Silence from all of us as Death in the guise of Caesar stepped into the room. His war-black suit stood razor stark against the stone wall, like a crack in a cliff-face, where inky shadows are the only bandage across Earth’s wound. Capital powers lived in that black uniform, axe and sword and firing squad, while only his right sleeve, still imperial gray, promised that the merciful peacetime Caesar might return once war’s Justice was done. Seeing the black suit in person, touch-close, made the nightmare real, as when you face the coffin at a funeral, and denial’s rosy membrane finally breaks. Guards flanked their Emperor, dour as caryatids, while Apollo striding in their midst seemed a mere wisp, barely present as his coat’s program added nothing to the ancient nunnery save the dust of abandonment. Caesar marched straight to his Son, took one lion-deep breath, then seized Jehovah under both arms, ripped Him from Dominic’s embrace, spun and hurled Him bodily across the room, so He landed staggering and gasping against a stone bench opposite.

“IMPERIUM deponam teque Imperatorem hoc ipso momento creabo! (I will abdicate right now and make you Emperor!)” MASON shouted in Latin stark as stone. “Furtim aut palam, ut malis. Auctoritas, IMPERIUM pristinum, fides absoluta meorum omnium ingentium occultarumque copiarum, meimet ipsius, Imperi mei, duorum miliardorum civium ex decem quos regere in numine habes: omnia tua fieri nunc possunt. (Secretly or publicly, as you prefer. It can all be yours: authority, primordial IMPERIUM, loyalty absolute from all my vast and secret forces, from myself, my Empire, two billion people of the ten you aim to rule, yours, right now. NOTE: Xiaoliu Guildbreaker offered to translate this scene, since I wasn’t equal to it.—9A)”

We flew to Jehovah’s side, I, His fluttering mother, Saladin, even Dominic who crawled forward, too weak to snarl threats. He Who Visits from a Better Universe lay frozen just as He had fallen, half standing, half propped against the stone bench, His legs tangled, His eyes unfocused, lifeless on the outside, while inside—we who know Him well all knew—His inside would be the nightmare agony of panic. Dominic helped me hold Him so He would not fall, while I hissed in His ear. 「“«¡Ἄναξ! ¡This is Your Mycroft Canner speaking to You!»”」I present the words in English, reader, but I spoke the mongrel tongue that sets Him best at ease. 「“«You are perceiving Your Peer’s universe, the one You know well, a section in the world called Earth, in the region called Spain, in the refuge of the mother of Your human form, Madame D’Arouet.»”」