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Death: Harry wondered why he’d feared it For of all men, the Necroscope had known it wasn’t like that Because he had been there before Incorporeal, bodiless as any dead thing whose flesh has finally failed, he was now free of all that Except that in his case it seemed a mundane death wasn’t part of the scenario

He had always known that death wasn’t the end: that whatever ain his afterlife continuation Harry Keogh had been the master of the Möbius Continuum; so it was hardly a surprise to find hi the blue, green, and red threads of Starside into their ree anyway, for in the end he had not conjured a door He had not contrived an escape

Which could only mean that he’d been rescued?

But by Whom? And if indeed Someone or Ones had seen fit to save his incorporeal mind, what possible purpose could He or They have with his burned, vampiric body? For as Harry shot back into Starside’s past, he saw his separate, s back on its scarlet thread to his point of entry into Starside, and then plunging on beyond it And he ith it, but incorporeal, apart, speeding blindly into times he’d never physically known

As for his ruined shell’s destination - and his own, for that uide

Harry had never in his life been one hundred per cent sure, positive sure, about God or a god But back there in Starside he’d sensed the arrival, the presence of a Power, and had known that Shaitan sensed it, too Moreover, he had known the source of that Power, and also that M&ouht

Now Harry and his exanimate shell were mere impulses in the Mind he had called the ’M&ouers in the infinite matrix of the Great Unknowable Equation And he wasn’t afraid when at long last that Mind itself spoke to his have uses, Harry, always What use to create, if your efforts are only to be wasted? Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail But there are always uses for the best, and for the worst, of our works

Harry couldn’t tell if an answer had been invited, and in any case he didn’t really have one But he did have a question, however brief ’God?’

He sensed a vast shrug A creator, an adviser, an angel? God is let’s say He’s a few steps higher up the ladder His hts, expedite His wishes As best we can

’I’ve had my doubts,’ Harry admitted

So do we, sometimes So did Shaitan, when he was one of us Except he would have tried to convince everyone that he was right, throughout all the Universes of Light! He would have forced their belief- in hi should have been enough But because he was or had been hu away fro corpse - even noas curious So that he asked, ’What now?’

Your feet are on the first few rungs You’ve made your point, chosen your course and stuck to it You are a success story We don’t believe in waste; certainly ouldn’t waste someone as valuable as you! Like Shaitan, you won’t rereat darkness, you shall know light In all of your worlds

’All of my ?’