Ultrasymbolic Unitasker, with knowing drama, tossed a cigarette from the frame of a film noir past the surprised eyes of the pangolin and overboard into the sea, indifferently worsening all the world's problems, and stepped forth from the shadowed alleys of the cruise ship and took light upon his face so he'd be known without doubt.

“Of all people!” said the pangolin, wringing its hands, caught in a lifelong lie. “You must understand. We acted pragmatically. We assumed you were surely dead.”

“Oh, and I was,” said Unitasker. “Neutron pianos will do that to a fellow—as will a too-long awaited goodbye. But it seems you're doing well.” He noted the bucket of shoelaces.

“Well enough,” said the pangolin.

“Well, enough chat,” said the broadsword, who didn't share the pangolin's recognition of Unitasker. “There's a loungeload of unshod eldergenarians who'll soon be at our heels if we don't hurry. Plus, I break out in hives if I'm on a boat for too long. Let's call some cabs already!”

“Let's shall,” said the pangolin, nodding to the broadsword. It turned back to Unitasker. “It's been fun catching up,” it said, “but we're still mid-heist, and someone's left a bun in the oven!”

But Unitasker fried beans on a fine Sunday morning, wondering whether his stocks were up, down, or sideways, and the pangolin and its crew had no flight path from the pursuant gaggle. “A tale as old as time,” said Unitasker with calmhood. “I remember the feeling. In fact—well, I dare say I've left one open-ended, myself!”

Of course, Unitasker was speaking heistly, not bunly, and obliquing to their shared past, which the pangolin had been pleased to leave in the past—but Unitasker, as he was now known, was not keen on becoming part of the past. Unitasker rang a small gong, and four gleaming zebras climbed to the crest of the hills, and held aloft a banner made of sweat socks and embroidered with the words “FREE PIZZA AFTER 10: CALL AL.” The pangolin had a hard time telling which gloves were good and which just looked good. Advertising is effective, after all—if I've heard of it, it must be good, right? That's just the name in gloves. Fame breeds victors.

“All right, all right!” wailed the pangolin. “No need for that here! Come on—before the cruisers get their tops spinning. You want to talk business—there, in that clam shell. We'll go unbothered for long in here.”

After ducking into the clam shell and making themselves comfortable on a broken ironing board, Unitasker said, “So, the scoop's thus: I've got myself a little side hustle going on. I need a bit of a hand, and I suspect you can make some to spare.”

“What of payment?” said the pangolin.

“That detail first? You're on a rope,” said Unitasker. “I'm willing to let bygones be gone. I think that's of adequation.”

The pangolin was, indeed, on a rope, ever shortening, ever fraying. It sighed. “What's the job, then?”

“Take a look at this photo. It tells the story.” Unitasker handed the pangolin a photo.

“Let me tell you a story,” said the photo. The pangolin grabbed some popcorn and motioned for the broadsword and the shotgun to come listen as well. They all got cozy under a blanket and the lights dimmed. The photo continued, “It all goes back to the Forties, when soda was free—free to live and love as it pleased, I of course mean. Not free as in cost, nothing's free in this world, and I could tell you a thing or two about what things used to cost. Why, when I got my first job, I had to buy a coat with my last nickel, and when it came time to shine shoes, I tell you, mine where the shiningest. My shoe-shining shoes, I mean. Of course, I didn't shine my own shoes, we couldn't spare the whale gum back then, and what's more, that stuff was rationed back during the Trampoline War of Thirty-Two. Now, I can tell you a fair few stories from out west, back before they discovered the railroad and the ball bearing, back when you had to hire a donkey to get anywhere because they were the only ones who knew how to fly the biplanes. Mind you, back then planes didn't have as many wings as they do nowadays, and you'd see a lot more cigars in the cartoons, what with the orphans and all—”

“All right, old man,” said Unitasker. “Get to the point, already.”

“The story is the point.”

“Then get to a different point.”

The shotgun raised its hand. “Wait, is this gonna be another musical?”

“It's not a musical,” said the pangolin.

“Then why's it in black and white?” said the shotgun.

“Change your browser theme if it bothers you,” said the pangolin.

Ultrasymbolic Unitasker said, “I think that's enough for the first coat. Let's let this dry.”

The pangolin searched for a way out, but fire escapes had not been invented yet, and it had no magnifying glass, at any rate. It said, “It seems like a tall job. We generally prefer to work with wide jobs, when we can—broad ones would be even better, if you've got one—”

Unitasker said, “See, it's the mayor. They want to have a real nice party. Very nice. Hoity toity, pish posh, you get the idea. And, the mayor wants a special guest, of course. The man of the hour—minute, at least. You've just to deliver his invite—by hook or by crook. You can do something as simple as that.” Unitasker pulled from his coat a wicker box containing a bottle of pink ink, a build-your-own-earwax kit, a fresh set of cosines, and one badly burned Etch-a-Sketch. “And thus is balance achieved.”

The pangolin looked at the photo. “So this is who I'm supposed to get?”

“No, that's a photo.”

“But it's a photo of who I'm supposed to get?”

“No, it's a photo of a bridge.” Unitasker shrugged. “I just thought it looked good.”

“Thanks,” said the photo.

“Every bridge looks good, don't flatter yourself!” sighed the pangolin. “You've got me paddleless, it seems. So, it's to be. The only question that remains is: who's it to be?”

“Surely you must remember the incomparable Old Missus Lopkit?” said Unitasker. “Well—it's one of hers.”

Roby went east, because hers was the only name without any E's in it.

As soon as she was out of sight of her friends, she started talking to herself.

“Well, Lady Shirechester, this is some adventure—you have pickled the pickle of you quite indeed, and need the seed—or three—of a new idea of me to blossom and bloom, and soon!” This was meant to be encouraging, I think. There was no telling how far the lands of the safe stretched, after all; no telling if she'd just fall into a still deeper trap right around the next corner—or if even there was one. She went about slowly, waiting for something to occur to her, and fearing that it might. “A school of students was of us, and now just one is of us, and so wise Student #417 has concocted a new plan for our team, and so up we have split upon separate trips—”

Roby turned back and gazed at the path she'd been on, a dim trail in the shadowy depths of the safe, giant albums like towering walls vanishing fully into the darkness above her, the skyless ceiling. She wondered if—no, she reckoned that the student they'd trained to be wise should be wise by now and could solve this and every mess. So, maybe it was futile for her to make any kind of search on her own. Maybe she should just go back. Roby thought she could probably find the way again—

“Rude!” she said to her jade brain. “Dependencies extend it seems, and it seems unseemly to expend them needfully.” Well, that settled that!

Roby unturned front and marched onward, but it was very dark, and she couldn't tell if she was traversing a great mountain, a dismal swamp, a land of sand and dust, or the liminal space of an abandoned shopping mall. She reasoned it must be the lattermost, since there was no one about, and it was very quiet, and there wasn't a hint of avant-garde garage-band indie music. She picked up her pace.

At the end of the first or second day or month, she felt she had gone a long way, and having found nothing, put back into consideration an abandoning plan, when all of the sudden—the, yes—she came to a door made of food stamps, normal stamps, and half a stampede. Large was the door, and quite closed, and she walked along it to its hinged end, where it was set in a wall made out of gravy's spirit and unsprung springs and woven together with the silver hairs of ancient boars.

“Well,” said Roby, “when one comes to some doors, one takes the proper course—not force, too coarse, but a knock will do to call them to you!”

She knocked on the door, and it echoed in the deeps, and the echo came back louder and longer, and shook the ground, and nearby there were some trees now, made of height and weight, and the trees shook with laughter, and whispered amongst themselves. They shared stories, and make jokes, and posed riddles, but most of all they told secrets.

Roby looked to the trees, and saw them approach from the darkness, and said to them, “It is a pleasant day, I say, and display the plea of me that I suspect you can see—this bored door I stand before stagnates the forwardings of me! If knowings are of you, let them be too of me!”

Now the trees surrounded her, and shook without grace, and their tops rose into the darkness, and Roby saw only shadows, and their very forms were as whispers, but they were too tall for her to hear, though how she strained. There was no wind at all, but the trees began to sway all together as one, in love, and they began to laugh at her, and their hoots and hollers came echoing down and fell upon her as rain, and it was like a fog had descended, and now even the darkness was obscured from her, and she turned around this way and that way and lost her way entirely, and she fell down and crawled around and sought that door where she had placed her prayers.

“Now the pickle of me is truly picked,” she said. “Arboreal strangers! I cause few dangers! The name of me is Roby Lopkit, and now I have said it—the name of me, I mean, so say the name of you, and we will dispense with strangeness and enjoin in friendship in the stead, and together embark on a quest, as friends good and true will and do!”

The trees had no answer for this but more laughter.

“Good and fine trees!” said Roby. “Would they mind, please, should I climb these wood and pine trees and fall beyond the tall wall's barrier, and not stop to plot and tarry here?” But the trees didn't heed her, and still they swayed all about her.

She then saw nearby two rivers. One river was narrow and fast, and one river was wide and slow, and they were prepared to race against one another, but it was unknowable who the winner could be. Surely the faster river? No, not surely—for a river wide and slow may sedately make caused the translocation of far more water, clear and blue. Is that not a river's goal? Is that a river's goal? The nature of a river can't be known with one name. These rivers had no names.

Now Roby was at a loss. What to do! But in blind creeping she found the wall's foot and traced its line to the grand door again. She rose up and knocked—more urgently but, of course, still politely. No one'd open for a pounder.

“Ah,” said Roby, “a new knowing is of me. For a door is more than a barred board—of sides it has two, an in and an out, but to describe the features none are about. Without competition, I make my petition: the way of passage is mine to master and thus to my will shall bow these fasteners.”

To a declaration of grandeur all things are bound, and to Roby's as well, and so she took the handle in hand and turned it, and the door opened for her and her alone. She stepped through and—outside. The trees couldn't get her here. She closed the door behind her carefully and gladly.

On the outside—outside—of the door was a heightful hill, and a pink sky behind it, and atop the hill was nothing, but at its base were two hundred and two round stones, each carved with the name of a werewolf, for this was a special place, and Roby couldn't read those names, and to make sure of that, the two hunters were nearby, one with a great silver axe, and one with a shining golden spear, and they leapt down in front of Roby and said in one voice: “Lo, dancer, be spent and unspent, know not, and die with thy name in thy mouth.”

“Dancing is not of me,” said Roby, “but what is of me is this name: Roby Lopkit, for that is the name of me, and so say the name of you and you—”

“Thou shalt have our names. I of the great silver axe am Ulntoriccus, and I of the shining golden spear am Spulpendord. Now can thy fate be known, and if it be that thou hast come to burst our bubble, know that that thing is an impossibility.”

Roby didn't say anything, even though it was her turn, as she was one trifle testy at being cut off. She admired the pink sky, and the blue clouds floating carelessly inside it. She had never seen a pink sky. Behind her, the tall door stood closed fast in a wall that on this side was adorned with posters of boy bands, and the wall rose high and ended in crenelations along which a veritable army of electric wind-up clockwork dolls marched. Each one had a plain gray shirt that was very clean, which was not discernible to Roby.

“Now will thy fate be known,” said the hunters.

Roby had unscrewed her fate already, but still said, “It is not a knowing of you.” She filled herself with dread.

Now the hunters were tall, and were armored, and they bore their powerful weapons in all their hands, and they blew on trumpets that summoned all the eagles, all the hounds, half of the bears, and three foxes, red, black, and silver. They lined up by height and sang the hymn of the hill, a long song with one note, the song of their homeland for generations, the song of the lands where the ancient wars were started, and when the song was done they lined up alphabetically and each in turn said the name of all the days, and each thought in its brain the number of the hours, and they all made a salute to the endful sky, and kept it from crashing down, and called to the light to embrace them. Each one of them jumped up and down once, and then twice, and then no more.

The door was undone and came to be fragments, and through the gape came the first of the trees, crown first, bent so low as to crawl, and its branches struck the wall and tore it to pieces, and its roots crawled under the flagstones and shattered them, and when it came out under the pink sky it unbent and stood tall, toweringly, and then was followed by two more trees, and they were followed by three more trees, and they were followed by four more trees, and on and on came their numbers until all five hundred thousand and five hundred of them came through, and they circled the hill, and they climbed upon it, and they settled their roots in it, and as their crowns crowded the pink sky, they darkened it, spilled their ink onto it, and made it theirs, and then they began again to laugh, and shook and swayed, and there was no wind here, and the land became of the trees.

The hunters called to the eagles, to the hounds, to half of the bears, and to the three foxes, red, black, and silver, and together they built a tent, and in that tent they dug a hole, and in the hole they dug another hole, a deeper one, and again they dug deeper, until they found the bones, and the bones were brought up, and set about the tent, and the tent was covered in stone and fire, and the smoke rose into the sky and burned the sky, and the sky began to roar, and cried in a rage, and tore at the earth, and struck it asunder with lightning and fire. The trees railed against the lightning and cursed the fire, and their roots dug deep, deep into the world, and drank of the old waters, and took their patience there.

“All aboard!” cried the conductor as the train blew its whistle and left the station, humbly coughing from its smokestack in embarrassment, slinking by along the smooth tracks unnoticeably, and leaving both hunter and tree to their pageant, and all the passengers but one leaned out the windows unwisely, taking pictures of the show, and Roby alone sat all the way in the back and waved in friendliness just as the train went into the tunnel that led through the secret passage out of the safe and back into the countryside of Paltropisburg—somewhere.