So much for the first good child. The three finished their coffees, and went out and enjoyed a lovely lunch; but when the meal broke up, two went one way and the third another.

Their way wended out of the city, to the north, out past its old stones and crumbling concrete and into the dusty and frostbitten farmlands. Still it went farther. The journey would have taken days, had it been undertaken by mortals; but for cultivators, it was no more than a couple hours, and that was with breaks to enjoy the scenery. The air was not clean in the City of Tombstones, nor were the roads, and to stroll under a clear sky and feel no more than the crunch of gravel under your feet was (at least for Caedes) a rare treat.

They were heading to Caraback Mountain, whose peak was distantly visible from the north of the city on smog-free days (which were rare) and which, though not especially high, was nonetheless a popular winter vacation destination for those wealthy enough to be able to afford travel. It offered an excellent opportunity to ski and toboggan, not that our two protagonists intended to do either. No, their interest was of a decidedly Christmasier sort.

Of a decidedly Christmasier sort, and destined to be of a decidedly sidelined sort. As they crested the last ski hill before reaching the mountain proper, they saw two men facing them. Their corporate suits would have identified them even had their demonic qi been hidden, and both Yaaroghkh and Caedes drew their blades.

There were, as I have said, two of them. One was small and slight, nervous, of an intellectual disposition; the other was big and brash, rough, and inclined to settle disputes with his fists. Though there are many of this good earth whose appearance does not match - indeed, positively contradicts - their character, these two were not among them: the small, intellectual one was timid but intelligent, and his bullish colleague was exactly as bullish as he seemed.

Their names were Luke and Albert, and they were two among the corporate executives that Old Nick had addressed ages ago in chapter twelve. They were among the more recent hires, and being newer - and, therefore, less likely to receive a pension - were among the more aggressive, and so they had found traces of Caedes and Yaaroghkh and, through demonic methods known only to their persons (for like all good demonic cultivators, they never shared) had tracked the two down, and on the slopes of Caraback Mountain had initiated their confrontation.

The four circled each other warily, neither side willing to underestimate the other. Caedes and Yaaroghkh were naturally wary sorts, well aware of the perils posed by even the most innocuous of demonic cultivators; Luke and Albert had witnessed the aftermath of their opponents’ escape, in that underground tunnel, and were not greatly inclined to test them.

At last, Albert gave a signal to his colleague, and the two sprang into action. Albert leapt for Caedes and got him into an armlock; Luke began to chant foul formulas, mathematical signs falling from off his lips.

This was not Caedes’ first scrape, and as Albert got him in an armlock he stomped on his foot, then sprang backwards; Yaaroghkh spread his form, chthonian tendrils flickering with an icy glare across the slope.

Caedes and his foe both entered close range combat, a flurry of blows flying as each combatant tried with all his might to strike at the elbows of the other, hoping to disable him. Meanwhile Luke had begun to channel the arcane and daemoniac power of exponents, muttering darkly about what happened when one applied ten to the power of four or eleven to the power of seven. Yaaroghkh decided to be a good sport, and let his enemy hit him.

Albert had his arms around Caedes, which didn’t bother the latter in the slightest - he simply jumped up in the air, then fell backwards, bodily slamming his enemy against the ground. Meanwhile the lurid light around Luke had reached its hellish apogee, and with a hue and a cry he motioned his arms, directing the entire nightmarish arsenal of mathemagical fury against his opponent.

The deadly blow arced through the air, a thousand deadly bolts of light flying through the sky until they slammed… into the ground.

“What?” Luke said in confusion.

“Ooh, bad luck,” Yaaroghkh observed from right beside him.

“You - how’d you get here?”

“Hmmmm? But I never moved. I seemed to be there, and now I seem to be here.”

Luke still appeared confused, so the elf continued his explanation as Caedes fought for his life.

“My bodily geometry lacks the property of being Ordered, which means that if you take any set of possible locations (expressed mathematically) that I might be at then you can’t state that it’s ‘less likely’ that I’m at one spot as opposed to being ‘more likely’ to be at another. By extension, I lack the property of comparative geometry - ie. localising my person ‘as opposed to’ - which means you can’t hit me in the first place, since of course you are aiming from one position to another across a (mathematically expressible) field.

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“The problem is exacerbated, however, by your poorly conceived idea of attacking me with a cultivation technique rooted in exponents. You may not know this, but the closest you can get to expressing an elf - although even it doesn’t quite work - is by means of trigintaduonions. Now,” Yaaroghkh continued, sketching out inscrutable alphanumeric codes in the air, “one of the features of trigintaduonions is that they lack what we call power associativity… which is to say that the conventional expression, ‘y*y*y = y3’ does not actually apply. Returning to our initial set of conditions, you chose to attack me with an exponent of ten to the power of…”

By this time Luke, who understood mathematics about as well as the Author, was quite lost, but unlike the Author who is a highly modest and humble individual he was arrogant and combative and began to argue with the elf about maths. Our readers should not have an unduly negative opinion about him, however, for the topic of his dispute was not trigintaduonions but the realism of maths as applied to external space.

“Of course I understand the thrust of your argument, mathematically speaking, but I’m dubious of its applicability to reality in the first place. Descartes may have defined ‘matter’ as the space of extension, but we need not be so naive. The argument you’re levying depends implicitly upon the notion that models in physics correspond to physical models, an idea that is by no means as clear as it first appears-”

“But of course,” the elf interrupted, as Caedes delivered a stellar pro-wrestling move and got Albert in a headlock, “I understand your contention intensely - in fact, dare I say I am profoundly sympathetic to it - but the question you raise draws not, as is commonly misconceived, upon the philosophy of science as such but upon metaphysics in particular. I note your earlier phrase that ‘models in physics correspond to physical models’, emphasis mine. Is the truth to be determined by mere correspondence between knowledge and reality, as the lackadaisical reader of Plato would have it, or is it more a matter of what we call ‘unconcealment’? The question is one which by its very nature reveals what was previously hidden, for-”

And they would doubtless have argued further, save for the fact that at the moment there was the pounding of hooves, not over the mountain, but in the sky overhead. All four disputants froze, Luke and Yaaroghkh in the middle of their argument, Caedes in the middle of biting Albert’s toes.

Over the hills and from far away they came, a mighty horde, a veritable night parade, a parade of huntsmen, a Herlethingus. Ranks of knights riding in brilliant armour; courtiers and courtesans riding beside, in the finest of silks, and behind them a baggage train, masses of peasants and artisans and craftsmen and all manner of others riding on donkeys, and mules, and whatever else they could find. And all of them were singing, or laughing, or telling raucous jokes, as they galloped over the hills.

At their head strode a giant. Twelve feet tall he was, arrayed in magnificent colours, but his features lost in shadow. He carried a staff with a hammer’s head at either end, swinging it like a baton, and at his side walked a dragon. The two would engage in mock fights as they moved, the dragon pretending to lunge for the giant, the giant striking the giant on his bulbous head. But whenever the dragon ‘collapsed’ from the blows, the giant would reverse his hammer and hit him with the other end, and the dragon would spring back to life.

As they cantered and carrolled and chanted their way over the hills, singing and dancing, the giant was bawling “get out of the way, get out of the way. Get out of the way, for the Wild Hunt will play today.”

The Wild Hunt would play today; for it was near Christmas, when that fell tide of joy and doom rides across the landscape, bringing the dire and the carnivalesque to man in equal measure - and woe betide the one who stopped it in its mission. Caedes, of course, sprang out of the way, and Luke and Yaaroghkh moved to take their dispute elsewhere (for the fires of philosophical combat are not easily calmed), but Albert stood his ground.

“You dare!” He cried, “you’re courting death.”

But as is so often the case, the one who cries courting death cries wolf, and like the boy in the fable is gobbled up, with not even a remnant left. The giant hit him, and the dragon bit him, and the Wild Hunt rode him down, and nothing was left save a smear of arrogance upon the floor.

This had no impact upon Luke, however, for the philosophical beast was upon him - that mangled, matted creature from out of the dread swamps of wonder, which sinks its claws into all those who ponder ‘why’ and does not withdraw them even at their death.

That bolt should have killed the elf, he knew it should have, but not only was the elf fine, he had a veritable battery of arguments as to why he should remain so, even if Luke hit him again. This was unacceptable, because it was unfathomable. Luke found within himself a bone of contention he never knew he had, and his dissatisfaction grew and grew in the short time he and the elf disputed until it erased any idea of what he’d been - man, demonic cultivator, corporate executive - and left only the Quesitor.

“I do not know the answer to your arguments,” he said, despair writ clear across his face, “but I nevertheless know they are false, and seek time to demonstrate as such. Might we meet at a later date?”

Yaaroghkh was pleased. He could sense a spark; and the reason Santa gave coal was that a spark was all it took. “But of course! As Master Chu affirmed, ‘if you have no doubts, encourage them. And if you do have doubts, get rid of them.’ I will find you in ten years, and we will continue the discussion then.”

And the two shook on it, before Luke went on his way, into the philosophical unknown.