The temple is a one-story building made out of very large rocks. Most of them make at least half the height of a wall, but some, carved and decorated with ribbons, seem to be a full ten feet high. There has been either magic or very good craftsmanship poured in this construction.

Still, as impressive as it is, it is quite low, almost like the stone thing is crouching. Is it still sound enough to enter? A wide corridor seems to run around the whole building, supported with pillars at regular intervals. It is probably the highest part of the whole construction, ceiling-wise. At the center a room hangs lower, dark, with a single visible door. I’d bet my bike that’s the place we’re looking for. I’m not sure whether the flashlight will be enough for this, or if I should even be holding it out. After all, Ñox Cayù is probably not that far anymore. I’m a fucking signboard right now. Well, the clouds haven’t let up, so the night is still really dark. It’s either that or we just trip and fall every thirty seconds.

Above all, I’m secretly hoping for a stone bench or something in this temple. My legs are killing me and my back feels like I’ve forgotten gravel in my spine. Nathan is definitely too old to be carried now. He’s walking beside me as me and Domenica both hold one of his hands. It’s OK, the ground is more even here, he seems to have recovered quite a lot already and we didn’t have the stamina to carry him anymore. It will all work out. After all, isn’t he the mastermind behind this whole ‘Temple of Chicken Doom’ operation? He probably figured out how hard it would be when he was super-powered earlier. Or maybe he was just a kid being stubborn, it’s getting honestly difficult to tell.

As much as we can without making too much noise, we rush inside the temple’s entrance. To my surprise it feels way bigger when we’re near it: the entrance only must be around nine feet tall. The building is not so low anymore. I wonder how tall the other parts I saw really were.

As I run the flashlight on the carved walls, the roar of the mad god resounds outside. Not so close. It must be stuck in a tree again. I turn towards Nathan.

“Hey,” I say, “you had a plan, coming here, right?” It might be time to put it in action. I’m not really enthusiastic at the idea of playing hide-and-seek with the monster following us. Where is the god-killer weapon? The chant that will seal it away?

Nathan lets go of our hands and advances to the center of the room. He is standing on top of an intricate carving made of triangles and concentric circles.

“I think that’s where Ñox Cayù was. Before Tegan woke it up.”

Domenica turns towards me. “She did?” she says, confused. “Isn’t she your friend, though? The one we rescued?”

I nod. “Yeah, she got sort of brainwashed to begin with, I think. I saw that when…” When I had a dream filled with old locked-up memories of her? How do I explain that again? “You know, I’ll tell you another time,” I say. “It’s a bit complicated. Nathan, what are we supposed to do here?”

He’s looking hesitant. I can see him struggle to remember, but he doesn’t seem to be jumping on the idea of removing his amulet again. At least he learned something. Unless it’s the sudden power boost he gets that turns him into a brat.

“I think…” he says, “I think we have to find another egg. You know, to put it back in the nest.”

“An actual egg?” I say, worried. “Where are we gonna find that?” Then I remember the stone egg that was dropped in the meat chute. “Oh, you mean a sculpture, like the other one.” Domenica looks at me weirdly. I guess she feels more than a little left out. Between his magic intuitions and my lucid dream of Tig a few hours ago, we have seen more of this situation that we cared to explain.

“We’re looking for a stone egg,” I say, talking to her. “Roughly the size of an ostrich egg, I think, maybe there is one among the carvings on th walls?” They’d better be, or we’re basically dead. Let’s find a stone egg.

The carvings are a lot more detailed than they appeared at first, even though most of them are in poor shape. Apart from the bas-relief, there is a good deal of actual sculptures around: tiny people worshipping or waging wars, life-sized serious guys with masks on, trees and cities. Large dogs lurking behind pillars, their mouths on fire. No egg.

No frigging egg! It’s the chicken temple, people, and I didn’t even see a wings bucket! OK, maybe I’m panicking because that thing is probably closing in on us. As a vegetarian, I have to be in a pretty dark place to start hoping for greasy chicken wings. Also we have to look all together as I’m holding the only flashlight.

Three times I go over what looks like an egg at first and only ends up being the fallen head of an angry guy with a topknot. At the third time, Nathan grabs my wrist.

“Take it,” he says timidly. “It will probably work.” Probably? He’s just a kid again, I guess. That’s the best I’m going to get.

I grab the stone head. It has been cleanly separated from the neck and the rest of the body, but it’s still a head. Two holes for eyes, an upside-down frown in guise of mouth. I don’t know what kind of priest this guy was, but I’d say not the nice priest. The stone part is a bit smaller than a soccer ball. That’s still big for an egg.

“Please put it down here,” says Nathan. He has moved to the center of the room again, where all the carved lines cross each other. “It will pull him in and seal him again, I think.”

I’m mildly surprised. “Is that it? Just drop the stone at the right spot and the god is stopped? Not that I’m complaining…” I say with a anxious smile.

“From what I can remember, yes, the whole point of this temple was to seal it,” says Nathan.

“Why is it coming back here, then? Is it that stupid?” If I was that pile of rotting flesh, I’d take my hideous self and run as far away from my jail as I could.

“It really can’t help it,” says Nathan. “That’s the whole trap. It needs to get its head back and it’s been locked right behind us.” He gestures at a bigger pile of statues and carvings, on the wall directly opposing the entrance. “Without its head,” he says, racking his brain to capture the feeling he previously had, “without it, the god is lost, I think. It can’t hold on.”

I drop the stone head in the right spot. On a whim, I turn it to face the outside. It just seems better that way.

“Hey,” I say, “couldn’t we destroy its head? I mean, the real, fleshy one? Maybe it would be enough to kill that thing, if it really is that important?”

Domenica has stayed pretty silent until now, I mean, breathing hard and recovering. She shakes her head and lays a hand on my shoulder. “Girl,” she says, “I may not know that much about gods and mythical creatures, but if that thing outside was just the body, I’m pretty sure I don’t wanna release it’s head to see if we can beat it. Anyway, it’s probably not mortal. Why seal in a temple something you can just kill?”

She has a point. We turn towards Nathan. I would have never thought I’d leave life or death decisions to an elementary school kid, yet here we are. I look at the stone head. “What do we do with it, Nat? I hope we don’t have to screw it on its neck or anything like it.”

He shakes his head. “It can just stay there,” he says. There is something in his attitude, though. There is more to it than that, isn’t there?

“It can stay there, but you have to stay too.” Oh, yeah, my mission. Wait. “What, so that’s what I can do that no one else can? Be live bait?”

“If we stay there,” says Nathan, looking seriously sorry, “we’re just going to get subdued. It’s too powerful now. We’ll just kick the stone out of place and help it get its own head back. You can distract it so it doesn’t see the stone until it’s too late.”

This makes me seriously stop in my tracks. If the inhuman version of Nathan was the one who designed this, he’s a douche. “How close exactly does it have to be with the stone for the trap to take effect?”

Nathan is looking sorrier by the minute. Yes, young man, I might be getting a little bit angry right now. “I don’t exactly know,” he says, “but you’ll see it happen.”

Great. Genius. I’m supposed to do a little dance with a giant monster until it stumbles upon a rock supposed to seal him. How am I supposed to get out of this alive?

I’m about to suggest seriously thinking about alternatives when Ñox Cayù howls again. If it’s not right outside, it’s close. Suddenly, there is no time to argue anymore.

We’re gonna have to stick to the plan.