Hisneck ached from craning his head.
At themoment, he could see cracks and divots working through the creature’s snout,pieces of the outer shell which had chipped away over the centuries.Flocks ofbirds circled the cavern of an eye.Around the cranial plate, colonies of vineshung limply from sockets in the bone, giving the appearance of scraggly hair.At its open mouth, the teeth of its lower jaw jutted from the sand like giantcalvary spikes.
“Incredible,”Isaac said, gazing up in wonder.
Zariagave a wordless grunt.
“Ithink it’s a reptile.”He pointed with both his hands.“The jaw is clearly madeof several bones.There’s the dentary—the teeth—there’s the angular, the surangular, maybe even the splenial plate.You see how theyarticulate together?”
Zariahummed, glancing around the dunes.
“Ican’t tell,” Isaac said, “if it’s a diapsid or synapsid.You see thefenestrae?”
“Thewhat?”
“Theholes.”
“I seea lotta fuckin’ holes.”
Isaacsquinted his eyes at the postorbital bones, trying to see if any of them werefused.A dry layer of bird droppings caked the ridges and sockets.“I want tosay it’s a diapsid.”
Zariagrunted again.
“Though,”he said, “I’m not sure if that’s a second temporal gap or a breaking of the postorbital.It’s hard to tell.I can’t imagine how long this creature has been exposed—”
“Isaac,shut a moment.”
Heturned.Zaria was still scanning the horizon, her ears cocked, her shortwhiskers dancing with the sniff of her nose.Isaac noted an agitated whip ofher tail.
“Whatis it?”he asked.
“Wind’sstopped.”
“Hasit?I hadn’t....”
Hepaused.She was right—the wind had stopped.Just like the heat of the sun, thewind was always a constant presence in the dunes, either by forming spouts,shimmering the sand, or actively shaving through the slopes.Throughout hisjourney, Isaac had never once felt it stop.
Rightnow, the air was as still as a corpse.
“Isaac,”Zaria said.“Can one of them necromancers control the weather?”
Hestared up at the colossus, blinking.The vines on its head were not swaying.The sand around it was covered in a graveyard of bone chips and osseous fibers,which the centuries had utterly failed to scatter.Even the sand itself hadfailed to bury the skull.If it had truly lain here for millennia, the sandshould have consumed the titan beneath its shifting mounds, never to be seenagain.
But it hadn’t.
Thecolossus remained, like a stain upon the land.
“Isaac!”she hissed.
“Yes!”Isaac replied, trying not to stammer.“Y-yes, a powerful one, yes.All magicrequires energy.Necromancy involves ....taking.Taking energy.Takinglife.”
“Well,fuck me,” Zaria said.“I nearly took a shit.”
“You’llsteal anything, I suppose.”
Sheglanced around, ears and tail swishing.“I’m really knowin’ why my fellowssteered clear of this place.”
“Theyshould,” Isaac said, regaining himself.“Necromancy involves destruction.Ithas to feast on life.A person’s soul, a copse of trees, the very essence ofthe soil.There are sections of land so desolate that no life can ever takeroot again.These dunes are the same.They did not exist before thenecromancers.”
