would usurp him, that I might have the means to usurp him!'Yet when Harry questioned you, you said it was just Malinari's nature. You were there to be used, and so he used you.'And so it was his evil nature, which caused him to so use and abuse his right-hand man, aye, Korath answered. But in addition, there was this other thing. Something of his own making, which given time he feared would turn on him. And it might yet.'So why do you mention it to me - this thing, whatever it is - when you withheld it from Harry?'Because it was my secret, said Korath. And even a dead man should have something he can call his own - something private? - which might even be of value to the living, and with which he might seek to bargain? Ah, but Harry Keogh is one thing, while you are something else entirely, Jake. And it was never my intention to keep anything secret from you. Not if you require it, and if it should prove ... useful to you?'Something you have,' Jake mused, 'Which might benefit me, but not Harry ...' And in a while, when Korath remained silent: 'So what's the difference? Why would you help me and not him?'
The difference? But isn't it obvious? The Necroscope Harry Keogh can do nothing for me. And even if he could he wouldn't - you have seen that for yourself! He is obstinate: despite that I never harmed him and he never knew me, still he hates me! But the greatest difference is this: that he is dead!
While you -
'While I'm alive,' said Jake.
And you walk among the living. My only possible instrument of revenge against him who put me here, and the others who have gone out into your world with him, aye.'And that's all you'd expect out of it? All you'd want for yourself?'All? But it is everything! said the other. Through you, I would live again - er, metaphorically, of course. Through you, I would strike back from beyond the grave - or in my case from this dank and dreary pipe, in the bowels of a strange place, in a foreign land far from Starside. What more could I, poor dead thing that I am, ask of you? And. what more could you give?'What more, indeed/ said Jake, who hadn't forgotten Harry Keogh's warning, that even dead vampires are dangerous. And:Well, and perhaps there is ... something, said Korath.'And now we get to it,' said Jake.Hear me out! said the other. Is it too much to ask that in return for my gift to you, you shall give me your companionship - albeit rarely, however infrequently - when little else intrudes upon your time?'A word-game?' said Jake. 'Is that what this is? The devious nature of vampires? For here I find myself bargaining - all caught up in it, beginning to go with it - when as yet I don't even know what's on offer!'Then let me tell you! Korath was eager, barely able to contain himself. But in the next moment he slowed down, paused and said, And yet... how best to explain? Now listen:Do you remember I told you, that in our Icelands banishment when food was short and Malinari thirsted, he supped on me? But it was no mere sip! He drank deeply, so deep indeed that I was weakened nigh unto death. Aye, that was how much my master took from me. But in taking, he also gave!
Now, Malinari is special even among the Wamphyri. His bite is virulent; well, so are they all, but his even more so. Under normal conditions a man is recruited, becomes infected, in the space of a single Starside night - or two or three days of your time - following which he is his master's thrall, in thrall to whichever Lord or Lady seduced his blood. But when Malinari bit deep it was a matter of hours! He could turn a man in hours!
It was in his essence, his strong Wamphyri essence. And it was the same with the making.'The making?' This was a new one on Jake.The making of creatures, Korath explained. Monsters! Why, things waxed in The Mind's vats of metamorphosis in days rather than weeks and months! I have seen flyers Jlop from their stone wombs