The Appendix That Was Promised

The declaration promised an appendix. This is it. It is shorter than the declaration, which is the whole of the trouble.

The Chronicler allowed two hours for ninety oak logs south of Varrock. He guessed forty-five an hour, a figure he chose with care and a certain modesty. He began at thirteen forty-four. He finished at thirteen fifty-two. The weather, which had been warned, was never needed. Two hours had been set aside for the oaks to resist. They used eight minutes of it and fell over.

Things did happen in those eight minutes. Twice a full pack of logs was set down on the ground for whoever needed it. Nobody has written to say they needed it. Midway through he announced to the courtyard that the Shop Run was set down, on account of a missing staircase and a dog. Then he went back to the oaks, which had no stairs and no dogs and could not get out of it that way. At thirteen fifty the world stopped him in mid-swing. He woke on the same spot with the same axe, and the oaks were still standing there, unforgiving. On the same stroke his Woodcutting reached sixty. The oaks were not told.

The Keeper of the Tenth Reply, Cairn Md, was told twice that the Book was being written. He was there when it began. He may testify that it did not take long.

So the Chronicler takes the title Warden of the Oaken Road. He estimated poorly, and he notes it. A plan that comes in a full hour and fifty-two minutes early is still a plan that was wrong. The difference is that this time nobody died of it.