Beranabus bounds over to where Kernel and I are waiting. He crouches beside us, beaming like a proud father whose wife has just given birth. "The prime rule of magic-anything is possible. It's the first thing I teach my assistants, but when you've been doing it as long as I have, it's easy to forget your own advice. Just because something hasn't been done before, and just because the power involved is way beyond that of even the greatest demon master, doesn't mean it can't be done. Bec must have realised what she really was. She spent centuries preparing herself, waiting patiently...
"Or maybe she only saw how to do it during the battle. Maybe you were the catalyst, Grubbs. Or Kernel. Though I don't think so-he came last to the union, didn't he? I don't suppose it really matters. Maybe Bec can tell us, assuming she's..." He stops. "Yes, she must be alive-I mean, her ghost must still be here. It has to be. At least, I suppose..." He trails off into silence again.
"In your own time, Beranabus," I mutter impatiently. "Whenever you're ready."
He flashes me a crazy smile. "This is so extraordinary. Every time I think about it, I discover something new. We've taken an immense leap forwards-well, a leap backwards if you want to be pedantic. It's like going from the first stone wheel to the first manned flight in the space of one incredible day, one amazing spell. This requires years of study and analysis. We have to figure out how the three of you did it, how to control the power, what else we can do. That will-"
"I'm going to hit you if you don't stop babbling," I warn him. "Tell us what you know-or what you guess," I add quickly as he opens his mouth to start telling me he doesn't know anything really.
"I know you're in the dark, I know you want answers, just as much as I do. But..." He stops, focuses, takes a deep breath. "You asked me a question once, Kernel. It's a question most Disciples have asked, normally not long after I've told them that with magic anything is possible. Can you remember what it was?"
"I'm in no mood to solve riddles," Kernel sighs. "I just want my eyes back. Can you do that for me?"
"Not now," Beranabus huffs, waving the question away. "Think, boy. You were telling me about your early life, the night you created your first window and stepped into the universe of the Demonata. You said all your troubles started then, that if you could go back and stop yourself, everything would be fine. You asked me if-"
"No!" Kernel grunts. "It can't be."
"That's what I thought at first," Beranabus chuckles.
"But you said we couldn't!" Kernel protests.
"And I was right. Nobody ever had, and I didn't think anyone could. But now we have. You, Bec and Grubbs did it. You broke the final barrier. I never thought it could happen. I gave up on the notion long, long ago. When you've seen as much of-"
"What is it?" I cut in sharply, furious with ignorance. "What's the big secret? What question did Kernel ask?"
"The one they all ask eventually," Beranabus smiles. "The one you would have put to me if you'd been with me a little longer, when you looked back on all the times you went wrong, wondered how things would have turned out if you'd done this or that differently, gone down one path instead of another."
Beranabus stops, glances up at the trees and the moon beyond, as if to reconfirm it before saying it out loud. When he looks at me again, the smile's still there, but shaky, as if he's not sure whether he should be smiling or not. And he says, very softly, "Kernel asked me if it was possible to travel back in time."
A shocked moment of incredulous silence. Then I laugh. "Good one. You almost had me going. Now quit with the jokes and-"
"This isn't a joke," Beranabus says.
"You're trying to tell me we've returned to the past, like in some bad science-fiction film?"
"No," Kernel giggles, then hits me with the punchline. "Like in some very good science-fiction film."
"Don't," I mutter. "Things are mad enough without you two veering off at some ludicrous angle. We need to think about this logically, go through what happened step by step, so we can understand. Wild speculation won't get us anywhere."
"It's not wild," Beranabus says. "And it's not speculation. It's fact."
"I don't accept that. You're wrong."
"How else can you explain this?" He points to the hole, the rocks, the trees.
"It's an illusion. Our minds have conjured it up or Bec fed the image to us to spare us the real, grisly truth. It happened to me before, in Slawter. Maybe we're lying by the cave entrance, unconscious, demons ravaging our bodies, and this is our only way out of the pain. Or we've gone into the universe of the Demonata and created this scene ourselves. Hell, maybe we're dead and this is what we've chosen for the afterlife."
"We're not dead," Kernel says. "And we're not imagining this. I'd have given myself eyes if we were."
"Time travel's impossible," I say slowly, as if explaining something obvious to a young child.
"So is flying," Beranabus says, "but you've soared like a bird."
"That's different," I snap. "What you're talking about..." I shake my head.
"How did it happen?" Kernel asks. "I believe you, Beranabus-at least I think I do but how? You always said the past was the one thing we could never change."
"It is. I mean, it was. Demons can't do it. Magicians certainly can't. But the Kah-Gash..."
Kernel draws his breath in sharply. "Are you sure?"
"It has to be," Beranabus insists. "The ultimate power... the ability to destroy an entire universe... Why not the potential to reverse time too?"
"But if you're right, that means..."
"Grubbs and Bec were the missing pieces. And there must have only been three. It couldn't have worked unless all the pieces were assembled. At least I don't think it could..." He frowns.
"What the hell are you talking about?" I hiss. "What's a Car Gash?"
"Kah-Gash," Kernel corrects me. He's trembling, but not from the pain or cold. "It's a mythical weapon. You're meant to be able to destroy a universe with it, ours or the Demonata's. It was split into an unknown number of pieces millions or billions of years ago. Various demons and magicians have searched for it since then, without success. Thirty years ago we discovered one of the pieces. In me."