'Your dart? That really was you, then?' Jake was managing to absorb some of this, at least.
'Part of me, something of me. Awareness, Jake, awareness! Do you know the easiest way to magnetize a piece of iron? You throw it in with a lot of big magnets, that's how. And as for you—'
'I was thrown in at the deep end,' said Jake.
The other nodded. 'Apparently. So now if you'll only relax a little, we'll move on.'
And Jake relaxed…
To anyone else these time and location shifts might be unnerving: from a summer day on the river, to a moonlit winter night, to a nightlight in a tiny garret room. Unnerving even if they worked as intended, but this time it seemed something had gone wrong. For in the little room where the dreamer now found himself he was on his own and there was no sign of his host. (His ghost?) But Jake — one of those rare types who can often distinguish between dreams and reality — wasn't too concerned. If anything he was pleased. Or rather he was glad on the one hand (for the dream had been getting out of hand) and a little disappointed on the other. Just when he'd thought he was getting somewhere, learning something…
But you still are, said Harry.
Startled, Jake looked all about. But he looked too quickly
and saw nothing. And at the same time it dawned on him that he hadn't so much heard Harry's voice as felt it. 'Telepathy?' he said. 'Does that mean you didn't make it? In which case, where the hell are you?'
I'm over here, said Harry. Sucked into the most innocent of places. Innocent for the time being, anyway.
The 'over here' was a direction-finder as clear as and clearer than any voice. And now that Jake looked again he saw what he'd missed the first time: a cot, standing on rockers in the corner of the small room, where the eaves came down low. And lowering his head a little, he stepped towards it.
Within the cot, an infant; the baby had kicked himself free of a soft woollen blanket, lay naked and chubby, exposed except for diapers. His face was angelic, and his eyes—
'You!' said Jake.
Different times, different Harry Keoghs, said the other.
'But a baby, you?'
Well, I was, once upon a time! But what you're looking at… no, it isn't me. On the other hand, I am in here. For this is a time when I was incorporeal, Jake, and my son's mind was like a black hole. It sucked me in, saved me until I could become someone else.
'He… he has your eyes,' said Jake, because there was no other way to answer what he'd just heard. And yet it did ring a bell, for lan Goodly had tried to tell him something similar.
He has my mind, too! Harry told him, gurgling happily — or unhappily? — in his cot. His and mine both. And unless I'm mistaken we've arrived at a very bad time.
'What, again?'
I was looking for innocence and found it. But if I'm right, that's just about to end. You see, this is the time, almost to the moment, when Harry Jr moves on, becomes The Dweller. Which in turn means—
A woman's voice cried out from an adjacent room in the garret flat. A cry of uttermost terror! But:
Don't panic, said Harry, despite that his own mental voice was filled with urgency now. That's his mother, but things are well under control. And we're almost out of here. Before that, though… Jake, I need the names of these invaders, the creatures I've seen crossing your life-thread in Mobius time. If you know who they are, I can probably trace their histories to discover their weaknesses, maybe work out some way for you to deal with them.
(Sounds of crashing furniture came from the other room, and a single shrill cry: No!' Followed by a dull thud, a low moan, and silence… for a moment. Then a padding, and a hoarse, low panting. Sounds such as an animal might make. A large animal.)
Their names! cried Harry in Jake's mind.
'Names?' Jake answered, his eyes on the door where it stood slightly ajar. 'Lords Malinari and Szwart, and the Lady Vavara: Wamphyri out of Starside.' He might just as easily have uttered an invocation.
Almost wrenched from its hinges, the door crashed inwards, and in a moment Jake's dream became a shrieking, hellish nightmare! 'What…?.'' he gasped. And:
Yulian Bodescu! the Necroscope's revenant sighed in Jake's mind.
The thing framed in the doorway was or had been a man; it wore a man's clothing and stood upright, however forward-leaning. Its arms were… long! And the hands at the ends of those arms were huge and clawlike, with projecting nails. The thing's face was something unbelievable. It could have been the face of a wolf, but it was almost hairless and there were certain anomalies that suggested a bat-like origin. The monster's ears grew flat to the sides of its misshapen head; they too were bat-like and projected higher than the rearward-sloping, elongated skull. Its nose — or rather its snout — was mobile, wrinkled, convoluted, with black and gaping nostrils. The thing's skin was ridged, looked scaly; its yellow, crimson-pupilled eyes were deep-sunken in black sockets. And as for its jaws, its teeth!
The creature — Yulian Bodescu? — ignored Jake, loped to the cot, and crouched over it. And the light in his or its eyes had the glow of molten sulphur, the fires of hell fuelled by eager anticipation! Taloned hands were already reaching for the helpless infant as Jake tried to snatch at a gun that was no longer there. Uttering a strangled curse, he leaped to the attack… or would have, except his limbs seemed locked in place.
A nice gesture, but useless, Harry told him. And anyway, in the waking world it would only serve to get you killed! This is a scene from my past, Jake. Obviously we survived it, myself and my son both, but I fancy your dream won't. So one last word before we part: next time, try to be easier to reach…
The scene warped, began to melt away even as Jake strove to move his body — a single muscle, a fingertip — and failed miserably. He stood poised, inert, desperate to go to the infant's aid despite what the Necroscope had told him. He tried to shout a warning, managed a hoarse croak, a clotted gurgle, and all in vain. For everything was dissolving away. Terror, utter horror, can bring a man awake even when he knows he's only dreaming.
The last thing Jake saw before he surfaced was the beast: on its knees beside the cot, mad with frustrated rage, tearing the bedclothes to shreds. But of the baby Harry himself, nothing at all…
And Jake gave a small glad cry and woke up. For somehow in the moment before waking he knew — he'd been given to know — where the infant had gone.
Along the Mobius route to E-Branch, of course.
Where else?
PART THREE The Start Of It
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Second Thoughts, And Others Less Mundane
Noticing Jake's distress, Liz had scrambled from her gunner's seat into the narrow cargo area, crouched down beside him, and was now hauling on the lapels of his jacket, roughing him up a little. 'Jake! Jake, wake up!' Then — as his eyes snapped open, startling her, and lightning reflexes and hands worked in combination to slap her wrists aside, then grab them — 'You were shouting,' she explained. 'And now you're hurting!'
He let go of her, dragged himself into an upright, seated position among the jumble of packs, and mumbled, 'What? Shouting?' Of course he had been shouting, because he'd been nightmaring. But what about? Already the waking world, in the shape of Liz, was obliterating his dreams, consigning them to innermost recesses of his subconscious mind. But realizing something of their importance, Jake was reluctant to let them go. 'What was I shouting about?' he demanded harshly, but too late. For even as his head cleared the nightmare was retreating, shrinking to nothing.