Despite this, my amiable, balding neighbor seemed upbeat and laughed frequently while we spoke, his guffaws erupting in great, breathy honks. I spent ...aturday pretty much as planned—in a state of studied, pre-meditated inactivity, sleeping late and then, after downing a few donuts and some Tang, sleeping some more. When I woke up from my mid-morning nap I started to work through a pile of paperbacks, mostly lurid adventure tales of one sort or another—re-prints of early 20th century pulps. To make things fair, lots will be drawn each morn before we set out, to see who should take the stage that evening, Time enough on the road for that person to collect their thoughts and frame the night’s entertainment. These the are the tales with which we beguiled each other, beginning with the monk. There was a general groan when he drew the first lot, for what had he learned in his monastery, other than prayers and psalms, dreary fodder indeed. As it turned out, we were surprised, perhaps. The Lyr' population of Crags Deep filed silently into the Great Hall from the doors along the sides of the chamber, and they stood at attention by rank waiting for Tol'dor to begin opening the portal.Tol'dor began to chant in a language older than the Earth and containing a power to break the bonds of time and space. He raised his staff and the runes and symbols on an arch at the rear of the hall glowed with silver light and the center of the arch slowly changed into a rainbow of swirling. ”He tinkled fresh ice cubes into the tumbler and poured a generous measure of gin over the frozen chunks. “How far have you read?”She skipped back a few pages to read the date. “I reached the passage June 18th, the part when she returned home from the States and now I’m reading when she was living with the Millers. She’s been with them a week and just seen Hanover West, the soap star. I assume she’s about to meet him. Is that right?”“No.”“Oh!”“Does he exist or is he part of her fantasy?”“He’s.