Time had left him; all sense of it. He'd been hungry when they'd set out, but even this sensation had left, thirst, too, had departed. – Though his mouth had been dry and he hadn't had a sip since before the youth had given him one by the side of the road.

Dreaming across a countryside that wanted him to, he wondered if he'd ever get off this horse; if he'd ever have a life that wasn't merely these repeated images passing past him – in an illusory corridor perhaps solely imposed upon reality by his mind, but then maybe – not – or maybe –

And it was obvious, now, in fact – it was becoming increasingly undeniable – they'd been riding long enough – however long that was – that these images; these ruins – that cliff-side on the left, that ambitious, these same tress, too, fallen-down-wall by the side of him; all of the various hallmarks and identifying features – landmarks – all of them, all of these details everywhere, anyway – and how long had they really been riding – they were repeating, in a repeated pattern, and in – he didn't know horse-time, in horse-time, another ten minutes they'd see again that ambitious hill, black hill on the left-side horizon – if there was such a – it would repeat, and with it the whole process; of this cycle, within the artificial corridor imposed upon reality perhaps not merely by his mind, of those images, on the side of him, not really real and tiny and far away, but inches off his face:

in fact merely the sides of a wall forming a corridor, at the centre of which, he-him-too, and the Golden Youth – the Golden Bow, in which they merely processed through it, enjoying the solicited reflections, the images, the soporific countryside, the weird chemicals he probably hadn't – like any of the rest of this – merely generated him/himself and the – repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition – repetition; the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, the repetition, – the – repe-

– “It's repeating isn't it?”

“It clearly is.”

“So it's fake.”

“Where we are?”

“It's fake.”

“You mean the world?”

“I think so... yes.”

“Then we should stop.”

“Go where? Do what? It's repeating.”

“If it's repeating; if it's a cycle, then... this road it's infinite. – In terms of us being in this world and riding a horse across it.”

“She's not tired. Setty.”

“No, she doesn't appear to be, does she?” The Golden Bow patted his horse's flanks affectionately. She responded with a tolerant whinny. Then they merely continued as before. Processing past – them or the images it hardly made a difference, on the sides of the corridor wall he – perhaps he – had decided to interpret there.

Or through his mind. For all the world it was a completely verisimilar the – the world, countryside, whatever it was. But by this point – and in fact this was technically true in at least this case, and perhaps even so for the Golden Bow, in fact pretty obviously this was definitely so: that ambitious hill; those repeating ruins, that cliff-side, and these trees – each of these trees like life-long neighbours – each of the landmarks was more familiar to him than his own face. Okay he'd never seen his own face; his hands – his own personality, the contours of his own mind; then. Internal. You couldn't argue with a person actually living/existing in this space, that it was merely repeated, he thought – that these were merely images/therefore that the world itself, that he was inside, was clearly and entirely fake.

But for some reason they just kept going. Processing through these images or allowing these images to process through them. Whatever it was. It was them on the horse; the sides of the walls of the corridor, descended or as interpreted, the repeating landmarks, the repeating feelings even associated with the variations in the landscape – the repeated reflections, the fakeness of it and in endless repetition.

He thought about who he was and that – what – clearly who he was and the nature of this environment, of its clear artificiality; as completely inherent or as an interpretation imposed – this was who he was. But the youth saw it too. They both did. It wasn't merely the fault of one of these several mind diseases that he very likely had. – Sorcerers were prone to such. Diseases of the humours. Dark moods to the level of disease. Depression. Flatness of affect. Mania. Weird obsessions and compulsions. The traditional attributes of the sorcerer these were in fact – or certainly could be; could be read exclusively as mind diseases, diseases of the mind and spirit. – Of the soul, even, which was worse. He had been infected – reinfected – by this fake environment, but –

He saw it too.

“Maybe there's an etiquette to this.”

“– What do you mean?”