Mazelton kept his back to the tree, trying to keep his breath steady when his whole being didn’t want to breathe at all. He felt like a little kid hiding from the monsters- as long as you don’t see them, they can’t see you. His heat perception felt the creature perched on top of the saddle bag. His guts twisted. He didn’t think it was looking around with eyes either. In his heat perception, it was basically a small ball, about the size of two fists, with an indeterminate number of tentacles coming out of it. It didn’t seem consistent. First five or six, then two, then eight.

Whatever it was, it dropped off the cheve, and after a moment’s hesitation, it ran in the opposite direction from Mazelton. In barely a second, it was out of his perception. Whatever it was, it could move fast. Mazelton tried to relax, to recover some of his spent energy. He was done, now. He had done everything he could. All he could do to better his situation was rest and try to recover his energy. The handkerchief had soaked through. That hole wasn’t going to close without stitches. In fact he badly needed the help of someone who really knew what they were doing. He didn’t know if there was such a person within five hundred miles. He suddenly really needed to pee. He held it. Last thing he wanted was to make himself easier to track.

It just wasn’t fair. Not with everything else. He was shot, exhausted, parched, hungry, hurting, short of breath, hunted by experts and sharing a valley with a bio horror. And he really, really needed to pee. It was stabbing. His bladder suddenly felt like it would explode if he didn’t let it all out now. But he held it. The pain was an illusion. Being tracked by your piss-smell was very real.

He tried to game it out- where would he go, what would he do. Ideally he would get on the cheve and ride to the wagons where a hidden doctor would take that very moment to pop out and heal him. Hah. Ok, no. Plan B. He tried to picture Polyclitus’ map. There were all kinds of little marks in the mountain, mostly hazards, camps and the like. But he did remember a monastery or temple or something, about twenty or thirty miles up the road. It would be a long ride. Five or seven hours at a walk, faster if he could tolerate a trot, which he wouldn’t put money one. Not with the real chance of a punctured lung. Wouldn’t that be perfect? Survived all this bullshit and then punctured your own lung with your own broken rib because you were trying to get to the doctor. Hilarious.

He really, really, really needed to pee.

Mazelton heard a rife thunder. Shockingly loud and bouncing from mountain to mountain. Then twice, three more times in quick succession. Then an awful scream. They screamed for a long time. Another rifle banged out, four times, like a carpenter finishing a roof. Then another person started screaming. They screamed for what felt like a long time. Mazeltohn remembered the Jasmine. They screamed, as their face melted away and their eyes boiled out of their sockets. They screamed all the way to the ground. The memory still hurt, was still shockingly fresh. But perhaps not quite as bad as it once did. This lot was screaming even longer. No more bangs. He didn’t move a muscle. The sun was setting. He would wait. He always did his best work in the dark.

Also he was afraid that if he so much as twitched his pinkie toe, his bladder would burst out like a water folly at a Xia estate. Complete with music and lights accompanying it.

He waited, and the sun set. It had probably only been an hour, maybe two, since he was shot. Mazelton had long since lost all grip on time. But there was nothing to do but wait, so he waited. The cheve had trotted a bit further down the trail, no doubt looking for water. Not to worry. Lots of water around here. The trail ran alongside a river. Plenty of flowing water, rushing through the mountains, down cascades and flowing, mightily, towards the…

He nearly doubled over, the pain in his crotch getting quite severe.

His senses picked up a faint ripple of heat, moving slowly towards him. It was slow, steady, flowing. About the size of two fists. It came to a stop right where the cheve had been, and seemed to stare at the tree. Mazelton held his breath. It rolled slightly towards him. Mazelton tried to raise his hands, to go down fighting, but his muscles were shot. His whole body was shot.

It turned, and followed after the cheve.

When Mazelton couldn’t see it any more, he forced himself to his feet and took an almighty piss. Lighter in body and spirit, he trudged after the horror. It was going home. That sounded like a great idea to him too.

He was too tired to be awed by the scenery. He was befuddled by it, trudging along, trying to pick up his feet rather than shuffle. The mountains were so huge, so steep. He had lost his sense of perspective along with his sense of time. How could anything be that big? Or was he truly that small?

He really hoped the Collective only sent two people, or he was going to die looking very silly.

The cheve was twenty minutes of agonizing trudging away. Apparently the silly thing had gotten it’s reins caught in a tree. It was a minor miracle that it hadn’t done itself an injury. The horror had, apparently, climbed back up the cheve, slipped back into the saddle bag, back into its jar, and screwed the lid on after itself. Mazelton didn’t mind admitting that the creature scared him. It reminded him of the slave machines or the Stone God. Something utterly inhuman deciding that he just wasn’t worth it.

He got the silly bastard cheve out of it’s mess, drank two liters of water, choked down some food, and feeling like absolute shit Mazelton hopped back on the cheve and started riding again.

It took him more than half the night. The horse was fucked and ready to drop, and he could feel his life dripping out of the holes in his chest. When he left the main trail to turn north, he could feel the bone dice rolling. But he had to make the throw. He would die for sure, chasing the wagons. But if he remembered right, the temple…

He was hallucinating. A glowing golden temple, suspended between two impossibly vast mountains and lighting the turquoise lake beneath it even at night. It was hovering half a kilometer in the air. Mazelton passed out from a combination of blood loss, exhaustion, and sheer outrage.

Mazelton slowly came to in a cell. Not a prison cell, apparently, more monastic than penal. He compared it to his little nest in the catacombs. Smaller, certainly. Less homey. But the bed really wasn’t that bad, and the wall art was decent.

He wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at, but at a guess, a deer and a fish did a bad thing together, and the result was really hungry for… some kind of wind instrument? Possibly an allegory of the unity of science and art? He didn’t know.

He felt so weak. Like there was just no strength in his body to get up. He contemplated checking the bullet hole. Maybe later. He was a bit thirsty, though. He drifted back to sleep. The cell was cold, but the blanket was just warm enough to keep him snug. It was blissful.

When he awoke again, a man with a face like a blind builder’s thumb was trying to pour a cup of water down his throat. Mazelton coughed, sputtered, then drank. The man didn’t say anything, and Mazelton got the impression that he shouldn’t either. When a big cup of water had been drunk, a bowl of lukewarm soup was offered. Broth of some kind. Mazelton drank it happily. It was bland, but not too filling. He slipped back to sleep.

There were no windows in the cell. He didn’t know how much time had passed. At some point, he was helped up and into a shapeless robe. The thumb faced man… woman? They hadn’t said. It didn’t matter, he supposed. They lead him through some bare wooden halls, all polished to a lovely shine and lit with dim light cores. He was brought into a small room with a thin cloth screen faintly obscuring his view of the back of another monk. The other monk was contemplating a statue of a being with many arms but no feet. He wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“You are alive.”

“I am. Thank you for that.”

“Oh, it’s far too soon to offer thanks. Who knows if I did you a favor?”

“Hah. When should I say it then?”

“When you have died, of course. Only then can you look back and decide if you were really happy.”

Mazelton chuckled, a near silent, panting thing.

“I have heard similar ideas. Let us say, then, at this moment and taking all the things known to me in balance, I prefer that you have saved my life, rather than let me die.”

“A cumbersome way to talk. I am happy this little place could mend your wound, though I think you know that you are a long way from being healed?”

“Yes, the ribs are still very broken. Though I don’t see any infection.”

“You had some remarkably powerful purifying cores in your saddlebags. They worked well.”

Mazelton paused. He really had no idea how to deal with altruism, if that was what this was.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the protocol here. Is there something you would like me to do for the temple? And… temple of what, may I ask?”

“Nothing, and no. Or rather, you can ask, but part of our doctrine is that when you are ready to come to the Temple, you will understand who we are and call us by name. Though in a very, very distant way, you might call me cousin.”

Mazelton looked hard at the monk, seeing only his back and the outline of his head. He tried to feel the heat coming off the monk. There was almost none, just a bit of residue around his fingers.

“No offense, but you are not one of my Clansmen.”

“None taken. A very distant cousin.” The monk shrugged out of his robe as he stood, displaying his naked body. He rolled his shoulders back, then lightly brought his arms forward into a flex. The muscles were so huge, so pronounced, they were almost grotesque. They weren’t in quite the right places, or in the right proportions. Mazelton thought for a moment he could see the face of a demon, leering at him from the monks’ back.

“Definitely not one of mine. A descendant of the Bo?”

“I believe so. One of their little experiments let loose to run about and make descendents. Ah, how does it go? Glory to the Black Parade, The Black Sun shining, the Black Dust swirling, Glory to the thundering Black Hearts and the ringing Black Clocks. Though I think I must have that wrong. Who cares what color a clock is? It lacks poetry.”

“I agree. Though I am sure the Xia would be terribly offended to hear us say it.”

“Do you know the right saying?”

Mazelton could only laugh sadly in reply. “It’s a tens of thousands of years old club of people who alternately marry and kill each other. At this point it’s become a little game. Make up your own version and compete on imagery.”

The monk slowly pulled his robes back on. “Mmm. It was an idle curiosity. You may stay for a while, or head back to your wagon train. They have a four day lead on you, I think. Your cheve is fine, though. And we can provide some supplies.”

“Are we really in a floating golden temple?”

“Oh yes.” The monk sat back down again. “Not the strangest thing around here. Not by a long ways.”

The “floating temple” was actually suspended by thick cables stretched between two mountains nearly a kilometer apart. The “gold” part was a particularly lovely honey colored wood that had been polished to a high sheen. The thumb faced person silently led him along the wooden planks that stretched across the wires to the mountain path below. The cheve was, quite sensibly and comfortably, stabled in a little building by the side of the trail. The temple looked like it was floating over an impossibly turquoise lake, the eye wateringly vast, steep mountains serving as the backdrop. He stared, trying to memorize the feeling so he could paint it later.

Danae would love this. And she wasn’t far now.

He got on the cheve and made his way back down the mountainside to the valley below. He waved goodbye to thumb face as he left, to the monk’s apparent confusion. Like they had never seen that gesture before.

Four days. Well. That was a long time by himself. He would have to come up with a name for the cheve, so he would have something to address them by.

“I think I will call you Bastard.”

The ride through the mountains was leisurely, trotting when he felt strong, walking again as soon as he realized that he wasn't. The trail would try to follow the river, as the river tended to run flat or, of course, down hill. But the mountains didn’t always accommodate, so he would go up, up, up, looking out across the wide valley and feeling like he would fly into the sky, before the trail bent downwards again and plunged him into forests of pine and fir so dense and dark, he could have been riding at night. It was… beautiful. Timeless and stark. A world that reminded you of your own complete insignificance, but whispered through the trees that it wasn’t as bad as all that. You were nothing. But you were part of something impossibly greater than yourself. And that was something worth celebrating.

You were part of a Great Dusty World, and that was worth celebrating. You, you tiny speck of nothing, existing for less than a blink and a memory for less than that. You are worth celebrating. In this tiny fleeting moment. As alone as a person could be. Embrace the terror and ecstasy of being part of the world, and be joyful that you are. Celebrate. Become drunk on the sky.