Story: Wordspace, XXII

(Part I , XXI , XXIII)

The Conclave of the Abstracts assembled in a semi-circle about the portal from which Mystery's band had emerged a few hours before. The Lesser and Greater Abstracts present settled into a quickly constructed amphitheatre, built out of the consonants and vowels that could be quickly harvested from the nearby vegetation. Even in the scrub surrounding the Zone of Jargon enough was found to seat the grandness of Time, the melancholy of Death, the radiance of Life, and the clipboard of Destiny.

Mystery opened the Conclave, and immediately they made a small poll to determine who should chair the occasion. After only one round of votes, the winner turned out to be saintly Truth, who shuffled to the impromptu podium (a pile of ampersands), and addressed the masses somewhat lengthily, but of course with great fidelity to the purpose at hand.

Mystery stepped back into the crowd and looked at the audience beyond the abstracts, the nouns and adjectives with nothing obscure to their meanings, all waiting to see what might happen. Only the sentries maintained a vigil apart from watching the Conclave, where Truth had introduced Introspection, and was now listening to that fine and thoughtful word's report on the current state of the Wordspace.

War and Tactics were amongst the serried ranks of the Abstracts, taking notes, and Cloud was overhead. Somewhere out there in the wilderness, Earth and the other Elements were hopefully still surviving, or else they would be reborn out of the Well of Vocabulary, fresh and innocent all over again. Almost everyone had been at some point, Mystery himself remembering days of idle learning amongst his mentors and at the foot of School himself. He wondered idly about Fire, who shimmered so when it got agitated.

The report ran that the Invader had roundly trounced and annihilated several of the small colonies, and had almost crushed Earth's group before they had barrelled him over and made a run for the Zone. Then they had run, according to the Zone's guardians Constancy and Solidity, and this second group had arrived some days later. Dedication, this group's leader, had decided the Zone to be a last bastion of safety, and a good defensive position, should all efforts to resist fail. Now there would be resistance aplenty, if the Destructives had their way.

Once the report had completed, Truth invited War to the too-small podium, and there he asked the questions that would shape his thinking of how to continue. He sought descriptions of the Invader, hints on the motivation, interrogated Mystery and Club on the report from the mysterious Silly Stone, and then stood silently for a moment.

A sentry hooted from its perch on the side of the Zone, and Mystery turned to look at the horizon. The dust of punctuation was stirring. Something was about to happen. He turned to look at the band he had rescued from the Zone, who were as suddenly uncertain as he. War whistled, and called out orders, and his army formed.




Here ends Phase 1 of 'Wordspace', which shall be continued another time.