the innermost wall and hung a prepared pot from a tripod. Prodding the fire's embers to glowing life, and aware that Harry's eyes followed her every movement, she finally told him, 'But The Dweller's instructions were very clear: Lardis's people are to tend your needs as best possible until such time as you recover, upon which - and immediately - he is to be informed.'
'My needs are that I'm not to be disturbed,' Harry's wits were a little sharper now. 'I'm not to be excited. You mustn't ... mustn't argue with me.' All of this thinking, all of these words, were a big effort. Wearied, he lay back and wondered why he felt only half here. No, he knew why: it was because he was only half here. He had lost, been deprived of, several of his senses -like losing touch and taste. Which left him feeling numb, and life flavourless.
The Gypsy woman smiled and slowly nodded, as if the sharpness of Harry's words had confirmed some unspoken thing. 'You are wilful,' she said what was on her mind. 'All of you hell-landers are alike, wild and wilful. Zekintha, called Zek, and Jazz Simmons: they were the same. If only they had stayed here. Their hot blood - their children - would be welcome among the Travellers. We would be the stronger for it.' It was a Szgany compliment.
'Szgany blood is hot enough,' Harry answered, also a compliment. 'So ... will you report my awakening? What's your name, anyway?'
'I am Nana Kiklu,' she answered, coming back to sit beside him as before. 'And no, I will not report your awakening. Not for a little while.'
'Not until morning? Sunup?'
She cocked her head on one side. That's a long time. We're only half-way into the night. There will be others looking after you before sunup, who will surely see that you are recovered.'
'Not if I'm asleep,' Harry answered.
'Perhaps not ...' But now she could see how important this was to him, and so made up her mind. 'Mine is the last shift,' she said, thoughtfully. 'If your recovery is still undiscovered when I return, then it can wait till daylight.'
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
Harry held back a sigh of relief, settled down more easily into his bed. He did actually need the time, didn't want to be transported back to his own world while he was still in ... in a state of shock? And so, 'Fair enough,' he said. And in open admiration: 'Your man is fortunate, Nana Kiklu. At one and the same time, his woman is accommodating and charming.'
'I thank you,' she answered at once, 'but as for my man - alas, no.' And now a certain longing, an emptiness, crept into her voice, and a sadness on to her face. For like Harry, Nana, too, had been deprived. 'My man was ... less than fortunate,' she explained. 'In the battle for the garden, the Lord Belath's gauntlet, dipped in poison, sliced Hzak's shoulder to the bone. I prayed he would survive. He did survive - for six sunups.'
Now Harry Keogh sighed, more a groan than a sigh proper, and turned his face away; but not before she saw the sympathy living in it, and the regret. The time had been - but now was gone - when he might have contacted Hzak Kiklu to comfort him, tell him that the Wamphyri were no more. But ex-Necroscope, the dead were beyond Harry now.
'All things pass,' she said, bravely. 'Now - can you sit up? I have soup for you, with chunks of soft meat. Your blood has grown thin as water through all the hours you've lain here. This will thicken it up.' She brought soup and bread. Harry was suddenly very tired, but he was hungry too. While he ate, Nana Kiklu looked on in silent approval. She approved of him wolfing the food she'd prepared, and she approved ... of him.
Under his bedclothes lay the body of a hunter, a fighting man; hard-muscled as Hzak's had been, yet pale and different. Well, of course he was different, for he came out of the hell-lands of legend! But ... not that different. She'd washed him tip to toe and so knew he wasn't that different. But handsome, aye! Tall, and lean in the hip. Strong too, before his sickbed, and would be again. Nana had no concept of the word 'athlete', but she could picture Harry chasing a wild pig and casting his spear: the ripple of