And: ‘So I willed it,’ he growled, ‘and so it has come to pass.’ And he glared all about, defying all and sundry to deny him his sovereignty – if they dared. And yet in his heart Shaithis knew that the victory wasn’t his alone, not in its entirety. He knew he couldn’t claim that he was its sole engineer, or that he alone had whelmed the strange forces and alien magic of The Dweller. No, for he’d required a deal of help with that.
Shaithis couldn’t remember exactly how the fight had been won but he did know that he’d had a powerful ally who was here with him even now. Since he seemed to be the only one in any way aware of that Other, however, and since he alone of all men was fit to command – fit to proclaim himself Warlord of the New Wamphyri – what difference did it make? A wraith may not usurp a man.
He narrowed his eyes and glanced to the right and back a little (but not so obviously that anyone would notice), and peered a moment at the Dark Hooded Thing in its black cloak where it stood close by watching all that transpired. It was a black, evil Thing, and entirely unknown and invisible to all save Shaithis; yet this was the creature which had made Starside’s conquest possible. Shaithis felt nothing whatsoever of gratitude but merely scowled; for out of nowhere it had come to him that his secret, faceless ally – his invisible familiar – was the true master here and he himself a mere figurehead, which irritated him and turned his victory sour. For he was Wamphyri and territorial, and there simply wasn’t space in this or any other world for two Warlords.
Galvanized by some weird frustration, suddenly Shaithis started to his feet. His prostrate thralls and their kneeling overseer lieutenants rose with him (though all of them, masters and minions alike, shrank back from the severity of his gaze), and four small warriors in dully glinting armour hissed their alarm at such a flurry of movement, but nevertheless held to their positions in the far corners of the great hall.
At Shaithis’s feet, the Lady Karen shrank back from her master. Her scarlet gaze seemed partly adoring (aye, she was treacherous as ever) but mainly fearful; he kicked her sprawling out of his way and strode alone to the high-arched windows. Out there, the dizzy aerial levels were now alive with entire colonies of smoky-furred Desmodus bats like clouds of excited, darting midges alongside Shaithis’s gigantic, sky-scouring warriors; also rank upon rank of manta-shaped flyers in ornate, decorative trappings, with lieutenants and high-ranking thrall riders seated proud in saddles tooled with Shaithis’s gauntlet sigil. It was an airborne display of his power in the wake of his greatest victory.
Shaithis stood there a moment, arms akimbo and head held high, and watched the flypast like a general inspecting his troops. Then he turned his hooded, crimson eyes westward to light upon The Dweller’s garden, or rather the high saddle in the grey hills where once a garden had blossomed. Ah, but that was yesterday and now . . . flames leaped there and black smoke boiled skyward, and the underbellies of clouds where they scudded across the peaks were ruddy from the inferno blazing below them. Shaithis had vowed it and willed it into being, and now it was real! The garden was burning and its defenders were . . . dead?
No, not all of them. Not yet.
And: ‘Bring them to me,’ the dreaming vampire commanded of no one in particular. ‘I would deal with them -now.’ A half-dozen lieutenants hastened to obey, and in a little while a pair of prisoners were led into Shaithis’s presence. Massive, he dwarfed them. Of course he did, for he was a Lord of the Wamphyri: he hosted a vampire in his body and brain, while his captives were merely human. Or were they? For even now there was that defiant something in their bearing which in itself might almost be … Wamphyri? Then Shaithis saw their eyes and knew the astonishing truth.
Ah! And how was this for revenge? For there is nothing so delightful to a vampire than to torment, torture and tap the life fluids of another or others of his own kind. And: ‘Dweller,’ Shaithis said, his voice so softly threatening it was almost a whisper. ‘Dweller, come, take off your golden mask. For I know you now even as I should have known you right from the start. Ah, but your “magic” had me fooled just as it fooled us all. Magic? Hah! No such thing – but the true art of the great vampire! For who else but a master of every Wamphyri talent – aye, and then some – would dare to wage a one-man war against all the great Lords that were? And who else but the most crafty – ah, crafty vampire – might ever have won such a war?’