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CHAPTER XVIII

There was a small church outside the castle wall. It hadn't been there the last time Amlodd had been in the neighborhood, but he'd grown used to buildings sprouting like flowers. He didn't recognize the building as a church—churches were outside his experience in Denmark—but he recognized it as an important building.

The building was surrounded by a low stone wall. From behind the wall he heard a noise as of digging. He went closer to investigate.

He entered through the churchyard gate and was surprised to see, through a low forest of tombstones, Bess Borglum digging a grave. He guessed it was a grave. This was not how they did graves in Jutland.

"Is this a grave?" he asked, going closer.

"Well, there you are," said Bess, taking a breather. "Where have you been?"

"Sleeping rough, in the forest," said Amlodd. "I never knew how uncomfortable it is for weaklings. I thought I'd freeze to death."

"It's good you're back."

"I thought you'd all be hunting me for killing Peter."

"With all the crap that's been going on here, one murder more or less seems forgivable. Assuming you were fooled. You were fooled, weren't you?"

"Do you think I've lied to you?"

"That's what I don't know."

"There was a time when I'd have struck you for saying that. But weak men must live another way. So I ask you to explain what you mean before I strike you."

"After you killed Peter, you spoke some lines straight out of the Hamlet play. How did you know them?"

"What lines?"

" 'Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell—' Don't you know it's from the play?"

"I only spoke what came to my mind."

"It's from the play."

"Did this man whose skin I wear—you call him Will?"

"Yes."

"Did he know these words?"

"Yes. He knew them very well."

"Then I must have got them from his mind. I often find words in my mouth that seem to have been left behind with the body, as a man might leave an old, broken knife or a cloak pin in a house when he moves elsewhere. I think the body has memories of its own. Sometimes I dream of a world I've never seen. The colors are too bright, and there's too much noise."

"Sounds like our world."

"Did you really think I was your friend, playing some terrible joke?"

"It got pretty nasty when you killed Peter."

"I was deceived. I wanted my strength back so badly."

"It's hard to figure the rules in this world."

"Have you waited so long to bury Peter?"

"This isn't Peter's grave."

"Whose grave is it?"

" 'Mine, sir.' " Bess looked closely at him as she spoke.

" 'I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.' "

"There! You did it again!" cried Bess, pointing at him.

"Was that from the play?"

"Word for word."

"I did not know. Whom is the grave for?"

" 'For no man—' Forget it. It's Rosey's grave."

"Rosey?"

"She killed herself. Threw herself from the cliff into the sea."

"Gods. Why?"

"Nobody knows. But it's how she died in the play. In the play she did it in a river, but she drowned. All of us are dying in the order we do in the play, and pretty much in the same way. And we're getting close to the bloodbath at the end."

"When do you die?"

"Technically I'm not in the play at all. But I guess I'm the gravedigger now. Fortunately for me, the gravedigger isn't important enough to get killed. He comes on, does a couple jokes, and then disappears."

"What happens now?"

"They bring in Ophelia's coffin—that's Rosey's coffin. Laertes—that's Randy, who's also disappeared—goes into hysterics, and then Hamlet comes out of hiding and says, 'Hey, I loved her more than you did,' and then Laertes says, 'You're the reason she killed herself,' and they go for each other's throats and the congregation has to separate them. That's what sets up the sword duel at the end where Hamlet and Laertes manage to kill each other and everybody else too."

"This is my story?"

"It was simpler in real life. You killed your uncle and burned his warriors in the hall. And you survived."

"I like that version much better."

"Unfortunately, you're stuck in this version."

"I call that unjust. Unless my body fell dead when I came here, I have to suppose your friend Will is living my life. How good is he at avenging blood?"

"I . . . wouldn't say it was his strong suit."

"I expected no better from a man with a body like this. Tell me, why do you dig this grave? I know you folk have no inkling of what's proper to men and women, but surely a man could do this job more easily."

"We're running a little short of able-bodied men. Randy's run off; Peter's dead; Sean's too high and mighty to work with his hands, and Howie's a prophet, which is even worse than a king."

"Well, let me take the shovel. It's hardly proper work for a warrior, but it would be shameful to stand and let a woman wear herself out."

"I ought to take offense at that, I suppose," said Bess, "but the fact is I'm getting blisters here. Take the spade and welcome."

They traded places and Amlodd dug down to the six-foot level. "I could have done this much faster with my own arms," he said.

"Do you know, Amlodd, we're all getting a little tired of hearing how strong you used to be. It's almost as bad as Sean's stories about the famous actors he almost worked with."

"That bad?"

"I'm the director. It's my job to share hard truths with the cast."

"I really was very strong."

"Not much use now, is it?"

"I suppose not." Amlodd threw the shovel up and hoisted himself out of the hole. He walked away toward the cliffs, his head bowed.

"Wait! Amlodd! Where are you going?" Bess ran after him.

"To die, perhaps. There's no more cause to live."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"I've lost all that made me a man. I have no strength. I have no honor."

"Every man can't be strong. They can all have honor."

"A weakling is worth nothing."

"You're wrong. Listen—how does a hero end?"

"End?"

"How does a hero end his life?"

"By dying bravely, in the face of his enemies."

"Not in victory?"

"No man can be victorious forever."

"So couldn't a weak man die the same way? Wouldn't he be even more heroic, since his enemies must always be overwhelming—not only at the end but all his life?"

Amlodd put his hands on either side of his head. "I cannot hold these thoughts. There is no peg in my mind where they can hang."

"Your mind's okay. It takes time for anyone to get used to a new idea. New ideas come so fast in our time that we don't dare let ourselves love any of them, because we assume we'll have to throw them away soon. Then we move on to new ideas we don't love either. It hardly seems worth the trouble, but it makes us feel important."

"In my time I could go my whole life without stubbing my toe against a new idea."

"Who am I to say our way is better? But give things time at least. Don't die. There's been dying enough here."

"What's that?"

A sound of singing came from the direction of the castle. As they turned to watch, a line of figures emerged from the keep. Six of them carried a coffin, but they did not look like a conventional funeral party. As they sang, the processionors walked in a strange, stilted fashion, making small hops and waving their arms in a jerky fashion.

As the procession neared, Amlodd and Bess could recognize that the hoppers were their friends, Diane and Sean and Howie. Servants carried the coffin. And behind them, leaping and whirling, white-robed, came Eric.

Amlodd and Bess walked to meet them. They came together at the grave. The servants set the coffin down by its side.

"What's with the chorus line?" asked Bess.

Everyone looked around them, and no one spoke.

"My idea," said Eric with a smile. "A funeral dance. I want my worshipers happy. I don't think people should get all bent out of shape just because somebody croaked. Hey, my mother died and I didn't go all weepy."

No one spoke the obvious response aloud.

"You're all afraid of this troll?" asked Amlodd.

No one answered.

"You're letting him rule you?"

Bess said, "Yes, he's decided he's God."

Amlodd frowned. "The true gods will not stand for this."

"True gods?" cried Eric. "Look at me! What do you want in a god? You want big? I can be big!" Before their eyes he transformed into Yggxvthwul and towered over them, tentacles waving.

"You want powerful?" he roared. He opened his maw and a rumbling issued forth. The earth shook beneath their feet, and all the headstones in the graveyard flew into the air like leaves in wind and sailed into the sea.

"You want something more familiar?" Eric thundered. His figure changed again, and he became a gigantic man with a red beard and a hammer in his hand.

"You should have showed me that one sooner," said Amlodd. "You might have fooled me with that."

Eric went back to his Yggxvthwul guise. "Let me explain this in little words you can understand," he said. "There are no gods. Not in the way you're thinking. The only thing there is, is power. If you've got power enough to make people worship you, you get to be a god. That's what I am, because I've got the power."

Amlodd turned to Bess. "Even you?" he asked.

"I'm not gonna be a martyr over a religious issue," she said.

"What about your freedom?"

"Eric's pretty easygoing about morals."

"There's more to freedom than sleeping with whomever or whatever you like. I was thinking of your freedom to hold your head high and bow to no man."

"I prefer the freedom to go on living."

Amlodd sneered. "Such as you will always lose your freedom. I might bow to a worthy god, but not to a troll boy with the face of a thrall."

Eric asked, "And what are you gonna do about it?"

Amlodd drew his sword. "Someone who does not live by her own words told me not long ago that even a weak man can die. This I can do—I can spit in your troll face and defy you!"

"Okay, have it your way," said Eric. He reached a tentacle out and seized on Amlodd's sword, wrenching it away and tossing it outside the churchyard wall, where it stuck pointfirst in a tree trunk.

Amlodd cursed and ran to leap the wall. He seized the sword by its grip and tried to pull it out. He could not.

A tentacle wrapped itself around his neck and lifted him off the ground. He hung strangling until Eric let him go. He dropped about eight feet and lay on the grass, his chest heaving.

"Poor little barbarian," said Eric. "Poor little bones broken? Poor little muscles tired? Are you gonna tell us about how strong you used to be now?"

"Is that—the best you've got, troll?" Amlodd panted.

"That's nothin'," said Eric. "Ever hear of golf? I'm gonna show you a hole in one."

With one tentacle he struck Amlodd a swinging blow that threw him high in the air and dropped him neatly into Rosey's grave.

Eric's laughter boomed in waves that could be felt on the skin as much as heard.

Amlodd lay in the grave, unable to move. The sky above looked like a small open door, far away. He knew he would die in this hole, and no man would ever know how his saga ended. He hated the thought, but this body was done. It had no more to give. He thought his arm was broken.

Then he felt a small wind, like the draft when a door opens. He looked up at a man who towered over him. The man was dressed like a Dane, with red-gold hair and beard and a sword at his side.

"I know you," said the man, in the Danish tongue. "What happens if we touch?"

The man bent and put his hand on Amlodd's shoulder.

Amlodd spun as if in a maelstrom at sea. He felt helpless, as he had when Yggxvthwul had been tossing him about.

Only now he felt stronger every moment.

When his vision cleared he stood in the grave. At his feet lay a brown-haired man in clothing like the actors'.

He looked down at himself.

His clothes were Danish.

He was strong and tall.

He was himself again.

"I lend you my body and look what you do with it," moaned the man at his feet.

"I beg your pardon," said Amlodd. He found that he remembered the new tongue he'd learned. "But I think I can do this thing now. You rest."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Amlodd reached a hand up out of the grave, grasped the turf, and pulled himself up and out.

"Who are you?" roared Yggxvthwul.

"I am Amlodd Orvendilsson. I am the death of trolls."

"Where did you come from?"

"I've been here all the time. But I have my body back now. You're all tired of hearing me talk about it. Now I'll show you what it can do."

"It'll be a quick demonstration," said Yggxvthwul, stretching out a whiplike tentacle.

Faster than sight, Amlodd drew his sword and flicked the tip of the tentacle off.

Yggxvthwul roared in pain, drawing the tentacle back and tucking it into his mouth.

"You hurt me!" he screamed in Eric's voice.

"About time you found out how it felt," said Amlodd.

"You hurt me! I'm gonna hurt you!"

Yggxvthwul struck out with four other tentacles. Amlodd wielded his sword two-handed, whirling and ducking as he sliced off two more ends.

Yggxvthwul erupted in a shriek of agony, waving his tentacles as green ichor spouted from three of them. He hopped around like a child with burned fingers.

"Daddy!" he cried. "Daddy! Daddy!"

As he danced about he grew smaller and smaller before them, and he changed from green to flesh, and became Eric Smedhammer, hopping up and down naked.

When he was small enough to handle, his father held him in his arms, and looked at the three fingers which had been cut off at the tips or first knuckles.

"I'll sue your ass, you bastard!" Howie shouted to Amlodd.

Amlodd only laughed. "I'll miss you people when I'm gone."

Howie ripped strips from his shirttail to tourniquet and bandage his son's fingers, and sent a servant for something for him to wear.

A voice emerged from the grave. "If the fight's over, could somebody help me out of here? I think I've got a broken arm."

With a little trouble, and a rope the servants brought under his armpits, they managed to get Will out of the grave without too much pain to him. Howie called for splints from the servants and set the limb with ill grace. It was a break above the wrist, and Howie rigged a sling. Will groaned. One of the servants brought Will the sword Amlodd had lost. When Will looked at it without recognition, the servant slipped it into the scabbard for him.

"We still have a funeral to do," said Bess.

"I suppose someone ought to say a prayer or something," said Sean.

"I'll pray," said Will.

"You?" asked Diane.

"I've been going through some changes."

Pale and a little unsteady, Will made a prayer over the grave, and the servants lowered the coffin in. The cast left them to fill the grave as they took the road back to the castle. Eric leaned on his father, and Will leaned on Amlodd. It seemed strange to borrow strength from what had been his own body until a few minutes ago.

It took them some time, during the walk and sitting in the hall over flagons of ale, to compare stories.

"Just like in the play?" asked Will. "Peter and Rosey, by stabbing and drowning? And Del, too?"

"Of course Del wasn't in the script," said Bess, "but we've learned a whole new meaning for the phrase 'the power of great literature.' "

"And it's got us pretty darn nervous," said Diane. Will was surprised to hear her use such a bland adjective.

"I don't think it can run through to Shakespeare's end," said Will.

"Why not?" asked Sean.

"Somebody explained it to me in Amlodd's time. They might have been lying, but I don't think so. This whole thing was set up by Randy. He's not a human being. He's . . . what we'd call an elf. I don't mean a short guy who lives in a tree and makes cookies. I mean a different kind of being, like an alien. I know it's hard to believe."

"Not so hard," said Bess. "We saw him disappear before our eyes."

"Jeeze. Well, from what I was told, Randy's people know the way between alternate universes. You understand about alternate universes—?"

"Been there, discussed that," said Sean. "Skip ahead, skip ahead."

"And since Randy's the only one of his kind in the cast—as far as we know—this must be his setup. He's playing with us. He didn't expect Amlodd and me to change places though."

"Why would he do that?" asked Diane.

"Hard to say. But according to my source, these people have no pain and never die, so they crave our sensations."

"That goes with what Randy told us," said Bess.

"Anyway, the thing is, if Randy can't die, the play can't end the way Shakespeare wrote it. He must have something else in mind."

"We can die though," said Sean.

They sat silent a moment.

"Tell me about Jutland—home," said Amlodd.

Will told the story. As he related Katla's death and the burning of the hall, Amlodd stood up and began pacing.

"You took my vengeance!" he said when the story was done.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Katla died. If I'd been there I'd have done the job before the England voyage, and she'd have come to no harm. And I'd have had a chance to say goodbye to my mother."

"You're probably right. I did the best I could."

"I guess we know the reason for Hamlet's famous hesitation now," said Sean mildly.

"I ought to kill you for Katla's sake," said Amlodd to Will.

"Let's not forget you killed my friend Peter,"said Will.

Amlodd mulled that over. "I suppose the one balances the other," he said, frowning. "I was deceived by one I took for a god and did a shameful deed. I shall ask more of gods than mere power in future."

"This is all very interesting, but what I want to know is what you're going to do about it, Will," said Sean.

"Do about it?" asked Will.

"It seems to me it all goes back to that damn book you found. So you're responsible. This thing has gotten out of control, so I want you to do something about it."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Just because I'm the king doesn't mean I have to think of everything. Show some initiative."

"Shut up, Sean," said Bess.

"I am your king, remember."

"You're an old lush, Sean. You lost control of the situation some time ago. Don't push it."

Sean's bubble was no longer a robust one. He subsided with a look something like relief and poured himself a drink. He emptied the pot doing it, and called, "Servants! More wine!"

For the first time anyone could recall, no one came in response.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Bess.

"Look at the tapestries," said Diane.

"They're losing color, going black and gold again," said Bess.

Amlodd walked to the wall and pulled a tapestry aside to feel the stone. "No joints," he said.

"Everything's devolving," said Diane. "Maybe this whole world will dissolve to atoms under our feet."

The hall grew darker as she spoke. Even the torchlight dimmed.

"I think Will's coming back messed up the play," said Howie, who sat with an arm around the whimpering Eric's shoulder. "Without the play, this experiment is over."

"It's not so bad as that," said Randy, and they all turned to see him emerge from the shadows, dressed like a hero on the cover of a romance novel in tight black trousers, high black boots and a shirt trimmed with lace. His hair moved in a breeze that nobody could feel.

"It's not the end, it's the climax," said Randy. "Time to cap the rising action and ring the curtain down."

"Tired of playing with us?" asked Diane. "Ready to find yourself other toys?"

"You'd be well advised to speak politely to me."

"I'll do anything you want," said Sean. "Just say the word."

"Heel boy, heel," said Bess.

"If you're actually behind all this nonsense," said Howie, "I demand you send us home again now. It stopped being funny a long time ago."

"How would I know?" asked Randy. "How would such as I know when anything stopped being funny?

"I don't understand about humor. I can make a joke, but not laugh at one. I know what's funny in theory. I know what's tragic, in theory. But they do not touch me.

"Tragedy is the greatest mystery of all. We know how you fear death. Yet you enjoy stories about death. Where could the pleasure be in that?

"So I took the greatest tragedy of all and built a laboratory for it. I had more than one reason for doing this, but I wanted to see if you could get the same things out of the story in real experience as you do on the stage."

"And what did you conclude?" asked Bess.

"The jury's still out. I'm afraid I'll have to run the process through to the end."

"I'm not gonna drink poison," said Diane.

"I'll give it to her, if you want me to!" said Sean.

"Shut up, Sean," said Bess.

"Oh, it won't end like the play for you," said Randy. "Hard to stage-manage that. All I need is to see the significant death."

"Significant death," said Will. "What do you mean by that?"

Amlodd spoke up. "A man's death is the last and best gift he can offer the gods." He stood a little apart from the rest of the party, an alien. "Each man should live each day in preparation for his death, so as to have a fine one to offer, as a token of entry to Valhalla."

"Quaint," said Randy. He waved a hand and a door opened in the stone wall. " 'Goodnight, sweet prince,' " he said. "There's your way home."

"To Jutland?"

"Where else? Farewell, 'and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.' "

Amlodd hesitated. "I almost wish I could stay, to see the end."

"You've got your own ending to work out."

Amlodd squared his shoulders. "Farewell then, all of you. You've been . . . amusing. I'll not forget you." He turned toward the door.

Eric made a sudden jump and ran toward him. Amlodd whirled and drew his sword to defend himself, but Eric fell to his knees and grasped Amlodd's legs with bandaged hands.

"Take me with you!" he cried, tears coursing down his cheeks.

"Take you with me?" said Amlodd. "Why would you want to come with me?"

"I want to know how to be a man. Nobody'll show me how to be a man back home. I wanna be like you!"

"You'll never be like me," said Amlodd. "You slew your mother."

"I didn't know any better!"

"You knew. No man ever born was ignorant of that law."

"Don't make me go home to my own time! It's terrible there! I do terrible things there, and nobody stops me! I don't want to do them anymore, but I know I will!"

Amlodd said, "That's true. It would be a vile deed to let such a thing happen."

He stepped back quickly, drawing his sword, and struck off Eric's head. Then he stepped back again to keep his clothes from being soaked in the fountain of blood that shot up and ebbed.

Howie ran toward him, but stopped well clear of sword-length. "You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You killed my son!"

"I? It was you slew him. I only ended his misery."

He turned and went out through the door, which vanished once he'd passed through.

Howie fell to his knees, his face in his hands. Diane went to him, knelt, and put her arms around him.

"Amlodd does go home?" asked Will.

"Don't fret, said Randy I sent him back whence he came. He's no further use to me. He'll be king of Denmark, and marry a queen of Scotland, and be killed in battle as he wished, if I recall my Saxo correctly. And if Saxo remembered correctly."

"So you need a significant death," said Will. "Someone has to die."

"Significantly. Someone has to lay down his life in the tragic way."

"You should have kept Amlodd around," said Howie. "That's his meat."

"Exactly why I got rid of him. Amlodd came from a culture that was gaga over significant death. So he's prejudiced. I want to see if a modern person can die the same way. You moderns are so superior. You're past the need to grow your own food. You're past the need to hunt. You're past the need to pray. You think all the necessities of your past are part of an evolutionary stage you've outgrown.

"I want to know if you've outgrown tragedy."

The actors looked at one another.

"I know I have," said Howie.

"I've always been more of a comedic actor," said Sean.

"I object to this whole thing," said Bess.

"It's not a real thing," said Diane. "If it were about some real situation, it would make a difference. But this is just a game you set up."

"Isn't all of life just a game God set up?" asked Randy.

"No, it's just a game," said Howie.

"That's what I want to see," Randy answered. "I want to know if tragedy was just a fashion of an age past, or whether it's something that still holds true. I want to know whether a human being's death can still matter."

"And why should we help you with this experiment?" asked Bess.

"Because if one of you stays, the others may go home."

They all looked at each other.

"I suppose I'm the most expendable of the group; no family, no career to speak of and all that," said Sean. He mused a moment. "I won't do it though."

Will stepped forward. " 'I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.' '' He drew the sword that hung at his side.

Randy smiled. "I knew it would be you, Will."

"You're injured, Will," said Diane. "You've got a broken arm. You can't fight."

" 'I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.' "

"This is crazy," said Bess. "Don't do this, Will. There's got to be another way."

"No. I've been Hamlet. I've been Hamlet. I've lived a life that meant something. I learned things in the ways between the worlds. If I went back with you, and let 'Hamlet' be destroyed, I'd live the rest of my life in a cloud and probably jump off a bridge." He went on guard and said, 'Come on, sir.' "

" 'Come, my lord,' " said Randy.

It was awkward fencing with one arm in a sling, but Will was surprised at how well he managed. He'd learned a thing or two in the sixth century, and Amlodd had clearly been training this body.

Still, he was slow and weak compared to what he'd been used to up till a few minutes ago. Randy's point danced before him. He could feel its sharpness, its taper, the geometric angle of its reverse perspective, growing smaller as it approached.

"The point isn't envenomed, like in the play," said Randy. "Or perhaps it is. I forget."

"I don't think you forget anything," said Will.

Randy had the advantage. He fought aggressively; he did not seem to tire. Will parried and attacked, but found himself going on defense more and more, as his strength drained off.

"You know what this is, don't you?" asked Randy, making a feint and coming at Will from below with a move he barely parried.

"I think it's called a swordfight," said Will, making an attempt at a strong lunge and getting it turned away.

Randy pressed his attack in a flurry of steel. "This is the thing you've fled all your life. This is a commitment."

Will retreated, defending himself desperately. "Fear of commitment. That's a very Oprah thing to say."

"I don't just mean with women, though you have quite a record in that department. What do you fear most in the whole world?"

Will felt an agonizing jab as Randy's point pierced his injured arm. He jerked in response, and got a second jab in the chest muscles. He realized Randy might have killed him, and raised his guard in spite of the pain.

"What would you say, 'a palpable hit'?" asked Randy.

" 'A touch, a touch; I do confess't,' " said Will. "But it's not about points, is it?"

"You know a hawk from a handsaw," said Randy, and he attacked again. Will fought backwards, defending himself.

"You're running from me, Will," said Randy from behind a wasp's swarm of steel flourishes. "Just like you ran from your mother. Just like you've run from everything in your life that looked like it might have some permanence. Well this is death. You don't get more permanent than that."

"I know," said Will, still retreating.

Randy said, "I don't think you'll hold out to the point of death. I think you'll run away."

"So you're not just out to kill me. You're going to hurt me, again and again, until I can't take it anymore, so you can tell . . . whatever passes for friends in your world—"

Randy drove his point into Will's right upper thigh. Will dropped to one knee, then struggled onto both feet again.

"Friends," said Randy. "Another story you humans tell yourselves. Like love and loyalty and tragedy. All lies you've invented to make your meaningless lives bearable."

"So I'm here to defend the honor of the whole human race?"

"There is no honor. Run away. I'll send you home, and only you and I will know what we proved."

"If I did run away, it wouldn't prove anything."

"It would prove it to me, and to you. That's enough for me. It comes down to blood and judgment. It's always blood and judgment.

"Your human blood is all sweet and sentimental and needy. Your blood tells you, I need love. I need people. I need to trade my personal freedom for the warmth and security of a family. 

"But your judgment says, stay free. Keep your autonomy. Don't let yourself get trapped in something that might get uncomfortable. 

"If you listen to your blood, you regret it the rest of your life—you're trapped. If you listen to your judgment, you regret it the rest of your life—you're alone.

"Whatever you do, you lose. And that, my friends, is the meaning of life."

He lunged and set the point of his rapier to Will's throat.

Will stood his ground, and looked him in the eye.

"Yes, it's blood and judgment," he said, smiling.

"But it's not just the blood that wants love. The judgment knows we need it too. And as often as not it's the blood that's hurt and frightened, and running away from love.

"It's not one on one side and one on the other. The line runs right down the middle of both parts. It's physical and it's spiritual, and they're both broken.

"So I had to find something that wasn't broken—blood that was whole blood; judgment that was whole judgment.

"I found it. I found it hiding in plain sight, right where everybody said it was. Blood and judgment; flesh and spirit; God and man; death and resurrection. I learned there was such a thing as love; after that it all came together."

"How very touching."

"If I don't impress you, I apologize. But I can do one thing to beat any trick you've got. I can die."

He braced himself for the thrust he expected.

Instead the point fell away. He saw Randy step back.

"It's all academic," Randy said, raising his arm in a dramatic gesture.

The floor began to shake and the shaking rose to a rumble. A crack appeared in the stone floor, separating Will and Randy from the others by a crevice about three feet wide.

"We spoke of a vacuum which sucked you all into this world," said Randy. "To let you all go would create another such vacuum. This vacuum would destroy the story of Hamlet forever. You were right. This is Hamlet's world. My placing the Kyd book in your world destroyed it, and created the vacuum that drew you all here.

"If any of you were to stay, save one, it would not be enough to hold this world together. Only Hamlet will do. Only Hamlet's presence will save the play.

"I will not kill you, Will. I need you, here.

"Somewhere in history we will find new actors to play the drama out. This rehearsal—this adventure with these people—was a good start, but it was not enough. We followed the outline of the story, but we improvised the lines.

"The next run-through will be better. It will be closer to the script.

"Then there will be another run-through and another, each with a new set of actors, save only you and me. Each time the actors will come closer to Shakespeare's script, not through memorization and rehearsal, but through the power of the story itself, winding about itself again and again in time like an electrical transformer.

"In the end—perhaps years, perhaps centuries hence—the play will be re-created word for word.

"Then you and I will fight in earnest.

"Then we shall slay one another."

"I thought you could not die," said Will.

"One thing is more powerful than the curse of Cain," said Randy. "I believe that the power of a tragedy can grant me the death I crave; the death I deserve. If I stand in Laertes' shoes, and the inexorable force of the story demands my death, then I must die."

Will said, "But you'll let these others go."

" 'You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life.' "

"I'm not going without Will," said Diane from across the rift.

"You don't get a say," said Randy. He waved and there was a stone wall where the rift had been.

"They're back safe and sound?" asked Will.

"Safe as houses. Safe as prisons. Safe as the miserable little lives they're mired in. Epsom, Minnesota will not lose its entire artistic soul.

"But you stay here with me. You and I shall do a thousand performances or more of Hamlet. They tell me Hell's a lot like that—the same mistake repeated over and over."

"So I've heard. Do I get a chance to recover from my wounds? I'm bleeding here. If I bleed to death or die of infection, you'll have to find another Hamlet."

"Yes, all right." Randy waved his hand and Will felt a prickly warmth course through his body. He knew at once that his injuries were gone. His arm didn't hurt anymore, and he unbound his splints. He flexed the hand. It felt good.

"You should have been a doctor," he said. "You might have learned that it's pleasant to help people."

"Relieve pain and death? The very things I long to experience?"

"You could experience them vicariously."

"I'm not a voyeur, thank you very much."

"You? I'd call you the most intense form of voyeur."

"You're stretching the definition. 'Tacteur' might be a better word, if it is a word."

"It really is all academic to you, isn't it?"

"That's what I've been telling you."

"I can't say I honestly look forward to spending the next few centuries in your company."

"Already the commitment anxiety?"

Will sighed. "I guess so. Not much to be done about it now."

"Well, if you want to be alone, like Greta Garbo, I have some good news for you. I have to go locate a new cast."

"How long will that take?"

"Hard to say. You think Time's relative in your home universe? You ain't seen nothin' compared to this one."

Randy vanished.

Will sat alone in the dim hall.

Of a sudden he missed Randy.

"Why should it bother me?" he asked himself aloud. "This is what I've labored for all my life. This is the treasure I laid up for myself in eternity."

It had been a mercy, he thought, to learn now what a bad course he'd been on. Some people never learned it till they were too old to try anything else.

The half-darkness did not change. He sat with his back against a wall, lost in thought. Occasionally he imagined being left here permanently alone, duped by one final trick of Randy's. He fought down the feeling and prayed for peace.

The sound, when he grew aware of it, had already been in his ears for some time. It was something like voices, and something like music. It was, in fact, both voices and music.

Will rose and followed the sound. It was loudest at a point where he found a door in the wall—one he hadn't noticed before. He put his hand on the latch and pulled it open.

The door opened to a courtyard under the sky. There was nothing unfinished or devolved about any of it. The courtyard was of dressed stone, surrounded by high windows through which women and children watched.

Through the yard paraded a motley congregation of men, old and young. They wore jerkins and galligaskins and hose, many sporting soft caps with feathers in them. Some of their clothing was ragged, most of it was patched, but the colors were bright, reds and yellows and greens, and the wearers danced and leaped and walked on their hands. Some of them wore ribbons and some of them wore bells. Some of them played tamborines or wooden rattles.

Will knew them right away. He could not mistake them. They were his brothers, though he was much their junior.

They were actors.

In a moment he was in the midst of them, and they seemed to know him too, for they smiled and laughed with him, and somebody clapped him on the shoulder.

He turned to see a smiling face with a wine-red birthmark covering the left cheek. "Welcome, brother!" the man said. He offered him a skin of wine, and Will took a pull from it.

"Where are we going?" Will asked.

"We're going to see the king!"

"What fun! Is the king expecting us?"

"Not that I know of. But his nephew loves plays."

"So you think we'll be welcome?"

"Who knows? Sometimes they welcome us with hot food and purses of silver. Sometimes they drive us out with brickbats and offal. That's what makes it interesting!"

Will laughed.

They turned a corner and approached the entrance to the great hall, where four men stood talking to one another at the top of the great stairway.

One of the men was old with a long beard. The other three were young men. Tallest of them was a fair-haired man with a small beard, dressed all in black. He looked a little like Kenneth Branagh, a little like Richard Burton, a little like Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, a little like John Barrymore and a little like Edwin Booth.

The old man was saying,

"The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men."

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Framed

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CHAPTER XVIII

There was a small church outside the castle wall. It hadn't been there the last time Amlodd had been in the neighborhood, but he'd grown used to buildings sprouting like flowers. He didn't recognize the building as a church—churches were outside his experience in Denmark—but he recognized it as an important building.

The building was surrounded by a low stone wall. From behind the wall he heard a noise as of digging. He went closer to investigate.

He entered through the churchyard gate and was surprised to see, through a low forest of tombstones, Bess Borglum digging a grave. He guessed it was a grave. This was not how they did graves in Jutland.

"Is this a grave?" he asked, going closer.

"Well, there you are," said Bess, taking a breather. "Where have you been?"

"Sleeping rough, in the forest," said Amlodd. "I never knew how uncomfortable it is for weaklings. I thought I'd freeze to death."

"It's good you're back."

"I thought you'd all be hunting me for killing Peter."

"With all the crap that's been going on here, one murder more or less seems forgivable. Assuming you were fooled. You were fooled, weren't you?"

"Do you think I've lied to you?"

"That's what I don't know."

"There was a time when I'd have struck you for saying that. But weak men must live another way. So I ask you to explain what you mean before I strike you."

"After you killed Peter, you spoke some lines straight out of the Hamlet play. How did you know them?"

"What lines?"

" 'Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell—' Don't you know it's from the play?"

"I only spoke what came to my mind."

"It's from the play."

"Did this man whose skin I wear—you call him Will?"

"Yes."

"Did he know these words?"

"Yes. He knew them very well."

"Then I must have got them from his mind. I often find words in my mouth that seem to have been left behind with the body, as a man might leave an old, broken knife or a cloak pin in a house when he moves elsewhere. I think the body has memories of its own. Sometimes I dream of a world I've never seen. The colors are too bright, and there's too much noise."

"Sounds like our world."

"Did you really think I was your friend, playing some terrible joke?"

"It got pretty nasty when you killed Peter."

"I was deceived. I wanted my strength back so badly."

"It's hard to figure the rules in this world."

"Have you waited so long to bury Peter?"

"This isn't Peter's grave."

"Whose grave is it?"

" 'Mine, sir.' " Bess looked closely at him as she spoke.

" 'I think it be thine indeed, for thou liest in't.' "

"There! You did it again!" cried Bess, pointing at him.

"Was that from the play?"

"Word for word."

"I did not know. Whom is the grave for?"

" 'For no man—' Forget it. It's Rosey's grave."

"Rosey?"

"She killed herself. Threw herself from the cliff into the sea."

"Gods. Why?"

"Nobody knows. But it's how she died in the play. In the play she did it in a river, but she drowned. All of us are dying in the order we do in the play, and pretty much in the same way. And we're getting close to the bloodbath at the end."

"When do you die?"

"Technically I'm not in the play at all. But I guess I'm the gravedigger now. Fortunately for me, the gravedigger isn't important enough to get killed. He comes on, does a couple jokes, and then disappears."

"What happens now?"

"They bring in Ophelia's coffin—that's Rosey's coffin. Laertes—that's Randy, who's also disappeared—goes into hysterics, and then Hamlet comes out of hiding and says, 'Hey, I loved her more than you did,' and then Laertes says, 'You're the reason she killed herself,' and they go for each other's throats and the congregation has to separate them. That's what sets up the sword duel at the end where Hamlet and Laertes manage to kill each other and everybody else too."

"This is my story?"

"It was simpler in real life. You killed your uncle and burned his warriors in the hall. And you survived."

"I like that version much better."

"Unfortunately, you're stuck in this version."

"I call that unjust. Unless my body fell dead when I came here, I have to suppose your friend Will is living my life. How good is he at avenging blood?"

"I . . . wouldn't say it was his strong suit."

"I expected no better from a man with a body like this. Tell me, why do you dig this grave? I know you folk have no inkling of what's proper to men and women, but surely a man could do this job more easily."

"We're running a little short of able-bodied men. Randy's run off; Peter's dead; Sean's too high and mighty to work with his hands, and Howie's a prophet, which is even worse than a king."

"Well, let me take the shovel. It's hardly proper work for a warrior, but it would be shameful to stand and let a woman wear herself out."

"I ought to take offense at that, I suppose," said Bess, "but the fact is I'm getting blisters here. Take the spade and welcome."

They traded places and Amlodd dug down to the six-foot level. "I could have done this much faster with my own arms," he said.

"Do you know, Amlodd, we're all getting a little tired of hearing how strong you used to be. It's almost as bad as Sean's stories about the famous actors he almost worked with."

"That bad?"

"I'm the director. It's my job to share hard truths with the cast."

"I really was very strong."

"Not much use now, is it?"

"I suppose not." Amlodd threw the shovel up and hoisted himself out of the hole. He walked away toward the cliffs, his head bowed.

"Wait! Amlodd! Where are you going?" Bess ran after him.

"To die, perhaps. There's no more cause to live."

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"I've lost all that made me a man. I have no strength. I have no honor."

"Every man can't be strong. They can all have honor."

"A weakling is worth nothing."

"You're wrong. Listen—how does a hero end?"

"End?"

"How does a hero end his life?"

"By dying bravely, in the face of his enemies."

"Not in victory?"

"No man can be victorious forever."

"So couldn't a weak man die the same way? Wouldn't he be even more heroic, since his enemies must always be overwhelming—not only at the end but all his life?"

Amlodd put his hands on either side of his head. "I cannot hold these thoughts. There is no peg in my mind where they can hang."

"Your mind's okay. It takes time for anyone to get used to a new idea. New ideas come so fast in our time that we don't dare let ourselves love any of them, because we assume we'll have to throw them away soon. Then we move on to new ideas we don't love either. It hardly seems worth the trouble, but it makes us feel important."

"In my time I could go my whole life without stubbing my toe against a new idea."

"Who am I to say our way is better? But give things time at least. Don't die. There's been dying enough here."

"What's that?"

A sound of singing came from the direction of the castle. As they turned to watch, a line of figures emerged from the keep. Six of them carried a coffin, but they did not look like a conventional funeral party. As they sang, the processionors walked in a strange, stilted fashion, making small hops and waving their arms in a jerky fashion.

As the procession neared, Amlodd and Bess could recognize that the hoppers were their friends, Diane and Sean and Howie. Servants carried the coffin. And behind them, leaping and whirling, white-robed, came Eric.

Amlodd and Bess walked to meet them. They came together at the grave. The servants set the coffin down by its side.

"What's with the chorus line?" asked Bess.

Everyone looked around them, and no one spoke.

"My idea," said Eric with a smile. "A funeral dance. I want my worshipers happy. I don't think people should get all bent out of shape just because somebody croaked. Hey, my mother died and I didn't go all weepy."

No one spoke the obvious response aloud.

"You're all afraid of this troll?" asked Amlodd.

No one answered.

"You're letting him rule you?"

Bess said, "Yes, he's decided he's God."

Amlodd frowned. "The true gods will not stand for this."

"True gods?" cried Eric. "Look at me! What do you want in a god? You want big? I can be big!" Before their eyes he transformed into Yggxvthwul and towered over them, tentacles waving.

"You want powerful?" he roared. He opened his maw and a rumbling issued forth. The earth shook beneath their feet, and all the headstones in the graveyard flew into the air like leaves in wind and sailed into the sea.

"You want something more familiar?" Eric thundered. His figure changed again, and he became a gigantic man with a red beard and a hammer in his hand.

"You should have showed me that one sooner," said Amlodd. "You might have fooled me with that."

Eric went back to his Yggxvthwul guise. "Let me explain this in little words you can understand," he said. "There are no gods. Not in the way you're thinking. The only thing there is, is power. If you've got power enough to make people worship you, you get to be a god. That's what I am, because I've got the power."

Amlodd turned to Bess. "Even you?" he asked.

"I'm not gonna be a martyr over a religious issue," she said.

"What about your freedom?"

"Eric's pretty easygoing about morals."

"There's more to freedom than sleeping with whomever or whatever you like. I was thinking of your freedom to hold your head high and bow to no man."

"I prefer the freedom to go on living."

Amlodd sneered. "Such as you will always lose your freedom. I might bow to a worthy god, but not to a troll boy with the face of a thrall."

Eric asked, "And what are you gonna do about it?"

Amlodd drew his sword. "Someone who does not live by her own words told me not long ago that even a weak man can die. This I can do—I can spit in your troll face and defy you!"

"Okay, have it your way," said Eric. He reached a tentacle out and seized on Amlodd's sword, wrenching it away and tossing it outside the churchyard wall, where it stuck pointfirst in a tree trunk.

Amlodd cursed and ran to leap the wall. He seized the sword by its grip and tried to pull it out. He could not.

A tentacle wrapped itself around his neck and lifted him off the ground. He hung strangling until Eric let him go. He dropped about eight feet and lay on the grass, his chest heaving.

"Poor little barbarian," said Eric. "Poor little bones broken? Poor little muscles tired? Are you gonna tell us about how strong you used to be now?"

"Is that—the best you've got, troll?" Amlodd panted.

"That's nothin'," said Eric. "Ever hear of golf? I'm gonna show you a hole in one."

With one tentacle he struck Amlodd a swinging blow that threw him high in the air and dropped him neatly into Rosey's grave.

Eric's laughter boomed in waves that could be felt on the skin as much as heard.

Amlodd lay in the grave, unable to move. The sky above looked like a small open door, far away. He knew he would die in this hole, and no man would ever know how his saga ended. He hated the thought, but this body was done. It had no more to give. He thought his arm was broken.

Then he felt a small wind, like the draft when a door opens. He looked up at a man who towered over him. The man was dressed like a Dane, with red-gold hair and beard and a sword at his side.

"I know you," said the man, in the Danish tongue. "What happens if we touch?"

The man bent and put his hand on Amlodd's shoulder.

Amlodd spun as if in a maelstrom at sea. He felt helpless, as he had when Yggxvthwul had been tossing him about.

Only now he felt stronger every moment.

When his vision cleared he stood in the grave. At his feet lay a brown-haired man in clothing like the actors'.

He looked down at himself.

His clothes were Danish.

He was strong and tall.

He was himself again.

"I lend you my body and look what you do with it," moaned the man at his feet.

"I beg your pardon," said Amlodd. He found that he remembered the new tongue he'd learned. "But I think I can do this thing now. You rest."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Amlodd reached a hand up out of the grave, grasped the turf, and pulled himself up and out.

"Who are you?" roared Yggxvthwul.

"I am Amlodd Orvendilsson. I am the death of trolls."

"Where did you come from?"

"I've been here all the time. But I have my body back now. You're all tired of hearing me talk about it. Now I'll show you what it can do."

"It'll be a quick demonstration," said Yggxvthwul, stretching out a whiplike tentacle.

Faster than sight, Amlodd drew his sword and flicked the tip of the tentacle off.

Yggxvthwul roared in pain, drawing the tentacle back and tucking it into his mouth.

"You hurt me!" he screamed in Eric's voice.

"About time you found out how it felt," said Amlodd.

"You hurt me! I'm gonna hurt you!"

Yggxvthwul struck out with four other tentacles. Amlodd wielded his sword two-handed, whirling and ducking as he sliced off two more ends.

Yggxvthwul erupted in a shriek of agony, waving his tentacles as green ichor spouted from three of them. He hopped around like a child with burned fingers.

"Daddy!" he cried. "Daddy! Daddy!"

As he danced about he grew smaller and smaller before them, and he changed from green to flesh, and became Eric Smedhammer, hopping up and down naked.

When he was small enough to handle, his father held him in his arms, and looked at the three fingers which had been cut off at the tips or first knuckles.

"I'll sue your ass, you bastard!" Howie shouted to Amlodd.

Amlodd only laughed. "I'll miss you people when I'm gone."

Howie ripped strips from his shirttail to tourniquet and bandage his son's fingers, and sent a servant for something for him to wear.

A voice emerged from the grave. "If the fight's over, could somebody help me out of here? I think I've got a broken arm."

With a little trouble, and a rope the servants brought under his armpits, they managed to get Will out of the grave without too much pain to him. Howie called for splints from the servants and set the limb with ill grace. It was a break above the wrist, and Howie rigged a sling. Will groaned. One of the servants brought Will the sword Amlodd had lost. When Will looked at it without recognition, the servant slipped it into the scabbard for him.

"We still have a funeral to do," said Bess.

"I suppose someone ought to say a prayer or something," said Sean.

"I'll pray," said Will.

"You?" asked Diane.

"I've been going through some changes."

Pale and a little unsteady, Will made a prayer over the grave, and the servants lowered the coffin in. The cast left them to fill the grave as they took the road back to the castle. Eric leaned on his father, and Will leaned on Amlodd. It seemed strange to borrow strength from what had been his own body until a few minutes ago.

It took them some time, during the walk and sitting in the hall over flagons of ale, to compare stories.

"Just like in the play?" asked Will. "Peter and Rosey, by stabbing and drowning? And Del, too?"

"Of course Del wasn't in the script," said Bess, "but we've learned a whole new meaning for the phrase 'the power of great literature.' "

"And it's got us pretty darn nervous," said Diane. Will was surprised to hear her use such a bland adjective.

"I don't think it can run through to Shakespeare's end," said Will.

"Why not?" asked Sean.

"Somebody explained it to me in Amlodd's time. They might have been lying, but I don't think so. This whole thing was set up by Randy. He's not a human being. He's . . . what we'd call an elf. I don't mean a short guy who lives in a tree and makes cookies. I mean a different kind of being, like an alien. I know it's hard to believe."

"Not so hard," said Bess. "We saw him disappear before our eyes."

"Jeeze. Well, from what I was told, Randy's people know the way between alternate universes. You understand about alternate universes—?"

"Been there, discussed that," said Sean. "Skip ahead, skip ahead."

"And since Randy's the only one of his kind in the cast—as far as we know—this must be his setup. He's playing with us. He didn't expect Amlodd and me to change places though."

"Why would he do that?" asked Diane.

"Hard to say. But according to my source, these people have no pain and never die, so they crave our sensations."

"That goes with what Randy told us," said Bess.

"Anyway, the thing is, if Randy can't die, the play can't end the way Shakespeare wrote it. He must have something else in mind."

"We can die though," said Sean.

They sat silent a moment.

"Tell me about Jutland—home," said Amlodd.

Will told the story. As he related Katla's death and the burning of the hall, Amlodd stood up and began pacing.

"You took my vengeance!" he said when the story was done.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Katla died. If I'd been there I'd have done the job before the England voyage, and she'd have come to no harm. And I'd have had a chance to say goodbye to my mother."

"You're probably right. I did the best I could."

"I guess we know the reason for Hamlet's famous hesitation now," said Sean mildly.

"I ought to kill you for Katla's sake," said Amlodd to Will.

"Let's not forget you killed my friend Peter,"said Will.

Amlodd mulled that over. "I suppose the one balances the other," he said, frowning. "I was deceived by one I took for a god and did a shameful deed. I shall ask more of gods than mere power in future."

"This is all very interesting, but what I want to know is what you're going to do about it, Will," said Sean.

"Do about it?" asked Will.

"It seems to me it all goes back to that damn book you found. So you're responsible. This thing has gotten out of control, so I want you to do something about it."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Just because I'm the king doesn't mean I have to think of everything. Show some initiative."

"Shut up, Sean," said Bess.

"I am your king, remember."

"You're an old lush, Sean. You lost control of the situation some time ago. Don't push it."

Sean's bubble was no longer a robust one. He subsided with a look something like relief and poured himself a drink. He emptied the pot doing it, and called, "Servants! More wine!"

For the first time anyone could recall, no one came in response.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Bess.

"Look at the tapestries," said Diane.

"They're losing color, going black and gold again," said Bess.

Amlodd walked to the wall and pulled a tapestry aside to feel the stone. "No joints," he said.

"Everything's devolving," said Diane. "Maybe this whole world will dissolve to atoms under our feet."

The hall grew darker as she spoke. Even the torchlight dimmed.

"I think Will's coming back messed up the play," said Howie, who sat with an arm around the whimpering Eric's shoulder. "Without the play, this experiment is over."

"It's not so bad as that," said Randy, and they all turned to see him emerge from the shadows, dressed like a hero on the cover of a romance novel in tight black trousers, high black boots and a shirt trimmed with lace. His hair moved in a breeze that nobody could feel.

"It's not the end, it's the climax," said Randy. "Time to cap the rising action and ring the curtain down."

"Tired of playing with us?" asked Diane. "Ready to find yourself other toys?"

"You'd be well advised to speak politely to me."

"I'll do anything you want," said Sean. "Just say the word."

"Heel boy, heel," said Bess.

"If you're actually behind all this nonsense," said Howie, "I demand you send us home again now. It stopped being funny a long time ago."

"How would I know?" asked Randy. "How would such as I know when anything stopped being funny?

"I don't understand about humor. I can make a joke, but not laugh at one. I know what's funny in theory. I know what's tragic, in theory. But they do not touch me.

"Tragedy is the greatest mystery of all. We know how you fear death. Yet you enjoy stories about death. Where could the pleasure be in that?

"So I took the greatest tragedy of all and built a laboratory for it. I had more than one reason for doing this, but I wanted to see if you could get the same things out of the story in real experience as you do on the stage."

"And what did you conclude?" asked Bess.

"The jury's still out. I'm afraid I'll have to run the process through to the end."

"I'm not gonna drink poison," said Diane.

"I'll give it to her, if you want me to!" said Sean.

"Shut up, Sean," said Bess.

"Oh, it won't end like the play for you," said Randy. "Hard to stage-manage that. All I need is to see the significant death."

"Significant death," said Will. "What do you mean by that?"

Amlodd spoke up. "A man's death is the last and best gift he can offer the gods." He stood a little apart from the rest of the party, an alien. "Each man should live each day in preparation for his death, so as to have a fine one to offer, as a token of entry to Valhalla."

"Quaint," said Randy. He waved a hand and a door opened in the stone wall. " 'Goodnight, sweet prince,' " he said. "There's your way home."

"To Jutland?"

"Where else? Farewell, 'and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.' "

Amlodd hesitated. "I almost wish I could stay, to see the end."

"You've got your own ending to work out."

Amlodd squared his shoulders. "Farewell then, all of you. You've been . . . amusing. I'll not forget you." He turned toward the door.

Eric made a sudden jump and ran toward him. Amlodd whirled and drew his sword to defend himself, but Eric fell to his knees and grasped Amlodd's legs with bandaged hands.

"Take me with you!" he cried, tears coursing down his cheeks.

"Take you with me?" said Amlodd. "Why would you want to come with me?"

"I want to know how to be a man. Nobody'll show me how to be a man back home. I wanna be like you!"

"You'll never be like me," said Amlodd. "You slew your mother."

"I didn't know any better!"

"You knew. No man ever born was ignorant of that law."

"Don't make me go home to my own time! It's terrible there! I do terrible things there, and nobody stops me! I don't want to do them anymore, but I know I will!"

Amlodd said, "That's true. It would be a vile deed to let such a thing happen."

He stepped back quickly, drawing his sword, and struck off Eric's head. Then he stepped back again to keep his clothes from being soaked in the fountain of blood that shot up and ebbed.

Howie ran toward him, but stopped well clear of sword-length. "You bastard! You son-of-a-bitch! You killed my son!"

"I? It was you slew him. I only ended his misery."

He turned and went out through the door, which vanished once he'd passed through.

Howie fell to his knees, his face in his hands. Diane went to him, knelt, and put her arms around him.

"Amlodd does go home?" asked Will.

"Don't fret, said Randy I sent him back whence he came. He's no further use to me. He'll be king of Denmark, and marry a queen of Scotland, and be killed in battle as he wished, if I recall my Saxo correctly. And if Saxo remembered correctly."

"So you need a significant death," said Will. "Someone has to die."

"Significantly. Someone has to lay down his life in the tragic way."

"You should have kept Amlodd around," said Howie. "That's his meat."

"Exactly why I got rid of him. Amlodd came from a culture that was gaga over significant death. So he's prejudiced. I want to see if a modern person can die the same way. You moderns are so superior. You're past the need to grow your own food. You're past the need to hunt. You're past the need to pray. You think all the necessities of your past are part of an evolutionary stage you've outgrown.

"I want to know if you've outgrown tragedy."

The actors looked at one another.

"I know I have," said Howie.

"I've always been more of a comedic actor," said Sean.

"I object to this whole thing," said Bess.

"It's not a real thing," said Diane. "If it were about some real situation, it would make a difference. But this is just a game you set up."

"Isn't all of life just a game God set up?" asked Randy.

"No, it's just a game," said Howie.

"That's what I want to see," Randy answered. "I want to know if tragedy was just a fashion of an age past, or whether it's something that still holds true. I want to know whether a human being's death can still matter."

"And why should we help you with this experiment?" asked Bess.

"Because if one of you stays, the others may go home."

They all looked at each other.

"I suppose I'm the most expendable of the group; no family, no career to speak of and all that," said Sean. He mused a moment. "I won't do it though."

Will stepped forward. " 'I'll be your foil, Laertes. In mine ignorance your skill shall, like a star i' th' darkest night, stick fiery off indeed.' '' He drew the sword that hung at his side.

Randy smiled. "I knew it would be you, Will."

"You're injured, Will," said Diane. "You've got a broken arm. You can't fight."

" 'I have been in continual practice. I shall win at the odds.' "

"This is crazy," said Bess. "Don't do this, Will. There's got to be another way."

"No. I've been Hamlet. I've been Hamlet. I've lived a life that meant something. I learned things in the ways between the worlds. If I went back with you, and let 'Hamlet' be destroyed, I'd live the rest of my life in a cloud and probably jump off a bridge." He went on guard and said, 'Come on, sir.' "

" 'Come, my lord,' " said Randy.

It was awkward fencing with one arm in a sling, but Will was surprised at how well he managed. He'd learned a thing or two in the sixth century, and Amlodd had clearly been training this body.

Still, he was slow and weak compared to what he'd been used to up till a few minutes ago. Randy's point danced before him. He could feel its sharpness, its taper, the geometric angle of its reverse perspective, growing smaller as it approached.

"The point isn't envenomed, like in the play," said Randy. "Or perhaps it is. I forget."

"I don't think you forget anything," said Will.

Randy had the advantage. He fought aggressively; he did not seem to tire. Will parried and attacked, but found himself going on defense more and more, as his strength drained off.

"You know what this is, don't you?" asked Randy, making a feint and coming at Will from below with a move he barely parried.

"I think it's called a swordfight," said Will, making an attempt at a strong lunge and getting it turned away.

Randy pressed his attack in a flurry of steel. "This is the thing you've fled all your life. This is a commitment."

Will retreated, defending himself desperately. "Fear of commitment. That's a very Oprah thing to say."

"I don't just mean with women, though you have quite a record in that department. What do you fear most in the whole world?"

Will felt an agonizing jab as Randy's point pierced his injured arm. He jerked in response, and got a second jab in the chest muscles. He realized Randy might have killed him, and raised his guard in spite of the pain.

"What would you say, 'a palpable hit'?" asked Randy.

" 'A touch, a touch; I do confess't,' " said Will. "But it's not about points, is it?"

"You know a hawk from a handsaw," said Randy, and he attacked again. Will fought backwards, defending himself.

"You're running from me, Will," said Randy from behind a wasp's swarm of steel flourishes. "Just like you ran from your mother. Just like you've run from everything in your life that looked like it might have some permanence. Well this is death. You don't get more permanent than that."

"I know," said Will, still retreating.

Randy said, "I don't think you'll hold out to the point of death. I think you'll run away."

"So you're not just out to kill me. You're going to hurt me, again and again, until I can't take it anymore, so you can tell . . . whatever passes for friends in your world—"

Randy drove his point into Will's right upper thigh. Will dropped to one knee, then struggled onto both feet again.

"Friends," said Randy. "Another story you humans tell yourselves. Like love and loyalty and tragedy. All lies you've invented to make your meaningless lives bearable."

"So I'm here to defend the honor of the whole human race?"

"There is no honor. Run away. I'll send you home, and only you and I will know what we proved."

"If I did run away, it wouldn't prove anything."

"It would prove it to me, and to you. That's enough for me. It comes down to blood and judgment. It's always blood and judgment.

"Your human blood is all sweet and sentimental and needy. Your blood tells you, I need love. I need people. I need to trade my personal freedom for the warmth and security of a family. 

"But your judgment says, stay free. Keep your autonomy. Don't let yourself get trapped in something that might get uncomfortable. 

"If you listen to your blood, you regret it the rest of your life—you're trapped. If you listen to your judgment, you regret it the rest of your life—you're alone.

"Whatever you do, you lose. And that, my friends, is the meaning of life."

He lunged and set the point of his rapier to Will's throat.

Will stood his ground, and looked him in the eye.

"Yes, it's blood and judgment," he said, smiling.

"But it's not just the blood that wants love. The judgment knows we need it too. And as often as not it's the blood that's hurt and frightened, and running away from love.

"It's not one on one side and one on the other. The line runs right down the middle of both parts. It's physical and it's spiritual, and they're both broken.

"So I had to find something that wasn't broken—blood that was whole blood; judgment that was whole judgment.

"I found it. I found it hiding in plain sight, right where everybody said it was. Blood and judgment; flesh and spirit; God and man; death and resurrection. I learned there was such a thing as love; after that it all came together."

"How very touching."

"If I don't impress you, I apologize. But I can do one thing to beat any trick you've got. I can die."

He braced himself for the thrust he expected.

Instead the point fell away. He saw Randy step back.

"It's all academic," Randy said, raising his arm in a dramatic gesture.

The floor began to shake and the shaking rose to a rumble. A crack appeared in the stone floor, separating Will and Randy from the others by a crevice about three feet wide.

"We spoke of a vacuum which sucked you all into this world," said Randy. "To let you all go would create another such vacuum. This vacuum would destroy the story of Hamlet forever. You were right. This is Hamlet's world. My placing the Kyd book in your world destroyed it, and created the vacuum that drew you all here.

"If any of you were to stay, save one, it would not be enough to hold this world together. Only Hamlet will do. Only Hamlet's presence will save the play.

"I will not kill you, Will. I need you, here.

"Somewhere in history we will find new actors to play the drama out. This rehearsal—this adventure with these people—was a good start, but it was not enough. We followed the outline of the story, but we improvised the lines.

"The next run-through will be better. It will be closer to the script.

"Then there will be another run-through and another, each with a new set of actors, save only you and me. Each time the actors will come closer to Shakespeare's script, not through memorization and rehearsal, but through the power of the story itself, winding about itself again and again in time like an electrical transformer.

"In the end—perhaps years, perhaps centuries hence—the play will be re-created word for word.

"Then you and I will fight in earnest.

"Then we shall slay one another."

"I thought you could not die," said Will.

"One thing is more powerful than the curse of Cain," said Randy. "I believe that the power of a tragedy can grant me the death I crave; the death I deserve. If I stand in Laertes' shoes, and the inexorable force of the story demands my death, then I must die."

Will said, "But you'll let these others go."

" 'You cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal—except my life.' "

"I'm not going without Will," said Diane from across the rift.

"You don't get a say," said Randy. He waved and there was a stone wall where the rift had been.

"They're back safe and sound?" asked Will.

"Safe as houses. Safe as prisons. Safe as the miserable little lives they're mired in. Epsom, Minnesota will not lose its entire artistic soul.

"But you stay here with me. You and I shall do a thousand performances or more of Hamlet. They tell me Hell's a lot like that—the same mistake repeated over and over."

"So I've heard. Do I get a chance to recover from my wounds? I'm bleeding here. If I bleed to death or die of infection, you'll have to find another Hamlet."

"Yes, all right." Randy waved his hand and Will felt a prickly warmth course through his body. He knew at once that his injuries were gone. His arm didn't hurt anymore, and he unbound his splints. He flexed the hand. It felt good.

"You should have been a doctor," he said. "You might have learned that it's pleasant to help people."

"Relieve pain and death? The very things I long to experience?"

"You could experience them vicariously."

"I'm not a voyeur, thank you very much."

"You? I'd call you the most intense form of voyeur."

"You're stretching the definition. 'Tacteur' might be a better word, if it is a word."

"It really is all academic to you, isn't it?"

"That's what I've been telling you."

"I can't say I honestly look forward to spending the next few centuries in your company."

"Already the commitment anxiety?"

Will sighed. "I guess so. Not much to be done about it now."

"Well, if you want to be alone, like Greta Garbo, I have some good news for you. I have to go locate a new cast."

"How long will that take?"

"Hard to say. You think Time's relative in your home universe? You ain't seen nothin' compared to this one."

Randy vanished.

Will sat alone in the dim hall.

Of a sudden he missed Randy.

"Why should it bother me?" he asked himself aloud. "This is what I've labored for all my life. This is the treasure I laid up for myself in eternity."

It had been a mercy, he thought, to learn now what a bad course he'd been on. Some people never learned it till they were too old to try anything else.

The half-darkness did not change. He sat with his back against a wall, lost in thought. Occasionally he imagined being left here permanently alone, duped by one final trick of Randy's. He fought down the feeling and prayed for peace.

The sound, when he grew aware of it, had already been in his ears for some time. It was something like voices, and something like music. It was, in fact, both voices and music.

Will rose and followed the sound. It was loudest at a point where he found a door in the wall—one he hadn't noticed before. He put his hand on the latch and pulled it open.

The door opened to a courtyard under the sky. There was nothing unfinished or devolved about any of it. The courtyard was of dressed stone, surrounded by high windows through which women and children watched.

Through the yard paraded a motley congregation of men, old and young. They wore jerkins and galligaskins and hose, many sporting soft caps with feathers in them. Some of their clothing was ragged, most of it was patched, but the colors were bright, reds and yellows and greens, and the wearers danced and leaped and walked on their hands. Some of them wore ribbons and some of them wore bells. Some of them played tamborines or wooden rattles.

Will knew them right away. He could not mistake them. They were his brothers, though he was much their junior.

They were actors.

In a moment he was in the midst of them, and they seemed to know him too, for they smiled and laughed with him, and somebody clapped him on the shoulder.

He turned to see a smiling face with a wine-red birthmark covering the left cheek. "Welcome, brother!" the man said. He offered him a skin of wine, and Will took a pull from it.

"Where are we going?" Will asked.

"We're going to see the king!"

"What fun! Is the king expecting us?"

"Not that I know of. But his nephew loves plays."

"So you think we'll be welcome?"

"Who knows? Sometimes they welcome us with hot food and purses of silver. Sometimes they drive us out with brickbats and offal. That's what makes it interesting!"

Will laughed.

They turned a corner and approached the entrance to the great hall, where four men stood talking to one another at the top of the great stairway.

One of the men was old with a long beard. The other three were young men. Tallest of them was a fair-haired man with a small beard, dressed all in black. He looked a little like Kenneth Branagh, a little like Richard Burton, a little like Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, a little like John Barrymore and a little like Edwin Booth.

The old man was saying,

"The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men."

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Framed