Pogo’s body shuddered and fell and yet even then, in the throes of death, he tried to crawl on, hand by laborious hand, leaving bloodied palm prints on the ground. Just then the Stranger felt the wind change, and the smell of rancid custard which had been in the air all this time was suddenly gone.

Pogo crawled one last, exhausted length, and then he fell. A shadow leaked out of him and vanished into the dark.

In death, he was just a man, the Stranger saw.

The Stranger sank down to the ground to join his comrades, and then he began to laugh: an exhausted, heartfelt, relieved belly laugh, a true and clean sound that echoed through the night and cleared away the horror, until the two other men, first the Kid and then, at last, even Clem, began to laugh with him; and that sound, like the peals of old struck bells, was heard that night all across Kellysburg and beyond, and reached Colossi and pupae umbrarum both.

On the other side of town, the gravedigger looked up at the sound of laughter and shook his head, for he disapproved of such frivolities. He hefted his spade and began again to dig, for the world was forever in need of fresh graves, and it was his job to both dig them and fill them.

The Great Train Robbery

FOUR:

THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY

From the high-above perspective of a flying caique, or other clown bird, the railway line appeared more like a sort of tangled mandala, following not a straight path but the twisting contours of the landscape; and it often doubled back on itself, crossing the former line with a new one, creating a series of curious knots. The terminus point of Kellysburg appeared as a smudged thumbprint in the distance. Ahead, the tiny engine puffed out a steady plume of smoke as it pulled the passenger cars and hoppers behind it. The hopping cars were loaded with sacks of crystalline substance from the pits and quarries of the Kellysburg claims. A couple of cattle cars held horses, including the Stranger’s horse, who was munching sedately on hay.

From high above the Escapement, the train was nothing but a toy set, huffing and puffing its slow way along the narrow tracks. A flock of caiques, birds uneasy with flight at the best of times, settled themselves onto the branches of a tree high above the railway, where they chattered animatedly and mimicked the whistle sound of the train to amuse themselves. The train struggled as the land’s elevation rose. They were still only on the edges of the Thickening, where the majority of human settlers lived, and beyond lay the Doinklands and the Doldrums and the great graveyards of the wild elephant herds.

Far in the distance, one could almost imagine they could hear the sound of giant stone feet, treading softly on the earth. . . .