Nathan stood in the shade at the foot of the cliffs in the eastern lee of the gorge and looked around. In the otherwise sheer face of the cliff, a narrow ledge or fault climbed diagonally a third of the way to the top. Shading his eyes, he saw the mouths of many caves cut into the cliff where the split in the sandstone petered out. Perhaps this was a natural feature carved by water two or three or ten thousand years ago, in an age when the gulley was a watercourse; or perhaps the caves had been cut by men when the desert was more hospitable. As for now, they could only be homes for lizards and scorpions.

While Nathan thought these things, still they were neither curious nor even conscious thoughts; they were simply the activity of his human brain, which for all his traumas functioned as before. For in fact, even as he considered the origin of the precipitous caves and 'wondered' at their meaning, he couldn't really give a damn. After all, they made no slightest difference to his plan one way or the other.

For his plan was simply to die.

But Nathan had grown cold in the shade and desired to die warm. Stumbling now, he came out from the shadow of the cliffs into the blazing heat of the sun, and stood shivering until it burned through to his bones. Finally he returned to the shade, wrapped himself in his blanket shroud and lay down. And with a stone for a pillow he went to sleep.

With any luck he would not wake up but if he did ... hopefully it would be to a painless and terminal delirium.

Nathan dreamed of the numbers vortex. He floated in black and empty space and the vortex rushed upon him out of the void to sweep him away to other places. But he was determined to stay here and die. He heard the voices of his wolves calling to him out of the spinning core of the maelstrom of numbers, but they were too far away and the din of clashing equations and mutating formulae was too loud; he couldn't make out what they were saying. Something about Misha? About his mother? About death?

Nathan supposed they were commiserating with him, but he didn't need that. 'I know,' he called out into the vortex, and hoped they would hear him and leave him alone to die. 'I know they're dead. It's all right. I ... I'm going there too.'

The wolf voices became impatient, frantic, angry; finally they snapped at him. But why? Did they consider him a deserter? Or were they angry because he refused to understand? Whichever, the numbers vortex had given up trying to snatch Nathan and was shaking itself to pieces, disintegrating into fractions which it sucked into its own core. It snapped out of existence and left him alone, suspended in his dream.

Or perhaps not quite alone.

Did I hear you taJJdng to ... to wolves just then? The question startled Nathan. So much so that he shot upright in his blanket, awake!

'What?' He looked all around in the shade of the cliffs, whose shortening shadows told him that he had been asleep for only an hour or so. The voice had been so real, so close, that he felt certain someone must be hiding behind a boulder close by. Or maybe this was that terminal delirium he had hoped for. And less energetically, forcing the word up from a throat dry as the desert itself: 'What?' he croaked again. But of course he was talking to himself, for there was no one there.

Oh, but there is someone here/ The 'voice' spoke again in Nathan's mind, from as close a source as before. Indeed, there are many someones here.

Many someones ...? The short blond hairs at the back of Nathan's neck stood on end and his skin pricked up in gooseflesh. For now he 'knew' what this was, and where he must be. And of course there would be a great 'many someones' in that beyond world called death: more than all the living in all of Sunside. Indeed, a Great Majority!

Are you dead then? the voice inquired, puzzled. If so, it's a strange thing. You don't feel dead. But on the other hand, I can't see how you can be alive. I never be/ore spolte with a living creature. We]], not since my own time among the ]iving.

Nathan had meanwhile stood up: slowly, achingly, as if all the oils of his body were already dried out. But he felt the pain of it, the emptiness of true hunger and the desiccation of thirst. That was what would kill him: his thirst. But he wasn't dead yet, just delirious. He must be, surely. For he knew that the dead shunned him. And yet here was one who spoke to him with no slightest hint of fear or shyness. It was wish fulfilment, nothing more.

For both of us, perhaps, the voice agreed.

Nathan's throat felt raw as freshly slaughtered meat. His lips were cracked, beginning to puff up. He tried to speak, to say; 'What, and did you also desire to speak to the dead?' But only the first three words came out. It made no great difference; the thought was sufficient in itself.

Did I wish to speak to the dead? No, for 1 can do that already. Being one of them, of course I speak to them. But to be able to speak to one of the living ... ah, that would be a precious gift indeed!

Nathan sat down on a boulder and thought: I'm delirious/

But I am not, said the voice. And I don't think you are, either. And you're certainly not dead. So who are you?

Nathan looked down at himself, visible, solid, unwavering. He was real. The voice in his head was the unreal thing. Surely it should be answering the question who are you?

First and foremost, I am Thyre, said the voice at once. But I see that you doubt my presence. You believe me to be a figment of your own imagination.

Nathan forced spittle down into his throat for lubrication. 'Your name is Thyre?'

My name is a secret, to any creature who is not Thyre. My race is Thyre. I am - or was - of the desert folk. But you are not. I perceive now that you are Szgany, of the forest and hill folk. You can only be, for if you were Wamphyri, then by now the sun must have melted you away. And the trogs likewise prefer their darkness. So, what is your name?

Again Nathan looked all around, satisfying himself that no one was playing some grotesque, macabre trick on him. 'I'm called Nathan,' he finally answered, speaking more to himself than the unbodied presence, and thinking: how strange, to be a presence without a body! While out loud: 'Nathan Kiklu, of the Szgany Lidesci.'

And you came here to die? Ah, yes, I know! For I've been listening to your thoughts for some little time. But when you talked to wolves, and them so far away ... then I knew I must speak to you. For even though you are Szgany, still you have the secret talent of the Thyre!

A talent? Nathan wondered.

To speak mind to mind with other creatures - telepathy!

'Or to mumble and mutter to myself,' Nathan said out loud, nodding wryly. 'Delirium - or madness!' But at the same time he knew that it was partly true. How often had he listened to the whispers of dead people in his dreams, and sometimes when he was wide awake? And what of the thing he used to have with Nestor? Or had all of that, too, been madness?

To which the voice answered: And am I also mad?

'Not mad,' Nathan shook his head, 'but probably not real, either. You're a mirage, heat haze over a tar pit, an hallucination. When I was a child and ate toadstools, I saw things which weren't there. Now, because I'm hungry, hot and thirsty, I've started to hear things which aren't there.'

Wrong, said the other. For I can prove that I am. Or if not that, I can at least prove that I was.

'You don't have to prove anything,' Nathan shook his head. 'I only want you to go away. I have to sleep and not wake up.'

Oh, you'll do that soon enough, if you don't let me help you!

Nathan was curious despite himself. 'Why should you want to help me? What am I to you?'

A boon! said the other at once. A miracle! A light in the darkness of death! The chance to exchange thoughts, knowledge, legends, with living Thyre! That is what you are to me! There were others before you who spoke to dead men; they dwelled in Starside and talked to the spirits of Szgany and trogs. They didn't come here and in the end never could, because by then they were Wamphyri!