Kelima looked from the death weasels to Terry, then from Terry back to the death weasels. She closed her eyes and shook her head. Then, she looked at the monsters again.

"You know," she said, "I think I get now why you always got so mad at me for this."

"Thank you," said Terry, feeling vindicated.

"But I'm still hitting you with a big stick if we get out of this alive."

"Less thank you," answered Terry.

"Are we going to get out of this? Do you have a plan for fighting what looks to be several hundred small, fast-moving monsters? Monsters that have the word death as part of their name. I assume that means that getting bit is really, really bad."

"I assume that they have some terrible curse or fast, flesh-rotting disease that they transmit by biting you. But that's probably more of a problem for you than me. I doubt that they can break my skin."

"Well, as comforting as that was, do you maybe have a plan that doesn't involve leaving me here to be eaten while you walk away unharmed?"

"I'm thinking about it."

"Thinking? You had hours to think about this on the way up the mountain."

"Sorry. I got distracted."

"By what?"

"I was thinking about pizza."

"For three hours?"

"It was really good pizza. The place I used to order from made the crust pretty thin, but they left it in the oven for long enough that the cheese really browned up nice and—"

"Focus! Death weasels!"

"Right. Well, I was just thinking that I'd freeze them all. That'll probably stop them."

"Then why haven't you done it yet?"

"I got distracted."

"By what?" Kelima demanded through clenched teeth.

"I was thinking about pizza."

"Will you just get on with it before they decide to eat me!"

"Oh, sure."

Terry figured that he'd gotten enough practice in the dungeon that summoning up enough ice for this ought to be simple and quick. The ball of ice formed in his hand even faster than he'd expected. Maybe I got a bigger boost from those source stones than I realized, he thought. He hurled at the largest group of the weasels and watched in satisfaction as it flash froze about a hundred of them. Unfortunately, that seemed to enrage the rest of them. Okay, thought Terry, back to fire. While ice was useful, Terry knew that fire was scary for absolutely everything…except maybe dragons, and fire elementals, and phoenixes, but it was scary for most things. He figured death weasels wouldn't be the exception.

Plus, he was a lot more comfortable manipulating fire. He started whipping fireballs in every direction. He was right. The death weasels did not like fire. Unfortunately, it only served to slow them down, rather than stop them entirely. Worse, there seemed to be more and more of them as time went on. The side of the mountain looked like a writhing mass of fur. The sight was enough to make Terry's skin crawl a little bit. Even if they couldn't bite him, he damn sure didn't want to be covered in those things.

He glanced at Kelima, who was trying to look brave as she brandished her sword. It wasn't working very well. She mostly looked scared, which struck him as odd. She'd been in way more danger back in the dungeon. Especially on those later floors. Except with the mud goblins for some reason that he couldn't figure out. She'd been able to kill those just fine. Yet, with these monsters, she was almost shaking. Maybe it was just that they were in the real world. Or maybe she just didn't like rodents. He wasn't sure and couldn't spare the time to think it through.

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Anytime they seemed to be getting too close or gathering for a group charge, they got a fireball. Now that they were closer and getting injured, he could hear them making grating chirping noises and hisses. The noises bothered him a lot, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly why. It was just a nails-on-the-chalkboard kind of reaction to it. What surprised him was that he wasn't the only one who reacted to the noise. From one moment to the next, Dusk went from her usual napping spot in his pack to sitting on his shoulder. The second she came into view, every weasel went utterly still. Then, the kitten opened her jaws and let out a yowl of anger. Weasels scattered in every direction except towards them.

Terry was about to be happy. Then, Dusk leapt off his shoulder and began chasing the weasels. At least, he thought that's what was happening. The kitten was moving so fast that she was a blur even to his eyes. As if that wasn't startling enough, there were the terrible sounds the weasels were making as she caught them. Kelima gave him a wide-eyed look.

"What's happening?" she asked.

Terry looked at the fireball that was still hovering over his hand, shrugged, and let it go out.

"I think we're witnessing what is probably going to turn out to be a death weasel genocide. Dusk seems very motivated right now."

"Did you know that this was going to happen?" she demanded.

"Did I know that my kitten was suddenly going to start killing monsters by the dozens? My kitten, who sleeps like twenty-two hours a day and only wakes up to eat or get attention. Did I know? Did it look like I knew?"

"Well, she's your cat. Shouldn't you know?"

Terry tilted his head a little to one side and said, "You never had a cat while you were growing up, did you?"

"Well, they were in the manor, but I never really played with them. They mostly belonged to the servants."

"That explains it," said Terry, who simply started walking up the path again.

"Where are we going?" asked Kelima. "And what does that explain? Aren't we going to wait?"

"We're going up because that's where the special rocks are. It explains why you don't know that cats do whatever the hell they want, and only when they want. And, no, we aren't going to wait."

"Why aren't we going to wait?"

"She doesn't need our help. And, when she gets bored with hunting or runs out of prey, she'll catch up."

"What if they corner her?" asked Kelima, looking upset.

"If that happens, I imagine that something truly unspeakable will occur."

"You're just going to let her die?"

"Oh, I never said the unspeakable thing was going to happen to her. The unspeakable thing will undoubtedly happen to the weasels. I'm not sure what qualified as a fate worse than death for a death weasel, but I'd bet good money that's what'll happen."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because Dusk is a good elder thing."

"Why did you call her an elder thing again?"

"Who called her an elder thing?" asked Terry, giving Kelima his best look of innocent confusion.

Seriously, man? asked other-Terry. The gaslighting thing again? You're going to undermine her ability to trust reality. That is not a good thing.

And what should I tell her about the kitten? You don't happen to know what Dusk actually is, do you?

There was absolute radio silence from other-Terry for five solid seconds, which was about five hours in mental communication time.

You know what? Gaslighting might be for the best this time.

So, you do know!

Yeah, I know.

So, what is she? asked Terry, suddenly overflowing with curiosity.

About that. I can't tell you.

Why the hell not?

Because she told me not to, admitted other-Terry. Also, she included some very specific threats and menaces about what she'll do to me if I spill the beans. That makes her a lot scarier than you.

Why is that?

Because I'm supremely confident that, unlike you, she can actually follow through on her threats.

Oh, for fuck's sake. That means that she probably is an elder thing.

If we're going to throw around broad categorizations, that would probably be closer than something like, oh say, a kitten. And that's all you're getting.

That was the point when Terry realized that he'd entirely tuned out Kelima for a least a minute, mostly because she was yelling at him.

"Are you listening to me!"

"Obviously not if you're screaming at the side of my head like that."

"Why weren't you answering me?"

"I got distracted."

"By what?"

"You know that pizza I was telling you about earlier? I used to have them put mushrooms and pepperoni on it. So good!"

Looking like something was draining her will to live, Kelima asked, "What's pizza?"

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