The storm passed. A shaft of sunlight shone through the kitchen ankh, sprinkling rain drop light over the floor. Dante closed the book and shut his eyes for a few moments, working through applications of the philosophy. He rose, crossed to the kitchen table and examined the milk in the jug. He touched and tasted it; sniffed and stared at it. Dante carried the jug of milk outside.

The world looked washed clean. Above the cottage, a rainbow spread its promise. Mist hung in a depression in the field. Dante padded over to the hollow, his moccasins tracing wet footprints. He stopped in the mist, shook himself to relax into the proper frame of mind and thought about rain.

"Water the air," he said to the fog.

The temperature dropped and a cloud congealed around him. A tiny burst of thunder popped in his ears then a light rain drizzled down, dampening his curls. Dante laughed. He still knew how to thunder tangle. And now that he grasped at the theory behind it, he might one day end droughts or stop blizzards. The cloud dispersed back into mist.

Dante wandered through the silent dripping evergreens at the edge of the jungle and onto an animal path fringed with head high ferns. The krakens began to chirp among the drops. Lizards expanded their dewlaps to sing. Small marmots scrambled away through the forest litter.

The alien familiarity of the New World never ceased to amaze him. The planet was colder than the Old World, with glaciers pushing down from the caps, and the flora and fauna remained untouched by the heavy pollution and severe extinctions of the home world; but in this teeming tropical jungle, the similarities hit him each time he ventured out. He wondered, not for the first time, if the two planets had slowly separated from one another in the distance past. Taffy pulling apart with tiny moon and asteroid crumbs left in between. Their orbits remained close and several scientists declared that the oceans covered the break.

Dante walked until he came to a glade where a small spring bubbled out of the moss. He squatted down, placed the jug beside him and whispered to the water. The milk disappeared from the jug then reappeared frothing white in the spring. Dante created the childhood magic illusion he called Foaming Mother's Milk.The water calmed to its natural state as the milk spilled away into the moss. He crouched deep in thought. His experiment had proven one of the old hermit's theories. Dante now knew for certain what he had long suspected. The flowers, the fish, the coins had materialized from somewhere else, slipping sideways between the atoms of reality in their journey, as the mist had congealed back into rain at his command. His creations were stolen, even the solid gold shillings he had given to Martha. Especially the gold shillings. Those he had once seen in his half-brother Yevgeny's possession. A quick grin jumped across his face.

Dante turned solemn as he bent to the task at hand -- the using of magic not to bring an object but to permanently change and rearrange the ousia of it. He picked a round pebble from the spring and dried it, then plucked a small wild rose. Best to start small. Dante sat down cross-legged, head bowed, the stone and the rose resting in the palms of his hands. He examined them, tasted them, felt them, heard them. But he knew he must experience them deeply, become a part of them, hear the words and music of their existence if he wished to turn the stone into a rose. He murmured over them. The jungle around him disappeared into the stone. He began to chant, his voice rising and falling in a cantor rhythm, twisting down around the stone and the rose. Dante felt something outside of him nudge. Tiny petals crept over the surface of the pebble as it softened into a flower. The rose hardened to granite, Yevgeny's magic talent, and a side effect he had not expected. Dante stared down at them and it hit him.

"Each change ripples out to change," he whispered.

The feeling outside of him nudged again. He looked up. Reality shimmered in the glade. The invisible became visible. An angelic being stood before him, there but not there, a halo of light and peace surrounding it. A fay seraphim. The being smiled without smiling.

"Yet each change changes not, my child," it said without saying ."Reality may not be the truth."

"What do you mean?" asked Dante but the seraphim had already faded away.

The unnoticed silence in the jungle burst back into squeaks and rustles and whirs. Shadows shifted on the other side of the glade. A green man. Dante realized with a start that he stared at a hita, its green and blue camouflage making it one with the forest. The peaceful calm that had flowed from the seraphim remained. Dante felt unafraid. The hita seemed without fear as well.

It moved out of the jungle and padded up to the spring. The hita's slit goat eyes stared at him as it bent down. One of its elephant trunk arms snaked out from its shoulder and into the water. Dante heard a sucking then the creature lifted its flexible arm and placed it in its mouth, gulping as the water flowed down its throat. Not for one moment did its demon eyes stop watching him. Dante squatted and cupped his hands under the bubbling spring. He drank without shifting his gaze from the hita. They shared the truce of a sacred glade.

The hita finished. Its trunk reached out towards him, seeming more curious than aggressive. Dante gingerly held out his palm. The snout sniffled over his hand, the skin felt like a dog's nose. It stretched further and snuffled his beard and curls like a gentle vacuum cleaner, pulling back for a second when the tickling made him laugh. Dante reached out and rubbed the surprisingly soft green skin of its face.The brown mane falling over its shoulders resembled a horses and the hair felt as rough. When he touched one of the blue camouflage patterns on its shoulder, the colour smeared onto his hand. It smelt of mangos. The creature painted itself.

The hita retracted its arm and stood. Its face remained without expression, though Dante knew that meant nothing. The hita backed away to the edge of the glade. It stared at him, he stared back. The creature disappeared into the trees. He realized he'd been holding his breath and let it out with a sigh. Dante examined the spot where the hita had vanished. He felt ill. Never again would he wear hita leather.

The time to fetch Martha and Magic Mouse finally arrived. Dante glanced around the cottage, checking that everything looked perfect for them. A sudden thought struck him. He ran up stairs and gathered the hermit's books, including the Bible just returned by Francis. In a moment of superstitious premonition, Dante brought them downstairs and stuffed them back into the asbestos lined box hidden under the fireplace stones. If something went wrong, they could fall into the hands of the censors, a great loss. Dante replaced the flagstone, then rose with a smile. Everything was perfect. Cookie ingredients rested in the cupboard and fridge. A plastic flower mobile danced above the crib upstairs. Wood lay stacked beside the fireplace.

He closed and locked the door then inspected the new sidecar to make sure it sat firmly attached to the aircycle. He swung over the seat, gunned the engine and took off with a roar and joyful defiant yell.

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