Prologue

The Underman didn't get his name by digging. At the beginning of his career, he never even touched a shovel. Oh, how the tables have turned. Now here he was, surrounded by fog and damp earth and death. The only things that he was sure were alive were the shadows. Even his own self seemed like it could splinter into nothing but a pile of bones.

The earth heaved, and with it, a child came. A massive birth, impressive in the way large animals were: commanding, fearsome. He'd come across an elephant before, bloodied, it's own tusks stolen off its face. He had looked at it, and not looked away, but he hadn't done anything for it, hadn't touched it. Now was the same. The child lay, cold and pale. But he couldn't touch it.

. . .

Still, the moon had seen death. Now, approaching the horizon, the other side, the moon saw everything. The glint of bones, the soft, regretful sobbing. There was no death. Death was an instant. A sudden moment where one changes into something entirely new. The moon was seeing the process now, the withering, the shaking, the mourning. The moon saw, for many moments, everything fall limp. But no one had died.