Finally he spoke to the one who would miss him the most, Rogei, and discovered himself incapable of even a small white deception. This will be my last visit to the Cavern before I leave,' he told him. 'And I don't think I'll be back.'

I know it, the other answered, trying to make light of it. Only think of me now and then; reach out with your mind and... who knows? I might be there. But if you can't speak to me, try speaking to Him Who Listens, for I feel sure He would listen to you. As for what Shaeken told you: will you seek out this mathematician? I think you must, for I am a philosopher and believe a man should follow his destiny.

Til probably seek him out,' Nathan nodded.

Also, Rogei said, there is that which you should know. In your time here you've proved yourself a friend, to both living and dead alike, and I have tried to be the same to you. I have spoken to the dead of the Szgany on your behalf, to tell them what an opportunity they have missed. Alas, only mention your powers, they withdraw. For whatever reasons, they are afraid of you.

'I knew that,' said Nathan.

The reason is simple: the dead have always feared necromancy, and now that the Wamphyri are back in the land they fear it more than ever. Somehow, they associate you with necromancy. Now... they will no longer speak to me! But you Szgany have a saying: 'like father, like son'? Well, I kept reading that thought in their minds before they closed me out. And so I am given to wonder - I hesitate to ask - but could it be, perhaps, that your father did something to alienate the Szgany dead, which now causes them to shun you?

'My father, Hzak Kiklu?' Nathan frowned. 'But he was just a man, murdered by the Wamphyri like so many before and since. Why, I never even knew him ... I wasn't born ... what could he have done?'

Rogei's baffled shrug. I could only try; I failed; I know no more. However, there is one other matter on which I would advise you.

'I will always value your advice."

Nathan, I know you have put this thing from your mind. The elders have not mentioned it; the subject has never come up; men are wise to leave well enough alone. But the fact is that when you needed someone I came to you. Your power goes beyond simply speaking to the dead. Do you understand me?

'I think so, yes. What is your advice?'

Simply this: beware what you call up to a semblance of life, Nathan, for some things may be harder to put down .. .

Nathan wasn't sure he did understand, not fully, but he thanked Rogei anyway. And then he said goodbye ...

PART SEVEN:

Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers

Nestor - Titheling - Turgosheim Equipped with new clothes, a good leather belt and a polished ironwood knife with a bone handle, Nathan was ready. He would journey east downriver, for west would take him too close to home, or to what had once been his home. Only go that way ... it would be very hard to resist returning to Settlement, and he dreaded the thought of what he might find there now.

Atwei accompanied him upon the first leg of his journey; she took the lead, striding out along the stone-carved 'banks' of the Great Dark River.

Ostensibly he went to visit other Thyre colonies, to talk to their elders and their dead; but there was a lot more to it than that. Now that he was possessed of talents (his deadspeak, full-fledged among the Thyre, and his telepathy, as yet inchoate but promising, at least according to Atwei and others of her people), his confidence was that much greater. Where the past must remain a wasteland, anathema, it seemed the future might hold something of fulfilment at least. He had things to learn and people to talk to; whether they were living or dead ....hat no longer made any difference.

Nathan's new clothes were quite remarkable. Fashioned in the Szgany style generally but of soft, sand-coloured lizard-skin, the cut was all Thyre, the work of a very high standard, and the fitting exact. In short, the Thyre of Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs had dressed Nathan tip to toe much as they saw him: as a person of very special qualities. His fringed jacket had a high collar and wide lapels; his trousers were flared to fit snug over soft leather boots; his silver belt-buckle was scrolled to match the ornamentation on the sheath housing his knife.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

All in all, with his startling blue eyes, and his yellow hair grown shoulder-length (outrageous colours in a man of the Szgany, and impossible among the Thyre), the ensemble gave him a mystical, even alien look in keeping with his standing. The only irony was that having done so much for the Thyre, gained so much in the way of respect, he should remain impotent to do anything for his own people. But they were not forgotten, and perhaps there was time yet.

For the first time in his life, Nathan was a person of substance, albeit in a world remote from his largely insubstantial previous existence. And he could not help but wonder: while his stature was vast among the Thyre, what would it be outside their limited sphere? What would he be now among his own kind, the Szgany Lidesci? Would he still be a freak, a mumbling fool, or were those days gone forever? And what of Sunside's Travellers themselves: all of them, the Szgany as a race? What were they now to the Wamphyri?

Cut off from them in self-imposed exile, he could not know. But two thousand miles away down the Great Dark River, where others of his kind cowered under the tyranny of grotesque Wamphyri masters, he might yet find an answer. For as they were now - stumbling serfs, cattle, scarlet sustenance for hideous vampire Lords - so must his own people inevitably become! Horrific as the thought was, it was also fascinating. And the more Nathan dwelled upon it the more he saw his obligation unwinding before him, much like the black canyon walls of the serpentine river ...

Every half-mile or so along the way, Atwei would pause to point out caches of tarry torches wrapped in oiled skins in niches in the damp walls. The torches were long-lasting; she would let two or three of these replenishment points go by before renewing her own and Nathan's brands. Torches came and went like fireflies through the utter dark on both sides of the black river, as other Thyre passed them along the way. Nathan strained to hear the thoughts of these torchbearers in this blackest of black nights but heard nothing, only the far faint whispers of the dead ...

Only fifteen miles to the east along a course that wound a little deeper into the desert, Open-to-the-Sky was the next colony. Nathan and Atwei were there in less than five hours. As to the colony's name: the reason for that was immediately apparent. The place was, quite literally, open to the sky.

The first indication that they approached their destination came in a stirring and freshening of the air; the light improved and the sputtering flames of their torches were buffeted; ahead of them, the way seemed shrouded in a misty haze. Soon they were able to extinguish their brands and proceed in the gathering light. As the far bank receded, so the pace of the river slowed to a crawl. Then the swirling waters widened into the neck of a lake, and the scene which gradually opened to Nathan's eyes was such as he could never have anticipated.

For suddenly ... it was as if an oasis flourished underground! At first there were only ferns and mosses growing out of cracks in the walls, then small bushes overhanging the high ledges, eventually trees, vines and creepers, all straining for the indirect but beckoning sunlight. And where the river's roof opened at last into a real canyon and the light of day streamed down from overhead, finally there was lush foliage springing up on every hand.

Here the river had shingle beaches and timbered jetties; true banks of red silt rose up to level ground on both sides of the water, where rudimentary stone wharves had been built to defend against flooding. All of which lay in the forefront of patchwork fields and allotments; while at the rear, houses on stilts rose in terraces where the higher ground backed up to the cliffs. Between and beyond the houses, dizzy pathways climbed vine-shrouded scree slopes, faults in the canyon wall, and cliff-hugging ledges, zig-zagging up and across the rising rock from cavern to cavern and ledge to ledge. And the Thyre came and went along these paths and causeways like ants about their daily business. While high overhead -

- A marvellous sight! The canyon walls reared up two hundred feet and more; the light where it came slanting in from the south to burst against the opposite wall was blinding after the Stygian dark of the river; despite that Nathan knew the surface must be mainly desert, still he saw the silhouettes of palms crowding the canyon's rim. And so Open-to-the-Sky was an astonishing place.

Thyre elders met them where the worn-smooth granite of the river path met the rudimentary paving of the access road into the community. Nathan would have preferred to speak for himself from the onset, but by now well-versed in their code of conduct, he let Atwei act on his behalf; it was Thyre custom to open proceedings through an intermediary. His own name had been known in advance but theirs, of course, were secret. No introductions of that sort were necessary.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Nathan found himself greeted by a good deal of gravity, tempered with (he suspected), a small measure of scepticism; while Atwei, acting as his aide and spokeswoman - his dupe? perhaps his colleague in deception and blasphemy? - suffered an initially cool reception indeed.

As they passed through the lower levels of the colony and climbed a walled pathway to the Cavern of Long Dreams, a Thyre mausoleum one quarter of the way up the cliff, something of the stiffness and formality went out of The Five and they conversed with Nathan in cordial if restrained monotones. He continued to sense their hesitancy, however, and suspected there were those among them who thought he had somehow made fools of their colleagues in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. Once inside the tomb he felt more at ease, and commenced to verify his credentials in very short order.

The Five had worked out a series of questions for Nathan to ask their dead ancestors, whose answers would permit of no deception or obfuscation. The dead, for their part, had heard faint rumours of the Necro-scope's coming from the Ancients of Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, and immediately recognized the purpose of these opening questions: that they were designed to detect any charlatanry in Nathan. For which reason, once rapport was established and they felt the Necro-scope's warmth, the response of the dead was accurate and not without a measure of Thyre sarcasm directed at the elders themselves.

The most 'junior' of The Five, perhaps irritated by Nathan's dry and very un-mystical delivery of answers allegedly from beyond the grave, brought about an early interruption by asking: 'Perhaps you could tell us why our ancestors converse so readily with you but not with their own kind?'

At which Nathan lost patience. This one reminded him of Petais, and he wasn't about to go through all of that again! He might have answered in his own way, without prompting, but a voice in his head cautioned him against it and in a moment supplied the perfect answer:

'Quatias, your father Tolmia begs you to remember a time in your childhood - you were five? - when you lost your way in the desert just a mile from Open-to-the-Sky. All you had to do was climb a dune and you would have seen the oasis clearly, you were that close. But no, you were only a child and afraid; you sat down and cried. Be sure not to lose your way again, in the maze of your own doubts, now that you are even closer to a great truth.'

Quatias opened his mouth, closed it and made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Finally, in a broken voice, he said: 'Only my father Tolmia could have known ....hought... said ... that which you just said. Wherefore I no longer doubt. Nathan, please tell him that I love him very much!'

'He knows,' Nathan answered, all anger fled in a moment. 'And he loves you in return, even as he did in life.'

Shortly after that the initial session broke up. Shaken, The Five must now reconsider things, think how best to employ Nathan - if they still had his good will. So they made to go off to their council chambers and discuss his awesome talent. But before he let them go:

'I want you to know,' he told them, 'that the girl Atwei is my dear friend. She was my nurse and brought me to health when I was sick. Now, I understand why you had doubts, about both of us. Of course you did and I don't hold it against you. But that is over now, and you should know: he who dishonours Atwei dishonours me.'

He couldn't know it, but from that time forward she would be part of his expanding legend. Atwei of the Thyre, friend of Nathan ...

And so, as in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, once again Nathan became a bridge between two worlds: that of the living, and the darkness of those who had continued beyond it. But before that there were certain priorities: for instance, Shaeken's inventions.

In accordance with the Ancient's wishes, he passed on to the artisans of Open-to-the-Sky detailed drawings of his water wheel, ram, and hoist, all of which were of especial relevance here. Once constructed, Shaeken's Hydraulic Hoist should provide effortless irrigation for the oasis high overhead; and so the Thyre would prosper.

Then, as soon as these technical details had been passed on and understood, for five more sunups Nathan channelled all of his energies to the task of communication between the living and the dead. And as in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, so now the results of his work were uniformly beneficial; exactly as before, word of the Necroscope spread abroad and emissaries from Thyre colonies further down the river came to see him.

But now that the work was no longer new to him it became ... simply work. Despite that it was satisfying in its way and the number of his friends among the dead grew apace, Nathan no longer took pleasure in it. Also, time seemed to pass by ever more swiftly, and he felt he should be elsewhere, doing other things.

It was time to move on.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Atwei sensed it in him. She may even have read it in his supposedly 'inviolate' mind. But seeing how she was saddened, Nathan made no complaint...

One day they went up to the oasis, and there in the living sunlight Nathan saw how pale he had grown. He was pensive and gave voice to an idle thought. 'Why are you so brown,' he asked her, 'when you spend so much time in the deeps and the dark?'

'But before you,' Atwei answered, simply, 'I spent a good deal of my time in the light. The Thyre are desert folk, after all, and most of our work is done on the surface. Also, I was born brown. But why are you so pale, when you were born in the woods and the sunlight?'

He shrugged. 'So, we're different.'

'Are we so different, Nathan?'

He looked at her and wondered, Are we? And almost before he realized it, he knew - he heard - what she was thinking: If I were Szgany, or he were Thyre, we would be lovers. He would lie in my arms and I would feel him pulsing within me. And I would stroke his back, while my thighs squeezed him for his juice.

Telepathy, or ... did she do it deliberately? No, never the last, for she was Thyre and it would be unseemly. And now, as Atwei's thoughts continued, she too was pensive. But Nathan is right: we are different. And I must love him as if he were my brother.

Then ... his look must be curious, wondering; she noticed it and quickly looked away. In order to save her embarrassment, he immediately acted as if nothing had happened, as if he knew nothing. In any case her mind was covered now; she had drawn a blanket over it, and he must assume that she suspected. But at the same time, suddenly, there came a second flash of inspired understanding as a riddle was solved. From the beginning he'd wondered how the Thyre, the living Thyre, knew and understood his tongue so well. And now he knew the answer: When Nathan talked to the Thyre dead it was in deadspeak, but behind their mental voices and pictures he'd always sensed echoes of their spoken tongue, too. And now he saw how easy it was for a telepath to be a linguist. When thoughts are backed up by the echoes of words, a language is quickly learned. That was how it worked for the living Thyre: they had not stolen the Traveller language from his mind, not directly (they had always traded with the Szgany and so knew something of his tongue from the first). No, they'd not stolen it but read it in his expressions, seen it in his eyes, and -despite certain taboos and 'unspoken rules' - heard it in the echoes of his thoughts!

And he knew, too, why suddenly he understood large parts of the Thyre tongue when he heard it spoken all around him - because he had learned it the same way! And Atwei was right: he would be a telepath, in time.

But all of this coming at once ... it was a shock, a revelation to Nathan! Especially Atwei's feelings for him. And it was that more than anything else - the way she felt about him - which served to convince him that indeed the time had come to move on, while yet she thought of him as a brother ...

In the Cavern of Long Dreams, alone with the mummied dead and sharing their thoughts, Nathan spoke to Ethloi the Elder, who knew numbers. They were firm friends from the moment he mentioned Shaeken's name, for in life Ethloi and Shaeken had been colleagues.

How may I help you? Ethloi was eager to assist in any way he could.

'I have dreams,' Nathan told him. 'I dream of numbers. I have always thought they had meaning, and so did Shaeken. You are the expert, or so I'm told. Perhaps you can fathom them.'

An expert in maths? Is there such a thing? Ethloi seemed vague on the subject. Shaeken required maths to calculate the numbers of cogs in his wheels, it's true, but his was a practical application. I was able, through trial and error, to help him somewhat. Not a lot. As for me: I only know that like yourself, I too have dreamed of numbers, in death as in life. They are some of the several things I continue to explore, but not in depth. For since all such knowledge is useless fno one may confirm or deny my findings, because no one understands them), how may I determine if the things I know have value? There is no source of reference. And as for helping you ... we do not even know that Szgany and Thyre numbers are the same. Explain to me your system.

The Szgany system?'

Yes.

'Do you mean, how do we count? But surely all creatures count the same?'

Not so. A bird has only two numbers: the number One and a number larger than One. If it has an egg in its nest it has an egg. If it has two eggs, three, or four, it has more than one. So how do the Szgany count?

'We count in fives, the number of fingers on a hand,' Nathan told him. 'We make gates,' (he showed the other a picture), 'like so:'

I, II, III, III The Thyre have the same system, Ethloi replied, but as for me, I count in Tens! The picture he displayed to Nathan's mind was of two gates struck through.

Nathan frowned. 'But that is simply a count of the fingers on two hands. Is there a difference?'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Oh, yes, the other answered. The difference is simplicity! Now look:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

The numbers he showed to Nathan were not these but symbols of his own, which had these values. Nathan studied them a while - sufficient that he understood that the last of these numbers was the equivalent of four gates - and shook his head. 'A different shape for every number? Simplicity? But this seems to me a complicated thing.'

Ethloi was frustrated (a great many mathematicians are), and sighed. But in a moment: Now tell me, he said, how do you divide?

'Divide?'

How many of these: I I, are there in this.'J.-H'T + I ?

'I I I,' Nathan answered at once.

And how many of these: J-H"T in this: III?

Again Nathan frowned. 'There are only parts,' he shrugged.

And again Ethloi sighed. As I supposed: you cannot divide.

It was Nathan's turn to be frustrated, and: 'I know enough to divide a large orange between friends,' he blurted. 'Because it has segments!'

Yes (the nod of a wise although incorporeal head), and so does my system. Infinitesimally small segments, and infinitely large numbers. Just as I count upwards in tens, so I may count down into the single unit. Into tenths, and tenths of tenths! But listen, about your orange: what if it has eight segments and there are only six friends?

Then two of them are lucky!' Nathan's thoughts were sour now, because it was beyond him. Already he was tired of this.

Ethloi felt it in him and shook his head. Numbers are not easy, Nathan. Oh, I could show you a great many -and a great many tricks to play with them, too - but without an explanation they are only symbols. Such knowledge won't come instantly but must be learned. And somehow I don't think you will make a good pupil.

'Show me some more numbers anyway,' Nathan begged him. 'So that I may at least consider them.'

Ethloi did as Nathan requested and sent his calculations rolling across the screen of the youth's mind. Decimals, fractions; a little basic algebra and trigonometry; calculations to determine the size of the world, the distance to the moon, the sun, and the stars. It was impressive, but it wasn't shocking. Nathan might not understand it, but he knew it for pretty rudimentary stuff compared with some of the things he had seen.

It did have something of an effect upon him, however; for as if conjured by this lesser display, now he felt the numbers vortex churning within his mind like some incredible mathematical dust-devil, just waiting to blast these intruding calculi to infinity. Ethloi detected nothing of the latter through his effort of mental projection, but he did note the Necroscope's unguarded thoughts: his apparent lack of regard for the display. And the images he transmitted to the screen of Nathan's mind were shut off at once.

Very welJ, Ethloi growled then, now Jet's see what numbers you have dreamed.

'Usually they come to me when I'm asleep,' Nathan told him. 'But my time here grows short. And when you produced your numbers for me, I ... I felt my own inside of me, almost as if they waited to be summoned.' He closed his eyes. 'Perhaps I can call them up.'

What happened then was ... swift as thought! The numbers vortex seethed with power; it sucked mutating calculations into its core as quickly as they formed on the rim; incredible metaphysical equations were fired in bursts from its rotating wall, like shooting stars in a meteorite shower! Until: Shut it off! Ethloi groaned.

Nathan did so, opened his eyes, said: That is what I have dreamed.' He took no pride in it; he only wanted to understand it, desperately. And Ethloi read that in his mind, too.

But how can you have such a thing, without understanding it? His question was in the form of an awed whisper.

'Just as I have feelings,' Nathan answered, 'in my heart and in my head, without understanding them.'

Ethloi nodded slowly, and said, Aye, and perhaps you have answered your own question. For as telepathy is in the Thyre - come down through the bJood of Gutawei the Seer, the First Remembered, and spread by his children, and theirs, throughout all the Thyre - so the numbers vortex is in you. It seems as much a part of you as your blue eyes and yellow hair. And spawned in some awesome ancestor, it came down to you the same way as they did!

'I inherited it?' This was much the same as Rogei had told him. 'But from whom? Not my father for he was an ordinary man.'

Then from that same ancestor who gave you your deadspeak, Ethloi answered.

'But my deadspeak is a talent while this ... is a curse!' Nathan shook his head. 'It plagues me! I can't fathom it!'

Ethloi was obliged to agree. Not al1 inherited things are for the good, it's true. In me it was my father's poor hearing, which turned me deaf in the end, much as he was deaf before me. A small trouble: I had my telepathy.

The numbers vortex baffles you then?' Nathan was disappointed. 'You don't know what it does?'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

What it does? Numbers are, Nathan. They don't necessarily do things. And yet... I sensed something behind it, yes. What it was, I can't say. Perhaps the vortex is a key.

'A key? To what?'

To a door, or to many doors. I sensed them there, in your mind. Doors to far, far places - even to far times! -all of which lie in the swirl of the vortex.

'But first I must understand the numbers?'

And control them! Ethloi nodded. When you can bring them to heel, like a hunting dog - show them ordered on the screen of your mind, as I showed you my puny figures - then the key will be yours.

Nathan was silent for long moments. Everything Ethloi had said was much as he'd long suspected. The numbers vortex hid a key which he must find. And then he must find the door in which to turn it. But as yet he was like a babe in arms who wanted to run before he could walk.

Ethloi remained silent, waiting.

And finally Nathan sighed and said, 'Perhaps you should show me some more numbers, and explain to me your system. I'll probably make a poor pupil, as you rightly said, but who knows? Something might sink in. Anyway, I have to start somewhere.'

He stayed for an hour until, head reeling, he could take no more ...

Nathan slept one more time, ate a strangely tasteless, silent meal with Atwei, then told the elders he was leaving. They came down to the river route to see him off. Quatias, who was still spry, volunteered to go with him to the next colony just eight miles away. But in a garden of yellow flowers, where hazy sunlight fell dappled through leaf and vine, he begged a moment's privacy with Atwei. She gave him a slender silver chain and a locket, which he opened. Inside, a tight coil of jet black hair. 'It is a custom of the Thyre,' she told him. 'A secret thing which siblings do when they are parted.'

He drew her to him and kissed her forehead. 'And this is how a Szgany brother parts from his sister.' Then he hung the locket round his neck and said, Til never forget you, and I thank you for this lock of hair from your head.'

'My head?' she said, lifting a coarse eyebrow. 'Ah, no, for that would be unseemly!'

He raised his own eyebrows in a frown, looked at Atwei again, then at the locket, finally shook his head and smiled. The Thyre and their strange and 'secret' ways, their 'secret' things! Then, while she remained standing there, he went and said his farewells to the elders...

'You waste your time with that one,' Brad Berea spoke gruffly to his daughter, Glina. 'He can fish, fetch and carry, hit a bird in flight, and eat - oh, he can eat! - but make sense? You ask too much of him. He spoke to me only once, to tell me he was the Lord Nestor: but what sort of a "Lord", I ask you? Since when, nothing.'

To be kind to her, Glina was only very homely. And Nestor, man or Lord or whatever, was a handsome specimen. He was a natural hunter, too, and upon a time had doubtless been a valuable member of a Traveller band, or citizen of some Szgany township. But now: Brad had seen more activity, more urgency, understanding, intelligence, in the geckoes which inhabited the rafters and chased flies when the sun fell hot on the roof. They, too, were hunters, but they didn't need to be told how to do it! It was instinct in them. But this one - hah! - it surprised Brad he knew enough to wake up after sleeping! Beggars can't be choosers, however, and Glina would lure him to her bed if she could. And what then, Brad wondered? Idiots in the camp? Better perhaps if he'd left Nestor in the river to drown.

'What happened to him, do you think?' Glina glanced at her father across the smoky room, where he took a taper from the fire to light the wick of the first lamp of evening. The fire would be allowed to die down now, as night came on. For if not its smoke, going up through the quiet forest into the air, would be like a beacon to ... well, to anything which might pass this way, overhead. But the cabin in the trees was warm and a lamp was enough. With blankets at the open windows, to keep the light in and the night air out, the Bereas were safe and snug.

'Happened to him?' Brad grunted. 'If you'll just feel the back of his head, above his right ear, you'll know well enough what happened to him. He received one hell of a clout from something or other, a blow that very nearly caved in his skull! The bone has knitted now but it's left a fat, hard knob just under the skin, and probably on the inside, too. Also, he was shot and lost a deal of blood. The scars are clear enough in his side. Finally, he fell or was tossed into the river, and very nearly drowned. And all of this occurring about the time of the first vampire attacks on Settlement and Twin Fords. I didn't know about those when I dragged him out of the water, else I mightn't have been in such a hurry. What? Why, for all I knew he could have been a victim of the Wamphyri! But if so, well, it would have showed before now. So that's what happened to him. All in all, he's a simpleton with a damaged brain, and only his natural instincts seem in order - some of them, anyway. But even they might be a bit askew, else he'd know for sure you were after his parts!'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

'Brad Berea?' His wife's voice came from the curtained platform which was their bed under the rafters. 'Come to bed and leave the young ones be.' After a hard day she'd retired early; but she would be up early, too, in the first hours of true night. It was as well to be awake in those most dangerous of hours, when the sun was down and the stars bright over the barrier range, and the vampires thirsty after their long sleep.

'Huh!' Brad grunted, and thought: Aye, go and do your duty, Brad my son.

But in fact Irma was a good woman and had stood by him uncomplainingly for twenty years and more, living a solitary existence out here in the forest. Brad had been a loner when she ran away from her Szgany band to be with him, and he was a loner still. A trip into Twin Fords every so often; it was the only pleasure Irma ever had out of life; that and Brad's love, and the knowledge that he would look after herself and their daughter all his days. In days like these, it was more than enough. As for Twin Fords: nothing there now but ruins, empty streets, and doors slamming in the wind like shouts of denial. And so no reason to visit.

'And you two?' The bearded Brad looked at Glina and Nestor sitting by the open door. 'Will you sit up again all night, girl? To be with that one? A pointless exercise! For I wonder: does he sit and think? Or does he just sit?' He took off his jacket and went to the foot of the ladder-like stairs climbing to his bed.

Glina looked at Nestor, whose eyes followed Brad where he began to climb. There wasn't much in those eyes, but they did have soul. Brad was hard-voiced, but he was soft-hearted, too, and Glina believed Nestor knew it. 'I'll sit and talk to him a while,' she said. 'I think he knows what I'm saying, but it doesn't mean much to him, that's all. Maybe we'll walk down to the river under the stars. Nestor likes that.'

Brad thought: Oh, and what else does he like? 'What, the strong, silent type, is he?' He called down, grinning despite himself. He went through the curtains to take off his clothes, and hung them on pegs in the rafters. Shortly he was in bed.

Down below, Glina listened a while to the creaking of her father settling himself, the low, murmuring voice of her mother cautioning him to: 'Shhh! Be quiet ... the young 'uns ... here, let me.' And then the rhythmic sounds of their sex. Little privacy in a timbered cabin.

Then Nestor's arm went around her waist, and his hand up under her blouse, to squeeze her large breasts. It was an automatic response to being left alone with her; something which he had learned to expect, to enjoy; something which Glina had taught him. 'Yes, yes,' she breathed in his ear, stroking him through his trousers with her fingertips. 'But not here.' And he followed her out of the open door and into the night.

The night wasn't yet cold; they walked slowly at first in bright starlight, then more hurriedly, finally breathing heavily, almost panting along a well-worn path to the river. And on the sand and shingle bank they threw off their clothes and fell on top of them, and she guided him jerking into her flesh. She knew how it would be but surrendered to it, as she had since the first time. But since Glina had been the one to lead him on right from the start, she could hardly complain. And he was a man, and filling her he filled the loneliness, too.

The first time...

That had been when he was back on his feet again, five or maybe six sunups after her father had rescued him from the river. Until then Glina had washed and tended his wounds, fed him, cared for Nestor generally. And she'd rocked him in her arms when, in a fever, he'd called out strange names, shouted his passion at unknown persons and wept bitterly over obscure grievances and disappointments. Despite what Brad Berea said about him now, then there had been fire in Nestor.

But as the fever went out of him so the silence entered, and for a while his eyes had been empty.

In a little while he'd been strong and made no complaint about work. He hunted with a crossbow, fished, used an axe and carried wood and water well enough. Twice a week, when he went to bathe in the river, Glina spied on him. He was big and stirred her inside.

Once, three years ago when she was sixteen, the Bereas had gone into Twin Fords. Brad required new tools; her mother wanted a new dress, pots, pans; Glina just wanted to see and be seen. Then some boy might make inquiries, and find his way to the cabin to see her. Forlorn hope, for even then she had known she was homely: her brown, lustreless hair, nose just a little too sharp, heavy buttocks. She'd been to Twin Fords as a child, often, and had seen the many pretty girls there.

That time when she was sixteen, some young couple had got married. There'd been a party, music, laughter, and in the evening there would be drinking and dancing. An old friend of her father's had said they could stay the night. Well, Brad Berea knew how to drink and dance, and he had seen how Irma needed it. It seemed only fair.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

But while Brad and Irma whirled to the wild music, Glina was simply ... whirled away! A Gypsy lad shared his wine with her, and walked her behind a tree where the branches came down low. Now, she couldn't even remember how he'd looked. But then he had been the handsomest boy in town, and unlike Nestor he'd known exactly what to do. His mouth had sucked the breath from her lungs, and lifting her skirts he'd slipped into her slick as an eel. Afterwards ... he was gone as quick as he came. No one had known but Glina - oh, and the boy, of course - but she'd dreamed of him almost every night since, right up until Nestor came. And then she'd dreamed of Nestor.

One day when her father was off hunting, and her mother washed clothes and stored vegetables, Glina had finished her tasks about the cabin and gone down to the river where Nestor was fishing. She deliberately wore a short dress and a blouse buttoned to the waist. And as soon as she was out of sight of the cabin, she'd quickly unbuttoned the top of her blouse to show the inner curve of her soft breasts.

Sitting down beside Nestor, she'd made a great play of lifting her dress so that her thighs would show, and talking to him she'd held his face towards her and leaned forward, tempting his eyes to her cleavage. And he had looked at her. There had been something in his eyes at least, even if she couldn't say what. But despite that while she talked to him she leaned her hand on his thigh and squeezed it, always when she stopped speaking and relaxed, his attention would return to the river and his line.

Committed, finally Glina had stripped naked, waded into the water, and bathed there right in front of him. He wasn't likely to tell anyone, after all. No longer able to fish, Nestor had watched her; and as she came out of the river gleaming wet, breasts lolling, at last he had stood up. Then ... she'd definitely seen something in his eyes, and a little more than something in his hand.

Hurrying him out of his clothes, she had kissed him all over that body she'd so cared for, and guided his hand to her aching flesh while she sucked on his rod. And Nestor: he might be damaged in his mind, but his body was whole; it wasn't long before the fire in his loins sparked faint, fleeting, disjointed memories in his head. And then ...

... It had been as it was now, as it had been ever since.

In the sun-dappled shade of a willow, driving into her as if to split her, Nestor's face had been a mask of -what? - hatred? Oh, he had wanted her body, desperately desired to pour all of his angers, his frustrations into her, and so empty himself of them for a little while at least. But it wasn't love or even lust that he felt. No, for if anything Nestor took revenge against something which even he had forgotten, something which he had never understood in the first place.

His hands had crushed her breasts, which were scarcely hurt but yielded to the pain, the pleasure, and his mouth had crushed her mouth. And Nestor had moaned as he came again and again into her, and she felt the burn of his hot spray deep in her core. He had moaned a name - Minha? Minya? - Misha! And it was like a curse coughed from his damp slack mouth as his right hand left her breasts to tighten on Glina's throat.

But Glina was no weak little thing to be throttled. Now as then, she took his hair, yanked back his head, grasped him with her sex and sucked the last drop of loathing out of him; until he fell exhausted on his side, and rolled over on to his back. And then she hugged him, and sobbed while she worked his shrivelling flesh in her hand. She sobbed for herself, because she wasn't this Misha who had hurt him so much - whom he must have loved - and for Nestor himself, because he had been hurt so much ...

And so Glina loved him, and was in turn 'loved'.

Later she used him, sat on him where her hands had brought him back to life. But because his eyes were dull again and his body's responses simply that, responses, she took cold pleasure in it...

On their way back to the cabin, suddenly Nestor paused and his face turned up to the sky. He sniffed - an animal sound - and his dark eyes flashed starshine. A

moment later and Glina felt, sensed, heard it too. And gasped!

The moon was floating low over the distant barrier range. But there was more than moon and stars in the sky. Small dark shadows flitted high overhead; they blotted out the starlight and passed on. Then larger, more sinister manta shapes came gliding behind, while bringing up the rear -

- Something pulsed and throbbed, faint at first but growing louder.

'Down!' Glina whispered, dragging Nestor to his knees in a clump of night damp bushes. And a pair of Wamphyri warriors went spurting and pulsing overhead, their chitin armour tinged blue in the glitter of the stars.

A breeze had come up; it formed the blue-grey exhaust gases of the warriors into a veil across the sky; it fell on the forest in an acrid stench of something dead and crawling with maggots. Glina held her breath, but Nestor breathed deep. And suddenly ... he was alert! Brushing her hand away, he stood up, came slowly erect as the shapes of nightmare passed from view. He saw the sentient, liquid eyes of the warriors swivelling and scanning in their underbellies, and never knew how lucky he was that they didn't scan him. The hunting party sped off into the deepening night, heading north and slightly west.