stem…
'Ben has told me what it was: a 'tactical weapon,' he says — which I'm told means a small one of its kind — had been fired through the Gate from the underground complex at Perchorsk. And would you believe it, he pretends not to understand why I still think of your world as the Hell-Lands!?
'So, we didn't know it was a weapon, and since its deadly cloud swept north we didn't suffer its effects on Sunside. But when it was all over and done the Gate shone as bright as ever, and Starside looked no different, except now beyond the Gate a softly glowing plume lay fallen on the earth, forever pointing in the direction of the Icelands. And no matter the rainstorms or howling winds, the plume was always there.
'Then for a while we blessed the Gate, because it had issued that awful breath of hell that destroyed the first and last of the Wamphyri. So we thought for long and long. And this time I admit that I believed it, too. For with ah1 we had learned of the tenacity of the vampire, we had not yet learned the lessons of history…
'Let me go back a little way. At an earlier time, following the battle in The Dweller's garden, Harry Keogh, called Hell-Lander, had fallen sick. At the time we'd thought it must be similar to the sickness that was in his son, The Dweller, for both men had used the power of the sun itself as a weapon against the Wamphyri, wherefore both might have suffered similar scorchings. The Dweller — who had seemed the most badly burned — was soon well on his way to recovery; so we thought. Yet his father, far less badly affected, if at all… he had fallen ill.
'Er, but all of this is incidental to my story, you understand.
'Anyway, the Necroscope had a Szgany woman, Nana Kiklu,
to tend him where he lay tossing in his fever upon a bed in one of the garden's houses… The Dweller had built small stone homes for his trog servitors, and Harry lay ill in one of these. Now, Nana's man, Hzak, had died in the fight for the garden, and she was without child. And here was Harry Keogh, also called Dwellersire, a handsome man of rare skills and soaring intelligence, mumbling in his fever dreams of olden loves and lusts.
'I need say no more — indeed, I know no more — except that nine months later Nana gave birth to twin boys, one of whom was Nathan. Which explains why we oft-times refer to 'Harry and his sons'. As to the other son, Nestor… but he grew up wild, and doesn't concern us here.
'Many years passed and Nathan grew into a youth. But while he possessed the germ of his alien father's skills, no one knew of it because we believed he was Hzak Kiklu's son, conceived at the time of the battle in The Dweller's garden. Well, perhaps I had guessed otherwise. But Nana was a good, hard-working woman, and I was fond of her boys, both of them at that time. And anyway, the Szgany Lidesci had always had more than its fair share of gossipy, chattering hags. It wasn't for me to offer them yet another tidbit to cackle over. And remember, even I didn't know that he was, or would soon become, more like his father.
'So then, and now you know something of Nathan. But a deal more to come later…
'I have mentioned my annual trek into Starside, when — as if to reassure myself that the vampires were no more, and their aeries toppled, all save one — I would venture to the foot of lone Karenstack and gaze up at that great grim relic of ancient horror, and shout into its nether caverns until the echoes sounded to bring down the dust. Came a time, when I was returning home from just such a journey, I felt that I was witness to… something. But I couldn't be sure.
'It had become my habit to pause in the mouth of the pass at a certain hour, the hour of sun-up, climb to a higher elevation and gaze back on the emptiness of Starside and the boulder plains. On Sunside it would be morning now; but here, Starside of the pass, the barrier mountains cast their shadows for many an uncounted mile out across the barren waste. And here it was that a certain sight had never failed to gladden me: the first rays of the morning sun lighting on the topmost spires of the last great aerie of the Wamphyri.
'How it buoyed me up to see that purifying light burning there, to watch a golden stain spreading over the highest ramparts of that vast tower of evil, and to know that nothing was hiding within, behind bone balconies and black-draped windows. Yes, it made these pointless-seeming trips of mine worthwhile; it satisfied my seer's blood, which even now, all these years later, was wont to bring me awake, clammy and troubled in the dead of night.
'But this time, even after I had climbed back down to the pass, something seemed burned on the surface of my eye… and in my mind. 'But of course' — I told myself— 'the sun, even reflected from the uppermost fangs of an aerie, is a brilliant, dazzling thing that can blur your vision and cast false images, if only momentarily.' Ah, but on this occasion that moment went on and on, and I could not forget it.
'Karenstack: in my mind's eye it continued to burn. Karenstack, and something else I had thought to see. And every time I closed my eyes the picture came up clearer: the aerie's crest aglow with its false halo of fire. But below the area of reflected light, where the golden rays could never reach:
'Black motes swirling, jetting, settling towards the yawning gape of a vast landing bay. They appeared as midges at that distance, but what would they be up close?
'It was my imagination, of course. What, close on a thousand sun-ups come and gone since the Gate spat hell at the last of the Wamphyri, and still I didn't accept it but kept on conjuring nightmares out of thin air, sunlight, and swirls of dust? HahlThey would say I was mad!
'And after that, the way I set off for home — almost at a run — I'm sure my companions did think I was mad. But even if I
was, my seer's blood was not. And the attack on Sunside, and on Settlement, the town we had built at the edge of the forest under the mountains, came at the next sundown.
'The Wamphyri were back, this time from the east, a place beyond the Great Red Waste. They were led by a Lady, Wratha the Risen, and though Wratha's band was small its members were evil and ruthless as any gone before. Canker Canison was a dog-Lord; I hesitate even to hazard a guess at his lineage! And Gorvi the Guile, who was so devious as to be legendary even among his own kind. And Vasagi the Suck, whose face was like that of a stinging insect. Aye, and blood-crazed twins named Wran and Spiro — also called the Killglance brothers — whose very cognomen says it all. But they were only the harbingers of a worse, a greater force still to come.
'It was the Lord Vormulac Unsleep, who pursued Wratha from the east to punish her for fleeing his jurisdiction. And Vormulac's army was a horde!
'But let me cut a long story short. This was the time when Nathan came into his own, though not without great trials. When he was taken by the Wamphyri and thrown into the Starside Gate, who could imagine he would be back? Here in your world, in Perchorsk, he was captured by evil men, escaped, fled to Ben Trask and E-Branch, who helped develop his powers… even as they'll try to develop yours, Jake.
'Finally Nathan returned to Sunside, with Zek — sweet Zekintha, ah! — and Trask, lan Goodly, David Chung, and other good men, and marvellous weapons from the Hell-Lands — or 'Earth,' as I must learn to think of this place. And at last we could carry their bloodwar back to the Wamphyri on Starside!
'And we did. But Nathan: it seems he had his father's powers and then some. Or perhaps it was the talents of all of that brave band, for certainly they were all in on it at the end. It was five years ago, Jake, but I remember it like yesterday. Who could forget such a thing?
'Nathan and the others had walked into a trap at the Starside Gate. He'd been trying to send his companions safely home again, back through the Gate to Perchorsk and out of the thick of the fighting. But vampire lieutenants stood in the way, and no room for manoeuvring. Nathan and his colleagues must stand and fight. They had Earth weapons, aye, but were low on ammunition; eventually they must be taken. And if Nathan were taken, what then of Sunside? But here I'm being selfish and perhaps I should ask: what then for Earth? For the Wamphyri — now under the leadership of Devetaki Skullguise, a mentalist Lady of awesome skill and enormous greed — had learned the Gate's secret. They knew that beyond it lay an entire world ripe for the taking.
'Now, don't ask me how it was done, for I'm a simple man. But Nathan and the others, linking hands, they pitted themselves against the Starside Gate itself. The Gate is immovable — even that incredible 'tactical weapon' that destroyed Shaithis and Shaitan had not moved it nor even marred its surface — and sitting there on the boulder plains it seemed anchored in position, perhaps by its own enormous gravity? Wherefore, in order to move the Gate, a man or men must move the world.'
'And they did. With all their weird talents together, acting in unison they willed the Gate to move south. South towards the rising sun, which had never once shone on Starside since an age long forgotten. And the Gate — and the world — moved! The world turned, all Sunside/Starside, turning like a great wheel, and the sun rising ever faster over the barrier mountains. And the Wamphyri, their lieutenants, creatures and all were seared in a moment…
'And now, surely it must be over? Why, with the turning of the world even the last aerie had fallen like a felled giant, toppling onto the boulder plains! All that remained of that great and monstrous tower was its stump,
