IMMORTALLO Prologue and First Chapter

Prologue: The End of Everything

By the time TickTock Bear arrived at the Silk Queen’s palace, crossing leftwise the shimmering forest of dream trees, it was already too late.
He kept his right paw, shattered by cannon fire, tucked snugly in his waistcoat pocket, afraid of the bloody mess of fur and bone it had become. The chain from his pocket watch had become caught on a stony brier and snapped; he feared taking the watch from his pocket and then dropping it or losing it. TickTock Bear knew that a watch needed a chain, to keep it safe, to keep it secure, to keep it never more than a chain’s length away from its owner. So while he could feel the mechanized clicking and tapping of the watch’s workings, he dared not check the time it kept.
The sky held a color of bruised purple, and crackled and throbbed with ultraviolet lightning. The thought occurred to TickTock then, that he alone might be left. Even the clouds were dying--rolling across the horizon only to stiffen, and then crack and flake. The pink flakes stung his eyes and made his fur heavy and matted. They tasted as bitter as ash.
“The sun is gone,” TickTock whispered. Something in the forest laughed, and TickTock swung around sharply. He turned his head from side to side slowly until it occurred to him that it might be the forest itself that was laughing. He pushed onto the palace with haste.
What if he was the only one left? What could one tiny bear do to stop this madness?


It had been less than a day since things started cracking and dying, but TickTock had lived so much in those hours, the time before seemed so distant and strange. Had it only been two days ago that he and Harold had lain on the rolling hills west of Zabalocurn, building tiny grass piles on which to rest their heads, and filled their bellies with roots and jellies? It seemed like a million years. This morning, Harold’s beak had fallen off while he and TickTock crouched beneath the shale overgrowth, and they both knew the old bird didn’t have long. Harold could no longer speak, and he picked his beak up and cradled it like a seashell and wept. Large portions of his back and face were bare, and feathers dropped continually, like snow. His legs had turned brittle as winter twigs and snapped when he tried to stand. TickTock tried not to cry, to keep up a brave face for his dearest friend in the world, but the look in old Harold’s eyes said that TickTock must leave him, that there was no hope left. The bear put his claw on his friend’s shoulder, but it was brittle like old paper to the touch, and Harold’s eyes looked as if the physical contact caused him great pain, so TickTock smiled a weary smile and left his dear comrade to die alone in the shadow of the Mica forest.
The memory ate at him from the inside like a worm, and TickTock could feel the cold fuzzies he had found and eaten a few hours earlier fighting their way back up his throat. He’d never heard of food trying to escape from a stomach through the mouth, but he bent over as his stomach emptied itself. A thick, acrid smoke also escaped from his mouth, and he thought about his own death for the first time. It almost made him feel better.
The sky was gray and swollen by the time he reached the inner palace walls. The gates of ivory hung loosely on their hinges, and as TickTock entered the courtyard, he saw Her Majesty’s Elite Sheep Guard huddled naked together in the empty fountain, shorn of their thick and beautiful coats. Their eyes were all red and vacant, addled by too little sleep. “Cahhhhld,” they bleated. “Cahhhhld.” TickTock averted his eyes and entered the palace.
As he climbed each step, he thought of the Silk Queen, her fine gossamer body, and how deeply and secretly he had loved her all these years. She had first come to his shop in the village green in search of the world’s largest clock to place at the bottom of the lake at the center of her castle. TickTock did not have anything near the size the Queen needed, so he spent two summers and a fall building it for her, doing all the fine clockwork under the surface of the Queen’s lake while wearing a glass aqualung. The work was arduous, and TickTock spent so much time underwater that his fur never completely dried out until weeks after the project was finished, but each night as he completed that day’s work, the Queen would invite him to dine with her in the palace’s Grand Hall, where he would warm himself by the fire, and by the deep and smoldering love he felt within himself for her.
The clock was meant to be a gift to Her Majesty’s Fish Parliament, and as TickTock Bear now climbed the castle stairs, he saw each member of that once noble body floating on their sides, a deep humiliation for such proud and distinguished statesmen. The dead numbered so great that TickTock could not see the majestic clock’s face--which covered the entire lake floor--so he again looked away. It had become something he was good at.
He entered the grand hall. The great fire itself had turned cold and crackled out ice and fog. Seated at the queen’s table was a large gray amorphous blob. It shuffled and murmured to itself.
“Tock?” it said.
“Your Majesty?” TickTock replied. Could it be the queen?
“Oh, Tock. Tock dear,” she said, rising from her throne and ambling toward him. “Don’t think me cruel, Sweet Tock. I was just so cold. I didn’t know how much more I could take the cold.” As she approached, TickTock could see that the Queen had encased herself in thick layers of wool.
“The Elite Guard?” TickTock asked, although he already knew the answer.
The Queen sat on the floor, or at least looked as if she sat on the floor. The wool was so thick around her, TickTock could barely discern the shape of her body.
He thought back briefly to the last summer’s Banner Day, when he and the Queen watched the Dragonfires together from the balcony off the Grand Hall. She had shimmered in the Dragonfire show, and at the end of the celebration, she embraced him, and he could faintly see through her opaque body to his claws as he wrapped them around her back. It was the most beautiful memory he had. Now it was gone.
“I should have never been made queen,” she said, sighing heavily. Her whole voice--once airy and delicate like breeze washing its way through spider web-- seemed so heavy now. “I have never been tested. I shouldn’t have taken their wool. I know I shouldn’t have. But my need was so great, Tock, so great. I’d never felt cold before. Not like that. I thought I might die.”
TickTock cleared his throat. “A nation needs its queen, Your Majesty. Without you, we would be lost.”
“We’re already lost, my sweet,” the Queen said. “We’re already lost.” She reached out what TickTock assumed was her hand, and he took it and held it until he felt it slacken and drop away.
“There must be something we can do,” he said, gravel in his voice.
She shifted slightly, and sighed again. “I’ve already summoned the Stegasorcerer,” she said. “He’s traveling via eggway, so I think he should arrive here safely.”
“I need you to summon Immortallo,” she continued.
TickTock Bear stepped back. “Immortallo?” he stammered. “I’m afraid--I’m afraid I don’t know how.”
The Silk Queen began to cough. “Your pocket watch. It’s powered by the same substance that has given Immortallo his great abilities. They’re linked. If you wind the watch backwards, he will come.”
TickTock Bear placed his paw against the watch. “I had….I had no idea.”
“He is helping shore up the bridges to Imaginopolis with the Troll army, last report. This morning he was carrying the Mermaid village in the Sea of Blackrose on his back to prevent it from becoming diseased. As the Fish Parliament unfortunately already has.”
TickTock took the watch from his pocket. “All this time?” he said. “I never knew. I never knew. I’ve only ever seen him once, you know. It was a Banner Day, many years ago. He flew above the parade we held in the Village Green. He smiled at me, and waved, although Harold says I imagined it.”
The Silk Queen seemed energized as she spoke. “Immortallo is the greatest hero our land has ever known. And not just because he guards the sugar volcanoes against eruption, or paints the sky each year for Banner Day, or even because he makes all the mirrors safe so that no one falls into their own reflection. He is a great hero because he loves us all. Each and every one of us.”
TickTock and the Queen were silent together for a moment.
“So I’m sure you didn’t imagine it,” she continued. “But now I need you to summon him.”
TickTock held up the watch in his left paw. “My paw, it’s broken…I can’t hold it and wind it with only one paw. I’ve failed you, my Queen.”
The Silk Queen choked like she might cry. “Rest the watch on the table. You can wind it with your good paw if you rest it on the table.”
TickTock laid the watch on the immense banquet table where for two summers and a fall he had dined with the Silk Queen, eating the finest flowers and tubers, making Her Majesty laugh with his kind humor. And as he thought of this, he wound his pocket watch widdershins with his good paw, and then having done so, fell to his back and died.
The Silk Queen was sobbing now, full on, for she, too, had loved the little watchmaker bear in her way. He made a few low growling sounds as he wriggled against the cold marble floor, but she knew it was little more than death settling into his body, making room for itself.
“It shouldn’t be long now,” she said. Soon an egg fell into the chimney and rolled into the center of the hall. It pulsed and throbbed, until it cracked open. The Stegasorcerer stepped out of its shell.
The creature waddled over to TickTock’s body, its large tail swaying back in forth. “Did he have any idea?” the Stegasorcerer asked. “What would happen to him if he rewound his watch?”
The Silk Queen chuffed back her tears. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But with his chain broken, he hadn’t long anyway.”
The dinosaur sniffed at the body. “True, true. But I wonder if he wouldn’t have wound the watch so readily had he known.”
There was suddenly a voice behind them. “TickTock was the bravest bear this land has ever known.” It was Immortallo. “Of course he would have.”
The brave hero stepped into the meager light in the center of the hall. The Stegasorcerer met him there. Immortallo nodded at his rival, then bowed to the Queen. “Your Majesty,” he said, bending down on one knee. “What can I do?”
The Stegasorcerer scratched his scaly chin with his talon. “Something bad has gotten into the everything,” he explained. “Whether it’s an enemy attack or simply some kind of force of nature…” He trailed off and shook his head sadly. “It needs to be stopped.”
“Please, Immortallo,” the Queen pleaded. “You’re our only hope.”
The Stegasorcerer tugged at a string that hung from the thin air, pulling down a parchment. “There is a word,” he said. “A word at the center of the everything. It is what holds the everything together.”
“What is the word?” Immortallo asked. The sorcerer noticed the hero’s black hair begin to streak gray.
“No one knows,” the old dinosaur continued. “But the word was here before any of us were here. Even you, Immortallo. The word is what makes us. And it’s been erased.”
The Silk Queen moaned loudly. “We need you to travel to the center of the everything,” she gasped.
“And rewrite the word?” Immortallo asked.
The Stegasorcerer shook his spiked head. “It is too late for that. And besides, as I explained, none of us know what the word was. You must go to the center of everything and write your name. Your name will bind everything together.”
“Why my name?” the great hero asked. “Why not the Queen’s?”
The large gray mount shifted then fell, an empty vestment. “The Queen has perished,” the wizard said. “It was naïve of her to think she could protect herself with sheep’s wool.”
Immortallo bowed his head in thoughtful prayer. He wept a little too. “My deepest apologies,” he said. “It is hard for me, all this death.”
The Stegasorcerer grimaced. “Death is always hardest on the living. For the ever-living, it must be tortuous.”
Immortallo remained in his silent reflection for a moment longer, then held his head up again. “So, I write my name in the center of everything, and the world returns to normal? Am I correct?”
The sorcerer narrowed his yellow eyes. “No,” he said hoarsely. “This world will disappear. It will never have been here. A new world will exist, and will have always existed, in its place.”
Immortallo’s visage, resolute and positive, forceful yet kind, had been so ubiquitous--in the popular imagination, in the images of artists that graced the posters and banners that honored him--that even the wizened and bitter lizard recoiled at seeing doubt and fear etched across the hero’s face.
“Better that than existence being erased,” the Stegasorcerer reassured. “Better a place built of your name than whatever evil and black thing that would take the place of the everything.”
Immortallo looked down. He seemed to be shuddering. “Do I need a quill, some kind of magic chalk?”
The dinosaur shook his head. “It’s best to use your finger. It will be tough to write in.”
It was a moment of frightening self-awareness for the hero, but he thought with what was at stake he need ask. “Will I survive?” he asked the wizard. “What will happen to me?”
The Stegasorcerer emitted a low growl. “I don’t know,” he said. “But may I submit, by way of example, that few things are worse than being the last of one’s kind?”
Immortallo smiled sadly, then put his hand on the Stegasorcerer’s shoulder. “I know,” he began, “I know that we’ve been rivals. That-that often we’ve been at cross-purposes, all these years. Enemies, even. But I just wanted you to know…I want you to know that I never hated you.”
And then Immortallo was gone.
The Stegasorcerer shuffled over to the Queen’s throne and collapsed onto it. “Really?” he said to the empty hall. “Because I’ve always hated you.” The dinosaur coughed. “But you’re our last hope. And I love this world too much to let it be defiled this way.”
“I know you’re listening,” he continued, his voice growing weaker. “I know you’re always listening. So godspeed, you bastard. Godspeed.”
And then, in an empty cold throne room in the center of the end of the world, the dinosaurs became extinct.
The eternal one flew off from the castle, past the ruined fields of candy canes, past the golden hornet hives of the Ruby Meadows. Above the seas of liquid leaves and the merry Toads of Cazadal, the now-silent Thistle of Song, and the lands of the Berry Lanterns. Everything was dead or dying, decayed or decaying, and for Immortallo, the man who had been here before all else, who had seen and heard, smelled and tasted, touched and loved it all, the trip through the everything was long and mournful. His hair was now white, as was the beard that had grown on his bare face like wild weeds since he left the Silk Queen’s palace. The sky was cracking and peeling, making horrible groaning noises like a house poorly built collapsing in on itself. He knew he might not make it.
Infinity is a difficult concept for mortals, and Immortallo was so used to them and their way of thinking--he loved them so--that he forgot that there is no center to the everything. That with infinity stretching in all directions, the center of the everything is everywhere. So he stopped his frantic flight, closed his eyes and pushed his index finger into the cold clay of everything. He could see the letters he pushed into the sky glow brightly like light’s afterimage behind his closed eyes. He took deep cleansing breaths to block out the deafening sound of destruction around him, until he reached the final letter. His index finger pushed its way and dug a trench, a moat, until it met itself, a perfect circle, and everything went quiet for the tiniest second, and then the world shivered once and was gone.









1: Faker

Outside, the garbage truck rumbled past, gears crunching and pneumatics hissing. The pre-dawn light was colorless. Karen woke slowly, without urgency. The bed felt empty, sunken, but not in any way that was alarming. She reached her sleeping arm across the mattress, feeling the emptiness. She lifted her head, opened one eye.
“Steve?” she said, her voice a morning whisper. “Honey?”
Steve stood by the window. He turned at his wife’s voice, but uncertainly.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She rubbed her face with her hands, and then wondered why she did. Why does it make us feel more awake? she thought.
“Hello,” Steve said haltingly. “Good--good morning.”
Karen flopped back on the bed and looked at the clock. “It’s barely seven,” she said. She closed her eyes and fell asleep for a few minutes more. When she opened them again, Steve was still by the window.
“Come back to bed,” she said. He looked at her, and she patted his side of the mattress. “It’s Saturday,” she told him. She rolled onto her side, facing away from the window’s light, and from him. She felt the bed shake as he lay down. “Let’s enjoy it,” she murmured, falling back asleep. “Before the little monsters wake up.”
It was always in this early morning hour--when Karen woke up and fell asleep readily in short bursts--that her dreams were the most vivid. The dreams she’d have in the darkest parts of the night, the strange, half-formed ones that spoke of deep fears and joys, were faint, movies watched on UHF stations, dialogue drowned in static. But in the early morning the dreams were more vibrant and distinct--and more mundane. She’d dream of the office, of cooking dinner. Dreams where Steve’s parents would come over and sit in their living room and watch TV and make both her and Steve late for work. Sometimes she’d dream of old boyfriends, but in the dream she’d leave the room for a minute, or just turn around, and when she’d come back the old boyfriend would be Steve and she’d not even notice.
The only thing exotic about these dreams was that it was never her house. In her dreams, her house would look like someone else’s house: her Aunt Sheila’s, or the Grossmans who lived next door when she was growing up. It was perhaps all the danger and mystery her subconscious desired.
In between the dreams, she’d wake up and peek over at her husband. He was laying flat on his back with his eyes closed but he wasn’t sleeping; she could tell.
“Faker,” she said.
Steve opened his eyes and made a sad-little smile. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel strange this morning.”
Karen flopped her head down. “We need to stop going to Chili’s,” she said. “The food sucks. And one of us always ends up getting sick.”
Steve closed his eyes. Karen watched him for a few seconds, curious when he would open them again, but then her eyes grew heavy.
She dreamt of Freckles, her old cat from when she was in college. Then the bed began shaking.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Maddy was jumping on the bed, her legs attempting to straddle her father.
“Honey,” Karen said, but Maddy was too excited to hear her.
“Daddy daddy daddy! Guess what?!” she shrieked. “Guess what?!” She drew out the word guess so that it vibrated with excitement. Her jumping became erratic, and her foot came down hard on Karen’s arm.
“Ow! Shit!” Karen yelled, sitting up. “Sweetheart, stop jumping on the bed.”
Maddy flopped down in the space between Karen and Steve and rolled to face her father. “I made a big poop!” She cackled. “Right in the toilet!”
Steve reached out and stroked his daughter’s hair. Karen saw the same sad smile from earlier.
“Honey,” Karen said. “Maddy, Maddy. Daddy’s not feeling too well.”
“Want to see it?” she shrieked, and began pulling at his arm. “Come on.” Maddy made her words into little songs when she was insistent.
Karen pulled Maddy over towards her. “Daddy’s being weird today,” she told her. “Where’s your sister?”
Maddy smiled. “It looks like a big snake!”
“Steve?” Karen looked at her husband. He was still smiling oddly, stroking Maddy’s hair. He didn’t reply.
“What looks like a snake?” Karen sighed.
“The poop I made!” Maddy yelped.
“Gross!” a voice yelled down the hall. Emily called out for her mother. “Mom! Maddy didn’t flush the toilet!”
Maddy giggled. “Come see it!” she whispered.
Karen sat up, patting her hair down. “Darling, nobody wants to see your poop.”
Maddy made a face, puzzled and disappointed. Steve got up from bed.
“I want to see it,” he said.
Maddy shrieked again. “Yay!” She took his hand.
Karen watched them leave the bedroom. She flopped down and curled up sideways under the covers. She closed her eyes, but did not sleep.
“Why is she so weird and gross?” Emily was standing in the doorway.
“Why are you so weird and gross?” Karen replied.
Emily folded her arms. “No, I’m not,” she protested.
“Everybody’s weird and gross,” Karen clarified. “Leave your sister alone.”
Emily shook her head. “She’s almost four years old.”
Karen smiled at her. “Stop being the mom,” she said. “I’m the mom.”
Emily came and sat at the edge of the bed. “I know.”
Steve returned to the bedroom and laid back down. Karen watched him for a minute, just waiting. “So?” she said. “What did it look like?”
He turned to his wife. “Like a snake,” he said.
“Did you flush it?” Emily demanded. “Did you punish her? She can’t leave her poop everywhere.”
Karen frowned. “Don’t be dramatic, honey. She didn’t leave it everywhere.”
Steve looked up at the ceiling. “It’s gone now,” he said.
Karen patted Emily’s butt. “Did you say good morning to Daddy?”
Steve sat up, again starting sadly at his child. “Good morning,” he said.
Karen again patted Emily’s bottom. “Alright, I’m getting up. Go get your sister ready while I shower.”
Emily smiled and ran out of the room. “Maddy!” she called. “Mom says I’m the boss of you!”
Karen sighed again. “No, I didn’t!” she yelled. “Both of you get dressed!” She stood up and stretched her arms over her head. She looked over her husband. Now she was getting the sad look. “Go back to sleep,” she told him. “You look tired.”
The shower was hot and made it easy for Karen to get lost. She made lists of things she needed to get done that weekend and then made plans until she found herself thinking about where the hot water comes from and what force pushes it all the way up to the second floor from underground. It was something she’d never really thought about before.
She dried off with a towel, guilty there might not be hot water for Steve. She wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at herself. I’m pretty good-looking for having two kids, she thought. She thought this almost every morning, but it still occurred to her each time she looked at her naked body in the mirror. She ran her fingers along her stomach, covering up her stretch marks with the open palms of her hands.
She put on her robe and went back into the bedroom. Steve was staring out the window again.
“It’s back,” he said. She heard the pneumatic hissing.
“The garbage truck?” she said, swabbing her ears. “They always do the other side of the street first.”
She walked to the window and kissed his cheek. “I’m going to take the kids out for a walk,” she said. “You need to go back to sleep, or take a shower, or jerk-off. Something. You’re not being yourself.”
She got dressed and went downstairs. Both girls were in the kitchen.
“It’s cold out,” Karen told them. “You need jackets.”
“And snow pants,” Maddy added.
Karen smiled. “Sweetie, have you looked outside?”
Emily chided her. “There’s no snow,” she said. “You don’t need snow pants if there isn’t any snow.”
“There are leaves,” Maddy protested. Karen looked out at the yard. They had just raked last weekend, and now you couldn’t tell.
“Leaves aren’t snow,” Emily said.
Karen flicked Emily’s hair. “Emily, don’t be a snot.”
“It’s hard with her around,” Emily told her mother.
“Hard not to be a snot?” Karen asked. Emily nodded.
“Leaves are like snow,” Maddy said.
Karen opened the back kitchen door. “Do you guys have gloves?”
Emily shook her head. “We couldn’t find them.”
Karen patted her back. “We probably don’t need them then,” she said.
“They both fall from the sky,” Maddy said. “They both happen when it gets cold. You can put them both in piles and jump in them.”
Karen looked back at the house and then crossed the yard. “Let’s do that,” she said. “Let’s just play with the leaves here.”
Steve was up in their bathroom window, watching; she could see him.
Emily went and got rakes from the shed, and Maddy took one and struggled to hold it. “I’m going to make the biggest pile,” she said, dropping the rake. “Bigger than the house.”
Steve was standing completely still in the window, like the dress-form Karen’s mother used to keep by the window in her sewing room. Karen would pass by the room in the middle of the night. The streetlight would cast it in silhouette. If it had had a head, Karen used to wonder, would it look out the window or would it be watching her?
Steve always got a little depressed, a little distant, the morning after he’d visit his brother. He had come home the night before a little sad, but by the time they had all sat down at the restaurant, he seemed in a good mood. Karen didn’t pretend she knew what Steve felt. He had told her once that it made him feel guilty, visiting Paul, because he had picked on him so when they were younger. Just older brother teasing, he claimed. But he said he thought that that was all Paul might remember.
Karen caught herself watching Steve watching them. He had never been this way before. He seemed hopelessly lost and so sad. Karen used to think sadness was like a coat you wore, something that you used to protect yourself from things and then took off.
Maddy was jumping into leaf piles less than an inch high. Her feet would come down first, then her bottom, and she always looked disappointed at how close to the ground she was.
“You need to be patient,” Emily said. “Make the piles bigger before you jump.”
“Stop being the mother, Emily,” Karen told her. She turned to Maddy. “Your sister is right.”
Karen took the rake from Maddy and started a pile. She looked up to the window, but Steve was gone.
She was raking for a while, thinking about her husband, and about Freckles, and the houses she dreamt she lived in. She was raking for a while before she realized how long it took to build a good leaf pile.
“When I was a kid,” she said, raking faster and more furiously, “we used to play this game called Mousetrap.”
The pile was getting bigger.
“Mommy’s angry at the leaves,” Maddy said.
Karen continued raking, though she was getting short of breath. “You’d open the box and there’d be all these little pieces, and you’d spend all day putting this, this thing together.”
Karen watched the rake, sending it out then pulling it back towards her. The leaves looked like lottery balls the way they rolled and tumbled under the rake’s teeth. “And once you got the whole thing put together, one of you would pull the switch, and then the whole thing would be over in like, two seconds.”
She looked at the pile. It was a good jumping pile, for sure. “But sometimes that’s how life is.” She looked up, out of breath. Emily was standing with her arms folded, teeth chattering.
“Em, sweetie?” Karen said. “Why are you shivering?”
Maddy started shivering. “It’s because we’re cold, Mommy.”
Karen was flush in her cheeks, and was sweating a little under her jacket, but her hands ached from the chill. It was really cold out. They all should have been wearing gloves. Hats too, probably. She dropped the rake.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I just found out it was cold,” Maddy replied.
Emily sniffled. “Nobody asked.”
Karen picked up the rake again. “It will be warmer later,” she told them. “Maybe we came out too early.”
She walked with her girls to the back porch, leaning the rake up against the door. “It’ll be warm inside,” she told them.
The girls took off their jackets and hung them on the hooks. They rubbed their hands together and blew into them. Karen did, too.
“It got so cold,” Maddy said.
“It was always cold,” Emily corrected her. “You just didn’t notice.”
Karen put her coat up on the hook. “Emily, make your sister some cereal. I’m going to see how Daddy is feeling.”
Climbing the stairs, Karen felt uneasy. She was a little girl again, tip-toeing through the dark.
She pushed open the door to the bedroom slowly. Steve was sitting in the rocking chair, weeping. His eyes were red and sore-looking, like he’d been doing this for a while, like it wasn’t just a coat he wore, but like sadness was the dress-form that they had built him around.
“Sweetheart,” Karen said softly. “What’s the matter?”
He turned to her, tenting both hands over his mouth.

“Where am I?” he asked.