"Ridiculous!" I snapped. "You can't make things happen just by talking!

Is peak of that to Madison Avenue," he retorted. "'Twas you put her down there, did you not?"

I just glared at him. I always hated it when the other guy was right.

But he was right-so I sighed and called down into the hole, "The day doth daw, the cock doth craw, The channering worm doth chide!

'Gin you must be out of this place, Though in sore pain you may bide!"

And she was standing beside the hole, looking about her in surprise that very quickly became major fear. "How-how did you achieve that?"

"By poetry," I said impatiently, "or at least a very, very old folk song. What's the matter-don't you even know the rules of your own universe? " She shook her head, faster and faster, stepping away from me, hands coming up to fend me off. "I know only the rules of good and evil! " That stonkered me. "Then how did you work magic?"

"Why, by reciting the spells my mas ... doomer gave me."

Rote memorization. Parrotlike repetition. Coincidence and association. She hadn't understood anything about what she was doing.

No wonder she was a minor functionary. "There are other rules," I said.

Then I remembered. "But you don't need to know them any more."

"'Tis true." Her hands came down. "All I need now is the justice of God, and the need for faith in Him."

Suddenly, she was on her knees, clutching at my jeans. "And 'tis you who have rekindled that faith! 'Tis you who have cured my soul of the curdled anger called hatred, that did drag it down! 'Tis you who have freed me to suffer for the right and seek to aid my fellow creatures! Oh, a thousand thanks, young Wizard, and a thousand blessings!" Then she remembered herself and dropped her hands. "If the blessings of a corrupted soul may be of benefit to you."

I was hugely relieved. I just don't like having things clutching at me-unless they're young, female, and shapely; and even then I'm wary. This one may have been female, but she was anything but beautiful, and I could have sworn she was growing older by the second.

"Your soul shines like newly minted silver," my angel said.

I looked up at him, startled. Compliments were one thing, but this ...

Then I realized he was prompting me. "Say it yourself," I snapped.

"No way am I going to deliver a line like that!"

"To whom do you talk? " Sobaka quavered.

I looked down at her, then looked up quickly at the angel. No, he was still there. "Him," I said, pointing. "Can't you see?"

She looked where I was pointing, and fear creased her wrinkled face, not that it made much difference. "Nay," she said. "There is none there."

"Well, there is," I sighed, "even if he's invisible to you."

"A familiar!" Her tones quaked.

"No, an angel," I said quickly, and started improvising; anything to give her the guts to keep going. "You've got one, too, and he-"

"She," my angel prompted.

"She," I corrected. Maybe the Quakers had been right. "She is watching you every second."

Sobaka glanced around her, fear turning into wonder on her face.

"Can you see her?"

"No," I said, "but she's there."

"She is very happy just now," my angel informed me.

"She's very happy just now," I told Sobaka. "Don't make her sad again, okay?"

"Oh, I shall not!" She turned away, heading off downslope. "Oh, bless you, unseen angel, for never having despaired of me! Oh, stand by me and lend me strength, for I now must undergo the strongest trials of my life!" She turned back to call to me. "Ever shall I praise you in my prayers, healer of my soul!"

I shuddered, but managed to fake a smile. "Pay it back to other people," I called. "You don't have much time left. Better get busy.

" "I shall! Oh, I shall!" And she headed off down the hill, caroling her joy.

I winced; a singer, she wasn't. "At the rate she's aging," I muttered, "I don't think she'll even make it to the bottom of the hill."

"Even if she dies, she will be on the road to Heaven," my angel assured me. "Her angel thanks you, too."

"Tell her she's welcome." I turned to him, frowning. "So angels come in sexes, too?"

"Well, no," he admitted, "but it makes you humans think of us more easily if we seem to. You term it 'identification' and 'selfimage.' Call it 'gender.' " "Identification!" I looked up, understanding something I'd been wondering about. "So that's why you've dropped the 'thee' and 'thou' form.

"That you might better understand me, aye."

"Understand, my foot! You want me to identify with you, to e mulate you! Hey, I'm not even supposed to be able to see you!"

"You did call upon me," he reminded.

"And Sobaka didn't, so she couldn't see her angel? Is that who you were talking to, about whether or not to get her out of the hole or let her die, "Her guardian angel, yes." He nodded. "You have made three most happy today."

"Three?" I looked around, frowning. "I only count two-Sobaka, and her guardian angel. if you say so."

"Three," he said proudly. "Count me, also. You have struck a blow for the angels today, Saul. You are on our side, after all."

Why did that send such a thrill of panic through my veins? Why did I snap out, "No way! If I did something that worked for your side, it's just because it was the right thing to do under the circumstances!

Don't bet I'll do it again! If something else comes up that I think is right, I'll do it, even if it's for the other side-by your rules!"

A look of apprehension crossed his face. "Nay, nay! Do not sin for no reason other than my having said you are on the side of the angels! "

"Very funny," I said bitterly, "considering who's talking. If it seems right, I'll do it, even if it's against your side-but don't worry, I won't murder, loot, or rape, just to keep from signing up with your team, either. I won't go out of my way to commit what you think is wrong." I turned on my heel and stalked away.

"You have lied," he called after me, "with that speech."

"See?" I said over my shoulder. "I've started already."

Chapter Four.

The nice thing about being past Sobaka's checkpoint was that I was able to keep on trudging up-slope. I didn't know where I was going, except that it felt right-especially since it was out of her domain.

Maybe, if I was lucky, I could get out of this massive hallucination.

Or else find Matt ...

Another nice thing about getting up in the world, was that I kept stretching out the sunset. Finally, I came to a pass at the top of the mountain. Down below me, the valley was in shadow-twilight, to them.

I could even see a few lights appearing-fires of some sort.

Maybe smoke-holes in huts? Had these people invented the chimney yet?

Then I looked up and saw one of the most glorious sunsets of my life. The only ones to beat it had been out in the Great Plains, where the landscape is mostly sky. Here, I was high enough up to have a lot of sky again, though not quite as much. Everything looked golden and rose, every mountaintop-and there were a lot of mountaintops.

I wondered where I was-the Pyrenees? The Alps? Was I even in Europe?

Or even on Terra?

I shelved that thought, but it shook me enough so that I stopped contemplating the sunset, I turned back to the pass, saw its huge granite walls towering to either side, and decided I wanted to be through it before the light completely failed. I hurried, with a wary eye above me, glancing from side to side-I'd heard that mountain eers, historically, tended to be rather territorial. I'd also heard that they had reasons. But if they were watching, I guess they figured I was no threat, or was too small a fly to swat, because nothing happened. in fact, the only living creature I saw was a kind of mountain goat, who watched me for a while, then jumped into a shadow and disappeared. He was beautiful, but the experiences of the day made it seem rather spooky.

So, as I came to the other end of the pass, I was wondering what I was going to do about being alone in a strange country, in what was promising to be an extremely dark night.

I was very glad to see the camp fires below me.

Not very far below, and I could tell they were camp fires, because of the tents. But the hallucination was still on-the men between the tents and the fires were wearing armor covered by long white tabards, and leading Percherons.

l sighed, squared my weary shoulders, and started the downhill hike.

One of the younger ones looked up, saw me, and called out, "Stranger!" He lugged out a sword the size of the Eiffel Tower and brandished it as he came toward me, demanding, "Friend or foe?"

"Either one," I snapped-that sword got my back up. "Take your choice."

He frowned at me-it wasn't one of the expected answers. But his buddies dropped what they were doing and came clustering around; I hadn't seen that much steel in one place since I'd crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. "Declare yourself," one of the older ones demanded.

That was exactly what I had been trying not to do. "Saul Delacroix Bremener," I told them, and nothing more.

"Saul Delacroix?" He frowned at his companions. "Named for the king or the apostle, and one of the cross."

"But Paul was not of the cross," one of the others objected. "He never knew the Savior, in life."

"Still, 'tis a goodly name," another said, then moved aside quickly as a tall, broad-bodied man with grizzled hair stepped through.

He had a face like tanned leather and a jaw like a vise. The commander, at a guess.

He looked me up and down and pronounced, "His attire is odd, but he has no horse or arms. He cannot be a gentleman; he must be a peasant." Then he turned away, dismissing me with a gesture. "Let him stay; but he must draw water and fetch wood for the fire." He glanced back at me. "See to it, fellow."

The command did it. "Peasant" got to me, and the bit about menial labor made it worse-but the command made my anger turn cold and active.

"Fetch it yourself," I snapped. "I may be a commoner, but I'm no serf-and I am a gentleman." Which was true, on a technicality-I was a scholar, after all. By their standards.

"Oho!" A glint came into the commander's eye. "If you are a gentleman, then you are a gentleman-at-arms-for there is no other sort!

" Great. To be a gentle man, you had to be capable of violence.

oddly, the idea appealed to me; it fit into my configurational pattern of contradictory concepts. Hypocrite? Who, me? I just calls 'em as I sees 'em.

"Yet he is clearly not a knight, or he would wear a sword. Ho, Gilbert! You aspire to knighthood-prove yourself! Test this stranger for Me! I1 A kid with only a small sword grinned and stepped up to me, dropping into a wrestler's crouch and beckoning.

I was appalled. He was at least six years younger than me, certainly still a teenager, and the top of his head was bald. "You've got a tonsure!" I said.

"All monks do," he agreed.

"But you're a knight!"

"Only a squire." His lip curled at my ignorance. "I am not yet worthy of my final vows. Will you fight, or talk?

Well. Monks were obviously different here than they were at home.

I dropped into karate stance, circling my hands and coming up ready to catch or chop. "Ready."

He stared at my actions, then frowned and lunged.

He telegraphed the move-I saw the half step forward on the leftbut I resisted the urge to dodge, staying in to test the waters, so to speak.

He hit, and he hit hard. it was like slamming into an opening door.

He grabbed me in a bear hug and hoisted-it had to be the crudest move I'd run into since grade school.

But effective-he was very strong. I found myself rising high, then slamming down at the ground, while all around me, those monkscum-knights were cheering.

I twisted, landing on my side, and rolling back up to my feet to see the kid grinning as he came back in for more. But this time, I sidestepped at the last second. "That was your freebie," I told him.

"Now I get my turn."

He didn't like that; he turned with a bellow and charged. I grabbed his arm and turned, put a hip against his, and flipped him. He swung up and down like a Ferris wheel. I figured he wouldn't know how to fall, so I held on to his arm and pulled up, to make sure he landed on his side, without too much force. The knights rumbled at that-they didn't like the look of it. I let go, and the kid scrambled to his feet again, face red, boiling mad.

Good. Angry, he'd make mistakes.

But he didn't charge again; he was smart enough not to make the same error twice. He shuffled in, hands circling, hunched over, watching for an opening.

I decided to give him one. I dropped my guard and put my hands on my hips, looking exasperated.