it too long. It blasted Peder Szekarly that time, fourteen years ago: turned his skin white as a mushroom and robbed him of an heir. Aye, and it killed him, too, in the end. As for the trogs dwelling in the lee of the mountains: they paid the price, all right. It took them in their hundreds! But for their deep caves, they were finished for sure. Why, there are freaks among them still, whose fathers' blood was poisoned on that night of nights! The one good thing about it: it also fell on the swamps, since when we've had precious few vampire changelings ...'
'Aye, hellfire!' Andrei Romani nodded in agreement. 'And it's burning still, though not so hot now. Me, I say leave it be, and all of Starside, too. There's nothing but ghosts here now, and it's a wise man who leaves them to their own devices."
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'So you see,' said Lardis to Nestor, when they'd climbed down again and were headed for the pass, 'the Gate is hardly irrelevant. It's a marker shining there still, to remind us that this is the spot where the powers of the hell-lands and those of the Wamphyri clashed and cancelled each other out.'
'All very well,' Andrei put in, 'but what's all that to Nathan? Do you think it matters at all? I mean, do you think he understood or was interested in a single damn thing we've talked about? If so, well, he's not much for showing it!'
'He showed plenty of interest in the tumbled stacks of the Wamphyri,' Lardis replied. 'And in Karenstack, the last aerie, blackened like a chimney flue on that side facing the Gate. Aye, and I firmly believe he would have entered Karenstack to climb it, if we'd let him! And finally, it seems he also felt the mystery of the shining sphere Gate. If you ask me, I'd say that's a whole lot of interest - for a dummy.'
Just as they entered the shadow of the pass, he glanced at Nathan and saw the youth looking back at him. Nathan's eyes were shining again. With gratitude, Lardis thought.
But Nestor only said, 'About the Gate: I don't like to contradict you, Lardis - especially not you, a Lidesci, and leader of your people - but what is the Gate really except a ball of white light? So it attracted my brother ... so what? Don't moths flutter to a candle just as readily? And don't they get singed just as often?'
Which, however much he disliked it, was another statement Lardis couldn't dispute ...
For fifteen minutes or so they walked in shadows and silence, with only the jingling of their silver baubles to keep their thoughts company. Then a yellow glow came filtering down from above, as the first of the range's topmost peaks turned gold in the rays of a sun rising even now on Sunside. And:
'I timed that well,' Lardis grunted, pleased with himself. He struck off from the trail and climbed towards a ridge jutting over the western side of the pass. The others, all except Nathan who followed on directly behind Lardis (unquestioningly, of course), came to a halt and watched the two go. Until Nestor inquired of Andrei Romani:
'What now?'
'It's a ritual,' the other answered, 'which Lardis follows every year. Something he likes to see, back there on Starside. That jut of rock's his vantage point. Me, I've seen it before and can get along without it. I'll wait here and save my pins for walking. But you two can go on up, if you like.'
Nestor and Jason went scrambling after Lardis and Nathan, and after a steep but safe climb came upon them standing on a shelf from which they gazed north and a little east. The sunlight on the peaks was stronger now; it found passage between the high crags and cast a fan of beams out across Starside's sky. Up there, only the brightest stars survived; the stars, and the rippling auroras where they warped and fluttered over the far northern horizon.
'Sunup,' Lardis panted, his breathing still ragged from the climb. 'She rises slowly, the sun, along a low flat curve, and in the old days used to light on all the taller stacks one after the other in their turn. Now there's but one aerie left, as you've seen. But still I like to see the sun striking home in its topmost ramparts, and know that there's nothing hiding within, behind bone balconies