His mind was still open and Möbius picked up his thoughts:
A breakdown? You? No, never! And especially not now, when we're so close. I need to be into your mind, Harry.
'Enter, of your own free will,' he answered, almost automatically.
The other was very quickly in and out, and he was excited as never before. It all fits! It all fits! he said. And the next time I come, I'm sure I'll be able to unlock those doors.
'But not right now?'
I'm afraid not.
'Then there may not be time for a next time.'
Don't give in, Harry!
'I haven't. I'm just facing facts.'
I swear we'll have the answer in minutes! And meanwhile you could try helping yourself.
'Help myself? How?'
Give yourself a problem in numbers. Set yourself a mathematical task. Prepare to re-establish your numeracy.
'I wouldn't even know what a mathematical problem looked like.'
Then I'll set one for you. The great mathematician was silent for a moment, then said: Now listen. Stage one: I am nothing. Stage two: I am born and in the first second of my existence expand uniformly to a circumference of approximately 1,170,000 miles. Stage three: after my second second of uniform expansion my circumference is twice as great! Question: what am I?
'You're crazy,' said Harry, 'that's what you are! A minute ago I would have sworn it was me, but now I know that I'm perfectly sane. Compared to you, anyway.'
Harry?
Harry laughed out loud, causing the Gypsies who struggled up the final rise with him to jump. 'A madman,' they muttered, 'yes. The Ferenczy has driven him mad!'
The Necroscope used his deadspeak again: August, here's me who can't count his toes without getting nine, and you ask me to solve the riddles of the universe?
Pretty close, Harry, Möbius answered, pretty close. Just keep at it and I'll be back as soon as possible. His deadspeak faded and he was gone.
Jesus! said Harry to himself, shaking his head in disgust. Jesus!
But Möbius's question had stuck in his head. He couldn't give it his attention right now, but he knew it was in there, lodged firmly in his mind.
And now the party had reached the top of the cliffs; and somewhere here on this wind-blasted, sparsely-clad plateau, here lay the ruins of the Castle Ferenczy. That was where Janos waited; but right here and now, here at the top of the long climb... here something else waited. Seven somethings in all, or eight if one included the Grey One slinking in the moon-cast shadows. Harry's 'escort' to the lair of the undead vampire.
The two leading Zirras saw them first, then Harry, finally the three Gypsies who panted where they laboured close behind. All drew back, startled and gasping, except the Necroscope himself. For Harry knew that he stood in the presence of dead men, which was common ground for him. What he and the others with him saw was this:
Seven great Thracians, dead for more than two thousand years, raised up again from their burial urns to do Janos's bidding. They had the aspect of life at least, but there was a great deal of death in them, too. They wore helmets and some pieces of armour of their own period, but wherever their grey flesh showed naked it was scarred, disfigured. Their helmets were fearsome things, designed to terrify any beholder: they were domed, of gleaming bronze, with oval eye-holes dark in the flicker of their torches, and curved, downward-sweeping flanges to cover the jaws of the wearers.
All seven were big men, but their leader stood a good four inches taller than the rest. He stepped forward, massive, but the eyes behind the holes in his mask were red - with sorrow.
Bodrogk looked at Harry Keogh and the five who cowered behind him. 'Free him,' he said. His tongue was ancient but his meaning - the way his bronze sword touched Harry's ropes - couldn't be mistaken.
The Szgany spokesman stepped cautiously to Harry's side and loosened the nooses a little around his neck. And to Bodrogk the Gypsy said: 'You are ... the Ferenczy's creatures?'
Bodrogk didn't understand. He looked this way and that, frowning, wondering what the man's question had been. Harry read his deadspeak confusion and answered: 'He wants to know if Janos sent you.' He spoke the words aloud, letting his deadspeak do the translating. And now Bodrogk's gaze centred on Harry alone.
The massive Thracian paced forward and the Gypsies fell back. Bodrogk caught the ropes around Harry's neck and snapped them like threads. He grunted an introduction, then said: 'And so you are the Necroscope, beloved of all the world's dead.'
'Not all of them,' Harry shook his head, 'for there are cowards among the dead even as there are among the living. If I can't know them - because they are afraid to know me - then I can't befriend them. And anyway, Bodrogk, I've no great desire to be loved by thralls.'
Bodrogk's men had come forward, moving closer to the Gypsies on the bluff, herding them there. Now their huge leader took off his helmet and tossed it clanking aside. His neck was a bull's, his face full-bearded, fierce. But it was grey, that face, and, like the rest of his flesh, gaunt with an unspoken horror. His haggard, harried aspect told far better than any words the way in which Janos had dealt with him and his.
'I heard you talking to the dead,' said Bodrogk. 'You must know that all of Janos's thralls are not cowards.'
'I know that the Thracians in the vaults of his castle are dust, and so can't help me. They told me they would but can't, because only Janos himself may call them up, for he alone has the words. On the other hand... you and your six are not dust.'
'Are you calling us cowards?' Bodrogk's calloused hand fell upon Harry's shoulder close to his neck, and in his other hand a great bronze sword was lifted up a little.
'I only know that where some suffer Janos to live,' Harry answered. 'I came to kill him and remove his taint forever.'
'And are you a warrior, Harry?'
Harry lifted his head, gritted his teeth. He had never feared the dead, and would not now. 'Yes.'
Bodrogk smiled a strange, sad smile - which faded at once as he glanced beyond Harry. 'And these others with you? They captured you and brought you here, eh? A lamb to the sacrifice.'
'They belong to the Ferenczy,' Harry nodded.
The other looked at him and his eyes went into Harry's soul. 'A warrior without a sword, eh? Here, take mine,' He placed it in Harry's hands - then scowled at the Szgany and nodded to his men. The six Thracian lieutenants fell on the Gypsies with their swords, swept them from the bluff and over the edge of the cliff like chaff. It was so swift and sudden, they didn't even have time to scream. Their bodies went bumping, bouncing and clattering into the deep dark gorge.
'A friend at last,' Harry nodded. 'I thought I might find a few, at least.'
'It was you or them,' Bodrogk answered. 'To murder a worthy man, or slaughter a handful of dogs. Thralldom to the Ferenczy, or freedom - for as long as it may last. Not much of a choice. I made the only decision a man could make. But if I had paused a moment to think... then it might have gone the other way. For my wife's sake.' He explained his meaning.
'You've taken an enormous chance,' Harry told him, giving back his sword.
'The dead called out to me,' Bodrogk answered. 'In their thousands they cried out, all of them begging your life. Aye, and one especially, whose tongue lashed like none other! Why, she might have been my own mother! But instead she was yours.'