‘Or so you believed until you met me!’ said Harry, his strange eyes opening wider, his voice full of a new awe. For suddenly a bright star was shining in Harry’s mind, but shining brighter than any nova in the mind of Mobius.
‘What? What’s that?’
‘Are you saying,’ Harry became relentless, ‘that there is no meeting point between the physical and the meta-physical? Is that your argument?’ ‘Exactly!’
‘And yet I am physical, and you are purely mental -and we have met!
He sensed the other’s gape. ‘Astonishing! It seems I’ve overlooked the obvious.’
Harry pressed his advantage: ‘You use the strip, don’t you, to go out amongst the stars?’
‘The strip? I use a variant of it, yes, but – ‘
‘And you called me a Zollnerist?’
For a moment Mobius was speechless. Then: ‘It seems my arguments … no longer apply!’
‘You do teleport!’ said Harry. ‘You teleport pure mind. You’re a scryer. That’s your talent, sir! In a way it always was. Even in life you could-see things that others were blind to. The strip is a perfect example. Well, scrying in itself would be a marvellous weapon, but I want to take it a step farther. I want to impose -I mean rigidly impose -the physical me on the metaphysical universe.’
‘Please, Harry, not so fast!’ Mobius protested. ‘I need to-‘
‘Sir, you offered to teach me,’ Harry couldn’t be restrained. ‘Well, I accept. But only teach me what’s absolutely necessary. Let my instinct, my intuition do the rest. My mind’s a blackboard, and you’ve got the chalk right there in your hand. So go ahead, teach me …
Teach me how to ride your Mobius strip!’
It was night again and Dragosani had climbed back into the cruciform hills. Across his back he carried a second ewe, this one stunned with a large stone. The day had been a busy one, but its proceeds must surely show a profit; Max Batu had had the chance to display yet again the morbid power of his evil eye, this time to one Ladislau Giresci; eventually the old man would be found in his lonely house, ‘victim of a heart attack’, of course.
But Max’s work had not stopped there, for only an hour or so ago Dragosani had sent the Mongolian out upon another crucial mission; which meant that the necromancer was now alone – or to all intents and purposes alone – as he approached the tomb of the vampire and sent his words and thoughts before him to penetrate the cold gloom beneath dark and stirless trees.
‘Thibor, are you sleeping? I’m here as directed. The stars are bright and the night chill, and the moon is creeping on the hills. This is the hour, Thibor – for both of us.’
And after a moment: Ahhhh! . . . Dragosaaaniiti? Sleeping? I suppose I was. But I have slept a grand sleep, Dragosani. The sleep of the undead. And I dreamed a grand dream – of conquest and of empire! And for once my hard bed was soft as the breasts of a lover, and these old, old bones were not weighed down but buoyant as the step of a lad when he meets his lass. A grand dream, aye, but. . . alas, only a dream for all that.
Dragosani sensed . . . despondency? Alarmed for his plan, he asked: ‘Is anything wrong?’
On the contrary. All goes well, my son – except I fear it may take a little longer than I thought. I took strength from your offering of yestereve, indeed I did! – and I fancy I’ve even put on a little flesh. But still the ground is hard and these old sinews of mine stiff from the salts of the earth . . .
And then, more eagerly: But did you remember, Dragosani, and bring me another small tribute? Not too small, I hope? Something, perhaps, to compare with my last repast?
For answer the necromancer came to a halt on the rim of the circle, tossed down from his shoulder to the ground at his feet the inert mass of the ewe in a grunting heap. ‘I didn’t forget,’ he said. ‘But come on, old dragon, tell me what you mean. Why will it take longer than you thought?’ Dragosani’s disappointment was real; his plan depended upon raising the vampire up tonight.