"I'll never understand the appeal of... alcohol," Harkat said as I was dressing.
"Haven't you ever got drunk?" I replied.
"Perhaps in my past life, but not since... becoming a Little Person. I don't have taste buds, and alcohol doesn't... affect me."
"Lucky you," I muttered sourly.
Once I'd dressed, we strolled up to the Hall of Princes to see if Paris needed me, but it was largely deserted and Paris was still in his coffin.
"Let's go on a tour of the tunnels... beneath the Halls," Harkat suggested. We'd done a lot of exploring when we first came to the mountain, but it had been two or three years since we'd last gone off on an adventure.
"Don't you have work to do?" I asked.
"Yes, but..." He frowned. It took a while to get used to Harkat's expressions - it was hard to know whether someone without eyelids and a nose was frowning or grinning - but I'd learnt to read them. "It will hold. I feel strange. I need to be on the move."
"OK," I said. "Let's go walkabout."
We started in the Hall of Corza Jarn, where trainee Generals were taught how to fight. I'd spent many hours here, mastering the use of swords, knives, axes and spears. Most of the weapons were designed for adults, and were too large and cumbersome for me to master, but I'd picked up the basics.
The highest ranking tutor was a blind vampire called Vanez Blane. He'd been my Trials Master during both my Trials of Initiation. He'd lost his left eye in a fight with a lion many decades before, and lost the second six years ago in a fight with the vampaneze.
Vanez was wrestling with three young Generals. Though he was blind, he'd lost none of his sharpness, and the trio ended up flat on their backs in short order at the hands of the ginger-haired games master. "You'll have to learn to do better than that," he told them. Then, with his back to us, he said, "Hello, Darren. Greetings, Harkat Mulds."
"Hi, Vanez," we replied, not surprised that he knew who we were - vampires have very keen senses of smell and hearing.
"I heard you singing last night, Darren," Vanez said, leaving his three students to recover and regroup.
"No!" I gasped, crestfallen. I'd thought Harkat was joking about that.
"Very enlightening," Vanez smiled.
"I didn't!" I groaned. "Tell me I didn't!"
Vanez's smile spread. "I shouldn't worry. Plenty of others made asses of themselves too."
"Ale should be banned," I growled.
"Nothing wrong with ale," Vanez disagreed. "It's the ale- drinkers who need to be controlled."
We told Vanez we were going on a tour of the lower tunnels and asked if he'd like to tag along. "Not much point," he said. "I can't see anything. Besides..." Lowering his voice, he told us the three Generals he was training were due to be sent into action soon. "Between ourselves, they're as poor a trio as I've ever passed fit for duty," he sighed. Many vampires were being rushed into the field, to replace casualties in the War of the Scars. It was a contentious point among the clan - it usually took a minimum of twenty years to be declared a General of good standing - but Paris said that desperate times called for desperate measures.
Leaving Vanez, we made for the store-rooms to see Mr. Crepsley's old mentor, Seba Nile. At seven hundred, Seba was the second oldest vampire. He dressed in red like Mr. Crepsley, and spoke in the same precise way. He was wrinkled and shrunken with age, and limped badly - like Harkat - from a wound to his left leg gained in the same fight that had claimed Vanez's eye.
Seba was delighted to see us. When he heard we were going exploring, he insisted on coming with us. "There is something I wish to show you," he said.
As we left the Halls and entered the vast warren of lower connecting tunnels, I scratched my bald head with my fingernails.
"Ticks?" Seba asked.
"No," I said. "My head's been itching like mad lately. My arms and legs too, and my armpits. I think I have an allergy."
"Allergies are rare among vampires," Seba said. "Let me examine you." Luminous lichen grew along many of the walls and he was able to study me by the light of a thick patch. "Hmmm." He smiled briefly, then released me.
"What is it?" I asked.
"You are coming of age, Master Shan."
"What's that got to do with itching?"
"You will find out," he said mysteriously.
Seba kept stopping at webs to check on spiders. The old quartermaster was uncommonly fond of the eight-legged predators. He didn't keep them as pets, but he spent a lot of time studying their habits and patterns. He was able to communicate with them using his thoughts. Mr. Crepsley could too, and so could I.
"Ah!" he said eventually, stopping at a large cobweb. "Here we are." Putting his lips together, he whistled softly, and moments later a big grey spider with curious green spots scuttled down the cobweb and on to Seba's upturned hand.
"Where did that come from?" I asked, stepping forward for a closer look. It was larger than the normal mountain spiders, and different in colour.
"Do you like it?" Seba asked. "I call them Ba'Shan's spiders. I hope you do not object - the name seemed appropriate."
"Ba'Shan's spiders?" I repeated. "Why would-"
I stopped. Fourteen years ago, I'd stolen a poisonous spider from Mr. Crepsley - Madam Octa. Eight years later, I'd released her - on Seba's advice - to make a new home with the mountain spiders. Seba said she wouldn't be able to mate with the others. I hadn't seen her since I set her free, and had almost forgotten about her. But now the memory snapped into place, and I knew where this new spider had come from.
"It's one of Madam Octa's, isn't it?" I groaned.
"Yes," Seba said. "She mated with Ba'Halen's spiders. I noticed this new strain three years ago, although it is only this last year that they have multiplied. They are taking over. I think they will become the dominant mountain spider, perhaps within ten or fifteen years."
"Seba!" I snapped. "I only released Madam Octa because you told me she couldn't have offspring. Are they poisonous?"
The quartermaster shrugged. "Yes, but not as deadly as their mother. If four or five attacked together, they could kill, but not one by itself."