For a moment the scarlet eyes beneath the Fallen One’s cobra’s hood had burned more brightly yet, like fires stoked from within. But then he’d nodded, gradually returned from the privacy of his dark-cloaked thoughts, and said: ‘Ah, but now you must tell me: since you seem of the opinion that I breed too many, just how many of my ice-drillers and kindred creatures have you seen?’
Shaithis had been taken aback. He’d imagined a great many such beasts, to be sure. But what evidence he’d seen of them in the looted ice-castles had been the slow work of countless centuries, in no way the concerted effort of a handful of auroral periods, nor even entire cycles of such. And while here in the workshops at the roots of the volcano several vats steamed and bubbled where Shaitan’s experiments continued to shape, still there were precious few working beasts. No flaccid siphoneers here as in Starside’s aeries, for the cone’s caldera contained a small lake of water; nor any great requirement for gas-beasts, where several of the volcano’s caverns – especially Shaitan’s living quarters – were warmed by active blowholes. So that after giving the question some little thought, Shaithis had been obliged to answer, ‘Now that I think of it, I can’t say I’ve actually seen any – except this one cooking in its vat.’
‘Exactly, for there are none! Not of the visible, mobile-and-eating-their-heads-off varieties, at any rate. I keep only my ingurgitors, for the protection they afford me. Now come.’ And Shaitan had taken his descendant down to black, lightless nether-caverns where every niche, crevice and extinct volcanic vent served as a storage chamber for the ice-encased progeny of his experimental vats.
And there he inquired of him, ‘So advise me: how would you keep such as these both awake and full-bellied?’ And answered himself, ‘Out of the question! What, in these almost barren Icelands? You wouldn’t. Which is why, as their various purposes are served, I freeze them into immobility down here. And here they stay, inert for the moment, the raw materiel of tomorrow’s army. And when I require another, perhaps different sort of creature – why, I simply design and construct one! The art of metamorphism, Shaithis. But nothing wasted, my son, never that.’
Continuing to gaze down on his ancestor’s preserved experiments, Shaithis had nodded. ‘I see you’ve tried a warrior or two,’ he commented. ‘Fearsome but . . . archaic? Perhaps I should advise you: Starside’s warriors have come a long way since your day. In all truth, these things of yours would not last long against certain of my constructs!’
If Shaitan was offended, it hardly showed. ‘Then by all means instruct me in these superior metamorphic skills,’ he’d answered. ‘Indeed, and in order that you may do so, you shall have complete freedom of my workshops, materials and vats.’
Which had been much to Shaithis’s liking . . .
Another time, Shaithis had asked: ‘What of your ingurgitors? Since plainly they are working beasts, and since it’s your habit to – separate them? – from what they take from their victims, how do you sustain them? On what do you feed them? For as you yourself have pointed out: these Icelands are very nearly barren.’
Shaitan had then shown him his reservoirs of frozen blood and minced, metamorphic flesh, explaining: ‘I’ve been here a long, long time, my son. And when I first came here, ah, but I quickly learned what it meant to go hungry! Since when I’ve made provision not only for myself but for my creatures, both now and in the dawn of our resurgence.’
In blank astonishment, Shaithis had gazed upon the rims of (literally) dozens of potholes of black plasma. ‘Blood? So much blood? But not from the frozen Lords, surely? There were never sufficient of the Wamphyri in all Starside to fill these great bowls!’
‘Beast blood,’ Shaitan told him. ‘Whale blood, too. Yes, and even a little man blood. But you are correct, only a very little of the latter. The blood of beasts and great fishes is fine for my creatures; it will fuel them to war when that time is come, following which . . . why, there’ll be food aplenty for all, eh? But the man blood is mine – and yours, too, now that you’re here – for our sustenance.’