“She’s very good,” Seven said to Cyprus. “But she always sees me as an old man.”

“Why not? You always are an old man when I see you,” Ma-ah said. “Are you going to help me keep watch tonight?”

“Not tonight,” he said, adding to Cyprus, “Uh, I help her watch sometimes when she’s tired, so the wolves don’t find the cave.”

“You know that you’re out of your physical body?” Cyprus asked.

“Of course,” Ma-ah said scornfully. “If I didn’t go out in the spirit at night, who’d watch over my body while it slept? Only I don’t like to get too far away from my body. Rampa hardly ever comes awake when he’s asleep. Whose spirit are you?”

“I’ll tell you sometime,” Cyprus said. Then she and Seven disappeared.

“Ma-ah always sees me as an old man,” Seven sighed. “Come to think of it, she sees me as black because she’s black. Josef sees me in lots of different ways, but he likes to see me as an old man, too. It gives him confidence in me, for some silly reason. But Proteus never sees me at all.”

“So?” Cyprus said.

“Well, none of them see me as I am, male and female, ageless, beyond any image. Even Lydia. I mean, she doesn’t let herself believe in her soul at all, at least not on an intellectual level.”

“Now who’s brooding?” Cyprus said. “You sound as downhearted as Proteus.”

“Proteus! He’ll probably never see me if he keeps on the way he’s going,” Seven said. “But you’ve already met Josef, so I presume that this part of the examination is over.”

“I’d like to see him when he’s awake in his time, if you don’t mind,” Cyprus said dryly….

1615

Just as Oversoul Seven and Cyprus arrived at Josef’s, there was a tremendous pounding at his door. Josef Landsdatter moaned, bounded out of bed, ran his fingers through his bushy hair, and almost sobbed. He’d never felt so cornered in his life.

“Coming. Yes. Yes,” he shouted. He hoped that he sounded enraged, impatient, anything but scared. He grabbed a paintbrush, dipped it into a jar of varnish, held it between his teeth, and threw open the door. “I’m working. Working. Can’t you see? I’m busy. But come in, if you must.”

Elgren Hosentauf reminded himself that his wife was watching from the first-floor landing, so he strode through the door briskly. It was after all his house, his extra room. The place was a mess of rumpled clothing, tossed bedding, paint jars, and canvases in various stages of completion. “Ah, were you sleeping or painting? My wife swears that you were still in bed.”