But on the other hand . . .
Shaithis could scarcely deny his own troublesome dreams, whose patterns were strange as the auroral energies which even now wove in the sky high overhead. Perhaps he should examine those dreams yet again, as so often before, except –
– No time, not now; for he felt a familiar encroachment and knew that Shaitan was near, in mind if not in body. And: What is it? he inquired.
How clever you are, the other purred telepathically. And oh so sensitive! There’s no sneaking up on you, my son.
Then why do you persist in trying? Shaithis was cold.
Shaitan ignored his testiness and said: You should come now. Our creatures are mewling in their vats and would be up and about. They must be tested. We have things to do, preparations to make.
Indeed, it was true enough. And: I shall be there immediately, Shaithis answered, commencing the treacherous climb down from the cone. Yes, for his ancestor wasn’t alone in his eagerness to be free of this place. Except there’s freedom and there’s freedom, and the concept is never the same to any two creatures.
Shaitan would merely free himself from the Icelands, while his descendant… he had something else to be free of.
Some little time earlier, and several thousands of miles to the south: the Necroscope had been out to inspect Karen’s advance guard, her early-warning system of specialized warrior-creatures (or rogue troops, as they seemed to have become) where she’d stationed them at the rim of the frozen sea against any incursion from the Icelands. He had gone there via the Möbius Continuum, in a series of hundred-mile jumps which had taken him far across consecutive northern horizons into aurora-lit wastes where the snow lay in great white drifts on the shores of a sullenly heaving, ice-crusted ocean.
Karen’s creatures had been there sure enough, and Harry was soon to discover how well they’d adapted. Metamorphic, a single generation had sufficed to accelerate their evolution: they’d grown thick white fur both for protection against the cold and as a natural camouflage. When Harry had thought to detect some slight movement in a humped snowfall, and after he’d carefully moved a little closer, then he’d seen just how effective the latter device was. His first real awareness of the beasts had been when three of them reared up and charged him: in combination, a quarter-acre of murder running rampant!
Then, removing himself some small distance, he’d thought: I’d be little more than a minnow to be divided between three great cats. They’d get no more than a taste apiece.
But note their instinctive tendency to secrecy, Karen had commented from her aerie some two thousand miles south. Their minds may be feeble, but still they were able to hide their thoughts, and thus themselves, away from you. What’s more, you are Wamphyri – a Lord, a master – but that didn’t stop them either!
The Necroscope had detected a degree of pride in Karen’s thoughts; these were her creations, and she’d made a good job of them. Alas, but then she’d allowed them to slip the leash. Still focusing on him, she had detected that thought, too.
The distance was too great, she’d shrugged. I see that now. Telepathy is a special talent which we share. Our mainly human minds are large, and we focus them well, wherefore contact between us is simple. But their minds are small and mainly concerned with survival. Again her shrug. Quite simply, they’ve forgotten me.
Time they remembered, then, Harry had answered. And as she amplified and reinforced her original orders and instructions, so he’d relayed them directly and forcefully into the group’s dull minds. Following which, and when he went among them a second time, they’d behaved with more respect.
Brave of you! she’d commented, however nervously. To examine them at such close quarters. And perhaps a little foolish, too. Come out of there, Harry, please? Come home now?
Home . . . Did she mean back to the aerie, he wondered? And was that really his home now? Perhaps it was in keeping: that monstrous menhir rising over Starside’s boulder plains, whose furnishings were fashioned from the hair and fur, gristle and bones of once-men and -monsters. What better home for a man whose lifelong friend had been the Grim Reaper himself?