The Source (14 page)

Read The Source Online

Authors: Brian Lumley

BOOK: The Source
5.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
“Didn't that lunatic Gerenko have exactly that in mind before you … dealt with him?” Clarke was persistent.
Harry shook his head. “I didn't kill Gerenko,” he said. “Faethor Ferenczy did it for me.” He fingered his chin, glanced again at Clarke and said, “But you've made your point.”
Harry put his head down, clasped his hands behind him, walked slowly back through the brooding house to his study. Clarke followed him, trying to contain himself and not show his impatience. But time was wasting and he desperately needed Keogh's help.
It was mid-afternoon and streamers of late autumn sunlight were filtering in through the windows, highlighting the thin layer of dust that lay everywhere. Harry seemed to notice it for the first time; he trailed his finger along a dusty shelf, then paused to consider the accumulation of dark, gritty fluff on his fingertip. Finally he turned to Clarke and said: “So really, there was no ‘parallel case' after all. That was just to make sure I'd listen to you, hear you out?”
Clarke shook his head. “Harry, if there's one person in the world I would never lie to, you're it! Because I know you hate it, and because we need you. There's a parallel case, right enough. You see, I remembered how you put it that time eight years ago when your wife and child disappeared—before you quit E-Branch. You said: ‘They're not dead, and yet they're not them—so
where
are
they?' I remembered it because it seems the same thing has happened again.”
“Someone has disappeared? In the same way?” Harry frowned, made a stab at it: “Simmons, do you mean?”
“Jazz Simmons has disappeared, yes, in the same way,” Clarke answered. “They caught him something less than a month ago and he was taken into Perchorsk. After that contact was difficult, very nearly impossible. David Chung reckoned it was (a) because the complex is at the foot of a ravine; the sheer bulk of matter blocks the psychic view (b) because it's protected by a dense lead shield, which has the same effect; and (c) mainly because there are Soviet espers mind-blocking the place. Even so, Chung was able to get through on occasion. What he has seen or ‘scried' in there isn't reassuring.”
“Go on,” said Harry, his interest waxing again.
“Well,” Clarke continued, and immediately paused and sighed. “This isn't easy, Harry. I mean, even Chung found it difficult to explain, and I'm only repeating him. But … he's seen something in a glass tank. He says he can't describe it better than that because it never seems to be the same. No, don't ask me.” He quickly held up his hands, shook his head. “Personally I haven't the foggiest idea. Or if I have an idea then I don't much care to voice it.”
“Go ahead,” said Harry. “Voice it.”
“I don't have to,” Clarke shook his head. “I'm sure you know what I mean …”
Harry nodded. “OK. Is there anything else?”
“Only this: Chung says he sensed fear, that the complex was full of dread, living in terror. Everyone in the place was desperately afraid of something, he said. But again, we don't know what. So that was how things stood until just three days ago. Then—”
“Yes?”
“Then no more contact. And not just Soviet ‘static' either—literally
no
contact! Simmons's cross, and presumably
Simmons himself, were—well, no longer there. No longer anywhere, in fact.”
“Dead?” Harry's face was grim.
But Clarke shook his head. “No,” he said, “and that's what I meant when I called it a parallel case. It's so like your wife and child. Chung himself can't explain it. He says he
knows
the cross still exists—that it hasn't been broken up or melted down or in any other way destroyed—and he believes that Simmons still has it. But he doesn't know where it is. It defies his talent to find it. And he's angry about it, and frustrated. In fact his feelings are probably a lot like yours: he's come up against something he doesn't understand and can't figure out, and he's blaming himself. He even started to lose faith in his scrying, but we've tested that and it's OK.”
Harry nodded and said, “I can understand the way he must feel. That's exactly what it's like. He knows that the cross is still extant, and Simmons still alive, but he doesn't know where they are.”
“Right,” Clarke nodded. “But he does know where the cross isn't. It isn't on this Earth! Not according to David Chung, anyway.”
Lines of concentration etched themselves in Harry's brow. He turned his back on Clarke and stared out of a window. “Of course,” he said, “I can very quickly discover if Simmons is dead or not. Quite simply, I can check with the dead. If an Englishman called Michael ‘Jazz' Simmons has died recently in the upper Urals, they'll be able to tell me in … why, in no time at all! It's not that I doubt your man Chung is good—not if you say he is—but I'd like to be sure.”
“So go ahead, ask them,” Clarke answered. But he couldn't suppress a shiver at the matter-of-fact way the Necroscope talked about it.
Harry turned to face his visitor and smiled a strange, wan smile. His brown eyes had turned dark and very bright, but even as Clarke looked at them their colour seemed to lighten. “I just did ask them,” he
said. “They'll let me know as soon as they have the answer …”
 
That answer wasn't long in coming: maybe half an hour, during which time Harry sat deep in his own thoughts (and who else's thoughts? Clarke wondered) while the man from E-Branch paced the floor of the study to and fro. The sun's light began to fade, and an old clock ticked dustily in a corner. Then—
“He's not with the dead!” Harry breathed the words like a sigh.
Clarke said nothing. He held his breath and strained his ears to hear the dead speaking to Hany—and dreaded to hear them—but there was nothing. Nothing to hear or see or feel, but Clarke knew that Harry Keogh had indeed received his message from beyond the grave. Clarke waited.
Harry got up from behind his desk, came and stood close. “Well,” he said, “it looks like I'm recruited—again.”
“Again?” Clarke spoke to cover the feeling of relief he felt must be emanating from his every pore in tangible streams.
Harry nodded. “Last time it was Sir Keenan Gormley who came to get me. And this time it's you. Maybe you should take warning from that.”
Clarke knew what he meant. Gormley had been eviscerated by Boris Dragosani, the Soviet necromancer. Dragosani had gutted him to steal his secrets. “No,” Clarke shook his head, “that doesn't really apply. Not to me. My talent's a coward called Self Preservation: first sign of anything nasty, and whether I want to or not my legs turn me about face and run the hell out of there! Anyway, I'll take my chances.”
“Will you?” The question meant something.
“What's on your mind?”
“I left stuff of mine at E-Branch,” Harry said.
“Clothes, shaving kit, various bits and pieces. Are they still there?”
Clarke nodded. “Your room hasn't been touched except to clean it. We always hoped you'd come back.”
“Then I won't need to bring anything from here with me. I'm ready when you are.” He closed the door to the patio.
Clarke stood up. “I've two rail tickets here, Edinburgh to London. I came from the station by taxi, so we'll need to call a—” And he paused. Harry wasn't moving, and his smile was a little crooked, even devious. Clarke said: “Er—is there something?”
“You said you'd take your chances,” Harry reminded him.
“Yes, but … what sort of chances are we talking about here?”
“It's been a long time,” Harry told him, “since I went anywhere by car or boat or train, Darcy. That way wastes a lot of time. The shortest distance between two point is an equation—a Möbius equation!”
Clarke's eyes went wide and his gasp was quite audible. “Now wait a minute, Harry, I—”
“You came here knowing that when you'd told me your story I wouldn't be able to refuse,” Harry cut him off. “No risk to you or to E-Branch; your talent takes care of you and the Branch looks after its own, but plenty of trouble for Harry Keogh. Where I'm going—
wherever
I'm going—I'm sure there'll be times I wish I hadn't listened to you. So you see,
I
really am taking my chances. I'm trusting you, trusting to luck and to my talents. So how about you? Where's your faith, Darcy?”
“You want to take me to London … your way?”
“Along the Möbius strip, yes. Through the Möbius Continuum.”
“That's perverse, Harry,” Clarke grimaced. He still wasn't convinced that the other meant it. The thought of the Möbius Continuum fascinated him, but it frightened
him, too. “It's like forcing a scared kid to take a ride on a figure-of-eight. Like bribing him to do it, with an offer he can't refuse.”
“It's worse than that,” Harry told him. “The kid has vertigo.”
“But I don't have—”
“—But you will!” Harry promised.
Clarke blinked his eyes rapidly. “Is it safe? I mean, I don't know anything about this thing you do.”
Harry shrugged. “But if it isn't safe, your talent will intervene, won't it? You know, for a man who's protected as you are, you don't seem to have much faith in yourself.”
“That's my paradox,' Clarke admitted.”It's true—I still switch off all the power before I'll even change a lightbulb! OK, you win. How do we go about it? And … are you sure you know the way there? To HQ, I mean?” Clarke was starting to panic. “And how do you know you can still do it, anyway? See, I—”
“It's like riding a bike,” Harry grinned, (a natural grin, Clarke was relieved to note.) “Or swimming. Once you can do it, you can always do it. The only difference is that it's almost impossible to teach. I had the best teacher in the world—Möbius himself—and it still took me, oh, a long time. So I won't even try to explain. Möbius doors are everywhere, but they need fixing for a second before they can be used. I know the equations that fix them. Then … I could push you through one!”
Clarke backed away—but it was purely an instinctive reaction. It wasn't his talent working for him.
“Let's dance,” said Harry.
“What?” Clarke looked this way and that, as if he searched for an escape route.
“Here,” Harry told him, “take my hand. That's right. Now put your arm round my waist. See, it's easy.”
They began to waltz, Clarke taking mincing steps in the small study, Harry letting him lead and conjuring
flickering Möbius symbols on the screen of his mind. “One, two-three—one, two-three—” He conjured a door, said: “Do you come here often?” It was the closest Harry had come to humour for a long time. Clarke thought it would be a good idea to respond in the same vein:
“Only in the mating—” he breathlessly began to answer.
And Harry waltzed the pair of them through the otherwise invisible Möbius door.
“—S-season!”
Clarke husked. And:
“Oh, Jesus!”
Beyond the metaphysical Möbius door lay darkness: the Primal Darkness itself, which existed before the universe began. It was a place of absolute negativity, not even a parallel plane of existence, because nothing existed here. Not under normal conditions, anyway. If there was ever a place where darkness lay upon the face of the deep, this was it. It could well be the place from which God commanded
Let There Be Light,
causing the physical universe to split off from this metaphysical void. For indeed the Möbius Continuum was without form, and void.
To say that Clarke was “staggered” would be to severely understate his emotion; indeed, the way he felt was almost a new emotion, designed to fit a new experience. Even Harry Keogh had not felt like this when he first entered the Möbius Continuum; for he had understood it instinctively, had imagined and conjured it, whereas Clarke had been thrust into it.
There was no air, but neither was there any time, so that Clarke didn't need to breathe. And because there was no time, there was likewise no space; there was an
absence
of both of these essential ingredients of any universe of matter, but Clarke did not rupture and fly apart, because there was simply nowhere to fly to.
He might have screamed,
would
have, except he held Harry Keogh's hand, which was his single anchor on Sanity and Being and Humanity. He couldn't see Harry
for there was no light, but he could feel the pressure of his hand; and for the moment that was
all
he could feel in this awesome no-every-place.
And yet, perhaps because he had a weird psychic talent of his own, Clarke was not without an understanding of the place. He knew it was real because Harry made use of it, and also because he was here; and he knew that on this occasion at least he need not fear it, for his talent had not prevented him being here. And so, even in the confusion of his near-panic, he was able to explore his feelings about it, at least able to conjecture upon it.

Other books

Lawe's Justice by Leigh, Lora
Sacred Circle by James, Rachel
FROST CHILD (Rebel Angels) by Philip, Gillian
Die for You by Lisa Unger
The Theory of Death by Faye Kellerman