light, he put up a hand to fend it off; his hand touched the dazzle's surface, and sank into it... he cried out in his guttural fashion, as the hellgate dragged him in and swallowed him whole!
And Shaitan said: This shall be a punishment for any who would offend me three times. Three chances, for I am forgiving, as you see. And there shall be other punishments, aye. I am the Lord Shaitan, who can make men undead!
Anyone who would do me harm, let him first think on this: I shall drain his blood and bury him deep in the ground.
And he shall lie there and scream forever, or until he stiffens to a stone in the earth. And that land there to the north; I perceive it is icy cold and no fit habitation. Therefore, let him who would deny me beware. In my house there shall be no warm bed or soft woman-flesh for him; no kind master to guide and instruct him; neither wonders to be witnessed nor mysteries revealed. For I shall banish him north to freeze in the ice all alone. But for him who would obey me in all things, and be my true servant, a rich red life forever ... aye, even unto death - and beyond! So be it...'
Lord Shaitan and his followers came to a region of giant stone stacks weathered out of the mountains. In their bases they were fortified with fallen scree jumbles; in their columns were fissures, ledges and caverns, many as vast as halls.
Shaitan much admired these soaring stacks, which were very grand and gaunt. 'One of these shal be my house,'he said.
And a thral told him: They are like unto the aeries of the mountain eagles!'
'Aye,' said Shaitan. The aeries of the Wamphyri!' He set to and built his house. The task was enormous; only a vampire and his thrals could ever accomplish it.
Except Shaitan would build not only a house but an empire of vampires. He recruited trogs out of their caverns, and sent his lieutenants into Sunside to hunt Szgany. And in the bowels of his rearing house, Shaitan experimented with his own metamorphic flesh, to furnish himself with al of his requirements.
He bred trogs into cartilage creatures, whose minds were smal and bodies elastic. From these he made leathers and coverings for the aerie's exterior stairways, or articles of furniture for his rooms. And al of his materials still living a life of sorts, gradualy petrifying and becoming permanent in their places. He mated men with trog women, the issue of which was unseemly. He got foul, bloated things, al gross and mindless, which he bred into gaslings, for the heating of the stack, and into things-which-consume, for his refuse pits.
Shaitan took mindless vampire flesh and converted it; he would build flying creatures, and soar out from his aerie upon the winds like his familiar bats. At first he failed; later he provided his flyers with the altered brains of men, that they should have something (but never too much) of volition. Al of which creatures, nascent and ful-formed, were his thrals.
Word of his works went abroad into Sunside. Starside was now damned and shunned uterly - by men, at least. But by now the Szgany had problems other than Shaitan and his raiders. Far in the west the swamps were a spawning ground for monsters! Foolish men and innocent creatures went down to the scummy waters to drink, and things other than men and wolves came up!
And in the early years of Shaitan's ascendancy, a great many beings who were like unto him came over from Sunside to build their houses in the rearing stone aeries of the Wamphyri. And because they were even as strong as Shaitan and much of a kind, he made no protest but let them be. For in any case there was space enough among the great stacks and even Shaitan was unable to lay claim to al of them. Also, across the barrier mountains there was food and entertainment for al. Still, as a precaution, Shaitan fashioned fierce warrior-creatures, to. fill any would-be enemies with terror ...
And in the next two hundred years the Wamphyri became a great many. Too many ...
On Sunside, the Szgany had become clans of Travelers,' moving nomadicaly from place to place by day, and sleeping in deep forests or caves at night. Even so, the Lords of Starside gave them no peace, and the tol in blood was monstrous!
Then Shaitan saw