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"Will Henry!" came the doctor’s voice from below "Will Henry, where the devil are you? Snap to, Will Henry!"

I found him in the library, halfway up the ladder affixed to the floor-to-ceiling shelves, still clad in his traveling cloak and mud-caked shoes; apparently he could not afford the tie and wash Without a word he pointed to the shelves on his right, and I rolled the ladder to the spot Behind us, upon the large table that dominated the rooe map of New Jerusalem and its environs

"Nohere is it?" hethe cracked spines in a row of ancient tomes "Where? Ah, here it is! Catch, Will Henry!" He pulled a large volume from the shelf and let it fall ten feet, where it landed with a heavy thud upon the carpet beside lared down atover his forehead, as matted and filthy as a cur’s

"I told you to catch it," he said in a low, level voice

"Sorry, sir," Iit to the table I glanced at the title: The Histories of Herodotus I flipped through the thin pages The text was in the original Greek I looked froist

The doctor sca at an, but the doctor cut me off

"We are slaves, all of us, Will Henry," he said, pulling the book fro it upon the nearest stack "Some are slaves to fear Others are slaves to reason-or base desire It is our lot to be slaves, Will Henry, and the question must be to what shall e our indenture? Will it be to truth or to falsehood, hope or despair, light or darkness? I choose to serve the light, even though that bondage often lies in darkness Despair did not drive uided , but sed hard, eyes welling with tears Heave hiivenesswas all

"He was doomed the moment the creature struck," he went on "No more absurd or insidious a precept has ever been laid down than ‘Where there is life, there is hope’ Just as the trout is doomed once the bait is taken, there was no hope for him once the barbs were set He would thank me if he could As I would thank you, Will Henry"

"Thank me, sir?"

"If one day I should meet the same fate, I pray you would do the same for me"

Left unspoken but conveyed in his dark eyes was the corollary to his blasphemous prayer: As you should pray I would for you If, in that hole, the monster had seized rant h; I did not have the words to argue I, at twelve, had only the inarticulate protests of a child whose acute sense of justice has been offended by the pious rationalizations of an authoritarian adult I did not-only because I could not-argue So, I nodded Nodded! Even as nation Perhaps I was a slave to so he believed to be silly and superstitious: the idea that all life orth defending and that nothing justified surrender to the forces of destruction Had I known that night as to coht have felt less like pu countenance withmyself into his arms for the coive

"But enough philosophy! On toconcerns, Will Henry!" he cried, brushing my body aside as casually as he hadtable and peered at the map; already he had drawn a red circle around New Jerusaleinal hypothesis incorrect This is a s in our base feh the circumstances made it difficult to ascertain their exact nue to get a count, Will Henry?" he asked, in all seriousness, as if it were plausible Ifor my life

"No, sir," I said

"But does that seem close to the mark?" he asked "Twenty-five to thirty? Based upon your observation"

One hundred thirty was closer to the mark based on my observation, but that skill had been tarnished by terror The ce from every shadow and from behind every tree

"Yes, sir," I replied "I would say twenty-five Twenty-five to thirty"

"Nonsense!" he cried, slapping his open hand upon the tabletop The resulting retort caused me to flinch "Never tell me what you think I wish to hear, Will Henry Never! I cannot rely upon you if you chose to be a parrot It is a detestable vice not entirely limited to children Always speak the truth, all the truth in all things at all tis of obsequious deceit Now be honest You’ve really no idea whether there were thirty or fifty or two hundred and fifty"

I bowed my head "Yes, sir," I said "I could not tell"

"Nor could I," he aduess, based on the literature" He picked up the Herodotus froes until he cainal Greek After a moment or two he slapped the book closed, replaced it upon the stack, and returned to the map He produced a ruler from his pocket, measured the shortest distance between New Jerusalem and the coast, and then proceeded toto himself the entire time, while I, so recently the object of his full attention, stood entirely forgotten His was a concentrationin its force than that in any other ht of his focus had shifted away, like a person falling into a well, plunging froht into utter darkness