Vampire World I: Blood Brothers (Necroscope #6)

To speak mind to mind with other creatures - telepathy!

'Or to mumble and mutter to myself,' Nathan said out loud, nodding wryly. 'Delirium - or madness!' But at the same time he knew that it was partly true. How often had he listened to the whispers of dead people in his dreams, and sometimes when he was wide awake? And what of the thing he used to have with Nestor? Or had all of that, too, been madness?

To which the voice answered: And am I also mad?

'Not mad,' Nathan shook his head, 'but probably not real, either. You're a mirage, heat haze over a tar pit, an hallucination. When I was a child and ate toadstools, I saw things which weren't there. Now, because I'm hungry, hot and thirsty, I've started to hear things which aren't there.'

Wrong, said the other. For I can prove that I am. Or if not that, I can at least prove that I was.

'You don't have to prove anything,' Nathan shook his head. 'I only want you to go away. I have to sleep and not wake up.'

Oh, you'll do that soon enough, if you don't let me help you!

Nathan was curious despite himself. 'Why should you want to help me? What am I to you?'

A boon! said the other at once. A miracle! A light in the darkness of death! The chance to exchange thoughts, knowledge, legends, with living Thyre! That is what you are to me! There were others before you who spoke to dead men; they dwelled in Starside and talked to the spirits of Szgany and trogs. They didn't come here and in the end never could, because by then they were Wamphyri!

Nathan nodded. 'I've heard that: that sometimes among the Wamphyri there would be a necromancer.'

What? The other was aghast. No, no - not that! The ones of which 'I speak merely talked to the dead; they were beloved of the dead; they didn't torture them!

Beloved of the dead? But hadn't Nathan heard that expression before, as used by Lardis Lidesci in respect of certain hell-landers he'd known? The old Lidesci had never been too explicit with regard to The Dweller and his father, however, and had always spoken of them in hushed tones. It was a subject Nathan might like to pursue, but suddenly ...

... His senses were spinning! He swayed dizzily, staggered, and sat down with a bump. He pictured himself standing under a waterfall, letting the water flow over him. It was an entirely involuntary thing: an instinctive longing for old, irretrievable pleasures. But it was easy to see how, under extremes of deprivation, a man's mind might turn to the conjuring of false comforts in his final hours. Except in Nathan's case, his mind seemed to have called up a personal devil to torment him!

So that in answer to what this - this what? mental mirage? - had just said to him, he croakingly replied: 'Why does the idea of the living torturing the dead shock you so? Can't you see how you've reversed the process, so that now the dead torture the living? But for you I would be sleeping my last sleep, dying. And you are keeping me from it, prolonging it, making it worse.'

The other was horrified at Nathan's determination. What has brought you to this? The most precious thing any creature can have is life. And you, so young, reject it? The abnegation of alJ earthJy responsibility? Best be warned, Nathan: give up your pJace among the living -go willingly to an unnecessary death - and you'll find no solace among the Great Majority. What extreme is this you've been driven to, and why?

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Nathan took his head in his hands and stared at the sand between his feet, and despite himself the events of the recent past were mirrored in the eye of his mind, where his inquisitor saw them. So that in a little while: In the Thyre there is no urge for vengeance. The 'voice' was quieter now. When we are hurt we move away from it, and never go back there.

'So would I,' Nathan told him. 'If you would let me.'

But in the Szgany (the other ignored him), there is this deep-seated need for revenge upon an enemy. Just as there was in you. So what happened to it?

'My vow against the Wamphyri? Perhaps I saw its futility: they are indestructible. But I am Szgany, and if I've allowed my vow to die within me, then I might as well follow it into oblivion. No great loss, for what use is a man who can't even honour his own vow?'

Self-pity? (The shake of an incorporeal head.) And in any case, you are mistaken. What, you? No great Joss, did you say? But you must believe me when I tell you that you would be the greatest loss of all.' As for the Wamphyri: they are not indestructible. They were destroyed, upon a time, some of them. And by others like yourself. And ... I perceive ... that what was in those others is also in you! You thought I spoke of necromancy, but you were wrong. There have been - will always be - necromancers among the Wamphyri, that is true. But these were men who talked to the dead before you, Nathan! By no means ordinary men, no, but certainly not necromancers! Neither are you a necromancer. But you are ... a Necroscdpe!

Nathan had given up answering with his voice. He didn't need to, anyway. Necroscope? I don't know the word.

Neither did I! It is one of their words. As I am Thyre and you are Szgany, and the great vampire Lords are Wamphyri, so they were Necroscopes. And so are you. Its meaning is simple: you talk to the dead. And I am the dead proof of it.

Then why don't they talk to me in return? Nathan's question seemed perfectly logical. I mean the Szgany, of course. Why don't the dead of my own kind talk to me?

Perhaps later there will be time to ask them, the other told him. Some of them, your people, have spoken to me from time to time; those of them who have graves at least. But you Szgany have strange ways: you've burned so many of your dead, and when they are burned it is that much harder. Harder still if their ashes are scattered. Perhaps that is why your people scatter the ashes of vampires: to deny them even the slightest chance of some monstrous nether-existence.

'I suppose it is,' Nathan answered thoughtfully, reverting to the use of his physical voice again, which after all came more naturally to him. 'But what of the Thyre when they die? What is their lot?'

We are not put down into the darkness of the earth but elevated, the other told him. Neither are we scattered but gathered together. Eventually we are dust, but not for long and long ... He paused, and in the next moment suddenly gasped: Ah, you see! Proof that you are a Necroscope! You asked me a question whose answer is a great secret, and yet I made no complaint but merely answered you. For I know that you are good and would never torment me, or use the knowledge to any evil advantage.

'What knowledge?'

Of the last resting places of the Thyre.

'But you've said nothing, only that they are brought up instead of being put down. I didn't even understand you.'

You would understand if you tried to, the other insisted. You Travellers live on the surface, in the woods and hills of Sunside, and when you die you are put down into the earth. Or you were upon a time, until recently. And you would be again, if the Wamphyri should be driven out or destroyed. You spend your lives in the air and the light, and your deaths in the earth and the dark. But among the Thyre the opposite is the case. Our lives -

'- Are spent in the earth?' Nathan finished it for him. 'And your deaths ... where?'

You have seen the place, the other answered, reverently. One of the places, at least. One of many such places.

A picture formed in Nathan's mind, which he recognized at once. He looked up, at the stairway cut into the precipitous sandstone cliffs, and the gloomy mouths of caves leading off from it into unknown darkness. The tombs of the Thyre?'

Indeed, and much more than that. For this is one of the places where our world enters yours.

Which was something else Nathan didn't understand. He thought back on what he knew of the desert folk: very little, actually. Only that they were thought of as primitive nomads who wandered at the edge of the furnace desert and occasionally crossed the grasslands to trade with the Szgany. It had always been assumed that they lived above ground, perhaps in caves or tents, but apparently ... and there he got a grip of himself. For without even realizing it, suddenly he had begun to believe.

That I am real, an incorporeal mind? That I was real, upon a time? But didn't I say that I could prove it? Well, and the proof lies up there.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

Nathan was tempted, but he was also sceptical. Was this really the mind of some dead creature, or was it his own mind trying to provoke him into a futile attempt at saving his life? 'Are you telling me that your bones -your remains - are up there?'

Yes.

Though it was something of an effort, and probably wasted at that, Nathan stood up again. And knowing that it would take a far greater effort to climb the sandstone stairs, nevertheless he made his way to the foot of the cliffs and looked up at the mouths of the caves.

The place is sacred, the Thyre voice sighed in his mind. Only go there and my people will know, and eventually come to see what you are about. In this way you can save yourself.

'But if it's a sacred place,' Nathan answered, starting up the steep climb, 'surely they'll kill me?'

The Thyre don't kill.

Then they'll chase me away, or carry me into the desert to die.' Suddenly giddy, he closed his eyes for a moment and clutched at the sheer face.

In which case you have nothing to lose, said the other, grimly, since that is why you came here. But then, knowing his answer had been cruel: No, they won't harm you in any way. Not if you tell them you were speaking to me. Not if you speak my secret name.'

Already a third of the way to the top, Nathan dragged one leaden foot after the next up the ancient stairway. The ledge was narrow and the sandstone badly weathered. One slip ... and none of this would matter anyway. 'But I don't know your secret name,' he said.

It is Rogei. Ro-gay. Now you know it.

'You have a good deal of faith in me, I can tell,' Nathan told him. 'Perhaps more than I have in myself. And I thank you, Rogei, for telling me your secret name. But can you also tell me why it was secret?'

It is our way. The other offered an unbodied shrug, which Nathan sensed. In life all of the Thyre are telepathic, among themselves and sometimes with the creatures of the desert, too. Yes, and very rarely we may even 'hear' one of you Szgany whose mind is similarly gifted - like you, Nathan. And very often we hear the great shouted thoughts of the Wamphyri! But unlike the Szgany we don't fear them, for they would never come into these lands which are closest to the sun. Being telepathic our minds are open, yet we would remain private unto ourselves. Wherefore our secret names are known only to those who are closest to us. This way, if a person does not know your name he won't pry. And thus we remain individuals. It is our way, and that is my best explanation.

'I think I understand,' Nathan said. 'Your secret names protect your privacy.'

That is correct. But... be careful!!

Almost at the top of his climb, Nathan's foot had slipped and he had very nearly fallen. He clutched at a knob of projecting sandstone, regained his balance and clasped himself to the sheer face. And even without lungs, still Rogei gave a sigh of relief: What, and are you trying to frighten a dead creature out of his wits?

Nathan shook his head, stilled his trembling, and gradually straightened up. 'No need to be ... to be frightened on my behalf, Rogei,' he gasped, his words a tortured rasp. 'Do you see what has happened? I stopped myself from falling. Just an hour ago I thought I wanted to die and might even have been glad to fall; but having spoken to you - perhaps there's some purpose to my life after all. Anyway, I no longer wish to die. I only hope my living will prove to be worth it.'

For my purposes it will be, certainly! (The other was eager.) For through you - only through you, Nathan - I can talk to my children, to their children, and theirs, and know what is become of them in the land of the living. I will talk to all the Elders of the people, and explain to them the truth of our world beyond life; they always suspected it but had no proof. Now they shaJJ have proof! And I can teJJ them the secrets of this place, so that when their time is come they won't fear it. All through you, Nathan, only through you.

Nathan had reached the place where the ledge became horizontal and stood in the entrance to the first cave. 'Secrets? In death? But ... what can there be to know? Immobile, incorporeal, doomed to everlasting darkness, what do the dead do in their afterlife?'

But that is one of the secrets! His dead friend answered at once. However, since you are the Necroscope, I can tell you. I must, for who else can I tell? Ah, and these are things which I have longed to say.' Now listen: Whatever a man was, thought, and did in life, so he continues to be, think, and do in death. The storytellers make up new stories, which they can only ever tell to the dead. And I have heard some wonderful stories, Nathan! Great thinkers and philosophers - of which, in all modesty, I was one - pursue their thoughts and beliefs to logical conclusions, then exchange their ideas with others of similar leanings. The mystics among us think the deepest, subtlest thoughts of all, and may not be disturbed where their minds fly out beyond the world's rim; by which I mean they are lost in their own conlecturings. In life, I had a friend who fashioned leather buckets for the wells; now he designs the most wonderful machines, driven by the rivers of the underworld itself, to carry precious water into all the caverns under the desert!

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'You have purpose, then,' Nathan nodded. 'Yes, and you achieve.'

But of what use achievements which bring no benefits? The other drove home his point. Donlt you see?

Through you we can pass on this secret knowledge -which is only secret because we have no way to tell it -to all of those we left behind! And so you, too, may achieve and have a purpose.

Nathan had gone a little way into the first cave. It was more a tunnel, narrow and low-ceilinged, so that he must bend his back. In there, it had quickly grown dark and cold. Uncertain, he paused and felt Rogei looking through his eyes, even as his brother Nestor had once been able to look through them, And: Stop! the other cautioned. This is not the Cavern of the Ancients. The entrance is the next cave but one. You will know it from its ornamentation.

Retracing his steps, Nathan groped his way backwards out of the cave into sunlight. Almost spent, his thirst was a constant agony; each rasping breath he took sucked more moisture out of his throat, his entire body. Turning, he looked out and down at the gully's rocky floor ... an error; the world seemed to rotate and his head swam dangerously! He went to all fours, waited until he'd regained his balance, then crawled the rest of the way along the ledge to the entrance of the unman fane.

Unman? Rogei queried. Yes, there have been times when we were called that by the Szgany. For they consider that of all thinking creatures, they alone are the true men. Nathan sensed a shrug. But then, so do the trogs! Aye, and so do the Thyre, I suppose. We all have our pride; but pride is only one thing, and we are alike in more ways than one. The main difference is this: that in our becoming, we followed different paths.

Nathan could no longer speak; his thoughts had to speak for themselves. 1 mean no insult, he said, but there's no help for it. Each and every thought I think, you hear it - everything! There's nothing I can hide from you.

He sensed the other's nod of understanding. It seems unfair, I know. But I was born with my telepathy and practised it aJl my days, while in you it is a fledgeling thing. And as a Necroscope you are likewise a novice. But these are skills which may well grow in you with time.

Nathan snorted, perhaps bitterly. Granted, that is, that time is on my side!

Rogei continued to sense his needs. Of food there is none. But water ... there may be a little. Except you must get to it.

In here? Nathan looked at the cave's entrance, much larger than the others.

Perhaps, but deep inside, a long way. And that delirium you so desired is much closer now. Rogei's mental voice despaired. I can feel the flickering of your flame.

It would be a shame, Nathan thought wanderingly, to die now when I no longer want to! He stood up, leaned against the arched entrance to the cave, peered with swimming eyes at its weathered carvings. The bas-reliefs were almost as old as the desert and sand-blasted to obscurity, but his trembling fingers could follow their still flowing contours in the stone.

And for the first time he knew something of awe to match the sensation he had known when he stood on the crater rim of the Starside Gate. From out of the cave, an aura of antiquity flowed over him; from unsuspected deeps a cool breath of air carried a not unpleasant musk and a hint, the merest suggestion ... of moisture?

Water, yes, but deep down below, Rogei said again. Beyond the Cavern of the Ancients. Come in, Nathan Kiklu, Necroscope. We welcome you.

From some secret inner well, Nathan forced the last drop of spit down his throat, and with it croaked: 'We?

How many of you? And why are you the only one who has spoken to me?' Staggering out of the glaring sunlight into the cool shade, for a moment he was blind, but in the next he saw the walls of the tunnel extending before him into deepening gloom.

When we sensed your presence and heard your thoughts and dreams (Rogei answered, from very much closer now), and when we heard how you spoke to wolves so far away - which was not a dream - then we decided upon a spokesman. Since it seemed you were Szgany, and since in my life I occasionally had dealings with the so-called Travellers, I, Rogei, was honoured.

Nathan leaned forward until he felt he was falling. Then, mustering his feet into reluctant life, he went weaving, stumbling down the high, wide tunnel. Weightless, it seemed as if he floated from wall to wall. But for all that his body was suddenly light, he knew that in fact he was sinking, and each step threatened to be his last. I feel... that I should rest now, he thought! I feel I should rest for a very long time. Except now that it's time, I'm afraid to do it.

Then don't! Rogei's mental voice was vibrant with alarm. Take it from us, Nathan: while death is not the desert which living men believe it to be, life by comparison is an oasis!

Nathan nodded deliriously. But this oasis is drying up.

The passage widened out, became a cave, a cavern. Nathan entered from gloom into light and fell to his knees in drifted dust. Lolling there, knuckles on the floor, shoulders slumped and head swaying, he knew that this could only be the Cavern of the Ancients, a Thyre mausoleum. And from the look of it, it was probably the greatest of them all.

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

He craned his neck to look up.

Across the centre of the sandstone ceiling wall to wall, set into the yellow rock like the slit pupil of a cat's eye, a gash of white quartz seemed carved from light. The cavern was riven right across its width, which was huge, but the seepage of centuries had filled the gap with crystals which had hardened to stone. Crystal stalactites hung from the ceiling, and glowing humps of it like shining candles reached up from the floor. And all around its perimeter - in alcoves and niches, on shelves and ledges carved from the stone itself - lay the mummied ancients of the Thyre, whose socket eyes gazed back at Nathan where he observed them.

And: 'Here I am,' he croaked, rolling over onto his back, surrendering to the weirdness of it all without further question.

Again Rogei was anxious for him, telling him: Nathan, you may sleep, but you may not die!

Oh? he thought back. And will you stop me again? It might not be so easy a second time.

Brothers! Rogei cried out, this time speaking to his dead companions and not to Nathan. And were we not right? Only feel the warmth of his thoughts? Is he not a light in the darkness? We dare not let him die.' And they knew that he was right.

The massed voices of more than a hundred dead Thyre rose up in a tumult at first, and sighed like a wind in his strange mind: Nathaaan! But they soon saw the error of that and began to speak as individuals, so that shortly he could distinguish them one from another: You must not die, Nathaaan . ..

Rogei is riiight...

Szgany youth, you are the light. Continue to shine for us, Nathaaan ...

You are like a bridge between worlds, Necroscope: should you fall, one world is cut off foreeever!

On and on, so many of them ...

Much like Nathan's own thoughts, those of the dead Thyre were warm as blankets; they wrapped him where he lay. And with their warmth surrounding him, comforting him, he began to drift into sleep. But Rogei was concerned that Nathan might possibly drift beyond sleep, and even in death the anxiety of the Thyre spokesman was such that it gnawed at him. He must be sure, and take whatever measures must be taken.

Nathan thought he heard a groaning of antique leather and a clatter as of dry sticks rattling together. It was a curious sound, but not enough to lure him back from what might well be his last sleep. Neither was the hand which at the last clasped his hand. They were small and shrivelled, those fingers, cool and dry ... and dead. But the thoughts which accompanied them were warm, so that Nathan was not afraid, as other men would, assuredly, have been.

The final proof, Nathan Kiklu, Rogei whispered, his awed voice trembling with the wonder of it. A secret which not even I knew! And now rest, Nathan, rest.

Aye, rest, Nathaaan, the others sighed in unison from their many niches and benches in the walls. Your flame is strong and will not die. But should the spark burn low, we will be here to blow on the embers. And so you may sleep, Necroscope, sleep ...

The Thyre were not people to desert their dead and leave them unguarded against scavengers; a fox or mangy dog might wander here from the grasslands, or a vulture discover the way in. But as Rogei had been well aware from the start, the Cavern of the Ancients was a natural sounding-chamber. Only let a footfall sound within - the snuffle of a beast's snout, the tearing of old leather or breaking of centuried bones - and its echoes would find their way below.

Down there, beyond a labyrinth of natural and carved passageways, caves and grottoes, the guardian of the place already knew there was an intruder. Nathan's rasping words, 'Here I am,' had thundered down to him like the shout of a giant; the slap, slap, sJap of his sandalled feet had reverberated, and ... there had been other sounds, more dreadful sounds. Plainly the ancients were discovered and molested.

Throughout his long watch the guardian, out of respect for his ancestors, had sat in an antechamber within sight of the sacred cavern. He had not entered it, for even the dust was fashioned of men and thus holy. Towards the end of his watch, hearing the signal trill of a whistle blown far, far below, he had set out to meet his relief half-way. But now, before they could even come together, exchange a few words of greeting and pass each other by, there was this: an intruder had entered the Cavern of the Ancients. Worse, a human intruder, but not of the Thyre breed of humanity.

Whistling an alarm, a shrill warning which he knew would be taken up by his relief and passed back into the more populated underworld, and sending a thought - Someone has entered the Cavern of the Ancients.' -the guardian turned on his heel and sped back silently the way he had come, along a well-worn path climbing through bedrock, limestone, finally into the upper sandstone. And approaching the sacred cavern, he fitted a long arrow to his bow.

All was silent now; the intruder was still; perhaps he had heard the guardian coming and was lying in ambush! The guardian went cautiously, allowed time for the huge green pupils of his eyes to shrink commensurate to the light in the quartz chamber, and finally entered. He stood stock still, bowstring drawn and arrow pointing ahead, and saw ...

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... A man - the intruder, Szgany! - collapsed there on the floor, but not alone. For with him lay a harmless old mummied thing, a clutter of rags and old bones. It was one of the ancients. Desecration!

The guardian crept closer and aimed his arrow directly at the young man's heart. He did not know him, but he knew that he should die - for what he had done to the old one, whose smallest bones lay scattered in a thin trail across the dusty floor. The Thyre do not kill men, but this one should die! Except ... what had been done here?

The two were together, sprawled, feet pointing away from each other, right hands touching, indeed clasped. One of them was very dead and had been for, oh, a long time, and the other one was not quite dead. But the Thyre guardian was a skilful tracker who hunted in the desert and often at night, and the tracks in the Cavern of the Ancients were plain for any man to see. The dust lay thick and mainly undisturbed, and the guardian could not be mistaken.

And putting up his bow he backed off, walking slowly and in his own tracks, and returned to the antechamber to wait for his relief and others of the Thyre, by now alerted. And on his way out, he could not take his eyes off the tracks in the dust of the chamber: one set of footprints coming from the passage to the outside world and leading to where the Szgany youth had fallen to the floor, and the other ... was scarcely a trail at all. Just a few scuff marks in the dust, where something light and thin had dragged itself towards the fallen youth, shedding its bones as it went...

Time to wake up.'

Nathan heard the 'voice', so much like spoken words that he couldn't differentiate, and felt a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. For a moment he thought it must be his mother, come to get him out of his bed; it had the same kind of warmth. But then, all of the voices which had tried to speak to him recently had been like that. He remembered them very dimly, as if he had dreamed them: their careful probing and questioning. Only that, with nothing of any detail, except that they had all been warm.

But as he stirred and mumblingly protested his awakening, and the void of his mind began to come alive with true memories, Nathan knew that this couldn't be Nana Kiklu's voice for she was dead. At which, activated by the sad thought, the cool hand at once transferred from his shoulder to his brow, where it smoothed away the furrows with gentle strokings.

'And now you hear me,' the voice said - actually said it - a throaty rasp which nevertheless conveyed both a nod and a smile. A female voice. That of a Thyre female! And all of Nathan's memories came flooding back at once.

Even as he gasped, lifted his head and opened his eyes, so the hand moved to cover them. And: 'Don't start so!' the husky voice chided. There's nothing harmful here. But... it will be strange,' she warned.

Nathan tried not to swallow and was reluctant to test his voice; but he must, for his question was instinctive. 'Where am I?' Then: relief as the words came out without pain! His throat was moist, flexible, responsive. Which prompted a second question: 'How long was I asleep?'

'Sleep?' she said, slowly removing her hand, knowing now that he knew she was not one of his own. 'Is that what it was? More like death's doorway, Nathan - and you upon the threshold! But now you are in the Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs.'

He looked at her ... and looked away, beyond her. In a way the experience was shocking, in that he had never before seen a living female of the Thyre and had not known what to expect, but in another it was less strange than when he was with his wolves. At least his nurse was - what, human? Well, not animal, anyway. Never a wild creature. Nathan checked himself: that was a line of thought he'd do well to avoid. What had Rogei told him: that even trogs consider themselves true men? This Thyre female was human, of a sort. It was just that she wasn't Szgany. Another line of thought best avoided.

And so he looked at the Thyre female again; also at the - room? - in which he now found himself. And she was right: his surroundings were strange! He must give his mind time to absorb them, and slowly.

Seated on a stool beside his bed, the ... girl was alert and her demeanour erect, graceful, somehow regal. Nathan saw that standing she would be quite tall. Her youth shone out of her eyes: young eyes are self-apparent in all creatures; they shine and have a brilliant clarity. She was also brown as the kernel of a freshly cracked nut but not at all wrinkled, and like all of the Thyre she was slender to the point of emaciation. The highly sensitive pupils of her large eyes were lemon green against a background of olive irises, and were shaded by the horny ridges of her eyebrows.

She wore a red skirt and sandals, nothing else. Her small breasts were loose, pear-shaped, slightly pendulous; not at all 'deflated paps', which was how Nathan had heard Lardis Lidesci describe the breasts of trogs. Her ears were large, her mouth and chin small, her nose wide and flattened, with dark flaring nostrils. The odour of her body was a light musk, but she also carried a pleasing scent of lemons.

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'Is there something?' she said, tilting her head a little. And Nathan was surprised to recognize the source of the sweet lemon smell: it was her breath. Somehow, he had not expected it to be so clean and refreshing. But ... if she was reading his thoughts that, too, was one which she might easily find offensive.

He sighed and shook his head. 'Nothing I think conies out the way it was intended,' he said. 'Each time I give my brain free rein it issues insults which then require apologies. I'm sorry.'

'But your thoughts are your own,' she told him, seemingly taken aback. 'I would not enter unless it was necessary. That is an unspoken rule. You, too, have the talent. And would you come into my mind uninvited?'

'Rogei said much the same thing,' Nathan answered, 'that I was gifted. He said it might grow in me. But right now your mind is a blank to me. When I was young I would sometimes read my brother's mind, and ... I have a knack with certain wolves of the wild. But I am not a telepath.' He shook his head.

'You will be,' she said. And then, obviously curious:

'But this ... Rogei? Who is he? And for that matter, how do you know that the Thyre are telepathic? That is one secret which we have kept well. Or so we thought.'

Nathan was cautious. It might - just might - have been delirium, all of it. But if so his feverish mind had forecast all of this with remarkable accuracy. And so it seemed he must accept what had taken place as fact: he had indeed talked to a dead creature (no, a dead 'man'), and so discovered the things he knew about the Thyre. He was ... a Necroscope? That being the case, it seemed Rogei had supplied him with a real reason for living; the Thyre Ancient had not only saved his life but had given it meaning - but had also made it meaningJess, if he couldn't pass the knowledge on.

'Rogei is the one who told me about your telepathy,' he finally answered, aware that she was listening intently and sitting up that much straighter. 'He demonstrated it to me. Except his talent is different now. As Rogei has suffered ... a change, so has his telepathy, which in turn allows me the use of my talent. For where the Thyre mind-talk with the living, I..."

'Yes?'

'... What is your name?' He stalled.

'That is a secret!'

'Of course it is,' Nathan sighed, shrugged. 'And so are the things which you have asked me. But you've been my nurse and I thought that made us friends.'

She understood his comment: faith and trust is a two-way system or it doesn't work. 'My name is Atwei - At-we-ay. Now then, who is Rogei?'

Nathan took a deep breath. 'Rogei's body lies in the Cavern of the Ancients, Atwei,' he said. 'He was Thyre. Now he is an Ancient! And I ... am a Necroscope and talk to dead people. My talent lets me talk to the dead of the Thyre.'

If Atwei was surprised it scarcely showed. Nodding, she answered quietly: 'There are desert folk who practise such an art. They are a far-away tribe, not Thyre, and do other things which are unseemly. Once, when they would spread into the lands of the Thyre, they made war with us; their warriors invaded our colonies under the earth. The Thyre trapped them there, opened floodgates and drowned them all. Since when they have sent no more armies against us and we no longer kill men, for the mind-cries of the dying are awful! Instead, they are satisfied with their lands beyond the Great Red Waste and the Last Mountains. They are called necromancers, after that art which they use to torture the dead for their secrets.'

'Rogei the Ancient called me a Necroscope,' Nathan told her. 'He knew the word from the dead of the Szgany, with whom he had spoken mind to mind as you speak to the living. Upon a time, not long ago, the Szgany had known just such men as I am. They were not necromancers and neither am I. I've tortured no one, Atwei, neither the living nor the dead. But if you're not convinced, only look inside my head. It is that I hear the dead whispering in their graves, and on occasion they hear me. Rogei was one of them who heard and talked to me. He saw that I had problems and guided me to the Cavern of the Ancients.'

She nodded. 'So, you are not deranged. The Thyre elders have read certain of these things in your mind. They could not be sure but thought you might be mad. If what you say is true, plainly you are sane and have a weird, unique talent. And who am I to decide if it is for good or for evil?'

Nathan frowned. 'It seems I remember something of that: voices which questioned me while I slept. About the Cavern of the Ancients and what happened there.

Also about my past. But ... did I invite them into my mind? I don't think so. Which is strange, for as I recall you mentioned an unspoken rule. Also, you awakened me with a mind-call! Do you make and break these rules of yours so easily then, Atwei?'

She drew back from him. 'But several strange things had happened, and there were matters which the elders required to understand. At first it seemed you might not live. Before you could die, it was necessary that they look into your mind. As for myself: how could I determine your progress, without that I first inquire within?'

"Vampire World 1 - Blood Brothers"

He nodded but this time made no apology. 'And did they get what they wanted, the elders?'

'Not everything. Your mind is closed to the past, locking out all of the pain which lurks there. There is a great deal of pain in you.'

'I no longer feel it.'

'Because it is locked out - or in! This is not a physical thing, Nathan.'

He changed the subject. 'What will become of me?'

'That is for the elders.'

'Then you should call them, or take me to them.'

'I have called them and they will come, soon. Before then you should eat. Will you eat with me?' She seemed eager now to make up for any possible misunderstandings. And after all, she had told him her name.

'Here?'

'Oh, yes. For it will be a while before you can get up. A long day has passed, and a night. Up above, the sun is freshly risen. And all while you have lain here.'

An entire cycle! Nathan thought, easing his bones a little and stretching in his bed. But he wasn't surprised: it felt at least that and more. And Atwei was right: he was hungry. Til gladly eat with you,' he told her.

'Food has been prepared,' Atwei nodded, stood up, backed away and out through an archway. 'I shall return.' Left alone, he studied his surroundings.