The Ringworld Throne

But now the vampires’ song had a rising instrumental accompaniment. First it matched the vampire music. Vala had learned to pick out the harp, the grieving tube, the whistling tube, the thutter. Now the Ghoulish music swirled away, jarring with the vampire song, drowning it, while the thutter in the background played faster and faster, pulling heartbeats along. And now there was no vampire song at all.

Next down they’d been rolling. By night they camped on a bluff above a river. The vampires left them alone.

They reached Ginjerofer’s herds early on the second day. The Reds had fuel waiting. Charcoal and sulfur they had imported from far away, trading away their own wealth, with little yet to show for it.

Night covered the sun before the cruisers were loaded. The Reds made camp around the cruisers. When the vampires came, the ca

Cruisers carried trade goods, and Vala made gifts; but forty vampire dead were what bonded these species together.

The third day carried them through Snowru

In the morning Cruiser Two came rolling down. Warvia rode above the ca

Twuk called cheerily, “Waast! Is it so, that Snowru

“When Reds and Ghouls agree, who can doubt?”

“Vampires think so, too!”

Cruiser Two was noisy with victory. Even Grieving Tube’s dark head lifted into the light, squinting, and gri

The din roused others. Vala saw wet black heads surfacing in a line along the shore. The River People came no farther, and Vala let them be, while Kay, Chit, Twuk, Paroom, Perilack, and Silack told their interwoven stories.

Kaywerbrimmis parked Cruiser Two on a knob of rock above the pass. The view was of unbroken clouds, not what Kay had hoped for, but he would wait. All had bathed in the streams they crossed, twice in three days. If they were not scentless, at least they’d tried.

(They weren’t scentless now, gri

Darkness flowed over them. Vampires began to stream through the pass. Grieving Tube, on watch, alerted the rest.

Cruiser Two’s heavy cargo, still piled in the pass, must have carried a scent. Kay sighted the ca

The vampires left the pass empty for a while. Then they’d begun darting across. Kay’s passengers used the chance for target shooting, but otherwise let the vampires through. Bolts and bullets could be recovered, but not gunpowder.

They bunched up again later. Kay used the ca

Warvia roused herself. “We know the Farming People. Herbivores. They grow and tend root vegetables and keep animals, too, in partnership with Red Herder tribes who defend them. We didn’t see any Reds last night.”

Paroom: “They weren’t bunched up and they weren’t trying to escape. They were each with their own vampire, ah, companion. I couldn’t get a clear shot. We shot a few that didn’t have company—”

Twuk: “They sang at us. Grieving Tube played along. That scared them!”

Kay: “I couldn’t use the ca

Tegger said, “Herds.”

He spoke almost absently; he was studying Warvia, who would meet nobody’s eyes. Still, it was an ugly thought. Double-ugly: it implied uncomfortably high sapience in vampires.

“The wind,” Kaywerbrimmis said, “was cold and wet and clean in our nostrils until the night was half gone. The vampires started crossing again, and these didn’t have prisoners. They ran. Maybe the smell of their own dead made them nervous. It was fine shooting. Then the wind shifted around and we smelled them, too.”

Grieving Tube was looking out from under the awning, listening, though her face was deep in shadow. “I would have hunted them, Kay,” she said. “Our music confuses them, freezes them.”

Kay’s eyes were on Vala. “Whatever. I invited Grieving Tube to join me in rishathra.” Unspoken: the Ghoul woman was about to join the vampires! “She played, we danced. Warvia accused me of abandoning the fight, but the rest got the idea quick enough—”

In the general laughter, Harpster’s tenor whisper sounded clear. “How was he?”

Grieving Tube: “Inspired. Paroom, too.”

“We all—” Kay stopped suddenly, for no more than a heartbeat, but Vala knew at once. “We all joined in. You understand, Vala, we had them backed up at the pass. As soon as we stopped shooting, they flowed through like a wide river. The smell of them, we could have chopped it into bricks to sell to the elderly.”

Tegger was looking up at his mate. Warvia’s silence disturbed him, Vala thought, but he hadn’t noticed anything more ominous. Kaywerbrimmis said, “I think the Thurl gave us Twuk because she’s small. Inspired decision.” Twuk smiled brilliantly at him. Warvia was looking into far distances, her face like stone.

“Two-tenths of night passed this way, I think. Then the wind swung around. I didn’t notice right away: the vampire scent was gone, but we had our own smells by then. But Chit saw—”

Chit: “Vampires trying to creep upon us across the ice. They’re not much darker than snow themselves.”

Kay: “The wind went gusty and stayed that way. They’d get a whiff of us and look around, and we were conspicuous, I guess.”

Paroom: “Ten tens of them.”

Kay: “Toward morning they stopped coming entirely. We left a carpet of vampires dead in the pass.”

Twuk: “There’s nothing under the Arch like the stink of a hundred vampire corpses. They do avoid their own dead.”

Vala: “Might keep it in mind.”

Twuk: “We collected our cargo and our bolts and bullets at halfdawn. Vala, I think we saw the Shadow Nest.”

“Tell it.”

“Warvia?”

The Red woman didn’t look down. “From spin the light of day flowed toward us while we were still in dark. We were exhausted, but I was at my post, here on the ca

“Not much more than what Harpster told us, “ Vala said, probing.

A flash of anger, throttled. “I could see the silver curves of the river, this river, flowing into the shadow.”

“We know of the Shadow Nest.” A new voice heard from: a glossy black shape of uncertain gender and uncertain age slid out of the water and stood erect on the mud. “I am Rooballabl. Welcome to the Homeflow; have free passage of us. I speak the Tongue better than most. I’m told none of you will rish?”

“Not underwater, Roobla,” Vala said with regret. That would be a coup. “Shadow Nest?”

“The Shadow Nest is a cave without walls. A black roof fifteen hundred paces around, with open sides. Vampires have lived and bred below since before any of us were born.”