Bearing an Hourglass Read Online Free Page B

view people with a magic glow. “Let’s do this puzzle,” he suggested. “The park picture.”
    Orlene smiled with glad acquiescence. “Let’s!”
    And that finessed the main issue nicely. She did want him to stay, for otherwise she would not have agreed to get into a project like this that could take days. And—he did want to stay. Not necessarily to honor the ghost’s request, but to explore the possibility. The notion of helping Gawain in this fashion no longer seemed so unreasonable.
    They labored on the puzzle, first sorting the colors of the park scene, then aligning the straight-edge pieces, getting the border done. Norton was an old hand at this sort of thing, except that his experience had been with the old-fashioned kind of jigsaw. This magic-picture variety was new, but the fundamental principles of strategy and matching remained. A picture was like a story, with rules of structure that were vulnerable to exploitation in a case like this.
    Orlene turned out to have a good eye for color andshape and was able to locate pieces he needed. She was assisted by her magic, she said; the particular piece she looked for tended to glow. He saw no such effect, but her accuracy in drawing pieces from the great mixed pile lent credence to the claim. The two of them were working well together.
    Norton glanced at the clock and discovered that three hours had flown by. They had completed the border and much of the forest path and were working on two trees, but there was a long way to go. Edges and paths filled in deceptively rapidly; the solid masses of single-color regions would be much slower. “Maybe we’d better let it rest for the night,” he said.
    “Yes. Let me get you some pajamas.” They both understood that he would be staying here indefinitely. The agreement had formed, unvoiced, as the outline of the puzzle took form. Like the puzzle, the details remained inchoate.
    Norton did not ordinarily use pajamas, but he didn’t argue. He was a guest of this estate, and it was no place to flop in his clothes. Except—“Pajamas? Do you have male clothing here?”
    “They were Gawain’s,” she said delicately. “You’re close enough to his size, and I’m sure he would have wanted them to be used.”
    Surely so. Norton squelched his misgivings and accepted the pajamas. Orlene showed him to a well-appointed room, separate from hers; their relationship had not progressed to the critical stage. As he had known from the moment he first saw her, she was no one-night-stand girl. And he, abruptly, was no love-’em-and-leave-’em guy. He was committed for the full route, whatever it might be.
    He discovered that he was quite tired; it had indeed been a long day. He undressed, stepped into the sonic cleaner, stepped out dry and tingly clean, then got into Gawain’s pajamas, reluctantly accepting their symbolism. They hung on him somewhat baggily.
    He got into bed and realized that this was not theordinary flophouse bunk he was used to. It was an oil-sponge couch. His weight caused the sponge oil to give way and shift, but not instantly; it was more like sinking into thick mud. The truth was, mud was excellent stuff, as children instinctively knew, despite the bad press provided by their mothers. It offered enough support to prevent drowning, while being malleable enough for freedom of action. It was also fascinating stuff in itself, suitable for splashing or mudballs and body-paintings. Of course this bed was not mud and would not splash or separate, but
the feel
was similar. Norton let himself descend into its enfoldment with sheer bliss.
    “How did it work out?” a voice asked.
    Norton opened his eyes, annoyed. Gawain the Ghost was there, standing expectantly beside the bed. “I had almost forgotten you,” he said.
    “I certainly hadn’t forgotten
you!
” the ghost replied. “Three hours—did you beget my offspring?”
    “What the hell are you doing here?” Norton demanded. “I thought you couldn’t