The Unreasoning Mask by Philip José Farmer

giant's bowling alley and the ball would strike him soon and fatally.
     
     
The voice slashed through the roaring and seemed to sever it so that the

ends dropped away. But his heart still beat faster than was good for it.
     
     
"You are not of much use while you are afraid of me," the glyfa said.

"Afraid? No, in awe. That is the correct term. No. There is fear,

though not of me so much as of yourself. You are afraid of what you might

do. Which is wrong, since you have been doing what you fear you're going

to do. Too late."
     
     
How could a nonvoice chuckle? Yet, it had done so.
     
     
"No, I don't really laugh. I just evoke laughter in you. Laughter for me.

Never mind. It's too complicated to explain. Tell me why you want to speak

with me."
     
     
In one sense, the glyfa could read his mind. In another sense, it could

not. It had told him that it had read his electrical matrix, the pulsing

configuration of his neural system, when he had appeared at the Great Temple

in Tolt's capital city. It had been able to "see" him as a skeleton of

twisting lightning streaks, a storm of tiny stars and comets' tails.

It had invaded his mind and triggered certain impulses in a configuration

which had made Ramstan lust for the glyfa as he had never lusted for

anyone or anything. It had enveloped him in a globe of light, a bomb-burst

of energy which would have blinded those around him if they could have

seen it. And perhaps Benagur had seen it, and Nuoli had been touched

by it.
     
     
The glyfa had great powers, but these had certain limitations, and distance

was one of the factors modifying them. Not until the three had entered the

house of the glyfa had it been able to determine which of the three

it wanted.
     
     
"I waited for eons for one, and then I got three," the glyfa had said.

"Truly remarkable. Not at all probable. But there it was. As you Terrans

say, 'Feast or famine.'"
     
     
The glyfa had been able to converse at once with Ramstan because it knew

Urzint. But it had been compelled to "use" Ramstan's own voice. In the

interval between the first time it had "spoken" and the second, it had

learned much Terrish and Arabic. It was able to "see" the full referents

of any word or image pulsing in Ramstan's mind.
     
     
At least, that was Ramstan's explanation for the glyfa's quick learning

of the two languages. The glyfa offered none of its own.
     
     
It was evoking the proper words in the proper order from Ramstan's own mind.

In a sense, he was talking to himself. In another, he was conversing with

the glyfa. If he had been asked to define the different senses, he would

have failed.
     
     
Ramstan finally unclogged his mental throat. Subvocalizing, he said, "Here

is what's happened since I last talked to you. Or do you already know it?"
     
     
"Tell me."
     
     
Ramstan did, finding that the glyfa seemed to leap ahead of his words,

to pull out the word or the image by its roots, see the entire plant,

the roots, stein, leaves, flowers, seeds, everything in one scan of

unbelievable speed.
     
     
Strangely, the glyfa seemed more interested in the ghostly person in

the hotel than in other events. At least, it spoke of this first.
     
     
"Do you think it is, indeed, al-Khidhr?"
     
     
"I don't know what to think," Ramstan said. "It could be an exteriorized

projection of my concept of al-Khidhr. A subjective image seeming to be

objective. Or it could be . . . I don't know what."
     
     
The glyfa chuckled. By now Ramstan found this sound sinister.
     
     
"No, not menacing or conspiratorial," the glyfa said. "Secretive, perhaps.

But with good reason. In time all things that are capable of being revealed

will be revealed. But I am making sure that you are not rushed too green into

events which require for you a steady ripening, a slow and sure maturing.
     
     
"That is, if there's time. If not, then . . . Well, we'll see. This Webnite,

Wassruss, is going to give you three gifts, and