by Brian Lumley
Nathan glanced at him, perhaps a little sharply. Nikha saw his frown and raised a defensive eyebrow. 'If she'd known him well, then she would mourn him that much harder. And what if there had been children?'
'That seems a hard point of view,' Nathan was frank.
'Because I can remember hard times,' Nikha answered. 'And harder still to come, I fear.' He paused a while to fondle the ear of a beast of burden, a shad, one of a pair hitched to the thill of his vehicle. Shaggy as a hugely overgrown goat and of a like intelligence — but less boisterous, wider in the shoulder and sturdier in the legs — the creature and its companion waited uncomplainingly for someone to unhitch them and put them to graze. Turning its head, it offered up a grateful bleat and allowed Nikha to scratch behind its ear.
And: 'Aye,' he finally continued, as if he talked to himself or to the shad, 'even the smallest comforts will be hard come by from now on, I fancy. For men and beasts alike…'
Meanwhile, Nathan had looked the camp over and noted its size and composition. There were two caravans and a flat, covered cart, half a dozen shads and two calves, and a few goats tethered at the back of the vehicles. Dangling outside the caravans, festooning their sides, were all the tools and utensils necessary to Traveller life, each item muffled now to prevent unwanted jangling and clattering. And under the trees at the rim of the clearing, three good-sized tents stood cool in the shade. Finally, the camp had its own wolves, a dog and a bitch. Capable hunters, they would see to themselves and provide early warning of intruders — which explained how Nikha Sintana had been so quick off the mark and waiting on Nathan's arrival.
According to Lardis Lidesci's campn're stories, there had been hundreds of groups such as this one upon a time. Scarcely larger than a few family units — able to melt away like ghosts into the forests, or hide in small caves during Wamphyri raids — they had made harder targets than the larger, more prominent Traveller tribes.
Several of Nikha Sintana's earlier statements had more than suggested his solitary nature, which the size of his party might appear to confirm; but to Nathan it seemed more likely that he simply adhered to this old tenet, that small is synonymous with secure.
Of people, the group was made up of thirteen in all: four men, including Nikha, three women, and five children whose ages ranged from a small infant to the youth in his early teens who had gone fishing. The thirteenth… was Eleni Sintana, that sister of whom Nikha had spoken.
Nathan had caught only the briefest glimpse of Eleni in the moment he broke through the undergrowth on to the track, but in that same moment he had seen something in her eyes which had seemed to strike a resonant chord within himself… perhaps it had been her eyes, so much like Misha's. In any case, he'd been aware of her presence ever since but was careful not to look at her directly. Travellers are often fiercely protective where their women are concerned, and they don't care for forwardness in strangers. He was aware of her now to one side of the camp's central area, where she used an axe to break up dead, fallen branches into firewood.
This is Eleni,' Nikha confirmed, leading him across the clearing, 'my sister. She cuts firewood to occupy her mind.'
She looked up as they approached — looked at Nathan and smiled, however wanly — and he saw now that it was her eyes. They took him by surprise, for he'd thought that only Misha's eyes could be so warm, black and caring. Obviously he'd been wrong; or perhaps it was just that Misha had been so much on his mind lately, that…
This is Nathan Kiklu,' Nikha said, breaking into his thoughts, and possibly into hers, too. 'A man of Settlement, from Lardis Lidesci's people. He could use a wash, a place to sleep, a blanket to keep him warm. Until our meal is prepared. Will you see to it, little sister?'
She nodded and straightened up. And now that they'd been introduced, Nathan allowed himself to look at her.
Maybe twenty or twenty-one years old, she was typically Szgany. All lithe and sinuous, with movements as smooth as oil, her hair was shiny black, her skin tanned to a glow, her mouth generous and sensuous at one and the same time. And there was something wild as the woods about her — even more so than her brother — so that if Nathan didn't know better he might think there was room for only one mood in her: she should be vivacious and live life to the full, joyously, with a husky laugh that teased, taunted but never quite seduced. Because when finally Eleni did love, then her man would get all that she could give.
Mainly nai've, Nathan was wont to make judgements such as this at first sight. And sometimes he was right. Eleni shouJd be that way; perhaps she would have been and could be again, one day. But for now… she was small and sad and lonely.
As Nikha walked away, back towards his caravan and animals, Nathan began: 'Your brother has told me — ' and paused. '- I mean, I just want you to know that we're two of a kind. For just as you have lost your man, so I have lost my girl.'
She nodded seriously, and answered: 'I know how much you have lost, for it's in your eyes. I knew from the first moment I saw you. Ah, but I saw much more than that in those strange blue eyes of yours, Nathan! They are filled with all sorts of things, and you're not much given to hiding them.'
He was surprised, not quite sure of her meaning. Perhaps he looked at her too openly. He turned his eyes aside at once. 'Have I… been forward? If I've seemed so, then — '
'No, no, not that,' she cut him short. 'And if you were, what of it? Gypsies are forward. If a person is liked no one complains, and if he is not liked we say that he is forward. No, but you have been the sad one for a long, long time, and now is the worst time of all.'
He shook his head, frowned, fingered his chin. 'But… how can you know?' And now her smile was warmer.
'Oh, I read palms,' she said, tossing her ringlets back out of her eyes. 'Like my mother before me. Except, why it's easier far to read faces! And as I said, your face — especially those eyes of yours — tells a long, sad story.' She reached out and touched his brow. 'Such lines, and so very deep, in a face so young…' She shook her head, wonderingly. But before he could question her further:
'Enough of that for now,' she said. 'Come over here, to my tent. Nikha says you need a wash. We can take care of that. And then I'll get you a blanket.'
Close to her tent she set up a tripod and bowl, and brought hot water from the fire. A piece of bark provided a cleansing, milky sap, with which Nathan scoured his face and hands. But watching him, Eleni.saw him wincing whenever he stretched his arms.
He had removed his leather jacket but still wore his shirt. Take it off,' she said.
He looked at her sideways, questioningly. They were alone in the clearing now, almost. The men were off hunting; women tended their offspring or performed other duties; Nikha was seeing to his beasts. Take what off?'
'Your shirt. When you bent over it rode up your back. I have seen your bruises. Were you beaten?'
Beaten? No, merely tossed aside — but by a Thing as strong as four men! The thing that took my Misha. 'A Lord of the Wamphyri very nearly killed me,' he finally answered. 'I suppose I was lucky.'
He tried to reach over his shoulder and grasp the fabric of his shirt, but couldn't. Perhaps it was as well; Nikha had come back and was sitting on the steps of his vehicle. Seeing Nathan glancing that way, Eleni asked him: 'Are you concerned that my brother is watching us? Well, you shouldn't be.' And before he could answer she took the hem of his shirt in both hands and lifted it, and as he bent forward stripped it from his back.
'Now your brother will know I'm forward,' he groaned. 'Or that you are!'
And now for the first time she laughed, and her laugh was as husky as he had guessed it must be. 'Nathan, Nikha will be delighted!' she told him. 'Can't you see that he's still trying to marry me off?' But as she saw the extent of his bruising her laughter died away. And: 'You suppose you were lucky?' she repeated him. 'But your back should have been broken in three places! Now wait.'
She ran to Nikha and past him into the caravan, and was back in a moment with ointment wrapp
ed in a leather pouch. 'It smells, but it's good!' she said, applying the stuff liberally to his back. 'Next sunup the sting will have gone, and by midday the bruises fading. I guarantee it. When we pass through the townships, we Gypsies guarantee all of our products!' And again she laughed.
Then she helped him on with his shirt, took him into her tent and gave him a blanket. Her bed was a huge watertight skin stuffed with down, herbs and dried ferns; more than sufficient for Nathan's needs, he made no complaint. As he lay down she threw the blanket over him, and almost before she left the tent and closed its flap he was asleep…
Numbers formed a whir/pool which sucked Nathan in, whirled him round and around, and dragged him unprotesting down the centra/ funnel of warping algebraic equations. To anyone else it would be a nightmare, but not to him. Unlike the dead, who could have talked to Nathan if they wished it but never did, the numbers were his friends. In a way, they did 'talk' to him; except he didn't have the math to understand their language. In a world largely without science, Nathan had no math at all. What would probably have been instinctive, intuitive in him from his first serious lesson, had never had the chance to develop. Not yet.
But he did understand that the numbers could sometimes carry him — his thoughts at least — to other places, other minds. It was a telepathic talent he shared with Nestor, part of which was to reach out with his mind and make a connection with that of his twin. Another part of it, which was his alone, allowed him to contact and speak with his wolves. In his waking hours this might only be accomplished by an effort of conscious will, and even then it had sometimes failed him, but when he slept it was quite beyond his control. For then his talent seemed to work on its own, or occasionally with the help of what Nathan had long since named 'the numbers vortex'.
Now he was in that vortex, but only for a moment. For in the next he felt himself expelled, hurled out and down — into water! Into the river!
And because he had searched for Nestor, now he was Nestor. He was one with his brother's mind. He knew what Nestor knew, felt what he felt, observed what he observed. Which was nothing.
Nathan knew what 'dead' minds feel like. This was it, and yet at the same time it was less than death. For the dead know many things, and this mind — Nestor's mind — knew nothing at all! And Nathan believed he knew what that meant: that his brother was freshly dead, and as yet had learned nothing from all of those others who had gone before.
He felt what Nestor felt: nothing. Or perhaps he did feel or was aware of something: the gentle flow of cold, cold water — his lungs full of the stuff, which weighed like lead to drag him down — and the first, tentative nibble of some small, curious fish. He observed what his brother observed: nothing. Or if not that, a drift of dark green weed sliding slowly across his blurred, submerged view, to fill the screen of his gaping, glazing eyeballs….efore the final darkness closed in!
And with that he knew that Nestor was dead, drowned, and gone from him forever.
He started awake — .'
— To find Eleni Sintana down on her knees beside him, her brown eyes wide and anxious where they stared into his. She had hold of his shoulders, holding him down under the water. Except… there was no water. And at last he breathed, stopped struggling, allowed her to push him back into his own depression in her bed. And:
'A dream?' she inquired, her concern clearly apparent.
Nathan nodded, felt cold sweat drip from the tip of his nose. More than that, Eleni, he wanted to say, but couldn't, because he knew that she wouldn't understand. But looking up into her face, her eyes… she so reminded him of his mother… and of Misha… he wished she would wrap her arms around him, for his protection.
He saw that she was going to — until Nikha's soft voice sounded from the door of the tent, saying: 'We're about ready to eat, Nathan. Will you join us?'
And the spell was broken.
Nathan joined the others to eat, but he was quiet and had no appetite. There was nothing wrong with the good food, nothing wrong with the company, just with him. For he knew now that he was alone, entirely alone, and that what he'd mistaken for his awakening into this world had only been the beginning of the end. The Wamphyri had wrought reality out of a fantasy — changed everything, made him aware of his place here, and given him an identity — only to rob him of his roots. Now he was drifting, as Nestor's body had drifted, and not even the weeds of what might have been to anchor him.
For the last link had been broken, Nestor was dead, and Nathan felt in his heart the coldness of his brother's watery grave…
And two miles down river, in a shingly bight, a burly, bearded fisherman cried out, tossed aside his rod, went plunging into the water to his thighs.
He had been monitoring the progress of a log drifting out of the main current and into the shallows of the backwater. And knowing that fish sometimes swim in the shadow of floating debris, he had thought to see a big one accompanying this piece of driftwood. But lolling closer to the bank, suddenly the log had given a lurch and turned over, and in the next second the fisherman had seen that what had come adrift from it to slip down into the clear water was anything but a fish!
That had been a moment ago; now Brad Berea waded to the log and thrust it aside, sank to his knees in the shingle, and gathered up the body of a young man from where it bumped slowly along the bottom. The youth's clothes were ragged, waterlogged; he was limp, cold… dead? Well, very likely. But his flesh seemed firm, his limbs were still flexible, and his lips were not entirely blue.
In fact Nestor Kiklu was dead or as close as could be, and had been for several long seconds, but as yet his spirit had not flown the flesh. What his brother Nathan had experienced was not true death but the final sleep which leads up to it, except this time that sleep had been interrupted.
Brad Berea carried Nestor to the bank, dragged him out feet first to let the water rush out of him, and thumped his chest until he coughed up mud, small weeds and more water. Coughed them up, lay still… and breathed!
He breathed — however raggedly, shallowly — and slowly but surely a semblance of life crept back into him.
Into his body, at least…
After their meal, Nikha Sintana and his people took their rest. Later, they would spread out into the forest and hunt more diligently; for they must find game now, in the daylight hours, to see them and their families through the long night ahead. After the hunting — assuming it was successful — they'd be more at their ease; they would play, make music, talk over their short-term plans. The plans of travelling folk were ever short-term, Wamphyri or no; but by midday they would be back on the trail again.
Nikha's idea, which he had told to Nathan while they ate, was this: He and his party would follow the old trail south to the narrow strip of prairie where it bordered on the furnace deserts. He knew the location of a spring there, which in all his years of wandering had never dried out. There was no shortage of game, and the fruits of the forest were always plentiful. In the woods at the edge of the prairie, well away from the customary haunts and routes of other Travellers, there Nikha's group would disguise their caravans in the thickets, stain them green to match the foliage, and pitch their tents under cover of the great trees.
In short, they would quit travelling for a while at least, if only long enough to see how the wind blew. And if it seemed they had chosen a good, safe spot, then perhaps they'd make it permanent. Settling there would go against the grain with Nikha, of course; it would be a solitary, ingrown existence with no company to mention and no external contacts. But at least they would exist, and more or less on their own terms.
As for the Wamphyri: there would be richer pickings for them elsewhere. Word of their return would be spreading even now, but many townships would not hear of it until it was too late. In Twin Fords and other towns, there were plenty of old people who could not or would not move; these must soon fall prey to the vampires. And there would be a great many parties of refugees on the move outwards from threatened towns a
long the southern flank of the barrier range, whose leaders had forgotten or never known the skills necessary for survival in the wild. For a certainty, the Wamphyri would pick these off first.
In Settlement and possibly a handful of other places, men would stand their ground, fight and inevitably die. The vampires loved to fight, and such bastions of defiance would present irresistible challenges. All of which should provide Nikha and his party a breathing space, ample time to settle into their secret place, discover hiding holes and prepare themselves against every hideous eventuality.
One of the first things they would do would be to breed more watchdog wolves, and train them to be alert for strange sights, sounds, smells..
With luck the vampires would never find their camp — or if they did would discover it deserted, its people fled into the woods or grasslands. And as any fool must see for himself, the closer you live to the sunrise, the safer you are from vampire slavery, death and undeath. Why should the Wamphyri bother to fly across all these miles of woodlands, when they could reap their tithe of blood so much closer to home? For to raid in the southern extremes of Sunside would mean a greater distance to travel back to Starside, before sunup. It was a small point but it seemed to make sense.
As to why Nikha told Nathan all of these things: simply, he hoped to tempt him along. And so Nathan saw that Eleni had been right: Nikha was angling to catch her a husband before he and his people disappeared into solitude. Well, and Nathan supposed he could do much worse. But before that -