But while on the one hand Paddy was only a mongrel dog, Harry Keogh's first experiment with necromancy, on the other hand there had been men, too, called back into life by his 'art'; even a pretty young girl called Penny. All of whom had known the hell of dying twice, needlessly, because of Harry. And yet, not all of the people he'd touched in this way had been victims.
In the Zarundului mountains of Romania, Nathan talked to a Thracian Warlord called Bodrogk, and to his wife, Sofia ... or rather, to what remained of them. For they were no more of the flesh but a few handfuls of dust blown away on the winds of the world. But because they'd died here, they remained here still, to tell Nathan of his father's works. And none of the dead that he had spoken to or would speak to had more praise for Harry than Bodrogk the Thracian and his wife Sofia.
In the dark of night, in the ruins of an old castle under a waxing moon, their deadspeak voices thin as air appraised him of Harry Keogh's works: how the Necroscope had gone up against the last of the fabled Ferenczys here - Janos, the bloodson of Faethor - and won! And Nathan knew the story must be true, not only because the dead were telling it, but because the very name Ferenc was a curse in his own world, too. As were all the names of the Wamphyri!
But when Nathan learned of the things this Janos had done - of the men he'd called up from their sacred dust to torture them for their secrets, and of their long-dead women which he'd used for other purposes - then finally his mind was decided on the subject: Necromancy was a talent he would not pursue. In any case, it was abhorred by the Thyre and the dead of the Szgany alike, which was why the latter had avoided Nathan: because he was the son of the hell-lander, Harry Keogh. It was the last legacy of his father, which in his own world at least Nathan still must live down; either live it down, or prove that Harry's reputation in this respect was unwarranted.
But in this world, now that the Great Majority had finally befriended him:
Nathan visited a graveyard outside of Ploiesti in Romania, whose dead had risen up on his father's behalf against Securitatea thugs in the days of Ceausescu. They were still there and they still remembered, and made him welcome. His father was a legend to them, and they swore that despite the timidity of the Great Majority in general, they had never turned their backs on Harry Keogh.
What? But Harry had been responsible for the removal of a great cancer out of their earth: the termination of Faethor Ferenczy himself, and his expulsion into the infinite abyss of future time - indeed, into Mobius time. For within the Mobius Continuum, Harry had sent the incorporeal spirit of the master vampire Faethor winging down future time-streams with only his mind intact and no possible hope of rescue. Such had been the Necroscope's loathing of vampires ... and such was his son's loathing of them . ..
He visited a cemetery not far from Newcastle in England's north-east, to talk to a prostitute Harry had known. Pamela's one regret was that she had never known his father 'that' way ... but she had known and liked him enough to dig her way out of her grave for him when he was in trouble. It had happened at a time shortly before Harry had been driven out of (or had chosen to leave) this world for Starside, when the Necroscope had been up against a monster in human guise by the name of Johnny Found. With Pamela's help -and the help of others of the teeming dead, Pound's victims all - Harry had destroyed him right there in that graveyard.
So Nathan learned of his father's works, from the living
and the dead alike: from his friends in E-Branch and from the teeming dead in their graves across the world. And so he spanned the world in his efforts to track down any who had known Harry Keogh, in order to vindicate his father and re-establish his reputation.
In point of fact, it wasn't an absolute requirement that Nathan visit their last resting places in order to talk to the dead; it would be far easier to reach out a deadspeak probe, seek them out across all the miles, and do it that way. But that had not been his father's way. The first Necroscope had never been the one to 'shout' at the Great Majority; when he had desired to speak to a dead man, then he had gone to 'see' him. Except in matters of extreme urgency, it had seemed the polite thing to do; and so it seemed to Nathan.
In this respect, too, he must use extreme caution. A good many of Harry Keogh's dead friends lay in graves or other resting places within perimeters which had enclosed the once USSR. Even with the Mobius Continuum to command, Nathan knew enough to restrict his visits to places such as these. Just as there were espers in the West, so there were 'talented' men in the East - and most of them belonged to Turkur Tzonov!
But so many dead people to visit, because this might be his last chance; so many of them who he must talk to. And all to be seen to in little more than twenty-four hours: a day, a night and a morning. Because that was all the time Nathan had left.. .
... In this world, at least.
To most men, his itinerary - the amount of work he packed into those few short hours - would have been exhausting; without the Mobius Continuum it would have been impossible. Nathan was Szgany, however, and accustomed to the seemingly interminable hours of day- and night-time on Sunside/Starside, where each day/night cycle was equivalent to a week in the parallel world of Earth. In this respect, he could and did drive himself to an almost insomniac extent.