“You should choose only what you wish. We won’t force anything on you.”

“Yes, yes, I know you won’t force me, but … I’m looking for truth.”

“Commendable,” the man said, nodding wisely. “There’s truth in all religions. You must choose for yourself.”

I threw up my hands and walked away, wondering if I was insane or he was. Salama stayed behind to talk with him. My face hot and twitching, I walked to a nearby road where people wore angel pins, collected angel figurines, and read books about angels.

“Talk to your angel,” one man said.

“Listen to your angel,” a young girl added.

“I know my angel’s name,” an old woman said. “She speaks to me often.”

“Angels are here to comfort us,” said a radiant young blonde wearing an angel necklace. “Never be afraid of an angel.”

I shook my head in frustration—what was true and how could I know? Who could I listen to? What should I believe? I walked away from the others, kicking the dust with my boot.

A man with a square jaw, a Middle-Eastern complexion, and long, jet-black hair approached me. He asked, “What is different between Thuros and the world you came from?”

How did he know I came from another world? Was it written on my forehead?

“Since I’ve been here,” I said, “for something like sixty seconds each day, I’ve been able to … see into other worlds. It’s as if I’ve been given eyes that see what isn’t there.”

“Or is it that your eyes now see what was there all along?”

“I come from a world where seeing is believing,” I said. “If you can’t sense it, it isn’t real.”

“I am Marcus,” he said.

“Nick,” I mumbled.

“In a world where seeing is believing,” Marcus said, “men believe much that is not true. And they disbelieve much that is true.”

His eyes scanned the great plain spread out before us, full of people walking on the many roads. His gaze pulled mine with it, and I saw a hundred red-winged blackbirds in sudden flight, appearing to flee from something I couldn’t see.

The plain suddenly became an immense battlefield, full of great gladiators, with eyes of fire, lifting their swords against other warriors, these with cold shark eyes. The warriors of both sides seemed to be of the same stock, as if it was a civil war—the gray city of the east versus the bright city of the west. Some troops fought on the ground, some above it, as if the air had an invisible floor. Sparks flew off their swords and lightning bolts pierced the sky. Swords clashed against shields, and thunderclaps exploded. Even at a distance the noise was almost unbearable.