Now, don’t tell the bees, but those four—said four being Roby, Ben Garment, Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen, and their new comrade, Lorenzo the bee—ran for several ensuing hours, passing under the river, over the woods, and through the bridge, and at last hid in the most useful hiding place imaginable—nothing better than atop a giant granite disc, carved deep with the runes of ancient anteaters and spinning at a thousand R. P. M. per hour, powered by jambalaya cookouts and demibooks, a place as spacious as it was translucent, and as sporadic as a martingale. They hadn’t brought any towel racks, however, so home it could hardly be said to be.
“The bees are quite dislocated,” said Roby, after the requisite period of breath-catching and crowd-pleasing was over, “and we, on this disc, are likewise rotated!”
“All bees but one trouble us no more,” said Ben Garment. “Who’s this stealther? It might upset the alarm! Quickly—inform all and sundry that this day is alarm-testing day, and any alarms rung should be ignored.”
“I know that!” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “Everyone knows that! That’s an urban legend—they say that every year! The alarm never rings—not ever at all!”
“This bee of me,” said Roby, “is one without guns or GUNZ and so is not one of those ones but another one! Bee, say the tale of you and we can be meeted, and then an escape by us can be completed.”
“My tale is told enough,” said Lorenzo. “As I have previously announced, I am Lorenzo, and I have listened to you two fine teachers for long, and from your tutelage gained such wisdom as I’m able to wield.”
“So, so!” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “A fellow student! I should have guessed—should have known! I’m pretty sure I recognize you from lunch class! Yes, us two students, together, working alike, we’ll go far! I know it! I guess it! At least, I think I do.”
“Nay,” said Lorenzo, “no student am I by formality, but my knowledge is gained accidentally. The time of study is done—now, we require action.”
“Not a student?” said Ben Garment. “Done with school, then, are we? Well, that has but one response!”
“The bee of we has passed the class,” said Roby, “and mastered the act of learning! Now we see the bee proceed to join the work force—enjoy it, of course—and go toward the path of earning!”
“Spare me that thought,” said Lorenzo. “I shall be no laborer!”
“Wait—wait!” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “He can’t be done—not yet, no, not until the ceremony! A graduation—a suitable ritual to be the finale to a youth burnt in the institution!”
Lorenzo presented his enblanked attendance sheet by way of protestation, but none were as indifferent as he, and so Roby and Ben Garment commenced Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen’s planned eventuals, as they were very proud for having educated their pupil completely, and they decided to hold a graduation ceremony suited to Lorenzo’s triumphant achieves. They couldn’t afford a big ceremony, and at any rate had no friends to invite to fill the seats, so a stadium rental would go to waste, so, instead, they just went to the courthouse to get sworn at by a judge who called them all a bunch of—well, I don’t want to put it in writing, and it’ll sound worse if left unsaid, so fill in your own blanks. Just assume anything you like, can’t go wrong. But at any rate, despite all evidence, everyone agreed that Lorenzo had graduated with the highest of honors: at all.
“So! So!” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “This makes me salutatorian. Second place! Silver medal! I’ll take it!”
“You haven’t graduated yet,” said Ben Garment.
“I’ll take it,” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen, taking her new title seriously.
“We’ll deal with your education later—and your thieving ways,” said Lorenzo. “As you all must guess, the bees will surely give chase. My ruse, though brilliant, will not keep them occupied overlong. As an unruly lot, they have attacked you, and made waste of your home, but let me speak to them—I can resolve this situation without further violence.”
Ben Garment said, “We are at a great loss now, due to wreckage and menace caused by the bee flock!”
“All can be made right,” said Lorenzo, “in time. First, give me a chance to quell simmering attitudes.”
“This is an idea,” said Roby, “with a danger measured at greatness! These bees see rage blazing unabated, embracing hatred, and will chase us for ages! We must trust we will be crushed to dust if they touch us!”
“Such is the way of bees,” said Lorenzo solemnly.
“If we want to talk to ’em,” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen, exercising her salutatorial status and her volumetric knowledge gained in the day of her schooling, “we’ll need three good razor blades and much, much longer feet!”
“Nay!” said Lorenzo. “That is old-fashioned methodology. It isn’t necessary anymore. There are better ways these days—we can simply use a cattail, or a biplane, or a few good gyros.”
“A clever update,” said Ben Garment, “and a novel catastrophe—you see, none of these are had-things. You paint us as creeked up as can be!”
But there was a further creek up which to be, as it soon transpore, for that giant granite disc carved with runes and spinning? Well, turns out it wasn’t just a set piece for the community theater’s production of Maestro and Macguffin: The Will or the Wisp, but was actually a giant record, currently in use by a giant, and that giant was Dubious Miraclasm. He had been listening to the record, but reached saturation and grew weary of it, and so went to pick it up—taking up our heroes with it—and then dumped them, record and all, into the sleeve, and slid the sleeve into the album cover, and put the album into the big safe in the basement and locked it shut. Locked the safe, I mean. But also locked the basement.
They were trapped—but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about the bees anymore.
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“Is anyone harmed?” said Lorenzo, for the delivery to the inside of the giant’s safe had been sudden, housing the potential for injury, and now it was too dark for him to verify by seeing, and so a query was necessary—thus flows the thought process of a bee. He had no match, and wouldn’t light it if he did.
“Someone, somewhere,” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “Truly, pain is inevitable in life.”
“Is any of you three harmed?” said Lorenzo.
“I am,” said Roby, “not! And I give thanks a lot. But now our spot some distance has got from our goal from before of making a score against a foe or four and seeing friends restored!”
Ben Garment, being an anglerfish, was quite comfortable in the dark, but, for the assistance of his friends, he lit up his dangler to bring light to the innards of the safe. It was a giant’s safe, so it was spacious for them, but filled with giant records that towered over them like towers, and the giant, Dubious Miraclasm, had such terrible taste. In the library was represented such infamous performants as Stuck Jacobsson, the Gillfingers, Machismo and the Red Stitches, and, as usual, Tedsteve.
“Reminds me of the old purse,” said Ben Garment. “The dark, I mean. I find it a comfort, in a way.”
“We are severed from our past,” said Lorenzo. “But perhaps we can make a fresh start here.”
Now, Lorenzo and Ben Garment nodded, and Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen put some headbobs in as well, not quite getting the motion right. Roby did not join them, for a thought rattled in her brain that gave her no rest, and, ere anyone else could attempt to construct another doomed domicile, she put her thought to voice.
“We have fallen,” said Roby, “far off track, and have got to get back! Traycup is still lacking, so we must go attacking this giant that keeps us until he releases. Us.”
Now, Roby and Traycup only met a short while ago, and’ve had barely a handful of adventures together, and yet Roby’s friend list was woefully short, so she meant to keep the ones she seemed to have. Traycup would have to be reacquired. She didn’t want to seem single-minded and unimpress the others, least of all her new friend in Lorenzo the bee—it was surely unhealthy to remain so obsessed. But—having friends! This was a worthy goal—society said so! Why, even Ben Garment, who had been so upset at her for breaking her noble, mobile mansion, had nearly been cordial during their tenure at the school, which she now realized they had forgotten to name.
And also, if there was time later, they should probably track down Roby’s mother, figure out what that was all about.
“Friends are friends until the end,” said Roby, “and so it falls to us to extend a helping hand to see if we can rescue our pal from his festering cell!”
Ben Garment beheld her and nodded sagely, acquiescing to the fervor of her decision. Lorenzo and Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen would have to be brought up to speed on the whole Traycup situ’ off-screen at some point.
“I’ll coddle that,” said Ben Garment. “He’s a co-byejiller, an oath that can’t be broke!”
Lorenzo glanced about and shrugged. “Then an exit from here must be found,” he said. “Perhaps we can find an embassy, and for the price of merely rescinding citizenship, we can apply for fugitive aid and be deported.”
“I’ll apply the genius of my education!” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen. “Stand back as I think!” The others did stand back and she thought as hard as she could—or at least she thought she thought as hard as she could—until she came up with the best plan her mind was willing to concoct without a blue motorcycle. “We should split up,” she said. “We are safe in a safe! We’ll each put out whatever feelers we like, or look with our eyes, or hire the sweet baking irrelevance— and let come what may!”
“It’s not May,” said Ben Garment.
“I glean your meaning,” said Lorenzo. “North, south, east, and west—we each strike out, and return when our expedition is spent.”
So they decided that this was a good plan, or that it was a plan, and it was good to have a plan—and so they each struck out in a different direction.
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Ben Garment went north, because he had the most ens in his name, and ventured for three days, twelve years, a hundred and sixteen hours, and a month, though he did not keep track as neatly as I’ve. Now, there in the north lay the Plains of Harndrone, vast meadows overgrown with deadly killterberry bushes, and beyond that was the Forest of Edcoplanmia, where the trees were tall and limbless, crowned with pink leaves that folded themselves up to catch the steaming and stinking rain. Ben Garment went to neither of those places, because they were big and far and adventurous and sounded like a lot of work. There at the end of an old road, where the plains were just about to begin, was a victuals stand run by Hankermeyer Auld Poxmanager.
“Hey, man,” said Hankermeyer, “oval day to ya. Pick up some victuals afore you go?”
Ben Garment gazed out across the plains, and listened to the distant roaring of the killterberries. “I’ll be an eater, this time,” said he.
“A boot heel, a recorder—” Hankermeyer said, playing a few notes on it, “—a coloring book with a few pages still untouched—just take yer pick.”
“So! You’ve got it all,” said Ben Garment. “There’s a secret here to a life well-lived. Now that—apply that to the menu and name your price!”
Hankermeyer laughed. “Nay, I’ve only got the one, and I need it for myself!” he said. “If I had two, I might part with one, but the price is high—dragons slain and taxes paid. And for that one’d need—”
“Coplet’s Shogi for Kids and Kids-at-Heart,” sighed Ben Garment. Hankermeyer shrugged—he wasn’t going to budge on the deal, and Ben Garment knew it. He’d heard this story before.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Now, across the road from the victuals stand there was a bench, crowded with finches and made of the world’s first casino. Ben Garment was going to have nothing to do with the adventuresome journey ahead of him—challenge was certain and victory not nearly as much. Instead he sat down beside the finches and made himself five times as comfortable as a sauna-goer on break. The finches looked at him curiously, furiously, and with a little dollop of pity.
“Eh,” they said, “bus takes exact change only.”
“That’s not much of a concern,” said Ben Garment. “I don’t aim to ride on the bus.”
“’s good,” said the finches, “but that don’t change the fact—bus takes exact change only.”
The finches circled Ben Garment, and became steelish, and Ben Garment, speed-reading the room, swiftly fled into a drunk badger’s nostril. The finches came after him, but they couldn’t get into the badger’s nostril until they were level ten, and even with all of them combined, they were only fifty-three percent finished downloading the installation files. Ben Garment slipped the badger an easel, so as to ensober it, and then slipped it a second easel, just for fun. Without a word, the badger slunk away from the finches, carrying Ben Garment with it. It went all the way to the radio tower where Francce Hokum was running his numbers station. He took one look at Ben Garment, realized all was lost, and failed to turn the sofa cushion covers inside-out before he threw them in the wash. Marble Gladstone found out about that, and snagged him—Francce, I mean—with a custom-made lasso, and threw him—still Francce—into a pot with celery, carrots, and half a bacon wedge, where he—once again, still talking about Francce—began to simmer, sizzle, and ponder that secret-meaning-of-life stuff.
“I bet I can do it without Coplet’s,” he said, traditionally missing the chain.
Marble Gladstone took pity on him, but this isn’t about her—Ben Garment was still about. Marble Gladstone sharpened her club by hiring a new D. J. and changing all the lights, and forbade anyone to speak a spoken word about it—thus was broken the first rule, and its population tripled in an instant. The bouncer was overwhelmed, and in the ensuing rush for the entrances and exits, Ben Garment was able to slip into a ventilation duct that snuck him straight to a wet garden. There were no silly characters populating this location, and at last Ben Garment was able to get his bearings. Then the bus came.
“Gettin’,” said the bus.
“Try that with more propriety,” said Ben Garment.
“You’re right,” said the bus. “Well, you know what they say.”
“Only if it’s in earshot,” said Ben Garment.
The bus admitted defeat, and fled to a nearby cement mixer where it wove paper towels into a semi-functional grand piano which it named Colonoscopy and then sold to a murder of crows. Though this would have been a daunting attack in any other situation, the bus had already admitted defeat, and so Ben Garment had pressed on—or rather, pressed off, and retraced his steps whence he’d came, aiming via Hankermeyer’s at his startation point, to there await the others’ returns.
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Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen went south, because she had the most esses in her name. In the south was a moving truck that wasn’t moving at all—someone was idling it in front of an apartment building, and it was blocking half the road. Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen pulled up behind it and wasn’t sure if she could pass it or not. She wasn’t sure if she should. She waited for a minute, then two minutes, and then twenty-eight hours. Pretty soon it started to feel too awkward. What if someone pulled up behind her? What if a cop showed up? She couldn’t see past the truck—what if someone over there was waiting? What if it was all clear—then she’d be the idiot, still sitting there waiting. But—no! No idiot she, for she had gone to school, which by definition cured her of her stupidity and filled her with a most correct form of wisdom. Therefore, hers could not be but the right course of action! So all was well, and she was, as she assumed, a genius.
But education begets curiosity, and so she meant to investigate the situation. An unmoving moving truck was a subject that warranted research. Perhaps she’d be published in the trades. So Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen got out of her car, and it was immediately rehired by an internet security company and moved out-of-state to be more local to the main office. Her textbooks were still in the trunk, and she had a hundred and forty-two payments remaining on them—a small price to pay, however, to satisfy the query before her.
Another car pulled up behind her, and Giff Stumble hopped out, threw down a hula hoop in disgust, and sneezed right on the carbonara.
“This is an ill omen,” said Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen.
“I ain’t no omen,” said Giff, “so you’re half right. The name’s Giff Stumble. Pleased to meet you,” he said, bowing.
“Jockey Bradish,” she replied. “But this is no time for pleasantries—the omen!”
“Omen? Oh, man!” sighed Giff. “I s’pose I can’t blame you. I get it a lot. Look—” He gestured to his various body parts. “I get it from my mom. Just goes to show, huh?”
“Oh, I’ve never gone to a show,” said Jockey.
Giff looked one way, then the other. He stared at Jockey with a haunting look, and motioned for her to lean in close, to hear a secret. When she did he said, “Keep it that way.” With that, he patted her on a shoulder, and walked away, whistling. Jockey stayed froze in that shocked pose until Giff had gone around a corner, his whistling barely hearable over the truck’s rumbling engine, only notes of certain high pitches here and there carrying above the noise.
At last Jockey rose up and grit her teeth. For the first time, she felt the pleasure of determination. She said to herself, “I will go to a show.”
“So says you,” said a local owl, “but will’y make it so?” It bore two watering cans upon its back, all the better to open a new restaurant on that unused corner lot that’s had a for-lease sign standing on its turf since the seventies.
“There’s ample ways to find out!” said Jockey, ignoring the invitation to the backgammon game. She ran at a living sprint past the pie machine where a typist was figuring out the right order to manhandle a firing squad, past the frozen tofu section, now bereft of all selections but still bearing a lying sign, and even past the earl’s mansion, where someone had left a flywheel on the shelf.
“Lo!” declared the earl, but that was all he knew how to say.
Undeterred, Jockey arrove at the ranch where two trilobites were trying to figure out how to untangle their razors. She almost ignored them, her mind upon the coming-up show—but mercy gripped her at that moment, and she relented and attended their struggle.
“You need a little more lard,” said Jockey.
“We’ve tried six,” said the trilobites.
“Yeah,” said Jockey. “You can’t do it with less than eight.”
“Come now! That’s surely too many!” said the trilobites.
“Two is hardly any!” said Jockey. “Trust me. I’ve seen some things.”
Jockey demonstrated her technique, and the trilobites, quaint in their paleontologicality, found it astonishing. The innocence of youth! So impressed were the trilobites that they invote their friends to behold the demonstration, and all gathered around as Jockey showed again and again how to detangle razors with lard. Applause was proffered in a cacophony, but above that thunderous noise came another, as the clock struck noon and the bell enrang. Jockey thought of the curtains’ rising, a pang of sorrow in her eye, even as the trilobites clustered for another demo.
“Behold!” cried Jockey, smiling, as she took it from the top.
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Lorenzo had gone west, because his name had the most double-yous in it. The stalwart bee wrapped himself in heavy cloaks to shield him from the blazing desert heat and the slicing winds. A camel carried his camping gear and other belongings and a macaque carried a tune—somewhere else, though, not part of Lorenzo’s party of one. The macaque worked at a bar and sang all day, every day. It didn’t even practice anymore. There was just no need. It was always singing, sad songs, old songs, and the people would come and drink and no one said anything, but when they left they were made of clear glass and moved without a sound. Lorenzo was destined to never meet this macaque, which is a pity, because hearing it sing would make so many things finally make sense.
There’s no quotation marks in this part, because Lorenzo went alone, and didn’t run into anyone, and nearly not into anything. The desert was a great, empty expanse. He had maps and a compass and a great store of food and water, and began a methodical investigation, plotting his course carefully, using his tools with the ease of experience, his years informing his movements, as if he’d done all this before, time and time again. He had, but not here.
He mapped every edge of the desert, from the sandfalls in the far north to the endless canyons in the south, to the great glimmering dunes in the west, unassailable, towering to the heavens yet always tumbling and shifting, and back to the eastern edge, the point which he set out from—sorry, I mean, the point from which he set out. Lorenzo returned first, in fact—his efficiency, of course, made the trek a simple task for him. He pondered his results while he waited for the others.
When Ben Garment made his at-last return, he reported hopelessly impassable terrain and a virtually sold-out victuals vendor, much to Lorenzo’s dismay. Later, Jockey returned as well, having unseen any show, worn and weary, and glowing from defeat—but with no further success in locating an exit.
“Well,” said Lorenzo, “looks like we’ve all come up with nothing much.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Jockey.
“I think I’ve done the very same,” said Lorenzo.
“Hang it up a sec’,” said Ben Garment. “We’ve not all checked in, and one route’s contents remain unrevealed. Wherever could Roby be?”
The three of them glanced about, but did not see Roby anymore.
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Roby went east, because hers was the only name without any ees in it.
As soon as she was out of sight of her friends, she started talking to herself. “Well, Lady Shirechester, this is some adventure—you have pickled the pickle of you quite indeed, and need the seed—or three—of a new idea of me to blossom and bloom, and soon!” she said. This was meant to be encouraging, I think. There was no telling how far the lands of the safe stretched, after all, no telling if she’d just fall into a still deeper trap right around the next corner—or if even there was one. She went about slowly, waiting for something to occur to her and fearing that it might. “A school of students was of us, and now just one is of us, and so wise Student Number Four Hundred and Seventeen has concocted a new plan for our team, and so up we have split upon separate trips—”
Roby turned back and gazed at the path she’d been on, a dim trail in the shadowy depths of the safe, giant albums like endless walls beside her vanishing fully into the darkness of the skyless ceiling above. She wondered if—no, she reckoned that the student they’d trained to be wise should be wise by now and could solve this and every mess. So, maybe it was futile for her to make any kind of search on her own. Maybe she should just go back. Roby thought she could probably find the way again—
“Rude!” she said to her jade brain. “Dependencies extend it seems, and it seems unseemly to expend them needfully.”
Thus settled, and renewed of a compunction of vigor, Roby unturned front and marched onward, but it was very dark, and she couldn’t tell if she was traversing a great mountain, a dismal swamp, a land of sand and dust, or the liminal space of an abandoned shopping mall. She reasoned it must be the lattermost, since there was no one about, and it was very quiet, and there wasn’t a hint of avant-garde garage-band indie music. She picked up her pace.
At the end of the first or second day or month, she felt she had gone a long way, and having found nothing, put back into consideration an abandoning plan, when all of the sudden she came to a door made of food stamps, normal stamps, and half a stampede. Large was the door, and quite closed, and she walked along it to its hinged end, where it was set in a wall made out of gravy’s spirit and unsprung springs and woven together with the silver hairs of ancient boars.
“Well,” said Roby, “when one comes to some doors, one takes the proper course—not force, too coarse, but a knock will do to call them to you!”
She knocked on the door, and it echoed in the deeps, and the echo came back louder and longer, and shook the ground, and nearby there were some trees now, made of height and weight, and the trees shook with laughter, and whispered amongst themselves. They shared stories, and made jokes, and posed riddles, but most of all they told secrets.
Roby looked to the trees, and saw them approach from the darkness, and said to them, “It is a pleasant day, I say, and display the plea of me that I suspect you can see—this bored door I stand before stagnates the forwardings of me! If knowings are of you, let them be too of me!”
Now the trees surrounded her, and shook without grace, and their tops rose into the darkness, and Roby saw only shadows, and their very forms were as whispers, but they were too tall for her to hear, though how she strained. There was no wind at all, but the trees began to sway all together as one, in love, and they began to laugh at her, and their hoots and hollers came echoing down and fell upon her as rain, and it was like a fog had descended, and now even the darkness was obscured from her, and she turned around this way and that way and lost her way entirely, and she fell down and crawled around and sought that door where she had placed her prayers.
“Now the pickle of me is truly picked,” she said. “Arboreal strangers! I cause few dangers! The name of me is Roby Lopkit, and now I have said it—the name of me, I mean, so say the name of you, and we will dispense with strangeness and enjoin in friendship in the stead, and together embark on a quest, as friends good and true will and do!”
The trees had no answer for this but more laughter.
“Good and fine trees!” said Roby. “Would they mind, please, should I climb these wood and pine trees and fall beyond the tall walled barrier, and not stop to plot and tarry here?” But the trees didn’t heed her, and still they swayed all about her.
She then saw nearby two rivers. One river was narrow and fast, and one river was wide and slow, and they were prepared to race against one another, but it was unknowable who the winner could be. Surely the faster river? No, not surely—for a river wide and slow may sedately make caused the translocation of far more water, clear and blue. Is that not a river’s goal? Is that a river’s goal? The nature of a river can’t be known with one name. These rivers had no names.
Now Roby was at a loss. What to do! But in blind creeping she found the wall’s foot and traced its line to the grand door again. She rose up and knocked—more urgently but, of course, still politely. No one’d open for a pounder.
“Ah,” said Roby, “a new knowing is of me. For a door is more than a barred board—of sides it has two, an in and an out, but to describe the features none are about. Without competition, I make my petition: the way of passage is mine to master and thus to my will shall bow these fasteners.”
To a declaration of grandeur all things are bound, and to Roby’s as well, and so she took the handle in hand and turned it, and the door opened for her and her alone. She stepped through and—outside. The trees couldn’t get her here. She closed the door behind her carefully and gladly.
On the outside—outside—of the door was a heightful hill, and a pink sky behind it, and atop the hill was nothing, but at its base were two hundred and two round stones, each carved with the name of a werewolf, for this was a special place, and Roby couldn’t read those names, and to make sure of that, the two hunters were nearby, one with a great silver axe, and one with a shining golden spear, and they leapt down in front of Roby and said in one voice, “Lo, dancer, be spent and unspent, know not, and die with thy name in thy mouth.”
“Dancing is not of me,” said Roby, “but what is of me is this name: Roby Lopkit, for that is the name of me, and so say the name of you and you—”
“Thou shalt have our names,” said the hunters. “I of the great silver axe am Ulntoriccus, and I of the shining golden spear am Spulpendord. Now can thy fate be known, and if it be that thou hast come to burst our bubble, know that that thing is an impossibility.”
Roby didn’t say anything, even though it was her turn, as she was one trifle testy at being cut off. She admired the pink sky, and the blue clouds floating carelessly inside it. She had never seen a pink sky. Behind her, the tall door stood closed fast in a wall that on this side was adorned with posters of boy bands, and the wall rose high and ended in crenelations along which a veritable army of electric wind-up clockwork dolls marched. Each one had a plain gray shirt that was very clean, which was not discernible to Roby.
“Now will thy fate be known,” said the hunters.
Roby had unscrewed her fate already, but still said, “When I say it I speak true—it is not a knowing of you.” She filled herself with dread.
Now the hunters were tall, and were armored, and they bore their powerful weapons in all their hands, and they blew on trumpets that summoned all the eagles, all the hounds, half of the bears, and three leopards, red, black, and silver. They lined up by height and sang the hymn of the hill, a long song with one note, the song of their homeland for generations, the song of the lands where the ancient wars were started, and when the song was done they lined up alphabetically and each in turn said the name of all the days, and each thought in its brain the number of the hours, and they all made a salute to the endful sky, and kept it from crashing down, and called to the light to embrace them. Each one of them jumped up and down once, and then twice, and then no more.
The door cracked, crashed, and came undone and came to be fragments, and through the gape came the first of the trees, crown first, bent so low as to crawl, and its branches struck the wall and tore it to pieces, and its roots crawled under the flagstones and shattered them, and when it came out under the pink sky it unbent and stood tall, model of artifice, and then was followed by two more trees, and they were followed by three more trees, and they were followed by four more trees, and on and on came their numbers until all five hundred thousand and five hundred of them came through, and they circled the hill, and they climbed upon it, and they settled their roots in it, and as their crowns crowded the pink sky, they darkened it, spilled their ink onto it, and made it theirs, and then they began again to laugh, and shook and swayed, and there was no wind here, and the land became of the trees.
The hunters called to the eagles, to the hounds, to half of the bears, and to the three leopards, red, black, and silver, and together they built a tent, and in that tent they dug a hole, and in the hole they dug another hole, a deeper one, and again they dug deeper, until they found the deep bones, and the bones were brought up, and set about the tent, and the tent was covered in stone and fire, and the smoke rose into the sky and burned the sky, and the sky began to roar, and cried in a rage, and tore at the earth, and struck it asunder with lightning and fire. The trees railed against the lightning and cursed the fire, and their roots dug deep, deep into the world, and drank of the old waters, and took their patience there.
And so—
“All aboard!” cried the conductor as the train blew its whistle and closed its doors and left the station, humbly coughing from its smokestack in embarrassment, slinking by along the smooth tracks unnoticeably, and leaving both hunter and tree to their pageant, and all the passengers but one leaned out the windows unwisely, taking pictures of the show of tree and hunter, and Roby alone sat all the way in the back and waved in friendliness just as the train went into the tunnel that led through the secret passage out of the safe and back out into the countryside somewhere somewhere else.