Manhattan

Glaeken stood at the picture window and looked down on the hole in Central Park. Flashing red lights lit the tardy dawn as police cars and fire trucks ringed the lower end of the Park. A barricade had been set up around the entire Sheep Meadow to keep out the curious throngs. Television vans and camera trucks were there with miles of cable and lights that lit the area to noon brightness. Dominating the center of the scene was the hole. It had grown to two hundred feet across and stopped.

He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of it—just for a moment. He swayed with fatigue. He ached for sleep, but even when he lay down, it spurned his bidding.

So tired. He'd thought he'd freed himself from this, escaped the burden of responsibility for this war. But it wouldn't go away. Not till he'd found a successor. Only then would he truly be free.

But he had to have the weapon in order to pass it on. He'd expected some difficulty in reassembling its components, but the task was proving to be more formidable that he'd imagined. At least that fellow Repairman Jack was showing signs of turning his way. Jack had called in the wee hours this morning, telling him about the hole and suggesting that they get together again and have a few more beers. Fine with Glaeken. That at least was a step in the right direction.

First the weapon, then the successor to wield it, then the battle. A battle which, from the looks of things, would be lost before it was begun. But he had to go through the motions.

Behind him he heard Bill hang up the phone and approach the window. Glaeken opened his eyes and rubbed a hand across his face. Had to appear calm and in control at all times. Couldn't let them see the doubt, the dread, the desperation that nipped at his heels. How could he exhort them to maintain belief in themselves if he didn't set the example?

"Finally got through to Nick," Bill said, coming up beside him. "He's coming down here with a team from the university."

"What for?"

"To find out what caused the hole."

"I can save him the trip. Rasalom caused the hole."

"That's not going to do it for Nick." He gazed down at the Park. "I guess this is what you meant when you said his next move would be in the earth."

Glaeken nodded. "And its placement is not random or haphazard."

"Really? Central Park has some significance for Rasalom?"

"Only so far as Central Park is located right outside my window."

You're going to rub my face in it, aren't you, Rasalom?

"It doesn't look real," Bill said. "I feel like I'm in a movie looking at one of those matte paintings they use for special effects."

"It's quite real, believe me."

"I do. They've got close-ups on the TV, by the way. Want to take a look?"

"I've seen these close up before, although never one this big."

"You have? When?"

"Long ago" Ages ago.

"How deep is that thing?"

"Bottomless."

Bill smiled. "No. Really."

Apparently he'd misunderstood, so Glaeken spoke slowly and clearly.

"There is no bottom to that hole," he said. "It is quite literally bottomless."

"But that's impossible. It would have to go all the way through to China or whatever's on the other end."

"The other end doesn't open on this world."

"Come on. Where then?"

"Elsewhere."

Glaeken watched the priest's eyes flick back and forth between him and the hole.

"Elsewhere? Where's elsewhere?"

"No place you'd ever want to visit."

"You can be a little more specific than that, can't you?"

"I wish I could, but the place has no name. And I don't believe there's any way to describe in human terms what the other end of that hole is like."

"I believe I'll change and go down there for a closer look."

"No need to rush. The hole isn't going anywhere. And it's only the first."

"You mean there's going to be more?"

"Many. All over the world. But Rasalom has honored me by opening the first outside my front door."

"I'll see if I can hook up with Nick down there and find out what he knows."

"Just be sure to be back before dark."

Bill smiled. "Okay, Dad."

"I'm quite serious."

His smile faded. "Yeah. I guess you are. Okay. Back before dark."

Glaeken watched Bill hurry to his room. He was fond of the man. He couldn't ask for a better house guest. Bill was always willing to help around the apartment or with Magda when the nurse wasn't around.

As if sensing her name within his thoughts, Magda called from the bedroom.

"Hello? Is anybody there? Have I been left alone to die?"

"Coming, dear."

He took one final look at the hole in the Sheep Meadow, then he headed down the hall.

Magda was sitting up in her bed. She'd been losing weight and her eyes were starting to retreat into her skull. Her face was as lined as his, her hair as white. But her brown eyes were bright with anger.

"Who are you?" she said, switching to her native Hungarian tongue.

"I'm your husband, Magda."

"No, you're not!" She spat the words. "I wouldn't marry such an old man like you! Why, you're old enough to be my father! Where's Glen?"

"Right here. I'm Glen."

"No! Glen's young and strong with red hair!"

He took her hands in his. "Magda, it's me. Glen."

Terror flashed across her face, then her features softened. She smiled.

"Oh, yes. Glen. How could I have forgotten? Where have you been?"

"Right in the next room."

Her expression hardened as her eyes narrowed.

"No you weren't! You've been out seeing other women! Don't deny it! You're out with that nurse! Don't think I don't know what the two of you are up to when you think I'm asleep!"

Glaeken held her hands and let her ramble on. He wanted to cry. After two years he'd have thought he could have adapted to anything, but he couldn't get used to Magda's dementia. None of her ravings were true, yet Magda fully believed her delusions as they passed through the expanding emptiness of her mind, truly meant the hurtful things she said as she spoke them, and that never failed to cut him deeply.

Oh, Magda, my Magda, where have you gone?

Glaeken closed his eyes and recalled Magda as she was when they'd met in 1941. Her soft, even features, her fresh pale skin, glossy chestnut hair, and wide dark eyes, filled with love, tenderness, and intelligence. It was the love, tenderness, and intelligence he mourned for most now. Even after her physical beauty had faded, his love for her had not. For she had remained Magda the poet, Magda the singer, Magda the mandolin player, Magda the scholar who so loved art and music and literature. Her compendium of Rumanian Gypsy music, Songs of the Rom, was still in print, still gracing the shelves of finer bookstores.

Three years ago Magda had started to slip away, to be infiltrated and irreversibly replaced by this mad, incoherent stranger. Her mental status had deteriorated first, but soon she had become physically enfeebled as well. She could not get out of bed by herself now. That made caring for her easier in a way because she could no longer wander at night. In the early stages of her decline Glaeken had found her searching the street below, calling for their pet cat, dead since 1962. After that he'd had to deadbolt the apartment door and remove the knobs from the stove to prevent her from "cooking dinner" at two in the morning.

There were still flashes of the old Magda. She couldn't remember what she had for breakfast—or if she'd even had breakfast—yet now and then she'd recall an incident in their life together from thirty or forty years ago as if it were yesterday. But instead of buoying him, the brief lapses in Magda's dementia only served to deepen Glaeken's depression.

It wasn't fair.

Glaeken had known and loved so many women through the ages, yet each relationship had ended in bitterness. Each in her own way had ended up hating him because she grew old while he stayed young. Finally there had been Magda, the one woman in his seemingly endless life that he would be allowed to grow old with. And they'd had a glorious life, a love that could not be tainted even by the pain of these past few years.