Necroscope - The Lost Years, Vol II Part 36

'If I were the Master Magician you named me-' -Not I, but numbers. An d 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? MObius, of course! "You know about that?'

341.

340.

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 f ond 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 Lehcim?'

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.) / exist! said the other. / 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... ... G.o.d'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 h alfway 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 afar and alien clime...

Yet a third son is better, or worse! Take my first six and reform his name. Himse lf, he is beyond reform, perverse! His father's opposite, never the same!

'Your first six? "Nostre"? There'

s a nam e 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; 111 see what you see.'

Necroscope: The Lost Yean - Vol. II 343.342.

Hear my voice, my qua trains, 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. What 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 maaness 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. Trans.m.u.ted but not muted, in his pit, he is the father of blood brothers.

They are found six hundred miles in s.p.a.ce. 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 wh ere 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 'fiuence 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 trans.m.u.te inpurity to peace and piety!

He knows! - yet may not know, until set free by the kennel-mai d; he sees, yet may not understand, until this Pretty's eyes search out th e 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.'

/ could tell you more, but may not! Nostradamus, too, was anxious, frustrated. He knew how important was the moment: his last opportunity to say anyt hing 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 pla ces 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 quatra ins pertains to me.'

345.

344.

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, youllfind it...

'What, by trial and error?'

Use your numbers - and mine!

'Wait!' Harry cried. But Nostradamus and the Necroscop e's chance for enlightenment were going, goin g, gone!

'Sir?'

Frustrated beyond measure, the Necroscope mumbled, 'Names and f.u.c.king 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, placatingl y.

'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 call ed '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.

Even the remnants of the conversation were fading now!

Frantic, Harry searched his mind. Numbers, solar heat, and grave-cold. Mordant acids, dead friends, and alchemical thunder. Stakes, and fires, and knives. Only one possible meaning there! Or was all of this simply a dream within a dream, the echo of a nightmare from the past? Or were his problems - the worst sort of problems?

A dire place with golden bells? Did he know such a place? A mutant Thing in a pit, the father of bloo d brothers. Or brothers of blood?

h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation! It was all slipping away!

He ran back to the church. Songs of praise echoed within. 'Nostradamus!' he called. And twice more: 'Nostradamus! Nostradamus!' But the great prophet wasn't listening. Perhaps he was singing, too. Or perhaps his mind was already winging far into future times...

Back in the old house near Edinburgh, Harry sweated like a man in a fever trying to remember what he'd been told. Could it be he wasn't supposed to remember? So why had he been allowed to retain any of it? Maybe it would come back to him as it occurred. But wouldn't that be too late?

Too late for what?

's.h.i.+t!' he exploded, and sweated some more. For there was something desperately wrong here. No, just about everything was desperately wrong here! Somebody - and maybe more than just one somebody - was still f.u.c.king with his mind! But how? And why? Or was he simply insane?

Six hundred. He knew about that, definitely... except he still didn't know what he knew! The mental rambling of a crazy man, or lunatic. 'Lunatic' - someone made mad by the moon. And now he really was starting to think like Nostradamus - in riddles and word games.

Si x hundred. Six f.u.c.king hundred!

A measurement in s.p.a.ce or time or both.

Try s.p.a.ce. "They are found six hundred mil es in s.p.a.ce...' It came and went, but the Necroscope clung to it like the proverbial drowning man to his straw. Distance! Six hundred miles from Salon - 'south-east of where you sit.'

The World Atlas was still in the kitchen where he'd left it; it seemed to leap from the table into his hands; he scrambled feverishly for the huge double-pages showing Europe. A set of compa.s.ses , his kingdom for a set of compa.s.ses! f.u.c.k the compa.s.se s, he'd make a set of his own!

He took a strip of paper and marked off six hundred miles on the scale of the map, and pinned the strip over France with the pin through Salon. Then he described a circle, and saw that the mark he'd made crossed through Sicily, the mountains of Le Mad onie 'A great mind seethes and shudders, the father of blood brothers What did it mean? The Francezci brothers, who he'd robbed? But what if it was all only a dream? What if he was making this up himself?

Six hundred. What else about six hundred?

Harry's lips were dry. He was so tired. Those three days he'd spent in hospital had only seemed to refresh him; but the reason he'd been there had been more mental than physical. And it was the same now: a mental weariness. His eyes and mind were hot, heavy hurting.

346.

347.

He remembered some idiot character in Monty Python whose brain had hurt Harry's brain hurt, too!

Six hundred. Three times that number had come up. Triple sixes? The Beast in Revelations? No, no, they were distances in s.p.a.ce and time. But one thing for sure: all of this was a beast - and a b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

'Sir hundred north, and west unto the Zero.'

He laughed hysterically and swung his strip of paper into t he vertical: north. Then west until the mark hit... zero degrees! At the Greenwich meridian! London!

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.'

Men of magic? In London? E-Branch! Harry's intuitive maths - and his knowledge of numerology - leaped to the rescue. Darcy Clarke: D-4, A-l, R-2, C-3, and Y-l. Darcy, an eleven, a magician! d.a.m.n right he was!