the end of it, it's the end of it. Thank goodness for that.
'But I know where there's more.' And again he could have bitten his tongue, for she was on him like a ton of bricks: Leave it alone, Harry! That's all I can do, advise you. You have a mind, and therefore you have a choke: be an alcoholic or don't be. It's one or the other. To be or not to be. It's up to you. No one can order you not to drink, but by the same token no one can make you drink!
But in the back of the Necroscope's head, a voice seemed to say, 'Oh, really?' Harry didn't know what it meant, and so ignored it. 'Anyway,' he said out loud, 'credit where credit's due: I'm fighting it. It's just this last wrinkle in my - or Alec Kyle's - grey mater. It needs ironing out, that's all. It's something that's residual of him, like his precognition. But I can feel it adjusting to fit me, I think. And if I don't use it, don't pander to it, it will... I don't know, atrophy? It's just a mater of time, I'm sure.'
His precognition? She repeated him, as glad as he was to change the subject. Have you been having more visions, then?
'No,' Harry shook his head - And at once reeled, and grabbed at the root of a tree to keep from toppling from the bank! For his Ma's question had seemed to bring something on, a scene obscured by what appeared to be mental static -until the Necroscope realized that he was seeing it through a blizzard!
A frozen monochrome landscape, like the roof of the world, and a gaunt range of mountains marching against grey skies that went on forever. It was cold - a biting cold - that was so real Harry could even feel it gnawing at him; and the snow slanting down like a million white spears, piercing his warmth as they landed and formed an ever-thickening layer on his being, his mind, his psyche ...
... It was gone, leaving him shivering and reeling, while his Ma's dead voice cried in his mind: Harry! What on earth - ? But what she should have been asking was where. Where on earth? For Harry had seen nothing like it; he'd never been in or imagined being in such a place. He gasped for air, could scarcely believe that he was warm and the sun still shining down on him. It had been so very real. And damn it, he could feel it coming back again!
He had let go of the root but now clutched at it again, as the thing invaded his senses and tore him from his reality into its own: The iron-grey mountains, snow-capped, ridged with carved, drifted snow; and the valleys and passes between the spurs and peaks full of it,
like white dunes rolling to rearing horizons of stone. But to Harry's right. . . what, a city? A walled city, yes, protected in the lee of the mountains and by a long, snaking wall - like a miniature version of the Great Wall of China - with gaunt square towers, battlements, mighty gates. But the old, cold city was dead and empty; it huddled down into itself behind the wall, and kept its secrets ...
It was much like a scene from some old geography book in Harry's secondary modern school at Harden. And once again the thought struck him: the Roof of the World, yes! But... Tibet? Why was he seeing a scene out of Tibet?
The blizzard had fallen of a little. (Harry felt the familiar river bank under his thighs) - but he also felt the cold of the snows gnawing in his bones, and saw a scene from incredible distances of space, or even out of future time, enacted on the screen of his mind. But Harry was the Necroscope and could handle it, perhaps even better than Alec Kyle himself. And finally accepting it, no longer fighting it, he shielded his eyes against the falling snow and stared harder.
Out there on the white waste ... movement? Single file, a line of seven people - antlike figures, at this range - were making their way across the snow. They were robotic in their movements, like a military drill routine -left, right, left, right, left-but rapid and shuffling. The three in front were dressed in red, also the three bringing up the rear. But the