The Somnambulant Ones’ edict rang in Ku’s ears. “The journey to the godcave is the easy part. Once there you must release a dead god and return with its ichor and holy flesh.”

Though distant, the trek to the mouth of the godcave was a journey Ku felt certain he could undertake, despite the elders’ insistence to the contrary. The challenge only steeled his determination. Other acolytes have succeeded before me. I’ll not number among those who failed. Those who did werenever seen again: torn to shreds by the wrath of the dead gods.

After moonrise a year to the day since Ku sought entry to the Temple of the Somnambulant Ones, the elders cast him out, not to return until his task was complete. Armed only with a ritual blade and a hollowed bone containing the vision-gel necessary for communion with the Dead Ones, he turned his back to the temple and set out into the rocklands.

Before sunfall of the first day, Ku passed beyond the gravelscape and over scrub-plains towards the sunken lands, forbidden to all but his order. Undeterred by the solitude of his pilgrimage or the prospect of meeting his end at the claws of a predator, he dared to imagine whatlay ahead. Details about the Dead Ones were few. Those acolytes who returned were changed by the experience. The encounter is transcendent, he supposed. What higher honour is there than to encounter a dead god?

He prowled through the night, relentless. Three days, the first of which is almost done. My fast is nearly complete. At moonfall I can begin the hunt.

His limbs ached. His throat lusted after the dew clinging to every leaf, but he willed himself away from distractions of the flesh. Concerns of the spirit anchored him in his quest, propelling his legs in an automatic, repeated rhythm.

Before moonfall, the dawn twilight outlined the edge of a precipice in an amber streak. A tentative step brought Ku a foot’s length from the verge. Like the footprint of an almighty being, a recessed lowland spread into the distance, sheer cliffs rimming the sides of a plateau. A canopy of treegrass hundreds of feet below swayed in the breeze. Individual blades, some eight times his height, faded into a hazy, verdant blur bespeckled by patches of garish yellow blossoms. Pillars of rock protruded from the foliage like towers, matching the surrounding clifftops in height, and atop each column, a leafy hillock rose, suspended like islands in an invisible sea.

Dizzy, weak from hunger, Ku stepped back. He searched the rocky ledge for a boulder with an eastern-pointing protrusion and scrambled in its direction. This is where it starts. The morning sun illuminated the entrance to a narrow tunnel. Ku leapt inside, racing through the dark, lower and deeper into the earth.

A twinkle of illumination pierced the gloom. He trained his eyes on it, squinting to adjust, and made for the opening in the rock where the outside bled in. Pressing through, he emerged into the dense forest of slender grass-trunks.

His breaths sharp and quick, Ku peered into the leafy shade of the gods’ domain, their sacred forest which sprang from the imprint of their sunken world. He flicked his tongue, gauged the direction and speeds of the air currents, then scanned the undergrowth for serpent trails and slunk into the forbidden world the gods had left behind.

* * * * *

Sunfall of the second day approached. Ku slung his kill over his shoulder. The serpent’s enormous length trailed at his heels. Clutching the head to his chest with both hands, he heaved the beast through the undergrowth and collapsed near a slow-flowing stream. After a moment to recover his strength and drink of its cooling waters, he gathered fallen grasses, each large enough to wrap around himself.

When he amassed a sufficient number he arranged them in a circle, building in layers, and wove each blade between the others. A strike from his flint set the kindling ablaze. His knotted offering ignited, flaring into a crimson-tipped, jade flame.

Satisfied the Dead Ones would receive his signal, Ku retrieved the hollowed bone from inside his shroud. The stench of the cloying, blue substance made him recoil. He sank onto the ground, his gaze lingering on the dilution of sacred ichor within, aware it would grip him with a frenzy for which the initiation ceremonies could never have prepared him. After he had starved his body, trekked for endless leagues, he feared the vision-gel might incapacitate him, cloud his experience in ways he could not foresee. Regardless, he knew he must ingest it. How else could he commune with Them once he reached the godcave?

He leaned over his kill, drew the ritual blade from his belt and sliced a deep cut behind the serpent’s skull. Tilting the bone over the wound, he added the gel to the creature’s blood. The divine unguent hissed upon contact. Bubbles popped, wafting noxious gasses over Ku’s face. Spluttering coughs, he tumbled backwards onto the leafy ground as his eyes watered.

Deep breaths calmed him while the hissing subsided. With his bloodied dagger, he set the sharp tip to his brow and incised a vertical gash past his eye, down his cheek to his jawline. Sufficiently mutilated, he hauled himself to the carcass and sniffed its blackened wound, then dipped his nails into the cut behind the skull. With dripping fingers, he smeared his injury with blood half-serpent, half-god.

He waved his hand in front of his face. Bleary eyes rendered his digits as taloned claws. Agony seized him as the vision-gel took hold. Convulsions threatened to topple him but he fought them back. He spat a sudden build-up of saliva, then screwed his eyes shut, knelt before the flames and rocked back and forth. Spasms flailed his arms. His mouth twitched as he recited the Chant of the Undying.

How long he incanted, Ku could not say. Verses bled together, his oration mingling with the crackling fire, the breeze in the leaves and the trickling of the stream. His words developed form, flitting into his mind as resonant supplications to the Dead Ones.

Power swelled in his limbs. Emanating from his torso, it surged through his veins. He glanced at his kill. A thin cloud of steam hovered over the creature’s head—a sign the gods had accepted his sacrifice. Reality slowed while he watched the wound shrivel. Its flesh will soon transmute.

Finishing his incantation Ku leaned upright, head back, arms outstretched, and offered a guttural cry of thanks to the skies. “Behold my offering. I will not fail you. Before sunfall tomorrow, I will reach your place of rest. Receive me well.”

As if in answer, thunder rolled, and Ku bowed his head. They have found me worthy. He lifted the serpent and brought the transmuted flesh closer. A potent odour clawed at him, shooting up his nostrils like invisible tendrils as he sank his teeth into the meat. Divine juices, acidic and thick, cascaded into his mouth. His stomach heaved, but he forced a swallow and leaned in for another bite.

Gel bubbled, oozing a noxious, coppery tang. Too hungry to eat in small, respectful portions, Ku devoured it, relishing the sacred anointment’s sting in his gums.

His offertory pyre flickered from orange to cyan, then speckled olive. The knotted grasses blazed a wavering corona of sacred flame skyward. Tongues of fire coiled into the dark air like entwined demons.

The gods have let me see! Ku gnawed at the serpent’s innards. The imbued blood flowed down his throat, radiating holy strength through his corporeal shell. He tore off another strip of flesh with his teeth. Thoughts of what he would find at the godcave spurred him to continue, and he feasted on the serpent until his jaw ached.

Throbs pulsed through his skull. He trembled beneath his shroud. Before the gel overcame him, he craned his neck and counted the stars until they blinked out one by one. Then the visions assailed him.

Ku fell. A swirling void surrounded him as he tumbled through nothingness. He squinted through the shifting mists, desperate to focus on the indistinct shadows they concealed.

You must save us, a voice wailed. Ancient and strange, it spoke in a language Ku did not recognise, and yet, he understood. We have been here too long.

The gods are in peril! Spinning in mid-air, Ku tried to shout but his words formed only in his mind. Where are you? Is this your realm?

Save us! Other voices joined the first, deafening Ku. Free us from our slumber.

How?

Ku jolted awake after moonfall. Urgency of a kind he had never felt gripped him. About to sprint away from the clearing, he remembered the transmuted serpent’s flesh. Overnight the gel had reduced the creature to a shrivelled husk. Ku grasped it behind the skull and tipped the thick juices into his mouth, suppressing the urge to spit them out, then drained the rest into the hollowed bone. Once secured to his belt, he gauged the sun and plotted a course to the godcave.

Ku ran until the day grew cold and the sun shared the darkening sky with the moon. Shadows crept over the land, dimming the patches of light that permeated the treegrass shade. He resisted the desire to rest or eat, pushing ever onward. Through the night and for hours after moonfall, he raced through the dense undergrowth, a single thought drowning out all others.

As moonrise of the third day approached, Ku spied a hill through the diminishing clusters of treegrass. He shimmied up a nearby stalk, and at the top he swept his gaze across the canopy. The forest thinned a hundred paces ahead, reducing in size to waist-high scrub that bordered a solitary hillock. A rocky cleft, just above the midpoint, signalled the mouth of the godcave—a reminder that his kind were but servants to the overarching plans of beings hecould never hope to comprehend.

His quest almost at an end, he grabbed the hollowed bone from his belt and uncorked it. Righteous zeal tingled his imagination as he downed the entirety of the gel-infused snakeblood. The gods have deemed me worthy. Soon, I shall witness their glory.

His muscles twitched to the rhythm of the sacred concoction. Savouring each contraction as it drizzled down this throat, he would wait until the holy hours after sunfall to enter their realm. He settled into the treegrass’ caress and stared at the hill until the snakeblood did its work.

Clouds sailed past a strobing sun. Ku blinked, but the vision-gel rendered his sight as a bleary vista of intermingling greens and yellows. He sucked in air, holding it until he stopped quaking and his eyes cleared.

A blur of movement at the cave’s opening startled him, and he bared his teeth. No other acolyte is undergoing the trials. Who would dare trespass here?

He squinted into the distance. A tiny figure emerged from the godcave, obscured by the sun’s glare.

Anger rendered fierce by the impudence of their blasphemy raged in Ku’s chest. Whoever they are, they won’t survive their sacrilege.

About to scramble down from his perch and unleash holy retribution on the intruder, he froze. A second figure appeared, followed by a third. The sun vanished behind a cloud and the shapes came into focus.

The first silhouette shielded its eyes. It stood straight, pivoting at the hips while it took in the surroundings. Though indistinct, the forms were not so distant as to conceal their nature. Their limbs—their shape. The proportions are …

Ku gasped.

Realisation struck him like a bolt from the heavens.

Unblinking, he stared at the trio. These are no trespassers but the gods themselves. He emitted a click of satisfaction. The elders said I would fail. Imagine their awe when I return with a living god.