cut and I fell to the ground clasping my gut in agony. Veech grabbed me by the armpit and dragged me out of the building. My veins were on fire and my skin was like burnt parchment. The terrible wailing followed us as we shambled into the wastes.
We collapsed in a cave a few miles away from the building. Veech rolled me onto my back and examined me by touch, the red stain on his bandaged head dripped worryingly. He wrote in the sand next to my head.
Deep within you can do nothing pain fades.
I writhed on the floor. Vivid nightmares of a broken stone face oozing hot magma interrupted my sleep. It floated in the darkness of my mind's eye laughing at me.
I bolted into a sitting position. My skin was cool to the touch and the fever faded. Veech propped himself up against the wall and looked at me.
"What did he do to me, did he infect me with something?" I looked out towards the Blue Man's temple, could hear faint groans singing in the wind.
Veech wrote, scratched it out, wrote something else, scratched that out. He looked at me, clasped his head and shook it. I understood that reaction at any rate.
Veech trotted out of the cave, looked cautiously around, and clambered down the broken hill towards an old beaten path. I was uneasy, my hands were flushed as if something twisted and swam within.
The wide desert Veech led us to was stagnant and unmoving. The wind blew hard but the sand was still, as if it were fossilized. Large sheets of cobweb clung to the dunes and billowed like ghostly palls. A darkened dirty twilight left little in the way of sightseeing.
Veech led us to shallow caves that led into unknown gloom beneath the desert. Strange torches that burned with a dead blue light lined the walls of the cave. I picked up a stick as we walked and wrapped the top with greasy cobwebs to form a crude torch.
I gaped when we exited the caves. We were in a massive canyon that ran through the heart of the desert. Colossal robed skeletons lined the walls of the canyon from top to bottom. Some held swords, others grimaced disapprovingly, still others prayed. The statues ran for miles against the canyon walls.
Veech stopped and raised his hands above his head, performed an intricate set of gestures and touched his head to the ground.
"What's so special about these statues?"
Veech wrote Not statues.
I yelled down the canyon "Then what are they?"
Alive you me the land.
"You're not serious."
All alive all like you me nothing dies nothing ends.
A skeleton's hand shifted position. Each statue slowly changed position. They were stuck in slow time, living artifacts, a testament to a wholly inhuman world.
Tepid darkness shrouded the desert above while billowing cobwebs that arched over the canyon attested to its long forgotten existence. Veech wrote in the sand We pass through desert to outer rim.
I scratched my hand and the flesh tore away like vellum. I ripped more off to reveal broken red obsidian in the likeness of my hand. I could still move my fingers but the patch cracked and ground against itself like a knife on a chalkboard. I was shaking and couldn't stop.
Veech sat and watched. He made no move to touch me or give comfort. You become land and land becomes you.
Was this inevitable and unavoidable, this horrible change?
The red rock crept up the tips of my fingers to my shoulder during the long journey through the canyon. Hopelessness gnawed at me, I should have listened to Veech, shouldn't have followed that damned Blue Man.
Creeping paranoia that the Blue Man followed us invaded my mind. I'd look up and see a faint light following the lip of the canyon in our direction. I told Veech but he waved me away. He crept along purposefully and without hesitation, I didn't want to break his concentration.
The canyon terminated abruptly after a few days walk. The desert wastes opened up into a large tundra that stretched for as far as I could see. Rusty red marks dotted the ice sheet at regular intervals.
Hand sized boxes were scattered around the canyon entrance. Each one contained a small fleshy human figure. They reminded me of mummies. I tried to pick one up but they wriggled about and gnashed their teeth at me.
"Why does the land take everything it touches?"
It tests, some pass some lose. I picked at my red obsidian arm, like a dirty scab.
The icy plain they traveled across spoke in cold winds. The ground creaked and moaned at them as if they disturbed a horrible old man from a deep slumber with each step.
Veech occasionally stopped and swung his head in all directions before picking a new path. He looked back the way we'd come with increased frequency. We made no progress as Veech turned left, right, every way except straight. I grew increasingly uncomfortable because I'd never seen anything that fazed him in a noticeable way. I screwed up my nerve and turned my head.
Black many legged shapes on the horizon moved in halting bursts of speed like hungry spiders. Their glowing eyes tracked our movements. They bore down on us, matched our pace, flanked and blocked our escape.
A powerful rush of air slammed into my back. A large blood red balloon careened wildly in the sky above out of nowhere.
It swooped low and kept pace with us, some of the spidery creatures backed off. The Blue Man peeked out from the basket and flippantly offered his hand to us.
"What do you want!" I cried, still running.
"I want you! Your options are the mercy of the wolves or mine. I don't particularly like when something I own gets up and walks away."
A vicious cacophony of hoots and sharp growls erupted around us. I made a quick decision, the only one really.
I leaped and caught the Blue Man's forearm. He was stunned by the red obsidian eating its way up my arm. He pulled me into the basket.
I frantically turned around and swung my arm over the basket. The wolves carried Veech away in their misshapen mouths. I screamed, pleaded for him to grab my arm. Veech struggled against the clutch of the wolves but to no avail. The balloon rose away from the fray.
I lunged at the Blue Man. Tried to reach for the rusty knob that controlled the balloon's elevation. Each time he effortlessly pushed me to the floor. I couldn't overpower him and he knew it. The wolves and Veech were a dying speck on the horizon.
"You fucker, we could've saved Veech if we tried."
"He chose his own fate—"
"No, you left him there to die"
He chuckled. "Nothing dies in these lands. No, far worse fates await those like your friend who succumb."
I collapsed into myself. Ragged breath flowed in and out of my lungs, the human parts of me screamed. I glared at the Blue Man who sat opposite of me.
"Why did you save me?"
"I'm a fervent believer in my art and I keep what I collect," He stood and ran a finger across my arm as he walked to the edge of the basket to look out.
I reflexively curled my arm away from him. There was no recognizable flesh on it anymore, red obsidian sheathed it from fingertip to shoulder.
"In these lands you can become anything. I think that scares you," he said without looking at me.
"Where are you taking me?"
"We're traveling to one of the scattered bastions of free flesh like us. we go to meet our people."
We lapsed into silence. The only movement on his part was to adjust the burner to correct our altitude. I stood, stretched my legs and surveyed the horizon. A towering vertigo of structures loomed ahead.
The city violated all natural laws. It snaked up like a twisted spire from a rooted base with no regard for gravity or architecture. Bands of rubble between windowless dead buildings stretched into the sky. A massive wall that brushed the clouds braced the city on the far side.
We were coming fast on a natural spike of stone with a platform on top. Giant rusty hooks rose out of the rocky outer edge of the platform.
The Blue Man directed the balloon towards the hooks. The leading side of the basket was speared with enough force to throw me within inches of impalemen
t.
He climbed out and helped me over the edge of the basket. He pulled a long knife from his belt and cut the fibrous cords that connected the balloon to the basket. The balloon drifted and disappeared in the scabrous clouds. Going back was no longer an option. He kicked the basket a few times until it fell off the stone platform into the wastes below.
"Are you going to tear that off your face or am I?" He said.
I stroked the dry papery flesh that flapped back and forth. I tore off the patch and touched the hard obsidian underneath. My fleshy fingers shivered. The rock was cold to the touch.
He smirked. "That thing's bothered me since you got on my balloon."
He skipped from stone to stone with no regard for the wastes below. He led me in a dizzying spiral up the snaking city. He'd often turn and chuckle knowingly at me. I'm sure if he could wink at me he would.
"We're going to the top and then I'll decide if you're worth keeping," he said. As we climbed the living statues that comprised the city's inhabitants moaned and cried at us. The higher we went the more there were. I was close to becoming one myself. The thought amused me.
At the top stood a large bleak building. The skin of the building pulsed like a tumor and dark purple veins sought purchase on the rocks. It was like the building grew upwards and pulled the city along with it.
"We're entering a dangerous place, a place of pain, of worship," he said.
Massive pillars were arranged in a semicircle around the large empty room that made up the totality of the building's interior. On these pillars perched statues who twitched like they were having continuous