Gloom surrounded him, the blackness not of night but of murk; he could see nothing, but the nothing had texture. It was thick, oppressive. There was no sound, but it felt as if, had there been, it would have been swallowed up.

And then, he felt something, a current, the backwash of something moving, winding its way through the murk like an eel. He knew, without knowing how he knew, that it was looking for him. Hunting. It had smelled him, tasted him. But it had not found him, not yet.

The silent scream came to him through his bones: -COME TO ME. YOU BELONG TO ME. FEED ME.-

But it could not find him. The presence searched, but its search carried it further and further away, and the primal terror it carried with it receded.

The gloom slowly thinned away, and light began to break through. The first thing to come into view was - what was it? A circle, or perhaps a ball, brightly lit, he thought, by some source behind him (though he could not turn to see it). It was mostly blue, but strewn with shapes in brown and green and white.

And, all around it, the black of night - a black, in fact, deeper than any night he'd ever known - strewn with the glory of the innumerable stars.

It all became less dreamlike the longer he looked, and he realized that he could begin to consider what he was seeing. Where was he? How had he gotten here? What had happened to Evrith?

At the very edge of his hearing, he thought he could hear voices.

The patterned structure hovering in the darkness before him bore some semblance to a map, if someone had spilled some kind of white ink across parts of it, perhaps to emulate clouds, although why anyone would put so much effort into adding that much water to the world was anyone's guess. He couldn't recognise any of the shapes, but was unsure if that was because of the white covering or because it was inherently not a map that represented anything he knew of the world at all.

Maybe it represented something else entirely - concepts and ideas - but again it seemed strange to put quite so much water on it.

The sounds that might or might not have been voices made him even more acutely aware of his inability to turn, and he tried to understand the state of his body and why it didn't seem inclined to fully obey him.

He realized that he was, very slowly, moving closer to the ball. He became aware that there was a tiny speck on it, or perhaps in front of it - some distant object between him and it. If the latter was true, then the ball was very far away, and very, very big.

The voices came closer, and increasingly into focus. He heard them in his native tongue, but the voice themselves did not sound like any that had issued from either a xtauh or a takma throat.

-It's an interesting move on its part,- one was saying, and it sounded like the voice of a storm temporarily lulled; relaxed, for the moment, but nevertheless waiting to break into howling wind and the crack of thunder.

-But why here? Why this? What does it hope to achieve?- The voice that responded carried an edge that he could almost feel; it was hard, sharp, cold, like a knife-blade.

And then a third voice joined in. This one had its own alien beauty, and was almost motherly; not in the sense of being like the voice of An-uxhwi's own mother, who, it had to be said, could get impressively shrill, but in being the kind of voice one would want a mother to have, powerful yet warm. -For the 'why here', one might as well ask why you did what you did here. Perhaps it's merely responding to that.-

-Perhaps,- the sharp voice replied, grudgingly.

It didn't seem that the owners of the voices, whoever they were, had taken note of his presence. They all seemed to be behind him, out of sight.

It seemed quite likely he was hallucinating, but by what manner he could only guess, and the nature of the hallucination only further puzzled him - he didn't recognise the elements as anything that belonged to his life, other than that they seemed, somehow, to be speaking about matters that pertained to him. There was no real indicator for it, just a sense of it. But even just puzzling out whether 'it' referred to Ynudh or An-uxhwi or some other thing entirely, maybe the thing that had yearned for him so strongly before clarity returned to his senses, seemed quite impossible.

-It doesn't really matter why it's doing it, does it?- the storm-voice was saying. -I can't see what infecting this realm is going to get it that it wouldn't get in the end, but if we really want to prevent it from doing it to others, we can.-

The speck in the distance was growing closer. It seemed to be moving slightly. It was hard to be sure, but he thought that it was of an at least roughly xtauh-like shape.

-What do you mean, if?- the sharp voice demanded. -You don't think this is a problem?-

-Is it?- the storm-voice replied vaguely. -How is it different from worlds being destroyed without its involvement?-

-You see the problem here, don't you?- The sharp voice asked, evidently addressing the motherly voice. There was silence, in which an intangible tenseness built up, and then: -I said…-

-Yes,- the motherly voice replied, -I heard you. But I think I see something.-

-Like what?-

-That.-

An-uxhwi, to his discomfort, suddenly felt the weight of their gazes turn upon him. There was another long pause, and then the storm-voice chuckled in a disconcerting manner. -Well, well, well…-

With the sense of their stares so prominently smouldering upon his back, the notion that he was hallucinating tore free of his cognition like a band-aid, leaving a bright, panicky sting in its wake. He tried to take a deep breath to steady himself, tried to flex in his body to explore the degree of control he had of the situation.

An-uxhwi had a sense of being able to move himself, though he could not see his own body. But it was movement, as it were, in place; though he was still drifting toward the distant ball, he could not alter his course, nor did any effort let him turn to see what was behind him.

But at least some of the latter mystery was soon relieved, because the entities behind him were evidently not bound in the same way; and, shortly enough, they came into sight, though only barely, one each at the very edge of vision on either side.

It was disturbingly easy to match appearance to voice. The one on the left was the storm-voice, and it looked storm-like - or, at least, it looked like a storm might look if it were the shape of a xtauh's head, and then had its clouds made invisible, leaving behind flickers of lightning, muted and obscured by nothingness. It was smiling - grinning, in all honesty - but in a way that completely failed to reassure. It was the smile of a child having been presented with a new toy.

And likewise, the owner of the sharp voice was… sharp. This, too, was a xtauh's head, but shaped as if all smooth faces, flat or curved, joined by sharp edges, as if made of obsidian - but, as with the storm-voice, the substance was gone from it, leaving only the pitiless glint and reflection of light from it. Its stiff, unfriendly expression suggested that it did not smile, had never smiled, and did not intend to start here.

The owner of the motherly voice had not come into view, though he could still feel its - her - gaze on him. Though the spectacle of the other two beings engrossed him, there was a sense that the third's gaze reminded him of something.

The sharp being demanded, -What are you doing out here?-

It was a preposterous question. He hardly knew where 'here' was, let alone how he had gotten here. The eerie creatures pretending to have something in common with xtauh seemed in a far better position to know what had brought him here, at least judging by their earlier conversation.

But maybe they were just as lost as he was.

“I cannot say,” he apologised and in doing so tested out his voice with some trepidation.

-An unwitting visitor, then?- the storm being asked, with an even more intense grin. -You poor lost thing.-

The sharp being seemed extremely dissatisfied with his answer. -Do you really expect us to believe…-

Behind An-uxhwi, the motherly voice intruded itself again, speaking thoughtfully and somewhat distantly, as if trying simultaneously to pay attention to something else. -No, I think he's right. This isn't his doing. He just got… caught up in something. Contact with the hungry one. Perception-entanglement with one of the Anomalies.-

The storm being looked hard at An-uxhwi, this time with a measure of seriousness that hadn't been there before, and then turned its head slowly, as if following an invisible line. Its gaze came to rest on the distant figure between the distant, tiny figure between themselves and the ball. -Oh. I see.-

The sharp being glanced in that direction as well, and looked, if not outraged, then at least like someone who would have been outraged if they hadn't already spent so much time being outraged at a regrettably familiar situation. -Blasted Anomalies,- it muttered. -I always said we should have gone back and done things over properly.-

-It's more fun this way,- the storm being said. -And anyway, it would have upset them,- it added, motioning - presumably - to the motherly voice behind An-uxhwi.

-Yes,- the latter replied mildly, -it would have. You have plently of other realms to try again in without tearing apart the ones you're not happy with. And now, I think, you should leave this poor thing to me; it's in my area of expertise, after all.-

The sharp being glared at the motherly voice, sniffed haughtily, and withdrew out of An-uxhwi's vision; the storm being, after a cheerful grin, did likewise. The sense of their respective presences faded away into the background, leaving only that of the motherly voice. She said, after a while, -I imagine that you must be very confused right now.-

The earlier panic had faded into a dull, shadowed simulacrum. The emotion that dominated in its wake was indeed confusion, but it felt somehow incorrect to agree, as though that granted the confusion some kind of importance that he didn't feel it had. Instead, he asked: “How do I get back?”

-Oh, you'll go back eventually,- the voice replied reassuringly. -You are currently experiencing… an extremely rare perceptual state due to a conjunction of temporary circumstances. Whenever one of those circumstances ends, you won't see any of this anymore. But you haven't gone anywhere in a physical sense, if that helps you. It would be wrong in many particulars to call this as a dream, but it might help to think of it that way; your body, at least, is not conscious at the moment, which is one of the circumstances.-

The figure in the distance had, by now, come close enough that An-uxhwi could make out some details - at least of its shape, since it was silhouetted against the ball. The first was that it was indeed moving about, and not in a reassuring way; it appeared to be twitching and writhing, as if a sleeper caught in a nightmare. The other was that, based on the set of its antennae, it was a takma rather than a xtauh.

And, in fact - yes. As soon as that realization came upon him, a second one followed, based solely on the figure's physique, which he'd had ample time over the last turn or so to become familiar with; he was suddenly sure that it was Evrith.

Oh no.

The first instinct was to ask 'What is wrong with her? How can I help?'. The second was to pause, lingering on the parallel of what was happening to him now and a dream. Presumably, if he wasn't 'here' in an appreciable physical sense, neither was Evrith, and all of this was more symbolic than literal.

The third instinct was the one that finally came to control his voice: “There were people hurting us. Are they the cause of this… Anomaly? The perceptual state?” More questions queued up behind them: Are you real? If so, who are you? What happens if I wake up; how damaged are we? You seem to know something of our enemies - how can we shake their pursuit?

-That is quite a number of questions to answer at once,- the voice replied, though not scoldingly; she sounded more amused than anything. -And the answers are complicated. But I should start, perhaps, by correcting you on a minor point: this perceptual state is not the Anomaly to which the other referred.- Though he could not see the voice's source, there was nonetheless a feeling of being directed, as if he were following a pointed finger without the finger, and it directed his gaze back to Evrith. -She is.-

There was a pause, as if the unseen speaker were gathering her thoughts. In front of An-uxhwi, Evrith came into sharper focus. She did not seem to be aware of him; her gaze was locked on the ball in front of them, and remained so regardless of the way in which the rest of her moved.

-But the dark one, Ynudh,- the voice continued, -his touch is another of the circumstances involved in your current state, yes. He is a servant of the hungry one, you see, and something of the hungry one's influence remains in you, though it is fading, even now. There are other such servants, but none of them were among the ones who attacked you recently.-

There was another pause, and then: -And your other questions? I can see you have more than that.-

Oh. As much as it baffled him that Evrith would be called 'an Anomaly', it rather made sense to him – it was, after all, fairly anomalous that she could see through time as well as space, and manipulate the latter quite so strikingly. Were other magic-wielders also Anomalies?

But it was not the most important question he could ask, so he didn't. Instead: “Ynudh and the others tracked us in some manner. Is there something we can do to dispell their ability to do so, as that we may move more freely?”

-Ultimately, no,- the voice replied. -The hungry one can see Evrith wherever she goes, and its servants have that knowledge instilled in them. Their perception is limited by being mortal, and it may be possible to confuse them temporarily; but in the end, the surest way to stop one from tracking her is to kill them. Which, as I'm sure you've seen, is not a trivial task.-

“What does It want of Evrith?” he asked. It was, perhaps, a redundant question - Ynudh had answered it already, after all, but it seemed rather unclear whether his account could be fully trusted. Not that there was all that much more clarity here. He hadn't even asked yet whether the creature behind him was real at all. Not seeing them, he couldn't even fool himself into thinking he knew.

-It's not very rational,- she replied, rather sadly. -It wants oblivion. It will get it regardless, but It thinks that the end of the world will bring it that much sooner - and It isn't wrong, though It's only marginally right. Compared to the totality of everything, even the destruction of a world is a very, very small thing.

-But it knows that, without Evrith, the number of futures in which the world ends quite so early will be higher than it otherwise might. It is trying, in its clumsy way, to rectify that situation.-

It was, perhaps, the discussion about the world that brought An-uxhwi's notice to the ball. As he drifted to a halt beside Evrith, he was now closer to the ball than he had been before, and he noticed the way that the vast blue areas on it reflected light. It reminded him of something, of the way in which the Burning Eye had glittered on the oasis when he'd been flying overhead…

It was water.

It wasn't just a, a map. There was water, huge amounts of water. And the white, he realized, of clouds, drifting across the landscape, and the folds and wrinkles of mountains and hills. There, in the midst of the bright, brown expanse that could only be desert, was a greenish patch that might even be the place where he'd been born…

It was the world, or at least, for this dreamscape, something that was meant to look very much like it.

Maybe now was a good time to broach the core question. “With no offence intended, are you real in any meaningful sense, or more a kind of fever dream?” An-uxhwi asked. With careful gestures, he tried to reach out for Evrith, to hold and soothe her in some way, if it proved to be at all possible, his attention swapping between her and the globe and back at random.

Somewhat to his surprise, given that he couldn't see his own hand, he could touch Evrith; or, at least, he could feel her as if she were solid. But she seemed not to react, or even to notice. Her gaze was fixed on the world, unblinking - entirely unblinking, as if her eyes were kept pried open - and not all of her writhing could move her gaze away from it.

The voice behind him chuckled. -A very interesting question. If I did not spend so much time watching mortals, I would ask you the same thing. If a being appears as if from nowhere, then vanishes and then dissolves away, leaving nothing in the end but uncertain memory… does that not sound like a dream?

-No, I would argue that I am quite real.. though, of course, if I were a dream, I might say the same in any case. You have no word for what I am; I suppose you might call me a god or a spirit, though those are uniquely useless terms.-

An-uxhwi was sceptical. His idea of a deity was rather different than what was being presented to him here. So far as he could tell, the voice speaking to him was just as likely to be some creature that, while perhaps not takma or xtauh, was even still mortal, or otherwise bound to the mundane laws of the universe.

But it hardly mattered.

“Might there be something you can do to aid Evrith?” he asked, still pawing gently at Evrith, despite her lack of response to the touch. Implied in the tone of the question were further addenda: And if so, might that please you, inherently, or might there at least be something I can offer in exchange?

There were many interpretations of 'aid', of course, but the ambiguity was intentional. Help with her current fitful state. Help against Ynudh and the likes of him. Help soothing her constant emotional pain. Help with her mission of leaving a message for the figure in her vision. <c>

Any help at all.

There was something like a sigh from behind him. -Not in the sense that you mean, I fear. Unless she experiences a similar coincidence of factors as you have, I will not be able to speak to her until she departs mortal life. In the meantime, direct, conscious intervention in your world by beings of my kind tends to be… counterproductive to mortals involved.

If nothing else, the ambiguity of An-uxhwi's question did not seem to have thrown her off.

-The servants of the hungry one - and, understand, though they are rare proportionally, there are still many of them - are provided with knowledge of her location by their master, and I cannot prevent them from seeing it,- the motherly voice continued. -I can tell you that her being in one of the worlds to which the books provide access will confuse their perception, at least for some time; but in order to search the future for the threat to your world, she must be on Avishraa, because she cannot follow the future there from another world.

-And as for her own state…- There was a pause, as if the voice were trying to decide how to word something. -Most Anomalies, I should say,- she proceeded cautiously, -look rather distressed when seen from this direction. The minds of mortals are not designed to cope with higher views of their timelines, and few deal well with it. She wishes not to see things that she is unable to avoid seeing. It does not help,- she added, -that she was taught to blame herself for many of them.-

An-uxhwi regarded Evrith with silent empathy for a longer moment of silence. Then he asked, his voice a little more subdued than it had been: “Is there something I can do to aid her, then?” He didn't sound as though he honestly expected an answer, but if one was forthcoming, he would certainly welcome it.

There was a gradual change behind him, a feeling that the owner of the voice had leaned in toward him, that it was right behind him; and he felt something strange, a kind of dry warmth that reminded him of something he'd felt before.

The voice said, -You have made a good start. She was hurt, and learned by example to hurt herself; you have been giving her an example of what it means to be cared for, and she may yet learn to care for herself. But it will be hard to continue under the conditions that likely lie ahead, you know. Healing is far easier when one can rest unburdened, and her task may leave all too little time for that.-

There was a pause, and then: -You have already lost a part of yourself to the hungry one, in following her. Do you truly intend to continue?-

“Had it not been for Evrith, I would have lost all of myself to the mines,” he said, by way of contrasting his recent losses with a far more final fate. “Whatever of me continues past that point, and past any others since, does so in her service.” A nod, resolute. “Yes, I intend to continue.”

-You may have some difficulty convincing her to cooperate with that,- the voice replied thoughtfully. -I suspect that she does not want you to be further hurt.-

A slight haziness began to creep into An-uxhwi's vision, as though a mist were forming around him. The starry expanse around him became less distinct. Was this dream, or vision, or whatever it was, coming towards its close?

There were no answers for him here - not even an answer as to whether any of this was real in any meaningful sense, a curious little piece of trivia he could have taken back with himself. Perhaps he had met some gods of some description, but he had nothing to show for it.

How dire was the situation back in his normal frame of reference? Evrith seemed all right, for someone who was perpetually anguished about the future, but if he was maybe just dreaming, maybe his mind was just soothing him with that image.

“I have to try,” he said, a little numbly, concluding the conversation from his perspective.

The vision around him began to vanish. But, behind him, the warmth increased. And it occurred to him that it was very much like those blessed few hours in the dawn, when the Burning Eye was only recently risen but the Gentle Eye had not yet given way, and the chill desert night and the inferno of the day met in a pleasant warmth under both Eyes' gaze…

-For what it's worth,- the voice said, -I think, son of Je-thuro, that you are doing the right thing. You must go now, I think… but we will speak again, one day, and you can tell me all about it.-

…and there, slowly being veiled by gray nothing but still discernible in front of him, was the world. It was fully lit, as if the light was behind him, where the voice was.

His head would only turn so far; his body remained turned toward the world, no matter what he did. But as the vision dissolved, there was, perhaps, a tiny bit less resistance, a minute relaxing of the strictures of this place…

If he turned his head as far as it could possibly go, twisted his eye to the very edge of its socket, there was a brief, blinding glimpse of golden sunfire amidst something vast and dark.

As the strain on his eye forced him to look away, the voice chuckled in tolerant amusement. It said, as both sound and vision faded away: -The question, son of Je-thuro, is not what you think you see, but what you believe.-

And then, in one last whisper: -Be well, little one.- Then the clouds of unconsciousness rolled over him once more.