Afanasy pensively unwrapped his right foot. As he afternoon sun passed cheerfully through the clouds, he made a mass of scraps of fabric, twine, gum and fur that had kept his beloved foot warm for the past three months. Sure enough, he had lichen again. Monak began to bark convulsively, and vultures began to whistle approvingly to each other and convocate overhead. Afanasy leaned back onto his elbows, grinned and waited for the lichen to unfold into the Russian spring.

AFANASY: She hangs around with him because she thinks he's going to get rich.

HAJI-GIREI: He has way better interpersonal skills than you, yozhik.

A: He's a psychopath who kills for sport. He ate one of my old girlfriends and made pants out of her. Doesn't that count for something?

H-G: Not if she doesn't know about it.

A: I told her about it.

H-G: She was drunk. Tell her when she's sober.

A: When is that? At church? I'm supposed to tell her this stuff while the priest is talking?

H-G: Have Maria tell her.

A: She doesn't believe most of what Maria tells her anymore, cause I told Maria to tell her all that nonsense about the civet salesman from Tashkent.

H-G: Send her a letter!

A: I can't write. Except for numbers.

H-G: I'll write it for you, yozhik.

It appeared to Afanasy that all three of them were moments from asphyxiation, what with Furtwangler throttling Mathis der Mauler, and Mathis garroting der Krusher with a filthy towel. Der Krusher was just stepping on Furtwangler's purpling face. They were humming in unison, some solemn teutonic lied. Afanasy, thinking quickly, dipped into Mathis' cloak pocket and disappeared into the howling snow with the Fernstrom of Power.

Only Ali Qushji appreciated the humor in the situation. He gestured to the moon, whispering lovingly as if to a spurned lover, and began working the dart from his neck.

Afanasy's brows creased into a tangle of gulleys, like unto a parched saltbed. He was swinging with inhuman focus and intensity, back and forth, from the unlikeliest branch of a frightened birch, and was moments from swinging himself completely around.

He blamed his discomfort on the impertinent ladle and began to throttle it, pinching it murderously between thumb and forefinger with both hands. GGGGGGGK! he croaked. The poisonous gas sauntered disinterestedly through his clenched teeth and trachea, and nestled approvingly into his alveoli.

Foma thought he may have blacked out entirely, but it was difficult to judge with any certainty given the notable want of light at the bottom of the well.

So, Foma fell for a long time and no time at all. He landed on a gauzy mound of mosquito bodies, bruising his duodenum.

Afanasy told Foma again about the thick acrid gas coming out of the well. Monak growled disgustedly at the cloud, as mosquitoes dropped, confettilike, into the dirty snow. Foma immediately grabbed the kvas ladle from Afanasy's hand and leapt, wordlessly, into the stone-lined well. The occasional ring of the ladle striking the walls would periodically carry up through the mist. Afanasy turned to Haji-Girei and asked what sort of taverns were close by, as he was feeling a little ready for supper.

"That boy is asking for trouble. Got less sense than a bear cub." announced Haji-Girei.

Haji-Girei then reappeared on the haystack, his right pinky extended coolly as he held the bowstring taut and quivering, moments from releasing the arrow into Potsherd's skull. "Do you have anything of value that might dissuade me from ending your sad little life?"

Potsherd rolled his eyes in two different directions and put his fingers into his ears. The frosty wind blew his badly-trimmed hair back and forth across his balding head. His pig, rooting vigorously, bit his toe.

"My belly has ticks on it, and they roam in ever widening circles like a Busby Berkeley movie."