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It came from far away It came from outside the cider-press that had once been his head

Once there had been a boy named Andrew, and his father had taken that boy to a park on the far western side of Lud, a park where there had been apple trees and a rusty tin shack that looked like hell and smelled like heaven In answer to his question, Andrew&039;s father had told hiave Andrew a pat on the head, told hih the blanket-covered doorway

There had been ainst the walls inside, and there had also been a scrawny old man named Dewlap, whose muscles writhed beneath his white skin like worms and whose job was to feed the apples, basket by basket, to the loose-jointed, clanking machine which stood in thefrom the far end of the er reht have been) stood there, his job to fill jug after jug with the cider A third -filler on the head if there was too iven hireathis years in the city, he had never tasted anything finer than that sweet, cold drink It had been like sing a gust of October wind Yet what he remembered even more clearly than the taste of the cider or the worle of Dewlap&039;s muscles as he dumped the baskets was the old apples to liquid Two dozen rollers had carried the steel drum with holes punched in it The apples had first been squeezed and then actually popped, spilling their juices down an inclined trough while a screen caught the seeds and pulp

Now his head was the cider-press and his brains were the apples Soon they would pop as the apples had popped beneath the roller, and the blessed darkness would s him

"Andrew! Raise your head and look at me"

He couldn&039;t and wouldn&039;t even if he could Better to just lie here and wait for the darkness He was supposed to be dead, anyway; hadn&039;t the hellish squint put a bullet in his brain?

"It didn&039;t go anywhere near your brain, you horse&039;s ass, and you&039;re not dying You&039;ve just got a headache You will die, though, if you don&039;t stop lying there and puling in your own blood and I willnow seem like bliss"

It was not the threats which caused the man on the floor to raise his head but rather the way the owner of that penetrating, hissing voice seeony was excruciating- - heavy objects see around the bony case which contained as left of his h his brain as they went A long, syrupysensation on his right cheek, as if a dozen flies were crawling in the blood there He wanted to shoo them away, but he knew that he needed both hands just to support hi on the far side of the roohastly, unreal This was partly because the overhead lights were still strobing, partly because he was seeing the new-comer with only one eye (he couldn&039;t remember what had happened to the other and didn&039;t want to), but he had an idea it was hastly and unreal It looked like a man but die felloho had once been Andrew Quick had an idea it really wasn&039;t ain front of the hatch wore a short, dark jacket belted at the waist, faded denim trousers, and old, dusty boots - the boots of a countryer, Andrew?" the stranger asked, and tittered

The Tick-Tock Man stared desperately at the figure in the doorway, trying to see the face, but the short jacket had a hood, and it was up The stranger&039;s countenance was lost in its shadows

The siren stopped in hts stayed on, but they at least stopped flashing

"There," the stranger said in his - or its - whispery, penetrating voice "At last we can hear ourselves think"

"Who are you?" the Tick-Tock Man asked He h his head, ripping fresh chan-nels in his brain As terrible as that feeling was, the awful tickling of the flies on his right cheek was somehoorse

"I&039;m a man of many handles, pardner," the h his voice was grave, Tick-Tock heard laughter lurking just below the surface "There&039;s some that call me Jimmy, and some that call me Timmy; some that call me Handy and some that call me Dandy They can callas they don&039;t call me in too late for dinner"

The hter chilled the skin of the wounded ooseflesh; it was like the howl of a wolf

"I have been called the Ageless Stranger," the an to walk toward Tick-Tock, and as he did, the man on die floor moaned and tried to scrabble backward "I have also been called Merlin or Maerlyn - and who cares, because I was never that one, although I never denied it, either I aicianor the Wizard but I hope we can go forward together on more humble terms, Andrew More hu a fair, broad-browed face that was not, for all its pleasant looks, in any way hue hectic roses rode the Wizard&039;s cheekbones; his blue-green eyes sparkled with a gusty joy far too wild to be sane; his blue-black hair stood up in zany clumps like the feathers of a raven; his lips, lushly red, parted to reveal the teeth of a cannibal

"Callapparition said "Richard Fannin That&039;s not exactly right, overn-ment work" He held out a hand whose palm was utterly devoid of lines "What do you say, pard? Shake the hand that shook the world"

The creature who had once been Andrew Quick and who had been known in the halls of the Grays as the Tick-Tock Man shrieked and again tried to wriggle backward The flap of scalp peeled loose by the low-caliber bullet which had only grooved his skull instead of penetrating it swung back and forth; the long strands of gray-blonde hair continued to tickle against his cheek Quick, however, no longer felt it He had even forgotten the ache in his skull and the throb from the socket where his left eye had been His entire consciousness had fused into one thought: I et away from this beast that looks like a ht hand and shook it that thought passed like a drea The scream which had been locked in Quick&039;s breast escaped his lips in a lover&039;s sigh He stared du newcoled

"Is that bothering you? Itflap and ripped it briskly off Quick&039;s head, revealing a bleary swatch of skull There was a noise like heavy cloth tearing Quick shrieked

"There, there, it only hurts for a second" Theon his hunkers before Quick and speaking as an indulgent parent er "Isn&039;t that so?"