' 'Who are you, in the mountain there? What do you here? Is this your territory, and if so by what right? By right of conquest, or simply because you are here?'
'And the answer came back with such force, in such a doomful cadence that we knew, my master and I, this was no middling intelligence or power which he had discovered:
''It is my territory because it is mine. That is my right. If you dispute it, then come on by all means. I have creatures to shatter you in pieces. Or go away, and I shall perhaps leave you in peace — and in one piece. As to who I am: I am who I am. As to what I was: I was the first, even though I may not be the last. I have been here a thousand years, which is my sole right to this place and sufficient. So begone!'
'Then with a hiss Malinari ceased all telepathic sendings. And I felt his guards go up as he turned and gazed wide-eyed at me. 'I know him!' he said, his jaws agape. 'Something of him is in all of us!' And for a moment that was all he said…
'Then I spied a pair of great white bears at the edge of a frozen lake. They had broken a hole in the ice and were fishing in the black water. I pointed them out to Malinari, and he took us down to hover over our prey. The bears, startled by our sudden arrival, took to the water and vanished under the ice. Malinari was quick to dismount; he waited at the hole until one of the bears lifted her head. Then my master struck — struck with the strength of three or four men — and his gauntlet crushed in the bear's ear and the side of its head. Brained, the huge creature was dead in the water. We dragged it onto the ice in time to
see the bear's mate surface. This time, in the moment before Malinari delivered his devastating blow, the great white beast roared its fury and raked his forearm. Containing his pain, my master wrapped his torn limb. Then, as we ate bear-heart while our flyers sipped blood, he said:
''My wound is slight, and it will heal quickly. His won't, ever. The strongest survive. You are a strong one, Korath, and quick-sighted. So you survive. If you had not seen these bears, perhaps you would not survive. For I wish to stay here a while, to explore these ice-castles, and blood and flesh are the fuels I burn. If not the flesh of bears, what then?' And his red eyes gloomed on me.
'Understanding him well enow, I deigned not to answer.
'And explore we did, but what we found…!
''Korath,' my master said, as we entered an ice-encased cavern. 'Before I sensed the Greater Power in yonder fire-mountain — if it is a living fire-mountain, for I fancy the smoke is of man's making rather than Nature's — I sensed lesser thoughts, dreamier thoughts, from this frozen cave. Aye, and from others near and far. Who sleeps, I wonder, in such places?'
'We soon found out.
'Locked in the ice where he had frozen himself solid — completely encased, indeed buried in the clear ice — we found the much-reduced body of what was once a Lord of the Wamphyri! Wrinkled he was; his skin as white as snow, whose deep corrugations were like some strange pale leech's. And so we knew that he had been here for long and long. But strangely, his eyes were open, however glazed over. And:
' 'Here we have one such dreamer,' said Malinari, and even his voice was hushed in this cold and echoing chamber. 'Except he doesn't so much dream as nightmare.'
' 'A dreamer, master?' I said. 'But surely he is dead?'
' 'Eh?' He raised a scornful eyebrow. 'Where is your faith, Korath? Is it likely that Nephran Malinari is mistaken? And for that matter, where is your faith in the Wamphyri, in their tenacity, their longevity? I heard this one's thoughts, I tell you — and I sensed his fear! No, he is not dead. Now look there.'
'I looked where he pointed.
'The ancient sat behind twelve or fifteen feet of ice. But level with his ribs, a row of holes some two to three inches in diameter had been drilled a third of the way through to him. On the floor, the accumulated ice chippings were heaped into small mounds directly beneath the holes.
'And Malinari said: 'I don't think we need puzzle over the look of horror on his face. Something has been busy here, doing its best to get at him! But this ice is centuries old and hard as iron, and he chose his niche well. When it is time to freeze ourselves
— when our food is used up — we must do the same…' ' 'Time to… to freeze ourselves?' I repeated him. 'He looked at me. 'In this cold place, only one way to survive the centuries. Like this one, we go down into the ice. But first we put some distance between.'
'And like a fool, I repeated him again: 'Between?' 'But he only nodded musingly, and said, 'Between ourselves and Shaitan, aye. A thousand years ago and more he was banished here, and now lives in that fire- mountain. Others like this one, who came before or since, have found their own ways to live out the years: they sleep in the ice. But Shaitan is awake! Can you doubt it was a creature of his did this drilling? Well, he has the mountain's warmth and shelter, and no doubt defends it with just such beasts as did this. And here we are starvelings, with just one dead warrior to sustain us. So it's the ice for us, be sure. But not here, not this close to Shaitan in his fire-mountain.'
'Following which we returned to the bears and loaded their drained carcasses aboard our flyers, then flew back to rendezvous with Vavara and Szwart…
'Malinari told his colleagues what we had found. He convinced them that indeed Shaitan the Unborn held dominion in the west,
and they agreed, however reluctantly, with his long-term plan of survival. As Vavara pointed out: 'We shall only know if we are successful when we wake up. And if we don't, we weren't.'
'The warrior lasted some little time, while we gradually stripped the flesh from its bones. Eventually its flensed ribs formed the framework of an ice-house, which in the next blizzard became one with the landscape. But towards the end Malinari, Vavara, Szwart and the others were weary of all this and ready for ice-encasement. Meanwhile they had explored the local terrain, discovering an ice-cavern that suited their purpose.
'There in a niche, broad at the front, narrowing to nothing in the rear, we positioned ourselves. In front, the three lieutenants (they were down to three now); then the flyers all in a huddle, and behind and beneath their shielding wings Malinari and his Wamphyri colleagues. Myself, I was positioned on a ledge overlooking the rear of the niche.
'So stationed, the lieutenants would be the first to feel any exploratory stab from outside the ice. With any luck their physical agonies would transfer mentally and be 'heard' by Malinari. He and the others might then be able to melt themselves free by will alone… if they retained sufficient strength.
'But the surest way to remain alive and intact down all the unknown and unguessable years to come would be to fashion such an ice-shield as could not be broken into and looted. To this end the Wamphyri trio willed a mist like none before. It swirled up from the ice-layered floor, down from the festoons of jagged icicles in the cavern's roof, out from the crystallized walls, but mainly from their own pores. And drawn down by their massed will to where we sat in our places, the mist solidified to form layer upon layer of ice, thick and thicker far than the sheath we had seen in the hidey-hole of the ancient.
'For long and long I watched it forming — until my eyes were frozen and I saw no more…
'We woke up!
'The ice was melting, and the air… was wanner! Still cold, but warmer. Two lieutenants were dead — the true death, aye — and three flyers. Well, the third and last lieutenant, barring myself, was useless without a mount. He was Szwart's man, and though his blood was pale and slow, still it flowed… until Szwart stilled it forever.
'Then the three Great Vampires drained him, and I had my fill of his shrivelled flesh. Shrivelled, desiccated, sunken in: such was the case with all of us, our flyers, too. But at least we lived.
'And the great cave dripped with running water, and outside—
'Such a transformation! Over the far southern horizon, a glow as was never before seen from the Icelands. It could only be the sun, but visible in the sky however low to the horizon. Malinari and Vavara felt its rays at once; not so much a burning as a severe irritation. It was the great distance, and the dimness of the glow through a mist over the ocean. But it must be said that Lord Szwart suffered, until he covered himself in his robe, averted his eyes and retreated into gloom. His suffering was more mental than physical, I fancy.
'There were bears in some profusion, many with cubs, and even a fox or two, snowy white where they scavenged for sprats at the water's rim. And great fishes as big as warriors spouting in the sea. 'More than sufficient of food,' said Malinari, 'to fuel us on our journey home.'
'And Szwart wanted to know: 'What has happened here?' ''A freak in the weather,' my master told him. 'It is the only answer. And it is our freedom to return to Starside!'
