A Sudden Glut of Gluttons

[Treadwell]

Two days of devoted council time were followed by three days of equally devoted dining.

At a little before five in the afternoon on the twenty-seventh, eleven bloated, overly stuffed Tubbian bishops all snore soundly in bedrooms allotted to them, sleeping off their early supper.

The twelfth would be Treadwell. He, unlike his rotund companions, managed to keep eating, at least until one of the initiates informed him that they were out of food in the kitchens and, if he pleased, he might wait until they could fix a little more.

Merry rolling laughter escaped Tready, and he agreed there was only one sufficient recourse. With a word of thanks and of encouragement to the initiate, Treadwell found his way to his carriage and rode to the Broken Dagger.

He still wanted dessert, and as fate would have it, Patchouli had two great, tasty, wonderfully goopy pumpkin pies waiting, seemingly just for him.

Praise Tubbius!

[Treadwell]

It is a cloudy morning in this corner of Myrken Wood on the twenty-eighth of February.

However, for the Church of Tubbius, business goes on as usual. Tubbius Regalis Treadwell arrives just as light creeps over the horizon, to join his Tubbian brothers in a daily feast at breakfast (whether or not he's already had something with his wife, of course), which is one of their ways to offer thanks to Tubbius for another day given to them that they might spend in merriment and excess.

This morning, though, finds this portly pontiff making an unusual request. Today marks another day to distribute food to the poor in Myrken Wood, and what better way to start that than to, before their pigging out, have these twelve officials from the various churches wobble into the basement of the church where the food is stored and to ask in prayer together for a blessing upon the food in Tubbius's house?

They do just that, of course, and they end up with a delightful surprise. On opening those twenty-four bleary, blurry eyes, this gathering of round old men begin yelping out shouts of praise and scrambling about the food and drink as fast as their rounded bodies can carry them. Moments ago, the barrels and boxes were mostly full, yes, although the day's deliveries would have likely cut their contents in half, leaving much less for the faithful. Now, though, food overflows, bags and boxes bulge and spill some of their contents, and barrels of wine swell in size nearly to bursting. All about the basement, and soon, throughout the church, ring cries of "Praise Tubbius!"

But after the initial euphoria in witnessing this, one of them takes a quiet trip distant, waddling up to his private chambers in the tip-top of the tallest tower on the church.

Treadwell has to reflect on all of this. A day that would have been spent in feasting and merely lying around giving orders will be spent, instead, in quiet meditating and studying. It is this seeming nonchalance that goes misunderstood by the jolly priests below. As the thirty-five others in the building leave Treadwell to whatever it is he's doing, among the praises and the cheers and the warbling, belted out hymns a repetition of that same idea from a few days ago emerges among the general population: only a god in a man's shape would be so level-headed about a sudden explosion of food and drink, an event never seen before in any of their lifetimes. This short, obese Tubbian leader must certainly be far more than he seems on his rounded, baggy surface. Such a thought is soon the only thought on many, many minds as breakfast is taken--without Treadwell coming down for an appearance, oddly enough--and a great portion of the newly given food is taken away to be distributed among the poor of Myrken Wood. That is, of course, what it was given to them for, was it not?

[Treadwell]

The twenty-ninth of February, the day after what has become known as the First Doubling of Food, the poor in Myrken Wood ate well. However, on this day, Tubbius Regalis Treadwell (not having quite dismissed his ten visiting elders from the other churches with a customary sermon and a feast yet) comes to an understanding of something Cinnabar Calomel told him earlier: having the poor eat well but once a week, or once every two weeks, does them little good when they don't eat the rest of the time.

Thus it is, on the tenth of March, that Treadwell calls all of the Tubbians--visiting and local alike--into the food stores again for a period of intense prayer and worship through song. The result is what the Tubbians hoped for, and more. Crates and casks split and expand as Tubbius happily lends his presence to the room of faithful, and food and wine abound again on top of the already more than gracious stores.

The manner in which it all appears, though, is decidedly unsettling to some. As with the first day of the Council of the Round, a most recognizable, most rotund, spectral figure appears around that shortest and roundest of believers, Mr. Treadwell, moments before the blessing pours forth. Gasps resound from all over, and murmured cries of "Tubbius!" and "The Great One!" and "May the Tubbius Regalis be blessed!" follow.

It is a second appearance of their deity through their leader and the Second Doubling of Food. And, as Treadwell himself is the only one who proves hearty enough to go on, it is Treadwell who promptly leads the great mass of men in a prayer of thanks before setting them to the task of arranging and ordering the food so that they might begin parceling out meals on a daily basis from its stores. "With careful planning," he notes, "we might make a miracle of our own, mmph mmph, and put all of this to good use without merely having more appear in our laps every day! I'll need some men to speak with me about how best to gather up similar stores from the local shops, hmm hmm, for daily distribution--and, of course, for our own supplies, as well! Myrken Wood, and yea, the whole land, must finally see this church as a center of growth, a beacon of hope, the belly from which all the folds of life ripple out to all who would need assurance and health!"

But, as Treadwell waddles away from the basement stores, huffing his way upstairs, he remains ignorant of a simple fact. The men in that room are doing more than merely looking up to him, now, more than merely seeing a connection between him and their god. Instead, word quickly spreads among the group gathered there of local Tubbians and foreign Tubbian elders: this man absolutely, thoroughly, positively must be something more than mere Tubbius Regalis in title. What other option, though, is there for this man to be their long-awaited Tubbius in secrecy and in name?

[Treadwell]

This morning, the sixteenth of March, the ten visiting elders finally leave the church of Tubbius in Myrken Wood behind, but only after joining their Myrken brothers in a worshipful, celebratory feast of grand proportions. Soon enough, though, five carriages have their horses hitched again, and those five carriages set to lazily rolling back out on various paths and roads to return to their homes.

Yet, one carriage comes in to the Church as the others leave. It contains four men--one middle-aged fellow, great of paunch and ruddy of beard, and three younger, skinnier gents in their late teens. One man, the same age as the young fellows within, sits out front driving the horses, and the sign on the side of the coach proclaims the chief guest to be one Bill Jacobson, Physician. The carriage stops within the church's courtyard, and, as a trio of the green-robed initiates come waddling up, the doctor within the carriage lets out a whistle, long and low.

"There are three," he muses, "and no fewer than ten like them just left, passing us on the road, and I see another four or five that-a-way. . . . Merciful me! Is this where Myrken Wood sends its fat, old, and infirm?"

The young man to Jacobson's right, a red-haired youth named Beames, chuckles. "Then you ought to be in rather good business as long as you stay around them, Father! Surely these men are all in good need of good medicine and help! And look! Here comes a man who looks important!"

"He certainly is a fat little ball, Beames, my boy. But, he is the only one wearing anything of the sort, with that funny hat--"

"I believe it's called a 'miter,' Father."

"Yes yes. Funny hat and that sash and the like. Ho there! You, sir! With the funny hat!"

The three initiates all turn in time, green robes swishing in the breeze as their leader waddles forth, one hand holding his cane and one hand scratching absently at his great middle.

"Tubbius!"

"Good day, Tubbius!"

"My lord!"

And so, three green-gowned men kneel as well as they can manage as the purple-robed fellow wobbles close to the carriage with, "Mmph mmph! Good day, Misterrrrr. . ." a glance at the side of the vehicle "Pardon me! Doctor Jacobson! What is it we at the Church of Tubbius might do for you and your fellows, mmph mmph?"

Mmph mmph? That throaty, guttural hacking of breath, amid wheeziness that sets that horridly round man blowing like a bellows, is enough to make the portly doctor wince.

"We desire a room for the night, and, tomorrow, to see whomever we might about finding a place to set up a business! I understand, Mister Tubbius, as I take it this is your name, that this Myrken Wood is a vile, vile place--and, dare I say such at the risk of offending you and yours, sir, that your--I venture!--holy brothers, with their great stomachs and old ages, are in great need of a good physician, and it seems to me that you have not had the chance to seek one out, for there is none available!"

A pause. A frown. A gentle shake of the head as Treadwell takes to chuckling merrily. "Mmph mmph! Hardly, my good doctor! And, yes, though you might call me 'Tubbius,' as a man's name demands, mmph mmph, do rest assured there's a perfectly good hospital in town, directly, hmm hmm, across from the Broken Dagger Inn."

And yet, as Treadwell nods, the doctor roars out a laugh and seizes on this opportunity!

"But that, Tubbius, is a great distance, yes? Surely you and your faithful, for I assume by your men's reactions that you are a man in command here, have little time and wish to expend little effort walking to a hospital well on the other end of your town?"

"Of course, sir, mmph mmph! However, thus far, our faith and our good practices, and our beliefs, have kept all of us well, healthy, and fit to burst! Should we need assistance, it's merely a short ride away, hmm hmm. . . . although we might be able to use a man of your talents, hmm hmm?"

"Aha!" Possible employment, and long-term! "And who is it that you serve, and what do you preach?"

"Tubbius!"

"Yourself?"

"In a manner of speaking!"

"In a manner of speaking, Tubbius?" One of the initiates pipes up. "You are our Great God in the flesh!" To which Treadwell pauses, reflects a moment, and, driven by an urge he doesn't understand at the moment, he nods in agreement and acceptance.

"Indeed! Now, good doctor, mmph mmph, shall I tell you of what we follow here? of what we practice and we preach?"

"Hogwash."

"No, sir, gluttony! The joys given to excess in one's ventures at the dinner table, and, yea, in life itself!"

"Merciful heavens. And you're all like this?" The doctor reaches a plump hand from a carriage window, poking the short, tubby elder in a breast.

"Indeed! You, sir, by the look of yourself, shall fit in quite nicely! We'll tell you all that you need to know so that you might set yourself aright with Tubbius Himself in very short order, and we shall even, mmph mmph, offer you and your help free room, board, and assistance for the first month!"

A pause.

There is a fat, lunatic man claiming to be a god before him.

There are three fat, lunatic men claiming that the first is a god, too.

There are likely a couple dozen or more others claiming the exact same thing and looking the exact same, here, too. Look! There are another six there, and one of them barely eight or nine, yet!

There is a great potential for a great deal of money, and, at the least, a great deal of free food out of all of this.

"Great Tubbius," Doctor Bill Jacobson chortles, wiggling back into his seat in the carriage, "which way do I tell my driver to go to your stables?"

[Treadwell]

It is simple to say that Doctor Bill Jacobson, newly arrived to the Church of Tubbius in Myrken Wood, is a most conflicted and confounded man. As he looks around him, he sees a little over two dozen fat men, from very young to rather old, all of whom he might label as abominations to good physical health. He also sees no obvious physical impairments among them other than the usual ones coming with being great of bellies. He also, finally, sees himself, so obviously close to being one of their round-stomached number if but for a difference in beliefs.

At least, that is what he came to the church thinking three days ago.

The last three days have been spent in a whirlwind mix of observations when he can manage them and feasting near to burst and getting good, long naps at every other moment of the day. It is, indeed, a lifestyle he is apparently growing to appreciate, as this third day, he finds himself being far less critical of his fellows. . . and he even has his oldest boy, Beames, bringing him a copy of their holy book. That old man they all call Tubbius (the only name and title that Dr. Jacobson knows him by at the moment!) seems to be in a very considerable position of authority, well-respected and quite nearly worshipped in his own right. But. . . what else is there to being one of these so-called Tubbians? This afternoon, finding some time to himself, the newly visiting doctor takes time to read, to accept new thoughts, and, slowly, to begin to change his ideas about old ones.

Might there, he wonders, be room for but one more new, green Tubbian in this bunch? Perhaps they're not so lunatic after all!

[Treadwell]

"My lord, Tubbius?" comes a voice, drowsy and distant, smoothly disrupting a remarkably pleasant dream of floating lazily through a fluid flow of food and ale. "It is time to wake!"

"Too early in the morning, mmph mmph," comes the squeaky, sleepy, grumpy reply without so much as an opening of eyes from Tubbius Regalis Treadwell.

"It's nearing three in the afternoon, my lord. I must give you your monthly looking over to ensure your good health!"

"Too early in the month, then!" Beady, wet eyes groggily open, squinting from their fleshy pits over glasses slid down on Treadwell's great, round nose. The old ball of a cleric and councilor rests in his massive, warmly filled bathtub at the Church of Tubbius, slumped into the water with a rag floating on his bosom.

"Hardly! I've been here among the Tubbians for nearly a year and a month, now, and you know that every month on the sixteenth, I--"

"Oh, pooh!" comes a flit of water from the tub at the portly doctor's graying, ruddy beard. "I know quite well about all of that. . . . Come now, chap. Aren't the facts obvious, hmm hmm?"

"What facts, dearest Tubbius?"

"That in spite of the extra rolls and sagginess here and there you always seem to find in these studies, that I never seem to be any worse for wear?"

"Well, yes, and a quizzically curious finding that is!"

"Then I shall assure you that in the last month, the tailors here at this church have found it necessary to let out my garments another inch, and yet I rest here quite soundly, like always, hmm hmm! Need you really, mmph mmph, ask me to haul myself out of this tub just for an examination of whether everything's still in good working order?"

"Ahem. Yes, dearest Tubbius."

"You can't be serious."

"I'm your doctor, my lord, or at least your doctor as you reside in this physical body."

Treadwell, at this, waves the doctor away and to the door of the room. Getting up and dried off proves the usual chore, but soon, there he stands wrapped in a Treadwell-sized towel as the tub empties its way through pipes leading outside. He's always thought it comical, this belief that he is more than just himself.

"But what if there's something to it, hmm hmm?"

From the doorway, with his back turned, the doctor gives a curious, "To what, my lord?"

"Nothing, nothing, Doctor. What of this examination?"

Doctor Jacobson smiles and pauses. "Now that you're up, I can see you're quite well from here, good, gentle Tubbius, as I'd hoped! But, perhaps I'd best leave you to your solitude, for now. Do forgive my waking you; I'll be back here, later, after I look at the others!"

Thus, as the doctor leaves, Treadwell stands there, puzzled and amazed--and, then, frustrated.

"Confound him! He made me empty a perfectly good bath for that!"

[Treadwell]

Life for Aloisius Horatio Treadwell these last few months had been alternately busy and restful, with more the former than the latter. When a man wears four hats--father, toymaker, priest, and bureaucrat--he has quite a lot going on, and it is, tonight, an exhausted Aloisius Treadwell who flumps snoozily into his usual wide-bottomed rocking chair in his office at the Church of Tubbius. He'd spent some time over the last days worrying about the dragon attacks on the town, yes, and wondering what the other councilors (and the Governor!) were doing about it all. But what of today?

Today was a day spent in preaching and feasting, but it was preceded by several days of gathering taxes--end of the month ingathering, of course--and before that a mad, frenzied burst of creativity at his toy shop as he worked to fill holes on tables and shelves with plump, brightly colored plush animals and expertly carved wooden trinkets. Tonight, though, all hats are off, and Tready is merely a man a-snoring.

He'll worry some more about the various dragony concerns tomorrow night, after he comes to from sleeping the day away and wakes only because of the incessant rumblings of his ever-hungry tummy.

What he won't find out until that time is that, near supper, a certain scrawny, captive, long since arrested fellow called The Fox will have simply disappeared from his cell. Disappeared! With no sign of escape, no sign of resistance, and no sign of HIM.

A tubby old man worrying about appearing dragons and disappearing foxes. . . maybe that's meant to be hat number five?

[Treadwell]

"OOMPH! Mmph mmph! Just a little dad-blamed tight!" Fleshy fingers dig in roly-poly sides, trying to work a pair of red velvet pants up and around the fat legs of--

"Aloisius Horatio Treadwell, my dearest! You, love, really ought to reconsider trying to put any of that on yourself!"

Alice Treadwell, mother of Aloisius' two babies (now a little over a year old and eating and growing immensely!), stands in arm's reach of her husband, her own plump fingers waggling at the tax collector's sides.

"Really, love! You've had those pants and that shirt that you're trying to squeeze yourself into for--how long has it been since you were married to Raylan?"

"Five years, nearly six!" Treadwell breathlessly squeaks. Breathlessly because--

"Nearly six years of growth about you all around! Most normal folks in this town gain but a little yearly, if they live very long, but those like you--and, sadly, me, my dear--put on a little more than that." A wag of a finger follows with a jab of that finger into Treadwell's cavern of a belly button, sitting exposed. His green, long-sleeved shirt is barely buttoned at all from the top down; the top two buttons are horribly tight, about to burst and go flying if the old man breathes any harder than he is or tries to relax (or let loose the gut he's trying to suck in). The rest of the garment is stuck tight to his frame, its buttons not hoping to meet anywhere in close proximity with each other.

"And, Aloisius, remember that you've put on much of this from your devotion to your Tubbius!" Mrs. Treadwell snorts at this, shaking her head.

"My Tubbius has blessed me quite well, love, and you, too! Look at us, and look at our babies, living symbols of his blessings and grace!"

"Spoken like a right serious old priest, Tready, but there's the fact that you're not going anywhere like that unless you have your Tubbius perform some manner of sign or wonder and make those clothes fit you."

"And he could, love! If he could bless us with our babies at OUR ages, then he could certainly make my clothing fit if he so chose."

"I just think you're going through too much trouble trying to impress your fellows in Westenford whom you want to go see. Allie, THEY know you're a fattening hog. Trying to go visit Jon Lincoln and the rest wearing six year old clothing is only going to make you look the fool. And having to wear that the whole trip there? It's rather amusing!"

"Ooooooh!" Treadwell sinks huffily against the side of his bed, his pants tugged barely over another ripple of his thighs. "My darling Alice. . . it's cold out there, and I love the feel of velvet when it's cold out, and Westenford is on the beach! It's going to be cold there! Mmph mmph! Besides, I could shorten the trip and avoid the clothing issue altogether were I to devote myself to the praise and worship and study of Tubbius in prayer and song, to embody his great body in mine and, in doing so, to grow in size 'til one half of my behind rested in Silver Lake and one half in the waters of the bay off the cliff at Westenford!"

"Well, you're doing a damn fine job of embodying him, already, Allie." Another forceful poke of pudgy pointer to bloated belly. "You're right nearly bursting out of anything you put on to wear, even your newest Tubbian robes. And besides that--you're disgraceful! You--your--" A frustrated flap of hands at Treadwell's waist. "Your man parts! They're showing through the velvet! Have you no shame?"

To which Treadwell merely guffaws in laughter, setting one of the two buttons on his shirt to popping open with the mirth.

"That much, hmm hmm, could be fixed, my love, with a touch of, hmm hmm, assistance?" The old man gives his wife a mischievous, playful wink that sets his glasses slipping down his round shnozz.

"Heavens no!" And so Aloisius's glasses are knocked back up his nose with a slap of Alice's hand to the tax collector's cheek. "We have two babies in there but a year and some old yet, and you're not having your Tubbius magicking the two of us again so I have to push out another pair just like them!"

With that, Alice turns, takes her dress in her hands, and toddles for the bedroom door.

"For that, you can dress yourself, Aloisius Treadwell!"

"But sweetums! You know I can't see colors! I'm likely to come out looking like a fool, a court jester in motley!" He reaches up to rub his now stinging jowl.

"What do you think you look like now, Tready?"

A moment's reflection at that, and--

"Hmph. Quite right. . . . I--I'm sorry, dearest. Could you--would you--help me find something that looks better and fits?"

Alice Treadwell stands there, her hands on her hips, staring at her huffy, sweating husband. A sigh shakes her body, and with a half-smile slowly creeping to her face, she walks back across the bedroom, stopping to open up Aloisius's wardrobe and sort through the multitude of horrifically bright, garish clothing.

"Here. Something simple, something elegant. Pray it fits."

She pulls out the parts to a suit: royal blue coat and trousers, with a brilliant yellow shirt, cummerbund, gloves, and top hat.

"If nothing else, it should look better on you than red and green. Those, love, really aren't your colors when you wear them together. This is. . . a touch more sensible, at least. . . ." Alice frowns worriedly at the wardrobe. Was there anything sensible in there at all? For that matter, was Treadwell himself ever sensible?

[Treadwell]

Four days into traveling to the northwest through sudden ice and snow in the middle of the Amasynian plains later, Aloisius Treadwell and his driver, town crier Jack Alldale, and his horse, Arnold, all come to a slow and sluggish stop beside the decaying remains of a church devoted to an as yet unknown deity of an apparently fallen religion. The blue and yellow suit has long since been exchanged for the considerably warmer purple and white robes of his position as Tubbius Regalis. However, driver and horse both shudder in the cold and--

"The snow, Counc'lor Tread'ell! It's a-comin' down pretty good, now, y'see, and it seems 'at just about ever' god out there's a-wantin' us to stop here and wait this out!"

Beady eyes squint through frosted glasses out at the snow being whipped about by wind. A floofy bearded head bobs up and down. "Well, Jack, mmph mmph, help me get by stuff inside!"

"Oh, that's simple enough, Counc'lor! There's a hole in that there wall, you see, big 'nough for us to drive in!"

"Fine, fine! Go!" And with that, reins snap, and Treadwell is jerked back into his pillowy carriage seat as Arnold stumbles into motion.

The interior of the church hardly proves inviting, at first. It is cold. Snow rests in the floor, filling up a corner of the building where the roof has collapsed over time. However, most of the main hall and some of the back rooms seem intact. Soon enough, Aloisius Treadwell is shuffling huffily out of the back of the coach, his cane in a gloved hand with his other hand resting on his middle.

"Jack, it looks like this is to be home for a few days! What do you think, mmph mmph?"

"I think, beggin' y'pardon, Counc'lor, Father, what-'ave-you, that we're in a mite of trouble!" Jack's country twang squeaks from the back of the carriage. "We're about near out of food and drink, and there's not any tellin' 'ow long we're to be stuck in 'ere!"

"Ooooooh, pooh! Look my way, lad! Think you that Great Tubbius would let his favorite, most blessed son starve?"

"Well, umm--y'ain't so far, Counc'lor. That's why we ain't got no food left."

"Hush, m'boy! Tubbius will provide!" With that simple declaration bellowed out, Aloisius starts shuffling about the sanctuary before him, absently pulling his copy of The Folds of Tubbius from his robe and peering this way and that way, studying what remains of the architecture.

"Something, Jack. . . Something about this place is frighteningly familiar. I can't quite place it, yet, though, mmph mmph. I reckon it will come to me."

"Don't waddle off too far, Counc'lor Tready! I'll need to be a-buildin' a fire in here, and it wouldn't do for ye to get lost from it!"

"Go ahead!" With that, Treadwell plods onto the dais at the front, where a stone pulpit stands with a matching bench behind it. He runs a hand over the furniture, then prods at them with his cane. "Mmph. Seems sturdy enough. Jack, how long might it take you to get that fire up?"

"Have to find some dry wood, first, and then a dry patch of ground in here, and then the time to start it up. . . . With weather like this? An hour? Two?"

"Good! Wake me when you're done with it, hmm hmm! I'm tuckered out, lad, and I think I'm about to need a good nap!" So, scratching his middle, Treadwell eeeeeases onto the stone bench behind the pulpit, stuffing his gloved hands into the voluminous sleeves of his robes. Soon enough, as Jack Alldale busies himself with finding firewood, Treadwell begins to snore. . . and to dream.

= = = = =

The first sensations Aloisius notices as the wishy-washy swimminess of dreaming gives away to the more believable feelings of solidity and reality that some dreams can bring are physical ones.

He is shorter even than his own mere five feet, four inches, standing perhaps five feet at most.

He is younger; the snowy white of his beard is replaced with, as well as his gray-seeing eyes can tell, a rich brown of middle-age with only minimal elderly streaks. Wrinkles are less prevalent--at least, wrinkles caused by age.

He is a great deal heavier and rounder--perhaps by a good hundred pounds atop his already corpulent frame. His breath is in even more labored huffs; his every last joint aches and throbs in agony as he waddles about, arms flailing emphatically in the air before him, his brown fur robe and fleshy limbs both a-jiggle furiously.

He is clearly someone else.

"Ploavian brethren!" The announcement is sharp, forceful, and addressed to nine other men who are varying degrees of middle-age to elderly, all frail and fragile. "I have received in a vision from Ploav himself knowledge that should frighten us, rectify us, and make us fear the state of our very souls, of our very salvation!"

Not an "Mmph mmph!" in the language anywhere, but it is at this point that this fellow--for it can't be Treadwell, can it?--wheezes mightily, a hand going for his burning chest. One of the eldest men, a balding gentleman in the back, pipes out a concerned, "Tobias?" that only gets a few nods from this man whose perspective Treadwell now shares.

"Ploav," the name is croaked breathlessly, "grows weak, infirm! Every religion I've studied of claims that gods make us in their images, but in my vision of Ploav last night--" a pause here to gulp at water from a mug brought shakily to the priest.

"In my vision of Ploav last night, I should think it is the other way around! He sat at a dining hall table, a tired and grizzled old man, wearied and fragile and as frail as any of the lot of you there before me. 'Tobias, my son,' he said, 'I have two requests of you. Order your brothers to feed me, and you--you dine with me, at my side.'"

Gasps shudder through the small crowd in a rippling wave.

"And then, brothers, I awoke--though not before I realized we should take his orders quite, quite literally! Ploav is our Harvest Lord--a god devoted to food, to bounty, to excess raised by our hands! And yet. . . we lack the devotion to show him what we think of this bounty. I say we should harken to Ploav, and we must feed him--by feeding ourselves, and abundantly so, in matters both spiritual and physical! Devote yourselves not only to your books, your scriptures, your work, but to your dining, my brothers, if Ploav is to endure!"

= = = = =

Later. But only a little later, as well as Aloisius can tell in his dreams. The age of this dream-body he shares is still close to that of before, though, perhaps, slightly more rotund. Warm merriment and jolly happiness rolls forth from his voice as his dream self stands at the same stone pulpit he sleeps behind in reality.

"Splendid, wonderful, and perfect, my Ploavian brothers!" At such declaration, the brothers in question grow clearer. There is a difference in age--five years, perhaps?--and the nine heads in the room are grown to twenty-five at a glance. . . and of the twenty-five bodies in the room, not one is slim, frail, or even merely average in weight. All are certainly pushing toward portliness.

"I saw Ploav in my second vision of him last night, my second in these five long years! His dining hall was the same but for two things: his table was stocked exceedingly full with wondrous foods and drinks, and he, himself, was much like one of us!" A slap down of both arms to the sides of his baggy middle as a great, warm grin stretches over this Tobias's face. "He has grown as our devotion to him in all ways has grown! His girth now rivals that of Porcus, the swollen mother of all the pigs! He was one of the tubbiest gods one might ever be blessed to see!"

A pause as the rapt congregation hangs on this announcement.

"And he told me his new name, his most holy name for us to know and use in praise. Ploav Tubbius!"

= = = = =

A burst of cheerful praising rings in the priest's ears as Aloisius Horatio Treadwell jerks up on his stone bench, forcing the wind from his own great self with his sudden motion. Moments after this, with his spectacled eyes sweeping the building to the small fire pit Jack Alldale has built, he sluggishly gets to his feet, cane in hand, slight tremors running through his body.

"Counc'lor Tread'ell? Are ye a'right? Wha--what think ye of the buildin', of the fire, sir?"

"Jack. . . Jack, m'boy. . . . Mmph mmph! This. . . this is a most holy place! I--I don't know all of it, yet, so I won't speak further than this: pray you take very good care that the fire doesn't spread and damage anything, mmph mmph!"

[Treadwell]

Yesterday, the first morning of the new year, A. R. 210.

"Now, Counc'lor Tready. . . I can unnerstand what ye were a-sayin' a day or two back 'bout your old Tubbius fella providin' for ye. . . an' I can unnerstand what you were a-sayin' about this bein' a holy place an' all. . . an I can unnerstand we've 'ad it easy 'ere, findin' places to sleep an' somewhere to put Arnold an' the carriage 'spite our bein' snowed in awful good with that mess 'at come through 'is morning. . ."

The town crier's monologue stops here as he crunches his teeth into a leg of mutton layered in fat and meat. After he swallows?

"But I can't unnerstand how ye made all this stuff just up an' appear here when we run out o' food th'other night! Last I knowed, I found ye prayin' in this 'ere basement room, and then poof, hey, presto! We were lit'rally up to our arses in piles of food and barr'ls of beer! How'd ye do 'at?"

A well-fed urrrrrrrrrurrrrrrrp sets Treadwell quivering where he sits, sprawled out on a stone bench meant for holding provisions in the dimly lit basement storage room that Jack Alldale has so twangily indicated.

"Mmph MMPH! Delicious! Now, Jack, I can tell you, but it's a rather simple matter, m'boy. It's about having faith, about believing in what this building and these robes I wear and this girth I waddle about with all represent!"

"An' what izzat, Yer Honor?" Crunch. "Darn good meat, too."

"It is Tubbius, Jack! Tubbius, who grew to replace the nature and harvest deity Ploav in his own time, who lives to spread the joys of downright, hmm hmm, enjoying gluttony and simply stuffing oneself to swelling and nearly bursting! As I said, Jack, Tubbius wouldn't let his favorite son starve! No, no, no!"

As Treadwell pauses here to gulp at a mug of beer taken from a cask spirited into the basement this morning of the first, Alldale responds with a flurry of questions.

"Replace? What'd that Ploav fella do wrong? An' how's a god get away with just 'couraging folks t'eat all the time--no offense, Counc'lor, an' beggin' yer pardon--like fattenin' pigs at a feedin' trough? Don't ye ever t'work or do anythin' good for folks, like most monks who go 'round starvin' theirselves an' roamin' around lookin' all pitiful?"

Beer flows freely into Aloisius Treadwell's throat, and, after Treadwell gulps away the contents of that mug, he stands creakily, cane in one hand and mug in the other, to toddle a little wobbily over to the cask he drew the first cup from. More flows forth into his cup, much to his humming merriment.

"Ploav didn't do a thing wrong, Jack. It's all about what folks believed. When the Ploavians turned their attentions, hmm hmm, too far from how they had been thinking about Ploav, and they started seeing Him very differently--"

"Now whatcha mean there, Tready? Seein' 'im different?"

"I mean seeing Him differently! Understanding a god differently means you take His rulings in a new light; you come to learn new insights from your scriptures; you start depicting Him differently in pictures and in descriptions in holy texts. . . . In short, as the followers of Ploav stopped seeing him as a thin, frail, fragile old man, mmph mmph, they had to see him as something else, and what they started seeing--"

"Yes yes, Tready?"

"--started seeing Him as was the image their newly christened leader, Tobias, was presenting to them, an image that corresponded with his own gloriously rounded figure!"

"So 'e tricked 'em? 'e fooled 'em into thinkin' somethin' new?"

"Not a BIT!" With that, Treadwell gulps down the last of his mug of beer and shakes his head furiously, reaching for another leg of mutton--one of perhaps a hundred in a pyramid against the wall. His belly gives a delighted burbling as he resumes eating.

"Not a BIT! He hinted a few times, here and there, in his sermons and prayers, that he was truly more than merely a man. He started performing miracles, much like this one here, Tubbius be praised, in their very presence! In short, folks began to understand a very simple truth: this Tobias was really the newest incarnation, the newest appearance, of Ploav Tubbius, and, in short order, the Ploav was dropped in ceremonies and worship, mmph mmph, leaving just the Tubbius in the name!"

"So 'e was a god all along, lookin' to get folks to unnerstand him different? 'e came down here from--from wherever he's from jus' so 'is followers could change their look an' beliefs of him?"

"That, and more! He came here to get people to understand that He was about more than just harvesting the food! Tubbius wanted us all to enjoy it, and quite thoroughly so! Now, speaking of that, I'm still hungry. I'm going to sit down here and eat some more of this. You ought to take some of those oats up to Arnold and get him fed, hmm hmm?"

"Yessir, Tready sir!"

With that, Jack Alldale picks himself up, his skinny self already bulging full-bellied from sitting in this basement buffet all morning with Aloisius Treadwell, a man who it seemed could simply eat and eat and eat. Oat sack in hand, Jack heads upstairs, relying on a lit candle in his free hand to guide him through the darkened hallways that fail to have enough holes in their ceilings to let the morning sun pour through. After a few moments, he comes running back downstairs with a simple message.

"Counc'lor! Preacher! Tready! 'elp! 'elp!" The bag of oats drops back onto the hook it came from, and a winded Jack stands there, holding his chest and huffing mightily for breath. Treadwell jerks up where he sits, mouth in mid-munch of mutton. A few slooooow bites later, and a wash of beer to follow it down, he asks a simple question.

"Jack, what is it?"

"We--We--This church. . . ."

"Yes, Jack?"

"The church is a-haunted!"

[Treadwell]

(Morning of the first, continued)

"Haunted, Jack?"

"Haunted, Tready! G-Go upstairs fer yerself and 'ave a good look!"

Chomp go Treadwell's teeth on his leg of meat.

"And what will I be looking for, Jack?"

"It's a woman! A woman!"

"Well, who's to say that there couldn't be a woman really here, mmph mmph, a woman we've been missing the whole time?"

"Awwww! Just get off yer big butt and go look!"

So, with a belly-smushing "Oomph!", Aloisius Treadwell huffs his way to his feet, grabbing his walking cane in one hand and fumbling for a lit candle with the other. Wobbily, woobily he makes his way upstairs, a definite sway to his steps hinting at the mugs of beer guzzled down in short order. A peek to the left and a peek to the right later, he calls back down through the open basement doorway.

"I don't see anything!"

And from below?

"Keep a-walkin'! She's up'ere!"

"Which way?" comes the soured reply. "You're making me miss my lunch!"

"Ye've been a-eatin' since 'fore breakfas'! Go on to the right!"

"To the right. Hmph!" Thus, Treadwell lurches toward the right, ambling lazily up the hall with his cane thumping along with his feet. The door to the long unused kitchen is past--and longingly glanced inside--and then, closing in on one of many empty bedrooms, he stops.

The church is indeed haunted. Beady, bleary eyes settle on the slightly transparent shade of a short, very stout woman, dressed in Tubbian robes and gently rubbing at her middle with both hands. She stands--no, floats, as the bottom of her robe and her feet fade into mist--facing Treadwell, and with a plaintive, pained, "Tobyyyy, it's time!", she disappears completely.

At that, Treadwell toddles a few steps backward, turns, and wobbily scurries back toward the basement door. "Jack! Get up here! We've some studying and hunting to do!"

= = = = =

It is noon of the second of the month. The outside of the church, certain rooms inside the church, and the surrounding countryside still lie under a sheet of white, cold snow. Aloisius Treadwell and Jack Alldale sit in the one warm location: where they've been keeping a fire in a small pit dug out of the floor of the church sanctuary, with one of the tiles shoved out of place to make room.

"I still don' unnerstand why she called ye 'Toby,' Counc'lor."

"Well, lad, it's obvious that I look a bit like him, whoever he is!"

"That, or ghosts just say the same stuff to ever'body."

"Did she call you anything, mmph mmph?"

"Err, no, she didn'. She just stood there a-lookin' all pained in the face, like she was goin' t'be close to layin' her litter right'ere in the floor, yet."

"And? Anything else?"

"And she looked a mite lost, t'me. Don' see why. She was standin' 'tween a kitchen door anna bedroom door, and those are th'only two places a woman in her shape ought t'be a-goin'!"

"In her shape." Treadwell shakes his head at this. "She's short, fat, and pregnant. She probably died, mmph mmph, giving birth. That's my guess."

"Oh. Sorry, Tready. Didn't mean t'offend ye."

"It's fine, Jack. You're not hurting my feelings, mmph mmph."

A pause, and then a puzzled, "Well, Counc'lor, what d'we do now?"

"I'm not rightly sure, Jack. We searched this side of the building fairly well yesterday."

"Fairly well! You were sweatin' like a overworked beast!"

"Oh, shush. I'm not used to going up and down that many stairs."

"So what're ye sayin', Tready?"

"I'm saying, now that I think about it, that you should keep this fire going, try to heat some of the food from downstairs, and take care of Arnold, while I, mmph mmph, go looking about the other half of the church."

"Do ye 'ave any ideas 'bout where to start?"

This question, simply uttered, forces Treadwell to pause a moment.

"What color robes did she have on, Jack?"

"What color robes? Couldn' ye see 'em? What's 'at matter?"

"No, I couldn't. I can't see that sort of thing right. Now, just tell me?"

"Green, Counc'lor Tready."

"So she was new to the church, in life."

"Eh?"

"The robes, lad. They're different colors depending on how long folks have been in the faith and depending on what they do, hmm hmm."

"So 'at's why ol' Tready has th'only purple ones with the gold on the tummy and the funny hat?"

"Mmph mmph!" with a nod as he gets to his feet.

"Tready?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"Jus' be careful, a'ight?"

Treadwell gives another nod, grabs his cane and a candle (one of many sitting around them, recovered from various bedrooms in their search yesterday), lights the candle from another one, and turns. He has the entire west wing of the church and some rooms in a back, central tower to search.

"Guess I'm off to that tower, first. Shame, hmm hmm, I've got to go through that open, cold yard to get there!"

[Treadwell]

It is just entering the early afternoon of the second of the month. Aloisius Treadwell opens the back door of the church sanctuary, sending a cold burst of wind and snow into his face, and out into the courtyard he wobbles, his cane and a candle in his hands.

The courtyard itself is a white, snowy sheet, with a decaying statue of the round-bodied frame of the seated god Tubbius in the middle. No pathways are evident due to the snow on the ground; no foliage has survived. It is a quick, shivery walk across the yard to the tower in the back of the church--a tower that has a single door for an entrance, and that single door is locked.

"Mmph mmph! But I certainly have to get in there, to see what's around, hmm hmm! I'd rather not have to damage the door, you know." Fat, bulgy jowls wiggle about as the old gentleman talks, confounded by his situation.

And at that proclamation, a particularly harsh gust sets the hefty old man toppling forward into the door in question, smashing it open (but keeping it on its hinges, somehow unharmed) while extinguishing the visiting priest's candle. With knees throbbing, Treadwell steadies himself on his cane, peering around in the newly opened area through the sunlight peeping in from the door. He notices one oddity almost immediately.

"My goodness! This. . . this place looks like it's fresh and new! There's not a hint of dust in here, not a bit of rot or a spider's cobweb or anything!" Toddling over a few feet, he hazards settling his bulk into a padded chair sized for someone even slightly larger than himself, acknowledging to himself with a delighted sigh that "My, my, my! This is quite comfy!" A pause, a nod, a folding of a hand over his belly as he sets his cane on a polished wooden table to his left. "It must be some manner of magic!" And, narrowing his eyes so that the beady balls hide in their fleshy depths, he peeks around again. "It must be! But why? What is there to keep in sound shape here?" Feet flatten on the floor, cane thumps into place, and with a grunt, up from his seat Tready rises.

It's a sitting room, it seems, elegantly furnished with plushly padded chairs and a similar couch, with a writing desk in one corner. The desk is clean and neat; an inkwell sits full and wet atop it, with quills cut and placed beside and with parchment resting on the writing surface. An open arch leads to a spiral stair that circles up inside the tower wall. "And there, Treadwell, there!" Hanging by that arch is a lantern, already full of oil on inspection, with a small box of flint and steel nearby it. The candle is exchanged, and, with minimal fuss, the lamp is lit. A marvelous grin spreads across the face of the Tubbius Stomachus, and up the stairs he begins to huffily puff.

The first floor reached has two rooms, and rightly placed: to the left, a fully stocked kitchen, with fresh food awaiting a feast; to the right, connected to the landing for the stairs, a simple dining room. There is a stout-legged, round, wooden table with seating for one, and an intricate carving filled with golden script where the chair is pushed in. "Tubbius." A pause. The lamp and cane set down, a plump hand is put to the back of the chair, pulling it out, and Tready eases into the seat, which is padded like the chairs below. In a moment, the councilor turned priest's other hand rubs across the golden text. Drowsiness comes almost immediately. There is a stomach-spinning sensation of dizziness and a closing of the old man's eyes.

"Tubbius." Eyes bat open, and feelings groggily come around. There is an absurd level of overstuffed fullness in the engrossed stomach the same size as in Treadwell's earlier dream in the sanctuary of the church. Eyes focus blearily at plates devoured and picked clean--and one more only half so, and after that, a mug of beer mostly full. His robe is open to allow room for swelling; his gut bathes in the rays of warm sunlight carressing it through a window to the side.

"Tubbius. My Lord. Divine Father, wake yourself." A gruff, elderly voice coming from misty haze that now grows clear. There. Graying blond hair. A full beard and mustache. A noteworthy paunch. The black robe and purple skullcap of a Lord Tubbian. "You haven't finished. Though this body in which you reside be mortal and though it has its limits of what it can eat, it is your divine, all-engorging soul to which I entreat. I pray you: finish your lunchtime repast."

Fat, fleshy fingers--free of the white gloves resting on the table's edge--find eating utensils again, and the elderly tub grunts, shifts upright in his chair, and resumes what is apparently his lunch, to a silent and warm smile from his follower.

"I had the queerest of visions last night, Lord Tubbian." The voice from this dream-body is elderly, piping, tremulous, perhaps that of a man many years Treadwell's senior. "This church lay under the cold sheath of winter, and, yet, it lay empty save for one of our number, who seemed confused in being here. It was as if he was seeking an answer to something."

"An answer? I can't fathom to what. All is well, Father. Rest you, now. There is a time for divinity to break through into mortal thoughts and guise, but now?" Tap-tump go plump fingers on the now empty plate and mug. "Now it is time for you to nap, to sleep, to bask in the prayers of your saints."

"Mmmmm. And what of Lucy? What of our baby, who was to be born during the morning?"

The Lord Tubbian pauses in his clearing of dishes.

"She has passed, Father Tubbius. The boy, however, lives. It is your responsibility to name your progeny, of course."

At this, Aloisius Treadwell awakes with a mighty rumbling snore, still sitting at the dinner table, his robe closed, his body its usual size, the table clean and absent of a feast. A bit of wheezing for breath later, he scritch-scratches at his beard and jowls.

"Lucy? The boy? Progeny? By Tubbius's great white gut. . . it's not recorded in The Folds that He ever had a son!"

[Treadwell]

Moments after Treadwell's last announcement , the visiting cleric streeeeetches his heavy, baggy arms, bringing his hands to rest on the sides of the wooden table before him, fingers closing at its edge. A warbling yawn finally escapes his lips as, from the archway leading to the kitchen, a man appears with hesitant, lumbering steps.

A man! No ghost, this, but, with a moment's recollection and study from Treadwell, the same man of his moments-recent dream-vision: the same grayed hair with tiny tiny tufts of blond at the ears, the same floofy beard and mustache, the same purple and black garb of a Lord Tubbian, the same respectable paunch that comes some inches short of rivaling that of Treadwell himself. The man speaks in that same gruff, aged voice.

"Tubbius! My Lord! Divine Father! You--after all these long years, all my patient wait here in your former mortal home, you return on the eve after your former body's passing in a new, younger. . . slimmer. . . form!"

Incredulousness and confusion work over Treadwell's face, urging baggy jowls into a frown. "Mmph mmph! Begging your pardon, sir, but what do you mean?"

To which the aged visitor scurries creakily across the floor, his quaking hands outstretched to rudely thrust into the sides of Treadwell's stomach, his thumbs digging around harshly in search of--"There! My Divine Father, I understand that you no longer can recall, in this body, the knowledge of which you were once aware of in all its facets, clearly, like viewing the depths of a lake on which the gleaming sun of the morning dawn does shine! I--begging your pardon, Father--I must ask you to disrobe, for we have something about you to discuss!"

"Ummph!" Thus spoken, Treadwell brushes away the old priest's still tightly groping hands. As the visitor wobbles back, Aloisius gets to his feet. As requested, he undoes the sash on his robe, letting it fall open to reveal under it the matching, similarly tied inner robe. It is opened as well, and the purple silk waistcoat vest beneath it is carefully rolled up. There, visible through the purple shirt (and, yes, white pajama jumper beneath that) is the outline of Treadwell's roly-poly girth, with its most unusual markings in the flesh.

Encircling his navel are two broad, raised, fleshy rings, the inner offset down some from the outer--rings that match the similar designs on his Tubbian garb.

"There! You can see them, My Lord! The Rings of Tubbius?" Excitement in the gruff, aged voice.

"Of course I can, Lord Tubbian, and--!"

"When did they appear in your flesh, Holy One?"

A pause to reflect. "Well, I started putting on flesh a bit more than my usual, mmph mmph, after I became a Tubbian--"

"Became a Tubbian! You have always been one, Holy Father, whether you recall it or not!"

"After I became a Tubbian, and in those early months, after I performed one of my first miracles--a doubling of food in the stores in the church basement--I woke to find these pooching out as you see here. I, ahem, have kept it all, mmph mmph, rather quiet. Only Doctor Jacobson, at home, knows of them, mmph mmph, and that's because he has to see this whole fat body!"

"An envious proposition, Divine Father!"

"And how by Tubbius's great gut did you know a thing about them, ho ho?" That said, Treadwell begins rolling down his vest and closing up the inner and outer robes he wears, shivering.

"You told me, My Lord."

"I told you? I would order you to pinch me to wake me from this dream if you hadn't so harshly bruised my belly already, sir! I've been having visions already here at this church, hmm hmm, so how do I know you're not just one of them?"

"YOU told ME, Father, the morning of your passing, after the birth of your baby boy by your beloved--"

"My beloved. Her name." A clearing of Treadwell's throat.

"Lucinda. You called her Lucy, sir."

"Her lineage. Her family line. Her history."

"I would think it to be the same as yours, My Lord. You told me--"

"I told you what?"

"Begging your pardon, My Lord, but I am getting to that."

"Go on."

"You told me to see that the boy would be raised by his grandfather--Lucy's father, as your family name was lost, and you were raised solely as Tobias, the name we found written as a single, one-worded note tucked in your baby blanket. In your grief over Lucy's passing in delivering your heir. . . your heart, sir. . . ."

"Yes yes?"

"Ahem!" A fluttery wave of both hands at Treadwell's bosom. "We had to see you to your bed immediately. I tended you in those final, short hours--a right odd sight, we, you of seventy-five years since I found you on the doorstep, me aged eighty-five--and you told me that you would, as you prophesied and dictated in your lovely, beautiful Folds of Tubbius, return to my side one day, to this very tower, and all would be well for our brethren--forever!"

"Mmph. And what, hmm hmm, were the details of those final moments, as you say? I'm well aware Tubbius was mortal once, and I'm well aware of his promised return, Lord Tubbian."

"Promised! Present! You are here, Divine Father!"

"And that is what I question! I still see, in dreams and holy visions, Tubbius Himself resting on his endless plain!"

"Your divine soul maintains its holy state even amid your mortal flesh, Father, even if your memory recalls it not."

"And yet I converse with Tubbius as if He is a separate entity."

"It is easier that way for a man's mind to understand, and it is a necessary block to godly powers in a frail, human shape. Should you fully manifest here in Amasynia, then the world itself would be undone!"

"I still believe He and I are two very different men. I am but a follower, Lord Tubbian."

To which the Lord Tubbian shakes his head with a smile. "You believed that so completely in your first visit to us that it made it difficult for you to accept the possibility otherwise, even then--but we did, all of us, all of your children. It is that faith that, I feel, ensured your safe return to us."

"Hmph!" Treadwell turns, peering at the continuing stairs.

"Well, what did I tell you at the last, then, assuming you are correct--and if you are not, well, I assume there's no harm in allowing beliefs to continue. . . but I tell you I simply can't be Tubbius."

"And why not?" Another jab of thumb into one of the flabby rings so well hidden by layers of clothing. "Whether you are or not--and I believe you to be Him who was once known as Ploav of the Harvest and is now known as Tubbius the Great--is of little matter, in all honesty. If you are, then I and all my holy brothers are correct, and you merely await divine revelation and a second return to your endless fields of delight. If I am incorrect, then there is more to this, and there is another to come--but I assure you, Tubbius Regalis, that there is no other."

A moment to let that proclamation settle.

"Up the stairs with me, Divine Father. This tower is as pristine as the day it was built. As you told me on your deathbed that it would be, I have not aged a bit since your first passing, though it has been two centuries hence by my reckoning. Your personal belongings await, untouched, in your bedchamber above, and I shall tell you of Lucy and of your mortal heritage--a heritage, I suppose, has come to a circle, for as a man, you fathered a child, and, though I know not your mortal name yet, Tubbius Regalis, you told me in private two centuries past that the father would one day see the son rise to Tubbian glory."

A pause for the elder Lord Tubbian to hack and cough as they take to the stairs. "You might not recall any of this, but I claim it all the truth, and, though none of my brothers know of the child and its line, as it was kept immeasurably quiet even in your time with Lucy, it is the truth, indeed. I am Lord Tubbian James Wilde. Two centuries ago, you knew me as Jim. Think you all of this madness, Divine Father?"

Treadwell nods his head slightly. An actor by trade of years past, the nod of the head is marginal enough to resemble that of mere thought, as is the "Oh?" of curiosity after, regardless of the actual feelings of confusion and bamboozlement inside the portly priest and politician. "Lead on, Jim. Up the steps, hmm hmm, and carefully."

[Treadwell]

Still the afternoon of the second of the first month.

Thirty steep steps from the landing at the one-person dining room to an oak door, richly polished and decorated with a simple design carved into the wood and filled in with silver: the same two rings that adorn the front of every Tubbian's robe and the front of a certain Tubbian leader's middle.

Thirty steep steps that have two men wheezing for breath with an arm wrapped around each other's backs, faces glistening lightly in sweat.

"The architect for the tower. . . built this last stairwell too. . ." Lord Tubbian Wilde jerks the pointer finger of his free hand straight up in front of the two men. "They go almost straight up!"

To this, Treadwell nods, pulling up his own free hand with a handkerchief in it to wipe at his face.

"Holy Father, you used to have such. . . a hard time with these--worse than you do now! You insisted they be fixed. . . ." A shake of his head. "Couldn't do it."

The two men thus stand there and wait a few moments, panting, puffing, shivering. After the wheeziness abates, the conversation continues.

"In fact, short of meal times and services, you were never to be seen anywhere else! We all understood that it was our necessity to come to you, in prayer or in person, not yours to be bothered with braving dangerously short stairs. I, though, I came to see you when I could. You would often be sitting at your desk, writing in your diaries or preparing your sermons or, quite often, napping very soundly."

Treadwell chuckles at this much. "I still snore quite heavily, Lord Tubbian, hmm hmm. Now, why don't we--by Tubbius's great, warm, hairy stomach!" Aloisius slackens where he stands; a sudden flush of the oddest feelings has hit him as he has taken his final steps toward the door. A peaceful warmth radiates throughout but is definitely focused in the rings in his stomach's flesh, but with it come sensations of immense drowsiness and an exorbitant, sickening fullness in the belly. With Treadwell tottering where he stands, the Lord Tubbian braces his master with his arm, still around Aloisius's broad back, and smiles gently.

"It begins, My Lord! Before you passed, you prophesied to me of many things--of your eventual return through your child's bloodline, of your seeing your church rise to glory, of my immortality that I have so humbly felt and received as I waited. . . and of some of your power being held here in place, waiting for your physical and spiritual successor, for your holy presence to hold it again, a rounded vessel eternally empty and waiting to be filled!"

Treadwell gives an exhausted, wearied yawn, his blurry old eyes blearying much worse than usual. On some deep level, only some of the Lord Tubbian's words register with him. In fact, he sees nothing of the stairway they stand in at the moment; instead, his eyes are filled with the grassy field where Tubbius usually sits, bare-bodied and stretching to the sky, and there the Great God is.

Lord Tubbian Wilde's urging to keep walking forward, to stay awake long enough to open the door, because he is the only one in the world who can do it, falls on deaf ears. He is unaware of the Lord Tubbian's wrapping his fat fingers around the doorknob and gently twisting his arm to push the door open, or of the toastily warm, domed, round-walled bedchamber with its luxurious tapestries of those fields and the divine figure Treadwell witnesses, now. He doesn't realize how close he comes to having a pointy-edged wardrobe jab into his left breast as he staggers past, or how much trouble that Wilde has in getting Aloisius out of all of his clothes before putting him down into what is quite simply the most infinitely comfortable, feather-fluffed bed imaginable.

"Sleep, Holy Father. Sleep, grow, change, and, if You will it, remember, as you told me you would."

= = = = =

The third dusk of the first month. The moon, a crescent in the sky, eases into position, casting a dim gleam over three figures in that same tower bedroom. One is the great-bellied, calm form in black and purple of Lord Tubbian James Wilde. One is the gaunt, nervous shape in shades of brown of Myrken Wood town crier Jack Alldale.

"An' whatcha say 'e's a-doin', Preacher?"

"Very simply, my son, your Councilor Treadwell, as you know him, is in a very deep sleep. Exactly what he is seeing and feeling in this sleep, I know not, but he prophesied to me two centuries ago that he would come back here and his church and body and power would be restored."

"Now, Preacher, Tready's older 'an dirt and 'bout as ugly sometimes, but 'e ain't no two hunnerd years old!"

A quiet chortle shakes the round man standing there a few reverent feet from the snoozing Tready.

"Your 'Tready' is the very mortal descendant of a very mortal man who arose to godhood--in fact, your Tready is a slice of that same god returned to us, my boy, so we Tubbians believe."

"That ain't makin' much sense, Preacher."

"That's what most visitors to this holy church said all those years ago, my son, and, though I've not left these walls of this holy site in two hundred years, I would suppose they do still. Seat yourself. We will talk a bit."

A hand is waved at a pair of round-bottomed, almost cup-like or egg-like seats in the room. Both are pulled closer to the bed, with Jack Alldale casting fitful eyes at Treadwell's sleeping figure, and the two men settle into their respective positions.

"He looks so peaceful, Preacher, like 'e's 'aving the first good sleep 'e's 'ad in years. Did you do 'is to 'im?"

"No, my son. He did this to himself."

"What's 'at mean?"

"I mean that your Aloisius Treadwell is a very powerful man and always has been. As I said to you just now, we Tubbians believe that he is our Tubbius in mortal figure. At least, I do. I'd think the rest of my spiritual brothers in this world do the same, but I haven't seen any of them save your Treadwell in many years. I shall discuss this matter with him when he wakes."

"Preacher, Tready. . . 'e's got a wife, and kids, and a job back 'ome--two jobs! 'e makes toys in the town for the kiddies, an' he gets taxes from folks. . . and, well, 'e sits 'round on his big arse eatin' all day, too. Reckon 'at's a job as good as any for 'im! What's gonna 'appen to 'im?"

A gentle smile creeps across the Lord Tubbian's face as he reaches over to pick up Treadwell's glasses from a nightstand beside the old man's head.

"We are at the seat of Tubbius's power, young man. What Tubbius told me in person, before He passed in that same bed and His body disappeared in a golden, divine glow, is that a descendant of His son, a newborn babe at the time, would eventually return here if that descendant accepted what should be his destiny, to lead the Tubbians. That descendant would be, at the least spiritually, Tubbius embodied, and he would be the one to lead the Tubbians in their worship until he passed and rejoined our Holy Father--who is one and the same. Your Treadwell is much more than he realizes."

"Yer tellin' me 'e's a god an' he doesn't know it." A snort, here.

"That is correct, my son. He may never know it or fully accept it. It takes a great leap of faith on his part and on all of our parts, too."

"And if the res' of the worl' don't accept it, an' folks think 'e's a crazy, fat, ol' man in a purple robe?"

"That is our main opposition. He may not be able to spread our church across the continent in a display of evangelical force in this coming. . . but one day, if there must be, there will be another return, and another man--to be honest, this same man--will live this same destiny."

"That's right odd, Preacher. Only appealin' to fat folks, mainly rich an' fat folks, an' expectin' to make a diff'r'nce? Ye've got to do somethin' fer the common folks! I think ye'd be better off stickin' to ye dinner tables an' kitchens an' enjoyin' yeselves."

Another slight smile creases the elderly face.

"An' ye still ain't told me what's 'appenin' here an' why we can't try to wake 'im up."

The Lord Tubbian returns Treadwell's glasses to the nightstand, standing with a creakiness in all of his back. He stumbles slowly to the bedside, extends a portly pointer, and thrusts it in Treadwell's side to the final knuckle. Aloisius merely snores right along.

"We can't wake him, my son. This is beyond our power."

"So what's 'appenin' to 'im?"

"If he truly accepts his role as Tubbius Regalis, then everything to this point is preliminary, and everything from this point is destiny, but he cannot reign as Tubbius without living as Tubbius, at least for a short time. Before Tubbius passed, part of His misty-eyed prophesies were that He would return not merely in power but in body, but that this church, the seat of His power, would be where He would be His most powerful."

"I don' get it, Preacher."

A huff of a sigh escapes the old gentleman as he turns to toddle for the door, his belly rummmmmmbling.

"I grow hungry, my son, and you grow frustrated. Tubbius," a flap of a hand at the snoring Treadwell, "must rest. It is my best understanding that your Treadwell will grow, and he will change, to resemble Tubbius as of two centuries ago. How long that will last, how long it will take, or even whether he will like it one bit. . . I know none of this. I suspect it will be for a very brief time, maybe a day or two at most, and that, deep down, your Treadwell will quite be his old self. It might only last as long as he is in this room! I know not. But you and I need sustenance, food freshly appeared in the cupboards and barrels this morning, and, Tubbius be praised, I am an excellent cook. Join me, sir?"

[Treadwell]

Midnight, passing from the third day of the first month into the fourth.

The scene is the one-person dining room where, a little over two centuries past, a mortal Tobias spent many, many meals that left him swollen, full, and sleepy.

Now, tonight, two men have eaten here, and Jack Alldale eases up from his borrowed chair--the one that Treadwell fell asleep in earlier--rubbing his stomach.

"Tell ye what, sir, iffen I keep a-eatin' like 'is, I'll be ready t'join yer numbers in short order! Counc'lor Tready, he was summ'nin' food up from nothin' downstairs in the church, y'see, an' we were eatin' an' drinkin' an' enjoyin' a right jolly time 'ere, couple o' mornin's ago."

The Lord Tubbian smiles, reaching over to clean up all of the plates from the table.

"Tobias--our Tubbius--did the same thing in His own time, my son, and he still graces me with the same blessing. Every morning I wake here only to find barrels and baskets and bottles all renewed and refilled for my own pleasure as I await His return."

"But the way ye put things, 'e's already back?" Jack points a finger upward at the ceiling.

"Indeed. And, if Tubbius wills it, you will see what He looked like in life very soon."

"I. . . don' think I'd care to see it, m'self."

"Why would you not?"

"'cause it just ain' Tready!"

The Lord Tubbian shakes his head and smiles again. "He needs His rest, either way. Why don't you and I go out to tend your horse and carriage?"

"Ye. . . y'can leave this buildin'?" Alldale goes wide-eyed.

"I can. Tubbius's gift of life and restoration is most centered on this tower, yes, but I feel it even a short walk's distance from the door. Otherwise? Let me just say that I begin feeling my age!"

Jack slowly nods his head and makes his way out of the dining room, heading downstairs with the Lord Tubbian in tow.

Meanwhile, in the dark, dimly moonlit room at the very top of the tower, the snoring rummmmbles to a yawning cease. Fists clench and jiggly arms streee-eeeetch out of the bed's covers, hands soon flopping openly, sweatily, on the enormous belly under those same sheets. Very, very enormous, in all honesty. Plump thumbs dig up and down into roly-poly sides, and bleary, aged eyes squint open in the darkness.

It takes moments for recognition and comprehension to settle in to the waking figure's head.

He feels much heavier, much rounder, than he's ever been--except in those recent dream-visions in the halls of this same church. A caress under his throat and over his jowls confirms that his usually plush, fluffy beard is even more so. Those same jowls are baggier, thicker. A running of pointer and middle finger over nose finds the usually potatoey shnozz is much the same--but with a definite, pronounced hook down to it.

"Merciful heavens. . . I'm changed!" Even that voice, so piping and tremulous already in Treadwell's old age, reaches slightly higher pitches of elderly years.

Those hands settle back into the fluffiness of the bed, and that whole of being changed sinks in quite apparently as the elder fellow starts to heft himself breathlessly to his flat feet. Every conceivable region seems to ache and pulse all around as he rises. And, so, unknowing--and at the moment uncaring--that his Lord Tubbian saw him to bed unclothed, Treadwell--now changed, as he'd noted moments before, to look as his formerly mortal ancestor had two centuries before him--stands by the bed wearing nothing at all but half of the bed's sheets and staring down at himself in wonder.

"By Tubbius! What has happened--is happening--to me?"