1

“After all of the work, my lord, to infiltrate the Tower of Tones, and wrestle the Eraser from the Woman in White?” Keeney said. He had been a part of the infiltrating force that had stolen the Eraser from the Woman in White on Dandelion twenty years ago, taking one of her students with them, a man named Valucias, to experiment on in the basement of the Laboratory on Lavender.

Leere stood looking out of the top of the Tower of Hate over the only city on Lavender, named after Him. His red cloak billowed, and He wore his hood up. It was an ominous sight, and though Keeney believed that this being was his Lord and Savior, He inspired fear. As He should, Keeney thought.

“My lord?” Keeney asked.

With a voice like gravel and the hiss of leather, Leere said, “We will get it back. When it is needed again. For now, this must be.”

“Of course, my lord,” Keeney said, turning to go, then thought to ask, “shall I restore security measures in the Temple of Emptiness?”

Leere nodded His head ever so slightly, something Keeney was lucky to have caught.

“Yes, my lord,” Keeney said. Then Leere disappeared from the room. He had come and gone like this many times since returning twenty years ago. The savior of the Hate, the Necrolore, had wished to remain discreet during that time, coming for short periods of time to give instructions to the Rakshasas, then disappearing again. Though Leere told them He was here to stay this time, He was rarely in one place for long, claiming He had many things to do before the One Dream could come to its true fruition. And then everything will be set right. These false idols, illusory beliefs, this bickering over wages right and true, all gone—obliterated. In His hands, we will all dream His dream. The true dream.

2

The common room had a thick, red area carpet on top of oak hardwood flooring. The bookshelves that covered the room’s walls reached up to the ceiling thirty feet overhead. There were several rolling ladders to reach the higher shelves. Leslie thought he would never be able to read all these books in three lifetimes, but he wasn’t a big reader. If someone learned their mantrums from a book and hours of study, Leslie would congratulate them and tell them how lovely it was that they had done it! Inside, however, Leslie would think how completely unoriginal that person was, how rigid, and …

Tik-tik.

And … unenjoyable, he thought as he looked down at the Eraser. He felt like it was calling to him. The mantrum slipped into the edges of his awareness again. No. I have to take it to Carter.

The room was furnished with four sitting chairs, three couches, and three tables with chairs tucked into little divots against the wall where each bookshelf split into an arch. The common room was a circular shape, about thirty-two feet wide, just over twice the length of the sesnickie from tail to head.

Pip’s lounging pillow sat vacant to Leslie’s left as he entered the room. The pillow was red with gold embroidered foxes and sat next to a small table with an incense tray, an ashtray, and a deck of Fishing cards. Leslie recalled the Fishing card that had pointed them all in the direction of the Eraser: Red Herring Drinks from an Empty Cup. There was a small, mostly blackened Sly Grass roach sitting in the ashtray. Must have smoked and gone to Svargaloka while I was gone.

Leslie walked through the large archway across the room from where he’d come in, into the hallway that led to his room. The walls were lit by the soft orange glow of thrumming lamps inside iron wall sconces every four feet. Leslie’s room was the first door to his right. No time for sleep, Leslie thought.

Tik-tik, the chaos music challenged.

He continued down the hallway, and as he reached the end, a babbling voice became audible and grew louder with each step.

“Bab-goob job-job. Aum was shanti-fu. Biba lop,” Leslie’s brother Carter babbled. At the head of the dining room table sat Quint, who faced Leslie as he walked in. On the long side of the table to Leslie’s left sat a woman with dark hair and dark eyes reading a book. Necrolore and Merrilore was the title of this one. He’d heard of it. A fairy tale. A fairy tale that he’d had to read over and over, and over again on Lavender—one that the Hate took very seriously. There was Leere, the story-taker, the Necrolore, the Void that absorbed all into itself to make One Dream. Then there was the Merrilore, who shared the stories of all and allowed them to be as they would be. Waste of time, books, especially that one, Leslie thought. Fiona always seemed to be reading some book, and it annoyed Leslie.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Hey, Fiona. Pleasant reading? Better watch out or the Necrolore might steal all your books!” Leslie said, mocking the strange plot of the book. He still didn’t know what it meant, really. The Necrolore would take all the stories away and give back His story?

Fiona did not look up. She had a beautiful, oval-shaped face, but it wasn’t so long that it stole from her beauty. Her mouth usually stayed in a thin, tight line. She wore a white, long-sleeved button-up that clung to her form. Though Leslie couldn’t see her legs from above the table, he knew that she wore green pants and black boots underneath.

Carter, who sat next to Fiona, had the same dirty blonde as Leslie, dark circles under his blue eyes, and pale skin. He was a bit more muscular than Leslie, and wore the same clothes as Fiona, but fitted for a man.

“Hello, Carter,” Leslie said. Carter’s only response was to continue babbling, looking from one hand to the other, then at the ceiling as if something was just about to make very much sense to him.

“La do mein the. See-doa. Yas Joel.”

“Hello, Leslie,” Fiona said as she looked from her book to Leslie’s exposed manhood. Then a small grin cracked the thin line of her mouth. “Chilly?”

In his haste, Leslie had forgotten he had no clothes on. His face flushed, and he began walking toward Carter, covering himself with the Eraser.

Quint said, “It won’t hurt him to be this way for a time longer. Sit, Leslie. You need to eat. I know how they eat in that awful place. You’ll need your energy for this or my name’s not Quint the Squint.” At this last bit, Quint leaned forward with exaggerated seriousness and squinted his eyes, looking like he had been the one babbling. Leslie knew that some people did indeed refer to Quint as Quint the Squint sometimes, but never in this house.

“You’re not in a meeting, so I hardly think the squinting is necessary,” Fiona said.

“My dear Fiona, I am always trying to sell something. I just don’t always know what it is,” Quint said.

Leslie hesitated, then he pulled out the chair closest to him at the opposite side of the table from Quint. Quint coughed wetly into his shoulder and then continued to squint at Leslie. So it hasn’t gotten any better, Leslie thought. Quint had been coughing like this before Leslie had left for Lavender over a month ago. Stubborn bastard won’t stop squinting though.

Quint squinted.

Leslie held tight to the Eraser and wondered if Quint knew that he wanted—no, needed to use it, which terrified Leslie. It was as if it wanted him to forget about his brother and use it for himself.

“Leslie? Are you alright?” Quint asked, still squinting, though a bit more compassionately than before. Leslie hadn’t realized that his face had been slowly inching closer to the Eraser in his hands. He felt a bit of drool coming down the left side of his chin. He put the Eraser down on the table in front of him and smiled up at Quint. He could feel the smile resisting on his face and let go of it.

“Yes. Fine. Um—sorry. I could just see my reflection in it, and—well, you know … they don’t have mirrors there, and …”

“Annnnd … you finally saw how FUCKED you look!” Quint said, smiling, peering at Leslie over his circle-rimmed glasses. With that frizzle-frazzle hair behind his unkempt grey-and-white beard, Quint looked like a sketched image of a man that had been struck by lightning. He raised a glass. “Cheers to your restored self-awareness! Now let’s eat! Putnam?”

The door to Quint’s left opened to a very bright room filled with pots, pans, and the smell of a hot meal. Putnam the manservant glided through.

Phildrious Putnam looked to be about fifty years old with few hairs on his head, and most likely fewer formidable opponents in a contest for finest posture. He carried a tray in one hand, and in the other he carried nothing because there was no other hand. The other hand was a tray. Leslie had never understood how Quint had secured a phase-shifter as a manservant. Putnam currently took the form of what would make the most sense for everyone at the table. He was a manservant, so that’s what he looked like, livery and all—only the hand that was not a hand really stood out because it was currently a metal tray. The not-hand held little crumble cakes while the other hand held a metal tray carrying hot potato soup and sourdough bread.

“Welcome back, master Leslie,” Putnam said with a small bow. His voice was cordial and uninvested. Leslie was beginning to sweat.

“Thank you.” Leslie’s heart pounded. He looked down at the Eraser. Putnam leaned over the table, pushing the crumble cakes from his not-hand onto a silver dish in the center. The tray was replaced by a human hand and Putnam made his way around the table with the tray of potato soup and sourdough bread. When Putnam got to Fiona, he paused to look at the book that sat in front of her. Putnam’s face turned down slightly into a frown, which was odd for the phase-shifter—he usually let little to no emotion show on his face—then he shook his head as if to wake up, and resumed his pleasant display of non-emotion. Leslie was covered in sweat at this point. Was Quint looking at him again? The tik-tik had left his head as soon as he had put the Eraser down and Leslie missed it. He actually missed the chaos music of Lavender that the black tablet played inside his head when he touched it. If he could just hold it one more time … the mantrum … what was it?

Leslie …

Leslie …

Leeeslieee …

“Master Leslie?” Putnam said behind Leslie’s left shoulder. Putnam held the tray with soup and his not-hand was now a ladle. “Would you care for some potato soup?” Putnam said. Leslie was hyperventilating.

“NO I DO NOT WANT ANY FUCKING SOUP!” Leslie grabbed the Eraser, muttered something under his breath, and disappeared from the room along with the Eraser.

3

“Bas-mati-con-funishtu. Bobishbo can-toni,” Carter said as he continued to fidget in his seat, trying to solve some impossible problem. Unbeknownst to him, the solution to his biggest problem had just vanished.