her hands. Do you understand the principle? She could cure the sick and the fevered by holding them, stroking them, by balming them with her lullabies and her loving touch. Ah, but I see that there are such in your world, too ... faith healers, yes. And I also see that some are fakers, here as in my world. But Illula was the real thing.'So, hunting in Sunside one night Giorgas found Illula the Healer - who had no man, for she had given her life over to her calling - and saw that she was beautiful. He had heard of her; the Wamphyri had their spies in Sunside, and little escaped the notice of the Starside Lords. However, there was no requirement for a healer in Giorgas's manse or in any of the aeries, for common ailments were unheard of among the Wamphyri, whose systems are so imbued with evil that lesser evils can gain no foothold. I exclude, of course, the various mutations, autisms, metamorphisms and madnesses with which the Great Vampires were ever afflicted, if afflicted is the right word. For apart from lunacy - oh, yes, and leprosy, the so-called "bane of vampires" - these other conditions were rarely considered illnesses at all; they were simply facts of life and longevity. For where men in their old age are prone to aches and pains, vampires in theirs are prone to all manner of weirdness.'At any rate, while Illula's skills were of little use to Giorgas, her beauty - not to mention her virginity, which was a rarity in females of an age, even in Sunside - was a sure fascination. And of course he had the latter from her, then had her to wife. Yes, for Giorgas wanted sons to manage his aerie, and where better to get them than from a handsome woman? According to Lord Malinari, his sire was not without good looks himself; which perhaps accounts for The Mind's darkly handsome appearance.'Ah, but the rare combination of Malinari's parents' talents accounted for a lot more than his merely physical attributes ...
'So, Illula the Healer was vampirized, and of course suffered the sleep of change. When she awakened, she was Wamphyri! And Giorgas's manse now had both master and mistress. But if men should be careful in choosing their wives, how much more careful in the making of vampires? Especially Great Vampires.
'Anyway, Illula was Wamphyri, and a deal of Giorgas's essence was circulating within her; even the first nodes and filaments and foetal foulness of a parasite leech, gathering to her spine to suck on its marrow. That is ever the way of it. But as if to compensate for such depredations, the burgeoning vampire invariably accentuates the senses of the initiate. Not only the five mundane senses, but also - when such enhancement is of benefit to the parasite - any additional senses ...
'Illula and Giorgas shared a bed and, of course - being his wife now and a Great Vampire in her own right - she clung to him through long Starside days, when the spires of the tallest aeries glowed golden in the seething rays from Sunside. And when her Lord started or moaned in his sleep (for even the most terrible of the Wamphyri are prone to nightmares, and some even more so, which usually spring from memories of their own conversions or initiations), then she would employ her healer's hands to soothe his brow and her soft-crooned lullabies to drive away whichever terrors invaded his dreams. But in the twilight before the night - when despite her ministrations he would come awake showing little or no benefit from his rest - then Illula would be nonplussed; and Lord Malin, he would laze around Malstack as if suffering from a crippling malaise ... which he was. And she was it.'The fault lay in her once-healing hands, her once-calming songs, her once-balming presence. For now, enhanced by Giorgas's vampire essence and her ascension, her healing powers were reversed. Before, where Illula had given life - or at least given it back - now she drew it off. She battened on it like ... why, like a vampire, naturally! For even if she would have it otherwise, her vampire would not. And there never was a vampire who gave of life, nor would there ever be.'Thus Giorgas's life-force