'Aye, leave me now,' he coughed the words out, shooting Nestor a look that brooked no argument. 'But not too far. And when I call out for you, come at once.' His blunt fingers tore Vasagi's tunic open, and commenced to knead the ridge of his exposed spine.
Nestor left him, went stumbling back down to the trail, and along it to the dying embers of Wran's fire. The roasted meat smell was heavy in the air now. Some wild creature moved there, a fox or feral dog, scurrying at Nestor's approach. It grabbed up the spit and meat entire from where it lay toppled to one side, dropped the hot food and slunk into the shadows, returned in a moment to snatch up the meat again.
Nestor had not looked at Wran's roast before; but now, as it lay there smoking, and as the fox — it was a fox, yes — snapped it up a second time, he saw what it was. At least, he believed he saw what it was. And then he no longer wished to know what it was, except its shape was something his mind couldn't erase: the blackened form of a tiny Szgany infant! The 'bait' which Wran had used to alert Vasagi to his presence here and lure him to his doom.
'Nestor, attend me now!' Wran's shout drifted down to him through the thinning mist. Nestor looked up, saw how the dawn was advancing. Above the barrier range, the Northstar's glitter was much reduced. Ah, but as he saw that star of ill-omen the idea returned to burn as brightly as ever, and his horror shrank down. What, fear? Trembling? Trepidation? No, for this was his legacy. He was the Lord Nestor, and he was going home.
He returned to Wran and saw what he had done, what he was even now about: a nightmarish act or acts! But Nestor's sensitivities were severely blunted, reduced, even reversed. What would so recently have horrified him merely fascinated him now. These were things which he had somehow forgotten or been caused to forget, which he must now remember, re-learn, if he was to be successful in Starside. Perhaps his failure to appreciate such things in the first place was responsible for his current privations!
Wran saw his morbid fascination and nodded. 'Well, you're a rare one, I'll grant you that. I gave you the opportunity to run for it — it's almost dawn; I have to go; I would not have pursued you — but you're still here. You really do want to be Wamphyri.'
Nestor only half heard him, glanced at him, saw that his face and mouth were more nearly 'human' again, however bloody. But mainly he gazed at Vasagi: his back laid open to the naked bone, and something black — his leech? — writhing there, but feebly, like a dying snake of black muscle, half welded to his spine within his body. The black thing had been punctured and leaked crimson, the richest colour Nestor could imagine, whose shade matched precisely the blood on Wran's face and lips.
In a voice filled with wonder but little or no fear, finally Nestor asked: 'What caused you to fight? For plainly you are both Wamphyri.'
Wran laughed. 'Isn't that enough reason?' And then, more soberly: 'He insulted me.' (He shrugged.) 'Well, we insulted each other. Our rivalries were various and couldn't continue. We dwelled too close together and crossed each other's paths too often. When it came, the challenge was mutual and could only be resolved like this: one of us must die. But even so, we had no desire to entertain our "brothers" and our "sister" in Starside's last aerie. And so our duel would be a private thing and take place here, on Sunside. No rules except that we come on our own, with all the length and breadth of Sunside for a battleground, and the long night from sundown to sunup for duration.'
'What if he had not come to you?' Nestor's eyes stayed rapt upon the black thing's spastic movements where it gradually detached itself from Vasagi's spine.
Then there was always tomorrow night,' the other answered. 'But that was unlikely. For to live another night here meant living another day here. Which was the other proviso: that once we set out from Starside, we could not return until it was finished. Aye, and only one of us could go back. Anything else would be seen as — what? — half-hearted at best, cowardice at worst. But we were not cowards, the Suck and I, nor were we half-hearted.'
That… thing,' Nestor nodded towards the maimed, tortured, outstretched form of Vasagi, 'is coming out of him.'
'His leech?' Wran answered. 'Indeed it is! For it knows he is a loser. Perhaps it will have a better chance… elsewhere?' Grinning hideously, he cocked his head on one side.
'Elsewhere?' Nestor watched the thing's struggles as it emerged like a long, corrugated slug from Vasagi onto the hard earth. Blind, indeed eyeless, still its 'head' turned in Wran's direction as it sensed him there. And it lingered like that a moment, swaying this way and that as if it were exhausted and about to collapse. The thing was all of eighteen inches long, ridgy, shiny black and mottled green, and red from the Suck's spilled blood.
'A strong new host,' Wran's chuckle was a clotted gurgle, 'whose precious blood would save its life. Except I can't allow that, for there's far too much of Vasagi in it. So… give me your knife.'
Nestor handed over the knife, and as he moved so Vasagi's leech turned towards him. Wran had been appraised; he already had a leech; he'd been rejected as a possible host. But Nestor… had not. And with slow, painful contractions of its underbelly, it commenced to glide towards him.
But: 'Ah, no, my friend!' Wran cried. He fell on it, grasped its body with an iron hand, quick as a flash detached its six-inch 'head' and hurled it away, out over the misted trail. There was very little blood left in it to bleed, and very little strength. At first it flexed and whipped like a fish fresh from the river, but then in a moment lay still. Wran stood up from it and grunted: 'Now… watch!'
Nestor scarcely needed telling; he couldn't take his eyes off the thing, which had turned a sick, glistening grey. It lay on its back now, more slug-like than ever, its belly silvery in the rapidly improving light. Something like a blister formed in the slit which might be a reproductive organ, and Wran pointed, saying: 'Ah, the very thing! Newborn, it knows nothing. In its way, why, it's much like yourself, Nestor! Aye, Vasagi's egg is all instinct. See!'
The blister was now a small grey sphere no larger than a man's thumbnail, which detached itself from the parent body and slid down the thing's belly to the earth. Nestor saw that there was something mobile within it. He had watched tadpoles emerging from frog-spawn when he was a child; it was like that, but the casing of the egg was more like a film than a jelly. Suddenly it popped like a bubble, releasing its contents. The small, silvery sphere which emerged was frantic; covered with hundreds of flickering hairs, it skittered to and fro among the pebbles.
Wran said: 'Can you believe it? Can you understand, Nestor? For this tiny, harmless thing… is what you would be! It is Wamphyri!' He went to one knee again, reached out his hand to touch it — and the sphere ran along his finger on to his palm and spun there like a top. He held it out so that Nestor could see it more clearly: this whirling thing in his palm — which suddenly grew motionless! And:
'Ah!' Wran said. 'It would test me. Watch closely.'
Nestor moved closer, gaped; his eyes were wide and his jaw hung open. The egg put out a single red thorn which sank effortlessly into the horny flesh of Wran's hand. And it tested — it tasted — him! Then… the stinger was withdrawn in a moment, and the egg commenced spinning again.