Deadspeak Read online

  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?”

  You must invite me in, said Faethor, and I must enter of my own free will.

  Harry recalled to mind all he knew about vampires, and said, “When Thibor entered Dragosani’s mind, he tried to steer it his way. He interfered in Dragosani’s affairs. When he touched the living foetus which would become Yulian Bodescu, that was sufficient to alter the child entirely and turn him into a monster. And again Thibor was in Yulian’s mind, able to communicate with him and guide—or direct him—even over great distances. At this very moment a friend of mine on the island of Rhodes has a vampire, your bloodson Janos, in his mind, or at least controlling it. And my friend exists in a hell of terror and torment. And you want me to let you into my mind?”

  I said you would shy from it.

  “If I let it happen this once, how may I be sure it won’t happen when I don’t want it?”

  I would remind you: distance removed Dragonsani from danger. Even if what you suggest were possible, do you intend to stay here in Romania forever? No, for you have your own way to go, which will put you far beyond my reach. I would further remind you: Thibor was an undead thing in the ground—he was real, solid, intact in all his parts—while I am but a wraith, dead and gone forever. A ghost, aye: empty, immaterial, incorporeal, and of no consequence whatsoever.

  “Except to a Necroscope.”

  Except to you. Faethor’s shade nodded its agreement. The man who talks to and befriends the dead. Or used to.

  “So how do we go about it?” Harry asked. “I’m no telepath, with a mind like a book to be read.”

  But in a way you are, Faethor told him. Is it not a form of telepathy to be able to talk to the dead? Also, when you, too, were without body, did you not speak to the living?

  “That was a strange time,” Harry agreed. “It was my deadspeak. It worked in reverse. Being incorporeal, I had no voice, and so I could talk to the living—to those who had body—in the same way I talked to the dead!”

  Again Faethor’s nod. There’s more to your mind than even you suspect, Harry Keogh. And I say I can be into it even as Thibor was into Dragosani’s!—but without the complications.

  Harry sensed Faethor’s eagerness. He was far too eager but … there was no way around it. “What do I have to do?”

  Nothing. Simply relax. Sleep a dreamless sleep. And I shall visit within your mind.

  Harry felt Faethor’s beguilement—his hypnotism—working on him and resisted it. “Wait! Three things I want. And if your mind-tricks work, perhaps a fourth, later.”

  Name them.

  “First, that you undo the mischief done to my mind and return my deadspeak, as agreed. Second, that you give me some sort of defence against Janos’s telepathy, for I’ve seen what he can do to minds such as mine. Third, that you look and see if there’s any way I can regain access to the Möbius Continuum. It’s the ultimate weapon against Janos and would surely tilt the odds in my favour.”

  And the fourth?

  “When—if—I have my deadspeak back, I’ll be able to find you again no matter where I am. And then, hopefully for the last time, I may ask for your help again. To free the mind of my friend Trevor Jordan, which Janos holds enthralled.”

  As for this last thing, the vampire answered, if it can be done, then it shall be done in due course. But alas, access to this device of yours—teleportation?—we shall see what we shall see. However, I doubt it. It was not an art of mine; I know nothing of it; how may I unriddle something in a language I cannot speak? The language of mathematics is a stranger to me. On the other hand, your deadspeak is something I can surely put back to rights, for I understand it. Even when they were dead many hundred years, still my Szgany answered my call and got up from their graves! Lastly, you ask for some sort of defence against Janos’s mindspells. Well, that is no simple thing; it’s not any sort of gift I can will or bestow upon you. But later I shall describe to you how to fight fire with fire. Which may help … if you can stand the heat of it.

  “Faethor.” Harry was almost completely resigned to his fate now. “I wonder, will I thank you for this when it’s done? Will there ever be thanks enough? Or will I curse you for all eternity, and will there ever be curses enough? Even now you could be plotting to destroy me, as you’ve destroyed everything else you ever touched. And yet … it seems I’ve no choice.”

  These things are not entirely true, Harry, Faethor answered. Destroyed things? Aye, I’ve done that—and brought a few into being, too. Nor are you without choice. Indeed it seems to me the very simplest matter. Trust me now as an ally tried and true, or be gone from here and wait for Janos to seek you out—and when the time is come, go up against him like a child, naked and innocent of
all his ways and wiles …

  “We’ve talked enough,” said Harry. “And we both know there’s only one course open to me. Let’s waste no more time.”

  And: Sleep, said Faethor, his mental voice deep and dark as a bottomless pool of blood. Sleep a dreamless sleep, Harry Keogh, leaving all the doors of your mind standing open to me. Sleep, and let me see inside. Ah, but even though you may will it freely, still I shall find certain doors closed to me—and closed to you! These are the ones which I must unlock. For beyond them lie all your talents, which your son has hidden from you.

  Sleep, Harry. We are the betrayed, you and I, by our own flesh and blood. We have this much in common, at least. Nay, more than this, for we’ve both been powers in our time. And you shall be … a power … again … Haaarry Keeooogh!

  The mist on the plain swirled as Faethor flowed to his feet and approached Harry where he slumped on the broken wall. The long-dead vampire reached out a hand toward Harry’s face … and the hand was white and skeletal, projecting from the fretted sleeve of his robe like a bundle of thin sticks. The bony fingers touched Harry’s pale brow and melted into his skull.

  And as the scarlet fires dimmed in the sockets of Faethor’s eyes, so their light was transferred beneath Harry’s lowered lids, like red candles behind frosted glass. Following which … the vampire was privy to Harry’s most secret things: his thoughts and memories and passions, his very mind.

  Until, after what might be moments or millennia:

  Wake up! said Faethor.

  Harry came out of the dream with a sneeze; and a second sneeze even as he realised he was truly awake. He rolled his head a little in the hood of his sleeping bag, and something made a soft bursting sound close by. In the faint dawn light, he saw a ring of small black mushrooms or puffballs where they’d grown up beside his bed in the night. Already they were rotting, bursting open at the slightest movement, releasing their spores in peppery clouds. Harry sneezed again and sat up.

  For a moment his dream was there in his mind, but already fading as most dreams do. He strove to remember it … and it was gone. He knew he’d conversed with the spirit of Faethor Ferenczy, but that was all. If anything had passed between them, Harry couldn’t say what it had been. Certainly he felt no different from when he went to sleep.

  Oh? said Faethor. And are you sure of that, Harry Keogh?

  “Jesus!” Harry jumped a foot. “Who … ?” He looked all about, saw no one.

  And did you think I would fail you? said Faethor.

  “Deadspeak!” Harry whispered.

  It is returned to you. There, see now how Faethor Ferenczy keeps his word.

  Harry had unzipped his sleeping bag and scrambled to his feet in the dispersing morning mist. Now he sat down again, with something of a bump. There was no pain in his head; no one squirted acid in his mind; his talent seemed returned to him in full measure.

  All that remained was to try it out. And:

  “Faethor?” he said, still wincing inside and expecting to be struck down. “Was it … difficult?”

  Difficult enough, aye. The dead vampire’s voice sounded tired. What had been done to you was the work of an expert! All night I laboured to rid your house of his infestation, Harry. You may now gauge for yourself the measure of my success.

  Harry stood up again. With his heart in his mouth, he attempted to conjure a Möbius door … to no avail. The equations evolving, mutating and multiplying with awesome acceleration on the computer screens of his mind, were completely alien to him; he couldn’t fathom them individually, let alone as a total concept or entity. He sighed and said, “Well, I’m grateful to you—indeed you’ll never know just how grateful I am—but you weren’t entirely successful.”

  Faethor’s answer, with his bodiless shrug sensed superimposed upon it, was half-apologetic: I warned you it might be so. Oh, I found the region of the trouble, be sure, and even managed to unlock several of its doors. But beyond them—

  “Yes?”

  There was nothing! No time, no space, nothing at all. Very frightening places, Harry, and strange to think that they exist right there in your mind—in your entirely human mind! I felt that to take one single step over those thresholds would mean being sucked in and lost forever beyond the boundaries of the universe. Needless to say, I took no such step. And in any case, no sooner had I opened these doors than they slammed themselves shut in my face. For which I was not ungrateful.

  Harry nodded. “You looked in on the Möbius Continuum,” he said. And: “When I’ve finished here, I must try to find him. Möbius, I mean. For just as you’re the expert in your field, so he’s the one true authority in his. Useless to seek him out until now, for without deadspeak I couldn’t talk to him.”

  Will you do it now, at once? Faethor was fascinated. I am interested in genius. There is a kinship in all true geniuses, Harry. For however far removed their various talents, into whichever spheres, still the obsession remains the same. They seek to eliminate all imperfections. Where this Möbius has approached the very limits of pure numbers, I myself have searched for purest pure evil. We stand on the opposite sides of a great gulf, but still we are brothers of a sort. Yes, and it would be fascinating to meet such a one.

  “No.” Harry automatically shook his head, and knew that Faethor would sense it. “I won’t look for him now. Eventually, but not now. After I’ve practised awhile and when I’ve convinced myself that my deadspeak is as good as it used to be, maybe then.”

  As you wish. And for the moment? Do you go now to seek out Janos?

  Harry rolled up his sleeping bag and stuffed it into his holdall. “That too, eventually,” he answered. “But first I’ll return to my friends in Rhodes and see how they’re faring. And before any of that there are still things you must tell me. I still want to know all about Janos; the better a man knows his enemy, the easier it is to defeat him. Also, I need to know how to defend myself against him.”

  Of course! said Faethor. Indeed! I had forgotten there was work still to be done. But only see how eager I am that you should be on your way! Ah, but I go too fast! And certainly you are right: you must have every possible weapon at your disposal if you’re to defeat him. As to how you may best defend yourself, that’s not easy. This sort of thing is inherent in the Wamphyri, but difficult to teach. Even the keenest instinct would not suffice, for this is something borne in the blood. If we had an entire week together …

  “No.” Again Harry shook his head. “Out of the question. Can’t you break it down into its simplest terms for me? If I’m not too stupid, I might just catch on.”

  I can but try, said Faethor.

  Harry lit a cigarette, sat down on his stuffed holdall, and said, “Go ahead.”

  Again Faethor’s shrug, and he at once commenced: Janos is without doubt the finest telepath—which is to say beguiler, enchanter, fascinator—I have ever known. Wherefore he will first attempt an invasion of your mind. Now as I’ve hinted, and as is surely self-evident, your mind is extraordinary, Harry. Well, of course it is: for you are the Necroscope! But where you have practised only good, Janos, like myself in my time, has practised only evil. And because you know he is evil, so you fear him and what he may do to you. Do you understand?

  “Of course. None of this is new to me.”

  To anyone less well versed in the ways of the Wamphyri, such is the awe—the sheer terror—Janos would inspire, that his victim would be paralysed. But you are not ignorant of our ways; indeed, you are an expert in your own right. Do you know the saying, that the best form of defence is attack?

  “I’ve heard it, yes.”

  I suspect that in this instance it would be true.

  “I should attack him? With my mind?”

  Instead of shrinking back from him when you sense him near, seek him out! He would enter your mind? Enter his! He will expect you to be afraid; be bold! He will threaten; brush all such threats aside and strike! But above all else, do not let his evil weaken you. When he yawns his great jaw
s at you, go in through them, for he’s softer on the inside!

  “Is that all?”

  If I say more, I fear it would only confuse you. And who knows? You may learn more about Janos from his story than from any measures of mine to forearm you. Moreover, I’m weary from a long night’s work. Ask me what has been, by all means, but not what is yet to be. True, I have been an observer of times, but as my current situation is surely witness, I was far too often in error.

  Harry thought about what he’d learned: Faethor’s “advice” about how to deal with a mind attack from Janos. Some might consider it suicidal to act in accordance with such instructions; the Necroscope wasn’t so sure. In any case, it seemed very little to go on. But patently it was all he was going to get. Dawning daylight had apparently dampened the vampire’s enthusiasm.

  Harry stood up, stretched, and looked around.

  The mist had thinned to nothing; a handful of gaunt houses stood beyond a hedge half a mile away; in the other direction, the silhouettes of diggers and bulldozers were like dinosaurs frozen on a grey horizon. Another hour and they’d roar into destructive mechanical life, as if the sun had warmed their joints to clanking motion.

  Harry looked at the ground where he stood, the spot where Faethor had died on the night Ladislau Giresci cut off his head in the ruins of a bomb-blasted, burning house. He saw the now liquescent mushrooms there, their spores like red stains on the grass and soil; and in the eye of his mind he saw Faethor, too, the skeletal, shrouded thing he’d been in his dream. “Are you up to telling me Janos’s story?” he asked, apparently of no one.

  That will be no effort at all but a pleasure, the other answered at once. It was my pleasure to spawn him, and it gave me the most exquisite pleasure to put him down again!