Brian Lumley - Necroscope IV - Deadspeak

'A test,' Harry answered, 'like I said. He wouldn't see it as a sacrifice. Vampires have no friends, only thralls. And anyway, Armstrong was only one of Janos's players; he has plenty more. Ken Layard, for example, who can do anything Armstrong could do and a lot more. But I understand your question: why provoke a skirmish you can't win, right?'

'Right.'

Harry shook his head. 'The future isn't like that,' he said. 'It isn't easily read, never safely, and there's no way to avoid it. And, it must always be remembered, nothing is certain until it has happened. There was a man, a Russian esper, called Igor Vlady. I met him once in the Möbius Continuum. In life he'd been a prognosticator, he read the future. And when he was dead he kept right on doing it, eventually to become a master of future and past time. Where all space was an open book to Möbius, all time was Vlady's playground. Incorporeal, he wandered the timestream forever. Vlady told me that in life he had always held his own future inviolable: he wouldn't read it, felt that to do so would be to tempt fate. He didn't want to know how or when his time would come, for he knew that he'd only worry about it as it loomed ever closer. Eventually, in a moment of uncertainty and fear, he broke his own rule and forecast his own death. He believed he knew from which quarter it was coming, and fled to avoid it. But he was wrong and fled into it! He was like a man crossing railway tracks, who sees a train coming and jumps to avoid it — into the path of another train.'

Darcy said: 'You mean, Janos can't trust what he reads of the future?'

'He can trust it only to a point. He sees only the wide scheme of things, not the fine details. And whatever he sees, he knows he can't avoid it. For example: he knew Faethor would destroy him, but saw beyond it to a time when he'd be back. He couldn't stop Faethor and didn't really try to, for the inevitable was by definition inescapable, but he could and did make certain of his return.'

Manolis had kept up with all of this as best he could, but now he began to feel something of the hopelessness of it. And he asked: 'But how can you even think to beat this creature? He would seem to me… invincible!'

Harry smiled a strange, grim smile. 'Invincible? I'm not so sure about that. But I'm sure he wants us to think he is! Ask yourself this: if he's invincible, why does he concern himself with us? And why is he so worried about me? No, Igor Vlady was right: the future is never certain, and only time can tell. And anyway, what difference does it make? If I don't seek him out, he'll only come looking for me.' He nodded. 'A showdown, yes, it's coming. And for now Janos is pulling the strings. We can only hope that in his manipulations he'll overstep himself and make the same mistake Igor Vlady made… and step in front of a train.'

At 8:05 p.m. the call Manolis was expecting from the pilot of the Rhodes-Karpathos Skyvan materialized; it transpired that Jianni Lazarides's aircraft, piloted by a man in his employ, had taken off at 3:00 a.m. from the Karpathos airstrip, destination unknown, with Lazarides himself aboard — accompanied by a man and woman answering Sandra's and Ken Layard's descriptions!

Harry had steeled himself to expect something of the sort and wasn't so badly shocked, but he was puzzled. 'How do you mean, destination unknown? Wouldn't the aircraft require some sort of clearance? Didn't he log himself out, go through customs, or whatever they have to do?'

Manolis gave a snort. 'I say again, this is Greece. And Karpathos is a small island. The airport is… a shack! It has only existed for a year or two, and wouldn't be there at all if not for the tourists. But, did you say customs? Hah! Someone to stamp your passport if you're a foreigner coming in, maybe, but not if you're Greek and going out! And at 3:00 in the morning — why, it amazes me that anyone has even bothered to remember the time so precisely!'

'Stymied,' said Darcy. 'He could have gone anywhere.'

Harry shook his head. 'No, I can find him. The problem is, it may not be so easy for me to go where he's gone. We'll jump that one when we reach it. Meanwhile, I have to speak to Armstrong.'

That caught both Manolis and Darcy off balance — for a moment. Darcy was the first to recover, for he'd seen the Necroscope at work before. 'You want us to take you to him?'

'Yes, and right now. Not that I think time is any longer of the essence, for I don't. Wheels have been set in motion and everything will eventually come to a head, I'm sure. But if all I had to do was sit twiddling my thumbs… I think I'd go mad.'

Manolis had caught up. 'Are you saying you're going to speak to a dead man?'

Harry nodded. 'Yes, at the incinerator. That's where he is and where he'll always be, from now on.'

'And… and he'll talk to you?'

'It doesn't trouble the dead to talk to me,' said Harry. 'Armstrong's no longer in thrall to Janos. He might even be eager to square things. And later, tonight, then there's someone else I must try to reach.'

'Möbius?' Darcy wondered.

'The same,' Harry nodded. 'A vampire tangled my mind and took away my deadspeak, and it took another vampire to put the mess to rights. But the one who caused the damage was also a great mathematician: my son, who inherited his talents from me. And while he was in my mind he also closed certain doors, so that now I'm' innumerate. Well, if Faethor could do what he did, maybe Möbius can restore that other talent of mine. If so, then Janos gets a real run for his money.'

The incinerator was still working. A young Greek labourer on overtime shovelled timber waste into the red and yellow maw of a glaring, roaring beast, while overhead, smoke shot with dying sparks billowed blackly from a high chimney. Darcy and Manolis stood to one side watching the stoker at work, and Harry sat on a crate a little apart from them, his strange eyes staring and almost vacant. His mind, however, was anything but vacant, and the Necroscope's every instinct assured him that Seth Armstrong's spirit was here. Indeed, he could hear its moaning cries.

Armstrong, Harry said, but softly, you're out of it now. You've been released. Why all the sorrow?

The moaning and sobbing stopped at once, and in another moment: Harry Keogh? Armstrong's dead voice was full of astonishment and disbelief. You'd talk to me?

Oh, I've talked to a lot worse than you, Seth, Harry told him. And anyway, it's my guess you were just another victim, like so many others. I don't think you could help what you'd become.

I couldn't, oh I couldn't! the other answered, with obvious relief. For five and a half long years I was just a…a fly in his web. He was my master; I was in thrall to him; nothing I did was of my own free will.

I know, Harry told him, but they like to pretend it is. I suppose that even knowing it's a lie, still it's the one salve to their conscience: that you are theirs of your own free will.

Conscience? Armstrong's spirit was bitter. Don't make me laugh, Harry. Creatures such as Janos Ferenczy never suffered such common complaints!

You're glad to be free of him, then? So why the remorse? You're as one with the teeming dead now. Which, as so many of them have told me, isn't as bad as you might think.

Oh? said Armstrong. And do you honestly believe the dead will wish anything to do with me?

Harry thought about it a moment, then said: Two of them, at least, that I can think of. And probably more. What of your parents, Seth?

He sensed the other's nod. Dead some time ago, yes. But… do you think…?

I think that when you've got yourself together, it might be a good idea to try and reach them, said Harry. As for the Great Majority: who can say? Maybe they won't come down on you as hard as you think. Certainly I can put in a good word for you.