The evening sky was full of curious sprites, neon static

electricity gridding itself across the sky with the ravenous

urgency of something organic. Underneath this spectacle stood

Basteel in solitary contemplation. The marble statue before

him sat deathly still, its pallid countenance betraying nothing

of its vast life. Of all those who stared at it in the same

way that Basteel did, even the great writers, artists, and

emperors--those legendary figures who had chiseled the

great edifice of history-- had failed to make any impression on

its marmoreal flesh. Time and space collapsed in that blank

stare, rendered meaningless by the marble's total apathy.

Outside the window, some unthinking daemon carved up the

sky, anticipating the moment when the stars would come out

so it could test its mettle against them. History boiled

wildly, at one moment a vicious froth of transmutation,

at the next the exact same placid sea that it was a day ago.