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CHAPTER XVII

A party of people waited at the jetty when the ship sailed in from its voyage to Britain. Will recalled reading that the Norse had not perfected sailing navigation until sometime in the eighth century, but the ship he was in seemed to have managed just fine. Well, we knew they invaded Britain, he thought. How did we think they got there? On foot? 

Chief among the greeters was Gerda, Amlodd's mother. Gerda gave Will the first drink from a huge horn of ale she (or technically the thralls) had brought. There was actually a chorus of young girls there to serenade them.

After his drink Will hugged Gerda hard. He never wanted to let her go. This woman loved him—wholeheartedly and without stint. He had missed her badly in Britain. It flashed in his mind that he would never go back to his own time, even if he got the chance. There was nothing for him in the twenty-first century compared to this.

"It will be tonight," whispered Gerda. "Everyone will be drinking deeply, and I've seen to it that the ale is specially strong."

When he finally disengaged, he saw Katla standing by herself. He went and hugged her too, and the look in her eyes washed his soul like a bath of clean water. "I missed you, brother," she whispered.

"And I you, I you," Will answered. Afterwards he had to rub his eyes to be rid of the tears. He dared not let the men see them.

Ponies waited to carry them to the village. They entered the great hall to shouts and laughter, and Amlodd thought Feng greeted him with the look of a man who'd eaten bad shellfish.

There was much food and much to drink. Will was not very hungry, and he had too much sense to drink heavily in the presence of his enemies.

But he had to hide that good sense, especially while Feng watched him.

He called for a thrall boy and asked him to fetch him sticks from the woods. "Fresh sticks," he said. "Shortish ones. As many as you can find. A sackful."

When the boy brought them, Will took his belt knife and began to carve, cutting out a section in the center so that he had long "C"-shaped pieces, with sharp ends pointing inwards towards the cutout.

When he'd cut about a hundred, he got up and walked between tables down to the hearthway, where he sat in front of the long-fire. He held the sticks, one by one, in the fire, to char them black and harden them.

"Not eating and drinking, nephew?" Feng called to him.

"The food tastes of blood. The ale tastes of iron," said Will.

"What are you doing with those sticks?"

"I'm making fishhooks."

"For what purpose?"

"To catch a murder-fish."

"What's a murder-fish?"

"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."

This would be a hard thing, he thought. But it must be done. He'd found a home, and here he would stay. But he must be rid of his enemies. It was him or them, to live or die. The real Amlodd's way would be as good as any.

This was not something Will Sverdrup would have been able to do. But he was no longer Will Sverdrup. He had Will's knowledge and memories, but he wore Amlodd's body, and the body has its own memory. He wondered what it was that made a person a person. It didn't seem to be the mind alone, or the body alone. He remembered a phrase from somewhere—"neither dividing the essence nor confusing the persons"—or something like that. What was that from? Not Shakespeare. He wondered if he wasn't losing Will Sverdrup bit by bit—if Will would be subsumed under Amlodd in time. Well, what of it? Amlodd was a simpler and happier man than Will had ever been.

He grew aware of someone standing near him and looked up to see Katla there.

"May I sleep in your bed tonight?" she asked.

"You know we mustn't do that."

"I don't mean sleep with you. You'll be feasting through the night with the household, of course. I just want to sleep in your bed. I slept there all the time you were gone. It made me feel close to you."

"Surely, if it means so much to you."

"Thank you, brother. I love you." Katla stooped to kiss him, then ran off.

It took him some time to char the hooks to his satisfaction. Through the night there were stories and songs, and more songs and stories in the hall. The roar of the feasters grew louder as they drank, then softer as one by one they passed out, snoring. Gerda had been right about the ale. He'd seen this crowd feast before, and had never seen them knocked out so quickly.

Even Feng lolled in his high seat, in spite of his famous endurance.

They all slept.

Every one of them.

It was frightening being the only one awake in the room. It reminded him of when he was a boy, tiptoeing around the house while his mother slept off one of her binges.

The memory worked inside him like a strong drink of his own. He shivered from head to foot, and was afraid he'd fall into the fire. He looked at Feng. He looked at the sleeping warriors.

I can't do this, he thought. I'm Mrs. Sverdrup's boy. 

He trudged heavily out of the hall, through the entryway, and into the yard.

Gerda stood there, wrapped in a shawl. Silently she took him by the arm and led him into a shadowed place under a roof overhang.

"Is it done, my son?" she asked. "Can we go ahead?"

He stood facing her. His arms hung at his sides.

"I can't do it," he said. "I'm sorry."

"They killed your father!"

"I'm sorry." He turned away without daring to look at her, and headed for his house.

He thought he heard a voice cry out. He thought he saw a shadowed figure running from his house.

The moment he entered the door he smelled the blood.

But he couldn't see anything inside.

He needed to see. He would not search that house with his hands.

He went back to the hall. Gerda was gone. He entered and seized one of the hanging oil lamps spiked to the pillars.

He carried the lamp, a bronze bowl on three chains, out and back to his house. He held it high.

Katla lay in his bed. She lay motionless, her eyes open. A pool of blood spread all around her. A wound under her heart hung open like a drunkard's mouth. There was another in her stomach.

For a long time he stood there, unmanned by the horror. A single thought ran through his mind in an endless loop—For the rest of my life, I must see this sight whenever I close my eyes. 

As his reason returned, he asked himself, "Who could have done this? Why?"

He knew the answer at once—someone had been sent by Feng. It was his bed. He had been the target. He did not know how the mistake had been made, but the killer had come to do his job at the wrong time.

"Revenge" had always for him been a technical word—a description of a stock motive in a stock theatrical form. He had understood, vaguely, how one could want to kill someone who had killed someone he loved, but it had been theoretical to him. He'd honestly never cared enough for anyone to feel anger at losing them.

Until now.

Now revenge was a beast with particular scales and claws that lodged fishbone-wise in his gullet, fidgeting to escape by one outlet or another. He could no more hold his revenge in forever than an expectant mother could keep her baby in. It must come out. It would come out.

Why had he thought it impossible to do this thing? Nothing could be easier, more natural.

His hand went to his sword hilt. This was not the weapon he meant to use tonight, but it comforted him to touch it. A man unarmed is no man at all, he thought. He strode with sure steps toward the hall.

With all asleep, the thralls had cleared the tables away, leaving the warriors sprawled on the benches.

First of all he went to where Guttorm lay, propped against the wall. "You were ever my friend," he said. He took the big man under the armpits and lugged him outside, his heels dragging in the rushes. He lay him on a patch of grass some yards off, then went back in.

He climbed up on a bench and pulled down one of the woven tapestries that covered the walls. It ripped as it came loose from its hooks, but that was no matter.

He lay the first tapestry on top of one of Feng's bodyguards, one of those who'd tried to drown him at the seashore. He rolled the man up in the cloth. Then he went for his sack of hooks, which lay still by the fire, and used three of them to secure the loose end, making the roll a tight package.

He could see he wouldn't have enough tapestries for everyone. It would have to be the chief men, the most evil.

Feng himself, for starters.

He took a step toward the high seat, then noticed that the seat was empty.

"Looking for me, brother-son?" asked a voice from behind him.

Amlodd's instincts sent him leaping over the long-fire, away from the sweep of Feng's sword.

"Troll!" cried Feng. "Are you never where you're struck at?"

"You killed Katla!" Will shouted, fetching up against a pillar, whirling off it and drawing his sword.

"She was in your bed! Now you've brought the crime of killing a madwoman on me!" There was blood on his blade. Feng had killed already tonight.

"For one who's killed a brother, that ought to weigh but little," said Will. They faced each other from opposite ends of the fire—about eight feet apart. "But fear not. You'll not have to bear that burden long."

"You were never mad, were you?" asked Feng. He leaped up on the bench and took a spear and a shield from their brackets on the wall. He cast the spear at Will, who avoided it, but it gave him time to rush to Will's end of the hearth.

Feng having the shield advantage, Will retreated rapidly, looking from side to side for something with which to defend himself. He caught up a hand axe that lay beside a warrior. He could use its haft to ward sword blows—until it got chopped through. It left his fingers exposed, but it was the best he could find close by.

"It did not need to end like this," said Feng, striking out. "You could have been jarl after me."

"You should have made up your mind. Kill me or embrace me. You kept shifting your course." Will made a sweep at Feng's legs, but Feng leaped over it. He was doing well for an old man who'd drunk too much. As he came down he aimed a chopping blow at Will's head, which Will fended at the cost of a big chunk of axe haft.

At the risk of exposing his back, Will leaped to the bench and took a shield of his own from the wall. He sensed Feng close behind him, and swung the shield over his back by its shoulder strap, feeling the shock as Feng's sword hammered it.

He leaped, planted his feet against the wall and pushed off, bulling into Feng with the shield and falling atop him. Feng fell onto the bench; Will tumbled over him and came up on his feet in the hearthway. He spun and struck at Feng, who rolled out of the way.

Feng swept at his legs from that position, and Will jumped backward, which gave Feng a chance to get up. Now he was above Will, and he aimed a downward blow, which Will caught on his shield.

Will swung back, then hopped up on the bench. The bodies and sitting benches left them little room to maneuver, and soon they were both back down in the hearthway.

Feng swung a mighty blow, and instead of warding with his shield, Will ducked under it. He was standing in front of one of the high seat posts, and Feng's sword bit deeply into the carved belly of the god Njord. The sword stuck there and Feng let go of it, his hand numbed by the shock.

Will struck at him, but Feng still had his shield. Will's sword glanced off it, and as its momentum swung him around, Feng leaped onto the bench to seize a sword that hung near the high seat.

As Will followed him up, Feng turned to face him and made to draw the sword.

He could not draw it.

It was Amlodd's father's sword, riveted in its sheath.

He had no time to raise his shield again before Will's blade fell on his head.

As the death blow fell, Feng said, "Orvendil."

Will stood over him, chest heaving. He wondered whether this was how it should feel. He was uncertain how he did feel.

No time to worry about that.

He left Feng lying in his blood. One by one he rolled the cruelest of the warriors in tapestries and secured them with his blackened hooks.

Then he pulled faggots from the long-fire and threw them into the rushes on the floor. That done, he walked outside.

He stood in the yard watching. It took a few minutes. Smoke more than usual began to billow from the smokeholes at the gable peaks. Then smoke began to come from the door, and at last flames appeared.

"You have made me proud, my son," said a voice beside him and he turned his head to see Gerda.

"Are you satisfied, Mother?"

"Only one thing remains." She began to walk toward the building.

Will rushed to grasp her sleeve and stop her. "What are you doing?" he cried.

"I married my husband's murderer," said Gerda. "The shame of it is not to be borne. I suffered that life long enough to finish our vengeance. Now I go to our ancestors."

"You mean to die?"

"You knew this, Amlodd. I told you what I purposed when first we spoke of vengeance."

"I—I did not remember."

She kissed him. "Goodbye my son," she said. "You have been all I could have wished, and you will be a great jarl."

"I did it all for you—so we could be together!"

"You did it for your honor! I am proud and our ancestors are proud! Do not act the weakling, sobbing for your mama! I raised you better than that!"

Will wrapped his arms around her and clung tight. "No!" he shouted. "I cannot bear this again!"

Gerda freed herself and slapped his face. "You shame me with your tears! Play the man, or bear my curse!" Will put his hand to his burning cheek, too shocked to do anything as he watched her walk into the blazing hall.

One or two men ran out, coughing and blinded, falling on their hands and knees and gasping at the clean air.

The house burned and the roof fell. Will's dreams collapsed with it, dissolved into their several elements, spirit and matter the same.

"All finished here?" asked a voice, and Will turned to see the red-eyed dead pastor.

"Nothing is left," said Will. "This whole country can burn for me."

"Then bear me company, and I'll show you your way home." He turned and walked toward Will's house, and Will followed. Will's house? Will's cell. No one lived by themselves in this time and place, save madmen and prisoners. Hamlet had been mad after all.

It was very dark through the open door, and Will was afraid to go inside where Katla yet lay. But when he was through he knew he was not in that same house. He was in no house at all. He felt around him and touched what seemed to be cold stone.

"Where am I?" he asked.

The ghost's voice said, "But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, to start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. . . ."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Will scrabbled at the wall, trying to find his way back where he had come. There was no such way.

"I am Hamlet's father!" said the ghost. "With your help I have altered the past! The true Hamlet's spirit is trapped in another world. His body is trapped here, with you, separate from the spirit forever! For all any man can say, Hamlet died in the fire on the night of his vengeance, not so differently from the play!

"Do you see my triumph? I have reshaped history to Shakespeare's pattern! If you were to return to the future—which you shall not—you would find there was no Shakespeare at all—his ancestors died in the great death let loose by Dublugh. Thus I have fulfilled Shakespeare and destroyed him at a stroke, making his plot mine!

"In the new future I have made, instead of Shakespeare the great playwright, there is another master—one named Thomas Kyd—who wrote the great historical play of Hamlet."

"Kyd's a great author?"

"Someone has to be."

"And from that alternate future you stole a book, which you placed in my attic," said Will.

"My confederate Randy did the actual physical work, but the idea was mine," said the ghost.

"And I was right in my lectures. Hamlet's father was a demon."

"If you will."

"What's to become of me?"

"You are in the labyrinth of worlds. These passages contain doors opening onto a billion billion universes, some much like yours, some different, some unlike anything you can imagine.

"Spirits such as I, and the Old Ones, may pass through the doors and traverse the universes. You, of course, being mortal, cannot. You shall wander the passages for the rest of your natural life—which shall not be long, for there's nothing here for you to eat or drink. When you die, your soul may flit from world to world, and perhaps you can find one you'll be pleased to haunt."

"What have I ever done to you?"

"You flatter yourself. It's nothing personal. You happened to be the right tool in the right place; though you did make it easy for me by being a self-centered bastard with no ties of love to any human soul. Amlodd was more difficult to pry loose, but once you were out of your world, the Great Balances themselves helped pull him the opposite way."

"Wait—please, don't leave me here—I almost learned—"

The ghost was gone, and Will stood alone in the darkness.

He'd heard that the devil was a liar. Perhaps if he went . . . somewhere, did . . . something he could find an escape—if not to his own time and place, at least to somewhere where he could live.

A line of Horatio's went through his head:

"What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain . . ."

Well, what of it? Madness might wait further on; it could as well be waiting here. Madness might be rather welcome if it came to that. The less he understood at the end, perhaps, the better.

He set out and walked down the stone corridor, feeling his way, utterly blind in the perfect darkness. He walked carefully at first, alert for unexpected steps or pits or the dreadful summit of a cliff, but the passage only seemed to go on. It occurred to him that perhaps it was circular, and he was going around and around it. He almost stopped at that thought.

But what of it? It was something to do. Will Sverdrup might have curled up in a corner (if a corner had been available) and died, but Amlodd's body was conditioned for action.

So he walked. The passage was wide enough so that he could not quite touch both walls at once, and high enough so he could just reach the ceiling with his hand. The proportions did not change as he proceeded.

"Well, Sverdrup," he said to himself. "You've always wanted your own space."

He had no sense of time. He had no sense of progress. He imagined a foursquare treadmill, the walls and ceiling moving at the same speed as the floor, giving him the illusion of going somewhere when in fact he trod hamster-like in one place.

After minutes or hours he thought he saw a glowing ahead of him, to his right. He thought it might be only phosphors on his eyeball, but he broke into a run and found to his joy that the glowing enlarged as he approached. He came to what looked like a window in the wall, though to his touch it felt like the same cold stone. It was oval and about his own (or Amlodd's) height. He looked through it into the blessed light (which hurt his eyes at first) to see a party of Asians in conical straw hats toiling in a rice paddy.

He had never seen such beautiful humans. He pounded on the "window" and tried to get the people's attention, but they showed no sign of hearing him.

He remembered something someone had said once, as a joke—"Statistically speaking, chances are you're Chinese." Which didn't hold anymore, since the Indians had overtaken them.

That reminded him of a talk he'd had with Peter Nilsson once, where he'd used the statistical quotation, and Peter had said, "Of course, statistically speaking, you're probably also Christian. It's the largest religion in the world, and the single belief system believed by more people throughout history than any other." That hadn't sounded right, but it turned out to be true, if you didn't consider paganism in general a coherent belief system, which Will didn't.

He could have stood and watched the rice pickers for the rest of his life—they were so human, so comforting, but he happened to look down the passage and see another glowing window. With reluctance he pulled himself away and went toward it.

This window was a disappointment. It showed open space, as it might be seen from a starship. It was pretty in a cold sort of way, but he was hungry to look at people. He looked back toward the last window, but before he went back there he turned to check further down the passage. Yes, it looked as if there were more windows. He'd try them.

One by one the windows led him further on. Some were disappointments—empty landscapes or underwater views, without form, and void.

But others showed people—black people, white people, brown people of various cultures and, apparently, various historical periods. He saw what he thought were ancient Sumerians through one window, and another showed a nineteeth-century war, though he couldn't make out who was fighting. He didn't linger long at that window. How could anyone kill something so precious as a human being? "Don't waste them!" he cried. "Send them to me! Even the ugliest, the dullest and most exasperating! Just let me have some human company!"

But they did not hear. They continued their mindless vandalism of flesh, and he turned dejected to see what the next window offered.

This one was a shock. He saw himself, talking to Ginnie in the parking lot.

"Don't let her go, you cretin!" he shouted to himself. "Do you understand what it means to be alone? Why would anyone choose to be alone?"

But nothing changed from what he remembered, and Ginnie turned and walked away. Will turned too, and went to the next window.

This one showed what seemed to be ancient Aztecs at work in a cornfield.

Then there was a Russian family, slowly eating a meager meal in a cold house. It looked beautiful to him.

Next came another scene from his own life. It was another scene with a girlfriend. She was someone he'd dated in college. He couldn't remember her name.

"Something's going on here," he said. "Two scenes from my life out of an infinite cosmic timeline—the chances against that are off the chart. Someone is selecting these scenes for me.

"That means I'm not really alone."

The thought was like food and drink. He felt strong and hopeful for the first time. He rushed to the next window.

This was an ugly scene. A man in an old-fashioned bedroom was beating a little girl with a razor strop. Will could not hear anything, but he could imagine the girl's screams as the man, red-faced and probably drunken, struck her again and again on her bare bottom, raising welts and blisters and blood at last. Finally he finished and stumbled out, leaving the girl to weep facedown on her bed.

Will found himself weeping too.

"Terrible, isn't it?" said a voice, and Will turned to see a tall man dressed in the Danish style. He had a long white beard but a strangely young face.

Without thinking about it, he fell to his knees and embraced the old man's waist. "God bless you!" he sobbed. "God bless you for being here. Please don't leave me alone again."

"I will not leave you alone. Be easy, lad. Now listen and answer me. What do you think of what you've just seen?"

"The man and the girl?"

"Yes."

"It's terrible. How can anyone treat a child like that?" Will got to his feet again, trembling.

"What would you think if I told you the child was your mother?"

Will shivered. "That's not true. My grandfather was the kindest man who ever lived."

"Who told you this?"

"It's just the truth."

"Did you ever meet your grandfather?"

"No. He died before I was born."

"So who told you he was kind?"

"My . . . mother, I guess."

"And did your mother never tell a lie?"

Will shook his head. "I can't believe this."

"This little girl you see crying here—she was made to lie all the time she was growing up—to pretend that her father was not a drunk; to pretend that her family was happy. She learned that that was how you kept the peace and made a family work. She learned that you dealt with your own pain by hurting those weaker than you."

Will leaned against the window and stared at the weeping girl.

"What would you do if you could pass through that window?" the old man asked.

"I think I'd kill that old man."

"That is the wrong answer. I could show you another window where he is beaten by his own father. Anger is like a snowball that rolls down a hill, growing larger and larger as it goes."

"So everyone is innocent."

"No, not at all. Everyone is guilty. Left to ourselves we will pass the evil along forever."

"How do we stop it then?"

"Not by killing. Killing is sometimes necessary, to protect the weak, but it does nothing to stop the evil. Rather, it makes it worse."

"How then?"

"Someone must place his body before the snowball, and take its shock, saying 'It stops here, with me.'"

"Such a man could easily die."

"As often as not, yes."

"I don't know if I could forgive some people. It goes beyond human power."

"What were you saying a few minutes ago? 'Send them to me! Even the ugliest, the dullest and most exasperating! Just let me have some human company!' At the time you thought all people were precious."

"You just said we were all evil."

"I did not say we were not precious."

"Cognitive dissonance. We hold two opposite opinions at once."

"Yours are opposite. Mine are only difficult. You will have to make up your mind how you feel about your fellow man."

"It's possible to know the right thing and yet not do it."

"More than possible. Common. Common as evil."

"Everybody lives with opposites, dissonance. We keep one foot on one side, one foot on the other. I've always run from taking a stand on one side or the other. If I was going to choose a religion, I'd lean toward one of those Eastern ones, where they say nothing is 'either-or,' only 'both-and.' "

"That's not entirely true, you know," said the old man. "Those religions come down strong on one side in at least one of the great questions."

"What question?"

"The question of body and soul. Flesh and spirit. From the beginning, men have struggled to find a balance between the two, to reconcile their conflicting needs. The religions of which you speak deal with that struggle by coming down strong on the side of the spirit, claiming the flesh does not exist at all.

"Christianity, on the other hand, says 'both-and' to that particular question. Body is real, soul is real. God became man. The Word became flesh."

"No, no," said Will. "Christian belief goes against everything I've learned. There are many worlds. Every fork in time creates a new universe. Even strongly held fantasies, like Shakespeare's Hamlet, can become reality. What does that mean, if not that everybody's equally right in the end? Believing makes it so. You can't deny that."

The old man smiled. "You've worked out a broader view? Learned to see the larger picture?"

"Yes."

"There's a larger picture than that. Are you prepared to see some unpleasant things?"

"I saw my mother try to kill me. I saw Katla bloody and dead. I saw Gerda walk into the blazing hall. I think I can handle nearly anything now."

"Very well. Follow me." The old man turned and led him down the corridor to another window. He gestured for Will to look through it.

Will saw what appeared to be a hotel room, with most of the lights off. There was a bed there, somewhat rumpled. A tiny speck, like a flea, leaped about on the bedsheets. Will wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't moved. In front of the bed a television stood. The light it emitted told Will that it was turned on, but he could not see what the screen showed. On the bedtables were many boxes of paper tissues. Used tissues lay scattered around the floor.

"What's this?" asked Will.

"Do you remember the story of a rich man—a very rich man from your time? One who ended as a hermit, living in a room like this, watching the same drama on that box again and again?"

"Yeah. He went crazy."

"What was the difference between him and you?"

"A few billion dollars."

"The wealth is nothing in itself. It's what the wealth buys that matters. What does wealth buy?"

"Most anything."

"Correct. So how is this man different from you?"

"He can get almost anything he wants."

"Very good. What does that mean for the kind of life he lives?"

"He can live any way he wants to."

"Excellent, excellent. And how did he choose to live?"

"He turned away from the world and from other people. He built his own prison and spent the rest of his life in it."

"Yes. And why?"

"Why? There were lots of reasons, I suppose—his childhood, his experiences, his disappointments—"

"I'm looking for a simple answer."

"What simple answer?"

"He did it because he could."

"Because he could?"

"God is merciful to most people in this—He does not allow them to do everything they would wish. But a few unlucky ones get the power to shape their own lives according to their deepest desires."

"Ultimate power corrupts absolutely."

"The words of a man who knew something of the world."

"What's your point?"

"What if all men had unlimited power to choose how they lived? Do you think they'd do better than this man?"

"I don't know. It's academic, isn't it?"

"It is not. It is the fate of every human. In life, there is hope of salvation, in that all, even the very rich like this man, are to some extent frustrated in their wants. Thus they have the chance to surrender their own ways to God's.

"In death, it is as you said—whatever you believe becomes real for you. But having one's own way is not the same thing as happiness. What do you think you are seeing through this window?"

"What you said. That billionaire in his hotel room. He must have gone to the bathroom or something."

"No. He's still there."

"I don't see him."

"Do you see that speck on the bedclothes?"

"Yes. . . ."

"That is he. This is not his earthly life. This is his eternity. He chose it while he lived, as all men do in one way or another; only because of his wealth he was able to purchase an installment on his eternity early. Why should it change once he died?

"That speck is what remains of him. In life he grew smaller and smaller, as he turned more and more from great concerns to selfish ones. In eternity he grows smaller yet, forever and ever.

"In his universe there is no love. There is no one to love. There is nothing but himself, and he grows more miserable as time goes on."

"Until he becomes nothing."

"He never becomes nothing. Nothing ever becomes nothing. Everything under God becomes more and more what it is, eternally. Every length can be halved, given a sharp enough knife. The knives of eternity are very sharp indeed."

"But at least it's what he wanted—" said Will. "It's not like fire and brimstone or devils with pitchforks—"

"He endured this life while he lived because he succumbed to fear and deadened himself with drugs. There are no drugs here, and no self-delusion. The one thing denied souls in eternity is the comfort of a lie. This man knows who he is, and what he might have been. He knows what was given to him, and how much is required of him. He knows where he could be now if he had been braver."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Will. "Not everybody's like this guy. Some people sin out of love. If they get what they've chosen in eternity, they'll have love forever."

"Come and see," said the old man. He led the way to another window.

Through that window there was only darkness.

"There's nothing there," said Will.

"There's no light there at least," said the old man. "We need to shine some in."

He set the palm of his hand to the window, fingers spread. From the hand a cone of light stretched into the space, like a very wide flashlight beam.

"I still don't see anything," said Will. "It's just a black stone room. It's empty."

"Not quite. Look."

As the old man spoke, a small pink round thing, like a striated ball, bounced across the light beam.

"What's that?" asked Will.

"Better to ask, 'What are they?' although it's hard to know whether to say 'it' or 'they' at this point."

"So what is it? They?"

"That is a pair of lovers. They loved each other with a passion that would not be quenched. They left their homes, their families, their responsibilities. They defied convention and God Himself, to be together. They have what they wished. They are together forever now, inseparable. They were all the world to each other. Now each is the only world the other has, for all time."

Will watched for a while, as the ball rolled and caromed and bounced about the cell. "Still, if they love each other . . ." he said. "And eternal sex can't be too bad."

"Would you like to hear what they say to one another?"

"They talk?"

"For now. A time will come when they dwindle to a point where they can't speak—or rather they can, but they won't. But at this point we may listen."

He set his other hand against the window, and the voices came. They were high-pitched voices, as if insects had speech.

"You never loved me like I loved you!"  

"Like you loved me? You know what I gave up for you? And for what?"  

"I gave you the best years of my life!"  

"You never understood me!"  

"As if you understood me? Do you know how much you hurt me with your sarcasm and your sulky moods?"  

"If you'd have really loved me, I wouldn't have had any sulky moods!"  

"That's just like you! You want me to make everything right for you, and my needs can take care of themselves!"  

"I did everything I could to meet your needs! Was it my fault you were neurotic?"  

"Yes! If you'd really loved me, I wouldn't have been neurotic!"  

"And if you'd loved me you, wouldn't have demanded the moon and stars!"  

"You promised me the moon and stars!"  

"And you promised me we'd always be happy if we had each other!"  

"We would have been happy if you'd really loved me!"  

"Loved you? You never loved me!"  

The old man took his hand away.

"It just goes on like that," he said. "You get the idea."

"They got what they wanted?"

" 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' You may have whatever you wish, but if you wish for that which is not food, you must bear to be forever hungry."

"And for a man like me—one who flees other people, and love, and God, for fear of being hurt—what kind of Hell would there be for me?"

"Would you care to see?"

Will shivered. "I told you I could bear to see anything. I was wrong. That I cannot face."

"As you will."

Will hugged himself. "Who are you, old man? Why have you come to me here?"

"Do you remember a boy to whom you gave a piece of amber?"

"No. Yes. At the whale slaughter?"

"Just then, yes. The boy gave the amber to his father, who had been saving to buy his freedom and his family's. It gave him what he needed to accomplish this."

Will fell back against the window. "I've never heard such welcome words," he said. "You mean this is one of those situations where one good deed redeems a whole life? I didn't know I'd done enough good for that."

"And you haven't. This is not a reward for your virtue, such as it is. This was a mercy to me, because I wished to do it for you."

"Well . . . thank you."

"If I could show you a way back to your friends from the theater, what would you do?"

"I'd hold—I'd do—I wouldn't do—oh damn. You want me to tell the truth, don't you?"

"Very much."

"I don't know what I'd do. I want to say I'd be a different man; that I'd care for people and keep them close and keep Christmas in my heart every day of the year. I want to do that. But I'm not sure I can. I'm still Will Sverdrup, who's terrified of commitment."

"That is the right answer. If you'd made promises you couldn't keep, you'd have stayed in this passage for a very long time."

"I can promise even less if you like."

"The point is to recognize that you cannot rescue yourself."

"I can't."

"Then you must turn to One who can rescue you."

"Where is he? She? Whoever?"

"Look through that window."

It was another ugly scene there. It was an execution of the most brutal kind.

Will thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

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Contents
Framed

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Contents

CHAPTER XVII

A party of people waited at the jetty when the ship sailed in from its voyage to Britain. Will recalled reading that the Norse had not perfected sailing navigation until sometime in the eighth century, but the ship he was in seemed to have managed just fine. Well, we knew they invaded Britain, he thought. How did we think they got there? On foot? 

Chief among the greeters was Gerda, Amlodd's mother. Gerda gave Will the first drink from a huge horn of ale she (or technically the thralls) had brought. There was actually a chorus of young girls there to serenade them.

After his drink Will hugged Gerda hard. He never wanted to let her go. This woman loved him—wholeheartedly and without stint. He had missed her badly in Britain. It flashed in his mind that he would never go back to his own time, even if he got the chance. There was nothing for him in the twenty-first century compared to this.

"It will be tonight," whispered Gerda. "Everyone will be drinking deeply, and I've seen to it that the ale is specially strong."

When he finally disengaged, he saw Katla standing by herself. He went and hugged her too, and the look in her eyes washed his soul like a bath of clean water. "I missed you, brother," she whispered.

"And I you, I you," Will answered. Afterwards he had to rub his eyes to be rid of the tears. He dared not let the men see them.

Ponies waited to carry them to the village. They entered the great hall to shouts and laughter, and Amlodd thought Feng greeted him with the look of a man who'd eaten bad shellfish.

There was much food and much to drink. Will was not very hungry, and he had too much sense to drink heavily in the presence of his enemies.

But he had to hide that good sense, especially while Feng watched him.

He called for a thrall boy and asked him to fetch him sticks from the woods. "Fresh sticks," he said. "Shortish ones. As many as you can find. A sackful."

When the boy brought them, Will took his belt knife and began to carve, cutting out a section in the center so that he had long "C"-shaped pieces, with sharp ends pointing inwards towards the cutout.

When he'd cut about a hundred, he got up and walked between tables down to the hearthway, where he sat in front of the long-fire. He held the sticks, one by one, in the fire, to char them black and harden them.

"Not eating and drinking, nephew?" Feng called to him.

"The food tastes of blood. The ale tastes of iron," said Will.

"What are you doing with those sticks?"

"I'm making fishhooks."

"For what purpose?"

"To catch a murder-fish."

"What's a murder-fish?"

"A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm."

This would be a hard thing, he thought. But it must be done. He'd found a home, and here he would stay. But he must be rid of his enemies. It was him or them, to live or die. The real Amlodd's way would be as good as any.

This was not something Will Sverdrup would have been able to do. But he was no longer Will Sverdrup. He had Will's knowledge and memories, but he wore Amlodd's body, and the body has its own memory. He wondered what it was that made a person a person. It didn't seem to be the mind alone, or the body alone. He remembered a phrase from somewhere—"neither dividing the essence nor confusing the persons"—or something like that. What was that from? Not Shakespeare. He wondered if he wasn't losing Will Sverdrup bit by bit—if Will would be subsumed under Amlodd in time. Well, what of it? Amlodd was a simpler and happier man than Will had ever been.

He grew aware of someone standing near him and looked up to see Katla there.

"May I sleep in your bed tonight?" she asked.

"You know we mustn't do that."

"I don't mean sleep with you. You'll be feasting through the night with the household, of course. I just want to sleep in your bed. I slept there all the time you were gone. It made me feel close to you."

"Surely, if it means so much to you."

"Thank you, brother. I love you." Katla stooped to kiss him, then ran off.

It took him some time to char the hooks to his satisfaction. Through the night there were stories and songs, and more songs and stories in the hall. The roar of the feasters grew louder as they drank, then softer as one by one they passed out, snoring. Gerda had been right about the ale. He'd seen this crowd feast before, and had never seen them knocked out so quickly.

Even Feng lolled in his high seat, in spite of his famous endurance.

They all slept.

Every one of them.

It was frightening being the only one awake in the room. It reminded him of when he was a boy, tiptoeing around the house while his mother slept off one of her binges.

The memory worked inside him like a strong drink of his own. He shivered from head to foot, and was afraid he'd fall into the fire. He looked at Feng. He looked at the sleeping warriors.

I can't do this, he thought. I'm Mrs. Sverdrup's boy. 

He trudged heavily out of the hall, through the entryway, and into the yard.

Gerda stood there, wrapped in a shawl. Silently she took him by the arm and led him into a shadowed place under a roof overhang.

"Is it done, my son?" she asked. "Can we go ahead?"

He stood facing her. His arms hung at his sides.

"I can't do it," he said. "I'm sorry."

"They killed your father!"

"I'm sorry." He turned away without daring to look at her, and headed for his house.

He thought he heard a voice cry out. He thought he saw a shadowed figure running from his house.

The moment he entered the door he smelled the blood.

But he couldn't see anything inside.

He needed to see. He would not search that house with his hands.

He went back to the hall. Gerda was gone. He entered and seized one of the hanging oil lamps spiked to the pillars.

He carried the lamp, a bronze bowl on three chains, out and back to his house. He held it high.

Katla lay in his bed. She lay motionless, her eyes open. A pool of blood spread all around her. A wound under her heart hung open like a drunkard's mouth. There was another in her stomach.

For a long time he stood there, unmanned by the horror. A single thought ran through his mind in an endless loop—For the rest of my life, I must see this sight whenever I close my eyes. 

As his reason returned, he asked himself, "Who could have done this? Why?"

He knew the answer at once—someone had been sent by Feng. It was his bed. He had been the target. He did not know how the mistake had been made, but the killer had come to do his job at the wrong time.

"Revenge" had always for him been a technical word—a description of a stock motive in a stock theatrical form. He had understood, vaguely, how one could want to kill someone who had killed someone he loved, but it had been theoretical to him. He'd honestly never cared enough for anyone to feel anger at losing them.

Until now.

Now revenge was a beast with particular scales and claws that lodged fishbone-wise in his gullet, fidgeting to escape by one outlet or another. He could no more hold his revenge in forever than an expectant mother could keep her baby in. It must come out. It would come out.

Why had he thought it impossible to do this thing? Nothing could be easier, more natural.

His hand went to his sword hilt. This was not the weapon he meant to use tonight, but it comforted him to touch it. A man unarmed is no man at all, he thought. He strode with sure steps toward the hall.

With all asleep, the thralls had cleared the tables away, leaving the warriors sprawled on the benches.

First of all he went to where Guttorm lay, propped against the wall. "You were ever my friend," he said. He took the big man under the armpits and lugged him outside, his heels dragging in the rushes. He lay him on a patch of grass some yards off, then went back in.

He climbed up on a bench and pulled down one of the woven tapestries that covered the walls. It ripped as it came loose from its hooks, but that was no matter.

He lay the first tapestry on top of one of Feng's bodyguards, one of those who'd tried to drown him at the seashore. He rolled the man up in the cloth. Then he went for his sack of hooks, which lay still by the fire, and used three of them to secure the loose end, making the roll a tight package.

He could see he wouldn't have enough tapestries for everyone. It would have to be the chief men, the most evil.

Feng himself, for starters.

He took a step toward the high seat, then noticed that the seat was empty.

"Looking for me, brother-son?" asked a voice from behind him.

Amlodd's instincts sent him leaping over the long-fire, away from the sweep of Feng's sword.

"Troll!" cried Feng. "Are you never where you're struck at?"

"You killed Katla!" Will shouted, fetching up against a pillar, whirling off it and drawing his sword.

"She was in your bed! Now you've brought the crime of killing a madwoman on me!" There was blood on his blade. Feng had killed already tonight.

"For one who's killed a brother, that ought to weigh but little," said Will. They faced each other from opposite ends of the fire—about eight feet apart. "But fear not. You'll not have to bear that burden long."

"You were never mad, were you?" asked Feng. He leaped up on the bench and took a spear and a shield from their brackets on the wall. He cast the spear at Will, who avoided it, but it gave him time to rush to Will's end of the hearth.

Feng having the shield advantage, Will retreated rapidly, looking from side to side for something with which to defend himself. He caught up a hand axe that lay beside a warrior. He could use its haft to ward sword blows—until it got chopped through. It left his fingers exposed, but it was the best he could find close by.

"It did not need to end like this," said Feng, striking out. "You could have been jarl after me."

"You should have made up your mind. Kill me or embrace me. You kept shifting your course." Will made a sweep at Feng's legs, but Feng leaped over it. He was doing well for an old man who'd drunk too much. As he came down he aimed a chopping blow at Will's head, which Will fended at the cost of a big chunk of axe haft.

At the risk of exposing his back, Will leaped to the bench and took a shield of his own from the wall. He sensed Feng close behind him, and swung the shield over his back by its shoulder strap, feeling the shock as Feng's sword hammered it.

He leaped, planted his feet against the wall and pushed off, bulling into Feng with the shield and falling atop him. Feng fell onto the bench; Will tumbled over him and came up on his feet in the hearthway. He spun and struck at Feng, who rolled out of the way.

Feng swept at his legs from that position, and Will jumped backward, which gave Feng a chance to get up. Now he was above Will, and he aimed a downward blow, which Will caught on his shield.

Will swung back, then hopped up on the bench. The bodies and sitting benches left them little room to maneuver, and soon they were both back down in the hearthway.

Feng swung a mighty blow, and instead of warding with his shield, Will ducked under it. He was standing in front of one of the high seat posts, and Feng's sword bit deeply into the carved belly of the god Njord. The sword stuck there and Feng let go of it, his hand numbed by the shock.

Will struck at him, but Feng still had his shield. Will's sword glanced off it, and as its momentum swung him around, Feng leaped onto the bench to seize a sword that hung near the high seat.

As Will followed him up, Feng turned to face him and made to draw the sword.

He could not draw it.

It was Amlodd's father's sword, riveted in its sheath.

He had no time to raise his shield again before Will's blade fell on his head.

As the death blow fell, Feng said, "Orvendil."

Will stood over him, chest heaving. He wondered whether this was how it should feel. He was uncertain how he did feel.

No time to worry about that.

He left Feng lying in his blood. One by one he rolled the cruelest of the warriors in tapestries and secured them with his blackened hooks.

Then he pulled faggots from the long-fire and threw them into the rushes on the floor. That done, he walked outside.

He stood in the yard watching. It took a few minutes. Smoke more than usual began to billow from the smokeholes at the gable peaks. Then smoke began to come from the door, and at last flames appeared.

"You have made me proud, my son," said a voice beside him and he turned his head to see Gerda.

"Are you satisfied, Mother?"

"Only one thing remains." She began to walk toward the building.

Will rushed to grasp her sleeve and stop her. "What are you doing?" he cried.

"I married my husband's murderer," said Gerda. "The shame of it is not to be borne. I suffered that life long enough to finish our vengeance. Now I go to our ancestors."

"You mean to die?"

"You knew this, Amlodd. I told you what I purposed when first we spoke of vengeance."

"I—I did not remember."

She kissed him. "Goodbye my son," she said. "You have been all I could have wished, and you will be a great jarl."

"I did it all for you—so we could be together!"

"You did it for your honor! I am proud and our ancestors are proud! Do not act the weakling, sobbing for your mama! I raised you better than that!"

Will wrapped his arms around her and clung tight. "No!" he shouted. "I cannot bear this again!"

Gerda freed herself and slapped his face. "You shame me with your tears! Play the man, or bear my curse!" Will put his hand to his burning cheek, too shocked to do anything as he watched her walk into the blazing hall.

One or two men ran out, coughing and blinded, falling on their hands and knees and gasping at the clean air.

The house burned and the roof fell. Will's dreams collapsed with it, dissolved into their several elements, spirit and matter the same.

"All finished here?" asked a voice, and Will turned to see the red-eyed dead pastor.

"Nothing is left," said Will. "This whole country can burn for me."

"Then bear me company, and I'll show you your way home." He turned and walked toward Will's house, and Will followed. Will's house? Will's cell. No one lived by themselves in this time and place, save madmen and prisoners. Hamlet had been mad after all.

It was very dark through the open door, and Will was afraid to go inside where Katla yet lay. But when he was through he knew he was not in that same house. He was in no house at all. He felt around him and touched what seemed to be cold stone.

"Where am I?" he asked.

The ghost's voice said, "But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes, like stars, to start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combined locks to part
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine. . . ."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Will scrabbled at the wall, trying to find his way back where he had come. There was no such way.

"I am Hamlet's father!" said the ghost. "With your help I have altered the past! The true Hamlet's spirit is trapped in another world. His body is trapped here, with you, separate from the spirit forever! For all any man can say, Hamlet died in the fire on the night of his vengeance, not so differently from the play!

"Do you see my triumph? I have reshaped history to Shakespeare's pattern! If you were to return to the future—which you shall not—you would find there was no Shakespeare at all—his ancestors died in the great death let loose by Dublugh. Thus I have fulfilled Shakespeare and destroyed him at a stroke, making his plot mine!

"In the new future I have made, instead of Shakespeare the great playwright, there is another master—one named Thomas Kyd—who wrote the great historical play of Hamlet."

"Kyd's a great author?"

"Someone has to be."

"And from that alternate future you stole a book, which you placed in my attic," said Will.

"My confederate Randy did the actual physical work, but the idea was mine," said the ghost.

"And I was right in my lectures. Hamlet's father was a demon."

"If you will."

"What's to become of me?"

"You are in the labyrinth of worlds. These passages contain doors opening onto a billion billion universes, some much like yours, some different, some unlike anything you can imagine.

"Spirits such as I, and the Old Ones, may pass through the doors and traverse the universes. You, of course, being mortal, cannot. You shall wander the passages for the rest of your natural life—which shall not be long, for there's nothing here for you to eat or drink. When you die, your soul may flit from world to world, and perhaps you can find one you'll be pleased to haunt."

"What have I ever done to you?"

"You flatter yourself. It's nothing personal. You happened to be the right tool in the right place; though you did make it easy for me by being a self-centered bastard with no ties of love to any human soul. Amlodd was more difficult to pry loose, but once you were out of your world, the Great Balances themselves helped pull him the opposite way."

"Wait—please, don't leave me here—I almost learned—"

The ghost was gone, and Will stood alone in the darkness.

He'd heard that the devil was a liar. Perhaps if he went . . . somewhere, did . . . something he could find an escape—if not to his own time and place, at least to somewhere where he could live.

A line of Horatio's went through his head:

"What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,
Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff
That beetles o'er his base into the sea,
And there assume some other horrible form,
Which might deprive your sovereignty of reason
And draw you into madness? think of it:
The very place puts toys of desperation,
Without more motive, into every brain . . ."

Well, what of it? Madness might wait further on; it could as well be waiting here. Madness might be rather welcome if it came to that. The less he understood at the end, perhaps, the better.

He set out and walked down the stone corridor, feeling his way, utterly blind in the perfect darkness. He walked carefully at first, alert for unexpected steps or pits or the dreadful summit of a cliff, but the passage only seemed to go on. It occurred to him that perhaps it was circular, and he was going around and around it. He almost stopped at that thought.

But what of it? It was something to do. Will Sverdrup might have curled up in a corner (if a corner had been available) and died, but Amlodd's body was conditioned for action.

So he walked. The passage was wide enough so that he could not quite touch both walls at once, and high enough so he could just reach the ceiling with his hand. The proportions did not change as he proceeded.

"Well, Sverdrup," he said to himself. "You've always wanted your own space."

He had no sense of time. He had no sense of progress. He imagined a foursquare treadmill, the walls and ceiling moving at the same speed as the floor, giving him the illusion of going somewhere when in fact he trod hamster-like in one place.

After minutes or hours he thought he saw a glowing ahead of him, to his right. He thought it might be only phosphors on his eyeball, but he broke into a run and found to his joy that the glowing enlarged as he approached. He came to what looked like a window in the wall, though to his touch it felt like the same cold stone. It was oval and about his own (or Amlodd's) height. He looked through it into the blessed light (which hurt his eyes at first) to see a party of Asians in conical straw hats toiling in a rice paddy.

He had never seen such beautiful humans. He pounded on the "window" and tried to get the people's attention, but they showed no sign of hearing him.

He remembered something someone had said once, as a joke—"Statistically speaking, chances are you're Chinese." Which didn't hold anymore, since the Indians had overtaken them.

That reminded him of a talk he'd had with Peter Nilsson once, where he'd used the statistical quotation, and Peter had said, "Of course, statistically speaking, you're probably also Christian. It's the largest religion in the world, and the single belief system believed by more people throughout history than any other." That hadn't sounded right, but it turned out to be true, if you didn't consider paganism in general a coherent belief system, which Will didn't.

He could have stood and watched the rice pickers for the rest of his life—they were so human, so comforting, but he happened to look down the passage and see another glowing window. With reluctance he pulled himself away and went toward it.

This window was a disappointment. It showed open space, as it might be seen from a starship. It was pretty in a cold sort of way, but he was hungry to look at people. He looked back toward the last window, but before he went back there he turned to check further down the passage. Yes, it looked as if there were more windows. He'd try them.

One by one the windows led him further on. Some were disappointments—empty landscapes or underwater views, without form, and void.

But others showed people—black people, white people, brown people of various cultures and, apparently, various historical periods. He saw what he thought were ancient Sumerians through one window, and another showed a nineteeth-century war, though he couldn't make out who was fighting. He didn't linger long at that window. How could anyone kill something so precious as a human being? "Don't waste them!" he cried. "Send them to me! Even the ugliest, the dullest and most exasperating! Just let me have some human company!"

But they did not hear. They continued their mindless vandalism of flesh, and he turned dejected to see what the next window offered.

This one was a shock. He saw himself, talking to Ginnie in the parking lot.

"Don't let her go, you cretin!" he shouted to himself. "Do you understand what it means to be alone? Why would anyone choose to be alone?"

But nothing changed from what he remembered, and Ginnie turned and walked away. Will turned too, and went to the next window.

This one showed what seemed to be ancient Aztecs at work in a cornfield.

Then there was a Russian family, slowly eating a meager meal in a cold house. It looked beautiful to him.

Next came another scene from his own life. It was another scene with a girlfriend. She was someone he'd dated in college. He couldn't remember her name.

"Something's going on here," he said. "Two scenes from my life out of an infinite cosmic timeline—the chances against that are off the chart. Someone is selecting these scenes for me.

"That means I'm not really alone."

The thought was like food and drink. He felt strong and hopeful for the first time. He rushed to the next window.

This was an ugly scene. A man in an old-fashioned bedroom was beating a little girl with a razor strop. Will could not hear anything, but he could imagine the girl's screams as the man, red-faced and probably drunken, struck her again and again on her bare bottom, raising welts and blisters and blood at last. Finally he finished and stumbled out, leaving the girl to weep facedown on her bed.

Will found himself weeping too.

"Terrible, isn't it?" said a voice, and Will turned to see a tall man dressed in the Danish style. He had a long white beard but a strangely young face.

Without thinking about it, he fell to his knees and embraced the old man's waist. "God bless you!" he sobbed. "God bless you for being here. Please don't leave me alone again."

"I will not leave you alone. Be easy, lad. Now listen and answer me. What do you think of what you've just seen?"

"The man and the girl?"

"Yes."

"It's terrible. How can anyone treat a child like that?" Will got to his feet again, trembling.

"What would you think if I told you the child was your mother?"

Will shivered. "That's not true. My grandfather was the kindest man who ever lived."

"Who told you this?"

"It's just the truth."

"Did you ever meet your grandfather?"

"No. He died before I was born."

"So who told you he was kind?"

"My . . . mother, I guess."

"And did your mother never tell a lie?"

Will shook his head. "I can't believe this."

"This little girl you see crying here—she was made to lie all the time she was growing up—to pretend that her father was not a drunk; to pretend that her family was happy. She learned that that was how you kept the peace and made a family work. She learned that you dealt with your own pain by hurting those weaker than you."

Will leaned against the window and stared at the weeping girl.

"What would you do if you could pass through that window?" the old man asked.

"I think I'd kill that old man."

"That is the wrong answer. I could show you another window where he is beaten by his own father. Anger is like a snowball that rolls down a hill, growing larger and larger as it goes."

"So everyone is innocent."

"No, not at all. Everyone is guilty. Left to ourselves we will pass the evil along forever."

"How do we stop it then?"

"Not by killing. Killing is sometimes necessary, to protect the weak, but it does nothing to stop the evil. Rather, it makes it worse."

"How then?"

"Someone must place his body before the snowball, and take its shock, saying 'It stops here, with me.'"

"Such a man could easily die."

"As often as not, yes."

"I don't know if I could forgive some people. It goes beyond human power."

"What were you saying a few minutes ago? 'Send them to me! Even the ugliest, the dullest and most exasperating! Just let me have some human company!' At the time you thought all people were precious."

"You just said we were all evil."

"I did not say we were not precious."

"Cognitive dissonance. We hold two opposite opinions at once."

"Yours are opposite. Mine are only difficult. You will have to make up your mind how you feel about your fellow man."

"It's possible to know the right thing and yet not do it."

"More than possible. Common. Common as evil."

"Everybody lives with opposites, dissonance. We keep one foot on one side, one foot on the other. I've always run from taking a stand on one side or the other. If I was going to choose a religion, I'd lean toward one of those Eastern ones, where they say nothing is 'either-or,' only 'both-and.' "

"That's not entirely true, you know," said the old man. "Those religions come down strong on one side in at least one of the great questions."

"What question?"

"The question of body and soul. Flesh and spirit. From the beginning, men have struggled to find a balance between the two, to reconcile their conflicting needs. The religions of which you speak deal with that struggle by coming down strong on the side of the spirit, claiming the flesh does not exist at all.

"Christianity, on the other hand, says 'both-and' to that particular question. Body is real, soul is real. God became man. The Word became flesh."

"No, no," said Will. "Christian belief goes against everything I've learned. There are many worlds. Every fork in time creates a new universe. Even strongly held fantasies, like Shakespeare's Hamlet, can become reality. What does that mean, if not that everybody's equally right in the end? Believing makes it so. You can't deny that."

The old man smiled. "You've worked out a broader view? Learned to see the larger picture?"

"Yes."

"There's a larger picture than that. Are you prepared to see some unpleasant things?"

"I saw my mother try to kill me. I saw Katla bloody and dead. I saw Gerda walk into the blazing hall. I think I can handle nearly anything now."

"Very well. Follow me." The old man turned and led him down the corridor to another window. He gestured for Will to look through it.

Will saw what appeared to be a hotel room, with most of the lights off. There was a bed there, somewhat rumpled. A tiny speck, like a flea, leaped about on the bedsheets. Will wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't moved. In front of the bed a television stood. The light it emitted told Will that it was turned on, but he could not see what the screen showed. On the bedtables were many boxes of paper tissues. Used tissues lay scattered around the floor.

"What's this?" asked Will.

"Do you remember the story of a rich man—a very rich man from your time? One who ended as a hermit, living in a room like this, watching the same drama on that box again and again?"

"Yeah. He went crazy."

"What was the difference between him and you?"

"A few billion dollars."

"The wealth is nothing in itself. It's what the wealth buys that matters. What does wealth buy?"

"Most anything."

"Correct. So how is this man different from you?"

"He can get almost anything he wants."

"Very good. What does that mean for the kind of life he lives?"

"He can live any way he wants to."

"Excellent, excellent. And how did he choose to live?"

"He turned away from the world and from other people. He built his own prison and spent the rest of his life in it."

"Yes. And why?"

"Why? There were lots of reasons, I suppose—his childhood, his experiences, his disappointments—"

"I'm looking for a simple answer."

"What simple answer?"

"He did it because he could."

"Because he could?"

"God is merciful to most people in this—He does not allow them to do everything they would wish. But a few unlucky ones get the power to shape their own lives according to their deepest desires."

"Ultimate power corrupts absolutely."

"The words of a man who knew something of the world."

"What's your point?"

"What if all men had unlimited power to choose how they lived? Do you think they'd do better than this man?"

"I don't know. It's academic, isn't it?"

"It is not. It is the fate of every human. In life, there is hope of salvation, in that all, even the very rich like this man, are to some extent frustrated in their wants. Thus they have the chance to surrender their own ways to God's.

"In death, it is as you said—whatever you believe becomes real for you. But having one's own way is not the same thing as happiness. What do you think you are seeing through this window?"

"What you said. That billionaire in his hotel room. He must have gone to the bathroom or something."

"No. He's still there."

"I don't see him."

"Do you see that speck on the bedclothes?"

"Yes. . . ."

"That is he. This is not his earthly life. This is his eternity. He chose it while he lived, as all men do in one way or another; only because of his wealth he was able to purchase an installment on his eternity early. Why should it change once he died?

"That speck is what remains of him. In life he grew smaller and smaller, as he turned more and more from great concerns to selfish ones. In eternity he grows smaller yet, forever and ever.

"In his universe there is no love. There is no one to love. There is nothing but himself, and he grows more miserable as time goes on."

"Until he becomes nothing."

"He never becomes nothing. Nothing ever becomes nothing. Everything under God becomes more and more what it is, eternally. Every length can be halved, given a sharp enough knife. The knives of eternity are very sharp indeed."

"But at least it's what he wanted—" said Will. "It's not like fire and brimstone or devils with pitchforks—"

"He endured this life while he lived because he succumbed to fear and deadened himself with drugs. There are no drugs here, and no self-delusion. The one thing denied souls in eternity is the comfort of a lie. This man knows who he is, and what he might have been. He knows what was given to him, and how much is required of him. He knows where he could be now if he had been braver."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Will. "Not everybody's like this guy. Some people sin out of love. If they get what they've chosen in eternity, they'll have love forever."

"Come and see," said the old man. He led the way to another window.

Through that window there was only darkness.

"There's nothing there," said Will.

"There's no light there at least," said the old man. "We need to shine some in."

He set the palm of his hand to the window, fingers spread. From the hand a cone of light stretched into the space, like a very wide flashlight beam.

"I still don't see anything," said Will. "It's just a black stone room. It's empty."

"Not quite. Look."

As the old man spoke, a small pink round thing, like a striated ball, bounced across the light beam.

"What's that?" asked Will.

"Better to ask, 'What are they?' although it's hard to know whether to say 'it' or 'they' at this point."

"So what is it? They?"

"That is a pair of lovers. They loved each other with a passion that would not be quenched. They left their homes, their families, their responsibilities. They defied convention and God Himself, to be together. They have what they wished. They are together forever now, inseparable. They were all the world to each other. Now each is the only world the other has, for all time."

Will watched for a while, as the ball rolled and caromed and bounced about the cell. "Still, if they love each other . . ." he said. "And eternal sex can't be too bad."

"Would you like to hear what they say to one another?"

"They talk?"

"For now. A time will come when they dwindle to a point where they can't speak—or rather they can, but they won't. But at this point we may listen."

He set his other hand against the window, and the voices came. They were high-pitched voices, as if insects had speech.

"You never loved me like I loved you!"  

"Like you loved me? You know what I gave up for you? And for what?"  

"I gave you the best years of my life!"  

"You never understood me!"  

"As if you understood me? Do you know how much you hurt me with your sarcasm and your sulky moods?"  

"If you'd have really loved me, I wouldn't have had any sulky moods!"  

"That's just like you! You want me to make everything right for you, and my needs can take care of themselves!"  

"I did everything I could to meet your needs! Was it my fault you were neurotic?"  

"Yes! If you'd really loved me, I wouldn't have been neurotic!"  

"And if you'd loved me you, wouldn't have demanded the moon and stars!"  

"You promised me the moon and stars!"  

"And you promised me we'd always be happy if we had each other!"  

"We would have been happy if you'd really loved me!"  

"Loved you? You never loved me!"  

The old man took his hand away.

"It just goes on like that," he said. "You get the idea."

"They got what they wanted?"

" 'Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.' You may have whatever you wish, but if you wish for that which is not food, you must bear to be forever hungry."

"And for a man like me—one who flees other people, and love, and God, for fear of being hurt—what kind of Hell would there be for me?"

"Would you care to see?"

Will shivered. "I told you I could bear to see anything. I was wrong. That I cannot face."

"As you will."

Will hugged himself. "Who are you, old man? Why have you come to me here?"

"Do you remember a boy to whom you gave a piece of amber?"

"No. Yes. At the whale slaughter?"

"Just then, yes. The boy gave the amber to his father, who had been saving to buy his freedom and his family's. It gave him what he needed to accomplish this."

Will fell back against the window. "I've never heard such welcome words," he said. "You mean this is one of those situations where one good deed redeems a whole life? I didn't know I'd done enough good for that."

"And you haven't. This is not a reward for your virtue, such as it is. This was a mercy to me, because I wished to do it for you."

"Well . . . thank you."

"If I could show you a way back to your friends from the theater, what would you do?"

"I'd hold—I'd do—I wouldn't do—oh damn. You want me to tell the truth, don't you?"

"Very much."

"I don't know what I'd do. I want to say I'd be a different man; that I'd care for people and keep them close and keep Christmas in my heart every day of the year. I want to do that. But I'm not sure I can. I'm still Will Sverdrup, who's terrified of commitment."

"That is the right answer. If you'd made promises you couldn't keep, you'd have stayed in this passage for a very long time."

"I can promise even less if you like."

"The point is to recognize that you cannot rescue yourself."

"I can't."

"Then you must turn to One who can rescue you."

"Where is he? She? Whoever?"

"Look through that window."

It was another ugly scene there. It was an execution of the most brutal kind.

Will thought it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

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Framed