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wall; as he did so the other noted his gaunt grey flesh and crimson eyes, and
paused.
'Hello there, Lardis.' The Necroscope nodded, his own voice as deep and deeper
than the other's. 'I hope that shotgun's not for me!' He wasn't joking; if
anything, he might have been threatening.
'For The Dweller's father?' Lardis looked at the weapon in his hands as if
seeing it for the first time, in something of surprise. He shuffled a little,
awkwardly, like a boy caught in contemplation of some small crime, and said,
'Hardly that! But - ' and again the Traveller chief looked at Harry's eyes,
and this time narrowed his own, ' -wherever you've been and whatever you've
done since last you were here, Harry Hell-lander, I see you've known hard
times.' Finally he averted his gaze, glancing here and there all about the
garden, then down onto Starside. 'Aye, and hard times here, too. And more
still to come, I fear.'
Harry studied the man, and asked, 'Hard times? Won't you explain?'
Lardis Lidesci was Romany; in this world, on Earth, anywhere, there would be
no mistaking the Gypsy in him. He was maybe five-eight tall, built like a
crag, and looked of one age with the Necroscope. (In fact he was a lot
younger, but Starside and the Wamphyri had taken their toll.) In contrast to
his squat build he was very agile, and not in body alone;
his intelligence was patent in every brown wrinkle of his expressive face.
Open and frank, Lardis's round face was framed in dark flowing hair in which
streaks of grey were now plainly visible; he had slanted, bushy eyebrows, a
flattened nose and a wide mouth full of strong if uneven teeth. His brown eyes
held nothing of malice but were careful, thoughtful, penetrating.
'Explain?' said Lardis, coming no closer. 'But isn't all of this explanation
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enough?' He opened his arms expansively, as if to enclose the entire garden.
'I've been away four years, Lardis,' Harry reminded him, but not in exactly
those words. He made automatic conversions; time on Sunside and Starside was
not measured in years but in those periods between sunup, when the barrier
peaks turned gold, and sundown, when auroras danced in the northern skies.
'When I left this place and returned to the hell-lands,'
(he did not say, 'after my son had crippled and banished me', for he'd read in
Lardis's mind that he knew nothing of that), 'we'd just won a resounding
victory over the Wamphyri. The sun had burned The Dweller, very badly, but he
was well on the road to a complete recovery. The futures of you and your
Traveller tribe, and The Dweller's trogs, too, seemed
file:///G|/rah/Brian%20Lumley/Brian%20Luml...pe%205%20-%20Deadspawn%20V1.0%20(
html).htm (243 of 314) [2/13/2004 10:18:41 PM]
Brian Lumley - Necroscope 5 - Deadspeak secure. So what happened? Where is
everyone? And where's The Dweller?'
'In good time.' Lardis nodded, slowly. 'All in good time.' And in a little
while, frowning:
'When I saw you come here,' (he seemed to have changed the subject), ' - when
you appeared here in that way of yours, as once The Dweller was wont to appear
- ' (past tense?
Harry contrived to hide a small start), 'well, I knew it was you, obviously. I
remembered how you looked - you, Zek, Jazz - as if all of that were yesterday.
Yes, and I remembered the good times, in the days immediately after the battle
here in the garden. Then, approaching you, I saw your eyes and knew you were a
victim no less than The Dweller in that earlier time. And because you are
Harry Wolfson's father, his natural father - and I
suppose also because I carry this shotgun, loaded with silver from your son's
armoury - I
wasn't afraid of you. For after all, I am Lardis Lidesci, whom even the
Wamphyri respected in some small part.'
'In some large part!' Harry nodded at once. 'Don't sell yourself short. So
what are you trying to say, Lardis?'
'I am wondering . . .' the other began to answer, paused and sighed. 'The
Dweller, when lucid, has mentioned . . .'
When 'lucid'? Now what the hell was this?
Harry would look inside Lardis's head, but something warned him not to take on
too much. 'Yes?' he prompted.
'Is it possible - ' Lardis jerked the shotgun shut across his arm, thus
loading it, its twin barrels pointing straight at Harry's heart, 'that you are
their advance guard?'
The Necroscope conjured a Möbius door directly under his own feet and fell
through it -
and in the next moment rose up out of another door behind the Traveller chief.
The echoes of the double blast were still bouncing between the higher crags; a
whiff of black-powder stench drifted on the air; Lardis was cursing very
vividly and swinging the double barrels of his weapon left and right through a
180-degree arc.
Harry touched him on the shoulder, and as Lardis crouched down and spun on his
heels took the gun from him. He propped the weapon against the wall, narrowed
his eyes and tilted his head on one side a little - perhaps warningly - and
growled, 'Let's walk and talk, Lardis. But this time let's try to be a little
more forthcoming.'
The Gypsy was build like a bull; for a moment he remained in his half-crouch,
eyes slitted, arms reaching. But finally he changed his mind. Harry was
Wamphyri. Go up against him?
One might as well hurl oneself from a high place, which would be a much
quicker, far less painful death.
But this time, no longer distracted by the gun, Harry read his thoughts. 'No
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need to die, Lardis,' he said, as softly as possible. 'And no need to kill.
I'm no one's vanguard. Now, will you tell me what has happened -what
happening - here? And take the shortest route is about it?' [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]