Wisps of white clung to the Reaper as it descended through the clouds. Below them spread a dun and sere landscape, riven by great fissures. There was life in this place – as there was life everywhere on this world – but it was simple and sparse. Zogrusz turned to the Reaper in confusion.

Why here, Ancient One? Elsewhere, there are those that already fear and worship us>

Great tendrils writhed, causing vast shadows to twist across the badlands.

WE SHALL SAVOR THIS WORLD. LONG HAS OUR JOURNEY BEEN, AND LONG WILL THE FEASTING BE. BEFORE WE GORGE ON THE SWEETEST FRUIT OUR APPETITES WE SHALL WET. THIS ONE SHOULD EXTEND THEIR PERCEPTION AND REALIZE WHAT WE ALREADY KNOW>

Zogrusz followed the Reaper’s suggestion, sending his awareness over the land. He sensed insects stalked by lizards, which were watched by snakes coiled in rocky crevices, while birds cowered in cliff-side nests as they peered up at what had suddenly appeared in the sky . . .

I feel it> Zogrusz said. At the very edge of his reach, he could apprehend many, many minds. Not a herd of animals – no, this was an eddying swirl of dreams and desires that danced upon his tongue and made his mouth water in anticipation.

LEAD THE WAY, SOWER> the Reaper commanded, and Zogrusz hurled himself towards where he’d sensed this large gathering of humans.

Reddish-brown wastes flowed beneath him, stark and empty. He knew that in the before-time he would have been curious about how the humans had managed to survive in such numbers in this harsh land, but now he was not interested in the slightest. All that mattered was the Harvest.

They arrived at a city set within a canyon, built into its soaring walls. Countless holes pricked the rock, doors and windows that Zogrusz knew led into a hive of rooms and passageways. Huge rope bridges spanned the chasm, and as Ycthitlig’s shadow plunged the city into darkness the humans who had been caught crossing began to flee. Other consciousnesses watched them in terror from the openings in the canyon’s walls . . . and then a torrent of panic struck Zogrusz, flooding the pathways sunk beneath his flesh. His body convulsed, disrupting the rhythm of his beating wings, and he very nearly plummeted from the sky.

It was overwhelming.

Zogrusz struggled to form coherent thoughts as this searingly sweet nectar washed through him. He hovered there, dazed, as Ycthitlig descended towards the city and its tunnels filled with scurrying humans. Great tendrils thrust down, plunging into the rock on either side of the canyon – the Reaper was so large that it straddled the wide gap while it hovered above the lattice of rope bridges. Fractures appeared in the walls, and then great chunks of stone sloughed away and plunged into the canyon’s depths, tearing through the bridges as they fell. The terror welling up from the inhabitants of the city continued to strengthen, and islands of white light danced in Zogrusz’s vision.

Black liquid began to pour from Ycthitlig’s many mouths, thick and viscous. It flowed towards the tendrils that the Reaper had shoved into the ground, and then it slid down their glistening lengths, slipping within the shattered stone.

The glimmering points of consciousness inside the canyon city began to go dark, like candles being snuffed. Zogrusz imagined the dark fluid pouring through the underground passages, seeping around the edges of hastily shut doors, seeking out the humans as they cowered and begged their gods for salvation. Dissolving flesh and the bones in their head that housed their delicious minds. This flood swept through the warren, leaving utter silence in its wake. No whimpering thoughts, no stricken mewling.

Nothing.

And then the blackness returned. It welled from the cracks in the ground like blood from a wound, coursing along the surface until it arrived at Ycthitlig’s great arms. Rippling with a will of its own, it began to climb, oozing up the tendrils until it reached the same gnashing mouths from which it had vomited forth and then entered the Reaper once more.

Ycthitlig, the Crawling Dread.

All this Zogrusz watched with interest. He was sorry that the exquisite gushing of fear had ended so abruptly, but he knew this was the way of things. It was why the Reaper had come. And during this time Zogrusz would nibble at the edges of this great feast, and it would push him farther along in his progression, and when this world was nothing but an empty husk he would depart to search for other bastions of intelligence. And if he was worthy, one day he would be conducting his own Harvest, glutting himself on the dreams and fears of an entire species.

Zogrusz shivered at the thought, wracked by glorious anticipation.

Rending crashes sounded as Ycthitlig withdrew its arms from the stone. Then the Reaper ascended higher into the sky, and to Zogrusz it looked sated by what it had done here.

Bloated.

COME, SOWER. WE CONTINUE>

***

The cracked and stony ground of the tablelands eventually gave way to a sea of rolling sand dunes. Life was even rarer here – only once did Zogrusz sense anything more complex than desert mice, when they passed over a shimmering oasis fringed by palm trees and a few dust-stained tents. Ycthitlig proved disinterested in this paltry morsel, and he did not slow its progress to pluck the humans where they gaped from the water’s edge. The Reaper was intent on their next destination – Zogrusz began to suspect that it knew far more about this world than he had suspected. Perhaps its possession of the pilgrim Izel was not the only time Ycthitlig had visited.

Night fell, the swells of sand beneath them glowing silver in the moonlight. Dark patches of scrub eventually broke the monotony, and by the time a bloody dawn stained the horizon they were drifting over an arid steppe. It was nowhere near as barren as the desert – great herds of animals bounded away from Ycthitlig’s shadow, their curving horns glittering in the sun. There were more humans as well here, fighting to control panicked horses and huddled inside painted yurts. Again, Ycthitlig ignored them.

The climate slowly changed as they traveled. They reached a great sweep of jungle, the air trembling with an almost febrile thickness. Sweat sheathed Zogrusz’s skin, glistening on his scales, and he was reminded of his first moments on this world, just before he’d encountered the People and absorbed some of their humanity . . . and yet he also remembered that in that long-ago time he’d already felt curiosity about what inhabited this world. He had deeply desired to meet others. Now those compulsions felt juvenile, even pathetic. Ycthitlig had torn away not just what had been imprinted in that forest clearing long ago, but also the lingering remnants of the being that he had been ever since he’d first emerged from the void.

Zogrusz was grateful.

They flew over the trackless tangle until with jarring suddenness a city emerged from the jungle. Most of it was comprised of low stone buildings of simple design, but rising from within this great sprawl was a huge black ziggurat, so large it would have towered over even the great dome of Amotla. Each tier was taller than Zogrusz’s true form, a thousand steps climbing one of its four steep sides.

Terror rose up from the humans here as Ycthitlig came to hover over the top of the ziggurat. Zogrusz was expecting the black liquid to spill from the Reaper’s mouths and pour down the steps to the city below, so he was surprised when instead Ycthitlig’s telepathic command swept out over the city.

Zogrusz wondered if the lords of this place would dare defy the Reaper, and he did not have to wait long before he had his answer. A large number of copper-skinned humans emerged from among the buildings, herded forward by warriors bearing spears. Behind this crowd, a man wearing a colorful headdress of iridescent feathers urged them on, gesturing empathically at the Eldritch Horror hanging over the city like a second, blackened sun.

Zogrusz’s taloned feet settled on the top of the ziggurat, and he leaned upon his spear to await them, for he had seen in the images the Reaper had sent out that this was where the humans were coming. Some, of course, tried to flee, and died by spearpoint. Most were driven to the base of the ziggurat, and after yet more threats they began to climb the steep steps.

Ycthitlig had claimed it only wanted adulation. That after the humans reached the top of the ziggurat and prostrated themselves in worship they would be spared.

But that, of course, was not what happened.

The first to finish the ascent was an old man with ancient battle scars slashing across his bare chest. He collapsed to his knees, raising his trembling arms in supplication to the Reaper that had plunged the city into darkness. And in response, a shadowy filament materialized, wrapping around the elder’s waist and lifting him into the air.

His quavering wail abruptly ended as he was stuffed into one of Ycthitlig’s gnashing mouths.

Chaos ensued. A ripple of panic went through the long line of humans climbing the steps. Most had seen the old man disappear into the Reaper’s maw, and now then began to push and shove in their frantic haste to descend the ziggurat. Bodies tumbled from the stairs to be dashed on the stone far below. And from where he stood at the edge of the highest tier, Zogrusz drank deep of the intoxicating fear. It had a sharper flavor, one he instinctively knew derived from their intense desperation, and it made him shiver with delight.

More serpents of darkness reached down to pluck the humans from the steps, and dozens were pulled screaming into Ycthitlig’s mouths. The warriors in the streets below were also starting to flee, scattering among the smaller buildings, but Zogrusz knew that in the end, none would be spared.

For the Harvest was not yet complete.

***

Three days later, they departed the jungle city, leaving behind an empty, echoing ruin. They soared northward, over sea and veldt and mountains that scraped the sky, and this jagged range eventually subsided into a plain that seemed familiar to Zogrusz. His memories of the time before the awakening of his new, true self were hazy and indistinct, as if they had happened to another being. But they proved accurate, for after a long journey across these grasslands Zogrusz glimpsed white towers gleaming in the far distance, ringing a great dome that since he’d seen it last had been sheathed in copper. It flashed in the bright sun, drawing them onwards like moths to a flame.

And he knew they had come to Amotla, the Queen of Cities.