Harry nodded. He killed you, right?
He did more, worse, than that! the other moaned, his deadspeak thin as the slither of dry, dead leaves. He took my life, my body, and left me without… anything! Not even a place to rest.
Harry felt that this was very important. Can you explain?
I've spoken to a great many Zirras in the Place of Many Bones, George Vulpe told him. When the Ferenczy lay in his urn, they were the ones who came to feed and refuel him with their blood. But I was different. On my hands there were only three fingers!
Now Harry gasped. You were the one!
He has my body, the other said again. And I can't rest. Ever.
What was he? Harry wanted to know. / mean, how did he usurp you, drive you from your body?
The other explained. My blood drew him up from his urn. I was a son of his sons, from the Zirra clan. But I didn't know that. Only my blood knew.
He came from his urn? Harry pressed. As essential salts?
My blood transformed him.
Harry needed help to understand. He uncovered Faethor.
Damn you, Harry Keogh! the incorporeal vampire at once raged.
Be quiet! Harry told him. Explain what this man is saying to me.
Faethor heard Vulpe's story, said: Why, isn't it obvious?
Janos had taken precautions. When I reduced his brain and vampire both to ashes, his ever faithful Zirras hid him away in a secret place until he could perform this… this metempsychosis. But it wasn't merely a transfer of minds: Janos's leech was revived from its ashes. The creature itself entered this one's body! And now -
But Harry at once closed him down again. And: George, he said, thanks for your help. I don't see what good it will do me, but thanks anyway.
The only answer was a sigh, rapidly fading to nothing…
Harry strove to rise up from unconsciousness, to revive himself, to wake up. And was on the verge of succeeding, then Möbius came.
Harry! Möbius cried. We have it! We believe we have it! He entered the Necroscope's mind, and in another moment: Yes, yes — this must be right! But… are you ready?
I've never been so ready, Harry answered.
That's not what I meant, said Möbius. / mean, are you prepared mentally?
Prepared mentally? August, what is this?
The Möbius Continuum, Harry. I can open those doors, but not if you're not ready for it. There's a different universe in there, doors opening on places undreamed. Harry, I wouldn't want you to get sucked into your own mind!
Sucked into — ? Harry shook his head. / don't follow.
Look… did you solve my problem?
Problem? Suddenly Harry felt rage and frustration boiling up in him. Your fucking problem? What time do you think I've had for solving fucking problems?
Did you even think about it?
No… Yes!… yes, I thought about it.
And?
Nothing.
Harry, I'm going to open one of those doors… now!
The Necroscope felt nothing. Did it work?
It worked, yes, Möbius breathed. And if you have the equations, you should be able to do the rest yourself.
But I don't feel any different.
Did you ever? Before, I mean?
No, but-
I'll open another door. There!
But this time Harry did feel it. A sharp white lance of agony, setting off fireworks in his head. It was something like the pain Harry Jnr had arranged for him if ever he should be tempted to use his deadspeak, but since he was already unconscious its effect was greatly reduced. And it served an entirely different purpose.
Instead of blacking him out, it jabbed him awake -
— He came awake, into a waking nightmare!
Cold liquid burned his face, got into his throat and stung him, caused him to cough. It was — alcohol? Certainly it was volatile. It smoked, shimmering into vapour all around. And Harry was lying in it. He struggled to his hands and knees, tried not to breathe the fumes, which were rising up into some sort of flue directly overhead… A blackened flue… Fire-blackened!
Harry kneeled in a basin or depression cut from solid rock, kneeled there in this pool of volatile liquid. Impressions came very quickly. He must be in the very bowels of the castle, down in the bedrock itself… a huge cave… and against the opposite wall where rough-hewn steps led up to the higher levels… there stood Janos watching him! He held a burning brand aloft, his scarlet eyes reflecting its fire.
Their eyes met, locked, and Janos's lips drew back from his monstrous teeth in a hideous grin. 'And so you are awake, Necroscope,' he said. 'Good, for I desired that you should feel the fire which will make you mine forever!' He looked at the torch in his hand, then at the floor. Harry looked, too. At a shallow trough or channel where it had been cut in the rock. It ran from Janos's feet, across the floor, to the lip of the basin.
Jesus! Harry lurched for the rim of the shallow pool, and his hands shot out from under him. He wallowed in the liquid, put one hand on the rim and drew himself up, heard Janos's mad laughter and saw him slowly lowering the brand to the floor!
My problem, Harry! Möbius was hysterical in his horror.
Harry fought back terror to picture the thing, instinctively translating Möbius's circumferences into diameters:
And his intuitive mathematical talent, returned to him at last, did the rest.
What am I? Möbius howled, as the fire of Janos's torch descended to the liquid fuse.
'Light!' Harry cried aloud. 'What else can you be? Only light expands at twice the speed of light — from nothing to a diameter of 744,000 miles in two seconds!'
Fire whooshed, came racing across the floor of the cave in a blue-glaring blaze.
Which light? Möbius was frantic.
'You were nothing until you came into existence,' Harry yelled. 'Therefore… you are the Primal Light!'
Yes!!! Möbius danced in Harry's mind. And my source was the Möbius Continuum! Welcome back, Harry!
Computer screens opened in Harry's mind even as the bowl became an inferno. Searing heat roared up in a tongue of blue fire that belched into the chimney overhead. Liquid fire singed the hair from his head and face and set his clothes blazing. It lasted perhaps one tenth of a second — until Harry conjured a Möbius door and toppled through it!
He knew where to go, conjured a second door and fell out of the Möbius Continuum into a deep drift of snow at the roof of the world. He was scorched, yes, but alive. Alive as never before. Elation filled him, and more than elation. His laughter — hysterical as Möbius's own — quickly died down, went out of him, became a growl that rumbled menacingly in his throat…