Harry Keogh by Brian Lumley

Author:Brian Lumley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2011-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

SO IT WENT.

Through the Seer’s invisible eyes Hero boarded Shallis Tull’s sloop The Silver Fish, to witness that vessel’s vampirized ex-captain vacantly exploring her length and breadth. There was something vaguely familiar about the ship’s interior and belowdecks, but Hero was rather more interested in the ghost of Tull than the vessel it had chosen to haunt.

Finally he followed the blocky, bearded, bewildered, and disembodied apparition back up on deck, where in a little while it passed into the wheelhouse, through the wheel, and vanished into the woodwork.

Before the Seer’s eyes could revert to their commonplace (?) vacuity, Hero gazed through them onto the wharfside, where as before a small crowd of curiosity-seekers had assembled, all of them staring in wide-eyed wonder at the ghost-boat. And again, among the milling faces of these perversely peering persons, Hero thought he saw one which he recognized. Indeed, the same one that he’d seen outside the house of the explorer-adventurer.

After that, in short order, the S.W.I.E. showed Hero the ghost of Eelor Tush, a Baharnian vintner who’d journeyed to the edge of dream itself in the discovery of his rare wines; the spectral remains of Tark the Tall, mountaineer extraordinaire, whose recent expedition on the south face of Hatheg-Kla in the stony desert had been the talk of all the dreamlands (especially after his party, with the sole exception of Tark himself, had fallen to their deaths from the mountain’s flank; indeed fallen up the mountain, for Hatheg-Kla is that sort of place); and finally the shade of Geerblas Ulm, fearless and fabled descender into holes, first man to ever clamber down a rope to the bone-strewn floor of the ill-regarded Pit of Puth. And always Hero was aware that the same figure and face were somewhere present in the vicinity, mingling with the mobs come to gawp at the ghosts of this string of unfortunate personalities.

And so fascinated and involved had Hero become with these ocular excursions that it took some little time for the fact to dawn that here he was back in the Leery Crab (from which he’d never in fact strayed), seated beside the Seer, who sipped at his muth as before. “Enough?” inquired that worthy, between sips.

“Quite enough.” Hero nodded. “And I thank you for what you’ve shown me. What’s more, I believe I’m onto something. Now make haste with that muth and get busy.”

“Eh? Busy?”

“Searching for Eldin, of course, alive or dead. But alive, if you value my continued friendship.”

The Seer drained his mug. “I shall proceed by yak to the western flank of N’granek, which I’ll search most diligently,” he promised.

“Good!” said Hero. “And when I’ve done with a spot of business—maybe even while I’m dealing with it—I’ll make myself available for searching the eastern flank. Before we go our separate ways, however, perhaps you’ll tell me: when exactly was Shallis Tull’s demise?”

“Eh? Tull? He disappeared, oh, all of three or four months ago. One of the vampire’s first victims, as it happens.”

“And The Silver Fish? What became of her?”

“Sold in auction, the monies going to Tull’s old shipmates.

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