Not that Huyana or any of the other Neanderthals, of whatever age or gender, were anything but unfailingly kind and courteous to me. The women merely stayed beyond my reach, as far as communication of any sort was concerned.
At night, as I lay stretched out sleeplessly on a bed of spongy moss, I wondered what Anya was doing and why she had sent me here and how long she would keep me among the Neanderthals. I began to form paranoid fears in my head: Ormazd had decided to keep me here permanently, even though Anya wanted to bring me back to her. Or worse yet, the two of them had agreed to keep me in this sylvan exile; they were laughing at me, alone and helpless among people I could not even speak to.
I thought about Ahriman, and how Ormazd intended to keep him imprisoned in that shell of energy, alive in a timeless stasis, but trapped, smothered, helpless. Ormazd was doing the same thing to me, I knew it. And there was nothing I could do about it. Not a thing. Each night I searched every molecule of my mind for a way to escape this idyllic prison, and each dawn I admitted defeat. There was no escape. Not unless, or until, either Anya or Ormazd decided to allow me to return.
I began to lose track of the days. They were all pretty much the same. A heaven of peace and plenty, without anger, without murder, without war. Yet I could not accept it; I could not rest content.
Then one morning, after I had climbed down the vine ladder from Tohon’s dwelling and stepped out onto the open ground, Tunu came running up to me, breathless with excitement.
“Ahriman!” he gasped aloud.
I blinked with surprise. “Ahriman?” I asked. “He’s coming here?”
Tunu bobbed his head up and down. “Yes, he is coming up the trail.” I was so excited that I did not realize he was speaking telepathically and I was understanding him clearly.
He gestured for me to follow him. I saw that the whole village was pouring out of their tree homes and gathering in the clearing, jostling one another slightly, low whistles flicking back and forth, staring expectantly down the trail. I picked up enough of their telepathic vibrations to understand that they were all quite excited. Ahriman was one of their greatest leaders, a man of high intelligence and accomplishment, a poet and philosopher whose fame was known wherever the Neanderthals lived.
It can’t be the same Ahriman that I have known, I told myself. The mental image I was getting from the crowd was very different from the dark, tormented, angry, vengeful Ahriman that I knew.
But when I saw him, walking on the trail, smiling at the crowd that had gathered to greet him, I saw that it was indeed the same man.
Ahriman. A younger Ahriman than the one I had known, but unmistakably the same one. Taller than any of the other Neanderthals, more powerful in physique, his eyes held the intelligence that I had seen in them in other ages. But they were not yet the reddened, hate-filled eyes of the Ahriman who sought to destroy the continuum. This was the face of a man in his prime, happy with life, content with his environment and his place in it. He had not learned to hate. He had no need for vengeance — not yet.
The crowd gathered around Ahriman as he strode the final yards toward the center of the clearing. I could not make out specific words or meanings from their mental chatter, but I felt an urging from them, a pleading for him to do something — I did not know what — that would please them.
He smiled and nodded his assent. The crowd immediately sat down on the ground, excited, anticipating. I remained standing.
Ahriman’s eyes met mine. His smile did not change. His eyes betrayed no hint of anger or enmity. Nor surprise. Obviously, the others had already told him that there was a stranger in their midst. They must have told him my name as well. And, just as obviously, my name, my appearance, my presence meant nothing to him. He was not afraid of me. He was not enraged. The only emotion I caught from him was a gentle curiosity.
Slowly I sat, too, between Tunu and another teen-aged boy. I closed my eyes and concentrated as hard as I could to catch whatever it was that Ahriman was going to say, telepathically.
There was no need for me to work so hard. He was the most powerful telepathic “voice” I had encountered. I could understand him with almost no effort at all.
He sang.
Not with words or musical sounds as we Sapients use. Ahriman sang with thoughts, mental conceptions that released colors, shapes, memories, impressions in my mind. My eyes flew open and still my head filled with beauty and harmony that I had never known before. I could see the Neanderthals around me, staring blankly, enraptured by the beginning of Ahriman’s song.
I closed my eyes once again, but this time it was only to shut out the conflicting view of the world around me, so that I might share more fully the vision that Ahriman was projecting directly into my mind.
It was a song, a poem, a speculation, a history, a report — all in one. I saw the many places that Ahriman had traveled through since the last time he had been to this village. I realized that he was a wanderer, a nomad who linked the scattered settlements of the Neanderthals the way we Sapients eventually learned to link our communities with electronic circuitry.
I saw all the other Neanderthal villages, in ice cliffs far to the north, along balmy seashores, huts built of mud and straw clustered together in the open treeless steppes. I felt the oneness of all these communities, the linkage among their men and women, the common bonds of blood and affection that they all shared. And Ahriman showed us more; he began to tell us of his own thoughts, the ideas and questions that filled his mind when he gazed up at the star-filled night sky. He showed us the harmony of the stars, the rhythms of the planets as they swept among the fixed points of nighttime fire, the glory of the sun as it was created out of cold dust and gained its strength by bringing all the myriad motes together into one fiery, loving embrace.
Ahriman took us among the stars and helped us to wander in realms of breathless beauty. Then, slowly, with enormous reverence and gentleness, he brought us back to Earth, to this clearing in the forest, to this moment in time.
I saw, as I opened my eyes, that Neanderthals cannot weep. But the tears were streaming down my cheeks as Ahriman ended his song.
CHAPTER 46
The Neanderthals did not applaud. Such noisemaking was not their way. But I, with my dim telepathic ability, could sense the enormous wave of approbation and thanks that swept through the gathered villagers. A few low whistles and grunting mutters accompanied the telepathic appreciation. Ahriman nodded a few times, accepting their approval. Then the crowd broke up and everyone went back to their business.
I got to my feet, after wiping away the tears that had blurred my vision.
“You are Orion,” Ahriman said, silently.
We were alone in the clearing now. All the others had dispersed. He looked at me without any emotion except curiosity. He had never seen me before this day. I was the one with the memories, not him. I recalled how I felt when I had first met him, in that chamber he had created deep underground in the twentieth century. How confused I had been then; he had known everything, and I, nothing. Now I knew of all our encounters, The War and its aftermath, and he was as innocent as a newborn. Yet I still felt confused, uncertain.