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Clang.  "Heigh".  Clang. "Ho." Clang. "Nobody home." Clang, clang. "Meat nor drink nor money have we none." Clang, clang. "Still we will be merrerarerareyyy." Clang, clang, clang. "Hey ho nobody home". Sizzle.

Pockets hummed the tune over and over again.  The song came from his boyhood days, spent in idle frustration, due mostly in part to his intelligence.  The nuns at the Leave Your Unwanted Children Here orphanage were simply not prepared for someone as quick witted as Chester Pockets.  They did find that music was one way to sooth the savage brain, and used it as often as they could.

Pockets himself would admit to a love of music because of the mathematical adventures it took him on. 

"It has to flow just as it does, or else it's not music.  It gives you all you need for the equation, leads you into the main synopsis and drops you at the only logical mathematical conclusion there could be.  One number out of place, one slash or quirt misdirected and you no longer have music, you have discordance in your harmony.  But when it's right, it's beauty in its simplicity, and one of the very building blocks of the universe",  he would say. This was right before the nuns would shake their heads and walk away with wonder and their own frustration in not understanding a word the boy was saying.

His solace came in being alone in his thoughts or with his chum Timothy Bags, who didn't care what came out of Pocket's mouth, as long as it didn't get them both in trouble.  He appreciated the genius of the slightly younger boy, the courage or total ignorance of what his words may actually be saying to the real world.  In fact, he found Pockets to be quite humorous, in that he had no governor over what he would say.

"You have no inside voice, Pockets. All you have is an outside voice" He would say.

"But I hear voices inside my head all the time, Bags", Pockets would reply.  "Some of my best discussions happen where nobody can hear them."

Bags would just shake his head in sympathy, turn to whomever they happen to be drinking with that night and carry on with that conversation, keeping a watchful eye open just in case something came out of Pocket's mouth that offended someone.

It rarely did.  Most people would hear what Pockets would say, look at his smallish frame with balding head and rounding belly, and just walk away, thinking "Of course he's joking.  He's obviously an escaped lunatic or possibly an accountant."

As young men, Bags would often be put in the position of the defender of Pockets, as children tend to pick on those that are different from themselves as targets.  There was something about the younger Pockets that kept them tight friends, and if he was asked today what it was, he wouldn't be able to say what that thing was. 

Bags, himself grew into a strapping young man, tall with reddish hair, and easy smile and quick laugh, and was very well liked.  A veteran of many scuffles and a few minor wars, he had survived and became very strong and even as he aged, he lost none of his agility of his youth. He was a man's man, and, if truth be told, and it must, a woman's man as well. 

The legend had it that he had been in every single cat house across the land, and was always a welcome customer, even if he could not pay.  Another part of the legend also says that his popularity came from Pockets, who could, it seemed, fix anything.  While Bags was busy with his business, Pockets would always be found squaring doors or fixing plumbing or twiddling with some broken thing or other.  Where Bags may have had a fondness for the ladies, Pockets had a fondness for broken things and could not leave them alone.

They met Grizelda at one of these cat houses.  She was in a difficult situation, Bags and Pockets aided her escape.  Bags became grievously wounded and Grizelda nursed him back to health.

Seven years after that incredible misadventure, the two became King and Queen of the City of Joyful Tears, and were married on that same day.  Grizelda became pregnant, as these things happen, and Pockets, realizing that the equation of the world had changed, made his home high in the Castle keep. 

Most days, however, he could be found in his blacksmith's shop, tinkering or building or creating.  Smoke would curl from the chimney, sparks would fly out the door, sizzling of hot metal in cooling water could be heard through the windows.  When he was happy, he would hum or sing as he worked.  He wasn't very good, but he wasn't very bad, either.  He was just medium, and that was all right with him. 

When he was not happy, no sparks would fly, no sizzle would be heard and very little smoke would be seen at all.  Fortunately, Pockets only had moments of being unhappy, and then something would distract his mind and off he would go, merrily humming while he worked on the new problem or invention.

"Down by the river." Clang.  "She swam in the nude." Clang. "Awaiting his pleasure." Clang, clang. "Inside her solitude."  Sizzle.

The sun was hot, the sky only slightly cloudy.  There was a breeze of sorts, and Pockets had left his doors and windows open to catch what ever might come.  What came today was a voice.

"Chester", it said.  "Chester Pockets."

The humming stopped briefly, as Pockets cocked his head to one side, listening.  When nothing came, he shrugged his shoulders and continued.  He was bending a very large piece of steel, forming it for something he had cooked up in his mind.

"When she stood in her moondreeeeeeeesss", stretching the last word out from exertion, "she was all a-glow."  Driving rivets. "And who the young man was." Clang.  "Didn't nobody know." Clang.

"Chester."

"All right.  Who's the wise guy?"  Pockets stopped what he was doing, placed his hammer on the table and turned slowly, examining the interior of the small shop.  "Capitani?  Is that you?"  He peered into the rafters, as he half expected his acrobatic friend to drop from the ceiling.

Nobody.

"Chester, come see me, come find me.  I need your help."  The voice seemed to be coming from everywhere and no where. 

Stopping his ears with his hands, Pockets asked "Help?"  His voices sounded large and hollow to him inside his head.  "What sort of help?"

"Don't talk", said the voice.  "It mucks up the reception.  Just think, boy."

It sounded familiar, even inside his head.  Pockets quickly sifted through years of memories, some buried so deeply that he didn't even know he had them till he went looking.  Checking against thousands of intonations and vibrational qualities, he found a match.

"Fletcher?" he thought hesitantly.  "Wiz?  Is that you?"

"Yes, yes it is", came the reply.  "And I need your assistance.  There's an N P juncture at the weak force bond that is not holding."

"And I care... why?" Pockets asked a bit snippily.  There was no good blood between the two men, due to their interactions in the past. M. Fletcher, the Mad Wizard was partly responsible for making Pockets the way he is, adrift amid worlds that does not quite connect to this world, or any other world.

"Imagine, boy, that the small quantum singularity in Timothy's bag suddenly increased in strength, say, oooohh... a trillion times.  What do you suspect that would do to your friend."

"Nothing good." Pockets had a brief flash of Bags suddenly not existing, being sucked into the small black hole that was carried in the bag he always kept with him.  Being Pockets, though, he extrapolated the continuing results and saw the entire planet being drawn into Bags' bag, followed by the sun, a few more planetary systems, until the black hole was done with its meal and burped out a pulsar.

Pockets sighed.  "All right. You have my attention", he thought back.  "What did you break this time, and why aren't you dead yet?"

"You must come here, Chester.  That is the only way you can help." was the answer.

"Same place, I suppose?"  Pockets asked.

"Yes, though I doubt you would recognize the old place."  The voice hesitated.  "You see, the tower has become ... well... inverted."

An eyebrow went up.  "That would, at least, be something interesting to see." Pockets murmured out loud.

He thought about going to Bags and telling him of the conversation.  He decided against it.  There was a baby on the way, and a kingdom to run, and blah, blah, blah.  "I've had this conversation before."  Pockets said.  To the voice in his head, he said "Okay.  Let me write a note telling where I've gone.  Last time I left I got in sooooo much trouble."

"All speed if you can, Chester.  The stability won't hold forever."  Fletcher said.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Everyone needs something, Wiz.  Hold your water, I'll be there quick as I can."
****************
Capitani bounced into Swineheart's Pub, which was an unusual thing for her.  Not the bouncing, that was just part of her nature, but entering the pub.  It was generally too noisy, too crowded, too smoky.  She had contracted a rare disease that rendered her fairly susceptible to too much stimuli, and she tired easily.  With rest and under the gentle care of Grizelda, she seemed to be healing.  It was a process of sometimes two steps forward, one step back, though sometimes the steps backward were greater than the steps forward.

Her great shock of blonde hair bounced with her and she stood in the narrow doorway, blinking at all the humanity and noise.  She quickly grazed the place with her eyes until she found Bags, sitting at a table, playing cards, drinking beer and laughing. Then, with hands over her ears, and her eyes mostly shut, she navigated to him and stood there, waiting.

Bags laid a three of pip face down and took another card from the deck turned to her and asked.  "What's up, Capi?  Grizelda need something?  Milk?  Bread?  Saving the kingdom?  Again?"

Bags' reddish hair, not quite receding, but thinning, gave way to a lined and narrow face with insightful brown eyes above a generous mouth, and serious nose.  A friendly face, and not one expected to hide the steel trap mind of an expert weapons master.

Capitani opened one blue eye, looked round and about, and centered on Bags.  Quietly she mouthed words that Bags could not hear.

"What?"  Bags asked.  The bet on the table had gone up twenty coin.  He shifted his focus back to his cards, and the cards that were laid down.  He looked over at an older man with balding head and white hair.  "Briggs", he asked, "what in the hells are you hiding there?  A lady or a gent?"

Briggs, who was the chancellor to Bags' kingdom, smiled and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Capitani was tugging on Bags' sleeve as he said "Doesn't matter, you know.  I've got a topper to beat whatever you have."  Capitani tugged harder, forcing Bags to turn his attention to her.  "What is it, Capi?  Can't it wait?"

She shook her head negatively, and passed Bags a sheet of parchment.  It looked half burned and crinkly.  She leaned down next to his ear and yelled, "I'll meet you outside!"  Then she bounded away as quick as she could for the exit.

"Strange girl." observed Briggs.  The other two at the table nodded. 

Bags looked briefly at the note, seeing the words had been burned onto the parchment.  'Bags', it read, 'Gone wiz hunting. Be back soon.  Don't worry.'

"Oh crap." he said and tossed the note on the table.  He met the raise from Briggs and added another ten coin to it.  "That's thirty, guys."  He looked to the other two expectantly.

Thomas, the head of the jewelry guild said, "Too rich for my blood." and folded his cards, placing them in a neat stack next to him.  Edwards, headmaster of the newly created Journiey School for Children who can't read, nodded agreement.  "I don't think I could beat you, your majesty."  He too, placed his cards face down on the table.

Bags smiled broadly. "Suck up."  He turned to Briggs, indicating the cards the thin old man was holding.  "Okay, bub.  Whatcha got?"

Briggs placed his cards on the table.  There were three ladies dressed to kill, followed by a pair of twos.

Bags dropped his cards and sighed as they hit the table, dying.  "Take it, it's yours.  I just had a pair of kays."

Briggs reached forward to drag in the pot and asked "So, what did the note say?"

Bags snatched up the note and said, "It's from Pockets.  He went out on another of his adventures." The others nodded sympathetically.

Pockets' adventures had become the stuff of storytelling in the kingdom.  To frighten overly curious children, parents had started to caution them "Do you want to end up like that Pockets fellow?"  The warning didn't work at all, because most children thought Pockets was just about the most interesting person around.

Bags looked at the other three at the table and said, wearily, "This one's a bit different.  He's gone to find the Mad Wizard."

"Wizard?" asked Edwards.  "I didn't know there were any wizards around."

"Well...", Bags began.  "There's not supposed to be.  I thought he died a long time ago, and he was the last, and he was mad, crazy.  So I'm not sure if Pockets is going to find his bones or if the old bastard is still living and got hold of Pockets somehow."  He shook his head.  He leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, called for more beer and said "Let me tell you a story, gentlemen.  This would be the first adventure Pockets went on. It's about Pockets and me and the Mad Wizard."

******
Before he could speak, Grizelda burst through the door way of the pub, elbowing patrons out of the way until she was standing directly behind Bags.

"Something vexes thee, my love?" Bags asked.

"Pockets is gone!" Grizelda exclaimed.

"So the note says." Bags showed her the charred note.  "It also says not to worry."

"And what does that mean?" Grizelda with her fists on her hips was not a sight to mince words with.  "It means we should start worrying immediately, if not sooner."

"Yes, love." answered Bags, gently.  "Normally it would.  However, it says he's gone wiz hunting.  The wiz should have died years ago, and I know for a fact that if Pockets does find the wiz, the wiz would do absolutely nothing to harm him.  Pockets was like a son to the man... at the end, anyway." 

Bags reached and patted Grizelda's four month pregnant belly.  "Besides, I have a feeling that if Pockets needs us, he'll let us know."  Seeing Grizelda's skeptical face, he continued.  "Okay, If I don't hear from him in three days, I'll send Harv out to look for him.  Will that satisfy you?"

By now all the patrons of the pub had crowded around to see what was going on.  Grizelda, slightly embarrassed by all the attention, pulled a chair from a nearby table and sat.  Glumly she replied, "I guess it will have to, won't it?  This baby doesn't leave much room for us to go adventuring, Bags."

"Nope", he replied.  "But I suspect the greatest adventure is when he reaches about... oh...  eight years old."

Grizelda sighed.

"Why don't you sit and listen to the story, Griz?"  Bags asked.  "I don't think you ever heard about how Pockets and I hooked up with M. Fletcher."

"OH!" Grizelda said. "Was that what you were doing?"  She called to Damien to bring her an ale "Make it mostly water, Damien... I'm drinking for two, you know."  and scooted her seat closer.  "Then go on, by all means.  I'd like to hear it, too." 

Damien brought her the watered down ale and pulled up his own chair.  In fact, almost everyone in the pub joined them by crowding around the table to hear the tale.  Bags looked at all the expectant faces and said "Damien, old chum, I'm probably going to become very thirsty from all this body heat."

Damien reached behind his seat and with both arms produced an entire keg.  It had a copper coiled device that snaked around it and the copper was emitting steam and coated with ice.  "Not to worry Bags.  Pockets created this thing for me.  Damned if I know how it works, but it keeps stuff cold.  Now, what's this story about?"

Bags raised an eyebrow, looked at the steamy, icy keg and said "You do try to be prepared, don't ya?" 

Damien nodded, "Doesn't pay to not be."

Bags took a long draw from his mug, sat it on the table, hooked his thumbs in his belt and began.

"A few years after Pockets and I met, and that means I had already had lots of experience in getting him out of trouble, a man came to the orphanage, looking for a boy.  Not just any boy, mind you.  A special boy."

"A boy with brains."
**********
"Now," began Bags, "keep in mind, I don't know everything that happened, I can only tell you what I saw.  I'm sure there was a lot of stuff that I never knew about.  Pockets told me a lot, but that was Pockets talking, and sometimes what he told me was pretty weird. Okay?"  He looked from face to face, getting an agreement from all of them. 

"All right." Chug of beer and big draw of breath, and "It was a good morning.  I didn't get beat up, and I didn't have to beat anyone else up.  Pockets had stuck himself away in our room, reading some book about the nature of the universe, I'm sure.  Anyway, he was somewhere I wasn't for a change.  We had met a few years before that, see, and since that time, we were pretty much together.  Where I was, he was.  Where he was, trouble would follow, so I had to be there.  On that day, we weren't together, cuz reading just isn't my idea of a good time.  I like it, but secrets of the universe?  No way.  Give me something I can see, taste, smell or feel.  All that hocus pocus is just that, if you ask me.

Grizelda snorted, and Bags, giving her the 'who's telling this story?' look, added, "All right, so I've seen a few odd things I can't explain.  That doesn't mean there's not some explanation, and usually it's related to Pockets somehow."

"I was doing my chores, cleaning the dining room, when the nuns came for me. They asked me if I had seen Pockets.  I said no, even though I did.  They were holding their three foot rulers, and I could tell they meant business.  They told me then to go find him, and bring him with me to the main hall.  I nodded and took off to get him, because when the nuns speak, nobody, and I mean nobody, disobeys." he thumped the table.  "To this day, I still worry that I'll hear their voices when I do something wrong."

"So I skedaddled up to our room, tossed open the door and told him that the nuns wanted him.  'Course he wasn't where I was looking, so I wasted my breath, or so I thought, till I heard him ask 'What did I do now?'  I still didn't see him, so I asked him where he was.  He started talking to me giving me clues, and I eventually found him on top of the closet.  It was a long thing, long enough to hold the clothes of twenty kids. There was a gap at the top, just about two hands wide.  He had squeezed himself inside of that, hiding from the other kids.  He said it was for privacy, but I suspected he just didn't want to get beat up while he read. 

I asked him how he could read up there, and he showed me a mirror he had snuck from one of the girls rooms.  He said the refraction was very good and he had no problem at all.  I believed him, because I had never known him to lie.  Maybe that's why I became such a good friend to him."

"Anyway, I told him that he better shag his ass, cuz the nun were looking for him, and no, I didn't know why they wanted to see him.  I also told him that it wasn't just him they wanted to see, it was us, because I was to bring him with me."

"He and I discussed who it might have been that ratted us out.  I mean, I never beat anyone up just for no good reason, and that reason was always Pockets.  And he didn't go out of his way to cause trouble.  He just did. It was like it was something that just sorta followed him, because he was just weird.

He'd be out on the grounds, cleaning or whatever the nuns set him to do, and he'd be talking to himself about Gods knew what.  Some of the other kids, like Tommy No-nose would come by, hear him talking and jus start working on him, poking fun or something.  When Pockets didn't respond, or worse, responded with something that the other kids didn't understand, they just decided that it was time to explain their opinion with fists, boots, whatever they had close.

That was when I would step in.  Pockets didn't yell out, he didn't cry.  He was a tough lil guy, disappearing into that big brain of his to avoid the hurt.  I know he still does it, and I wish I could do it too.  But there was a connection between us, so when the beating started, I'd have to drop whatever I was doing and go take up for him.

No matter where he was, I could find him, and when he went inside himself, it was like he just disappeared, and no matter what I was doing, it was such and empty space, I'd have to go find him, y'know?  Like knowing that one of your kids is in trouble."

He looked around and caught a few nods from the parents in the crowd.  He looked at Damien and said "How's the beer holding up?"

"Just fine, chief", the barkeep said.  "This may be a banner night for me.  I might have to have you tell a story every night."

"Fat chance of that.  I 'spect to tell this once, and let it go after that.  Someone wants to read about it, they'll have to go to the library and get the book on it."

That got a laugh from the crowd.  "No, really." Bags said. "Pockets tells me there's a book about us up there.  From where I don't know, but if he says it's so, I believe him.  Go check it out."

"Anyway," he continued, "Enough of that. I could babble bout what's so weird about Pockets for the rest of the day.  What I'm telling is the story of the mad wizard."

"Yeah, and I wish you'd get to it" Damien said.  "All that 'I'm so connected' crap is starting to put me to sleep."

Grizelda tossed a peanut at Damien, and told Bags to go on.

"Okay.  So I got Pockets off the closet and down the main hall, which was this big square room made of big massive blocks of stone.  There were no windows, just little slits like you see in the Keep.  There were four doors, one in the middle of each wall, each leading toward a different direction. Pockets used to figure it was designed that way, possibly for some religious reason, before it became an orphanage."

"The south door led to the outside, which was a place we rarely went, unless it was to tend the little yard.  The north led to the nun's quarters, which was a place you did not want to go, no matter what.  The few that were called there came back quieter, by a far piece.  To the east was the common room, the dinning area, and the little library.  The west was the dormitory, showers, and makeshift hospital, which is where I met Pockets, but that's a whole nuther story."

"So there we stood, at the west doorway, looking in.  The nuns didn't see us yet, and that was just fine by us.  We just stood and listened."

"There was an old man there, long white beard, skinny as hell, and wearing a tall peaked hat.  Yes, I know it sounds like every child's vision of a wizard, but that was what the guy was wearing.  I think if he'd thought about it, he would have had lil stars embroidered on the long robe he was wearing."

"Anyway, he was talking to the nuns, saying how he didn't need two boys, just one.  One exceptional boy, he said.  One that seemed to be lost in the clouds.  A boy that seemed to be not quite of this world.  I remember he said exactly those words, and I remember thinking that it sounded just like Pockets."

"The nuns were telling the old man that they had a boy exactly like that, but it was a package deal.  They said they would sell him the boy, but the old man had to take the boy's muscle bound bodyguard, since they seemed inseparable.  I gathered that I was the muscle bound bodyguard.  That didn't bother me a bit, but it did kinda of hurt my feelings when they described me as a bit dull witted.  I always thought of myself as cautious."

"The head nun turned her head our direction, mentioning to the other nuns that we should have been there by now. Pockets heard her, and told me to run after him.  Before I had a chance to ask him what he meant, the little squirt took off like a shot, running full speed into the hall.  I had no chance but to run in after him.  Pockets had his head turned back towards me and ran full speed into the head nun, knocking her off her feet.  Let me tell you, that did not make her any more pleasant to deal with.  We used to call her hammerhead, and it was for a good reason."

"When she stood up, she grabbed Pockets by one ear, drug him in front of her and said 'Here's your boy.'"

"Well, the old man took Pockets by the hand and turned him this way and that, examining his skull for size, shape and texture, I guess.  He pulled up Pockets' right hand and mentioned that it was fairly unlined.  Something important in palm reading, I guess." He shrugged. "You'd have to ask Griz bout 'that."

After wetting his whistle, he continued.  "The wiz pulled out a measuring stick, and a tape and measured Pockets for size, shape, round and height.  When he was finished, he asked a few simple questions, like if the planet was round or flat, why the sky was blue, what caused clouds, that sort of thing.  Me, I had just a bare notion that the planet was round, had no idea why the sky was blue, and couldn't care less what caused clouds.  But Pockets, well, he knew every answer there was to what ever the old man asked.  In the end, the man was satisfied, because he nodded his head and said 'He'll do.' He tossed a bag that clinked at the head nun."

"Then he turned to me and asked 'Is that the mule?'  Well, let me tell you, I would have taken his head off at that if there hadn't been the nuns around.  Asking if I was a mule?  I can take being called just about anything, but pure disrespect?  Anyway, I just stood there and let him examine me.  What else could I do?  I figured that if it would get me out of the orphanage, how bad would it be, even if I was just going to be a beast of burden."

"The old man checked my teeth, the size of my arms, and that was about it.  He didn't ask me any questions, just finished his examination, turned to the other nuns and said he would take me, but he wouldn't pay extra for me.  That was all right with the nuns.  They already complained that I ate more than two of any other boys."

The head nun came over to Pockets and me and said 'You two are now with this man. His name is M. Fletcher, and you will do whatever he requires.'  And having been well trained by the last five years, we both knew better than to ask any questions.  We just said 'Yes Ma'am' like the little sheep they raised there.

"M. Fletcher looked at me and ordered me to gather what things the two of us had and follow him.  I told him that we only had the clothes on our back, and he nodded and just started out the door to the south.  Pockets, though, he remembered he was reading a book and asked me to go back and get it."

"M. Fletcher just patted Pockets on the head and said 'Boy, there will be hundreds of books to read where you're going.' We walked out the door and that will was the last we saw of the orphanage for the next year."
********************
"Hold on just a minute, Bags." Grizelda said. "Pockets can't read.  He said so himself, that's why we built that school, remember?"

Bags turned to look at her.  "Yes, Griz, that's true.  Pockets can't read.  When he was a young boy, though he could read as well as any other person twice his age.  You'll have to wait for the story, though.  Something that the wiz did took that away from him.  Wait for it, okay?"

Grizelda nodded, took the watered ale from Damien and settled back to wait.

"We walked a hundred yards from the orphanage, and then Fletcher put us in a carriage.  Well, to be honest, he put Pockets in the carriage.  Me, he made run along side it.  Sometimes, when I'd get tired, I'd hop on the back and ride the way until Fletcher caught me.  Then he'd push me off the back with his walking stick and say to me 'Down boy.  Carriages are for people.'  That told me right then and there what side of the evolutionary bridge he thought I was on."

"Miles and miles we went.  Traveling past small towns and villages, across a short expanse of desert, and into a forest.  The road was narrow, and a bit rough, and I was pretty sure the folks in the carriage were getting beat up.  I didn't care though.  Hell with 'em, making me run the whole distance.  Though to be fair, Fletcher did stick his head out pretty often to make sure I hadn't passed out from heat prostration."

"When I yelled I was thirsty, he'd toss me a bag o' water.  If I was hungry, there would be a bag of hardtack.  We had probably covered twenty miles that day, and I was worn out."

"We stopped in the forest, once we were out of sight.  I crashed to the ground and just lay there, panting like the dog that Fletcher thought I was.  He came over to me and told me to gather some wood for a fire and to take care of the horses.  We were going to cook dinner, but we wouldn't be staying long."

"Exhausted, I climbed to my feet and went to gather what dry branches and bark I could find.  Fletcher and Pockets sat on a log by the carriage and talked.  Pockets had his head turned so that he could hear every word, and I could tell that the old man had Pockets' full attention, and that was a trick in and of itself.  Sometime it was the other way 'round, with Pockets doing the talking and Fletcher listening and either nodding or shaking his head."

"Now, you might be wonderin' if this had an effect on me, if it made me mad or jealous or whatever.  And I'd be lyin' if I said I felt nothing, but I was away from the orphanage, and they had always worked me like a mule anyway.  The relationship with Fletcher though, yeah, that was a bit of a strain.  Would have been nice to have an adult talk to me that way, to show me that sort of attention.  I eventually got it, but it took a while."

"We rested at that spot in the forest for a good hour or two before moving on. I caught a rabbit and roasted it over my small fire.  While we were eating, I heard Pockets mention my name a couple of times, and with it I heard the words 'best friend', 'always together', things like that.  I caught Fletcher looking my direction a time or two, sometimes nodding to what Pockets was saying.  He never asked me a question, or talked to me, but it didn't matter.  I could tell I was still in there somewhere, just because Pockets wouldn't let me not be."

"Something Pockets must have said changed my status a bit, because when we were ready to leave, Fletcher called me by my name.  'Timothy', he said, 'if you can hang on, you can ride on the back.'  Well, woopdeedoo.  I just nodded at his back as he entered the carriage."

"I looked over at Pockets who smiled just a bit, in the head ducking way of his, and he shrugged his shoulders.  He tried, he was saying to me, sort of an apology.  It was enough for me.  We had dealt with enough adults to know that once they make up their minds, they rarely get 'em changed.  The fact that I didn't have to trot like a dog was a big change I figure, and it meant that Pockets had stuck up for me.  And that meant a lot."

"So I hung on the back, which was okay by me, since I figure looking at things as you pass 'em by can sometimes be better then seeing head on.  'Course when you go riding though a forest, the most you see are trees, squirrels and sometimes one of the odder things that may creep or crawl.  I saw a bear once, way off in the distance.  It sorta tickled me to know that neither Pockets or Fletcher had seen it, because they were inside, and I was outside."

"A few miles down the lane, the forest took a turn.  It got darker, the trees got bigger, and started looking more ominous.  I saw things that were just not right.  Big red flowers that snapped at the bugs flying around them.  I saw an grabbed by a hanging vine and strangled, in mid-air.  I had no idea what we were getting into, but I was pretty sure I didn't like it much."

"The ground tilted upward a bit, and I looked around the edge of the carriage, so I could see what was going on.  What was going on is that we were climbing a mountain.  It wasn't a gentle mountain, but a really steep mountain.  It was craggy and broken up, black rock, bits of shiny here and there, from crystals poking their heads out, skinny trees looking half burnt all around.  It was the sort of mountain that you hear in those fairy tales that are used to scare children into being good."

"Keep in mind, I was a child, and this mountain scared me.  It just didn't feel good."

"The path we were on turned into the mountain and the horses pulling the carriage turned with it.  When I say turned into the mountain, I mean we entered the mouth of a cave, big and dark and drippy.  The further from the entrance we went, the darker it became until it was hard to see.  The horses seemed to know where we were going, though, because they turned a corner in the near dark and passed through some very large gates, just about the same size as we have here in Tears."

"Now, the other side of the gates was a whole 'nother story.  It was brightly lit from what looked like a hundred torches, flickering yellow and blue.  Pockets told me that they were fueled from the mountain itself, from natural gas that was piped from somewhere."

"The place wasn't a fancy place. No silver or solid gold buildings or any of that crap.  Just five low lying buildings all clustered around on very tall building in the center.  Now, that center building was pretty tall, reaching all the way to the ceiling of the cave.  I reckon we could put this whole pub in that one building and still have enough room to swing quite a few cats."

"The carriage pulled into the closest of the low buildings, and Pockets got out, followed by Fletcher.  Pockets just looked around, gaping at things in wonder.  Fletcher came over to me and told me to unhook the horses, see that they were taken care of and then join him and Pockets in the library.  He said it with a capital, like it was the most important building in the world, so it came out Library."

"Apparently the library was two buildings down, because that was the building that he and Pockets disappeared into while I made sure the horses were settled in.  The two of them left me there, Fletcher's arm across Pocket's shoulder, Fletcher talking and pointing, and Pockets nodding all the while.  I don't know what they were talking about, but whatever it was it must have been pretty interesting.  Right before they went into the library, Pockets turned and yelled back to me to hurry up.  And he said please.  This meant that he didn't really feel right here either, because Pockets just doesn't say please.  It's just the way he is."

"I worked quick as I could, cuz you just can't do a halfway job with horses and do it right.  His horses were big, and well mannered, and intelligent.  I could tell by looking in their eyes.  I had no idea what their names were, or even if they had names.  Fletcher didn't strike me as the sort that names his animals.  I called 'em Bess and John.  There's more about them later on, too."

"When I was done I ran across the rocky ground to the library.  The doors were large and made of stone and there weren't any windows, which was okay since there wasn't anything to see anyway.  It was a pretty dreary place."

"Inside the library, it was a whole different story.  There was just one table in it, with benches on either side.  The floor seemed to be all white marble of some sort, very shiny and I expected it to be slick, but it wasn't a bit.  There were torches every few feet along the wall, but these were different.  There wasn't a flame at all, just some sort of yellowish glow.  Pockets could probably explain it, but I never asked."

"Every single space of the walls were filled with books. Books of all size, shape, and color.  Made my head hurt to look at them and think of the weight of the brains that wrote them.  I mean, you would have to have seen it to believe it."

"Pockets was sitting across from Fletcher at the table.  He had his head buried in a really big book, nodding and making little exclamations as if someone had just fed him the best dinner of his life.  He looked up briefly when I walked in and called me over to the table."

"He showed me what he was reading.  It was a book about the stars, he said, and it was very old. There were diagrams and lots of numbers in it.  A few pictures, too, but not the sort that are hand drawn.  These looked too perfect.  Better than a portrait, somehow.

Pockets told me that Fletcher had found it in another cave, nearby, and it told the distances to other planets, flight times, how fast other planets rotated, stuff like that."

"Now, me, I figure that it all may have been true, I don't pretend to know everything. Then again, Fletcher was a crazy bird, so he may have just made it all up.  If it is true, it tells a story bout where we all came from, tells a story about how a ship crashed on this planet and how a man named Richard Shockly rebuilt the planet so we could live on it."

Looking at the shocked and disbelieving faces of the people around him, Bags tossed up his hands.  "Look, I know it sounds like bullshit, but I'm just telling the story.  I didn't say I beloved we came from somewhere..." he waved his hands above his head "... out there.  I'm just telling you what was in the book."

"Damien, isn't it about time for dinner or something?" Bags asked.  "It looks like it's getting a bit dark outside."

Damien walked over and opened the door.  Outside bright sunlight poured in. "Nope.  It's still daytime.  You've just been talkin forever, that's all."  He walked over and clapped Bags on the shoulder and said "Why don't you take a break, come back in a little while?"

The majority of the pub moaned in disappointment, but Grizelda nodded in agreement.  "I think it's time I fed his majesty." she said.  She took his arm and pulled him out of his chair.  She looked around to the rest of them and said "There will be more later on.  Maybe not tonight, but later."  More groans from the crowd.  "Definitely tomorrow, though. All right?"

The crowd relented, some nodding sadly, and turned back to their own tables. Damien said "Yep, that was a good story, very profitable, Bags.  If you can," he looked at Grizelda, "try to make it back tonight."

"We'll, see, Damien." Grizelda said, leading Bags to the door. "There's still a kingdom to run, you know."

"Oh, I know!" Damien replied.  "And most of it is run from right here!" he turned back to take care of his patrons as Bags and Grizelda left the pub.
*********
At dinner Grizelda was very quiet. Bags ate heartily, roast and potatoes and baby carrots disappearing from his plate, complimented by contented sighs.  Grizelda picked and pushed and played, the meat and vegetables trading places on the plate.  Bags noticed, but didn't say anything.  He knew it would come.

"Bags?" Grizelda began, and then stopped.  Silence ensued for a while, Bags giving her a brief look, and then going back to his dinner.  "Bags, do you think Pockets is all right?"

"Sure he is, Griz.  Pockets is fine as a fritter.  If he wasn't either you would know or I would know, right?"

Grizelda nodded, but something wasn't quite right.  'Perhaps it's the baby", thought Bags.  He put down his fork and looked over at his wife.  "Okay Griz. What's up?  Pockets has only been gone for not quite a day.  I'll start to worry about lunch tomorrow. Until then, I'm going to pretend he's perfectly fine.  Do the same, all right?  Or is it more than just that?"

Grizelda looked up, and her eyes were shining. "Maybe it's just the baby, Bags, I don't know.  I just feel kind of lost without him here."  She dropped her head and continued, "No, that's not quite right.  I don't feel lost, it's just that..."  She looked up and said "You know that story about where we came from, that bit about coming from the stars?"

"Yeah?  What about it?" Nonchalance wasn't coming through very well, because concern showed all over Bags' lined face.

"Well..." Grizelda was hesitant.  "You don't know a whole lot about my past, but my family used to talk a lot about that story. They believed it."

"I thought you didn't have a family.  I thought you were sold to a brothel when you were just a kid." 

"Not the family I was born into, Bags." She was speaking a bit haltingly.  "This is the sort of family you find, or the sort that finds you.  Like you and Pockets found me.  Understand?"

Bags nodded, waving at her to go on.

"My family, before you and Pockets, tended to be... um... healers...  witchy women."

"Oh." said Bags.  "Okay, I can see that."

Grizelda's mouth took a while to close.  "You can see that?  You're ok with that?"

"Sure." Bags said.  "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well it's just that...  Okay, most people I've met tend to look at witchy women a bit oddly.  Sometimes they've been known to burn us at the stake."

"Griz, I've been healed by some of you witchy women.  So has Pockets. I've seen you do a few things, yourself.  Why would it be a big deal with me?  Hells bells, I love you, and I've pretty much suspected you of being a witch for a long time."

"And you never said anything?" Grizelda exclaimed.

"Honey, what's the big deal?" Bags said, confused. "You're who you are, I'm who I am, and Pockets is who he is.  Frankly, it would surprise me if you weren't a witch."

"Why so?" it was Grizelda's turn to be confused.

"Because, it would take a witch to put up with Pockets, and I know I'm not jewel either.  It's one of the hundreds of reasons I love you."

"Awwww." Grizelda melted.  "That was exactly the right thing to say, Bags."  She got up, walked over to him and kissed him fully on the lips.  She went back to her seat, grabbed a bite and chewed happily.

"And..." Bags asked?

Grizelda looked up from her plate and said "And?  And what?"

"The story?  The stars?" Bags prompted.

"Oh!" Grizelda put her fork down and said "Well, there was a story, and it also included Shockley, but in it, he was called a God, and if you called out to him, he would answer."  She looked at Bags.  "Well, it was just a fairy story, after all."

"Oh, I don't know, Griz." Bags said.  "I think there is some merit to it."

"You do?" Grizelda said.  "You?  Mister Skeptic? You?"

Bags laughed.  "Oh, I didn't say I believed all of it, but every legend has some basis in truth.  There was probably some guy named Shockley, and he was probably quite a guy.  But a God?" He shook his head.  "Not likely."

Dinner continued with small talk about life, the universe, and everything, occasionally populated with tales of 'do you remember when Pockets did...' and laughter.  Grizelda was standing to clear the plates when she gasped and dropped her plate.

Bags was on his feet in a moment and rushed to her side.  "What is it, Griz? Pockets?"

"No!" she had the look of immense surprise on her face.  "The baby just moved!"

"What?" Bags asked, panicked. "Are you all right?  Is the baby all right?"

Grizelda sat, smiling and said "Of course, silly.  It was just a little movement. It's the most natural thing in the world."  She saw that Bags was still not completely sure.  "Calm down, honey. We women have been having babies for a very long time.  Baby moving just means that he's healthy."

"You sure?  Is there anything I can do?" Bags asked anxiously.

"Yes.  There is something you can do." Grizelda said, smiling and patting his hand.

"What?  Pillow?  Water?  Anything, Griz.  You just ask for it."

"A pillow would be nice, Bags.  But I was thinking you should go to the pub and tell them the rest of your story.  I'll go with you, just give me a minute.  It was a bit of a surprise, after all."

"The pub?  Why would I want to go to the pub tonight?" Bags asked, incredulously.

"Because, love, you need to calm down, or you're going to pop a vessel.  Telling the story will take your mind somewhere else.  I'll be there, okay?  And I promise you, I'm perfectly all right."

"You want to go to the pub." Bags stood and scratched his head. "Well, all right, if that's what you want."

"Just give me a moment, dear." Grizelda said.

At the pub, Bags took great lengths to make sure that he stopped at ever table to tell everyone about the baby's movement.  Some he told twice.  Damien raised a glass and toasted to the baby's continued growth and health.

After the baby excitement died down, someone asked Bags for the rest of the story.  It was a slightly different crowd, with a few faces from this afternoon.  Apparently the tale of a Pockets story had circulated around the town.  There were people there that had never entered the pub before.

Damien brought an ale to Grizelda, who just waved it away saying, "Not anymore, Damien.  Bring me herbal tea, at least until the baby is born." 

Damien nodded, knowingly and said "Smart woman.  Bags, you hooked yourself a smart woman."

Bags replied "Yep and you don't know the half of it."  He looked around at the anxious faces and said "However, that doesn't mean I won't take a beer."  Damien left to fill the orders.  "Now, where was I?"

************

Pillowed by voluptuous tomes of military tactics that the young Bags had found on the shelves of the library, he was asleep and snoring softly, while Pockets and the Mad Wizard Fletcher discussed in heated debate.  Though asleep, Bags was still aware, and listening. It was a skill that he had learned at the orphanage, and had saved him from many a beating.

He heard words and phrases like 'Zero Point' and 'singularity decompression'.  Even awake, he may not have understood them, but they laid the basis for future conversations with Pockets.  His mind absorbed them and enabled the ability to nod at all the right places, so that Pockets would at least feel that he had been heard, if not understood.

He dreamt of a small one roomed thatched hut.  It was in a wooded area, clumsily cleared and had a small field behind it. The field lay fallow and disused, and any crop that may have grown had long ago given up to the weeds.

Bags recognized the place.

Inside the hutch, a small fire smoldered coldly in the tiny hearth. Mother sat at a small wooden table holding a babe.  Father stood nearby holding a heavy stick of wood. It was a scene seen before, in dreams previous, and in his dreaming mind, Bags had prayed many times for the dream to speed on by, to leave him be.  He knew, though, that it would play out as it always did.

Father and mother were arguing. Father was shouting how she was not a fit wife, how she was lazy, how she did nothing for him since the birth.  Mother cowered a bit, but held her own, shouting how unfit a farmer he was, how inept a lover, how he was the undoing of the family.

Babe cried silently, tears running.  Father had said that all soldiers cry at times, but to cry with a noise would give a position away, would be a sign of weakness.  It was a lesson the babe had learned the hard, painful, fisted way.  Not a sob, not a whimper did he utter, but he cried nonetheless.

Father's hand, holding the stick went back.  Mother raised free hand to ward off the blow. Babe turned to see father's face, to catch father's eyes as they grew wide with fear, knowing this would be the end of it.

There was a sound, and babe went flying head over heels.  There was red, dark and liquid, warm and growing colder.

"Bags" a hushed voice shook his shoulder.  It was Pockets, looking concerned, looking over his shoulder at the disapproving face of Fletcher.  "Bags, wake up."

Bags, head still lost in a time long ago, opened his eyes and raised an eyebrow to ask "Again?"

Pockets nodded, and said "Why don't you go to the kitchen and make yourself something to eat.  It's very well stocked.  I've been there. It's just the next building over."  Pockets looked over his shoulder at Fletcher again.  Even more hushed, for just Bags' ears, he said "There are some very soft flour bags there that you could lie on."  Louder, "I'm sure you must be famished from having had to run behind the carriage for so long."

Bags roused himself and stood. "Thanks, chum." he said.  He looked over at Fletcher, who was still looking very disdainful, as if Bags was something scraped off his shoe.  Bags knew the type.  He had dealt with them all his life, it seemed.  "If you need me," he said to Pockets, while looking directly at Fletcher, "And I mean for anything, you come and find me.  Okay?"  He looked directly at Pockets.  In a more gentle tone he repeated "Okay?"

"Sure, Bags.  Don't worry though, I'm perfectly fine."  Pockets had already moved back to an open book of enormous size.  "This history is fascination, Bags.  When you wa... come back, I'll tell you about it.  There are things in here that I would never have dreamed about!"

"Sure, Pockets.  Whatever." Bags said as he left the building.  The kitchen was the next building over.  Low and long, it housed bunks as well, the kitchen only being the first third of the building.  There were twelve bunks, indicating that there must have been a number of people here at one time, Bags had noticed not another living soul around, with the exceptions of the horses, of course.

"I wonder where everyone went to."  Bags spoke aloud.  He mixed together some flour and water, a few spices, some dried meat and made what he called his 'Fighting Gravy'.  Sometimes it tasted very good, sometimes not, but it filled the belly.  He found some slices of bread, toasted them on a cook fire and put them on a plate.  He smothered the toast with his gravy and hungrily wolfed what he had created.  Then he did it again.

After his third plate, he found the flour bags Pockets had mentioned, curled up on them and relaxed.  He lie on his back and let his mind fold into itself, blocking out light, but leaving a window open so that he could wake by any sound, any odd movement nearby.  The world closed in and he slept, deep and dreamless, for once.

The next day he awoke and felt much better.  Small aches and pains had drifted to that place they go during sleep, and he stretched to the smell of cooking eggs and hot coffee.

"Bout time you woke up, lazy bones." It was a woman's voice. Not a sultry voice, like the woman in town that tease a young and budding boy, or gruff like a nun's.  It was quiet, and joyful, and sweet. 

There was a smile in the voice that might have been that of a younger girl's.  There were a few at the orphanage that had started to look at Bags with interest, and he wasn't unaware of their looks and giggles.  There were even a few that he had done some clumsy exploration with, noting the remarkable and soft differences between his hard muscles and their more pliable ones.

No, this was the voice of a woman, not a girl.  Mature, but sweet, gentle, yet containing hints of firmness when it said "Come on! Time to wake up! Shake a leg, boy, the daylight's burning!"

He got up from the bags of flour and wandered into the kitchen to see a tall, slender woman with brown hair, working at the cook stove. She was mixing something in a bowl with sure strokes. A skillet sat over the fire, warming for the mixture she was making.  "Scrambles will be coming up in just a minute.  Make up the table, will you, Timothy?"

"Sure, Ma." Bags heard himself say.  A part of his mind was in shock. Mother?  But his mother died years ago.  He saw her die at his father's hand.  Regardless, he found himself clearing the small table in the middle of the kitchen, finding two plates and placing them in front of the chairs.

"Is your friend going to join us?" the apparition at the stove asked.

"Friend?" Bags asked.  "You mean Pockets?"  He so wanted to ask a million questions, but none found their way to his lips.

"Yes! That's him.  Chester Pockets."  The smell from the skillet was warming to Bags, who had not had scrambles for... well, since before.  "Is he going to join us?"

"I don't think so, Ma." Bags answered.  "He's at the library, and he's the sort that once he gets his head around something, he just won't let it go."

"Ah." she said, nodding her head.  "Your grandfather, my father, was a lot like that.  A very smart man, your grandfather.  Also a bit odd, like your friend." she turned and walked to the table, carrying the skillet in one gloved hand.  She separated the contents of the skillet between the two plates evenly, and returned the skillet to the stovetop before she took her own seat.

"Drink your milk, dear." she said, before she forked a bite of the eggs into her mouth. Bags picked up his glass of milk, which he could have sworn was not there a second ago, and drank.  It was cold, it was sweet and it was fresh.  He remembered the taste like a ghost memory, and drank it eagerly.  The woman across from him looked at her with gentle love in her dark brown eyes.

"So, you got your father's red hair." she said.  "I had wondered how it would turn out."  She took another bite. "Looks good on you, Timothy, but it could use a trim."

Bags fought out one word, "How?"

The woman across from him put down her fork, and smiled warmly. "How is this possible?  Is this true?  Am I real?"  She reached one hand across the table, palm up, inviting.  As much as Bags wanted to, he fought the temptation to reach out, at least until he had some answers.  Seeing this, the woman pulled her hand back delicately, picked up her fork, and continued eating.  Bags could see a hint of... sadness, perhaps, in her face.

"Fair enough, Timothy." She bent her face towards her plate, so her eyes were hidden from him.  "I wouldn't trust me either.  I'm supposed to be dead, after all."

Bags still found it nearly impossible to give voice to the thoughts in his head.  He mustered out one word.  "Yeah."  He followed her lead and continued eating.  It was food after all, and it was good, better than he had eaten in years.

"This place you are in," she said, "this mountain, is full of ghosts."  She paused. "Not the sort of ghosts that walk cemeteries and clank chains and haunt people.  These are the ghosts of memories, of things and people that exist in the world of the past.  What you see in me is what I was before I died."  She looked up with a bit of moisture near her eyes.

"Your friend could probably explain it in all sorts of technical terms.  I'll say this, and maybe it will help.  Deep inside of this place, inside of this mountain, there is a sleeping giant.  Not a giant of flesh and blood, Timothy, a giant made of metal and other things I don't understand." 

She laughed at the expression on Bags' face.  "Oh don't be so confused, dear.  Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it can't exist." She placed her fork on the table again, put her hands in her lap and explained, "I know it exists because I'm one of the things it dreamt up. It found you sleeping here; found your mind adrift and sad.  Terribly, terribly sad.  It made a decision, in its sleeping mind, to talk to you, through me, to try to help you be less sad."

Bags found he was able to speak his questions. "So... you aren't my mother?"

"Oh my, yes... and no.  I'm as much your mother as I can be, and I'm something a bit more, and I'm something a bit less.  I'm made up of your memories, from your childhood.  I'm a lot happier now, though." She smiled sadly.  "No, son, I'm not alive.  The memory of me that exists in the giant truly wishes I was, so that I could see you when you wake."

"I'm still sleeping?" Bags asked.

"Yes, dear.  If you weren't, this wouldn't be possible.  And there will only be this one time." She saw the sad look on Bags face. "I'm sorry, honey.  It's not something that can be controlled."

She stood up, pulled her chair around until it was next to Bags' own.  "Listen.  This metal giant holds in its memory everyone that has ever lived on this planet.  It holds the memory of every plant, every animal, every mountain, cloud, ant, fish, bird... everything.  I know this is hard to believe, but it is true.  It created me from its memory of me, from your memory of me, because I'm to tell you something important.  It's about you, dear.  And just as importantly, it's about your odd friend, Chester Pockets." 

She hugged Bags strongly, and kissed him on the cheek.  "You, my son, my Timothy, will become a legend on this planet.  I know this because you have the makings of a hero in you, in your heart, and in your soul.  You will lead an adventurous life, fight many battles, and love many women."

The startled look on Bags' face caused his mother to burst into laughter.  "Well, I don't have the details, dear.  I can't imagine a boy that wants his mother to know everything!" she playfully ruffled his hair.  "It's true, though.  You will be the son that your father always wanted.  By the way, he died too, not soon after.  He took his own life out of remorse for what he had done, not long after he left you at the orphanage."

"But the fame comes with a price, Timothy."  She got a serious look on her face. "You must protect your friend Pockets.  He's got an important role to play, far into the future.  And because of the way his is, he's likely to find himself in trouble time and time again."

"You're tellin' me." Bags said. "He's already a pain in the ass."

Bags held up one hand and raised one finger.  "Let me get this straight. You're not my mother, but somehow you are because you're built up from memories that some metal giant has of you."

He held up another finger.  "I'm going to be this legendary hero, fighting in wars and battles, and living to a ripe old age."

Another finger, "And three, to get there, I have to protect Pockets from danger, because somehow, somewhere in the future he's got some important thing to do."  He looked at the three fingers, looked at the image of his mother and asked "Have I got that right?"

"Yes, son.  That's exactly right."  His mother was nodding and smiling.

"Okay.  Thanks for clearing that up for me."  He took one more bite of eggs, one more drink of milk, and said "Must have been something in the gravy."  He looked at the image of his mother and said "I'd really like to wake up now."

"Son, you probably won't remember any of this when you wake up.  It'll be buried deep in your mind where you can't see it.  The concepts will be there, guiding you where ever you go and whatever you do."

"Great. Like I don't have enough problems." Bags was drumming his fingers on the table. "I'd really like to wake up now.  Really.  Like now."

She sighed.  "Very well, Timothy.  I just want to say one more thing." She leaned down and kissed him warmly on his cheek.  "You mother loved you very much, and so did your father."

Bags snorted, and opened his eyes.  The flour bags had somehow gained a rough texture during the night, and the coolness of the evening had penetrated the stone walls.  He slowly sat up, his breath blowing clouds as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.  Stretching, he realized he felt better than he had in a long time, as though a great weariness had been lifted off of him.

Smacking his lips, he had the odd taste of scrambled eggs in his mouth.  "What the hell?" he said aloud.  Odder still was the sensation of a kiss on his cheek.  He looked around, but there was nobody there.  "Must have been one really strange dream."  Still, he felt good, and wandered out the door of the kitchen and back to the library with a strangely satisfied smile on his face.
*****************
"We settled into a routine, pretty much." Bags continued.  "Pockets would spend most of his time in the library; I would muck the stalls and take care of the horses, get supplies from a nearby village..." he paused, and then said, "More about that village later.  Anyway, I was given pretty much free reign of the entire place, and I got to tell you, it was a big place.  Besides the five buildings you saw when you first entered, there was this great big tower that went from the ground pretty much up to the top of the cave.  I figure it was probably a good hundred feet up."

"I could go into the tower, and I could go up the first five floors, but beyond that I wasn't allowed. Why?  I dunno.  Pockets, though, Pockets could go where he wanted to.  But even in the tower, Fletcher had to be with him, if he went past the fifth floor.  I asked him what up there once, and he looked at me a long time, trying to figure out what to say.  Eventually he just gave up, saying that it was too complicated."

"So I pushed him for information.  Was it slaves?  Was it gold? Was it money? The answer was no to each question.  Now, remember, he and I had been together for some time, and though he was pretty much locked up in his own head most of the time, I knew that he wanted desperately to be like you and me."  Bags looked around at the assembled pub goers and said "You know.  Stupid."  That brought a series of nods and sounds of sympathy." 

"So he tried to explain it to me one night after we had been there a coupla years. He tried to bring me to a point where I could understand.  He started out by telling me that the top floors of the tower contained nothing but empty space.  'Course, that wasn't all of it; nobody would lock a door to protect empty space, so I pushed him a little bit more.  He said that it was empty space, but there were things in it, machines and chairs and dusty things.  That made more sense to me.  It was like a warehouse, I say to him.   No, he answers me.  Not like a warehouse at all."

"Ok, I say, if it's not a warehouse, then what's all that stuff doing there?"

Pockets turned with a serious look on his face and said "Bags, this is stuff I'm not quite sure I understand.  I'm understanding enough that it's really, really interesting, and I need to keep reading the books in the library to understand it all... I think.  But I'll explain as best I can, Okay?"

Bags nodded, waiting for the answer.  "It's not so much a warehouse as another library, Bags." Pockets continued, pausing to gather the right words.  "Except this library isn't books, or paper, it's... pictures and voices.  Pictures that pop right out of thin air, and voices that pop right into your mind."

Bags looked cynically at his friend.  "Uh huh." he said.  He could have said to Pockets that his hair was on fire and it would have done no good.  Pockets was in the grip of telling the tale and reliving the wonders.

"And there are machines, Bags, machines like you would never imagine.  Push a button, pull a knob and they do the most incredible things.  I have seen this world from far up in the sky, like I was a bird in flight.  I asked Fletcher how it worked, and he told me that I would have to wait a little while longer.  I know it's not magic, Bags, it's something else, but it sure seems like magic to me."

"There's one machine that does nothing but teach." Pockets eyes were glowing from within, and his voice rattled with excitement.  "You sit in this really comfortable chair, and it massages you till you get all relaxed.  Then you put on this headset... That's like a cap with out a top... a little wire hoop that goes around your head." When Pockets saw Bags head nod in understanding he went on.

"Okay.  Then, while you sit there, all relaxed like, almost asleep, you start seeing images and hearing voices, but they go by so fast you can't keep up with 'em.  That's the machine I like the best, of all of 'em.  I'm learning so much, so fast, Bags!" In his excitement, he reached over and grabbed Bags' arm.

Bags looked down at Pockets' hand and very gently pulled it away.  He placed his own hands on his friend's shoulders and said, "Chum, that sounds very interesting, and I'm sure it's important somehow.  But I gotta ask you something, okay?"

"Okay, Bags."

"Remember that time when the nuns brought in that hypnotist guy?  Renaldo the great or some crap like that?"

"Yeah." Pockets answered warily.

"Okay." Bags said. "Look at my eyes and answer me this.  Is this Fletcher guy like that?  Has he got you under some sort of hypno spell or whatever, so you believe this stuff?"

Pockets looked at Bags square in the eyes for a long moment, and then dropped his gaze.  "Bags," he said, "it all seems incredibly real.  I know that some of the stuff I've talked about may sound made up, but it's not.  Granted, I may not be the best judge of what is real and what is imaginary, but I'd have to say that yes, I believe all this stuff. It all makes sense to me."

Bags looked at Pockets forlorn face long enough to make his own decision.  "All right.  That's all I needed to know.  So tell me some of the stuff you've learned."

"Okay!" Pockets said, excitedly.

The rest of the night was spent with Bags trying hard to keep up with Pockets' chatter.  On and on went the stories of the things Pockets had learned.  Other planets, stars, magic machinery that would do everything from make bread to fly through the air, between the stars themselves.  Pockets spent a lot of time on the story of the trip to this planet, which he said is a planet called Nowhere.

"Whoa!" said Bags.  "Hold that thought.  Now, some of that fairy tale stuff is okay.  It sounds neat, and I'm sure that it can be found in a lot of books.  And I can almost believe that one of those flying ships might have crashed here.  I mean... we had to come from somewhere." He paused.

"And I don't mind listening to you tell about it all night long, Pockets.  I don't.  But I have to get up here pretty shortly, and go check on the horses.  Then I have to make that ten mile trip to the village and pick up supplies.  If I stay up much longer, I'm going to be dead tired before my day even starts.  I need my sleep.  Okay?"

"Okay, Bags." said Pockets, though the disappointment showed in his face. "I guess I need to get some sleep too."  Pockets turned to his bunk behind the kitchen, pulled his pillow close and appeared to go to sleep.

It was a little while later when Bags heard Pockets mumble "It's not my imagination, Bags.  It's really real.  G'night."

Bags did not fall asleep.  He stayed awake thinking about the things his friend had said, all the things that, to his mind, seemed as magical and useless as fairy stories.  None of the things Pockets had said would help them eat, would keep them alive, keep them safe.  It's not that the stories weren't good stories, and it's not that parts of them weren't interesting.  Bags did have an imagination, and it was quite good. 

The thing was just that the things Pockets had talked about were things that Bags could not feel, see, hear or taste.  They did not help get the horses fed, and other than the flying machines, would not help him go the ten miles to the village.

Bags also knew that once the dam of Pockets had been breached, he would be hearing the stories from now until forever.  It would be a time where Bags would remember some of what he had been told, and file away in that forgotten space the things that didn't mean much in the here and now.  If it can't be proved, can't be used, then it was pretty much unprovable and useless.  That was part of the young Bags' philosophy.  Still...

"It's all right, Pockets.  I believe you.  I just don't know if I believe Fletcher.  G'night."

Bags looked at the folks in the pub, and sighed.  "Seems now that I should have believed in Fletcher.  There was a lot of things that happened over the next twelve years that were just weird.  Things disappearing.  Things appearing.  Voices in the night.  I did finally get up to the top part of the tower, but that was near the end.  That was near where we had to kill Fletcher."

Fallow, wife of Franklin the Butcher, said "Twelve years?"  Her reddish hair was cut short and curled around her round face.  "You were there for twelve years?"

Bags nodded.  "Yep.  Twelve of the strangest years, but I wouldn't have traded them for anything.  Granted, most of my day was filled with manure, mops, and goin to town for supplies, and Pockets was filled with... Strange things, strange thoughts... I dunno.  It was pretty hard on him.  If he gets back, you'll have to ask him, but don't count on getting a straight answer from him.  Things were done to him that ... were just not... Hell! I don't even know how to describe it.  The Pockets that went in was not the same Pockets you folks know.  He became more than he was, and he became less than he was.  That's the only way I can describe it."

There was a period of silence while the crowd nodded and murmured to themselves, absorbing what Bags had told them.  There was some discussion, over at the bar, about the existence of machinery that could project visions, and someone mentioned that he had heard about a device that could throw an image onto a sheet. 

"Now, like I said, that was the end of the twelve years.  And if Pockets came out less and more than he was when he went in, so did I. I learned how to fight, because Fletcher would rent me out to some moron or another who wanted to take over his neighbor's fields or village or castle, or whatever.  There's always some fight going on somewhere, and Fletcher decided that I could be useful in other ways besides muckin stalls and fetching supplies. I didn't want to become a fighter.  It just happened to me, just like what happened to Pockets, happened to Pockets."

Briggs raised his mug and asked, "You were a mercenary?"

"Depends, Briggs." Bags replied. "I wasn't paid in money.  That all went to Fletcher.  It did allow me to keep a roof over my head and food in my belly.  If you want to call fighting to survive mercenary work, then I won't argue.  The way I figure I paid for Pockets room and board, too.  That's what you do for family, right?"

"Can't argue with you there, Bags.  Reckon I'd do the same thing in your shoes."

"Damn right you would, Briggs.  And remember, I was still a kid. Not even twenty."  Bags raised his glass and toasted, "To the folly of youth!"

Voices rose "To the folly of youth!"

*******************

The next night, Bags was back at the pub.  Damien had his mug ready for him, waiting at the table by the door, in front of his seat against the wall.  Bags liked to sit with is back against the wall.  It made him feel comfortable.  It made him feel safe.

"All right," he began, "this is the last tale for a while.  Griz is champin at the bit for me to go find Pockets, even though I know the little jerk is perfectly fine.  If he wasn't, we'd know about it.  Cuz it's him." 

His eyes scanned the crowd that surrounded the table.  The other patrons groaned from disappointment. 

"Now look," Bags said, "Griz is Griz. She's the Queen.  And you don't want me going against the queen now, do you?"  Everyone's head shook negatively. "All right.  So this may be the last tale for a while.  Maybe not, cuz I have to stay here until that baby is born.  Do you all agree with that?"

Heads bobbed all around in agreement.

"Now, Griz, she says I don't need to stick around.  She says that she'll be fine without me for a while, but I says I don't know how long that while is gonna be, so I'm stickin.  Pockets, for as odd as he is, tends to get out of as much trouble as he gets into.  Granted he sometimes needs a little help, like these last few times.  And that's why I'm going to deputize a couple of folks and they are going to go find Pockets."

A silence as deep and resonant as could be found in the deepest tomb inside the deepest cave inside the tallest mountain collapsed into Swineheart's.  Chipmunks could be heard playing on the rafters across the street, and this was with the door to the pub closed.

Bags let the silence build for a bit.  Then he started drumming his fingers.  Then he raised his eyebrows and asked in a quiet voice, "Any volunteers?"  Not a word was said.  "That's just great.  Harv has gone off to find his lady love, Carhop or whatever her name is so I can't send him.  I'm the only one that I know of that has gone outside the gate..." he looked around... 'or am I?  Anyone else here been further than the front gates?  Anyone seen any other place than here?"  A few of the old timers raised their hands, but Bags shot them down. 

"Nope.  You old guys stay here with me.  Not that I don't appreciate the thought, but you've done your time.  We don't know how hard the trip will be, and I only have half a thought where Pockets went. This won't be a short trip to the market and back."  A collective sigh went though the old men, even Briggs.

"All right." Again, Bags scanned the crowd.  He saw a tall, willowy form in the very back.  You! Jenkins!  Come here." 

Cautiously, the town scribe came forward.  "Jenkins, I know you're not mute.  You just don't have a lot to say, right?"  Jenkins nodded, sweating a bit.  "And don't worry, I'm not sending you."  Visible relief shot through the young man.  "What I need from you is a list of folks with abilities.  I need someone that can read and write, and I need someone that may be a good hunter.  Neither can be fat, nor can they be too thin.  They have to be able to ride horses, and they can't be afraid of tall places.  Think you can do that?" Jenkins nodded. 

"Good.  Now, a few other things.  They can't be clumsy, and they can't be drunks.  I don't care if they like the women, or if they like other things.  But they need to be dependable, which means that if I charge them with something, they'll do it.  Got that?"  Jenkins again nodded.

"Okay.  When I finish this tale, I want at least two men, and not more than four that can fill the bill."  Jenkins turned to fade into the crowd.  "Oh, by the way.  I'll pay them for their troubles.  One hundred gold, non taxable." 

This got a noisy response from the crowd, as they started to tell Jenkins what each of their own special abilities were.  Jenkins was busily scribbling away on the pad he always kept with him.

"Hey!" Bags shouted.  "Let the man work!  He knows more about you than you do, and if you go to lying to him, you'll liable to get yourself killed.  Or worse. Then who would spend your gold?  Nobody.  So leave him alone, grab and ale or whatever and listen to the story."  He hunkered forward, took a draw from his mug and said "Damn.  Just like a buncha kids."

When it had all settled down again, Jenkins in a corner scribbling and crossing out, the other patrons back in their chairs, Bags began.

"The high point of my life in the Mad Wizard's cave, the twelve years of servitude I gave to the old bastard, was going to the nearby village for supplies.  It's not that it was such a great village, I mean, it only had a blacksmiths and a bakery and a pub and a grocer. It was the sort of place you always leave, and rarely stay at.  I could pick up beans and rice and wheat and whatever else he needed." 

"Sometimes the Wiz would send me for odd stuff, like bits of wire or some odd metal that the blacksmith would shake his head over, but eventually produce.  Sometimes it would be something that had been delivered at the grocer, some package or something like that, from some far away place I had never heard of.  It was always addressed to the Wiz, though.  M Fletcher, care of Monty's Grocer, Newton."

Bags scratched his head and said with mild surprise, "Huh.  I can still remember the address, after all this time."  He shook his head.  "Anyways...  There were these two old guys on the front porch of the grocer, of Monty's, and they would always be playing checkers or something... cards maybe.  They looked to be about a hundred and a bit more than that.  I mean OLD, with a capital wrinkle!"

"These old guys would see me coming down the road, stop me each and every time and ask me how my day was going.  In the beginning, it was a pain in the ass, because I didn't want to be there, I didn't want to have to answer any questions, and I just wanted to get back up where I could hide away and let the time pass."

"But these old geezers stopped me one day and they asked me why I was always in such a hurry.  They asked me if I really wanted to get back up the hill to the Wiz's place that badly.  They made me think a bit and I decided that I didn't really want to get back up there that bad.  So I told them that if I could avoid it, I surely would."

"So these old geezers, Zeb and Zack, I think their names were, invited me to join them. They bought me tea, sweet and cold. I 'spect they probably had Pockets' frigerator way before he thought of it, but I never even thought to ask."

"Zeb and Zack had lived a very long time, they told me. They remembered back before the Mad Wizard had shown up and moved into the mountain.  They remembered the old days, when magical beasts, like centaurs and flying horses roamed the land.  They also remembered when they all seemed to die out, one by one.  They said it had something to do with the mountain, but they would never really tell me much about it.  They said that there may still be pockets of magic somewhere, but they didn't know where.  In the end, I asked them what they did know about, and this is what they told me."

Zeb rocked back on his heels and let the back of his chair rest against the wooden wall of the store, waved a hand at Zack and said "You're the smart one, Zack.  You do the talkin.  I'm tired."

Zack, who had a plain face, but piercing eyes, looked at young Bags and said "Son, there are things in this world that can't be accounted for by your average man.  Zeb and I have seen things that you would find unbelievable.  We traveled from here, south through the wood, across an ocean, and back again.  Zeb and I had to go see the world, after our adventures with Charlie."

"Charlie?" Bags asked.

Zack looked at his brother and raised an eyebrow.  "Hell, Zack, I don't care.  He's not gonna believe it, and since the old fart and Cecile moved on."

Zeb turned back to Zack and said "Charlie Pentel was a heck of a guy, very stand up, and wouldn't want any better.  Course, the fact that he was half goat was kind of odd."

"Half goat?" Bags asked.  "He was half goat?

"Only the lower half." explained Zack.  "And his wife didn't have a head. Well.. she did, but it only came out at night, when the rest of her body disappeared."  Seeing the look on Bags face, he said, "No! Really.  But that all changed when he and me and Zeb went to rescue the God Shockly."

"Wait," Bags said, shaking his head to clear the cobs out. "God Shockly?  What the hell are you talking about?"

Zeb dropped his chair back on to the porch. "You know... this would taste much better with something to drink."  He looked at Bags and asked, "How bout you?"

Bags looked at the tea in his hand and said "No thanks, I'm good."

Zeb laughed and said "Oh hell. What are you, a little boy?  I meant something to DRINK."

"Well... I'm just a little over eleven, sir." Bags said.

"Eleven?  At your size?  You could pass for fifteen, sixteen tops.  Couldn't he Zack?"

Zack stood up, a bit shakily, and walked over to Bags.  He placed a hand on the young man's shoulder and was quiet for a bit.  His eyes rolled up in his head and Bags looked uncertainly at Zeb, who just sat, smoking a pipe.

"Don't worry, boy. Zack won't hurt you any.  He just has a kind of gift.  Just be patient."

So Bags sat there, sipping his tea waiting for Zack to finish, doing....whatever it is he was doing.  Whatever it was, it didn't take long, just about five minutes, but it was just uncomfortable to the young man.  He was not used to being touched, and especially touched gently by a large man who was old enough to be his greater than great grandfather.

Zack pulled away, his eyes rolled back, and he looked over at Zeb.  "This one's special, Zeb.  And yes, it's time we got him educated."

"Educated?" Bags asked.  He felt like he had done nothing but ask questions since he got here.  "Okay, you geezers.  What the hell is going on?"

Zeb stood up, grabbed his cane from its spot on the back of the chair, and started across the street.  "Come on, you two."

One last question, but not the last one of the night, Bags asked "Where are we going?"

Zack put his arm around the young man and said "To the Pub, young Timothy Bags.  Time to begin your destiny, though it has already begun."  He nodded, smiling a large toothy smile.  "To the pub."

"And I gotta tell you," Bags told the group at Swineheart's, "those two old guys told me more about how to enjoy life than anyone I've known since.  Zack, the smart one, was kinda like Pockets.  He heard voices, sometimes.  And sometimes he talked though those voices.  Yeah, it was kind of odd, but they were nice guys.  I just figured that Zack was kind of touched in the head, if you know what I mean."

He took a draw from his mug, wiped his foamy mustache, and continued, "Now, this isn't to mean that I haven't seen strange things since then. It's possible that Zack heard voices, just like it's possible that there really was a God named Shockly.  I don't know for sure, but my bet is on the things I can see and the things I can define.  All this space ship flying through the air stuff is just so much hocus pocus, if you ask me."

Damien, sitting at the same table as Bags, leaned his chin against his fist. "You sure are a hard man to convince, Bags.  I've known about the God Shockly all my life and I believe in him."

Bags looked at Damien and allowed a bit of silence to pass. "Yeah, but that's you, Damien."

"Anyway, that was the first time in my life I had ever tasted anything that wasn't water or tea.  And as you can tell, I got to liking it a lot.  The two old guys never did talk much about this Charlie guy, or the Shockly God.  Sometimes in a private joke they would let slip tiny things, like this God was supposed to be dead or something.  Of course, I felt it was just the rambling of a couple of really, really old guys.  And of course, I'm not so stubborn to know that there is always some truth, some grain of truth in any ton of bullshit.  So I dunno. It might be true, it might be mostly true, or it might be not even a little bit true."

"I do know this.  There are things in this world that Pockets and I have seen that I have no explanation for.  Hell, Pockets himself I have no explanation for, most of the time.  Doesn't mean I don't wonder, and it doesn't mean that I don't suspect.  What it means is that there are things that I can't explain, and that's okey doke with me.  I can live with it.  You all can believe what you want and it doesn't matter even a little bit to me.  I'll defend your right to believe as you do, as long as you leave me the right to NOT believe it."

"Jenkins!" Bags yelled.  The thin scribe came forward.  "What have you got for me?"  Jenkins handed him his pad, and Bags looked at it briefly.  "Excellent choices, Jenkins.  Go grab lunch at the house, tell Griz I'll be there in a bit."  Jenkins nodded and left.

Bags looked at the anticipation on the faces.  Some had dread, some were just waiting.  He took a deep breath and called out.  "Milton Pewitt! aaaand..." he looked down the list, "Weehawk!"

From the back came the two men.  Both were small and compact of frame, both had long hair running down their back.  Pewitt was very blond, with intense blue eyes, a quirky smile and thin face. Weehawk had black hair, almost blue in depth.  His eyes shone black as well, black as any coal, but there was a fire in them.  He too smiled, but it was a quiet, contemplative smile, as if he held a secret no one else knew. Of the two, Pewitt was more slender, but the bulk of his frame was carried in his chest.  Weehawk's showed in his thighs, muscular and tanned.

Bags looked the two men up and down, and then asked "Where the hell did you two come from?"

Pewitt stuck out his hand to be shaken and said, with force "Father was a blacksmith, your majesty!"  Weehawk simply smiled and said "No where special.  Just a sewer rat."

Bags looked at the proffered hand, shook it briefly, and said "At ease, soldier".  He looked at Weehawk and said "Sewer rat, huh?  Any more to your story?"

"Nope." came the sallow answer.

Bags looked at the young man and rubbed his chin.  "Ever know a woman named BeJay, son?"

Weehawk looked suspiciously at Bags a long look before answering.  "Maybe.  Does it matter?"

Bags shook his head. "Nope. Doesn't matter a damn.  Only thing is, if you get yourself killed out there, how mad will she be with me?"

"She might be miffed a bit, Bags, but she'll get over it.  She figures I'm old enough to make my own decisions."  Weehawk gained his smile again.

"You her son?" Bags asked.  "No... wait... Grandson?"

"Grandson, Bags."

"Good enough.  You're in."  He turned to Pewitt.  "Soldier, this is a pub.  I'm not the boss here.  Damien is, okay?"

Pewitt relaxed just a bit more and said "Yes, your majesty."

"Can the majesty crap, Milt.  By the time you get back, you might be calling a whole lot of other things, other than 'your majesty'.  Your dad's a blacksmith, huh?  I don't remember a blacksmith in this town."

"He's not of this town, your... ummm..."

"Bags is my name, Milt."

"Bags, then.  Pa is the blacksmith of another village, about two days ride away.  I've been here six months now, working for the butcher.  I was looking for something different, you see.  And here I am!"

"And here you are." Bags agreed.  He looked at Pewitt, looked at Weehawk.  "You two know where the Mansion is?" Both men nodded.  "Good.  Go there, you'll find Jenkins and Grizelda, my wife there.  Tell them I sent you and to feed you, Okay?"  Again, both men nodded.  "Go on.  I've got just a bit more to finish up here. I'll be along presently."

After Pewitt and Weehawk had left, Bags turned to the remaining crowd.  He got a grim face and said "What do you think? Think they'll do ok?"

Briggs said "I don't know, Bags.  I don't know what they are heading towards."

"Yeah." Agreed Bags.  'Course you don't."  He looked off into the distance, and then quieter.  "Course you don't."  He slapped the table, said "Welp, I better go get them ready.  Griz will already be wondering what the hell I'm up to."  He stood up from the table and moved towards the door.

"Damien," he said as he paused before leaving. "Put 'em all on my tab tonight, okay?  Don't let 'em get too carried away, but don't hold 'em back, either.  Life was made to enjoy, you know?"  And then, somberly, he left, the door closing quietly behind him.

***********

On the Edge of the southern desert, Allen, son of Albert, was tending the crops.  There was beans and corn to talk to and encourage to grow tall.  There were potatoes and beets and carrots to weed and water.  Allen was a good son, the only son of Albert, and he worked hard to keep the crops strong and healthy so they could be taken to Newton, on the other side of the Ridge Mountains that lay to the south of the southern desert.

The southern desert was not named the southern desert because it was the desert on the southern edge of any thing.  It was called the southern desert because it was the south most point on the northern side of the Mountain range that, as far as anyone knew, ringed the entire planet.

Allen knew that there were towns and villages on the southern side of the Ridge.  He had even visited some of them in his short nine year lifetime.  While there, he had heard old-timers talk about seeing mysterious and wondrous animals.  Horses with the upper body of a man.  Men that had the legs of a goat. Talking trees, talking animals.  Mermaids in the depths of the ocean, which lay far, far to the south of the Ridge, and was a place that Allen hoped to visit someday, someday.

Wondrous and strange.  His father, the wisest man in the world, had told him that the tales may have been true at one time, but no longer.  If there had ever been such things in the world, his father had said, it was long ago and far away, and quite likely the result of having had far too much berrywine in the belly. His father had told Allen to stay away from berrywine, as it would cause him to see many odd things and would cause him to do many stupid things.  Allen nodded and told his father he would stay away from it, because Allen was a good boy, and believed that his father knew all there was to know.

Allen, son of Albert worked hard in the fields.  He knew it was his job, and he also knew that when he was out there, among the fields, he was happiest.  His mother worked hard, cleaning the house and taking care of the family, and Allen wanted to make her very proud of him.  His father worked hard, too, plowing the fields and taking care of the livestock, which would also be sold in markets on the other side of the Ridge.

It was a good life, a simple life, though sometimes a bit lonely for the only son of a farmer.  He had asked if he would ever get a brother or a sister to play with, but he could tell this made his parents sad, and so he quit asking.  He was determined that the crops would be his brothers and sisters, and this satisfied him, because he could talk to them, and they would talk back, telling him tales of all the things going on in the world.

He mentioned this to his parents one day, and he could see that it made them appear sad too, so he never mentioned his brothers and sisters in the field again.  It didn't stop him from talking to them, however, and a great many days had been spent hearing about the wonders and magics that were happening elsewhere.  Allen was waiting patiently, as patient as a bean sprout, and he was waiting for the time he could go visit some of the places he had been told about.

He was especially interested in finding a valley where magic was, where dragons once fought, and the river was alive.  He had wondered if the plants and crops there would have different stories to tell.  And so, he waited for the time when he would sprout up tall enough and be old enough to move out on his own.  He would make his parents proud of him then, being a world explorer, yes he would.

On this day, a bright sunny day when the corn was cheerfully singing a ballad about dancing moons, and the beans were murmuring in their sleepy way, Allen heard and saw an odd sight.

Out on the white sands of the desert a bird with one wing had crashed and was sliding along the surface.  It was moving at a furious pace and it's one wing, standing straight up into the air was a blinding white against the blue of the sky.  Allen wondered how a bird with only one wing was able to move so fast, and how it was able to make such a noise as it moved. 

The bird on the desert went "Woooooo Hoooo!" and then would fall silent.  Allen asked the corn if it had ever heard of such a thing, but the corn could not answer that it had ever heard of it.  The beans, actually more intelligent than the corn, was also unaware of such a creature.  Allen didn't ask the carrots or the beet, as they generally had their head buried in the sand and only noticed the movement of the earth and the creatures under it.

Amazed and stunned Allen watched as the one wing moved close, and then lickity split!, move past and quickly far away.  It was a sight that Allen would not tell his parents about, but would, in time far into the future, tell to his children and to his grandchildren. The children would nod and smile at the old man's words, as they had been raised to be respectful of their elders.

The children would do the same with the story of how he fought the last dragon on the far side of the planet and rescued their mother and grandmother from the beast, who was about to eat her, because you see, sea dragon's favorite food is, after all, mermaids.

Soon the wing was out of sight, and Allen, son of Albert, would sigh. Then he would turn back to his brothers and sisters and get back to the business of taking care of them.  He would shake his head a lot that day, as he had seen his father do, and say, as he had heard his father say "Strange and wondrous things about."  Another shake and then "Strange and wondrous."

"Woooo hoooo!" exclaimed Pockets, as he held on to the single mast.  Above and around him, rippling in the wind, was a single sail.  He had wondered if this would work, and it had, far beyond his wildest expectations. 

Applying a little bit of his 'frigerator concept to cool the heated coils below the deck he stood on created enough steam that he was literally riding on a cushion of air.  With the sail attached to the wooden deck, and a good breeze, he was able to out run any horse.  He decided he would call his invention a 'sail board', because that was exactly what it was.

His heart was pounding and the blood in his head was singing, as he saw the ridge mountains growing larger and larger. He tacked the sail just a bit, and the board shifted towards the windward side of the mountain.  The wind, bless it's heart was blowing him towards the exact split he knew would take him to Newton.

He felt like he was going home and smiled and laughed and sang pirate songs.  He was, after all, sailing.  "Wiz", he cried with the wind at his back and bugs in his teeth, "I'm comin for you!"

He felt like he was going home.

**********
It was a somber night in the Mansion.  Grizelda had fed Jenkins, Pewitt and Weehawk a good meal and had set with them in the living room under the tree while she waited for Bags.  She tried to make them comfortable, and was finding it very difficult, since she had no idea who they were, other than Jenkins, and Jenkins did not really hold a conversation.  She suspected Jenkins may have had a speech impediment, but since he rarely ever spoke, nobody knew.

The four of them sat, and an uncomfortable silence fell over them.  Grizelda had discovered that Jenkins knew neither of the other two, and the neither Weehawk nor Pewitt met before tonight. The only information she had been told by either of them is that Bags had picked them for a trip to find Pockets, somewhere in the mountains far to the south.

"You know," said Grizelda, "I met Bags and Pockets after they had left the Mad Wizard.  They had been wandering for a few years then.  I think they had been chased out of about every sizable village there was." 

This was met with silence, heavy and solid until Weehawk said "So, you can't really tell us anything about what we're going to be facing?  Nothing about the Mountains to the south?"

"Well... no." Grizelda admitted. "I came from the west originally.  My parents abandoned me when I was very young, and I grew up in a ...  I grew up where there weren't many travel opportunities."

"You were a whore?"  Weehawk asked.  Jenkins choked on a piece of bread and Pewitt's eyes just bulged.

Grizelda let the pause grow, considering how she would answer. Her immediate response wouldn't have been pretty, so after taking a breath she said, "Yes, I suppose you could say that.  We tended to go by the titles escort, or even prostitute.  Because you are so young, I wouldn't necessarily expect you to know the difference.  A whore is fairly indiscriminate, Weehawk.  They may not care who they are with.  An prostitute is a bit more selective, and an escort is even more selective than that."

"In the last four years I had that job, and it was a job, I had only one customer, one prospect.  He was not a nice man, I did not enjoy it, and I do not have good memories of it.  When Bags and Pockets came into my life, I was trying to find a way out of that life."

"I had considered suicide, but I was lucky.  There was a man, older and kind, who left me some land and a bit of money.  And no, he was not a customer.  He was ... like a father to me.  Even with that, though, I had no way out.  Nobody would help me because they were all afraid of what would happen to them if they tried."

"What was that?"  asked Pewitt.  He had gotten over the shock from Weehawk's question, though he was still blushing from head to toe over the topic.

Grizelda smiled grimly at Pewitt.  "They'd be killed.  The man who thought he owned me was a military man, a Captain of an army that had conquered our village."  She turned back to Weehawk, and even her slight smile faded.

"Bags and I fell in love," she continued.  It wasn't something we expected. I thought he was cute enough, and he was gentle and funny.  Falling in love isn't something that you plan, it just happens."

"I don't have to tell you the attention Bags showed me did not go over very well with the Captain.  This led to a battle between the two of them, no matter what I tried to do to stop it.  Bags was nearly killed.  He was cut from stem to stern, and almost died.  He did kill the Captain, though."

"How did he survive?" asked Weehawk. 

"I wasn't always a ... whore.  I do have a few other abilities, Weehawk." Grizelda said, perhaps a bit more unkindly then she meant.  Or perhaps not.  Regardless, it put a damper and a stopper on the conversation right then and there.

Bags came home to the three of them, sitting under the tree in the middle of the room, not talking. Weehawk looked as if he couldn't quite figure out what to say.  Jenkins was eating, and having a good time of it, oblivious to anything else.  Pewitt had a morose, confused look on his face.  Griz smiled sweetly when she saw Bags, stood up and crossed over to him.

"Hello, Dear.  Interesting guests you send me." She said. Her arms were crossed and her eyes sent the message that he better fix it, whatever it is, and fast.

Bags stooped down and kissed her.  "Hello, honey. Sorry bout the short notice"

"No notice, is more like it." She said.

Bags thought, 'Uh oh'.  He moved to where Pewitt and Weehawk sat.  He looked at the two boys and flipped a mental coin.  He sat next to Weehawk, placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. In Weehawk's ear, he whispered "If I was you, I'd apologize for whatever it was you said."

Wincing, Weehawk's eyes met Bags.  He read the intent there that said that if he didn't apologize life would be pretty miserable Bags and that would make life miserable for all of them, for quite a while.

Weehawk stood up, bowed deeply to Grizelda, and said, "Mistress Grizelda, if I have offended you in anyway, I do apologize.  It was not my intent, and though I have no defense, I will say that my questions to you were not meant to be rude.  I was brought up without a family, and raised myself from the gutter. I am, deeply, deeply sorry.  You are my Queen, and I do what you command."

Bags looked over at Grizelda and said "He's the Grandson of BeJay, Griz." 

The change over Grizelda was immediate. "OH! Well, hells bells... I wish he had said so.  That explains an awful lot."  She gathered Weehawk in her arms and hugged him as if he had been a long lost son.  "You have nothing to apologize for, Weehawk.  We all must be true to our natures, and you were just true to yours.  I'm sorry if I made things difficult."

Weehawk, very obviously embarrassed, rolled his eyes and said "Okay, okay. Cut it out already.  So we're both sorry.  Can we get on with this?"  This last was to Bags, imploringly.

"Sure." Bags answered.  "There's some stuff you will need to know, if Pockets has actually gone into the tower."  He looked at Grizelda.  "Griz, this is gonna take some time.  You can either stick around and listen, but could you get someone to make us some sandwiches or something?"

Grizelda yelled towards the back, "Brenda?  See if there's any of that Roast left, make about ...."  She looked around, gauging the hunger of the men before her.  "About half a dozen sandwiches."  She looked at Bags.  "And a pot of coffee."

******************

Pewitt, leaned forward against the neck of his horse and patted the chestnut neck.  "Good boy, you know where we're going, don't you?"

"It's a mare." said Weehawk.

"Oh."

Miles ago they had started at sun up, the big orb shining just over the lip of the wall.  Bags pointed in a direction and told them to just keep riding south till the came to the mountains.  The spot they were looking for was a big cleft in the Ridges.  If they got lost, they were to ask directions, and pretty much ever one in the area should know about the Mad Wizard's mountain.

The horses would know the way to go.  Or so he said.

Grizelda made sure they had plenty of dried meats and fruits to last them a few weeks.  Each boy had one jar of plum preserves, which Grizelda said would help them avoid desert madness. The horses were laden with bag upon bag of supplies that she had figured they would need for the road.

"When you go into a new town, make sure you change your shirt." She warned.  "They'll know you've been riding, but if your shirts are a mess, they will know you've been riding a long time.  That will make them immediately suspicious.  Clothes make the man, or so I've heard."

"And," injected Bags, "for goddess sake, don't mention either me or Pockets' name anywhere you stop."

"Why not?" asked Pewitt.

Bags looked over at Grizelda, a weak smile on his face. "Let's just say that there may be a few places where they still remember us in our younger, wilder days." He shrugged and continued.  "We used to be ... uh... thieves, sorta."

"Thieves?  You were a thief?" Weehawk perked up from his constantly glum position.  "Ever make any big scores?"

Bags withered a look at Weehawk, and said "It wasn't like that. It was desperate times. We were young and broke.  Pockets tended to find things and keep 'em.  That's all."

Weehawk laughed the wither off and said, "Oh.  Ok.  Young and broke.  Yeah, we see a lot of that in the outskirts."  He winked at Bags. "I gotcha."

Grizelda broke the tension that was building in Bags by placing her hand on his arm. "Boys, it would just be better to keep why you're looking for the Wizards Mountain just between yourselves, all right?"  She looked directly, sweetly, dearly at Weehawk and said plainly, "I really don't think you'd like BeJay to hear that you went shooting your mouth off, when you were told to keep on the QT, now would you?"

Weehawk paled a bit, not difficult considering how dark he was, and said "No ma'am.  We'll keep it on the QT, just like you said."  He poked Pewitt, "Right?"

"I wasn't going to say anything anyway, your Majesty." he said.  "Your wish is my command."

"Suck up", Weehawk grumbled under his breath.

Now, two days and miles away from anything they knew, following the eastern edge of the desert, the Ridges were starting to show in the distance, gray and misty and just a tad foreboding.

"Do you believe all of what the King said?  All that stuff about big machines and mad wizards and monsters the size of trees?"  Pewitt asked.

"I believe what my eyes tell me." Weehawk grumbled.  "Everything else is just what someone else says they've seen."

"Oh."

Silence passed between the two for a while, each kept in his own internal wanderings.

"Did you ever think you would find yourself on an adventure like this, Weehawk." Pewitt spread his arms wide, encompassing everything.  "We're going to go find a Wizard, and not just any wizard, but the Mad Wizard!  Kind of scary, if you think about it.  Rather exciting, though.  A scary exciting, you know what I mean?"

Weehawk looked over at his companion.  "Look... Milt.  I didn't exactly sign up for this.  I mean, yeah, I was looking for something, and when they asked, I was glad to get picked.  But I'm not gonna get all googly eyed over it.  It's just a thing, okay?" 

He pulled the reigns a bit to guide the horse so that he was closer to Pewitt.

"I'm gonna tell you a secret, and you have got to promise me that you won't tell anyone, okay?" Weehawk held up a hand, spit in it and held it out.  "You're gonna have to shake on it."

Pewitt looked at Weehawk's hand as if it were a snake that would bite him.  He paused a long time, long enough that Weehawk said "Fergit it, then." and started to pull his hand back.

Quickly, Pewitt spit in his own hand and reached out to take Weehawk's.  "I agree.  I won't tell a living soul."

"Took you long enough."  Weehawk smiled.  "Listen... this is the secret.  I went to the pub to rob someone. I just got dumb lucky enough to get picked for this stupid thing."

Pewitt gasped. "You were there to ROB someone?"  He looked around, as if expecting someone to be right there, listening.

Weehawk laughed, a gentle sound coming from his chest. "Yeah.  It was a dare from one of the guys in the outskirts.  I was supposed to come back with something of Bags'."  Another chuckle.  "Didn't get very far, huh?"

"I should say not!" Pewit exclaimed, shocked.  "And I must say, I'm glad you didn't.  I would have hated to think what Bags would have done if he had caught you."

"He wouldn't have." Weehawk said.  "I'm just that good."

"Still...  it wouldn't have been a very nice thing to do.  Bags is our King."

"Bags is just a man, Milt.  Granted, he could have put my head on the wall or he could have banished me, like he did the old Chancellor."

Pewitt thought a bit.  "Maybe he did Weehawk.   We may not come back from this, you know."

This brought another laugh and a wave of the hand from Weehawk.  "Phooey on that.  We'll probably find Pockets sitting in that pub in Newton, drunk on his butt.  I don't believe half of what Bags told us, and the other half... well, we'll just see, won't we?"  He reached back toward the saddle bags.  "I wonder how this plum stuff tastes?"

*****

Grizelda leaned on one elbow looking at Bags.  Bags lay on his back, eyes closed, trying to sleep.  Grizelda lay next to him, not trying to sleep.  The baby had kicked her hard enough that it woke her up, and she had decided that the two of them needed company.  Bags was her target.

"Bags." she said, gently.

Snort was the reply.

"Bags..." a little less gently.

Snort, snuffle, roll to the side.

Poke.  "Oh Bags..."

"Wha...?"  grumpled reply from sleepy Bags.

Poke, Poke.  "The baby woke me up."

"Oh." A lifeless word breathed out.  "He'll go back to sleep.  You should too." came a hopeful, quiet pleading.

Grizelda hmphed, lay back down, but now her mind was spinning.  The boys had left almost sixteen hours ago, and her mind drifted toward them.

"I hope they'll be fine." she mused.  She lay as quiet as she could.  Her mind's focus changed, following the course of Pewitt and Weehawk to the Wizard's mountain, which led, naturally to Pockets.  The baby kicked.  She rolled on her side, which the baby liked even less.  Back she rolled onto her back.

"Bags..." she said, quietly.

"Mmmmm.  Sleep."  gentle whisper, urgently made.

"I can't." she complained.  "The baby kicks and I can't stop thinking about Pockets.  I never did ask you much about what you two went through in the mountain. I know that's not the best time of your life, and I figured you'd tell me about it when you felt like it.  But maybe if you tell me some of it, I'll get sleepy and drift off."

Bags, deciding he wasn't going to get any sleep until the baby did, rolled over and looked at his wife.  "You want to know some of the scary crap that went on, and you think it will help you sleep?"

Grizelda let her eyes get soft and big, nodded her head in her very best five year old way, and said "Uh huh."

Sigh.  "All right, honey.  If you think that's what you need, then that's what we'll do.  I'm just glad you didn't ask for spring pickles or something."

"Oooooh!  Spring pickles!" Grizelda salivated.  "That would be soooo goo..." she stopped, seeing the face on Bags.  "I'm kidding.  Really."  He still had that look, that look of tolerant murder, of the eternally patient, just waiting his turn.  She got her earnest face on and laid a hand on his arm. "No. Really.  Tell me about long ago and far away.  Tell me a story, Bags."

"All right."  He said, lifting himself to prop against the headboard.

"Spring pickles."  Grizelda whispered.

"Griz!"

"Okay, okay.  I'll hush."


Bags was asleep when Pockets entered the room.  He woke up to Pockets curled up on his bed, sobbing quietly.  He didn't really want to get up.  He had spent the last three nights in Newton, letting his wild seventeen year old hormones dictate which direction he went, what he did, and whose bed he woke up in.  In short, Bags was becoming Bags.

He rolled over, squinted in the dark towards the lumpy form of Pockets.  "You okay over there, Bud?" he asked.

Immediately the sobs stopped.  There was a pause you could drive an ox cart through and then "Yes."  A long breath shattering sigh.  "I'm okay, Bags."

The darkness made the empty lie even more solid.  Something in Pockets voice caused Bags get up and crossed over to Pockets bed.  The turned on one of the gas lamps, and then he reached down and touched the smaller boy's shoulder.

Though Bags was only a few months older, it was enough to cause an eternal debate at how old Bags really was.  It was also evident as Bags had filled up and out, gaining height and muscles.  Pockets stayed the same size he was when he was eleven, only filling out, gaining muscle that made him stocky and roundish.

"You sure you're okay, Chester?"  Bags asked, tenderly.  He pulled gently till Pockets was laying face up.  Bags gasped.

Pockets' face was puffy, and his eyes were red.  That wasn't the alarming part.  What was alarming was the crown of dark blue diamond shaped bruises the ringed the crown of his head.  Bags reached down and touched one of the bruises.  "What the hell?  Where did these come from?"

"What do you care?"  came the sullen reply.  "I'm fine, Bags.  You just go back to your wet dreams or whatever you're doing."  Pockets pulled his shoulder away, and winced with the pain it appeared to cause him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!"  Bags flipped his hands up.  "I know I've been gone a lot, but I don't think I deserved that."

"I don't know what you deserve, Bags," Pockets growled.  "I do know that I've been coming back to this room and you haven't been here.  I needed to talk to you, and you haven't been here."

"Well, hell, Pockets. How was I supposed to know?" Bags said, defensively.  "It's not like there's a load of fun for me here, you know?  It's not like I plan to stay in town... it's just that I get invited to."

"Oh sure! Sure you do." Pockets shot back, nodding his head furiously.  The diamond shapes seemed to glow darkly in the night.  "I'm sure that the ladies out there just see you sitting, all virginal and all, not wanting anything at all, and they all come to you and ask them to just share their bed." He turned roughly away.  "I'm sure that's what happens." 

Bags reached down to the shoulder again, but before he could touch his friend "I said I'm all right, Bags.  Go back to bed."

Bags rose, turned off the gas light again, and lay back down on his bunk.  He laced his fingers behind his head and thought.  It wasn't like Pockets to just snap at him like this.  They had been together for... what?... over thirteen years.  More, really.  In that whole time, he had never heard Pockets say anything that was mean or spiteful.  It was almost like jealously.  Maybe that was what it was.

"You know, you could come with me some nights."  Bags offered.

"I don't think so." was the muffled reply.

"Why not?  You need to get out of this place, Pockets.  It's making you mean."

"Oh, Bags, you don't know the half of it." Pockets rolled over to face Bags in the dark.  "It's not making me mean.  It's making me smarter."

"Smarter and mean." Bags countered.

"Perhaps there is some residual effects that cause some minor emotional outbursts, but they tend to be negated by the time the morning comes.  Not that you would know.  They are minor compared to what I am learning, Bags."

"And what are you learning, Pockets?"  Bags knew that the best way to counter anything Pockets might be feeling was to draw him into conversation.  And the best conversation to have with Pockets involved knowledge and, of course, Pockets himself.

"Oh God, Bags." Pockets said, hushed, excited.  "It's stuff beyond anything you could even imagine.  In the tower there's this chair I sit in and put on this crown.  It's not like a crown you would see a King wear.  This is a crown that has long cables running out of it, up and away to something called a computer.  It's an old dead word that means 'thinking machine'."

"Thinking machine?"  Bags asked, urging his friend to talk.  "Machines can't think."

"And that is exactly what I thought, Bags."  Pockets lifted himself onto his elbows.  "This is not like a machine we know of.  This isn't wheels and belts and gears and cogs. No, it's not."

"This is a machine that has no moving parts at all.  It's nothing but little stones and wires and cables.  That's all.  It's nothing like what we've ever seen before." He paused.  "But it does think, Bags.  It's been taught to."

"Taught to think?" Bags wondered, "Taught by who?"

"Taught by whom, Bags." Pockets corrected.  "Fletcher says it was so long ago, that nobody, not even Fletcher himself knows.  He says it was taught by something called programs."

"Huh." was Bags noncommittal comment.

"Yeah, huh indeed!" said Pockets.  "And when I wear this crown, I can talk to it, and it can talk to me."

"So it thinks and talks." commented Bags.  "What does it talk about?"

"It fills my head with all sorts of stuff.  It tells me about the weather, which before now seemed very complicated, but now it's so simple.  It tells me about everyone on the planet.  It tells me about everything that happens on the planet."  Pockets pauses.  "Did you know that this is a planet called Nowhere?  Did you know it travels around a small sun in a thing called a glaxy, that travels around a big central hub, and that hub itself travels round and round through the universe?"

"Pockets, that's far too many words for this late at night." Bags said.

"Did you know that pub you go to is the oldest one on Nowhere?  That your friends Zeb and Zack are over two thousand years old?"

"That's impossible, Pockets.  Nobody is that old."  Bags was yawning, almost regretting having pulled his friend out of his pain.

"That's what I thought, too.  But the computer showed me pictures of their birth.  Pretty gross, I can tell you.  And it was over two thousand years ago."

"Did anyone else tell you this besides this computer thing?"

"It's in the birth records in the library.  I can take you there and show you if you want."

"Maybe tomorrow, Pockets.  In fact, I'll go to the library and you can show me all sorts of things... tomorrow, okay?"  Big yawn.

"Okay!  It's a deal."  Pockets flopped back onto the bed, was silent briefly, then "And Bags?"

"Yes, Pockets?"

"I'm sorry I was mean to you.  I'll go to the pub with you if you want."

"Okay, Pockets."

"But it'll have to wait till after tomorrow.  Tomorrow something really big is going to happen."

"Oh?"  Sleepy question.

"Yeah.  Fletcher says it's probably the biggest, most important thing there is.  It's what I've been learning all this stuff for, all these years.  He said it was something that would have to wait till I was ready for it, and now I am."

Another big yawn, and "What is it that you're ready for, Pockets?"

Pockets got out of his bunk, walked over to Bags' and knelt down.  He placed his mouth close to his friends nearly sleeping ear.

"Tomorrow, I go to talk with God." he whispered.  Pockets crossed back to his bunk and lay down.  "G'night, Bags."

Bags did not sleep that night.
********************

Bags heard Pockets wake up and sit on the edge of his bed.  Pockets never woke up yawning and stretching.  He didn't grumble or grouse.  He also wasn't very responsive for the first hour or so.  Poke him with a stick and he probably wouldn't notice. 

Bags opened one eye to watch as Pockets pulled himself upright, rubbed his face furiously, and headed towards the back of the barracks, toward the latrine.  When Pockets had disappeared, Bags mussed his own hair and sat on the edge of the bed, waiting, one eye turned towards the latrine.

When Pockets emerged, Bags stood up, said a bland good morning and went to relieve himself.  When he returned, he found Pockets gone, as expected.  He dressed in clothes that he had purchased in Newton, with winnings made from a few arm wrestling contests and a few poker games.

He the lifted one corner of his bed, and checked his bag.  It was there, undisturbed.  Plain and brown, made from the leather of a horse that had died while he was in the Orphanage, it was something that Bags carried with him always.  It was what gave him his name. 

There wasn't anything particularly special about the bag, at least to anyone else.  But to Bags it represented home and security, it represented love, as it came from a source that he had grown very fond of, and was apparently very fond of him.  The horse's name was Munday.

It was as much a part of his soul and being as Pockets' jacket of many pockets.  The jacket had started out as a castaway, tossed in the heap pile by non-caring nuns who simply saw it as a relic of a boy who no longer existed.  Pockets discovered it one day, while looking for... something.  Pockets was always looking for something.

Bags remembered Pockets excitement at finding the jacket. 

"Look at this, Bags!  It's perfect."  The smaller boy tried it on, and the sleeves flopped down past his knees.  The hem barely dragged above the ground and he looked like he was wearing a blanket.

"You look ridiculous, Pockets." Bags said.  "It looks like someone tied you in a gunny sack."

"Ah, my dear Bags.  You just don't see the potential in it.  While I grow, this jacket will stay the same and eventually it will fit me like a glove.  According to my calculations, I'll grow to be about six feet tall, give or take a bit.  And this jacket is very good cloth, perfect for the plans I have for it."

"And what would those plans be, Pockets?" Bags asked.  "A tent?  It's big enough."

"No! Nope.  Not a tent... but I bet it could be used for that in a pinch."  Pockets got his big catbird grin and said matter of factly.  "Can you imagine how many pockets could be sewn on this?  I'll never lose anything again!"

"Why don't you just get a bag?  It's easier to carry, everything I need is in one place and I don't have to searching fifty different places."

"Because, Bags, I can lose a bag, but I can never lose a pocket."

And that was the end of that long ago and far away memory, but not the end of the argument.  Time and time again, in any place, at any given time, the two would launch into the bags versus pockets argument.  It always ended happily, the argument fading into something else, the two of them hoisting a glass and toasting their friendship.

Bags looked over at the bed where Pockets had slept fitfully. 

The jacket was hung over one of the bedposts.  It had gone through many changes over the years.  Pockets had added pockets to it until it was nothing but pockets.  From collar to sleeve tip, from yoke to hem it was pockets, pockets front and back.  Pockets made them from every color there existed, pockets made from bits and scraps of throwaways. 

There was no reason or rhyme that Bags could see to the shapes and colors. Pockets had sworn, sworn an oath on his dead mother, that there was. That he had to have just such and such and so and so.  It was important.  It had a pattern. It was something, he said, that came from inside him, his soul perhaps, if he had one.

"Goofy kid," Bags muttered. "Maybe you can't forget your pockets, but you can sure forget your jacket."  He plucked it from the bedpost and left the barracks to cross the short space to the kitchen, which took up the front of the bunkhouse.

He found Pockets sitting at the small table, sipping coffee from a white mug.  The pattern on the mug read 'A mother's love is forever growing.'  'Wonder where he found that?' Bags thought.  He got his own mug, large and gray, filled it with hot tea and sat down opposite of Pockets.

The two sat in silence for a while, Bags giving Pockets a bit of time before his outside brain kicked in.  Bags placed the jacket on the table and after a while said "Want some eggs?"

"Sure." was the quiet reply.

Bags got up from the table and went about the process of scrambling.  Eggs, a bit of milk, pepper, cheese and crumbled bacon.  Fresh and cool.  It amazed him how that little box these things were kept in always came out fresh and cool.  Oh, he knew that it involved spring water circulating around the box, pulling the heat from whatever was kept in it, and carrying that heat away.  Pockets had told him it worked on the principle of entropy and that everything wanted to be cool in the end.  All he knew is that the little box kept things fresh and cool.

"Thanks for the jacket, Bags." came from behind him.

"It's nothin', chum.  Figgerd you wouldn't want to leave it behind."  He said, finishing the scrambles with a bit of bacon on the side.  He brought the plates back to the table and sat down.

"I won't need it today." Pockets said around a mouthful of eggs.  "Where I'm going, I don't need pockets."

"Oh?" Bags said, remember Pockets cryptic statement from last night.  "Where is it you're going?"

Pockets looked up from his plate and into the eyes of his friend.  An internal struggle was obviously going on.  Seconds later, a decision had been reached, the outside brain fired its tired neurons and Pockets reached down to the mug he was drinking from and brought it up to eye level.

"You see this?" He asked.

"Um, yeah." Bags said, a bit puzzled.  "It's a mug. Kinda pretty, though kinda mushy at the same time.  Where'd it come from?"

"Somewhere else Bags.  Some WHERE else." Pockets accentuated the word 'where' as if 'where' was a mystical place.

"Well duh, Pockets. I can tell that." Bags scooped some of his eggs into his mouth and chewed it around.  "I can tell that it didn't come around here.  The colors are too bright, the letters are too.. I dunno... perfect."  Pockets was silent, just looking at the mug, turning it in his hand.

"You're dressed pretty nice for just taking a trip to town, Bags." Pockets observed.

"Yeah.  I'm... uh... meeting someone." Bags lay down his fork.  "Now look, it's not going to do any good to change the subject."  He looked seriously at his friend. "Last night you said you were going to talk to God.  I want to know what that meant. How are you going to talk to God?"

"Oh, that." Pockets said, and didn't say anything more.

Bags had played this game before.  Pockets would say something, and then be silent.  Bags would have to work to drag the details out of his friend, word by painful word.  Bags ran his hands down his face, dragging it into the shape it would eventually move into after years of this word play.

"You look like a sad hound dog when you do that, Bags.  If you don't stop, your face will freeze that way. You know what the nuns said."

Fingers drumming on table top, furrowed brows above frowningly frustrated mouth, Bags said, "Yeah, and I suspect I know who to blame for it."  Pause for dramatic effect, and to watch Pockets mouth curve into a mischievous grin.  'Glad someone was enjoying this', thought Bags

Bags picked up his fork, stabbed a bit of bacon into his mouth, pointed the fork at Pockets and said, "I'll bet you've been playing in the tower, haven't you?  When that friggin Fletcher hasn't been around, right?"

The game turned, and Bags found a guilty pleasure in the look of shock on his friends face.  "Yeah... and I'll bet there's some stupid doohickey up there that lets you reach through time and space and... I dunno... Pluck stuff from somewhere else.  That's where that cup came from, right?"

Pockets mouth shut from its gapped place and he whispered, "Chrome, Bags!  How did you guess that?  This is something that I just figured out yesterday.  I'm amazed that you could even think that far."

Bags smiled and replied, "Maybe I'm not just a stupid pack animal, Pockets."

"I never said you were, Bags." Pockets said contritely.  "Just cuz Fletcher thinks that does not mean I think that.  I'm not his copy, you know."

"Okay, okay.  I know that, Pockets.  But it gets damn frustrating to not be told anything around here, just because I 'couldn't think that far'."

Silence fell, not as heavy as a wool blanket.  It was more like a down comforter, old and worn and full of friendship holes.

From Pockets: "Sorry."

From Bags: "Yeah.  Whatever."

The blanket had not quite been placed back in its chest yet, so silence crept back in. The two finished their breakfast quietly, the only sounds were sips and slurps and clinks.

"I'm going to the tower today, Bags. That place where the cup came from... I'm going to try to take a peek at it."  Olive branch, offered by Pockets.

Olive branch accepted by Bags.  "You're going to what?  Take a peek?  How are you going to do that?"

"Well," Pockets explained, "it's not as complicated as it sounds." He paused.  "Well, okay, maybe it is, but the words are simple." Another pause. "Okay... some of the words are pretty complex too..."

"Just do the best you can." from an exasperated Bags.

"Hmmm... Searching for the words here, Bags."  Pockets stared into space, looking at something that nobody else could see, something far, far away. "Look," he began, "Do you remember that magician that came by the orphanage years ago?"

"Yeah.  Pretty lame, if I remember."

"Well... yes.  All of his tricks were pretty easy to figure out, but he did one thing that was good." Pockets looked across the table at his skeptic friend.  "At least it was to me.  He had this little box with a window in it, remember?  All black?"

"If you say so." said Bags, waiting for this to lead somewhere, anywhere.

"Okay.  That little box wall all black, had a tiny, tiny hole in it, see.  Course, we didn't know that at the time.  This magician called us up to take a look into his magic box.  You didn't go, you thought it was stupid, remember?"

"I thought the whole thing was stupid.  Made up tricks... who cares?"

Pockets was quiet, debating on whether to go into the mechanics involved in the 'made up tricks' and how intricate the timing has to be.  He flipped a mental coin, decided to just continue on. 

"This magic box had a window in the back.  It was a parchment window, and when the guy pulled away the covering, I could see the whole place on that little piece of parchment.  It was upside down, but it was all there.  If I'd had a pen, I could have sketched it right then and there, it was so perfect."

"And?" Bags countered.  "So he had a picture pasted on the back of the box."

"No, Bags! It wasn't a picture." Pockets said emphatically.  "It was an actual thing... I could see people moving, talking.  And it was as perfect as the picture on this cup." He held up the Mother's love mug.  "Except it wasn't just a picture, it was what was really going on.  The outside world was being brought in through that little hole in the front of the box and being somehow shown on that piece of parchment.  It wasn't magic, it was science, but it was pretty damn near magic to me."

"And you have a box like this in the tower?  Is that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Oh goodness, no."  Pockets sat back, leaned back into his 'teacher mode' position.  Bags rolled his eyes and thought 'Here we go.'

"It's nothing as simple as that black box, and yet, at the same time it uses principles that box contained.  See, there are tiny holes all around us, all the time.  Well... not all around us, but out there, somewhere.  In fact they are kinda sparse, now that I think about it, but that doesn't matter.  What we lack is the ability to focus the images that come from them.  Or," he said, grinning, "we used to"

"Let's call these holes... um... black holes, for want of a better term.  There is a better term, quantum singularity, but I think using that will just confuse things.  Now, these holes, even though we can't see them, are very hard to trap."

"Hey, here's a thought!" exclaimed Bags. "Maybe they are very hard to trap because you CAN'T see them."

"Bags, please.  If we could see them, there would be no reason to trap them, would there?"

Bags crossed his arms and decided it was pretty pointless to show the flaw in the logic.  "Okay, whatever.  Get on with the story."

"So say there is one of these 'black holes' trapped.  And say there is a machine, incredibly complex, one of those thinking machines I told you about last night, and this machine is able to focus the images coming from this incredibly small hole.  And then, say, it not only focuses the images, but actually opens a door way so that things from over there can be brought here.  Like this cup, say."  Pockets held up the Mother's love cup.

"Okay." Bags nodded. "Let's say this all exists.  These invisible holes and this thinking machine. Why don't we just open this hole bigger and bring stuff over?"

"Well, that would be the ideal situation, truly." Pockets admitted, rubbing his chin.  "But you see, that's near impossible.  These holes weigh so much that there's no possible way to just set it down and just stretch it.  It has such a strong gravity well that anything nearby just gets sucked down into it."

"A gravity well." Bags pondered.  "And it sucks. And it weighs so much you can't touch it.  And it's invisible."

"Right.  That's exactly right, Bags."

"That's exactly nuts, Pockets."

"Fine.  Make fun of it." Pockets tossed his hands up, and concentrated on the eggs on his plate.  "You asked me, remember?  I'm just telling you what I know, what I've seen.  I don't care if you believe it or not.  It's the truth."

"The truth doesn't mean I have to believe in it, Pockets." Bags paused, looked at the diamond shapes crowning his friends head, felt guilty and said, "You're right, chum.  I'm sorry.  Go on, okay?"

Pouting a bit, Pockets said "Okay.  But no more making fun, all right?"  Getting the nod from Bags, Pockets continued.  "This hole, this quantum singularity, the one in the tower is very, very small.  Most of them are, but some are so big they are the size of stars! In fact, Fletcher thinks they used to be stars that fell into themselves because their gravity well just sorta pulled them into themselves."

"Pulled them into themselves?" Bags began, but seeing Pockets' face, waved his complaint away. "Never mind.. go on"

"Doesn't matter, anyway." Pockets sulked. "Those would have been way, way too big for what we were trying to do.  I found evidence of what we needed years ago, in one of those dusty books in the library.  There's a thing that even smaller than these holes and even more invisible." 

Bags started to say something, then shut his mouth. "Even MORE invisible than these holes.  They're called gravitons, and they are the little pieces of the universe that controls how gravity works, how things fall down or up or sideways.  Or even into themselves.  It is kinda like magic, really."  He paused just for effect, and then said, "And we found how to control the gravitons!"

"Okay." said Bags, biting his tongue.  He found all this talk about holes and gravitons and thinking machines to be hooey, but something had gotten Pockets excited, that much was sure.

"It's based upon the work of a man named Richard Shockly, written over twenty four hundred years ago!  Fascinating stuff, Bags, fascinating.  He discovered gravitons while trying to repair something called a toaster, whatever that is.  Some adjustment he made, some little thing he created, focused the gravitons and the next thing he knew, this toaster thing was floating above the table!"

"Shockly quickly realized the application of these gravitons and soon they were being used for all sorts of things, but the most important thing was travel."  Pockets paused for what Bags would later call 'the Pocket Pause'.  "Space Travel, Bags!  Travel between the stars, between planets!"

"Oh hells," Bags spit out.  That's a fairy story.  Nobody can travel between the stars.  It's not possible.  It's that 'Man can fly' crap.  Old stories told by old men who've had too much of the local hooch."

"You can call it crap, Bags," Pockets defended, "but I've seen it.  This machine upstairs, the one I've been hooked to," he pointed to the diamond bruises, "tells me things.  Tells me how to control the gravitons to focus this little black hole.  And I've done it!"  Once again, he lifted the mug.  "Here's the proof!"

"Pockets. Chum." Bags tried to be calm, tried to reason.  "Did you ever stop to think that Fletcher had you hooked up to a machine that cooked your noodle?  Fried your brain?  And while you were in the world of fried, he planted all these things in your head?  Gave you this mug and told you it came from somewhere else?"  Bags shook his head sadly.  "Of course it came from somewhere else!  There are places with plenty of artists that could probably make it."

Pockets sullied up, clammed shut for a long time.  Then, "I guess it's possible.  I guess it could all be a delusion."  Bags could see the wheels turning; almost smell the fuses fusing in Pockets' brain as he tossed this idea around.

"No!" came with a slam of fist on table. "If it's a delusion, then it's a damn real delusion.  I was the one that focused the beam through the hole and brought this thing here!" He shook the mug in Bags' face.  "There was no Fletcher around.  He wouldn't have the brains to be able to do this."

Smugly, Pockets ranted, "The reason why he needed me here in the first place is that I'm the only one that has the brains, the intelligence to figure this out, Bags.  Not him, not you, not anyone else.  Just me!"  Pockets looked at Bags from across the immeasurable gulf of friendship and table, his eyes were red and the diamond bruises pulsed with emotional energy. 

"This is mine.  It's something I can do, not you. I don't have to big, I don't have to be strong.  I don't have to have ladies flocking around me to do this!  I don't have to be tall, or handsome or anything else.  I just have to be me!" 

Tears sprang from his eyes.  Tears of rage, sadness, the drowning desire to have something that made him someone.  Years of being in the shadow of Bags poured fourth.  Years of hearing about the tales of battle, of romances and fights fought and drinking contests and traveling to far off places while Pockets remained behind in this place, this tower, learning, learning, filling his head till it overflowed, but always alone, alone, alone. 

Bags bowed back, not able to withstand the storm coming from across the table.  His hands went up to protect his face, his mouth saying words that went unheard by his enraged friend across the table.

Words of rage, shouts of loneliness, cries of a child's you were never there! flashed like knives at Bags' heart, at his ears.  Accusations of desertion tore holes in Bags soul, and he felt his legs grow weak until he was on his knees, ears stoppered by ineffectual hands.

Pockets' mouth closed with an audible snap.  His eyes flew wide and his hands flashed to cover the place where the anger came from.   Tears poured down his cheeks and he stood up, knocking the chair and sending it spinning to crash onto the floor. He bumped the table, hard, and the Mother's Love mug fell to the floor to shatter and the coffee in it, like spilt blood of the soul, ran into the cracks between the stones. Pockets ran out of the kitchen, out through the door, and into the cavern beyond.

It had never occurred to Bags that Pockets would feel like Bags had deserted him, had left him here in this place.  So many thoughts ran through Bags head that he couldn't keep up with them.  A cold spot crawled into his chest and his head was awhirl with stun.

He stumbled upright with the help of a cabinet. and followed after his one true friend, hoping there was something he could say that would make it all right.  He broke through the doorway just in time to see Pockets' running figure, running towards the center of the cavern, where the tower, tall, massive, dark stood like and accusing finger pointing to heaven. 

"Looks like I'm gonna be missing that date tonight." he thought, as he ran towards the tower, shouting Pockets' name.
**********************

Weehawk looked around in puzzlement.  Behind him he expected to find sand, as they had just left the desert and were in the short stubby grasses that led to the foothills of the Ridge Mountains.  To the left of him were short stubby grasses, reaching up to try to capture the sun with their razor sharp leaves.  To the right of him were short stubby grasses, straining to drag all the moisture they could from earth greedy to give it up.  Ahead, short stubby grasses.  Behind, short stubby grasses.

"Um.  Milt?" He called, as he pulled the reigns to bring his mare to a halt.  "Do you have any idea where in the seven hells we are?"

Pewitt turned his mare to come back to where Weehawk waited. Once he had come abreast, he said, "Certainly, Weehawk. We are in the Steppes of the Great Ridge Mountains, which span our planet from one end to the other. My father used to talk about these places.  How they were filled with magical and evil folks, waiting to snatch the soul from some unsuspecting child."

"That's not what I was talking about."  Weehawk said.  "I mean, weren't we just on the desert a few minutes ago?  Look behind us, tell me what you see."

Pewitt turned in his saddle and looked behind.  "Well," he said, "would you look at that.  That's certainly something. Yes it is." He turned back in his saddle.

Weehawk just stared at Pewitt.  "That's all you have to say?  'Would you look at that?  That's interesting?'  Milt, the desert has disappeared!"

Pewitt laughed a bit and said "Oh, I seriously doubt that, Weehawk. It's still there."  He turned again to look behind.  "I suspect what we are seeing is what is called a 'mirage'.  It's a trick of the light to make the eyes see things that aren't really there.  I assure you, the desert is still there.  It's just that we've come about a half mile into the grasses and the desert is just not visible."

"Oh."  Weehawk pondered this for a second.  "All right.  I guess I can buy that.  But I still want to know where we are.  Bags said to look for a cleft in the mountains.  Do you see a cleft?  Because I don't see a cleft, Milt.  I really don't."

"Weehawk, we aren't even within distance to see anything except the barest hint of the mountains.  We probably have another ten or so miles to go.  Besides, his Majesty said that if we ever got lost, we should stop to ask directions.  Have a little faith."

"Oh, I got a little faith, Milt.  Just a little.  Bags also said that the horses would know which way to go.  Maybe we should ask them if they'll take us to someplace to stay the night.  Ten miles is an awful long trek and I don't relish the idea of sleeping in the grasses.  There are bugs in the grasses, Milt.  Bugs that bite."

As if to prove a point, a large grasshopper flew out of the short grass and landed on the saddle next to Pewitt. 

"Well, hello there!" Pewitt said.  "Go on now, shoo!" He waved a hand at the hopper, who stubbornly sat there, looking back at him.  Pewitt reached down to flick the hopper away, but the hopper just jumped onto his hand.

"Look, Weehawk! I've made a friend!" he said.

"Yeah.  Lucky you. Ask him where we can spend the night."

Pewitt looked down at the large hopper, greens and brown and long jagged legs. "So, how bout it?  Know of an inn nearby?"  But the hopper just shook his head and spit something brown and sticky onto Pewitt's hand before flitting off.

"Well!  That certainly wasn't very nice."  Pewitt observed.

"Serves you right for flirting with the locals."  Weehawk chided.  He patted the neck of his mare and said "I think old Bags may have been a bit lost in the head.  These horses are good, sure, but I doubt they have any idea where we are."

"You never know, Weehawk.  Animals sometimes have senses we humans don't, or so my father says." He leaned down and said to his mare, "What say, girl? Think you can find us a place for the night?"

His mare snorted and nodded her head, and started walking.  The other mare snickered and followed suit.

"What the hell?"  Weehawk muttered.

"Maybe they've been very well trained." Pewitt offered.

"Milt, there ain't a person in Tears that can train an animal to understand human speech.  If there was, there'd be monkey pickpockets running all over the place."

"She certainly knows what direction to go, or so it seems." Pewitt observed.

"Yeah, and at this pace it'll take like ten years to go the ten miles." Weehawk complained. "Ask her to go faster, Milt."

Pewitt leaned down, but thought better of it.  "You know, it might be more fun for them if it was like a race.  To see which horse could get us there the fast...." The rest of his words were lost as his mare suddenly bolted under him and started at full gallop across the steppe.  Weehawk's followed suit and the race was on!

Pewitt's mare, having had a head start, snickered as the other ran to keep up. Weehawk's put on a blinding burst of speed and soon caught up.  The ground under foot flashed past, and the distance seemed to dissappear under their thunderous hooves.

"I." "Think." "I." "Lost." "My." "Ass." "Back." "There." Weehawk stammered out.

"Just." "Hang." "On." Pewitt stammered back.

Short blond grass, sharp of point and hard to look at gave way to taller, friendlier grasses, wheatishly blowing and parting before the racing horses as if it was a golden ocean parting before an ocean going sailing ship.  Golds and browns and greens flowed and flashed all around, as the steppes gave way to the grasses of the plain before the forest. 

The two boys started to find their rhythm, which certainly made communication easier.  "I have a feeling my spine is going to fly out my rear end!" Weehawk observed.

"Wait till we stop." Pewitt said. "This is easier, believe me!"

"Where did you learn about horses?" Weehawk yelled.

"Dad was a blacksmith, remember?" Pewitt yelled back.

"And you didn't know your horse was a mare?" Weehawk yelled, amazed.

"I know a little bit about horses, I just don't know anything about husbandry."  was the answering yell.

Fast, fast, fast, the mares raced, neck and neck, then nose to nose, then eye to eye.  Snickers and whinnies found their way back to the boys' ears.  Faster and faster the race went, until the tall grasses gave way to soft gentle grasses as the foothills of the mountains started to grow in front of them.  They only stopped when they came to a small stream. The horses slowed, and stopped to drink, and the boys slowly and cautiously and carefully stepped down from their saddles, each having pains in places they had never had before.

"That was incredible! That was amazing!" Weehawk danced a painful joy. "Gods and Goddesses, my butt hurts!"

"It certainly was something. Yes it was." said Pewitt, who went slowly to the stream to refill their canteens.

Weehawk went to join him and sat down in the stream to cool his aching backside.  "Gods this is cold.  Feels good though."  He looked at Pewitt and said "Milt, you don't get excited by much, do you?"

Pewitt blinked a couple of times, thought about it and said.  "No, I guess I don't.  I guess I don't find a lot to get excited about, Weehawk.  Life is pretty much going to go the way it's going to go, or at least that's what my dad always said."

"But what about the twists it throws you?  I mean, come on, you weren't excited by that race we were just in.  My mare won, by the way."

Pewitt stood and did some stretching exercises, to limber up his aching thighs. "It was certainly exhilarating, yes.  That it was.  But excited?  No, I really don't find anything there to get excited about.  I found it... disturbing, actually."

"Disturbing?" Weehawk prodded.  "How was it disturbing?"

"Well, for one thing, the horses seemed to understand what we were saying.  That's not something I'm comfortable with, Weehawk.  Animals aren't supposed to be able to understand humans."

"Maybe they've just been trained good, like you said."  Weehawk offered.

"Maybe.  That would explain part of it, true." Pewitt admitted. "But this well trained?  I don't know.  That's only half of it, Weehawk."  He hesitated.

"Oh?" Weehawk said.  "What's the other half?"

"It seemed, and it might have just been my imagination, that while we rode my horse was talking to me.  In here." Pewitt tapped his temple.  "I could swear I heard a voice in there, talking to me.  And that's just not right, Weehawk."

"Speed sickness?" Weehawk suggested.

"No such a thing." Pewitt rejected.  "No, I truly believe she was talking to me.  She told me her name was Bel, and that she used to be the horse that Pockets rode.  She and Pockets were riders, she said." He sighed.  "I don't think that is something my imagination could make up."

"Well, what of it?" Weehawk threw out.  "There's a guy back in the outskirts that swears he hears the voice of Journiey, one of our old Woods Goddesses.  He swears he's seen her, teaching in that new library in Tears.  Now, that's lots more nuts than what you're telling me."

"That's not the point, Weehawk. Not the point at all."  Pewitt sat on the bank, dangling his bare feet into the stream.  "You see, I can accept that the animals understand us. They may have just been well trained, or they could just be extraordinarily bright animals.  But they are still animals.  For me to be able to hear one of them speaking to me, or more exactly, thinking at me, is very disturbing.  Where I'm from, a person that hears animals talk is considered not just crazy, but a witch."

"So? I still don't see the big deal, Milt." Weehawk floated on his back, letting the stream pull and tug at him.  "There're lots of witches back in Tears.  Some do some pretty good tricks, and I gotta tell you, if you ever need a healer, a witch is the best person to go to.  Forget those leechers.  They'd likely kill as cure."

Pewitt's expression clouded. "I don't think we're talking about the same sort of thing here.  We have what you call witches where I'm from, but we call them midwives.  They're good, decent folk that help with the birthing of babies and work healings and such."  He looked at Weehawk to see if he was understood. Weehawk nodded, so Pewitt continued. "Then we have witches.  These are folks that cast evil, ruin crops, cause death.  Horrible people."

"Oh!" Weehawk said.  "We have those too, and we call them witches but the spelling is different."

"Different?" Pewitt was confused.

"Begins with a bee, not a double-ewe."

Comprehension dawned, and Pewitt laughed.  "That was a good one, Weehawk. I didn't see it coming."

Weehawk pulled himself, dripping out of the stream, and raised a hand for help getting onto the bank.  "Glad I got you to laugh. You were getting way to serious, Milt."  Pewitt lent a hand and pulled Weehawk out of the stream.

He shook like a dog and water flew all over.  Pewitt raised his hands to shield his face, and Weehawk said, "You really should take a dip.  Best thing for achy bones."

Pewitt looked to the sun, which was starting to set.  "We have a choice.  We can either camp here for the night and find someone to ask directions tomorrow, or we can take our chances with riding in the dark."

"I say we camp here."  Weehawk voted.

"Agreed."  Pewitt said.  "See, Weehawk, this is a serious thing to me.  If I was back at home, and told anyone, and I mean anyone, that I could hear even the smallest peep from any animal, I'd most likely be put to death."

Weehawk looked hard at Pewitt.  "Just like that?"

Pewitt nodded, "Just like that."

"No trial?"

"A trial would just muddy up the facts."

Weehawk's face clouded with anger.  "Why that's just about the stupidest thing I ever heard!  Milt, you a good and decent person.  A better person than I am, I think."

"Oh, I don't know about all that..." Pewitt interrupted.

"I'm not done." Weehawk continued. "You're a good and decent person.  Think about this.  What if there was a horse, much like Bel here, that was a good horse, a loyal horse, a horse that did her best, day after day.  Then, for no reason, she got sick or something.  Wouldn't you like for her to be able to tell you what was going on with her?  Where it hurt and such?"

"Well, certainly." Pewitt admitted.  "It would make the diagnosis so much easier.  But..."

"Taint no buts about it, friend.  I think being able to talk to animals is a good thing.  I think your folks need to re-think this whole witches concept.  Bring 'em to Tears, we'll show them the true spelling of witches."

"But.... Hmmm."  Pewitt pondered.  "I can see you point, but it still makes me feel uncomfortable."  He looked at the darkening sky.  "I can see this will indeed bear some thinking on, while we make camp."  He stuck out a hand to Weehawk.  "Thanks."

"What's that for?" Weehawk asked.  "I didn't do anything."

"Weehawk, you may not be aware of it, but I suspect the Gods and Goddesses have put us together for a reason.  I wanted to thank you for calling me friend."

"Well, hell.  Don't make a big thing of it, Milt." Weehawk reached out his hand and the two boys clasped arms.  "You're welcome for whatever."

"It is a big deal, Weehawk.  I don't have many friends." Pewitt admitted.

"It's cuz you're too stiff.  You put people off with all your smart talk.  You're a smart guy, and that scares some folks."  Weehawk grinned.  "But don't worry, chum.  I bet by the end of this adventure, you'll find yourself a lot loosened up."

The two set about making camp.  Dried meat and some of Grizelda's plum preserves on bread was the fair.  They turned in on their blankets and watched the stars over head, spin, spin on their way from hither to yon.

"Milt?"

"Yes, Weehawk?"

"I think you're an okay sorta guy."

"Why thank you, Weehawk."

"Just thought you should know that."

"I... thanks."

A little more spinning and the soft blues of the twilight turned to velvet black.

"Milt?"

"Yes, Weehawk?"

"What's the name of my horse?"

"I don't know. Let me ask."  A bit of silence went by.  "It's not so bad, you know, being able to hear animals.  They really are extremely polite."

"Okay, okay. Glad you're comming to terms with it. But what's her name?"

"She says she doesn't have one.  Horses don't have names they give themselves.  They recognize each other for what they are.  She also said she'd like it if you gave her one, though.  She said she likes you, even if you're a bit of a smartass."

Weehawk laughed.  "Well, I suppose I'll have to admit to that at times."  Crickets singing crept through the night.  "I think I have her name."  He sat up.  "Hey you! The horse I rode!"

Weehawk's mare raised her head and looked at him.  "Well.. what do you know?  They do understand." he muttered.  "I got your name."

"I'll call you Racer.  How's that sit with you?"

A whiney and a snicker was his reply.

"Good. That's a good name." Pewitt said.

"Thanks, Milt.  I thought so, too."

"No, Weehawk. That's what SHE said."

"OH!" He looked over to where Racer stood, looking back at him.  "You're welcome!"

"No need to shout, Weehawk. They have extreamly good ears." Pewitt said.

"Oh."  Weehawk lay back down, smiling.  "Thanks Milt.  Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Weehawk."
******************************
Wind lifted wafting to Bring scent of newness to the nose. 

'Oh how special and how spatial' came the thought unbidden through unbounded mind.  'Would that these were tree climbers, limb soarers, branch dancers.  But no, but no, but no. These are like the one, and also not like the one. Two legged, not four legged.  Simple of nose, deaf of ear, dim of eye and loud of mouth.'

'Not able to climb high, not able to sing the chitter, not able to even find acorn nut buried deep in the soil.  Eating old dead skin, sad, sad, sad.  What comes to bring them here, to sit in the grove of the sun, not seeing the wind blow by and hear the song of the dragonfly buzz?  Questions, questions.'

'Knowing what brought the one.  Had to be, had to be, it had to.  but these, why come they here?'

Stop and freeze, dance and pause, tail twitch and scent with nose.

'Why! How bright and right and truly true!  It's Bel, it is, it is!  How long, how long?  Moons, suns, winds, rains, too many, too many.'

High in a tree that stood over the stream, a lone squirrel stood and chittered away, bouncing and bouncing from limb to limb.  She launched into the air, running on the wind, to sail down, down, down and land, running on the grass.  Over to Bel she ran, and up to sit between Bel's shoulders, and chitted.

"Bel! Bel! Bel!" said the squirrel, in the common language of all animals. 

It's not widely known that animals long ago acquired a common tongue, because if it was, then it would be widely know, and best that it isn't.  Mankind would lose faith with themselves, thinking and believing that they have the only true language.  Of course, their only true language is so complex that there are hundreds of their only true language, and very little common between them.

"Why, hello, Squirrelygirl." whinnied Bel.  "Aren't you a bit far from where your hometree is?"

A sad quiet knucking came from the squirrel on Bel's back. Her tail drooped a bit. "Gone, gone, gone is hometree.  Right bright wind came and tore it out, roots and all, roots and all!  Family flew away too, too, too.  Just me is here. This is home now, and forever."

"That is sad to hear, Squirrelygirl.  I was hoping to see your mother and father again, and wish them plentiful gathering before the windy snows blew in."

"Bel, Bel, thank you for that.  I have been alone for a long time, long time.  Family all gone, all gone." sad tail drooping and blue eyes glistening.  "Why two legs are here, Bel?  I know of the one, he went to the tall hole, deep in wide hole.  Far away, far away, but it had to be, had to be."

"Two legs have come seeking the one, Squirrelygirl.  They fear he is like your parents, gone with the wind."

"No, no, no." Squirrelygirl chittered. "He is with the oldern, down, down, down, in tall hole.  He is safe, for now, for now."

"He came by here, the one?  You saw him?" Bel asked.

"He did, he did!  He fed Squirrely, fresh nuts he dug from the ground.  Not like any other two leg, the one.  He is special, and it can be felt.  Not sparkly, like oldern, but sparkly like... no other." Tail erect and twitching, running back and forth between Bel's shoulders.

"What of the Green one, Squirrelygirl?  Do they still live here?  Will they speak with us?"

"Don't know, Bel, don't know.  Squirrelygirl has not seen bark or moss of Greenone since he moved up stream.  To the bog he went, to the bog they went.  Not so mossy or barky as once, Bel.  He went to the goat. Bel. To the Goat!"

"He went to see the goatman, did they?"  Bel pondered and stomped a hoof in the soft dirt.  "Then they may not be of much use to us.  We are lost, Squirrelygirl.  I have been too long away, and these two," she nodded her head towards the sleeping humans, "feel the need to find the one."

Squirrelygirl paused and thought, a very hard thing for a squirrel to do. Staying put is not in a squirrel's vocabulary.  It's not even in their thesaurus, nor any unabridged dictionary anywhere in squirrel world.  This makes sense, as squirrels never stayed still enough to learn to write, so there would, of course, be no dictionaries or thesauruses.

"Dust and smoke, tree and limb." she said finally.  "You might try Growler.  He is still at the woody place, still there, still there.  Forever and ever.  Scary, though, scary.  He never played or climbed or soared or sailed.  Scary, Bel, scary."

Squirrelygirl ran up and threw her skinny arms around Bel's neck, as far as they would reach, and this wasn't very far.  "Wind and rain and sun and snow, it is good to see you, Bel, it is good, it is good!"

"It is good to see you as well, Squirrelygirl.  Would you like to the wood with us tomorrow? We are going when sun comes up."

Squirrelygirl leapt off Bel's back, ran a hundred squirrel paces, turned around and paused.  Her tail twitched left, right, straight up, and then lay against the ground. "Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Growler is scary, though, scary, scary.  Bel, scary!"

"Why Squirrelygirl, Growler is just a big boy. Nothing to be scared of at all.  Ride with us, perhaps we can find your family."

Squirrelygirl paused and tilted her head.  "Squirrelygirl stew, soup, bones and all, is to be scary, Bel!"

"Oh no he won't." Bel replied.  "If he does, I'll show him stew, soup, bones and all."  She raised her hoof and stamped hard on the earth, Stamp! Stamp!  "Not my Squirrelygirl, he won't."

"What of these two legs, Bel? What of, what of? Soup, stew and bones, perhaps?"  Squirrelygirl asked.

"No.  No, Squirrelygirl, I think Growler would find them... unappetizing.  Besides, the pale one is strange.  The closer we get to the mountains, the more I can hear what he thinks.  It's odd, and I don't think Growler will bother him."

"The bark one?  What of, what of?" Squirrelygirl wondered.

"He's a tree with out a hole.  He smells of man, but he is more like...  More like Growler, Squirrelygirl.  Not tamed, not tame-able.  Wild like the wind, deep like the river.  Him, I can't hear.  Not at all." She nodded to her companion mare.  "This one, newly named Racer can hear him, though."

Racer nickered.  Having been bred in captivity, she never learned the common tongue, but she will.  You can go home again, it just takes time to speak the language.

"Bonded, you think? Bonded, bonded?" Squirrelygirl asked.  "Rare, rare, rare."

"It could be, though." Bel pondered.  "Squirrelygirl, I must sleep. I've run a hard race today, and we must be moving more in the morning.  You think about it, and if you wish to go with us to the wood tomorrow, we will take you."

"Think about it! Think, think, think!" Squirrelygirl said.  "Silly Bel.  Squirrels do not, do not, do not think!  We move and climb and dance.  If I am here tomorrow, I will go to the wood, wood!  Family, Bel, maybe, maybe?"

"Maybe.  Surely they are somewhere.  Perhaps Growler knows." Bel replied.

"Scary! Soup and stew and bones!  Scary, Growler, scary.  Rather talk to old stump"

"Old Stump!  Why, she would be just the one.  If anyone knows where your family is, it would be old stump.  We shall go there.  But you have to show me the way, Squirrelygirl.  I have been away too long."

"It's that way, that way." Squirrelygirl's tail twitched toward the mountains, looming close and dark.

"I know it's that way, silly Squirrelygirl.  You will have to SHOW me the way.  The smells have all changed and the trees no longer whisper to me."

"Oh, oh, oh, bright and shiny.  If it must, then it must." Squirrelygirl said, resigned.  "In the morning, Bel.  Sun up, sun up, sun up."

"At sun up, Squirrelygirl.  When the two legs are ready."

Flit and scamper, pause and twitch, running jump and away to her tree, saying "Sun up, sun up, sun up" as she went.
***************************
Weehawk lay back in his saddle, lazily watching the world pass by.  In front of him, Squirrelygirl sat between Races haunches, her tail twitching nervously.  Weehawk had a smile on his face and seemed unusually satisfied.

"You say this squirrel has decided to ride with me, even though she and Bel are old friends?  Milt, I just find that hilarious."

Pewitt looked a bit sour.  "She says she finds you curious, like a wind that doesn't blow or water that doesn't ripple."  He looked away into the distance, away from Weehawk.  "I really don't like this, Weehawk.  This hearing what they're thinking.  It's just not... natural."

Bel snorted, a negative.

"It may be natural to you, Bel," Pewitt said miserably, "but not to me.  Man and animal are two separate beings, not meant to communicate this way.  Even humans aren't meant to communicate this way."

Bel whinnied and blew out. Pewitt ignored the discussion.

"Aw, c'mon, Milt." Weehawk said, good naturedly.  "I think it's a good thing. Think how much we can learn from them.  I wish I could talk to them like you do."

Pewitt mumbled something.  "What was that?" Weehawk asked.

"I said, Bel says that Racer understands you just fine.  Apparently you just haven't been affected yet.  Or so she says."  He looked over at where Weehawk lounged. "I'd feel so much better if you could hear them.  And if you didn't take so much obvious pleasure in my discomfort."

"What happened to the Pewitt of last night?" Weehawk threw out. "The one who said it wasn't so bad?"

"I had dreams last night.  Terrible, terrible dreams.  Large monsters made from trees, walking the earth.  There was a person, a half man, half goat.  Demonic dreams, Weehawk."  He turned forward, his discomfort shining ahead of him like a search light.  "It's a bad omen."

"Omens.  Demons." Weehawk blew out, and so did Bel.  "I don't believe in 'em.  I guess you never heard the story of Journiey, the Dryad, did you?  It's part of Tear's history, and has things like your tree monsters in it.  Except they weren't monsters.  They were just folks.  A bit different, but still folks."

"Tell it to me, maybe it'll take my mind off all this racket.  These animals never stop thinking."  He looked over at Squirrelygirl. "Or one of them anyway."

Weehawk reached one arm from behind his head and reached forward to scratch the fur of Squirrelygirl.  She jumped like she'd be shot. 

"She said please don't do that." Pewitt said, sighing.  "She's nervous enough not being in a tree, she said."  He looked over at Weehawk.  "The story, please?"

Weehawk leaned forward and made his apologies to Squirrelygirl.  She seemed to not understand him, but just looked at him, blinking her big blue eyes.  She chittered something, went k-k-k-kcchh! and ran up his arm to sit on one shoulder.

"What the seven hells?"  Weehawk looked over at Pewitt.  "I damn sure wish I could talk to them now!  What did she do that for?"

"She said, and I quote, 'Story, story, story. Tell the story Oakboy, tell, tell, tell'.  At least that's what Bel said."  Racer and Bel snickered and even Pewitt showed a bit of a grin.  "Apparently she likes you well enough to name you.  Oakboy. Why Oakboy, but there it is."

"Oakboy. Fine. Just tell her to keep her tail out of my nose."  Weehawk sneezed, almost dislodging his passenger. 

Squirrelygirl wrapped her tail around his neck and held on with her versatile fingers to his collar.  She chittered again and went k-k-k-kcchh!

"Better tell the story, Weehawk.  She's getting noisy again."

"Okay, all right. Just let me remember it."  Weehawk started to lean back, but a high squeak made him say sorry and instead settled his haunches over Racers so he could relax.  He furrowed his brow and squinched up his eyes.  "I'm going to tell it best I can, in the same way my g'mother told me, okay?  If I don't get it quite right, it's cuz it was a long, long time ago."

The horses both snorted and nodded, and Squirrelygirl's tail twitched upward, once.  Pewitt snorted himself and said "It's all agreed. If you screw it up, it's because you don't remember it."

Weehawk blew a raspberry and said "Hell with you.  Here goes."

It was long ago and not so far away, and right after the desert had come to the Plain of Jordan, just north of the Ridge.  The water had dried up and the trees with it.  Not all of the trees, but most of them.  The only trees left were the trees that were around the last pool of water in all of the Plain. 

Deep and crystal and clear it was.  Fishes swam and sang and danced between fronds and frogs.  Water bug's ballets were held every day and were judged to be the most beautiful.  The trees all agreed that it was the best place in all the world to be.

There was worry, though.  It came creeping in at a pace that snails could not keep up with.  The trees in their long, slow thinking, slow talking fashion were concerned of what might happen if this last pool should dry up.

"What will become of us?" They pondered in a week-long though.  "We remember our brothers, not as fortunate, not as strong or as tall.  They were here just last decade, and poof, they were gone.  Is that to be our fate?"

For months the debate raged. 

Some said they should cast out their seeds to the wind, have it blow back toward the mountains.  The seeds would carry their memories and continue their line. 

Some said they should stand their ground and just drive their roots deeper.  Deep roots make for long standing. 

Some said perhaps it was time, as the world was changing and these humans were obviously taking all there was for their own.  Perhaps the humans would let them stay in this one place.

"These humans are vermin!" said an old pine, his needles brown and tired looking.  Bare spots showed on his bark and his crown shook as if by an invisible wind.  "If they let us stay it would be as their furniture and houses.  You have all seen what they did to our brothers.  All gone, now, turned into kindling and chairs."

"Perhaps that is our fate, though." said an aspen, silver and gold on her leaves.  "Perhaps it is time for us to turn our lives over to them, to house their children and support their old.  It is a right and proper fate, to help the young and old."

"What about our young?  What about our old?", the old pine sapped.  "It is not right for humans to take whatever they want.  It is not right, I say."

"Argue all you want, that will not keep the water here, nor will it prolong your lives."  This was said by a new voice, down below them.  It was musical and carefully spoken.  It was a human voice, but spoke in tree language, long and slow and the trees could understand it.

When the trees looked down, they saw a woman, a human looking woman.  Robust and full of life, she seemed to have just appeared from nowhere, or perhaps everywhere.

"Who are you?" said old pine in a raspy, needling tone.  "You don't belong here!" he said in a slow sap filled voice.

"Oh, but I do." said the woman.  "I belong here because some of you have called me." and she turned to look at the small grove of sycamores that had become silent during the months of debate.  Their leaves turned red with blush and the wind helped them twist and turn as if looking for a place to hide.

"The Sycamores?  They're religious nuts, thinking that they could call a spirit of the grove to help us in some way."  Old Pine let his scorn show.

"And yet," the woman said, "here I am."  She danced a step, her full bodied-ness moving with the grace of a swan on the water. 

She was not a small woman, but rather the sort of woman that appeared to take life into herself, make it larger than it could possibly be, and let it shine back out. In her size she was beautiful and in her real heart, which she wore clipped to her sleeve, she was amazing.  Her face was oval, with almond shaped eyes the color of a clear sky.  Her teeth flashed behind a full bottom lip, and the upper lip was shy and delicate.  Her nose was smallish, but well formed and delicate.

"The name's Journiey, by the way, and I'm in charge of this place."  She stooped down and watch the waterbug ballet, laughing and clapping her hands with glee.  "I like this place", she said, "I think it'll do for me just fine."

Old Pine's branches clattered with anger.  "You're in charge?  You?  You are barely old enough to remember my first seeding.  Who put you in charge?  Who do you think you are?"

Journiey looked up at Old Pine and smiled.  And the smile got bigger.  Not just the smile, but the face behind it.  Not just the face behind it, but the head, the shoulders, the arms the hands, the waist, the legs, the.... you get the idea.  She grew.  And grew, and grew until she was a full tree above Old Pine.

She knelt until her eyes were even with Pine's topmost branches.  Gently, softly, like the fall of snow on the first day of snow fall, she said "Nobody put me in charge, chum.  Or... everyone you've every bullied about.  As for how old I am, I was here before your roots were barely an inch long.  I was here before the seeds you were born from sprang from your mothertrees branches.  I was here before this delightful pond was here."

She stood up, stretched. "I've been asleep for a very, very long time, waiting.  I came from the Ridges, just as your forefathers did, blown here by a wind centuries ago.  Like a seed I was buried right about here," and her big toe, the size of a small boulder weighing a couple of tons, dug in the earth." and like a seed, I waited for the right time to sprout."

As quickly as she grew, she shrank as she spoke, until she gained the size she was originally.  She walked over to the sycamores and patted one of them on its bark.

"The water that brought me forth, Old Pine, was these humble Sycamores.  They know they can do nothing against the humans.  They know that time will bring them down and cause their wonderful leaves to fall no more.  It is the nature of this place, change and time and tide.  It takes all of us, eventually."

"You don't sound like you're planning on doing much to help us." muttered Old Pine, cowed a bit by Journiey's impressive display of size.

"Help you?" Journiey laughed. "There is nothing to do to help you, Old Pine.  You are quite likely, if you're lucky, going to end up as a sideboard in some human's house.  If you aren't lucky, lightning will strike you in half and the mites will eat you.  There is nothing I can do to help you, Old Pine."

"Then... why are you here?" squeaked a small sycamore. "We thought our prayers would bring you."

"Darlin'" said Journiey, now the size of a two story house, "I did come because you asked.  I'm here to do what I can." She stroked the soft leaves of its crown and said, "I can't save your lives, but I can save something much more valuable."

"What is that?" said the sycamore, sadly. 

"Your children, dear one.  I can save your children, and your memories, because I know that every seed you have carried your memories and the memories of your ancestors."

And it is true.  All trees carry the memories of all the trees that came before it.  That is why trees take such a long time to say or do anything.  There is centuries to wade through to get to the present.

Journiey wandered through the glad, keeping her two story size.  She stopped at each and every tree and hugged them and kissed them and talked gently to them.  "It is my promise to you that you shall not die here, but neither shall you live here.  I will gather up all of your seeds and when the time comes and the world has spun so that this place can once again hold your life, I will let loose all of the seeds there are and you shall live in this glade again.  Humans or no humans.  That is my promise."

"What if there are humans here, Oh Journiey?" Old Pine was not satisfied.  "They will just cut us down again, burn us, use us for furniture."

"That may very well be true, Old Pine."  Journiey agreed.  And I will be here as well, teaching them to ask permission, showing them where to cut, where to harvest."  She strode up until she was once again, looking directly at Old Pine's crown.

"You yourself know that there are times when the forest must be trimmed.  You have seen the effects of over-growth.  It's not pretty is it."

"No," Old Pine agreed, "but what promise do we have that you will keep your word, that you will keep your watch?"

Journiey thought about it for a short while, perhaps as short as a week.  The she put on her most serious face and addressed the entire forest.

"Words are only as good as words are.  Wind and the rustle of leaves.  Dust and sand and all things that blow.  Deeds are what last. Words can be forgotten, but deeds carry on.  This is what I will give to you."

With that having been said, she ripped open her blouse, exposing her large bosoms.  One sharp, blood red finger nail traced a line down her chest, drawing red liquid, the color of her nails.  With pain, she tore her chest open, reached into the opening and drew something wet and beating out.  It was her True heart.

"This, my heart, I give to you for my word." She said, panting and blanching from the pain and strain.

She once again, walked around the forest, showing her True heart to each and every tree.  When it was done, she walked back to the pond where the dragonflies danced and pulled from her sleeve the heart she wore there.  She took that pretend heart, what she called her real heart, though not her True heart, and the pin that held it there, and pinned it to the red, wet beating thing that she held in her hand.  She grimaced as the pin pierced her beating heart, and tears sprang to her eyes.

"I take my real heart, and I plant it in my True heart, which no one has ever seen, except you.  I take my real tears, and water the seed I have planted, and I place it on the earth here at my feet."

This she did.  The red mass of her tissue and blood, bearing the pink heart no longer pinned to her sleeve an watered with her tears lay on the ground next to the pool.  The pools water turned pink with stain, and the dragonflies wings glowed with red.

As the heart lay there, beating slowly, slowly, it began to change.  Veins and capillaries grew from it and reached the earth, to bore into the ground and to lay hold there.  Auricles and ventricles reached up, up, up and strained to reach higher still.  The whole thing changed color, growing less red, and more brown, more green, more ... tree.

A trunk grew, reddish brownish green, and the tops sprouted leaves that stretched and shimmered with the first sunlight that rained down upon them.  It was a tree, but unlike any tree that had ever grown before, and will ever grow since.  It was a Journiey Tree.

Through her tears, Journiey smiled between grimaces and said "I always said I had an uncle who was a wandering Jew."  And she laughed, bitterly.  She laughed alone, because trees are notorious for lacking a sense of humor.

She pulled her self up right, buttoned her blouse over the hole where her heart once was, and pointing at her heart, still not quite tree, but certainly not quite heart, cried, "That is my promise to you!  I have become what you are, and no matter what befall you, I will remain.  My tree is eternal, and will not die.  Time will pass, the desert may come, and the desert may go.  Humans will settle here, and they will build around this tree, and this tree will protect your seeds until such time as your seeds may safely be planted again.  You have my word and my deed and my heart!"

Old Pine bowed.  He said, in the first gentle voice he had used in decades, "You are a True One, Journiey, Spirit of the Wood.  I ask that you take my seeds first." And so saying this, let loose with such a shaking that his seeds spread all around him.

Journiey looked at Old Pine, a twinkle in her still wet eyes.  "You ain't half bad, Pine. Your bark is much worse than your bite.  You just need someone to come shake your branches every so often."  She stooped and gathered the seeds of Old Pine and placed them in her blouse, to fill the hole where her heart had been.

She moved from tree to tree, gathering seeds and placing them in that sacred wound, to be kept safe, to be her new heart, to stay there until such a time as the world was safe for them again.

When she was done, she shrank herself to the size of a human woman and walked to the base of the Journiey tree.  She sat at its base and drank from the pond.  She looked pale and a bit weak.

"I am done for now." she said.  "It was a lovely party, and I thank you all for inviting me, but you know I can't stay."  She stood up and touched a low knurl in the tree.  Slowly, the trunk split open, until a gap just large enough for her to squeeze her tired body into it appeared.

"I'm going, but only for a little while.  In a few years, perhaps a century or so, I will be called forth and then it will be time for you to be reborn.  Do not give up hope, do not give up life.  It is, after all, eternal."  She blew a kiss to all the forest.  "Love you all." 

She closed her eyes and smiled as the opening sealed itself around her, closing her into the trunk of the tree forever.

Weehawk said "That's it.  That's the story.  There are some that say that Journiey's back.  Like that old hooch hound at home.  I dunno, though.  Maybe, maybe not.  That's why I say that talking animals may not be such a bad thing, Pewitt.  It opens your eyes to possibilities.  It doesn't have to be evil.  It's just different."

Pewitt stared at Weehawk, dumfounded.  "That's it? That's your story?  There wasn't any monsters in it! It was just a bunch of stupid trees whining about being cut down.  Nothing scary, nothing that even related to my dreams."  He crossed his arms and looked disappointed.  "I feel cheated."

Squirrelygirl blew him a raspberry k-k-k-kcchh! and said "I think, I do, I do, I do, that it was a wonderful, marvelous, incredible story, I do, I do, I do!"

Weehawk said, with wide eyes, "Hey! I understood that!"

"Well ladeeda.  Welcome to my world." Pewitt was still not terribly happy.

"Look, Milt.  I said there weren't any monsters in it.  I said there were things LIKE your tree monsters.  And I can hear this squirrel talking!"  Weehawk looked forward to Racer.  "How bout you?  Say something."

"There's Growler."  came a soft, feminine voice in his head.

"Woo hoo!  I can hear her speak!"  Weehawk was bouncing in his saddle, tossing a squeaking Squirrelygirl around and about, nearly scaring the poor thing to death.  "Uh, What's a growler?"

"Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop." complained Squirrelygirl.  When Weehawk had settled back down, she climbed onto his shoulder and pointed past where Pewitt was sitting. Pewitt's mouth had fallen open, and didn't look like it would close for a while.

There was a mound of dirt and leaves and sticks and twigs and branches directly in front of him.  A mound of dirt and leaves and sticks and twigs and branches is not such an unusual thing, in and of itself.  However, when it's taken into account that there were also big round eyes and a large flat nose, and a broad mouth, and very large elephantine ears, that is something all together unusual.

"Hello." came a voice from somewhere deeper than the center of the earth. It came from the depths of a moaning cavern filled with bats.  It rumbled from somewhere the blind fish swim and the blinder scorpions crawl. It was deep. It was dark.  It was dank.

"That's Growler. It is, it is, it is.... Oh me, oh my... stew and bones... oh me, oh my!" squeaked Squirrelygirl.
************************
Weehawk looked at the hulking, moldering mound of leaves and twigs and cried out, "What the holy hells is that?"  He was pulling on the reigns, trying to get Racer to back up, but she was having none of it and stood her ground.  Squirrelygirl had disappeared, though her tail was showing from one of the saddlebags.

"I just told you," said Racer.  "That's Growler."  Her voice was gentle, like a teenage girl's, and carried a tone that would have captivated at any other time of his life.  "Bel says he's important. We need him."

"That's a him?" Weehawk asked. "You're sure?"

"It smells like a him." was the response.  Racer tossed her head. "I don't really know.  This is the first time I've been this far south.  I only know it's Growler because that's what Bel said."

Pewitt was decidedly unhappy.  He pointed at the mass before them and said, "You see this, Weehawk?" He was nearly in tears.  "This is a monster.  This is not some silly story about talking trees and pretty dragonflies."  He wiped his nose on his sleeve, "This is not what I signed up for. This is not some simple 'go south to the mountains and bring back Pockets' sorta mission.  This is a "go south to the mountains, talk to the animals and get eaten by a large pile of talking compost!"  He, like Weehawk, tried unsuccessfully to get Bel to back up.  She stayed her post, and wouldn't move.

Weehawk moved Racer closer to Pewitt. "Bel says he's important and we need him.  Ask her what we need him for."  he said.

"Ask her yourself.  I'm done with all this.  If I ever talk to another animal, it'll be way too soon."  Tears ran down his face.  "All I want is to go home and pretend none of this ever happened."

Weehawk sighed.  "You big baby." He nudged Racer up a little bit more, until he was even with Bel.  He pointedly ignored Pewitt and asked, "Bel, what do we need this ... um... person for?"

Racer's voice came into his head.  "She says Growler may have seen Pockets. He may know which direction we need to go to find him."

"Ah."  Weehawk pondered the situation.  Pewitt was the best of them for talking to folks, he was the most diplomatic.  Apparently, though, Pewitt was going to decide to be a baby about it and withdraw any aid unless they were talking to human beings.  He sighed.  Stupid religious nuts.

"Bel... if I go up and talk to him, will he eat me?" he asked.

Racer said "Bel isn't sure of what Growler eats or doesn't eat."

From the saddlebags a voice squeaked "Squirrels!  Stew and bones! Oh myyyyyy."

Racer continued. "She does wish you good luck though."

"Thanks." Weehawk mumbled.  He flicked the reigns, but Racer held her ground. "Um." she said, "I'll wait here, if you don't mind."

"Great.  Wonderful."  He dismounted, legs stiff.  "Buncha babies." He turned to Bel and said "If he eats me, don't come crying to me about it."  No reply.  "Racer?"  Nothing.

"Huh." He looked at Pewitt and said, "When I get off of Racer, I can't hear her anymore."

"I heard her just fine last night, and I wasn't anywhere near her." came the sullen reply.  I still can.  Lucky you.  Good luck.  Don't get eaten."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." Weehawk answered humorously. 

He turned to Growler and surveyed the thing.  He was tall, that was for sure, and apparently sitting down.  Large knurled knees poked out from under foliage so thick Weehawk could not see anything past it.  'Probably a good thing', he thought to himself.  Big greenish gray eyes, the size of sewer covers, blinked slowly, watching him.  There was a distinct earthy smell about Growler.

"What are you?  About twelve feet tall when you stand up?" Weehawk directed at the mound.  He could see a head of a small animal poke out from somewhere near where the arms should be.

"I don't know."  The voice rattled like water falling down a deep cavern.  "I don't know what feet are."  Growler grumbled.  Weehawk's teeth seemed to vibrate with the low frequency.

"Oh.  So... your name's Growler?"  Weehawk offered casually.

Accusingly, the cave mouth said, "That's what they call me."  A large arm swooped up past Weehawk's head, and at the end, the size of a door was a hand, with an enormous finger pointing towards the horses, who now decided it would be best to back up a bit.

"Holy chrome, chum!" Weehawk exclaimed, a bit nervous.  No, he was a LOT nervous.  He could feel his knees shaking and his teeth chattering.  "That's a hell of a table reach you got there."

The arm came back down to disappear in the mound of leaves and dirt.  "They call me Growler.  I don't know why."  This had the sound of sadness, but Weehawk wasn't going to guess.

"Is that a bad thing?  Do you have something you'd rather be called?" He ventured.

"I don't know.  I don't know what a Growler is.  That one," again the tree sized arm came up, finger pointing accusingly, "called me a monster."  The arm came down again.  "I know what a monster is."

A mossy silence ensued.

"Er... yeah."  Weehawk said, filling the silence with nothing at all.  "Well...  I'm real sorry bout that, chum.  He's from ... he's different.  His family isn't very tolerant of other folks that are different from him."

Pewitt bristled a bit at that and shouted, "Hey!"

Weehawk turned to tell Pewitt to shut the hell up, thought better of it, and instead asked "Am I wrong?  Cuz if I am, you better get your ass up here and apologize for yourself."

Pewitt said nothing, just sat, red face glowing with shame. 

"I thought not.  Whatta baby.  I'm still your friend, chum, but you got a lot of growing to do." Weehawk observed.  He turned back to Growler.  "So.  Growler.  I'm gonna assume you don't eat me and ask you a few questions."

"I don't think you'd taste good.  Ask your questions."  Growler shifted a bit, throwing dirt and shedding leaves and sticks.

Weehawk looked back towards his companions, looking for inspiration.  He found none.  Pewitt was turned away from the scene, and the animals were silent, or at least he couldn't hear them.  He turned back and cleared his throat.

"We're looking for..." he began.

"You're looking for one like you." Growler interrupted. "An odd one who passed by here a few days ago." A wind shattering sigh came from enormous lungs.  "Yes.  I saw him.  He stopped and chatted for a while, then went on his way."  The mouth twisted upwards, showing teeth like bridge planks.  "He was not afraid if I would eat him.  He did not call me monster. He did not call me Growler.  He called me Chum, like you did.  He also called me friend, when he left.  When you leave, will you also call me friend?"

Weehawk noted a distinct sound of ... hope? He smiled a genuine smile.  This was no monster.  This was a lonely creature looking for a friend. "I would like that, chum.  What is your name, by the way?  That is, if you don't mind?"

Growler pulled up a long arm and scratched the top of his head.  He dislodged a small shrub and enough dirt to fill a wheelbarrow.  "I don't know. I don't think I've ever had one.  Chum seems to fit me well enough.  It sounds... happier, somehow."

"You don't have a family?" Weehawk asked.

"I don't know. If I ever had a family or not, that is unknown to me.  I remember not being this size, I remember not looking as I do now, but that was long, long ago, when there was still forest as far as the eyes could see.  Out there," he waved a hand towards the desert, "that used to be forest too."  Chum sighed.

"No family?  That just sounds sad, chum.  Ever have... um. You know... someone you... um... cared about?" Weehawk wasn't just being friendly, he was interested in this hulking mountain of ... Green.  "Anyone that loved you?"  He scratched his own head, wondering.  "I don't mean to be nosey; I just think you must have had a very lonely life out here."

"It is not for you to worry.... What is your name?"  Chum asked.

"Weehawk."

"Ah.  Weehawk. Little bird."  Chum leaned forward and brought his eyes down to peer at the boy before him.  "Fitting. You are very small."

Weehawk placed his fists on his hips and laughed. "I imagine we all are, compared to you." Smiling, gently.  "You are a very big guy, chum."

Chum sat back up, smiling back.  "You say very good things.  You say very right things.  You don't just run and scream or call me names I don't like."  He looked over to his left, pondering something in a distant land that years had removed from him.

"Are you all right?" Weehawk asked.

In a voice that was quiet, like whispered wind in tall trees; a voice that was long ago and far away, like memories slipped just far enough to be sepia, but with images still clear enough to sadly see who was who and what was what, Chum said, "Yes. I am all right.  I was just... remembering.  Someone, yes, someone that did ... um," a deep rumble in his chest, a cough, "love me.  Someone that I cared about deeply.  Yes.  She did exist, she was real.  As real as you and me." 

A large tear rolled from eyes the sized of large dinner platters, and splattered on knobby tree trunk knees.  A yellow flower sprouted there, grew so quick it surprised Weehawk, who stepped back a bit.

Chum noticed Weehawk's reaction.  "It happens ever time, don't worry about it."  Giant fingers reached down and plucked the flower.  He passed it to Weehawk and said, "You have this.  It may do you well, somewhere, sometime."

Weehawk took the flower and started to put it in his pocket.  "But be careful, Weehawk."  Chum warned. "The flower has the ability to heal, as quickly as it grew, it is very strong, but very delicate.  Treat it with care."

Weehawk nodded and gently placed it in a pocket, near his heart.  "Thank you, Chum." and this time he capitalized it.  "You are a good... um... person.  It would be my honor to call you friend."

At this, Chum smiled broadly, and slapped his legs, surprising a family of squirrels who were hiding in the shadow of his knees.  "I would be honored to be called your friend.  You are even better than the one that came before you."

The squirrels ran around, panicked. They looked at Weehawk nervously, their blue eyes wide in panic.  "Don't worry, little friends." said Chum.  "This is Weehawk, little bird.  He is a friend."

One of the squirrels came close to Weehawk and sniffed his boot.  "Hey!" he said, stooping low so that his eyes were on the same level.  "You must be the dad, huh?"

Looking left and right, tail twitching and hands moving nervously, the squirrel looked back at Weehawk, eyes blinking and nose wrinkling.

Chum chuckled and said "He says you smell like one of them."

"Why is it that everyone can hear them except me?" Weehawk shrugged.  To the squirrel he said, "I met a squirrel that looked a lot like you.  She even has blue eyes like you.  Maybe you're related, huh?"

The squirrel let loose a furious batch of k-k-k-kcchhs and chitters.

"Slow down, little friend, slow down." Chum raised bushy eyebrows that were actual bushes.  "He wants to know how far away it was, where you saw this other one, did you hurt her, is she still alive... he's speaking so fast I cannot keep up."

Weehawk stood up, pointed back to where the others stood and said "Well yes, she's still alive.  In fact, she should be back with the others, probably hiding in a saddlebag.  She's kinda goofy, but she's okay."

The squirrel stood up on its hind legs, stretching it's neck to see to where the others stood.  Then he ran back to where his family stood and a virtual cacophony of chitters and kcchhs ensued.

"What goes?" Weehawk asked.  "What's the deal?"

"I don't know, but I can guess." Chum said.  "This family came to me a while ago, after a terrible storm blew through.  At first, they were frightened, thinking, as you did, that I would eat them.  So I grew some acorns for them, so they could eat.  Their children were so young then.  Oh, how they've grown.  They were so little I could hold one on my smallest finger."

Chum looked down at them, chattering furiously.  "They say the one with you may be the one they lost when the storm came.  A little girl squirrel, perhaps?"

Weehawk scratched his head again.  "Well... yes.  She's a girl, but she's not so little. And like I said, she's kinda goofy."  He pointed back towards the horses.  "I can try to see if I can get her up here, but I think she's terribly afraid of you.  She kept muttering something about 'stew and bones'."

"I do not think you have to worry about bringing her here, Weehawk.  Look."  Chum nodded in the direction the squirrels were running, chattering at the top of their lungs.

From Racer's back launched a small furred form, chattering herself.  Squirrelygirl ran to meet the other squirrels and when they met, a dance ensued.  Such a tangle of brown fur and twitching tails occurred it was hard to tell one from another.  The noise that came from them was almost deafening, chitters and k-k-k-kcchhs and screeches and squirrel laughter.

"Well." said Weehawk.  "That's certainly noisy."

"It's a good thing, friend Weehawk, little bird.  That little one that was riding with you, she is indeed the lost one.  What you are seeing is a family reunited."

"Sounds like a cat fight in a well."  Weehawk said, watching the reunion.  "Glad it happened, then.  A family should be together."

Hearing a wind sucking sigh from behind him, Weehawk turned and asked Chum, "What is it?  Is something wrong?"

"Just memories, Weehawk.  That one I told you about.  She left and said she would return, and so here I sit waiting."

"How long ago was that? How many years?"

"I don't know.  Very long."  Chum sat and pondered.  "I don't know years, Weehawk. I know seasons, though.  How many seasons are there in a year?"

"Where I'm from, there are two, but I live in the desert."  Weehawk said. "It might be different somewhere else.  Let me go ask."

He ran back to the horses, avoiding the squirrels who were still chattering and dancing and k-k-k-kcchhing.  As he passed them, one ran up to him and sat there, staring at him.  Weehawk nearly tripped over it.  He bent down and said, "Yes?  Did you need something?"

The squirrel stuck out its paw and Weehawk shook it.  "You're welcome, I guess."  But rather than running away, the squirrel launched itself up and wrapped itself around Weehawk's neck.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" it chanted over and over.

"Whoa! Hold on, slow down." Weehawk said, laughing.  "Squirrelygirl?" he asked.

"Yes, it's me, it's me!  You found them, found, found, found.  Not lost, not alone anymore! Thank you, thank you, k-k-k-kcchh!"

"Well, you're very welcome." Weehawk repeated. "I'm glad I was able to help."

Squirrelygirl hugged him as hard as her little hands would hug.  "If you ever need, need help, need, ever, ever.  You call, call me, call us!  Okay? Okay?"  She looked him full in the eyes, her tail twitching and tickling his ears.

"Okay, okay!"  Weehawk couldn't keep from laughing.  "If I ever need help I will.  Now go be with your family!"

One last hug and Squirrelygirl started to untangle herself from him.  Weehawk stopped her.  "Hey, Squirrelygirl!"

"Yes, Oakboy, yes, yes?"  She looked back at him.

"How many seasons are there here?  How many times does the weather change?"

"Seasons?  Weather?  I don't know." was the reply.

"From cold to not cold to cold again... how many times?" Weehawk explained.

"Silly Oakboy.  It gets cold, then the flowers grow, then the waters dry, then the leaves turn colors then it gets cold again.  Everybody knows that, everybody, everyone.  I don't know times, don't know, don't know." She hugged him one last time, nuzzled him, wrinkled her nose, twitched her tail and launched into the air running back to her family.

"There's four seasons."  a sour voice came from behind him. "You could have asked me, you know."

"Oh, Pewitt.  Are you still here?  I figured you would have left, walking, since you didn't want to hang around with a bunch of talking animals or monsters."  The sarcasm that dripped from Weehawk ran down and fell on the ground, flowed over to where Pewitt sat astride Bel, crawled up Bel and climbed into Pewitt's heart. It turned and twisted and caused Pewitt to grimace with a sour taste in his mouth.

"I couldn't." Pewitt admitted. These stupid horses refused to leave you."

"Why didn't you just walk? Use your righteousness as a buoy to lift you above the ground and carry you home." Weehawk turned the screw just a bit tighter.

"Okay! Look, I'm sorry! I admit it!" Pewitt lifted his hands to the heavens, looking for help. "I was wrong!  Talking animals, big things made of trees... all of it! I was wrong, okay?"

"Maybe." Weehawk said.  "We'll see.  It's easy to say, now.  What about tomorrow?" He turned and walked back to where Chum sat.  "Tigers don't change their stripes, you know."

"But I'm not a tiger!" Pewitt pleaded.

"Then do something right!" Weehawk yelled back.

"Like what?  What can I do now?"

"How bout something totally unlike you?  Come here and apologize!"  Weehawk turned back to Chum.  "There are four seasons in a year, Chum.  Four."

"That other one," Chum said. "He doesn't like me, does he?"

"He doesn't know you Chum." Weehawk apologized.  "He comes from a place where people fear what they don't understand or know."  He looked at the ground. "I was pretty scared too, you know."

"Yes." growled Chum. "You were.  You came forward anyway.  You did not let your fear stop you, like he did."

"Well... maybe I'm just not as smart as he is."  Weehawk looked up, grinning.

"I seriously doubt that, Weehawk, little bird, my friend." said Chum, grinning back.

A small voice came from behind Weehawk.  "I suppose I'm not as bright as I thought I was."  Pewitt came forward.  "Look." he said to Chum. "I'm still terrified of you. Everything in my head is telling me I should run away. Everything I've been taught tells me that you are a horrible beast, something that shouldn't exist."

Chum growled, deep in his chest.  He was not smiling.

Pewitt raised his hands.  "I tell you that to let you know what I am feeling, not to anger you.  I watched Weehawk stand here and talk to you, and I continued to think of you as a beast." He dropped his hands and looked at the ground.  "But I wouldn't be Weehawk's friend if I didn't at least give you the benefit of a doubt."

Chum was still not smiling, and the growl continued.

"Look!", Pewitt pleaded, "I'm here to admit I was wrong.  I haven't seen anything that indicates you are anything but a good and decent..." he looked Chum up and down, "... whatever you are.  I mean, you had a family of squirrels living with you.  Granted, they were talking squirrels, something that shouldn't exist."

Growl.

"But!  But they obviously do. And though that little one was a bit... odd... she was actually quite polite. Much more so than most humans I know."

"Well," said Chum, large eyes flashing and teeth showing, but not in a grin.  "From the humans I've met, I have found them to be incredibly polite... Except for you."

Weehawk was silent, and having found a tree to lean against, watched as Pewitt tried to make amends.  He didn't exactly take pleasure from his friend's discomfort, but it was satisfying, nonetheless.

"I know, I know!"  Pewitt said.  "Please, try to understand, my family has always..."

"NO!" howled Chum, interrupting Pewitt's defense.  Small trees bent with the force of the gale, and a flock of birds took flight, vowing never to vacation in this place again. "It is you that must understand.  From what I can tell of you and your family, you have closed yourselves off, and believe that things are such and such, that the world is so and so."

"And this is not always true.  The world changes, it moves, it ... evolves. Things do not stay the same; the world does not stay the same." Chum sighed again.  "If your family does not change, does not see the world and the times changing, then they are as rock.  Heartless and mindless, living in a time that stands still."  Chum reached down and poked Pewitt with a massive finger, pushing the boy off balance.  "What is your name?"

Pewitt looked confused. "What?"

"What is your name?  Is that a hard question?" Chum growled.  "What... is... your... name?

"Milton Pewitt, sir." The answer was contrite.

"Milton Pewitt."  Chum looked upward, trying out the words.  "Milton Pewitt.  It does not taste too badly."  He looked back at Pewitt.  "And what do you call me?"

"What?" confused again.

"You have a hard time understanding; do you not, Milton Pewitt?" Chum said with great patience.  "Pay attention, this time.  What do you call me, Milton Pewitt?"

"I don't know." Pewitt admitted.  "Sir?"

"Sir?"  Chum's eyebrows bushed upwards.  "What is a sir?"  He looked at Weehawk.  "Is it like monster?"  Weehawk shrugged, shoulders saying "I'm not involved in this" Chum looked back at Pewitt.  "Is it?  Like monster?"

"No." Pewitt said.  "It's an honorarium given out of respect."

"Respect?" Chum laughed.  "Respect for someone you had called monster just a while ago? Respect for someone that you don't even take the time to know? How can you have respect, Milton Pewitt?  Is it respect out of fear?"

Pewitt was growing angry.  "Look you.  I said I was sorry. Then when I tried to explain..."

"Milton Pewitt, you were not explaining anything!" Chum roared.  "You were defending bad manners.  It does not matter if you got them from your parents, from your country, from your religion.  It does not matter what you were taught.  Answer me this one thing, Milton Pewitt.  Answer me this one thing.  Should all living things be given the courtesy of politeness?"

"Well yes, but..." Pewitt began.

"There are buts?" Chum interrupted.  "What possible buts could there be?  Tell me that, Milton Pewitt."

Pewitt stopped and thought.  "This... creature was the most frustrating person.  He would not even let one statement be finished before interrupting.  And HE was the one demanding politeness.  All right, fine.  Let's play this game."

Pewitt looked up at Chum's glum face and smiled.  "I do not know what to call you.  We have not been introduced properly."  He stuck out a hand. "How do you do?  My name is Milton Pewitt. And yours is?"  and he stood there with his hand out, waiting.

"Hm." said Chum, eyebrows raising again, this time from confusion. "Hm.  What sort of answer is this?"  When he saw that Pewitt was not answering his question, just standing there with his hand out.  Gingerly Chum reached out with one finger.  Pewitt grasped it and shook it as best as he could. "Milton Pewitt, I am newly called Chum.  I do quite well."

"It is very nice to meet you, Chum.  How long have you been here?"  Pewitt asked.

Still confused by Pewitt's change of attitude, Chum answered, "I was just speaking to Weehawk, little bird about that.  That is why I needed to know how many seasons in a year."

"Ah." said Pewitt.  "The answer is four, Chum.  There are four seasons in a year."

"Very well.  Then I have been here for..." Chum thought and pondered.  "I have been here for a little over three hundred years."

"Three hundred years!" Pewitt cried, looking over at Weehawk.  "That's impossible!"

"Why impossible, Milton Pewitt?  How long do your folk live?" Chum asked.

"The oldest I've ever heard of was a man that lived to be ninety years, and that was very old." Pewitt said.

Weehawk joined them and said, "There was a guy that lived to be over a hundred, but not more than that." Pewitt looked at him.  "Well," Weehawk said, "he was not a very nice guy.  He might have lived longer, but they hung him."

"Your people do not live very long, then.  My people are still around.  None of them have passed over." Chum said.

"None?" Pewitt asked.

"None." Chum nodded.  "We were told that we would only pass over when we were ready.  None of us are ready.  Even my lady, the one who left me three hundred years ago, even she is still alive, somewhere."

"How do you know that, Chum?" asked Weehawk.

"I can feel it, here." He tapped his chest with a massive finger. "I can feel her heart beating with mine, slow, slow, but still beating." He sighed again, long and heavy.  "I do not know where she is, but I know she lives, because she lives here."  Tap, tap.

"But," Pewitt said, "Three hundred years!  Why would you wait that long?"

"For love, Milton Pewitt." Chum explained.  "When you find your love, you will wait however long it takes."

"Yeah." said Weehawk. "There's a girl back home that I kinda feel that way about."

Pewitt pondered. How odd this was all turning out.  Chum was still a monster, but a very gentle and monster, regardless.  If playing nice nice to find out where Pockets went so they could finish this stupid adventure, then so be it.

"I understand what you mean, Chum." he said.  "Someday I hope to find the sort of love you talk about."

"Hmm." said Weehawk.  "Look, this is great, and I'd like to talk about love and stuff forever, but we have a Pockets to find."  He turned to Chum.  "Do you remember which direction he went?"

"Of course, Weehawk.  He and I spoke for a very long time, just as we are doing now.  Then he said he had to go to the cleft in the Ridge." He pointed to the west.  "It is that direction, not very far.  It would be about two days ride for you." 

Chum leaned down to whisper in Weehawk's ear, which was quite a feat for someone that has a mouth the size of the person it was speaking to.  "I was not fooled by Milton Pewitt's pretense. I suspect he has quite a ways to go before he learns his lessons about life."

"Then why did you help us?" Weehawk whispered back. 

Chum smiled, a frightening thing to see from Weehawk's position.  "I did it for you, Weehawk, little bird.  You are my friend and a good friend is a good thing to have."  He sat back up.  "Now go.  You will find a human settlement before dark."

"Thanks, Chum!" said Weehawk.  He headed back toward the horses, then stopped and turned back. "Chum!"

"Yes, Weehawk?"

"I have to ask, and I think I know the answer, but was the name of your love Journiey, by any chance?"

"Why, yes!" came the surprised answer.  "How do you know this?  How could you possibly know?"

"Because she is alive, Chum.  She lives in the kingdom of Tears, where I come from.  I just thought you would want to know."

"Weehawk, little bird! You have given me a gift greater than you could imagine.  To know that she lives!  You make my heart sing! Thank you, Weehawk, thank you!"  Tears rained down in buckets, flowers and shrubbery sprouting wherever they landed.

"Don't mention it." Weehawk called back as he mounted Racer.  "I'll be back, Chum!"

As Chum receded into the distance, a soft voice came into his head.  "That was a very nice thing you did back there, Oakboy."

"Why thanks, Racer.  But could you do me a favor?"

"What would that be?" Racer asked.

"Could you call me Weehawk?"
*******************************
"You know," Pockets muttered, "if it weren't so creepy and scary, this place would be very nice."

He was walking in the dark, through the thick foliage of the trees that lay at the feet of the Ridges.  He was walking because he had no horse, and his sand riding sailboard was useless once it met a surface that wasn't relatively flat.  He had the scrapes and bruises to show for it, too.

When he sailed in from the desert, he hit the short stubby grasses of the steppes, and his board just sort of ... decided to not go anymore.  Inertia lent a hand and Pockets found himself plowing a small furrow with his chin, elbows and knees.  The only thing that kept him from getting torn up worse is that he rolled into a ball and just kept on rolling another fifty yards and probably would have gone further had there not been a handy tree available to stop him.

"I wonder if Bags is coming to look for me." He said to a crooked stump.  The stump withheld its comment.  Pockets slowed his breathing and felt for his heartbeat.  Thub a thub was still there, beating. He took a breath; let it out, slowly, slowly. Thub a thub slowed just a bit, not missing a beat, but playing tune just a bit slower than time.

Then, looking in the direction of Tears he reached out, feeling for Bags.  Out and out he stretched his senses, until he found what he was looking for.  Shimmering against a mental sky of sparking energies, the single spark that was Bags lay near the double spark that was Grizelda and child. 

Pockets sighed.  "I guess not."  He patted the stump, which was still silent.  "I guess not." 

Above him and owl hooted. "Say, buddy." Pockets called up to the owl.  "You wouldn't happen to know the direction to the cleft, would you?" 

The owl hooted again.  Pockets sat on the stump, swinging his legs, thumping his heels against the hard wood.  He looked up as the moons, Bigun and Lilun, shone down, speckling their way through the thick ceiling of leaves.

"Could be worse, I spose."  He said. "Could be really lost, instead of just not knowing where I am."  He picked up a rock and tossed it into the dark.  "Wonder if it would be safe to just sleep here." 

He started to toss another stone into the shadows beyond when a voice, deep as the night, deep as deep can be and not come out the other side, said "Please, don't do that again."  It was a growly voice and came from behind Pockets.

He jumped off the stump and twirled around.  Peering into the dark, and seeing no-one, he said "Hey. Where are you?"

"I'm here," came the growly voice.  "Where I've always been."

"Well, chum," Pockets said, "you may have always been there, but I sure as heck can't see you."  He squinted and all he saw was leaves, sticks, bits of trees and bushes.  He walked forward and peered into the dense pile of moldering compost.  "Okay... come out of there."

He dug into the leaves and the dirt, scrabbling to find ... whatever was there.  He came upon a very hard root or limb and pushed the refuse away from it, thinking it might lead into the burrow or cave, or, at the very least, provide some shelter from the night.

Now, it might be argued that Pockets was not very wise, digging into an unknown dirt pile, seeking the source of a voice whose owner Pockets did not know.  It might be argued that Pockets was foolish and risking his very life.  It might be argued.  However, as there was no-one there to see him, there was no-one to argue with. So he dug.  And dug some more.  And just a little bit more and found himself poking out the other side of the mound from below the overhanging root or limb.

"Humph." he said.  "Not a cave at all, just a stupid root."

"Actually, that was my leg.", dark and rumbly interjected.

"That's a pretty big leg, friend," Pockets observed. "At least as big a my body is round."  He stepped back and took another look at the compost pile.  He followed it from the leg, to the point where it might have joined a waist, if it was indeed a waist, and then up.  There was an indication that there might have been shoulders, and there might have been arms, and in the middle, at the very top, there might have been a head.  Of course, the biggest indication that it was a head were the eyes.  Two of them.  Open.  One on each side.  About the size of serving platters.

"Oh yeah. Now I can see you." Pockets said.  "Sorry," he apologized, "I thought you were a dirt pile."

"It's all right." came the voice.  "Most humans don't even see me here.  They just run off screaming if I try to speak to them."

"Huh." Pockets replied.  "Imagine that."  He stepped forward and ran his hand down the exposed leg.  "Hard as rock." He thumped it. "Can you feel that?"

"Oh yes.  I can feel... everything.  The rain, the sun, the cold, the heat."  One side of the pile shifted, dirt and leaves rained down, and a massive hand, easily able to pick Pockets up, appeared.  The fingers opened slowly, till the palm was exposed, facing upwards.  "I have held many seasons in my hands."

The lines of the palm were deep, ingrained with years of dirt, causing them to be dark, and well defined.  Pockets stepped closer and looked at the huge hand.

"Long life line, chum.  That's for sure.  Head and heart are so close to each other it's almost hard to tell them apart." He looked up at the large eyes.  "You gotta love somewhere else, huh?"

"Why do you call me chum?" was the rumbly answer.  "I've been called a number of things, but I do not know what a chum is."

Pockets could tell an avoidance when he heard it, so he cleared his voice and said "Er... chum is what I call anyone that might be friend. If you weren't possibly a friend, I'd be running away and screaming, like the other humans you've seen."

A long pause in the conversation, while a massive hand went to scratch an earth encrusted head.  "A friend."  Another pause. "Chum is a friend.  All right.  Are you my friend?"

Pockets smiled largely and said "I'd rather be your friend than your lunch, that's for sure."  He stuck out his hand, "My name is Pockets.  What's yours?"

The giant's hand shifted from his head and came down to a level where Pockets could see that there was no way that his would ever fit, and indeed would instead be swallowed up and probably crushed.  He cleared his throat.  "Well.. maybe just a finger than."

The giant produced one finger and Pockets grasped it and shook it without moving it an inch.

"So," Pockets said, "What was your name?"

Rumbly noises came from vocal cords bigger than most houses.  "I do not remember.  I think I had one long ago, but I do not remember my name."

"Good God and Goddesses!" said Pockets.  "How long have you been here?"

"I also do not know the answer to that.  I have been here long before the desert came.  I was here when the desert was all forest."

Pockets' gaping mouth closed.  "And you've been just... sitting here?"

"Yes."

"Chum, you need to get a hobby." Pockets mused.

"What is a hobby, Pockets." the question growled out.

"It's a... it's something you do to take up time while waiting for what you are wanting to do to show up." Pockets said.

"I don't need something to take up time." said the giant.  "Long ago I made a promise to wait, and that is what I will do."

"Don't you get bored?" Pockets asked.

"What is bored?"

"Then I guess you don't." Pockets stuck his hands in the pockets at his waist and looked around.  "Listen.  It's great to talk to you and all, but it's getting very late, and I need to find somewhere to bunk down."  He looked up into the large, dark eyes.  "You don't move?  Not at all?"

"Very little." was the reply.  "Sometimes when the rain is especially tasty, I'll tip my head back and catch it.  Sometimes when the small animals play around me, I'll move my arm out their way, so they can climb better." He lifted his arm and showed a nest of squirrels, empty. "They're out hunting right now.  I'm glad, because you might have scared them."

"Well, I'll try not to scare them, chum." He paused.  "Is it all right if I stay here with you for the night?  Just the night, mind you.  I'm searching for something, so I'll be leaving in the morning."

"What are you searching for, friend Pockets?"

"I'm...  I'm looking for the cleft in the Ridges.  Trying to find a particular mountain, one that was man-made."  He looked off to his right, searching.  "You ever hear of the Mad Wizard Fletcher?"

"Mad Wizard Fletcher?" The giant pondered.  "Perhaps, long, long ago."

"How 'bout Richard Shockly?"

"The God Shockly?"  The giant asked.  "Everyone has heard of the God Shockly."

"You'd be surprised, chum." Pockets mumbled. Then he said, "See, this Fletcher has a place that I need to find.  It's a mountain, but not exactly a mountain." He paused.  "There's something there that I need to fix, cuz if I don't, the whole world is gonna disappear."

"Oh, I doubt that." said the giant.  "I've been here for so long, I've seen all sorts of things come and go.  The whole world disappearing."  The enormous head shook negatively.  "No... I don't think that is possible."

"Well... it is." Pockets said.  "It's... it's like a powerful magic, and it will suck all the life and all the air and the entire planet into a big drain.  The whole world will disappeared, chum.  Really.  And I think I'm the only one that can fix it."

"Many people live with the belief that they are the only one that can fix things." said the giant.  "In truth, the problem tends to fix itself, regardless of who it is that fixes it."

"Whatever." muttered Pockets.  "I'm not going to debate spatial mechanics and gravity fluxuations with a pile of leaves that doesn't even have a hobby.  Let's just say I have to get there pretty darn quick.  I need to find this place... Hey! I know... you ever heard of a place... a human village called Newton?"

"Newton." repeated the giant.  "Yes.  I have heard of Newton.  It is a relatively new thing.  Only a few thousand seasons old. Before that it was called Firsttown, I believe.  It was something that was here before I was.  Very, very old."

"Okay, great.  I don't really care how old it is, I just want to know if I can get there from here."

"Of course.  You can get anywhere from here," said the giant. "you just have to move in the right direction.  When other humans come here, I see them wander around talking to themselves or their companions and then move on to somewhere else.  I have started to believe that this place is the center of the world, as everyone that comes here eventually goes on toward somewhere else.  Sometimes into the desert, sometimes back the direction they come, sometimes they follow the mountain upward.  But from here, everyone moves on to somewhere else."

Pockets threw up his hands.  "Okay, thanks for that bit of philosophy.  I couldn't have lived one more second without it."  He stepped closer to the giant.  "I don't suppose you could tell me the right direction to move so that I could find Newton?"

"Of course." The giant head smiled.  "It is to the west, about a days walk, or so I believe."  The massive hand raised and pointed toward Pockets' right.  "If you go that direction, following the stream, you will come to an old house.  There is a human that lives there, but he does not talk to anyone.  If you follow the stream that continues past the back of his house, you will come to a large hill.  Follow the stream down the hill and you will be at the village called Newton."

Pockets squinted one eye up at the giant.  "Was that so hard, chum?  Couldn't you have told me that in the first place?"

"Yes, I could have.  But it would not have been as enjoyable."  The grin widened.

"Why you... Did you just make a joke?  Did you just pull a fast one on me?" Pockets returned the grin with one of his own.

"It has been a while, but yes, I think I did just pull a 'fast one'."  The giant said.  "Was it successful?"

"It wasn't bad, considering that you probably haven't told a joke in just about... oh forever."

"That is true.  I cannot remember when the last time was I had a conversation.  As I said, most humans tend to run away if I speak to them.  And squirrels and bears and other animals, while having their own words, tend to be very... single minded.  I thank you for the conversation, friend Pockets."

"Don't mention it, chum." Pockets said.  The dark was not getting any darker, and the night had fallen about as far as it could.  "Can I stay here or not?"

"Of course you may.  I'll let the squirrels know that you are not harmful. Any of the other animals that may want to eat you, I'll simply tell them to leave you alone."

"Gee, that's darned decent of you." Pockets said.  "Nothing disturbs a good night's sleep like being eaten."

Pockets had already decided to use the space he had previously excavated from below the giant's knee.  He pushed his pack and shoved it up inside the hole, and then climbed in after it.

"Not exactly my little spot at home, but any port in a storm." he said to himself.

"Did you say something, friend Pockets?" 

"No, chum.  Just talking to myself."  He squirmed around, making himself comfortable.

Once settled, he cast his thoughts forward to what may be, and back to what was, and straight ahead, to what is.  He sighed.

"Chum," he asked, "what sort of promise would keep you sitting here, forever?"

"Ah." was the reply.  "It was a promise to someone that I would wait for them until they came back."

"What if they never come back?"  Pockets asked.  Something was cold and crawly in his stomach and he wished he had not asked the question.

"They will, friend Pockets."  A sigh that shook the surrounding trees came from the body above him.  "They will.  It may take many, many, many, many seasons, but they will come back."

"But what if they can't?"  Pockets pushed.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  The cold unease was still there, but he had started it.  "What if they're trapped?  What if they can't come back?  What if..." he didn't want to say it, so instead he whispered it, so he wouldn't hear himself, "what if they're dead?"

"Oh, friend Pockets!" came the emphatic answer.  "They will come back.  To think anything less would be to give up hope, to give up faith, to believe the word of a loved one is less than what it is, perfect and honest.  I wait for one like me, one that cannot die.  Trapped perhaps, but mountains crumble, forests give way to deserts, cages fall away into dust.  She will return."

"Ah." whispered Pockets.  "She."

"Yes." said the giant.  "It is my mate, the one to whom I am twined.  She left to do an important thing.  We did argue, me foolishly wanting her to stay.  She had a duty, you see, she had to go in to the newly formed desert, and so she left."

"Did you make up before she left?"

"Oh yes.  It is important you see, to not separate angry.  I understood my foolishness had to do with an erroneous concept of ownership.  One cannot own another, you understand?  So the night before we left, we loved until the dawn, and then the dawn took her elsewhere."

"Great," Pockets mumbled under his breath.  "Another couple of lovebirds."

"I know she will be back, friend Pockets." the giant continued. "She is, as I said, like me.  A spirit, not a human at all, and therefore cannot die.  She can be trapped, she can be delayed, but she will come back.  Spirits are like that."

"I have a couple of friends back home that sound like you two.  Can't separate them, even if they're separated.  She's pregnant, now."  Pockets said.

"And this angers you?" 

"No... not really.  For a long time, I figured I was pretty much not needed anymore.  So yeah, I guess I was feeling angry that these two friends got hitched and I was cut out of the fun.  So yeah.. I guess I was angry. Not anymore, though.  What they did was exactly right for them, see?"

"So what is it that conflicts inside of you, friend Pockets?" The growl was gentle, prodding.

"Oh," Pockets paused, "I dunno.  Might be that, even though I'm happier than I was, I'm still not settled.  I see my friends, I see their happiness and I'm happy for them and all, but...."

"But?"

"I want things that I don't even know I want."  He rolled over onto his back, looked up through the trees to the stars.  "I want to find out what I'm all about, you know?  This journey I'm on... I have this feeling that I may not come back from it."

"Ah." The grumble was soft and sadly understanding.

"I made a promise that I'd come back.  At least to Grizelda.  Bags already knows that I will.  He and I are like that."  He crossed two fingers to show the tightness of the relationship.  "Heck, in all the time we've been together, not more than a few days have passed when we didn't hook back up, and it was as if no time had passed at all."

"Yes," the giant said, "it's much the way with my mate.  When she comes back, it will be as if no time had passed."

"Yeah."  A pause.  "But now, it's all changed, see.  Now, there's a baby on the way, and though I know they love me and all that stuff... I just don't want to be in their way." Another pause.  "I haven't been the best of friends, chum.  I tend to cause trouble, somehow."

"Pockets, friend, I do not think you cause trouble."  The giant shifted, slightly, so that his voice seemed to come from near Pockets' ear.  "I think you might be drawn to it, it might be drawn to you. May I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Do you see the lines of fate?  The lines that connect everything to everything else?  I know there are those that can."

"Chum, I don't get you.  Lines of fate?"  Pockets unlaced his fingers from behind his head to get the circulation back.  "I can see some stuff, yeah, but lines?"

"What sort of 'stuff' do you see, Pockets?"  The voice was becoming softer.

"Oh, if I try to," Pockets explained, "I can look far out and find Bags or Griz no matter where they are.  I thought they might be coming to look for me, but no... When I looked, I found them back at home, snuggled up and sleeping."

"Ah."  A pause.  "You can see them, from this distance?"

"Well... not their bodies, obviously.  I see... a spark is the best description, I guess."  Pockets turned to his side, and watched a night beetle move across a leaf.

"A spark.  Dimly burning, like a light in the dark?"

"Naw.. it's bright.  Bright and kinda white and red and yellow and blue.  That's Bags. Griz... well.. she's complex right now. She's got two sparks, because of the baby.  One is bright like Bags, all the colors and such.  The other is real small, and real bright.  No special colors or anything.  It's just white."

"Ah.  The child would be smaller, of course."  There was a crunching from above, and it alarmed Pockets.

"What are you doing?" He asked, awake now.

"I'm eating, friend."  A small laugh growled its way down to earth.  "Oh, do not worry, friend Pockets.  I do not eat meat. I do, however, occasionally eat nuts and small shrubbery."

"Oh."  Pockets let his mind get quiet again.  "Tell me about these lines of yours."

"Ah.  The lines of fate are not mine, friend Pockets.  They belong to everything.  They flow and criss and cross and merge and dance and connect.  That is what they do most.  They connect.  From one thing to another.  You have them to your Bags and to your Grizelda. You have one to me as we sit here talking.  You have one to this wizard you are searching.  I cannot see them, but I know they exist.  They are the lines of connection, binding your fate to that of every other thing."

"If you can't see them," Pockets asked, "how do you know they exist?"

"How do you know your Bags and Grizelda exist?  How do you know the sparks you see exist?" was the answer.

"Because I've seen them.  You, on the other hand, friend, have never seen these lines you talk about." Pockets was starting to warm to the debate.

"So, seeing them, you know they exist.  But," came the challenge, "can you see them now?  Do not reach out and look for the sparks, just answer the question.  Can you see them now?"

"Sure, they exist." Pockets said.

"How do you know?" the giant asked.  Pockets had the feeling that there was a huge grin above in the darkness.  "You cannot see them, so how do you know they exist?"

"I just do.  I... umm...  I just do.  I can feel them here." He tapped his chest.  Realizing that he couldn't be seen, he said, "In my heart."

"Ah."  Crickets chirped.  Somewhere the owl had returned from its hunt and was whooting again.  "This would be called faith, yes?"

"Yeah.  I have faith that they exist, because I can feel them."

"All right.  Now, go look for them, but may I ask something of you while you look?"

"Sure, I guess.  What is it?" Pockets was curious.

"Before you go looking, unfocused your eyes.  Your human eyes, the ones you see the night and the crickets with. Take a breath and let it out slowly.  Then look up and see what you can see.  Don't go looking for your friends right away.  Just look up.  The lines are there, friend Pockets.  I want to see if you can see them.  Since you can see the sparks of your loved ones, I believe you can.  You see... I have faith that you can."

"Uh huh." Pockets said.  "I already do all that." Thought flickered.  Well, what the hell."  He did as was asked.  He lay on his back and unlaced his fingers again, and adjusted the pack under his head a bit to get more comfortable.  Then he placed his hands on his chest and felt his heart beating.

Thub a thub.  Thub a thub.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly and unfocused his eyes and looked up. He didn't look for anything at all, he just looked up at the fuzzy images that were leaves, stars, and trees.

He saw a spider's web.  It was shining in the dark with star shine and dew.  In the middle of the web, he saw an image, tiny and not moving.  Without focusing, he found his vision closed in on that one image, that small unmoving thing in the center of the web.

It was himself, sitting cross-legged and eyes closed.  As Pockets watched the image of himself, sitting in the middle of the web, the closed eyes opened, slowly.  The blue in his eyes was radiant, and seemed to glow outward, and seemed to be looking back at himself.  On the serene face, a smile grew.

The lips opened and mouthed a single word that seemed to take an awful long time to reach his ears.  The word that it said was "hello."  It was in Pocket's own voice, but it was surprisingly quiet and peaceful.

"Um. Hello yourself. Or myself."  The words sounded so much harsher coming from his own throat. 

The him that was on the web smiled larger, and waved him to come on, come on.  "come play" came the voice. 

Pockets found himself being drawn upward, up, up, and found his awareness expanding.  He saw where his body lay, partially hidden by the giant's leg.  He could, in fact, see the giant, and he saw more.

From his body, there shown lines of color, every color that can be imagined and some that can't.  Some of these lines ran a short distance and connected to the giant, and some ran short distances and connected to the plants and the rocks and the small crawly things in the dirt.  Some ran long distances and disappeared into the horizon.

Still his awareness grew.  He could see the forest in its entirety, stretching for miles and miles over the mountain and back again.  He saw the village of Newton, nestled away at the foot of a waterfall.

"Ah, there it is." he said to no-one at all. 

Pockets' mind was rushing to take in all that it could.  Collecting and storing and calculating and experiencing.  It did pause just briefly in surprise when it realized that Pockets on the ground had become Pockets in the web.

Higher and broader he grew and grew, until he was just past the orbit of the moon, Bigun, but not quite to where Lilun hung in space.  It was here that he stopped and hovered, pondering.

"What's to ponder, brother?" came a voice inside his head.

"The wonder of it all." Softly, quietly, calmly.

"What's to wonder, brother?  It just is.  How many times do you think you will have to learn this?" asked the voice.

"As many times as it takes, I guess."  Pockets responded.

Another voice, deeper and just as calm said "This is where science and religion meet, Pockets. This is where what we know meets that which we cannot know. Follow the lines."

"And who are you?" Pockets asked.

Silence is all that answered, but Pockets found himself following the lines as he was directed to.  One tugged at him, pulled him out of his position far above the planet and down, down, to a small kingdom in the middle of the desert.

It was Tears, and his vantage was high up.  He still had not come to the end of the line, though, so he followed it further until he found himself floating, bodiless, in a room where the King and Queen were.

The King, Timothy Bags was telling the Queen, Grizelda a story.  It was the story of two boys, not quite men.  It was a story of long ago and how a friendship was almost lost and how it became stronger. 

Pockets recognized the story, as well he should.  He felt, vaguely, his body back in the forest smile.  He realized that all his fears were for nothing.  He would not be forgotten, even if he did not come back from his adventure.  He would go on.

Something caught his attention, something he didn't expect.  The line he was following did not connect to Bags, and it did not connect to Grizelda.  Instead, it connected to another life, not quite complete.  Grizelda's unborn child sent back happy greetings and salutations.  The greeting came not in words, but in colors, radiating back up the line to be absorbed by Pockets' own energy form, hovering in the room.  Surprised, Pockets sent happy tidings back to the little bundle growing in Grizelda's womb.

A tug from behind drew Pockets away, flying far away from Tears. Soon he found himself above a small valley created by twin mountains and trapped by a fork in a river.  In the valley was a village, and the entire village seemed to be a fire with light.  Pockets wondered at the strength of the energy that radiated from it.

Drawn by the power of the light, as a moth would, he followed downward an individual line.  It settled and entered a window on the third story of a rickety building.  Pockets hovered at the window and watched an old man, with wispy gray hair and pointed ears write word after word on parchment, scraps of paper, empty bags.  He seemed to write on anything that was available.

The man looked up from his writing, looked toward the window and squinted.  "You shouldn't be here." he said, apparently addressing Pockets.

"You shouldn't be here, at least not yet."  The old man sat the quill down and got up from his desk.  He crossed to the window, waving his hands.  "Shoo, go back! Go back.  Shoo! Shoo!" as if he was waving off pigeons.

Suddenly Pockets felt a great tug at the base of his neck.  Away, away, he flew from the window.  Over the mountains and through the woods, until he was above Newton, but slightly more to the north.  He hovered above a ragged peak, from which could be seen and incredibly broad light.

It was blue in color, shimmering to white and was broad enough that Pockets' new friend, the giant, could stand in the middle of it, stretch out his arms and not touch the sides.  He followed it up, up, and out, as it spread, umbrella like to encircle the planet.  Streamers rained down from it, touching every part of the planet, painting the planet's surface in translucent, almost transparent light.

"That's where I'm going tomorrow." he murmured quietly.

Another strong tug and he found himself once again, looking at the figure of himself in the web.  "Goodbye." it said, waving calmly.

Pockets blinked tears on to his drying eyes. "What the hell was that?" he asked, loudly, his own voice jangling in his ears.

"I suspect, friend Pockets, 'that' was the lines of fate." the giant rumbled. "I thought you might be one of those that could see them. How did you find them to be?"

"Very, very interesting," Pockets said.  "And very, very tiring."  The memories were starting to fade quickly as his exhausted mind started to shut down for the night.  "If it's all right with you, chum, I'm going to go to sleep."

"Ah." growled the voice, softly.  "Sleep is something I've never experienced either, like the lines of fate.  I know it exists, though."

"Yeah, yeah." Pockets said.  "No need to rub it in."

A low chuckle drifted from above.  "Sleep well, friend Pockets."

A quiet snore was the reply.
****************
"Dammit!"  Bags pounded at the door where he had seen Pockets go. It echoed back with a hollow ring.  "Stupid metal door" he said.

He stepped back and took a better look at his hulking adversary. It rose a hundred feet into the air.  He pulled a knife out of his bag and scratched the wall.  The knife scritched with metal against metal, and a bit of it flaked away.

"Stupid metal tower!"  Bags yelled at it.  His frustration was growing. Bad enough he and Pockets had that stupid fight.  Bad enough Pockets ran out before Bags could try to make it better.  Worse still that Pockets ran into a stupid metal tower and locked the door!

Bags circled the base of the tower, looking for another way in. He didn't find any at the base, but he did notice a small square opening about fifteen feet up a straight featureless wall at the back of it.

"Damn you, Pockets!" he said, shaking his fist at the tower. "It would be just like you to get yourself trapped in some stupid tower without an entrance." 

He looked around for something, anything to help him climb the featureless surface.  He saw nothing. No rope, not picks, nothing that would work.

"Think Bags..." he muttered as he paced the ground.  Absently he kicked at a crate, and stubbed his toe and cutting it open. "Dammit!"  He said. "I should have put on my boots.  Damn Pockets."

Limping, he went back to the barrack to see if there was something he could wrap his aching toe in.  He found and ripped an old pillow case on a cot that wasn't being used.  Sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapping the bandaged around his toe, something clicked.

He was about six feet tall, and lying stretched out on the bed, his toes touched one end, and his hands not quite reached the other.

"Perfect," he said, reaching for his boots.

He carried the bed frame, minus its thin mattress and pillows, back to the tower.  He dragged it around to the back and propped it up against the metal wall, underneath the opening.  It put the opening just about, but not quite reachable if Bags stood on his tip toes.  He could touch the edge of the opening, but was unable to grasp the lip.

Bags sighed and stamped his perch once to make sure it was solid.  It wasn't. It shook and quivered.  "Great.  With my luck, I'll end up with a broken leg and a stubbed toe." 

Bags looked up at the opening, judged the distance and jumped.  The bed frame fell away from the wall, and clattered against the floor of the cavern.  "Pretty much what I figured, so ... only way to go is in."

Scrabbling for purchase, Bags fought to climb the wall and squeeze into the opening.  Inch by agonizing inch he levered himself into the opening until his forearms were completely into the hole.  This allowed him to see into it, as it dropped the lip of the entrance below eyelevel.

Looking down into the darkness the hole faded into, he saw, placed evenly along the floor of the tunnel loops of steel, like hand holds.  "Must be some sort of crawl space." Bags muttered.  "Whatever, it's got a place for folks to crawl up with, so that means there's a place where I can crawl down to."

Once he grabbed one of the loops, it was an easy thing for him to haul his body into the opening.  The crawl space had a slight decline, sliding down into the dark.  It wasn't tall enough for Bags to stand in, wasn't tall enough for him to even crouch decently, so he pulled himself hand over hand down the tunnel.  He crawled about twenty feet when he found a three way junction.

There was a ladder that led straight up, there was the tunnel he just came out of, and a hallway that led off somewhere to the left.

"Eeenie, Meenie, Miney, Moe, Holy crap, which way should I go?"  He heard his voice echo off the walls.  "Pockets has to be above the fifth floor.  Probably on that mysterious top floor. Which means... up I go."

Climbing was easy, as long as he didn't look down.  He had climbed to the seventh floor, and stopped to rest on the landing that was helpfully placed there.  There was a door on each level, and on the door was a number, informing the climber of what floor they had reached.

"Okay.  Only three more to go." Bags puffed.  "And he had better be there, or else I'm going to kill him!"

The last three floors were not as easy as the previous seven.  After he had climbed above the eight floor, Bags felt a sting in his left thigh.  He looked down and there was a hole in his trousers, and the hole was smoking.  It also smelled slightly of burning flesh.  As he was examining the hole in his trousers which he discovered included his leg, a bright red light flashed out of somewhere and burned his hand.

"OW!  What the holy hell?"  Bags looked around to see who was responsible.  He didn't see anyone at all, but did notice a large number of black holes in the walls nearby.  One of them had started to glow and as he watched, another bright red flash put another hole in the seat of his pants.

"Hey... that's just pisses me off.  These are new!"  He reached into his bag, rummaged around until he found what he was looking for, a fist sized rock.  He took aim at the next hole that started to glow and threw the rock, hard.  It banged against the hole and continued to ricochet down the next seven levels.  The hole continued to glow until it shot another light out and burned another hole in his trousers.

"All right.  When faced with an opponent that's apparently unbeatable," he saw the next hole start to glow, "run away!"  He grabbed the next rung and hoisted himself up.  Below he could see red beams flashing, getting closer.  He climbed faster.

The beams followed him all the way to the final and tenth floor.  He got off the ladder and ran to the door, a red light barely missing his foot.  He grabbed the handle and pulled, to no result.

"Dammit!"  He pulled harder. Nothing.  He put both hands on the handle and pulled, his shirt tearing along his biceps.  Sweat built up on his forehead as he pulled and he started to develop a shine.  The beams of light bounced off him, having no effect on either his flesh or his notice.

"You... will... open..."  Bags placed on foot against the wall and pulled with all his might. Slowly, the handle started to turn.  The door didn't budge, but the handle was definitely turning. It turned until it came off the door, and handle and Bags flew backwards, hitting the railing and almost crashing over it.

"Okay. That does it.  No more nice guy."  Bags took three deep breaths and launched himself at the door.  He hit it at full speed, shoulder taking the brunt of the force and translating it to the door.  Which bent.  The frame could not take the punishment and squeed out of true.  The door sagged a bit and tilted outwards.

Bags grabbed the edge of the door and pulled. The door moved open, complaining the entire time, but it moved.  When it was open enough for Bags to squeeze through, he did, just as another light beam flashed against the spot he had occupied.

He crashed onto the floor of the top room of the tower and took a second to orient himself.  There was at first glance and as Pockets had told him, nothing up here.  The walls were filled with rows of lights, and there was a constant humming coming from somewhere.  He let his gaze take in more of the room. 

Off to his right, there was something, a glow.  It was the chair Pockets had told him about, and he crawled towards it.  It was a very large chair, made of grey metal, and there were wires coming from it or to it.  The back was facing him so he walked around to the front, expecting to see what he had hoped he wouldn't.

Pockets was sitting in the chair, just as Bags had expected, but Pockets didn't quite look like Pockets.  His face was distorted in pain, and it appeared to Bags as if it was... flowing.  Bags looked to the other side of Pockets and saw a tiny speck, held floating in a bottle as if by magic.

"What the hell is going on here?" Bags cried out.  "Where the hell is Fletcher?" Bags reached over to Pockets, to grab his friend and pull him out of here.

"Stop!  You idiot, you don't know what you're doing!"  A voice from behind Bags called out.

"Bout time, you bastard." Bags turned around.  "What are you doing to Pockets, Fletcher?"

"What I'm doing is nothing." Fletcher said, his beard dragging the ground. He was dressed much as that first day Bags had seen him.  His peaked hat was bobbing as he walked briskly towards Bags.  "What Pockets is doing is something, and even if I could tell you, I seriously doubt you would understand."

"It doesn't matter what I understand, buddy.  What matters is what it's doing to my friend."  Bags reached out to grab the front of Fletchers robe.  "Now.. what in the name of Gods and Goddesses is going on here, and what do we do to stop it?"
****************************
Fletcher showed genuine surprise. "Why would I want to stop it?"

"Look at him!" Bags spat out as he pointed to where Pockets sat. 

Pocket's face was contorted, in obvious pain.  Tears leaked from his eyes, ran down his face, and flowed to the right side.  The tears left his face and flew horizontally through the air to crash against the bottle that held the captive speck, where they flattened and smeared across the bottle to form a salty, wet film.

"He's in pain!" Bags shouted.  "He comes back from here, night after night, worn out.  He has nightmares, he cries, he's in constant pain.  He tries not to show it, but I know it.  I've known him longer than you, bub, and he's in pain."

"Then let's ask him, shall we?"  Fletcher casually pin-wheeled Bags' hand away from his robe and strode purposely toward where Pockets sat.  "The connection you two have is the only thing that keeps you here, my dear mule.  I don't know why Pockets' has such a strong connection to you, but there's no helping it."

Bags followed, started to cross to the other side of the chair.  Fletcher stopped him.  "Stay on this side." he warned. 

"Oh?  What's on the other side?" Bags asked.

"Death, fool."  Fletcher pointed to the bottle. "You can't understand this, but that bottle holds a small bit of star-stuff.  It's very strong and if you were to stand between Pockets and it, you would be drawn to it and crushed to it, just like Pockets' tears."  He waved at the walls with their blinking lights.  "These machines that you see here are the only thing that is controlling it.  Pockets is on a journey that you cannot imagine, that you cannot even dream about with your dull imagination."

He leaned down and looked at Pockets fondly.  "Dear Pockets is traveling faster than you can even begin to dream about."

"Traveling?" asked Bags. "He's not even moving!"

"Not physically, you dolt." Fletcher snapped. "His mind, his... consciousness... is moving through time, not space.  Physically, he's sitting here, but his mind, moving through dimensions that you cannot see; you cannot experience.  Time and distance mean nothing to him right now. He is beyond all that."

"Riiiight." Bags said. "Look, Fletcher, he's in obvious pain. See? He's crying.  I want this stopped now, because if he's hurt, in anyway, you're not long for this..."

"Please spare me your chest beating." Fletcher interrupted.  He bent down to Pockets ear and said, quite clearly, "Pockets... Are you all right?"

"Piss off", Pockets said, his words slurring a bit.

"Pockets," Fletcher continued, "You know I can't very well 'piss off'.  Your... um... friend is here.  Bags is here, and he wants to know if you're all right."

"Don' believe you." Pockets said, strain showing in his voice.

Bags leaned forward, "No Pockets.  I'm here, really.  You okay?"

Pockets head twitched to the left, slightly, and his eyes seemed to try to open, but gave up the fight.  "Bags?  How'd you....? Oh. Never mind, I can see it."  Silence, then slurring, "I'm fine Bags.  Just very busy. Talk later, okay?"

"There!" Fletcher said, triumphantly.  "He's fine."  He patted Bags on the shoulder.  "Now, I suggest you do as he asked.  Piss off. Go somewhere else.  Go to that pub in Newton, get drunk, go play with some woman or other.  Whatever you do."

Bags threw off Fletcher's hand with a jerk.  "All right.  I'll leave.  I can see that he says he's fine."  Bags bent down to Pockets one more time.  "Hey, bud. I'm sorry about... you know." He looked back at Fletcher.  "Before."

Pockets might have smiled, but it was ghostly and wan. "Me too.  Talk later.  Love you, chum."

"Yeah.  Whatever.  Me too."  Bags touched Pockets arm before Fletcher could stop him.  He felt what seemed like a hundred tiny shocks on his skin and jerked his hand away.  "Um, yeah." he said.  "See you later."

Bags looked around the room, and not seeing a door other than the one he crashed through, asked, "How do I get out of here?"

Fletcher raised an eyebrow and replied, "How did you get into here?"  He shrugged toward the broken door. "Go out the way you came in."

Bags sighed.  "Bastard", he said.

As he was leaving, he heard Pockets' voice, far away, distorted, but urgent.  He said, "At the pub."
******************
"Are you there yet?" Bags heard the voice in his head.

"Shut up, Pockets." he grumbled as he slid down the ladder to the bottom rung.

"Are you there yet?"

"NO!" Bags shouted.  "Now get out of my head!"

"Bags, I don't want to know if you're at the pub, I want to know if you're at the bottom level."

"Oh." Bags said.  "Yeah, I'm on the bottom level."  He stood at the bottom, greatful the light beams that cut three holes in his trousers and two in his butt did not fire while he climbed down.  "Now... let me guess.  You climbed into my head when I got those shocks, right?"

"Yeah." Pockets said. "That's pretty much right."

"Ok. You know I don't believe any of this, don't you?"  Bags muttered.

"Yeah, I know, but..."

"But you know I'm gonna listen to you anyway, right?"

"Well, I'd hope so."  Pockets' voice sounded a bit contrite.

"Do you know why I'm going to listen to you?" Bags asked.

"Um.  Cuz you know I'm right?"

"No." Bags said.  "There are two reasons I'm going to listen to you."  He ticked off one finger.  "One, I know I'm not crazy, and hearing voices is a crazy thing."  Another finger ticked off, "Two, we're friends, and no matter how nuts this is to me, well... It's you."

"I can live with that."  Bags felt Pockets shrug.

"Now.  What in the seven hells are you doing in my head, Pockets?" Bags demanded.

"Bags, you've gotta get me outta here!" Pockets pleaded. "Really.  This thing is killing me."

"That was my plan, Pockets, until Fletcher showed up."

"It's not gonna be done while I'm in the chair, Bags." Pockets said.  "Fletcher is always here.  He's hooked to the machines somehow."

Bags looked around at the stark walls of the lowest level of the maintenance shaft.  "Look, can we take this somewhere else?  This place ain't only boring, it's darn depressing."

"Sure, Bags.  Take me to the pub, like I said."

"Now that's an idea I can live with."  Bags agreed.  "Tell me what I gotta do on the way."

Jinx's was reputed to be the oldest bar on the planet, and it was quite possibly the truth.  The wood was gray, the floors were stone, and the booths were narrow.  It smelled of old smoke, of sweat and blood and ale.  It was a two story, skinny building, with an outhouse in the back.  It was a two holer, serving both men and women.

The bar was on the outskirts of Newton, with the single road in town leading past it.  Beyond there were some shanty shacks and a few shops, but not much more than this.  In other times, in other places, it would have been called a muleskinner town. Not much happened here, and the population was just a few old men, a few families that liked the seclusion and the folks that just happened to passing through on their way to something else.

Rumors had it the first founders of this town used Jinx's as the first town hall. This also was quite probably the truth.  Thee wasn't anyone one around to dispute it, unless you count Zebediah and Zachary, two brothers that were, indisputably, the oldest people in the village.

They claimed to over two thousand years old.  They claimed to have been here when Jinx's was only a few years old.  They claimed that they were both cursed... or blessed... to live until they simply decided that they had lived long enough.

There wasn't anyone to dispute that, either.

Zeb and Zack had taken Bags under their wing, so to speak.  He was aware of their claims of being as old as they said, but he didn't believe it for a minute.  In his mind, if you can't prove a thing empherically, then the odds of it being true declined to the point of being not true.  Bags was, as Zeb would say time and time again, a hard sell.

Zack, the taller of the two, had long gray hair and broad shoulders that still carried the strength of his youth.  He was still muscular enough to beat Bags at arm wrestling,

Zeb was about three inches shorter than his brother, but like Zack also had broad shoulders and strong arms.  He wore his gray hair cut short and close to his scalp.

Both men had bright green eyes that captivated an audience when they were telling their stories.  They both had a gentle quality to their faces, though Zeb would occasionally get a twinkle in his sea green eyes that would show the devilment below the surface.

Zack also had the unusual ability to be able to hear things.  Unusual things. Things that most people couldn't hear.  For instance, he said he could hear the animals talking.  He said he could sometimes hear the voices of those long dead.

Zeb would nod at these claims and smile, and wink at Bags.  "He can do all those things, it's true.  We've been up and down this world, son, and we've seen things that you wouldn't believe."

"Well," Bags would say, hoisting an ale to his mentors, "I, for one, don't believe it, but I'll defend your right to believe it."

Zack would shake his head and Zeb would just smile broader and say "Bags, you are one hard sell, you know?"

Bags would just nod and say, "Damn straight."

Tonight, Bags sat with Zeb and Zack and was telling them about his latest adventures in the tower.  They sat over three large mugs of ale and a bowl of free lunch.  Tonight it was peanuts, imported from a farm down the road.

"I just touched his arm, and then it was like I grabbed one of those electric eels you lied about, Zeb.  The ones down south of the continent in that great big ocean."

"Ah." said Zack.  "That must have been when you picked up your passenger."

"It wasn't a lie, Bags!" Zeb defended.  "Those eels were sometimes twelve feet long!"

"Wait." Bags said.  "What passenger, Zack?"

"And someday I'll show you that ocean, son." Zeb went on.  "Bigger than you can imagine, blue as ..."

"The one that's riding your head, Bags." Zack said. "I can hear him plain as day.  Course, he's not doing much right now.  Just going Ooooh and Aaaah over something he's seeing.  Some where far away."

"Um. Okay." Bags said.  He stared at Zack and wondered if there wasn't something to the old man's brag about hearing things.  Pockets, whom Bags could hear in his mind, was indeed just making interested noises. Bags had asked Pockets to please shut the hell up, but Pockets was just Pockets, and when presented with a new shiny, couldn't restrain himself.

"Anyway..." Bags said, while Zeb was still extolling the wonders of the southern continent.  "Pockets was sorta... stuck in my head, and he was asking for help."

"There are animals and people down there, son." Zeb was going on. "The original inhabitants of this planet live down there too, Bags.  We've seen 'em. Haven't we Zack?"  Zack nodded.

"Ooookay." said Bags.

"What sort of help, Bags?" asked Zack, who was apparently listening to both of them.

"He asked me to get him out of there," Bags said, "told me that he was losing bits and pieces of himself there."

"No, not bits and pieces," The voice of Pockets said, echoing in Bag's head. "I said I was losing parts of myself every time I sat in the chair.  I'm... I'm forgetting things, Bags.  I don't want to forget things."

"I certainly heard that." Zack said.  "Is that your friend, Bags?  The one that is afraid he's forgetting things?" 

Bags looked at Zack, wide eyed, and Zeb looked at Zack and then at Bags.  "I told you so," he said smugly.

"Hush, Zeb."  Zack admonished.  "That's your friend, isn't it?  The one in the tower?"

"Yeah," said Bags, not quite believing, "that's Pockets."

"Ah." Zack got glassy eyed and said "Hello Pockets."

"Bags, can this guy hear me?" Pockets asked.

"Apparently so, bud." Bags replied.

"Yes, Pockets.  I can hear you fine."  Zack said.  "So tell me what's going on."

"Okay," said Pockets.  "Here's the story.  I'm in a multi dimensional fold that created by a captive quantum singularity.  The singularity is being focused by the application of a particle called the graviton, which I know a bit about, but not very much at all."

"Ever time I sit in this chair in the tower; the singularity is focused about halfway between the chair and the magnetic bottle in which it sits."

"Now, my brain is wired into a computer through very small electrodes inserted into my skull.  My thought waves are filtered and tuned to the same frequency as the quantum singularity and are, therefore, drawn to it."

"Using this method, I can escape the crushing effects of the of the singularity's gravity well and instead ride the transverse waves that slice through time and space as we know it."

"Sure, Pockets." Bags said.  "I didn't understand a damn thing you said."

"It means, Bags," Pockets replied, "that I don't get crushed and instead I get to see all sorts of things that are impossible any other way.  I've seen the stars, Bags.  I've seen how this place was created. I've seen what happened to make this place as it is."

"All right... sure." said Bags.  "That's a good thing, I guess."

"Yeah. And ... Bags... I've seen the future.  I've seen our future.  Not the near future, of course, but the farther future, down the road."

"Oh?" This caught Bags' interest.  "Do tell.  What was it like?"

"Pretty boring.  I skipped most of it." was the answer.  "Some of it is interesting, though.  Not much I can tell you about it.  You'd have to be there."

"Great." said Bags.  He looked at Zeb and Zack. "Yep, it's really Pockets.  I can't torture myself quite the way he does."

"So, Pockets," asked Zack, "why do you need help?  Seems to me that you'd be pretty well off there, traveling the universes and seeing things we humans don't."

"Yeah, there is that." Pockets admitted.  "But look at it this way.  Every time I sit in this chair, I lose a part of myself. Sure, I gain some incredible knowledge, but there's something I lose that's ...  me.  And it hurts."  The tone took on a more urgent sound "I mean, it really hurts Bags.  Like having a tooth pulled from my soul.  I don't wanna do it anymore."

"Doesn't sound like much fun to me, Pockets." Zack said.  "If you don't want to do it, why do you continue to go back to the chair, back to the tower?"

Bags said "That exactly what I asked him!  Did I get an answer? Noooo... just that it was something he had to do."

Zeb was getting bored and started to play mumbly pegs with his knife. He had just missed his pinky for the third time when he asked, "Is anyone going to tell me what is going on?"

Zack said "In a minute, Zeb."  To Pockets he said, "Pockets, if we're going to help you, we have to know why you keep going back."

"No," said Pockets, "you really don't.  Really.  You don't.  Bags knows the plan, what we need and why.  You don't need to know anything else."

Zack looked at Zeb.  "Okay. This is what's going on.  Pockets, who is Bags' friend is trapped in one of those gravytrons things we found out about. Remember those?"

Zeb nodded. "Yeah, but that was an awful long time ago, Zack. What's it doing near here?"

Zack touched his nose, and said, "Can only be one or two places and one or two reasons those damn things have shown back up." He squinted at Zeb. "You know what I'm talking about."

Zeb nodded, but Bags said "Well, I don't know what you're talking about.  I don't know what Pockets is talking about!" He threw up his arms. "Apparently I'm the least informed person around here!"

Zack sighed and said, "Bags, there are some things you don't need to know.  There are somethings you're better off not knowing. This is one of those things. Okay?"

Bags looked sullen.

Zack relented, leaned forward and said, "I'll tell you this much.  A long time ago, and I mean a long, long time ago," he looked hard at Bags, to make his point, "Zack and I were involved with taking care of some badness that surrounded those gravytrons.  You don't believe anything we've told you about those times, so to hell with you." 

He sat back in his chair, and continued, "There are things in this world that you have no concept of, so get used to it.  There are things in your stubborn mind that you will never believe."

"That's all right.  That is one of your greatest strengths, believe it or not."  Zeb smiled warmly.

"That's true." Zack agreed.  "It will more than likely help you through a lot of difficult times."

Zeb nodded, "That and your obvious charm and sense of humor."

"Okay, enough with the smoozing." Bags said, drumming his fingers on the table.  "I get your point.  Mysteries abound, yeah, yeah, yeah."

"So, what's the hang up?" Zeb asked.  "Let's just bust into the tower and get this Pockets guy."

"It may not be that simple, Zeb." said Zack.  "There may be traps and all sorts of stuff there, like last time."

"Well, no, not really." Pockets interjected.  "It's pretty much straight forward, except the lasers used to keep rodents out."

"Oh." said Zack.

"Great." Bags said.  "I'm a rodent."

"What?" Zeb asked. "What?  What's going on?"

"Pockets said there weren't any traps, Zeb." Zack supplied.

"Oh." Zeb scratched his chin stubble. "I'd say that's a good thing."

"Yes," said Zack, "But there's something Pockets isn't telling us."

Bags said, "Maybe I can help.  On the way here, Pockets asked me to bring back a whole bunch of ale."

"Ale?" Zeb asked. "Whatever for?"

"Because, he said, if I'm to get him outta there, he has to be stinking drunk." Bags explained.

"Huh." Zeb observed.  "Well... that's not always a bad way to be."

Zack nodded.  "I think I understand."  To Pockets, he said, "It's so you don't know what's going on, right?  So you don't have the ability to concentrate."

Pockets voice sounded very far away, almost lost. "You guys... I don't have any more time.  I'm sorry Bags, you gotta hurry.  I'm afraid that this time I might not come back, okay?  I'm intrigued, I wanna stay, and this is the best ride in the universe." A sad, fading chuckle came through. "Literally, in the universe.  Hurry, Zack.  Sour the milk.  Explain it to Bags."  Then there was nothing.

Bags shivered like he was cold. "Good lord!  That was weird." He stopped and listened. "Pockets?" he called.  There was no answer.  "I think he's gone." he said to Zack and Zeb. He shook his head.  "Seems so empty in there now."

"How can you tell?" Zeb asked, smiling.

"Ha ha." Bags tossed an empty peanut shell at Zeb.  He looked at Zack. "What did he mean by souring the milk?"

Zack looked at Bags, looked at Zeb and said, "Zeb, Pockets is rigged into this computer thingy up in the tower.  His thoughts are somehow mingled with it, and he's afraid that as long as he's thinking straight, we won't be able to get him out."

"Ah ha." said Zeb.

"What do you mean 'we'" asked Bags. "This is my job.  He's my friend, my responsibility."

"Yeah, ok." said Zeb.  "I'm sure you don't mind us tagging along.  Just cuz we're curious, you understand."  Zeb looked at Zack.  "The ale, Bags, is so that Pockets will get drunk. You've been drunk.  And if you're drunk enough, what happens to your brain?  Ever woke up and wondered how you ended up in that woman's room?  And where your pants were?"

"I thought I was just having a good time." Bags said.  Suspiciously he asked, "How do you know about it?"

Zeb looked sheepish. "Never mind.  The important thing is that you didn't know what the hell was going on.  Someone could come along, pick you up and put you in a room without you knowing.  You had no control.  Get it yet?"

"Yeah." Bags said, looking at Zeb.  "I get it.  You put me in that hooker's room and I couldn't do anything to stop you.  Just like, if Pockets is drunk enough, he can't do anything to stop us.  That graviton thingy will loose its focus and I can yank him out of there without doing him any damage."  He looked at Zack. "Right?"

"Bingo." Zack nodded.

Bags looked at the two aging brothers with their bright green eyes, and their youthful strength. "All right," he sighed.  "How do we start?"

Zeb just smiled and said, "Yo! Girl... whatever your name is."  The waitress giggled, came over and said "Yes, Zeb?  What's your pleasure."

Zeb said "Not tonight, darling.  We're going brain killin!" His smile got broader. "We're gonna need ale. And not that stuff you're serving us.  We need the good stuff."

The girl pouted and said "Zeb, I always serve you the good stuff."

"Yeah, whatever.  But this time, Zinnia, we need the better good stuff.  And we need..." he looked at the other two, "what? A keg of it?"

"Better make it a couple." Zack said, looking at Bags.  "I think more than just Pockets is going to need it before the night is through."
****************
"Yeah, so why is it called a crowbar?"  Bags was asking.

"Look," said Zeb, "it's like I told you.  Things get named for all sorts of odd reasons." He hefted the bar and looked at it.  "Maybe it's because the claw looks like a crow's foot. I dunno why it's called a crowbar."

"Pockets would know." Bags muttered.

Zack was leading the trio up a steep climb.  It was full of sharp rocks and stunted trees.  "Doesn't look very familiar, does it, brother?" he asked, standing on top of a flat boulder and holding his hand out to help the other two up.

"Nope." Zeb agreed.  To Bags he said, "Last time we were here, it was almost all volcanic stuff, no trees at all, even these ugly things."

"When was that," Bags asked, grunting himself up without the help of Zack, "about a thousand years ago?"

"More like two thousand." Zack said matter of factly.

They stood on the tabletop of the boulder and surveyed the area.  It was, Zack had explained, the backdoor to the mountain where Bags and Pockets had spent the last 12 years.  It was rough terrain, and retained some of the dangers from long ago.  Deep clefts could drop hundreds of feet, or unstable rocks could rain down, and that would be the end of that.  Steam occasionally leaked out of fissures in the ground, lending an appearance of one of the seven hells, Bags remarked.

"So there're seven of them now, huh?" Zeb asked.

"Sure. Everyone knows that." Bags replied.

"Remind me to ask you about the other six when we're done here."  Zack jumped down on the other side.

"You mean if we survive." Bags said.

"Hell, son," Zeb said, "it's a guaranteed thing!"  He followed Zack down to the ground.  "Zack and me, why... we're practically immortal!"

"Yeah, whatever." Bags said, rolling his eyes.

"This whole area was blasted centuries ago, Bags."  Zack explained.  "It was done on purpose to keep people away.  Shockly made it uninhabitable and also placed a mental suggestion that caused the rest of us to forget it even existed."

"Oh?" Bags wondered, "What happened to that?"

"It's still around.  Most folks would say this valley is just not here.  It's not on any map, and if anyone stumbles onto it, they tend to turn back and walk away from it." Zack said.  He smiled back at Bags and said, "Zeb and I are immune to it, though."

"Lucky you." Bags grumbled.

"Yeah, lucky us." Zeb shot back.  "Look, we didn't have to help you rescue your little friend, chum."

"Yes we did."

"Shut up, Zack." Zeb warned his brother away with a wave of his hand.  "I, for one would rather be back at the bar, drinkin', flirtin', and then waking up with a headache.  We, Zack and I... or more precise, Zack knew that if you did this alone, you'd screw it up.  You're just a punk kid, barely wet behind the ears."

"I've fought in half a dozen wars!" Bags shouted.  "That's not exactly wet, old man."

"And Zack and I have fought in a hundred or a thousand times that.  We can see the writing on the wall here, Bags.  This is not something you're gonna take on by yourself and walk away from with just a scratch on your butt."

Zack stepped forward and placed a hand on Zeb's shoulder.  "Bags," he began, "Zeb's right." He looked down at the ground for a moment, then looked up with shiny eyes. "Your friend is important to you.  I understand that.  Please believe me, though, when I tell you I think I know what's going on here.  If we don't, me and Zeb, help you, you're gonna lose your friend forever.  He'll never get out of that chair, ever, ever again."

Bags looked first at Zeb, whose scowl was more severe and angry than he had ever seen before.  Looking at Zack, he could see tears in the old man's eyes.  That was a puzzle that Bags decided he should leave alone.  It was obvious that both men were here because they chose to.  They could have let him come by himself.

"Okay, I'm... sorry." Bags said, with clenched jaw.  "I know you guys think you mean well, and I know you're doing this because ...  Well, hell... I don't know why you guys are doing this.  You coulda just let me go it alone."  He looked to his right, searching for words.  "I still don't know why we had to go this long way around.  It was much shorter just going up from the village. Six hours instead of twelve or whatever it's taken us."

"Because" said Zack, gently, "the same thing that affects everyone else about this valley affects us about this mountain you tell us about.  We have no idea where it is, have never heard about it, and if we got close enough we would never see it."

"How do you know?  Did you ever try to find it?" Bags asked.

"Of course we did." Zeb said. "Your directions were pretty clear.  Follow the road to the stream, turn and follow the path next to the stream till there's a break in the trees.  Follow the break till we come to the cave, then follow the cave till we get to the gate.  That's pretty much what you said, right?"

"That's it." Bags agreed.

"Okay, so we tried to follow those directions... What?" Zeb looked at Zack.

"About five times, Zeb." Zack supplied.

"About five times, and each and every time we ended up back at Newton."

"Oh." Bags pondered this, and then asked, "Why did you try?"

"Because we wanted to see where you lived. Drop in and visit, neighborly like," said Zeb.  "And Zinnia wanted to know."

"Oh." Bags said.  Then "Oh!"

"We weren't even sure if we could get you to come this way," Zack admitted. "We were afraid that you might have the same sort of mind control on you that everyone else does."

"Don't you think we've lost time?" Bags asked.  Zeb and Zack were leading him toward a blank face on a high wall.  What appeared to be a blank wall turned out to be a large boulder.  The three squeezed behind it, and found it was hiding the entrance to a small cave.  The cave mouth was about at tall as a man, and wide enough to hold Zeb and Zack standing next to each other, but not much more than that.

"No..." Zack said.  "I have a feeling that your mister Fletcher was taking a bit of time, and it sounds like Pockets was being... umm... trained."

"Trained?" Bags thought about it.  Thought about what Pockets had said about all the knowledge he had absorbed over the years. "Yeah, maybe." he conceded, "But trained for what?"

"Maybe to take over the family business." Zeb said.

"What does that mean?" Bags asked.

"It might mean nothing at all, Bags." Zack said, giving a warning look to Zeb.  "What matters is that Pockets wants out, and that is what we are doing.  Getting him out."

Zeb pointed up to some lettering.  "Yep... this is the place.  See? It says, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'"."

Zack nodded, looking up.  "Yes, this is the place."  He turned back to Bags and explained, "It was put above the gates of hell to warn off strangers.  This is an illusion." He tapped on the side of the cave wall.  It responded with a muffled 'punk'.

The three moved cautiously inside.  After they had gone about five feet, a strip of light on either side of them burst into brilliance. Bags let out a yelp from surprise.  The light came from a thin rectangle, about two feet long and an inch wide, which ran horizontally along the wall.

"This sure ain't like any cave I've ever been in," Bags said, a bit nervously.

"Just relax, Bags," said Zeb.  "We've been here before.  It's all right."

The cave now had the appearance of a long, gray corridor.  On the left side, near Zack, a previously unseen panel sprang into view.  It was about four feet above the floor and six inches square, with two lights, one above the other.  A long, red handle, in the up position, was next to the lights.  The top light had come on with the light strip, and was slowly blinking amber, on and off.

Zeb pulled the handle down and with a quiet swooshing sound, a door irised behind them.  Bags yelped again.

"Would you just relax?" Zeb said. "Sheesh," he said, shaking his head at his brother, "these kids these days."

"Yeah, I know." Zach replied.  He turned partially to Bags and said "Now, you might see some pretty weird stuff, but don't let it throw you, okay?"  He started walking down the corridor.

Bags nodded, wide-eyed.  "Okay," he said with and uncertain quaver in his voice, "can you give me a hint at what sort of weird stuff?"

Suddenly, a blood curdling bellow came from nowhere at the men, and right behind it was a Cerberus, a three-headed monster.

"Well," said Zeb, following his brother, "something like that comes to mind."

Bags yelled and jumped behind Zeb, who turned and said, "We told you not to let it put you off.  This is just a..." he paused and Bags ran into him. "What was it called, Zack?"

"A holy gram."

"Yeah.  This isn't real." To prove his point, he passed his hand through the image of the snarling three-headed dog.  "See?  Just lights and smoke.  A holy gram." He kept walking past it.

"Looked real to me," Bags said, looking back at the Cerberus, still snarling.

"Don't be such a baby, Bags." Zeb said.  "We'll protect you."

Zack stopped in a small circular room at the end of the corridor.  He waited until the other two were close at hand, then turned to Bags and asked "Where did you say Pockets was being kept?"

"He's on the tenth floor of the tower."  Bags supplied.  "Sitting in a chair, next to something he called a 'quantum singularity'.

"Anything else you can remember?" Zeb prompted.

"Lots of lights on the walls... something called a computer.  A couple of big tables.  One entrance from some stupid ladder and ... hell, I don't know... that's all I saw."

Zack looked at Zeb, a question on his face.  "Computers, a chair and a thing in a bottle.  Research, d'ya think?"

"Sure." Zeb agreed.  "Why not?"

In a commanding voice, Zach said "Research, Deck 10"

Without a lurch, the three started to descend.  Zeb put a steadying hand on Bags' shoulder.  Bags looked over at him, panic showing a bit on his face.  "I know what you mean," Zeb said.  "First time we were here, Zack did the very same thing."

The trip down was brief and very fast.  The there was a small sensation of moving sideways, noticeable because all three men felt the sensation in their inner ear.  Other than that, there was no feeling of movement whatsoever, and it was silent, other than the heavy breathing going on.

"This is a place we've never been before, Bags." Zack said.  "We've come back a few times, to just, you know... look around.  After a while it got pretty boring, so we quit coming."

"Yeah." Zeb agreed. "I think that was about a thousand years ago or so."

"So we don't know what we'll be seeing once we get there."

"There... umm..." Bags gulped, hard.  "There's not much there, like I said.  Just Pockets, the chair and a few tables."

"And this Fletcher guy."  Zeb said.  "Maybe."

"Oh," said Zack. "I have a feeling he'll be there." He looked around the tiny traveling room they occupied. "In fact, I would be surprised if he didn't know we were here."

"How could he know?" Bags asked.  He looked around as well, though what he was looking for he had no idea.

"I don't know... exactly." Zack said.  "It's just the last time we were here, all you had to do was speak to the walls and you could talk to someone else, far away."  He shrugged "I don't know, really." He smiled weakly. "Just a feeling."

The little room gave the impression of stopping.  There was a short hallway that led off to the left. 

"Come on." said Zeb, who ran a short distance and then stopped, facing to his right.  "Research." He said, pointing.  On the wall was, indeed, printed the word 'Research.'  "I don't see a door knob, though."  He thought a bit and asked Zack, "Do you remember the words that Grand-dad used, Zack?"

"Hell, Zeb, that was over two thousand years ago. You think I can remember some words that were spoken one over two thousand years ago?"

"Well...  I was hoping."

Bags said "Let me try."  He walked up to the door and looked for a seam.  It was small, barely visible, but it was there.  He turned to Zeb and said, "Give me that crowbar."

Zeb handed the metal stick to Bags, who shoved the crow end into the seam.  It didn't quite fit, so he shoved a bit harder.  It caused a bit of a dent, so he shoved it one more time, this time driving it deep into the crack.

Bags put his shoulder into it, bulged his biceps, and pulled.  The door didn't budge. Bags reversed direction and pushed. The door may have moved, imperceptibly.

"You don't look like you're getting very far, Bags." Zeb said.

"Shut...up."  Bags grunted out.  Sweat started to spring out on his shoulders, drip from his forehead. 

"Let us help, Bags." Zack offered.

"No!" Bags said.  The seams on his shirt tore a bit more, and he took on a bit of a sheen.

"Um... Zack?"  Zeb said.

"Yes, Zeb.  I see it. Curious."  Zack answered.

Slowly, screaming like an over wrought banshee, the door moved.  It ground back into the wall, inch by inch, complaining the entire way.  There was a sound like a tree breaking in half and suddenly the door slid without a sound into the slot.  The crowbar flew out of Bags' hand to clang on the floor in the room beyond.

"Pretty impressive, Bags." Zack said as he peered into the room.

It was as Bags had described.  Empty, except for a few tables, a chair, and a bottle that seemed to have nothing in it.  The walls flickered with lights, blinking on, blinking off.

"I'd say, off hand, this is the place."  Zack and Zeb walked into the Research room, Bags taking the rear.

"Is that Pockets?"  Zeb asked, pointing to the chair where a figure sat. 

"Yeah.  That's him." Bags said.

"Okay." Zeb said.  "So far it's been a cake walk.  Just walk over and grab him, and let's get the heck out of here."

"It may not be that easy." Bags said.  "Pockets said I couldn't just remove him from the chair.  That's why he asked for the ale." He indicated the kegs that he and Zeb carried on their backs.

"All righty then." Zeb continued.  "Go over, get your friend drunk and let's get outta here.  This place has always given me the creeps."

"Oh, I don't know if I'd try to remove him from that chair, gentlemen."  A rather irritated voice came from behind the trio. 

Fletcher stood, leaning against the doorway of the ruined door. His brown robe flowed down to the floor and his blue eyes shimmered with gentle menace. "You see, his mind is very much entrenched into a twelfth dimensional crosscurrent.  You pull him out now, and he'll be not only a vegetable, but quite likely dead."

Zack whispered to Zeb "Now... why does that guy look familiar?"

Fletcher smiled and continued, "Now, why don't you be a good couple of old men and take your pet and leave."

"I dunno, Zack." Zeb answered his brother, "He does look familiar, doesn't he?"

Fletcher came forward, gliding across the floor.  "Apparently, it's going to take a bit to convince you."  He sighed.  "Very well."  A handle appeared in his hand from nowhere, and from the handle grew a long blade that glowed an eerie blue green and emitted a loud 'thrum'. 

"You should leave here, you know," he warned as he approached, "You really have no business here."

"No business here..." muttered Zack, memory flashing back, far and away.  "No business here."  Fletcher was almost to them.  "Zeb! It's Obi!"

"Obi?"  Zeb squinted his eyes at the approaching figure.  "Well I'll be damned.  It is!"
********************************************
Zeb stepped forward and asked, "Obi, what are you doing here?"

"That's not Obi, Zeb, that's Fletcher." Bags said.

Zeb looked closer at the menacing figure.  "No, it's Obi.  I don't care what name he's going by, but it's Obi."  He turned to Bags. "You go get your friend, leave this to Zack and me."  He turned back, then reversed and came back to Bags.  "And hand me that crowbar, will you?"

Bags retrieved the bar from where it rested on the floor and tossed it to Zeb.  Zack was already engaging Fletcher, or Obi, or whoever he was in conversation.

"Obi, where's Overhill?  He's still in charge isn't he?"

"My name is now Fletcher, sir.  M. Fletcher." The figure brandished the glowing sword menacingly.  "Obi was retired many, many years ago.  I run this place now."

"Where's Overhill?" Zack repeated.

The figure paused, as if considering what to say next.  "Overhill is retired as well." Another long pause, then "His thought processes stopped years ago."

"How many years?"  Zack asked.

"Three hundred twenty two."  Fletcher raised the sword high.  "It's time for you two to leave.  You have no business here."

"Fletcher, did Overhill die?"

"Yes.  Overhill quit functioning at approximately the same time as his thought processes."

"Then where did you come from? Did Overhill make you?"

"I was created to replace the missing Obi" Fletcher stepped forward, and swung the sword in a low arc.  "Enough questions," he said, "it is now time for you to leave."

Zack looked over at Zeb, Zeb shrugged his shoulders.  "I guess it's not Obi.," he said.

"Reckon not," Zeb replied.  He noticed Bags standing there. "Well, boy?  You gonna go get your friend or not?"  He tossed the keg he was carrying.

Bags caught it easily, turned and ran towards the chair where Pockets sat.

"He's a pretty strong kid, Zack." Zeb observed.

"Noticed that, did you?" Zack replied.  "I think we might have to examine our family tree again.  He does bear some resemblance to your... what?  Great, great, great, great grandson?"

"Hell, Zeb.  He could be your relative." Zeb said. "You are, after all, the big, dumb on in the family."

"Ahem."  A voice interrupted their discussion.  "Gentlemen, are you leaving or not?"

Zack and Zeb again exchanged looks, and turned as one to look at Fletcher.  As one they both smiled, a wide, wicked smile, and as one they both yelled "Not!"

That was all Bags heard from them for a while.  He was far too busy with Pockets, who lay like one dead in his chair.  The crown of thorns ringed his head, small trickles of dried blood showed on his temples.  Pockets face was contorted, his eyes squeezed shut.

"Pockets?" Bags said softly.  "Pockets, I'm here.  Can you hear me?"

"Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!" yelled Pockets, screaming.  Then, quieter, a whisper, "Bags.  Did you bring the booze, the hooch, the beer, the ale?" 

Bags paused.

"NO!" Pockets yelled.  "Don't pause, don't think, just answer, dammit! Did you bring it?"

"Yes!" Bags yelled back.

Softly, Pockets said "No need to yell, Bags. I'm right here, I'm right there, I'm right everywhere.  Oh Bags, oh Bags, oh Bags, oh Timothy Bags most incredible warrior, who hides his heart away in the depths of the solar wind, would that you knew where you path led, you would hurry down it, but no, stay your feet and sheath your weapon, for it's not the sword that shall be your undooooooing, it is love, love, Bags my friend, my brother, my father.  Love shall be your end, as it is for all of us, but yours, yours... oh hurry Bags, pour me a drink!  I'm getting lost and you have to, have to, have to hurry!"  Pockets then went back to being silent, his mouth a stern line of pursed lips.

Bags pulled a mug from the bag at his side, uncorked one of the kegs and poured.  His hands shook and the ale slopped over the rim of the mug, it fell onto his hands and onto his trousers.  He smelled its headiness and licking his fingers, tasted a less sweet, darker brew than he had ever had.

"Don't waste the beer, Bags."  Pockets whispered.

"What's beer?" Bags asked.  He got no answer, and instead brought the mug up to Pockets' lips.

"Mind the quantum flux, chum." Pockets murmured. "That gravity is a killer.  It'll squash you so tight and so small you'll never see your daughter born.  Stay on the left."

"Daughter?" Bags asked.  He dribbled the brew into Pockets mouth and watched as dry throat gulped.

"Not fast enough!" Pockets moaned. "Not quick enough, not sooon enough.  Bags, bags, bags, I'm slip sliding away down a slope that has no end.  I can feel that I'm loosing... all of it!  Don't be skimpy, wimpy, pour it in! Sour the milk!" And he opened his mouth wide, showing all his teeth, and the straight line down his throat.

Bags tipped the mug up and poured the liquor into Pockets' waiting mouth.  It ran in until it filled and overflowed.  Pockets choked a bit, but he swallowed, and swallowed.  Bags poured more, and more. 

After the third mug full, Pockets mouth closed.  "Good.  That's good.  That's enough. That should do it. That's enough." He murmured.

"You sure?" Bags said.  He looked at the kegs he had carried.  "There's lots more."

Pockets eyes opened, briefly.  "Bags. I'm not the drinker you are.  I've never had a drop in my life.  If you were to pour one more cup, or even part of a cup into me, you would kill me."  His eyes flickered shut, then open again.  "You need to go back to Zeb and Zack.  I'll be all right." 

"But you're still in the chair, Pockets." Bags said, laying a hand on Pockets arm.  Bags looked up, alerted to a strange sound.  It was a deep hum, rhythmic and throbbing. "Um.  Pockets?  What's that?" he asked.

"It's the reject, Bags.  Trust me.  Go to Zeb and Zack. Wait for me to get out of the chair.  Do NOT try to get me out of the chair."

"The reject?" Bags asked.

"Bags, shut up.  Go away." Pockets said no more for a moment, then "Leave me your bag."

"Do what?" Bags asked.

"How friggin hard is it to understand!" Pockets roared.  "Leave... me... your... bag."

"Uh... Okay." Bags unslung his namesake from around his neck. He looked at the sweat stained, rain stained bag, with it's leather frayed and stiffening.  "Here, okay.  Just be careful with it." 

He placed the bag on Pockets' chest and then slowly backed away. He watched Pockets sitting there, his face twitching and motivated.  Drool was slipping from the corner of his mouth.  The thrum from the walls grew and grew until it was the only thing that could be heard.  The flashing lights on the walls picked up their speed until they were just a blur of light, changing colors and hues.

Bags placed his hands over his ears, and closed his eyes.  He didn't stop backing up until he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.  He turned around to see Zack, his shirt covered in dark liquid.

"Is that blood?" Bags said.  His voice was muffled and deadened.  Zack shook his head and pointed to his ears.  Bags shouted his question again.

Zack nodded, smiling broadly.  He lifted his shirt to show a wound that went from collarbone to waist, exposing the white of his ribs.

"Holy Chrome!" Bags shouted.  "Doesn't that hurt?"

"It hurts like hell!" shouted Zack.  "You should see the other guy!"  He pointed back towards where Zeb stood over a prone figure.  Zack was beating the body on the ground over and over with something that looked like, and Bags identified, as a arm.

"I told you that I would rip one of an beat you with it, didn't I?" Zack was yelling at the silent figure.  He too, had a nasty wound on his neck, and one arm hung limply.

"Holy Chrome!" Bags repeated.

"You can quit yelling now." Zeb said.

It was true.  The noise had ceased.  The walls had gone dark, except for the illumination that provided by wall sconces.

"What the seven hells happened here?"  Bags asked, "Are you guys all right?"

"Sure!" Zeb said, excitedly.  "Haven't had this much fun in, oh... a hundred years or so!"

"But what about...." Bags pointed at the wound, "that?"

"Oh, that's nothing. You shoulda seen the time I had my leg chopped off." Zeb said.

"Ummm... Yeah." Bags said.  "Doesn't it hurt, though?"

"Hurts like a son of a bitch, you betcha."  Zeb nodded like a madman, grinning from ear to ear.  He looked over to where Zack was still thwacking away and said "Hey! Zack!  I think he's dead. You can quit beating him."

Zack stopped, looked up and smiled back at his brother.  "He wasn't alive, in the strictest sense, Zeb. Besides, he ruined my best shirt!"  After a few more serious whacks, he dropped the arm and crossed over to Zeb and Bags. His graying hair was tinged with red from his wound, but he appeared to not notice it.  He slapped Zeb on the arm good naturedly, and Zeb yelped.

"Not that side, okay?  Sheesh!" he said.

"Oh... sorry."  Zack apologized.  "God, that was fun!"  He saw the horrified expression on Bags face. "Now, Bags," he said, "you can't tell me that you have never seen wounded men before."

Bags gulped and said, "Sure I have.  Just wounds as bad yours... well... never on someone that was walking around."

"Pshaw...," said Zeb.  "This is nothing.  These things will heal.  Be a bit of a pain till they do, of course." He pinched his own gaping slash together and held them there for a bit.  When he let loose, the skin had bound together, with an obvious scar to show where it had been separated.  "See? All better!"

Zack looked toward the chair, now empty.  "Speaking of better, did you get Pockets."

"Pockets!"  Bags ran back to the chair, looking around for his missing friend.  Carefully looking on the other side of the chair, the side he was not supposed to be on, he found Pockets, laying there, in the fetal position.  Bags knelt down and felt for a heartbeat.  It was there, pounding away.

Bags gently picked his friend up from the floor and tossed him across his shoulders. "I don't know if he's all right or not, but he's not in that stupid chair anymore."  He walked to where Zeb and Zack stood.  "Let's get out of this place."

Back at the bar, Zeb and Zack were talking quietly, while Bags watched over Pockets sleeping.  Pockets had woken once, very drunk, and asked for a glass of water.

His eyes were unfocused, but he recognized Bags.  He asked where he was, and Bags told him he was at Jinx's, in Newton.

"Why are we here, Bags?  I don't remember getting here." His voice was deep an slurred from sleep as much from drink.

"I brought you here from the mountain." Bags said.  "Shhhh... you should sleep.  You're pretty drunk."

"Oh Bags, that's shilly.  You know I don't drink."

"It was to get you out of that brain sucking machine, Pockets." Bags explained. "Don't you remember?"

Pockets thought about it, then shook his head.  Then he grimaced. "Ow. Remind me not do that again, Bags.  The world is spinning."  Pockets turned a bit pale, and sweat beaded on his forehead.  "I don't remember a lot right now, Bags. My brain hurts.  I think I'm gonna sleep, okay?"

"That's a good idea, chum." Bags said.  He pulled a tablecloth from nearby and draped it across Pockets' shoulders. "You sleep. Tomorrow will be a whole lot better."

Pockets smiled and muttered, saying something about something that Bags couldn't understand.

"What?" he said, leaning down close to Pockets.  "What did you say?"

Pockets answered in a dreamy not quite here sort of voice, "Papa's got a brand new bag.", and then he faded into sleep, snoring softly.

Bags turned to Grizelda and said, "And that was that.  Pockets had found me a new bag, the one that I've had ever since.  He says it became the neverfull because he created it while he sat in the chair, pulled from somewhere outside this world, and not quite in the next."

"When he woke up the next day, he was missing most of his memories from the previous twelve years.  In place of them, he had that odd knowledge that you've come to know and love.  He had lost so much, and gained... something more."

"He had forgotten some of the things he prized the most, though.  Like reading.  When he tried to read, and realized he couldn't, he cried like a baby for three days."

Bags looked over at Grizelda, whose eyes were closed and she was snoring quietly.  He yawned, himself.  "Well... I never said it was very interesting.  Just scary crap."  He leaned over and kissed his sleeping wife, curled up in his blanket and drifted off to join her.
***************
Tree limbs, filled with green, filtered the light around and about the two boys as they led their mounts though the narrow path.  The sun dappled path wound in and around trees that were taller than their years, crossing the little stream time and time again.  Far above their heads, tree climbers and wind sailors could be seen flitting between branches and in the open blues spaces between the green-brown roadways of the upper canopy.

To their right, the forest thinned visibly and the short swath of tall grasses could be seen through the trees, peering in as if through a fence line. Occasionally a tall animal, yellowish and brownish spotted could be seen lopping along on tall legs, nearly dancing in the tall grass.  As the boys watched, a smaller one could be seen running behind, legs splaying out fore and yon, working to catch up.  A triumphant screech of a flying bird, perhaps a hawk, could be heard as it found the sneaking field mouse scrabbling through the grasses heading for home before rending, life ending claws caught and grabbed.

To their left, the Ridge mountain took over, climbing swiftly green and steeply wooded towards its tree-heavy peak, where it tipped over and slid down its other side.  Snaky sounds slithered through the short grasses at the base of heavy leaved trees to pass hissingly unseen somewhere over there. Up ahead the sounds of some large cat, or cats could be discussing loudly who was the victor and who was not.

The stream trickled along the base on this side of the Ridge,  drawing weak a line between where the mountain stopped and the rest of the world began.  It flowed in the direction the boys came from, drawing with it leaves that had foundered in the slow water, skimming bugs that danced the dance of dart in, dart out, and tiny little minnows that enjoyed the cool ripplets that shifted downstream.

"It's rather magical here, isn't it?" observed Pewitt, from a distance behind Weehawk.

"Shut up, dickhead."  replied Weehawk.

"What?" asked Pewitt, wounded.  "What's that for?"  No answer came, so he continued.  "I was nice to your friend back there.  What's the problem?"

When no answer was still coming forth, Pewitt started to whistle, tunelessly.  It wasn't that there wasn't a tune, it was just that the tune was rather hard to fine.  When he hit a few off notes, he would pause and start again.  Same tune, or rather, same not tune, and he would wander of the musical path at the same time.  Eventually it got to be too much for Weehawk.

"Okay.  You can knock that crap off."  Weehawk, sourly.  "You wanna know what the problem is, Milt?"  Moments passed in pregnancy.  "The problem is you, Milt."

"Me?" Pewitt started. "How can it..."

"I'll tell you." Weehawk cut him off.  "Ever since we got out of the desert, from the very moment we stepped off the sand, you've been a whiner, and you've bitched about every single magical thing that's happened." Another second gave birth. "So don't be giving me any of your happier than thou 'magical' crap."

"Well..." Pewitt said, but ran out of anything else to say.

"Yeah, well." Weehawk's voice came back, dripping tree sap.  "Well, my ass.  There's not reason for your bigotry.  Magic?  You think trees and grass and hoot owls are magical?  Chrome!"  Weehawk laughed bitterly.  "How bout talking mounds of dirt?  Magical? I think so.  What about talking horses?  Magical?  Most likely." 

Weehawk stopped and held Racers so that Pewitt could catch up.  He looked him deeply in the eyes and asked, "Has anything you've seen, you've heard, talked to, walked with, eaten with, given you any indication that they are evil?  Something intended to do you harm?"

"Well... No." Pewitt admitted, "But my dad said..."

"You dad was an old bigoted man...  some blacksmith working in some let's be better than everyone else kingdom, and got infected by the same disease everyone else had there.  The 'if it's different, it must be evil' disease."

"But there's a book!" Pewitt defended, hands held out in front as if to ward.  "It says explicitly that these things are abominations!"

"A book!" Weehawk laughed again. "I've heard of that book, I think.  Every so often somebody comes to the outskirts and tries to tell us about that book.  I think they say they're spreading the 'Good News' or some such baloney.  The only good news they get is to be able to leave without missing some vital part of their anatomy."

"Did you ever stop to think about that book, Milt?"  Weehawk asked, placing a hand on Pewitt's shoulder.  Pewitt didn't flinch, much.

"Did you ever ask your self who wrote it, and why they might have written it?  It's enough that it was written, but why, Milt?  And who?"  He released Pewitt's shoulder and started back up the path, leading Racer.

"It was written a long time ago, I know that." Pewitt said.  "It talks about our salvation, Weehawk. It was written by good men, wanting to save us from ourselves."

"Good men, Milt?" Weehawk repeated.  "Save us from ourselves?  Wouldn't that be an indication to you that this book is saying that it's us that are evil, if we are needing to be saved from ourselves?"

"Of course we are, Weehawk!" Pewitt answered, with enthusiasm.  This as a conversation he could understand.  "That's what the book talks about.  Saving us from the evils of ourselves."

"And what sort of evils do we do, Milt?"

"Turning away from God, Pewitt.  Anything that would be an offense to Him."

"Like?  Give me examples, Milt."

"Okay. Let's say you see a man who is very poor.  Do you walk away from him, or do you help him up, help him find his way?  You stop and help your neighbor, as he is less fortunate than you."

"That's an easy one, Milt.  I've got lots less than most of the folks in Tears. Lots of folks walk by me and don't even notice. That's not even evil, that's just being snobbish.  But go again.  Give me another one."

"There's murder.. that's a big one.  Adultery, which is when you sleep with someone other than your spouse.  Theft, lying, being rude to guests. Ummm."  Pewitt scratched his head.

"What about judging others?"  Weehawk prompted.  "Seems to me I heard a few of those book thumpers say that just as we were tossing them down the sewer."

"The book says 'Judge not, lest you be judged'.  It's talking about preconceived ideas about people before you even know them."

"Yeah. That's the one I meant." Weehawk said, then went silent to see if it sank in.  Then he said, "I knew a couple of fellows, a couple of soldiers that had come from some other kingdom.  They had grown tired of the fighting and the killing just because their king or whatever told them to fight and kill.  They ran away into the desert and found Tears." 

He looked back where Pewitt was and said "And no, they weren't Bags and Pockets.  I don't think Pockets has ever seen a battle, from what Bags says.  This was a couple of other guys."  He turned back to watching the trail.

"Anyway, they gave up their fighting and killing and came to settle with us. I'm not gonna tell you who they are, cuz it's none of your business.  I overheard them one day explaining what they were doing.  Washing away their sins, they said."  Weehawk let his words settle on the grass before continuing.  "What would your 'good men' and your book say about that?"

"Well," Pewitt said, thoughtfully, "if they were sincere in their belief of redemption, then they are on the right path.  It could be that they have already been saved, since they turned their back on their evil ways."  He thought a bit.  "I doubt if the blood would ever be washed from their hands, but if they came to be good men, then I would say that they are doing right."

Weehawk added, "What if I told you that they were very prominent in Tears and worked hard so that ever orphan and widow never went without.  What if I told you that they did nothing but good works?  Would that change it?"

"Of course not!" Pewitt responded.  "It would show the sincerity in their hearts to find the right path again."

"Okay." Weehawk agreed.  A short distance away a twig snapped and for a second he turned his attention to it.  He stopped Racer and held up his hand, signaling Pewitt to be silent.  When nothing came from it, he continued.  "What if I told you they lived together?"

"I think that would be a fine thing, Weehawk." Pewitt said.  "They give each other mutual support and help each other stay the course."

"No, Milt.  I mean live together.  As in living together as lovers." 

"What?"  Pewitt asked, not comprehending. "How could they..."

"They are lovers, Milt.  Just like man and woman, like husband and wife, but different. They give each other support but they also love each other.  I suspect they even have sex with each other, but again, that's none of my business. What do you say to that?"

"It's just wrong, Weehawk!  It's an abomination!" Pewitt's voice showed his distress.

"Why, Milt?" Weehawk asked.  "They are doing good works, they left behind their lives of killing, and they aren't hurting anyone. In fact, they are helping everyone that needs it.  What is it about them that makes them an abomination?"

"Because they're just wrong, Weehawk!"  The disgust in Pewitt's voice was very evident.  "That sort of love is supposed to be between a man and a woman.  It's in the book!"

Calmly Weehawk said, "And that, Milt, is why I told you to shut the hell up." Weehawk stopped Racer and stood away from her, so that Pewitt could see him.  His face was sad, but also angry. 

"You, chum, are one of the folks I've had to deal with all my life.  See, I come from a place where we see people's noses turned up all the time at us.  In the outskirts you learn it doesn't matter a good gold damn what a person does in their private life.  What matters is how you treat other folks first, and how you treat yourself second.  What sort of heart you have.  Doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, Milt.  It matters what you are."

Pewitt started to retort, but Weehawk held up his hand to stop him.  "I'm going my way alone from here, Milt."  Weehawk sighed, visibly. "And the stupid thing is, I like you.  I think you might have some good stuff in you, but you've been poisoned by your raising.  If I'm around that poisoned mind with all it's closed thinking, I don't know what I'll end up doing, but it wouldn't be pretty."

"See, Milt," he continued, "I was raised by one of those guys.  He's my foster dad.  BeJay, my grandmother, couldn't take care of me when my parents died, so one of these old soldiers I told you about took me in."

"You?" Pewitt gasped.

"Yep.  And you know what, Milt?" Weehawk scratched the side of his chin, where stubble had been growing.  "I like women.  A lot.  Course I've not been with any... yet.  I also like guys... and no, I haven't been with any of them, either.  Don't know if I ever will, but I'm not gonna rule out the possibility just cuz a book and some 'good men' say it's bad."  He shook his head.  "Milt, I know for a fact it's not bad.  It's not anything but different.  And different ain't bad, it's just... different. Pure and simple."

Pewitt didn't say anything. He didn't know what to say. His throat made a few odd noises but nothing came out in the form of words.

"Yeah, well."  Weehawk shrugged.  "This is it."  He pointed out toward the desert. "That's the way to go.  We've gone about a half a day since Chum, so you shouldn't get too lost." 

He pulled one of the bags of Racer and tossed it on the ground.  "Here.  I can forage for food here.  This place has a lot of life in it, and if I'm careful, I think I'll do okay.  I may just stay here, I don't know."

"What if you find Pockets?" Pewitt asked, desperate.  "Won't you need my help?"

A sad smile crossed Weehawk's face.  "Milt, chum, I seriously doubt it."  He raised both of his hands and said, "Look around you, Milt.  It's just like you said, magical.  Horses talk, Gods walk, and mounds of dirt tell jokes.  I think, all being equal, that you'd just freak out and work very hard to not be here anyway.  I think, all things being equal, that you'd rather be back at home, snug and safe, with your dad and your book."

"But Bags said..." Pewitt protested.

"I don't think Bags knew that you were ... um... what you are." Weehawk countered.  "I think when he mentioned monsters and magic you thought he was just kidding, right?"  Not waiting for an answer, he looked up at the sun, which had already started most of its climb down from the sky.

"'Bye, Milt." Weehawk took up Racer's reigns again and started down the path.

"Weehawk!" Pewitt cried.  He ran to gather up the bags Weehawk left on the trail.  "Wait!"

Weehawk continued, not stopping or turning around.  Pewitt tossed the bags onto Bel's back and ran, pulling her with him.  He could see Weehawk up ahead, and knew he would quickly catch up.  He lost sight of Weehawk when a curve in the path obscured his vision, and when he got around the curve himself, not a Weehawk nor a Racer was to be seen.

"They couldn't have gone that fast!" Pewitt panted, catching his breath.  "The path goes straight from here."

"Perhaps they didn't go straight from here." a voice said, quietly.  Pewitt jumped in shock and looked at Bel.  She looked away from him, still not speaking to him.  "No, it wasn't her." said the same voice.

It was a voice the color of red fall leaves, with the fluidity of a mountain waterfall and the clarity of a mountain sky.  It spoke its existence with the authority of knowing it existed, and had a joy in that existence. 

Pewitt looked around for the source, and not finding it, called out, timidly, "If they didn't go straight, where did they go?"

When no answer was forthcoming, he asked, a bit less timid, "Look, is this some sort of game?  I'm looking for my friend..."

"While I believe he may have been your friend, I don't think you were his friend at all," came the answer.  "I think, in all honesty, you were being a grownup."  From the wood stepped a shadow, and from the shadow came the voice. "Now, it is perfectly all right to be a grown up, as long as you realize that it will limit your ability to be a friend."

Once the sun hit the shadow and chased it away the figure resolved into a man, dressed in the greens of summer and the browns of earth. On his head he wore a peaked hat, woven from the same grassy material as his shirt and short trousers.  On his feet were moccasins made from large leaves and tied with bits of vine. 

He was caked with earth.  He wasn't caked with dirt, because dirt is inherently dirty, and earth is inherently earthy.  He wasn't dirty at all, but he was extremely earthy.  His eyes shown bold blue from a face that was tinted green from the moss.

Pewitt was taken aback.  He didn't know what to do.  It was a man, a human like him, and yet the man was nothing like him at all.  Still, whatever the man was, he was human, and having learned a bit with his encounter with Chum, he stepped forward with his hand out.

"How do you do?  My name is Milton Pewitt..." he began.

"And I thought your name was dickhead." said the man, grinning with perfectly white teeth.

"Here now!" Pewitt said.  "That's not very nice."

"Just stating what I heard." The man shrugged, "but if you want to call yourself Milton Pewitt, it's no skin off my nose."  He raised a finger into the air and started to draw with it.  His finger left little yellowish light trails as it moved.  When he was done, hanging in the air were the words 'Milton Pewit'.  "Is that one 'T' or two?" he asked.

"Um." Pewitt answered.  "Um.  Two."

The man added the last 'T' to Pewitt and with a flourish, underlined the name with flowing light, and underlined it twice, just to be fancy.

"Tell me, Milton, how do you judge yourself?" asked a voice as calm as dusk.

"Excuse me?" Pewitt asked, puzzled.

"Whatever for? You didn't do anything."  A crystal clear smile again. "Much."  A wind blew in and shifted the leaves of the man's shirt.  The leaves moved in and around and twirled like a small tornado about the man's body before settling back to their place.

"I asked you, Mister Pewitt with two tees, how you judged yourself?"

"I'm not sure I understand the question, sir."

"Sir is it!" The Earthman laughed.  His laughter sprouted blue crystals that tinkled in the air and crashed with the sound of cymbals on the ground around him.  "Sir!  Well... aren't we the polite one?"

"I try to be, sir." Pewitt answered.

"All right, Mister polite Pewitt with two tees, I'll ask the question once more, but no more than once more because this would be the third time and as you know, three strikes and you're out, but since I haven't struck you once, that would be a rather difficult thing to carry out, so perhaps you'll have another chance after that.  Is that all righty with you, Mister monster polite Pewitt with two tees, that I ask you again, but no more?  I'll even ask it slowly enough that you can understand it with that overly fossilized brain that you have decided to close off to everything except that almighty book you put so much stock in."

"Hold on a minute." Pewitt said, suspicious.  "Are you Weehawk?  Look, I'm sorry if we don't believe the same but..."  he was interrupted with laughter that rang with the sound of a flock of mocking birds.

"Oh my, oh my, oh my." said the Earthman, clapping and dancing.  "No, Mister suspicious monster Pewitt with two tees.  I am not Weehawk, nor would I want to be with friends like you."  The man laughed until he was fully out of breath, hands on his knees.  Then, gasping and looking sideways at Pewitt asked, "Are you ready?"

"For what?" Pewitt asked, very confused.

"For..." the Earthman launched himself straight up, causing Pewitt to start nervously.  "Up here, slow brain." came a voice from above.

The Earthman was poised some fifteen feet straight up, dangling feet first from an overhanging tree branch.  "And no, it wasn't for that. I just felt like being up here, since you tend to thing voices from on high have so much authority."

"Um." Pewitt began, "I'd feel better if you were down here." Looking at the man hanging from his toes made Pewitt dizzy.

"Tough. Deal with the differences."  hanging upside down, the Earthman cupped his hands around his mouth and said in a voice as deep as a canyon and as slow as grass growing, "Milton Pewitt, how do you judge yourself?"

"I still don't understand the question!" Pewitt cried. Looking up was causing a crick in his neck.

"Then I'm prepared to hang around until you do." was his answer.  The Earthman crossed his arms, closed his eyes and began to snore, dramatically.  He opened one eye and asked, "Have you got it yet?"

"What the heck are you talking about?" Pewitt yelled up at the inverted figure.  "I don't get anything!"

"Ah." came a trickle like falling whirligigs, "that is the most intelligent thing you've said so far.  Tell me when the second one comes."  Loud, log cutting snores followed.

Pewitt, at the end of his wits, looked on the path around him.  He found what he was looking for, a stone, not very large, but large enough to leave an impression.  He picked it up, sighted his target and yelled "Hey!" and threw the stone.

A leaf the size of a catcher's mitt grabbed the flying stone before it reached its mark.  "Now, now," the Earthman said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." The rock sailed back down to earth, striking Pewitt on his right shoulder.  "That would be me," wafted after the stone.

"Ow!" Pewitt said. "That hurt, damn you!"  Snores answered him. "All right, I've had enough.  I don't have to stand here and put up with your abuse." 

He grabbed Bel's reins and started to take a step.  He started to, but never finished.  While he had been standing there, sprouts and vines had silently grown up around his boots, wrapping themselves to tightly hold him and he found he was rooted firmly to the ground. 

When he reached down to try to pull the vines off, the green shoots quickly entangled his hands and he was slowly but firmly dragged down to a kneeling position.  Crying with anger and twisting and turning this way and that, Pewitt was unable to loose himself, the vines were just too tough and he was in no position to gain leverage.

From above him, the snores stopped and a voice floated down, soft as first snow.  "You are right in one thing, Mister Milton Monster Pewitt.  You don't have to stand.  Kneeling would be so much better for your mindset. Now I'm going to take a nap.  You think about my question, and when you have an answer, let me know."

"I'll figure a way out of this, you bastard!" Pewitt howled with anger.  "And when I do... I'll...  You'll be sorry!"

"I have a feeling that when you figure a way out of that, it's you who will be sorry.  Nighty night."

Pewitt ranted and raved for quite a while after that, and the only sounds that answer him were the sounds of the leaves falling, animals going about their woody ways and soft snores.
***********
"'Bye, Milt." Weehawk took up Racer's reigns again and started down the path.

He walked down the path quickly, not wanting to look back, not wanting to show weakness or the tears in his eyes. 

"That went well." Racer said.

"Shut up, stupid horse." Weehawk muttered.

"I mean," she said, "considering how it might have gone, I think it went well."

"Racer," Weehawk tugged on the reins, "right now I just need a bit of quiet, all right?"

"All right, Weehawk," she said. "I don't quite understand, but all right."  A few more feet passed and then she said "Humans."

The two turned a curve in the trail.  Behind him he heard Pewitt call his name, then he heard nothing at all.  The trees gained a blurriness to them and the air seemed to take on a heavy quality.  Breathing was like inhaling cotton.

"Racer?" Weehawk asked.  "Do you feel that?"

"I feel the air turn thick, as in a heavy fog.  Is that what you mean?"

"Yeah.  That's what I mean."  He took another step, and the feeling passed.   "That was weird."  He looked around, as if to find the source of the oddity.  Something just wasn't right. He took a step backward, and a heavy twig snapped under his heel.  "Wait a minute," he said, "wasn't the sun over that way?"  He pointed further west.

"You are right, Weehawk. Something has changed."  Racer's ears twitched a bit and her nostrils flared when she sniffed the air.  She blew out strongly and said, "We're not longer when we were."  She turned to look at Weehawk.  "We are somewhere before we were."

"What?" he asked.  "Somewhere before we were when?"

"Yes." she said, "Exactly."

"Exactly what?"  He asked, confused.

"Exactly before when we were."

"Before when we were ... when?"

"Yes." She nodded.  "We have moved somewhen before we turned around the corner in the trail.  Not much.  Just enough for the sun to move back to where it was.  The light is different, the air is different, but it is the same air and same light that was here before we got here."

"We've moved back in time?" Weehawk asked.

"Yes." Racer said, eating some grass at the edge of the trail.

Weehawk looked around, looked up, looked back down the path.  "But...how?"

Racer looked up at him.  "I'm a horse, Weehawk.  I do not know."  She went back to her eating.

A voice that sounded like the happy buzz of a large cricket said "I can probably answer that." A shadow detached itself from a large tree and moved onto the path.

Once the sun hit the shadow and chased it away the figure resolved into a man, dressed in the greens of summer and the browns of earth. On his head he wore a peaked hat, woven from the same grassy material as his shirt and short trousers.  On his feet were moccasins made from large leaves and tied with bits of vine.

"And who are you, friend?" Weehawk asked, cautiously edging back toward Racer.

"Oh, no need to be afraid, Weehawk," the man said, smiling largely. "If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it not long after you spoke to the giant.  I've been watching you and that other one for a while now."

"Uh... Okay." Weehawk said, not feeling any better.  "Why were you watching us?"

"Just curious." The odd man said, walking across the path.  "You can talk to your horse, huh?" the man asked.  "Either that you have a heck of a dual personality."

"I can hear her, too." Weehawk said, still uncertain.  "Look.  Who are you and what has happened.  I don't mean to be rude, but according to Racer, here, we've moved backward in time.  Is that true?  And if it is, why?  And what do you know about it?"

The odd man grinned his large grin, and sat down at the base of a tree.  He pulled a string of grass from the earth and sat there, chewing on it.  Weehawk noticed that there was a greenish tint to the man's skin, a tint that looked a lot like the grass he was chewing.

"Well," said the odd man, "I guess you could call me... Burt, or Eddie, or even Joe.  Doesn't matter much to me."

"If I'd guess," Weehawk said, "I'd guess you must be the Green man that I heard a bit about."  He looked around.  "Though I thought there were two of you."

Taking the string from his mouth and tossing it to the side, the Green man bounced up to his feet and laughed, loudly and long.  "Oh my God!  Someone that actually knows me."

"Of you." emphasized Weehawk.

"Whatever." The Green man said, still smiling.  "Yes, yes, yes, there are two of me.  Maybe more. One is me, one is also me, but not quite as nice. He's gone elsewhen for a while, while I've decided to hang out here.  It's possible, though, that he's hanging out somewhen else and I've gone behind to wait here, for you."

"Okay," Weehawk said. "That was a bit confusing."

"Oh wait! It gets better!" The Green man stood up and pirouetted in the middle of the path. "This place is an interesting combination of us and thems and then again, there's this magic thing." 

He looked at Weehawk, eyebrows wiggling, smile plastered from ear to ear. Not getting the confirmation he was expecting, he sighed dramatically.  "Us is the humans, or in some cases, the 'near' humans.  Thems... well, thems are the stuff of dreams, brought forth from the imagination of those that have imaginations.  And magic...  well.. magic is magic.  Stuff that is not understandable on the normal level, if you follow me.  A lot of magic has to do with our influence over the quantum flux.  It's this influence that causes things, and I mean things, wink wink, nudge nudge, to happen."

"Uh." said Weehawk.

"No, no! Wait!" said the Green man, "I'm on a roll here.  Magic, as we... " he pushed his hands out toward Weehawk, "well.. you... as you define it is mysterious, hard to define and just crazy crap.  Am I right?  Huh? Huh?  Am I?"  He pushed the question towards Weehawk and waited.

"Uh.  Yeah. I guess." Weehawk answered, not knowing what he was answering.

"Exactly! I'm right!  But that's just because you don't understand the nature of magic. If you did, you'd say 'Oh! Is that all it is?' and go about eating your waffles, or whatever you have for breakfast."  He stopped and placed a finger to his green lips.  "Now, where was I?"

"Um..." Weehawk said.

"Oh yes! Thank you."  The Green man laced his fingers behind his back and marched back and forth across the path.  "This place is an interesting combination of quantum fluxuations and nodules run by a big machine deep in the earth.  Can you believe that?"

"No... uh.. maybe.. " Weehawk stuttered.

"Okay, then how about this."  Green man turned and looked directly at Weehawk.  "You're chasing a person named Pockets, yes?"

Finally something he could understand, Weehawk answered, "Yes."

"And this guy is going to a big mountain, yes?"

"Yes."

"Why are you chasing him?" The Green man asked.  "Are you going to stop him from doing whatever he's doing?"

"Um. No."

"Are you going to help him achieve whatever he's doing?"

"We were just to make sure he's all right.  Other than that, if he needed our help, we were supposed to help him." Weehawk shrugged. "Well.. it was we until a bit ago."

The Green man waved the thought away. "Aw, forget about him.  He was dead weight anyway.  Let me tell you first off that Pockets is fine as frog's hair. He's heading in the right direction and doing what he's supposed to be doing.  What's important now is what you're doing, if your heading in the right direction and if you are as fine as frog's hair."

The Green man stepped forward.  Weehawk held up his hand.

"Hold it, bub.  First off, what in the seven hells are you talking about?  Second, Pewitt may be a pain in the ass, but he's not dead weight. If he's smart, he's headed back home right about now.  Thirdly, what in the hell are you talking about?  Pockets is fine? Great! I can go home, right after I talk to him myself." He stepped forward himself.

"I don't mean to be rude, Mister Green man, but I don't know what you are babbling about.  Quantum magic and dreams and all that gobbledygook.  I've been ordered by my king..."

"King, sming," The Green man interrupted.  "There are bigger things that the needs and wants of silly people." He stood next to Weehawk, and placed his arm over the boy's shoulder.  "What if I told you that there are adventures awaiting you that you have always dreamed abut.  What if I told you there was gold and women and wine and song out there, just waiting to worship you as a hero!"

Weehawk shrugged off the arm and answered, "I'd say you had weeds growing between your ears, that's what I'd say. Look, I'm here to do a job.  It may be a silly job to you, but it's a job that I said I'd do, so I'm gonna do it." He looked down the path toward the cleft in the mountains.  "Now, if you would excuse me...." he took Racer's reins again and started down the path.

"Hey!" shouted the Green man.  "Hey, kid!"

Weehawk turned and shouted, "What?"

"You sure you won't reconsider?  Gold? Women? Fame?"

"I'm sure.  Thanks for the offer, but no."  Weehawk waved and moved on.

"Okay, play it your way." said the Green man.  He looked up at the sky, shrugged and said "If the mountain won't come to the Weehawk, then the Weehawk must come to the mountain."  As he was fading into the mossy green of the forest he muttered, "Or did I have that backward?"
**************
"Would you listen to that wind a-howl!" Flowerpot said to the walls of her little one room cabin. She painfully raised herself up from the cook pot and made her slow way to the window. She looked at the trees brushing the sky and watched as they bowed to each other first to m'ladies, then to m'gents.

"Them trees will be doing do-si-do any moment now," she said, turning away from the window and crossing back to the only table in the house. It was a small, square table, with ornate trim legs and years of age on the top. Dark wood went into the making of this table, and love as well. The single chair scritttttched across the floor as she moved it back so she could sit.

She turned the wick up on the single oil lamp in the center and picked up the deck of cards that lay at her place. Shuffling, became and art form in her hands, and could last a good five minutes. She shuffled with the tip of her tongue poking out the side of her wrinkled mouth to help with her concentration.

While she shuffled, a wind snuck in through a crack at threshold of the door. It blew round the room, and touched all it found. It swam across the wall where a picture of a wooded landscape hung, painted years ago. It passed over a shelf holding memories of children no longer here. It drew its fingers through tapestries of wars never fought, and purchased so long ago the colors had faded to merge with each other, proving that in war, nobody wins.

While she shuffled, the wind wrapped itself around her, snuggling her like a lover. It tousled her graying hair and played with the thin beard on her chinny-chin-chin. Smiling from the tickle, she paused her shuffling long enough to shoo the errant breeze away.

The wind, properly chastised, settled behind her, to watch as she drew first one card, and then another, to lie upon the table. With each draw, Flowerpot would smack her lips or make an uh-huh or raise a wild eyebrow. Her eyes, brown and gray, but once upon a time the very brown of a new born colt, shone out through cataracts and squints to view the story as it played out on the table.

"See here?", she said in crackly voice to the table and tapping the first card. "Here's his old self, holding that sword and thinking he's all mighty." Fingers swollen by arthritis hovered over the next, "and here, he had his little party... all the hearts surrounding him and him feeling so gay."

Third card up brought a chuckle, followed by a coughing fit. When breath came back, she said "And here is where he ended, enthroned. My, my, my. What follows next, do you wonder?" She pushed her chair back up on two legs, and then had to catch herself against the table to keep from tipping over. Her eyes rolled up to stare at the cobwebby ceiling, searching, searching.

"Gonna be a cold winter, this year. I can feel it in my bones." The chair cracked back down on to the floor and she whipped off the fourth card. Meager riches. Five of points. "No surprise there. Things not bad, things no good. Things just normal."

"Ohhhhhh," she whispered at the face up fifth. "Changes is blowin' in." The card was the Ace of Storms. Mister Death. Black as coal.

Sixth card was the joker, the fool. "Now that's interestin'. Change being chased by an idiot." She reached up and tweaked one of the hairs on her ear, "Or... maybe change is caused by an idiot. Let's go see." The wind crept a bit closer, its curiosity aroused.

Seventh card lay over the sixth. Two of doves. Peace lay over the fool. "Odd. Not something you see very often, huh? Love and peace upon a fool? Who'd a thunk it? Big powers at work, I imagine." From an old and cracked mug she took a swallow of bitter brew, dark and brown.

Eighth card, covering the fifth, Lady with Storms. "Huh!" she puffed out, surprised. Lady with Storms was her own card. It was the one she chose as a girl, the one she slept with, the one she made her own. Lady with Storms lives alone, and keeps her own dark company. Covering the Ace meant the storms were greater, and the greater the storm, the greater the change.

"What the hell do I have to do with it?" she wondered aloud. She looked for the shadows to appear, looking left and right. "I'm too old for this crap." She sighed and made a sigil in the air. "If it will, then it will," she sighed.

Ninth card was no surprise. "Yep. Fool comes here, it may not be pretty." Five of clubs. Arguments may occur, but compromise is possible. Covering the fourth card, the five of points, meant that both sides would gain, if agreement was reached.

Another throne covered the third card. The throne of doves. The throne of peace and love. Bushy eyebrows raised above cloudy brown eyes. "Huh. That would be something. Not impossible, mind you. Just not expected."

Doves again on the tenth card. Covering the nine of doves. More peace or love or happiness. "This is getting ridiculous!" Flowerpot sputtered. "Whoever this guy is better be ten foot tall, shoulders five foot broad. Nobody can be that happy all the friggin time!"

She closed her eyes, tight, not really wanting to see what drew next. "No throne, no throne, no throne." Trembling fingers pulled the card from the top and placed it face up on the first card. One eye opened, squinted at it, and then both flew open.

"No! There's not another joker in the whole stupid deck!" she cried. Again, she looked for shadows, craning her neck to and fro until the cracking became too audible. Not finding anything, she settled back, breathing hard. "Gods and Goddesses on the march tonight, I swear." She stroked the grinning face of the card with trepidation. "Joker covers Lord. Takes his place in time and space."

"Card thirteen, what will it mean?" she patted the deck, not wanting, not daring to pull the card up to see. She knew she would, but not now, not now.

The door to her tiny cabin flew open with a crashing thump, causing her to jump and throw her chair to the floor. The wind, which had been hovering nearby, was startled up to the ceiling to hang amid spiders and their lunches.

"Scuze me, ma'am... or sir. I didn't mean to startle you, but it's been a hell of a trip. Can I camp out here for the night? I'll be gone by morning light."

Flowerpot just stared. The figure at the door wasn't very tall, and certainly wasn't very old. He had a shock of blue-black hair and a generous face, with eyes as black as the ace of storms.

"Uh... ma'am?" The figure moved closer. "Are you all right?" The boy picked up the chair from where it had fallen. "Maybe you better sit down."

Flowerpot let him help her sit, not knowing what else to do. Her eyes flowed to the cards laying face up, and sought the fool, grinning back at her.

"Playing a bit of old sol? My grandmother used to do that." The boy reached toward the deck, plucked the top card off, and placed it face up at the top of the layout.

Flowerpot chuckled. Flowerpot laughed. She guffawed, coughed, and gasped for breath, and it sounded as if she was saying "Gods and Goddesses" over and over. The boy edged toward the door, saying "Ooooookay. I can see things are just a bit... odd here. Never mind."

"Get your ass back here, fool." Flowerpot said gruffly. "What's yer name, son?"

Still at the door, unsure as to take flight or not, he said, "My name's Weehawk, ma'am."

"Well, Weehawk, get your butt back in here. There's a change in the weather, and you'd rather be here than not this night. You can bunk in the corner." She got up, went over to her cook pot, turned and asked the boy, "How do you feel about stew?"

"I feel that stew is just about the best thing in the world, ma'am." Weehawk answered.

"Call me Flowerpot," she said. "'s not my real name, but it's the name I go by."

"Ok... Flowerpot."

The wind, tired of watching the spider's picnic, dropped down to hover over the table. It was curious about the thirteenth card, the card that told the end of things, the culmination. If the wind had a mind, that mind wouldn't know what to make of what it was looking at.

The thirteenth card was blank.
**************
The brothers sat on the front porch and rocked.  They didn't say much to each other.  They had been together for so long, they didn't have to.  It was to the point where one would complete the thought of the other.  They had been together so long they had seen wars come and go, countries born and die, kings declare war, march into battle and win or retreat.  They had seen the birth of their world, or so they claimed.

Zeb tapped Zack on the arm, stopping his rocking.  He gestured down the dirt road in the direction of the wood.  Zack nodded, and muttered, "Bout time."

Pockets drug himself down the road, dirty, tired, hungry and more than just a little angry.  During his trek through the wood, he had hid from a stalking wolf, gotten sprayed by a skunk, fallen more than once into the stream, and he had just about had it with nature.

Grumbling, he walked up to the steps of the old pub in Newton.  He glared at the two brothers and growled at them.

"Nice to see you too, Pockets," said Zeb.

"Got any chocolate?" Pockets rumbled.

Zack stood slowly, reached into his front pocket and pulled out a slim brown wafer.  He walked carefully over to Pockets and said, "It's carob, more or less.  A little bit of sugar thrown in.  It'll boost you back up."

Pockets took the wafer, sniffed it, licked it, bit it, and swallowed. "It tastes like old chickpeas with sugar on it." He complained. "But thanks."

"Zack and I lived on 'em when we were lost in the jungle on the southern continent bout... what?" Zeb looked at Zack, "A hundred, hundred fifty years ago?"

Zack nodded.  "Sounds bout right.  Might be three hundred.  Who knows?"  He handed a mug, wet with condensation to Pockets.  "Here, bud. Wet your whistle."  He took his place in the chair next to Zeb and continued rocking.

Pockets took the mug gratefully and drained it.  He smacked his lips noisily and said "Sarsaparilla!  Been too long since I had that."

He dropped heavily onto the steps, placed his arms on his knees and looked back the way he came.  He sighed, heavily.  "You fellows know why I'm here, don'tcha?"

Solemnly, the two brothers nodded.  "You're not the same lad that left here, Pockets."

"Hell, I'm not the same man I was a week ago!" Pockets knuckled his eyes with one fist and waved the empty mug with the other.  "Any more of this stuff around?"

Zeb waved an empty hand towards the open door.  "In there, you know the way."

Pockets painfully hoisted himself up and went through the door into Jinx's.  He looked around, remembering the few times he had been here before.  With Bags.  Always with Bags.  Pockets sighed.  "Won't be with Bags anymore," he thought.

He went round behind the bar, found a keg marked 'Sprilla' and tapped it, filling the mug with brown foamy liquid.  He sipped it and let the sweet bitter flow down his throat.  He pulled a bit of hardtack from a jar on the counter and chewed on it as he walked through the empty room, feeling the ghosts of long ago and far away flit their echos through him.  Emotions he didn't know he had, emotions that weren't exactly his filled him up and overflowed through his eyes.  He filled his mug again and went to join the men on the porch.

"You aren't lying, are you?" He said, sitting on an old barrel.  "You really are that old, aren't you?"

Neither brother said a word.  They just sat there, rocking, rocking.  Pockets turned and gazed at the mountain in the distance, its top ringed with mist.

"I don't know if I want to go there." He said, biting another piece of hardtack.  "But I know I have to go there.  I'm gonna have to take over, aren't I?"

The wind pushed treeless leaves in circles down the empty road.

"I found this place because of your lights, you know." Pockets chewed softly, quietly while the words tumbled from his mouth, from his heart.  "Not the lights of Jinx's, I mean the lights you two shine with."

He turned to the brothers, who were just sitting and rocking and letting him go.  "Did you know that the two of you shine with one light?  I can see it if I close my eyes.  It shines with a rainbow, a pretty rainbow of all shimmers of the spectrum."  He turned back to inspect the mountain mist again and sighed.  "I can see all the lights, if I look hard enough with my eyes closed.  I can even hear the lights, if I listen hard enough."

"All through the wood, I kept asking myself why me, why me?  I'm just a simple genius, so why did I have to be the one to be given this gift, this... thing which certainly isn't a gift, because a gift is a thing that comes when you expect it, and you pretend to be surprised by it, and generally it tends to make you laugh and smile and feel loved."  His shoulders slumped a bit.  "This just makes me feel... heavy."

"Would you believe," he said to nobody in particular, "that just a year ago I was wandering the desert? Me, Bags and Griz, happy as a child, not knowing anything other than the random thoughts that popped into my head?"

"Would you believe that I was just fine and dandy, doing petty thievery and little mechanical miracles and that was all it took to make me happy?"  He shook his head sadly.  "And then he called me. He brought it all back.  All the memories, all of them."  He smiled bitterly.  "Hell, I could probably read again, now.  Lucky me."

Zeb stopped rocking, reached down and picked up an acorn where it had fallen near him.  Where it had fallen was anybody's guess, because there were no acorn trees nearby.  He gently tossed it in his hand, as if weighing in, and then, not even gently, he pinged it off the top of Pockets' head.

"Are you whining to us, boy?" he asked.  "Cuz if you are, you better think about it again.  You're whining ain't gonna make the situation any better, you know."

"We've all got a job to do, you know," Zack chimed in.  "You, me, Zeb, even old Charlie, if he ain't dead yet."

"And there ain't nothing to it, my son," Zeb said, "but to do it."  He looked over at his brother, who nodded.  "We all know that Overhill died a long time ago.  It's time for you to take his place.  We probably shouldn't have taken you out of there when we did, but it was for Bags we did it." He scratched the stubble on his chin.  "But then again, perhaps it was the best thing for it.  I don't think you were ready.  You were too wet, and too soft."

"Like uncooked dough." Zack said.  "You needed to get out into the world, see what was out there.  Get cooked a couple of times."

Pockets laughed.  "Yeah, I know."  He stood up, and made a half-hearted and unsuccessful attempt at wiping the dirt from his trousers.  He shrugged and it seemed that the shrug carried the whole of the world in it.  "I know." 

He turned to the old men and put his hands on his hips.  "Well, I certainly got cooked a couple of times.  Went crazy once or twice.  Was dead at least once.  I reckon that was to just get me prepared."

He stuck out his hand.  "You two do know what will happen when I sit in that chair again, don't you?"

Zeb reached out and shook Pockets' hand.  He smiled then, a warm summer's day of a smile, and said, "Not one bit.  I reckon you don't either, son."

Zack took Pockets' hand and said, "This old world was starting to go sour, Pockets.  Things are starting to break down.  That's why he called you."  A tear formed in the corner of the old man's eye.  "Damn good to see you again, son."

Pockets smiled gently.  "Did you two really go to the southern continent?  Did you really fight a sea serpent and win the hand of the beautiful princess?"

Zeb chuckled, and the young man he once was, full of vinegar, shone through the smile.  "Lemme tell you something, Pockets.  Never, ever, ever, make a God mad."

Zack placed a hand on the young man's shoulder.  "She wasn't all the beautiful compared to some others, and as for being a princess..."  He smirked.  "We came back here.  And what does that tell you?"

"It tells me," Pockets said with a smile, "that you knew that you had other things to do. Just like me."  The smile faded a bit and he softly repeated, "Just like me."

"Aw, but lad!" Zeb said.  "It's a beautiful, wondrous day!  The sun is out, the wind is light, and there's just the tad bit of a nip in the air!  A perfect day for an adventure, wouldn't you say?"

Very little of it, of course, was true.  It was a dreary day, and the wind was bringing a damp chill with it.  However, Pockets straightened his shirt, grinned broadly and nodded savagely.

"Absolutely!"  He stepped forward and hugged each of the brothers where they sat.  "And you know how I love adventures."  He stepped off the porch, turned this way and that and frowned.  "Which way am I supposed to go, again?"

"Pockets..." Zack started.

"Just kidding!"  Pockets said.  "I'm just kidding."  He waved and set off down the road again, still tired, but not hungry, and feeling much better than he had in a number of days.  His head seemed clearer, and he felt as if he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.  He was on an adventure.  A really, truly scary adventure.  He still felt the weight of the world, but it was, indeed, lighter on his shoulders.  Not much, but a bit.  The old men had cheered him just enough.

"Pockets!" yelled a voice from behind him.  It was Zeb.

Pockets turned just in time to see a water skin hit the ground at his feet.  "Uh?" he asked.

"It's 'sprilla!" Zeb called out.  "You might not get any where you're going."

"Oh!" Pockets picked up the skin where it had landed, bladder like, on the ground. "Thanks!"  He stashed the 'sprilla filled water skin in his pack, and then he started on his way, again.  He was smiling, and almost laughed aloud.  "How bad can it possibly be?" He asked.  Of course, he also knew that was the worse thing to ask.

He strode down the dirt road until he came, again, to the stream.  This time, instead of it looking like a wet and soggy enemy, waiting to pull his feet out from under him, it seemed a friendly adversary, pointing the way.

"Bastard," Pockets called the stream, as he hopped over it to the path that led into the wood.  "Can't trip me up over here, can you?"  And he stuck his tongue out at it.

As he walked the path, he felt the scared, negative thoughts creeping in, but he fought back thinking of all that he had done in his life.  All the travels he and Bags had gone on, all of the bar maids he had wooed, though unsuccessful.  It wasn't the win that mattered, not the conquest, it was the adventure! It was the striving, that counted in the end.

He laughed out loud, his old Pockets laugh.  And then he laughed again. "Where have you been, you silly thing?" He asked himself.  "It feels like years since I laughed like that."

He thought about Capitani, and how incredibly brave she was, how soft, how sensitive.  Knowing that her time may be short, but continuing on, full bore, loving life.  A warmth opened in his heart and beat back the darkness in his soul.

He thought about Journiey, Goddess of the Wood, and her fight to just exist, to continue to survive in a world where people quit believing in the old Gods and Goddesses.  And Chum, sitting in the same spot for hundreds of years, knowing that his love would come back.  Surviving just because he didn't want to miss love's arrival.  Surviving because he made a promise and kept it.

His mind turned to Bags, of course, always.  And to Griz, and he smiled stretched until his cheeks ached.  And they were going to have a baby!  A daughter!  What wonders awaited them both!  What joy, what fear?

A tear, happy for the release, leaked down his cheek and rolled onto the mossy earth beneath his feet.  "In all those times you saved my bacon, Bags, I never thought I would ever be doing something this... incredibly adventurous and quite frankly, stupid, without you."  He drug a sleeve across sniffly nose.  "Guess the lil orphan bookworm has grown up a bit, huh?"

And there it was.  Though the clearing of the trees, the cave.  Dark, forbidding, open.  A shiver ran down his back, and for a brief moment the thought of 'Turn around, turn around' danced like a demon afire through his head.

Pockets shook that thought away, replacing it with bunny rabbits.  "I bet there are tons of 'em in that cave!"  He started towards the large opening when a thought struck him.  "Simon!"  He reached into his pack and shoved his hand in deep, reaching around and down.

Triumphantly, and with a whoop of joy, he pulled a brown ball from his pack.  Gently, and with loving reverence, he placed the little stuffed monkey in the top of his pack, so that the brown head with the crooked smile could also see where they were going.

"What do you think, Simon?" Pockets asked.  "Shall we go a-calling?"

The conversation between man and stuffed animal was soundless, but the result was that Pockets picked up his feet, moved them towards the entrance of the cave and when he walked under the large opening, he stopped and took it all in, letting memories flow.

It was as he remembered it.  Very cave-like; big, dark, dripping with water from countless stalactites.  That is, until you got past the gates.  As he continued in, he said to Simon, "Keep your eyes out for bats, okay, Simon?  The little suckers just love to come swooping down on helpless monkeys.  And Pocketses too."

Into the cave the two went, down and down into utter darkness.  Pockets wasn't bothered by the darkness.  The changes he had gone through had caused him to develop a form of sight he had not had before.  He could see the shining of the different minerals in the earth.  There were streaks of silver, that shone white, and iron, that glowed a dark red.  Quartz gave off sparks like captured lightning, and calcium everywhere, shining with a royal purple.

Down and down, for miles they trekked.  Pockets kept up a constant chatter with Simon, who wisely and simply listened as only a stuffed monkey can.  If Simon could think, he would have known that this was how Pockets dealt with fear, that rather than letting the fear stop him, immobilize him, Pockets would find something, anything to talk about and keep the fear in the tiny closet of his mind where it belonged.

An hour and half a skin of 'sprilla later, the gates appeared.  They were, as remembered, tall, and dark, and standing half open.  Pockets and Simon entered the gates as if they owned the joint.

"Honey!" Pockets called out. "I'm home!"

A soft pop off to the left of Pockets caused him to start.  The figure of M. Fletcher, the Mad Wizard shimmered into view.

"Hiya, Fletch.  Long time no see." Pockets false bravado called out.

"Come back, have you?" demanded Fletcher.  "Come crawling back to your destiny, like a whipped pup?"

"Knock it off, bub." Pockets said.  "This place gives me the creeps and I'd rather be anywhere but here.  Besides, you called me, remember? The emergency?"

The figure of Fletcher winked out and then faded back in.  "Yes, well... old programming is hard to give up," he said.

"Yeah, well... stow it," Pockets said.  "I know what the emergency is, and it's why I'm here."

"Oh?"

Pockets walked up to Fletcher and placed his hand on the brown robe the other wore.  He held it there for a few moments until the hand passed through the cloth.  "Yeah.  The gravitonic matrix is weakening and you can't hold it together."  He stepped back and said, "Not surprising, since you aren't more than coherent light yourself."

The flickering Fletcher folded his arms and asked, "And what are you prepared to do about it?"

Pockets drained the rest of the 'sprilla, and tossed the water skin to the side.  Then he smiled, belched and said, "I understand I have a reservation?  For one?"
*****************
Pockets snuggled down in the chair.  He remembered how it felt, and if you ignored the incredible pain and the fact that it drove you insane, it was quite comfortable.  He looked over where Fletcher was checking the glowing faces of dials and whatchamacalits, tapping on some thingagummies, and reading the results on tiny monitors.

"Is it going to hurt as much this time, do you think?" he asked.

"It shouldn't," Fletcher answered.  "Having gone through it before, I would think that your body would have developed a defense against the pain."  Fletcher turned a small dial and Pockets felt a sharp pain, just a twitch, at the base of his neck.  "Besides, I've done a few modifications to make the process a bit less... erm... intrusive." 

Fletcher checked the connections that ringed Pockets head like a crown.  "For instance, the cortex probes no longer have to push into the skull to make a connection.  I've found a way to increase their inductive gain so that they will take the impulses directly from your mind."

"Well, thanks, Fletch." Pockets said.  "Course, once I'm in the machine, I won't notice anyway right?"

"Still," Fletcher answered, "that's no reason why the journey there can't be made as pleasant as possible."  He checked one more connection, and then stood over Pockets.  "Are you ready?"

Pockets thought about that question.  For most of his life, he had wandered and thought and maybe did some inventing and got into a few scrapes and out of a few scrapes.  But basically, he had a lot of fun.  Until recently, that is.  It's amazing how much a heightened sense of everything can screw up a good time.

"Fletcher?"

"Yes?"

"Since you're from the machine... which means, I think that the machine created you, have you ever been on the other side?  You know..."

"Pockets, I know as much about what you will see there as your finger, no... as much as a hair on your finger knows what you are thinking.  I am just a servant here.  I assist in the health and welfare of the one in the chair." Fletcher cleared his throat. "I also assist when the one in the chair wants out."

"That means dead, doesn't it?"

"Pretty much." Fletcher thought a second before adding, "Of course, there have only been two occupants of the chair.  There was Overhill, the previous occupant, and Richard Shockley, the original occupant."

"As in the God Shockley?"  Pockets asked, surprised.

"The very one.  It was Richard Shockley who actually created this place." Fletcher waved his arms to indicate the entire world.  "The historical records indicate that he was the author of the program that controls the environment, both geocentric and atmospheric of this entire planet.  He created the mountains, the rivers, and the sky.  The records indicate that before he arrived, this was a burned out planet, too close to the sun to sustain life."

"Why would he do that? Why change this planet?"

"Because he was on a spacecraft that was about to crash land here.  There was no other way he could see to save the pioneers who were on board.  The spacecraft used propulsion based upon the graviton, which is a quantum particle..."

"I know what a graviton is, Fletcher."  Pockets waved his hand.  He was starting to get sleepy, which he hoped was a good thing.  "So he used the graviton propulsion, rigged it to modify the material of the planet... wait.  Where did he get the spare material?  You can't just create matter from nothing."

"Oh," Fletcher said, "I imagine he could have created matter from nothing at all.  That's what he was working with after all.  The quantum continuity provides a lot of room for," he coughed, gently, "miracles."  Fletcher smiled at his little joke.  "He didn't have a lot of time, Pockets.  He pulled raw material from one of the moons.  The two moons used to be the same size and mass, approximately.  When he was done..."

"You got Bigun and Lilun," Pockets nodded, understanding.  "Of course."  He yawned, largely.  "Is this sleepiness part of your enhancements?"

Fletcher nodded.  "Yep. I figure that the transition is easier when you're asleep."

"Oh.  That makes sense.  Pity you didn't have it last time I was here.  I might not have left."  Pockets yawned again. "I know that Overhill eventually died," Pockets said. "What happened to Shockley?

"Well..." Fletcher hemmed and hawed for a bit.  "That, you see, is an anomaly.  He died by being shot multiple times with a crossbow by Overhill."

"Overhill?  The last guy that was sitting here?" Pockets exclaimed.

"Yes.  Overhill had determined to make the world over, as he believed it should be.  Richard Shockley allowed himself to be killed and allowed Overhill to take over the machine.  Overhill was unable to over-ride the initial programming, and became trapped in the machine, only able to run the planet as Shockley had originally designed it to be run.  You see, Overhill was a thug, a bit bright, but not bright enough to move the programming beyond its original parameters."

"Uh huh." Pockets was starting to fade.  "But, what happened to Shockley?" He yawned and tried to hold his eyes open.  The world faded to gray, and sounds became tinny and far away.

He heard Fletcher say "It is said that he ... erm... ascended."  And then he was away, inside the machine.

He could have been dreaming, but he knew he wasn't.  He was also at a place he had visited before.  He was sitting cross-legged in the spider's web he had seen when he was sleeping at Chum's in the wood. 

He saw all the strands of the web, reaching out, out, beyond his sight.  He knew, though, that if he wanted to, he could see as far down the web as he wanted to.  He could pick a single strand and follow it to its end, if there was one, or he could choose any number of strands and travel them all simultaneously.  He knew that, back in the real world, it would have been a mental impossibility, but here, inside the machine, it was something he just knew he could do.

"Real world?"  A voice came from no-where, everywhere, right beside him.  Pockets turned to face the visitor.

He was not a tall man, and he was thinly built.  His eyes were grey, flecked with green.  His nose was thin and delicate, offset by the high definition of his cheekbones.  His face had the look of age to it, a look that spoke of wisdom and sadness.

"You realize that here, in the More Real world, I could look like anyone or anything I chose to."  The stranger smiled a slight smirk.  "I choose to look like I always have."

Pockets nodded.  "You're Shockley, aren't you?"

"Guilty as charged."  The slight man bowed from the waist, hands extended.  "I've been waiting a long time for you, Chester Pockets."

"And why was that, Doc?" Pockets asked.  "You are a doctor, aren't you?  A doctor of ... umm... Theoretical Physics.  So Doc, why is it that you've been waiting for me?"

"Good question, Pockets." Shockley said.  "I'm sure you could figure it out in time.  In fact, it might take you no time at all, since time doesn't exist here."

"Yeah, yeah, it's an illusion, I know."  Pockets shrugged.  "But you were the one that said you'd been waiting a long time."

Shockley chuckled.  "So I did.  So I did.  Fair enough, here's your answer.  I knew you were going to be born, I just didn't know when.  And since time is an illusion, here," he stressed the word 'here', "it really didn't take much time at all here.  Of course, in the real world, it took a couple of thousand years."

"So why did you wait at all?" Pockets asked.  "With your control over everything...  Oh!  You don't have that control anymore, do you?  You gave it up when you, um, died, didn't you?"

"Well...," Shockley hedged, "I have a little influence, but true, no real control at all.  I can do a little push here, a little nudge there, but generally, you're right.  I'm just a ghost, hanging around."

"Ok, and why me?"  Pockets asked.  "Why... ah!  Of course.  The interface.  You were waiting for someone that wasn't rooted in the world of greed and desire.  You were waiting for someone like you, someone that could see the larger picture from the smaller patterns."

"Give the man a cigar." Shockley said.  "And now that we've met, I'll leave you to the job."  He turned away from Pockets and seemed to fold into himself.

"Hey! Wait!"

Shockley pulled himself back out of himself.  "Yes?"

"What advice would you give to me?  I mean... What would you tell someone that just got here?"

Shockley pondered a bit and then smiled.  "Have fun.  Be smart, not a smartass.  That's what my advice would be."  He turned into himself again and with a tiny pop, he disappeared, leaving only his sadly wise smile behind, and even that faded.  Before it completely disappeared though, the words "And don't worry.  You can't break anything."

Pockets had been here before.  He knew that here, in this place, almost anything was possible.  No... Wait.  Anything was possible here!  In fact, everything was possible here.

Pockets looked at the web, where he was the center.  He knew, instinctively, that even if he were to suddenly move himself a billion miles away, he would still be the center of the web. He reached out one hand and gently laid a finger on one of the threads radiating away from him. 

What was brought to his mind was the slow grinding of the mountain... no... It was a mountain halfway across the world.  He could feel the growth and shrinkage of the mountain, and knew that, if he wished it, he could slow the growth down, speed it up, cause the mountain to levitate off the surface or turn the mountain into a kitten.

The shear amount of capability was staggering.  Pockets, with a shock and a laugh at how obvious it was, realized that it wasn't staggering at all.  The human brain had the capacity of 10 to the power of eight and a half thousand.  And he was using all of it.  PLUS, he had all the capacity of a computer the size of a planet, which did most of its computational feats using the very flux of the quantum universe.  In essence, he realized, he had unlimited capacity.  He could do anything.  He was, he realized, a God.

A humbling thought appeared in this limitless capacity.  He found himself feeling very small, among all the expansiveness he was experiencing.  A single change could and would have a very large effect. 

It was entirely possible to affect small changes without terrible consequences.  Say, moving a grain of sand from the desert to the ocean.  That might be possible to do without causing something really horrible.  But... what if the bacteria on the grain of sand caused a species of fish to die out?  Granted, that is a very extreme example, but it's still an example.

He, as Pockets the God, could simply recreate the fish species.  But that would be silly to do, since they already existed.  Obviously, this was something to not be taken lightly.

Pockets pondered it, with all the capacity he was enabled to use.  He decided that to think so hard was not terribly fun after all, and not something he really wanted to do.  So... he pondered his purpose.  What was he to do, here?

The answer came back as quickly as he thought it.  He was here to keep the machine running.  To keep the air breathable and the land habitable.  To keep the stars in their place and to keep the planet from spinning into the sun.  He was a caretaker!

"Oh, this is an easy job!" he thought.  "I don't have to do anything at all!"  But that wasn't true either.  Even as he said those words, he could feel all sorts of small tugs and some larger small tugs as well, coming from all over the web. 

Reaching into his memory, which was now the memory of the entire planet, he recognized that these tugs were the millions, the billions of changes that were occurring all over the planet right NOW.  Everything that changed, every sprout, every word, every thought, every birth, death, creation, destruction that occurred ANYWHERE on the planet, was a tug at him.  Some very small, some not so very small, but small nonetheless.  He searched to see if there was ever a big tug, and he found a few.  Earthquakes that were large enough to birth volcanoes.  A war where thousands of people, animals, plants all died at the same time.  An oddity of time that shifted like some strange beast breathing in and out.

These were events that occurred while Fletcher was in charge.  Fletcher was programmed for a specific task, or tasks.  The maintenance of the occupant of the chair, the disposal of the body when the occupant passed on, and the search for the replacement.  Other than that, Fletcher was unable to make the choices that a human mind was capable of.  Plus, without a human mind, Fletcher would, himself, fade away after enough time.  It was a wonder that he had held together as long as he had.

Pockets turned his attention to his old mentor, and saw that Fletcher was indeed nothing more than a collection of coherent light, photons that were tightly held together with the same gravitons that he was now the master of.

With a flick of his mind, he adjusted the soil temperature of a small equatorial island by a hundredth of a degree to keep it in line with what should be the soil temperature at that time of year.  With another flick, he adjusted a mutation in a baby bird, still an embryo, in the northern lands.  It was a mutation that would not have occurred normally, and was a direct result of the weakening of the matrix that held the world together.

Pockets changed his vision of the world.  It became a shimmering globule of lights, small tiny pinpoints and large bubbles and bubbles of sparkles that came, grew, changed shape, and faded.  He opened what he had for ears and heard every sound that was being made in and on the world. It was a cacophony of sound so great that he knew that if he had his old human ears, it would have turned his mind to mush.  As it was, he was able to tune and separate the noises to what they truly were.  Some were simply the sounds of nature, like the grinding of rocks in the mountain he was in, or the ripple of water in the stream, the croaking of toads, and the neighing of horses.  Some were human voices, coming from the hundreds of thousands of people on the planet.

"So few?" Pockets thought aloud.  And the answer was before him.  The machine had kept the population low on purpose, to keep conflict at a minimum.  Even so, wars still occurred, fighting still happened, people still died for stupid reasons.

For a brief moment, Pockets considered changing the very nature of people, to make them less violent.  He also realized in that same brief moment that it was impossible to change the nature of the humans on the planet.  He found there was a programming block that countermanded any suggestion of that sort of change.

Probing a little deeper, he came to understand that this violent nature, while a terrible thing on the face, carried a great gift.  The violent nature came from the desire of humans to reach beyond their everyday lives, to stretch beyond their reach.  It was this desire, this striving, that yes, created great horror and atrocities, but it also created great innovations and brought wonders to every day life that would not have existed without this terrible gift of reaching beyond their grasp.

So what was he to do?  He was finding that maintaining the countless trillions of small events that occurred all the time was being done without his conscious notice.  It was like breathing, or having your heartbeat.  He noticed what he was doing when he turned his attention to the process, but if he decided to turn his attention elsewhere, the job was still being done.  So... what was he to do?

"I know!" Pockets said, with a grin.  "I'll go home!"
*************
Pockets hung in space, just above the web of lights.  He could see where each and every one of the lights connected and could see the interplay of the colors and sparking energies as the planet changed, aged, moved, and lived.

"Where shall I go first?" he wondered aloud.  "Hmm, hmm, and hum." 

Stretching his perception, he found Bags and Grizelda, sleeping.  He could tell by the merged colors that the baby within Grizelda was healthy and growing normally.  "Nothing abnormal there, thank the Gods and Goddesses."  He chuckled to himself.  "I guess that would mean me, now."  He pursed his lips and reconsidered.  "Best let the kids sleep.  I'd give 'em a helluva scare if I just popped in now."

Even so, he chanced a glimpse into Bags dreams.  Bags was dreaming of the old days, when he and Pockets were out on the road, before they met Grizelda.  The setting was odd, though. It wasn't anywhere that Pockets recognized.  There were tall plants with large fronds.  And there were strange animals, orange and brown stripped, the size of a camel but with a meaner disposition, six legs and really big teeth.  Bags had his sword out, bloody and shining, and he was slashing furiously at two of them. He had a few cuts on his arms and a gash running along his chest, but he seemed fine.  He seemed better than fine, he was laughing and roaring with unbridled joy.

He checked the memory of the computer, which was now his memory, and found that the planet did indeed contain such an animal.  It was located on that mysterious southern continent.  The locals called the ferocious creatures Grawls.  Not a terribly imaginative name, he thought.  "I gotta go see that place for myself," Pockets promised himself.

He gently pulled out of Bags' dream, and just as gently went into Grizelda's.  Her dream was much more calm, generally a dream of normal life.  She was hanging wet clothes on a line in the back.  A young girl stood next to her, passing clothespins from a small basket to Grizelda.  Grizelda, in the dream, smiled down at her daughter.

"Mom, when will Pop be home?" the girl asked.

"Esme, you know I can't tell you that."  Grizelda pulled a pin from her mouth and used it to fasten a shirt to the line.  "Your father is off on one of his adventures, so there's no telling."

Esme, whose full name was Esmeralda Lapockets Bags, looked up at her mother with her hands on her hips.  "You know... some day I'll be going out on adventures too!  Then Pop will just have to wait on ME!"

Grizelda laughed and ruffled the brown hair of eight-year old Esmeralda.  "I have no doubt of that, sweetheart."  She turned back to her laundry.  "Fortunately, you have a few years to go.  Don't give me more grey hairs than I already have before their time, okay?"

Esme smiled mysteriously and waved at no one at all.

Grizelda turned around, and looked to see nobody there and asked, "Who on earth are you waving at, silly?"

Blinking her innocent green eyes and continuing to smile, Esmeralda said, "Uncle Pockets is looking at us."

Grizelda, her face showing shock, asked "What?  What did you say?"

Pockets pulled out of Grizelda's dream not quite as gently as he had Bags.  He checked Grizelda's vital signs and found them to be slightly elevated, but normal otherwise.

"Well..." He muttered. "That was... weird."

He turned his awareness to the fetus growing.  Oddly enough, the not quite born baby girl appeared to be smiling and waving at him.

Grizelda woke with a start, poked Bags a couple of times and said, "Bags!  Wake up!  I've just had the strangest dream, and the baby is kicking like a mule!"

Bags rolled over, opened one eye, and grumbled, "Probably that chili you had tonight.  Told you there was too much pepper."

Pockets pulled himself away, and searched the shiny web for someone else.  He found Capitani's light, very bright, and yet it fluctuated.  Sometimes it was dim, and sometimes blinding.  He opened his eyes upon her world.

Capitani was sitting up before the fire, sipping hot tea.

He looked into her mind, into what she was thinking, and he was surprised.  She was thinking about death.  Pockets recoiled as if he had picked up a snake.  He looked at her face and she was sitting composed, not a sign of sadness or dread marked any line on her face.

"Maybe I picked it up wrong," Pockets though, knowing that was impossible.  He listened, timorously to what she was thinking.  She was concerned, in a concept that shown a lovely aquamarine, about what Bren, her son, would do after she was gone.  She wasn't terribly worried about her husband, Thom.  He was a big boy now, and should be able to handle himself.  But Bren...

Pockets shifted the world just a little bit, not much, but just a tiny scootch.  He whispered, "He'll do just fine, Capitani.  I promise."

Capitani jerked up right, spilling her tea.  She whipped her head around, looking for the source of the whisper, her eyes wide with fright.  "Who?  Who said that?" She stood up and looked around.  She grabbed a candlestick from the table in front of her.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I'll warn you, I'm armed."

Pockets pondered this turn of events.  It was certainly not his intention to scare the daylights out of Capitani.  He came up with a solution, but it wasn't one that he liked, because of the amount of power required. 

Up to this moment, Pockets assumed he was all powerful, pulling energy from a source that existed in the space between everything else.  He suddenly became aware that even though the source was unlimited, the vessel that contained the source, the computer and his own frail human frame was not. 

If he kept output up too long, he would burn himself out.  It was one thing to spread the energy out in a billion tiny pushes, maybe even to do a few minor practical jokes, but to condense and form a human shape carried the potential of disaster and death.

"What the hell," he thought.  "This was Capitani!  Besides I'll just be really quick."

Capitani heard a short hum, saw a small light grow near the front door of the small house she and her family lived in.  The light popped open and spread up and down and out.  It assumed a slightly human shaped nebula that shimmered with the colors of the rainbow.

Capitani, shaking and eyes wide, said "Who are... what are you?"  She raised the candlestick, threateningly.

"Capitani, I'm... uh." Pockets stopped.  Should he tell her who he is?  If he did, it might require hours of explaining, and he could feel the drain on his system already.  "In for a copper, in for a gold, I always say," he thought to no one.

"Capitani, I'm Pockets.  Now, don't freak out, ok?"

"Pockets?  Pockets is gone... no wait."  Capitani crinkled her brow, but didn't lower the candlestick.  "You maybe feel a little like Pockets.  Maybe a little, but you don't look like Pockets.  Say something Pockets-like."

"Sheesh, Capitani!  I don't have a lot of time!"  Pockets made the voice even have a bit of desperation.  He thought quickly, which for him was incredibly fast.  A half second later he said, "I'll always be your Sir Pockets, if you will be my Master Harlequin!"

The candlestick clattered to the ground, and Capitani hid her mouth behind her hands.  "Pockets?" she whispered.  "How?"  She shook her head, disbelieving.  "Where are you?" she asked.  "I heard there was a search party out looking for you.  Do you know you've been gone for a month?  When I went to visit you that day, you said you were going wizard hunting.  Did you find him?"

"Capitani, please." Pockets begged.  "I don't have much time.  This is killing me."

Capitani closed down.  Her eyes closed, her mouth closed, her face closed up as well, scrunching up like sad sponge.

"I wanted you to not be afraid.  I wanted you to know I'll always be around you.  I wanted you to know that Bren and Thom will be all right."  He felt his body, back in the chair, start to spasm from its reaction to so much energy output.  "I'm sorry, Capitani, I've got to go.  But I'll be listening, okay?"

Capitani watched as the nebula collapsed into itself and disappeared with a soft pop.  She took a while to close her mouth.  She found herself very, very tired.  She made her careful way back to the sofa, collected her teacup, and curled up under the blankets again.  She started to take a sip from her tea only to be surprised.  All her tea had spilled out.

Choking back a quiet sob, she said, "Darnitall, Pockets!  You made me spill my tea."  Then, with tears in her eyes, she laughed quietly at the foolishness of it all.

In the shimmering darkness, Pockets stopped to access his situation.  "Access the situation?  I'm sounding more and more like Bags", he muttered. 

He sent a tiny awareness back to his body, and discovered that it was, indeed, overheated and weak.  He saw Fletcher energetically maintaining the body, injecting fluids, wiping down a sweaty brow.  He watched as the Mad Wizard bent down and said in the body's ear, "Bet you won't be trying that again for a while, will you?  You DO have limits, you know."

Pockets moved the lips on the body, pushed air from the lungs and replied dryly, "Now you tell me."

Fletcher smiled.  "Well."  He placed a cool towel around Pockets' neck.  "There's no greater teacher than experience.  I will say this, though.  You got much further than Overhill ever did."

"Oh?"

"Yes.  Overhill died from simple old age.  He was," a small second passed, "eight hundred and thirty six.  You on the other hand appear to want to kill yourself much faster.  Do try to be more careful, won't you, Chester?  The fuel is very strong, and it's easy to burn out the engine."

Pockets lips were very dry.  A tongue ran out, licked them, and he said, "No kidding.  Eight hundred and thirty six."  He blinked his eyes.  "Reckon I'm still here, huh?"

Fletcher normally impassive face showed a bit of surprise.  "You thought you would disappear into the void?  Silly boy, of course not.  You're still here.  You're still human." He reached over to a table and picked up a mug of something orange and... Lumpy.  "Here, drink."

Pockets did so.  It was sweet with an under hint of bitter.  "Ugh," he complained as he chewed the drink.  "What is it?"

"Oh, just the juice of an orange, some pureed apple pulp, some crushed nuts for protein and an egg.  We must keep your strength up." He took the mug from Pockets and placed it on the table.  "So, what did you think of your trip?"

Pockets started to sit up, but found himself restrained by the straps on his arms and the connection in his neck.  He lay back down and relaxed.  "It was much better than when you had me here the last time."  He paused for a moment.  "You know... I can still feel myself back there.  I can feel all the connections to the entire world."

"Of course you can.  You're only partly here." Fletcher smiled.  "The rest of you is out there, somewhere."

"Huh.  After all these years of people telling me I'm not all here, I've finally proved them right."

Fletcher had no comment.

"Think it's safe for me to go back?" Pockets asked.

"Chester, you're only here," Fletcher explained, "in this body, because you thought yourself here.  You could have stayed out in the great unknown forever and I would have stayed here, making sure your body stayed healthy." Again, he smiled gently.  "Forever, if need be."

"Forever?" Pockets asked.  "I could live forever?"

"However you would define forever, Chester, that is how long you, potentially could live."

"Wow." Pockets said.  "Just... wow."  Then his brow wrinkled.  "I don't know if I'd like that."

Fletcher nodded.  "That's expected.  Humans should grow old and die.  It's part of the natural cycle."

"Yeah." Pockets was quiet.  "But not before their time.  I'll be back, Fletch.  I need to go see someone."

Launching out from his body, Pockets sailed the lights of the web until he came to where Capitani was sitting.  Only a few seconds seemed to have passed and he heard her say "...spill my tea."  He saw the tears drop from her eyes, and it broke his heart. 

"So," he whispered into her ear, "why are you laughing?"

Capi jumped again. "So you really can hear me?"

"Of course, Capitani.  I'd never lie to you."  Pockets pushed the matrix and picked the spilled tea up from where it fell and caused it to fall back into her cup.  For good measure, he even gave it a bit of a warm up.

"Pockets, Pockets.  Where are you?" Capitani asked.

"Everywhere, Capitani.  I mean, I'm in one spot, or my body is.  But the me that makes me... it's everywhere.  It's complicated."

"I can tell."  She sat quietly.  "If you were here, I'd pour you some tea, you know.  We'd sit here on this sofa and tell stories of the old days and jokes and laugh until we woke Thom and Bren up.  Then I'd make us all breakfast."

"Capitani," Pockets asked, quietly, "Why aren't you asleep?  You should be exhausted."

"Oh, I am, Pockets.  So tired I can't even sleep."  She looked into her tea.  "I just had some things on my mind."

"I know.  I heard."

"What?" Capitani looked up.  "What?  You can read my thoughts?"

"Well... yes."

"Don't you ever do that again, Chester Pockets." Capitani's eyes flashed angry jagged beams of anger.  Pockets could feel the shock from her anger.

"Um. Okay."

"No!" her voice raised.  "You don't understand, Pockets.  You always seemed to miss that one thing that the rest of us know instinctively.  You don't go looking through other people's things!  Promise me you will never, ever go looking through my thoughts again. Ever."

"Okay, okay!" Pockets voice whispered loudly in her ear.  "Sheesh.  It's not like I was stealing anything you know."

"You stole my privacy, Pockets."  Capitani's voice dropped to a husky whisper.  "Promise me, Pockets.  And not just me, but everyone else, too.  It's just wrong."

"Okay, Capitani.  I'm sorry.  I promise."

"You promise what?" Capitani asked.

Pockets' whisper sighed.  "I promise that I will not go reading yours or anybody else's thoughts every again, forever and ever unless I get their explicit permission to do so.  Okay?  All right?"

"Okay." Capitani said.  "All right."  She took a deep, shuddering breath.  "I think I can sleep now.  I think you just about done me in, Mister."

"Capitani, I'm so sorry..."

"Pockets, stop apologizing. No harm, no foul.  Just don't do it again."  Capitani sipped her tea, draining the cup.  "Thanks for the tea, though.  I noticed you put a bit of honey in it."

"Sweets for the sweet." Pockets whispered.

"Get on with you now."  She smiled as she shakily got to her feet.  "Really, go.  I'm going to bed."  She started for the bedroom door, and then turned.  "And no peeking mister!  You keep them everywhere eyes to yourself, you hear."

"We'll talk later?" Pockets asked.

"You betcha.  I want to hear all about what is going on with you." Capitani said.  "Now scoot."

Pockets pushed a tiny brush of non-existent lips against her cheek.  "Good night, my harlequin."

"Good night, master inventor, my invisible friend."

Pockets pulled himself away from Capitani's bubble and faded back into the diamond blackness.  He had gone there to cure her.  To offer her a gift to take away her pain and give her health.  He wondered now if that would have been the right thing to do.  Her illness was part of her.  It gave her strength, and in an odd sort of way, it was what cause him to love her all the more.  He suspected that she would do a much better job of running the world than he ever would.

"Well then, old son," he said to the flashy blobs of multi-colored light around him.  "I reckon I best do a job that would make Capitani proud then, hadn't I?"

He sat by himself and thought about what to do next.  After all, forever was a very, very long time, and Pockets hated being bored.
*************
Pockets sat in the deep black of the space between everything and pondered... everything. "I want to see the world", he though to himself.

He let his mind drift between packets of odd color and bubbles of shifting spectrum.  In those moments, he remembered he was nothing but his mind, body left sitting in a chair in a mountain, tied by wires to what he was now.

He chucked a deep purple color, and somewhere on the planet, he felt a cloud build and rain small yellow flowers on a field of bright green.  He reached a hand he knew he didn't have and felt the rain as it fell, velvety soft on his non-existent hands. 

The rain came to his vision as tiny bursts of sparkling gold and he smiled.  The world smiled with him and there was a valley where the people, for no reason at all, stopped and laughed at how fine life was.

This valley interested him, and he focused on it.  It was more than just a valley, he noticed.  It was an oddity where the stuff that made up the quantum universe he was in bubbled to the surface and flowed up, up and into the air.  He could see the energy connections of the trees, the grass, the rocks, and the trees, connected to the people, the animals and the very buildings. 

He was amazed to find that there were inhabitants, living in the valley, who could manipulate the very same quantum material that made up the energetic void in which his consciousness was floating.  Raising a curious eyebrow, Pockets watched invisibly as the flux was manipulated and bent, twisting into other shapes and merging back onto itself to form... other things.

"Interesting," he said.  He filed this information away to look at later.

Turning his attention north, he flowed as a wind across a mountain, and at the spot where the immense forest met a wide plain, he came to a large village.  It looked vaguely familiar, and so he lingered, a small cold spot hovering above the peak of one of the houses. 

He watched the people come and go, and finally saw a face he remembered and he knew where he was.  This was Forest End, the place where he and Bags had met Grizelda.  The familiar face belonged to...

"Cookie!" he whispered, and flakes of purplish snow formed and melted.

Long ago, and far, far away his memories drifted, lemonish and yellowish and tartly sweet, liquid gold upon his tongue.  It was the last place he could remember having a decent glass of lemonade.  Cookie, who ran the kitchens for the cathouse there, had always had a warm spot by the fire, a fresh glass of cool lemonade, and conversation mingled with old wives tales and homilies.  She was the closest to a mother he could remember.

She looked up at the clouds, at the sky, at the place where Pockets' focus was sitting.  He saw her squint against the sunlight.  She was older, of course, but he couldn't tell how old.  He knew he could find out, if he checked the records for her birth, but somehow he felt that would be cheating.  He moved from his airborne spot and drifted down until he was next to her.

"Grizelda lives," he whispered.  Cookie started, dropped the basket she was carrying and her mouth formed a big 'o'. 

Clapping her hands to her ears, she shook her head and cried aloud, "No! No more voices!"  She fell to her knees and a few of the other women gathered around her concerned.

"Cookie!" one of them asked, "What's wrong?"

The old cook looked up at the girl with tears in her eyes.  "Nothin'." she said.  "Just old memories coming back to haunt me.  Just voices in my head again." She got painfully to her feet and said, with a weak smile, "You know how we old women get."  Cookie tapped the side of her head.  "Crazy, you know?  Hearing voices." 

She picked up the basked where it had dropped, and looked fearfully back toward the spot where Pockets' voice had come from.  "Just hearing voices, from the past.  That's all."  She walked carefully back toward the house.

Pockets, shocked by Cookie's reaction, withdrew far away.  It was a curious thing, her being frightened like that.  It was something he had not expected.  He had expected her to be... he realized he thought it would be like an old family reunion.  He also realized he should have known better.  Cookie probably thought he was a ghost.  He drifted through the walls, exactly like the ghost he wasn't, to check on her.

She was sitting in the kitchen, and Pockets could see her old shoulders shake.  She was crying, quietly, so the other women couldn't hear.  In her hand, she held a small golden locket, which contained a tiny bit of hair.

"Aw, my Grizelda," she was whispering, "I hope it is indeed true that you are alive, and I hope you are well."  She sighed mightily as she stood and moved to a large cook pot, bubbling on the stove.  "I know why you had to leave, girl, but I do miss you greatly, that I do."

Assured that Cookie wasn't suffering much more than sad thoughts, Pockets pulled back to give her privacy.  He drifted through a doorway into the large dinning room.  A thought came to him then, and he moved over the table.

Focusing a very tight beam of thought on one of the linen napkins, he caused the fabric to grow older, turn brown in a very specific pattern.  The pattern created rough words and the words read:

"Cookie. Grizelda is in a kingdom whose name is Tears at the northern edge of the great desert.  She is well and with child and married to Bags.  I miss your lemonade.  Pockets."

He turned his focus to the air around the napkin and cause a bit of wind to blow it off the table, across the floor, and through the doorway to the kitchen.  He heard the old woman say, "Now, how did you blow in here?"  A few moments later and from the kitchen Pockets heard a gasp, and a cry.

He flew back into the kitchen to see Cookie, with the scrap of cloth in hand, yelling at one of the girls to come attend to her.  Pockets hung in the corner of a cobweb while he watched and listened.  The young girl read what was on the napkin and asked Cookie what it meant.

"It means," Cookie said, "That perhaps I'm not all that crazy after all."  She hobbled toward the doorway, and said as she went, "It's time I had a vacation."  She stopped and turned to the girl.  "Tell the masters that I have a...  family matter to attend to.  My girl is going to have a baby."

Pockets let go, and drifted up, up, through the roof, back to the clouds.  He was tired.  Bone tired, if he had bones.  Brain tired, if he had a brain.  He felt good though.   He drifted in the void and realized he had done something very, very right.

This tiredness, though, bothered him.  It bothered him a lot.  It was something he had never felt so intensely before.  He had been unconscious.  He had been dead, or nearly so, and nothing had been as... painful as this.  He had questions.  He searched the great memory that was available to him, and found no mention of what being in this quantum state was like.  Apparently, neither Shockley nor Overhill had thought about making personal observations about how they felt.

"What stupid heads." Pockets said to the pulsing flashes of nothing.  "I would think that there should be something left behind for those of us that have to go through it.  Something like a journal or a diary."  There was Fletcher, though.  Fletcher, in one incarnation or another, had been here since the very beginning.

Pockets opened his eyes and looked up at the bearded face.  "Fletcher, we need to talk."  Pockets realized that he was very cold and that he had been sweating.

"I daresay we do, Chester." Fletcher was wringing out a towel.  "If you continue to do... whatever it is you are doing out there you will burn yourself out in no time."  He clucked his tongue, disapprovingly.  "There isn't enough time to find a replacement you know.  Probably won't be another one like you for a generation or so."

"Are you telling me that I can't talk to anyone?  That I can't touch my friends?  Ever again?"

Fletcher shook his head.  "Ever again, Chester."  He paused. "There was a time, before this planet was very old, before the matrix had become so ... diversified, that Richard Shockley could speak and show himself, briefly.  Even he found it difficult."

"Since then, however, this planet has developed pockets where the energy has pooled and places where it has weakened.  There simply isn't anyway to stabilize enough energy to maintain anything remotely physical without causing permanent damage to you.  There is something about the physical interaction with other living creatures that causes a feedback loop and will literally short circuit who ever sits in the chair."  He placed a hand on Pockets shoulder.  "I'm sorry, Chester"

"Well, hell." Pockets said.  "That just sucks."  He drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair.  He was going to have to figure a way out of this. 

"Fletch," he asked.  "This... quantum matrix stuff.  It can only be powered by a human?"

Fletcher stopped polishing a dial faceplate.  "Are you still here?  You should be out there making sure that the matrix doesn't disorganize."

"From what I've seen, it's doing pretty good all by itself.  Answer the question."

Fletcher appeared to think about it.  "When Shockley set it all up, in the beginning, it was designed to use the imagination of the chair's occupant to push the flow of energy into a coherent form that would stabilize the ecostructure of the planet."

"Making the place livable." Pockets nodded.  "Okay, I can see that."

"There was a side effect, however." Fletcher continued.  "The imagination of a human being contains a good deal of... oddities.  Shockley called them dreams.  These dreams created a great deal of some of the stranger things on the planet."

"Like Gods and Goddesses?  Like six-legged orange stripped animals with really big teeth?"

"Oh, if that was what was created, I'm sure that was probably considered mild."  Fletcher paused again.  "Shockley had an associate, Charles Pentell, who was transformed by one of Shockley's dreams in to a satyr."

"Full body transformation?" Pockets asked.

"Indeed.  It was a demonstration of what full focus of the matrix can do."

"Sounds like an unfocused demonstration of what a focused matrix can do." Pockets pondered.  "And you say this happened while he was dreaming?"

"According to the oldest memories I have, yes."

"Did he ever create anything like that when he was not dreaming?"

"Nothing appears to indicate so."

"So...," Pockets mused, "It was a totally subconscious reaction."  He was quiet for a moment and then he said, "Okay, Fletch.  I'm going back for a bit, but I'll be back if I can think up any more questions."

Fletcher nodded.  "Just to let you know, Chester, your body temperature is one hundred and three.  Do try to take better care of yourself.  I don't think you can take much more of this abuse."

Pockets smiled wanly.  "I'll do my best, Fletcher... Say, next time I show up, think you could have some lemonade?"

Fletcher looked puzzled.  "I'm sure I can do something..."

"Good," Pockets said.  "I promise it won't be for a while though.  I've got some thinking to do."  A tiny smile came to his face.  "I do have one more question, though."

Fletcher seemed to sigh and asked, "Yes?"

"How smart was this Shockley guy?"

-*-

In the vastness of space, above the planet, hung two moons.  The largest was marked with a large number of craters, and was named Bigun by the human inhabitants of the planet it orbited.  The other, a smaller moon, hung like a pearl in the sky, not a crater or a pit was on its airless surface.  It was called Lilun, simply because it was the smaller of the two.

At one time, the moons were roughly the same size.  They carried an orbit that positioned them near enough to each other that their combined gravity was treated as if it was from one source.  The two moons spun and danced around each other in a wondrous oddity of galactic Siamese twinism, and, had there been any one on the planet to remark on it, they would have been hard pressed to determine which moon was which.

The planetary system continued this way, this incredibly balanced way, for millennia and all was as happy as an airless, lifeless planet can be happy.  But the Universe, in its infinite wisdom, or perhaps its incredible perversity, decided that this should not be so.  There was, at one time, a space-faring craft carrying inhabitants to colonize a new world in part of the known human universe.  There was also, at one time, a cluster of meteors, or to be quite truthful, a broken comet, hurtling through space at it's own leisurely pace of a couple of thousand miles a second.  It just so happened that the two times coincided, and it also just so happened that the directions the two, the inhabited craft and the wandering comet, were diametrically opposed to each other and the trajectories were such that they were indeed, destined to meet.

Punctured and limping, the spacecraft had lost its ability to navigate, and had the crew no idea where they were going. This was not a funny situation to the crew, and no passenger was even a little joyful over the prospect of being lost in the vastness of the Universe.  They were able to continue their journey because the propulsion of the ship was the careful metering of a particular quantum particle, or wave (there is still some debate), called the graviton. 

The concept was to point the stream of gravitons toward your destination and have it pull the craft at near light speed, and in some cases, beyond light speed, by twisting through pockets of energy between the universes, because, as everyone knows, there are more than one.  Consequently, the craft found that it was moving further and further away from the known universe, moving faster and faster as the gravitonic stream latched onto objects further and further away.

Now, the Universe does indeed have a sense of humor, and the universe also has a sense of justice, and what the Universe found to be very just indeed, was that on this hazardous and lost flight, was the man who discovered the method of gravitonic manipulation.  This particular man, a very bright man, it can be assured, knew that eventually the ship would find its destination and come to a stop.  As anyone can tell you, it is not the fall that kills you.  It's that stop at the end.

As all good things and all bad things do, the journey did come to a stop after a rather frightening time.  The destination was this airless, uninhabited planet.  The planet was too close to its star, so the surface was not only very hot, it also had a rather disturbing tendency to shake violently at times.  In other words, it was not something that the colonists on the craft would like to live on, or in fact, could live on.  Regardless, it was destined that a crash would happen, and that is exactly what... um... happened.

The particular man, who was also a peculiar man in being so very bright, had formulated a thought since the beginning of the events that caused the craft to lose it's navigation and find itself so very far from home and so very far from ever being found.  The thought was simple, to those who thought it.  And since he was the only one that thought it, it was simple only to him. The thought was in the form of questions and the questions were these:

"What if the gravitonic stream was manipulated in such a skillful manner, was fine tuned in such a way, that rather than reaching out and taking hold of far distant planets, the stream instead focused upon very small things, such as electrons, protons and neutrons?  What if, using the incredible amount of skill derived from a combination of the computational power of a computer, which adds and subtracts numbers at an incredible rate, and the pure imaginative power of the human mind, which can conceive of things that no computer could ever conceive of, these tiny parts of matter were combined, or indeed, recombined to form the very matter that would sustain human life?  Things such as air, and water."

Those were a couple very large of questions, indeed.  And they were being asked by perhaps the only man that could answer those questions.  This was just as well as the questions may have been fairly simple, in the sense that they were in a language most people spoke, the answers were something that had very little language, as the answers were done in the form of action at the speed of thought.

So, using matter from one of the moons, the planet was recreated into a form that would sustain life. The man had hardwired himself into the massive computer that controlled the gravitonic stream and set about the task of saving the crew and colonists.  To those on the ship, this was nothing short of magic as they watched an arid and lifeless planet sprout green and liquid. 

Of course, an inhabitable planet was one grand effect.  Another was that the moon, from which the borrowed matter was taken, developed not only a surface as smooth as a bald man's pate, but was decreased in size by a third.  Because of this, this peal onion of a moon gained the name Lilun.

One other affect that became rather notable was the rather unusual sprouting of things that heretofore had been relegated to the realm of fairy tales.  Richard Shockley, while in the chair on that very first creative night, fell asleep, and when he slept, he had dreams.  Wondrous dreams of childhood stories of magic.

When he awoke, and realized what he had done, he reprogrammed the system to recognize the sleeping human mind and to ignore the creative force that sprung from it.  The effects that had already been done, however, remained unchanged, and so, magic had come to the planet, as well as all the odd beasts and wonders of that one night of dreaming.

Richard Shockley, the man in the chair, who was doomed to stay in the chair until his death, had created a living planet from a dying one.  He sat there for hundreds of years, letting his mind hold the planet together.  He believed that, if left to its own devices, the planet would revert to a lifeless state again in the matter of a few centuries, as the web of the gravitonic matrix dwindled without the motivation of a human imagination behind it. 

There had been one other. Robert Overhill, who dreamed of overthrowing Shockley and recreating the world in his own image.  A world run by Centaurs, which, coincidentally, Robert Overhill happened to be.  Shockley allowed Overhill to kill him, knowing that it was the only way that Shockley would ever find rest.

Overhill found that the job was a bit larger to get a grip on than he expected.  Robert Overhill was nowhere near as bright as Shockley was and could not grasp even the smallest nuance of gravitonic matter manipulation.  Indeed, it was quite possible that there would never be anyone that would be able to come close to the sort of control that Shockley had over the gravitonic matrix.

It has been mentioned that the Universe tends to have a sense of humor.

-*-

Pockets floated above the crumbly surface of Bigun.  He focused his attention on the airless and grey surface and, in his mind's eye, he could see himself squint with focus.  If his bodiless state could have had any sort of human form at all, the tip of his tongue would have been poking out of his mouth and his fists would have been scrunched up tight.  Pockets was very, very intent.

Moments passed with no results.  Suddenly, a tiny, microscopic moon pebble, smaller than the smallest grain of sand, winked out of existence with a poof of dust.  A few seconds later, a pebble, the same size and shape as the one that disappeared, winked into existence with pretty much the same poof of dust.

"Woo hoo!" Pockets whirled where he was hanging.  Or, he would have if the ability to whirl, to hang or to say the words "Woo hoo" were something he could do.  As it was, he could do nothing of the sort.  He was just a rather tightly focused combination of things that had no definition other than that which he, himself, gave definition too.  He only knew he was Pockets because, after all, who else could he be?

"Woo hoo!" he said again.  "Well... maybe just a small woo hoo.  It wasn't very impressive considering the size, but damn, that was impressive because it could have been nothing at all!"  He focused his concentration... or it could be said he concentrated his focus once again.  And waited.  And... waited.

Again, after what may have been hours, or seconds, or minutes or weeks, another pebble collapsed with another poof of dust, followed by the recreation of another pebble and even another poof of dust.

"Well...  Woo hoo," he thought to himself with a little less enthusiasm than before.  "I was hoping for something a bit... bigger."  If, floating as a named void above an airless moon, Pockets could have had a body that had lungs, he would have sighed.  He would have rubbed his hands together, and squared his shoulders.  He would have once again, squenched his face up and focused his eyes. 

"Baby steps, Pockets ol' boy.  Baby steps."
****
Part of Pockets was constantly monitoring the world, as it turned from night to day, from day to days, from days to weeks.  He watched as a monster hurricane attack the southern continent on its western side.  He was aware that the snowmelt from the northern pole was less than the previous, but the southern balanced it out, and the ocean level stayed pretty much the same.  He felt an earthquake rip through an uninhabited portion of the northern continent, and saw that an entire species of flying weasels was wiped out because they lived in only that one area.  A part of him mourned, knowing that he and Bags would never get to see the weasels alive.  He also knew that their end was part of the very natural order of the planet, so he also rejoiced and remembered their passing.

Wonders he saw, from his vantage point of being between the worlds.  He watched as that curious village, that was called itself the Village of Shopkeepers, mold and bend the stuff of the matrix into marvelous things.  There were cakes, and dolls and clothing, love charms that really brought love and luck charms that really brought luck.  He watched as a small tree on knoll near the village seemed to siphon the quantum material and channel it into the air, just as if it was water vapor from an underground stream.

He discovered a great library, on the outskirts of the plain that led to the village, which had books from all over the Universes, and was apparently a focal point for the universes to converge and combine.  He watched as books were being written, without any sort of physical help at all.  It seemed that here the books were alive. 

He found that, even though he could not interact with the people on the planet, there were some that could detect him and even communicate with him.  The Librarian, for example, whose name Pockets knew was Rebecca Grace Prim, was fully aware of him and greeted him warmly. 

She called him by his name, and in a conversation she had with him, where she was the only one speaking, she explained that she had been the librarian on the doomed ship. Richard Shockley's dreaming gave her the ability to cross dimensions and pull literature from anywhere.  She told Pockets how the Great Library was one of the things that happened naturally, on this plain close to the village.  Just as quantum magic seemed to flow from that one small tree near the village, knowledge seemed to pool here on the plain and because there had to be a place to keep it all, there had to be a library.  And here, of course it was.  She invited him back when he found the time, and hoped that they could carry a conversation like reasonable people.  Over tea.

One of the oddest things he found, something he couldn't quite fathom, was the Clock at the Center of the World.  It was a massive timepiece that seemed to govern the very tides of the planet, swinging to and fro with the seasons, and ticking the lifeblood of the continents.  It was hidden in a deep cavern, along with millions of clocks, all ticking along at their own separate rate, all showing different times on their faces.  Clocks of all sorts, clocks of all kinds. Small little chimers, and large grandfather types, reaching very high up to the ceiling. Round clocks and square clocks and clocks of odd shapes of animals and plants and people.

There was a man there, whose name was John.  He saw Pockets looking at him and introduced himself.  "I am the Winder of the Clock at the Center of the World," he said.  "It is my job and honor to keep the heart beat of the planet ticking along."   John rose from an old antique desk and showed the place around.

"Here you will find a timepiece for everyone, and everything on this planet." He showed the Great Clock, just through a door from his office.  "There is even a clock for you, and though I can tell you that it runs very slowly, it does run."  John smiled sadly. "Nobody lives forever."

Pockets, though wanted very much to stay in the Great Library, or sit with John and watch the clocks run, felt a pull back towards the Village.  He found his awareness pulled without his own will, without his wishing it, and that surprised him very much.

He was pulled through a third storey window, in a rickety old building, at the end of a narrow alley.  It was a place he recognized, from an earlier dream.  He found, much as he expected he would, a skinny, short man with pointed ears that had tufts of hair on them.  He was sitting behind a desk that was piled with papers and parchment and books.  Old grocery receipts and napkins and towels.  Any thing that would hold ink.  And ink there was!

Smudged on the wall in long scrawling sentences.  Sprawled across the floor, on the desk, on the table.  Brown, black, faded, bright and new, there was ink everywhere there was a space for a word to be written.  Even the man himself had ink on his hands, on his forehead, smudges on his shirt and the knees of his trousers.

As Pockets watched, the old man put down his quill pen, scratched one of his ears and looked up and winked.  "Yes, I figured you would be back, youngster."  He painfully pushed back from his desk, and laid the pen gently in the inkwell.  The pen, though, had other ideas, and hopped out of the inkwell and continued writing by itself.  The old man ignored it.

"You can't stay, of course." The StoryTeller told Pockets.  "You have the whole rest of the story to live through."

"Who are is this guy?" Pockets thought to himself.

"Oh, nobody important." The old man paused and scratched his thinly whiskered chin.  "I don't think so, anyway."  He pointed up to where Pockets' awareness was. "But I'm important right now in your story, that's for sure!"  He cackled to himself as if from a secret joke.

"You can hear me?" Pockets thought.

"Not so much as I can read you."  Dismissing the question and answer with a wave of his hand, the StoryTeller continued, "What is important is that there are more than just you in this story, you know.  There are things you need to focus on, and things that need to be done."

To Pockets questioning thought, the old man replied, "Oh, I can't tell you that.  I can't tell you anything."  He smiled mischievously.  "That would be like skipping to the end of the story to find out the ending, and that is something even I can't do."

"I can tell you this, however.  You will do okee doke."  With another wave of his hand, the old man shooed Pockets away.  As his awareness was once again thrust out through the window, watched as the old man sat back down at his desk and make a grab for the errant quill. "Dad burn you! Stay still..." was the last thing Pockets heard from the third storey window.

Tossed like a leaf into the wind, his consciousness flew into the forest near the very mountain his body was sitting comfortably, attached the main computer.  There were some very odd things here.  He found his old friend Chum, still sitting and waiting for his love Journiey to return, but that wasn't the oddity.  Chum was just part of the wonders of the planet, created when the planet was, much as any other wonder of the planet.

The oddity was that there was a man shaped bundle of vines further up the trail.  Another oddity was that there was a man shaped mound of dirt and moss sleeping in a tree.  Pockets checked the reality of the situation, and there was indeed a man bound to the floor of the forest.  His name was Pewitt and he had a mind full of... Fear.  Not little fears, like a fear of the dark, or a fear of frogs.  It was the Big Fear.  Fear of Life.  Fear of Death. 

Pockets watched the flow of energy from the man shaped mossy pile in the tree to the man bound on the floor.  It was very strong.  It was... vicious.  Something was severe going on.

Pockets tested the rightness of the situation.  The balance of it, to see if it was something that was wrong.  He was surprised that this was correct as it could be.  He had checked the memory of the past few weeks and found that Pewitt was bound to the forest so that he might learn a bit of acceptance, a bit of humility.  And while the Earthman, as he liked to think of himself, was not the nicest person, for reasons of his own, he had taken it upon himself to educate Pewitt.  He was educating Pewitt as to how the smallest of minds can be opened quite wide if the motivation is sufficient.  He was force-feeding education to Pewitt, and if Pewitt's strength were enough, he would survive.

Pockets moved on, further up the trail, to a larger oddity.  He noticed that here, at a small bridge over a gully a disturbance had occurred.  Not a fight.  Not an argument.  But a disturbance of Nature.  Of Time.

If he had an eyebrow, he would have raised it. He could see where the stream of time had been bent here and overlaid and overrun.  There was time laid upon time, and very neatly too.  Unless he knew where to look, he would never have seen it.  And if Pockets had been in his normal body, he would not have even known that something had happened, so he would not have even looked for it.

Burrowing down through the memories of this locale, he found that a young man named Weehawk had crossed here recently and been thrown backward in time about sixty years.  Pockets found this most curious.  The person that had done this bit of temporal tampering was apparently the same man that hung in the tree above Pewitt, but there was a difference.  This Greenman and the Earthman were the same person, only phase shifted in time by six seconds, so there appeared to be two of them. 

Pockets found this to be quite a curious thing, and he couldn't see the reason for it.  This man, this Green/Earthman seemed to be like the Librarian, the StoryTeller and John the Winder.  People that were outside the stream of the quantum matrix, or perhaps a physical part of it.  Pockets was rather hoping it was the later rather than the former.  It was important in many ways.

Just for curiosity's sake, and Pockets was nothing if not curious, he checked the computers memory for what became of Weehawk.  What he found was oddly satisfying and it explained quite a number of things.  Weehawk was indeed a resourceful old coot, had a great number of adventures on both the north and the south continent, amassed an incredible fortune and loved many women. 

He had no love that was as great as a woman who went by the name Flowerpot.  Her real name was Sally April, and she was thought by many to be a witch.  While she did have a bit of touch with the magic that ran through the planet, she was really just observant of patterns.  She played at being an old woman, but in truth, she was only ten years older than Weehawk.

Weehawk had a child by Flowerpot.  Or, it could be said that Flowerpot had a child by Weehawk.  In truth, they had a child by each other.  Just one.  A boy, who came wailing into the world and was given the Winston.

Flowerpot and Weehawk would carry Winston in a contraption she call a baby bag.  Sometimes Weehawk would carry Winston with him when he went hunting and tell the boy wonderful tales of adventure and bravery.  Flowerpot never played any card tricks when the baby was around.  It would cause him to be made fun of by other children if he showed a talent, she would say to Weehawk.  She had refused to allow him to be teased as she had been.

It was Weehawk's dream that Winston would grow to be a hero, and have the sort of life that Weehawk himself had led.

As many things that are dreamt happen, the dream died with Weehawk, who went on one great adventure to the Southern Continent. He was going in search of riches that would allow him to build a castle for his beloved Flowerpot.  Just one more, he told her, with a kiss.  He never returned.

Flowerpot, shattered and destroyed by the loss of her love, took her own life.  Before she did, she managed to take three year old Winston to an orphanage and left him hanging in his baby bag on the front door.  She kissed his forehead, told him to be brave and never give up, and walked into the darkness, to be swallowed up by the earth and spread to the winds.

As for Winston... the boy did indeed grow up, was always brave, and never, ever gave up.  In truth, he had quite a number of adventures and had the love of a wonderful woman who was soon to give birth to a bouncing baby girl.  He had lived his father's dream, and had become a hero and a king.  As the Nuns at the orphanage had no idea what his name was, they simply called him Bags, from the baby bag in which they found him.  For a first name, they pulled from an old Saint... Saint Timothy.

Pockets wanted to smile, and his body did, back in the chair under the mountain. 

Fletcher noticed the smile and wondered briefly what Pockets was up to, and checked the temperature and vitals of the body.  It was quite normal, and if anything, very peaceful. Fletcher shrugged his shoulders and went back to idly monitoring the workings of the computer.

For a brief moment, Pockets had the thought of checking his own past, to see if he could find his own parents.  He pondered it and decided that it was best left alone.  Somehow, he believed, that if you pulled the curtain that hid the man, the man would become very ordinary.  He liked who he was, and to find out he was anything different would just muddy the waters.

"Well," he thought to himself, "Enough of living in the past!" He let his consciousness rubber band back to the moon, and gathering his will, puffed six large mountains on Bigun into nothingness.  "Time to kick the tires and light the fires."  Crossing his non-existent fingers and firmly placing his imaginary tongue between imaginary teeth, Pockets Pushed.

Fletcher, under the mountain, heard an alarm going off.  He leapt to check Pockets, and found the body was quiet and normal.  He checked the massive computer, and found there was nothing amiss there either. 

Tossing back his hood, Fletcher did something he had hoped he wouldn't have to do ever again.  He pulled a small probe from a tiny console and plugged himself into the computer and becoming part of it.  He had done this many times over the years while there was no occupant in the chair.  It allowed him to see how the quantum matrix was holding up, to monitor the fluxuations and deterioration of it.  What he found surprised him, and he uttered a very non-Fletcher phrase.

"What the hell?"

All over the matrix there were spikes jumping, like mountains suddenly appearing on the ocean floor.  The whole thing was lighting up as if it had been supercharged, somehow.  The effect was oddly familiar, but he couldn't quite place from where.

He searched his own extensive memory and found nothing similar.  So he searched the memory of maintainer he replaced, Obi.  There, buried so very near the beginning, and in fact, at the very moment that Obi was brought into existence, was another flare up. 

That flare of the quantum matrix occurred at the time that Shockley was recreating the world but even that incredibly creative happening was not as shining bright as this event.

Fletcher monitored the event for eight hours.  There was no decrease of the flare, no lessening of the spikes.  If anything, it appeared as if the matrix was adapting to a new status quo, a new way that things were going to be.  There was no sign of the previous deterioration, and if anything, the flow and ebb seemed to be stronger and more vibrant.

Unhooking himself from the system, Fletcher checked on Pockets' body one again.  Pulse was normal, calm and slow.  Body temperature was well within normal.  He checked the pupils of Pocket's eyes and found they were shining from within, literally.  It seemed as if there was a light inside of Pockets head and it was leaking out from his eyes.  Fletcher took a step back and just looked at the body sitting in the chair.  His arms were crossed and a small frown passed over his face.

"Chester Pockets, what in the Seven Hells are you doing?"
************
A slow rumbling sound, like a belly well fed and humming a well-known tune, came from deep inside the planet.  It reverberated through the molten heart of the world and caused it to beat ever so much faster, just a tick, just a twitter.  The world giggled like a child with bubbles.

The hum hummed its way up the staircases of caverns deep, where blind worms mingled with sightless fish, and for a brief flash of a moment, the world was seen through uncomprehending wormy and fishy eyes. 

The hum bounced through lacey lattices of stone riddled with the truth of an aging planet and trilled through cracks in the wall and into the Cave of Clocks.  John, who was Winder of The Clock at the Center of the World, stopped and wondered and pondered greatly at this loud intrusion.  His brown eyes grew wide and the hair on the back of his neck took up straight and saluted his collar.

"What in the world?"  He rose from his desk and opened the door to the great Clock.  His instinct was to shield his eyes from the light, as every spring, main and otherwise, every gear, every pendulum was gleaming as if it had been made anew.

It was then he noticed the second sound.  Or, to be completely honest, the lack of sound.  Not a tick or a tock was heard.  The great Clock had stopped.

"Impossible!" he cried.

"Or... perhaps it is merely improbable."  John had seen far too many things in his position as the Winder to believe that anything was impossible.  Improbable, yes.  Many things never seemed to happen simply because there was no reason for them to.  But give anything a reason, just a teeny, tiny reason, and sure enough, it would pop into existence, scaring the livestock and making folks wonder at what the world had come to.

John crept closer to the Clock, not really sure if he wanted to, but knowing full well that he had to.  It seemed that the sound, that humming song was coming from inside the clock.  The health and wellbeing of the Clock was his job, and so, he had to see.

What he saw made him reach a hand to the back of his head and scratch, as if to waken brain cells that were sleeping at the surfaced.

Buried deep in the gears and springs and pendulums was the figure of a man.  A tiny golden man, sitting in a tiny golden chair.  And the man and chair were both growing larger by the minute.   At first the man and chair looked to be baby doll sized, but now they appeared to be the size of a three year old, and now they were five year old size.

John would have been concerned, except for the fact that not only was the figure growing, but it was floating as well. Up, and up, and up it went, rising like a bubble through sea grass of copper and silver and gold.

Up and up and as it rose, the figure, now the size of a full grown man, took the shine with it.  Up and up until the man entered the crown, where the face of the great Clock was and there he stayed, floating and floating.  The brilliance poured from the man and out through the face of the Clock, tossing numbered shadows across the cavern.  The brilliance shone down through the gears and springs and pendulums casting odd shadows of shapes unthought-of until this moment.

TICK.

The great Clock had started again.  The world above was once again moving and turning and the days were being made by the sun rising in the morning and the nights were made by the sun setting in the evening.  Life was going on.  Life was happening, and so was death.  Just as it should be and all regulated by the great Clock at the Center of the World.

TOCK.

John let his breath out in a tremendous whoosh.  He had not realized that he had been holding it, and so when it did finally come out, the sound it made surprised him.  If Truth were to be told, Truth with a capital T, and it must, it must, John had seen the great Clock stop only once, and that was because a very bad man had created an anti-clock, a clock to stop time itself.

It took John himself, who lived outside of Time, to finally foil the plans of the very bad man, and restart the great Clock.  That time, that very perilous time long, long ago, John knew that the Clock would be started again. He had known what had stopped it, and so he knew what it would take to start it again.

But this time was different. This time the Clock stopped for no reason that John could fathom, and John could fathom very deep indeed.

"There is a shiny man floating in the crown of the clock!" and John wondered if the two were related.  He was wise enough to know that just because two things happened together did not mean that one caused the other or the other caused the one.

He decided that the only course of action was to ask.  So he went to his tall closet, where he kept his tall ladder and tall brushes and tall oil cans and pulled out his tall ladder.  He carried the ladder and unfolded it, and then gently sat it so that he could climb up and look into the face of the great Clock.

When he reached the face, he unhooked the latch and opened the Ising glass face cover.

"Hello in there!" he called to the motionless golden man in the chair.  "Do you know what this is all about?  Are you the one making that humming and are you the one that caused the great Clock to stop and start again?"

Now, granted, these were three questions he had asked.  And naturally, there might have been three answers.  Instead, the golden man said nothing.  He just sat, floating in his chair with a slight smile on his round golden face, and appeared asleep.

"Well," said John, "perhaps he'll tell me when he wakes up."  He started to close the Ising glass face but was stopped by the humming.  Because the humming stopped.

Not completely.  Not totally.  Not as if the hummer had decided it was done with humming and thought about going for a glass of tea instead.  But it did decrease in intensity and pitch.  The hum seemed to fade to the sort of quiet thoughtful hum of a person that was doing needlepoint, rather than a person that was trying to hum a national anthem.  It was a thoughtful hum, and rather pleasant.

"That's much better," he said.  "Now a person can hear themselves think."  He once again started to close the face of the great Clock, and once again he stopped.

The eyes of the golden man were open.  Twin beams of blue tinted light flicked upon John's face.  The smile in the golden face widened.  "Three words," came a calm voice, like the hum that sounded everywhere.  "All is fixed."  The man then raised a single finger to his lips and said "Sssshhhh."   He eyes closed again, the smile settled down to a sleepy little grin and nothing more did he ever say.

"Oh, well," said John.  "If all is fixed, then I certainly feel much better, thank you very much." 

He, once again started to close the face, paused, waited for something else to interrupt him, and when nothing did, he closed and latched it.  Thinking twice... or perhaps the first time for this particular thought, he unlatched the face, opened it and said, "If you wake, I'll have tea ready."  Then he closed the face and latched it again.  He placed the tall ladder in his tall closet, and made one more check around the great Clock to ensure that there was nothing amiss, nothing out of place, nothing that needed adjusting.

Everything was as it should be, except it seemed that the should be was better than it had been.  The ticks and tocks and criiinks and plonks and plunks of the Great Clock seemed somehow to be more... energetic.  More lively.

John listened for a bit, to ensure the timing of the Great Clock and not only was it running perfectly and keeping perfect time, it was doing it even more perfectly than before.  The normal perfect operation allowed for some not quite as perfect ticks and some not quite as perfect tocks as there could have been, and John's ears were quite used to them.  But now, now it seemed that those not so perfect ticks and tocks had been cleaned up, polished to a high gloss and were shining ticks and tocks and were as perfect as those of their brother and sister and mother and father ticks and tocks.

John shook his head in amazement.  Perhaps it was the shining light.  Perhaps it was the quiet and serene hum.  Perhaps it was the golden man.  In the end, he decided, it really didn't matter.  It was fixed.

He went back to his office, closing the door behind him.  He wandered around to the various time keepers and chimers and stopwatches and hourglasses on the various shelves.  He lingered over one in particular that had his name on it.  The hands on this timepiece had never moved.  Not once in a thousand years had the pocket watch ticked, tocked, whirred or chimed.  And that was as it should be.
*********
The world seemed to take a deep breath, seemed to inhale mightily and hold that breath for the merest, barest, smallest of a second, but not less than that, and certainly not more than that.  Everywhere stopped whatever it was doing and waited during that held planetary breath.  What it was waiting for and why it was waiting, was and will always and forever be unknown, as there is nobody that can speak the language of Everywhere.  Or, if there is, they aren't owning up to it.

When the world finally exhaled after that beat of one thousands of a butterfly's flit, it exhaled a golden light, erupting and sparkling from hundreds of volcanoes and thousands of ocean rifts.  The glow burst from tree limbs and ran like bright syrup down the bark, and it flew up all the millions and millions of tiny cracks that run all through every planet, but it didn't fly up through every planet... just this one.

There is a small tree on a knoll that lay just outside a village.  The glow from this tree was so great that it seemed that every branch, and every twig and every branch was set ablaze with light.  So bright was it that the people in the Village of Shopkeepers could read their newspapers and books and sales leaflets and pamphlets and instructions for making magical potions from the glow far into the night.

There is also, in that Village of Shopkeepers, a pub where tired farmers and tired Shopkeepers gather to discuss the day, to raise a pint of whatever it is they decide to raise a pint of and to.  In the pub worked a young woman, named Rebecca, whose parents owned the pub.  She is a strong willed young woman who is in love with a mysterious man who called himself Taliesin, or Gwion, depending on the day you ask him what his name is.  To Rebecca, he was and always would be Gwion, the man she loved, the Vagabond who told wonderful stories and kept her life exciting.

Rebecca knew of the tree that stood on the knoll outside the Village and knew that it held a wondrous secret.  It sat above a cavern that contained pure magic, a cavern of what Pockets would have called the un-coalesced matrix.  The story of how she was connected is a story for another day, or perhaps it has already been told.

However, on this day, when the world inhaled, held its breath and exhaled golden, Rebecca ran with all her strength to see what had caused the tree on the knoll to turn gold.  She ran through the streets of the Village, out past the last farm, hopped a small fence, crossed a tiny stream that was also running gold water, and stopped in amazement.

The tree had previously been a sapling for as long she could remember.  Not very tall, and not very many branches, it had sat perched on the knoll by itself, looking rather sad and forlorn.  As trees go, it would have died of embarrassment and considered itself a failure, a never was in the tree social world, as it has stood this way for as long as any of the villagers could remember, and some of them could remember very, very, very far back.

But no longer, no indeed.  As a tree, it was now a remarkable example of tree-hood, standing more than a hundred feet tall and bursting with leaves on every branch, twig and stick.  Any tree would have been proud to be have been the tree on the knoll, and it seemed the very grass had turned its grassy heads towards the massive and rough bark.

The tree, standing tall like an arbor lighthouse, guiding prairie born ships across the treacherous mountains, shone with golden light on every one of those twigs, branches, and sticks.  Gold light dripped from the ends of the leaves and fell like sunshine down to fall on the grass.  Liquid gold ran down the bark in wild rivulets of syrupy sap. 

And even this was not the whole of it!  Laying amidst the branches, in a nest of leaves, sat a man in a chair, and he and the chair were also golden, shining with the same brilliant intensity of the leaves and branches around him.  His eyes were close and to Rebecca, he may have been sleeping, and she could see that on his roundish face he wore a quiet smile.

Mouth open, Rebecca watched.  She felt a presence near her, and turned startled to find Gwion standing next to her.

"Well, he's done it now," Gwion said.

"Who has?"  Rebecca asked her love.  "Done what?"

Gwion ran a hand though his shock of thick brown hair and nodded up at the golden man.  "He has.  He has done it.  Now."

Rebecca had been through this game many times, and her impatience was exactly as it had always been, but her patience on the other hand, tended to wear thin.

"Gwion, would you please," she said, her hands grabbing a fistful each of his shirt, "please tell me what you are talking about?"

Gwion, his eyes never leaving the figure perched in the tree, just shook his head. "Shhhh," he hushed.  "Just watch."  He put his left hand around his love's waist and gently turned her around, and with his other hand, he pointed up to the man in the chair.

The smile on the glowing man's face grew a bit larger and he opened his eyes.  Twin beams of light caught the lovers as they watched him.  The smile opened even wider so that the word "Storyteller." could escape.

Gwion nodded in acknowledgment.  "And you'd be Pockets." he said, and it was not a question.   "My older me told me that you'd be doing something..." he searched for the words.  "Spectacular."

"Yep," came the voice from the leaves.  "That would be me, I reckon."  Then he laughed.  "I think."

The tree rustled and the leaves and branches and twigs all seemed to turn inward and to enfold the man in the chair as if he was a giant caterpillar getting ready to grow towards butterflydom.

Before the last branch covered his glowing face, Pockets said, "I fixed it." and then he was completely covered and gone from sight.

"Fixed it?"  Rebecca asked Gwion.  "What does that mean?  What was broken?"

Gwion, not wanting to risk his love's anger, answered her as best as he could.  "The world, my love.  The world was broken."  He hugged her tightly, hoping that his answer would be enough, and continued to watch the spot where the golden man was.

The tree, feeling as if it had done enough, spread the cocooning branches and leaves, and when the space was open enough to see into, the man was gone. 

As the two lovers watched, the glow slowly dimmed in brilliance, the leaves took on a definitely more leafy appearance and the golden sap turned back into a sappy brown.

"What in the world was that all about?"  Rebecca had her arms crossed over her breasts and was looking at Gwion with less than pleasure.  "You Will tell me about it, Gwion.  And that is a will with a capital double ewe!" she promised.

Gwion laughed and nodded.  "My darling, with all that you've seen and all that you've gone through, I think you may be the only one to understand it."  He took her arm and gently guided her back to the pub, which also served as their home.  "For right now, let us just say that the cavern under the tree has a permanent occupant."

"He's not going to disturb the entrance to Toad's world, is he?" Rebecca asked alarmed.

"Not a thing to worry about, m'dear." Gwion said as he helped her hop the tiny stream which was now taking on a more stream-like appearance and the fish and waterbugs lived there seemed all the more glad for the change.  "He is probably going to sleep for a very long time, and besides, if he does open the door to Toad's world, Toad is going to be the worse for it, believe you me."

"Well... all right." Rebecca said, holding the wire on the small fence down, so that Gwion could step over it.  "I trust and believe you, because I know that to tell me a lie would cause your tongue to fall from of your head." And she smiled wickedly.  "Right after I cut it out."

The two crossed through the Village Square, which was neither in the center of the Village, nor was it square. 

Rebecca paused there, at the stone in the center of the Village Square.  She bent down and checked to make sure the white rose still grew in the crack in the center of the stone.  It was still there, looking as lovely as it ever did and it ever was. 

Protected in the massive arms of the broken stone like a lover, the rose never lost its bloom, and the cold never touched it.  The rose has been that way, cradled in the stone for over a thousand years.  Legend said that the rose and the stone had been lovers, cursed by a witch, and here in the Village of Shopkeepers, that legend was more than very likely true.

Standing again and turning toward the front door of the pub with the sign of the boars head above it, Rebecca asked, "Who is Pockets, anyway?"

Gwion held open the door for her and shrugged and smiled.  "Just a god, dear." he said nonchalantly.  "Just a god."  Once inside, he slapped his hands together, looked at the assembled townsfolk and cried in good humor, "Now then, who here is up for a game of Bald Jokers, eh?"

All across the planet, golden light poured briefly like a blanket of shimmer, and then ran its course, pulling back, dimming down, fading, fading, until the world became exactly was it was, but then again, something more.

The apparition of the golden man appeared to a number of animals, plants, mountains and people and each time, he sat in his chair, eyes close, smiling.  To those that might and would understand he would always open his eyes and whisper the words "I fixed it."  Having said those cryptic words, the apparition would then fade from view, or melt into the ground or flash out in a hail of sparks.

There were other wonders; a dragon's egg, the last of it's kind, hatched in the southern continent, while another dragon's egg, also the last of it's kind, hatched in the northern continent.  A thousand years would pass before these two last of their kinds would find each other, fight until exhausted, and then collapse on the ground below them.

It would be then that they would discover that one of them was male and the other was auspiciously not.  Funny how that worked out.

In a deep forest, where humans rarely went, a quiet Old God of the forest roused himself as heard a loud and leaf-shaking noise.  It was the sound as if a river had opened all at once and then closed again.  Then silence.  Then the quiet crunch of the steps of someone that knows the wood, of someone that respects the forest and knows that ever step leaves a mark.

The sound came closer and closer and Chum turned his ears and eyes to the source.  His ancient and craggy face, smiled largely.  He held out a hand encrusted with small bushes and it was taken by another, softer hand.  Flowers by the hundreds, by the thousands, sprouted as the tears flowed from his eyes.  His centuries of waiting were over.

On a wide plain on the southern continent, a man who had been there for forty years would look up at the fading golden sky and remember who he was, something that he had not done since being knocked off of a cliff and hitting his head. 

He had been living as the chief to a small tribe of little people.  He had become the chief because he was not only taller than they were, but they had taken pity on him because he could not remember where he was, who he was, or where he had come from. 

The job of chief consisted of sitting on a big stone rock and listening in to the troubles of whoever came to him, regardless of how small the complaint.  No wisdom was expected from the chief.  No laws were passed by the chief.  No judgments were needed at all, and it was even encouraged that the chief say nothing more than "uh huh." or "how about that?" or "that's terrible!"  It was widely agreed by the little people that it was the best use of a chief.

The little people had chiefs in the past that would try to wage war or cause laws to be passed that made no sense.  All of the past chiefs ended up the same way.  They had all met with Mysterious Deaths involving the six-legged toglats, who had very large teeth and a nasty temper.

The dreams of everyone and everything that dreamt that night, and even some of those things that didn't dream were filled with calm and serenity.  The feeling that everything was under control, that there was someone at the helm, that the world would be just fine and whatever was going on would be as right as rain drifted though all the sleeping minds on the planet, and all waking minds woke with the sureness that Today, with a capital T, was going to be the very best day and that it would be the best day for the rest of their lives.

The brilliance faded, as all brilliance eventually does, but the afterglow lingered, and it was planned to linger for a very long time indeed, if very long is measured in millennia.  The thrumming hum of the song of the planet also faded, and crept back to the underlying melody of everything's existence, that can be heard by anyone who sits on a warm spring day and just listens to the grass grow.  Or goes fishing.  Or just sits sipping hot orange tea. 

The stillness that joyously doing nothing at all brings; that knowledge that all is right, and proper, and as it should be, that is the song that was hummingly sung through the planet that day.  The wonder of being with loved ones, with family, with friends and doing incredible adventures together; that was also the song that was sung that day.  Even if those adventures are the ones that happen everyday, even if they are just the incredible adventures of being just who you are.  That was the song that was sung by the planet.

The voice that sang, and the light that shone were precisely controlled by hand.  Said hand, being non-existent, was connected to a non-existent arm and a non-existent body.  All of which was belonging to Pockets himself, who was sitting gleefully in his non-existent non-space place between here and there.

Expanding his awareness to the three hundred and sixty points of himself that he permanently installed in places where the quantum matrix had bubbled to the weakened surface of normal reality, he was quite pleased.  In each of the installations he pulled the pocket of matrix around each immortal body and let them fade back to sleep.  He of course, tucked each and every one of his homunculi in safely and made sure to pull any memories the bodies had of ever being him away.  That way none of them would every long for a life other than what they were doing right now.  They would sleep, forever, just pockets of Pockets, watching the world and keeping life alive..

He had stabilized the matrix, and had reinforced it in some areas that had weakened.  Fletcher was right about that.  If the matrix had collapsed, in even a small area, the cascade effect would have affected the entire planet.  Once the collapse was complete, the planet would have once again reverted back to it's original state and life would have perished.  And that just wouldn't do.  There were too many adventures to be had.

Pockets had set a guard around the planet that would maintain it without him having to actually actively intervene.  Well, in reality, in the physical reality, there were three hundred and sixty Pockets that were perfectly able to maintain the matrix, so he, the one who thought of himself as Pockets prime before he decided it was a stupid name, wouldn't have to.

"Whew!" he muttered soundlessly.  "Sure takes a lot of work to be as lazy as I am."  He spun around in his no-space and scratched at his non-existent head.  "Now then," he said.  "Where did I put that stupid singularity?"

It was a long, long time ago, and it was something that Pockets had almost forgotten about having become so familiar with it, but after searching long enough, he found it, sitting far off in a corner of no-space he had not been in before.  It sat, entangled, encapsulated and caught, snared and quartered off, in a specialized bit of non-space that also contained, among other things, a set of playing cards, some very old dice made from real bone, and an empty ring box.

Pockets reached out and pulled his awareness towards the singularity.  While he was doing this, he also created a negative pressure at the other end of the singularity.  This negative pressure caused the part that opened into normal space to draw physical objects toward the singularity and therefore to Pockets himself. 

"I hope he left it somewhere that is not their bedroom." Pockets mumbled.  Fortunately, nothing embarrassing was pulled in.  In truth, the majority of the material that found itself drawn into the same realm as Pockets, dice, cards and box, were thousands of dust motes, specks of fluff and nothing and everything.  It is the stuff that is contained anywhere and everywhere in the universe and grows of it's own accord, according to it's own rules.  Anyone that cleans will complain that they have no idea where they come from, they just do.

"Oh my Gods and Goddesses."  Pockets laughed.  "It's almost too much that I'm going to have to build a body made of dust bunnies!"  He looked over at one of the face cards of the deck and said, "You're not going to tell anyone, are you bud?"

The face card was, of course, the Joker, and the Joker wordlessly agreed that all was mum.  The other cards, not having been asked, made no such promise.

-*-

Grizelda poked Bags awake.  "Bags! There's something under the bed!"

Bags opened one eye, sighed the last remnant of a snore loudly away, and mumbled, "It was another dream, Griz.  Go back to sleep."

"It was not!" Grizelda shook Bags' shoulder and said, "The baby woke me, yes, but this came after that."  She shook him again and said, "Listen!"

Bags turned over on his side and looked at his wife.  "All right, Griz.  If it will make you happy and let me get back to sleep, I'll listen."

Once the creaking of the bed settled down and Bags was able to focus, his ears did pick up an unusual sound.  It sounded like... a wind.  And it sounded as if it were coming from directly below him.

"What the seven hells...?"  Bags slipped out one side of the bed, and Grizelda slipped out the other side.  As one, they ducked down and looked across the bottom of the bed at each other.

"There's nothing there, Griz." Bags complained.

"Okay, so where's the sound coming from?" Grizelda countered.

"If you'd quit talking, I could tell."

Listening quietly, the pair searched with their ears.  Under the bed were a pair of Bags socks, his hunting shoes, which were laying disused for the past ten months and cried out to him, a baby rattle and his bag.  And of course, dust bunnies.

"Bags!" Grizelda exclaimed.  "Look at the dust!"

"I'm looking, Griz.  I don't necessarily believe it, but I'm looking."

The dust from under the bed was being drawn powerfully, irresistibly toward Bags' bag.  Not only the dust from under the bed, but the dust from every corner, nook, cranny, hidey-hole and crack in the room was being pulled into the bag.

Bags reached under the bed and pulled it toward him.  "Damn, that's heavy!"

"What do you think is causing it?" Grizelda asked, uncharacteristically fearful.

"Beats me." Bags said as he tossed the bag into a corner and backed away from it.  "But I think we better get out of here for a bit, until it calms down."  He grabbed his sword from where it hung, in scabbard, on a corner of the bed.  He looked at Grizelda and said, "Just in case."  She nodded in agreement as they both edged toward the bedroom door.

Just as Grizelda's hand touched the knob, the sound of the wind stopped.  Bags turned his head and raised an eyebrow at Grizelda, who answered with a shrug of her shoulders.

Another sound broke the brief calm.  The sound of scrabbling, clawing came from the bag now.  The sound of breathing too.  Grizelda, who was not the sort of woman to give a fright to just about any thing, took hold of Bags arm, tightly.

"Dang it, Griz!  You're gonna cut off the circulation."

"Sorry, hon." she said.  She pointed at the bag, that was now moving on it's own accord like a pygmy snake that had swallowed something four times it size.  "That thing is scaring the hell out of me."

"Yeah." Bags said, quietly.  "Me too."  He touched her hand, looked into her eyes and said, "Stay here.  I'll go check it out, and if it's a bad thing, I'll take care of it."

He crept cautiously closer to his growing bag.  It had expanded to the size of a large dog and was making grunting and growling noises.  "Be careful!" Grizelda cried.  Bags looked back at her with his patented "Like you have to tell me" look and gently poked the bag.

"Ouch!" said the bag.  "Don't do that, okay?"

Bags jumped back and looked back at Grizelda.  "Did that sound like...?" he asked.

"Yes," Grizelda said.  "Yes, it did."

Bags placed his sword on the ground and reached for the tied drawstrings of his bag.  He got them untied then stepped quickly back, which was a good thing, because just as he did, a head popped out of it.

"Hi guys," Pockets said.  "I didn't figure on you having it tied."  Pockets pulled the rest of him through the opening of the bag, and sat on the floor of the bedroom.  He patted himself down, and when he was fully convinced he was indeed, really and truly there, he looked up at the gaping mouths of Bags and Grizelda.

"What?" he asked, innocently.

-*-

"and that, Esmeralda, is the story of how your uncle Pockets went out through one side of the world and came back through the other side."

The little girl, whose hair was reddish like her father's and whose hazel eyes were big and almond shaped like her mothers, burped a smile up at the older, but no wiser face of Pockets.  And even though she was only fourteen months old, she still had the ability to cock an eyebrow at him, skeptically.

"It's the absolute truth, I swear." Pockets crossed his heart to prove his sincerity.  "At least, it's as absolute as anything else I say."  He picked the girl up from his lap and placed her over his shoulder.   She yawned a great big yawn for such a little girl and burbled on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I know." Pockets said.  "I'm tired too." 

He looked at the clock on the wall, a new invention of his that ran without winding and without pendulums.  Pockets explained to anyone that asked that it pulled energy out of the air, something he called zero-point energy, and ran on that.  He didn't elaborate, and let that answer just speak for itself.  There were just explanations that there were no words to.

He carried Esmeralda around the room, bouncing her gently on his shoulder, occasionally stroking her back.  Soon she was snoring the sweet baby snores that only babies can snore.

"Your mom and dad are going to be a while yet.  They're at some fancy smancy court shindig, meeting with the folks from the Village of Shopkeepers."

Pockets sat gently on a furred rug that sat before the great fireplace in the main hall of the Mansion.  Just as gently, he lay back and placed the baby on his chest.  She didn't complain, and slept just as well, riding the slow and easy motion of his breathing.

Pockets smiled as he watched her.  "Sleep little Esme," he sang gently, "Sleep well and sleep deep and may your hopes and dreams the heavens keep."  He let his eyes roam up the branches of the tree that stood in the middle of the Mansion.  High up, reflected in a golden leaf, he saw a small reflection of himself with Esmeralda asleep on his chest.

"Sleep well and sleep deep, little Esme, and may those dreams come true.  But for me, for me, I'll stay here and watch, for my heaven is here with you." 

Pockets, with one hand beneath his head, and another keeping Esmeralda safe from slippage, smiled, nodded up at the stars, and you know... they nodded back in smiling agreement.

Epilogue

Deep in the great forest, at the southern edge of the desert, there lay a large grassy, mossy, rooty lump on the ground.  It was vaguely man shaped, and man sized.  The shape stirred, and with the sound of harp strings breaking, pulled free from where it had been imprisoned by the very grasses and roots of the forest for the past year and a half.

The shape mouthed words from a mouth that was no longer quite human, but was still human enough to grimace.  No words came out from vocal cords that were too long disused, but the sounds were unmistakably the sounds of pain and anguish.

Eyes that had been covered in slime and moss searched the trees high above, searching, searching and finding nothing.

Hatred burned in a brain no longer capable of rational thought.  Hatred, and with the hatred grew hunger for that hatred.  Indeed, it was the hatred that fed, that burned, that sustained.

Turning away from the depths of the forest, the shape shambled on root-covered legs toward the grassy plain that led from the forest and was before the desert.

The man that was Milton Pewitt was gone.  His petty closed mindedness had left him when his humanity had.  There was no Milton Pewitt.  There was only Hatred.  Deep and dark and solid and black and feeding upon itself, there was only Hatred.

And that Hatred had a target.  Just one.  Only one.  That target was the imagined reason for the loss of humanity, and the unreasoning hatred knew that the target had a name, and the target had a place.

That place was a kingdom called Tears.  And the target, whose name rose like a cry from the bottom of a stagnant well was "Pockets."

***********************  The End  **********************