The train was long, very long—probably some sacred number of train cars, like ninety-nine or sixty or a full sweet gross, who knows. Roby went from car to car, having miscellaneous adventures with varying levels of zanity and encrazement, and while it would be very tedious to recount each step of her journey, I'm going to do that anyway, so brace yourself, or embrace yourself, or don't—it's going to happen regardless.

So, Roby entered the next car, the third car from the back, with the plan of traveling fully frontal and confronting the engineer and pleading with him to halt the locomotive—assuming movies were reliable and trains always had a locomotive and engineer both, and that wasn't motely a specific type of train propulsion device long obsoleted by autonomous contraptions. If there was an engineer manning some other sort of train header, she was ill-prepared for that, but no matter now. There in the third car, as Roby entered, she found a vast chamber with high gilded walls, a carpet of rich crimson, and a hundred golden chandeliers clinging gracefully to the ceiling, swaying slightly gently in the train's motion, and in each corner of the room sat four elephants, and they were the Kings of the East and West, and all along the walls between the elephants stood unpainted modern candle makers, men of renown, each armed with four swords and twenty ears of corn.

“A room of a fancied sort!” said Roby. “Shall I be sat now at starboard or port?”

A hovercraft pulled up next to her, and out popped Twilbert Ross, official namer, taster, and maker of marmalade, who had plum-shaped teeth and rabid aphelmoussae. He attempted to adjust his tie in a move bespoke with solemnity and panic both, and succeeded.

“You've come at last,” said Twilbert. “It's the kings—they're very sick—sick of this music! We've been waiting for the compositeur for a long time, very long!”

“Ten,” said the elephant-kings, “seconds.”

“Far too long,” said Twilbert in a hoary whisper. “You kept us! So now we'll keep you. Now—slacken not, and music-make!”

Twilbert pushed Roby toward a great glass bowl with a tweed hat, and then went to wash his hands. This wasn't some kind of absurdist filler, it's just that touching Roby was really disgusting.

“Me, music-making?” said Roby. “Good kings, kind things, I know not how to sing, and this thing, glistening, needs tweed at speed, I see—a role unknown to me, and a bowl glass-blown truly!”

Ralf brought out a deck of cards, but no one wanted to play with him, and what's more, Martingale already had some, and they were red, so Ralf was drawn and quartered—and still, no one wanted to play. Martingale put his cards away and went to sit under the toad hammer, and watched the toads line up three-by-three to get hammered—it was Sunday morning, a little early, but that never stopped the Catholics.

Twilbert returned from washing his hands, having ground them down to stumps and replaced them with plastic tentacles. Accompanied by one of the Kings of the East and West, the elephant who was named Bicker Fivecent—sorry, King Bicker Fivecent—Twilbert approached Roby, in the center of the room, beneath the largest chandelier, bedecked with golden chains and glowing jewels, and shifting softly as the train kingdom rumbled along its way.

“I propose,” said Twilbert in a low voice, so low that Roby had to stoop to get it off the floor, “a song.”

Roby picked up the tweed hat. “A song?”

“A song,” said Twilbert suggestively. His gaze darted between Bicker Fivecent—sorry, King Bicker Fivecent—and Roby.

Roby said, “A song,” and put on the tweed hat.

All at once the elephant-kings broke into outraged roaring, the bleating of their trunks and the clamoring of their hooves causing the greatest of all ruckii, and they all began to stampede in a spiral, and none of the chandeliers fell because they were professionally installed by Goatboy and Sons Professional Industrial-Strength Chandelier Installations, Inc., and so were rated for stampedes of up to one thousand elephants, one million moose, or one billion trampoline injuries. Roby, however, was not installed by Goatboy and Sons PISCI, Inc., and so had very little ability to resist the stampeding of even the sixteen elephant-kings that bore down on her, and so, instead of trying to, she took a big bite out of the glass bowl.

Now Twilbert let out a terrifying shriek, that of a man who has had all his wishes come true, and the elephant-kings similarly wailed, and flang their trunks about, and clapped their hands, and flapped their wings in astute agitation. The door to the dog kennels burst open and all the dogs with less than ten letters in their names came out, linked arms, and chanted the old spells to beckon the tides, which of course worked, but the well-behaved tides waited their turn behind the velvet rope.

“Just a moment,” said the usher.

“Of course,” said the tides. “Take your time.” They made finger-guns to the usher. They were cool, and their dates appreciated their displays of patience. Everyone was going to have a nice time.

Feeling quite famished indeed, Roby went ahead and took another bite of the glass bowl. Now the elephants turned into accountants—the elephant parts of them did, they were still kings—and now the accountant-kings turned on the TV and caught the last few hours of a horse race, and they shed a tear at witnessing the sad genocide, and declared that under their rule, no cruelty was too much for those for whom no cruelty was too much, and they declared war, but not having an enemy to declare war against, they divided themselves up, and declared war against each other, and fought each other to a stalemate, until there were but two accountant-kings left, one of the West and one of the East. The Accountant-King of the West was named Some James and the Accountant-King of the East was named Elder Picebarrel.

Accountant-King of the West, Some James, said, “Verily, maiden, destroyer of our heart, bringer of our soul, thou hast made a new name known to us this day. Long shall we remember your words, and long shall we celebrate your name.” With that, he stabbed the Accountant-King of the East, Elder Picebarrel, in the heart with a radioactive saber-toothed shark.

Accountant-King of the East, Elder Picebarrel, wasn't dead yet, and said, “Sooth, for long have we waited to see the name of Justice and Sin brought before us, and indeed, we have long known the pang of cold abrussement, but not in a hundred years did we forget to see the sun, and not in a thousand years did we forget the name of our home, and our fathers before us.” With that, he stabbed Accountant-King of the West, Some James, in the heart with a molten snowblower.

Then the last two Kings of the West and East died, and the land was without a ruler, and without rule, and fell into the grip of banditry, and the peoples became isolated, and the villages lost the roads which once tied them together and bound them up as one great land, and each was its own minuscule candle lit against the darkness. Twilbert also died, and his massive corpse grew bloated and large, and fell to the land, and the land took it, and castles were built upon it, lairs of brutal warlords who sought to bring the land to heel under their own mastery, but each one of them failed, and the castles fell to ruin, and died ere morning.

Roby took another bite of the glass bowl as she wandered the countryside, and saw in the distance the little glistening lights of an aforementioned village, lost and lonely and yearning to remain as such, yet daring to indulge a vain undoing luxury. She quickly finished off the glass bowl and wiped the crumbs from her lips, and traipsed on over to the village, which was no more than a few filthy huts huddled together to form some meager semblance of security against the crowding darkness of the ancient forests and groaning hills, and the place unheeded her.

There were no people about, not at this hour. The sky was the color of disease and disuse, and the land was washed in its gloom. All the huts were dark, and the lights came from the windows of but one building, which she presumed to be a tavern or inn, which she assumed to be the same sort of thing. She had no money, of course—none of the main characters in this story ever have any money, it would just make things too easy, probably—however, she might be allowed a place to spend the night, perhaps under the stairs, if she asked nicely. And so she went to the door and opened it and stepped inside.

Now, Traycup was elsewhere from Roby, and swathed in darkness, but a different darkness, and I think I introduced a character in his previous cliffhanger, so I should go and check that. He didn't know up from down, and groped blindly for some pastries or cotton candy, but to no avail—he found only Lyme disease and paperwork. The Blood Onyx of Zykluur had left him, and now he had no ropes, and not even a Christmas cookie, and so he thought about how everyone knew how to draw that cool S—you know the one.

“Hey,” said Pobal, “quit thinkin' so loud. You're distracting me. I got a lot goin' on over here.”

“Well, I'll,” said Traycup, “be! Another'n, but so unseeable! Or I've my eyes closed!”

“In a dark place,” said Pobal, “there is only thought. So keep yourself to yourself, if you don't mind.” Now Pobal was—well, it was too dark to know anything, so there was no way to tell. Pobal was probably some kind of subterranean muskrat, or part fishing boat—something along those lines. “I'm not,” he said discourteously. “I'm the absolute appendix. Clergy for years around have known about me and sought to burn me out with a scathing word or two.” He seemed proud of that.

“You seem proud of that!” said Traycup.

“Keep my gimmicks to myself!” said Pobal. Then he added, “I take it you 'found' the Blood On', huh? That's short for the Blood Onyx, by the way. That's short for the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, by the way.” Pobal ate some taffy, and didn't offer to share.

Now, there was a porpoise hanging out around them, but it didn't have a name and couldn't talk—it's a porpoise, after all—so don't worry about it. Just add it to the picture, and think of its sleek gray skin, it's long, smooth snout, and the myriad teeth in its mouth, for it's as mammalian as me or... as mammalian as me, anyway, and thus bears all the typical biology: teeth and teats, arms and arts, a stout leg to run with and a stouter leg to kick with. And, of course, an apron.

“Found indeed!” said Traycup. “It's integral to acquiring butter—but, alas, the butter is no longer required. Still, it's a measure of closure to have butter in hand!”

Pobal nodded, unseen and unpointfully. “Yeah, I've dealt with the post office. I know the feeling. Well, good luck with that—that's all I'm gonna say about the matter.”

“Sadly, luck's run out! The whole letter's lost, or rather, enhanded by another, pocketed in a separate coat 'tirely!”

“I said,” said Pobal, “that's all I'm gonna say—wait. Wait. You sayin' you're a coat-swapper? Now that's beyond the pale!” Pobal stumped out his cigar and threw an ice cube. “As bad as a landlubber! As bad as a street sweeper! As bad as home plate!” His shouting startled the porpoise—but again, the porpoise didn't do anything in this scene. It's just there in the background, like an Easter egg, existing to amuse its discoverers—should they know the shibboleth.

“Well, said!” said Traycup. “Now that's out with it, let's advance—we want for undarknessing. Whither the great egress?”

Pobal began sorting canned goods. “See, the thing about that, is—”

Oh, hang on, I forgot to finish Roby's scene. Sorry.

So, inside the tavern, Roby found all the villagers, oblate and crass, gathered in a circle wherein was all their hair, lit on fire—this was their last prayer for salvation, the only hope left to this forsaken land. And, upon hearing the door open, they turned and saw Roby, which broke the spell, and salvation fell forever beyond them. The villagers leapt into a machine gun nest and started shooting at Roby with the machine guns, but Roby leapt into the entrance of an abandoned mine—or the abandoned entrance of a mine—knowing too little about elevators and thus engaging the shaft carlessly. It went a mile straight down, underground, and Roby fell all the way, and when she hit the bottom, the villagers sealed the mine up, so that she was trapped forever.

Roby lit a match, but there was little to see. It was an old mine. Well—it was a rough-hewn hole in the rocky deep mantle of the hollow Earth. Roby ate the match and then tried the back door, but there wasn't one, so she looked for an escalator, but there wasn't one of those either. A mine makes a poor mall.

Since Roby had only like, two lines in this chapter, even though she's the main character of it, she said, “Well, no well, but a mine—all mine, and so time to climb—fie and fie! Though the wall be high, a fall, says I, is all that I revile—to die! This slick cliff tricks limbs, stymies climbing, halts vaults, and—ah, there are stairs!”

Just as she said, over there was the stairwell, the door ajar under the flashing and red, buzzing dim EXIT sign, so naturally she went that way instead, even though she had already hammered a bunch of pitons into the rock wall, and as soon as she had entered the stairwell and gazed up at the dizzying spiral that vanished to a pinpoint of sunlight far, far away, someone slammed the door shut behind her.

Okay, how about—how 'bout a Jum Burie scene? Get a lot of mileage out of this chapter, I guess.

So there was a normal-style knock at the door, which didn't fool Jum Burie. She was awake now, no longer tired at all—the worst of all possible worlds. She'd let that unfaze her. Her golden hair was a mess, though. Was that normal? Now that seemed nearly cursed. Well—she'd finally had her last epiphany, now that Tuberlone was long dead, but the flask still unopened, and the normal-style knock continued persuasively, and kept continuing, even after Jum Burie was long gone, because windows are as good as doors for those who can walk on anything, and walk she did, for they'd never catch her, even at a casual stroll—if they could, they could've done everything all by themselves in the first place. Now she walked on her own, all on her own, and, seeing how much was before her, and how much was behind her, and how any option was as good as another—well. She was in no hurry.