FicWad

Chapter 9 – Perception

It had been over a month since ‘the second incident’ – oh, the names people give major life events in the vain attempt to minimize their impact – and, aside of a rather peculiar transition period that made her awkwardness as an underclassmen in high school look positively tame, Sarah Williams had mostly settled back into her ‘normal’ Shadow-Earth existence with less difficulty than even she would have credited; it doubtless had to do with how she had learned to quickly adapt to any and all manner of life-circumstances existence threw her way during shadow-travel. Having to shadow-walk solo was a rather powerful influence on how one dealt with the world, almost a maturing force, not unlike anything which required a high level of conscious responsibility.

…but in the back of her mind, she was still quietly waiting for the other shoe to drop. The ‘end’ of her latest adventure felt almost a bit too clean, even with those few loose black threads – figurative filaments of Disorder that they were. It was enough to keep her a bit on guard, at least subconsciously. So, even though it was a genuine surprise when it finally happened, Sarah had not been entirely unprepared late one Saturday night when she was up writing a paper for her speech class in her bedroom, when she heard a quiet footfall in her living-room area…

Her reflexes were still unnaturally Chaos-fast: she managed to beat her intruder to the punch, raising the Sign to block the entrance to her room, leaping to her feet-

Instantaneously having to shield her eyes from the sudden, silent light-explosion on the other side! As her vision gradually recovered, she belatedly saw that rather than the Logrus, the sinuous, defined line of the Pattern filled her doorway, stretched out long-ways to fit! And standing directly behind it was… Mandor!

“I see that your reaction time is still in good condition from your training with us,” he ruefully smirked at her a bit lopsidedly, holding his hands up where she could see that they were empty, “I will confess reaction on my part as well there: the two powers tend to go off when thrown in each others’ ‘faces’ like that. But I truly came here in peace this time, Sarah; you can drop the Sign – you are in no danger from me, I swear.”

“I didn’t even know I could do that!” she gaped in shock at the blue-glowing harbinger of Order that currently hung between them! “I’m not even sure I can undo it: that was pure reflex!”

Her former guardian, on the other hand, looked far more amused than worried. “Fortunately for you, I have some small modicum of knowledge on the subject now, being married as I am to a Pattern-based sorceress. You are right in thinking that your new Power cannot be handled as your old one was – you cannot even banish it, for self-annihilation is not in the Pattern’s nature. It can be approached, however – with respect, always – but in contrast this style of arcane work is far closer to what you might recognize as near-divine mystical experience… yes, I said that,” he addressed her wordless balk. “I do not deny the efficacy of powers other than the one I once served. At present, the Pattern is quite literally projected here because the imprint is inside of you: to get it to withdraw, you must open yourself up to it, to accept it back once more, for you are as much become a part of it as it has become a part of you. Realize this oneness; I give you my word that neither I nor my power will move from this spot while you do this,” he offered solemnly.

Sarah took a deep breath and sighed, still not quite certain as to what was truly required of her here… but as she watched the Design a rather curious familiarity began to seep into the edges of her consciousness – not familiarity with an object or a locale, but more on the order of recognizing her own face, her own body! The room quickly stripped out of her vision until all that remained was that blue-glowing line. It was beyond beautiful: it was perfect.

“Accept it,” she heard Mandor’s voice urging her from somewhere.

Oh, yes…

The blue squiggle became larger and larger, until it was far bigger than she was, its center darkness like a bright pool, like the tear of some god… she felt herself drop into it, at total peace…

“Ground! Ground now!”

Gradually becoming aware of her own body once more, Sarah suddenly remembered – and mentally forced all the excess energy that was throbbing through her system down and out of the soles of her feet, into the planet upon which she was standing, a literal gift of the power of generation, down, down, to the core…

And gasped, her eyes snapping open…

She exhaled in relief, mentally present again, wiping the sweat from her brow: she was physically hot! Mandor was still standing there, leaning against the lintel with his arms crossed, the doorway now unblocked!

“You had better sit down and rest,” he advised her. “Even just watching, I could tell that was almost too much for your shadow-body to handle.”

“That’s… that’s even more invasive than the Logrus!” she panted, sitting on the near side of the bed, catching her breath… and then the idea occurred to her. “Oh, please don’t tell me you’re here to warn me that I’m about to be spirited away to be indoctrinated into my Pattern-powers now!” she sagged. “Do you think it could at least wait until winter break? My most recent round of academic catching-up was no fun, to put it very mildly; I’m still a little behind.”

Mandor lips quirked into a small smile. “Actually, I am pleased that this is physiologically so difficult for you; it renders you all but useless to the agents of Order, and, apart from what you just experienced, it means that the chances of something happening by accident with it are practically none, for it both uses and requires far too much bioenergy for a shadow-being to successfully utilize.” He paused a moment, as if he were choosing his next words very carefully. “I suppose it hurts nothing for you to know that the possibility was discussed by various parties, I gather; perhaps some manner of provision might have been possible had you only been an initiate of the Broken Way. But the True Pattern takes far too much out of anyone not of Barimen blood, even in casual, basic use. Then again, you were initiated into it by the Left Eye of the Serpent, and so lay claim to the Eye’s strength and resources,” he mused aloud, his gaze drifting away from her, far away… Returning, he shook his head a little. “Would that there was even a way to understand why – but I suppose I’m not alone in wanting to know that,” he added quietly. “I am sorry about the hour of my visit, from how late it appears to be here; it is still difficult for me to estimate travel-times in the Order shadows.”

“Yeah, not to be rude, but… why are you here?” she put to him bluntly. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, it’s that you don’t do anything without there being a good reason.”

The former Duke of Sawall nodded with a smirk, standing up straight once more. “Firstly, for whatever the gesture is worth, I come bearing a peace-offering.” Sarah watched as he walked into her living room, opened up the top of his long black travel jacket and extracted her ensorcelled pen – then produced ream after ream of paper from a different lower pocket, piling bound stacks upon her coffee table, along with the item! “You acquitted yourself well in our face-off, Patterner,” he emphasized with a light dig, “tying me up for the better part of an hour without so much as harming a hair on my head in the process; an amusing and somewhat novel variant of a simple boomerang spell, utilizing the Dreamstone as the catalyst, I am correct?”

She nodded once. “Did you… have trouble…”

“Getting free? Not particularly, once my wife arrived – although she nearly thought my predicament amusing enough to leave me there to proverbially ‘cool my heels’ while she continued on with the proper search herself. But my soldiers had their orders, and were shifting away after you even as she stood there, pointing and laughing and taking pictures,” he added guardedly, allowing the extra unsaid information to sink in on its own. “By the time we were able to catch up with them, you were already departed for points unknown. One of them did make a rather interesting side-discovery, however, which the princess subsequently returned to Castle Amber’s library,” he gave her a pointed look. “To be honest, I’m not entirely certain whether to be more impressed or irritated with you at the moment. A certain amount of your behavior can easily be dismissed as a mere lack of practical experience, but not all. Your native talents make you prone to rashness. And you have a definite knack for breaking shadow-men out of highly specialized prisons. If only you were an agent for Chaos… the last I knew, we still had at least two or three high-ranking political prisoners yet in the dungeons of Castle Amber; there are considerable rewards for their return by their respective houses, no questions asked as to the manner or method.”

Sarah involuntarily shivered, seeming to forget her overheating, as her eyes widened.

“Jareth!” she exclaimed; she had nearly forgotten!

“I do have to ask about this one point, Sarah; it’s a rather delicate security issue,” he approached the open doorway again. “There was no way that man could have possibly freed himself from the Ways of Pleasure unaided – only his excellency knew of his initial capture and where he was being held prior to sentencing, not where I deposited him afterwards. Once I had determined that my doppelganger could not be held accountable for his recent actions by reason of insanity, I cleaned up the more psychologically detrimental areas of his memory and placed him in a designer shadow-world, under permanent ‘house-arrest’ – a lotus-eater’s paradise, if you will – to be kept reasonably happy and sedate until such time as his natural death from old age, the kindest end I could give to one of my shadows short of killing him quickly myself and ending his misery. I do not care to undertake the demise of my shadows lightly, for I feel their passing in myself. How did you even know? How did you do it?” he pressed.

“I didn’t know,” she faltered, “at least not until after the fact – I know that sounds crazy, but it’s the truth, it was an accident!”

“Far too many of them occur in your vicinity,” he replied gravely. “Where were you when this thing happened?”

“Nowhere. In a dream… in transit? Surely it can’t make much difference at this point!”

“It does: the retainers of Sawall are hunting for him on his excellency’s orders even as we speak. If he has recovered even parts of his memory, it would make him dangerously unstable. He must be found and apprehended before he becomes a threat to any of us that he remembers – this includes you.”

Sarah thought back on her crazy jaunt through the Hall of Mirrors while unconscious, uncertain of just how much to tell her former guardian – if, indeed, any. He clearly had no recollection of being present there himself, or he wouldn’t be asking her this, practically confirming something she had suspected with both Merlin and Corwin before him: the presence of personality and knowledge in the absence of the actual person in that non-place.

And then the possible fallout from those events suddenly came back to mind, if that part of it had been more real somehow! “I still don’t think what I know would help you at all, but it involved the Hall of Mirrors – I’ll say that much. If you do catch up with him… if he should seem saner for any reason at all, please question him thoroughly; the guy might only be guilty of having a lousy conscience, if the version I hope made it out of there on top.”

“You’re telling me there was more than one of him in that place?” Mandor frowned.

“Yes. No. Maybe. But there should only be one of him now; I’m just not sure which one,” she winced.

Mandor just exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment, running a hand through his shock-white, shoulder-length hair – a mannerism she had never witnessed him perform… but Jareth did! It had to be a stress-reaction! He met her eyes again, seeming tired. “I suppose I should send them out to his older haunts, then.” He looked for a moment as if he were trying to tease the answer out of the riddle of her existence… but the mood broke just as quickly, and he took in the view of her apartment instead. “This really isn’t a bad place you have here, for what it is,” he nodded approval of her deeply-colored, cheap, antiqued décor. “I can see the influence of your travels. The king of Amber chose the building, however, correct?”

“Yeah, this is just a rental; there are certain things I can’t change, like the wall color and the carpet,” she gingerly toed the thin-worn gray with one foot.

“It’s a start, though,” he conceded. “Are your classes going well, Sarah?” he paced back over to the coffee table casually, but did not make any motion to sit… because she had not invited him to do so!

“You can have a seat if you want to,” she belatedly told him.

“Don’t put yourself to any trouble on my account; I can’t be here long anyway,” he easily replied, picking up the bound written stack on top of the pile, thumbing through it. His tone was pleasant enough, but Mandor Sawall’s sense of humor could run very dry in private, even a little sarcastic on very rare occasions. He hid it well in public, though.

“The course load is a little overwhelming at present, but I think I’m managing alright for right now; six students have already dropped one of my more specialized classes for the English side of my double-major.”

He glanced back at her, a little surprised. “You are voluntarily doubling?”

She nodded with a lip-smile.

“Then we must have done something right, to whet your appetite for such a level of study,” he added slyly, putting the volume back down. “I had to allow that pen to unload somewhat,” he explained in lieu of an apology, “the pressure was becoming too great for it to hold: the first fifty or so pages it literally spat ink at at a distance, and it fell into legible text! I have taken the liberty of disabling it again with an on/off-style Logrus-based spell for the moment, but perhaps his excellency would have a better long-term solution you could more easily operate yourself. In all seriousness, I don’t believe it can be stopped for good without taking rather drastic action; it appears to draw upon the Abyss like an inkwell.” He abruptly smirked. “I also took the liberty of running that stack through an editing spell to excise the repetitive portions recording your daily life here in this shadow; I doubted you desired to read about every time you have cleaned yourself and driven your vehicle. Although such a record might have made a halfway decent beginner’s guide to human life on this planet, for Sofi.”

Sarah gasped. “How is she?! Did she make it out to where you are alright? I mean, if it’s still acceptable to ask…”

She couldn’t see where Mandor had wandered off to from where she currently stood, still well inside the sanctuary of her bedroom; chances were he was checking out one of her bookshelves, temporarily translating the titles to see what she had been reading lately. Normally she would have gone out to join him… but who knew whether that ‘normal’ existed anymore, for any number of reasons…

Her guess was probably right; when next he spoke, his voice came from over there.

“Your initial assessment of Sofi’s intrinsic worth may have been right on the money – that she’s more of a personal pet of mine than any kind of more reliable servant – but even at that I’d still be loath to lose her for a second time; she’s proven to be surprisingly useful to me under certain circumstances. And she has a lovely singing voice in her natural form; pity you never got to hear it.”

“She… told you about that – that I knew before?”

“I made her tell me everything, the very moment I first arrived here; she’s never been out of Chaos proper, and what with the abduction and all I deemed the course of action a necessity,” he answered very matter-of-factly, walking back into view from the direction of her teensy kitchenette.

But that meant… Sarah swallowed. “I forced her to shift on reflex the first time, back in Chaos: that wasn’t her fault! You didn’t…”

“Hurt her?” he plucked her thought easily. “Whatever for? Why should I damage one of my possessions? I assure you, the process is easy and painless – almost pleasurable, really. The feeling induced is one of profound relief, like what can accompany the unburdening of a guilty conscience,” he surrendered a knowing, off-kilter smile.

Alright, that’s sort of effrontery and vaguely disturbing, Sarah thought… before doing her best to suppress it; he could still clearly read her at this range! She had gotten so used to living around people who were not naturally powerful psychics!

From his one arched snowy brow, she guessed that he’d heard it anyway… but he looked away with a small smile. “You are not of our world, Sarah; that’s all there is to it,” he said quietly. “Although… if you would be open to learn but one lesson further from your old mentor, I would impart a small jewel of wisdom I once presented to the sanest of my little brothers, and have subsequently been gratified with the knowledge that he took it to heart – you remember Lord Despil,” he eyed her sideways with an expression that landed somewhere between reproval and begrudged merriment. “Once involved in the game of the Powers, it can prove exceedingly difficult to extricate oneself, even if one wishes – as you are unfortunately learning from experience at present. But this need not herald great danger, if you learn to play properly, in the background. I’m not about to pretend that you will stay on the sidelines forever, and so I will instruct you in how to conduct yourself. You wear a target, Earth-… lady,” he corrected himself mid-word. “There is no use in denying this, either. You must work to make your vulnerable areas as small as manageable with both time and practice, making yourself appear as neutral or even inefficient toward all comers whilst quietly operating through the more subtle means at your disposal, circumventing at least some of the inherent danger without the other players’ knowledge. I know not how my directive will play out in your daily life on this end of the spectrum, but I feel that I hardly need to further spell out the general theory for you – you know of what I speak well enough from your time spent under my tutelage and my roof, and you have been gifted, or cursed, yet again with the basic means to influence the contest, if and when you choose to do so.”

“But do the pieces ever truly play?” she thought aloud – not remembering…

The former Duke of Sawall looked away, stonefaced: that one had hit perhaps a little too close to the mark, she belatedly realized. Perhaps he suspected more than Merlin thought he did, and was merely saving face with his favorite relative, who also happened to be the king of his country. The more Sarah thought about it, the more the collective situation began to resemble an Old-West Mexican stand-off in her mind, with each combatant trying to decipher which of the other parties to be aiming for!

What a horrible way to have to live, she thought with a touch of pity.

And speaking of pawns…

“Jareth really isn’t necessary to the Fixed Logrus at this point, is he?” she suddenly wondered aloud. “I mean, he’d made the complete circuit at least once – couldn’t She just make an edited ghost-copy of him, and life continue on there as usual?”

Mandor’s statue-face cracked with a crooked grin.

“I’m sure that if that’s what She was truly after in the long-game that it is already so, and that his replacement is likely doing a far better job than he ever did. You’ve truly no idea where the man is?”

“Nope. Sorry I couldn’t help you this time, either.”

Those singular ice-blue eyes flicked to hers, but he just nodded. “I should be on my way, then. Oh, there was one other thing: life seems to have… oh, what’s that Shadow Earth phrase Merlin uses,” he mused, trying to remember, “ ‘thrown me a curveball’,” he stated definitively. “There are several working theories as to why the Barimen clan is as infertile as they historically appear to be, but those theorists have never been able to account for the small handful of successes in the second generation: to wit, my wife is currently pregnant, and we already know that the child will be a girl,” he couldn’t suppress his smile, the bright glint in his eyes.

“Oh, wow, congratulations!” Sarah gushed, striding toward him – but he put up a hand to stop her, shaking his head, yet still smiling.

“Your initial instinct was likely correct: I have been sorely tempted for the past few minutes to try and plant another tracker on your person or in your possessions someplace – but I haven’t. Let’s not spoil this,” he remarked wryly. “The main reason I bring the point up, beyond traditional paternal bragging, is because I had thought of naming her after you, but I would never take such a step without your express permission. The idiomatic translation of ‘Sarah’ into High Chaosian Thari would be Korza. Fiona is fine with this, given its meaning of ‘princess’ in the original shadow-tongue, but she wouldn’t agree to any variant of ‘Marie’, for it is apparently more closely tied to a Shadow Earth religion that is antithetical to both of our belief-systems. Would you have any objections to this choice, or would it be all right?”

Sarah was simply floored, that he would have even thought to do this! The emotions that welled up within were almost overwhelming, that he really did think of her this way, on some level… as a daughter! She fought back sudden tears, swallowing.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s fine,” she forced her voice steady, nodding, smiling, wishing that she could cross the few feet that lay between them to hug him once more… but she couldn’t. Not now.

The Divide between Order and Disorder existed for a reason.

She forced a laugh anyway. “I suppose you’ll be needing that Order-child rearing manual you gave me back; you’ll have another halfie on your hands.”

“I would never be so gauche as to ask back a present-”

“Oh, take it already!” she teasingly interrupted him, crossing her bedroom to the closet, digging it out from where she had hidden her Thari-language reading materials and tossing it to him; he caught it. She paused, then went to the small bookshelf by her bed on the left-hand side on a whim and tossed him a paperback novel as well, smiling. “You’ll have to translate that one, but The Scarlet Pimpernel does sort of remind me of your ethos now: graciously retiring toward the world, but very active backstage, so-to-speak. It’s considered a classic an old in this shadow, kind of historical.”

Mandor seemed equal parts surprised and amused as he studied the picture on the cover, of the actors who had played the lead roles in the movie adaptation that had come out about seven years prior; the man was actually dressed similarly to his own taste, save that the dress-jacket was white instead of black! “Are you certain you wish to part with this, Sarah?”

“Oh, it’s alright, I can always get another copy; that’s actually a cheap, mass-machine-produced edition you’re holding there.”

He looked back up at her. “Thank you, Sarah; I shall treasure it.” His smile widened nearly straight. “I could hardly believe that you had treasured my flippant little present of truffles for so many years, when Sofi told me of it; I had thought they wouldn’t last longer than a few weeks at most!”

Sarah’s face fell. “They’re not good anymore, are they?” she sighed. “Guess I should be grateful I found out before I ate another one; I’ve no idea whether that tincture you laced them with denatures or not,” she eyed him a bit uncertainly.

He quietly chuckled. “Not exactly; it just starts to lose potency.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “If you would allow a small working of my power within your apartment, to retrieve something?”

Sarah lifted her head in guarded assent.

A familiar-feeling fist-sized black hole appeared before his free right hand; he immediately reached inside, up to the elbow, eyes closed, white brows knitted in concentration; approximately fifteen seconds later, his hand re-emerged with a bundle of tissue-paper… emitting a powerful floral attar, underlaid with an impossibly rich chocolate! Sarah found herself walking toward it, back around the bed, almost against her will!

“You don’t smoke, either, which is just as well,” he noted wryly. “In celebration of my daughter-to-be,” he delicately placed the small bundle on top of her dresser. “These two are quite a bit stronger than the last batch since you are an adult now; each is not unlike a shot of liqueur – treat them accordingly. I assumed you would want one now, but place the other in the box with the ones I gave you previously; it will serve to both refresh and preserve them for a far longer span of time. Put one away before you consume the other, so that it doesn’t perfume your apartment and make you hunger for the rest all at once.”

“How long of a time-period are we talking here?” Sarah was already unwrapping them: the new ones had little pale-blue flecks of ground petals besides!

“Let us say that if I added any heavier preservative spells, I would artificially lengthen your lifespan,” he noted in amusement… then stopped smiling as he saw both realization and hope dawn in her green eyes, remembering what she’d just physically been through! She glanced askance. “Long life to her namesake also,” he gestured graciously, adding one more ‘layer’ before retreating to the doorway again. “Needless to say, I am about to be very busy for many years to come; should you see me again, it will likely not be as anyone’s agent. Fiona still isn’t too keen on the idea of guests at present, but I suspect part of that reticence is strictly familial: when one grows up in a veritable pod of cannibalistic fish, one learns to avoid them – and anything that might resemble them – for survival’s sake. I’m still working on her on that point.”

Sarah forced herself to take one step back from the mouthwatering compounds, trying in vain to ignore the psychologically undermining and pervasive stimuli, facing him again. That old satisfaction was present in his expression; he didn’t even try to hide it.

“Positive conditioning is in my nature, Sarah; it’s nothing personal. I work to make the process enjoyable when and where I can. Now – be good, and try to stay neutral from here on out. Eat your vegetable matter. Continue to study hard. Do not neglect your fencing, for it keeps both body and mind in health. Don’t be afraid to push yourself to do just a little more than you think you can. And don’t ever underestimate your own capabilities – they are greater than you currently believe. I have faith in you.”

I love you, too, she thought, doing her best not to cry. It was something that could never be said aloud, even under regular circumstances; Chaosian culture simply didn’t permit open displays of affection toward anyone beyond caring for their needs the vast majority of the time. The words weren’t used at all. It was amazing that they could love, she reflected, living in a world where ultimate Nothing was the ideal.

Love wasn’t nothing.

Mandor’s blue eyes suddenly seemed very distant to her, and a little bit cold. Alien. Chaosian. He nodded in simple acknowledgement of what she felt, backing into her livingroom.

“Until the next time we meet, Sarah,” he bowed elegantly, as a man-sized pool of blackness opened up behind him in the fabric of reality…

“Goodbye,” was all she could say before it enveloped him and collapsed in on itself, winking back out with a particularly nasty-feeling little flourish, as if the Logrus had just flipped her off!

She was alone.

She hadn’t felt this alone since…

Sarah quickly went to the closet and carefully got out the little white box of truffles before she could think any further, opening it and depositing the spare along with the extra wrapping, putting it back in the picture box where Sofi had hidden it, turning out all the lights and taking the remaining one to the bed as the full emotional brunt of what had just happened hit her like a punch to the gut…

She lay down and rashly popped the whole thing in her mouth in one go. She wouldn’t have been able to get any further with that speech paper tonight, anyway, with how she was feeling…

There’s still… tomorrow…

Sarah deeply exhaled, swept away by nirvana-like waves of physical and mental bliss – that sweet, blessed Nothing – to be followed by a tight mesh of bright and happy dreams… even one in that stupid, poofy ballgown: so shiny…


Sarilda Aricline-Barimen stared out of the lattice-paned window of her third-story quarters in Castle Amber – out toward the Arden, and freedom – as her private tutor chastised her yet again to pay attention to her physics lesson…

A man named Jareth sat at a low café table on a rounded silk cushion, drinking strong, spiced coffee and playing numerous betting games with an itinerant sorceror who may or may not have known him for what he was; the stakes were power, and both were cheating like there was no tomorrow…

Lady Dara Sawall lounged in a heated mineral spring just northwest of the volcano adjacent to the Ways of Sawall, the chemical cocktail doing wonders for her hooves and fur; she submerged, breathing through fresh-formed gills, making even more bubbles on the surface…

The ghost of a prince – who was less ghostly than his new subjects – reveled in his power in the City of the Night Sky, knowing that all comers would now be faced with his dream, and not their own… but at least he was keeping order, along with a highly eclectic court…

Rhazazarak perched in a bleached rock outcropping under a blazing star, skillfully whetting a set of finely-hooked spear-tips before recalibrating his stun pod, reverently caring for the equipment entrusted to him, the cause behind it worth more to him than his own life, than that of his two females, and his spawn also…

Jasra Barimen was holed up in one of her many studies in the Citadel of the Keep, pouring through the old wizard’s books for more information on creating service phantasms from the Fount…

Shara Wilkins stepped into Midcity Comix Emporium for the first time in her life instead of passing the business on the street as usual, feeling more than a little crazy for asking the owner if he’d ever heard of a fantasy series called Bordertown – only to be handed the most recent issue of Bordertime, with punk-looking biker elves splashed brightly over the cover…

Lord Suhuy complained that Lord Dworkin had taken his black bishop out of play without properly checking it, but Dworkin only smiled, voluntarily removing the white knight that had been situated next to it, ‘to even things up’, setting the pieces aside together…

The Eleven Watchers sat silently, near-motionless, as they had through the eons since the beginning of the current contest; one scratched his neighbor’s arm for him, for they had been forbidden to do anything for themselves upon reaching their current exalted state – forbidden by whom, none could remember…

Death was pacing in midair, his black robes swirling about his gaunt form, still trying to figure out how to get down to the other end of the endlessly changing Hall of Life; it would make things so much simpler for his friend Time if he could manage it, and then perhaps they could go and do something else…



(The End?)

Benediction: “Pilgrim”- Enya, A Day Without Rain

(Discomfiting Reckoning: “The Waiting Room”- Sixpence None the Richer)