7.2.24

Last Train to Zion

This is the last train to Zion, calling at

Alphaville, change here for ferry to Amity Island

Blackrock

Chinatown

Deadwood

Big Easy

Flintstone

Goldfinch, alight here for Hampstead Heath

Indigo Lane

Jato

K Means

Lakeshore

Mulholland Drive, closed due to flooding

Nowhere-under-Sea

Overton, mind-the-gap, passengers descending here

Pinkerton

Quinto

Rhesus Sands

Salusa Secundus

Terminus

Underground Zero

Vortex Works

Way Down

Xanadu Falls

Yggdrasil Meadows

Zion

Should you choose to travel the whole length of the route,

you may find your palm getting warm,

since we take payment from your future summers, and the receipt

tends to show up in your lifeline. If you wish, you can get a refund

by taking the train back to Yggdrasil Meadows, where the ticket office can

cross your palm with silver, although you may not like the resulting colour.

Also note that this is the last train, so there is no obvious way to go back one,

or any other number of stops. After this train runs, it will be de-commissioned and used for settlers to live in, since Zion is in desert with precious few precious metals and no trees.

You will find previous travellers, some of whom walked the last two stops,

some of whom took canoes from Lakeshore or even Xanadu, though the last stage involved inevitable portage across the dunes. The canoes also serve as quite good shelter from the sand storms. The witches are obvious, since the eschew such cowardly shelter and revel in the sand, as they believe that it is this that gives them their power. What their power is, is not obvious, although it must at least include resistance to dying by sand blasting.

The witches coming-of-age ritual entails wrestling with ant lions who live in the dunes, but the witches are generally ageless, at least the Sand Witches are ageless, or apparently so. They still all look like children.

Some people claim that they used to be known as the Sad Witches, but that

was a rumour started because they were so despondent when forced to leave their

ancestral home in Indigo Lane. The terrace of houses there remains empty to this

day, with broken window panes like mad staring eyes. Mind you, that's what the witches look like too - well, mad staring eyes at least, not like terraced houses, being too short, and all or at least most with two legs to stand on. No baba-yaga here, at least not yet.

and they all sing

"Thinker, sailor, shoulder surfer

bitch man, poor buy,

beggars belief"

After the sand storms, the people dig they way from under their canoes and railway carriages, to see a new landscape, people with spikey  figures covered in dust -

gradually, the dust settles, leaving the impression of the witches standing in the air, but no trace of any actual bodies. Where can they be, folks are asking, just as the whole coven comes striding over the dune like it was just any ordinary day out for a walk in the park.

Because there are no trees in Zion, the witches struggle to find materials to make broomsticks. Indeed, they have to make do without familiars and pointy hats too. In fact, some have come to doubt that they are actually witches, whether sand witches, or any other kind, at all. When was the last time they did any actual magic (aside from surviving outside in the sand storm without a canoe or railway carriage for shelter. Maybe they are just a one-spell-only witch, people suggest. What use are they if they can't make love potions, or curse a well, or cast the entrails of a sand lion to foretell the future, or perhaps the past?

Fred, who has the best railway carriage, as it is the first class

restaurant car from a philip pullman, is the most cynical. He tends to hang out with Pernicia, who was the first person to arrive in a canoe and always has to put her oar in.

"I heard the witches paid their train fare with spells" she accuses. "One spell for each station stop. Now all they have left is the sand repellent".

"Would you like chicken or beef, or the vegetarian option?" asks Fred,

obsequiously.

"Whatever it is, can you leave out the smarm, please" responds Pernicia.

"Right", said Fred. "One beef lasagna, hold the smarm".

The witches sidle over en masse, looking familiar, everyone thought, and probably looking for a free hand-out too. Fred shook hands with each of them, and they left, looking satisfied. He checked to see if he still had all his fingers, using an abacus he'd found in the guard's carriage.

Pernicia was not impressed. Mind you, that was always true.