Jordan shook his head. ‘Not while the whole world’s against you, Harry. I won’t leave you yet.’
Harry shrugged and turned away, and continued to climb the stairs. ‘As you wish, but don’t leave it too long . . .’
4
Dreams . . .
The night was still young when Harry laid his head on the pillow, but the moon was up and the stars were bright, and it was his time. His senses were no longer strong in daylight, but in the dark of the night they were sensitive as never before. Even those which governed or were governed by his subconscious mind. And his dreams were stronger, too.
He dreamed first about Möbius and sensed that it was more than an ordinary dream. The long-dead mathematician came and sat on his bed, and while his face and form were indistinct, his deadspeak voice was as sharp and no-nonsense as ever.
The last time we can talk, Harry – in this world, anyway.
Are you sure you want to? the Necroscope answered. It seems I can’t help giving people a bad time lately.
The vague, weightless figure of Möbius nodded. Yes, but we both know that’s not you. That’s why I’ve chosen to come to you now, while your dreams are still your own.
Are they?
I think so. Certainly you sound more like the Harry I used to know.
Harry relaxed a little, sighed and sank down in his bed. So what is it you want to talk about?
The other places, Harry. The other worlds.
My cone-shaped parallel dimensions? The Necroscope gave a wry, apologetic shrug. They were mainly bluff: I argued for argument’s sake. We were practising, my vampire and I.
That’s as it may be, Möbius answered, but bluff or none you were right anyway. Your intuition, Harry. The only thing your vision didn’t take into account was how.
How?
More rightly, who, said Möbius.
How? Who? Are we talking about God again?
The Big Bang, said Möbius. The primal light, back at the dawn of space and time. All of this couldn’t have come out of nothing, Harry. And yet we’ve already decided that before The Beginning there was nothing. Which was foolish of us, because we both know that you don’t need flesh to have mind!
God, Harry nodded. The Ultimate Incorporeal Being. He made it all, right? But to what end?
Möbius’s turn to shrug. To find out what would happen, maybe?
You mean He didn’t already know? What’s that for omniscience?
Unfair, said Möbius. No one can know before the fact. And it’s dangerous to try. But He’s known everything since.
Tell me about the other places, said Harry, fascinated despite himself.
The world of Starside and Sunside is one, Möbius told him. But it was … a failure. There were unforeseen paradoxes and things went disastrously wrong. Starside, the vampire swamps and the Wamphyri themselves: they were cause and effect both! But that’s for the future, and for the past! To tell it now might be to change it, which would be presumptuous.
Space and time are relative, Harry argued. Haven’t I always said so? And in their own way they’re fixed. You can’t damage them by talking about them.
Möbius chuckled, however sadly. Clever, Harry, I’ll grant you that. But you can’t work your vampire wiles on me, my boy! And anyway, Starside isn’t the place I’m talking about.
Well, I’m listening, the Necroscope answered, just a little disgruntled.
Once when we talked, Möbius reminded him, you mentioned the balance of the multiverse, with black and white holes shifting matter around between all the different layers of existence and delaying or even reversing entropy. Like the weights governing the swing of an old clock’s pendulum. But that’s only one sort of balance, the physical sort. Then there’s the metaphysical, the mystical, the spiritual.
God again?
The balance between Good and Evil.
Which all had origin in the same source? Your argument, August Ferdinand! Remember, ‘there was nothing before The Beginning’. Right?
We’re not in dispute, Möbius shook his head. On the contrary, we’re in complete agreement!
Harry was astonished. God had a dark side?
Oh, yes, which he cast out!