sunup, until the evening was nigh. Then, making to return, he stumbled and took a fall which broke his skin of water. Close by was a well; he went to it and lowered the bucket. But then, when he hauled up the water, the wall crumbled and he fell in.
The well was fed by the Great Red River; the river swept him> away; he was seen, alive, lifting his hand up from the torrent, before being swirled into the borehole, lost forever ...
At the end of his story Thikkoul had sighed again before lapsing silent, waiting for Nathan's response.
'But if he went into the desert alone,' Nathan had queried eventually, 'how can you know the sequence of events?' At which, once again he had sensed the other's simplistic shrug, enabling him to guess the answer even before he heard it. It was deadspeak, of course: the ability of the Great Majority, and of Nathan, to converse among themselves in their graves.
Because he told me all on the day I died! Thikkoul confirmed it. And his is a singularly awful 'resting place', Nathan, where in fact he knows no rest at all! For he was trapped in a swirling sump, where to this day his body remains, rotated and whirled in the frothing tumult. And all of his flesh long sloughed away; his bones all broken and reduced to rounded marbles, from the action of the waters. But at least he no longer fears the water, which has done its worst.. .
Later, Nathan had asked The Five of River's Rush if they knew of a man - Szgany, a 'mystic', perhaps - who dwelled in Sunside. Indeed they did: his name was lozel Kotys, who upon a time had had dealings with the Thyre. He had traded with them: low-grade iron knives for their good skins and medicines. But a mystic? That was a device which lozel had used all his days to avoid being taken in the tithe, until now he was well past his prime and had no need of it. But he was still the cunning one, lozel Kotys! Why, it was rumoured among the Szgany that he had even been to Turgosheim in Starside! If so, then lozel was the only man who ever returned unchanged from that dreadful place.
After that, there had seemed nothing for it but that Nathan must go into Sunside. For quite apart from Thikkoul's predictions - even despite them, anticipating or pre-empting them - he had after all travelled the length of the known world in order to do just that. His original intention had been to see how the Szgany of these parts lived, and so discover how his own people must live one day, in the shadow of the Wamphyri. But beyond that, his reasons were now several.
The things which Thikkoul had told him had come thick and fast, but among the purely verbal had been blurred, indistinct scenes, even as the astrologer had seen them for himself. The impression of insubstantial doors opening and closing; dim figures (chiefly Nathan's) weaving in and out of a succession of situations and locations; strange faces ogling and peering. Except ... two of the latter had not been strange at all but loving, and beloved.
Nathan remembered Thikkoul's words, and the fleeting scene which had accompanied them. I see a maiden; the two of you - three of you? - together. You seem happy . ..
Of course he would seem happy, if such were true. But how could it be? For those dim, wavering female forms had worn the glad shining faces of his mother, and of Misha Zanesti! Which was why, at the end of Thikkoul's reading, Nathan's voice had been hoarse with excitement. Ah, but now, thinking back on the rest of the astrologer's words, his excitement was replaced by doubts and uncertainties.
Nathan had always assumed that his mother and Misha were dead, or worse than dead, even though he had never seen their bodies or known for sure their whereabouts. And how should he think of them now? Thikkoul had told him: These are things of your future, which are perhaps Jinked to your past. And so it is for you to know and understand them.
But how was he to understand them? Had the faces of those loved ones out of past times been simply that: scenes from the past, which yet influenced his future? Of course they had influence over him; they always would have. Or ... was there more