...Three figures knelt in a rotunda of blackened stone. The tadpole writhed behind each eye, its presence less felt than known, a warm voice that was not voice, a touch that had no hand. The Absolute had no throne because it needed none. It existed in the gap between intention and deed, in the breath before the word, in the space where free will broke like glass. When it spoke, they heard not words but certainty. And that certainty was all the proof they needed. They would rise from this place and carry its will forward because they could not imagine doing otherwise. The tadpole was not a burden. It was a blessing they had not yet learned to recognize.

And deep in that dark rotunda, something that was not quite awake stirred in its sleep, dreaming of dominion, of the soft sound that came when individuality bent and broke...