“You are never wrong,” Ghentun said.

The Astyanax froze the simulacrum and then dissolved it. The primordial mass dropped into a glistening lump on the platform. “Idle play,” he said. “Have you spoken recently to the Librarian?”

“I made a visit to the Broken Tower seventy-five years ago,” Ghentun said. “A meeting was scheduled to discuss the Tiers, but I have not yet been summoned.” He knew better than to try to hide obvious truths.

“You reported a change in the Tiers to the angelins in the Broken Tower, Keeper. I assumed someonewould let me know eventually. The Librarian and I, after all, have long co-ventured in this study.”

“It is not my place to carry messages between Great Eidolons.” Ghentun knew he was being provoked. He expected little more from an Eidolon—compared to the City Prince, he was less than a pede crossing a dusty road.

“I’ve heard the Librarian is still working on his radical solution to our difficulties,” the Astyanax said.

“Many rumors descend from the Broken Tower,” Ghentun said. “I’m not informed enough to know what to believe.”

The Astyanax surveyed him. Little could be hidden—a Great Eidolon could map a Mender in seconds.

“Menders and Shapers have been engaged for half a million years at least with the current variety of ancient breeds.”

“Nothing our Shaper does would surprise me. She so rarely does what I ask.”

The Astyanax showed a glim of humor. The backscatter made Ghentun’s cloak fluoresce. “Sometimes I feel this city will never be controlled. I would almost welcome a chance to see how the Typhon could manage it.”

Despite himself, Ghentun shivered.

The Astyanax observed with approval. “You are obviously in no mood to betray the Kalpa, Keeper. Nor would you betray your Librarian. No secrets here, Mender—only your ignorance of the past, of what actually happened between the Librarian and the City Princes. Still, I would like a discreet and open copy of your report on the Tiers—the report you will deliver to the Librarian when he summons you.”

“Of course,” Ghentun said.

The Astyanax made no sign of dismissal. Something changed in the air of the chamber. The angelins shivered and blurred, on high alert—and with a jerk of surprise, Ghentun realized he was now facing the City Prince’s primary self, directly controlling this epitome—which looked as if it were barely up to the task. The glow stung Ghentun’s eyes. But the tone-color of the epitome’s words, directly from the core of the City Prince, became less provocative, almost casual.

The angelins now gave Ghentun full focus, a kind of astonished warning that this intimacy was unprecedented. Theirs had become a meeting of presumed equals, and the angelins found this almost unbearable.

“I remember him most vividly as the Deva, Polybiblios,” the City Prince said. “A tiny thing when he first came here, compared to what he is now. He has brought so much trouble, along with the grace of survival.

“I’ve supported—tried to control—supported again, the Librarian, tried to understand his plans, the way he thinks—all of him. I’ve failed. There is inequality even among the Great Eidolons, and I have become the inferior—no doubt about that. But the Librarian would long ago have destroyed what we have left of time, if not for the efforts of the City Princes. The Kalpa has survived an extra few hundreds of millions of years—much of a sameness, to be sure, an elderly repose after reckless youth and endless maturity.”

A simple visual appeared between them—three pieces of a twisted puzzle. They came together, making a deeply patterned ball smaller than Ghentun’s clenched hand.

“I’m giving you a memory, Keeper. A message to convey, if you will. It will rise again when the time is right—when there is no time. Until then, it will sink deep, out of sight.”

Ghentun felt his attention flick left, then right. The puzzle…swooping bands interlaced around a cross, the whole spinning and whirling at the center of…nothing…

The nothing drew him, and for an indefinite moment fixed his thoughts. Ghentun listened to the Astyanax’s voice, rich and compelling. Even as the story was told, and slipped down and away from consciousness, Ghentun asked, trembling at his boldness, “Why did you send her away?”

The answer remained in his immediate memory though all else faded:

“I doubt you can understand the humility of an Eidolon, Mender. But in all my extensions I have tried to exercise humility. I saw a grave danger to the Kalpa. Had all the parts of the Babel been brought together, they would have triggered the end of the Kalpa—and everything else. Their completion and unity would have beguiled the last great forces of our cosmos into starting over: Brahma, the moving stillness within, who will awaken; Mnemosyne, the reconciler, who walked among us for a time, but who must return to her true nature; and Shiva, who will dance in joyous destruction. Do you understand what a Babel is, Keeper?”

The Astyanax touched his cloak, and Ghentun saw homunculi—servants of the Babel—climbing spiral staircases from balcony to balcony, arrayed along a wall that stretched up, down, to left and right—seemingly forever. The balconies provided access to bookshelves bearing prodigious numbers of ancient bound volumes. Farther along, other staircases rose to impossible heights and descended to limitless depths.

One by one the homunculi pulled volumes from the shelves, examined them, frowned, and replaced them. And moved on, book after book, shelf after shelf, level after level. A reverse swing of his point of view revealed, across a narrow gulf, another unbounded wall supporting an equal number of books, on an equal number of shelves. The two apparently infinite walls of shelves seemed to meet and vanish in a vertical curve. Ghentun grudgingly admitted the curve was a nice touch, signifying a distortion of space—and an eternity of search.

Strings of symbolic data beyond counting—certainly for a Mender. And probably even for the Librarian himself. Every history, every tale, every sequence, every theory right and wrong, lost in vast mazes of churning, indecipherable text…

“Nothing will be beyond the scope of the Babel, combined and completed. All is there—all possibilities, all nonsense, all pride, all defeat. Truly it will be the greatest thing ever created. And the most dangerous.”

A question seemed to flame into Ghentun’s mind, even though—perhaps because—it was unanswerable:

And which would be more important to a universe—the random nonsense, or the things we think we can read and comprehend?

“I know nothing of this,” he said, eyes lidded, yet he was terrified to his very center. The Babel would be so much larger than any universe…

“No need. Recognize only that you haven’t finished your work,” the City Prince told him. “And finish it you will. Within a very few wakes, the Chaos will break through all our defenses. I acknowledge defeat. There is no choice, no reason to delay. I have transferred the city keys to the angelins in the Broken Tower, and my authority goes with them.

“I am aware that you have long hoped to follow your ancient breeds outside the border of the real. Go now, Mender. There are no longer city rules to stop you. Do what you must to get your breeds to Nataraja—if it still exists. What matter of a few wakes and sleeps? The Librarian’s plans will proceed.

“We will not meet again—in this creation.”

The Astyanax turned gray as old stone and his presence passed to another location. The extraordinary meeting was over.

An angelin escorted the silent Ghentun back to the platform and a waiting photon disc. He had been charting the intrusions long enough now to understand much of what the Astyanax had said or implied. The reality generators were weakening to such an extent that they could no longer protect any of the bions.