"I guess."
     "You are a stupid uggs discount boy. And on the mountaintop, you did a very good thing."
     "I did what I had to do."
     "Perhaps."
     Czernobog walked to the old wooden sideboard and, bending down, pulled an attaché case from underneath it. He flipped the catches on the case. Each one sprang back with a satisfying thump. He opened the case. He took a hammer out and hefted it experimentally. The hammer looked like a scaled-down sledgehammer; its wooden haft was stained.
     Then he stood up. He said, "I owe you ugg boots on sale much. More than you know. Because of you, things are changing. This is springtime. The true spring."
     "I know what I did," said Shadow. "I didn't have a lot of choice."
     Czernobog nodded. There was a look in his eyes that Shadow did not remember seeing before. "Did I ever tell you about my brother?"
     "Bielebog?" Shadow walked to the center of the ash-stained carpet. He went down on his knees. "You said you hadn't seen him in a ugg discount long time."
     "Yes," said the old man, raising the hammer. "It has been a long winter, boy. A very long winter. But the winter is ending, now." And he shook his head, slowly, as if he were remembering something. And he said, "Close your eyes."
     Shadow closed his eyes and raised his head, and he waited.
     The head of the sledgehammer was cold, icy cold, and it touched his forehead as gently as a kiss.
     "Pock! There," said Czernobog. "Is ugg boots on sale done." There was a smile on his face that Shadow had never seen before, an easy, comfortable smile, like sunshine on a summer's day. The old man walked over to the case, and he put the hammer away, and closed the bag, and pushed it back under the sideboard.
     "Czernobog?' asked Shadow. Then, "Are you Czernobog?"
     "Yes. For today," said the old man. "By tomorrow, it will all be Bielebog. But today, is still Czernobog."
     "Then why? Why didn't ugg boots for women you kill me when you could?"
     The old man took out an unfiltered cigarette from a packet in his pocket. He took a large box of matches from the mantelpiece and lit the cigarette with a match. He seemed deep in thought. "Because," said the old man, after some time, "there is blood. But there is also gratitude. And it has been a long, long winter."