How can this be? Tahril thought. How could my world come to be these locked corridors? Tahril's mind continued in this now familiar circular fashion.

Long ago life had become hopeless to Tahril as he watched seasons change through the unforgiving bars of the various cells he'd been kept in.

The nature of time had changed for Tahril, who often wondered if he were eating a morning or evening meal (as inmates were roused long before dawn). His hair was long and matted and the beard he'd acquired wild and dirty.

The outside world with all its space and beauty now seemed like an elaborate fantasy to Tahril. Tahril's life in the insane asylum was one of thin soup, grey walls and others screaming under the imperious gazes of ubiquitous guards. The mind-subduing drugs that were forced upon Tahril formed a chemical strait-jacket inside him.

If it was a dream, Tahril felt that it was an exquisite one. "Yes Sarella," he heard himself saying while he took her hand. "I'll walk you home..." He droned on. Sarella grimaced while weeping and holding out a knife to him.

Still feeling as if he were in a dream, Tahril viciously plunged the knife into the back of the guard.

Using the guard's keys and the knife, Tahril managed to escape the asylum. "They'll pay!" Tahril muttered as he made his way unsteadily towards the cover of the forest.

Tahril soon gathered his followers into a mighty war machine which he unleashed on the capital.

The suffering and destruction that Tahril's forces had caused made Sarella wish Tahril had used the knife as she intended to kill himself rather then to escape the asylum.

Numerous fires made the capital streets red with blood.

In the midst of the fighting Tahril came upon the Archbishop leaning against a wall. He stopped directly in front of him, and a feeling of mounting urgency enveloped him.

"Are you pleased, Tahril?!" shouted the Archbishop.

"I don't act to please myself!" Tahril replied.

"Your existence puts all order in jeopardy. Do you want us back in the stone age?!" the Archbishop continued. "You act only to please yourself or why else would you have desecrated this city! You're the most self-indulgent person that has ever lived! You're a hero now, Tahril, but despite your cunning stunts you won't live to write your history!

"No!" Tahril exclaimed as he saw the explosive fluid the Archbishop had removed from his breast pocket.

"Yes, Tahril, it is all done for you!" hissed the Archbishop. Seconds later a powerful explosion added to the destruction.

Tahril found himself deep in a forest that was without sound, as if under water. Across a river feet in front of him Tahril saw an armored figure resembling himself leaning on a staff speaking with a red-cloaked woman whose back was to Tahril.

Slowly Tahril became aware he was walkinq through the forest. He soon came to a large clearing. Squinting at the disconcerting electric blue of a pond now before him Tahril felt a sudden rush of air about himself.

All at once he found himself on a sun deck adjoining a portico and a small flower garden. To his left sat a bald, bearded man of indeterminate age, and also a woman with red hair and eyebrows raised in an ironic expression. An ornate crystal cup containing a pink fluid appeared on a table near Tahril's left hand.

"Drink," was the unspoken word.

Sensing no new danger, Tahril drank deeply from the ornate vessel. Shortly he felt a singular buoyancy as the liquid lightened his body and loosened his knotted muscles. He remained standing nevertheless, leaning on his sword as he regarded the two enigmatic figures.

"I take it I'm dead?" asked Tahril after a time, in a tone of defeat and a bitterness beyond caring.

"No, merely transported," replied the male figure in a pleasing, yet penetrating voice. "If you were not brought elsewhere you would have died in the calamity you created."

"I didn't enslave people's minds and stifle their creativity by spoon-feedinq them mindless drivel or..."

He was cut off by the figure's upraised right hand.

"But you decided to upset the established order. We need to discuss what allowed you to gain such a powerful following."

"What was that?" asked Tahril in a now tentative voice.

"That," continued the bald man, now speaking more quickly, "we will call psychic energy. It's a basic energy force like fire, water and sunlight. Only psychic energy is generated by the brains of intelligent beings.

"As you learned -- and the formerly ruling forces of your world knew before you -- physical rules don't necessarily apply to anything. What happens, Tahril, is that there can be a gathering of psychic energy by certain genetically predisposed individuals like yourself. This energy can be used to alter the past and present as you did by altering water boundaries and game rules.

"By the way, my name is Avar and my companion is Sooreed. We represent a group that uses this process but utilizes a far larger psychic energy pool then Riaspian television viewers. We use our powers to expand and develop the universe."

"How long has this group existed?" Tahril blurted. "Who decides?"

Sooreed continued, as if she and Avar were of one mind. "Tahril, before explanations we want to give you a chance to regain your internal equilibrium. We can take you to the lakeside where, after a rest, you can come to understand what we offer you."

"Your offer?"

"Basically," Sooreed continued we want to use your mind as a lens to focus our mental energies into a force that can shape and reshape the universe." Sooreed's features softened as she paused before continuing. "You have nothing to fear and you need rest after your busy year."

The air and sunlight sparkled over the lakewater and through the windows of Tahril's quarters as he splashed cold water over his now smooth and tanned features.

Tahril soon left his cottage for the short walk to the lake amidst the mountains. The morning light spilled over a patio which opened onto the wide lake. A young nude girl lay on the marble patio floor as her companion, looking the same, but taller, bent over her smiling.

He spied Avar and Sooreed already swimming. He surfaced near them, incredibly refreshed by the cool water. He told them he would soon be ready to meet their organization's founder and leader, Onos, and allow his mind to be used in the reality shaping.