The Source

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, ru

'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.

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.

There were various niches in the walls, together with the mouths of many magmass wormholes. When Harry saw what some of these contained, then he remembered Faethor's - or Belos's - story.

High up in the curved wall, one such sat with its shrivelled legs dangling over the rim of a magmass hole. The thing was mummified, where dripstone had fused its legs to the wall and commenced covering them with gleaming calcium. An eyeless skull, hideously misshapen, leaned out. Frozen in death, its gaping jaws were wolfish, toothed like a carnivore. The creature seemed to leer at Harry with a permanent, imperishable malignancy. He wasn't much worried; it had leered like that for a long, long time. Vampire killer! it suddenly accused.

Harry shrugged. 'I can't deny it. But on that score, it seems you at least have no worries. Nor any of you here.'

Now other voices joined the first: Impudent pup! And: This is a private place of the Wamphyri - begone! And: Who are you, to disturb our sleep of centuries?

'Sorry,' Harry shrugged, 'but I'm not dressed for conversation - polite or otherwise. But I'd better inform you: I know that to a man you're all exiles. You may have been high and mighty Wamphyri in your own world, but here you're just crumbling old dead things! That's how it goes. Now me, I won't hold your past against you, as long as you don't hold mine against me.'

After a moment of blank astonishment: You dare - !? they cried in one voice.

'Now it's cold in here,' Harry continued unperturbed. 'So I'm going to pick up a change of clothing. If by the time I return you're feeling more sociable, we can start over and no hard feelings. If not - ' again his shrug. 'It's your loss, as the teeming dead would doubtless testify - if they'd waste their time talking to such as you!'

Before they could answer he took up his torch and flippers, slipped back into the water. It was icy cold but it would only be for a moment. He let the river bob him downstream to a safe distance, then conjured a slightly warped door and floated through it. He fixed the location firmly in his mind, went back to the copse and his kit-bag.

There he took a long deep swig from a hip flask of brandy, tossed the flask away. He tied a fifty-foot length of nylon cord to the neck of the waterproof bag, went back to the midnight river and exited the Mobius Continuum into the water at the required location. As the kit-bag sank he swam furiously for the cave of the sphere. Climbing back onto the ledge, he hauled in the kit-bag and quickly changed into warm clothes. The bag also contained a heavy, special-issue machine-gun, which he now checked against the possibility of damp or damage. Everything seemed OK.

Ahhh - ! He was aware of a concerted mental sighing as he stood on the ledge and paused to wonder if he'd forgotten anything. He comes and goes like a ghost! He has a deal of magic!

Harry smiled. 'Oh, I've got some magic, all right,' he agreed. 'But as for being a ghost... I'm flesh and blood, and it's you fellows who - '

Harry! said a different voice, a very frightened, very primitive, guttural, almost animal voice in his mind. Be careful, Harry Keogh. It's dangerous to speak to the Wamphyri as you have spoken to them!

Harry found the speaker - a squat, dwarfish aboriginal creature - crouched in a cramped cavity apart from the others. A stalagmitic sheath had almost completely enveloped him, so that it seemed to Harry he conversed with what was very nearly a stone statue.

'You're not Wamphyri?' he said.

Hah! The others were part amused, part outraged. Him - that! - Wamphyri? A trog, you fool!

Trog?' Harry glanced from the trog to the others and back. 'Oh, yes, I remember! I was told I might find a trog or two here. Travellers, too, perhaps?'

Travellers, too, Harry, said yet another voice, much more human. But it sounded very distant, that voice, very faint and fading. Alas, we don't have the same durability as trogs and Wamphyri. I'm afraid we're little more than memories now.