Gone to the world beyond me world,

Gone to me sea beyond the sea.

Orpheus and his brothers

Seek wives amongst the dead.

-LOBKOWITZ, "Orpheus in Auschwitz, " 1949

At that moment, as Klosterheim squeezed his automatic's trigger, I understood profoundly how I'd left my familiar world far behind and was now in the realm of the supernatural.

Klosterheim's gun barked for the briefest moment and there was no echo. The sound was somehow absorbed into the surrounding atmosphere. Then I watched as the bullet stopped a few inches from the barrel, and was swallowed in the air. Klosterheim, an oddly fatalistic expression on his face, lowered his arm and holstered his useless weapon. He glanced meaningfully at his master.

Gaynor swore. "God be damned-we're in the Middlemarch! "

Klosterheim understood him. And so did I. A memory as ancient and mysterious as my family's blood.

The surrounding landscape, alien as it was, felt far too solid for me to believe myself dreaming. The only other conclusion had been edging at the corners of my mind for some time. It was as logical as it was absurd.

As Gaynor had guessed, we had entered the mythical Mittelmarch, the borderlands between the human world and Faery. According to old tales, my own ancestors had occasionally visited this place. I'd always assumed that realm to be as real as the storybook world of Grimm, but now I was beginning to wonder if Grimm was no more than a recollection of my present reality. Hades, too, and all the other tales of underworlds and other worlds? Was Mu Ooria the original of Alfheim? Or Trollheim? Or the caverns where the dwarfs forged their magic swords?

As the strange scene unfolded before me, all these images and thoughts passed through my mind. Time really did seem to have an indescribably different quality in this twilight realm. A foreign texture, a sense of richness, even a slight instability. I was sensing a way of living simultaneously at different speeds, some of which I could actually manipulate. I'd already experienced a hint of this quality in my recent dreams, but now I was certain that I was more awake than I had ever been. I was beginning to sense the multiverse in all her rich complexity.

Now that he had an idea of his geography, Klosterheim seemed more at ease than any of us. "I have always preferred the night, " he murmured. "It is my natural element. When I am at my predatory best." A long, dry tongue licked thin lips. Scholar Fi offered Klosterheim a shadowed smile. "You could try to kill me by some other means, but I can defend myself. It would be unwise to pursue your present aggression. We have countered violence before in our history. We have learned to respect all who respect life. We do not show the same respect for those who would destroy life and take all with them into the oblivion they crave. Their craving we are able to satisfy. Though it is a journey that can only be made alone."

I cast my eye over the Nazi ranks to see if any of them but their leaders understood the scholar's Greek, but it was clear all they heard were threatening foreign sounds. My attention was caught by a figure at the back of the party and to the right, standing beside a tall stalagmite, like a set of giant dishes stacked one on top of the other. The figure's face was obscured by an elaborate helmet and its body was clad in what appeared to be armor of coppery silver, gleaming like dull gold in the semidarkness. The baroque armor was almost theatrical, like something designed by Bakst for a fantastic Diaghilevian extravaganza. I felt I had glimpsed Oberon in Elfland. I turned to ask Fromental if he had seen the figure, but the Frenchman's attention was on Gaynor again. My cousin had scarcely been listening to Scholar Fi. He drew the ornamental Nazi dagger from its scabbard at his belt. Pale steel and polished ebony, the hilt reflected the dancing, misty light. The blade's gleam seemed to pierce the atmosphere, challenging the whole organic world around us.

Balancing the dagger on the flat of his hand, Gaynor thrust it out to his side. His eyes challenged mine. Without turning his head he called behind him in German. "Lieutenant Lukenbach, if you please."

Proud of his master's recognition, a tall brute in SS black stepped forward and closed his fingers almost voluptuously around the dagger. He waited like an eager hound for his orders, "You have the temerity to speak of aggression." Gaynor took a cigarette from his case. "You shall know that you challenge the authority of the Reich. Whether you realize it or not, my undernourished friend, you are now citizens of the Greater Germany and bound by the laws of our Fatherland." This speech was spoiled by his failure to ignite his cigarette. He threw both lighter and cigarette to the ground. "And some of your own laws, too, it seems. He was mocking himself. I admired his coolness, if not his folly, as he signed Lieutenant Lukenbach forward. "Show this fellow how sharp our old-fashioned Ruhr steel can be."

I became increasingly fearful for Scholar Fi, who lacked the physical strength to defend himself against the Nazi. Fromental, too, was looking a little worried, but motioned me back. He was prepared to trust the Off-Moo's sense of survival. Neither Scholar Fi's expression nor his stance had changed as he watched this threatening drama. He seemed completely unmoved, murmuring in Greek as the SS man approached.

I would have been terrified by what I saw in Lukenbach's eyes alone. They held that familiar dreaming glaze I had seen so many times in recent months-the look of the sadist, of a creature allowed to fulfill its most vicious yearnings in the name of a higher authority. What had the Nazis awakened in the world?

Between relativism and bigotry, there is no room for the human conscience.

Perhaps without conscience, I thought, there could only be appetite and ultimate oblivion-an eternity of unformed Chaos or petrified Law, which found such excellent expression in the lunacy of communism and fascism whose grim simplifications could only lead to sterility and death and whose laissez-faire capitalist alternative also brought us ultimately to the same end. Only when the forces were in balance could life flourish at its finest. The Nazi "order, " however, was a pretense at balance, a simplified imposition on a complex worldthe kind of action which always brought the most destruction. The fundamental logic of reaction. I was about to witness another example of that destructive power as the SS officer came slowly on.

Lukenbach's eyes were greedy for butchery. He drew back his arm and began to take the last few paces towards us, grinning into Scholar Fi's extinction.

Unable to restrain myself as the Off-Moo's life was threatened, I sprang forward, ignoring Fromental and the scholar. But before I could reach Lukenbach, another man appeared between us. This figure was also clad from head to foot in armor as baroque as the other I had seen, but his was jet black. Unfamiliar as his costume was, the face was all too familiar. Gaunt, white, with blazing eyes hard as rubies. It was my own. It was the creature I had already seen in my dreams and later in the concentration camp.

I was so shocked by this that I was stopped in my tracks, too late to grapple with the Nazi. "Who are you?" I asked.

My doppelganger was prepared to reply. He mouthed some words, though I heard nothing. Then he moved to one side. I tried to see where he went, but he had vanished.

Lukenbach was almost on his victim. I could not reach him in time.

Slowly Scholar Fi raised a long, slender arm, perhaps in warning. Lukenbach continued to advance, as if he were himself entranced. His grip on the swastika dagger tightened as he prepared to aim his first blow.