“That is a luxury no man can afford. Charis and Erebus are the worlds next door. You can hear them when you put your ear to his book.” Marcus looked at me sternly. “If you are to be of use in the visible world, you must pay close attention to the invisible worlds.”

“I don’t like to think about Erebus.”

“For good reason,” Marcus said. “Charis is a vast estate in which galaxies are but steppingstones. Erebus is an abandoned mine shaft on the back acreage of the most remote estate of Charis. Erebus is the only uninteresting place in the universe. Its inhabitants are gripped by a sleepless, unsmiling obsession with self. They have become so heavy with themselves that they fall as the Impostor did—from the sheer gravity of self-preoccupation. The pit is bottomless, and hence their fall eternal.”

“Erebus looks much smaller now than it did the first time I saw it.”

“Erebus is but a footnote of Charis. It is an asterisk, what you call a ‘blip on the screen.’ It is not a palace, but a crack in the tile of Charis’s palace. All Erebus is smaller than the smallest particle of Earth, which itself can fit into a blade of grass in Charis. Erebus is microscopic and getting smaller all the time. Charis is cosmic and getting bigger all the time. The inhabitants of Erebus are shrunken and ever shrinking. The inhabitants of Charis are great and ever growing.”

I stared into the abyss, experiencing a shift of perspective. “The people in Erebus literally do look tiny, don’t they?”

“Tiny people who were once bigger and could have been magnificent. Small and petty people, with nowhere to go, nothing to explore but their own grievances and missed opportunities. Life in the Shadowlands is full of choices. In Charis, right choices are forever celebrated. In Erebus, wrong choices are endlessly reviewed and regretted—especially the choice to refuse the greatest gift ever offered.”

“Is it impossible then to escape from Erebus?”

“No man can get out of Erebus. But each man can keep out of it. There is a choice—though even choice is governed by the King’s sovereign will—but the opportunity to choose always ends at death.”

“Surely those in Charis can’t know about Erebus?”

“Why not?”

“How could we have joy in Charis if we know there’s such misery in Erebus?”

“Do you imagine the joy of Charis is based on ignorance?” Marcus asked, sounding appalled. “Do you believe the self-imprisoned will hold the universe for ransom, blackmail it, so if they do not choose joy no one else should be able to have it? You give Erebus a power over Charis it does not have. Erebus can never infect Charis. Misery will never veto joy. The key to Charis is not ignorance but perspective.”