of the ruined theatre. All the wood was gone, but the stone walls and pillars stood like blackened monuments to the devastation. Thus it remained for quite a while, but then at last there was evidence of clearing and cleaning. Chance and Patience watched with interest as the frame of the dome was raised and the dome itself billowed up around it as if the very shingles had feet of their own to scurry into place.
Finally, the images beyond the transparent barrier steadied. They pulled aside the veil of time and looked out but stayed partly on the threshold of their own world.
'Less timber,’ Chance commented, looking around at the new architecture.
Patience was too busy examining the schedule of performances affixed to the theatre door to pay attention.
'
'Typical,’ Chance said in tones of deep depression. ‘Give them a crisis, and they must turn it into a form of entertainment. Do they really remember what happened here? People died, people killed themselves rather —'
'—rather than live on without beauty and love. Yes. It's all here in the play's summary.'
'Is it?’ He went to stare at the schedule, and an odd expression came over his face, as if he were unsure whether or not a smile was called for. ‘Paama's star-crossed lovers are now immortal. I wonder if that would please her.'
'Something positive from a grave mistake,’ Patience mused. ‘Yes, I think that would please her, if she ever found out.'
Chance did not reply. He knew that contact was limited between humans and the undying ones for good cause, but at that moment it was yet another thing to make him feel miserable.
She noticed, of course. ‘You miss her.'
'Time means nothing to our kind. How could I miss her?'
'Because she is not where you are in either time or space, that is how. I think this unusual woman has done more than shame you. She has taught you something about how to be vulnerable.'
He looked at her angrily, but she raised a hand in protest.
'I did not say “weak'. I said “vulnerable'. Is that such a terrible thing?'
He subsided, but only slightly. ‘Not terrible, no, but it is just another word used to describe the human condition.'
She shrugged. ‘Your opinion. But we have strayed very far indeed from the topic at hand. We have to decide what is to be done with you. Restitution is beyond your ability; redemption is, in your opinion, not an option for our kind; so I offer you a third possibility—rehabilitation. You are too valuable to waste. Why not take a period of time to properly learn the lessons you have merely glimpsed over these past few days?'
'I cannot believe it would be so simple.'
'Of course it wouldn't be simple. It would be hardship, suffering, every kind of testing and privation. It would certainly not be a holiday. At times it might even approach restitution, but you must remember that it is not; it is a gift, a second chance.'
Chance looked at her and considered long and hard. He had tried isolation, and it had been sterile and useless. He had tried to do as he pleased with humans, and instead of senseless vermin he had found Paama, remarkable in her own ordinary way, and very burdensome on his conscience. He found himself running out of choices.
He bowed his head, and said humbly, ‘What would you have me do?'
'What you are already doing. Trust in more than your own power. I have shown others the way to redemption, and I can show you.'
He seemed sad for a moment. ‘I suppose I will have to give up the power of chaos again.'
'Give it up for the first time, you mean,’ she laughed at him. ‘I had to take it from you by force to bring you to your senses. But yes, you will have to give up that and many other things as well. But I promise you, I will keep all these things in trust for you until you return. Are you ready?'
He was afraid. He realised as she stared at him that she was far more senior to him than he had ever realised, far more senior than any of his kind that he had known, but that she was only now allowing him to see the full extent of her power. Still, he had little choice but to trust her. He closed his eyes and offered himself, and felt her gently wind his powers away from him like silk from a cocoon, leaving him unshielded, weaponless, and naked.
He shivered. He had never known such weakness, such fear of annihilation.
'What happens next,’ he whispered, still not daring to open his eyes.
She gathered him into her arms until he felt warm again, and even safe, and then she said, ‘You must be born again.'
23
one door closes . . .
Finding Paama was embarrassingly easy. Once Kwame entered the main street and asked for the whereabouts of Ansige's house, a passerby wordlessly pointed him towards a large stone and wood structure whose open door was swarming with humanity. Some of the people appeared to be in either great distress or great happiness—it was difficult to tell which. Kwame drew nearer with some hesitation—he disliked crowds.
There was a man sitting on the pavement a short way off from the door. His face, which bore an expression of poignant woe, was partly hidden in his hands. Kwame sidled up to him, unsure as to whether he should intrude in the man's grief.
The man lifted up anguished eyes and thought he saw a comforter.
'I knew this would happen,’ he said. ‘I knew it, but would he listen? Of course not.'
'Ahh, my deepest sympathy, but can you tell me—'
'Giving credit is no better than gambling, gambling on a man's honour, gambling on a man's good luck. But he said that it always paid to do business that way with the lesser chiefs and their kin. What did I know? I was only following orders! But he'll make this my fault somehow,’ he concluded bitterly.
Kwame added his knowledge of Ansige to the man's words and tried a guess. ‘You are a grocer?'
'A junior partner in a wholesale grocery company,’ he confirmed, and then his face fell into deeper depression as he added, ‘but not for much longer, I fear.'
'I am sorry, but can you tell me where I might find Paama, Ansige's widow?'
The grocer jerked his head towards the door, saying with a weak smile, ‘Good luck getting through. I understand only the undertaker's been paid so far, and that's because thirty degrees and eighty-percent humidity is kind to no corpse.'
Kwame managed something between a grin and a grimace in reply and started towards the door. After a few steps, his stride faltered. It was bedlam. People were pushing each other out of the way; the moment someone shouldered their way in, they were almost trampled by someone storming out.
'This is not my way of doing things,’ Kwame muttered to himself.
He bypassed the entire drama and slipped down a side alley. It was walled off at the end, but there were green, leafy branches hanging over a corner of the wall, hinting at gardens beyond. He climbed the wall and discovered a small footpath that led to another road, but he ignored that, choosing instead to jump lightly down into the adjacent garden. The divisions between the back gardens were low and flimsy, so it was only a matter of a hurdle, a quick sprint from an angry dog, and a rolling dive over a fence before he was in the back garden of the late Ansige's residence.
The gate there was shut up tightly, just as he had expected. Paama was sitting on the back doorstep with a knife in her hand and a bowl in her lap, trimming string beans. She froze and stared at him warily for a second before throwing the knife into the bowl and scrambling up hastily.
