Liar! Liar! Pythagoras had raged. You twist words, change meanings!
‘Why do you hide yourself, even from the dead?’
Because they have no understanding. Because their ignorance is contagious.
‘No, because they know more than you! Your followers would desert you. You told them they would migrate, return again to men and meet with you in worlds of pure Number – and now you know that this was false.’
I thought it was truth.
‘But that was two and a half thousand years ago. And are you returned? How long does it take to admit you were wrong?’
I have dreamed numbers that would blast you!
‘Blast me, then.’
By this time Pythagoras had been sobbing. He hurled a catalogue of numbers at Harry, which shattered against the wall of the Necroscope’s metaphysical mind. But at least they shocked him into recognition of his predicament: that again the thing inside was striving to replace him, this time by use of convoluted Wamphyri ‘logic’.
On this occasion it was his salvation, for it had never been Harry’s desire to hurt or even alarm the dead. And: ‘I … I’m sorry,’ he said.
Sorry? You are a fiend! Pythagoras had sobbed. But . . . you are right.
‘No, I merely argued. Perhaps I am right, perhaps not. But I was wrong to argue for the sake of it. And let’s face it, I stand in contradiction of my own argument.’
How so?
‘I know that numbers are not immutable.’ Ahhh! (A long drawn-out sigh.) Would you . . . could you demonstrate?
At which Harry had shown him the screen of his mind, with all of Möbius’s configurations crawling on its surface, mutating and sprawling into infinity. And for a long time the old Greek had been silent. Then: I was a clever child who thought he knew everything, he said, his voice broken. Time has passed me by.
‘But it will never forget you,’ Harry had been quick to point out. ‘We remember your theorem; books have been written about you; there are Pythagoreans even today.’
My theorem? My numbers? If I hadn’t done it others would have.
‘But it’s your name we remember. And anyway, that could be said of anyone and anything.’ Except the Necroscope.
But: ‘I’m not even sure about that,’ Harry had answered. ‘I think that perhaps there were others before me. And certainly there was one after me. They dwell in other worlds now.’ And will you dwell there, too? ‘Possibly. Probably. And perhaps soon.’
What’s it like now? Pythagoras had asked after a while, and Harry had suspected it was the first thing he’d inquired of anyone in a long time.
‘Upon this island,’ the Necroscope had answered, ‘lie many of the more recently dead. But you’ve shunned them. You could have asked them about Samos, the world, the living. But you were afraid to know the truth. And do you know, the last thing of any importance to the living on this island is number? Well, perhaps not entirely true. I’m sure they’re interested in the quantities of drachmae to the pound, to the Deutschmark and the dollar.’ He explained his meaning.
The world is so small now!
Harry had put on his hat, his glasses, and gone out from the shade into sunlight. With his hands in his pockets the latter didn’t bother him too much, but he must go slowly or lose his balance on the rough tracks and roads into Tigani. Pythagoras had gone with him, his deadspeak, anyway; distance wasn’t too important once contact had been established.
I’ll open up the Brotherhood, dissolve it entirely, put it aside. There’s so much to learn.
‘Men have landed on the moon,’ said Harry.
Pythagoras’s mind had flown in circles.
‘They have calculated the speed of light.’
The old mystic’s thoughts were one huge, astonished question mark.
‘But you know, among the dead are those mathematicians who could benefit greatly from your knowledge.’
What, mine? I am an infant!
‘Not a bit of it. You stuck to pure number. Why, in two thousand and more years, by now you’re a lightning calculator! May I test you?’
By all means – but please, a simple thing. Not the dizzy designs inscribed upon your secret mind.