"but , sir poet, you have not answered my question. are you in fact a god, and not a man?”
the fire crackled behind me…
the fellow - bandit, rebel, or whatever he was - was beginning to try my patience. but i was determined to avoid any kind of bother, which admitting to being a god would have provoked, even in such humble surroundings, and to just get through the night, and to proceed on our travels in the morning.
so, i answered, him, “no, of course i am not a god.”
he seemed a bit surprised by my answer, and glanced back at his still hooded companion, who gave him a nod.
“are you quite sure?” he asked me again.
“yes, i am sure,” i replied with what i hoped was a convincingly weary laugh.
at this point the bandit’s companion pulled back the hood covering its face and head.
and i , and my companions, and the landlord beheld - a woman.
not a young or beautiful woman, but a hideous withered hag, who bore the unmistakable stamp of a witch, but a woman for all that.
the landlord gasped, as well he might. i have no doubt it was the first woman he had ever seen, so long as he had lived. she was, in fact, the first one i had ever seen, outside the province of the celestial court. and the same was probably true of gex, and thomas, and william.
what, if anything, the two blind boys sensed, or thought, i was never to know.
but if i was nonplussed by the witch’s presence, she seemed to have no fear of me, and addressed me boldly.
“one more time, sir, are you a god or a man?”
why should i not have answered that i was in fact a god, and then pointed a finger at her, witch or no witch, and blasted her out of existence, or at least out of the universe in which i was a god?
and yet i heard myself say, for the third time in as many minutes, that i was not a god.
and suddenly i found myself no longer a god, no longer in my own universe - or at least the universe familiar to me - and no longer in the form i was accustomed to, or in the clothing i was accustomed to.
i found myself reduced to the form of a small child - of the size of a child of two or three years old, but with the proportions of a newborn. i was lying on a pile of dirty straw in what appeared to be a shack - and the witch to whom i had just denied i was a god was leaning over me.
i realized that i was screaming like a dragon or a lion -
for a second the witch’s face and form changed to that of a beautiful fair haired maiden, who whispered to me - “quiet - let me handle this - this has happened many times before.”
and in another instant she resumed the outward person of the witch.
i immediately fell silent, and looking around, realized that i was not alone with the witch/fair maiden.
there was a door to the shack, and a hulking fellow in what looked like the dusty robe of a wandering friar was standing in it with his back to the witch and myself.
the witch stood up and looked beyond him and cried -
“ah, here is your confederate returned!”
“my confederate?” the friar - a great redfaced fellow asked her, but before he could continue , he was
pushed aside, and two more personages appeared In the shack.
a grinning yokel in an ill-fitting military uniform who was unslinging a pike from his back.
and another friar - of a very different sort from the first. a long faced fellow with the sad and blazing eye of the tribe of eternal fanatics, who , i am told, wander the roads of every universe, without finding peace in any of them.
“yes, i have returned, you cursed witch,” this second friar cried. “i have indeed returned - with fire and sword!”
“you do not say so,” murmured the witch in a soft voice, as she again assumed the form of the fair haired maid.
the two friars and the soldier stepped back with varying degrees of astonishment . the soldier laughed, the first friar mumbled something about the maiden’s beauty, and the second friar, after his first shock, appeared to be rousing himself to some new pitch of fury -
when the maiden changed again, to a small blue and white bird that flew past the three men out the door of the hut and into the gray sky -
leaving me alone, on my pile of straw, with the two friars and the soldier.
the soldier waved his pike at me. “should i send it to hell, brother?” he asked the second friar.
the second friar hesitated. “no, my son,” he finally answered. “it must contain a demon - if not a whole host of them. we will take it to the castle of the holy inquisition. they will decide what to do with it.”
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