Wasteland of flint

The nauallis nodded and rolled up to sit opposite her. 'You will not be troubled by the Imperial authorities,' he said. 'I will not tell them what has happened. If you keep this to yourself, no one will trouble you.'

'Will you show me more? Can you train me to control this clarity? You say some students have become 'lost- in-sight'. Will I become lost too?'

The old Mйxica hissed in annoyance. His fingers tapped on the crumbling floor for a moment, then fell still. 'It might be best for you to forget all this, put these matters from your mind, turn your back on clarity and sight and all the rest.'

'And how,' Gretchen said, irritated, 'do I do that? Right now I see double or triple most of the time – very disorienting. And then the hallucinations – I mean, I can almost perceive things in this room – people and voices – that aren't here!'

The old Mйxica looked around casually, then back at Anderssen. 'Men talking? The smell of cooking? The half- heard chatter of music? The buzz of machinery?'

'Yes.' Gretchen felt suddenly cold and turned abruptly, looking behind her. 'Upstairs is better – it doesn't feel so crowded. But down here…'

'You're seeing,' Hummingbird said quietly, 'the shadows of man. The impression left on this room, this building, by the scientists who worked and lived here for the past year. We will leave shadows too, if I don't clean them up before we go. Right here.' He made a circular motion with his finger. 'Two indistinct shapes sitting on the floor, talking.'

Gretchen felt a little sick again. 'How long do these shadows last?'

'Usually,' Hummingbird said, searching through his pockets, 'they fade. Someone else comes and sits in the same chair, eats at the same table. The shadows interfere with one another and dissipate. Have you ever entered a dwelling where only one person lived for a long time? Where they died? A house left empty afterwards?'

'No.' Slow rolling creeps slithered across Gretchen's arms. She could feel every single hair on her arms and neck stand on end. 'I don't like abandoned places.'

'It is dangerous,' Hummingbird said, finding what he was looking for, 'for a person to live alone, in the same house or room, for more than a few months at a time. Shadows accumulate. A living person needs to move, to change, to see new things. Say a man lives in the same room, eats at one table, sleeps in the same bed in the same orientation for years on end. Shadows reinforce. The mind is affected by shadows – you're feeling the effects of this empty room right now – sometimes the shadows become more real than the living man.'

'Oh.' Gretchen managed to smile. 'I'm pretty safe then – the Company moves us every year or so.'

Hummingbird nodded, turning a square of folded paper over in his hands. 'You don't believe me. But think about your children – how many times have they changed their room around? Put the beds under the window, away from the window, asked for bunk beds, didn't want bunk beds? Decided to sleep in the living room instead? Changed rooms, if they had the option? Didn't you do that when you were younger?'

The world seemed to gel to a sudden, glassy stop. Gretchen licked her lips.

'Now,' he continued in the same implacable voice. 'Do you have an elderly relative? Stiff, old, strangely frightening. A house filled with things you must not touch? Rooms filled with furniture no one uses and which must never be moved? Strict rituals of the home – dinner at the same time, always the same prayer beforehand, things done in just such a way? Do you remember how you felt, when you were a child in such a place?'

'I was afraid,' Gretchen whispered, almost lost in memories of her great-grandfather's tall, dark house. 'I couldn't breathe.'

'It was dark, even when the shutters or drapes were open. Musty. It smelled of shadow.'

Hummingbird's eyes were limpid green, sunlight falling through leaves into still water.

'Memory,' he continued, 'is a physical change in the human brain. So too are skills laid down by repetition. Perception is governed, interpreted by pathways created by experience. A child's mind is loose, chaotic, filled with a hundred, a thousand paths from source to conclusion. But as a man ages, as he grows old -'

'I know,' Gretchen said abruptly. 'I took some biochemistry at the university. Neural pathways in the brain become consolidated. Fixed. Memories are lost or discarded, replaced by different sets of connections. There are diseases which attack the pathways, trapping people in repeated time.'

Hummingbird placed the packet of paper on the ground between them. 'Lost in memory. Or they lose the ability to form new pathways, gain new skills, see the world afresh. Trapped in routine, bound in shadows. The mind becomes rigid. A quiet, unseen death – long before the body runs down to silence.'

Gretchen roused herself, lifting her chin. 'Don't the tlamatinime have homes? Families?'

'Of course.' The corners of Hummingbird's eyes crinkled. 'They are very lively and we rarely remain in the same physical building for more than a year or two. And in the course of our business, we are always in motion. We have restless feet.'

'And this?' She pointed suspiciously at the paper packet. 'This is like what you gave me before?'

'This is different.' Hummingbird considered her with a weighing expression. 'The first packet was a helper to 'open-the-way'. This…this is 'he-who-reveals'. For most students this substance will let you find a…a guide, would be the best description. A guide who can help you control the sight.'

'What kind of a guide?' Gretchen's suspicion deepened. 'Aren't you my guide or teacher in this business?'

The nauallis shook his head slightly. 'He-who-reveals is already within you, but in most men and women he is sleeping. Sometimes, if a person is troubled or under stress, the guide will speak to their dreams, more rarely in waking life – a voice which seems to come from the air, offering guidance. The guide is outside yourself, yet privy to all you know, see and do.'

'That is disturbing.' Gretchen scratched the back of her neck. 'A stranger inside my head? Will this…drug…let me communicate with 'he-who-reveals'?'

'This will wake him up.' Hummingbird pushed the packet toward her with the tip of his finger. 'For a little while. What bargain you strike with him is upon you to effect. No one else.'

'And what does he give me in return?'

Hummingbird shrugged, an obstinate look growing in his lean old face. 'Such things are none of my business.'

'How can there be another…anything…in my mind?'

'You misunderstand. He-who-reveals is the self which looks upon self with clarity. You are one being.'

'What?' Gretchen felt another chill. The nauallis's words seemed slippery, their meaning darting away from her consciousness, silver fish vanishing into dim blue depths. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

Hummingbird folded his hands. 'He-who-reveals is the honest mirror. In your terms, he is the self without affect, without deception, without delusion. Have you ever tried to see yourself from outside? Perhaps, at the edge of sleep, you've seen yourself from above, as though your mind were separated from the body, able to look upon you with a stranger's eyes?'

'Yes.' Gretchen rubbed her arms. 'When I was a kid – I was scared to death I wouldn't be able to get back inside my own head. I'd be lost forever and I'd die.'

'Fear,' Hummingbird said, rather smugly, 'is a barrier to sight.'

'Fine.' Gretchen gained a very distinct impression the old man was laughing at her. She picked up the packet. 'I just put this on my tongue?'

Hummingbird reacted quickly, catching her hand before she could open the paper. 'You should lie down first. There will be a physical reaction. And drink something. This is thirsty work.'

The storm continued to rage outside. Violent yellow lightning flared among the roaring clouds and drifts of sand crept towards the windows. Visibility dropped to less than a meter. Hummingbird's chrono told him sunset had come, yet there was no apparent difference outside. The flare and crack of lightning stabbed through the murk. The building shivered with thunder.

Hummingbird waited, half asleep himself, while Anderssen lay on the floor, covered with blankets, a makeshift pillow under her head. The woman twitched and shuddered. Sometimes she spoke aloud, but even the nauallis could not understand the words.

Near midnight, with the wind howling unabated outside, Gretchen began to cough. Hummingbird rolled over and