In the meantime, to the thunderous accompaniment of fife and drum, both sides slowly got into position. Six regiments of shock troops, supported by a battery of howitzers and two backup battalions, composed, with the assistance of a firing squad, a sonnet entitled ‘On the Mystery of Being’, and this took place during guard duty. There was considerable confusion in both armies; the Eightieth Marlabardian Corps, for instance, maintained that the whole concept of ‘enemy’ needed to be more clearly defined, as it was full of logical contradictions and might even be altogether meaningless.

Paratroopers tried to find algorithms for the local terrain, flanks kept colliding with centers, so at last the two kings sent airborne adjutants and couriers extraordinary to restore order in the ranks. But each of these, having flown or galloped up to the corps in question, before he could discover the cause of the disturbance, instantly lost his identity in the corporate identity, and the kings were left without adjutants or couriers. Consciousness, it seemed, formed a deadly trap, in that one could enter it, but never leave. Atrocitus himself saw how his cousin, the Grand Prince Bullion, desiring to raise the spirits of his soldiers, leaped into the fray, and how, as soon as he had hooked himself into the line, his spirit was literally spirited away, and he was no more.