He was rushing towards the ground, watching it swing up to meet him when he heard the sound, the only sound that he had heard in what felt like fifteen days.

He looked to the left, and a swarm of butterflies was rushing towards him, their brilliant orange wings glowing in the steadystate sun. They tossed irridescent patches of light onto his face, and what felt like a thousand of them landed and lighted on his body, covering him from every hair on his head to every frayed piece of leather on his clothes, and everything in between. He saw their tattered wings, taking flight, and he felt their gentle feet as they touched his skin.

His fall slowed.

The sun went black, then red.

Then somewhere in between.

He felt hands of ice crush him from the sky, and he stared around. He was standing, and the butterflies were swarming away. The city was the same as it always had been, broken and destroyed, but he no longer felt safe there, bathed as it was in bloody shades of red and black and everywhere in between.

He felt the voice in his throat, heard it in his ears, but could find no source of it. It was a quiet, whispered voice, and it drew him forwards, his legs again acting of their own accord.

"Silent," the voice breathed quietly. "Keep silent. Come here. Let me see you. Keep silent."

The boy would not have spoken in fear that he might miss what this voice had to say, the only voice he had heard in over a month. He stared around, watching himself walk from the base of the tower towards the little cave that Envisionment called home.

In a normal world, that was.

Instead of the cave, there stood the pedastol where he had disemboweled himself. And seated up there, surrounded by flourescent, screaming-orange-winged butterflies, was the shadow of a man, cloaked in shadows that lept from his body and danced around before evaporating into nothingness.

The cold enveloped the boy. It swallowed him up. He felt a tightness in his throat, a burning in his eyes.

For the first time, he felt fear. True fear. Not the distant fear of dragons down the territory defacing the tower.

No, this was the first, primal fear that all men, all boys, all girls, all women had ever felt. He was staring up towards the face of something, someone, anything, anyone who was often glossed over, glazed over, ignored, forgotten.

Because to know it, to face it, was too terrifying, too awesome, too frightening.

He stared instead at the thing's shoulder, at the whisps of shadow dancing and fleeing, at the brilliant, glowing wings of the butterflies.

"You," the thing whispered, and he heard it in his head more than he heard it in the air.

The air filled itself with high screaming, whispering, chattering, chittering sounds. He must have either lost his life or lost his mind. That was the only thing he knew.

"What is your name?" the thing asked.

The boy stared up at the thing, and unable to move or flee, only able to stare at him and speak, began to cry. He didn't know why he was where he was, what had happened, what he needed to do. Days, weeks, months he had been alone. Time and again he had killed himself and failed, and time and again he tried again, for something, anything, the thing which compelled him, which said 'this is how you will become a man' and now, now he failed for the last time, and he wasn't sure if it was a relief or greater weight that was being forced onto his shoulders in this icy grip that held him here, staring up at this unknown, forgotten, unwanted thing.

"Your name, boy, what is it," the thing demanded of him.

Between his tears, choking out, "I don't have one," he said quietly. He was sobbing, trying to cope by reducing himself into hysteria. He had so many questions, but one doesn't exactly ask things about a thing that seems to have one at its mercy.

"Are you frightened, boy?" it asked him, leaning down. The boy thought he saw stark white bone slip out for just an instant behind the shadow.

He answered with a shuddering gasp. Tyler won't take me, don't kill me, please, please don't kill me, Tyler won't take me. Please. Please, he begged in his head. He tried to shut his eyes, but they wouldn't stay closed. He blinked tears down his cheeks, stared up at the thing.

"I've been looking for you, you know," it told him.

"Wh-wh-why?" he breathed through trembling lips.

"Because I'd been calling for so long, and you weren't answering. So I went looking. That's why."

"Wh-wh-what?"

"It would have been easier if you had had a name, you know. Pick one."

The boy stared up at the thing. Why, why was it being nice?

It sat patiently, staring down at his shivering, huddling form.

"Pick one," it said again.

He stared at it, at the butterflies at its shoulders, at the wisps of shadow that swirled around it, at where its eyes should have been, but there were none.

He heard the high-pitched chittering, the rampant screams of some small creatures somewhere buzzing by his ears.

"I see," the thing said. "It's not for you to choose. Well then. I choose for you."

The boy stared up at it, not knowing, not having a clue what to expect.

"Names have power, boy. They give power of the bearer to another. And they can sometimes give the bearer power himself." It reached a long finger dripping shadows towards him. "Cordell," it said. "You shall tell no one I have not marked with my butterflies of your name. For without that name, none shall have power over you."

The boy shook his head. "No," he breathed. His breath came in sobs, but his tears had stopped, for now at least. "Please, no."

"The name does not please you?" the thing asked.

"Names as that are for gods and spirits. They are not for boys as I."

The thing laughed, a dry brittle sound that sent the butterflies around it fluttering their wings in mocking merriment.

"Once, Cordell, all boys as you had names as this. Jack and John and Tyler and Frederick."

"Then you have a name, too?" he asked, staring up at the thing hopefully.

"I have many names."

"Am I to serve you?"

"Would you rather serve Tyler or Madison or Engel or Vanger?"

The boy considered this for a long time. "I shall ..." he began before trying to sound more firm about it. "I shall serve you, if I know the name of the one whom I serve."

"My name will do you little good, Cordell," the thing told him. "For I have been many names many places. I have been Dis and Hades and Mors. I have been Osiris, Shinigami, Yama, Izanami, Mot, Thanatos, Mictlantecuhtli, Odin, and Hel. I had many other names, and none of them will mean even a tiny mote of significance to you. For I have been forgotten, long ago, before even Tyler came to lead your people to the light again. But enough is enough, Cordell. You shall serve me as my shaman in your world. And I shall be by your side as long as you hold faith in me."

The boy looked up, his tears gone. The thing, this old forgotten god, was not as frightening as it had been, suddenly. "I will," he said. "If you will tell me what you need of me."

Without a face, the boy still received the impression the deity was smiling down at him. "Daily, Cordell. Daily."

"May I ask you something?" the boy wanted to know.

"You may."

He swallowed hard. "Where are my people? Why was I alone?"

"You're dead," the god told him. It was a simple, matter-of-fact explanation. "You're dead, and I shall return the life to your body. However, you must speak no word of me to the people you meet, except those marked by my pets." He smiled. "And they shall know you, these marked, for you shall bear my pets with you, also."

The old god gave the impression of smiling again, and the butterflies swarmed the boy, each lighting upon him, each laying a wing or a foot upon him. His flesh burned where they touched him, seared and went livid red. When they departed, those whispering-winged creatures with their tattered and brilliant orange wings, no longer the sickly faded things he had seen time and again through his duties, he was marked along his arms and neck and face with traces, outlines, scars of their wings.

"Now, Cordell, you go."

The boy reached out a hand. "Wait."

The old god paused a moment. "What is it?"

"Why butterflies?" he wanted to know. "What about ravens and buzzards and beasts of carrion? Why butterflies?"

The old god smiled at him. "They understand the balance of life and death," he said warmly, reaching towards his swarm behind him, all of which promptly flew away. "And no one fears them as portents of their demise. Something I haven't done in a long time. I've used ravens and crows and vultures before. I've used jackals and snakes. I've used bats until everyone expects me when they show up. No one expects a butterfly."

The boy stared at the old god a long moment before nodding slowly.

"Time to go, Cordell. And remember. No one except those I mark will share our secrets."

The boy nodded, quietly, and the world swallowed him up in an envelope of black.