No human could part its jaws so wide—but Etjole Ehomba was more than human. He was also eromakasi. There was no darkness to eat here, no threatening eromakadi to consume. But that did not prevent him from making use of his remarkable oral abilities. Wider still stretched his jaws and lips.
Then, with a delicacy of step and perfect aplomb, his skeleton emerged from the container of his body, stepping out from within through the accommodating aperture of the herdsman’s unnaturally distended mouth.
X
Like a prosperous merchant discarding a favorite dressing gown, Etjole Ehomba’s skeleton continued to slip free of his clothing and skin until it stood, white and glistening, before the silent, approving envoy. When the last lingering flesh had been sloughed off, the mounted warriors vented a cadaverous cheer, waving their weapons in the air and reining their assorted skeletal mounts up on their hind legs in celebration.
“No!” Sword upraised, a horrified Simna rushed forward—only to fall hard as something tripped him. Looking down, he saw, staring back at him from amid the pile of attire and skin and muscle that had moments before cloaked his companion in the garb of life, the face of his good friend. Though unnaturally flaccid and flattened in the absence of its usual sturdy frame, it was smiling reassuringly.
“Calm yourself, Simna. Did I not tell you to trust me?”
Shocked, the swordsman scrabbled back on hands and knees. “Etjole, is it you? Are you alive?”
“Alive but limp. As a wet rag, like the saying goes. Lift me up, my friend. I want to see what is happening.”