Crucible

The Great Shwamp has a town for everything. Cloth comes from Chelissera, feathers from Meligma, pottery from Woodpot. There is no metal to speak of in the Great Shwamp, so it gets its metalwork from Crucible. There is quite a lot of it there. Lady Peraximander was right when she called it a city of fire and iron. A river of molten iron runs through the center of town. This is what has made the town the area's center of metalworking: it has a seemingly endless supply of iron and no need of fire to melt it.

We could see the town long before we actually came to it. The cloud of smoke and steam it produces is visible for miles, like the plume of a volcano (which, technically, I suppose it is). We didn't see the town itself until we came out of the trees and into the farmland that surrounds it. It was the first time I'd seen a hill in Sedge. Crucible is a great black heap of a town, a mound of black buildings on a black hill, lit like an oven from within. No sun shines through the cloud that hangs over it. The buildings are visible only as firelit silhouettes.

At the outskirts of the town, where the fields gave way to buildings, they also gave way to metal. There was a sheet of it a few inches thick covering the ground. The edge was smooth and rumpled, like wax, as if the metal had flowed molten over the ground and solidified there.

As I later found out, this is exactly what happened. Most of the hill beneath the town is made of iron, built up over centuries by the molten river that springs from its peak; in the soft, stoneless ground of Sedge, that's the only reason there's a hill at all. If the metal didn't spread out so far around the town, the whole thing would probably sink into the ground. It looks like the melted stub of a giant candle. Plants grow in the spaces between flows of iron, where dirt has collected or been exposed by splits in the metal. What streets there are have been melted out of the side of the hill or welded onto it. The melted ones are perfectly flat and mirror-smooth, polished by centuries of feet; the added ones are clattering catwalks of metal gratings. Most of the buildings on the hill are also made of metal, as it's more common that stone and less flammable than wood. With the clanking of the metalworking shops in the background, it's like being in one of the floating cities.

There is so much iron in the water and soil here that even the hair and skin of the people has a rusty reddish tint. It's rare to see any other color that isn't obviously the work of dye. They advise visitors to drink from cisterns of collected rainwater, rather than from the local wells. Like the spores in Sporetower, such a high concentration of metal can be harmful to anyone not raised with it.

The molten river is called the Flare. It follows a meandering path through the streets of the town, making its slow way from the peak to the base of the hill, and fills the streets with the heat of a thousand fires. There are few bridges over it; most people prefer to keep their distance. Strange spires and encrustations have formed all along the banks, like half-melted candles or icicles in black metal. Salamanders perch on them like miniature mountain dragons. Rare in most parts of the world, salamanders breed like rats in Crucible. It's one of the few places above ground that's hot enough for them. It's common to see the small reptiles climbing out of the river, glowing with its heat, shaking the drops of molten iron off of their backs as they look around for edible insects or mice. Most of them don't stay out long. I don't think they'd leave the river at all if they weren't so curious. Salamanders can survive perfectly well on a diet of sunlight and charcoal, but their natural habitat is the inside of a volcano. The ones that live near the surface only leave to find food. They hunt with light and flame, roasting or dazzling their prey before they eat it. The dragons say that there are larger ones down in the depths of the earth, lurking in the sea of fire that lies under the ground, that sea that leaks through in volcanoes and molten places like Crucible. I have no idea what those eat. Perhaps there are fish of fire down there for them. For all we know, there could be creatures of all kinds, a whole bestiary of flame living below the ground as we live above it, and the salamanders are simply the only ones that travel between the two. If the dragons know, they aren't telling anyone.

My own salamander spent most of the day out on top of the lantern it lives in, looking around with wide eyes at the town full of flames and the abundance of its relatives. I let it go and say hello to several of them. It was well-trained in Cormilack, though, and always came back when I called it.

Anyone who goes outdoors anywhere near the metalworking district or the river wears thick leather coats and wide-brimmed hats. Sparks and drops of molten iron spatter and drop there like rain, and not everyone is fireproof enough to just shrug them off. Fortunately, there are stores where you can rent the outfits. Like me, most visitors would rather not buy an entire set of fireproof clothing that they won't use anywhere else, but no one wants to come to Crucible and not see the River Flare.

The surface of the river used to steam and solidify when it rained.* Parts still do so, forming a dark crust on top like the ice on water; most of the river is covered, though, with a sort of metal awning that keeps it dry and therefore liquid. It's a beautiful structure, a roof held up by slender columns and rafters of metal, like a cross between a Caroque cathedral and an oven. The townspeople call it the Flue. It was built long ago by the legendary Lady Pyrafax, whom the legends say was part salamander (some say part dragon) and could sculpt molten metal with her bare hands, like clay. The Flue certainly looks like it was made that way; a skilled metalsmith could make work that graceful with a hammer, but it would take decades. Besides, the Flue has the look of something sculpted, not beaten. It's all fluid curves and graceful twists, no two parts quite the same, and there's not a seam in sight. Some say you can find the Lady Pyrafax's fingerprints in the metal. Fire-bats roost with salamanders in the upper reaches, swooping down to catch night insects before they fly into the bright river and incinerate themselves.

Most of Crucible's best metalworkers live near the river. It's the most convenient source of metal in the town. Many of them have balconies built over the banks, so they can lower containers made of stone** over the railings and pull up metal by the bucketful. Several of the smiths have pipes installed in their smithies that lead directly to the river. They have iron on tap with the turn of a handle. This only works in smithies by the river, though, as the iron will cool and solidify if it travels more than about six feet. That's a blocked pipe no plumber can fix.

I found out all of this without the company of Mahalia Peraximander. I had been traveling with her for the past few days - or, rather, I had been traveling with my scissors, which had been traveling with her. She didn't seem particularly interested in my company except as the owner of the scissors. She did talk to me occasionally - mostly describing her plans for her Fish, which continued to be completely incomprehensible to me, or complaining of the eccentricities of the family to which she was returning. "For they are a clan of the Stubborn and Unlistening," she said, "who would not see Sense if it was written on their very Eyelids." This is, apparently, the reason she spends so much time away from Crucible, despite her fierce devotion to the town. To hear her talk, no other place in the world is worth seeing, and no other family so impossible to tolerate.

When we reached the outskirts of Crucible, she stopped and turned to me. It had taken days, but her fur was short all over, if somewhat ragged. There were rust-red highlights in the black roots. It seems rather odd to complain about the heat and then return to a place like Crucible, but perhaps it's easier to endure when it's part of home.

"You have proved yourself Useful," she said, handing my scissors back. "You have my Thanks and Gratitude, and that of my Fish. May you be warmed by the Fire and never Burned. Now go away." With that, she turned and strode away through the streets.

I doubt I will see her again. If I ever find myself back here again, though, I intend to ask about her and her Fish. I am curious to hear if her plans for him succeed.



* Thanks to its constant shroud of soot and steam, Crucible is one of the only places in the world where the clouds clear when it rains. Sporetower is another.

** These are the crucibles with which the town shares its name. No one seems to be sure which is named after the other; both are containers that hold molten metal, so it could have gone either way.

Linewurm

The Train came around a curve this afternoon to find what looked like a lizard-shaped heap of scrap metal shuffling along the tracks. It was almost as large as the engine. When it saw the Train, it got off the tracks in a hurry, shedding machinery and pots and rusted sheet metal as it went. The noise was horrendous. It sat by the tracks as the Train went by, lashing its tail and hissing at us. The combination of clanking and hissing sounded like a steam engine about to explode. Its teeth were quite impressive. There were storm-drain gratings fitted over its eyes.

I only recognized the junk-heap creature from photographs and descriptions in books; I'd never seen one above ground. The Train had surprised a linewurm.

Small dragons and their relatives, such as salamanders, are usually content with anything metal. That's one of the many reasons to keep salamanders in lanterns; they've got a piece of shiny metal that's bigger than they are. Craftsmen's salamanders are generally happy with their ovens or forges. The ones in the great metal hulk of the Train - or, better yet, the floating cities - must feel like kings.

Large dragons usually have more refined tastes. They prefer gold. This is by no means true of all dragons, or even most, and the less obsessed ones can get rather unpleasant if you imply that it is. Quite a lot of dragons these days collect gears, or teapots, or umbrellas, or any number of the other pretty things that people make. I know of half a dozen off the top of my head who collect only books. (Frankly, I don't know why everyone doesn't do that, but you know how I feel about books.) Some don't collect anything - though most dragons consider those ones eccentric, or possibly just lazy. Still, all the most traditional dragons collect mainly gold and the occasional gemstone.

The linewurms - distant relatives of dragons, like giant white newts - have almost nothing in common with their winged cousins except their size and their love of metal. They certainly don't share their brains. Even the most uncivilized and temperamental dragon can outthink most smaller creatures; when you live for centuries and have a brain larger than an entire cow, you can hardly help it. Linewurms are considerably less intelligent. They spend all their time hoarding things. They prefer metal, but they'll settle for rocks. They're not picky. When they find something nice and hard, they glue it to themselves with the mucus they secrete, making their own armor plating to cover their soft bodies. They make claws out of old knives and pickaxes stuck to their toes. When two linewurms meet, provided they don't find each other attractive (and most of them don't), they fight. The fact that their claws and scales are secondhand and handmade makes them no less eager to use them. They fight, and the winner takes whatever useful bits and pieces are left on the floor when the loser runs away. The focus is generally on knocking armor off rather than actually hurting each other.

In other words, linewurms collect stuff to fight and fight to collect stuff. People have suggested that they could just leave each other alone, but the linewurms don't seem interested. Perhaps there's nothing better to do down in the caves.

The mucus that holds linewurm armor together eventually covers it with a thick white layer, like glue, giving the metal (and other assorted junk) a pearly shine and softening its edges. It reduces the clank of metal on stone to a quiet rustle. Old linewurms look like the ghosts of junkyards. The mucus also coats the insides of the caves where they live, turning rough stone passages into the smooth tunnels that linewurms prefer.

This, incidentally, is where linewurms got their name: they are wurms* that line stone with slime and line themselves with stone. It seems like rather a pointless cycle, but linewurms seem to like pointless cycles.

A rare few wurms have been known to make sculptures out of mucus, building them up layer by layer with the patience of a cave drip forming a stalagmite. Most don't have the patience.

The hardened mucus is said to be like tree rubber, only better, and there's gotten to be quite a trade in stolen linewurm upholstery. People go down into their caves and peel the coating off of the walls. It's a job for only the exceptionally brave or foolish. Linewurms grow to be several hundred feet long, keep themselves well armed, and suspect everyone they meet of being a thief. (To be fair, they're almost always right.) They're the main reason that abandoned underground villages stay abandoned. Linewurms like abandoned villages. People always leave such nice stuff behind. Fortunately, there's no shortage of abandoned underground villages in Hamjamser, so linewurms rarely need to bother with the inhabited ones.

Of course, not all linewurms live in the wild; quite a lot of them live in Mount Moler, primarily as garbage collectors. Once again, they're not picky. Lineworms have been known to live above ground, but only with completely opaque armor (they sunburn easily) and truly enormous sunglasses. It's extremely rare to see one out in daylight. I still have no idea what the one we saw today was doing. According to the passengers at the back of the Train, it got back on the tracks after we passed, clanking away behind us and lashing its tail angrily. It stopped first to pick up some of the pieces it had dropped.

Later in the day, when the Train stopped at the village of Hoggen, I found a horseshoe and the crank handle from some piece of machinery - a gramophone or pepper grinder, perhaps - caught on the front of the engine. Shreds of rubbery mucus still clung to them. The crank handle looked quite old, an elegant piece of Caroque brasswork. I brought them in and put them in my suitcase. I think I'll hold on to them for a while. It's not every day you get your hands on a piece of a linewurm's coat-hoard. Who knows - maybe I'll get a chance to return them someday.



* "Wurm" being the term for the amphibious variety of dragon. Not to be confused with "worm" (a limbless invertebrate), "werm" (any other limbless animal, such as furry snakes and nullipedes), "wirm" (a long, segmented robot), or "warm" (the same as hot, but slightly less so). "Wyrm" refers only to scaled dragons (though in some parts of Hamjamser, it's considered rude and therefore highly dangerous to use the word to their face). Why we can't just use completely different words for all of these, I have no idea.

Inkweed

Since the abrupt disappearance of Professor Flanderdrack, our compartment has been only three-quarters full. A few people have taken a look at it, but being less inclined to stay up late than Flishel and I, none of them have stayed. One of the four seats has stayed empty. The sleeping passenger sort of spreads into it occasionally.

Today, we were joined by a fourth passenger.

The Train had stopped at Arkentram, a small town that seemed huge compared to the little villages we've been passing lately. The station was centered around a tall thing like a scrap-metal tree. The station-master explained that it was to attract sunlight. In Arkentram, he said, the sun shines even when it's raining. It certainly did while we were there.

The Train stayed for a few hours, so I went to buy some more ink in the market. I don't know when we'll find another town large enough to have ink vendors. I found the stall just as a heap of coats and scarves, presumably with someone inside them, was leaving with a gallon jug of ink. I bought one of my own and came back to the Train. The heap of coats arrived at our compartment only a minute or two after I did.

"Norrel Hepsidine," it said. "Midnight."

We introduced ourselves.

"Nigel Tangelo, two am."

"Flishel, midnight." (The only English word I've ever heard him use.)

"And, um... that?"

"Never wakes up."

"Ah."

That was all. Without another word, the heap put down its suitcase (her suitcase - Norrel is a girl's name) and settled in. She spent the next half-hour taking off layer after layer of coats and shawls and sweaters. Underneath, she turned out to be amphibian, with a salamander-like face and pale green skin. A fringe of vestigial gills hung down over her ears. Her face was covered with what I assumed were tattoos or paint: black spirals and leaves, like the shadow of a vine.

Her coats took up nearly every coat-hook in the compartment. Fortunately, the Train gets a lot of cold-blooded passengers, so each compartment has about forty hooks for just this reason. The air slowly filled with the smell of cinnamon. We found out why later, when she took a stick out one of the pockets - raw cinnamon, the alpine variety, still in stiff little rolls. She chewed on it absentmindedly all day.

Our compartment stays warmer than most, as a result of having three mammals in it. It would almost be stuffy without the blasts of cold air whenever the Train stops. In the end, all Miss Hepsedine kept on was a knee-length embroidered skirt, like the ones worn in the Golden Desert. (Keeping the chest covered is a purely mammalian habit; no one else has anything to cover up. Male and female amphibians look exactly the same to most people.) Her entire body was covered with the black vines. I was about to ask whether they were tattooed or painted when a leaf fell off of her arm. It dissolved into a puff of smoke before it reached the floor. That seemed to more or less answer my question.

I had only glanced at the falling leaf for a second, but that seemed to be all it took; Miss Hepsedine noticed me looking and grinned. "It's inkweed," she said eagerly. "Do you like it?"

Thus began the rest of the afternoon. Before the subject of inkweed came up, Miss Hepsedine had said all of seven words; after that, she turned out to be capable of talking steadily for hours.

Inkweed is a plant composed entirely of the color black. It's a dermatoglyph, like mobile hieroglyphics or rainbow splodge, a form of two-dimensional life that exists only as patterns on a surface. It can't exist by itself. It has color, but no thickness. A tree with an inkweed vine on it doesn't have stems and leaves stuck to its trunk; it has vine-shaped patches of wood that happen to be black. All inkweed needs is a smooth surface and a source of black, such as ink, tar, ash, or the dark mud on the bottoms of swamps. It has been known to survive on a diet of shadows, but it prefers more substantial kinds of darkness.

Miss Hepsedine, as it turns out, is something of an expert on inkweed. She makes her living off of it. Her suitcase is completely full of books, pens, and jugs of ink (I think she was wearing all the clothes she had), and all but a few of the books are copies of her guide to raising inkweed. She includes seedlings from her own plants when she sells them. The seeds look exactly like commas. They fall off of the plants when they're ripe and stick to the first surface they touch. The seed in each book is carefully planted on a sheet of black paper, which turns white as the seedling sucks the pigment out of it. Each seedling has to be added just before its book is sold; if it stays in it too long, it spreads and starts eating the words.

If it weren't for my disastrous luck with plants - every single one I've raised has died, except the ones that turned out to be weeds - I might be tempted to get an inkweed myself.

Miss Hepsedine fed the inkweed while she talked. Her hands were covered with the feathery black lines of roots. I wasn't sure why they were there, instead of on her feet, until she got out a jug of ink and started pouring it into her palm. I expected it to drip off onto the floor. Instead, it disappeared into her hand like a magician's trick, absorbed by the inkweed without spilling a drop.

She spent the evening writing; she's currently working on a book about dermatoglyph biology. When not discussing inkweed, she hardly talks at all, which is perfect - I don't either, and Flishel talks a lot but doesn't seem to care if anyone's listening. It all works out nicely. If we ended up with someone who talked all the time in a language I knew, I could never concentrate on anything.

Town of Fossils

I spent most of a week this Summer in Tazramack, a cold town high in the mountains, where things keep for a long time. Everything there has a strange, fossilized quality, as if the town exists inside an old photograph. I couldn't escape the feeling that if I had visited a hundred years ago, I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Nothing ever dies in Tazramack. Not permanently. If it does, it is promptly stuffed and put in the nearest museum. A third of the people are taxidermists, and half the buildings are museums. They are dark and dusty and vaguely creepy. The narrow halls and dimly lit rooms are stuffed with stuffed animals - deer, horses, trantelopes, thugrofflers, cats and canines of all sizes, tortoises, seals and dolphins, even fish. There's an entire museum devoted to the art of preserving dead frogs. Another is basically a three-story filing cabinet full of drawers of dried insects. A third specializes in teeth, from micro-shrew bicuspids to a havernack's tusk that required the construction of a second tower, as it is taller than the museum itself. For some reason I could never understand, every museum in the town - no matter what else is in it - has a stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling somewhere. Just one. It might be in an entrance hall, a dusty back room, or even hanging nose-down in a broom closet, but it will be there somewhere. No one seems to know where the alligators came from originally. People in Tazramack don't ask questions about the past; they just preserve it.

When the town was built, it seems to have been dug out as much as it was built up. The streets are narrow trenches cut into the stone of the mountain. The first floor of every building is hollowed out, rooms carved in the blocks left between streets, and the wooden upper floors were built on top of them later. Some buildings even have stone furniture sprouting like mushrooms out of the floor. Fossils coat every piece of stone in the town. Only the most delicate have ended up in museums; there isn't room for the rest. Half of the mountain seems to be made of fossilized creatures. The streets are paved with stone clams instead of cobblestones. Every wall is lined with trilobites, ammonites, reticulated sea-nullipedes, and hundreds of other things I'd never even seen before. There are shells smaller than grains of sand and sea-serpents so long that they stretch through the foundations of five or six buildings. Scaly coils form arches above alleyways. The central square of the town was hollowed out around the three biggest fossils: a prehistoric shark, a giant squid, and an enormous eurypterid, circling each other on pedestals of stone above the ground. It's impossible to tell whether they're preparing to fight or taking part in some ancient aquatic dance. On market days, the townspeople set up stalls in the spaces between the eurypterid's legs. Pigeons perch on tentacles the size of trees and make their nests between the teeth of the giant shark. People count their sharks' teeth (the main form of currency in Tazramack) and haggle over the price of sump squid in the shadow of creatures that could have eaten them without bothering to chew. No one seems to think anything of it.

I'm still not sure whether I'm glad or not to have shed my skin in Tazramack. It came off in late July this year, when the Train had stopped in the town to pick up a few boxes of coal. (They use it to train the salamanders, the way dog trainers use biscuits.) As I've said before, I enjoy most of the effects of my particular example of the Shapeshifter's Curse; the changes I go through all year mostly seem to be adaptations to make me more comfortable. When the weather changes, I usually have to endure only a few weeks of discomfort before I change to match. If I spent long enough in the water, I'd probably grow gills. (I haven't had much interest in trying that yet.)

I've had fur in the Summer a few times. I don't know how full-time mammals can stand it.

Even when my fur falls out, the way it does almost every Spring, I try to spend the Summer in cold places. the Mountainous Plains practically roast themselves at this time of year. The same heat that keeps Cormilack thawed and soggy all Winter boils it like a squid steamer in July (another reason so few mammals live in Cormilack.) Normally, I shed in the Spring the way most mammals do, except that I don't grow a Summer coat to replace the Winter one. I just stay bald until Autumn. This year, for some reason, it was different - I lost not just the fur, but the top few layers of skin with it, so it all came off in one piece. (I'm used to shedding my skin, but not when there's fur on it.) Underneath was a layer of scales in a rather nice shade of orange. I think my salamander approved.

I was lucky to be in Tazramack at the time, I suppose; skins shed by reptiles are common enough, but there may not be another place on Hamjamser where people would be interested in a skin shed by a mammal. I had half a dozen taxidermists offering to buy it by the next day. I eventually sold it to the Tazramack Museum of Taxidermy (one of over thirty museums of taxidermy in Tazramack - it gets to use the town's name because it's the biggest), which had exactly eighteen of the thirty-six furs shed by shapeshifter's descendants in the Railway Regions. The other eighteen are in a museum in Tetravania. The Tazramack Museum was delighted to have mine and take the lead.

In short, there is now a stuffed Nigel Tangelo at the Tazramack Museum of Taxidermy. They have it dressed up very nicely. They wanted to buy some of my clothes as well, for perfect accuracy, but I refused.

It's a strange town.

Molting

I'm finally growing my winter coat. It took longer than usual this year - usually, the fur starts coming in soon after the first freeze. Maybe being in the Train confused it. It's warm inside, between the people and the salamanders, though I've had to wear three coats whenever I go out. I can see why so many reptiles hibernate through the Winter.

Unfortunately, this means I'll have to shed the scales I've had over the Summer. That's never fun. Anyone who thinks shedding fur is bad has never had scales. Actually, shedding skins normally is fine - it's a strange feeling when they're loose but not off yet, and the eyelids aren't much fun, but you get used to it after a while. I've done it three or four times already this year. Last year, I found out that shed skins - intact ones - are worth a good bit at the Cormilack cloth market. There are more reptiles in Cormilack than average; most mammals don't like having wet fur for half the year. As a result of that, and of Lady Xeredile's usual eye for opportunities, Cormilack is one of Hamjamser's main sources of shed skins (or "scale silk," as people prefer to call them). Scale silk raincoats are very popular among people who can afford them and don't mind wearing secondhand skin. They're completely waterproof, and the scale patterns make each one different. (Oddly enough, even people who like wearing leather often find the idea creepy. Don't ask me why.)

It seemed a bit strange at first to be selling my own skin (ex-skin?), but I wasn't about to turn down five gold Loundas because of that. I'm quite used to it by now. I've been keeping my shed skins since then, when I have room in my suitcases. There's no telling when I might pass through Cormilack again - or, for that matter, somewhere else where people are interested in scale silk. I'll have to see if anyone uses it in Tetravania. My scales this summer have been pale green with blue spots. I'll be rather sad to see them go.

Usually, though, I only shed the outer layer of whatever scales I have; they just sort of fade when something else replaces them. This time, for whatever reason, the scales are coming off whole, all at once - and the new fur has already started growing between them. This has happened once or twice before. It itches.

Most of the time, I enjoy the effects of having Shapeshifter ancestry, but I prefer the more gradual changes.

Oh well. With any luck, I'll find someone who's interested in buying an unusually thick shed skin covered with whole scales and lots of little holes from fur growing through it. It'll certainly be unusual.

Rats

I was sitting in the Train station in Jiligamant today, having visited the clockwork market that shows up in the town's main square every so often. Jiligamant is inhabited nearly entirely by mice and rats, who make some of the best clockwork in existence. No one else is better at tiny details.

Of course, having been a center of rodent culture for generations, it's not just the small mice and rats that live in Jiligamant. There are rodents of all kinds - squirrels, capybaras, chinchillas, three-legged gerboas, and probably a lot more that I don't know about. Even the town's humanoid inhabitants look rather rodent-like. There are winged mice the size of bumblebees and a clan of rats the size of hippopotami, who live in what used to be the town's sewers. Jiligamant has six or seven layers of sewers altogether; being a town of rodents, the pipes always have rats living in them, even when they're in use. The rats in the working sewers gradually dry out and brick up parts of them to make houses. This inevitably causes the whole sewer system to back up and stop working, at which point the town builds another one underneath it. Only a sixth of Jiligamant is above ground. The giant rats, who are as close to nobility as you'll find in Jiligamant, have the whole top level - the original sewers - more or less to themselves.

Anyway. I was sitting in the Train station, eating my lunch (some sort of grain thing from a food stall in the market) and waiting for the Train to finish exchanging a boxcar of seeds for a boxcar of clockwork pipe crawlers. A crate of pipe crawlers had, apparently, not been switched off or properly sealed; they were making things rather interesting for the loading crews when a tall gray rat in a blue frock coat came and sat down next to me.

"Morning," he said. It was four in the afternoon. "You ever been to Pickerell's Peak?"

I hadn't, and said so.

"Well, don't." He was quite emphatic. "Nothing there but fir trees and loonies. I was sitting at the Train station there, that little one that looks like an umbrella and never has anyone in it, just sitting there and minding my own business when a lizard in a tuxedo comes along the tracks and says to me, 'have you seen a house around here?' Now, if you'd been to Pickerell you'd know there's not a house within six miles of the station, not even a lean-to, so I gave him the look I give ceiling salesmen and said that if there'd been a house then I'd missed it. So he said fine, he'd wait, and I'll be flanneled if he didn't sit down there and wait! For a house!

"So I sat there with him and ate my lunch, and asked him if he wanted any, but he said he was allergic to cheese, said it made him grow fur, so I said what's wrong with a bit of fur then, and he said that he had nothing against fur but only in the Wintertime. In the Wintertime, he said, he ate cheese until he was so fluffy you could hardly see him.

"Well, I couldn't think of anything to say after that, so I just sat there and ate my lunch. Me waiting for my Train and him waiting for his house. And I'd just said to myself, well, he'll be waiting here a lot longer than I will, when there's a clattering noise off along the tracks, and around the corner comes a house. A house. Perfectly ordinary, the kind you see in Tazramack or anywhere, four stories high and one room wide. It was blue with dormer windows. Had those little fiddly bricks on the chimney. And it was walking, I tell you, just walking along on four great planking feet made all of boards. I could see the nails sticking out of the knees. And it walked right along the tracks, making a racket like you wouldn't believe, and settled down right in front of the station like a big dog, so that its little front porch was level with the platform. And you know what that lizard said? He said, 'my house appears to have arrived at me. Good day to you.' And his house stood there, calm as a horse, while he walked up to the front door and went right in. And then it stood up again on its feet - it had knobs on its toes like on a banister - and it clattered off along the tracks until I couldn't see it anymore. And what I say is, anyone who lives in a house that bounces like that can't have many dishes left by now. I mean, honestly, is it too much to ask for a man to sit and eat his lunch in peace? Why does every loony in the Railway Regions have to come and sit next to me?"

I nodded sympathetically. He gave me a suspicious look at that, stood up, and hurried away without another word.

I could have asked him the same question. Somehow, though, I doubt he'd have taken it well.

Trenchcoat Guy

I don't know who this man is. He's about eight feet tall, and he never talks (at least, not to me). He never takes off his sunglasses. He never stops grinning. I see him fairly frequently while traveling, especially on the floating cities and the Train of the Railway Regions. He spends quite a lot of time on the Train. It's a bit odd how often I see him, in fact; we just happen to be in the same place, coincidentally, more often than should really be possible. Several other travelers I've met have said the same thing. We actually have a theory that there isn't just one Trenchcoat Guy, but several - a group of identical septuplets, maybe. Still, we've never quite been able to prove that we've seen him in different places at the same time.

It's no good asking him. We've tried. He just grins at us.

Last year, I asked him if I could draw his picture. He didn't say anything, of course, but he grinned (well, kept grinning) and posed like this, which I took as a "yes." He stood perfectly still while I sketched him. When I finished, he took his enormous suitcase off the luggage rack (he keeps his spare trench coats in it) and got off at the next stop, the Flange Mountain Aviation Supply and Ice Cream Parlor. I didn't see him again for a month.

I'm looking forward to seeing him again if I make it to the Railway Regions this year. He's as much a part of the Train by now as the immaculate striped Conductor.