'What?' For a moment Janos stood frozen - and in the next bayed a laugh which was more a howl. 'My Thracians? My Greeks, Persians, Scythians? They are dust, the veriest salts of men! Only the guards which I raised up from them have form. Oh, I grant you, the Necroscope may call up corpses to walk again - but even he cannot build flesh and bone from a handful of dust. And even if he could, why, I would simply put them down again! I have him; he is desperate and seeks to enlist impossible allies; let him talk to them.'

He laughed again, briefly, and turning towards the dark, irregular pile of his ruined castle, narrowed his scarlet eyes. 'Come,' he grunted then. 'There are certain preparations to be made.'

A handful of Szgany menfolk bundled Harry through the woods and past the outcropping knoll with its cairn of soulstones beneath the cliff. His hands were bound behind him and he stumbled frequently; his head ached miserably, as from some massive hangover; but as the group passed close to the base of the knoll, so he sensed the wispy wraiths of once-men all around.

Harry let his deadspeak touch them, and knew at once that they were only the echoes of the Zirras he had spoken to in the Place of Many Bones deep in the ruins of the Castle Ferenczy. The knoll's base was lapped by a clinging ground mist, but its domed crest stood clear where the cairn of carved stones pointed at the rising moon. Men had carved those stones, their own headstones, before climbing to the heights and sacrificing themselves to a monster.

'Men?' Harry whispered to himself. 'Sheep, they were. Like sheep to the slaughter!'

His deadspeak was heard, as he had intended it should be, and from the castle in the heights was answered:

Not all of us, Harry Keogh. I for one would have fought him, but he was in my brain and squeezed it like a plum. You may believe me when I say I did not go to the Ferenczy willingly. We were not such cowards as you think. Now tell me, did you ever see a compass point south? Just so easily might a Zirra, chosen by his master, turn away.

'Who are you?' Harry inquired.

Dumitru, son of Vasile.

'Well, at least you argue more persuasively than your father!' said Harry.

One of the Gypsies prodded him where they bundled him unceremoniously up the first leg of the climb. 'What are you mumbling about? Are you saying your prayers? Too late for that, if the Ferenczy has called you.'

Harry, said Dumitru Zirra, if I could help you I would, in however small a measure. But I may not. Here in the Place of Many Bones, I was gnawed upon by one of the Grey Ones who serve the Boyar Janos. He had my legs off at the knees! I could crawl if you called me up, but I could never fight. What, me, a half-man of bone and leather and bits of gristle? But only say it and III do what I can.

So, I've found a man at last, Harry answered, this time silently, in the unique manner of the Necroscope. But lie still, Dumitru Zirra, for I need more than old bones to go against Janos.

The way was harder now and the Gypsies sliced through the thongs binding Harry's wrists. Instead they put two nooses round his neck, one held by a man who stayed well ahead of him, and the other by a man to his rear. 'Only fall now, Englishman, and you hang yourself,' their spokesman told him. 'Or at very least stretch your neck a bit as we haul you up!' But Harry didn't intend to fall.

He called out to Möbius with his deadspeak: August? How's it coming?

We're almost there, Harry! came the excited answer from a Leipzig graveyard. It could be an hour, two, three at the outside.

Try thirty minutes, said Harry. / may not have much more than that left.

Other voices crowded Harry's Necroscope mind. From the graveyard in Halmagiu:

Harry Keogh ... we are shunned. Who named you a friend of the dead was a great liar!

Taken off guard, he answered aloud. 'I asked for your help. You refused me. It's not my fault the world's teeming dead hold you in contempt!'

The Szgany where they laboured up the mountainside in the streaming moonlight looked at each other. 'Is he mad? Always he talks to himself!'

Harry opened all the channels of his mind - removed all barriers within and without - and at once Faethor was raging at him: Idiot! I am the only one who can help you, and yet you keep me hooded like some vicious bird in a cage. Why do you do this, Harry?

Because I don't trust you, he answered silently. Your motives, your methods, you your black-hearted self! I don't trust a single thing you say or do, Faethor. You're not only a father of vampires but a father of liars, too. Still, you do have a choice.

A choice? What choice?

Get out of my mind and go back to your place in Ploiesti.

Not until this thing is seen through -to- the - end! And how can I be sure you'll stick to that? You can't, Necroscope!

Then sit in the dark, said Harry, closing him off again. And now the climb was half-way done...

In Rhodes it was 1:30 a.m.

Darcy Clarke and his team sat around a table in one of their hotel rooms. They had spent time recovering from their work, had eaten out as a group, had discussed their experiences and how they'd been affected and probably would be affected for a long time to come. But in the back of their minds each and every one of them had known that their own part in the fight was minimal, and that without Harry Keogh's success everything else was cosmetic and the partial elation they felt now only the lull before the real storm.

As they'd returned from their late meal, so Zek had come up with an idea. She was a telepath and David Chung a locator. Together, they might be able to reach Harry and see what were his circumstances.

Darcy had at once protested: 'But that's just what Harry didn't want! Look, if Janos got his mental hooks into you -'

'I've a feeling he'll be too much involved with Harry to be thinking about anything else,' Zek had cut in. 'Anyway, I want to do it. In the Lady Karen's stack - her aerie on Starside -1 had the job of reading the minds of a great many Wamphyri. Not one of them so much as suspected I was there, or if they did nothing came of it. That's the way I'll play it now.'

Still Darcy wasn't sure. 'I was only thinking about poor Trevor,' he said, 'and about Sandra...'

'Trevor Jordan wasn't expecting trouble,' Zek had answered, 'and Sandra was inexperienced and her talent variable. I'm not putting her down, just stating a fact.'

'But -'

'No!' and again she had cut him off. 'If David is willing, I want to do it. Harry means a lot to Jazz and me.'

At which Darcy had appealed to Jazz Simmons.

Jazz had shaken his head. 'If she says she'll do it, then she'll do it,' he said. 'Hey, don't take my word for it! I'm only married to her!'

And with reservations, finally Darcy had submitted. For the fact was that he as much as anyone else was interested to know Harry's circumstances.

Now the three who weren't participants, Darcy, Jazz and Ben Trask, sat around the table and concentrated on what Zek and David were doing: the latter with his eyes closed, breathing deeply, his hands resting lightly on the stock and body of Harry's crossbow where it sat on the table, and Zek similarly disposed, her hand on one of his.

They had been this way for a minute or two, waiting for Chung to locate the Necroscope through the medium of one of his own possessions. But as seconds ticked by in silence and the two participants grew even more still, so the watchers began to relax a little - even to fidget - and their thoughts to drift. And just at the moment that Jazz Simmons chose to scratch his nose, that was when contact was made.