We choose our own works, said This One.

Am I choosing well? asked Danny.

You are choosing, and noticing your choice, and taking responsibility for it.

But is it the right way?

Why do you think there is only one right way to do your chosen work?

Because there are so many wrong ways!

You want me to always tell you what’s the right way so you never get it wrong. But if you come to count on me, then once again, am I not the one doing it, and not you?

Yes, you’d be doing it, and I’m content with that! Let me help you. Please don’t make me guess.

It doesn’t work that way.

Change the rules until it does!

The rules are not of my making. They’re in the nature of things. Power comes only by persuasion, by love and service. It comes from trying and learning.

A quote from The Empire Strikes Back that Hal and Wheeler always used came to mind. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

This One responded with sadness and scorn. The opposite is true, This One seemed to say. There is only try, and try again, until you can persuade the world to work according to your new plan for it. There is no “do” because everything has a mind of its own, and follows the laws it already understands.

So you can’t change the laws, Danny replied to This One. Not because you are blocked from changing them, but because without the laws there is no doing, no making, no knowing. The laws are the universe, and we kas and bas, we inselves and outselves, we prets—we can only find a place within those laws, and by obeying them gain a measure of power.

Closer. Closer. Close enough for now.

May we go back? asked Danny North. May we be alive again on Mittlegard, in our same bodies, using what we’ve learned here to try to make the world safe from that old liar Set?

There was no answer; there was no time for an answer. Because Danny immediately felt the overwhelming rush of sensation. He was in his body again.

He could hear: the noises of the street outside, the highway two blocks over. He could feel: the vibrations in the floor. He could smell: the iron stink of spilled, congealing blood. Pat’s blood.

Danny opened his mouth to speak.

His mouth spoke.

“Welcome back, Danny North,” his mouth said. “Brought your girlfriend, too, I see. Let’s kill her again and see how many times we can do this.”