mountains themselves. And the electrical storm in its dome, and the fires that billowed all up and down its pulsing stem ...'Ben has told me what it was: a "tactical weapon," he says - which I'm told means a small one of its kind - had been fired through the Gate from the underground complex at Perchorsk. And would you believe it, he pretends not to understand why I still think of your world as the Hell-Lands!?'So, we didn't know it was a weapon, and since its deadly cloud swept north we didn't suffer its effects on Sunside. But when it was all over and done the Gate shone as bright as ever, and Starside looked no different, except now beyond the Gate a softly glowing plume lay fallen on the earth, forever pointing in the direction of the Icelands. And no matter the rainstorms or howling winds, the plume was always there.'Then for a while we blessed the Gate, because it had issued that awful breath of hell that destroyed the first and last of the Wamphyri. So we thought for long and long. And this time I admit that I believed it, too. For with ah1 we had learned of the tenacity of the vampire, we had not yet learned the lessons of history...
'Let me go back a little way. At an earlier time, following the battle in The Dweller's garden, Harry Keogh, called Hell-Lander, had fallen sick. At the time we'd thought it must be similar to the sickness that was in his son, The Dweller, for both men had used the power of the sun itself as a weapon against the Wamphyri, wherefore both might have suffered similar scorchings. The Dweller - who had seemed the most badly burned - was soon well on his way to recovery; so we thought. Yet his father, far less badly affected, if at all... he had fallen ill.
'Er, but all of this is incidental to my story, you understand.'Anyway, the Necroscope had a Szgany woman, Nana Kiklu,to tend him where he lay tossing in his fever upon a bed in one of the garden's houses ... The Dweller had built small stone homes for his trog servitors, and Harry lay ill in one of these. Now, Nana's man, Hzak, had died in the fight for the garden, and she was without child. And here was Harry Keogh, also called Dwellersire, a handsome man of rare skills and soaring intelligence, mumbling in his fever dreams of olden loves and lusts.'I need say no more - indeed, I know no more - except that nine months later Nana gave birth to twin boys, one of whom was Nathan. Which explains why we oft-times refer to "Harry and his sons". As to the other son, Nestor ... but he grew up wild, and doesn't concern us here.'Many years passed and Nathan grew into a youth. But while he possessed the germ of his alien father's skills, no one knew of it because we believed he was Hzak Kiklu's son, conceived at the time of the battle in The Dweller's garden. Well, perhaps I had guessed otherwise. But Nana was a good, hard-working woman, and I was fond of her boys, both of them at that time. And anyway, the Szgany Lidesci had always had more than its fair share of gossipy, chattering hags. It wasn't for me to offer them yet another tidbit to cackle over. And remember, even I didn't know that he was, or would soon become, more like his father.'So then, and now you know something of Nathan. But a deal more to come later ...'I have mentioned my annual trek into Starside, when - as if to reassure myself that the vampires were no more, and their aeries toppled, all save one - I would venture to the foot of lone Karenstack and gaze up at that great grim relic of ancient horror, and shout into its nether caverns until the echoes sounded to bring down the dust. Came a time, when I was returning home from just such a journey, I felt that I was witness to ... something. But I couldn't be sure.'It had become my habit to pause in the mouth of the pass at a certain hour, the hour of sun-up, climb to a higher elevation and gaze back on the emptiness of Starside and the boulder plains.