38 This is another of the key Corwin-involving Symphony pieces that is much older than its release position implies (though not as much older as For Tomorrow). It was complete in draft form (pending some pretty significant revisions, about which more later) not long after I finished the critical scenes in Endgame, the last part of Knights of the Tenth World - immediately after the bits of For Tomorrow that set it up.

101 Touga's speech is pretty much exactly what he said before every trip some poor jerk took to the End of the World in the last story arc of Revolutionary Girl Utena. Corwin's reaction to it is... atypical.

183 Nanami dares not speak Anthy's name - especially not in Akio's presence.

188 Corwin's asking if he's in top gear. Five-speed transmissions in cars are a relatively modern innovation. In the 1950s, this T-bird's day, a four-speed was cutting-edge tech.

257 They resemble Sith robes - a nod to Darth Venger, who is helping Akio set up the Order of the Black Rose in Oriphos at this time.

288 In Greek mythology, Persephone is doomed to spend part of the year in the Underworld as the bride of Hades after he tricks her into eating pomegranate seeds. (This is the ancient Greeks' explanation for winter.)

319 Despite their well-earned reputation for evil, svartelves are not demons; in fact, as denizens of the lowest of the heavens, they are technically minor celestials, what mortals might call angels. There are quite a number of svartelven demons, however, who earned the "honor" as Akio did - by living lives of such consummate wickedness that Surtur raised them to demonhood after their first deaths.

325 Not even Surtur's power can erase an Æsir blood curse. It's possible that Odin and/or the three Norns working in concert could do so, but why would they?

360 Demio, Dios's predecessor as Prince of Cephiro, continues the MKR-inspired tradition of naming prominent Cephireans after cars. The Mazda Demio is a tiny city car which, in its fully-hopped-up racing form, is the single most hilarious thing in the original Gran Turismo.

370 I'm rather proud of the name of Pillar Diamante in this case, since it not only matches the "gems" convention of the canonical Emeraude, but is once again the name of a kind of car.

436 Up to this point, much of what Akio says is, if not true, at least founded on truth. The relations between Dios's Trinity and Anthy were not, perhaps, quite as he describes them, and Anthy's motivations in taking the power of the Prince from Dios are certainly misrepresented, but there is more truth than falsehood in his story so far. The gap, however, will steadily widen from this point on.

486 Akio does not know, and indeed could not comprehend, the strength of will it took for Corwin, having lived through Interlude at the Hotel Monolith, not to kill him where he sat and the consequences be damned, never mind retaining his composure.

531 We know this part is false; we saw what really happened in Tower Shrouded in Frost.

563 This may be the ultimate "I meant to do that" in the history of history itself.

569 Specifically, though it doesn't come up here, Akio is Duke of Cocytus, the province of Muspelheim which is the special fate of betrayers.

692 As Corwin noted -- Akio may be able to fool a lot of people with his twisted tales, but Verthandi, Norn of Today, Goddess of Fidelity? That's another matter entirely. Looks like Akio missed out on the memo that Belldandy absolved Anthy of what she had done... too bad. Really. PJM

697 Nithling is a particularly foul Norse curse, implying that the person being spoken to is a vile coward and a wretch without even the faintest vestige of honor, not merely unworthy of respect but fit only to be actively reviled (and he probably has a tiny dick as well). So grave an insult is this that Corwin skirts the razor's edge of starting an Asgard-Muspelheim war merely by pronouncing it in the hall of a Muspel-Duke.

710 Akio isn't angry because what he just attempted didn't work - he didn't expect it to. He's angry that Corwin took control of their meeting and left in full command of himself rather than either committing some aggrieved blunder of fleeing in disarray. And that he called him nithling.

771 A female demon, the least of the major demons of UF-Muspelheim. Succubi are compulsive seductresses, unable to approach any situation as anything other than an act of sexual predation without intense mental effort, and most of them prefer not to bother fighting their nature anyway. They and their male counterparts, the incubi, are the most personable of major demons, for obvious reasons, and are often employed as diplomats and intelligence agents in the service of the Dread Lord of Flame. In Midgardian myth they visit men in the night and steal their strength, not to mention precious bodily fluids. In reality they rarely leave the Pit, and when they do it's usually to go to one of the heavens. They certainly don't make a practice of raiding hapless Midgardians in their sleep; there's neither sport nor gain in it.

814 Another song about cars (in particular the early-'60s Chevrolet Bel Airs with the 409-cubic-inch big-block V8 truck engine, which were popular among hot rod enthusiasts of the day).

841 Inasmuch as Nanami liked anybody back in the day, she rather liked Miki, or at least thought he deserved better than to be saddled with Kozue.

892 Refers to an as-yet-unchronicled incident that took place during the "exile" in Asgard that's just ending for him. One of the Valkyrie was involved, but oddly enough it wasn't Vigdis Brightblade.

900 In the original draft of this story, Corwin does decline, and sends Nanami on her way. As I was preparing the piece for release, though, I - like Corwin - had to take a step back and really take a hard look at his state of mind (and spirit), and his motivation in turning her down. Eventually I concluded that it would open up more opportunities for me if he accepted - and that under the circumstances, he wouldn't say no.

925 For instance, he and Nanami could never have had this revealing little conversation if he'd turned her down and sent her packing.

957 Some days it seems to Corwin as if his entire dharma is tidying up after Akio and/or Touga. Which is admittedly a noble calling, but one has to admit that it does get a bit old after a while.

1007 Well, he had one choice, but he was too tired to think of it and it might not have worked anyway. There are certain legal technicalities having to do with the circumstances of her damnation and his standing as a Valkyrie he might have attempted to exploit. Corwin is no lawyer, however, and he was utterly exhausted, so the possibility never occurred to him - and besides, she might have taken being forced to stay in Asgard even worse than being asked.

1060 The trickiest part of this Intermezzo, as I recall, was to somehow balance Corwin's natural reluctance to believe anything Akio said with making it still seem plausible to him and to the reader that what's being spoken is worth considering - especially given all the Symphonies that had been produced so far. Whether it was successful is an exercise for the reader, but as far as the characters involved, this piece served its purpose. PJM