‘And so you took your revenge on Thibor,’ said Harry when Faethor paused. ‘You buried him alive — or undead — forever. Well, that might have suited your cruel purpose, Faethor Ferenczy, but you certainly weren’t doing the world at large any favours by letting him keep his head. He corrupted Dragosani and planted his vampire seed in him, and between times infected the unborn Yulian Bodescu, who is now a vampire in his own right. Did you know these things?
Harry, said Faethor, in my life I was a master of telepathy, and in death . . .? Oh, the dead won’t talk to me, and I can’t blame them — but there is nothing to keep me from listening in on their conversations. In a way, it could even be argued that I’m a Necroscope, like you. Oh, I’ve read the thoughts of many. And there have been certain thoughts which interested me greatly — especially those of that dog Thibor. Yes, since my death, I have renewed my interest in his affairs. I know about Boris Dragosani and Yulian Bodescu.
‘Dragosani is dead,’ Harry told him, albeit unnecessarily, ‘but I’ve spoken to him and he tells me Thibor will try to come back, through Bodescu. Now, how can this be? I mean, Thibor is dead — no longer merely undead but utterly dead, dissolved, finished.’
Something of him remains even now.
‘Vampire matter, you mean? Mindless protoplasm hiding in the earth, shunning the light, devoid of conscious will? How may Thibor use that when he no longer commands it?’
An interesting question, Faethor answered. Thibor’s root.— his creeper of flesh, a stray pseudopod detached and left behind — would seem to be the exact opposite of you and me. We are incorporeal: living minds without material bodies. And it is. . . what? A living body without a mind?
‘I’ve no time for riddles and word games, Faethor,’ Harry reminded him.
I was not playing games but answering your question, said Faethor. In part, anyway. You are an intelligent man. Can ‘(you work it out for yourself?
That got Harry thinking. About opposite poles. Was that what Faethor meant: that Thibor would make a new home for himself in a composite being? A thing formed of Yulian’s physical shape and Thibor’s vampire spirit? While he worried at the problem, Faethor was not excluded from Harry’s thoughts.
Bravo! said the vampire.
‘Your confidence is misplaced,’ Harry told him. ‘I still don’t have the answer. Or if I do then I don’t understand
it. I can’t see how Thibor’s mentality can govern Yulian’s body. Not while it’s controlled by Yulian’s own mind, anyway.’
Bravo! said Faethor again; but Harry remained in the dark.
‘Explain,’ said the Necroscope, admitting defeat.
If Thibor can lure Yulian Bodescu to the cruciform hills, said Faethor, and there cause his surviving creeper — the protoflesh he shed, perhaps for this very purpose — to join with Bodescu.
‘He can form a hybrid?’
Why not? Bodescu already has something of Thibor in him. He already is influenced by him. The only obstacle, as you point out, will be the youth’s mind. Answer:
Thibor’s vampire tissue, once it is in him, will simply eat Yulian’s mind away, to make room for Thibor’s!
‘Eat it away?’ Harry felt a dizzy nausea. Literally!
‘But. . . a body without a mind must quickly die.’ A human body, yes, if it is not kept alive artificially. But Bodescu’s body is no longer human. Surely that is the essence of your problem? He is a vampire. And in any case, Thibor’s transition would take the merest moment of time. Yulian Bodescu would go up into the cruciform hills, and he would appear to come down again from them. But in fact —‘It would be Thibor!’
Bravo! said Faethor a third time, however caustically.
‘Thank you,’ said Harry, ignoring the other’s sarcasm, ‘for now I know that I’m on the right track, and that the course of action chosen by certain friends of mine is the right one. Which leaves only one last question unanswered.’
Oh? Black humour had returned to Faethor’s voice, a certain sly note of innuendo. Let me see if I can guess it. You desire to know if I, Faethor Ferenczy — like Thibor the Wallach — have left anything of myself behind to fester in the dark earth. Am I right?