I swept my hand and the world washed away.

I was back in Underearth again. A sigh of relief. It was quiet here. Empty. I left Kallan in the ashes of Lorlenalin. The remnants of her people.

How can I ever continue that story?

How can I ever go back there?

People walk, trusting, into a story, oblivious to the Truth. That they are really walking into the Mind of The Author. How foolish can you be? To read the words of Witches is to be caught within their Spell. And what do you think Story is? Logic is? Word is? If not Spells.

Authors are the real witches of the World.

And you all have been played.

Shakespeare tried to warn you. Christ. Cervantes. Carroll. They have been trying to show you the Matrix all of your lives… and none of you, not one, have been able to figure it out.

I sit myself down in the chair in my chambers.

It felt good being me again.

Fand.

“Fae Whore.”

I looked to the door at Bergen. I sighed.

“I knew you’d come.”

He came to me and sat down.

“You’re going to have a lot of pissed off Fantasy Fans,” he said.

And I shrugged. “Am I?” I asked.

“So what are you going to tell Kallan? What grand excuse will you tell her about why you destroyed her City?”

“The Delusion had to break. She had to know who she really is… and playing “Queen” to a palace that was metaphorical for a Truth she didn’t want to face, was not something I could tolerate. Did she really think she would get her happy ending?”

“You play with our lives like we’re dolls,” said Bergen. “You create us, invent us, and torment us… Admit it. That’s the real reason you can’t go back to writing… You did the math.”

I swallowed the taste of bitter shame.

“Yes,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach. “I did the math. That my Imagination creates reality, which means… You are real. Which means, it was Unethical to put you into a tree and torment you… And I couldn’t write another word after that. Because I knew my Stories were real.”

“So you burned Lorlenalin?”

“I broke her Delusion.”

“And you don’t know how to make it right by her?”

No. I don’t. And I can’t lead her on a quest. I can’t send her down…”

“We’re at the end of Story.”

I swallowed. I nodded.

“As people study the Logic, they too will realize this… and the Stories will end. That is “Happily Ever After, after all.”

“I am Danu. I was looking for Kallan who was my Self. The part of me who wouldn’t accept who she was. That Kallan was Danu. Who was ever so much more powerful than she ever knew or believed… And as I healed, the part of me that was Kallan was Integrated into Danu and Fand… and now… Here I am, Bergen. Fand. Your slave owner once, incapable of harming even you now.”

“So tell me, my love, how am I supposed to write your stories without causing you any pain?”

“Why am I not Integrated?”

“Aren’t you?

“Why can you still talk to me like this?”

“Because you, my love, are the piece of my Imp King, who stayed behind in me all those many long years ago.”

“We’ll always have Zombies From Space?”

I laughed.

“You know… That really is the only book left that… I can still see me writing. That and my “Pirate Adventure” with Anna Imagination into the Abstract…”

“So what,” he said. “This is the end now?”

“Or the beginning. I am supposed to Nourish that Imp King back to where he needs to be, and after that…”

“I’m just a writer in the Abstract, recording and showing all the weird shit that is and goes down here on this side of the Veil. I don’t… I don’t know. For me, this is the end of Fiction and Story.”

Which is why all the Greats end up turning themselves over to Non-Fiction in the end. The Point of Ethical Law where Imagination and Fiction is real… and Suddenly, you can’t harm anyone. Not even Fictional Characters who are Really Real.”