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Much later, when Nathan Stack had eaten, when he was reasonably content and well fed, he
stared into the shadows and spoke to the creature sitting there.
“How long was I down there...how long was the sleep?”
The shadow thing spoke in whispers. A quarter of a million years.
Stack did not reply. The figure was beyond belief. The shadow creature seemed to
understand.
In the life of a world no time at all.
Nathan Stack was a man who could make accommodations. He smiled quickly and said, “I
must have been tired.”
The shadow did not respond.
“I don’t understand very much of this. It’s pretty damned frightening. To die, then to wake
up...here. Like this.”
You did not die. You were taken, put down there. By the end you will understand everything,
I promise you.
“Who put me down there?”
I did. I came and found you when the time was right, and I put you down there.
“ Am I still Nathan Stack?”
If you wish.
“But am I Nathan Stack?”
You always were. You had many other names, many other bodies. but the spark was always
yours. Stack seemed about to speak, and the shadow creature added, You were always on your way
to being who you are.
“But what am I? Am I still Nathan Stack, dammit?”
If you wish.
“Listen: you don’t seem too sure about that. You came and got me, I mean I woke up and
there you were. Now who should know better than you what my name is?”
You have had many names in many times. Nathan Stack is merely the one you remember.
You had a very different name long ago, at the start, when I first came to you.
Stack was afraid of the answer, but he asked, “What was my name then?”
Ish-Iilith. Husband of Lilith. Do you remember her?
Stack thought, tried to open himself to the past, but it was as unfathomable as the quarter of a
million years through which he had slept in the crypt.
“No. But there were other women, in other times.”
Many. There was one who replaced Lilith.
“I don’t remember.”
Her name...does not matter. But when the mad one took Lilith from you and replaced her
with the other...then I knew it would end like this. The Deathbird.
“I don’t mean to be stupid, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”
Before it ends, you will understand everything.
“You said that before.” Stack paused, stared at the shadow creature for a long time only
moments long, then, “What was your name?”
Before I met you my name was Dira.
He said it in his native tongue. Stack could not pronounce it.
“Before you met me. What is it now?”
Snake.
Something slithered past the mouth of the cave. It did not stop, but it called out with voice of
moist mud sucking down into a quagmire.
“Why did you put me down there? Why did you come to me in the first place? What spark?
Why can’t I remember these other lives or who I was? What do you want from me?”
