Mother Moon was somewhere up above, but of course Krrsh could not see her through so much rock. She was getting old, fading and withering, showing less of herself each night, and soon she would all but die. For one night, her son would rule the sky, would hold all darkness in his hands, while his mother was reborn.

That was never a good night.

The no-face god was not the enemy of ghouls. But he was not a friend, either. If his mother had not told him to not curse the ghouls, would he have? Krrsh wondered. It was a thought that troubled him for two reasons. First, because it wasn’t something a ghoul would normally spend time thinking about. Not even one as clever as Krrsh.

It did not have anything to do with survival. It was a thought that was not useful, and one he had no way of answering besides. Would the lifting of the curse mean his head would be filled with many such thoughts? Krrsh was afraid that it might. And the thinking of thoughts, of questions, that he had no way to answer came with a special sort of… discomfort that he did not like. Not at all.

It was like a thirst that could never be slaked.

The second reason his thoughts about the no-face god bothered him was in front of him, carved into the stone of the place with no bones. It was a picture of the new moon. The night that Mother Moon was almost dead, and the no-face god held all the power of the dark.

And it was carved above the entrance to where Builder said his heart lay.

Builder had called him to this place, to show him something. Krrsh had already seen more than he expected, and he had not yet entered. Besides the new moon, Krrsh had seen the place with no bones now had big spikes growing out of the floor, like giant thorns of stone. He could not understand why, what they were for.

It seemed to Krrsh that he should understand more about things, once the curse was lifted. Not less. Another thought to make his head hurt. He sighed.

“Why do you pause, Krrsh?” Builder asked him.

Krrsh grunted, and shook his head, and entered the place of Builder’s heart.

There were stairs down, and at the bottom of the room a blue-white light - and a giant scorpion. It was bigger than a ghoul. Krrsh froze at the last.

“Fear not. I command it completely. It will not trouble you.”

Slowly, Krrsh descended the stairs. He still kept a wary eye on the unmoving scorpion.

“The light you see, the crystal that it comes from, that is me, Krrsh. I wanted you to know this.”

“Krrsh not understand. All tomb is Builder.”

“If you lost a finger, you would survive. If you lost your heart you would not. This crystal is… my heart, I suppose. Or my mind. Or both. If something were to happen to it, I would almost certainly die.”

Krrsh thought about this. Even to him, it seemed foolish to tell anyone about a weakness. “Why Builder tell Krrsh?” he asked.

“If I cannot trust you, Krrsh, then there is no one that I can trust. And I must trust someone. Please, pick up the crystal.”

“Why?”

“I cannot move it myself. I have tried. I need to know if it can be removed from the black stone it rests upon. And what will happen to me, if anything.”

“Why?” Krrsh asked again.

“My enemy is coming, Krrsh. Soon. I feel… exposed. If possible, I would like the crystal to be taken deeper - further from the surface, and the entrances to the outside world.”

“Builder wants to hide glowing rock better.”

“Yes.”

“Builder. Are you no-face god?”

“What? No, Krrsh. I am no god at all.”

“Why no-face god picture on your door?”

Builder was quite for a while. Then he answered.

“I was a man. Just an ordinary man, a builder. I built this place for the emperor’s concubine, his… mate, after she died. When I was finished, the emperor killed me and all the others who built it. The Faceless One came to me as I was dying, and offered me a choice. A chance to kill the emperor. I took it, and He changed me into what you see now. You saw the reaper’s moon carved above the entrance because this place was the Faceless One’s, before. An old, old place of His.”

Krrsh mulled over all that Builder had told him.

“Ghoul do not worship no-face god. Only Mother Moon,” he finally said.

“It makes no difference to me, Krrsh. I worship no god at all. I will not interfere in your beliefs. I only require that you fight for me, when it is time – and I think your people will not be ready in time, in any case.”

“What Builder mean?”

“I thought I would have two more months – two moons more - to prepare. But my enemy will arrive much sooner than that. In a matter of days at most, he will be here to lay the Consort to rest. Now, all I ask of you is to help me to move the crystal, if it can be moved without adverse effect, and to guard it once it is relocated.”

~ ~ ~

Anomus had attempted to move the crystal using first the geckos, and then the flies. He had been met with failure. None of his minions would approach within a foot of the black stone. He did not understand why. He was frustrated both by the lack of understanding and his inability to command his creatures. He theorized that the black stone, the Reaper’s stone, had something to do with it, but he could not imagine what. And so he had called Krrsh up from the Ironclaw’s den. If the ghoul also could not move the crystal, at least he could explain what prevented it.

Anomus had not expected to have a conversation with Krrsh; or at least not a conversation with such disparate topics. The ghoul, in Anomus’s estimation, was thinking more deeply about many things, and unexpectedly questioning things. Some of that could be because of his new position as pack leader – the concern that they would be forced to worship the Reaper, for instance. But would Krrsh even have noticed the sickle moon carved above the chamber’s entrance, before the lifting of the curse? Anomus wasn’t certain, but he thought not.

Krrsh, at least, was displaying an intelligence equal to a human. And if the ghoul was as intelligent as a human, was it right to think of him as a ghoul at all? It was an interesting thought, but not an immediately important one.

“First, please just touch the crystal, Krrsh. If you cannot for some reason, stop and explain what you felt.”

“If Krrsh touch bright rock, will it hurt Krrsh?”

“I don’t know,” Anomus admitted, “but I don’t believe so. If you feel any discomfort, then you should stop immediately.”

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

He watched with that sense of his that was more than sight as Krrsh hesitantly reached towards the crystal, then poked it gently with a claw.

“Did you feel anything?” Anomus asked.

“Nothing, Builder. Small cold only.”

“All right. Now pick up the crystal, if you would, then set it back down after a moment.”

Krrsh reached down again, a little more confidently this time. His hand closed around the crystal and lifted up.

Immediately, the world went black for Anomus. Every connection, every sense went dead and disappeared. He was suddenly a consciousness cut off from everything. It was as terrifying as it was abrupt. It felt like an age had passed in that void before Krrsh returned the crystal to its resting place in the shallow, bowl-shaped depression at the top of the black stone, but it was no more than a few heartbeats. Anomus fought to reign in his panic; if he had still had a heart, it would have been pounding.

“Builder?” Krrsh said, bringing him back to the present.

“It seems the crystal cannot leave the black stone,” Anomus told him. “If it does, then I lose all connection to and control of the Tomb.” The Reaper had given him power, yes, but that power flowed through the black stone. He was dependent upon it, upon the Faceless God. It would take time for Anomus to work through all the ramifications of that limitation, but the fact of it made him deeply unhappy.

“What Builder want to do next?” Krrsh asked.

“I’m not sure. But there is nothing more that you can do at the moment, Krrsh. Thank you.”

“Then Krrsh ask Builder questions.”

Anomus did not wish to have a conversation with the ghoul. He wanted to think upon his newly discovered limitation, and to plan and continue his preparations for Irobus’s imminent arrival, and to go over the latest ‘reports’ from the flies. But Anomus knew that trust was something both to be built and maintained, and so he acquiesced.

“What questions, Krrsh?”

“Builder was pack leader, before. Yes?”

“Yes, in a way.”

How many in Builder’s pack?”

“Ten thousand men.”

“Ten th- Krrsh not know that number.”

Anomus sighed, mentally. The ghouls knew so little. There was much he could teach them, but there was so little time to do it, and so many other things that must be done. “Your people count by claws. Five claws to a hand. My ‘pack’, before Irobus killed them, numbered two thousand hands.”

Krrsh considered that. “Builder. Krrsh not know ‘thousand.’”

“What is the biggest number you know, Krrsh?”

Krrsh scratched at his nose. “Krrsh knows ten hands. Krrsh knows numbers get bigger, but ten hands… that number Krrsh can - can hold in his head.”

“Look at the wall behind you, Krrsh, and I will explain.” Anomus could at least show him the simple tally system that even the lowest of slaves was taught.

“Ghouls and men have five fingers on each hand. Five is a good number for counting, because of it.”

“Yes.”

“Here is one hand,” Anomus said, causing five lines to appear on the wall, four vertical lines crossed by a diagonal one. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, Builder. Is easy.”

“Good. Now, two hands,” he said, causing a second tally of five to appear. “Two hands makes ten.”

Krrsh grunted in agreement.

“You understand ten hands. Here is what that would look like, using these tally marks. Ten hands makes fifty claws, or fingers, or whatever it is you might be counting.”

Krrsh looked at the marks on the wall and grunted again, but with a little less certainty.

“Now. We add another ten hands. That makes twenty hands, or a hundred claws. When you add the same number again like this, it is called ‘doubling.’”

Krrsh nodded, slowly, staring at all the tally marks. No grunt accompanied it.

“When you make a hundred claws ten times, it is called a thousand.”

Krrsh sat utterly still, his eyes wide. One eye twitched slightly.

“My ‘pack’ was ten of this number. Ten thousand. This is what it would look like if we were to tally it.” The chamber’s walls were covered of tally marks, now.

Krrsh just sat with that for a time.

“Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands. There are larger numbers. Numbers do not have an end, though the things to count do.”

Krrsh did not respond. He sat as still as a statue, all except for his eyes.

“Are you all right, Krrsh?”

“This – this was your pack?”

“Yes. You know this already, in a way. All the corpses you and yours have feasted on, they were my pack.”

“So many,” Krrsh whispered, scratching at his forehead with a claw. “And what is the number of the pack you will fight, Builder?”

“There are not enough walls in this Tomb to tally it.”

“Builder cannot win.” Krrsh voice was dull, certain. His body slumped. “Too many.”

“I do not want to fight them all. I will not fight them all. I won’t have to, Krrsh. Only the emperor, and whoever he brings with him here.”

The ghoul’s next question was simple, and straightforward: “How?”

“They do not know that I survived. Irobus, my enemy, does not know that I am waiting for him. Like the one who waited for you in the sand and attacked you, I will ambush him. Unlike the one you defeated, I have no throat to chew out, no head to sever. My body is stone, and my weapons are many. Irobus has never had an enemy like me. When he enters the Tomb, he will die.”

“And Builder want ghouls to help.”

“Yes, if necessary. As I said, I do not think I will have time to prepare your pack, to teach you what I know of fighting.” Anomus regretted the fact. Given time, he believed he could have forged the ghouls into an effective fighting force.

“At this point, with what we learned today, I believe your greatest use to me would be to take the glowing crystal and hide it, keep it safe, if it seems that I am somehow losing the coming battle. I have no wish to see you or yours die for nothing.”

But Krrsh shook his head. “Builder take curse away. Builder ask ghoul to fight. Ghoul will fight.”

“Only if it makes sense for you to do so, Krrsh. Your people have no training and no experience with battle. The Eternal Guard would slaughter the ghouls if you were to fight now.”

“Ghoul are fierce.”

“Undoubtedly. But that is not enough. Not against the Tongueless. They are trained from the time they are children to slay the enemies of the empire. They do not doubt, or fear, or pity: they kill. Trust me, Krrsh, as I trust you.”

Krrsh nodded. “Builder say, Krrsh trust.”

“Good. Was there anything else?”

“Picture of Ironclaw, Builder.”

“Yes, what about it?”

“Ironclaw have cloth. Around middle.”

“A shendyt, yes.”

“Ironclaws also want.”

Anomus would have smiled, if he were able. He had no issue with the ghouls going about naked, but clothing was the mark of the rise from animal to civilized, if anything was. He did not know if the ghouls would realize it, but a simple piece of cloth could say more about their advancement than nearly anything else to Anomus’s mind, at least.

“Your pack would also like to wear shendyts?”

“Yes.”

The corpse of every murdered worker had been clothed in the simple kilt; most of cotton cloth, some linen. It was no strain for Anomus to reproduce the material. “I am happy to oblige them.”

~ ~ ~

Nighteyes watched the tomb entrance. Not the great bronze-sheathed, sealed doors to the Concubine’s Tomb. Two of his men guarded those, and there was nothing to draw his attention there.

No, he watched the hole in the sand behind the Tomb. Two men were also stationed there. They thought it pointless, but knew better than to complain. Especially when the Greatest of Fifty was practically camped in front of the place they guarded, leaving it only when duty or nature made it necessary to do so.

Eventually Hummingbird approached him about it, as he knew his second would. The man leaned down so no one else could see his signs.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Watching the cave entrance. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Honestly? It looks like you’re going insane. The men are starting to worry.”

“Sit down,” Nighteyes replied. “Watch with me.”

“Watch what?” Hummingbird replied. But he sat.

“Tell me what you see.”

“I see Rice Grain picking his nose. I see Bright Scale trying not to fall asleep. I see a lot of sand and a hole in the ground.”

“Keep watching.”

Hummingbird sighed. “Nothing. Nothing. Big fucking fly. Nothing. Rice Grain wiping a crusty booger on the bottom of his sandal. At least he didn’t eat it. Nothing. Nothing. Another fly.”

“The same fly, or a different one?”

“You know what? I have no idea. They all look the same to me.”

“It’s a different one. The first one you saw entered the tomb and didn’t come out, so the second had to be a different one.”

“So?”

“Keep watching. Tell me how many flies go in and how many come out.”

Hummingbird sighed. Nighteyes stood.

“Where are you going?”

“Take a shit, get a drink. Watch, don’t talk.”

Hummingbird gave him a rude gesture and turned back to his new task.

When Nighteyes returned a half-hour later, he handed Hummingbird a wineskin and said “Report.”

“Seven flies entered. Three exited.”

“And do you find anything strange about that?”

“Other than the fact that they’re huge? Not really, no. They’re flies. Flies fly.”

“They are acting like bees, Hummingbird, not flies. Bees, going to and from their hive. They go in, do whatever it is they’re doing, and then go back out. Like bees collecting nectar and returning to the hive.”

“But there’s nothing in there save a skeleton with an ax.”

“I know.”

“So why are you obsessed with this?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense. Which means there’s something here I’m not getting.”

“Nighteyes. So what?”

“So it might be a danger.”

Hummingbird put a hand on his shoulder, briefly.

“Listen to me, Greatest. Tomorrow the procession arrives. We have done everything we are supposed to do. There are no threats in close proximity to the Tomb. We have investigated everything that might possibly be considered a potential danger. If you go to Little Tooth talking about flies acting like bees, do you know what will happen? By the end of the day tomorrow, you will be calling me Greatest, and that’s if you still have your head. I do not want you to lose your head, and I fucking well do not want to be Greatest of Fifty. So please, please, forget about flies and bees and dusty holes in the ground.”