The Ringworld Throne

We were exhausted, but I was at my post, here on the cannon tower. The clouds parted. I saw two black lines. Hard to tell how far, hard to tell how high, but a black plate with structures above, high in the center and glittering silver, and its black shadow parallel below.”

“Not much more than what Harpster told us, “ Vala said, probing.

A flash of anger, throttled. “I could see the silver curves of the river, this river, flowing into the shadow.”

“We know of the Shadow Nest.” A new voice heard from: a glossy black shape of uncertain gender and uncertain age slid out of the water and stood erect on the mud. “I am Rooballabl. Welcome to the Homeflow; have free passage of us. I speak the Tongue better than most. I’m told none of you will rish?”

“Not underwater, Roobla,” Vala said with regret. That would be a coup. “Shadow Nest?”

“The Shadow Nest is a cave without walls. A black roof fifteen hundred paces around, with open sides. Vampires have lived and bred below since before any of us were born.”

Harpster spoke without emerging from the awning. Only Vala heard. “Fifteen hundred paces around would be less then five hundred across, in Water People paces. Two hundred for Grass Giants, three for the rest of us. Three hundred paces in diameter, as we were told.”

Vala asked, “Roobla, how high is that roof?”

Rooballabl exchanged a quick sequence of honks with someone still in the water. Then: “Fudghabladl doesn’t know.” More honking. Rooballabl said, “Low enough to block rain even in high wind. Understand, only Fudghabladl has been there.”

“What’s the Homeflow like under the Shadow Nest? Can vampires swim?”

A gabble of honking voices. One came forward-white fringes on his head and along where his jaw would have been-and chattered at Rooballabl. Rooballabl said, “We must hug the bottom when we pass through. None of us go anymore. The water is a sewer, sometimes a whonkee.” Unknown word. “Vampires never swim.”

Unseen, Harpster spoke. “Whonkee, path of the dead.” Vala nodded.

Warvia swung down into the cannon enclosure.

Vala watched Cruiser Two while the discussion ranged. Warvia didn’t emerge. And where was Tegger?

The River People had observed the vampires for generations, but from their own viewpoint. Vampires sporadically rolled corpses into the Homeflow, hundreds at a time, from ten to twenty species including their own. A turn later there would be a glut of fish. That used to be worth knowing… but old Fudghabladl hadn’t been near the Shadow Nest in twenty falans or more. Fishing aside, nothing that lay beyond was worth traversing the Shadow Nest.

Vala dropped her voice. “Harpster. Corpses rolled into the Homeflow are lost to you, aren’t they?”

“Fish eat them, and Fishers eat the fish, and in the end all is ours.”

“Flup. You’re being robbed.”

“Vala, vampires are animals. Animals don’t rob.”

Rooballabl: “None but the River People may come to the Shadow Nest and leave alive. Why do you ask these things? Why are you here, so many species?”

Beedj spoke before Vala could. “We go to end the vampire menace. We will attack them in their home. Hominids who cannot travel have supported us.”

The River People discussed that. Vala thought she saw silent laughter.

Maybe not. Rooballabl said, “Valavirgillin, we think we saw a Ghoul among your number.”

“Two of the Night People travel with us. Others parallel our path as friends. They don’t like sunlight, Roobla.”

“Ghouls and vampires are all People of the Night.”

Did Rooballabl mean they were allies? “They compete for the same prey on the same terrain. Truly, it’s more complicated than that—”

“Are you sure they stand with you?”

For all of a falan, Vala had wondered at the Ghouls’ motives. She said, “Yes, quite sure.”

“We could not travel with you.”

“No.”

“But if you will roll your wagons along the Homeflow, we can travel alongside, Fudghabladl and I. Tell you things. Take vests, teach our lessons downstream.”

They began working out details. This was unlooked-for luck, and Vala knew she must pursue it, though Tegger and Warvia were nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER SEVEN — WAYSPIRIT

Tegger knelt with his back to a big pale rock, his heels under his buttocks, quite still. The scrub was all around him, hiding him.

This was how Reds hunted. And Tegger was hunting through his mind, seeking Tegger. His hands played idly with his sword, honing the edge.

Thoughts played over the surface of Tegger’s mind. If he let them go deeper, he’d be thinking of Warvia. He knew he couldn’t face that.

The water’s steady roar had him nodding. He would not hear any creature approaching. Perhaps he would smell it, or see motion in the scrub around him. His sword was defense enough.

All the action was at the shore. At some point the negotiations had become a swimming party.

A sword could be used on oneself. Just turn it around. Jump from the top of a rock? The thought merely skimmed the surface of his mind.

“Tegger hooki-Thandarthal.”

Tegger jumped and was on the rock, his blade swinging in a full circle before his mind caught up. Vampires don’t speak. What…

A voice just louder than the river, so low that Tegger might have imagined it, said, “I cannot harm you, Tegger. I grant wishes.”

No living thing was in sight. Tegger asked, “Wishes?” Had he been found by a wayspirit?

“I was a living woman once. Now I help others in hope of making a better self. What would you have of me?”

“Want to die.”

Pause, then, “Such a waste.”

Tegger heard a rasp of effort deep beneath the whisper. Somehow he could not believe that his sword would be fast enough. He said, “Wait.

“I wait.” The whisper was much closer now.

Tegger had twice spoken without thinking. Now: he had evaded a quick death. Did he want that? But if wishes could be granted…

“Something happened last night. I want it not to have happened.”

“That cannot be.”

Every man on Cruiser Two, whatever his shape, chemistry, diet, had mated with Tegger’s mate. They have to die, he thought. But the women?… All who know. Warvia, too, he thought, even as his mind was rejecting the notion.

They did this to Warvia, to me. It was the vampires! Shall I kill half of us with a wish? Undefended, the rest would die. Ginjerofer’s tribe - He saw, suddenly, how the Red tribes would fall before an expanding vampire plague. Men and women, unable to trust one another, would separate in rage. Families and tribes would disintegrate. Vampires would take them one by one.

Tegger said, “I would have you kill every vampire under the Arch.”

The whisper came. “I have no such power.”

“What power have you?”