Trepan introduced him to the men and women around the chair and then took him into the crowd. Other introductions followed, most of those he met seeming to be members of Lam Kha Alif or of the sorority across the street. The only one he could identify for sure as a candidacy for pledging was a black, a Gabonese. After they left him, Trepan said, "Bukawai comes from a long line of witch doctors. He's going to be a real treasure if he accepts our invitation, though the House of Hastur and Kaf Dhal Waw are hot to get him. The department is a little weak on Central African science. It used to have a great teacher, Janice Momaya, but she disappeared ten years ago while on a sabbatical in Sierra Leone. I wouldn't be surprised if Bukawai was offered an assistant professorship even if he is nominally a freshman. Man, the other night, he taught me part of a ritual you wouldn't believe. I... well, I won't go into it now. Some other time. Anyway, he has the greatest respect for Layamon, and since the old fart is head of the department, Bukawai is almost a cinch to join us."
Suddenly, his lips pulled back, his teeth clenched, his skin paled beneath the dirt, and he bent over and grabbed his huge paunch. Desmond said, "What's the matter?"
Trepan shook his head, gave a deep sigh, and straightened up.
"Man, that hurt!"
"What?" Desmond said.
"I shouldn't have called him an old fart. I didn't think he could hear me, but he isn't using sound to receive. Hell, there's nobody in the world has more respect for him than me. But sometimes my mouth runs off... well, never again."
"You mean?" Desmond said.
"Yeah. Who'd you think? Never mind. Come with me where we can hear ourselves think."
He pulled Desmond through a smaller room, one with many shelves of books, novels, school texts, and here and there some old leather-bound volumes.
"We got a hell of a good library here, the best any house can boast of. It's one of our stellar attractions. But it's the open one."
They entered a narrow door, passed into a short hall, and stopped while Trepan took a key from his pocket and unlocked another door. Beyond it was a narrow corkscrew staircase, the steps of which were dusty. A window high above gave a weak light through dirty panes. Trepan turned on a wall light, and they went up the stairs. Trepan unlocked another door with a different key. They stepped into a small room whose walls were covered by book shelves from floor to ceiling. Trepan turned on a light. In a corner was a small table and a folding chair. The table had a lamp and a stone bust of the Marquis de Dembron on it.
Trepan, breathing heavily after the climb, said, "Usually, only seniors and graduates are allowed here. But I'm making an exception in your case. I just wanted to show you one of the advantages of belonging to Lam Kha Alif. None of the other houses have a library like this."
Trepan was looking narrow-eyed at him. "Eyeball the books. But don't touch them. They, uh, absorb, if you know what I mean."
Desmond moved around, looking at the titles. When he was finished, he said, "I'm impressed. I thought some of these were to be found only in the university library. In locked rooms."
"That's what the public thinks. Listen, if you pledge us, you'll have access to these books. Only don't tell the other undergrads. They'd get jealous."
Trepan, still narrow-eyed, as if he were considering something that perhaps he shouldn't, said, "Would you mind turning your back and sticking your fingers in your ears?"
Desmond said, "What?"
Trepan smiled. "Oh, if you sign up with us, you'll be given the little recipe necessary to work in here. But until then I'd just as soon you don't see it."
Desmond, smiling with embarrassment, the cause of which he couldn't account for, and also feeling excited, turned his back, facing away from Trepan, and jammed his fingertips into his ears. While he stood there in the very quiet room -- was it soundproofed with insulation or with something perhaps not material? -- he counted the seconds. One thousand and one, one thousand and two...
A little more than a minute had passed when he felt Trepan's hand on his shoulder. He turned and removed his fingers. The fat youth was holding out to him a tall but very slim volume bound in a skin with many small dark protuberances. Desmond was surprised, since he was sure he had not seen it on the shelves.
"I deactivated this," Trepan said. "Here. Take it." He looked at his wrist watch. "It'll be okay for ten minutes."
There was no title or byline on the cover. And, now that he looked at it closely and felt it, he did not think the skin was from an animal.
Trepan said, "It's the hide of old Atechironnon himself."
Desmond said, "Ah!" and he trembled. But he rallied. "He must have been covered with warts."
"Yeah. Go ahead. Look at it. It's a shame you can't read it, though."
The first page was slightly yellowed, which wasn't surprising for paper four hundred years old. There was no printing but large handwritten letters.
"Ye lesser Rituall of Ye Tahmmsiquegg Warlock Atechironunn," Desmond read. "Reprodust from ye Picture-riting on ye Skin lefft unbirnt by ye Godly.
"By his own Hand, Simon Conant. 1641.
"Let him who speaks these Words of Pictures, first lissen."
Trepan chuckled and said, "Spelling wasn't his forte, was it?"
"Simon, the half brother of Roger Conant," Desmond said. "He was the first white man to visit the Tamsiqueg and not leave with his severed thumb stuck up his ass. He was also with the settlers who raided the Tamsiqueg, but they didn't know who his sympathies were with. He fled with the badly wounded Atechironnon into the wilderness. Twenty years later, he appeared in Virginia with this book."
He slowly turned the five pages, fixing each pictograph in his photographic memory. There was one figure he didn't like to look at.
"Layamon's the only one who can read it," Trepan said.
Desmond did not tell him that he was conversant with the grammar and small dictionary of the Tamsiqueg language, written by William Cor Dunnes in 1624 and published in 1654. It contained an appendix translating the pictographs. It had cost him twenty years of search and a thousand dollars just for a xerox copy. His mother had raised hell about the expenditure, but for once he had stood up to her. Not even the university had a copy.
Trepan looked at his watch. "One minute to go. Hey!"
He grabbed the book from Desmond's hands and said, harshly, "Turn your back and plug your ears!"
Trepan looked as if he were in a panic. He turned, and a minute later Trepan pulled one of Desmond's fingers away.
"Sorry to be so sudden, but the hold was beginning to break down. I can't figure it out. It's always been good for at least ten minutes."
Desmond had not felt anything, but that might be because Trepan, having been exposed to the influence, was more sensitive to it.
Trepan, obviously nervous, said, "Let's get out of here. It's got to cool off."
On the way down, he said, "You sure you can't read it?"
"Where would I have learned how?" Desmond said.
They plunged into a sea of noise and odors in the big room. They did not stay long, since Trepan wanted to show him the rest of the house, except the basement.