Nothing but Phage's skin.

The stars above the desert were fiery. Jeska lay in chains and stared at them. Braids crouched nearby, doing something. She was always doing something. She had healed Jeska's wound and was carrying her away in chains to the Cabal. Jeska had submitted. This was her life. The alternative was death.

Phage shook off the reverie. Above a far shore, a line of torches slid out and slowly headed across the swamp. A barge, lit by brands on either gunwale, poled toward the main island. Barges were not to land after sunset, due to daily changes in mooring points. Nor were they to waste wood on torches. What load would need such a late and grand arrival?

Silhouetted against desert stars. Braids worked at Jeska's chains. "The First is eager to see you."

A chill swept through Phage. She pivoted on her heel and descended the stair. She touched every third step, nearly running. At each landing, guards startled, whirled, and recoiled from their dread lady. Phage paid them no heed. She rushed down the main entry and out into the fog.

A huge figure loomed up and brayed.

Phage withdrew her hand. She had almost killed her second's mule. Still her pace didn't slacken.

Zagorka ambled after her mistress. "Forgive us. We were just waiting around to see if you needed something." She coughed. "You seem to need something."

"Go to my quarters. Double the guard. Tell them to clean everything. They must find the thickest, cleanest pallet and put it on the iron cot Enlist the cooks to make a feast. Then report to me at the barge below." The commands leaped from her lips like bolts from a crossbow.

"What is happening?"

"The First is coming." It was all Phage said before she outpaced her second.

It was all she had to say.

Zagorka gave a strangled yelp and mounted Chester. The mule clottered off through the mist toward Phage's quarters.

Phage didn't spare them a glance. If Zagorka went to arrange quarters and food for the First, they would be arranged. Phage only hoped the docks would meet with his approval-only hoped the island, the workers, the coliseum, the progress, that all of it would please him. She would live or die at his hand.

"Rouse yourselves!" she called into the misty camp. "Prepare for grand inspection!" Her voice, though rarely used, was known to every last taskmaster and worker.

The word went out. Whips cracked to punctuate the commands. The troops would be ready-awake, straightened, and marshaled in rows. Anyone who failed inspection would not survive to morning.

Phage swallowed. Ahead of her, through the parting mists, she saw the torches of the approaching barge. They were not simple torches but burning skeletons. The First had perfected this execution technique-anesthetizing traitors, wrapping them in a gauze wick, dousing them with an accelerant, and lighting them aflame. They produced a hot, slow fire, and they lit the First's way. It was a well-known aphorism that the tallow of traitors was the light of the Cabal.

No light, though, penetrated the black pavilion at the center of the vessel.

Phage reached the shoreline and waited. The foremost of the skulls leered at her, its mouth and eyes trailing fire. Was it mocking her faithfulness or hailing her as a fellow traitor?

Black waters rippled before the barge. It eased forward, and poles stabbed into the muck to slow it down. With a gentle bump, the craft struck ground. Men leaned on their poles, and the anchor splashed in. Workers lifted a broad gangplank from the bow and slid it into place.

Phage waited for the curtains to part, for the man to disembark.

A voice called from within, "Phage, whose true name is Jeska, come forward."

Phage slowly ascended the plank. Wood sizzled beneath the balls of her feet, forever marking her passage. As she advanced among smoldering skeletons, the smell of burning fat gave way to the aura of the First. Most folk were nauseated by his presence, but Phage was renewed by it. Like called to like. Her skin trembled to touch cousin flesh. She approached the pavilion, curtained in black silk like her own body suit. She was home.

"Enter, Jeska," came a voice from within. The First's stare reached through the cloth that separated them.

Hands parted the curtains from within. The First's servants drew back the folds. Air spilled out over Phage-cold and dry, death smelling. She walked into it, and the fabric dropped behind her. Darkness filled the place, and the drapes showed only dim columns of gray where the corpses burned.

Phage went to her knee and then to her face. She lay prostrate. Beneath her, the woolen rug withered and rotted.

"Rise," said the First. He sat in a large chair at the end of the space, only just visible in the gloom. "The Cabal is here."

"The Cabal is everywhere," Phage answered as she came to her knees.

Eyes studied her. "I said rise. To your feet."

She stood up. Her black silhouette remained on the ruined rug. "Forgive me, Lord."

"You need no forgiveness, Jeska," he whispered. "I am well pleased with the reports you have sent-running ahead of schedule i and behind budget, raising bridges and deepening canals, paving the way for the world. You say you have even found a way to render the swamps sterile?"

She nodded. "Lime will poison every plant and beast and will settle thickly on the bottom and harden. Within a mile radius of the coliseum, all waterways will be sky-blue and lined with cement."

A dry chuckle came from the First. "It is, of course, perfect."

"Also, I've commanded the dementia summoners to devise some amazing beasts. They are swamp creatures that eat sand and disgorge water. Even now, they extend the reach of the swamp into the trackless desert. Only when we reach the Corian Escarpment will we have to cease."

"You are a credit."

Beyond the barge came a small commotion. Someone had arrived, and the First's guards were barking questions. Amid the replies came a familiar bray.

"Even now, my quarters are being cleaned and converted for your own use, and a feast is prepared," Phage said.

Zagorka's protest could be clearly heard in the pause. "She ordered me to report to her."

The First continued as if oblivious. "It is not your progress or your preparations that concern me. It is my reception."

Phage felt a flutter of panic in her chest. She strode to one of the First's hand servant, knelt, and kissed his fingers. The touch of her lips brought a bubbling necrosis to the servant's knuckles. "I honor you with my life."

"Yes, you do," responded the First as he wrung his own hands. He waved his servant back from Phage. "But do your people? They treat you as a goddess-with fear, reverence, and admiration."

"They do?" she echoed, incredulous.

"They swear by you, Phage," he replied. "They are to swear by me, not by you."

"I w-will tell them."

"You will tell them tonight."

"With your leave, I will tell them now."

"Go."

Phage rose and headed for the curtains. Hand servants drew them back. Phage emerged from cold dryness into the wet heat of the swamp. She strode down the gangplank.

At its base clustered the First's personal guard, arguing with an old woman and a very large ass. Zagorka's voice rose above the din. "… Not here, he ain't. Phage is the law here, and she said to meet her-"

"And here you are," interrupted Phage as she strode into their midst. All those gathered recoiled instinctively from her rotting touch. "What is my best work team?"

"This week, Gorgoth and his masons."

"Bring them. Command all the rest to watch what happens here."

"Yes," said Zagorka, once again scrambling onto the back of her mule. She kicked her heels into the flanks of the beast. It bounded forward whickering.

The woman and the creature rushed amid mustered troops. They stood like rows of com across Coliseum Island. Zagorka would find Gorgoth and his team quickly and bring them. Phage planned a demonstration of fealty. The workers would know soon their true master. The First would know it, too.