He started down the hallway to his right, checking the doors as he went. They were all locked. He knew that he could break into any of them, but he had a feeling that he would find no exit through any of them. They all looked as though they concealed more of the big rooms.
None of them had any lights behind them. Only the one door that he had come through showed the telltale glow from the other side. Why?
He had the terrible feeling that he had been drawn across time to this place for a purpose, and yet he could think of no rational reason for believing so.
He stopped as another memory came back. He remembered being in the stone-walled dungeon, with its smelly straw beds, lit only by the faint shaft of sunlight that came from the barred window high overhead.
Contarini, the short, wiry little Italian who was in the next cell, looked at him through the narrow opening. "I still think it can be done, my friend. It is the mind and the mind alone that sees the flow of time. The body experiences, but does not see. Only the soul is capable of knowing eternity."
Broom outranked the little Italian, but prison can make brothers of all men. "You think it's possible then, to get out of a place like this, simply by thinking about it?"
Contarini nodded. "Why not? Did not the saints do so? And what was that? Contemplation of the Eternal, my comrade; contemplation of the Eternal."
Broom held back a grin. "Then why, my Venetian friend, have you not left this place long since?"
"I try," Contarini had said simply, "but I cannot do it. You wish to know why? It is because I am afraid."
"Afraid?" Broom raised an eyebrow. He had seen Contarini on the battlefield, dealing death in hand-to-hand combat, and the Italian hadn't impressed him as a coward.