Evanescence
By L.E. Modesitt, Jr.
I.
In the semi-ordered centre of the chaos that comprises the arena of the universe, the singer looks to the vibrochordist, who signals to the other three before producing a deep, rumbling chord that reverberates through what is, whose gravitic reverberations align the proto-quantums of pre-quarks.
Next, the multistringer pluck-strokes the fabric beneath and within the proto-quantums, to submerge that which underholds what will come, and to raise that not yet visible froth, still without boundaries and substance, into the edges of perception.
As that fabric simmers under the pluck-strokes of the multistringer, the hothorn sears the froth with heat beyond heat, curing it into the first stages of being. Close behind come the cold chill-pulsations of the
