“I would love for this to be your work,” Amel answered immediately. Welf raised his hand with a little mocking laugh and said he would be delighted to go along with it, because he was eager to see just how I was going to measure something as completely imaginary as souls.

“And what if you do prove it,” Garekyn asked, “that beings have souls and souls are energy and that these souls can be harvested from Earth’s atmosphere, what then will you do? Can you ever strike out at Bravenna? Can you ever do more than shake your fist at the sky?”

My memory of the next few minutes falters. Amel protested almost angrily that what he could do was hunt out every transmitting station and destroy it, and close up every Chamber of Suffering in existence, but then he lamented that this would make him the cruel “headman” that he had never wanted to be.

As for Derek, he seemed blissfully happy in the midst of this conversation and went off on his own tangent as to whether the souls of those who knew joy more than anything were not finer fruit to harvest than the souls who’d known so much pain. Welf was pressing my hand, signaling me he was ready for our home bed, and some coupling, and I caught the wink of his eye and sweet smile on his lips.

What happened next? I reached for the goblet that held my wine and I took a long easy drink of it, which one can do when the wine is weak and deliciously cold, and I saw the wine moving in the goblet, sloshing from side to side, and I realized that the entire room was moving, that the furniture under us was moving, and that Amel had stood and was staring through the great western wall towards the stars.

“What is it?” Derek cried. “The island is shaking. Look, look outside, the towers are moving!”

But Amel’s face was turned upwards.

“It’s Bravenna,” he cried out. “Bravenna is moving! Look at Bravenna!”

Suddenly we were all at the wall gazing upwards, and we watched the erratic movement of the bright star that was Bravenna when suddenly that star grew huge and exploded and out of the vast darkness came a great shower of innumerable burning stars—flying in all directions—and the blaze that was the star itself grew larger and larger as Amel screamed again, “She’s coming towards us, she’s breaking up! She’s coming down on us—.”

A horrific roar swallowed his words. From all sides came the pounding reverberations of explosions. The towers everywhere were swaying wildly as if they were dancing, and the room began to rock from side to side. I saw fire descending on Earth, exploding against the shimmering dome, and then even here in this high room, even here above the city, I heard the roar of countless human voices.