by Brian Lumley
He desired to play a word game or games with the Necroscope. Was he game? And was Nostradamus game? Well of course he was, else he wouldn’t have proposed it. Or was he stating that he was a different kind of game? A game that was in his name!
“In your life you were … Michel de Nostradame?” He made an opening stab at it.
And in your era, “Nostradamus.” You refer to me in Latin, a dead language. Appropriate! And thus we are one in more ways than one. Do you know these ways? First, try my true name …
“Nostredame? It has ten letters—as does my whole name, Harry Keogh.”
And your assumed name: Necroscope! Indeed, it strikes me—I have been stricken—that Nostradamus and Necroscopus share much of a feel, a certain ambience or stimmung; a relationship? And so we return to that word again: relative. Are we related, do you suppose? If so, then I am ancestral, patently. For I am old and dead and gone, while you are new. But time, as stated, is relative. What came first, the chicken or the egg?
Frustrated, Harry said: “If your riddle was in numbers, I might hope to match you!”
Names and numbers, they are the same. Nostradamus replied enigmatically.
“As in the Biblical sense,” Harry answered, neither agreeing nor questioning but equally mysterious.
Precisely! The number of a man is the man. And do you know your number?
Because of his interest in—and his mastery of—sidereal or lateral mathematics, Harry understood something of the theories of numerology, and instinctively referred to the following table:
Nostradamus saw it in his mind and said: The Hebrew system! I know it. I speak it! It was the tongue of my Grandfather, who taught it to me. The letters of your name, Harry Keogh. Why see, they total eleven, and twenty-two! The first is the number of the visionary, the martyr, and the second of the Master Magician! Small wonder you are a dead-speaker, and move through secret places!
A dead-speaker? That rang a bell, but one that immediately tolled into silence. As for the rest, the sum total of the numbers of his names: Harry knew and accepted the coincidence, but he had little faith in numerology as yet. “And you’re a seven,” he said. “A seer, clairvoyant or prophet—or all three. Either way, as Michel de Nostredame, or Nostradamus, you have the same number, for both of your surnames total forty!” (Another coincidence?)
Would you expect any less? So much for numbers, but what of names?
“To know a man’s name is to know his number,” the Necroscope answered, “but how may we divine a name from a number? Or do you mean the meaning of names?”
We get to it! Nostradamus was excited now. But in the next moment a cry, almost of pain: Ah, a vision—and a quatrain—but quickly, before it is gone!
Their minds were linked through Harry’s talent. The Necroscope saw what Nostradamus saw:
Time unwinding—no, devolving! A figure falling through past time, through the neon-blue (and scarlet, and green?) bars or life-threads of men, vampires … and of what else? But vampires? Was this the past or the future? Whichever, it was unmistakably Möbius-time. And the tumbling figure: a dead man, burned and blackened, spreadeagled as on a cross, spiralling into the past.
The vision was ghastly enough in itself but there was something yet more horrible about it. The Necroscope had seen this before, surely? His skin began to prickle. But then:
A blinding flash, a disintegration, a bomb-burst of golden fragments, like darts, hurtling outwards in all directions from the space where that smoking shell of a body had been. The way they moved: angling this way and that, sentient as they sought exits from their NOW into other places, other times …
It was over, and Nostradamus groaned: Did you see? Do you have it? A quatrain, quickly!
And Harry said:
“A man of weird times and places falls in reverse
towards some new beginning, some multiple fruition.
Seeming like death, it is in fact a multiple birth.
His pieces are enabled by golden transmutation …”
And it was as if Nostradamus sighed, Exactly! In the Necroscope’s mind. My thoughts exactly. Do you have children?
“Eh? Only one.”
Ah, no—-a great many, I think.
“Who knows the future?” Harry answered with a shrug, and thoughtlessly.
I do—did—do! For in death I continue as in life.
“You’ll help me, then?”
I am helping you! Had you seen it before, my vision? that one of many visions? For a moment there you thought so, for I read it in your mind.
“Yes … no … I’m not sure. Maybe it was a dream.
But you cannot remember, cannot be sure. And didn’t I say it was like that? The future guards its secrets well. Which is one of the reasons why I guarded my secrets. Note, if you will: Nostradamus is speaking plainly. It is difficult after all this time, but I am trying. For your sake. Therefore for ours.
“But still a word game to me. Great prophet, I have to ask you this: have you played with Them, too?”
A shudder. No, but I have seen …
“In your visions? There’s no record in your quatrains.”
Ah, but there is! But mainly since dying. Since knowing. There are those with whom the Great Majority will have no commerce. Their minds have illumined mine. They impinge. But knowing a little, I saw or remembered a lot. What will be has been.
Riddles were all very well, but the Necroscope’s frustration was mounting. He didn’t want this opportunity to be wasted. “Sir, tell me my future. I know I shouldn’t ask—I understand the dangers—but you’ve seen so very much of the future in the stars, in your dreams, and in your bowls of water on their tripods …” He seated himself on the corner of Nostradamus’s slab.
In the stars? I believe it is written, yes. For the stars are a million years ago, therefore a million years to come. And what are our dreams but extensions of the NOW? But my bowls of water? Like a crystal ball, do you mean? Ah, no. All in my time had a device, and so I must have mine. Better to be seen to consort with “science” of a sort than with demons who have gained entry to the mind. For the rack has power even over demons!
“It was a trickery?”
The water? My safety net! But the visions were instinct. Now tell me, do you need a crystal ball? And your visions: can you remember in detail, or explain what you have seen?
“No, they are outside my control. I inherited my visions, from a precog like yourself. But a lesser talent, of course. I have no control over them.”
Nor I mine. And I too inherited them. All in verse, in reverse.
“Your meanings are hidden!” (Harry’s frustration was showing through now; he shuffled on Nostradamus’s sarcophagus.)
They must be. Forgive me. It is my way—and your protection! What of the golden darts? (Again a change of direction, a return to a previous theme.)
“The darts? In your vision? They seemed sentient …”
Ah! They Knew …
“Knew what?”
What, indeed. What’s in a name?
“If I were the Master Magician you named me—”
—Not I, but numbers. And where numbers are concerned, you are a magician!
“—If I were a Master Magician, I might fathom these riddles. They twist and turn, like—”
—Your Biomus loop?
Biomus? Möbius, of course! “You know about that?”
It, too, goes back to its beginnings. Start at the end and work forwards. What of the golden darts?
“What’s in a name … ?” Harry frowned, felt his head beginning to spin with the other’s riddles. “This has to do … with your name?” It was a wild guess, but a starting place at least.
Bravo!
“In your quatrains, you employ various tongues to further confuse your work. You were fond of word games, anagrams …”
Have I not said so? Verses and reverses, Harry.
“Reverses? Start at the end and work forwards? Michel de Nostredame: Emadertson ed Lehc
im?”
Try the Latin, as I am named in your time.
“Pardon? Nostradamus: Sumadartson. But I don’t see—”
—Because you are not looking. Try sum.
“Sum? An addition? The result of an addition? Or to be the epitome of, or exemplify, as in ‘the sum of a man’? Or ‘in sum’—in short? Or … I exist, I am, as in Descartes’s philosophy. Cogito ergo sum?” (He remembered that from Mesmer.)
I exist! said the other. I am! Which leaves us with … ?
“Sum, adartson? I am … adartson?” The Necroscope frowned again, but his frown slowly turned to a gape as his jaw—or at least his mind—fell open. Nostradamus in reverse. Sum, a dart son. “I am … a … dart … son!”
Or a dart’s son, yes! A golden dart. A shaft of great wisdom:
Which speared me in that fatal year,
I cured the pustule-riddled sick.
Alas, the ones I held most dear …
.. God’s mercy, it was quick.
“It was … 1537, perhaps?” said Harry. “The bubonic. You were a doctor and cured many, but it took your wife and children.”
Misery! I would take my own life! But then I viewed this wonder: a man like one fallen from a stake or cross of the Inquisition, all smoking from the fire, tumbling through time. I was given to know it! I knew! And in Scaliger’s house in Agen, where I wept in a room of mourning, a brilliant flash of gold! Lightning on a cloudless day, which struck me in my temple, as the dart from time struck home! I was not dead. I lived. And I—could see! Harry, you eleven, you martyr, I could see …
“More than other men. More than me, for sure!”
More than “sum,” from that time on. Six years I wandered, wondered what to do with it. Write it down, and offend the powers that be? For many of the things I foresaw would not be allowed; they went against those who would not be gainsaid. Was I to burn like the one who empowered me? Yet I knew this knowledge must be known, be shown!
Wherefore,
in cryptic verse,
the things I saw
were made perverse.
And after six long years of wandering in the wilderness, I began writing my quatrains for other men to fathom. In death, I continue, on the pages of my mind. It has become a habit …
“But it doesn’t spell out my future,” the Necroscope shook his head.
Oh? Doesn’t it? (Was that a note of sadness in Nostradamus’s voice?) And quickly:
Some son of yours.
Hannat will read the stars,
and in them read his course.
But ours are not his stars …
“I have no son of that name. Is that an anagram, too? And the stars are unchanging. They’re the same for everyone.”
In this world they are the same, aye. As for “Hannat”: was “Hister” the King of the Germans? What’s in a name? But it came so brief! I almost got it right.
“You could drive a man mad,” said Harry with feeling. “And with me not far to drive, for I’m half way there! Hannat? I see no name in that. Hannah is closest, and that’s a woman’s name!”
You shall not name him,
nor even know his time.
He dwells beyond the rim,
in a far and alien clime …
Yet a third son is better, or worse!
Take my first six and reform his name.
Himself, he is beyond reform, perverse!
His father’s opposite, never the same!
“Your first six? ‘Nostre’? There’s a name in that?” Harry shook his head. “I’m lost. Two unknown sons, Hannat and Nostre, or derivations of those letters? Why can’t you just tell me my future?”
But I’m doing it. And your future’s future! Except nothing is simple. The future is not to be known. It resists. Very well then. Your future. Except you may not see it. Can I trust you?
“Not to see it? We’re in contact; I’ll see what you see.”
Hear my voice, my quatrains, and remember; but close your mind to my visions. Else, it cannot be.
“More puzzles for me to work out?”
It is the only way. And what difference any-way? It never works out exactly as foreseen. But I am here for you. Perhaps I was put here for you! To remind you of a course that will bring me into being. Mat came first—
“—The chicken or the egg? Very well, I won’t see. Guard your mind, and tell me your quatrains—or mine.”
But see—you begin to think as I think! Or did I always think like you? Whichever, our maziness is catching.
“I have a feeling this can’t last much longer,” Harry felt a terrible urgency. “If you would enlighten me, do it now.”
And I feel you here, seated before me for my knowledge. I see you, see into you, and beyond you! Ahhhh … !
South-east of where you sit,
a great mind seethes and shudders.
Transmuted but not muted, in his pit,
he is the father of blood brothers.
They are found six hundred miles in space.
In time their names are distant, indistinct.
Seeking some Other in his resting place,
they have discovered you—they think!
She is her Master’s kennel-maid.
His castle is a hollow place and high;
His bed is yellow, glowing where he laid
himself to rest who would not die.
Her name is Pretty, but her thoughts are dark.
Hers is to choose where no choice fits her role
in His survival. Six hundred, since the mark
of pestilence entered his soulless soul.
The face looks out across a frozen waste.
Red the thoughts and robes of him who dwells
within the labyrinth of that dire place,
within the ’fluence of the golden bells.
They are of one blood, one and all,
composed of blood, inheritors of life,
which was not theirs to take. Their fall
is possible: the stake, the fire, the knife!
But there are stakes and stakes,
fires and fires, knives and knives.
Success accepts of no mistakes …
Would-be avenger of a thousand lives.
The means is in the sun, as it transpires,
where such as these are loth and loth to stand.
For fires that warm mere men are funeral pyres
to them, to be directed by his mind and hand.
With numbers and with solar heat and grave-cold,
with mordant acids, and his friends in low society,
and alchemical thunder; with all of these, behold!
He may transmute impurity to peace and piety!
He knows!—yet may not know, until set free
by the kennel-maid; he sees, yet may not understand,
until this Pretty’s eyes search out the treachery,
in the Dog that would bite its keeper’s hand …
Six hundred north, and west unto the Zero,
the men of magic are his friends, but chained.
They may not help the one who is their hero,
or tell him that which may not be explained …
And: All done, said Nostradamus.
“But … can I remember all of that?” It seemed impossible to Harry. “And even if I do, can I fathom it?”
Perhaps you’ll know it when you see it. Please understand, I don’t myself understand it. The future is a devious place.
“Time I was gone,” said the Necroscope, hearing footsteps approaching. “I can’t be discovered doing this.”
I could tell you more, but may not! Nostradamus, too, was anxious, frustrated. He knew how important was the moment: his last opportunity to say anything at all. You might attempt to avoid the unavoidable, and all of this were for nothing. Also, the Great Majority have expressly forbidden it. I am forbidden to say more! For your friends in low places know the dangers. It is for me to know and you to discover.
Harry was
desperate to hang on to him; he knew that if he let him go, Nostradamus would return to his dreams of the future. But the echoing footsteps were ringing closer. “Nostradamus,” he whispered. “You hinted that at least one of your quatrains pertains to me.”
In the Second of the “C”s:
find it under my name.
For tree read trees.
pride may be read as shame.
“Under your name?”
What’s in a name? Oh, you’ll find it …
“What, by trial and error?”
Use your numbers—and mine!
“Wait!” Harry cried. But Nostradamus and the Necroscope’s chance for enlightenment were going, going, gone!
“Sir?”
Frustrated beyond measure, the Necroscope mumbled, “Names and fucking numbers!”—then realized that someone had spoken to him and jerked his head from his chest where it had lolled. He saw a tall young man in black clerical garb. The priest put a hand on his shoulder, placatingly.
“English?” He smiled uncertainly. “I did not mean to disturb you, sir, but there is a service tonight and it is getting late. You should find a seat if you intend to stay.”
Harry didn’t intend to stay.
The church had smelled musty, as churches do. But outside it was evening in Provence and the air was sweet. While it was still light, Harry found a street lamp and made some quick jottings in a pocket notebook. He tried desperately hard to remember everything but knew that a lot would be lost.
Of course, for the future is good at covering its tracks. The number six hundred was recurrent. A distance, or a measurement of time, or both? As for Hannat and Nostre: who were they? And one called “Pretty”: Bonnie Jean? Sum a dart son. That was easy: a reversal of Nostradamus. But what did it mean? Eleven: a martyr. And twenty-two: a Master Magician. Simple numerology.