The Blaze's second day began with a coordinated chant. "False idols!" the Lords intoned lugubriously. "We must obliterate the false idols!"
        
In a giant sand pit, in front of them, multiple frog deities had been embedded. Each had been grotesquely rendered in a brittle clay. Above the sand, only the top half of each deity's head, down to the nostrils, was visible.
        
The Lords took turns jumping into this pit, legs extended. Running starts, of varying lengths, helped them to touch down at precise positions. A Lord's turn would conclude, either with a Ping! and Crackle! as one or more frog statues was destroyed, or (more likely) with a soft Pish...! of upthrust sand, whenever they missed.
        
Each time one of the frog statues was hit, the spectators pretended to take offense. "But you have killed my god," they would moan, riffing off of a script that the Lords had provided to them. Or: "Please, not Beetlebub! Not Yargenflorx!" Or: "Boo! Boo! Boo!" Many, at the same time, made deep-throated frog-like sounds, "Ribbit! Ribbit!" while blowing their noses, in order to play-act great sorrow.

        
On the third day, each Lord was assigned a cache of ten metal projectiles. The projectiles were vaguely spherical; each, however, more importantly, had been shaped to resemble a very particular insect species, in much enlarged form. Half were designed to represent louse species, and half to represent gnat species.
        
During the event, the Lords threw their projectiles, as hard as they could, into a much wider body of sand. At the same time, they loudly identified the species that they believed the projectile had been designed to represent. They called out these names according to a very particular formula, which compared the insects' brief, airborne state to flight. "Fly, Brueelia fasciata, fly!" one might cry out, in an encouraging way. Or: "Fly, Austrosciara termitophila, fly!" (This ritual, of course, ignored-and this was part of the joke-the fact that, in nature, lice do not actually fly.)
        
Whenever a Lord gave his projectile the correct name, a great cheer rose. Attendants scurried to record the projectile's point of impact. Whenever, by contrast, a Lord called out the wrong name, the spectators would repeat it back to him, with a great deal of spitting and hissing, as if it were a curse. "In vain!" the referees would say, "You have employed that name in vain!" The throw that accompanied this misidentification, meanwhile, would be marked as a foul.

        
On the fourth day, the Lords competed to clear a horizontal bar, held at some distance from the ground. Above the bar, before each leap, one out of a swarm of trained circus flies was assigned to hover. Each fly was a bonafide insect, composed of traditional materials-chitin and hemolymph, rather than metal.
        
As he jumped, each Lord was required to observe his assigned fly. He would have to do so carefully enough that he would truly remember it-the particular and defining details of its wings and legs and eyes and head and thorax and abdomen which marked it, as an individual.
        
After dismounting from the receiving mat, a successful Lord would be required to identify the very fly that he had observed, from out of a lineup of 10. If the Lord failed to do this, his jump would be marked as a foul, and he would not be permitted to compete at the next height.

        
On the fifth day, the Lords competed in a 400 m race. At the starting line, each Lord was assigned two diseased farm animals, who would serve as his adopted parents. "This is your mother," an attendant might say, while presenting a sow with tuberculosis. And: "This is your father," while presenting a ram with late-stage syphilis.
        
As the Lords ran, they were required to carry both of their adopted parents. It was imperative that neither parent should fall, or-in the judgment of the referees-"be unduly jostled." In many cases, particularly when one parent was a very large animal, like a cow or horse, it was very challenging for the Lords to devise sustainable perches. Some struggled to balance their parents above their necks, others beneath their arms.
        
As the Lords ran, they were also required to utter at least four conspicuous reassurances (one for every 100 m), such as "Worry nothing, my dear mother, I will help you to get well," loud enough for the referees to record them. Most importantly, no diseased animal parent could cry out in any pain-or make any sort of vocalization that, in the opinion of the referees, indicated anything other than, "Thank you for your solicitous care, my dear son."
        
The Lords' race times, in the end, were perfectly correlated with their assigned parents' weights. Lord Nonus, who was assigned to carry two cancer-riddled chickens-one who so far gone that it was blind and paralyzed and had no capacity to vocalize any further; the other, whom illness had so emaciated that it was scarcely heavier than its component feathers-won the race very easily. Lord Octavus, by contrast, who was forced to carry a steer who had been crippled by morbid obesity, and a mare, who was suffering from a severe hyper-calcification disorder, which made her bones exceptionally thick, found that he could scarcely stagger the first 10 m, before collapsing.
        
In some respects, this was totally unfair. It demonstrated, however, a greater spiritual truth, which was that, in life, one cannot choose one's parents, or (to a large extent) the degree to which one will be handicapped by them.

        
On the sixth day, curious bionic constructs-"hurdles"-were set on the track, ten per lane. Each consisted of a frame of hollow metal, overlaid with a layer of inflamed, ill-looking flesh, which had been prepared in a laboratory. The flesh was descended from cells swabbed from a child's cheek. It had, however, been so unnaturally treated that it stank and bled, to a degree that no real human could have tolerated, without abruptly dying.
        
From the uppermost bar of each construct, great boils extended. Some were so swollen that they almost resembled heads-the head, that is, of some advanced fetus, or some microcephalic youngster. Each, beneath the surface, was tightly packed with pus, pressing so insistently close to the surface that it would have immediately exploded, had it been lanced, to release a splatter of green and yellow. The flesh-though human-had been specially engineered such that, if the pus were released, a tissue-wide death response would be triggered. The whole external layer would shrivel, pushing the metal frame into an unbalanced position. Eventually, the whole construct would topple over-dramatically dead.
        
As they ran, each to his own lane, the competing Lords were required to jump over each hurdle, and to clear it completely...such that their cleat tips would not nick any of the boils attached to the top of it. "Life is sacred!" screamed the spectators, as the Lords ran. And: "Do not kill!" Whenever a Lord did collide with one of the hurdles, or with one of the head-shaped boils (which happened to three different Lords and five different hurdles, over the course of the race), this scream shifted. "Murderer! Murderer!" the spectators cried.
        
        
On the seventh day, each Lord was symbolically married to a thin sculpture of metal-a discus. Over the restrained chords of the wedding music, he vowed a solemn allegiance to his bride, both emotional and sexual. Into the honeymoon fields, afterwards, each threw his new wife gruntingly (and lovingly) into the air, as if to deposit her on a dirt-cushioned mattress, located far, far away. Judges measured and recorded this point of impact, then cried, "Go!" Afterwards, the Lord would run after the discus he had thrown, while crying, "My darling! My darling!"
        
As each Lord ran across the field, he risked colliding with any number of synthetic phantoms. Out of the sky, many bolts of a modified lightning zig-zagged, presenting shapes that were physically alluring. "Sex! Sex!" these figures suggested. They spoke in a sultry Boom! that consisted of a modified thunder.
        
As a Lord ran, his mind could entertain no notion of sexual infidelity. If his head ever turned to regard the attractive phantoms...if his neck even twitched, just a fraction, as if to consider the possibility of coupling with one of them, then a localized storm of synthetic hail-like particles would inundate him, rendering him unable to see or to move forward. His discus wife would remain un-retrieved, and the Lord would receive no score for this event.

        
On the eighth day, a decagonal cage was constructed in the center of the field. On its floor was a synthetic matrix, part mattress and part soil. It was designed (1) to cushion hard blows, and (2) to sustain the growth of many plants. Inside the cage was a swarm of locusts, which fed eagerly upon the greenery. On the ventral cuticle of each insect a label was pasted, indicating ownership. A tenth were marked as belonging to Lord Primus, a tenth to Lord Secundus, a tenth to Lord Tertius, and so on.
        
Each side of the cage was flanked by its own high wall. From each side, a long running lane also extended. At a single "Go!" each Lord struck out running down his own assigned lane, with a long pole brandished in front of him. Just before the central decagon, he planted his pole firmly against the ground, then used it to propel himself over the high wall-flying through the air, down down down, before landing, Foosh!, on the cage's soft bottom.
        
Each Lord had been outfitted in a jersey embedded with shoots of greenery, which had been specifically designed to attract the locusts. As soon as the Lords cleared the walls (and all but Lord Primus and Lord Nonus succeeded in this), they were inundated with locusts.
        
For each of these Lords, it was a race-Quick! Quick!-to remove from himself the locusts that did not officially belong to him. As soon as he was satisfied that he had purified himself, he dashed towards the exit. Here, the judges carefully combed him, and counted the number of locusts that he should not have taken. This value was announced to the spectators, who cried "Thief!" in order to shame him. Lord Quintus, who had exited relatively quickly, and with only four stolen locusts, was declared the winner. It was, however, a less satisfying victory than it might otherwise have been, since the crowd simply Booed him less vigorously than it did the others.

        
On the ninth day, each Lord was presented with a javelin, which was emblazoned with the slogan "The Lance of Truth." With it, he was permitted a short hunting period.
        
Across the field, black phantoms swirled freely, each representing some vaguely plausible statement-most pertaining to some field of entomology. If the Lord convinced himself that a particular phantom represented an inaccurate statement, he would cry, "False!" and skewer it, until its ethereal blood spewed. The blood was a scintillating sapphire, if the phantom had represented a lie, and a dull silver, if it had represented the truth.
        
At the end of the hunting period, the Lord's spattered javelin was taken from him. His score was calculated-tallied according to the number of truths that the Lord had wrongfully eliminated and the number of lies he had failed to skewer.

        
On the tenth day, the final event was held. It was ostensibly a track event, 1500 m. The excitement, however, lay at the end of the race, when the winning Lord would have the honor of resurrecting a child-a firstborn son-who had died of tuberculosis in 1819. The boy, aged 9, had been a promising young painter. His talent had heightened the tragedy of his death, at the time, and it raised the emotional stakes now.
        
Lord Septimus took the race narrowly. He sprinted hard, hard, hard, over the last 50 m, in order to edge out Lord Secundus.
        
At his victory, many of the other Lords-particularly Lord Secundus-showed terrible sportsmanship. They behaved this way mostly because it was how they, as the losers, had been scripted to behave. In part, however, it also reflected how they really felt. "Enjoy your stupid victory...Lord Stupid," they said sourly, as they stormed away.
        
Lord Septimus, meanwhile, overplayed his own excitement. He skipped across the field, smiling, smiling. When he reached the coffin, which was located precisely at the field's center, he lowered himself to his knees.
        
The coffin was composed of a translucent glass. Through it, Lord Septimus could just perceive the corpse. It was obvious to him, from its excessive thinness, that it was very very dead; he could not, however, see well enough to make out anything too gruesome. To the audience (and to the nine other Lords) seated in the stands, the corpse was only a faint shadow-very small and very still.
        
Still kneeling, Lord Septimus turned a ten-spoked knob. Liquid emerged from an opening in the floor, then flooded the coffin quickly. Against the glass, it appeared almost blue.
        
The corpse thickened and rose. When it began to twitch-really twitch, in a way that the liquid's internal motions could not account for-Lord Septimus pulled the drain.
        
The liquid whooshed away...and Lord Septimus lifted the coffin lid. The child's eyelids fluttered. Beads of liquid were trapped in the lashes.
        
"Edwin! Edwin!" the crowd cried. The boy lifted his head. "Where is my paintbrush?" he asked in a bleary way. Lord Septimus repeated this adorable question for the benefit of the crowd, and then everyone cheered.

        
That afternoon, the overall medals were awarded. Lord Quintus took first and Lord Quartus second. On their heads, they wore individualized victor's wreaths. Lord Quintus' was composed of locust cuticles, intertwined with pottery shards; Lord Quartus' was composed of metal insects, embedded into strips of pustulating flesh.
        
Lord Septimus, taking third, shared his bronze medal with the now-smiling Edwin. The spectators applauded with particular vigor at this, and some cried.
        
As each Lord descended the podium, he embraced his waiting family, which had been propped and immobilized there-his diseased animal parents, and his thin discus wife.
        
Above the field, exuberant fireworks streaked. In the sky, dark phantoms whooshed, then exploded in sapphire and silver. Sexually alluring figures, composed of lightning, zoomed and zagged, before spectacularly touching down, and setting fire to the grass.
        
It would be-and all of them knew it-the greatest Blaze. In ten years time, once all of the world's open spaces had been consumed by The Game, some smaller scale memorial might be possible. Perhaps they would hold it in a cramped gymnasium...or an underground shelter. In twenty years, there might be something even smaller-a dramatic reading, perhaps-while the pins, from outside, crushed in still more insistently. And, in thirty years...surely nothing.
        
"Paint for us, Edwin!" someone shouted. Others took it up, and the boy smiled shyly. Attendants brought him easel and canvas. Edwin sniffed at the paints with a look of confusion, as if anticipating a different sort of smell. Soon, however, he set to work.
        
With little flourishes, he painted the streets of his hometime. The audience watched his paper, which was magnified on screens distributed throughout the stadium. They marveled at it-not only at the raw talent that it evidenced, but also at the history it depicted. They were touched by that naïve little world (so softly colored!) that had existed prior to The Game. They were struck, most of all, by the great quantity of wood, which was used to construct houses and schoolrooms and gibbets, rather than gaming pins.
        
What gave this particular poignancy-and made it a fitting finale-was the fact that Edwin was a Bagley. ("He looks so much like Annabelle!" the spectators marveled. They recalled, in particular, the single grainy picture-a famous historical artifact-that survived from Annabelle's childhood. It had been dated to the autumn of 1888, just prior to everything.)
        
Edwin had been the elder brother of Grandfather Bagley. Had he lived, he would have inherited that grand house at which the cousins had invented The Game. The cousins, more to the point, would probably not have existed. Grandmother Bagley, who had been courted by many significant men, would almost certainly not have chosen Grandfather, had he been a propertyless second son.
        
"What might have been..." the spectators sighed, while wistfully imagining a Game-less world. And then, more fiercely, though according to the very same sentiment, they cried, "Edwin! Edwin! Edwin!"
        
The boy was painting hard and fast. He had never received such attention...and he was loving it. Suddenly, he stepped back, and whispered something to Lord Septimus. It was an unexpected request, reflecting an inclination that had not survived in the historical record, and Septimus paled a little. He wanted to refuse, or at least to defer him...but the boy's expression was heartbreakingly expectant. With a pained expression-and a little fear-he ordered the materials brought.
        
"I am a carver, too!" Edwin announced to the audience, as soon as the wood and knife arrived. Microphones were unfamiliar to him, and he started a bit at his own voice. Soon, however, he set to work. To the audience's deepening discomfort, he began to whittle what seemed be a pin. In the stands, there were angry murmurs; a few people stood up impulsively, as if preparing to leave. "Tasteless stunt!" someone yelled, not quite coherently.
        
But then Edwin added a few more touches. Eye nubs, ear nubs. Some additional lines to indicate limbs and hair. By the time he held it up, he had sensed the shift in the crowd's mood, and his voice was more tentative. "It's an otter..." he explained. The crowd gave a collective sigh: "An otter!" Above the cheers, and with a bigger smile, Edwin said: "I started to make one, when I was very sick, but I couldn't finish it."
        
A handful of spectators nodded knowingly at this, recognizing an answer to a longstanding puzzle regarding the origin of the first pin. It was a recognition that would, in later years, motivate a new and increasingly desperate generation of the opposition, who began to refer to pins as "fetal otters." In 2049, "Stop Exploiting the Fetal Otter!" became the favored tagline of one vocal sub-faction-as if it were not already beyond too late.
        
Edwin worked a bit longer on this otter, further defining the tail and whiskers. Soon, however, his head began to droop. Gently, Lord Septimus took his carving knife away. Attendants carried the boy to a private box in the stands, where he would enjoy his first proper night in over 200 years. A literal sleep-and not a poetical one.
        
At a signal, the other nine Lords joined Lord Septimus. Together, they began a final, celebratory lap around the track. Their pace was non-serious, and their expressions were goofy. "We are leapers!" they shouted. Their hips made spastic gestures, culminating in bizarre kicks.
        
In the stands, the spectators were on their feet. They clapped and stamped, in a rising fever, until at last they were screaming it: "The Blaze, The Blaze, The Blaze!"