Eventually one of the stable servants came up to him.

"What are you doing here, novice?" he demanded.

"I am going to Ephebe," said Brutha.

The man glared at him and then grinned.

"You? You're not even ordained! You're going to Ephebe?"

"Yes."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because I told him so," said the voice of Vorbis, behind the man. "And here he is, most obedient to my wishes."

Brutha had a good view of the man's face. The change in his expression was like watching a grease slick cross a pond. Then the stableman turned as though his feet were nailed to a turntable.

"My Lord Vorbis," he oiled.

"And now he will require a steed," said Vorbis.

The stableman's face was yellow with dread.

"My pleasure. The very best the sta-”

"My friend Brutha is a humble man before Om," said Vorbis. "He will ask for no more than a mule, I have no doubt. Brutha?"

"I-I do not know how to ride, my lord," said Brutha.

"Any man can get on a mule," said Vorbis. "Often many times in a short distance. And now, it would appear, we are all here?"

He raised an eyebrow at the sergeant of the guard, who saluted.

"We are awaiting General Fri'it, lord," he said.

"Ah. Sergeant Simony, isn't it?"

Vorbis had a terrible memory for names. He knew every one. The sergeant paled a little, and then saluted crisply.

"Yes! Sir!"

"We will proceed without General Fri'it," said Vorbis.

The B of the word "But" framed itself on the sergeant's lips, and faded there.

"General Fri'it has other business," said Vorbis. "Most pressing and urgent business. Which only he can attend to."

Fri'it opened his eyes in grayness.

He could see the room around him, but only faintly, as a series of edges in the air.

The sword . . .

He'd dropped the sword, but maybe he could find it again. He stepped forward, feeling a tenuous resistance around his ankles, and looked down.

There was the sword. But his fingers passed through it. It was like being drunk, but he knew he wasn't drunk. He wasn't even sober. He was . . . suddenly clear in his mind.

He turned and looked at the thing that had briefly impeded his progress.

"Oh," he said.

GOOD MORNING.

"Oh."

"THERE IS A LITTLE CONFUSION AT FIRST. IT IS ONLY TO BE EXPECTED.

To his horror, Fri'it saw the tall black figure stride away through the gray wall.

"Wait!"

A skull draped in a black hood poked out of the wall.

YES?

"You're Death, aren't you?"

INDEED.

Fri'it gathered what remained of his dignity.

"I know you," he said. "I have faced you many times."

Death gave him a long stare.

NO YOU HAVEN'T.

"I assure you-”

YOU HAVE FACED MEN. IF YOU HAD FACED ME, I ASSURE YOU . . . YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN.

"But what happens to me now?"

Death shrugged.

DON'T YOU KNOW? he said, and disappeared.

"Wait!"

Fri'it ran at the wall and found to his surprise that it offered no barrier. Now he was out in the empty corridor. Death had vanished.

And then he realized that it wasn't the corridor he remembered, with its shadows and the grittiness of sand underfoot.

That corridor didn't have a glow at the end, that pulled at him like a magnet pulls at an iron filing.

You couldn't put off the inevitable. Because sooner or later, you reached the place when the inevitable just went and waited.

And this was it.

Fri'it stepped through the glow into a desert. The sky was dark and pocked with large stars, but the black sand that stretched away to the distance was nevertheless brightly lit.

A desert. After death, a desert. The desert. No hells, yet. Perhaps there was hope.

He remembered a story from his childhood. Unusually, it wasn't about smiting. No one was trampled underfoot. It wasn't about Om, dreadful in His rage. It was worse. It was about what happened when you died . . . the journey of your soul.

They said: you must walk a desert . . .

"Where is this place?" he said hoarsely.

THIS IS NO PLACE, said Death .

. . . all alone . . .

"What is at the end of the desert?"

JUDGEMENT .

. . . with your beliefs . . .

Fri'it stared at the endless, featureless expanse.

"I have to walk it alone?" he whispered. "But . . . now, I'm not sure what I believe-”

YES?

AND NOW, IF YOU WILL EXCUSE ME-

Fri'it took a deep breath, purely out of habit. Perhaps he could find a couple of rocks out there. A small rock to hold and a big rock to hide behind, while he waited for Vorbis . . .

And that thought was habit, too. Revenge? Here?

He smiled.

Be sensible, man. You were a soldier. This is a desert. You crossed a few in your time.

And you survive by learning about them. There's whole tribes that know how to live in the worst kinds of desert. Licking water off the shady sides of dunes, that sort of thing . . . They think it's home. Put 'em in a vegetable garden and they'd think you were mad.

The memory stole over him: a desert is what you think it is. And now, you can think clearly . . .

There were no lies here. All fancies fled away. That's what happened in all deserts. It was just you, and what you believed.

What have I always believed?

That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.

You couldn't get that on a banner. But the desert looked better already.

Fri'it set out.

It was a small mule and Brutha had long legs; if he'd made the effort he could have remained standing and let the mule trot out from underneath.

The order of progression was not as some may have expected. Sergeant Simony and his soldiers rode ahead, on either side of the track.

They were trailed by the servants and clerks and lesser priests. Vorbis rode in the rear, where an exquisitor rode by right, like a shepherd watching over his flock.

Brutha rode with him. It was an honor he would have preferred to avoid. Brutha was one of those people who could raise a sweat on a frosty day, and the dust was settling on him like a gritty skin. But Vorbis seemed to derive some amusement from his company. Occasionally he would ask him questions:

"How many miles have we traveled, Brutha?"

"Four miles and seven estado, lord."

"But how do you know?"

That was a question he couldn't answer. How did he know the sky was blue? It was just something in his head. You couldn't think about how you thought. It was like opening a box with the crowbar that was inside.