In Nestor's youth, he'd learned a trick to keep his brother's thoughts out of his mind. Though his youth and even his brother were forgotten to him now (except he knew the latter as a vague and largely mythical 'enemy' dwelling on Sunside), the trick itself remained accessible. It involved thinking obliquely, 'to one side' of his main stream of thoughts, and so keeping his secrets to himself. The art was an instinctive thing, and useful now as never before. For Wran believed that Vasagi had melted in the sun.
Perhaps he had, and perhaps not. But Nestor saw how hazardous it could be to admit what he'd done: namely, that he'd set Vasagi free after Wran had left him for dead. Perhaps for a similar if not quite the same reason, he should also leave well enough alone in the re-naming of Vasagi's manse.
For which reason, finally: Let the name stand, he answered Wran in his own mode. Suckscar will suffice, for now at least.
But then, a moment more and he gasped aloud. For suddenly Wran's meaning had sunk in! That Suckscar should be named anew, with a name to suit ... himself! Its new master! Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri! And finally, no longer guarding his thoughts but letting them fly free: For now ... I really am Wamphyri/
But: Huh.' came Spiro's mental grunt. And to Wran: Brother, you're changeable as the winds chasing themselves around Wrathstack' I thought we'd arranged that I should be master of Suckscar? That way, between us, we'd control almost half the stack. And now?
Now? Wran answered (and this time he was the one to guard his thoughts, ensuring they went only to Spiro). Why, with this simpleton Nestor in place -if we can fix it - it will amount to much the same thing! That way, before too long and after we settle one or two other scores, why, you'll still be available to inhabit some other level, eh?
Then for a while, gradually receding, their chuckles hung black as sin and just as secretive, dwindling to nothing in the mental ether. And now there were four flyers, all strung out in a row, climbing towards the higher levels and bays ...
'Nestor,' Wran eventually called aloud, as rocky caverns and ledges, fretted bone causeways, and external staircases of fused cartilage and stone slipped down and away into the abyss of air. 'There goes Mangemanse below. Only four levels, as you see. More than sufficient for the great hound who dwells there, and not much I can tell you about them. Their master's responsibilities are few; indeed, he seems to exist only to keep us apart! Wratha and the rest of us, I mean. But when we take to our beds, Canker is often on the prowl. He keeps more bitches than the rest of us - he has his needs, you know? - but his real mistress is the silver moon. Oh, you'll hear his howling soon enough, as he sings his devotions to his goddess on high! Still, it surprises me he's not here for my reception.'
'Ah, but other things are on his mind,' Spiro cut in across the blustery gulf. 'For Canker builds a thing of bones!'
'He builds ... a what?' Wran shook his head and laughed his amaze.
'A device of pipes large and small, made from the hollow bones of warriors where he finds them littered on the boulder plains. He's spent the entire night with his lieutenants, flying to and fro, lifting up bones to his kennel.'
'But why? For what good reason? A device, you say? What sort of device?'
Spiro shrugged. 'An instrument - musical, he says.'
'Musical?' Wran was nonplussed. 'Like the Szgany troupe which Devetaki Skullguise kept in Masque-manse? Aye, they were musicians, but Canker? An instrument of hollow bones?'
'To help him in his devotions,' Spiro tried to explain. 'He swears the moon's deaf and can't hear him, or else she'd come down to be his lover. And so he's determined to sing all the louder, with the help of the thing which he fashions from these bones. How? Don't ask me - ask him! Hah! And to think, they call us the mad ones! But we only rage, we don't rave!'