'You are sick!' Wratha told him, feigning concern. Take us down before we crash, and let me care for you until you're well again.'
Gripped by this dread lethargy, he began to do as Wratha suggested, settling his flyer down towards the trees. But deep within he suspected that she was the source of his discomfort, and instead of landing squared his shoulders to fight off whatever it was that sickened him. Which was when Wratha used her knife, driving it into his back to the hilt. In fact the knife had been given to her as an instrument of mercy, so that she could take her own life. But that wasn't her way. Indeed, life had never been so dear to her.
She wrenched the ironwood blade this way and that in the lieutenant's back, until he cried out and his spine arched in agony. Then, as he slumped sideways in the saddle, Wratha toppled him into space. He crashed down in the pines, and a moment later his flyer followed suit. Unhurt, Wratha jumped free and went to look for him where she'd seen him fall. She found him under the canopy of the trees, groaning and badly broken, and hurled dust of silver in his face until he breathed it in. And as he coughed and choked, so she stabbed him again and again: in the eyes to blind him, then in the heart to make an end of it. And finally she set about dismembering him.
But in the twilight hours before sunup, the light of her fire was seen by a late patrol out of Turgosheim. Suspicious riders came winging to investigate — and discovered Wratha burning the lieutenant's pieces!
She was retaken — this time knocked unconscious — and so at last was brought in with the other tithelings. Except of course where they were innocent, she was guilty of this 'heinous' crime against the Starside Lords, and naturally her life was forfeit. No question of what should become of her, or to whom should go the task of execution. For her thrall victim had a brother, also a lieutenant…
The other tithelings were assigned, but Wratha was handed over to Radu Cragsthrall, to do with as he wished, so long as his final act was to kill her. Radu was the brother of Lathor, the lieutenant she had killed. But he was also thrall-in-chief to Karl the Crag, and dwelled in Cragspire. Karl was a rock of a man, Wamphyri through and through, but of all that a capricious Nature had given him in physical strength, she had taken back in wits. In short, he was a dullard.
And Radu paraded Wratha proud and naked before his Lord Karl, listing all the many things he would do to her, before she paid the ultimate price; which list was long and detailed. At first Karl applauded his chief lieutenant, but Wratha had caught his eye and was not cowed by Radu's threats. Hers was a stunning beauty, with hair blacker than night and eyes to match, legs long as sundown, pointy breasts, and a behind firm as an apple. And her mouth was a special delight: shaped like a crossbow's wings, pouting, and fitted with a soft dart of a tongue whose sting… Karl might not find displeasing. A dark Gypsy jewel, she tilted her breasts at him, so that he lusted after her.
Radu saw the girl's ploy, ceased numbering his intended torments, knocked her to her knees. She cried out and fell against Karl where he sat, and hugged his legs to her breasts. And as she begged his protection, so Radu rushed upon her. But the Lord Karl of Cragspire held up a hand… simply that, but more than enough. Which was when Radu, stalled, had made what could so easily have been a fatal error. 'She is mine!' he had snarled. 'She was given to me!'
'Aye,' Karl nodded his great head. 'Just as you are mine, given to me. But with the heat of your words — this which you would do to her, and that which you will do — you have set my juices working, and I would try her first. So tell me: do you make objection?' And all the while Wratha hugging his thighs, saying:
'Save me, Lord! Save me! I killed his brother because he would have taken me, to which end he landed his flyer in the hills. But am I to be given to mere thralls, while even the greatest of Wamphyri Lords goes wanting?'
Radu calmed down. Blood was in his Lord's eye and a dab of spittle at the corner of his mouth. True, Karl was a great fool and easy to handle when he was at peace with the world, but when his mood was sour… then the vampire in him took over. No sensible idea to turn him sour now. And so he said: 'Do I make objection? No, of course not, Lord — except that she is unworthy! But if it will amuse you, have her first by all means, and instruct her in your ways. For after all, what better teacher could she have?'
'Exactly,' Karl growled, and that was that.
Then… the Lord Karl took his time about the 'trying' of Wratha, the while becoming enamoured of her. Finally she bowed to being vampirized by him, which was inevitable: stuff of his got into her from his kisses and embraces, also from those acts which she performed to entertain and ensnare him. However and for all of which, she let herself be Karl's thrall only insofar as that without him she was doomed, and no further. Her will was that strong, and in Wratha's case his was that weak. But at least as Karl's paramour her life was spared — for the moment. A respite she must put to good use.
Now Karl knew he must let Radu have Wratha in the end; or if not 'must', then 'should'. She had been rightly condemned to death by Radu's hand, and Karl could only lose face among his Wamphyri peers if he prolonged matters. And so he was in the dilemma of being, as it were, in thrall to a thrall. And meanwhile Wratha pleaded that she would do anything to avoid her fate, if only Karl could show her the means of her delivery. She did not wish to die but live forever… with Karl, in Cragspire, of course.
The time came one night when she fell asleep in his arms, crying how she loved him and must be with him always. And Karl determined that she would be. Draining her to the last drop of blood while first she slept, then swooned, and finally died, he laid her prone in a private room and crossed her arms on her breast; then called Radu to see what he had done. 'There,' he said. The sentence is carried out. What does it matter who killed her or how? She is dead. Soon she will be undead, and mine, wherefore you need no longer concern yourself.' Dullard that he was, he didn't see the glint in Radu's eyes, or the way his chief lieutenant choked back his anger.
For Radu was no fool; he'd seen for himself the strength of Wratha's will, her tenacity, her lust for life. Now, for the moment, she was dead, but when — if — she rose up again, then she would be even stronger. And no room for both of them in the service of Lord Karl of Cragspire then…
So that when Karl was out and about seeing to his affairs, Radu took Wratha down into a secret place away from the spires and manses and prepared a chamber for her. And the chamber was a niche at the back of a deep dark cave, which he walled up with many tons of boulders, even bringing the entrance crashing down with his furious energy. So that at last the sentence was carried out, and Radu was satisfied.
Later, when Karl returned to Cragspire and found Wratha's room empty, he raged a while. Radu could only shrug and look mystified. A flyer was missing: obviously Wratha had woken up, stolen the beast, flown off. Perhaps they could track her down? They tried, Radu, Karl and two lesser lieutenants, to no avail. Then, because it would soon be sunup, they returned to Cragspire. It was possible Wratha had tried to go back to Sunside. Well, too bad. By now the sun would be melting her away.
But in fact it was only melting the poor flyer, which Radu had ordered south for as long and as far as it could fly. And so life returned to normal in Cragspire, while in a walled-up niche in a blocked cave in a deserted ravine, death returned to undeath…
Wratha woke up!
She woke up with a small cry, in darkness like that of the tomb… and could see as if it were daylight! She could see in fact that this was a tomb — hers! And in a moment she knew what had happened, and even guessed something of how it had happened and who was chiefly responsible. Then for a while she wept, tore her hair and beat her breast, for she believed that already she could feel herself turning into a stone, petrifying in the earth.
Madness swiftly followed. She screamed and tore at the wall of boulders, which shifted ominously and threatened to roll inwards and crush her. Then, sobbing, she sat and hugged herself, and wondered how long the air would last; certainly the jumbled rocks were airtight, sealing her in like wine in a jar.
But… what did the air matter? Even when it was putrid she would live on, for she was a vampire now and could not die twice except she die as a vampire: by the stake, the sword and the fire. Which meant that in a century — or two, or three — she would quite literally stiffen to a lonely fossil here in the earth. But long before then, in days or weeks, she would be so weakened that movement was impossible, when she must simply lie here remembering her miserable life, and loathing the miserable creatures who had brought her to this unthinkable end.
Her madness returned! She cried out, shriek upon pealing shriek! Until it seemed to her that out of the very walls of rock far faint echoes… came back to her?
But echoes? In an airless tomb?
Then Wratha sprang up and searched the cave top to bottom, end to end, what little space had been left for her to search. And at last she found a hole no wider than her shoulders, no higher than the distance between her chin and the top of her head, out of which came a breath from gulfs beyond. A breath of fresh air!
