Senn woke up when the sunlight's warmth kissed his cheek. As he regained consciousness, with it came the feeling of chills in his body. He opened one eye. The fire had died out at some point, even though Hunter was supposed to keep it lit. Senn had taken the first watch and then the other man was supposed to be up. He looked around but didn't see his companion. He sat up with difficulty. His bones felt creaky and the muscles that surrounded them ached. He had spent all the previous nights out in the open, but the cold in the mountains was much worse than in the plains. He reached out to the goat skin by the fire, where they had saved the remaining food, and grabbed a bite. He rose, extending his legs and feeling the stiffness in them. He looked around again, up the mountain and down, but saw no trace of the other man. Maybe he's hunting, or taking a piss.

The other option would be that the man had left him there, but Senn found it highly unlikely. Why would he lead him there only to abandon him? It made no sense. Still, he looked ahead toward the place where they had seen the light the night before. It was difficult to make out the exact place because of the difficulty in judging distances at night, with almost no references. But it had to have been in the next mountain westward. If it was any further, it would have been too far away for a light to be visible from where they had been sitting. He was almost sure of it. Still, he decided to wait. Hunter could confirm what they had seen, and the direction.

By noon, the bowman was still absent. Why am I waiting? He could have been eaten by... something. I don't need him to go on. But his words rang hollow. He was following the other man's lead, as much as it hurt his pride to admit it. What if the sign they had seen the previous night was for his companion, and wouldn't appear to him on his own? Maybe the hunter had gone ahead, afraid to share a newfound power with him. He might have never intended to share it with him. But then, why bring him along? He could have shot that arrow into his chest days before with little effort.

He had to make a decision. Night would fall again, and if Hunter had been killed by some kind of beast, Senn needed to get away and find a new place to hide before nightfall. If he had been otherwise delayed, the bowman would eventually find his way to where Senn was going. He had to remember the light as Senn did. And if he had gone on ahead without him... then Senn would strangle the man, bow or no bow.

He had to go halfway down the mountain before reaching a crag that connected to the next mountain, and then climb for a while before reaching a kind of staggered plateau. He kept looking up, searching for another goat trail or at least a path that wasn't so sheer or covered in black dust. He had to watch his step as whole sections came sliding down if he set his weight on false rocks, little more than accrued grains of sand that fell away at the slightest contact. He rested for a while and ate a bit of dried goat. He chewed it trying to get some moisture into his mouth, but there was no use. He saw no water anywhere, no creek or anything that betrayed the presence of water in the area. He tried not to think about it. He had gone on without food lots of times, but he knew thirst was something you couldn't ignore for long.

Without a better option, he headed to a section of the mountain that was covered in bushes. At least that indicated that the soil below could hold some weight. He started climbing by grabbing the roots of the bushes, going from one to the next. He slipped and fell twice, and had to regain his lost footing and the distance he had gained. His hands started bleeding. The roots had some kind of hooks that sank into the ground, and he tore his skin multiple times. Still, he went ahead. He saw no other choice now. As the sun started the last leg of its daily journey, he reached a small plateau, a place where part of the mountain had collapsed and created a depression. He rested there, trying not to focus on his bleeding hands and shaky legs.

"It's an awful climb, I know."

The voice startled him, and he sat up awkwardly, trying to grab one of his bone arrowheads at the same time, and dropping it down the mountainside. He looked up and saw a man standing on a rock nearby. He was tall and lean, with a bald head and dark skin, darker than even the worst sunburned man. He was also completely naked and bore no weapons. Senn stood straighter and dropped his guard somewhat. He's even less dangerous than me.

"You startled me. It's a bad idea to startle a man,"he said.

"I'm sorry," said the naked stranger. "I'm not used to having visitors. It's been... an eternity, truly."

"Visitors? You mean you live here? Then why are your balls bouncing around with no clothes to tuck them in?"

"Ah. I forget about those things. It's not necessary when you're not around people often."

"Must get chilly at night."

"I wouldn't know."

Senn eyed him with increasing suspicion at each of the man's replies.

"I saw a... light, or fire, last night. It came from somewhere near this place, I guess."

"Yes. I don't normally light one, but something told me I should this time."

"So you have a home up here?"

"I wouldn't call it home. It's just a place to wait."

"Wait for what?"

"Ah. That is the whole of the matter, isn't it? Come, let's talk. There's some water in a pool nearby, you can clean yourself there."

Senn followed the dark-skinned man warily. They turned a corner and ascended a short flight of steps Senn hadn't seen from below. They were roughly cut out of the black rock as if hit by a shovel or pike without much care, and the steps were of uneven height. They climbed that way until they reached another plateau, and there was a small pool there in the ground, filled with what had to be rainwater. The man motioned to Senn to get into the pool, and sat on his haunches nearby, but far enough to give him some small amount of privacy. Senn looked at the clearwater pool and caved. He got out of his rags and stretched his bare toes over the black sand. He grabbed the pool's edge and lowered himself onto it slowly. The pool was deep, at least waist high, and he could spread his arms and barely touch the edges. It was cold in the deeper part, but the sun had heated the surface somewhat. Senn relaxed for the first time since he had left Lordstown, and let all his thoughts sink into the water and disappear in the deep until there was nothing in his mind but the feeling of numbness the cold water brought him.

"My lord," he muttered, not realizing his heresy.

"Have you missed the small pleasures, mister wanderer?"

Senn turned his neck toward the other man, who talked with something in his mouth. He was chewing something distractedly. Senn sighed. His calmness wasn't bound to last.

"I've missed them, yes. It's been weeks since I've had a bath."

"And you're an important man, yes? An important man who can't even bathe? Rainwater is free. I don't have anything, but even I am entitled to a bath every morning."

"What can I tell you?' Senn grumbled. 'Do you bring many people here and lecture them about cleanliness?"

"No. I just wonder about things sometimes. I have a lot of time to do so."

"You said you were waiting for something."

"Ah. Yes."

"And what is it?"

"I don't know."

"So how will you know when you come across it?"

"I don't know. I suppose I'll know when I see it. I've seen many things in my life. I guess it has to be something that will catch my attention."

"How long have you been here?"

"I don't know that either. But it was a different world beyond the mountains when I first sat here to wait."

"What do you mean?"

"That it was a long time ago."

"You aren't older than me."

"Oh, I'm not what I seem, I assure you."

Senn felt unusually calm around this stranger. Maybe it was the water or the realization that he feared nothing from the man. He hadn't been afraid of the Hunter, either. Maybe he was past all kinds of fear.

"Have you seen another man walking toward this mountain?" he asked. "I was with a... companion, and he disappeared before dawn. I fear it was a predator."

"What was your friend like?"

"Have you seen so many men around here this day that you need to ask that?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"No," said the man calmly. He didn't seem to mind Senn's sarcasm or notice his tone at all. "But knowing what he was like may tell me what befell him."

Senn gathered his thoughts before speaking.

"I don't know him very well. He's a hunter I met on the road, and he comes from the same place as me."

"And you had never met him before?"

"No."

"Did anyone else come along with you?"

"No."

The dark man smiled, and then his grin broadened until he erupted in laughter.

"Why do you laugh? I haven't said anything for you to mock me."

"I'm sorry. I'm used to laughing alone. I forgot some people could take offense erroneously."

"That doesn't answer my question," said Senn. His calmness was beginning to evaporate.

"I was reminded of a thing that happened to me a long time ago. I met a stranger on a lonely road that led nowhere. I was tired and naked, not much different from what I am now, I guess. I had survived a terrible ordeal and thought the world was done with me, and I was done with it. I was looking for a place to die, and I couldn't even find that. I'm ashamed of it now, but if I had found a knife, or even a sharp enough rock, I would have cut my veins and let the red paint the land. But then I found him. I still think of him as a man, but it's just a convention that says more about me than about him... her, it, whatever it may be. But he spoke, let's say, and his words were like a balm that enveloped me and made me forget every one of my aches and sorrows. And I had many, more than enough for two lifetimes. But even so... I still can't put it into words easily. But I think you understand, don't you? This has happened to you before, yes?"

Senn turned his head toward the man again, and the naked stranger turned and looked into his eyes.

"You know of what I speak, don't deny it. You've found your god."

"Yes, I did. A long time ago. I was... lost, too."

"And then something happened. Because you look like a man in doubt. Have you lost your belief, then?"

"No. I... something did happen. But it was my fault. I was weak, and my Lord doesn't abide weakness."

"I know. Even though he's full of weaknesses, he can't stand them in others."

"Why do you say that? How can you claim to know him?"

"Oh..." said the man, getting up and starting to walk toward Senn in a deliberate, slow way. "I know all of them. I know them by name, I've seen their face, I've heard their voice, felt their touch on my mind. I'm the only one alive who knows them, and who can claim to have withstood them."

Senn raised himself above the water and started to climb out.

"You speak madness. Stop! Don't get any closer."

The dark-skinned man shrugged at Senn's warning.

"I meant nothing by it. Just wanted to be sure you heard me. I know your 'god', your Lord of Greed. I know him and can sense his taint on you as easily as I can feel the ground beneath me. I felt the others, too. The ones you know, and those you haven't met." He gazed into Senn's eyes before going on. "You're not stupid. When you've felt the touch of one of them, you're able to recognize them on some level. You've seen others and started to doubt. Then your 'god' abandoned you, didn't he? It was bound to happen, as soon as you started entertaining others, or became subject to the others' power. In your case, it had to be one of the strong ones. You'd never be touched by my God, would you?"

Senn was perspiring, even though he had been slowly sinking again up to his chest without being aware of it.

"Who is your God?" he asked in a low hush. "And who are you to know or invent such things?"

"I am He Who Waits. My god is the sleeping giant that bears the world. He endures, and so do I, and he was the only one that didn't fade. He lived on while the others were in turmoil, and looks upon the world with patience. He knows it is all for nothing, an illusion signifying nothing, all the cares and struggles and everything else men suffer, kill and maim for. He gives strength to the weak, without blinding them or making them see what is not there."

"Then what good is your god"' asked Senn.

"He's not good or good for anything. He's a God to me, and that's enough."

Senn shivered and drank a gulp of water. He had forgotten how thirsty he was.

"You mentioned others. I want to know them."

"What for? Do you plan on getting a new god like you would a new pair of trousers? You can't find what isn't already there, and be warned, the gods are inside you more than they are outside. You should know that. You had to be there when your 'god' breached the Veil and got himself a body, didn't you?"

"How can you...? Yes, I was there."

"It was stupid of him. Before, he could be anywhere, powerful and all-knowing. And then he went and blinded himself to the world just to inhabit a filthy, stupid body. But I can't fault him. He's greedy, and of course he would want more than he had. Too late did he realize he had given up on much more than he had gained."

"And those 'others'?" he asked. "Did your god breach the Veil too?"

"No, he's much too smart for that. The Sleeping Giant sleeps, but his dreams feed your own. How, do you think, are the people able to endure so much suffering? How do they recall things they've never seen? How do you know words or concepts that you've never been taught, speak of things you couldn't conceive? My lord feeds your minds and keeps you from falling into nothingness. You're all his children in many more ways than you belong to the other 'gods'. Your very thoughts take the shapes he has taught you in dreams."

The vein in Senn's forehead throbbed. Could it all be true? Could any of it be true?

"I see you doubt me. But you've never seen a written word. The Chainkeepers don't teach you anything except pain and work. So how come you can think, dream, and speak in words you don't need to use to survive? Because your minds are free. My lord is your true Keeper and Maker. The Lord of Greed only set your bodies free. Your minds have been free for a long time. You just needed a push."

Senn's mind was racing. He had never heard another voice but his God's in his mind. But maybe the god that the strange man worshiped had been whispering to him all along, as he claimed.

"I've seen another one, too. A child with blazing blue eyes. The one that came with me saw him too, and he claims he spoke to him and told him to come here. He was looking for some kind of power."

The dark man sat on the ground, cross-legged and staring into Senn's eyes. He nodded.

"I know him. The god-child. He has many other guises, but that is the one he favors, for some reason. You saw him before, too. Before he was a child, he still blazed in blue, in a lantern underneath the earth."

Senn's mind raced to make sense of the words.

"You mean the one I saw on the island? How can you know that?"

"My god speaks to me in dreams, too. I've seen it. I saw you kill that man and his son."

Senn's face went pale, and his arms could barely grip the pool's edge.

"I did what I had to do."

"I'm sure your god convinced you of that. Not of that, specifically, but his influence over the years may have surpassed your own true will."

"But how... it doesn't make sense. What does that lantern have to do with the child with blue eyes?"

The dark man smiled, looking at Senn as he would a dumb child.

"Isn't it obvious? He had breached the Veil. He was that fire burning in the darkness, and you slew him when you killed his last followers. He became a shadow again, back beyond the Veil. He was Hope, lit brightly when you freed your people from slavery. Even then, some of them had been straying from greed to hope. It was inevitable. But you managed to quench that fire. You killed your own people's hope. Aren't you proud of yourself?"

He said those last words with a smirk, and Senn started to climb out of the pool to wipe that off with a blow. But when he managed to climb out and stood over the other man with his fists clenched, he realized he was about to do something he couldn't stand. His legs wobbled and he fell to his knees. Droplets were streaming from his hair and chest to his legs and the soil below. His legs were blackened once again, and the water stained his skin even more. Saltwater fell onto his knees.

"They're not gods at all," said the dark man, leaning over toward Senn and soothing him with his voice. "They're only ideas given power. And we gave some of them too much, and some too little. You were fed tyranny for many years, with just enough patience to bear it all. Then, somehow, you found the ambition you needed to set you free. You gave birth to Hope. You did it. Your god may have helped, but you were the one. You heralded Hope unknowingly, but you chose greed instead and squashed that hope until you were left blind to everything. To your own people's suffering and your lackeys' ambition. And now, what is left for you? Can you ignite that Hope again? You've seen the child, so he thinks you can still be his Herald. It may be so. He believes in you. You have some spark of it inside you. You've had it all along, buried deep, but you fear to own up to it, don't you?"

"Stop. Please, stop it," Senn muttered with eyes downcast.

"That ambition of yours. It drove you away from your hope, slim as it was. In your case, it was love, wasn't it? I remember her, she kept you alive and burning for a while. Then you forgot and you chose to live on greed alone. Are you strong enough to regain that?"

"Stop. You don't know... of what you speak."

"Oh, I do know. I know it as if it had been me. I bled and shed tears with you, in my dreams. I'm more of a brother than you'll ever have. I know you've been weak all along."

Senn lunged at the man and hit him across the jaw. He put his arms around him as he fell backward and tried to strangle him. The other man didn't resist. Senn frowned and brought his hands closer. The man whimpered, but his whole body was lax. He looked into Senn's eyes and there was calm there. Calm and patience for him and his ways.

Senn let go of the man and stumbled back. The dark man sat back up in the same cross-legged position and said nothing, as if what had transpired had been meaningless.

"You're weak," he said, "because you chose just one kind of strength. There are others. Hope gives you strength. Patience, too. Kindness is its own strength."

"There are bad things in the world," said Senn, his voice barely above a whisper. "The tyrants, the cowards, the blind who hit without seeing. The ones who can't be bothered to lift a hand to stop a whip coming down," Senn gasped. "The ones who want to have everyone under their boot."

"Yes. There's strength in there, too, unfortunately. You chose one of those in your hour of weakness. But what will you choose now that you are free of all of that? Greed brought you to a certain place, but it never helped you achieve what you wanted. Won't you try another way?"

Senn sat on the black sand. He was wet and naked and covered in black sand, and didn't care about anything except the words that were coming out of the dark-skinned man.

"What other way is there?" he asked. "What can hope do for me? It didn't help the man and the boy I killed. Why wouldn't that... child... betray me too?"

"Hah! You're foolish. You can lose Hope, but hope can't lose you."

"I have a headache full of your wordplay. Your words make sense, but that doesn't mean anything. The world is ruled by swords and chains, not words alone."

"Not yet, at least. The world has been ruled for too long by only one idea. The world needs more. When men allow only one idea to become supreme, then the world begins to end. You helped turn that into two competing ideas, but that's not enough. Nothing can thrive between ideas that only aim to perpetuate themselves. We need ideas that can help remake the world."

Senn looked up at the sky that was slowly being covered by clouds. They were different from the ones in the plains. They smelled different.

"You said that before. Was the world ever any better?"

"Yes," said the dark-skinned man. "It was never perfect, but compared to this wasteland, it was... it was full of life."

"I... I don't know what to do. Who to follow."

"I know hope may be too much to ask of you just now. But there is another. You've met him. He led you here. He dressed as a Hunter, for that's what he is. He aims and never fails. He is your true Will, bare of illusory ambitions. He's been your true Lord all along, the only one you're prepared to follow now."

Something soft and wet started to fall from the sky. Something white, that threatened to wash away all the black stains.