employers - in that wide, spiralling stairwell that led upwards to the junction of five tunnels and downwards ... to what? A secret place that no one was allowed to see. Which was why the Necroscope must see it.
It was very confusing. He told himself it was to satisfy his 'natural curiosity,' but in fact it was to satisfy B.J.'s post-hypnotic command that he seek out the Wamphyri. Oh, she'd yet to turn him loose officially, but he knew her purpose, and it had become his. It would have been his purpose anyway, whatever the circumstances; but at the same time he'd been ordered to store away whatever information he discovered -to 'forget it,' place it in limbo - until B.J. or Radu brought about its resurgence.
The result of which was that he was now here, investigating a monstrous survival, a powerful and esoteric branch of the most dreadful 'dynasty' to ever infest mankind with its evil - the Ferenczys. And on this level he worked without conscious thought with regard to any outcome, but certainly with regard to his own safety. He was in thrall, but he was still Harry Keogh ...
Down here, there was as yet no tainted air. In these nethermost extremes of Le Manse Madonie, the performance of the air conditioning system was at its slowest, the circulation languid at best. But up above ... Harry could hear the hoarse shouting, the crying of men scrambling for fresh air. And they wouldn't find it until they were out of the building proper, out in the night. That was good, for they wouldn't be coming down here.
On the other hand Harry knew his own limitations, too. He was sure that the tear-gas would soon find its way through the system and back to him. Wherefore time was of the essence.
He went down the spiralling steps through several complete revolutions, until he arrived at a door formed of parallel bars of steel set in vertical stanchions. A warning sign - an openly displayed red lightning flash - warned that the bars were electrified. Beyond the door the floor was fairly level but uneven, and showed the natural stratification of rock; the place was a cave at the terminal point, the very lowest level, of Le Manse Madonie's excavations.
Well back from the bars on Harry's side of the door, there were twin, rubber-handled switches set in a panel bolted to the wall. One of these was marked with a lightning flash; the other was likewise pictorial, showing a series of horizontal bars. It couldn't be simpler. Harry threw both switches, waited until a mechanism hummed and the bars slid from left to right through the housing stanchion. The door stood deactivated, and open.
Of course the Necroscope could have simply taken the Mobius route into the natural cavern beyond the door, but he'd been interested in the operation of the mechanism; plainly the technology here antedated Humph's vault doors.
Also, this door was never intended to keep people out - which gave Harry pause as he stepped across the threshold into the dimly-lit cave beyond.
There was a nest of supplementary light switches mortared to the wall; when he switched them on, a battery of spotlights high in the walls lit the cave with a briliance that was dazzling. It took a few moments for Harry's eyes to adjust. Then he saw that the main focus of the spotlights was the mouth of a great circular well whose wall was of massive blocks of old hewn masonry.
The Necroscope took it all in at a glance: the well, its electrified wire-mesh cover, the hoist with its metal platform, throwing a gallow's shadow across the mouth of the well... or the pit? And the deeper shadows, sharp-etched, marching away into the cavern's unseen corners. But the walled pit was definitely the place's centre of focus. And perhaps 'well' was a better description after all; Harry could make out a thin mist issuing from its throat, vaporizing on contact with the cover.
That this place was a facility, that it was used, however infrequently, was obvious. The door, spotlights, hoist, electrification ... all of these things spoke volumes however inarticulately. But what was it used for?
In the very instant of his inwards-directed question, the Necroscope was warned not to ask it. Too late; Harry's
'natural curiosity' had let him down; his mental guard was down, and his every thought was like a spoken word to the dead. Of which Le Manse Madonie - and the 'pit' in
particular