“I’ve figured something else out.” Jorim stretched. “The slab has eight surface layers: one for each language and a blank one. We see portions of each surface at different times-a Viruk word, then Imperial, then a blank. We see all the layers at the same time, but only little pieces of them.”
The vanyesh had stopped to consider that. “It’s conceivable that could happen, but the power and control it would have required is almost unbelievable. It’s certainly beyond the ability of a man to do it.”
“But not a god, right?”
“I would not presume to define a god’s power.” The Witch-King shrugged. “I think your analysis is sound, however. The magic would also explain the timeshifting problems.”
Jorim had painstakingly written down and checked the messages. They’d managed to identify five scripts: Imperial, Viruk, Soth, Amentzutl, and an Imperial variant that the vanyesh said had been used by the sorcerers for recording magic formulae. Jorim could only translate the Imperial and Amentzutl, and Cencopitzul agreed that the vanyesh message matched.
In Imperial, the phrase consisted of two lines and six words: Open in out/Closed out in. The formulation marked it as an old Imperial puzzle and the format had survived to Jorim’s childhood. In fact, every child over the age of five knew the answer was door.
That realization left Jorim little better off than before. “It could mean the obvious, or have many meanings.”
The Witch-King had sliced a green fruit in half, revealing a large seed and a fragrant orange flesh that dripped with sweet juice. “Assuming for a moment that you are Tetcomchoa and you decided to leave something here for yourself, would you want to make the solution simple, or complex and incredibly idiosyncratic?”
“Both, probably.” Jorim had taken a bite of the fruit, then licked juice from his hand. “We both know this was a riddle because we’ve seen that style of thing in the Nine. Do the Amentzutl have that same riddling tradition?”
“Not in that format. Their riddles are usually six lines or twelve, and they usually have two answers.”
“So, Tetcomchoa leaves this message here, knowing he’s going to found an empire and someday he will return to the world through the person of someone born in the Nine, who will come here and discover he’s left a riddle.” Jorim winced. “That’s assuming an awful lot.”
“What if a god only knows that things will work, but not how or when or even why?”
“You mean just trust that door is the key and not worry about anything else?”
Cencopitzul lifted his chin and sucked juice off his lower lip. “Is that what you meant yourself to think?”
“You’re not much help.”
“Forgive me. I think door is the portal to the solution. It’s simple enough to reach, but unlocking the truth of it is going to be more difficult. That might be something that only Tetcomchoa’s reincarnation can manage.”
Jorim had almost dismissed that comment as glib persiflage, but something in it started resonating. Perhaps only he could work the solution to the problem the slab presented. Not knowing exactly how to define that problem made things more difficult, but Jorim did know that hidden within or beneath the slab lay something he was meant to have. I have to get in there.
This realization took him back to the puzzle again. He analyzed it, then watched the slab, and finally saw something he’d not seen before. He caught it in the Amentzutl script, and in the Soth. Both languages dealt with pictograms that remained very graphic and recognizable. The Imperial script, like the Viruk, also dealt with pictograms, but they had become highly stylized and no longer looked like the words they represented.
Both the Soth and Amentzutl scripts could be read from right to left, or left to right. Scribes usually recorded things from left to right, but architects and those decorating buildings would swap the facing of letters so they could have inscriptions that were symmetrical. The meaning would not change, and could easily be deciphered if you read toward the mouths of the people and animals represented. The conversation is face to face, yours and theirs.
The Soth and Amentzutl scripts changed directions, but the phrases remained in their places on the slab. This meant there had not been eight faces, with one blank, but ten. The repetition of the phrases in those two languages had to be significant, so Jorim played the riddle forward and backward in his mind, and hit upon a solution.
Cencopitzul looked down at him. “I think what you’re going to attempt is possible, but only if you are correct in your thinking. If you are not, it will kill you.”
“Better be correct, then.” Jorim stretched himself out on the slab. He’d removed all of his clothing. The stone chilled him, but he couldn’t feel the writing change against his back. That was just as well, as his flesh was crawling anyway.
The Witch-King gave him a formal bow. “I hope you know your own mind. Or both of them.” He straightened up, then smiled. “I shall leave you to this.”
“Thank you. You’ll know if it works.”
Jorim closed his eyes, shifted his shoulders, and got comfortable. He reached with his mind and sought the slab. He had tried to identify it through the mai before, but it had eluded definition. Until he had considered the puzzle more deeply, his problem with the slab made no sense because it was as difficult to define as a living creature.
And that’s not because it’s living, but because it is matched to someone who is living.
In running the riddle forward and backward, he turned it into a circle. The door was closed to the outside, which meant only something within could open it. Once opened, the door would admit something from the outside. That thing then would become the key inside and able to open the door. This meant that the key within and without were identical, and their merging would be what unlocked the puzzle.
Setting himself, he touched the mai, then, as he had done with Nauana, he projected his own essence into the slab.
Agony wracked him, spasming every muscle tight. His back bowed and his body convulsed. Sparks exploded in front of his eyes and blood flowed in his mouth from where he’d bitten his tongue. He wanted to panic, he wanted to flee, but he hung on. He pushed his essence harder, armoring it with the mai, and punched it past the initial resistance.
His sense of self pushed in quickly, then hit another barrier. This time his blood turned to acid in his veins. His brain felt as if it was boiling and his eyes were set to burst. Images of what he’d done to the Mozoyan tortured him. He felt as if he were burning and freezing at the same time; as if only arcs of pain bound his body together.
He pushed himself past that, then almost lost control. What had been himself, what he had seen as one solid shaft of white light piercing the slab, fractured into a rainbow of selves. Each ray shot off and hit something else, then each of those rays thickened and brightened. They plunged back at all angles, converging at one point, and when they collided, they exploded in a blinding burst of light.
Jorim felt himself drifting and he struggled to surface. He did not so much feel he was drowning as buried. He felt no distress at that fact, just a desire to orient himself.
Colors flashed past and he reached out for them. He couldn’t see a hand, but he could feel something. Sometimes it was a hand, other times a claw. He tried again and again to pull in one of the lights, but they eluded him.
Then he caught one and found himself in the world again, standing atop a building he recognized as Imperial, but ancient. He stood there, looking up at the sky. He recognized Chado the tiger and Quun the bear, each of whom had sunk his claws into the spray of stars they shared as prey.
Someone spoke behind him. He turned and smiled at the armored man standing there. Though he wore the sort of armor that was common in the Empire, and his coloration and features were Imperial, the design painted on his breastplate and the way he wore his hair were purely Amentzutl.