by Brian Lumley
By all means! said the other, trying to conceal his pleasure that at last Jake was engaging him in conversation, however belatedly. For ever since Xanadu, Jake had become more and more leery and stubborn; so that during the handful of nights passed between, Korath had made little or no progress with him. As for the days: in Jake’s waking hours his shields—the same shields that kept Liz Merrick out—were firmly in place, and if Korath came too close Jake would think of the sun, picturing its glare and its searing, cleansing fire, which tended to hold the vampire at bay however temporarily.
He thought of it now … but it was night and he was dreaming, and in any case he must have this out with the dead Korath sooner or later, one way or the other.
That, too! said Korath, momentarily shrinking as he glimpsed the notion in Jake’s mind, the sun’s cosmic furnace, origin and staff of life to living things, but molten death to the undead. And was that, too, part of our deal? No, I think not!
“And was this?” Jake countered. “This constant badgering? I think not! Let me repeat what you said—your very words, Korath—which I remember well, if only because they were lies:
“Was it too much to ask, you wanted to know, that in return for your gift to me I should give you my companionship—albeit rarely, however infrequently—when little else intruded on my time? That was it. That was all. My company, someone to talk to. But rarely, infrequently, when I wasn’t busy. Yet this last week you haven’t been out of my mind … literally! And you’ve very nearly driven me out of it! Do you know what Ben Trask and his people would do to me if they knew about you? Well, I don’t know either—but I’ve a damn good idea! Why, I wouldn’t put it past him to put a gun to my head and blow it off! I don’t think anyone would blame him for it, either.”
But they don’t know, Korath answered. Nor will they, if you keep your nerve. Also—
“—Let me finish!” Jake cut him short. “So for one thing, you’re placing me in jeopardy, and in so doing placing yourself in jeopardy, which has to be sheer stupidity on your part. Without me you’re nothing, a handful of bones washed clean in a subterranean sump, you’ve said so yourself. So whatever harm comes to me comes to you, for when I’m gone you’ll have no one at all to talk to, ‘rarely’ or ‘infrequently’ or ever!”
But I know that as well as you! Korath protested. It is to preserve you—us, if you will—that I persevere when others would simply give up on you.
“And as for your gift,” Jake ignored that last, “what gift are you talking about? You’ve given me nothing!”
Your life, and the lives of your friends and a loved one?
Jake knew he’d have difficulty arguing that one. He didn’t try but answered, “That’s all part and parcel of the same thing. If I had died then you would have gone with me.”
Not so, Korath gurgled in his mind. For I am already dead. But yes, I do know what you are talking about. This gift you so desire—which I agree was part of our pact—is the place of the primal darkness, the nowhere place which exists between the places we know, the Möbius Continuum. Am I right?
“That’s it,” said Jake with a deadspeak nod, “and you know it is. You promised to give me the numbers, Harry Keogh’s formula, the means to ride his Möbius strip.”
And have I not kept my promise? Korath seemed taken aback, even hurt. Of what do you accuse me now? Not once, not twice, not three times but four, I have given you the keys to the Möbius Continuum! Without which you were dead. Deny it if you can.
“I can’t,” said Jake. “Even if I were expert at these word games as you, still I wouldn’t try to deny that one. But what’s that for a gift, which I can’t use unless you’re tagging along? It’s only half mine.”
And is it my fault, too, that you’ve no head for numbers? Korath chuckled now, like gas bubbles bursting in a swamp, only to sober in the next moment. And: But of course it is only half yours! he snapped. For without me you have no formula, and without you I have no mobility. Hah! And what little I have of that is borrowed!
“But I need to be able to use the Continuum of my own free will,” Jake protested, “without recourse to you.”
Good! I agree! said Korath. Your own free will. Yes, certainly, that’s very important. Here then, the formula! I give it to you!
And at once, immediately—so rapidly that Jake was taken completely by surprise—Möbius equations commenced mutating on the screen of his (or Korath’s) mind. An ordered march of evolving calculi and ever-changing algebraic characters and symbols, it was as if the solution to a mathematical problem of enormous complexity were unravelling onto the monitor screen of some gigantic computer.
But Jake had been here before, half a dozen times and more, first with the Necroscope Harry Keogh and then with Korath. The weird progression of numbers was just as baffling to him now as it had been the first time; but instinctively—or intuitively, with Harry’s intuition?—he knew where to freeze it, knew how to stop it at the one point that he remembered.
He did so … and the numbers flowed at once into a trembling outline and formed a Möbius door!
“That’s it!” Jake breathed. “A door to the Continuum!”
Aye, said Korath, equally in awe of what they’d done, despite that they’d done it before. Aye, that’s it. And I, Korath, have given it to you. It was our pact, do you remember now? And with this great gift I have earned the right to—
“To nothing!” said Jake, letting the door collapse in upon itself. “I know where to stop it, yes, but not how to start it! I can’t possibly remember the entire sequence. No man could.”
But men did! said Korath. More than one. Möbius was first, then the Necroscope Harry Keogh. And on Starside, I saw Harry’s son, called Nathan, perform just such wonders. I myself learned it from Harry when he tried to show you how; I used a skill passed down to me by Nephran Malinari’s bite, by his awful essence, which runs in my blood. Unlike yourself, I do remember the sequence! But what good does it do when I can’t use it? Incorporeal, I can’t move without I move with you, as part of your mind. And I say again: am I to be blamed that you’ve no head for numbers?
Plainly that wasn’t Korath’s fault, but still Jake’s principal argument—that the gift of life, however great, wasn’t the promised gift—remained unshakable.
“Very well,” he said, “we’re at an impasse. But don’t you see that the more you pester me the more likely it is you’ll be discovered? Now frankly, I don’t wish you any harm. You’re dead and I don’t see how you can do me any great physical injury … physical, that is. Though I have to tell you that you’re slowly driving me crazy! And not so slowly, either. But anyway, if you should be found out, still Trask and his people couldn’t do you too much harm. What, like they’d kill you again? But me, I just don’t know what they’d do about me.”
What could they do? Korath seemed genuinely curious. Is it really likely that they would kill you? I doubt it. Please remember, Jake, that I have been present in or quite close to your mind almost since you and Harry first came to talk to me in the shattered sump where I drowned and was melted away. I know that in fact Ben Trask desires that you should commune with the teeming dead! It is, as you yourself might put it, all part and parcel of being a Necroscope. Wherefore, since it would seem to be a basic requirement—that you speak to dead people, I mean—how can Trask complain? For surely it must be obvious that I am now one with the Great Majority.
“You’re a vampire!” Jake answered. “And I’ve seen vampires in the flesh. I know what you were like before you died. And as for ‘being one with the Great Majority: you’re forgetting that I’ve heard them whispering in their graves and know it couldn’t be further from the truth! And then there’s Trask; but I don’t think I could ever express just how much he detests you and all your kind. Vampires? The Wamphyri? Trask lives to destroy them! Even before Malinari murdered Zek, after he murdered you, vampires were Trask’s main obsession. He’s lost too many friends to them. You’d like to know what he could do to m
e in order to rid me of you? Well, at least one unpleasant solution springs readily enough to mind.”
Such as? And now Korath really was curious.
“Did you ever hear of prefrontal lobotomy?” Jake inquired. “No, I don’t suppose you did. It’s a medical term for something they used to do to ‘relieve’ cases of severe schizophrenia. But you have to agree it’s kind of drastic, right? So tell me, what the hell are you if not a case of severe schizophrenia?!”
Since deadspeak, like more orthodox mental telepathy, frequently conveys far more than any merely “spoken” word, Korath had seen in Jake’s mind something of the procedures involved in prefrontal lobotomy. Now, thoughtfully, he said, My once-master Malinari the Mind, could do much the same thing. (And Jake actually felt the monster shudder!) Except be did it with his bare hands, his liquid fingers, his awesome mind! Ah, but what Malinari did “relieved” his victims of … why, everything! It was a cure for life itself
“But I don’t need or want relieving,” Jake told him. “Only of you. So we have to work something out and put a limit on it. And we have to redefine the terms of this so-called pact.”
Its terms? A limit?
“A limit in time,” said Jake. “For see, I don’t want to be a Necroscope and never did. Three weeks ago, I didn’t know what a Necroscope was. And still don’t know all of it because they won’t tell me. What, something that’s so weird, so unnatural, I can’t be told about it? That’s not for me. So until I know what it’s all about, I don’t want any, thanks. Oh, sure, I would use the Möbius Continuum—will use it, to my own ends—but after that, I don’t know, I haven’t made up my mind yet. On the other hand, there’s something that I’ve very definitely decided: that I won’t be beholden to you forever and a day!”
A limit in time, then, said Korath. Yes, we can talk about that, I think. As for terms, what did you have in mind … well, apart from myself, that is? (Again his phlegmy chuckle, a glutinous reverberation that echoed hollowly and humourlessly in the deadspeak aether.)
“First the time limit,” said Jake when the echoes had subsided. “Our—God, our ‘partnership’!—our deal, lasts only as long as it takes both of us to achieve our objectives. But just as soon as we have, and whether I’ve cracked Keogh’s formula or not, you’re to get out of my mind. But I appreciate your absolute loneliness, and for my part I promise that if or when I can I’ll give you some of my spare time. Talking to you, about your life in a vampire world, could prove interesting after all.”
If or when? Some of your spare time? But without the Continuum you wouldn’t be able to visit me anyway.
“All the more reason to ensure that I get it,” Jake answered. “Also that eventually I’m able to remember it. But in any case, surely you’re wrong? The way I understand it I won’t have to visit you; we’ll be able to communicate at a distance—just about any distance—much as we’re doing right now. But without you being on my back all the time.”
Hmmm! Korath mused.
And Jake urged him: “Make up your mind, before I change mine. The way I figure it, I’m making a deal with the devil anyway.” But:
Let’s move on, said the other cagily. For you talked about objectives, and I’m interested to know what yours might be.
“You haven’t plucked them right out of my mind, then?”
I may be on your mind, said Korath, but I’m not exactly in it. You’ve denied me the access I initially requested—and for which we bargained—else we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Jake was taken aback. “What? Did you expect even more than you’ve already got? Because if so, I’d better tell you here and now that it’s more than I intend to give! You wanted access and you’ve got it. You can talk to me whenever you like—though so far you’ve only chosen to do it when I don’t like!”
But that’s hardly access to your mind, said the other. Being able to talk to you does not define complete access to your mind. Your shields exclude me, blanketing more than three-quarters of everything you’re thinking. My original suggestion, the way I remember it, was that I should be, well, much like a part of you, and—
“A part of me?” Thoroughly alarmed now, Jake cut the other off. “Are you crazy? Once you were in, how could I get you out? I’m having a hard enough time of it as it is!”
Exactly! said the other. And I, too, am finding it difficult; I’m having an extremely “hard time” of it, as you put it. But don’t you see how easy it would be if we worked more truly as one? Maximum efficiency! You with your expert knowledge of your world—which is an entirely strange place to me—and me with my unique knowledge of Malinari, Vavara, and Szwart … and of course with my keys to the Möbius Continuum. Two minds working as one, Jake, to the benefit of both! What could be simpler or more, well, accommodating?
Warning bells rang deep in Jake’s subconscious mind. Even dreaming he knew this was a word game, and also that Korath was very good at it. All factual discussion and legitimate argument to the contrary, if the Wamphyri and their disciples were politicians, all of their political opponents would find themselves right out of their depth, swept away by sheer word-power alone!
And so, in order to gain a little breathing space, he was obliged to resort to the other’s ploy and murmur, “Hmmm!”—as if thinking it over.
Well? said Korath. And:
“To quote you,” Jake answered, “Let’s move on. But before we do there’s something that needs clearing up. I’ve never said that I’d accept you as ‘part’ of me—as part of my mind, that is—not even temporarily.”
But—
“—But before we got sidetracked,” Jake cut the other off yet again, “we were examining our objectives. And you wanted to know what mine might be.”
Indeed, said Korath. What is it that you seek to do? Other than what Ben Trask and his people would have you do, that is.
Again Jake was taken by surprise, this time not so much by the dead creature’s skill at arguments and word games as by his more than hinted knowledge of Jake’s pursuits outside E-Branch. And he couldn’t help wondering just how often had Korath “eavesdropped” on him. “Oh?” he said. “So you’re thinking I have ulterior motives, are you?”
Not necessarily ulterior, no. (The shake of an incorporeal head.) But wasn’t it you who said you would “use the Möbius Continuum to your own ends?” Yours as opposed to Ben Trask’s, that is, and perhaps running contrary to his? Or have I in some way, er, misunderstood you … ?
And so Jake told him about his vendetta with Luigi Castellano, finishing by saying, “I’ve killed three of them who were there that night, but two remain. Castellano himself; he’s the drug-running bastard who ordered that … that … who ordered what took place. And one other who—”
Who was one of the performers, aye, said Korath. And then, as if changing the subject: But did you know—and this is an exceedingly strange thing, Jake—that when you talk to me, as we argue our points and so forth, gradually getting to know one another, you are—how may I put it?—you’re a warm one? For despite your harsh, often hurtful words and your brusque manner of expression, I can feel your warmth! It is the warmth of life, I fancy, which I only knew as a youth on Sunside, before Malinari destroyed my people, stole me away into Starside, and made me one of bis. Which was so long ago that I had almost forgotten it. But you … you have rekindled old memories.
Jake had been a little choked up with memories of his own, but now he put them aside. “Are you going soft on me?” he growled. “I don’t think so. So what’s all this: some kind of scheme to help me see how badly life, and undeath, have treated you?”
Ah, no, said the other, his deadspeak voice as deep as the Arctic ocean and as bitterly cold. For I am what I am, and I’ve done what I’ve done. And the truth of it is, I’ve no regrets at all! Well, except that it all ended so badly for me—and that while my bones are rubbed away, whirling in a watery sump, Malinari lives and laughs—and that while we argue and fight I’ll go forever unavenged! But �
�� you didn’t let me finish.
“Go on, then,” said Jake. “Finish.”
I was saying that when we engage in normal or shall we say “trivial” conversation, you are warm and I can sense your humanity. But when you speak of these dire enemies of yours, you are cold in your heart. Even as cold as I am in my sump. It isn’t a physical thing but something of the soul.
“And so you know about souls, right?” Jake somehow doubted it.
I know that whatever it was that made me human, Korath answered, Malinari the Mind took it from me. And I know that when all I had left was undeath, he took that back, too, in exchange for the true death; and that therefore he is in my debt as much and more than Luigi Castellano is in yours.
“We’ll, then,” said Jake. “It seems to me we’ve defined our objectives.”
But mine was known from the start, Korath told him. Didn’t I say that all I wanted was to hit back at Malinari? Just think of the irony of it: that I can strike back at him from the very heart of darkness, from the watery grave to which he sent me!
“But only through me,” said Jake.
Through you, and Ben Trask, and E-Branch, aye.
“So, it’s not only me you’ve recruited but E-Branch, too!” Jake’s tone was accusing, but with very little of energy in it. Instead he felt weary of this entire episode, tired of talking, tired of listening. Mentally and physically exhausted.
Except they don’t know it, Korath “chuckled,” in his hideous fashion. Nor will they ever, for when Malinari has paid the price—along with these enemies of yours, of course—then I shall get me gone from you. Though I trust you’ll abide by your word and visit with me and my poor old polished bones from time to time? Eh?
The idea was seductive. But so was everything about Korath. His dark, deadspeak voice; his almost hypnotic manner of expression; his very presence. Suddenly Jake could feel the lure, the strength of the dead creature’s aura—and of his argument. Without Korath, what chance would he have of bringing Luigi Castellano and his henchman to justice, however rough? And without Jake, what would Korath have but an eternity of loneliness—or however long it took for him to fade away?