under his coat, «but this insertion is not for you.» Jinndaven peered at Rimble's black-bearded face, trying to read the truth or falsehood in Rimble's pied eyes. «So, I'm not the dupe? I'm not the help you need?» Trickster chuckled. «You sound almost disappointed.» A chill slipped up Jinndaven's spine. «And you're hedging—» Before Jinndaven could press Rimble further for an answer, Trickster snapped his attention back to the tangle of dark briars before them. Pointing excitedly, Greatkin Rimble cried, «At last!» Jinndaven looked past Rimble's small hand, his eyes widening with wonder. Rimble's briar patch was suffused with a soft, blue-white light. As the light intensified, the briars turned a blood-brown and gave way, their thorny mesh slowly pulling back to reveal a delicate, crystal- stemmed flower, its white petals still shut. Jinndaven's jaw dropped in astonishment. «Was this one of my ideas? I don't seem to remember creating any flowers with crystal stems—» «Will you lower your voice?» hissed Trickster. Then he added proudly, «This is the Wild Kelandris. Also known as the Winterbloom. It's a weed. And it can grow in the worst of conditions. It can even bloom in the dead of winter. Hence the name, you see.» «Yes,» whispered Jinndaven. «But who's idea was it?» Trickster grinned. «It's an Improoovement—on one of yours. A rose, I think you called it?» Jinndaven's eyes blazed with indignation. «Whatever happened to creatorly consideration?» he muttered under his breath to the twilight and snow and winter wind rustling in the pine trees above him. Then he turned to Trickster, but before the Greatkin of Imagination could tell his little brother what he thought of his meddling, the Wild Kelandris began to emit a powerful pulsing red light. Startled into silence, Jinndaven stared at Rimble's improvement with grudging awe. The crystal stem of the delicate flower filled slowly with crimson liquid. It seemed to be boiling. Jinndaven wondered if the heat or pressure building inside the stem would shatter its crystalline structure. As the molten liquid continued to bubble, a light snow fell softly on the unopened bud. When the large flakes touched the white petals of the Winter-bloom, they melted. «They look like tears,» mumbled Jinndaven. Trickster rolled his eyes. «Sentimental dope. You've been hanging out with Phebene too much.» Jinndaven shrugged. He couldn't help it if the Greatkin of Great Loves and Tender Trysts was his favorite sibling. He liked being around her influence. Phebene made him feel. Jinndaven slid his hand over his heart. He frowned. «Seems you're making me feel, too, Rimble. Very strange, in fact.» Trickster beamed. «I always feel strange.» «No, I mean it. I feel very strange.» «Is that bad?» Jinndaven swallowed, starting to sweat again. «Well, I don't know exactly. I feel—uh—pierced.» He winced, pressing against his heart with his hands. «Pierced,» he repeated in a whisper. Rimble pursed his lips, looking very much like a scientist examining his laboratory results. He reached for Jinndaven's handsome face, took it in his small hands and peered intently into Jinndaven's eyes. «Anything else? Any other sensations?» Jinndaven nodded slowly. «It's almost sexual,» he added, glancing nervously at the two- foot bulge under Rimble's greatcoat. «But it's inside, Organic-like—more fundamental somehow. Inside inside. And intelligent.» «Presence directed?» asked Trickster. «Yes. Very—uh—natural. Once you get the rhythm of it. Of the pulse, I mean.» «Ah,» said Trickster, and smiled. Then he went back to watching the Wild Kelandris. Jinndaven did so as well, his body straining against the shock of the New coursing through his system. When he could match the greater rhythm of Rimble's improvement, he felt light-headed and free-wheeling. Almost weightless, he thought. Jinndaven grinned unexpectedly. Won't Mattermat be sore when he finds out about this, he thought drunkenly. Mattermat, who was the Greatkin of Inertia and All Things Made Physical, generally scoffed at anything that guaranteed escape from gravity. Jinndaven giggled, his gaze on the flower intensifying. The crimson liquid inside the Wild Kelandris darkened and thickened. The force of the pressure against the unopened bud of the white flower was so extreme now that Jinndaven gasped against the answering resonance inside his own body. Individual rhythm strained to encompass the universal. Jinndaven took an uncomfortable breath, wishing the Wild Kelandris would hurry up and bloom. He winced. He was beginning to feel disturbed in some way. Deeply disturbed. Maybe even a little crazy. «Rimble?» he said hoarsely.
Trickster patted him on the arm. «It's the shift, that's all. You'll be all right as soon as the Winterbloom releases her flower.» Jinndaven blinked, his sense of time and place fuzzy. «Will that be soon?» he asked in a distant tone of voice. «I would really like it if it could be soon. This is very uncomfortable. «That's because you're resisting the shift. Stop trying to access it as if it were something outside yourself. Turn inside inside-out instead.» «Oh,» said the Greatkin of Imagination, struggling to make sense of Rimble's directions. «But—uh—what is this shift?» «Has to do with helixes. I think.» Jinndaven blinked. «You think?» His eyes narrowed, as the truth suddenly dawned on him. Too late, he realized that he was indeed Trickster's dupe. And guinea pig. «Blast you, Rimble! This isn't one of your Improvements. This is one of your untested experiments.» Rimble smiled sheepishly.
His face furious, Jinndaven grabbed his little brother by the frilly front of his greatcoat. «Why you shit-grinned little bastard!» «Now, now,» said Rimble hastily. «It's not nice to mangle a god. Even if I am short,» he added. Jinndaven got to his feet dragging Rimble with him. As he lifted Trickster into the air, he shouted, «Don't give yourself airs, brother dear. You're a Greatkin not a god. Now hear me clearly. You know the word permission? I invented it. And I gave you no permission to muck about with roses. You listening, Rimble?» Feeling Jinndaven's fingers tighten, Rimble swallowed and said, «Oh. Well, perhaps I was getting a teensy bit out of hand—» Jinndaven shook him. «I should rearrange your face. Make that faces.» Rimble broke out in a sweat. «But don't you want to see how the experiment turns out? Think of the mortals, Jinn. Something might go wrong if we don't follow through on this. There's no telling—» Jinndaven pressed his lips together, his eyes searching Rimble's. He took a deep breath, letting it out through clenched teeth. It was true. There was no telling what would happen if he punched the Greatkin of Deviance during an incompleted experiment. Jinndaven dropped Trickster into a nearby snowdrift. As the snowdrift was a least a foot deeper than Rimble was tall, the little Greatkin began swearing. As he dug himself out, Jinndaven leaned down and pointed a finger in Rimble's face. «Okay. Fine for now, Rimble. But when this is over, dear brother, you better run. Because when I catch up with you—» Jinndaven suddenly broke off in mid- sentence, his body shuddering. His handsome face switched gender, changing from male to female and back again. Touching his cheeks, Jinndaven panicked. «What have you done?» Rimble's pied eyes danced. «It's the 'y' that does it. The 'y' in Contrarywise. Welcome to transposition central. It's a matter of pitch.» Naming Rimble every four- letter word he could think of (and the Greatkin of Imagination could think of a lot), Jinndaven tried valiantly to get a psychic grip on his identity, but his normal boundaries of self slipped and slid and would not remain anchored to the here and now. Jinndaven scooped up a handful of snow and mashed it against the bare skin of his neck, hoping the shock of the cold would cause him to return to himself. But it didn't. «Rimble,» whispered the Greatkin of Imagination, «what have you done! I'm entering the Everywhen of the Presence. I'm losing control of my Primordial Face. I'm—» «Yeah, yeah, yeah,» said Trickster feigning boredom. «You've been stuck,» he said, finally extricating himself from the snowdrift in which Jinndaven had dumped him, «and although it doesn't look like it,» he added, brushing snow off his legs, «I'm digging you out. You're shifting.» «But Sathmadd's rule. One Face—» «It's only temporary.» «Sathmadd's rule most certainly is not temporary!» cried Jinndaven as his beautiful face changed into three probable versions of the original. The Greatkin of Imagination clapped his hands to his temples, shut his eyes and grit his teeth. «I am myself!» he whispered. «I am myself!» «It's only a concept. And it's very inadequate,» said Trickster. He sighed. «Resisting the shift won't stop it,» he added conversationally. «And anyway, I was referring to the shift being temporary—not Maddi's rule.» «What?» mumbled Jinndaven, his disassociation from serial time almost complete now. He fell to his knees in the snow, holding his head and rocking. He felt the doors of Everywhen open around him, the rush of probable futures brushing across his face like a cold wind with a hot center. Time restructured itself inside him, moving into a speeded up simultaneity. Jinndaven tried valiantly to stop the process, but the impetus of Trickster's shift was too powerful even for him. Rolling his eyes helplessly at Trickster—who was watching him now with unexpected compassion— Jinndaven yielded to the pressure within, his face alternating freely now between male and female according to an inner, organic prompting. Trickster grinned now, his expression now one of fascination and undisguised conceit. He circled Jinndaven jauntily. «Excellent,» said Rimble softly, his pied eyes—one black and one yellow—glittering in the deepening twilight. Jinndaven groaned, shaking his head. «This—will—translate. This—will—cause—havoc—with—Inertia. Mattermat—will-have—your— ass!» «Not if I have anything to say about it!» retorted Trickster. «The—universes—» continued Jinndaven, every word labored. He wondered if he were actually speaking. Maybe my tongue is in the way, he thought spacily. «The—universes. Don't—you—realize—?» Trickster slapped his own thighs gleefully. The sound of it made Jinndaven jump. Then, grabbing the face of the Greatkin of Imagination once more in his small hands, Trickster lifted his chin and said, «Can you imagine the effect this'll have on mortals? They could call the process Shifttime. Or,» he said, wig-wagging his black eyebrows at Jinndaven, «in honor of your supreme sacrifice and eager participation here, they could name it after you. They could call it Jinnaeon.» Jinndaven frowned. He was having a great deal of difficulty following Rimble's words. Worse yet, Jinndaven had the distinct impression that he was about to be blamed for something that was Trickster's fault and not his. He touched his face gingerly, sure that it would never stabilize again. Trickster patted his hand. «Will you relax? I told you—this is just a temporary condition.
