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“You look good.”

“I look like myself.”

“What happened to the suit?”

He shrugged. “We decided . . . I mean that, I was given a choice and we . . . We could be slipped back into our own time, or stay in this one. We chose to live in this time, to see the future together.”

“I’m happy for you,” I said, and I was, though my heart ached.

“I’m happy . . . we are happy . . . because of you.” The word “happy” came out as “appee.” “That was a very brave thing. It was an act of courage and . . .”

“And love,” I whispered.

“Yes,” he said.

It should have been awkward, but somehow it wasn’t. We stood silently together, and for once my silence was not impatience waiting for him to speak. When there is too much for words, silence says all. I was content for the moment just to share that silence with him.

At last he said, “If my heart had not already belonged to Ariadne . . .”

“Thank you.”

“You know what is to come next?”

I nodded. “I think so.”

“We travel this time not with my powers or yours: Daniel summons us.”

I suppose I should have gotten used to sudden transitions, but I was still amazed, and I guessed that I might never entirely lose that wonder. We were gone from my abode and stood now in the Shamanvold, that hidden cavern decorated with soaring bas-reliefs of the Heptarchy. The golden tablets bearing the many strange names of messengers down through the ages towered above us.

The bas-relief stirred, and the image of Isthil, great and terrible Isthil, stepped from the stone and stood before us in what I can only call glory. We bowed our heads, not because we must but because no mortal can look upon her and not be moved.

“You have done well, Messenger,” She said.

Messenger seemed to shake, a tremor, quickly mastered.

“Your name I now inscribe upon the tablets that mark the service of each faithful messenger.”

Like some movie special effect, I saw letters traced by fire on the gold. But I had no time to peer more closely, for Isthil beckoned me and I went to her, moving like a sleepwalker.

“I give you this gift,” She said. She opened one hand and there lay the ring of the Shrieking Face. I shuddered seeing it, but I reached nevertheless and slipped it onto my finger.

“I give you this as well,” She said, and nodded at Messenger who, reluctantly I thought, slipped the ring of Isthil from his hand. He held it for a moment, looking at it resting in his palm, and then with two fingers slid it onto my finger. He did not touch me in doing so. I understood.

“In my service you will suffer,” Isthil said. “In my service you will labor

ceaselessly to preserve the balance so that this time, existence shall not fail. Do you accept this burden, Mara?”

Yes, it would have been funny if I’d said, Hell no. Part of me wanted to. But a deeper part of me understood that I had done a terrible wrong, a wrong that would only be righted by my willing service.

“I do,” I said.

“Serve me well,” the goddess said. “And in time, you will be free in body and in soul.”

Was I crying or was I laughing? Sadness and joy were each too real and too powerful for me to hope to control myself. I was destroyed. I was reborn. I saw a long and awful path of pain and utter loneliness ahead. But I knew now that at the end, I would live in the freedom of the forgiven.

I dashed away tears, and when I looked again the goddess was gone, but Daniel was with us.

“You must say your farewells,” he said gently.