Despite his painful face, Arlek laughed out loud. Other Travellers heard him, came forward; he quickly repeated what Jazz had said. 'Fight the Wamphyri, indeed! We are only lucky they spend so much time fighting with each other! But defy them? Hah! You don't know what you're saying. They don't fight with Sunsiders, they just make slaves of them. Have you seen a Warrior? Of course not, else you'd not be here! That's why we're Travellers, because to remain in one place is to be at their mercy. You don't "fight" the Wamphyri, my stupid friend, you just stay out of their way - for as long as you can.'
He turned away, walked off with his followers. Over his shoulder he called back: 'Talk with the woman. It's high time she told you something about this world you've come to. At least then you'll have some understanding of why I'm giving you - both of you - to Shaithis of the Wamphyri...'
Wolf loped out of the shadows, licked Jazz's face. Jazz scowled at the animal. 'Where were you when Zek and me were fighting, eh?'
'When you were fighting,' she corrected him. 'Wolf wasn't in it. Why should I risk his life? I told him to be still. He's just back from seeing his brothers. The Travellers have three or four of them, all raised from cubs.'
'Funny,' Jazz said after a moment, 'but you struck me as a woman who'd bite and scratch a lot.' He didn't mean it as a reproach, but it was and he regretted it immediately.
'I would,' she said, 'if there was any point. But I'd look silly trying to bite a dozen Travellers and their wolves, now wouldn't I? My first concern was for you.'
Jazz sighed. 'I suppose I went off half-cocked, didn't I? But I thought you said we'd be safe?'
'We might have been,' she said, 'but while you've been lying there Arlek's had word from a runner that Lardis Lidesci is on his way back from the west. Arlek knows Lardis won't give me to the Wamphyri, and so he'll do it himself - now! There'll be a price to pay when Lardis hears about it, but Arlek's got this group on his side and believes that in the end Lardis will have to go along with him or split the tribe. In any case, by the time Lardis gets here it will be too late.'
Jazz said: 'Can you touch me behind my ear just here? Ow! That feels tender!'
'It's soft,' she said, and he thought he detected a catch in her voice. 'God, I thought you were dead!' She squeezed cold water onto the back of his head, let it soak into the place where his hair was matted with blood. He looked beyond her to the south, to where the sun had gone down a little more, crept a little more to the east.
A stray beam lit her face, let him see her clearly and really close up for the first time. She was a bit grimy, but under the dirt she was very beautiful too. She'd be in her early thirties, only a few years older than Jazz himself. Maybe five-nine, slim, blonde and blue-eyed, her hair shone in the beam of sunlight; it looked golden and bounced on her shoulders when she moved. Her combat suit, tattered as it was getting to be, fitted her figure like a glove; it seemed to accentuate her delicate curves. Right here and now, Jazz supposed any woman would have looked good to him. But he couldn't think of one he'd rather have here. Or (he corrected himself), rather not have here. This was no place for any woman.
'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.'
'Great!' said Jazz, dully. 'Like Arlek, you mean? He said he'd read the future of the tribe.'
She faced him again, shook her head. 'Arlek's a charlatan. A cheap, trick fortune-teller, like many of Earth's Gypsies. Our Earth, I mean. That's why he's so much against me, because he knows my talent's real.'
'OK,' said Jazz. 'Now let's put our Earth right out of our minds and tell me some more about this Earth. Its topography, for example?'
'So simple you won't believe it,' she answered. 'I've already described the planet in relation to its sun and moon. Very well, now here's that map you asked for:
'This is a world much the same size as Earth as near as I can make out. This mountain range lies slightly more south than north, points east and west. That's using the compass Earth-style. The Wamphyri can't stand sunlight. Just like the old legends of home say, too much sunlight is fatal to vampires. And they are vampires! Sunside of the mountains, that's where the Travellers live. They are human beings, as you've seen. They live close to the mountain range for the water it gives them, and for the forests and game. Sunup they live in easily erected homes, at night they find caves and go as deep as possible! The mountains are riddled with fissures and caverns. Ten miles or so south of the mountains, there are no Travellers. There's nothing there for them to live on. Just desert. There are scattered nomad tribes of aborigines; at high sunup they occasionally trade with the Travellers; I've seen them and they're barely human. Several steps down from Australia's bushmen. I don't know how they live out there but they do. One hundred miles out from the mountains and even they can't live. There's nothing there at all, just scorched earth.'