His numbness, his empty consternation lie soft in his mouth like a second, tangled tongue. The slow ache of futility licks at his bones, corrosive. An exorcist here is no better than a blind man painting, rain joining stormed seas — unnatural, precocious but strange.

He adds nothing to Akhuras in conversation. Delivers no peace to its death-stirred, no vengeance or appeasement to their spirits. Gaze thunderous, he is yet nothing. Waits and waits the mercy of the moment when he may serve.

"The dead are the living, changed of clothes." For what are skins if not fetters, seams gleaming? What is death if not a passage from the bodily known to the ether, waiting? "We disrespect memory."

Perhaps this is what so many neglect, still. The dead are not divorced of the living: a man's brother might recall him. His children will weep. His spouse will want coin of compensation from the Heavens.

No matter, here. His interest shifts, minute but steadfast. "You dallied in what trade?"

They were all men of better purpose, once. All served.