I appeared right in front of him, ghost-high above the moist sand. He seemed not at all surprised, almost as if he had been expecting me. Smiled the quick sly smile of Loiza la Vakako. Studied me with those awesome eyes. Young, yes, no doubt of that, hardly more than a boy. But already he was Loiza la Vakako, complete and total. That regal presence. That austerity of spirit, that leanness of soul. That penetrating shrewdness. That calmness that was not mere cow-like placidity, but represented, rather, the absolute victory over self.
"First ghost of the day," he said. "Welcome, whoever you are." "You don't know me?"
"Not yet," said Loiza la Vakako. "Come. Walk with me. This place is Nabomba Zom."
"I know that," I said. "I'm going to live here for a few years, one day when you are older and I am younger. And I will love your daughter. And I will share in your downfall with you."
"Ah," he said. "My daughter. My downfall." He seemed unconcerned. "You're the one, then. You are a king, are you not?"
"Can you see that?"
"Of course. Kings can see kings. Tell me your name, king, and I'll wait for your return with great eagerness."
"I never knew anyone like you," I said. "You are the wisest man who ever lived."
"Hardly. All I am is less foolish than some. Your name, O king." "Yakoub Nirano. Rom baro."
"Ah. Ah. Rom baro! You will love my daughter, eh?" "And lose her," I said.
"Yes. Of course, you will. And find her again, perhaps, afterward?" "No. No, never again."
His elegant face grew solemn. "What will her name be, old man?" I hesitated. This was all forbidden, what I was doing. But it seemed to me that I had lived on into a time beyond the end of the universe, when all the old rules were cancelled.
"Malilini," I said.
"A beautiful name. Yes. Yes. I will call her that, most certainly." Again the quick smile. "Malilini. And you will love her and lose her. How sad, Yakoub Nirano."
"And I will love you," I said. But already I felt myself growing transparent; I was being whirled away. "And I will lose you." And I was gone. Out of control. Whirling. Whirling.
THAT BEAST THERE, STRANGE BEYOND WORDS, THE DOUBLE humps, the great jutting rubbery lips: I think it is the thing they called a camel. So this must be Earth. I am in a dry sandy place, jagged gray hills jutting at disturbing tilted angles in the distance, whirlwinds circling restlessly over the scrubby plain. A caravan of extravagantly costumed people with dark skins, coarse black hair, sparkling eyes, brilliant grins. Black felt tents. Hats with wide turned-up flaps. I have never seen this place or these people before, but I know them.
An open-air forge here, goatskin bellows, great heavy hammers, two smiths banging at red-hot metal. Here, three girls striding side by side, aloof and mysterious, like priestesses of some unknown order. A woman with ten thousand years of wrinkles, busy with beans and slivers of dried grass and the knucklebones of sheep, foretelling the future for a wide-eyed young Gajo. The sound of a flute nearby. The aroma of roasting meat, seasoned with sharp spices.
I allow myself to become visible. A boy dances up to me and stares, unafraid.
"Sarishan," I say. "San tu Rom?"
He has huge shining eyes, a cunning smile, a quick, agile way about him. He says nothing. He continues to stare.
I point to myself "Yakoub," I say. I touch his scarf "Diklo." My nose. "Nak." My teeth. "Dand." My hair. "Bal." He seems not to comprehend a thing. A few of the other Gypsies are looking toward us, now. The old woman fortune-teller smiles and winks. I keep myself invisible to the GaJo. A-smaller boy jogs up to us and clutches the other's arm as he peers at me. "Tu prala?" I ask. "Your brother?" Still no reply. This must be one of the far lands of Earth, I decide, where the Rom speak a language other than Romany. From my tunic I take two glittering gold coins of the Imperium, bearing the features of the Fifteenth on one side and a scattering of stars on the other. I hold the coins up before the boys.
They are ghost-coins, without substance, without weight. They will vanish like snow in summer the moment I depart. But the boys stare at them with awe. They know gold, at any rate.
"From Galgala," I tell them. "From the stars, from the time to come." I lay the coins in the palms of their hands. They poke at them, frowning, trying to touch them. But to them the coins are nothing more than golden air. "I wish I could give you a more lasting gift. I am your cousin Yakoub. "
"Yakoub," the smaller boy murmurs.
The whirlwinds are starting up again. I begin to fade. The boys look saddened. The coins are fading too.
"Yakoub!" the smaller boy cries. "Yakoub!"
"Ashen Devlesa," says the older boy suddenly in clear Romany as I disappear. "May you remain with God!"
OUT OF CONTROL. ONWARD I GO. WHIRLING. WHIRLING. I might almost have been on a relay-sweep journey. I had that same sense of hanging suspended above the entire universe, flying swiftly from somewhere to somewhere through a vast soup of nowhere, with nothing to shelter me from the black inrushing strangeness of the cosmos except an imaginary wall of force not even as thick as a bubble. And I could no more govern the direction of my flight than I could the movements of the suns.
But this trip of mine now, it was free fall through time as well as space. I was going everywhere. I was going anywhere. Nothing at all held me in place; I was without moorings; I was a straw blown by the gods.
I needed to regain command. But how? How?
MENTIROSO, NOW UNQUESTIONABLY MENTIROSO THAT sense of inexplicable and inescapable fear, bubbling through your veins, stirring in your gut. The closeness of unfriendly gods conjuring panic without reason. The hot scent of terror on the thick heavy breezes.
Look, there: the synapse pit of Nikos Hasgard. Those men sitting side by side in the stirrups, twitchy little Polarca, big sturdy Yakoub. They both look exhausted. Bowed, trembling, pale. I keep myself hidden from them as I float down. I stand behind them and let my right hand rest on Yakoub's shoulder and my left on Polarca's. I will try to send my strength into them both. Is that possible? A ghost aiding two living men? Well, I try. I try. I reach into myself and find the core of my vitality and tap it, and draw power forth from myself, and send it down my arms into my fingers and attempt to thrust it on into them.
Is it working? They seem to sit a little straighter. They regain some of their color. Yes. Yes. Here, Yakoub, here, Polarca, take, take, take! They look at each other. Something is happening but they don't have any idea what it is.
"You feel it?" Polarca says.
"Yes. As if energy is coming up out of the equipment instead of going down into it."
"No. Not out of the equipment. Out:of somewhere else. Out of the sky."'
"Out of the sky?" Yakoub says
Polarca nods. "Or out of the air. Out of the fog. Who knows? Who cares?"
I will stay with them as long as I can. A day, a week, a month-it is all the same to me. I live outside of space and time. And they need me.
But the fear-the fearEven ghosts feel it.
And I feel it reaching me, coming up through them in amplified strength. The fear that makes your teeth clack and your balls contract and your urine turn to ice. That fear is the glue that binds the cosmos together. The fundamental substance, the universal matrix. Conquer it at your risk; for if you do, you drive a wedge between atom and atom, and the universe begins to crumble. Nevertheless I struggle against it.
I will not let the terror overwhelm me. I fight and I fight well, and I thrust it back; I beat it down; I trample it, I crush it, I destroy it. I am on Mentiroso and I am unafraid. And in that moment of no fear I see the little line of black that is the first crack in the fundament of the worlds. I have done it, I, me, Yakoub Nirano, I have driven the first wedge, and now it widens, now it yawns, now it is a broad dark chasm reaching outward, devouring everything it touchesI am swept away in the gale of chaos.