Fate summoned a door from the darkness. " Come," she said, " we are being awaited at the Table of Manifestation."

" The table of what now? The hell you talkin’ about now?"

" Listen up you little wretch, I could have left you for dead. There aren’t many with your talent, but we could have found another. You are replaceable! Now show some respect for your betters!" Fate lifted a finger. " Behold the cruel hand of Fate!" she cried.

Intense pain ran up Ash’s leg. He fell screaming to the ground before Fate.

" Stop! Dammit! Stop!"

" You will show respect in front of the table. Agreed?"

At this point, Ash would have agreed to anything. " Okay, okay, I will! Just make it stop!"

" That’s better. Now we go. Why you foolish humans put so much belief in me, I will never understand. Oh well, it’s for the greater good. Well, mine anyway."

Ash massaged his mangled leg. " I don’t know if you can see, Fate, but the better part of my leg is missing."

" You’re helpless, you know that?"

Fate lifted her finger skywards and began walking. Ash cringed and readied himself for the oncoming pain. The pain never came. That sensation of being carried returned and Ash floated through the door into a hallway behind Fate.

" Where are we?"

" We are exiting the realm of Consciousness and entering the Imagination."

" So this is just a horrible, horrible dream?"

Ash dropped from the air on to his injured leg like a sack of rocks.

"Aaaagh!!"

"You’d think that you would get it by now. No smart remarks!"

Ash nodded feebly. He floated upwards again, and he and Fate resumed their trek down the hall.

" So, Fate, do you think you can explain to me what the hell is going on?"

Fate looked angry. " Gladly. You humans are quite an imaginative species. We especially enjoy when you create personae for natural events."

" So you’re just a personification of the force of Fate?"

" Yes indeed. All the denizens of the Table are what you would call ‘figments of imagination’ "

While they walked (and floated), the hallway had grown larger, and people had begun to pass by. All sorts of people. Big, small. Human, not-human. Ash looked upon each with a sense of familiarity. A huge door had appeared in the distance.

" So, if what you’re saying is correct, if I imagine something stupid like, oh I don’t know, ‘ Manifest Destiny as controlled by Pigs’"

" No!!" screamed Fate.

There was an odd sound, much like a thousand people saying "piff". In a small cloud of pink smoke, a pig in an army uniform appeared, and squealed by, presumably to go annex Texas.

" Never abuse the privilege of humanity!" yelled Fate.

The pig disappeared in a cloud of white dust.

" Where’d he go?" Ash asked, mystified.

" A Manifestation can only survive if many people believe in it. Most only survive momentarily, like your porcine chum."

Ash turned and saw a brown owl settle on Fate’s shoulder.

" Wisdom, this is Ash, the newest servant of the Cause."

Wisdom the owl made a very polite owl-bow and remarked, "How do you do." He turned to Fate and murmured: "Bottom of the barrel, eh Fate?"

" Tell me about it."

" I heard that!"