‘So what’s happening now?’ he asked, when the cold water had taken some of the sting out of his neck and head.
‘Arlek tracked me using the talents of an old man, Jasef Karis,’ Zek told him. ‘It wasn’t too hard. There was really only one place I could head for: through the pass to the sphere, to see if I could make it back home. Anyway, Jasef’s like me, a telepath.’
‘You told me the wild animals here had a degree of ESP,’ Jazz reminded her, ‘but you didn’t say anything about the people. I’d got the impression that only the Wamphyri had these talents.’
‘Generally, that’s true,’ she answered. ‘Jasef’s father was taken prisoner in a Wamphyri raid; this was a long time ago, you understand. He escaped from them and came back over the mountains. He swore that he hadn’t been changed in any way. He’d escaped before the Lord Belath could make a mindless zombie of him. His wife took him back, of course, and they had a child: Jasef. But then it was discovered that Jasef’s father had lied. He had been changed by the Lord Belath, but he’d made his escape before the change could commence in him. The truth finally came out when he became uncontrollable -became, in fact, a thing! The Travellers knew how to deal with it; they staked it out, cut it in pieces and burned it. And afterwards they kept a close watch on Jasef and his mother. But they were OK. Jasef’s telepathy is something come down to him from his father, or from the thing that Lord Belath put into him.’
Jazz’s head swam, partly from the throbbing pain where he’d been clubbed but mainly from trying to take in all that Zek was telling him. ‘Stop!’ he said. ‘Let’s concentrate on the important stuff. Tell me what else I’ll need to know about this planet. Draw me a map I can keep in my head. First the planet, then its peoples.’
‘Very well,’ she nodded, ‘but first you’d better know how we stand. Old Jasef and one or two men have gone on into the pass to see if there’s a watcher – a guardian creature – in the keep back there. If there is, Jasef will send a telepathic message through it to its master, the Lord Shaithis. The message will be that Arlek holds us captive, and that he’ll use us to strike a bargain with Shaithis. In return for us, Shaithis will promise not to raid on Lardis Lidesci’s tribe of Travellers. If it’s a deal, then we’ll be handed over.’
‘From what Arlek was saying about the Wamphyri,’ Jazz said, ‘I’m surprised they’ll even be interested in making a deal. If they’re so much to be feared, they can just take us anyway.’
‘If they could find us,’ she answered. ‘And only at night. They can only raid when the sun’s down below the rim of the world. Also, there are some eighteen to twenty Wamphyri Lords, and one Lady. They’re territorial; they vie with each other. They scheme against each other all the time, and go to war at every opportunity. It’s their nature. We’d be ace cards to any one of them – except the Lady Karen. I know for I was hers once, and she let me go.’
Jazz tucked that last away for later. ‘Why are we so important?’ he wanted to know.
‘Because we are magicians,’ she said. ‘We have powers, weapons, skills they don’t understand. Even more so than the Travellers, we understand metals and mechanisms.’
‘What?’ Jazz was lost again. ‘Magicians?’
‘I’m a telepath,’ she shrugged. To be ESP-endowed and a true man – or a woman – is a rare thing. Also, we’re not of this world. We come from the mysterious hell-lands. And when I first arrived here I had awesome weapons. So did you.’
‘But I’m not ESP-talented,’ Jazz reminded her. ‘What use will I be to them?’
She looked away. ‘Not a lot. Which means you’ll have to bluff your way.’
‘I’ll have to what?’
‘If in fact we go to the Lord Shaithis, you’ll need to tell him you . . . can read the future! Something like that. Something it’s hard to disprove.’