Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 38

For I am sure that you have foreseen the end of all this. As for now...' He stumbled back from 356.the rim. 'Now I'm weary. I can't get enough of- can't get any - sleep, not with thi s thing in me, changing me. HI leave you to consider your future!'

Staggering to the gears, he lowered the half-grid over th e mouth of the shaft and switched on the current. But then, as he made to leave the cavern: ANGELO LIES! HE LIES, LIES, LIES! The Old Ferenczy"s multi-minds, over which he no longer had total control, were suddenly screaming in Anthony's head, rocking him on his heels.

"What?" His trembling hands flew to his temples.

ANTHONY, YOUR FATHER IS LYING TO YOU!... YOU ARE RIGHT: HE KNOWS THE OUTCOME.

AND PREPARES FOR IT EVEN NOW. THE TENACITY OF THE WAMPHYRI!... ANGELO.

NEITHER WELCOMES NOR FEARS DEATH. WHY, A PART OF HIM IS DEAD EVEN NOW, IN.

WHICH HE IS BREEDING...

Be quiet! (Angelo would try to shout them down. And Anthony knew that the Old Ferenczy could will himself comatose, and the minds of all his victims with him, if he so desired.) 'How has he lied? Tell me, quickly!' He turned back to the pit, hoping they would 'hear' him through his father. "What is he breeding?"

MYRIADS...

Be quiet! (Angelo's bullfrog grunt, a threat in itself, as he strained to shut himself, and them, down.) 'Myriads of what?' But Anthony saw that already the exhalations from the pit - the vapours that were the 'breath' of his father - were thinning.

MYRIADS! That word again. And finally: Myriads, in a fading whisper, which died away entirely.

Then silence...

Climbing towards the saner, upper regions of Le Manse Madonie, Anthony fumed. His loathsome father could blame who or whatever he desired for his condition, but Anthony saw it as hereditary. And if Angelo hadn't contracted it, or if it hadn't been in his blood in the first place, then it wouldn't be in Anthony. Well, and now the ancient Thing was hungry again, was he? Nothing new in that And he wanted something young, something sweet. For he liked them fresh and clean, the Old Ferenczy.

And now Anthony grinned to himself, however viciously. He would satisfy the monster's l.u.s.ts - but in his own way. And not until he was satisfied himself: that Angelo had told him all he knew. And until then he could starve. Not that he would starve. No, he would simply shrink, dry out, eventually fossilize! Destroy him with fire? Ah, no -Francesco had it quite wrong. But to seal him in his pit, and let him 357 rot and scream forever down there in the dark... that would be much more in keeping.

Then, because he suspected that his father might be 'listening,' Anthony added: Think on that, you old b.a.s.t.a.r.d! And be sure that it isn't an idle threat'

As for Angelo's tidbit': Anthony had the very thing. But here he s.h.i.+elded his thoughts as best he might for he desired that to come as a surprise. Young and sweet? Hah! But when finally his father gave in to his demands, then there would be a reward of sorts, certainly.

Her name was Katerin...

In fact the hideous anomaly that was the Old Ferenczy 'heard' none of this. Shut down, his ma.s.s of metamorphic matter slept While moist in a corner of the natural rock cyst that was his cell a deliberately extruded, excised part of him rotted down, vented warm ga.s.ses, and stirred with a 'life' of its own. Purple strands of cryptogenetic mycelium were threading their way through it even now.

Soon, it would break open to the pressure of the first of many fungus domes. And beneath the black toadstool caps, myriad red spores would form like pollen on the gills of these obscene fruiting bodies...

Harry couldn't trust reality; indeed, from time to time he wondered if there was such a thing. But deep inside, as an all-too-human being, he was aware of the difference between what could and could not be. Or should not be. And some of the things that had been his life, before the times that he no longer wished to remember, were surely of the latter variety. But here there was no question of what was and wasn't, or what should and couldn't possibly be. No past and no future to worry about, only now.

Which was why he had incarcerated himself in this place of safety, this refuge. Since when he really hadn't bothered thinking much about anything. Yet now he seemed to be conscious, and wondered why he was thinking again - and knew why. Because soon it would be feeding time, when the refuge wasn't nearly so safe after all.

He went to stretch - and couldn't Couldn't? But he could move his head, to look and see why he was immobilized. And then he remembered, or had this vague, shadowy recollection, of men bringing a heavy, padded armchair into his small, padded room. That had been after a very bad nightmare, when he'd started to scream and couldn't stop. And he remembered the jacket they'd put him in, before sitting him down in his chair and strapping his wrists to the padded arms.

But these were only very small irritations; they were as nothing 358.

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compared to the other thing, when he heard dead people talking to him. And it happened all the time: awake and sleeping alike! Awake it wasn't so bad; he could handle it; he knew how to shut them out. But asleep it brought on the nightmares, when he must struggle and fight and kick to be rid of all that! Hence the... strait- jacket? For the people here didn't seem to understand that if they would only keep him awake he wouldn't need to be tied down. And they wouldn't let him explain - probably because he wasn't very articulate, or because he kept mentioning things they didn't want to hear - which only frustrated him and made him angry.

And then, when he began to yell, they would give him a needle and the teeming dead would start in on him again.

It was a cycle he couldn 't break out of- despite that he had broken in! - and it detracted from his security. It wasn't the refuge he'd envisaged. Perhaps he would leave and find some safer place, but that would mean going through those doors that didn't exist... and he'd done that for the last time, too! And anyway, he couldn't move, not tied down like this. But that was OK; the solitude and silence and stillne ss were good, weren't they? E xcept, he didn't know what to do about the feeding.

He sat in his chair, itched and couldn't scratch, ran his tongue over the roughened areas of his gums above and below his front teeth; the rough, raw areas of torn skin where Willis had forced the sharp spoon into his mouth. And he felt the crusted rims of dried food clinging to his nostrils and ears, where the s.a.d.i.s.tic intern had stuffed the mush when Harry wouldn't accept it driven savagely into his mouth. The next time Willis came - which would be soon now - he'd bring a wet sponge with him and clean Harry up a little, before starting again. And while Harry wasn't sure what he could do about it exactly, still he knew he must do something about the feeding...

... But right now someone was speaking to him, a live someone, and Harry realized he'd been answering out loud. Well, not necessarily answering, but speaking at least; voicing his complaints, probably.

Tou see,' said the voice, 'I just don't know what we are dealing with here. If I knew who you were it would help. And it would be even better if I knew how you got in here. But all you had on you was a notebook with a lot of scribble, none of which made any sense, and the only person you've spoken about is this Harry. Is that you? No second name? And no desire to... communicate?'

'Second name,' Harry said, trying desperately hard to focus his eyes, his mind. 'Snaith... or Keogh... or Kyle.'

And finally he got his bearings, brought the room out of blur.

Director Cyril Quant saw Harry's eyes swim into focus and sat still in the lightweight folding chair he had brought with him to Harry's cell. Willis was outside in the corridor, where Quant had told him to wait. But doubtless he'd heard this mysterious inmate's - this 'illegal' inmate's - mumbled, incoherent accusations. And Quant could see for himself the litter of dried-out slop on Harry's face.

'But if you fight your feeding,' he said reasonably, "you must expect to be made to eat We can't have you dying on us - er, Harry? - and not even know who you are! Now can we?'

Harry hung on to his vision, clung to the idea that somehow this man might be able to help him with this food problem. What he saw was weird; his eyes weren't right; they hadn't focused properly for -oh, for however long he'd been here. But Quant would look funny, if he didn't look so grotesque! It was some sort of weird telescopic effect Quant's body was tiny on an even smaller chair, swelling up into round humped shoulders supporting a hugely bloated head. Balding, with a few strands of red hair slic ked back behind smallish ears, and peering at Harry t hrough thick-lensed spectacles that made his eyes look bigger yet the man was batrachian, some kind of super-frog!

'Are you smiling?' Quant said. 'Do you understand any of this at all?'

'No, do you?' Harry tried to ask him - which came out of his dry throat as a croak, a mumble. But in any case it was all too much. Only let it cont inue, they'd lure him back into their world, which no longer had any meaning for him. Best to simply let it slip.

And Quant snorted his disappointment as Harry's eyes slid out of focus again and his head lolled from side to side...

Out in the corridor, Quant spoke to Willis. 'He doesn't seem to like you, Mr Willis.'

'It cuts both ways,' Willis answered. 'I heard what he was on about Feeding time?

It's like feeding a rabid dog! I try to get something into him - he spits it right back at me! How am I supposed to feed him if he won't keep his... head still?' Just for a moment he'd almost said las f.u.c.king head,' and Quant was looking at him curiously. 'I mean,' Willis continued hurriedly, 'can't we put him on a drip, feed him intravenously? And what's he still doing here, anyway? He's not ours; he isn't a legitimate inmate. Shouldn't we -1 don't know - give him to the authorities or something?'

Leading the way out of the ward through its system of security doors, Quant answered, That's just the problem. Until we know who he is and how he got in here, how do we explain him?"

'Why bother trying t o "explain" him?' Willis said. 'Maybe we simply found him wandering in t he grounds, inside the security fence. No one's going to argue the fact that he's a mental case! Maybe someone couldn't look after him any longer, dumped him on us.'360.

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'And what if that someone is the inspectorate?' The director rounded on him. "We're a hospital, a mental inst.i.tution. Do you think that puts us beyond scrutiny? On the contrary, people care about our inmates. And we are supposed to care for them!'

'And if he is a plant?' Willis argued. 'I mean, how do you know they're not waiting and wondering right now why we've done nothing about him?' 'Not we, me!' Quant snapped.

And Willis shrugged. Tour pr oblem - sir,' he said, with a narrow-eyed, sideways look.

Tomorrow,' Quant nodded, entering the elevator. 'Ill report what has happened here tomorrow. There are higher authorities, after all. Meanwhile ... tidy him up, will you? And ensure that he stays tidied up? If it means handing him over, which it probably will, I would want him in the best possible condition. And that goes for all of the inmates, got it? If there's to be an inspection of the facility, we need to be beyond criticism.'

As the elevator took Quant aloft, Willis stormed back to the control room. It was swill time for all these crazy pigs - but he knew who he was going to attend to first. We're supposed to care for them, are we? He grumbled to himself. And there's a problem with the feeding, is there? Oh really? Well, Dave Willis knew how to give this mysterious whoever-he-f.u.c.king-was lunatic a problem or two! And whichever -come what may - the next can of slop was going down and staying down!

Harry failed to hear Willis enter his cell, didn't even know he was there, until he felt the hot baby-food stew on his lips and the sharp rim of the spoon thrusting in his mouth. Then, shaken from his torpor, his immediate reaction was to choke and cough, and spit the muck out Following which- -It got much, much worse. But when it was over and everything was quiet again, Harry stayed focused.

Because now there was something definite to focus upon. At which the Great Majority, his friends in low society, saw their best opportunity yet and took it And for once Harry listened to them - gave them his wholehearted attention, or what was left of it - because almost anything had to be better than this...

He's not crazy, a man who in life had been a top-level psychiatrist reported to Sir Keenan Gormley. He simply opted out of a world that was crazy, from his point of view. The problem will lie in getting him to opt back in. But right now he's very confused. His mind is full of a dislike bordering on hatred for a man called Willis. By no means unnatural: the man is an intern who is abusing and literally torturing Harry! But on the other hand, Willis is also the reason we have access. Harry is looking for a way to escape from the mess he's in. Which means he can reason well enough, if we can supply him with a reason to.

Franz Anton Mesmer joined in. I feel I have something of a stake in this, he said. Harry was my patient first, after all. Or rather, he was my therapist first! He gave me bach my self-confidence, and now I would like to do the same for him.

Through hypnotism? (Harry's Ma was at once fearful.) Not really, Mesmer answered. My hypnotism only allowed me a degree of access to his mind. Now I intend to work with what I found there - with knowledge, yes. And I'll need your help, Mary Keogh.

My help? What do you mean?

Your promise not to interfere, Mesmer told her, bluntly.

I don't understand. (The shake of an incorporeal head.) His love for B.J. Mirlu, Mesmer explained. I still know the way into his head. And I remember that he feared for her. Right now she is in danger; we all know that from the men - and some monsters - who have come among us. It may be the one thing that can bring him out of this: to know that this girl is in danger Two things, then, the psychiatrist put in. His love of this woman, and his fear of this man Willis, therefore his desire to be out of it.

Three, said Nostradamus, surprising them with his presence. For as yet he hasn 't worked through all the riddles I gave him. And I know how reluctant the Necroscope is to leave unfinished business!

What else do you know? Sir Keenan asked him. What did you see, in his future?

Don't ask it, Nostradamus answered. It's not far you, nor even for me to know. Not in its entirety.

So, said Mesmer. What's it to be? Shall I enter him then? Shall I remind him that B.J. Mirlu is relying upon him, that as yet he has not unriddled Nostradamus's clues - which m ay provide the only viable solution - and that his o ne 'safe place' is really a place of torture and peril? But Harry's Ma wanted to know: What lies will you tell him about B.J. ?

Only that she loves him - which we can't be sure is a lie anyway. And also that the case against her remains unproven. If he loves her... that should be enough.

'Should' be enough? Sir Keenan queried Mesmer's use of the word. Where's the risk?

Mesmer was cautious as he answered, The interface between the Necroscope's reality and unreality has been so weakened by use that it has stretched taut as a tightrope. When next he is challenged to choose between what is and what isn't, it's possible he could fall the wrong way.

And is that likely to happen? (Harry's Ma again). / mean, will his levels interface one last time?

Brian Lutnley 362.

Necroscope: The Lost Years - Vol. U 363.

Franz Anton's reluctant, incorporeal nod. Oh, yes. And the trigger is in B.J. Mirlu's hands...

For long moments there was utter silence in the metaphysical aether, until Mary Keogh 'sighed' and asked: And is there no way round it?

Oh, yes, said Me smer again. There's always an alternative. To let things be - to let a horror befall the living world, and everyone in it -and then to explain to the mult.i.tude when they come among us why we let it happen.' I know what I choose, but I can't make that choice alone. And meanwhile, time is wasting.

At which a new voice said: You has my vote, Mr Mesmer. It was RL Stevenson Jamieson. Least ways I can watch out for the Necroscope, and use my obi to do whatever I can for him. He was his usual, humble, selfless self.

My vote, too, said Nostradamus. For without that the Necroscope goes forward, he can't go back! And I...

can't go! it is a paradox as old as time. What came first... ?

I love him like a son ... excuse me, Mary, said Sir Keenan. G.o.d knows I wouldn 't place him in jeopardy.

But to have him as he is now is to have nothing. And it is also for him to have nothing. Doctor, (now he spoke to Mesmer), I believe I can help with Harry's motivation. So if I may, III go in with you.

Which left only Harry's Ma herself, with whom no one would dispute the final decision.

And time ticking inexorably into the future, and NOW continually sliding into the past...

Harry was conscious. Suddenly conscious. And just as suddenly he knew what he had done, and what he hadn't.

He had quit. He had given up the ghost with the job half-done and less than half understood. He had let someone or someones do this to him without even knowing who or what they were. For even the fear of finding out had been too much for him. But it had proved to be the cla.s.sic case of out of the frying pan into the fire. And now he wanted out of the fire, too. And back into the frying pan?

But from out of the blue (or out of his dreams, or the insistence of the inhabitants of those dreams) sanity had flowed back into him. Or rather, the emptiness - the vacuum - which he had self-created had been filled again, and he wasn't about to let it drain away a second time. For if nature abhors a vacuum, then ho w much greater the abhorrence of the dead when the s.p.a.ce hi question was one previously filled by the Necroscope?

And so he was suddenly conscious, and sane, and his bodyclock told him it was close to morning. And despite that from the moment he opened his eyes he began to feel stiff, he knew that this was only an illusion, a natural result of being confined to this chair. For his slee p had been deep and (paradoxically?) restful, sothat even now there was this fading inner voice reminding him: You'll sleep deep and soundly, Harry, and wake up feeling quite well and rested... wake up feeling well and rested... well and rested.

There had been other voices, too, but while they were gone now their messages remained. Or were die messages simply ideas, stuff his computer min< had="" been="" working="" on="" before="" it="" crashed?="" whichever,="" they="" were="" there,="" surfacing="" wit="" h="" harry="" from="" his="" deep="" and="" restful="">

The idea that one of his basic problems stemmed from his time with E-Branch. That was an old one, developed from Nostradamus's quatrains. But what else was locked in those quatrains that he hadn't released yet? He had work to do.

And the idea - or more correctly the fact - that Bonnie Jean hadn't yet definitely been proved guilty of fouling up his life. Not one hundred per cent guilty; fifty- fifty at worst, if in fact E-Branch had had a hand in it, too.

And the idea, again a fact, that B J. was in danger. Their enemies were abroad, probably searching for her even now, while Harry languished in here! And if indeed she loved him - and he was suddenly sure that who or whatever she was, she did - then her enemies were his. But he also knew that they were big enemies, not just little ones like the one he had here.

Willis! Morning! Breakfast!

No way! No f.u.c.king way!

Harry turned his head this way and that, stared wildly all about his cell, opened his channels to the dead. It was as good and better than a cry for help, a Mayday, an SOS.

Harry! said RL. Stevenson Jamieson, in a h.e.l.l of a hurry. Is you listenin', Necroscope? There's this guy headin'your way right now, and he ain't exactly a friend!

'How long do I have, RL?' Harry tugged uselessly at his bonds, the leather straps binding his hands to the arms of the chair. He dangled his legs, tried kicking them, couldn't bring any pressure to bear for his feet were off the floor.

How long? I don't deal in time, just distances, Harry! I only knows th is guy is closing with you , lookin' to bein' with you. I sees your flame burnin', and this one's bent on snuffin'it! - well, a mite. He ain't got no good plans for you, that's for sure.

Harry quit fighting his wrist straps, strained against the broad belt across his chest There was some give in it but nothing to use as a lever except his lungs!

It was useless. Even if he got out of the chair, he'd still be in a strait-jacket And panting now, he sent 'Is there anyone else out there? Is there 364.

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a ... a morgue in this place?" There wasn't, but even if there had been the thought had already crossed Harry's mind that it mightn't be such a good idea to call a madman back from the dead! ; So, no physical help, not from a physical source, anyway. But there was someone else out there. You have a lo t of friends down among the dead men, Harry Keogk, said an entirely new but definitely friendly ; voice, the voice of a total stranger. And I have to admit I've been j interested in you a long time, but they told me you were kind of busy. ; 'Still am,' the Necroscope grunted, shaking himself about like a !

real madman in his chair. And: 'Friend,' he let himself loll a while, tried to reserve his strength, 'unless you've got some d.a.m.n good suggestion, would you mind making room for someone who has?

Who are you, anyway?' j Harry's my name, said the other, with a grin that only the Necroscope t could ever hope to perceive. Well, that was my stage name, anyway. 'Some kind of joke?' Almost exhausted, defeated, the Necroscope ! gave a shake of his head. 'If so, bad timing.'

Amazing! said the other Harry. I spent a lot of time - er, in my time -proving that you and your kind couldn't exist. And maybe at that time you couldn 't. But then you came along. Since when I've been able to talk to my mother again just as you talk to yours! That's one great big debt I owe you, Harry Keogh. But it's also why I held off for so long: because I was afraid that you'd turn out to be a charlatan, too. Obviously you're not.

'Er, Harry?' said Harry, 'I'm sorry if I can't give you my full attention right now, but...'