vampire's gradual insinuation like a slimy, creeping mist, or a damp shroud settling over his mind. But at the same time he also sensed something of urgency, a desire to speak, to communicate with him. And if for no other reason than his own curiosity, he allowed it.
'I know you're there,' Jake said, as the other's hesitancy, his too-cautious approach began to irritate him. 'So why do you hold back? If you've got something to say, get it said.'
For answer there came a sensed 'sigh' of relief, and: But I thought that you would shut me out, send me away. I thought you would reject me, Korath said.
'That didn't stop you the last time/ Jake said. 'When you spoke to me after my nightmare? You seemed to have enjoyed spying on me, as if you approved of what you had seen, of what I'd done. Or perhaps you got carried away and broke your silence in error, when I wasn't supposed to know you were there?'
'Speaking to yourself?' Jake answered. 'Deadspeak? In which case you're as new to it as I am. For a thought is just as good as the spoken word, Korath, to such as you and I.'
And to all of the teeming dead, said the other. Which makes you the odd man out.
'But as for eavesdropping…' Jake continued, 'it sometimes has its uses. What was it you said? That together we would make a very fine pair? What exactly did you mean by that? That we're alike in certain ways? No, I don't think so. Or did you perhaps mean that you'd like to team up with me?'
But that is precisely what I meant! Korath answered, just a little
too eagerly. For after all, if you're intent on tracking down and destroying the treacherous Malinari, who could possibly be of greater assistance than one who was as close to him as Korath MindsthrallP
'So close that he killed you?' Jake's sarcasm dripped.
Exactly! And I know what you are thinking: that the Necroscope Harry Keogh found it peculiar that The Mind should murder his first lieutenant out of hand, as if it were nothing to him. But it was in fact… something.
'He had good reason? Is that what you're saying?'
Well, he 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 righthand man, aye, Korath answered. But in addition, there was this other thing. Something of his own making, which given time he feared would turn on him. 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 he wouldn't — you have seen that
for yourself! He is obstinate: despite that I never harmed him and he never
knew me, still he hates me! But the greatest difference is this: that he 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 Icelands banishment when food was short and Malinari thirsted, he 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 Mind's vats of metamorphosis in days rather than weeks and months! I have seen flyers Jlop 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 he 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 harboured an ambition, and looked for an opportunity. For that time in the Icelands, Malinari had gone too far. Oh, he had glutted on me… but what he had given back — albeit involuntarily, for in his hunger he was made careless — would soon be much stronger than what he 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 sloughed-away body, and would cling to life — 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.'
