 
THE FOUNTAIN OF EDEN

A Myth of Birth, Death, and Beer

by Dan H. Kind

Copyright 2011 Dan H. Kind.

All rights reserved.

http://danhkind.blogspot.com

Smashwords Edition, License Notes.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The characters, events, and institutions portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead or mythical, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

## Chapter 1

## The Tale of the Sacred Pipe

Sitting Lotus lit up a joint outside the back door of the New Shaolin Monastery kitchens. He took a long, relaxing drag and exhaled, marijuana smoke wreathing his shaved head like an ethereal crown of thorns. It was his night to take out the recycling, and because of the nightly cleanup taking place inside the dining hall and kitchens, he figured no one would notice him taking a little more time than necessary to do the job.

Every night Master Mirbodi made sure this ritualistic after dinner scrub-down was completed. If the kitchens and dining hall were not cleansed up to his lofty standards, or if the novices were not putting their full minds into the scrubbing of tables and washing of dishes, the evening's slackers would wake up the next morning with nasty welts on various parts of their persons. Sometimes, even if you didn't slack off, and swept and mopped the floor mindfully, you would still wake up with a splitting headache and a bone-bruise on your skull.

Such was the life of a Zen novice, however. You never knew when a master's staff would connect with your unprotected shoulders or head, so it was in all novices' best interests to stay aware of where the masters were at all times.

Especially old Master Mirbodi, who seemed to grow fonder and fonder of smacking poor young novices upside the head with each passing year. When Sitting Lotus had first arrived at New Shaolin a decade ago, Master Mirbodi would only thwack! him when he drifted off during zazen sessions, but nowadays the tyrannical overlord of novices and undisputed master of New Shao—

Thwack!

The joint went flying from his mouth and landed in front of the recycling bin, smoking and smoldering a fiery red in the darkness.

Uh-oh. He was busted for sure.

He turned around to face the music, a lame excuse of a story already inventing itself within his mind, but there was no one there. He turned back to the recycling bin to pick up his jay—and there was Master Mirbodi, marijuana cigarette clenched between two palsied fingers!

The Zen master stared down at the burning joint, dreaded staff gripped tight in his other gnarled fist. He was brown-skinned and looked like an antiquated Gandhi clone. His head, in the longstanding fashion of Buddhist monks, was shaved down to the skin. The origin of Master Mirbodi was a question in constant whispered debate among the novices. Underneath all the wrinkles, skin-folds, skin-flaps, and wiry old-man hair, it was impossible to determine where he might be from—and, as went with the territory, the Zen Master never talked of the past.

"You smoke, yes, but you no smoke mindfully," said the relic of a monk, holding the smoking jay to an inquisitive right eye. "Will you never break the skin born of mother, novice? Will you never become unborn?"

"Say what, now? Master, I—"

Thwack!

"You ever hear story of Sioux and sacred pipe?" said Master Mirbodi.

Sitting Lotus rubbed his throbbing skull. "No. What does that have to do with Zen?"

Thwack!

"All things arise from Mind, and Mind is Zen, Zen is Mind!" Master Mirbodi peered at his wayward charge with a single eyebrow raised. "At rate you going, you be novice for rest of this life, at least. And then maybe you reincarnate as tree so you have long time—at least few hundred years—to think about it. Maybe you need more time, and after that you come back as mountain. At least then you have few hundred million years to think about it. After that . . . comet. Roam galaxies until cosmos explode."

"I'm sorry, Master, but I—"

Thwack!

"You no talk now. I tell you story of sacred pipe."

Master Mirbodi crooked his staff in his elbow and leaned on it. Wobbling a bit, Sitting Lotus plopped down on an overturned recycling bin. Was it bad when he saw three blurry Master Mirbodis standing there, punishing staffs in hands, instead of the usual one?

"Long ago," began the Zen master, "Lakota tribe roam free among plains hunting buffalo. One day two hunters come across unearthly beautiful woman dressed in white buckskin. One hunter move in and reach out to grab woman, and angry cloud with crackling lightning descend from sky. When cloud lift and awed hunter look at brother tribesman who enslaved to senses, nothing left but bones, swarming with snakes. White Buffalo Woman tell remaining tribesman she carry gift and important message from Great Spirit. She follow him to camp and enter sacred tipi with mysterious bundle in hand, raise it for all tribe to see, and within mysterious bundle none other than—"

"Sacred pipe?" interrupted Sitting Lotus.

Thwack!

"Within mysterious bundle sacred pipe," continued Master Mirbodi. "Long story squat, White Buffalo Woman teach Lakota that when smoking sacred pipe, they smoking all elements of life—inhaling universe, exhaling universe. All things interdependent, novice. All elements interconnected."

Master Mirbodi looked down at the burning joint in his hand. As though performing a sacred ritual, he offered it to the west, north, east, south, earthwards, and heavenwards, then brought the smoking cylinder to his lips and inhaled until it had blazed away to nothingness.

Master Mirbodi wiped his ashy fingers on his patchwork robe and peered slyly at the novice. "When you next smoke, novice, remember this story of sacred pipe, and smoke mindfully."

"B-but Master M-mirbodi, how d-did you know what I was d-doing out here?"

Master Mirbodi's blue eyes opened so wide that his eyelids seemed to disappear, as if he was watching all of Creation flash by in an instant and did not want to miss an iota of action. "Mind always present. You just no see it." He chuckled, his eyelids seeped back onto his face from whatever weird cranial dimension they had visited, and Sitting Lotus wondered whether he had really seen that or was concussed. "Now get back inside and mop kitchen floor. Mindfully."

## Chapter 2

## The Alchemist

As the descending sun met the treetops of nearby Tranquil Forest Park, Jack Whiskey pumped regular unleaded into his dilapidated Honda hatchback. The year was 2011, but nobody passing by looked twice at a man dressed in stockings, doublet, and powdered wig pumping gas into a busted old Accord. The population of Eden was eight-thousand-something, but would swell to city-like proportions during the summer months, when the annual onslaught of tourists descended on the town in the manner of plundering, pillaging marauders.

And all this to "take in a bit of history."

Just what this phrase meant—and exactly why people chose to visit the sweltering, mosquito-infested hell that was summertime anywhere within sixty miles of Virginia's Great Dismal Swamp—was quite beyond Jack, Eden's one and only reenactor alchemist. He had been told that it had something to do with "enjoying living history," and "stimulating the mind outside the classroom," and "having an engaging, hands-on learning experience," but he still didn't get it.

He paid for his gas with the last of his cash, walked to his ramshackle rust-bucket, and drove to his one-bedroom townhome in the Village of Eden Apartments. On the way, he decided to forgo changing out of his archaic work uniform and walk the few blocks over to his favorite watering hole to beg (he was far from too proud) for a drink. Sir Arthur would be there, sipping Scotch like the gentleman he was and smoking like the burning building he was not, and was always good to buy a poor old friend a beer.

Jack parked the car, jumped out, and sauntered out into the moonlight now hovering in a nimbus over Eden.

The first thing Jack noticed when he emerged into the smoke-wreathed Olde Eden Taphouse was the new bartender. She was a pure, unblemished goddess with raven hair, alabaster skin, ice-blue eyes, and, as many a wise man of Eden had noted, "an ass that just won't quit." This Saturday evening she wore a black Olde Eden Brewery-logo emblazoned tank-top and white khaki shorts. She cast a glorious light throughout the Land of the Dead that was the Taphouse, lighting the shadowy recesses behind the bar with a luminosity far too brilliant for this dive.

The Taphouse was a wooden shack attached to the hip of the much larger Olde Eden Brewery. A line of retired tapheads of Olde Eden beers no longer in production lined the olden walls; there were hundreds of them, and the display was consistently added to as each seasonal brew was retired. Worn mahogany tables and chairs clustered about the homely pub, leaving an uneven aisle through which it was sometimes possible to navigate over to the bar.

"How goes the alchemy, Jack?" came a familiar chipper voice. "A lost art, in my opinion. It's a wonder more don't practice it these days." Arthur Boyle, beekeeper, had resided in Eden, Virginia, U.S. of A., for decades now, but his robust British accent had not receded in the slightest. Everybody called him Sir Arthur because he was English and a faultless gentleman. He could not be seen through a haze of curling blue pipe smoke.

"Art, you'll be the first to know when I discover the Philosopher's Stone. And when the accolades come raining down on me and I become the richest man in the world, why, I'll let you stand next to me—nay, kneel before me—and bask in the radiance of my presence. Perhaps I'll allow you the privilege of feeding me grapes and anointing my feet with expensive oil. Yes. Perhaps. But until then"—Jack deposited himself on the barstool next to the beekeeper—"can you spot me a beer or six?"

The London-esque fog parted like an ephemeral sea, and Sir Arthur's smiling face appeared, his hawkish nose leading the charge through the miasma. He had dark hair flecked with gray and an intense gaze that penetrated your soul and read your innermost thoughts and fears.

"But of course, my good man! But instead of that beer, you should broaden your Bacchic horizons with a finger of this Scotch whisky. 'Tis a far superior product to beer, and I assure you that it complies fully with the standards set forth in the Scotch whisky order of 1990 (UK)."

"No, thanks. Beer me."

Sir Arthur gave Jack a critical eye, then shrugged. "You don't know what you're missing, my morose friend. But it's your decision, of course."

"No, you don't know what you're missing. Olde Eden beer is the best beer on the eastern seaboard, maybe in the entire country." Jack ordered a pint of Olde Eden Sticky-Icky Stout from the hot new bartender, who smiled at him a little bit, he thought. Or was he delusional? After all, what interest could a goddess like that have in an "alchemist" with a dead-end job and a wreck of an automobile? Why, none whatsoever, of course. If she had smiled, she was just being polite, like she was polite to all customers, working those tips.

Wishing he hadn't thought about it so hard, Jack drained half the pint of Sticky-Icky in a single quaff and—

Hey, wait a second.

He turned to the beekeeper, whose eyes seemed to be delving into the workings of his mind like two tiny psychological X-ray machines. "How did you know I was down, Art?"

Sir Arthur took a deep breath and began to speak in a plodding tone, as might a professor giving a lecture to a dimwitted class. "Why, it's really quite simple, if you think about it. The bags under your eyes have grown increasingly darker over the last few days, and you have said little on those evenings we have partaken of one another's respective delightful presences. You haven't washed your eighteenth-century work uniform there in—let's see here—five days, and you have worn said uniform up to the Taphouse every night this week, whereas in times past you would often freshen up at least a touch before a 'night on the town.' Oh, and the scraggly, unkempt growth that has sprouted like some gruesome weed upon your face has not been trimmed in ten days."

After a silent moment, Jack said, "Damn, Art. You got it all right on."

Sir Arthur's eyes went guarded. He took a long pull of his pipe, exhaled, and said through the cloud once again fortifying itself about his person: "Lucky guess, perhaps. But might I ask what ails you?"

Jack sighed. "Recently I just don't feel myself, is all. Like I don't belong. Like something vital's missing in my life, but I couldn't tell you what it might be."

Sir Arthur smiled, but not at Jack's reply. He had just observed his good friend Mirbodi Madhaha enter the Taphouse—a rare occurrence, indeed.

"Master! Master Mirbodi!" called the beekeeper over the growing conversational din.

The Head Monk in Charge of New Shaolin Monastery caught sight of the Englishman and an ear-splitting smile spread across his face. The venerable monk glided over to the bar, effortlessly dodging tables and wobbly patrons, his staff tap-tap-tapping on the hardwood floor, his legs not appearing to move underneath his person, hidden somewhere beneath his voluminous patchwork robes.

"My friend!" said Master Mirbodi. "I no see you long time. Where you be, huh? Separating queen bee only—ha ha—so much work, you know."

The monk clasped his hands together and bowed to Sir Arthur—who stood up and did likewise—then sat down on the barstool next to Jack. The hot new bartender walked up and smiled a dazzling smile, all luscious lips and perfect white teeth, and Master Mirbodi ordered a hot green tea.

This oddball Taphouse order perplexed the hot new bartender for a moment, but she soon recovered with: "No problem, sir. Hot green tea, coming right up."

When the tea arrived, Master Mirbodi rested his staff on the bar and took a satisfied sip. Then he peered at Jack. "Hey, you alchemist. Any luck with Elixir of Life thing yet?"

Jack Whiskey smiled at the question (which he got all the damned time). "No, no luck yet, Master. But you must understand, it's all about the effect of the thing. I get dressed up in colonial garb and smear a little paint on my uniform while the tourists pile into the laboratory for the hourly spectacle. I do a little intro bit about alchemists in colonial America, blah blah blah. I add ingredients to the cauldron, it bubbles and gurgles and spews green smoke. I cackle and limp around the room, pulling at my hair and dragging my 'bum' leg and acting like a crazy asshole, muttering things like 'Finally, the Elixir of Life is mine!' and 'Now I shall live forever, like the gods!' The show ends in a grandiose fake explosion, and I sidle out the hidden back door in the hubbub, blasted to oblivion for my Eternal Life-seeking ways. Your one and only Eden alchemist dies a horrible death by chemical fire eight times during a single shift of work. That's forty deaths a week. For the last ten years. More, when I work Saturdays. I'm not even gonna try and add it all up." He took a sip of beer and grinned at the Zen master. "But when I do discover the Elixir of Life, you'll be the first to know."

Master Mirbodi laughed. "Excellent! You let Art here know first, though. I over one hundred years old, and you see me? In perfect shape. Never feel better. You wanna be like this and you got eighty-five dollars each month, you can enroll in kung-fu class. Happen every Monday evening at New Shaolin Dojo. But I no go easy on you because you drinking buddy!"

Under much pressure from the Zen master and the beekeeper, Jack agreed to terms—sixty bucks on Monday (payday!) and green tea for the remainder of the evening (with the tea on Sir Arthur's tab)—and swore up, down, and around to attend the next meeting of the Future Kung-fu Masters of America. Maybe learning some kung-fu would help him drop the feeling of dissociation recently plaguing him. He wondered whether Master Mirbodi instructed the class or was just some kind of overseer. A one hundred year old man, no matter what kind of shape he was in, couldn't really teach a weekly kung-fu class, could he?

He brushed away this last thought and ordered up a pint of Olde Eden Helter Swelter Summer Ale. As he did so, his eyes met the entrancing eyes of the hot new bartender, and because of this brief but encouraging glance and the beer now easily flowing down his throat, he forgot about kung-fu for the rest of the evening.

"Well, that gonna do it for me, Art," said Master Mirbodi, and finished off green tea number nineteen. "I see you at Market tomorrow."

"Will do. As always, Master, it has been a pleasure."

The Zen master floated from his barstool and bowed to the beekeeper. He then grabbed his staff, thanked the hot new bartender, tipped her generously, and reminded Jack to attend kung-fu class on Monday evening. And then Master Mirbodi disappeared into the mist, on his way back to New Shaolin Monastery to wreak mindful havoc among the many cringing novices therein.

"Whoa, I zoned out for a minute there," said Jack, smiling at the hot new bartender. "Aura of the Zen master, I guess. So what's your name?"

"My name is Stephone."

"Stephanie, huh? A true classic. Oldie but a goodie, I'd say. I'm Jack Whiskey."

"Actually, my name is Stephone."

"Er, okay. Stephanie, right?"

"Sorry, wrong again. It's Stephone."

"Uh . . . am I not hearing you right? Stephanie?"

The bartender sighed, but then rallied with a pretty smile. "It's spelled with an o - n - e instead of an a - n - i - e. The difference in pronunciation is subtle, but it is noticeable if you're listening for it."

"Okay, I've got it now. Stephone. It's quite a unique name."

"Sure is. But my friends call me Steph. You can call me Steph, if you like."

"Well, nice to meet you, Stephone. Er, Steph, that is."

"Nice to meet you, Jack Whiskey." A customer a few barstools down waved in their direction. "And now I've got to get back to work. But I'll talk to you later, all right?"

"Sure, sure. I'll be here for a while, so maybe—"

But Stephone had turned away to pour a pint of Olde Eden Bacchic Brown Ale and was no longer listening to the blabbering alchemist.

Jack decided he was going to get Steph's number tonight, wait two or three days, then give her a call. He turned to Sir Arthur, who was yet again surveying him up and down.

"What is it, man? You know, you've got some real penetrating eyes there, Art. Bore straight into a man's brain like a cerebral corkscrew, they do."

Sir Arthur smiled in a fatherly manner. "Why don't you just ask her out now? There's no sense in getting her number and calling her after a couple of days. After all, you'll just see her up here at the Taphouse tomorrow night, or the night after that, or the night after that, or the night after that."

"You know, I hadn't thought about that."

"Yes, and from what I have deduced from but a few seconds of clear-headed observation . . . let's just say that if you did ask her out, she would say 'yes.' So why not just go for it?"

"Yeah, all right. I'll catch her before we leave."

"Oh. Right. When you're drunk as a skunk and can't speak straight," managed Sir Arthur between uncharacteristic giggles. "Good thinking, that."

"Fine, then. I'll do it now." That specific sort of courage brought on only by inebriation arose within Jack's heart and spread, following the path laid out beforehand by the alcohol, through his being. He took a deep breath, beckoned as if in need of a refill, and asked Stephone—not Stephanie, mind you—out to dinner on Tuesday night.

And just as Sir Arthur had predicted, she said "yes."

## Chapter 3

## A Scurrying, a Scampering, a Flapping of Wings

Deep in the reaches of Tranquil Forest Park there was a scurrying, a scampering, a flapping of wings—and a group of shadowy figures converged by a bubbling spring nestled within a picturesque glade. They huddled together like some monstrous football team, whispering and glancing over at the spring. Each of them carried at least two empty water jugs in their paws, hands, claws, extremities, protrusions. Smoke coiled into the sky.

"Would you please take off those magical fire-leggings, you decrepit old man? Not only are you going to set the forest ablaze, you're leaving charred footprints everywhere!"

A low-lying collection of wiry hair and wrinkled skin mottled with burn scars reached down and removed from its person a pair of rainbow-colored leggings, the brilliant hues shifting and swirling underneath the fabric. "I always forget to take 'em off. As you said, I am Old Man. Finally, after all these years, the senility must be kicking in. I got those leggings from Sun himself, you know."

"Caw, caw, caw, we're all old, you idiot," cackled a winged, feathered figure perched on a branch above. "I, Raven, stole the light from that hoarding old man at the beginning of Time, and with it I created the sun, the moon, and the stars. So I guess you ran into Sun sometime after I created him."

"Not so impressive, bird-brain," rumbled a hulking figure with long floppy ears and a twitching pink nose. "Back in the Dawn-time I tried to capture my own shadow, who kept following me around all the time, in a snare . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . and caught your buddy Sun instead!"

"Who gives a bloody carcass, Rabbit," growled a lanky silhouette with mangy gray fur and bloodshot eyes. "When it was I, Coyote, who first gave fire to mankind?" Coyote snarled. "But nowadays that jackass Prometheus gets all the credit for it!"

"Nothing but cheap parlor tricks, the whole lot of it!" hissed a bulbous figure hanging upside-down from a glistening strand of webbing. "I, Iktome, once tricked a giant, man-eating monster that was going to devour me into revealing its weaknesses, and because of me this beast dropped dead of terror and I saved humanity!"

"Well, I created the Earth, human beings, and all the animals, too!"

"You did not! I did that!"

"Neither of you morons did that, because I did that!"

"Liar!"

"You're the liar!"

"You're all liars, every one of you!"

The party broke into bickering and arguing, and everybody started yelling and gesticulating with various bits of themselves. But before the fists and magic spells started flying around the woods, Rabbit reached down into a pink fanny-pack around his waist and threw a small gray pebble into the midst of the madness. There followed an explosion that singed every last one of the arguers, who had been pushing, name-calling, and screaming obscenities at the top of their lungs.

The bickering slowed to a crawl, and then to a stop.

"We could argue about these things for all of . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . eternity, but this is not the place. You never know who, or what, might pop up around here."

Sobered, the figures peered about the glade, which remained empty of beings. Nearby, the spring bubbled away with fervor, as if fueled by some underground well of fizz.

"He's right," said Coyote. "Let's just fill up these jugs and get out of here. Thank the Great Spirit this is the last night we have to do this grunt work."

The meeting of the minds adjourned, and each member walked to the edge of the effervescent pool. In turn, they filled their empty jugs to the brim with the water of the spring. Then there was a scurrying, a scampering, a flapping of wings—and the only sounds were the flutters and flitters of nocturnal nature, and the liquid whisper of the gurgling spring.

## Chapter 4

## The Adventures of a Patchrobed Novice

Bright and early Sunday morning, Sitting Lotus dug through garbage. His skinny white legs dangled out of the Dumpster behind the local Italian restaurant, Vittorio's Pizza and Pasta Palazzo. While delving through globs of rotten tomato sauce and piles of rock-hard garlic bread, he dozed off and tumbled into the Dumpster. The metal lid clanged shut above his head.

He awoke thirty minutes later, covered head to sandals in kitchen grease, gelatinous pasta clogging his mouth and up his nostrils. After recollecting his senses, he opened the Dumpster's lid and crawled out into the crisp morning sunlight.

Brushing soggy rigatoni from his robe, he pondered why it was that he, out of hundreds of novice monks at New Shaolin Monastery, always got stuck with the Dumpsters along Restaurant Row. He figured that Master Mirbodi, who assigned the novices their Dumpster diving districts, had it in for him. All you found in the restaurant Dumpsters were rotten foodstuffs and rats that stared at you as if they were rodent royalty and you a huge bandit hunting in their stinking royal forest.

The haul was always better on the east side of town, over by the College of Bill & Gary, the only university in Eden. You name it, the novices had found it in the B&G Dumpsters: furniture, electronics, designer clothing, books and magazines, kitchen appliances, sex toys (hopefully unused, but probably not). The pickings were also pretty nice on the south-side, especially at Eden Crossing, which acted as a commercialized bumper between the historic downtown area and the outlying middle-class neighborhoods. The sprawling shopping complex was also the best place to acquire discarded garments to patch up your robe, as Eden Fab & Stitch, the only fabric store in town, rented a space in the busy outlet center.

But Sitting Lotus never landed those gigs, and had to use worn, stained rags—found in abundance in the Dumpsters along Restaurant Row—to stitch up his robe. His fellow novices often joked that he more resembled a giant, hideously animated dishrag than a Buddhist monk-in-training. He and his unforgiving peers would Dumpster-dive every Sunday, taking whatever was salvageable back to the warehouse at the monastery. There, under the supervision and with the occasional help of the masters, they would repair, clean, and polish these discarded items. Then, every August, the monastery held a grand, carnivalesque yard sale called "Your Trash, Their Treasure" on the grounds to benefit the on-site orphanage. The popular annual garage sale—or garbage sale, as Sitting Lotus liked to call it—would take place on Wednesday, and was sure to draw yet another record crowd this year.

Siddhartha's sizzling sutras, thought Sitting Lotus, I've gotta solve my koan sometime soon! I can't be stuck as a novice forever, digging into restaurant Dumpsters every Sunday morning for the rest of my days on the material plane! He repeated the koan to himself for the billionth time.

A monk asked of the Sixth Patriarch: 'What is Zen?' Hui-Neng replied: 'When not dwelling on good, when not dwelling on evil, what is your original face before you were born?'

Sitting Lotus sighed. Here we go again, attempting to find an answer to a question that cannot be answered in a rational manner. He tried to think about the koan and nothing but the koan, as per Master Mirbodi's instructions, but it just wasn't happening this morning.

He thought, glumly, that perhaps he would be a novice for the remainder of this life and all the rest, just as Master Mirbodi had said yesterday. The many "answers" to the koan he had thus far produced (pulled out of his ass, more like) were nothing close to what the masters were looking for. If he went in there and tried to fake it again, Master Mirbodi would just laugh in his face again.

But how did that shriveled old raisin of a monk expect him to concentrate on his koan and nothing but his koan when he could hardly get any sleep at night?

Yesterday, Master Mirbodi had left New Shaolin at dusk and returned well after "lights-out," wired as hell on something or other—probably green tea, which he drank in abundance. The eccentric Zen master had remained awake and active until the "wake-up" gong (fondly nicknamed "That-Rise-n'-Fuckin'-Shiner" by the novices). All night long, he had sat on the front steps of the novices' dormitories, banging on kitchen pots and pans like drums, singing terrible "songs" at the top of his lungs to accompany the "music," and laughing like a drunken Trickster god between the eardrum-scorching numbers, which had grown louder and more discordant as the endless night dragged on.

The other resident masters, when complained at the following morning about the ruckus, had no clue as to what anybody was talking about, and told the red-eyed novices, in one way or another, to leave them the hell alone until after they'd had their coffee.

Reeking of foulness, Sitting Lotus walked down the familiar alley behind the mile-long stretch of restaurants and bars that lined the western end of Colonial Towne Road. The next Dumpster in the queue was the one behind the Olde Eden Brewery & Taphouse, one of those rare refuse bins that was always pristine, or at least as near it a Dumpster could be.

Upon approach he noticed something odd sitting on the ground in the middle of the alleyway: one of those translucent blue Nalgene water bottles, filled to the brim with sparkling, fizzing water. It was probably a deposit from an Olde Eden Brewery employee for the novices to find, but why hadn't they left it next to the bin like they usually did with the small items? And why was it full?

Unsure, Sitting Lotus picked up the bottle and held it out for examination, then decided that it must be a donation. He would take it back to the monastery, and if someone came looking for it they would realize who had taken it and come to New Shaolin to retrieve it.

He unscrewed the cap of the bottle to dispose of the fluid, and an indescribable aroma of loveliness wafted its way up to his nostrils. This smell was the best-smelling smell he had ever smelled; it was the smell to end all smells. It transported his mind into new, undiscovered realms—and Sitting Lotus's longstanding crystalline walls of mental formations fragmented into oblivion, and he solved his koan.

With no sense of accomplishment—accomplishment was a drug, a dream, a lie—he looked down, down, down, into the bubbling Water, shining within the bottle like liquid starlight. Not dwelling on good, not dwelling on evil, he brought the bottle to his lips, tipped it back—and drank Zen, Buddha, Mind, all the way down to the last drop.

Glug, glug, glug, glug, glug.

## Chapter 5

## Fired!

Sporting a mind-battening headache, Jack Whiskey ran through the bustling Colonial Eden Farmers' Market, trailing the smell of sour beer as it seeped from his pores in the noontime sun. This caused much scrunching of noses and waving of makeshift fans from the urchins and customers populating the scene. Not noticing the crowd's prudish glares, he plowed through the roiling sea of humanity with ruthless determination. Handicapped seniors, small children, and cute little puppies went flying in every direction in his wake, but he just kept on moving, ignoring the angry shouts, outraged cries, and yips of terror behind him.

He zoomed past Farmer John's organic fruit and veggie stall, which had the best apples in town. He hotfooted it past the beekeeper's tent with a quick wave that seemed to go unobserved by Sir Arthur, who was busy with customers. He stumbled past the Olde Eden Brewery tent, which was quite popular today, likely due to the sign hanging out front that read "Today Only—Free Pint of Our Newest Brew, Hoppy Heaven Ale!" He shuffled past the fresh seafood stall, and the stench almost made him vomit right there in the street.

Jack gave it one last push and plummeted like a plane whose pilot had lost all control towards the door of the "Ye Olde Alchemy Laboratory," open for retail sales during Market hours.

There was no one waiting at the door to get in. This was not surprising, as the Laboratory was far from the most popular Market destination. He unlocked the door and walked into the front room, which doubled as gift shop. Shelves filled with alchemical knickknacks lined the walls. Books on medieval chemistry and the methodology of transmutation adorned olden wooden tables. The Laboratory was visible through an open doorway at the far end of the gift shop.

Jack noticed something strange on the Laboratory floor, so he wandered over. Crucibles and alembics with fluorescent gook congealing on the sides cluttered upon a table in the corner of the Lab. A bookcase filled with ancient tomes with imposing Latin titles lined one wall. Shelves overflowing with earthen jars, contents labeled by scratches upon their exteriors, decorated another.

A six-pack of beer sat on the floor before the massive iron cauldron that dominated the center of the room. It could not have been there long, because Jack could see condensation on the bottles. A note was slipped in between two beers.

Jack walked over and picked up the note, leaving the sixer on the floor. It read:

Jack Whiskey,

You're fired. Stop by the corporate office tomorrow to discuss why. Please accept this six-pack of Olde Eden beer as a retirement gift. Leave the key atop the doorsill on your way out.

Thank you for your many, many years with our company,

Colonial Eden Management

Fired! But why? He was only twenty minutes late! And why had whoever wrote the note written two manys, with the last one emphasized? Sure, he had worked for the company for a decade, but there were veterans far more grizzled than he employed at Colonial Eden. And why in the gods' names had they left him a six-pack as a "retirement gift?"

Jack sighed. Forced into retirement, and not yet forty years old. He had been pretty sure it would happen eventually, but today seemed a little premature. It had to be a mistake.

He looked back down at the note, and the ink seeped and dripped across the page. It pooled and trickled around the paper before reorganizing into some unrecognizable language of blocks, lines, and symbols, like some sort of cuneiform.

"What in—" said Jack, and dropped the note.

The cauldron's interior was coated with gelatinous goop from the sulfurous chemicals used to initiate the "explosion" that "killed" Jack at each performance, and the note fell into the gunk. It was a sopping, illegible mess when he pulled it out, so he tossed it back into the pot.

Jack put the vision down to shock at losing his job. He picked up a beer and peered at the bottle: Hoppy Heaven Ale, the very same concoction being passed out free at the Olde Eden beer tent. Must be a new summer brew they were giving a test run. Depicted on the label was a celestial city resting on a bank of fluffy white clouds, golden skyscrapers jutting into the starry midnight sky.

Figuring he now had nothing else going on, Jack shrugged and popped open a brew. A scent of the sweetest, ripest of fruits and the stickiest, ickiest of ganja all mixed up into one wafted up from the bottle's neck. The aroma was vacuumed into Jack's nostrils and therein waged a perfumed assault against his sensory perceptions. He took an experimental sip, then sat down on the edge of the cauldron and savored the flavor of the best beer in the known universe, his lost job forgotten.

Olde Eden Hoppy Heaven Ale was the Nectar of the Gods, Ambrosia, the Water of Life, Aqua Vitae, the Philosopher's Stone, the Universal Panacea, the Elixir of Life for which the olden alchemists had toiled over bubbling cauldrons for ages but never managed to concoct.

And now he, Jack Whiskey, had discovered All of the Above transmuted into one magnificent beverage, and the feeling of bliss each sip imbued in his soul was so real, so alive, so intense, so right, that he wanted to share it with the world. As people learned of this wonderful beer and drank it down, an age of peace, goodwill, and Hoppy Heaven Ale would begin.

He sat right there on the cauldron and drank the entire sixer, dropping the empties into the pot one by one. The last thing to go into the stew was the key.

And then Jack Whiskey walked out of the "Ye Olde Alchemy Laboratory" and into the Market, on a sacred quest to acquire one more taste of that wondrous brew called Hoppy Heaven Ale.

## Chapter 6

## The Adventures of Charly Dodgers

Charly Dodgers was scheduled to die. Today, Sunday, at 1:00 EST, sharp. Unaware of his impending demise, he wandered blissfully through the Colonial Eden Farmers' Market.

The time was 12:51, a mere nine minutes until Charly dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of the Farmers' Market, ruining not just his own day but everybody else's, because the Market would shut down for the rest of the afternoon after the unfortunate incident.

At 12:52, Charly paused at the Olde Eden Flower Shoppe's stall to have a quick sniff of the blooms. Half a minute later he plodded along, thinking that stopping and smelling the roses just wasn't the same anymore, since he couldn't smell anymore.

From 12:54 to 12:55 he lallygagged by the Eden Art Gallery's tent to look at some interesting-looking modern artwork that turned out, upon closer examination, to be not so interesting.

Just after 12:55 he stopped at the beekeeper's tent and bought a jar of the "best honey within a thousand miles" for a lady-friend he was in the process of wooing (she was a young one, only fifty-nine). It was 12:57 when he walked back into the bustling Market.

The Clock that brings about the end of all clocks hit two minutes till doom when Charly Dodgers limped by the Olde Eden Brewery tent and heard: "Free beer here! Free samples of our newest brew! One per customer, if you please, sir. I'm sorry, ma'am, but there are no exceptions. We have other brews for sale over there, sir. No, ma'am, this particular batch you're drinking now will not be available for public purchase until Wednesday morning."

Well, you only live once, thought Charly. He shuffled into the tent past the grinning bouncer, who didn't bother to card him.

"And you, sir, how about you? You haven't had one yet, and trust me, it's to die for," jabbered the man at the counter. He handed out cheap plastic cups filled with beer to the eager crowd while his nose twitched as though long overdue for a sneeze. "Or to live for, rather, for the taste will have you soaring in the clouds with Eagle . . . I mean, with the eagles, of course."

"What the hell is it?" asked Charly, fifty-eight seconds left in this world.

"It's free beer, sir," said the man, who boasted comically long and lean ears. He called back to the man pouring the beer: "One for the walking dead here, compadre!"

"Caw-caw-caw-ming right up, mate," said the other man, whose pointed, protruding nose reminded Fergie of a bird's beak.

Charly made clear he was not impressed with a phlegmy snort. He reached the serving table with forty-three seconds left to live. "What kinda beer is it? It must not be very good, 'cause if it was really as good as you say, you'd definitely be chargin' for it."

The ice-cold beer was delivered into Big Ears's hands by Bird Nose. "It's the Olde Eden Brewery's newest effort, sir," said Big Ears, offering the plastic cup to Fergie. "A summer brew called Hoppy Heaven Ale. The best beer you've ever tasted, and will ever taste."

"I doubt that," said Charly, and harrumphed. "Do you know how old I am, young man?"

"Not a clue. Maybe a hundred, but I doubt it. At that age most human beings aren't . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . upright anymore."

"I'm seventy-five years old, and I'm gonna live till I'm a hundred," boasted Charly, sixteen seconds before he was no more. "I get a physical every year to renew my pilot's license, and me own granpappy lived till he was a hunnerd and nine." He stared with rheumy eyes at the beer in Big Ears's hand. With nine seconds left till the bitter end, he grabbed it and gave it a sniff.

Wow, he could actually smell it, and it smelled really good.

"Go ahead, old man," said Big Ears. "I guarantee you'll like it."

Four seconds until his life departed his body, Charly shrugged (three seconds), thought (two seconds) Shoot, why the hell not?, and (one half-second) tossed a slug of Hoppy Heaven Ale down his throat . . . and Charly Dodgers, that lucky old fool, did not die as scheduled.

Charly finished off the rest of his beer in a minute or two. He then remarked to Big Ears how good the Hoppy Heaven Ale was and inquired if he would make an exception on the one-drink cutoff for a senior citizen. When he was rebuffed by Big Ears and given an evil look by Bird Nose, Charly shrugged and slow-stepped his way out of the beer tent—and spent the rest of the afternoon feeling better than he had in ages.

## Chapter 7

## The Adventures of Jack Whiskey

When Jack walked out into the cobblestone street, the first thing he noticed was that things were not quite right. On a typical Market day, shoppers would bounce from stall to tent to stall like agitated pinballs, each hoping to find that deal-of-deals before everybody else could get their grubby hands on whatever-it-was-this-week. Most Sundays the underlying Market mood was a frenzied one, a hectic one, a bargain-hunting one.

But today the normally all-business shoppers were milling about the streets, everybody in a joyful, ambrosia-induced daze. People who on any other day would be arguing—oftentimes on the brink of blows—over the last dozen white roses at the flower tent or the last jar of the beekeeper's clover honey walked through the Market arm in arm, the best of friends from all appearances. The aroma of Hoppy Heaven Ale pervaded the air, transforming the humidity hovering around downtown Eden into an euphoric haze that almost seemed sentient.

Jack Whiskey had consumed six bottles of the magical beverage, and his head was lost in the shimmering clouds of his own personal Great Beyond.

But, through the beery fog, he knew he wanted more.

So he hustled over to the Olde Eden Brewery tent, pushed his way through the crowds outside the entrance, and burst inside, intent on one thing: Beer! Sweet beer! Hoppy Heaven Ale—the brew of the gods!

And there it was. There were kegs of it, for the gods' sakes; he could see three of the wonder-filled canisters. He just hoped, within his heart of hearts, that they weren't yet floated.

Jack sidled his way through the press of people to the fold-out serving table and observed two men, one pouring beer and one handing out brimming cups of the delicious potion. "Could I try one, please?" he called out.

One of the men sported ears bigger than any Jack had seen. He looked at Jack coldly, but then his nose twitched in odd, animalistic fashion. It was as if the man had recognized him, though Jack was sure he had never seen the guy in his life.

"Hey, compadre, one for my good friend here!" called Big Ears to the bird-nosed man pouring the beer from the keg into clear plastic cups.

"Caw-caw-caw-ming right up, sah!" called back Bird Nose. He pushed the beer into Big Ears's hands, his beady black eyes never leaving Jack's.

"Here you are, sir." Big Ears handed Jack the beer, then turned to serve the multitude of other patrons awaiting their no-charge pint.

Jack moved to the side of the table, out of the way of the hubbub, and sipped at his beer, enjoying every last drop of divine flavor. After getting bored with peering around at the various other six-packs of brews on display and for sale—disappointingly, none of them Hoppy Heaven Ale—he observed the employees of the Olde Eden Brewery tent at work.

Just how Big Ears and his buddies were keeping track of who had already had a free pint was beyond him, but those who tried to sneak back into line for seconds were scolded by Big Ears when they reached the table, then hauled out of the tent by a slender, surly-looking man who stood by the door, surveying the socializing crowd with bloodshot eyes. The bouncer's gaunt, grayish face reminded Jack of a laughing dog, if such a thing existed.

After his first pint was bubbling away in his belly, Jack figured he would just go for it and suffer the consequences. "Hey, can I have another one?" he asked Big Ears. He held out his empty cup, expecting at any moment to be removed from the premises by Crazy-eyed Dog Man.

But Big Ears just grinned. "For you, sir, of course. You can have as many as . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . you like." He grabbed Jack's cup and handed it to Bird Nose, who refilled it and handed it back while appearing to struggle to keep from bursting out laughing.

"Wow, gee whiz," said Jack, as he was handed the beer. "Okay, then. Thanks."

"Not a problem, my friend, not a problem," said Big Ears, and chuckled.

When Big Ears turned back to his work, Jack wondered why it was that he, out of the eight-thousand residents of Eden, was the only one allowed more than a single pint. It's not like he had ever been a real good friend of Farmer John's! Sure, they had spoken in passing on numberless occasions, but if Jack hadn't patronized the man's bar on a nightly basis, he would never see him. And the beer vendors sure were some strange guys. He was surprised he had never seen them around town. New Old Eden Brewery employees, maybe?

Jack polished off his second pint of Hoppy Heaven and was handed another by Big Ears. He drank it down, enjoying every last sip to the utmost.

Then he had another.

And one more, just for good measure.

And as Jack was handed one more cup of carbonated paradise, Master Mirbodi floated into the Olde Eden Brewery tent.

The H.M.i.C. of New Shaolin Monastery scanned the crowd, taking in everything. His gaze lingered for a long second on the beer vendors, and his eyes narrowed. Then the monk caught sight of Jack and hovered across the crowded tent to his location. Without seeming to realize they were doing it, the people cleared a path for Master Mirbodi through their prattling, twitterpated midst.

"Hey, alchemist. What you doing here? I thinking you working at alchemy house today selling enchanted trinkets and magic scrolls."

Jack exhaled a beer-soaked sigh of regret. "Well, Mashter Mirbodi, I am no longer an alchemisht, fake or otherwishe, for I have thish very afternoon been fired from that eshteemed position."

"Fired, huh?" The monk scrutinized the beer in Jack's hand. "Hey, can I see that beer one second?"

Jack hid his beer behind his back. "They're giving out free shamples. If you want one, why don't you get yourshelf one?"

The Zen master smiled, ever-so slightly. "I no alter mind with earthly substances—except to teach lesson to wayward novice. I just wanna look at beer closer."

Jack sighed again, not liking where this was going, and handed Master Mirbodi his half-full cup. The old monk looked at the beer in the sunlight beaming into the tent, sniffed it a few times, and even took a very small sip of it. Then he handed the cup back to Jack, muttering under his breath.

"Where Farmer John?" he said, his voice somehow different—more serious, perhaps, which was strange for the ever-grinning, ever-jovial Zen master. "He usually here every Sunday."

"Dunno. Haven't sheen him reshently."

"Come with me, Jack."

"Okay. But can I get one more firsht? And where are we going?"

"We going to Art's tent. Go ahead and get one more if you want to." Back to his old self, Master Mirbodi grinned at the former alchemist. "After all, it no affect you. Plus, I wanna see guys serving beer up close and personal for minute."

Jack downed the last swallow of his current beer, then ordered up one more from Big Ears. The vendor's hands shook as he handed over the brew, spilling foam over the edge of the cup. When Jack looked up, surprised, Big Ears was ogling Master Mirbodi, backing away from the monk, his mouth moving but nothing coming out. The patchrobed monk met Big Ears'—fearful, was it?—gaze levelly, then spun around in a swirl of patchwork. He grabbed Jack by the collar and hauled him through the gibbering crowd with a brute strength that a hundred-plus year old man should not possess.

Upon their departure, the monk cast a dead-eyed stare at the bouncer, easily a foot taller than the Zen Master. But when his eyes met Mirbodi Madhaha's, Crazy-eyed Dog Man's arrogant expression changed to one of blind, feral terror. He wilted like a flower, curled up on the cobblestone in the fetal position, and whimpered like a wounded dog.

Then a surge of energy passed through the beer tent—seen by none, but felt by all—and the three kegs exploded from their taps like geysers, and sprayed Bird Nose and Big Ears and everything within the tent with foaming beer. The crowd gasped as one and fell, shrieking like banshees and salivating like demons craving souls, upon the beer-drenched cobbles and the vendors, ravenous for one last taste of Hoppy Heaven Ale.

Sir Arthur sat on a stool behind a card table by the honey tent's entrance. He was wearing his standard tweed jacket in the blazing heat of midday (just how he didn't seem to mind wearing this outfit in the dog-days of summer was debatable, but he was rarely if ever seen wearing anything else). He smiled widely at Jack Whiskey and Mirbodi Madhaha as they tripped and floated, respectively, into the tent. They had come at the right time, for Sir Arthur had no customers.

Inside the tent were shelves stacked high with many varieties of the self-proclaimed "best honey within a thousand miles," such as wildflower, clover, orange blossom, lavender, sage, goldenrod, and raw. Fold-out tables were adorned with small containers of granulated bee pollen, beeswax candles, honey-based jams and jellies (including Royal Jelly, a supposed aphrodisiac, of which Sir Arthur kept a few jars under the counter for those who wanted to give their lagging love lives a shot in the penile vein), and a melange of delicious honey candies. He also stocked a varied selection of honey-infused teas and beeswax soaps, creams, and lotions.

Master Mirbodi released his iron grip on Jack's collar, and the former alchemist stood and swayed and sipped at his beer. He had not spilled a single drop of Hoppy Heaven Ale on the walk over, even though he had stumbled into at least three people while being unceremoniously dragged across the Market. "Now that'sh shkill, baby . . ." mumbled Jack.

"Hey, Art. You see Farmer John recently?" asked Master Mirbodi.

About to welcome his friends to his humble tent with an eloquent speech, Sir Arthur bit his tongue. He pondered for a moment and said, "I have seen him twice in the last week, the first time at the Taphouse last Wednesday. My friend Jack Whiskey there was present at the time. I said hello and attempted to engage the good farmer in conversation as he was making his rounds through the barroom, but he rebuffed me, saying he had pressing business out at the farm. He left quickly."

Jack nodded in confirmation. He remembered the incident through a haze of inebriation, both then and now.

"Almost the same thing happened the next evening, although then I was sitting alone at the bar, sipping scotch. He walked into the Taphouse from the 'employees-only' door behind the bar, saw me roosting there, and dove back through the door. I found both incidents peculiar, but did not think too much of either at their respective times. Farmer John, though a good friend, is a weird one, to say the least. Why do you ask, Master Mirbodi?"

"I no see him in week or so." The Zen Master peered intently at the beekeeper. "Art, we just come from Olde Eden Brewery tent, and strange things going on there. You see Jack's beer?" He and Sir Arthur looked at Jack, who hesitated, then handed Art the ale-filled cup, twitching and mumbling about "his precious."

The beekeeper pulled a magnifying glass from his coat pocket and peered at the beer. He sloshed it around in the cup, muttering to himself. He looked at it in the sunlight, then produced a pen-light and shone it into the depths of the cup. He cleared off a table, poured out a few drops of the liquid, and watched as it dribbled off the edge. He smelled the beer, his nose buried deep in the cup, snorting like a pig. He dipped his finger into the thin layer of foam on the surface and tasted it, smacking his lips and puffing out his cheeks like a chipmunk. He took a sip of beer, sloshed it around in his mouth, gargled, and spit it back into the cup. He handed the beer back to Jack, who took it and stared at it with reproach, then shrugged and took a sip.

"It's quite obvious what's in that beer. No need to hire a detective to solve that mystery," said Sir Arthur, a touch of cynicism in his tone.

"Hoppy Heaven Ale some powerful stuff, all right," said Master Mirbodi. "And those handing it out at tent of beer not what they seem."

Sir Arthur brainstormed for a moment, then snapped his fingers. "Gentlemen, from this moment forward we must make it our duty to find out what is transpiring with this Hoppy Heaven Ale and the Olde Eden Brewery. But before we begin making unwarranted assumptions, we shall do a little investigating into the matter. I am closing down shop for the day."

Master Mirbodi helped Sir Arthur pack away the various sale-items, and Jack stood and wobbled and slurped at his beer. Then a bevy of squeaky voices echoed into the tent. Master Mirbodi led Jack by the elbow to the half-closed entrance flap, Sir Arthur at their heels. It turned out to be a group of teenagers in folksy dress, five boys and a girl.

" . . . got us a serious problem, then," said one of the taller boys, wearing clothes three sizes too big and a wide-brimmed straw hat.

"Not necessarily," answered a red-haired kid. "It's a three-quart jug, and it was full. And sure, that's enough to do it to someone. But who's to say only one person'll drink the whole thing?"

"Oh, come on, Black Avenger!" shot back Straw Hat. "You know humans can't resist that stuff once they smell it!"

"Even so," replied the Black Avenger, "just one person won't matter too much."

Straw Hat sighed, then appeared to acquiesce. "Still, it could be trouble. The bottle defnit'ly warn't where he left it, then?"

"Naw, it was right by the Dumpster, Sid says. And if that's the case, it was gone. Somebody must 'a' picked it up."

The conversation died, and the group stood and scowled unseeing at the Farmers' Market.

"Excuse me, my friends," said Sir Arthur. He emerged from the tent and smiled cordially at the group of adolescents. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure of one another's acquaintance, but if you are who I believe you are, then I know all about you."

The lone girl of the group shrieked. "Hey! You're—"

"Yes, yes, indeed I am," said Sir Arthur with a flutter of hands. "And I must inquire as to what you are doing here in Eden."

The girl, blond-haired and pretty, smiled at the beekeeper and whispered something to the red-haired, freckle-faced boy—the so-called Black Avenger—who held her hand. His eyes widened with each word spoken, and he stared at Sir Arthur with undisguised awe. He beckoned his friends close and proceeded to whisper and gesture with vehemence. The meeting of preteen minds soon dispersed, all of its attendees grinning, and Straw Hat stepped forward.

"We visit the Eden Farmers' Market when we get low on slingshot ammo. They got it for sale at the tent afore the Magazine."

"Is that so?" said Sir Arthur, staring into the tent-filled distance. "And did you happen to come into town by way of . . . Tranquil Forest?"

"We sure did."

"And did you notice anything . . . odd happening there?"

"Well, there was some weird markings on the forest floor, but we di'n't think too much of it, becuz you know how that goes around there."

Sir Arthur's brow furrowed, and his eyes went distant. "Something very strange has been going on in Eden in recent days, and I have turned a blind eye to it . . ." He trailed off and appeared to leave this world, muttering and stroking his chin. Several moments later, he awoke from his trance and clapped his hands. "Would you six youngsters"—he winked—"care to accompany me on a walk through the park? After all, it is such a lovely day."

The kids looked around at each other, then shrugged as one.

"Sure," said Straw Hat. "We got nothing else going on now."

"Excellent!" proclaimed Sir Arthur. "We will take a nature walk through beatific Tranquil Forest! And don't worry about that water bottle. If you left it by the Dumpster, I believe I know where it ended up, seeing as how it did not grow legs and wander away. Or at least most likely not." He pirouetted to the Zen master. "Master Mirbodi, would you be so kind as to escort Jack Whiskey to his abode while I finish packing up the tent, for I believe he is far too drunk to accompany us. Perhaps then you could return to New Shaolin Monastery and see if you can locate that bottle."

Master Mirbodi agreed to drive Jack's car back to the Village of Eden. From there, he would walk to New Shaolin Monastery to find out what had become of the missing water bottle. And he already had a pretty good idea of just which novice had picked it up.

After much cross-questioning, Jack remembered where he had parked his car. He and his patchrobed escort walked across the Farmers' Market to the rusted wreck, dodging euphoric shoppers foxtrotting for joy in the streets. They hopped—or, in the case of Jack, fell—into the vehicle and drove off, traveling down the wrong side of Colonial Towne Road.

Five minutes later the pair had reached the Village of Eden without accident or incident, other than perhaps setting the world's record for having the most middle fingers pulled on them in five minutes' time. Master Mirbodi helped Jack out of the car and lent him a shoulder to lean on during the zigzag to the apartment doorstep.

Jack searched his pockets for his keys.

Master Mirbodi handed Jack the keys, which dangled from his hand.

Jack fumbled with the keys, then opened the door when he recalled that he never locked it. "Tanksh, Mashter. Dashun'shtillup, butshmetinkshI'mshagonnahitshdahayferafew. Byeshnowsh."

Jack shut the door in the monk's smiling face, stumbled to bed, and fell into a deep, delightful, drunken sleep.

Jack dreamed that he had died and gone to a sparkling city in the clouds, where there were angels with golden-glowing halos quaffing even golder mead, and pink-cheeked cherubs strumming silver harps and guzzling ambrosia between numbers, and a bunch of folks milling around wearing fashions that stretched across millenniums, all of them drinking divine beer. Exquisite fountains crafted of starlight decorated every block of this celestial metropolis built on drunken dreams, and flowed foaming and frothing with the amber-colored beer of the gods, Hoppy Heaven Ale, instead of the standard water.

And the cheap plastic cups were always just to your left.

## Chapter 8

## Investigations in Tranquil Forest

Sir Arthur led the way through Tranquil Forest, batting aside low-hanging branches and vines. When they reached the glade and the shores of the bubbling spring, the Black Avenger showed the beekeeper the charred footprints and trampled ground they had noticed earlier that morning.

Sir Arthur produced a magnifying glass from his tweed coat and went down on all fours, examining the prints and every square inch of ground in the area. Then he looked up at the webbing-covered trees with a thoughtful expression. He lowered his gaze, caught sight of something, and made a bee-line for a rhododendron a few yards from the fizzling spring. He raised his magnifying glass to something that clung to the bush's branches, fluttering in the breeze. He produced a pair of tweezers and an empty test tube from his coat pocket, grasped some stringy fibers between the instrument's pincers, and placed them into the glass tube with the utmost precision. He then walked around the glade again, picking at bits of fuzz and fluff, strands of this and that.

Sir Arthur wrapped up the C.S.I. and stashed his new collection of specimens, each numbered and labeled, into some dark recess of his coat. "I must take these items back to my laboratory for analysis. I believe I know who these individuals are, but I wish to be certain before I reveal my findings." He peered at the kids. "I apologize in advance, for my cottage is humble and cluttered, but I think it would be an excellent idea if you folks stayed with me until we can make transparent these opaque matters."

The gang glanced around at one another, and something unspoken passed between them. "Sure, mister, if that's what you think's best," agreed the Black Avenger, fingering an old-fashioned slingshot attached to his belt. "And mebbe if we hang around town, we'll have a grand ol' adventure!" A serious look crossed his face. "That's what we do, you know. We adventure."

Sir Arthur grinned. "Well, just hang with me, lads and lady, for I portend much adventure in the near future. And I love a good mystery." He pulled a gold-plated pocket watch from his jacket and glanced at the time. "But let us make our exit. Our friends may return at any time, and it is a bit early in the game for a confrontation. We must attain a clearer idea of what we are up against before deciding upon an appropriate course of action, which might not be a direct encounter. Indeed, something a bit more subtle may be called for." He pointed eastward. "To the bee farm!"

And they departed the pristine glade.

## Chapter 9

## Adventures at New Shaolin

Master Mirbodi floated across the New Shaolin Monastery grounds, humming a Grateful Dead tune he had heard blasting over the sound system at the Olde Eden Taphouse last night and taken a liking to. He nodded his head and banged his staff on the ground in time with the music playing over the loudspeaker inside his head. He was hunting down a specific novice, and he knew just where that novice would be at this time of day.

The tall swinging doors fronting the New Shaolin warehouse/workshop were open to allow a good breeze to swirl into the place. The giant log cabin—which had been built from the ground up by the monastery founders themselves, including Master Mirbodi—was slam-pack-full of stuff the novices had collected Dumpster-diving over the year.

When the Zen master materialized in the warehouse, every novice therein stopped what they were doing. They bowed in unison, then stood and peered with trepidation at the mighty visitor, each of them hoping the overbearing monk wasn't looking for them.

"Sitting Lotusssssssssss!" chimed Master Mirbodi, his voice cutting through the silence like a sonic samurai sword. Every novice but one visibly relaxed; the communal sigh of relief was audible.

In the midst of applying Windex to a full-length mirror, Sitting Lotus acknowledged Master Mirbodi with a glance, but made no move to walk in his direction. Instead, he turned around and continued with his work, so master floated over to novice.

As he hovered ever nearer, Master Mirbodi observed something in Sitting Lotus that he had not observed in the ten years he had known him. So he wasted no time, walked right up to the novice, and pointed staff in face, an inch from Sitting Lotus's nose.

"What your original face before you born?"

"Your face is your face before you were born," replied Sitting Lotus, rag and bottle of Windex in hand, without batting an eyelash.

"So what this, then?" said Master Mirbodi, moving his staff about the novice's face.

Sitting Lotus shrugged. "A sample in a jar, no more."

Master Mirbodi's eyes narrowed. "And can you show me this sample?"

"No less," said the novice, and laughed.

And Master Mirbodi dropped his staff and reared back in shock—quite out of character for the Zen master, whose mind was as immovable as a mountain.

But the veteran monk soon recovered, picked up his fallen staff, and clapped Sitting Lotus on the back. The exuberant blow sent the novice reeling into the warehouse wall and the full-length mirror resting thereupon. Cleaning implements went flying.

"You got it, novice. Great job. Perhaps now you no reincarnate as tree. No let it go to head, though," said the Zen Master, tapping his own skull with a bony finger.

Sitting Lotus leaned on the mirror, in a state of shock. But he was not stunned from Master Mirbodi's high-spirited clap on the back. No, it was because he had never, during his ten years as a novice, heard such simple words of praise coming from the mouth of the batty old monk!

Master Mirbodi turned and addressed the assembled novices, who had not moved since he had entered the room, although many had grinned at Sitting Lotus's replies to his questions. "Everybody take ten minute break. Go do some walking meditation, or something."

The novices jumped as one at the command, used to doing what they were told without complaint, and ran out of the warehouse en masse, pushing and shoving. Nobody wanted to see what was going to become of their fellow novice, because it was not going to be pretty.

"Master, I—" began Sitting Lotus when the exodus was complete.

"Sure, you solve koan," interrupted Master Mirbodi, "but that no make you instant Buddha like you package of instant Ramen noodle. You find water bottle behind Olde Eden Brewery & Taphouse this morning?"

"Uh . . . I sure did," said Sitting Lotus. "It's right over there." He pointed at the blue water bottle he had picked up earlier in the day, before he had solved his first assigned koan. It sat atop an ornate oak dining-room table across the warehouse—empty.

Master Mirbodi glanced once at the water bottle, then peered at Sitting Lotus. "Novice, was bottle full when you found it?"

"We - ell . . ."

"Speak truth, novice."

"Er . . . yes?"

"You drink water in bottle?"

"We - ell . . . what does it matter if I did or not?"

"Sitting Lotus, did you drink it?"

"Er . . . yes?" said Sitting Lotus. He flinched, awaiting the forthcoming thwack!

But the expected blow did not fall. When Sitting Lotus looked up, Master Mirbodi was peering at him with a strange, scrunched-up expression, like he was constipated.

"Novice, you drink whole bottle, or you pour some out beforehand?"

Sitting Lotus hung his head low. "I drank it all. It looked like sparkling water, but when I opened the bottle to dump it out, it just smelled so good!" He rallied his courage and looked up with firm apology in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Master. I need to work harder on avoiding sensual urges."

Master Mirbodi looked Sitting Lotus up and down with upraised eyebrows.

Dour possibilities assaulted the novice's mind. "Master, why do you ask? What was in that bottle?"

Master Mirbodi looked grave for a moment, but then his eyes filled with hilarity. "Novice, you and I gonna be spending lot of time together. Rest of Time, actually."

The novice stared at the Zen master in confusion. "Master Mirbodi, what do you mean?"

Master Mirbodi put his arm around Sitting Lotus's shoulder and gave him an affectionate squeeze. "Novice, you just drink six pints of Water of Life, drawn from Fountain of Youth! Now you gonna live forever! But no worry, I be there too. Yep, it you and me till universe explode!"

"What!?" exploded Sitting Lotus, giving the universe a run for its money. "The Water of Life! You must be joking!"

But Master Mirbodi just stood there, grinning from ear to ear. Sitting Lotus had known the Zen master for a decade, and Master Mirbodi might have been a major loony tune, but he had never heard the old monk tell an outright lie.

That did not mean he always told the flat-out truth, of course.

"But the Fountain of Youth is a fairy tale! A myth! A fable! Make believe! Not! Frickin'! Real!"

Master Mirbodi chortled and gave Sitting Lotus another heartfelt hug. "Myths and fairy tales often contain more truth than non-fiction, especially autobiographies. Fountain of Youth in Virginia. In Eden. In Tranquil Forest. Right next door New Shaolin Monastery."

Sitting Lotus's mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. No sounds manifested.

"Come on, man, death and life—eternal or not—dual concepts," said Master Mirbodi. He shrugged. "Plus, it no so bad once you get used to it."

Sitting Lotus broke free of Master Mirbodi's arm and ogled the roshi. "Master Mirbodi, who in the sixteen lesser hells are you?"

But the Zen master just chuckled. "Who anybody, really? For now, you get back to work. One day soon I gonna need your help. But I find you, you no find me, 'kay?"

Without awaiting a reply, Master Mirbodi floated out of the New Shaolin Monastery warehouse, laughing and whooping, and Sitting Lotus sank to his knees in shock.

## Chapter 10

## An Invidious Interview with an Igneous Indian

Jack Whiskey awoke hangover-free on Monday morning. This was strange because he had consumed many pints of beer yesterday and gone to bed before the sun went down. And he had lost his job for reasons unexplained. Maybe someone down at corporate—whoever had written that strange note—could clear up the mistake. He sprang from bed and skipped his way into the kitchen, whistling. He ate two bowls of Lucky Charms for breakfast, drank two pots of coffee, shaved, and took a shower. He dressed in gray and black camo cargo shorts, throwback Washington Redskins T-shirt, and burgundy Vans. When he got outside it was a beautiful day, so he decided to walk the mile over to the corporate office.

When he reached downtown Eden, he could smell the flowers—and the horse crap, which littered the cobblestone streets—from yards away. His eyes were sharper than usual—objects appeared clearer, colors more vivid—and he took in the hi-def surroundings with glee. The cool breeze blowing through the air effectively canceled out the humidity, which made for a pleasant morning. He walked past manicured hedges and quaint colonial houses in a state of bliss. Even the ever-milling, always-roving packs of tourists didn't bother him today; they were just the creatures of Earth, going about their business like the birds and the bees (although tourists took snapshots and carried credit cards).

He strolled past the Magazine, the tower wherein the colonial locals had stored weapons and supplies in case of outside attack. In the eighteenth century the place had been a fortress, but was now a made-cheap reproduction. A twelve-foot-high wall of crossed wooden stakes jutting into the air like sharpened teeth surrounded the conical brick edifice.

He jaunted past Eden Parish Church, the first Anglican church built in the New World, which to this day boasted a thriving congregation. Its brick exterior was worn by time, and a graveyard filled with crumbling gravestones stretching all the way back to the seventeenth century surrounded the holy place like a funeral shroud worn by a being of light.

He strutted past the many colonial-style inns and taverns, where serving wenches served colonial foods at far-from-colonial prices. It was fun to get roaring drunk at these places, probably the most authentic thing to do in all of Colonial Eden.

He sauntered past the "Thomas Jefferson House," where ol' Tom himself had stayed while attending the House of Burgesses in true colonial Eden. The building had burned down in 1799, and was currently being dug up for "historical research." Dump-trucks had been hauling load after load of dirt out of the cordoned-off site, which was protected from prying eyes by a high fence and patrolled by Colonial Eden Security at all hours.

He waltzed past the gaol, the stocks, the Print Shop and Book Bindery, the Capitol building, and the liberty pole, from which hung a fake barrel of tar and a bag of chicken feathers. A hand-painted sign atop the T-shaped post read: "A Cure for the Refractory."

Colonial Eden's corporate office was located on Duke of Gobstopper Street, a stone's throw from the Jims River. Its black-glass exterior stuck with incongruous arrogance within the redbrick, wood, and cobblestone of the rest of downtown Eden. Jack grimaced when he reached the steps of the building, his mood taken down a notch upon sighting the misplaced monstrosity, and walked inside.

The lobby of corporate headquarters was adorned with tasteless paintings of various reproduction buildings populating the greater Eden area. A small-scale model of downtown Eden in a glass display case dominated the center of the room. A row of uninviting metal chairs lined one wall, and a magazine rack filled with shameless Colonial Eden propaganda another. The sunlight that managed to slink in through the tinted windows was a murky gloomlight that made the place look spooky.

Jack announced himself to the receptionist, who told him to go up to the sixth floor to Mister Waa's office. He found the elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor (this was unusual, because the last time he had been here there had been only five floors).

The sixth floor consisted of a stark hallway that seemed far longer than it should have been, with a single door at its end. Weird floor-design, thought Jack. After taking what seemed like thousands of steps to get there, he reached the nondescript black door at the end of the corridor.

"(ENTER)" intoned a deep voice from within.

Unable to do otherwise, Jack pushed open the door and walked inside.

The featureless office was lit with a faint blue evanescence that seemed to emanate from nowhere and everywhere. A man with a face that looked to be carved from sandstone sat behind an ancient-looking wrought-iron desk, peering at a laptop. He did not look up when Jack entered. The sourceless light gleamed off his massive shaved skull, blinding all who entered this dire little realm. Because of the last name Waa, Jack had been expecting someone of an Oriental persuasion, but this man looked to be a full-blooded American Indian.

Jack stood there, shivering in a draft and wondering why he had bothered to come over here.

Finally, Mister Waa looked up from the laptop. "Whiskey Jack, I presume," he rumbled in a subterranean monotone. He did not proffer a hand to shake. "I am Sam Waa, the executive vice-president of Personnel, Research and Development, Colonial Operations, Historic Area Security, All Matters of Administration, Human Resources, Bookkeeping and Payroll, Analytics, Technical Operations and Web Site Design, Public Relations and Public Perception, Marketing, Advertising, and Making Every Employee's Working Life Here at Colonial Eden, Incorporated, a Living Hell. Please have a seat."

"The executive vice-president of what now?" Jack remained standing, refusing to show he was impressed. "That's just strange. I've worked here for years, and I've never heard of you."

Sam Waa gave Jack a look that could have wilted every garden in downtown Eden. "It is a new position that I was brought in from—ha—out of town to fill. I said (SIT DOWN.)"

Jack sat down in the metal chair fronting the desk. He had no choice in the matter. Sam Waa's voice seemed to rumble upwards from the bowels of the Earth, through the body, and into the listener's mind like an unstoppable auditory earthquake.

"A discrepancy in your time as an employee with Colonial Eden, Incorporated, has recently been brought to my attention." Sam Waa's eyelids twitched, as if he was trying to imply something he couldn't say. "I trust you received my note?"

"Yes, but I don't understand," said Jack. "I've worked here for ten years without a single problem."

Sam Waa's pupils winked from black to reddish-orange and flickered like the fires of Creation. "Actually, that's the whole problem, because you have worked for us for far longer than that. You have been on the payroll at Colonial Eden since 1946, the first year of the company's existence."

Jack's jaw dropped. He could not tear his gaze from Sam Waa's blazing eyes. "What?! But how can that be?!"

"I was hoping you could inform me of that, Mister Whiskey."

Jack's mind was frazzled, scrambled egg-style, and he did not reply. He had had some important questions to ask before he walked in here, but could now remember none of them.

Sam Waa's stone face shifted into a disappointed scowl, while his eyes raged like exploding suns. "After review, we deemed it best for all involved parties to instantly break ties." He looked down at his laptop and fluttered a hand. "This interview has reached its end. (NOW GET OUT OF MY OFFICE.)"

And Jack Whiskey, unwilling automaton, stood up and walked out of the office and corporate headquarters without another word.

## Chapter 11

## An Eerie Encounter with Exquisite Evil

Sitting Lotus walked down one of the nature trails that wound their way like verdant, blooming veins through Tranquil Forest Park. He had chosen to use his morning break from the rigors of monastery life to do some walking meditation in the midst of nature's wonderland. There was nobody around but the birds and the bees, and he could use some alone time to untie the countless tangles constricting his thoughts like a mental Gordian knot. His thoughts had not been flowing and ebbing smoothly since Master Mirbodi had told him that he had drank the Water of frickin' Life from the Fountain of frickin' Youth!

The news had been a shock, even though Sitting Lotus was a ten-year-tenured Zen novice who was well-versed in the art of meditation and well aware of the illusiveness of so-called "reality." But Sitting Lotus could not shake the terror that came with the knowledge that he had, through some unbelievably stupid coincidences, attained Eternal Youth.

(Cry, Cry, Cry,

Why? Why? Why?

Die, Die, Die,

End of Time—Time—Time!)

Living forever meant you had to watch everybody you had ever known die—friends, family, your children, your children's children, on down the line, forever, entire civilizations, entire races of people, endlessly—while you aged not a single day. He had read those ancient Japanese tales where those who attain Eternal Youth grow tired of it after a few centuries and start practicing death cults and trying to kill themselves in inventive ways that never work. Sure, he enjoyed reading those old myths, but he did not want to be a main character in one of them!

(Cry, Cry, Cry,

Why? Why? Why?

Die, Die, Die,

End of Time—Time—Time!)

He pondered how he would do it if it became too much to deal with. Should it be painful, like slitting his own throat? Or painless, like swallowing a bunch of painkillers and drifting off into oblivion? Should it be quick, like a bullet to the head? Or slow, like by self-inflicted Chinese water-torture? Which way would best suit him? He couldn't decide. It was like picking the one flavor you wanted at an ice cream shop with one hundred flavors. Did he want your standard suicide-vanilla, or did he want to give the triple-fudge-nut-caramel-swirl-cherry-cheesecake-crispy-waffle-cone-gruesome-death-crunch a whirl?

(Cry, Cry, Cry,

Why? Why? Why?

Die, Die, Die,

End of Time—Time—Time!)

When he reached the summit of Lookout Hill, he walked up to the rickety wooden fence barricading the overhang and observed the breathtaking scenery with glazed eyes. The rooftops of downtown Eden were just visible over the treetops to the east. He looked down at the Jims River and its southern bank, adorned in greenery two hundred feet below, and decided to go ahead and get it over with. Down there his body would rest, submerged in the wetlands, until somebody found it, perhaps weeks later since no one back at the monastery knew he was out here. He kicked outward with a sandaled foot—once, twice—and the fence shattered. He took a step forward. Two steps. Three. Sure, it might be painful for a split second, but it would be the end of suffering.

(Cry, Cry, Cry,

Why? Why? Why?

Die, Die, Die,

End of Time—Time—Time!)

He took a half-step closer the edge, his thoughts filled with death—and then a certain, resounding assertion broke through the despair and madness assailing his mind. It will not be the end of suffering. And will it even kill me now that I've drank of the Water of Life?

Sitting Lotus stopped. A footstep from plummeting to his perhaps-death, he stood poised between two . . . somethings. He gasped, his breath rattling in his throat, and shook his head to clear the suicidal tornado howling unabated through his thoughts. And then he really heard the mantra that had been playing over the jukebox of his mind, stuck on repeat, for the last several minutes.

(Cry, Cry, Cry,

Why? Why? Why?

Die, Die, Die,

End of Time—Time—Time!)

The voices had passed themselves off so well as being from his own subconscious that he hadn't noticed they came not from there, but from somewhere outside his mind. Now, the suicide-song echoed off the walls of his brain like the malevolent national anthem of Hades. The babel of screaming female voices drowned out the sounds of the forest and the hum of his thoughts.

Sitting Lotus shook himself, attempting to dislodge the spell cast upon him by whatever was reciting the words of power. Straining against a psychological parasite lodged somewhere deep inside his mind, he managed to turn away from the cliff.

As he rotated on his toes, the warm air grew freezing cold. The green, brown, living scenery drained of color and went to black and white and dead, and time seemed to decelerate. He looked upward, and everything but the vision before him melted away to nothingness.

The being sitting like an empress on a towering golden lion was the most beautiful figure Sitting Lotus had ever seen. She was naked (thank Buddha), and he knew that nothing ever would be or could be as right as this immaculate vision. She appeared to have been chiseled from a stone unknown to Earth, polished, and coated in slick glaze. Her skin was an incandescent purple, like a neon eggplant. Her blue-black hair was intertwined with hundreds of purple lotus flowers, and fell well past her feet to disseminate upon the forest floor, where it snaked about with a life of its own. She had four arms, three of which held bouquets of purple lotus flowers, one of which held a massive sword.

Sitting Lotus gulped. After one last slice of crystallized, frozen time—during which it seemed nothing in existence moved or stirred—the exquisite, evil one and the golden lion wavered, flickering in and out of existence like forest mirages. She smiled down at Sitting Lotus, and her sensuous lips puckered as if to give him a kiss he would never forget.

Instead, she reached up, plucked a purple lotus bloom from her hair, and flicked it gently towards him. The flower, touched by a goddess of death, floated to Earth between his sandaled feet. She and the lion flashed in and out of existence one last time, and disappeared.

Reality snapped back into place, and Tranquil Forest was back as it had been before Sitting Lotus had seen . . . her. He took a deep, calming breath—and screamed his lungs out to high heaven for two minutes straight before gasping for air.

Sitting Lotus decided to forgo his walking meditation for the rest of the morning. He picked up the purple lotus by the stem like a dead rat by the tail and took off in a sprint. And he ran all the way back to New Shaolin Monastery as if the hordes of hungry ghosts that populated the billions of hells invented by the human Mind were nipping at his heels, hunting him down to feast on his soul.

## Chapter 12

## A Frenzied Fray with the Fanged and Ferocious

Late Monday afternoon, the Black Avenger and another of the adolescent gang were keeping a sharp eye on the Olde Eden Brewery & Taphouse. They had been huddling behind the dumpster in the alleyway since early that morning, and so far nothing strange had transpired. A bit put out by all this inaction, the Black Avenger had for the last hour been surreptitiously wandering around the building, peering into the brewery's few foggy windows, through which nothing was discernible.

When he returned to the point of rendezvous behind the dumpster, he said, "You know, mebbe we can get a closer look at what's going on in there, Sid."

"Oh, yeah? How's that?"

The Black Avenger stared into the dumpster-filled distance, the final intricacies of a foolproof plan clicking into place in his head like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. A smile crept onto his face. "I got it, Sid! What we'll do is you'll . . . whisper, whisper . . . and I'll . . . whisper, whisper . . ."

A well over seven-foot tall man in a trench-coat and floppy fedora stumbled through the swinging saloon doors of the Olde Eden Taphouse and made his way across the barroom, swaying and wobbling from the middle like Gumby. He sat down at the bar with a grunt and a squeal, which was silenced when a muffled sound like a fist meeting flesh issued from the nether regions of his person. The few Taphouse patrons began to stare into their beers, at the walls, at the floor, anywhere but the ogre that had just entered the bar.

The single bartender in the Taphouse made his way down the bar with a bushy eyebrow raised. He had long dark hair pulled back into a braid and black rings around his eyes, as if he had gotten into an argument yesterday and received two blows to the face for his trouble. He wore what looked to be a clown's suit, or perhaps a soccer uniform: a red and yellow striped polo shirt with an Olde Eden Brewery patch on the breast, white khaki pants, and emerald green tennis shoes.

"Hello, sir, what can I get you to drink?"

"Er," said the behemoth. "What d'you . . . ouch! . . . what d'you got?" His high-pitched voice had changed to deep and gravelly in mid-sentence.

"Well, sir, you're in the Taphouse of the Olde Eden Brewery. We have twelve of our own brews, brewed right here on the premises, on draft. We also carry seventy-six other regional microbrews. If you're a fan of beer, we should be able to satisfy your every desire."

"Uh," said the juggernaut, tapping his fingers on the bar and hoping like hell he wasn't going to get carded. "What's the best one you got, then?"

The bartender sighed. "They're all excellent beers, sir. It just depends on what type of beer you prefer. Could I offer you a sample of one or two of our Olde Eden brews?"

"Um, sure," said the mammoth, relaxing when not asked to present his nonexistent driver's license. "That sounds swell, er, good, I mean."

"Coming right up, sir," said the bartender. He spun on his heels and walked down the bar to the appropriate taps.

"Sid," whispered a voice underneath the bar, "when that bartender comes back, tell 'im you wanna sample some more beers, and that should keep him occupied with his back turned for a minute. When he turns around, I'm a-ducking behind the bar and running into the brewery."

"All right. Just hurry up, though, wouldya?"

"Five minutes, that's all I'll need. You jist keep him giving you free samples, and when I get back we'll be on our way outta here, okay?"

"Okay, big brother. If you say so."

The bartender returned with a sample glass in hand. "Here you are, sir. This is Olde Eden's own Princely Pecker Porter."

The leviathan tossed back the two-ounce sample, burped, and shrugged. "It's okay, I guess. But what else you got? Howzabout something that don't taste like a mixture of used motor oil and expired grape cough syrup?"

"But of course, sir. No problem at all, sir. Coming right up, sir."

The bartender's left eyebrow had contracted a tic, and he walked back to the taps, muttering to himself—and a shadow detached itself from the lower portion of the giant.

In no time this apparition was under the bar and through the swinging door leading to the brewery, which stopped moving the very moment the bartender spun on his heels and walked back towards his oversized customer, samples of Olde Eden Henpecked Hefeweizen and Appleseed Applejack in hand. Because of the wide mahogany bar, he failed to notice that the "giant's" legs now swung an easy two feet above the ground.

The Olde Eden Brewery was warehouse-like in proportion, but cramped because of the machines crammed into the place like massive metal sardines. At first the brewery seemed deserted, but then the Black Avenger heard voices echoing off the high ceilings. He ducked behind a giant, kettle-like machine to his left. The voices were coming from the opposite end of the building, near the door leading to the back alley. He sneaked towards the noise, utilizing the cover provided by a pair of mounted contraptions that reminded him of propane tanks, then crept to the next machine down the line—a big, raised tub—staying hidden in darkness.

From there, he observed a group of five men partaking in an animated discussion. He crouched down and made himself comfortable for a little eavesdropping.

" . . . will be ready for shipment tomorrow night?" asked the man recognizable as Farmer John (though his voice was different from what the Black Avenger recalled—less accented, perhaps).

"Caw, caw, caw, sure thing, boss," said one of the men, whose hair was darker than the blackest, moonless night. "Everything should be good to go by then."

"Mwah-hah-hah-ha-ha! Excellent."

"Yeah, that's great and all," piped in a man who stood two heads shorter than his mates. "But what happens when people get what they believe is Sticky-Icky Stout or Henpecked Hefeweizen in a twelve-pack or a quarter-keg and it turns out to be Hoppy Heaven Ale?" After a quiet moment, he was smacked upside by the head by a multitude of hands and told in variegated vulgar voices to shut up.

Farmer John stared daggers at the outspoken dwarf. "You absolute idiot. It won't matter by then. Once a human being cracks open a bottle, the smell will do the rest."

The other members of the gathering nodded and murmured about how everything was on schedule and there was nothing at all to worry about.

Placated, Farmer John inclined his head. "Very well. And now I must be on my way to look in on our prisoner in the Underworld. Plus, I have some product to drop off at the Palace. A backup, if you will." He glared around with a stern, no-nonsense expression. "But I'll be back to check up on you jokers tomorrow morning. That beer is priority number one. Protect it at all costs." His face caricatured into an evil grin. "Tomorrow we shall offer Hoppy Heaven Ale on draft at the Taphouse."

More reassurances were given. Farmer John nodded and walked out the back door of the brewery, and the four remaining men began talking in low voices.

"Damn, Old Man, are you a moron or what! Why can't you learn to keep your—"

"Shush!" came the interruption from a lean, red-eyed man with sickly-looking gray skin. He sniffed of the pungent, hop-infused air of the brewery like a predator catching a whiff of prey. "Do you guys smell something . . . strange?"

The group began craning their heads and sniffing the air, snorting like pigs. The Black Avenger did his utmost to melt into the shadows, which no longer seemed like such great cover.

"Caw, search the brewery from end to end. There's some . . . being here."

A few seconds later, the overhead lights flickered on, and the brewery was bathed in revealing fluorescent light. The Black Avenger gulped, opened the top of the humming machine in front of him, and slipped inside, where he swam up to his neck in an oatmeal-like substance. Soon after he heard a tap-tap-tapping on the outside of the container, as if someone were drumming on the machine with their fingertips, muffled voices, a shuffle of movement, and then—silence.

He waited ten minutes, then cracked open the top of the machine and glanced around. The coast was clear, and he sighed with relief. But when he pushed open the lid, he was grabbed under the armpits from behind and hurled across the brewery with the force of a javelin.

Covered in mashed barley, the Black Avenger slammed shoulder-first into the chest of the stick-figure man with the bloodshot eyes, who didn't even flinch.

"Well, well, well, and what do we have here? What do you think, Raven?"

The Black Avenger was once more heaved across the room. He crashed into the bottling machine at the far end of the building, sending empty bottles skittering before slipping to the cold, hard floor among shattered glass. Before he had a chance to recollect his senses, much less pick himself up off the ground, he was hauled up by the collar. He caught a whiff of rotten fish, and the man with the black-hole hair stared into his eyes.

"Caw, I ain't so sure, Coyote. What's your opinion, Old Man?"

The Black Avenger landed amidst a mountain of twelve-packs ready to go out with Thursday's big shipment. As he slammed into the cardboard shrine, the sound of broken glass permeated the brewery, and the smell of Hoppy Heaven Ale pervaded the air. He was jerked up by the ankles. Hanging upside-down, he struggled in the grip of the dwarf-man.

"Looks like an itty-bitty eavesdropper to me. And we don't approve of that kind of thing—do we, Rabbit?"

At point blank range the Black Avenger was twirled like a discus and tossed head-first into the brewery wall with a brute strength a man so minuscule should not possess. His forehead hit with a crunch, and he sludged to the beer-drenched floor like a glob of blood-flecked mucous. When he stood up, wobbling, he attempted to focus. But then he was dragged to his feet by the collar of his shirt and held aloft.

He wriggled and writhed—and his shirt slipped off. He landed on his feet in front of the twitching-nosed man, who was momentarily astonished to be holding nothing but an empty flannel shirt. Realizing this was probably his only opportunity, the Black Avenger moved. In a flash, he was running across the brewery.

He swooshed into the Taphouse, barely evading the many hands that reached out for him. He heard strings of oaths and curses as his pursuers' fingers slipped off him and they collided behind him. He burst into the barroom like an out-of-control freight train, earning a shocked stare from the bartender. Sample glasses of beer dropped to the floor and shattered.

A guttural "Get him, Ikto!" issued from the brewery, and the barroom cleared out in a hurry.

Needing no other incentive, the bartender jumped at the Black Avenger with a snarl, fangs extending from his shifting face.

"Run for it, Sid!" screamed the Black Avenger. He slid under the opening in the bar, narrowly avoiding the arms of Ikto—who grunted as his face smacked into mahogany—and grabbed Sid's shoulder, hauling him off the barstool and dragging him, flailing, towards the swinging Taphouse doors. But Sid had by then sampled thirty-seven of the eighty-eight draft brews offered by the Olde Eden Brewery and could barely stand, so their progress across the barroom was stalled.

Ikto took advantage of this. He grabbed Sid's leg and dragged him from the Black Avenger's shoulders, down onto the wooden floor.

"You may be quick, but you're nowhere near as strong as the spiderman!" he bragged, dragging Sid back towards the bar by the hair like a caveman corralling his philandering cave-bitch.

The Black Avenger jumped forward like a backwoods ninja and landed a series of lightning-quick punches on the worst place for a male being of any kind to take a hit. Ikto howled, dropped Sid, and clutched at his throbbing loins. Sid peered up blearily at his elder brother, vomited on Ikto's shoes, and passed out cold on the barroom floor.

The Black Avenger jumped for his fallen brother, but slipped on a puddle of beer and fell flat on his face. When he looked up, Sid was being dragged behind the bar by Ikto, and monstrous figures began swarming into the Taphouse from the brewery.

Ikto the bartender was sprouting excess arms all over, the clown clothing he wore shredded to tatters by the transmogrification. Before long he had gained four extra limbs, his skin had turned from peachy-soft to a leathery black pelt, and he sported a wicked set of fangs, dripping green poison. Iktome, the Sioux's own spiderman, dropped to all eights, skittered up the wall, and hung from the ceiling by a strand of incandescent blue webbing.

The twitching-nosed man's nose was still twitching, though his form was now that of an eight-foot-tall yellow rabbit. His long ears flopped down over his cute pink nose, but this bunny did not by any means look happy. Rabbit, the Cherokee's Trickster god, reached into the fanny-pack about his waist and procured a handful of magical fire-pellets.

The lean man now sported the mangy gray pelt of a stray dog. A scraggly tail jutted from his backside, and a pink tongue lolled from his open mouth, exposing a row of dagger-like teeth. His eyes were red, wild, rabid. Coyote, the scourge—and, often, laughingstock—of the southwestern tribes and more, grinned a maniacal grin.

The dark-haired man perched upon the bar flapping massive black wings, sending out gusts of wind that stank of spoiled fish. Wicked talons scratched deep furrows into the bar, and massive beak snapped like a vice: Raven, Bringer of Light, fallen Creator god of the northwestern coastal tribes.

The dwarf wilted inside his clothes, losing a foot of height. He pulled from nothingness and strapped to his shins a pair of leggings that exuded rainbows in the dim bar lighting. Old Man, a living Blackfoot legend, stamped his feet, and red-hot flames spewed down his shins and spread across the barroom floor.

Despite the ghastly appearances of these fiends from another World, in his mind the Black Avenger had one thought: I gotta get Sid, and we gotta get the hells outta here! When he saw Rabbit throw something in his direction, he sprang to his feet, up and over the bar in an instant. There boomed a violent explosion behind him as he landed on the employees-only side. When he glanced back, a smoking hole in the hardwood was all that remained of the spot of barroom he had just vacated.

Sid was unconscious, pinned underneath Coyote, two yards ahead of him. The Black Avenger lunged towards his brother with the intent of diving between the monster's legs, grabbing Sid, jumping back over the bar with brother in tow, and running like hell for the door.

"I don't think so, kid!" snarled Coyote. He reared back and delivered a wicked uppercut to the chin of the diving Black Avenger, catapulting him backwards.

The Black Avenger slammed hard onto the bar-top and slid a good ten feet across it, sending pint glasses, pitchers, and bowls of peanuts crashing to the ground. He slipped to the barroom floor and smacked his head on the metal pipe stretching along the underside of the bar.

He nearly lost consciousness, but managed to raise his head. The fiends would be upon him at any moment, tearing him to shreds with vicious claws and wicked fangs.

But the expected blows did not fall.

So he stood up on shaky legs and peered through watery eyes at the collection of shape-shifting beings, who grinned at him from the other side of the bar.

Coyote hoisted Sid above his head, bench-pressing the unconscious lad with a single paw. With the other, he made a slashing motion across his furry throat. The Black Avenger pulled out his slingshot and loaded it with steel, ready to put a hole through one of these evil beings' faces.

But then Old Man jumped up onto the bar, and it was as though a firebomb exploded inside the Taphouse. The newborn but angry wall of flame stretched across the bar-top and blocked the Black Avenger from getting anywhere near his brother. He could make out nothing clearly through the fire, and if he shot blind, he might hit Sid.

There was a burst of raucous, guttural cackling, and he heard over the spitting of the flames: "Caw, caw, caw, run on home, boy. Do not interfere with our plans again, or we'll send your brother somewhere dark and terrible where you'll never find him. Ever."

The Black Avenger, tears of frustration streaming from his eyes, pocketed the slingshot and backed away from the monstrous shadows dancing beyond the barrier of flames. He shook with anger, sorrow, and regret at having ever thought of this stupid plan. Nevertheless he raised a defiant fist to these beings of another World and vowed, "You'll see what happens when you mess with Tom Sawyer's gang, you dirty Tricksters! One way or another, we'll get Sid back safe and sound!"

And Tom Sawyer—beaten, bloody, defeated, his little brother drunk and mythnapped—turned and limped out of the burning pyre that was the Olde Eden Taphouse.

## Chapter 13

## A Dangerous Duel with the Dark and Deadly

Jack Whiskey crept into the New Shaolin Monastery Dojo at ten minutes to six, unsure what to expect next. It had been a weird day so far.

After finding himself out front of corporate and back in control of his own body, he had walked over to the C.E.I. Employment Offices to pick up his last paycheck, and then trotted next door to Jims River Bank. When he reached the teller's station, the man behind the booth had been made of gold and sported donkey ears. Jack had stuttered and stared, but somehow managed to convey the fact that he would like his paycheck cashed. The golden man gave Jack several haughty, annoyed looks while completing the transaction.

Jack had walked home in a daze from the bank, jumping at shadows. When traversing the sidewalk that led from Colonial Towne Road into his apartment complex, he passed a man and woman walking hand in hand. Neighbors he had seen around the area a few times. He began to raise a hand in greeting, but stopped halfway. Little people swarmed up, over, and about the couple. The pair were made of inch-tall people who jumped between them, whooping, and walked across wrists like a bridge between continents. Some of the minuscule multitude grinned at Jack, who ogled and said "Ga—ga—ga—ga." When he turned and looked back at the receding couple, they had looked normal.

He had stayed inside with the lights off for the rest of the day. If he hadn't promised Master Mirbodi he would be here for kung-fu class, he would still be at home, peeking out the blinds and ducking down when something moved.

Most people in the Dojo paid Jack's entrance no mind, but one familiar pair of eyes turned his way. "Jack! Welcome to weekly meeting of Future kung-fu Masters of America!"

Master Mirbodi floated over, crooked his staff in his arm, and bowed.

Jack bowed in return. "Hiya, Master. Here I am, ready to do some kung-fu. Where's my dueling opponent? I hope it's not one of those kids, because if it is, they're in serious trouble." He laughed and indicated the assembled children seated in a half-circle on the blue-padded area. Gymnastics paraphernalia, cleared out of the way for kung-fu class, lined two Dojo walls.

Master Mirbodi grinned. "Ah, but you like newborn babe in eyes of kung-fu gods, and you must learn to crawl before you learn to walk, much less do good kung-fu." His eyes went shrewd. "You got payment, or what?"

Jack handed over the dough, and the bills disappeared into Master Mirbodi's patchwork robe as if they had never existed.

Jack peered around the gym. "I guess I'm a little early, huh? All those kids must be in the class before this one coming up here at six o'clock."

But the Zen master just smiled wider and handed Jack a loose-fitting white robe and a white belt. He pointed Jack in the direction of the locker room and told him he would see him out on the mat, barefoot, ASAP.

When Jack reemerged into the Dojo, the assembled children were sitting in full lotus position (it made Jack's legs hurt just observing this). Master Mirbodi motioned him to join the group, and Jack's jaw dropped. This was the class he was to be a member of? He was thirty years older than any of these kids!

But not wanting to be the one who broke the perfect silence pervading the Dojo, he sighed and sat down between a tiny blond-haired girl with pig-tails, no more than six years old, and a dark-haired boy of perhaps eight, who both ignored him. There was no way he could pull off sitting in full lotus, so he crossed his legs, Indian-style.

Master Mirbodi stood before Jack and the kung-fu kids, who peered at the instructor with sparkling, eager eyes. "When doing kung-fu," he began, making eye contact with each student in turn, "you must become kung-fu. You must leave behind self. You must come to awareness it is not you doing kung-fu, but it. And it simply is. It merely does. It acts and reacts, without thought." He clapped his hands. "Now, we practice breathing exercises, then do light warm-up routine."

The class practiced breathing exercises (Jack found this easy—after all, he knew how to breathe in and out) for fifteen minutes, then warm-ups began. These consisted of jumping around, twisting the body in ways the body was never meant to be twisted, punching and kicking at the air, yelling "Hwah!" as loud as possible, and then bowing to everybody around you.

Jack attempted to keep up with the kicks, punches, lunges, and leaps, but fell behind several times, whereas his pint-sized classmates were all following Master Mirbodi's fluid movements to perfection. Jack took comfort from the fact that he screamed "Hwah!" much louder than anyone else.

When the warm-up ended, Jack's robe was soaked with sweat. His kung-fu classmates were peering at him and giggling. Jack ignored the stares, dropped his hands to his knees, and gasped for air.

But he straightened up and stood as the other students when Master Mirbodi called for attention: head raised, chin jutting outward, legs together, hands resting at sides.

Then Sam Waa walked into the Dojo. Jack sucked in a quick breath.

The C.E.I. veep walked over to the group and bowed to Master Mirbodi. "I would like to join the class, sensei."

Master Mirbodi eyed him. "You got payment, or what?"

Sam Waa nodded. He produced an envelope from his white robe and handed it over, then took his place with the rest of the class. And he chose to stand right next to Jack.

"Mister Whiskey. Fancy seeing you here. Learning a little kung-fu, are we?"

Jack stared forward, refusing to look at him. "That's right, mister big-shot executive vice-president of Who Gives Two Shits What. What's it to ya?"

"Is this your first class? It must be. I saw you attempting—and I stress that word—to follow along with that warm-up routine. How does it feel to know that any one of these munchkins could kick your ass with both hands tied behind their back?"

Jack figured it was best to ignore Sam Waa, so he remained silent. The executive chuckled.

"All right, class," said Master Mirbodi. "We gonna pair up and do some light sparring. When sparring, be aware of all around you, but at the same time let go of awareness. You and kung-fu not separate. Thought and action not separate. All is connected, so become connected, which mean become empty, and you will be it."

Master Mirbodi then went down the line and assigned each pupil a sparring partner close to their ability. When he reached the end of the queue, the only two left were Jack Whiskey and Sam Waa.

"You two. Bow and begin sparring." Master Mirbodi then began making rounds around the Dojo, staff in hand, checking up on the students' forms.

"Well, this should be easy," said the huge-skulled veep, and bowed.

Jack did likewise, taking his eyes off Sam Waa for a split second.

The impact on his skull knocked him a good five feet backwards, right onto his ass.

"Hey!" called Jack from the padded floor. He stood up, clutching his bruised forehead. "That's not fair! You can't kick me when I'm bowing to you!"

Sam Waa laughed. He then began to . . . dance, it seemed. He skipped, whirled, twirled, and jumped about the mat, performing elaborate punch-sequences and making roundhouse kicks look easy, his body under perfect control. His face was a stoic mask and his burning eyes never left Jack's (even though this should have been quite impossible, since he was doing back-flips and 720s when leaping through the air). Whatever martial-arts style Sam Waa practiced, it wasn't your standard kung-fu. It was more . . . native, more . . . indigenous than that.

And whatever it was, he was clearly a master.

Sam Waa bobbed and weaved towards Jack, his arms and legs flying about the Dojo at a blur.

As he had no real clue how to stand in any sort of true kung-fu stance, Jack tried to relax, Zen-like, as per the instructions of Master Mirbodi. Become empty, become kung-fu, become it. As he mentally voiced the mantra, he came to the grim realization that this was not going to be fun.

Sam Waa's dance slowed for a moment, but then sped up to light-speed. A smudge of a fist whipped towards Jack's head. Jack raised his arms to block—and then he was laying flat on his back, staring at the spinning Dojo ceiling. He had been fooled by the feint at his upper body, and Sam Waa had taken his legs out from under him with a single sweeping kick.

Jack summoned energy from some unknown well of spirit and forced himself to stand up. Sam Waa laughed in his face and lunged at him, a whirlwind of deadly limbs. Two blows to the stomach later, Jack was on his knees with his forehead pressed against the mat, clutching a throbbing kidney.

Sam Waa stood over him, smiling down with sadistic amusement. "Have we had enough yet, Mister Whiskey?"

Jack did not reply, because he could barely breathe. But again, he stood up and raised his fists.

Sam Waa feinted right. Jack lifted his left arm to block, and a sharp blow to the right temple sent him reeling. He spun around, leading with a feeble roundhouse punch that was countered by Sam Waa, who grabbed his arm and pulled. Jack went sailing over the veep's shoulder to the other side of the gym and crashed into a balance beam, which fell over on top of him.

"I think that enough sparring for today, class," announced Master Mirbodi, his eyes on Sam Waa. "We work on solo forms for rest of evening."

The last hour of kung-fu class consisted of practicing solo forms, which meant mirroring Master Mirbodi's every movement as best one could. Jack took a few extra minutes to crawl from under the beam and rejoin the class, but nobody was offended, given the circumstances.

"Good job, kids. Class dismissed."

Master Mirbodi bowed to his kung-fu charges, who returned the favor. The children whose parents were picking them up filed out of the Dojo, giggling and teasing each other. Some monks came in and hustled off the rest of the kids; many Future kung-fu Masters of America were orphans who lived on the grounds of New Shaolin Monastery.

After the Dojo cleared, Master Mirbodi said to Sam Waa with a note of authority that must have been similar to the Buddha himself when correcting a wayward monk: "Leave now, kachina man, and never come back to New Shaolin. I see you as you are."

"And why should I leave? I could be the best student you've ever had." Sam Waa chortled. "Master." He lunged at the monk, his face a stoic mask.

But Master Mirbodi barely moved as he parried the flurry of attacks. Sam Waa soon realized his approach was not working and backed off. "Who are you, monk? Are you like he and I?" He motioned at Jack, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Or are you merely human? Either way, you're bound to taste defeat against the likes of me. (SO LOSE ALREADY!)"

The veep unleashed a Bruce Lee-like flying jump-kick intended for the Zen master's head, but Master Mirbodi effortlessly dodged the deadly strike. Ninja-like, the monk grabbed Sam Waa's outstretched leg and yanked. The executive went flying across the Dojo to slam head-first into a pommel horse with a sickening crunch of bone.

But Sam Waa jumped to his feet a second later, unfazed. A breeze blew across the infernos embedded in his skull. "You do have some power, monk, I'll admit it. But I can do this all day!" He sprang towards Master Mirbodi.

The old monk deftly parried the fists and feet of fury, and Sam Waa was repulsed by a swift punch in the gut that sent him reeling backwards. Blue light exploded when Master Mirbodi's fist made contact. Half-blind, Jack rubbed his eyes in disbelief.

"Urgh," said Sam Waa, and collapsed to the mat.

A few moments later, the veep raised himself from the floor and limped out of the Dojo. He did not look back, and the door slammed shut behind him.

"Wh-what the hell just happened?" asked Jack.

"Those who proclaim their power great . . ." Master Mirbodi shrugged. "Well, usually it not so great."

Jack stared at the monk in awe. "But I've never seen anybody move like you just did! Aren't you over a hundred years old?"

But Master Mirbodi just smiled. "Maybe you keep coming to kung-fu class, you learn much good kung-fu, and then you understand."

And Jack, astonishing himself, said, "Same time next week, then?"

Master Mirbodi grinned and nodded. "Jack, me and Art want you stop by his place tonight. I collect novice from dormitories and meet you there, 'kay?"

Jack nodded. After all, he had nothing to do tonight except feel aches and pains in bodily areas he hadn't even realized he possessed before two hours ago. He said goodbye and walked out of the Dojo in a daze.

## Chapter 14

## A Rousing Round of Revelations and Realizations

When Jack arrived at 221-B Colonial Towne Road, the mournful sounds of a violin echoed into the night from within the rickety old farmhouse. The soul-searching music ended with a discordant screech when he rapped on the door, as if embarrassed at being heard.

Moments later, Sir Arthur opened the door. It must have been the first time in hours he had done so, for a cloud of pipe smoke poured into the night as though grateful for release from the Englishman's domicile. Jack could barely see through the waves of bluish miasma pouring into his eyes.

"Jack, how good of you to come!"

"Yeah, some wild shenanigans went down at kung-fu class, but I'll let Master Mirbodi fill you in on that, because I'm still not sure what the hell it was. He should be here soon." Jack looked over Sir Arthur's shoulder into the living room, where the effluvium had dispersed. "So can I come in?"

Sir Arthur opened the door wide. "But of course, my dear friend! Where are my manners? Come in, come in. I have a pot of tea brewing, could I interest you in a cup?"

"No, thanks. You got anything a little . . . harder?" Jack figured a little alcohol would help numb the pain that had invaded and conquered his body.

"You know me—I have a decade's supply of Scotch whisky, and that's it."

Jack grimaced, but he could use a drink. "All right. On the rocks, for me."

As the beekeeper went to the kitchen to pour two glasses of the genuine, Jack made himself comfortable in a voluminous red leather armchair and looked around.

An ornate fireplace dominated one living room wall, and Victorian-era couches and armchairs peppered the area. The decorations included antique lamps on oaken end-tables, an elegant full-length mirror, an old-school changing screen, and a stand-alone wardrobe. Dusty old paintings within gilded frames adorned the walls, and bookcases filled to bursting with ancient tomes lined one wall. Upon the mantelpiece lurked pouches of tobacco, pipes, beakers with dregs of unknown concoctions congealing on the sides, pen-knives, and piles of spent revolver cartridges, which explained the many bullet-holes in the living room walls and ceiling.

Sir Arthur walked into the room from the kitchen. He handed Jack a highball glass filled to the brim with Scotch whisky and ice, and sat down in an armchair. He took a long sip of his drink, lit a cigar, and peered over at Jack with his patented X-ray eyes.

"So how have you been, Jack? How are things?"

A wry laugh escaped Jack. "Actually, Art, things, as you say it, have been going extremely fucking weird recently."

"Is that so?" Sir Arthur puffed away at his cigar, lost in deep thought. After a few seconds of silence and imbibing of Scotch whisky, he looked up with a gleam in his eyes.

"Jack, what do you know about the Fountain of Youth?"

Jack sighed. It had just been that kind of day. "Well, Art, not too much, to be honest with you. It's supposed to be somewhere in Florida, isn't it?"

Sir Arthur nodded. "Or at least that is what Ponce de Leon believed when he was scouring the Floridian wilderness for the mythical land of Bimbara." He pursed his lips. "And what if I told you the Fountain of Youth was, in fact, not in Florida?"

"Wait, I think I read something about this a while ago, in one of those magazines that have articles about how someone found Elvis's long-lost half-monkey love-child being raised by its mother the gorilla in the Amazon jungle, and how monkey-mom's gonna sue for—"

"Jack, that is not what I am getting at here."

"No, wait, isn't the Fountain of Youth supposed to be on that Caribbean island owned by David Copperfield the magician guy? Yeah, and he said that if you put dead flowers into the Fountain water, they come back to life and bloom again, and it heals diseases and old scars and stuff."

Jack chuckled. Sir Arthur peered at him stoically, and Jack's laughter died.

"Just what are you getting at, Art?"

"Jack, the Fountain of Youth is in the state of Virginia."

"Aw, come on, man! The Fountain of Youth is a myth!" But Jack was suddenly unsure of this, because his confidence in what he had once believed were concrete things (such as reality) had been steadily withering over the past couple strange days.

"Jack, the Fountain of Youth is not a myth. It lies within Tranquil Forest Park."

"The Fountain of Youth in Tranquil Forest, huh? Tell me, have you finally lost your mind living out here on the bee farm by yourself for all those years?"

"Why do you think people were acting so strange the other day after they drank that Hoppy Heaven Ale? That beer is brewed with the Water of Life!"

"But that was just beer! Oh sure, it was good, great, phenomenal beer, but it couldn't have been what you say it was . . . could it?" Jack recalled the taste of Hoppy Heaven Ale well. It seemed to linger in one's mouth for days—and it had tasted better than any beer he had ever before imbibed. In fact, he had reasoned at the time that it was the drink of the gods . . .

"Okay, so the beer was better than should be humanly possible." Jack picked up his glass of whisky and gulped away. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and said, "But surely you're joking. Does that mean that everybody who drank it the other day has attained Eternal Youth?" He imagined what it would be like to live forever. To see civilizations rise and fall. To see what became of mankind throughout the ages. To see the end of the world . . .

"Not necessarily," said Sir Arthur.

"Could you possibly elaborate on that statement just a little bit for me?"

"If a human being drinks six pints of the Water of Life, they attain Eternal Youth. Just a few sips of the stuff will extend a person's life for a couple years. But if you'll recall, no human being at the Farmer's Market had more than one pint of brew. Most likely our adversaries were just giving the stuff a test run to make sure the Water of Life retained its potency after the brewing process."

"Adversaries?" A queer expression passed across Jack's face. "Say, I had a few of those Hoppy Heaven Ales the other day. You'll recall there was no one-drink limit imposed upon me. So does that mean I'm gonna live forever?" He realized the absurdity of this question when he asked it, and could not believe he was playing along with Sir Arthur on this "Fountain of Youth" baloney.

"No. Jack, the Water of Life does not affect you, because—"

A pounding on the front door interrupted Sir Arthur. He stood up, peered into the peephole, and opened the door to the visitor. Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus entered the cottage. The Zen master threw a purple lotus down on the coffee table.

"She has shown up already?!" Sir Arthur stared wide-eyed at the flower. Its petals pulsated with lambent purple light. He picked up the lotus by the black stem and placed it on the mantelpiece.

Master Mirbodi said, "This mean Wheel tilt much more than we first think, and now spin off kilter."

"And if enough people drink that beer, the Wheel will spin from its axis," said Sir Arthur. "And then . . ."

Silence ensued.

"And then . . . what?" said Jack.

"And then that will be that," said Sir Arthur.

"That will be what?"

"That will be that."

Jack sighed. "Please don't make me ask it again."

"Come on, man, you know what I mean!" Sir Arthur pantomimed explosions with his hands. "Boom! Pow! Bang! Blast! Goodbye universe!"

Jack remained silent and sipped at his Scotch, peering at Sir Arthur with dubious eyes.

Sir Arthur shook his head. "But I still don't understand why whoever is doing this would want to destroy the universe, since it would mean their own destruction as well."

"Destroy the universe, huh?" said Jack, going into sarcastic play-along mode, which seemed the only reasonable way to deal with this conversation. "Sounds tricky. How is that gonna work?"

"Our enemies are attempting to throw the Wheel of Birth and Death off kilter. If the Wheel is knocked off its axis, Shiva shall manifest in this universe as Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, and the Divine Dance of Destruction will begin."

"Uh-huh. And what is this Divine Dance of Destruction?"

"The bad part—at least for us—of Nataraja's endlessly repeating Divine Dance of Creation and Destruction. It is called samhara by Hindus."

"And, enlighten me here, why would Shiva or Nataraja or whoever do all this?"

"Nataraja will Dance samhara because human beings have overstepped the boundaries set for them at the beginning of Time. When humans begin attaining Eternal Life, breaking free from the Wheel of Birth and Death in abnormal ways, the Creator gods view it as if humankind as a whole is approaching godhood, perhaps in order to usurp them. The Wheel of Birth and Death acts as a warning mechanism. Shiva is its guardian, bound by great oaths to destroy Creation if humanity steps out of line."

"Well, I always figured we'd blow it at some point or other."

"It might not even take people actively attaining Eternal Youth. If a large enough amount of human beings take a few sips apiece at one time, it might be enough to jolt the Wheel from its axis."

Jack glanced at the mantelpiece. "But what's the deal with the purple lotus? And why is it shimmering with unholy light like that? Wait, let me guess. It's a magic flower."

"Lotus delivered by Kali, Hindu goddess of death," said Master Mirbodi. "It warning mechanism. When light die, Nataraja Dance."

"Despite her reputation, Kali is not all about death and destruction," said Sir Arthur. "She is Mother the Terrible, but also Mother the Benign. She is Adi-Shakti, the ultimate feminine power inherent in all of Creation. She is called the 'Force of Time,' and for this she is perceived as evil. But if you believe Kali an evil being, you must also regard the fact that time passes and everything must end as evil. And yet the passing of time—the inability to make things last—is simply the way it is. Human beings—and, yes, even gods—must grow old and die. Therefore Kali, just like Time, simply is."

"Ah," said Sitting Lotus, deadpan. "That explains why she was sending me subliminal messages to kill myself earlier this morning in Tranquil Forest."

"She need make sure you worthy before she make you her messenger, novice," said Master Mirbodi.

Jack Whiskey's brain felt like it was about to explode. "Well, all that sucks, doesn't it? Not all that stuff about Kali being a nice goddess somewhere deep down inside, but that whole thing about how the world's gonna come to an end."

"Yes, Jack, it does, as you say, suck," said Sir Arthur. "But don't worry overmuch. The Creator gods will create a new universe at some point or other. No human or mythological being now alive will be around to see what that will be like, but our dispersed molecules will forever be a part of the universe, so all is not necessarily lost."

Jack's brow furrowed. "Did you say . . . mythological being?"

Sir Arthur and Master Mirbodi exchanged a look, and Jack's eyes narrowed. "All right, guys, let's kick the bullshit to the side of the fuck-you factory. What's going on here? Please, if you're pulling my leg, tell me now! I've been seeing weird shit around town all day, and now this!"

"Jack, Fountain of Youth much more than what it believed to be," said Master Mirbodi. "You ever hear term 'sipapuni'?"

Jack, mystified, shook his head.

"Sipapuni Hopi Indian word. According to Hopi, sipapuni where man first emerge into this world from last world. Sipapuni translate as 'place of emergence.'"

"What does that have to do with the Fountain of Youth?"

"There many Worlds out there, and many beings use sipapuni to travel between Worlds. Fountain of Youth like World Tree, with Water instead of Wood."

Jack sank into his chair and looked to the heavens. "Ye gods, will this madness never end?" His eyes returned to Earth and Master Mirbodi. "Are you saying the Fountain of Youth is some kind of gateway between worlds?"

"Indeed, Jack," said Sir Arthur. "The sipapuni leads to the Ocean of Myth, which is employed as a kind of cosmic superhighway between Earth—the Key World—and the Worlds of Myth. You have seen many beings that hail from the Worlds walking the streets of Eden." He grinned. "Mythos are quite adept at concealing themselves from prying human eyes."

"Of course they are," said Jack, fingers gripping his temples. His head throbbed. "How else would they survive in the technological age?"

"The human mind has an in-built defense mechanism, actually. Even if they do see a mytho's true form, or witness mythical happenings, their mind refuses to accept it as such. The senses and the memory do their utmost to turn it into something normal, acceptable to the reality they know."

Jack was silent for a moment. He thought back on the bank teller and the little people. And Sam Waa's burning eyes. Master Mirbodi's light-bringing fist. Something tickled the back of his brain. "Tell me, how many of these other Worlds are there?"

"Other Worlds infinite, uncountable," supplied Master Mirbodi. "Any domain or realm, heaven or hell, or world in wardrobe invented by Mind exist somewhere, no?"

Jack thought for a while, then sighed. "So I drank the Water of Life from the Fountain of Youth. Well, I suppose now I'm gonna live forever until the universe implodes. At least from what you guys say, it'll only be a few more days, though."

"Nothing lives forever, Jack, but you will live for a very long time," said Sir Arthur. "But not because you drank the Water of Life."

"But you just said that if a human drinks six pints of the Water of Life they'll live forever! So why does the Water affect other human beings, but not me?" His patience at an end, Jack downed the last of his Scotch, slammed the glass down on the coffee table, and glared around the room.

Sir Arthur sighed, then obliged Jack in his quest for knowledge. "Jack, the Water of Life does not affect you because you are not a human being. You are—as am I, mind you—a mythological being. How else did you think you could have worked for Colonial Eden for over half a century without aging a day?"

But Sir Arthur received no answer, because Jack Whiskey fainted dead away, rendered unconscious by a power lodged deep within his psyche.

## Chapter 15

## Wesakaychak, or Wisagatcak, or Wisakedjak, or Weesack-kachack

He awoke in a hazy, ephemeral World. A brilliant azure sky flecked with glittering silver cirrus hung over the dreamscape in a tattered tapestry of pigment. Golden and pinkish hues speckled the land and soaked into the scenery, imbuing the length and breadth of the countryside with shimmering luminescence. A blazing, blood-red sun dominated half of the horizon.

What is this strange place?

He didn't know.

Who am I?

He had no idea.

But he was running.

He was running like hell—much faster than Wind, whom he was leaving behind. His senses were unnaturally heightened. A hidden world of smell assaulted him. He could tell what species of animals were nearby, and the exact families of trees and vegetation. He could hear the roars of beasts miles away, and the distinct sound of running water, though there was not a stream or river in sight. Lights and colors flashed and blazed, and he could see the pulsating life-auras of everything around him. He felt the Earth under his feet, and it had a soul (Mother! he cried, without knowing why).

The World of amber plains, purple mountains, and verdant green forest zooming by was familiar, and he recalled that this was the First World, this was the Dawn-time. The ground quaked beneath his feet, roiling and rumbling. He looked over his shoulder.

Well, that explained the rushing-water sound.

The tsunami to end all tsunamis was devouring reality behind him. The wave towered above the distant treetops, swallowing everything in its path. Even sprinting as fast as he could, it was steadily gaining ground.

Straight ahead, the shore of the Great Ocean appeared. When he reached the beach, he skidded to a stop in the powdery white sand, turned to face the tsunami, and made his peace with Earthmaker.

Every bone in his body felt the impact of the wave, and then he felt no more.

<<<Flash>>>

He awoke on the shell of a turtle, surrounded by water.

"Finally awake, I see," said the turtle.

"Y-yes." He sat up, still with no clue as to who—much less what, where, when, why, or how—he was. "The last thing I remember was this giant wave washing over me, and then . . . nothing." He looked around. "Where am I?"

"You're lying on my shell," said the turtle.

"I know that." He waved his arms around and about at the endless expanse of blue-green water. "What I meant was, where are we?"

"We're drifting upon the Great Ocean, which now covers the entirety of the Earth. The Great Wave sent by Earthmaker has destroyed the First World and the First People—except for you and me, that is. But perhaps there's someone else around here somewhere or other."

He looked around. There was still nothing in sight but sea.

"And who are you?"

"My name is Turtle," said Turtle.

"So, Turtle, do you know who I am?"

"You're Wesakaychak, or Wisagatcak, or Wisakedjak, or Weesack-kachack. From what I understand, you go by many names." A mischievous twinkle flared up in Turtle's eye. "What—you don't remember?"

Wesakaychak shook his head. "No. I feel as though I've just woken up from a long, confusing dream."

Turtle smiled. "Well, perhaps it will all come back to you in time."

The conversation dried up not long after this exchange. Throughout the passing days there was really nothing to say except: "Hey, do you see that massive whitecap over there?" or "Oh, wow, there's a big fluffy cloud in the sky!" or "Man, is that sun hot today, or what?"

Turtle floated on, Wesakaychak upon his shell, and let the ocean currents take them wherever they might. They drifted for days on end, which turned into weeks on end, which turned into months on end, without sighting the merest pinch of land.

Just when Wesakaychak was beginning to consider flinging himself overboard and going through a quick death by drowning rather than drifting forever upon the endless ocean on the back of an uncommunicative turtle, he spied a speck of something in the distance, floating above the waves.

"Hey, do you see that?"

"Indeed," said Turtle. "I wonder what it could be?"

"Let's go check it out."

Turtle swam towards the speck, which turned out to be a beaver, swimming atop the crests, splashing and playing and slapping his big fat tail on the water.

"Hey," said Wesakaychak, "what's going on?"

"Just chilling out, having a swim," said the beaver.

"What's your name?"

"Name's Beaver."

"A fitting name."

"Thanks, dude."

"Say, Beaver, do you want to come with us? I'm Wesakaychak and this is Turtle, and we're looking for land."

"I guess so. But I don't think there's any land anymore. I think it's all just ocean now."

"Well, you never know," said Wesakaychak. "There might be some somewhere. Keep hope alive, my toothy little brother. So are you coming?"

Beaver shrugged and scrabbled up onto Turtle's shell.

A week or nine later, long after Wesakaychak had grown bored with Beaver's company, Turtle spied another speck in the distance. The speck soon formed into an otter, another creature who had survived the Great Flood. The furry one floated with its back on the sea, taking a nap on the blue-green water.

"Ahoy there," said Wesakaychak. "What's up with you?"

"Nada, broseph," said the otter, wiping sleep from his eyes. "What's up with you kids?"

"We're drifting on the Great Ocean looking for land. What's your name?"

"Otter," said Otter.

"Well, I guess I should've seen that one coming," said Wesakaychak. "Do you want to come with us, Otter? We could use the company; perhaps it will enliven the conversation a bit."

Otter shrugged and scrambled up onto Turtle's shell with Wesakaychak and Beaver.

After another spell of aimless floating, Wesakaychak was again growing bored with his present company. But just as he was again contemplating willingly walking the shell, he spotted another distant speck. It soon formed into a small green duck with an orange bill, floating upon the swell of the sea.

"Hey there, little buddy," said Wesakaychak. "What's shaking at this end of the pond?"

"Not a thing. Isn't it obvious?" said the duck, looking around at the endless ocean. "What are you jokers doing?"

"We're searching for land. Wait, wait, let me guess. Your name is Duck."

"Wrong, friend. My name is Bill."

"Well, I didn't see that one coming," said Wesakaychak, rolling his eyes. "Anyways . . . Bill . . . do you want to kick it on the shell with us?"

Bill shrugged and flapped up onto the shell.

A few weeks later, Wesakaychak was growing sore and stiff because he no longer had room to stretch his legs. He had tried to do so on multiple occasions. On one attempt he had tripped over Bill and fallen into the ocean, and had to be rescued from drowning by his shellmates. Afterwards, everybody had a good long laugh at his inability to swim.

"Hey, move over a little," he said to Beaver, laying across his legs.

"Hey, get off me," he said to Otter, leaning on his arm.

"Hey, get out of my hair," he said to Bill, taking a nap atop his cranium.

The three creatures shrugged and dived into the sea for a swim, and Wesakaychak sighed. He stretched out on Turtle's shell, stared up at the bluer-than-blue sky, and thought bluer-than-blue thoughts. He hoped they would find land soon, because he wasn't sure how much longer he could go on pointlessly drifting on the Great Ocean before he went insane with boredom.

Turtle noticed his friend's moroseness and said, "Wesakaychak, you do know that you can make land, don't you? If that's what you really want to do."

"What's that?" said Wesakaychak, only half-listening. "How can I make land?"

"Well, you can't create something out of nothing—only Earthmaker has that power. But you do have the power to expand something that's already been created—make it bigger, you know."

"Is that so?"

Turtle nodded. "It is."

Wesakaychak thought for a moment. "The problem with your theory is that we've been drifting across this Great Ocean for months on end without seeing the merest speck of dirt or twig of olive. And if there is no land to expand, there is no way to expand the land."

Turtle chuckled. "Sure, there's no land on top of the water, but what about beneath it? What about the ocean floor? Why, if you could find some sand and some seaweed, you could create a new land and new vegetation in one go!"

Wesakaychak watched the lazy clouds drift across the sky and pondered Turtle's statements.

An hour later, when Beaver, Otter, and Bill clambered back onto the shell, a thought struck him. "Hey fellas, I've got an idea."

"What is it, Wesakaychak?" intoned Beaver, Otter, and Bill in unison.

"Well, Beaver, you're a beaver. So that means you're pretty good swimmer, right? And you have webbed feet, and you can hold your breath for a long time, right?"

"I'm the best swimmer in the world," said Beaver, to a small smile from Bill and a guffaw from Otter.

"Well, if you can dive down to the ocean floor and get me some dirt and some seaweed, I could possibly"—Wesakaychak raised his eyebrows and glanced at Turtle, who ignored him—"create a new land where we all could live."

"All right," said Beaver. "I think I could pull that off." And without another word he dived into the ocean and swam downwards.

He was gone for a long time, so long that Wesakaychak began to worry that the kind, dam-building creature wouldn't be coming back.

But then Beaver floated up to the surface of the sea, unconscious. Otter and Bill jumped into the water and dragged him aboard the shell. Otter pounded on his chest, and Beaver coughed up a gallon of sea-water.

"I couldn't . . . I couldn't make it," groaned Beaver. "It was just . . . too far down."

"That's okay," said Wesakaychak. "You did your best, and that's all we could have asked for. Get some rest and you'll feel better tomorrow."

The next day, Wesakaychak turned to the other mammal. "Hey Otter, you're a good swimmer too, right? That's what you do, isn't it? Well, that and fish, but you know what I'm saying."

Otter preened at the praise, while Bill watched with a twinkle in his ducky eye. "Yeah, I didn't want to say anything about it yesterday to avoid hurting the poor guy's feelings," said Otter, "but I'm a much better swimmer than any beaver could ever hope to be."

"Well," said Wesakaychak, "why don't you give it a shot, then?"

"No problemo," said Otter, and dived into the Great Ocean.

Otter was also gone for a long time, much longer than Beaver, and Wesakaychak began to wonder if they would ever see the poor furry creature again.

But then Otter resurfaced, dead to the Worlds. Beaver and Bill dived into the sea and hauled him aboard Turtle. Otter hacked up a keg's worth of saltwater.

"I tried, Wesakaychak," mumbled Otter. "But it's just . . . I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize. If anything, I should apologize to you for asking you to undertake this impossible task. I'm just glad to see you're okay. Now rest up so you can regain your strength."

The next day, Wesakaychak glanced at Bill, who was peering at him with a wide smile on his feathered face. "I already know what you're going to say," said the duck. "And the answer is . . . sure, I'll give it a whirl. Third time's the charm, eh?" And he dived into the Great Ocean.

Bill was gone for an eternity, much longer than Beaver or Otter, and Wesakaychak was almost certain the brave little duck had not survived the dive.

But then Bill floated up to the surface of the sea, just as insensible as the other two had been. Beaver and Otter jumped into the ocean and dragged Bill onto Turtle's shell. Beaver pumped on the duck's stomach, and Bill vomited up his weight in seawater.

Then Bill's eyes cracked open. He unclenched his feet—and clutched within one webbed foot were a few bits of sand! And held within the other was a thin strand of seaweed!

"I . . . did it, Wesakaychak . . . didn't I?" asked Bill, his eyes half-closed.

"Yes, Bill, you did it," said Wesakaychak. "Today, you have helped create the world."

Bill smiled at this, then passed out from exhaustion.

Later on, when Otter, Beaver, and Bill were sleeping, Wesakaychak looked wistfully across the Great Ocean and said to Turtle, "You know, in a way, I think I'll miss the sea."

"You don't have to make the new land if you don't want to, Wesakaychak. Personally, I wouldn't mind if it stayed like this for a few more millenniums. Of course, I'm a turtle. You're the one who can't swim."

Wesakaychak sighed. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I do miss having solid ground under my feet. So I've got the mud and I've got the seaweed. How do I do this whole 'expanding-the-land-and-creating-the-vegetation' thingamajig?"

Turtle shrugged. "Try wishing it into existence. Try bringing your dreams to life. Create by expansion."

A sudden thought smacked Wesakaychak upside the brain. "Say, Turtle, how do you know all this stuff about me? You knew my name, and you know all about my supposed powers. If it wasn't for you, I never would've known what to do!"

Turtle's eyes sparkled. "You haven't figured it out yet?"

And then it hit Wesakaychak like a ton of buffalo dung had fallen from the sky and landed on his head, and he knew that Turtle was Earthmaker, here to supervise construction of the New World.

"B-but w-why are you h-helping m-me?"

Turtle's face grew stern. "I was very angry with you, Wesakaychak. You were supposed to help the First People and show them the correct paths to take in their lives. Instead, you thought only of yourself and filling your belly and satisfying your . . . baser urges. But after I sent the Great Wave, I got over this anger. Plus, I heard your prayer when the water washed over you." The sternness faded, and Turtle smiled like an ever-forgiving father. "Just don't blow it this time."

"I . . . I won't," said Wesakaychak—and meant it.

"Good. Now go ahead and make the world already."

Wesakaychak closed his eyes. He thought of the land and the gritty, wonderful feeling of the dirt between his toes. He thought of trees, shrubs, bushes, vines, flowers, and herbs, and of how this flora, down to the lowliest grasses and weeds, had in various ways helped the First People, be it by giving the gift of good medicine, filling people's bellies and helping them stave off hunger and famine, or blooming colorful, sweet-smelling flowers that mesmerized the senses.

What seemed an aeon later, Wesakaychak heard Bill's voice. "Well, I'll be damned."

Wesakaychak opened his eyes—and he was no longer on Turtle's back, but stood on solid ground! The countryside stretched off into the distance—wild, untamed, and brand-spanking new. Full-grown, flowering vegetation covered the Earth in all directions.

It had worked.

Trickster, with a little help from Beaver, Otter, Bill, and Turtle, had made the world.

"Damn, Wesakaychak!" said Otter. "And I didn't think you had it in you!" He glanced at Bill and whispered, "I'll get you your fiver tomorrow, duck—no cash on me now."

"It's a very good-looking land," said Beaver, looking around in approval. "But do you think there's a stream somewhere where I could build a nice dam?"

"Hey, where's Turtle?" asked Bill.

They searched the area, but Turtle was nowhere to be found. It was as if the shelled one had vanished into thin air.

"Well, I guess he's gone," said Beaver.

"It's a shame," said Bill. "He was a real nice dude. Kind of quiet, but . . . nice."

"Yeah, I just hope he's all right," said Otter.

Wesakaychak looked at the thriving Earth, then back at his friends, and grinned like the Trickster he was. "Well, wherever he is, I think Earthma . . . I mean, Turtle . . . will be just fine."

And Wesakaychak, Otter, Beaver, and Bill made their way into the world.

<<<Flash>>>

"Whiskey Jack!" intoned a subterranean voice.

Whiskey Jack spun around and observed a tall human skeleton, erect and grinning. Raging conflagrations burned within the darkened hollows of its massive skull. Whiskey Jack had been so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had not noticed the skeleton man's approach. "Masaaw! You're the last, uh, well, person, I guess, I expected to see here. What's going down, blood-brother?"

"I'm leaving Earth," said the skeleton man.

Whiskey Jack was surprised. "Leaving Earth? Why?"

Masaaw evaded the question. "You should come with me, Whiskey Jack, and hang out in my Spirit World for a while. As you know, it's quite a nice place."

"I don't know," said Whiskey Jack, just a little quickly. He had been to Masaaw's Spirit World many times, and they did have some great demon-spirits, but he wasn't too keen on visiting except when he had to when he "died." It was a hazy, shadowy, dreary place. All those ghosts and ghouls and lost souls wandering around everywhere couldn't help but instill your deceased spirit with hopeless depression—pure anathema for a Trickster.

"My ken is ever-waning," said Masaaw, staring down the forested hill at the wide, muddy river below. "I am but a shell of what I was a millennium ago." He turned, and his flaming orbs burned down into the depths of Whiskey Jack's spirit. "And don't tell me that yours hasn't either! There is no place for the olden Trickster in the modern world. Soon enough, we'll all disappear into the Void of Misplaced Myth, none the wiser we were ever here at all." His voice went defensive. "And hey, if I'm going to vanish into the Void, I might as well enjoy myself in my own World until then."

Whiskey Jack remained silent at Masaaw's words for a long while, then said, "Well, I'm gonna stay here on the Key World and tough it out." He looked towards the few clustered buildings below, many of them under construction. "Do you see that little town down there next to the river?"

The skeleton man nodded.

"Well, there's some startup company trying to make some sort of reproduction historical town down there. A living-history museum, or some such. Some of it's already built, but a lot of new buildings are going up. They're modeling everything from colonial times, trying to lure rich tourists to come see how the white man lived not long after he first invaded our land. They've got a job opening for a fake alchemist."

Masaaw laughed, hollow and sarcastic. "Alchemy, huh? Not really your strong suit, is it?"

"Well, maybe not. But the job isn't for an actual alchemist, but a fake alchemist. It's all a show, you see. They're gonna have people walking around pretending they're living two centuries ago. Reenactors, they're called. That's what I'm gonna be."

A breeze stirred the fires within Masaaw's eye-holes. "Well, just you remember who you are, Wesakaychak, and where you come from. After a few decades of pretending you're a human being, you might come to believe you're a human being!"

Whiskey Jack shrugged. "So be it. I love the Earth too much to go back to some dusty old World of Myth. It's just more . . . real than anywhere else. Plus, I created this here hunk of land."

Masaaw snorted twin fireballs that set the leaves adorning the forest floor aflame. Whiskey Jack stomped out the blaze. "There are many who would refute that claim," said the skeleton man. "But it's not like it matters who created this continent, or the Earth, or even the universe. Perhaps, in a way, we all did. And we know who created us. They did. How could any of us have really created anything, if they were here first?"

Whiskey Jack remained silent, at first refusing to answer this koan that had plagued many a mythological being throughout the ages. But then he ventured, "So it's one of those 'which came first: the chicken or the egg?' things, then?"

"Indeed," intoned the skeleton man. "One of those." After a moment of silence, he shrugged. "Well, do as you please, Whiskey Jack. But don't say I didn't try to warn you. Regardless, I wish you luck, and I hope that one day we might meet again under better circumstances." After a somber pause, he added, "If we meet again at all, that is."

Masaaw walked down the hill towards the Jims River and the sipapuni, to travel the World Path and return to his own Spirit World of Myth.

When Masaaw vanished into the forest, Wesakaychak, or Wisagatcak, or Wisakedjak, or Weesack-kachak, or Whiskey Jack, took a deep breath and walked into the town of Eden, Virginia.

And the myth that was his life would never be the same.

## Chapter 16

## Interview with a Fire Marshal

The Eden fire marshal hunkered down in his rain jacket, surveying what was left of the Olde Eden Taphouse. A dog-walker on Colonial Towne Road had passed by the place yesterday evening and called in the fire. The E.F.D. had arrived on the scene ten minutes later, just in time to prevent the blaze from spreading to the brewery side of Farmer John's business. His fellow marshals down at the station were leaning towards the theory that the fire had been caused by a lit cigarette dropped by one of the participants in the trouble. And that was just what was going down on the report: accidental fire, no investigation. Farmer John was the most prominent citizen in Eden, donated sackfuls of dollars to local charities, and sat on the Eden City Council. End of story.

"Hey, Cap'n Promo," whispered a throaty voice in his left ear. He felt hot breath on his neck and spun around—and there was Farmer John, not two steps behind him, peering over his shoulder at the scorched wreckage of the Taphouse.

"Sorry 'bout that," said Farmer John, though he did not look apologetic. He wore no rain-gear, and did not seem bothered by the steady drip from the leaky faucet that approximated Eden's sky this morning. "Did I scare ya?"

"Ah . . . no," replied the fire marshal. He looked down at the old farmer's flip-flop adorned feet, and his eyes widened. He looked up, hiding his surprise. "So how you been, John?"

Farmer John inclined his head towards what had once been the Olde Eden Taphouse. "Not too bad, Cap'n. But thanks for asking."

Captain Promo chose to ignore the blatant sarcasm. "So you said you weren't here last night when the fire started."

Farmer John smirked. "I already told ya everything I know over the phone last night."

"Humor me, and run it by me one more time."

Farmer John shrugged. "I had already gone home for the evening. Any of my brewery employees will vouch for me on that. It seems the fire was a complete accident. Either that or those kids started it, mistakenly or otherwise."

Promo could care less about the man's opinion of whether the fire was an accident or arson—that was his department. "Yeah, you think your bartender would've noticed the really tall guy was actually two kids stacked one on top the other."

Farmer John let out a wry laugh and shook his head.

"And I'm still curious as to why he didn't call the fire department," said Promo.

"There was no time. He ran to the brewery side of the building, warned the employees working there, and they evacuated the building. One of 'em called me, and that's when I called yer department."

Okay, that part of the story held up, at least. Farmer John had been the second to call in the fire, just a few minutes after the dog-walker.

Promo sighed. "All right, John. But tell your employees to call us first next time, then call you."

Farmer John's smile dripped irony. "Well, let's hope there is no next time."

"You feeling okay, John?" Promo peered at the old farmer, his eyes saying far more than his words. "You don't look yourself, for some reason."

"I'm fine, except for the fact that me property just burned down." Farmer John shrugged and looked away, deflecting the fire marshal's questioning gaze.

Promo thought for a long second, rain dripping down into the hood of his jacket and onto his face. "All right, John. It's going down in the books as an accidental fire."

Farmer John nodded. "That's what it was, so it makes perfect sense to me. So can I go now, inspector? I've got big plans today."

"Sure. You take care of yourself, John."

The old farmer grinned like he knew something the fire marshal didn't. "You do the same, Cap'n." He chuckled. "You do the same."

After Farmer John departed, Promo walked back through the scene of the fire. Half of the Taphouse roof had caved in, and the rest was sooty charcoal. The walls were intact, but the smoke damage was bad. A few charred chunks of what had once been wooden tables and chairs littered the scorched hardwood floor, which was covered in a small lake of ash.

In short, the much-beloved bar was ruined.

Kicking blackened barstools out of the way, he walked over to the thick wooden bar, about the only thing in the place that had survived the fire intact, though it was good and seared.

All in all, the Taphouse fire did appear to be an accident—except for the two parallel lines charred inches deep into the bar-top, as if a child of Hades had ridden his demonic big-wheel down the mahogany, drizzling napalm from twin exhaust pipes.

This strange fact was unexplainable—at least by human standards. By mythological standards, however . . . well, that was another matter entirely, wasn't it?

Usually he would go to Farmer John when something like this occurred in town. But since the farmer had been acting strange and wearing flip-flops, this was unthinkable.

But he had another old friend who might be able to shed some light on the Taphouse fire.

He would stop by his cottage later.

## Chapter 17

## The Morning After

Jack Whiskey awoke, dazed and stiff, in the spare bedroom of the beekeeper's cottage. The first thing he noticed was the pitter-patter of rain on the windowpanes, which drilled into his foggy brain like sonic pins and needles. The first thing he observed, when he opened his eyes, was a gaggle of pimply adolescent faces peering down at him in curiosity.

"Would'ya look at that, he's finally awake!"

"He slept like the dead, din't he? Or mebbe a vampire, sleeping in 'is coffin."

"And he was twitching like he was possessed by a demon!"

"Yeah, only he warn't spewing projectile vomit an' speaking in tongues and making obscene gestures at priests."

Jack propped himself up on his elbows, unsure how to react to such exuberant chatter. He recognized the faces peering down at him as the group of preteens from the Farmers' Market the other day, though their number had been reduced to five.

"Mister Holmes told us you didn't even land a single punch on Sam Waa, Mister Whiskey. Is that true?"

Jack wiped the sleep from his eyes. "Who's Mister Holmes? And who are you guys? I remember seeing you at the Farmers' Market the other day, but it's all kind of fuzzy."

"We're Tom Sawyer's gang!" exclaimed the red-haired kid, while the other members of the "gang" fawned and preened. "I'm Tom Sawyer, that's Huckleberry Finn"—he indicated the boy with the straw hat, who grinned—"Ben Rogers, Joe Harper"—nods from the two dark-haired boys—"and the pretty gal there is Becky Thatcher."

"For some reason, I'm not at all surprised," said Jack with a groan.

Sir Arthur strode into the room with a steaming kettle in one hand and a coffee mug imprinted with the debatable aphorism "Detectives do it best" in the other. "Coffee, Jack?"

Jack nodded and accepted a cup of the brownish sludge. He took a sip and grimaced, but the caffeine shot through his system and woke him up. He drained his cup, propped up a pillow, and leaned back on the headboard.

"Are you feeling better today, Jack?" asked the hospitable host.

"Yeah, I guess so." He winced as he shifted his weight. "Just a little sore."

Sir Arthur nodded. "Yes, you took quite a beating at the hands of the skeleton man yesterday. But don't worry. Thanks to your divine essence, you should be as good as new in a few hours."

"The skeleton man?" asked Jack. The visions/dreams/memories of last night were still caught fast within the webbing of his psyche. "So Sam Waa is Masaaw, the Hopi skeleton man. Makes sense, I guess, if you look at the names." He pursed his lips. "But Masaaw and I are friends. Why would he attack me like that?"

"That is the question, is it not?" said Sir Arthur. He began pacing the room, his words coming quicker with each step and pivot. "For Masaaw being involved in a plot to destroy the universe goes against his very nature, as he is the Protector of his people. No, it is my estimation that somebody—or some being, I should say—has tricked him and his Trickster compatriots into helping them, or perhaps somehow holds them in thrall."

"There's more Tricksters around than Masaaw? More Tricksters like . . . me?"

"That's right, Mister Whiskey," said Becky. "Tricksters like you, only mean and not so good looking." Tom stared over at her with solemn eyes. Becky blushed.

"They kidnapped Sid Sawyer and beat up Tom yesterday," supplied Huck Finn. "Iktome, Old Man, Coyote, Raven, and Rabbit."

Jack recognized every last one of the names. Memories of long-ago adventures he and those mentioned had been through gushed across his mind in a mental Great Flood.

"But why would the Tricksters help to bring about something like the end of the world? All those guys love the Earth—and themselves—way too much to be in on something like that."

"At this juncture, we simply do not know," answered Sir Arthur. "Perhaps they have no choice but to help . . . him."

There were gasps from all around, and Tom Sawyer asked, "Who's . . . him?"

The beekeeper ceased his pacing and glanced about the cramped quarters of the bedroom with vague distaste. "Let us move this discussion to the living room, where we may all sit down and get comfortable, and all will be revealed."

Sir Arthur brewed another pot of coffee while the Gang lounged about the living room. Jack joined them after a quick rinse-up in the sink, and Sir Arthur walked out of the kitchen with an ornate silver tea-tray upon which rested steaming mugs of sludge for all.

Jack set down his mug and looked at the beekeeper. "So, Art, who's the mystery man?"

"Why, Jack, it is none other than—"

"I may be able to help you with that, Jack," lilted a memorable voice that drifted into the room through the beekeeper's screen door.

"Stephone!" cried Jack.

Sir Arthur opened the door, and Stephone walked into the room. She wiped her clogs on the doormat and shook the rain from her hair. She held a tiny dog wearing a ribbon about its ears in her arms, like an offering to some rattish deity that appreciated pink things of a frilly nature.

"Hey, guys," she said to the powwow in general. She turned to Jack and smiled, which made her look drop-dead gorgeous and caused Jack's insides to turn to mush. "I guess we'll have to put that date on hold, Jack. I think we'll be a bit busy tonight."

"S-sure," said Jack, taking dazed steps towards Stephone. "But what are you doing here?"

"Art called me last night. He asked me to come by today."

"But . . . why?"

Stephone's face went troubled. "I'm not exactly who you think I am."

"That's okay, because I'm not who I think I am, either." Jack thought for a moment and shrugged. "Or who I was, or whatever."

Stephone sighed and stroked the little dog behind the ears. "My true name is Persephone. I am the daughter of Demeter and Zeus."

"Ah. So you're from . . . there," said Jack, not sure how to put it into words.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, but I was worried you wouldn't want anything more to do with me, seeing as how I'm a dark goddess. But I didn't know that you didn't know who you were until I spoke with Arthur last night. I just thought you were being slick and didn't want to mention our mythic origins."

Sir Arthur said, "Milady, I have been harboring an idea of who is attempting to pass himself off as Farmer John. Could it be your . . . significant other?"

Stephone looked downright miserable. "Yes, Arthur. The impersonator is my unwanted husband and eternal nemesis." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Hades." Her eyes flicked about the cottage, as if she expected the God of Death to materialize out of thin air in the beekeeper's living room. "Farmer John agreed to hire me on a couple weeks ago. But yesterday he called me into his office and fired me. I was shocked! I asked why, but he just smiled and would say no more. On my way out, he laughed. A deliberate laugh, like he wanted me to hear it." Her eyes seethed with emotion. "I recognized that laugh, and it was not Farmer John's."

"Milady," said Sir Arthur, "do you have any idea why the Unseen One would cook up such a crazy scheme? If Nataraja Dances samhara and the universe dies, so does he. He knows this, yet still he has gone through with his plans. It just doesn't make sense."

Stephone shook her head. "I have no idea, but it's definitely not like him. He's a loner, manic depressive, can't let go of the fact that he drew the Underworld lot while Zeus reigns in the sky and Poseidon lives in the sea, but I never thought he would take it this far." Her expression soured. "We should have been divorced long ago, but he refuses to sign the papers."

Silence ensued for a few seconds. Then Jack proclaimed, "So you say Hade—"

"Ssssshhhhhhh!" blasted in from all corners of the room. Feet shuffled and eyes looked around with trepidation.

"Jack, it is said the Unseen One hears it when you speak his true name, no matter where you might be," said Sir Arthur.

"Sorry," said Jack, though he didn't sound it, as no one had yet mentioned that tidbit. "So your husband refuses to sign the divorce papers. I mean, as a dark goddess, can't you just say 'Forget it, I'm done!' and annul the whole damned thing?"

Stephone shook her head. "No, these days even gods and goddesses have to file for divorce. The papers must be approved by the MythCourt."

"Right," said Jack, and sat back down. "The MythCourt. Of course. What was I thinking?"

"The marriage shouldn't even have been legit, but magically, it was. I can't believe my stupid father even agreed to the whole deal, like I'm property to be given as a gift and possessed! I'm sure the Unseen One greased his palm with something—what, I don't even want to know. What a bunch of egotistical, chauvinistic, pig-headed—"

"All right, let's all just calm down here," said Jack, feeling that he must stand up for his sex, no matter how ethic-free some of its members might be. "So once he signs, that's it? You're a free woman and may do what you will?"

Stephone sighed. "Except for the Curse of the Pomegranate. The Unseen One must lift it willingly, or I will be forced to return to the Underworld for four months of the year."

"Uh-huh," said Jack. "Help me out and fill in the gaps in my memory. What is the Curse of the Pomegranate?"

"Long ago, the Unseen One mythnapped me and dragged me down into his namesake Underworld to be his unwilling Queen. But he did this illegally. When the crime was discovered, he agreed to let me go. But as I was about to depart the Underworld, he offered me a pomegranate to munch on. I thought it was a peace offering on his part. I swallowed a few seeds just before Hermes got there to escort me back to the land of the living, and my fate was sealed. If one eats the food of the dead, one is cursed to dwell forever in the Underworld. But since I was tricked, a compromise was reached between the Unseen One and Zeus. I would spend the winter months in the Underworld, and be allowed to return to the Key World for the rest of the year."

After a long moment, Jack said, "So why did you agree to go on a date with me, if you're still married?"

Stephone gazed into his eyes. "The Unseen One and I are married only in the eyes of ignorant divine law. Must I wait for a divorce agreement from a husband who had me bound and gagged during the marriage ceremony to move on with my life?"

"Good point." Jack whirled to Sir Arthur and pointed a finger at the beekeeper's prominent nose. "And you're Sherlock Holmes, Art. You told me you were a mytho, and you're none other than Sherlock-friggin'-Holmes-his-friggin'-self! It all makes sense now—your strange powers of deduction and your X-ray eyes."

"Indeed, Jack," said Sir Arthur, smiling a wild smile. "And your powers of deduction are also formidable, for you figured out who I was with very few hints."

"Yeah, well, the 'Mister Holmes' thing kind of gave it away," muttered Jack. "But Sherlock Holmes is no god. So what are you doing here, cavorting with the divine, and all that?"

"Ah-ha! You are right, my friend! Sherlock Holmes is no god! And yet Sherlock Holmes is a being created from Mind, a character born of human imagination. Sherlock Holmes is a figure known by many people, and he resides strongly, deeply, within the minds of many human beings, caught fast within the whirlpool of human thought as a whole. You might even say that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional being who has become something far more than words written down on paper." The detective gestured at the Gang. "The same can be said for Tom and company. Sure, we are born of a more modern mythology, but we are what we are."

"So any fictional being invented by the human imagination instantly becomes a deity?"

Sir Arthur smiled. "Well, in a way. Worlds of Myth are created and destroyed every instant of every day, the majority of them without anybody except the short-lived mythical inhabitants ever knowing they were there. The Worlds of Myth and mythological beings that hang around for the longest are those that are well-known and/or well-remembered." He glanced around the room. "Such as everyone here, including yourself."

"Me?" squeaked Jack. "But hardly anybody's heard of me in modern times!"

"You would be surprised, Jack, at just how well known you are. You are a Trickster, and people like Tricksters. They sympathize with them."

Jack thought for a minute. "So does it have to be written down somewhere?"

"No. Beings of myth do not exist as words on paper. Sometimes that's where they start, sure—but they truly exist, they truly live, in the human mind, in the human imagination. As for myself, I do owe my existence to the written word—and to the mind of a most intelligent gentleman who brought his own little World of Myth to life within the imaginations of many. So the written word does have the distinct power to increase ken. But long before the alphabet and writing was invented, there were mythos wandering the Earth. These beings were much more nebulous back then, sometimes Chaos incarnate, the endless Void from which many early cultures believed the universe sprang."

Jack's forehead wrinkled. "Did you say ken?"

"I did. As a mythological being, you have powers that are specific to your nature, unique to you because of who you are. This is your ken. My own ken allows me to reveal deception to those who otherwise might not be able to see it. But your ken is not an unlimited thing. It is based on how well-known you are in the mass-Mind of humankind, and it can be used up if you are careless with it. And then you will disappear in a poof to the Void of Misplaced Myth, none the wiser you were ever here at all."

A moment of silence ensued, then Jack laughed. "So the Fountain of Youth's been sitting there in Tranquil Forest this whole time. I'll bet you get all types of crazy gods and monsters and demons and aliens showing up here in Eden, huh, Art?"

Sir Arthur looked thoughtful. "Well, not all types. Farmer John is the Gatekeeper of Earth. The Guardian of the Ocean. If a mytho comes to the Key World and causes trouble, John can make them forget their own names for a good long while, much less the knowledge of there even being such thing as a World Path. This singular ability is a part of who he is. It is his ken, you ken."

Jack grinned like the Trickster he was. "Well, don't feel bad about not being a real god, Art. I mean, I'm a god, and I'm so unknown that I hadn't even heard of myself until last night."

Sir Arthur observed Jack's unkempt condition with a single eyebrow raised. "Do not underestimate yourself. Trust me, Jack, there is far more to you than first meets the eye."

Stephone coughed into her hand at this, and the kids' faces all went funny trying not to smile, most of them without success.

"Oh, thanks, Art."

Stephone tittered and the Gang giggled. Before long everybody in the room was hooting and hollering and slapping knees. Even Jack joined in. But the merriment was short-lived, as the grim reality of the current situation brought them back to Earth.

"We must destroy all Hoppy Heaven Ale in existence," said Sir Arthur. "And thanks to a little detective work undertaken yesterday by my colleague Tom Sawyer, we know that the Unseen One has taken some to his Palace in the Underworld."

"D'you think they got Sid holed up down there with the farmer?" asked Tom Sawyer.

"If your brother is here on Earth, he is likely being held prisoner here in Eden, and we shall find him. If he is not in town, I would indeed postulate that he is imprisoned with Farmer John in the Underworld. Where, however, I know not." A certain gleam alighted in Sir Arthur's eye, as tended to happen when the game was afoot. "And on that note, some of us are going to take a delightful trip to ancient Greek hell, while the rest of us remain here on Earth to seek and destroy Hoppy Heaven Ale."

"Okay, so who's doing what?" asked Huck Finn.

"I know my way around the Underworld," said Stephone. "So I'll go."

"Are you quite sure, milady?" asked Sir Arthur. "The Unseen One might see it coming."

Stephone shrugged. "I'm cool with just about everybody that lives down there, and some of them might be willing to help us out."

Sir Arthur looked about the room, taking in every face in turn. "That makes one."

"I'll go to hell," said Jack.

"Just as I knew you would, Jack. Just one or two more will suffice. I'll need most of you to stay with me, here on the Key World."

"Well, I guess I'll go," said Tom Sawyer, trying not to let his budding eagerness show. "I got a feeling, I dunno why, that Sid's imprisoned down there in the Underworld."

"I'm going with you, Tom," said Becky, and grabbed Tom's hand.

Sir Arthur clapped his hands. "It is settled! Okay, Team Myth—that's you and yours, Jack—off you go to Tranquil Forest and the sipapuni. Keep a close eye out for Farmer John and Sid Sawyer on your journey across the Underworld. And remember, time moves differently there. Your journey might take you days—weeks, even—but time will move at a crawl here on Earth while you are gone. Here, take this." Sir Arthur handed Jack a gold-plated pocket-watch.

Jack brought the ticking timepiece to his ear. "Is it magic, or something?"

"It will tell the time on Earth with unfailing precision, and will not be affected by crossing between Worlds." Sir Arthur pulled Jack close and whispered, "It will be of great assistance if you run into any stoppage. Break it." He tapped his temple with a finger, pulled back, and addressed Team Myth as a whole. "Get back to the Key World as soon as possible—safely, of course."

The members of Team Myth nodded.

"Team Real—that's the rest of us, people—after Team Myth has departed, we shall confer to discuss what we shall be doing today. I have a few . . . interesting excursions planned."

The Teams made ready for the day, while the lotus on Sir Arthur's mantel pulsed with a purple-black light that steadily grew dimmer, as if on the verge of going dark forever.

## Chapter 18

## The Descent

Team Myth walked up to the sipapuni, hidden deep within the sprawling natural wonder of Tranquil Forest. The morning rain had let up, and the sun now peeked through the clouds, portending another hot and humid August day.

But this mattered not to Team Myth, for they would soon be out of this World. They stopped and stared at the effervescent spring, the entrance to the World Path.

"So what do we do?" asked Jack, eying the fizzling waterhole with skepticism. "Jump in and go for a swim?"

Stephone laughed. "Actually, you can walk on top of the water if you want to."

"But how does it all work? How do we travel this World Path?"

"The sipapuni is filled with the Water of Life, which when imbibed makes humans immortal. This ambrosia runs through your veins. As a mytho, you're made of this Water. Just concentrate, and merge with the Water. Imagine yourself and the Water as one, for you are one."

"It's real easy," encouraged Tom.

"Haven't you done this before, Mister Whiskey?" asked Becky.

Jack had traveled the World Path, but it had been awhile, and the memory had faded. "I . . . think so. Being a Trickster, I always liked it here on Earth, so I hardly ever used it."

"Well, you jist walk out on that there Water, concentrate real hard, and it'll take you to whatever World you wanna go to," said Becky. "You just gotta wish yourself there. Honestly, there ain't nothing to it if you're mythical by nature."

Tom nudged Jack in the ribs. "She's right, Mister Whiskey. You just gotta b'lieve."

"Okay," said Jack, and nudged back. "You do it first, though."

Tom Sawyer took a few steps backwards. He got set, ran, and leaped onto the Water in a dive, hands-first. He bounced off liquid as if it were solid ground, and busted out a hand spring and a flip before landing expertly on his feet atop the pool and bowing to the crowd.

"You see?" said Tom, Riverdancing atop the Water. "Ain't nothing to it!"

Stephone and Becky walked out onto the pool to join Tom. Jack thought it was rather surreal, seeing three people standing atop a gurgling spring, but it was really no more wonky than anything else he had recently witnessed within Eden city limits.

"Come on, Jack," said Stephone, beckoning.

"But it's water. And not with a capital W." Jack took a deep breath. "Sorry, but I'm still not fully readjusted to the fact that I'm a mytho. Humanity hangover, I guess."

"You can do this, Jack," said Stephone.

Standing two footsteps from the edge of the bubbling spring, Jack sighed. He closed his eyes, did his best to imagine liquid as solid, and took a step forward.

Another.

And another.

Another, and thought: I'm doing it! I'm walking on water! Damn, I really am one mythic SOB, ain't I?

He opened his eyes and looked down—and dropped feet first into the Water. He soon resurfaced, sputtering and spitting. Tom, Stephone, and Becky hauled him out of the pool by the arms. With help he managed to plant his sopping shoes atop the suddenly manically bubbling Water, which he got the impression was also laughing at him. "I guess everybody's a Trickster, huh?" muttered Jack.

"Let's help Jack out, guys," said a still-giggling Stephone to a red-faced Tom and a teary-eyed Becky. She turned to a sopping, despondent-looking Jack with a confident smile on her face. "You're thinking too hard about it. You are the Water, so be the Water."

Standing atop the Fountain of Eden, Team Myth stood in a circle and gripped hands—and melted into the Waters of the sipapuni.

Jack's last thought before immersion was that the whole deal sounded suspiciously like Master Mirbodi and the whole "be kung-fu" thing.

He fell into an unseen, underlying universe where reality merged with imagination.

Brave new worlds, flights of fancy, unheard-of concepts swam by.

He paddled through memories, dreams, visions.

Underlying particles, threads, arcs.

Space and stars and Void.

Suns, constellations, cosmic waves.

He was earth, air, fire—Water.

He was sacred and profane, good and evil, infinite and absolute, spirit and matter, form and emptiness, heaven and earth, human and divine, order and chaos.

He was thought, wisdom, imagination—Mind.

He expanded and withdrew, formed and imploded, appeared from nothing and merged with everything before returning to nothing once more.

He was born and died an instant death, every moment of every day.

He managed to maintain a wispy form of consciousness within which he held onto a shred of memory. And what-had-once-been-Jack Whiskey held on for dear sweet mythical life as he was pulled screaming at the top of what-had-once-been-his-lungs through the Sea of Story, the Ocean of Myth, the Pool of Imagination, the Melting Pot of Mind.

## Chapter 19

## Hucking Around Town

A sprinting Huckleberry Finn burst through the beekeeper's screen door, tripped over the doormat, and fell sprawling into the living room at Sir Arthur's feet.

Sir Arthur had been enjoying a morning cigar, and he seemed bemused rather than astonished as he helped Huck to his feet. "What is it, my boy, that has you so excited?"

"Mister Holmes, a beer truck jist left the brewery! Coyote was driving with Old Man in the passenger seat! They was heading into downtown Eden!"

"Most interesting," said Sir Arthur, puffing away at his stogie with sudden gusto. "That is the Unseen One's offensive move for the morning, and we must counter it. And what of the false Farmer John?"

"He stopped by the brewery for a li'l after the ice cream truck got there, and he left on foot jist after it left. It looked like he was heading towards Tranquil Forest."

Sir Arthur snapped his fingers. "Damn! I'll bet he's going back to the Underworld. Ben Rogers is at present keeping an eye on the sipapuni. I have instructed him to let all beings pass unmolested, and to simply watch. I hope he does not try to impede the Unseen One. And I hope Team Myth is prepared to deal with the King of the Dead on his home turf."

Huck pondered for a moment, then said, "Well, Ben's got a bit o' wits about him. He'll stay hid. Tom can take care of hisself, and Becky's no slouch. And sure, Stephone seems sweet as pecan pie, but she is a goddess of death. I ain't so sure 'bout Mister Whiskey, but if he's with those three, he should be all right. He'll relearn how to be a mytho soon enough, 'specially if he's forced to. And he might be forced to pretty darn quick-like down there in the flaming pit of doom and despair."

"You are quite right, Huckleberry," said Sir Arthur, blowing smoke rings into the air. "As to Team Real . . . I believe our enemies have deposited the Hoppy Heaven Ale at various locations around Eden so we cannot destroy the whole supply with one hurrah. Joe Harper is currently combing the town grocery and convenience stores, looking for Hoppy Heaven Ale in the beer coolers. But I also believe the Unseen One has retained a large portion of product at the brewery. Masaaw entered the building early this morning and is still on the premises, correct?"

"Yessir. But there still ain't no sign of the rest of them Tricksters."

"We shall worry about the other Tricksters when it comes to it." Sir Arthur peered intently at Huck. "Huckleberry, if the Unseen One has returned to the Underworld, he should be gone for at least a few hours. On the western side of the brewery is a window to a small office. See if you can creep up to it unobserved and get a glimpse of something inside. And if you think you can get in undetected, well . . . do it. Keep an eye out for Sid Sawyer, and destroy any and all Hoppy Heaven Ale you see. But be wary of the skeleton man. If you run into him, get the hells out of there."

Huck grinned in anticipation. "No problem. But if I can get into the building and I see Sid tied up in there . . . less just say I ain't leaving the place without him."

Sir Arthur nodded, as if he had been expecting this. "Just be careful."

"But what about the truck?"

Sir Arthur chuckled, then stubbed out his cigar in an ashtray. "I'll take care of that myself." He waved in Huck's direction. "Now go, Huckleberry! And good luck!"

Huck Finn departed the beekeeper's cottage without another word, heading on foot to the Olde Eden Brewery.

A few minutes later, Huck crouched behind a bush below the office window of the Olde Eden Brewery, watching Colonial Towne Road for passing cars.

When all was clear, he raised himself up on tiptoes and peeked through the window. All was shadowed inside, but he could make out a chair, a desk, and a closed door. He breathed a quick sigh of relief, for he had halfway expected to see the skeleton man leering at him from inside.

Huck pulled a knife from his pocket and cut the lower portion of the screen. He reached through the hole and pushed upwards, and the window opened easily and silently, just as he had been hoping it would. After another quick look around, he placed both hands on the sill and jumped for the opening.

There was a flash of blinding white light, and he flew fifteen feet backwards to land unceremoniously on his rear end. He bounced a few times and skidded to a halt on the parking lot pavement. His body sizzled throughout, as if he had rammed a screwdriver into a wall-socket, and he could smell something burning.

He stood up, patting out his smoldering shirtsleeves, and stared with suspicion at the open window. Cautiously, he approached once more. Inching forward, he stuck out a single finger. When his finger broke the plane of the window there issued a burst of familiar light, and he jerked his hand back and placed the singed digit into his mouth.

Reassuring himself that Sid Sawyer was not being tortured inside, Huck crept off the Olde Eden Brewery property and made his way westward, heading back to the bee farm with speed.

Sir Arthur would want to hear about this.

Huckleberry Finn galloped into the New Shaolin Monastery Meditation Hall and knocked over a surprised pair of monks. His loud entrance brought a few curious stares from the novices facing the wall around the edges of the large room, but most continued meditating, either not noticing him or pretending not to in order to avoid a thwack! from a master's staff.

The Meditation Hall smelled of floor polish and incense, the latter intended to cleanse the novices' minds of impurities and outside thoughts during these thrice-daily mandatory zazen sessions. A plain wooden altar upon which rested a brass statue of the Buddha with a firm, steadying hand upon the ground decorated the far end of the room.

Huck helped the two patchrobed monks to their feet. They both smiled while trying to pat him on the back and shake his hand at the same time.

"Where's Master Mirbodi? I need to talk to him right now! It's, um, quite, ah, urgent, actu'lly." Huck's face flushed as he realized that he was intruding on a place sacred to the Zenners.

One of the monks, grinning from ear to ear and winking, pointed to the far end of the room, where Master Mirbodi wandered up and down the line of novices, keeping a watchful eye out for those nodding off or otherwise distracted.

Trying not to run, Huck made his way over to the altar, where Master Mirbodi awaited with an ear-splitting smile adorning his face.

"Huck, my friend! Good to see you! What bring you to my throat of forest—I mean, neck of wood? I assume it something important for you to interrupt our morning zazen session."

Huck let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that, Master. I went to Sir Arthur's first, but he warn't there, and I couldn't think of where he mighta gone, so I came here." He looked around at the novices, a few of whom (including Sitting Lotus) were surreptitiously peeking in their direction. The sound of thwack!ing filled the zendo like a sweet, unsubtle drumbeat of life.

Master Mirbodi nodded and ushered Huck into a tiny room hidden behind the altar. The sparse decorations included a few black cushions, a small table upon which sat a vase of flowers, and a laughing-Buddha woodcut hanging from a nail in a wall. Master Mirbodi gestured to Huck to take a seat on a cushion, and then sat down on one in the lotus position.

"Tell me what happen."

Huck gave the Zen master the rundown on the situation.

"I think maybe I can help you out," said the venerable old monk. "I collect one novice and we go to Olde Eden Brewery. Wait for us out front. I be there two minutes, tops."

Huck sidled back across the Meditation Hall to the exit, where he quietly apologized to the two monks he had knocked over upon entering the building. They did not reply, but continued to smile, nod, and wink. It was almost as if they knew who he was! But it couldn't be! Master Mirbodi wouldn't discuss things like that with his fellow monks! Or was it that they somehow just knew? After all, they were embrightened, or whatever.

One of the monks affectionately slapped Huck on the back. It sent him sprawling out the front door, and he nearly tumbled down the steps. True to his word, Master Mirbodi glided out of the Meditation Hall one minute later, a reluctant novice in tow.

"All right, boys, let's do this thing!"

And Huckleberry Finn, Master Mirbodi, and Sitting Lotus departed New Shaolin Monastery.

## Chapter 20

## The Grove of Persephone

Jack awoke somewhere else, grasping Stephone and Becky's hands. He let go, stumbled forward, and fell to his knees. He kissed solid ground in gratitude, then laid down and curled up in the fetal position, shuddering.

"Wh-where were we just then?" asked Jack, as he was helped up onto unsteady legs. "I felt like I was . . . everything. But nothing, all at the same time."

Stephone smiled over at him. "Yes, it's quite a sensation. Sex can't hold a candle to sailing the Ocean of Myth, which is all around us, as well as within us, encompassing all things in existence. It is the Stuff of Life. It is the Water of Life. The Ocean is a hodge-podge of the imaginations of all sentient beings. It is the creative thought-energy of Creation, liquefied. It is the pool from which all fable, myth, legend, and story derives." She paused and clicked her tongue. "Or is it the other way around?" She shrugged. "Let's just say it's a working relationship."

Jack observed the surroundings with eyes as wide as dinner plates. "Wh . . . where are we? Is this the Underworld?"

The dark wood they stood in was dead and lifeless; no wind rustled the brittle leaves of the trees above. The sipapuni was a brackish puddle behind them. Blackened poplars snarled up from the ground like the twisted claws of some dead and buried beast. Weeping willows oozed a clear, mucousy fluid from their pustule-infested bark. Black-petaled daffodils gleamed, blue roses glowed, and asphodel flowers glimmered a ghostly whitish-gray, as if infused with polluted magic. Dead-looking pomegranate trees clustered about, twinkling red fruits clutched within their dessicated branches like macabre Christmas lights. An eerie pinkish light refracted off the fog-bank that lay across the forest floor like a wispy shroud draped over Mother Nature's corpse. The stench of rotten eggs hung about the whole dismal woods.

"Yes, Jack," said Stephone. "The sipapuni of this World lies within my garden, often called the Grove of Persephone."

"Ah. So this is your place, then," said Jack, doing his level best not to look around in distaste.

"Yes. When I'm sequestered in the Underworld for the winter months, I spend a lot of time here. I plant death-daffodils, reap-roses, asphodel, and tend the pomegranates, black poplars, and weepy willows. My Grove is by far the nicest place on this side of the Stygian Marsh. The Elysian Fields are also located in the Underworld, but we won't get to visit them on this trip. The Unseen Palace marks the entrance to that blessed realm, and the Palace is as far as we go."

"And how far is it to the Palace?" asked Tom Sawyer. He observed the surroundings through squinty eyes, as if by not seeing in full he could restrain himself from running around, berserk, and surveying all with furious curiosity.

Stephone bit her lower lip. "It's hard to say, exactly. Directions and distances are funny here. The best way to navigate is by landmarks. They call out, being hubs of activity. If you follow their resonance, you will inevitably reach them."

"So how long d'you think it'll take?" said Becky Thatcher, glancing warily about the Grove.

"It would take us many weeks, Underworld-time, by foot. The Unseen One and the Judges of the Dead have flying chariots, but they're the only ones around here with any kind of high-speed transportation. Some of the gods and monsters have free run of the place, but that's because they have wings. But I've got a friend or two who might help us cut down on travel time."

"Wait a minute," said Jack. "Just curious, but what does weeks down here in hell amount to back there on Earth?"

Stephone shrugged. "A day or two."

"We gonna hafta stay hid during this cross-country trek?" said Tom, examining a crimson-illumined pomegranate with spellbound interest.

"It would be nice, but it won't be possible. We will be crossing vast, empty stretches of wasteland and will be easy to spot from above. We'll just have to be careful and hope we don't run into any trouble."

"So which way do we go?" asked Becky, peering at a death-daffodil whose stamen was quivering and leaning towards her, as if sensing nearby flesh and wanting a quick fuck of life.

"We'll head to the Elm of False Dreams. From there, we'll follow the queue of shades until we reach the Stygian Marsh. The Asphodel Meadows, Tartarus, and the Elysian Fields—the true Realm of the Dead—lie on the Marsh's far bank." Stephone glanced between her companions, who all stared resolutely back at her. "So let's not waste any more time. To the Elm!"

And Team Myth departed the Grove of Persephone.

## Chapter 21

## The Sting Op

The beer truck sat with the Olde Eden Brewery logo on its side sat in front of the Governor's Palace, smack dab in the center of downtown Eden, standing out like a modernistic sore thumb amidst the faux eighteenth-century environment. So far only two human beings had wandered up to the mobile suds dispensary, both of whom had purchased a pint of draft beer. Captain Promo didn't like letting these individuals drink the beer, but he had been told to wait for five minutes while his associate got ready. As long as the lucky pair didn't drink six pints of brew, they would only gain a few bonus years of life and perhaps never catch a head cold again, and that was it. No permanent damage done.

When the "Governor's Address to the People" performed every hour inside the Palace ended, the five minutes was up, and people began trickling into the street from the Palace gates.

Captain Promo sauntered up to the truck's counter, elbowing potential customers out of the way. His face locked in a grim expression, he brandished his badge and said, "What are you doing?! You can't bring motor vehicles into downtown Eden! And you can't sell beer out of a truck within city limits!"

Coyote smirked from behind the counter. "Why, whatever do you mean, officer? Say, are you even a cop? That badge looks mighty strange to me."

Promo shoved the badge into Coyote's face. "Captain Promo, fire marshal. And what you're doing here is right up my alley!"

His yelling drew stares from the roiling waves of humanity now pouring into the street. A small but curious crowd was beginning to form around the beer truck.

Coyote sneered with undisguised enmity. "Well, take a look at what I've got, mister fancy-pants-captain-fire-marshal." He shook an official-looking paper at Promo. "People are permitted to drink within a twenty foot radius of our vehicle."

Captain Promo snatched the paper from Coyote. He made a show of scrutinizing the form, which was indeed a permit for what Coyote had said, and quite lawful despite being written in an ancient American Indian cuneiform. He grumbled to himself while poring over the document, every now and then letting out an exaggerated huff or puff. The surrounding rabble had swelled and now surged about the beer truck as an amoeba-like mass. Groups of tourists were snapping off photos with gusto, possibly believing it was all just another colonial reenactment show.

Captain Promo slapped the permit down on the counter. "This permit is not legit! It has the signature of some vice-president at Colonial Eden, not the president!"

"President, vice-president, what's the difference?" growled Old Man. "It's a permit, isn't it?"

Captain Promo snorted. "It's still illegal to sell beer on the streets of Eden." He grimaced. "I'm going to head back down to the station and have a chat with my superiors about this." He took a few steps backwards, and his eyes burned into the Tricksters. "Expect to see me real soon, friends." He turned and walked away.

Coyote watched the rollicking mob surrounding the beer truck swallow the fire marshal. The Trickster gulped, shook off a strange feeling of disquiet, then turned and cried, "Free beer here! Olde Eden Hoppy Heaven Ale! The best beer you'll taste in your short, pitiful lives!"

Old Man poured out a pint, and the smell of Hoppy Heaven Ale pervaded downtown Eden. The suddenly salivating crowd surged forward.

The first customer in the press was a hippie. He wore a tie-dyed Grateful Dead t-shirt, patchwork pants of earthy colors, a red and black bandanna. A tangled gray beard adorned his cheeks. Dark, wire-rimmed sunglasses perched upon his hawkish nose. He looked like a weird hybrid of Jerry Garcia and Tommy Chong.

He flashed a peace sign and said in a stoner's drawl, "Lemme tell you, I think it's totally heady what you dudes are doing here. Reminds me of when the Dead played at Bill & Gary Hall back in '78. You shoulda seen it, man! People running naked through the streets, climbing the buildings, drinking beer, smoking ganja. Why do you think they banned the Dead from town after that night?" He shook his fatty dreads in laid-back indignation. "None of 'em, from Jerry to Bob to Phil, could set foot in Eden city limits after that concert."

Coyote and Old Man had gone slack-jawed during this barrage of hippie-speak, while behind the dreadie the swarm of humanity buzzed at steadily increasing decibels.

The hippie grinned a ganja smoker's yellow-toothed grin. "Now lemme get two pints of that beer. I just love microbrews."

Old Man had been staring at the hippie as if the dreadlocked one had just beamed down to Earth from his spaceship. He awoke with a start when Coyote's fingers snapped in front of his face.

"Right, then," said Old Man. "Two pints of Hoppy Heaven Ale, coming right up." He rotated to the beer spigot behind him. As he began pouring, it seemed as if he moved in slow motion.

The crowd behind the hippie was getting more restless and unruly by the second. If Coyote didn't start getting beer into these people's hands, they might begin to riot. He could already feel the truck rocking from the packed and pushing tourists surrounding it on all sides. They wore fanatic, inhuman expressions on their faces—and they were all staring right at him. Coyote gulped as memories of angry mobs chasing him down assaulted his mind (it always ended badly for him). He turned, watching the horde from the corner of his eye, and began pouring from the second spigot.

Then four shots rang out over downtown Eden, and the murmurs of the crowd turned to screams.

People ran away from the vehicle in a blind panic. Hoppy Heaven Ale began flowing from the side-wall of the truck at the astonished Tricksters' knees in a quadruple waterfall.

Coyote twirled around and looked into the hippie's suddenly quite un-stoned-hippie-ish eyes. The dreadlocked one held a smoking revolver leveled at Coyote's head.

"Gotcha, suckers," said the hippie. He adjusted his aim, shot once, adjusted, and shot once more. Coyote felt a stinging pain in his left foot and looked down at a smoking hole in the tongue of his Vans shoe. Old Man, shot in the ankle, began hollering and hopping about next to him. The tiny Trickster held one hand over his bleeding foot and another up in the air in a gesture of surrender.

Coyote ducked below the counter and pushed Old Man towards the front of the truck, out of the hippie's sights. That revolver held only six rounds—which the hippie had just used up.

"Start the truck!" snarled Coyote. He began mixing invisible ingredients into an invisible pot of soup before him, then stood up to his full height.

The hippie was dropping ammo all over the place, reloading his revolver. Coyote flung out his hands as if throwing this invisible pot of soup onto the hippie.

The invisible concoction landed on the hippie, and a queer expression crossed his face. "What beautiful, beautiful music," he murmured. The revolver dropped from numb fingers, and he began waltzing around in circles. "I can't help but dance to such beautiful music." He pirouetted on nimble toes in the cobblestone street.

The truck started with a roar, and Coyote grinned. "They don't call me Coyote the Songmaker for nothing, Sherlock," he said with a guttural laugh.

Coyote smelled something burning and sniffed the air. Something nearby was on fire. He shook his head. It was probably just a bonfire burning outside someone's fake colonial home. After all, this was eighteenth century-ville . . .

"Get us moving, Old Man! The crowd ran off, but there's still people around here somewhere! Let's just let 'em swarm over the truck and lick the beer off the floor!"

Old Man put the truck into first gear. But when it rolled . . . it didn't. There was a metallic screeching sound, and the vehicle lumbered to a halt in the street.

"Something's wrong!" yelled Old Man. "I think we've got a flat!"

Coyote snarled in annoyance and jumped down, landing nimbly on his feet despite his recent injury, which was already healing. They needed to find some human beings to drink this beer dribbling out of the truck and onto the road soon, or the boss would be pissed!

Ignoring the entranced Sir Arthur—who was still dancing in the streets, humming, his eyes closed in bliss—he checked the tires on the passenger side of the vehicle. The rubber was melted onto the rims. He walked around to the other side of the truck, cursing in a long-forgotten dialect, and was hit in the face by a punishing stream of flame equivalent to the breath of a fire-breathing dragon.

Yelping, Coyote fell to the street, his form flashing between human and animal. Old Man lay a few yards away, unmoving on the cobblestone. A dark, menacing figure stood over Coyote, but he could not make it out because it felt like his eyeballs had melted into his skull.

Captain Promo of the Eden Fire Department stood over the smoldering, whimpering Coyote, shaking his head. "A shame. And so much potential there, too."

"Indeed," said Sir Arthur, who no longer danced. His eyes were clear and collected, as if he had never been under the sway of the Song. "But let us withdraw, Prometheus, before your buddies arrive."

"Yeah, can't be caught out here," said Promo with a grin that only a Titan could pull off. "What would my earthly boss say if he knew I was setting things on fire in downtown Eden?"

Sir Arthur and Captain Promo departed the scene, each with a Trickster slung over their shoulders. When they were a hundred yards from the Palace, the flames found the gas tank, and the Olde Eden beer truck exploded, right in front of the just-arrived E.F.D. fire truck.

The blast took out a decorative brick wall and some hedges on the Governor's Palace's front lawn. The fire truck's paint blistered and peeled a little. There were no injuries.

## Chapter 22

## The Elm of False Dreams

"Almost there, boys!" called Stephone. "It's just beyond that ashy knoll!" She turned back around when the boys waved, returning to her animated discussion with Becky Thatcher. The two girls had become fast friends during the trek across Hades, chattering and giggling almost constantly.

Team Myth had not seen a moving entity since they departed the Grove of Persephone. The scenery was gray ash, topped with more gray ash, piled upon more gray ash. There was no sun in the Underworld, only a sourceless pinkish twilight that hung around like a dread wraith and sucked the life out of everything. The sky swirled with black clouds, funneling and churning, yet not the merest breeze blew across the surface of the vast, vacant dustbowl below.

Hades reeked of a mixture of spoiled eggs, charred flesh, and ancient, ingrained decay to which it was impossible to grow accustomed. When walking across the abyss, kicking up the ash—which stung like thousands of tiny, vindictive mosquitoes when it got into the lungs and eyes—was unavoidable. Stephone had borrowed a handful of bandannas from Sir Arthur, which Team Myth tied about their faces to prevent inhaling the choking particles.

Despite the monotonous terrain, Jack enjoyed talking to Tom along the way. Sure, at times it felt as though his brains had turned to liquid inside his head and would soon dribble out his ears from the constant chatter, but it had overall been quite entertaining. Tom first regaled Jack with tales of his and Huck and someone named Jim's adventures.

"Y'know, Mister Whiskey, this place kinda reminds me of the Sahara Desert."

"You've been to the Sahara?"

"Yup. Me and Huck and Jim traveled across the Great Desert, back when I was an erronort."

"Back when you were a what?"

"Back when I was an erronort."

"Tom, what the hell is an erronort? Sounds like some kind of bird."

"Well, they're airborne like birds, all right. Seriously, you ain't never heard of an erronort? The guys that ride around in the great big hot-air balloons?"

"Ah. You mean an aeronaut."

"That's what I said. An erronort."

"Er . . . right."

Jack, inundated with stories of adventure and fantasy, could hardly differentiate between what was true and what Tom had made up on the fly. During lulls in the stream of dialogue, Jack threw in a good number of his own comedic, and often rather disgusting (at least by modern standards), tales of his own and his Trickster buddies' past exploits.

Presently, Jack and Tom were yet again walking together, fifty yards behind the girls.

"Finally, we're getting somewhere! What d'you reckon this Elm'll be like, Mister Whiskey?"

"I don't know. But that mound up ahead is the first change in elevation I've seen since we started this endless hike, and that's gotta be a good sign."

"Say, what time is it, Earth-time, anyways?"

Jack pulled the pocket-watch given him by Sir Arthur from the cargo-pocket of his khakis and brought it to his ear. It was ticking, all right, but not nearly as fast as it had been on Earth; it seemed a good minute passed with each lallygagging click.

"It's ten till noon."

"That's it? Jeez, it feels like we been here for days."

"We have been here for days. Or at least it seems that way to us. But we've only been here about three hours, Earth-time."

The girls stopped at the summit of the dune and waited for the boys to catch up.

"Look!" said Stephone, pointing ahead. "The Elm of False Dreams!"

Jack's breath caught in his throat at the sight. The Elm was a paradigm of arbor-hood, with a midnight-black trunk. Millions of leaves, shimmering with a silver-white light, moved of their own accord about the Elm's branches, drifting from limb to limb, swirling around and about its trunk like sparkling otherworldly fireflies. Sometimes a glittering leaf would fall from the tree and disappear in a puff of smoke when it touched the desolate gray ash littering Hades.

But the Elm of False Dreams was not what robbed Jack of inhalation and scared him out of his ever-loving wits. That was the long ribbon of ebony evanescence flowing underneath the boughs of the Elm in a living river of darkness. He could feel the death-like cold emanating from the shadow-river from atop the hill—and it chilled him down to his Trickster essence.

"Wh-what the hell is that?" stuttered Jack.

"Those are the shades of the dead," said Stephone. "They are on their way to the shore of the Marsh to be ferried to Judgment." She scanned the distance, then peered up into the seething Stygian sky as if looking for someone.

Team Myth shadowed the shades to the Elm. The shades had slender limbs that seemed much longer than they should have been. Featureless humps of darkness rested upon their shifty, indistinct torsos. They flitted within their predetermined path, pulled to Judgment like moths to fluorescence, the more determined passing through the stragglers like the ghosts they were.

Team Myth trekked on. The Elm's trunk was acres wide and towered into the sky like the corpse of a skyscraper. The utter blackness of its bark was in starkest contrast to the silver leaves that fluttered between its branches like shooting stars taking their sweet time getting to wherever in the cosmos they were going.

Stephone dropped hands to hips and scanned the area. "Now where could he be?"

The leaves fell in a surreal mercury rain. Tom and Becky sat down, leaning against the trunk, giggling and trying to catch them before they dissipated into nothingness when they hit the ground. Jack stared upwards in awe. A descending Leaf landed on his forehead and tickled when it made contact with his skin. It disappeared in front of his eyes, and made him feel queasy inside.

"Wow," he said, wondering if the Leaf was now a part of him. "That is some weird shit."

"Boy, it sure is," said Tom. "If you pay attention close, you can see and hear . . . things. Flashes of images. Bits of conversation. Pieces of forgotten memories, mebbe."

"False hopes and dreams that shall never be," mumbled Becky, leaning on Tom's shoulder with half-closed eyelids. "They're so beautiful. And yet so terribly, terribly sad."

An almost narcotic melancholy descended upon Jack, and he dropped down and leaned on the Elm. The three of them sat there, looking up, transfixed by the falling leaves.

Then something big dropped through the Elm's boughs.

Tom jumped up, fumbling for his slingshot. The dog barked from Stephone's sleeve. Jack ripped his gaze from the Elm and attempted to focus. He lurched up, stumbled, and fell into the ashes with a WHUMP! He gazed up through bleary eyes and saw a billion blazing silver comets hurtling across the firmament.

"Jack!" yelled Stephone. "Can you hear me?" She turned away. "You might have to give him mouth to mouth, Hermy. I think the Elm's got him entranced."

Jack awoke with a start when this last statement registered with his sluggish brain. "No, wait! I'm . . . I'm okay," he said, not believing it himself but hoping it sounded convincing.

Jack was helped to his feet by many arms. Blinking, he glanced around at the concerned faces of Stephone, Tom, Becky—and someone else.

"Those False Dreams really knock it out of you, huh?" he said to no one in particular, then turned to face the newbie. The dark-haired stranger was tanned and muscular, his physique coinciding with what he was: a Greek god. He wore a Chicago Cubs baseball cap tilted sideways and a Kobe Bryant #10 USA Basketball jersey. From his neck dangled a gold-link chain with a diamond-encrusted pendant that bore an aesthetic amalgamation of the letters 'HMT'. His jeans sagged down well below his waist, and he sported brand new basketball shoes. A pair of foot-long white wings jutted from the sides of each shoe, protruding outwards into reality from the Swoop.

"Jack, this is Hermy," said Stephone.

"Say, you look just like this dude Mercury I met a few millenniums ago at the Worlds' Trickster Convention," said Jack. "You guys could be twins, actually."

Hermes/Mercury shrugged. "Hermes, Mercury, Thoth—I am none of them, I am each of them, and I am all of them. Above all, I am myself. Check it, yo: the Romans, when they conquered the Greeks, assimilated their mythology into their own. Often, not having much of a creative vibe, they simply renamed the Greek gods. Example A: the fair Persephone here is Proserpina. Zeus and Jupiter are one and the same, Dionysus is Bacchus, Hera be Juno. The list goes on, down to the most worthless deity in the Greek-Roman Pantheon, which in my opinion would be Priapus aka Viagra, the ancient Greek god of erectile dysfunction. As to why erectile dysfunction needs its own god . . . let's just say I couldn't tell you truthfully and keep a straight face."

A moment of thoughtful silence ensued, which no one seemed inclined to break.

"Anyways, back to the elementary school lesson. This crusty old Underworld was originally ancient Greek, but nowadays it's modeled mostly from Virgil's Aeneid, which has the best descriptions of the place of any of the olden classics extant. If other texts are uncovered with some new info on this depressing-ass World of Myth, it'll change to match as the new knowledge spreads across the Key World. That or spawn different versions of itself into infinity. But we don't wanna go there or we'd be here for years. Oh, and Virgil was a Roman dude, in case you didn't know that already."

Jack was confused. "So you and Mercury are—technically speaking, of course—the same person—I mean, the same god—deity—mythological being, that is."

Hermes/Mercury played his fingers across the diamonds on his pendant. "That's right, Trickster. Mythos change form and essence all the time. They merge and combine. They split into twos, threes, fours, and sometimes more than that. Straight up, these days you never really know who's who in the Worlds of Myth without straight up asking a bitch: 'Yo, who the hell are you, muthafucka!?' Shit, these days you might as well call me the ancient Greek god of"—his deep voice went sing-song and he grabbed his crotch—"playaaaaaaaaaaaaaas." With his other hand he pantomimed a gun, which he pointed at Jack's head like this was a stickup.

"Uh, right," said Jack, and Hermes dropped the guns—both of them.

Unsure as to whether or not this strange, jive-talking mytho was right in the head, Jack glanced at Stephone, who shrugged and smiled.

"So," said Hermes, stretching his bronzed arms in leisurely fashion, "you kids ready to roll?"

Jack sighed. "More walking across desolate, featureless wasteland it is."

A rogue's smile spread across Hermes's chiseled features. "Walking, you say?" He chuckled. "Nobody's walking anywhere, amigo. Don't you see my stylin' kicks? They're the new Air Jordans—modified, of course." The messenger god busted out a moonwalk, kicking dust into Jack's eyes. "Homie, I got wings." He stomped his feet, the wings attached to his shoes began flapping, and he levitated into the air. He extended his arms skyward, kicked once, and flew through the boughs of the Elm and up into the sky like an ancient Greek Superman, trailing a wake of silver leaves. Five seconds later he was hovering before them once more, as if he had never left.

Jack was impressed; he'd always wanted to be able to fly. He recalled an ancient incident involving himself, some wings, and some geese. "Yeah, but there's four of us and only one of you," he said, thinking of his failed flights of long ago. "We all can't just ride on your back, can we?" He really hoped they couldn't.

"You won't be riding on my back," said Hermes, smirking. "I've got four limbs, and there's four of you—perfect combination, right?"

"You can't be serious! Can you hold us all without dropping us?"

Hermes gave a telling snort, his shoe-wings flapping as though impatient to get into the sky. "You can hold on, one to a limb, while I fly. And if you fall, well . . . you'll survive. It might hurt like an effing bee-atch, but you'll survive."

"Why don't we just walk it?" gulped Jack, giddiness running through his veins. "Maybe the landscape will get a bit more, well, better, as we go along."

Stephone placed a reassuring hand on his arm. "Jack, we have to destroy that Hoppy Heaven Ale and get back to the Key World as soon as possible. Hermes can take us to the edge of the Acheron, and from there we'll walk the last few miles to the dock."

Jack gulped again, then swallowed down his fear (it tasted like beery vomit). "Well, okay, I guess. But if I fall to my extremely painful non-death, I'm gonna be very, very angry."

The girls grasped Hermes's biceps, the boys each grabbed ahold of a winged Air Jordan and a muscled ankle—a much more precarious position by far, thought Jack—and Team Myth sailed off into the forlorn gray yonder.

## Chapter 23

## Vast Emptiness, Nothing Holy

Huck encouraged caution as they approached the Olde Eden Brewery, but the headstrong Zen master would have none of it, and boldly floated across the empty parking lot, around the cordoned-off Taphouse, and right on up the loading dock steps to the back door of the place. Huck and Sitting Lotus followed with nervous glances all around.

So far, all was clear. Since the fire, traffic of any kind in the area of the brewery was low. Huck had figured it would be just the opposite, with fire marshals and paparazzi all over the place, but apparently "Farmer John" had powerful friends.

"You see this here?" said Master Mirbodi. He bent and picked up a few grains of a sandy substance spread in a thin line across the threshold of the door.

"Yeah, but what is it?" said Huck, and reached out a hand to touch the powder on Master Mirbodi's fingers. When he made contact, a searing electric pain shot through him, and he jerked his hand back. "Ow-oocch!" he said through a mouthful of fingers. "Say, that's the same thing I felt earlier when I tried to jump in the window. Is that stuff some kinda magic powder?"

Master Mirbodi grinned. "It cornmeal."

"Cornmeal?! You mean like what people make cornbread and tortillas outta?"

"One and same," said the monk, chuckling. "But this special cornmeal. Yeah, it kenned-up good. It ancient Hopi custom to spread lines of enchanted cornmeal like this around houses and villages on nights when evil kachina spirits emerge from dark places to walk Earth and haunt men. It believed unholy spirits cannot pass over magic cornmeal." He shrugged. "Obviously, legends true."

"But I ain't no evil spirit! I'm one of the good guys here!"

Master Mirbodi raised a cornmeal-covered finger. "Yes, but this Masaaw's doing. He make magical cornmeal so no mythological being can pass over. Powerful stuff, this. Of course, it have no effect on human beings."

"But what are we s'posed to do now?" asked Huck, staring entranced at Master Mirbodi's dusty digit. "I can't let you two go in there alone!"

"Oh, that easy," said Master Mirbodi. From within his patchwork robes he produced a whisk broom like a baseball umpire uses to sweep off home plate between innings, and proceeded to brush aside the cornmeal spread before the door in precise, unhurried motions. "We all go inside and check up on skeleton man."

And the old monk ripped down the fire tape and strolled into the darkness that congregated inside the Olde Eden Brewery. An excited Huck Finn and a jittery Sitting Lotus followed suit.

The brewery's interior was lit by an unearthly azure glow that glinted off the dark, silent brewing machines. The wan phosphorescence seemed to emanate from everywhere and nowhere; it did not come from the halogen lights in the ceiling, which were off. Stacked in one corner of the warehouse-sized building was a ceiling-high pyramid of boxes of Olde Eden beer.

"Hm," said Master Mirbodi. "Nobody home, I guess."

A deep, guttural laughter rumbled upwards from the floor of the brewery, shaking the walls and rattling the brewing machines. The temperature dropped by numberless degrees, and the sourceless light flickered and grew dim, as if they had entered another, darker world—a Spirit World, perhaps.

Masaaw appeared out of thin air in the center of the brewery in skeleton form, bonfires raging within the hollows of his eye-sockets. "I have been expecting you, monk." He clacked his teeth. "I have been eagerly awaiting a rematch."

Master Mirbodi shrugged and indicated his companions to stand aside. They grabbed impromptu seats on boxes of beer. Huck wanted desperately to help Master Mirbodi, but he did not wish to upset the monk's plan in any way, shape, or form. Sitting Lotus was more than content to remain out of the way, but he was worried for his master, evidenced by his unsettled eyes.

Master Mirbodi clasped his hands together and bowed to the skeleton man, who swung a foot at the monk's unprotected head. But the kick never reached its destination. Without seeming to move, Master Mirbodi ducked and smacked a femur with an open palm. Masaaw went flying sideways like he had been hit by a dump-truck and hit the brewery floor skull-first with a crack of bone. One of the skeleton man's ribs broke off in the tumble and went skittering across the room. The bone began moving of its own accord, inching its way across the floor, then levitated from the ground, swooshed across the brewery, and reattached itself to Masaaw.

The skeleton man scrambled to his feet and leered at Master Mirbodi. "All you do is turn my own attacks against me! Come on, old man! (FIGHT ME FOR REAL!)"

Masaaw came at Master Mirbodi with a sequence of lightning-like punches, which the old monk deflected without effort; none of the blows even came close to connecting. He then jumped to deliver a sweeping roundhouse kick to Master Mirbodi's head.

This time Masaaw went floundering into the bottling machine, where he ended up on the floor in a jumble of broken glass and scattered bones.

Masaaw quickly reformed and, whole once more, jumped to his foot-bones. He came at Master Mirbodi again, fists and feet flying. Sitting Lotus could not make out any individual attack; it was more like a hundred attacks at once. The old monk backed up a step, reacting without thinking (utterly Zen-like, the novice observed) to the frenzied offensive.

Then Master Mirbodi jumped straight up in the air, gaining thirty feet of altitude like a geriatric Asian Spiderman giving it one last go. He touched the brewery ceiling with outstretched hands—and Sitting Lotus, looking up, saw Master Mirbodi's "legs" for the first time.

Master Mirbodi twisted in the air and hurled himself earthwards. Masaaw tried to get out of the way of the Zen Monk Missile, but too late. Master Mirbodi led with both fists and landed in a direct hit atop the skeleton man's skull. Masaaw was driven into the brewery floor like a big-headed bone-nail, to where only his skull remained visible.

The kung-fu master bounced off Masaaw and landed on his feet. He clasped his hands together and bowed to his defeated opponent.

The skeleton man's fiery eyes went muted. "You have defeated me. Again. You are an Eternal, yet you have powers that dwarf my own—and I'm no slouch among mythos! How is this so? Eternals don't have supernormal powers. It is as if you have transcended humanity and become something . . . else. Who are you, monk? (TELL ME NOW!)"

"I no know why you try that Death Voice on me any more," said Master Mirbodi, picking dirt from underneath a fingernail. "You no yet realize it no gonna work?"

"Yeah, I guess I should have realized it by now," grumbled Masaaw. "But as you can see I have an amazingly thick skull. And you're one of the few beings I've encountered, human or mytho, upon whom my Voice of Death has no effect. How do you do it?"

"I see all forms, I hear all sounds, I know all thoughts. I know all previous existences of every sentient being in existence, be they human or mythical or something else. I know end of rebirth, and I am everywhere and anywhere I wish to be, for I realize there no such thing as 'I'."

"Well, that about covers it, doesn't it?" muttered Masaaw. "But that still does not tell me who you are. You are no ordinary Buddhist monk."

Before Master Mirbodi could answer, a voice from the vicinity of the mountain of twelve-packs stated, "I know who he is."

All eyes turned to Sitting Lotus.

"Do you, novice?" asked the Zen master.

Sitting Lotus stared wide-eyed at Master Mirbodi. "When you jumped up and bounced off the ceiling like in some old-school kung-fu movie, I saw your legs! Or I didn't see your . . ." He pointed a quivering finger at Master Mirbodi. "But it can't be . . . can it? You can't really be him. It's just not possible. You'd be over fifteen hundred years old. And you have eyelids!"

"I surprised to hear you talking about what possible and not possible after what you see last few days," admonished the Zen master.

"He can't be who?" inquired Huck. "And what do legs and eyelids have to do with anything?"

Sitting Lotus took a deep breath and said, "In the sixth century CE, the 28th Patriarch left India and traveled east to spread the word of Buddhism in China. People there already knew of the dharma, but the monks were more interested in reading scriptures, chanting sutras, praying to bodhisattvas, building temples, and lining their pockets with temple donations than applying the teachings of the World Honored One to their daily lives.

"The Emperor Wu invited the respected monk to give His Eminence a personal dharma talk at the palace. When the 28th Patriarch stood before him, the Emperor Wu said: 'I have built monasteries and temples, and I have donated an emperor's ransom in the support of Buddhism. I have decreed the ordination of countless monks, and I have printed thousands of sutras for distribution among the public. How much karmic merit have I built up doing all these wonderful things?' The 28th Patriarch answered: 'Doing these things have accumulated you no merit whatsoever.' The Emperor Wu was taken aback by this and said, 'So what, then, is the highest and greatest truth of Buddhism, since you are obviously so knowledgeable?' The 28th Patriarch replied: 'Vast emptiness, nothing holy.' This nonsensical reply perturbed the Emperor to even greater depths, and he said: 'So who is standing before me right now? Are you truly a sage, or are you just an ordinary man?' The 28th Patriarch—raising his open hands and shrugging, perhaps—answered: 'Hell if I know.' The Emperor Wu then threw this impertinent monk out of his palace. The 28th Patriarch dusted himself off, shrugged, and went on his way.

"It is said he went north, to a cave in the mountains near Shaolin Monastery"—Sitting Lotus's eyebrows went up and down, up and down—"where he sat meditating, staring at a wall, for nine years straight. This exercise was dubbed 'wall-meditation,' and it is one of the staples of practice at the monastery where I have lived for the past ten years, a sect-less monastery that has a rather bare-bones approach to Zen." He stared over at Master Mirbodi, who winked at him. "It has long been debated as to whether or not the 28th Patriarch's legs atrophied and . . . fell off . . . during this long period of time doing nothing but sitting zazen."

Sitting Lotus fell silent, and his face grew thoughtful. He stood and stared at Master Mirbodi, who beamed around at everyone and everything in the room.

"Good story, novice. A classic, for sure."

"Okay," said Huck. "But what about this eyelids thing?"

"Sometime before his nine-year wall-meditation session," said Sitting Lotus, "the 28th Patriarch was having trouble staying awake during zazen. Desperate for a solution to this, he proceeded to cut off his eyelids so they would not droop while he was meditating. Not long after his sacred eyelids hit the ground, strange new plants began to grow from the soil. This new vegetation was the first tea plant, and since that day Buddhists have prepared tea in order to stay awake and maintain concentration during meditation."

"Okay," said Huck. "Eyelids. Check. But what is the name of the by now infamous 28th Patriarch? This guy here, this all-powerful monk standing before me, grinning like a Trickster."

"It is said the 28th Patriarch died when he was one-hundred and fifty years old," replied Sitting Lotus. "He was entombed in China at Tingling Temple. Three years later, a government official traveling in the central Asian mountains on business happened to cross paths with a laughing, wild-eyed monk whom he recognized quite well. This monk was carrying a staff from which hung a single sandal, and he told the official he was returning to India to continue to spread the true dharma. This monk was none other than the 28th Patriarch, dead and buried three years ago. The official's story aroused enough curiosity among the monks of the time that they found reason to open the 28th Patriarch's tomb. And when they did, his remains were nowhere to be found. The only thing in the tomb was a single sandal."

Sitting Lotus's eyes locked onto Master Mirbodi, who met his gaze with gleeful, dancing orbs. "You have no legs, Master Mirbodi, and you have the True Dharma Eye. You are the first outright, in-your-face teacher and promoter of Zen. You are Bodhidharma, the 28th Patriarch of Indian Buddhism, who became the 1st Patriarch of Chinese Ch'an—which eventually became Japanese Zen—Buddhism."

"He has no legs?" spluttered Masaaw. "But how is that possible? I mean, I've taken kicks to the face from this guy!"

Master Mirbodi grinned. "Humans and mythos often see or feel what they expect to see or feel, rather than what really there."

"Siddhartha's sacred sandals!" Sitting Lotus smacked himself in the forehead. "Your name! Master Mirbodi, full name Mirbodi Madhaha! Mirbodi Madhaha!" He danced around like a kid in a candy store. "M - I - R - B - O - D - I - M \- A - D - H - A - H - A. Ha-ha, indeed, Master! Shuffle the letters of your name around, and what do you get? I - A - M - B - O - D - H \- I - D - H - A - R - M – A. It's an anagram!"

"Yeah, I just change letters of name around and nobody even suspect I Bodhidharma because they all think I dead long time ago."

"You're like me," said Sitting Lotus. "You must have somehow imbibed six pints of the Water of Life and become immortal."

"An Eternal," supplied Masaaw. "A human being who has ingested enough of the Water of Life to live forever is called an Eternal."

Sitting Lotus sat down on a pile of twelve-packs and stared off into space. "Bodhidharma, the one who came from the West," he mumbled. "A millennium-and-a-half-old living legend. Un-fricking-believable. "

"I closer to millennium and six-tens. I born in year 440 C.E. going by Western calendar." Master Mirbodi shrugged. "But you only as old as you feel, and I feel like man in prime of life. I teach kung-fu for long time, do much zazen, and stay in shape physically and mentally."

"Ah, yes," said Sitting Lotus. "Kung-fu. Bodhidharma is also credited with the invention of martial arts, which he brought to China along with Zen. Master, is this true? Did you invent kung-fu? Is that why you're so obsessed with instructing those kids in the ancient art?"

"When I first arrive at Shaolin Monastery in China, I see many out-of-shape monks, sitting around reading scriptures all day while monastery falling apart around heads, debating insignificant points of dharma till tongues near falling out. I start exercise regimen called 'Eighteen Hands of Lohan' so they able to meditate longer and gain strength to fix place up. And back then you never know when barbarians drop by for pillage and plunder, so now fat guys can defend selves. From 'Eighteen Hands' develop modern kung-fu." The ancient monk shrugged, as if it didn't really matter. "Nowadays I only teach kids light kung-fu, with heavy dose of Zen throw in. And hey, maybe I good kung-fu guy, but I no wanna poop my own horn, if you know what I saying."

This brought a series of strange looks from Sitting Lotus, Masaaw, and Huck. Seeing that his words did not have the intended effect, Master Mirbodi added, "Arrogance no very Zen-like."

Sitting Lotus shook his head to dislodge the remnants of the terrible vision: the Zen master taking a dump in a tuba. "I just can't believe I've been learning Zen from the guy who first brought Zen to China—a direct dharma descendant of the Buddha, twenty-eight generations removed!" Irony seeped from Sitting Lotus's grin. "You'd think I'd be a little further along in my studies, wouldn't you?"

"Well, novice, perhaps this motivate when you assigned next koan." Master Mirbodi looked down at Masaaw. "Now, Trickster, I got couple questions for you."

"Ask away," replied the skeleton man. "In action I shall be of no use to you, for I have no choice but to do what the Unseen One tells me. That's why I attacked you and Whiskey Jack at the Dojo yesterday. Hades's orders. He wanted me to send you two to the Spirit World, out of his hair." Masaaw paused. "But after he gave the order, as I was walking away, he grabbed my elbow and told me not to let the children witness the final deed. At the time, I found that distinctly out of character for the diabolical bastard."

Nobody spoke for a moment.

"But now," said Masaaw, breaking the silence, "any information you need I shall be more than willing to give, for he cannot control what I think, say, or believe without giving me a direct order."

"So you no wanna help him, then?" asked Master Mirbodi.

"By no means!" bellowed Masaaw. "I have no desire to see the end of the world. But the Unseen One assured me that my people will be spared and live in the next reality in eternal peace."

"Unseen One lie to you. If this reality end, Time be no more. There be nothing and nobody left, human or mytho or anything, only Buddha-space." Master Mirbodi's stare pierced Masaaw. "But you know this already."

A sigh whistled through Masaaw's exposed teeth. "Yes. I know it. But at the time I did not want to acknowledge it. The Unseen One is a manipulator, and he played on my role as Guardian of my people. When he first told me of his plans, I figured I'd just get it over with and help him out with his lunatic plan, and nothing would happen. No end of the universe. But now . . . I just don't know.

"I tried to alert my blood-brother Whiskey Jack to my predicament. I fired him from Colonial Eden and gave him a six-pack of Hoppy Heaven Ale to try and wake him back up to real, mythical life. He's an old friend, and I thought he might have been able to help me out. But he was a little . . . dense at the time. The Unseen One discovered what I had done, and ordered me to never speak of these matters to Whiskey Jack." His constant skeletal grin widened. "But you guys aren't him."

"And how Unseen One got control of you?"

Masaaw's eyes sputtered like dying embers. "He has my kopavi."

This brought stares of incomprehension from Huck and Sitting Lotus, but Master Mirbodi was unperturbed. "You say Hades has skull-bone? How this happen?"

"Well, I was going about the daily paperwork and filing and bureaucratic management that goes with being President and C.E.O. of the Spirit World. I absolutely love paperwork . . ." Masaaw let out a heartfelt sigh before continuing. "Anyway, I received a report from an assistant kachina that living beings were getting into the Spirit World—you'd be amazed how often that sort of thing happens—so I went out into the field to check it out. But when I got to where I was told the rip in the fabric of the World's reality had occurred, everything was as it should have been. I was on my way back to the office to demote a few assistant kachinas when I was way-laid by the Unseen One and a sleepy-looking fellow with giant white wings attached to the sides of his face. Before I could react, Wing-face blew this trumpet in my face. I got disoriented, and passed out. The last thing I remember was the Unseen One standing over me, laughing." Fires flared up within his eye-sockets. "When I awoke, I was in the Throne Room of the Unseen Palace, and my kopavi was missing. Look!" He inclined his head, and a two-inch diameter circle of bone was missing from the apex of his skull. "It is the most powerful bone in the body. My people call it the kopavi, 'the open door on top of the head.' The Hopi believe that, when mind and heart are open wide, a man or woman has the ability to communicate with the Creator through this 'open door.' As I am Protector of the Hopi, the dreamers of this myth, my kopavi is the source of my power. Without it, I cannot access my ken to its full extent."

Sitting Lotus had no clue as to what Masaaw meant by this, but Master Mirbodi nodded and Huckleberry Finn murmured in sympathy.

"Anyway, the Unseen One cast powerful ken on my kopavi, binding me to him in deed. And now I must obey any direct command given me by the twisted bastard. Even now, I am worming my way out of the floor. When I do, be prepared, for I will have no choice but to attack you again. The Unseen One ordered me to protect the beer and the brewery, and that is what I must do."

Master Mirbodi shrugged. "You know where he keep kopavi?"

"No. Either on his person or locked away somewhere deep in his Underworld domain, I would guess."

"We see what we can do to get skull-bone back. If we do, you help us?"

"I would be glad to help if you can free me from this foul enchantment." Masaaw spat fire in frustration. The flames snaked across the brewery floor before sputtering out.

"Okay," said Master Mirbodi. "But what about other Tricksters? They enchanted, too?"

"No. I control the Tricksters, in accordance with the Unseen One's wishes. You must understand, we Tricksters have a mankind-given knack for getting into trouble, oftentimes so much that we end up dead. When these guys would show up in my Spirit World, I would usually just give 'em a free pass back to the land of the living and point them in the direction of the sipapuni. So I waited around for a bit, and sure enough, one by one the Tricksters come trickling into the Spirit World. But I told them that this time their free ride back to life was gonna cost 'em. I would let them come back to Earth on one condition: they work for me this time around." Masaaw hissed in frustration. "And I work for the Unseen One. The Tricksters signed a Trickster Blood Contract, which cannot be broken."

"Uh-huh. And there any way to break enchantment without recovering skull-bone?"

"No. The only way is to return me my kopavi. If you can do that, the other Tricksters and I will be on your side. It is not in our nature to destroy the world; we like to play in it too much for that."

"Where rest of Hoppy Heaven Ale stored?"

"I know there is an additional mass storage spot somewhere in town, but I do not know its exact location. The Unseen One tells each of us the bare minimum needed to work his will. However, I do know that he has scattered that beer around town in every last bar, gas station, grocery, liquor store, and restaurant. To find it all, you have your work cut out for you."

"All right, one last thing. Can we borrow some cornmeal?"

A small deerskin pouch popped into existence atop Masaaw's skull. The flames within the skeleton man's eyes danced. "What cornmeal?"

Master Mirbodi grabbed the sack from Masaaw's cranium, and it vanished into his patchwork robes. At the same time a splintering, groaning noise issued from the brewery floor.

"I have no wish to fight any more!" said Masaaw. "Go! Please!"

"Sure thing," said Master Mirbodi. "Catch you later, kachina man."

"Yeah, but what about the Hoppy Heaven Ale?" asked Huck. "We gotta destroy it somehow or other!"

"Oh, I got that covered." Master Mirbodi turned and gazed at the mountain of twelve-packs. He snapped his fingers, and there was a sound like a million bottles breaking in unison—which was just what happened. Bottles of beer shattered in their cases, and a torrent of liquid gushed from the soggy cardboard mass.

The Zen master glanced, almost as an afterthought, at the beer vats in the opposite corner of the brewery, and snapped his fingers again. The portholes on the sides of the machines exploded outwards and went flying into the opposite wall with a series of deafening clangs. The brewery floor soon turned into a lake of sticky, foamy adult beverage. Masaaw's skull was quickly lost to view in the frothy sea.

Sitting Lotus stared in shock at the wet wreckage that had moments ago been the Olde Eden Brewery, holding the hem of his robe up above his knees. The beer was already up to his shins, and rising fast. Tendrils of cardboard floated in the morass like soggy brown lily-pads. "How did you do that, Master? Was it . . . magic?"

"I no do magic, novice. I do Mind. Mind penetrate everywhere, from the Buddha-lands to the sixteen lesser hells. Mind see all worlds because Mind is all worlds, especially Worlds of Myth."

"Say, that's from The Bloodstream Sermon, isn't it?" asked Sitting Lotus, looking thoughtful. "I've always wondered if you actually wrote that. It's a hotly debated topic in Zen circles, as I'm sure you know. So . . . did you?"

But Master Mirbodi just grinned at him.

Sitting Lotus left it at that, and the three companions walked out of the Olde Eden Brewery and into the blazing noontime Virginia sunshine, leaving Masaaw to wallow in the beer.

As they trundled down Colonial Towne Road, Huck turned to Master Mirbodi. "So how is it you still have eyelids, Master? Is the tea myth not true?"

Master Mirbodi's eyes twinkled, as if he had been expecting the question. "It true as any myth. Eyelid kinda like toenail. You cut it off, it grow back." He grinned. "Maybe."

## Chapter 24

## Sorrow, Hatred, Fire, Lamentation

Team Myth touched down on the bank of the Acheron. The long flight had been utterly uneventful, the utterly desolate and utterly boring landscape unworthy of utterance.

Hermes posed in heroic fashion, floating above their heads. "Well, my piz-eoples, I gotta biz-ounce outta this joint. Duty calls, ya dig? Trust me, though, it's been real."

To Persephone, he said, "Catch you later, my favorite sister."

He looked at Jack and said, "I'll be seeing you soon, blood-brother. You and me are made of the same soul-fiber, if ya know what I'm sprayin'."

"Take it light, you crazy kids," he added, addressing Tom and Becky—and then Hermes was gone, his flapping Air Jordans taking him into the sky and away.

While the others chatted of the upcoming Marsh crossing, Jack strolled over to take a closer look at the Acheron. The crystal-clear water of the River of Sorrow flowed past at a steady rate. Aside from the ashy, flora-less banks, it seemed just like any old Earthly river. But then he heard something coming from underneath the water.

He took a step closer, and the faint sound turned into millions of voices crying out in incoherent sorrow—the voices of devils, angels, lost gods, damned souls, hungry ghosts—all blubbering and blabbering and crying out with indescribable woe. Jack walked to the edge of the Acheron and looked down into the water.

Ghostly ovoids flitted through the River—distorted human faces with blurred visages locked in terrible, tortured expressions. These liquid specters were there for a moment and then gone, swept along by the current, but more unfailingly took their place. It was as if these watery wraiths recognized Jack, for he could make out, above the wailing, voices choked with anguish.

(Wesakaychak . . .) they breathed.

(Whiskey Jack, Jack Whiskey . . .) they gurgled.

(Save us . .) they hissed and bubbled.

(Sadness is our essence. Sorrow is our substance. Come, Trickster, touch the water, and save us from our fate. Reach out your hand. Touch the River. Save us from eternal suffering. Only you can break our bonds of sorrow. Save us, Wesakaychak. Save us, Trickster. Save usssssssssssssssssssss . . .)

Hearing the soul-penetrating sadness permeating the voices, Jack was about to do just that and touch the water (after all, it was a small thing to do to keep somebody from suffering in eternal torment) when he felt a delicate but firm touch on his arm.

"Don't do it, Jack," said Stephone. "If you touch that water, you won't be saving anybody. You will merely join those shades that have merged with the Acheron, and share their fate: cursed to be the ghost of a memory, trapped forever more within the River of Sorrow."

Jack froze, and his body trembled under some unseen stress. With considerable effort, he pulled his hand back. When he did so, a male voice with a rather watery sound to it exclaimed, (Godsdamnit! Foiled again!)

The voice died away, and Jack asked, "So does everything around here enchant you and/or try to trick you into joining it in its eternal suffering?"

Stephone laughed. "Yeah, just about. Nothing in the Underworld is what it seems. Hey, but if you move a little ways away from the shore, the weeping and wailing grows fainter." They did just that, and Stephone added, "That last voice was the god Acheron, cursed to dwell in the Underworld as a hellish River. Acheron sided with the Titans during their battle with Zeus and the new gods for the cosmos—not as a fighter, but as a water-boy. He would bring water to quench the Titans' thirst after battle. Zeus figured it was a suitable punishment for him to be cursed to be a River for the rest of eternity for his so-called war crimes, since he was so fond of water." She let out a hollow chuckle. "My father is quite the calculating, vindictive guy, huh?"

"Sure sounds like it," said Jack, not sure how far he should take this line of conversation, considering this was her daddy they were talking about. "So where do we go from here?" he asked to change the subject.

She pointed downriver. "We follow the flow of the Acheron. A little ways down the River turns into foul, brackish Marshland, where the Cocytus and the Phlegethon meet the Styx and the Acheron. The Ferryman of the Dead is the only one who knows the correct route across the dangerous swamp, which is an amalgamation of all the hellish Underworld Rivers."

Jack stared at the River of Sorrow, which had resumed its weeping and wailing and pleading, though now it cried and moaned with a bit less gusto, as if it had realized there was no hope with this group of travelers. "So are we ready to go? I like this depressing River less and less with each passing moment. It makes me want to cry just looking at it."

"The Underworld is a very sad place," said Stephone. "Except for the Elysian Fields, of course."

"Yeah, you mentioned those before. What are they like?"

"They're like no other place in all the Worlds of Myth. And you will see them." She grinned at him. "I'll take you there for a little R n' R after all of this is over."

Jack hoped this would come to pass, and that this whole apocalyptic fiasco would be over soon. Despite being a goddess of death, Stephone pulled strings in his heart that he hadn't even known were there before he met her. He was looking forward to some alone time with her—the sooner, the better.

"All right, let's go," said Stephone, clapping her hands. "We need to get across the Marsh."

The companions murmured in agreement and walked on, following the flow of the weeping, wailing Acheron.

The Stygian Marsh bubbled and gurgled and sludged about, as if sentient and pissed off that it was what it was. A gray fog sat over the swamp, caressing the brackish water with the wispy kisses of a dead lover. Dessicated trees peppered the darker reaches of the bog, their leafless branches pointing askance like the dry, cracked fingers of skeletons. A familiar sobbing grated against the mind: the million voices of the Acheron, the River of Sorrow. Other voices howled in anger, cursing in dead, forgotten languages: the Styx, the River of Hatred. Fires burned upon the Marsh, sometimes ignting a tree, which would flare up as though doused in gasoline and burn a sickly green-orange: the Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Bloodless arms reached up from the morass—rotting, decayed, pockmarked—upon which were scores of blinking eyes and gaping mouths that gnashed their teeth and spoke of dark, mournful deeds committed long ago: the Cocytus, the River of Lamentation.

Over the general cacophony, it was impossible to make out any specific yells, wails or sobs.

Up ahead, Jack observed a boat made of gnarled, twisted black wood pulling into a rickety dock that jutted out from the shoreline. The craft was nothing more than a large black canoe with a rippling black sail of intestine-like sinew, unadorned with insignia.

As ferry approached shore, a murmur, like a foul wind of death, ran through the assembled shades.

(Passssssage . . .)

(Passssssssssssage . . .)

(Passssssssssssssssssage . . .)

There seemed to be a billion of the immaterial beings milling about the Marsh's bank, awaiting passage across the water to Judgment.

"Jeez, that's a lot of shades," said Jack. "I'm surprised so many people still end up here. I kind of figured this old Underworld was a bit out of vogue on the afterlife scene these days."

"Oh, it is," said Stephone. "But the King of the Dead has a deal worked out with fundamentalist Christian hell—which is seriously overcrowded with all those Hindus, pagans, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, atheists, and the like—to take on souls. It's similar to the state of Virginia agreeing to take in criminals from overcrowded Texas prisons for a fee."

Jack remained silent for a long moment. "Ye gods. Really?"

Stephone smiled. "No, just kidding."

Jack ginned at her. Stephone's eyes sparkled as she looked ahead. "Now let's get over there to Charon before he departs for the far shore. Of course, he'll know I'm coming when he sees Herby."

The rat-sized pup had jumped from Stephone's sleeve and now scampered along the shore, yipping and yapping and dodging shades, her eyes locked on the figure of the boatman and his dark vessel.

"What kind of dog is that, anyways?" asked Jack. "It can't weight more than ten pounds."

"Six pounds, thirteen ounces, actually," said Stephone. "She's a Sleeve Pekingese."

To get to the dock they had to walk through the mass of shades. Jack put up a halfhearted complaint or two, then held Stephone's hand and allowed himself to be led through the writhing, whispering darkness. It was weird, because the shades would drift around them like smoke and reform behind after Team Myth passed. They soon broke through the sea of the departed and walked up to the dock.

"Charon!" said Stephone. "How have you been, old friend? I see you have once again appropriated my little Herby as your own."

Charon smiled at Stephone from the boat (Jack shuddered). He stroked the dog behind the ears, and Herby's tail wagged as if possessed by demons of blissful happiness. He whispered to Herby, talking in a baby-voice, steadily handing the pup tiny bacon and egg shaped dog-biscuits. "Oo're so cute, Herby, I could just eat oo right on up!"

The Ferryman of the Dead wore a hooded black cassock and clutched a gondolier's stick in his pasty fingers. His skin was tinted bluish-gray. He had the hooked nose of a vulture, long pointy ears, and tusks that jutted from his lower lip to the cheeks of his mottled face. Burning red eyes were buried within bushy black eyebrows, which merged into a tangled mass of beard on his cheeks. A pair of dagger-like horns poked from his forehead, reaching upwards to the featureless Hades sky.

Jack was indeed expecting Charon at any moment to pop Herby into his mouth like a tiny canine hors d'oeuvre, a Pekingese amuse bouche.

The waterlogged wood squished under their feet as Team Myth strolled onto the dock. The shades remained onshore, as if they had to be invited to step onto the rotten wooden planking.

Charon planted his stick in the mud and tied off the boat. From the craft, he bowed to Stephone, arose, and grinned (the bile in Jack's throat rose). "My Queen, it is good to see you. And Herby, of course. Cerby and I miss her—and yourself, as well—greatly."

"I know, old friend. I'm truly sorry, but you know my situation."

"I know, I know," sighed Charon. "It's just that I miss my widdle puppy-wuppy when she's gone!" He cooed at Herby for a while. Then he seemed to remember there were others present and glanced up at Jack, Tom, and Becky with curious eyes (Jack restrained himself from crossing his fingers to ward off evil). "And who are your fine-looking friends?"

Introductions were made. Despite his repulsive appearance, Charon seemed like a real nice guy.

"How can I assist you, my Queen?" inquired the Ferryman. "Do you need to borrow some money? All I've got is loose quarters, but I've got a galactic landfill's worth of 'em stashed away in a hole in Tartarus. You can have as many as you want. They'll give you cash for 'em if you roll 'em up and take 'em to the bank. Me, I just don't have the time for that sort of thing." He sighed. "No, I must ferry these shades across the Marsh—back and forth, back and forth, forever and ever, until this World fades away into the Void."

"No, no, Charon, it's nothing like that," said Stephone, bemused. "We just need to get across the Marsh."

Charon's face fell, causing his beady black eyes to vanish into the skin-folds on his face. "Oh," he said in a disappointed voice. "Is that all? I should've known. Nobody ever comes just to visit with me."

"Maybe next time, old friend. So can you take us across?"

The Ferryman of the Dead shrugged. "Sure."

A heartfelt smile broke across Stephone's face. "Thank you, Charon. I knew we could count on you. Next time I need a dog-sitter, you know I'm calling you."

Charon bowed with a flourish, black robes swirling. "Then step aboard my dark vessel, my friends. The shades can wait here for all I care. In the broad scope of things, to them a few more hours is like a single grain of sand that drifts through the endless waters of the Ocean of Myth."

Team Myth boarded the boat.

"Y'know, Mister Charon, I'm a boatman meself," said Tom Sawyer, looking around the vessel with approval. "I'd love to come down here sometime and ride the Rivers of the Underworld! Now, d'you think that can be arranged?"

Charon was quiet for a moment, then gladness dawned on his face like a sunrise over hell. "I think that could be arranged." He peered at Tom with an appraising eye. "I knew from the start you were a river-man. You've got the look—and I've read your books."

The two river-men began a conversation that soon became incomprehensible to those listening in (except for Becky Thatcher, who knew all about nautical-talk).

Cursed to wait until at least the next departure, the shades hissed mournfully as the dark vessel pulled away from the dock and sailed into the swamp. Although the companions felt no wind upon their faces, the sinewy black sail puffed out as if filled with the ocean breeze.

The dead arms jutting from the murk reached towards those on board the ferry, shrieking curses, attempting to drag them down into the inky water, to come and join them in their torment. All business now, Charon whacked the arms with his gondola, jabbing them in the eyes with expert blows. The mouths let out terrible shrieks when the eyes were poked, but the Boatman was unperturbed by the wailing. The Phlegethon raged in front of them, next to them, all around them. Charon inhaled and breathed out, and a frosty mist exited his mouth and spread out across the swamp. Where the breath encountered the flames, the fire would hiss and transform into stinking, slimy vapor that spread across the morass and coated you from head to toe.

Jack envied the body-less, matter-less, substance-less shades, who did not have to feel the residue of Sorrow, Hatred, Fire, and Lamentation clinging to them. He breathed the swamp-gas into his lungs, and it settled onto his skin and was absorbed into his pores to be sweat out, spat out, breathed out, shat out. The miasma seared into his guts like hot steam, branding his innards with its foul sigil. It amalgamated itself to his organs and began devouring, taking over cells like a cancer, becoming his blood, his guts, his heart, his flesh, his bones, his soul.

Sorrow. Hatred. Fire. Lamentation.

His soul in a nutshell.

Silent amidst a sea of sound, fury, and fire, Team Myth sailed on through the Stygian Marsh, guided by the Ferryman of the Dead.

## Chapter 25

## How to Trick a Trickster

Master Mirbodi turned Sir Arthur's spare bedroom into a holding cell for beings of a mythical nature, sprinkling Masaaw's magical cornmeal around the edges of the room. The Tricksters were placed in the room, and Master Mirbodi sealed off the door with the enchanted powder, though it was left open to listen in on the conversations between Coyote and Old Man.

After eavesdropping for a time, Sir Arthur made his entrance. Towards the end of the interrogation, Coyote divulged that Hades had stashed a nice portion of Hoppy Heaven Ale at Farmer John's farmhouse. But Old Man insisted this was not the case, as he had never heard about it. The Tricksters began arguing, and Sir Arthur made his exit.

He walked into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. The other members of Team Real were out and about, combing Eden stores and emptying appropriated bottles of Hoppy Heaven Ale in the beekeeper's backyard, which was now littered in glass and cardboard.

After pouring the hot water over the tea strainer, Sir Arthur sat down at the kitchen table, sipped at his Lapsang Souchong, and pondered. The Tricksters had conflicting information. That was odd.

So was it a trap? Was Hades setting them up?

This was a distinct possibility, but the farm had to be investigated.

Sir Arthur finished off the tea and walked into the master bedroom. He headed straight for the walk-in closet, from which he pulled a lanky object. He threw the specimen over his shoulder with a grunt, placed it sitting upright in an armchair in a corner of the bedroom, and stared at it wistfully. He had made use of this item a number of times in his past life in the annals of literature, but it had now lain dormant for some time. Pushing remembrances aside, he rubbed his hands together and touched the object with a glowing index finger. It pulsed throughout with blue-white light, and Sir Arthur dove back into the closet, tossing clothing and accoutrements every which way.

Sir Arthur strolled up the half-mile-long driveway that led to Farmer John's organic farm, as if out to stretch the legs and enjoy some Mother Nature. He glanced left, at the mounds of earth that wound their way across the farmland. The rows were ordered, but there seemed to be no order whatsoever to the veggies; some rows contained six or seven different plant varieties. He glanced right, to the large grove of apple trees that took up a good chunk of the old farmer's land. These were the very seedling apples—most of them terrible to eat—used to make Appleseed Applejack and many other brews at the Olde Eden Brewery. Then his gaze locked on the farmhouse ahead.

Rabbit watched Sir Arthur approach from the big bay window fronting the house with astonishment etched on his itchy face. He thought that perhaps the beekeeper had lost his mind, just waltzing on up to the place like he needed to borrow a cup of sugar! What could the detective be plotting? It had to be some sort of trick.

But Rabbit had been around for millenniums longer than any mythical English gentleman from the Victorian era, and experience had to count for something, didn't it?

And yet Sir Arthur's casual demeanor had the Trickster rattled. Perhaps if he was allowed to come much closer, he would throw down some kind of ken-bomb and light the house afire! That must be his plan!

And Rabbit was not going to allow it to get that far.

So he threw open the bay window and yelled out in the nastiest voice he could muster: "Stop right there, Sherlock! If you take another step I'll . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . blow your head off with a magical fire-pellet! That'll put you out of commission for a while. Or maybe you'll just end up back in your own foppish little World of Myth!"

Rabbit reached into his fanny-pack and threw a small gray pellet through the open window. The projectile sailed a little more than halfway to the beekeeper. When it hit the ground, there was a minor but violent explosion that shook the farmhouse. When the smoke cleared, a two-foot wide, three-foot deep hole decorated the driveway.

"You see?! I'm not . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . messing around with you, Holmes! I know all about your little tricks and your mind-games, and—Hey! Hey! Stop right there!"

Sir Arthur was still walking forward, taking his sweet time, his feet steadily moving, one after another, like a ticking clock.

"All right, seriously, that's . . . [twitch, twitch] . . . far enough! Do you hear me talking to you, Sherlock? I said stop right there or your ugly mytho ass is gonna be blown to smithereens!"

But Sir Arthur just kept traipsing along, unperturbed, with a stupid, know-it-all grin plastered across his face. He sidestepped the hole in the driveway with a skip and a jaunt, his smile widening to obscene proportions, his arms swinging comically at his sides.

Rabbit stood framed in the open bay window, shocked, but then the realization that the famous detective was now well within range of his arm crossed his mind. He threw out another pebble, and it exploded at the feet of the advancing figure.

Holmes reared back in the face of the blast, and his stride slowed—but only for a moment. The tweed-jacketed figure advanced, and its idiotic grin turned, to Rabbit's frightened eyes, evil.

Rabbit reached into his fanny pack, pulled out a handful of fire-pellets, and looked down into his brimming hand with an astonished look on his face, shocked that he was going this far. But he did not hesitate and threw the handful of pebbles out the window, at the mythological being advancing upon the farmhouse like an unstoppable force of nature.

There followed a massive explosion. Rabbit hacked, inhaling dust and soot. He looked out the bay window for Sherlock Holmes, but could make out nothing through the ash and smoke.

But when the effluvium cleared—he was there!

Rabbit leaped to his right and kicked open the front door with a powerful foot. He bolted out onto the porch and reached into the fanny-pack around his waist with both fists. He stopped at the top step and stood there—a seven-foot-tall yellow rabbit with a pink nose and fury in its eyes. He cocked back his pellet-filled hands, his nose twitching, his corneas bloodshot from the ash and smoke.

"IF YOU TAKE ONE MORE STEP, SHERLOCK, I SWEAR TO THE GREAT SPIRIT IT'LL BE YOUR LAS—OH, THAT'S IT!"

Rabbit chucked the pellets in his hands. Then he emptied the entire contents of his satchel upon the head of Sherlock, who grinned up at Rabbit as the enchanted fire-pellets fell down around his head like the driving rain of death.

Framed by the afternoon sun, a mushroom cloud blossomed on the west-side of Eden like a small atomic bomb had been dropped in the vicinity.

Rabbit was blown back into the house by the recoil. He crashed through the door, slammed into the far wall of the living room, and slid down to the floor.

When his senses returned, he saw through black smoke that the front porch and most of the living room was no longer there. The only thing that remained of the farmhouse frontage was the door, which hung to a chunk of drywall, wobbling drunkenly from its bottom hinge. What was left of the living room walls and ceiling were blackened with soot, and everything stank of a toxic combination of used gunpowder and charred crap.

But Rabbit could care less about the damage (after all, it wasn't his place), and thought: I got him! Thank the Great Spirit!

And then Sherlock Holmes kicked the door from its remaining hinge and walked into the wreckage of the farmhouse like he owned the place, the same condescending smile etched on his face, without the merest scratch on his person.

And oh, how that grin pissed Rabbit off! Oh, how he hated it!

So he raised himself from the floor. His fire-pellets were useless, so he would destroy this invader with fists and feet! Sherlock must have sensed this, for he went into a boxer's stance and awaited the upcoming assault.

Rabbit sprang forward on strong hind legs, his form flashing between human and animal, his floppy ears elongating and shrinking. He cocked his arm back, and with a human fist delivered a roundhouse punch to the temple of the grinning Sherlock, who made no move to block the blow.

At first Rabbit thought that he had killed this unkillable mytho, for Holmes's cheek caved in. His fist sank into the detective's silly putty face—and stuck where it was, lodged in his skull!

"What the hell, you asshole!" screamed Rabbit. He tried to dislodge his fist, embedded deep in Sherlock's still-grinning face, but it was hopeless.

Rabbit reared back with his other fist and took a swing at Holmes's gut. Then he wailed in fury, unable to move either of his arms. Flailing, he kicked at Sherlock's groin with a foot—and his leg sank deep into the beekeeper's crotch.

Rabbit went berserk with rage and confusion, mingled with a terrible, constricting feeling of frustration. Sobbing, he placed his last free appendage, his left leg, against Sherlock's knee in an attempt to dislodge himself. The foot buried itself into flesh and stuck fast.

Rabbit squealed and tried to head-butt the master detective in the chest. His forehead sank into Sir Arthur, and the stymied Trickster and his silly-putty foe fell to the floor of the farmhouse with a resounding crash.

The distinct tug of deja-vu was Rabbit's last sensation before losing consciousness.

Sir Arthur watched this scene from the kitchen window of the farmhouse with the very same grin plastered on his double's face etched on his own, identical face.

When Rabbit became entangled within the faux beekeeper, Sir Arthur ran around to the side of the house, clambered up into the living room, and walked inside the burning house as if he owned the place. He glanced at the two prone figures on the floor—who seemed to be a single misshapen figure with a poofy tail sticking out its backside—and, satisfied the Trickster wasn't going anywhere, proceeded to search what remained of the farmhouse.

Five minutes later, he reemerged into what was left of the living room. He had found nothing. The place was clean.

A sudden thought occurred to him, and he walked into the kitchen and opened the stainless steel refrigerator, about the only thing on the ground floor that had survived the fusillade of pellet-bombs. It was empty except for a single unopened bottle of Hoppy Heaven Ale.

Sir Arthur reached into the fridge and grabbed the beer. He peered at it for a moment, shrugged, and cracked it open. He sniffed it, shrugged again, then downed half the bottle in a single quaff. He finished off the beer, set the empty bottle atop the fridge, and walked back into the living room.

Sir Arthur jumped down to the ground and walked into the veggie fields, where he had earlier deposited a handy wheelbarrow. He grabbed it and wheeled it around to the front of the farmhouse. He vaulted into the house and pulled and prodded the trapped Rabbit to the edge, took aim and pushed. The Trickster, still attached to the dummy, fell into the wheelbarrow with a thud and a muffled groan.

Sir Arthur wheeled Rabbit down Farmer John's driveway, avoiding the piles of burning rubble and the smoking craters, heading back to the bee farm before the local authorities arrived and began asking unanswerable questions.

## Chapter 26

## The Three-Headed Demon Dog

During the long voyage across the Stygian Marsh, Jack, Stephone, and Becky sat wordless on the uncomfortable bench and watched the foul, dismal swamp sludge on by. Charon avoided every obstacle. He and Tom Sawyer spoke of nothing but boats and boating the entire trip across the water, if it could be called that; it was more like stinking evil ooze. Eventually, great crags that jutted from the landscape like the rotting black teeth of a buried Titan appeared in the distance, growing larger in their vision as they approached the far shore, now just visible in the gas-lit distance.

"Hey, Steph," said Jack. "We don't have to cross those mountains, do we? You can't even see their peaks—they're lost somewhere up in the clouds!"

She shook her head. "The Titanic Peaks are impassable. They divide Elysium from the rest of the Underworld. We are landing at their outskirts, near the Asphodel Meadows. When we depart the ferry, we'll follow Judgment Road—hell's own Main Street—to the Black Courthouse. Once we make it past, we should reach the Unseen Palace by midnight, Earth-time, if we don't run into any trouble."

Jack pondered this last statement. "And do you expect trouble?"

"No, not really. We should be okay if we can get past the Courthouse without being observed by Tisiphone, who sits atop an adamantine pillar guarding the entrance to Tartarus." A ghost of a smile creased her lips. "But I've got a plan to get us by that heartless old Fury undetected."

She sounded pretty confident, but Jack was far from convinced that nothing would go awry. First off, an encounter with a Fury was not something that even came close to making his Bucket List. And just how was she planning on getting them by this Courthouse undetected? He pried her a bit, but she refused to say more on the subject.

Questions swirling within his mind, Jack sank into sullen silence and stared unseeing at the screaming, weeping, blubbering Marsh.

The black ferry floated into dock, Charon tied off his vessel, and Team Myth jumped out. Herby remained on board, sitting on Charon's hairy palm, reluctant to depart her bestest-friend-in-all-the-Worlds after such a short visit.

"Thank you for taking us across, Charon," said Stephone. "I owe you one."

Jack and Becky also murmured their thanks. Tom shook Charon's free hand and said, "Nice talking to you, Mister Charon. Always good to meet another river-man."

"Indeed," said the Ferryman of the Dead. "Let me know when you and your friends would like to come down here and do a little river-riding. I haven't asked for a vacation in years, and I think I'm owed one by now. That darn Hade—"

"Shhhhhhh!" came flying in from all corners.

Charon peered at them sheepishly from behind his tusks. "Oh. Right. I mean, that darn Unseen One owes me one helluva vacation by now. The shades can just hang out on the far shore until I get back, for all I care." He turned to Tom and grinned (Jack quivered with revulsion.) "After all, it'll be fun as hell, don't you think?"

"Boy, I sure do!" said Tom, laughing. "As soon as this whole end-of-the-world baloney is over and Sid's rescued, we'll head on down here for a li'l Underworld river-riding adventure! I can hardly wait for my chance at those arms!" He smacked the air with an invisible staff. "Whacka! Thwacka!"

Charon chuckled at Tom's antics, then turned to Stephone. "Is there anything else I can help you with, my Queen? You wouldn't by chance need a dog-sitter for the next day or so?" He clutched his beloved Herby closer to his breast.

Stephone smiled an understanding smile. "Sorry, Charon. Herby's with us for this one. We might need her help later." Jack wondered to himself just what help a seven-pound dog perhaps the size of a large rat could be against the razor-toothed beasties and sharp-clawed baddies that populated Hades, but decided to keep his mouth shut.

Charon nodded. "Well, it was worth a shot." He mumbled some last sweet nothings to Herby, gave her a handful more breakfast-shaped dog-biscuits, and then handed the sleeve Pekingese to Stephone. "You'd better come visit me after all this is over, Persephone, or I will be sorely disappointed. As you said, you now owe me one."

"I will, Charon. Or maybe you can come visit me on Earth."

"Very well," said the Boatman of the Dead. He bowed to each of Team Myth in turn and, finally, to his Queen. "I wish you luck in your mission, but do be careful." His beady black eyes went worried. "Now, are you sure you don't want me to come along?"

Stephone refused the Ferryman's offer on the grounds that their party was already large enough to attract undue attention, and someone was sure to notice if Charon was derelict in his duties. They waved their last goodbyes, and Team Myth started inland, trekking down Judgment Road, an old cart-path carved into the wastes.

As there had been no shades with them on their ride across the Marsh, the landscape was clear of the depressing specters. To their right, endless fields of asphodel with long stalks and glowing milky white flowers stretched into the distance, blanketing the rolling hills of ash that led to the Titanic Peaks. Asphodel also covered the flatlands to their left, and lined the roadway ahead. Judgment Road itself was the only place not populated with incandescent blooms. The scenery reminded Jack of those vast fields filled with poppies that Dorothy and company got wasted off in The Wizard of Oz.

The companions soon began seeing foggy, ghost-like beings milling about the asphodel in small groups or alone, plucking the flowers and shoving them into their incorporeal mouths.

"What are those things?" asked Jack. "It's weird, I can see right through them, but they seem to have more form than the black-fog guys."

"We are passing through the Asphodel Meadows, the ancient Greek version of Limbo," answered Stephone, resident expert on Hades. "If a person lived a neutral life, they are sent here. After Judgment the deceased is forced to drink of the water of the Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness, which erases their memories." She pointed out a group of translucent specters. "See how they wander about, doing nothing but eating asphodel, the food of the dead? Well, this is it for them for the rest of Time."

The whitish ghosts stared off into the distance or up into the roiling sky with vacant expressions on their spectral faces, every now and again plucking a flower with a wispy ghost-arm and munching away.

"Looks pretty miserable for those guys," said Jack to break the uncomfortable silence. "Hey, at least in Tartarus it might stay interesting, what with all the torture and everything. But this here looks downright boring. And I despise boring."

"Indeed," said Stephone, a sad, distant look in her eyes. "Limbo is the In-Between, a realm of utter neutrality, and thus quite boring."

They trekked down Judgment Road a ways, and there issued a deafening roar from the vicinity of a small rise to their right. Jack, Tom, and Becky all jumped at the horrible sound, and Herby leaped from Stephone's sleeve to the dusty road, barking. Then the pup took off like a bolt, running towards the terrible cry, which had sounded quite a bit like impending death.

"Wh-what the hell was that?" asked Jack. His voice went unheard as the ground bellowed as if the road was about to split open and swallow them whole. A dark figure straight out of a nightmare materialized atop the distant hill and began running towards Team Myth at full speed.

When the behemoth's features materialized, Jack really wished they hadn't. The slathering beast had three fang-filled dog's heads complete with manes of writhing snakes, the spiked tail of a dragon, and sharp claws the size of trees. This could be none other than Cerberus, the infamous hellhound, double-checking that all who crossed the Stygian Marsh were truly deceased.

And Team Myth was very much alive.

"Unholy frickin' hell!" yelled Jack. "He's gonna run us over! But Herby's going down first!" A heroic energy surged up in his breast, and he dashed for the Pekingese.

Herby stopped fifty feet from the companions and jumped up and down, staring at the drooling, multi-headed monstrosity that would be upon them in seconds.

"No, Jack! You don't understand!" cried Stephone.

The warning fell on deaf ears, for Jack was concentrating on nothing but saving the little dog's life. He reached Herby a scant few moments before Cerberus, scooped her up, and held her protectively to his chest.

And then Herby the toy Pekingese began to . . . change. In an instant, she was too large for Jack to hold; she seemed to gain hundreds of pounds all at once.

Jack dropped the suddenly heavy dog, jumped back with a yelp, tripped over his own feet, and fell among the asphodel. He scampered backwards like a crab, looking on in terror as Herby's shoulders sprouted stumps that looked like they had teeth. These blemishes soon evolved into misshapen dog-heads, writhing and snarling. Spikes of white bone grew outwards from her once-stubby tail, which congealed over with black scales. Thick sinews formed around her neck, which transformed into hissing, snapping pythons.

Jack jumped to his feet and turned to flee—and ran right into Tom Sawyer, which sent them both sprawling among the shimmering asphodel. Stephone and Becky were also there, and Cerberus would soon be upon them. Jack heard a pair of earth-shaking bellows behind him, and he closed his eyes and awaited the huge jaws to close over his fragile form. Awaited the drool-filled end . . .

The end, however, did not come as expected.

Surprised, Jack looked up from the mishmash of knees, elbows, and limbs that constituted himself and Tom Sawyer and observed two identical (the one difference was, ah, hugely obvious) three-headed demon dogs. The mansion-sized pups were sniffing each others' asses, Godzilla tails wagging. One of them farted, and the ground shook; Jack nearly choked on the fumes from the lethal blast. With some trouble, he extricated himself from Tom Sawyer, got to his feet, and helped the kid up.

"S'okay," mumbled Tom. "De're brother 'n sister." He groaned and clutched his belly. "Sheesh, Mister Whiskey, is your head made of steel?"

"Yeah, sorry about that," muttered Jack, rubbing his own aching skull. "I've always been a bit hardheaded. I guess it comes with being a Trickster." He blinked dust-clogged eyes at the pair of hellhounds. "So those two . . . whatever-they-ares are related?"

"That's right, Jack," said Stephone, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I should have explained the situation to you earlier. If I had known you were going to try to be a hero when there was no need for a rescue, I would have. But nonetheless it was a valiant gesture." She smiled at him, and it made Jack's heart turn to liquid in his chest and course through his veins like the Stuff of Life.

"Oh, it was nothing," said Jack, trying his best to keep the sarcasm from marring his voice.

"Cerby and Herby came from the same litter," explained Stephone. "But Cerby is much more well-known. I insisted that I be allowed to raise his sister, Herberus, and the Unseen One said okay. Sadly, it's probably the nicest thing he's ever done."

"Herberus, you say?" said Jack. "Wow, that's a new one." He thought for a moment. "So why did we not ride . . . Herberus . . . from the Grove to the Elm?"

"Jack, Herby is probably one of the least well-known mythos clinging to existence. Her ken is tenuous, to say the least. But she can help out in a jam."

"So why did she blow up like a balloon when she saw . . . Cerby . . . there?"

"She got overexcited when she saw her brother." Stephone shrugged. "Let the poor dog have her fun."

The two monster dogs soon grew tired of sniffing butthole and proceeded to roughhouse. They played a safe distance away from the much smaller companions, snarling and biting, scratching with tree-trunk claws, slapping with serpent tails, crushing asphodel by the hundreds. An outside observer might have thought the two beasts were in a fight to the death.

Stephone let the Hounds of Hades cavort. "Cerby guards the Asphodel Meadows. Every now and again a shade will escape Tartarus and run around causing havoc among the denizens of the Underworld, or some living joker will come down here to try to bring back his deceased wife who hated his guts anyway. Honestly, you'd be surprised at how often those kinds of things happen. It is Cerberus's duty to corral these Stygian lawbreakers."

After a bit of playtime, Stephone whistled between her teeth. "Herberus! Cerberus! Down!"

The two hellhounds stopped their doggie-games and began to shrink. Herberus reverted to a single-headed toy Pekingese while Cerberus reduced to the size of a double-wide trailer but remained a slavering hellhound.

Stephone turned to her companions. "You guys ready? Cerby can take us pretty close to the Courthouse. He runs like Atalanta on meth."

Jack sighed. "Three-headed demon-dog it is. After all, it can't be worse than almost being enchanted by the River of Sorrow, or dangling by your fingertips from the limb of a Greek god thousands of feet in the air, or crossing a burning Marsh with dead arms covered with peering eyes and blabbering mouths sticking up all over the place."

Stephone whistled, and Cerberus brought his belly to the ground so the companions could clamber onto his back, behind the middle head. It was comfortable on his scaly hide—that is, if you could call sitting on the back of a hellhound while looking directly into a writhing mass of pythons that hissed at you and stared at you with beady little serpent eyes in a menacing way comfortable.

"Hang onto the snakes, Jack," said Stephone. "They won't bite."

"How did I know you were going to say that? I must have attained psychic abilities somewhere along the journey. Is that a standard power for a Trickster?" He grabbed ahold of a pair of snakes with two jittery hands, and Cerberus took off down Judgment Road.

After a while the asphodel thinned out, and they began passing scores of unjudged shades, all staying within the boundaries of the road, plodding onward, ever onward, drawn to Judgment like moths to fluorescence. Cerby ran through the shades as if they weren't there, dispersing them into the non-atmosphere to reform after his passing.

To their right squatted the ever-present Titanic Peaks, through whose bulk nothing could be seen. To their left raged the Phlegethon. The horizon that way burned and burned, the flames reaching upwards in a vain attempt to touch the land of the living above. The shoreline for hundreds of feet around the banks of the River of Fire was charred earth, all living things long ago toasted away, immolated whether they liked it or not.

After an indeterminable amount of time, Cerberus skidded to a halt. The shades flowed around the demon-dog, a canine stone in a river of unjudged souls, as Team Myth dismounted. The snakes Jack had been holding onto gave him a departing hiss and baring of fangs. Cerberus sat down on his haunches and proceeded to pant and drool. Jowls flapped when he shook his heads, and a huge of dollop of yellowish slobber landed on Jack and dripped down his face. He wiped off his forehead, looked down at his slimed hand in horror, and smeared the phlegm on the demon-dog's rugged toenail.

Cerberus bent and nuzzled Stephone's sleeve with one of his heads, roared goodbye from three throats, and lumbered back down Judgment Road.

Shades flowing past them, Stephone faced her companions. "Just ahead is the Stygian Courthouse, where the shades of the dead are Judged. The left fork is Tartarus Trail, but we are going right, down Elysium Drive. To do this, we must pass by the Courthouse. Discreetly." She pointed ahead. "When we crest that hill, we will be within full view of Tisiphone, who sits atop an adamantine pillar at the gates of Tartarus, watching all that transpires at the Courthouse and beyond. We cannot appear as we are, or we will be spotted."

Jack, Tom, and Becky had no clue as to how to resolve this dilemma, so they remained silent, watching Stephone. She peered at them expectantly.

"So, are we ready, then?"

"Ready for what?" asked Jack, Tom, and Becky in unison.

The Iron Queen's smile was ice. "Ready to die, of course."

## Chapter 27

## Thonick Hardpees

Sir Arthur's house was looking very lived-in recently. Nobody had bothered to wash the dishes lurking in the sink and piled precariously upon every raised surface, but someone had gone out and acquired a sleeve of Styrofoam cups, as well as paper plates and plastic utensils. These items now littered the tables and floor, along with empty soda cans and beer bottles, greasy pizza boxes, discarded snack wrappers, and loose tobacco. The overflowing ashtrays looked like small gray mountains dotted with cylindrical tan and white peaks. And Joe, Ben, and Huck had been staying there, without showering, for the last few days. The place reeked of moldy socks and food gone bad.

Captain Promo was out visiting local restaurants and bars in a "random fire-hazard check." He would inquire of scared managers if their business had received a shipment from the Olde Eden brewery in the last two weeks, even going so far as to examine all recent invoices. All Olde Eden kegs had been confiscated as "fire hazards." Sir Arthur hadn't bothered to ask how this worked without protest from the businesses; fire-bringer mind tricks, perhaps.

The rest of Team Real had been raiding local stores, buying or stealing every twelve-pack and keg of Olde Eden brew, regardless of flavor. Most had been harmless Olde Eden beers, but some of the bottles with later "born-on" dates had been Hoppy Heaven Ale labeled something else!

"I reckon I'm gonna head over to Bill n' Gary one more time," said Huck. "I'm gonna take another look in the dorms and academic buildings." The campus had for the most part been clean, the frat houses the only areas abounding with Hoppy Heaven Ale.

Sir Arthur stared at a detailed map of Eden tacked to a living room wall, then at a smaller map of the campus taped to another. He waved a hand in the air. "Go ahead if you wish, but we've covered the length and breadth of the campus five times and found nothing."

Huck shook his head. "I know. We been over every square inch of this dern town. Where could those Tricksters be hiding themselves and the rest of that hop-juice?" He sucked in a quick breath. "Howzabout about in Jimstown? You think they stashed the beer over thataway?"

Sir Arthur shook his head. "It's been thoroughly scoured by friends of mine who live in the area. There's no Hoppy Heaven Ale in Jimstown."

"What about that lil' airport? D'you think they transported the beer outta here by plane?"

"My friend Bill Icarus works part-time as a flight instructor at the Eden/Jimstown Airport. Every plane that has landed or taken off from there in the past several days has been inspected—surreptitiously, but thoroughly—and everything has come up clean."

Walkie-talkies crackled to life. "Promo to Lock, Promo to Lock! We have action at the Fountain! I stopped by here to check on things and harpies started flying out of the Water! Styx, there's a lot of them! Promo out."

Sir Arthur grabbed his walkie. "Promo, get the hells out of there. Who knows how many of those rancorous things will be coming through that sipapuni? I will contact you shortly. Lock out."

"Affirmative, Lock. Retreating as we speak. Will wait with bated breath—mainly because these things stink like high hell—for your call. Promo out."

A grim smile creased Sir Arthur's lips. "Harpies, the foul beasts—and worse than that soon to come, I'm sure." He peered at Huck. "Be prepared, Huckleberry, for I believe we shall forthwith have more than a handful of chthonic deities on our hands."

"What the heck does thonick mean, Mister Holmes?" asked Huck with pursed lips. "Now, I reckon Tom Sawyer might know that word. Smart guy, Tom, with a real analyzing head on his shoulders. He fancies hisself somewhat of a detective too."

"Chthonic means of and relating to the Underworld, especially the Greek Underworld." Sir Arthur's eyes went cold. "We must put all our efforts into repelling this invasion. If the Unseen One takes control of Eden, he can distribute his Hoppy Heaven Ale at will."

His tone sent shivers up Huck's spine, but the boy put on a brave face. "Well, whatever comes outta that waterhole, we can take care of it if we all work together."

"You are correct, of course," said Sir Arthur. "But we shall need all the help we can get. Run over to New Shaolin Monastery and tell Master Mirbodi what has happened. We shall have to call off the search for the Hoppy Heaven Ale—only temporarily, I hope. Meet me in front of Pasture and Gout's Apothecary in half an hour. I will let the others know of this rendezvous." He fluttered string-bean fingers in the air. "Now go, Huckleberry Finn! Run like the wind!"

Huck followed the beekeeper's advice and ran out the door at a sprint, wondering just what kind of monster a "hardpee" was.

Tom Sawyer would know.

## Chapter 28

## Death . . .

"Ready to die?! No, I'm not ready to die, thanks so much for asking!"

"Jack, you're a Trickster," said Stephone. "You die all the time and then come back to life. You cannot be destroyed unless you are forgotten by everybody in existence or use up your ken."

"I . . . know that," said Jack. "You just caught me off guard, that's all."

"But what d'you mean die, Stephone?" asked Tom.

"I will touch you, and you will die. I am a goddess of death and renewal. It is well within my ken. Since we're already here in the Underworld, you'll end up here, if you wish to."

"So we just have to"—Jack gulped—"die and think happy thoughts about this place, and we'll end up here afterwards?"

"That's right. If you die when you're not consciously thinking about an afterlife destination, you manifest in your default Underworld or on your own World of Myth. That's how the system works, of course."

The group remained silent, uncertain.

An austere smile painted Stephone's face. "I will reanimate us once we are a good ways down Elysium Drive, out of view of the Courthouse." She held out her hand, which began to exude a deep purple light, and beckoned. "Come on, Jack. You go first."

Jack gulped, swallowing down his fear. Thinking of boring, depressing Hades, he reached out with trembling hand, gripped Stephone's outstretched palm—and died.

His first thought was: It sure is strange, being dead.

His second thought was: To be without substance, to be without form, to be without life.

Instead of the usual nauseating pink, Hades was imbued in a purplish twilight where everything was twisting and funneling with shadows and nothing could be focused on for long. The faces of darklings leered at him from waves the color of midnight. All was visible in flashes of black energy, riptides of shadow, and those shifty, macabre faces. All was crafted of the substance of nightmares, the firmament of fear.

He looked at his companions, and he knew they had names, but it was tough to hold things like that in

(Who am I?)

what now passed for

(Where am I? What is this place?)

his mind. What was it they were supposed to

(Am I . . . dead?)

do again? He couldn't remember. Then the three solid forms were gone, and there were beings

(Shades)

like him

(Shades of the dead)

in their place. He felt a touch

(breeze)

on his arm

(essence)

and a shock of familiarity shot through his

(nothingness)

mind. This was

(Stephone)

his good friend. There were also two

(Tom)

(Becky)

other friends.

They

(Shades)

joined and swam through one another

(Shades of the Dead)

and suddenly he

(I am Jack.)

regained a modicum of sense.

They must move.

They must follow Judgment Road and take a left.

(Or was it a right?)

He tried to ask a question, but he

(Trickster)

could find no voice with which to speak. A stream of smog puffed out of formlessness and dissipated into the non-atmosphere of Hades.

(Think, Jack, think! Don't try to speak.)

(Is that you, Steph? What in Earthmaker's going on? I feel like I'm a thousand and one different people!)

(We'll be fine as long as we keep touching, as long as we keep swimming through one another's essences. Keep close when we pass by other shades. When we get to the Courthouse, we might have to go through some of them. It'll be strange—it always is, the first time—but you'll be okay as long as you stay with me! Okay?)

He tried to nod, but all it did was shoot a stream of shadow from the glob of darkness

(Shade)

that he

(Shade of the Dead)

had become. He

(Trickster)

felt the others' departed spirits swimming through him, leading him

(Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters)

down the road

(Jack. I am Jack.)

to Judgment.

(And I'm with you, Steph.)

Shade-Stephone clung to the others' departed spirits with her own deceased soul. The black Courthouse peeked into view ahead, and the massive adamantine gates of Tartarus appeared in the distance to the left. The gates were the only way in or out of Tartarus, as the wall of flame that was the Phlegethon sealed off the pit of tortured souls from the rest of the Underworld. Fronting the entranceway was a tall, slender, twisted spiral pillar, also made of the obsidian-like metal formed over eons in the burning pit of Tartarus. Tisiphone sat atop this watchtower, making damn sure that everybody going to hell was supposed to be going to hell. She wore a glaring white dress, and her long silver hair flowed behind her as if she was submerged in water.

Shade-Stephone looked away from Tartarus with what passed for a grimace. There were fireproof speakers that looked like boulders stashed deep within the Phlegethon that amplified the sounds of torture from within so that everybody for miles around could hear the horrible screams, the clanking of chains, and the cracking of whips. She knew it was all a show, that they merely had a CD on repeat in some control room within the depths of the place, but the noises were still unsettling.

Shade-Stephone sharpened her mind to an focused point and moved forward. If the Iron Queen of Hades had still possessed a face, it would have worn a sober, determined expression.

It soon became easier to concentrate, easier to hold a thought within the mind. Before, the thoughts that had come had been like the dreams of thoughts, forgotten upon constant awakening. He hazily recalled having more substance as a shade in other Spirit Worlds. Those other death-times he had been able to remain more in control of his mind, better able to concentrate. Being dead in Hades, everything was dark and indistinct and confusing, with an eerie hint of deep purple.

Shade-Jack could feel the shades of Team Myth around him like extra, invisible limbs. He could actually sense their thoughts. Thank the gods the others were there. He had the feeling that without them, he would dissipate into the non-air of the Underworld and be no more, despite the fact that he was a mythological being and could not die per se.

The Stygian Courthouse loomed ahead, its massive entrance pillars grim and foreboding. The red liquid that flowed in the courtyard fountain fronting the building looked suspiciously like the blood of the innocent. Beyond the Courthouse lay a stretch of typical Hadean wasteland that soon gave way to a wide river: the Styx, which marked the border of the Underworld, circling Hades like a snake biting its own tail. After that there was . . . nothing. A blank gray slate. Past the River of Hatred, Hades dropped off into oblivion, merging with the sky-abyss beyond.

Shade-Jack gulped when he observed this, the literal end of the World, and wondered how the water of the Styx did not fall off the edge and into the emptiness.

(All right, guys,) came the voice of shade-Stephone. (Stay close. We're almost to the Courthouse, so we're gonna have to pass through some shades, and it's gonna be a little weird. Just hold onto me and the others, and you'll be okay. We are going to creep around the side of the Courthouse to Elysium Drive.)

The shades grew thicker ahead, a veritable sea of souls stretching across Judgment Road, which widened leading up to the Courthouse courtyard. Shade-Jack braced himself for impact with the shades, not expecting anything in particular—but what happened was like nothing he had ever experienced.

As they passed through each shade, that particular deceased spirit became a part of the mythical quartet that had in life been Whiskey Jack, Persephone, Tom Sawyer, and Becky Thatcher. He could hear the distinct thoughts of these outsiders; random snippets of deeds committed

(. . . better than the life she would have lived. I cannot end up in hell for sparing my baby, my precious, precious baby, from . . .)

flitted across his mind, overriding his own

(. . . was there, yes, but I had no hand in it. Sure, I laughed, but now I regret it. I've regretted it every day of my life. Their screams haunted me until my dying day. Even after death, their screams haunt . . .)

inner shade-monologue. It was as if each shade was poring over its own mental storehouse of memories, getting ready to plead its case before the

(. . . was drowning, and everybody was just sitting there on the beach, wide-eyed and slack-jawed or freaking out and screaming. But I dove into the water and swam out past the breakers, and . . .)

Judges. Some whispered, some screamed, some sobbed, some muttered, some

(. . . think I was good, but I'm really not sure. How do you define goodness? The concept is rather . . .)

prayed. The cacophony of the dead rang through his mind

( . . . called me terrible names! And she wanted it, the little fucking whore! So what if she was only . . .)

like a million terrible

(. . . say? What should I say? What should I . . .)

gongs and it would not

(. . . madness. It was . . .)

abate. The voices careening off the walls of Jack's shade-mind grew louder and louder as more and more shades joined the mind-pool of the departed. The whisper of the jabbering ghosts, the sibilant dead, drowned out even the screams coming from Tartarus—and were terrible, oh so terrible to hear!

(Jack, stay with us!)

He could no longer hear himself think, and he was once again losing a grip on who he was and what he was doing here. Losing a grip on things. If he had had hands, he would have put them to his ears. If he had had a mouth, he would have screamed.

(JACK!)

He did not hear the voice calling his name over the babel of confessing shades; the noise drowned out all of

(. . . NOT SENDING ME TO HELL! OH NO YOU'RE NOT, YOU MISERABLE . . .)

existence. If he had had legs to run with, he would have run.

When he heard

(Wah! Wah! Wah!)

the babies crying, the shades of

(. . . mommy? Why did you leave me here in . . .)

whimpering toddlers, he could take it no more, so he

(. . . madness. It was . . .)

let go.

Stephone lost her grip on Jack, and like mist he was gone, doing what for a shade was the equivalent of a living being "running like hell to anywhere but here."

The Iron Queen grasped Tom and Becky's spirits tight within her own and plowed into writhing, babbling shadow after Jack.

## Chapter 29

## It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

As thunderheads massed on the twilit horizon like troops before the assault, a meeting was taking place before Pasture & Gout's Apothecary on Duke of Gobstopper Street in downtown Eden.

"We shall split up into teams," said Sir Arthur. "Huckleberry, Joe, Ben, take the eastern half of town around the college. Master Mirbodi and Mister Lotus will patrol downtown Eden and surrounding environs. Myself and Promo shall cover the west side of town, keeping an especially close eye on Tranquil Forest. The fire marshal, due to pressing business regarding tonight's curfew, could not make this meeting, but I assure you that he is in good health. I am scheduled to meet him shortly.

"Destroy all beings of the Underworld on sight. Thus far we are aware of only the harpies, but there may be other . . . things coming through the sipapuni quite soon. I have briefed Huck on what monsters you may encounter this evening, and he will fill you in, Joe and Ben, as you go. Master Mirbodi, I know that you are quite familiar with the Greek Underworld and the various hell-beings contained therein, and I assume you will do the same for your cringing novice there."

Master Mirbodi smiled and nodded. Sitting Lotus shuddered and cringed a bit more at the thought of what demons and devils he might be crossing paths with tonight.

Sir Arthur lit a hand-rolled cigarette and grinned through a cloud of smoke. He had dressed for the occasion, wearing an ancient but well-kept tuxedo and a shining black top hat, accentuated by gleaming black shoes and a stylish cane of polished black wood.

"Everybody ready, then?" He peered around at the gathering with a serious look in his eyes, then nodded. "Right, then. Let's send some hellspawn back where they belong."

"Yes, but won't the residents of Eden be in danger?" asked Sitting Lotus, concerned over the possibility of harm coming to his fellow townsmen at the hands—or terrible fangs and claws and hellfire, rather—of mythical monsters and dark gods far beyond their ability to understand, much less acknowledge the existence of.

"It's possible." Sir Arthur took a long pull from his smoke and exhaled. "As I mentioned, there is a town-wide curfew in effect, and none but those who know the codeword are permitted on the streets of Eden until sunrise, due to the quite severe tornadoes expected in the area overnight. We are expecting thunderstorms, but no cyclones, as the public had been led to believe. The Eden Fire Department will be out and about town, along with the Eden Police Department in their patrol-cars, but this will be the only motor traffic on the streets. If the law flags you down, just say 'It sure is a dark and stormy night, huh?' and they'll leave you be. I don't know how our good friend Captain Promo got this curfew imposed—fire-bringer mind tricks, perhaps?—but he did us a huge favor, for this will most likely—I repeat, most likely, so stay wary and remain vigilant—prevent our missing Tricksters, wherever they may be holed up, from making a move."

Sir Arthur snubbed out his cigarette on the sole of a polished shoe. "The human residents of Eden and the visiting tourists should be safe within their homes and hotels. The citizens of this small town have seen this kind of thing before, and even though the vast majority of them aren't capable of consciously remembering it, their subconscious memory of supernatural happenings will kick in. Human beings are quite resourceful when it comes to dealing with things like this, and the experienced Edenites will help the tourists as needed."

Sir Arthur rested his cane on the apothecary door and pulled two ancient but polished revolvers from his coat pockets like an English gentleman turned gunslinger from the days of the Wild West. He tossed the weapons from hand to hand, spinning them around his fingers before they vanished with a flourish back into his suit-coat. He grinned as he raised his cane, and a gleaming blade flicked forth from its tip.

"Shoot all beings of the ancient Greek Hell World on sight, and shoot to kill. Each team leader has a walkie-talkie, so don't hesitate to call if you need backup. Let's try to stay organized amidst the chaos that is sure to ensue tonight. Now go, my friends—and happy harpy hunting!"

The detective spun on his heels, coattails twirling, and was gone, marching west down Colonial Towne Road as though late to Queen's Victoria's own Ball.

As the sun dipped below the tree-line, the remaining members of Team Real went their separate ways. The clouds thickened above, and an unseasonably cold rain began to fall. A bolt of lightning lit the sky with the requisite thunder trailing behind, and the distant screech of harpies came to their ears.

And it was now a dark and stormy, demon- and devil-filled night.

## Chapter 30

## . . . and Judgment

In an attempt to escape the babbling mind-pool, the shade sprinted

(breezed)

past the blood-spitting courtyard fountain. It plowed

(wisped)

through shades like a shark swimming through the sea, causing a great wake

(whisper)

to spread through the ocean of shadow. The shade ran

(breathed)

up the steps and into the Courthouse, ducked

(swooshed)

under the two harpy-bailiffs flanking the massive front doors, and bolted

(gusted)

past dozens of rows of black wooden benches.

The sides of the Courthouse were wide open like an airplane hangar, and two roads stretched off into the distance on each side. Apparently, once Judgment was dispensed, the Judged shade went straight to its determined destination. Nothing could be seen to the right but wasteland and a faint white-gold glow at the edge of the horizon: Elysium. To the left, the burning Phlegethon and gleaming adamantine gates that fronted the gaping black maw of Tartarus were visible, as well as the dark, coiled watchtower with its imposing figure roosted atop.

Soon the shade stood before a black pulpit that stretched up to the ceiling of the Courtroom, atop which a cowled figure sat like the rector of some dark church, looking down on all that transpired like an arrogant pope. The figure's thin, cruel-looking pink lips and pasty white chin poked from underneath its black cowl. A shimmer of emerald gleamed off the black robe it wore, causing the air around the pulpit to waver like a mirage. When the hooded one spoke, its amplified voice boomed throughout the Courtroom like the voice of a Higher Power.

"Who are you, shade, that comes before I, Rhadamanthus, unannounced?" The Judge of the Dead's remorseless eyes flicked to the harpies. "And tell me, vermin, who let this shade through without its name being called?"

The harpies—who had been trying to grab the shade (this did not work, as it was like grasping smoke)—squawked and screeched in a loud, discordant dialect of guttural clicks and shrill whistles; it was obvious they were giving excuses.

The Judge winced and waved the bailiffs to silence. "Styx, what a racket!" He pounded gavel upon wood, and the shade-audience ceased rolling around the Courtroom like a creeping black fog. He then adjusted his full attention to the shade standing before him. "What is your name, shade?"

The shade shrugged—or seemed to, at least.

(I am Trickster.)

The Judge appeared taken aback by this statement, and he peered down at the shade with a no-nonsense expression. "What was the name again?"

(I am Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters.)

Rhadamanthus pulled a pair of gold-rimmed pince-nez from the folds of his robe and placed them upon his nose. He plucked a scroll from the pulpit, unrolled it, and scanned it up and down, muttering something about "this day and age," and "cheap bastards," and "fucking scrolls," and "godsdamned age of computers," before he harrumphed and looked down over the rim of his spectacles.

"You're not on the docket today, shade. But since you're here we'll go ahead and get it over with. This'll be the last one of the session. It's about time for my dinner break." The Judge's gaze whipped to the harpy-bailiffs, who clucked with nervousness. "Did you hear that, bailiffs?"

The harpies shrieked in confirmation; it was obvious they were scared to death of the Judge of the Dead.

Rhadamanthus chuckled and turned back to the shade. "Now name your deeds, Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters."

The shade shrugged.

(My deeds are too many to name. Seriously, we'd be here for eons. Although I must admit that I do have a few interesting tales. Why, one time I—)

"Who—or what—are you, Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters?"

(I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam. Uk-uk-uk-uk-uk. So, who am I?)

Rhadamanthus's frown deepened. Dark creases appeared on what was visible of his smooth chalk face underneath the black cossack. He did not offer an answer to the riddle.

(I'm Popeye the Sailor Man. Duh.)

The emerald-black darkness emanating from the Judge's person seemed to expand outward, and the air at the apex of the pulpit wavered as if overheated.

"This trial, shade, is to determine where you shall spend the rest of eternity. Do not take it so lightly." The Judge's pinprick eyes bored into the deceased. "Now name your deeds, Trickster, or I shall find you in Contempt of Court. If found in Contempt, your case shall go unheard for a good long while, as your soul will be spending one hundred Earth years trapped within the waters of the Cocytus." He allowed a small smile to adorn his lips. "You will be forced to tell all who pass by of every dark deed you committed during your lifetime, as you relive them over and over again in your memory."

(Dude, you can find me whatever you want, just don't find me guilty of not sexing up the ladies. What I do is all perfectly legal, you know. At least in fourteen U.S. States.)

What was visible of the Judge's face flushed crimson. Steam began pouring from underneath his cowl, and there was a noise like a teakettle whistling. "Still full of jokes, aren't we? I assure you, Trickster, you will be laughing all the way to hell, roaring with mirth as you fall the million miles to Tartarus!"

(A million miles, huh? Jeez, it's a wonder anybody ever hits bottom. Wait, wait, wait. Note to self: remember to bring a flashlight, a pack of batteries, and a good, loooooooooooooooong book the next time you go to hell.)

The gallery of watching shades swished and swooshed chaotically at this comment, and another worried whisper (or perhaps this was what passed for laughter among the dead) arose in their misty midst. The harpy-bailiffs chirruped and squealed and shuffled their clawed feet upon the ash-covered Courtroom floor. Above it all, Rhadamanthus looked like he was about to explode. He picked up the gavel, and for a moment it looked as if he was going to fling it at the shade before him. In the end, however, he restrained himself.

"At a whim, shade, I can have you tortured for the rest of Time in the pit of Tartarus. After all, 'twas I who sentenced Ixion, for coupling with a cloud he thought was Hera, to be attached to a burning wheel for all of eternity. And 'twas I who sentenced Sisyphus to roll a boulder up a hill all day, every day, only to have it roll right back down over his hubristic toes for believing that he, a mere human, was cleverer than the gods. Trust me, shade, I can be very inventive in my sentencing. Now name . . . your . . . deeds! This is your last chance, Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters!"

The shade sighed with melodramatic aggrandizement. (You know, of all the times I've died, this has got to be the worst. Why, I've never met such a jackhole that demanded so much of a poor dead guy! It's ridiculous, especially considering you're not even in charge down here in this dump you call hell. What are you, like, fifth in the chain of command in this Spirit World?)

"What in Hades did you just say?!" roared the Judge of the Dead like a demon king. He banged his gavel for order. The audience of shades churned, while the harpy-bailiffs screeched and sent blasts of putrescence into the air when they flapped their wings. By the time order had been restored, Rhadamanthus's face had regained its stone facade, though his eyes seeped vengeance.

"Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters, I sentence you to walk down Tartarus Trail to the gates of hell. There you shall be admitted by Tisiphone—"

"NO!"

It was Stephone, divine flesh and blood Persephone, who had spoken. Tom and Becky, alive once more, flanked the Iron Queen.

Rhadamanthus's face registered shock at their appearance among the sea of non-living. But he soon composed himself, grinned, and went into a mocking bow. "My . . . Queen. What brings you to my humble Courtroom? Shouldn't you be on Earth, or visiting your mother, or whatever it is you do at this time of—"

He was cut off by the sound of an air siren, although in truth it sounded more like all the Earth's air sirens, after being collected at a single location, had gone off at once. Every being in the Courtroom, alive or dead, turned and looked down Tartarus Trail.

Atop the watchtower, Tisiphone's silver hair streamed behind her despite there being no wind in the Underworld. The wailing issued from her wide-open mouth, and it went on for a full minute, unbearably loud. Just when Jack thought he would go insane if he had to hear that ear-splitting racket for one more second, the Fury went silent and sprang from the tower like a zombified Superwoman, disappearing into the churning clouds.

There followed a few moments of feet-shuffling confusion—and then Tisiphone dropped like a bomb, landing at the entrance to the Courthouse via Tartarus Trail. She had covered miles upon miles of ground in a single bound!

The Fury looked more like an animated, rotting cadaver than a living being. She wore a blood-stained wedding dress, and her hair flowed behind her as if she were floating, dead, at the bottom of some dread lake. Blood poured from her eyes like unstoppable tears of anguish. Inflamed red boils, some broken and secreting pinkish pus, covered what was visible of her body. She carried a spiked whip in her hand that writhed on the Courtroom floor as if hungry to bite into living flesh.

Tisiphone advanced on Team Myth, the index finger of her free hand pointing at them accusingly, her bloody face a mask of hatred, while the shades of the dead poured out of the south doors of the Courtroom like shadow-planets caught in a black hole.

Stephone grasped Jack Whiskey's incorporeal essence with her own corporeal palms and concentrated. She could give life or take it, and this time she gave, gave, gave . . .

. . . and Jack Whiskey, physical body restored, materialized in the Courtroom.

"Whoa," he said, blinking rapidly. "Strange, being dead. Well, it's always something, isn't it?" He groaned and pawed at his throbbing skull. "And why do these somethings always happen to me?"

Stephone smiled and squeezed his hand. "Same old Jack," she said.

The harpy-bailiffs screeched and took to the air, circling over their heads like dead, giant bats with droopy, deformed tits, and there was no time for any more small-talk.

A harpy dove at them, claws flashing, and they ducked. Jack saw a blurred movement from the corner of his eye, and the harpy screeched in pain as three holes appeared in its left wing as if by magic. The monster crashed to the floor of the Courtroom in a flailing ball of wings and claws and jiggling breasts, where it twitched for a bit before falling still.

There was yet another blur from Jack's right, and another of the circling harpies let out a high-pitched squawk as a gaping hole bloomed in the middle of its mottled forehead. The harpy crashed into Rhadamanthus. The Judge cried out, and the two denizens of Hades disappeared behind the pulpit in a ball of wings and limbs and flowing black robes.

The last harpy squealed and dived at Team Myth like the Angel of Death, though its yell of fury quickly turned to one of pain. The fiend slammed into the ground no more than three feet in front of them, two holes in its head where its eyes had once been, and lay still.

Jack and Stephone turned and looked at the grinning, slingshot-wielding duo of Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher in astonishment.

Tom shrugged. "What? You think I carry this thing 'round with me jist for show?" Becky just smiled.

Rhadamanthus cursed and fumbled above, struggling to get the unmoving harpy off him. But there was no time to worry about the Judge, for Tisiphone was almost within striking distance.

The Fury cracked her whip, which split the stagnant Courtroom non-air. Jack scampered backwards, shoving Stephone behind him. Tom unleashed another steel ball from his slingshot. The projectile sliced through Tisiphone's chest and popped out the other side, leaving a hole where it passed through her heart. Maggots poured from the new wound and dropped to the ground before her to twitch and die. The Fury paid the grievous injury no mind and continued to advance in a jerky manner. Rivers of blood poured from her eyes and down onto her dress.

"Stop, Tisiphone! This is your Queen speaking! (YOU MUST OBEY ME!)"

Tisiphone hissed like an undead viper and spat crimson in their direction. Then she spoke, and her voice was the voice of anger, the voice of wrath, the voice of that unexplainable, uncontrollable rage that lies dormant but throbbing underneath your soul.

(It is not your time here, Queen. You are living beings, and you are trespassing in the Land of the Dead. Only shades and demons and dark gods and monsters—the dead—are permitted here. Hades is closed to living tourists, be they human or mythological, and has been for all of time.)

The Fury shuffled forward like a nightmare you just can't seem to wake up from. Team Myth backed away from the approaching horror, but there was nowhere to go. They might have run down Heaven Way or out the front door of the Courthouse, but the Fury would leap and be upon them in no time. So they turned to face the oncoming danger.

Tom fired off two quick shots of steel that went through each of Tisiphone's knees, and Becky buried one between her eyes. This slowed the Fury down for a moment, but like an unstoppable army of darkness she kept on coming, taking spasmodic step after spasmodic step forward, her whip poised to strike. She did not seem to be in any particular hurry, as if she knew they had no chance to subvert her will. One way or another, they would be punished for their trespass.

"This ain't working!" yelled Tom. "Somebody do something!" He and Becky let loose with another barrage of steel, but Tisiphone did not falter in the slightest. The missiles passed through her flesh, leaving bloody holes in their wake. More white worms poured out of the wounds, until there was a sea of bloody larvae writhing on the Courtroom floor. And as the barbed whip cracked one more time, no more than three inches from his head, Jack Whiskey did what Tom had urged.

He did something.

Jack reached out and grabbed the spiked whip. He had seen the whip as if it were in slow motion, and he had moved almost outside of time, Master Mirbodi-style (thank the bleeding old gods for that kung-fu class). For a moment, he had let go of thought, and become it.

But now the barbs dug into his hand, and searing pain shot up his arm and into his shoulder, moving in waves throughout his body. His grip on the whip slipped as agony sliced into his brain, destroying will and conscious thought. The barbs ripped through his palm, leaving his fingers in tatters. He grunted against the pain, focused, and somehow pulled the whip towards him.

Not wanting to give up her favorite torture-toy, Tisiphone was jerked forward. She began to tug at her end with a strength that belied her wraith-like frame. Jack stumbled and gave ground, screaming at the top of his lungs. The barbs dug deeper into his flesh as he tightened his grip, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it, yanking back with all his might.

Tisiphone seemed to be in ecstasy at the pain. Holes riddled her body, she was gushing blood and maggots all over the place, and she screamed out with her klaxon wail like she was having the greatest orgasm of her life. Her face a mask of blood, she cried out (Give it to me, bitch! Yes! Yes! YES!) and pulled with furious strength.

Jack gritted his teeth, refusing to give up an inch of ground, and strained with all his Trickster might. The excited grin on the face of the Fury cracked when she was jerked forward once again, this time with more force—just enough to send her sprawling.

Shot after shot of enchanted steel flew from Tom and Becky's slingshots, their hands moving faster than Jack had ever seen hands move. Tisiphone screamed in fury, or pain, or pleasure, or all of them at once, and dropped the whip, which proceeded to squirm on the ground before Team Myth. The barbs lining the whip's tip glistened with wetness in the wan pink light: Trickster blood. With a start, Jack dropped his end of the weapon and stared at his mangled hand in horror.

Tisiphone's wail soon grew muted, and then died away entirely. After about twenty seconds and fifty or sixty kenned-up steel pellets, it was over. The Fury lay on the Courtroom floor, a chunky wet mess of blood, skin, larvae, hair, and bits and pieces of wedding dress.

Before a word could be said, a harpy hit the ground nearby, sending up a heinous cloud of undead monster dust. Team Myth jumped back, instinctively covering their noses, and looked up. The Judge of the Dead peered down at them from atop the podium, a malicious look in his eyes.

Rhadamanthus looked around the Courthouse and clacked his tongue on his teeth. "Would you just look at this Courtroom? Blood and guts and dead harpies everywhere! Do you know how long it's going to take to clean up this mess?" He peered at what was left of the Fury and smiled with benevolent amusement, like a parent who has discovered her child up to some harmless mischief. "And what have you done to Tisiphone? Why, you've left her in tatters, the poor old girl! Just look at her! She's . . . she's . . . she's everywhere!"

And so she was. But already the Fury's shredded flesh and the maggots that seemingly made up her organs were inching across the ground—gathering, connecting, congealing, merging. And who knew when the harpies would reanimate?

Jack realized it was going to be necessary to take care of the Judge quickly and be on their way, or they would once again have to deal with Tisiphone and the bailiffs.

Rhadamanthus waggled an admonishing finger. "She can't help how she is, you know. She was simply doing her job, doing her duty, doing what is expected of her. She will attack you, regardless of who or what you are, if you are alive and trespassing in the Underworld. She was weaker than you, yes, but she is far from the cream of the crop down here in Hades."

The Judge cackled. He pulled off his cowl, and his exposed jowls elongated. His mouth stretched across his face, his forehead expanded to obscene proportions, and his skin turned a glowing-toxic-waste shade of green. Darkness swirled around him, alive and hungry, catching emerald fire.

"I am!"

The Judge of the Dead let out a piercing howl and leaped from the podium. He descended upon them in a cloud of darkness, his robe flowing behind him, his face a demon's visage.

A paw with perfectly manicured doggie-nails painted pink materialized in Team Myth's paralyzed midst, in an instant growing bigger than the shrieking, dive-bombing Judge of the Dead.

The giant paw gave a simple swat, and Rhadamanthus went crashing into the base of the pulpit, which shuddered and crumbled to the ground like oversized Tinker Toys. Dust and debris shot out from all sides of the Courthouse. As the paw shrank and retracted back into Stephone's sleeve, Herby yipped as if to say, "Yeah, you guys owe me one. And I will accept payback—in doggie-biscuits. Lots and lots of doggie-biscuits."

"Jack," said Stephone, "let me see your hand."

Jack obliged and gave her his bloody hand. Stephone grasped it between her palms. A white-gold glow emanated from her cupped fingers, and Jack felt the energy that mythological beings call ken pass from her spirit into his: the energy of life, the energy of story, the power of myth.

When he gasped and pulled his hand away a few seconds later, it was healed, without a scar left behind. Clenching and unclenching his fist, Jack looked down at the seamless flesh in astonishment.

A groan issued from the snarled black wood of the pulpit, and Tom Sawyer ran over to the wreckage and began kicking away rubble. He soon cried out in triumph, reached into the mess, and pulled out Rhadamanthus, who rather than an all-powerful Judge of the Dead, now looked like a skinny old fart of a human being, tufts of gray hair sticking up askance from his balding head.

Tom hauled up Rhadamanthus by his tattered black robe and dragged him over to the others, keeping a heavy hand on the Judge's shoulder.

"What are you doing dispensing Judgment, Rhadamanthus?" asked Stephone. "I thought it was your brother Minos's shift."

The Judge shrugged. "I switched shifts with him. Someone suggested I do that. Said to keep an eye out for anything strange going on at the Courthouse. And I should have noticed something was up when he"—he pointed an accusing finger at Jack—"came through the Courtroom."

"Who's someone?" asked Stephone. "The Unseen One?"

"He is my Lord and Master, and I do as I am told."

"Just like a good little puppet, huh?" said Jack.

Rhadamanthus glared daggers. "We can't all be free-wheeling and -dealing Tricksters. I am a Judge of the Dead, and I am a fair judge, just as I was during my lifetime." He sighed. "And what was my reward for being true to justice during my time with the living?" He seemed to deflate, all the fight going out of him at once. "Why, to spend eternity in the Underworld. What else?"

"But you were just about to send me to be tortured in the depths of Tartarus—and you hadn't even heard my case. No, you skipped right on by all that 'Contempt of Court and imprisonment in the Cocytus for a hundred years' thing you were blabbering about and went right to eternal damnation."

Rhadamanthus's face flushed, as if in embarrassment, although Jack found it hard to believe that this wretched little man/deity could be embarrassed.

"You . . . upset me. Shades are usually so tame, all the fire of life snuffed from their souls when they enter this World."

"Judge," said Stephone, "do you have any idea what's been going on on the Key World? What the Unseen One's been doing?"

Rhadamanthus shook his head. "No. I don't pay much attention to what's going on up there. Too busy down here dispensing Judgment."

Stephone peered at Rhadamanthus for a long moment, then looked at Jack. "I think he's telling the truth, believe it or not."

"What are you blabbing on about?" grumbled Rhadamanthus.

Stephone's gaze turned to frost and nails. "Whistle, Judge."

"Wh-what?" stammered Rhadamanthus.

Stephone's iron eyes said she was going to get what she wanted, in one way or another. Looking at her in astonishment (and just a little bit of terror), Jack suddenly understood why she was called the Iron Queen.

"Whistle, Judge. Now."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Do it. You're in (MY) World, no matter (WHAT) time of year it is. Don't make me use (MY VOICE OF DEATH ON YOU.)"

The Judge screamed and covered his ears as Stephone's Voice bored into his brain. "Enough! I'll do it! I can't take that godsawful Voice! I hate it, I loathe it, I hate it! It makes me feel so powerless, so . . . impotent."

After a moment of silence, Jack and Tom began hooting and hollering, grabbing their bellies and slapping their knees. They ended up hugging each other, tears of mirth streaming from their eyes. Stephone and Becky looked upon the scene impassively, while Rhadamanthus's face grew redder and redder as the guffawing went on and on.

"Impotent! What a choice of words! I can't believe he said that!"

"Well, jist look how old he is! I mean, is it really all that surprising?"

Another round of raucous laughter ensued, although this one wrapped up quicker when the boys caught the not-amused-in-the-slightest expressions on the girls' faces.

Stephone spun to Rhadamanthus. She didn't even have to say a word this time; the Judge brought two fingers to his lips and whistled.

The floor of the Courtroom caved in, the rows of black benches swallowed by the earth's opening maw. A ghostly neighing filled the the air, and a chariot drawn by two skeleton-horses with eyes of burning hellfire flew up from the chasm. The chariot alighted at their feet, and the skeleton-horses neighed, which sounded like someone chewing on gravel. The ground closed up, leaving the Courtroom just as it had been before.

Shining chrome rims gleamed on the carriage's four tires (Jack wondered at the wheels, since this was a flying carriage, but then shrugged it off as unimportant), a garish adamantine spoiler jutted from the rear, and glittering golden rails adorned the sides. The vehicle's new paint job, with two-pronged trident decal on each side, glittered in the twilight inside the Courthouse.

"After you, Judge," said Stephone.

Without a word, Rhadamanthus climbed into the driver's seat of the carriage and sat down with a huff, seemingly resigned to his fate.

While Tom and Becky followed suit, Stephone said, "Rhadamanthus was a contestant last season on Pimp My Mythical Ride. Hermes is the host. What they do is come to your World and turn your busted old death-carriage, or rickety haunted pirate ship, or wrecked 'possessed by a demon' roadster into a gangsta's dream ride."

Jack and Stephone boarded the carriage. The interior was luxurious and bejeweled with gems of all colors of the spectrum, tricked out with heated and massaging black leather seats, thorax-thumping speakers, touch-screen LCDs with superhumanly fast Internet access, and a GPS system that spanned Worlds. The skeleton-horses grated out whinnies and flew off into the sky.

Not long after takeoff, out of the farthest corner of his eye, Jack saw an unknown figure—no more than a blurred shadow, really—sitting in the one empty seat. He gasped and turned around, but there was nothing there. He reached his arm out over the space above the leather seat, but felt nothing. Perhaps it had been a trick of the eye, although he now had the unsettling feeling he was being watched. He shook his head, and the feeling faded.

"Now this is the way to travel!" said Jack. "First-class all the way! But tell me, Rhady, old buddy, where's the champagne?"

Rhadamanthus ignored him, so Jack popped open the diamond-studded mini-fridge underneath his seat. His face registered surprise when there actually was a bottle of champagne nestled within its cool premises, along with a six-pack of Hoppy Heaven Ale!

Jack went for the beer, cracked one open, and passed them around. Then he sat back to enjoy the best brew the Worlds had ever known. After all, he was already a deity—it wasn't going to knock any Wheels of Birth and Death out of alignment if he drank some Hoppy Heaven Ale!

"By the gods, Rhady," said Jack. "If this doesn't give away the fact that the Unseen One is your homeboy, nothing does!"

"Hades borrowed my carriage the other day," mumbled Rhadamanthus. "He must have left that there. I haven't opened that fridge since it was installed."

Jack glanced between Tom, Becky, and Stephone with upraised eyebrows, then shrugged. "You know, this really hits the spot." Jack took an unashamed sip of beer. "I needed a little stress-relief after this endless trek across this abysmal Underworld, and this'll turn the trick!"

Jack's fellow travelers all laughed and voiced agreement before clanking bottles in a toast. And yet, despite their levity, they each knew a confrontation with Darkness was imminent.

## Chapter 31

## The Adventures of a Patchrobed Pair

Team Real went their separate ways, and the Zen Master said, "Come, novice."

"Where are we going, Master?"

"You no hear them?" Master Mirbodi placed a hand behind his right ear and cocked his head to the side.

Sitting Lotus couldn't hear a thing but the rain beating on the cobblestone, the wind howling like a billion brain-starved banshees, the occasional nerve-shattering crash of thunder. But then, over the storm, he discerned a terrible shrieking noise like a mutated bird-man that was never meant to be crying out upon being born into the unforgiving world. Then a lot of those noises. The hideous sounds echoed off the walls of his mind and chilled him down to his essence.

"Wh-what in the sixteen lesser hells is that?"

"That call of harpy. It sound like there a lot of them just up road. We follow ears until we smell them, then we follow noses. You can smell harpy from ten mile away in crazy blizzard."

Master Mirbodi took off at a brisk walk down a dirt alley that connected Duke of Gobstopper Street to Colonial Towne Road. Sitting Lotus stumbled along at his heels.

The pair of patchrobed monks turned onto Eden's main drag, and the stench hit Sitting Lotus in the face like a shovel caked in shit. It was suddenly impossible to concentrate on anything but the perfume of foulness that infused the air.

The steeple and bell-tower of Eden Parish Church poked into view ahead, and Master Mirbodi ducked down, motioning the novice to do the same. Slinking along with noses to the ground like tigers stalking prey, they took cover behind a squat brick wall that paralleled the brick sidewalk.

"I think they in graveyard," said Master Mirbodi. "If you peek over wall, maybe you catch glimpse of something."

Sitting Lotus's heart reverberated in his chest like there was a teensy-weensy monk in there banging on it like a gong. He raised himself up, inch by inch, to where he could see into the ancient graveyard that surrounded Eden Parrish Church. He quickly ducked back down, a wide-eyed expression of terror plastered across his face.

"Th-there's gotta be a h-hundred of them over there in the g-graveyard, maybe m-more."

Sitting Lotus had the screaming urge to run the other way down the road; it didn't matter where, just as long as it wasn't anywhere near those harpies. "In the name of the World Honored One, they stink of death, and of . . . evil."

"You right, novice. And if there such thing as duality, and because of this such thing as evil, harpies be it, no doubt. They act part because human beings believe they evil, no more. No good, no evil, no birth, no death, no duality." Master Mirbodi grinned. "Everybody have choice, even harpies."

Sitting Lotus pursed his lips. "But what are we going to do? What about our vows to not kill living things?"

Master Mirbodi's grin widened. "Novice, you think harpies future buddhas?"

"Huh? I dunno. Supposedly all sentient beings have the capacity to become buddhas. But those ugly things . . ." Sitting Lotus shuddered. "I don't know, Master. Yes? No? Maybe? Say, why don't you tell me? After all, you're the Master here."

Master Mirbodi chuckled. "You ever hear saying 'If you see Buddha in road, kill him'?"

"Of course. But that's a metaphor! It means you shouldn't hang onto the idea that there even is such a thing as a buddha, or that it's even possible to become a buddha, because it interferes with what's truly important: your practice."

The Zen master's gaze bored into the novice. "The true dharma not dependent on words and scriptures, much less metaphors and similes." He shrugged. "Interpret saying how you like. But tonight, if we see ugly, stinking harpy-buddhas in road, we gonna kill 'em."

Sitting Lotus shuddered, and Master Mirbodi peered at him with concern.

"Novice, we no really gonna kill harpies dead! We just gonna send 'em home! Maybe one day, sometime within next one million lifetimes, they thank us for it. And they be much happier back in pit of ancient Greek hell anyway." He paused, and added, "So you ready, or what?"

Sitting Lotus's brow furrowed. "Am I ready for wha—"

Before he could finish, Master Mirbodi stood up to his full height. The Zen master brought two fingers to his mouth and whistled like a human teakettle.

Harpies perched on the ancient gravestones dotting the churchyard and roosted upon the steeple and bell-tower of the church. Their upper bodies resembled adult human females, scraggly black wings jutting from their backs, their thin limbs those of birds of prey. The monsters had been chirruping, clicking, and screeching as if plotting out a plan of attack on Eden, but at the piercing whistle they stopped dead and turned as one to see who had come a-calling.

A horrifying moment of silence fell across Colonial Towne Road. The calm before the deadly storm of sagging breasts and razor-sharp talons, Sitting Lotus thought. The rain slowed, the wind stopped howling, and the thunder ceased rumbling, as if the storm gods themselves were waiting to see what this insane patchrobed monk with the death wish had to say for himself.

Master Mirbodi cupped his hands to his mouth and called out, "Hey, you!"

The harpies looked at him, and then around at each other.

"That right, I talking to you, harpies! You so stupid and ugly and stinky and slow! I bet you never catch me because you way too out of shape and ugly and unenlightened!"

Master Mirbodi turned and ran the other way down Colonial Towne Road, grabbing an astonished Sitting Lotus as he blew past. From behind them came the furious shrieks of a thousand fiends of hell. Sitting Lotus did not turn to look, but he was sure the harpies were taking to the air, intent on hunting them down and rending them limb from bloody limb.

Sitting Lotus ran for his life and did nothing but run for his life. He could hear the harpies above, their bone-jarring shrieks getting closer, ever closer. A flash of lightning blasted the world, and he saw winged shadows circling in the sky like monstrous half-human vultures. But these hell-birds would not wait until they were deceased to rip their eyes from their sockets and begin slurping away at their brains, sucking the Buddha-nature out of their skulls like consciousness-flavored smoothies.

Master Mirbodi made a quick right, cutting into the grassy field surrounding the Colonial Eden Magazine. Through the driving rain Sitting Lotus could barely see the roof of the conical building that in colonial times held the town's stash of weapons and emergency supplies.

"Head for Magazine, novice!" yelled Master Mirbodi.

"O . . . kay . . . Mas . . . ter," wheezed Sitting Lotus through burning lungs.

The old monk grinned over at him as lightning flashed and lit the night to momentary daylight. Again, Sitting Lotus caught a glimpse of shadowy wings above, as well as leering bird-demon faces. He screamed soprano and refused to look anywhere but ahead, squinting against the downpour, which felt like pins and needles driving into his eyes.

There was the fence, not ten yards ahead! But how would they get over it? It was after hours, and the gate was closed, locked up for the night!

"Use Mind, novice, and jump," called out a smiling Master Mirbodi, as if he had been listening in on the novice's thoughts. The Zen master's demeanor was that of a man out for a delightful evening jog rather than running for his life.

The fence was twelve feet high and made of crossed, sharpened stakes! If you missed by an inch, you'd disembowel yourself! And Sitting Lotus was no Olympian!

But there was no time to think about it.

So he leaped off his back foot and attained heights never before attained, debunking the age-old myth that white men can't jump. As he sailed over the stakes of disembowelment, he flung out his right hand and busted a pose like an NFL running back leaping over a hapless defender.

But then the hem of his robe caught on a stake. He heard a ripping sound, and felt himself falling . . .

Then he was lifted up, as if by an angel.

Master Mirbodi caught Sitting Lotus like an oversized football and tucked the novice under his arm. A few seconds later, they were inside the Magazine.

Master Mirbodi slammed the door closed. He placed Sitting Lotus on the ground, then turned and threw the bolt across the heavy wooden door, the one entrance to the Magazine.

Sitting Lotus stood up on shaky legs. Over the drilling rain, he could hear harpies screeching and claws scratching at the outside of the building. Then came a pounding on the door like an army of redcloaks outside bashing its way in with a tree trunk. It was debatable how long this reproduction building could hold up under the barrage of a hundred angry harpies, but it wouldn't be long.

"Th-thank you, Master," mumbled Sitting Lotus. "Y-you saved my life."

Master Mirbodi waved off the comment. "No student of mine gonna be eaten by harpies. And we got no time for sobbing and 'boo-hoo-hoo'-ing about how you be better student from now on, so skip it." He grabbed a candle and lit it with a puff of flame that ignited on the tip of his extended index finger. He handed the candle to Sitting Lotus, who alternated between ogling it and the Zen master's smoking digit.

Then there issued the eardrum-melting roar of some angry evil god directly behind them.

The Magazine shook with the ripping sound, and boxes of imitation swords and pikes and muskets clattered from the rickety shelves lining the walls to the floor. The moist air was suddenly injected with the noxious odor of rotting fish and brimstone, like some sort of watery hell.

Slowly, with raised candle, the novice turned around.

They shared the Magazine with a dragon.

A dragon with lots and lots of heads.

The beast took up a full three-quarters of the building, its bloated body stuffed into the place like a pickled egg in a tiny jar. It stared at Sitting Lotus with a dozen sets of beady, malevolent eyes set within reptilian visages. Acrid black smoke poured from its many sets of nostrils, which explained the dead fish and sulfur smell. A pair of horns gnarled up from each of its serpent heads. It boasted the spiked tail of a stegosaurus, swishing back and forth behind its bulk, as if about to lash out at those unfortunates who had interrupted it from doing whatever in the sixteen lesser hells it had been doing here in the Magazine.

"Keep mind free of fear, novice," said Master Mirbodi.

Sitting Lotus gulped and tried to ignore the urge to open the door and bolt out into the harpy-filled night, which would pretty much blow the whole "keep-mind-free-of-fear" thing. Candlelight flickered across the redbrick walls of the Magazine as Sitting Lotus's hands shook.

Master Mirbodi stepped forward and bowed to the dragon, which looked taken aback. The Zen master smiled as he so often did and said, "Mistress Hydra, I honored by presence in humble town of Eden. I request assistance tonight, if you willing to help an old monk out."

A couple of Hydra-heads roared and gnashed their fangs, but the rest looked back and forth at one another, as if unsure what to make of this monk standing before them so passively. Sitting Lotus's jaw dropped in astonishment at the words. Master Mirbodi floated towards the Hydra, some heads of which were beginning to look rather nervous.

"Master, I'm not sure that's such a good—"

"Shush, novice!"

Master Mirbodi hovered closer to the monster. A few writhing Hydra heads lowered to sniff at his patchwork robes. Master Mirbodi didn't even flinch and moved to beneath the creature's swollen green belly. He reached out a hand.

When he touched the Hydra's scales, the dragon seemed to relax. Its twenty-four pupils contracted, and its hardened heart could almost be heard to melt inside its swollen chest.

The dragon's many craniums proceeded to take turns preening and fawning over Master Mirbodi as if the old monk was the beast's long-lost dragon-son returned to Wyrmville after a thousand years of exile. The Hydra clucked and clicked like a mother hen, smoke puffing from its many sets of nostrils.

"What did you do to it, Master?" asked a mystified Sitting Lotus.

Hydra-heads swarming around him, the Zen master shrugged. "I just tell her I know who she is. I tell her I know how she suffer, and I tell her of end of suffering. She help us now."

A moment of silence, then Sitting Lotus said, "Are you telling me you just converted the Hydra, a diabolical monster of ancient Greek mythology, to Buddhism?!"

Master Mirbodi smiled and rubbed a Hydra-head—which could have easily bitten the monk in half if so inclined—behind the ears. "Call it what you will, novice, call it what you will."

"But how—" began Sitting Lotus.

His words were swallowed in sound as the wall of the Colonial Eden Magazine exploded inward.

Shattered bricks and debris rained down upon Sitting Lotus, and he dropped when something mushy and heavy smacked him in the back of the head. Stars blasted across his blackening vision as his face met the floor of the Magazine. He lay there, underneath the shattered wall, as harpy cries pierced the air of the Magazine like poisoned darts of death. The stench of the Hydra's breath was soon overpowered by the cadaverous reek that clung to the flying hellions.

Then the Hydra roared, the harpies shrieked, and chaos ensued.

His head hurting something fierce, Sitting Lotus crawled forth from underneath loose bricks, stood up on shaky feet, and looked around. The Hydra was attacking the harpies—and Master Mirbodi was hanging onto one of her necks like a dragon-rider at a rodeo in surrealist hell!

The Zen master was "yee-haw!"ing and "yip-yip-yip!"ing as he was flung this way and that, an ecstatic grin plastered on his face. Harpies crashed to the floor of the Magazine in droves and feathers flew in a whirlwind, like a flock of smelly, dirty geese had gone through a wood chipper. Harpies flailed to the ground, choking and gagging, hit by the Hydra's poison breath. Throbbing blacks veins appeared in bird-woman flesh and spread until their feathered gray bodies turned into charred ash.

When the harpies "died," they dissipated into purplish mist like monsters in a video game, no trace of them left behind. Even when a harpy managed to get through the Hydra's defenses, there was no hope for total victory. Sitting Lotus saw one of the beasts sever a Hydra head with a well-aimed slash of the claw. When he looked up from the lifeless dragon-eyes, two more appendages sprouted from the Hydra's body, growing up from the wound like festering boils. In no time, the Hydra had thirteen heads instead of eleven and a gushing stump.

After a couple of minutes, it was over. Unfortunately, the stench remained behind after the harpies had dissipated into mist, but the beasts themselves were gone, hopefully screeching through the aether on their way back to Hades.

Clinging to a Hydra neck, Master Mirbodi said, "Hey, novice! Climb up here!"

"Do I have to? I have a serious aversion to fiends of hell."

"Yes!"

Sitting Lotus sighed, walked around to the wide backside of the Hydra, and climbed up via the spikes lining the beast's thick, scaly tail. Master Mirbodi met him on the Hydra's expansive back, being lowered down like a serpent king by a Hydra head. The old monk grinned widely and gap-toothily.

"That some good fun there. You shoulda been up here with me, novice. Much better view of action. Too bad wall cave in on you and harpy tit hit you in head."

"Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, too bad about that. And no thanks. I was just fine out of the way down there, quaking in my sandals and pissing myself with terror. Time to wash the ol' robes again, I guess. Thank Buddha it's raining. But the smell stays on 'em for a while. I have recent experience in these matters."

Master Mirbodi regarded Sitting Lotus as though sizing him up for auction. "Fear binding chains, a mental formation that fetter you to so-called reality, keep you from realizing true nature of self and universe."

"Well, be that as it may, it's hard not to be afraid when you're confronted by slavering flocks of mythical bird-fiends from ancient Greek hell."

"Of course you gonna be afraid, novice. But it about recognizing that fear, and not letting it control what you think or how you act, if you choose to act at all."

Sitting Lotus remained silent, contemplative.

"Now we leaving," said Master Mirbodi. "Better grab hold of Hydra neck and hang on tight if you wanna stay along for whole ride."

"And where are we going now?"

Master Mirbodi grinned in particularly crazy fashion, even for him. "We gonna comb town of Eden for hellspawn, and when we find them I introduce them to new friend Hydra."

"But of course," said Sitting Lotus weakly. "I just hope she's not moving into the novice dormitories any time soon." Grimacing, he grabbed ahold of a Hydra-neck and held on for his Buddha-blessed life as the monster rumbled into action.

The Hydra burst through the fence surrounding the Magazine and made its way into the storm and the heart of Eden, the monks riding it like a duo of dishrag-draped dragonknights.

## Chapter 32

## The Palace of Hades

The carriage touched down at the foot of the Titanic Peaks, and Team Myth and the Judge of the Dead jumped down onto the ash that covered the length and breadth of Hades.

Jack alternated between looking around at the desolate landscape and up at the towering mountains, their peaks lost in the swirling Hadean sky. "So where's this Unseen Palace?"

Stephone grinned and pointed towards the dark, hulking mountain before them. "Jack, stop trying to look, and look closer at that mountain."

Jack took a deep breath. And when he stopped trying to look closer and truly looked closer, he saw it. The Unseen Palace was carved from the mountainside and blended into the peak like an optical illusion. Tall Doric columns and a massive black archway marked the entrance.

"So here we are," said Rhadamanthus. "What now, geniuses?"

"I don't like this," said Stephone. "There should be shades milling about all over the place, passing by on their way to Elysium."

Jack noted with upraised eyebrows the general vacantness of the Palace frontage. "Perhaps they all had to use the bathroom at once. Or maybe they all got tired of hanging around this depressing Underworld and jaunted on ahead to the Blessed Isles."

"Yeah, or perhaps we're expected," said Tom.

Ominous silence greeted this statement.

Tom gave a start and looked around, wild-eyed. "He's here! Sid's here! This close, I can feel him! Follow me!" He grabbed Becky's hand and was off like a shot, tugging the flailing gal up the steps, underneath the archway, and into the Palace.

"Slow down, Tom!" called Jack. He turned to Stephone. "Come on, babe, let's go. I don't want those two to have to face any crazy evil dangers without our help. I know it's not very Trickster-like to want to walk into trouble, but I've grown attached to . . ." He trailed off and stared at Rhadamanthus.

The Judge of the Dead had been picking dirt from under his nails. He waggled a hand in dismissal when he noticed Jack's stare. "Run along, you two. I'll just wait here with the carriage until you return. Trust me, I won't run off." He raised his bushy white eyebrows in straightforward, honest manner. "And if you can't trust a judge, who can you trust?"

"Oh, please, Rhadamanthus," said Stephone. "Again, you're coming with us."

The Judge's face fell. "Do I have to?"

"Yes," said Stephone, her resolute tone ending the discussion.

The pink Hades light gleamed off the glassy rock walls of the Palace's entrance corridor, which was empty of beings. They soon reached an open courtyard hemmed in by high black walls and dotted with tall, spindly minarets. At the far end of the huge, open courtyard sat a pair of gleaming golden gates. Beyond them, a tunnel cut through the mountain. A soft silver-gold fog emanated from the tunnel's mouth.

Jack's jaw dropped upon sighting the unearthly haze—and at the choir of angels that burst into song inside his head.

"The Elysian Fields," murmured Stephone. "Aren't they beautiful?"

The feeling the glorious mist imbued in Jack's soul made him want to cry out for joy, fall to his knees, and thank the heavens for heaven. Even though he could not see much of this ultimate paradise, he could feel it, over there, beyond the Titanic Peaks, waiting for him, as if it had been made just for him, and when he got there he could stay there forever and be happy for the rest of his days.

"It's . . . I've never seen or felt anything like it before," he mumbled when his brain had rendezvoused with his vocal chords.

"The Fields transmit a feeling of blessedness to all who walk through them, or even glimpse them from afar. Actually strolling through that paradise, though, and swimming in its seas, why, the feeling is a thousandfold to what you're experiencing right now! Don't forget that I promised to take you there for a little R 'n R after this is over." Her eyes locked onto Jack's. "I intend to keep that promise."

When the stragglers reached the leaders, Tom was near foaming at the mouth to get a move on and rescue his brother.

"Sid's somewhere near the top of that tower," said Tom. He pointed at the Palace's tallest minaret, which stretched up into the sky until it was lost to view in the turbulent gray clouds above.

Stephone peered upwards with a pained expression. "The top floor of the tower is Hades' Throne Room. And I've got a bad feeling we're being set up."

Jack broke the somber silence. "Maybe we are, but do we have any choice but to go on and finish this thing out?" He smiled and grabbed Stephone's hand, kissing it in dramatic fashion. "You forget, my cute little queen, that I am a Trickster. Recently reacquainted with my powers, this is true—but Tricksters, as goes with the name, always have a trick or three up their sleeve. I don't know what they are, exactly, but that's okay. I can wing it." One eyebrow cocked, he peered around at his companions. "And from what I've seen, you guys ain't exactly slouches." He glanced at the Judge of the Dead. "And don't forget, we got us a hostage. His miserable hide probably won't bring much bargaining power, but at least we can use him as a shield against aerial attacks from the crazy King of the Dead guy."

"We gotta rescue Sid," said Tom.

"And time's a-wasting while we're sitting here debating," added Becky.

"You're right," said Stephone. "All of you. We must go forth, into the belly of the beast."

The ground floor of the tower was an empty, open landing. They climbed the spiral staircase that hugged the edges of the tower's interior. No one spoke during the ascent; they simply watched the floor below grow farther and farther away.

After what seemed like ages but was probably only a few minutes Earth-time, the Throne Room of Hades lay through the nondescript trapdoor above them. Tom pushed upwards, and the door opened with a squeal, a groan, and a long sigh like the last breath of life.

Windows that stretched up to the high domed ceiling rested at the end of a hallway. Looking one way, Jack could see all the way to Tartarus and the burning Phlegethon. On the opposite side, the tantalizing glow of Elysium was just noticeable through a gap between the Titanic Peaks. He could see no more, because cases of Olde Eden Hoppy Heaven Ale filled the Throne Room, leaving only a narrow corridor. Two chairs, their backs to the trapdoor, stood halfway down one hallway.

They approached the chairs slowly, Becky covering their backs with a loaded slingshot.

Tom turned the corner and looked at the front side of the chairs, then jumped up and down in jubilation. "It's him! It's Sid! And Farmer John!"

But the pair wore slack-jawed expressions on their faces, and no recognition alighted in their open eyes at the sight of Team Myth. They remained mute and unmoving, drool hanging from their chins, staring past the companions into nothingness. Domed metallic hats rested on their heads, attached to the apexes of the vibrating chairs by thick black and blue electrical wires like something out of a low-budget sci-fi flick. A small LED control panel, blinking with green and red lights, adorned the side of each chair.

Tom would have pulled his brother from the chair had Stephone not raised a cautionary finger. "Wait a second," she said. "Modern Chairs of Forgetfulness can be tricky." She peered at the control panel on the side of Sid Sawyer's chair, muttering to herself.

Stephone pressed a button, and the LED panel flashed in green letters: ENTER PASSWORD FOR RELEASE OF PRISONER.

"Password, huh? Five characters, all letters." She pondered for a moment, then typed H - A - D - E - S into the keypad. There was a long, negative-sounding beep, and the word INCORRECT flashed across the display in angry red letters. Then, scrolling by twice: TWO MORE ATTEMPTS.

"We've got two more shots at it. Any ideas?" asked Stephone.

"Do you know the password, Judge?" said Jack, poking Rhadamanthus in the ribs.

"No," snapped the Judge, swatting at Jack's prodding finger. "The Unseen One does not tell me his personal codes."

"Try D - E - A - T - H," said Tom.

"Death, huh? Why not?" Stephone typed it into the keypad, and they waited with bated breath for . . . the same depressing beep, which seemed to resonate longer this time.

INCORRECT blinked across the screen, then ONE MORE ATTEMPT, followed by, scrolling across at a crawl: IF INCORRECT, IRREVERSIBLE SHUTDOWN WILL COMMENCE.

"Irreversible shutdown?" said Jack. "What does that mean?"

Stephone's quick shake of the head said it all. "It means we've got one more try, and if we're wrong the Chair shuts down . . . with its occupant still hooked up to it."

"What?!" yelled Tom. "What'll that do to him?"

"I don't know. I don't think it's ever happened before."

"Well, we gotta get this thing right, then!"

"Mebbe we could try the next guess on Farmer John's Chair," suggested cool-headed Becky.

The others nodded at the wise idea—all but one of them.

"Say, guys," said Jack, sounding apologetic. "I don't think that last is gonna be possible, because this thing just started ticking down from 60 seconds." He pointed at the flashing screen. "Now it's 56 . . . 55 . . . 54 . . . 53 . . ."

"What's the code, people, what's the code?!" cried Tom.

Jack brainstormed, attempting to unravel the mystery. What five-letter word would a god of death imprint as password on the hard-drive of his Chair of Forgetfulness? Hopefully it wasn't a random assortment of letters, or John and Sid were screwed.

"Twenty-five seconds," said Becky. "Any ideas?"

Stephone snapped her fingers. "Maybe the Unseen One used his Roman name as the code, even though he hates it. But everybody knows that, so maybe it is the code because no one would expect it to be the code, if you get what I'm saying."

"Try it!" yelled Tom. "We're down to ten seconds!"

Jack was closest the control panel, so he typed P - L - U - T - I into the keypad. Just as he was about to hit the ENTER button, he realized his mistake. "Oops," he said with a smile and a shrug, and deleted the typo I and tapped the O button. He submitted their last guess a mere two seconds before IRREVERSIBLE SHUTDOWN commenced.

Jack gritted his teeth, anticipating something terrible—and the LED gave a ding that sounded most positive compared to the basketball-buzzer, game-ending sound of before.

"Big . . . big brother?" came an unsteady voice. "Is that . . . is it really you?"

Tom Sawyer cried out with joy. He jumped to his brother, pulled the headgear off Sid, and tossed it aside. "Yes, Sid, it's me! And I'm sorry I went and fouled everything up and got you mythnapped!"

Sid Sawyer groaned and shook his head to clear it.

"Can you ever forgive me, little brother?"

Sid's eyes cleared of grogginess, and he said, "There ain't nothin' to forgive. Everybody mucks up now and then." He nudged Tom, who at first looked hurt, but then smiled when he looked at Sid and realized his brother was joking. "Shucks, I know I mucked up when I drank all those samples of ales and lagers and ciders. Sure, I may be over a hunnerd years old, but I can't take all that heavy drinking!"

Sid stood up with Tom's support and began to hobble around the Throne Room to get his legs back in working order.

"All right," said Jack. "Let's get Farmer John out of that Chair of Forgetfulness and get the hell out of hell."

"D'you think it's the same code?" asked Becky, peering at the other Chair.

"I don't know, but—"

"It is indeed the same," interrupted a deep, dark voice that sliced into Team Myth's brains like a thought-killing knife. "But you shall not have the opportunity to input it."

A cloud of smog billowed out of the cracks between cases of beer and filled the corridor, sucking the light, the air, the very hope from the atmosphere.

Jack hacked as the writhing blackness entered his lungs and contracted. With his eyes shut tight, he covered his mouth with his shirt and groped around in the soupy organic midnight. He bumbled and stumbled in the darkness, but encountered nothing. He could not speak, for the stinging fog had rendered his vocal chords useless. He tripped over something, fell to the ground, and lay on the floor in the fetal position, shivering in pain and cold—and then he felt something building inside of him.

Something Big. Something Strong. Something Powerful.

Laughter echoed off the walls of his mind. A billion variegated voices hooting and hollering with uncontrollable, insane mirth.

And then the voices were gone. And Jack Whiskey began to laugh.

A vacuum cleaner sound interspersed between heaving guffaws echoed across the room, and the smog grew thinner. Soon the entire fog-bank had been sucked down into the lungs of Jack Whiskey, lying on the floor holding his heaving belly and giggling like a madman locked in a padded room.

Shocked, everybody—including Hades, who had a strange-looking helmet under his arm and had been creeping up behind Stephone like the Bogeyman—stared at the Trickster.

Jack burped. Ebony fog shot into the air and disappeared like pipe smoke. "Stop right there, Hades!" he said between chuckles.

Tom and Becky snapped into action and leveled their slingshots at Hades, who dropped the helmet and raised his arms. The helmet rolled around a bit before settling into place against the wall of beer. Tom and Sid stared at it in wonder.

Hades wore flowing black robes. His bearded face was for the most part human, but his irises were as red as fresh blood, and his pupils and corneas as black as midnight. He grinned, and fangs extended down from his mouth. "All right. So you got me. What now?"

"Get away from him, Stephone!" yelled Tom Sawyer.

The Iron Queen obliged, coming to stand with her companions. They faced Hades with weapons drawn, grim expressions draped across their faces. Rhadamanthus slunk off towards the window, probably hoping to get out of the way of any unpleasantness.

Hades glared at Jack with a hard-to-read expression. "Most impressive, Trickster. Not many can dispel my Cloud of Darkness. I am a master of the darkest arts, and can crank out Clouds with the best of them. Bravo! Give yourself a pat on the back! The hero of the hour, you surely are!"

"Hey, bro, mocking sarcasm is my game," said Jack gruffly. "Don't think you can just bust up in the joint and do it better than the master."

Hades's eyes flashed with the promise of a painful afterlife. "Well, bro, no matter what game I am playing or who I'm playing with, I play for keeps. And trust me, I still have money on the table. Big money. And the stakes are apocalyptic."

"Yeah, well, the table's turned on you a little bit as the night's worn on, don't you think? Like, you were up big at some point, but things went south pretty quick after that? Like, you left your poker face at home in your underwear drawer by the lube and the dildo you jackrabbit yourself with nightly?"

Team Myth could almost see the storm-clouds of fury amassing around Hades's head. But the King of the Dead said not a word, composed himself, and smiled in a manner most evil. Tom had been creeping forward, his slingshot leveled at Hades's eye, and he kicked the dropped helmet out of reach of the Lord of the Underworld.

"Ah, yes." Hades watched the helmet skitter away with apathetic eyes. "My Helmet of Invisibility. It has come in handy these past few millenniums, but even more so in the last few days. I've been traveling with you the entire journey across my realm."

"Helmet of Invisibility!" cried Sid. "No way!"

"Wait, wait, wait," said Tom. "Whaddya mean you been traveling with us the whole time?"

Hades cackled like a demented warlock. "I was the unseen companion on your journey. I had to summon my demon-horses when you hitched a ride on Cerberus—he would have known if I was on his back—but I caught up with you at the Courthouse. Quite a scene there in the Courtroom! I thought Tisiphone was sure to destroy you." He motioned in Jack's direction. "And then this idiot almost saw me when I was riding with you in Rhadamanthus's carriage."

Upon mention of his name, the Judge of the Dead jumped into the midst of the companions. If Jack hadn't restrained him, Rhadamanthus probably would have run to Hades and thrown his arms around the evil god like a long-lost brother. "If you were at the Courthouse, then you know I did not betray you, my lord! As you must have witnessed, I remained ever faithful to—"

Hades snarled. "Shut your face, you sniveling wretch!" His eyes flashed with dark energy. He flicked his fingers, and purple lightning shot from his hands towards the ceiling, bathing the room with a brightness that seared the eyes, like looking at a supernova up close and personal.

Finally, the light sputtered and died out.

Half-blind, his skin tingling, knocked down onto his knees by the flare's power, Jack reached out for Stephone. Hades grinned, made a quick movement with his hands, and intoned: (STOP!)

And the River that was Time's trickling waters froze solid.

## Chapter 33

## The Adventures of Huck, Joe, and Ben

The College of Bill & Gary was quiet. Too quiet.

Huck shivered as the rain trickled down the brim of his straw hat and soaked his shirt. He and Joe and Ben had been walking through the campus for a while now, watching and observing, and had so far seen nothing out of the ordinary. Not a soul, human or mytho, had yet crossed their path.

"You sure we got everything we need, Huck?" asked Ben Rogers.

Huck stifled a sigh. They had been over this a hundred times already.

"Well," he said with as much patience as he could muster, "I got my slingshot and a pocketful of steel balls. And I got a kenned-up notebook full of paper and this bad-ass spitball shooter Cap'n Promo made for me last night." He brandished a slender blowpipe, no wider than an overlarge straw, emblazoned with rich colors and strange symbols that Promo had told Huck were good luck sigils of the ancient Greeks.

"That there shooter is the nicest I ever seen," said Joe Harper with undisguised awe.

"I'm sure Promo'll make you one if—" Huck's eyes went wide. "Duck!" Everyone hit the deck. Something screeched like a million out-of-tune trumpets and flashed across the sky inches above them, wicked talons extended to take off their heads.

Huck scrambled to his feet. He got a good look at the beast as it landed on the front steps of Hausman Hall, the academic building ten yards to their right.

It was winged like a bat, with the body of a lion and the stingered tail of a scorpion. It snarled, and its mockery of a human being's mouth stretched across its face to monstrous proportions, exposing waves of rotting gums and rows of black fangs that made Huck think of sharks. Its flapping wings sent blasts of wind and water into the night as its scorpion-tail smashed the windows of the building one by one. Then it stopped its vandalism, and its tail cocked back and pointed their way. A series of scraping sounds sliced over the raging storm, like a hacksaw cutting into metal.

Huck dove left as a bombardment of poisonous quills joined the rain falling from the sky. One of the darts took off his straw hat. He jumped to his feet and dashed for cover behind the trunk of a magnolia tree, joining Ben and Joe.

"What in the hell-Worlds is that thing?" asked Ben.

"It's a manticore," said Huck, peeking around the tree.

The manticore fired more poison quills in their direction, but they bounced off the magnolia's trunk or went wide. The monster had yet to advance on their position, and Huck had no clue what he was going to do when this happened. He ducked back behind the tree just before a quill landed in his eye and made a path through his brain, then turned to Joe and Ben.

"Say, guys, I'm kicking meself in the behind for not thinking 'bout this beforehand, but I ain't sure how effective our spitballs are gonna be in this storm."

"We been shooting at the durn thing nonstop, but either the spitballs ain't getting there or they ain't hurting 'im," said Ben.

"Prob'ly ain't gettin' there," said Joe. "The rain's just too much for 'em."

"Right, then. Switch to slingshots," said Huck. "We'll see how that ugly thing likes kenned-up steel in its guts!"

Joe and Ben leaped one way and Huck the other, steel balls buzzing through the air like metallic insects. The manticore roared as the stinging rounds drilled into it, and blasted quills in retaliation.

Then a feral cry pierced the night, and the remaining windows of Haus Hall shattered as one. Everybody, even the manticore, stopped moving and looked upwards.

A stream of flame poured from the building's roof and into the stormy night, evaporating the water falling from the sky. In the sudden flickering firelight, all saw the beast that had crashed this party unannounced. The chimera had the body, golden mane, and head of a lion, which roared and sent another fireball into the sky from between its jaws. From the middle of its back jutted the head of a goat, which brayed and burped lightning. Its tail was a writhing viper, glistening fangs dripping black venom.

The chimera erupted from all ends at once. A gush of fire, a bolt of lightning, and a glob of venom shot in their direction. Then it pounced—but not on Huck, Joe, and Ben.

The lightning and the venom missed the manticore, but the fireball hit the creature head on. Monster flesh sizzled, and the manticore screamed in pain, doubly as the chimera's claws latched onto its back. The two hellfiends roared, slashed, and fanged. Fire flared, poison flew, lightning flashed, poisoned quills sliced into sides. In no time they had destroyed the west wing of Haus Hall and now worked on the eastern portion in a manner just as efficient.

Half a minute later, a series of deafening roars issued over the storm, followed by a smoky explosion that lit up the campus in a black-light sunset. There was a loud fizzling sound, and thick plumes of purple smoke poured into the sky over the rubble of Haus Hall.

Afterwards, all was silent except for the pouring rain.

"Well, I'll be derned," said Ben, looking at the smashed building with wide eyes. "They destroyed each other."

Huck said, "It almost seemed like the chimera was trying to . . . protect us."

"The chimera," said Joe, his eyes glazing over, "is the offspring of Echidna, the mother of all monsters, and Typhon, said to be the biggest, ugliest creature in all of creation. Cerberus, guardian of the Underworld, and the Hydra, a many-headed dragon-like creature destroyed by Hercules, are its siblings."

Huck gave Joe an annoyed look. "All right. Enough with the lectures already, professor. We'll head west to Tranquil Forest. Hopefully we can find the others. My radio busted when I hit the dirt, so we got no other way to get in touch with 'em. So let's slope already."

And Huck, Joe, and Ben made their way westward as the evening storm—so common to the humid American South during the summer months—rolled on unabated.

## Chapter 34

## Stoppage

Everybody in the Throne Room was frozen solid, awkwardly caught unawares, like in a bad photograph. Jack was on his knees, reaching out to Stephone, who stood staring at the Unseen One in shocked disbelief. Tom, Becky, and Sid stood in a huddle, Tom reaching for his slingshot with a hand that would never make it there. Rhadamanthus cowered by the window as a still-life mound of black robe, whereas before he had been quaking with fear.

All was silent, inanimate—and then a laugh split the unmoving air of stop-time like thunder.

"Mwah-hah-hah-ha-ha!" The Unseen One dusted off his hands. "What fools! Did they really think I was just going to let them have their way with me like that?" He strolled over to the rigid Stephone and placed a finger on her forehead. A flash of darkness burst, and Stephone gasped as she reanimated.

"What in—" She looked around in bewilderment, then her eyes focused on Hades. "You! You stopped time! But how?"

Hades's eyes changed. For a split second they betrayed worry. Fear. Frustration. Helplessness. His lips parted to speak—and then his eyes went wild, and he giggled like a mad, misguided mockingbird. "Chronos owed Hades a favor, and I have borrowed a measure of his powers." An obscene grin stretched across his face. "Right now, my hellish legions are invading Eden, my Queen. Once that pathetic little Earth-town is under my control, I will round up the human residents and throw a little party where everybody will be served all the Hoppy Heaven Ale they can drink! Let me tell you, it's sure to be one Hades of a party!" Blood dripped from his fangs, as if leaking from some unseen well of suffering within his soul. "Soon there will be no more Earth, no more Worlds of Myth, and you and I shall be the only beings left in the universe. You will then be my Queen in earnest, and we shall repopulate the cosmos with our children, who will become the next line of gods and mythological beings. We shall become . . . Creator gods!"

Stephone's eyebrows shot up. "Mythological beings cannot simply become Creator gods! What you speak of is impossible! We are bound by our limitations!"

Hades's eyes glazed over. "When the universe is ablaze and Shiva is at his weakest, I shall absorb him and his ken. Then I will take care of the rest of those doddering old fools sitting there twiddling their thumbs outside of linear time." He chuckled. "That is, if they're even still there. After that it'll be you and me, babe, together until the end of Time . . ."

"But if humanity perishes, so do you! Your mind, your spirit, your ken, will be snuffed out with the death of the human race, the drying up of the Ocean of Myth! And you cannot simply absorb Shiva! You do not have the power to absorb! And even if you did, you won't be around to try!"

Hades stared at her with unblinking crimson orbs. Lust arose within his eyes and seeped across his countenance in an evil flood. A chilling, open-mouthed smile spread across his face. "You know, perhaps we could start that repopulation of the cosmos a little early—plant the first seed now, if you know what I'm saying. I'm really liking this whole 'having a body' thing."

Stephone recoiled. "You are speaking nonsense, Hades! What's gotten into you? This is not like you!"

The King of the Dead's breath quickened and filled the room with the stench of decay, as if his innards were rotting away inside of him. "I've wanted you since the day I first laid eyes on you. I've always had a thing for goddesses of death." The fangs jutting from his mouth extended to below his chin, and he reached out for Stephone with a smile conjured from a nightmare painted on his face and an ancient, unfulfilled lust burning in his eyes.

Stephone shrank from him, backing into the wall of beer. Her powers were useless against her husband. It was her ken.

Stoppage.

When he gave me the watch, Sir Arthur said, "But it might come in handy if you run into any stoppage. Break it."

He meant the stoppage of time! Time will start again if I can break the watch!

But how? I can't move an inch, no matter how hard I push. I can't produce the slightest twitch of the finger, no matter how hard I try.

So can I break the watch with my . . . mind? With my ken? Is that possible, much less inside this weird stop-time?

Well, there's only one way to find out, I guess.

I can feel the watch, pressing into my leg, right there in my pocket—and it's still ticking! Perhaps this crazy plot of mine just might—holy shit, he just grabbed her arm!

Break, you clockwork bastard!

For Stephone's sake . . .

BREAK!

## Chapter 35

## The Adventures of Sir Arthur and Captain Promo

Sir Arthur and Captain Promo traipsed across muddy beds of ivy in the deeper reaches of Tranquil Forest.

"Just a few more yards to the sipapuni," yelled Promo over the wind and the rain.

"Keep your eyes open when you get there. Who knows what might be waiting for—" Sir Arthur cried out at a sudden stinging on his calf, as if he had walked into a patch of nettles. Ahead of him, Captain Promo made a gurgling sound.

Sir Arthur looked down and saw a hypodermic needle protruding from his leg. A distant horn sounded over the raging wind, coming from the direction of the sipapuni, and he felt lightheaded. He reached down to remove the foreign object jutting from his person, and the plunger depressed, as if some invisible nurse had given him a shot. His right leg began to go numb as the substance joined his bloodstream.

With a gasp, Sir Arthur pulled the syringe from his flesh and threw it aside. The horn sounded again, closer this time, and the feeling of dizziness doubled.

"Promo, it's an ambush!" His words slurred so much that he could barely understand himself. He ducked left, into the undergrowth, ignoring the lightheadedness. It was tougher to ignore his leg, which down to the toes now felt like dead weight. And the terrible sensation was creeping up to his groin, which was never a good thing. Whatever poison had been in that syringe was spreading like wildfire through his body. Then he lost all sensation in his legs, and he felt himself falling.

Sir Arthur saw Promo collapse to the forest floor ahead of him. A syringe jutted from the fire marshal's neck.

"Promo, get up," he urged, though it yet again came out as gibberish. The fire-bringer lay on the ground, unmoving, his face buried in ivy. From the forest floor, the detective reached out a hand to grab Promo's shoulder and help him up, but missed.

There was a crashing sound coming towards them through the forest, growing louder, getting closer by the second.

Sir Arthur went for his revolvers, his hands seeming to move in slow motion as they flopped towards the holsters at his waist. Once again, he missed. His entire body now burned with numbing fire, and he would soon float off into the Void.

From far away, he heard someone say: "See, pop, they just traipsed right into the trap like I told you they would!"

Then the mysterious horn sounded again, right in his face, and he heard no more.

Sir Arthur awoke when a bolt of lightning sliced across the sky. His head throbbed, and the unrelenting rain poured down upon his exposed skull. He felt . . . off. Distinctly not himself. He tried to work out why, but it was beyond him. He cracked open an eye as the thunder roared, wishing to observe before he made any kind of movement. But it was dark and his eyes had yet to adjust, and he could make out nothing of his surroundings. Another flash of lightning streaked across the heavens, and for a moment it might as well have been daytime.

He was near the Fountain of Youth. Nowhere else in Tranquil Forest did the flowers grow like they did here, even in the middle of August, when the humidity drowned just about every bloom it touched. The sipapuni's Waters gurgled softly about fifteen feet to his left. Purple-flowered azalea bushes clustered to his right, and a grove of prickly hollies lay beyond those.

Sir Arthur's ankles were bound with glowing rope—kenned-up, for sure. His sword-cane and revolvers had been stripped from his person; he could no longer feel their weight at his sides. His arms were bound behind him, presumably in the same manner as his legs, for he could feel a sharp, buzzing pressure on his wrists. Promo's dead weight pressed against his back.

Sir Arthur cursed silently. To walk right into a trap like that—why, he must be going senile! Of course Hades would have set someone to keep an eye on the sipapuni, to keep the World Path open at this end, ready to pour forth its demonic hordes! The good news was that he hadn't seen anybody else around—at least not yet. If he and Promo could work together, perhaps they could figure out a way to remove the bonds of ken before their captors returned.

Or before something nasty emerged from the sipapuni.

Could that be the very reason they had been left here like this? To be devoured by the next monster that came through the World Path? And where were their captors? Had they really just left them here and wandered off?

"Promo?" Sir Arthur glanced around the glade as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, taking mental notes of the surroundings. "You awake?"

The fire marshal muttered something unintelligible and shifted his weight, but then quieted and was still. He was still doped up from whatever had hit them—and Sir Arthur, upon quick consideration, knew just what had. The needles were a tough call, possibly a new weapon, but the horn was a dead giveaway.

"Hypnos," he muttered. "And the syringes? Could it have been . . . Morpheus?"

"That's right," said a voice in the detective's left eardrum—the dark, demoniac voice of a nightmare come to unholy life. "Morpheus, god of dreams, at your service."

Then came a tired, drowsy voice, as if its owner hovered at the edge of wakefulness. "And Hypnos, the god of sleep . . ."

The pair of Hadean denizens walked into Sir Arthur's view from behind.

Hypnos looked tired: an ever-drowsy human male, a Lazy John. Short and slight, he wore a golden helmet that sagged down over his eyes. Slender white wings protruded outwards from his temples, stretching back three feet behind his head. He said, "Can you believe this guy's supposed to be the greatest detective ever, son? And on equal footing with us, the true gods? Why, this guy's just a literary construct, no more powerful than the human being who first conceived him . . ."

Morpheus was well over six feet tall and frighteningly slender. He wore a black leather trenchcoat and black leather pants with silver chains dangling all over the place. Massive wings made of swirling feathers of darkness jutted from his back. Fangs like a vampire's poked out over thin, bloodless lips. Piercings looped with silver rings littered his pale face. He held a weapon that looked like a cross between a bazooka and an air-gun.

"Well, pop," he said, chortling, "I must admit I was a little concerned, what with all the rumors about him, but it turns out he's not as tough as everyone thinks he is."

Hypnos chuckled. "Why, just look at him, helpless as a babe, just like his humankind-loving pal, who can't handle his opium . . ." He brandished his opium-dispensing horn in Sir Arthur's face. "How 'bout you, Sherlock? Care for another hit of the horn?"

"Chill, pop," said Morpheus, placing a hand on Hypnos's shoulder. "Our orders are to keep these two alive until the boss gets here. He wants to deal with them personally."

"Not exactly my drug of choice, anyway," muttered Sir Arthur.

Hypnos backed away from Sir Arthur, keeping the horn's bell pointed at the detective. "What do you think is taking the boss so long, anyway?"

"He'll be back," said Morpheus. "Those fools can't stand up to him. We shouldn't be waiting much longer." A wicked grin slashed its way across his bloodless face. "Then we can join in the fun. Today I shall add hundreds to my collection of souls."

Morpheus produced a fist-sized glass sphere from his pocket. Firefly-like lights of an infinitude of colors flitted inside the crystal ball. Sir Arthur caught glimpses of distorted faces that formed and then disappeared back into the light-swarm: trapped human souls.

Hypnos snorted. "Always going on about your souls. Come on, son, we've all heard it before . . ."

The crystal ball disappeared into Morpheus's pocket. "You're all just jealous! Nobody in the entire Greek pantheon and beyond has a collection like mine!"

Hypnos waved off the comments. "Worthless things, human souls. Everyone knows that . . ." He placed a paternal hand on Morpheus's shoulder. "Son, it's not that other mythos are jealous of your collection, it's just that they don't care. Sure, those souls are pretty to look at swimming around in that globe of yours—a novelty, surely—but of what real use are they? I mean, really . . ."

Morpheus smiled with devilish pride. "I test synthetic nightmares and chemicals of dark imagination on them. One time I—"

Hypnos cut in before he could get going. "Well, sucks for the souls, I guess . . ."

Sir Arthur felt Promo stir against his back. Was the fire marshal finally waking up? Sir Arthur groaned to divert attention. Hypnos and Morpheus looked down at him as if just remembering they had company.

"Your bonds a little tight there, Sherlock?" asked Hypnos.

"It's so much fun to see you tied up like a stuck pig," said Morpheus, chuckling. "Maybe soon we can gut you like one, too." He kicked Sir Arthur in the side.

"So what was in those syringes?" Sir Arthur managed to croak. That one might have broken a rib.

Morpheus grinned like a child who had just learned to use the potty. "The very drug that is my namesake. Well, ninety percent morphine and ten percent of my own special concoction: supercharged narcotic ken-juice. You should feel privileged, because you're the first mytho it's been tested on. Well, the second, I guess, if you count your friend there. It's designed to not only numb the body, but deaden the intelligence. It just remains to be seen whether or not its effects are permanent or wear off after a while." The grin widened. "Personally, I'm hoping for the former."

A chill shot down Sir Arthur's spine. So that's why he couldn't think straight! Morpheus the basement chemist's new concoction flowing through his veins, making him stupid! He found his center and focused on filtering the poison out of his system.

"You must realize that this crackpot scheme of your master's is sure to fail," said Sir Arthur. "You cannot take over Eden with harpies!"

Morpheus laughed as if Sir Arthur was crafted of the utmost moronic fiber. "The harpies are the front lines, the fodder to be mowed down. I, however, command nightmares. You do know of my own personal army of darkness, do you not? The Oneiroi prey on dreams. They are blobs of darkness, globs of nightmare, all sharp fangs and shadowy wings. They bore into the ear—"

"Ah yes, the Oneiroi," interrupted Sir Arthur. "I know those foul beings of nightmare. They enter a human being's ear while asleep and attach to the outside of the brain like a tick. They infect their host's dreams with artificial nightmares, killing them with manufactured fear, and suck out their souls, leaving behind only the shell of body. The Oneiroi are parasites, but harmless to mythological beings. Except perhaps as an insect-like distraction because they're made of shadows and it's tough to see them to shoot the mindless things out of the sky."

Sir Arthur felt a sudden pressure against his back. Promo was awake, and he was telling him to keep the bastards talking because he had something up his sleeve!

"They are not mindless!" screamed Morpheus, bringing his face to an inch from Sir Arthur's, teeth gnashing and spittle flying. "They are connected, mind to mind, with me! And do I seem mindless to you, Sherlock? Just you remember whose trap you just waltzed into!"

"By no means would I say you're the brightest bulb in the gallery of gods, but then again nobody in your whole pantheon is."

"Hey, now . . ." slurred droopy-eyed Hypnos, halfheartedly restraining Morpheus from throttling the bound detective. "Why you gotta bring me and my peoples into this? I'm just standing over here, trying to catch a few quick Z's, and you insult me . . ." He clucked in disapproval. "It's just not nice, Sherlock. Perhaps by the end of this my son will have taught you some manners . . ."

Sir Arthur harrumphed and then regretted it, wincing as pain shot through his ribs. "Not likely," he said through clenched teeth. "Pretty soon, if your boss has his way, there'll be no time left for that or anything else, for there will be no Time, period."

"Whaddya mean there'll be no Time?" said Hypnos.

"If your so-called boss has his way, you two, me, your son's precious Oneiroi, all human and mythological beings in existence, will cease to exist. Nataraja will dance samhara, and the universe shall burn away to ashes."

Hypnos looked worried behind half-closed eyelids. "All beings will cease to exist? We were promised a high ranking in the new pantheon that is to be created . . ."

Sir Arthur snorted. "The existence of mythological beings depends upon human beings. Your boss has deceived you. No one shall awake from this nightmare. This is the end of everything."

Sir Arthur felt a surge of heat and a release of pressure on his wrists. Promo had burned away the bonds constricting their arms! Sir Arthur didn't dare give any indication this was so. He needed to keep these two talking until they were barely aware of their prisoners.

Morpheus turned to his father. "But pop!" he whined. "The boss promised us we'd be his right-hand men when the next universe is created, strong in the minds of all beings across the cosmos!"

"I know, son, I know . . ." Hypnos yawned and peered with skepticism at Sir Arthur through his ever-present haze of fatigue. "He must be lying . . ."

Sir Arthur laughed. He worked his hands together behind his back, building up ken, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. "Me, lying? I, Sherlock Holmes, a . . . a fibber?! Sure, I have been known to twist the truth to my own ends or let a criminal slide when there was a case with a debatable ethical quality to it, but I have never been a liar."

"But . . . but . . . but pop!" squealed Morpheus. He wrung his hands together, weapon secured under an armpit, no longer paying the slightest bit of attention to the captives. "Why would the boss lie to us?"

Hypnos's tiredness, which hung about him like a sandman's shroud, seemed to expand. "I don't know, son, I just don't know. I don't think he would, but he sure has been acting strange recently. Not quite himself. Sure, he seems just as evil and diabolical as ever, but he no longer has method to his madness. I mean, it's just not like him to try to destroy the entire—"

Sir Arthur and Captain Promo simultaneously sprang into action.

Promo dove towards the sipapuni, somersaulted, popped up, and unleashed a stream of flame from his palms like a medieval magician casting a "Fireball" spell. The molten orange sphere engulfed Morpheus, who screamed in pain from within the sun he had become. His long black hair ignited and in an instant his clothing turned into flaming tatters. He dropped the syringe-gun—which was smoking and smoldering and bubbling and melting—to the ground.

His feet still bound, Sir Arthur jumped straight for Hypnos, who had no time to react. The detective grabbed Hypnos with both hands, one to a wing, and held on for dear life. Hypnos dropped his opium-horn with a cry and took awkward flight. The now wide-awake god of sleep flailed at the detective with hands and feet as they flitted above the sipapuni like two birds locked in coitus.

Sir Arthur ignored Hypnos's feeble blows and tightened his grip on the god's wings. He concentrated, pushing all the ken he could muster into his hands and, from there, out into the world.

Hypnos let out a gut-wrenching scream of pain (somehow, even that sounded tired) as Sir Arthur ripped the wings right off his face!

The severed wings flopped to the forest floor, the two mythos a second behind. They landed atop the god of dream, who fizzled and sizzled in the rain as he lurched towards Promo. Upon impact the Morpheus's globe of souls flew from his pocket and skittered across the flora. It came to rest a few feet from the sipapuni, whose Waters began to madly churn, as if sensing the nearby violence.

Captain Promo, a half-second away from unleashing another burst of the life-giving and life-destroying gift of the gods at Morpheus, was forestalled by the sudden deluge of mythos.

Sir Arthur heaved himself and those splayed about his person from the ground. Dragging along Hypnos and Morpheus, he stumbled towards the sipapuni and watery salvation. After a quick push from Promo, the three burning beings went tumbling into the Fountain of Eden. A massive steam-cloud shot into the air.

A few moments later Sir Arthur crawled onto shore, his tuxedo charred wet tatters, his eyebrows burned clean off. The detective grabbed the globe of souls while Promo burned off the last of the bindings on Sir Arthur's legs and helped him to his feet.

Sir Arthur looked down at himself. "Bloody hell-Worlds! My best tux, ruined! Did you know this suit is considered an antique? Why—"

He stopped speaking as Hypnos and Morpheus arose from the sipapuni, helping each other onto dry land. Hypnos's eye-wings were severed, blackened stumps. Morpheus, who had been dressed in all black, now was all black, his skin charred down to the bone.

"Here, Promo." Sir Arthur tossed the fire marshal the crystal ball. The iridescent fireflies inside the sphere flickered and flashed, as if they realized something strange was happening. "Do your thing."

Captain Promo grinned as he caught the globe. He held it in one hand, and the globe's exterior bubbled and fizzled like liquid.

"What are you doing!" Morpheus took a step in their direction, but stumbled over his own barbecued feet. "Stop it! That's mine! Give it back!"

"Oh, no," said Sir Arthur, shaking his head. "It's time for those souls to get a move on to their destinations, wherever those might be."

Promo tightened his grip on the globe—and it cracked. Souls began pouring from the ruptured glass like rainbow particles seeping from a rift in the moon. They flitted around the heads of Promo and Sir Arthur like luminescent insects, not affected by the rain or the wind. Then, as if they couldn't help themselves, they zoomed down and merged with the sipapuni's Waters.

"NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!" Morpheus attempted to snatch the souls from the air with his bare hands. "They're getting away!" He shuffled towards Sir Arthur and Captain Promo, his blackened face a mask of rage.

Sir Arthur held up a hand. "Stop, Morpheus."

Morpheus continued waddling in their direction on the cauterized stumps of his feet. Sir Arthur glanced at Promo, who grinned and tossed the remnants of the globe towards the god of dreams. The crystal pieces sailed over Morpheus's head, trailing soul-lights like comets, and plopped into the spring. Morpheus screamed, jumped into the pool, and disappeared.

Hypnos wheezed on the shore. He looked up at Sir Arthur and Prometheus with resignation in his tired eyes. Without a word, he crawled back into the spring and vanished.

Sir Arthur dusted off his hands. "Well, I guess that's that. For them, at least. Say, why don't you keep an eye on that waterhole while I search for my armaments?"

Promo agreed. Sir Arthur soon came across his revolvers, along with his sword-cane and all of his ammunition, covered by fallen brush. The walkie was smashed. "Got 'em! But we no longer have communication!"

Sir Arthur met Captain Promo back in the glade, where the Waters of the Fountain of Eden bubbled in violent, abnormal fashion. Promo sat on the forest floor, watching the churning Water with a single raised eyebrow. He jumped to his feet when fifteen-foot tall beasts with the torsos of men and the hindquarters of horses began bursting from the spring and trotting onto dry land like they owned the place. Centaurs! The beasts wore rippling black armor and helmets, and carried huge, wicked-looking swords and tridents and spears.

Sir Arthur sighed. "Well, no rest for the weary." He began picking off centaurs, spraying death by kenned-up bullet, while Promo tossed fireballs into the horde of horse-men.

But grim-faced centaurs just kept pouring from the sipapuni in an equine wave of death. Two beasts emerged for every one they dispatched.

"You know, Promo, this has been one hell of a week." Sir Arthur warded off a snarling centaur with his sword-cane, stabbed the beast in the throat, then shot it between the eyes. The centaur fell with a gurgle and began thrashing about, screaming before dissipating into purple smog.

Prometheus grinned as ten flaming darts shot from his fingers. Four centaurs disappeared in mini-infernos as the barbs impacted flesh and detonated. "Sure has. And it ain't over yet."

A wave of harpies emerged from the sipapuni and began circling in the air. Promo jumped and grabbed a harpy by the thin bird-leg. The monster's blood began to boil underneath its skin, and it exploded into a million superheated pieces.

Sir Arthur's sword-cane slashed in a whirlwind, severing harpy wings as the monsters fizzled up from the sipapuni. He dropped two centaurs trying to creep around the battle and into the woods with the same number of rounds, then cocked his head to the side. "I hear something out in the woods."

Captain Promo listened as best he could. And over the raging storm and the battle and the bird-monsters' shrieks, he heard something big crashing through the forest towards them. By the innumerable pantheons, he hoped the approaching juggernaut was on their side!

If not, they would soon be in serious trouble.

## Chapter 36

## Startage

There was a tinkling sound . . . Ta-ta-ta-tink! . . . and the watch broke in Jack's pocket. The mechanical innards of the busted clock dug into his leg, and he could feel the pain in increasing intervals, as if waking up from a pleasant dream to torturous reality.

Time got up off its lazy river-ass and got back to flowing with an unexpected jolt that left everybody standing or sitting where they were, rooted to the Throne Room floor, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Except for Jack, who popped up like a Jack-in-the-box and delivered a kung-fu fist of fury to Hades's unprotected face. The Lord of the Underworld recoiled at the blow and released Stephone, who scampered behind Jack and Becky.

When Hades looked up, his eye already swelling up, Jack was standing in Horse stance (Master Mirbodi would have been proud), fists at the ready. As Tom Sawyer crept up on all fours behind Hades, Jack clocked the King of the Dead again, an uppercut shot that smashed Hades's nose into splinters.

Hades stumbled backwards, his nose spewing blood, tripped over Tom, and tumbled to the floor.

Then Farmer John pounced on Hades, his knee digging into his crotch, his elbow digging into his sternum, his hands clawing at the King of the Dead's face. The old farmer pried open Hades's jaws, inch by inch, until his black-hole mouth was open wide. Farmer John leaned in close and puckered his lips as if to plant a goodnight kiss on Hades's devilish cheek. Instead, he hawked up a good one—and spat the blob of snot down the Unseen One's throat!

Hades ceased thrashing, and his face went slack. His eyes glazed over, and his pupils dilated. The laid-back smile of a stoner who has just smoked some killer hash spread across his face.

Farmer John stood up, freeing the King of the Dead, and dusted off his hands in a move almost identical to Hades's of earlier. "Now that," he said, "should do the trick."

Hades stood up. The companions jumped back with a communal gasp—except for Farmer John, who grinned.

The King of the Dead's eyes were crossed, and his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, yet no words escaped his jaws. He gave a queer little whistle between his teeth and proceeded to wander drunkenly about the Throne Room, mumbling under his breath in some unknown language. His head lolled to the side as if he was struggling to carry it on his shoulders, and he bumped into people and bounced off cases of beer in the manner of a lush at a keg party.

Farmer John watched the inebriated Hades flounder about, then laughed from the belly. "He'll be shit-faced for hours. And when he comes to, he shouldn't remember a thing about what happened."

Chirping birds and buzzing bees popped into existence out of nowhere and began twittering and frolicking and making merry in the air around Farmer John's head. Annoyed, he swatted at a bluebird, which hit the wall of Hoppy Heaven Ale hard and slid to the floor, unconscious. Squawking and tweeting, the other creatures and critters beat a hasty retreat into the darkness above.

"Godsdamned birds and bees! Ever since that cartoon Disney movie came out in the '50s. . ." Mumbling but once again grinning, Farmer John turned to Becky Thatcher. "I thankya for releasin' me from that Chair, young lady."

Becky blushed. "T'weren't nothing, Mister John. I knew the code."

Farmer John pirouetted to each of the companions in turn and expressed gratitude for the rescue. Lastly, he spun to Jack. "How ya doin'?" He extended his hand for a shake, as if they had never met. "Johnny Appleseed, at yer service! I know we already know each other, but it's nice to finally meet ya for real, Wesakaychak, or Wisagatcak, or Wisakedjak, or Weesack-kachack, or Whiskey Jack, or Jack Whiskey, with all true identities revealed, and all that jazz."

"Johnny . . . Johnny Appleseed!"

"What, ya ha'n't heard of me?"

"Of course I've heard of you! Who hasn't?"

"Oh, many. And of those who do know me, most do not know the true me."

Jack thought for a moment. "So what are you doing running a brewery and hole-in-the-wall bar in Eden? I mean, I get the whole organic farming thing, seeing as how you're basically the patron saint of agriculture in the United States, but not the beer."

Farmer John's eyes grew startlingly intense, and he raised a quivering finger to the sky. "Ah-ha! This means that ye, like most people, have a layman's knowledge of the true Johnny Appleseed, who was far different from what most Americans are taught in kindergarten!"

"Oh yeah? All I ever heard of you was that you would travel the American wilderness and plant apple orchards to feed the hungry colonists that came behind you because you were some kind of benevolent nature-spirit come down to Earth in the shape of a human being, or something like that."

"Oh, aye, I planted apple orchards. Lots of 'em. But the apples that grew on the trees I planted were by no means edible. To grow edible apples such as the Red Delicious and Granny Smith, 'tis necessary to graft the tree, thus ensuring its fruit will taste as sweet as its 'parent's.' Apple trees grown directly from the seeds of its parent are as variegated as human beings born from the wombs of their mothers, and almost always inedible. Nay, the apples that grew on my seedling trees were good for one thing, and one thing only: to drink!"

Comprehension dawned on Jack's face. "No way! They were making cider!"

Farmer John's eyes twinkled. "Indeed. Hard cider, as it's called nowadays. Back then, however, hard was the only kind."

"Those wily colonists! I should've realized!" Jack chuckled and peered at Farmer John with a sly, knowing look. "I get the name of the brew now. And the label." He raised his eyebrows at Farmer John, who looked just as he did on the label of the Olde Eden Appleseed Applejack: barefoot, wearing a tin cooking pot on his cranium, dressed in nothing but a burlap sack. The only thing missing was the apple seeds pouring from his open palms.

Jack laughed and shook his head. Farmer John looked at him with a strange expression.

"Everything all right, Jack?"

"Yeah. It's just funny how history and myth get twisted around to something prettier and more politically correct over time. It just proves how the past often becomes a fairy tale in its own right."

Johnny Appleseed, bringer of not food but alcohol to probably hungry but definitely thirsty colonists, grinned at this observation. "Indeed it can. After all, look at me."

Jack did not reply, because something tickled his brain. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed something strange wedged between some twelve-packs.

Farmer John looked around at each face in turn. "Now, tell me what's been happening on Earth."

They filled him in, and Stephone asked, "So how did Hades get you, John?"

"I'm kicking meself for that one. It was a week after I hired you. You were off that night, and I noticed him sitting alone at a corner table in the Taphouse. Surprised to see him out of the Underworld, I walked over and said hello, and he said he had come to Earth to speak to me personally. Curious, I ordered up a couple beers and sat down." He peered at Stephone. "He told me he wanted to grant you the divorce. That it was time to move on. Said he wanted me to get in touch with my contacts at the MythCourt to get the ball rolling a little quicker than it usually would. Of course I agreed. After that, we had a few cold ones and reminisced on the old days.

"Later, Hades said he had a bottle of rare ambrosia and asked if I wanted to walk him back to the sipapuni. Always a sucker for a good drink, I agreed. I don't remember much of the walk. Stumbling, giggling, drinking straight ambrosia. I got way giddy, then way groggy. I don't remember reaching the sipapuni or descending to the Underworld. I remember nothing until I woke up here."

Farmer John's eyes ignited and locked onto the bumbling Hades. "He drugged me, for sure. Probably one of Morpheus's little concoctions. He's one of the few who can create something that'll knock me on my ass like that." He shook his head. "I just wasn't expecting anything like that from him. Sure, Hades is stubborn, unwilling to let go of a grudge or a wife—Sorry, Steph—but it's completely out of character for him to wish to destroy all of existence, including and most especially himself." He paused and looked around at the mountains of Hoppy Heaven Ale. "But here we are."

Nobody said a word in reply.

Farmer John clapped his hands. "And now, let us be on our way. We must return to Eden and—" He raised his hand and angled his head to one side. "D'you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Jack. He let out a gasp and rubbed the top of his skull. For a moment it had felt like part of his brain was missing, as if he had recently been lobotomized without his knowledge or consent. He peered accusingly at the strange object jutting from the wall of beer.

"That humming sound," said Farmer John, staring wide-eyed at the nearest rectangle of window, into which a growing shadow hove into view. "It sounds like it's—"

His voice was drowned out as the windows exploded inward and a billion shards of glass tornadoed towards Team Myth from both ends of the beer-lined corridor.

## Chapter 37

## The Battle of Tranquil Forest

Sir Arthur's revolvers flashed like death-dealing sparklers and round after round drilled into the mass of centaurs surrounding the sipapuni, while Promo cast fireball after fireball into the swarm of harpies circling above their heads. But it was not nearly enough. They would soon be swallowed underneath the black waves of Hades's legions.

Then buzzing steel balls and glimmering spitballs began raining about the glade, ripping through monster-flesh like toddlers through birthday cake, and Huck and company burst into the glade.

At the same time a dragon the size of an apartment complex materialized from the woods, crushing centaurs underneath its bulbous body and swatting harpies from the air. The behemoth's many swarming heads spat blackish gobs of poison into the midst of the suddenly taken aback army of darkness. When the sizzling acid hit the monsters they vanished into purple-black steam with a hiss. Two flailing patchrobed figures clung to the beast by its necks.

But despite the reinforcements, harpies and centaurs kept spewing from the sipapuni. Then small blackish blobs made of gleaming fangs and swirling, shadowy wings—Morpheus's Oneiroi—began bubbling up from the spring by the thousands like evil water sprites.

Spitballs and steel zinged through the air, revolvers discharged, fireballs flew, the Hydra swatted and spat poison. But great masses of Oneiroi, centaurs, and harpies were escaping the companions that ringed the Fountain like a single noose intended to hang an army of demons.

"We can't do this much longer, Art!" screamed Captain Promo. He roasted a mass of Oneiroi attempting to get past Team Real's makeshift blockade. "There's just too damn many of 'em!"

Insane laughter echoed up from the churning Waters of the sipapuni—an obnoxious, gloating, overeager chuckle that Sir Arthur and Captain Promo had heard not long ago. Its issuer burst from the Fountain, standing atop a waterspout like some dark Poseidon.

Morpheus had obtained a change of clothes—all black leather, with dangling silver chains—and his burned skin had reverted to its standard deathly pale, as if he had gone back to Hades and taken a quick dip in the healing waters of the Blessed Isles. The area of space he occupied above the monster-spewing pool filled with spitballs, speeding bullets, and blasts of the fire of the gods.

But when the smoke cleared, Morpheus was there, unharmed, laughing his ass off. Oneiroi swarmed about his person like flies on shit, creating a living armor of darkness that no weapon could penetrate. He jeered and brandished a pair of wicked-looking syringe-firers. The fiends of Hades swarmed behind him, below him, all around him, amassing for a final assault upon these beings attempting to get in the way of the most fun they'd had in millenniums.

Morpheus let loose with a devastating round of syringes. The sound ripped through the night like machine-gun retort, and the air bristled with flying needles. Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus ducked behind the Hydra and the rest of the companions dove for cover, scattering in all directions.

Not one of the missiles hit Team Real, who could be most evasive when necessary. A few wayward needles stuck in centaurs, who began attacking their own kind in a kenned-up morphine-induced stupor, and a few lodged in the flesh of the Hydra, who didn't even notice and continued rending into tatters the harpies that circled its heads like stinking mosquitoes.

The sipapuni began to churn violently. Morpheus cried out as he began to slip and slide around atop the suddenly unstable waterspout. A sharp cracking sound exploded across the night—and the Fountain of Eden erupted like Old Faithful!

It looked like someone kicking a momma-spider with thousands of baby-bloodsuckers attached to her back, on a larger scale. The Oneiroi tried to get out of the way, and then went flying in all directions. Thousands of the fanged nightmares perished in an instant as a musclebound man in a white toga and winged Air Jordans, a team of skeletal horses, and a gold and black carriage ran them down.

Hermes, leading the charge, slammed into Morpheus shoulder-first and broke almost every bone in his body. The god of dream vanished in a billow of purplish smoke.

The carriage alighted upon the shore of the sipapuni, and Team Myth jumped out and joined the raging battle. Two giant three-headed demon-dogs began dispatching centaurs by the dozens with fangs and giant claws. A pock-faced monster in a black cassock wielding a deadly twirling staff knocked harpies from the sky and dispatched them with expert jabs to the eyes when they hit the ground. Hermes flew about the glade swinging a silver wand of two intertwined serpents topped in a helix—the fabled Caduceus—splitting Hadean skulls with a contented grin on his handsome face.

Farmer John remained standing in the carriage's cab, his face and arms raised to the heavens like a shaman about to perform a rain dance. His eyes were closed, his lips moving silently. A halo of golden light blazed into existence and began expanding outward from his person. The air filled with energy.

Weapons lowered, claws and fangs retracted, the Hydra stopped its thrashing.

Everybody stood frozen, staring at Farmer John, now barely visible through the sheen of white-gold light that flickered and pulsated around him like a cloak of living energy.

The ground rumbled and quaked, Farmer John exploded with light like a star gone nova, and there issued a deafening, earthshaking BOOM!

The shock-wave of ken sent beings flying to the four winds like the wrath of the gods.

## Chapter 38

## In the Aftermath

When Jack Whiskey woke up, it was raining, and he was in a tree.

Green leaves tickled his face, branches dug into his ribs, and an owl perched on his shoulder, pecking on his skull like a nutshell. He spat out a mouthful of bark.

"Hooty-hoot-friggin'-hoot!" cried the owl, and flew off in a flurry of wings.

The last thing Jack recalled was holding a harpy in a headlock with one arm and punching, punching, punching the screeching beast in its ugly face until it fell silent, Tom and Becky sending kenned-up steel into the mass of Oneiroi, Stephone dropping beasts of Hades with a touch, Hermes clubbing harpies with the Caduceus, Cerberus and Herberus snarling, Charon smacking and thwacking . . . and Farmer John . . . the supernova of ken that had been unleashed upon the Earth . . .

"Stephone!" yelled Jack, and almost fell out of the tree.

"Right here, Jack," said a faint voice above.

Jack looked up. A disheveled Stephone smiled down at him from the tree's higher branches.

Jack's heart went all aflutter and he fell out of the tree, usually rigid natural laws defying themselves to ensure he hit every branch possible on the way down. He landed on the forest floor with an "Oomph!" and lay still, wondering why there were so many cute little tweety-birds out and about, gaily singing and frolicking, on such a miserable rainy evening.

"Jack? Are ya all right?"

"Is that . . . is that you, John?"

"Aye, lad. 'Tis me."

"Can I ask you something, John?"

"Sure, lad."

"Tell me, in the of name of all that's sacred, what in blazing, burning hellfire just happened?!"

Farmer John laughed from the belly, then helped Jack to his feet. "I sent those Hadeans who do not know how to control themselves while on the Key World back where they belong."

Stephone dropped down and landed lightly in front of them. She popped to her feet and said, "Favorite half-brother, what are you laughing about? I hope you're not putting any mischievous thoughts into Jack's head. He already has enough of those, I believe."

" 'Course not." Farmer John grinned at Stephone. "He's all your, sis."

There was a groan from a nearby cluster of azaleas, and a dazed Huckleberry Finn emerged from the flowery bramble. "Wh-what just happened?" he asked, wobbling a bit.

"My sentiments exactly," said Jack. "Perhaps the good farmer would care to—" He looked over at the sipapuni and his eyes widened.

The Fountain of Eden raged in a whirlpool, foaming and frothing. Harpies and centaurs and Oneiroi were being pulled into the spring like wayward stars into a black hole. Jack did not feel even the slightest breeze, although it looked like the beasts on land were caught in a hurricane. The grip of a centaur clinging to the trunk of a nearby pine tree broke. The beast whirled through the air to land in the churning Water, and was sucked down into the whirlpool like a ship lost at sea. It vanished with a frightened neigh cut short.

Groans and mutterings greeted Jack's ears from all sides as Team Myth and Team Real reunited. Hugs were given, introductions made, fantastic tales told, friendly slaps on the back abounded. Tom and gang were especially exuberant. Sid was mobbed and tossed into the air many times, much to the consternation of his delicate stomach.

Jack heard Tom say: "You shouda seen it, Huck! The Throne Room window shattered into a gazillion pieces that flew toward us down the corridor of beer like tiny li'l glass daggers of death!" He paused for dramatic effect.

Huck awaited the conclusion of the tale, not daring to breathe. "What happened next?"

"We pulled at some twelve-packs and they tumbled down in an avalanche to make a barricade. We all got down just in time as the shards flew over our heads. The sound of breaking glass was everywhere! We looked up, covered in broken glass, and guess who was there?"

Huck remained silent, under the spell of Tom's storytelling.

"Hermes! And Cerberus! One at the end of each corridor! Hermes had flown up, tossed Cerberus through the window, then flew around the tower and busted in the other side! Charon opened up the trapdoor a few seconds after that, and everybody burst out laughing."

"But what'd you do with all that Hoppy Heaven Ale?"

"Simple. We pushed it out the broken windows. Cleared the whole room. Then Hermes flew ahead of the skeleton-horses and hauled us back to the Grove of Persephone, and we made it across the Underworld in record time."

Sir Arthur called for attention. "My friends, Hades's army of darkness has been sent back to Hades, but the Tricksters are still out there—probably sitting on that stash of Hoppy Heaven Ale Masaaw mentioned to Master Mirbodi." He explained the progress of Team Real, and everybody stared off towards downtown Eden, seeing the cobblestone streets and reproduction houses in their mind's eyes. "Any ideas where they might be hiding? We've combed Eden up, down, around, and sideways, but cannot locate them."

A thought nudged Jack's brain. "Did you check the Thomas Jefferson House excavation?"

"Yes, Jack. Huck checked it once and Ben checked it twice. There's nothing there." Sir Arthur's eyes alighted and burned. "But why do you ask?"

Jack shrugged. "Just wondering. I'd noticed that in recent weeks they've been hauling an awful lot of dirt out of there on dump-trucks—it's just a half-block from the Laboratory—and it struck me as strange at the time. But it's probably nothing."

"Dirt?" said Huck. "They was hauling dirt outta there?"

"Yeah," said Jack. "A lot of dirt. Why?"

Huck thought for a moment and said, "Well, when I checked the place out, I jumped the fence and walked around, but there warn't nothing there. Just a muddy lot with a few shovels and wheelbarrows laying around, like they hadn't even started excavating yet."

Sir Arthur pointed a quivering finger towards downtown Eden. "Jack has just supplied the missing data! That is where they are! If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

Some of them packed into the carriage and flew off. Some sailed into the clouds clinging to Hermes. Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus departed on Hydra-back. Cerberus and Herberus stayed on the scene to ensure that everything stayed down the sipapuni once it went down the sipapuni.

## Chapter 39

## The Sword of the Bodhisattva

The rain had ceased, but downtown Eden might as well have been Venice with all the flooded streets. The mythos stood before the metal fence surrounding the Thomas Jefferson House excavation site. Hidden by canvas sheets, the supposed archaeological dig was not visible from any vantage point on surrounding streets. The only way in or out was the automatic sliding door in the fence, which would open wide enough to admit dump-trucks and other excavation equipment. Security had the night off due to the storm, but the door was chained and padlocked.

Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus arrived on dragonback and jumped down. Sir Arthur spun to the Zen master and gestured at the Hydra. "Master, if you would be so kind as to ask your new friend to clear a path."

Master Mirbodi grinned and placed a hand upon the Hydra's bloated belly. The forty-seven dragon-heads seemed to grin, and the Hydra stomped the fence down flat. Cautiously, the mythos spread out into the area, looking down at the mud.

As Master Mirbodi shuffled through the middle of the lot, solid ground swallowed him, leaving no trace behind.

"Master!" yelled Sitting Lotus, and ran to where the Zen master had vanished.

Master Mirbodi's head arose from the earth like the lost cranium of an Asian Headless Horseman. "If you no realize it there you walk right over it."

The earthen illusion, its power broken, faded into non-existence, and there yawned a dark and gaping hole in the muddy ground.

Master Mirbodi levitated to solid ground. His finger exploded with white light, and he pointed the glowing digit down into the pit. A rope ladder dangled from one side of the hole, stretching down into the darkness. Even the Zen master's finger-light could not penetrate the chasm's depths.

"Now," said a grinning Master Mirbodi, "who wanna go first?"

Hermes flew down first. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn after that. Then Jack, Stephone, Sir Arthur, Promo, Becky Thatcher, Master Mirbodi, and Sitting Lotus, who only came along because he refused to leave the Zen master's side. The remaining mythos stayed aboveground.

When they rendezvoused at the bottom of the pit, Master Mirbodi shone his finger-light around the darkness, which ruled underground Eden with all-conquering fists of shadow.

The subterranean corridor they found themselves in led one way. They walked forward until the rocky hallway opened into a huge cavern easily the size of downtown Eden. Jack's eyes kept widening as he observed the massive cavern. Stalagmites jutted from the ground like jagged teeth, and stalactites hung down like huge icicles. In certain spots they connected, creating thick pillars adorned with prismatic crystals of a thousand different colors that lit the cavern with a wan phosphorescence. A stream cut through the middle of the cave, vanishing into a hole beneath a raised platform at the opposite end. Gaping black maws indicating tunnels dotted the walls.

"How could I have lived here in Eden so long and not known this place was here?" said Promo. "A natural amphitheater, right under downtown!"

"I no think anybody know it here," said Master Mirbodi. "Except Hades, I guess."

"I'll bet this is why Colonial Eden was staying so hush-hush about the Thomas Jefferson House," said Jack. "I'll bet they were excavating the ruins and stumbled across this cavern."

"Yes, but this place is in pristine condition," said Sir Arthur. "Even the stone floors look to have been recently swept. So who's the caretaker? Certainly not Hades."

Many hypotheses were bandied about, including a reclusive god of stone and a master Japanese rock gardener turned deity. Jack had his money down on a geologist's tortured ghost. The discussion soon ended to be resumed another day.

"Let's spread out and search this cavern," said Sir Arthur. "Listen down each tunnel, and come let me know if you hear anything." He nodded at Promo, and the two walked off.

A few minutes later, Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher came running up to Jack and Sir Arthur.

"We a-heard something!" said Tom.

"We checked out a couple of tunnels over there." Becky pointed to the left side of the amphitheater, about halfway down the slope, where a black hole marked the entrance to a tunnel. "And I coulda sworn I heard faint, echoing voices."

The rest of the group converged. Not one of them had heard a thing.

Sir Arthur pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lit up, and puffed away. "I say we stick together and follow this tunnel to its end." The cigarette smoldered, and his deadpan eyes flicked from one gaze to another. "What say you?"

Nobody objected, and they headed down the tunnel as quiet as possible. Jack gulped, wondering what horrors might lurk at the end of the rocky corridor, but plodded along with his friends.

Sir Arthur held up a hand, and those marching along behind him halted. Sputtering orange light flickered and shadows danced across the bedrock just ahead, where the corridor took a sharp right turn. Things clanked and clinked as if a flurry of activity transpired.

Huck peeked around the corner, then ducked his head back. "I can't make out who it is from here. Six, maybe seven of 'em. When we turn the corner we'll be right on top of 'em."

Sir Arthur nodded and took a deep breath. "All right. Let's rush 'em on three. One . . . two . . ."

They tensed.

"THREE!"

Suddenly surrounded by berserking mythos, Raven, Iktome, and Masaaw scampered backwards. Dollies stacked with cases of Hoppy Heaven Ale crashed to the ground and beer seeped out across the cavern floor. But the Tricksters were not alone.

"Tisiphone!" said Jack. "Good too see you again, old gal! And all in one piece, at that! Why, you're looking as bloody horrible as ever! You know, you and your sisters there could give those harpies a run for their money in an 'Ugliest Bitch in Hades' pageant."

Tisiphone hissed like an undead cobra and jerked around like a reanimated corpse, her silver hair streaming behind her even though no wind penetrated this far underground. She held two of her patented barbed whips cocked back and poised to strike. Crimson blood dripped from her eyes and ran down her face in rivulets, staining her white dress black. She rasped with undisguised malice: (We are the Ministers of Dark Justice. You have again interfered with the plans of the King of the Dead, and now you shall—)

"But how is it that you are still here on Earth?" cut in Sir Arthur. He motioned to Tom and Huck to fan out behind him to prevent an escape attempt. "Enlighten me, my good ladies, before I perish. Why were you not pulled down into the sipapuni with the rest of your Underworld brethren?"

The three Furies chuckled like anaconda death rattles, a grating hiss Jack felt creeping up his spine like cold fear.

Red-haired Alecto wore a tattered black dress the size of a parachute—a battleaxe wielding a massive adamantine-bladed battleaxe. Her eyes dripped blood as she rumbled: (We are far more powerful than endless legions of harpies, centaurs, and Oneiroi.)

Blond-haired Magaera was a withered gray husk, all protruding bones and flaps of dessicated skin. She carried a wicked-looking trident. She grinned a bloody, malevolent grin. (And we each grabbed a Trickster and held on for dear life when we felt the pull of the spell. We are now linked with them, mind to mind.)

The Tricksters did look dazed and uncomprehending, as though doped up on some mind-numbing drug.

(TRICKSTERS, ATTACK!) thundered Tisiphone.

Tisiphone's whips snaked towards Stephone, but Jack sprang forward and knocked the Iron Queen out of the way. As they tumbled to the ground in a heap, a stinging barb caught Jack on the cheek. When he hit the stone floor, something flew from his pants pocket and skittered across the cavern.

Jack grabbed Tisiphone's whip when it again flashed out. He hauled himself to his feet and wrested it from her with a single heave. The two circled one another like ninjas, whips cracking in the damp underground air. Stephone regained her footing, and her hands began to glow with white-gold light as she built up ken for an attack.

Tom, Becky, and Huck had their knives out. Magaera parried their strikes with her trident and matched every attack with one of her own, her movements a stop-motion blur. Despite outnumbering her and working together, the kids could not break through the Fury's defenses.

Sir Arthur fended off the airborne Raven with his sword-cane as the Trickster slashed at him with razor sharp talons. Sir Arthur could not even spare a second to go for his revolver. Then a fireball blasted into Raven's unprotected flank. The Trickster screeched and flapped to the cavern's upper recesses, and the stench of burning feathers filled the air. Captain Promo grinned over at Sir Arthur, then jumped to help Jack and Stephone deal with Tisiphone.

Alecto's battleaxe met Hermes's Caduceus with deafening clangs. Then Hermes levitated and pointed the wand down at the Fury. A bolt of silver-gold energy shot from its tip and engulfed Alecto, who turned into a pigeon. The Fury's battleaxe clattered to the floor, and Hermes grinned in victory and alighted on the cavern floor. But in an instant Alecto converted back to her true form, using her ken like an old pro. She snatched up her fallen weapon and swung it at Hermes, who barely parried the blow, and the duel resumed.

Iktome stayed back from the initial fighting and skittered unnoticed up the cavern wall. Now he walked upside-down across the ceiling, tossing down shimmering Hoops of Binding. One of the Hoops glanced off Tom Sawyer's ear, but that was all it needed to do its work. An glowing azure rope of ken materialized from nothingness, snaked itself around Tom, and constricted. Tom dropped his slingshot and hit the stone floor face first, immobilized. It took but a moment for Huck to release Tom from the Hoop, but during those few seconds Becky was forced to fend off Magaera on her own.

Tom jumped to his feet and reengaged the Fury, who had nearly beaten down Becky's guard while the boys had been distracted.

After freeing Tom, Huck stashed his knife in his belt and pulled out his spitball-shooter. He took aim and bombarded the ceiling with spitballs. Iktome squealed and fell shrieking from the ceiling to land atop Raven. The Tricksters crashed to the floor in a tangle of wings and hairy insect limbs. Sir Arthur pressed the sudden advantage, slicing and dicing mytho-flesh with his sword-cane, sending fur and feathers flying. But then the Tricksters began working in tandem to push the detective back.

Master Mirbodi watched with bemused eyes as Masaaw sauntered up to him on fleshless legs. The monk went into Buddha stance without appearing to move: crouched with his knees in the air, rear end hovering two inches above the ground, hands pressed together.

Masaaw vaulted over Master Mirbodi's head and kicked Sitting Lotus—who didn't even see the blow coming—in the left temple. The novice crumpled to the ground, where he looked like a hobo sleeping in a pile of dirty linen. Masaaw hauled Sitting Lotus to his feet by the hood of his robe.

"So, monk, did you find my kopavi?" Masaaw's arm-bones looped around the novice's neck. "If not, I will have no choice but to destroy this defenseless human being."

Master Mirbodi grinned and bent to pick something up. It was the strange, circular, bone-like object that had fallen out of Jack's pocket and skittered across the cavern.

"Is this what you looking for, kachina man?"

The ever-smiling monk tossed the object to Masaaw, who let go of Sitting Lotus and caught it with wonder in his flaming eyes.

"This . . . this is it!"

Masaaw placed the kopavi on his cranium. A surge of blue light exploded across the cavern as the circle of bone amalgamated itself to his skull. Then the always smiling skeleton man seemed, for the first time, to genuinely smile. He bowed to Master Mirbodi. "Thank you, Bodhidharma. And now, there is something I must do. A promise is a promise."

Masaaw cupped his skeletal hands to his mouth and yelled, "Tricksters!"

Raven and Iktome slowed for a moment, but then continued to attack.

"My kopavi has been returned, and I release you from the Trickster Blood Oath you swore!"

Masaaw shoved a bony hand between his jaws, deep down his throat. The hand came out clutching five official-looking forms, which burst into flame. "Do not fight on the side of Hades and his dark minions! Turn, and fight these Furies that leeched our ken!"

Raven and Iktome stopped dead in their tracks. Tisiphone doubled her attack on Jack and Stephone, whose blasts of the energy of life did minimal damage to the seasoned Fury. Magaera twirled in a circle with swinging trident, pushing Tom, Becky, and Huck closer to the cavern wall. Intent on her battle with Hermes, Alecto's eyes did not even flick to Masaaw.

And then the Tricksters switched sides, and the Furies found themselves severely outnumbered. They closed in back to back to back, spinning in a slow circle in the midst of a horde of enemies.

Then Magaera jumped over Jack's head and landed behind him, by Sitting Lotus, who had stayed back from the press on the Furies. She snatched the hood of the novice's robe, and dragged him, flailing, towards the cavern wall. Her sisters also broke combat and flipped over the mythos' heads like zombified gymnasts to join her. Magaera held her trident to the novice's neck, drawing thin pinpricks of blood with two points.

(Stay back!) hissed Tisiphone. Her whip crackled in the air before the advancing mythos, who slowed. (Stay where you are or we kill the human being!)

They halted. The Furies grinned, thinking they had won.

Sitting Lotus's eyes were closed and his mouth moved, but nothing came out. Perhaps he was silently praying to Buddha or chanting the Three Jewels.

His hands began to pulse with lambent azure light.

The Furies jumped back, though Magaera kept the trident leveled at the novice's head.

A magnificent jeweled sword wreathed in blue fire blinked into existence in Sitting Lotus's shaking hands. He seemed just as shocked about this as everybody else, even more so when the burning blade began to slash and thrust and stab all on its own, with him unable to let go of it.

The mythos closed in on the four struggling figures, but the Sword was doing quite well for itself. The enchanted blade moved with unearthly speed, pressing the Furies ever closer to the rock wall. The Furies screamed with pain and pleasure as the fiery weapon sliced their flesh into ribbons.

Then Tisiphone's whip struck Sitting Lotus on the left hip and sent him spinning to the ground. He cried out, but the Sword dragged him right back to his feet. The Furies stood before the beleaguered novice with loose smiles on their bloody faces, ready for another hot, violent go-round.

With a flash of azure light, the Sword in Sitting Lotus's hands transformed into a gun. Except that it was wreathed in blue fire, it looked like one of those cartoon guns that when you pull the trigger a little flag that says "Bang, you're dead!" pops out of the barrel.

Time froze, everybody in the cavern wondering just what the hell was going on—and Sitting Lotus pointed the Sword-gun at the harpies and pulled the trigger.

## Chapter 40

## Tangled up in Blue

When Sitting Lotus opened his eyes, all he saw was blue.

A tapestry of blue surrounded him, shimmering like moonlight on mountain water.

The blue brushed his face. It felt like feathers—the essence of lightness, weightlessness, with a pungent, flowery aroma that intoxicated the senses and made him feel lightheaded.

Am I . . . dead? he thought. I tell you what, I sure wasn't expecting it to be so . . . blue!

Then Master Mirbodi's grinning visage cut through the blanket of smelly blue evanescence.

"Novice!"

Sitting Lotus sighed. Well, I guess I'm not dead. Although perhaps Master Mirbodi will haunt me even when I retire from this world.

Sitting Lotus lay on the floor of the cavern, which was far softer than it should have been. The strange sword had reverted from gun form. Not long ago imbued with a life of its own, the blade now lay lifeless at his side.

Master Mirbodi helped Sitting Lotus to his feet. The novice winced. His hip felt like it had been roasted over hot coals, so he used the sword as a crutch. "I can't put any weight on this leg."

Stephone appeared out of nowhere. "Let me take care of that for you." She placed a hand on the novice's hip. A soft white light pulsated within her palm and transferred into Sitting Lotus.

The novice gasped, and then exhaled. He bent and stretched, then tried walking around. "Buddha's blistered bhikkhus, that feels better! Why, it's as good as new! How can I ever repay you?"

Stephone shrugged. "It's just what I do. But if you ever want to chat about the dharma in the future, I'll be around. Fascinating stuff, that. Or at least I've always thought so."

Sitting Lotus grinned. "Yeah, me too." He around the cavern with wary eyes. He saw some shapes through the azure haze, moving around, but there was no sign of the Furies. "But . . . what happened? I remember pulling the trigger, and then . . . nothing. Say, what's all this blue stuff floating around here, anyway?"

Sitting Lotus reached out and plucked a chunk of blue from the air, then sucked in a surprised breath as he peered at it. "Flowers? Where did all these blue flowers come from?"

For that was what he had first perceived to be blue light, and why the stone ground had felt so soft: there were thousands of blue flowers floating about the cavern!

"They irises," said Master Mirbodi. He wrapped Sitting Lotus in a bear hug that left the poor novice gasping for breath. "You pull trigger of sword-gun and it start shooting out flowers. In no time room filled and harpies rolling around in flowers, moaning and groaning like in drug-induced trance."

"The only thing in all the Worlds that can placate the Furies is the blossom of the blue iris," said Stephone. "I always thought that old myth was a bunch of hogwash." She shrugged. "Who knew?"

"They couldn't stop smelling 'em," added Jack. "I even saw Tisiphone shoving 'em into her mouth and munching them down like potato chips."

"So we got some empty canvas potato sacks from outside the Colonial Eden Grocer, tossed the Furies in, and covered them with flowers," said Sir Arthur. "Hermes flew them up to level ground, and we sent Tom and Huck and gang to toss them into the sipapuni."

"Aye," said Farmer John, "and we just finished dumping the last of the Hoppy Heaven Ale, so that should be that."

Sir Arthur smiled. "Yes, I do believe we've done it. The universe is saved." He peered at the novice with dancing eyes. "And it's all thanks to Sitting Lotus."

Sitting Lotus received many slaps upon the back. He looked mystified during this treatment. He glanced down at the weapon in his hands, then held it out hilt first to Master Mirbodi, as if to pass the sword off.

"But where did this sword come from? And why did it just appear in my hand like that?"

"Novice, you hold Sword of Manjushri! Sword of Wisdom!"

Sitting Lotus dropped the blade to the flower-covered ground, where it landed and ceased to incandesce. "The Sword of Manjushri?! Manjushri the . . . the bodhisattva?! But I thought the Sword was just a metaphor for cutting through the false fetters of duality to true wisdom!"

"You no learn in last week that things you think not-real often show up in Eden, where impossible things happen daily?" Master Mirbodi's gaze bored into Sitting Lotus. "As much as you may think your mind no grasp, perhaps in some ways you still crave things. Different things than before you come to New Shaolin, but still . . . things. Now pick up Sword and keep it close. It entrusted to you until its bodhisattva owner come looking for it."

Sitting Lotus picked up the Sword with reverence. His quivering fingers touched the hilt, and the magical blade began to shimmer with azure fire.

"And now," said Sir Arthur, "let us retire and get some well-deserved rest. I know that everybody wants to attend the big sale tomorrow!" He spun to the old farmer, an embarrassed grin on his face. "John, you can stay with me until you get your house fixed up. I feel somewhat responsible for the condition of your homestead, not to mention your bar and brewery."

But Farmer John just laughed and slapped the detective on the back. "Hey, mythical shit happens," he said.

The companions made their way to the surface and wandered their separate ways. Everybody did want to attend the "Your Trash, Their Treasure" sale at New Shaolin Monastery tomorrow.

It was sure to be a good time.

Every year, it always was.

## Chapter 41

## Your Trash, Their Treasure

The "Your Trash, Their Treasure" sale took place outdoors, on the New Shaolin Monastery grounds. Luckily, the weather gods provided a lovely afternoon, not too hot and not too humid. Tents and stalls dotted the grassy knolls, picturesque orchards, and aromatic gardens, the scene festive and colorful, flags flapping in the breeze and kites flying high in the sky.

A complimentary vegetarian meal would be served at five o'clock. On the menu this year were spring rolls and fresh rolls with various dipping sauces, fruit salad made with all organic fruits supplied by Farmer John, saffron rice, and tofu with fresh vegetables in teriyaki sauce. Dessert was fresh-baked golden bread covered in cinnamon and sugar and homemade vanilla frozen yogurt.

The sale started at eleven o'clock in the morning, and most attendees would stick around—or show up right before, with no intent to buy—for the free meal. Usually the entire town of Eden, from the mayor down to the local bums who were forever being run off Colonial Eden property, would be in attendance. There was just . . . something about being on the grounds of New Shaolin Monastery that calmed one's soul. Year in and year out, the event was serene and beatific, with gooey gobs of loving-kindness spraying all over the place.

Sir Arthur took it upon himself to provide mythical security for the well-attended yard sale. Tom Sawyer's gang and Captain Promo had agreed to help him out. He had figured that would be sufficient to keep things under control. Dressed in civvies, Captain Promo patrolled the monastery grounds, browsing the goods for sale and keeping a close eye out for anything abnormal. Tom and company each had their eyes on various section of the grounds.

Charon, his form that of a tall, skinny white guy with severe acne scars, seemed to be having the time of his life, throwing a Frisbee for Cerby and feeding Herby doggie-treats by the dozens. The Ferryman of the Dead and Tom Sawyer's Gang had a starlight-excursion up the Jims scheduled for later. There was nothing like a midnight river-ride on the wide open Jims.

Master Mirbodi floated about the monastery grounds, grinning and bowing to everybody who came up to him to chat. It was said around Eden that a word of wisdom from the mouth of Master Mirbodi could save you from several rebirths, if you favored the idea of reincarnation. And everybody, regardless of belief, couldn't help but like the guy.

Sitting Lotus manned the 'Home Furnishings' tent—the most boring job of all, if you asked him. But at least the masters were letting the novices drink as much green tea as they wanted, and they had each been given a basket of fruit to munch on throughout the day. Sitting Lotus bit into a tangerine, and that fruit was the best Buddha-blessed thing he had tasted in his life.

Jack and Stephone wandered the grounds hand in hand, chatting with acquaintances and peering at the goods for sale. They grinned and giggled a lot, bumping hips and rubbing shoulders more than necessary.

Hermes had been patrolling the grounds for "fresh tail." Human or mytho, he explained to Jack, it was all the same when you were "hittin' it from behind."

To a man, the other Tricksters had decided to remain in Eden. At least for a little while. At least for today's big event. At least until the no-charge dinner at today's event had been polished off.

Masaaw had volunteered as unofficial bookkeeper for the sale. He sat at a fold-out table by the Meditation Hall, filling out deeds of sale with tears of happiness streaming down his face. He was considering remaining on the Key World and resuming his position as executive vice-president at Colonial Eden, Incorporated. But this time he wouldn't use his Voice of Death to control all employees from the president on down.

Iktome had volunteered to work the 'Green Tea Stand.' He handed out paper cups with gusto, cracking dirty jokes and laughing with everybody that wandered up to grab a glass of iced green. Even a passing monk or dozen smiled at the spiderman's lewd quips.

Coyote and Rabbit had appropriated a number of helium tanks, which they had set up by the 'Toys and Games' tent. All day long they had been creating complex balloon animals like the "Tyrannosaurus Rex" and the "great white shark with severed limbs dangling from mouth" for the kids. Many amused adults wandered away with lifelike "cock-and-balls" or "hairy vag" balloon creations.

Old Man had found an old card table in the novices' dormitories. For a dollar a guess, at five-to-one odds, he was doing the ol' three-card monte—and had it rigged so he could win every time. He had accumulated quite a haul until Raven came along. By now the bird-brain had just about cleaned the little dude out.

Rhadamanthus had changed his tune earlier that morning, promising to forevermore be on his best behavior if only Farmer John would let him stay on Earth for one more day and attend the big sale. He had whined and begged and pleaded, and eventually the old farmer had relented, really just to get the guy to shut the hell up so he could get some sleep.

Farmer John himself—barefoot, as always—had earlier been wandering around purchasing various items of furniture and other appliances, as these things had been blown up or charred in the explosions that had taken out his farmhouse. Now he entertained a gaggle of children by walking over a bed of hot coals set up by the monks and poking red-hot needles through the thick calluses on his feet.

It was just past two o'clock, the sale was in full midday swing, and everything was "so far, so good." But that did not mean it would stay that way.

Sir Arthur shook his head and reached into his coat for his cigarettes, attempting to jettison his inexplainable paranoia. He lit up and savored the flavor of the tobacco while his eyes scanned the fluctuating crowds. The people milled about the monastery grounds. Every now and then someone would recognize something they had tossed away as unusable trash all repaired and cleaned up—and sometimes buy it back! All in all, the scene was calm and peaceful. Birds chirped in the trees, smiling monks and novices roamed the grounds, the people laughed, chatted, and browsed.

Loving-kindness abounded.

## Chapter 42

## The Adventures of Charly Dodgers, Part Two

Wednesday started just like any other day of the week, with Charly Dodgers stumbling into the airport at seven in the morning with a nice hangover. He turned on the lights and went about his business opening up for the day. Despite it being great flying weather, it was a slow morning, as just about everyone in town had taken the day off or called in sick to work to attend the "Your Trash, Their Treasure" sale at New Shaolin Monastery.

The Eden/Jimstown Airport was located near Jimstown Island, about five miles east of Eden. The airport mainly hangared Cessnas and Cherokees, small two- or four-seater planes. The airport grounds consisted of a maintenance building, a few rusty hangars, and a decrepit one-story terminal. Charly ran a one-man operation for the most part, checking planes in and out, fueling them up, and controlling the minimal air traffic. The Eden/Jimstown Airport didn't make much of a profit, but he had built it himself from the ground up thirty years ago and was quite proud of the place.

Charly sat in the tiny FBO, checking the internet for the latest news on horrific plane crashes from around the globe—a hobby of his that was much appreciated by the local airport rats, who were always up for a good aviation yarn, the wilder the better—when the bell at the counter rang.

A tall stranger dressed in a trench coat and black fedora that kept his face hidden in shadows stood on the other side of the counter. Sure is a strange choice of attire for a hunnerd-degree day, thought Charly.

The stranger grinned at him in a not-so-nice way. Or at least Charly thought so, for when he stood up to greet him, he just couldn't seem to focus on the man. His eyes kept slipping off of him, and Charly would look over the guy's shoulder or down at his own nose.

"Can I . . . help you?" asked Charly, unsuccessfully attempting to uncross his eyes.

"I'd like to take an airplane ride. You do that here, yes?"

"We sure do. When did you have in mind?"

"Right now, actually."

"Well, okay," said Charly. He didn't want to be anywhere near this strange person he couldn't look at right, much less in the confined space of a small airplane with him. "But I'll have to call Bill Icarus, my other pilot. He can be here in twenty minutes. He's a young buck, a little reckless, a little crazy with the new medication, but he'll get you back here in one piece." That should deter the strange man.

A long moment of silence, which bored into Charly's brain like nails.

"You yourself are a pilot, are you not, Charly Dodgers?"

"Uh . . . yup." Charly did not recall telling the guy his name, and he wore no name tag.

"See, I don't want you to call Bill. I want you to take me up. Right now."

"Well, I can't do that," drawled Charly. "I've gotta man the control room. FAA regulations."

"FAA? Never heard of 'em. You know that old crop-duster you've got stashed in the back of Hangar Seven?"

Charly was now downright suspicious—and a little bit scared. "How do you know about that? You're starting to sound like some kinda terrorist, mister!"

The stranger chortled, and Charly caught a glimpse of dagger-like fangs and fiery eyes that burned like the ovens of hell. A chill of terror shot from Charly's brain down his spinal cord and spread like an ice-cold drug throughout his body.

"Indeed," said the fanged one. "Sower of Disorder. Bringer of Chaos. Terrorist. These are what I am. And I know all about you, Charly Dodgers. (NOW LET'S GO FOR AN AIRPLANE RIDE.)"

The stranger's commanding voice invaded and conquered Charly's discombobulated brain. Like a robot, he grabbed the keys and walked out the back door of the terminal and onto the runway, leading the fanged man to the hangar.

Charly wheeled the crop-duster, a 1973 Air Tractor AT-300, out into the sunlight. He prepared the plane for take-off under the stranger's unforgiving gaze.

"Why you wanna fly this ol' hunk-a-junk?" asked Charly. His mind was still a bit frazzled, but he could think again. Perhaps the stranger needed him to keep his wits about him in order to fly the plane. The old crop-duster was actually Charly's pride and joy, and he disliked taking it up except on special occasions. And he especially didn't want to for this man—that is, if he was a man. After all, what man had fangs like that?

Sweat beaded on Charly's brow and dripped down into his eyes. Or was he crying tears of frustration at his inability to stand up to this evil interloper? He didn't know. He had never encountered the powers of darkness, and he did not know what to do when they were breathing down his neck like this.

From the fanged one's throat issued a brain-mangling chuckle that hinted of primeval forces never meant to be ruminated upon by the minds of men for fear of the onset of madness.

(STOP ASKING POINTLESS QUESTIONS, HUMAN. NOW GET IN THE PLANE, AND LET'S GET OURSELVES OFF . . . INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER, THAT IS.)

The devil—for surely he must be—chuckled at his dirty little pun, then he and Charly climbed into the plane. Charly started her up and taxied down the runway for takeoff.

Five minutes later they zoomed a thousand feet above Eden. Charly sat in the pilot's seat, the demon adjacent. They both wore headsets. Charly wondered if the demon's undisobeyable Voice would work through the radio, or if it would be muted and not as effective.

"Charly Dodgers," crackled the demon, "do you know where New Shaolin Monastery is?"

Charly sucked in a quick breath. The "Your Trash, Their Treasure" sale! Everybody and their mothers-in-law were there!

"Yes," croaked Charly in a meek, subdued voice he barely recognized as his own.

"That is where we're going. (WE WILL MAKE FOUR PASSES OVER THE MONASTERY GROUNDS. OPEN THE TANKS ON MY SIGNAL.)"

Charly allowed himself a small smile. Those tanks hadn't had anything in them for years. The demon must not be that smart after all, although his commanding Voice was just as effective over the airwaves.

"Oh, and Charly," added the demon. "I myself filled the tanks of the ol' crop-duster here with an especially potent liquid a few hours ago, so don't you worry your tiny little brain about that." Its horrible cackle split through the radio's white noise like sonic waves of hellfire.

Charly grimaced and grasped the controls in a death-grip. He tried to cry out in protest, tried to tell his hands to turn the plane away from New Shaolin, but could accomplish neither. Next to him, the demon chuckled and slapped him on the back. The beast's touch left a searing residue upon Charly's flesh that absorbed into him and touched the edges of his soul, infusing it with suffocating darkness, imbuing it with inescapable helplessness.

Charly gritted his teeth. For the sake of the people of Eden, he had to break the curse the hellspawn had placed on him! Purple veins stood out on his forehead like jagged strokes from a demented artist's brush, and his mouth filled with bitter powder. The Eden sky hurtled past outside the cockpit as he tried like hell to turn the plane somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

Charly wasn't able to resist. Not on the first pass, the second, or the third. He was inexorably under the control of the demon. He didn't know what he was dropping on the unprotected townspeople—who swarmed about like ants far below but were not seeking shelter—but no matter what it seemed like, he knew that it was not something good.

(RELEASE TANK NUMBER FOUR . . . NOW!)

And then something snapped inside of Charly. For the first time since the demon had invaded his world . . . he relaxed. He let go of fear, like dropping a burden carried since birth. Charly's soul underwent a magnificent, beautiful shift, and he said quietly but firmly: "No."

And Charly Dodgers sent the plane hurtling in a nosedive towards Earth.

## Chapter 43

## Apocalypse . . . Now?

The droning sound of an engine issued from the Eden sky. Everybody looked up as a small plane passed directly over the grounds of New Shaolin Monastery, flying way too low.

The cloudless sky opened up, and it began to rain Hoppy Heaven Ale.

Sir Arthur pulled the purple lotus from a coat pocket, and the flower crumbled to ashes in his hands. Dust drifted between his fingers and floated off with the breeze.

Unrestrained chaos broke out across the monastery grounds. At first people screamed, thinking they were under some sort of chemical or biological attack, and ran in all directions, seeking the haven of somewhere—anywhere!—as long as it was indoors. (The monks were the only ones not affected thus; they simply stared up into the sky and the falling liquid with curious expressions on their faces.) But when the sweet-smelling amber rain splashed on people's heads, the rooftops, the ground, all that changed.

It's beer! they proclaimed in wonder. A gift from the gods! The foamy ambrosia falling from the sky could be nothing else!

People opened their mouths and let the beer drizzle down their throats, more enterprising folks standing underneath roof runoffs. People caught the beer in paper cups and hats and shoes, and drank deeply of the Water of Life. People dropped to their knees and sucked at the puddles on the ground where the beer had pooled. They jumped up and down, singing and dancing in the deluge of alcoholic beverage, hugging everyone with whom they came into contact, laughing with abandon at anything and everything, loving their neighbors and loving themselves, loving the world and all of Creation.

Many a garment was shed—sometimes to wring out and lick off the excess beer—and soon a horde of half-naked madmen and madwomen were frolicking about the New Shaolin grounds, slurping beer off one another. As the Edenites danced among the forgotten wares, old scars bubbled and congealed over with unblemished skin. Gray hair turned back to the original brunette, blond, or red. Wrinkles vanished and faces grew younger, losing crow's feet and creases to grow smooth and taut. Veteran seniors dropped their canes and walkers, and grooved. Wheelchair-bound elders rose to their full height for the first time in decades and joined their younger neighbors in the frenetic communal jig.

Jack tried to get Farmer John's help in calming down the populace, but the old farmer was not responding to anyone or anything. His eyes were rolled back in his head, his arms extended heavenwards, and his whole body shook.

"He's in a trance," shouted Stephone over the hooting and hollering. "Bacchic frenzies increase his ken. He won't be able to move until this drunken orgy ends."

Jack stared at Farmer John, stunned. Then he noticed something strange over the man's shoulder, up in the cloudless blue sky.

"Look up there!" Jack said, pointing. "What's that—"

The plane crashed into the novices' dormitories and exploded. At the same time, the sun disappeared from the sky, and the day turned into starry night.

## Chapter 44

## The Wheel of Birth and Death

The Wheel of Birth and Death tipped from its pedestal of swirling galaxies and scraped across the universe, scraped across Time, scraped across Eternity. Sparks of Creation and Destruction went spinning off into the cosmos, fiery comets streaking across galaxies. And with a groan and a shrieking sound like the death of a universe, the Wheel came to a shuddering halt and lay broken and lifeless upon the stars clustered at the center of Existence.

At the sound, Shiva awoke from meditation.

He stretched in languid manner.

Well, it was time to get on with it.

If the Wheel of Birth and Death spins from its axis, Creation must perish. Humans must not become as the gods. It had happened before, and it never turned out well.

For anybody.

Shiva was Guardian of the Wheel, and his long-ago promise must be fulfilled. He had taken a great oath that could not be broken. He sighed with annoyance and summoned the essence of the Cosmic Dancer—one of his thousands upon thousands of manifestations—from within his ken. After a moment's hesitation, he stood up, did some light yoga, and slipped on his dancing shoes.

It was time to go to work.

For the Last Job of All Time.

Very soon, it would all be over.

Again.

## Chapter 45

## The Cosmic Dancer

Too many stars clustered in the Eden sky, as if the Earth had been transported to the middle of the galaxy where the twinkling heavens congregated. Stars never before glimpsed from the surface of the Earth. Red, green, and yellow dewdrops the size of dimes. Bluish-whitish sprinklings that resembled the Milky Way. Shifting, wavering nebulae bursting with never-before-seen colors.

The earthbound looked up into the star-heavy sky and marveled. The planet was lit with a fiery twilight that would give daylight a run for its money.

Then the stars began to swirl, around and around, as if the Earth had been knocked from its orbit and was spinning out of control through the cosmos to some unknown oblivion.

People gasped, oohed and ahhed, or screamed in terror.

And then something formed from the shifting stars.

A figure made of stars, a galaxy-sized being of light, a constellation of cosmic energy stenciled upon the dark canvas of space, as if some bored Creator god had played connect-the-dots with the heavens. Clusters of blue-white stars converged and formed into two twinkling eyes.

Shiva as Nataraja.

The Lord of the Dance had two sparkling legs, four glittering arms, and a serene, celestial face that bespoke endless existence. A ring of stars that burned red-hot with the fires of a billion suns encircled his form. His feet rested upon a pedestal of swiveling, churning galaxies.

Nataraja peered down at Earth, at Eden, at the insignificant insects that believed they were the equals of the gods, believed they were equals of him, the Cosmic Dancer that danced Creation into and out of existence. He had Danced his Dance billions of times, and he would do so billions more. In the end, it would be only he and Kali. Always, he and Kali.

Jeez, that irked him no end. Maybe this time around she'd just let him meditate after Time was no more and stop pestering him to get on with creating the new universe, which always seemed so much better at first, but always ended up being more of the same old crap.

In his sparkling hand Nataraja held a starlight-drawn, hourglass-shaped bongo upon which he began to beat. The sound shook the Earth like the AUMmmmm that begat Creation, and people across the planet screamed in terror and floundered as the ground bellowed and quaked beneath their feet.

Nataraja's arms and legs twirled and whirled in mesmerizing fashion, captivating with perfect movement and prolific form the billions of beings watching the celestial proceedings. The Dance of Destruction was the Dance to end all dances, and no human or mytho could ever hope to match the sublime beauty and grace of Shiva-as-Nataraja as he Danced it.

The Cosmic Dancer raised his upper right hand, and a sphere of fire burst into existence in his upturned palm. Those on Earth could feel the heat, and it was like an oven—hotter than the hottest summer day the American South had ever seen, hotter than the punishing fires of Tartarus.

This was it.

Apocalypse.

Armageddon.

The end of existence.

The end of Time.

The end of everything.

And there was nothing anybody could do to stop it.

As it seemed inevitable the universe would perish, Jack figured it was time for one last drink. So he crouched down and scooped a few swallows of Hoppy Heaven Ale from a puddle by his feet into the paper cup in his hand. He peered at the silty liquid, then took a long, savory gulp. Someone nudged him in the back, and he fell forward, spitting out brew. His forehead hit ground first, and he drifted off into the hazy World of Myth his mind had become.

The last thing he saw was Master Mirbodi grinning down at him.

## Chapter 46

## Earthmaker, Revisited

Jack sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked out into an endless expanse of emerald water. His head filled with fond memories of his time out here among the wind and the waves with Turtle, Beaver, Otter, and Bill. But now the two mammals and the bird were absent.

"What are you doing here?" asked Jack.

Turtle craned his head around and grinned at him. "It's relaxing out here, just drifting upon the Ocean, at one with all things in existence. To be a part of the Eternal Moment that seems to be many sequential moments. Always remember, Wesakaychak, the Eternal Moment is right now. And now. Now. Again. Again. Cleave a piece of wood, and there you will find the Eternal Moment. Raise up a stone, and there you shall find Creator gods."

Jack grew thoughtful. "So which one of you Creator gods actually created the universe and everything therein?"

Turtle peered at Jack with bemusement. "Wesakaychak, do you really think the Creator gods created the universe? All of us—human or mythological or so-called Creator god—create Worlds. We all craft universes. Worlds come, and Worlds go. Universes are created, and universes are destroyed. It is the way things work. Just ask Shiva. And who's to say who the true Creator gods are? Is it you and I, or the human beings who give us life? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?"

Jack remained silent. It was peaceful out here, just drifting, the sun high in the blue sky, the waves lapping gently at Turtle's shell. At the moment, he didn't feel like tackling this koan that had plagued many a mytho across the ages.

"You know, Wesakaychak," said Turtle, "you can still visit me out here on this old World of Myth. If you ever need my advice. Or just want to shoot the shit. Stop by anytime."

"Thanks. I'll remember that." Jack pondered a moment. "So are you gonna tell me how to save the universe? That's why I'm here, isn't it? You always seem to show up when I'm in some kind of jam that I need help getting out of." He scowled. "I love the Earth, and things were starting off so well with Stephone, and now it's all gonna burn away to ashes thanks to that dope Shiva or Nataraja or whatever the hell his name is! What's it to him, anyway? Why is he doing this?"

Turtle shook his head. "Shiva is simply doing his duty. If humanity oversteps the line, he is bound by great oaths to destroy Creation and begin anew. Of course, we never thought someone might trick humanity into doing just that." He let out a wry laugh. "You see? Even so-called Creator gods sometimes suffer from lack of foresight."

"Yeah, that evil Hades. What a bastard, huh?"

Turtle's eyes clouded over. "Perhaps your true enemy is not who you think it is, Wesakaychak."

"What do you mean?" asked Jack.

But Turtle remained silent no matter how Jack probed him for information.

"But what should I do when I get back?" asked Jack. "How can I stop such a powerful god as Shiva from destroying the universe?"

Turtle smiled, looking off into the endless sea. "What is your name?"

"My name? Jack Whiskey. You knew that already."

"No. What is your name?"

"Uh . . . Whiskey Jack?"

"No."

"Wesakaychak? Weesack-kachack? Wisakedjak? Wisagatcak?"

"You're getting closer."

And then it hit Jack like a slap in the face. He remembered traveling through Hades, becoming a shade, and how things had been . . . weird. The voices. He would never forget the million voices laughing in his head. So he whispered, half-afraid it was the right answer: "I am Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters."

"So you are. And therein lies the answer to your question." Turtle grinned. "Now hit the road, Jack, and go save the Worlds."

"Oh. Right. That. Sure thing. But let me ask you one more thing before I go. If we somehow make it through this in one piece, would it be okay if . . ."

The World of Ocean began to fade away, and Jack's words were muffled. Turtle smiled and laughed and nodded. Everything went black, and Jack Whiskey was transported backwards—or forwards, or sideways, or perhaps nowhere at all—to inside his own head.

## Chapter 47

## Evoking the Archetype

When Jack opened his eyes, he really looked at the world around him. He saw that everything—trees, rocks, dirt, sky, sun, clouds, people, birds, buildings, atmosphere, the planet itself, everything, down to the smallest particle in existence—had spirits. One single, connected spirit. A Great Spirit that united everything in the universe as a single, bonded entity made up of billions upon billions of smaller parts. Twinkling jewels in a vast, all-encompassing net of existence.

He was Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters—and he knew what he must do to stop the end of the world. Now, he knew who he was. He knew why he had felt that Masaaw's kopavi was a part of his own skull. In a way, it was! He was Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters, the only Trickster in existence. The original Trickster. All Tricksters were one being—him—splintered into millions of tiny shards. He was the Trickster that resides, and laughs uproariously at the joke of Creation, within each and every little jewel.

Trickster closed its eyes, and Trickster saw stars. Within the blackness behind eyelids, bursting forth from the darkness of deepest mind, were galaxies, infinite galaxies. Trickster had been here long before the gods showed up, and would be here long after they had been swept into the Void of Misplaced Myth like so much divine dust. Trickster was humanity, yet no human being. Trickster was mythical, but no mythological being. Trickster was Creator, but no Creator god.

Trickster was Firstborn, the Shaper of the Minds of Men. Trickster had created mankind of the elements, regulated the seasons, and put nature into its natural (snicker, snicker) order. Trickster had cleansed the primitive Earth of ogres, giants, and terrible monsters. Trickster had given human beings fire, light, tools, farming implements, tobacco, corn, language, writing. The ability to read between the lines, to look beyond duality and just exist. The talent—no, the necessity—to laugh while living in a harsh, unforgiving world.

And now Trickster would give mankind one last gift.

Survival.

Life.

One more chance to do the right thing.

Trickster looked up to destruction-bent Shiva in the sky, peered at the sphere of molten fire that looked like the sun times a thousand gripped in the god's star-painted hand—and Trickster was not going to let the dancing fool destroy the universe because of some erroneous, outdated duty.

Something Powerful, Someone Powerful, Someones Powerful, arose within Trickster.

And then Trickster began to laugh—an insane hooting and hollering that echoed across the New Shaolin grounds, the town of Eden, Time and Space and Eternity, like a gong of hilarity. Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters, cried out in a voice that certain beings dwelling on countless Worlds of Myth heard echoing as drums of war across their minds:

"TRICKSTERTRON, UNITE!"

While Shiva watched the creatures of Earth scurry about the surface of the planet like ants, Jack Whiskey stood up and began screaming out gibberish next to Sir Arthur. Then mythological beings began flying across the sky in droves and landing in a deluge of divinity atop Jack.

A knowing grin stretched across Sir Arthur's face. He moved to the shade of a dogwood tree out of the way of things and leaned against its trunk to watch the show. He pulled a cigar he had been saving for a special occasion from his suit pocket, lit up, and began puffing away.

He was not at all surprised when Tom Sawyer, Iktome, Old Man, Masaaw, Raven, Rabbit, Coyote, and Hermes rolled past him like tumbleweeds, laughing as they were dragged towards Jack Whiskey by some unseen force of nature. The Tricksters were lost to view when they merged with the dogpile of mythos, which was growing larger by the second. Already the mass of shifting, writhing, cackling Tricksters was taller than the tallest building in Eden.

Birds such as blue jays, ravens, owls, mockingbirds, buzzards, and crows flitted by, their forms flashing between avian and human. Hundreds of half-human raccoons, monkeys, spiders, beavers, rabbits, minks, and an extraordinary number of foxes. A white man with one gigantic eye and one tiny eye, cursing between uncontrollable chuckles. A black man wearing a hat that was red on one side, white on the other, and green in the front and back.

A guy with antennae-like protrusions sprouting from his head tripped by, playing a flute with reckless abandon. A being with the torso of a man and the hindquarters of a goat, satyrs and nymphs tumbling along behind. A little Polynesian dude covered in seaweed who carried a human jawbone, his form changing from human to dove, eagle, fish, and back to human—an endless cycle of transformation.

Two veiled Arab women stumbled past. The older woman had a giant rosary hung over her shoulders and carried a green, red, and yellow flag made of rags clutched in her hand. Even veiled, the younger woman was unearthly beautiful, and Sir Arthur understood how a man could fall in love with her with a single glance, as if in a fairy tale.

A stone monkey with fiery red eyes and a golden crown upon its head, sporting a halo and holding a massive cudgel four times its size, rode by on a flying horse that looked suspiciously like a dragon. A banner flapping behind the pair read: "Great Sage, Equal to Heaven."

Hordes of clowns with painted faces, both happy and sad, scooted by on unicycles, clinging in droves to tiny cars. Superheroes and villains torn from the pages of comic books. Cartoon beings ripped from the television airwaves.

All in all, the things hurtling by and combining with the massive mythical behemoth arising on the grounds of New Shaolin Monastery were far too numerous to name—and every single one of them was laughing at the top of his, her, or its lungs.

The mythos present at New Shaolin Monastery joined Sir Arthur underneath the dogwood tree. Many patchrobed monks and novices—novices who were not too sorry to see the dormitories go—met them there. At this point there was nothing they could do; it was all up to Jack and his mates. This apocalyptic scenario was well beyond anyone else's ken.

Even Shiva—the fireball expanding in one hand, another pounding steadily on the drum—seemed to watch, from on high, the Trickstertron arising in Eden. The human attendees of the "Your Trash, Their Treasure" sale had collected their discarded garments and become grim and silent as they watched the awesome events unfolding in the Eden sky.

Sir Arthur gave an impromptu seminar on "Evoking the Archetype," a powerful spell thought to be lost to modern mythos: an ancient evocation that used up vast amounts of ken, all beings that made up the Archetype contributing their own small increment to the vast whole. Everybody nodded and smiled (many secretly hoping he would wrap up the long-winded lecture already) as they watched Trickstertron grow bigger and bigger and bigger. The behemoth's newly-formed legs now straddled the grounds of New Shaolin, its spindly limbs and strange-looking head reaching up to the heavens, reaching towards the indifferent Nataraja.

The Trickstertron had the overall form of a human being, with appendages in the right places, but it wore a massive elk skull upon its head, antlers and all. The hide of a planet-sized raccoon was draped about its shoulders. And what was that sticking from Trickstertron's backside, wondered the earthbound. A feathery tail? No. It was a hawk, flapping its wings, its head embedded deep in Trickstertron's rear end.

All the beings that made up Trickstertron laughed at the top of their lungs. The cacophony of hilarity was deafening, and everyone in the universe could hear the insane hooting, giggling, cackling, snickering. The sound gave one the urge to laugh in the face of destruction, and made one realize that concepts such as birth and death were illusions. There were no such things as beginning and end, real and unreal, good and evil, order and chaos, creation and destruction.

These dual concepts did not exist, for Trickstertron was all of Creation.

And Creation was Trickster.

Stephone looked in dismay upon the novices' dormitories, where only last night the novice monks had slept crammed into tiny rooms like packed sardines. In an instant the old building had burned down to the ground. There hadn't been a soul inside when the plane had crashed into it, but who had been flying the plane? She heard a groan from the left of the building and went to investigate, while Captain Promo extinguished the fire. She found Charly Dodgers lying on blackened earth, his clothes smoking. The old pilot moaned and whimpered, his limbs splayed about his torso at odd angles.

"Help me, lady," wheezed Charly. "I jumped outta the plane just before impact, and now . . . I don't think I can move, or my guts'll start pouring outta my or'fices."

Stephone knelt next to Charly, whispering soothing words. She placed her hand on his bloody forehead. Her palm began to glow with a soft white-blue light that transferred into the pilot, rippling like electricity throughout his broken frame. He gasped and jerked up, twitching like a marionette, before falling back to the ground, breathing heavily but smiling.

A moment later, Charly sat up like a healthy man. He checked his healed limbs, then looked at Stephone with unabashed gratitude bordering on awe. "Christ, lady, you're a miracle worker. I thought I was a goner for sure when I defied that demon and sent the plane into a nosedive."

Stephone smiled down at him and thought: Demon, huh?

Charly grinned at his beautiful, heaven-sent savior—that is, until he glanced over her shoulder and saw Nataraja, painted in starlight upon the night sky, and Trickstertron, made of tens of thousands of weird, living, contorted monsters melded to one another.

Charly screamed falsetto and passed out right there in the charred grass. Stephone smiled, shook her head, and went to find Promo, leaving the pilot to wake up on his own.

By the time Stephone rejoined Captain Promo, he had extinguished the flames. The fire-bringer uttered a curt goodbye and allowed himself to be pulled across the monastery grounds to join Trickstertron, qualifying as one of those Trickster types, though he was often loath to admit it.

Stephone began walking towards the dogwood tree. She passed hordes of stargazers who stared up at the heavens with mouths hanging open and eyes wide as saucers, transfixed by the cosmic scene taking place up there in the empyrean.

Nataraja twitched, and everybody on Earth looked up to see what was going to happen. The Cosmic Dancer peered down at them, a judging expression in his starry gaze. Then Nataraja spoke, and his voice was the voice of the universe, the voice of life and death, the voice of creation and destruction that hides within every instant of every day.

(I am Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer. I Dance, and the universe is created. I Dance, and the universe is destroyed. I Dance within all things, I Dance within all beings. I Dance, you Dance. Inevitably, we all must Dance.)

While the drumbeat shook the universe, Nataraja reared back. He wound up, lifted a starry leg, and pitched the ball of molten fire towards Earth.

Some people screamed in terror, but most just stayed put and watched their too-short lives pass before their eyes. Trickstertron leaped into the sky, blasting off like a huge, misshapen rocket ship, the hawk stuck in its rear end flapping its wings. Tricksters hurtled from Tranquil Forest and shot into outer space, following in the wake of their glued-together brethren. The fireball headed towards Earth, growing larger with each passing second.

While everybody looked up into the sky, Hades appeared in the midst of the mythos gathered underneath the dogwood.

## Chapter 48

## The Exorcism of Hades

Hades pitched his Helmet of Invisibility into the grass. Herby and Cerby's hackles raised, but they made no move to strike, as if they had tried it before and the results had not been good. Everybody else jumped back and fanned out with weapons drawn and trained. But Hades did not seem to mind standing in a closed circle of his enemies. His sides heaved with silent laughter, and the grin on his face seemed near splitting his head in twain.

"So this is how it ends," cackled Hades, his fangs glistening in the orange light of the oncoming fireball. "Did you really think that pitiful being made of nothing but Tricksters"—he spat the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth—"could hope to stand up to a Creator god as powerful as Shiva?"

"Why have you done this, Pluto?" said Stephone. "If I had known it would come to this, I would have given myself to you willingly, suffered my own personal hell until the end of Time so this universe could remain in existence."

Hades spat on the ground at her feet. "I do not want you, wench! That was all a front! I need no mate! All of Creation sprang forth from me! I am Creation!" His bloodshot eyes danced an insane jig. "And I am not who you think I am."

"No?" She took a cautious step backward. "Then who are you?"

Hades smiled like a lunatic on amphetamines and laughed like a madman locked in a padded room. "Have you failed to notice all the entropy going on in Eden lately?"

Confusion swept across the minds of the gathered mythos—all but one.

Sir Arthur sprang forward and placed a glowing index finger upon Hades's forehead. "Enough of this charade! Get out of there, you—NOW!"

Hades began to shake like an epileptic, foaming at the mouth and snarling. Then his face really did split into two. His mouth expanded to a gaping black maw from which murky darkness gushed in a torrent. Liquid shadow convulsed, condensed, and coalesced into an anti-sun that churned like a thunderhead and flashed with violent bursts of reddish lightning.

The shadow finished spewing forth and Hades collapsed to the grass, his bearded face slack and lifeless, his tongue lolling from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head.

And Chaos swam in the air before them.

## Chapter 49

## The Shot Heard Round the World

Something was forming over Trickstertron's hand. Tricksters swarmed up the behemoth's arm.

As the people of Earth's eyebrows furrowed with curiosity, Trickstertron extended a Trickster-crafted baseball mitt and grabbed the oncoming fireball like a Gold Glove outfielder defending the left field that was the universe.

The fireball sizzled when it hit the glove made of Tricksters, steam hissing off into the emptiness of space, and the conflagration that was to be the death of the universe sputtered out.

Afterwards, Nataraja gave the massive, skull-capped mytho his full attention.

Trickstertron would have smiled with grim satisfaction if it could have, but it was laughing too hard out of the millions of mouths of its millions of parts to do so. Relentless, it continued on, propelled forward by the flapping hawk jutting from its naked butt cheeks.

Nataraja's starlit eyes had gone as cold and lifeless as the space surrounding him. He banged on the bongo, the beat increasing to a frenetic pace, and continued dancing samhara, eyes locked on the fast-approaching Trickstertron. A second fireball began to form in his hand.

Nataraja unleashed pitch of destruction number two. The inferno-ball came in much faster, speeding towards Earth like a blazing comet on a collision course with the Blue Marble.

Trickstertron skidded to a halt on the edge of the Milky Way. The Tricksters began moving, scrambling up and down its arms, forming into . . . a baseball bat.

Trickstertron tapped the bat made of Tricksters upon a nebula that approximated home plate, pointed a finger across the heavens, and brought the bat back behind its shoulder.

The fireball came in like a fastball thrown by Superman, but Trickstertron's swing was true.

There was the unmistakable crack of wood on leather, and after a wondering, wondrous moment, those watching from New Shaolin cheered like it was a walk-off home run to win the Series.

Propelled off Trickstertron's bat, the burning sphere went right back up the middle of the cosmos, streamers of fire trailing in its white-hot wake.

The fireball hit Nataraja right in the star-drawn crotch. There was a thud and a gut-wrenching squishing sound heard by every being in the universe (and felt by the males, who winced in unison).

Nataraja whimpered once, quite un-god-like.

The sound of the drum died away, and the Cosmic Dancer burst into flames. The linked stars that made up his outline flared up bright and red like a billion exploding suns. From Earth, it appeared that the sky—the universe, the entire cosmos—was ablaze.

Those watching from Earth turned away lest they go blind.

After a time, there issued from the sky a hissing sound like water dousing a campfire, and there billowed out a thick fog that covered the length and breadth of the heavens.

But the haze soon cleared, and Nataraja was there. His glowing outline still smoked a bit, but it didn't seem to bother him. He no longer banged his drum, which had vanished, and now simply straddled the universe, his four arms crossed, a stern expression upon his star-sketched face.

Trickstertron rested in stasis. It stared across the firmament at the Lord of the Dance. The two heavenly beings regarded one another, in a celestial Mexican standoff.

Trickstertron still giggled uncontrollably. Nataraja was cool and judging as he appraised the behemoth that had arisen from nowhere to thwart him.

Then Nataraja's starry eyes flashed with . . . mirth.

The Cosmic Dancer's eyes danced with all-too-human laughter, and a stupid, profane grin spread across his sacred, celestial face. Nataraja bent double and held his sides, laughing right along with Trickstertron—laughing at duty, laughing at the Creator gods, laughing at himself, laughing at and laughing with all of sprawling, wondrous Creation.

The two galaxy-sized beings held one another around the shoulders and laughed, laughed, laughed for what seemed like an eternity. Divine metallic tears streamed unabated from their eyes, painting the cosmos with silver streaks of hilarity.

After the frenzy of humor had died down to occasional chuckles and hoots, Nataraja looked down upon the denizens of Earth and the universe with a beatific smile.

(I am Nataraja, and I Dance Creation into and out of Existence. But I have grown tired of Dancing around in circles. From now on, the denizens of the Worlds may do what they will, for I shall no longer be Guardian of the Wheel of Birth and Death. And now I shall retire in order to meditate until the natural end of this cycle of Existence.)

The beings of Earth cheered as one—a thunderous, resounding holler that sounded the same in any language: a cry of pure joy.

Shiva-as-Nataraja nodded his head like a djinn granting a wish, and disappeared. The stars did their sky-wide dance once again, and the heavens shuffled back into their proper place. The unexpected twilight that had fallen upon the planet lifted, the familiar burning orb appeared in the clear blue sky—and Trickstertron, still chortling, turned its attention to Earth.

## Chapter 50

## The Enemy Revealed

Chaos writhed as a spherical black hole upon the fabric of reality, crackling with intermittent flashes of red-tinted lightning. Tentacles of shadow stretched outwards from the Void like the appendages of a demonic octopus, contorting and whipping in the air before the companions with an unholy life of their own. A voice like the parley of a python king hissed from the globe of sentient shadow. It echoed through the heads of the assembled beings like a call from a lunatic realm.

(Hades was useful, but I no longer have need of the wretched mytho. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end—for I am Chaos. I am the Formlessness that encompassed the All and Nothing before the universe began. That's right, before you mythological and human jokers showed up and complicated everything, I was in control!)

A mind-numbing shriek resounded within the minds of those assembled upon the grassy knoll. The mythos grabbed their ears lest they burst, but this did not dampen the shrill, maniacal laughter.

After the horrible sound died away, the Void hissed: (After Shiva has expended his energy and destroyed Creation, I shall absorb him and the ashes of this pitiful reality—and then there shall be nothing left in existence but me. Then shall the universe be as it was meant to be, before Creation spewed forth from my essence like the excrement it is.)

Chaos let out another piercing wail that destroyed all reason. Shadow-tendrils shot out from the Void, latched onto human and mytho flesh, and sank in, wrapping themselves around the turmoil that resides deep within the minds of all beings and pulling it back to its irrevocable, undeniable source. Each and every one of the companions—including the Buddhist monks —was inexorably dragged towards oblivion, the snuffing out of their ken, the end of their lives. No mytho could die without being forgotten, but the Void That Was All in the Beginning was an unknown variable in that cute little equation. Chaos's ken gave it the power to absorb all things. Maybe permanently.

Glimmering steel balls flew from the hands of Tom Sawyer's gang, and lightning-like bolts of energy shot from Stephone's hands. The Void swallowed the missiles. Sir Arthur's sword-cane moved at a blur, slashing tentacles. The severed portions of the protuberances squirmed and dissipated into mist, but the remainders almost instantly re-extended. Numerous tentacles latched onto Sitting Lotus, who sat in the lotus position, meditating, as the battle raged around him.

Then someone zoomed around them and the tree at impossible speeds, a blur passing between them and Chaos. A circle crafted of some sort of sandy substance formed around them, growing thicker each time the zoomer passed by. Every one of the tentacles attached to the companions were severed simultaneously. The pieces still clinging to them flopped to the ground, wiggled and jiggled like snakes with their heads chopped off, and dissipated into purple smoke.

Master Mirbodi halted and grinned around at them. "I bet you forget I still have magical cornmeal. No matter what Chaos think, it mythological being and cannot cross magical barrier."

The Void screamed—audible through the protective bubble, yet not nearly as thought-shattering as before. A hissing sounded, and Chaos began to expand, as if the ancient mytho was feeding on the flesh of reality and growing stronger on its meat. Soon the swirling, living shadow had enveloped the companions, and all around them was darkness. Lightning flashed, striking at the bubble of salvation—and the space around them began to shrink.

Trickstertron had the eyesight of a star-traversing eagle, and when it turned its gaze across galaxies to the tiny blue planet of its origin, it observed the anomaly latched onto the northern hemisphere of the globe, growing like a festering black boil. Instinctively knowing what was happening, it did the only thing it could.

Trickstertron raised its hand towards Earth, as if to wave goodbye.

Chaos closed in on them. No weapon would penetrate the endless darkness, so those inside the bubble stood stoic and awaited the end of their lives, the end of existence, the drying up of the Ocean of Myth, the death of the universe.

And then the darkness lifted.

Trickstertron stretched across the universe to grab Chaos and drag it across galaxies. A mind-jarring scream issued from Chaos as it was plucked from the Earth. Trickstertron's arm, with fingers as thin as three or four Tricksters in some places, retracted in the blink of an eye.

Trickstertron observed the quivering black marble clutched within its Trickster-digits. "I am Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters. I am all Tricksters and none. Life contains chaos. Life contains order. Both and neither. Not one or the other."

Trickstertron raised its arm to its writhing Trickster face and popped Chaos into its mouth like a gumball. Trickstertron chewed once and swallowed, then smacked its lips and burped the loudest burp Creation ever witnessed. A stream of wispy black smoke shot from between the elk skull's grinning jaws and dispersed into space.

Trickstertron laughed, loud and long, its millions of Trickster parts guffawing and chortling, and those watching from Earth could not help but laugh as well.

Life, and the universe, would go on.

And then Trickstertron began to come apart at the seams, unraveling like an old blanket some alien god had left draped across the galaxy.

## Chapter 51

## A Rain of Tricksters

All over Eden, Tricksters fell from the sky like cats and dogs. In fact some were cats and dogs, and mythological beings of all shapes, sizes, and descriptions. The once-in-a-lifetime sight was colorful and beautiful, the best fireworks display ever. If it weren't for the horrible shrieks of the falling ones, it may even have been mesmerizing.

The companions watched from underneath the dogwood tree as the Tricksters dropped from the sky by the hundreds. Everybody kept an eye out for Jack, Tom, Promo, and the rest.

Iktome hit dirt first, crash-landing near the dogwood tree and leaving an eight-legged depression in the Earth. The spiderman was helped from the makeshift grave by many kind arms. Before long Hermes, Coyote, Old Man, Rabbit, Raven, Masaaw, Prometheus, and Tom Sawyer had landed, each leaving different-shaped craters around the monastery grounds.

And then Trickster, the One Thousand and One Tricksters, came tumbling from space, a fiery speck burning upon reentering the atmosphere, smoke billowing behind him. He screamed like a missile as he landed atop the 'Toys and Games' tent.

Everybody rushed over. It took a few minutes of digging through stuffed animals, model airplanes, coloring books, board games, and mountains of little green army men to reach the wriggling mass of mythical flesh called Jack Whiskey.

When he was finally reeled in and deposited on his feet, he received a deep kiss from Stephone that left him grinning from ear to ear. Then he was mobbed and carried across the monastery grounds atop a horde of cheering people. They set him down at the Meditation Hall's steps.

Farmer John quieted the boisterous masses with upraised arms, then turned to Jack. "So how'd ya do it, Jack? That was some mighty powerful ken ya just unleashed on ol' Shiva."

Jack thought about it for a moment. "As far as I understand it, a Trickster's essence is a contrast. We run and play in realms beyond such concepts as good and evil, human and divine, god and man, creator and created, chaos and order. We shatter the false mirror of dualism"—Jack winked at Master Mirbodi, who grinned—"upon which no dust can collect."

Master Mirbodi hooted in approval and pointed around as if to say, "That what I been trying to tell you lot all along!"

Jack looked from Farmer John to Stephone, then back again. "Say, John, why did Steph call you 'brother' earlier? And I seem to recall you calling her 'sis.' If you're Johnny Appleseed, a homespun American legend, and she's Persephone, the Queen of the Dead of ancient Greek mythology . . . how is it you're related?"

Farmer John clapped Jack on the back. Stephone laughed, and everybody else grinned.

"I go by and have gone by many different names, Jack," said Farmer John. "I was born when the first sip of alcohol passed a human being's lips, and I shall be around until the last sip of that sweet nectar that brings on drunkenness passes a human being's lips. Just as Johnny Appleseed brought the gift of the apple—and applejack, of course—to the American frontier, I brought the gift of the grape to the ancient Greeks, and many more."

Jack recalled how Farmer John had been in a trance when the Bacchic frenzy had been underway. His eyes alighted in understanding. "You are . . . Dionysus, is it?"

Farmer John's eyes twinkled, and he cracked a sly smile. "I am the God of Drink—all of them, wrapped up into one being." He shrugged. "But these days I like to go by John, as he is my most recent incarnation. Or avatar, depending how ya look at it." He shrugged again. "Whatever floats yer boat."

Jack shook his head. "Sheesh. No wonder your beer's so damn good."

"Aye." Farmer John grinned. "The best stuff in all the Worlds."

## Chapter 52

## No Beginning, No End

"I tell you what, this is some first date."

Stephone snuggled deeper into Jack's shoulder. "You were right. It sure is peaceful out here."

They were surrounded by Great Ocean, floating on the back of a Turtle. The scenery was breathtaking, but it was crowded on the shell.

"Wesakaychak, I think you've done well for yourself," said Turtle, paddling onward, ever onward, through the endless sea. "She's a great girl."

"Yeah," said Beaver. "Just don't blow it this time."

Otter snorted. "He's a Trickster, my bucktoothed man. He's bound to blow it sooner or later."

"No, I think he's learned a lesson," said Bill the duck. "I believe we're looking at a new Wesakaychak here." A knowing smile swept across his feathered face. "I think that he and Steph will be just fine."

"Er, could you guys stop talking about me like I'm not here, maybe?"

A round of apologies and good-hearted laughter ensued.

"No harm intended, Stephone," said Turtle. "We're just not used to having company—other than one another, that is—out here in the middle of this Great Ocean."

"We're glad you stopped by, though," said Beaver.

"Stay as long as you like," said Otter.

"It's quite fun when you guys are here," said Bill.

After a spell of peaceful silence, Stephone said, "So the MythCourt approved the divorce. Hades agreed to all terms. They're sending me the documents by MythMail later this week. All I've got to do is sign a few things, send them back, and it's done."

Beaver, Otter, Bill, and Turtle expounded congratulations.

Jack was ecstatic and gave her an awkward hug. "That's great news!"

Stephone beamed at him. "Yeah. It is. And Hades has lifted the Curse of the Pomegranate. For the first time in a long time, I'm free. Apparently the King of the Dead learned a lesson when Chaos took him over, body and mind."

"Kick ass," said Jack, looking around at the all-encompassing sea. "So the next stop on this little vacation is Elysium, huh?"

"Yup," said Stephone. "The Blessed Isles are nice at any time of year."

"I can't wait to see them. And then, when we get back, we'll both be working at the Olde Eden Taphouse, which, along with John's farmhouse and select buildings around town, is being rebuilt as we speak, and should be completed by the time we get back. You don't think you'll get sick of me, seeing me all the time at work, do you?"

At this point the pair had completely forgotten they were with company. They basked in their closeness, and the rest of the Worlds were forgotten.

Beaver, Otter, and Bill sensed the mood (there was an amused chuckle or three) and dived into the Great Ocean for a swim. Turtle looked ahead to the endless horizon, his eyes shining like stars.

Stephone peered deep into Jack's Trickster orbs, down into his very spirit.

And she smiled at what she saw there. "I doubt it."

And Jack Whiskey grinned.

Master Mirbodi and Sitting Lotus strolled down one of the nature trails that meandered their way through Tranquil Forest Park, getting in a little walking meditation before the sun went down. It had been a beatific day, unseasonable for the end of August, and the pair were enjoying themselves.

After an extended period of silence except for the sounds of thriving nature, Sitting Lotus looked over at Master Mirbodi with pursed lips. "Master, I've been thinking about everything we've been through recently. If the universe and all the things it contains are truly empty, then is it even possible to destroy the universe? Since it doesn't exist in the first place, you know?"

Master Mirbodi smiled. Sitting Lotus had learned a lot in the past few days.

"In Buddhist universe, novice, there no such thing as you and I, this and that, form and emptiness. We all one—interdependent, interconnected—and we all none, even so-called Creator gods. Creator gods and mythical beings may be powerful, but they, just like human beings, no have ability to release anybody but their own selves from suffering. So there no such thing as Wheel of Birth and Death. It illusion, illustrative concept, invention of human mind, fancy of imagination."

Sitting Lotus snapped his fingers. "I knew it! So you're saying that if we had done nothing, the universe and life as we know it would not have been destroyed?"

The Zen Master chuckled. "Well, I no say that, now did I?"

The pair walked along in silence, enjoying the wooded scenery, until Sitting Lotus sighed. "So I guess it'll be you and me from here on out, huh, Master? Two Zen Buddhists, two Eternal Ones, here until the end of Time. Say, just curious, but how did you end up drinking the Water of Life?"

Master Mirbodi's constant grin widened to as-yet-unseen proportions. "Who said I ever drank that Water, novice?"

Sitting Lotus's mind tripped and fell flat on its face at this statement. "Y-you never drank the Water of Life?! B-but how are you still alive, then?!"

But Master Mirbodi, for the time being, refused to say more.

Twenty minutes later, just when Sitting Lotus had calmed himself down and almost convinced himself that it didn't really matter, Master Mirbodi dropped the bomb on him.

"So tell me, novice, why did I come from West?"

There followed a moment when the Song of Mother Nature took over completely, and then Sitting Lotus's face dropped. "Siddhartha's smoking stupas, is that another koan? Already?! Are you kidding me, Master Mirbodi?"

The Zen master shrugged. "You know how it go, novice. Here in Eden, it, whatever you think it may be . . . well, it never end. And it, just like universe, never began, either . . ."

And the patchrobed monks walked off towards New Shaolin Monastery, the novice muttering to himself and twitching. He would be unable to sleep tonight, puzzling over this one.

Why did Bodhidharma come from the West?

During the peaceful (at least for him) stroll back to the monastery, Master Mirbodi watched Sitting Lotus from the corner of his eye and grinned like a Zen Trickster.
