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Chapter 17

The plane bumped to a stop on a rocky runway that ended just inches away from a steep canyon. The conductor, recognizable only by the gold watch and chain that stretched across his midsection, was twenty years younger, much thinner, and clad in a waistcoat with colored flashing at the lapels. He waved to each of them as they disembarked.

"B'bye," he said, smiling personably. His teeth gleamed white like a glacier. "B'bye. B'bye."

"Bye," Chuck said uneasily, as he descended the steep steps to the ground. The bags strapped to his back caught the strong wind, and made him dance crazily from side to side. He was glad his clothes suited the climate: a thick blue sweatshirt over a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of new, indigo jeans over tan lace-up hiking boots. The plane had landed very close to the edge of the precipice. When Chuck looked around, he realized the engineer, or pilot, had had no choice. The promontory on which the plane stood was almost the only flat feature for hundreds of miles around. The ridge of mountains surrounding the Dreamland like the rim of a dish stood up high around the eastern edge of the plateau, making the gray-brown peaks inside look small and insignificant, until he compared his own size to them. They were still huge. The upwelling of awe in his chest was something that he couldn't find words to express.

Apparently, though, the landscape was not what they had come to see. Chivvying Chuck back toward the party like a hen rounding up her chicks, the little old man steered Chuck around the towering wheels of the plane to where the others of his group now waited. Chuck had no idea what could possibly top the glory of the mountains, until he saw it. His imagination was not sufficient to contain the concept by itself. It must have taken millions of minds and years to create the sight before him.

"The Rock of Ages," Keir announced proudly, as though he had invented it himself. The narrow stone shelf on which they stood was part of an irregular ring surrounding a deeper canyon than the one behind him. In the center was a single, perfectly cone-shaped peak. It summoned up in Chuck's mind the true essence of the word "mountain." It looked as though it had stood there unchanged since time began, and it always would.

His view of it was not as clear as he would have wished. Faint, twisting wisps of cloud shimmered in the air between him and the Rock. Then, Chuck realized, to the depths of his being, that the wisps were moving.

"What is that?" he hissed to Keir, pointing.

"The Rock of Ages," Keir said, with the air of someone beginning to tell a long story, "is where you can see anything that has happened at any time. It is a single, giant lodestone. It attracts history."

"No," Chuck said, pointing at the faint images on the sky. "What are those?"

"Memories," Keir said. "From the Rock you can watch the images of time. I just told you."

"Wow." Chuck gazed at the clouds.

Keir glanced at him, his sharp black eyes crinkled into merry slits. "Want to see?"

"You bet I do," Chuck said.

"Good! Follow me."

Keir stumped off clockwise around the ring. Chuck wondered where he was going until, through the mist, he saw a tiny bridge that led from the cliffs to the summit of the Rock. It looked frail as a hair. He ran after the guide, who stopped at the foot of the bridge. Keir had turned into his angel form, and was beckoning with a long, white hand. Pipistrella must be right behind him. Chuck stopped to wait for her. Her fancy shoes weren't suited for hiking over rough terrain. He took her arm. As soon as he touched her, her feet lifted off the ground. Chuck translated the reaction to mean that his intent to assist her became literal. She would not trip now, because she was walking on air.

"Thank you," she said, favoring him with her blinding smile. Chuck's heart did flip-flops inside him. He was struck all over again by the force of her beauty.

"Thank heavens," Persemid said, catching up with them at the bridgehead. The other two men had helped her make her way, each taking several of her packs and bags. "This is a lot wider than it looked."

Chuck agreed. Now that he was standing in front of it, the bridge was as wide as a four-lane road, and as flat. There were no rails or parapets to hold onto, though they were astonishingly high up. Chuck realized with ice in his belly that from the edge he was looking down at clouds. The mountain waited for them, its snow-covered peak like a wise, silver head presiding over handsome, strong slopes, dark brown at the shoulders, and covered with dark green down to the roots concealed in the swirling white fog.

Keir floated forward, not a wing feather out of place in spite of the strong wind. He turned and beckoned again. Pipistrella almost floated after him, her small feet still not quite touching the ground. Since she was still holding onto Chuck, he had no choice but to follow.

The bridge felt reassuringly solid underfoot. Chuck had no idea what it was made of, or what was supporting it, but it didn't quiver or sway an inch. He glanced over his shoulder. More of their fellow passengers had mounted the span. Spot, in the shape of a large, mixed-breed dog, was leading Mrs. Flannel, who had dark glasses and a white cane. Chuck was sorry for her. If all the sights of the ages were to be seen on the other side, she would miss everything. The small, plump figure of Bergold caught his eye from the cliff's edge. The Historian waved and ran to catch up. Within steps, he changed into a bald eagle, and flew the rest of the way.

"My hat, that's convenient," the eagle screeched, swirling over Chuck's head with a flick of his wing. "You'll enjoy this, my friends! The Rock of Ages is a favorite haunt of my fellows from the Ministry. It's a resource we use to check the reality of phenomena from the Waking World."

Chuck couldn't wait to get to the other side. As they got closer, the great mountain loomed higher and more impressively, filling the whole of his vision. The green was not a solid, blended mass. It began to divide into clumps of forest of many different shades, separated by waterfalls and ravines he hadn't noticed before, each as perfect as if it had been designed by an artist. As he got closer still, he could distinguish the crowns of individual trees, and soon saw tiny blobs of different colors underneath some of them.

"My colleagues," Bergold said, gliding overhead. He narrowed his caramel-colored eyes. "I do believe old Telsander has hauled himself away from his books for a time. He belongs to the Ministry of Continuity," he explained to Chuck. "In a way, Continuitors are our rivals, though our responsibilities overlap. History observes the events and trends of the past, and Continuity works to ensure that things do not vary by our actions from the way they are set down. Of course, we often disagree."

"What do we do now?" Chuck asked, as the party reached the end of the bridge. Beaten-earth paths led both up and down along the slope through the trees. The dots of color scattered all over the hillside were now large enough for him to see that they were indeed people, all staring intently at the clouds. Some of them were taking notes.

"Skywatching," Keir said. "History is here for you, as our friend told you. Maybe you'll see important events from our past. Maybe you'll even see yourself. Maybe not. Try it! I'll come for you when it's time to go."

"Come up this way," Bergold invited Chuck, swooping toward a path that led steeply uphill. "I saw a spot with a one-hundred-twenty-degree wide field of view about sixty feet above us."

The going was difficult. Chuck started out walking upright, mounting the slope as if it was a high flight of stairs. Shortly, the muscles in his thighs began to complain. After barking his shins and slipping on stones a dozen times, he hunched forward and climbed on hands and knees, grasping at roots for handholds, digging toeholds in the dry soil, his attention focused only inches from his nose. He was panting for breath by the time the shrill voice over his head told him he had arrived.

Cautiously, he detached himself from his spider-cling, and sidled over toward a tree Bergold was perched in. A narrow goat-path wound around the curve of the mountain, meandering among white-bark birches whose crowns were bright with green-gold leaves.

"Choose your vantage point," Bergold advised. "Some like to sit among the rocks, but I like the trees. Having a living thing at your back is like having a friend with you."

Taking his advice, Chuck went from tree to tree until he found the one he wanted. Beneath a trunk as thick as his chest, black-banded roots humped up around a hollow in the ground filled with sparse grass, something like an armchair. It didn't yield the way the seats in the train did, but was more comfortable in a rustic way. He propped his elbows on the roots and sat back with his head supported by a knot in the bark. The tree felt friendly and wise, like an uncle offering solemn friendship to an inexperienced nephew. Though Chuck wasn't a child, he found the sensation reassuring, and he did feel new here, and very, very young. Bergold settled on a branch above that sagged under his weight, and pointed a wingtip out at the swirling clouds. The sky was as full of pictures as the night was full of stars.

"Do you see that?" Bergold said. Chuck followed the sweeping tip of his wing, but the image winked and vanished like a candle being blown out. Other and more interesting things drew his eye. He turned his head this way and that, trying to absorb them all.

"Focus!" Bergold said, with a soughing caw that sounded like a laugh. "Let the visions come to you."

Chuck let himself relax, and stared at one spot. To his delight, he saw a queen bearing a diamond scepter entering a long room filled with people. She moved majestically toward a throne at one end of the room, turned and sank slowly onto the cushions, scepter still held aloft. Chuck felt exalted that he could witness such a moment. The grandeur of the parade, all the peers in their fancy robes, the walls of the ancient room carved and gilded with symbols he couldn't recognize and had no idea of the meaning of, were outside his normal frame of reference.

The image didn't last long, giving way in the flicker of an eyelid to a brightly sunlit street corner where five men in sleeveless T-shirts and yellow hardhats were pouring concrete into a pothole.

"Wait, it stopped," he said to Bergold. "I want to see more! How do I make it go back?"

"You can't," Bergold said. "You can only see what is offered. There's no telling how the Rock chooses to display the events it does."

"It's frustrating," Chuck said. "It's like sitting next to someone flipping through television channels too fast."

"Ah," Bergold said, in the kind of voice that would accompany raised eyebrows if the eagle had had any to raise. "We'll have to have a discussion later about the true nature of television. I have dozens of questions I've always wanted to ask. Alas, I am afraid you must allow the visions to happen as they happen. You are not in control."

"But I would have liked to see more of that, that coronation, or whatever it was."

"Such is the nature of the Rock," Bergold said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. "I believe it's an advantage rather than a detriment to see shorter segments of time, rather than longer. Imagine having to observe a woman doing an entire family's laundry on a rock in a river, or watch children throughout a school day."

Chuck frowned, but Bergold was right. Those would be boring. It was a trade-off, but he would have liked to make the decisions himself. Television had spoiled him. He would have to remember to tell Bergold that.

The construction workers were gone now. Instead he was looking into a fancy office paneled in red mahogany. Six men in black frock coats and cravats were sitting around a table, passing legal-sized papers back and forth. Two men signed each of the documents, then everyone shook hands. Chuck guessed he was seeing the signing of some kind of contract, but he couldn't guess what.

"Can't we hear what's going on?"

"Sound doesn't carry very well from the past," Bergold said. "The watchers here for the Ministry have learned to be very good lip-readers. If you want to, later on you can find an observer who viewed the same image as you, and read his records of what they were saying."

Chuck sat back with his hands behind his head, staring at one spot in the sky. In the space of a few minutes, he saw soldiers wade ashore on a beach, coalescing into cars rushing along on a highway, then becoming the flower stems a woman in a florist's shop was putting into a vase.

"When I was little," he told Bergold, thoughtfully, "I used to watch clouds change shape. I thought I could see all kinds of things in them. Maybe this happens at home, and I never noticed."

"If you ever find out I hope you will come back to tell me," Bergold said, sincerely. "Daydreams! What a paper that would make! Well, let me leave you to your observations. I must fly. Enjoy yourself." Bergold launched himself off the groaning branch, and wheeled away into the sky, becoming lost in a cloud image of a man changing a light bulb. Chuck settled back to watch.

How amazing it was to peek in on the events of history, he thought, watching a man in colonial dress counting coins. The visions didn't last very long. They were as ephemeral as they looked. If Chuck had to duplicate the effect, he would have painted the image before him in thin watercolors on glass, overlaid against many such scenes. It was really beautiful, giving ordinary faces and places a special sense of eternity. Everything that had ever happened was floating around here in the air. Incredible.

He could watch what was going on behind the first vision by changing his focus, but he could see something else just by waiting. He almost imagined he heard the tree behind him making comments, but it was probably just the wind in the branches. On the other hand, this was a dreamworld. The tree might even be an observer who came to watch the skies and never left, changing to suit the environment. Chuck settled his back more comfortably against the white bark. It wouldn't be a bad life . . .

Moments from every corner of history danced before his eyes for a second or two. Occasionally, Chuck saw cities rise and fall, men at war and women having babies, but mostly he witnessed small events from the lives of ordinary people. He watched millions of children sitting in concrete-block schoolrooms, waiting impatiently for the bell. He watched billions of people walking up streets, and for a change, walking down streets. Endless meals were served and eaten, from countless different places and eras, then a whole rash of similar ones would flash by, singled out by the inclusion of a single ingredient, like mayonnaise. By the time he'd sat there for a while, Chuck had seen a thousand different uses for the sauce, and a million all the same. Whole schools of fish had died for all those tuna salad sandwiches, whole wheat fields reaped bare, and for what? Mere sustenance that wasn't even worth a footnote on a page of history.

At bottom, Chuck had to conclude that most of everything that had ever happened in the world since the beginning of time was . . . boring. The Historians on duty, some of them visible from Chuck's vantage point, carefully scribbled away in vast books. He'd thought at first that they had an interesting job. Now he felt a little sorry for them.

Overhead, a vast image of a dark-skinned woman in a brown dress flicking a quilt out over a child's bed, overlaid at once by a tiny Japanese woman carefully spreading a silk coverlet out onto a futon. Chuck couldn't take any more. He wasn't going to watch a whole series on making beds. The scenes were beginning to blur together. One more person running for a train or an egg dropping to a linoleum floor, and he was going to fling himself over the precipice and disappear into the mists of time.

He came to the inescapable conclusion that nothing he had observed would help him along the way in his quest. What if he saw himself in a past scene? Since he couldn't recall how he really looked, would he even recognize himself? How would seeing how he had behaved before change what he was now? He couldn't sit still any longer. He sprang to his feet, feeling he just had to move.

Though the peak had seemed vast, he was able to walk around it as quickly as he had crossed the miles-long span to reach it. Size was relative, as Keir had pointed out. This wasn't a physical place. Mentally, it was huge, but if it was made up of any real molecules at all, they could be squeezed down to a mass that would fit in his hand. Chuck guessed that it probably had as much genuine existence as the body he was wearing.

A stripe of bright color on the far side of the surrounding bluffs caught his eye. He squinted, and his vision zoomed in on the spot like a telephoto lens. Tents, banners, signs . . . it looked like a bazaar of some kind. Chuck grinned to himself. Wasn't it just like human nature? Where an attraction brought in the crowds, merchants popped up nearby to collect the tourist dollars. He'd seen dozens of similar markets in the visions surrounding the Rock of Ages, and was pretty certain he'd been to some in his normal life. He decided he'd enjoy seeing what a market on the astral plane was like. There was a second bridge leading off the peak to it. He wondered if it had been there before the market existed, or if the merchants had caused it to be made. He glanced back at the scholars. If the merchandise over on the other side cost influence, those guys must be rich, because they hardly moved except to write things down. It was a pretty situation for both sides.

He tried to convince himself he ought to stick around for a while because the Rock of Ages was an important cultural site, then decided it didn't matter if it was. Been there, did it, so maybe he'd go down and buy the T-shirt.

Chuck stumped down the hill toward the second bridge. Along this face of the mountain there were shelves and ridges large enough to stand on. Here and there stood office water coolers and coffee machines, peculiarly out of place in the wild, natural setting. Historians and Continuitors in long robes loitered around them with cups in their hands, gossiping. It looked like every workplace Chuck had ever been in during his life, in spite of the eternal cinema going on overhead, and the fact that one false step could shoot you down an endless mountain into the fog.

Near one of the coffee dispensers, Chuck caught Bergold and Hiramus sitting on a rock chatting like acquaintances. Bergold was human again, wearing another version of his base shape, as he'd called it. He had red hair and sandy freckles to match the Visitor's ruddy skin, auburn hair and mustache. They stopped talking as Chuck came up. Bergold waved him over.

"Say, you two must know each other," Chuck said.

"Yes, I know Bergold well," Hiramus said, almost sheepishly for such a quick-tempered man. "He's a most eminent figure at court."

"You flatter me," Bergold said, transforming into a blushing maiden with a fluttering fan. He peeked over the top of it at them. Hiramus chuckled.

"How often have you been here before?" Chuck asked, enviously.

"Many times," Hiramus said, the corners of his ginger mustache curling upward in a smile. "I've traveled widely in a dream state. It's a pleasant occupation, learning more about the minds of ourselves and our antecedents. What do you think of this place?"

Chuck was embarrassed. "It was getting boring," he admitted.

"We felt exactly the same way," the Historian said, cheerfully. "There may be those in my department who can sit still until spiders weave webs over them, but I am not one of them. We were just going to look at the bazaar. Come with us."

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Framed

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Chapter 17

The plane bumped to a stop on a rocky runway that ended just inches away from a steep canyon. The conductor, recognizable only by the gold watch and chain that stretched across his midsection, was twenty years younger, much thinner, and clad in a waistcoat with colored flashing at the lapels. He waved to each of them as they disembarked.

"B'bye," he said, smiling personably. His teeth gleamed white like a glacier. "B'bye. B'bye."

"Bye," Chuck said uneasily, as he descended the steep steps to the ground. The bags strapped to his back caught the strong wind, and made him dance crazily from side to side. He was glad his clothes suited the climate: a thick blue sweatshirt over a long-sleeved T-shirt and a pair of new, indigo jeans over tan lace-up hiking boots. The plane had landed very close to the edge of the precipice. When Chuck looked around, he realized the engineer, or pilot, had had no choice. The promontory on which the plane stood was almost the only flat feature for hundreds of miles around. The ridge of mountains surrounding the Dreamland like the rim of a dish stood up high around the eastern edge of the plateau, making the gray-brown peaks inside look small and insignificant, until he compared his own size to them. They were still huge. The upwelling of awe in his chest was something that he couldn't find words to express.

Apparently, though, the landscape was not what they had come to see. Chivvying Chuck back toward the party like a hen rounding up her chicks, the little old man steered Chuck around the towering wheels of the plane to where the others of his group now waited. Chuck had no idea what could possibly top the glory of the mountains, until he saw it. His imagination was not sufficient to contain the concept by itself. It must have taken millions of minds and years to create the sight before him.

"The Rock of Ages," Keir announced proudly, as though he had invented it himself. The narrow stone shelf on which they stood was part of an irregular ring surrounding a deeper canyon than the one behind him. In the center was a single, perfectly cone-shaped peak. It summoned up in Chuck's mind the true essence of the word "mountain." It looked as though it had stood there unchanged since time began, and it always would.

His view of it was not as clear as he would have wished. Faint, twisting wisps of cloud shimmered in the air between him and the Rock. Then, Chuck realized, to the depths of his being, that the wisps were moving.

"What is that?" he hissed to Keir, pointing.

"The Rock of Ages," Keir said, with the air of someone beginning to tell a long story, "is where you can see anything that has happened at any time. It is a single, giant lodestone. It attracts history."

"No," Chuck said, pointing at the faint images on the sky. "What are those?"

"Memories," Keir said. "From the Rock you can watch the images of time. I just told you."

"Wow." Chuck gazed at the clouds.

Keir glanced at him, his sharp black eyes crinkled into merry slits. "Want to see?"

"You bet I do," Chuck said.

"Good! Follow me."

Keir stumped off clockwise around the ring. Chuck wondered where he was going until, through the mist, he saw a tiny bridge that led from the cliffs to the summit of the Rock. It looked frail as a hair. He ran after the guide, who stopped at the foot of the bridge. Keir had turned into his angel form, and was beckoning with a long, white hand. Pipistrella must be right behind him. Chuck stopped to wait for her. Her fancy shoes weren't suited for hiking over rough terrain. He took her arm. As soon as he touched her, her feet lifted off the ground. Chuck translated the reaction to mean that his intent to assist her became literal. She would not trip now, because she was walking on air.

"Thank you," she said, favoring him with her blinding smile. Chuck's heart did flip-flops inside him. He was struck all over again by the force of her beauty.

"Thank heavens," Persemid said, catching up with them at the bridgehead. The other two men had helped her make her way, each taking several of her packs and bags. "This is a lot wider than it looked."

Chuck agreed. Now that he was standing in front of it, the bridge was as wide as a four-lane road, and as flat. There were no rails or parapets to hold onto, though they were astonishingly high up. Chuck realized with ice in his belly that from the edge he was looking down at clouds. The mountain waited for them, its snow-covered peak like a wise, silver head presiding over handsome, strong slopes, dark brown at the shoulders, and covered with dark green down to the roots concealed in the swirling white fog.

Keir floated forward, not a wing feather out of place in spite of the strong wind. He turned and beckoned again. Pipistrella almost floated after him, her small feet still not quite touching the ground. Since she was still holding onto Chuck, he had no choice but to follow.

The bridge felt reassuringly solid underfoot. Chuck had no idea what it was made of, or what was supporting it, but it didn't quiver or sway an inch. He glanced over his shoulder. More of their fellow passengers had mounted the span. Spot, in the shape of a large, mixed-breed dog, was leading Mrs. Flannel, who had dark glasses and a white cane. Chuck was sorry for her. If all the sights of the ages were to be seen on the other side, she would miss everything. The small, plump figure of Bergold caught his eye from the cliff's edge. The Historian waved and ran to catch up. Within steps, he changed into a bald eagle, and flew the rest of the way.

"My hat, that's convenient," the eagle screeched, swirling over Chuck's head with a flick of his wing. "You'll enjoy this, my friends! The Rock of Ages is a favorite haunt of my fellows from the Ministry. It's a resource we use to check the reality of phenomena from the Waking World."

Chuck couldn't wait to get to the other side. As they got closer, the great mountain loomed higher and more impressively, filling the whole of his vision. The green was not a solid, blended mass. It began to divide into clumps of forest of many different shades, separated by waterfalls and ravines he hadn't noticed before, each as perfect as if it had been designed by an artist. As he got closer still, he could distinguish the crowns of individual trees, and soon saw tiny blobs of different colors underneath some of them.

"My colleagues," Bergold said, gliding overhead. He narrowed his caramel-colored eyes. "I do believe old Telsander has hauled himself away from his books for a time. He belongs to the Ministry of Continuity," he explained to Chuck. "In a way, Continuitors are our rivals, though our responsibilities overlap. History observes the events and trends of the past, and Continuity works to ensure that things do not vary by our actions from the way they are set down. Of course, we often disagree."

"What do we do now?" Chuck asked, as the party reached the end of the bridge. Beaten-earth paths led both up and down along the slope through the trees. The dots of color scattered all over the hillside were now large enough for him to see that they were indeed people, all staring intently at the clouds. Some of them were taking notes.

"Skywatching," Keir said. "History is here for you, as our friend told you. Maybe you'll see important events from our past. Maybe you'll even see yourself. Maybe not. Try it! I'll come for you when it's time to go."

"Come up this way," Bergold invited Chuck, swooping toward a path that led steeply uphill. "I saw a spot with a one-hundred-twenty-degree wide field of view about sixty feet above us."

The going was difficult. Chuck started out walking upright, mounting the slope as if it was a high flight of stairs. Shortly, the muscles in his thighs began to complain. After barking his shins and slipping on stones a dozen times, he hunched forward and climbed on hands and knees, grasping at roots for handholds, digging toeholds in the dry soil, his attention focused only inches from his nose. He was panting for breath by the time the shrill voice over his head told him he had arrived.

Cautiously, he detached himself from his spider-cling, and sidled over toward a tree Bergold was perched in. A narrow goat-path wound around the curve of the mountain, meandering among white-bark birches whose crowns were bright with green-gold leaves.

"Choose your vantage point," Bergold advised. "Some like to sit among the rocks, but I like the trees. Having a living thing at your back is like having a friend with you."

Taking his advice, Chuck went from tree to tree until he found the one he wanted. Beneath a trunk as thick as his chest, black-banded roots humped up around a hollow in the ground filled with sparse grass, something like an armchair. It didn't yield the way the seats in the train did, but was more comfortable in a rustic way. He propped his elbows on the roots and sat back with his head supported by a knot in the bark. The tree felt friendly and wise, like an uncle offering solemn friendship to an inexperienced nephew. Though Chuck wasn't a child, he found the sensation reassuring, and he did feel new here, and very, very young. Bergold settled on a branch above that sagged under his weight, and pointed a wingtip out at the swirling clouds. The sky was as full of pictures as the night was full of stars.

"Do you see that?" Bergold said. Chuck followed the sweeping tip of his wing, but the image winked and vanished like a candle being blown out. Other and more interesting things drew his eye. He turned his head this way and that, trying to absorb them all.

"Focus!" Bergold said, with a soughing caw that sounded like a laugh. "Let the visions come to you."

Chuck let himself relax, and stared at one spot. To his delight, he saw a queen bearing a diamond scepter entering a long room filled with people. She moved majestically toward a throne at one end of the room, turned and sank slowly onto the cushions, scepter still held aloft. Chuck felt exalted that he could witness such a moment. The grandeur of the parade, all the peers in their fancy robes, the walls of the ancient room carved and gilded with symbols he couldn't recognize and had no idea of the meaning of, were outside his normal frame of reference.

The image didn't last long, giving way in the flicker of an eyelid to a brightly sunlit street corner where five men in sleeveless T-shirts and yellow hardhats were pouring concrete into a pothole.

"Wait, it stopped," he said to Bergold. "I want to see more! How do I make it go back?"

"You can't," Bergold said. "You can only see what is offered. There's no telling how the Rock chooses to display the events it does."

"It's frustrating," Chuck said. "It's like sitting next to someone flipping through television channels too fast."

"Ah," Bergold said, in the kind of voice that would accompany raised eyebrows if the eagle had had any to raise. "We'll have to have a discussion later about the true nature of television. I have dozens of questions I've always wanted to ask. Alas, I am afraid you must allow the visions to happen as they happen. You are not in control."

"But I would have liked to see more of that, that coronation, or whatever it was."

"Such is the nature of the Rock," Bergold said, lifting his shoulders in a shrug. "I believe it's an advantage rather than a detriment to see shorter segments of time, rather than longer. Imagine having to observe a woman doing an entire family's laundry on a rock in a river, or watch children throughout a school day."

Chuck frowned, but Bergold was right. Those would be boring. It was a trade-off, but he would have liked to make the decisions himself. Television had spoiled him. He would have to remember to tell Bergold that.

The construction workers were gone now. Instead he was looking into a fancy office paneled in red mahogany. Six men in black frock coats and cravats were sitting around a table, passing legal-sized papers back and forth. Two men signed each of the documents, then everyone shook hands. Chuck guessed he was seeing the signing of some kind of contract, but he couldn't guess what.

"Can't we hear what's going on?"

"Sound doesn't carry very well from the past," Bergold said. "The watchers here for the Ministry have learned to be very good lip-readers. If you want to, later on you can find an observer who viewed the same image as you, and read his records of what they were saying."

Chuck sat back with his hands behind his head, staring at one spot in the sky. In the space of a few minutes, he saw soldiers wade ashore on a beach, coalescing into cars rushing along on a highway, then becoming the flower stems a woman in a florist's shop was putting into a vase.

"When I was little," he told Bergold, thoughtfully, "I used to watch clouds change shape. I thought I could see all kinds of things in them. Maybe this happens at home, and I never noticed."

"If you ever find out I hope you will come back to tell me," Bergold said, sincerely. "Daydreams! What a paper that would make! Well, let me leave you to your observations. I must fly. Enjoy yourself." Bergold launched himself off the groaning branch, and wheeled away into the sky, becoming lost in a cloud image of a man changing a light bulb. Chuck settled back to watch.

How amazing it was to peek in on the events of history, he thought, watching a man in colonial dress counting coins. The visions didn't last very long. They were as ephemeral as they looked. If Chuck had to duplicate the effect, he would have painted the image before him in thin watercolors on glass, overlaid against many such scenes. It was really beautiful, giving ordinary faces and places a special sense of eternity. Everything that had ever happened was floating around here in the air. Incredible.

He could watch what was going on behind the first vision by changing his focus, but he could see something else just by waiting. He almost imagined he heard the tree behind him making comments, but it was probably just the wind in the branches. On the other hand, this was a dreamworld. The tree might even be an observer who came to watch the skies and never left, changing to suit the environment. Chuck settled his back more comfortably against the white bark. It wouldn't be a bad life . . .

Moments from every corner of history danced before his eyes for a second or two. Occasionally, Chuck saw cities rise and fall, men at war and women having babies, but mostly he witnessed small events from the lives of ordinary people. He watched millions of children sitting in concrete-block schoolrooms, waiting impatiently for the bell. He watched billions of people walking up streets, and for a change, walking down streets. Endless meals were served and eaten, from countless different places and eras, then a whole rash of similar ones would flash by, singled out by the inclusion of a single ingredient, like mayonnaise. By the time he'd sat there for a while, Chuck had seen a thousand different uses for the sauce, and a million all the same. Whole schools of fish had died for all those tuna salad sandwiches, whole wheat fields reaped bare, and for what? Mere sustenance that wasn't even worth a footnote on a page of history.

At bottom, Chuck had to conclude that most of everything that had ever happened in the world since the beginning of time was . . . boring. The Historians on duty, some of them visible from Chuck's vantage point, carefully scribbled away in vast books. He'd thought at first that they had an interesting job. Now he felt a little sorry for them.

Overhead, a vast image of a dark-skinned woman in a brown dress flicking a quilt out over a child's bed, overlaid at once by a tiny Japanese woman carefully spreading a silk coverlet out onto a futon. Chuck couldn't take any more. He wasn't going to watch a whole series on making beds. The scenes were beginning to blur together. One more person running for a train or an egg dropping to a linoleum floor, and he was going to fling himself over the precipice and disappear into the mists of time.

He came to the inescapable conclusion that nothing he had observed would help him along the way in his quest. What if he saw himself in a past scene? Since he couldn't recall how he really looked, would he even recognize himself? How would seeing how he had behaved before change what he was now? He couldn't sit still any longer. He sprang to his feet, feeling he just had to move.

Though the peak had seemed vast, he was able to walk around it as quickly as he had crossed the miles-long span to reach it. Size was relative, as Keir had pointed out. This wasn't a physical place. Mentally, it was huge, but if it was made up of any real molecules at all, they could be squeezed down to a mass that would fit in his hand. Chuck guessed that it probably had as much genuine existence as the body he was wearing.

A stripe of bright color on the far side of the surrounding bluffs caught his eye. He squinted, and his vision zoomed in on the spot like a telephoto lens. Tents, banners, signs . . . it looked like a bazaar of some kind. Chuck grinned to himself. Wasn't it just like human nature? Where an attraction brought in the crowds, merchants popped up nearby to collect the tourist dollars. He'd seen dozens of similar markets in the visions surrounding the Rock of Ages, and was pretty certain he'd been to some in his normal life. He decided he'd enjoy seeing what a market on the astral plane was like. There was a second bridge leading off the peak to it. He wondered if it had been there before the market existed, or if the merchants had caused it to be made. He glanced back at the scholars. If the merchandise over on the other side cost influence, those guys must be rich, because they hardly moved except to write things down. It was a pretty situation for both sides.

He tried to convince himself he ought to stick around for a while because the Rock of Ages was an important cultural site, then decided it didn't matter if it was. Been there, did it, so maybe he'd go down and buy the T-shirt.

Chuck stumped down the hill toward the second bridge. Along this face of the mountain there were shelves and ridges large enough to stand on. Here and there stood office water coolers and coffee machines, peculiarly out of place in the wild, natural setting. Historians and Continuitors in long robes loitered around them with cups in their hands, gossiping. It looked like every workplace Chuck had ever been in during his life, in spite of the eternal cinema going on overhead, and the fact that one false step could shoot you down an endless mountain into the fog.

Near one of the coffee dispensers, Chuck caught Bergold and Hiramus sitting on a rock chatting like acquaintances. Bergold was human again, wearing another version of his base shape, as he'd called it. He had red hair and sandy freckles to match the Visitor's ruddy skin, auburn hair and mustache. They stopped talking as Chuck came up. Bergold waved him over.

"Say, you two must know each other," Chuck said.

"Yes, I know Bergold well," Hiramus said, almost sheepishly for such a quick-tempered man. "He's a most eminent figure at court."

"You flatter me," Bergold said, transforming into a blushing maiden with a fluttering fan. He peeked over the top of it at them. Hiramus chuckled.

"How often have you been here before?" Chuck asked, enviously.

"Many times," Hiramus said, the corners of his ginger mustache curling upward in a smile. "I've traveled widely in a dream state. It's a pleasant occupation, learning more about the minds of ourselves and our antecedents. What do you think of this place?"

Chuck was embarrassed. "It was getting boring," he admitted.

"We felt exactly the same way," the Historian said, cheerfully. "There may be those in my department who can sit still until spiders weave webs over them, but I am not one of them. We were just going to look at the bazaar. Come with us."

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