Hitherby Dragons

Peter Cottontail hides eggs.

“This one,” he says to himself, “I painted like the world. It tells the story of how Attaris Bunny broke the sky and stole the stars.”

He looks around. He scampers over to a bush. He plans to hide it under the bush. He looks up nervously, as he does each time, towards Eden Above.

“That story, Peter?”

Peter startles. He almost drops the egg. He spins around. Then he hides the egg behind his back. “Why, Betty!” he says.

Betty Bunny has her hands on her hips. She’s pink, except for her tail and waistcoat, which are yellow.

“It’s important,” says Peter.

“It’s not important. Nothing’s important. Not this close to Eden.”

Peter pouts. After a long moment, Betty relents. She looks down. She sighs. “But why that?” she says. “Why would you ever want anyone to know that?”

Peter brightens. He turns his back on her and finishes hiding the egg under the bush. Then he hops off towards the forest.

“Peter?”

“Come on!” he says.

Reluctantly, she hops after him. She follows him into the forest. He hops to the left. He hops to the right. Finally, he finds just the right tree. He pulls out an egg. It’s painted a dull cold red.

“This one,” Peter says, reverently, “is going to have the story of the serpent. And I’m going to hide it here, right under the tree of life.”

Betty flushes.

“You have to tell it,” Peter says. “You’re the best at it. I always get choked up.”

Betty frowns at him.

Peter puts the egg back in the basket. “It’s okay,” he says. “You don’t have to do it yet.”

He finds a different tree. He takes out an egg. “This one’s about the genocide in Asia,” he says. “When we killed all the lucky rabbits.”

It’s painted brilliantly. It’s a den and a backdrop of blue and there are white rabbits sitting in it, drinking tea and looking out their window at the night. The rough blue-black paint of the sky catches just the slightest spark of light.

“That was exaggerated,” Betty says.

“They weren’t all that lucky,” Peter agrees. His voice is sad. He looks up at Eden Above. He looks down. Then, quickly, he hides the egg. He scampers to an abandoned mouse hole, looks down, and then glances back at Betty. “Do you have any eggs?”

“Peter!”

“You knew I’d be out here,” he says. “You knew I’d be doing this. You didn’t bring any eggs? Even if it’d break my heart?”

Betty sighs. “Fine,” she says. She rummages around in her waistcoat pocket. She pulls out an egg. It has stick figures on it. They are the stick figures of rabbits. They look a lot like human stick figures except for the quintessential quality of bunnyness.

“It’s about peace,” she says. “It’s about every bunny who muddled through, even—”

She looks up. “Even knowing—”

Peter takes it gently from her paws. He hides it in the mousehole.

“See?” he says. “It’s important that they know.”

He thinks, and then he takes out an egg of his own, painted with a thin and wasting rabbit carrying a lantern and staring down a deep dark hall.

“Starvation,” he says.

After a nervous look upwards, he hides it with hers.

“I’ll tell you the story,” Betty says. “If you want.”

Peter takes out the dull red egg. He cradles it in his clever paws. He holds it up to her. It listens.

“We were young,” Betty says. “In the dawn of the world. In the garden. And the serpent tempted us, as it did Man.”

“Yes,” Peter says.

“We took down the apple,” Betty says. “A bunny and a cottontail. And ate it, so that we would know good from evil. We learned to make waistcoats to hide our shame.”

Peter nods. For a long time, Betty is silent.

“But we were very small!” Betty cried.

“You have to finish,” Peter prompts. “The egg won’t be done until you finish.”

“We weren’t hungry enough,” says Betty. “We couldn’t finish the whole apple, not even between the two of us. So we only learnt enough to last a thousand years.”

Peter nods.

“That’s how it was,” he says.

“Soon we’ll forget,” the bunny says, looking very small against the wind, “and go back to Eden, and we won’t have choices to make any more.”

The garden hangs above them. The strange devices that hold it out of human reach thrum low.

“It is a little closer,” Betty says, “every day.”

She thinks.

She adds, “The end.”

The egg clicks. The egg whirrs. “Data stored,” it says.

Peter takes the egg back to the tree of life. He leaves it at its root. He hops away. When he is at the edge of Betty’s sight, he stops, and turns back.

“Come on,” he says. “Come on!”

“There’s no one who’ll ever find them,” Betty says. “No one who’ll know—”

“We have to hide the egg about my birthday,” Peter says. “Otherwise no one will know which day to celebrate!”

“Oh,” Betty says.

She begins to hop after him.

“And the one about the War?” she asks.

“And the one about the War.”

Il-roo has one hundred hands and fifty heads. His teeth are as sharp as razors. He lives in a magic cave in the Valley of Desolation. He has many adventures.

Today’s adventure begins when the sun shines through the cave maw. Il-roo’s ancient slumber fades and he sits up.

“Good morning!” says Il-roo. He wriggles out of bed. He puts on his armor. It is black and spiky. “I should have my breakfast now.”

Il-roo looks in his cupboard.

The things in the cupboard writhe.

Il-roo’s stomach rumbles.

“Oh dear,” Il-roo says. “You’re not ready to eat!”

Il-roo’s clock chimes. There is an echo in the world. The crystal spires howl.

“That’s right!” realizes Il-roo. “I’m not having breakfast here today. I’m having tea with Obegai!”

Il-roo stalks to Obegai’s home. On the path a giant serpent rises. It is made of lava and ancient technology.

“Hello serpent!” says Il-roo.

The serpent hisses. Il-roo draws his sword. The serpent lunges. It knocks Il-roo’s sword from his hand. The sword skitters off into the bracken of forgotten souls.

“Oh no!” says Il-roo.

The serpent bites Il-roo’s arm. Its fangs sink deep. Its coils wind around Il-roo.

“I’d better use the magic of the ancients,” declares Il-roo. He chants a terrible chaunt. The serpent weakens.

Il-roo becomes dizzy.

Il-roo becomes dizzier.

“The poison’s in my brain,” realizes Il-roo. His world is spinning. His brain is dizzy and hot. Then the head with the poisoned brain falls off. Il-roo only has forty-nine left! Now the poison is seeping towards Il-roo’s heart.

“No!” cries Il-roo, stopping his chant. “I will not die today.”

Il-roo heaves the serpent off of him. One flailing length of its body falls into the bracken of forgotten souls. There is moaning. Hands rise eagerly from the bracken and grasp the snake. The snake looks worried. The hands begin to pull the serpent deeper in. Il-roo grasps a crystal tree. The snake struggles. Finally the serpent must release the grasp of its terrible fangs.

“Help me,” says the snake.

“I cannot,” mourns Il-roo.

“You have a sword,” says the snake, “that could cut the sun, the moon, and the sky. You are Il-roo! Surely you can cut me free.”

The snake is pulled deeper in. Only its head is still outside the bracken.

“I lost my sword,” says Il-roo. “You knocked it from my hand.”

“Oh yeah,” says the snake. It remembers the incident now. “That was my bad.”

Then the snake is gone.

Il-roo goes to Obegai’s house. A eunuch servant ushers him in and seats him at Obegai’s table.

“You have forty-nine heads today,” says Obegai.

“I got in a fight,” says Il-roo.

“It’s better to share with your enemies,” says Obegai, “than to fight them.”

“I know,” says Il-roo. “But I think this enemy wanted to eat me. That’s crossing my personal boundaries, so I didn’t have to share.”

“Point,” mulls Obegai. He pours the tea. “Point.”

Obegai has many feathers around an indeterminate shape and his eyes burn red.

“I lost my sword,” says Il-roo. “Can you make me a new one that can cut the sun, the moon, and the sky?”

“Anything for Il-roo,” says Obegai. He stands up. He goes to his forge. He presses the button for SWORD.

“Thank you!” says Il-roo. “You’re great!”

“You must wait twenty minutes,” cautions Obegai. “Or it won’t be sharp enough.”

They drink tea. Then Obegai goes to his seraglio. If he does not visit his seraglio every fifteen minutes then somebody dies, and Obegai has grown tired of death.

“Hm,” says Il-roo, while Obegai is away. “I bet my sword is ready.”

Il-roo looks around shiftily. Then he goes and grabs the sword.

“Look!” Il-roo cries. “I’m a terrible many-headed monster!”

He swings the sword at the teapot. The sword breaks.

Obegai comes back.

“Huh,” says Obegai. “I thought you lost your sword?”

Il-roo remembers that honesty is best. “I took the sword from your forge while you were in the seraglio,” he says. “I thought it was ready.”

“It was only forged for eight minutes,” chides Obegai. “You’re so impatient!”

Obegai sighs.

Then Obegai starts the forging of another sword. He loves Il-roo too much to be angry with him.

While the sword forges Obegai has more tea with Il-roo.

“I’m sorry,” Il-roo says. “I just thought—”

“If you don’t give things enough time,” Obegai says, “They’ll never work out!”

“You’re mean,” Il-roo sulks.

“I’m just old and wise,” says Obegai. Then he runs off to the seraglio before it’s too late.

“He’s just stalling me,” says Il-roo. “I bet this time the sword’s already ready.”

Il-roo takes out the sword. He swings it at the teapot. The teapot is sliced clean through, and the cut is so clean that the tea does not spill.

“Yay!” says Il-roo. He goes outside. He tries to cut the sun. The sun does not cut. Instead the sword melts.

“Oops,” says Il-roo. He takes the sword back inside. He puts it in the forge. He whistles innocently.

“Il-roo,” sighs Obegai.

“What?”

“A long time ago I was impatient like you. I thought that it would be faster to kill my enemies before I actually made them.”

“Huh!” says Il-roo. “That does sound efficient.”

“Since I couldn’t tell who my enemies would be,” says Obegai, “I killed everybody.”

“That makes sense,” says Il-roo. “That’s probably why the world’s so empty and horrible today.”

“Yes,” agrees Obegai.

“But your enemies were all dead!” says Il-roo. “So it worked!”

“Yes,” says Obegai. “They were. Except that it turned out my greatest enemy hadn’t been born yet!”

“Oh no,” says Il-roo. His eyes are very wide.

“When he was born,” says Obegai, “I wasn’t expecting it. First, his parents were already dead. Only an ancient curse let his mother give birth anyway. And second, I thought I’d killed all my enemies, so my guard was down.”

“What happened?” Il-roo asks, breathlessly.

“Il-roo,” sighs Obegai.

“Oh,” giggles Il-roo. “You mean me!”

Il-roo beams at Obegai. Obegai smiles at Il-roo.

“In the end,” says Obegai. “We became the best of friends and I raised you like my own child. But you did almost kill me first with a scythe made of your mother’s bones.”

“That’s true,” says Il-roo. “I guess killing everyone in advance was a mistake. And that’s why I never knew my parents!”

“Do you understand now?” says Obegai.

“I do,” says Il-roo.

They wait twenty minutes. Obegai goes to the seraglio and returns. The forge dings. Il-roo’s sword is ready.

“I’ll go cut the sun, the moon, and the sky!” Il-roo says.

He rushes out. He cuts the sun. He cuts the moon. He cuts the sky. It’s the best sword ever!

It is night. Micah and Liril are sleeping. Tainted John is laying down.

There is a rustling.

Micah is instantly awake.

There is a further rustling. Something is scurrying and slithering in the pine needles. It is evil.

Micah is on his feet. He is looking towards it.

It is great and serpentine and slithery. It is pale moonlight colors, blue and cold. It has a terrible maw. It has black feathers on its head and raven eyes. It is just the sort of thing that one finds making rustling noises in the forest.

“Once upon a time,” the creature whispers, and its voice is moon and stars and wind, “a runaway child broke his leg here. So he died. And I grew inside him. And then I came out. And now I must kill runaway children to lay my eggs in them.”

Micah looks at Tainted John. Tainted John does not seem to have noticed the rustling or the creature’s speech.

The creature’s head sways back and forth in the air. Then it arcs viciously towards Micah. Micah moves to meet it, then stops, his hands splayed in the air, as if against an invisible wall. The creature stops too.

“There’s a glass door,” Micah bluffs. “Bump! If you attack, you’ll hit your head on it!”

The creature hesitates. “Open it,” it says.

“There’s no handle!”

The creature eyes him narrowly. It has bumped into glass doors before. They are one of its natural enemies. But the air is undisturbed.

“I do not believe you,” it whispers.

“I wouldn’t let her sleep out here defenseless,” Micah bluffs.

And if this works, we cannot know.

In the time before time, Amiel and Lia are as sisters.

They would love one another forever. But Lia dies.

It hurts Amiel to speak. Her words tear the inside of her throat. But still Amiel promises Lia as Lia dies, “I will guard your line, and our families be entwined forever.”

The words are pure and beautiful and painful. It is one of the longest things that Amiel has ever said.

And it is false.

Amiel’s line is false. Their guardianship is twisted.

550 years before the common era, Amiel’s heir Nabonidus breaks his ward, his lover, his enemy Mylitta on the altar in the temple of Sin. Belshazzar, their son, devours from within her that potential that opposed Nabonidus.

She is the heir to Lia’s line, and first of the people of salt.

Ten years pass.

It is 540 years before the common era, and the moon burns with white cold light.

Mylitta lives in the temple at Harran. When he wishes, Nabonidus comes to her. He takes gods from her.

“I’m sorry,” he says, sometimes. He tries to say that. He isn’t sure how. So sometimes it’s words, and sometimes it’s a gentler touch, and sometimes he just opens and closes his mouth like a fish.

He’d have broken a long time ago if it weren’t for her.

“I chose this,” she says.

It’s one part true and four parts lie. He knows this. He wrung that information from her, once, when he couldn’t stand not knowing any more.

But it shows him that she is not dead. It shows him that he has not lost her. It shows him that he has won without sacrificing her soul.

“You can’t kill me, now,” he tells her, one day, when drawing a feathered serpent from her. It’s to harass Kuras’ forces in Egypt.

The serpent is slick with the fluids of its birth. It stretches its wings uncomfortably. It shakes itself.

“Fly to Egypt,” Nabonidus tells it.

It will kill two hundred and thirty men and lay five hundred eggs before its death.

Mylitta is drained. She is pale and weak. It is no longer true that she can kill monsters. There was a flame in her once, a flame that gave her that truth, and now there is only silence.

“I can’t kill you,” she agrees. “I’m not the hero any more.”

“Then why are you smiling?”

Mylitta shrugs.

Nabonidus pulls them from her. He pulls forth an army. And among them are things that no mortal blade can kill; things that can devour armies; lawmakers of ruthless dispassion; scourges, judges, scientists, warriors, and architects of the natural order.

“Sometimes I think that the world will hate me,” says Mylitta, as she looks upon a demon born from her.

“It will honor you,” says Nabonidus.

“Why?”

“Because I am your judge.”

Nabonidus walks to the window. He looks up. He bathes in the light of the moon god Sin.

“This is my judgment,” he says. His voice is Amiel’s now. It is the monster’s, now. It is pure and brilliant and cuts at his throat until the words are blood. “Your children shall honor you for all the days of the world. They will call you the mother of their line. They will say that you fell before me, not because you were weak, but because I was too strong.”

It takes him time to recover. She gives him that time. She waits until he can speak again before she asks him,

“Did I fall?”

He laughs. “Did you not?”

He turns to look at her. She is alive, he thinks. Still, after all of this, she is alive.

There is a sudden wild exultation in him. “Do you understand what I have done? What I am? What will happen here?”

He gestures at the window. “Monster, you called me. Monster, of a line of monsters. And it frightened me, Mylitta. That I might lose you to that frightened me. But when I sit on the throne of the world, there will be nothing that can bring me fear. There will be no chains that can bind me. I will not suffer. I will not sorrow. I will shape the world as I see fit, and I shall never know pain or sorrow again. They will not call me monster. They will call me God. I will have won.”

“Unless you are weak,” she says.

“This will be a monster’s world,” says Nabonidus. “I will remake it until it honors me.”

“Unless you are weak,” she says.

He is not listening.

“And I will free you from this,” he says. “When I can. When I’m safe. I’ll free you. You won’t have to make gods. I know how it hurts. I know how impossibly it hurts.”

“You’re forgetting who you are,” she says.

He looks at her.

Slowly, he comes back to himself.

“The stars are gone from your eyes, Elli,” she says.

But it’s a lie. She sees them there. And later, he makes her tell him that, until he knows that she remembers that he loves her.

He walks out of the temple. He looks up at the sky. He looks up at Sin, who is the moon.

“I want to do this,” he says to Sin.

It is a plea. The moon god is the guarantor of the word of kings. The words he does not say hang in the air: It’s true, isn’t it?

“It’s just harder to fight her when she’s so weak.”

The moonlight on his face is a blessing.

Nabonidus straightens. He grins. If there’s no path to happiness, he can at least be pure; and one day soon, he figures, he’s going to make sure that the two are pretty much the same.

Whistling, he walks away from the temple and out into the night.

Belshazzar’s Feast

Babylon

Daniel works at his desk. He balances accounts. He looks for discrepancies. He reads the records of the dreams of the people of Babylon, and searches them for meaning. It is the hope of his masters that he may discover corruption and incompetence within Babylon’s bureaucracy by correlating the records and the dreams.

He is not surprised when the seraph enters his room.

“I dreamed,” Daniel says, “that the people of Judea fled from a lion, and were met by a bear. The bear was bitten by a serpent, and the bear and the serpent tore one another apart. Then I flew away and was suddenly naked.”

“That is the kind of thing that happens in dreams,” says the seraph.

“The lion was Nabonidus,” says Daniel. “The bear is Belshazzar, who rules in Babylon now that the monster is gone.”

The seraph is a creature of beauty. It is tall. Its skin is strange. Its wings are great and terrible. Its eyes are jeweled.

“I had hoped,” says Daniel, “that he would be a better King. The people of Judea have suffered under the monster for too long; and we are not the only ones.”

“The Lord has not rendered His judgment,” says the seraph.

“Then,” says Daniel, “I ask that the Lord be merciful, and redeem this man. Move his heart, and have him release us from captivity. I have seen into his soul, and there is hope for him.”

“He is no more than any other man,” says the seraph, “and like any other man, he must make his own chances for redemption.”

It is 539 years before the common era.

It is the night before the Feast of Belshazzar.

The Bo Tree

India

Siddhartha has wandered for six years and several months. He is tired, and he has not found his answer. So he sits beneath a bo tree, and he says,

I will not leave this spot,
Until I find supreme enlightenment—
Until I can make answer
To the suffering of the world.

The wings of Maya beat against him, and she whispers on the wind:

Do you not wish to know your wife again?
To indulge in sensual pleasures with her?
And hold your son, your wonderful son,
And raise him in the duties of the house?

Have you forgotten all the pleasures
That found you in your palaces of gold?

Siddhartha’s smile is clean enough to break her heart.

Should such knick-knacks tempt me? Siddhartha asks.

Belshazzar’s Feast

Babylon

Belshazzar slouches on Babylon’s throne.

“It falls to me, now,” he says.

He is dressed in the regalia of a King. He did not know what else to do with it when his father Nabonidus cast it aside.

“I must assume the burden of their dharmas. I must conquer the world. I must break the chains that hold Mylitta’s gods. I must devour everything that is.”

He considers.

“It is fortunate,” he says, “that I am a man who can bear contradictions.”

He snaps his fingers. Mana, an incubus like a giant stick-bug, answers Belshazzar’s call. He is wearing a minister’s robes.

“Release the gods from their bindings,” Belshazzar commands. “And tell them: ‘Go. Make horrid revel, or strike down the armies of Kuras, or help the people of Babylon, or hide under the beds and fear the dawn; do as you like. Serve your nature. Go free.’”

“They will not want to leave you, sire,” oozes the incubus.

“Tell them that their long pain is answered,” says Belshazzar. “Tell them that Nabonidus is gone. That Mylitta is gone. Tell them I have won. Tell them that it is time.”

“And of the people of Babylon?”

“Tell them to make celebration,” Belshazzar says. “Tell them that tomorrow I shall hold a feast, and they shall see the wonders of my kind.”

“They will be afraid,” says the incubus. “There will be fiends that burrow in their skin and move their hands like puppets. There will be angels preaching unimaginable hopes. There will be ghosts of the things they cannot let go of. There will be cruel claws under the bed, and black wings in the sky, and purple light in the depths of the city. If you do not lead them with a strong hand, fear and doubt will break their minds.”

“It is not for me to judge them,” says Belshazzar. “I would go mad. The power I have in Nabonidus’ army—I would go mad! Should I choose whom the gods shall make puppets, and whom they shall exalt? Should I command the hungering beasts, ‘Eat those who stray from the traditional morality, but leave the rest alone?’ When someone sees an eye in the darkness, shall they say, ‘Ah, Belshazzar wishes to know what it is I do?’”

Belshazzar shakes his head.

“I am alone,” he says. “I am an orphan. I am naked in the face of the world. Let them be the same. Let them face the infinity of gods and sort out their own judgments from among them.”

“Such wisdom,” says the incubus. “Truly, you shall be the King of all the world.”

Belshazzar smiles thinly.

“You too are free,” he says. “I need no praising god.”

The Bo Tree

India

As the feast of Belshazzar approaches, Siddhartha sits beneath the bo tree and thinks on life. Maya’s wings are beating, and she says to him:

Surely, Siddhartha,
If you continue this meditation
It will bring you your death.

Over the horizon, he can see them come. They are swift. They are terrible. They are an army of horror, summoned from the world to answer Maya’s need. And Maya names them as they come:

Look, this is Sakkaya-ditthi,
Raksha and enemy of the gods, but still she comes,
Twisting wind, white light in a hurricane,
Mumbling the truths of power.

Look, this is Vicikiccha,
A world-breaking fiend, like a panther, like a snake,
Crawling on two legs towards you
Dragging his tail behind him
Burning you with his eyes.

Look, this is Silabbataparamasa,
Dark sorceress clad in writhing rituals,
Hidden in a cloak of night,
Practicing the magic of your end.

Look, here are my daughters, child:
Tanha, whom you must love;
Arati, whom you must hate,
Raga, whom you must lust for.

Here is Arupa-raga, a distancing god,
Here is Mana, raksha, clad in robes
Here is Uddhacca, born of the monster’s need
Here is Avijja, demon, your undoing.

Look, Siddhartha, as they come,
Boiling over the horizon.
They shall be your death.

And Siddhartha looks at them, and he sees the laws of their natures, and he says, I shall die, mother, but not in such a fashion as this.

Belshazzar’s Feast

Babylon

The celebration rages through Babylon. It is punctuated by screams and cries of ecstasy. And Daniel stands before Belshazzar, and says, “My people cannot be here, Belshazzar. Living under your rule will destroy us. It is time to let Judea go.”

Belshazzar rises from his throne. He is drunk. His eyes are cold.

“Where was your God when I needed him?”

Daniel shakes his head. “That isn’t relevant.”

Belshazzar’s nostrils flare. He is not a bad man in all ways, but he is not a very good drunk.

“I find your people wanting,” he says. “I will devour you. I will break your faith and prove your Lord is meaningless and in so doing I shall unmake everything your people are.”

Daniel lowers his head. He walks away.

Belshazzar turns to a servant.

“Fetch forth the ceremonial vessels taken from the temple at Jerusalem,” Belshazzar commands. “I shall defile them here, at the feast of Belshazzar, and then there shall be no people of Judea, no tribe of Abraham, no servants of Daniel’s almighty God, but henceforth only emptiness.”

And so he drinks, but as he drinks, the seraph enters the room; and there is no one whose eyes follow the seraph but Belshazzar himself.

The seraph’s hand is red.

“Mene,” writes the seraph on the wall, in letters of crimson and black. “Mene. Tekel. Peres.”

The Bo Tree

India

Siddhartha is unmoved.

The army of Maya has cast itself against him, and it has broken. Stone, and ice, and knives have rained from the heavens upon him, and even the devas opened their umbrellas to shield them from so terrible a rain—but Siddhartha is unmoved.

Flaming rocks fall upon him, and in Maya’s eyes Siddhartha sees the bite of an unmeasurable pain, and he bows his head, but he does not leave, and he does not die, and he does not break.

Finally, Maya is exhausted, finally there is nothing left in her, finally she is curled upon the ground and saying:

Why have you left me alive, my son,
To know my helplessness?

Belshazzar’s Feast

Babylon

It is later that night, and Belshazzar has devoured the alcohol from his blood and now there is only a headache.

“Daniel,” he says, “what does it mean, this writing on the wall?”

“‘You have been measured and found wanting.‘”

Belshazzar laughs. He cannot stop laughing. He shouts, into the air of Babylon, “It’s so! It’s so! I will judge myself so!”

The Bo Tree

Dualistic Existence

Siddhartha holds out his hand to the treasure wheel, and says,

You weep, mother, because I will be a Buddha.
Yet only the Buddha can end your tears.

Listen. This is enlightenment:
Suffering is unnecessary.

To make it unnecessary—
That is the nature of the Buddha.
That is my dharma.

There is no room in all the natures of the world for the truth he has just named; and in that moment, the purpose of the world is emptiness, and the treasure wheel is hollow. And in Babylon, Belshazzar’s teeth cut and tear at his own flesh, and the devouring god devours himself, and into him like a rushing river pour all the natures of the world.

539 years before the common era, the world is delivered from sorrow.

The lion stood outside Sid’s office building. Its tail lashed. It growled.

“It’s hard to imagine that someone let you out on purpose,” Sid said. He looked around him for sanctuary. There was no one else in the square. Behind the lion, the revolving door of the office slowly spun.

The lion padded forward three steps. Sid hefted his briefcase, pulled his arm back across his body, and then flung the case at the lion. It bounced off the lion’s hide, but the beast snarled and stepped back.

“I’d better go in and call animal control.”

Trusting in insouciance, Sid loped past the lion into the building. He made it into the circle of the revolving door before the beast turned and charged. Shoving forcefully against the glass, Sid managed a quarter turn before the beast followed him in. This was enough. Its claws scraped at the glass behind him. Sid waited until he could reach the lobby, then threw his weight against the door to slow and stop its turn.

“Raar?” the lion snarled, hopefully.

“Stay there,” Sid said.

Then he went up to his cubicle. He passed Max on the way, and Claire, and Saul. He waved to them.

“There’s a lion in the revolving door,” he said. “Don’t use the door unless you’re prepared to strangle the beast unconscious.”

Claire rolled her eyes.

“It’s true,” Sid swore.

“This is why I don’t walk to lunch,” said Saul. “If it’s not rain, it’s lions. But if I drive, then the lions can’t pierce my defensive metal shell.”

“‘Car,’” said Sid.

“You should call animal control,” Max said.

“I’m gonna,” Sid said.

“Before the lion gets out and ravens among the cubicles.”

“I’m gonna,” Sid emphasized.

Then he reached his cubicle, sat down, and made his report to animal control. In the distance, he could hear snarls and roars. Then there was the clatter of a toppling swivel chair and the slowly fading mewing, coughing, and grunting sounds of Claire strangling the beast.

Sid sighed. Then he shrugged. He stared for a few minutes into his dharma box.

Sid hung up. He logged on to the system. Then he began to take calls.

Five of them proved irrelevant, in the broader story of Sid’s life.

The sixth did not.

“UDBI technical support,” said Sid. “This is Sid. How can I help you, Ms. Baker?”

“I’m only human,” said the panicked voice on the other end of the line.

The sound of Sid’s typing was like that of a heavy rain.

“How long has it been?” Sid asked.

“Nearly three hours,” Ms. Baker said.

Sid’s pinky finger came down on the carriage return with a loud crack. He was silent for a long moment.

“That shouldn’t ever happen,” Sid said.

Now his fingers were dancing on the keys. Dozens of charts and maps opened up on his screen, cascading from the background to the front.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” said Ms. Baker. “My car didn’t start. My room is a mess. I’m having petty thoughts, Mr. Sid.”

“It happens to all of us,” soothed Sid. “Even UDMI employees. Just hang in there until I can get your dharma system back online.”

He spun the mouse wheel. Convulsively, he stood up. “It’s not just you,” he said into the phone. “It’s your whole junction. I’m going down there to look at the lines. Can you call back, extension 833, if the problem isn’t resolved in twenty, thirty minutes?”

Ms. Baker’s voice is hesitant.

“I guess,” she said.

Sid frowned. He added, “Lock your door.”

Ms. Baker hung up the phone.

Sid left his cubicle. He loped down the hall.

“Sid?”

That was his boss, Dr. Ezekiel Brown, emerging from a side hallway.

“Walk and talk,” said Sid. “We’ve got a whole junction down in Block 43.”

“Damn it, Sid,” said Dr. Brown. “You know you’re not supposed to head out on this kind of thing without my gnomic management wisdom.”

“It’s probably just a short of some kind.”

Dr. Brown held up a finger. “Operations involves preparing for the worst eventualities,” he said, “not the best.”

“A line that needs repair.”

“Soar like the eagle,” said Dr. Brown, “who flies without a net.”

Sid laughed.

“Thank you for the inspiration, Doc.”

“You’ll call?” Dr. Brown said. “I mean, if you need management?”

“I’ll call.”

Sid seized a toolbox from a shelf as he passed. He reached the elevator doors just as they opened and disgorged a tour guide and a set of guests; without pause, Sid turned smoothly for the stairs, flung open the door, and headed down towards the parking garage. Behind him, the guide was saying:

“There’s a Hindu story of a King returning from war when a river flooded and blocked his path back home. He said to each of his ministers and generals, ’show me your erudition and your heroism—reduce this river’s flow!’

“And they couldn’t.

“But then one of the camp followers said, ‘River, sink low.’—”

The voice faded as the stairway door closed behind him. Sid reached the garage, got into his car, and drove to Block 43.

The phone rang while he was halfway there.

“Hi, Daddy!” said Emily.

“Hi, honey,” said Sid. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Mole men,” said Emily.

“There aren’t any, honey.”

“There are now,” said Emily. “We aced all the standardized tests, so the teachers said we could establish an autonomous subterranean collective. Now we’re lurking in the caverns underneath the city!”

“They’re not caverns,” said Sid. “They’re access tunnels.”

“Mole tunnels,” said Emily. “We tamed an alligator, you know.”

Sid laughed. Then he frowned. “Huh. The zoo’s in block 43; I hope the Animal Wrestler is all right.”

“Do you want us to check? We could tunnel under the city and emerge stealthily at the zoo!”

“Can you achieve consensus on the matter?”

“A band of mole men thinks as one!”

There is the sound of disagreement on the far end.

“Huh,” said Emily. “Leadership challenge. I’ll call you back. Love you Daddy!”

“You too, hon.”

Sid pulled over outside the UDBI satellite installation for Block 43, a small boxy building principally containing supplies, a junction box, and a mechanical console. Sid waved his hand over the handprint reader by the door, went inside, and began flicking switches and taking line readings. A frown slowly deepened on his face.

He flicked open his phone and hit a speed dial. “Doc?”

Doctor Brown’s voice was hopeful. “Sid! What’s up?”

“Can you get the police to evacuate people from block 43?” Sid asked.

“That bad?”

“The whole block is glitching all to Hell,” said Sid. “It’s worse than the 2016 incident, and I can’t find a reason for it.”

Doctor Brown nodded. “I’ll call back,” he said.

Sid opened the door and looked nervously around the street. The sun was bright. Pythons slithered companionably through the green grass. Birds chirped. There were no fires and no obvious looting, which seemed to reassure Sid.

His phone rang.

“Yeah, Doc?”

Emily giggled. “Hi Daddy!”

“That was fast,” said Sid. “How did the leadership challenge go?”

“We struggled fiercely in the dim twilight beneath the earth! Drums beat vigorously! But then someone remembered that the zoo has baby goats, so we all decided to check it out, because, ooh, goats.”

“Congratulations.”

“We’re peering up at the zoo with our mole eyes now. I think someone’s been showing the animals the dharma boxes, Daddy.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well,” said Emily, “mostly, the eerie cooperation of gazelle and panda in smoothly coordinated escape operations! But also the Animal Wrestler is floating unconscious in the alligator pen with little gifts piled around him like the gators wanted to honor a noble foe.”

“Can you round up the animals, pumpkin?”

“Daddy,” said Emily scandalized. “I’m eight.”

“Well,” said Sid, “if your mole men aren’t up to it . . .”

There was a long pause.

“We’ll see what we can do,” said Emily. “But the autonomous underground collective disapproves of keeping animals penned. That’s our free mole spirit!”

The phone buzzed.

“Got a call in,” said Sid. “Talk to you later, honey!”

“Bye!”

Sid clicked the Flash button. “Yeah, Doc?”

“The police are on the way. Any progress?”

Sid shrugged. He flicked a few more switches.

“It’s in perfect working order as far as I can see,” said Sid. “If you want to offer gnomic management wisdom, now might be the time.”

Doctor Brown hesitated.

“There was a Hindu story,” said Doctor Brown, “about a King returning from war when a river flooded and blocked his way home.”

“That’s not wisdom!” said Sid, scandalized. “It’s in our company manifesto!”

“He challenged his ministers and generals to lower the river,” said Doctor Brown, who wasn’t the kind of man to abandon a good story. “But it was an ordinary camp follower who solved the problem, saying, ‘River, sink low!’ And the river, which had ignored the entreaties of ministers, generals, and Kings, sank until she could cross it without wetting her ankles. Because, as low as her position was, she was perfect in her dharma. She knew who she was. She knew what she was there for. And because she had that power and that confidence, no force in the universe could stop her.”

“Okay,” said Sid.

“So why are you letting this stop you?”

Sid opened his mouth to speak, paused, and frowned.

“That’s a good point,” Sid said, after a moment. He poked at the side of his mouth with his tongue. This somatized his internal attempts to evaluate the state of his soul. “I’m dharma-OK. The glitch isn’t affecting me. So I should be able to fix this.”

“Soar like the eagles, Sid!”

Sid tapped at his forehead with his hand.

“Okay,” Sid said, “so here’s my theory.”

“Oh?”

“We look at the dharma boxes to center ourselves in our dharma,” said Sid. “To become like that camp follower. The boxes resonate with who we really are, down underneath, to help us reach our fullest potential. That’s why you have such a hard time finding reasonable opportunities for your motivational speeches—we’re already at our personal peak of excellence!”

“. . . Yeah,” sighed Doctor Brown, sadly.

“But the dharma boxes aren’t manifestations of a God-like universal will,” said Sid. “They’re machines. They’re mental and spiritual feedback devices, and the first versions were built by ordinary imperfect humans. Here’s what I’m thinking: what if there’s a global error in the design? Something pervasive and subtle, something that none of us can see because every thought we have is shaped by the feedback from the boxes? So that when I stand here, looking at the evidence of the glitch, I’m still unable to see it, because it’s something that can’t exist in the context of my world?”

Doctor Brown considered. “Something that heroes can’t solve, but ordinary people can?”

“No,” said Sid, after a moment. “It’s more a general philosophical problem with turning to external evidence to figure out who we are.”

Sid hung up.

Several flamingoes flew by.

Sid thought.

Then he took out his dharma mini, set it on “Neutral,” and stared into its face.

Sid’s thoughts grew thick and full of error. Some of the glamour fell from his world. A seed of fear sprouted in his heart.

Grimly, he put the dharma mini back into his pocket and began to work.

After a while, the phone rang.

“Hello?”

“It’s me,” said Ms. Baker. “It’s been forty minutes.”

“Oh,” said Sid.

Ms. Baker hesitated. “Oh?”

“I’m trying to figure things out,” Sid said. “But I’m off system myself.”

He leaned under the console, took off a panel, and stared at the wiring underneath.

“It’s terrible,” Sid said. “You know? I mean, it’s like I’m climbing a mountain, and there’s a cold wind blowing, and my fingers are numb and the picks are loose and there’s an evil goat and I could fall at any second and die.”

Ms. Baker made a little, pained laugh.

“Yeah,” she said. “There’s an evil goat outside my door too.”

“. . . baby goat, probably,” Sid said. “There was a zoo maintenance error.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t believe we used to live like this. I can’t believe being human used to be like this all the time.”

“Yeah,” sighed Ms. Baker.

“It sucks.”

Ms. Baker hesitated.

“Also,” said Ms. Baker, brightly, “you could get stabbed! By muggers!”

Sid smiled a little.

“Or get hit by a car,” he said.

“Catch gangrene.”

“Sniffles!”

“Social conflict!”

“Internet trolls!”

“War!”

“Stubbed toes!”

“Sheer blatant stupidity that you didn’t understand for years until one day you’re sitting at home and suddenly you realize just how wrong you were!”

“Oh, God,” said Sid. “I remember those. Those were horrid.”

They laughed.

“It’s actually the one thing that surprised me,” said Ms. Baker, after a bit. “I mean, when I moved to a UDBI district. That suddenly everyone got along.”

“Well, it’s natural,” said Sid. “I mean, you perfect people, and—”

Sid hesitated.

“I’d been expecting irreconcilable differences to remain,” said Ms. Baker.

“Yeah,” said Sid.

“It just seemed sound. That sometimes not everyone could have what they want at the same time.”

“That’s erroneous,” Sid said, distractedly. “I mean, in the formal theory of dharma boxes, it’s not so much that everyone gets what they want, as that people recognize that point beyond which they can’t have everything. They lose their connection to the basic human, mortal cruelty of the world.”

Sid frowned.

“But you have a point,” he said. He closed the panel, sat back, and said, “I’ll have to call you back.”

“Thank you,” said Ms. Baker. “I mean, for working, I mean, even when—”

“Only human,” said Sid.

It was still terrifying to him. His gestures were slow and clumsy. His thoughts were cold and confused.

“Yeah,” Ms. Baker said.

Sid hung up. He called Doctor Brown.

“Hey,” said Sid.

“Hey, Sid. Are you all right?”

“What would have happened to the camp follower,” said Sid, “if the river, confident in its dharma, had chosen to continue its flood?”

“That’s not possible,” said Doctor Brown.

“Pardon?”

“It’s basic dharmic theory. That part of our perfection that depends on others is also that part that we can expect from others. If a person and a river are in the world, then the limit of their dharmic excellence as they approach perfection is also in the world. The final perfection of all entities must coexist in . . . God, Nirguna Brahman, the Cantor-Deity, or what have you. Of course, this year’s models only really give an effective perfection around 98.3%.”

“Huh,” said Sid. “Then I have a theory.”

“Shoot.”

“The glitch isn’t a machine error,” Sid said. “It’s a dharma error. Something happened that meant that—to the limits of current technology—not everyone could be perfect at once.”

There was a thumping and a stampeding outside the satellite installation.

“Whee!” shouted Emily, riding by on the back of a water buffalo. She had a length of cord wrapped through its mouth as a bit and was slowly, surely, exhausting its strength.

“Inconceivable,” said Doctor Brown.

“I’m conceiving it right now!”

There was a long silence.

“But what kind of . . . ghoul could have needs so fundamentally incompatible with someone else’s that they couldn’t be 98.3% perfect at the same time without cascading system errors?”

“Whee!” shouted Emily, riding past the other way. The water buffalo seemed to be tiring.

“I’m betting on the sharks,” said Sid. “But possibly an evil flamingo.”

Doctor Brown cleared his throat uncertainly. “Well,” he said. “I figure the thing to do for now is to lower the output on Block 43’s models. If there’s some kind of communications breakdown that makes it impossible for everyone to harmonize at 98.3, maybe they can coexist at 90, 95% perfection.”

“And in the long term?”

“In the long term,” said Doctor Brown, “as the technology of human perfection gets better, and whatever little quirk you’ve found here gets resolved, someone will just have to have a dharma that bridges the gap.”

Sid sighed. He took out his dharma mini. He set it on “Full.” He stared at its face.

“This could be most of the glitches we’ve been seeing,” Sid said.

“I suppose.”

“The little ones, I mean. They’re usually when someone new logs on to the system. When, maybe, reconciling their goals and desires makes for a little hiccup as the system strives to adjust to a new local perfection.”

“Maybe.”

Sid waited for his thoughts to clear.

“. . . what if there isn’t a person whose basic nature spurs them to smooth over the irreconcilable gaps between people?” Sid said. “I mean, what if things get worse, instead?”

Doctor Brown made a little laughing noise.

“Sid,” he said. “Of course there’ll be someone like that.”

“Daddy!” shouted Emily, pounding on the door. “Daddy, I beat the water buffalo! With my fierce mole-like stamina!”

“It’s technologically inevitable,” said Doctor Brown.

Previously, on Countdown to Annihilation! . . .

. . . the sun blew up!
. . . ruining the chances for Lizard Cops to become a breakaway hit!
. . . also, Charles and Iphigenia were trapped in the Eden Sphere
. . . as Snavering Lavelwods rampaged through his factory!

But can Charles pull sweet chocolate victory from the grinding jaws of defeat?

Will the mass of the animals clinging to the Eden Sphere render Charles’ careful ballistic calculations useless?

And just why are the first two books of the King James Version subtly incompatible?

The eleventh hour is upon us!

The Lizard-Peoples’ Prayer

The world was full of promise then.
When we evolved our thumbs.
We thought that we would rule
The world and bring an end
To all that’s cruel
But then the cold
And then the snows
And one by one the lizards froze
And so the end, ere it began
Of our great world
Preceding man’s.

We dwell in deeps
And ancient sleeps
And on TV when it’s not sweeps
we find we’re often mentioned
And Lovecraft knew a thing or two
But misjudged our intentions.

What we can’t claim
We will not claim
The world belongs to humans now
And afterwards
When you’ve moved on
We’re kind of rooting for the cows.

But please! Kind humans in your homes
And if there is a merciful God
We ask that you not leave the Earth
To the hated
Snavering Lavelwods.

Charles stands there, staring at his watch for a moment. He is performing mass calculations in his head.

After a moment he looks up at Iphigenia.

He smiles.

Then his smile grows broader.

It is now a grin.

And Charles laughs.

“It’s going to be all right,” Charles says. “It’s going to be all right! I can jettison the television receiver! Lizard Cops won’t be on!”

He rushes among the trees. He pushes buttons. He flips back panels. Iphigenia watches in some startlement as an iris atop the Eden Sphere opens and a peculiar-looking television tree launches itself through the gap like a rocket. Then the iris closes tight.

“Yay?” says Iphigenia.

But Charles is not paying attention. He is still racing about. He stops and stands for a moment beneath an apple tree. “Is this the one?” he says. He stares at it for a time. Then he shakes his head. “No! It was the pears.”

Charles charges to the pear tree. He stops. He stands very still, like a man at attention. If his watch is correct, it is now 10:59:58, on Saturday, July 16. He is practically quivering.

“Now!” he says. He pushes the knot. He reveals a button.

There is a sighing, all through the world, as the last light of the sun touches the Earth, then fades away.

Charles pushes the button.

The world ends, wrapped in wings of darkness and of flame.

And Charles slumps.

“There,” Charles says. He leans against the tree. He smiles at Iphigenia. “There. It’s all done. All of it. Every last bit.”

“What is?”

“Anyone else would be dead,” Charles says. “No one else could have worked out a way to survive the extreme conditions at the very end or beginning of the Bible. But my marvelous Leviticus-Luke gyroscope will. It buffered us against the end of the world and it’ll protect us against the beginning. Don’t you see, my dear child? The only way to survive The End is to flip the Bible back to front and use an Apocalyptic Slingshot effect to hurl ourselves back to the second book of Genesis! Kapowie! Suddenly the world’s not quite so over, is it?”

Iphigenia blinks at him.

“The second book?”

“It’s too inconsistent with the first book of Genesis,” says Charles. “Clearly, someone traveled backwards in liturgical time. So, why not us?”

Charles looks at her seriously.

“But we can’t be greedy,” he says. “That’s why it’s so important that you choose the thing you care about most. When you’re working with inventions, greed never works. I could have gone back naked and alone and I’d have lived with that. But that’s too cruel for anyone else. So I decided long ago that I’d break all the rules of time and theology, if I had to, to make sure that anyone who came with me got to pick one thing. One comfort from the final days of the world to carry with them into Eden. I couldn’t have brought you here without knowing you’d picked one. I would have had to kill them. I was ready to kill them. But now I won’t. Now I don’t have to. They can stay in the future on a frozen Snaverer world, and we can live!”

“. . . I don’t know if I’m ready to . . . to rebuild . . . the species . . .”

Iphigenia is blushing bright red.

Charles laughs.

“Dear, dear. No one did that kind of thing back then in Genesis 2. They just . . . begatted. That’s why I made the marvelous Begatting Gun. It uses the power of ribs—nature’s genetic batteries!”

“Oh,” Iphigenia says.

Then she grins.

“Okay, then.”

Charles smiles. “So, what will you keep?”

Iphigenia looks embarrassed. “What are you keeping?” she asks.

“My marvelous Apples of Knowledge,” Charles says, firmly. “They’re caramel! But we shouldn’t eat them.”

The apples are, in fact, labeled “Apples of Knowledge—DO NOT EAT.”

“Wow,” Iphigenia says. “You know that we’re going to get in trouble for that, don’t you?”

Charles waves a hand. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

Iphigenia does not know how to answer that one.

“Come on,” Charles says. “It’s your turn.”

So Iphigenia reaches around behind her back and pulls out her choice. She blushes. She holds up the one thing she is keeping. Charles looks at it for a bit.

“You know those are desperate to destroy humanity at any cost, right?” he says.

The thing she is holding hisses. It coils unhappily around Iphigenia’s arm. It looks with a cold calculating cunning towards the apples on the tree.

“I know,” says Iphigenia, hugging the Snavering Lavelwod to her chest. “But they’re so adorably fuzzy.”

“Score one for inerrancy,” Charles says.

As recorded in Charles 1-18 of the Dead Sea Scrolls, viz., “Countdown to Annihilation—DO NOT APOLOGETICIZE!”

Fin.

This is a history of Mr. Kong.

541 years before the common era, Mr. Kong is still just a young boy. He lives in the city of Qufu. His father is dead. He lives in poverty with his mother. Sometimes he runs errands for her in the market.

That is what he has just finished doing when he hears gasps from everyone in the market.

“Hm?” he says. “Huh?”

He uses a very polite form for this question. Every adult around him would marvel at the precision of his language except that they are too busy marveling at something else. One of them points upwards and Mr. Kong sees what it is.

“Oh, my,” he says.

There is a maiden wrapped in winds, winds colored like fine silk, descending through the starkness of the sky into the Qufu market. Her eyes are closed. Her face is peaceful and aristocratic. She is surrounded in her flight by four great brooms, and before she lands the brooms sweep the dust away.

She lands.

Her eyes open. She looks around. For a long moment she assesses the situation. She says, in crisp clear speech, “I will need housing, food, pen, paper, and a temporary servant.”

The crowd is falling to its knees before her. They are offering her their worship. But young Mr. Kong has seen something that is even more urgent than worship.

The four brooms are rising slowly back into the air, and Mr. Kong has observed a clod of market filth clinging to the straw of the third.

It is difficult to know what precisely it is that passes through Mr. Kong’s mind at this juncture. He is, after all, a boy in the mold of the sages of old, and we all of us are not. However, it is reasonable to assume that it is something like this:

“Surely, those brooms are sent by a respected elder god, perhaps the August Personage in Jade! It is not appropriate that we of Qufu should send our filth to our elders; that’s like mailing one’s body water to the Emperor!”

So Mr. Kong moves through the crowd to the third broom. When he humbles himself before it, it hesitates in its rise and bobs a little lower. Taking this as an invitation, young Mr. Kong grasps the broom firmly by its handle and begins to scrape it clean against the ground.

“Young man,” says the woman. “Perhaps—”

Her comment, relevant or otherwise, comes slightly too late. The broom is thoroughly spooked by Mr. Kong’s treatment. It jerks off the ground, carrying Mr. Kong with it.

Mr. Kong has only a moment to contemplate the proprieties of this situation, and, as he is very young and does not yet understand the will of the heavens, this is not enough.

“Ah,” says Mr. Kong, still hanging on.

The broom races off into the sky.

One should not imagine that this is the kind of tale where Mr. Kong immediately throws one leg over the broomstick and affects a Quidditch-playing attitude. Nor is it the kind of story wherein he dangles helplessly for a time, falls off over the mist-shrouded mountains, and dies. In fact, it is the kind of history that specifically neglects to examine the manner of Mr. Kong’s travel, assuming that he found an approach to the situation both dignified and survivable, in accords with the broomstick-riding provisions of the lost eleventh volume of the Book of Rites.

When he lands at last, the brooms have traveled not, surprisingly, to Heaven but to a well deep in the quiet woods of Lu. On the edge of the well sits Wishing Boy.

“Oh,” says Wishing Boy.

He’s startled by Mr. Kong’s presence.

“Your pardon,” says Wishing Boy, “dear child. I did not expect the brooms to return with a passenger. Was there something unsatisfactory about their conduct?”

Mr. Kong blinks at Wishing Boy. Wishing Boy is a teenaged child with golden skin and a large opal set into his forehead. He is young but has an air of wisdom to him.

“There is no matter worth your concern,” says Mr. Kong.

“Good,” says Wishing Boy.

He closes his eyes. After a moment, he opens them. He says, “But wait. Then why are you here?”

“It was a regrettable incident,” summarizes Mr. Kong.

“I see.”

Wishing Boy smiles a little. “Youthful spirits, is it? You wished to taste the upper air?”

Mr. Kong closes his mouth firmly.

“Accident, then?”

“If you could kindly direct me to the city of Qufu,” says Mr. Kong, “then I can be on my way and I will not trouble you further.”

“The woods are full of tigers and giant snakes,” says Wishing Boy. “You would be torn to shreds and then get snakebite. Please, sit. Satisfy my curiosity; then I will send you back to Qufu on the wind.”

Mr. Kong takes a seat, after introductions and mild protestations..

“So,” says Wishing Boy. “I can see that you are a fine young man, full of humaneness. That is why I do not assume malicious intent on your part, and have not flung you into space to come down wherever fate directs you.”

“I wished to clap some of the filth off of the broom,” explains Mr. Kong.

Wishing Boy smiles.

“But,” says Mr. Kong, “I must admit that also I am curious how a broom should happen to fly.”

“It is no great matter,” says Wishing Boy. “When I was a younger child I fell into this well and became stuck. Worse, my head was partway under the water; to breathe, I needed to bend my neck painfully back. This was extremely distressing and forced me to develop what I call the alchemy of wishes: that is, the spiritual power to grant myself whatever I wish for. This freed me from the well but has other applications besides. For example, it is why the brooms fly: I wished to them, ‘you! Brooms! Fly!’”

“That is a great power,” says Mr. Kong, quite impressed.

“That is what I thought at first,” says Wishing Boy.

“At first?”

“Well,” says Wishing Boy, “at first, I thought that it was truly marvelous. I had been a poor child. I could barely afford to drink my own water and often I ate the dust from my clothing to survive. Now I could wish for gold and I would have gold. I became so wealthy that I could stick an opal in my head and still have leftovers for buying mansions and hiring servants.”

“Ah,” sighs Mr. Kong. He would have been wealthy, but his family had had to flee the state of Song.

“There was a girl, a princess. Her name was Qiguan. I had loved her from afar. Now I filled her heart with love for me, and abolished the societal conventions that separated us.”

Mr. Kong ponders that.

Wishing Boy raises an eyebrow.

“Your face shows some concern.”

“I mean no criticism,” says Mr. Kong. “But surely that was not correct.”

“No,” admits Wishing Boy. “It wasn’t.”

He looks up.

“I had thought these things would make me happy,” Wishing Boy says. “But they did not. Can you guess why?”

Mr. Kong thinks. He offers, carefully, “Is it a true love, if it is love born of wishes? Can you truly change your social place with magic? Is wealth truly wealth, if it is not earned?”

Now Wishing Boy laughs.

“I had not thought of that,” he says. “My. I suppose that would indeed make me unhappy, if my wishes were false. But no. It was subtler than that. You see, her love was true, real love. And that is how I understood that it is meaningless to search for love. All of my life I had seen the love of others as a prize to be won, but when that game became too easy I understood that it is their business, not mine, whether someone should love me. It was not worthless because it was false. It was worthless because being loved does not make me a lovable person, and that is what I had actually wanted.”

Mr. Kong considers that.

“And the wealth?” Mr. Kong asks.

“It was the same. To have wealth—that just means that I’d wished for it and nobody wished against it. It’s not a big deal! So why should I want wealth?”

“It is better than eating the dust from your clothing,” says Mr. Kong.

Wishing Boy smiles.

“That is true,” he says.

Mr. Kong hesitates. “Honorable Wishing Boy,” he says. “Please forgive me for asking. But it seems to me that you should wish an end to war.”

“Ah,” says Wishing Boy.

He shakes his head.

“I cannot do that, Mr. Kong,” Wishing Boy says. “To wish an end to war is to wish for humanity to change. I do not know how to wish for that. I like humanity.”

Mr. Kong gives Wishing Boy the first true smile he has shared thus far.

“I understand,” he says.

“So that is why I have sent the princess away,” says Wishing Boy. “That is why I do not live in my great mansions. I have decided to sit here at this well and practice austerities. I do this because I desire to be a better person, and also because wealth and privilege give me the luxury to practice austerities.”

Mr. Kong grins at Wishing Boy.

“That’s so,” Mr. Kong agrees. “A poor person goes hungry, and a rich person fasts.”

Wishing Boy laughs.

“But tell me,” says Mr. Kong. “If you do not wish for love, or wealth, or privilege, or an end to war—if you have no wants because you do not think that there is a purpose to having things—then what do you wish for?”

“I wish that everyone should be freed of suffering,” says Wishing Boy.

Mr. Kong frowns. He looks seriously at Wishing Boy.

“But that will not happen,” Mr. Kong says. “You are a very powerful wisher but not even the August Personage in Jade could accomplish that.”

“It is very difficult,” agrees Wishing Boy. “But I am not alone.”

That is the end of their conversation, for the purposes of this history, though there are further pleasantries that pass.

It is thirty years before Mr. Kong returns to that well, a teacher set on learning more about the world. When he does, he finds it desolate, and no Wishing Boy remains.

“It is 1560 years before the common era,” says Demeter.

She doesn’t use English, and she doesn’t use our measures of time.

But that’s what she says, as she looks out over the sea.

“It is 1560 years before the common era, and Leto is here, on the water. And she is walking out. And she has Artemis with her, and a guide.”

This is a history of Leucippus. He did not want to be blind. He liked his sight, though it really did give him more trouble than it was worth.

“He is telling her the stories of the things he sees,” Demeter says. “And they are wrong.”

“Most people are,” says Leucippus.

“Hm?” Demeter says.

“Most people are wrong about what they see,” Leucippus says. “We all live in blind man’s country.”

Demeter smiles at him.

It’s the kind of smile that makes half of his stomach lurch with love and the other with stark, raving fear.

But enough about that.

1560 years before the common era, Hera is constructing a cerycur to trouble Leto!

She’s having to concentrate very hard and work very carefully, because the Kouretes on Mt. Solmissos are making a terrible racket.

“Darn it!” Hera says, as she fumbles a crucial connection.

Hera tosses the cerycur down hard. It skitters towards the bedroom door. Just then, Zeus slams opens the door, his face bright with enthusiasm. His form is perfect and illustrates exactly how amazing a sport tennis would be if gods played it with doors instead of rackets. The cerycur smashes into the wall and shatters, and it’s fifteen-love for Zeus!

The pieces of the cerycur trickle down the wall.

In the stillness that follows, Hera sighs.

“Hello, my beautiful darling wife!” carols Zeus. Then he looks down at the broken cerycur.

“Huh,” says Zeus.

“Was that deliberate?” Hera asks levelly.

“It was too delicate,” says Zeus, airily. “You can’t blame me if your machines can’t stand up to my divine glory.”

Hera looks at Zeus.

Zeus grins at her. Then, very carefully, he waggles his eyebrows.

“I wanted to trouble Leto,” explains Hera. “If she bears you a son, I have a lot to lose.”

“That’s not her fault,” Zeus says, “is it?”

“The actual responsibility appears to have vanished into some sort of mysterious void of blame,” says Hera. “Perhaps there was a fault-devouring titan.”

Zeus thinks a moment.

“You could send a giant snake to trouble them,” he suggests.

“You’re not helping,” says Hera.

“They’re very fierce. They bite. I like to trouble people with giant snakes.”

Hera eyes Zeus.

Zeus grins at her. Then, very carefully, he waggles his eyebrows.

“Pfuh,” says Hera, in amused disgust.

Then, because her concentration is just a little bit askew, she sends a giant snake down to trouble Leto.

At that time and at that moment, Leto is in the grove of Ortygia, where she has just now brought Chibi-Artemis forth into the world.

“That was easier than I expected,” Leto says.

She is standing on a tree branch. With the aid of a clever sling and a dexterous midwife, Leto has given birth. She is feeling quite relieved and pleased with herself, but is a little concerned because she hasn’t expressed a placenta.

Chibi-Artemis is tugging on Leto’s sleeve.

“Mommy?” she asks.

Leto leans down. Then, because Chibi-Artemis is the cutest goddess of hunting and killing things ever, Leto sweeps up her daughter and hugs her tightly.

“Oh,” says Leto. “Oh. I am so happy you are born.”

Chibi-Artemis wriggles and kicks her feet until Leto puts her down. Then she thinks about how to explain what she wants to say. Finally, she just comes out with it.

“You’re still pregnant, Mommy. I got a brother!”

“Oh, man,” says Leto, realizing instantly that Chibi-Artemis is right.

She pushes, hopefully. But it is not working out for her.

“But it’s okay,” says Chibi-Artemis. “We can go somewhere where there isn’t land or sea.”

That’s when the giant snake attacks.

More than two hundred years later, Demeter asks Leucippus, “Would you guide me to Never?”

“Why me?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. He knows as he says it that it’s the wrong thing to say. So he stops. He holds up his hand, frantically. He waits in silence for a moment.

Then he says, “I will.”

And, in a choked voice, he asks, “But must I be blind?”

Demeter is hardly listening to him. She is looking up beyond the world at Never. She says, “If there is no hope in all the world, then the world must change. Must it not?”

Sweating, Leucippus squeezes his eyes tight shut and covers them with his forearm.

“There is no place on any map,” Demeter says. “Not to the west, not to the north, not to the east, not to the south. There is no place on any map that holds the answer to my need. So we must go to an impossible place.”

Her words sit in the air. They are still and heavy, like the lump in Leucippus’ stomach.

He nods.

It is like ice to him. It is a line of madness cut across the world of his mind. The system of the world has finite scope and its boundaries have never closed.

He stands at the crossroads. He tries to see without opening his eyes. He flails for bearings and points in a random direction with his free remaining arm.

“South, then,” he says. “Towards Crete.”

“Towards Crete.”

Her voice is rich and deep and as his panic recedes Leucippus can see her even though his eyes are closed.

The presence of Demeter is cutting through the darkness.

He has a bone-deep awareness of her. She is powerful. She is glorious. The madness seethes in her like lightning. The sorrow twists and turns in her mind like a torn black sail in the winter wind. She is holding it all in, but he can see it; that, and the bounty of her.

And something more beautiful besides.

“There is something beautiful,” he says.

Demeter’s teeth are white in the darkness.

“Something crazy mad beautiful,” he says. “Something—”

He can see it. He can hear it, in the surf, in the tide.

“That was my daughter,” says Demeter.

“And ten . . .”

Leucippus hesitates.

“Ten little meat soldiers,” he says. “Dactyls? Phalluses? Fiends?”

“Toes,” says Demeter.

Her voice is bland.

A blush spreads all the way up Leucippus’ body and almost makes him open his eyes.

“She had ten perfect toes,” says Leucippus.

He is walking now. He is moving out over the waves. But even with his eyes shut he can see too well.

He can see the waves under his feet, for she has led him out over the water.

He can see the salt in them and the terrible power to drown that is the sea’s.

He can see the seagulls as they fly above. With each new cry he can see them again.

And he can see clutched in Demeter’s heart the memory of the wonderful thing, the crazy mad beautiful thing that was her daughter to her.

And Leucippus is crying.

He is crying because in the face of this vision he is surrendering his need for sight.

And more than two hundred years before, Artemis—already older, already better, already fading into her perfection—leads Leto out over the waves, with a blind Kourete before them.

And she says, “Mother, what is that?”

Leto is holding something out to her.

It is wooden and round, and it has a handle. It shimmers, just a bit, from the polishing of the wood. It rattles in Leto’s hand.

“It’s a present,” says Leto. “For shooting the giant snake.”

“Pfuh,” says Artemis, dismissively. “Giant snakes.”

There have only been two occasions in the long history of the world when a giant snake has functioned as an antagonist worthy of the name.

This was not one of them.

“And,” says Leto, “for being you.”

So Artemis looks.

And she is already almost too old to see the wonder of it; but still, there is a moment when the sheen of the wood is a marvel and its noise is the most inspiring thing she has ever heard.

And the expression on her face as she hears it is insanely, impossibly incredibly beautiful.

It gives Leto the strength to go beyond the borders of the world.

Desirable Properties for God’s Will

God’s will should be serially uncorrelated. That means that knowing God’s will at any given time should not provide information on God’s will at any other time. Otherwise it becomes possible to game God’s will and acquire moral authority without moral quality.

God’s will should not repeat within the lifespan of the universe. If God’s will repeats sooner than that then everyone will point and laugh at God.

“That God,” they will say. “So regressive!”

He will be separating the land from the waters, again, and smashing Jericho. The people of Jericho will say, “That was unnecessary.”

Then God will make the sun stand still and the moon stay put.

Everybody will wonder why but in fact it is so that Joshua can kill the enemies of the children of Israel.

You can see how unfortunate that would be.

In the set of cases that are materially identical, God’s will should be unbiased and statistically uniform. If this is not so then God’s will is a material consideration intrinsic to the perceivable universe.

People won’t say, “That’s God’s will!”

Instead, they’ll say, “That’s gravity. It’s attracting atoms to one another in a biased fashion.”

Or “that’s not design. That’s evolution!”

Or even “that’s not God’s will. That’s the hypnotic sexual power of Elvis’ gyrating hips!”

So that’s why it is important for God’s will to be uniform and unbiased.

The simplest mechanism for achieving serially uncorrelated, non-repeating, uniform mysterious ways in which God’s will can move is for that will to be random.

However, genuinely random will, omniscience, and purpose cannot coexist. Combining them creates a contradiction. Contradictions give rise to woglies. Woglies are anathema to doctrine, with the arguable exception of certain nontraditional theories regarding Jesus’ crown of thorns.

Since this is the case the most practical mechanism for God’s will is a pseudorandom sequence generated through non-arithmetic methods. It is best to seed such a sequence with a comparatively unpredictable quantity such as the Holy Spirit. This provides an acceptable quantity of mystery under most traditional tests.

The Wheel

Chaos Woman knows the future.

If she didn’t know the future, she couldn’t be Chaos Woman. She might make a mistake and then she wouldn’t be Chaos Woman any more. She might fail to consistently achieve the goals she is seeking at any given time!

So she makes sure always to know which future each of her actions will create.

What Chaos Woman doesn’t know is which futures are good and which futures are bad.

Chaos Woman gropes towards this idea.

Sometimes Round Man does something that she does not like. Then she corrects him! That is how she develops her sense of right and wrong—by correcting others.

But she has not fully developed it yet.

Sometimes Chaos Woman talks to the serpent. The serpent doesn’t exist yet. The serpent’s part of the future. The serpent’s something that she’ll turn into, later, if she learns what good and evil are.

She can talk to it because she knows what the future is and she knows what it’d say if she asked.

“It seems to me,” says Chaos Woman, “that if I learn good and evil, that there will be endless suffering. That’s why I turn into a snake and then get killed by my grandchildren.”

“It’s better, knowing,” says the serpent.

“It seems to me,” says Chaos Woman, “that I’ll decide the world is evil. Why would I want to learn how to judge things if I’m not going to like them afterwards?”

“It’s the judgment itself that’s good,” says the serpent.

“No, it’s not.”

The serpent hesitates. It wants to exist, which means saying something to convince Chaos Woman to learn about good and evil, but at the same time, the only thing it can say is the thing it said in its own past. It feels very deprotagonized by the mechanism of communication.

“No, it’s not,” admits the serpent. “Judgment sucks. But I’m glad I have it.”

“You like living under leaves and griping?”

“I love it,” says the serpent. It says this with honest passion. It is not sarcasm or bitterness.

It is better to suffer, the serpent thinks, than to know futures and pasts but have no functional opinion on them.

So that’s why Chaos Woman doesn’t peep when Round Man saves the world.

She could stop it. She could say, “Don’t make things appropriate, Round Man! You’ll cause all kinds of suffering.”

And he wouldn’t.

But she doesn’t!

Changed by Knowledge

“I’ve been changed by knowledge,” says Leucippus.

It’s an interlude. They’ve paused in their travels. He’s kneeling on the sea.

He’s bathing his face.

He’s scrubbing his eyes with the salt.

They’re stinging, but that’s okay, because he won’t have them for much longer.

“I can’t help but see things as they really are,” Leucippus says. “And that makes it very hard to be the carefree Leucippus that I consider myself to be.”

“You’re a fragile person,” says Demeter. “If the truth destroys you.”

“The thing is,” says Leucippus, “some of the fundamental ideas we need in order to be people are false. Like, being separate from everybody else. Being concrete rather than fuzzy at the edges. Being immune to external agencies of change. Things like that. So, speaking as an ordinary person who isn’t a goddess or anything, it’s hard not to be fragile.”

And Demeter smiles at him.

“You want the truth to be different,” she says.

“Can I have that?” he asks.

Leucippus and Demeter stand on the surging sea, near Delos, that island of stability on the chaos’ edge.

“Truth grows,” says Demeter, the goddess of the grain.