The Other

by Matthew Hughes

  “Hush,” said Brosch. “Let me think about it. In the meantime, we will examine the object properly. Perhaps it does not fit the description.”

  “How long will this examination take?” Imbry said. “You are not the only threat to my life.”

  Brosch shrugged. “I have looked at it. There are no obvious discrepancies.”

  “Discrepancies?”

  The elder spoke as he positioned two freestanding lumens so that they brightly lit the box. Its strange figures stood out in sharp relief. “It generally fits the description that has emerged from the delvings. To give it a more searching examination will take as long as it takes. Of course, if after a few moments’ careful inspection, I come across something that flatly contradicts what we know we should be seeing, then the issue is settled.”

  “As would be my fate,” said Imbry. “Suppose, however, you found no contraindications after, say, a full night’s study, where would we stand then?”

  “I am a fair man,” said Brosch. “By then I would be almost entirely convinced.”

  “Enough to allow me to know where I am to go?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Then,” said Imbry, “while you study, why not allow our young friend here to tell me what he wants to tell me? Since you will either tell me yourself in the morning or have me killed sometime during the night.”

  “You argue very well for an irregular,” Brosch said. “I am impressed.”

  “Well,” said Imbry, “there are irregulars and then there are irregulars. But what is your answer?”

  Brosch weighed the argument. “Very well,” he said. He turned to Shvarden. “Tell him.”

  It was much as Imbry had deduced. The “delvings” had produced snippets of information. At first, the visionaries had seen individual characters, the ideographs that the long-vanished indigenes had apparently used as communications symbols and which were to be found on fired clay tablets in and around the structures like the one that Imbry had visited. These were thought to have been centers for ritual observances, and perhaps for administrative functions, much as the Arbitrations were in Fuldan settlements.

  Thousands of distinct ideograms had been identified in and around indigene ruins, but only several score of them were ever reported by visionaries, and those same figures kept appearing when Ideals came into contact with their Others. Over many years, the Arbitration’s scholars built up a syllabary based on these repeated characters.

  And then, once the syllabary was established, a change occurred: delvers began to see the characters in combinations. Two, or sometimes three, characters would appear together, wavering before the delver’s inner eye like a mirage. The scholars recorded the combinations. They corresponded with each other, found that the same combinations were occurring in widely separated communities. They studied all the factors: which individual irregular or traveling troupe of irregulars was associated with which string of characters; whether there was any correlation to the time of year or to the age, sex, or other characteristics of the delvers.

  But they found nothing of note. First, the visionaries had seen only single characters, but always the same limited number of ideograms. Then suddenly no one was seeing single characters, but only the groups, and always the same groups. An arbiter scholar made a pronouncement: “First we were taught letters,” he said. “Now we are being taught words.”

  The thesis touched off a great debate which lasted years and was finally resolved in a conclave which Brosch had attended as a young man. It was decided that the groups of characters were indeed words, though in a language as yet unknown. But one thing was clear. These mysteries were being revealed to the Ideals of Fulda. There could be only one source for the revelation: the Blessed Haldeyn.

  The Founder had moved on to Perfection. From there he was sending his faithful a new truth. But it was a truth that could only be expressed in the perfect speech of the higher plane, and that speech must be learned gradually. “Too rapid an influx of the pure strength of Perfection, the recondite concepts, the sublime profundity, would burst the fragile vessels of even the most regular of brains,’” Shvarden quoted, “‘yea, even the seams of our skulls.’”

  And so the scholars of the Arbitration had diligently pursued the mystery. They had identified and collected the individual words from the delvers’ visions. Then had come a new phase: the words began to be linked to form phrases, a series of patterns that gradually emerged and became consistent. In time, the arbiters could not only reliably recognize the phrases, but could even gain hints at how they fit together to form longer constructions.

  “Imagine it!” Shvarden breathed, not wishing to disturb Brosch who was bent over the ceramic box, minutely examining the strings of characters that coated its sides and top. “The words of the Blessed Haldeyn himself,”—he looked up at the painted image and made the face-touching gesture—“in the very tongue of Perfection, and delivered to us in my lifetime. I am so fortunate. We all are.” A tear formed in the corner of one eye and he wiped it away.

  “But why does he use the indigenes’ left-behinds?”

  “We’ve puzzled over that,” the arbiter said. “It may be that the indigenes used interplanar energies to create their artifacts. If so, they could form a conduit for connections between the Plane of Perfection and our mundane level.”

  “Are not the indigenes irregular? Does contact with their artifacts not contaminate you?

  “Idealism only applies to human beings,” said Shvarden. “If it applied to other species, we would not be able to touch a barbarel or a meat animal. That would be silly.”

  “Of course,” said Imbry. “I should have seen that.”

  “Well, you are just an irregular.”

  “Please go on,” said Imbry. “I am eager to hear more.”

  “I believe,” the young arbiter confided, “that when the words of the Blessed Founder are finally spoken aloud, in the tongue of Perfection, in the designated place, the world will change. And we will all change. We will be as we ought to be. Perfect. Without flaw. Ideal.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “And we will all go to join the Blessed Founder in Perfection.”

  “All?” Imbry said. “Irregulars and Reorientationists, too?”

  A cloud of sadness passed over Shvarden’s face. “No,” he said, “not all. But you will have this world for yourselves. We will have no more need of it.”

  “Most kind,” the fat man said. “Is there more?”

  There was. The words of the revelation were now known, at least in their visual representation. And again the nature of the visions had changed: now the delvers not only saw the strings of characters that the Blessed Haldeyn wanted them to know; now they were hearing the sounds those characters represented.

  “Sounds?” Imbry said. “Like what?”

  “It is peculiar,” the arbiter said. “They sound sibilant and yet with a certain hollowness. I do not think our mundane lips and tongues, our fleshly lungs and larynxes, can properly mouth the words of Perfection. We will achieve, at best, an approximation of the perfect.”

  “Will that suffice?”

  “It must. And the Blessed Founder will have provided for our lack. As the Speaker pronounces the words—”

  “Who is the Speaker?” asked Imbry.

  “He has not yet emerged,” Shvarden said. Then he grew thoughtful. “Although . . .”

  “What?”

  “Investigator Breeth.”

  “What of him?”

  “He is drawn to you, so strongly.”

  Imbry allowed his skepticism to show. “Breeth as the Speaker? If you expect the investigator to cooperate . . .” He made a dismissive gesture and barked a short laugh.

  Shvarden shrugged. “Some of the earliest converts to the Renewal were those who had most strongly opposed Dansk’s vision. Thus it is written: When they saw the truth, they became believers. It happened in the blink of an eye. The power of the Blessed Founder is not easily gainsaid.”

  “Breeth
seems to be gainsaying it with some fluency,” said Imbry.

  “The Renewal is at hand. The power cannot be withstood. The Speaker will pronounce the words of power, here in imperfect Fulda. At the same time, so shall speak the Blessed Founder, in Perfection. His great voice, there, will resonate with our little voice, here, setting up an ineffable connection, drawing into our world the power to burst the barrier between the planes. He will draw us to him—perfect, ideal, complete at last.”

  “You are sure of this?” Imbry said.

  “It is beyond doubt.”

  “And my role in the Renewal?”

  Shvarden looked at Brosch, still stooped over the figured box. “Decider?” he said.

  Brosch straightened. Now his face wore an expression of dawning wonder. “Decider,” he said to Shvarden, “here is a secret not known to you. The College has determined that the first person the Finder would meet after discovering the First Eye would be the Bearer, that together they would carry the First Eye to the navel of the world, with the Speaker, and bring the Renewal to pass.”

  “But the Finder is not one of us,” said the younger arbiter.

  “The delvings have told us he had to come from beyond all horizons. So how could he have been one of us? The College has puzzled over that. Now it becomes clear. As does the meaning of ‘From the darkness he comes, toward the light he progresses.’” He looked at Imbry with a new appreciation. “You are the Finder. The time is at hand.” He pressed his palms to his chest in what the fat man took to be a ritual gesture, and said, so softly it was almost a whisper, “The time is at hand.”

  Shvarden copied the gesture. “We are the generation that will join the Blessed Founder in Perfection,” he said. “It is hard to believe.” He paused and blinked. “And yet, when I say it, it becomes clear. The Renewal is at hand.”

  “And you,” Brosch turned to the younger man, “were the first to meet him after the finding. You are the Bearer.”

  The younger man gasped. His eyes shone.

  “Where,” Imbry asked him, “might ‘the navel of the world’ be?”

  “That has always seemed obvious,” said Brosch. “And now it is confirmed. I have been examining the lid of the container. Come and see.”

  Imbry and the younger arbiter approached the table. The box stood in the multisourced light, and it seemed to the fat man that it did exude some numinous quality. He had felt the same emanation from a few other ancient ritual objects that had passed through his hands as a trader in collectibles, and had wondered at its source. The conventional explanation was that any object that was the focus of great devotion over a long time somehow absorbed mana from its devotees. Or perhaps it was because such objects existed in a numinous contiguity to another of the Planes. Imbry had always been skeptical of both rationales, but could not deny the effect.

  “Look here,” Bosch said. “Around the rim of the lid is a string of the characters with which we are familiar. But look at what is contained within the border.”

  Imbry looked and saw a spiral of complex symbols, each enclosed in an oval cartouche. Brosch pointed to the cartouche at the open end of the swirl and Shvarden gasped. “I had not noticed,” he said.

  Brosch’s finger moved on to the next point, inward on the spiral. “Then this.” His finger moved again. “And this.” Then on to the next cartouche, and the one after. He traced the lines of the spiral down to the large oval at its center. “And finally, here.”

  “Omphal,” Shvarden breathed.

  “What is Omphal?” said Imbry.

  “The navel of the world,” said Shvarden, his voice full of the kind of wonder and delight Imbry had heard before, though only in the voices of customers to whom he had just handed some piece that crowned a lifetime’s collecting. Sometimes the object had been genuine, sometimes not, but the tone was always the same.

  “What does it signify?” he asked the arbiters.

  Brosch said, “Do you recall the Eye beneath which you found this?” he said.

  “I saw no eye.”

  “A hollow depression marked with symbols.”

  “Ah, yes. I stood on the oval in the center and it sank into the ground.”

  “Do you remember what was engraved on the center?”

  Imbry looked at the top of the box. The outermost symbol on the spiral was a cross-hatching, like a child’s rendering of a fence. “That was,” he said.

  “Indeed,” said Brosch. “And that symbol is engraved on only one Eye on all of Fulda.” He pointed at the next cartouche, a collection of nested rings that put Imbry in mind of a mound of soap bubbles. “Just as this symbol is at the center of only one Eye. Each of these symbols is at the center of an Eye.”

  “Why are they called Eyes?” Imbry asked.

  The elder arbiter shrugged. “They were called that by the old population. Each was the setting for a great lens of clitch. To the first settlers, they seemed like eyes looking up into the sky.” He sniffed. “All irregular nonsense, of course.”

  “And they removed the lenses?” Imbry said. “Where are they now?”

  Brosch shrugged. The matter was of no concern to him. “They broke up the lenses—they were quite fragile—and sold the clitch off-world. It was all gone long before we Ideals came, except for a few scraps.” He sorted through a mound of papers on the work table and came up with a hand-sized lump of gray, greasy rock that had apparently served as a paperweight, handed it to Imbry. “Here’s a piece. But that’s not important. What he have here,”—he indicated the container, and tapped the center cartouche—“is obviously a map to the navel of the world.”

  “And not only a map,” said Shvarden, tracing the twelve different points on the spiral. “But a route.”

  Brosch took only a moment to concur. “That is the value of being one of the last of the last,” he said, beaming at the younger man. “You see through to the heart of the matter.”

  “What does all this mean?” said Imbry. “You forget that I am not a party to your mysteries, but merely a stranded stranger who wishes to go home.”

  “It means that you must take the First Eye to each of these sites in turn, until your progress brings you to Omphal.” The elder tapped the heart of the spiral. “Here. It is an Eye in the southern desert.”

  “Can I not just go there directly?”

  “No,” said Shvarden. “The revelation is gradual. To go straight to the heart would likely destroy what the Blessed Haldeyn is trying to achieve for us.”

  “He’s right,” said Brosch. “We must get you outfitted for the journey and underway as soon as possible.”

  “What about your search for ‘discrepancies?’” Imbry said.

  “I was blind to the obvious,” said the senior arbiter. “My eyes are now opened. This is the First Eye. Irregular or not, you are the Finder. Shvarden is the Bearer. The time is at hand.”

  The two arbiters looked at each other with a childlike wonder, as if they were boys in Olkney, just arisen in the morning of the Feast of Slamming Doors, with nothing but delights and diversions to last until bedtime. Imbry saw that the time had come when he could take charge of the situation. “Suppose,” he said, “I decline the honor?”

  The two men turned to him, their bliss giving way to consternation. “What?” said Brosch.

  “This, and its significance,” said Imbry, indicating the object “are part of your movement. But I am not a part of it. This has a great, supernal meaning to you, but it means nothing to me.

  “As I have told you, I am a kidnap victim, stranded far from home. My only goal is to return to Old Earth, find whoever did this to me, and settle the account.”

  “But—” Shvarden began, but he was interrupted by his elder.

  “You repulsive, deviant, oddy!” Brosch said, his voice rising with each word. “I ought to turn you over to Breeth! He’d soon teach you your manners!”

  Imbry wore a look of resignation. “Perhaps that would be best. He would also be interested in knowing your opinions
concerning the identity of the Finder and Bearer. I am sure he would want to share that news with his associates in the Reorientation.”

  Brosch and Shvarden regarded Imbry with an identical expression: that of one who has brought home an interesting and unknown specimen of exotic wildlife only to discover that it is both capable and desirous of devouring its putative owner. “You wouldn’t . . .” the elder said.

  “I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to,” Imbry said. He rubbed his hands and formed his plump features into those of an affable commerciant who is sure that a bargain can be struck. “Now, let us see how we can achieve our mutual interests: yours to carry out the Blessed Haldeyn’s will; mine to get home safely.”

  “What,” said Brosch, “do you want?”

  “A number of things. One, to be kept out of Breeth’s hands. Two, to be provided with a weapon.”

  “Irregulars are not allowed to have arms.”

  “Nor to be Finders, but somehow we have overcome that handicap. Let us open fresh frontiers while we have the momentum.”

  “If you are seen carrying a weapon . . .” Shvarden said.

  “Then we will disguise or hide it. Something that will fit in a pouch would do.” He looked at the shard of clitch in his hand. Something about it appealed to him, though its surface was crazed and its ends fractured into points. “And I’ll take this as a souvenir.” He slipped it into his pouch.

  “An armed oddy,” Brosch said, in a tone that said a two-headed Imbry would be less outlandish.

  “It keeps escaping your attention,” Imbry said, “that I am not one of your domestic irregulars. I was brought here, and whoever did the bringing has lingered in the vicinity, watching my movements. He has also killed two people for no other reason than to make life difficult for me. He might decide to interfere in my progress from one Eye to another. And that interference might take the form of murdering my escort.” He looked pointedly from Shvarden to Brosch and back again. “Which I presume would be one or both of you.”

  The younger man looked at the older. “We will have to disguise the First Eye in any case,” he said. “It would only cause complications.”