Yet again the Necroscope’s shrug. Like I said, with the old Wamphyri dead or fled, Starside is a big place.
Faéthor was cautious. It seems to me that whichever way it goes, still I get the best of this bargain. Now why should you be so good to me?
Maybe it’s like you said, Harry told him, a meeting of two old friends.
Fiends, Faéthor corrected him.
As you will, except I’m an unwilling fiend. And despite the fact that you’re the engineer of my current fix, still I can’t forget that in the past you’ve put yourself out to do me one or two favours; even though all of them (a little sourly), as I’ve since come to realize, were to your ultimate benefit. Still, it seems I’ve grown accustomed to you; I understand you now; you played the game according to your own rules, that’s all. Wamphyri rules. Also, I’m full of human compassion – I can’t help it – and I have to admit my conscience has been bothering me. About you, stuck here in Möbius time. About my leaving you here. And finally . . . well, you said it yourself: if there is a cure for my complaint, who’d know it better than you? Which is the Number One reason I’m here and doesn’t leave me with much choice. He was very convincing.
Very well, said Faéthor (as Harry had supposed he would), you have a deal. Now take me into your mind.
When you have told me what I want to know.
Whether or not you may rid yourself of your vampire?
A little more than that.
Oh?
Where it came from. How it got into me in the first place.
You haven’t thought it out for yourself?
It was the toadstools, right?
Faéthor’s deadspeak nod. Yes.
And the toadstools were you?
Yes. They were spawned of my fats festering in the earth where I’d burned and melted down. An ichor, an essence, simmering there, waiting. Then, when the brew was ripe, I willed the fungi up into the light – but not until I knew you’d be there to receive them.
And you were in them?
As you well know, for through them I came to you. But you cast me out.
And these fungi: are they a natural part of the Wamphyri chain? Part of the overall life cycle?
I don’t know. Faéthor seemed at a genuine loss. There was no one to instruct me in such mysteries. Old Belos Pheropzis might have known – might even have passed such knowledge down to my father – but if so, then Waldemar Ferrenzig never told me. I only knew that the spores were in me, in the fats of my body, and that I could will them into growth; but don’t ask me how I knew. How does a dog know how to bark?
And the spores were your very last vestiges?
Yes.
Could it be that such toadstools grow in the vampire swamps on Starside? It seems logical to me, since those swamps are the source of Wamphyri infestation.
Faéthor sighed his impatience. But I’ve never even seen the vampire swamps on Starside, though I hope to – and soon! Now then, let me into your mind.
Can I be rid of my vampire?
Do we still have a deal, however I may answer?
So long as you answer true.
No, you are stuck with your vampire for ever!
Harry wasn’t hard hit; he had supposed it would be so. Even concerning the very question or idea or thought of ‘curing’ himself, his will was already weakening, probably had been for some time. For he was learning what it was to be Wamphyri. And if his right hand didn’t like it, then his left hand did. The dark side of men has always been their stronger side. And what of women? The Lady Karen’s cure had been her destruction.
In his mind, like an echo, the Necroscope heard once more Faéthor’s answer: You are stuck with your vampire for ever! And he thought: So be it! And to Faéthor he said: Then farewell.
He began to decelerate, leaving the astonished vampire to speed on ahead as before. As the gap rapidly widened, Faéthor despairingly called back, What? But you said-