'As to how it happened:
'In the beginning, Nephran Malinari was short of friends. And this had always been the case, ever since his mother Illula flew off into the sun and left him Malstack for his own. It was his weird talent that cost him the "companionship" of the other Lords and Ladies. They could not trust him; they even feared to be close to him, who could be into their minds so easily. Also, his stack was a mighty fortress filled with men and beasts, and it was suspected that his ambitions reached beyond his station. Which of course they did, like the ambitions of all of them who were Lords. For lust, greed, and territorialism were ever their way of life.
'But isn't it true that a man who cannot make friends will usually make enemies? And as easily as that, the rumours sprang up: that Malinari was searching out allies and making ready his aerie for a bloodwar to rival the mythic wars of yore. But when I say "easily", that is not to say quickly; I would remind you that time is of small concern to the Wamphyri, and in fact the enmity that developed between The Mind and the others took decades in its shaping.
"Thus, when Malinari ravaged among the supplicant Vadastra clan on the night that I was taken and my people destroyed, his terrible tithe-gathering venture wasn't solely of his initiation or invention; Lord Doombody was also provisioning, and likewise the rest of the vampire Lords.
'Aye, for the simple truth of it was that they each feared each other. And fear fuelled fear, do you see?
'So naturally when The Mind first observed how his mentalist talents had isolated him, indeed he commenced searching out others who might also be under threat, to enlist their aid. Nor were they hard to find:
'The Lady Vavara, for one, but I use the term "Lady" where she would not because I have seen and been close to her; and to see her… There never was a more perfect definition of femininity, though whether or no she affected her outward appearance (as, for instance, did Shaithis, by means of metamorphism), of that I have no knowledge. But I find it hard to ascribe so much beauty to Nature alone. Yet if she was Nature's handiwork… then why was that work so perfected in a female of the Wamphyri? It is a paradox to which I have no answer.
'So, I have seen and been near her — too near and once too often, for I believe it was Vavara bade Malinari ram me in this pipe! — yet I cannot recall her clearly to memory. Perhaps that in itself defines her beauty: that its power is such as to maze common men, and no less common women. But here another paradox: for despite that she was that beautiful — a beguiler, a gorgeous witch, a sensuous sorceress — still she was unsure of
herself, uncertain of her beauty. I can offer no other explanation for her habits, that a goddess (albeit a demon goddess) such as she was so offended by the concept of beauty in others that she could not bear it, and so was wont to remove the breasts, lips, noses, and other parts of her female thralls to make them ugly!
'There, in a nutshell, we have Vavara. And just as my vampire world was separated in two parts that were opposites, Sunside and Starside, so was she separated: her luminous exterior from the dark and swirly deeps within.
'She was Malinari the Mind's first choice as an ally; not because he lusted after her but because he knew that certain of the other Lords did. And Vavara had determined she would not be any Lord's woman, nor would she ever take a man until she found one who was at least her equal in desirability. An unlikely occurrence, for she was the one who had described Shaithis — generally considered godlike — as a mere "lump" of a man! Oh, she took men, be sure, but they were her thralls and easily disposable in the unlikely event of complications.
'And Vavara, too, had heard rumours of a bloodwar in the offing, and also how Lesk the Glut had been boasting of what he would do to her after he'd sacked Mazemanse, her spindly, fretted, many-spired aerie where it stood not far from Malstack and Lord Szwart's Darkspire. How he would put out her ruby-red eyes to kill their fascination, singe her eyebrows, her long lashes, and the hair of her head to make her a hag, then fuck her every opening into great holes fit only for shads in the rut. Hah! So much for Vavara's "beauty", if Lesk the Glut had his way! Is it any wonder she sided with Malinari?
'And finally there was Lord Szwart. But if I have found it difficult to describe Vavara, how then shall I portray Szwart who was and still is literally indescribable? For, of course, all three of them are extant still…
'… I see by your silence that you would have what I know, despite that I know so little. So be it; what knowledge is mine shall be yours, no more nor less.
'As to who or what Szwart is: the best that I can offer — he is Wamphyri! But he is the essence of Wamphyri, distilled or filtered by the foulness of his forebears, mutated beyond recognition not by Nature but by necessity, more leech than Lord, and a fly-the-light in the fullest sense of the word.
'The flickering light of candles, torchlight, firelight — the light of man-made combustion — these are the only kinds of light his eyes can bear, and even then not with complete impunity. But if the light matches the fire of his eyes he is fairly safe. Brighter than that, he knows pain! And any who would give Szwart pain… let him first pierce himself with silver dipped in kneblasch, fasten boulders to his neck, slit his wrists, and leap from the topmost battlements of the tallest aerie.' Then he might be safe from Szwart.
'And only let someone declare enmity towards Szwart — let him broadcast his aversions or discuss them with his peers, and then have his words find their way back to the night-black master of Darkspire — and no matter who this loudmouth might be, whether high or low in the Wamphyri pecking order, be sure that Szwart would do his damnedest to put a stop to such mutterings.
'Aye, and when Szwart did his damnedest… 'There was one Narkus Stakis, Lord of Narkslump, a collapsed pile on the western fringe of the clump, who from the onset of all the rumour-mongering and side-choosing had voiced abroad his detestation of Lord Szwart. Precisely why he held Szwart in such low esteem, who could say? Perhaps he'd had wind of Lord Doombody's provisioning and other preparations for war, and the accompanying rumour that Drama! intended to root out all "deviants" (which is to say his enemies, real and imagined) from the ranks of the Wamphyri.
'If that were a fact, then the proximity of Szwart's Darkspire to DramaTs Dramstack in the core of the clump would seem certain to make Szwart just such an enemy. For if Lord Doombody
wished to expand territorially (assuming that this was his real purpose) he must first annex Darkspire, Szwart's gloomy, shadow-shrouded manse across too small a gulf of air. And so, and also because Drama! controlled a large percentage of Starside power, the very inferior Narkus Stakis had determined to side with him — whether or no Dramal required him as an ally.
'Alas for him that he made known his decision, especially his disinclination towards Szwart…
'Lord Szwart was black; his aerie was black, and shadowed for the most part by mighty Dramstack; his warriors and flyers were black, and the black of night was his medium. Lord Stakis's Narkslump, more a great cleft knoll than a stack proper, stood in the western fringe of the cluster and low to the earth, and its silhouette against the northern auroras was more a ragged hump than a fang. Gloom was its constant companion.
'On the night that Narkus died a great drift of cloud obscured the moon and stars, and Starside was never so dark. The clouds sweeping north out of Sunside were black and swollen in their bellies, pregnant with rain that lashed at the aeries of the Wamphyri. There had been fantastic lightnings over the barrier mountains, and the wide forests of Sunside would be awash in the aftermath of the storm. Not a good night for raiding on the Szgany, not with the air full of ozone, when careless flyers and riders might so easily attract hellfire from the sky, to singe them and send them plummeting. For which reasons most of the Lords and Ladies stayed to house. Most of them.