With the part of his brain that was interested Pry watched all this. Watched them discussing how old the story was - watched them discussing the fact that, even now, in this instant, it was old, in this very specific moment in time, as we understand it - and what it was doing, and what it was doing to time. He did not understand what it was doing to time. Not with the same penetration as the combination Cyclops – two normal eyes on her face in the usual fashion – Clua-Sryh.

She related to time in the same way he did to space; the way he saw it, made it what it was. Unlike Pheel; unlike any hero, per se, he did not have to deal in absolutely final realities. Of irrefutable final objective existing material – even non-material – reality/existence; factual existence, and its attributes. In terms of space, Pry didn't have to work upon the world, in the world, relate to, in that fashion, in terms of space - but something of the same was true for Clua-Sryh, in terms of that other fundamental, in her case time.

She was a combination Cyclops. A parent had been a Cyclops, one of them, still was if that person was still alive and... but... his mind went away because he wasn't really listening he was focusing on space... but the story was old.... of course it was old... that was the point, but in terms of its details, in terms of the present current hero, as near death as Pheel felt, as near as that, in this very instant, Rec, the prince of Vist, with his attribute – they called it an attribute in the trade - the famous Glove of Cleasz, were pulling themselves, it was one person? - out the trapezoid mouth of a turquoise corridor-tunnel; he was in his portion of the mode, he could see it as cleanly, as cleanly, as the combination Sly and the writer in front of him.

The story was old and it wasn't working anymore. Which made everything more difficult, including his holding the room together and including his concentrating even, fully, consciously, that was - he got it all, on what they were anyway saying. Which was why Pheel Cazzo - he must have said his name a half dozen times before he realised he was talking to him.

“That's his name?”

“How should I know?”

“Pry-Boak,” Pheel was glancing through papers; he found his name on a piece of paper, maybe it was a scroll.

“Poor bastard, you see how currently they're having to, how much, force.” Pheel stopped, “is obviously required?”

“This story's older than a Frensest pickle.”

“I don't know your foreign... humorous details, the references, that you make to them, are incomprehensible to me. You are referring to a thing that is old and out of date.”

“Yes, but for reasons of purposeful negligence; for reasons of a lack of serious cultural introspection -”

“This is a fictional cultivar you've conjured in order to make an explicit reference to my personal problems.”

They argued for a while, while Pry tried to pull his consciousness out of the tunnel it was submerged in. He felt a – he saw the tunnel; he saw the trapezoid mouth; he saw the turquoise forest and he was fighting. He operated the Glove of Cleasz himself, he swung the axe; in, and in one sense this, this was, among many, the reality of the facts: it was really him; it was really him, he was Rec. They all were, of course, in the mode. The way a Cyclops related to story and space in Old Works, they – all of them – in the mode; together they – as if they forwarded him; together they made him what he was – a communal consciousness – but this was an illusion. A lie. The hero was real; he was eternal - sure he was, in that sense, but there was a working over of his consciousness that was the real artistry of... this thing; of Old Works; it was that they – he was erased each time - they could never understand it, he felt, sometimes, had no intention to try to but – he flung an axe

- at -

“How many, Pry? Poor Bastard, look at him. Pry!” To Clua.

Her hand rested on his shoulder, “Can you speak, handsome?”