'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 begone 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 towards 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 have been moments or millennia:

Wake up! said Faethor.

Harry came out of the dream with a sneeze; and a second sneeze even as he realized 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: / 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. / 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 a while 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.'

/ can but try, said Faethor.