And each time Shaitan thought of that, then he would go to where Harry lay upon a Traveller blanket close to their fire, gaze on him anew and wonder where he’d seen that vaguely familiar face before. In what far land, in what dim and unremembered time, in what previous existence?
He wondered, too, about the Necroscope’s strange powers, amazing powers which he alone possessed, brought with him out of an alien world. With his own ancient but trustworthy eyes, Shaitan had seen him move instantaneously from place to place – but without crossing the distance between! Yes, he had come through the Gate from the world beyond almost as if … as if he had fallen from the one into the next. As Shaitan had once fallen? And from the same world? Possibly. Except . . . except Shaitan had forgotten; for they (but who?) had robbed him of all such memories.
The Necroscope’s fellow men had cast him out (even as Shaitan was cast out in that time before the Wamphyri exiled him), causing him to flee here for his differences. So that in a way the father of vampires even felt a weird kinship with the Necroscope.
And when Harry’s mind was repaired a little, Shaitan entered it again to ask him: Do I know you? Where have I seen you before? Are you of their order, who expelled me from my rightful place?
Harry’s mind was frequently coherent in its limbo; he knew he was addressed; even knew something of the one who addressed him, and the meaning of his questions. And: No, he answered to all three.
Shaitan tried again. I have heard your thoughts. In them, you wonder about strange worlds beyond common ken. Not in the spaces between the stars, but in the spaces between the spaces! Indeed, you have access to just such an invisible space, where you move more surely and speedily than a fish in water. I, too, would move there, in the darkness which is not of the world. Show me how.
It had been the Necroscope’s best-kept secret, but damaged in mind and body, he could no longer keep it. And if he should try, the Fallen One’s mental hypnosis would unlock the mystery anyway. And so he showed Shaitan the computer screen of his mind, where Möbius equations at once commenced mounting in a crescendo. Shaitan saw, felt warned, was afraid.
Stop! he commanded, when the faintest pulse of a tortured Möbius door began to form out of nothing in his mind. And as the screen was wiped clean and the unformed door imploded into itself, so the great leech sighed his relief and was pleased to remove himself from Harry. For having felt the energies emanating from those equations and surrounding that door, he suspected that indeed he had known them before in a world beyond, where they’d been part and parcel of his downfall.
But now . . . Shaitan knew that Harry’s secret place was forever beyond him, and the knowledge angered him. What, kinship? With this puling babe, this infant in dark arts, this bruised and bloodied, unblooded innocent? He must be mad even to have dreamed of it. Anyway, what did it matter that there were forbidden, invisible places? The visible ones would do for starters, and one at a time would suffice. Now that Starside had fallen, the world beyond the Gate – the Necroscope’s own world – would be next. And entry into that place would be soon, before sunup.
Between times . . .
Shaitan knew all he needed to know from the Necroscope. Shaithis could have him now; let the so-called ‘hell-lander’ suffer a vampire’s agonies and death, and him and all of his mystery go up in fire and smoke and so be at an end.
Such were the Fallen One’s thoughts, which he allowed to go out from himself. But inside him there were deeper currents. Fit and well, this Harry Keogh had been a force. If he should live he could well become a force again -even a Power! Which was why Shaithis, if he had any vision at all, would be wise to deal with him with dispatch.