Story: 'Wordspace' Phase II, Part X

( Part I , IX , XI )

Club's knowledge of the Ordinals was limited to a few stories told by School and some of the Old Timers. He had never met them back in the earlier days of their world, which no-one had ever really come to understand, as he had replaced an earlier word who had met an untimely end. The Ordinals had been just a story told to fill the long evenings of his early years, and dreary days out camping at the foot of Mountain and Vale.

To Club's left, the enigmatic Fifth walked, a mostly silent word who looked around him in wonder at the parts of the Wordspace that he and his friends hadn't traversed in many eons. Ahead, the Zone of Impenetrable Jargon loomed, and his head cocked to one side. "What is that?" He enquired of Club.

"It's the Zone."

"The Zone?" Fifth looked confused. "There was never a 'Zone' when we were here. What is it?"

"It mystifies us. It is a great dome build out of punctuation an syllables of no practical use, that became embedded here in the ancient history of the Space. We have used it as a prison." Club was unused to being the one who answered questions.

Eighth, one of the younger Ordinals, had been listening along. She seemed sceptical. "A great mass of jargon does not simply form a dome out of nowhere. It is... interesting..."

Spying an opportunity to change the topic to one he didn't have to explain himself, Club asked a question. "Why have you and your friends been out here for so long? Did you not want to come home?"

Fifth looked embarrassed. "We couldn't find our way back. The Wordspace has many interesting places beyond the Frontier, but also vast expanses of featureless punctuation tundra. "We have been utterly lost." The Invader could now be seen dimly in the distance. "By the Great Conjugator! It is massive!"

The Invader loomed above the dome of the Zone, crashing its clenched digits down in futility. Suddenly, it seemed to them, it crashed over in complete spontaneity.

"That was odd." Was Eighth's only comment. "Very mysterious."

Club smiled. Where mysterious things happened, his old friend would not be far away. "Yes. It's a Mystery."

To be continued...