nothing.
I thought in the strangest most detached way of my question to Malchiah, which he had never answered. "Could I die in this time? Was that possible?" But I didn't call out for him now.
As I went down in a torrent of blows, as I felt the leather shoes kicking at my ribs and at my stomach, as the breath went out of me, as the sight left my eyes, as the pain shot through my head and limbs, I said only one prayer.
Dear Lord, forgive me that I ever separated myself from You.
Chapter Sixteen - World Enough and Time
DREAMING. HEARING THAT SINGING AGAIN THAT SOUNDEDlike the reverberation of a gong. But it was slipping away as I came to myself. The stars were slipping away, and the vast dark sky was fading.
I slowly opened my eyes.
No pain anywhere.
I was lying in the half tester bed at the Mission Inn. All the familiar furnishings of the suite were around me.
For a long moment I stared up at the checkered silk tester, and I realized, made myself realize, that I was back, in my own time, and there was no pain anywhere in my body.
Slowly I sat up.
"Malchiah?" I called out.
No answer.
"Malchiah, where are you?" Silence.
I felt something in me was about to break loose and I was terrified of it. I whispered his name once more but it didn't surprise me that there was no answer.
One thing I did know, however. I knew that Meir, Fluria, Eli, Rosa, Godwin, and the Earl had all safely left Norwich. I knew it. Somewhere deep inside my clouded mind was a vision of that cart, surrounded by soldiers, safely away, on the road to London.
That seemed as real as anything in this room, and this room seemed completely real, and reliably solid.
I looked down at myself. I was a bit of a wrinkled mess.
But I was wearing one of my own suits, a khaki jacket and pants with a khaki vest, and a white shirt open at the neck. Just usual clothes for me.
I reached into my pocket and discovered I had the identification that I used when I came here, as myself. Not Toby O'Dare, of course, but the name I used for walking around without a disguise.
I shoved the driver's license back in my pocket and I climbed off the bed and went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. No bruises, no marks.
But I think I actually looked at my own face for the first time in years. I saw Toby O'Dare, aged twenty-eight, staring back at me.
Why did I think there would be any bruises and marks?
The fact was, I couldn't believe I was still alive, couldn't believe I'd survived what had surely seemed to be the death I'd deserved outside the cathedral.
And if this world had not seemed as vivid as that world, I would have thought I was dreaming.
I walked around the room in a daze. I saw my usual leather bag there, and realized how much it resembled the bag I'd been toting all through the thirteenth century. My computer was there, too, the laptop I used only for research.
How did these things get here? How did I get here? The computer, a Macintosh laptop, was open and plugged in, just the way I might have left it after using it.
For the first time, it occurred to me that everything that had happened was a dream, was something that I'd imagined. Only trouble was I could never have imagined it. I could never have imagined Fluria or Godwin, or the old man, Eli, and the way he had turned the trial at the pivotal moment.
I opened the door and I went out onto the tiled veranda. The sky was clear blue and the sun was warm on my skin, and after the muddy snowy skies I'd known for the last few weeks, it felt absolutely caressing. I sat down at the iron table, and I felt the breeze passing over me, keeping the heat of the sun from building up on me--that old familiar coolness that always seems at work in the air of southern California.
I put my elbows on the table and bowed my head, resting it on my hands. And I cried. I cried so hard that I was sobbing.
The pain I felt was so awful that I couldn't describe it even to myself.
I knew people were passing me, and I didn't care what they saw or what they felt. At one point,