Deadspawn Page 5

Harry had been the Necroscope, was becoming a vampire, and now would be a necromancer in his own right. How dare he seek out Penny’s murderer to punish him on the one hand, and on the other pursue the practice of that same black art? What would be his punishment?

  Perhaps the gears were already engaged, the wheels even now turning. Perhaps the Necroscope had already gone too far, disturbing the delicate balance between Good and Evil to such an extent that it now required radical readjustment. Had he simply become too powerful, which is to say corrupt? How did the old saying go: “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”? Ridiculous! Was God Himself corrupt? No, for the maxims of men are like their laws: they apply only to men.

  Such arguments were endless in the metamorphosis of the Necroscope’s mind and body, until sometimes he thought he was mad. But when his thoughts were clear he knew that he was not mad; it was just the thing that was in him, altering his perceptions along with everything else.

  And then he would remember how he used to be, determine that he must always be that way, and know that he only hesitated out of consideration for his friends among the dead. It was simply that he didn’t want Trevor and Penny to suffer agonies of protracted uncertainty, only to let them down when the waiting was over. To die once is enough, as had been made perfectly plain by Janos’s many Thracian thralls in the bowels of the Castle Ferenczy.

  As for God: if there was such a One (and Harry had never been sure), then the Necroscope supposed he must consider his talents God-given and use them accordingly. While he could.

  Harry had spent a good deal of his time arguing, not least with himself. If a subject took his fancy—almost any subject—he would play word games with himself to the point of distraction and delirium: a sort of mental masturbation. But it wasn’t just himself he was jerking off; in conversations with the dead he was equally argumentative, even when he suspected that they were right and he was wrong.

  Indeed, he seemed to argue for the sake of it, out of sheer contrariness. He thought and argued about God; also about good and evil, about science, pseudoscience, and sorcery, their similarities, discrepancies, and ambiguities. Space, time, and space-time fascinated him, and especially mathematics with its inalienable laws and pure logic. The very changelessness of math was a constant joy and relief to the Necroscope’s changeling mind in its changeling body.

  Within a day or two of returning from the Greek islands he had used the instantaneous medium of the Möbius Continuum to go to Leipzig and see (speak to) August Ferdinand Möbius where he lay in his grave there. Möbius had been and still was a great mathematician and astronomer; indeed he was the man whose genius had saved Harry’s life on several occasions, again through the medium of his Möbius Continuum. But while Harry’s primary purpose in visiting Möbius was to thank him for the return of his numeracy, instead he ended up arguing with him.

  The great man had happened to mention that his next project would be to measure space, and as soon as the Necroscope heard this he threw himself headlong into an argument. This time the argument was “Space, Time, Light, and the Multiverses.”

  Won’t “Universe” suffice? Möbius had wanted to know.

  “Not at all,” Harry had answered, “because we know there are parallels. I’ve visited one, remember?” (And East German students with their notebooks had wondered at this peculiar man who stood by a dead scientist’s tomb muttering to himself.)

  Möbius had been logical about it. Very well, then, let’s concentrate on the one we know best. This one.

  “You’ll measure it?”

  I propose to.

  “But since it’s constantly expanding, how will you go about it?”

  I shall stand at its outermost rim, beyond which there is nothing, transfer myself instantaneously through the universe to the far rim, beyond which there is likewise nothing, and in so doing measure the distance between. Then I shall transfer myself instantaneously back here and perform the same experiment exactly one hour later, and again an hour after that.

  “Good!” Harry had answered. “But … to what purpose?”

  (A sigh.) Why, from that time forward—and whenever I require to know it—a correct calculation of the size of the universe will be instantly available!

  Harry had stayed grudgingly silent for a moment, until: “I too have given the matter a little thought,” he said. “Though purely on the theoretical level, because the physical measurement of a constantly changing quantity seems rather fruitless to me. Whereas to understand what is happening, how and to what degree the age of the universe is tied to its rate of expansion—a constant, incidentally—and so forth, seems so much more satisfying.”

  (An astonished pause.) Oh, indeed! And Harry had almost been able to see Möbius’s eyebrows joining in a frown across the bridge of his nose. “You” have thought about it, have you? Theoretically, you say? And might I inquire as to “your” conclusions?

  “You want to know all about space, time, light, and the multiverses?”

  If you’ve the time for it! Möbius had been scathing in his sarcasm.

  To which the Necroscope had answered:

  “Your initial measurement will suffice; no other is necessary. Knowing the size of the universe—and not only this one, incidentally, but all the parallels, too—at any given moment of time, we will automatically know their exact age and rate of expansion, which will be uniform for all of them.”

  Explain.

  “Now the theory,” said Harry. “In the beginning there was nothing. Came the Primal Light! Possibly, it shone out of the Möbius Continuum, or perhaps it came with the colossal fireball of the Big Bang. But it was the beginning of the universe of light. Before the light there was nothing, and after it there was a universe expanding at the speed of light!”

  Eh?

  “Do you disagree?”

  The universe was expanding at the speed of light?

  “Actually, at twice the speed of light,” said Harry. “That was the essence of your problem, remember, which sparked the return of my numeracy? Switch on a light in space and a pair of observers 186,000 miles away from it on opposite sides would both see its light one second later, because the light expands in both directions. Now, do you disagree?”

  Of course not! The Primal Light, as any light, must have expanded just as you say. But … the universe?

  “At the same speed!” said Harry. “And it still is expanding at that speed.”

  Explain. And make it good.

  “Before the light there was nothing, no universe.”

  Agreed.

  “Does anything travel faster than light?”

  No—yes! We can, but only in the Möbius Continuum. And I suppose thought is likewise instantaneous.

  “Now think!” said Harry. “The Primal Light is still travelling outwards, expanding on all frontiers at a constant speed of 186,000 miles per second. Tell me: Does anything lie beyond those frontiers? And I do mean anything?”

  Of course not, because in the physical universe nothing travels faster than light.

  “Exactly! Wherefore light defines the extent—the size—of the universe! That’s why I called it the universe of light. A formula:

  “Do you disagree?”

  Möbius had looked at the thing scrawled on the screen of Harry’s mind. The age of the universe is equal to its radius divided by the speed of light. And after a moment, but very quietly now: Yes, I agree.

  “Hah!” said Harry. “It’s hard to get a decent argument going these days. Everyone cries uncle.”

  Möbius had been angry. He had never seen Harry like this before. Certainly, the Necroscope’s instinctive math was a wonderful thing, an awesome talent in its own right, but where was Harry’s humility? What on earth had got into him? Perhaps Möbius should let him continue to expound and then try to pick holes, bring him down a peg or two.

  And time? And the multiverses?

  But Harry had been ready for him:

  “The space-time universe—which has the same size a
nd age as any and all of the parallels—is cone-shaped, the point of the cone being the Big Bang/Primal Light where time began, and the base being its current boundary or diameter: Is that feasible, logical?”

  Desperately seeking errors, still Möbius had been unable to discover them. Yes, he was obliged to answer eventually. Feasible, logical, but not necessarily correct.

  “Grant me feasible,” said Harry. “And then tell me: What lies outside the cone?”

  Nothing, since the universe is contained within it.

  “Wrong! The parallels are cone-shaped, too, born at the same time and expanding from the same source!”

  Möbius had pictured it. But … then each cone is in contact with a number of other cones. Is there evidence of this?

  “Black holes,” said Harry at once, “which juggle with matter and so perform a necessary balancing act. They suck matter out of the universes which are too heavy, into universes which are too light. White holes are, of course, the other ends of the black holes. In space-time such holes are the lines of contact between cones, but in space they are simply—” (a shrug) “—holes.”

  Möbius was tired, but: Cones are circular in cross-section, he argued. Put three together and you get a triangular shape between them.

  And Harry had nodded his agreement. “Grey holes. There’s one at the bottom of the Perchorsk ravine, and another up an underground river in Romania.”

  And so he’d made his point and won his argument, if there had been one to win in the first place. For the fact was he’d only argued for the sake of it and neither knew nor cared if he was right or wrong.

  But Möbius had cared, because he didn’t know if Harry was right or wrong, either …

  Another time, the Necroscope had talked to Pythagoras. Again his principal reason for going to see him was to convey his thanks (the great Greek mystic and mathematician had been of some assistance in his quest for numeracy), but again the visit had ended in argument.

  Harry had thought to find the Greek’s grave at Metapontum, or if not there then at Crotona, in southern Italy. But all he found was a follower or two until, by pure chance, he stumbled upon the forgotten, 2,480-year-old tomb of a member of the Pythagorean Brotherhood on the island of Chios. There was no marker; it was a stony, ocher place where goats ate thistles not fifty yards from a rocky shore looking north on the Aegean.

  Pythagoras? No, not here, that one informed in a hushed and very secretive manner, when Harry’s deadspeak broke into his centuried thoughts. He is elsewhere, waiting out his time.

  “His time?”

  Until his metempsychosis, into a living, breathing man!

  “But do you converse? Are you able to contact him?”

  He will occasionally contact us, when a thought has occurred to him.

  “Us?”

  The Brotherhood! But I have said too much. Begone. Leave me in peace.

  “As you wish,” Harry had told him. “But he won’t thank you that you turned away the Necroscope.”

  What? The Necroscope? (Astonishment and awe.) You are that one, who taught the dead to speak out in their graves, so enabling them to talk to one another as in life?

  “The same.”

  And do you seek to learn from Pythagoras?

  “I seek to instruct him.”

  That is a blasphemy!

  “Blasphemy?” Harry had raised an eyebrow. “And is Pythagoras a god, then? If so, a painfully slow one! Consider this: I have already achieved my metempsychosis. Even now I embark upon a second phase, a new … condition.”

  Your soul is in process of migration?

  “I may say that a change is in the offing, certainly.”

  And after a while: If I speak to our master Pythagoras on your behalf, and if you have lied to me, be sure he will damn you with numbers. Aye, and possibly me with you! No, I dare not. First prove yourself.

  Harry had contained his impatience as best he could. “Perhaps I can show you some numbers. As a member of the Brotherhood, I’m sure you will appreciate their importance.”

  Do you seek to seduce me with your puny figures? What, the work of a mere lifetime? Are you suggesting that in the two thousand years and more which have passed since I was laid to rest here I’ve dreamed no numbers or equations or formulae of my own? Necroscope or none, you are presumptuous!

  “Presumptuous?” Harry’s anger had been aroused. “Equations? Formulae? Why, I have formulae such as you could never dream.” And he’d displayed the computer screen of his mind, and covered it with the endlessly mutating algebraics of Möbius mathematics. Then he’d formed a Möbius door, and let the other gaze a moment upon the nowhere and everywhere across the threshold.

  Until gaspingly: What … what is that?!

  “The Big Zero,” Harry had growled then, letting the door close on itself. “The place where all numbers begin. But I’m wasting my time. I came to talk to a master and ended up chatting with a mere student—and a middling one at that. Now tell me: Do I get my audience with Pythagoras or don’t I?”

  He … he is in Samos.

  “Where he was born?”

  The same. The last place anyone would think to look for him, he thought … And then frantically: Necroscope—plead with him for me! I have betrayed him! He will exclude me!

  “Rubbish!” Harry had growled, but without scorn. “Exclude you? He will elevate you—for you have gazed upon the secret mathematical door to all times and places. You don’t believe me?” (And he’d shrugged.) “Well, it’s your choice. My thanks anyway—and farewell.” And conjuring another Möbius door he’d stepped through it—

  —And out again on Samos, twenty miles away, where Pythagoras had spent his childhood two and a half millennia ago, and to which his bones had been returned in secrecy when at last he died. Pythagoras, however introvert, secretive, diffident, could hardly escape or ignore the Necroscope’s deadspeak probe at such close range. That thought in itself had been deadspeak and as such the recluse (in death even more than in life) had heard it. And answered:

  What is your number?

  Harry had shrugged, homing in on the mystic’s mental whisper. “Any you choose for me.” And when he’d located him definitely, one further Möbius jump took him from a deserted, wooded shoreline straight there: to a small olive grove on a terraced hillside above a headland with a tiny white church. Down the coast a little way, scarcely glimpsed through pines and wind-warped oaks, Tigani’s harbor glinted turquoise, blue, silver; music from a taverna came drifting on the bright summer air.

  It was cool in the shade of the trees and the Necroscope had been grateful to take off his wide-brimmed hat, also the dark-lensed spectacles which protected his now-delicate eyes. And because Pythagoras had remained silently thoughtful:

  “There are numbers galore. I’m not fussy.”

  Then you should be. The mystic’s whisper was tremulous, fevered. They are The All. The gods themselves are numbers, though no man knows them. When I have discovered the numbers of the gods, then my metempsychosis may commence.

  “If you truly believe that, then you’ve a long time to wait,” Harry had answered at once. “You can know all the numbers in all their combinations from now to eternity and it won’t change anything, not for you. It isn’t a magical thing, Pythagoras; however many numbers you employ, your soul won’t fly into a new body; there’s no science or sorcery can help you now.”

  Hah! The other was filled with wrath and not a little scorn. Only see who utters these blasphemies! And is this the Necroscope, who was impotent and innumerate, to whom the simplest sum was a mystery? Are you the one they pleaded for, the legions of dust, the teeming dead? Möbius came to me on his knees for you, and what are you, after all, but an ingrate?

  Harry had been needled but hid it from the Greek. Likewise he hid his thoughts: Pompous old fart! While out loud:

  “I came to thank you, for my numeracy. Without it I’d be like you: dust in a grave. Or perhaps not like you, for there was a man who would have called
me up to torture me for my secrets.”

  A necromancer?

  “Just so.”

  It is a black art!

  “Not always. It has its uses. What I am doing now is a sort of necromancy, after all. For I am a living man, talking to one who is dead.”

  Pythagoras gave this a moment’s thought, and: I overheard your conversation with one of the Brothers, he said. Is blasphemy your byword? You alleged reincarnation, transmigration, metempsychosis.

  “I stated a fact,” said Harry. “I was one man in his own body, and when it died I inhabited another. Don’t take my word for it but ask the dead, who have nothing to gain from lying. They’ll tell you it’s true. Moreover, if your ashes were pure, I tell you I could even call you up from the dead! Not with numbers but with words. And this isn’t blasphemy, Pythagoras, but simple truth. Or … perhaps the act itself would constitute blasphemy, I can’t be sure. If so then you’re right and I am a blasphemer, and plan to be again.”

  You could call me up from my ashes?

  “Only if they were pure, unsullied. Were you buried in a jar?”

  I was buried in soil, in secret, here beneath your feet, where as a boy I ran among the trees. My flesh and bones are now one with the earth. Anyway, I cannot believe you. Words and not numbers? Words are from the lips, frivolous things which are spoken and change, while numbers spring from pure mind and are immutable.

  Harry had shrugged. “It’s academic, after all. In two thousand years your salts have been washed into the soil. There are no words—and certainly no numbers—which can help you now.”

  Blasphemy and sedition! Do you seek to turn my followers against me?

  Harry could contain himself no longer. “Pythagoras, you’re a charlatan! In your world you guarded your small, pointless mathematical ‘secrets’—basic discoveries which any child under instruction knows today from his schoolbooks—as if they were life and death. And true death has not changed you. I gave you deadspeak, since when you could have conferred with more modern, more genuine masters, if you’d wished it. To Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein; to Roemer, Maxwell, and—”