“I’ve heard of such a place as this,” Codswallop said. “It is an oasis from which the sands of hourglasses are gathered.”

“Won’t just any old sand do?” said Rags.

“No, it must be sand of exceeding fineness, so that it tumbles properly. It must also be finely attuned to the passage of time itself, which may explain some of the…chronological anomalies…we have been seeing.”

“What else do you know about this, er, hourglass oasis?” Rags asked.

Codswallop tapped his cane thoughtfully on the stone. “My mentor once told me that the sand is harvested almost exclusively by old men and young lads—the old men that they might feel younger, the young lads that they might feel older. Perhaps, in this, you and I are in the perfect position to cross the anomaly safely.”

“But what about an old man feeling older and a young, uh, lad feeling younger?” asked Rags. “Feeling is one thing, but if these are the sands of time or whatever, couldn’t that kill someone old or make someone so young they get un-born?”

“I suppose we’ll find out,” Codswallop said. “For we need that water to survive, and I don’t like our chances in the desert stumbling across another oasis.”

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