"All right," said Kira dubiously. "Thank you, Gomez. How soon can you get started?"

"All right," said Kira dubiously. "Thank you, Gomez. How soon can you get started?"

Gomez stretched, got up, and trotted out of the room. A moment later they heard the slapping of the cat

door as he went outside.

Kira shook her head. "What's happened to my life?" she asked. "Things used to be so nice and simple. I

line up a job, case the joint, break in, pick up some loot, and fence it. No complications. Now I'm

involved with a guy who's two different people at the same time, a kid who's possessed by the spirit of an

ancient sorcerer, lovesick computers, a Jewish broom that acts like it's my mother, and a cat that talks

like a hard-boiled private eye from some detective novel. Christ. Whatever happened to reality?"

"Reality, my dear," said Merlin, speaking through Billy, "is merely a matter of perspective. Look on the

bright side. You're fabulously wealthy now, you're living with people who care about you, and you're

doing something to benefit the human race. How many people can say that?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I know. But I sometimes wonder what would have happened if Wyrdrune and I had

been able to fence the runestones, like we'd planned at first. Would we have stayed together or gone our

separate ways? Would we ever have fallen in love? Would we ever have met Modred? Would I ever

have met you?"

"I know what you mean," Merlin replied. "I've often wondered what would have happened if I had never

met Uther. If I had never involved myself in Arthur's life. If I had never accepted Morganna as my pupil

or if I had exercised some judicious moral restraint and kept my hands off Nimue. Or, for that matter, if

my spirit had never found young Billy here. But there's little point in trying to second-guess Fate. The

events that are governing our lives had their beginnings thousands of years ago."

"I'm not sure I ever believed in Fate," said Kira as she unfolded a map of the city and spread it out on

the coffee table. "I always thought people controlled their own destinies."

"To some degree, we do," Merlin replied. "But none of us is ever completely in control. We are all

subject to random factors, serendipity and, yes, Fate, with a capital F. I learned that lesson long ago,

centuries before you were born. There is a natural order to things and I don't necessarily mean God,

although that might be as convenient a term for it as any. Not some individual Supreme Being, but a

pattern of laws, of action and reaction, of cause and effect on which the universe is based. It is not only

our individual acts that determine our destinies, but the acts taken by others and the events that are taking

place around us. Think of the spider's web as a metaphor for life. You cannot touch one strand without

affecting all the others, a lesson humanity should have learned from the Collapse. There was a song I

heard once, a pre-Collapse nostalgia tune called 'No Man Is an Island.' A truer lyric was never penned.

None of us really stands alone."

"In our case, that's literally true, isn't it?" said Kira, gazing at the runestone in her palm. "It's amazing how

you can get used to the damnedest, strangest things. The runestones changed our lives, but I never felt

really changed. I always felt like the same person I was before. Just that suddenly this magical thing had

happened to me and I became a sort of channel for the power of the spirits of the Council. I mean, that

took a lot of getting used to, but Idid get used to it, and much quicker than I thought I would. Then

Modred's runestone absorbed his life force and bonded with Wyrdrune and I felt as if the rug was

yanked right out from under me."