'Ah, shame!' Wran cried. 'It rejects me! Only enter my body… it would be devoured in a moment, and knows it. But your body is an entirely different thing!' Wran stopped smiling; his eyes were suddenly huge, blazing with hell's fires; he blew the vampire egg off the palm of his hand like blowing a kiss — directly into Nestor's face!
Nestor closed his mouth, turned his face aside as the stench of Wran's breath hit him. But the egg hit him at one and the same time, and clung like spittle to his cheek — for a single moment. Then he felt it mobile on his flesh, inside his shirt, moving to the back of his neck. And Wran was right: from then on it was all instinct. Instinct told him to crush this thing, remove it, kill it, before he in turn was tested, tasted. Too late, for in his case that wasn't necessary. The egg had instincts, too, and knew that Nestor was innocent.
In position, the shimmering pearly sphere turned scarlet. Requiring no ovipositor, it soaked into him, was absorbed into Nestor's flesh like water into sand. Settling to his spine, it made contact and fused with his shrinking nerve cells. Until which time, Nestor had never really known what pain was. But now he knew.
He started, cried out, leaped, gave a reflex bound into the air with his limbs flying in all directions. He came down on his back among sharp stones and didn't even feel them, but he felt the thing exploring his spine. He jumped up, bounded again, as if to shake it loose. And the pain, which was now spreading through every part of his body — back, skull, all of his limbs — increased. There was a fire in his veins, which burned worse than vinegar in an open wound.
He tripped, fell, rolled among rocks which cut him, and felt nothing of it. For his cuts were like scratches compared to a lashing whip, except there were a hundred whips and they were all lashing inside him.
Through all of this Wran the Rage laughed like a madman — a mad thing — laughed, danced and held his sides, and finally sat down, rocking this way and that in hellish glee. He laughed until tears streamed from his red eyes, ran down his grey cheeks to drip from the wen on his chin; laughed till he leaned back against a rock and the raw flesh of his back was rubbed. And at that… perhaps at last he appreciated something of Nestor's pain, too.
Nestor had passed through panic and desperation and was well on his way into hell. He thought he was dying, that his agonies must soon kill him, but not soon enough, and knew he would welcome Death as a friend, a merciful release. His skull was bursting; his spine was on fire; acid coursed in his veins where he rolled and writhed upon the ground. But as Wran approached him, he summoned strength from somewhere and jerked to his knees, and begged him, 'P-p-please!'
'Aye, enough,' Wran nodded, and hit him just once…
'Wake up!' A hand hard as old leather slapped Nestor's face, rocking his head to and fro. He sat propped against a boulder, exhausted, with the agony of his internal conflict gone now but all of his new cuts and bruises burning and throbbing. Opening his eyes, he saw Wran of the Wamphyri standing huge against the dawn. Dawn, yes, for the vampire Lord was a silhouette with Sunside for a backdrop; while beyond him on the rim of the world, a fan of golden spokes was already probing the sky.
'I go now,' Wran grunted. 'Up there on the bluff,' he jerked his head, 'two flyers are waiting. One of them was Vasagi's. As you're aware, he no longer has need of it. You have his egg, so why not his flyer too, eh?
Earlier, as you approached me in the night, my ears followed you along every inch of your route. Unless you were blind you saw the beasts. Am I right?'
Nestor nodded, which was as much as he could do.
'Well then, my Lord Nestor, the rest is up to you,' Wran told him. 'If you would come to Starside, the way stands open. Command Vasagi's beast and fly it home. Or if you're too weak, then it's best you stay here. Except I would warn you, the egg is sensitive: when it feels the sun upon your flesh its frenzy may well kill you. So fly or die, it's simple as that.'
Again Nestor nodded. But his eyes were less vacant now; indeed they were unwavering, hard, fixed upon Wran's face as if to remember every last line and pore of it. The night is flown,' Wran said. 'An hour at most before a golden blister bursts on the world's rim, and splashes these barrier mountains with yellow pus. But in Starside, all is safe and dark.'
He turned and strode away, and could feel Nestor's eyes burning on his back as he climbed the rugged slope towards his flyer…
Nestor couldn't walk, so he crawled on hands and knees. But as he passed the pegged-out form of Vasagi, something spoke in his head: Boy, loosen these pegs.
It was a whisper, faint, tortured, pitiful. As yet, Nestor could still pity. He looked at Vasagi where he lay: his bloody, mutilated face blowing scarlet froth into the dust; his broken arm and ravaged spine; a bolt projecting from his back, and his neck a gaping mess where the first bolt had been wrenched free and tossed aside. Yet still alive!
Aye, but dying, the voice came again. Wran hurt me sorely, but it was you who brought me down. So perhaps you're worthy to be Wamphyri at that. But you have my egg, my flyer.. must you take my life, too? It is finished anyway — but not like this, I beg you. Pull out the pegs, and let me crawl away into some cave to die. But not in the sunlight, for you can't know what it is… for one like me… to die in sunlight…
Nestor knew well enough. Hadn't his flyer gone the same way, melting into stench and evaporation? But to pull out the pegs… what if this creature were still dangerous?
The laughter which swelled in his mind then was bitter, and filled with a painful irony. Dangerous? Oh, I was, it's true! But now? I have no leech; I am broken, gutted, an empty shell. But you… you are, or you were, Szgany. And you have things in you other than the morbid emotions of the Wamphyri. For a little while longer, at least. Which is why I beg you one last time; pull out the pegs.
Nestor did it, and crawled on. In a little while he could get to his feet. He looked back, and Vasagi was still stretched there; he hadn't moved; perhaps he couldn't. Nestor put him out of his mind and went to his flyer.
The beast saw him coming and looked at him through stupid, lustreless eyes. He approached it carefully, for he saw how it could roll or flop on him and crush his life out. But it was of vampire stuff and sensed the vampire in Nestor; it blinked its great eyes nervously as he took hold of its trappings, no more than that. Then, as he dragged himself up into the saddle, he saw Vasagi's bloody gauntlet hanging from a strap, where Wran had left it for him. Of course, for what's a Lord of the Wamphyri without his gauntlet?
Sunside was all hazy grey and green now, with mists rising out of the dark forests and blue smoke from distant campsites and townships, and all the birds waking up, commencing their dawn chorus. Central on the southern horizon, a yellow glow threatened at any moment to become a golden furnace.
Nestor dug his heels into his mount's sides at the base of its swaying neck, and gave a tentative jerk on the reins. 'Up,' he grunted. 'Let's be away.'
The creature craned its neck, looked at him curiously, stretched its manta wings — and did nothing. Nestor slapped its neck and the grey flesh twitched a little — that was all. 'Up!' he shouted, digging harder with his heels where rasps on Vasagi's boots had furrowed the beast's flanks. It grunted and quivered, but sat still. The answer was in Nestor's head, and finally he found it there.
I want you to fly! he told the creature. Up, now, into the sky, and home to Starside. Or would you rather melt when the sun comes up? Metamorphic muscles bunched then, and the flyer's thrusters coiled themselves as tight as springs. But still the beast would not, could not obey him. Till suddenly Vasagi's almost exhausted 'voice' joined Nestor's: Aye, you were ever a faithful beast. When I told you to stay, you stayed. But now you are his. It pleases me to give you to him.. for a while, at least. So fly — fly!