Derek stood amazed watching the building grow out and upwards, watching walls and windows rising and forming in front of him, seeing the entire interior and exterior of the tower unleashed from the oval as if its birth into growth couldn’t be stopped. It was like seeing a great tree grow from a seed in a matter of minutes, thrusting forth its mighty limbs, its tiniest leaves, its flowers, its seeds.

Everywhere the people laughed, shouted, and pointed, punctuating the waves of singing which never stopped. Up and up went the tower until it was now as tall as all the others, a splendid edifice of doorways and balconies and windows, grown out of the oval which was now lost beneath it, as its tentacles anchored themselves deep in the earth. Derek could hear them. Why, the thing had been growing downwards as surely as it had grown upwards.

“Behold the luracastria,” said one of the people beside them. “I see you don’t know what it is. Everything in the center of Atalantaya is built of luracastria, behold luracastria—in one form or another, even the great dome is luracastria.”

Derek was so happy. So very happy. How could anyone want to destroy all this, destroy the Great One, destroy all these people, these happy multitudes, these souls whose songs rose Heavenward under the dome? It was unthinkable to him, as unthinkable to him as the idea of his own death. A fear took hold of him, so terrible that he began to tremble.

It was fading. No, I don’t want to go. I want to be with you, Kapetria. Hold tight to me! Kapetria, I’m alive, I exist still. Where are you! Find me. Welf, Garekyn, find me.

Darkness.

Blackness.

No sound from his own heart. Yes, a human would be dead now. He knew this, but it seemed to take forever for him to know it again, and know it was finished, and he would have his mind and his body back.

Surely Rhoshamandes had let him go. But Derek couldn’t feel anything, neither up nor down, or right or left. But his brain was working. The cells in his bone marrow were working.

“But I have killed him!”

“No, believe me, you have not. He looks dead; he sounds dead; he feels dead. But he’s not dead. Just be patient. The thing is not dead. It’s what happens to him when he’s assaulted; he loses consciousness; he stops breathing; but he’s not dead.”