The Defiler by Steven Savile

accusation: you could have saved me.
    But he knew he couldn't - that was his guilt talking - and it all came back, the world, the city, the track and the raging stampede of the teams driven by men he knew, men he had left behind in Murias. Men his drunken sot of a father had called friends.
    It wasn't real. None of it was real.
    Macha went down beneath the wheels and hooves but before they could trample her to death she faded into nothing, her spirit released as Sláine came to terms with his own failure. "I couldn't save you then and I can't save you now," he breathed. A lone tear rolled down his cheek. He felt so utterly alone. Bereft. Losing her once had been hard. Losing her twice was devastating; a loss no son should have to bear.
    Sláine turned his back on the ghosts of the coliseum track and walked away.
    "We find this skinless one and get out of here."
    Beside him, Ukko nodded.
    There were no jokes or admonishments this time.

THREE
     
    Understanding came to Sláine.
    The city was a reflection of its people.
    At the base it was corrupt, like the flesh and blood of the mortal being, craving and obsessive. Vice dominated the claustrophobic lower streets. The sins of need and desire subjugated anything more spiritual. There was no Earth Power because there was no connection to the land. The creatures that lived on these lower tiers were parasites, bloating themselves on the carcass of civilisation. Sláine and Ukko scoured the streets but found no sign of the Skinless Man. None of the denizens of Purgadair deigned to talk with them. The animals turned up their beaks and snouts and made as though they were nothing more than a bad smell to be ignored. But through each tier rising towards the highest level of the city matters of the flesh dwindled until, on the top tiers they encountered no one, the streets dedicated to dreams and souls and men no longer living.
    "This place," said Ukko, "is downright creepy. It's like a ghost town."
    "That is exactly what it is," Sláine agreed, pushing open a door and stepping into an abandoned house. The room was dark, the table still set for a dinner that was never eaten. The food had rotted on the plate.
    Ukko shivered as he crossed the threshold. The house reeked of abandonment.
    "It's like they went out and never came home."
    Giving voice to their fears didn't make them any less pressing. Sláine moved through the room, looking for significations for its recent desertion. Wooden shades had been shuttered to keep out the worst of the endless day's heat.
    Sláine backed out of the room.
    The house next door was much the same, though the shutters were open and instead of food on the table there was a single overturned tankard and a dark circle stained into the wood. The next two houses were derelict, empty but for an uncomfortable sulphuric aroma.
    "Perhaps they went down below and became those abominations." He stopped talking as he pushed open the door of the next hovel. The table was set, as with the first house, but the centrepiece was a young man, trussed up, naked, flayed and partially carved. The soft meat of his belly glistened redly on the huge platter. The corpse was surrounded by succulent roots slathered in butter. Unlike all the other food they had found, this feast was fresh.
    Ukko pushed in past him. "Is that? No, don't tell me. I don't want to know. I mean... urgh. Cannibals?"
    "Is it cannibalism when there's no trace of humanity in these predators? By the looks of things we're nothing more than cattle to them, to be bred, slaughtered, gutted and carved up."
    "Can't say I really care about definitions right now. Maybe it's because when mummy dearest gets home she'll take one look at me and think: ooh, din dins." Ukko turned away from the feast, his face suddenly a bilious shade of green. "You don't think that is what the witch meant by Skinless Man do you? Find the dead guy on the plate, he's the key? He was flayed before they laid him out to eat... flayed... no