So I shall continue to struggle on in the multiverse as it is and might be and to play with how it could be because I am writing a novel not a freaking physics textbook and the sooner minority freaks get the hang of the idea that nobody bar the usual suspects gives a fuck about their bloody religions, their bloody religions are not an over-arching frame of reference. people are running on separate tracks,  and they are required only not to  smear their crap over others who do not share their cute beliefs, the happier we all shall be, but that doesn't look like happening any time soon. I take ideas from physics and get creative with them.  If that offends some fucked-up animal dwelling mentally in C2nd isn't that just tough shit.  The earth is not bloody well flat.   
If God a being exists, conversation with It and sundry other beings - Michael? Gabriel? Raphael?- and puh-lease 'It' is the only rational pronoun, must provide hours not to say aeons of delight to Darwin, Huxley, Crick, Watson, Einstein, Schroedinger, sharing Its knowledge of space-time and evolutionary biology, introducing them to other universes in the multiverse where other physical and biological laws apply. Now that's diversity.

To put it more formally, any entity called God must by definition be omniscient and there can be no requirement to pay the slightest attention either to any product of the human imagination who clearly hasn't a clue or to his followers. The word you seek is mad. Madness is generally held to be divorce from reality and such persons dwell in a world that exists only in their heads.

Indeed, if in the course of conversation someone tells you the earth is flat, it does not instantly strike you that he and those who share his mind are critical voices in the running of the nation. If he goes on to tell you he thinks everyone who disparages him and those who share his mind should be locked up, executed or otherwise punished, you may indeed conclude that it is he and those who share his mind who should be locked up for their own safety and that of those around them.

The fight is for a world-view grounded in reality. The war against flat-earthers has really very little to do with whether there are or are not deities of some kind, indifferent or caring, whether the universe is chaotic or orderly, whether the Beijing Olympics happened concurrently in curved space and so is behind us and the universe as we know it is the result of a ping-pong ball straying into our dimension. The basic proposition to be confronted and defeated is that the universe has to be approached on one's knees. It is all known. While normal people have opinions or theories, put forward propositions, may indeed have strongly held beliefs, the excrement claim to know that which is untenable, that for which there is no shred of evidence, that which is readily countered, that which is rampantly sick nonsense.

The universe, we have from no less a source than Douglas Adams, is like big, man. Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah may at best be deemed a very local, provincial deity, obsessed as he supposedly is by the minutiae of the behaviour of the inhabitants of the third rock from the sun, right down to the menstrual cycle of the human female, where perhaps he is most obviously the figment of the imagination of the primitive human male, with ape-man's obsession with female virginity coming a good joint second with the simple hairy notion that, since he is an incontinent male animal, incapable of either self-control or individuation of the females of the species, those females should be modest in order not to unleash his lust. Nor has Yahweh-Allah-Jehovah had anything to say of late. Perhaps he has cleared off to some other part of the universe and has lost all interest in the human race.

Flat-earthism has very obvious basic tenets:

There is an alpha baboon in the sky whose majesty and whose self-appointed representatives must be spoken of with awe, respect and blah.
This alpha ape, like his human counterparts, requires people on their knees to him saying how wonderful he is.
Creationism
Women and gays belong to different and inferior species; usually this is held true of those of other races also
Heaven and hell and virgins and eternal flames
Frank affirmation of human self-centredness, the assumption the rest of the world revolves around them and is subordinate to them, the unquestioned belief that 'I' is the centre of the universe and they can demand others comply with them, the unquestioned enshrining of pure ego as divine will
Thinking, autonomy, independent judgement of mind and heart. are evil, for the rather obvious actual reason that anyone who thinks regards the ravings of the acolytes of a minority death-cult as sick crap and the given reason, which a child of six can see through, or at any rate a child of six not drugged from birth, that it is the evil of self-will, of thinking one knows better than 'God', or in other words them

"This new concept [multiverse theory] is, potentially, as drastic an enlargement of our cosmic perspective as the shift from pre-Copernican ideas to the realization that the Earth is orbiting a typical star on the edge of the Milky Way."
Sir Martin Rees, 1998, current Astronomer Royal of Britain

Proponents of the idea point out that while it is highly speculative, there is nothing in the notion of quantum immortality that violates the known laws of physics An easier to understand example is the one given in quantum suicide where a physicist sits in front of a gun which is triggered, or not triggered, by radioactive decay. With each run of the experiment there is a 50-50 chance that the gun will be triggered and the physicist will die. If the Copenhagen interpretation is correct, then the gun will eventually be triggered and the physicist will die. If the many-worlds interpretation is correct, then at each run of the experiment the physicist will be split into a world in which he lives and one in which he dies. In the worlds where the physicist dies, he will cease to exist. However,from the point of view of the physicist, the experiment will continue running without his ceasing to exist, because at each branch, he will only be able to observe the result in the world in which he survives, and if many-worlds is correct, the physicist will notice that he never seems to die therefore proving himself to be immortal, or at least according to quantum immortality. http://www.biologydaily.com/biology/Quantum_immortality  

There are stars with enough mass to collapse on themselves, forming what have been theorized as black holes. It is thought that within these black holes there is a point called "singularity" at which all physical laws may cease to exist. At this point the curvature of space-time becomes infinitely large, and modern science can no longer predict what will happen. Einstein's theory of relativity cannot determine what effect singularity will have on an object, forming an uncertainty in our universe. It is from this uncertain state that many theories have arisen surrounding singularity. It has been theorized that beyond singularity exist tunnels - shortcuts - to other ends of the universe. These "wormholes" could be a solution to interstellar travel, which currently is limited by relativity. However, many complications surround this possible theory. Most notable is the fact that the gravitational force of a black hole would crush any possible interstellar spacecraft, which is something that will have to be worked out. While this theory about singularity is questionable at best and will probably be left to science fiction, there is another theory about the center of a black hole that has been gaining more acceptance from respected physicists and astronomers, and describes a whole new view about our known universe. At the point of singularity it is agreed that it is impossible to predict physical behavior. This could mean that beyond this point of singularity there may be an entirely new set of physical laws. ​
Extract from The Anile Heir © 2006.I, Ysabel Jehan Howard, hereby assert and give notice of my right under s.77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act1988 to be identified as the author of this book
[Shortly after Sorg was murdered.]
Azt will kill us all.  Death is true Master of Kadun.  He managed a grim little smile.  Counterpoint, huh?  Guess it’s just you and me, buster. 
             Maya by his side Sarat visited the Jumesit Palace at dead of night wondering vaguely if he was supposed to sit on the thing all the time or at least some of the time.  As he approached the chair, he said suddenly, “My lady, you sit.”
             “Sarat…”
             “She is not Mistress of Kadun?” he asked, curt, imperious.  Once again he was Sarat:  “How can it hurt you?”
             He ceremoniously took her hand and bowed to her as she sat.  I hope I know what I’m doing, he thought.  I have no idea what I’m doing.
             Maya sat transfixed.  I am old and these are my memories.  The faded pages of an album turned before her.  Here is Mel in the Saa’nda Senta, here is Hass on the beach, Sarat playing with the puppies, that is Mitch holding forth in the Room, Venga, Sorg, Bris, Qine, all of them gone, Azt killed them, and here am I, where am I, but now I am young, Daddy is mending my swing, and I am laughing, in a field with flowers, Asyrion in a field with flowers, and they are all coming to greet me through the flowers, laughing and talking, but as Mel approaches he is Zani and as Sarat reaches out to put his arms around me he is Kaminua, for am I not Asyrion, not, not not Asyrion.  I am Maya-ban-essa, Anile empress!  My voice rings out or perhaps not, but all around is the music and the people-space is crowded, for this is my court, and there is Mel sitting on a step.  I go towards him.  Is it really you?  And he grins, that irresistible Mel grin.  Really, really me!  I reach out, stroke his cheek.  Sarat comes up behind me and puts his arms around my neck, kisses my ear.  Are we all dead? I ask.  Sarat just laughs.  Am I not Doom of Death?  There is no death, says Mel.  But I think: only we who are dead can say that.  I say to them, this is not real!   Nothing realler, honey, says Mitch, but this is Mitch as I have never seen him, Mitch robed in silver.  We’re dead, I say, and you don’t even know it.
             Tears pouring down her face, she fell real-time into Sarat’s arms.  He cradled her head, stroked her hair.  Then they flew to Fidub. 
             Cho and Amida were watching a documentary on wildlife in the Vasucula Archipelago.
             “There is a very, very angry emperor to see you,” said Vax.
             “Oh dear,” said Cho meekly, “what have I done?”
             Sarat and Maya entered without further ado.
             “Darlings…” said Amida.  Her voice fell away as she took in the vibes.
             “Azt killed us all,” said Sarat.  “Or not.  Not if I have anything to do with it.  Would you care to share with me a little more data concerning the Anile throne than you have thus far condescended to impart?”
             “What has happened?” asked Cho quietly.
             An impossible strain, thought Amida.
             Maya began her story.  Cho closed his eyes.
             “It is a conduit,” he allowed as she finished.
             “Or it is death!” said Sarat.
             “Never that,” said Cho.
             “What then?”
             “There is rooted evil in Azt.  It is in the earth.  It seeps into the bricks.  It will kill you if you let it.”
             “How do we stop it!” cried Maya.
             But Sarat said:  “That’s nonsense!” then stopped.  “Or if it is not nonsense, then earthpower must heal it.”
             “Must we raze Azt to the ground!”
             “If you had thought to speak,” said Sarat, “why should I not have sited my capital elsewhere?”
             “Conquer Azt,” said Cho, “or it will kill you.”
             “Earthpower,” said Maya.  “I was the only one to realize.  Because I’m a woman?”
             “What did you realize?” asked Cho.  Think now, Maya, think.
             “Love is the illusion and death the reality.  It is a very good illusion, we were very happy.  Also very dead.”
             “But you know that is not so.”
             “So?”
             “That is the untouchable reality,” said Sarat.  “Out of time.”
             Cho reached for the ‘phone and dialled.
             “Baya, my dear.  Their Imperial Majesties have had a little tiff with ultimate reality.  Do you think you could give them a vacation?”
             Sarat’s head filled with the number of people he had to see,  It cleared.
             “Out of Kadun for two days seems to me good.”
             “What, then,” asked Cho, “did you realize because you are a woman?  Think, now, Maya.  Consider the history of Kadun.”
             “All of it?” asked Sarat in mock-horror.
             “No,” said Cho.  He grinned suddenly, recalling Sarat’s deep aversion to this particular question.  “Now, ma’am, what our readers surely want to know is what it felt like.”
             “There was earthpower,” said Maya, “then there was Narulis, then there was Jaizal, then there was – limbo.”
             “This ‘rooted evil’, said Sarat.  “Krarlik woke it?  I just do not believe in rooted evils!"
             “You’re being too literal,” said Cho.
             “I’m being literal?  What about seeping into bricks?”
             “You believe in Singing Isles.”
             Maya stared.
             “A fault in the earth itself.”  Cho looked alert.  “It felt – if being dead feels like anything, that is what it feels like.”
             “That is your gloss,” said Cho.  “You have no idea what being dead feels like.”
             “That,” said Maya slowly, “is how we really are.”
             “It’s this time,” said Sarat.  “Now!”
             “Then why was it spooky!”
             “You are under stress. 
             “Oh thanks,” said Sarat.
             “Every minute of every day – “
             “Expecting to be shot?  That is not true.”
             Cho shook his head.
             “Your undivided attention given to four conversations at once, watching the body language of an entire room, an entire city, knowing every word will be repeated and many words will echo around the world.  And sleep? An unnatural life.”
             “When people just are,” said Maya.  “Which they never are, but if they are, they’re like flowers in a field.”
             “So?” asked Cho.  “Are people not wildlife too?”
             “Life,” said Sarat, “is the earth’s partner.  If the earth is ‘female’, life is ‘male’ and love the sum.”
             “The earth,” said Cho, “can only heal herself through love, in union with her partner.”
             “Or life – created the wound?”
             Cho smiled.
             “Were you not once a member of NoZone?”
             “Everyone knows,” began Sarat, “so I used to think, at least – acid rain and greenhouse gases are a long way from – the whole point is it’s universal, affects the whole planet.  It’s a long, long  way from a five-headed monster lurking under Azt!  How can it be localized?”
             “Because it’s contained?” asked Maya.
             “If everything is a metaphor,” said Cho, “it may be helpful to consider the five-headed monster.”
             “Will you not speak plainly!”
             “No.  We do not know.  Only that the ogre is there.”
             “Fine.  So I unsheath my gleaming sword – “
             “Something of the kind,” said Cho.
             “Humanity at war with the earth,” complained Maya, “is a product of science, industrialization.”
             “An ancient evil,” intoned Sarat.  “It’s got to be nonsense!”
             “No,” said Cho.
             “Narulis built Azt…”
             “On the fault.  He never fully understood.”
             “Fidub built him the chair.  Ores.  Earth.  As a sort of – weapon?”
             “Eventually the empire was corroded?” asked Maya.
             “That’s what I said.”
             “There was an immediacy, but that’s how my little human brain would see it.  The long view…”
             “Conquer Azt or it will kill you?”
             “Jaizal must conquer Fidub!” said Maya.
             “A metaphor made real?” asked Sarat.  “Only by crushing the earth?”
             “You gotta factor in the minds of men,” said Cho.
             “Men?”
             “Where – where a whole city was at?  We antagonize the monster!”
             “Because you are so close to victory.”
             “Metaphorically speaking,” sighed Sarat. 
             “They will fight to the death.”
             “That at least is comprehensible.  OK, let me put this in nice normal words.  The evil in Azt has its back to the wall and will stop at nothing to destroy us.  That’s something we didn’t know already?”
             “It’s all perfectly straightforward.  Except you stroll in and tell us it’s not a sentient evil.”
             “The earth is not sentient?” asked Cho.            
             Maya remembered.
             “It doesn’t always burst into song, does it,” she said with a wild grin.  “Even if you are direct successor.  It only bursts into song if you’re a boy.”
             “Orgasmic, man,” muttered Sarat.
             Cho started then bellowed with laughter.
Sarat and Maya walked slowly up the drive of the white house in the dunes.  Once more time hiccupped, they were 17, Hi, mum, we’re back.  We’re going straight upstairs…Sarat was aware he had awakened an area in his mind not immediately apposite to the day-to-day running of Kadun.  I guess this too is what being Anile emperor is about.
Baya opened the door.
“Darling…”  She hugged him very tight, then Maya.
Another hiccup in time – no, this was memory.  Mummy and Daddy really didn’t want to know that Sonny had screwed up.  Not this time.  He felt suddenly resolute but in a vacuum.  Essa hugged them.  Sarat knew the girls and their partners came home from time to time,
“Has anything much changed upstairs?”
“There is still a kitchen.”
“That’s great.” 
Who said to be is to feel everything, think everything, and then to walk away.  To feel everything is unbearable, thought Sarat, Kadun had taught him that at least.  Must my heart be wrenched by every child with festering sores?  And so there must be detachment but most people never feel anything at all.  They did not teach me that explained Kadun.
“I think if you don’t mind we’ll go straight to bed,” said Sarat.  
We who were 17, we raced upstairs, bounded, laughing, shut the bedroom door behind us, fell on the bed.  What, supposed Sarat, is memory other than hiccups in time.
Baya looked at B and P, but their faces betrayed nothing.
Baya on the ‘phone to Cho:  “He is bleeding to death!”
“He is coming alive,” said Cho.
“Oh for….”
And Maya held Sarat in her arms while he cried because right this minute the pain of being Sarat was unbearable.
Baz mailed Faun: Cancel everything for the next three days.  Urgent family business in Fidub.
Where are you? asked Faun.
Home.
And so the world assumed Cho was on his death-bed and Cho made no demur.
In the morning they were clearly better and dawdled over breakfast in the kitchen.  The radio babbled of a suicide off Sindon Head, the neatly folded pile of clothes on the beach, the brief note pinned to them, and once more Sarat is the schoolboy, the callous fledgeling scientist  listening to such a tale and observing that the sharks would get him, but the older Sarat wonders, yes, what does it feel like, what does it feel like when your strength fails and you know there is only surrender to the sea. Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror?  Can you not float? popped up his rational mind.  Hypothermia, coma. His imagination was seized by the image of the strong swimmer striking out to eternity with no chance of return and it didn’t exactly tax him to work out why. 
“Kaduna-gar-jaht,” he said mildly.  “It would have helped if someone had told me what this matter of Kadun is.”
Before returning to Azt, they went again to see Cho and Sarat said, I shall do this, this, this, and Cho smiled.  Then he said: “You must tell PANTHER in case it goes pear-shaped.”
Sarat sighed and agreed he must tell PANTHER in case it went pear-shaped.
“It’s all nonsense, isn’t it,” he said.  “The throne doesn’t understand genetics.  Any of us, Mel, Hass.  Tar.”
“It’s all nonsense,” admitted Cho.
In Azt he gathered Mel, Cantilip, Hass and Venga.
“By loving each other we get that bastard off the chair,” he said. Slay a five-headed ogre.  Which I guess is death.
He asked them if they minded letting Mitch and Karula into the gang and of course they didn’t mind at all, though no-one was particularly volunteering.
Venga looked at him a long time then said, “There is no other way.”
“That,” said Sarat with a dryness that surprised himself, “would appear to depend on what is the destination. As much garbage as the rest of it,” suggested Sarat.  “Where is the wolverine now?”
“We’re going to have to go back,” said Hass.
“You mean you’ll mind?” asked Sarat.
And so Mitch and Karula were let in on the joys of sex and Mitch cackled and said, “Well, you know, I did wonder.  Sarat and Hass at least.”
“I am a naïve little girl from the ‘burbs,” said Karula.
So then they were eight.  Sarat handed them each a scrap of paper and a pen. 
“It’s a little game they play in the best asylums.  I want you to each write down what you think the matter of Kadun actually is.  My little world,” he added, “just went ack over.  Fill you in after.”
“His writing’s terrible,” said Cantilip, “won’t be able to get more than five words on.”
“Please, sir, may we use the other side?” asked Mel.
But Hass smiled.
“Do we have limitless time?  Because now you come to mention it.”
“Ex-actly,” said Sarat.
Done.
Hass: It doesn’t just play in real time.
Mel: High Harn.
Cantilip: The desecration of the earth and all that lives.
Venga: Illusion taken for reality.
Mitch: Power
Karula: The conviction love is effeminate
“OK,” said Sarat.  “There’s one more thing I want you each to do for me and that’s sit on the Anile throne.”  And while Mitch, Karula, Mel and Hass squawked, he smiled at Cantilip and Venga.   “It’s OK, I guessed.”
At which Mitch nearly dropped his glass.
“There is no harm,” said Venga.
“It’ll love Zani’s heirs.”
Mel looked pleading.
“Could we possibly have a little detail here?”
“The Anile throne,” said Sarat, “is freaky, is very, very freaky, far freakier than previously advised.”
“Freaky,” said Mel.
“Refreshes the parts other attempts at channelling do not reach.  It may blow your mind but it won’t hurt you.”  I hope.
They arrived at the Jumesit Palace.  The bronzes laughed at them.  Sarat laughed back. 
“I may be a little out of my depth here frankly,” said Karula.
“I think we may be getting used to each other,” said Sarat. 
Mel sat.  The throne began to hum but Mel seemed oblivious.  Narulis takes Nautschka in his arms.  Our first-born shall be Anile Emperor, Narulis is saying, our second my lord of Van-senok.  Then Mel is clearly engaged in a dialogue or a duel.  No, that is not the case.  I stain my honour to save your own?  You cannot win.
Hass is pale.
“He – “
“He is Zani,” said Sarat.
Mel stumbled down and walked over to the window.
“OK…” said Mitch.  If he is Zani who in hell am I?
He sat.  The music roared.   For a moment nothing seemed to be happening and he was disappointed.  Then sword in hand he is fighting for his life but the enemy has no face or form.  The shadows clear and Sarat is leading him into the middle of the people-space.  My lord of Var-segan! proclaims Sarat but when Mitch turns to bow in acknowledgement there is only Narulis.  Just as Maya had, he says very gently, we are dead, we died centuries ago.  No, says Narulis.  Heela touches Mitch’s shoulder.  Papa!  They embrace.  I have so much to tell you, oh I so wish you had lived to see it.  Heela smiles.  I have my grand-daughter. Baria is running towards them.  Mitch  picks her up in his arms, honey, honey.  Daddy, oh Daddy, says Baria, then, it’s nice here, Daddy.  Why didn’t you bring me to visit before? 
Mitch rises, tears streaming down his face, enfolds Karula in his arms.
“Venga,” said Sarat.
“Again?”
“Again.”
Light streams from me.  I am enfolded, I who am the universe.  I fade.  For a moment his outline blurred.  My lord Kaminua!  His Imperial Majesty commands.  The universe cannot obey.  I must find form.  A wolverine appeared curled up on the throne.  He is Sarat-ban-essa, Anile emperor, Master of Kadun.  Behna laughed.  But it is long over. 
Now that was interesting, thought Sarat.
Hass a star, impeccable, but then there is the noise of battle and the pounding of hooves.  Come the hadin and of course the horse.  A black star falls from the sky and sears the earth, which moves.  Flowers cover the scar, spread north, south, east, west,  and again there is Asyrion.  She turns, smiles, but the Ciletij are screaming and the fires sweep over the flowers and there is only ash and bone.  Never again! said Kaminua. A young officer walks the field of desecration and is Sorg.  His face turns to a skull, his flesh withers, he crumbles to dust.  Asyrion who is also Fal is screaming.
“Cantilip.”
 I move through the forest.  I am in and of the trees.  Marula appears.  You are not my mother.  The earth is my mother. It was a mistake, Marula said earnestly but she is Nautschka lying in Narulis’ arms.   I laugh.  Then must I not be Mistress of Kadun!  In the beginning were the trees, says Marula.  Now let there be an ending.
“Karula.”
Baria is rushing towards her across – yes, you’ve got it, a field of flowers.but suddenly she stops.  I can’t go any further, Mom, it’s like there’s a tape in the way.  She begins to cry. Never mind, honey, Mom has magic scissors.  Karula brandishes them.  Karula feels in front of her.  I can’t find the tape, honey!  It’s there, Mom, it’s there. Just give me your hand, honey, I’ll help you over.  I can’t reach you, Mom.  Death wearing a silver coronet and sitting on a silver chair is quietly laughing.  Hey now, you bastard, says Karula, these are magic scissors.  Suddenly Narulis is by her side.  He whispers to her.  That’s crazy! says Karula.  She stands back from the invisible barrier, begins her approach, leaps, soars.  Sarat catches her.  She looks at him in horror.  You’re – Sarat smiles.  We’re all here.   But where is here?
“Right,” said Sarat.
“Not Maya?”
“Been there, done that,” said Maya.
Mel turned.
“I think perhaps light, coffee, explanation.”
He sounds exactly like Tar, thought Sarat.
They repaired to the Eyrie and Maya related her story.
“I’m an outer and exo kind of guy,” said Sarat, mocking them, mocking his younger self, mocking the universe, “and after all I’m just a kid.  I ran back to Daddy, or rather Grandaddy.  Very, very fast.”
“To tear a strip,” said Maya.
Venga smiled
“Why was I not told the facts of life!”
And Sarat laughed because it was so very exact.
“Sent to reduce the number of single parents without any knowledge of biology.  We’re going to have to plot, guys.  Start over from scratch.  Only this time we know what we’re fighting.  Sort of.”
“That would seem advantageous,” murmured Mel.
I have never seen Mel so shaken, thought Sarat.  Perhaps I have never seen Mel shaken.
“Sarat, dearest,” said Hass.
Sarat sighed and told them about the fault.
“Single lady,” said Maya, “seeks devoted partners to make music with.”
“I trust this is all metaphor,” said Mitch.
“I’m standing back from that one,” said Sarat. 
Hass grinned.
“No line of dancing bears high-kicked across the floor of the Ciletij Senate.”
“How do we know?” demanded Sarat.  “We are going to act as though it’s metaphor.  How I summarize it is we have been killed by Azt because we didn’t know.  We go about our daily business thinking we have achieved something but we might as well be dead for all we have really achieved.”
“And equally our – unnatural lives,” said Mitch.  “In purely basic physical terms.  We shall all be dead if we do not slow down.”
“Sleep deprivation as a path to altered states of consciousness,” said Karula. “Where did I read that?”
“True enough,” said Mel, “the protective layer most people have wears thin.”
“The field of flowers,” said Hass, “are they the endless dead?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sarat.  “I think they’re the love, the children of the earth and her partner.”
But Karula said: “It is a standard image among the ordinary people.  When they ‘cross over’, those waiting for them on ‘the other side’ run towards them through flowers.”
“I suppose in Van-senok it’s a wood in spring time,” laughed Mitch.
“Actually,” said Cantilip, “it is.”
“Sorry,” said Mitch.
Mel said: “With us it’s a coming out of darkness into Light, capital L.”
“That does not say  much,” said Mitch after a moment, “for living on this earth.”
“All is illusion,” said Venga.  “My lords, my ladies, let us not go the way of the Anile court.”
Sarat looked at him sharply.
“Why they thought that,” said Mel.
“They got too close to death,” said Sarat.  “It seemed to them death is better than life.”
“Different,” said Venga, “just different.”
Maya looked taut.
“Is that what we have to do?  Eyeball death.”
“Do we ever do anything else?” asked Sarat.
Karula gave a little squeal.
“Do you realize what we have just said?”
“So many appalling things – “ began Sarat.
“No, no.  Surely Mel, as an anthropologist, must appreciate…”
It clicked.
“Beliefs concerning the hereafter,” said Mel, “are a pretty surefire guide to the dominant belief-systems in a society.”
“And the dominant belief-system in this society – “
“Is earthpower.”
“In Var-segan, anyway.”
“In Van-senok.”
“In Carlin!  Can you really see the rabbiters not - ?”
Sarat began to laugh.
“Thousands, millions of hours talking to ordinary folks.  My lords, my ladies, we are lax, remiss.  We never thought of asking them what they think happens when they die.”
“However simple, however sophisticated, however down to earth, however numinous, it’s always you, you the – “  Mel stopped suddenly.  “I was going to say, you, the corpse, who shapes the trip.”
“But that is not at all what we are talking about,” protested Mitch.  “We are talking about the beliefs of the living as to what will happen.”
“NDEs.”
“The whole point of NDEs is they are not dying.”
“We have no idea what being dead is like,” said Maya. “Cho was really quite sharp.”
“We know there is a continuum.”
“Shaped by us.”
“I don’t think,” said Hass, “this is particularly getting us anywhere.  Exactly what is happening when we sit?”
“Cho said it was a conduit.  I think we’re finding stuff we already know but don’t know that we know and we’re very bad at understanding what we’re telling ourselves.”
“We’re shaping the trip.”
“Certainly.  And a pretty restricted trip it is too, confined solely to a rather limited social circle.”
“It would seem to me,” said Mitch  “the universe should return to school for it surely has a problem with making itself plain to folks.”
“Why are we all obsessed with Asyrion!”
“I’m not,” said Mitch virtuously.
“You didn’t – “
“We never told him,” said Hass.
“This is not my first – interlude with the chair,” said Sarat. “Somehow there was so much else going on.”
Mitch listened.
At length, he said: “If there is a problem with Asyrion, clearly the solution is to ask her.”
“Common sense is a terrible thing.”
But Karula cried out: “Then how can you say you have no idea about dying!”
“Oh.  No,” said Sarat.
“I suppose,” said Mel.
“Our understanding,” said Hass.
“Do we have one?” asked Sarat.  “How we understood that particular excitement was as a worm-hole in time.  It’s not that they were dead and gee, here they are large as life chatting away to us.  They had – had stopped their time and we were able to go there.”
“Is that better?” growled Mitch.
“Normal!” said Maya.  “Darling, you only have to spend a night in the Palace to understand the walls of time can be very thin indeed.”
“Especially,” said Sarat, ”anywhere near the throne?  I am really not sure I totally suss that particular home furnishing.”
“We are decided?” asked Hass.  “Sorg is Fal’s projection?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarat.  “I simply don’t know.”
“In a sense and heretofore,” murmured Mel,  “if you have continued, you are by definition not dead.”
“That,” said Mitch, “would appear to depend on what you mean by ‘dead’.”
“Which sounds like a student argument about semantics!”
“I think, two things,” said Sarat.  “One is what everyone in the world including us means by dead, corpse, funeral, something we do not want to be.   The other – we don’t know what being dead is like, we can’t know, because that by definition is what dead is, loss of self-awareness.  Some think it happens when the doc pronounces brain-death.  Some think – other things.  But that’s what it is.”
“Kaminua was a tree-hugger, wasn’t he,” said Maya,  “and Asyrion was earthpower.”
“Deep,” said Mel approvingly, “while the rest of us prattle about unknowables, Maya thinks.”  I prattle on, he thought, evading….He looked at Cantilip. “I think perhaps we might clarify.”  He gave a small smile. “Two near-misses.”
Cantilip sighed.
“Nautschka was the second child of the Master of Van-senok.  Her elder sister, the heir, was killed in the – the battle for Kadun.  Nautschka was already pregnant by Narulis.” 
“Then Sarat is Master of Van-senok!”
“It’s more complicated than that.  There are always three lines, d’you see.  The female, the male and the first-born.”  Has anyone got – “  She held up her summation of the matter of Kadun. “ – a decent-sized piece of paper?”
“You’re not the eldest?” asked Sarat.
“Now he’s getting it!”
“Shavli was Anile heir.”
“Except  of course not because you four are dependent on the x million preceding generations,” pointed out Mitch.
My head is swimming, thought Mel.  I never knew what it meant before.
“So each of us, each title, has three holders.  At some level.”
Amidst all this talk of dying, thought Karula, could it not be construed as symbolic that (if anything happens to us and of course it will not) Shavli a woman will succeed Sarat and Hass a gay man Mel.  I think I shall not say that because I have no idea what I am talking about.  But then by the looks of them nor do they.
“Narulis did first-born, gender irrelevant,” said Cantilip.  “Nautschka bore him a son, the Anile heir.  It wasn’t an issue.  Nautschka then had a daughter, who became my future lady of Van-senok.  We continued down the female line.”
So the successors of Narulis’ eldest daughter, if you’re doing things by the female line. 
“Who’s the third?” asked Sarat.
“We honestly don’t know,” said Venga. 
Honestly, thought Mitch, a word injected into speech to indicate one is lying.  He tutted at himself.
“Oh come on,” he said, with some asperity.  “For us in Var-segan it has not been a question that the line that returned to Fidub – “
 “Surely it must be clearly signposted,” insisted Karula.  “The first Anile empress in her own right.  Who had a younger brother.  That must be when the divergence.”
“But we are not talking yesterday,” allowed Mitch.  “Once the divergence took place, there would be no genealogists lovingly documenting it.  Only – “ the words screamed in his brain.  “ – adepts of the male line.”
“Krarlik?” suggested Sarat.
“Probably,” said Venga.
“Exactly what,” said Sarat, and people had the sense he was choosing his words with extreme care (if they didn’t have that at the start they sure had it when he’d finished), “have certain elements in Kadun expected of me?”
“We think you’re doing brilliantly so far,” said Cantilip.
“We, my sweet lady of the trees, we?”  Not Sarat but Mitch.
Karula gave up keeping her face straight.
“Unswerving in your loyalty to the Anile throne, honey?”
“You sat on it,” said Mitch, “knowing you were Mistress of Kadun in the female line.  But he?”
Venga shrugged.  I am the universe.   
“Why has Van-senok never - ?” began Karula, then realized the complete impossibility.
Cantilip smiled.  Cantilip became a slim dryad, tendrils of vine in her hair, clad in leaves and not many of those. 
Thus we storm the Great Gates!
“So?” asked Sarat.
“We understood only we had to make it happen.”
“So you - ?”
Venga smiled.
“Made advances?”
I think I have pressing business elsewhere, thought Mitch.
But Cantilip just laughed.
“The abandoning of Van-senok to be Queen of Dabida was not expected of me.”  She looked calmly at Mitch.  “Or I am a power-crazed hag.  If not Mistress of Kadun then Queen of Dabida, a runner-up prize?”
He looked calmly back.
“I do not believe that, honey.  But I do not understand.”
Mel took her hand and raised it to his lips.
“My lady is my completion and my resolution, my other half and my culmination.”  Then he grinned.  “Metaphorically speaking.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip, “Neither of us had ever met anything like them.  Head-over, darling, absolutely head-over.”
It came to Karula: sometimes they talk as though they’re separate species.  “I do not think,” she said, “at the most fundamental level anyone has ever explained to me the difference between earthpower and – “ She clapped her hand over her mouth and whistled.
“We, humans,” said Mel, “are finite and infinite.  You can’t have a one-sided piece of paper.  The separation is illusion.  Earthpower is the approach from one side.  We are the other.  Each contains the other.”
“Together,” said Mitch drily, “you represent ultimate reality.”
“The interface,” said Mel. “Where one side of the paper joins the other.”
“Of course one knew that theoretically,” said Cantilip briskly.
Karula spluttered.
“Then it – then neither is the end of the trip.”
“It’s the beginning of the trip,” admitted Mel.  “It is advised not to go further.”
“But you do!”
“That’s quite different,” said Mel.
“Physical,” said Hass helpfully.
“Cuddles,” said Venga.
“We have to be human,” said Mel.  “To know we are love.  Anyone who doesn’t at some level acknowledge that is intolerable to himself and all around him. “
“Most of the messes people get into are because they think they can extinguish human,” said Hass.  “Go around intoning, ‘I do not need’.  Fine.  Starve to death.”
“’Nothing matters.’  Watch other people starve to death.  We seem to have somewhat digressed.”
“They do not understand which part of them is saying these things…What were we talking about!”
“What fills our days. Does it matter?  How and to whom does it matter?”
“In other words,” said Mitch, “what the hell are we doing here?”
“Literally,” said Sarat.  “OK, there’s a fault in the earth.  Why is that down to little us to resolve?”  He stopped, not sure what he meant, then continued.  “Because it’s all one continuum.   What Hass said. There is no here without there and no there without here.  No socio-political change without disposing of the Cult and no disposing of the Cult without socio-political change.”
“School,” said Mel.  “I think a little word with the ‘Time-lords of Endor’.
Mel walked with Fugitry in the gardens.
“In simple words,” he demanded, “why did PANTHER not put Zani on the throne.  No nonsense about direct succession.”
Fugitry turned to him and bowed.
“Imperial Majesty!  Deal with it, Mel.”
What did I once say? thought Mel  I expect to be heeded as much as any other leader of the pack?   He took a deep breath.
“Right now, like any other -  world-leader – me, little me, truly? – my time is short.  I do not expect to be messed about.  But that is the opposite.”
Fugitry nodded.
 “Your people,” he began, and Mel stiffened, knowing he meant irtubi, “are united in one reflection.”
Mel sighed.
“We listen.  All night if need be.  We appear to have limitless time.  Now time has boomeranged?”
“Why,” asked Fugitry, “is time running out?”
Mel is in a field with flowers.  Skip the flowers, said Mel irritably.  Fugitry laughed.  The rest of our lives stretch before us and when you are 17 that is for ever.  At 50 strikes mid-life crisis, time foreshortened.  I am 25! shouted Mel.  25 and the world is (mostly) at my feet.  Am I not Master of Kadun! And also Sarat.  It is I/we who rule the world.  Our part of it at least.  What is this garbage? 
He looked up.
“Tar is soon to die?”
Fugitry looked approving.
“Not bad.  But total nonsense.  Let go, Mel.”
“What of!  Time…”
Every historic building in Azt except the Jumesit Palace had been opened to the public and this, it was widely understood, was simply because Sarat intended to live there. 
The Star tumbled to his feet.  Imperial Master!
Go in peace, sweetheart, said Sarat.
“Problematic,” said Maya, “I think that’s the word.  How can we possibly live here?”
“If I’m right,” said Sarat, “it will change.  If I’m wrong, they’re building luxury flats over in Tirin.”
“If we are very wrong,” said Maya.  “Sarat – does it occur to you we can burn out our little brains on this one?”
“Not if we let go,” said Sarat.
And Maya too said: “What of!”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” said Sarat.
“Kadun?” asked Maya.  “Life?”
“Oh no,” said Sarat.
Something in his voice told her been there done that.
Then he gathered PANTHER and told them everything but most of all what he wanted from them which every reference they could lay their hands on to the Jumesit Palace and its site, the history, archaeology and geology thereof. 
“Blame them,” said Sarat, gesturing toward B and P.  “They taught me to take my responsibilities seriously.”
“Including,” sighed Faun, “every veiled allusion to the heart of evil, etc.”
“Rooted evil,” said Sarat.
“Deep in the festering heart of Azt,” said Baz.  “Only journos write like that.”
“Do they really.”
The landscape gardeners began work and the builders moved in.  PANTHER prowled to contain the unexpected.  The builders had no eyes to see but they could feel.
“Strange old place, this.”
“How so?” asked Jaizi.
“Spooky.”
“Wouldn’t like to be here after dark, I’m telling you!” said another.
“Old,” said Jaizi cheerfully. “Everyone sometimes gets the feeling old places – have their past with them.”
“These walls have seen a few things, all right!”
“You’d think a modern lad…”
“Wouldn’t be here if he didn’t have no sense of history!”
But they decided that on the whole  there were three rooms, right at the back, almost like an outhouse, they didn’t want no part of.
“Like someone’s walked over your grave!”
“Nah.  Like you’re walking over someone’s grave.”
Oh dear, thought Faun.  He padded off to explore.  The reek of death hit him. Are we really going to have to dig?  What is left after 600 years?
“No,” said Sarat, “we’re going to exorcise.”
             Faun said: “Letting go of Kadun: the metaphor.  What is Kadun?”
“Mine,” said Sarat instantly, then, “Me.  Indissolubly linked.”
“The man made the running,” said Faun.  “The woman fell into his arms.”
“Was she shy?” asked Sarat.
“Terrified,” said Faun.
“By the way,” said Sarat, “find me everything Narulis wrote about metaphysics.”
“You know already,” said Faun.
“None of it, I think,  exactly as transmitted from generation unto generation.”
Mitch surveyed the finished product.
“One well sees that only court dress is appropriate to such an environment..  Does that not act as a deterrent to the ragged of Azt?”
Sarat said: “Perhaps the only point of gleaming robes is to get them filthy.”
The silver palace was apparently opened to the public.  Oh man, it’s beautiful.  Then puzzlement.  Where are Sarat’s private apartments?  Does he live here or not?   I guess he has to have somewhere for State occasions.  This is no nine-day wonder we have here. 
He has created a jewel in the heart of Azt, wrote Seani rather feverishly.  Recreated?  Seani began to research the history of the Jumesit Palace.
“What is he doing?” asked the Cile
“Frankly, sir,” said Bris, “I haven’t a clue.  I only know it’s the other stuff.”
“Perhaps,” said the Cile, “Ciletij should examine a higher plane of consciousness.”
Bris wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“They keep it so low-key it’s invisible.  Except somehow you know it is all that matters.”
Sarat lit the eternal flame.
“OK, guys, this is the shrine.”
He understands.  What does he understand?  The point of all this was at least in part bait, but still hidden Azt did not reveal itself.
“This is not Zanocki Park – “ where Azt had decided public debate was held.  “This is a place for people to be quiet if they want, a peaceful place.  It’s also where I live, at least part of the time, so you will be sure to keep the noise down, won’t you, kids.”
Then, just as the elders were beginning to turn away, their very shoulders murmuring relentlessly casual even on an occasion such as this, Sarat continued, a lasso holding them in place.
“There is the love way or the power way.  There is reciprocity, harmony, union.  All are One.  Some do not know it.  Thus it is said, each is both One and the Other and each makes his or her choice.  There is harmony with one’s fellow-humans or there is distance, separation, hierarchy, retreat from fellowship when only Might is Right.  There is harmony with all that lives.  There is harmony with the earth herself, for the final union is that between the earth and all that lives, indissolubly bonded.  This Narulis understood.  This I know.”
He turned and stepped down.  The silence was absolute.  Was it something I said? thought Sarat.
He turned, no, not to Maya, but to Cantilip.
“My lady of Van-senok, may I lead?”
“My lord, there is only the dance.”
He led her out into the middle of the people-space.
I don’t know this dance, he thought, but that doesn’t matter.  I am being danced.  It is dancing me.  Cantilip twirled and span, ever faster.  I am the trees, thought Cantilip, and he is the wind.   The wind stopped abruptly and raised her hand to his lips. 
“The time is now,” said Sarat.  I think I can hear horns.
Something of a platitude, thought those still retaining control of their brains, which weren’t many.
Then he knew what he was hearing and threw Cantilip to the ground as PANTHER shouted, “GET DOWN! Everyone flat!” 
The blast hit the centre of the dais.  For one terrible moment Sarat thought, Azt killed them, all of them gone, but a ring of light contained it and there is Mel, ring-master.  Sun-ka-sun.  I shine. But perhaps he is dead.   How else does Mel look in death?  Sarat ran forward Halfway to the dais he realized Mel wasn’t the least bit dead but couldn’t work out what the hell he was doing. Venga realized and his pleasant baritone echoed through the hall.  Come, hadin, come, come not alone, come hadin, come.  Is that wholly appropriate, thought Mitch, then realized it was an invocation.
Maya walked slowly forward.
“No!” said Sarat.
She ducked and the bullet whizzed harmlessly past and into a priceless painting.
“Give me the gun. That is an order, Colonel.”
She  held out her hand.
He made to turn the gun on himself, but found he couldn’t.
PANTHER led him away.
“Eh,” said Mel, “someone should give that lass a medal.”
“Looks like I got a reaction,” said Sarat.
Sarat turned to making sure no-one was hurt (no-one was or not badly).  It’s as though everyone is talking in whispers, thought Mel.
Slowly the tree began to grow.  This may be too much like hard work, thought Venga. 
Dabida wasn’t sure what had happened, only that Mel had escaped death by seconds.
COME HOME, MEL!  demanded  the front-page of the Zur Gazette.  Must Mel Die for Kadun? asked The Times.
Mel looked stunned.  No.  It’s – leave, how can I leave?
“Time just ran out?” asked Sarat.
“I’ll follow on,” said Cantilip.  “I think just at this minute they want all of you.”
Mel flew immediately to Zur.  Nobody’s going to die – it really wasn’t a very big bomb – look, not a scratch on me
Their answer was pictures of Maya walking towards a loaded gun.  Tar and Saski were in Vasucula for the Round-the-Islands Races.  In place of parents, thought Vanya.  Me?  Or I want a constitutional crisis.
Vanya inspected him.
“Quite mad, of course.  Nonetheless we love you.  Mel, this has to end.”
“That is Sarat’s view.”
“At what cost!”
“I don’t know.”
“Zur has sweated.  Quite apart from – I swear your mother is a size smaller.”
“I know,” said Mel.
“Sarat has to do it – perhaps in a sense Sarat had to do it.  Now he has to do it.  You do not.”
“But I do.”
“How so?”
Vanya listened to a truncated story.
“You will explain that to Dabida?”
“No,” said Mel.  “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
And he thought like Marula: Now let there be an ending.
“Or you are my lord of Van-senok and the emperor’s cousin.”
Mel frowned.
“That sounds like an ultimatum.”
“Oh, my dear boy, no.”
“What then?”
“I shall not offer fatherly advice.  For that you have a father.”
“The real problem,” said Mel, “is Hass was there too.”
“No, Mel, that is not the real problem.  The real problem is Zur loves you.”
Mel managed a small smile.
“I can’t think why.  I’m treating her very badly.  For – for 98% of my young life, it was inconceivable I visit Azt, let alone live there.  Everything has shattered, do you see, good, bad, indifferent.  Everything.  For 98% of my life, Zur was my life. “  Then I realized I was Master of Kadun.  “Everything must be remade.”  Time.  Time stretched out before him like an endless field of flowers.  But that is only because I am dead.  We are finite, damn it!  Infinite and finite.  Mitch’s voice echoed in his mind.  I have no problem with the notion I am finite.  Here and there, alive and dead, Azt and Zur, Zur and Van-senok, why is nothing whole?  The image returned.  Hand in hand, the eight of us are walking into the Light, capital L.  “Meanwhile I need a vacation!”
“To that at least I give unqualified assent.”
Vanya rang Tar.
“You must abdicate!”
“I must?  To keep him here?”
“To keep his feet on the ground.  Or find him some project equally engrossing.”
“What,” asked Tar, “is bigger than the universe?”
“Let no-one deny hands-on experience.”
Tar and Saski arrived back and were frankly relieved to find Mel and Cantilip lounging in The Room looking healthy and normal, a relief which lasted about five seconds.
“There is this recurrent image,” said Mel.  “The eight of us are walking hand in hand into the Light.”  But then he said: “It’s like a flashback.”  He paused.  “The thing is, none of us can any longer keep a lid on what we are.”
“Then you must return to the Denzines and learn,” said Tar briskly.
Sure, Dad, sure.
“Even Hass?” asked Tar.
Mel didn’t answer directly.
“What I understand is that everything I have been taught since I first managed to stammer why? was directed at keeping my feet on the ground.  Nothing is whole!”
“Everything is whole.”
“The healing lies in the balance?  Papa – “ which Mel hadn’t called him since he was about ten.  “ – how is it possible to be both alive and dead?”
“Darling,” said Saski, “you do not appear to be doing badly so far.”
“Do you understand that – that in earthpower I am Master of Kadun or more exactly - ?”
“Of course, darling,” said Saski.
He’s going to say it, thought Tar.  He said it.
“What does it all mean?”
“I want my sons home,” said Tar.
Mel realized it was an order.
“Shall Essa order his son home!”
“Where,” said Tar softly, “is home?”
But Cantilip said: “You leave with Sarat Maya, Karula.”
“And Mitch of course,” said Mel.
She didn’t seem to think Mitch mattered.
And Fal, thought Mel.  Is that it, only women can heal Kadun?  Then death returned and said: Then Shavli must rule Kadun.
“No!” said Mel, then realized he had spoken aloud.
Tar looked alert.  Mel explained.
“You become obsessed with death,” said Tar.
And Mel said: “That is the matter of Kadun?”
 Cantilip cried out: “Don’t you see!  No-one foresees our deaths because we’re dead already.  It IS a flashback.  Maya was right, we’re dead and we don’t even know it.”
“This is madness,” said Tar.
“That,” said Mel grimly, “is why we’re going to sane it.”  No-one laughed.  He turned to Cantilip.  “We’re packing.”
“You return to Azt?” Tar kept his voice level.
“Great heavens, no!  We are going to Fidub.”
“Wring his neck for me,” said Tar.
“We’re putting our own gloss on it,” said Mel.  “We understand that.  Or we are putting Azt’s gloss.  Refracting it through what we think we know.  What are we seeing?”
“It was illusion,” said Cantilip.  “Karula and I weren’t there.”
“Unless of course,” snapped Mel, “you were dead.”
As the door closed behind them, Saski lay back in an attitude of complete collapse.
“Appalled beyond belief,” said Tar.  He held her, then stood back and laughed.  “Get packing.  We, my lady, are going to Azt.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” said Cantilip.  “Total loony.”
“True-untrue,” said Mel. “Not true-true.”
“Catharsis,” said Cantilip.
There’s a heli-pad on the roof, drop you in Cho’s back garden in an hour.
But Por reported that they hadn’t left.
“They’re just sitting up there, talking.”
“Stop calling it death,” said Mel.  “The part that’s there not here, the part we can no longer keep down.  Death is a gloss and a corruption.  We’re not seeing it as it is.”
“Because it’s been kept down, it – it isn’t properly integrated,  That’s why it’s so erratic.”
“No balance.”
“Yes,” said Cantilip.  “No.  Mel, we’re doing this to ourselves.”
“We know that.”
“Why are we doing this to ourselves?”
He rested his head on her shoulder.
“I guess because we’re scared shitless.”
“We’ve brainwashed ourselves.  There is no choice.  No choice but to wander round Azt bare-headed, no choice but to behave as though Azt had been at peace for a thousand years.  Do you not think the rational part of our minds rebels?”
“Thinks we’re suicidal,” said Mel.
“Think of a prey-animal, Mel.  A rabbit.  If rabbits had human consciousness how long d’you think they’d last before going psycho?”
“Simply as a result of existing,” said Mel.
“We’re not built for it.”
“Except we are,” said Mel.
“The ‘there’ part to which – to whom?”
“Nit-picker!” said Mel.
“To what the fear is meaningless, says, hey, man, it’s cool, what’s the hassle.”
“You’re dead already,” said Mel.
“What is the one thing our – hah! – uncensored selves have not experienced?”
“Total terror,” said Mel.
“Of losing you,” said Cantilip.
“Of losing you,” said Mel.
“Because,” said Cantilip.
“Because,” said Mel.
“It’s not terror at one’s own demise,” said Cantilip.
“It’s absolute powerlessness to prevent,” said Mel.
“Anything happening to any of us,” said Cantilip.
“Love is destroying us,” said Mel.
“Nobody told us,” said Cantilip.
“What could they have said?”
“Imposed detachment!”
Mel gave a little start, then turned and kissed her gently on the cheek.
“We have been so stupid. What is not whole?”
“What is forced apart.  Oh Mel.”
“Love, they told us, love with all your heart and soul, become one.”
“It only works,” she said.
“When nobody wants to kill your beloved!”
“Grubby little rational minds.  We understand the risk.  We accept it.”
They looked at each other in horror. 
“Letting go.”
“Of each other.”
He took her hand and began slowly to recite.
“I who am One, who am One with the One, and You who are all, Protector and Preserver, Creator and Destroyer, in whom all are One, give peace to this house and all within.”
It began to rain, but they didn’t mind.  Finally two wet little rabbits descended and found Tar and Saski gone,.
We want to talk to a grown-up.
“It’s the opposite of everything we’ve been taught!” shouted Mel.  Am I shouting?  “Sorry.”
“No,” said Por.  He ploughed on.  “Cantilip leaves you?  Is she not free?  You let go.”
“That’s different.  She has choice.”
“Here – the here part of you – accepts totally she is – discrete.”
“But there we are One – “
“What is time?” asked Cantilip.  “It doesn’t matter.  We shall meet again and then it will be for ever.”
“That is faith,” said Mel.  “Must we cross in real time to know!”
“You do not trust?”
“What?”
“Love.”
We are dead and do not know it.  It is as simple or as sophisticated. 
“What Fal is doing is  projecting – realizing, real-izing, making real.”
“Must we suffer the terror and the loss?” asked Cantilip.
“For what?”
“To be free.”
“It seems to me,” said Por, “your little minds are doing a pretty good job so far.  Feel it.”
Cantilip lolled across the Plaza, half her head blown away.  Mel’s mind shut down.  “Feel it.”
Mel walked slowly through a hostile, jeering crowd.  They’ll kill him, said someone helpfully.  Cantilip retched.  “Feel it.”   Mel stared at him blindly.  “Feel it.”  Cantilip sprinkled earth on Mel’s grave then screamed No!.  Mel alone in bed turns, reaches for empty space.  Desolation overwhelms him.
             “Poor little rabbits,” said Mel.  “Such complicated minds.”
             “Or,” said remorseless Por.
“I am walking behind your coffin,” said Mel steadily.  “But the sun is in my hair and I am laughing.  It doesn’t matter.  What is in the coffin is not you.  It has nothing to do with you, with us.  Because you are beside me, clutching my hand.  So why am I crying?”
“Do we have to make up our minds!” shouted Cantilip.
“No,” said Mel.  Immediately it flashed into his mind: time is foreshortened.  Oh shut up! he said to his mind.  “We’re dragging ourselves under, aren’t we.  How do we get out?”
“Only by turning our backs on the whole thing.”
“Not.”
             He wrote at length to Sarat.
             How can I be this stupid? thought Sarat. There’s one thing we didn’t do.  How can I be this thick?  We didn’t sit on it together! 
             Once more he approached the throne, his mood much OK buster, now you get your come-uppance.  He sat firmly and with what the tabloids would have called a very male gesture of possession sat Maya on his lap.  She snuggled against his chest and put her arms around his neck. 
             Well? asked Sarat.   They surrendered their minds to each other, melded. 
Er, yes, well.
             I/we look around.  Where are we?  In the dream, if it is a dream, there is the distant sound of hammering.  We follow it, taut, aware of being defenceless in a dream, if that makes sense.  We seem to be in a tunnel.  Under the earth?  Under the Palace?  The fault.  We do not find these terribly comforting thoughts.  Our feet are getting wet.  A trickle of water from behind has reached us.  The trickle becomes a steady flow.  This is a very uncomforting thought indeed.  Shall we outrun it? Did we not proclaim we wished to cleanse the sewers of Azt!  Er, yes.  Not with us in them.  At least we know where we are.  Must there not be a moment of unspeakable terror?  Feel it.  I have led you to your death!  That is clearly not an ‘us’ thought.  At least we’ll go together.  But the water levels out at waist-height.  We’d better swim!  This is clearly the maddest trip yet.  We begin to strike out for land.  The beaches of Fidub appear before us but recede with each stroke.  The fault. 
             We’re so convinced we are shaping the trip we don’t try to shape it.  But then what’s the point.   Think, think, think ourselves onto the beach.  Here we are, vigorously towelling our backs as the sun beats down and the earth cracks beneath us.  We cling to the edge of the fault.  Steps appear, worn by many weary climbers.  We begin our descent to the centre of the earth.
             For a moment they clung to each other taut.
             “Why,” demanded Maya, “did it stop when it was just getting interesting?”
             Sarat’s mobile rang.
             “Oh,” he said.  “Another kind of disturbance in the ether.”
 Tar and Saski surveyed the plotters.
“You are all mad or only Mel and Cantilip?”
“Darlings,” said Saski, “you didn’t finish growing-up.  Now you must grow up on the job.  It is hard.”
“Oh, is that what happened?” said Sarat.
“You don’t look too bad,” allowed Tar.
“Smile for the camera,” said Sarat.  “It’s probable I went mad when I was 17.  I may just be getting over it."
“Cho,” said Tar, “if you took a break.”
Sarat smiled wanly.
“D’you think he could cope?”
“What has Mel said?” asked Hass.
“I have said I wish my sons home.  Perhaps all five of them for a short while.”
“I thank you,” said Sarat.
“You are not here,” said Tar.
“Something else has happened,” said Sarat.
“We are feeling just a little fragile,” said Maya.
Tar caught up with the missing episodes.  He put his head in his hands.
“Mel and Cantilip must sit.”
“We’d got there,” said Sarat. 
Mel had got hold of a graphics program.  He sat back from the monitor.
“There!  I thought I’d externalize it.”
Cantilip looked at the eight of them walking hand in hand into the Light and began to cry.
“I did that,” admitted Mel.  “Then I thought – supposing – “ 
He opened another image.
“Oh Mel!”  She laughed and cried at the same time.
“First I put silver blur round each of us, which I found rather cheering.  No change of state.  Then of course the blur all joined up and the blur is what joins us.  So in the end I had the beginning of a solid block of silver blur and then I thought paint out the people, because the people are the blur.  But in the middle of the people.”
In the middle of a shimmering radiant block of silver were eight tiny rabbits.
“What is it that our little brains are screaming at us that we cannot begin to accept because it’s so sick, so crazy?”
“There is no difference between life and death.  But we know that or we shouldn’t be as we are.”
“Poor little rabbits.  Then I thought something else.  I thought we’re going through the Light.”
“That’s a bit scary,” said Cantilip.  “But it’s still a flashback.”
“How do I know what time does?  Does it ask me?  Except maybe it’s something we’ve done.  We are at the interface.”
She looked around Mel’s old bedroom and began to giggle.
“Cosmic, man!”
“I know, I know!  But mentally we’ve taken ourselves over the top and that’s what we don’t know.”
“Because it’s we who are calling the shots.  Our little brains are squealing that there’s something we need to let hang out here…”
“Life is death.  It only sounds so repulsive because time programmes us to see it linearly.”
“When my grandfather died, I knew he just wasn’t there.  He was somewhere, but not there.  A dead person is sort of conclusive.”
Mel thought of his dead.
“Yes.”  Then, “It’s what Mitch said. But not linear.  Every moment in life is the opportunity to come out of the dark into Light.” But then he frowned.  “I can’t believe the Anile court didn’t know that.”
He was summoned to the telephone.
 “Make up your mind!”  he said with some acerbity.
“Your mood has not improved?”
“Somewhere,” said Mel, “I’m a happy bunny.  I just haven’t got there yet.”
Cantilip began to bunny-hop around him.  He smothered a laugh and agreed to return to Azt.  Then he began to bunny-hop too.  They were in love and under a lot of strain.
Mel scowled at the throne.
 “It’s not very big.  Suppose I sit on the back and Cantilip sits on the seat.” 
Tar looked at him.  He sat on the seat.  Cantilip sat on his lap and leant back against him.
Oh-oh-oh!
We are in total darkness then sunlight streams in through a gap ahead.  We seem to be rabbits.  Yes, but we’re magic rabbits.  Hippity-hop out into the open but the glare of the sun apparently is so strong that we see no grass, no lettuce but only light.  We go crazed, begin to bite and scratch at ourselves.  We stop as suddenly as we started, look at each other in shock.  We don’t know what to do.  A fox is coming towards us.  Remember we’re magic rabbits.  We jump forward, over the fox’s head, soar.  It seems we shall never land.  Flying rabbits frightened of falling.   But the air – light – air thickens beneath us and we are human again, Mel and Cantilip standing on air.  The light stretches all around us.  We jump, land in (sigh) a field of flowers, stumble to our feet, laugh, run hand in hand through the flowers.  Asyrion and Kaminua are running to meet us.  They’re trying to tell us something, but we can’t hear.  We meet, fuse.  Now I Mel who am also Kaminua call the hadin home to Azt, but they stop, rear, refuse to go further.  There is something scary about Azt.  I Cantilip who was also Asyrion and am also Kaminua and Mel stand in the centre of the people-space and the Palace crumbles around me, tendrils shoot around the pillars as the earth takes over.  But the earth herself is crumbling beneath our feet and we again are falling into the light.
And Cantilip-talal-za-fenan, who has been also Asyrion, ran from the throne whispering, “No, no, it’s impossible!”
Mel rose shakily.
“I think.  Not.  I don’t think.  Thinking is a very bad thing to do in this situation.”
He and Cantilip held each other as though they’d never let go.
Mel turned finally.
“We’ve all been pushed over the edge.”  Nobody, least of all he, was sure which edge.
“That bloody field with flowers,” said Hass, who never swore.
“Mel,” said Saski.
He hugged her.  Time lurched and he was six, where does it hurt, darling, let Mummy kiss it better. And you can damned well behave yourself too, he said to time.  Time crept obediently back into its corner.
“There would appear,” he said, “in some kind of way, to be a sense in which, although perhaps the choice of words isn’t terribly good, the throne is alive.”
Of course, of course, of course, of course.  Sarat ran to the chair and sat.
“I am Anile emperor, Master of Kadun, Doom of Death.  I command – myself.”
The throne yodelled, as one of those present was later to put it.  No-one was in  a particularly good mood.
That’s all you did the first time, thought Sarat.  Time upsets you, doesn’t it.  Sorry, no.  we did not understand.  It’s being so near the fault, the wound, but it’s all right.  You’ve got me now. I’m your partner.  You can tell me everything. (Keep searching now, searching for the mind, intelligence, liveness.)  What is this, bigamy?  Let me just keep busking it, keep my little mind babbling away and not dragged off to cloud-cuckoo land.  Until something happens.  If something happens.  Something will happen.  You’re desperate for us to understand.  I can see that.  You must think we deserve prizes  for stupidity,  We’re only human.  Still, let me try and stretch my little mind.  After all I am Fidubi.  Singing Isles, right. (Just keep feeling.  It won’t have any shape or form known to me.  It can’t have.  It?  Sorry!  She.)  And what keeps them singing, the union, the partnership.  Singing Isles sounds better than Orgasmic Isles!  How about we take you to Fidub!  Would that be better, calm you down a bit?  So we can do this the long way or the short way, right.  Healing, I mean.  If life in Azt is in partnership, doesn’t that heal the wound?  He yawned suddenly.  You know, I’m pretty tired.  I really need that break.  Maybe I should just take a nap.  Molecules, we’re all just molecules, you and me.  It seemed to him (oh come on, that’s crazy!) that the chair was less hard beneath him.  All is One, isn’t it.  So how about we just shape ourselves to each other.  Cuddles.  Everything in the universe needs love.  The chair was definitely softer.  Oh how can I be this thick.  Look I don’t begin to remember how to do this, the theory, never mind the practice.  Can you help me?
And
A panther snoozed in the middle of a decidedly curvaceous but much enlarged throne.  Its – its?  His thought was lost to the on-lookers.  I think I’ve stopped breathing, thought Mel.  Where is he?
It seemed to him that Sarat answered sleepily: You know.
The interface?
Silence.
No-one moved.
Maya looked helplessly at Tar.
No, he said.
I must.   Must or I shall never in a thousand lifetimes forgive you, must or I shall die, an over-riding, compelling, irresistible, unified must.
He showed her how to do it.
A panther stalked up to the chair, jumped onto the seat and began to lick the ears of her sleeping partner.  He rolled over. 
At least he’s alive.  How is he alive?
Maya-panther curled up beside him.  I – no, that is what I don’t do. 
Sarat-panther began to show unmistakable signs of wanting to make love to or have sex with as panthers put it Maya-panther.
“Perhaps we should leave them to it,” said Mel.
Undoubtedly alive.
He’s responding to our thoughts?  The only way he can?
 Pantherish croons emanated from the throne.
This is really rather embarrassing, thought Karula.  Of course I’m hysterical!
Something has to make him jump down, thought Venga.
He laughed suddenly
And became
A mouse. 
Venga-mouse scurried up to the chair and squeaked vociferously.  Hey, big boy, notice me!
“Not hungry, I guess,” murmured Mitch.  Or not worth the effort. “Wouldn’t a gazelle - ?”
Oh.
“The period of gestation appears somewhat foreshortened,” murmured Mitch.
It seemed that the room was filling with  panther-cubs.  Venga returned rapidly to human form. 
The illusion to end all illusions, he thought.
He strode towards a cub and scooped it up in his arms. 
An unmistakable growl came from the throne.
Venga felt hurt.  Hey, Sarat, it’s me, your best buddy, as if I could harm –
He doesn’t know who we are.   
Idiot me!
“Chase the cubs away!” he ordered.  “Shoo, kitty, come on, out of here!”
They began to understand.
Sarat and Maya bounded down.
And stood stock still.
Returned to human shape.
Fainted.
Strong arms cradled them.  Venga felt for Sarat’s mind, Cantilip for Maya’s.
Sarat…
Who is Sarat?
You are!
It’s…, said Maya.
Slowly she came back.
Sarat’s memories returned, past, present and future.
My time is now!  But his mind continued to protest.  All times are now.
I am – everywhere.  But Sarat.  All places Sarat has been, there am I.
“I think,” said Tar, “this is perhaps not the best place.  Let’s get them out of here.”
Walk?  Fly, prowl, crawl, creep, hop.  Walk!
I am the rivers and the seas.  I flow.
I am the earth and the sky.
“Get him outside,” snapped Venga.  “On the grass.”
“Genius,” murmured Hass, but Baz looked at him thoughtfully.
Venga, my son, exactly what do you know about this particular trip?
Venga smiled: I didn’t go all the way.
I am the planets and the stars.
I am the universe. 
Not.
All universes.
Not.
Sarat felt for the wet grass around him.
Where am I!
What am I?
Sarat?
It’s what I have to do, Dad.
Slowly his head was clearing.  Slowly.
“Sarat, my dear,” asked Saski, “do you know me?”
Sort of.
“You know me,” said Maya firmly.
There…
“Could I ever leave you!”
Sarat touched the grass again.
Not-I.
Affirm separation! commanded Venga.
You not-I.
Sarat blinked.
Me.
He ran his fingers down his forearm, the border of his self.
He blinked again.
No words.
“You have to speak,” said Venga.
I – I – “I – “
“Yes, darling?” said Saski, much as though she were coaxing first words out of a tot.
He reached out and touched her cheek.
“Saski?”
And everyone started breathing again.
“Saski, darling.”
“Where – ?”  Sarat looked slowly around.  “You’re all here!”
“Of course,” said Maya.
“What happened?” 
“You,” said Mel with some asperity, “tell us!”
“Perhaps not at this moment, darling,” murmured Saski.
“Puh-lease,” said Mel, “don’t do that again in a hurry.  My little nerves can’t stand it.”
Sarat began to laugh then tried to stand up.
“Weak as a kitten.”
“Cub,” said Venga firmly, “new-born cub.”
He staggered – they all staggered – to the cars.
Now he is Anile emperor, thought Mel.  What on earth does that mean?  The total Anile throne experience!  I think I’ll give that one a miss, said Zani.  Of course, said Mel.  How relentlessly thick we all are.   How we complexify things.  Is there such a word?  You mean this is simple?   I know what I mean, said Mel.