"Remarkable," said the Archon. "I detect nothing."
"One's senses must be attuned."
We followed the row of shelves further into the darkness. At the first cross aisle we turned left, then after passing several more rows came to a wider alley that separated sections of the collection. Filidor held the lumen high and we strode boldly on.
"The odor grows stronger," my other self said in his inner voice, while aloud he told Filidor, "I see something ahead."
Moments later we came to the end of the alleyway. It ended in bare rock, planed smooth in time immemorial when these vast chambers had been hewn from the rock of the Devenish Range. At the foot of the wall lay an indistinct bundle of cloth.
"Let me do this," I said, inwardly, and received control of our shared body. I knelt, bidding Filidor bring the lumen closer, while my other self caused our nostrils to flare.
"Very strong here," said the voice in my head.
I produced a telescoping rod and extended it to the heap of fabric. As I prodded and probed, a hand-sized oblong plaque, of green material bearing letters and symbols in black, slid from a fold to the floor. I pulled it toward me, sniffed at it, and hearing no objection from my inner self picked it up. Filidor stooped with the light.
"It is the official identification of a sub-curator of the Connaissarium," he said. "And these garments are his uniform."
I placed the plaque on the floor and continued to poke through the apparel. My probe struck something that was neither fabric nor stone floor. I lifted the hem of the uniform's blouse and said, "More light."
The Archon brought the lumen closer and I saw that a pallid, translucent substance was enclosed by the garments.
"What is it?" Filidor said.
I ran my fingers over the stuff and said, "His skin."
I investigated further and ascertained that the body had suffered a complete removal of its musculature, from the base of the skull to the soles of the feet. The internal organs seemed to be in place, and all of the bones, but all other flesh had been removed. Even more surprising, the skin was whole. "Not so much as the smallest wound," I said, "yet every striated muscle is gone."
My examination of the remains and the clothing had shaken loose a fine black powder that was caught in the folds. I rubbed some of its grains between my fingers but could not identify it. I brought a small envelope from an inner pocket and dropped a pinch of the stuff into it and put it away.
I completed my probe of the remains and established that the purloined mouth and chin were not present. "Does the scent trail lead elsewhere?" Filidor asked.
It did not. I asked the Archon if he knew of any hidden portal through which it could have passed. He said he was well acquainted with the hidden passageways in this part of the Connaissarium. "This wall is solid rock," he finished, "with nothing behind it but more of itself."
"This is what we know, I said. "The sub-curator took the object from its box and carried it to this spot. Here it disappeared and at the same time, we may assume, so did much of the sub-curator."
"The question is, how?" said the Archon.
I considered the problem. "That is one of a chain of questions, each linked to the other. If we knew how it was done, we would have a good indication as to the kind of person -- I use the term loosely -- who could do what has been done to this poor fellow." I paused to stroke a reflective eyebrow. "Knowing 'who' might also give us some inkling of 'why,' which I suspect is the most important question of all."
"We already have the 'why,'" said Filidor. "To seize power."
"You assume," I said, "that power is an end in itself."
"For some, it is. I have met such a one."
It does not do to contradict Archons. "In this case," I suggested, "I suspect that seizing power may be but a necessary preliminary to wielding it. Which raises the question: wielding it to what end?"
"Just what we need," he said, "another question. We now have a how, a who and a two-part why."
"Two 'whos,' actually," I said. "There is the 'who' who sent you a warning by mysterious means. As well, we have a fairly large 'what,' as in, 'What is the significance of the missing object?' And I am sure that further questions will arise as we go forward."
"Then let us do so. I do not care to be deluged with questions while simultaneously suffering a drought of answers. Have you at least an outline of a plan?"
"I do," I said. "I will pursue two parallel courses of action. One course will involve researching the missing object and the word associated with it."
"Majestrum?" Filidor said.
I was glad I was in control of our body because again I felt a bolt of white energy pass through me, taking with it my sense of my other self's presence.
I advised the Archon that it might be best not to speak that word aloud, then said, "The other course involves some risk. Therefore I recommend that you prepare to undertake one of those incognito peregrinations that Archons are said to indulge in."
"I can assure you the 'esteeming of the balance' is no indulgence," he said, with the air of one who is consulting less than happy memories. "Indeed, they can occasion considerable strain."
"I am sure," I said. "But before you disappear into the populace, I suggest that you do openly what you did this evening in an elision suit."
I felt an inner stir as my alter ego came back to consciousness. Meanwhile, Filidor was saying, "You recommend that the Archon should baldly be seen to consult a discriminator?"
"Not just 'a' discriminator," I said. "You will be advising those who wish you ill that Henghis Hapthorn is taking a hand in the game."
"That might be dangerous for you," the Archon said, "very dangerous."
I made some offhand remark that reduced any potential peril to the status of a small cloud in my otherwise clear sky. A certain air of insouciance is expected of Old Earth's foremost freelance discriminator.
My inner co-habitant was less sanguine. As we retraced our steps through the darkened Connaissarium, he said, "We know the name, but not the thing that the name refers to."
"Indeed," I replied within our shared mentality. "But we shall."
"That's what concerns me," he said. "If the mere map can render me helpless, have you considered what might come if we enter the territory itself?"
#
"We should give you a name," I said. All this discussion of map and territory, symbol and thing, had started me to thinking as we flew back my lodgings.
"No," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because names are important."
"But how shall I refer to you?"
"Within the confines of our shared mental space, if you call me 'you' I can be fairly sure that you are referring to me," he said. "Unless you plan to import other tenants."
The prospect sent a slight shudder rattling through the bones of my torso. "I would not know how, and if I did, I should assiduously cultivate amnesia until the knowledge faded and winked out entirely. One extra occupant of my mental parlor is more than enough."
"Very well," he said. "So you need only a pronoun to address me inwardly. Do you plan to advertise my presence to friends and colleagues?"
In truth, I had no friends and few colleagues. Being singular in the art of discrimination tended to make for further solitariness in other avenues of life. A lifelong habit of being right also had the effect of diminishing one's social appeal, especially among those who prefer to keep the bubble of their various illusions a safe distance from a needle-sharp and probing intelligence.
"No, I suppose it would be best to keep you to myself."
"Or 'ourself,' as the case may be."
By now I had arrived at the roof above my quarters. I alighted from the Archon's uninsigniaed cabriol -- he had stayed at the Palace, making his way back to his suite by the warren of unrecorded passageways that riddle the ancient pile -- and let the vehicle find its way home.
"So, to the world in general, I shall remain what I have always been: the part of us
that applies insight. And you will be the part that requires it."
"Do you seek to insult me?" I said.
"To what end?"
"I thought to detect a note of amusement at my expense."
"Tell you what," he said, "I'll apply our intuition and see if you're correct."
As this dialogue had proceeded I had descended to my workroom. My eyes fell upon the shelves where stood the collection of books from the library of Bristal Baxandall, whose misapplied spell-casting had been the trigger that led me to where I was tonight: arguing with an element of myself that I was finding increasingly prone to sarcasm.
"Let me have control again," he said. I sensed a sudden excitement in him.
"Why?"
"I feel something."
"Very well."
I relinquished command of our limbs and rode along as he crossed to the bookshelves and took down the thick and tattered tome that had baffled us both. He carried it to the workroom table, where the thud of its landing on the table top awoke my integrator. In our absence the creature had returned to slumber, its oddly formed furred body curled around one half of the fruit bowl and its long tail curled around the other half. Now it blinked and sat up, reflexively grooming its fur in a habit that I had yet to grow accustomed to. "Did you require something?" it said.
"Yes," said my alter ego aloud. It was also odd to hear his voice through my own ears. It sounded no different from mine in pitch or cadence, though I wondered if there was not a younger tone. "I'd like you to assist in another attempt to translate this book," he was telling my assistant.
The integrator's ape-cat face took on a thoughtful look and a screen appeared in the air. "Title page," my voice said, opening the book as an image of the page simultaneously appeared on the screen.
To me he said, "I believe we now have a thread to pull."
"Show me."
He indicated a word on the page that was in larger, bolder type than the others. The type was also a deep red, while the other words were in faded black. "I believe this may be the word -- more likely a name -- that we learned tonight in the Great Connaissarium," he said.
I examined it. It seemed to correspond in the number of its letters to the word that had twice rendered him unconscious. Also the first and last symbols were the same, though the first was larger.
"You may be right," I said.
"After what happened to me on the two occasions when the Archon spoke the name, I now believe that it is marked off by size and color of type so that a person reading this book aloud would be reminded not to utter the syllables, lest he suffer injury or worse."
"Reasonable," I said.
"If my supposition is valid, then we have identified eight letters, one of them in upper and lower case, and the sounds to which they correspond."
"Then I will begin," I said. I reassumed control of our body and told the integrator to display a full page of text. A dark mass of hand-printed manuscript hovered before me. "Now, associate these letters to those symbols," I said, carefully denoting a letter at a time, and taking them in a random order; even spelling them in sequential order might somehow affect my other self. I warned my assistant never to pronounce the word aloud and to avoid even thinking it in whatever mind it had acquired since its transmogrification.
The page on the screen now showed the corresponding letter above each of the eight symbols we had tentatively identified, wherever they appeared on the page. I began to consider the text, employing third-level, then fourth-level consistencies. As I applied the abstruse mathematics that underlay both the order and chaos of the universe, ratios and relationships began to emerge, congruencies clumping together and discrepancies flying to the outer edges of my perception.
"It is an artificial language," I said. Its emerging structures did not show the diversity that always crept into an organically derived tongue. I went to fifth-level consistencies, instructing the integrator to show more text and matching more letters to symbols.
"We are almost there," I said. Above the lines of faded manuscript whole words, indeed whole sentences, now appeared. "These marks and those, too, are punctuation," I continued. "This squiggle, I believe, signifies that this sentence is a question, and that elliptical shape signifies that the enclosed string of words is a response."
If I wished, I could now read aloud the sounds of the words, without knowing their meaning. I did not do so. I not only recalled what had happened to my companion, but recollected as well the fate of this text's last owner, who had been reading from a grimoire when he mispronounced a phrase in a spell of transformation. Parts of his body had reordered themselves into a hideous arrangement that could not sustain his existence.
"Integrator," I said, "compare the transliterated text to known languages from the Seventeenth Aeon and establish any affinities."
The creature on the table again looked inward for several moments, then said, "There is a better than ninety-eight per cent probability the language is derived from Late Horthalian."
"That is not one of the tongues I command," I said. "Tell us more."
The integrator informed me that Late Horthalian had been spoken among a now almost completely forgotten people who lived, a very long time ago, in an area beyond the Tahmny Polity.
"There is nothing beyond the Tahmny Polity but the vast wasteland of Barran," I said.
"Barran was, of course, not always a desert," the integrator said. "In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Aeons, it supported a number of civilizations, each succeeding its predecessor, until the process was ended in one catastrophic moment. Details are sketchy from a period so far removed, but a group of savants are said to have attempted to control a powerful force that seeps into our universe from an adjacent plane. Their intent was to gather it into a concentrated form then focus it to achieve some now unremembered purpose."
"What was this force?" I asked.
"What we call evil, though to the inhabitants of the realm from which it comes it is merely one of the elemental energies of their environment, like wind or thermal currents here."
"I remember this now," I said. "We learned it in the course of our ethical instruction at school. They built some kind of capacitor for interdimensional forces but there was a flaw in either the design or the construction. When they activated it, the device quickly collected all the energy of evil in our world. But instead of storing it for later use, it almost immediately prepared to discharge the power again in one blast."
"Indeed," said my assistant. "Fortunately, someone on the scene managed to adjust the controls so that most of the energy went skyward in a wide conical beam. Although that was not so fortunate for the many inhabitants of our planet's moon, who instantly ceased to exist along with the planetoid they called home."
"Enough," I said, "I recall the story, though it was taught at my school as a moral tale, not a true record of events. The backwash of energy that did not go into the beam flashed outward in a horizontal blast from the device, creating a circular zone of rubble and wreckage that endures to our day. It is no wonder Late Horthalian is not remembered. All of its speakers disappeared in mid-blink."
"Virtually all," said the integrator. "Any who survived because they were away from home no doubt made efforts to distance themselves from their origins. There was much ill feeling among those who had had friends or interests on the moon, and who would have been forthright about expressing their views to any Horthalians they could find. There was a period during which all things Horthalian, especially books that expressed their peculiar approach to life, were deliberately expunged. Scarcely a word of the language now survives."
A thought was tugging at the edge of my mind. "Did not the Archon Filidor have some connection with Barran?"
The integrator's pointy chinned face took on an expression that in a human would have constituted a shrug. "There were rumors and gossip that he and the previous Archon had passed that way on some informal mission. But, as with all matters concerning the comings and goings of Archon
s, the information is constructively vague."
"Hmm," I said, and sought to put together a pattern that linked Filidor, the mysterious key, Barran, the book and the object missing from the Terfel Connaissarium, not to mention the deflated sub-curator. But nothing came. I offered the question to my intuitive other self, but received a noncommittal response.
"I sense that there is something there," he said after a few moments, "but I cannot see the shape of it."
"We need more information," I said. "Perhaps it will come tomorrow when we receive the Archon's visit in full view of whoever will be watching."
My other self made a wordless sound within our common mental domain. It could not be taken for an expression of gladsome expectation.
Our assistant had a suggestion: perhaps we should search all archives for the Horthalian name we had now identified. I experienced again, as I had in Turgut Therobar's interrogation cell, the peculiar sensation of being internally shoved out of the way while my alter ego seized command of our shared body. "No!" I heard my voice say.
"It is a valid suggestion," I said. "When one has a thread to tug, one tugs."
But I felt real fear emanating from him. "No," he said. "That would be extremely dangerous."
"Discrimination, at the level we practice it," I said, "is not for the timid." But I deferred to his intuition.
#
After a late breakfast the following morning, I stepped from my lodgings into Shiplien Way and set off on foot down toward Drusibal Square where members of the Corps of Buffoons were scheduled to perform at noon. My other self had withdrawn to wherever he went when he was not impinging on my share of our consciousness -- "going to sleep and see what comes of it," was how he'd phrased it. My integrator rode atop my left shoulder, its tail draped across the back of my neck to hang down over my right collarbone, and its hand-like hind feet gripping the cloth of my coat and the flesh beneath. I told myself to be grateful that in its transformation from device to ape-cat that it had acquired a simian's flat nails instead of a feline's sharp claws.
"Is anyone observing us?" I asked.
"There is a young boy in a doorway across the street. He is looking at us with a curious expression."
Majestrum: A Tale of Henghis Hapthorn Page 10