Meanwhile,

at the blessedly divine

Castle Brave Bone,

which defies

any attempt at description,

the Doom Bell continued to toll,

in a din that rivaled

the last screams of Epux,

and the patience of Annison Lake —

Ultimate Sorceress,

Grand Matron of the Permanent Now —

was wearing thin.

She glanced up

at the wall of her chamber,

where a shimmering,

ceremonial knife

hung pregnant with history.

It seemed as though

incalculable eons had passed

since she had last touched

the hilt

of that ancient blade.

Annison opened the door

to her chamber,

and told her attendant

to summon her protégé.

She closed the door

and looked back

at the knife again.

Of her first days

at Castle Brave Bone,

she remembered only

darkness,

the long nights in bed,

in a strange place,

where it seemed

the absence of light

didn’t just seep through the windows,

but through the walls as well,

inhabited by its ever-present spirits.

Annison knew

there had been light during the days —

that misty mountain sunlight —

but she had no memory of it.

Until,

one day,

the Grand Matron

who had instructed Annison

invited her into her chamber,

and had gestured towards the

fabled knife.

“Do you see that

crude, beautiful tool?”

the Grand Matron asked.

“Yes,” Annison had answered,

curious.

The Grand Matron took the knife

from the wall, and gave it to Annison.

“How does it feel?”

she asked.

“Heavy,”

Annison replied.

“That is because

it is not to be used lightly.”

There was a knock on Annison’s door,

bringing her back to the present.

Her protégé glided in,

quizzical,

but scornfully

submissive.

Annison pointed.

“Do you see that knife?”

“Yes, Grand Matron.”

“Take it from the wall.”

The protégé hesitated, then

took the knife into her hands.

“How does it feel?”

Annison asked.

“It is heavy.”

“That is because

it is not to be used lightly,”

Annison told the girl.

“It is time for a lesson,”

Annison said.

“Follow me. Bring the knife.”

She walked hurriedly

through the Castle’s halls,

her protégé’s

hyper-translucent gown

wisping on the floor

behind her.

Acolytes and lesser matrons

parted

before the Grand Matron

and her icy protégé,

their eyes wide

when they saw the knife.

All this,

Annison thought to herself,

because Oio, the First Woman,

had the courage to drink

from the River of Light.

In the great

Hall of Surrender,

they were accosted

by the spectral form of Phane Li Zat,

the mad seeress

who had haunted

Castle Brave Bone

since before it had physical form.

“There has been a change!”

Phane Li shrieked at Annison.

“Something has changed!”

No,

the Grand Matron thought.

Change is all there is.

And look at what we have done

to fight it.

The two of them

silently rode the elevator

down into the depths of

Castle Brave Bone.

The Doom Bell was

ominously huge,

and now that they

were near it,

Annison could feel

its thunderous vibrations

pushing millions of pinpricks

into her every cell.

Even her zealot protégé

seemed malevolently afraid.

At the base of the bell,

two short, stout, hairless

dwarves

mindlessly struck the bell

in rhythmic turns

with giant, silver hammers.

Annison and her protégé

had come to kill them.

The Grand Matron

did not bother

explaining —

the protégé knew

what dwarves were,

that these two would continue

striking the bell far into

the crevasses of infinity

until the Omniverse returned

to what it had been —

which it never would.

“Give me the knife,”

she told the girl.

The protégé handed her the knife

in relief,

her eyes alight with

answerless questions.

Annison approached a dwarf

from behind, and drew its neck back

with her hand on its forehead.

She slit its throat.

The dwarf slumped to the floor.

Annison held out the knife

to her protégé.

“Now, you,”she said.

“Me?” the girl asked, trembling.

Yes,

the Grand Matron thought.

You. Me. Annison Lake,

of the Celestian-Lakes

of Timetropolis,

daughter of Baron Aistem Lake,

granddaughter of the Black Horse,

only fourteen years old,

and ageless,

destined to be protégé

and Grand Matron

forever.

“Sometimes,”

the Grand Matron told the girl,

herself,

“We have to do

what must be done.”

The protégé clutched

the bejeweled hilt of the ceremonial knife.

She drew a breath,

and did as the Grand Matron had;

but she was clumsy,

inexperienced —

a fat, bright red arc of blood

sprayed from the dwarf’s neck

onto the sleeve of her gown,

soaking her to the skin.

She recoiled;

but did not drop the ancient blade.

The dwarf fell to the floor.

The tolling stopped.

There had never been

a louder silence.

“Good, Annison,”

the Grand Matron said.

“Very good.

Now, go clean yourself up,

and change your gown.

We’re expecting visitors.”