He roseto standing.The bone beneath his feet was brittle and aged, the fibers flexinglike rotten wood.Around him, the mouth of the skull was a gloomy basin, edgedwith a forest of teeth.
“Well,”Zaria said, her voice echoing.“Lovely place.Smells like bird shit and death.I suppose there’s no accountin’ for—”
Shepaused.Her words withered in the gloom.
“Zaria?”he asked.
“Xotra’scunt.”
“What?”
Shepointed deeper into the skull, her eyes widening enough that he saw the whites.When Isaac tried to look, he saw nothing but a faint glinting light, poking outfrom the dark of the throat.The shadows were thick and jagged.
“Ican’t see,” he said, squinting.
“You don’tspy that?”she asked, pointing at the light.“All the grisliness?”
“Thesun’s too bright.My eyes need to adjust.”
Shemade a humorless snort.“Humans.”She stepped forward, keeping a wary eye onwhatever was glinting further beyond, and looked over the edge of their perch.“Sand’s piled here, too.We can jump.”
“Shouldwe?”he asked.
Sheglanced over his head, spying the tracks they had leftin the sand.Her face hardened.“Aye.No going back.”
Shejumped.An instant later, there was a dull thump, followed by a gentle hissingof sediment.When Isaac peered over the edge, Zaria was only a short distancebelow, carefully sliding her way down a virgin embankment of sand.He sat onthe edge of the tooth, dangled his legs, slipped into the void, and tumbledheavily into the sand, which resulted in an equally graceless slide down theembankment.By now, Zaria was standing guard at a level clearing in the centerof the mouth, where the titan’s tongue once connected.When he stumbled over toher side, she stopped him with a hand.
“Hold amoment,” she said.“You tell me what the fuck that thing is.”
Hesquinted again.The glint of light seemed slightlybrighter.He realized, slowly, there were multiple points of light, arrangedlike a constellation of stars.It seemed to form a pyramid.
“Istill can’t see,” Isaac said, quietly.“Is that glass?”
“Eyes,”Zaria replied.
“Eyes?”
“It’swatchin’ me.”
Hepeered again.Around him, the sun was gridded against the cell bars of thetitan’s teeth, providing a band of illumination.Dust trickled from the nasalcavity.Somewhere, a bird flapped its wings.
Soon,he saw the bodies.
It wasa scene of carnage.The ground was littered with the dead.With his unadjustedeyes, all he could see were hills and mounds, vague shapes, slumped figures,some of it occasionally solidifying into slivers of bone and pieces of clothand a litany of rusted steel.Most of the corpses seemed to be concentratedtoward the back half of the mouth, as if ready to be swallowed.A few wereclustered in groups.Many sagged against the teeth.
Isaacfelt, for a moment, as if he’d stumbled upon the site of an ancientbattlefield.The air smelled of dust and decay.
At theback of the mouth, a wall of granite had been erected around the ring of thethroat, the edges smoothed into a seamless connection with the flowing of bone.By now, the granite was porous and rough, cracked through with the roots ofvines.Reliefs were carved into the stone.With his eyes slowly adapting to thedark, he saw figures and battles and what seemed like deities falling from thesky.The details were hard to discern.
Betweenit all, a passage lay open in the stone, which seemed to lead into a stairway.The stairs descended into the earth, ribbed with the colossal vertebrae of thecreature’s spine.Perched above this doorway, on a raised dais of slate andbronze, a four-legged statue sat on its haunches, like a dog standing guard.
Therewere human faces on the head of this creature.They were fusing together.Therewas a single mouth between them.There was a vortex of teeth.There was ashared look of agony.
Sixeyes glinted from the dark.
“Isaac,”Zaria said, quietly.
He hadto force himself to remain calm.He recognized the statue.It was a shibboleth,a stone automaton that was often used by the necromancers to guard places ofimportance—palaces, ziggurats, the catacombs of the nobility.With littleexception, the statues were designed to fend off both invaders and graverobbers alike.They were nearly always imbued with powerful magics.
