The Feasting Hall • A Musing on the Causes of Madness • Who’s Asking? • The Chariot

When I woke up, Minna was there, and the Pilgrim, too, though he was wearing a voluminous hood that hid his leonine features. I thought I must be dreaming; maybe I’d appeared in another patch of coma-flowers.

Minna kissed my face and said, “Zax, oh Zax you are here, how are you here, how did you escape?”

Not a dream. “The Lector is dead,” I croaked. “I tried to stop him, but I missed. He fell. The emperor fell. The empire fell.”

“You have not eaten in worlds, have you?” Vicki said from Minna’s finger. “Let’s get some food in you, and then we’ll hear your story.”

They carried me from the dusty yard where I’d landed into the upside-down hull of a ship, which was it seemed a sort of feasting hall, full of people who looked much like me, except brawnier and wearing more golden armbands.

Minna had some gold in her bag – it’s valuable in lots of places – and the proprietors were happy to serve us roasted meat and root vegetables and ale in exchange for a few pieces. We sat where I could lean against a wall and stare into space for a while. “Pilgrim,” I said finally. “How are you here?”

“I stole a dose of serum from a soldier, and in the next world, found Minna. We hid from the soldiers, and then… she made me drink her blood.”

“Just a sip of sap. Enough to let him travel, not enough to remake all his blood always. I will only do that if he wants it.”

“I am yet undecided,” he murmured. “We jumped ahead, a bit, and then Minna said we should wait, in case you came through. The gem did not think it likely.”

“Minna told us you had a sedative of last resort, but my simulations indicated that the Lector would pursue and recapture you even if you fled,” Vicki said. “Do please tell me where those simulations went wrong?”

I told them what I’d done. What the Lector had said, about infinite time, and worms in the apples in the orchard of worlds. And how he’d died. My recitation was dull and unexciting, and they took it in solemnly.

Minna touched my hand. “You are not a killer, Zax. You still are not that.”

I stared at the scarred wooden tabletop. “I broke his mind. That’s like killing him. Maybe worse, given how much he valued his mind.”

“The things he said,” Vicki mused. “About the holes. The worms. It’s all very similar to what your first companion Ana said, isn’t it, after she transitioned awake? How curious. Did they see something real, or something their minds couldn’t adequately comprehend? If the subjective sense of the passage of time really does seem vast when you make the journey awake, maybe it’s the perception of endless time that damages their minds. Without sufficient stimuli, or with only distressing stimuli, a mind is apt to break…”

“Someone new,” Minna said. “Coming in.” We all looked at the door to the hall. The Pilgrim reached under his robes, where he doubtless had some sort of weapon. We waited for one of the Lector’s soldiers, or for a reconstituted Polly, or someone equally dreadful to come through.

Instead a big man in a leather apron walked in and called, “Is there anyone named Zaxony here? Zaxony, ah, Delatree?”

After a moment I said, “Who’s asking?”

He cocked his head. “If you’re Zaxony, she says to tell you she’s the long lost love of your life.”

I blinked. “What? Who?”

The man jerked his head toward the door. “Go find out for yourself. And ask her where she got that chariot. It’s nicer than any I’ve ever seen.”

I rose, walking slowly to the door, with Minna and the Pilgrim at my back, and Vicki once more twinkling on my finger. I paused at the threshold, and then pushed through.

I saw the chariot first – it was a gleaming filigreed half-sphere with plush seats inside, the chassis resting on delicate wheels, and there was someone sitting in the rear, head sprawled against the back of the seat, snoring. A circlet rested on his shaved head, and wires ran from the crown down into the body of the chariot itself.

Then I saw the woman leaning against the chariot. She was dressed in an immaculate black linen shirt and a skirt that stopped just a little above her knee-high, silver-buckled boots. Her hair was dark, her eye shadow darker, her lips red like wine, her smile warm as a fire on a snowy day.

“Hello, Zax.” She spoke in a language my virus didn’t have to translate. “I’m sorry it took me so long to reach out. We couldn’t risk approaching you while the mad professor was still in pursuit – there are things we have to tell you that are way too dangerous for him to know.”

I stumbled forward, my mouth dry. “Ana? Is that… How are you here, how are you alive, how are you sane?”

“You aren’t the only wanderer through the worlds, Zax.” She stepped toward me, took my hands, then glanced at Minna. “Are you two, ah… together? I don’t mean to overstep… We’ve caught a few glimpses of you in the past few dozen worlds, but I wasn’t sure…”

“What? No, we’re not, I mean, Ana – Ana. It’s you.”

“It’s her?” Vicki said, and Minna said, “Shh, let this be beautiful.”

“It’s me.” Ana kissed me, deeply, her hands clasping mine, and I closed my eyes and breathed her in and tasted her. I wondered if I’d actually died in the battle with the Lector. I wondered if I was in the heaven he’d scoffed at.

Ana took a step back, looked me up and down, then kicked the wheel of her chariot. The snoring man blinked and looked around. His eyes were violet. “Oh,” he said vaguely. “We’re here.”

“Zax, meet Sorlyn. He’s my Sleeper.”

“Your… Ana. What is going on?”

“More than you know. Let’s go inside and get a drink. You can introduce me to your friends. Then we need to have a conversation.” She sighed. “About holes in the space between the worlds.” She sighed again. “And about the things coming through those holes, and their intentions.” A third sigh, deeper than the others. “And about what we’re going to do about them.” Then she twinkled a grin. “I bet you’re wide awake now, aren’t you, Zax?”

She looped her arm through mine, and we walked into the hall together, through yet another door, and into a greater unknown than ever before.