'We've had this conversation before,' said Harry, unperturbed. 'Must we play it out again? If my memory serves me well, we agreed in a previous time that former liaisons had been to our 'mutual' advantage: neither one of us gained more than the other.' So come down off your high horse and tell me truly, why now do you insist on this sinister ritual that I should come to you of my own free will? And if I admit as much, under what obligation will I place myself, eh?'
Ahhh! sighed Faethor, after a moment. And if only it could have been you, Harry Keogh, instead of blood-crazed Thibor or that scheming, devious lout Janos! If only I had chosen my sons more carefully, eh? Why, such as you and I could have ruled the world together! But… too late now, for Thibor got my egg and Janos was my bloodson. And now there's neither spark nor spunk left of me to form another.
'If I thought for a moment there was, Faethor' (and
even dreaming Harry shivered), 'then believe me I wouldn't be here!'
But you are here, and so I beg of you, observe the formalities, that ancient 'ritual' of which you speak so harshly and suspiciously.
'So now you beg of me,' said Harry, 'and still I ask myself; what's in it for you?'
Aye, and we've had that conversation before, too! Faethor cried. Well then, if I must repeat myself: that bloodspawn of mine — that child of my human side, Janos — walks in the world of men again, and I cannot bear it! When Thibor was desperate to be up and about, who was it came to your aid in keeping him down, eh? I did, for I loathed the dog! And now it's the turn of Janos. What's in it for me, you ask? Well, when you destroy him, you might remember to tell, him how his father helped you, and even now lies laughing in his grave. That will be profit enough.
'What?' said Harry, speaking (and thinking) slowly and very carefully. 'But surely that would be a lie, for nothing at all of you lies in any grave. You burned up in the fire that destroyed your house — didn't you?'
But you know I did! the other cried. But still I am here, in a manner of speaking, for how else could I talk to you? It is my ghost, my spirit, the echo of a voice long vanished, that you hear. It is your talent, your ability to speak with the dead, which in itself should be evidence enough of my extinction!
Harry was silent a while. He knew that it was tit for tat, this for that, and that he'd get nothing without first giving something. Faethor was eager, indeed insistent, that his rules should apply in any exchange here. And in the end it was plain the vampire would have his way, for Harry's cause was doomed without him. He thought these things, but yet contrived to hide such thoughts from Faethor.
Ah-ha! And now I see it! the other finally burst out.
You are afraid of me, Harry Keogh! Of me, a long-dead thing, burned up and melted away in a holocaust! But why now? What is different now? We are not strangers. This is not the first time we've come together for a common cause.
'No,' said Harry, 'but it's certainly the first time I've bedded down with you! I've been here before, yes, but when I was awake. And other than that I've only ever spoken to you across great distances, again via deadspeak, when there was no possible danger to me. And if there's one thing I've learned about vampires, Faethor, it's that when they seem at their most vulnerable, that's when they're most dangerous.'
We're arguing at odds, getting nowhere, said the vampire, almost despairingly. But for all the 'fatigue' he displayed, still Harry guessed that Faethor wouldn't be moved from his stand in this matter. Which meant there remained only one way to break the deadlock.
'Very well,' he said, 'and so one of us must give way. Perhaps I'm a fool, but… yes, I came of my own free will.'
Good! the vampire grunted at once, and Harry could almost sense him smacking his lips. A most wise and agreeable decision. And why not? For if I'm to observe your manners and customs, why should not you observe mine, eh? They loved to win, these creatures, even in so small a thing as a contest of words. Perhaps that was all to the good, for now Faethor might find room to give way in other matters. And as if he had read Harry's thoughts:
And now we may face each other on equal terms. You desired to speak to me face to face? So be it.
Until now the dream had been blank and grey and unyielding, a place without substance except in the exchange of thoughts. But now the grey took on a gently swirling motion and rapidly dissolved down to a thickly misted plain under a slender horned moon. Harry sat on a ruined wall with his feet dangling in the ground mist where it lapped at his ankles; and Faethor, seated upon a heap of rubble, was a dark figure in a shrouding robe, whose hood cast his face in shadows. Only his eyes burned in that hollow darkness, and they were like tiny scarlet lamps.
And is this more to your liking, Harry Keogh?
'I know this place,' said Harry.
Of course you do, for it is the same place but perceived as it shall be some small distance in the future. Oh yes, for that was one of my talents, too: to see a little way into the future. Alas, it was unreliable, else I'd not have been here that night they dropped their bombs.
'I see that the bulldozers have been at work,' Harry looked all around. 'This place of yours seems the only place left!'
For the moment, aye, Faethor answered. A ruin on a low plain, surrounded by mud and debris, soon to become an industrial complex. And even if there were ears to hear me, who would listen to me then? What, through all of that hubbub and mechanical chaos? How are the mighty fallen, Harry Keogh, that I am reduced to this? And perhaps now you can understand why Thibor was made to suffer, and in the end destroyed; and why Janos must go the same way. They could have had it all, everything, and instead chose to defy me. And should I haunt this place, alone, unloved and unremembered, while one of them is returned to the world, perhaps to become a power? Perhaps The Power? No, I shall not rest, until I know that Janos is as little or even less than I am — which is nothing.
'And I'm to be your instrument?'
Is it not what you want? Do not our objectives coincide?
'Yes,' Harry agreed, 'except I want it for the safety of a world, and you want it for your own selfish spite. They were your sons, Thibor and Janos. Whatever it is in them which you hate, they got it from you. It's a strange father who'll murder his own sons because they take too well after him!'
Faethor gloomed on him and his voice turned sly and insinuating. Is it, Harry? Is it? And you're the expert, are you? Ah, but of course — certainly you would understand such things — for I've heard it that you have a son, too…
Harry was silent; he had no answer; perhaps he would destroy his son if he could, or at least change him. But hadn't he also tried to change the Lady Karen?
Faethor took his silence as something else: a sign that perhaps he went too far. Now he was quick to change his tone. But there, the circumstances are different. And anyway, you are a man and I am Wamphyri. There can be no meeting point except in our dual purpose. So let's make an end of criticisms and accusations and such, for there's work to be done.
Harry was pleased to change the subject. 'These are the simple facts,' he said. 'We both want Janos put down again, permanently. Neither one of us can do it on his own. For you it is absolutely impossible. Likewise for me, without my gift of deadspeak. You say you can return that talent to me; that since it was taken from me by a vampire, only a vampire can return it. Very well, I believe you. What will it entail?'
Faethor sighed and seemed to slump down a little where he sat. He turned his red-glowing eyes away and looked out over the plain of mist. And: We are come to that part from which I know you will shy most violently. And yet it is unavoidable.
'Say it,' said Harry.
The trouble lies in your head. A creature other than yourself has visited the labyrinth caves of your mind and wrought certain changes there. Let us say that within your house the furniture has been rearranged. Now another must go in and put the place in order.
'You want me to let you into my mind?'
