Not even bothering to open his eyes, Sen disengaged his hands from the fox woman’s backside and stood up. He hadn’t particularly missed this kind of behavior during the long years he’d spent ascending that mountain that seemingly had no peak. He found himself oddly wistful for those quiet centuries of climbing. It had been frustrating at times but peaceful nonetheless. Sen also got the impression that while he had gotten a lot out of the experience, he hadn’t gotten everything he might have if he’d approached it with less urgency in his heart. Maybe I can come back here and try again, thought Sen. It’d be way easier to get past that horde if I only needed to worry about getting myself inside.

“Aren’t you going to help me up?” asked Misty Peak.

Sen opened his eyes and looked at the fox. She seemed very unimpressed by how much he wasn’t being helpful. He shrugged.

“You seemed to get yourself down there just fine. I expect you can get up by yourself too.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, you haven’t changed.”

“You were on fire when you arrived here. I’d say that neither of us has changed that much.”

Despite his words, Sen reached out to help the woman to her feet. She started to hand him the blanket before she took a longer look at the scorched piece of material and winced.

“Sorry,” she said, moving the ruined blanket around in midair like she didn’t quite know what to do with it.

“It’s fine,” said Sen.

He took the blanket from her and with a brief surge of qi, he incinerated it. He saw a coy expression cross the woman’s face but was saved from that problem with a different problem. The person who Sen assumed was the spider stormed up to the pair of them, his liquid black eyes boring into Sen. While Sen had stared down a lot of troubling things, that glare was surprisingly effective at leaving him feeling more than a little unsettled.

“This is your fault,” repeated the angry spider man.

Sen tried to sort through the many, many questions that rolled through his mind. He wasn’t sure where to start.

“We’re clearly going to need to have a long talk about a lot of things,” said Sen, “but why don’t we start with what you think is my fault.”

“This!” shouted the spider, waving his hands at his body. “Look at me. Oh, my legs. My wonderful legs are gone. And I got these useless things in return.”

Sen took a step back as the spider shook his arms in Sen’s general direction. Sen tried to regroup and grasp at sanity.

“I’m sorry,” said Sen. “I’m trying to understand, but I really need more information. How is this my fault?”

“The Great Matriarch transformed me into this terrible thing because of you! She said it was the best way for us to communicate. Except, I can’t change back.”

“Wait,” said Sen. “Your queen did this to you.”

“No, open your ear holes. Not my queen. The Great Matriarch!”

Misty Peak leaned in and whispered to Sen, “I’m pretty sure he’s talking about a transcendent spider. Some kind of primordial existence or a goddess maybe. He probably met her in the mandala.”

“Yes!” shouted the spider. “The promiscuous, ceaselessly talking one understands.”

“Hey, I don’t talk that much,” argued the fox.

Sen gave her a look. “That’s the part that bothered you. Not the promiscuous part?”

“I’m a fox. Why would that bother me? You humans are the ones who have strange ideas about sex. Besides, are you going to pretend that you’re celibate or something?”

Sen took a beat before he said, “Okay. That’s fair.”The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She smirked at him like she’d just won in some game that he hadn’t even known they were playing. He turned his attention back to the spider, who was just staring at him.

“Before anything else, what should I call you?” asked Sen.

“I am Glimmer of Night,” said the spider.

“Glimmer of Night,” repeated Sen. “Alright. So, the Great Matriarch did this to you so we could communicate. What are we supposed to communicate about?”

“She did not see fit to tell me. She simply said that I should spend time in your company and all would become clear.”

Sen asked his next question with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

“Did she say how long she thought this would take?”

“Not long,” admitted the spider, giving Sen the briefest glimmer of hope. “A few hundred years.”

Sen reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “She wants you to travel with me for a few hundred years. Looking like that. With the name Glimmer of Night. Yeah, that won’t possibly create any problems.”

Misty Peak spoke up then. “I’m supposed to travel with you as well. For the communicating. Yeah. The fox ancestors said so.”

“I’m sure they were lying to you,” said Sen. “You know you can’t trust anything that a fox says.”

“What? You’re going to let Spider of the Darkness over there go with you without blinking, but I can’t come?”

“Well, I don’t think that he’s lying to me, which is a big point in his favor. Plus, I don’t particularly want a celestial spider to have me on a list of people she doesn’t like. I might meet her one day, and I’d like it to be friendly, thank you very much.”

“You might meet the fox ancestors one day,” said Misty Peak. “Aren’t you worried about what they’ll do to you?”

“I just figured I’d ply them with wine and tell them stories about how I set you on fire.”

“You never set me on fire.”

“The day is young,” said Sen. “Plus, we need to get out of here before any of us worry about where to go next.”

“Don’t we need something from the old monk guy first?” asked the fox woman as she shot Brother Khu a sidelong look.

“I have it,” said Sen in a tone that was far too casual to actually be casual.

“You already have it?!” she demanded. “How long have you been here?”

“Oh, weeks and weeks,” said Sen. “I was thinking I might have to abandon you here.”

“He is lying,” said Glimmer of Night, his head tilted a bit to one side.

The fox woman rolled her eyes. “Of course, he’s lying. He’s trying to wind me up.”

“I’m successfully winding you up,” said Sen.

“Is this some kind of courtship ritual?” asked the spider.

“Yes,” said Misty Peak.

“No,” said Sen at the same time.

“I’m confused,” said Glimmer of Night.

“So is he,” said Misty Peak hiking a thumb at Sen. “I expect you’ll both get over it.”

Feeling himself reaching the limits of his tolerance, Sen walked over to Brother Khu. He would use the old man as a shield, even if it was a shield that would only last for a few minutes.

“Brother Khu, may I present to you, Glimmer of Night. He is one of the spider spirit beasts who dwell in the nearby forest.”

“Hello, Glimmer of Night,” said Brother Khu, directing a smile at the spider.

Glimmer of Night seemed a little awkward and uncertain now that some of his anger had faded away. He nodded at the old man.

“Hello, Brother Khu,” managed the spider.

“And who is this young woman?” asked the old monk.

“Oh, her? She’s just a fox. Probably best not to speak to her.”

“A fox, you say,” murmured Brother Khu. “Well, we can’t have one of those running around inside the ruins. I suppose I’ll just have to send her to one of the hells.”

The annoyed glare that Misty Peak had been directing at Sen turned to one of genuine concern as she started to back away from the old man.

“Probably for the best,” said Sen, earning an incredulous look from Misty Peak.

Sen kept his expression neutral for as long as he could, but a snicker escaped his lips after a bare few seconds. Brother Khu, who hadn’t moved an inch, gave Misty Peak a grandfatherly smile. The fox woman gave them both a death stare.

“Neither of you is funny,” she said.

She whirled to storm off, only to come to an abrupt halt. Sen figured that she had just realized that doing that might well land her right back inside of the mandala she’d just escaped. With her ability to storm off in a huff completely undercut by uncertain circumstances, she settled for giving Sen withering glares. The sidelong looks she gave the old monk were decidedly cautious. Maybe he could have made good on that idle threat, thought Sen. He made a mental note to learn about monks, someday, when he had the time. Sen made another mental note to try to find the time to learn about monks.

“Her name is Misty Peak,” Sen told the monk.

A look of real anger crossed her face at that. “Only you get to call me that. My name is Sun Linglu.”

Sen considered the fox woman for a moment before he offered her a bow. “I apologize.”

Misty Peak didn’t look happy, but the genuine contrition in Sen’s voice seemed to mollify her a bit. She turned her gaze to the monk who remained serene at the exchange. He offered her another smile.

“It’s very nice to meet you, Sun Linglu.”

“Yeah, um, thanks. So, I have a question if you don’t mind,” said Misty Peak.

“Of course not,” said the monk.

“Why are these ruins filled with buildings that look like they’re waiting for the owners to come back?”

Brother Khu turned to look at Sen. “I rather thought that would be your first question. The answer, young lady, is that it looks that way because that’s exactly what will happen, eventually.”

“What?” asked Sen and Misty Peak at the same time.

“I told you,” said Brother Khu to Sen, “that I’m the caretaker of this place. There would be no need for a caretaker if no one was coming back.”