by Brian Lumley
The answer? But Harry knew well enough what he meant. The answer—the solution—to his problem, assuming such a solution existed.
Come, come! Faethor tut-tutted. Am I naive? Call me what you will, Harry, but never that! And now he gave a deadspeak nod and looked the Necroscope over. Well, well! But you know, you never fail to amaze me? I mean, so many talents! And now this: faster-than-life travel! Why, look—you’ve even outstripped yourself!
Even as Faethor spoke, Harry’s life-line gave a wriggle, a shudder, and split down the middle. Half of the line bent back a little on itself and shot off at right angles to the Necroscope’s line of travel, shortly to disappear in a brilliant burst of red and blue fire. But the other half, like a comet with Harry himself for its nucleus, sped on as before and kept pace with Faethor.
Harry had been expecting some such. The phenomenon he’d just witnessed (which in fact had been his departure point for Starside) was in the probable future. But this was Möbius time, which is to say speculative time, and nothing was for certain. It was the reason why reading the future was so very hit-and-miss. For if in the real world anything contrary should happen to him between now and then, his departure simply wouldn’t happen. Or possibly not. In other words—and despite the fact that he’d seen it—it was only something which might happen.
But probably, said Faethor. And again he chuckled. So … they’re driving you out, eh?
Harry shrugged. No, I’m going of my own free will.
Because if you stay they’ll hunt you down and destroy you.
Because I will it, Harry repeated.
You brought yourself into prominence, said Faethor, and they looked at you—closely! Now they know you for what you are. All of these years you’ve been their hero, and now you’re their worst nightmare come true. And so it’s back to Starside. Well, good luck to you. But mind you look out for that son of yours. Why, the last time you were there he crippled you!
Before continuing their conversation, Harry very carefully shielded his mind. Only show Faethor the tiniest crack in the door and he’d be in. Not only to spy on the Necroscope’s most secret thoughts, but to lodge himself in his mind as a permanent tenant. It was the ancient vampire’s one chance—his very last chance—for any sort of continuity other than this empty, endless speeding into the future. And so, when Harry was satisfied that he’d made himself impregnable:
Yes, my son crippled me, he agreed. Robbed me of my deadspeak, denied me access to the Möbius Continuum. It was easy for him then, because I was only a man. But now … as you see, I’m Wamphyri!
You go back to do battle with him? Faethor hissed. Your own son?
If that’s the only way. Harry shrugged again, mainly to disguise his lie. But it doesn’t have to be a fight. Starside is a big place. Even bigger, now that the Wamphyri are dead or fled.
Hmmm! Faethor mused. So you’ll return to Starside, build yourself an aerie there, and if necessary do battle with your son for a piece of his territory. Is that it?
Possibly.
So why have you come to see me? What have I to do with it? If this is your plan, then go to it.
For long moments Harry was silent; finally, he answered: But it was my thought that … you might like to come with me?
Faethor’s gasp—and the ensuing silence—was of stunned disbelief. Until, eventually: That I might like … ?
To come with me. Harry said again.
But: No, said Faethor in a while, and Harry sensed the unbodied shake of his head. I can’t credit this. It is—can only be—a trick! You who once fought so long and hard to keep me out, now invite me in? To be one with you in your new Wamphyri mind, body, and—
Don’t say soul! said Harry. Also, you have it wrong.
Eh? Faethor was at once on his guard. But how can I have it wrong? To go with you from this … this hellish no-place into Starside is out of the question, unless it is as part of you. Here I am nothing, but if of your own free will you’re now inviting my mind into yours … ?
Initially, yes, said Harry. But this time you must agree to move out when I desire it. And without a struggle, without that I must use trickery, as last time.
Faethor was flabbergasted. Move out to where?
Into the mind and body of some lesser man, some Traveller king or such, in Starside.
And finally, Faethor understood, or thought he did, and his deadspeak thoughts turned sour as vinegar. And so you are unworthy, after all, he said then. And have been from the start. I used to lie in the earth in my place in Ploiesti and think: “The Necroscope can have it all, everything, the world! Thibor was a ruffian, unworthy, but not so Harry. Janos was the scummy froth of my loins, beside which Harry has the consistency, the purity—or if not that, then at least the homogeneity—of cream. I shall make Harry my third and last son!” Yes, these were my thoughts, of which you were unworthy.
How come? said Harry. I mean, why do you insult me?
What? (astonishment, disbelief). Surely you mean why do I sorrow! But you could have been—could still be—the most powerful creature of all time: The Master Vampire! The Great Plague Bearer! Because I, Faethor Ferenczy, willed it, you are Wamphyri! You have admitted as much yourself. And yet now you would throw it all away. Does it mean nothing to you, to be Wamphyri? What of the passion, the power, the glory?
What of me? Harry answered. The real me, before my adulteration?
The new you is greater!
Harry shook his head. I don’t resent the greatness. Only that it was not on my terms. But now I’m offering you terms, and no more time to waste. Can you help me … or can’t you?
Cards on the table, then, said Faethor. You will take me into your mind, transfer or transport me to Starside—which after all is or should have been my natural place—and there pass me on to some other to guide him as I would have guided you. In return for which, you desire to know if there’s a way you may rid yourself of the thing growing within you. Now, do I have it right?
And if there is a way, Harry qualified the deal, you’ll describe it in detail, a fool’s guide, so that I may be my own man again.
Following which, you’ll return to your own world, leaving me, embodied once more, on Starside?
That’s the plan.
And if there is no way to free you?
Harry shrugged. A deal is a deal. You’ll be a power on Starside, anyway, as stated.
Eventually to become your rival? And your son’s rival?
Yet again the Necroscope’s shrug. Like I said, with the old Wamphyri dead or fled, Starside is a big place.
Faethor was cautious. It seems to me that whichever way it goes, still I get the best of this bargain. Now, why should you be so good to me?
Maybe it’s like you said, Harry told him, a meeting of two old friends.
Fiends, Faethor corrected him.
As you will, except I’m an unwilling fiend. And despite the fact that you’re the engineer of my current fix, still I can’t forget that in the past you’ve put yourself out to do me one or two favors; even though all of them (a little sourly), as I’ve since come to realize, were to your ultimate benefit. Still, it seems I’ve grown accustomed to you; I understand you now; you played the game according to your own rules, that’s all … Wamphyri rules. Also, I’m full of human compassion—I can’t help it—and I have to admit my conscience has been bothering me. About you, stuck here in Möbius time. About my leaving you here. And finally … well, you said it yourself: If there is a cure for my complaint, who’d know it better than you? Which is the number one reason I’m here and doesn’t leave me with much choice. He was very convincing.
Very well, said Faethor (as Harry had supposed he would), you have a deal. Now take me into your mind.
When you have told me what I want to know.
Whether or not you may rid yourself of your vampire?
A little more than that.
Oh?
Where it came from. How it got into me in the first place.
You haven’t th
ought it out for yourself?
It was the toadstools, right?
Faethor’s deadspeak nod. Yes.
And the toadstools were you?
Yes. They were spawned of my fats festering in the earth where I’d burned and melted down, an ichor, an essence, simmering there, waiting. Then, when the brew was ripe, I willed the fungi up into the light—but not until I knew you’d be there to receive them.
And you were in them?
As you well know, for through them I came to you. But you cast me out.
And these fungi: are they a natural part of the Wamphyri chain? Part of the overall life cycle?
I don’t know. Faethor seemed at a genuine loss. There was no one to instruct me in such mysteries. Old Belos Pheropzis might have known—might even have passed such knowledge down to my father—but if so, then Waldemar Ferrenzig never told me. I only knew that the spores were in me, in the fats of my body, and that I could will them into growth; but don’t ask me how I knew. How does a dog know how to bark?
And the spores were your very last vestiges?
Yes.
Could it be that such toadstools grow in the vampire swamps on Starside? It seems log - ical to me, since those swamps are the source of Wamphyri infestation.
Faethor sighed his impatience. But I’ve never even seen the vampire swamps on Starside, though I hope to—and soon! Now then, let me into your mind.
Can I be rid of my vampire?
Do we still have a deal, however I may answer?
So long as you answer true.
No, you are stuck with your vampire forever!
Harry wasn’t hard hit; he had supposed it would be so; even with regard to the very question or idea or thought of “curing” himself, his will was already weakening, probably had been for some time. For he was learning what it is to be Wamphyri. And if his right hand didn’t like it, then his left hand did. The dark side of men has always been their stronger side. And what of women? The Lady Karen’s cure had been her destruction.
In his mind, like an echo, the Necroscope heard once more Faethor’s answer: You are stuck with your vampire forever! And he thought: So be it! And to Faethor said:
Then farewell.
He began to decelerate, leaving the astonished vampire to speed on ahead as before. As the gap rapidly widened, Faethor despairingly called back, What? But you said—
I lied, Harry cut him off.
What? You, a liar? Faethor couldn’t accept it. But … but that’s not like you at all!
No, Harry answered grimly, but it is like the thing inside me. It is like my vampire. For it’s part of you, Faethor, it’s part of you.
Wait! Faethor cried out in his extremity. You can be rid of it … It’s true … You really can!
And, that is the part! said Harry, transferring out of time and back into the Möbius Continuum. “The lying part.”
And in Möbius time Faethor was left to shriek and gibber, but faintly now and fading, like the slithering whispers of winter’s crumbling leaves, whirled forever on the winds of eternity …
Harry went to see Jazz and Zek on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian. They had a villa in the trees, overlooking the sea and hidden well away from the holidaymakers, in Porto Zoro on the northeast coast.
It was eight in the evening when he materialized close to the house; he put out a probe and saw that Zek was on her own, but guessed that Jazz wouldn’t mind his wife speaking for both of them. First he reached out to her telepathically; and the way she answered him, unafraid, it was as if she’d expected him.
“For a day or two?” she said, after inviting him in, when he’d explained what he was doing. “But of course she’ll be okay here, the poor girl!”
“Not so poor,” he was prompted to answer, almost defensively. “Because she doesn’t really understand it, she won’t fight it as hard as I have. And before she knows it, she’ll be Wamphyri.”
“But Starside? How will you live there? I mean, do you intend … intend to … ?” Zek gave up. She was after all talking to a vampire. She knew that behind those dark lenses his eyes were fire; knew, too, how easily she could be burned by them. But if she feared him it didn’t show, and Harry liked her for that. He always had liked her.
“We’ll do what we have to do,” he answered. “My son found ways to survive.”
“The way I see it,” she said with an almost unnoticeable shudder, “blood is a powerful addiction.”
“The most powerful!” he told her. “It’s why we have to go.”
Zek didn’t want to push it, but felt she must: her female curiosity. “Because you love your fellowman and can’t trust yourself?”
He shrugged and offered her a wry smile. “Because E-Branch can’t trust me!” But his half-smile swiftly faded. “Who knows? Maybe they’re right not to.” And after long moments of silence he asked, “What about Jazz?”
She looked at him and lifted an eyebrow, as if to say, do you really need to ask? “Jazz doesn’t forget his friends, Harry. But for you, we were long since dead on Starside. And in this world? But for you, the Ferenczy’s son, Janos, would still be alive and festering. Anyway, Jazz is in Athens seeking dual nationality.”
“When can I bring Penny here?”
“That’s up to you. Now, if you wish.”
Harry gathered Penny up from her bed in the Nicosia hotel without even waking her, and moments later Zek saw how gently he laid her between cool sheets in the guest bedroom of this, her new, temporary refuge. And she nodded to herself, certain now that if anyone was able to look after this girl—on Starside or anywhere else—then it would be the Necroscope.
“And what now, Harry?” she queried, serving coffee sweetened with Metaxa brandy, on her balcony where it jutted over the cliffs and the moonlit sea.
“Now Perchorsk,” he answered simply.
But halfway down his cup, he fell asleep in his chair …
It was a measure of his trust that he felt he could rest here. And it was a measure of Zek Föener’s that she didn’t go and fetch her spear gun and silver harpoon and try to kill him there and then, and Penny after him. She didn’t; but even Zek couldn’t feel that safe.
Before retiring she called for Wolf (a real wolf, born on Starside), and when he came from the dark, scented cover of the Mediterranean pines, stationed him at her door. And: Wake me if they should move, she told him …
At midnight Harry woke up and went to Perchorsk in the USSR’s Ural’skiy Khrebet. Zek watched him go and wished him luck.
In the Urals it was 3:30 in the morning, and in the depths of the Perchorsk Projekt Viktor Luchov was asleep and nightmaring. He always would nightmare, as long as they kept him here. But now, since British E-Branch’s warning, the nightmares were that much worse.
“What exactly did that warning consist of?” a vague, shadowy Harry Keogh inquired of him in his dream. “No, don’t tell me—let me take a shot at it, have a go at guessing it. It had to do with me, right?”
Luchov, the Projekt Direktor, didn’t know where Harry had come from but suddenly he was there, pacing the disk’s bolted metal plates with him in the glare of the sphere-Gate, arm in arm like old friends in the harrowing heart of Perchorsk, in the very roots of the mountains. And finally, he answered, “What’s that you ask? Did it have to do with you? But you sell yourself short, Harry. Why, you were all of it!”
“They told you about me?”
“Your E-Branch, yes. I mean, not me specifically. They didn’t tell me. But they did warn the new man in charge of our own ESPionage Group, who of course passed it on to me. Except, I’m not sure I should be repeating it to you.”
“Not even in a dream?”
“Dream?” Luchov shuddered, his subconscious mind briefly, however unwillingly, returning to the horror of what had gone before. He considered that for a moment … and in the next recoiled from it as if scalded. “My God—but the whole monstrous business was a nightmare! In fact, and for all that you scared me witless, you were o
ne of the few human things about it.”
“Human, yes,” said Harry, nodding. “But that was then and this is now.”
Luchov disengaged his arm and moved a little apart, then turned and looked at the Necroscope—stared hard, curiously, even fearfully at him—as if to bring him into definition. But Harry’s outline was fuzzy; he wouldn’t come into focus; against the glare of the Gate where its dome came up through the disk, he was a silhouette whose rim was punctuated and perforated with brilliant lances of white light. “They say that you … that you’re …”
“That I’m a vampire?”
“Are you?” Luchov lay still a minute in his bed and stopped breathing, waiting for the other’s answer.
“Are you asking: Do I kill men for their blood? Has my bite turned men into monsters? Have I myself been turned into a monster by a vampire’s bite? Then I can only tell you … no.” His answer wasn’t entirely a lie. Not yet.
Luchov breathed again, began tossing in his bed as before; and he and Harry continued their tour of inspection around the rim of the glaring sphere-Gate. As they went so the Necroscope used a basic form of ESPionage, telepathy, to study the Projekt’s secret core, its awesome nucleus where it was mirrored in the Russian scientist’s subconscious mind. He saw it, that great spherical cavity carved in the mountain’s solid rock, eaten out by unimaginable forces; and in Luchov’s mind the enigmatic Gate was the gravity-defying maggot at its center, coiled into a perfect ball of matterless white light, motionless, still glutted on energy absorbed in the first moments of its creation. The Gate, floating there like an alien chrysalis, with everything it contained waiting to break loose, to break out.
But Harry also saw that certain things had changed. Some things, anyway. The last time he was here (or rather there, physically there, at the core) it had been like this:
A spidery web of scaffolding had been built halfway up the curving wall at its perimeter, supporting a platform of timber flooring which surrounded the glaring Gate or portal floating on thin air at the cavern’s center. The effect had been to make the sphere look like the planet Saturn, with a ring system composed of the encircling timber floor. The cavern was a little more than forty meters in diameter, and the central sphere a little less than a quarter of that. There had been a gap of a few inches between the innermost timbers and the event horizon which was the sphere’s “skin.”
