32

He would listen to the voice, he would follow what it said. After all, it had not led him astray so far. No, quite the opposite: it had broken the bonds of his imprisonment. It had plucked him from Hell and brought him here.

“Are you comfortable,” the lead scientist asked him. What was his name again? Barden? No, Briden. He nodded.

“Can I get you something?”

He waited for the voice of the dead to tell him what was needed, but it didn’t say anything. Briden was staring at him; Istvan was not exactly sure how much time had passed. He shook his head. “Not now,” he said.

“Maybe later?” asked Briden, strangely eager.

Istvan nodded. The movement felt odd. When the voice was more distant from him, everything felt false, slightly off. He felt too much like he had felt growing up. Like the world was in charge of him rather than he being in charge of the world. He didn’t like that.

Briden was sitting across the table staring at him. Much like the small gray man had done. What did Briden want exactly?

“What is it like?” Briden asked.

“What?” said Istvan, surprised.

“It chose me, too,” he said. “It reached out and touched me, and I knew I would become its prophet. Did it do that to you, too?”

Not knowing what Briden was talking about, Istvan hesitated, then nodded. Briden broke into a smile.

“What does it want from us?” he asked.

“Want?” asked Istvan.

“It’s here to save us, isn’t it?” said Briden. “It wants only our own good. It wants to bring us to Convergence. Has it told you what Convergence will consist of? Has it told you when it will come?”

Confused, Istvan just stared.

Briden watched him, expression open and waiting. When Istvan didn’t respond, a flicker of irritation passed over his face. “You can tell me,” he said. “I’m one of the chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” asked Istvan.

“Is this a test?” asked Briden. “Are you toying with me?”

Who was this man and what did he want? Istvan listened for the voice to tell him what to do. It was speaking, it was always speaking, but it wasn’t talking about the man in front of him, wasn’t telling him what to do. He tried to stare his way through this world and see the other world, see the face of one of his dead and feel the voice in his mouth, but the veil wasn’t ready to fall. He could not make it come.

“It chose me, too,” said Briden, defensively. “If it hadn’t chosen me, you would still be in there.”

That was true, in a matter of speaking, thought Istvan. But even when Briden had been staring right at him he hadn’t seen him. It had taken the other scientist, the woman, to recognize him. But to try to calm the fellow, he nodded.

It did calm him. Briden smiled and leaned back in his chair a little. “Now the question is what does it want us to do?”

But Istvan had a hard time paying attention. Inside his head the voice had started to speak again. See me, it said. Understand me. Share me.

“See me,” he muttered.

“See you?” Briden said, surprised. “But I do see you. I’m right here, sitting across the table from you.”

“No,” said Istvan, “See him. I want to see him.”

“Him? Who is him?” asked Briden. And when Istvan just stared, he said, “Do you mean it? Do you mean the Marker?”

Did he? What was a Marker? He didn’t know for certain and the moment in which the voice seemed like it was giving him specific direction had faded into a quieter recital, not things he could hear exactly or know why they were important, but he still could feel his brain taking them in.

“All right,” Briden said. “Yes, why not. You’ll see it. That makes sense. We’ll have to ignore a few security protocols, but I am after all the director of this project. This is much more important than a few security protocols.”

The vid near the wall chirped. Briden glanced at it briefly. When he turned back there was yet another look of irritation on his face. “You’ll have to excuse me a moment,” he said. “This won’t take long.”

He stood and approached the monitor. When he accepted the link, Istvan could see a woman’s face, the face of the female scientist who had seen him and recognized him.

“What is it, Dr. Dexter?” asked Briden. “I’m busy.”

“The prisoner’s not in his quarters,” said the woman. “Do you happen to know where he is?”

“First of all,” Istvan heard Briden say, “he’s not a prisoner. He’s our guest. Second, yes, I do know where he is. He’s here with me.”

“What’s he doing there with you?” asked Dexter. “Why didn’t you follow protocol?”

“I needed to talk to him,” said Briden. “And I didn’t think that protocol applied in this case.”

“No? Why not?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you, Dr. Dexter,” said Briden.

“No, actually you do,” said Dexter. “And be careful what you say. You can be sure that it will all appear in my report.”

He started to retort, then apparently reconsidered. Istvan watched him take a deep breath. “You still don’t understand, do you?” he said.

“Understand what?”

“The work we’re doing here. The nature of it. How important it is. There is no turning back now, Dr. Dexter.”

“Briden,” she said, bridling. “You can’t just—”

But that was all she had a chance to say because Briden had cut the feed.

He came back to the table, his smile restored. “Now where were we?” he asked. “Oh yes, you wanted to see it. Follow me.”

*   *   *

It was late, the workday mostly done. The few scientists still seated and working within the control room turned and looked at them when they entered. Most of them turned quickly back to what they were doing, but one or two kept staring for a time. Briden ignored them. He simply walked across the room and over to the observation window on the other side, drawing Istvan by the hand after him.

“There it is,” he said, and pointed.

Through the window Istvan could see it, a strange twisting obelisk, blackish red and with a reddish glow, inscribed all over with strange figures. Or not so strange, really, for as he looked at them, he began to see in them the warp and weft of the other world, the material which the veil was made of when it fell, even the very lineaments and workings of the faces that came to him in that world. If he was allowed to look at it long enough, he felt, he would even begin to see how these signs and symbols formed the hiss and mutter of the voices that came to him. Yes, here was the thing that brought everything together, that made everything make sense. Here was the key to everything in existence.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” said Briden.

Istvan nodded. It was hard to take his eyes off of it, but he slowly dragged them around to look at Briden. “I want to go in there,” he said.

“There’ll be time enough for that,” said Briden. “Can’t do everything all at once.”

“No,” said Istvan. “Now.”

They stared at one another for a long moment, Briden with a certain curiosity, Istvan steadily, his gaze hard. Finally Briden sighed and turned away.

“All right,” he said. “If that’s what needs to happen.”

He slid his keycard through and entered the code. As the door slid open, more of the scientists turned to watch them. Then Briden ushered him in.

“Not strictly protocol,” he said, almost as if he were talking to himself. The door closed behind them.

The room itself was not the same as in the rest of the complex, Istvan saw. It had a floor made of solid stone, and the bottom part of this chamber had been cut out of the rock, with man-made walls built up on top of it. The Marker rose in the middle of it, at once brutal and majestic. He could almost feel the energy emanating from it. Just looking at it made him dizzy.

“There,” said Briden. “Now you’ve stood in the same room with it. Let’s go.”

But Istvan ignored him. He began to move slowly toward the Marker.

“Istvan,” said Briden. And then louder, “Istvan!”

He felt the man’s hand on his shoulder and shook it off. He kept going. Briden said something, but Istvan could hardly hear it over the sound of the voice guiding him forward, leading him toward this thing of great beauty.

It was in his head, too, he now felt, or something like it anyway, all the necessary details and plans were stored up there now: that was what it had been doing as it prodded his brain. It had been making itself a space within him.

But there was Briden, grabbing his arm again and spinning him around. This irritated him, made him bare his teeth at him. But Briden hung on. Not now, he was saying, we have to clear it first for the sake of—

And then the door behind them opened and Dr. Dexter came in. She looked angry, her face flushed and red.

“Briden!” she shouted. “Even you have to know that this goes far beyond the boundaries of—”

But Istvan had stopped listening by then. Briden was listening though, distracted enough so that Istvan could wrench himself free. He stumbled onward, toward the Marker. He cast a brief glance behind him, saw the two scientists shouting at one another, Briden’s gaze darting back and forth between Dr. Dexter and him.

And then he was at the base of the Marker itself. He reached out and pressed the flat of his palm against it and he felt the veil of that other world falling over his gaze again, a tremendous power behind it. In the distance, someone was shouting. Slowly, carefully, he opened his mind up, unfolding it gently. And then he closed his eyes and waited.

For a long moment, nothing happened. And then he felt something flowing through him, sorting through his mind in a million ways at once. The other world rushed up and blotted everything else out as if it never had existed—and who knows, maybe it never had. He looked up and there, where the Marker had been, was now the face and body of murdered Conn, six or seven times as large as he had been in life. Conn was staring at Istvan, looking down at him. He bent farther down, brought his face closer until his head obscured much of Istvan’s gaze and Istvan was standing in his shadow. And then, blood still dripping from his neck, he smiled.

Suddenly there was a rush of energy that made Istvan’s body vibrate to the very core. All around him, he heard the sound of screams. His mind cleared itself in a burst of white light. He neither knew who he was nor where he was, nor even if he existed. And then he collapsed.