Tusk and Aoh reached the shore of the Dry Sea and walked along its dusty bank. They had journeyed for many days and nights and had begun to run low on supplies. The vast beige plain humbled them as they walked what felt like the very edge of infinity. Aoh explained that the graceful horned thretch came here to the Dry Sea to die, as a rule, leaving their bones scattered across the parched bed—a fact that Tusk presumed had likely inspired the particular myth of the thretch-god Tekem that legend held had died on these very shores. A bag at his hip held material things. Dried clippings from the scrabby vegetation of this greedy earth and pryings from the corpses of those beings that skittered and slithered cross this acheronian wild. This meager collection he kept for future record, if a future indeed waited for him at all.

Aoh prayed that she was correct in her memory of her people's routes and that nothing had changed in the years since she was sent away at a very young age to serve the empire's needs. She knew not what to expect from her tribesfolk once they did arrive. They would not recognize her but for the brand on her back. She'd been given the mark upon birth. At the mention of this Tusk remembered the burning on his own back during his psychedelic vision of rebirth thanks to the blood orchid. Perhaps he had been reliving Aoh's birth as well, on some mystical level, because of the twinning runes.

The Reaper and the bloodnurse saw the sacred Stones of Tekem jutting from the distant shore like the cuspids on a titanic sandman's jaw. The ring of time-worn monoliths marked the terminus Aoh's tribe would reach at the end their pilgrimage honoring the thretch-lord's fabled journey. The Reaper and the bloodnurse had beat the nomads there and now it was time to wait for their arrival. The duo had been contending with a death-march of their own, barely a living breath left in their bodies, when they reached that promised henge of stones. Tusk felt a final jolt of adrenaline at the sight and realized it was more his lover's excitement than his own. With restored vigor Aoh raced down the slope toward the holy grounds like a madwoman. Upon reaching the ceremonial stones she flung herself into the dirt, laughing wildly, and then she grew still and sighed and looked into the sky. Tusk walked to her side and collapsed there with her. "More lunar than a hatsmith," he said.

Aoh had only a vague memory of the Stones from her childhood before being carted off to Thajh to serve, but she recalled there had been a well nearby that cut deep into the earth where some last remnants of the dried sea still lingered. After some time of searching under the hellfaced sun across the scattered bones of the thretch who went to die upon that bitter patch ("So many," Tusk remarked upon seeing of the legion bleached and splintering dead), they found the hole and lowered a hollowed and treated skull into the vessel and brought forth an ochre water from the darkness. They each allowed themselves a mere sip to wet their mouths, careful to spit it back out without swallowing. They would sterilize and purify the rest before drinking it. Tusk set a fire with the help of the sun and a shard of sandglass and set the water for the boiling.

"We should find a place to hide in the hills," Tusk said, scanning the craggy rocks and boulders around the site. "Wait for your people's arrival from a place of safety."

"The safest place we can be is within that ring of stones," Aoh said. "My tribe considers the site sacred and are sworn to never shed blood inside its circle."

"Let us hope their tradition still holds," Tusk said.

Aoh walked back toward the monoliths. "In the safety afforded by this place, the custom is to sit and speak candidly about the tensions among the tribe. Once those were aired and solved without violence the festival would begin. There would be singing and dancing and feasting in the name of Tekem's spirit."

Tusk joined Aoh there and they camped and waited and survived—until one dark night they heard approaching voices and saw the flicker of torches. Sandfolk gowned in silk and leathers came chanting out of the desert on the backs of humped bactrians and approached the edge of the sacred henge. There they stopped when they noticed the strangers waiting for them at its center. Many of them drew their spears at the sight. In the darkness the collection of bodies seemed a single freakish beast adorned with feathers and thorns and eyes of flame, bristling with deadly tension.

Aoh rose and stepped forward. "I am Aoh, daughter of Humai." She turned and let her robes slip from her shoulders, revealing the brand between her scapulae that marked her as a member of this tribe, buried amidst the other scarifications she had received since her birth rituals took place.

The nomads turned and whispered among themselves and one of them emerged from deep within their ranks. This was a young male who dismounted his animal and walked closer to Aoh. Many of the others kept their black eyes on Tusk, distrustful of man, ready to undo him with their speartips.

"I am Uata, son of Humai," said the one who approached.

"Then you are my brother," said Aoh.

"Our father is dead. As is our mother. You and I are all that remain."

Aoh solemnly looked down and nodded.

"Who is your friend?" Uata asked. "This one you share knowledge of our secret path with."

"I am Tusk," the Reaper haltingly spoke in their tongue, his hands high. He stepped forward. "And I am your friend. Aoh and I, we need your help."

Murmurs among the sandmen as they realized this human had some command of their dialect. "We know the lessons of Djeru and Famadet and Edsohonet," said an elder whose head was framed by the long wicked scales of desert reptiles. "We have seen how humans regard our kind."

"I know your customs," said Tusk. "I know I am safe in this place."

"We are only forbidden to draw blood in this circle," said one of the armed and painted sandmen. "There are other ways."

"We can surround you and watch you starve," said Uata.

"You would do this to your own sister?" asked Aoh.

"I would do it to the human." Uata's gaze remained fixated on Tusk.

"Then you do it to me," said Aoh. "We are bound. Please, lower your arms and chant the rites of Tekem's passing as you came here to do. Let's not stain this night of holiness with distrust and fear. This is but one man, against all of you. Hear our story and then decide."

A pregnant beat filled the stone-bound site until an elder with a snarl of dead braided snakes thrown over his shoulders broke the silence by sounding the opening lines of the rituals to come. The others lowered their seasoned spears and dismounted and laid the great fire they would encircle through the night and into which they would feed their offerings as they aired their grievances and worked to reconcile them. Aoh shared the remaining petals from the orchid among the magi of her tribe, keeping the last two for herself and her lover Tusk to be enjoyed at some other time. By the drawing of dawn Tusk had learned the words to Tekem's old song and before long he was chanting and dancing alongside Aoh's people as if he was himself one of their kind.

— • —

Mulia and her staff picked up the pieces from the blast. Though her manor house was far from the mysterious explosion that had rocked the poorer districts, the shockwaves were still severe enough to overturn vases and knock pictures from the walls. Some of the structural damage already present was made worse. The fissures in the wall forced wider and longer. The doors uneven and difficult to close. The windows bowed and cracked. They received a visit from a friend of the family named Nayte who out of concern came to check on Mulia and her daughters. He had worked with Donric in Strotham Yard before her husband went on to become the Reaper known as Halo. Nayte had also served as an officer until he had been wounded, losing an eye to the Horks of Yecqhum. He wore no eye-patch, choosing to bear the scar like a badge. Other than that glaring mark, he was as handsome as men come in Mulia's eyes. Nayte came back home to Camshire to work in government for the Diluvian party and now had his aim on a Senator's seat. He lived only a few doors down on the tree-pocked residential stretch of Lantern Row.

"Have you heard what caused the blast?" Mulia asked as they walked toward her interior courtyard.

"I'm told there was a pocket of explosive gases beneath the city," said Nayte. "Someone exposed it to flame and... kra-koom." He charaded the explosion. "Perhaps a shore-hunter or outcast going where he shouldn't with a torch or lantern."

"Who knew a simple gas could cause such a powerful eruption?" Mulia mused. "The anarchs' worst witchcraft can't even cause that kind of damage. Perhaps our money would be better spent securing us against those more 'mundane' threats than waging warfighting on a handful of bad actors."

"Sometimes I wonder if it should be you campaigning for the Senate," said Nayte.

The compliment was punctuated by shrill cheers from down the hall. Astrid and Amelie, thrilled to see Nayte. He swooped them up in his arms and swung them in circles as the girls tittered. Mulia smiled, those muscles far too neglected in these melancholy times.

A servant appeared and presented a sealed letter to Mulia. "The messenger apologized for the delay, my lady," said the housewoman. "The city is in shambles."

Mulia read the feminine scrawl upon the envelope. "It's from Mother Blacklove orphanage." She opened it and scanned its contents as Nayte occupied the twins while watching on with curiosity and concern. "From a 'Sister Chalice.' She has a girl in her custody who wants to see me. She has the locket I sent Donric. Claims he saved her life in Marrow." She looked up at the others, processing the news. Mulia would have to go see this orphan girl. Perhaps Dimia would have some clue as to her husband's fate.

— • —

It woke. A litany of animals and men. Darkness. No fire. The burning was over. The men had taken the golem to a frightening city filled with noise and cruelty. They dragged the confused hulk deep underground and unraveled its being with sorcery and drove it into a bottomless slumber. The golem's lesser minds thought of prey and mating in that haze and its greater minds became occupied with remembrances fond and foul. Foggy visions of its old life surfaced. Glimpses of a little girl and her magical lute. Flashes of snarling manfaces and evil fire, confusion and pain. The golem distantly felt the humans prying its body and analyzing its every part. And then there had been a great sundering. Dust. Confusion. Death.

And now something pulled it from sleep. The golem was buried in rubble. The cell's ceiling had collapsed atop him. The automaton's thoughts bloomed back into action and skittered on its torched skin. Its many souls battled with themselves until they again sensed the ethereal command that had stirred the grim creation from its torpor. A collective aching. The call of their old Master—or a new one who had learned his secrets. That arcane tug compelled the golem to go further down into the shattered tunnels, away from this place of human activity. The disparate bodies that comprised the creature were fused into unitary action. The hulk's bones snapped as it broke its own body to be free of the shackles and the rubble but it did not care. The Master and men like him could fix those things. Finally the golem emerged twisted and battered and lurched toward that unholy summons from the deeper darkness.

— • —

Tusk slept and ate among Aoh's tribesfolk, the Kashto, for the time they remained rooted at Tekem's sacred grounds. The nomads were pleased to see that the human was interested in learning how they ate and how they hunted and how they saw the world. Tusk taught the Kashto his jokes and riddles and wondered if they might become engrained in their oral lore to be passed down to giggling children for the next generation's keeping. These people were less solemn and stoic and cruel than their Zhjaki cousins. The animalist told the Kashto of his own sciences and they scoffed at the sterile thinking of modern man. Yet the Reaper saw that these folk were not as mad with their faith as the common hobgoblins of the inner empire. The Kashto revered the same god Xul and believed that to suffer is to be close to him but their self-inflicted pain took a different form that did not scar their painted skin. Their forefathers had found a plant they called samkra that caused extreme pain in the imbiber. They brewed its leaves along with the stems of some thorny weed into a tea they drank on certain nights, in rotation so the entire tribe was not afflicted en masse. They observed time-tested formulas for dosage that accounted for age and size and gender. The stuff had them writhing in misery in their tents. Most had learned to stifle their moans and stay quiet through the ordeal. Some had not. Aoh showed Tusk how she sculpted dolls from clay as a child. Figures of the animalistic deities whose courses they followed. As they sat someone approached. It was Uata, her brother, with a cup of the sacred brew. "You want to be Kashto," the hobgoblin said as he held the cup to the Reaper. "Be Kashto."

"No," said Aoh to her brother. "You have all been taking samkra your entire lives. He has not trained his body to bear it."

"Which is why I just make him enough for a baby," Uata said. This last word had a lick of condemnation to it.

Tusk sat up and took the cup.

"Don't, he is being stupid." said Aoh. She turned to Uata. "Get away. Go."

"It's fine," said Tusk. "Perhaps it will earn some trust with them. It can't be worse than what I suffered in Thajh." Though as a man of science he could not be sure the concoction would affect him the same as it did the hobgoblins, he expected they were similar enough in physiology.

"It can," said Aoh. "And I of all people know this. Samkra cannot kill you, but it will make you wish it so. You do not have to do this."

"I don't think your brother and his like-minded friends will respect or trust me until I do this," Tusk said to Aoh. "But if I drink, you will feel it too."

"I am ready for it," Aoh replied, "and the purification it brings. Whatever you choose, I am with you."

Tusk met Uata's eyes with his own and put the cup to his lips and knocked back its bitter contents. The Reaper swallowed the tea down without breaking their mutual stare. The proverbial jawbone had been thrown down and the challenge accepted. Uata licked his wicked filed teeth and smiled and walked away satisfied.

Tusk lay back and waited for the coming onslaught of misery. Aoh stroked his cheek. "You are strong, Simon. Or foolish. Just know that as painful as this will be for us, to come out on the other side is to be stronger, to know life better, to be touched by god. And should being touched by god not be a painful thing?"

— • —