nyctasia was disturbed by a faint impression that she had once, long ago, seen something that she should remember. She drifted in lazy indifference, beyond reach of thought or time. As easy to admit illusions as to dismiss them, now, for illusion and substance were the same. Calmly, incuriously, she enveloped the distant memory.
Two people crossed in front of her, going in opposite ways. Then they turned to face one another, and came together. One held out a hand, and the other bowed.
This dance did not interest Nyctasia. Memory was for the living. She withdrew, but the images continued to haunt her. Patiently, passively, she followed the vision again.
A woman passed before her and turned, then a man crossed to the other side, and turned. The woman went to him and reached for him. He bowed before her, fell at her feet.
Nyctasia became aware that she had witnessed a dance of death. Still she was unmoved. Life and death were one. Composed, remote, she waited.
Corson hurried past her, hid herself, drew her dagger. Thierran entered, crossing at once to the window. These shadows began to seem familiar to Nyctasia. She remembered Carson’s smile when Thierran had turned and seen her waiting for him. Paralyzed with fear, he in turn had waited for her. She pushed him against the wall, forcing back his head, then slashed his throat with one smooth sweep of her blade. Her smile was as rapt and brilliant as a lover’s.
Nyctasia knew a certain confusion. Had she dreamed these things while she was among the living… or had she seen them, unheeding, as she followed the ebb tide of her life? Was not dream reality, and reality dream? Surely this vision could not affect her now.
But other images took its place-Corson cutting her bonds with a bloody dagger, rubbing her wrists, trying urgently to tell her something…
“He’s dead, look! Nyctasia, wake up!”
She herself must be Nyctasia, then. But who was Nyctasia? With the name came other memories, vague and confused. Who was dead, herself or another?
It seemed to Nyctasia that she pondered endlessly over events from the distant past, but as she moved from timelessness to the present, Corson still stood over her, trying to rouse her.
“Nyctasia, wake up, please wake up! If I have to carry you-”
Her deliberations had lasted less than a moment, then. She laughed. “Do you know,” she said to Corson, with genuine interest, “that’s the first time you’ve ever called me by name?”