of humanity dwelled as best they might in the narrow belts of forest and on the plains south of the great barrier range, and in the southern flanks of the mountains themselves.
And now, whenever hunters climbed those mountains in their central region, or strayed through the great pass to Starside's boulder plains, they saw how an awful revenant of the cataclysm yet survived to reinforce its legend: a crater socket with its sunken, blind white eye glaring up and out, as if some fallen demon lay paralysed, unblinking, and wondering at his lot. And the gaze of his cold, dead white eye was like a beacon, a forbidding pharos, not guiding but warning souls away ...
A demon, yes, why not? Something from hell, anyway. Something which had brought hell here with it.
And in the legends there was also the story of a wandering adventurer, first through the pass after those turbulent centuries of stabilization, who climbed down to the mainly buried sphere of white light to touch it... and was never seen again. For it had opened like a Gate to take him into hell.
Which was why the place had been named like that and why it was now forbidden, along with all of those desolate lands lying north of the mountains: the boulder plains, and further east a region of dizzily rearing stacks of volcanic stone, like vast spears of rock rising to rival the barrier range itself; and beyond the northernmost horizon, sending up a blue shimmer and sheen under the diamond stars and weirdly writhing auroras, the bitterly frozen Icelands.
All of these places, forbidding and forbidden. But in any case, who would want to go there? Nothing lived there; nothing could live there, but bats in the caves, and wolves up in the peaks and passes over Starside, and certain lesser creatures. Surely it was no fit habitation for men. Not for any sort of men. Not yet, anyway ...
Shaitan came across his first true men by the light of their campfire, and saw that they were clad in the furs and skins of animals. There were three of them and they saw him at the same time, saw also that he was naked; which was just as well for Shaitan, for they were hunters. If he had clothed himself and come upon them suddenly like that ... with his height, he could have been mistaken for a great bear. As it was he found himself covered by their crossbows as they scrambled to their feet and turned more fully towards him. But then:
'A man!' one of them grunted, frowning.
And: 'An idiot!' said another. 'I very nearly put a bolt in him!'
Shaitan read their expressions, their lips, in part their minds. Their words fitted readily with everything else he saw, so that he understood much of their language from the start. As they came forward to peer at him in the firelight, the last of them queried nervously, 'A madman? Do you think so?'
And the second: 'What else? Up here in the night on his own, naked under the stars.' And to Shaitan, coldly, 'Who are you?'
Smiling his sardonic smile, he answered, 'I am what I am.'
'And your name?'
'Shaitan!' Because finally he remembered it.
'Well, Shaitan,' the first of the three chuckled, but not unkindly, 'you'll excuse me for saying so, but it seems to me you're a bit daft!'
'You think I'm ... demented?' He looked at them, and down at himself. 'But if I am mad - a harmless idiot -then why do you point your weapons?'
At that the second man again spoke up, saying: 'Because "idiot" and "harmless" don't necessarily coincide, that's why. Down on the levels, in the camp of Heinar Hagi, we've one such "idiot" who works for his living -and Janni Nunov lugs boulders which I can't even budge!'
Moving artlessly so as to disarm them, Shaitan approached their fire, hunched down and fed a stick to the fitful flames. The three put up their weapons and approached him again, and he pretended not to study them where he warmed his hands. It seemed they had no leader with them but were equals. One was short, squat and bearded; the next of medium height, sturdy, heavy-jawed; the last young and wiry, whose mind seemed entirely innocent. But since they likewise studied him, Shaitan kept his scarlet eyes half-shuttered and gazed mainly into the fire. The red would be taken for reflected firelight.
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
And finally the squat one, Dezmir Babeni, mused,