Even though it was an utterly terrible idea, Oak dove into the Waking Dream. He would not make it in time to save Geezer with more traditional methods.

The echoes of suffering flowing through the dream embraced him, licking his form with barbed tongues of misery. Clad in the ghost of a sparrow, Oak flew out of the window he had just arrived through in the real world and headed straight for Geezer.

There was a simple reason he could do that. Finding an animal, or any mind for that matter, in the Dream, could be quite difficult, but Oak had a rough idea about the dog's location, and he was very familiar with Geezer’s mind and ward signature. He had made the hound’s wards himself, after all. This meant he could find the dog fairly easily in the Dream, no matter what.

The Waking Dream did not accurately resemble or even represent the real world, but Oak reckoned it was fair to assume the spider had thrown Geezer from its back and punted him against the same balcony he had been standing against when he punched the spider in the eye.

The bricks of the apartment building were weeping tears of blood suffused with lingering echoes of true suffering, and interference from the currents of the Dream was heavy, but desperation fueled Oak’s search. Failure was not an option. Heedless of the danger, he shifted through the chaos, and located Geezer’s mind. His guess had been right. The hellhound was lying still right against the bottom of the balcony.

Geezer was hurt, but alive.

A terrible wrath threatened to sweep aside Oak’s every rational thought, but he pushed the emotions down with gritted teeth. He needed to be cold now, or Geezer was done for. With a twist of his will, Oak let his Scout loose to aid him in his search. Together, they could cover more ground and find the spider before it was too late.

It paid to be prepared. The raven isolated the spider’s mind first, just below the waves of lingering malice infecting the Waking Dream of Ma'aseh Merkavah. Fast as lightning, it flew straight back to him and shared the location.

Without hesitation, Oak shed the trappings of the sparrow, and struck with Kaarina’s Horror.

The results were less than ideal, considering the monster did not even have wards. Kaarina’s Horror was a weapon crafted of human memories, meant to shatter sentient minds. The trauma he had used to make it was quite incomprehensible to a horse sized spider, which diminished the stinger's effectiveness.

As Oak struck again and again, sinking the stinger into the spider's mind, but making very little headway in actually purging the monster, he noticed Geezer had moved again. The dog's mind was blinking away from the battle and suddenly it vanished from the wall. The clever hellhound had probably jumped down into the building through a window.

Oak smiled and retreated. He pulled out of the dive and snapped back into his own body with a jolt.

Time to finally kill that bastard.

***

Oak rose back on the wall like an avatar of wrath, falchion in hand.

As he made his way through the apartment building, his rage and disgust had built and built upon themselves until he wanted to burn every spider that had ever existed to ash. He breathed hard, staring at the ruined form of his foe, and a nasty smile crept over his face.

The spider had seen better days. It was missing three legs, and Geezer had done a number on its back. Its face was a burned ruin and only a single black eye stared back at Oak as the spider watched him approach, blueish ichor bleeding on the bricks from its many wounds, making little rivers as it ran along the mortar.

“There you are,” Oak said and licked the gap in his teeth, where a new tooth was slowly growing to replace the one Gluk had taken from him. “Do you mind if I kill you and beat your corpse until I feel better?”

The giant spider did not respond. It moved laboriously to the left, trying to slip past him and escape. Oak moved with it, not leaving any room for the monster to run away and disappear into the shadows of Ma’aseh Merkavah. The spider seemed to realize escape was no longer possible, and it hissed at Oak, clicking its fangs together to scare him away.

Oak paid the display no mind and closed the distance with two quick strides.

The spider tried to dodge backwards, but it was too slow. A downward chop of his sword cut off the spider's remaining front leg, and the monster lost its balance. It crashed down onto the wall and Oak thought he could feel the palpable hate in the horror’s gaze as it stared at him, finally accepting defeat.

As Oak raised his sword high, the spider hissed and spat in the face of its death. A glob of spit landed on his boot and started eating its way through the leather.

“You absolute fucker,” Oak said and brought his sword down, splitting the spider’s face and the front section of its body in two. He quickly wiped his boot against the brick, getting most of the spider’s caustic spit off of his only piece of footwear.

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At some point, Geezer had climbed back on the wall. The dog walked up to Oak, and sat down next to him, staring at the spider’s mutilated corpse. Oak knelt down and dug his fingers into Geezer’s fur. It was completely black now, and even coarser than it had been before. They had both changed much in the last six days.

Now that the fight was over, the anger bled out of Oak. He gave Geezer a scratch, looking at the disgusting spider corpse and wondering if the city was causing him to lose what remained of his sanity.

“You know Geezer, even though I absolutely hated that eight-legged monstrosity, I have to give it its due. That bastard spent its last moments trying to ruin my boots out of sheer spite, and I have to respect that,” Oak said and rubbed his beard in thought. “This fucking city, Geezer. By the Chariot.”

He shook his head and stood up. It was time he went to get his rucksack, and they made themselves scarce.

Who knows what Ma’aseh Merkavah might throw at us as if we linger here for too long? Better get going while we still draw breath.

Leaving the scene of battle behind proved a wise decision. By the time Oak and Geezer had gotten a couple of buildings between them and the apartment building, he could hear a fight erupt behind them. A horde of spiders had arrived, and he was pretty sure the scavengers were fighting over the corpse on top of the apartment building's wall.

In my humble opinion, most of the monsters here are a bit too ready and willing to engage in cannibalism, Oak thought as he moved up the slope, rucksack on his back and Geezer hanging once again in the harness under him.

Almost falling from the slope on multiple occasions had caused Oak to reassess his climbing technique, and he had realized that, unsurprisingly, he was being a moron.

Sometimes I really wonder how I am still alive.

Oak pushed himself upwards with his legs, grabbed good holds for his hands, and then repeated the process.

You would think the fact that humans walk and run by using our feet would have clued me in to the idea that I should also climb mainly with my feet, but no one has ever accused me of being too smart.

Suddenly, all the sounds of the spiders behind them fighting over who would get to dine on a nice, crunchy corpse seized, and a sensation of utterly bone shattering coldness traveled through the Waking Dream. Something had just purged a staggering amount of spiders in one go.

Oak had no clue what could do that, nor did he want to find out, so he picked up the pace. It would be a shame to stumble on the homestretch and get my mind eaten by some nameless horror, he thought and pushed himself and Geezer upwards as fast as he was able.

***

The summer palace was not far away.

They had stopped to rest and eat in a small temple made of white marble jutting out of the slope. It was dedicated to the Choir of the Seraphim, which was not ideal. Oak was lying on his back inside the temple with Geezer right next to him, admiring the mural painting on the wall above him.

It covered the entire wall and depicted the Night of Fratricide, and the death of Samael, in the hands of the Seraphim. Starting from the left, the painting immortalized the duel between the Adversary and Archangel Mika’il.

Their battle took them from the lowest hell to the highest heaven, where the blood of the Mother still ebbed, staining their wings. At last, knees deep in his Mother’s blood, a weeping Samael cast Mika’il down and pierced the chest of his enemy with his sword. Wounded and mad with sorrow, Samael knelt as the six-winged forms of the Seraphim surrounded him and seven lances pierced him in turn.

Something about the mural tugged Oak’s heartstrings and his thoughts turned to his own mother. He had never known her touch or heard her voice. Or if he had, he could not remember it. His mother had died in childbirth and he had learned of her secondhand through his father's stories.

What would you think of me, mother, if you were still alive?

As the old man had told it, she had been a no-nonsense kind of woman with a snappy voice and a will of steel. Mother had not suffered fools, which is why it was so surprising she had married one. Or so his father had always liked to joke.

The raw pain depicted on Samael’s and Mika’il’s faces was a familiar thing.

Geezer rolled onto his back and huffed, demanding Oak to scratch his bulging tummy. Oak snorted and gave in, scratching and petting the hellhound in companionable silence.

“You always know when I am moody, don’t you Geezer,” Oak said after a while. Geezer’s red eyes found his own, and he smiled. “I don’t thank you enough for it.”

Geezer just ground his back against the stonewall, tongue lolling out of his mouth as the dog enjoyed his well-deserved comforts. Oak snorted and picked up another piece of hardtack to chew on.

The dog gave him a pointed look, and Oak shook his head.

“If you eat even a little more corned beef, you are going to explode young man,” Oak said and emphasized his point by pointing at the dog’s tummy with his piece of hardtack. Geezer tried to lazily snatch it from Oak’s hand and he easily pulled it out of the dog’s reach.

“You don’t even like this stuff,” Oak said and took a bite. “Then again, neither do I, now that I am not on the brink of starvation. Lack of food is a spice unrivaled by all others.”

They stayed a while in the temple, waiting for their meal to settle. During their rest, Oak moved only once, to take a piss outside. Even though he thought the Choir of Hierarchy and Conquest comprised a bunch of wankers, peeing inside their temple was a step too far for him.

There was also something funny about peeing on the slope of the sphere and watching it flow downwards like meltwater flowing down the slopes of the mountains back home.

Turning back from the edge, Oak put away his cock, and set his sights on the summer palace up above. Maybe an hour of climbing, he thought, judging the distance. He nodded to himself.

It was time to go and fulfill Ashmedai’s oath.