He stepped in through the metaphysical Mobius door, and entered a place beyond all places, beyond all times, yet encompassed by and encompassing space-time itself. It was not the same as - could not be likened to - any experience he'd ever known before. Even the first time he'd been ... here, with Zek, less than twenty-four hours ago, it had been different. At the very least there had been water then, a great spout of Ionian sea-water which had entered the Continuum under its own pressure, dispersing to ... wherever. Now there wasn't even that.
There was nothing!
It was a place of utter darkness: perhaps even the Primal Darkness itself, which existed before this universe or any parallel universe such as Nathan's began. Except there wasn't only an absence of light, but an absence of everything. Nathan might well be at the entirely conjectural core of a black hole (his E-Branch tutors had dealt with certain of the basic theories of cosmology, at least); except a black hole has enormous gravity, and this place had none. No gravity, no time (and therefore no space), no light. Not a place obeying one single Law of Nature or Science, and therefore a place outside the Universe we know. And yet existing within the Universe we know, for it had twice been conjured by a common - or an uncommon - human being; by the Necroscope Nathan Keogh. As for Nathan's father: Harry had been an habitual user, almost an inhabitant, of 'the place'.
Both central and external, the Mobius Continuum was nowhere and it was everywhere; from such a starting point one might go anywhere, or go nowhere forever. And it would be for ever, for in this timeless - environment? - nothing would ever age or change except by force of will... which was a fact that Nathan knew without knowing how he knew it. But then, how does a moorhen chick know how to swim? It was in his mind, his blood, his genes.
A 'place', then, this Mobius Continuum: which might well be its best, indeed its only description. But Nathan's tutors had also touched upon theology, especially that of the Christian religion. And Nathan sensed that in some way this might even be a 'holy' place. If so, then little wonder he'd been put to such pains to discover it. For it must be a very private holy place, in which no God as yet had uttered
those wonderful words of evocation: 'Let there be light!' Or if such words had been spoken ... then this was the source of everything, the initial singularity from which THE ALL had shone out in a great and glorious beginning!
And as that thought dawned, at a stroke, so Nathan hit upon the greatest secret of all, which had taken his father a veritable lifetime to discover. But it was only a thought, which he hadn't recognized as the truth .. .
What he did recognize was this: that empty as this 'place' was - and as far removed from man's laws as could be - still it had laws and forces of its own. For even now he could feel one such force working on him, trying to move, remove, or dislodge him from this unreal place back into the real. But Nathan had a will of his own and wasn't about to be moved except in the direction he desired.
'Behind' Nathan, if mundane directions had any meaning in such a place, the Mobius door closed. And, remembering his purpose here, he pictured the Garden of Repose in Kensington which was his target destination. It had been his plan to 'picture' Sir Keenan Gormley's memorial marker, to focus upon the plaque and use it as a different kind of marker, but he now saw that this wasn't necessary.
For no sooner had the crematorium in Kensington entered his thoughts, than he found himself in motion and knew that he was headed in that 'direction'. It was as if he were drawn along a route, though whether in a straight line, a curve, up or down ... it was impossible to say or even guess. But definitely he felt the first tentative tugging of some force other than the Mobius Continuum's rejection forces. Not even a tugging, as such, but more a gentle pressure that seemed to want to guide him. He'd known something like it before when tracking the Mobius loop symbol from Zakynthos in the Aegean back to E-Branch HQ. Then it had been his lifeline - Zek's, too - and, remembering that, he felt in no way threatened.
He simply went with the motion, the feeling, following it to its source: the co-ordinates of Keenan Gormley's Garden of Repose in Kensington. And, like seeing a light at the end of a tunnel, so Nathan sensed the way ahead and accelerated his metaphysical motion by willing himself . .. that way, towards it. And as if he'd been walking and had suddenly broken into a run, he sensed that he was moving that much faster. So incredibly fast indeed that he was there!
And going from the incalculable 'velocity' of thought to stationary in less than a second - yet feeling no discomfort whatsoever - Nathan conjured another Mobius door and stepped across the threshold.
Light! Such brilliant light that he gasped and screwed his eyes tight shut. And gravity! Nathan staggered a moment as his feet touched solid earth and his legs trembled where they took his weight. Then someone said, 'Now!' And eager hands reached out to steady him.
And despite that time had seemed to pass during Nathan's trip from E-Branch HQ to Kensington, this was that same moment when the voice of the esper on the podium made his all-important mistake, and asked his all-important question: 'Yes, now, for Christ's sake! Why are you repeating me?' Which sounded now from a handset in the Kensington crematorium where Nathan stood. Important for this reason: it was the first proof positive that 'time' in the Mobius Continuum is non-existent.
'Well done, Nathan!' Someone gasped his amazement, his congratulations. While in the Necroscope's deadspeak mind: