grey brothers in Settlement saw him taken into the creature's mouth, the other's snarling answer came at once. He was snatched up, whirled aloft, carried east and towards the barrier peaks. But in the hills and all along the spine of the mountains, we observed the creature's clumsy flight. Wounded where a great bolt was lodged in its flesh, it could not clear the mountains. With fluids raining from its wound, it fell to earth, came down in the pines and expired on the slopes above a Szgany township. And so your brother, who is our uncle Nestor, is not in Starside but Sunside. But .... cannot say if he lives. Members of the pack were close to hand, but not that close. And the men of the town are fearful now of creatures other than men. Aye, and even of strange men! The grey brotherhood must stay well clear.
'Which town?' Nathan could scarcely contain his excitement, which threatened to wake him up. 'Where did the flyer crash? If Nestor is still alive, I have to find him. He's all I have left.'
You have us.
'Among men, he's all I have.'
You have the Lidesci, who was our father's friend even before we were littered.
'But Lardis Lidesci... is not of my blood.'
(A nod of that wise wolf head.) The town is the next one to the east, between the rivers.
Twin Fords?'
That is its name, we think. But Nathan, you have your mother, and a young female of the Szgany. We have seen you together, and she is always in your mind.
'Misha? I don't know if she lives. And if she lives, I don't know where or for how long. She was taken by a ... by a human dog! By a beast-thing, Wamphyri!'
The Dweller, our father, was a wolf-human, a werewolf.
Nathan shook his head. 'Your father could not have been like this one. You are animals, not-humans. But this one was a ... a beast! He was inhuman.'
We know of him. (That nod of a wise head again.) In the east, beyond the pass, the grey brothers have heard him singing to the moon in Karenstack. For he worships our silver mistress much as we do. But you are right: he is not like us. We are... animals, and he is a man-beast.
'Wamphyri,' said Nathan, 'aye And your mother? What of her?
'I don't know. Perhaps she was taken; I pray by my star that she was not; perhaps she ran off into the woods. But if she did, then why has she not returned? Do you know anything of her?'
No. It is only by chance that we know of Nestor. We wish you luck in your search for him.
'Do you leave me now?' Nathan was reluctant to let them go.
New things have come to pass. (In Nathan's mind, Blaze's golden eyes seemed to burn on him. But their yellow fire was fading, and the wolf's telepathic voice was faint now, retreating.) Strange and monstrous creatures are come into Starside, from where they raid on Sunside. The woods and mountains are no longer safe, neither for wolves nor men. These are problems for which we have no answers, but there is one at least who might know. Now we go to find out about these things.
Desperately, Nathan tried to retain him, hold on to this one familiar thread - however weird, tenuous, unbelievable - in a world which in the space of a few short hours had become a nightmare. 'Answers? But there is no answer to the Wamphyri.'
You may be right. You may be wrong. (The voice was fading out and starting to lose all sense and meaning. How else could Nathan translate the next and last words he heard, except that he misunderstood them?) But our mother speaks to our father, who is your brother. And if anyone would know, he is that one. And so we go to speak to the one who suckled us.
'Your mother, a wolf?'
Aye, where her bones lie bleached in a secret place...
It seemed that a cold wind keened upon Nathan then, as the wolf-voice went out of his dreams -
- But the wind was only the night air where someone had uncovered his head. Squinting his eyes in the firelight he saw Lardis kneeling beside him, turning back his blanket. 'Nathan,' the old Lidesci growled. 'Be up, lad, and away from here. This one you've guarded so well, he wakes up - and I have business with him.'