Misha! It had been like a curse, bitter as a wormy apple on his tongue. So that Glina had hated this Misha without even knowing her, because Nestor had known and loved her. Yes, and she'd hurt him more than Glina ever could. Or so Brad Berea's homely daughter suspected ...
Then came the night of the Wamphyri! .. . their flyers wafting high overhead ... the propulsors of their warriors making thunder and stenches in the clear night air! But the house of Brad Berea was hidden in a forest thicket, camouflaged, secret, secure. The Wamphyri passed by like swift-fleeting clouds, heading north for the Northstar, to Starside across the barrier range.
But Nestor had seen them; he felt their weird allure; and in the back of his mind, as always, a small but insistent voice repeating, 'I am the Lord Nestor, of the Wamphyri!' A vampire Lord? Perhaps he had been, upon a time, and now by some freak of misfortune was changed back to a man. One way or the other, he had to know.
That night as the house slept, Nestor crept out into the dark and took his leave of the Bereas. But trekking through the gloomy heart of the forest, he was never alone. Like a clot of blue ice frozen and glittering over the barrier mountains, the Northstar was both beacon and companion. For he knew that the star of ill-omen shone down not only on Sunside, but also on Starside and the last great aerie of the Wamphyri...
Towards dawn Nestor had found himself in the foothills - and in the presence of monsters/
A pair of Wamphyri Lords had come to fight a duel on Sunside, which Nestor witnessed. Wran Killglance was one (called Wran the Rage after his furies), and Vasagi the Suck the other. Vasagi's face was a nightmare in itself: with no mouth or chin as such, but a tapering trunk and flickering needle proboscis, like the siphon of some monstrous insect . .. but worse than a nightmare when Wran was done. For then Vasagi's face had looked like the hole which is left behind when a limb is wrenched from its socket, all bloody and dripping from its rim.
But Nestor had been more than just a witness; indeed, he had been part of the fight, and had probably saved Wran's life. For in his horror of the conflict - the animal ferocity which the enormously powerful combatants displayed - Nestor had temporarily forgotten his perverse desire to be a 'Lord' himself; and of the two who fought, Wran had at first seemed the least alien ...
... At first, aye.
Later, with the flush of a false dawn flowing like molten gold along the far southern horizon, Wran had dragged Vasagi to the hillside and pegged him down to await the sun's rising. And while he worked, so he questioned Nestor about his part in all this, and discovered his motive: that he would be Wamphyri. At that, a grimly ironic scheme had entered Wran's mind. Here was one vampire about to die - Vasagi, and his leech still in him - and here a Szgany youth just itching to take his place! And why not? Wran owed him that much at least. It would be such a simple thing to arrange.
It had been arranged! Wran had sent Nestor on some small errand, and in his absence opened Vasagi's spine through skin, flesh, muscle, and ribs to find and drain his leech. For to a vampire the blood is the life, and the best vessel from which to drink it is another vampire's parasite - preferably an enemy's!
Drained and dying, finally the Suck's leech had deserted him and issued its egg. As Nestor returned, Wran caught up the small, skittering, pearly spheroid into his hand, to stare at it in grim satisfaction. He knew that if he, Wran, were a suitable vessel, then that Vasagi's egg would soak like quicksilver through his skin and inhabit him; but he already had a mature parasite leech of his own, which would devour any intruder in a trice.
Then, opening his fist to show Nestor the naked egg, Wran had called him closer. And as if blowing a kiss, he'd sent the thing flying into the other's gawping face!
It had taken nothing more than that: it was the quickest, easiest way to become a vampire. Not the virulent bite, which brings about lethargy, death, and undeath; and not sex, which likewise transmits stuff of the vampire between bodies. For in cases such as these the transition is only gradual. The victim will become a vampire - always, invariably - but not always Wamphyri. Ah, but when the egg itself is passed on ...
The melding had caused Nestor such pain as he could never have believed possible without experiencing it. By the time he had recovered strength enough to crawl, the sun was very nearly up. But there on a bluff, Vasagi's flyer had waited, its spatulate head nodding this way and that in a soughing breeze off Sunside's forests, and Nestor had known what he must do.
Making his way to the flyer, he passed close to Vasagi, who still clung to life despite his hideous wounds. Then the Suck had begged him to loosen the pegs which held him fast to the hillside. For after all, Nestor already possessed Vasagi's egg and would soon become heir to his flyer. So what more could he want? Surely he could afford to spare his life, what little of it remained, and not leave him to melt in the sun?