I woke in a throne-shaped chair with glowing dust motes drifting lazily across the librarian’s office. He scratched at a parchment with his rainbow striped quill pen as I gathered my stuff.

“Name, species, shortest title, any other useful information?” His bored tone conveyed clearly that he hoped for none other information.

“Tadeusz, human, no title. I’m a verser, a worldwalker. Where is this?”

“Tadeusz No Title, This is the Library of Rhodes which all you rootless types insist on using as an entry port. Weakness in the worldwalls, my eye.” He bent his head back to his parchment, and waved his pen at me, and then jabbed it toward the door.

Feeling decidedly like a mouse the cat had presented to her owner, I walked to the door and out into a vast space. A giant cone several football fields high lined with books presented itself very favorably to my library-loving eye. A double pair of trees spiralled twining together up from the center of the marble floor way below, and the top ended at my feet. Smooth marble steps connected the two tree trunks. I stepped from the landing and onto the steps, and the whole thing swayed. I am reasonably okay with heights, but I like a solid surface underneath me. Skating, skiing and the like are for the birds. So, I sat down to recover my calm.

The steps were each engraved with an author’s name. Agatha Christie, J”ihiron Greppleduik, Mark Twain, and Isaac Asimov were the top four, in that order.

Soon enough, a device I learned was called an arna floated up to me, and I was invited to step on, and it would take me to what ever book I desired. Overjoyed I dove into reading until finally faint with hunger, I forced myself to put down the first edition of Tom Sawyer I had been reading.

I left as an orange sun emblazoned the evening clouds with fiery colours. I stood on a hill overlooking a town of many architectures. After accosting a passerby for a quick guide to the town’s various areas, he replied.



“Just take a road that seems to go where you want, and even when the city slides into a new configuration the road will get you there. Just don’t look at the horizon too much when this happens. It’s been known to drive a man insane, or give them special gifts. But I’m happy as I am.” With a shudder, I agree.



“That there is the Gordian Knot, a desperate place for nastiness and the criminal element. There are many ways in, and few out.”

I spy an eye-hurting tangle of tiny streets that radiates bloody-minded menace and sinking despair.

“The Glimmering Fogs circle the City at a fast hour’s walk away, iffen you’re human that is. If the City is too small for ye, then walk or ride the Bridge of Glass. Maybe you can find, or some say, make a new neighbourhood.”

I saw a shining in the twilight, it was a glass replica of the Brooklyn Bridge extending into the Fogs with nobody on the Bridge. The Fogs flickered especially brightly near the last visible section of the Bridge.

He pointed out the Jousting Field, and the Tudor houses of the Good Folk of The Town, and the Field of Dispute where the local gangs, the Sorcerers and the Swordsmen brought their never-ending quarrel about the most effective method of leadership, intuition or logic. I was afraid that he was suggesting that the gangs ran the local government, but that was never clarified. Things happened is all I can say. Their system of governance seemed the most complex I can recall.



“The Darke Woode is a dangerous place of beasties, and yet much frequented during the day by young love. A Great Dragon curls up in the heart of it. It is said that for the True who Live Pure that they can find a Unicorn in the depths, but while I think myself True, I have enough dross still in my soul to fear I might catch a glimpse of the Unicorn, and meet up close and personal the Dragon.”



I asked for a recommendation for an inn, and he pointed downhill to an obvious place. I proceeded until I was accosted by a miniature sphinx. It barred my passage until I answered the obvious riddle.

“That was easy.” I commented.

“Only the first, every road, every bridge, is a new riddle.” My new companion explained.



The Menagerie is a wonder. Brass railings, and redwood bar extending the length of the room, marble checkerboard floor, and gas lanterns competed with the heads of many monsters who decorated the walls to be the most welcoming and intriguing. My waitress cheerfully took a U.S. dollar, an Imperial One-Cred and two pieces of eight, and returned with a handful of change, a three-hands needed roast beef submarine sandwhich, a pile of fried potatoes, a jug of peppermint tea, and half a lemon meringue pie. I was impressed, and then startled to find my modest expenditure also included a spot on a tigerskin by the fireplace, and a very hearty breakfast.

There were no fights although there were plenty of arguements, and plentiful jokes on each other. I was the victim of a caricature contest depicting my ravenous eating habits after a day without food or drink. I turned a little red, but kept chewing.

I spent a happy, if indeterminate amount of time in the City of Riddles. Time floated, and walked, and occasionally crawled. If you really needed to get an extra task done during the day you found the time. But if you drove yourself too hard, you would find yourself the butt of jokes the whole night at the inn.

Sometimes you would hear about a neighbourhood reappearing after being “out of touch” for a decade, but keep in mind that a decade seemed to mean a “middling long length of time” to the indigs, and not a definite amount like we Terrans(if you’re not a Terran, dear reader, I apologize).

Another thing that startled me was that people seemed to live a very long time. They usually died due to misadventure, or being caught by a riddle they could not answer, or simply drifting into something not human. I’m not certain, but maybe reincarnation for the indigs was a fact. It iss not that they were totally evasive, but we came from such different attitudes that many times we smiled in mutual assurance of the other’s agreement, only to find out later that we had been worlds apart.

Eventually, the riddles grew harder, and so I joined a band of adventurers daring the Bridge. Not for me the One-Way Door … We found a new land, and I let my mind enjoy the beauty of the countryside we had found. I think it was something in the City itself that prompted me to remember a German Tiger tank. Anyways, I got run over by a Tiger tank troll that cackled gleefully in bad movie German at the “filthy Amerikaner.” as it charged me.



Tadeusz