You, too, Korath answered. And yet you have mobility, companionship… a future?
My case is different, said Harry. And as for the future, I never underestimate it.
And Jake's case? His future?
There was a slyness in Korath's deadspeak voice, and Harry didn't like it. He wondered if he detected some hidden innuendo, or more likely some kind of threat. Jake is a dreamer, he said. Right now he is no more and no less. He's my apprentice, if you like, and for the moment knows very little about such things — but he will learn. And:
'Huh!' Jake snorted. 'Even if I don't want to, it seems!'
Yessss, said Korath. And I can feel your apprehension. But still Harry is right and you should… learn. If not from him, then perhaps from me?
Harry was at once alarmed. You know what we want from you. And that's all we want. So what's it to be Szwart's origins?
(Harry's deadspeak nod). And more about Malinari's bloodwar — how you survived the Icelands, and how finally you came here.
Korath sighed and said, Very well For I am forgiving, even if you are not.
He was silent for a moment, then sighed again and said: The rest of it, then…
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Survivors
'I can't swear to Szwart's origin/ Korath commenced the final chapter of his story. 'I can only repeat what I heard of him in the service of my master, Malinari of Malstack, all those years ago. And of course I can report what I have seen of him, for he was after all Malinari's co-conspirator, along with Vavara, and shared with them in their banishment when they were whelmed by the forces of Dramal Doombody…
'As for Szwart's 'visit' to Lord Stakis's Narkslump: while that had occurred as a prelude to the actual hostilities, obviously it was an important factor in the heightening tension between the soon-to-be-warring parties. I recall that soon after Narkus's demise, as angry rumblings from the aeries grew louder, Malinari arranged the latest of several get-togethers with his future partners, Vavara and Szwart.
'By then, when they ventured abroad from their respective stacks, all three 'outsiders' — rejects, as it were, excluded or ostracized by the rest of the Wamphyn — were constantly on the alert for trouble: the imposition of restrictions over disputed airspace, skirmishes over boundaries, even ambushes were by no means unlikely. But since by chance their stacks formed a close triangle in the centre of the clump, and the space within that triangle was theirs, flights between were generally accomplished without threat or interruption. And of course the close proximity of their aeries was yet another good reason for forming their alliance: back to back, they presented a more formidable foe.
'Anyway, Szwart and Vavara came on flyers across the respective gulfs from Darkspire and Mazemanse, to meet with my master in Malstack. And that was the first time that I saw Szwart. For contrary to certain Szgany campfire tales of the time, Lord Szwart was visible when he so desired. In any reasonable degree of light, and when he chose to assume an acceptable form (which invariably cost and, indeed, still costs him no small effort of will) he could be seen, though he much preferred not to be. But in his condition… well, that was surely understandable.
'But I sense that I've whetted your curiosity; you are wondering what 'condition' I speak of, and what do I mean by 'acceptable form'? We shall get to these things.
'So then, Lord Szwart came from Darkspire, and I was sent to bid him welcome to Malstack and organize the stabling of his flyer, just as I had seen to Vavara's when a little earlier she had arrived from Mazemanse, her castle of vertiginous balconies and fretted, spindly spires.
'I remember the time was several hours past sundown, when only the last faint rays of a dying sun limned the peaks of the barrier mountains in gold. This vestigial glimmer posed no real threat to the Wamphyri in general (even at noon the deadly rays probed only the uppermost spires of Starside's tallest aeries), but it was a problem for Szwart, who dreaded to be seen. 'And there we have it:
'Lord Szwart's fear of light wasn't that it might destroy him but that it made him visible.' This weird photophobia wasn't so much a physical as a mental disability. Which perhaps serves to explain his reclusive nature: his rumoured celibacy, and the fact that he so rarely went abroad from his aerie (and then only into Sunside, to hunt) and never mingled with other than his thralls or creatures of his own device in lonely, shadow-cursed Darkspire.
'But it wasn't only in his mind, this ugliness that Szwart
couldn't bear to display. It wasn't merely imaginary. Rather it was very real, and hereditary…
'He arrived in a Malstack landing bay. His flyer was black as night; swooping across the gulf it had been clearly visible, but in the shadow of Malstack it simply disappeared. I stood in the gape of the landing bay, waiting — and suddenly Szwart was there! A black shape buffeted night-black air in my face as the shadows that were Szwart and his flyer alighted. Then, while he dismounted, I called for thralls to see to his beast. And looming close, Szwart said:
''You, lieutenant — take me to Malinari.'
'His voice was a gasp, a pant, a flurry of wind through a narrow crevice. And there he was, Szwart himself, all cloaked in black — a blot of a figure that showed neither features nor anything else of its once-humanity — standing before me in the flickering torchlight of the landing bay!
'But while Szwart himself was featureless, carved from jet, and his voice a flutter of bat-wings, his presence was awesome; as solid as the great rocks on Starside's barren boulder plains. And his aura in the night: that was such as to make even my vampire flesh creep — and I was a lieutenant! So that I could well understand how Narkslump's lowly thralls had felt when confronted by Lord Szwart.
'He gloomed at me through eyes like slits of fire, his only parts that weren't black. 'Well? And am I to be left to find my own way?' For I was so startled, I had made no effort to attend him!
''No, Lord,' I answered. 'I am your guide. But here in Malstack, protocol demanded that I stood silent until commanded by you.'
' 'Fool!' he said. 'I did so command you! And now take me to Malinari! Or perhaps I strike you as… odd in some weird way? Is it so?' With which he flowed closer, and his outline became less manlike, even more a blot or a shadow, like a lump drifted from the darkness in the unlit deeps of Malstack's basement.
''Not at all, Lord!' I backed off. 'I was simply in awe of my master's honoured guest — so much so that my tongue clove to… to the roof of my… of my mouth.' It was scarcely a lie!
' 'You must consider yourself fortunate that you still have a tongue,' Szwart whispered, withdrawing something that was not quite a hand from where it had been reaching for me. 'Also fortunate that my protocol forbids the killing of an ally's lieutenant on his home ground.'
' 'Yes, Lord!' I bowed, and before things could go even more awry turned and forced my numb legs to bear me in the direction of my master's chambers. Lord Szwart followed on behind me, and I could feel him there, silent, intense, and seething; though I fancied it wasn't his thoughts that seethed so much as his person! Perhaps it was so. I can't rightly say, for I never looked back…
'When Szwart left I was there to see him go, though on this occasion there was no contact. When the keeper of Malinari's pens handed him the reins of his flyer, I was situated in a window a little higher in the sheer wall of the aerie. From there I watched him mount, launch, and fly away.
'Aye, and I also saw his manlike outline melt to a liquid blot of a shape that hunched down and became one with the silhouette of his black flyer. And I saw the burning eyes — but far too many eyes — that gazed back on Malstack from that hideously humped shape, as if their owner suspected that someone watched!
'Then he was off, and flyer and rider both, black on black, disappeared into the yawning gulf like a scrap of burned cloth, or a tattered pennant slipped from its staff, fluttering on the winds that whine around the aeries of the Wamphyri…'
'That same time:
