‘Ah! – but I see the question in your eyes, Jazz. You’re thinking: whichever Lord created them from what? But haven’t I told you that they are masters of metamorphosis? Their creatures – all of their creatures, which take the place of machines in their society – were once men!
‘Don’t ask me the hows of it; I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t think I could bear to know them. What I do know I’ll pass on to you, as time allows. But right now you’ve asked me what it was like for me when I first came here, and I’m telling you that the first things I saw – two of them – were Wamphyri warrior creatures. I saw them first, before anything else, in the same way you would notice a pair of cockroaches among ants. One: because ants are tolerable, while cockroaches are not. And two: because cockroaches are that much bigger, and so much more ugly!
Two of them, out there on that rock-strewn plain under the moon and stars. And I couldn’t believe their size! That they were fighting things was obvious: take a look at a picture of Tyrannosaurus Rex in a book of prehistoric animals and you don’t need to be told he was a warrior. These creatures were like that: with their weaponry, armour-plated, in all their utter hideousness, they couldn’t be anything else. It was only when I saw that they were quiescent, controlled, that I dared to take my eyes off them. Then, having observed the “cockroaches”, as it were, I looked at the “ants”. Seen in contrast, beside the warrior creatures and flying beasts, that’s what the Wamphyri looked like: ants. But they were the masters, and the monstrous giants their obedient slaves.
‘Try to picture it:
‘Out on the boulder plain, these two mountains of armour-clad flesh. Closer, a half-dozen flyers, all craning their necks and swaying their heads to and fro. And closer still, a few paces away from the shining dome of the Gate, the Wamphyri themselves come here to punish one of their own, a transgressor against the Lady Karen’s laws. I saw them, stared at them in a mixture of awe and morbid fascination, and they stared back at me. For they were here to thrust someone into the Gate, and the last thing they’d expected was that some other should come out of it!
‘There was Karen herself, and four subordinates -“lieutenants” if you like – and one other who was ugly as sin and draped in chains of gold. Now gold is a soft metal, as you know, Jazz, and easily broken. But not when its links are thick as your fingers! There was more gold in those chains than I’ve ever seen in my life in any one place, in one mass, and yet this Corlis who was decked in them wore them like tinsel! Corlis, that was his name; he was huge, a brute, and stark naked except for the gold. No gauntlet on this one’s hand, for he was in shame. But though he stood there naked, unweaponed, still his red eyes burned furiously and unrepentant!
‘The four who surrounded him were big men, too, but smaller by a head than their prisoner; they carried long sheaths of leather strapped to their backs, and in their hands slender swords. The sword, as I’d learn later, is a shameful weapon; only their evil gauntlets are considered honourable and fitting tools for hand-to-hand combat. Also, these swords were tipped in silver. And all four of them were pointed at Corlis, who stood there panting, his head lifted high, engorged with rage.
‘Behind their prisoner, and shielded from him by the four who guarded him, stood the Lady Karen transfixed.
Sighting me, her red mouth had fallen open. Now, I’ll tell you something, Jazz – something which no woman should ever admit, which I hadn’t admitted, not even to myself, until that moment. Women are envious creatures. And the good-looking ones more so than others. But now I admit it because I know it’s true. Except I didn’t know how true until I saw this Karen.
‘Her hair was copper, burnished, almost ablaze; it reflected the white light of the dome like a halo over her head, bounced like fine spun gold on her shoulders, competed with the polished bangles she wore on her arms. Gold rings on a slender golden chain around her neck supported the sheath of soft white leather which she wore like a glove, and on her feet sandals of pale leather stitched in gold. Over her shoulders a long cloak of black fur, skilfully shorn from the wings of great bats, shimmering with a weave of fine golden stitches, and about her waist a wide black leather belt, buckled with her crest – a snarling wolf’s head – and supporting, on one rounded hip, her gauntlet.