Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates: And Other Tales From the Lost Years Read online

  NECROSCOPE®

  HARRY

  AND

  THE PIRATES

  TOR BOOKS BY BRIAN LUMLEY

  THE NECROSCOPE® SERIES

  Necroscope

  Tix Last Aerie

  Necroscope II: Vamphyri!

  Bloodwars

  Necroscope III: The Source

  Necroscope: The Lost Years

  Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

  Necroscope: Resurgence

  Necroscope V: Deadspawn

  Necroscope: Invaders

  Blood Brothers

  Necroscope: Defilers

  Necroscope: Avengers

  Necroscope: Harry and the Pirates and Other Tales from the Lost Years

  TALES OF THE PRIMAL LAND

  The House of the Cthulhu

  Tarra Khash: Hrossak!

  Sorcery in Shad

  THE TITUS CROW SERIES

  Titus Crow, Volume One: The Burrowers Beneath & The Transition of Titus Crow

  Titus Crow, Volume Two: The Clock of Dreams & Spawn of the Winds

  Titus Crow, Volume Three: In the Moons of Borea & Elysia

  THE PSYCHOMECH TRILOGY

  Psychomech

  Psychosphere

  Psychamok

  OTHER NOVELS

  Demogorgon

  The House of Doors

  Maze of Worlds

  Khai of Khem

  SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

  Fruiting Bodies and Other Fungi

  The Whisperer and Other Voices

  Beneath the Moors and Darker Places

  Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other Weird Heroes!

  NECROSCOPE®

  HARRY

  AND

  THE PIRATES

  AND OTHER TALES FROM

  THE LOST YEARS

  BRIAN LUMLEY

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  NECROSCOPE®: HARRY AND THE PIRATES

  Copyright © 2009 by Brian Lumley

  All rights reserved.

  A Tor Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor-forge.com

  Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lumley, Brian.

  Necroscope. Harry and the pirates and other tales from the lost years / Brian Lumley.

  p. cm.

  “A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2338-5

  ISBN-10: 0-7653-2338-9

  I. Title. II. Title: Harry and the pirates and other tales from the lost years.

  PR6062.U45N45 2009

  823'.914—dc22

  2009012920

  First Edition: July 2009

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For

  Dave the Web,

  Keith and Sarah,

  Sharon and Joanne,

  John, and Paul, and

  all the rest of

  the KeoghCon

  Gang

  Contents

  Introducing Harry Keogh: Necroscope

  For the Dead Travel Slowly

  Harry and the Pirates

  End Piece: Old Man with a Blade

  Introducing Harry Keogh: Necroscope

  On the opening page of the first 1986 British edition of Necroscope—the page I have always called the “blurb page,” where a juicy, or action-packed, or especially gripping paragraph has been taken from the text and reprinted as a hook for the potential reader, that fellow browsing in the bookstore—I cajoled my publisher to feature a concoction, found nowhere else in the book, which then and now I considered not only a fair description of what a Necroscope is, but also one “grabber” of a blurb. It goes like this:

  DEFINITIONS:

  Tele- (Gk. tele: “far”)

  A telescope is an optical instrument which enlarges the images of distant objects. Example: the surface of the moon may be viewed as from a few hundred miles away.

  Micro- (Gk. mikros: “small”)

  A microscope is an optical instrument which makes even tiny objects visible to the human eye. Under a microscope a drop of clear water is seen to contain myriad un-suspected micro-organisms.

  Necro- (Gk. nekros: “a corpse”)

  A Necroscope is a human instrument with access to the minds of the dead. Harry Keogh is the Necroscope—he knows the thoughts of corpses in their graves.

  The main differences between these instruments is this—the first two perform purely physical, one-way functions and are incapable of changing anything: the moon cannot look back through the telescope; the amoeba does not know it is under microscopic scrutiny.

  That’s Harry Keogh’s big problem: his talent seems to work both ways. THE DEAD KNOW—AND THEY WON’T LIE STILL FOR IT!

  Well, that was my “blurb,” my hook some twenty-two years ago, and I’m still happy with it despite that it doesn’t paint the whole or even the true picture. Instead it makes it appear that the teeming dead are out for revenge! Which in the Necroscope’s case could scarcely be further from the truth; for the dead love him! (Well, let’s put it this way: the “Great Majority” of them love him.)

  But between the living and the dead there are the undead, and that’s another story. In fact it’s a story that has taken most of the last two decades to write, a period covering seven bulky novels and a book of shorter stories, plus a stand-alone novel and two trilogies in which Harry Keogh plays cameo roles in the exploits of several new and very different Necroscopes.

  As for the original Necroscope:

  The man—and sometimes his avatar or reincarnation—has faced all kinds of mankind’s enemies: spies, vampires, zombies, werewolves, and aliens, often recruiting such to a cause which has cost Harry his life more than once! But . . . does that mean that he is dead? Or even doubly dead? No, for now as then he’s out there somewhere. . . .

  Fiction has given us a whole host of Harrys. There’s been Harry Lime, as played by Orson Welles, Dirty Harry Callahan, as played by Clint Eastwood, and a certain amount of “Trouble With Harry” too! There’s been superspy Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine; but most recently and notably there’s been the phenomenally successful Harry Potter and his marvellous adventures at Hogwarts school for magicians, in the bestselling books and smash-hit movies that have left every other modern fiction novelist floundering, if not washed up, in J. K. Rowling’s wake.

  Myself, I’m delighted with Harry Potter! Not only has he entertained millions the world over—young people mainly, for whom he was designed, but adults also—Harry has introduced many of them for the first time to the weird, wonderful worlds of fantasy fiction. And as everyone knows, children grow up and tastes change. Right now they are obsessed with this young man, with their Harry, and rightly so. But tomorrow and tomorrow?

  Well, while the future is a devious thing, I think it only fair to say there’s a darker Harry out there and far more adult magicks waiting. Already, and ever more frequently, I’m getting letters from young readers whose elders have introduced them to my Harry, to Harry Keogh, Necroscope.

  And so, as the end of my writing career draws ever closer, and while I know I’ll never catch up with J.K.R., still I’m far from floundering in her wake and very happy for the
future. You see, I’m waiting a few more years for Harry Potter’s readers to grow up. . . .

  Here in this latest volume, the sixteenth, you’ll find two long novellas and a—what, a vignette? An end piece, anyway—featuring the Necroscope in that period of his life previously designated “The Lost Years.” And for those who may be interested, if for no other reason, I’ll here append a complete listing of Necroscope titles and the dates when they were written, hopefully for your aproval.

  Necroscope

  March–September 1984

  Necroscope II: Vamphyri!

  February–August 1986

  Necroscope III: The Source

  April–August 1987

  Necroscope IV: Deadspeak

  November 1988–March 1989

  Necroscope V: Deadspawn

  March 1989–March 1990

  Blood Brothers

  May 1990–April 1991

  The Last Aerie

  June 1991–July 1992

  Bloodwars

  August 1992–August 1993

  Necroscope: The Lost Years

  January 1994–March 1995

  Necroscope: Resurgence

  May 1995–March 1996

  Necroscope: Invaders

  June 1997–June 1998

  Necroscope: Defilers

  June 1998–June 1999

  Necroscope: Avengers

  June 1999–June 2000

  Harry Keogh: Necroscope and Other

  Weird Heroes!

  June–August 2002

  Necroscope: The Touch

  November 2003–November 2004

  Harry and the Pirates

  January–July 2007

  BRIAN LUMLEY

  Torquay, August 2007

  For the Dead Travel Slowly

  In the gloom of the woods something stirred, moving slowly and yet, for a Thing of its nature, paradoxically quickly and with purpose. It was an ancient Thing, and these woods had been its habitat for millennia. Upon a time centuries ago, a handful of its long-lived kind had dwelled in these selfsame woods, until all but this one had died in a vengeful fire.

  The last of its species, the Thing was as weird as can be, but then again the sweet rains and dark plasms of earth—and on occasion the salty juices and nutrients of other than clay-cold soil—have nurtured myriad bizarre species on the three-billion-year-old paths of evolution; while fires, usually but not always natural, have destroyed a great many more.

  The Thing had intelligence that was more instinct; it was “sentient” in ways totally alien to men; it had nothing in the form of true emotions, except perhaps the frustration of loneliness and—in times of necessity, and others of ungovernable urges, when it sought out and fed lustfully upon certain alternatives to the bland nutrients of soil and leaf-mould—something of the awful pleasure derived from indulging its needs.

  Being a survivor and asexual both, the Thing had recently become aware of an important fact: that after these many centuries it would soon be time to reproduce, when bare subsistance on the mainly inert juices and minerals of earth would be insufficient to its needs. But it was summer, and summer had brought creatures into the borders of the forest; not little creatures like the ones that rustled in the fallen leaves or sang in the wood’s highest branches and nested there, but other, larger beings who sought out secret, shady places in which to embrace.

  Sexual activity . . . not that the old Thing understood very much about that, but it did understand the fatigue, the temporary loss of consciousness that often resulted from this behaviour; understood, welcomed, and even possessed a means of inducing such weariness. For in dimly remembered times past, through myriad summer seasons since, when lovers embraced in secrecy in these dark, uncut woods, then it had been the old Thing’s time.

  . . . And would be again!

  It happened during the lost years, that chaotic, long-drawn-out period in the Necroscope Harry Keogh’s life of which, later, he would “believe” he remembered much while in fact recalling nothing of any real substance, clarity, or durability. And while he would know he had employed a mathematical (indeed metaphysical) formula, unique in himself, to conjure a means of teleportation and enable an exhaustive worldwide search for his runaway wife and infant son, still he would never manage to focus his memory upon more than a handful of the locations which he’d supposedly visited in this way. Vague and shifting landscapes, like forgotten phrases on the tip of his tongue, would form wraithlike yet frustratingly familiar scenes in the dimmest corners of Harry’s mind, collapsing into smoke there if he should attempt to bring them into permanence. Which was why—whenever he was caused to reflect on that persistently opaque period—thoughts that were usually inadvertent, or if not that then certainly reluctant—it would always be in terms of time lost. Even of years lost.

  The lost years, yes . . .

  All of this, however, this hiatus created by some blockage in Harry’s mind, was just as well; and because deep in the core of his being he knew or suspected this was so, he took care not to pursue the mystery too closely. Certainly the macabre events of the years in question were not such as to invite examination or investigation by any entirely normal man—a statement which should not be construed to imply that Harry was entirely normal or natural. No, hardly that. Human and physically normal, certainly, but mentally, intellectually?—never! He was apart from other living men as they are apart from the Great Majority, the teeming dead. For despite that Harry Keogh was very much alive, as the Necroscope he was by no means apart from the dead!

  “Necroscope”: a composite word created by Harry Keogh himself, and the only word that accurately described him or rather his function. For as the telescope spies on things afar and the microscope scans the incredibly small, so a Necroscope tunes in on the thoughts of the dead and can even converse with corpses! But no faker Harry Keogh; no cheating, so-called “spiritualist” but the real thing, the world’s only true master of matroclinic abilities passed down from genuine psychics: forebears of great power whose parapsychological talents had been inherited by one in whom even weirder skills, if such may be imagined, had evolved and continued to evolve if not entirely “naturally.”

  It was during those oh-so-confusing lost years, then—at a time when Harry had left his lonely old house near Edinburgh and returned to the fields, villages, and country lanes of the County of Durham on England’s sadly declining north-east coast, that same region where he had grown to manhood, courted Brenda, and first explored his eerie skills—that the following incidents occurred. For it was in just such familiar settings, where yet again he had failed to discover a single clue to the whereabouts of his wife and infant son, that the Necroscope stumbled across something entirely different. . . .

  It was summertime, and Harry was feeling tired, or not so much tired as drowsy; the heat of the summer sun was getting to him, and his face, his forearms, and his chest in the V of an open-necked shirt, were tanned to a degree that was unusual for him. Even a light tan would make a sharp contrast with the normally pallid complexion of one who was not by nature a sun worshipper. What, Harry Keogh, a sun worshipper? No, far more likely a child of the night, the Necroscope: a creature of the moon and stars, a familiar of cobwebs, shadows, and gloom . . . even of the gloomiest places of all, though the latter was more a matter of convenience than preference. For there in the darkness of the last and longest night, that was where the majority—even the Great Majority—of Harry’s friends existed still.

  It had not always been that way. In earlier, less troubled or problematic times when he was with his wife, things had been very different. Brenda had loved beaches, breezes off the sea, cliff-hugging paths and leaf-dappled forest ways; she’d enjoyed the grass-tufted sand-dunes at Crimdon Dene, the sprawling mile of pure white sand at Seaton Carew, the penny arcades and fish-and-chip shops of the seaside resorts. Which was why the Necroscope had done it all over again—the beaches, breezes, penny arcades, fish-’n’-chips, the lot—while he searched for Brenda. Which
was also how he had earned the patch of mild but irritating sunburn on the crown of his head.

  Today, having learned his lesson, Harry had worn a floppy, wide-brimmed hat that in its way looked camp on his young head; more especially so in the raw-knuckled ex-coal-mining village on the coast where he was staying, where the miner’s flat grey cap was still the customary mode of headgear; this despite the fact that the local coal mines had closed down many years ago. For however much the fortunes of villages like Easingham, Blackhill Rocks, Morton, and Harden had suffered with the decline of “the pits,” somehow they managed to retain the character and customs of their salt-of-the-earth inhabitants; customs that would live on for some time yet, even as long as the last of the old-timers who had once hewed coal in the mines. But Harry’s hat—however out of place it might look—had served a double, even a triple purpose. It kept the sun from his itching scalp (kept it out of his eyes, too) and, in the privacy of its floppy brim, he could mumble—apparently to himself—without being observed by anyone who might otherwise have reason to consider him an idiot.