If you're reading this, it's already too late—you've made a terrible mistake. That's right—this is all your fault.

The darkness that surrounded Traycup in the pocketed dimension owned and operated by the Blood Onyx of Zykluur starkly reminded him of the darkness that surrounded him in the commissar's purse during his original quest for the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, and his chance association with Pobal reminded him of a similar meeting with the anglerfish Ben Garment—excepting that Pobal did not create light from his dangler. Traycup assumed he had a dangler, were there light to behold it. He opted not to enpoint the superiority of Ben Garment's version, however.

“The thing about that is,” Pobal continued, for to him it had been but the space of a breath since Traycup had last spoke, when the topic of their discourse was a way to escape their current place, “there's no way to escape our current place. Not a single way out, not a one at all.”

“Alas,” said Traycup, “for out's the one way I want for! I've seen enough of in to call myself sated hereishly. Haven't you tried departing?”

“Tried? Often enough to set a trend! And each time in vain. No—we're set to stay put. But, think at least half a time! If you could leave, you'd know where you'd been, and you'd know where the Blood On' is. And,” Pobal lowered his voice into a tin cup, “the big B. O. can't be havin' that. The one feature the Blood On' features more than most is its unfindability, see?”

“I don't,” said Traycup, “owing to the deep darkness all about, but I'll take you for a poet on that one!” Traycup also took Pobal for an advisor, and thought half a time, squaring his ponderance directly on the Blood Onyx of Zykluur. Obtaining it in trade for butter might be mooter than ever, but being dislocated from pals was a state fit for negation.

Pobal, unseen, juggled an icy spider, and it never made landfall, but studied scepters for a while—well, for a weekend, at least. More than you ever have, anyway. There's no money to be made in studying scepters, after all, but wherefore does a spider want for hard, cold cash? Pobal said, “You know how many of us there are in here?”

“Six?” ventured Traycup.

“Yes, and also more,” Pobal said, remembering that he had once seen a toilet with a lock on the handle. The injustice gave rise to his fury, and formed the basis of his sense of morality. Moreover, the memory of sight was a pleasant recollection. He hoped he'd get the chance again someday. “Many more. So very many more. More than you can count.”

“Can,” said Traycup, “or will?”

Pobal nodded sadly, and not because of horse racing. “P'rhaps both, like as not—each and every soul who's gone in search of the Blood On's found it, you see. They found it—and became lost with it. It guards its secret, and all who know it.”

Now Traycup stood up—or so he thought, but without sense of up and down, it was difficult to know. Perhaps he stood down—that'd be terrible, no one would stand for that. But Traycup, whichever orientation he adapted to, said, “Pobal, let's be friended—where's your house at?”

“A house? Mine? Oh, there's a fond find,” said Pobal. He mused long—too long—and then said, “A lost land, over and done with, now only dust and the whispered memories of the ancient wind, its last flags caressed by centuries-old roots and washed by rivers who've carved canyons as old as the bones of the world.” Pobal thought about the different cuts of steak, and though he forgot quite a few, it gave him the idea for a new metaphor, and he added, “Such is the breadth of the Blood On's hunger.”

“Well,” said Traycup, “then now's as good a time 's'ny to replant the flag anew! It doesn't for a fellow to call his home itless. Come 'long, and let's be quit of this shady borough. I'm planned!” Traycup sowed unfaked cheer so as not only to cause a light about, but to see the light get found.

Pobal made a laughsome sound. “You're talking for the first time—or the last! Like a tidbit checking out a new word! Be scoffed, so-called pilgrim!”

Now Traycup smiled and clapped all of his hands, for he had already figured out how to work those adjustable seat belts they used to have in the middle backseat, and with this puzzle solved, what conundrum could stand before him and guard its secrets 'gainst such an onslaught as he'd muster? “Let's go, and stand at the spot of the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, right about at now, and have a speech with it! For this is a scene I've seen and I've the mind to crack it the same.” Traycup collected his backpacks and got on the trolley, and held out one of his hands for Pobal, who, with grudgingness, took it, and likewise clumb aboard.

“What's this?” said Pobal.

“A trolley,” said Traycup, “so make your ticket at the ready!”

Their tickets were taken and the trolley set off, and shortly, or at least ere long, they heard the laughter of the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, and so disembarked and went to it, and found it ensconced by the horrible droning face of a long-awaited master of made-up arts, an old and dark thing that had passed through too many eras, and in its sketching attempted to steal every single thing, expecting the total of their way to meet all at once in some high crowning place. The Blood Onyx of Zykluur saw them coming, of course, and began to shriek with an unparallelable frequency at their approach, but since Traycup was unaware of how to read those subway maps, he didn't have a pet budgerigar named Salad. The eye of the Blood Onyx of Zykluur fell upon Traycup as its laughter turned into a fishy smell, and the darkness did its thing, and all around them was a crowding—all the lost and damned souls, collected by the Blood On', who had been captives in this eerie space for untellable ages, peered with dim eyes at the latest comer's reckless ambition—the same show every season, but always worth watching regardless of the menu.

“Do not speak!” bellowed the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, and every wheel of cheese in the area became slightly more moldy. “I know well your plea—heard and unheard for a thousand decades! When you speak of your innocence, there lies the evidence of your guilt! When you speak of your secret-keeping, I show you the promises already broken by your gnarled hands! And when you speak of mercy—oh, mercy! Now that is in as short supply here as dreams of the tall girl, or runaway rollerskates, or a good blue motorcycle!”

Traycup devoted to novelty. “I'll not,” said him, “be bespoke to silence, but speak unsilent! I've no claim to innocence, sadly, humble as a pie I am, and secret-keeping neither, as you've well seen—or say you've seen, but I sense an err, or perhaps a deceit, unclever though it may be?” Surely Traycup had already solved the riddle, and was sure of his success, and his shoddy brain told him his opponent was a step beneath him, and so it'd be uncharitable to be a bullious man—but, well, when in Rome! And perhaps he was due, after all.

“You've gone dusty-brained,” laughed the Blood Onyx of Zykluur, “to speak with those words and apply them to the Blood Onyx of Zykluur! What elaborate deterioration is this thing?” The Blood On' laughed some more.

“Ah! My case is made and cast in solid,” said Traycup, “for wisdom'd know these words are aimedn't at the Blood Onyx of Zykluur—this volley's target is you, good silhouette! For the Blood Onyx of Zykluur is heren't, and the thing, in its lofty penthouse with its myriad seeing-windows, wouldn't slake its thirst in duping its witness, but in being unspotted at the fore!”

Now, Traycup was right, and the true Blood Onyx of Zykluur had remained unmet, and the thing he spoke to, the shadowy form of the thing that claimed to be the Blood Onyx of Zykluur—I guess we can call it the... the Blood Nonyx of Zykluur?—this thing was a mere pretender to the throne, as it were, and those it collected who'd witnessed it kept that witness in their wit, and told their tale to none, prisoners that they were, but each one was, to their own measure, all-important, the paramount audience and the star of the show, and for them to have see the Blood Onyx of Zykluur was a fully completing event.

Now the Blood Nonyx was painted into a corner, brush in hand, and wondering when the late show would come on, and said, “Fiend! You gasp last and laugh at last, but at least I've got the webbing to the parcel! Don't know which? Cut a turtle for blood and find out!”

The floor was there, and it glowed with sparks and fire, but the floor was of no accord to parasailers, and the hinge industry was surprisingly complicated, and smeared with myriad sizing specifications and manufacturing tolerances, none of which Traycup knew, but he was never in bed before six—that's for sure—and with novelty replaced by habit, Traycup took all the canned goods Pobal had set up before and asked them their names, which they didn't have. That wouldn't do, so he called the adoption agency to see about getting them set up with monikers.

“Monikers?” said a pot-broke sea shanty. “You'll do more like a napalm wedge!”

Traycup would've but didn't, and slung a bag of used onions over his shoulder with the abstainer's permission and his shoes fit perfectly. None of the rigid squirrels wanted to go to school tomorrow, and at the bottom of the well they found a way to get past the frogs with a gorilla's help. I know, I know, it's a lot animal-based randomness at once. “Randomness”... sure, whatever you say, El Camino! Would you rather take the day off in the morning?

Nothing happened to the Blood Nonyx. Nothing happened to it ever again. But the light began to come in. The pocket was open—they could see the sky. The light seared their eyes and singed their skin, but it was good to suffer for this was home. They scrambled outward, all of them, in their ones and twos—enbarking toward the past, searching for the long shadows they had once known. They blunk in the sterling sun, and looked in every direction, and picked different places to be at. They were as one, but in their shared tragedy they kept secrets, and set their ways backwards, to reremember their loss, and thus discard their presents.

After the rush, Pobal stood there next to Traycup, who was picking up his Roby's coat and brushing it off, and seeing to it that all the pockets were buttoned quite shut, so as to be sure he'd not go foisting about in untoward places again.

Pobal said, “Nice moves, kid.”

Traycup abashed and said, “I'll to stay stuck downstairs, if I'm wise.”

Pobal began to walk away, saying nothing more, but then Traycup said something more.

“Whither?” was what Traycup said.

“Home,” said Pobal. “The place of memories. Perhaps I'll raise a new hut and give it a name, y'know?” Then, in a spirit of well I suppose I should, Pobal said, “And you?”

Traycup laughed and said, “To unbreak promises broke! A coat, a note, a game of chance—I've a docketful of mends to make!”

“I suppose you'll have no trouble at it,” said Pobal, and, not taking the hint, he bid Traycup goodbye just then, and went on his way.

“The course of life,” said Jockey, “will see you crossing many roads, and fording many rivers, and spanning many bridges, and none of these places can you take with you, but all are left lying where they've always lain—but not unchanged, and nor you. The path you take to your destination shapes the person who arrives. Moreover, your footsteps mar the land on which you trod. This, then, is your decision: how deeply your footfalls gouge the world as it strains to bear you, and, in the same moment, the extent to which you allow your own psyche to take the shape of the bowl of your unique experience in your travel.”

The trout was unimpressed, and swam away.

Now, Jockey, Ben Garment, and Lorenzo had traveled a long way through an empty country, and it was growing quite boring, but at least it was easy, since it was all downhill, down from a high and far-away plateau, and after a hundred and fifty-two years or so, give or take, they finally found some signs of civilization—namely, a record store and a soda fountain where you could get a real egg cream for two bits. None of them had any bits, however, and so they couldn't get any egg cream—not that they'd want any—so they tried the record store.

Marmal Pote was on duty that morning, and opened fire as soon as they approached.

“Whoops!” said Pote. “Opened fire? I meant to open the store! Let me redo that.”

Marmal Pote was on duty that morning, and opened the store as soon as they approached.

“Here's a bit,” said Lorenzo, “of luck! Seller, say whether you sell—”

“To giants?” said Pote. “Yes, of course! Why, Dubious Miraclasm himself was just here the other day, placing an order for music of a brand new featurement, as he'd grown tired of all the music he's already to his name.”

“I am formulating a plan,” said Jockey, “with my wonderful salutatorian brain! Here is the plan: first, admit dinosaurs do not exist. A little obvious, but hear the whole thing, at least. Once we have enough softballs—base and foot would never suffice—we can reduce the top one hundred finest works of modern art to humble sixteen-color renditions. Then, the rice will always be ready on time!”

“That seems as astute plan,” said Ben Garment. “Truly, our teaching's worked its wonder.”

“Not so,” said Lorenzo. “There's a fly in the ointment—for there's Miraclasm himself, mounting yonder hill!”

“Ointment indeed!” cried Ben Garment. “We'll need a plan anew. Student #417, make a fresh one, won't you?”

But Jockey was already rinsing the waffle maker. “Hm?” she said over her shoulder. “Can't hear you. Being domestic.”

“Not to worry,” said Pote. “Probably to pick up his order. But, tell you what, if you guys bring it to him, I'll pay you six gold coins and your choice of a healing potion or an archer's boot. I can't have him in here again, he musses up the bathroom somethin' fierce.”

“Make it five and you've got a deal,” said Jockey.

Pote made it five and they had a deal. Miraclasm's great stride brought him ever closer storeward.

If you take a deep breath, you can hold it for the rest of your life.