Annals of Klepsis

Opens with a formal “Remember these things” prologue listing the essential persons and places, then narrates the arrival of four visitors on the flight from Apateon: Long John Tong Tyrone (historian), Gold Coast O’Mally (treasure hunter), Conchita O’Brian (coded technology), and Terpsichore Callagy (art). A debtor’s head explodes on the flight when his loan expires and the sliver in his skull detonates. As the ship approaches Klepsis Third Port, they make the ritual offering of salt to the freshwater ocean. After landing, they encounter the planet’s painted-feet pirate culture and the luscious grapes at customs, and witness seven felons play sudden-death poker under the gallows. The winner, an unnamed stranger who turns out to be a prince, buys the largest boat at the dock, hires a crew of twelve, and the company sails out onto the ocean.

• Debtor’s head explodes on the flight via skull-sliver: the “ten-second warning” loan enforcement
• Ritual offering of salt to the saltless ocean
• First encounter with “My God What Grapes!” grapes at customs
• The customs greeting sign: “Oh come to us and claim your share, / And breathe our rank and lawless air”
• The map-booth girl’s refusal: “Why should you look at a picture of a thing rather than at the thing itself?”
• Seven felons play sudden-death poker; the winner goes free, the other six hanged to flute music
• The unnamed Prince buys the largest boat and recruits the four visitors as ship’s officers
• Long John identifies his vocation: “History”

• Long John Tong Tyrone (narrator)
• Gold Coast O’Mally
• Conchita O’Brian
• Terpsichore Callagy
• The unnamed Prince (later identified as Prince Franco the Outcast)

• “Remember these things” prologue: formal invocation of the principals
• The legend of Christopher Brannagan’s fund for peg-legged Irishmen
• Conchita’s explanation of the Klepsis loan system: a sliver inserted in the skull, one-million-second repayment window, fatal explosion on default

The voyage to Ravel-Brannagan Castle aboard The Dina O’Grogan. Long John observes the freshwater ocean, the Ninety-Nine Continents, the whales mistaken for dolphins, and the flying fish shot with bow-and-arrow. Jerome Whitewater, an “unordinary seaman,” becomes his informant, predicting bloodshed before the second moon rises. They pass cork islands; a young man gives Long John a crumbling newspaper printed by the itinerant Ink-Stained Wretch, containing a slave-sale advertisement for Ravel-Brannagan Castle that night. The shipowner is identified as Prince Franco the Outcast. He says that one twin in three out of four sets of male twins on Klepsis can “go vague” and discourses on Brannagan’s bones, whose coffin shows two intact legs despite the peg-leg legend. The castle comes into view with its six watchtowers. At the dock, a sedated right whale waits to be the gala’s main dish. Franco gives his full titles, goes vague on his cot, and disappears from his clothes. Princess Angela Gilmartin Ravel comes aboard, calls Franco “my secret love,” and plots Prince Henry’s overthrow.

• Sailing aboard The Dina O’Grogan; the freshwater ocean, wine-colored, with whales and flying fish
• Bartolomo Portuguese tells how Brannagan brought seven right whales from Gaea in bottle-nosed Folly Ships
• Cork-island newspaper: printed by the itinerant Ink-Stained Wretch on self-destructing paper; contains the slave-sale advertisement for Ravel-Brannagan Castle
• Long John’s speech on history (“History is ourselves in our clearest aspect”) vs. Whitewater’s counter-speech on mystery and weather
• The shipowner identified as Prince Franco: “Prince Franco the Outcast, our shipowner”
• Franco’s discourse on “going vague” and the forgotten-twin phenomenon; Brannagan’s coffin has two intact legs
• The Region of Manors comes into view; Long John compares them to Old-South Plantation Houses, Armenian Haik Castles, Palm Beach
• Fortune buoys: “Something good will happen to you today” / “Something not necessarily good will happen to you tonight”
• First view of Ravel-Brannagan Castle; the grape fields of “My God What Grapes!” visible from sea
• Franco gives his full titles, then goes vague on his cot and disappears from his clothes
• Princess Angela comes aboard; calls Franco “my secret love,” declares Henry “only my husband”

• Jerome Whitewater (seaman, Long John’s primary informant)
• Prince Franco the Outcast (identified as the shipowner; gives full titles)
• Princess Angela Gilmartin Ravel (the most beautiful woman on Klepsis, according to the coins)
• Bartolomo Portuguese (tells the Folly Ships / whale story)
• Terpsichore Callagy (calls Angela “Queen Zenobia, the Barbarian Queen”)

• Cork-island newspaper: self-destructing paper, the Ink-Stained Wretch’s economics, the slave-sale advertisement
• Long John’s definition of history vs. Whitewater’s ode to mystery and weather
• Franco’s discourse on Brannagan’s twin-or-not: the intact legs in the coffin, the ghost with the wooden leg
• Franco’s discourse on “going vague”: biological freemartin, one in thirty thousand male twins on Gaea versus one twin in three of four male-twin sets on Klepsis
• Angela’s declaration: “Prince Henry is only my husband and you are all the world to me”

The company arrives at the castle, where Prince Henry threatens to execute all sixteen as entertainment. Conchita invokes the Hospitality of Klepsis. Henry locks them in the Whispering Room, a strong room with one-way amplifiers through which they overhear the castle, including a Henry-Ambassador dialogue in which Henry declares “the ultimate freedom is the freedom to own slaves.” Brannagan’s Ghost speaks for the first time: “I am a voice crying in my monument.” Angela opens the door and releases them to fine rooms, each with a money-font. The Castle Library holds exactly four books. One hundred steam calliopes and the smell of 150 tons of whole-roasted whale draw the company outside to the gala and slave sale. Sparaticus bids for his enslaved brother. Long John bids for a slave girl with the “Thorn” sign on her collar. The insurance-advertisement man is dropped from twenty thousand meters and explodes on impact. Spectators hear his approach despite his supersonic fall, the Whittlesby Phenomenon. Long John is hung by his thumbs and whipped after giving Sparaticus the money backing his bid; Angela intervenes, slipping money into his pocket and bidding on his behalf. Angela identifies the slave girl as Tharrala, whose name means “Courage,” and reveals the orange-yellow-red roots of her own hair.

• Prince Henry threatens execution of all sixteen; Conchita invokes hospitality
• Imprisonment in the Whispering Room; full roster of sixteen prisoners given
• Henry-Ambassador dialogue: “Cave iusiurandos praedorum”; Dog Latin as diplomatic language; “the ultimate freedom is the freedom to own slaves”
• Brannagan’s Ghost speaks: “I am a voice crying in my monument”; invites Long John to his tomb
• Angela releases them to guest rooms; Long John’s money-font holds 20,000 thalers, and the others report doing about equally well
• Castle Library: four books only: Septuagint Bible, Rule of Saint Klingensmith, Big Book of Pirates for Boys, Spaceship Building by the Natural Intuitive Method by Brannagan
• One hundred steam calliopes draw them outside; 150-ton whale barbecued whole
• Sparaticus bids for his brother against a gruff rival; Hogson Roadapple contributes money; Sparaticus wins at 71,000 thalers
• The insurance-advertisement man: 20,000-meter fall; his audible supersonic approach is the Whittlesby Phenomenon; his death advertises the Happy Valley Insurance Company
• Long John bids on the slave girl with the “Thorn” sign; hung by thumbs and whipped for insufficient funds
• Angela slips money into Long John’s pocket, bids 30,000 on his behalf; names the girl Tharrala (“Courage”)
• Angela reveals her own orange-yellow-red hair roots: “accounted a vulgar color”
• Doomsday Lightning kills three people in its first appearance

• Prince Henry the Pirate
• Conchita O’Brian (invokes hospitality)
• Brannagan’s Ghost (first vocal appearance)
• Princess Angela (releases prisoners, intervenes at sale, reveals her hair)
• Princess Tharrala Thorn (identified to Long John; “Courage”)
• Sparaticus and his brother
• Terpsichore Callagy (“This is raw art, primitive art”)
• Kate Blithespirit (“When there’s a circus in town...”)

• Henry-Ambassador dialogue on slavery, Dog Latin, the Covenanted Piracy
• Full roster of the sixteen prisoners, with origins
• The Polynesian burnt-offering legend: God enraptured by the whale sacrifice
• The insurance-advertisement stunt and the Whittlesby Phenomenon
• Angela on Thorn’s “unspeakable sin”: “She has a lot of it, to come back here even as a slave”

Opens with the “Klepsis Slave-Sale Song” epigraph. Long John is still hung by his thumbs. Prince Franco, invisible, feeds him whale fat and eases his bondage. The rival bidder for Thorn is found dead, apparently killed by the invisible Franco. Long John takes possession of Thorn, who immediately takes possession of him. She leads him to the giant wine tun in the Castle cellars; he swims in the healing wine, and his whip wounds and broken bones heal. From O’Grogan’s Mountain they observe the Castle’s six watchtowers and their ghosts, the taboo En-Arche Bell Tower (higher than all others, its bell never rung), and five intelligent bears from Astrobe watching through Franco’s telescope. After Baron O’Tolliver’s executions, Prince Henry’s begin. His victims include masked substitutes for members of the company and a girl crushed by elephants in place of Terpsichore. In Brannagan’s walk-in tomb, a Green Robe performs a charade that turns out to be Long John and Thorn’s marriage. Brannagan gives Long John the family pedigree. On leaving, they hear digging in the nearby thickets. Later, Franco arms Long John’s double at the execution site, and a battle erupts. Long John and Thorn flee into the whale.

• Invisible Franco feeds Long John whale fat and protects him; rival bidder found dead
• Long John takes possession of Thorn; she leads him to the healing wine tun
• The giant wine tun heals Long John’s broken bones and whip wounds
• The watchtowers and their ghosts observed from O’Grogan’s Mountain at night
• Description of the En-Arche Bell Tower: utterly taboo, bell never rung, mechanism unknown
• Five intelligent bears from Astrobe on O’Grogan’s Mountain, watching through Franco’s telescope
• Prince Henry’s substitute executions: masked doubles of the company, including pseudo-Terpsichore crushed by elephants
• The Green Robe’s charade: Long John and Thorn are married without Long John realizing it
• Visit to Brannagan’s walk-in tomb; the ghost gives Long John the family pedigree
• Digging heard in the thickets after the tomb visit; a battle later erupts when Franco arms Long John’s double
• Long John and Thorn retreat “into the whale”

• Princess Tharrala Thorn (guide, healer, mind-reader, bride)
• Prince Franco the Outcast (invisible; protector)
• Brannagan’s Ghost (in the walk-in tomb; gives pedigree)
• The Green Robe of the Order of Saint Klingensmith (performs marriage)
• The five bears from Astrobe

• “Klepsis Slave-Sale Song” epigraph
• Description of the six watchtowers and their ghosts; the En-Arche Bell Tower
• Thorn’s Lucifer riff: “Only tedious Lucifer had it really bad. . . . He forgot that he was a winged creature”
• The charade-marriage liturgy, including Latin hymn

Inside the theatre-in-the-whale are about a hundred persons, two-thirds of them children, lit by whale-oil lamps and devilfish torches. A blind Tarshish storyteller, wearing an Eumolpe Pierce-Brain Light-Harvester mask, performs his tales: the tumbleweed-thistles that carried life between planets before spaceships existed; the unborn universe, in which nothing yet exists and all other things will become imaginings in the mind of whatever wakes first. Thorn confirms the jumping-ships story is literally true: her pirate ancestors did it. Six flute players perform an intermission including “The World Begins Too Soon.” Fifteen more story titles are listed, including “The Stubborn Girl Who Was Crushed to Death by Elephants,” a story about events from the previous canto, already being told. Outside, the David Watchtower burns; the ghost of David Ravel, Thorn’s great-grandfather, screams in agony. The storyteller wakes to insist that ghosts feel “pristine pain undiluted by the body.” The shooting dies down (ammunition runs out on the planet Thorn likens to “a banana republic, without the bananas”). Gold Coast O’Mally breaks up through the whale floor from the treasure caverns below. The children call him a “Tellurian giant.” Long John and Thorn follow him down.

• The theatre-in-the-whale described: greasy, partly open at top, 100 persons, whale-oil lamps
• Tarshish storyteller’s tales: tumbleweed-thistles; the unborn universe (“The universe has not begun yet”); Thorn confirms the ship-jumping tale is true
• Children and adults argue with the storyteller; “Can a fish be only an imagining in the mind of a parasite that’s in its own stomach?”
• Six flute players; intermission tune “The World Begins Too Soon”
• Fifteen additional story titles listed, including one about events just witnessed
• The David Watchtower burns; ghost of David Ravel screams: “He burned to death the first time”
• Ghost-pain debate: Thorn denies ghosts feel pain; storyteller cocks each ear, wakes, insists on “pristine pain undiluted by the body”
• Shooting dies down for lack of ammunition; Castle Boys Volunteer Fire Department puts out the David Tower fire
• Gold Coast breaks up through the whale floor from the treasure caverns; children call him a “Tellurian giant”
• Long John and Thorn follow Gold Coast down; closing: “We know, though, that one of the stories the Tarshish storyteller told is true, and we know which one it is. It’s not the one you think.”

• The Tarshish storyteller (blind; Eumolpe Light-Harvester mask; “All good storytellers are blind”)
• Ghost of David Ravel (screams in the burning tower; Thorn’s great-grandfather)
• Gold Coast O’Mally (breaks through from the caverns; “We’ve hit it rich, real rich”)
• Princess Thorn (confirms pirate-ship story; denies ghosts feel pain; “banana republic” line)

• Tale of the tumbleweed-thistles and the jumping pirate ships
• The unborn-universe creation tale: “There is no thing anywhere that is conscious”; the first-to-awaken will contain all else
• List of fifteen story titles (meta-fictional: events are already becoming stories)
• The storyteller’s discourse on pain: subatomic particles, screaming mountains, “pristine pain undiluted by the body”

Opens with the full text of the Brannagan-O’Grogan pedigree: six acknowledged generations, from Christopher Brannagan through the eleven pirates of the third generation to the present twins, followed by Thorn’s disputed claim to a seventh. The company explores the treasure galleries beneath the castle, where seven companions are named as dead. Gold Coast’s chests overflow with gold and gemstones that shine by their own light in sufficient mass. Thorn decodes the signature “T.E.H.C.O.P.O.K.”: The Eleven High Covenanted O’Grogan Pirates of Klepsis. Eleven side passages are guarded by mechanical Deviced Dogs made by an artisan called “Prester John.” Thorn says these collector’s items could hardly be bought for a billion thalers each. Bartolomo identifies their armaments. Kate Blithespirit is drawn to Bluebeard’s passage; Thorn retells the Bluebeard tale. The cavern provisions include Cueva Rica Rum (“still alive and rampant”) and Mock-Madeira Wine. A tax collector, thought to be a wax figure, wakes. Appointed by Rose Lunaria more than a century earlier, he collects the treasure tithe and orders nard every nine years to mask Bluebeard’s stench. The Handbook of the Prophecies of the Family lists Thorn “with a red asterisk” and Long John as “Duke Tyrone the Historian.” The soggy man appears, healed after fifty years in the wine vat, and summons them: Brannagan needs “a combination wizard-philosopher-prophet-politician,” the “most distinguished historian to be found.” “Fake it, man, fake it.”

• Full text of the Brannagan-O’Grogan pedigree: six generations, the eleven pirates, Margaret Summertime, Levi = Bluebeard, Simeon’s 10,000 chests
• Seven dead confirmed; Hektor Lafcadio engraves plaques: “Those Who Have Died In Irregular Seas And Skies”
• Parley birds bring cult words for Conchita; Brannagan’s Ghost forbids “cultishness”
• Gold and gemstones shine by their own light in sufficient mass; “the people also had begun to kindle and shine”
• Thorn decodes T.E.H.C.O.P.O.K.: The Eleven High Covenanted O’Grogan Pirates of Klepsis
• Eleven Deviced Dogs by “Prester John”: homing rockets, incinerating ray nodules, Beauclaire Blasters, nerve gas; billion-thaler collector’s items
• Kate Blithespirit drawn to Bluebeard’s passage; Thorn retells the Bluebeard-and-the-little-girl tale
• Provisions: dead sea biscuits, Cueva Rica Rum, Mock-Madeira Wine, Thousand-Year Turtle flesh
• Tax collector wakes after the dogs’ alarm; has served for 100+ years since Rose Lunaria appointed him; nard masks Bluebeard’s stench
• Handbook of the Prophecies of the Family: Thorn “with a red asterisk”; Long John entitled to a copy
• The soggy man (Seneschal Fidelis) appears from the wine vat; “Fake it, man, fake it”
• They leave the caverns for the walk-in tomb

• Brannagan’s Ghost (as genealogist; forbids cultishness)
• Gold Coast O’Mally (treasure explorer)
• The tax collector (century-old, thought to be wax)
• Princess Thorn (decodes pirate signature, retells Bluebeard, knows the Deviced Dogs)
• Kate Blithespirit (drawn to Bluebeard’s passage)
• The soggy man / Seneschal Fidelis (healed from the wine vat after 50 years)
• Hektor Lafcadio (engraves the death plaques)

• The complete Brannagan-O’Grogan pedigree (six acknowledged generations and Thorn’s disputed seventh)
• The Handbook of the Prophecies of the Family
• Thorn’s retelling of the Bluebeard-and-the-little-girl tale from the Tarshish storyteller
• The soggy man’s commission: Brannagan needs “the most distinguished historian to be found”

This canto is the philosophical center of the novel. In the walk-in tomb, Brannagan’s Ghost opens: “Ghosts wear out, you know.” Seneschal Fidelis is named for the first time: the soggy man healed in the wine vat after fifty years. Brannagan reports that another historian arrived and is now buried in the potter’s field: “he did seem more distinguished than you.” Brannagan shows Long John the coffin X-ray: two intact legs in the body, though the ghost has a wooden leg. Only one monocle shared between ghost and corpse. Fidelis argues Brannagan may be a forgotten twin because he has weight, which Fidelis believes true ghosts lack. Brannagan puts his own weight at about one pound. Brannagan’s central question: “I want to find out what is reality and what is not reality.” He lays out three complicating factors: (a) hallucinatory plants, with the “My God What Grapes!” offered as a countermove to make visitors hallucinate the same as natives; (b) phantoms he summoned to populate the planet who refused to leave; (c) himself: “While I still stir and walk and talk, even in my ghost form, then Klepsis is kept in its time of legend and prehistory.” The ninety-percent rule. A Banner Bird flies through the ghost, through Fidelis, and through Long John. Brannagan calls it the only sane creature on Klepsis. He smokes Bandicoot cigars and blows smoke-caricatures of each visitor; Thorn’s shows real malevolence, Long John’s shows weakness. He claims extraordinary powers of evocation and says he once tried to evoke God the Father, who sent an angel: “Be quiet. You are an exasperation.” He announces two projects: reconvene the Commission in Lunacy and voyage through his own brain. Januarius O’Grogan appears at the chapter’s close.

• “Ghosts wear out, you know”; Seneschal Fidelis named and his origin told
• Brannagan reports the rival historian buried in the potter’s field
• Coffin X-ray: two intact legs, one shared monocle; Brannagan estimates his weight at about one pound; Fidelis argues he may be a forgotten twin
• Three complicating factors: hallucinatory plants, summoned phantoms, Brannagan himself as obstacle to history
• “My God What Grapes!” revealed as countermove to synchronize hallucinations
• Ninety-percent rule: “Pragmatic Sanction or as the Categorical Imperative, I forget which”
• Banner Bird flies through ghost, Fidelis, and Long John; Brannagan calls it the only sane creature on Klepsis
• Bandicoot cigar smoke-caricatures: young malevolent Thorn, weak Long John; “Look somewhat distinguished”
• Fairbridge Exendine the Penny Philosopher brought in
• Power of evocation: tried to summon God the Father; angel’s rebuke
• Announces the Commission in Lunacy and the brain-voyage
• Januarius O’Grogan appears: “the person I have loved more than any except my wife”

• Brannagan’s Ghost (central discourse; smoke-caricatures; announces Commission and voyage)
• Seneschal Fidelis (named; origin story; argues Brannagan is a forgotten twin)
• The Green Robe (“We’re the good guys. We wear the green hats.” Thrice grandnephew of Brannagan.)
• Fairbridge Exendine the Penny Philosopher (arrives late; Brannagan brightens)
• Januarius O’Grogan (appears at close)

• Brannagan’s three-factor discourse on reality, hallucination, and phantoms
• The ninety-percent rule; the Banner Bird as test case
• The angel’s rebuke: “Be quiet. You are an exasperation.”
• “A genuine Klepsis is better than an imitation Camiroi”; Klepsis Clubs on Camiroi
• The Big Brannagan Book of Tortures: “Ah, there is a lot of meat to be found in that book, mangled meat mostly”

Long John identifies the newcomer as Januarius O’Grogan, dead about a hundred fifty years but appearing about thirty. The Commission in Lunacy reconvenes in the walk-in tomb, the same cave where the original was held, under the Sign of the Kangaroo, the emblem of the Royal Kangaroos Liars Association. O’Grogan explains the dragon gold: “The old Klepsis dragons (they were of the species Draco Rufus) mined and minted it here for many thousands of years, apparently,” then claims to be “a liar pure and simple,” Liar of the Year thrice. Long John examines about a hundred coins from the caverns: fifty-six bear dragon faces. Terpsichore has found art “above my fondest imaginings”; Bartolomo and Sebastian saw a dragon cub. A nondescript ghost reads the verifax of Brannagan’s mother. The front says single birth; the illegal reverse side reveals the apprentice doctor reported a possible second birth “gone vague”: the forgotten twin, named Chrysanthus Bygosh Brannagan, who at three weeks could walk and talk and at four months was reading engineering books. The text breaks off incomplete. Joshua Thorn’s ghost presents a “flaming bill of particulars”: Brannagan is a “bat-brained” madman with a one-legged haunt. Brannagan’s defense: people are “mere suggestions made out of long and short broken lines,” too sketchy to be real. The dead man in the coffin chuckles, proof of twinning. Brannagan plans a night voyage on The Dina O’Grogan and names the crew. Thorn and Long John exit; Thorn cries “There is one star too many in the sky!”

• Long John identifies Januarius O’Grogan; the Commission reconvenes under the Sign of the Kangaroo
• O’Grogan on the dragon gold: Draco Rufus mined and minted it for thousands of years, then calls himself a liar; Royal Kangaroos Liars Association
• Long John examines ~100 coins: 56 are dragon-minted, showing a dozen different royal dragons
• Terpsichore’s art discovery; Bartolomo and Sebastian see a dragon cub
• Brannagan’s mother’s verifax: front says single birth; reverse reveals Chrysanthus Bygosh Brannagan, the forgotten twin/what-is-it, preternaturally precocious
• Imperial University of Klepsis: three dim rooms in the Castle attics; Flobert Traxley chairs Dragon Studies
• Joshua Thorn’s “flaming bill of particulars”: “bat-brained Brannagan” with a one-legged haunt; “let’s kill him right now and see whether it works that way!”
• Brannagan’s defense: people too sketchy to be real; “mere suggestions made out of long and short broken lines”; only he has true consciousness
• The dead man in the coffin chuckles, proof of twinning
• Brannagan plans the Dina O’Grogan voyage: names crew including Flobert Traxley, Doctor Luke Gilmartin, the other historian (to be resurrected from potter’s field)
• Thorn is alarmed at the close: “There is one star too many in the sky!”

• Januarius O’Grogan (ghost; Liar of the Year; explains dragon gold; black-haired, olive-skinned strain)
• Ghost of Joshua Thorn (flaming-orange-head; probably a collateral ancestor of Tharrala)
• Terpsichore Callagy (finds art in the caverns)
• Flobert Traxley (off-stage; chairs Dragon Studies; can read dragon inscriptions)
• Chrysanthus Bygosh Brannagan (the forgotten twin/what-is-it; named in the verifax)
• Doctor Luke Gilmartin (first mentioned; included in voyage plans)

• Brannagan’s mother’s verifax: front and illegal reverse side; Chrysanthus Bygosh Brannagan the what-is-it
• Joshua Thorn’s prosecution and Brannagan’s defense: people as sketchy broken lines
• O’Grogan on the Draco Rufus and the Royal Kangaroos Liars Association
• The coin inventory: 56 dragon, 2 Brannagan, 2 O’Grogan, etc.

The longest canto in the book opens with Thorn explaining the “One Star Too Many” phenomenon: a murder crying to the sky for vengeance. Long John and Thorn dig up the “eminent historian” Titus Livius Morrison-Bryce from potter’s field; he was buried alive via the oil of the dread sunflower poppy. Thorn performs a Dog Latin resurrection ritual. Titus is furious: “Kill a man, or let him live, but do not bury him alive!” Prince Franco leads them through the caverns to The Dina O’Grogan. The crew refuses to sail except under Brannagan or O’Grogan. The ship herself speaks: “Parley birds have already been here and told me.” O’Grogan takes command; Brannagan is chained to the mast by nine strongmen. Quasimodo appears as a young dwarf, but he is the old “sleeper” at the castle. Brannagan sings ballad verses from the mast, including one that openly reveals the secret of planet-jumping: “And if we jump to other world, / We jump by short-tailed human.” A stowaway spy is caught, mind-stripped, and dumped via leaky lifeboat. O’Grogan tells Long John how they half-killed Brannagan by garrote and half the jury vanished, then marooned him for seven years. The ship makes a planetary jump: saltwater ocean, low gravity, green fronds growing on everyone’s bellies and the hull. Bartolomo Portuguese explains jump-botany: “The interstellar dust that some astronomers write about is interstellar botany.” Both historians claim the title Annals of Klepsis for their works. Brannagan is marooned on a scorching iron island of the Dragons’ Asteroid; he breaks his chains and climbs the cliff like a squirrel. A second jump misjumps into what proves to be Brannagan’s projected brain: a kilometers-wide landscape of red and ocher oceans, millions of sad people “like people who have never been awakened.” Doctor Gilmartin climbs two hundred meters, confirms identification, and when the third jump pulls them out, he falls and is killed. Brannagan’s laughter is heard worlds away: “He’d been having a little fun with one of his Projecting Tricks.”

• “One Star Too Many” explained: a murder crying for vengeance; only 35–65 visible stars on Klepsis
• Titus Livius Morrison-Bryce resurrected from potter’s field; Dog Latin ritual; buried alive by sunflower-poppy oil
• Crew refuses to sail except under Brannagan/O’Grogan; “We sail, we sail, we sail!”
• O’Grogan in command; Brannagan chained to mast; Quasimodo appears as young dwarf
• Brannagan sings 5+ ballad stanzas from the mast, including the Margaret Whistle legend
• Stowaway Grand Marshal Golconde caught and disposed of via mind-stripper
• O’Grogan’s backstory: half-killing by garrote, six jurors vanish, marooning for seven years, return with ivory peg leg
• O’Grogan reports Brannagan’s claim: the sleeping person in the castle “now holds all things and all persons (including Brannagan) as imaginings in his mind”
• First planetary jump: saltwater, low gravity, green botany grows on people’s bellies and the hull
• Bartolomo Portuguese on pirate planet-jumping: Dina O’Grogan was a short-tail; “The interstellar dust that some astronomers write about is interstellar botany”
• Both historians claim the title Annals of Klepsis
• Brannagan marooned on scorching iron island of Dragons’ Asteroid; breaks his chains; Quasimodo follows (unseen by O’Grogan and the other kangaroo-court ghosts)
• Second jump misjumps into Brannagan’s projected brain: kilometers-wide landscape, millions of people, red oceans
• Doctor Gilmartin climbs 200 meters, confirms it is Brannagan’s brain; third jump pulls them out; he falls and is killed
• Brannagan’s laughter worlds away: “He’d been having a little fun with one of his Projecting Tricks”

• Titus Livius Morrison-Bryce (introduced; resurrected; rival historian)
• Brannagan’s Ghost (chained to mast; sings ballads; marooned; projects his brain)
• O’Grogan’s Ghost (in command; tells the half-killing backstory)
• Quasimodo (appears as young dwarf; follows Brannagan to the island; unseen by O’Grogan and the other kangaroo-court ghosts)
• Bartolomo Portuguese (short-tail; explains planet-jumping)
• Doctor Luke Gilmartin (confirms the brain; falls and dies)
• Fairbridge Exendine (“Do not ever climb so high on the cliffs of imagination that the fall from the top will kill you”)
• Grand Marshal Golconde (stowaway from Paravata Defense League)

• Dog Latin resurrection ritual: five symbolic nails (one from the heart, four from the coffin lid), five canticles
• Brannagan’s ballad (5+ stanzas): “He built a bonny ship and bold / To sail the saltless sea”; the Margaret Whistle; the planet-jumping secret
• O’Grogan’s account of the half-killing: six jurors vanish when Brannagan is half-strangled
• The brain landscape: “The Doomsday Equation put into audio-visual form”; millions of unawakened people

“For want of a nail” epigraph, expanded to end: “For want of the world the cosmos is lost, / And all for the loss of the Horseshoe Nail.” Return to Klepsis dock, but the dockmaster insists they never left. He calls the entire voyage of Canto IX “Shipboard Theatre,” watched by crowds ashore. Doctor Gilmartin is alive: “A fall of a millimeter isn’t going to kill me, not if I keep things in proportion.” Media and scientists flood in for the Doomsday crisis. Angela confirms the coup: “I rule the realm now.” Long John and Thorn go to Kaye Spencer’s Hay Meadow for their honeymoon in the Princess Thorn Honeymoon Suite, kept waiting through her years of exile. Both have read a book on honeymoons (different books). Through the sound duct they overhear a top scientific symposium in the room below: the Asteroid Pythagoras (“the only bird that rumbles”), Becky Breaksticks (fighting with the Pythagoras over gender; “I asked for the possibility of worms. I certainly did not ask for the actuality of worms.”), Sidonia Sopher from Tarshish (who cannot give Tarshish’s data: “Tarshish is not amenable to mathematics and astronomy”), and Decimus Gormley from World Abounding, who unrolls a “completed and corrected” Doomsday Equation. The room falls silent for about an hour. Thorn offers to help with the math; Long John says they’re out of her class; she says they’d better reclassify. The scientists conclude that the equation provides for the planets to survive, but only as “dragonly inhabited planets.” Aloysius Shiplap sings: “Oh, me mother was a dragon.”

• “For want of a nail” poem, expanded to cosmic scale; attributed to “Nescio Unde”
• Return to dock; the dockmaster insists the entire voyage was Shipboard Theatre and that they never left
• Doctor Gilmartin alive: “a fall of a millimeter isn’t going to kill me”
• Media people and scientists flooding in for the Doomsday Equation crisis
• Angela confirms the coup: “I rule the realm now”
• Honeymoon at Kaye Spencer’s Hay Meadow; the Princess Thorn Suite; “No, there are no hotels on Klepsis”
• Scientific symposium overheard through sound duct: Asteroid Pythagoras, Becky Breaksticks, Sidonia Sopher, Decimus Gormley, Aloysius Shiplap, Alex Braveheart, Oliver Roundhead
• Becky vs. Pythagoras: gender fight; “Male pig-bird!”; Oliver whispers that the Pythagoras is female; Becky whispers that Decimus is nonhuman
• Becky’s worm tirade: “I asked for the possibility of worms. I certainly did not ask for the actuality of worms.”
• Sidonia on Tarshish: travelers blindfolded, deafened, brain-pierced; “Tarshish is not amenable to mathematics and astronomy”
• Decimus Gormley unrolls the amended equation; about an hour of silence; it provides only for “dragonly inhabited planets”
• Thorn offers math help: “I’m an Intuitive”; Long John: “out of your class”; Thorn: “we had better do a little bit of reclassifying”

• The dockmaster (insists the voyage was theatre)
• Princess Angela (confirms the coup and her rule)
• Kaye Spencer (hospitality house proprietor; by implication the best heart in the neighborhood, since Hogan has “the second-best”)
• The Asteroid Pythagoras (female bird; “the only bird that rumbles”; borderline socially acceptable)
• Becky Breaksticks (fighter; worm philosopher; from Dahae)
• Sidonia Sopher (from Tarshish; cannot provide Tarshish data)
• Decimus Gormley (nonhuman from World Abounding; his amended equation is dragonly, not humanly)
• Aloysius Shiplap (“The Brain Crying in the Wilderness”; from Gaea-Earth; sings the dragon song)

• “For want of a nail” poem (expanded to cosmic scale; “Nescio Unde”)
• The dockmaster’s account of the voyage as Shipboard Theatre, a further complication of the reality question
• Sidonia Sopher’s account of Tarshish travel: blindfolding, deafening, brain-piercing, falsified papers
• Decimus Gormley’s amended equation: “dragonly inhabited planets”

The political plot reaches its climax. Thirty-three people hang at the castle gates; the Dead-Man’s Reeve tests death by drawing blood from the left great toe. Thorn leads Long John through the Wine Door, up a chimney, and between the walls to look through death masks into the Sleeper’s Room. Quasimodo lies blind and dying: “By law I must sleep always and never awake.” He holds all persons in his mind but qualifies: “Are the images in a mirror only images in that mirror, or may they not have primary forms outside of the mirror also?” Two other persons share his state. He offers a purgatory hypothesis and expects to die before morning. Prince Henry enters with thugs and the death-dog Kynegos, who finds nine spies behind death masks (Kynegos recognizes Thorn but shows “remarkable restraint”). Steel traps spring on Long John, Thorn, Bancroft Romal, Isadora Ragsley, and Clarence Pinnacle between the walls. Brannagan’s Ghost arrives with “push kluk, push kluk,” walks through the wall (“Damn! I missed that door again”), lights a half-Bandicoot cigar from Quasimodo’s dying hand, blows smoke caricatures, and frees them. In the Sleeper’s Room confab, Brannagan reveals he once counted all 3,005,928 people on Klepsis from memory, then transferred the power to Quasimodo. The coup decided the previous night reaches its final phase. Henry is arrested and tethered to the donkey. Angela declares herself Queen, plans to ride a hippopotamus in scarlet gowns, and names her coronation “The First Day of the Worlds.” Malabu Worldwinger, whose four hundred shiploads arrived that morning, addresses her as Empress and requests permits to move Tarshish. She adopts the title. The man at the donkey’s tail confesses with beeswax in the donkey’s ears. The flogging begins; “Goodbye, Angela. . . . I always cared for you, Angela.” Then “Prince Franco” erupts in rotten laughter and dirty doggerel and runs. Thorn cries: “Because that isn’t Prince Franco running. It’s Prince Henry.” Angela over the body: “You’re Prince Franco! Why, why, why did you take his place? Why, why, why did you die for him?”

• 33 hanged at castle gates; the Dead-Man’s Reeve and toe-blood death test; a hanging man’s last words of hope
• Thorn and Long John enter via Wine Door, chimney, rat-runs; spy through Juda and Rose Lunaria death masks
• Quasimodo in the Sleeper’s Room: blind, dying; “two other persons” share his state; the mirror analogy; purgatory hypothesis
• Prince Henry with death-dog Kynegos: 9 spies found behind masks, fitted with spiked iron collars
• Steel torture traps catch Long John, Thorn, Bancroft, Isadora, and Clarence between the walls; another trapped person apparently dies
• Brannagan’s Ghost arrives: “push kluk” through the wall; half-Bandicoot cigar lit by Quasimodo’s “magician’s flip”; smoke caricatures; frees the surviving prisoners
• Confab: Brannagan counted 3,005,928 on Klepsis; transferred the power to Quasimodo; “There are probably several dozen valid persons in the universe at all times. The rest are imaginary.”
• Angela’s coup: Empress; hippopotamus; scarlet gowns; “The First Day of the Worlds”
• Malabu Worldwinger: 400 shiploads; plans to move Tarshish to new orbit
• The condemned man at the donkey’s tail: confession with beeswax in donkey’s ears; Angela’s indictment; “Surely there is something good in me” / “You have a brother”
• The twin switch: Franco dies in Henry’s place; “I always cared for you, Angela”; “Prince Franco” runs laughing; Thorn: “It’s Prince Henry. And Prince Henry doesn’t know how to go vague.”
• Angela: “Why, why, why did you die for him?”; stoneworkers: “Which name will we put on it?”

• Quasimodo (blind, dying; the mirror analogy; two other persons share his state)
• Prince Franco (sacrificial death; his last words as Henry: “I always cared for you, Angela”)
• Prince Henry (disguised as Franco; rotten laughter; runs for the thickets)
• Empress Angela (executes the coup; indicts Henry; cries over Franco’s body)
• Brannagan’s Ghost (“push kluk”; census of 3,005,928; frees prisoners)
• Bancroft Romal, Isadora Ragsley, Clarence Pinnacle (caught in traps; now introduced in person)
• Malabu Worldwinger (400 shiploads; world-mover)
• Kynegos the death-dog (finds spies; restrains himself at Thorn’s mask)

• Quasimodo’s discourse: the mirror analogy, the purgatory hypothesis, the two other persons
• Franco’s last words: “I always cared for you, Angela, but I couldn’t tell you so. The circumstances wouldn’t allow it.”
• Angela’s indictment of Henry: “for your vile and cruel executions, for your traffic in slaves . . . and most of all for your incredible vulgarities”
• Brannagan on omniscience: “In my own case it came to me because of my towering ego and conceit”; Quasimodo had “Total compassion, total goodness”

Banquet in the Januarius O’Grogan Memorial Lecture Theatre, “down in the bowels” of the castle (Thorn: “We’re actually in the ileum”). The seating includes Princess Placidia at the Notables Table (she won’t speak to Thorn), the Asteroid Pythagoras, the Tarshish storyteller, and the Trumpet Master, whose One Thousand Royal Trumpeters include nine hundred sinecures (“Brass Slush Fund”). A beggarman “either blind or crippled” sits at the Notables Table by law; five Intelligent Royal Bears from Astrobe sit at another table. Angela arrives on a hippopotamus in mourning scarlet, with more than fifty kilograms of gold woven into her gown and Sheba McSherry’s crown on her head. A master mathematician, the last slave she will permit to be brought to Klepsis, is chained to the hippo’s tail. She tells the Sheba McSherry hippopotamus anecdote: the hippo disgraced itself, and Sheba had its dung served as the final course while headsmen with axes stood by. Angela declares the “First Day of Klepsis” at tomorrow’s dawn; history begins and legends end. Clocks are to be introduced. The slave-mathematician must solve the Doomsday Equation or die. Isadora Ragsley proposes WEAP (“Wholesome Excision of Ailing Planets”): choose a planet by cutting cards, then destroy it to save the rest. Malabu is dispatched with four hundred ships and four hundred intuitive space-jumpers. The consulting legislature of 101 persons enacts laws by voice vote: General Purpose Tolerance, treasure co-ownership and flintstone coins, confinement for uncitizenly conduct, and shoot-the-tails-off defense. Becky Breaksticks grabs three posts: Speaker of the House, Absolute Master of Treasure Caverns, and Master of the Dungeons. Two laws fail: the Freedom of Information Law (to compel Thorn to reveal her unspeakable sin) and a law curtailing peg-leg privileges. Angela’s closing desperation: “Quasimodo will die tomorrow if he doesn’t die tonight.”

• Banquet in the O’Grogan Memorial Theatre (“the ileum”); whale leftovers, hippopotamus butter, Lobsters à la Margaret Summertime, Red Raider Rum
• Angela arrives on hippopotamus in scarlet; Sheba McSherry’s crown; the slave-mathematician chained to hippo’s tail
• Sheba McSherry hippopotamus anecdote: the hippo disgraced itself; Sheba had its dung served; headsmen with axes
• “The First Day of Klepsis” at dawn; history begins; clocks introduced; “time on Klepsis will not begin until tomorrow morning”
• The slave-mathematician ordered to solve the equation or die
• WEAP: “Wholesome Excision of Ailing Planets”: destroy one planet to save the rest; cut cards for it
• Malabu dispatched with 400 ships and 400 intuitive space-jumpers to move Tarshish
• Consulting legislature of 101; Angela has 3 votes; laws by voice vote
• Laws passed: General Purpose Tolerance; treasure co-ownership + flintstone coins; dungeons; shoot-the-tails-off defense
• Becky Breaksticks’ triple power grab: Speaker, Master of Caverns, Master of Dungeons
• Freedom of Information Law (to compel Thorn to reveal her sin) fails; law curtailing peg-leg privileges fails
• Angela: “Quasimodo will die tomorrow if he doesn’t die tonight”

• Empress Angela (rides hippopotamus; enacts laws; wears more than 50 kilograms of gold woven into her gown, plus a heavy crown; “If you can’t have unanimity, forget it!”)
• Becky Breaksticks (triple power grab; Speaker + Caverns Master + Dungeons Master)
• Malabu Worldwinger (“I can move anything”; dispatched with 400 ships)
• Isadora Ragsley (proposes WEAP)
• Princess Placidia (Thorn’s mother; won’t speak to her; at the Notables Table)
• The slave-mathematician (introduced; chained to hippo’s tail; must solve the equation)

• Angela’s legislative enactments: voice-vote laws, two failures, the triple Becky grab
• The Sheba McSherry hippopotamus anecdote
• WEAP: “Wholesome Excision of Ailing Planets”: cut cards to destroy one planet
• Angela’s declaration: “The time of legend and prehistory on Klepsis comes to an end”

White morning on O’Grogan’s Mountain. Earthquakes, cyclones, and tidal waves threaten the crowd. Lightning seems to scrawl prophecies in the sky; a cork-island ox speaks. Bancroft Romal has the WEAP trigger wired into his brain: “I’ve got Gaea-Earth in my pocket.” Bush-baby barbarians and sand-spit skulkers bring Prince Henry’s head on a lance; Angela: “Oh, just put it down anywhere.” The David Watchtower collapses, and the ocean inundates the castle to the fourth story. Alex Braveheart reveals Tarshish and Klepsis are “the opposite parts of the same planet”; Brannagan began the deception, and O’Grogan and the pirates maintained it. Malabu is moving the whole planet. Oliver Roundhead takes a spacecraft to the Tarshish side to call him off. The Asteroid Pythagoras is unmasked as the author of the Doomsday Equation, “a masterpiece of advocacy mathematics” that fixes the end of humans but not bird-men. She wounds three captors with her beak, leaving each with a dangling eyeball, and ascends into the lightning. The En-Arche Bell rings; Brannagan’s Ghost freezes time: “I could always stop time, and I have stopped it now.” Thorn explains the bell: “En-Arche” means “In the Beginning”; Brannagan built it to ring when the world begins. The unnamed slave-mathematician reaches the summit: “Nobody need die!” He declares that the equation has been corrected and tells the Principality: “Your writ is false, Principality. Go back to your dungeon!” Oliver has called off Malabu, and the tidal wave ebbs. Doomsday Lightning burns the slave’s hand to an ember and renders him mute. Aloysius Shiplap gathers the charred equation fragments and reconstructs the solution; lightning strikes him head-on, setting his hair on fire. “I work best when my hair is on fire.” Terpsichore: “It’s consummate art whether we personally live or die.” The Lightning, “frustrated and angry,” gathers for a final strike: “‘It’s now or never,’ the Lightning mumbled, and struck in a jagged and erratic bolt—” The narrative stops mid-sentence.

• Apocalyptic natural disasters: earthquakes splitting the mountain, cyclones blowing people away, ocean to the fourth story, David Watchtower collapses
• Lightning seeming to scrawl prophecies; Terpsichore: “They are clever. And they rhyme.” Becky: “The rhymes are impure.”
• Cork-island ox speaks and prophesies: “Doom, doom, new-broom doom”
• Bancroft Romal: WEAP trigger ready; “I’ve got Gaea-Earth in my pocket”
• Barbarians bring Prince Henry’s head on a lance; Angela: “just put it down anywhere”; Becky deals gold to the wagoners
• The Tarshish storyteller: “I dream it up to the point where the slave-mathematician is struck by lightning, and then my dream will stall and go no further.”
• Revelation: Tarshish and Klepsis are the same planetary body: “Tarshish is the Lost Twin of Klepsis”
• Pythagoras unmasked as the Doomsday Equation’s author: “advocacy mathematics” to end humans but not bird-men; wounds three captors with her beak, leaving dangling eyeballs, and escapes upward
• En-Arche Bell rings; Brannagan’s Ghost freezes time: “I could always stop time”; “I’ll never be able to do it again”
• Thorn: the bell signals the beginning; “En-Arche, ‘In the Beginning,’”
• Angela demands the unspeakable sin; Thorn: “I’ll tell it to you the first time I meet you after we’re both safely dead”
• The slave-mathematician arrives: “Nobody need die!” He declares the equation corrected: “Your writ is false, Principality. Go back to your dungeon!” Lightning burns his hand and renders him mute.
• Oliver Roundhead flies to the Tarshish side and calls off Malabu; tidal wave ebbs
• Aloysius Shiplap reconstructs the equation from charred fragments; struck by lightning head-on; “I work best when my hair is on fire”
• Terpsichore: “It’s consummate art whether we personally live or die”
• “‘It’s now or never,’ the Lightning mumbled”; narrative stops mid-bolt

• The unnamed slave-mathematician (arrives with the solution; hand burned; rendered mute)
• Aloysius Shiplap (reconstructs the equation from fragments; survives a direct lightning strike; hair on fire; final fate unresolved)
• The Asteroid Pythagoras (revealed as the equation’s author; escapes into the lightning)
• Brannagan’s Ghost (freezes time; “I could always stop time”)
• Princess Thorn (reinterprets the En-Arche Bell; refuses the unspeakable sin one last time)
• Terpsichore Callagy (“It’s consummate art whether we personally live or die”)
• Bancroft Romal (WEAP trigger-man; Gaea-Earth in his pocket)
• Oliver Roundhead (flies to call off Malabu; succeeds)
• The Tarshish storyteller (his dream stalls at the lightning)

• Pythagoras’s confession: “I, the greatest mathematician in the universe, worked out the Doomsday Equation, a masterpiece of advocacy mathematics”
• The Tarshish-Klepsis revelation: “the opposite parts of the same planet”
• Thorn on the En-Arche Bell: built to ring when the world begins, from the Septuagint‘s first words
• Terpsichore’s aesthetic verdict on the apocalypse; the personified Lightning’s final words
• The unresolved ending: the narrative breaks off mid-sentence, in the middle of the bolt