fur on a beast's hide; not only the granite mountains of inhospitable Scottish regions but those of far, foreign parts as well. No shortage of resin, no! Two centuries after Radu's coming, all the Greeks in the Mediterranean had been using countless tons of the stuff just to cure their wines! And if Radu's 'contemporaries' - the Drakuls, for instance - had thought to bring native earth from their aeries in Starside for their beds here in this world, then why not a bed of amber for a sleep of centuries?
For long and long, years without number, the idea had lain dormant in Radu's head without his even suspecting it was there. But when he'd needed it...
Resin: a preservative with medicinal properties. A shield against the ravages of time. Perhaps even a cure for a terrible curse that in this world was as devastating as leprosy in Starside. Well, that last wasn't proven as yet, but -
- What was that...?
Radu's 'dreams' were more nearly conscious thoughts now, so that the very slightest of tremors which he'd felt through the walls of his sarcophagus and the near-solid matrix of his resin cocoon had seemed like a presence entering the room of a man on the verge of waking. He had sensed - something! Or someone? Or perhaps it was merely the mountains settling onto their foundations, as they had been doing for all of the six hundred years he'd lain here. He hadn't called, had he? It wasn't time yet, was it? Soon, but not yet. So ... could it have been his creature, stirring with hideous life where it waxed in its own great vat? Possibly. He would 'feel' such motions, certainly, for its mind and flesh were of his making. And so:
Gently, little one, gently, Radu sleepily sent. Your time is soon, be sure ... but not before mine. So have no fear, for your master shall be there to bring you forth ...
There was no answer, and Radu hadn't expected one. It was simply a tremor in these old and fractured rocks, that was al. He could go back to his dreaming: of men and monsters, time and the plague, and of his eventual flight from al these things.
Men ...
The Romans. But the Empire had been on the wane, at least in the parts where Radu and the others came forth. Aye, for the Goths were coming, and they were only a very smal part of what else was coming! Such wars, such batles, such blood! The blood was the life! And the diversity of blood, in this new world! No wonder that at first these hel-lands had seemed like some sort of Wamphyri heaven or paradise. Oh really...?
Men, and their wars ... (Radu gradually settled back into his sleep of centuries).
During long years of upheaval, the Wamphyri had moved into the
mountain heights and spread out into the lands around, even into other lands across the sea; indeed, into all the shores of the Mediterranean and its islands. For they had seen the folly of their ways when first they came here; they had been too bold and had become legends which would not fade quickly in the memories of men. But if they desired long lives here, they must be (or at least appear to be) as one with the world and its people and not apart from them.
And slowly but surely they had come to a mutual understanding: that in this bloody and war-torn world, they would use to best advantage such cover as the wars established for them. And indeed a cover had been required.
For already it was seen how men reacted to the Wamphyri presence: fearfully at first, in a world rife with superstition - but then, like the Szgany of Sunside, they fought back! For while men may suffer their lands to be stolen, their children to be eaten and their wives seduced away, when finally they have nothing left, then there's nothing left to lose! And then any man wil fight!
That was how it had been: the alien invaders of Earth had thought to rule by terror, as they had in Sunside/Starside.
But even there they had not had it all their own way. Through seemingly endless days the sun had forbidden entry into Sunside; in the dark of misty nights the Szgany had hidden themselves away, or if they could not hide had taken up arms. Likewise in this world, except here it was worse. Here the nights were fleeting