Two weeks later…
Many fathoms down, far farther than five, for the ocean was terribly deep at the bottom of the Cliffs of Eternity, lay the Ball-of-Iron-That-Enclosed-the-Kingwitch on a bed of coral.
The ball of iron was silent, still.
But then from within it, there came a faint, muffled scraping, as of talons against something metal.
And the ball of iron began to move…
Softly, at first, and then a little faster.
The Kingwitch hadn’t died.
He was in there.
He would keep scratching.
He had a little Magic-that-works-on-iron and he would keep using that Magic to break out of his iron prison.
The Kingwitch was nothing if not patient.
In the meantime he rolled over the watery landscape of the bottom of the ocean steadily, gradually, like a dark malignant glacier, or a slow but certain fate.