“Charity?” It was that same ragged beggar Veltan had seen the previous morning.

“Is this your customary place of business?” Veltan asked him.

The beggar shrugged. “It’s fairly well protected from the wind, and if it starts to rain, I can take shelter under that archway. You seem troubled, stranger. What’s bothering you?”

Veltan sat down on the curbstone beside the beggar. “I thought this city was the center of power here in the Trogite Empire, but I can’t seem to find anybody here who has any kind of authority. I’ve been trying to find somebody here who’ll rent me an army, but I can’t find anybody who’s willing to even discuss it.”

“Did you speak with the soldiers themselves?”

“I didn’t think that was permitted. Don’t I have to go through someone in authority? I thought that the army of the Empire takes orders from the government.”

The beggar laughed. “That hasn’t been true for centuries, stranger. The imperial government found it inconvenient to give the soldiers full pay in peacetime, and before long, beggars such as me were better off than the average soldier. It was at that point that the soldiers went into business for themselves. There are little wars breaking out all the time—usually between the various noblemen who rule the provinces—so the assorted armies can find steady work. Why do you need an army?”

“There’s trouble in the wind at home,” Veltan replied evasively. “It’s a little complicated, but it looks as if we’re going to need professional soldiers to help us deal with it.”

A young Trogite in tight black leather clothing came into the narrow street. He was wearing a metal helmet, and he had a long spear in one hand. “I need to talk with you, Commander Narasan,” he said apologetically to the beggar.

“What is it now, Keselo?” the beggar demanded, “and don’t call me ‘Commander.’ I threw that away on the day when I broke my sword.”

“Things are really falling apart on us, sir,” the young man reported. “Won’t you please reconsider your decision? Nobody knows what to do anymore.”

“Give them some time, Keselo. They’ll learn.”

“We don’t have time, sir,” the youthful Keselo said. “The seventh cohort’s completely out of control. They’ve gone outside the city and they’ve been raiding manor houses and robbing travelers out on the high road. We sent orders to them to come back where they belong, but they ignored us.”

“Go kill them,” the beggar said bluntly.

“Kill?” Keselo gasped. “We can’t do that! They’re our comrades. It’s not right to kill one’s comrades.”

“They’re operating outside the rules, Keselo, so they’re not your comrades anymore. They’ve broken off from the army, and that’s a violation of the oath they swore when they joined us. If you don’t punish them, other cohorts will do the same thing, and the army’ll disintegrate. You know what has to be done, Keselo. Go do it, and stop bringing these silly problems to me. Was there anything else?”

“No, sir.” The young man’s face grew desperate. “Won’t you please reconsider and come back to our headquarters?”

“No. You do grasp the meaning of ‘no,’ don’t you, Keselo? And you should know me well enough by now to know that I mean what I say. Now, go away.”

Keselo sighed. “Yes, sir,” he said. Then he turned and left.

“He’s a good boy,” the beggar told Veltan, “and if he lives, he might go far.”

“It appears that you’re not what you seem to be, my friend,” Veltan noted.

“Appearances can be deceiving. I’m exactly what I seem to be. That won’t change just because I used to be something else. Narasan the army commander is now Narasan the beggar.”

“Why did you decide to change careers?”

Narasan sighed. “I made a stupid decision and got several thousand of my men killed. That’s very hard to live with, so I don’t want to do what I used to do anymore. Time’s running out anyway, so in a little while it won’t make any difference what I do.”

“You aren’t that old, my friend.”

“I wasn’t talking about me,” Narasan said in a gloomy voice. “I was talking about the world. It’s just about to come to an end, you know. It won’t be long before it’s gone.”

“I doubt that,” Veltan disagreed. “What led you to this gloomy conclusion? Is it perhaps one of the tenets of the Trogite religion?”

Narasan made an indelicate sound. “Religion’s nothing but a bad joke filled with lies and superstition,” he declared scornfully. “The priests in the temple use it as an excuse to rob the gullible so that they can live in luxury in those fancy temples. I came to understand what’s happening on my own. Time’s running out. It’ll stop any day now.” There was a hopelessness in the ragged man’s voice.

“I think you’ve seen what very few others have,” Veltan said, “but you didn’t go quite far enough. The world’s approaching the end of a cycle, not the end of time itself. One cycle nears its end, but another will begin, and time, as she always does, will continue. Don’t despair, Narasan. Time has no end—or beginning either, if the truth were known.”

“And just how is it you know that?” the beggar demanded.

“I’ve seen the cycles change before,” Veltan told him, “many, many times. The seasons turn and the years pass. The young grow old and long for sleep, and the sleeping ones awaken to resume their tasks. This is the natural order of things.”

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I think I already mentioned that. I’m looking for an army, and I’m ready to pay, but I haven’t been able to find anybody yet who was willing to talk about it.” Veltan’s face took on a rueful cast. “I think my mind must be shutting down. I’ve walked past the man I need to talk with dozens of times and scarcely even saw him.”

“Oh? Who’s that?”

“You, my friend. It’s time to set aside your sorrow and your gloomy speculation about the end of time and of the world. Time will continue her stately march, and the world will abide, no matter what we do to destroy her.”

“You’re not at all like other men,” the beggar observed in an awed tone. “I don’t think you’re really a man at all. You’re something entirely different from man, aren’t you?”