Majestrum

by Matthew Hughes

  "Was he under the influence of his sacraments at the time?" I asked.

  "That was the peculiar part," the man confided. "He was on his way to gather the goods when he fell. But perhaps his eagerness to behold the effulgence caused him to misstep."

  "Perhaps," I said. "Still, it is a shame. I have come all this way. Was there anyone who knew him?"

  The mild eyes flicked down and to left and right before he looked at me again. "There was a neighbor," he said, "one Vhobald Hammis."

  I waited to hear more, but when nothing was immediately forthcoming, I said, "And?"

  "For all anyone cares, he may still be up there," the inspector said. "Skavar's brethren came and removed his body, but no one took possession of the hut."

  "I take it this Hammis was not a comfortable neighbor?"

  "Not unless your concept of comfort embraces fleering contempt, unmerited vituperation and teeth-grinding glares whenever you pass him by."

  "A good one to avoid," I said.

  "And that is what everyone has done ever since."

  I showed a regretful expression. "It is a shame my trip has been wasted," I said. "I will return to Olkney. But first, I will find breakfast. I hear your island is renowned for its eggs. Where might I sample some of them, best prepared."

  The inspector gave the matter the grave consideration that Mandovalians applied to the subject of avian ova. "Ang Porhock bought a double basket of prime gripple eggs, fresh from the cliffs, yesterday evening. This is the first brooding season of the year, and they came from the rock formation known as the Grand Flute, so they will be of the finest, especially as they were collected by the Tobler clan. Rosh Tobler hews to the old standards."

  He then turned to the matter of preparation. "Your timing is perfect," he told me. "The morning rush has come and gone, leaving Porhock the leisure to do something spectacular if he believes he has a customer who can understand his idiom. "He gave me a weighing look and continued, "Some say that Porhock can be a little heavy on the sage and scallions, but gripples are a strong egg when they're in their prime and can bear the freight. So if you crave robust textures and unabashed flavor, you'll not find a better omelet."

  I assured him that my palate was up to the challenge and received directions to an eatery with a blue roof and lace curtains.

  "Wonderful," I said and turned to go. I paused at the door and looked back at him. "In a moment, a Colonel-Investigator of the Bureau of Scrutiny will appear and ask you to tell him everything you have told me."

  The officer showed alarm. "Are you a malefactor?" he asked. "I took you for a member of the Prism."

  "I am neither," I said. "It's just that my friend the scroot has formed an attachment to me and follows me wherever I go. Please humor him and answer his every question."

  "I will."

  "Though I don't know if he cares for gripple eggs," I said, and left.

  I spotted Porhock's establishment from the steps of the administrative center and set off for it at a brisk pace, first stopping to collect my assistant from the aircar. "Watch for Warhanny," I said, and by the time I reached the broad slate stairs leading up to Porhock's porch, my integrator was informing me that the scroot was entering the place I had just left. I went inside and was greeted by a dining room filled with a rich melange of odors but empty of patrons. A portly man with large liquid eyes and well developed jowls looked through a serving hatch at me from his station in the kitchen.

  I said, "Are you the Ang Porhock whose gripple egg omelets are talked of in Olkney?"

  "They are?" he said and quickly came through the swinging door. "I mean, I am he."

  "I have come to see what all the fuss is about," I told him. "I hope I am in season."

  "You are," he said. He wiped his hands on his apron then showed me to a table. I set my assistant on an adjacent chair where it curled up and promptly fell asleep.

  "So they talk of my omelets in Olkney?"

  "In some circles," I said. I was confident the topic had been broached by someone at some time.

  "Who, exactly, speaks?"

  "It is difficult to single out particular speakers," I said. I looked around the empty room as if anticipating eavesdroppers and lowered my voice. "Though I can tell you I was speaking with the Archon himself just yesterday."

  I heard a rush of indrawn breath. "The Archon? He spoke of my omelets?"

  "I may have said too much," I told him, and looked to left and right again, then I quietly withdrew Filidor's scroll from an inner pocket and opened it enough for him to read the words and see the sigil.

  The man went pale, and looked into a corner of the room as if all his hopes and dreams might be stored there and needed checking on. When he turned his face back to me it was still pale, yet lit from within by the kind of holy determination that must illuminate saints and seers when they finally behold the threshold of enlightenment.

  "I will," he said, his voice soft but filled with certitude, "prepare you an omelet that is worth speaking about." And now his voice climbed in authority while he raised one finger toward the ceiling, saying, "And speak of it, you will!"

  "I shall, indeed," I said and as he marched toward the kitchen with a stride that foretold that wonders were about to ensue, I turned and looked out the window. Brustram Warhanny was exiting the administrative center and giving the restaurant a pensive stare, as if deciding whether or not to essay another confrontational interrogation. I saw him reject the idea. He put his hands into the pockets of his uniform pants and, placing on his face the expression of a man who has nothing much on his mind, sauntered down the street toward the harbor where his volante awaited.

  But as he passed the aircar I had hired to bring me to Mandoval, one hand emerged to casually slide along the underside of one of the vehicle's sponsons. Then he pursed his lips in a whistler's moue and again enacted the saunter, trundling down to the harbor without a rearward glance.

  Ang Porhock was beside my table, laying out condiments and cutlery, and filling my cup from a carafe of hot punge. I thanked him and said, "Are you by any chance a devotee of the Prism?"

  "Not I," he said. "I apprehend the world through tongue and nose. My eyes are merely for navigation."

  "Indeed," I said, "I asked only because a fellow I knew came here to pursue the vision. Bulbul Skavar was his name."

  "Ah," said the chef, "he who fell from the cliff some years back."

  "The very one. I recall his telling me he had an annoying neighbor."

  "I recall the same."

  "Has the fellow been seen of late?"

  "Not by me." A chime sang from not far away and its brief note caused Porhock to exhibit the air of a man whose destiny awaits beyond a swinging door. "Ahah!" he said and made for the kitchen.

  Moments later, I was presented with the finest omelet I have ever seen, smelled or tasted. Had I been a true aficionado of the egg, I might have swooned. As it was, I was moved to expressions of joy.

  "I will," I said, between mouthfuls, "tell Xanthoulian that he has at least an equal."

  Porhock clasped his hands at the waist, bent toward me and whispered, "And the Archon?"

  I looked him squarely in the eye. "I will recommend your omelet," I said. And, indeed, should the subject of eggs ever arise when I was in conversation with Filidor, I meant to make good on my promise.

  The chef had lapsed into a reverie. I interrupted it to ask, "How would one ascend to Skavar's place? To pay one's respects."

  He glanced out the window to where my vehicle was parked. "In one's aircar," he said.

  "And if not that way, then otherwise?"

  "There is a funicular ascender that leads to a meadow, beyond which rises a course of steps," he said. "After that, it is a matter of following the right hand path -- carefully, the drop becomes sheer."

  He waived all thought of payment and I departed under his smiles to return to my aircar, my assistant revived and on my shoulder.

  "What did Warhanny place on the vehicle?" I ask
ed it.

  It blinked then said, "A standard Bureau tracking module."

  "Very good. Take the aircar aloft, and fly around to the east side of the island, then cruise past the cliffs at slow speed and varying heights, as if we were looking for something. At mid afternoon, meet me in the alpine meadow at the top of the funicular ascender."

  "I will," it said.

  I opened the hatch and placed him inside, then bent as if to enter myself. Instead, I stooped and scuttled away, concealing myself behind a nearby vehicle. My assistant sealed the opening and a moment later the aircar rose and went away at an unhurried speed toward the north, climbing as it did so. I peeked over the cowling of the vehicle that hid me and saw Warhanny's volante, hovering far out over the horizon, move off in a parallel course.

  #

  The alpine meadow was gently sloped, the ensuing stairs more steeply angled, but I enjoyed the climb and the cool refreshment of the upper air. I took the path that led between outcrops of the ubiquitous dark volcanic rock, occasional scatterings of obsidian glistening in the noon sun. After a few minutes walk, the rock formations on my right hand dwindled and now I followed a walkway so narrow that two pedestrians would have had to exercise care in passing each other, especially that one of the two who would not have a solid cliff wall to brush against but would be treading the edge of a precipice.

  Then the cliff wall on my left broke into a ravine that sloped upward. I stopped and studied the narrow space, seeing a small hut built of fractured rock and roofed with flat stones. I approached, ducked under the low lintel and entered. Inside was some furniture so rudimentary as to argue that Bulbul Skavar was not one of the handier sort of Prism devotees for whom the sect's requirement to build one's own accommodations lacked the element of challenge.

  In the middle of the floor, however, was the customary "center of perspection," in this case merely a pile of stones topped by a broad and naturally polished piece of volcanic glass. In the center of the obsidian rested another slab of the dark rock that the island was made of, but to this fragment someone had applied abrasives, grinding out a hollow in its top. I placed my finger in the cavity and found a few grains of grit which, when I examined them closely, proved to be of a black, obdurate substance I had encountered once before.

  I went out again and returned to the path. Beyond the mouth of the ravine, the cliff rose sheer on my left again, and the drop to my right grew even deeper. I continued along the narrow ledge until I came to a second break in the cliff. Here I saw another rude dwelling that seemed, at the distance from which I inspected it, to be as deserted as Skavar's. I edged to my right to peer over the cliff, and saw a ledge not far below, with some sizable rocks strewn about. Whatever stains the Prism devotee's death had entailed had long since weathered away, but I had no doubt this was the place where the man had died.

  To my left, a waist-high boulder squatted near the mouth of the ravine. It was a perfect place for someone to lurk in hiding, ready to rush out and push a passerby over and out into the air. All around the ambush site were rocks that had broken off from higher ground and tumbled down the slope. Many of them were just the right size and weight to be used if the victim did not fall all the way to the jagged rocks far below, but landed on a ledge where a bombardment with skull-and-bone crushers would be needed to finish the job.

  Assessing the perfection of the place for sneak attack, I approached the waist-high rock carefully, to make sure no one crouched behind it. I found no lurker. I raised my eyes to regard the stone bothy that stood a little way upslope, its single window gaping without a cover and its rough timber door hanging askew from one hinge. It looked untenanted. But, because I always tended to err on the side of survival when dealing with murderers, I called out twice before approaching.

  Hearing no answer, I made my way up to the window and peeked in. The space confined by the walls was empty except for more rough furniture. There was no center of perspection though there was a bundle of rags near the door. I stepped around to the portal and took another look within. From this angle, the place was no less empty.

  I knelt to examine the rags on the floor and found that they were powdered in the same dark grit that had coated the uniform of sub-curator Glam Botch. I rubbed the stuff between my fingertips, thinking that the sensation ought to have some significance, though I knew not what it might be. I wiped my hands on the rags and made another discovery: although Vhobald Hammis had departed this place, leaving a dried and desiccated corpse behind, he had somehow contrived to take with him all of his bones except those of his skull. His eye sockets were empty.

  #

  I woke up my other self as the aircar slid through the high, thin air back toward Olkney. "I require insight," I said.

  "State the facts," he answered.

  "Glam Botch left a mostly empty skin in clothes that contained black grit," I said. "Vhobald Hammis left a boneless corpse. Both were missing their eyes. Absent from the Great Connaissarium was a black object of unknown material and provenance said to resemble a sculptured mouth and chin. Absent from Hammis's neighbor's hut was the object that should have been resting on his center of perspection."

  I paused, then said, "Hammis was a devotee of the Prism. The central act of that spiritual discipline involves ingesting substances that emancipate the psyche followed by prolonged staring at a representation of a human eye. In time, the starer finds himself looking back at himself through the other. Most Prismites paint, or carve, or mold or weave the eye at which they gaze. A minority believe that an object found ready-made serves the purpose better, it being an eye that the universe has 'brought to bear upon them.' Or so they say."

  "All known facts, so far," my other self said.

  "Both Botch's and Hammis's clothing contained a fine black grit, a sample of which I have brought with me from the latter's hut. I expect it to be the same material as that which was found on Botch's uniform."

  "May I inspect it?," my sharer said.

  I brought out the sample and let him have control of my hand and our mutual sensorium. He peered at the powder, then put it to our nose. I felt our nostrils flare. "It has the same odor that I followed to find Botch's remains," he said, "though much fainter."

  "From the condition of the clothing, it may have been left in the open air for some time, whereas Botch was freshly killed. No doubt the scent has faded."

  "I concur," he said.

  "Now comes the speculation," I said. "The object missing from Hammis's hut was a representation of an eye. The object missing from the Connaissarium was the representation of a mouth and chin. I believe that they were originally two parts of one sculpture, and that the black grit is what remains of them after they have been atomized by some horrendous force.

  "Further, I said, "the sculpture is connected to Baxandall's book, because both victims were descendants of the people whose names Baxandall inscribed on the flyleaf."

  "All of this is mere extrapolation. What is the insight that you require?"

  "How are all of these things connected?"

  He was silent for a moment then he said, "I don't know. I do sense a strong linkage, but I also sense an association with the Chalivire business -- the song and the Derogation and all that."

  "That makes no sense," I said. "How can they be related?"

  "Everything is connected to everything else," he said.

  "We have discussed that. It is a truism, but a truism so broad as to be useless," I said.

  I heard a touch of anger in the voice inside my head. "Not in this case. The connection is real and it is significant."

  "Delineate it," I said.

  "I cannot. Not yet. I recommend that you trust me, as you always did before I emerged."

  I was practiced at the art of concealing my reactions from others. I had not yet mastered the ability to conceal them from myself. He could not avoid my skepticism.

  "You do not trust me," he said.

  I corrected him. "To be precise, I do not know if I can
rely on your judgment."

  "We always worked well together."

  "It was different."

  "Only because you were you and I was a mere attribute. Now I am more. Does my existence threaten you?"

  I gave an honest answer. There was no point in dissembling. "I am not sure about you. You have come into your existence so very recently. As an attribute, you were well tried; as a person, you lack experience, as if you were a child. I must ask myself, 'Does he have depth? Are his judgments sound?'`"

  "As sound as they ever were," he said.

  "How would we know that?"

  "I know it because I sense it. It is how I function."

  "But I function differently. I require steps built upon other steps, down to a sure footing."

  "I don't deal in steps," he said. "I leap steps in great bounds but I arrive on a sure footing."

  "How do you know it is a sure footing?"

  "I know it is sure because it is where I have arrived."

  We were back to his bizarre reversal of cause and effect. "I find that hard to accept."

  "You never used to."

  I changed the metaphor. "Before," I said, "your intuition was the wheel that often drove us forward. But my analysis was the hard surface that gave us traction."

  "And now you worry that I am spinning out of control."

  "Yes."

  "And it is not enough for me to say that my sense of things is that I have all the traction I need?"

  "No."

  "Then how do we resolve this?"

  "We solve the case," I said. "We perform the discrimination then work backwards from the result. It will then be plain to see what was connected and what was not."

  "In other words," he said, "you will be able to trust me once you no longer need to trust me."

  "Are we at an impasse?"

  I felt a welling of desperation in him. "We must not be at odds. Though I cannot draw you a diagram, I know that this matter is more than a case. It is vitally important to our survival."

  He was presenting me with an unhappy choice. If he was right, I was in peril but could not deduce from what direction the danger would come, because cause and effect could not help me. If he was wrong, I was trapped in on cranium with a person who was going mad.