I paused for a moment at the edge of the site. The old cathedral was still intact, and they seemed to be planning to build the new, larger church around it. So far they had concentrated their efforts on the west front, building a new facade and towers thirty feet in front of the old main steps. One of the new towers, hung with scaffolding, was already as tall as the towers of the old cathedral.

After working out the route that would be least likely to end in something being dropped on my head, I hurried across the plaza toward the church’s entrance. Above the old doors, the figures of Christ and the apostles still stared stonily down, and the figures of the damned and the saved still pleaded or prayed at their feet.

All around the air was loud with the shouts of workmen and the sounds of hammers and stone chisels, and my nose was assailed by the mixed smells of mortar, sweat, and the sausages someone was grilling for lunch. But when I went through the heavy doors of the old cathedral I passed from noise and bright sunshine into the dimness and stillness of the church’s interior.

While I was still blinking a young man came up, a junior priest or a seminary student. “The dean’s expecting me,” I told him.

III

There was a quick step outside the little office off the nave where the young priest had put me to wait, and Joachim came in. “Good,” he said. “I’m glad you’ve come.”

I seized his hand, delighted to see him, even though lately he had always seemed older than I remembered. His handshake was still much stronger than mine, but the once black hair was gray at the temples, and his face had lines I had forgotten. My own hair and beard had turned snow white before I was thirty, but other than that I looked almost exactly the same as when I graduated from the wizards’ school. When I had learned the complex spells that slow down aging, I had not counted on all my friends leaving me behind.