by Brian Lumley
“He had good reason? Is that what you’re saying?”
Well, be thought he had! said Korath. He was concerned that one day I would usurp him, that I might have the means to usurp him!
“Yet when Harry questioned you, you said it was just Malinari’s nature. You were there to be used, and so he used you.”
And so it was his evil nature, which caused him to so use and abuse his right-hand man, aye, Korath answered. But in addition, there was this other thing. Something of his own making, which be feared would turn on him given time. And it might yet.
“So why do you mention it to me—this thing, whatever it is—when you withheld it from Harry?”
Because it was my secret, said Korath. And even a dead man should have something he can call his own—something private?—which might even be of value to the living, and with which he might seek to bargain. Ah, but Harry Keogh is one thing, while you are something else entirely, Jake. And it was never my intention to keep anything secret from you. Not if you require it, and if it should prove … useful to you?
“Something you have,” Jake mused, “Which might benefit me, but not Harry … .” And in a while, when Korath remained silent: “So what’s the difference? Why would you help me and not him?”
The difference? But isn’t it obvious? The Necroscope Harry Keogh can do nothing for me. And even if he could, be wouldn’t—you have seen that for yourself. He is obstinate: despite that I never harmed him and be never knew me, still he hates me! But the greatest difference is this: that be is dead! While you—
“While I’m alive,” said Jake.
And you walk among the living. My only possible instrument of revenge against him who put me here, and the others who have gone out into your world with him, aye.
“And that’s all you’d expect out of it? All you’d want for yourself?”
All? But it is everything! said the other. Through you, I would live again—er, metaphorically, of course. Through you, I would strike back from beyond the grave—or in my case from this dank and dreary pipe, in the bowels of a strange place, in a foreign land far from Starside. What more could I, poor dead thing that I am, ask of you? And what more could you give?
“What more, indeed,” said Jake, who hadn’t forgotten Harry Keogh’s warning, that even dead vampires are dangerous. And:
Well, and perhaps there is … something, said Korath.
“And now we get to it,” said Jake.
Hear me out! said the other. Is it too much to ask that in return for my gift to you, you shall give me your companionship—albeit rarely, however infrequently—when little else intrudes upon your time?
“A word-game?” said Jake. “Is that what this is? The devious nature of vampires? For here I find myself bargaining—all caught up in it, beginning to go with it—when as yet I don’t even know what’s on offer!”
Then let me tell you! Korath was eager, barely able to contain himself. But in the next moment he slowed down, paused and said, And yet … how best to explain Now listen:
Do you remember I told you, that in our Iceland banishment when food was short and Malinari thirsted, be supped on me? But it was no mere sip! He drank deeply, so deep indeed that I was weakened nigh unto death. Aye, that was how much my master took from me. But in taking, he also gave!
Now, Malinari is special even among the Wamphyri. His bite is virulent; well, so are they all, but his even more so. Under normal conditions a man is recruited, becomes infected, in the space of a single Starside night—or two or three days of your time—following which he is his master’s thrall, in thrall to whichever Lord or Lady seduced his blood. But when Malinari bit deep it was a matter of hours! He could turn a man in hours!
It was in his essence, his strong Wamphyri essence. And it was the same with the making.
“The making?” This was a new one on Jake.
The making of creatures, Korath explained. Monsters! Why, things waxed in the The Mind’s vats of metamorphosis in days rather than weeks and months! I have seen flyers flop from their stone wombs in the space of a single day and a night—a Starside day and night, you understand—and even an ugly warrior wax mewling in its vat, its armoured scales hardening to chitin in little more than four sunups. So efficacious is Malinari’s essence of metamorphism! And all of his men and creatures alike stamped with something of The Mind himself, imbued of his arts, made in their master’s likeness. Do you see?
“Imbued of his arts?” Jake repeated the other’s words, and tried to fathom his meaning. “Are you saying you got Malinari’s skills?”
Something of them, aye, said Korath. And, after a moment’s pause:
And you will also recall the reason why my master found it so easy to talk to me: because as you have inherited the Necroscope Harry Keogh’s mind-shields, so I had inherited my bestial father’s. Malinari found little to fault in my thinking because I was able to keep him out. Which suited both our purposes: The Mind’s because while by nature he’s suspicious, still be needed a strong first lieutenant; mine because even the most loyal and obedient of thralls may on occasion harbour this or that small grievance against his master … .
“Or, on occasion, a not-so-small grievance?” said Jake.
He sensed Korath’s shrug. In my case, not so much a grievance as an ambition. That was it: I barboured an ambition, and looked for an opportunity. For that time in the Icelands, Malinari had gone too far. Oh, be had glutted on me … but what be had given back—albeit involuntarily, for in his hunger he was made careless—would soon be much stronger than what be took! From which time forward I knew that I was different. I felt the germ of a leech growing in me, but daren’t disclose it. I could not admit that soon I would be … Wamphyyyrrriii!
The pain—the terrible longing—of Korath’s cry shocked Jake to his very soul. Like a shovel in cold ashes, or chalk on a new blackboard, it grated on his nerve-endings, set his scalp tingling. And it brought him a new awareness, the certain knowledge that what he was dealing with here was far from a simple, uncomplicated creature. Dead it was, yes, but it hadn’t by any means accepted that fact; it resisted death with every fibre of its long-since sloughedaway body, and would cling to tire—to any life, to his life—with that same tenacity! And:
“I think … I think it’s time you were out of here!” Jake said, his voice shuddering as the echoes of Korath’s cry of anguish did a drum roll in his near-metaphysical mind. “You or me, but one of us has to go.”
Aye, go if you will, said the other. But best that you go bravely to your death, Jake, not whimpering as you whimper now. Go on, face Malinari the Mind, for you may be sure it is him in the mountains! Go against him with nothing but your puny human muscles, nothing but your puling, childlike mind—which even I can enter, as stealthy as a thief in the night. Ob? Oh really? And how do you think you’ll fare against such as Malinari, eh? And this woman who you keep in your mind, this Liz of whom you sometimes dream—what, a mentalist, you say? But how unfortunate! For how will she fare against such as him? As for Vavara … ah, but she has her ways with pretty women, aye. Vavaaara! Oh, ha ha ha haaaaaaa!
Korath’s deadspeak laugh reverberated into a throbbing silence, but Jake knew that he was there, waiting. And Korath knew that Jake was hooked. To a point, at least. And he was right.
“How can you be sure that it’s Malinari in the mountains?” Jake said in a little while. “What can you know of that?”
Ah, no! Too late! the other cried. I was the fair one and told you a secret. Now you would have more. But what is my get out of all this?
“But you still haven’t told me what you want!” Jake answered. “Not everything that you want. And until you do, I’m not going to be signing any blank cheques, Korath.”
And because deadspeak conveys more or other than is actually said, because it translates much as telepathy translates, Korath understood him well enough.
You are afraid that I would take advantages But how may I take advantage? I’m only a dead thi
ng drowned in a pipe! Koratb Mindstbrall is no more except be acts through you. Ah, but Jake … the acts we can accomplish, and the things I have to offer!
“Such as?”
Everything I know about Malinari, Vavara, Szwart.
“You’ve already told me those things, both me and the Necroscope, Harry Keogh.”
But can you remember them? When you’re awake? I think not. For I have crept into your waking mind, too, Jake, and found it blank of all such knowledge, of everything I told you. Now tell me: Who do you suppose it was reminded you of how Malinari came by his name? Did you really think you were so clever as to work it out all by yourself that the name Aristotle Milan was a disguise, a pseudonym?
“But it … it was obvious,” said Jake, caught momentarily off guard.
As it must also be obvious that I was there with you! Korath pounced. Else how would I know it ever happened? And when we flew together, you and I, in that aerial machine, that helicopter with its twirling wings: did you once suspect that I was there with you? No, never, not for a moment. But I was … .
Jake was shaken, but he was also Jake. “So you’re a sneaky bastard!” he said. “What does that prove—except I can’t trust you?”
It proves that I can help you—as I helped you with Malinari’s name. And then, grudgingly: Also, it proves that you are no slouch, no easy adversary, when it comes to word-games. More of the Necroscope’s inheritance, I should think.
And Jake wondered, could Korath help him? What harm could it do to call on the vampire for advice in a tight spot? Surely it wouldn’t be that much different from calling on Harry, whose help was uncertain anyway? And these thoughts, too—unguarded as they were—were deadspeak.
Exactly! said Korath. And at all times I would be on hand to … to advise you, aye.
“Not at all times!” said Jake, hearing warning bells. “For when we started this conversation you were happy with ‘rarely,’ or ‘infrequently,’ when little else was ‘intruding on my time.’ So how come you now arrive at being on hand ‘at all times?’”
A figure of speech! Korath protested. I meant whenever you called for me, of course.
“And how would I do that? I mean, call for you?”
Why, by thinking of me, of my situation down there in that cruel conduit, and by calling for me by name, Korath.
But the dead vampire was getting ahead of himself; believing that he was winning Jake over, his deep “voice” had become semi-hypnotic, more phlegmy, glutinous, and sly than ever. Jake gave himself a shake and “woke up” to that fact.
“What, like rubbing a lamp to call out the genie?” he said. “And what happens when I’ve had my three wishes, eh?”
He sensed the sad shake of an incorporeal head. Jake, Jake! Were you always this ungrateful, this misgiving?
“No,” Jake answered. “Not misgiving, not yet. Just cautious. But let’s get on. What else is on offer? For after all, you did say ‘things,’ in the plural.”
So, said the other, esoteric knowledge is not enough. It is too ethereal—too immundane—for a clodhopper such as you. You would have something more physical.
“No small feat,” said Jake, feeling stung and retaliating, “for someone as far removed from physical things as you are.”
Hurtful! said the other. Hah! And you accuse me of taking advantage! But argument gets us nowhere, while what I’m proposing would be of mutual benefit. Very well, you ask what else is on offer, what other “thing” I have in mind. And that is exactly where it is: in my mind. Now say, do you remember the Necroscope asking you about your numerical skills?
“In connection with the Möbius Continuum? Yes,” said Jake.
So then. And how are your numbers, Jake?
“I’m not innumerate, if that’s what you mean.”
Odd, said the other, for I was. In my world, Jake, mathematics went no further than the count of a man’s thralls or the beasts in his pens. Numbers? I had no use for them, nor have I even now, though I may have shortly. But in Starside, addition was a recruiting foray into Sunside. And division was what happened to the spoils.
“What are you getting at?”
We come to it, said Korath. Do you remember those numbers that the Necroscope showed you before be took his leave of us? And do you know what they were?
“They were a formula,” Jake answered. “They were the numbers that govern all space and time, Harry’s gateway to the Möbius Continuum. But do I remember them?”
He thought back on it:
That incredible wall of numbers—like a computer screen run riot, evolving in the eye of his mind—its symbols, calculi, and incredible equations marching and mutating until they achieved some sort of numerical critical mass … and formed a door. A Möbius door.
Remember it? He would never forget it! It was like watching creation itself. But duplicate it?
No, you can’t, said Korath. But I can! I can make it, but I can’t use it. Not without you. And you can’t make it without me. And there you have my offer … .
“Tempting, if it were true,” said Jake.
It is.
“But how? You said yourself that numbers were practically unknown in your world.”
Just so. But didn’t I also say that Malinari’s essence is strong in my blood?
And now Jake understood. “His photographic memory? That’s what you got from him! And it’s why he killed you, because one day you might know as much as him.”
Now you have it all, Korath said, and I await your answer. What’s it to be? Can we work together, for Malinari’s downfall?
“But there’s something else.” Still Jake was cagey.
And Korath sighed his frustration. What now?
“The secret that Harry Keogh was searching for, or in your own words ‘the crux of the matter,’ which is probably more important than all the rest put together. The Wamphyri—Malinari and the others—have been here for some time now, but it seems they’ve achieved very little. So like the Necroscope before me I’m asking you: what are they up to, Korath? What’s their plan? You were one of theirs and so you must know.”
Oh, I do, I do. But as you have repeated the Necroscope’s words, now I shall repeat mine. That is for me to know, and for you and yours to discover—through me. It is my only remaining bargaining point, the last trick up a poor dead thing’s sleeve. And before I give you that, we must be far, far better acquainted, you and I. That said, I can tell you this: there isn’t too much time left, and what they have started will run its course. Unless it is stopped. Before you can stop it, however, you must know what it is.
Jake pondered that a while, then said, “I’ll have to think it over. All of it.”
But try not to take too long over it, said the other. Your world hangs by a thread, and the thread is unwinding.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Jake. “But for now leave me be. There’s something I must do before I awake, or all this has been for nothing.”
So be it, said the other without further comment. And Jake sensed his departure like a waft of fresh air, the way the shadows crept back from his mind.
Then, experimenting—making sure that Korath was gone—he attempted to close his mind to deadspeak and turned to telepathy instead:
“Liz, if you are there, and I think you probably are, try to remember this name: Korath. If it’s possible, you might even write it down. But in any case remember it, and tomorrow remind me of it. It could be very important.”
That done, Jake relaxed and let himself drift free on the tides of his own subconscious mind.
And in a little while he felt himself buoyed up, taken by far less ominous dreams, the disjointed, meaningless flotsam of his waking hours … .
30
THE LULL …
Sunday was a busy yet paradoxically quiet time; work was being done, but in a kind of vacuum chamber. People moved about with purpose within an oddly surreal atmosphere of near silence. It was, Jake thought, a sensation similar to being on an airpla
ne during its descent, in the moments before your ears pressurize, when sounds are flat and distant and you feel as though you’ve suddenly gone deaf. In short, it was the lull before the storm, when the hatches are battened down, and Jake (who seemed to be the only one with no hatches to batten) felt completely out of it. Apart from an O-group he’d been scheduled to attend in the evening, he had nothing to do.
Which was as well, for he didn’t think he would be able to concentrate on anything much; there was something on his mind, in the back of his head, desperately trying to push its way to the forefront. It had to do with last night—something lingering over from his dreams, perhaps?—but apart from that he was at a loss.
Jake remembered his nightmare, of course. He always remembered that. It was a recurrent thing (a thing of conscience, he supposed) that came back to haunt him maybe two or three times a month. It had used to be far more frequent, but time is merciful and was doing its job. This thing in the back of his mind, however, was other than that; he found himself listening for an unknown something, and at the same time dreading it. So much so that he was shielding his mind to shut things out, and doing it consciously, holding at bay those whispering voices of which he was becoming ever more frequently aware … which might perhaps explain something of the eerie atmosphere : he was in fact isolating himself. And also from the living.
It was a shuddersome thought, and deadspeak was a terrible thing. Jake found himself wondering if perhaps that was it: Was it Harry he was listening for? Harry Keogh and the Great Majority? Was his neurosis growing, spreading out of control? Or was it something else, not fear at all but the simple need for privacy? Some kind of persecution complex, with Liz Merrick—his “partner”—taking on the role of the Inquisition, or of a spy at the very least? But in any case, she was giving him the cold shoulder this morning. Odd, because he also felt that there was something she might want to tell him.
