more. For like his many unfocused thoughts and memories, his tongue was a traitor; it would betray him; there had been enough of betrayals already.
Once, he had a friend, a so-called 'brother', a child who played with him when he himself was a child. But he had been a traitor whose cheating thoughts were hidden behind a screen of numbers, which he'd used like a plague to torment Nestor, even in his dreams. Now: that one was his greatest enemy!
Once, Nestor had loved a girl, who did not love him back. She, too, was treacherous. But like it or not she would 'love' him one day. And she would die loving him. It was his vow.
Once, he had had a flyer. He remembered its fate: boiling away into rottenness in the hills. He also remembered taking a bolt in his side; and the river whose cold caresses had nearly drowned him; and Glina, whose warm caresses had given him his manhood. If she had known who and what he was ... perhaps she would not have been so eager. Not even the homely Glina.
I am the Lord Nestor, of the Wamphyri!
But a Lord in exile, stripped of his powers, who was now returning home ...
He trekked through all the hours of night, effortlessly. Given purpose, he was tireless. But there would be time enough for sleep in the daylight, before moving on again towards his Starside destination. And always the North-star tugging at him, and the miles flying under his feet.
He let instinct guide him. Only set his sights on that bright blue ice-shard in the sky, and let his body take over . .. the idea itself would do the rest. The hours sped by to match the miles; eventually his footsteps faltered; his body was not as tireless as he'd thought.
He drank from a stream, washed the grit of the forest from his eyes, sat down with his back to a tree. Almost without knowing it he slept, and woke up shivering, lost, wondering where he was. But the Northstar was there, and the idea lived again. As he got his limbs in motion, so his hot blood pounded and soon he was warm.
He came upon an encampment of Szgany. There were guards out, with at least one wolf. No doubt alerted by their watchdog, the men heard him, called out a password; Nestor made no answer but hurried on. They released their animal, which came bounding in his tracks and found him at once. He turned snarling, aimed his bolt right down its throat. But ... the wolf wagged its tail, came sniffing, jumped up to lick his face! Dimly then, Nestor remembered how he and ... he and ... one other (someone close? But he had no one who was close!) had had a way with canines. As a child, wild dogs had come out of the woods to play with him; domesticated wolves, 'guard dogs' like this one, had permitted the very roughest of games without turning on him; wild wolves in the hills had moved cautiously, but without animosity, out of his path.
He'd never made anything of it. Nor did he now. Indeed, he saw the wolf's friendliness as a stupid mistake. He wasn't Szgany. He was the Lord Nestor! But he was one and they were many, and they would be smarter than their tame wolf.
He moved on ...
In the night he wasted a deal of time: sleeping, trekking around obstacles, getting mired in this or that bog. But seen through breaks in the trees, black against the dark-blue sky and ice-blue stars, the mountains drew ever closer. Likewise the dawn.
Where the forest thinned out and grew into foothills he rested a while, gazed out over Sunside and saw the first pale blush of light on the horizon. Hours yet to the true dawn, and more to go to sunup, but this was the start of it. Nestor had no fear of the sun: it was part of his freakishness, that the sun had no power over him. His flyer had not been so fortunate. That . .. puzzled him, but it was so.
He seemed to remember a pass through the mountains. But where would that lie? To the east or to the west? He thought east. But as he made to follow an old and half-familiar trail through the foothills -
- A sound, even movement up ahead! Grey shadows in the pre-dawn dusk, which was as yet much closer to night than