Preface To The Second And First Editions

I was a young man for awhile and for part of that time I was a U. S. soldier in Germany too. A few miles from my barracks there was an ancient Roman fort that archaeologists had dug up and largely rebuilt. I've always read a lot of history so I knew there was a certain likeness between myself and the old fellows; like the U. S. Army, the Roman Army came to Germany as conquerors but then stayed on to protect a new society that grew up there. Naturally I went to visit the old fort one day and I am delighted even now with one particular thing the scholars had discovered there. It was another, even stronger, likeness across time.

Now, part of my job in the U. S. Army was driving a jeep. Those army jeeps were rugged, ugly, totally utilitarian little cars and they did not have an ignition key. You see, the lives of thousands of people might somehow be lost if an army jeep needed an ignition key on the day when I misplaced it. Therefore, they were simply secured by a chain which you could loop through the steering wheel with a padlock. That way, whenever a driver such as myself misplaced a key he could simply bust the lock off with any handy rock or tool, throw the lock into the bushes at the far end of the parking lot, drive away and buy a new lock at the P.X. to replace it. Very sensible, right? Typical military logic.

Of course the Roman G.I.'s did not have jeeps. History teaches us that really the Ancient Romans lived in a very different world from ours because they made it different, not just in artifacts like automobiles, but in the ways they thought about things and lived with each other. Still, they did have a surprising number of artifacts that are familiar to us every day today, like for instance, padlocks.

That old Roman fort was very interesting and impressive. It was all large. It was a large area built up with long tall rectangular buildings and surrounded by a very high imposing wall, all built of massive logs. It was the most massive and durable log structure you can possibly imagine, dwarfing any other kind of wood construction I have seen before or since. I believe it is historically quite accurate for I am sure it matches descriptions given by certain writers who saw such places with their own eyes.

Many things were different there than in the barracks where I lived and worked. I found many points of interest as I wandered the reconstructed grounds, studying the admirably informative and detailed signs that were placed all around to benefit tourists. I wandered outside first, beheld the general layout with a soldierly eye, examined the wall and the various gates and the maps that were beautifully printed on the signs. Then I went inside one of the long tall barrack buildings that had been furnished as a museum by the modern scholars. They had put long glass museum cases inside that building and they had placed inside those cases many hundreds of small objects which they had dug up in the place. Of course every object or group of objects was accompanied by a printed card and photographs of where the particular thing had lain. About half-way down the second case there was a busted padlock and its matching key.

The accompanying card said it was indeed the matching key – for the modern folks had tried it and the mechanism worked despite the damage – although it had been found in a spot quite distant from the broken lock. It seems this little primitive security device – for it was a puny little specimen worked up by hand from bits of ancient sheet metal and rivets, even less imposing than the machine-tooled solid brass ones on offer at the P.X. by the dozen – it seems this little primitive padlock had been used to secure the great back gate where ordinary people often came and went, beyond the inconvenient gaze of the front gate's guards. (Typical military logic.) There was a photo of the same back gate which I had admired earlier in my tour, and some nearby bushes that stood on the spot now where the lock was tossed before. The tiny handmade jewel-like key had lain trampled for millennia in the dirt near a barracks where some guy like me had evidently dropped it unknowingly.

After I examined the lock and key, wishing to reach my hand in through the glass you may be sure, after I had read the card and seen the photos, then I smiled about the whole vast situation, about the universe and everything.

Then suddenly I felt distinctly some kind of transition happening in my body. That lasted for a curious moment. Then I experienced an even more peculiar sensation. A time tunnel seemed to open before my eyes, a vortex like a cornucopia that I stared into, spinning slowly, full of unknown shapes in black and white. This time tunnel was just at eye level for me, about two feet wide and maybe two feet deep. Scarcely had I beheld it when I had the further distinct sensation of being lifted bodily, tipped over so that the crown of my head was toward the vortex, and then I was shoved in. As you can imagine, these vivid and curious impressions did seem strange.

I do not know how or when or if I managed to escape alive; I suddenly just found myself standing there again, still smiling, but with the firm conviction I had been somewhere and done something.

It was the most curious trick my mind has ever played. There have been other tricks but none of them were quite like this. (For instance, there was that time at the royal palace in Korea when I was actually struck dumb by beauty.) Maybe I should blame this fit of profound peculiarity on that instant when I suddenly smiled at everything. Perhaps I should. Or maybe I should blame it on reading or seeing too much. Maybe it was Julius Caesar's fault or Nostrodamus's. Maybe I should blame it on the gods.

In any case, I know for sure that it inspired the stories in this book and many others not yet written. They come from somewhere.

– Stone, Yuletide 1996