He really didn't think he had a sore arse, though he wasn't a hundred percent – though perhaps. But that could be all the bush-sitting he'd been doing in his life so far that had lasted about half an hour, as far as he could recall anyway. “I think that's the bush doing that to my arse.” a fervent prayer in this regard to whatever the appropriate religious authorities. “But I could use a drink of water.”

The youth retrieved a bottle from his pack. “Here.”

The Sorcerer drank gratefully, “Thanks, but, eh – what's your name?”

“Dunno.”

“You don't know either?”

“No.”

“You don't know who you are?”

“Well, basically, that is – no.” He looked ashamed, but he had to admit it.

“What's your excuse?”

“I don't –”

“I've clearly been abusing certain magical liquids, but your good self; you seem a much more wholesome sort; sore head, dry mouth? Wet mouth? Wetness of a very specific... kind? You... understand?” he winked, he hoped not suggestively, more as a form of encouragement than suggestion – this was a genuine concern, that this and not the other be communicated because it was really just – but he didn't trust his face to communicate the subtle difference. “You've got...? You don't have a sore arse do you? You don't have an arse more advanced than your years?”

“I've been sitting on a horse.”

The personage who presumed he was a sorcerer observed the youth with diligent care. “I don't... know...? is this suspicious – am I suspicious?”

“It's all exterior.”

“What is?” He demanded to know. This, he couldn't help but intuit; the answer to this question – the integrity of this youth's arse – was of monumental significance to both of them.

“The arse pain. It's exclusively exterior arse pain from sitting on a horse for a long period of time. – The problem, I thought, the symptom that one should consider worrisome, I always presumed anyway, was the arse pain of a more... interior... nature – you're the sorcerer?”

“Interior, certainly, yes – that is the main issue confronting lads of your wholesome good looks; these times and given the prevailing... attitudes, but,” he had no choice but to accept the youth's assertions, “– so you don't know who you are?”

“No.”

“Then it appears neither of us do.” He glanced around. “– I wonder where I live?” He looked around at the primitive road they found themselves upon, and the pretty generic Shensh countryside, which was pretty – if not particularly noteworthy; that surrounding them.

“Well I haven't seen a dwelling in countless leagues the other direction, you probably live down there –” Indicating the direction he was already going.

“Where are you going? But you said your name is the Golden Bow; your title – you know your title?”

“That's it, I'm afraid, as far as any direct self-knowledge is concerned. Except certain matters of internal narrative/personality, as regards my personality, what have you. I know that. I knew that, indeed – that that was the title, that I had and was given, and that it clearly – I mean look at me; it's pretty obvious – and you haven't seen this bow and arrow set in operation, as yet. – It's not a million leagues from sorcerous itself, but I stress... not demonic. It is certainly,” and here his eyes lost some of their light, “It is not demonic. – I don't know what you're attitudes are to that sort of demi-world that, you know, is sovereign beneath – that world of skittering spitting fiends who disfigure their own flesh; weird manifestations of angst and sin and thwarted desires with convoluted arrangements of genitals, often on their faces, which are not pleasant. – You said wholesome, I try to be; but even seeing that stuff – it makes any kind of moral framework you're seeking to employ yourself in terms of the improvement of your own life and person – it makes that rather... harder... to achieve.”

“No. I...” he thought about it, “– No given the immediate instinctual response I've intuited, there, to that, what you have described there – it's not unfamiliar – the macabre images summoned by your good self there that – no, I'm not that kind of sorcerer because that just sounds gross.”

“If you'll forgive the impertinence – it's strange – but for some reason and I do feel I know you – so – what kind of sorcerer are you?”

He thought about that, the Sorcerer did, and also that – it was true, perhaps they did know each other, “Whatever kind of sorcerer it is, that is, I am, that is – it must be the kind that accidentally, I'm hoping accidentally, abuses weird concoctions resulting in temporary bouts of amnesia; no memory; identity, etc.; sense of his self, any kind of personal history, with a dry mouth and a non-suspiciously sore arse in a bush. Because that stuff sounds... unpleasant.” He was older... perhaps twice his age? He prayed not. Not twice for the love of all... But still it was for him to suggest this kind of thing – the youth was too polite.

“Listen, old boy, where are you going?”