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hall?” Ellery asked as they went into the tallest and most imposing of the stone public buildings. Each window was set in a vertical recess almost the height of the structure.
    “The Holy Congregation House,” the Teacher said. “Here I have my room, and the Successor has his. Here is where the Crownsil meets, and here—”
    “The what meets?” Ellery thought the old man’s speech idiosyncrasy had corrupted the word “council.”
    But the old man repeated patiently, “Crownsil. In this hall the Crownsil of Twelve holds its meetings, as you will see. As indeed, Elroï, you have already seen.”
    Elroï!
    Nothing of yesterday, then, had been a dream.
    And—“Already seen”?
    A dream and not a dream. What was real? Ellery thought in a detached desperation. He would ask no more questions. Listen, he told himself, listen. And observe. Perceive …
    He perceived a hall running the length of the building, in the manner of the schoolhouse. It contained one very long and narrow table, with two benches of corresponding length along the sides, and two short benches, one at the head, the other at the foot. The only lamp he had yet seen in Quenan burned in a bracket over a door set in the far wall opposite the entrance—here evidently was the explanation for the kerosene the Teacher had bought at the End-of-the-World Store. End-of-the-World … If the world’s end was anywhere, it was here in the Valley of Quenan surrounded by the hill called Crucible.
    The old man was speaking again, pointing with his staff in the dim, yellowish, faintly nickering light. The doors in the long walls to the left and right led to sleeping quarters, he explained; the single door in the left wall led to his chamber, which was as large as the two rooms beyond the two doors in the right wall. And the patriarch went to the right wall and knocked with his staff on one of the two doors.
    It was opened immediately by a young man, a very young man; eighteen, nineteen, Ellery thought, no older. A teen-ager with the face of a Michelangelo angel, except that it was rimmed by a crisply curling young beard.
    The angelic face lit up with joy.
    “Teacher!” he exclaimed. “When my brothers ran from the schoolhouse to tell me you had declared a holiday, and why, I put on my robes.” He was dressed in a garment much like the old man’s. “Guest”—he turned to Ellery and took both Ellery’s hands in his—“Guest, you are welcome here. You are very welcome. Blessed is the Wor’d.”
    Ellery looked into his eyes, dark in the sun-browned young face; and the dark eyes looked back at him with infinite trust. Such trust that, when the boy gently released him, Ellery turned away. Who am I, he thought, that I should be looked at with such trust … with such love …? Who am I—or who do they think I am?
    “Elroï—Quenan—” the patriarch was saying, “this is the Successor.”
    Successor? Ellery wondered. To what? But then he realized that, as the old man uttered the word, it was capitalized. Successor to whom? Instantly he knew the answer. Successor to the old man himself.
    “Teacher, you called him …” The young Successor hesitated. “You called the Guest …?”
    “By his names did I call him, Successor,” said the old man gravely. “By his name which is Elroï, and by his name which is Quenan. It is he, Successor. It is indeed he.”
    At which the Successor, with a look of adoration, dropped to his knees, and prostrated himself, and kissed—yes, thought Ellery, it cannot be said any other way—kissed the hem of his garment
    “The room where I rest and sleep is the room next door. But this room,” the Successor was saying (while Ellery reproached himself: Why didn’t I stop him? Why didn’t I at least ask what it all means?), “this room is where I study and write.” He emphasized the last word slightly. “There is no other room like this one. It is called the scriptorium.”
    On the table were paper, ink, pens. As to what he