"Fascinating man," said Barnes. "Knows his stuff. Brilliant. The hideout. Why didn't I think of it? The old house in the willows, in other words. A very ordinary sort of affair for it, I shouldn't wonder: two postal carriers after hours. All we have to do is get by the enemy beheaders who followed us here and who are standing under yonder streetlight pointing rifles at us. See Cassandra? The competition is close behind. It's time for some swift maneuvers or you and I are bacon."

     "Then why are you smiling?" said Cassandra.

     "Guns. Against the rules. Effective as a deterrent or a fear-factor implement, but they can't use them. It's strictly a beheading for the other side as much as it is for ours. No shoot to kill, or it's The End of Skinny, as we posties say. What they haven't counted on is our complete indifference to their funny business. So am I worried? No."

     Cassandra peered into the darkness. The sky was a slab of slate flecked with stars and satellites, the street indecipherable.

     "The assassins have shot out most of the streetlights, utilizing the silencers on their weapons," said Barnes.

     "Are you sure we're safe?" said Cassandra.

     "Absolutely. So don't quake. Tap dance."

     A pelting rain started to fall, and Barnes hoisted up his mail bag. A bullet burned a hole through it and several pieces of mail.

     "Well, come on," he said. "I've been known to be wrong." He grabbed Cassandra's arm. "Quickly, but don't run."

     "To?"

     "Why, the next house, of course. We've got mail to distribute."

     There were a few more pops. A bullet whizzed by Cassandra's ear. Another ricocheted off the road in the direction they had been headed towards the two gunmen, one of whom wore a dark brown ushanka, the other a red fedora.

     They rushed through the front yard of the house Barnes had indicated, where a large oak offered some cover, as did a fence and some massive boxwoods. Cassandra hastened up the porch steps, thinking just to put in the next bunch of letters, hoping they were the right ones, when she found there was no door and she stumbled into--

     "The hideout's new address I shouldn't wonder," said Barnes as he hurried in after her. "The bad guys will have to give up the hunt."

     "Why?" said Cassandra.

     Barnes breezed towards the back of the house, turned the corner, and started down the rickety basement steps that were there. Cassandra ran after him.

     "Because we go underground, to a place that's very tricky. And because those guys don't trust one another in the dark, so they have to stay out in the open, where at least one streetlight is still shining. It's their way. Also, we're headed into a dungeon, not a fast car."

     "But you said it was--"

     "Yes, of course. The hideout," said Barnes.

     A dark pit is like debt: you virtually disappear when you hit bottom. It is claustrophobia, amplified grave, shroud, and veil. A house of dead bodies, deceptions, and dubious exits--or none at all. A kingdom of queerness and suffocation. A gas chamber, chains, drips, wetness. Heavy air, lack of air. Slithering shapes, odorless poison.

     A point of no return? A monument to hands and shovels? A period of endless forgetfulness? A void of nothingness where time knows no interval and spins like a top? A place to bury one's soul? A prayer to be spoken?

     The hand reaching out isn't seen. Overlooked treasure turns the city of princes to a ruins.

     Welcome to the great equalizer of human beings, be they stoic or mad. Here may you run naked yet fully clothed in the clothing of walls. The bats sleep, wake, and sleep again, to synthesize the dreams of stars. It's a prison, or a quiet friend who slips away and never returns, unless the sound you hear is the echo of your own footsteps on the cold, wet rocks.

     Enemies get recycled in this oblivion.

     One's first step at the base of the steps spawns the impossible. No one digs this deep. Your descent plunges deeper than a crypt, calling to mind the child who quickly abandons the low branches of a climbing tree for the highest reaches of the towering canopy above.

     It's the inversion of that tree. A thousand faces. A million names. Every pool a mirror of the angels, revealing the same ageless face in the obsidian water.

     A long time ago when the angels fell and landed here, they sang a wild, whirling song that carried through the caverns, passageways, and stone. And the people on the land who could see the sun felt something move under their feet: they felt the body of the earth rise and fall as their own hearts stood still, and they knew the earth was alive.

     Every last one of them fled in fear of the nameless thought that was their reason for living. Their language they dared not speak lest they see themselves as they were, without grace, in a pit so far below that it had become known by those who sojourned there, and by the one who knew it best, as The Long and Far Hideout. And the place came to be known not by the name it used to have of The Darkness's Garden, but as The Hideout, plain and simple.

     Cassandra stumbled and almost fell several times, each time clutching at the wall. The steps were not evenly spaced or calibrated, but staggered like castle steps arranged to confuse intruders.

     Bats fluttered up, down, and around. Cassandra waved her arms, and discovered a few had landed on her back. They spread their wings and took off, brushing the back of her hair.

     Barnes whistled as they descended, improvising a tune. The gritty steps seemed to serve no purpose other than to surpass their endurance. But then Cassandra caught sight of a flickering candle on a shelf, and the bottom. She shuddered. The air was icy.

     "You're doing very well," said Barnes.

     "Oh?"

     "Your question puts me in mind of miners. It's not so much a matter of how many times one descends. It's Will he survive this time? And on that score each human is on equal footing. I will not downplay the seriousness of this visit to the bottom. When we get there, you and I, our work will have only just begun."