Hesia. Beauty of the age. So they had called her. But what was beauty to a slave? It was a thing of value to the master of a slave, but it was not a thing of worth. Property had qualities that made it more or less valuable. Free people had qualities that made them more or less worthy. Hesia had been born as a piece of property, as chattel, not a person. And quite early her master had seen her potential value. As tribute.

Tribute to an emperor. Trained to sing, to dance, to play half a dozen instruments, and two dozen games of skill and chance. Instructed on the art of pleasuring a man, but kept a virgin.

When she was old enough, and ready, she was shipped across the Circle Sea from her master’s home in Krassika to the seat of the Suboran empire, to curry favor with its mighty ruler.

That she had done. Irobus had been taken with her at once. Within weeks she was his most favored plaything, and within months his most treasured possession. After a year, He openly called her his love. Irobus’s other concubines, his pleasure slaves, and his wives - all were forsaken.

All were furious.

One exacted a terrible revenge.

Ten years Hesia had had to think on the events of that night. Something slipped into her drink. Perhaps her food, but probably her drink. It kept her awake, but barely aware. Irobus was away, hunting. She had fallen into a strange swoon, retired to her chambers. Her attendants had left her.

And then the slave, Fenthus, had slipped into her room.

She didn’t know who it was at the time. She only remembered yellow-gold hair, so rare in Subori. Later, she realized it was Fenthus. Later, too pointlessly late, after everything was done.

Fenthus, whose eyes followed her everywhere, hungrily. But it could not have been his plan. He was not intelligent or connected enough. No, it had been one of her rivals. Someone smart enough to orchestrate the scene, and with enough power and cunning to have the emperor return from his hunt early under some pretext, and discover the golden-haired slave pushing himself into the emperor’s beloved concubine, grunting his lust away. She suspected three of the women in the emperor’s orbit. Not that it mattered anymore.

She remembered Fenthus’s head flying from his body in a spray of blood. She remembered Irobus staring down at her as the body toppled away, the emperor’s frightening amber eyes blazing. She remembered his hands around her throat, squeezing.

And then nothing. Nothing until she had woken in her glass box, thoroughly paralyzed by the magics of an imperial sorcerer; paralyzed by it and sustained by it. She felt no hunger or thirst. She felt nothing at all.

Nothing physical, at least. When it came to emotions, she felt everything. In ten years, she had been consumed first by panic, then by rage, then despair and anguish. Then, for a long time, madness. A frightening madness. It had taken her many years to work her way through the thorny maze of insanity, to another place. Not that where she was now, in her mind, was much better. It was not a place of peace. She knew that she might slip back into madness at any time. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered to fight it at all. But she did.

Now, she felt… nothing. Almost nothing. She felt dead inside.

The only spark left to her was how much she hated Irobus.

She had never loved him. She had always known he was not wholly human, that he was, in some indefinable way, missing something that most people had. A soul? Perhaps. It had not mattered to her, when she was his favored concubine. A slave’s lot was to serve, and they did not get to choose who.

But now, yes, she hated him. It was the only emotion left to her. Everything else had been burned away.

It was a pointless, hopeless hate. There was nothing she could do to harm him. But it was her hate, all that was left to her. And so she nurtured it, and relied upon it to keep her sane, though that too was pointless.

When Irobus had come to tell her that her Tomb was completed, she had shed a single tear.

It had not been a tear of sorrow or despair. It had been a tear of rage.

Her ears heard nothing save his voice – the sorcery that bound her made it so. Her eyes were closed, but she could sense neither the light of day nor its passing into night through her closed lids – but his shadow looming over her? Yes, she could see that. Only that. Locked in her glass sarcophagus, she could feel nothing, but she knew with certainty that if he were to touch her, she would feel his hands as well.

He had made it so that there was nothing in her world, her total existence but him. That was the will and power of an emperor. That was the will and power of a demon, a monster.

A thousand-thousand times she had silently prayed to any god or demon who would listen, offering her soul in return for Irobus’s death. None had answered.

Hesia, beauty of the age, fed the flame of her hate, and spat on hope and despair equally.

Around her, unknown by her, preparations were underway to move her from the Monument to the Tomb. They were more frenzied than they should have been

~ ~ ~

Krrsh was not strong. Krrsh was not fierce. Krrsh was not clever.

Krrsh was pain, only pain. From the tips of his ears to pads of his paws, pain. Burning agony. All for a Man thing, a tool. He hated it, now. But just now Krrsh hated everything.

He hated the Sun, the Burning Eye. He would bite it out of the sky if he could – or no. He would have to go back into the day to do so, and he never, ever wanted to be above ground during the day again.

He hated Ngrum for making him outcast and forcing him to raid the place of the dead, and sending the Ironclaws after him. He hated the Ironclaws for being stupid enough to follow Ngrum. He hated the water horses for not killing them all. He hated the place of stone for having been so big, too big to run across before the day found him. He hated the black flies that found his reddened flesh, his open wounds, even though he was buried in a burrow, now. He hated the sand of the burrow he had finally been able to dig on the far side of the place of stone for irritating his sensitive flesh – no, he loved it for hiding him from the sun. But he hated it, too.

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He hated the hunger that sank its fangs ever deeper into his belly.

He hated the place of no bones for being so far away. He hated – he hated –

Krrsh finally slept. Fitfully, brokenly, and then exhaustedly, he hated no more. And when he woke and shook himself free of the concealing desert sand, he still hurt, but he no longer hated. Slowly at first, and then with more energy, he ran, making a wide circuit away from the place of stone and back to the place with no bones.

He would not run into the Ironclaws sent to bring him down, unless he was very unlucky indeed. He looked up at Mother Moon, waning now.

“Will Krrsh be so unlucky, Mother?” She did not answer, but Krrsh knew the answer nonetheless. No, he would not be so unlucky. Not Krrsh, who had run across the place of stone in the burning day. Not Krrsh, who had outwitted the hunting pack.

Krrsh did not run as quickly as he might have – the hot stone had burned his paws, and they were tender. But he ran with a spring in his step, and the cool desert breeze was a balm to his sunburned flesh. Behind him were his enemies, those who wanted his blood to wet the sand, and they would not catch him now. Before him was food, more food than even he with his ghoul’s hunger could ever consume before it decomposed to nothing. And in his hands was a tool of men.

Krrsh had realized something, something he felt was important.

Men used tools. Ghouls did not. But now a ghoul would use a tool.

So in that way, what difference was there between Men and ghouls?

None that he could think of.

Men used tools. To build. Houses, burrows of stone above ground. Sometimes many together.

What Men could do with tools, so could ghouls.

Krrsh thought about that as he ran. It was an idea so un-ghoul that he kept returning to it, poking it, nibbling at it. But it didn’t go away. It was solid. Krrsh did not know what to do with the idea. But just having it was enough.

He ran, but did not reach the place of no bones before the day returned. It did not matter much. Let hunger gnaw for one more day. One more sleep, and then he would feed.

~ ~ ~

Anomus had delved deep. Deeper than even his creator had believed he would, or indeed could. It made no difference.

He was no mortal man, but he was not a god. The black mana stone was a creation of the Faceless One meant to collect the offerings of the faithful, which it had, for thousands of years. Mana, prayer, worship, belief, blood – power. It did not consist of anything Anomus’s rational intellect could fathom. It did not make sense.

Anomus did not know how long he struggled to understand the connection between the spirit tendrils and the stone. Hours, certainly; perhaps days. Eventually he withdrew his perception in defeat, returning to the Tomb.

You are tenacious.

Anomus instantly recognized the voice, instantly noted the Faceless One’s presence in the chamber beneath the undertomb. The god stood, dripping shadows and ichor, regarding Anomus’s crystal.

Tenacious, which is good. But you waste your time. The stone will not reveal its secrets to you.

“Why?”

Because you are not a god.

“Why have you come here, Reaper?” Anomus felt no fear, no awe in the god’s presence, not as he had when he was still mortal. It seemed such emotions had been burnt out of him, along with so much else. He was only curious.

The god shrugged. Your efforts attracted my attention.

“Will you tell me how to recreate this stone?” Anomus asked, without any real expectation.

Impossible. You do not even know what the stone is. But all you truly desire is the ability to make mana stones, yes?

“Yes.”

You lack the required materials.

“What do I need, then?”

A human soul, to begin with. You have none at hand, Architect.

Anomus frowned. A frown was more than arranging facial features, after all. He was human enough, still, to feel distaste at the idea of capturing an immortal soul and turning it into a tool. But he was also practical enough – and driven enough – to want the knowledge.

“Will you instruct me in their creation, regardless?”

He sensed the Dark One smile. Yes. But I fear it will do you little good.

“Why? Do you think I am incapable?”

If I thought you incapable, I would not have offered you your chance at retribution.

“Then what is the issue?”

You will discover that on your own, soon enough. I will not interfere. Now attend, and I will explain how you might fashion a mana stone…

Anomus listened, and understood. But a part of him gnawed at what the god could possibly be withholding from him.

~ ~ ~

Irobus was surrounded by priests. They bowed and scraped, but he knew they were not happy. He did not care.

“Unconquerable Irobus, father to his people, we humbly ask you to reconsider.” That was Charn, high priest of Vernith, goddess of the underworld. Sometimes it was difficult for Irobus to tell who spoke, since he did not allow any of them to raise their faces from the floor. He stared down from his throne onto the broad backs and fat posteriors of the empire’s most important religions men and women, and imagined ordering his Eternal Guard to slaughter them all. Imagined, but did not order.

“There are many rites to be performed, glorious emperor,” Charn continued, “all of them necessary, no, vital to the well-being of your beloved’s shade-”

“I have spoken, servant of Vernith. I do not intend to speak again. Perform what rites you can now. Perform what rites you can on the river. Perform what rites you can once she reaches her Tomb however long it takes. But the concubine will begin her final journey three days hence.”

Three days hence was the day of his birth. He gave himself the gift of sending his unfaithful love to her final imprisonment early. Ten years her betrayal had torn at him, but when he had seen the Tomb, something inside him had… eased. There was an end to his secret torment. The pointless ceremony and bloviation of the priests tired him. He wanted an end to it, and to thinking of and seeing Hesia day after day. Knowing she was a secret, tortured prisoner in the Tomb was enough for him now. Or it would be, if the priests would stop objecting and simply do as he commanded.

“It will be as you say, lord of us all. But it is our duty to warn you of the dangers. We crave your patience.”

Inwardly, Irobus groaned, and reconsidered ordering slaughter. Superstitious fools. They did not know Hesia wasn’t truly dead. And even if she were, Irobus held little faith in the faiths of his empire. All the high priests were graspers after power, and their power rested on the gullibility of the masses. But not even an emperor could outright reject the representatives of the gods. The last who tried had been torn apart by an angry mob.

“What dangers, Charn?” Irobus asked, unable to fully conceal his impatience.

“The dangers are manifold, Irobus Undefeated. Possession of the Concubine’s body by dark powers. Or a curse by a deity or deities, if they feel slighted. Or blame assigned to the Concubine’s shade, and heavy punishment falling upon her in the afterlife…”

Irobus forbore to rub his temples. None of it mattered. He just wanted Hesia out of the Capital.

“I have every faith that Vernith’s Beloved will not let any of those dire possibilities come to pass. In fact, you will stay by the Concubine’s side, Charn, night and day as she is transported to her final rest, to personally make sure none of them do. Do I make myself clear?”

“Eminently, lord of us all,” Charn replied after a moment. The priest’s voice was steady, but Irobus wished he could see the man’s face. He was sure it wouldn’t be shining with joy.

“When you have completed every rite and ceremony, return before me, Charn. Not until that day.”

“Will… will the emperor not accompany his beloved on her final journey, then?” the priest asked, clearly surprised. The emperor’s star-crossed, tragic love story had become legendary in the empire, and beyond. The Grieving Emperor, some called him; hale in body and mind but terribly wounded in spirit, in his heart.

Irobus smiled at the man’s back, eyes glittering. “I am a mortal man, Charn. In but a little time, I will join her for eternity. Until then, my people need me. Depart in three days. Return when all is completed. Now go, all of you.”