Meanwhile,

uncountable light-eons away,

on the fabled continent

of Sacrozast,

perched on the highest,

most perilous peak

of the Time Mountains,

was the gargantuan,

metaphor-defying

Castle Brave Bone.

And inside,

everything was going horribly wrong.

The walls shook.

Stone dust

spilled in bursts

from the ceilings.

A persistent,

all-encompassing bell

tolled

hundreds of miles deep

in the castle depths,

a warning

no one had ever heard before,

but that everyone

had long feared.

Acolytes rushed about

like mad ants,

the bottoms of their gossamer,

hyper-translucent gowns

swishing across the floors,

their feminine curves jiggling,

their minds in terror.

The mad seeress,

Phane Li Zat,

who had haunted the halls

of Castle Brave Bone

since before it had physical form,

tore at her own hair,

scratched at her own face.

"Something has changed!"

she screamed.

“Something has changed!!”

Annison Lake,

the Ultimate Sorceress,

Grand Matron of the Permanent Now,

sat anxiously

in her private chamber,

awaiting the arrival of her protégé,

whom she had sent

bearing a question

to the intangible

Oracle of the Sacrificial Shaft.

Annison’s duty,

which she had performed

for all but a few of her life’s long years,

was to guard Castle Brave Bone’s

arcane powers

from the evil, undead cyborg

Skullatroid,

and the malevolent machinations

of the relentlessly insidious

Proto-Gods —

the Cabal of the Cosmos —

who forever plotted

to return the Omniverse

to a prison of linearity.

The Grand Matron asked herself:

Must I choose

what I do not wish to choose,

what I know I must choose,

what I have already chosen

in this Omniverse and all others?

As Castle Brave Bone

shook around her,

and the toll of the Doom Bell

sounded from

its divine, immaterial depths,

to its demonic, material surface,

Annison fell into reverie —

She is a girl again,

only seven,

first arriving at Castle Brave Bone,

having ascended

the Time Mountains

on foot.

Castle Brave Bone

stands over her,

massive;

she is to be the new protégé,

carefully plucked

from the wealthiest family

in the Timetropolis,

forbidden from human touch

from the moment of her birth.

In the convent,

she knew only

artificial life —

robots, holograms, dwarves —

and now

she sees humans in front of her

for the first time,

under the silver sunlight,

acolytes working on the mountain farms.

Annison is a girl, only seven.

Annison is brought into

the Grand Matron’s chamber,

this chamber.

"Do you not recognize me?"

the old, hideous matron asks,

beguiled.

"No," Annison says,

but in a small voice,

promising herself

that she will never love

this arachnid-like creature.

The Grand Matron’s eyes go sad.

She asks,

"Tell me, Annison Lake,

of the Celestian-Lakes

of Timetropolis,

Daughter of Baron Aistem Lake,

Granddaughter of The Black Horse,

cursed to remain

forever untouched,

“Do you not recognize

your own face?”

to be continued...