I wake up to see Proximus crouched down in a pile of strange fruits and vegetables. I realize that they all look alien enough that I’m not quite sure which is a fruit or which is a vegetable. Or maybe you can’t even use those terms to classify alien food.

“Where did you get all this?” I ask, my stomach rumbling with ravenous hunger.

“We are on a farm,” he says.

I look around at the rolling grasslands and fields. There are no perfectly straight rows of crops or evenly spaced fruit trees, but there are tall stalks of things growing everywhere, just less organized that it would be on Earth. I can kind of see how it could be a farm.

“Won’t the farmer get mad?” I ask.

I’m already reaching for a piece of fruit that looks like an apple. The farmer can get mad all he wants, but I need to eat.

“This is the Emperor’s land,” Proximus says. “It’s not the farmer I worry about.”

I bite into the fruit. It doesn’t taste at all like an apple, but like a pomegranate. There are no tiny little seeds, just pure and sweet flavor. I suck up the juices and devour the thing hungrily. Proximus hands me something else shaped like a banana, and I try to peel it, but can’t find anywhere to pull.

“You suck on this one,” he says. “Just like you sucked on my spear the first time we bonded.”

I give him a wicked smile, and I wonder if he’s messing with me, but I suck on the thing anyway. A burst of flavor hits my tongue, and I nearly choke on the juices as they go down my throat.

“If you bite it,” he says. “You’ll lose too many of the juices.”

I notice him watching me with a half smirk as I suck on the penis-shaped fruit, but he chews on one of the pomegranate apples as I suck down the juices.

Soon we’re both full, and there’s even enough left over that we can carry it along with us.

Proximus wraps the fruit into a bundle of canvas, and ties it to the bundled dream leaves which hang from the horse.

“We’re still very far,” he says. “We must keep moving. I don’t know this land well, but I fear we must sell these leaves in the first city we come across. Without the wagon and many horses, we can’t go as far as I’d planned. Kannakus said my clan is further inland, though I do not know how far. With money to get us by, and time in a city, I should be able to find them.”

I just nod. I don’t want to throw in my two cents as a businesswoman for fear he’d dismiss me again, or do the complete opposite just to prove some kind of point to me. I don’t feel any danger right now on this tranquil rolling hill. The air feels noticeably warmer as a breeze hits my cheeks. I almost wish we could just stay on this farm for the whole day. Though I trust Proximus’ judgement of the situation. I believe him that we are in danger as we travel, and I know that having actual money rather than dried leaves will keep us safer. Being able to disappear into a larger city might also offer us some protection. After running across Scipius, I’m not sure how thrilled I am to meet his clan, though he seems to think it will give us safety.

I suddenly see movement from the corner of my eye, and I look over to see a dark shadow moving toward us from the hill above. The sun is higher in the sky, and it’s just behind the figure, making him seem like a pure black silhouette rather than a man, though he’s walking on two legs.

I worry it’s the farmer, who must have seen Proximus raiding the farm and orchards.

I point toward him, and Proximus leaps to his feet, his skullspear extending fully.

Then I see two shadowy arms burst out of the ground and pull itself up in front of us. It’s close enough I should be able to see what it is, but it appears still as a dark shadow, even though the sun is not directly behind it.

“Did that thing just crawl out of the ground?” I ask.

“Yes,” Proximus says, pulling me up to my feet and putting himself in front of me. “I told you things can come up out of the ground to kill us. These are ordered to defend the Emperor’s farms.”

I eye the horse. “We can run, right?”

“They’ll never stop following,” Proximus says, shaking his head. “They won’t tire like our horse.”

The two figures meet each other, and I see their eyes glow violet as they turn to face each other. They move like nothing human–or alien–they move with the jerky and erratic movements of insects rather than men, and I hear loud chirping like cicadas in summer, and then those violet eyes turn back to face us again.

“Golems,” Proximus says. “I should be able to defeat two of them.”

Before I can tell him not to, he’s charging forward.

The golems split up, then move in toward Proximus on both sides. As they get closer, I realize that they were not black because of the way the sun was behind them, but their bodies are simply the darkest black I’ve ever seen. It might be metal, or it could be some bug-like carapace, but it’s so dark it reflects no light at all. Aside from those glowing violet eyes, they are pure shadow. They look almost two dimensional, like paper cut-outs on the hill.

I forget that Proximus stole the guns from the guard in Therassus, but then I see the blinding purple light blasting out from his hand. The violet blast of energy slams into one of the golems, and for a moment it looks as if that perfect shadow absorbs every bit of light. The golem stumbles, and its chest starts to burn violet, until it’s so bright I have to squint. Just as the violet brightens to near pure white, the golem explodes open and crumbles in pieces to the ground.

Our horse screeches and tries to bolt away, but it’s tied to the tree. It strains against the rope until it chokes itself, desperate to escape the chaos.

Proximus swings around without even looking to make sure the first golem is truly dead, but the second golem lunges forward and swings its huge arm. The gun lets loose another blast of violet just as it’s knocked from Proximus’ grip, but the shot goes wide and misses the golem entirely. I can’t even see where the gun land, or if it was simply destroyed by the golem’s massive fist.

Proximus rolls away and dodges the golem’s huge foot, which crushes the earth beneath where he’d just stood, creating a huge crater.

The golem turns its back to Proximus, and its glowing eyes face me. It leaps from the hole in the Earth it created, jumping straight for me.

I see Proximus charging toward its back, his head tucked down and his horns forward. His arm is cocked and ready to attack with his skullspear, but I have a hard time imagining a spear made to penetrate human bone piercing through ancient metal that absorbs all light.

I try to run, and I slip and fall in the grass. The horse’s wild eyes bulge, and it seems it’s either going to uproot the tree, or more likely that it’s going to snap its own neck. I just need to pull myself to my feet, get to the horse, and–

The cold metal wraps around my body, and I feel myself ripped up off the ground and into the air. I expect the hand to crush me, but it just holds me. I look down and see Proximus. The golem is twice the size of him, and it’s holding me well above its head. As tall as Proximus is, he can’t reach me.

The huge obsidian fingers start to squeeze around my waist, and just as I fear it will crush my ribs, it stops squeezing.

I look down just in time to see the glow of its eyes fading. A second later the golem is nothing but pure darkness. An absence of light on the field, a blacker than black statue.

Proximus leaps onto it, climbing its back until he stands on its shoulder, and he walks with catlike balance toward me. I struggle against the fingers, but they are as solid as a statue.

Proximus holsters his skullspear and slides down onto his knees, meeting me at eye level, as half of my body is sunk into the golem’s fist.

“Can you breathe?” he asks, putting a hand on my cheek.

“I can,” I say. “I’m not hurt. I just...can’t move.”

He crawls out onto the edge of the fist, reaches down toward one of the fingertips. His muscles bulge and flex as he pulls with his whole body, but the thing doesn’t move an inch even under Proximus’ full strength.

The horse is huffing, its nostrils flaring, but it’s no longer choking itself trying to escape. As far as it can tell, the golem is gone, replaced by this still shadow.

Proximus pulls his skullspear back out, extends it, and stabs in between the fingers. I can tell immediately he won’t be able to wedge them open. The places where the fingers touch together look like they are carved from solid stone–as if they had never moved or been able to separate.

“The gun,” I say.

He jumps off the fist and lands almost silently, then he stalks across the grass toward where he lost the gun. I notice then that the first golem he destroyed is gone. There are no shattered pieces or debris, and the only sign it was ever there at all is a large spot of burned grass.

Proximus crouches down and shakes his head, then returns empty handed. “It was destroyed.”

I see Proximus look up, and his brows furrow. I try to turn and look at what he sees, but I can’t turn my head back far enough with the fist wrapped around my waist. “What is it?”

“A flying machine,” he says, and from the way he grips his spear tighter, I fear the worst.

I’ve started to piece together what is probably happening. These farms are owned by the emperor, and the golems are likely controlled by the Emperor, or at least by the Emperor Clan. We thought they were trying to kill us for trespassing, but it seems they recognized me, and now they’ve succeeding in capturing me.

“You should run,” I whisper.

My voice goes dry. I don’t really want him to run, but I know it’s the smart thing for him to do. I don’t want him to be captured for my sake, not when he has no chance of rescuing me anyway.

“I will not abandon you,” he growls.

The flying machine comes into my view now. It rockets across the sky like a black needle, and just as it reaches directly overhead, it stops on a dime. I see its triangular shape begin to grow as it lowers down toward us.

“If you run,” I say, talking more quickly now, “You can find a way to save me. You can get your clan to help, and–”

He shakes his head and clutches his spear. “I will never be able to get to you again if I leave now. I will not abandon you, Alice.”

I’m both relieved that I won’t be taken alone, but annoyed at his stubbornness. What is his single spear going to do against all the technology they have? He was only able to steal me away the first time because they trusted him. They’ll never trust him again.

The black machine touches ground, and it’s made of the same absence of light as the golems, at least until a door opens, and two horned men in gleaming armor step outside, revealing the purple light from within the aircraft.

The armored men are holding guns much larger than the one Proximus had. They aim them at Proximus, and he cocks his spear as if to throw it.

A third figure emerges behind the armored fighters. He wears only a violet cloak wrapped around his huge frame, and I see a strange glow from his horns when the dim sun hits them just right.

“Proximus,” the caped figure roars, and the armored men raise their guns as they flare with bright purple energy..

“I’ll kill you,” Proximus rasps. “A spear through the eye and you’re dead. Then I’ll kill the other two with my teeth and horns.”

At least ten more men stream out of the craft. These are not armored. They’re wearing loincloths and holding skullspears. They fan out and form a line in front of the three armored men.

“You might be able to kill one of us,” the man who spoke earlier says. He’s closer now, and I realize his horns are covered in gold.

“At least my name would live on,” Proximus says. “As the man who killed the emperor.”

The emperor? The golden-horned one is the actual emperor?

The emperor laughs, and Proximus throws the spear.

There’s an explosion of purple light, and the spear bursts into flames in mid-air. It burns so hot it disintegrates before it comes within 10 feet of the emperor.

True to his promise, Proximus leaps down and charges the spearmen with his head down and horns up.

Just as he reaches the ground, I feel movement for the first time in many minutes, and I see the black fist of the golem’s free hand reach down with blinding speed and snatch Proximus up. The golem becomes a statue the moment it secures Proximus in its grasp, and he roars and thrashes his one free arm, but he’s as unable to free himself, just as he was unable to free me.

“I’d have been disappointed if you didn’t at least try,” the Emperor says.

He snaps his fingers, and the doors to the airship open back up. The emperor and his guards all disappear inside. The ship lifts silently off the ground. It doesn’t so much as disturb a single blade of grass as it hovers a foot or so off the ground. It floats silently up until it’s around ten feet high, and I wonder for a moment if it’s just going to leave us here to die in the golem’s fists.

Just as I fear we’ll be left alone to die of thirst, a line of blackness emerges from the airship and touches the golem. I can’t see any detail on that pure blackness, but I imagine the staff melting into the golem. The last thing I see is the golem expanding outward, coating the world in pure black ink, until that blackness moves up and covers my eyes. The last thing I remember seeing before the darkness blinds me is the ground moving away from us, as if we had been lifted up by the airship.

I shout for Proximus, but he either doesn’t answer–or more likely–he can’t hear me. The blackness has swallowed us both, and it’s blocking our voices from reaching each other.

* * *

I pass in and out of sleep as I float in that pure blackness. I can’t move, and I can’t see or feel or smell anything. It’s hard to separate sleep from that darkness.

The first light that hits me blinds me. I don’t know if it’s been a few hours or more than a day. To my horror, the first thing I see are those sickly green aliens from when I was first taken. They pin me down to a table. There’s a sound of a mechanic whirring, and then pressure pushes down all over my body. The green aliens tear the clothes from my body, and when I try to fight them, I realize there is some invisible force holding me down.

These aliens are nothing like Proximus. They have big, bulb-like heads with no hair. Their eyes are large and without any features. I can see my own reflection in those dark eyes. They have little slits for nostrils, and no mouths. They make little clicking sounds at each other, then walk away, leaving me naked and alone.