thought at all. She just was.
There was also something else. Not a person-Tyr had no idea what persons were
but a presence, with which the world was as it should be, and without which her
surroundings ceased to be a world. A human looking through Tyr’s mind would have
perceived such a place as hell-all certainties gone, all loves abolished,
nothing left but an emotional void through which one fell sickeningly, forever.
It had been that way long ago. In Tyr’s vague way she dreaded that hell’s
return. But since the Presence came into the world, knitting everything
together, hell had stayed far away.
There were also familiar shapes that moved about in her life. One was thin and
gangly with a lot of curly straggly fur on top, and shared one or another of
Tyr’s sleeping spots with her. The other was a tall, blond-bearded shape that
had been with her longer and had acquired more importance. Tyr dimly understood
that the presence of this second shape had something to do with her well-being
or lack of it, but she wasn’t capable of working out just what, or of caring
that she couldn’t. When the tall shape held her, when in its presence food
manifested itself, or sticks flew and she ran and brought them back, Tyr was
ecstatically happy. Even when the skinny shape subtracted itself from her
universe, she wasn’t upset for long. Both the Presence and the tall shape,
though surprised, seemed to approve; so it must have been all right. And the
shape that counted hadn’t gone away. It was when that shape was missing, or she