"War for Cha is something to savor and enjoy for the sheer beautiful randomity and confusion of it. Cha loves chaos, so he wins even when he might be said to lose."

The beginnings of the universe and of beings are lost in the depths of time. The earliest time known was of beings like gods.

To make existence interesting, these entered into games with one another, and as time went on, formal rules were made to play by. And rewards were added, and penalties, and restrictions on departing a game. These were to add the zest of danger and necessity to games. And beings became avid for games, and did not see, or did not heed, where this was leading.

There were many worlds and many games. And beings who were between games sought other games around the universe. When the game was created here on Ch'matal, Ch'matal was called Weirro, which meant "game field". In time it would have many other names, among them Terra, Eorthe and World. But the idea of "game field" was forgotten.

And all who wished to play on Weirro were required to agree to limiting terms. One of the terms was that, having agreed, they would forget what the terms were, although bound by them with force. And another, they would forget the goal of the game. And another, they would be in ignorance that it was a game. And another, they would not know who they were until such time as the game was over.

This would provide seriousness. It would allow surprise. And it required skill and application in attempting to work out what the terms, the rules of the game, were. For those who could most closely discover and play to the limits of the rules would gain the advantage. Their penalties and failures would be fewer, their successes greater.

And thus came to be philosophy, and religion, and science.

And the purpose of the game and its rules were numerous. The most general were to experience the sensations and emotions that would grow therefrom, and to provide challenges. The goal of the game was to regain full knowledge of the agreement, which would end the game and cancel the agreement.

But the goal was hidden in forgetfulness.

Cal was frightened as he had never been frightened in his life before. He sat in his room, the door locked, and shook.

The shaking had begun a few minutes after events at Rue Street, almost twenty-four hours ago now, and it hadn't shown much sign of stopping since. Sometimes it made his hands tremble so much he could hardly hold the glass of whiskey he'd nursed through an all but sleepless night, other times it made his teeth chatter. But most of the shaking didn't go on outside, it was in. It was as if the pigeons had gotten in his belly somehow, and were flapping their wings against his innards.

And all because he'd seen something wonderful, and he knew in his bones that his life would never be the same again. How could it? He'd climbed the sky and looked down on the secret place that he'd been waiting since childhood to find.

Picture something definite that you wish to accomplish. See it in minutest detail. Carefully consider the best means of bringing it to realization. Then work for it with all your heart.

Everything he'd ever wanted had been in that land; he knew it. Everything his education had taught him to disbelieve - all miracles, all mystery, all blue shadow and sweet-breathed spirits. All the pigeons knew, all the wind knew, all the human world had once grasped and now forgotten, all of it was waiting in that place. He'd seen it with his own eyes.

Which probably made him insane.

Sentience or Sapience is any species that some of us want to feel guilty about eating

He felt like a skin full of emptiness.