'Through all of this, Szwart had melted himself to a dark shadow on the strewn rubble. Now, flowing like a black and sentient lichen — a living stain — he moved towards the crumbling stairway. By now, too, Malinari's thralls had climbed halfway up, which was as far as they would ever get.
' "And you, Szwart," said the youth from on high, perhaps fifty feet up the stony skeleton of that ancient stairway. "Do you think to sweep over and devour me? As the legend goes, you are akin to the night and can disappear into it. But you and I know that men — and monsters — cannot simply disappear. It's true, Szwart, isn't it?" While he spoke he took something from his Szgany jerkin, twisted it in his hands, lobbed it down, to bounce from step to step. And he said, "Well, perhaps it's true for you, at least. But as for me: I must be on my way. You may not see me, but you'll definitely be hearing from me." So saying, he stepped back into the shadows where the wall angled.
'Lord Szwart flowed over the top of the wall where Nathan had stood, and onto the ledge from which he'd taunted all three of the Wamphyri. Szwart's darkness gathered there, shifting and seething, then rolled on into the selfsame shadows that hid the madman from view. And I knew that it was the end for Nathan Kiklu, whoever he had been. Lord Szwart's protoplasm would envelop him; its strange, metamorphic acids would work on him; he would shrink, devolve, and dissolve to become one with night's master. Or rather, his liquefied flesh would add to Szwart's bulk for a while, until it was converted into fuel.
'The egg-shaped item that Nathan had thrown bounced again, into the group of three climbing thralls. And there it exploded in a flash of light as bright and momentarily brighter than the sun itself! Light, heat, and a blast of alien energy that lacerated the flesh of the unfortunate thralls and blew them off the stone stairway, down into the rubble. They were in pieces, dead before they hit bottom. And Szwart hissing and shrieking, reeling on the high stairs where he tried to regain his man-shape, failed, and collapsed again to a slithering stain.
'All of this shocking, aye, but none so much as what Lord Szwart called out to us as finally he reformed, shaping himself into an airfoil and launching in search of some night-dark place in which to regain his composure:
'"He was not there!" he shrilled. "He is not here! No man, that one, but a ghost! Perhaps the spirit of all the Szgany we ever took in our lives, all combined in one vengeful ghost!"
'And Malinari turned to Vavara and said, "Szwart is right. Not that Nathan is a ghost, but that he's no longer here. For a moment I touched his mind — real in the field of my probes, as real as the shields he raised against me — and in the next moment, gone! So if you think we have seen awesome weapons at work this night, well, now we have seen a real weapon: the man Nathan himself.
But all of this bears thinking about, and I shall give it my gravest consideration."
'And despite that The Mind had chosen his words carefully, perhaps because he felt he must retain at least a measure of control, still his sprouting scythe teeth were awash in his own blood where he ground them deep into his lips and riven gums…
'And Malinari did give it his gravest consideration, as did we all; but no amount of thinking could compensate for our losses, or dream up a successful defence against future depredations by the demon Nathan. Thus that entire night was a disaster, and no guarantee that things were ever going to get any better.
'We went subterranean. Unthinkable, eh — that the Wamphyri should ever flee from a man? From the sun, aye, but not from a single man! — yet such was the case. If we could not build on high, then we must build below, where the stumps of the toppled stacks were riddled with tunnels, caverns, and places which, in the olden times, were only ever fit for bats and beetles.
'And despite that our work force was reduced — our flyers, too, and our warriors boiled in their vats — still we had several hundreds of thralls and provisions aplenty.
'The thralls were put to work; they cleared the debris from ancient diggings, moved our provisions to safety, and built defensive positions on the surface. New vats of metamorphosis were discovered or dug, into which we sacrificed a third of our manpower, the raw materials of our future flyers and warriors. And we commenced keeping a watch… can you believe it? The Wamphyri, vigilant against any further sabotage attempts by this mere man! Moreover, it was more rigidly enforced than any watch that our vanished ancestors had ever kept against each other.
'But this last was a necessity, for from then on, whenever we raided against the Szgany, we could be sure that retaliation would follow hot on our heels. And Nathan Kiklu — man or ghost or whatever he was — he was everywhere. If we raided in the far western reaches of Sunside, he would soon be there with a party of Lidesci fighters, with "guns," "grenades" and "rockets", setting fire to the wings of our flyers, blinding them with silver shot, and knocking our thralls out of their saddles before they could even touch down! Thus, for every man we recruited in Sunside, one of ours was killed by Nathan and his Szgany soldiers. And every forward step was followed by one to the rear.
'East, west, wherever we struck, Nathan and his men could be there in a trice. How? It was beyond us. Moreover, lie would snipe on us from afar, and shoot our thralls dead in their defensive or watchtower positions. Until my master and his colleagues were obliged to devise a new strategy.
'Instead of inhabiting just one central area of Starside's olden ruins, now we spread out and stationed men in every shattered stump and heap of rubble. For one thing was certain: whoever or whatever Nathan was, and for all that he could appear almost magically, anywhere, in extremely short order, he couldn't possibly be everywhere at once.' And so we maintained something of our equilibrium, despite that we made little progress…
'One night my master flew out alone. Returning shortly, he complained bitterly that: "This damned Szgany bastard — he has spies in the barrier mountains! Hah! That is how he knows where we will raid: they watch us fly up from the boulder plains, the direction we take, then make report to him. I tracked them with my mentalism — which is how I discovered theirs!"
' "What? They are thought-thieves, these men?" Vavara found it hard to believe. "Mentalists?"
'Malinari laughed like a madman, and answered, "Even as we are mentalists, aye. So says Malinari the Mind, the greatest of them all. But… they are not men!"
' "Not men?" And now Szwart was baffled. "Not men, you say? Then what — trogs?"
'Malinari gave a wild shake of his head and waved his arms in consternation. "Not trogs, no — but dogs!" ht said. "Wolves of the wild that think like men. Stranger still, they call this Nathan uncle! He is their kin!"
' "Then he is a dog-Lord!" said Vavara. "It's the only possible solution. This hated enemy of ours is Wamphyri! He dwells in the mountain heights, rules on Sunside, and keeps the Szgany for himself. His needs are so slight that the tribes suffer him for his protection. I must be right. Nathan is a changeling."
'And Szwart said, "But a dog-Lord? With powers such as he commands? And as for suffering him for his protection — against what? What was there before we came?"