"Well, that was sort of what I was suggesting," Goneril replied. "Especially when I know there are rumors about people vanishing and time passing differently. It would make sense, wouldn't it, if it was because of how they were moving back and forth between worlds?"

He shook his head again, a little frustrated. "That wasn't . . . entirely what I was getting out. There's a lot of things that would have to be, ah, questioned, if this was not all there was."

"What do you mean?" Goneril asked. "What would have to be questioned? Your cosmogony, that sort of thing?"

"My what?" He gave her an odd look. "No. It's complicated. And probably better to be plumbed when I am more awake. I seem to be losing coherence."

"Your cosmogony," Goneril replied. "Your belief in the creation and existence of the universe. That sort of thing. What--" She frowned. "Oh. Do I need to let you sleep?"

"Eventually. I'm surprised you are not nodding off, after that outburst." Faolin was so used to this that he made an outburst sound as blameless as a sneezing fit. "I tend to keep my views of the gods and their ways to myself," he said politely. "Fiona being so openly skeptical of the subject."

"Is she?" Goneril asked. "I don't...know anything about your gods, really," she admitted. She gave him a curious look. "Would you like to tell me? As a bedtime story, I suppose?"

"That would depend on you getting into bed," he said. He moved around to the other side and began to stack and arrange Fiona's small hill of cushions. "Fiona is bitter," he explained. "Sometimes she believes that there are no gods, sometimes she believes they must exist but that they care nothing for the world."

"Because she's different," Goneril observed, and she moved herself to get into the bed. "Is there a particular way I should lie down?" she asked, eyeing the cushions.

"Usually she sleeps curled on one side or else sitting almost upright. Whichever's more comfortable, I suppose." He pulled up his stool again. "The two subjects are nearly related," he said. "There is a story that in the first days of the world, Danaan kept a special well named Imleacan, where she went to restore her youth. If any other creature touched the waters, they would be so polluted that the well would dry up, and underneath was a cavern that led to the realm of the demonkind. So invariably, of course, someone was tricked into taking a goblet of water from the well, and it sank into the earth, and the demons began to creep out and befoul creation. Danaan created the Morrigan to guard the entrance. She shrouded it in shadow, so that no one from outside would be able to find it again."