The undead are wed, as unchanging monstrosities, to the processes of this mutable plane. -- Risaud the Mad

A desiccated figure glared up at the blue sun with empty, glowing eye sockets. He looked at the gore in front of him and leaned on his staff. Then he wiped blood off his decayed feet.

“Ah, camels. If ever there was a creature worse than a man it is they. The stupid beasts have souls, you know. If I didn’t kill them at my doorstep they would overrun the desert in massive undead herds.”

Besides the camels, forty humans, twenty elves and thirteen rogha jumbled together in a tangle of flesh. Their packs rapidly soaked in the color of their fluids: crimson, yellow; black and green. The desiccated man released a wave of energy. Time seemed to stop. The man shuddered, producing a sound like reeds clacking in a breeze.

He crouched over the elven group. One by one he inspected their corpses. Then he moved to the Rogha, a species of intelligent therapsids, noted their brands and inspected their sparse fur, teeth and scales. He undid the metal that pierced their frills. When he got to the humans, he rummaged through every pouch and pocket, looting anything that carried the glitter of a magical signature. When he found a magical object on a person, he marked the corpse with a seal that burned into the flesh over its heart.    

“Are you horrified that I killed the gifts you brought me? I hope you are. Killing them is monstrous, but then again am I not a monster? It is a necessary shame, but what has been done to them in life is even more shameful.”

He stuck a finger into his ribcage and pulled out a glass vial. The liquid inside swirled indigo and black with flecks of metal. He poured it out across the rock. A protrusion emerged from the substance, sprouted two eyestalks, and tugged the rest of the fluid behind it. Wherever it went, it left a trail of slime that rapidly evaporated under the sun but cleansed the rock of all signs of blood and viscera. When it encountered a non-camelid corpse, it recoiled and reversed direction.

“Life is unfair, and death is. . .even more so. I have directly been the death of trillions, you know. But I still thank you for bringing them.”

He lifted every corpse and laid them out next to one another. He took great care not to let anything touch the sands on the edge of his threshold. Pinpoints of light flashed around him, but he ignored them. Once the sealed corpses lay in a configuration that pleased him, he stepped back into the shadows of his magiolith and watched the lights flash.

  “Spirits! Fear and tremble, for you are dead. Your brethren in my sanctum must come first among my tasks. You will wait for me and I will decide your fate. Rest, wait and consider my offer. There is no finality in death upon the Aryn unless you choose it. If you do not take my offer, you will be whisked away by the couriers of your preferred god’s psychopomp to whatever realm has been appointed to receive you. I offer you purpose and a new existence. I offer you annulment from all crimes real and perceived. I offer you honest labor according to your skills. Weigh that as you wait against the fate you have been taught to accept according to your culture.”

One by one, he watched the lights settle down near their corpses. He knew from the color which mood they were in. The humans, as he expected, revealed terror. The elves radiated confusion. The rogha; expectation. There were other colors, but these were the most interesting to him.

 “Child, It is well that you revealed this crime. You were born from the land and its laws are yours. Your instinct brought this travesty to my doorstep, even as a child brings a wounded knee to his mother, but an infant cannot be expected to understand. I wonder who is coming to investigate?”

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The glittering black and indigo slug encountered the closest camel corpse and melted into it. The corpse immediately began to sag as its bones dissolved. The man watched and waited, unmoving. The sun dipped below the horizon and stars shone weakly in the twilit sky. One by one the camels dissolved into goo. When only tatters of skin remained, he picked his creature up and returned it to the bottle.

“It seems that you are testing me. I can weather your test. Shall we see what piqued your interest? Why this caravan? Not that such things interest me, but shall we take a closer look at what they traded in other than living flesh?”

He rooted through the camel packs, tossing the water into the sand away from his threshold of stone. He pulled beads and gems out and tossed them into the sand. He found a pouch of coinage and sorted through it, tossing most of them onto the sand.  He pulled out a copper and stopped. He held the piece up to the sunlight and chuckled.

“Ah, there it is. Now I know why you brought these people to me. This looks like our star, doesn't it, on the back side of this coin. But the polarity of this copper is all wrong. It was made in the Northern Hemisphere. How interesting.”

He began rooting through the next pack, pulling out anything with the star on it. Most of the magical items had it upon closer inspection. Swords made of folded steel, pieces of armor, and some cloth also bore it. He laughed at the small pile of goods.

“Yes, I see it now that I know what to look for. Oh, you must remember, little one, that I don’t see by physical means any more than you do. This desiccated husk of mine is just a placeholder in space and time that a long dead culture cursed me to wear. I am, like you, something that has evolved from what I once was. How ironic that I, who was born a living thing, never gets to speak to the living while you,born of magic, spend more time with the living. But do not forget what you are. Look with the senses that you were formed from. Feel the strangeness of it. All these things were made of this continent except for this one copper coin. The materials may be made to service the invading culture, made in the same style as that culture’s goods, but they are of the Aryn and the Rim, the jungles and the walking mangroves. It took study for me to see any details not etched in magic. The coin alone does not belong here.”

He fingered the copper and considered the pile of goods before shoving the whole pile, magical goods and all, into the sand. Once on the sand, everything disappeared. Ripples rolled away from where the goods vanished.

“What comes from the Aryn returns to the Aryn. I have no need of those things. The only thing that interests me is this coin. Shall I tell you about what I see in the refuse? This is a culture in a shipbuilding and exploration age. Have they developed combustive weaponry; I wonder? It is a very early era for a culture to meet with me, but I have seen civilizations so deeply steeped in magic that they put stone age cities on the moon and under the seas. Folded steel weapons and breastplates for armor speaks to me of a developed balance between magic and science. They choose not to use everything that is available. But why? I wonder what the judged think of us. Do they even know we are here?”

He held up the copper piece until it occluded the blue disc of the sun.

“You have given me a story. Unfortunately, I cannot give you the stories attached to this yet. It is impossible to open this story by its end. For these, such as they are, the end has come. The five inside will have to speak their tale if they make it to my hermitage. Their story has begun a sequel. Perhaps you are strong enough now to see what has become of them. Shall you try to cross my threshold at last?”

Indigo light intensified around the man, invisible except where the shadow of the cave fled from its presence.

“Ah, there you are at last. Tell me if you can: are my theories correct? Were you indeed afraid? Were you waiting to see my reaction? You have never occluded yourself from my sight before. Then again you have never brought me living things before.”

The light faded, and the old man paused.

“No, be calmed. I am not angry. Not with you. Let me begin again the story you have paid for in blood. Now listen. Come into my dwelling and hear why what you have brought to me is so special. For mortals, gods, everything in heaven and below passes away save for the Aryn. Even before it was sand it was still eternal. So do not worry about these mortals. They are not worth your concern. They are mine.”

The coin glittered indigo in the man’s hand. He held it star side up, then placed it in a pouch attached to a belt dangling from his hips. Slowly, he paced back into the maigolith. The light followed. He rounded a corner and stopped again.

“So, you are powerful enough to leave your sands at last. Welcome to my domain, anima of the Aryn. I am proud of you. Now come in as far as you can. I would like for you to see my hermitage.”