“We’re in Fate’s domain here,” I said. Everything had that kind of inevitability it always did when Fate was involved, an inevitability like an underlining echo. It was very hard to resist. “You could perhaps go back and argue Necessity’s case, but I think the rest of us must go on, or we overstep.”

“We didn’t die,” Athene said. “But no, it is a kind of death, I see.”

“I don’t want to forget,” Jathery said. “But if I only wet my lips, perhaps I will remember.”

“If I forget, then it was all for nothing,” Athene said.

“I don’t think we’ll truly forget,” I said. It didn’t seem possible that we could. “But it might fade and seem less immediate, be like something learned.”

“Part of Him is always there,” Jathery said.

“Part of all of us is always there,” Athene said.

“But He is conscious of it.” Jathery rocked to and fro a little. “Unity and multiplicity, one and everything, below and above. And conscious of every movement from first to last, all the time.”

“Don’t ask me how Father can be aware of that and carry on a conversation,” I said. The idea was daunting. I’d never have understood it without going there.

“It wasn’t what we thought,” Athene said. “It wasn’t the Chaos before and after time. It was the One.”

“It was both,” Jathery said. “As I have long suspected.”

“Pico will be delighted.” Athene smiled. “He was there. Everyone was there. Is there. Will be there?”

Not even the aorist sufficed. “It’s a Mystery,” I said.

“I’m going through,” Jathery declared. Gla stepped down into the water. The fish swirled all around him, orange, and gold, and white and gold swirled with blue. Mortal souls clung close to him, then drank and drifted away across the stream and vanished. Gla scooped up some water in gla hand and took the tiniest sip.

“Do you remember?” I asked.

“Quite enough,” gla said.

I followed. When I touched the water to my lips and tongue, I did not forget, but as I had suspected, my memory of it softened. It became no less felt or immediate, but more poetic, easier to compass and compare. I was extremely glad to reach the far bank, as glad as the mortal souls around me who were speeding off towards their new beginnings. Ahead I could see a thinning of the darkness.

“What would happen if I went through without drinking?” Athene called from the shadowed bank.

“Fate would catch you,” I said.

“Try it and see?” Jathery suggested.

She did. She stepped down imperiously and strode on boldly. Then she slipped partway across, fell under the water, and came up a second later, drenched and spluttering. “Fate had you by the heel,” Jathery said, laughing.

“Have you forgotten?” I asked, putting out my arm to help her out.