Nathan felt enclosed, strangled, dizzy. It was the smoke, the claustrophobia of the old, echoing place. He moved back a little from the choked pit. But at the same time, to keep the other engaged and know his mind: 'How did your bloodsons kill you?' he inquired. 'And why?'
Because they were cowards! And because…
'Yes?'
Perhaps I was hard with them… But it's a hard world (he was quick to defend unspoken brutalities) in which I wanted my sons to be strong. And so they were strong in the end, but not as I intended. They were strong against me! I should have seen it coming: they were lieutenants and would be Lords, and their father was the one thing that stood in their way.
Wran played the gentleman: he used his fine clothes as a shield against me, like the snobbery of a 'superior' whelp! As for Spiro; he dressed in rags, and made himself pitiful before me so that I would not strike him. Like a young male wolf, he wriggled on his back before the leader of the pack. But there was treachery in both of them. It was… my evil eye. Above all else, they feared that. Having seen it used against common thralls, they believed that one day I might..
'Use it against them?'
Eygor chuckled, as evil a 'sound' as Nathan ever heard. One thing to kill a mere man with a glance, he said, but something else entirely to kill a true vampire that way. Occasionally I lashed out at them, I admit it, but against them my eye was like a whip on the shaggy backs of dogs: it made them yelp, no more than that. But they felt my power growing stronger day by day, and finally I stung them once too often.
They gave me strong drink to deaden my senses, poisoned my food with silver, and while I lay in a coma… blinded me! Hot irons fried the surface of my eyes, until I leaped shrieking awake! And they taunted me as I followed after them in my agony, weeping acid tears and stumbling like a fool through the inky blind blackness of Madmanse.
Then… they were close and I sensed it. They stood right there before me, only a few paces away. I formed my hands into talons and rushed at them. And… they had brought me here, to a refuse pit! My legs struck the wall which you see before you; I fell! And while 1 lay at the bottom, broken in the mire, Wran and Spiro choked the pit with boulders.
For half a year I lived on muck and bones. And while my metamorphic flesh was still willing, 1 gathered to me the remnants of extinct creatures: the armour of warriors, and all of that which you saw in your dream. I made a giant of myself, my plan being to break out. But the pit was as deep as my 'food' was bad, so that my strength waned even as my size increased.
As for my eyes, I would repair them. But nothing I fashioned was nearly so good, and all of the evil had been burned right out of them. Finally I was starved. Too weak to struggle on, at last I slumped against the wall, where in the course of fifty years J commenced my stiffening. Thus Eygor KiJJgJance became the mummy-thing which you saw in your dream…
Nathan, who was almost inured to horror now, nodded and said, 'Your just deserts.'
You think so? Ah, but you're a hard one.' And what of my bastard b/oodsons? Should they go unpunished?
'Punished? They should be destroyed utterly!' Nathan answered. 'Not for what they did to you but for what they've done — and what they're doing even now — to Olden Sunside in the west.'
Ahhh! said Eygor, and Nathan read approval in his sigh. And so we are of a mind after all!
Nathan's torch was wavering; he turned to go, to follow his own tracks back the way he'd come. Wait! Eygor begged him.
'For what?' Nathan kept going, putting distance between. 'We've nothing in common. There's no way you can help me. But I sense that you would help yourself, even now!'
Nathan, it can be yours…
With his foot on a bottom step, Nathan paused. 'What can be mice?'
The evil eye of Eygor Killglance. I've read your dreams, your wildest lights of fancy, and know that you'd make war on the Wamphyri. But only think… what a weapon it would make.'p>
To kill men with a glance? To be a monster as you were a monster?'
But you said it yourself: 'All men have urges, but some control them.' You, the Necroscope, would control this special urge. My power would be yours to use or good, not evil!p>
'I don't want it.' Nathan climbed away from the voice, through the hollow shell of Madmanse.
But now that you know it's there you will, eventually.
And now that you know where I am, you'll be able to find me always. I'll never be far away, Nathan, wherever you are.
'Suppose I did… want it? What then? How would you give me your power? And what would you want in return?'
Oh, I would give it to you, never fear. And in return… my freedom1.
'Freedom? From what? You're a dead thing.' "Away from the miasma of Eygor's mind, Nathan's dizziness quickly cleared. He went faster, and as he approached the outer wall and light came in from the gorge, so the other's deadspeak began to fade and break up. It wasn't so much that Eygor couldn't reach him, but that Nathan no longer desired to be reached. He felt that he'd escaped — but just in time — from something which would damn his soul forever.
My freedom from that, from death itself! Eygor was desperate now. You can do it, Nathan. I heard it from the Thyre, carried on their dreaming deadspeak thoughts… you, the Necroscope… it for Rogei… Cavern of the Ancients….as a dead thing, too… gave him life….ou willed it, you and Rogei together… because you needed… he was alive!
Nathan had heard enough. 'Return you to life? Never!' His torch went out and he ran in near-darkness to the final stairwell. And the night-dark spirit of the place was right behind him, snapping at his heels.
Not now but… some future time. If you should need me, I… here. All I ask.. don't forget me…
Panting, trembling, Nathan came up into Runemanse, which seemed a healthy place now — almost. But in his metaphysical mind, burning like ice: Don't forget meeeeee! It was Eygor's last word, for the moment at least.
Nathan fled to the great hall, slowed down a little and headed wearily for his room. But in the passageway he ran into Orlea, who caught his arm to steady him. She saw his condition but made no comment except to tell him, 'Maglore wants you…'
In his spacious apartments Maglore paced to and fro, not worriedly but perhaps contemplatively, as if he deliberated upon some course of action. Approaching him, Nathan wondered what was on his mind. He suspected that this would not be the best time to try reading it, which was confirmed almost at once.
'Mentalism,' Maglore said enigmatically, but as yet not threateningly. He came to a halt, crooked a finger, and beckoned Nathan closer. 'Telepathy. There was a time when I asked you if you knew the meaning of it, to which you answered no.'
Nathan's shields were up, his thoughts impregnable. 'I remember, master.'
'Ah!' Maglore sighed and shook his head sadly. 'You remember, do you? And so we are come to this. You my friend and companion, a liar who hides his every waking thought from me. And why? Because if I were to see inside your head, I would know the treachery you plan.'
Nathan shook his head. His mouth was dry as dust but he forced words out of it anyway. 'I have planned no treachery against you, master.' It was true, and because his words were simple they carried conviction. No treachery against Maglore, but merely an escape from him… Nathan clamped down on the thought at once. If Maglore were to suspect that he and Karz Biteri plotted flight… and again he screwed the lid down on the contents of his mind. The effort caused perspiration to break out on his forehead.