Interlude: Don't Stop.

I wake I still look I feel loose
We're all here now who's the first?
Ease into my heart.
He must be one of us.

Voices, thoughts, names.

Confusion.

There is a place where time and space are interchangeable, where merely by existing all things change, and where any being can achieve apotheosis -- or oblivion.

There is a world built from blood and furnished with fire, a realm of demons and nightmares, a place of utter darkness and corrupt evil.

This is not Hell. This is Limbo.

Everything that has ever been, here, everything that can never be, here -- all of it happens, just a little while away.

The environment itself is not always intrinsically hostile. People can survive here indefinitely -- time does not always trouble to pass, and for every version of you rent limb from limb by the denizens of this place, half a dozen more will clamber bloodied and triumphant across their corpses. Ultimately, though, all this means is that you die half a dozen more times, in half a dozen new ways. Limbo is a terrible place, reflecting the whims of its rulers.

There have been many, in what passes for the past. Demon Lords have battled and intrigued for the throne of this realm for as long as they have dwelt here, and on at least two occasions human sorceresses from the plane of Earth have gained ascendance. These beings, these powers, defeated their competitors and sat on the throne. None of them truly understood the nature of the place.

Limbo is Chaos. Pure and absolute, by its very nature encompassing all things within its infinity. The pockets and periods of order that these petty powers believed to be the limit of the realm were merely the edges of bubbles within it. To truly rule Limbo, you must become part of it.

At this time the throne of the realm is occupied by a human woman named Magik, the second to use that name. She maintains her fortress, she controls the population, and like so many others she thinks that she therefore rules Limbo. She struggles, and she maintains her position by the strength of her will and the power of her enchantments. The moment her guard drops or her power fails, she will be swept away, and Limbo will naturally revert back to its true Lord.

Belasco sits in a place that is no place, and waits, as he has done many times before.

He has the power, after all, and this means that he also has an obligation.

You understand all about power and obligation. Once, long ago, you went to college in America, and while there roomed with a young man named Parker, and fought alongside a hero named Spider-Man. You now know these two to be one and the same.

Spider-Man's creed was that great power brings great responsibility. The man you were then heard this, but never really understood what it meant. You came to accept your power as his right, to do with as you pleased. It was only when you put it aside, chose to neglect your obligations, that you learned once and for all what Parker had meant. Your selfishness, your irresponsibility, cost your sister her sight.

That was a long time ago. Since then you have descended into alcoholism, and returned, have been trapped in the confusion of the time stream, and returned once more, have lost the power that you had accepted, and regained far more. Since then she has died twice, been changed beyond all recognition, travelled farther from this world than most human beings could ever imagine, and finally come full circle through your intervention. You are the ruler of the Omniverse, holding godlike power over a hundred hundred Earths, and you used your power to return her to life, health and youth.

This was wrong, and you know it.

This was also right, on a level that has nothing to do with obligations, with duty, with the responsibility of power, and everything to do with humanity, with not becoming as your predecessor, aloof, cold, and ultimately insane.

And there was also an obligation as old as human intelligence. Betsy is your family.

There are other obligations, though. You had friends once, teammates. Some of them need nothing from you, while others are beyond even your aid. But there are a few things you can do in their memories.

You contemplate the ten thousand worlds over which you rules, and the other realms that edge these worlds, and he makes a decision.

Limbo is one of the edge realms, an outside realm, a grey realm. It is one place, one thing, containing all things as part of the chaos that is itself.

You know this, for it is self-evident.

Limbo is a realm of illusion and magic, inhabited by demons and lost souls -- not of the dead, but of those who wandered in, and never found a way back out.

You know this, because it has been explained to you.

Limbo, finally, is shaped by the wills of beings of power. A skilled sorcerer or a powerful demon may shape the environment with little difficulty. A being such as you have become can twist the realm itself, though it is no part of your domain.

You walk, and voices whisper around you. They threaten, they demand, they beseech. A little of your power could aid them, could free them from Limbo.

They are a distraction. You ignore them.

You walk, and visions bombard you. Demons try to take your mind, to drive you insane. They assault you, and their attacks slide away from your defences. A little of your power could defeat them, could wipe them from existence.

They are a distraction. You ignore them.

Elder beings -- horrors whose names are older than language -- reach for your soul, clawing at it with clammy tendrils. Their magic is as powerful as any mortal, close to your own. They hurl attacks at you, and then slide cunning tendrils towards the edges of the shields around your soul. These creatures cannot be destroyed. You could banish them, though, and the words that will do this rise up unbidden from the depths of your mind.

You ignore them, too. Like almost everything else in this realm, they are only a distraction.

Finally, you reach your destination. A tall, urbane man, red-skinned and bearded, sits at a table set with elegant silver cutlery and priceless crystal. It is laid for two.

'Majestor.' He inclines his head to you as you sit down. 'What brings you to my little corner of this mighty realm?' Food appears on the table before you, roast beef, potatoes, vegetables. It looks beautiful. It smells delicious. Wine fills your glasses, dark red and rich.

You do not eat or drink.

'Belasco. I seek an assurance.'

'What could I, a mere deposed demonling, do to help a being such as yourself, the most powerful being in the Earth realms?' You lean across the table and meet his gaze. His hands -- the real one, and the false -- rest on the table, on either side of his plate.

'Promise me you will stay deposed.' He raises an eyebrow at that. You hold the power here, and you both know it, but destroying him would cost you, at least in this realm. 'Amanda Sefton, Magik, is under my protection. You will not interfere with her rule.'

'But what, then, have I to live for? You ask a lot of me, Majestor.'

'She will fall, in time, and then Limbo will once more fall to you, Belasco.' He does not deny it. 'When that day comes, I will support your reign, until such time as you threaten me or mine.' And these days all humanity are your responsibility, but you do not remind him of that.

'That seems reasonable.' He smiles, and lifts his glass. 'Was there anything else?'

'Yes.' You tell him, thinking back to the vision you saw, to the dark world and the smallest hint of hope in the darkness.

Sounds, ideas, concepts.

Serenity.

There is a place where time and space are interchangeable, where merely by existing all things change, and where any being can achieve apotheosis -- or oblivion.

There is a world built from belief and furnished with thought, a realm of gods and legends, a place of purest light and primeval darkness.

This is not Heaven. This is the Dreamtime.

Once, it is said, the world was linked to the Dream. People emerged from the Dream and populated the earth. The gods walked among them as animals and men, and the world was a beautiful, if harsh, place.

Despite decades of anthropological study, this is probably the single most likely explanation for the indigenous population of Australia.

Lately, though, there has come an edge of darkness to the Dream.

It reaches out to minds across the planet, as it has always done. It touches them, inspires them.

It drives them mad.

What was once a network of dreams has become a web of nightmares.

And in the centre, the Dreamtime's new master sits, and searches, and waits.