"There should be a way," Luna said. "Satan's minions do not endure long apart from him. That demon must have done its deed and expired. If we can identify what he did and nullify it before it impinges on human events, then the victory will be ours. We probably have time, because Satan sought to distract you; he would not have bothered, had the deed been truly irrevocable."

"It was some distraction!" Norton admitted ruefully. "He said he was showing me the nature of his bribe to encourage me to take his minion to the Mess o' Pottage. All the time he knew this was pointless or impossible. He was certainly angry when he learned I'd destroyed the horn, though; he must have thought the mission had been a complete failure."

"We were lucky," Luna said. "We could have been lost before we had a chance to fight back.

But that secondary mission can still destroy us. How is it coming, Atropos?"
"I have almost pinpointed the time and place," Atropos said. "But not the deed. I only
know that when it mani -- fests, it will give Satan the victory. My threads have ten -- sion on
them that threatens haywire shifting. I need to comprehend it further."
Norton's mind had been running back over his recent experiences with Satan. The globular
cluster, the Magic -- Lantern Cloud, and his adventures there -- suddenly the thing that had
bothered him came clear. He had doubled himself in those adventures, rescuing himself from the
Bern and saving Excelsia from the Alicom. It had been not only possible but easy. How, then, could
the three -- person limit be such a formidable force? Did it exist at all?
"Gaea," Luna said.
"I will take Atropos to her," Thanatos said, rising and resuming his cloak. "Take us all," Luna said. "Chronos must meet her, too."

215

"Gaea -- another Incarnation?" Norton asked. It seemed to him he had heard that name before; Gawain the Ghost had said -
"The Green Mother," Luna explained. "Nature."
Yes, that was it; Gaea had changed the baby for Gawain and thereby had caused terrible mischief. The memory of that banished Norton's three-person speculation from his attention; he wanted to meet this powerful yet fallible entity.
The four of them walked out to the estate parking lot, paced by the guardian griffins. They were certainly beau -- tiful animals! Beside the parking lot there was a small, verdant pasture. A handsome stallion of pale hue grazed there.
"Mortis," Thanatos called.
The pale horse perked up his ears and trotted over. He was a truly splendid animal, with a sleek hide and firm muscles; had he had wings and a horn, he could have passed for another Alicom. This was, Norton remem -- bered, the Deathhorse -- the steed who carried Thanatos to his appointments.
"We need transportation for four -- to the Green Mother," Thanatos said to the horse.
Mortis stepped onto the pavement -- and shifted into the form of a pale limousine. Norton gaped. "That -- but that's a machine!" he protested.
Thanatos drew his cloak about him more tightly; as the hood closed, the skull-face manifested with its grue -- some grin. "Mortis is an excellent steed -- but perhaps no more remarkable than your little ring." He opened a door for the ladies.
Squeeze. Sning liked that comparison. He was another creature who converted from living to dead, or vice versa.
Norton walked around the car, noting that the tag in back said, MORTIS. And he had thought the Alicom was remarkable! When magic and science were one, such mir -- acles were commonplace. He opened a door and climbed in.
He found himself in the back seat beside Clotho. She

216 Bearing An Houiylass
shrugged at his startled glance. "I want to be presentable for Ge," she explained. Of course. Fate changed bodies the way others changed clothes. This made it seem like a

double date, for Than -- atos and Luna were companions, while he and Clotho -- well, what did it matter? His old existence as a mortal was behind him.

The car started smoothly, driving itself. It turned about -- and abruptly it was zooming through space and matter. The world was rushing past in a smear of color. Then this slowed, and they were driving into the gate of a truly sumptuous estate with luxuriant trees of many varieties and a sparkling lake. It was the kind of place that could charge tourists for visits.

A huge shape loomed in the sky ahead. Norton peered through the windshield. "That -- that's a -- "
"A roc," Luna said calmly. "The largest of birds. Ge has made her estate into a preserve for rare and magical creatures. It's hard to imagine how she salvaged the rocs."
The roc swooped toward them, its wings seeming to span the whole horizon. It pounced on the car, its mon -- strous talons poking into the windows and vents, and picked up the vehicle together with its occupants as if this were no more than a mouse. In moments they were dangling high in the air.
One talon was near Norton's face, projecting from the top of the window to the ceiling of the car. The talon was like fine blue steel, an inch in diameter at the window and tapering to a needle point. What a bird!
Luna turned to Thanatos, unruffled. "Ge is testing us," she remarked. "Perhaps you had better perform a token, just to reassure her."
"Gently," Clotho cautioned him. "We are fairly high at the moment."
"Gently," Thanatos agreed. He reached up and touched a talon with a skeletal finger.
The bird shuddered -- and so did the car. The roc had felt the touch of Death, and that was a touch no creature ignored. The roc spiraled down to the ground and set the car gently back on the road. Then it hastily departed.
PienAuttwny 217
Norton realized why caution had been advisable. Than -- atos could have stunned or killed the big bird -- but that would have led to a crash landing. So he had merely given warning -- and the roc, recognizing a power more sinister than its own, had yielded.
But a new problem loomed.A cloud formed, and rain slanted down from it, turning rapidly to sleet and then snow. From the right puffed smoke and steam; then a vent opened and molten rock poured out. The lava was not moving rapidly, but it was hideously hot; the vegetation it touched burst instantly into flame. The snow, on the other side, was already piling so deep that the ear could not plow through it.
Clotho shook her head. "Ge." She sighed as if address -- ing a naughty child. "Mortis, follow my thread." She flicked a finger, and a thread flew out, passing through the wind -- shield without touching it and extending in front of the car, glowing.
Mortis followed it. The thread wound through the slush melted by the lava, left the road, traveled along a ridge that held the lava temporarily at bay, and went across a narrow channel that concentrated the lava. The car speeded up to hurdle the ditch, then slued about to follow the curving thread toward the main mass of lava. This seemed hazardous indeed to Norton, particularly since the trac -- tion was treacherous and the visibility almost nil, but the thread of Fate knew exactly where to go. That, of course, was part of Fate's business -- to know the intricacies of man's interaction with Nature. They threaded their way successfully between snow and lava, sometimes with each close enough to touch on either side from a window, some -- times pausing, then scooting forward, avoiding a minor avalanche, and emerged onto a firm, dry road. Fate had foiled Nature.
Then Norton experienced an urgent need to relieve himself. His gut knotted and his bladder swelled. "Uh, if we could stop a moment..." he said.
Luna fidgeted. "Ge again; we all feel it. No way to avoid it, and stopping won't relieve it. It's her specialty for intruders: instant flu." Her cheek seemed greenish.

218

Indeed, now Norton's stomach roiled. Beside him, Clotho looked seasick, and Thanatos seemed about as sick as a skeleton could be.
Clotho turned to him. "Your turn, Chronos."
Oh. Norton lifted the Hourglass, turned the sand blue, and willed the immediate region to be included in a short hop. There was a small jump, and the discomfort abated.
He had brought the car and occupants five minutes into the past, which was his future, before the illness
commenced.
Clotho took a deep breath. "Thank you, Chronos. A girl doesn't like to look sick in public." She brought out a small mirror and checked her young and pretty face.
He had not violated the three-person rule, since he had not duplicated himself. Well, perhaps he had, because he had been phased in to real-world time. The others and the car would be duplicated for five minutes, but by the time the other earful of them caught up to this spot on the road, this car would be gone, and so there should be no problem. The other earful would fade out, leaving this
one.
Or could the other earful have been retroactively erased? That would avoid the threeperson problem. There was still a lot he did not understand about his office.
Now the mansion of the Green Mother Nature was before them. It seemed to be formed of vegetation, its thick wood alive and leafy, with a streamlet flowing from level to level in the manner of a fountain. Animals peeped from crannies -- bunnies, wrens, lizards, and perhaps an elf or two. This was indeed the handiwork of the Earth -- Mother.
The car parked, they got out, and Mortis reconverted to equine form and set about grazing beside the mansion. Had they really been inside a horse all this time? Norton shook his head, filing the matter as another wonder to be pondered at leisure at such time as he was alone with a campfire. The four walked up to the entrance.
Gaea met them there. She was a stoutish woman of middle age with a crown of woven leaves and vines and

219
a dress of leaves and pine needles; green was certainly her color. She seemed to Norton to possess an aura of competence and power; this was no innocuous creature.

If green was Nature's color, he reflected, then surely black was Thanatos', and white his own. But what would be Fate's color?
"We're in trouble, Ge," Clotho said without preamble. "Satan tricked Chronos into taking a demon back in time to eliminate Luna. That was partly balked by paradox, but there's a sleeper. I can't quite track it down."
Gaea glanced at Norton. "My apology for my error," she murmured.
No confusion there! She was referring to the problem with Oriene's baby. "Accepted," he said. He knew she had helped facilitate his present office as compensation for that error.
Gaea turned to Clotho. "Let me see it."
Clotho held out her hands, the network of threads between them. Gaea peered. "May I?" she asked.
"You may," Clotho replied.
Gaea made a little gesture with a hand near the threads. They changed -- and the environment changed. The threads became curling green vines with sprouting leaves -- and the five human figures in the mansion seemed to be standing in an enormous garden, existing on the scale of insects.
The vine-threads wove through the fabric of this new reality in an amazingly complex scheme. Everything seemed to relate, in some obvious or devious fashion, to everything else. Of course, that was the nature of reality, or the reality of nature, and of fate, and this manifestation was hardly surprising, since these were the very Incar -- nations of Nature and Fate.
Gaea walked along a vine. "Here it is," she said. "Here is where the threads were crossed."
The others crowded close. Norton saw that a tiny stem, something like a section of fine straw, had been moved, so that it crossed the main vine in a slightly different place. The change hardly seemed significant.

220 Bearing An Howiglass

Clotho concentrated -- and the vines expanded, until the large vine seemed to be the diameter of the height of a man and the small stem was three inches through. "I will analyze the small one," Gaea said. 'That one's dead, but I believe it holds the key." She gestured. A glow formed about the small vine and the place from which it had been moved. Colored light radiated from that region, separating into prismatic components, bathing them all in rainbow hues.

"There," Gaea said, pointing to a dark band amidst the colored light. "The spectrograph shows it. Contamination."
"Dangerous?" Clotho asked.
Gaea frowned. "No. It's cyanide, but that was there before the interference. It has been chemically nullified, so that its effect on a human being would be minimal. A few hours of queasiness, no more."
"Why should Satan act to nullify an existing poison?" Thanatos asked.
Clotho inspected the larger vine. "Oops," she said. "Now at last I fathom it. What an insidious plot!"
Gaea looked at her expectantly. "You had slated a poi -- soning?"
"Not exactly," Clotho said. "Here, Lachesis can explain it better." She shifted to middleaged form. "I do not slate people for doom any more than Thanatos kills them," Lachesis said. "I merely weave the threads in necessary patterns. Some mortals must prosper and some must decline, and there is no guaranteed personal justice in this. My concern is not for individuals, but for the pattern as a whole. In this case, a certain older man of indifferent qualities had to be woven out in order to make way for a young woman of superior qualities. So -- he was acci -- dentally poisoned, mostly by his own carelessness. He swallowed a pill contaminated by cyanide and died at the age of sixty-two. It was small loss for the world, though he was politically prominent."
"Cyanide," Luna said thoughtfully. "I remember -- "
"The same," Lachesis agreed.
"I don't understand," Norton said.

221

Lachesis faced him. "This remains in your future -- but you do need to know now. The senior Senator from Luna's state died in office, so a special election was sched -- uled. Luna ran for that office with the support of the Forces of Good and won. This is the office she now holds."

"Luna is a Senator?" Norton asked, surprised. He might have heard about it before, but it hadn't sunk in.
"And an excellent one," Thanatos said with a certain possessive pride. "At the moment, the Senate isn't in session, so she's not in the news, but normally she is. She was first elected eight years ago and is now well established with a firm base of support. She may one day become our first female President."
"I haven't decided to run yet!" Luna protested, embar -- rassed.
Norton was embarrassed too. He had been so much out of touch with contemporary affairs that he had never heard of Senator Kaftan during his ordinary life.
"But after you balk Satan in that critical showdown, you will be the front runner," Lachesis said. "I see it in the threads."
No wonder Satan didn't like Luna! A powerful female political figure, allied with the Incarnations themselves, possessed of a legacy of magic from her Magician father -- she would be in an excellent position to balk any political ploy the Prince of Evil tried! Obviously he had something in mind and needed her out of office so she couldn't interfere. "Then the demon I took back in time -- "
"Went and nullified the contaminated capsule that the original Senator was destined to take," Lachesis con -- cluded. "So when he takes it, he won't die and will remain in office, and there will be no special election for Luna to win. She will remain a lesser officeholder and not become a Senator, and will not be in a position to foil him politically at the critical moment."
Subtle indeed! "But couldn't she win the office in a normal election?"
"Against an incumbent? No chance! The Senator has

222
to be dead before giving up his seat." Lachesis grimaced. "And even if she did manage to oust him, it wouldn't be the same. Taking office four years later, she wouldn't have the same
seniority. That's important for key committees and influence -- especially the committee
chairmanship that will give her the specific authority she needs. No, Luna has to win that seat
when she did -- which means we have to restore that capsule before the Senator takes it." "But this is murder!" Norton cried, aghast.
"We do deal in life and death," Gaea said, with a sig -- nificant glance at Thanatos. "But in their proper pattern," Lachesis said. "Is it really murder to restore the events
of the past to their original settings?"
Norton was confused and unhappy. "To poison a per -- son knowingly -- "
"Have you any notion," Lachesis asked grimly, "how many people will knowingly be poisoned
- and tortured, murdered, and literally damned to Hell -- if the minions of Satan win political
power on Earth?"
"No," Norton said.
"With political power, Satan can and will make the worship of God a crime punishable by
torture until recan -- tation. Thus all those who are not good enough or strong enough to resist
such torture -- and that is the majority -- will become worshipers of Satan, and the balance of
power will shift to Him. He will have His way with both Life and Afterlife, and there will be no
reprieve from Evil. On that day, the death of one corrupt Senator will not even be noticed, for
Good itself will be dead."
"But -- you are saying the end justifies the means!" Norton was still deeply troubled. "If
we do evil in the name of good -- "
"Why don't you step into Hell and see what Satan's power is like?" Gaea asked him. Her
eyes were like blue skies with roiling clouds in the background.
"I can do that? Visit Hell?"
"You are an Incarnation. You can do what you choose. Even Satan can not deny you that." 223
Piers Anthony
Norton considered -- and found that he did not need to visit Hell to know that Satan was
evil. He did not like killing, but it was true that the ethics of his revising the past were
problematical. Was he guilty of murder if he did not set about revising history to eliminate every
death that had occurred during his projected term of office? If he decided to let history stand as
it was, deaths included, was it right to allow Satan to make the decision about which person
should be spared by a spot revision? Viewed that way, the sacrifice of the Senator seemed to be
the lesser of evils. He did not like becoming the instrument of the Senator's demise, but he
preferred that to the evil Satan would generate if the Senator lived. It seemed he had to choose
among flawed means to achieve the smallest total evil for the society, cutting one thread for the
benefit of the majority. He had to respect the judgment of the other Incarnations, who had been in
office longer than he had and who had had more experience with the mach -- inations of Satan. "No,
I will help you to restore the original past. I will take you back to when the demon changed -- "
He broke off, remembering the three-person barrier. "Except you tell me I can't go back there,
having been there once before as Chronos."
"There is a way," Gaea said. "But it is not easy."
"None of this is easy," Norton said.
"None of it is," Gaea agreed. "You can not return directly to that time. But you can
return to a spot on the timeline that is no closer than your elapsed personal time, and anchor
yourself then, and -- "
"Wait! Wait! I'm hopelessly confused! No closer than what?"
Luna came and took his hand. "You are new in office, however long we have known you in it.
We keep forget -- ting, because you have been so knowledgeable in our past. I will explain, while
they narrow down the precise coor -- dinates of the demon's interference." She guided him to
another huge vine, and they sat down on its resilient sur -- face. She had a remarkably compelling
presence and a quiet air of authority and she was, despite her age, a

224 Searing An. Hourglass
beautiful woman. Norton could understand how Death himself loved her.
"Time is objective," Luna said, "and subjective. It passes in the world and it passes for

you -- and though your normal course is opposite to that of the world, time is equally real for both of you. When you live a day, the world lives a day, and this ratio holds regardless of direc
- tion. So, since it has been about six hours from when you loosed Satan's minion on Earth, in terms of your life, the same amount of time has passed on Earth since the change. You can no more return to a spot within that six hours than you can duplicate yourself; it is an aspect of the same limit."

Norton shook his head. "It almost seems to make sense when you say it."
She smiled. "Almost! It will make more sense to you as you mature in office." "Nonetheless, I can't accept all of it."
"What can't you accept?"
"First, I can duplicate myself; I have already done so more than once. So -- " "Duplicate once, yes; it is the second duplication that is the barrier." "Yes. But since my original life counts as one, and my present backward life as another --

"
"Did we say that? That was a misunderstanding. Your prior, mortal life is excluded. Only
your present Incar -- nation relates. You have no further connection with your mortal existence;
that is one reason you are immune from any paradox involving it. So your normal backward course is
one, and your jump to our past is another."
"But I have doubled up, and interfered with my prior Chronos self -- in fact, once I
rescued my prior self from destruction."
She pursed her lips. "That's interesting! But it does not violate the three-person rule.
It does not matter whether your doubles are together or far apart; you can not con -- veniently go
triple."
He nodded. "Yes, I see how it applies now. But the
Pievs Anthony 225
other thing is this business of six hours. It has been a lot longer than that since -- " "I calculated it," Lachesis called, overhearing him. "Your time in Satan's frame doesn't
count for this, only your time in this one. You slept for three hours, talked with Satan for half
an hour, and spoke with me for an hour and a half before we realized the problem and went to join
the other Incarnations an hour ago. Six hours total."
"I see," Norton said, surprised at the accuracy of her assessment. But, of course, she was
Fate, the Mistress of the Threads of Life; this was her business.
"At the moment," Luna said gently, "it is enough for you to know that these six hours are
barred to you by direct effort, but that you can penetrate them by an extraordinary measure." "I land seven hours later and -- what?"
"And turn back the clock," she said. "You must reverse time and take the whole world with
you. That will put you in the same category as you were -- would be -- will be, for you -- when
you live through that period as Chronos. You will pre-empt that period."
"You mean, by that device I'll actually erase whatever I was doing in my normal course
then?"
"We believe so. There is a risk, if that normal course covers something important, but
Lachesis sees no prob -- lem in her threads. Perhaps that period has never hap -- pened for you,
because of your pre-emption, so nothing is lost."
Norton's head was spinning again. "How do you know my so-called normal Chronos self will go?" he asked. "Maybe I'll actually be tripling myself. That's theoreti -- cally possible, isn't
it?"
"I suppose it is," she agreed with a certain reservation. "There may be an infinite
progression, like a picture within a picture, or mirrors facing each other. But it is convenient
for us to call it the three-person limit. Our understanding is more restricted than yours will be;
perhaps we under -- stand only part of your nature. At any rate, we are rea -- sonably certain
that if you reverse time for the world, for

226
those six or seven hours, you will be able to reach the moment the demon acted, despite your prior trip there, and to nullify the demon just before it acts. Then you can relax, with the
world returned to its original course, the damage undone -- and protected by the same three-person
limit that at the moment is causing us so much difficulty. Reversing Satan's ploy." "But what, when -- ?"
"When you come to that period in your normal life? I believe you will simply jump over it,
having already lived it pre-emptively. The three-person limit should not harm you, but merely
cause you that inconvenience -- if we judge it correctly."
"It seems reasonable enough to me," he said. "Thank you. Senator -- "
"Luna."
"Luna. Now I think I know what I'm doing."
"Thank you," she said, touching the back of his hand with her cool, delicate fingers. "It
is my career you are preserving."
Norton looked across at the others. Lachesis was fac -- ing him. "We have now pinpointed
it exactly," she said. "We can give you precise coordinates. Are you ready to save the world from
Satan, Chronos?"
Norton breathed deeply. "I hope so," he said.

-- 11
DRAWKCAB
They took him to the spot where the deed had been done -- not the contamination, but the

decontamination of the capsule. The capsule was already in a bottle in the Sen -- ator's suburban residence, in storage for later use. It was an irony of the type Satan specialized in that this Senator had acted to block more effective regulation of the pro -- duction and marketing of exactly such products as this, so that slipshod quality control was practiced in the inter -- ests of cost-economy, and many people were harmed by such contamination. But now it suited Satan's purpose to preserve the life of the Senator, so he had acted.

The demon had simply come, denaturized the capsule, and expired. Norton would have to catch the demon just before it did the job and cause it to expire early. That was all. Gaea had provided him with a vial of holy water for the purpose. Norton had donned a conventional suit, con
-- cealing his white cloak, so that he would not seem remark -- able among the mortals.

The room was empty and dusty now; the Senator's house had been sold after he died, and this wing of it was in disuse. Of course, it might remain empty if Satan's ploy worked, for in eight years the Senator could have died of

227

r
228
natural causes. Satan didn't care about the Senator; he just wanted to see that Luna was

not the person who replaced him.

Norton concentrated on the Hourglass, turning the sand blue, and zoomed through time to the designated moment. The other Incarnations could not come with him for this mission; they had to maintain their own positions in this historical period so that Satan would not suspect what effort was being made here.

He arrived at the designated time and slowed to his normal pace. He raised the Hourglass, about to invoke the major magical attempt of his brief career, when he noticed something. He had overshot his target time by a few minutes and come within the six-hour limit. That was readily fixed; he would simply back up till he was clear, before engaging the rest of the world. He had not yet phased in to reality, so there would be no three-person complication. But there was another thing -- something

that jarred.

He was in the same room he had started from, a gen -- erous eight years hence, but now it was filled with sup -- plies: bottles of bourbon, smoked hams, cans of caviar, and other signals of rich living. The Senator evidently believed in taking care of Number One first. One high shelf was devoted to medicines -- more than one man should need in a lifetime. Among these was the bottle;

Lachesis had described it precisely, so Norton would know it without fail. All this he had anticipated. But there was another presence, and that was what had made him pause.
Sitting across from the key bottle and watching it intently was a small demon. The creature was so small it could have been a figurine, with little snub-homs, red shoe-button eyes, and a leathery forked tail. But it was no figurine; it was a living -- if that term applied -- minion of Satan.
Had the demon survived its mission? No, the other Incarnations should not have been wrong about a detail like that. This must be another demon, a contemporary one, assigned to guard the capsule until it was used. That

229
could only mean that Satan was aware of this counterplot after all. The Satan of this time, eight years before Nor -- ton's present. Since Satan did not live backward, he could not
know what his future self had done -- but he surely had recognized his minion. So he must have
assumed, correctly, that his future self was up to something nefar -- ious and he was seeing that
no one interfered with what -- ever that was. He would not know why the demon from the future had
nullified the contamination, but he would know there was good, or rather evil, reason. Satan was
evil, but not stupid.
This posed a problem for Norton. The little demon could not perceive him at the moment,
for Chronos was not obvious in his normal state. The demon was existing forward, while Chronos
existed backward. Only when he phased in to the world -- or made the world phase in to him -- was
he apparent to others. But when he did reverse the world, he would be apparent to this demon. That
would tip off Satan, the Satan of this time, and there could be all manner of trouble. In fact,
that might be this demon's purpose -- to catch Chronos himself when he approached the capsule and
balk his effort.
Mischief indeed! He had to do something about that guardian demon, for the creature would
surely interfere with him one way or another. If it summoned its master to this spot, Norton's
little vial of holy water would be relegated to the status of mere annoyance. Holy water destroyed
the things of Satan but could not touch Satan himself, just as Satan's minions could spread
mischief in the world but not touch God Himself or directly harm other Incarnations. Maybe the
demon would not be able to stop Norton, because, of course, the world would be proceeding
backward. But he didn't care to take the risk. Why should Satan post a demon, if it couldn't do
any -- thing?
But if Norton phased in and tackled the demon, extin -- guishing it with the holy water --
wouldn't that action alert Satan? Again Norton wasn't quite sure, and hesitated to gamble. Too
much was at stake.

230 Searing An Houvglass

He pondered, then decided that the best thing to do was to avoid the demon. If the creature never knew Chronos was present, it would never give its master the alarm. Satan would assume that all was well (ill) -- until it was too late (early). Norton would approach the capsule only at its moment of change, then use his holy water. A swift, surgical strike -- and victory.

He walked away from the chamber, passing through the wall. In his normal mode, the universe was hardly aware of him, and he could ignore it to the extent he found convenient. He was very much like a ghost. He emerged onto a busy street, one of those old-fashioned kinds with concrete sidewalks, asphalt road surface, and ornamental shrubs planted along the sides. Most suburban streets, even on this day eight years in the past, were traveling composition sheets that carried both people and vehicles to and from their residences, just as they did in the nether levels. Evidently the Senator was conservative and had prevented modernization of his region. It was a status symbol to live primitively when the common man lived modemistically; it was also a type of posturing -- the humble servant of the people. This should be a good place for Norton to phase in to; he could lose himself in the throng, and the demon in the house would never know.