Immortal, close to omniscient, bearing as he did Erethia’s ancient memories in his blood, stronger now than a hundred men, stronger than dragons and gods.

  And yet still, he knew hunger.

  It was a horrid echo of mortality. That gods and Daimons shared this human trait comforted him not. He wished to transgress all being, to become a new form, a non-form, impervious to the wants of the flesh. All his life had been preparation for this moment and realisation. Even his dismal years tending the prison of Ob-Koron he now saw as inspiration. For it was there he had learned how the flesh, and all its sickening cravings, were what brought men low.

  But it was not only hunger that drew him from the ruins of Uth. Curiosity was one compelling force, for he was surprised to detect—with his super-sharpened senses—a nearby settlement, so deep in Memory. Another force was the promise of followers. Uth should not stand empty. In time, he would draw the Daimons back to it. For now, he wanted others. The Hideous Towers shall be splendid once more.

  He had built a prison, but now he would build an empire.

  But first, the hunger.

  He traipsed long through the jungle, moving occasionally as a bipedal creature, other times as a falcon-like bird, with the radiant blood-blushed plumage of a setting sun, and sometimes as one of the hideous, hulking Slithgor, all furred limbage and reptilian jaws. It pleased him to change, and the change came more easily.

  When he nearer the outskirts, he went diving into a deep bog. There, he found a corpse, well-preserved by the pickling slimes of the marshy bed. He hoisted it from the wet suction of centuries and divested it of its leathers, which were likewise preserved, albeit a little threadbare. Cladding himself once more in human garments seemed strange, unnecessary, another reminder of all he had transcended. But he did not wish to walk into the settlement and begin shedding blood. He had done that so many times. His life had been one tedious series of episodic conflict. He saw it now with a clarity that burned jewel-like, a metaphorical mirror of the literal stone that crowned his third eye point, a diadem of blistering magic.

  The time for war and death would come. But now, he was content to change his tactic. Lileth had shown to him that the subtle way was infinitely more deadly. The learning had been hard, but learn he had.

  Thus did The Daimoniac God King, wearing the skin and clothes of a man, walk into the settlement of Scumbay.

  It was called Scumbay, yet it was nowhere near the sea. It did, however, have the feel of a port-town, the seediness of a place dependent on thirsting droves who pass through in need of unseemly reliefs.

  It was surprisingly large. Its buildings were erected of shanty wood, hacked from trees ill-fitting for construction, warped and wet as they were. There was a bank, several Houses—by far the largest buildings—a rickety dragonling tower, and countless merchant stalls, each more desperately provisioned than the last. Some dwellings had been scooped out of the clay-like earth, bolstered with beams and slats. Some had pools at their bottoms, the water hot and steaming, a form of public bath. At a glance, the place looked like an oasis, but no oasis smelled so redolently of sin.

  Many of the listing buildings had curtained windows, even in the sweltering heat of the jungle. The Warden knew what went on behind those curtains. Trade of a different kind—the oldest form of exchange in human history.

  Flies were the dominant species here. Flies and blood-sucking insects that whined as they flew. They crowded the shit-stained toilet-pits, and the bodies of those strung out on drink and other substances infinitely more potent. Many of the inhabitants sported the sores and bubbling welts of ague. There were fevers here that did not sleep and drove men insane, attested by the wild looks in many eyes, the way fingers itched for knife-handles.

  It would be the easiest thing imaginable to make someone disappear. There were no families, no communities. Teams of explorers and adventurers no doubt passed through here, re-stocking their provisions for the long sojourn ahead, but they would keep to themselves. The rest were simply drifters. Perhaps they had come here seeking fortune and become marooned—either by disease, hopelessness, or the lure of lawless life. There was no government here. There might have been a sheriff or enforcer once, but they were long forgotten. Perhaps their corpse was the one buried deep in the marsh, whose clothes The Warden now wore.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  But The Warden did not wish to act immediately. He wished to control his hunger, to rise above. It was a necessary evil, but one he would one day conquer. Perhaps three gods would make it possible, he mused.

  The Daimon purred in agreement.

  A man in the vestments of an explorer, bearing a compass in one hand and a crudely drawn map in another, stood at the corner of a House, clearly waiting for his companions to surface. The Warden approached him. The explorer gave him a wary smile. The Warden had hidden the diadem upon his brow, and any other inhuman features. Indeed, he looked as he had at twenty years old, a man not exactly handsome but striking for his perfect physical condition. As such, he still stood out. He looked like he had walked out of the bathhouse of the gods, fed upon ambrosia, immune to the vicissitudes of the dark jungle. Everyone else here bore the burden of Memory.

  “Greetings,” The Warden said.

  The explorer nodded curtly.

  “I shall not bother you long, but I am wondering if you could provide me with some information?”

  It was strange to The Warden. He knew the secrets of the Daimons stretching back to ancient antiquity. He had glimpsed the world of the gods through the eyes of Lileth and Beltanus, had tasted their lives and memories. His knowledge sprawled Erethia, both past and present, a great seething network ever present at the edge of his consciousness. Through the mind-link, he could be so many places, and so many things. Deep underwater, skirting the ocean’s bed. Flying high as a monstrous bird. Dwelling anonymously among human settlements the world over… And yet, there were things he did not know.

  The explorer was making a pointed show of consulting their map, but seeing The Warden would not be dissuaded by such a social cue, he sighed, folded it, and packed it away.

  “How can I help?” The explorer kept glancing at the door to the House, as though praying his companions would arrive.

  “You can start by telling me what day it is.”

  The explorer laughed.

  “You wouldn’t be the first to lose track of time here. But I have a telescope and star-map, as well as a journal. It keeps me sane on the longer journeys. Today is the Fifth Day of the Ninth Moon.”

  The Warden felt his blood run cold.

  Forty days. He knew he had lost time in the embrace of Lilith, but he could not have imagined such a stretch of time had vanished.

  “Don’t let it get to you,” the explorer said, and it seemed genuine pity coloured his words. “These jungles… They are more than just mud and blood-sucking monsters. They are… alive, somehow. I don’t just mean that things live in them, but the jungle itself is alive. Breathing, whispering. They get to you.”

  The Warden wanted to sneer—and the old him might have. But instead he forced a smile.

  “I do believe you are right.”

  The explorer smiled, pleased.

  At that moment, the door to the House opened and three others walked out: two men and two women. One of the men was older, perhaps sixty. The other was the same age as the explorer, perhaps late thirties. The woman was in her middle years, with tawny hair, and aceltyne eyes. The others glanced at The Warden with concern. But the explorer smiled and waved them over.

  “It’s alright. This man was just asking about the date. I think he got quite a shock.”

  The others smiled quietly; it was time to go.

  “Good luck, explorer. And thank you for your kindness.” The Warden then turned and pointed. “If you travel south-west for thirty miles, you will reach the ruins of Uth, or as you call them, the Hideous Towers. Make the pilgrimage there, and perhaps we shall meet again.”

  Their mouths fell open, but The Warden did not pause to bask in their amazement. The hunger was deepening, gripping his organs with an invisible hand of malice. His blood was quickening and as it did so, so too did the force of change. He suppressed it, but it was like trying to hold down a bubbling river. The more he resisted, the more it spilled, spread, made everything wet. He felt he was dissolving—indeed, he was. The thing he became had no name. It had the limbs of a spider, the wings of a monstrous dragonfly. He was up, soaring into the canopy of shadows. One man—a drunk slugging from a bottle of intestinal rot—gaped open-mouthed and pointed, but none believed him when he cried that a horror had alighted in Scumbay.

  The Warden’s hunt began.