by Brian Lumley
'Goodbye, Faethor,' he said. And as always, the Mobius Continuum was waiting to welcome him…
Harry's plans and preparations were the simplest of things, easily carried out. Back at E-Branch HQ he told Darcy Clarke what he required, and while the items were being assembled he brought Clarke up to date and went a little deeper into detailing what the boss of E-Branch already knew.
When he'd finished Clarke said: 'Let's get this right. You're going to Romania, the Danube in the vicinity of Radujevac, where you'll travel upstream along the course of an underground river, right?'
'That's right.'
'Somewhere up there you expect to find a Gate like the one at Perchorsk, except there won't be anyone who'll shoot you dead on sight.'
There might well be people there,' said Harry. 'A handful, maybe, but they won't shoot at me. They won't be able to. If I know my business they'll welcome me; they may even have valuable information for me.'
Clarke looked at him and thought: Dear God! — he's human but he's so bloody inhuman! Out loud, quietly, he said: 'Dead people, right?'
'Corpses, yes. Maybe not even that. Maybe just memories of people.'
Now Clarke shuddered, long and visibly and violently. He was remembering the Bodescu affair, a time when he'd witnessed with his own eyes the unbelievable extent of Harry's power over the dead. Or rather, the result of their respect for him. In fact it hadn't been Harry who called up the dead that time but his son, the then infant Harry Jnr. But Harry could do it too, when he had the need.
Finally Clarke steadied himself and continued. 'And having found this Gate, then you'll use it to go… wherever! To another world, the place where your wife and son are. And presumably Jazz Simmons, too.'
Harry nodded. 'And Zek Foener, and maybe one or two others. If they're still alive, and you know I believe they are, then I should have some friends there -1 think. But I may also have enemies. At least one, anyway: a KGB thug called Karl Vyotsky.'
'But assuming everything works out OK, then you'll speak to Brenda, Harry Jnr, and when that's done you'll see who wants to come back with you?'
'Something like that, except I still don't know if there's a way back. Remember, I know that nothing from this world has ever got back here, and I know that nothing that's come here can ever go back there! Does that make sense? Anyway, that's the way it is.'
'In short, you're risking your life.'
'Do you want it done or don't you?'
'I want it done, yes; in my own way I'm as curious as you are. And the next thing I want is to see Perchorsk closed down. Even if they don't make those things there, still it's a time-bomb.'
Harry nodded. 'I feel the same way about it — but I have Viktor Luchov's word that nothing will ever escape from Perchorsk again. That's good enough for me.'
Clarke gave a snort. 'Harry, your word is good enough for me any time, but I'm just one small cog in a very big wheel. I don't suppose that anyone is going to take preemptive or any other sort of action against Perchorsk. Especially not now, in this new climate of "political understanding," but if something else does escape…' He threw up his hands.
'Then it would be right out of your hands, I know,' Harry answered.
Again Clarke's snort. 'Right out of control is more like it!' he answered.
'Well, and that's another reason for my going in,' Harry was almost fatalistic about it. To see if there's anything we can do about it — which is maybe better done from the other side.'
The two were silent a while, then Clarke said: 'Harry, the rest of your gear will take a little time to get hold of. But it's being done. It's very late now and I'm overdue for my bed. I'll catch a couple of hours and be here to see you off in the morning. Before I go, is there anything else I can do for you? And what will you do with yourself for the rest of the night?'
Harry shrugged. 'Oh, I'm not tired,' he said, 'but I will try to get some sleep later. It's silly, I know, but I'd rather tackle that underground river during the daylight hours. I mean, I could go tonight, but I don't fancy that.'
'Silly? What's silly about it?'
'Because day or night will make no difference down there. It's pitch dark all the time. It's just that I'll feel happier knowing it's daylight outside. But anyway, before I do anything I have to speak to Mobius again.'
Lost for words, Clarke shook his head. Harry always had this effect on him. 'You know,' he finally said, 'we're both part of the same world, you and I, but when you talk like that, so naturally, matter-of-factly — about the dead, and about these talents of yours, the Mobius Continuum and what all; the way you say: "I'm going to speak to Mobius", just like that — Jesus, it's like you're an alien! Or else it's like I'm a small kid again. I mean, I know what you can do, I've experienced it. But still I sometimes doubt my own senses.'
Harry smiled, open and honest. 'And you're the boss of E-Branch!' he said. 'Maybe you've got the wrong job, Darcy.'
He waited until Clarke had left before he went to see Mobius…
In Leipzig it was 10:30 a.m. and the graveyard was locked for the night. But of course Harry didn't go in through the gates but through a door, went to see the man who'd taught him to unlock all such doors.
Harry, my boy, I'm glad you've come, said Mobius. I've been doing some thinking about this conjectural parallel universe of yours.
'It gets less conjectural all the time,' Harry told him. 'Only its nature is conjectural now.' And he quickly brought the dead mathematician up to date.
Fascinating! said Mobius. And indeed it confirms my own thoughts on the matter.
'Well, I have to admit it only baffles me,' said Harry. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, but… I mean if there are two gates on this side, why does there only appear to be one on the other?'
Only one? What makes you say that?
'Faethor talked about a shining white door in the shape of a sphere. One door. If there'd been two, wouldn't Old Belos have mentioned the fact?'
Well, whether he did or didn't, there are two, I assure you. Mobius sounded convinced. Two on this side, and two on that. I can explain the principle very simply, without going into a lot of mathematical detail.
'I'm all ears,' said Harry.
Right, Mobius got down to business. Let's consider these 'gateways' a little less intensely, a little more basically. These 'doors' which defy the physical laws of that state which we call space-time. We know there are several sorts, and that all of them warp the 'skin' of this space-time dimension. Modern scientists readily admit of one such: the black hole. And they make guesses about another sort, which they've termed white holes. In fact a current theory has it that white and black holes are two ends of the same tunnel. The black sucks material in, and the white expels it. Agreed?
Harry nodded. 'So I understand,' he said.
Very well. Now, even if the theory is wrong and they're not two sides of the same coin, there remains one factor common to both.
'Which is?'
That they're both one-way systems.' Once you enter a black hole, you don't get out again. And once you've been expelled from a white hole, there's no way back in. The way I see it, the same thing applies to your grey holes: this Gate at Perchorsk, and the second Gate which you believe lies somewhere along the course of this underground river.
'One-way systems?'
Each of them! Emphasis on 'each'. You go in through one, and you come out through the other!
It stopped Harry dead in his tracks. Finally he said: That's brilliant! Once you use a Gate, it's out of bounds. Having passed you through, it won't accept you again, no matter which end you started out from. But a second gate will! So all I have to do is find the second Gate. In fact, I already know where it is! It's the Gate the Wamphyri have been using to send their monstrosities through to Perchorsk.'
Ah, but that's what it is, not where it is, said Mobius.
'It's a step in the right direction, anyway,' Harry replied. Then he sobered a little. There is however one small dra
wback. If I come through that Gate into Perchorsk, they'll not only shoot me, they'll probably fry me, too!'
Ah-! but here Mobius could only shrug.
Thanks, anyway,' said Harry. 'You've confirmed what I was already suspecting: that there have to be two Gates. The Wamphyri have been using one for thousands of years, and now they've started using the new one, which Luchov and his crowd inadvertently blasted into being at Perchorsk. It's the only explanation. So… if you'll excuse me now I'll be on my way. I have to say goodbye to my mother. She'd never forgive me if I did something like this without telling her.' He sighed. 'She'll want to try to talk me out of it — even knowing she can't. But… she's like that.'
All mothers are like that, Harry, said Mobius, very seriously. Good luck, my boy.
But in fact, luck would have very little to do with it…
The next morning Darcy Clarke met Harry at E-Branch HQ in London, and while Harry checked his equipment, making sure he knew how to use it, Clarke took the opportunity to pass on a little information.
'About this subterranean tributary of the Danube,' he said. 'Harry, it's a death-trap! I had it checked out overnight. Our man in Bucharest looked into it for you. The place is known well enough and we have its exact location. There are newspaper clippings concerning it, various bits of documentation. The locals have an immemorial dislike for it. In 1966 a couple of cavers took it on. It was summer and the tributary was running dry at the time. Four hours after they started in there was a flash flood up in the mountains. One body was washed out, the other lost forever. And these were experts.'
'And they were walking and swimming,' said Harry. 'I won't be.'
'Eh?'
'I said I was going up to the watercourse, but I didn't say how.'
Clarke gasped, 'You'll use the Mobius Continuum?'
'Of course.'
'Then why the wet-suit, aqualung and all?'
'Just in case.'
Clarke fell silent for a moment, then said: 'I was only trying to help.'
'And I appreciate it,' Harry told him. 'But I know my own business best.'
Ten minutes later he took up his gear in a waterproof kit-bag and went to Radujevac. From the outskirts of the town he caught a taxi into the countryside close to the location Clarke had given him. He paid his driver with money from the same source. With his bag over his shoulder he set off down a country track, eventually arriving at his destination. It was a wild place and there was no one around. Harry dumped his kit in a copse and covered the bag with dead branches, then returned to the site of the resurgence.
It was in the base of a cliff, overgrown with ivy, where limestone outcrops glistened with moisture. To the north-east stood the grey, forbidding Carpathians, and to the south sloping wooded countryside. Harry stood on the banks of the pool under the cliffs and looked again at the mountains, then down at the dark water where it gurgled into view from untold caverns of gloom. It issued from the mouth of a cave. This was the spot where Old Belos of the Wamphyri first entered our world. And others like him. And between here and those legendary mountains, somewhere underground, lay a gateway to an alien world. Now it was Harry's task to pin-point that Gate as accurately as possible before setting out up the river to find it.
He checked again that there was no one around, no one to see him take his departure. The place was silent, wooded, where only the birds sang and the cold water gurgled. But this time Harry was well muffled-up and didn't feel the cold.
He picked a spot in the foothills to the north-east, went there via the Mobius Continuum. The door from which he exited was the same as always: a 'hole' in the universe, with nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other doors Harry had used. Harry moved again, even closer to the looming peaks. But this time when he emerged, the 'edges' of his door shimmered a little. It was the warning he'd been looking for, which told him he was close.
Very close, Harry, said a dead voice in his mind, surprising him. It felt like someone had come up close behind him and whispered in his ear.
'Do I know you?' He scanned the countryside around,' looked down on distant towns, Radujevac, Cujmir, Recea. They were smoky, wintry smudges on his horizon.
No, but I know you. Your mother has been making enquiries on your behalf.
Harry sighed. 'She means well,' he said. 'Has she disturbed you?'
Not at all. I'm happy to help. You intend to travel the length of the Radujevac resurgence, right? The voice was full of excitement, eagerness. Which was what gave its owner away.
'You were a caver,' said Harry. 'You died back in the summer of 1966, somewhere up that underground river.'
That's me, said the other, a little sadly. And I never did get to finish the job. My name is Gari Nadiscu, and if I'd made it the bore would have been named after me: the Nadiscu Route. It was a dream. Maybe you can finish it for me?
Harry said: 'Wait,' and transferred to the Mobius Continuum. 'Now talk to me,' he said. 'I want to get closer to you.' He followed the other's thoughts, emerged at the very foot of the mountains. And again the Mobius door shimmered, more than before, confirming Harry's belief that he was moving closer to the gate.
'You didn't do badly,' he told Nadiscu. 'You covered, oh, maybe nine miles before that flood hit you! Are you still down there?' He glanced at the stony mountain soil under his feet. 'I mean, is there anything left… you know? How did you get trapped? Your companion was washed out.'
Trapped, answered the other, grimly. That's the right word, Harry. I crawled onto a ledge. There was a crack in the wall. As the water rose I climbed deeper into the crack. Finally I got jammed, couldn't move. I was wearing a lung, of course. It was a bad time. I lasted as long as my air…
That must have been pretty terrible,' Harry commiserated. But:
Don't waste time on that, said the other. You've things to do. How can I help you?
Two things,' said Harry. 'One: what was the course of the river up to the time you… when the flood came? And two: how deep are you, as you calculate it, under the surface?'
Nadiscu supplied the answers and Harry thanked him. 'I won't be looking for the river's source,' he admitted, 'for it's a different kind of source that interests me. But if it all works out I'll come back some time and tell you how far I got. OK?'
Thanks, Harry. I'd appreciate that.
Harry used the Continuum and moved on into the mountains, exiting on a steep, pine-covered slope. This time the interference was such that Harry knew he was almost there. Directly below him, at some great depth in the roots of the mountains, the Gate to the world of the Wamphyri was waiting for him.
He calculated the distance to his starting point, fixed his location firmly in his head — his location not only in the mundane world but also in the metaphysical Mobius Continuum. It was a sort of mental triangulation. And then he went back to the copse where he'd hidden his gear.
Half an hour later, dressed in wet-suit and aqualung, equipped with fins and a powerful waterproof torch, Harry slipped into the water and conjured a Mobius door. No shimmer here. He moved upstream, emerging in darkness with his flippered feet on a pebbly bed. The darkness was absolute and there was a current strong enough to cause Harry to lean against it. He used his torch to scan the way ahead, its powerful beam cutting the dark like a knife. On the next jump his feet were still on the bottom but the bore had narrowed down, the water was chin-deep, the way ahead convoluted.
And so Harry proceeded.
Sometimes he swam; at other times he was underwater, where there was no gap between ceiling and river; occasionally the bore was wide as a cathedral and the water shallow. Almost before he knew it he found Gari Nadiscu in the crevice where he'd trapped himself. There was very little of him left: a single flipper and an air tank half-buried in shingle, and a trapped thigh bone.
Harry could have come to Nadiscu direct, he saw that now, but there could have been hazards. The caver had been trapped in a tight spot; Harry hadn't wanted to emerge in a cramped, difficult location. Also,
and more importantly, Nadiscu might have been too close to the Gate. Harry had experienced the danger in using the Mobius Continuum close to a Gate; it was to be avoided. No, he'd preferred his own way. If there'd been difficulties, getting out again would have been as easy as conjuring a Mobius door. And this way he'd got used to his system of sighting the way ahead and then jumping there. Which was as well, for beyond this point the route was totally unknown.
Now: he and Nadiscu exchanged a few encouraging words, and Harry moved on.
Five minutes later, after a series of short jumps, Harry's exit door shimmered violently and seemed to bend back on itself. Harry emerged in deep water, swimming. He shone his torch ahead. The bore was almost circular, with maybe twelve inches between ceiling and water. He daren't use the Continuum again and so put all of his efforts to swimming. The current wasn't much but still it made for hard work.
Then, ahead, Harry saw a faintly luminous arc of light. He switched off his torch and hooked it to his belt, using both hands to aid his flippered feet in forging ahead. The arc expanded and the light grew stronger. White light!
Harry emerged into the cave of the sphere and gratefully hauled himself up onto the ledge — where he at once recoiled from what lay upon the moist floor! It was a headless corpse, running rapidly to decay. The head, also sloughing flesh, lay some little way along the ledge. 'Jesus!' Harry breathed. He had taken off his demand-valve attachment but now quickly replaced it to breathe bottled air. That was better. Then he examined the corpse more carefully — but without touching it. The severed spinal column was fat, reinforced with extra bone and sinew. It contained in effect two spines! Wamphyri! The head would likewise contain a composite brain, also turning to mush.
'Who were you?' Harry asked it.
was Corlis, of the Lady Karen's aerie, the other moaned. Alas, I was too ambitious. Now go away — leave me to my misery.p>
Too ambitious?' Harry gulped. 'So it would appear!' He glanced up at the sphere and quickly looked away. The light was unbearable. From a zippered pocket he took out dark goggles and put them on, then looked all about. A little apart from the corpse lay a modern walkie-talkie radio, somewhat battered, its aerial fully extended. Harry stared at it, shook his head. He could see that it was a Russian model; beyond that it seemed pointless to conjecture.
