There and then Grig ate Zahar's finger. And because Nestor held his gaze the while, he scarcely grimaced at all...
IV Suckscar
Nestor sent Grig and Zahar off to tend to the^ latter's damaged hand and arm. And then the four Lords explored Suckscar.
Wran, Spiro, and Canker had all been here before -but just the once - the day they arrived here along with Wratha, Vasagi and their lieutenants, a handful of flyers and another of warriors, out of the east. Then, mainly at Wratha's direction or insistence (the great stack had been sorely in need of repairs and maintenance, which she'd wanted set to rights at once), they'd moved in and laid claim to the various levels. And Suckscar had become Vasagi's.
He had named the five levels which made up his section of the stack out of admiration for their dramatic external appearance: they were deeply scarred from front to back (or south to north) with massive downward slanting gouges, almost as if the sun rising over the barrier mountains had steamed their outer layers away like vampire flesh. But in fact the sun had never risen so high as to light on Suckscar's levels; it was simply the result of the natural tilt of the rock layers, which were somewhat softer here, and the weathering of centuries and even millennia. Now these five levels, set immediately over Canker Canison's Mangemanse, belonged to Nestor, and he explored them eagerly.
In the first level he saw the great communal hall, where common thralls dwelled in caverns in the outer immensity of the perimeter wall, and a sweeping rock-hewn staircase the width of the hall itself led up to Vasagi the Suck's once-private chambers. At the top and to the sides of the staircase were warriors or guardians of a unique design, which in function were similar to the creature in the stairwell encountered during the descent from Wratha's landing-bays. They looked like thick brown rugs sewn up from the skins of bears, but rugs don't creep.
As Nestor had climbed the stairs, so these creatures had flowed inwards along the upper steps, closing on him. But their stealth was such that when, half-way up, he paused to stare at them ... the things were only rugs again! At which Canker Canison, who accompanied Nestor, had sniffed the air and gone more cautiously, pointing out: 'More of the Suck's things, aye. He was a master of metamorphism, that one ...'
Then Nestor had climbed diagonally, almost threateningly, towards the closest of the two guardians, commanding it: Come on then, and we'll see what manner of creature you are/ And creepingly, silently, the creature had flowed down from above; likewise its twin on the other side, converging on him ...
... Until the last moment, when suddenly they reared up! And then Nestor saw just how thick they were: like doughy blankets of flesh - like great bears, yes, but with their skeletal frames extruded and their flesh spread out, thick in the centre and thin as membrane at the edges - with great bands of grey muscle rippling on the underside. And bearlike in their general structuring, too, except their legs and arms were boneless, supported only by springy cartilage; but sufficiently agile to lift and thrust themselves upon hapless victims.
More: Nestor saw their mouths. Like the guardian in the stairwell, they had more than sufficient of those; or precisely sufficient, considering Vasagi's purpose in creating them. For all these creatures consisted of was mouth, stomach and crushing muscle, and tiny red eyes, hidden in the topside fur. The mouths were many, small, red and suctorial, without teeth that Nestor could see; or if they were toothed then these were small and inconspicuous; but the drool which they issued smoked where it touched stone, so that Nestor knew it was acidic. And then he understood.
Wrapped in a creature such as this, a man would be completely immobilized - fixed like a fly in honey, smothered and softened by digestive juices - and finally slurped away until his flensed bones were discarded in a clattering heap! But Nestor was no such victim.
His egg, by now the merest tadpole of a leech, was strong and growing stronger by the moment. Its strength was Nestor's, who was strong in his own right. Suck-scar's guardian creatures had been Vasagi's and now were his, all of them. And they must be made to understand that he'd suffer no more threats, not in his own house!
Standing his ground, he coughed up a great gob of phlegm to spit into the poisonous heart of the monster rearing before him! And turning on his heel, he pointed a commanding, threatening finger and issued a mind-blast that sent the other beast shrinking back from him: BEGONE!
Something of Vasagi was in him, and just like the Suck's other weird constructs, these things knew it. They collapsed like piles of fur to the steps, and bellied back from Nestor, grovellingly to their accustomed places. And now there was no one and nothing in Suckscar to say no him.
Canker was impressed, and followed even closer to heel as they went up to Vasagi's old rooms over the great hall. Behind them, Wran and Spiro were nowhere in sight. They were exploring on their own, a fact which had not gone unnoticed by Nestor. As well to suffer their rudeness ... for now at least.
At the top of the wide flight, cartilage balconies extended left and right, grafted to ledges in the rock which spanned half-way across the great hall just below the ceiling. Up here, Nestor would be able to move about, keeping watch over the industries of common thralls and lieutenants alike. Tunnels in the walls at the rear of the ledges led to lesser rooms, galleries, storehouses, dizzy observation platforms supported by cartilage buttresses, and landing bays and stables in the outer 'skin' of the aerie, whose rock had been worn into those deep and impressive scars for which the manse was named. From the outermost turret, looking hard right (due south), Nestor spied the barrier mountains golden in their peaks, while on high the clouds over teetering Wrathspire were lined with silver and hazy with deadly sunlight. Such observations helped with his orientation: temporal, spatial and mundane, all three. For just as he had begun to think of himself as invincible, he was reminded of his mortality and the sun's destructive power. And when he'd momentarily considered himself magnificent, the stack's awesome majesty had reduced him to a flea. From which time forward his excitement was somewhat reduced .. .