happens after we die? The answer is, of course, that no one knows.

No astral spirit has ever returned once it has gone completely

through that long dark tunnel toward the light. Perhaps the light is

God and if you are a religious man, that thought might give you

comfort. But I have no idea what it really is. I do not know what

lies beyond. I have never made the journey. A highly skilled adept

can achieve a voluntary, controlled separation of his astral

self—what is known as astral projection—but only at the cost of

immense effort.

“Occasionally, ” he went on, “people die and their astral spirits do

not go through the tunnel, or whatever phenomenon it is, instead

remaining somehow bound to the temporal plane. Again, no one has

ever managed to explain this. I have my own theory. I believe it’s

possible that those to whom this happens have had, somewhere in

their past, an Old One for an ancestor, an Immortal. The Old Ones

were extremely powerful adepts. After the Mage War that saw an

end of their supremacy on earth, the mighty struggle between the

Dark Ones and the Council of the White, the surviving Old Ones

went into hiding. They were persecuted by the humans, who

greatly outnumbered them. Many of them interbred with humans,

and over the years—as is the case with Wyrdrune, Kira, and

Billy—the Immor-talstrain became diluted, though it was never

entirely eliminated. There are those who have an inherent, natural

aptitude for magic. Wyrdrune, for example, who was always far too

naturally talented for his own good.”

“Thanks, ” said Wyrdrune wryly.

“Don’t interrupt your elders.”

The statement, coming as it did from the body of a

fifteen-year-old, seemed highly incongruous to Fugisawa.

“As I was saying, ” continued Merlin, “such people who have a

natural aptitude for magic, and those who demonstrate what are

called paranormal abilities, such as extrasensory perception and so

forth, are most likely descended from an interbreeding of a human

and an Old One. They possess some subliminal inherited ability,

often latent, rarely controlled. Such control requires the discipline

of thaumaturgy. Some of these people, particularly those who are

neither emotionally nor spiritually prepared to accept death, suffer