to know; sufficient that it was here, where he ... where he wanted it? It was a long leech, corrugated, cobra headed, blind-and it had pointed udders, a great many.
Swaying its head this way and that, it inched forward ... then sensed him and commenced a hasty retreat! Curling back on itself, it wriggled like a blindworm; for now it must get back to safety, return itself to Karen's undead flesh. But the Necroscope wasn't about to let that happen.
Using his flamethrower, he burned it... dying, it issued eggs, dozens of them, which spun and skitered, vibrating over the stone flags towards him. Sweating, but cold inside, Harry burned the eggs, too, every one of them. And as if from a milion miles away - as if from someone else's dream - he heard the awful screaming, which he somehow knew was Karen's.
Then, abruptly, leaving him dizzy, disoriented, the scene changed yet again:
To a high balcony where he leaned out and looked down, and knew why he was dizzy: the terrible height! And way down there, crumpled on the scree, the Lady's white gown ... no longer entirely white but red, too.
Karen (or what he and the future-Harry thought was Karen), was inside it. And terribly, achingly, none of it made sense to him, or fleeting sense at best - there one minute and gone the next.
Another jump:
Cold liquid burned his face, got into his throat and stung him, caused him to cough. It was ... alcohol? Certainly it was volatile. It smoked, shimmering into vapour al around him. And ... he saw that he was lying in it!
He struggled to his hands and knees, tried not to breathe the fumes, which were rising up into some sort of flue directly overhead... A blackened flue ... Fire-blackened? Harry kneeled in a basin or depression cut from solid rock, kneeled there in this pool of volatile liquid.
Impressions came quickly: he must be in the very bowels of the castle (but what castle?), down in the bedrock itself. . . a huge cave. And against the opposite wall where rough-hewn steps climbed to unseen higher levels ... there stood Janos Ferenczy, Wamphyri, watching him! The monster held a burning brand aloft, its fire reflecting in his scarlet eyes.
Their eyes met, locked ...}anas's lips drew back from his unbelievable teeth in a hideous grin. He spoke ... but the Necroscope couldn't hear him, could only sense the threat. Janos's gaze transferred to the torch in his taloned hand, then to the floor. Harry looked, too: at a shallow trough or channel cut in the rock, which ran from Janos's feet, across the floor, to the lip of the basin where Harry kneeled. And Janos was slowly lowering his torch!
Jesus! Harry must use the Mobius Continuum - but couldn't! His power had been taken away from him! He was no longer master of Mobius space-time! Again Harry knew this without knowing how he knew. His deadspeak was still available to him, but...
... Deadspeak? Since when had it been called that!? But no, he mustn't attempt to remember that which had not yet happened! Best if he simply accept it: that while the Mobius Continuum was no longer a viable proposition, still he had his deadspeak, his ability to talk to the dead. Wherefore, why not use it? Why not ask them - the teeming dead, the Great Majority - what all of this was about?
Too late! Janos's torch touched down and fire came racing in a blue-glaring blaze! Searing heat gouted up in a whooshing tongue of shimmering flame, roaring into the chimney overhead. Liquid fire singed the hair from Harry's head and face and set his clothes ablaze.
Leaping erect, he cavorted like a human torch!
Until yet again -perhaps mercifully this time - he felt himself snatched a little way into the future ...
... To where he stood in antique ruins as dark as night, yet clear as daylight to him! For while he was scarcely aware of it, the Necroscope was a changeling now; an alien Thing was inside him.
He waited warily, patiently in the ruins of Castle Ferenczy; waited there with . . . with a dead man! With the resurrected Thracian warrior, Bodrogk.
Briefly, momentarily, flickeringly, Harry knew why they were here. His precognition told him that much, at least. And in a little while two women came up from below. One was Sofia, Bodrogk's wife of centuries, who flew into her husband's arms. Both Sofia and Bodrogk were dead; they had