There was no audience, I thought for a moment, for audience and orchestra and choir all blended into one great symphony, one grand cantata of rhapsodic melodies and powerful sustaining harmonies.

No, wait, there was an audience. An audience so vast and all-encompassing that for a moment I’d been no more aware of it than a fish is aware of water.

I looked at the great throne, and upon it sat the King … the Audience of One.

The smile of his approval swept through the choir like fire across dry wheat fields.

When we completed our song, the one on the throne stood and raised his great arms and clapped his scarred hands together in thunderous applause, shaking ground and sky, jarring every corner of the cosmos. His applause went on and on, unstopping and unstoppable.

And in that moment I knew, with unwavering clarity, that the King’s approval was all that mattered—and ever would.

24

PULLED BACK TO THE MOMENT, I eagerly stepped toward the warrior who stood before the great open book, guarding the gate of Charis. If Marcus would not escort me, I would go there myself!

In front of me a man argued with the warrior, the palace guard.

“I did good things,” the man said. “I was a better man than many I see inside. I gave generous gifts.”

“But you did not receive the gift offered you,” said the guard. “The only gift that qualifies you to enter. Your name was among those invited, but not among those who accepted the invitation. Your name is not written in the book. Depart.”

As I watched, the man was sucked through a portal into another world. I heard his scream, and I trembled.

I stepped forward, standing now with no one between me and the warrior who bent his head in silence, searching the book. I looked behind him and saw a crowd gathering just inside the gate. A welcoming party!

Shad and Malaiki and Victoria were laughing and dancing around someone. Who was it? I leaned from side to side trying to get a clear view. It was a short young man … with a huge smile.

“Quon!”

He looked out and waved me in. “Come on, Nick—get in here and join the radiance! I have so much to show you. You just won’t believe it!”

He laughed uproariously, as if his troubles on Earth or Thuros had never been—or as if they had helped make him the man he now was.

Then I saw another familiar face, one I’d seen in another context. A man with a large crooked nose. I pictured him … wearing an orange stocking cap.

“Shaun?”

“I beat you here!” he called, waving and smiling broadly, showing perfect teeth.

Shaun survived the avalanche?

No, of course, he hadn’t survived. But I realized now he’d embraced the Woodsman’s gift before the snow buried him. The avalanche ushered him straight into Charis.