My dream was to reach paradise, wherever it was. Through the tunnel, along the swinging bridge, down the shaft, through cave after cave. What came through: trains and babies with their nurses and businessmen dressed all alike. Each time I was tempted to plant mines behind me that would flower into fire, preventing me from being followed.

Third Sphere (Venus: The Lovers)

In my saddlebag I carried hearts that I had found among the crowds aboveground. I carved my name on their surprisingly tough surfaces as though they were picnic tables—a pastoral banquet waiting for me.

Fourth Sphere (The Sun: The Wise)

It is dangerous to be wise. You might be called upon to separate mating snakes, eat their skin, be cursed to live as a woman for seven years, to marry and bear children, and turn back again, burdened by knowledge, by this metamorphosis.

Fifth Sphere (Mars: The Warriors of the Faith)

So many ways to kill the faithless. Every body can be broken, burned, a bane, a bond. To destroy my enemies I need only join them, transforming them into my brothers, my family, my people.

Sixth Sphere (Jupiter: The Just Rulers)

We are guests above the ground. While alive, we are uncanny, always falling back into wilderness. Our vegetable love outlasts the centuries, outlasts the protean nature of the justice of the day. Addicted to authority, the ground littered with needles, our blood mingled and tainted. Impure. You cannot escape me now, because I am inside you.

Seventh Sphere (Saturn: The Contemplatives)

No more hangings, no more gas chambers. No one allowed to remain in the center of the labyrinth, guarding their DNA from the world, from the future. No more contemplation, no more waste. Everyone leaning toward paradise. Shields down and the word enemy will pass from memory. You are my kind.

Eighth Sphere (The Fixed Stars: Faith, Hope, and Love)

At the end of the world we will move through this wild, infinite palace. Gardens with the softest of flowers. Folded, mellow light. All unruly, every room filled with animals risen from extinction, the taste of sacrifice still on our lips. All atoms equal. Every snake biting its own tail, and every child tearing down the tent.

Ninth Sphere (The Primum Mobile: The Angels)

At the end of the world everything will be wingèd. My neck is a door, walk through it to the rough and savage woods inside me. Take your torch and burn any monsters to hot ash and dust. I can cough everything out and back into this blazing world. Ax to the frozen sea, hexes and incantations, yesterday’s reverie, usher in every little last thing you have.

The Empyrean