It was a beautiful day in Nurgle’s Garden, though day and night meant little there. The timeless skies were thick with greenish haze, and dark yellow clouds roiled with tempestuous portent. In time, they would dump their sulfuric mucus upon the writhing morass that sprawled below. Yet no plant or creature that dwelt therein feared the devouring rains, for any that were destroyed would grow anew, reformed, undying, and beautifully blessed with disease. This was the promise of the Garden, the love of the Fly Lord made manifest. 

And so it was on this most beautiful day that little Bubo came waddling through the Garden when he caught a whiff of something strange. No more than a foot in height, his pudgy little body stood poised on a pair of clawlike feet. If he had any legs, they were completely hidden within his flab. His gangrenous flesh bulged with leprous juices, and one of the lesions on his swollen belly was ringed with teeth, and it pleased him so much that the makeshift mouth was always smiling. Of his little horns he was indifferent, for they did not ooze or fester, but of all his blessings, he was most proud of his third arm. Though it sprouted from his back and flailed uncontrollably, he knew that it had grown from him because he was loved. 

His two stumpy front arms just barely allowed his tiny claws to pull aside the flab around his nasal slits, which spasmed in delight at the peculiar aroma that wafted through the Garden. His milk-white eyes swivelled, searching for the source, and his wide purple tongue lolled out of a mouth that was a third of his entire body, where mangled rows of needle teeth dripped with disease.

The scent was unlike any he had tasted before, though so much of his days were spent tasting his surroundings. It was not the sickly sweet sap of the flesh trees, which flowed and crusted from the open sores on their skin bark. Nor was it the creamy tang of the shuddering cysts, for surely, if one of those had burst, thousands of cyst wasps would be spilling out to defend their precious pus. This was a new smell, a warm and spicy draught tinged with notes of excrement. 

With a squeal of glee, Bubo broke into a hasty waddle, bounding through the Garden toward the new scent. His journey took him through the Field of Tongues, where many lingual appendages protruded from mouth-like holes in the soggy mulch. He waded into the wagging tongues, which towered over him, some by several feet, some by dozens. They wetly slapped against each other as they swayed and gurgled and whispered and babbled. Sometimes they wrapped around little Bubo, tasting and constricting him, but with a swift bite from his needle teeth, the tongue would shriek and drop him, and Bubo would toddle along, happily smacking his lips at the taste of the tongue’s caustic spittle. Brushing aside the last of the great tongues with a rake of his claws, Bubo emerged to look upon a wide pond that bubbled and steamed with gastric fluids. 

The bloated remains of nameless beasts floated atop the bilious soup, and the fur and flesh of their faces had sloughed off to reveal rictus grins beneath glassy eyes. Bubo grinned back at them as he hopped from one carrion platform to the next. Occasionally, he would stoop to give their bulging eyes a quick lick, if he noticed their jelly had begun to run, humming contentedly as he lapped it up. He never managed to taste the swollen flies that swarmed about their eyes, though, as they were simply too quick for him. 

Then, as Bubo lept to a particularly lumpy platform, it rose from the acid to reveal the face of an enormous one-eyed toad. Its toothy maw yawned wide, and a grey and blistered tongue unfurled to scoop Bubo from the air. With a tiny yelp and a high-pitched fart, Bubo was snatched into the toad’s mouth, who turned and swam across the pond. The toad clambered upon the inflamed tissue that formed the pond’s banks and ponderously dragged itself deeper into the Garden. Sometime later, though how long cannot be said, Bubo was excreted from the toad in a squelching burst of mucus that sent him sliding along the ground with a delighted squeal. He righted himself, smacking his lips and waving goodbye to the toad, which crawled away indifferently. 

Now, the strange smell that had set Bubo on his quest was much stronger, and he clapped his little claws together in anticipation. A mound of rotting heads, all tied together by their hair, was all that stood between him and his goal. With his little arms and essentially legless feet, Bubo was a very poor climber. He tumbled down the mound of heads several times, muttering sharp frustrations under his breath. But with a little ingenuity, he found that he could anchor himself to the mound by biting into the rotting faces just gently enough to sink his teeth in without tearing away the putrid flesh. Bite by bite, he ascended the mound, and the eyes of the heads darted this way and that, for they could not die.

Once atop the deathless heads, Bubo beheld a field of mouldering detritus from which sprouted so many beautiful flowers. Their petals were shaped as little bells, pallid and threaded with pulsing veins, and now and then, they chimed softly so that the field was awash in music. Their leaves were curled and darkened with mould, and their scent was the gentle sweetness of ancient decay, but this was not the scent that Bubo was hunting. Indeed, that smell overpowered the white flowers. He noticed, too, that many tallymen were gathered in the field, which brought him great joy. 

The tallymen stood some seven feet tall. Like the kindly old toad that had carried Bubo across the lake, they each had one eye in the centre of their forehead, often bloodshot or crusted over with infection. Their hairless heads sprouted singular horns, and their yellow-green skin was pocked and marred with boils and lesions. But Bubo’s favourite part of the tallymen was their great open bellies, from which a lovely tangle of festering guts disgorged, dangling low enough that he could grab and swing from it. And so he did, chittering with elation, but the tallymen remained focused on their task. 

For every chime of the bell-shaped petals, the tallymen would count aloud. With so many chimes ringing at once, it was a hopeless endeavour to accurately account for them, but still, the tallymen tried, each one speaking aloud a different increasing number. 

‘Four hundred forty-four, four hundred forty-five, four hundred forty-six,’ the tallyman from whose guts Bubo was swinging droned in a grim and wheezing tone.

‘Five, six, seven, thirteen! Eight! Four! Twelve! Nine!’ Bubo chanted at the tallyman in rapid succession, his voice playful and lilting.

‘Four hundred… four hundred… four…’ The tallyman sighed and bowed its head to gaze upon Bubo with its single eye. Bubo broke into peals of laughter, quickly evading the scooping hand of the tallyman and scurrying beneath another’s feet. ‘Seven-six-five-four-three-two-one!’ he spat at another tallyman, who began to stammer and then let out a defeated sigh before starting again at one. 

Bubo ran from tallyman to tallyman, swinging from their guts, or sometimes tying one thread of intestine to another from a separate belly, spewing out strings of numbers, and howling with laughter when the tallymen started counting from one again. The tallymen, for their part, abided this behaviour with tired patience, occasionally trying to grab and restrain Bubo, but never with malice or harmful intent. 

But then a deep and shuddering voice boomed across the field, ‘DEAR LITTLE BUBO, DO NOT TORMENT YOUR BROTHERS; THEY HAVE WORK TO DO!‘ Though it reprimanded, its tone was full of gurgling mirth, and the force of it rumbled through Bubo’s flab. His beady white eyes widened with joy upon hearing it, for he knew to whom it belonged. 

A twenty-foot-tall mountain of corpulent flesh came trundling through the field. Each step exerted so much pressure on its bloated feet that they split open along their creases, spurting warm pus in a glistening trail that followed the massive creature where it stomped. Its prodigious girth was riddled with open wounds which wept rivulets of reeking effluvia down spoiled green skin. Like the tallymen, its mighty gut had burst open as a window into the dripping inner folds of its bowels. Hot, wet ropes of intestine snaked out into the open air, serving as a series of roads for the hundreds of roaches that frantically swarmed in and out of the diseased cavern. And this gaping undercarriage was ringed with so many abscessed teeth, and its shape was warped so that it appeared as a twisted smile. 

So, too, did the mouth upon the creature’s head smile beneath two enormous hollows whose eyes had long ago rotted out. Yet the creature did not falter in its lumbering gait, for it saw with a sight beyond the function of eyes. This was Uncle Gutgrin, and he was as great as he was unclean. 

Bubo came running across the field and stopped to marvel at the decaying grandeur of his great uncle. Its splendour brought putrid tears to his milky eyes, which crusted over as soon they were shed. Uncle Gutgrin stooped his massive form low, reaching toward Bubo with an open palm and spilling sopping chunks of his innards on the ground. Bubo leapt into the open hand, which was far larger than his entire body, and was lifted high into the air, just before the great eyeless face. 

‘WHY, LITTLE BUBO, YOU’VE GROWN A NEW ARM!‘ Uncle Gutgrin proclaimed, his two smiles widening in pride. ‘TRULY, THE FLY LORD SMILES UPON YOU.‘ His shuddering voice rattled with the brittle clamour of innumerable roaches scuttling from within, and Bubo basked in its fetor. He peered into the vast grin before him, watching with fascination as the many roaches suckled at the tender sacs of pus along the base of each tooth. Bubo pointed to his own open mouth and then reached up with both hands. ‘NOW, NOW, THERE’S NO TIME FOR THAT. A STORM IS COMING, YOU SEE.‘ Uncle Gutgrin gestured with his other hand, which held an enormous, corroded bell, toward the horizon. 

Bubo turned to see a spiral of blackened clouds converging toward a centre that flickered with flashes of dark green light. It was from this gathering storm that the strange smell emanated, the one he had never tasted before. The many dark arms of the spiral began to churn faster and faster until their central core swept down upon the Garden as a whirling funnel. And on the winds of this storm were carried thousands of voices, praying for mercy, for a release from their suffering, each melting together as a wailing cacophony of despair that drowned out the droning of the tallymen and the chiming of the flower bells. 

The storm widened and warped, engulfing the Garden. Its blackened eddies seemed to deform and distort, taking the form of locust swarms before dissolving yet again, and bolts of dark green lightning crackled through them, tearing at the fabric of the Garden itself. Bubo buried his face in the great hand that held him, hiding from such terrible power, but he heard the wise voice of Uncle Gutgrim resonating in his mind. ‘BE NOT AFRAID, LITTLE BUBO. SEE HOW THEY PRAY. LOOK THERE! THE GARDEN OPENS TO THE SEA BEYOND.’

Bubo raised his head to peer through the bloated fingers that held him safe. There in the storm, he saw shapes that he had never seen. Colossal, elongated spheres of translucent white filled the skies, and dark structures could be seen within them, like shadows moving behind frosted glass. The sharp and blocky forms of the shadows were alien to the organic shapes of the Garden. Then bolts of green struck against the lucent bubbles, shredding them open, and the strange forms within were obliterated, their shadows scattered in the storm. But one remained. 

Stripped of its protective bubble, Bubo could see clearly the immeasurable shadow that drifted slowly to the ground, obscuring all other sights. It was a thing of physical matter, foreign to the energies from which the Garden and its residents were all composed. Bubo’s eyes perceived it as a great wall of billowing shadows, intangible, bizarre, every part of it vibrating erratically. But within the depths of the great shadow he saw something familiar, energies not so different from his own, the light of many souls. 

‘DO YOU SEE THEM, BUBO?‘ Uncle Gutgrin whispered into his mind. ‘THEY ARE SO VERY, VERY SAD BECAUSE THEY DO NOT KNOW THE LOVE OF THE FLY LORD.‘ Bubo peered deeper into the great shadow, and indeed he could detect the glint of despair upon the many souls. ‘YOU MUST GO TO THEM. YOU MUST BRING THEM THE GIFTS OF THE GARDEN,‘ he said, placing Bubo on the ground. ‘HURRY NOW, LITTLE ONE, BEFORE THE STORM PASSES!‘ And with that, Uncle Gutgrin thrashed his great corroded bell, and its graven toll rang out seven times as the tallymen knelt in the field to retrieve their swords, each a twisting, rusted blade that oozed with the Garden’s gifts, and then they marched.

Bubo waddled as quickly as he could, swerving around the tramping feet of the tallymen. He followed them to the wall of shadows, saw them cross through it, and pushed through himself. The physical matter, being mostly empty space, slid around his bulbous form, and he found himself inside a terrible hall of trembling shadows. Nothing grew here, no toxic tendrils, no wagging tongues, not even a speck of mould. There was only sterile matter, metal and plastic, and the filtered air, bereft of pathogens, stung Bubo’s nasal slits. 

He saw the many souls huddled together within their cursed hall, saw them trapped within layers of matter. Their hideously symmetrical flesh wrapped around unbroken bones and hauntingly clean blood. No boils, lesions, cysts, or rot of any kind nestled in the fleshy prisons of their bodies. Not even a single entrail was proudly displayed. It was a travesty. No wonder these poor souls were so full of despair. He noticed that they had tried to cover their shameful bodies in vests of green matter, far denser than flesh, and so too did they wear this green upon their heads. But there, Bubo spotted a glimmer of hope in this monstrous place, for a symbol was marked upon the green helms. A two-headed bird looked left and right, and the eye upon its right head had clearly rotted away. Perhaps then, this place wasn’t entirely evil.

The tallymen, recognising the severity of the situation, lumbered forward with gifts for the wretched souls, and Bubo moved with them. The poor souls began to shout in what Bubo thought was excitement and gratitude, but then they lifted strange rectangular sticks and pointed them at the tallymen. A volley of lights leapt from these sticks, cracking loudly and cooking the tallymen so that their boils bubbled and burst. Bubo did not understand. This appeared to be a rejection of the gifts, but that made no sense. Then it dawned on him… their despair must have driven them insane. 

The tallymen pressed forward into the barrage of crackling lights as burning holes opened in their bodies. One of the wretched souls, a bit forward from the others, stumbled backwards as a tallyman approached. Bubo saw the terror in his eyes as the tallyman’s rusty cleaver raised high. It swept down with a visceral crunch, chewing through the green vest and brittle ribs beneath, and the gifts of the Garden flowed into the poor soul as his mouth frothed and his eyes rolled back.

‘One…’ the tallyman droned. 

‘One,’ the rest of the tallymen called back as a grim chorus. 

Bubo rushed over to the soul whose flesh was dying. He could see the gifts of the Garden spreading from the chest wound as pale green light. The gifts wormed their way through the dying flesh, entangling the luminous soul within so that it could not flee. This poor soul was now blessed. Death could not claim it, for it would rise again, reformed, like those of the Garden did. Still, Bubo could not help but feel some pity for the ugliness of the soul’s vessel, and so hopped atop it and raked open its belly with his claws, spilling its guts. The body writhed and gurgled in appreciation. 

A tallyman skewered one of the wretched souls, its corroded blade injecting disease straight into the target’s heart. ‘Two,’ the tallyman wheezed.

‘Two,‘ the others chanted back in unison.

Bubo ran quickly to the fallen, nibbling many holes in its flesh so that its own gifts would more easily flow once they had taken root.

‘Three.’

‘Three.’ 

Another fell, then another, and more. The numbers rose; the tallymen droned their count, and Bubo happily tended to the convulsing bodies of the fallen, gnawing upon them, despite how horribly clean they tasted, to spare them the embarrassment of their hideous forms once they rose anew.

‘Fifteen.’

‘Fifteen.’

As the fallen were counted, the tint of despair upon the remaining souls deepened. No doubt they were overcome with envy that others were receiving the gifts of the Garden while they were not, Bubo surmised. Then, suddenly, one of the matter barriers slid aside, and a host of new souls came pouring into the shadowed hall. Among them was one untouched by the glint of despair. 

Various unliving metals adorned the great red coat that cloaked him from boots to shoulders, and upon his head stood a tall cap that bore a metal skull. ‘No heavy weapons, and no bolters!’ the one in the red coat barked. Then, one of the wretched souls, unable to bear how many of his comrades were receiving gifts while he was not, turned and ran screaming from the tallymen altogether. Bubo’s eyes widened as the head of the fleeing soul suddenly erupted into a fountain of blood that sprayed everything and everyone around it. The one in the red coat held a small metal stick in front of him, then quickly tucked it into a pouch at his side. ‘The only bolts I want to hear are the ones I put into cowards!’ he added, wiping the blood and flecks of brain matter from his face. Bubo noticed then, too, that the glint of despair was lessened in the wretched souls. They must have taken some nourishment from the brains of their comrade, he thought. 

With so many new souls in the hall, so many new beams of light came cracking out of their sticks. ‘Focus your fire—right side—I’ll take the left!’ the one in the red coat yelled, and he strode forward, drawing a grotesque sword without a mark of corrosion or toxins upon it, and the cruel blade hummed as dark blue light shone around it. 

Now the tallymen began to cook in earnest, their forms dissolving under the tremendous heat of the cracking lights. Bubo saw one fall and unravel, his energies swirling back to the garden to be reformed. Another tallyman approached the one in the red coat, swinging his twisted blade in a downward arc, but the one in the red coat leapt aside, whirling so that his humming sword severed the tallyman in half. Then, before the two halves could fall, the humming sword was brought down through the tallyman’s head, halving him a second time. Four pieces fell then, and four dissolved, perhaps to be reborn in the Garden as four separate things.

A familiar voice crept into Bubo’s thoughts, deep and shuddering. ‘RUN, LITTLE BUBO! HIDE!‘ Instinctively, Bubo followed the command of Gutgrin’s voice without question. He scampered across the shadowed hall, where tallymen fell now one by one. Beneath the burning cracks of light and over the remains of the fallen, he clambered until he found a space away from all the noise. There he saw a tunnel in the matter wall, a thing of metal whose opening was covered by a grate. 

He pushed himself through the many particles of the metal grating, no more dense than the many particles of the metal walls, and found himself in a tunnel that blew with revoltingly clean wind. He saw that the windy tunnel stretched and branched into many others, and because they were all made of matter, he could peer through their shadowy forms and so was able to guide himself back to where the tallymen were. He arrived in the tunnels beneath the floor of the great hall, but found it to be empty of tallymen. 

Then a terrible thing happened, perhaps the most terrible thing Bubo had ever seen. All at once, a shockwave pulsed through the shadowed hall, an energy of translucent white. It knocked Bubo on his back as it swept past him, expanding to encase the shadowed hall in a colossal bubble. The love of the Garden was pushed out by the shockwave, and the trembling shadows of the hall now appeared as solid and impermeable. Bubo could no longer see or smell the Garden; he could not see his friends—no tallymen, no Uncle Gutgrin, only lifeless metal in all directions. He was trapped and alone.

Bubo began to panic, scrambling back and forth in the windy tunnels below the tramping feet of the wretched souls. He cried out, incoherently babbling, and the souls above began to shout and gather near him. ‘NO, BUBO! YOU MUST BE QUIET!’ The shuddering voice of Uncle Gutgrim was a faint whisper in Bubo’s thoughts, but it calmed him for the moment. ‘IF THEY HEAR YOU, THEY’LL FIND YOU, AND THEN YOU’LL LOSE THE GAME!‘ Bubo perked up at this. A game? ‘NOW, GET OUT OF THERE!’ 

Bubo fled through the windy tunnels, until he could no longer hear the tramping of feet. When he was sure he was alone, he spoke. ‘Uncle! Home! Bubo want home!’

‘I KNOW, LITTLE BUBO, I KNOW, BUT THE FLY LORD HAS A SPECIAL TASK FOR YOU FIRST!’ 

Bubo tilted his head, though as his neck was concealed within his flab, he merely tilted his face. ‘Task?’

‘YES, A VERY IMPORTANT TASK! FOR YOU ARE NOW A LONE SEED OF THE GARDEN ABOARD THIS VESSEL.’

‘Vessel?’

‘NEVER MIND THAT, BUBO. SEE WHAT THEY DO TO OUR GIFTS!‘

Bubo crept back down the windy tunnel, peering through a grate in the wall to where the bodies of the fallen lay glimmering with the green light of the Garden’s gifts. Then the wretched souls brought new tools, and flame sprayed from these tools upon the dead, and the gifts within them boiled and withered. Bubo gasped in disbelief. He had worked so hard on those bodies. 

‘YOU MUST FIND THE JOLLY FELLOW, THE ONE WITH THE GREAT BIG BELLY. DANCE FOR HIM, AND TELL HIM YOU ARE THIRSTY. HE WILL TAKE YOU WHERE YOU NEED TO GO.‘ Bubo nodded emphatically. ‘BUT HURRY, BUBO! IT IS SO HARD TO SEE INSIDE THE FIELD; I CAN BARELY FIND YOU. WITHOUT MORE OF THE GARDEN’S LOVE THERE, YOU WILL FADE AWAY, AND THE FLY LORD WILL BE VERY SAD.’

Bubo broke into a teetering sprint, hyperventilating. He charged through the windy tunnels, veering aimlessly through their many branches. But the tunnels were a winding labyrinth, and without the love of the garden, they were impermeable. Soon, he was unsure of where he had even come from.

Bubo paused and took a deep breath. He reached down, grabbed ahold of the flab around one of his lesions and squeezed it. A spurt of pus and blood gushed from the open wound and splashed to the floor of the windy tunnel. Bubo could see the gifts of the Garden giving off their lovely light from the little puddle. He moved on, ever so often stopping to excrete some form of bodily fluid, which marked a luminous trail indicating where he had been already. 

From time to time, Bubo came upon grating that allowed him to see through the now impassable matter of the tunnels. He saw many things he did not understand. Through one of the grates, he saw the one in the red coat speaking to another in a long, dark blue coat adorned with golden metals. The light of the one in the red coat’s soul was utterly free of despair, but the one in the blue coat was full of it. They stood amid a room of many strange platforms and pedestals strewn with levers and buttons and flashing lights, all of which Bubo wished to pull and press, but he remembered that he must stay hidden.

‘We’ve taken substantial damage in the storm,’ the one in the blue coat said.

‘The Geller field is restored and holding. We are still capable of completing our mission,’ the one in the red coat answered.

‘There have been losses.’

‘Some two thousand in the storm, and a mere handful in the incursion. We’ve more than seventy per cent of our reinforcements.’

‘But all the other transports were lost! We should leave the warp, reassess–’

‘Reassess? A clever word for heresy.’ The one in the red coat pulled one of its folds aside, exposing the small stick at his hip. 

‘I’m turning this ship around, commissar. My orders were to support the fleet, and the fleet is gone. We will seek repairs, and when we have–’ The head of the one in the blue coat exploded in a shower of gore that rained down upon the many buttons and levers. 

‘My orders were to see these men to Bleakhold.’ The one in the red coat strode to the bloody platform and pressed a sequence of buttons. When he next spoke, his voice poured through every corner and crevice of the great structure that imprisoned Bubo. ‘This is Commissar Octavius Xan. By the Emperor’s will and the authority of the Officio Prefectus, this vessel is now under my command. I expect the utmost discipline and loyalty to our mission, which is still underway. Any failure in duty will be addressed by me personally. The Emperor Protects.’ 

The voice receded, and Bubo slinked away from the grating. He continued to explore the windy tunnels, always checking through the gratings for one who could be called a jolly fellow. Instead, he found something else. He heard it before he saw it. From around the corner, a strange, jagged voice spoke a single word. ‘Contaminant.’ Then there was a rush of orange light and heat, and the smell of burned metal. Bubo crouched instinctively, wondering what sort of creature could fit with him in the windy tunnels. ‘Contaminant,’ it said again, and the whooshing heat came closer.

Bubo peered around the tunnel corner and saw a floating skull grafted with metal plates and wiring. Several metallic tendrils protruded from it, terminating in hooks and clamps and prongs, and its left eye socket housed a metal cylinder inset with a glowing red light. From this glowing eye, a field of red swept out, crossing one of Bubo’s navigatory puddles. ‘Contaminant,’ the floating skull droned as a metallic nozzle protruded from its mouth and belched a gout of flame that scorched the puddle away. 

Bubo growled in outrage and leapt at the skull, but it darted aside and swept its field of red across his body. ‘Contaminant.’ The burst of flame singed Bubo’s outer flab and sent him howling away through the windy tunnels. Once again, Bubo was lost, and what’s more, he had begun to feel weaker. His clawlike feet struggled to drag his plump little body, his lesions had stopped oozing, and the toothy mouth on his abdomen seemed to perpetually frown. His third arm, at least, continued to flail wildly, grasping at nothing.

He slumped down in the tunnels, closing his eyes and remembering the beauty of the Garden. He could see in his thoughts the field of tongues waving, and smell the sickly sweet sap of the flesh trees oozing. He thought of the tallymen, counting every little thing, and the great loving smile of Uncle Gutgrin. With a bit of focus, he could even taste the outer rinds of the shuddering cysts, ready to burst in his mouth so he could gulp down their warm, greasy chunks. Bubo sighed. He had been given an important task. He could not let Uncle Gutgrin down. 

Just then, a very promising sound echoed through the windy tunnels. Bubo picked himself up and listened intently. Though muffled, it was clearly the sound of deep laughter. He rushed toward the sound, following the tunnels and peering out the grates until he saw something that warmed his clogged little heart. 

A hulking shell of muscle and sinew housed a soul that was not only devoid of despair but beaming with joy. Its body was far larger than any Bubo had seen within the metal structure. No hair grew upon its head, and its brow jutted forward above a pair of eyes that twinkled with mirth. And far below, the most enormous belly that Bubo had seen since leaving the Garden. This had to be the jolly fellow that Gutgrin had mentioned. 

Bubo saw the jolly fellow wiggling an enormous finger at a black rat that sat perched atop his great stomach. The rat stood on its hind legs, whiskers twitching, which caused the giant to burst into more laughter, though he tried his best to conceal it. At length, a wretched soul could be heard approaching, and the jolly fellow panicked, throwing the rat with such tremendous strength that it spattered into a wide rat pancake against the ceiling. The wretched soul entered the room and approached the jolly fellow. 

‘What are you doing in here?’ the wretched soul asked. 

‘Nothin’,’ the jolly fellow answered under his breath, looking down.

‘Because it sounded like you were laughing.’

‘No laughin’.’ He continued to look down.

‘And when you’re laughing, it’s trouble.’

‘No trouble,’ he mumbled.

The wretched soul looked down at the jolly fellow for a time, who was almost at eye level, even sitting down. ‘You know you’re not supposed to play with things you catch.’

‘No catch.’

The wretched soul sighed, rubbing his own face, and a few drops of pancaked rat dripped down atop his helm. The jolly fellow looked up in horror, but said nothing. ‘Just… try to keep it down, will ya? With the commissar running things, we can’t afford any mistakes.’ With that, he turned and took his leave, and the jolly fellow heaved a sigh of relief. 

The giant stood and peeled his flattened companion off the ceiling, holding it in front of him. ‘No friend,’ he said dejectedly.

Bubo tapped against the grate with his little claws, and the jolly fellow tilted his massive head. He turned and crouched to gaze through the grates at Bubo, and his massive brow furrowed in uncertainty. Then Bubo began to sway back and forth, hopping from one clawed foot to the next and spinning in quick little circles. Slowly, the jolly fellow’s brow smoothed out, and his face spread into a smile. 

‘Friend?’ the giant said, and Bubo nodded vigorously. ‘Friend!’ The giant reached down, gripping the grate and ripping it open effortlessly. Then he held out his hand, and Bubo leapt into it. ‘Shoo! Friend stinky!’ Once more, his mighty brow furrowed, and once more, Bubo began to dance. The giant burst into laughter, then covered his mouth and quickly glanced at the hall. He put an enormous finger to his lips. ‘Shhhh.’ Bubo imitated him, and the giant sucked his own lips into his mouth, choking down laughter. 

‘Thirsty!’ Bubo said, opening his mouth and pointing into it.

‘Friend thirsty?’ Bubo nodded quickly. ‘Ok, get drink. Friend stay here.’ He set Bubo back into the opening of the windy tunnel, but Bubo immediately leapt back into his hand. ‘Friend stay, or trouble!’ 

Bubo scampered up the giant’s arm and burrowed beneath the great grey vest he wore. ‘Friend hide,’ he said.

‘Ohhh, friend smart,’ the jolly fellow said, eyes widening in approval. 

Bubo tucked himself down, completely concealed within the vest, and felt the giant begin to move. The sounds of others coming and going passed by, but the heavy footfalls of the jolly fellow comforted Bubo, for they reminded him of Uncle Gutgrin. At length, the giant came to a halt, and Bubo could hear him speaking with a wretched soul.

‘Throne, you stink!’ the wretched soul said.

‘Need water,’ the jolly fellow replied deliberately.

‘Yeah, and soap…’

‘No soap. Thirsty.’

‘Fine, fine, just be quick. You reek.’

Once more, the giant moved. A door opened and closed behind him, and he pulled back his vest to gaze upon Bubo. Tentatively, Bubo peeked out of the vest, and before him, he saw so many rows of metallic cylinders, each with a spigot, each full of water. Bubo clambered down the jolly fellow, ran to the nearest cylinder and licked its spigot, then to the next, and the next, and the next. When he had licked all the spigots on the bottom row, he pointed to the ones above, and the jolly fellow lifted him so that he could have a taste of each. By the time he was done, every cylinder was swarming with the gifts of the Garden. 

The jolly fellow drank his fill too, and the green light began to creep through his enormous form. Later, he brought Bubo back to the opening in the windy tunnels, told him to stay there, and then propped the grate against it haphazardly. Then, one by one, the wretched souls of the terrible metal structure began to fall ill. Some were separated from the others as their coughs deepened and their skin grew pale. Others were taken by the one in the red coat and shut into rooms whose outer walls slid aside, and all the air was sucked out with the wretched souls who were flung into the emptiness beyond. But for all these efforts, the gifts of the Garden could not be denied this time.

Eventually, thousands lay dying, the last of their cursed life wheezing away, and yet they each lay upon the threshold of a new life, a blessed life. Their bodies bloated; their blood curdled; their skin was riven and spilt their mouldering bowels. And one by one they rose, gleaming with blessed life within, ornamented with proud decay, and some small part of the Garden’s love wafted through the great metal structure so that Bubo felt invigorated once more. No longer did his clawlike feet drag, and his open sores wept fresh and pungent pus. 

He scuttled after the throng of blessed souls, who shambled through the halls, slopping their fluids, moaning and groaning, for their joy was beyond language. What few wretched souls remained brought their cruel sticks of cracking light, yet they were but a drop of discontent amid a sea of elation, and soon the blessed fell upon them, gnawing their faces off and pouring the gifts of the garden into them. Many metal walls slid shut to bar the way of the blessed, but among their number was the jolly fellow, his open belly even greater than before, and with his wondrous strength, he pried open these barriers, and the blessed washed over every hall as a tide of exquisite decay.