Thief of Time - Fusion

'What are you supposed to do when you are where you're supposed to be?' said Susan.

Lobsang reached down and touched Jeremy's hand with his fingertip.

The world went white.

Susan wondered later if this was what it would be like at the heart of a star. It wouldn't be yellow, you wouldn't see fire, there would just be the searing whiteness of every overloaded sense screaming all at once.

It faded, gradually, into a mist. The walls of the room appeared, but she could see through them. There were other walls beyond, and other rooms, transparent as ice and visible only at the corners and where the light caught them. In each one another Susan was turning to look at her. The rooms went on forever.

Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and - this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit - it didn't even make you right. But it did make you definite, and she was definite that what was happening around her was not, in any accepted sense, real. That was not in itself a problem. Most of the things humans busied themselves with weren't real, either.

But sometimes the mind of the most sensible person encountered something so big, so complex, so alien to all understanding, that it told itself little stories about it instead. Then, when it felt it understood the story, it felt it understood the huge incomprehensible thing. And this, Susan knew, was her mind telling
itself a story.

There was a sound like great heavy metal doors slamming, one after another, getting louder and faster...

The universe reached a decision.

The other glass rooms vanished. The walls clouded. Colour rose, pastel at first, then darkening as timeless reality flowed back.

The bed was empty. Lobsang had gone. But the air was full of slivers of blue light, turning and swirling like ribbons in a storm.

Susan remembered to breathe again. 'Oh,' she said aloud. 'Destiny.'

She turned. The bedraggled Lady LeJean was still staring at the empty bed.

***

The Thief of Time - p285-286