by Brian Lumley
When he felt tired he sat down, weary he went to sleep, hungry and thirsty he went without. And he knew that while weariness couldn’t kill him, deprivation most certainly would: what he had been deprived of, and what he now deprived himself of. That was how he wanted it and how he willed it to be.
There was no bitterness in him; he didn’t feel that he was quitting; only that he had never got started and so had nothing to finish, except his life. And even that might not be The End. For of all living men, Nathan knew that death was just another beginning. And maybe then, when his body was dead, all of them who had gone before would talk to him at last and explain the things which he’d never understood in life.
Would he be able to talk to his mother, he wondered, and to all the rest who were lost to him? And if he still couldn’t find peace or purpose, would there be other worlds beyond?
The last clump of withered grass was far behind him when the stars began to fade and the first crack of light showed on the horizon. He made straight for it. The stony ground turned to sand under his feet as the sun cleared the shimmering horizon, but Nathan averted his eyes and continued to wander south. Soon he was warm, then hot, finally sweating. It meant nothing to him: just another discomfort, of which he’d had enough. At least this would be the last.
He came to cliffs of sandstone rising out of the desert, and at last looked back. And saw nothing but sand or perhaps, in the far faint distance, a dark wrinkle where blinding blue met dazzling yellow on the shimmering rim of the world. The barrier range? Possibly. But now Nathan had his own barrier to cross. And after that the greatest barrier of all…
The sandstone cliffs were high and sheer. Nathan could not climb them so must skirt around, and so proceed towards the sun and his inevitable end. He turned east, walked a mile in the cool shade of the escarpment, and came to a great gash where the cliffs were split open into a gorge. Perhaps at the back he would find a way to climb the cliffs. He entered the gully and followed its wall half a mile to the rear, then in a semicircle, and finally back to the entrance but on the opposite side. He had discovered no way to climb the cliffs, but what did it matter? This would make as good a place as any to die.
He was hungry now and thirsty, more so than he had ever been in his entire life. If there had been food he would eat it, and if there was water he would drink it, naturally. But there wasn’t. And no way back to Sun-side’s forests now; for the sun would sear him in an hour, crush him to the earth in two, and shrivel him to a stick by midday. Which was all according to plan.
Nathan stood in the shade at the foot of the cliffs in the eastern lee of the gorge and looked around. In the otherwise sheer face of the cliff, a narrow ledge or fault climbed diagonally a third of the way to the top. Shading his eyes, he saw the mouths of many caves cut into the cliff where the split in the sandstone petered out. Perhaps this was a natural feature carved by water two or three or ten thousand years ago, in an age when the gulley was a watercourse; or perhaps the caves had been cut by men when the desert was more hospitable. As for now, they could only be homes for lizards and scorpions.
While Nathan thought these things, still they were neither curious nor even conscious thoughts; they were simply the activity of his human brain, which for all his traumas functioned as before. For in fact, even as he considered the origin of the precipitous caves and “wondered” at their meaning, he couldn’t really give a damn. After all, they made no slightest difference to his plan one way or the other.
For his plan was simply to die.
But Nathan had grown cold in the shade and desired to die warm. Stumbling now, he came out from the shadow of the cliffs into the blazing heat of the sun, and stood shivering until it burned through to his bones. Finally he returned to the shade, wrapped himself in his blanket shroud and lay down. And with a stone for a pillow he went to sleep.
With any luck he would not wake up but if he did … hopefully it would be to a painless and terminal delirium.
Nathan dreamed of the numbers vortex. He floated in black and empty space and the vortex rushed upon him out of the void to sweep him away to other places. But he was determined to stay here and die. He heard the voices of his wolves calling to him out of the spinning core of the maelstrom of numbers, but they were too far away and the din of clashing equations and mutating formulae was too loud; he couldn’t make out what they were saying. Something about Misha? About his mother? About death?
Nathan supposed they were commiserating with him, but he didn’t need that. “I know,” he called out into the vortex, and hoped they would hear him and leave him alone to die. “I know they’re dead. It’s all right. I … I’m going there too.”
The wolf voices became impatient, frantic, angry; finally they snapped at him. But why? Did they consider him a deserter? Or were they angry because he refused to understand? Whichever, the numbers vortex had given up trying to snatch Nathan and was shaking itself to pieces, disintegrating into fractions which it sucked into its own core. It snapped out of existence and left him alone, suspended in his dream.
Or perhaps not quite alone.
Did I hear you talking to … to wolves just then? The question startled Nathan. So much so that he shot upright in his blanket, awake!
“What?” He looked all around in the shade of the cliffs, whose shortening shadows told him that he had been asleep for only an hour or so. The voice had been so real, so close, that he felt certain someone must be hiding behind a boulder close by. Or maybe this was that terminal delirium he had hoped for. And less energetically, forcing the word up from a throat dry as the desert itself: “What?” he croaked again. But of course he was talking to himself, for there was no one there.
Oh, but there is someone here! The “voice” spoke again in Nathan’s mind, from as close a source as before. Indeed, there are many someones here.
Many someones …? The short blond hairs at the back of Nathan’s neck stood on end and his skin pricked up in gooseflesh. For now he “knew” what this was, and where he must be. And of course there would be a great “many someones” in that beyond world called death: more than all the living in all of Sunside. Indeed, a Great Majority!
Are you dead then? the voice inquired, puzzled. If so, it’s a strange thing. You don’t feel dead. But on the other hand, I can’t see how you can be alive. I never before spoke with a living creature. Well, not since my own time among the living.
Nathan had meanwhile stood up: slowly, achingly, as if all the oils of his body were already dried out. But he felt the pain of it, the emptiness of true hunger and the desiccation of thirst. That was what would kill him: his thirst. But he wasn’t dead yet, just delirious. He must be, surely. For he knew that the dead shunned him. And yet here was one who spoke to him with no slightest hint of fear or shyness. It was wish fulfilment, nothing more.
For both of us, perhaps, the voice agreed.
Nathan’s throat felt raw as freshly slaughtered meat. His lips were cracked, beginning to puff up. He tried to speak, to say; “What, and did you also desire to speak to the dead?” But only the first three words came out. It made no great difference; the thought was sufficient in itself.
Did I wish to speak to the dead? No, for I can do that already. Being one of them, of course I speak to them. But to be able to speak to one of the living … ah, that would be a precious gift indeed!
Nathan sat down on a boulder and thought: I’m delirious!
But I am not, said the voice. And I don’t think you are, either. And you’re certainly not dead. So who are you?
Nathan looked down at himself, visible, solid, unwavering. He was real. The voice in his head was the unreal thing. Surely it should be answering the question who are you?
First and foremost, I am Thyre, said the voice at once. But I see that you doubt my presence. You believe me to be a figment of your own imagination.
Nathan forced spittle down into his throat for lubrication. “Your name is Thyre?”
My name is a secret, to
any creature who is not Thyre. My race is Thyre. I am—or was—of the desert folk. But you are not. I perceive now that you are Szgany, of the forest and hill folk. You can only be, for if you were Wamphyri, then by now the sun must have melted you away. And the trogs likewise prefer their darkness. So, what is your name?
Again Nathan looked all around, satisfying himself that no one was playing some grotesque, macabre trick on him. “I’m called Nathan,” he finally answered, speaking more to himself than the unbodied presence, and thinking: how strange, to be a presence without a body! While out loud: “Nathan Kiklu, of the Szgany Lidesci.”
And you came here to die? Ah, yes, I know! For I’ve been listening to your thoughts for some little time. But when you talked to wolves, and them so far away … then I knew I must speak to you. For even though you are Szgany, still you have the secret talent of the Thyre!
A talent? Nathan wondered.
To speak mind to mind with other creatures—telepathy!
“Or to mumble and mutter to myself,” Nathan said out loud, nodding wryly. “Delirium—or madness!” But at the same time he knew that it was partly true. How often had he listened to the whispers of dead people in his dreams, and sometimes when he was wide awake? And what of the thing he used to have with Nestor? Or had all of that, too, been madness?
To which the voice answered: And am I also mad?
“Not mad,” Nathan shook his head, “but probably not real, either. You’re a mirage, heat haze over a tar pit, an hallucination. When I was a child and ate toadstools, I saw things which weren’t there. Now, because I’m hungry, hot and thirsty, I’ve started to hear things which aren’t there.”
Wrong, said the other. For I can prove that I am. Or if not that, I can at least prove that I was.
“You don’t have to prove anything,” Nathan shook his head. “I only want you to go away. I have to sleep and not wake up.”
Oh, you’ll do that soon enough, if you don’t let me help you!
Nathan was curious despite himself. “Why should you want to help me? What am I to you?”
A boon! said the other at once. A miracle! A light in the darkness of death! The chance to exchange thoughts, knowledge, legends, with living Thyre! That is what you are to me! There were others before you who spoke to dead men; they dwelled in Starside and talked to the spirits of Szgany and trogs. They didn’t come here and in the end never could, because by then they were Wamphyri!
Nathan nodded. “I’ve heard that: that sometimes among the Wamphyri there would be a necromancer.”
What? The other was aghast. No, no—not that! The ones of which I speak merely talked to the dead; they were beloved of the dead; they didn’t torture them!
Beloved of the dead? But hadn’t Nathan heard that expression before, as used by Lardis Lidesci in respect of certain hell-landers he’d known? The old Lidesci had never been too explicit with regard to The Dweller and his father, however, and had always spoken of them in hushed tones. It was a subject Nathan might like to pursue, but suddenly …
… His senses were spinning! He swayed dizzily, staggered, and sat down with a bump. He pictured himself standing under a waterfall, letting the water flow over him. It was an entirely involuntary thing: an instinctive longing for old, irretrievable pleasures. But it was easy to see how, under extremes of deprivation, a man’s mind might turn to the conjuring of false comforts in his final hours. Except in Nathan’s case, his mind seemed to have called up a personal devil to torment him!
So that in answer to what this—this what? mental mirage?—had just said to him, he croakingly replied: “Why does the idea of the living torturing the dead shock you so? Can’t you see how you’ve reversed the process, so that now the dead torture the living? But for you I would be sleeping my last sleep, dying. And you are keeping me from it, prolonging it, making it worse.”
The other was horrified at Nathan’s determination. What has brought you to this? The most precious thing any creature can have is life. And you, so young, reject it? The abnegation of all earthly responsibility? Best be warned, Nathan: give up your place among the living—go willingly to an unnecessary death—and you’ll find no solace among the Great Majority. What extreme is this you’ve been driven to, and why?
Nathan took his head in his hands and stared at the sand between his feet, and despite himself the events of the recent past were mirrored in the eye of his mind, where his inquisitor saw them. So that in a little while:
In the Thyre there is no urge for vengeance. The “voice” was quieter now. When we are hurt we move away from it, and never go back there.
“So would I,” Nathan told him. “If you would let me.”
But in the Szgany (the other ignored him), there is this deep-seated need for revenge upon an enemy. Just as there was in you. So what happened to it?
“My vow against the Wamphyri? Perhaps I saw its futility: they are indestructible. But I am Szgany, and if I’ve allowed my vow to die within me, then I might as well follow it into oblivion. No great loss, for what use is a man who can’t even honour his own vow?”
Self-pity? (The shake of an incorporeal head.) And in any case, you are mistaken. What, you? No great loss, did you say? But you must believe me when I tell you that you would be the greatest loss of all. As for the Wamphyri: they are not indestructible. They were destroyed, upon a time, some of them. And by others like yourself. And … I perceive … that what was in those others is also in you! You thought I spoke of necromancy, but you were wrong. There have been—will always be—necromancers among the Wamphyri, that is true. But these were men who talked to the dead before you, Nathan! By no means ordinary men, no, but certainly not necromancers! Neither are you a necromancer. But you are … a Necroscope!
Nathan had given up answering with his voice. He didn’t need to, anyway. Necroscope? I don’t know the word.
Neither did I! It is one of their words. As I am Thyre and you are Szgany, and the great vampire Lords are Wamphyri, so they were Necroscopes. And so are you. Its meaning is simple: you talk to the dead. And I am the dead proof of it.
Then why don’t they talk to me in return? Nathan’s question seemed perfectly logical. I mean the Szgany, of course. Why don’t the dead of my own kind talk to me?
Perhaps later there will be time to ask them, the other told him. Some of them, your people, have spoken to me from time to time; those of them who have graves at least. But you Szgany have strange ways: you’ve burned so many of your dead, and when they are burned it is that much harder. Harder still if their ashes are scattered. Perhaps that is why your people scatter the ashes of vampires: to deny them even the slightest chance of some monstrous nether-existence.
“I suppose it is,” Nathan answered thoughtfully, reverting to the use of his physical voice again, which after all came more naturally to him. “But what of the Thyre when they die? What is their lot?”
We are not put down into the darkness of the earth but elevated, the other told him. Neither are we scattered but gathered together. Eventually we are dust, but not for long and long … He paused, and in the next moment suddenly gasped: Ah, you see! Proof that you are a Necroscope! You asked me a question whose answer is a great secret, and yet I made no complaint but merely answered you. For I know that you are good and would never torment me, or use the knowledge to any evil advantage.
“What knowledge?”
Of the last resting places of the Thyre.
“But you’ve said nothing, only that they are brought up instead of being put down. I didn’t even understand you.”
You would understand if you tried to, the other insisted. You Travellers live on the surface, in the woods and hills of Sunside, and when you die you are put down into the earth. Or you were upon a time, until recently. And you would be again, if the Wamphyri should be driven out or destroyed. You spend your lives in the air and the light, and your deaths in the earth and the dark. But among the Thyre the opposite is the case. Our lives—
“—Ar
e spent in the earth?” Nathan finished it for him. “And your deaths … where?”
You have seen the place, the other answered, reverently. One of the places, at least. One of many such places.
A picture formed in Nathan’s mind, which he recognized at once. He looked up, at the stairway cut into the precipitous sandstone cliffs, and the gloomy mouths of caves leading off from it into unknown darkness. “The tombs of the Thyre?”
Indeed, and much more than that. For this is one of the places where our world enters yours.
Which was something else Nathan didn’t understand. He thought back on what he knew of the desert folk: very little, actually. Only that they were thought of as primitive nomads who wandered at the edge of the furnace desert and occasionally crossed the grasslands to trade with the Szgany. It had always been assumed that they lived above ground, perhaps in caves or tents, but apparently … and there he got a grip of himself. For without even realizing it, suddenly he had begun to believe.
That I am real, an incorporeal mind? That I was real, upon a time? But didn’t I say that I could prove it? Well, and the proof lies up there.
Nathan was tempted, but he was also sceptical. Was this really the mind of some dead creature, or was it his own mind trying to provoke him into a futile attempt at saving his life? “Are you telling me that your bones—your remains—are up there?”
Yes.
Though it was something of an effort, and probably wasted at that, Nathan stood up again. And knowing that it would take a far greater effort to climb the sandstone stairs, nevertheless he made his way to the foot of the cliffs and looked up at the mouths of the caves.
The place is sacred, the Thyre voice sighed in his mind. Only go there and my people will know, and eventually come to see what you are about. In this way you can save yourself.
“But if it’s a sacred place,” Nathan answered, starting up the steep climb, “surely they’ll kill me?”
