Jherek heard no more of his mother's remarks. He shrugged, dismissing them as the expression of a passing foible.

Sweet Orb Mace was making love to Mistress Christia, the Everlasting Concubine, in a most interesting fashion. Their intertwined bodies drifted amongst the other guests. Elsewhere, Orlando Chombi, Kimick Rentbrain and O'Kala Incarnadine linked hands in a complicated aerial dance, while the recently re-styled Countess of Monte Carlo extended her substance until she was thirty feet tall and all but invisible; this, it seemed, for the entertainment of the Nursery children, who gathered around her and laughed with delight.

"We have a duty to our ancestors!" groaned Mongrove, now, for the moment, out of sight. Jherek thought he was buried somewhere in the sudden avalanche of blue and green roses tipped from Doctor Volospion's Pegasus-drawn platform. "And to those (skree) who follow us…" added a piping but somewhat muffled voice.

Jherek sighed. "If only Jagged would reveal himself, Amelia! Then, I am sure, any confusion would be at an end."

"He might be dead," she said. "You feared as much."

"It would be a difficult loss to bear. He was my very best friend. I have never known anyone, before, who could not be resurrected."

"Mongrove's point — that no one shall be resurrected after the apocalypse."

"I agree the prospect is more attractive, for then none should feel a loss." They drifted towards the floor, still littered with the feebly fluttering fledgling hawks. Many had already expired, for Wakaka Nakooka had forgotten to feed them. Absently, Jherek dissipated them, so that they might descend and stand there, looking up at a party grown less sedate than when first they had arrived.

"I thought you were of the opinion that we should live forever, Amelia?" he said, still peering upwards.

"It is my belief , not my opinion."

He failed to distinguish the difference.

"In the Life Beyond," she said. She tried to speak with conviction, but her voice faltered, adding to herself: "Well, yes, perhaps there is still a Life Beyond, hard though it is to imagine. Ah, it is so difficult to retain one's ordinary faith…"

"It is the end of everything!" continued Mongrove, from somewhere within the mountain of roses. "You are lost! Lost! You will not listen! You will not understand! Beware! Oh, beware!"

"Mr. Carnelian, we should try to make them listen to Lord Mongrove, surely!"

Jherek shook his head. "He has nothing very interesting to say, Amelia. Has he not said it before? Is not Yusharisp's information identical to that which he first brought, during the Duke's African party. It means little…"

"It means much to me."

"How so?"

"It strikes a chord. Lord Mongrove is like the prophet to whom none would listen. In the end his words were vindicated. The Bible is full of such stories."

"Then surely, we have no need for more?"

"You are deliberately obtuse!"

"I assure you that I am not."

"Then help Mongrove."

"His temperament and mine are too dissimilar. Brannart will comfort him, and Werther de Goethe, too. And Li Pao. He has many friends, many who will listen. They will gather together and agree that all but themselves are fools, that only they have the truth, the right to control events and so on. It will cheer them up and they'll doubtless do little to spoil the pleasure of anyone else. For all we know, their antics will prove entertaining."

"Is 'entertainment' your only criterion?"

"Amelia, if it pleases you, I'll go this moment to Mongrove and groan in tune with him. But my heart will not be in it, love of my life, joy of my existence."

She sighed. "I would not have you live a lie, Mr. Carnelian. To encourage you towards hypocrisy would be a sin, I know."

"You have become somewhat sober again, dearest Amelia."

"I apologize. Evidently, there is nothing to be done, in reality. You think Mongrove postures?"

"As do we all, according to his temperament. It is not that he is insincere, it is merely that he chooses one particular role, though he knows many other opinions are as interesting and as valuable as his own."

"A few short years are left…" came Mongrove's boom, more distant now.

"He does not wholly believe in what he says?"

"Yes and no. He chooses wholly to believe. It is a conscious decision. Tomorrow, he could make an entirely different decision, if he became bored with this role (and I suspect he will become bored, as he realizes how much he bores others)."

"But Yusharisp is sincere."

"So he is, poor thing."

"Then there is no hope for the world."

"Yusharisp believes that."

"You do not?"

"I believe everything and nothing."

"I never quite understood before … is that the philosophy of the End of Time?"

"I suppose it is." He looked about him. "I do not think we shall see Lord Jagged here, after all. Lord Jagged could explain these things to you, for he enjoys discussing abstract matters. I have never much had the penchant. I have always preferred to make things rather than to talk. I am a man of action, you see. Doubtless it is something to do with being the product of natural childbirth."

Her eyes, when next she looked at him, were full of warmth.

"I am still uncertain. Perhaps if we began again?"

Amiably, Jherek disintegrated the west wing.

They were rebuilding his ranch. The Bromley-Gothic redbrick villa had vanished. In its place stood something altogether larger, considerably lighter, having more in common with the true Gothic of medieval France and Belgium, with fluted towers and delicately fashioned windows.

"It is all, I think, a trifle too magnificent," she said. She fingered her fine chin. "And yet, it would only seem grandiose in Bromley, as it were. Here, it is almost simple."

"If you will try your own amethyst power-ring…" he murmured.

"I have still to trust these things…" But she twisted and thought at the same time.

A fairy-tale tower, the ideal of her girlhood, stood there. She could not bring herself to disseminate it.

He was delighted, admiring its slender hundred-and twenty-feet, topped by twin turrets with red conical roofs. It glittered. It was white. There were tiny windows.

"Such an elegant example of typical Dawn Age architecture!" he complimented her.

"You do not find it too fanciful?" She was shy of her achievement, but pleased.

"A model of utility!"

"Scarcely that…" She blushed. Her own imagination, made concrete, astonished her.

"More! You must make more!"

The ring was turned again and another tower sprang up, connected to its fellow by a little marble bridge. With some hesitation she disseminated the original building he had made at her request, replacing it with a main hall and living apartments above. She gave her attention to the landscape around. A moat appeared, fed by a sparkling river. Formal gardens, geometric, filled with her favourite flowers, stretched into the distance, giving place to rose bowers and undulating lawns, a lake, with cypresses and poplars and willows. The sky was changed to a pale blue and the small clouds in it were never whiter; then she added subtle colours, pinks and yellows, as of the beginnings of a sunset. All was as she had once dreamed of, not as a respectable Bromley housewife, but as a little girl, who had read fairy stories with a sense that she consulted forbidden texts. Her face shone as she contemplated her handiwork. A new innocence bloomed there. Jherek watched, and revelled in her pleasure.

"Oh, I should not…"

A unicorn now grazed upon the lawn. It looked up, its eyes mild and intelligent. Its golden horn caught the sunlight.