' "Are you your father's son?" he questioned me. ' "Eh? Er, pardon?" (For how to answer such a question?) ' "Eh? Pardon?" He mimicked me. "Are you a cheat and a liar like your father, Dinu Vadastra?"
'Well, I wasn't like my father to that extent. But big and brawny I was, and perhaps a little stupid, too. "I'm no cheat," I told him. "And no man calls me a liar."
'When he moved I did not even see it! But I felt his clout, the thud of his back-hander against the side of my head, making my ears ring and knocking me off my feet. Well, it seemed plain to me that I had offended him. Now it was time to die — but not without a fight. I sprang up — and was at once pinioned by the men who had brought us from the caravan. But struggle as best I might I couldn't shift them or throw them off. And Malinari, he laughed, saying:
' "Hold still and listen. You are big and handsome, and you are strong as a bull shad… and you are mine.' Unworthy? Well, maybe. We'll wait and see if blood runs true. But first there's work for you, a chance to prove yourself, in Starside."
'He turned to Nadia. "You're the image of your mother. But are you as brave? Will you come into Starside, of your own free will, to be a vampire with your father and your mother there?"
'"I have no other life, Lord," she answered.
'"But you will have," Malinari told her. "For you shall be a stable-maid, tending my flyers in their pens, in Malstack."
'Then in a trice, in a flowing motion too fast to follow, he leaned to her neck and bit her! It was the work of a moment, to put his life — or undeath — into her, then into her mother, so that, swooning, they collapsed on the earth. And finally Malinari turned once more to me.
'Held fast by his men, and stiffened by my terror, I could do nothing but stand stock-still, like a shad in the slaughter-yard, with my eyes half-shuttered.
'But no, he merely wrinkled his nose at me, and his lieutenants did the rest…'
CHAPTER TWENTY Dark Lords Of Starside
Korath Mindsthrall was in Jake Cutter's mind as surely as his own thoughts, so that rather than having the story related to him, it was as if Jake lived it.
And that's dangerous, said Harry Keogh, 'awakening' Jake to his true position, in the wrecked sump of the deserted Romanian Refuge. Except that wasn't the true picture (or his true location) either, for in fact he was only there by courtesy of Harry's mind-link. Jake's living, sleeping, dreaming body was airborne in a jetcopter flying east, somewhere over the Australian Simpson Desert.
'Dangerous?' Jake said, hugging his knees where he sat on a slab of concrete fallen from the ceiling, watching the black waters of the sump gurgling by. 'What is?'
To let a vampire — even a dead one — get that deep into your mind, Harry answered darkly. That's what's dangerous. And I think our friend Korath is stretching things out a hit. But:
am telling it the way it was! (Korath's Voice' again, protesting). You have asked me to tell you about Malinari the Mind. How may I comply without describing his deeds, defining his wickedness?p>
Very well, Harry told him. That's accepted. But I'm sure you can do it a little faster. Our time is limited here.
I shall do my best, Korath answered, grumblingly. But in any case, the rest of that night is a blur, for I had been bitten, vampirized by Malinari's
lieutenants. The scenes… they all flow into one in the eye of my memory. Perhaps I desire to forget them, for what remains of them is… not pleasant. And the Vadastras were my people, after all.
Then he was silent for a moment or two, until in a little while he picked up the thread of his story…
'The bite of the vampire brings about a weakness, a lethargy, a heaviness of limbs and thoughts alike. If Malinari himself had taken my blood — and in the process transfused something of his essence — then I would remember nothing at all until much later. But I was strong and his lieutenants were only thralls. Oh, they were powerful men, and each and every one an aspirant, but they were not yet Wamphyri!
'Nadia and her mother, I saw them carried off towards the flyers while I reeled between the two who had recruited me. And Malinari, seeing that I was conscious, nodded his approval — of me, my strength, I suppose. But my senses were swimming as from drinking too much brandy; if one of his lieutenants had let go of an arm, I'm sure I would have fallen.
'Then… I remember… or I seem to remember… Malinari's voice raised, calling to my people, the entire Vadastra clan where they huddled at the far side of the clearing. "Come join me," he called. "Eat, drink, partake of my tribute. For I shall free you of tyranny this night. This hated chief-this Dinu, of whom I've heard complaint — he is no more. Nor shall I require any more of you from now on. For I perceive that you have given enough. I free you, to be as you will, to do as you will, and to go where you will. Malinari has spoken… so let it be." And his eyes burned brighter yet as he used his mentalism to reinforce his message, sending out his vampire thoughts to touch upon their minds.
'And drugged though I was — or rather, tainted with the essence of vampirism which now flowed in my veins — even I saw the pictures that Malinari painted in the minds of the people. Indeed, I may even have seen them more clearly because of that essence; but by that selfsame token I knew that those pictures lied:
'The glad bright faces of the young ones where they wandered hand in hand through the woods. The campfires where musicians played their bazouras and tambours; and meat roasting on spits while the menfolk clapped and young girls whirled in the dance. And wheeled caravans, trundling through the woods as of yore, bearing a people as free as the air; or at least free of Nephran Malinari, if not the rest of the Warnphyri. True travellers again, aye, in the forests of Sunside— '—And all a lie.
'"Come, bring your cups," Malinari cried. "Come drink with me, to your freedom!" And his men went among my people, leading them to the tables laden with tribute.
'But supported between those who had converted me, with my poor sick head lolling this way and that, I saw how the strange dark cloud — that cloud of ill-omen — was settling towards the clearing, and how a ground mist was once more gathering in the earth.
'As for my father:
'It cannot be said that he had been a good man, but where he grovelled now under the sandalled foot of a brawny lieutenant… who can say what thoughts passed through his mind? One thing for sure: he knew Malinari for a great deceiver, and his mind-pictures for lies. Also, he knew that he was done for; or, in Malinari's own words, that the "hated chief of the Vadastras was "no more". Wherefore, what had he to lose? At least he might make a quick end of it.
'Squirming free of the lieutenant's foot, Dinu sprang up, pointed at the hovering cloud, and cried, "He brings his warrior creatures! He calls them down upon your heads! He destroys the Vadastras entire! Flee for your lives! Flee!"
'Too late, for again Lord Malinari was employing his mentalism, and now his pictures told the truth:
Warriors circling in the shrouding cloud, held aloft on their fully-inflated gas bladders, extended air~scoop mantles, and spiralling updraughts from Sunside's night forests. Now they channelled gas to their propukors, trimmed their mantles, came sputtering and issuing their poisonous vapours, descending towards the woods about the central clearing. And flanking them, controlling their tight aerial formation, a host of manta flyers, their eager thrall riders gauntleted to a man, and their purpose all too obvious!