Brian Lumley - The Source

Harry, my boy, I'm glad you've come, said Mobius. I've been doing some thinking about this conjectural parallel universe of yours.

'It gets less conjectural all the time,' Harry told him. 'Only its nature is conjectural now.' And he quickly brought the dead mathematician up to date.

Fascinating! said Mobius. And indeed it confirms my own thoughts on the matter.

'Well, I have to admit it only baffles me,' said Harry. There is light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, but… I mean if there are two gates on this side, why does there only appear to be one on the other?'

Only one? What makes you say that?

'Faethor talked about a shining white door in the shape of a sphere. One door. If there'd been two, wouldn't Old Belos have mentioned the fact?'

Well, whether he did or didn't, there are two, I assure you. Mobius sounded convinced. Two on this side, and two on that. I can explain the principle very simply, without going into a lot of mathematical detail.

'I'm all ears,' said Harry.

Right, Mobius got down to business. Let's consider these 'gateways' a little less intensely, a little more basically. These 'doors' which defy the physical laws of that state which we call space-time. We know there are several sorts, and that all of them warp the 'skin' of this space-time dimension. Modern scientists readily admit of one such: the black hole. And they make guesses about another sort, which they've termed white holes. In fact a current theory has it that white and black holes are two ends of the same tunnel. The black sucks material in, and the white expels it. Agreed?

Harry nodded. 'So I understand,' he said.

Very well. Now, even if the theory is wrong and they're not two sides of the same coin, there remains one factor common to both.

'Which is?'

That they're both one-way systems.' Once you enter a black hole, you don't get out again. And once you've been expelled from a white hole, there's no way back in. The way I see it, the same thing applies to your grey holes: this Gate at Perchorsk, and the second Gate which you believe lies somewhere along the course of this underground river.

'One-way systems?'

Each of them! Emphasis on 'each'. You go in through one, and you come out through the other!

It stopped Harry dead in his tracks. Finally he said: That's brilliant! Once you use a Gate, it's out of bounds. Having passed you through, it won't accept you again, no matter which end you started out from. But a second gate will! So all I have to do is find the second Gate. In fact, I already know where it is! It's the Gate the Wamphyri have been using to send their monstrosities through to Perchorsk.'

Ah, but that's what it is, not where it is, said Mobius.

'It's a step in the right direction, anyway,' Harry replied. Then he sobered a little. There is however one small drawback. If I come through that Gate into Perchorsk, they'll not only shoot me, they'll probably fry me, too!'

Ah-! but here Mobius could only shrug.

Thanks, anyway,' said Harry. 'You've confirmed what I was already suspecting: that there have to be two Gates. The Wamphyri have been using one for thousands of years, and now they've started using the new one, which Luchov and his crowd inadvertently blasted into being at Perchorsk. It's the only explanation. So… if you'll excuse me now I'll be on my way. I have to say goodbye to my mother. She'd never forgive me if I did something like this without telling her.' He sighed. 'She'll want to try to talk me out of it — even knowing she can't. But… she's like that.'

All mothers are like that, Harry, said Mobius, very seriously. Good luck, my boy.

But in fact, luck would have very little to do with it…

The next morning Darcy Clarke met Harry at E-Branch HQ in London, and while Harry checked his equipment, making sure he knew how to use it, Clarke took the opportunity to pass on a little information.

'About this subterranean tributary of the Danube,' he said. 'Harry, it's a death-trap! I had it checked out overnight. Our man in Bucharest looked into it for you. The place is known well enough and we have its exact location. There are newspaper clippings concerning it, various bits of documentation. The locals have an immemorial dislike for it. In 1966 a couple of cavers took it on. It was summer and the tributary was running dry at the time. Four hours after they started in there was a flash flood up in the mountains. One body was washed out, the other lost forever. And these were experts.'

'And they were walking and swimming,' said Harry. 'I won't be.'

'Eh?'

'I said I was going up to the watercourse, but I didn't say how.'

Clarke gasped, 'You'll use the Mobius Continuum?'

'Of course.'

'Then why the wet-suit, aqualung and all?'

'Just in case.'

Clarke fell silent for a moment, then said: 'I was only trying to help.'

'And I appreciate it,' Harry told him. 'But I know my own business best.'

Ten minutes later he took up his gear in a waterproof kit-bag and went to Radujevac. From the outskirts of the town he caught a taxi into the countryside close to the location Clarke had given him. He paid his driver with money from the same source. With his bag over his shoulder he set off down a country track, eventually arriving at his destination. It was a wild place and there was no one around. Harry dumped his kit in a copse and covered the bag with dead branches, then returned to the site of the resurgence.

It was in the base of a cliff, overgrown with ivy, where limestone outcrops glistened with moisture. To the north-east stood the grey, forbidding Carpathians, and to the south sloping wooded countryside. Harry stood on the banks of the pool under the cliffs and looked again at the mountains, then down at the dark water where it gurgled into view from untold caverns of gloom. It issued from the mouth of a cave. This was the spot where Old Belos of the Wamphyri first entered our world. And others like him. And between here and those legendary mountains, somewhere underground, lay a gateway to an alien world. Now it was Harry's task to pin-point that Gate as accurately as possible before setting out up the river to find it.

He checked again that there was no one around, no one to see him take his departure. The place was silent, wooded, where only the birds sang and the cold water gurgled. But this time Harry was well muffled-up and didn't feel the cold.

He picked a spot in the foothills to the north-east, went there via the Mobius Continuum. The door from which he exited was the same as always: a 'hole' in the universe, with nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other doors Harry had used. Harry moved again, even closer to the looming peaks. But this time when he emerged, the 'edges' of his door shimmered a little. It was the warning he'd been looking for, which told him he was close.

Very close, Harry, said a dead voice in his mind, surprising him. It felt like someone had come up close behind him and whispered in his ear.

'Do I know you?' He scanned the countryside around,' looked down on distant towns, Radujevac, Cujmir, Recea. They were smoky, wintry smudges on his horizon.

No, but I know you. Your mother has been making enquiries on your behalf.

Harry sighed. 'She means well,' he said. 'Has she disturbed you?'

Not at all. I'm happy to help. You intend to travel the length of the Radujevac resurgence, right? The voice was full of excitement, eagerness. Which was what gave its owner away.

'You were a caver,' said Harry. 'You died back in the summer of 1966, somewhere up that underground river.'

That's me, said the other, a little sadly. And I never did get to finish the job. My name is Gari Nadiscu, and if I'd made it the bore would have been named after me: the Nadiscu Route. It was a dream. Maybe you can finish it for me?