The Source by Brian Lumley

‘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?

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *