by Brian Lumley
— A marvellous sight! The canyon walls reared up two hundred feet and more; the light where it came slanting in from the south to burst against the opposite wall was blinding after the Stygian dark of the river; despite that Nathan knew the surface must be mainly desert, still he saw the silhouettes of palms crowding the canyon's rim. And so Open-to-the-Sky was an astonishing place.
Thyre elders met them where the worn-smooth granite of the river path met the rudimentary paving of the access road into the community. Nathan would have preferred to speak for himself from the onset, but by now well-versed in their code of conduct, he let Atwei act on his behalf; it was Thyre custom to open proceedings through an intermediary. His own name had been known in advance but theirs, of course, were secret. No introductions of that sort were necessary.
Nathan found himself greeted by a good deal of gravity, tempered with (he suspected), a small measure of scepticism; while Atwei, acting as his aide and spokeswoman — his dupe? perhaps his colleague in deception and blasphemy? — suffered an initially cool reception indeed.
As they passed through the lower levels of the colony and climbed a walled pathway to the Cavern of Long Dreams, a Thyre mausoleum one quarter of the way up the cliff, something of the stiffness and formality went out of The Five and they conversed with Nathan in cordial if restrained monotones. He continued to sense their hesitancy, however, and suspected there were those among them who thought he had somehow made fools of their colleagues in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs. Once inside the tomb he felt more at ease, and commenced to verify his credentials in very short order.
The Five had worked out a series of questions for Nathan to ask their dead ancestors, whose answers would permit of no deception or obfuscation. The dead, for their part, had heard faint rumours of the Necroscope's coming from the Ancients of Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, and immediately recognized the purpose of these opening questions: that they were designed to detect any charlatanry in Nathan. For which reason, once rapport was established and they felt the Necroscope's warmth, the response of the dead was accurate and not without a measure of Thyre sarcasm directed at the elders themselves.
The most 'junior' of The Five, perhaps irritated by Nathan's dry and very un-mystical delivery of answers allegedly from beyond the grave, brought about an early interruption by asking: 'Perhaps you could tell us why our ancestors converse so readily with you but not with their own kind?'
At which Nathan lost patience. This one reminded him of Petais, and he wasn't about to go through all of that again! He might have answered in his own way, without prompting, but a voice in his head cautioned him against it and in a moment supplied the perfect answer:
'Quatias, your father Tolmia begs you to remember a time in your childhood — you were five? — when you lost your way in the desert just a mile from Open-to-the-Sky. All you had to do was climb a dune and you would have seen the oasis clearly, you were that close. But no, you were only a child and afraid; you sat down and cried. Be sure not to lose your way again, in the maze of your own doubts, now that you are even closer to a great truth.'
Quatias opened his mouth, closed it and made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. Finally, in a broken voice, he said: 'Only my father Tolmia could have known….hought… said… that which you just said. Wherefore I no longer doubt. Nathan, please tell him that I love him very much!'
'He knows,' Nathan answered, all anger fled in a moment. 'And he loves you in return, even as he did in life.'
Shortly after that the initial session broke up. Shaken, The Five must now reconsider things, think how best to employ Nathan — if they still had his good will. So they made to go off to their council chambers and discuss his awesome talent. But before he let them go:
'I want you to know,' he told them, 'that the girl Atwei is my dear friend. She was my nurse and brought me to health when I was sick. Now, I understand why you had doubts, about both of us. Of course you did and I don't hold it against you. But that is over now, and you should know: he who dishonours Atwei dishonours me.'
He couldn't know it, but from that time forward she would be part of his expanding legend. Atwei of the Thyre, friend of Nathan…
And so, as in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, once again Nathan became a bridge between two worlds: that of the living, and the darkness of those who had continued beyond it. But before that there were certain priorities: for instance, Shaeken's inventions.
In accordance with the Ancient's wishes, he passed on to the artisans of Open-to-the-Sky detailed drawings of his water wheel, ram, and hoist, all of which were of especial relevance here. Once constructed, Shaeken's Hydraulic Hoist should provide effortless irrigation for the oasis high overhead; and so the Thyre would prosper.
Then, as soon as these technical details had been passed on and understood, for five more sunups Nathan channelled all of his energies to the task of communication between the living and the dead. And as in Place-Under-the-Yellow-Cliffs, so now the results of his work were uniformly beneficial; exactly as before, word of the Necroscope spread abroad and emissaries from Thyre colonies further down the river came to see him.
But now that the work was no longer new to him it became… simply work. Despite that it was satisfying in its way and the number of his friends among the dead grew apace, Nathan no longer took pleasure in it. Also, time seemed to pass by ever more swiftly, and he felt he should be elsewhere, doing other things.
It was time to move on.
Atwei sensed it in him. She may even have read it in his supposedly 'inviolate' mind. But seeing how she was saddened, Nathan made no complaint…
One day they went up to the oasis, and there in the living sunlight Nathan saw how pale he had grown. He was pensive and gave voice to an idle thought. 'Why are you so brown,' he asked her, 'when you spend so much time in the deeps and the dark?'
'But before you,' Atwei answered, simply, 'I spent a good deal of my time in the light. The Thyre are desert folk, after all, and most of our work is done on the surface. Also, I was born brown. But why are you so pale, when you were born in the woods and the sunlight?'
He shrugged. 'So, we're different.'
'Are we so different, Nathan?'
He looked at her and wondered, Are we? And almost before he realized it, he knew — he heard — what she was thinking: If I were Szgany, or he were Thyre, we would be lovers. He would lie in my arms and I would feel him pulsing within me. And I would stroke his back, while my thighs squeezed him for his juice.
Telepathy, or… did she do it deliberately? No, never the last, for she was Thyre and it would be unseemly. And now, as Atwei's thoughts continued, she too was pensive. But Nathan is right: we are different. And I must love him as if he were my brother.
Then… his look must be curious, wondering; she noticed it and quickly looked away. In order to save her embarrassment, he immediately acted as if nothing had happened, as if he knew nothing. In any case her mind was covered now; she had drawn a blanket over it, and he must assume that she suspected. But at the same time, suddenly, there came a second flash of inspired understanding as a riddle was solved. From the beginning he'd wondered how the Thyre, the living Thyre, knew and understood his tongue so well. And now he knew the answer: When Nathan talked to the Thyre dead it was in deadspeak, but behind their mental voices and pictures he'd always sensed echoes of their spoken tongue, too. And now he saw how easy it was for a telepath to be a linguist. When thoughts are backed up by the echoes of words, a language is quickly learned. That was how it worked for the living Thyre: they had not stolen the Traveller language from his mind, not directly (they had always traded with the Szgany and so knew something of his tongue from the first). No, they'd not stolen it but read it in his expressions, seen it in his eyes, and — despite certain taboos and 'unspoken rules' — heard it in the echoes of his thoughts!
And he knew, too, why suddenly he understood large parts of the Thyre tongue when he heard it spoken all around him — because he had le
arned it the same way! And Atwei was right: he would be a telepath, in time.
But all of this coming at once… it was a shock, a revelation to Nathan! Especially Atwei's feelings for him. And it was that more than anything else — the way she felt about him — which served to convince him that indeed the time had come to move on, while yet she thought of him as a brother…
In the Cavern of Long Dreams, alone with the mummied dead and sharing their thoughts, Nathan spoke to Ethloi the Elder, who knew numbers. They were firm friends from the moment he mentioned Shaeken's name, for in life Ethloi and Shaeken had been colleagues.
How may I help you? Ethloi was eager to assist in any way he could.
'I have dreams,' Nathan told him. 'I dream of numbers. I have always thought they had meaning, and so did Shaeken. You are the expert, or so I'm told. Perhaps you can fathom them.'
An expert in maths? Is there such a thing? Ethloi seemed vague on the subject. Shaeken required maths to calculate the numbers of cogs in his wheels, it's true, but his was a practical application. I was able, through trial and error, to help him somewhat. Not a lot. As for me: I only know that like yourself, I too have dreamed of numbers, in death as in life. They are some of the several things I continue to explore, but not in depth. For since all such knowledge is useless fno one may confirm or deny my findings, because no one understands them), how may I determine if the things I know have value? There is no source of reference. And as for helping you… we do not even know that Szgany and Thyre numbers are the same. Explain to me your system.
The Szgany system?'
Yes.
'Do you mean, how do we count? But surely all creatures count the same?'
Not so. A bird has only two numbers: the number One and a number larger than One. If it has an egg in its nest it has an egg. If it has two eggs, three, or four, it has more than one. So how do the Szgany count?
'We count in fives, the number of fingers on a hand,' Nathan told him. 'We make gates,' (he showed the other a picture), 'like so:'
I, II, III, III The Thyre have the same system, Ethloi replied, but as for me, I count in Tens! The picture he displayed to Nathan's mind was of two gates struck through.
Nathan frowned. 'But that is simply a count of the fingers on two hands. Is there a difference?'
Oh, yes, the other answered. The difference is simplicity! Now look:
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
The numbers he showed to Nathan were not these but symbols of his own, which had these values. Nathan studied them a while — sufficient that he understood that the last of these numbers was the equivalent of four gates — and shook his head. 'A different shape for every number? Simplicity? But this seems to me a complicated thing.'
Ethloi was frustrated (a great many mathematicians are), and sighed. But in a moment: Now tell me, he said, how do you divide?
'Divide?'
How many of these: I I, are there in this.'J.-H'T + I?
'I I I,' Nathan answered at once.
And how many of these: J-H" T in this: III?
Again Nathan frowned. 'There are only parts,' he shrugged.
And again Ethloi sighed. As I supposed: you cannot divide.
It was Nathan's turn to be frustrated, and: 'I know enough to divide a large orange between friends,' he blurted. 'Because it has segments!'
Yes (the nod of a wise although incorporeal head), and so does my system. Infinitesimally small segments, and infinitely large numbers. Just as I count upwards in tens, so I may count down into the single unit. Into tenths, and tenths of tenths! But listen, about your orange: what if it has eight segments and there are only six friends?
Then two of them are lucky!' Nathan's thoughts were sour now, because it was beyond him. Already he was tired of this.
Ethloi felt it in him and shook his head. Numbers are not easy, Nathan. Oh, I could show you a great many — and a great many tricks to play with them, too — but without an explanation they are only symbols. Such knowledge won't come instantly but must be learned. And somehow I don't think you will make a good pupil.
'Show me some more numbers anyway,' Nathan begged him. 'So that I may at least consider them.'
Ethloi did as Nathan requested and sent his calculations rolling across the screen of the youth's mind. Decimals, fractions; a little basic algebra and trigonometry; calculations to determine the size of the world, the distance to the moon, the sun, and the stars. It was impressive, but it wasn't shocking. Nathan might not understand it, but he knew it for pretty rudimentary stuff compared with some of the things he had seen.
It did have something of an effect upon him, however; for as if conjured by this lesser display, now he felt the numbers vortex churning within his mind like some incredible mathematical dust-devil, just waiting to blast these intruding calculi to infinity. Ethloi detected nothing of the latter through his effort of mental projection, but he did note the Necroscope's unguarded thoughts: his apparent lack of regard for the display. And the images he transmitted to the screen of Nathan's mind were shut off at once.
Very welJ, Ethloi growled then, now Jet's see what numbers you have dreamed.
'Usually they come to me when I'm asleep,' Nathan told him. 'But my time here grows short. And when you produced your numbers for me, I… I felt my own inside of me, almost as if they waited to be summoned.' He closed his eyes. 'Perhaps I can call them up.'
What happened then was… swift as thought! The numbers vortex seethed with power; it sucked mutating calculations into its core as quickly as they formed on the rim; incredible metaphysical equations were fired in bursts from its rotating wall, like shooting stars in a meteorite shower! Until: Shut it off! Ethloi groaned.
Nathan did so, opened his eyes, said: That is what I have dreamed.' He took no pride in it; he only wanted to understand it, desperately. And Ethloi read that in his mind, too.
But how can you have such a thing, without understanding it? His question was in the form of an awed whisper.
'Just as I have feelings,' Nathan answered, 'in my heart and in my head, without understanding them.'
Ethloi nodded slowly, and said, Aye, and perhaps you have answered your own question. For as telepathy is in the Thyre — come down through the bJood of Gutawei the Seer, the First Remembered, and spread by his children, and theirs, throughout all the Thyre — so the numbers vortex is in you. It seems as much a part of you as your blue eyes and yellow hair. And spawned in some awesome ancestor, it came down to you the same way as they did!
'I inherited it?' This was much the same as Rogei had told him. 'But from whom? Not my father for he was an ordinary man.'
Then from that same ancestor who gave you your deadspeak, Ethloi answered.
'But my deadspeak is a talent while this… is a curse!' Nathan shook his head. 'It plagues me! I can't fathom it!'
Ethloi was obliged to agree. Not a/1 inherited things are for the good, it's true. In me it was my father's poor hearing, which turned me deaf in the end, much as he was deaf before me. A small trouble: I had my telepathy.
The numbers vortex baffles you then?' Nathan was disappointed. 'You don't know what it does?'
What it does? Numbers are, Nathan. They don't necessarily do things. And yet… I sensed something behind it, yes. What it was, I can't say. Perhaps the vortex is a key.
'A key? To what?'
To a door, or to many doors. I sensed them there, in your mind. Doors to far, far places — even to far times! — all of which lie in the swirl of the vortex.
'But first I must understand the numbers?'
And control them! Ethloi nodded. When you can bring them to heel, like a hunting dog — show them ordered on the screen of your mind, as I showed you my puny figures — then the key will be yours.
Nathan was silent for long moments. Everything Ethloi had said was much as he'd long suspected. The numbers vortex hid a key which he must find. And then he must find the door in which to turn it. But as y
et he was like a babe in arms who wanted to run before he could walk.
Ethloi remained silent, waiting.
And finally Nathan sighed and said, 'Perhaps you should show me some more numbers, and explain to me your system. I'll probably make a poor pupil, as you rightly said, but who knows? Something might sink in. Anyway, I have to start somewhere.'
He stayed for an hour until, head reeling, he could take no more…
Nathan slept one more time, ate a strangely tasteless, silent meal with Atwei, then told the elders he was leaving. They came down to the river route to see him off. Quatias, who was still spry, volunteered to go with him to the next colony just eight miles away. But in a garden of yellow flowers, where hazy sunlight fell dappled through leaf and vine, he begged a moment's privacy with Atwei. She gave him a slender silver chain and a locket, which he opened. Inside, a tight coil of jet black hair. 'It is a custom of the Thyre,' she told him. 'A secret thing which siblings do when they are parted.'
He drew her to him and kissed her forehead. 'And this is how a Szgany brother parts from his sister.' Then he hung the locket round his neck and said, Til never forget you, and I thank you for this lock of hair from your head.'
'My head?' she said, lifting a coarse eyebrow. 'Ah, no, for that would be unseemly!'
He raised his own eyebrows in a frown, looked at Atwei again, then at the locket, finally shook his head and smiled. The Thyre and their strange and 'secret' ways, their 'secret' things! Then, while she remained standing there, he went and said his farewells to the elders…
