'Well, enough of that… he simply didn't contact us for whatever reasons. And during that same period of time Nathan's world was swinging back again, the shadows lengthening on Starside, and the sun settling back into its old, accustomed orbit. And far beyond the boulder plains, under the flutter and weave of strange auroras, a lot of the northern ice had melted.
'Enter Szwart, Vavara, and Nephran Malinari. The only possible explanation is that they had been locked in the ice — or they had locked themselves in the ice, preserving themselves in suspended animation — when they'd been thrown out of Starside. Wamphyri, they could do it; they must have done it, deep-frozen themselves, a handful of thralls, and however many flying creatures they'd required to bear them into the Icelands when they were banished from the aeries of the Wamphyri. The natural, or unnatural, tenacity of the vampire.
'And meanwhile, here on this world, our world, we weren't even aware that Mikhail Suvorov and a party of scientists,
geologists, and prospectors — not to mention a platoon of heavily armed Russian soldiers — had entered Starside through the Gate in Perchorsk. Perhaps Turchin had been warned not to inform us; I like to think so. Or maybe he didn't want to, for that would have been to admit his own impotence in the matter. And he must have been just as ignorant as we were of the return of the Wamphyri. No way he could have known they were back in Starside.
'Nathan knew, though, and so did Lardis Lidesci. They knew because of the new spate of raids on Sunside. Ah, but this time the Wamphyri didn't have it all their own way, not by any means. Nathan had equipped his people with some devastating Earth-type weaponry, and because of his knowledge of our technology, Traveller "science" was likewise leaping ahead. So that as quickly as Vavara and Lords Szwart and Malinari were recruiting, building up their vampire forces in the hollow stumps of the fallen aeries of the Wamphyri, Nathan and his Traveller fighting men were cutting them down to size again. But while this resulted in some kind of stalemate, still Szgany lives were being lost, especially in the farthest corners of Sunside, in tribal territories that lay far beyond the Lidesci sphere of influence.
'Despite Nathan's ESP, those amazing powers that he'd inherited from his father, he couldn't possibly be everywhere at once. And even in Sunside/Starside, charity begins at home. Of course his main concern was for the Szgany Lidesci, and he had his work cut out protecting them. Part of that work, which was of the utmost importance to Nathan, was to get the Old Lidesci and his wife, Lissa, safely out of there. For it's a fact that Lardis is an old man now — older than his years — as a direct result of living most of his life in the shadow of the Wamphyri. In his youth, life on Sunside was no bowl of cherries. Now Nathan would take over from him… just as soon as he'd taken him out of harm's way.
'So let Lardis complain all he wanted — and I'm told he complained quite a bit — Nathan gave him no choice but simply brought him and his wife to the supposed safety of our world. That's how he got here, and why Lissa is in the care of our people in London. Nathan would have protected his own wife, Misha, in the same way, but Misha wasn't having it. She'd lost him twice before; if Nathan was going to be fighting the Wamphyri yet again, she was going to be at his side. It's the same story for our own Anna-Marie English: Anna had married a Traveller called Andrei Romani, and made a life for herself caring for orphans of the bloodwars. She wasn't going to leave Andrei or the children behind without one hell of a fight. And so she stayed.
'Very well, but just weeks before Nathan, er, transported Lardis and Lissa to Earth, there was a curious lull in vampire attacks on Sunside. When they started up again, the three principal survivors of four or five hundred years of frozen banishment were no longer in command of their lieutenants, thralls, and warrior creatures — or rather, they no longer accompanied them in their raids on Sunside. In order to find out what was happening, Nathan and his Szgany fighting men trapped a lieutenant, bound him to a cross with silver wire, and offered him the usual choice: he could talk and die a clean death with a crossbow bolt in his heart, or he could say nothing and be lowered face down, undead and kicking, into a fire pit. He talked, died quickly, and then burned. There is no other way for a vampire.
'As for what he said:
'Vavara and the others had intercepted strangers entering Starside from the Gate on the boulder plains. There was a short, unequal battle — very short, for Suvorov's troops weren't prepared for this; but then, who would have been? — and Lord Malinari was now "questioning" the handful of survivors before they were sent to the provisioning… that is, before they were used and drained by lieutenants and thralls, and their corpses turned to fodder for the beasts. For of course, following Malinari's kind of interrogation, they wouldn't be very much good for anything else…'
Apparently stalled by something in his story, Trask had paused. His face was drawn and grey now, his eyes sunken; he looked
far 'older than his years,' much as he'd described the Old Lidesci.
The precog lan Goodly knew what was wrong, and said, 'Ben, I'll take it from here if you like.'
'No,' Trask husked. 'When Jake was under pressure, he told his own story. So it's only right I tell mine. Hell, I've lived with it for almost three years now…' But still he took a few seconds to straighten out his thoughts. Then:
'Call it coincidence,' he continued, 'or maybe synchronicity, but Nathan arrived at E-Branch, in Harry's room, yes, just a little too late. He had Lardis and Lissa with him, and a list of stuff he wanted to take back with him. But it was the middle of the night and there was only a skeleton staff; and I… was already on my way in, driving like hell through the empty, cold night streets. God only knows how many red lights I'd crashed.
'Why was I in such a hurry? Because of a dream — a bloody nightmare — a feeling that something was wrong. No, it was much more than just a feeling: the sure knowledge that something was definitely wrong. My espers: how often had I heard it from them that their talents were a curse? Mine, too, I supposed, when I had to sit and listen to rapists, paedophiles and murderers trying to talk their way out of jail, sit there reading their lies and knowing that in fact they were cold-blooded killers, molesters and defilers. But not once, until that night, had I really considered my talent a curse. And I can well understand how you felt, lan, seeing the future in a dream, but not knowing it was more than a dream!
'For that's how it had been with me: just a dream, but oh-so-much more than a dream. And I… it had been "a hard day at the office"… I'd just lain there, tossing and turning, reading the truth of the damned thing but unable to wake up, until she told me to. God…!' And again he paused.
But this time, before Goodly could speak up again: 'It was Zek, my wife!' Trask blurted it out. 'She was at the Refuge in Romania, where for a fortnight the outflow from the underground river had been almost at a standstill. The regular crew at Radujevac couldn't understand it, but since it coincided with low winter rainfall patterns right across Europe, that's what they put it down to.
'Anyway, that's not why she was there. Zek is — she was — a telepath of the highest order. But she was more than that. No one who ever met her could fail to be impressed by my beautiful Zek. Harry Keogh himself, Jazz Simmons, Lardis Lidesci… even the Lady Karen, they'd all been won over by Zek. And those poor Romanian kids at the Refuge, some grown into men now, but still suffering from deep psychological traumas dating back to Ceau§escu's time; of course she must try to help them. She could get inside their minds, track down their problems, even try to cancel them out. Sometimes it worked, other times she cried.