by Sam Sykes
‘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 I did 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 that point, 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’m a 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 is it?’
‘He is not an it,’ the shict shot back with a glare. ‘He is an Owauku and his name 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 could insult, 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 watch me 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 less comfort, 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.
It didn’t appear to be, for his smile didn’t diminish. Even when his lips quivered, it only grew a little larger. His eyes didn’t grow any colder, their blue suddenly seeming less like frigid sheets of ice and more like the sea, endless and peaceful.
And even as she stared back at him, he didn’t turn them away from her.
That, she knew, was unusual. He had stared at her many times before through many different eyes. She had felt his curiosity, his anger, his yearning all hammered upon her back through his stare. And always, he had turned away like a sheep before a wolf when she turned to meet his stare.
Now, it was she who felt the urge to turn away. It was she who felt her smile as sheepish upon her face. To see him so … pleasant, without his sword and without bloo
d spattering his face, was so unusual she couldn’t help but feel as though it were somehow wrong, as though he were naked without violence and anger.
As if you needed any more reason to run.
‘We’re trapped here, you know,’ she said, ‘for the foreseeable future, at least. We have no weapons, no tome, no clothes. We’re stuck amidst a bunch of walking reptiles and you just barely survived an arrow through your leg.’ She sneered, leaning back onto her hands. ‘So, just in case you’d forgotten, there really isn’t anything to smile about.’
‘I suppose not,’ he replied, ‘but things are a lot better than they were two days ago.’
‘Things will get worse.’
‘They always do,’ he agreed, nodding. ‘But for now …’
For now, she told herself, you should be dead. It should have been me to kill you. For now, I’m sitting here feeling like a helpless idiot because I’m the one turning away from your stare. For now, I let you … touch me like that. My father thinks a human touch can infect a shict, and you touched me that way. You touched my ears! For now, I should kill you, I should run, I should kill myself so I don’t have to think about you and your horrible diseased race and your round ears.
As the thoughts ran through her head, only two words made it to her lips.
‘For now?’ she asked.
‘For now,’ he said, smiling. ‘We’re alive.’
‘Yeah,’ she sighed, returning her smile. ‘All of us.’
He blinked, his face screwing up in confusion.
‘Did you say all of us?’
‘She did,’ came a familiar voice from the leather flap.
A smile crossed both their faces at the sight of a head full of thick brown locks over a hazel stare peering through the doorframe. The smile beneath it was slight, but warm, genuine and comfortably familiar.
‘All of us,’ Kataria repeated, gesturing to the door. ‘Including ah-he man-eh-wa here.’
‘I see,’ Lenk said, smiling.
‘You can still call me Asper,’ the priestess replied. ‘The Owauku are fond of long names, apparently.’
‘I noticed.’ A long moment of silence passed awkwardly before Lenk finally coughed. ‘So, uh, are you going to come in?’
‘Yeah … sure, just …’ The priestess fidgeted behind the door. ‘Just don’t rush me.’
‘Ah, yes,’ Kataria said, smirking. ‘Ah-he man-eh-wa apparently means “shy when near-nude.”’
‘You’re near-nude, too,’ Asper spat through the door and tilted up her nose. ‘And those of us without the physique of an adolescent boy have something to be considered worth concealing.’
‘Is that right?’ Kataria snarled. ‘Maybe you can pray some clothes up, then? Like you prayed us to have a safe journey?’
‘Physique and wits to match,’ Asper growled at her. ‘It’s those prayers, and the faith that accompanies them, that are keeping me from bashing you in the head.’
‘With what? Those colossal haunches of yours?’ Kataria bared her canines at the priestess. ‘I’d like to see you try.’
‘So …’ Lenk shifted his stare between the two of them. ‘Did I miss something really fun, then?’
‘It’s nothing.’ Asper’s bashfulness apparently disappeared as she stormed into the hut, a bulging waterskin pressed against her torso. She thrust it into Lenk’s hands as she knelt beside him. ‘I need to check your injury. Drink.’
He did so, greedily, as Asper ran practised hands over his bandaged thigh, applying pressure to certain locations.
‘You tore your stitches open when the Akaneeds attacked,’ she said, not looking up. ‘It wasn’t easy to close you up again. Not to mention clear out the infected skin and salve and stitch up the arrow wound you so charitably left me to work with.’
‘I suppose I should be grateful you didn’t just put me out of my misery, then,’ he replied between gulps.
She hesitated suddenly, spine stiffening. Absently, she rubbed an itch on her arm and returned to work.
‘Yeah,’ she muttered, ‘I guess so.’ She pressed on part of his leg. ‘Did you feel that?’
‘A little,’ he replied, ‘but it didn’t hurt.’
‘Good, good,’ she said, nodding. ‘It wasn’t too bad an infection, thankfully. The Owauku had the medicine and the Gonwa knew how to use it.’
‘Gonwa?’ Lenk arched a brow.
‘The other lizards here,’ Kataria replied. ‘Taller, skinnier … and apparently good with medicine.’
‘Not that their help was all that necessary,’ Asper interjected. ‘Most of the work I did on your wound before held over, so you shouldn’t have been in too much pain.’
At that, Lenk sputtered on his water.
‘Wait, what?’ he asked, gasping for breath. ‘It hurt like hell.’
‘Well, yeah, but not too much, right? You could still walk. Your fever was only mild.’
‘Mild? It felt like my brains were boiling! I was hallucinating! I saw …’
Kataria’s own eyes widened as he turned a cringing, moon-eyed stare at her. She met his gaze for a moment, the sudden quiver in his eyes allowing her to scrutinise him carefully. He turned away.
‘I saw things,’ he muttered.
‘With this infection? I doubt it,’ Asper replied. ‘It was probably just exhaustion.’
‘But I-’
‘You didn’t,’ she said, curtly.
‘He says he did,’ Kataria interjected.
‘Well,’ Asper said, turning a heated glare upon the shict, ‘how nice of you to be concerned for a lowly human.’
At that, Kataria felt her anger quelled only by the shame that blossomed within her like an agonising rose. She’s right, she told herself. I shouldn’t be concerned. She rode that thought to the sandy earth, turning her gaze away.
‘Just eat something,’ Asper said, rising up. ‘You’ll be fine. I’ll check on you later.’ She stalked to the door, heedless of Lenk’s befuddlement of Kataria’s scowl. And yet, she hesitated at the frame, standing in the door flap. ‘Lenk … you know I wouldn’t ever put you out of your misery, right?’
‘Sure, I know.’
‘Good,’ she said. She cast a smile over her shoulder, small and timid. ‘I’m glad you’re all right.’
And then, she swept out of the hut, leaving Lenk blinking and Kataria flattened-eared and hissing at the space left behind.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what was that?’
‘She’s been agitated ever since she started working on you,’ the shict replied, never taking her glower off the door. ‘She started screaming one night, telling everyone to get out … went mad for a while, I don’t know. Denaos certainly hasn’t been a help in calming her down.’
‘Denaos? He’s alive?’
‘And here, as well as Dreadaeleon.’
‘And Gariath?’
She blinked, opened her mouth to reply, then shook her head.
‘Not yet,’ she muttered before quickly adding, ‘if at all.’
‘If at all,’ he echoed, and the weight seemed to return to him.
‘Don’t think about it,’ she said, smiling and placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’d be rather anticlimactic if you worried yourself back into a coma. What say we find you something to eat?’
‘That’d be nice,’ he said, rubbing his belly. ‘I haven’t had anything but tubers and roots.’
‘Ha!’ She clapped her hands. ‘You remembered how to forage just like I taught you! And they said humans couldn’t be trained!’ Laughing, she rose up from the sandy floor. ‘I’ll go hunt something down for you.’
‘I appreciate it,’ he replied.
‘You won’t once you find out what they eat out here.’
She walked to the door, feeling no eyes upon her back and taking great relief in that. She could hear his breath coming in short, steady bursts. His heartbeat no longer plagued her ears. She smiled as she pulled back the leather flap.
Just a passing fascination, she told herself. He was just
thrilled to be alive and awake. All his attentions were focused on you because you happened to be there … watching over him. No! She had to resist thumping her temple. No, no. Don’t start. He was … was just like a pup. Yeah. He’s momentarily happy. Once he gets some food, he’ll forget about everything else, about how you were there … about how he touched your ears …
She reached up and tugged on her earlobe. The sensation of his finger, the scent of his sweat mingling with hers, still lingered.
He’ll forget all about it, she told herself, and then so can you.
‘Kat?’
Don’t turn around. Don’t look. Don’t even acknowledge him.
‘Yeah?’ she asked.
‘I’m happy you’re alive.’
‘Yeah,’ she said.
She emerged into the daylight, waited for the leather flap to fall so that she could no longer hear him breathing. Then, she let her heavy chin fall to her chest and let her breath escape in a long, tired sigh.
‘Damn,’ she whispered, stalking off across the sands, ‘damn, damn, damn …’
Sixteen
THE SIN OF MEMORY
He found he could not remember his name.
Other memories returned to him, vivid as the city that loomed in the distance.
Port Yonder. He remembered its name, at least.
He had lived there once. He’d had a house on the land, back when dry earth did not burn his feet. It had been made of stone that had seemed strong at the time and bore the weight of a family once. He had known the witless, bovine satisfaction of staring up at a temple and praying to a goddess that priests said would protect him. He recalled living through each night, when such knowledge was all he needed.
He had known what it meant to be human once.
But that was long ago. That was a time before he knew the weight of humanity could not be set on flimsy, shifting land. That was a time before he knew that stone, trees and air all gave way before relentless tides. That was a time before his goddess had found his devotion and offerings not enough and had spitefully taken his family to compensate. His name, too, was from that time.
