| Chronicles of the Cake Stop |
| Vol IV No. 1 |
Thousand mile journey
Starts with single turn of wheel
Then pedal onwards
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They say they say that a century is an easy thing.
They say they say that anyone can do it.
They say they say: "You don't need to be Lance Armstrong you know."
They say they say: "Just stick some vaseline on your arse, drink before you're thirsty and eat before
you're hungry."
They say they say: "Some bugger did this on a 3-speed Raleigh shopper last year!"
And at the front of the pack, currently maintaining an easy pace of 18mph with a cadence of precisely
93 revolutions every 60 seconds of a standard clock, the High Priestess of the Triple Goddess of
Cycling is murmuring an invocation calling on every aspect, every facet, every fundamental thread of
the weave that is the magical fabric of her deity. Three Goddesses become one Goddess. Two Gods
become one God. God and Goddess sit in binary equilibrium and the stars thrum between them in the
great Dance just as the sacred chainrings hang from the roof of Their temple and quiver on their silver
threads.
This is no easy century done as part of Long Steady Distance training. This is no level 2 fat burning
jaunt. This is not a pub crawl or even a determined country-crossing into the teeth of a ferocious gale to
be greeted with hot towels, tea and beer.
This is the time of year when the God is at the nadir of His strength, before the great Rite of Spring
when traditionally gear cables are replaced with new twists in their sheaths of teflon, brake blocks
renewed, rims replaced, transmission serviced and headset overhauled. There is a slight imbalance in
the forces at large this day, as there is at all times of the year, for no equilibrium can be static. Yet this
imbalance does not work in the High Priestess' favour and her face is a mask of concentration beneath
the Rudy Projects.
Aeroflash rides above them, a scintillating blue apparition, lending his presence to offset the relative
weakness of the God, for without compensation the worthy warriors of Redshift, Arellcat and the other
recumbent riders would be at risk of being left behind in this most treacherous of journeys.
Something makes the peloton bunch up, and suddenly the A3400 is emptied of traffic. There are no
cars or lorries to blare their horns at the effrontery of a collection of cyclists, two-wheeled and three,
taking up the entire road. These are the border territories now, and the sacred texts of the Highway
Code and the Road Traffic Act do not have the same strength and power that they do in the world at
large.
Ravenbait sits up, no longer steering, entrusting that task to Fingal. Her noble steed's Lumicycles burst
forth in a stream of pure brilliance, illuminating a patch of space some distance ahead of them that
seems somehow removed from its surroundings. The space around this unstable patch becomes darker,
almost as if storm clouds have suddenly covered the sun. The air becomes very still. The edges of the
patch glow, as if defined by ribbons of starlight that shimmer and oscillate like torchlight on a ripple in
a fast-flowing stream.
The High Priestess is forming shapes in the air in front of her with her hands. The shapes themselves
are meaningless; they are nothing but mnemonics for the structure she is creating to turn the peloton
into an Egregore, the set that will contain them as they traverse reaches of A-Time that very few have
traversed before.
They bunch up further. Chuffy is heard whispering furiously to The Cardinal, who has chosen a very
poor moment to start sulking about Luther. Ahead of them the rift in space-time is growing, opening
wider and wider, the ribbons of its edges becoming thicker and beginning to show the complex cilia of
their structure. A steely tang of nervousness ripples through the pack.
As Fingal leads the pack straight for the centre of the rift, Ravenbait extends her right hand forward,
slowly, with much trembling, as if she is having to overcome a great resistance. The thumb and
forefinger are outstretched; the other three fingers folded over. All movement comes from her shoulder.
There is a flash of light as the rift stretches wide to allow the entire pack entrance. For the first time
they can see the fine details of the edges of the rift as they pass through: the fine-grain that is almost a
microscopic version of the crystalline hexagonal structure of the Giant's Causeway. But these are
horizontal, packed tightly, and yet they still move in tiny patches of iridescence like the tentacles on the
smallest of jellyfish.
Then they are through, and this section of A-Time, although not exactly the same as it was last time
they were there, in the great war against the Tour God Armstrong, for nothing in A-Time ever remains
the same, is at least not completely unfamiliar in essence, and the twin ravens who carry news of the
world and its history to the One-Eyed God every morning are already there waiting for them.
Impatiently.
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