Yrtl felt as though the top of his skill was being prised off, from the inside. He tried to scream, but no sound emerged; the ambient lowlife hubub continued, regardless of the fact that a patron was being murdered in one of the booths. Business as usual, at Tic-Tac-Tony’s.

Panicking, Yrtl recalled something about the Synod being able to instantly detect interference with a plant, and suck a guy’s mind right out of his body, leaving him a soulless automaton – like a noncon, in fact.

Correct, spoke Akin, from somewhere inside Yrtl’s head, unless one is very careful. So I advise you stay still.

You can read my thoughts? Yrtl was astonished.

Of course. But the mundane fruits of your cognition are irrelevant. It’s the vehicle in which they are contained – the mind – that is of interest to me. I need to borrow it, for the journey.

What journey? asked Yrtl, Where are you going?

To Heaven, in an applecart, said Akin, mixing metaphors with maniacal abandon.

I’ve waited a long time for this…