped and jerked in her hand even through his leathers. His eyes were drawn to her breasts, too, which looked delicious, so that it was hard not to reach for them.

But before he could move to do so, the girl released him, laughed and repeated: “My only indiscretion would have been to disobey her! For if you had come to her with anything less than passion, it would not be enough. Many men would be unmanned by the prospect of entering another’s manse, unarmed and entirely vulnerable. After all, the way is dark and dire, and you could have met with monsters! Your …
ardour
might have suffered as a result. In which case I would ask you to turn back here and now, go away and wait for a better time. Ah, but it is obvious that the Lord Nestor is no such faintheart! Indeed you are … what, ready? And so is my Lady Wratha.”

Following which she put her breasts away, turned her back on him and ran back the way they’d come, leaving Nestor to wonder:
What was all
of that about? More garnish for the poisoned meat?

In any case, too late now but to carry on and taste it…

As Nestor entered Wratha’s private chambers, it was at once apparent that these were a Lady’s quarters. He knew they were, of course, but even if he’d been ignorant of that fact…

There were
mirrors
here, for a start: plates of gold hammered flat and polished to a high sheen, which gave warmth and life to his reflected features even though they were cold and lacked the spark that sets common humanity apart. He would have known from the mirrors alone that this was a Lady’s manse, for only an extremely vain Lord would adorn his walls with such as these; and even then, given the greatest possible vanity, it could never compensate for the awareness of lack of soul which was the true message that Wratha’s mirrors imparted. No, mirrors were an abomination, which since time immemorial had been used by the Szgany of Sunside to reflect lethal sunlight into the faces of their Starside enemies. But apparently Wratha had risen above such things; she was
pleased
to see herself as she really was … however she was.

Well, and now Nestor, too, could look upon his own face again, examining it in full for the first time since leaving … since he became Wamphyri. And what he saw
was
a tall and handsome Lord, albeit a Lord who wondered at his own temerity, that he’d come here of his own free will where wiser men than he might fear to tread.

But as he looked at himself, it seemed he saw something else. And for all that he knew he was host to a vampire leech, still he did not like the corrugations which made his skin reptilian, and the cobra’s hood which suddenly shielded his brow and eyes. These things were illusion, he knew, and engendered of his own mind; but still he preferred the looks of the man to that of the thing which governed him.

Turning abruptly from the mirror, he took in at a glance this anteroom which he’d entered through a narrow archway hung with bat-fur drapes. It would appear to be Wratha’s dressing-room, where she tended her looks in private. There was a stone washbasin, carved ironwood shelves for powders, perfumes and oils, and several niches cut back into the walls where various garments were kept on bone hangers. The Lady Wratha did not go wanting for clothes.

Her undergarments were of best quality Szgany lace; outer clothing was generally of soft leathers and skins; dresses were bat-fur, or the soft white hide of young albino bears. Wratha’s boots were of good shad-leather hand-tooled by Szgany craftsmen; the soles of her slippers were of flexible white cartilage fitted with leather thongs; a number of curved, intricately carved scarps of bone (the shields which she wore upon her brow to disguise the rare but disturbing disorder of the eyes which transformed her whenever she gave sway to ungovernable rages or furious emotions) had been fashioned to be ornamental rather than functional. There were earrings, bangles and anklets, pendants and brooches, mostly in common gold …

Nestor saw all of these things and the thought occurred
: But with so many items here, what can she be wearing now?

Nothing!
came back the answer, and her low, unmistakable laughter tinkling in his mind
. Why don’t you come through? Do you
find my clothes so fascinating, then? If so, then what of my nakedness?

Apart from the tunnel or passageway by which he’d entered, there was only one exit. And holding his breath (though why he could never have said, for nothing in the world could make him back off now), Nestor passed through more ropes of bat-fur into Wratha’s bedchamber. And there he found her, clad as foretold in nothing—but foam and water!

She was in her bath!

“But as you see, there’s plenty of room for two.” Wratha smiled, and Nestor had never seen anything more seductive.

His fate was now entirely in her hands. Right now, without delay, she could call her lieutenants or guardian warriors, and that would be the end of the necromancer Lord Nestor Lichloathe of the Wamphyri. He knew it and she knew it. But they both knew that this was not her purpose and could never be so long as the One Big Question remained unanswered. For there was something else they must know, which knowledge would be carnal: the culmination of that consuming attraction which had been growing between them since the morning Wran the Rage gave Nestor Vasagi’s egg and brought him out of Sunside.

He took a pace towards her huge bath—at least six and a half feet square where it had been cut into the floor, and finished at the rim with glazed Szgany tiles—and behind him as he paused, his leather jacket fell to the coarse-woven carpet. Wratha was a mass of milky bubbles; opaque, they hid her loveliness from view.

Another pace, and his shirt was left behind. She lifted up her milk-white arms to him, and Nestor’s breathing went hoarse and ragged as the upper halves of her breasts bobbed on the water and dripped foam.

“Can you do this?” she said. Her eyes, scarlet just a moment ago, were dark now and Gypsyish. “Metamorphism,” she told him. “It is draining but sometimes worth it; worth it here and now, for I know there’s still a lot of Szgany in you. You want innocence, Nestor, and as you will see, Wratha can be innocent if needs be.”

He took a third pace towards her, and now he was as naked as the Lady herself.

“But you don’t know that,” she taunted, again reading his mind. “Perhaps beneath the foam, I’m wearing some gauzy shift.” She laughed again, stared pointedly at his throbbing, jerking manliness, and licked her scarlet lips. And her eyes were full of him.

“Then I’ll go through it,” he husked, as if he were driving the words through the crusts of his dry throat.

“You are dry,” she said. “But see, there’s a measure of good Szgany wine here.” Reaching out, she touched a stone jug and golden goblets where they stood on the tiled rim.

He was at the edge and saw a step just under the surface where Wratha’s wavelets disturbed the water. Swallowing hard, he answered, “I know what I want to drink, and from which dark well.”

And now the Lady’s voice was as husky and drunk with lust as Nestor’s own, as she told him: “I know your come will be as sweet as your fine firm body. And so we’ll drink together.”

As he stepped down into the bath and reached for her, the water and foam swirled round his rubbery knees. But Wratha held back, breathless as she instructed him: “Bathe me, and I shall bathe you. To touch is allowed, but nothing more for now. We’ll make all parts clean as never before, before we dirty them.”

“I want you now.” His voice was a growl.

“Don’t spoil it, Nestor.” She shook her head. “In times to come we’ll fuck in this bath a hundred times, I know it. But as for now … my bed is waiting. What, and would you drink froth and bubbles along with my juices? But when we’ve bathed you’ll be so much harder, and I shall be so much softer …”