with a pile of stamps. 'Papers!' he demanded.
'Papers, 'sir',' said Bear, producing a sheaf of vellum from somewhere inside his gut. 'I'm Sergeant Bear, these two are my prisoners.'
'Two,' said the guard, checking over Bear's documentation.
'Pleased to meet you,' said Tarquin.
'Another! The entire bloody city's crawling with talking bloody animals,' grumbled the guard.
'Aren't you on the same side?' asked Richards.
'No,' said the guard.
Bear raised an eyebrow.
'I mean yes. They've all come out of the woods. Come to save us, they say. Us! There's this mad psychic badger who says he's seen the end of the world, that the Terror is coming here, here to Pylon City! I don't believe any of it.'
'That cable, there,' said Bear, pointing. 'The Terror did that. I saw it. Happy?'
'Bah! That? A failure down the line. It's happened before, but the Prince took it as some kind of sign. Next thing I know, we're up to our bloody armpits in chipmunks. Ain't right, I tell you. I've not spent my entire life keeping the beggars out only to let all of them in. It ain't right!'
'Neither is sleeping on duty,' said Bear mildly.
The guard made as if to grab his pike, but then thought better of it. 'Leave me be! Isn't it enough that I've got to let you in?'
'Is that right?' said Bear. 'I've been living here for years, you know. Not all of us live in the Magic bloody Wood.'
'Yes! I would. Animals, think you're special, just because you can talk. If that's the bloody case why don't you have central heating? Some pissed-up bloody fox shat on me doorstep last week. And I'm a vegetarian. Do you know how much fox shit stinks? Bastard. Your papers, sir!' said the guard.
'I'm looking for Commander McTurk. Do you know where he is?'
'They're all at the square,' said the guard. 'The whole city. He'll be at the square.'
Bear leaned forward and cupped his hand round his ear.
'Sir,' added the guard truculently.
'That's better,' said Bear.
'Big moot on, talk of war. You'll see.'
'Then you'll be glad of the help of the talking bloody animals,' said Richards.
The guard wafted a hand in front of his nose. 'You there, you better take a bath! Or someone will like as not arrest you for vagrancy.'
'You do need a bath, you know,' said Bear to Richards. 'You stink.'
'Are you going to stand there all day gabbing? Clear off!' said the guard.
'Thank you, my good man,' said Bear. 'Carry on.'
'Being sarcastic to armed men is not big or clever, Bear,' said Tarquin.
'Unlike me,' said the bear.
They passed through the gates. As outside, so inside; everything was made of iron. The walls, the road, the plant-pots, the carts, the gothic-lettered street signs. The metal varied in colour from the silvery-white of the tramlines to the angry red of the rooftops. A thousand hues of black and red and silver and grey. They could taste it on the air like blood.
The city was as quiet as the grave. The three walked toward the centre, their feet ringing off the pavement, until the murmur of a crowd could be heard. They crested a low rise and were suddenly at the edge of a large square directly beneath the giant pylon.
'Holy shit,' said Richards, and reached up to push back his missing hat.
The square was rammed full of people and creatures of all types; every Grid-born whimsy cooked up by humanity. Fantasy knights, Arabian warriors, bobble-headed, babyfied versions of popstars and holoartistes, spacemen, Vikings, orcs and elves, squeaky steampunk robots and elephantine aliens. Droids, drones, devils and dragons, goblins and warlocks, gangsters and clams with bazookas.
Then there were the animals: strange, giant caricatures of animals, fevered imaginings of burnt-out cartoonists, fairytale versions of animals, bipedal and big. Animals that looked like they could live in a forest in the Real, others that appeared to have broken out of the children's section of a home ents library. Some plush, some not, some real as real can be, others rendered in graphical forms ranging from primitive pixel block through outright cartoon to uncanny valley-baiting photorealism.
Generations of gaming characters culled from the broken RealWorlds Reality Realms and beyond and a thousand kinds of toy from half a century of AI-gifted playthings.
All of them were talking frantically to one another.
'It's a refugee camp for geek cast-offs. You two should feel right at home here,' said Richards.
'We don't,' said Bear and Tarquin simultaneously, and with some conviction. 'I've not seen a big gathering like this for, ooh, well, ever. Most of these tribes are bitter enemies. Come on,' said Bear, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. 'Let's see what this is all about.'
Bear stopped and spoke with a guard, pointing at Richards. The guard executed a bow and hurried off.
'We've got to wait,' said Bear. 'Let's see what's going on while we do.' They joined the back of the crowd. A five-foot badger in a top hat stood on a stage directly in the centre of the square, an antiquated microphone before him. An important-looking man with an unconvincing skin stood off to one side.
It looked like the badger had said something contentious, and Richards and Bear found a place as he raised one paw in an appeal for order. The heavy robe he wore whispered over his fur, the sound cutting under the mutter of the crowd. The menagerie took notice, and the square fell silent.
'Friends, old and new, I realise what I say is hard for you to accept, but it is the truth!' said the badger. It was old, its breath wheezed, and there were far more silver hairs than black on his body. 'It is with great difficulty that many of you came here. The ancient troubles between our people have driven us apart, but we must lay them to rest, or we shall all perish!' His head bobbed ceaselessly as he spoke, as if he were looking at a procession wending its way between the pylon lines above.
'Bloody anthropomorphic menaces!' said someone in the crowd. 'Piss off back to the forest!' But the voice was isolated, and quickly silenced.
'It is perhaps a measure of the dangers that face us today,' continued the badger, 'that we are here as one, ready to stand up to the evil that awaits us.' A whisper rustled through the crowd. 'The armies of Lord Penumbra are massing to the south of Pylon City. He means to storm it. To take it and then the woods. He means to destroy us all.' There was an awful pause.
'Rubbish!' shouted a man.
'There's no Death of the World. No Great Terror. It's a myth. He's just another warlord!' said a bright pink ocelot.
'We shouldn't be friends with these apes!' said a small blue hedgehog.
'What do you know? You live in a hole!' rebuked an archaeologist.
The man on the stage gesticulated angrily. He ushered the badger out of the way and took the mic. A screech of feedback blasted the crowd, causing several rodents to pass into a dead faint.
'Silence,' shouted the man. He had a large amount of embroidery and fancy cloth in his outfit. Big rubies. A collar that said 'Lord High Mayor and/or Prince'. 'It is true. If it were not, why have the trade routes to the east fallen empty? Why are the roads choked with refugees? Why have we been suffering earthquakes in this previously geologically stable area? One of the great cables,' he said, shaking a finger above his head, 'there! Is brought low.' The crowd followed his finger up the pylon, a few of the assembled pointing at the slack line. 'The black arcs of Lord Hog make ever greater use of the skylines. Our friend Mr Spink speaks the truth, though many of you here doubt his powers. The world is ending!
'We of Pylon City and the folk of the Magic Forest have been at war for many sorrowful generations! But Mr Spink is right. Now is the time to put aside our woes and unite!'
'Keep your hands off our trees, you bastard!' shouted someone. There was a grumble of agreement from the beasts.
'And men of Pylon City, creatures from across the industry lands, I have not been your prince these long
