But the difference in my mind could not contain this majesty, this power.
It could not withstand it, the tissue of its cohesion, of whatever substance
it was if it was of any substance outside of mine which it had usurped.
And perhaps it was the very substance of me now transformed and heightened
beyond anything before by the coursing lines which killed it.
The difference withered. There was a screaming and whistling briefly in
my mind.
For an instant I knew terror, dread of dissolution, and felt their moment
of lament. And I knew their name. They were the Septa. All of them. They
had entered me and been my difference but the mixture of my substance and
theirs and the source lines could not endure. They were gone.
I was in utter and complete emptiness.
Then
I was thrown.
And
thrown away from the lines as though in that instant I had become repulsive
to them. I was propelled through space and landed against the stony
side of the arena. I slid down it and thudded to the apron not far from
the opening. My consciousness wavered; I could not get my breath. I could
see and hear nothing.
There
followed a time of blankness.
I was
not certain I could account for all of that time.
