jamieproctor.ca

There was the sky, and in the sky was a burning hole, and from that emerged a being, first hands, then limbs, then ancillary limbs, then cephalothorax, and finally propulsion.  It descended with solemn grace and nobody saw it until it had reached the ground in the center of town because they had all been told at a young age not to look at the sun. 

This being, they decided after brief observation, was close enough to the sun to count.  So they did not stare at it, though it was almost entire naked (save for a faint haze of ionizing radiation secured about its privates), and they most certainly did not make eye contact, for its eyes were two blazing photons that scorched everything they beheld, forcing it to witness the world entirely through the strategic reflective use of a little mirror it clasped carefully in the smallest hand of its smallest ancillary limb. 

“I seek the great metalsmith Shalt,” it spoke to the world at large in a voice that crackled like static on a cold dry day, “on a matter of most enormous importance.”  And since the truth of this statement was self-evident, and the bearing of the stranger was so unquestionably serious, and Shalt wasn’t exactly a braggart but she was self-assured in a way that annoyed some of her neighbours, and (most importantly) everyone was curious about what would happen next, directions were dutifully given to the workshop of Shalt by all present.

Shalt was sitting outside having a drink, half of which she spat back out on seeing her guest. 

“I am a Prince of the Burning Skies,” proclaimed said guest, sitting comfortably on a tuft of plasma, “and I come to you with a great and precious gift: the opportunity to make me a weapon unbreakable and unbeatable, your finest work to date, that I might cleave my foe asunder and claim this land as my rightful prize.”

“Cough, wheeze, gurgle,” said Shalt. 

“Indeed!” said the Prince, sweeping its longest limb magisterially.  “A mighty boon to be sure.  Grant me victory in my approaching contest of arms, creature of solid matter and carbon, and in return I shall promise your people a most comfortable serfdom and the use of a reasonable amount of my lands to sustain themselves.  My foe in this duel is terrible beyond your keenest reckoning in the depths of dreams, but he is ignorant to the secrets of this little place between our realms, and I have deduced that your craft – wielded by my hand – will be great enough to render me the master in our contest.  Remember: your finest!  Nothing less will suffice.  And if I should fall, beware – do not think my people will lie down to their fate quietly!  Our struggle shall be long and terrible, and in that war you and all that you cherish shall surely suffer down to the last smouldering atom!  Harken, the zenith departs!  I return three days hence!”

And so saying this the Prince grasped the single strongest sunbeam present and whirled his way back into the blazing hole above.

“Hhhhwwwweee,” managed Shalt, exalting in once again possessing a free and functional airway.  Everything else might have been a problem, but that was going alright.  She breathed in, then out, coughed, in, out, didn’t cough, shook herself off, spat on the ground, walked into her workshop, and shut her eyes in self defense against the thing standing next to her forge.  There had been a mantle and a visceral mass and something else, but she was pretty sure she’d stopped before she made the mistake of finding out if it had a head because behind her eyelids she could picture the face of her husband or her favorite set of tongs instead of whatever the hell that would’ve been. 

Something pale and insensible touched itself to her arm, and before she had time to jerk backwards she became aware of things. 

this is the Headsman of All Unlit.

its anther is a means of death and communication and poetry.

it is here to make a commission. 

a merely natural weapon to fell a supranatural enemy.

in payment, Shalt’s people will be placed somewhere with light until they are dead and do not need it anymore. 

if the weapon fails and the Headsman falls, All Unlit will war and there will be no darkness that is not toothed and no shadow that does not draw blood.

The touch she hadn’t felt faded.  The memories didn’t.

Shalt stood there with her eyes shut until her husband came in to ask her why she was late for dinner. 

“Sorry sweetie,” she told him.  “I just got told to do the best job of my life for two beings that each want the opposite thing.”

“Would talking to your godmother help with this?” asked her husband.
“Don’t want to.”
“Would beer help with this?” asked her husband. 

“No, but give me some anyways.”

“Sure, if you talk to your godmother about this.”
“Fine.  But I get the beer first.”

So she did, and the evening was less bad than it had been until Shalt was about to pull her boots off and get into bed when she saw her husband had drawn up the washing-basin and a candle and a thread. 

“I’m tired,” she said feebly.

“You can fall asleep right after,” he said. 
“She won’t want to,” she said desperately.

“You said she wanted you to visit more often after last time.”
“I don’t wanna,” said Shalt honestly. 

Her husband patted her on the back as he lit the candle.  “You never do,” he said fondly. 

Shalt took a deep breath and dropped into the basin face-first. 

Below was her bedroom, upside down.  The candle, the basin, her husband.

She dropped into that basin too.

Below, her bedroom inside out.  Above her was the comforting blanket of the night and the stars, above that the looming celestial vault of her ceiling; around her the hills and the trees and the cold deep spring lake and beyond them the endless crooked boards of her walls that held up the sky; underfoot was dirt and green sprouting things crawling up from the deep-seated floor.

There was a candle.  There was a basin. 

She put her face in that too.

Beyond that was a basin and a candle.  And beyond THAT was her godmother.

She was knitting, or something like it.  The motions were off and the material was impossible to parse.  Shalt had touched one of the needles once, and if she hadn’t learned how to replace it she very much doubted she’d be the smith she was today.  Or alive.  Or human. 

“Hello my singular little verb of a godchild,” said Shalt’s godmother.  She was smiling.  She was always smiling.  She was always smiling with teeth.  She was always smiling with someone’s teeth. 

“Hello, godmother,” said Shalt.  “I need help with something.”
“Best I can do is advice,” said Shalt’s godmother.  The needles didn’t click or clack; they coughed and chucked and croaked.  One of them was watching her with an amused glint in its eye, and she was pretty sure which one THAT was. 

“Advice’ll do.  Godmother, I’ve been asked to do my best work for two beings that each want the exact opposite thing, and whichever one of them doesn’t get it will be sure to ruin all our lives for it, and possibly in a way that worse than kills us.”

“You said ‘beings,’” said Shalt’s grandmother.  “Are they people?”
“Sort of,” said Shalt.  “The Prince of the Burning Skies and the Headsman of All Unlit.”
Her godmother was always smiling with someone’s teeth, but she wasn’t always laughing, which she did now.  It wasn’t a very nice laugh – like boulders landing on rotten spring ice – but it could’ve been meaner.  “Oh godchild, that’ll be easy,” she said.  “Things like that are already mostly people, pretend though they might, and people never know what they want.  If they say they want the exact opposite thing, and you can’t give them the exact opposite thing, then don’t give them that.  Give them something better.  I think your candle’s out.  Visit more often.”

“I,” said Shalt, before the thread pulled taut and she was yanked wet-faced and gasping out of the basin and out of the basin and out of the basin and out of the basin by the thread in her husband’s hand wrapped around her sleep-braid.

“Learn anything?” he asked, patting her on the back.

The candle’s dying smoke pooled in Shalt’s nostrils as she shrugged.  “I think so.”
“She wants you to visit more often, doesn’t she.”
Shalt punched his shoulder with her head. 

***

The work began the day after.  Shalt always thought best when she worked, because she thought less.  Easy to make room for the important decisions when your head was cleared out enough for them to stretch and stand there, unobstructed by anxious clutter and lazy mess. 

A forge, a hammer, an anvil, a mould, tongs, bellows, metal and an old box. 

Shalt considered all of this. 

Then she breathed in, breathed out, and began.

Metal.

Heat.

Those were the real work, and she let her body handle them while her mind ran over the contents of the box. 

Inside it, in a little leather bag, she had:

Crow’s teeth.

Pig’s feathers.

Shrike’s conscience.

And a pinch of an adult human’s innocence. 

Next to the bag, in a squat stone jar, she had:

A ray of hope.

A heart-ful of love.

A cloud of despair.

And a tragic truth.

Last, wrapped in thick cloth, she had a glass vial of grit and determination. 

Shalt thought about those things as she did the work, and she picked some up and put others down.

Then she was done, stumbling back to bed with soot in her hair and dry eyes and boots still on.  Her husband squawked and she fell asleep on him. 

Then she woke up and did it all again.

Then she woke up and it was done. 

And it was time. 

***

The Prince of the Burning Skies met Shalt at first light, walking across the scattered orange sunrise from the distant mountains to her doorstep. 
“My weapon lies with you, yearning for me,” it spoke, beckoning with half its hands and grooming its abdomen (frantically?) with the others.  “Bequeath it unto me that I might bestow upon my kind my victory and your kind your reward.”

“Here,” said Shalt, raising her hands and lowering her eyes (and they were already pretty lowered: even the mirror-gaze of the Prince made her forge-blistered arms redden uncomfortably).  “My work is done: this is a blade and its name is Wedge.  Hold it in your hand – like this – and face the sharper edge – this one – towards your enemy and propel the blade into it until it is dead.  It is the sharpest I’ve ever made, and the strongest: it won’t break or bend and it’ll cut anything it meets.  And it has a secret: see this spur here, along the cutting edge?  Even harder, ever fiercer, a splitter without equal.  Strike with that and nothing can stop being torn in half.”
“You are a worker most skilled and most clever for an entity lacking in luminescence and being of a lower state of matter,” decreed the Prince, its jet fumes burning with all the spectra of gratitude.  “I look forward to my victory.”  And so speaking it marched forth from the town, spinning the great sword from hand to hand like a child playing with a match.

The Headsman of All Unlit rose to meet Shalt when the rain came that morning, trickling in under the eaves and standing behind her ear as she froze at the workbench, cleaning what she could. 

“Here,” she whispered, holding her hand out, palm pronated, laden with weapon.  “My work is done: this is a blade and its name is Notch.  Hold it in your hand – like this – and face the sharper edge – this one – towards your enemy and propel the blade into it until it is dead.  It is the sharpest I’ve ever made, and the strongest: it won’t break or bend and it’ll cut anything it meets.  And it has a secret: see this gap here, along the cutting edge?  Let the enemy strike there and twist and their weapon will burst apart.  Nothing can escape that enters it.”

No anther descended.  The weapon was removed.  The Headsman was gone. 

“Rude,” muttered Shalt in profound gratitude.  “Rude, rude, rude.”
She went indoors and had tea with her husband until she heard the horns. 

***

At the first horn, the entourage of the contestants approached. 

The sun widened in the sky and disgorged a ballooning swarm of Earls, Dukes, Counts, and Lords, all descending on delicate sails woven of their own filaments and elegantly filigreed electromagnetic frequencies.  They used their own hand-mirrors carelessly, if at all, and so much of the viewership of the spectacle retired indoors where it ran less risk of being scorched by an errant glance.

The dark, cold spring lack cracked open at the seams and up from its black water marched the Jurors of All Unlit, soft tendrils coiling from their masked summits, their great soft visceral masses trailing something scentless and massless and hueless than was thicker than treacle and made your ears hurt when you looked at it.  They touched each other as they walked, anther to stigma, and the discussions that transpired were inaudible, inconceivable, and indecisive. 

At the second horn, the contestants and their seconds arrived. 

The Prince of the Burning Skies was armoured now as well as armed; beautifully ornamented in plates of firmament and hydrogen and outfitted with an extra set of photon eyes above its forehead.  Beneath the backwash of its heels stood a solid supporter, a thick neutronic mass with the bare suggestion of appendages and an implacable lack of face. 

The Headsman of All Unlit stood there.  Its petals moved gently across the hidden depths of its apex, hiding whatever crawled within.  Its vines cradled itself as gently as a parent might their child; behind them its bulb squirmed slightly, poking out soft uncoloured tendrils and tasting the earth before retracting in inevitable and resigned disappointment. 

At the third horn, the duel began. 

The opening moves were things Shalt and her husband couldn’t sense.  Decisions that happened and ended before they left the realm of notion. 

The initial blows were murkier, but there.  The wrestling of the clouds and the sun; the wavering of the shadows at their feet; the sudden gut-lancing-terror that caused every mouse nearby to climb up Shalt’s leg and cower in her shirt-sleeves; and so on. 

Then the gloves were off, and out came the secret weapons. 

Wedge sprayed gleaming from the incandescent core of the Prince of the Burning Skies, danced through all of its hands in one motion, and shot forwards like a volcanic plume.

Notch erupted from the crown of the Headsman of All Unlit, held in a thing that Shalt refused to understand, and swung to meet it. 

Both swords were steel so there was a sound, presumably.  It just got swallowed up by all the things that weren’t.  The snarl on the Prince’s face.  The rippling sneer on the Headsman’s mantle.  The strain of limbs and the heave of the foot.  The press, the weight, the pressure, the rigid rictus of impossible forces trying to communicate through impossible ones, leaning closer, closer, bringing more to bear, committing more of themselves, putting everything and every hope and all they were on one little fulcrum where Wedge and Notch met, pushing, reaching, longing for contact.

Shalt said the Prince kissed the Headsman first. 

Her husband insisted it was the other way around. 

Since the contestants’ entourages and seconds were too mortified to register fine detail the matter – like the determination of a victor, and who claimed ownership over the battlefield – was left permanently unanswered.

***

Shalt woke up, which was harder than it sounded after four months with a newborn.  But although the rap-rap-rap on the door was surreptitious and quiet it WAS desperate, and so she sighed and swore and dragged herself upright and half-dressed and through the dark and to the door.

“Come back tomorrow,” she said.  “Shop’s closed.”
“Fine, fine, fine, fine,” said the Prince of the Burning Skies, in the voice – one Shalt knew intimately now – of someone who had half their mind on a person that wasn’t part of the conversation.  “But, well, you see, I was wondering, if, that is… – I’m GETITNG to it, don’t worry, I just don’t want to be CRUDE about it – well FINE.”

There was a silence.  Shalt sighed into it. 

“So.  Do you do rings?”

They were.  This was no longer sufficient.

Mue bestirred themselves, and made nothing. 

They were nothing, amidst nothing.  This was sufficient, but not ideal.

Mie roused themselves, and manifested a singularity – all things in one.  This was ideal.

Moe got up, made time, and poked the singularity with it.  Everything went everywhere.

“Whoops,” said Moe. 

***

They descended, dropped from elsewhere to here. 

Here was where something expanded and cooled and calmed.  Bits of it plinked and cooled and turned almost comprehensible.

Mue flared their aperture. Space was tamed, space was calmed, and with it, time.  Gravity gripped and didn’t let up. 

Mie pronated their rostrum.  Particles precipitated into place.  Gluons glued; bosons bustled; photons phlew. 

Moe rubbed their limbs together and blew on them, then rolled a bunch of particles into a ball called hydrogen and sent it spinning down space and time, where it promptly spawned an absurd number of increasingly complicated imitators. 

“Strike!” shouted Moe.

***

They diminished, shrank from everywhere to somewhere. 

They shrank, but the universe didn’t – it spread itself wide and broad, differentiated itself with vigor and vim.  Hot and cold bubbled in its stew like potato and carrot. 

Mue spoke, and stars coalesced from bleeding nebula, flaring hot and burning brightly, filling the firmament with light.

Mie sang, and dust ravelled and spun around the stars, sweating and bleeding and clotting, a titanic and dusty new disc spun from old matter. 

Moe hummed a little ditty and the dust started to tear itself apart into little clouds, spraying shrapnel from there to here to all over the place and congealing into squat little blots.

“I meant to do that,” hedged Moe.

***

They squinted, turned their attention to the smallest large objects nearby.

Half-baked planets roiled in the deep of the solar system; red hot and pulsating.  Rock melted, ice shrieked, fresh-cooked skies boiled with furious vapours as gas turned solid turned occasionally plasma turned back to gas again. 

Mue spread their digits and they began to cool and solidify, turning round and ripe – some small stones, some gas giants. 

Mie swayed their abdomen and they began to clear their orbits, sucking small neighbours and stray matter down bit by bit, tidying the space around them. 
Moe did something with their feet and swerved two of them into each other, giving the larger a terrible black eye and sending the smaller spinning into the other’s orbit at less than a tenth its old mass. 

“Split,” mourned Moe. 

***

They slid into orbit and did not wish to slide away. 

Mue’s trowel crunched and chewed to itself as they patiently probed the depths of the new-formed-stone for gases that coalesced into water, flooded the fresh valleys of the planet with quiet seas.

Mie’s needles danced as they wove the magnetic field into a tight web, shielding the frail orb from the sun’s terrible shrieking winds. 

Moe’s glass overflowed as they spat some of their backwash back, emptied it on the planet, then watched as simple inorganic reactions accelerated away from being either of those things. 

“Neato!’ said Moe.

***

They observed and interacted.

Mue tended the little things that took in the heat and smoking minerals of the world’s heart, deep under the seas, and taught them to grow and multiply.

Mie sheltered the little things that took in the distant radiation of the sun, floating at the top of the waves, and taught them to spread and replicate.

Moe picked up some of the little things and taught them to eat each other over and over until a few of got wedged together that way, teamed up, and started aggressively getting larger.

“Not my fault,” lied Moe.

***

They nurtured and nudged.

Mue tended the first shoots that sprouted on the distant shores, greener, yet greener; taller, yet taller.

Mie assembled the first shells and notochords that scaffolded and supported tissues, bigger, yet bigger; stranger, yet stranger. 

Moe picked up anything that swam close enough and threw it out of the water onto the land to see what happened.  Mostly it didn’t work out well, sometimes it worked out way too well.

“Trial and error,” excused Moe.

***

They guided and cared.

Mue raised the seas and lowered them, turned the nutrients of the ocean floor over and brought them back to the light for all.  The waves were adrift with plankton and awash with nekton.

Mie midwifed the atmosphere, made sure the ozone was thick enough, was thin enough, kept the greenhouse warm but not boiling over.  Oxygen drifted up from a billion billion billion stomata; carbon wafted from a billion billion billion lungs. 

Moe slipped and dropped an asteroid on all of it at least twice.  Kerplunk, badoosh. 

“I was trying to help clean up,” explained Moe.  “Butterfingers!”

***

They aged and rested.

Mue set the currents and the continents in their manner then laid down in the rifts of the deepest parts of the earth and let themselves slide underneath it all, lulled to rest by the hot glow of the planet’s core that reminded them of the earliest days, grinding the deep processes along in their dreams. 

Mie spread themselves wide and broad, twining into the soil, into the air, until the biosphere was them and they were it and not one could be told apart from the other, and so all loved all even as all fed upon all, and grew from it, and changed from it. 

Moe got lost and got distracted and dithered for ages, wandering farther and farther and growing thinner and thinner for longer and longer until at last they were just a stray wisp, not even matter, and all they could do was crawl inside the hindbrain of the first passing creature – a vertebrate of some kind; a tetrapod; bipedal – and squish themselves up as small as possible – tiny enough to tuck between neurons, turned once more into neither something nor nothing.

“Hey friend!” greeted Moe.  “Wanna do something really funny?”

In the night sky of the new year hung the moon, and in the moon there was a door, and if you thought the right thing while you turned its handle the right way (there was no handle) you could step through the door into the other sky, the sky behind, and in that terrible and vast place there was a hall that kept the endless rain from dripping out of the sky and into your ears and your thoughts and your socks, and in that hall – the First and Final House – there were many voices, and those many voices belonged to wizards, thousands of wizards, wizards that were and wizards that was and wizards that would be, all hurrying, all abuzz with gossip and muttering of secrets and minding their own business by sticking their noses in each other’s. They moved keenly and sharply. A wizard didn’t rush or fuss, but they only had one night apiece, so they made it work. A bazaar had sprung into being, formed entirely of dimly-lit corners and hooded proprietors; the vast and shaded balcony was filled to overflowing with telescopes and auguries; in the attics dangled dozens by their heels, their arms, their throats, eyes flickering shut in blood-strangled concentration as they groped for secrets just beyond mortal reach.

Everywhere wizards, all the wizards. A willow wizard creaked and groaned under the ever—growing weight of its moss familiar, feeding it a little more of its soul to stay quiet and ppolite in mixed company. A lizard wizard squawked and shed its tome in self-defence as a careless passerby trod on its tail. Wizards that sang songs and wizards that rang gongs; wizards that raised the dead and wizards that sent them abed; wizards that ruled through fear and wizards that were perfect dears; wizards tall and wizards small.

“I’m bored beyond tears,” said Lyle. “Why did you drag us to this heap of nonsense’s nonsense?”

“Because it was your birthday and you wanted to do something fun,” said Howard with great earnestness.

“And you let me do THIS? You are the worst brother I’ve ever had, Howard, except for all the others whom I’ve forgotten on account of their worstness. Look at this garbage – what is this even?”

“That’s a genuine crystal ball, Lyle. You can stare into its depths and see your deepest desires!”
“Peernography and worse!” Lyle’s gnarled palm slammed the ball back into its display pedestal with as much force as he could muster. “Honestly, I can’t take you anywhere! I let you come with me to this place and you remain preoccupied with… that sort of thing.”

“I swear to you on our mother’s own sweet little grave that the thought never crossed my mind, Lyle,” said Howard, face filled with determination and filial love. “And it’s ‘pornography.’”

“Of course it isn’t, it’s meant to be peered at. Learn Enochian, Howard!”
“We’re speaking English, Lyle.”
“I should think full well that I know what I say when I say how I say it, you sloppy joe you! Now let’s get out of this hellhole and look at something interesting. Where’s the pub?”
“We left the pub because you complained about the smell.”

“It was full worth complaining about. Why’d they let the ant wizards run it I can’t possibly understand; they coated half the bar in their sordid musk-trails – if I wanted that sort of thing I’d have a picnic and save myself the pricing.”
“Lyle, that was the menu; you know the ants do like to write their sigils and such in scents.”
“Not where I’m drinking my coffee! Something interesting, Howard – and make it snappy! I feel my lunch getting at my guts. Why’d you put chilies in my lunch? You know turnips is all a body needs to stay regular.”
“I didn’t put chilies in your lunch, I put them in my lunch.”
“Why’d you put chilies in your lunch?”
“I like ‘em.”
“Selfish old coot. Repent and find us something worth seeing.”

***

Past the loud central halls, things got stranger. The air thickened of its own accord, weighed down by the density of secrets. The shadows lengthened and grew restless, playing here and there and elsewhere. The wind leaked through the walls, sending scurrying draughts that slid across the floorboards and whispered unspeakable things. The doors creaked. The air crackled.

In the nether wings of the First and Final House things happened that couldn’t happen anywhere else, even by wizards. Necromancy could travel hand-in-hand with the power of friendship true; a potion could be brewed from a prophecy and a pangolin; a prophecy’d destiny could be rolled up and rearranged like an uncooperative scrap of toilet paper; a dragon could glean the secret wisdom of how to overcome a brave hero and a magic sword. Dark collaborations bespawned things unthought of; broke open hidden organs of the world to reveal glistening secrets; raised merry hells and cast down screaming heavens; split the spectrum and dissected the rainbow.

And, in the very most hidden hollows of the highest spires and lowest pits of that place, the greatest and most dangerous of deeds was committed: the open and equal sharing of secret knowledge – profane, sacred, and universal. The ultimate and truest exchange: something for nothing.

“This isn’t worth the spit it took to say it.”
“Lyle!”
“What? It’s true, for Frog’s sake, it’s absolutely true, Howard – do you want your own brother to sit up straight and lie in front of strangers? Shame! Shame on you! Shame on you for asking that of me, and shame on you for bringing me to this chamber of folderollery and nonsense! ‘Secrets of the Archosaurs’ my least favourite foot (which is my left)! You call these secrets? This is nothing but base saurcery, the like of which any moron knows isn’t worth the stomach-swirling shame and lack of spine it demands to practice! Imagine, a whole branch of knowledge based upon calling your dear old dead grandparents for help! Imagine being the sort of cretinous clod that learns that and then wants to HONE it, Howard, hone it like it were a fine knife given to you at Christmas by your uncle Beaumont (bless his brows) – then seek out others to collaborate on that with you! Can you imagine being that lacking in skill, spine, spit, and wit, Howard? And then ADVERTISING IT OPENLY? To those you CONSIDER YOUR PEERS? The very notion of entering this moron’s-cabal of fourth-rate cauldron-droolers was an obscene insult to me, you, and our mother! You only brought me in here to try and give me apoplexy, didn’t you? You’re after the house again you slinking fink!”

“Excuse me,” said the lecturer, a gaunt pale ostrich with no eyes and two mouths, “but you must raise your hand when you ask a question.”
“And none of that was a question,” added his second mouth.

“Sorry about that,” said Howard.

“Bug off and go bury your head,” said Lyle. “I paused for my wind, not for your input, and I’ll thank you for noticing that.”

“Lecture ours,” rumbled the co-presenter, a saltwizard crocodile of forty feet and forty thousand years. “Disrespect yours. Apology.”

“Geez I’m sorry,” said Howard.
“You can’t dis what you never respected in the first place,” said Lyle, “and if I wanted to hear what sixteen sets of mismatched luggage said I’d call my aunt.”

“Then I am afraid,” said the ostrich, who did not look afraid, “that we must challenge you to a wizard’s duel.”
“I’m real sorry, but neither of us are wizards,” explained Howard helpfully.

“That is acceptable,” said the ostrich. “The duel will simply be very short.”

***

A suitable location had to be found for the wizard’s duel, of course. The lecturing chamber was a place of intimate knowledge, where one could cluster shoulder to shoulder and a whisper could travel all the way around the world from wall to wall. A duel was also intimate, but in a manner more deeply personal, and so – as with all wizardly personal affairs – should take place somewhere that both parties could scream as loudly as they liked.

As the challenged parties, Lyle and Howard had pick of locale.

“Up your rotten and creased backside with a stick,” said Lyle.

“Oh, anywhere’s fine, no need to make a fuss on our behalf or anything like that,” said Howard.

The ostrich had conferred with his scaled colleague and together they had chosen the roof of the First and Final House, in the lee of the titanic chimney (whose scalding breath cleared the air of some of its moisture, though not all). The rain thundered around the four combatants and their assembled audience of blast-casters, protagonist-mancers, devil summoners and sum devillers, conjurers and tricksters with a sound not heard since the days of brontosaurus feet.

Lyle sat in his chair and glowered like a cat watching Lassie reruns.

“An apology costs nothing, you know,” said Howard, as he adjusted the earflaps on his hat.

“You already tried to sneak that past me when we were six and you know it, you chiseling quisling,” said Lyle indistinctly, his jaw working furiously at a mashed-up Werther’s. “It was lies then and it’s a lie now and it never won’t be a lie. An apology costs your DIGNITY, and without that, you haven’t got anything. Are you done messing around with that stupid hat yet?”
“Yep!”
“Then you can give me my earmuffs. And upon my word Howard, if one speck of their fluffy has gone missing in your pocket, there will be bloodshed not shed nor seen since the Silurian.”
“I am taking that and you seriously Lyle, I promise you truly. Want your mittens too?”
“No way in hell or beyond. Now bugger off and play with the crocodile; I’ve got a bird to pluck.”
“Darn tootin’.”
“Watch your mouth or I’ll watch it for you!”
“Duly warned, Lyle, and thank you kindly. Good luck!”
“I never touch the stuff.”

So they took their places. The saltwizard crocodile, Great Old Craw, coughed up his finest orb from his belly-ballast and into the tip of his mouth, where it gleamed like a sour diamond.

The ostrich-saurceror, Ostimandias, bit his two grandest plumes in half with each of his mouths and feasted greatly on their hidden contents, opening the third eye in his throat.

Howard blew on his hands and shook out his fingers. Lyle glared at a stray raindrop that alit on his arm like it were a barbed mosquito.

“This will conclude the disagreement in total,” wheezed the adjudicant, a coelacanth. “None may object to this duel’s occurrence nor its outcome, after I wiggle my fin.”
Silence.

The adjudicant’s fin wiggled.

The ostrich-saurceror raised his long neck into the sky and took of the sky unto himself and he called. Boom. Boom. Vroom. Great pulses of air, flooded and ejected through his jet-engine of a body. Boom. Boom. Vroom.

And Lyle glared grimly.

The ostrich-saurceror began to dance. Thud thud thud went his two huge two toed feet, slamming into the shingles and making the rafters rattle. Somewhere far below a rope unraveled and a dangling supplicant-mage plummeted forty feet into a big vat of vodka and lime and toad and all her friends hooted and hollered as they fished her out with a knobbled staff.

And Lyle glared grey-eyed.

The ostrich-saurceror waved his plumes; tiny wings on his big body; huge wings on any other bird short of an albatross. They snapped and whipped and rattled against one another and the air between the raindrops began to remember things that walked and breathed and killed so very long ago, when the earth’s shape was different and its inhabitants were larger and the air was sweet.

And Lyle’s brow sank an extra-beetled inch.

The ostrich-saurceror hunched, leaped, let out a singular terrible and long BOOM and struck. Foot-first, faster than a gazelle, more deadly than a lion, bringing up the force of something ancient and terrible – three-clawed, scaled, massive and mocking in the face of tiny hairy glandular creatures like humans rats and elephants, striking to kill with the force of a hurtling asteroid and the voice of an avalanche.

Lyle leaned forwards into the teeth of the roar, pursed his lips, and said something.

The ostrich-saurceror faltered, let that falter creep into his call, let his call creep into his lungs, let his lungs creep throughout his entire pneumatized skeleton, fractured, and exploded into the distant past and also pieces.

“About damned time,” said Lyle. “Ridiculous song and dance frippery – just like the time you brought me to Broadway. All that kicking and wailing and carrying on! And for what? A little bit of spittle that falls apart when I call it ‘dogshit,’ Howard, – yes, you heard me – and nothing more! Two words! In one word! And that’s all it takes? This isn’t amateur hour, this is amateur HOUSE! Why on earth did you subject me to this again, Howard? Remind me of what the thought process in your food processor of a skull used to believe this was a good thing.”

“On account of the old days,” said Howard, reattaching his earflaps with one hand and taking Lyle’s elbow with the other, steering his brother away from damp splatter-spots and the respectful distance of the crowd. “Remember when we used to come here with Edith and Iris?”

“Well.”
“Well,” agreed Howard.

“You know.”
“You know,” concurred Howard.

The silence was agreeable and truthful and broken only by the crush and creak of priceless crystalline orb fragments under their battered old snow boots.

“Yes well you know I mean really honestly if you ask me I suppose you know what it could’ve been worse.”
The creases of Howard’s face folded themselves in a very well-used smile. “Why Lyle, you really do mean that, don’t you?”

“I mean everything I say at all times and you best full well comprehend that, if for some reason you’ve avoided realizing until now. And for this now, let’s go home. All that nonsense has made me feel your lunch getting at my guts again.”

“Could we stop at the hot ichor cider stand on the way out? For the old days?”
“Only one cup each and you’re paying for your own. And they have to put a candy cane in it or we’re not getting any.”

“-and although the beast’s activity HAS ceased for now, and we are getting reports of what may be its body, it is only at this lull in the carnage that the true cost of the past two days can be tallied. Over five billion dollars of damage in infrastructure alone, dozens of civilian deaths, the loss of a major army base with all hands… this is the sort of victory that may have been claimed by Pyrrhus of Epirus. May the new year bring us all many better days, and may their steadily-accumulating weight bury deeply the pain and loss we all now feel from the toll of this terrible crisis that has claimed so many of our loved ones.”

**Thirty Minutes Earlier**

“Brad you complete moron, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Setting off the bomb.”
“You barely know how to work your phone!”
“Sweetie, the army uses them, how hard can it be?”

“Shut up! Get out of there! This door’s almost free; we can still make it out if we run for it!”

“You can. You’d better. I started this, I’m finishing it.”
“That wasn’t your fault! That was BOTH of our faults!”
“Nope. You told me so, remember?”
“I hate you!”
“Aww, I love you too, Leo. Now get out of here. I think I hear it coming and there’s going to be a reeeeaal big bang in the next few minutes.”

**One Hour Earlier**

“East side is a total loss. We’ve pulled the survivors back through the west exit and collapsed the corridors, but it’s fast and fits through spaces a human can’t. We have to assume it’ll get here shortly, and general… we’ve lost the bomb.”
“Lost it.”
“It was in the east wing. No remote detonation possible in its current state. Someone’s going to have to go in and set it up manually.”

“What about the lab team?”
“The initial assault was too fast. They’re either dead or wish they were by now.”
“Great. Full evacuation.”
“What?”
“We already fed this thing three spec ops squads and half this base; I’m not going to send in anyone else to play hero and end up as lawn clippings. Let the goddamned airforce handle it. So what if it takes out a bit of the city, if we don’t do this they’ll all get eaten by it anyways.”
“Sir, listen-”
“Shut up and do it.”
“Sir, LISTEN, can-”

“Court-martial or silence. You pick.”
“The SOUND, sir, can you hear the-”

“The what? The whaaaAAAAAAAAAAAA-”

-army base penetrated, bomb lost

**Two Hours Earlier**

“Alpha and Bravo down. Charlie, report in.”
“FUCK YOU WHERE IS IT?”
“Charlie, report in.”

“IT’S JUST ME EVERYONE’S DEAD WHERE IS IT IS IT BEHIND ME?”

“Evac at zone two, proceed ASAP.”
“IT MOWED US DOWN LIKE GRASS, IT’LL GET YOU TOO! IT CAN HEAR ME TALKING TO YOU! IT CAN SEE THE RADIO WAVES! IT’LL FIND oh shit oh shit oh shit oh SHIIII-“”

“Charlie, report in.”

“Charlie, report in.”
“Charlie, report.”
“sssss.”

“Charlie? Charlie?”

“ssssSSSSS”

“Shit. Requesting permission to evacuate nonessential personnel?”

**Three Hours Earlier**

“Two stupid kids go missing for half the day and we have to go look in the old sewage plant?”
“Kids love doing stupid shit. Don’t you remember being a kid?”
“Yeah, but. Sewage plant.”
“They cleaned it out real nice when they were done. Know your municipal history, Les.”

“Alright, I’ll admit it looks like the set from a horror movie down here. Still not smart to do amateur-hour urban exploration inside an abandoned concrete tube sticking out of an abandoned concrete box attached to a crumbling brick shell. “
“What’d I just say about kids?”
“Fine, fine, FINE. It makes sense the kids would do this. I concede that, you win, I surrender, woo you. Why do we have to go look for them after they go missing for half a damn day?”
“Because perfectly respectable idiot university kids don’t vanish from social media unless they’re asleep, and they went missing at six AM. And, more importantly, their families have money.”
“Figures. Hey, how much money are we talking?”
“Board of Directors at the university. Gobs.”
“Like… Rolex money?”
“Easily.”
“Cool, because I just found one.”
“Just…lying there? Where’s the kid?”
“Well, his wrist is still in it.”
“Not funny, jeez, not funny at – holy FUCK.”
“I mean, it’s KIND of funny. Look at that, looks like blunt impact – no cuts. Think he got it stuck in some sort of machinery down here, or – what? What? What?!”
“I… think I found the kids. Oh god, no, that’s… that’s more than… that’s… at least three heads. Yeah, four. Five six seven oh god.”

“Seven what? Bodies? What the hell are you looking at, a morgue? Did we find the local mob dumping ground?”
“No. I think it’s….some kind of nest?”

“What kind of what?”
“It’s like a goddamned mound, fuck – all torn and pulped and…did you hear that?”
“Something slapping on concrete, yes, and I was hoping you didn’t. Let’s go. Let’s go let’s go let’s go now now NOW.”

**Twelve Hours Earlier**

“Julie, I’ve got mosquitos in my freakin’ earball.”
“C’mooon. Look at the lake, look at how preeetty it looks with the sunlight.”
“One went up my NOSE; this just isn’t romantic.”
“Awww, but you know what IS romantic? This.”
“Really? Like, REALLY? Right here, right now?”
“Nobody’s out here yet, and it’s coooool. ‘Sides, I’m friggin’ COATED in bug spray.”
“Is that like, okay?”
“I guess? Just don’t lick me or anything.”
“That sucks.”
“Don’t do that either.”
“God you are so witty you’d better shut up or my head’ll explode – hey!”

“Hey what?”
“We’ve got a peeper! No audiences, pal – get out of the bulrushes and go to the internet if you wanna see this shit that bad! You got three seconds to say you’re sorry and then I’m coming over there! One, two, threeeeeeetheFUCK? What is a”

**Twenty-Four Hours Earlier**

“Brad. The sign is right there. Can you fucking read?”

“Look, it says don’t feed the geese, and this is a singular goose. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Daryl got the coffee. Cheryl drove. Both of them knocked on their grandmother’s door.

“Oh hello!” she said, embracing them both in hugs like a day-old chick’s: firm bones easily felt through soft fuzz, as pleasantly and earnestly surprised as ever. Oh how wonderful it was, to find out she had grandchildren! Oh how nice to see them visiting her! Oh how nice that they brought her coffee! Oh how nice to go with them! All well-planned and well-anticipated yet still such an unexpected treat.

Daryl told her about the new snowblower he’d got a deal on – “nobody upsells you in May,” he explained – and Cheryl told her about how she thought she’d found a buyer for her old truck and she told them about how the squirrels were growing scarcer in her backyard but the groundhogs might have moved back in underneath the shed, and so they were at the house in not much less than four or five conversations.

Daryl opened the door for her. Cheryl put the chair on the porch. He pulled out a thermos. She offered a blanket. “Let us know if you get cold,” they said, and she laughed at them in that rude way that conveys warmth in a manner politeness is powerless to.

Then they went indoors, them and two cans in each of four hands, plus rollers.

Up and down. Up and down. Sidling side to side, slowly, imperceptibly, until a room was done and the next began.

Soft white for the bathroom.

Pale blue in the bedroom.

And on, and on, patching away all the old flaws and tears and scrapes and scratches of time and tragedy until the walls were clear and clean again and even the ceilings were beautiful.

The floor, alas, suffered. Oh well, oh well.

“All done?” she asked them when they came outside, tired and smeared and squinting into the shadows.

“’Till next time,” they told her, and they took her and the chair and the blanket and the (empty) thermos and delivered them all home before the sun finished fading.

***

The next time it rained.

Cheryl drove. Daryl got the coffee.

“Oh hello!”

Cheryl held out the umbrella. Daryl offered the raincoat.

“Oh how sweet!” said their grandmother, and she hugged them a second time each, and accepted both. There was a bit of trouble fitting the umbrella in the car, but oh well, oh well, and the heater was on, so oh well, oh well. She told them the groundhogs were gone, but she thought she’d smelled a skunk around the place recently, and oh they weren’t so bad, you know. Cheryl said her boss was a dick. Daryl said his coworker was a dick. She laughed and told them to keep their chins up.

The blanket was thicker. So were the contents of the thermos. She smiled at the rain as it streamed down in front of her and kicked her feet as they dangled and as Daryl and Cheryl started to haul the tools and the boards and the tiles, armful by armful by armful by aching armful, in and out and in and out until the corpse of the old flooring nearly overflowed Cheryl’s truck and they were hollow-eyed and dead of voice but oh, how the floor shone! Paintless, speckless, pristine, and as level as the lone sands.

“Good work today!” she told them as they dropped her off, umbrella left closed under the near-dry evening sky.

“G’welcome,” mumbled Cheryl.

“N’prbbm,” accepted Daryl.

They forgot about the umbrella.

***

The time after that, it was a beautiful sunny day. This was only spoiled a little by switching out the entire toilet (twice – it almost went wrong the first time) and lugging the new vanity in, all of which involved a full flight of stairs.

“You’ve got this!” their grandmother cheered every time they groaned past her, a flyswatter in one hand and a cold glass in the other. And she was right, and they managed to do the sink too, and for the crowning glory Cheryl got the first light fixture changed just so they wouldn’t have to set foot in the bathroom again for the foreseeable future.

“I’m so proud of you,” she told them, when they dropped her off. So they hugged her again.

***

The light fixtures took the rest of the next trip (the part that wasn’t about her grandmother discussing the absence of skunks while theorizing the possibility of raccoons). Cheryl held the ladder; Daryl screwed in the bulb, their grandmother made the jokes. This division of labour passed the chore quickly, and they weren’t insane enough to START the kitchen, but it certainly helped them plan it, make the last-minute double-checks, the just-being-sure planning, the are-we-sures turning into yes-we-are that let them sleep deeply, peacefully, and plentifully.

***

“No raccoons in days and days,” she sighed as they waited at the red light (it was always red). “But I spotted a lovely little rabbit in the hedge across the way the other day. Froze stiff and ran when I got up to see better!”
“Do you want us to get you one?” asked Cheryl.

“Oh no, no, no, don’t worry. I like them best when they’re wild.”

The kitchen was not wild. The kitchen was under complete control. The cabinets descended into place with lockstep brutality, like giant horrible legos; the countertops clunked into place like coffin lids; the cupboard doors and handles clasped in silent acceptance and slid shut without resistance.

“You’re so wonderful, you know?” she told them as she turned in her front door, hunched over her keys. “Going to all this trouble.”
“It’s not a problem,” said Daryl.

“Nah, you’re good,” said Cheryl.

So she hugged them again, and they hugged her back, oh well, oh well.

***

It was calm and cool and blue at the last. They brought drywell and more titles and the last of the paint and a coffee and a little thermos of something stronger.

“Oh, is it the big day?” she asked them, like she didn’t know.

“Yep,” said Cheryl, handing her the thermos and a kiss on the cheek.

“Sure is,” said Daryl, passing her the coffee and a quick squeeze of the hand.

“How wonderful!” she said. And she meant it completely, oh well, oh well.

They left her on the porch. The breeze was sweet and cold, the air was mild and warm, her blanket was thin and her smile was wide, wider while she watched the birds sing. They took everything and descended low, dropped deep, down one storey and into the craggy walls and cement creak of the basement.

The pump was already good. Cheryl had made sure of that. The electrical was perfectly fine. Daryl had checked.

All they had to do was cover it up.

So they did.

They put up the drywall.

They rolled on the paint.

They laid down the tile.

They trimmed. They tweaked.

And they went upstairs, tired and smiling, and they told her “it’s time.”
“Oh my!” she said with a smile in her words on her face in her crooked back as she stood up with a crunch. “Already?” And it was like she’d never known all along, so they laughed at her and she laughed at them laughing at her, all the way down the stairs, all the way into the clean light on the sparkling floor and the shining walls, all the way to the bare-concrete crevice next to the building’s fuse box, lightless, tileless, cragged, unpainted.

“Oh, isn’t this just divine,” she told them, wriggling her shoulders against the rough surface of the cubby. Her toes curled and gripped against grit and grain. “Yes, I think this will be lovely. You’re both so sweet, you know that?”
“Yes grandma,” said Cheryl.

“So you say,” said Daryl.

She poked him in the cheek. “Oh stop it and take some credit! I love you both, you know?”

“He knows,” Cheryl said, poking his other cheek.

“I know,” Daryl sighed, cheeks forcibly puckered.

“Good! Now finish up; you’ve had a long day already and need your sleep.”

So Daryl and Cheryl gave her another two hugs and they took the last piece of drywall and a bit of soundproofing to mask the echo and they sealed up her smile behind the cubby, oh well, oh well, and while Cheryl started to drag the last of the tools away Daryl walked up to the porch to make a phone call.

“Yep,” he said. “Yep yep. Finished today; the paint’s only just dried. All cleared and ready for tenants. The sooner the better, definitely. We want bodies in this building.”

He pursed his lips at the few birds that yet sang from across the street, shrill and anxious and few.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “No question about that at all. Pets are VERY welcome.”

***

On the way home, Cheryl sat up straight and almost stamped on the brakes halfway through a green light. “Fuck!” she said.

“What? What’s wrong?” asked Daryl.

“She still had my thermos!”

The many arms heaved.  The great wheel creaked.  The iron-banded cask groaned.  The dozens and dozens of little round polished stones went clunkclunkclunk-a-clunk-clunkclunkclunk. 

Clunk.

The godmaker raised her arm and the wheel stilled in the grips of the many, panting and sweating.  The cask ceased its spin slowly, the momentum of the rocks in its gut struggling against its over-greased axle. 

A single small stone nestled in the godmaker’s hand as she withdrew it from the bowl beneath the cask.  She held it to the light and looked with great care.

“Needle is god now,” she said, with calm ceremony –

“Woo-hoo!”

– followed by “oh for fuck’s sake,” without it.

Somewhere in the huddled crowd, a space emerged by force of elbows.  Needle was dancing in it.

“It’s just for one year,” said the godmaker.  That also wasn’t part of the ceremony. 

Needle’s tempo accelerated.  There was a strangled shout as her braid whipped into someone’s face.

“It’s just for one year.”

***

Raintime was upon them.  The woods were turning green again.  The animals were stumbling bleary-eyed and hungry from the depths of the earth.  The fields were more mud and less crust.  And Needle made her first decree.

“Cattail time!” she called from the godstool, one leg dangling and swishing like a cat’s tail herself.  “They’re turning nice and green and juicy at the tips! Snip the tips, snip the roots, get ‘em in a basket and let’s all get stuffed!”

“The swamp is cold yet, god,” spoke the godmaker at her side, eyes appropriately downcast.

“Oh yeah!  That’s the best part!  The frogs’ll still be a little sluggish, so get a few of ‘em too!”

So spoke Needle, and Needle was god, so everyone took their baskets and nets and spears and waded into the still-chilled waters of the swamps where the cattails were bright green at the tips and the frogs bestirred themselves from the muck with thick, phlegmy chugga-booms only to be met with spears between the eyes.  They brought out basket upon basket of green thin cattail shoots and roots, the long-dead branches of many dead swamp-struck trees for fresh kindling, and no less than three moosefrogs, dangling from thick saplings carried by twelve hunters apiece.  Their meat sizzled over the quick-burning marshwood, and from their antlers Cricket the Crafty wove a towering crown that Needle wore for three whole weeks before hurling it atop the evening bonfire, where it popped snapped and crackled in a halo of flame. 

Cricket was annoyed by that, but distantly.  She’d long moved on; spent the whole time since then shaping the base of Needle’s godpole: the bark was bare, the trunk was clear, and from the base to a third-of-the-way-to-the-top the thick stem of the tree had been narrowed into an elegant spillage of cattails, slender stems carved so slimly that the bonfire’s light made them bob in the breeze. 

***

Suntime blazed, night nearly banished.  The heat grew fierce enough at noon to drive everyone to huddle indoors, to remove clothes, to scrape shallow patches in the dirt and press their foreheads into them, to lie moribund in the stream until a preyfish grasped an extremity.

“Let’s set the woods on fire!” decreed Needle.  “We haven’t done it in AGES, and the wind is nice and flat!  Get the  kindling going!”
And though the groaning  was of preposterous magnitude and the thought of more heat was devastating to all, thus spoke Needle, and Needle was god, so flints were struck and bark and needles (lowercase) were set aflame and fed with breath until they grew up tall and proud and ravenous for more, and they took and took and took and ate until the air was smoke and the sky was black and the world was red.

When the smoke cleared things were different.  The underbrush was gone.  The cindertrees had dropped their cones, and the grand vultures had come from afar to feed on the small things.  The deadwood was gone, and the thick ash was already sparkling with a second green, like raintime come again. 

“One way to burn off a sweat,” said Needle.  Cricket the Crafty wrought her a brilliant, fragile sceptre from an over-charred cindertree branch, white and jet black, and she used it to poke everyone for two weeks until she threw it so high in the air that nobody saw where it landed, or heard the crunch.

Cricket furrowed her brow at that, but she was too busy to dwell.  The second aspect of Needle’s godpole was of greater difficulty for her: first, due to needing taller and taller ladders; second, due to the care necessary in shaping such long and delicate licks of flame, twirling higher and higher in a leaping pyre that the tree’s own heartwood turned red all on its own. 

 ***

Closingtime began, slow but sure, a groaning door catching a breeze and tipping farther inch by inevitable inch. 

So just as everyone was busy with the harvest of the meadows and the field, in the midst of it came the loud, piercing shout of Needle’s third decree. 

“Snake hunt!” she called from the roof of her house, where she’d moved the godstool once the height of suntime had passed, to expand the reach of her gaze.  “They’re nice and fat now, and they’ve started packing into their hibernacula! I know a good spot in the hills – let’s go let’s go let’s go go go!”

And though everyone was tired and covered in dirt and berry stickers thus spoke Needle, and Needle was god, so the spears were gathered and the drying racks were hauled out and the thick stone-gripper sandals were donned and the boulders were clambered and with burning spear, stabbing spear, and slicing spear the serpents were bearded in their den and dragged out in reasonable quantities (“leave some for next year!” reminded Needle helpfully, as blood flew and screams warbled); their venom drained into vessels for fishing and healing; their flesh smoked and packed for the hungriest of cold days; their skins burnished and woven into armour and waterproof blankets; their fangs carved into daggers and knives and awls.  The greatest of these was shaped into a true sword by Cricket the Crafty, who gave it to Needle and watched as she waved it around and then accidentally dropped into the well immediately. 

Cricket didn’t say much to that, but she did stomp her wood-gripper sandals extra hard into Needle’s godpole when she was ascending to work on the last third.  The thinness of the snakes slid upwards, ever-entwined, each scale perfectly, painstakingly chipped into reality.  Birds feared to approach it now.

***

Eventime did not announce itself.  Instead it slid in through Closingtime, softly, slowly, until one day everyone knew that the water was going to freeze and there was nothing to be done. 

“Before the days get too short,” said Needle, who had moved the godstool into the godmaker’s home (“it’s warmer in here”), “let’s build a new cold-lodge.  Our old one is nice, but I bet we could make it even better.  And twice as big.”
“The days grow shorter,” said the godmaker, who had been counting them in her head very carefully as of late. 

“Well then we’d better work really fast!” said Needle with great cheer. 

And at this though everyone cursed and complained and stomped their feet thus HAD spoken Needle, and Needle was god, for now.  So they took axes into the woods and found those trees whose scorching from suntime bespoke great strength and soundness, and they felled them, and they heaved them, and they barked them, and they shaped them, and they raised them, and they had to move them again because Needle wanted it “bigger,” and they had to that again, and then once more again, and at the end of it all the cold-lodge was built and it was nearly the height of a godpole and it had an attic and two full floors and a hearth that could keep all of it as warm and sound as a suntime morning or a baby’s smile, and a terribly thick door, and snakeskin in all the places where water would otherwise insist on intruding unasked-for. 

“This is great,” said Needle when it was done.  “Hey, don’t I get anything?  Where’s Cricket?”
From aloft, a groan.  Cricket the Crafty was taller than the highest remaining trees of the village, swaying gently in the cold clutch of the winds and anchored only by her gripper-sandals and a sturdy snakeskin rope.  A towering blocky mass erupted from the peak of the new godpole, resting atop the very skulls of the serpents below it.  Every beam and shingle of it was represented, and if an eagle had looked between it and the new cold-lodge it would have not have been able to find a single measurable difference beyond that of scale. 

“Don’t slack off!” called Needle. 

Cricket’s mouth spoke no words.  Her limbs did not shake.  Her hands did not falter. 

But she did slam the chisel in with extra vigor. 

***

“It is turning-time,” said the godmaker, as she stepped into the weak sunlight of the shortest of all possible days.

“It is turning-time,” said the godmaker’s aunt, who heard her say that.

“It is turning-time,” said her friends, who she told that.  And after they told their friends and they told theirs, everyone knew that it was turning-time.

“It’s what now?” asked Needle.

“Turning-time is here,” said the godmaker.

“Oh!” said Needle.  “Right.  So, do I need to go?”
“Before noon.  Yes.  Now.”
“Can I bring the godstool?”
“No.”
Needle sighed tragically at this.  “Please?  I know Cricket can make a new one, a better one, and it’s so comfy, and I’ve finally got this one leg to squeak just the way I like, and-”

There was a dry, crunchy crack and the godstool lurched slightly.

“Whoops,” said Needle.

“Just take it,” said the godmaker.

So Needle stepped into the snakeskin harness clutching the godstool and was raised together with it, up past the slender and elegant cattails, up past the long and delicate flames, up past the thin and entwined snakes, lurching around the towering thick-set mass of the cold-lodge model, and finally placing her atop the plain unmarred wooden disc that marked where god, who was Needle, was to sit for the afternoon until the sky took her away and all would mark their stones for the barrel once more. 

Needle slapped the godstool down atop the disc.  The rope slithered away back down.  She waved, but all below had hurried back into the cold-lodge, for it was cold and windy.  She looked around, but all the other godpoles were empty but for bare and unconversationally inclined bones.  She tapped her foot and hummed, but the wind was too loud to hear herself. 

“Ugh,” said Needle, as she leaned back in the godstool, which cracked again and lurched, which made the wildly top-heavy godpole sway wildly, aggravated a single very-slightly-too-deep-chisel-cut within the cold-lodge, which propagated inside the thin and entwined snakes, which spiralled out of control within the long and delicate flames, and which blew the slender and elegant cattails to pieces.   

With perfect and mathematical grace, the godpole fell. 

Another godpole caught it, then also began to fall.

Things proceeded as expected from there. 

***

Everyone came out after the noise stopped – because some sounds herald things you can’t do anything about except hide and wait for the aftermath.  The cold-lodge was untouched; the rest of the dwellings less so.  The godmaker’s home in particular had been pulverized to smithereens by what appeared to have once been a lovely if antiquated carving of many fishing nets. 

They stood together and looked at the wheeled cask, crushed flat by a familiar cold-lodge model.  They stood together and looked up at the godpole grove, now holding nothing taller than a shrivelled leafless seedling or a cracked stump.  They stood together and looked down at the scattered bones that had once been gods, several of which had landed in the well.  They stood together and looked at the wooden disc that had embedded itself edge-first in the dirt right in front of the cold-lodge, like a shovel’s blade in a molehill.

“Do you think Cricket could have a look at the leg on my godstool?” asked Needle.

They stood together and looked at anything but Needle. 

“It’s just that it’s cracked a little more than I’d like.  Do you think she can fix that?  Can I make that a decree?”

They stood together and looked at nothing but Needle.

The silence was broken at last by Cricket the Crafty, who screamed “oh, you little PIECE OF SHIT” so loudly that all in the village could hear the blood ooze into her throat.

***

The bones were buried in the last of the unfrozen ground; the wheeled cask’s husk as their home.  The dwellings were left until raintime; the cold-lodge sufficed.  The pieces of the godpoles were brought inside and hung from the rafters, strung from the walls, tied to the beams. 

They’d never look good as old, but someday they’d look good as new. 

Thus spoke Needle, and Needle wasn’t god, but nobody had the energy left to argue. 

Business

>Experimental NORPUL Drill Project Discovers Giant Man Wrestling a Snake on a Boat Underground

South African-based oil firm NORPUL’s latest test drilling has uncovered something more unusual than a hoped-for new oil field: a vast river stretching far beneath the surface of the earth containing a giant man wrestling a snake on a boat.

“This isn’t exactly what we were expecting, I’ll admit,” said Tychus Ooley, 52, the company’s CFO. “For one thing the river is water rather than oil, and for another the man and snake both appear to be of unreasonable size. But after the third borehole turned up the same thing, we had to admit that they do both seem to be real and down there, and quite active.”

Whether or not this will placate NORPUL investors hoping for a surprise windfall in the third quarter remains to be seen; for now, everyone’s equally in the dark.

CORRECTION: it has been brought to this publication’s attention that the giant man and snake are not in the dark, as the boat is aflame with radiance.

Opinion

>The Giant Man Wrestling a Snake on a Boat Underground is a Unique Opportunity

I’ve been around the block a few times – in the past decade alone I’ve worn the hats of snake-wrangler, independent surgical supplies contractor, volunteer alderman, homesteader, scholar of the law, author of eighty books, owner of my own publishing house, manufacturer of the world’s only ‘do-it-from-scratch’ printing press, bitcoin rancher, and self-taught AI philosopher – and I think I’m more than qualified to say this: the giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground has the potential to change everything. He’s not just the past, he’s also the future. We need to invest in him immediately. You can do that by buying as many NORPUL shares as you can like a good little sheep, or you can forge your own path: where there’s one the giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground, there have to be more – it’s statistically guaranteed. This morning I put out a patent for the world’s first solo-operated giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground detector, drilling, and excavator. There’s a whole new field of untapped potential beneath our feet, and the government hasn’t yet had a chance to legislate the future out of it. Phone me to learn more.

Broth Allen is an independent business-owner, landlord, political commentator, investment expert and free-thinker who has run for mayor sixteen times.

News

> NORPUL ‘Sun-Road’ Exploration Draws Criticism

Allegations have been made raising concerns that NORPUL’s continued drilling into the ‘Sun-Road’ cavern – the titanic river stretching from one side of the planet to the other containing the giant man wrestling a snake on a boat discovered earlier this year – may be motivated by the desire to acquire the giant man’s possessions, an act several legal experts imply could be construed as illegal under some circumstances.

“It’s clearly his giant, radiant, bejeweled and gilded boat,” said Harvey Foschlorps, 46, professor emeritus of law. “Unless it belongs to the snake. But that seems unlikely. In either case, it’s preowned and not abandoned. Attempting to remove the immense wealth coating it would constitute a crime by any reasonable definition of the term.”

NORPUL’s legal team have issued a comprehensive reply to their critics as of this morning, stating that their intentions within the ‘Sun-Road’ are purely exploratory in nature, advance the cause of science, are motivated by the humanitarian imperative to make sure the giant man is not in physical distress or danger, and are taking place in a realm far below the legal jurisdiction of all nations that rest atop the earth’s crust.

Science

> NORPUL Stocks Soar Following Analysis of ‘Sun-Barque’ Samples

Further analysis of scientific specimens gathered from the subterranean boat inhabited by the giant man wrestling a snake has confirmed that the vessel is not merely coated with gold, but 25-karat gold.

“It turns out there’s a purity beyond one hundred percent,” confirmed Doctor Dwaven Deebles, 39, NORPUL’s chief scientific advisor, “and it’s all down there. Exciting stuff.”

Gold wasn’t the only discovery of merit made.

“The ‘jewels’ coating the boat appear to in fact be self-contained, faceted chunks of plasma whose internal temperature ranges from five to fifteen million Kelvin,” continued Dr. Deebles. “That’s pretty hot!”

When asked for potential applications of a source of extreme heat that violates all known laws of thermodynamics and physics, Dr. Deebles halted the interview pending consultation with NORPUL’s board of directors.

Opinion

>The Giant Man Wrestling a Snake on a Boat Underground is a Parasite Upon the Greater Wealth of Humanity

Gold is the king of the metals; the material manifestation of all humanity desires; and the irreplaceable and necessary yardsticks that allows mankind to determine the value of all other things in existence. It’s finite in quantity, and inevitably accumulates in the grasp of those with the wit and skill and greatness to master it. The giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground has none of those things – he is clearly unconcerned with any worldly matters save his pseudo-solipsistic insistence on serpentine gymnastics – and is selfishly inhibiting the circulation of humanity’s vital essence within the world-spirit of the economy. As he sees his possessions as worthless, we are not required to indulge him in educating him otherwise, quod erat demonstrandum. Any claims of so-called ‘looting’ of his subterranean barge are absurd qua absurd, ipso facto not theft presto.

To those who would argue otherwise, I have but two words: cee lavee.

Ronc Toole is a political independent and the only member of his graduating class with great enough foresight to invest in gold rather than wasting his time on degrees.

Entertainment

> Giant Man Wrestling a Snake on a Boat Underground Gets a Makeover

Ouch! It seems even a multi-millennia-long workout plan doesn’t protect you from the carelessness of strangers – everyone’s favorite multi-story hunk, the giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground, has been spotted sporting a nasty shiner after a fancy-pants new Barque Retrieval Vehicle swung a little too low today while harvesting and popped him right in the left eyesocket, swelling the poor little thing shut tighter than Harmonica Lippz’s Oscar dress! Still, some people can make anything look good; in our opinion, more purple just highlights his strong cheekbones. And a good thing too, because now it looks like the snake has really wrapped him up good on that side. Stay strong, buddy!

Local Events 

>Sun Fails to Rise

Residents in the East Ward today were surprised to see that despite low cloud conditions and minimal light pollution, the sun did not rise, causing consternation among many.

“Frankly, that’s unusual,” said Erst Polt, 73. “I can’t remember the last time that happened, and I can remember quite a bit.”

Others interviewed were less concerned.

“If you ask me, the sun has been lazy for years now,” said Finnicus Mince, 62. “Nobody shows up on time to work anymore, and when they do, they’re rude and don’t listen to you.”

“I’m pretty sure most people think the sun’s supposed to rise every day,” said Troncisco Wisp, 36, “but if you do your own research it checks out. Eclipses and UFOs and chemtrails and stuff happen all the time. I asked ChatGPT and it says the sun’ll come back tomorrow.”

As of noon, the sun remains absent.

Life

>Today’s Horoscopes

Sorry – no horoscope today! There’s a really big snake filling most of the sky right now, so even though there’s no sun and all the stars are (presumably) out we can’t see a danged thing to predict! Instead, we wish all our readers a safe and happy Tuesday – no matter what signs they may fall under!

Business

>NORPUL CEO Announces New ‘rent-a-sun’ Subscription Model

“As the sun is now gone, it falls upon us to provide affordable and high-quality sunshine for all, through the dispersal of the jewels of the sun-barque – once owned by the late giant man wrestling a snake on a boat underground – by the most equitable and fair means available,” announced Florn Gronch, 55, owner and founder of NORPUL. “Bidding will start at noon tomorrow, opening minimum of one trillion.”
When asked what would become of those countries unable to purchase access to sunlight, Mr. Gronch explained that they would perish in the dark due to their phrenological shortcomings, a statement that has been criticized as controversial and potentially unscientific by some experts.

NORPUL stocks are expected to rise tomorrow morning.

Resource Evaluation: Star System MW-28PBD-3, ‘Dweedle’

Introduction

Star system codename Dweedle contains nine planets of discernable interest, along with significant quantities of planetoids, planetids, planetesimals, and planeters, but no planeterns. The following is an overview of Dweedle’s star and planets in terms of atypical or noteworthy features as they pertain to pursuing avenues of resource exploitation.

Description

Dweedle ‘S0L’

A modest yellow dwarf star inhabited by a typical array of hyperpyrophiliac superprocesses running within the star’s core. They have made no objections to our explorations in standard supralegal symbolism or otherwise, as is – again – typical. Aside from any long-scope hyperspatial turbation emitted by their activities, they might as well not exist.

Output is typical in all spectrums, from visible to invisible to susceptible. No trace of ‘star blight’ in corona. Vaccination against abstraction is up to date.

Dweedle-1 ‘M ERC7’

A small rocky planet immersed in the perpetual center of a Twainsmith-style spatial fold approximately 1.5 kiloeons in timebreadth. This is most easily explicable as the planet having been transposed into its current near-star and deeply inhospitable orbit by a Main Long ‘Watchmaker’ type astellar entity as some sort of experiment/prank/punishment/self-martyrdom/other. Judging from the flavour of the suturing this appears to have happened at least sixteen million lightyears away and seven billion years in the future, so there is no present cause for alarm or mediation.

In its current state it would be a modest fit for stellar extraction dockyards, provided the facilities were buffered against both extreme temperatures and metaphysical ‘doom cramps.’

Dweedle-2 ‘V N05’

A middling rocky planet possessing a superheavy atmosphere after suffering billions of years of drive-by antisiphoning operations by vacuum traffickers looking to skim a little extra off the top of their paycheques, as can be transparently verified by the most cursory of research into local shipping records and law bleepers. Fossil and temporal evidence suggests a single native species consisting of one autochthonous entity that was driven to extinction one billion years ago after its bulk circumvented the planet and it attempted to eat itself.

The cleanup to make anything worthwhile here would cost more than any potential profit. A dump it has become, a dump it will remain. At least the pressure and temperature will do the work for you.

Dweedle-3 ‘arth’

A middling rocky planet covered in volatile hydrogen dioxide whose unstable crust and erosive atmosphere are matched by its preposterously rickety local life, which have clogged all of Dweedle’s intra-system communications frequencies, bands, wavelengths, and tripfonts of grunge-grade or lower with useless drivel.

There is absolutely nothing here of any value. Luckily the chance of sporogenesis appears extremely low.

Dweedle-4 ‘M4 RS’

A modest rocky planet with pleasantly red surface and a light carbon dioxide atmosphere. The surface shows subcrustal canalization and buried jungles carved from rust, indicating past ‘doodling’ by hyperdimensional rubberneckers with access to basic retrocasuality engines and too much nontime on their parahands.

The near-ephemeral atmosphere provides high annual radfall, which would make this an excellent place for growing cheap and bountiful tumorous-qualia infrastructure, as long as you don’t mind working with biocode and exporting carbon all day.

Dweedle-5 ‘J0V E’

A large gas planet – the largest in Dweedle – currently in the throes of a multi-million year ‘civic disturbance’ (a war by any other name) between the north and south poles of its magnetic field using ever-advancing methods of causing maximum entropic termination to the enemy, the latest of which appears to be using the larger of the planet’s moons as staging grounds. The most prominent casualty of this beyond the escalatingly-absurd width of the planet’s magnetosphere is a multicentury-long ‘blood storm’ marking the exponentially-increasing spread of an Absolute Kill Zone which will reach the core and detonate the entire planet within the next thousand years, entirely saturating Dweedle with magnetoid querks and antipathic vibes fatal to most conventionally physics-based objects, concepts, and forces.

A diplomatic solution would be costly and probably impossible. A duplicitous solution only barely less so.

Dweedle-6 ‘S4T R N mk II’

A large gas ‘planet’ that has in historic time taken the place of the preceding (smaller, ice planet) S4T R N by infesting its core with intergalactic missile-spores, hollowing it out from the inside using an abrasive and rotational digestive system , and exploding the last remnants of its host outwards in a gory ring of ice shrapnel that now orbits its slayer’s gas corpus. It is currently sleeping off its meal and is projected to be in a snacking mood in about two hundred million years; ravenous and roaming by a billion.

If you can find a QhD with enough funding to get industrial-strength temporal wrapping on a research base and keep it running for the next galactic year, they might eventually learn enough to come back and ask you for more funding. Otherwise, this is dangerous AND useless.

Dweedle-7 ‘UR @ N0Z’

A large ice giant with a pronounced list due to the centrifultimate struggle between its rings, its dark rings, its nonrings, and its unrings, all of which share the same spatial location but occupy different perceptions and emotional states. Otherwise unexciting.

An exposure therapy clinic could charge through the nose here, but the necessary telescopes required to fully focus the ring system onto a single client would be ruinously expensive in upkeep even if its clientele were wealthy enough to buy nebulae on crednought. Furthermore, parapsychomathematical forecasts warn of an irreducible 0.3% chance of ‘selfification,’ and any patient wealthy enough to afford such a clinic doubtlessly possesses a personality incompatible with being transposed into a fifth set of planetary rings for a time beyond measurable boundaries of infinity plus !one!.

Dweedle-8 ‘N3T TUN’

A large ice giant.

It’s much too smooth.

Dweedle-9 ‘ N ’

A muddling nonplanet deformed of a rigid and sour muucaV bubble erected over a desynthesized unaggregation of anti-anti-anti-matter, upheld in context through Main Short philosophical counter-abstraction. Its inhabitants may have autoannihilated, placed themselves in defensive paraexistence, or have cocooned themselves as part of a joint dissolution towards Main Median; no clues are available without more intrusive probing, which would cause Dweedle reality to no longer be compatible with continued reality. Comprehensibly dangerous.

Don’t think about it and don’t think about not thinking about it.

Analysis

Dweedle has dwindled from its peak population of six inhabited stellar bodies down to two-ish and counting plus/minus one, due to a combination of ill fortune, carelessness, greed, and blind idiocy both from without and within the system. None of these diminishments has freed up resources, presented new opportunities, or opened up new spaces; on the contrary, they have frequently consumed them or replaced them with catastrophic detriments. Any conveniences it offers are almost inevitably beset with vexing complexities, costly externalities, and in the single case where no obvious barriers to exploitation were present (Dweedle-4, ‘M4 RS’) the net benefit was a small-scale tumour-export business… in a system with a minimum of two apocalyptic clocks (Dweedle-7, Dweedle-9).

Conclusion

Dweedle is eminently unsuitable/contaminated and should be avoided with prejudice by any and all entities with any sense, commercial or otherwise. Nothing of value is present.

I was fifteen years old and me and my first girlfriend had just split up the day that dad showed me the way. He walked upstairs (stomped, really – he never did figure out how to use a staircase), took one look in my room, and told me “c’mon.”

So I c’moned all the way downstairs and out the door and into the truck and down the way and by the park and down the trail all the way down to the old quarry, where we took a path behind a pine tree that went further then it looked, and he showed me the pit.

“Dump it in there,” he said.

“What?” I asked.

“You know what.”
And I supposed I sort of did, because there was only one ‘it’ that mattered right then and it was squatting in my chest and sort of pulling me down in a way that had nothing to do with gravity. So I walked up to the edge of the pit and I shut my eyes and I threw it away.

There was a little whoosh of moving air, a distant bump from something bouncing off hard-packed dirt. That was it.

I felt light again. I felt right again.

“There ya go,” said dad. He patted me on the back and let me take the wheel on the way home and we ordered pizza.

“Remember that,” he told me. “Whenever you need it.”
So I did.

***

I got carried away at first. I think dad knew that’d happen, but he didn’t say anything. Didn’t raise a brow or lift a finger when I went out there after I blew an exam, got in a fight, broke up with my second girlfriend, sat with the dog when we put him down, said something I regretted to a friend, all in eight months.

I think dad also knew I’d lay off eventually. And I did. When I went out there the day after I got wasted and put a dent in the truck I felt silly, standing there with a little twist in my stomach and walking in circles around the pit, thinking about weight and pressure and wondering how many mistakes like that I’d have to pull together to make one failed exam to make one half-strangled conversation you’d been putting off for days and never practiced right to make one dying old dog.

It wasn’t good math. No good at all.

So I went home, and like, I felt a bit lighter in a different way. Sort of. And dad never said anything about it, and I thought that was pretty okay. I mean, if it WASN’T he wouldn’t have said anything either, but he’d have looked at me different. I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure.

I was pretty sure he’d talk to us when he had those extra doctor’s appointments too.

***

So after that I visited the pit a lot. One BIG trip after the news finally broke – mom saw a piece of unopened mail from the hospital, which finally brought the whole thing  out – and then a steady never-endy stream of little ones, drip drip drop, because every time he stepped out of the truck and went indoors and I saw the gravel stuck in the tires and the pine needles in his soles I knew he’d been to the pit. Which was what made me go there. I wonder if I ever rebounded on him like that, backwards? Who knows, he never talked to me about it. I never talked to him about it either. Why would we? We had the pit. And a year and a half in, I made one more big, big, big trip, still in my good rented suit, and I felt my shoulders lift so much higher that it felt like they must’ve been around my elbows before, bending me double with all sorts of things I had no business thinking about.

I sighed, deep and relieved, and just over my own breath I heard a little soft rattle and I looked down at my still-shiny rental shoes and there it was, a little dribble of everything I’d just thrown  away, oozing free of the rim of the pit.

I still don’t know what happened to those shoes to this day. No clue. They weren’t there after six years, I tell you that much.

***

Those six years were awful.

I mean, they weren’t that bad.

Good things happened, right? I got a dog. I broke up with a girlfriend and stayed friends. I finished school. I got a good job. I got engaged. I did a lot. A lot of good things.

It’s just that all the other things, well, I had nowhere to put them. I could feel them stuck in my chest in the day and rattle loose with my breathing at night. I could feel them swelling like nodules under my armpits and against my throat. I could smell them sour whenever my deodorant ran thin and I needed a shower.

So when a friend of mine had an accident at a stoplight involving someone who didn’t like stoplights and my fiancé asked if I wanted to talk I told her no thanks, got in the truck, and took a drive that was longer than it had been last time.

The brush was overgrown too. Nobody went to the park much anymore. But the pine was still there. And the pit. But not my shoes.

I listened to the pit. Something was sloshing around down there. Too close. Too close.

That was okay. I’d thought ahead a little this time. I had a shovel. And a rope.

So I measured out ten paces and started digging and I didn’t stop until I felt a bit sick and the air hurt to look at and the rope was taut and dangling above my head, and I crawled out covered in dark earth and sweat and feeling like the heaviest thing in the whole world.

Then I stood there, and I let it fall away and knew I’d done the thing right. Heard nothing but the wind, no impact.

***

It didn’t last as long as the first one. I didn’t think back then that I’d put it together wrong – I still don’t. I think I just had more on me, and it was heavier. That six year weight, plus well, kid problems are smaller than adult problems. They pack closer together, keep down well.

So after it filled up I dug another pit.

Then another.

And then, well, after the divorce, I filled two in one year. And then I saw a buddy at work – known him for years – and he was going through it too, and.

Look. The whole point is you don’t talk about any of it. You don’t have to talk about it. But you can SHOW someone, right? Dad showed me.

So I showed him. And yeah, they fill faster with two people, but they dig easier too. One of us tied the lines and ran the bucket; the other shoveled. It worked pretty well.

Then we heard of a buddy of his. Good guy. Childhood friend. His mom passed, you know, and he didn’t know what to do, and we couldn’t tell him. But we could show him.

And he knew how to work a backhoe.

***

We had to get permits at some point. That was the closest it came to ruining the whole thing, to putting words around it all. So we showed the guy at the county office, and he showed his boss, and in the paperwork everything’s not THERE but it’s worded so you can see the shape of where it would be if we said anything. Which we didn’t.

You don’t have to look hard to see it anymore anyhow. The park’s not much these days, but the old parking lot is full day in and day out. Backhoes, drills, dump trucks. Guys with shovels and levels and ropes and wheelbarrows. All of them trudging in like death warmed over, walking out with bright eyes, straight backs, high shoulders, a different set of regulars for every day of every week. The pine’s gone, but the trail is wide – and paved and fitted with streetlights, after the tire ruts from the heavy machinery got so deep you almost couldn’t walk it without planks and guardrails at noon, let alone after dark. You can hear the engines running all day and all night from the highway, wheezing and beeping and groaning. The guys at their controls drink coffee to keep awake past midnight, then clock out at daybreak in time to drop their burdens in the new pits and head home to sleep it off.

There’s been buzz about making them wider. We’ve already had to cut down half the trees already, we can probably get an actual quarry going. Maybe work our way into the backwoods. Gets harder and harder to keep everything unstated at that size, but you know, it’s an investment in the future. If you build it, they will come.

I’m not sure how deep they are. I’ve never looked in any of them.