The Last Aerie (22 page)

For upon a time Nestor had loved; the ache was still there in his heart, and the hatred. He had loved, and had been rejected. Or rather, his olden enemy had stolen her away. That was as much as he remembered of it; that and the fact that afterwards … well, he had not been the same. Nor would he ever be the same again. For his change then had been physical, wrought of a damaged mind and body, while his change now was psychical, of the spirit. Indeed there was very little of the human spirit left in him. But an inhuman spirit?

And so Nestor rode out upon his flyer and bared his teeth and laughed into the wind, even though he felt that the laughter wasn’t entirely his. But the gold was back on the peaks of the barrier mountains and he dared not fly too high. Soon the tallest towers of Wrathspire would be bathed in yellow glare, and all of Wratha’s curtains closed against the light of day. That was still several hours away, however, and for the moment Nestor displayed his newly acquired mastery of flight, urging his beast into intricate aerial configurations in and out of Wrathspire’s hollow turrets and fretted rock needles.

Then … he saw the Lady Wratha herself.

She was in a turret, watching him at his play and keeping her thoughts hidden. Nestor had sensed her there before, on several occasions, but had never seen her. Seeing her now, distracted by her presence, he momentarily lost control of his flyer and came close to striking a bartizan. But his mount, concerned for its own skin as well as its master’s, instinctively avoided the collision.

Hearing Wratha’s laughter, Nestor wheeled his flyer in a tight circle, alighted on a quarter-acre of roof like a small, sloping plateau, dismounted and went striding towards her turret observation post. “Funny, was it?” he queried angrily. “To distract me, so that I might easily have crashed, wrecked my flyer and gone tumbling over the edge to a certain death?”

From somewhere behind and below her there sounded a warning, echoing rumble and the clatter of scrabbling claws. The turret must conceal a stairwell down into Wrathspire. It was one of the Lady’s exits onto the roof. And Wratha had brought up an escort with her, one of her small personal warriors.

Now her laughter, gay as a girl’s, died away. “Oh, and do you find me a distraction, then, Nestor?” Wratha’s expression was almost but not quite innocent as she stepped from the turret to display herself in her revealing robe of black bat-fur ropes. “But a pleasant one, I trust. Anyway, there was nothing malicious in it. This is my place, after all, and I often look out from here. Oh, I’ve watched you once or twice, and monitored your change. Aye, and I like what I’ve seen of you.”

Nestor came to a halt ten paces away as something dark rose up behind her, adding its darkness to the shadows inside the turret. And then he asked himself
: Has she deliberately lured me here?
Nestor had left his gauntlet behind, hanging from his flyer’s saddle. Well, and what odds? Even with his gauntlet he’d stand no slightest chance against even a small warrior. These were some of the thoughts that passed rapidly through his head as he stood glaring at the Lady and the shadowy shape in the turret behind her. But in the next moment:

Ridiculous!
he thought.
What am I thinking of? I land on another’s territory unbidden and
of my own free will, approach her in anger, and at once consider murderous combat—with a warrior? Madness! Quite obviously this white heat inside my body and head is burning up my brain!

His thoughts were confused, a jumble, entirely unguarded.

“Aha!” said Wratha. “And so he rises!”

Nestor was taken aback. He glanced this way and that and saw nothing. “Who rises?”

She smiled at him wickedly, teasingly perhaps. “Why, your leech, my young Lord! Your parasite. He—or it—rises to ascendancy.”

It explained a lot and was the only clue Nestor needed. “I… I had wondered,” he said, lamely.

“Don’t we all,” she answered, “when first we feel the fever heat, the boundless energy, the furious passion? But looking at you now … oh, it’s perfectly obvious! Your leech is risen and is as one with you. Yes, you are Wamphyri. You need not concern yourself with getting there any longer, Nestor. You
are
there! And soon your fever will cool and leave you fully forged and in command. Or so you’ll believe, anyway.”

Her words shocked him in one way, pleased him in another. But shocked, pleased or both, still some spiteful or prideful urge caused him to reply: “And was there ever any doubt?”

“Possibly not.” She tossed her head.

“Possibly?” He shook his head. “No,
definitely
not! And if the change had been slower, d’you think I would have submitted to Gorvi the Guile’s time limit and let them throw me out?
Hah!
Gorvi setting limits, indeed! What? They would have to invade me in my manse and drag me out of it first. And believe me, the Suck had monsters no less than your own! Well, and they’re mine now.”

She clapped her hands. “You have such energy, Nestor! And all from your leech. But if you weren’t so strong, the change would not have been so fast. And so you see, you and your parasite fit each other like a hand in a glove. You are … strong, aye.” Her eyes beneath their scarp lingered on him. “But just look at you. You were a boy, and now you’re a man. You were—oh, a good six-footer. But now you’re six and a half! You were handsome … well, half-handsome, I suppose, but lacking style. And now you’re dark, sinister, seductively powerful. Every inch a true Lord of the Wamphyri. Come, step closer.”

He did so, saying: “Canker is not dark, sinister, seductive. He is a monster. Gorvi is gaunt as death and devious to a fault. Only Wran fits my picture of a true Lord, and he is overweight and has a wen! What’s more, I suspect that he and Spiro are mad. So all in all, it strikes me there’s nothing glorious about the Wamphyri. Not this bunch, anyway.”

“But their passions are glorious,” she answered quietly, her voice husky where she laid a trembling hand upon his arm and felt the blood coursing and the muscles bunching. “And am I not glorious?”

“You are very beautiful,” he answered, “or would appear to be. And yet… I have heard tales.”

“Would appear to be? Tales?” Her voice was suddenly cold as she drew back from him. “What tales?” Sensing her changing emotions, Wratha’s guardian creature rumbled and glared green-eyed at Nestor from the darkness of the turret. Knowing that the thing would react instantly to her slightest command, he took a precautionary pace to the rear and towards his flyer where it nodded vacantly some small distance away.

“Just tales,” he answered. “The way you keep your eyes hidden beneath that scarp of bone; the blue crystals in your temples, to cool the furnace of your glance; the lie of your flesh, which is not a girl’s but a hag’s. Aye, all of these things and more. For as I understand it the Wamphyri, especially their Ladies, are often deceptive in appearance …”

For a moment she was silent, then:

“Listen to me,” she told him, but with nothing of anger. “Listen and learn. In an hundred years—or even two hundred, if you are fortunate—you will be an old man. But will you look like one? Of course not, because you are Wamphyri! Vain, as most of us are, you will look much as you look now. It is how you will keep yourself. And it is how I have kept
myself
. What? Would you have me wrinkle to a prune when I can look the way I do? For remember: the blood is the life, and it is also the youth! It is my gift to look this way forever, and so I shall. It is my nature …
and
yours. But I may tell you this, my handsome Lord Nestor: Wratha was never a hag. I was beautiful, and I still am. Except…

“You have made it very plain to me that you don’t appreciate beauty, so begone.” Her voice had turned sour. “This is my roof and I did not give you permission to land here. It would serve you right if I loosed my guardian creature upon you.”

She began to turn away, until Nestor stepped forward and on impulse caught her hand. Then, immediately, she turned to him … and deliberately fell into his arms! Her eyes beneath the scarp on her forehead were ablaze, firing the figured bone with red. She half-shuttered them, but not so much as to subdue their scarlet allure. The ropes of her robe parted to display first the tips, then the quivering globes of her proud breasts, and her breath was sweet as Nestor lowered his mouth to drink from hers—but sweet as blood, not honey. It made no difference; there
was
no difference, not to Nestor, not now. Indeed it seemed entirely possible that honey would be bitter by comparison.

And as he kissed her and fondled her breasts, the furious heat inside him threatened to overflow and boil him from within. So hot indeed that Wratha felt it, too, and knew her danger. She would not be raped up here on her own roof, not with all the fading stars peeping down … and not with a huge and empty bed in her rooms below! But all of that must wait. She had no desire to appear easy meat.

So that finally, when his kisses and fondling threatened to engulf her despite her feigned reticence: Come! She pulled herself breathlessly away and issued her mental command.
Protect me!

Being so close to her, Nestor heard her mind-call—and witnessed its result. Her creature came.

It was one of the warriors which Nestor had seen in Wrathspire’s great hall: nine feet tall when upright, yet squat for its height. A thing of inch-thick, blue-grey chitin armour. A thing of claws, jaws, and dagger teeth. Its face was huge and slate-grey, rat-like, flattened and sloping from chin to forehead; yet almost human, too. What, almost? Nestor knew better than that: that indeed the thing
had
been human, upon a time. But its eyes were set too far apart, at the sides, giving it a wide angle of vision. It had short hind legs, long reaching arms, and a shambling but energetic gait—as Nestor now saw.

For roaring like a rutting shad, but five times louder, the creature bore down on him where he backed off from Wratha and turned to run for his flyer. He might even have made it, but in his haste tripped and went to one knee. And Wratha’s warrior was on him! Then …

HOLD!
She sent a mind-blast.
Do him no harm but
simply detain him!

The thing stopped snorting and bellowing at once; it grabbed Nestor around the waist and by his shoulder, and picked him up—literally, as if he were some Szgany child’s toy! It drew him close and gazed at him, turning its loathsome head this way and that the better to observe him. And holding him in mid-air while Wratha approached, it breathed upon him.

The stench was awful! Nestor held his breath; he also held still and made no move or protest, but simply waited for death. For if that was Wratha’s purpose, certainly no one could deny her now. But it was not her purpose.

She approached and looked up at him almost curiously. He gradually eased his head to one side, away from the face of the monster and its gaping jaws, and stared down at her whey-faced. He was totally defenceless; he knew that he was at her mercy, and death only a bite away. But he was also Wamphyri.

“So it looks like … like I’m not going to live for two hundred years after all,” he said. And if it had been possible, he might even have shrugged.

For a moment Wratha said nothing but merely smiled. And he saw how cold that smile of hers was. But in another moment she brightened, gave herself a shake, and said: “Men have always been my problem. As a Szgany girl, as Karl the Crag’s thrall in Cragspire, even as Wratha the Risen in the dark and rocky gorge of Turgosheim. Why, it was because of weak and malicious men that I fled west to this last great aerie, where even now they’re the bane of my life; these dullards with their manses in my stack. But you … are not a dullard, and I think I prefer you alive. It could be I’m making a mistake, but —”
Take him to his flyer.

Her warrior obeyed, stood Nestor on his feet close to his mount, and pushed him in that direction. Stumbling, he caught up the reins and hauled himself up into the saddle. And as he urged his beast to flight:

Visit me again, some time
, Wratha sent. Amazingly, there was never a hint of enmity or malice in her voice.

What,
of my own free will?
he replied, sarcasm dripping from his mind. A moment later, his flyer’s thrusters uncoiled, sending mount and rider skimming down the gentle slope of the plateau.

She laughed in his mind.
Well, then, invite me down into Suckscar. For I’ve only ever been there the once. And we are neighbours, after all.

But I’m the one with warriors, in Suckscar
, he answered.

And now he sensed her shrug, but also her frustration.
So be it, my handsome Lord Nestor. But I’m sure we’ll meet again sometime.

He shot out over the precipitous rim of the last aerie, and ordered his mount home. He had women of his own there, a gaggle of them. What need had he of Wratha the Risen? But on the other hand … the needs of the Wamphyri are great, and Wratha shone in his mind like some strange dark jewel. How could his thralls compare with her? The promise he’d felt when he held her in his arms had been … limitless. He knew that her fire could match his any time.

All of which were thoughts that Nestor kept hidden as well as he could, but perhaps not well enough. For as his flyer dipped below the rim, so Wratha’s tinkling mind-laughter came to him again. And in the cup of his burning hand the feel of her silky breasts, and on his lips the taste of her tainted kiss …

In Suckscar, Zahar was waiting on the return of his Lord. When Nestor landed his flyer in the yawning weathered socket of his personal landing-bay, his first lieutenant was there to take the reins and guide the floundering beast to its pen. Nestor could see that the man wanted words with him, and so waited until his flyer was penned. Then:

“Lord,” said Zahar, joining him and entering into Suckscar proper, and following him to his rooms. “There is a matter …”

“Oh? And what is it?” Nestor turned on the sweeping stone stairs and stared at him. And read trouble in his feral eyes. “Out with it, Zahar.”