Shaithis had been even more astonished. ‘You’ve bled the great fishes in the cold sea?’
‘Actually, while I called them fishes, they are mammals.’ Shaitan had shrugged in his fashion. They’re warm-blooded, those giants, and suckle their young. Soon after I came here I saw a school at play, spouting at the rim of the ocean, so that my first ingurgitor was designed with them in mind. It was a good design and I’ve scarcely changed it down the centuries. Doubtless you’ve noted the vestigial gills, fins, and other seeming anomalies in the volcano’s guardian creatures; likewise in my driller.’
Shaithis had noted those things. Indeed it was his habit to note everything . . .
On another occasion, fascinated by the sheer age of his self-appointed ‘mentor’, Shaithis had thought to suggest: ‘But you have been here – upon the earth, in Starside and in the Icelands, mainly in these frozen wastes – almost .since the Beginning!’ Even speaking those words he had realized how naive they must sound and how much in awe of the other he must seem, which his ancestor’s dark chuckle had at once confirmed.
The Beginning? Ah, no, for I perceive that the world is a million times older than I am. Or did you mean the beginning of the Wamphyri? In which case I can but agree, for I was the first of all.’
‘Really?’ Again Shaithis forgot to distance himself from his astonishment. It was hard to be inscrutable in the face of revelations such as these. Of course, the legends of Starside said that Shaitan the Fallen had been the first vampire, but as any fool is aware, legends are like myths: mainly untruths or at best exaggerations. The first? The father of us all?’
The first of the Wamphyri, aye,’ Shaitan had answered at last, after a long, curious silence. ‘But not … the Father, did you say? No, not the Father. Oh, I fathered my share, be sure, for I was young with a young man’s appetites. I had been a man entire and fallen to earth here, where my vampire came to me . . . came out of … out of the swamps . . .’ He paused, leaving his words to taper into a thoughtful silence.
And after a while: ‘Out of the vampire swamps?’ Shaithis had pressed him. There are great swamps to the west of Starside, and according to legend others to the east. I know of them but never saw them. Are these the swamps of which you speak?’
Shaitan was still distanced by strange reverie. Nevertheless he nodded. Those are the swamps, aye. I fell to earth in the west.’
Shaithis had heard him use this term – about ‘falling to earth’ – before. Frowning and shaking his head, he’d said, ‘I fail to understand. How may a man fall to earth? Out of the sky, do you mean? From your mother’s womb? But weren’t you also called the Unborn? Where did you fall from, and how?’
Shaitan had snapped out of it. ‘You are a nosy person, and your questions are rude! Still, I’ll answer them as best I may. First understand this: my memories start at the swamps, and even then they are faded and incomplete. Before the swamps, I … I’m not sure. But when I came naked to this world I came in great pain and great pride. I believe that I was exiled into this place, thrown down here even as the Wamphyri exiled me at last to these Icelands. The Wamphyri exiled me because I would be The One Power. Well, and perhaps I had tried to be a Power in that other place, too, wherefrom I was banished and fell to earth. It is a mystery to me. But this I do know: compared to the other place, this world was like a hell!’
‘Someone had sent you here as a punishment, to a life of hell?’
‘Or to a world which could become a hell, of my making. It was a question of will: anything could be, if I so willed it or allowed it to be. I repeat: it was because I was wilful and prideful that I was here. Or at least, that is how I seem to remember it.’