Free The Dream Master by Roger Zelazny

to be walking on this chill morning.
    He chose not to care about anything but walking.
    The cars sped by and he walked slowly, but steadily.
    He did not encounter anyone else on foot.
    His collar was turned up, against the wind, but it did not stop all of the cold.
    He walked on, and the morning bit him and tugged at his clothing. The day held him, walking, in its infinite gallery, unsigned and unnoticed.
    Christmas Eve.
    … The opposite of New Years:
    It is the time of year for family reunions, for Yule logs and trees blazing—for gifts, and for the eating of special foods and the drinking of special drinks.
    It is the personal time, rather than the social time; it is the time of focusing upon self and family, rather than society at large; it is the time of rimed windows, star-coated angels, of burning bushes, captured rainbows, of fat Santas with two pairs of trousers (because the youngsters who sit upon their laps are easily awed); and the time of cathedral windows, blizzards, carols, bells, manger scenes, season’s greetings from those far removed (even if they live but a short distance away), of broadcast Dickens and holly and candles, of poinsettia and evergreen, of snowbanks, firs, spruces, pines, of the Bible and Medieval England, of “What Child is This?” and “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem,” of the birth and the promise, the light in the darkness; the time, and the time to be, the feeling before the realization, the realization before the happening, the trafficking of red and green, the changing of the year’s guard, of tradition, loneliness, sympathy, empathy, sentimentality, singing, faith, hope, charity, love, desire, aspiration, fear, fulfillment, realization, faith, hope, death; a time of the gathering together of stones and the casting away of stones, of embracing, getting, losing, laughing, dancing, mourning, rending, silence, speaking, death, and not speaking. It is a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to plant, and a time to pluck that which is planted…
    Charles Render and Peter Render and Jill DeVille began a quiet Christmas Eve together.
    Render’s apartment was set atop a tower of steel and glass. It had about it a certain air of permanency. Books lined the walls, an occasional piece of statuary punctuated the shelves; primitive paintings in primary colors were set in open spaces. Small mirrors, concave and convex (and now framed by boughs of holly), were hung in occasional places.
    Greeting cards stood upon the mantelpiece. Potted plants (two in the living room, one in the study, two in the kitchen, and a bedroom shrub) wore tinsel, wore stars. Music flooded the suite.
    The punch bowl was a pink jewel in a diamond setting. It held court on the low coffee table of fruitwood, its attendant cups glittering in the diffused light.
    It was the time of opening of Christmas presents…
    Jill turned within hers, swirling it about her like a soft-toothed sawblade.
    “Ermine!” she exclaimed. “How grand! How flne! Oh, thank you, dear Shaper!”
    Render smiled and blew wreathes of smoke.
    The light caught her coat.
    “Snow, but warm! Ice, but soft…” she said.
    “The skins of dead animals,” he remarked, “are highly potent tributes to the prowess of the hunter. I hunted them for you, going up and down in the Earth, and to and fro in it. I came upon the finest of white creatures and said, ‘Give me your skins,’ and they did. Mighty is the hunter, Render.”
    “I have a thing for you,” said she.
    “Oh?”
    “Here. Here is your gift.”
    He peeled away the wrappings.
    “Cufflinks,” he said, “totemic ones. Three faces, one above another—golden. Id, ego, and superego—thus shall I name them, the highest face being the most exalted.”
    “It is the lowest one that is smiling,” said Peter.
    Render nodded to his son.
    “I did not specify which one was the highest,” he told him, “and he is smiling because he has pleasures of his own which the vulgar herd shall