Prologue

He woke up surrounded by heavy darkness, the earthy scent of rot tickling his nose as he slowly breathed in and out. A faint dripping sound echoed in the distance.

He rolled over and yelped as he fell, hitting the ground hard. Where in the Deepest Dark was he? He sat up, trying to remember—and froze.

He couldn’t remember. Couldn’t remember anything.

Who was he?

He scrambled up, fear rising in his chest. He needed to get out. Searching for an exit, his hands touched stone, then cloth, then something soft and cold. He flinched and shuddered.

It was skin. Bodies. He was in the crypt. But he was alive. How could he be here? How?

Finally, he found a wooden door with a heavy iron ring set into it. He heaved it open and light flooded in. He didn’t look behind him as he stepped out, skin prickling on his back in revulsion and terror. He couldn’t.

There were light crystals set into the ceiling of the smooth stone hallway here, softly illuminating doors just like the one he had just come out of. To the left ran a downward sloping tunnel, on and on until it vanished behind a bend. To the right, just a few paces away was a heavy iron door. Bright, beautiful sunlight spilled out underneath it.

He ran to the door, pulling on the handle only to find it locked. He knocked, and heard voices on the other side.

“Hear that, Tarek?” someone called. “We’ve got a rotter! Drinks are on you tonight!” He laughed, while another man groaned theatrically.

He knocked harder, pounding on the door and pleading.

“Let me out! I’m not dead” He called. “There’s been a mistake. I’m alright! I’m not dead!”

“Hear that?” the second man said. “It doesn’t count. He’s not dead.”

More laughter.

“You in there, listen up!” a voice answered. “Rotters go down the tunnel. No undead on the surface, no exceptions!”

“I’m not dead, I’m alive, I feel fine!” Even as he protested, though, he saw in the soft glow of the tunnel that his skin was too gray, his fingernails too dark.

He kept knocking, though. It couldn’t be real.

“Yea, yea.” Another voice answered. “Listen. Why don’t you tell us exactly who you are and what you do? Introduce yourself properly, and maybe we’ll open the door.”

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t remember.

Chapter 1

When people die in the Free Cities, their bodies are dressed in their finest clothes and laid down in the sprawling crypt that each city sits on top of. Usually, the bodies decompose, and the deceased’s family returns a few years later to collect the bones and bring them to an Ossuary of Morana, the goddess of death, in exchange for a blessing. For most people that was the end of the road, the lucky bastards.

Nobody would be collecting Morana’s blessing with Reshid’s bones.

He couldn’t remember what he had expected death to be like, but he was certain that it hadn’t involved waking up as a still-rotting corpse and being forced down a tunnel into the bowels of the earth.

He had known what the crypt was for. Everyone did. He just hadn’t expected it to happen to him.

It was different when you were the one stuck in the dark surrounded by the dead, facing ominous downward sloping tunnels on one end of your crypt, and a cheerful sunlit door on the other. He also had not expected the gnawing pain of hunger in his belly, the surprisingly bright and verdant caverns down below, or the terrifying monsters that seemed to inhabit them. That, or the slavers. After weeks of scurrying from one hiding place to the next, he hadn’t even resisted when they came at him with chains in their hands.

The slavers—a group of revenants—almost seemed like an improvement. Almost. At least they were well-armed. He’d seen them take out an entire pack of hungry ghouls earlier, so at least he probably wouldn’t be getting eaten while they had him. Now, he was standing in a line with perhaps ten other unfortunate souls as a well-dressed man examined them.

“Grab that one. Look at his face. Looks like a gardener, right? I can use one of those.” The man was pointing directly at him—or, more likely, the fresh tree bark that grew on one side of his jaw and on his chest in place of skin. One of the slavers, perhaps their leader, nodded with an obsequious smile and gestured to the human’s guard. The man tugged on Reshid’s manacles, forcing him to move to stand with a growing group of figures that looked just as ragged and confused as he felt.

He’d only been dead a month, and so far the afterlife didn’t really agree with Reshid. He felt numb, worn down by fear and physical exhaustion until even terror lost all meaning. It didn’t seem real.

The man currently purchasing him was an oddity down here. He was short, slightly overweight, and most surprisingly, alive. His ruddy complexion was a sharp contrast to the unnaturally gray, brown, or greenish skin tones of the undead. The living world on the surface felt like a half-remembered dream to Reshid, and seeing an ordinary person wandering around here was… wrong, somehow.

A few more men like him waited a short distance away—uniformed soldiers from the surface holding rifles with swords at their belts. They shouldn’t be down here. The priesthood, especially their militant Guardians, didn’t allow it.

The guard was a local—a revenant. He wore an old leather vest that was too small for him without a shirt underneath, which would have made him look ridiculous if he wasn’t so intimidating. The man was powerfully built, and appeared to be partly made of stone. His right arm and shoulder was made of gray slate, broken off with deep cracks at the joints. The rest of him was covered in sallow, rough skin that looked nothing like a living person’s. He was a contrast to the huddle of pitiful figures around Reshid. He remembered people saying "hope dies last", but he was coming to the realization it was actually humor - sarcastic, cynical humor. He wasn't sure what he hoped for anymore, if anything at all.

The merchant, it seemed, was picking out the weakest, or at least the cheapest, slaves that he could find. Nearly all of them looked elderly—though, Reshid supposed that made sense when you were recruiting from the recently dead. Was he trying to save money? That didn’t make sense, but then, he also couldn’t imagine what could possess someone to come down here on purpose.

Reshid didn’t remember much of his life, but a little had come back over the past few weeks. He was sure that sane people didn’t go underground. Ever. More importantly, they don’t come back out in that condition. Here, there were monsters.

Reshid was a walking corpse, sure, but he wasn’t much of a monster himself. Not yet, anyway. Neither were the pitiful figures around him, unconsciously huddling together as if for protection. They were the toothless infants—or perhaps the livestock—of this underworld. Most had attuned an essence, which healed the body in its way, but a few looked more like rotting corpses than anything else. Reshid didn’t know how long the newly undead could go without taking in any essence, but it wasn’t forever. He had only figured out how to do it a few days earlier himself, hours before the slavers found him.

One was too far gone to tell from behind if they’d been a man or a woman, and had begun putting off a horrible stench. Sickened, Reshid realized that he could see something moving under the skin. The person was limping badly and needed help from another one of their number to move. The gray-haired woman helping them had lost an eye at some point, which had been replaced, healed by whatever essence she had attuned. The socket was filled by an almost perfectly clear orb. When the light hit it, Reshid got the impression that it was spinning. Weird.

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She caught him staring, and waved him over energetically. Grudgingly, he joined them.

“Hey, give me a hand with this guy? That leg’s about to fall right off.”

Looking more closely now, he guessed that it was a young man. He wore a ripped jacket that might have been part of a uniform, and his boots fit so badly that it was hard to imagine that he’d bought them himself. A soldier, maybe. Sure enough, as he lifted his left leg, his foot swung sideways awkwardly, hanging limply from the knee. The smell it gave off made Reshid’s eyes water.

Reaching out, he grabbed the man’s arm, half heartedly supporting him without getting too close. The woman rolled her eyes, and guided the man over to a fallen log, where they deposited him. He made a vile rasping noise, but there was no way to tell if he was trying to talk or if that was just what his breathing sounded like.

“Awful squeamish for a dead guy, aren’t you?” She scoffed at him, appearing completely relaxed. “What’s your name, grandpa?”

“Reshid” he answered, trying his best to inhale through his mouth, and still nearly gagging. She wasn’t that much younger than him. Probably, anyway. “How are you not? I can practically taste it!”

“I make a point of standing upwind.” She said, winking with the glowing eye and waving a hand toward him in a shooing gesture. A puff of wind hit him in the face.

Well. That must be handy. Reshid moved to stand next to her to take advantage of the breeze she was creating.

“Call me Em.” She said, Holding out a broad hand, which he shook. This was the most normal interaction he’d had… ever? Sort of. He couldn’t remember very much of his life before, but the past month had been an unending sequence of escalating horrors. He shuddered.

Reshid glared, pushing the memories back, and looked over to their prospective buyer, who was haggling vigorously with the slaver.

The guard pulled a last stooped form over to the group, and then lined them up in a row, attaching their manacles to a long chain. Noting the condition of their companion, he chained him between Reshid and Em. He slapped the soldier on the back, and Reshid could have sworn he heard bones rattle their sockets.

“Hold tight, boy, we’ll get you patched up soon. No lying down on the job! Careful though, if you fall apart before we get home, I’m not going to be carrying you.”

Raising his voice, he turned to the entire group and bellowed, “Alright, you maggoty rotters, listen up. My name is Hasan. I’m going to take you home, and you’re not going to give me any trouble about it. Try to run, and we’re going to leave you out here. Any questions?”

He said the latter part casually, but Reshid recognized it as a threat. No one said anything.

They had all probably spent weeks in these forested caverns, hiding in cracks in the rock and running through the endless warren of tunnels only to find that each had its own novel horrors to drive him onwards in search of safety. Reshid’s stomach knotted at the thought of going back.

They stood quietly, tense and waiting for their buyer to finish negotiating for them.

Em leaned over to Reshid. “We’re going to have to help him walk, he’s not going to make it. Look at his leg.”

She had a point. The soldier’s knee bent sideways unnaturally when he put weight on it, though that didn’t seem to bother him. He didn’t even really seem to hear them.

Reshid hadn’t reached quite such a state himself, but the memory of becoming weaker and more helpless with every passing hour was fresh in his mind. Compared to himself, the soldier seemed to take his deterioration stoically.

Maybe the man’s mind had started to start dissolving along with the rest of him. Regardless, nobody else was going to do it.

He nodded to Em, and stepped behind her to wait, so her wind would carry the smell away from him.

Another man waved to Hasan and approached, receiving a friendly nod in return. Reshid recognized him as one of the slavers that had captured him a few days before. He had eyes like those of a cat, and clawed, short-fingered hands that managed to look terrifying and impractical at the same time. In the relative silence, Reshid could hear their quiet conversation.

“Hasan. How… …and who’s the pinky?” The man said, nodding toward the human.

“My employer”, Hasan replied, emphasizing the word, “is building what he calls mutually beneficial relationships in the Deep Paths. He’s supposed to have some influence on the surface. Seems legitimate so far, and he and I had a mutual acquaintance. He’s certainly got money and people.”

The man looked skeptical, but Hasan’s expression was determined. He leaned in, whispering something more quietly.

“No. This could be just what we need down here.” Hasan replied seriously at a normal volume, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder, “They need a lot of hands, Avin. You should come join us. Things are heating up. I hear the ghouls...”

Avin cut him off with a scowl. “Not here!” He looked around, making sure none of the others had heard Hasan. Reshid looked down at his feet, but strained his ears to catch as many words as he could as Avin continued.

“.... later... find you. You need to be careful… bad.”

When Reshid risked another glance, the other man was gone.

The human returned, tying his purse back onto his belt with a smug smile on his face. He gestured to Hasan without looking at his newly purchased wares, and the guard picked up one end of the chain and tugged, leaving the now thoughtful-looking slaver, Avin, to watch them depart. Reshid and the rest of the column followed.

They trekked for over an hour along a simple but well-maintained dirt road that led out of the massive, brightly lit cavern through a narrowing crack into a tunnel. It quickly became apparent that the badly decayed soldier was in far worse shape than the rest of them, though several others looked almost as bad. Em, who was shorter than him, threw his arm over her shoulder to lift him more effectively as he stumbled along. Reshid grabbed his other arm and helped to keep him upright, but he was unwilling to get too close. He was… moist.

The road was the first indication of any sort of civilization that Reshid had seen since waking. It had been built by hand, and the tunnel was lit at regular intervals by milky white light crystals that were embedded directly into the rock. Not far ahead, what looked like bright sunlight shone into the tunnel’s exit.

The surface? Impossible. They were far, far below even the deepest mines. Still, as the line of slaves stepped outside, he felt a breeze stir in the air. They emerged at the top of a slope that led downward into a forest. This wasn’t the surface.

The cavern was enormous, easily miles across. Looking up, Reshid found the source of the light. It was lit by crystals, much like the cavern they had left an hour earlier. Unlike that cavern, though, these crystals were much, much bigger, and blindingly bright— blazing like suns in miniature. Some even jutted from the cavern wall beside them, casting barely visible shadows in all directions along the walls. Hazy clouds rose from the forest, obscuring the view into the distance where Reshid could make out what he thought might be the far cavern wall.

The chain jerked forward, accompanied by an ill-tempered grumble from Hasan, and the stunned group got moving again. Because of the steep incline, Em and Reshid had to nearly carry their charge down the hill. He was shocked at how light the man was.

As they descended down the slope, the human led them off the main path around a bend near the treeline. There, nestled between the forest and the cavern wall were terraced fields, animals, a smattering of houses, and a small keep encircled by a palisade. When they approached, he noticed more guards like Hasan, each with their own distinctive features. One had hair like fire, flickering upward and occasionally releasing sparks as she watched them. Another looked nearly like an ordinary human, except for the long, metallic claws on one hand, and what looked like steel plating on the back of the other arm. They didn’t stop the group as they passed, but exchanged nods with Hasan and the human.

As they reached the tiny settlement, villagers continued working in shops and fields, paying neither the humans nor the group of slaves any notice. Looking closer, Reshid realized that not all of them were locals. A handful were humans, going about their chores, hoeing gardens, cutting wood, and tending animals just as they would on the surface. After the horrors of the past month, the sheer mundanity of the sight was jarring. Had they somehow dragged chickens and pigs down the tunnels?

The keep, such as it was, looked mostly like any other house, though slightly larger. It was marked by a wooden flagpole that flew a black and gold banner, which Reshid recognized.

For a moment, he was standing on a different street, watching the same banner flutter on the end of a long spear as a small group of riders rode away into a misty morning. The memory felt like a hot knife in his gut. Just as quickly, the moment was gone. He had no real context for the memory, or the grief that it brought with it.

He might have come back to life, in a way, but his mind hadn’t made the return trip whole.

The palisade gate was guarded by regular humans armed with rifles, and they didn’t enter. Instead, Hasan led the group alongside the palisade, behind one of the houses to a stable. There, a human woman was holding a pole steady as another form, shrouded behind a large sheet of canvas, tugged on a rope to secure it. She turned her head as they approached.

“Hasan! You’re back early!”

Without waiting for a response, she addressed the assembled captives. “Hi everybody! Don’t worry, we’ll get your accommodations sorted out in just a minute. Barty here didn’t warn me till a few minutes ago.”

The pounding of a rock against a metal stake emanated from behind the newly pitched tent, followed by a grunt. She released the pole, and turned toward them fully. She was wearing a stained and slightly charred apron over a simple dress. At her waist, her belt hung heavy with small pouches, tools and implements, a few of which glowed softly in various colors. Before he could wonder what they might be for, though, a man, presumably Barty, stepped out from behind the tent. Except that he wasn’t a man at all. Nor, for that matter, was he undead. He was short. His arms were too long for his body, with massive hands tipped with blunt rounded claws.

This was not a human, or a revenant, or any kind of ghoul. No, this was something else entirely.