unneled, revetted, embrasured and
battlemented citadel filled with rusty armor and broken lances. A hock
shop, a junkyard, a hall of distorting mirrors. A cemetery by the sea,
a peak of glory, a slough of despond. A radiant light, an encroaching
dark, the sweetest of melody, the sourest of discord. A library of
trivia, museum of curiosa, sideshow of freaks, and shrine of greatness.
It was the lowering pendulum, the waiting pit, the closing walls. It was
the vaulting spirit, the gallant heart, the just and the kind and the
merciful. Withal, it was a haunted castle, perpetually besieged, the
towers soaring but the structure toppling. It was himself. His memories,
his experiences, his actions and reactions, his life. And it was
appalling.

A gentle prompting from the Other roused him from his self-immersion
and for a moment he was all panic lest his secret had been observed.
Mechanisms he had not known he possessed slammed doors and banged
shutters over windows in a fine frenzy, so that the Other winced and
fell back, pleadingly, then softly and insistently drew near once more.
He realized that there was a purpose that must be served. Something was
desired from him. A voice. He tried, and the croak of a clogged throat
would have held as much meaning as the disharmonious thrust of thought
that began in chaos and ended in futility. Abashed, he would not try
again. Silence crept around him, the silence of isolation.

The most disarmingly hesitant, the most reassuringly inoffensive of
thoughts touched as lightly as a breath and was accepted as his own.
He saw no cause to take alarm. Such an insignificant invasion was of no
more moment than the blowing of a grain of dust beneath a locked door.

The thought lay among his own, and moved like a thread through his own,
and the elements that it drew together became the acceptance of an idea.
Secure in his ill-kept citadel, he permitted a rapport so tenuous he
could break it at will, yet so strong that--

VII

Memory tinged with homesickness tricked him into a sad reverie. That
they were only memories, these thoughts that rose up to slyly capture
his attention, was clear. He was under no illusion that he was
experiencing for the first time events that had long melted into the
past, for they had a common-place familiarity that stamped them as
scenes revisited, events relived, dear friends recalled to mind.

He stood alone at the edge of a meadow with the afternoon sun ho