Part One: The Next

I am the Grave-Watcher.

Maybe I used to have a name like yours, one that was my own. Or maybe it was just another title, like "urchin" or "grub."

Names are one of the most human concepts, from what I can tell. Names give the impression that humans have some control over what something is and will be. If you say that this is a rock, then it must be a rock, and will continue to be a rock. It cannot speak or hear. It cannot feel. It simply is what it is.

But I know differently. "Grave-Watcher" is one of those human titles that can never capture reality. I watch graves, and I will continue to watch graves, but there is more. I am a continuation of generations, begun before names and perhaps even before words. I am more than a human, and yet somehow less. I am as definite as anything else in this world—which is far less concrete than that silly human world of words.

We are shunned, death and I. We are pushed down into endless catacombs and kept from contaminating the orderly world above. Death has been both my identity and my closest companion since the day I first tasted the musty air of the Lower Chambers.

I don't remember much from before this life, at least not clearly. I remember a cold and hungry existence. Some days were better than others, and I would find a place to sleep. Or a scrap of food. Or, on some miraculous day, I might find both, but it did not happen very often.

My transformation took place on a Midyear's day. The streets were decorated; cloth flags in bright colors flew from windowsills, and banners were strung along the streets. In every alley one would hear music and laughter, or smell roasting meat and fresh brewed beer. Actors, fire-eaters and magicians performed in the streets, all in honor of the gods of revelry.

I don't remember Midyear nostalgically, but rather as a tactician might remember a particular battle. The advent of street performers and copious amounts of beer usually meant easier pickings. I would dive in and out with enough money to maintain myself for a day or so. Sometimes I would get caught. However, more often than not, I was as deft with my hands—and as successful—as any performer on the street.

I had not been lucky on that particular day. Twice I had spotted an open purse, and twice my quarry had moved on before I had my chance. Over the course of the day, I migrated from the lower city to the upper. Desperate hunger was driving me to new risks. Previous days and the loss of two fingers had taught me that picking velvet purses was a dangerous thing, but just one could buy me a day's worth of meals. Hunger and recklessness are close companions on the streets.

I wound my way through streets filled with revelers. I spotted a crowd by a makeshift stage, where two actors hit each other with sticks shaped like swords. The audience was laughing, a good sign. Bad actors result in restless onlookers, and I wanted them to stay right were they where. I edged over, using the invisibility of the poor to my advantage.

Before I can continue, I must make clear the nature of the Grand City. It is built into a mountain. Walls surround two-thirds of the expanse of buildings, but that other third is pure stone. Some houses have been built into the cliffs, and stories tell of smuggler's paths that lead through the rock, but the mountain seems impenetrable in its majesty. The upper city is cut into part of the mountain, and so is higher than the lower city in its geography as well as in its people's social hierarchy. I was at the edge of the upper city, and the mountain top was clearly in view. The plaza was partially bordered by that stone facing.

A shout came from the general direction of the cliff. This would have passed unheard if it had not been followed by a shrill guard horn. There was a collective shift of attention, as even the actors paused in their fight. Then another slightly more understandable shout. Something about graves. Something about "rising."

I made a desperate grab for a purse as my quarry hurried away once again, but to no avail. The crowd was quickly moving towards the direction of the shouting, and I was caught among them.

The crowd pressed with more speed as the noise rose in volume. I could hear better now, but still not enough to fully understand the words. "The… risen! …grave… risen!"

The mob stopped moving as they melded into those who had already arrived. I heard them questioning one another over my head. I was not so curious; I simply wanted out of the press of sweaty, overly-perfumed bodies as quickly as I could, perhaps taking a coin or two with me. I spotted my previous target then. The purse, an expensive purple fabric that had torn ever-so-slightly, was moving forward, pushing through the crowd. I followed in its wake, my mind filled with visions of hot meat off the spit and hearty bread.

The crowd seemed endless, easily reaching back as far as the center was wide. I came so close to the purse at one point that I reached out, unable to restrain myself any longer. My fingers just barely grazed the lush surface when it moved out of my reach.

I fell forward and braced myself to fall in to another on-looker, but much to my surprise, I hit the cobblestones of the street. I was at the front of the crowd, even farther out than the most daring of fine slippers.

Surprised by my fall, I slipped to the side and hit my head on a protruding stone. I stood up and tried to push my way back, but the open path had closed itself. I was met with unmoving bodies, their owners too fascinated by the scene before them to move out of the way. I turned to look back at whatever was happening.

At first, nothing seemed strange. Two men in guard's uniforms stood at either side of a great iron door that was built into the stone. Such doors exist around the city, usually as alternate entrances to noble houses.

Then I spotted the third guardsman. He stood in the center of the action, bellowing "The grave-watcher has risen! The grave-watcher has risen!"

I now know more about the significance of these words than I did at the time, but I will not get ahead of myself. At the time, I was woozy from the fall I had taken. I decided that I had misheard. The guard paused and drew an alarm horn from his belt. He played five notes in sequence, once, twice, and three times. They rose and fell, echoing off the stone of the surroundings in an eerily. It was as though the one horn was joined by a chorus of ghostly harbingers.

Things started to happen then. Slowly, deliberately, the two guards on either side of the door grasped the handles and pulled. The men shuddered with the effort of moving solid iron.

As those doors opened, and cold wind blew and rattled the shutters above our heads. It caressed my face, making me forget my hunger, my head, everything. All I could see was the terrifying void of darkness in front of me.

And then, a single light. I could make out the faintest of glows deep within the yawning iron jaws. No one breathed, as though they were afraid to extinguish that flickering flame. First, a candle emerged. Then the outline of an arm. Then, the silhouette of an inhuman figure.

Where there should have been limbs, there was a rippling substance. Where there should have been a head, there was a liquid outline. It was as though the darkness was taking a form around the candle.

Then, it slid over the doorframe. Still frozen, I let out a shallow breath when I saw it for what it was; not some creature from the deep, but a man in a cloak. The fabric rippled about him in the inexplicable wind from within the cavernous opening. He took three halting steps forward before a another man came forward to meet him.

I quickly identified him this second man as the one I had followed what seemed like years before. I watched him, filled with an unnamable sense of dread. With rigid posture and flawless composure, he seemed made of stone as he stood before the figure.

"Grave-Watcher, for what reason have you risen?" He intoned in a voice trained in ceremony. His baritone voice rang in the ears of all who listened and echoed off the stone walls. All eyes were now on the second of the pair, that figure from the cave.

A cowl hung over the figure's face and hid his features in shadow. The only skin protruding from the cloak was that of the hand holding the candle, and it was frightening to behold. His skin was so pale as to be translucent, and even from a distance, I could see the veins beneath it. They protruded as though skin were melting from the creature's bones.

"I have not risen for a warning, Lord Gatekeeper," the figure replied. His voice was a direct contrast to the man's. Where the man's voice was stone, this figure's voice was wind and dust. Yet each and every word cut through the silence so cleanly that it was as though I was alone in that center.

"I have not risen for the One, nor have I risen for the End," the figure continued. "I have risen for the Next."

And with those words, the cowl turned and the crowd shrunk back. It was my chest, however, that those invisible eyes burned into, stealing my breath and my ability to think. I felt cold.

I had seen mice and other small prey that must have felt as I did then. Hypnotized by the predator, unable to move or to breathe, I felt fear slowly suffocating me.

Vaguely, I remember the events that followed. I felt the guards grip my arms and march me towards the gate. I saw the Man of Stone draw his dagger. I saw him pull back his arm, and plunge cold steel into the figure before him. In the instant that steel touched flesh, the figure simply disintegrated. The cloak lightly fell to the ground, and it seemed as though the blackness had melted into a pool.

I saw the Man of Stone lean down to pick up the cloak, and then turn to me. I might have screamed then, I do not recall. If I did, it was to no avail. As the cloak and the knife drew closer, and the guards held me hostage, I desperately searched within those stone eyes for any trace of humanity. But I had been chosen. I was the next. It felt wrong, and I wanted to scream that it was all a mistake, but steel flashed, and I was silenced. .