wind? And indeed Wratha had been quick off the mark, when in his anger Vormulac had almost given the show away. No time to worry about it now, however, for on Maglore's left Vormulac was on his feet and holding up his arms to quiet the murmur. And:
'Now to business,' Vormspire's Master grunted. 'But first, in order to refresh your memories with regard to the background of the matter in hand, allow me to reintroduce Maglore of Runemanse, whose knowledge of our history, from Turgosheim's humble beginnings to the present day, is unsurpassed. I give you the Seer Lord Maglore.'
As Vormulac sat down, so Maglore climbed creaking to his feet. Now it was his turn to keep the show going. Ah, but if only he could be sure that it wasn't already over ...
Chapter 10
Ill
'Two thousand years ago,' Maglore began without pause or any further introduction, Turgosheim was a vast canyon: a place where the mountains had torn themselves asunder, a deep dark stony gash with its mouth opening towards the Icelands far to the north. Its uneven body gaped like a wound in the belly of the mountains, and its several tails tapered into the passes which lead to Sunside.
'Within the canyon stood a good many stacks and spires eroded or split from the original rock, some whose roofs were flat and others which were craggy. And in the canyon's walls were caverns and overhangs and ledges galore, so that the very rock was honeycombed. The gorge was some four miles long north to south, two and a half to three east to west, and mainly sheltered from the sun at its zenith by the body of the range itself. Only the highest spires and flat summits ever felt the full force of the sun.
'In its bed, the canyon was a jumble of fallen boulders, scree, lesser ravines and olden watercourses, with some deep caverns in the walls where lowly trogs lived out their lives in gloom and ignorance. In the beginning, our ancestors were obliged to utilize these dull creatures as best they could, at least until they could explore Sunside for the bounty of its forests and lakes, and its Szgany settlements, of course.
'In short, Turgosheim the canyon was much as it is now, with the exception that it was empty, and only a handful of Turgo Zolte's people to furnish and inhabit its spires and manses. But to them, despite that in reality Turgosheim was a small place, it looked huge! Not so vast an area as Olden Starside with its rearing stacks and endless boulder plains, no, but enormous to them who were so few. And trog meat plentiful, and eventually the sweeter meats of Sunside, too.
'Plentiful, aye, in that time when Turgo Zolte's people, who had fled here from the devil Shaitan in Olden Starside, were only a handful...
The great manses were built, extended, and furnished with cartilage and bone; and all the spires likewise, their external stairways covered over and protected by oiled skins, in imitation of those mightier stacks in Olden Starside. The passes to Sunside were opened up; at sundown our ancestors hunted in the forests, flying home before sunup with their booty. Life was good, and the Wamphyri prospered ... for a while. 'They prospered,and they multiplied.Turgo had crashed and died in the swamps; his body produced spores; animals and men from Sunside were infected. Some of them joined with Turgosheim's Wamphyri and no one objected. For despite that these outsiders were lowborn, of spores and not the true egg, still they made us strong. And as yet there was room galore in the great canyon. Ah, but all the time what space there was ... it was narrowing down!
'Lords begat Lords and Ladies, likewise the swamps, and in six hundred years Turgosheim was crowded. Even the smaller manses, the lowliest spires, were occupied, and Wamphyri blazons fluttered from the merest mounds. And the road to ascension was hard indeed, when the new Lords must inhabit stacks which in an earlier time had been rejected as mere stumps!
"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"
'Meanwhile, Zolteism as a creed had waned. Hard to deny oneself with all of the good things of life so close at hand, a twilight's flight away over the peaks or through the passes. They, our ancestors, revelled in blood and the hunt, and the fulfilment of their leeches became their only pastime. As for their carnal appetites: they satisfied those, and with enormous zest, among the