Well Past Midnight

It was well past midnight when two travellers entered the dim inn. The innkeeper paused in sweeping the floor and looked up. Not bothering to pull off his soaked hood, the taller of the two approached him.
“Do you have a free room?”
His voice sounded rough, like he had contracted long-term coughing. The innkeeper tried to sneak a peek below the hood but the traveller lowered his head. “Please,” he added.
The innkeeper regarded the late visitors. “Do you have the dough? To pay for the room?”
“Here,” the taller man placed a coin into the innkeeper's eager palm. The innkeeper bit the coin. He nodded a little.
“This way, fellows. Please drop the cloaks so you don't make wet trails on my clean floor.”
The tall man shook his head. “We've wrung out our cloaks at the doorstep. Don't worry.”
The innkeeper seemed to be curious, but then he yawned and lost interest. Strange fellows came by. Better accommodate them. “If you say so.”

“Ahh.”
As soon as the innkeeper bid his two guests good night and closed the door, the shorter of the two threw himself on a bed, groaning luxuriously.
“Take off the cloak or you'll sleep in a wet bed,” his taller companion told him.
The shorter man did not move. Then he groaned loudly and got to his feet again. While he was fumbling with the buckle of his cloak the other man finished an inspection of the room. He held out his hand for the shorter man's cloak and hung it and his own dripping cloak on a hook on the wall.
“I think I overpaid the innkeeper,” he said, stretching his body. “He was way too happy to sweep our dirty footsteps off his floor. The inns become cheaper the further away we get.”
“Whatever,” his companion sighed, falling onto the bed once again. “You should just be happy we finally hit an inn. In this stupid weather too...”
The taller man didn't reply. He unhooked a water-flask from his backpack and took a healthy swig. Coughed. Wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and offered the flask to the lying man.
“No thanks.”
“You'll have to get used to it sooner or later.” The flask was shaken invitingly.
“Later then.”
The taller man opened his mouth to object.
“I said later!”
The man frowned. “You're a fool,” he muttered, lying down on his bed.

Some days later, in another place, another inn's door was swung open. A pretty landlord was startled from handing out a round of beer to her regulars. She turned to scold whoever had slammed the door when she started again. A tall man, yellow-skinned with a worried look on his face was standing in the doorway. Another man's arm was wrapped around his shoulders, the body limp as a rag doll.
“A room for two, please?” the tall man rasped.
“M-my!” the landlord cried out, joining the rising noise in the inn. “What happened? Is he hurt?” Setting the beers down she made her way toward the travellers. The tall man shook his head.
“I don't know. Probably. I need to have a look at him.”
“It's the heat stroke, I tell you,” a regular's voice rose above the din. “You're stupid to be out there in the desert on midday, lads!”
The tall man's grey eyes flashed to the regular, then across the room to the plentiful watching eyes. His hand jerked up and fell to his side again as he realised that there was no point in pulling his hood up now.
“I guess we were. Do you have that room?” he addressed the landlord, insistent.
“Of course,” she nodded vigorously. “I'll get you cold water in case it's heat stroke. Up the stairs, second room to the right.”
As the yellow-skinned man dragged his limp companion between the tables and up the stairs, he wondered how many of the eyes that followed them held recognition.

Dropping his passed-out friend on a double bed, the tall man discarded everything he had on him: his companion's backpack, his long cloak, his own backpack. Then he sat beside his friend and assumed rubbing his cheek.
“Come on man, wake up. I've never seen a Hoodian pass out for this long. You're freaking me out.”
The landlord came into the room with a wooden tub full of water just as the unconscious man's eyelids fluttered open. “Here's the water and a clean rag – oh he's awake! Good,” she nodded to herself. “Here, wet the rag and wipe his limbs with it. And take his cloak off for Quater's sake. Good grace. What were you fellows thinking, walking out there with such thick cloaks on!” She watched as the tall man unclasped the buckle on his friend's chest and spread the heavy cloak on the bed. Passing him the wetted rag, she kept a close eye as he wiped his companion's cheeks and forehead. The man's light brown eyes came into focus.
“Where are we?” he croaked.
“Inn. Don't move.”
“Wasn't planning to.” The man's gaze fell on the landlord. “Hey lady. Nice apron.”
“You shouldn't speak too much either,” the tall man reprimanded him. The heat-stricken man rolled his eyes and closed them again.
“I'll leave you to take care of him,” the landlord said, fumbling with her apron. “Keep wiping his limbs. Rinse the rag from time to time. When he's better give him a bit to drink. Make sure he drinks the whole tub by the evening.”
“You're very kind,” the tall man said. Blushing the landlord smiled and she left the room to pacify her buzzing regulars.
Alone, the two men fell into silence. The tall one wiped his friend's arms and legs with the wet rag, producing a soft sound that mixed with the clamour of customers from downstairs. His lips were pressed into a tight line but he moved with the deliberate pace of knowing there is no gain in rushing.

(Picture by Skitty.)

At last the shorter man gathered his wits enough to ask: “What happened?”
“You fainted,” his friend answered matter-of-factly. “In the middle of the road. I had to drag you to the nearest inn.”
“...Ah,” the heat-stricken man said. Then, unhappily, he observed: “We got seen... didn't we.”
His companion nodded. Something was hanging in the air between them, something that grew thicker with each passing moment.
“Damn it!” the tall man yelled, flinging the rag at his friend's chest. The other man flinched. “You asked for this! I told you, you had it coming! 'There is no way you can do without food or water for too long', I said exactly that and you ignored me.” He fell silent, glaring at the wall.
Neither spoke for a span of minutes. Finally the shorter man muttered: “Didn't know I'd faint.”
“Congrats on being the first Neverhoodian who starved himself enough to find out,” his friend spat.
The shorter man pouted. His eyes fell upon the wet rag on his chest. Picking it up clumsily he began to wipe his arm with it.
His friend took the rag from him. “I'll do it. You still shouldn't move.”
The silence from earlier was resumed. A deep crease furrowed the taller man's forehead as he tended to his friend's dehydrated body.
“It doesn't matter that we got seen,” he declared at last. “We're far enough and honestly the cloaks were turning into a bother. But I just don't understand you. Why did you refuse to eat and drink?”
The lying man only turned his head away.
“Answer me,” his companion demanded. “You can't possibly be starving yourself into oblivion because you're scared of eating regular klay. You know that you'll get used to it, that you'll have to get used to it! So why?”
The lying man didn't reply.
“You keep complaining you're tired. Your pace is horribly slow. Look, you don't even have the spirit to fight me anymore.”
The words were ignored.
“You're not the man you were when I met you.” The tall man shook his head. “If I didn't know better, I'd think that Hoborg was right when he predicted you might become suicidal-”
“I'm not suicidal!” the shorter man cried out.
His friend just cocked his head, staring at him. Prove it, his eyes said. Under that stare and under the weight of what had happened on the road, the shorter man crumbled.
“I... I just want to go back. Okay? Every damn night I dream about returning home. I get to meet everyone, I can talk to Hoborg... Hang with Klaymen...” His voice was getting dangerously close to breaking. He covered it with an angry tone. “I hate it! I can't return home – so I don't want the damn dreams showing me everything that's slipped through my fingers...” This time his voice did crack. The man draped his forearm over his eyes, clenching his teeth.

(Picture by shinakazami1.)

“What does being homesick have to do with starting a fast?” his companion inquired.
“You still have to ask? The longer I went without food and water, the easier it was to fall asleep in the evening... and the dreams were fewer.”
The tall man shook his head in disbelief. “That is an entirely sissy reason to starve yourself.”
“Shut up!” the shorter yelped, sitting up. His eyes came out of focus. Before he hit the bed his companion caught him, lowering him more gently than his tone had been.
A moment later the heat-stricken man blinked. He remained lying, slightly flushed, taking grudging comfort in his companion's care. Waiting for the unavoidable statement to come.
“You'll have to start eating eventually.”
There it was. The shorter man took a deep breath and released it slowly.
“Maybe I could get used to living without food or water...”
The tall man made a sharp, irritated sound. “No, you couldn't,” he asserted hotly. “Even if you're a Neverhoodian you need to eat. You pass out today, I don't want to imagine what will happen tomorrow.”
His companion just sighed.
The tall man's eyes narrowed. “So. Aren't you bringing up your freedom to choose what you'll do with your life?”
The lying man made a vague gesture. “Screw that. Screw your freedom, screw this sham of a journey. We're nothing but prisoners here anyway.”
“You're just being dramatic. We're free to go wherever in the klay universe we want.”
“Except for the one place where we really want to go.”
“We can return to the Neverhood in thirty years. It's not that long.”
“Not that long?” the heat-stricken man stared at his companion in shock. His jaw worked but he found no suitable words to voice his discontent. “You've got to be kidding me...” he said in the end.
“Get over it,” the tall man told him.
There was a third lapse of silence, longer this time. During this silence, as he continued wiping his friend's arms and legs with the damp rag, the tall man noticed that the other man's fists were clenching and unclenching.
“It's not fucking fair,” the shorter man said through gritted teeth. “They had no right – no right to drive me away! I am a Neverhoodian just like them. I was born from the earth of the Neverhood, by Hoborg's hand. What difference does it make if I chose good or evil after that? If Hoborg didn't want evil beings to live on the Neverhood, he shouldn't have let me make the choice!”
“You're not evil,” the tall man chimed in with quiet conviction.
His companion, taken off his stride, gaped a little. “What?”
“You are childish and weak. But not evil.”
The shorter man let out a short derisive laugh. “Well thanks! But couldn't you have said that to Hoborg?”
“I did. But he was ready to take you in, good or evil.”
“...Really?”
“He wasn't named big heart for nothing.”
“In that case, my dear friend, do tell – why am I here?”
The tall man's grey eyes snapped to his friend's face. “You want to hear it from me? All right. You are here because Neverhoodians are a bunch of frightened assholes. You are here because you aren't a person to them, you are Klogg, the symbol of evil. You are here because if you had stayed, you would have been murdered. Again.”
The shorter man stared at his friend with wide eyes. “Damn.”
“Yes,” the tall man nodded. “It's a screwed up land and I'm glad to be away from it. Now that we've clarified that the Neverhood isn't such a great place to live in, will you stop being a child and take this journey seriously?”
The shorter man considered this. Suddenly his eyes lit up. “Let's make a deal.”
“What sort of a deal?” the tall man asked slowly.
“If I have to put up with all this... with water that scratches in the throat and having those happy nightmares and waking up every morning knowing that I won't get to return for another thirty years... then I want something in return.”
“...Well? What do you want?”
“Stories,” the shorter man requested. “Even if I can't be home in person, I can still be there in my thoughts. I want to know what the people were like when they weren't trying to lynch someone. What lives they led. What adventures they had.”
The tall man gave him a look. “That will make you even more homesick, you know.”
“Whatever,” the shorter man waved his hand. “Do we have a deal or not?”
“And in exchange,” the tall man said warily, “will you start eating and drinking? Starting with getting down this tub of water?”
The heat-stricken man made a face. “Does getting it down imply keeping it in?”
The tall man gave a little, sympathetic smile. “As a best klay being on regular klay diet, you've got an exception.”
“Right,” the lying man sighed and pulled himself upright. “Then we've got a deal.” He extended his right hand to his companion, who took it.
“Deal,” he repeated. “But I have to warn you, I'm not much of a storyteller. You should ask my brother Krevel for stories.”
“Well you can start with him,” the shorter man said, receiving the wooden tub and setting it onto his lap. “What's he like?”

The sun was setting when the landlord came to check on her two customers and to bring them dinner. The yellow-skinned man answered the door.
“Is your friend okay?” the landlord asked, straining her neck to see around the tall man's form. The traveller moved aside, showing her his companion curled up on the bed, sound asleep.
“He just needs to rest now. Thank you for the water.” He went inside and returned with the wooden tub. It was empty.
“No problem. Here's your dinner. I take it you'll stay for the night.”
“Yes,” the man nodded, taking a tray with two plates from her.
“In that case – the beds are locked together but they're actually singles. I'll help you move them apart.”
“No, it's fine. There's no need,” the man shook his head, smiling.
The landlord blushed a little. “Oh I know that you're gallant but the mechanism that holds them together is quite complicated...”
“You misunderstand me. I mean there's no need to move the beds apart.” The tall man received a sudden up-and-down look. “I don't want to disturb him more than necessary,” he tried to explain, slightly confused. The landlord clicked her tongue, displeased.
“Sure. Any excuse is good with your kind.”
“My kind?” The man's eyes flashed to the sleeping man behind him. They returned to the woman before him, alarmed.
“Oh should I spell it out for you?” the landlord set her hands on her hips. “Did you seriously think that nobody would recognise you? Huh?” In her rightful indignation she ignored the rapid darkening of the man's expression. “Too bad. Now I see that I've been nursing a viper in my bosom. Just one look at your faces should have been enough. You two,” she pointed at the man's chest, “are fags!”
Silence, as the word rang out. The man froze.
“I don't care what hole you crawled out of. In my inn such sin won't be tolerated. You should be grateful that I still let you sleep here. And Quater forbid – if I hear anything in the night, I'll have the mercenary from next door cut you up and throw you out of the window. Got that?!”
The yellow-skinned man nodded stiffly. The landlord devoted him a disdainful look and spit at his feet for good measure. Stunned, the traveller watched her exit.
At last he nudged the door to his room open and slipped inside. He set the tray down on the table and closed the door, leaning back against it. He covered his mouth with his hand.
And he burst into muffled laughter.
“Ugh... what's with the shouting?” his companion grumbled from the bed. “Did she notice that I threw up through the window?”
Between two rounds of joyous, if muted laughter the tall man managed to reply: “No.”
“Then what?” When the snickering didn't cease, the woken man propped himself up on his elbow and glared at his companion. “What's so funny?”
“Nothing. Lie down.” Finally the tall man got a hold of himself. “I'm just relieved.”
“Wonderful.” Rolling his eyes the shorter man slumped on the bed again and pulled the blanket over his head. “Gotta be some relief to be laughing your guts out,” he mumbled.
“The landlord told me that she recognised us.”
A few moments later a much more awake voice snapped from the bed: “What? How's that a relief? If she knows we're Neverhoodian, we're fucked!”
“Relax,” the taller man told him. “She doesn't know anything.”
“You sure?”
“Didn't you hear? 'I don't care what hole you crawled out of.' She's in the dark.”
“...Fine.” The man under the blanket mulled this over. “Then what did she have us for?”
“A pair of fags.”
An chuckle escaped from the bed and the blanket was lifted to show an amused face. “Seriously?”
“She was very serious.”
“That's why she was shouting? What's her problem?”
The tall man shrugged and picked up one of the two plates from the table. When his friend saw this, his face fell immediately.
“I have to eat this, don't I?”
“Stuff yourself up.”
“It isn't really stuffing if it all goes out in the next half-hour,” the shorter man complained, pushing himself into a sitting position and taking the plate.
“Quit bitching.”
“It's unfair too. You'll get to keep your food while I'll have another trip to the window.”
“I get to keep my food because I've been busy throwing everything up in the last four weeks. Come on and eat up. I'll tell you a story after you've finished.”
“Really?” the shorter man looked up hopefully.
“Really,” his companion confirmed.

The travellers closed the single window of their room in order to keep the foul smell and cold night air outside. The shorter one huddled on one side of the double bed while the taller man settled his back against the wall on its other side.
“The last thing you told me was how your bro found out that he had mulberry allergies,” the shorter man reminded his friend excitedly.
“Actually I got further than that, but when I was halfway through the first pollen season you started snoring. Hush, I'll tell you about it another time. Right now I want to start a new story about him.”
The listener mumbled in agreement. The storyteller took a moment to gather his thoughts and he began.

This story is called The Perfect Stone. I'm starting with its name because my brother Krevel always liked naming his stories to make them easier to remember. But he can't tell this story. I have to tell it instead.

It all began eighteen years ago, on an autumn night. Nobody knows why Krevel woke from his sleep and paid a visit to the castle. But the fact remains: he went to the castle on that night, up the stairs and into Hoborg's room. Hoborg sleeps alone and he doesn't lock the door in case somebody needed him. It was easy to get in unnoticed.
As usual Hoborg's crown was standing on the night stand. Hoborg can't wear it while he's in bed, obviously. So all Krevel had to do was reach out – and he had the crown in his hands. Hoborg's sleep became deeper. And for some very strange reason my brother held the crown up and placed it on top of his head.

“Wait wait wait,” the listener interrupted. He paid no attention to the storyteller's death glare, brows knitting together. “That was him?”
“Who?”
“The one who sneaked up on Hoborg to take his crown in the night was your brother?”
“Yes,” the storyteller replied, an angry edge creeping into his voice. “What's your problem?”
The listener shook his head in disbelief and said: “Go on with the story. I want to hear what happened to him.”
“I won't go on until you explain what you know of this!”
They argued until the listener promised to spill the beans on everything he knew after the story was finished. The storyteller gave him one last angry glare before carrying on with his tale.

Now everyone knows what happens to those who put Hoborg's crown on. They change. The huge power of the crown cannot be resisted. It brings out the worst in a man – malevolence and wrath, arrogance, and worst of all, hunger for more power...

“Okay okay, I get it! Putting the crown on is bad, no one in their right mind should ever do it. Get over yourself Neverhoodian!”
The storyteller gave his listener a very long look.
“Oh great, now you join the happy ring of people who make a hobby out of reminding me what I did in the past.”
The storyteller cleared his throat.

As I said, the power of the crown cannot be resisted...

“That's not true either,” the listener cut in. “You had the crown on and you kept your mind straight.” He was promptly called a damned fepgerkin eater for constantly interrupting. Before he could recover from the horrible insult and find a suitable payback, his taller friend asked curiously:
“Do you remember everything that happened before you were reborn on the Neverhood?”
The listener nodded sullenly, resolving to find an insult just as horrible later. “Yeah.”
“Even the other side?”
“Well,” the listener hesitated, “the other side is something else. It's completely different from the living world so I don't remember much of it. All I know is that even though it felt really nice to be there, I just wanted to go home...”
He trailed off. The storyteller took this as a cue to go on.

In the morning we found Krevel roaming the Neverhood. It was a nasty surprise. It wasn't hard to tell that it was him, in spite of the change. There's only one hoodian who has red skin and green eyes, and that is my brother.
But while my head concluded that it was Krevel standing in front of me, my heart disagreed. This was a cold person who had nothing to do with my brother.
You see, I can tell a character at first sight. Some call it prejudice, but that's just wrong. I don't judge anybody based on what I hear about them, only on what I see for myself. And I needed nothing more than that first glance to see that this wasn't my brother anymore.
Even the man himself denied having anything to do with Krevel. When I described Krevel to him, he spit to the ground and said:
“He sounds weak. Don't put me in the same league as that person.”
It annoyed him very much that I continued to call him Krevel after that, so he came up with another name for himself. Leverk.
Now... I had a very good grasp on what it meant to reverse a name and take it as one's own. After all, that was how I had made my own name back in the day. It was a blunt and mocking display of independence. To be pushed away this way by someone who had been my brother on the previous evening? That was like a punch in the gut. But what was worse – on the moment I recognised the action as a reference, I was thrown into doubt. For all I knew, Leverk might have been lying about not recalling his life before that morning. What if he was my brother, despite what my heart told me and despite what this man claimed, only hiding behind a mask of venom and spite?
If there's one thing that I've always hated, it's being in doubt. I like everything clear, no fuzzy edges, no space for multiple meanings. Yet there he was, Leverk, who was the brother I had known for my entire life and simultaneously a complete stranger. That sheer paradox tore at me so much that talking to him made my head hurt.

The storyteller broke off, pinching his forehead with two fingers.
“It gives me a headache even today,” he mumbled. The listener watched him sympathetically but said nothing. The storyteller continued: “The stone, let's talk about the stone.” He nodded to himself.

The stone was something none of us noticed at first. On the first day it was nearly invisible, just a small colourless speck in the middle of Leverk's chest. But it grew. Together with our horror at what my gentle brother had become. When Hoborg said that he couldn't revert the change against his will and when Quater sent a message that we would have to handle him on our own, the pure colourless stone in the middle of Leverk's chest was still growing.
A week after Krevel turned into Leverk and the stone was as big as a mulberry, I heard somebody say that the stone was his heart. That my brother's kind heart had turned to stone and that's why he had become... this.
I told you earlier that Krevel was a thoughtful person. He always thought twice before he said anything hurtful – in other words he was a coward who was afraid to state his true opinion. I always hated that side of him.
The crown took all of these inhibitions away from him.
Leverk never went far for an insult. When he was told that Neverhoodian names started with K, he laughed in our faces and said: “It's time to move on to the next letter of the alphabet.” When he was asked by Hoborg why he was so mean to everybody, he would say: “It's only critique, king. It's their bad that they can't take it. I guess it's just how they are.”
None of his insults were direct. Krevel was always clever, the cleverest of us three, and Leverk didn't fall behind. His words were sharp and unforgiving and often only their addressee could fully understand them. But once you understood, they stung very deep. Because they were true.
Leverk was mean, there was no question about it. But at the same time he was bizarrely honest, even if he always said what the other wanted to hear the least. From Leverk's mouth I heard things that Krevel must have thought about a lot but he was too scared to say them out loud.
As an example I'll say how Leverk greeted me. He would always smile a smile full of pointed teeth and say: “Hey Nike. Have you begun doubting yourself yet?”

We spent our days searching for a way to turn him back. There was no way to return Krevel by force, Hoborg had said. So we tried to make Leverk remember something, a piece of thinking that was distinctly Krevel-like, that would guide us like a string to where my brother was. But our efforts were fruitless. Leverk enjoyed playing the game with us. We would always sit in the castle, my brother Nehmen and I, Hoborg and occasionally other Neverhoodians, and we would discuss something with Leverk. He loved guiding us by our noses. His laughter when he made us contradict ourselves would ring in my ears hours later. It was so happy. Malicious, full of schadenfreude, but happy.
I was starting to think that maybe I could put up with having this spitefully honest Leverk as my brother. Then Hoborg called us together on one morning and everything went wrong.
At the meeting Hoborg pointed out that the clear stone in Leverk's chest had been growing steadily over the past three weeks. The evening before it had penetrated his back and Leverk's chest was now see-through, like thick glass. Hoborg extrapolated this growth and estimated that three weeks later the stone would consume Leverk's head and within two months Leverk would turn to stone entirely.
At that idea we just gaped. In two months my brother would become a piece of clear, cold stone. Not just a malevolent prick. Stone.
My brother Nehmen broke down crying. I tried to comfort him but I was struggling to stay hopeful myself. In the previous three weeks we had made no headway at all. We were sure that Krevel was in there but we couldn't reach him. At this rate, my brother would die alongside Leverk.
In haste we made plans. Hoborg promised to contact all of his brothers to see if they knew of any way to reverse the process. We decided on trying out ways that we had deemed too difficult or silly to attempt. We walked out of the Whale's Mouth, where the meeting was held, full of grim determination.
As soon as I stepped out into the open a clawed hand fell upon my shoulder and Leverk pulled me into the shade between the high wall and the Whale's Mouth.
“So,” he began, presenting me with a lopsided smirk, “I take it you were talking about this.” He knocked on the stone on his chest.
“Were you eavesdropping?”
He shook his head. “I knew. Listen,” he fixed me with his green eyes. “Don't break a leg over it. It's fine.”
“How can it be fine?” I protested. “You're going to die at this rate! You can't be happy with that, no matter how cynical you are.”
He shook his head again. “You don't get it. I said it's fine. Tell the others that I'd much rather spend my days discussing with them than being experimented on.”
I passed his words on to the others and we decided that they made no difference. We still had to try our best, lest we lose him forever.
Some of Hoborg's six brothers came to try and help. They all asked for thirty minutes alone with Leverk in the guest room where he stayed after it got difficult for him to move. All of them, with a single exception, walked out of the room thirty minutes later and they told us that there was nothing they could do. Ottoborg ran out of the room just five minutes after he came in. He was in tears and he refused to tell us what had happened.
As the last Ottoborg's twin sons, Ottimo and Tuborg, entered Leverk's room. They stayed for a full hour. When they emerged, they told us in a quiet voice that a creator can only change a person who is willing to change. Leverk did not want to change where he was headed.

(Picture by OttonandPooky.)

Nehmen and I went into the room after this, numbly curious what the kings had done to Leverk. To our surprise he was much more lively despite the fact that the stone was now so large that he had trouble getting up. He told us that every king tried the same as Hoborg had initially – take his head in their hands and change him forcefully. They had made his body hurt, they had made him see scenes that he didn't recognise, but they couldn't change him so after the designated time they left, unsuccessful.
Now the Ottoborg family, he spoke with enthusiasm, they had tried to talk to him. Ottoborg crumbled easily when Leverk began talking back but the twins held their ground for a long time. Quietly we listened to his description of how they supported each other to the very end. He was sad that he wasn't able to exploit their one weakness – being separated. He concluded that the twins were the only kings who had come prepared to face him.
Finally he explained why he seemed more vigorous. When the twins realised that they couldn't talk him out of being who he was, they asked if there was anything they could do for him.
“So I asked them to make breathing easier for me. You know – breathing proves to be difficult when one's lungs are solid stone. They stared at me with their palm eyes and voilà! I can speak again.”
He laughed then, with that mirthful laughter that rang in my ears, and asked us to stay for the night.
On the next morning he could not get up. The stone had engulfed his hips, freezing his legs in place. He claimed that he was quite comfortable because he had sat cross-legged on the previous evening, and asked us to bring him breakfast.
But we knew that ever since the stone absorbed his stomach he was unable to eat. This way we realised that the end was drawing near.
We spent the last weeks together, just like the first three. Leverk, Nehmen and I, Hoborg and occasionally other Neverhoodians. The word spread that Leverk would turn into stone soon, so everybody came to bid him farewell. In exchange for their good will Leverk gave everyone who came a “parting gift”. The gift was supposed to be a lesson from him but I don't know how many of us took it to heart.
He told Hoborg: “Are you truly conceited with living in the same loop forever?”
He told Nehmen: “Let go of her already. There are more fish in the sea.”
He told me: “Don't stop doubting yourself. It's good for you.”
Finally he gazed out the window from which the sounds of a party were coming. They say that on the Neverhood there is no reason too silly to throw a party. So they held a farewell party.
“Don't be too sad when I'm gone,” Leverk said. “Death is a kind of transformation.”
He threw me a glance and suddenly grinned. “Just saying. Now, I'm tired, I want to go to sleep. Like last night, I'd appreciate if you two stayed here.” Then he closed his eyes and he said nothing until the morning, when we discovered that the stone had reached up to his cheekbones and he couldn't talk anymore.

The storyteller paused. His jaw worked silently as he blinked a few times in quick succession. He clasped his hands tightly together and opened his mouth again.

It was the longest day of my life. Leverk didn't open his eyes but we kept checking every few minutes – maybe he'd look at us now, to see his brothers for the last time...
During that day his head steadily sank into the stone, as did the last traces of his hands and feet. In the evening his bottom eyelids touched its surface.
It was growing dark when Leverk opened his eyes. His gaze drifted from me to Nehmen and finally to the window. He paused looking at each of us and looking toward the window his eyes stopped.

This pause was longer. The storyteller gazed ahead of him like his brother in the story, while his companion tried to keep his rapid blinking soundless.
After a few minutes the storyteller snapped out of his daze. He blinked, shook his head a little and unclasped his hands.

On the next morning all traces of Leverk were gone. The only thing that remained was the perfectly pure stone on the bed, as heavy as a Hoodian and as large as a Hoodian curled into a tight ball. We wanted to bury the stone but Nehmen insisted that he wanted to be with his brother, so instead we moved the stone from the bed into the corner of the room and we left it there. Soon the room became known as the stone room. Nehmen often slept in it. I paid a visit every day. It was strange to talk to a stone but I did it nonetheless.
Over the course of time the clear stone turned more and more opaque. Hoborg shrugged over this phenomenon and said something about decaying quality of minerals. I remember wondering whether the stone would darken until it turned black and then would crumble like a piece of charcoal until there was truly nothing left of my brother.
But that did not happen. Over the course of twelve years the stone turned milky white, the shade of ivory that Hoborg favours, so it looked like a giant gem-shaped egg. I would sometimes knock on it and listen for a hollow sound.
On the day of the twelfth anniversary of my brother's death there was a remembrance party. Like I said, no reason is too silly. I listened to the Hoodians chatting and I saw how genuinely they had liked Krevel. I stayed very long, until only the hard core remained. At that point I was tipsy and tired enough to excuse myself saying that I had to pay a visit a my dear friend. Nehmen understood and told me to deliver a message: that he wouldn't sleep with him tonight, or sleep at all.
When I walked into the stone room I heard faint crackling. I dismissed it as illusions caused by my slightly hurting head and I dropped on the bed. I delivered Nehmen's message and I fell asleep.
It was still dark outside when there was a loud cracking sound. I jumped up. I saw that the stone had broken in half and that my brother Krevel was curled up between two halves of a thin eggshell. I was sure that I was dreaming. Then Krevel stirred and opened his eyes.
“Huh?” he said and hearing my brother's voice I believed it at last.
I don't remember what I babbled. All I recall was how sweet he was when he looked at me with his green eyes and placed a hand on my forehead and asked if I was running a fever because I was acting very strange. He asked more than once how he had got to the castle because the last thing he remembered was going to sleep in his bed, down in the Weasel Arena. I didn't answer even once. I cried a lot.
Finally Krevel had the good grace to pull me out of the room and knock on Hoborg's door. Hoborg didn't answer – his sleep is very deep with the crown off after all – so Krevel opened the door and pulled me inside.
“Hoborg,” he said, “Nike is acting really strange. I think he might have caught something. Please have a look at him.”
I stand a wiser man before you today. I saw Hoborg cry on that night and it was nothing like I ever imagined.
You should have heard Nehmen cursing his luck after he found out that the night he spent out partying was the night when Krevel decided to come out of the stone. He complained that this always happened and that from then on he would have to keep very close tabs on Krevel and me. We laughed a lot and we woke the entire Neverhood with our news: Krevel is back to the Neverhood, the stone has cracked and he has been reborn!

“I knew that it would end like this,” the listener affirmed.
“Obviously, because you have met Krevel on the Neverhood,” the storyteller pointed out.
“Not just that. I have a working theory of what happened to him, and it could have ended in no other way,” the listener said with certainty.
“Really?” the storyteller's eyes narrowed. “Then tell me. You can start with how you knew of the story in the first place.”
The listener hesitated at this. “Uh... yeah. So, you know how I was trying to return to the Neverhood from the other side.”
The storyteller nodded. “This lovely rebirth of yours is the seventeenth time.”
“Well, no. This is the eighteenth time.”
“...What?”
“The seventeenth time was actually at the beginning of your story. How you said that your bro went to the castle but no one knows why? That was my work.”
The tall man gaped. “How?”
A wave of the hand. “Doesn't matter. It's not like I can do it again. At any rate things went south when he put the crown on. He turned against me and drop-kicked me back to the other side. Man I was furious! I had actually held the crown in my hands – in his hands – and if I'd done it right I could have had a mortal body back, what's more, straight on the Neverhood!” He shook his head. “Your bro ruined everything.”
“Y-you turned him into a stone as revenge?” the storyteller growled, his voice shaking with animosity.
“That wasn't my job! The crown did that.”
The tall man threw his arms out. “You can't put blame on an inanimate object!”
“The crown is not inanimate!” the shorter man protested. “How can you even say that? You had it on your head, you heard the voices, right?”
“That wasn't the crown speaking you dimwit,” the tall man snapped. “That was a piece of my mind that wanted to abuse the crown's power.”
“Gee man, call it what you will, alright? You can't deny that you heard a voice promising you anything in the world. And the fact is, if you had asked for something, you would have got it. Just like I did. And just like your bro did.”
“Are you suggesting that my brother asked to be turned into a stone?”
The shorter man laughed. It was a high, shrill laugh. “How dumb can you get? Of course not! By Quater, you even said it in the story but you're just too hard-headed to appreciate its real sense.” He propped his body up on the bed, putting his face an inch from the taller man's. “He asked to have his heart turn to stone so that he wouldn't have to care about you guys so much.”
The force of the slap made his head snap to the side.

On that night the landlord heard violent noises coming from the second room on the right. But the mercenary from next door was too drunk to get up and the landlord was too terrified to go into the room herself. The noise died out after a loud crash. When the two fags didn't come down for breakfast in the morning, the landlord gathered the courage to peek into the lair of sin. The room was immaculately clean except for the double bed, which was broken in half. On the table the landlord found a coin and a note. It read:
“Sorry for the beds. K. has a surprisingly hard back.”
The landlord fainted.

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