Well, I thought, there's no use my sitting here, getting dizzy and paranoid. I may as well spit out my reasons for coming, and see if that elicited some response.

I drew an anxious breath, and spoke.

"I came… I came to see the past," I said. My voice sounded tiny, like a child's voice. "Cesaria sent me," I added, thinking that might help whatever forces occupied the room understand that I was a legitimate presence, and that if they had something to show me, they should damned well do it.

Something that I'd said-whether it was talking about the past or about Cesaria I can't say-brought a response. The shadows seemed to darken around me, and their motion grew more complex. Some portion of the pattern twitched like a living thing, and rose up in front of me-up, up toward the skylight. Another flew off toward the wall at my left, trailing more fragments of dark air, whip ping like the tail of a kite. A third dropped to the polished boards and spread across the floor.

I believe I breathed some words of astonishment. "Oh my Lord," or some such. I had reason. The spectacle was growing by the moment, the writhing motions of these shadows, and their scale, expanding as if by some logarithmic progression. Motion was inspiring motion; forms were inspiring forms. In the space of perhaps forty-five seconds the walls of the dome room had been all but eclipsed by these roiling abstractions; gray on gray, yet filled with subtle intimations of visions to come. My eyes were darting everywhere, of course, astonished by all this, but even as my gaze went on from one cloudy duster of shapes to the next, it moved with the impression that something was almost visible here. That I was moments away from understanding how these abstractions worked.

And yet, even in their protean condition they moved me. Watching these rollings and cavortings I began to understand why Luman had been so reluctant to enter this room. He was a man of great vulnerability, despite his manner: there was simply too much feeling here for a soul so tender. Watching the unfolding spectade, I felt as though I were listening to a piece of music; or rather several at the same time.

Those grand shapes moving overhead, like columns of smoke passing across the sun had all the gravity of a requiem; while the forms that moved dose to me reeled and swaggered as though to a drunken polka. And in between, circling me as they climbed, were sinuous ropes of ether that seemed to express lovely, rising music, like the bright line of a rhapsody.

To say I was enchanted does not begin to express my beguilement. It was all so perfectly mysterious: a seduction of eye and heart that left me dose to tears. But I was not so enthralled that I didn't wonder what powers lay so far undisclosed. I had invited this vision with my own readiness to accept it. Now it was time to do the same thing again; to open my spirit, as it were, a little wider, and see what the shadows would show me.

"I'm ready," I said softly, "whenever you are…"

The forms before me continued to profligate, but made no visible response to my invitation. There was still a sense of evolution in their motion, but I sensed that it had slowed. I was no longer seeing the heart-quickening changes that had astonished me a minute or two before.

Again, I spoke. "I'm not afraid," I said.

Did I ever say anything so foolish in my life as to boast fearlessness in such a place as this?

The words were no sooner out of my mouth than the shadows before me convulsed, as though some seismic shock had shaken the dome. Two or three seconds later, like thunder coming a heartbeat after lightning, the shock wave struck the only nonethereal form in the room, which is to say, myself.-My chair was propelled backward, tipping over as it went. I vainly tried to regain some measure of control, but the chair sped over the boards, its wheels shrieking, and struck the wall close to the door with such violence that I was pitched out of it.

I felt something crack as I landed face down, and the breath was completely knocked out of my body. Had I possessed the wherewithal I might have attempted a plea for clemency at that moment; might have attempted to withdraw my too-brave words. But I doubt it would have availed me much.

Gasping, I tried to haul myself up into a semirecumbent position so that I could find out where my chair had landed. But there was a sharp pain in my side. I'd plainly snapped a rib. I gave up trying to move, for fear of doing myself still greater damage.

All I could do was lie where I'd been so unceremoniously dropped, and wait for the room to do its work. I had invited the powers here to show me their splendors, and I was quite certain they weren't about to deny themselves the pleasure.

Nothing happened. I lay there, my breaths quick and shallow, my stomach ready to revolt, my body sticky with sweat, and the room just waited. The unfixable forms all around me-which had by now entirely blotted out every detail of windows and walls, even carpeted the floor-were almost still, their evolutionary endeavors at an end, at least for the moment.

Had the fact that I'd been injured shocked the presence, or presences, here into reticence, I wondered? Perhaps they felt they'd overstepped the bounds of enthusiasm, and now wanted nothing more than for me to crawl away and tend my wounds? Were they waiting for me to call down to Luman, perhaps? I thought about doing so^ but decided against it. This was not a room in which to speak a simple word unless it was strictly necessary. I would be better lying still and quiet, I decided, and let my panicked body calm itself. Then, once I had governed myself, I would try to crawl back to the door. Sooner or later, Luman would come up and fetch me; I felt certain of that. Even if I had to wait all night.

Meanwhile I dosed my eyes so as to put the images around me out of the way. Though the pain in my side was by now only a dull throb, my head and eyes were throbbing too; indeed it was not hard to imagine my body had become one fat heart, lying discarded on the floor, pumping its last.

I'm not afraid I'd boasted, moments before the bolt had struck me. But now? Oh, I was very much afraid now.

Afraid that I would die here, before I'd worked my way through the catalog of unfinished business that sat at the back of my skull, awaiting my attention and of course never getting it, while all the time growing and growing. Well, it was most likely too late; there would not be time for me to flagellate myself for every dishonorable deed in that list, nor any chance to make good the harms I'd done. Minor harms, to be sure, in the scheme of things; but large enough to regret.

And then, on the back of my neck, a touch; or what I believed to be a touch.

"Luman?" I murmured, and opened my eyes.

It wasn't Luman; it wasn't even a human touch, or anything resembling a human touch. It was some presence in the shadows; or the shadows themselves. They had swarmed upon me while my eyes were closed, and were now pressing close, their intimacy in no way threatening, but curiously tender. It was as though these roiling, senseless forms were concerned for my well-being, the way they brushed my nape, my brow, my lips. I stayed absolutely still, holding my breath, half expecting their mood to change and their consolations to turn into something cruder. But no; they simply waited, dose upon me.

Relieved, I drew breath. And in the instant of drawing, knew I had again unwittingly done something of consequence.

On the intake I felt the marked air about my head rush toward my open lips, and down my throat. I had no choice but to let it in. By the time I knew what was happening it was too late to resist. I was a vessel being filled. I could feel the marks on my tongue, against my tonsils, in my windpipe-