Anomus now possessed the method, but not the means with which to do what he desired with the skeletons. If a human wandered into the Tomb, and he killed that human, he could fashion one using the death as a catalyst and the soul as a base, a… template, of sorts. But no human would simply wander in, and he would not slay random strangers just for a means to power in any case. Anomus was not a monster, it was that simple.

But a servant of the emperor? A member of the Eternal Guard, for example?

Yes. Yes, Anomus would kill such a one, and trap that person’s soul forever.

Perhaps he was a monster, after all. Of a surety, he was no longer just a peaceful builder of wonders.

In any case, his dream of a marching skeleton army was ended. He would have to slaughter an army of living men in order to power it, which is what he needed the skeletons for in the first place.

Anomus was disappointed, even frustrated. But he did not waste time gnashing nonexistent teeth. By his count, sixteen days had already passed. He had closer to two months than three, now, to prepare. The skeletons had been a costly diversion, with no immediate benefit.

The Faceless One had taught him the making of mana stones, and then disappeared without a further word. But Anomus had the distinct, if unprovable feeling that the god was watching. Anomus gave a mental shrug. The god had said he would not interfere in what was to come. If He would not give direct aid, then let him be a spectator. So long as the Reaper did not place obstacles in Anomus’s path, he cared little.

Anomus redoubled his efforts with the wasps and the geckos, making them larger, fiercer – and creating warrens for them, offshoots from the undertomb. He also called another species of insect down from the garden. The boyne beetles were a species whose carapace shimmered and gleamed in the light like oil on water. All the inhabitants of the gardens were beautiful in one way or another, and in their natural state, completely harmless to humans.

The boyne beetles subsisted on one of the mosses he had cultivated in the gardens. They in turn were a food source for the geckos. In the undertomb. the geckos were well supplied with flies, both altered and otherwise, but a second food source would not go amiss, Anomus felt. And he thought he might be able to take what he had learned to make at least a few of the beetles much, much larger, more aggressive, and more heavily armored.

Perhaps the Faceless One had expected or intended it, or perhaps not – but his instruction on making mana stones had given Anomus ideas on how to incorporate his ability to shape stone into his ability to manipulate life. The wasps would not benefit – their main usefulness to him was their ability to fly. The geckos would also suffer from toughening their skin – they were very quick, very agile, and Anomus did not want them to lose the suppleness and stealth that, he hoped, would make them deadly assassins. Certainly, an increase in weight would make it more difficult for them to scale walls and run across ceilings, lessening their effectiveness.

But the beetles were already armored, already slow. Nature had designed them so. Anomus would increase their size, their strength, and their toughness. They were the only real substitute he had for the skeletons. He had already experimented on the lone scorpion that had wandered in, with good results. He would continue to alter the deadly thing. He kept it in the Old God’s chamber, away from the rest, as a guardian, of sorts. But he had no way to breed more of the creature, unlike the beetles. Not unless more wandered in.

He prepared the boyne beetles their own warren, larger than the others in expectation of their massively increased sizes, and then called them down en masse, each carrying a portion of the moss they subsisted on. That too he would alter, to grow faster, in order to sustain the behemoths he intended to create.

He spent the first half of the night on these endeavors, lost in the act of creation – or at least alteration. Then, a short while after midnight, the ghoul returned.

Anomus sensed it – him – as soon as he stepped into the tunnel. The ghoul seemed the worse for wear since Anomus had last seen him. He had additional wounds, and it looked as though the creature had been burned by the sun, at least on more exposed areas of its furry body. But the ghoul had brought something with it this time: a pickaxe.

Anomus felt an emotion that was rare to him, now – sheer curiosity. His first thought wasn’t how he might turn a new observation or discovery to his advantage, for a change. He just wanted to see what this apparently intelligent creature would do next. Did it feel the need for a weapon? Surely not; the claws it sported could easily disembowel a man. Compared to them, the pickaxe was a much poorer weapon. Anomus was at a loss as to what the ghoul intended, and that was a… pleasant feeling.

~ ~ ~

Krrsh was strong. Krrsh was fierce. Krrsh was afraid.

His fear went beyond the wariness any ghoul felt when raiding a place of Men for food. Unless such a place had been long deserted, there was always danger, and to a ghoul, fear was not something to be ashamed of. Fear kept ghouls alive as much as their claws. One of the most terrible things about hunger, to Krrsh’s mind at least, was that sooner or later it robbed ghouls of their ability to feel fear. Or maybe to recognize danger. Either way, hungry ghouls did stupid things, took bad risks. And then they died.

Krrsh stopped in the middle of the tunnel. Was he doing a stupid thing? Was his hunger about to push him to his death? Krrsh squatted down in the middle of the tunnel, cradling his tool, and considered.

He had taken many risks, it was true. Risks that no other ghoul would take unless they were far down into the depths of starvation. Moving about in the day? Ghouls had a few words and phrases for insanity and extreme stupidity. One of them was ‘day runner’. But Krrsh knew that had not been stupid or crazy. It had saved his life, probably.

All the things he had done, in fact, another ghoul might call crazy or stupid – angering the water horses, raiding the Ironclaws, stealing a tool of Men. But Krrsh had done each with a purpose. Hunger had not driven him to do any of it.

And fear coursed through his body. No, Krrsh was still Krrsh, still clever and fierce. He nodded his head. Satisfied, he continued his slow approach to the place with no bones, his paws silent on the tunnel’s stone floor and the windblown sand that littered it.

But the fear – yes. It was not normal fear. It was bigger. Bigger, because he smelled, no, sensed something down in the dark. Not Men. Something else.

Something stronger.

Something that could take all the bones from a vast field of carrion. And Krrsh, though he was very clever, could not imagine anything that could do that. He also could not imagine why. Even Krrsh, clever as he was, had a limited imagination, and such a thing was beyond his wildest imaginings. Krrsh could imagine something pulling all the bones out of his body though. He could see it, in his head. Some giant dark creature sticking its claws into Krrsh and pulling out rib after rib –

Ears flat, Krrsh shuddered and pulled his mind away from the image. Yes, he still felt fear. Very much. But fear didn’t stop him from continuing down the tunnel. But it made him grip the Man tool tighter.

At last he came to the place where the tunnel ended and the place with no bones began. His stomach cramped in anticipation. The heady aroma of carrion was an almost physical sensation. Still, Krrsh was cautious. He waited, he listened, he looked. He heard the drone of thousands of flies; indeed, they practically swarmed him as he crouched at the tunnel’s mouth, still as a stone. He could hear the deeper buzz of larger flies, and saw a few as well. Larger than any flies he had ever seen. Also, there were black wasps. Also, they were bigger. The place of no bones was also the place of big flying things.

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But the thing that caught Krrsh’s attention were the new cave openings.

He had studied the place of no bones carefully when he had first discovered it. Now that he had returned, he saw three openings in the walls that had not been there before. Two were smallish – he would have had to crawl to enter them – but the third was large. Large enough for three ghouls to walk into, side by side. Maybe four. And they would not have to crouch.

Krrsh raised a slow claw to his scalp and scratched absently, thinking.

The place of no bones was… growing.

Krrsh was clever. Clever enough to know that such things did not happen. Not in the few nights since he had last looked at this place. But it had happened.

A hunger pang wrenched him from his thoughts. It was hard to concentrate on things that were not meat, with so much meat before him. Krrsh looked up, and though she probably could not hear him or see him through so much stone, he whispered to Mother Moon.

“Will Krrsh be lucky one more time, Mother? Or will Krrsh lose all his bones?”

Mother Moon did not answer, of course. She never did. But he liked to talk to her anyway. It was the closest thing to prayer ghouls had. When they remembered.

Carefully, slowly, Krrsh took up the Man tool in both hands and inched its long claw forward and down. He was careful, very careful not to put his hands or any part of his body into the vast chamber. The iron claw met decomposing flesh. Krrsh froze. Nothing happened, beyond the buzzing of flies and the wriggling of maggots. Slowly, Krrsh pulled his prize toward the lip of the tunnel. The meat was badly decomposed, but the thought it was leg. Much fell away as he pulled, but much did not.

The meat was about half an arm’s length below the bottom of the tunnel. Clumsily, Krrsh dragged the meat up towards himself, ropes of saliva sagging down unnoticed from his muzzle.

The iron claw of the tool scraped against stone. It was a tiny sound, but to Krrsh’s ears it was as loud as a howl. He froze, heart suddenly beating fast.

Nothing happened.

Krrsh did not realize that he had stopped breathing until he started breathing again. Slowly, carefully, but most of all quietly, he continued to drag the meat upwards.

Closer, closer, so very close –

The meat, wet with rot and badly balanced on the iron claw of the tool, slithered off and fell back to the place of no bones with a moist plop.

Krrsh caught himself before his howl of frustration became more than the slightest growl in his throat. Krrsh was not patient… but he was learning. What choice did he have?

He tried again. Again, the meat slipped away from the tool.

And a third time. Krrsh wanted to howl very badly. Instead, he settled for a sigh. It was not a satisfying thing, a sigh. Not at all. Krrsh made himself stop and think.

The meat was too wet. The man tool could not grab it. It was not a hand – ah.

Krrsh raised one hand and beat himself on the head for not being clever. It was not a hand. It was a claw. Claws did not grab. They poked. They tore.

Krrsh spent a little time getting a piece of meat against the wall below the tunnel entrance just the way he wanted it. It was hard, because he could not bend forward and see exactly what he was doing – he was afraid something would come and take away the bones in his head if he did. But he did the best he could, and then he used the Man tool to spear the meat instead of scraping it up the wall. And this time, the meat didn’t slide away. This time, when Krrsh pulled the tool back, meat came with it.

His first instinct was to gobble the meat down. Instead, he gently and quietly set the tool and his reward down on the tunnel’s floor, then ran up the tunnel to the desert.

His howl of triumph was quiet, and thus not so satisfying – he was not so very far from the den of the Ironclaws, after all, and he had gone to much pain and trouble to keep them from knowing where he was. But howl he did, so that Mother Moon would know that her son Krrsh was indeed clever, oh yes.

Then he went back down the tunnel and began to feast.

~ ~ ~

Anomus watched the ghoul with fascination throughout the night, but did not interfere with him or even try to make contact. He kept the wasps away from the scavenger, and observed.

It was obvious that the creature was intelligent. It experimented, it learned through trial and error. It was no dumb beast.

It was just as obvious that it had never used a tool before. Or at least not the tool that it wielded now. Its motions were hesitant and clumsy, at least at first. And for some reason the ghoul would not break the imaginary plane between the tunnel and the undertomb. In fact, it took great pains not to do so, which greatly hampered its efforts. Anomus surmised that, for whatever reason, the ghoul had decided that the tunnel was safe, but the undertomb was not. Curious. Anomus couldn’t think why the corpse eater would come to such a conclusion. He decided that if he could communicate with the ghoul at some point, he would ask it.

But the ghoul was intelligent, at least to a degree. Intelligent enough that Anomus was now faced with a quandary, one he had hoped to avoid. As he observed the creature pulling up and devouring chunk after chunk of rotting flesh with the pickaxe, he mulled over his possible courses of action.

First, he could simply attempt to claim the ghoul, as he had every other living thing in the Tomb. But he did not know if intelligence was a limiting factor in his ability, and he also instinctively balked at turning something that self-evidently possessed free will into an utter slave.

It was more than a moral issue, to Anomus’s mind, though it was that as well. Intellect was a precious resource. It made possible independent action – something none of his minions were truly capable of. To enslave the ghoul, to direct its every action according to his will would mean losing the single-most valuable thing the creature could offer him. Anomus had slaves in the flies, the wasps, the geckos. He would breed more in the beetles. It wasn’t slaves he desired.

It was… allies, he supposed.

And even if it made more sense to take the ghoul with his will, rather than treat with it – something he was by no means convinced of – he felt it would be wrong.

Anomus had never, in life, held a very strong opinion concerning slavery. It was a fact of life in the empire and beyond. Slavery was an established institution. Orthus, his personal servant, was a slave. Anomus’s family treated all their household slaves with dignity and care; a slaveowner had a duty to do so, or so Anomus’s father had always maintained. Of course Anomus knew that not all believed as his father had. He had seen countless examples of slaves being worked to death. As an architect, he had seen firsthand the conditions in various quarries, mines and building sites.

But Anomus now knew the fate of slaves firsthand as well. It was no longer the fate of some stranger. It was his fate, and the fate of ten thousand human beings. A slave owner held the power of life and death over his property, and said property had not a single grain of weight in the balance pan.

And that was wrong.

In a sense, every citizen of the empire was a slave of the emperor. And now Anomus had come to believe that a single person holding the power of life and death over another was wrong. More than wrong.

It was evil.

Anomus would not make slaves of those who were not his enemies. Not if they possessed intellect, and free will.

And if they were his enemies? Anomus considered. Certainly it was common practice to take as slaves those defeated in battle.

No, he decided. If it was wrong in one instance, then it was almost certainly wrong in all cases. He would kill, if he could, to gain his retribution. But he would not enslave.

The cold, analytical portion of his personality warned him that he was making a mistake, that he was limiting his future actions and resources, and conceivably that could lead to him failing to achieve his goal.

He did not care. He would not take that step if for no other reason than he was certain that Irobus would not hesitate to do so, were their positions somehow reversed.

So Anomus merely watched the ghoul as it became more adept at using the pickaxe to rake in and consume an astonishing amount of rotting flesh.

The craftsman in Anomus couldn’t help but disprove of the ghoul using a pickaxe, however. How many times had he admonished workers over the years to use the correct tool for the job? Yes, the pickaxe got the job done, but it was clumsy and terribly inefficient, and at times it was painful to watch.

If the creature insisted on staying in the tunnel, he needed another tool. One more suited to the task. A pitchfork would be serviceable. Even a rake would be better.

Anomus stumbled upon an idea, then. He considered it, and with a mental shrug asked himself ‘why not?’ Now that he had decided he would not try to enslave the creature to his will, he was free to try other means of establishing some sort of communication, rapport, perhaps even trust. Certainly it did no harm to his other endeavors.

When the ghoul retreated back up the tunnel just before dawn, groaning and clutching his distended belly with one hand and the pickaxe with the other, Anomus expended a little mana to fashion a new tool for it. He had the pattern for wood and for iron from claiming the secret door. Both were more difficult and costlier to produce than stone, but not prohibitively so, not when all he made was a single pitchfork.

He brought it into being at the tunnel’s entrance, propped against the wall. And then he let the day-swoon steal over him.