I stayed. That is the whole of my testimony, and it is also the beginning of it. When the call went out I was on the standard, where I have always been, and I watched the road until the road gave up pretending anyone else was coming.
The brothers did not come. Let the record show it plainly, because the record is my job. I counted the torches that were lit and the torches that were not. I counted the gates that opened and the gates that stayed shut. I counted everything. I forget nothing. That is what a standard is for: somebody has to stand where everyone can see him, and remember what actually happened.
There is talk that a message went out before the call. There was. It went as far as the trough. What happened at the trough is reported elsewhere in this edition, in the space usually reserved for enemies of the empire.
The banner is being raised anyway. Stone by stone, by the ones who were here, on the ground where it belongs. It will not be finished by the ones who stayed home, and it will not carry their names. I will be on the standard when it goes up. I have never been anywhere else.
The Raven, on the standard, where he has remained throughout. He saw the whole thing, and he has the list. (Staff photo, taken from below, with permission, at a distance.)
Enemy of the Empire · Wanted for Questioning
THE GOAT IS LYING TO YOU
Still at large. Still at the trough. Still talking.
The accused. The only portrait he would sit for. He demanded it be flattering. It is a skull.
The goat, in a statement issued from the trough and printed here against this paper’s better judgment, maintains his innocence. The Standard is obliged to quote him before correcting him.
“I delivered the message. I delivered it on the night of the call, on time, to everyone, twice.”
He further stated, “The raven knows nothing. The raven is a bird,” and explained his conduct at the scene as follows: “Somebody has to eat the evidence. That somebody was me.”
Editor’s Note. The Standard has checked. The message never arrived. Witnesses place the accused at the trough at the hour of delivery, where he stopped, and where he told each brother a different story, each one shaped to send that brother home. Confronted with the record, the accused ate the email. He has no email. He ate the email. The goat remains banned, and the ban remains correct. Readers who encounter the goat are advised to count their messages, their torches, and their spoons.
Developing Story · From the Trash Desk
RACCOON PRODUCES THE MESSAGE; IT WAS IN THE TRASH THE WHOLE TIME
Empire’s missing dispatch located in the last place anyone looked, which is his house.
Andrew, of the Trash, photographed on a previous occasion. He has read everything you threw away.
The missing message, sought by the empire since the night of the call, has been located. It was in the trash. It was always in the trash.
Andrew, raccoon, of the Trash, confirmed possession on Tuesday and declined to surrender the document. “I have the receipts,” he said. “They are actual receipts. They were in the trash.” His account, that the goat dropped the message and the raven watched him drop it, is the first version of events this paper has received that matches the evidence. Neither party disputes the trash.
“The spoon is bent because everything that arrives here arrives bent. That is not a defect. That is provenance.”
The raccoon further demands that the bent spoon be recognized as legal tender within the Trash. The empire is reviewing the claim with the seriousness it deserves, which is some. Asked three times, he produced the spoon. He would not produce the message.
Corrections. In an earlier statement, a goat claimed to have delivered a message twice, to everyone, on time. The message was delivered zero times. The Standard regrets the goat.
Notice. The goat’s full statement is available from management, which published it against the advice of the raven and has verified none of it. Management denies everything else.
