“This is growing increasingly creepy and weird.”

For the seven thousandth time they passed a bare tree that looked like a corpse frozen in a desperate final plea – twisted arms thrust upward toward heaven.

“You know,” said the youth and then stopped.

Silence.

“What's that?” Merely because he couldn't listen to it anymore.

Reluctantly, and then, “You know that –”

“– It's waiting – you know that? Maybe for this. Say it –”

“It's that,” he purposefully did not glance back as if he, the youth, were talking to himself – or wished to, “We're trapped here. In this repetition. In this cycle. – It's trying to make us into something. It's trying to... it wants – you know that, it's that it wants –”

Barely... audible: “What does it want?”

“I can feel it in my mind. I can feel it soliciting thoughts that aren't really my own. That don't belong to me; that belong to... it; I don't know; it...”

He thought about that. He thought about his own thoughts; his own mind, his response to this place – which was what? And what did he know about who he was and his own thoughts. Less than the Golden Bow, perhaps. The thoughts playing through – were they the same – merely that which processed through his interior; the same way those images passed outside. What did it want? “Do you know what it wants?”

“It wants me to be something.”

When they'd set out the sky had been entirely white, but now –

“When did it get dark?”

“It must have happened...”

The repeated landmarks still happened, still traversed past them – or them past them or whatever it was. The images processed; through or across them no one could say except that they did. And that there had been a transition out of day into night; and that they hadn't noticed this, or any of the degrees of transition. If there had been any. Perhaps there had been – or merely that it wasn't for their minds to notice that. But now it was entirely dark and the pressure, if anything, had only increased. The internal and the external palpitated together.

“Be something?”

“It's not whispering to you?”

The way his voice had changed... the youth's... terrified him. “I thought it was my own thoughts –”

“– It wants me to be something other than what I am. It desperately, desperately, you have no idea... how much want... how much that it wants that.”

Whenever they weren't speaking the silence... did.

“There's no life here.”

“No.”

What did it want of the Golden Bow? Of Him?

“You know I'm starting to feel even stranger.” Something in his voice worried the sorcerer.

“– What's wrong?”

“Perhaps it's just in my mind –?”

“Are we driving each other mad? We can't be. Look; look at that.” He pointed out a tree that looked like an old woman more familiar to both of them than any actual woman. They had no memory of any. The crone they passed: merely something they glanced across the contorted image of a stunted tree. This was their image of femininity; in this world that filtered these same identical no-variation things, across the walls of their cages, across the inside of their lids – across their emotions, across-across-across their souls, their innards, endlessly – repeating the same thing designed to unmake them. “You see her?”

“Yes.”

“Are you imagining that, my friend?”

“No.” his voice was half choked out and this was not the Golden Bow.

Whatever pressure was in his own head, that of the Sorcerer's, it was apparently magnified – it was way worse in that of the youth's.

He felt tremendous concern, and indeed tenderness for him – which he assumed given the other aspects of his personality, that were already pretty readily apparent, were not emotions attempted often, for him – though perhaps, who knew, human beings are complicated.

And anyway he was in this thing with him. They were both enduring... they were both beneath this tide of fakeness; this insistent pressure on the ontological level, in terms of his being, in terms perhaps of his having to be – sorcerous nonsense perhaps – something other than what his nature dictated.

Which was what; anyway. Anyway, which was what? A sorcerer who couldn't do sorcery – what was that in a universe of oppression; of ersatz reality and repetition, and deceit – and the internal demons of; the internal pressure of the... of the things that demons insisted upon, in this kind of universe, and continually and in his mind. – If it was this or if these even were his thoughts – he couldn't even know that.

And well then in that place, him, one like him, who/who he was. What could he even know? And his nature. – Maybe he was only being massaged anyway, perhaps it was merely a reminder, into being, reminded into being; forced into being, persuaded, maybe it was – he should anyway just be what he already was. He should just be... in response to this world which was his being, he should just... let the images dictate what he was. He should –

“We have to do something.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“It's making me feel strange – stranger – as if – it's making me want, in terms of being, in terms of what I am, it's making that – impossible.” He could barely choke out the words. “I've to be something else.”

“– Do not do it. But –” He'd never seen such misery. “What does it want you to do?”

“It wants me to do everything.” He couldn't look at him; and now it was difficult to make out the words. They travelled from a distance that was all interior. The Bow could barely move his lips, the youth, he could barely get those words out. – And there was the fact his voice had completely... it wasn't his voice – it wasn't even him anymore it –

“What – specifically what? What does it want you to do.”

“Can't –”

“Say it.”

“I can't/I won't – before... Setty.”

The sorcerer: “To harm her?”

“Different subject, different subject – it wants me to,” his hand on her flank, dead; unresponsive; clumsy hands, the youth's natural dexterity was beneath him. These, now, were non-functioning digits; it was obvious even from behind. Entirely rammed within, the youth had been – he couldn't even reach his own fingers. He could barely wipe his hands in the most reassuring manner he could manage on her neck and her sides. It was not a reassuring manner. “Different subject – not. – It wants me to slice her throat, it wants me to cut – it wants me to cut her – off, her face – slice. And then... after... do... something worse... than that.”

“Well,” he breathed shallow, “don't worry; you're not going to do that – you'd never do that – I won't let you, for one, I won't let you do that, ever; don't... let that worry you.”

“I'm not going to do that... don't worry you.” his voice was tragic, broken, and so – so far away.

“I know. You're not going to do that. You would never do that. Don't worry.”

“Don't... worry...”

He went limp, collapsed in on himself, and fell off the horse, hard on his side.

“Bow?”

The Sorcerer tore himself off the horse, as fast as he was able.

Setty immediately stopped and came up beside –