story identification - 60's/70's Trio of books about being attacked by giant bats that take away your ability to think

I read the book trilogy in paperback and perhaps they only were available in “bulk” paperback. They were from the 60's or 70's. I remember one book cover - an older man dressed as a typical wizard - long brown robe with hood, long grey hair and beard wearing a sword and holding a long cane or stick is sitting at some fellows kitchen table.

The wizard is from a different world and comes to ours. He returns to his bringing along a young man and woman. It’s the young man who owns the small house and kitchen table the wizard is sitting at - big shock to the young man when he turns on the light and sees this wizard character sitting there. At his home world the people are under attack by something like giant bats that sort of fly and float about. If they catch you they take away your ability to think. Eventually you’ll walk off a cliff or drown or starve since you aren’t human any longer.

So the people are fleeing to these giant, “keeps” their ancestors made long ago when these creatures first attacked humanity. Oh yes, the creatures/bats live in massive numbers deep underground and of course the wizard and our young man get to climb down a bazillion stairs into their nest for some important reason.

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When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

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