I'm crouching in a jungle, surrounded by tall green stalks and long-bladed leaves, hiding behind the angular atrocity that guided me to the frog. Somewhere, echoing so it sounds like everywhere, there is heavy breathing and sniffing.
"Shh," my guide says.
"What the f--"
The heavy breathing becomes a roar.
"This one said 'be quiet'," my guide hisses.
"But --"
A bony hand is slapped over my mouth.
I glare but the thing ignores me.
The roaring stops and is replaced by snuffling noises that sound suspiciously like they're above us. What kind of bird snuffles? What is my alcohol-soaked imagination doing to me now?
The hand across my mouth tightens. I bite it and the guide yelps but keeps it in place.
The snuffling stars to fade away but the echoes confuse the location once more. I have no idea whether it's gone in front of us, behind us or to one side.
"Quietly," says my guide. It frees my mouth and wipes it against its grubby clothes, adding sadly, "That one bit me."
"Of course I bloody did," I say. "Why did you cover my mouth?"
It doesn't answer.
"Where are we?" I ask.
My guide sniffs. "In the same place we were when that one last asked where we were."
"How did we get here?"
It stands and stretches out. It points at its feet.
"I mean," I say slowly, "we were just at the wizard's tower and then I walked through the door and we're--"
"That was a whole moon ago," it says.
I have no idea what it means. A moon is not a measurement of time. It's a thing in the sky. Even here in my hangover dreams.
"It was less than a minute ago," I say.
"A whole moon," it repeats, like the repetition will make sense of nonsense.
I don't understand. I'll be buggered if I'll admit it, though.
"Come," it says.
"To the stone circle?" I ask.
It looks at me carefully. "Is that one all right? Has that one hit its head?"
"We already found the stone circle?"
"No-o," it says. It touches my forehead with a single fingertip. I glare. "The stone circle can only be found by the Wizard's Wife."
"And she's dead," I say.
My guide purses it's lips and takes the finger away from my face. I still glare. "That one murdered her, yes."
"So we can't find the stone circle."
It shakes its head.
"So what are we doing?"
"Looking for the Wizard's Wife," it says slowly. "As instructed."
"By the wizard?" I ask.
He'd said something about going looking for her, hadn't he?
"Does that one need to rest longer?" my guide asks.
"Answer my question."
"No," it says, "by the Eagle. And the Dragon. And the Salmon."
I have no idea what it's talking about.
"Right. Of course."
My guide purses its lips again.
"We managed all that in a mon-- in a moon?" I ask.
It opens its mouth and shuts it a few times. It looks away from me and pretends it's not looking at me from under obscenely long eyelashes that can only be as fake as the rest of it.
"This way," it says finally, pointing in a direction that may or may not relate to the direction it was trying to take before because I have no idea what's going on in this dream any more. "This way."