No special reproach had been offered to the Cadwanol, for others had failed in their vigilance as well, and all had paid a bitter price. But a day did not pass without Andawyr thinking of the events of that time and, whenever a problem taxed him to the point of despair, it was these memories that returned to spur him on. For ignorance and the darkness of the mind and heart that it brought were the greatest of Sumeral’s weapons and only knowledge could prevail against it.

But what was Andawyr to do now? At the very heart of his work lay a maelstrom of confusion and illogicality; conclusions which, though reached through modes of thought and observation that were unimpeachably correct, led to consequences that seemingly defied the reality of the world as ordinary men knew it. As he knew it, for pity’s sake, he mused bleakly, throwing a small pebble into the stream and watching the ripples spread and disperse. No one would claim to understand what this strangeness truly meant, but until now it had not really mattered. It was sufficient that it was consistent and that it worked: it could be used to predict the outcome of experiments and went a considerable way towards explaining many once-mysterious things, not least the powers that the Cadwanwr themselves possessed. But what had once been a vague suspicion had grown of late. It could no longer be dismissed as an inadvertent aberration twisting and curling at the distant edges of their calculations. And it could no longer be ignored.

There was, beyond all doubt now, a flaw deep in the heart of the way the world was made. Something that, even within the terms of the strange nature of the Cadwanol’s work, could not be. As an academic exercise it had been speculated upon from time to time for many years, but in the surge of learning that had followed the war it had been confirmed and accepted.