Sometimes he thought Phinz-Twoan was making him, but that was a crazy thought.

That he was only an amalgamation - maybe this was why he could never focus on what he said, couldn't assign a real character to him, couldn't understand him, despite his motivations being explicitly put to him in this moment. It was like he was a projection out the mind of Phinz-Twoan; but of course that was – that couldn't be the answer because.

There was no way a Cyclops, all of whom were good, and unlike in other areas of life, other type people he'd encountered - the more conventionally talented the Cyclops, as Phinz-Twoan undoubtedly was – the most talented: the more sincere morally, the more – they were just good.

You could trust a Cyclops. The Cyclops hadn't invented him. Intellectually he knew he could be de-balled. By Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz. And there was that resentment in there too. But his honest emotional response, to the stuff he was saying, the King Actor in front of him was - intellectually he knew he could be de-balled but he didn't care. Constantly assailed by fears, of fears of eventualities he generated himself thanks to his talent for fantasticheria – but – why did he never remember this? In front of him, he didn't fear Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz – he was massive – at all.

Because, was he -

Was he there?

He touched him.

“What the fuck are you even doing?”

He was there.

“You're insane – you're insane. You've lost your mind and this is the final proof. - Can you momentarily focus on what I'm saying? I was trying to - I'm saying things to you! This is the final proof, the final unvarnished reality of what I've been saying for 100 years. The weakness - it's been this for ten thousand years. Is you. The weakness is you -”

“I'm 39 years old.”

“You're just an entity, and we - trialled it without. It's one of you. We tried formulas, in small trials, they collapse, everything collapses. It's an entirely irrational talent the whole thing is built upon; the whole organization of Old Works. Therefore three planet-civilisations - Hortag, Shensh, Theust – into one three-planet civilisation - actually more civs, more than three, obviously, but that's what we say, three planets anyway; it facilitates the connections between - maybe 33 actual civs, worthy of the term currently alive and functioning over these three massive planets; they're bigger than normal ones – did you know that, even? According to certain indications that – there's Cyclops that work on this stuff. Other realms. Not sure they're not fantasies; not sure they're not fantasticheria, like your fantasticheria – why don't formulas work? Why? Why is it talent? - Why is it random fucking actually connected out of a civilisation talent? Why? And why this sentence at all?”

He didn't know if he was upset or really asking. Or acting.

“What does Phinz-Twoan actually do?”

Hortag – the planet that birthed the Cyclops. The being without which – anything. Any centrepiece of the modern – a Theustian concept, a poison in their discourse - world could function. The current apparatus running that planet however was less than friendly, not just to the Cyclops, which made no rational sense considering the infrastructure that facilitated their continued existence - was - almost exclusively built upon the abilities of these Cyclops.

But that didn't seem to be a calculation for some reason. They had trapezoid prisons, over there, for artists and fools, on islands, island prisons, really, for artists, and that was – the place was, it's existence a threat, of a place... not often actually mouthed, his – Massimo's – biography, was enough for that.

The Demonlord, was from Hortag, of Hortag, this was his impression anyway, of this biography/of this history even; how much of any of it, a constant tension, was anyway fictional – but okay they were, if not gifted, often, then – sometimes gifted – Massimo was at least a gifted administrator - and apart from dreamunits. They must be used for something - else?

In terms of this too what was Massimo Diap'leptico Rampposz? Who knew. Who knew anything: Shensh mystical, mysteries even, bucolic, and yet the hardest of them all in some ways. – Every story was set in that place, it just worked. Dungeons. Kings and Queens, and demons; don't forget demons, and rather more subterranean structures than you would think would keep the ground up. Dungeons.

That was a good place for Art. Maybe such a place, an underground cave complex rendered in rough-hewn corridors, more like panels, sometimes, colours, too; those same colours generated by a supernatural organ. And simultaneously, in the inside innards; the mind and the brain - or a demon with a dainty tongue, a tongue of a thousand fingers maybe or someshit like that.

How Shensh, even, anyway, turned any of this into even... that was the mystery. Story. That – reality – that was the mystery.