The panic fled after a moment of desperate slapping, leaving him staring thoughtfully at his new garb and the bandage wrapped tightly about his thigh.

‘So …’ He looked from his loincloth, then up to her. ‘Did I miss something fun?’

‘Well, the fun only started afteryou passed out from blood loss,’ she replied.

‘As usual,’ he grunted, looking about. ‘So, where aremy pants? Where’s …’ His eyes widened, scanning the sandy floor intently. ‘Where’s my sword? I had it! I had it right-’

‘It’s elsewhere,’ she replied, putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘Calm down. Your pants, what remained of them, were filthy and covered in piss.’

Lenk blinked, turned a leery eye on her.

‘ Whosepiss?’

‘Your piss.’ She cringed a little at his visible relief. ‘You may have been unconscious, but your other … parts were still working despite you. The smell became unbearable after the third time.’

‘I suppose that explains this.’ He fingered his loincloth. ‘But why did you dress yourself that way, too? And not that I don’t appreciate your enthusiasm for cleanliness, but couldn’t you have just cleaned my pants?’

‘You think Idid this?’ She slapped her torso. ‘Listen, you demented little shaven mole, if I wanted to see so much scrawny flesh I could have just plucked a chicken.’ She sighed and leaned back on her hands. ‘I passed out on my way here and woke up like this. They’re not too big on modesty here.’

Lenk raised an eyebrow.

‘They?’

‘They.’ She gestured over his head with her chin. ‘Specifically, him.’

And it was at thatpoint, as he turned his head to his other side, that she realised how high humans could jump. She grinned, studying him even as he studied the creature squatting beside him, reliving the moments she had experienced when she had awakened under their tremendous yellow gazes.

Bulbous eyes, larger than overripe grapefruits and apparently desperate to escape the green, short-snouted skull they were ensconced in, were undoubtedly the first thing he noticed. From there, he would see the creature’s squat and scaly body, the apparent horrific crossbreed of a gecko and an ale keg, with four stubby appendages ending in three pudgy digits.

He would then find the most unsettling fact that it wore clothes. The creature absently scratched its furry loincloth and adjusted the round black hat, too small for its large head. One eye remained locked on Lenk while its other independently swivelled up over a pair of smoked-glass spectacles to look at Kataria.

‘’S’the matter with him?’ the creature asked in a voice bass enough to make Lenk jump again.

‘Fever,’ Kataria replied. ‘He’s just a little strange right now.’

‘ I’ma little strange?’ Lenk replied, voice hoarse with surprise.

‘Oh, hey, ’s’not polite, cousin,’ the creature said, shaking its massive head. ‘King Togu always want politeness in Teji, y’know.’

‘King … what?’ Lenk asked, grimacing at the creature. He held up a hand. ‘Wait, wait …’ He turned back to Kataria. ‘First of all, what the hell isit?’

‘ Heis not an it,’ the shict shot back with a glare. ‘ Heis an Owauku and hisname is Bagagame.’

‘That’s an Owauku?’ Lenk looked back at the creature. ‘And his name … is …’

‘Bagagameogouppukudunatagana-oh-sho-shindo,’ the creature said, a long and yellow grin splitting his face apart as he tipped his hat. ‘M’the herald o’ King Togu, welcomin’ you to Teji.’

‘So … Bagagame.’

‘Sure, cousin.’ His head sank considerably, smile disappearing behind dark green lips. ‘Go ahead and call me that. Not like I got a name that means anything special as my father might have given me to boil down my entire lineage into a single word. No. Bagagame ’s’fine.’

‘Oh, ah …’ Lenk rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Listen, I never really expected a lizard to have ancestry that I couldinsult, so …’

‘Yeah,’ Bagagame grunted. ‘M’just so damn pleased you’re up and awake and not babbling anymore in your sleep.’

‘I was babbling?’ Lenk’s curiosity swiftly became shock, and he turned to Kataria. ‘You let him watchme sleep?’

‘Well, he wasn’t really interested until you pissed yourself,’ she replied, shrugging.

‘ Why did you let him do that?’

‘I couldn’t very well say no; it’s his house. He volunteered before any of the others could.’

He swept his eyes about the reed hut, the thatched roof, and mats of woven fronds on the floor. ‘There are more? They have houses? What do lizards need houses for?’

‘Oh, fantastic,’ she sighed. She rolled her eyes in the direction of Bagagame. ‘He’s doing it again.’

‘W’sat?’ the Owauku asked, tilting his head.

‘He does this sometimes, starts repeating everything in the form of a question.’ She tapped her temple. ‘He wasn’t too right to begin with and the fever hasn’t helped. You’d better go get ah-he man-eh-wa.’

‘I kuu you, cousin,’ Bagagame said, bobbing his head and rising up. ‘M’had a fellow once, acted like way, kuuin’ things that weren’t there. W’beat him over the head a bit.’ He turned a bulging, thoughtful stare to Lenk. ‘Y’sure that wouldn’t just be easier?’

Lenk blinked.

‘Yes. Yes, I’m sure.’

‘Do things the hard way, huh? Yeah, I’ll grab ah-he man-eh-wa.’ He hopped to the leather flap serving as a door. ‘Togu’s gonna be wantin’ to talk with you after.’

Kataria watched the flap open and saw the various green shapes moving about in the bright sunlight beyond, the errant burble of their alien languages drifting into the hut. They were silenced as Bagagame slid out and she turned back to Lenk, eager to see another layer of horrified shock on his face.

What she saw instead was him lying supine on the sand, his arm draped over his eyes. She studied his wiry body, the slight twitch of his muscles as he drew in deep breaths and exhaled them as stale, weary air. His body had become tense, trembling with every sigh he made.

For as much as he seemed to enjoy being grim and silent, Lenk was not the most difficult human to read, she thought. Even if he never spoke his feelings, his body told her enough. He seemed to compress as he lay upon the sand, some great weight pressing him down upon the earth.

She opened her mouth to speak when her thoughts leapt unbidden to the fore of her mind.

Don’t, she told herself. Don’t ask him what’s wrong. You know what he’ll say. He’s thinking about what you said on the boat before the Akaneeds attacked. He’ll ask you why you said them, why you said you had to kill him to feel like a shict again. Then he’ll ask you why you’re still here, having said all that, why you didn’t kill him. Don’t ask him. Don’t tell him. He’s just now recovering; he can’t handle the answer.

Yeah. She sighed inwardly, rubbing her eyes. He’s the one that can’t handle it.

‘How long?’

‘What?’ She looked up with a start. ‘How long what?’

‘Have I been out?’

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘About two days.’

‘Two days,’ he muttered. ‘I’ve been out for two days and on the island for two days. Four days total, three days past the time we were supposed to meet Sebast so he could take us back.’ He cracked a smile. ‘I’m assuming we lost the tome, too?’

‘It hasn’t been found, no,’ Kataria said, shaking her head. ‘The lizardmen have been fishing things out of the ocean for a while now, but no book.’

‘Well,’ he sighed, folding his arms behind his head. ‘I suppose it doesn’t really matter if we don’t get picked up, then, does it?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she offered. ‘The Owauku haven’t said anything about a ship arriving in the past few days. Sebast might just be late.’ She shrugged helplessly. ‘I suppose that isn’t much comfort, though.’

It would certainly be lesscomfort, she reasoned, to tell him that Sebast might not be coming because his search party was currently being digested and excreted by roaches. She held her tongue at that, knowing that the loss of the tome would likely be too much for him to bear.