Another passage, another room, and then:

This place, he thought, here. But how was it even possible?

- that he had even forgotten this.

A long black corridor that – it didn't end.

He never understood if it really did end - if it was tricked out only to appear that way, but didn't: the long black corridor, in which, individually, the members of his species who could, could see. This was the place in which they were directed/encouraged, taught, anyway, how that raw talent could be moulded into the skill that, at this point, was their professional duty to nurture and maintain.

But it happened – and what sort of mental blockage did this reveal to him that his mind contained; that he'd forgotten, what sort – in this long black corridor.

Something between Tenns and the instructor of a large lad, standing there, was exchanged. He had one eye - he was Cyclops/obviously frustrated with himself. Even with Tenns, and his teacher – only... encouraging.

She asked him to please, for the benefit of him, Pry, obviously - Pry-Boak [cL^YoP], not in this minute Pheel Cazzo; the Prince of the Multicoloured Glands, Art[ion] Mlckk'n Inchance-rify, The Dream Slave - Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz – anyone else.

Him.

“Tye. See what you can see in this corridor: remember what we discussed, how your seeing the world constructs it. - How your perceiving the world is the same thing as understanding reality/the same time creating. Tye, remember that – you've done this before... ably.”

Almost as tall as her, at twenty years old, a child, he had real intelligence flashing in that one big eye. Pry saw the complete comprehension, not just of the - slogans, she was repeating, but the deep philosophical thrust; its connection to the true nature of reality as revealed in all the scriptures of, he thought, the dark old religion.

It was all there, in his eye. - With, for one brief instant: it was Tenns' tone, when she spoke of how to see – was she happy he was blind? Pry dismissed an impossible idea and thought about the boy. He was immediately impressed - he wouldn't have been if they were contemporaries - he would have deeply resented this lad - but it was that. Seeing him - an instance of pride even. A Cyclops. “Remember,” she was saying, “so ably; so that.” She paused. She stopped. “- You remember how to see.” Three of them, at the top of that corridor, stared into the dark.

Tenns/Pry - they stepped back, and with studied purpose watched the lad perform.

At the edge of that space, Pry could see it: all that necessarily could be born there, all that could be induced to exist just by understanding what those black contours really were. Wanted to be. They folded outwards, they folded into shapes, that easily - so easily could be interpreted in any fashion that -

“We've been studying the bridge of Aphron. You remember the part where Planst, across the bridge of Aphron, understands that it's only his understanding the form, the form itself, of the bridge, that allows it to carry across the armies of Damsees, etc., etc. and therefore seize the great palace of Lanchindant -”

“If I recall he – it's more fun than we were usually permitted - he revels in his new conception of reality, in his seeing, the geometric blocks themselves, of the final basic reality. Then supporting this massive structure merely on the weight of that, of his seeing it this way, a complete invention - but it's his revelling that -”

“Makes it fun – shhh:” straight finger on lips, she shushed him, “watch -”

Tye, clearly suffering, stared with a great black eye into the dark.

Shadows folded around the edges of the space that - they weren't even necessary, but their eddying into the darkness, for Pry, seeing (italics), it was as natural as breathing. In fact he had to stop himself from imposing anything upon them - immediately and right there.

So inviting were they for interpretation. He had to stop himself seeing there. Whatever he wanted. The bridge of Aphron; anything else. It was a form of love, a form of address, the modes in which these shadows, the shapes, inherent, beckoned him to see in them significance. To project it there, but not really, to unlock what they really contained. He said that. This space had been difficult? The sweating hours came back to him. Had this ever been hard?

He said this last part aloud.

“Not for Tye; not before this; this last batch of re-initiations, you're lucky you failed first/third/eighth time around - so it's just you; you don't want – I'd rather go through that alone.”

“Death?”

Fighting with himself, struggling manfully alone, desperately trying to see, in those shapes that beckoned Pry-Boak, something he could operate with, something from which to conjure, really, the bridge of Aphron. Nothing. Nothing. - Poor boy.

“How long?” She hadn't answered his last question. Nor this.

“I have to tell you everything, you have to see it, see this for yourself, and then plane 88.”

- “The ceremony isn't for -”

“You have to see plane 88.”