Shiva said that in the Land of Pattern he had to find threads of magic that would help him. As he wondered what they could be, the Land of Now became the Land of Pattern.

The Land of Pattern was a land of the abstract, all pattern and little substance. There were patterns of light and dark, of color and shape, of sound and song, of words and chant. It was a place where the patterns were emphasized so you could see the patterns of substance instead of the substance itself, and tell the difference. There were even patterns of meaning, called stories, or history.

And there were patterns in human movement called dance, in human words called poetry, in sound called music, in light called art. All had shape, form, repetition, rhythm, rhyme, mood, flow. They all came from the substance and reality of life, but then emerged above and beside the substance itself to reveal a new truth about life -- its pattern, energy, and the ability to move and delight in its own right. Art showed the template of life, its architecture, its shape and color, its pleasing and displeasing, its lyricism as well as its clash and ugliness. The magic was in seeing the shape and color of life and the universe.

He came to understand that one aspect of such patterns was beauty, and that beauty was a thing in itself, not describing the things and people that held beauty. But beauty and appearance could be a matter of life and death, since criminals were left uncaptured and unconvicted because they looked good, and that no one would worry about the killing of baby seals if they were ugly as cockroaches.

The most magical seemed to be art and music and poetry. In these, sentences were as wiggly little worm-like strings, all colors, some ended with knots of different kinds where the words rhymed. Similar sentences and poems became like textured fabrics, varying but alike.

He saw and heard all these and picked out the ones with the greatest magic, and held them tightly like threads in his fist.

The words that were magic were these words, the very ones in this story.

He finally had all he could hold in his fist, and hoped they were enough, since he had to go.