The Source (46 page)

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Authors: Brian Lumley

BOOK: The Source
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All mothers are like that, Harry,
said Mobius, very seriously.
Good luck, my boy.
But in fact, luck would have very little to do with it …
 
The next morning Darcy Clarke met Harry at E-Branch HQ in London, and while Harry checked his equipment, making sure he knew how to use it, Clarke took the opportunity to pass on a little information.
“About this subterranean contributory of the Danube,” he said. “Harry, it's a death-trap! I had it checked out overnight. Our man in Bucharest looked into it for you. The place is known well enough and we have its exact location. There are newspaper clippings concerning it, various bits of documentation. The locals have an immemorial dislike for it. In 1966 a couple of cavers took it on. It was summer and the tributary was running
dry at the time. Four hours after they started in there was a flash flood up in the mountains. One body was washed out, the other lost forever. And these were experts.”
“And they were walking and swimming,” said Harry. “I won't be.”
“Eh?”
“I said I was going up to the watercourse, but I didn't say how.”
Clarke gasped, “You'll use the Möbius Continuum?”
“Of course.”
“Then why the wet-suit, aqualung and all?”
“Just in case.”
Clarke fell silent for a moment, then said; “I was only trying to help.”
“And I appreciate it,” Harry told him. “But I know my own business best.”
Ten minutes later he took up his gear in a waterproof kit-bag and went to Radujevac. From the outskirts of the town he caught a taxi into the countryside close to the location Clarke had given him. He paid his driver with money from the same source. With his bag over his shoulder he set off down a country track, eventually arriving at his destination. It was a wild place and there was no one around. Harry dumped his kit in a copse and covered the bag with dead branches, then returned to the site of the resurgence.
It was in the base of a cliff, overgrown with ivy, where limestone outcrops glistened with moisture. To the northeast stood the grey, forbidding Carpathians, and to the south sloping wooded countryside. Harry stood on the banks of the pool under the cliffs and looked again at the mountains, then down at the dark water where it gurgled into view from untold caverns of gloom. It issued from the mouth of a cave. This was the spot where Old Belos of the Wamphyri first entered our world. And others like him. And between here and those legendary mountains, somewhere underground,
lay a gateway to an alien world. Now it was Harry's task to pin-point that Gate as accurately as possible before setting out up the river to find it.
He checked again that there was no one around, no one to see him take his departure. The place was silent, wooded, where only the birds sang and the cold water gurgled. But this time Harry was well muffled-up and didn't feel the cold.
He picked a spot in the foothills to the north-east, went there via the Möbius Continuum. The door from which he exited was the same as always: a “hole” in the universe, with nothing to distinguish it from hundreds of other doors Harry had used. Harry moved again, even closer to the looming peaks. But this time when he emerged, the “edges” of his door shimmered a little. It was the warning he'd been looking for, which told him he was close.
Very close, Harry,
said a dead voice in his mind, surprising him. It felt like someone had come up close behind him and whispered in his ear.
“Do I know you?” He scanned the countryside around, looked down on distant towns, Radujevac, Cujmir, Recea. They were smoky, wintry smudges on his horizon.
No, but I know you. Your mother has been making enquiries on your behalf.
Harry sighed. “She means well,” he said. “Has she disturbed you?”
Not at all. I'm happy to help. You intend to travel the length of the Radujevac resurgence, right?
The voice was full of excitement, eagerness. Which was what gave its owner away.
“You were a caver,” said Harry. “You died back in the summer of 1966, somewhere up that underground river.”
That's me,
said the other, a little sadly.
And I never did get to finish the job. My name is Gari Nadiscu, and
if I'd made it the bore would have been named after
me: the Nadiscu Route. It was a dream. Maybe you can finish it for me?
Harry said: “Wait,” and transferred to the Möbius Continuum. “Now talk to me,” he said “I want to get closer to you.” He followed the other's thoughts, emerged at the very foot of the mountains. And again the Möbius door shimmered, more than before, confirming Harry's belief that he was moving closer to the Gate.
“You didn't do badly,” he told Nadiscu. “You covered, oh, maybe nine miles before that flood hit you! Are you still down there?” He glanced at the stony mountain soil under his feet. “I mean, is there anything left … you know? How did you get trapped? Your companion was washed out.”
Trapped,
answered the other, grimly.
That's the right word, Harry. I crawled onto a ledge. There was a crack in the wall. As the water rose I climbed deeper into the crack. Finally I got jammed, couldn't move. I was wearing a lung, of course. It was a bad time. I lasted as long as my air …
“That must have been pretty terrible,” Harry commiserated. But:
Don't waste time on that,
said the other.
You've things to do. How can I help you?
“Two things,” said Harry. “One: what was the course of the river up to the time you … when the flood came? And two: how deep are you, as you calculate it, under the surface?”
Nadiscu supplied the answers and Harry thanked him. “I won't be looking for the river's source,” he admitted, “for it's a different kind of source that interests me. But if it all works out I'll come back some time and tell you how far I got. OK?”
Thanks, Harry. I'd appreciate that.
Harry used the Continuum and moved on into the mountains, exiting on a steep, pine-covered slope. This time the interference was such that Harry knew he was almost there. Directly below him, at some great depth
in the roots of the mountains, the Gate to the world of the Wamphyri was waiting for him.
He calculated the distance to his starting point, fixed his location firmly in his head—his location not only the mundane world but also in the metaphysical Möbius Continuum. It was a sort of mental triangulation. And then he went back to the copse where he'd hidden his gear.
Half an hour later, dressed in wet-suit and aqualung, equipped with fins and a powerful waterproof torch, Harry slipped into the water and conjured a Möbius door. No shimmer here. He moved upstream, emerging in darkness with his flippered feet on a pebbly bed. The darkness was absolute and there was a current strong enough to cause Harry to lean against it. He used his torch to scan the way ahead, its powerful beam cutting the dark like a knife. On the next jump his feet were still on the bottom but the bore had narrowed down, the water was chin-deep, the way ahead convoluted.
And so Harry proceeded.
Sometimes he swam; at other times he was underwater, where there was no gap between ceiling and river; occasionally the bore was wide as a cathedral and the water shallow. Almost before he knew it he found Gari Nadiscu in the crevice where he'd trapped himself. There was very little of him left: a single flipper and an air tank half-buried in shingle, and a trapped thigh bone.
Harry could have come to Nadiscu direct, he saw that now, but there could have been hazards. The caver had been trapped in a tight spot; Harry hadn't wanted to emerge in a cramped, difficult location. Also, and more importantly, Nadiscu might have been too close to the Gate. Harry had experienced the danger in using the Möbius Continuum close to a Gate; it was to be avoided. No, he'd preferred his own way. If there'd been difficulties, getting out again would have been as easy as conjuring a Möbius door. And this way he'd got used to his system of sighting the way ahead and then jumping
there. Which was as well, for beyond this point the route was totally unknown.
Now: he and Nadiscu exchanged a few encouraging words, and Harry moved on.
Five minutes later, after a series of short jumps, Harry's exit door shimmered violently and seemed to bend back on itself. Harry emerged in deep water, swimming. He shone his torch ahead. The bore was almost circular, with maybe twelve inches between ceiling and water. He daren't use the Continuum again and so put all of his effort to swimming. The current wasn't much but still it made for hard work.
Then, ahead, Harry saw a faintly luminous arc of light. He switched off his torch and hooked it to his belt, using both hands to aid his flippered feet in forging ahead. The arc expanded and the light grew stronger. White light!
Harry emerged into the cave of the sphere and gratefully hauled himself up onto the ledge—
where he at once recoiled from what lay upon the moist floor!
It was a headless corpse, running rapidly to decay. The head, also sloughing flesh, lay some little way along the ledge. “Jesus!” Harry breathed. He had taken off his demand-valve attachment but now quickly replaced it to breathe bottled air. That was better. Then he examined the corpse more carefully—but without touching it. The severed spinal column was fat, reinforced with extra bone and sinew. It contained in effect
two
spines! Wamphyri! The head would likewise contain a composite brain, also turning to mush.
“Who were you?” Harry asked.
I was Corlis, of the Lady Karen's aerie,
the other moaned.
Alas, I was too ambitious. Now go away—leave me to my misery.
“Too ambitious?” Harry gulped. “So it would appear!” He glanced up at the sphere and quickly looked away. The light was unbearable. From a zippered pocket he took out dark goggles and put them on, then looked
all about. A little apart from the corpse lay a modern walkie-talkie radio, somewhat battered, its aerial fully extended. Harry stared at it, shook his head. He could see that it was a Russian model; beyond that it seemed pointless to conjecture.
There were various niches in the walls, together with the mouths of many magmass wormholes. When Harry saw what some of these contained, then he remembered Faethor‘s—or Belos's—story.
High up in the curved wall, one such sat with its shrivelled legs dangling over the rim of a magmass hole. The thing was mummied, where dripstone had fused its legs to the wall and commenced covering them with gleaming calcium. An eyeless skull, hideously misshapen, leaned out. Frozen in death, its gaping jaws were wolfish, toothed like a carnivore. The creature seemed to leer at Harry with a permanent, imperishable malignancy. He wasn't much worried; it had leered like that for a long, long time.
Vampire killer!
it suddenly accused.
Harry shrugged. “I can't deny it. But on that score, it seems you at least have no worries. Nor any of you here.”
Now other voices joined the first:
Impudent pup!
And:
This is a private place of the Wamphyri—begone!
And:
Who are you, to disturb our sleep of centuries?
“Sorry,” Harry shrugged, “but I'm not dressed for conversation—polite or otherwise. But I'd better inform you: I know that to a man you're all exiles. You may have been high and mighty Wamphyri in your own world, but here you're just crumbling old dead things! That's how it goes. Now me, I won't hold your past against you, as long as you don't hold mine against me.”
After a moment of blank astonishment:
You dare—!?
they cried in one voice.
“Now it's cold in here,” Harry continued unperturbed. “So I'm going to pick up a change of clothing.
If by the time I return you're feeling more sociable, we can start over and no hard feelings. If not—” again his shrug. “It's your loss, as the teeming dead would doubtless testify—
if
they'd waste their time talking to such as you!”
Before they could answer he took up his torch and flippers, slipped back into the water. It was icy cold but it would only be for a moment. He let the river bob him downstream to a safe distance, then conjured a slightly warped door and floated through it. He fixed the location firmly in his mind, went back to the copse and his kit-bag.
There he took a long deep swig from a hip flask of brandy, tossed the flask away. He tied a fifty foot length of nylon cord to the neck of the waterproof bag, went back to the midnight river and exited the Möbius Continuum into the water at the required location. As the kit-bag sank he swam furiously for the cave of the sphere. Climbing back onto the ledge, he hauled in the kit-bag and quickly changed into warm clothes. The bag also contained a heavy, special-issue machine-gun, which he now checked against the possibility of damp or damage. Everything seemed OK.
Ahhh—!
He was aware of a concerted mental sighing as he stood on the ledge and paused to wonder if he'd forgotten anything.
He comes and goes like a ghost! He has a deal of magic!

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