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“I have also doubted Hell.”

“Doubt does not destroy what is. Denial, my son, does not affect reality.”

“Then, reality does not affect denial,” I countered. “If I have been good, whether I believe in souls or Hell or the life everlasting,my soul should not be in mortal danger. If I have been evil, then belief in Heaven and Hell should not save that soul from the punishment I deserve.”

“Are you so sure that you have been that good?” The dark eyes probed me, and the flickering lamp cast doubt across me.

“I am not sure that I have been evil, nor that you should be the judge of the worth of my soul.”

“Who would you have judge your soul, if you have a soul?”

Simple as it sounded, it wasn’t. The question implied so much more.

“No man can judge himself, let alone another,” I said slowly.“No being can judge another unlike himself, for the weight of life falls differently upon each.”

The priest stepped forward, and I thought I saw the ghost of wings spreading from his shoulders. The trouble was, in the dimness, I couldn’t tell whether they were ghostly white or ghostly black. “If you will not be judged, then you will be in limbo for all eternity, and that is certainly not pleasant.”

It didn’t sound that way, but it was better than Hell, even if I didn’t believe in Hell—at least not too much. “Well . . . perhaps I need more time to consider. You won’t have to make that judgment, and neither will I, or anyone else, if nothing happens to me right now.”

“So be it.” The father made a cryptic gesture.

There was a stillness, without even background subsonics or shredded notes from underspace filtering up. Then, blue lightning flashed, and, for a moment, I could sense and feel overspace. I had been slewed off course, as can happen in an interlude, particularly one that slips into the pilot’s weaknesses, but I banked and swept back toward Alustre and the ever-closer-but-not-close-enough beacon.

That was about all I got done because the deep swell of a pulsed singularity rolled toward us, like a black-silver cloud. With it came another sheet of glaringly brilliant blue.

Three interludes? That was the only thought I managed before I found myself standing in a dim room.A woman stood in front of me. From behind what was most noticeable was her hair, although I saw little of it, but what I did see was red and tinted with sun, where it slipped out from the black silk scarf that covered her head.

She faced two men in black. They sat at a round table that groaned under the weight of the gold coins stacked there, yet, with all that weight of coin, not a stack trembled. They looked up at me, and their black eyes glittered in their pale faces above combed black beards. They dismissed me, and their eyes went to the woman who had not even noticed me. The two looked almost the same, as if they were brothers, and I supposed that they were, in a manner of speak ing. The only thing that caught my eyes was that the one on the right wore a wide silver ring, and the one on the left a gold band.

The woman was speaking, and her voice was music, silver, gold, yet warmer, and with a core of strength. “You have stolen from me. That does not trouble me.What troubles me is that you stole from me so that the poor would be forced to sell their souls to you.”

“We are but traders. No one is required to come to us.” The man on the right smiled politely, then added a gold coin to the pile closest to him.

“Any man or woman who has a child that is hungry or suffers and loves that child is required to come to you. Anyone with a soul that is worth your golds will come to you to spare another from suffering. Your words are meaningless. They are false.” She laughed.

I liked her, even though I hadn’t even seen her face.

“Why are you here?” asked the trader on the left, pointing to me.

“Because I am.” That was the only response that made sense.

The woman turned to me, and I understood who she was, if not precisely why I was with her and the two emissaries from the netherlands. I could also see why the old tales called her a