Mall of Mâvarin, Part Thirty-One

Tonight's installment is an interruption to my main project of the night, typing up several handwritten scenes into the 35th and final chapter of Mages of Mâvarin. I've entered 5 1/2 pages so far, and I have at least nine pages of handwritten text still to do, not counting the part I skipped over. (Guess I won't be finishing it tonight, Sara. Sorry!) Now I only have seven minutes to post - oops, six now - by my self-imposed deadline. So if this thing goes out only one paragraph long, you'll know why.

The easiest way to catch up on past installments of this serial is here on Messages from Mâvarin. Synopses to Parts One through Six can be found at the top of Part Seven. Synopses to Parts Eight through Thirteen can be found at the top of Part Fourteen. Synopses to Parts Fourteen through Eighteen are at the top of Part Nineteen. Synopses to Parts Nineteen through Twenty-Five can be found at the top of Part Twenty-Six. The installments themselves can be read in order on Blogspot using the sidebar.

Part Twenty-Six: Cathma and Cathy wonder why they haven't lost consciousness with everyone else.

Part Twenty-Seven: Cathy and Cathma belatedly collapse and faint, much as the others did. They find themselves in a place without physical bodies, surrounded by a thousand versions of themselves. The only person present who doesn't have their face is Joshua Wander.

Part Twenty-Eight: Cathma is pretty sure they're in something called the subjective plane. Joshua Wander is pretty sure he's meant to be their guide. The other versions of Cathy and Cathma disappear, leaving just the two of them to work out the answer to Josh's question: which one of them will be the one to return home?

Part Twenty-Nine: Joshua Wander explains that there is an imbalance in magic between the worlds, which can only be solved by someone relocating to the other person's world - permanently. However, the explanation makes no sense, and Cathy doesn't believe it.

Part Thirty: Cathy refuses to sacrifice her normal life on the basis of what she's hearing. Angered by the lack of cooperation, "Joshua Wander" disappears, replaced by Cathma's self-proclaimed "oldest enemy" - Imuselti, former royal mage to a family of usurpers.

Part Thirty-One: Nobody Knows

Cathy looked through her second-hand memories for Imuselti. He wasn’t hard to find. The former (and deceased?) royal mage had been involved in pretty much everything bad that had ever happened to Cathma.

“Wait a minute, though,” Cathy said. “This can’t really be Imuselti, can it? Isn’t he dead?”

“Technically, yes,” Cathma said, “but only in my reality. He’s still alive elsewhere.”

“But this can’t be him, can it?” Cathy said. “Whoever we were talking to before knew about the Beatles's music, and other stuff that Josh knows. Would Imuselti know those things, especially one from Rani Lunder’s world?”

Cathma stared at her. “You’re right,” she said. “That doesn’t make sense. So who is he?”

The man only smiled at them.

“I don’t know,” Cathy admitted. “Maybe he isn’t real at all.”

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