Titus Groan survive outside the castle, and he sets up various homes in the nearby forest and on Gormenghast Mountain. Having a strong attachment to the castle, and feeling a need to watch over Steerpike and to protect Titus, Flay returns secretly to Gormenghast during the night. Four nights after Titus’ first birthday, Flay finds Swelter wandering the castle with a meat cleaver. Swelter does not know of Flay’s banishment, and expects him to be sleeping where he has always slept up until now. Flay follows him to just outside Sepulchrave’s door, where Swelter discovers that Flay is not there, and soon
Titus Crow Jack Vance's futuristic detective, Doctor Who, Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan, August Derleth's Dr. Laban Shrewsbury, William Hope Hodgson's Carnacki and Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin. Lumley doesn't acknowledge any of these as conscious inspirations, saying that Crow's time-clock (which derives from Lovecraft's "Through the Gates of the Silver Key") long predates Who; that he's never read Peake's "Gormenghast" and that the similarity of names is coincidental; and that he "was never too keen on" Derleth's Shrewsbury. He does admit, however, to having "always had a soft spot" for Bram Stoker's Abraham Van Helsing. Collected in "The Compleat Crow" (1987 Hodder