Dodge resolved that he must return to the Land to free Spring from her imprisonment and to make himself known to the new souls that she was bringing to life. For those would come into existence with no innate knowledge of their father and grow up as wards of El.

He made many attempts to go back to the Land. In each case he was thwarted, not only by the vigilant angels, but by the wards and spells that El had cast up as invisible barriers to Dodge and all of the others who had been cast out.

Sometimes Dodge went alone, cloaked in stealth. Sometimes he ventured forth with a small group. Three times, as the centuries passed, he went at the head of an army, armed and armored with new creations from the great forges that Thingor had built upon the burning craters of the Firmament.

Hurled back time and again in defeat, he and his comrades in arms were seen by upraised eyes in the Land as shooting stars in the night sky. Each time their trajectories ended in fresh craters pocked in the black surface of the Firmament.

On one of his solitary forays, he penetrated so close to the Palace that he could see its inhabitants feasting on the fruit of its trees; but then El himself rose up in wrath and hurled him back with such violence that he shattered the Firmament itself and broke partway through to the other side, beyond which was all chaos ranging to infinity. War had seen Dodge coming on like a comet and summoned the others of the Pantheon to pull Dodge out of the shattered hole. On its brink Dodge reposed for a time, resting and recovering his strength. Knotweave suggested that they all return to the dark castle they had been building nearby out of the ejecta from many craters, for some rude comforts were to be had within its walls. But Dodge, still recovering the power of speech, held up one hand to stay them. His gaze was fixed not up at the Land, but down into the chaos-filled pit that he had dug with the force of his impact. Or perhaps it was more correct to say that El had dug it by hurling Dodge with such violence.

“Does this put you in mind of something in the Land?” Dodge asked, when words came to him.

“It is nothing more or less than the chaos from which we all had to differentiate ourselves when we first came into being,” said Greyhame.

“When Pluto first came, I saw him emerge from a place that bears notable similarities to what we see below,” Dodge said.

Freewander was the first to understand Dodge’s riddle, for her curiosity and her cleverness in flight had made her a frequent visitor to the place of which Dodge was speaking. “It is very like the crack in the world that lies deep below—”