“Now look here. Of course I’m real,” Josef shouted. “And I almost seem to remember you. But what are we doing here? I must be dreaming. Are you?”

“We’re on a pilgrimage to find the gods—if there really are any,” Lydia announced dramatically, half sarcastically, staring at Oversoul Seven, yet unable to keep a certain wavering hope from her voice. “Anyhow, you seem to have joined us,” she added. “And that’s all I can tell you.”

Josef scowled. “I’m not religious, and I think that the priests are mostly rascals, but there’s only one God. Talking about gods is blasphemy,” he said, honestly outraged, forgetting his own earlier thoughts on the matter. He stared accusingly at Seven. “I knew it,” he moaned dejectedly. “Why can’t I have an ordinary soul like anyone else, one that I can count on, instead of some renegade kind that sets out on pagan pilgrimages?”

But as soon as he spoke, Josef stopped, considering. Everything that he’d ever heard about pagan gods rushed into his mind. Orgies! He remembered the Norse deities again and almost smelled the meat roasting on spits, thick grease sizzling. (Damn, he was hungry.) The sensual richness overwhelmed him and spread out its tantalizing aura so that Lydia cried, “Something really smells great!”

“Roast pig,” Josef shouted. “A feast of such gigantic proportions—”

“He’s delirious,” Elgren Hosentauf muttered. “Roast pig indeed.” He and his two brothers knelt by Josef’s body and tried to bundle it up onto the sleigh. It was well below zero. The men felt nearly frozen themselves.

“Wake up, Josef. You have to move around. Wake up!” Elgren shouted in Josef’s ear. He and his brothers grabbed Josef’s arms and started jerking them up and down; then his legs. Elgren opened the stiff mouth and sloppily poured some brandy down Josef’s throat; Josef gagged, sputtered, coughed—and opened his physical eyes. Instead of the summer night he saw the snow and a closeup of Elgren’s anxious face, large pores with blackheads, some half hidden at the edges of the red woolen scarf. But most of all, Josef saw Elgren’s furious yet frightened cold-swollen eyes. “Oh, God,” Elgren was yelling, caught between calling Josef a blockhead and crying with gratitude as Josef’s bleary eyes opened.

“He’s come to,” Elgren shouted. “Give me a hand.” They all loaded Josef on the sleigh, while Elgren sat beside him, constantly moving his arms and legs, forcing him to move—much against his own inclination. “Let me sleep,” Josef kept muttering. “Just let me sleep.”