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 taJJdng 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 be/ore spolte with a living creature. We]], not since my own time among the]iving.
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 1 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 alJ earthJy responsibility? Best be warned, Nathan: give up your pJace 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
