Prologue

The door to eternity is taupe.

Fundamentalists maintain that it is a pleasant, earthy brown.

But really, it’s just taupe.

It bears the number ‘327’ in rusted metal.

On a particular Monday in August, two old men sat before it, arguing and jabbing at each other with straws.

“Why ain’t you opening the thing, then, eh? Let me see that straw!” the bald one with the big, bristly mustache demanded querulously.

“You don’t need to see the thing,” the other said, just as cranky. “It’s the long one, right enough. You just need to quit jibber-jabbering and open it, eh?”

“How can I trust you, eh? Eh? You ain’t never given me a reason to trust you in my life.” He pointed a shaky, righteous finger at the man with the crazed white hair.

“I ain’t never given you a reason not to, then, eh? Just open the door. There’s no use arguing, it’ll never get done.”

Silence reigned for a good minute and a half.

“I can’t,” the bald man said, drooping shame-facedly. He lifted his hand toward the door, and his hand inexplicably halted in midair.

“Whatcha mean, you can’t?” The sprier brother leapt to his feet with the aid of a knobby cane and turned the doorknob. Or, rather, he attempted. His hand met the same resistance. He tried to knock at it, but the resistance wasn’t solid, and he ended up merely flapping his hand slowly in the air.

The one with the bushy mustache peered shortsightedly at the worn piece of paper he’d held bunched in his hand since the strange boy in the lobby handed it to him.

“Er, the wrong number, mayhap?” He sounded hopeful.

“Don’t be daft. I ain’t blind, not like you, eh? It says ‘327,’ right enough. What I wants to know is what a little boy’s doing with…with that money, just handing it around to respectable men in lobbies and disappearing, all quick-like.”

The bald one slowly eased himself to his feet, leaning against the wall beside the door for support. He sighed.

“Just sing the song already. I need t’get back. Sheila’ll be worried. She always worried.”

“Worried that one day you’ll forget about her and start thinking you’re a turtle again,” the spry one retorted. “An’ anywho, I ain’t singing the song. I ain’t singing away a piece o’my soul for a bit o’gold. I learnt my lesson, eh?” He sniffed haughtily.

The other rubbed his shiny dome. “Why d’ya reckon the boy wanted this thing open? He ain’t got a song of his own?”

White-hair narrowed his wrinkle-encrusted green eyes. “Ya don’t suppose—“

“No,” the other said immediately. “No. A god’d have to be daft to want to see behind that door, eh? All the stars, I reckon. Does strange things to immortals, eh? They start going a little mad. Minds just…floating off, and suchlike. Into oblivion. To dance with those stars. Those damnable stars. A god’d have to be half-mad already to try that.”

“Well, aye then! ‘Tis got t’be why he got us to do it then, eh?”

“Besides,” the other rambled on obliviously, “what respectable god’d go around in such a form, eh? Mark my words, the little whippersnapper was just that! Some ragamuffin who knows about the door. Naught more t’an that.”

“A bit of a coin-ci-dence, though, eh?” White-hair murmured quietly. “Unlikely, seein’ as us, bein’ guardians, ain’t told no one, eh?”

“He could have a song of his own!” the bald one suddenly said. “Wit’ all o’t’at gold, he’d got to have ‘is own song! What else would ‘e be sellin’ here for so much, eh?”

“’ow do y’know ‘e sold it ‘ere? No, you mark my words, it’s one o’t’em, rightly enough. Gods, bah! Silly, vain creatures.” He waggled his finger at the bald one. “Kalc, y’know well as I do, t’boy wouldn’t know o’t’is place less he was one o’the Big Ones. And if’n he ain’t a Big One, ‘e’s a god, right enough. Right enough.” He threw down his tinkling sack of gold. “But I ain’t sellin’ another piece, not for a god.”

“’Tis just a song,” Kalc protested, hunching over to lift his old friends sack of gold.

“Don’t do it, eh? They always take more. It’s how theys always done it.”

Kalc flared his old nostrils stubbornly. He opened his mouth, and with a croaky opening note, he began to sing.

“The fool,” the woman growled, hundreds of miles away, as her house burst into flame.