Then there was the Wamphyri fear of silver, which metal was a poison to their systems, acting upon them like lead acts on men. Lardis had discovered a small mine of that rare metal in the western foothills, and now his arrows were tipped with it. Also, he smeared his weapons in the juice of the kneblasch root, whose garlic stink would bring about a partial paralysis in any vampire, causing endless vomiting and a general nervous disorder lasting for days. If a kneblasch — treated blade cut Wamphyri flesh, then the infected member must be shed and another grown in its place.
It wasn't so much that these things were secret or known only in the tribe of Lardis — indeed, all Travellers had been aware of these facts immemorially — but rather that Lardis dared use them in the defence of his people. The Wamphyri had forbidden to all Travellers the use of bronze mirrors, silver and kneblasch, on penalty of dire torture and death; but Lardis cared not a jot. He was already a marked man, and a man can die only once…
These were some of the things, then, that influenced Lardis in the way he ruled his tribe and did his best to keep them secure west of the pass through the mountains; but there was one other element beyond Lardis's control, which nevertheless figured high in his favour, confirming his commonsense measures. It was this: that somewhere in those western peaks, in a small, fertile valley, lived the one whom the Wamphyri feared and had named The-Dweller-in-His-Garden-in-the-West. The Dweller legend was the main reason Lardis had been away this time. Ostensibly he had been seeking new routes and harbour areas for the tribe (and in fact he'd discovered several) but in reality he had been trying to locate the Dweller. He'd reasoned that what was bad for the Wamphyri must be good for the tribe of Lardis the Traveller. Also, rumours had been spreading for some years now that the Dweller offered sanctuary to anyone with spit enough to dare seek him out. For Lardis himself, sanctuary wasn't the hook, though certainly it would be a wonderful thing to find a safe, permanent home for the tribe; but if the Dweller had power to defy the Wamphyri… that in itself were sufficient reason to seek him out. Lardis would learn from him and with his new knowledge carry the fight right back to the very keeps of his vampire enemies.
He had sought for him — and found him!
Now he was back from that quest, and back barely in time to save the hell-lander woman Zekintha from Arlek's treachery; Zekintha… and the newcomer, whose fighting skills Arlek's dupes had mentioned in something approaching awe. On a one-to-one basis and without the intervention of his followers, Arlek hadn't stood a chance against Jazz. Well, if there was one thing Lardis Lidesci liked, it was a good fair fighter. Or even a good dirty one!
Lardis saw them coming across the canyon's floor, stepped forward to meet them. He clasped Zek in his great arms, kissed her right ear. 'Tear down the mountains!' he greeted her. And: 'I'm glad you're safe, Zekintha.'
'Only just,' she answered, breathlessly. 'All credit to this one,' and she nodded at Jazz.
Weary now, and climbing out of his gear as if he unhitched an anchor, Jazz returned her nod, then looked all about in the canyon's hushed twilight. Men and wolves moved here and there in the shadows of the cliffs, their jingling and low talk seeming very normal and pleasant to Jazz's ears. But central in a jumble of boulders which lay towards the western wall burned a great fire, emitting roiling black smoke which climbed into a near-perpendicular column in the still air. Arlek's funeral pyre, he supposed.
Some hundred or more yards to the south, the pass turned a little eastward and there commenced a steady descent toward the unseen foothills of Sunside. The rays of the slowly declining sun, blazing full through that last stretch of pass, beat on the western wall of the canyon and lit its crags and outcrops. Coming down from those heights, agile as goats, a half-dozen male Travellers bore mirrors like shields in their capable hands, always directing the sun's beams into those gloomy deeps of the gorge which lay to the north. Jazz frowned as the first of the mirror-bearers came closer. The man's great oval mirror was of glass, surely? Did the Travellers have that sort of technology at their disposal?
Lardis watched Jazz strip down to his combat suit, then approached him smilingly with outstretched right hand. Jazz tried to take his hand, found himself clasping his forearm instead; Lardis likewise clasped his. It was a Traveller greeting. 'A hell-lander,' Lardis nodded. 'How are you called?'
'Michael Simmons,' Jazz answered. 'Jazz to my friends.'
Again Lardis's nod. 'Then I'll call you Jazz — for now. But I need time to make up my mind about you. I've heard rumours about hell-landers like yourself; some take sides with the Wamphyri, working for them as wizards.'
'As you've seen,' Jazz told him, 'I'm not one of them. And in any case, I don't think any, er, hell-lander, would side with the Wamphyri of his own free will.'
Lardis took Jazz aside, guided him toward a spot where a party of men sat forlornly on broken boulders, heads hanging low. Around them stood a guard composed of Lardis's men. The ones who were seated had been Arlek's followers; Jazz recognized several faces. As Jazz and Lardis approached, the captives hung their heads lower still. Lardis scowled at them, said: 'Arlek would have given you to the Wamphyri Lord Shaithis. But he was a great coward, and he coveted the leadership of the tribe. You've seen the fire burning there?'
Jazz nodded. 'Zek told me what you'd do,' he said.
'Zek?' Lardis's smile faded a little. 'Did you know her before? Did you come to seek her out and take her back?'
'I came because I had no choice,' Jazz answered, 'not because of Zek. I had heard something of her; we'd never met, not until now. Back in our own world, our people are… not friends.'
'But here you're both hell-landers, strangers in a strange world. It draws you together.' Lardis's assessment was fairly accurate.
Jazz shrugged. 'I suppose it does.' He looked straight into Lardis's face. 'Will you make Zek an issue?'
Lardis's expression didn't change. 'No,' he said. 'She's a free woman. I have no time for small things. The tribe is my main concern. I have had thoughts about Zekintha, but… she would be too much of a distraction. Anyway, I fancy she'd rather be friend and adviser than wife. Also, she's a hell-lander. A man shouldn't get too close to something he doesn't understand.'
Jazz smiled. 'The place you call the hell-lands is very large, with many people of diverse cultures. It's a strange place, but hardly the hell you seem to imagine it to be.'
Lardis raised his eyebrows, thought about what Jazz had said. 'Zekintha says much the same thing,' he said. 'She's told me a great deal about it: weapons greater than all the Wamphyri war-beasts put together; a continent of black people dying in their thousands, of disease and starvation; wars in every corner of your world, men against men; machines that think and run and fly, all filled with fire and smoke and a terrible roaring. It sounds close enough to hell to me!'
Jazz laughed out loud. 'Put it that way and you could be right!' he said. He had kept his SMG, whose strap he now adjusted where it crossed his shoulder. Lardis glanced at the weapon, said:
'Your… gun? The same as Zekintha's. I saw her kill a bear with it. The bear had more holes than a fishing net! Now it is broken, but she still carries it.'
'It can be repaired,' Jazz told him. 'I'll do it as soon as I have the time. But your people understand metal. It surprises me no one has tried to fix it.'
'Because they're afraid of it,' Lardis admitted. 'Me too! They're noisy things, these guns…'