On another occasion Wratha might well have taken offence, and even now it was her instinct to say: 'Oh, and what of your own and Spiro's and Gorvi's?' But for the moment her thoughts were elsewhere, so that she musingly answered, Those stories you've heard are true, aye.' Except she wasn't looking at Wran but at Nestor.
The newcomer was made of the right stuff. She could feel it in him. Why, given time, she might even feel him in her! And that was a pleasant thought (if one she kept guarded); for her male thralls, handsome creatures though some of them might be, were like mice in her bed, timid and creeping. When Nestor was fully ascendant, it was possible he'd make a worthy lover .. . not to mention an ally ...
Wratha gave herself a mental shake, and turned her gaze to Wran. 'I was Szgany, and ascended in Tur-gosheim by my wits alone. When others would destroy me, I destroyed my so-called "master" and took his egg. All true ... as is what I said but a moment ago: it's the getting there that counts.'
'Well?' Wran cried. 'And hasn't Nestor got there?'
'No.' She shook her head. 'Not yet a while. For being here and surviving here are different things. But ... certainly he's on his way.' Then, nodding her approval and looking at them all in turn, Spiro, Canker, Gorvi, Wran, and lastly Nestor, finally she said:
'My Lords, I give you Lord Nestor of the Wamphyri -perhaps. But what say you?'
Canker accepted him readily enough. 'You must visit me in Mangemanse,' he barked. 'By all means come and inspect my instrument of bones!'
Wran and Spiro were well satisfied but didn't wish to display it, and so answered in unison, cautiously, 'Let's wait and see how all works out.'
Gorvi scowled, and said: 'It seems I'm a minority of one. But ... very well, Nestor is a Lord - with one proviso! We'll give him five sunups and if he doesn't fit, then he goes back to Sunside. And to certain death.'
Wratha looked at Nestor and said, 'Well?'
He shrugged. 'I've no complaints.'
'Good!' she said. And to the others, lifting her goblet, 'A toast, then. To Lord Nestor of Suckscar: a successful ascension!'
'Success!' they chorused, lifting their jacks, Gorvi with some ill-grace. But before drinking, he couldn't resist adding: 'Success, aye. Or whatever .. .'
However alien in aspect Vasagi had been, Wratha the Risen had regarded him as something of an ally; hence his habitation of the levels closest to her own. Now, as Wran's reception broke up, the Killglance brothers offered to accompany the newcomer down into Suckscar before returning to their flyers.
Canker, whose Mangemanse levels lay directly below Nestor's, went with them. Coming up, he'd used exterior causeways, covered ledges, and dizzy bridges suspended from the underside of various flying buttresses. He could have flown, of course, but that would have meant saddling a flyer, a launching, landing, etcetera. And Canker, having only just remembered his appointment, had been late enough already. On the spur of the moment, out of grudging respect for the property of another - not to mention the very real threat of hostility from who or whatever the Suck had left in charge in his absence - Canker had chosen his vertiginous but otherwise unobtrusive route around Suckscar. Now that he knew Nestor, however, and with his permission on this occasion, a return descent through Suckscar seemed the easiest, most obvious route.