“This was not the dream.”

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Last Words of Jaus Avandaer

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Prologue:

Hunger

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The flesh of his brother was the sweetest he had ever tasted.

For two months he hid in the Underhive. The deconstructor swarms ruled here now. Not the Low Masters. Not his brothers. Like locusts, they had flayed all matter they deemed hostile. The great halls and grand tunnels of rune-scribed bone peeled from existence. Now, he hid within an unfamiliar nest of metal. The swarms had replaced organic matter they ate with cold metal: a total usurpation of what was.

By the last days, he survived by feeding off mind-dead aratnids, devouring them palps, flesh, and all.

Above, the world shook as the war continued. Nuclear detonations lessened but did not stop. They never stopped.

In the winnowed dark, he sat, stewing in feelings he lacked the vocabulary to explain. Infantile rage bled into despondent sorrow. His Low Masters had planned. Plotted this for years. They created his kind, the ghouls, to serve as their instrument of vengeance. Expanded the Umbra to create a truly labyrinthine stronghold below their enemies.

And then, they waited. Schemed. Waited for the Guilds to fight amongst themselves as they had so many times before. When the day finally came, they rose and took the Warrens, beginning the uprising to liberate their homeland, to reclaim the stolen flame of their gods and rightful Heavens.

Numbering a billion strong, they flooded up from their staging points, emerging through the soil on towers of bone. It was to be a bloodletting, a reckoning long owed to the last true faithful of Noloth. In a tidal wave of savagery, fury, and bloodlust they rose to face the Guilds in what was to be the feast of flesh; a crusade for all that was holy.

They lasted three months. The Guilds massacred them for three more.

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Beneath the slope of the tower, he caught the scent of fresh blood and souring flesh. The taste was familiar. Intimate. He knew it to be close to his own. There, in a shallow artillery-made basin, another of his kind lay dead.

A gauss-flechette lay buried in the skull of his brother. Death must’ve come instantly. Yet, where the mind was dead, the blessed blood within their veins struggled on, the self-moving ichor of the corpse wrestling vainly against the tungsten shard, trying to dislodge it.

The ghoul sniffed the corpse of his brother.

Still fresh. Still fresh. Praise the Hungers. Still fresh.

Hunger became him. Rationality was lost to him. He gave in.

Satiation, a delicacy unto itself.

Within his body, he felt the blood joining him like a growing ladder; the cells interlacing without difficulty. When he finished, he spoke prayers in honor of the Eight Hungers of Noloth.

There were no Acolytes to lead him in worship this time. No ghosts to whisper the words into his mind.

Alone. Still alone.

For the first time in his life, there was no one to command him. Nothing left to do. His kind had been created for a singular purpose. And they had failed. He knew of no choice beyond obedience. No life beyond slavery. Without a master to give him purpose, he simply sat and waited. Soon, hunger would spur his whims again.

Hunger

could serve as his master.

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The days that followed came as a blur. He fed from all things. Corpses. Bugs. Roots. He walked countless leagues, avoiding the day and traveling at night. He fed from broken cloning vats in a relatively intact voidship, the taste of the weaponized bioforms revolting but filling. At some point, he found himself in the shadow of a gargantuan snake-like creature that displaced the war-choked clouds. It moved like an undulating scar slithering through the fabric of reality itself.

Here, even hunger faded. There was no greater comfort than pain dulled by numbness. To be in agony. To shed it and find deliverance. He had tried to live. Tried as best as he could. But as he had failed the Low Masters, so too did he fail his hunger.

Atop a bed of plascrete and silicon, the small ghoul whimpered and muttered a final wordless plea to his gods.

Tried. Fought. Lost. Struggled. Did my best.

I did not ask to be.

Upon a throne of ruin, he waited to die.

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Ash settled upon him, binding him to the fading land. He sank deeper into the ruins, and deeper into his own mind. He dreamed, then. A delirium running half slumber and fever. Memories of his brothers were fleeting at best. He felt as if a dog among wolves while he lived among his kind. How similar they were all meant to be, but how simple he found them.

The dream changed. Beside the stilled swing of a playground stood a man beneath the light of the cold moon. A crown burned upon his head, shivering like a caged flame. From it came a ripple, an unseen resonance. Whispers licked over the ghoul’s mind as he felt the touch of an outside presence sinking into his cognition.

A shot of anomalous adrenaline rushed through him. His blood surged. The pain returned to him. As did the hunger. It

burned.

Everything burned. He woke, his delirium breaking. The man was still there. Closer now. Walking toward him with the broken cityscape behind his back.

No. Not a dream. Weak and feeble as the ghoul was, he still lived. The whispers in his mind grew louder as a ghost made itself known to him.

+

Do you wish to live?+

the ghost asked. Its voice was placid. Serene. Unwounded by the world and all its pains.

“Yes,” the ghoul rasped. “

Yes

.”

The ghost slipped out of him, taking with them the gift of lucidity. Abandoned by strength, unconsciousness fell upon him like dirt on a coffin.

It was only when the first flow of blood splashed against his tongue that he woke again. It tasted rich. Deep and pure. Like a nu-dog, he lapped at the flow, slaking his thirst. He heard the pulsing heartbeat of another. It was so close to him. Weakly, he nursed himself on the man’s opened wrist, savoring the sweet flavor of blood.

The ghoul opened his eyes toward his savior.

Fresh amidst the caustic toxin hissing from the wastes, the scent of citrus spilled out from the man. His hair was dark as coal and his skin was like copper. There was nothing truly remarkable about him in terms of height or mass. Nor did he infuse his flesh with any unholy metals.

Kneeling down, the man’s eyes shone with an unnatural blueness. It was as if the clearest sky had decided to peer through him.

“You look hungry,” the man said, pulling a cube of tasteless meat from his coat.

Hunger. Food. Taste.

The feeding that came was frenzied. Blind. The substance went down barely chewed, and a warmth settled in place of cold empty thoughts.

He felt the man’s arms slide under him, lifting him as if he bore no weight. He gave no struggle, for there was no order to resist.

For the first time, he felt an invader touch him and inflict no violence.

He succumbed deeper into the man’s arms.

“Surprised to see any of you topside,” the man said, chuckling as if he found a diamond in the rough. “Suppose the Guilds had each other to contend with. Sloppy.” The man spoke the heretical tongue with a slow pace that seemed to come with age. But there was something deeper in it. “Do you have a name?”

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Name? He had known his brothers by scent and sound. Bestowed crude titles to some of them and the meaner masters, though he would never admit it. But names were for the chosen, and he was merely a thrall. A creature fortunate enough to serve the blessed.

He had no name. Shivering, he shook his head feebly, the meager act taxing him to his limit.

The man hummed. “Suppose we’ll have to fix that.” The light of the darkstar settled on them. As they emerged from the shade of the tower, weak breezes licked chills across the devastation, emerging as whistles through cracks in crevices, singing a constant trill to their egress from the ruins.

The man fixed him with a wry stare. “You got the look of someone who walked out of one of the Low Hells, consang, anyone ever tell you that?”

He thought about that. Only memories of vulgar violence answered his recollections. “No.”

“Well, you do,” the man continued. “Time upon time ago, before all this, before even the Fall, folks used to name their blood after ideas. Expressions meant to align them to the Heavens of certain gods. Probably why my kin were so mad when I took the name Walton. Like throwing the blessing back in their face.”

He looked down again, his face taking an inscrutable expression. “You’re a survivor, you know. Deserve a good name. One that’s worthy of you.”

“

Worthy?"

“Tell you what,” the man said. “I’ll give naming you a shot. And, down the line, if you ever find a better name, you can do what I did. How does that sound?”

He didn’t know what to say. Mainly because no one had ever asked his opinion before. Unsure what to do, he just grunted.

“Calling you Survivor would be laying it mighty thick. But thankfully, the same meaning can belong to different words if you know enough tongues.” He cocked his head down, and, for the first time, smiled. “How about I call you…”

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