They turned a corner, Saqqara a step ahead of Fetch, and the figure was there. 

It stood in the center of the cavern as if it had been waiting for them, its face downturned beneath its hood, the inferno crackling upward around it, casting ugly shadow across the dark walls of the Earthen Furnace around them.  The Nameless Thing was there, was gone, was there again, moving in snapshot seconds. 

“Ah,” Fetch sighed.  “Back again.” 

It was the first she had spoken since they had left the Overgrown Caverns — leading and shadowing Saqqara by turns, drifting like a ghost around the turns.  Saqqara had not minded then; it had not been unlike traveling with Kerameikos.  But she minded now. 

“I beg your pardon,” she said. 

“Back again…” 

Fetch drifted onward, delicate and light-footed, stepping neatly around the figure.  Its head turned to follow, but it did not move towards her. 

Saqqara’s long tail flicked.  Her nostrils flared.  The air stung of ash, of soot, of burning flesh.  The Nameless Thing slunk to her heels, a shadow of her shadow, pooling dark beneath her hooves.  She stepped forward in Fetch’s wake. 

This close, she could see the heat distort around the figure’s cloak, could see the flesh melting away on its clawed hands, the drip of fat and viscera.  She wondered if it ever depleted — if it could be consumed in its entirety — or if the cycle only ever began anew.  Eternal flame. 

“Does it hurt?” she said. 

The figure’s hood turned slowly towards her.  It turned its palms up, open, cupped together, and said nothing. 

“I have nothing to ease the fire.”

Still nothing. 

“It will be back again,” Fetch said from the far side of the corridor.  When Saqqara looked up at her, she blinked placidly.  There was firelight in her eyes — a redshift shine.  “It always is.”

“Might I give it anything?”  Saqqara’s nose wrinkled.  Her whiskers twitched.  The smell sank in — cooked meat, blistered fur.  She wondered if it would follow her, cling to her, after she returned to Kerameikos.  “Water?” 

Fetch shrugged opaquely.  “Water?”

“It’s distressing to look at.” 

“Distressing…?”  Fetch looked from Saqqara to the figure, and then back again.  “Even so.  It will be back again.” 

Exasperated, Saqqara broke eye contact with the figure.  She parted from it to follow Fetch, who turned to continue down the corridor; at the threshold, Saqqara paused to glance back, and realized belatedly that the Nameless Thing had parted from her in crossing the cavern. 

It was still at the figure.  It drew itself up at the figure’s feet, cast in distorted shapes by the flicker of flame.  It lowered the shape of its muzzle, a hazy discoloration in the air, a thing that did not occupy space, did not feel the fire, and touched its nose among the flame to the figure’s hands. 

It felt as though she watched something private. 

“Thing,” Saqqara said, turning away.  “Catch up when you are done.” 

She quickened her pace to Fetch. 

It was a long time before the Nameless Thing reappeared again.