“Alright. Right now we need to decide if we’re running back to the Nexus or not.” She said.

“The Nexus?” Kaiser said.

“The thing we came in through, the geode-like growths on the ceiling. The locals call it the Nexus, claim it’s blocking their Gods power or something—but here’s the important part: it looks like their Gods are real. Their mythology strongly suggests that one of their Goddess figures is Naomi Studdard, and possibly three of her assistants—maybe teachers?—are the others.”

“And what on earth would make you think a primitive society’s god figures are real?” Kaiser said this with enormous contempt.

“Because I’ve been watching these people for two, maybe three days. And I have seen shit you would not believe.”

“And yet you stayed with the procession. I was close enough to hear this stranger you girls were talking to—”

Hawk felt Em tense up beside her. Hell with it. “Hey. You’ve been working with us long enough to get it, Kaiser. Either get them right, or get off the ride.”

“You think you can order me to do something? The great Widow West? Is that how you see yourself right now?”

“Do you have guns? Do any of you have a weapon capable of shooting something that looks like a cross between a lion and a venomous snake? Because that’s what I just saw.” Hawk said. “And the owner of those venomous shadow-cat things just told us to clear out. And I don’t know about you, Em but—” and suddenly she knew, the way she knew how to breathe, that telling Kaiser about Alex would be a frighteningly bad idea. Same way she’d known that letting him have the Ape’s orb would have been an error. Now she had a working theory for why the latter was a bad idea—because he’d do to himself what Naomi Studdard had done, what Edgar Studdard had done to himself. He’d try and become one of the Gods. “But he was a very scary son of a bitch,” she said, emphasizing very scary and hoping for Em to nod. Right now Em was the only one who had seen him. “Right, Em?”

She saw it click in their eyes. “Yes, ma’am. Doc. Very scary.”

“Our choices right now are to do what he says and go back in the dark towards home…or stay. And if you want to stay, we all need to have the same story for the procession.”

“Why, if we want to stay, do we need the procession of bleeding psychopaths?” Em said.

“Because I’d rather be traveling with them than I would be found by them.” She thought hard. “I’m covered, but I can’t cover for you the way the Archon covers for me. I don’t know enough. They view English as a sacred language. You’ll be able to communicate with their priest caste. The Light Archon is our friend. The Earth Archon—high priest—is absolutely not anyone’s friend.”

“So we’d want to go with the psychopath priest because?” Em said.

“She has food, she has water, and she might be willing to talk to someone from their God-world if they’re charming enough.” She could feel the fragments of a workable plan come together. One that wouldn’t mean abandoning a possible Alex to the dark…or surrendering to the threats of a madman. “Yeah. That’s what we’ll do. If you want to stay, we have to stick with the procession of dangerous people. You want to go home, we need to set off right now.”

She was starting to hear shouts and see lights from the procession’s course. She could see them between the boundaries of white-leafed trees, flashing like knives. And her mouth went dry. She wanted to sit down. Now.

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“Which is the smart move?” Dyson said.

“Going home,” Hawk said, without hesitation. Because knowing what the smart move was, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was doing what she wanted to do.

“But you want to stay.” Em said. “Because of that man, you want to stay.” The man with Alex’s face, their own eyes seemed to read.

“Yes,” she said. The shouts and cold-lights were getting closer.

“Oh, bother it all. What are you pretending to be, Hawk?” Kaiser said.

She cringed. “The high preist’s replacement.”

“So we just rescued someone they’re viewing as important? Well…fuck.” And suddenly he had a bit more of that old country-boy attitude. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place. Hello! Fancy parade!” And Kaiser started forward, towards the searchers. “We got your girl right here!”

Henry Dyson said, “Well. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“He gets sacrificed to an alien God.” Hawk said.

“Hey. He said worst.” Em said, watched him walk towards the now-frantic lights for a full minute, then sighed. “Ah, well. Might as well go save him before he becomes barbeque.”

“Just…realize that’s not hyperbole, Em. These people do human sacrifice. Light Archon—our good guy—doesn’t approve of it, but the Earth Archon—bad guy—has practiced it twice since I’ve been here. You have no idea how insane these people are.” She glanced at Kaiser. “We’d better go keep him from becoming road kill.”

And she was up and moving, just as members of the procession reached Kaiser.

***

Of course, Kaiser Willheim had them eating out of his hand in five minutes. Almost literally. He began passing out candy bars almost as soon as the first of the gold-and-green robes reached him.

Knowing precisely how big of a disaster this was going to be, Hawk said, “He’s from the God-World” to her would-be rescuers. And, because they did not immediately react like they were scared, nor like they would like to cook Kaiser on the Earth Archon’s altar, she added, “All three of them are.”

This brought on a chorus of ooohs and aaaaahs, and an out-reaching of hands. One person in a green robe fainted. Hawk didn’t see anyone reaching for the newly prone worshipper, so she leveraged them up herself, coaching them carefully out of a swoon. The others were swept along with soft words and many, many, many eloquent blessings. That left her alone with the fainter. They were starting to come out of it.

“Can you walk with me?” Hawk asked. The fainter nodded, and began helping Hawk through the brush. Movement made her realize her ill-fated ride on the Hare had damaged more than her pride. She was limping and had lost a shoe at some point. Her vaporous vanguard tried to offer their own shoes. She refused them and simply limped after the now-retreating lights. Her rescuer didn’t have one. She was going off in the one direction the Shadow didn’t want her to follow—back to the procession. And he might catch her in the dark, and…and one of the lights ahead was coming towards them, so she could relax. She didn’t need to be afraid of strangers with Alex’s face…it was the Light Archon and a small handful of gold robes, two of whom were left with Kaiser and the others. The remaining four held a litter.

“I am not getting on that,” Hawk said, immediately.

“They found the remains of your Hare a few moments ago. I thought you had died.” Her own Archon said, reprovingly. “Now I have one of those miracles I have always lusted after—a dead woman, revived!—and you won’t accept one singular gift of joy?” His blank ivory mask tracked from her to the procession and back. “Besides. You are injured and there is quite a bit of territory between us and the procession. You’ll be a swift meal for the Shadowbeasts.”

Cats, she wanted to correct, but chose not to. These were their monsters, after all. Might as well stick with the local names. Sighing, she tried to argue that the fainter needed the litter more than she did. At which point the Archon of Light, saying nothing, moved the fainter to stand next to Hawk, where she could clearly see that they had two shoes to her one, and the bare foot was bleeding. She climbed into the litter and allowed her Archon to bandage her foot. Glancing at the Gold Robes, she said, “Is it…safe to speak?”

“Depends on what you wish to say,” He said, congeniality. But his mask jerked once, a sharp no.

Shit. “I think I saw—”

“Secrets, that should be confessed to an Archon and only that. No need in sparking unnecessary panic, when we are recovered so late from a necessary one. Lift her up, men, there’s a go. And we’ll be back in one piece.”

Yes, but she needed to give him one warning, no matter what. “I know these people, Archon,” she whispered, pulling him down so she could whisper into one exposed ear. “The oldest man is dangerous. Do not trust him.”

The Archon pulled back. “I understand.”