Cradling his helmet closer to him, his eyes closed a little, he began to tread without such a heightened awareness of his feet. The second loop took him almost to the center; he thought it would suddenly culminate at the flower shape. But the wondrous path coiled back on itself in a short series of bends, like a beautiful snake, until there was once again a great swooping curve that took him near the center and then right out again, into another quadrant. He gave himself to the feeling: his eyes were drawn up to the intense colors that dappled his face from the window on the south side. He paused for a second and took in the picture: a man emerging from the gateway of a walled city, with a cobalt glass background; then, in the roundel, a man steeling behind him and pulling a sword from its sheath, with a fabulous ruby-colored background. This man was wearing green, and was beautifully drawn, while the man in front of him wore a blue robe and carried a yellow cloak over his shoulder. The red, the blue, and the yellow hues all fell upon Will’s face as the equinox sunshine, approaching noon, slanted through the glass. Will felt light-headed; the experience was unexpectedly intense and moving. He laughed slightly self-consciously, and warned himself about roads to Damascus.

No one else was walking. They had generously given him some space, it seemed, though he was dimly aware of a few faces following his movements with surprise. He didn’t care though, and enjoyed instead the sensations of his face moving from the light to the dark, and back again; and his feet tracing shorter paths and then sweeping into longer ones, turning him back and forth, as if in a sophisticated game of blind man’s bluff. The mantra from the document began again in his head…

OUR TWO SOULS THEREFORE

All that was ablaze in the Field of Flowers! Pluck forth a bloom, and think on what has been; on centuries of betrayal, and pain, and misunderstanding…

Will’s feet wandered along without seeing properly. Only the single page was in his mind, and he touched his jacket as he continued walking and rhythmically tapping out the maze…

I am what I am, and what I am is what I am. I have a will to be what I am, and what I will be is only what I am. If I have a will to be, I will to be no more than what I was. If I was what I am willed to be, yet they ever will be wondering what I am or what

I ever was. I want to change the Wall, and make my Will.

That I am that same wall, the truth is so.

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,

Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.