World's End

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explode out of my skull, that my heart will stop, that surely now damnation will swallow me up at last--

He killed Ang! He would have killed me! I had, I had to kill him--

But not like that. Not like that. The voices in my head wail a dirge--the voices of a thousand ancestors crying my shame, avenging furies that will torment me forever for my crime. I sink down again, embracing my punishment, and my guilt. I belong here after all. This is fitting.

And yet, some small, stubborn part of my mind insists that even my guilt proves I am no longer what I was.

That I am someone new, reborn. . . .

After a long time I am calm enough to remember where I am again. I hear someone enter the outer room.

From the light tread, I guess that it is Song. I stumble to my feet, sick with anticipation. How can I protect my mind from her--how can I control the Transfer?

Control the Transfer. I see half the answer, in a sudden flash of clear thought . . . and maybe more.

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Song appears in the doorway, her face burnished by

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the chamber's ruddy light. Before she can open her mouth I shout, "Question, sibyl! I have a question for the sibyl Moon Dawntreader Summer of Tiamat--" not knowing if I ask the impossible, not caring.

"No!" Song flings up her hands in protest. But her body goes rigid and her eyes glaze as the Transfer carries her away.

I move close to her, watching her pitilessly, straining for a sign of someone else's presence. Her eyelids flutter;

her eyes look at me, through me, all around me--back into my own. She gasps.

"Moon?" I murmur. "Moon, is it really you?" I brush Song's cheek uncertainly. I can't believe that I have really called her here to me.

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Song's body quivers, as if someone else longs to move it. "Yes . . ." she whispers. "BZ! How . . .

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