And, walking, he stepped through time and space to a point years in the past when a happy, carefree child came skipping into a deserted study to discover something new and wonderful which held an immediate fascination. A bright and glowing object illuminated by the dusty light of the setting sun. Enigmatic, mysterious, magical.

And he became that child, running now, entranced, eager to discover what a doting parent had bought. To reach out with open arms. To fold them around the Tau. To hug it close and to press his face against the bright enchantment. To feel the faintest of tingles and to see the luminosity suddenly expand to engulf him. To take him elsewhere.

Chapter Four

He was in a room designed for the use of giants with walls which soared like the face of cliffs and a ceiling which looked like a shadowed sky. The floor was covered with a carpet with a pile so thick it reached to his ankles and all about loomed the bulk of oddly familiar furniture. Turning he studied grotesquely distorted tables, chairs, something which could have been a desk, something else which held stuffed and sagging dolls.

"Hello, there! Will you play with me?"

Dumarest spun to see a waddling shape come hopping toward him. A parody of what a human should be; the face round as were the eyes, the mouth a grinning slit, the chin merging into the neck, the whole dressed in a clown's attire.

"Will you play?" The voice had a high-pitched squeakiness. "I know lots of fine games. We could hunt the slipper or find the parcel or we could roll marbles or climb. Don't you want to play?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Clownie. I'm the one who makes you smile when you are sad and unless I am very, very good, very good, you give me no tea but that isn't often because always I am good."

"Tea?"

"Tisane. See? Tee for tisane. Tea. Isn't it fun to make up words?"

"Where are we?"

"In Magic Land. Where you always go when you're alone. Now hurry and meet Bear."

Bear was as tall, covered in short brown fur, nose and lips of black, eyes round and gleaming. A wide ribbon adorned his neck and his voice was deep and a little gruff as befitted a serious person.

Solemnly he held out a paw. "You are welcome to join me in a game. What shall it be? Soldiers?"

"For that we need armies."

"We have armies. They are in the boxes but if you call them they will come on parade." The bear glanced at the clown. "He doesn't seem to know what to do."

"He needs to eat," said the clown. "I'll get the cakes and you call the others. Hurry, now."

They came from nowhere, oddly shaped creatures of garish colors and peculiar appearance. Eyes and heads and faces seemed alien and yet totally familiar. They moved and talked and aped the style of humans but they were not and could never have been fashioned in human form. They were more like caricatures of familiar types; the fat one with the round, shining face, the fox-like one, the pigs, the toad, the nodding, weaving monkey, the solemn policeman with his truncheon, the giggling girl, the staid matron-the playmates of a lonely child.

Dolls!

Companions of the mind created from the toys of childhood when imagination took things of rag and wood and stuffing and gave them life and form and voices. And the vastness of the room and the furniture.

Dumarest knew the answer.

Leaning back, ignoring the babble around him, he looked at the nursery. The bed would be elsewhere but here, surrounded by comfort, he would play with the toys provided and with the magic of childhood endow them with individual personalities. But he was not a child but a grown man so why should he be in the nursery?

"A cake!" The bear was insistent. "You must have one of these cakes. Mistress Gold baked them and she will be very angry if you do not take one. She may even order you to be shut up in a cupboard for a whole hour. You wouldn't like that, would you?"

"No," said Dumarest.

"Then take a cake." The bear nodded as he did so. "And one for you, Clownie. And for you, Foxie. And for you, Toadie." His voice was a drone above the clatter of cups and the ritual of pouring tisane or tea as they called it. A party. A tea party. A pastime beloved by the young, especially young girls who aped their mothers in playing the hostess.

Had Iduna played such games?

Iduna!

Dumarest looked at his cake and set it aside. This was her world, not his. The soft and comfortable world of a loved and cherished child who would find the living toys perfectly natural. A delightful realization of an often-pretended charade in which they would have been placed around the table and fed tisane and cakes and moved and placed and given words in the entrancing world of make-believe which every child could call his own.

"You dirty thing!" The matron seethed with anger as she glared at one of the pigs. "You spilled tea on my gown! You did it on purpose!"

"It was an accident."

"Don't talk such lies! You should be beaten for having been so bad. Look at my nice new gown! You've spoiled it!"

"Be calm," rumbled the bear. "Ladies, be calm."

"Hit them," suggested the clown to the policeman. "Hit them both."

"Now, now there!" The policeman lurched to his feet. "We don't want trouble, do we?"

"Why not?" The toad gaped and seemed to blur. "Why not?"

The giggling girl half-turned and froze as she lifted her cup to hurl its contents in the face of the red-cheeked drummer who smiled as he toppled to one side to lie with his head in a quivering mass of jelly, his hands still jerking to produce a death-like rattle from his drum.

Anger, the petulance of childish rage had ruined the party but in a moment all could be as before with those involved going through their paces like well-trained puppets manipulated by mental intent. As always during a party when spats and outbursts provided variety. When things were done deserving of punishment which could then be administered with solemn ceremonies.

But this world was not one he had known. His childhood had contained no similar comforts. It had been a time of harsh deprivation unrelieved by moments of joy.

Dumarest shivered, remembering, then shivered again to the chilling wind.

It came from the north where ice still coated the ponds and snow filled the gulleys; the residue of winter stubbornly defying the sun. He glanced at it, narrowing his eyes against the glare, wishing the watery brightness held more strength. Soon it would be dark and all hope of game lost and, again, he would hug an empty belly and nurse bruises from savage blows.

Crouched against the gritty soil he stared at the area ahead. The wind touched his near-naked body, driving knives of ice through the rents, numbing the flesh and blood and causing his teeth to chatter. He clamped them shut, feeling the jerk of muscles in his jaw, the taste of blood as his teeth caught at the tender membranes of his cheeks. Weakness blurred his vision so that the scrub barely masking the stoney ground danced and spun in wild sarabands of bewildering complexity. Impatiently he squeezed shut his eyes, opening them to see the landscape steady again, seeing too the twitch of leaves at the base of a matted bunch of vegetation.

The lizard was cautious. It thrust its snout from the leaves and stared with unwinking eyes before making a small dart forward to freeze again as it checked its surroundings for possible enemies. Watching it, Dumarest forced himself to freeze.

To rise now would be to lose the prey; it would dive into cover at the first sign of movement. Only later, after it had come into the open to warm itself by the weak sunlight and search for grubs, would he have a chance and then only one. For now he must wait as the wind chilled his body, gnawing at him with spiteful teeth, sending more pain to join the throb of old bruises, the sores from festering wounds, the ache of hunger and fatigue.