At this, the crowd shouted and screamed.
Ivar lifted his hands for silence, then said, “Go to bed! Tomorrow we enjoy ourselves while we thank whatever gods made this world that we are free of Eochaid’s harsh rule and are free men!”
The crowd cheered again and then streamed out of the hall. Davis, the handle of his grail in one hand, was heading for the tower and halfway up the first hill when the even-toned voice of Faustroll rose behind him. “Wait for me! We’ll walk the rest of the way with you!”
Davis stopped. Presently, the Frenchman, in no hurry, caught up with him. Heavy fumes of whiskey mixed with fish enveloped him, and his words were somewhat slurred. Man ami! Mia amico! That which treads on day’s heels is beautiful, is it not? The beings that burn in the nocturnal bowl above in their un-Earth patterns, how inspiring! Wise above the wisdom of men, they will have nothing to do with us. But they are generous with their splendor.”
“Uhmm,” Davis said.
“A most observant remark. Tell me, my friend, what do you think is the real reason behind Ivar’s ending the feast?”
“What?”
“I do not trust the goat who leads the woolly ones. Statesmen and politicians, generals and admirals, they seldom reveal their real intentions. The Boneless is up to something his enemies won’t like. Nor will his people.”
“You’re very cynical,” Davis said. He looked across the River. The plains and the hills in Arpad’s kingdom were dark except for the scattered fires of sentinels. There were also torches on the tops of the bamboo signal towers a half-mile apart and forming a ten-mile-long line.
“Cynical? A synonym for experience. And for one whose eyes have long been open and whose nose is as keen in detecting corruption as the nose of the hairy one some claim is man’s best friend. Remember, our leader comes from the land where something is rotten, to paraphrase the Bard of Avon.”
They had resumed walking. Davis said, “What did Ivar say to make you suspicious?”
“Nothing and everything. We do not accept anything at face value. The meaning of words and of facial expressions, the hardness of objects, the permanence of the universe, that fire will always burn skin, that a certain cause always leads to a certain result, that what goes up must come down. It isn’t always necessarily so.”
He swung the cylinder of his grail around to indicate everything.
Davis did not feel like talking about metaphysics or, in fact, anything. Especially not with this fellow, who made no sense. But he accepted Faustroll’s invitation to sit down in the tower courtyard and converse for a while. Perhaps he might find out just why Faustroll suspected that Ivar was up to something. Not that it made any difference. What could he do about anything here?
There was a table near a row of torches in wall
42
Philip Josi Farmer
CROSSING THE DARK RIVER
43
brackets. They sat down. The Frenchman opened his grail and drew out a metal cup half filled with whiskey. Davis looked at the formula painted on the man’s forehead. He had attended lectures on calculus at Rush Medical College, and he was familiar with the markings. But, unless you knew the referents of the symbols, you could never know what they meant or how to use them. He read: – O – a – + a + O =
Faustroll said, “The significance of the formula? God is the tangential point between zero and infinity.”
“Which means?”
Faustroll spoke as if he had memorized this lecture. “God is, by definition, without dimension, but we must be permitted…”
“Is this going to be long?” Davis said.
“Too long for tonight and perhaps for eternity. Besides, we are rather drunk. We can visualize all clearly, but our body is weary and our mind not running on all eight cylinders.”
Davis rose, saying, “Tomorrow, then. I’m tired, too.”
“Yes, You can understand better our thesis if we have a pen and a piece of paper on which to lay it out.”
Davis said good night, leaving the Frenchman sitting at the table and staring into the dark whiskey as if it were a crystal ball displaying his future. He made his way up to his tiny room. It was not until he was at its door that he remembered how astray his conversation with the Frenchman had gone. Faustroll had not told him what he had concluded from his suspicions about Ivar.