"Not bad at all," the familiar voice said to him. This time, however, the voice did not echo in the vaults of his mind, but seemed instead to be right beside him.

"I thought you were gone," Garion said, speaking quietly to avoid waking his wife and son.

"No, not really," the voice replied.

"I seem to remember that you once said that there was going to be a new voice awareness, I suppose would be a better term after this was decided.”

"There is, actually, but I'm a part of it."

"I don't quite understand."

"It's not too complicated, Garion. Before the accident there was only one awareness, but then it was divided in the same way everything else was. Now it's back, but since I was part of the original, I’ve rejoined it. We're one again."

“That's your idea of not too complicated?”

"Do you really want me to explain further?"

Garion started to say something but then he decided against it. "You can still separate yourself, though?"

"No. That would only lead to another division."

"Then how-” Garion decided at the last instant that he didn't really want to ask that question. "Why don't we just let this drop?" he suggested. "What was that light?"

"That was the accident, the thing that divided the universe. It also divided me from my opposite and the Orb from the Sardion."

"I thought that happened a long time ago."

"It did a very long time ago."

"But-"

"Try to listen for a change, Garion. Do you know very much about light?"

"It's just light, isn't it?"

"There's a little more. Have you ever stood a long way from somebody who's chopping wood?"

"Yes."

"Did you notice that he'd chop and that then, a moment or so later, you heard the sound?"

"Yes, now that you mention it, I did. What causes that?"

"The interval is the amount of time the sound takes to reach you. Light moves much faster than sound, but it still takes time to go from one place to another."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Do you know what the accident was?"

"Something out among the stars, I understand."

"Exactly. A star was dying, and it died in a place where that wasn't supposed to happen. The dying star was in the wrong place when it exploded, and it ignited an entire cluster of stars a galaxy. When the galaxy exploded, it tore the fabric of the universe. She protected herself by dividing. That's what led to all of this."

"All right. Why were we talking about light then?"

"That's what that sudden light was the light from that exploding galaxy the accident. It only just now reached this place."

Garion swallowed hard. "Just how far away was the accident?"

"The numbers wouldn't mean anything to you."

"How long ago did it happen?"