involuntary, uncontrollable shudder. 'Aye, that one's thoughts are strong; they carry on the aether like cries across an echoing valley, and my mind the valley wall, which traps them for me to read.'
Lardis turned this way and that in search of some unseen solution, but in the next moment hope lifted his voice. 'What of Karen?' he demanded. 'What of Harry Dwellersire? That one has powers, which he put to work in the battle for The Dweller's garden. And the pair of them - forgive me for saying it, for even thinking it - they are Wamphryi in their own right! I can't see them sitting still, doing nothing, while Shaithis regains his old influence, recoups his old territories. What? Unthinkable! We were allies before, we'll be allies again.1
Jasef nodded, however tremulously. 'Better the devils you know, eh, Lardis? But weren't you listening? Karen has already fled her stack! She's ..^h the hell-lander at this very moment, in his son's garden. As for the changeling: almost certainly he'll side with them against Shaithis and the others. But tell me, what can a wolf do? Ah, he isn't The Dweller which once we knew!'
Lardis paced back and forth, to and fro. 'Well, at least I know what I must do!' he said, finally. And turning to Nana: 'Go back down into Settlement, speak with Peder Szekarly, Kirk Lisescu, Andrei Romani and his brothers. Tell them to report to me, and at once -with their guns! We go again to the garden on Starside. If Harry Dwellersire and Karen are in need of soldiers ... I'll wait here and ready myself, until the five join me. We go to parley with them who defend the Starside garden, as they defended it once before. We go to offer our alliance, and to talk of war!'
Nana nodded. Silent all of this time, now words tumbled from her lips in a breathless gush. 'Lardis, do you think that I ...? Could you possibly ...? I mean to say ... only that I should like very much to go with you!'
Astonished, he looked at her, frowned, tucked his chin in. 'You? Starside? Are your wits suddenly addled, Nana? You, with two small sons to care for, and them only a year older than my own Jason? How could I allow such a thing - and why would you want it? Don't you know the danger?'
'I ... of course I do,' she looked away. 'It was just ... it was nothing but a whim.' And then, in another burst: 'But I ... I nursed Harry Dwellersire that time, and I wondered how he fares now that he is -'
'- Changed!' Lardis finished it for her. 'For he was only a man then, Nana - albeit a strange one - and now is other than a man. You may not go with me. What, to Starside? Of course you may not! Stay in Settlement and care for Hzak Kiklu's children, while you may. A whim, you say? A damned foolish one, I say! And should I let a vampire Lord, even one such as Harry Dwellersire, lay crimson eyes on one of my own Szgany women? Such a fate could be yours ... I would not wish it on a dog!'
But: Ah.' she thought. You don't know, you don't know!
It was Lardis's last word on the subject, however, and Nana was left silently cursing her own tongue, which had so nearly betrayed her ...
Returning downhill to Settlement was easier. As Nana and Jasef approached the last flight, where she would run on ahead with Lardis's message to his men, the old man panted, 'Nana, that was a mistake back there.'
While she, too, was short of breath, still she held it for a moment. 'What was a mistake?'
'Forty sunups, thereabouts, a woman swells with her child,' the old mentalist played at being thoughtful. 'But four years ago' (he did not say 'years' but continued to use terms suited to Sunside and Szgany time scales) 'there were events of great moment, when no one was keeping count.'
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'What are you saying?' But she knew very well what he was saying, even before he answered.
'Hzak Kiklu died after the battle in the garden,' Jasef mused at length (a completely unnecessary reminder, which proved what Nana had always known anyway: that old as he was, still Jasef wasn't the old fool that others believed him to be). 'But before he died he was still very much the man.