The Last Aerie (68 page)

“Nestor!” Zahar whispered.

The
Lord
Nestor, to you! Now come at once, to the barrier mountains. And bring an extra
flyer.

“But … you’re back!”

And didn’t I say I would be? Now hurry, for I’m ready for the
comforts of Suckscar. And Zahar …

“Yes, Lord?”

My Great Enemy. Is he … ?

“On his way to hell, Lord, aye!” Zahar was in command of himself once more. “Or perhaps he’s there already. For it has been a while now.”

Good! Now get out here with that flyer, and I shall guide you to where I wait.

And:
Nestor!
(This from a delighted Canker.)
But where are you?

The barrier mountains, perhaps a mile or two east of Twin Fords, but on our side of the range. An hour and a half, maybe two hours, and Zahar will pick me up.
I’ll be back in the last aerie before the peaks turn from grey to gold!

But in one piece?

Yes … Well, almost.

I’m coming, too!
Canker yelped in his mind.

And:
Nestor!
(This from a concerned, even wrathful Wratha.)
Are you hurt?

He let her wait a while, then replied:
Nothing that won’t mend.

Damn you! What you’ve put us through. And all for … for a woman!

Ah, and so you
have
spied upon my mind!
Nestor accused.
But you are wrong, Wratha. No, it wasn’t for a woman but revenge! I don’t want the girl, just as long as he doesn’t have her.

He? Him? Who do you mean?

That’s my business. Or it was. Now … it’s finished. But Wratha, listen to me: I’ll make it up to you. From now on, any time you want to raid on Lidesci territory—you, me, and Canker—I’m with you. For you see, it really doesn’t matter now. Nothing matters now …

And indeed it was as if a mighty weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

After a while she said
: I shall expect to see you soon, in Wrathspire.

To which he answered:
Expectations are fine, and sometimes they even come true.

Then he lay on his back in a patch of crumbly, desiccated heather, and in a minute or two was asleep …

Nestor slept for well over an hour. He only woke up when he felt the presence of other minds searching for him and closing with his location. Then, using Wamphyri mentalism to guide his rescuers in—issuing topographic directions and an occasional correction to their course—he watched them come gliding diagonally across the foothills and pulsing into the heights; until they drew level with him, spied him in the rocky saddle where he waited, and sought safe landing sites close by. Zahar and a riderless flyer were first down, with Canker following behind.

When they were safely down and dismounted, Nestor went to them. “Well done,” he told Zahar cursorily, before turning to Canker.

The dog-Lord bayed like the great hound that he was, gathered Nestor up in his arms, and growled: “But I have
worried
over you!” His scarlet eyes with their yellow pupils narrowed as they inspected Nestor’s facial ravages. “Not without cause, it seems.”

Nestor held him off and shrugged. “A few scars? They are nothing. I may even wear them as a trophy. Aye, for it seems I’ve won, Canker. It seems I’ve won!” And sharply, to Zahar:

“You’re sure?”

“About your enemy?” Nestor’s lieutenant snapped alert. “I brought him awake in the moment before I tossed him into the Gate. Oh, he knew where he was going, all right—to hell!”

“Huh!”
Canker growled, as Nestor relaxed and smiled a grim smile. “Well, perhaps one day you’ll tell me what this was all about! Meanwhile, what are we doing here? For if you’ll take a look back there…” Their eyes turned in the direction of his pointing hand.

Behind them, rising up from the unseen valleys and forests in a haze of golden dust motes, dawn proclaimed itself. It was daubed pink and yellow on the underbellies of Sunside’s drifting clouds, and painted amethyst on the curving southern rim of the star-shot, blue-black atmosphere. It was given voice in the startled songs of mountain birds, and echoed in a soughing wind as thermals commenced to rise and draw cold air out of the dark vault of Starside.

They mounted up and launched into the dawn wind, set their course east and a little to the north, to take them home to the last aerie. But in something less than an hour, as they glided down across the Starside foothills and passed low over the hell-lands Gate …

… A diversion!

What?
Nestor and the dog-Lord issued their mental question-exclamations almost in unison, while Zahar said nothing but simply stared down in astonishment and fascination at the glaring white dome of the Gate …
and at the figure which even now stepped down from its crater rim, to go stumbling and teetering out across the boulder plain!

A woman?
Nestor hissed.
But human? Here?

And Canker, gawping:
Some Traveller woman, do you think? Taken on Sunside in the night, in thrall to Gorvi or the Killglance brothers, and left to find her own way home to the last aerie? But … would they really leave a creature as beautiful as this to the perils of beasts and mountain passes? It seems scarcely possible!

Hauling on their reins, they brought their flyers round in a tight semicircle and commanded them to sideslip this way and that, settling to the sterile boulder plain like flat pebbles to the bottom of a pool. And glancing at Canker as they landed, Nestor saw that the dog-Lord was transfixed, his long jaw hanging loose as his eyes soaked up the sight of the girl from the Gate.

“A creature as beautiful as this,” Canker had said. And indeed she was beautiful … and her colours totally alien! Nestor couldn’t say if he’d seen such colours before, or even if they’d existed … in a woman. But in a man? What of his Great Enemy, Nathan, gone now into another world? Hadn’t his colours been much the same? And hadn’t he always dreamed of a place where they would fit, where he would be accepted? Somehow Nestor knew that he had. Maybe they were all the same in that far strange world, that alien hell, even as the Szgany were the same in Sunside. Or perhaps this was just some weird and wonderful coincidence.

For the woman from the Gate was a statuesque, unheard-of silvery blonde, and her eyes were blue as the sky’s vault on a clear day! Her skin was pale, unblemished, perfect; likewise her features. Long-limbed, her flesh was firm beneath undergarments of sheer silk, which were clearly visible under the swirl and waft of a gown wispy as butterfly wings. Less than opaque, the garment floated as if fashioned of shimmery silver cobwebs!

She had seen them falling out of the sky, landing and dismounting. Now she ran from them and a wailing cry, like that of a frightened infant, came back to them. Canker immediately went to all fours and was after her in a series of leaps and bounds. But catching up with her, strangely … he held back! The dog-Lord and alien woman faced each other; she put up hands formed into claws, with sharp, scarlet nails, and snarled at him; he stood there upright, stalled and astonished, jaw lolling open.

The tableau remained frozen until Nestor and Zahar came on the scene. Then:

“Keep
back!
” Canker growled, whirling on the pair as they approached; and Nestor had never heard so clear a threat in any voice! But from the dog-Lord? He couldn’t believe it. Yet Canker’s muzzle dripped saliva, his fangs were sharp as bone knives where the soft, shiny black leather of his mouth was drawn back and wrinkled, and his eyes glared a savagery completely out of character—at least where Nestor was concerned.

“What is it, my friend?” Nestor’s own voice was as calm and hushed as ever; which was as well, for it brought the other to his senses.

“Eh?” Canker shook his head as if to clear it, glanced at Nestor and Zahar, and returned his gaze to the girl. She looked into the cores of his piercing animal eyes, shrank from him and hissed like a wild creature, spitting her terror. But as Canker took a step towards her and loomed close, she knew his overwhelming power and submitted to it. She stood up straight, arms by her sides, trembling in all her limbs. Then her eyes rolled up and she would have crumpled to the hard earth; except the dog-Lord swept her up, but oh so gently, into his great arms!

And turning to Nestor: “Eh?” he said again. “But isn’t it obvious what—
who
—she is?”

“No.” Nestor shook his head, stared hard at the girl in the other’s arms. “Not at all obvious. For I’ve never seen anything like her.”

“But
I
have!” Canker barked. “Often, in my dreams! Didn’t I describe her well enough? I know I did. Only turn your eyes to the sky, Nestor, if you would know her heavenly origin. Up there, the hurtling moon! For she is my silver moon-mistress!”

Nestor glanced at the sky, the tumbling moon, then stared his amaze at Canker. “Your …?”

“Aye, at last!” The dog-Lord was triumphant. “I called her down with my moon music, and goddess that she is—of her own free will—she came through hell itself, to be by my side in Mangemanse!”

PART FIVE:

DICOVERING

HARRY

I

Harry’s Room Revisited

Nathan Keogh was far from innumerate, not any longer, but he was illiterate. The Szgany of Sunside had been good at making signs, but not at writing. Indeed they had no writing as such. Which was why he frowned at the menu which Ben Trask had handed him just a moment ago and shook his head apologetically. I’ll have … whatever you’re having,” he told his mentor-in-chief, simply. Yet the look which he gave the older man was anything but simple. If anything it was an accusation, but not in connection with ordering lunch in an Indian restaurant in London.

Trask hadn’t intended to embarrass his protégé. “Ah! I’m sorry.” He held up his hands a moment, then let them fall despondently. And smiling wryly he said, “I wasn’t thinking.”

“Yes, you were,” the other nodded. “You were thinking how strange I am: untutored, often gauche—by your standards, at least—and rather primitive. Yet at the same time a potential superman, a fantastic weapon. And that’s how you’d like to use me, as Tzonov would have used me before you: as a weapon!”

“But I wasn’t —” Trask the human lie-detector started to deny it—and stopped. Looking into Nathan’s eyes, even without looking into them, he knew that the other spoke the truth. He had been thinking it, if only for a moment. But not quite the way Nathan had believed. “Not like Tzonov would have used you, no,” he said.