"I don't know," said Merlin. "But hereafter, Joby, since it seems you're granted a hereafter after all, I hope you'll try asking help of anyone you can, instead of going through everything so stubbornly alone."

"I'm sorry," Joby said. "From now on, I will, but, Grampa, if you wanted me to ask for help, how come you made us think that you were dead?"

"Ah, my boy," Merlin answered, weary with regret. "In my infinite wisdom, I imagined I would be of more use to you that way." He shook his head. "By my arts, I saw some trouble coming to my daughter and her child, though not what it would be, and disastrously supposed that I'd be better able to act on your behalf unencumbered by the need to pretend I was just a normal man." He looked at Joby sadly. "Do you know the thing I wanted most for your mother, and for you?"

Joby shook his head.

"A normal life," said Merlin. "That was all."

Joby hugged him then, wringing tears from Merlin's aged eyes again.

"That book was my favorite possession, you know," said Joby.

"I know," Merlin said, seeing no need to tell him it had been made to be.

Suddenly, they were not alone. Joby gaped as Michael stood before them in full angelic glory, as if "Jake" were made of diamond now, with hair of fluid gold and massive wings shot through with rainbow, soft and white as pure sea foam.

"We are commanded to attend Him," said the angel in a gentle voice filled with music, and with a sadness Merlin could discern, though Joby likely wouldn't.

"Who?" said Joby, very much in awe. Then, "You mean . . . Him?"

Michael nodded, stretched out his hand, and opened up a gateway in the air, through which, instead of burning wreckage, they beheld a glade of soft green grass bedecked with flowers and ringed in giant trees. "Come," said Michael. "He waits."

Merlin yearned to ask the angel if he knew what judgment was awaiting them, but didn't waste the time, doubting Joby understood a fraction of the moment conveyed in that simple phrase, He waits.

Gabriel stood, one last time, he feared, at the right hand of his Lord, while Lucifer glared angrily from the left side of the clearing, commanded to await Michael's return in silence. Between them, the Creator waited on a mossy tree bowl, guised just as He had been in Joby's dream nearly thirty years before.

When Michael reappeared before them with Joby and Merlin, Lucifer gaped at Joby, looking apoplectic, though the Creator's command still held him shut.

"My Lord," said Michael, dropping to one knee and bowing his radiant head.

Behind him Merlin did the same, and Joby too, after staring in amazement at the very "Arthur" he obviously remembered having known and loved in childhood.

"Should friendship be hobbled by such formality, Sir Joby?" the Creator said, smiling. "Rise, and add the pleasure of your countenance to that of your courtesy."

Joby looked up slowly, and stared some more.

"You are allowed to speak," the Creator chided.

"What . . . should I call You, Sir?" Joby murmured.

"Certainly not that." The Creator grimaced. "What would you like to call Me?"

"You . . . aren't Arthur," Joby said.

"No, I am not," the Creator said quietly. "You know that now. As I recall, you always hoped that Arthur would return." He shrugged happily. "Now you have."

"I liked it better, though, when You were Arthur," said Joby, still bewildered. "Would it be all right if I just call You Lord?"

"If you find that comfortable." The Creator smiled.

"Lord it is, then," Joby said uncertainly. "Do You always look like this?"

"Only for you," the Creator said, beckoning Joby to His side. "Come sit beside Me, Joby. Let us talk the way we used to. I've badly missed our conversations."

Joby came somewhat fearfully and sat down beside the Creator. "We're on the Garden Coast, aren't we," he said, his eyes darting at all the unlikely things and persons around him. "But this is where we came to talk that day too . . . or night, I guess, isn't it?"

"That's right," said the Creator. "And have you guessed yet what this place really is?" When Joby shook his head, the Creator said, "One of a few very precious remnants scattered through this world of a much larger garden you have probably heard called Eden, preserved for Me down through the eons by a few of My favorite people."

"I'm . . . not sure of this," said Joby looking uncomfortably at Lucifer, "but I think he may want to burn it down."

Lucifer made a strangling sound as if he might be going to rupture.

"Ah yes," the Creator sighed, "there is so much we should discuss, but first, I fear, we must endure one last spate of lies. Lucifer, you may speak now."

"I won!" the devil shouted, as if uncorked. "I claim victory by default!"

"On what grounds this time?" the Creator asked wearily.

"Well, look at You!" Lucifer gasped. "Even You are interfering now! There are years left before this wager's over! You've violated the most fundamental term of our-"

"The wager ended hours ago," the Creator cut in firmly. "Lucifer, you killed the candidate. Our terms made that part very clear," he turned to Gabe, "did they not?"

"That Lucifer not deprive the candidate of life itself or the power to choose unless and until the boy's unequivocal failure has been confirmed before valid witness," Gabriel said. "That was the term agreed to."

"And was Joby deprived of life itself by My opponent?" the Creator asked.

"Obviously not!" Lucifer blurted out before Gabe could answer. "There he is in front of You, quite alive!"

"Was he dead?" the Creator asked Gabe, patiently.

"He was," Gabe said. "I saw him on the path, myself."

"There you are." The Creator shrugged, turning back to Lucifer. "He was dead, but now he's not. . . . You seem to have a lot of trouble with that concept."

Lucifer began to tremble like a broken steam engine. "Surely," he protested, "You're not going to pretend this contest was anything like fair!"

"On that, I must agree." The Creator nodded. "It was hardly fair to anyone but you, who could do anything you liked, while all the rest of us were required to sit bound and gagged, just watching."

"Are You pretending anybody actually did as so required?" Lucifer shrilled.

"I did," said the Creator. "And your wager was with Me. We've been over all this before. If you've nothing new to say, I'd like to move along to more pleasant matters."

"Oh no," Lucifer growled. "No indeed. There are still some very unpleasant things to tend to, and if You think I'm going to walk quietly away with even one of them undone, You're not half as omniscient as You claim."

"Believe Me, Lucifer," the Creator sighed, "you're the last one I'd expect to leave an unpleasant thing undone. What is it that you think is left?"

Lucifer blinked, and stared. "You may think to get away with claiming victory where none was had," he said in righteous indignation, "but at the very least, I have some damages to collect before I go. Their souls belong to me now! All three of them, by indelible rights far older than any wager we have ever made! You know how long You'll last if You violate those rules. You'll have no authority at all! You'll be as impotent-"

"As you," the Creator finished for him coldly. "I'm aware of that."

"Well?" Lucifer demanded, breathing hard and smiling most unpleasantly. "You speak of truth and fairness, of rules and technicalities meticulously observed. Now it's time, My Lord, to demonstrate Your vaunted impartiality and justice or give up any pretense of the moral authority that is Your only claim to rule. I want them damned, just as I was damned, for disobeying Your will."

"Did they?" the Creator asked levelly, his wide gray eyes fixed unapologetically on Lucifer's incredulous face.

Lucifer looked around at all the other gaping faces in the clearing as if expecting them to share his outrage. "Don't be absurd! Everyone here is well aware of the countless times Your two pet angels and this hoary old enchanter have violated Your command against uninvited intervention! That one," he spat whirling to point at Merlin, "has been at it since masquerading as a hag clear back in Berkeley!"

Gabe saw Joby give his grandfather a startled look.

"Ah, then as you, yourself, admit," the Creator said, "it was only my command they violated. Not my will." He shrugged. "I will concede that, had they disappointed me by doing otherwise, I doubt you could have lost this wager, Lucifer."

Gabriel turned to stare in confusion at his Master, as did everyone else in the clearing-even his unflappable brother, Michael.

"What kind of . . . insanity . . . is that?" Lucifer choked out.

"When you first proposed this wager at that cafe in New England," the Creator said with frightening severity, "you suggested-no, insisted very firmly-that my creation was inherently corrupt. 'The rot in this insufferable contrivance of Yours has gone clear to the core.' I think those were your exact words. I disagreed, as you'll recall, and when you proposed your wager, saw My chance to settle what seemed to Me a very important question. Was the core of My creation inherently corrupt?

"While you set out to prove that, if I let you bring all Hell down on the shoulders of one barely suspecting boy, for half a lifetime, without any interference, he'd do something very naughty, I chose to wager something more imaginative. I was betting that, at the core, My creation was so soundly imbued with the laws of love and faith, compassion and real justice, that even if I, Myself, should command it to ignore those laws, it would still not do so."

The Creator smiled at everyone around the clearing with unbearable affection and . . . was that gratitude? "At your urging, Lucifer," the Creator said quietly, "for the first and only time in all of time, I uttered a command that did not express My will. And not one person in this clearing violated My will to keep that command." The Creator turned first to Michael, then to Gabriel, and said, "Not even you, my angels, who have so seldom been required to think for yourselves in all these many eons."

"But, Lord," Gabriel stammered, "if You wanted us to think for ourselves, why didn't You just ask us to?"

The Creator looked at him, a bit nonplussed. "Ah well," he sighed. "As I recall, Rome was not built in a day." He smiled at Gabriel with great fondness and sympathy, and said, "You are often much too anxious, my beloved friend, but I am very grateful to you for having been so quick to put love before blind law. Never give yourself to despair again, Gabe. I do not abandon anyone who has not very clearly wished Me to."

Seeming unable to summon words sufficient to the occasion, Lucifer released a gurgling shriek, and began to jump up and down like an angry child, stamping flat the grass beneath his feet. "But, it's not fair!" he raged. "You can't let them all go when You threw all of us in Hell for-"

"I know you're very disappointed," the Creator said, as one might try to soothe a child, "but don't you see it-still? These others only disobeyed My command because they love all that I love." A deep sadness crossed the Creator's face. "You, on the other hand, have always hated what I love, even on those rare occasions when you do obey My commands, and you know very well I didn't make the Hell you live in."

When Lucifer opened his mouth to object, the Creator waved a finger. "Don't waste the breath. The others I cast to earth with you made of their confinement this very paradise that surrounds us now. You could easily have done the same, and still may do so, if you will. Even now, I make you the offer I made them. You could all return to Heaven once again."

"If you are referring, Sir," Lucifer sneered through clenched teeth, "to that offensive invitation to surrender my divinity for the paltry honor of mingling with the hoi polloi at your little club, my answer remains the same. I will never suffer death," he proclaimed defiantly, "nor validate the kind of imperfection You indulge. I'll persist until I have succeeded in prying open those loving eyes of Yours to the truth about how flawed, and, yes, inherently corrupt, this anthill of yours is! Then, You will owe me an apology!"

"Very well." The Creator sighed. "But, since you're so concerned with perfect observances, I will hold you to every last detail of what we wagered, including your offer to abort those 'messy, messy,' conflicts you were planning."

"Have I any power to refuse?" Lucifer replied stiffly.

The Creator shook his head. "You'd better go then. I'm afraid you have a pretty messy house awaiting you. By way of friendly warning, there are some among your minions who feel you acted rather precipitously when you killed Joby several years ahead of schedule. They seem to think your timing was a little off."

Lucifer turned in smoldering rage to face the others in the clearing. "You were all in this together from the start, and I will make certain no one is left in Heaven or Hell who doesn't see very clearly what you have done!"

"That's very generous of you," the Creator said. "Now, if you'll leave without further histrionics, I won't tell your loyal servants back in Hell what you'd have done with them, had they succeeded in helping to secure your victory."

Lucifer paled, and vanished in an instant.

"My Lord," said Michael deferentially, still on one knee when Lucifer had gone, "we are . . . none of us, to be . . . punished then?"

"What for?" said the Creator. "Failing to sacrifice all that I love most, even to spare yourselves damnation? What kind of employer would punish such behavior?" He shook His head. "Punishment has rarely much to do with justice anyway."

Gabriel sat heavily on the mossy bowl behind him, so weak with inexpressible relief that, were angels capable of unconsciousness, he might well have fainted.

"None of you can know how long I've waited for this day!" the Creator chuckled. "Michael, stand, and look at Me." When Michael did so, He said, "The love I know you've always born Me, dear old friend, is at last truly perfected. Can you not see that?"

Michael gazed at him a moment, then turned back to look at Merlin, who was grinning like a simpleton. Then both of them were laughing, though Michael's laughter soon faltered, and he turned back to face his Master. "There were children that I should have saved," he said, with obvious remorse.

"Yes, there were," the Creator replied gravely. "You did not know that at the time, and you do know now that they are well provided for and happy where they are."

To Gabe's surprise, his Master turned to Joby then, and said severely, "Stop that now. The time for such lies is past." When Joby looked up startled, the Creator said more gently, "Of course I hear you. I have never, for a second, ceased listening to your heart. Not in all these years. Ben had suffered much graver injuries than a pair of broken legs, Joby. If not for your desire that he should live, he would have died much earlier that night. His life had run its proper course. The Cup had shown him this, though he didn't understand until that moment all of what he'd seen. He already knew then who all of you had been before, and knew he mustn't stay to put Guinevere through all of that again. The choice was his that night, despite you, Joby, as it should have been." As He reached out to embrace Joby, the young man buried his face in the Creator's robes and cried as freely as a child. "You've been trained to think in such disastrous ways," the Creator said in quiet sadness. "And yet you never ceased to try, through so much disappointment, so many twisted outcomes. Everything My fallen angel ever taught you about yourself is lies, My beloved champion. You did very, very well."

"But I saved nothing," Joby wept. "Ben, and Laura, Hawk and Gypsy, all of Taubolt. Everything I ever loved is lost. I did nothing but survive!"

"Sometimes," the Creator said, "just surviving takes far greater strength and courage than winning glorious victories does. Sometimes just surviving is the greatest victory anyone can ask. Now, though, it is time to heal the wounds you've suffered in My service. Stay here with Me awhile in this Garden, and feed your heart, Sir Joby."

Joby idly arranged the objects on his desk again, though they'd been straightened countless times already. It had been a maddeningly quiet day at the counseling center.

Gazing out his office window, Joby started picking out people on the street and trying to imagine what their lives were like. So many of them, he supposed, must have wives or husbands to whom they said, "hello," each morning, and "good night," each evening; children who jumped into their arms when they got home. Maybe that one had played basketball or soccer back in high school, confident and content with himself as he'd gone off to college. Had he enjoyed a normal sex life, found a normal job, fallen normally in love and had a normal family-and taken his marvelously normal life all for granted? Objectively, Joby knew that all these people's lives were composed as much of loneliness and frustration as of brighter things; and a great deal more boredom than he himself had been subjected to for quite some time. Still, he couldn't lose the feeling that being normal must be more wonderful than anyone who'd been so ever suspected. At the very least they all belonged in so many ways that Joby never would.

Turning from the window, Joby had to concede that his life had not been dull or meaningless. How many people could claim to have helped save the world, or had their lives explained to them, face-to-face, by God? He was sure that most would gladly throw their normal lives right out the window to have anything at all explained to them by God. But they didn't really know what that would mean, did they, any more than he would ever really know what being normal meant to them.

He gazed into the middle distance and shook his head. . . . He really had talked with God. . . . Face-to-face. . . . That would never cease to astonish him. And he had been a king in ancient England too . . . and still remembered most of it. He had put the Grail to his lips-at least once, maybe twice. He often longed to drink from it again, but once or twice would have to do, he suspected. He had befriended fairies, and seen a patch of Eden, and palled around with angels, and, oh yes, been Merlin's grandson. The Merlin! He'd even been dead, and gotten to come back-a couple times-knowing now that there was nothing all that frightening about dying, if you'd lived even a little well.

He drew a heavy sigh.

Ironically, all that was just the problem. Having done so much before the age of forty, what was left to occupy all of his remaining years-especially as it seemed his heritage was causing him to age so much more slowly than most. He'd once have thought that talking face-to-face with God would leave every mystery and problem solved, but it had only left him with a whole new set of even broader mysteries and a lot of insight that explained, but somehow didn't change, so many things. The Creator had implied that Joby had unfinished business still ahead of him, but had refused to say what any of it was. Joby was still waiting for some clue.

He caught himself straightening his desk again, and almost slapped the guilty hand.

When the subject of reward had been broached, Joby had first asked if all the children killed in Taubolt might be brought back to life, but the Creator had explained that they'd each accomplished what they'd lived to do, and were already deeply tied to marvelous new lives, which they would likely leave as reluctantly as they had left their last ones. When Joby had asked about being allowed to live his own life over as it should have been without the wager, the Creator had conceded even that was possible, if Joby truly wished it. But then He'd pointed out that doing so would mean undoing all that Joby had accomplished, putting all those lives, not to mention all that angelic evolution, back at risk until someone else had succeeded or failed as the wager's candidate in his place. Joby had not, for an instant, entertained any thought of putting all creation back at risk just to get his own little pig-in-the-poke back. And the thought of choosing to put someone else through what had been done to him was . . . just not thinkable.

There was only one other thing that Joby truly wanted now: another chance with Laura and his son. He wanted them back desperately, but had quickly realized how awful it would feel to think they might be with him only because the Creator had somehow compelled it. The Creator had sadly concurred that Joby would have to win them back himself or, if that failed, accept that loss with all his others.

So far, however, Joby hadn't even found them. He was immensely grateful now that Hawk had left him just before the end, still shuddering to imagine his son caught up in what had happened, but when Joby had tried calling Laura, the number Hawk had given him was disconnected with no forwarding number. So, he simply waited now, praying that one of them would find him, though unsure of how they'd go about that either.

After Taubolt's destruction, Joby had said good-bye to his grandfather, whom the Creator had kept behind for some mysterious other business, and returned to Berkeley. There he'd found Sarina raising her and Gypsy's son and running this nonprofit counseling center. Joby hadn't even known that she was pregnant when he'd fled town after Gypsy's death and had feared at first that she might despise him for having left without so much as a goodbye, but she'd just been delighted to see him again, and offered him work screening her new clients. He'd told her very little of what had really happened to him in the intervening years, sure that if he'd done so she'd just have offered him services rather than employment.

His desk well straightened now, Joby went out to the waiting room to find a magazine, smiling to discover more headlines about the sudden cessation of hostilities between India and Pakistan, and the wave of reconciliation spreading across Africa. No, for all he'd lost, he'd have changed nothing, knowing what he did now.

Which was not to say that he'd avoided the "Why me?" syndrome altogether.

In the Garden, the Creator had shown Joby not only how deeply he had been deceived, but how his parents' lives had been manipulated too, leaving Joby filled both with grief and gratitude for all they had endured on his behalf. He visited them often now, as close to them as he had been before the bad old days had started. But when he watched them loving each other in their countless little ways, Joby found it hard to imagine ever finding such a love himself. Not anymore.

"'Scuse me, man. You the guy I'm s'posed to see for counselin'?"

Joby looked up to see a tall black man standing in the center's entrance. His tattered clothing did nothing to diminish his athletic build and chiseled features. His large brown eyes seemed more fitting for a doe than for a man. This guy could leave the streets to do modeling work tomorrow, Joby thought, not that he'd ever be caught suggesting such a line of work to anyone again.

"I'm the guy you see before the counselor," Joby said. "Come into my office."

When the man had seated himself, staring around with wide-eyed fascination at the office's rather dull furnishings, Joby handed him the first of several forms. "Just basic information," Joby said, "to give us an idea of what your skills and background are, the issues you want to work on with us, that sort of thing. You want any help filling this out, just ask." A lot of their clients had trouble reading or writing.