Quoted By:
"Oh, yes, yes. I have spoken to many well-educated people, and I've heard the same from all of them. 'It's not possible.' 'It would take the gods to do such a thing, and they are not so cruel, and also dead.' And yet I experience it! I assure you, I have devoted my lives, such as they are, to making sense of the matter. I have not made much headway. There are multiple irregularities in the—"
Oh, God, they're talking about metaphysics. Worse, <span class="mu-i">Horse Face</span> metaphysics. You can think of few things you'd like to listen to less. The ceiling sure is interesting, isn't it? There's strings up there too, all fishnet-y. Does Horse Face have anything weird going on with his?
You shut your good eye surreptitiously and discover... no. Not for the most part. Horse Face's strings are in a big old irregular tangle, moderately bright, with a bit of fishnet tangled in with them. Some of the strings are on the fray. Outside that, though, they look like how yours used to look.
If yours were relatively normal before God squished them up, you guess that means his are relatively normal, too. Maybe a little worn-out. Certainly not as strange as Pat's with its nodes, which must be... er... she has multiple faces, right? Because she's injected other people's blood into herself, and the blood is where all the strings are? Gross. And the fishnet draped over is everywhere, making it... Us? The fabric of the dream? You guess she is inside "Annette"'s body still. Maybe yours was the same way before you kidnapso— absorbed Claudia.
It makes you feel a little bit better, interpreting the strings. It requires a lot of concentration to parse them out, and you can't do it with both eyes open, and you still have a headache... but maybe this is only the beginning? Maybe your scary evil cult eyeball will prove to have a completely positive benefit, and you'll be kicking yourself for not fiddling with it before? You don't even know that it's a scary evil cult eyeball, technically. That spiral could be anything. Claudia could've been lying. You open both eyes. "Horse Face?"
"—resets upon falling asleep— hmm?"
"In your cryptotheological experience, er, how many eyes does the Wyrm have?"
"Ah! The classic riddle! 'What creature has two eyes by night, and one eye by day — but none between?' 'Between' meaning dawn and dusk, I believe. And it's none when the moon is out in the afternoon as well, I suppose— have you never heard that called a 'blindworm's sky'? That ought to be 'blind Wyrm's sky,' three words, not—"
"Okay," you say. "And what is hell? Not the place underwater. I mean after you die."
"You know a way to a man's heart, Charlotte Fawkins." Horse Face grins down at you. "Some sources would have it that those are one and the same."
"<span class="mu-i">Reliable</span> sources. Not Monty."
(2/5)
