Necroscope

perhaps irrevocable decision, he tried one last time, made one last threat. 'Then I shall go away and give myself into the hands of physicians. They're a different breed to the doctors you knew in your day, Thibor. And I shall tell them a vampire is in me. They'll examine, discover, cut the thing out. They have tools you wouldn't dream of. When they have it they'll cut it open, study it, discover its nature. And they'll want to know how and why. I shall tell them. About the Wamphyri. Oh, they'll laugh, measure me up for a strait-jacket — but they won't be able to explain it away. And so I shall bring them here, show them you. It will be the end. Of you, of your 'son', of an entire legend. And wherever the Wamphyri are, men will seek them out and destroy them…'

Well said, Dragosani! Thibor was dryly sardonic. Bravo!

Dragosani waited, and after a moment: 'Is that all you have to say?'

It is. I don't converse with fools.

'Explain yourself.'

Now the voice in his mind grew extremely cold and angry, a controlled anger now, but real and frightening for all that. You are a vain and egotistical and stupid man, Boris Dragosani, said Thibor Ferenczy. Always it is 'tell me this' and 'show me that' and 'explain'! I was a power in the land for centuries before you were even spawned, and even that would not have happened but for

me! And here I must lie and let myself be used. Well, all that is at an end. Very well, I will 'explain myself as you demand, but for the very last time. For after that… then it will be time for proper discussion and proper bargaining. I'm tired of lying here, inert, Dragosani, as you well know, and you have the power to get me up out of here. That is the only reason I've been patient with you at all! But now my patience is no more. First let us deal with your assessment of your situation.

You say that you will give yourself into the hands of physicians. Well, by now certainly the vampire will be discernible in you. It is there, physically and tangibly, a real organism existing with you in a son of symbiosis — a word you taught me, Dragosani. But cut it out? Exorcise it? Skilled your doctors may well be, but not that skilled! Can they cut it from the individual whorls of your brain? From the fluids of your spine? From your tripes, your heart itself? Can they wrest it from your very blood? Even if you were fool enough to let them try, the vampire would kill you first. It would eat through your spine, leak poison into your brain. Surely by now you have come to understand something of our tenacity? Or did you perhaps think that survival was a purely human trait? Survival — hah! — you do not know the meaning of the word!

Dragosani was silent.

We made promises, you and I, the Thing in the ground finally continued. / have kept my part of the bargain. Now then, what of yours? Is it not time I was paid, Dragosani?

'Bargain?' Dragosani was taken aback. 'Are you joking? What bargain?'

Have you forgotten? You wanted the secrets of the Wamphyri. Very well, they are yours. For now you are a Wamphyri! As he grows within you, so the knowledge will come. He has arts which you will learn together.

'What?' Dragosani was outraged. 'My impregnation by a vampire, with a vampire, was your part of the bargain?

What the hell was that for a bargain? I wanted knowledge, wanted it now, Thibor! For myself — not as the black, rotten fruit of some unnatural, unwanted liaison with a damned parasite thing!'

You dare spurn my egg? For each Wamphyri life there is but one spawning, one new life to move on down through the centuries. And I gave mine to you…

'Don't act the proud father with me, Thibor Ferenczy!' Dragosani raged. 'Don't even try and make out I've hurt your pride. I want rid of this bastard thing in me. Do you tell me you care for it? But I know you vampires hate one another even worse than men hate you!'

The Thing in the ground knew that Dragosani had seen through him. Proper discussion, proper bargaining, he said, coldly.

'The hell with bargaining — I want rid of it!' Dragosani snarled. Tell me how… and then I'll raise you up.'

For long moments there was silence. Then -

You cannot do it. Your doctors cannot do it. Only I can abort what I put there.

'Then do it.'

'What? While I lie here, in the ground? Impossible! Raise me up… and it shall be done.

Now it was Dragosani's turn to ponder the vampire's proposition — or at least to pretend to ponder it. And finally: 'Very well. How do I go about it?'

Thibor was eager now: First, do you do this of your own free will?

'You know I do not!' Dragosani was scornful. 'I do it to be free of the hag in me.'

But of your own free will? Thibor insisted.

'Yes, damn you!'

Good. First there are chains here, in the earth. They were used to bind me but have long since worked loose of wasted tissues. You see, Dragosani, there are chemical ingredients which the Wamphyri find intolerable. Silver

and iron in the correct proportions paralyse us. Even though much of the iron has rusted away, its essence remains in the ground. And the silver is here, too. First, then, you must dig out these silver chains. 'But I haven't the tools!' You have your hands.

'You wish me to grub in the dirt with my hands? How deep?'

Not deep at all but shallow. Through all the long centuries I've worked these silver chains to the surface, hoping someone would find them and take them for treasure. Is silver precious still, Dragosani? 'More than ever.'

Then take it with my blessing. Come, dig. 'But — ' (Dragosani did not want to appear to be stalling, but on the other hand there were certain arrangements still to be made). ' — how long will it take? The entire process, I mean? And what does it involve?'

We start it tonight, said the vampire, and tomorrow we finish it.

'I can't actually bring you up out of the ground until tomorrow?' Dragosani tried not to show too much relief. Not until then, no. I am too weak, Dragosani. But I note you've brought me a gift. That is very good. I shall derive a little strength from your offering… and after you have taken away the chains — 'Very well,' said the necromancer. 'Where do I dig?' Come closer, my son. Come to the very centre of this place. There — there! Now you can dig …

The flesh crept on Dragosani's back as he got down on hands and knees and tore at the dirt and leaf-mould with his fingers. Cold sweat started to his brow — but not from his effort — as he remembered the last time he was here, and what had happened then. The vampire sensed his apprehension and chuckled darkly in his mind: Oh, and do you fear me, Dragosani? For all your bluff and bluster? What? A brave young blood like you, and old Thibor Ferenczy just a poor undead Thing in the ground? Bah! Shame on you, my son!

Dragosani had scraped most of the surface soil and debris to one side and was now five or six inches deep. He had reached the harder, more solidly frozen earth of the grave itself. But as he drove his fingers yet again into that strangely fertile soil, so they contacted something hard, something that clinked dully. He worked harder then, and the first links he uncovered were of solid silver — and massive! The links were at least two inches long, and forged of silver rods at least half an inch thick!

'How… how much of this stuff is there?' he gasped.

Enough to keep me down, Dragosani, came the answer. Until now.

The vampire's words, simple and spontaneous as they were, nevertheless contained a menacing something which set the short hairs at the back of Dragosani's neck standing erect in a moment. Thibor's mental voice had bubbled like boiling glue, filled with all the evil of the pit itself. Dragosani was a necromancer — he knew himself for