'Hokey dokey! Prepare to cast off!' shouted Bear. He rammed the tree limb hard between the island and the exposed roots of the moorland and forced it free. It drifted away.
'Bye!' yelled Bear, waving. 'Bye! I'll miss him, you know,' he said to Richards. 'Even if he was a bit hard on the old nostrils.'
'How terribly touching,' said Tarquin.
'Needle,' stated Bear.
'My lips are sealed. Voluntarily, I might add,' said the lionskin.
Bear scowled at Tarquin until the skin shut its amber eyes. 'You're a bit quiet, sunshine,' said Bear.
'Hmmm,' said Richards.
'Hmmm? What's with the hmmm-ing?'
'This,' said Richards, holding up the tattered paper. 'It's a 1987 train timetable for the Thames Valley line.'
Bear pulled a face. 'A rock in a scrotum and an old train timetable? How very generous.'
Richards shivered. A mist the consistency of custard swept across the moors. The sun must have gone down some time before; he could only tell because the dismal murk of the fog had faded to dark grey. Freezing water trickled down the neck of his mac.
'It's that way,' said Richards. 'Trust me, I have retained a link into the skin of the world. I can feel Rolston through it. He's over there.' He pointed into the mist. 'Somewhere.'
'Oh, puh-lease,' said the bear, walking on. Richards did not follow. 'Stay here and sulk if you like,' the toy called back, 'but I'm going this way. I'm not sticking about on these moors till my stitching rots. I'm positive this is the right way.'
'Well, I'm not,' said Richards. 'Not in the slightest. I defy even you to find your way off these moors.'
'We'll see about that. I'm the brains of this outfit.'
'Your head's full of stuffing.'
'That's as may be, but it's better than what's in your head.' The bear stopped and looked back. 'Shit for brains,' he said, and looked immensely pleased with himself.
'That's just juvenile,' said Richards. 'Come on! Pl'anna told me that Rolston was in Pylon City. He's that way.' Bear squelched as he walked away. 'Look, we both want to get there!'
'It's not that wa-ay!' sang Bear.
'Even if he's not there, we should go and find him!' said Richards. The bear carried on walking.
'Oh, for fuck's sake!' Richards swore. 'Come back!'
'No.'
Richards began a long tirade aimed at the back of the soft toy.
'I'd save your breath if I were you,' said Tarquin. 'He strikes me as rather pig-headed.'
'Are you being funny?' said Richards. He was cold and annoyed.
'No, no, perish the thought,' said the lionskin. 'I'd never try to cheer myself up. Best dwell on my new status as outerwear with a frown, don't you think?' the lion grumbled. 'It's perhaps best that we don't go to Pylon City anyway. The pylons have been here for a lot longer than most things here.'
'They're from Reality 19, the Dragon Era game cycles,' said Richards shortly.
'If you say so. I am a creature of this place, I lack your useful external perspective. As far as I am concerned the pagoda was part of a land now long dead, shattered some time past by Lord Penumbra's armies. There are pylons like it everywhere. That tower was evil. It sucked me in. Though I was told never, ever to go there as a cub, I did.'
'Curiosity skinned the cat, eh?' said Richards.
'That is very unkind and also a mixed metaphor. It's not surprising really, that even a mighty being such as myself should be so bewitched. Legend has it that it was the only remnant of an ancient civilisation. All other trace of it had been completely wiped away by time. But the Dragon Tower remained. Too evil to die, apparently. That is how he trapped me.'
'Or you're just exceedingly gullible. Are lions as bright as dogs? I always wondered that,' said Richards
The lion growled. 'How was I to know I was going to spend two hundred years as a fence post? I couldn't escape, and that dwarf could turn me to stone any time he wanted, it was child's play to him! Child's play!' The lion let out a low rumble, making Richards acutely aware he was wearing a dangerous carnivore round his neck.
'Sorry,' said Richards. 'I'm tired and cold and hungry, none of which I have much experience with. It's all a bit wacky, and none of it is real, which is irritating.'
'And you are?' said the lion archly.
'Point taken,' conceded Richards.
'Listen to me,' said Tarquin. 'People went into that tower and they didn't come out as people. Circus herded them into boxes as pigs. They went off on the cable. They came back as pork. Many use the cables for their own purposes, like in Pylon City, but mark my words, they all hide tight away when the black boxes of Lord Hog come through.'
'Ah, look,' said Richards, who wasn't really paying attention. The big bear had stopped. 'Bloody animal!' said Richards, and ran after him.
'OK, Richards,' whispered Bear, 'I agree, I'm sorry, I'm wrong. Let's go your way. I don't like this way.' He pointed at a shape in the mist.
'Eh? But that's just a sheep or something,' said Richards peering at it. 'Sheep aren't going to hurt a big…'.
'Just shut up and run!' hissed Bear.
'There will be no running, not now or during any part of the course of my presidency,' said an American voice. An animal came out of the mist, panting happily. Mostly it was some kind of large boxer dog, all lean and eager. Mostly, apart from the head.
'Is that just me,' said Richards, 'or does that dog have the head of President Nixon?' He folded his arms.
'It's certainly not its own head,' replied Bear hoarsely, and stood behind Richards, beans rattling as he shook.
'Grrr! Rufff!' said President Nixon. 'There will be no whitewash at the White House.'
'Hit it, Mr Richards! Hit it, ooh, it gives me the fear.'
'If you're so bothered, you hit it,' said Richards.
'You don't win campaigns with a diet of dishwater and milk,' said Nixon, baring its teeth. It came closer, the oversized head wobbling comically on the body's slender neck.
'This is interesting,' said Richards. 'Hello, boy,' he said to the dog in that ludicrous voice that people speak to dogs in.
Bear wailed. 'Keep it away! Keep it away! That thing gives me the horrors.'
'You cannot win a battle in any arena merely by defending yourself!' said Nixon. 'Ruff! Ruff!' barked the former president of the United States, a loop of drool hanging from his dewflaps. 'Communist leaders believe in Lenin's precept: Probe with bayonets. If you encounter mush, proceed; if you encounter steel, withdraw.' It bared its fangs further. Richards frowned. Nixon's two canine teeth were long and yellow. Not dirty-teeth yellow, but bright, thermonuclear yellow. The familiar tripartite symbol on each tooth's tip confirmed it.
'Back off, Fido,' said Bear.
'The US government will not bow down to threats. Grrr.'
'Save it, sergeant. Let's take this easy. This thing has nuclear teeth.'
'That bad?'
'Very, very bad indeed. The last thing we want to do is to detonate this dog. Big boom.'
'Apocalyptic type boom or firework type boom?'
'The former. I've been blown up by atom bomb before, it's not fun, so stay calm.'
'Ah. OK,' Bear rattled.
Nixon retreated and sat. It scratched furiously behind an ear. Then it shook its head, jowls flapping. Strings of dog spit went everywhere. Its collar came off and dropped to the floor.
'What's it doing?' said Bear nervously.
'How the hell should I know?'
The man-dog pushed the collar closer to Richards with its nose, then backed off. 'Nixon good boy,' it said as
