It is likely my colleagues were dead before I could climb up. I would not know, for when I was at arm’s length from our wagon, I was beset by a turban with two swords. Both swung wildly, providing me a pocket for my own blade to pierce his foul heart and send him sprawling.

  Another took his place, better, and I was growing tired. I knew admitting such a reality was the road to doom. I swung. He swung. I whirled my sword as if the world itself encroached upon me. They withdrew, then I howled in pain. One of their blades had found me.

  Sometime later, uncouth tones loomed above me. It was as if I were lying on my back, staring up at them from the bottom of a deep well. They, these shadows, grinned and snickered, then they began to fade.

  It was meant to happen this way. All the far lands fought…I now see the grand vista. For out of my heart, I have always been free. One with no need, alone, and combat-wretched and wild.

  *

  I awoke to the desert twilight, cold and blue. The moon peered down on its…its what? Its child? Yes.

  The wide eye watchful, I shivered from the winds coming down the slope to lick me clean on their way southward. I was alone, and I was nude. Furthering my surprise, one horse remained, still half-bridled to our capsized wagon.

  How had I survived that injury? I patted my bare sides, at first frantically, half hoping to find where a scimitar had cleaved me. As I found nothing, my franticness turned to lunatic joy. I had survived. I had… imagined my own death?

  Seeing the state of our wagon, I surmised I had suffered not a cut but a blighting knock to the head. They must’ve thought I was dead. That at least explained why I’d been spared as they stripped me of my clothes. These bandits and guerillas were known for fighting a buzzard for the meat off a bone. Odd, then, that they’d leave the contents of our haul. Statues and paintings littered the ground.

  A second thought on the matter, and it all made sense. These fig-eaters who’d cost Adaline yet another shipment were easily spooked, known to jump sky high at the bark of a dog or the hoot of a desert owl. Something perceived to be more menacing than three Rehleian men must have scared them off.

  But what I could not explain was how, when I came back to my senses, to sense itself, I’d done so not on my belly, nor on my back, but on my feet, as if I’d walked up to this mangled corpse in the hopes of learning his name.

  I stood above one of my ill-fated companions, too badly marred to discern. Someone—something—had torn open his chest and removed his heart. I felt my stomach churn when I removed the painting that was covering his head.

  His face had been ripped apart like a melon. Whiter than moon-lit tombs, the inner skull still held chunks that globbed and glistened. The brain had been attended to by claws, larger than a panther’s, and had been removed greedily before whatever was brandishing such weapons scampered off.

  Or had it? I went for my sword, remembering then that it was no longer at my side. Rather, furthering my vexation to the point where my head felt as if it too had been split, my sword laid at the side of this unidentified corpse.

  My team hadn’t gotten far. The accountant took one to the skull. The coachman, a less charitable fate. Whatever had mauled this third man—who I surmised now could only be the Azadi who deprived me of my clothes—whatever it was it only had time for one mauling. I was forced to entertain a question: if it too had fled, had an even greater threat scared it?

  A moment’s work got me wrapped in rags and on the remaining horse, with little food and less water. A saddle I would have to do without. Retrieving my sword strengthened my heart, but I would not carry on here for all the gold in the Morgeltine.

  I headed west.

  Days into my return journey, I began to feel strange. Hungry, yes, parched with thirst, that too, but also the sensation that I was not who I once had been.

  There is a small river in the western parts of the Red Isthmus. Some say it’s the true border between our lands. At its edge, I stooped to lap like a wild dog. Filling my waterskins, I stared at my face for the first time in days. Appalled by the leathery look my skin had taken, I hurried through my chore. I noticed then a throbbing gnaw—not in my mind, as you would say, but something like it. A voice that spoke under my thoughts. I shook the annoyance. Remounted, I continued west, swearing an oath I was done with the desert and its peculiar persuasion.

  My condition worsened with each passing day. “Desire to travel is unusual for ghouls,” I found myself saying, “especially couples. That two ghouls could even be called a couple is more unusual yet, as their lot generally attacks and offers holes to whomever gets there first. But Gorial and Ghila…” Such inanities continued.

  When I would arrive home, I would visit every priest who would have me. Something had happened that night in the desert. Something I could not grasp, though I felt it strengthen with each plod of the horse’s hoof.

  Upon seeing the far-off lamps of my Pelliul—

  —“Gorial is back, world!” I howled from the disgusting back of this horse. I felt Arcus fighting for control. “Nope,” I chortled. “Nope, great warrior. You’re just going to have to learn to live with it. Slump down in that subconscious of yours—I mean ours—take a few years off.”

  I, Gorial, couldn’t go with Ghila when she ate that tasty bitch, Adaline. Those brown-skins had proven useful: kill, take the rubbish, leave the rest. But Tasty Bitch’s caravan went off the damn cliff, taking her moon-skins right along with it. I was left without a body to jump in, no fancy caravan to hide from the sun in.

  “Shut up, great warrior!” Grief pop my carbuncles—this human here, Arcus, he has some stones. Took me days to wrestle him down. So anyhow, with her suddenly a moon-skinned woman, Ghila developed our little plan. She was always the brains of our operation. I just crack the coffins and pummel her hole. That cra—

  “I’ll kill us both then, foul ghoul!” Arcus screamed, toppling off the horse. “If it means a million years in Hell!”

  After what appeared to the owls and other night creatures to be a man banging himself helplessly against a tree, I felt the struggle come to an end.

  “That crazy bitch pulled it off!” I said, getting back on Arcus’s foul horse, cracking my knuckles and giving my new back a good stretch. I knew from the beginning that Ghila—excuse me—Adaline, she’d masterminded our biggest caper yet. This rowdy soldier boy she’d sent me was perfect. Tortured and driven to use this cock of his all the time. Healthy and strong—and conflicted, no more. There’d be no holding back, no tears to weep, not with me stepping into his sins grease easy.

  I howled at the moon—and this damn human still trying to resist. “There’s only room for one of us, warrior. Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get used to my laugh. Gorial is in the land of the moon-skinned now. I was so sick of the fuckin’ desert anyway.”

  I had to stop one more time to slap my brand new thigh. “I can’t believe it. That bitch actually pulled it off. Be seein’ you soon, baby.”

  A Hero, Emerged

  “Long has our land suffered,” Irion Ordrid intoned. In front of the congregation he stood, gazing down upon the kneeling, illiterate flock; one that had primped and groomed itself to near-cleanliness. He stood at the altar, encircled in a ring of braziers whose flames danced solemnly off the white walls and their golden leaves. He looked up. Nilghorde’s main Chapwyn temple was so vaulted that the embossed icons of piety could hardly be seen.

  “Yes!” a voice in the crowd cried. “Tell us what is now being done.” Earning like-minded shouts and joyous proclamations throughout the throng: “We are with you!”

  Irion held out his hand. “And I with you, brothers and sisters. And I with you.” He looked straight ahead, over the stilled congregation, to savor this moment as the sun set outside the church’s open doors. “I know my House has not always had the best reputation, but today is a new day. A day where we together bring forth a new era. A new era not only of peace, and of safety, and of mutual prosperity, but a renewal of our greatest virtues. A society must soon wither if consumed by such improprieties as—as this.”

  To his left and to his right stood tall church fathers, politicians, and his well-dressed son. But none cut a figure as entirely enthralling, none pulled the severe focus of every eye, as the book which Irion lifted up off the altar.

  “Vandahl,” he declared, tossing it into a brazier. “Today we pen the outlawing of such base, senseless trash.”

  Unable to contain himself, a bishop shucked his sectarian bearing. Irion shook the excited bishop’s hand. “But,” Irion continued as the roar subsided, “as Ansul himself said in the blessed scriptures; one is but the start.” This time the crowd roared so unrestrained there was no way to deliver any word further. But, as Irion had planned, the end of his speech had garnered upheaval. Rubbing elbows with not only bishops but an attending Scepter, the new darling of the mob, Irion Ordrid bowed low, handing the Scepter the official quill.

  And so the great Denom Vandahl, in one fell signature, became illegal to read or reprint. Members in the crowd ushered forward, dropping their copies into the flames. As the book fires raged, Morden Ordrid stood by his father, watching through the velvet wafts of incense with a bored indifference.

  A priest embraced the young Ordrid. “Rinmor, your stepfather, he is without doubt the single greatest thing to happen to this vile city in many a year.”

  Morden remembered his snarl, and his dagger, hiding both with his ceremonial garb and a painful smile. “Let go of my hand.”

  “I…I am sorry, young sir.”

  “Priest Masairee!” Irion purred, eyeing his son, then taking the gone-limp hand of the priest and shaking it vigorously. “Thank you for this wonderful opportunity, but my stepson and I must be going. We have another ceremony which we unfortunately are unable to miss.”

  *

  At the doors of the old Ordrid keep, Morfil had greeted the new incarnation of his former lord. All had been arranged. The overseer of the old hierarchy then hobbled on his cane, leading them through halls Morden was laying eyes on for the very first time.

  Life was different in the mansion, where his father told him amongst lit banquets and merriment the ways and manner of the family keep. Morden was not disappointed. Halls, gloomier than bliss. High windows cut and carved with consideration of the movements of the moon. Through such wonders, Morfil’s grey head led them to the event Morden had been preparing over for the better part of a week.

  In an amber room of candle and stone, gifts were stacked upon themselves: bows, boxes, ornate ribbons wrapped round silver chests and baskets of sweets. Irion and Morfil left Morden there, climbing a short flight of stairs to join the others who’d been waiting on the observation deck. There they sat and watched.

  The young Ordrid paced about, his attention not on the gifts. He walked and he stared, scrutinizing the fabled brazier that menaced the room’s center.

  Irion accepted his wine from Morfil. “Whenever you are ready, my son.”

  Morden clasped his hands, going over the rites one more time. He walked to the low brazier, reaching down and retrieving from inside the tiny golden bell. When he rung it, directly below the crowded observation deck opened a tiny door. Out crawled a startled orphan. Though marred by dirt and grime, the child’s face brightened when he saw the stunning array.

  Morden bent down. “Do you like sweets? Yes? Good. All these nice shiny presents, they are all for you.” Morden moved over to the display, setting down the bell and picking out a morsel. The child was handed chocolate and figs, scarfing it all down and soon asking for water. Morden asked him to pick out a box and unwrap it. The boy skipped past, and when he did, Morden upended the little brat, grasping in both hands a skinny bare leg. The most prominent of the House of Ordrid watched from their perch as the newest to become a man ignited from the brazier a roaring, violet flame. Kicking and squealing, into it the orphan went, vaporized in one last squeal before Irion rose.

  Morfil held on his lap scroll cases made of solid gold. All were sealed, but one. Morfil placed a scroll in Irion’s hand.

  Irion looked down, a shadow against the violet fire. “For eighteen years, Morden, you have walked this world. These gifts we hope you enjoy. Yet, let us acknowledge the greatest gift of all, one you have given yourself. For on this day, the day of your birth, by rites and rituals bestowed on and to our great House, you have become a man, my son.”

  Panting, eyes wild with the lust of completion, Morden stood as Irion unfolded the scroll and began to read:

  “There are many gods. Of those included, Oedrus and her dark majesty Analeera. There are gods who are good and those who stink of the perfume of evil. In eons past, the gods were presented to Man in their true form. Soon, ogling at the kicking babe and blooming flower were trampled by the sturdy sword, the inveterate taker who swung it.” Irion gave the scroll back to Morfil. Morfil rolled it, slid it back into its case, sealed the golden cap, and then handed his master the second:

  “Behold!” Irion read. “That gone great epoch of the rulers, men seated in the highest power. Tyranny in full bloom. But then, the seed of Man, long starved, its taproot one day plunged, its soft shell slowly hardened. In time, the masses rose, overthrowing the great rulers of old, and in so doing defiled and dethroned the evil god’s work.”

  “But then, the evil gods conspired and tricked the gods of good. And once tricked, Man, that orderly wanting creature, began smelting the insidious powers of law. And with this the good gods disappeared, their whereabouts known only to them. Except one—Tersiona: Goddess of Peace. Pitying Man’s ignorance to what was to come, Tersiona let herself be enslaved, cursed to be forever mocked and prodded. She works among our evil gods even now.”

  “Our gods and weeping Tersiona guide the inkwells of Man. Law is driven by the purest bliss of greed. But useful Tersiona, she weaves her power. Law provides peace. How hard she weeps, and how joyous do sing the evil gods and the unaware Man. We, the Ordrids, at the highest echelon, we know, and we pass to our own, the true nature of the world.” Irion and Morfil exchanged another.

  “Just as our immortal, exalted, reigning Conqueror is but a phantom, wouldn’t you say? So too dwells nothing of love in what prompts Man’s ultimate order.” The top Ordrids all laughed. Irion cleared his throat and began reading the next:

  “Until the foundations of the earth crack and shutter. Until the seas retreat and sizzle, or the heavens are hung in an ever-lackluster grey. Shall there be a seeking, marching Ordrid, fed the true state of the world by gods of unrepentant evil. Chosen for his line’s unrepentant desires. For no better a man, in this world or another.”

  “Who salivates to obliterate all natural order. The lust for quiet rooms, toiling, unweaving the inglorious rainbows of life and death. In all manner they defile: the joys of sex over the binding apertures of love. Power over grace. The warm bath of starless nights, where a different wisdom reigns, rather the paltry crop-feeding of a bland and burning sun. Tyrants and tormenters of old held blades to the neck of poets, convincing the world, and themselves, in vain, that they were the morally righteous.”

  “But we, the venerable House of Ordrid, who at its highest ranks, at its noblest blood, run not from dank and moral evil. Evil, penned by the trembling hand of Man, is not uprighting a world inverted. A cosmos ponderously viewed by eyes afflicted upside down. We, of the most honest House, know Good is merely a tool of and for the greater power.”

  Morfil then gave the final scroll. Rites of the oldest, most potent filled the room. Irion called to the dark gods of above and below, paying homage to the noblest vehicles of passion and power. Irion’s words turned the flame white, backing Morden into his birthday gifts before the fire extinguished in a sudden wisp of colorless smoke.

  The room was black. As their eyes adjusted to the lowness of torches, Irion, for he knew the rest, rolled up the parchment. “Envy,” he said. “Dominion. Betrayal. Murder. Vengeance. Avarice. Lust. Corruption.” Sealing Morfil’s golden case, “Do as you will. For inside Good’s gilded halls, hide, my son, the scrolls of sin.”

  *

  After the second ceremony in one evening, Irion and Morden trotted down midnight streets to hand off their horses to waiting slaves at the Ordrid mansion. No moon this night blackening the obelisks of the bailey as they entered. Inside the main parlor, a rippling pool of harlots was about to burst.

  Morden plunged headfirst into the orgy. The cast-back locks and breasts perking beyond dropped robes was, after all, all for his most lauded celebration. The father, who had primed and arranged such bliss, took it upon himself only to grab a chair and to watch.

  Sex up in the master bedroom had spiraled to a dismal halt soon after Irion and Morlia had been officially married. Sure, a resurrected woman’s loins could still juice and, though her revival had not been as immaculate as their son’s, her desires still burned with the same carnal greed as before. Yet, how could Irion ever truly respect such a double-dealing whore? Finishing what that Werlyle had started was swift, clean, and little loss to his ruthless, awkward son. Besides, becoming full proprietor to all this wealth was that much more savory without the old ball and chain around.

  Irion urged his entertainment on. He suggested one man be switched out with another. He called for his most impressive slaves, slapping bare black buttocks and stroking the auburn hair of his favorite Serab before adding them to this pile or to that.

  Morden wallowed among them, licking and smacking, nibbling and pinching, accepting only the finest touches from the fairest, warmest flesh. He smacked and he nibbled, but these slaves and the trull atop him, they’d all been had before. Like the gifts back at the keep: it was their wonder that enticed the young Ordrid, not what lay inside. And wonder had surely gripped him, stronger than the trull’s hand now encouraging his most-important limb.