The Last Aerie (84 page)

And of course, Nathan had read those thoughts. Now he saw the truth, the knowledge of what he’d done reflected in Trask’s eyes, and said, “I’m sorry, but I had to know. And it explains a thing or two. Why the dead, who had loved Harry for so long, forsook him in the end. It wasn’t simply that they feared his necromancy but the
form
which it took. To be able to call them back to life … it must have given him a very terrible power over them.”

“Yes,” Trask agreed. “Just such a power as Janos Ferenczy possessed. For even the dead can only be tortured for so long, until they become dust. But apparently, Janos could call them up from their very ashes into life, to torture them again and again. Harry never used it that way, no, but he did have the power if he’d wished it…”

Nathan was thoughtful. “I’ve talked to several of the dead since John Scofield,” he finally said. “Even a handful who knew my father personally. But none of them has ever so much as mentioned this other—facet?”

Again Trask looked at him, perhaps with a trace of uncertainty, even fear showing in his face. “And if you were one of the Great Majority, would you mention it?”

Zek had been silent for a while. Now she said, “Nathan, I don’t want you to have any doubts about Harry. When he was finished—a vampire and necromancer, forsaken by the living and the dead alike, so that he must flee this world into the doubtful sanctuary of Starside—
still
he was Harry. He harmed no one, indeed he cared for … oh, everyone, all of us! He cared for me, for a girl called Penny who he’d brought back from the dead, even for Ben here and E-Branch. And he never betrayed us, not once. The truth of it is that we betrayed him. So when you think of your father think of that, and act accordingly.”

The slightest nod of his head was Nathan’s acknowledgement of her words. That was the way he would think of it—

—But his natural curiosity remained …

Driving back down to London at the end of their tour, Trask took the opportunity to break their journey with an overnight stay in Hartlepool. This was hardly for the natural “beauty” of the place, though in fact the once-industrial town’s gradual decay over a period of fifty years had now been arrested, but because Harry Keogh had lived here before his recruitment into E-Branch. He’d lived here, and earlier in Harden Village a few miles away, which at that time had been a colliery.

That evening they drove through to Harden and Trask took Nathan and Zek to see Harry’s old school. The place was empty, grimy, silent. It stood within sight of a dilapidated railway viaduct which was due for demolition, with the swelling North Sea greyly visible between its rotting brick arches.

By this time Nathan had noticed Trask’s attraction to Zek (a blind man would have noticed it), and the fact that she was showing a measured response. He suspected that his mentor would probably appreciate some time alone with her. Which was why, after they had walked round the perimeter of the school, Nathan suggested that the pair might like to go off and “do something together”, while he took in the atmosphere of the place.

It was partly that he wanted them to be free of him for a little while, but mainly that he wanted to be free of them. For as the three of them had walked together down a narrow, cobbled avenue of trees between the old school and the local graveyard, Nathan had felt the lure of the leaning, lichen-clad tombstones and had known that he would find friends there. Or rather, that his father had found friends there. It was a chance to find out more about Harry.

It was a blustery afternoon, but bright and uplifting, as Trask and Zek walked off arm in arm towards the viaduct and the green valley which it spanned, where a stream sparkled in wintry sunlight. But as soon as Nathan entered the graveyard—as soon as the branches of the trees sprawling over the wall from the cobbled avenue shut out the sun—he felt the solitude of the place, its solemnity, and knew that his father had walked here as a boy. It was as if the Necroscope’s footprints were still there in the glittering marble chips of the winding pathways, in the leaf mould and grave dirt, and the cropped grass between the plots.

Then, hearing or sensing something—a muttered word or furtive movement—Nathan looked up, to see a pair of muffled figures leaning on a gate some twenty, twenty-five paces away: his minders, their breath pluming in the frozen air. Keeping a respectful distance and trying not to look conspicuous, still they looked out for him. And reassured, he went on.

It was as if his feet had a mind of their own; they led him on; before he knew it, he walked more surely in the shade of benign trees before coming to a halt where an old headstone stood over a weed-grown plot. And as his eyes focused on the stone’s legend, so he opened his deadspeak mind more fully to the whispers of the dead.

Who is it?
they queried.
Who can it be?
It feels like … like … but no, for he’s been gone a long time now. He won’t be back, which is as well. And yet… this one lives, too, and his thoughts are deadspeak! How can that be, unless the rumours are true? They say a new one has come into the world. But is it him, or is it … some
Other?
Dare we speak to him? Dare we … inquire?

And a firmer, stronger voice said:
Long before he became a threat, the Necroscope was our friend. He was the only
friend we had! And now there’s this one. Well, and are you satisfied to just lie here in your limbo and let the living world pass by unseen, unknown? Will you pass up this opportunity to make contact with a living mind? Harry’s gone, we all know that, and we know what he was. But be/ore that he was our friend. And I for one
miss
him!

You’re not alone
, said a wiser but fainter voice, as yet another incorporeal one entered his own plea. And despite that the voice was faint, still it was close, so that Nathan guessed it issued from the earth at his very feet, from this very tomb.
I miss him, too. I used to teach Maths at the school just across the road. It was—oh, I don’t know how long ago.
Fifty, sixty years? But I’d been dead a long time when Harry came to me with the first of his classroom problems—problems in Maths. And do you know, I actually helped him to solve them! Can you believe it? I was the one who taught the Necroscope his mathematics!

Nathan’s jaw fell open; the shorter hairs stood erect on the back of his neck; he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard, the incredible gift which now seemed within reach. But finally, as the legend showing through the lichens on the headstone took on new meaning, he had to believe it. For even with his limited understanding of the written word, he could now make it out to read:

JAMES GORDON HANNANT .

13 June 1875—11 Sept. 1944

Master at Harden Boys’ School

for Thirty Years, Headmaster

for Ten, now he Numbers

among the Hosts

of Heaven.

VII

Incentive

“Sir,” said Nathan, unable to contain the slight catch in his voice, the excitement in his heart, “whoever you are, I think I may have been looking for you since the day I was born!”

For a moment there was a stunned silence, then a deadspeak “gasp” of astonishment, finally the mass exclamation of a hundred or more incorporeal minds:

Harry!

But there was more than just astonishment in their voices. There was fear, too. So that Nathan at once informed them: “No, not Harry but Nathan. Nathan Keogh. Harry was my father. That’s why I … why I
sound
like him.”

Sound and feel like him.
The voice was J.G. Hannant’s.
No wonder the dead have been so reluctant! Your father was—he became—other than completely reliable. I mean, towards the end of, er …

“I know what you mean,” Nathan told him. “I know what Harry was. I come from a world where
They
breed. So there’s really no need to explain your fears.” And then, more eagerly: “But if I may impose upon you, especially upon your time, there is something you can perhaps help me with.”

Oh?
The other was cautious.

“Yes. It’s what you were saying earlier, about teaching the Necroscope his maths. Whatever it is you showed him—whatever method you used to instruct him—I’d be grateful if you could show, teach, the same things to me.”

Ah!
said Hannant.
Well, first things
first. And perhaps I should warn you: I did show Harry a few things, yes, but it was quite wrong of me to give the impression that I actually taught him anything. What he had was instinctive; I showed him several shortcuts, that’s all; the rest came naturally. But as I said, first things first. Obviously you have a story to tell, and we want to hear it. How is it you’re here, Nathan? And why are you so anxious to follow in Harry’s footsteps? Perhaps you are too anxious, eh? Perhaps you would follow him too closely. I’m sure you’ll understand our reticence.

Nathan told them his story, the story of his life. He kept it short, picturing most of it as opposed to vocalizing it, but despite that deadspeak frequently conveys more than is actually said, still it took him the best part of an hour. Until at last he finished it with:

“So you see, I need all the help I can get. I have some of my father’s talents—his deadspeak, obviously, and even the telepathy which he displayed towards the end of his time here—but they aren’t enough. Not nearly enough to prepare me for any sort of real confrontation with the Wamphyri.”

Hannant had listened to all of this very attentively, but in the background Nathan had been able to make out the furtive whispers of the Great Majority voicing their fears, doubts and indecision. Now, as he fell silent, one of these quieter, more fearful voices came forward: a spokesman for the dead.

How do you see your future, Nathan?
The voice was quavery, uncertain as its owner.
Let’s just suppose that by some miracle of chance, we—or rather some of us, like Hannant here—can actually help you? What will you do?

Nathan’s response was almost automatic, instinctive as his father’s maths had been. “Men should never try to read the future,” he said, “for it’s a devious thing. But since you ask me, this is how I see it. I’ve been promised knowledge and weapons, modern weapons, to take back with me into Sunside/Starside, to give to the Szgany. Weapons my people can use to fight and destroy the Wamphyri. Except … even now I can’t be certain that I ever will get back. But if I were able to understand and use the Mobius Continuum, then I would be certain.”

This—Mobius Continuum?—would give you the power to transfer at will between your vampire world and ours?
If there was a point to the question, Nathan missed it.

“Not necessarily,” he answered. “But it would be a step in the right direction. And it would give me instant access to any number of escape routes, if ever I do get back to Sunside/Starside.”

I see
, said the spokesman, but so quietly and thoughtfully that Nathan could almost see him rubbing his chin.
You’ve come here from a world of monsters in human guise—which you have admitted is a plague-ridden place. And yet you persist in trying to create a gateway between worlds. Instantaneous right of passage. For yourself … and for what else?

Now Nathan knew what was troubling the other and causing this new wave of uncertainty. “But can’t you understand?” he answered. “Such gateways already exist! Two of them. They are the source of vampirism in your world, or what was your world when you had life. I’m not trying to open them but close them down—permanently! Or better still, destroy the Wamphyri on their own ground and make both of our worlds safe from them.”

We don’t for a moment suggest that you would deliberately use such knowledge to let vampires loose in our world
(Nathan sensed the shake of an incorporeal head).
No, for it’s already apparent that you’re neither evil nor criminally insane. But as you yourself have pointed out, no man may read the future with impunity. And if you were to fall into Their hands—?

“I’ve
been
in their hands, and escaped them!” Nathan’s frustration was mounting. To be as close as this, and to come up against a stumbling block;
this
stumbling block: the legacy of his vampire father. “And after all,” he went on uncontrollably, “what do you know about it? Have you stood face to face with a Lord of the Wamphyri? Was your father one of them? And has your brother been changed into—into …” But now he saw that he’d gone too far, that he’d said and thought too much.

And after a moment of total silence:

Not only your father
(the voice of the spokesman was very quiet now, and much more thoughtful),
but your brother, too?

But now Hannant was back, and belligerent!
Nathan, take no notice.
I’ll help you if 1 can, and they can take their spite out on me. For I believe every word you said and I’m sure that you’ll be as big a bonus to the dead as Harry was. So what can they do to me, eh? Ostracism? But I’ve been ostracized before—from life itself.”