Dragosani stepped back then, and farther yet, and in his mind he heard the vampire’s great deep sigh of pleasure, of monstrous craving.
Ahhhh! Not greatly to my taste, Dragosani, but satisfying beyond a doubt. I owe you thanks, my son, but they can wait until tomorrow. Now begone, for I’m tired and hungry, and loneliness is a drug whose addiction I’ve not yet broken . . .
Dragosani needed no second bidding. He backed away from the broken tomb, from the twitching, huddled shape at the centre of the circle. But even as he went his eyes were on the alert for some sign of the vampire’s new freedom, its mobility. Oh, yes! – for Thibor Ferenczy was mobile now – the necromancer could feel him underfoot, could sense him stretching himself, could almost hear the creak of leathery muscles and the groan of old bones as they soaked in blood and something of their brittleness went out of them.
Then –
The ewe’s carcass sagged, slumped lower, closer to the blood-soaked earth. It was as if some seismic suction had pulled at the animal, as if the earth itself were a mouth that sucked. Something moved beneath the slaughtered beast, but Dragosani could make out nothing for certain.
He backed away, backed up against a tree and quickly groped his way around it, putting the rough bole between himself and what was happening. But still he kept his eyes riveted on the ewe’s carcass.
The animal was large and heavy with wool, but even as Dragosani watched so it seemed its bulk shrank down a little, caved in upon itself – diminished! The necromancer sent out a mental probe towards the Thing in the ground, but such was the lusting bestiality it was met with that he at once withdrew it. And still the ewe continued to shrink, shrivel, dwindle away.
And as the ewe was devoured, so the cold ground about began to smoke, a stinking mist rising and rapidly thickening, obscuring the rest of the act. It was as if the earth sweated – or as if something down there breathed, which had not breathed for a long, long time.
That was enough. Dragosani turned away and quickly joined Max Batu. With a finger to his lips he beckoned the other to follow, and quickly they descended the firebreak together and made their way back to the car.
Earlier that same day and some seven hundred miles away, Harry Keogh decided, standing at the grave of August Ferdinand Mobius, (born 1790, died 26th September 1868) that it had been a very bad day for the science of numbers, a very bad day indeed. Or more specifically, a bad day for topology, and not forgetting astronomy. The day in question was the date of Mobius’ death, of course.
There had been students here earlier – East German, mainly, but much like students anywhere else in the world – long-haired and tattily attired; but properly respectful, Harry had thought. And so they should be. He, too, felt respectful; even awed that he stood in the presence of such a man. In any case, not wanting to appear too strange, Harry had waited until he was alone. Also, he had needed to think how best to approach Mobius. This was no ordinary figure lying here but a thinker who’d helped guide science along many of the right paths.
Finally Harry had settled for a direct approach; seating himself, he let his thoughts reach out and touch those of the dead man. A calm came over Harry then; his eyes took on their strange, glassy look; for all that it was bitterly cold, a fine patina of sweat gleamed on his brow. And slowly he grew aware that indeed Mobius – or what remained of him – was here. And active!
Formulae, tables of figures, astronomical distances and non-Euclidean, Riemannian configurations beat against Harry’s awareness like the pulses of mighty, living computers. But … all of this in one mind? A mind which processed all of these thoughts very nearly simultaneously? And then it dawned on Harry that Mobius was working on something, flipping through the pages of memory and learning as he sought to tie together the elements of a puzzle too complex for Harry’s – or for any merely living man’s – comprehension. All very well, but it might go on for days. And Harry simply didn’t have the time.