A weak white disk in a porous pale sky, poor mimic of the sun beyond the towers. Framed in gray, gigantic living citadels rise in a swirl of glittering dust motes so tightly packed they can only be spores. Two, three hundred feet the citadels rise. Circular. Studded with tiny eyes for windows. A hundred curving causeways run between them. Rising from below, a thick forest of tendrils in constant, rippling motion. Waves of color washing across them, strobing from greens to reds to blues, and back again. Through this landscape, great beasts stride in perpetual gloom. Hunched over. Half seen, half heard. Cities of fungus rising from their backs.

But at the bottom of this scene, a tear or rip. Like a photograph with a flame burning through it in a rough triangle. Turning it to ash.

A green-gold door rising.

They watch from the boat as it lengthens, enlarges itself. Encroaches on the forest of tendrils. A whining sound. A kind of crackling and popping that hurts his ears. And no other sound out across the bay. Or across the city behind them. As if everyone holds their breath. Waiting for this new thing.

The background scene becomes glassy. Vague. Blurry.

The green-gold door stops growing.

The breath goes out of him, and then returns. As if he’s been dead and now is coming back to life.

They come in numbers. In legions. Pouring through the door. Across the bridge, overrunning the gray cap positions like an unstoppable river, into the city. He can see them, toy soldiers, through the binoculars. A never-ending torrent running across the surface of the bay. Some wear strange clothes. Carry strange weapons that discharge violet light. Some with gas masks. Some encased in great armored suits of metal sinew and tendon. Others on horses. Some looking human. Others like Wyte at his worst. Some in motored vehicles. Others on foot. A few leading creatures he has never seen before.

The rending sound becomes louder. Vibrating in his ears. He is transfixed. She is transfixed. People will ask him where he was on this day. He will say, “In a small boat in the bay. With a friend.”

The towers shake and shake but never fall. The men and women and things coming out from the door, their progress does not slacken. They keep spilling out, and as they do, the scene in the background becomes grayer and grayer. Like a smudge. The lines of force from the tops of the towers into the city begin to waver. Until one by one they erase themselves. Slowly. Then more quickly.

Waves now in the bay, like an aftershock. Smacking against the boat. He is holding her tight against the awful wonder of it. He is holding on to her like something familiar.