... And in that room:
Maglore's shewstone stood upon a slender onyx base to one side of a work bench. Seated at the bench, he might simply turn and place his hands upon the instrument of his scrying or far-seeing talent. Except the device was of no stone or crystal as such, but a metal precious in the world beyond the Starside Gate, yet common in the vampire world. Shaped in gold, it was in fact a weighty model of Maglore's sigil: a twisted loop, ten inches long and five wide, compact yet massy - and potent! This was the medium through which Maglore concentrated enhanced Wamphyri powers to contact and 'speak' to his various spies in Sunside, and with which he had hoped to follow the adventures of Nathan in Olden Sunside/Starside.
To that end, when Nathan had lived here a while in Runemanse - not as the Seer-Lord's thrall or familiar, but more nearly as his 'friend' - Maglore had made him a gift of a golden earring in the same design, but only an inch long; not only a practical but also an appropriate gift, for the Mobius loop was Nathan's symbol, too. Indeed, when first he had come here, the youth had worn a twisted leather strap upon his wrist.
And some four months ago, when the Seer-Lord had arranged Nathan's 'escape' from Turgosheim on an aberrant, ill-tempered flyer, then the earring had gone with him: Maglore's 'window' on a far-off land of legend. And the youth all unsuspecting of the Seer-Lord's motive. At least, that was how it was supposed to have been. But scarcely had Nathan arrived in Olden Sunside in the west than contact had been broken. And now Maglore remembered how it had been:
How then as now he had sensed ... something, rushed to his room of meditation and pJaced trembling fingers upon the golden sigil. How he had let his mind drift out from Turgosheim, then hurtle west at the unthinkable speed of thought/ A flight which he had terminated when he'd seen how lifeless was the sigil, a strangely twisted mass of heavy metal and nothing more ... for the moment, and as far as Nathan was concerned, anyway.
So the Seer-Lord's 'window on an unknown world' had been closed. But it was a weird thing, because despite that Nathan's aura was gone, the feeling had persisted that he was not dead. And Maglore had wondered: What, then? Undead? Is he locked in that metamorphic sleep which ever precedes the vampire condition? Has he at last succumbed to the seduction of vampirism? Does Wratha or one of hers have him?
He had not known the answer then, but now:
'Ahhh!' For as his hands touched the sigil and his mind sped west, there surely burned Nathan's flame! The youth was alive, he was - back? - from wherever he had been. And Maglore's lodestone earring still secure in his ear, mere inches from the centre of his brain.
Maglore closed his burning eyes and concentrated, concentrated - and in a moment looked out through Nathan's eyes .. . and looked upon the boulder plains of far Starside, and in the distance that looming menhir which was the last great aerie of the Wamphyri. He looked and knew it as the home of Wratha and her renegades, even as Nathan knew it. More than this, he knew what was uppermost in Nathan's mind: the utter destruction of Wratha and all like her, and everything they stood for. And:
'Strong,' Maglore sighed. 'Ah, strong! What, Nathan "Pale-blood"? No, not this one.' Then . ..
... The picture of the mighty stack faded, and in its place ... an ephemeral portal formed of golden shimmering smoke! That was how Maglore saw Nathan's Mobius door. And as Nathan stepped forward and entered that door, so the Seer-Lord felt something of its power:
A whirlpool of symbols, which Maglore had known before. The esoteric guardian of Nathan's secret mind: the incredible numbers vortex. But not quite the same, no, for now those symbols were ordered; they had intelligence and flowed with a will of their own. Or perhaps with Nathan's will? Yes, for Nathan was their master!
But as Nathan had stepped through that metaphysical door, so he'd been snatched from Maglore's mind, had disappeared out of this universe. Yet, however tenuously, their minds were still linked, so that Maglore felt himself moving with Nathan ... but at such an astonishing speed! Indeed, even as fast as Maglore's thoughts themselves. And as before, Nathan was in control...
Maglore gasped, snatched his stiffened fingers from the loop and staggered back a pace or two. Shocked, his eyes stood out from their orbits in vast amaze. For he knew that Nathan had moved himself - or had physically removed himself - from the plain of boulders to some other place. And he had been in complete command; he'd known what he was about.
Then, much like a child whispering in the dark, Maglore reassured himself: 'But didn't I once say he had powers, this one?' And recognizing, if not understanding, his fear - gazing all about his room of meditation, to make sure no one had seen - he quickly regained control of himself.