"Everyone, gather together!" Meknáni exclaimed.

The land was moving quickly, wind in their ears. They came together, reaching out, holding each other's arms. Umbe was at the end, calling for Meknáni.

"I'm here!" he said. "Come!"–and reached out his hand.

"Remember to stay calm and trustful!" Menior said.

"Prepare to jump!" Meknáni asked.

The dark was turning grey. Questions at the back.

"Ta-ala!" the white tiger humanoid explained, and they all understood.

"Prepare to jump!" said Gre.

"When?" Sakna-Sa asked.

The sound of racing steps. A bluish whiteness above and ahead.

"When the light reaches us!" said Meknáni.

A leap.

"All together!" the Oombyr asked, and they were lifted off onto a whitish platform resembling the edge of a cliff. A bluish light enlightened them.

"That's the Light of Ta-ala," revealed Meknáni.

The platform became a white square – columns in the corners rising into heights unseen – and the nine companions gathered at the centre.

"The point of stability," Menior said.

Sakna-Sa gazed at him, lights in her eyes, smile on her lips. "You focused on creating one as well, didn't you?"

"I sure did," came his answer.

"We're co-creating everything that happens," said Sakna-Sa.

"As we did with our emotions when we had barely begun descending," added Gre.

"Let us not be trapped," advised Sla, "but keep on going."

"Agreed," answered Meknáni. "Let us journey together into the highest, most serving experience we can now have, so we can all be victors! What do you say?" He looked at Umbe and asked, "Do you trust that we can all do this?"

"I trust you," Umbe replied.

"That's good enough," Meknáni said, then turned to them all. "The way I see it is that we can either be prisoners of one place or use stability to pursue our most suitable course."

"Agreed," said Menior, and so did Sakna-Sa.

"This is turning into a great adventure," commented Arít.

"Let us trust each other as well as ourselves that we can manage," said Sakna-Sa. "Alright. What is the course of action?"

"We walk that way," Meknáni retorted, pointing at an elongating side of the white platform, and upon it they stepped. "Remember to stay trustful," he asked them, and walk they did. "Think victory," he added. "We are not bound to stillness or confinement. This is a fluid spacetime, which makes it so much easier."

They all agreed and kept on walking.

"Is this snow?" asked Sakna-Sa.

"Are we on Planet Kaas?" asked Uiio, remembering Meknáni's story.

"I don't think so," said Menior. "Let the answer reveal itself in due time."

Snow flakes were gently falling, swirling in the air. The automatic thermoadjustment in their uniforms was activated, producing heat and sending subtle currents towards the extremities of their bodies.

"We're safe," Meknáni reassured them. "If this is anything like Kaas, we'll be welcomed like victors."

"But are we?" Umbe murmured.

Meknáni looked sideways at him. "You are what you feel." A bit harsh, it sounded.

"So feel your way into being what you want," completed Sakna-Sa, who was walking by Umbe's side as well.

The Boor gave a nod. An encouraging pat on the shoulder from Maýla-i, who was walking behind him. Umbe turned and smiled feebly.

"Alright," said Meknáni. "Anyone feel like racing?"

"What's the purpose?" asked Menior Lem.

"The purpose is that talking about the race has produced these changes," replied Meknáni, "and wishing I could walk has elongated the platform, therefore racing with a sense of victory may make us victors."

"Victory, seen as the desired outcome," thought Menior. "By racing confidently, we draw victory in."

The Savier's logical assumptions produced concurring reactions.

"So let's race," said Sakna-Sa.

"But not against each other!" Umbe half-shouted. "Let's race as a team with the purpose of winning as one."

"Good," agreed Meknáni. "Everyone ready?"

"Let's do this!" Uiio answered, and they began to run, ahead into the distance, through snow that encumbers not.

"Think of Ta-ala's ease!" Meknáni reminded them.

Sprinting forth, brisk footsteps in thin snow, breeze from ahead, whiteness around, ease in their chests, feet turning into yards under their strides, ease in their breaths, their speed increasing, strides turning into leaps, leaps into jumping, whiteness ahead, snowflakes swirling, azure lights formed ahead –

"A portal!"

– faster they went, bolting like a wave of coordinated motion –

"Victory's ours!" shouted Meknáni in sheer joy.

"We're free!" said Arít.

– they jumped and they emerged on the other side.

They were all catching their breaths. Distant acclaiming sounds. Hazy swirls of snow, the halos from their uniforms dismissing them almost entirely. At last, they all recovered from the sprint and looked around, the swirls of snow gradually dispelling.

They found themselves upon an identical platform with the one they'd been on before.

"What's happened?" asked Uiio.

"Are we back in the same place?" asked Gre.

Many were their questions, yet all answers were elusive. They searched their minds and gazed around and searched their minds some more. What's happened? kept being repeated, softly, almost unheard.

"Where are we?"

"You are in the heart of M'alala, in the space called Íma, which is the Doorway between dimensions," Uiio said. "Victories past, relieved here, are illusions. State your truths to be allowed to pass."

Her companions turned to her.

"That voice!" she said. "It was so clear."

"Can you re-establish contact?" Menior asked.

Uiio tried, but failed. "I might be too anxious," she replied.

Meknáni was frowning. "Past victories are all illusions?" he was heard asking, though mostly, it seemed, he had asked himself.

"Maybe not all," Menior pondered. "Maybe the message was that we've tried to reinstate a past reality, which the crater, Íma, reproduced to some degree, but there was nowhere to actually go, no race for us to be its victors."

"So we can create from memory, but it's only illusion," commented Sakna-Sa.

Sla added, "Taking action was useful, but there is a reality in this fluidity, which we have failed to observe."

"State your truths to be allowed to pass," repeated Gre. "State your truths: what is that? What does it mean?"

"It means that we should be transparent," responded Uiio. "We've been opaque, too rigid for this type of physicality."

"Too rigid?" asked Gre. "Is that what's being transmitted to you?"

Uiio shook her head. "No. I'm guessing. I cannot re-establish contact."

"I do not understand this fluidity," said Sakna-Sa.

Silence all around.

"But now, at least, we know that it is real," she completed. "We can mentally choose to give it shape somehow, but that would build illusion. Thus illusion is built with the mind."

A pause. More silence.

"The fluidity herein can be bent according to our minds, but we've been weavers weaving blindfold with each concurring or disagreeing thought, revealed as well as kept to ourselves."

Everyone was listening.

"The mind holds the potential for illusion."

Some nodded.

"But it also holds the answers," she went on. "Illusion is built, but crumbles. Reality can only be engaged with. It feels like there're some filters there, in engaging authentically with reality, fixed or fluid, that we have been unaware of."

She looked at Meknáni. Others did, too.

"This has been an excellent learning opportunity," she told him. "Because of your actions, we have discovered vital information." Then turning to Uiio, "Whenever you are ready to engage in that type of communication again, do not feel pressured. Remember what we found: our unbalanced emotions produce brain fog."

They nodded.

"It's excellent," she carried on. "We've made excellent progress. Now we know two essential truths: one, fluid though it is, this is a reality that we do not produce, but interact with; and two, that we can shape ideas into form, which results in illusion." She returned to Uiio. "Can you please repeat the message?"

"Not exactly," Uiio answered, "but I know the information therein: that this is the heart of M'alala, called Íma, and there was something about the door into dimensions. Then it gave us the key to discern truth from illusion – basically, everything we've carried with us and are projecting here is illusion."

"State your truths to be allowed to pass," completed Gre. "That was the final part of the message. State your truths to be allowed to pass," he repeated, pondering. "This is a test, and we are being supervised."

"That's right," M'alala answered.