“If you wish to speak—if you are more than the imaginings of my mind—then speak,” he murmured.
it is not necessary to vocalize your thoughts, the cold, relentless voice in his head replied. It felt . . . heavy, as if it were packing more meaning into the forms than the words could properly carry. merely articulate them internally.
He did so, not an easy task . . . but then, he’d trained himself to read without speaking, or even moving his lips, an uncommon skill even among scholars.
Who are you?
We, the other voice replied, the voice of the strange dark man. I am Raj Whitehall, and my . . . companion is Center. I’m . . . I was a man, on another world. Center is a computer.
Despite the utter strangeness, Adrian’s dark brows drew together at the last word. Computer. It wasn’t one he was familiar with, but in the Scrolls of the Lady’s Prophet there was a remote cognate . . .
A daemonic spirit? he thought. Interesting. I thought those superstition. And you are a ghost, you say?
A mental sigh. Not exactly. Let me start at the beginning. Human beings are not native to this world . . .
An hour later he was sweating. “I . . . understand, I think,” he muttered, and looked up at the starry sky.
Other worlds, whole worlds attendant on the stars! The stars are suns! It was more radical than even the speculations of the ancient Wisdom Lovers, the ones who’d spent their time trying to measure the sun or the shape of the earth, before modern philosophy turned to questions of language and virtue. The scale of time involved staggered him; the vision of men coming to this world of Hafardine in great ships of the aether, falling out among themselves, tumbling down into savagery after wars fought with weapons that had eerie parallels to the most ancient legends.
“Why?” he went on. “Why me?”
Because, lad, you’re a man who wants to find out the truth of things, Raj’s voice said. This world has gotten itself on a wrong road, and we need a man to set it right. So that, in due time, Hafardine may take its place within the Federation of Man.
Adrian gave a shaky laugh. “Me, a world-bestrider like Nethan the Great?” he said. “You should have picked my brother Esmond; he’s the warrior in our family, the one who burns to bring back the days of the Emerald League.”
not a conqueror, the slow, heavy voice of the . . . machine? continued: a teacher. although elements of collective violence may well be necessary to disturb the established order on this world.
“What’s wrong with the established order?” he said, curiously. “Apart from those vulgarian bumpkins from the south ruling the Emerald lands, that is.”
observe:
The world vanished, as it had in the High City by the temple of the Maiden. Again he saw Hafardine as it had been just after the fall of the Federation’s machine civilization. Little villages of farmers scattered through the valleys and plains of the figure-eight-shaped main continent and along the coasts of the islands; bands of hunters in the vast forests of the mountains and the southlands. Some of the villages grew. He gasped as he recognized the great cities of the Emeralds in their earliest days, their rise to greatness, the long struggle with the Lords of the Isles and the founding of the Emerald League. His heart beat faster as he saw Solinga in the days of her glory, as the deathless beauty of the High City rose from the dreams and hands of men. Then the long, terrible civil wars, city against city, the League against the Alliance. Solinga’s defeat that solved nothing, and then the Confederation’s armies moving in from the south.
observe. the world as it now exists.
A view from above, first. The Confederacy’s wall across the narrow waist of the continent, separating the barbarian southlands from the land of cities and law to the north. The estates of the Confederacy’s nobles expanding across valley and plain; Vanbert growing from a straggling shepherd’s camp to a city far vaster than any in the Emerald lands. He could sense years passing.