‘Oh, bless me, Hanako,’ Lasa sighed, ‘do reach out a pawing hand at the very least? Here, I yield you these lobes, my oft-plucked fruit, so well handled and tender, whose very nipples cry out with the memory of tweaks and twists. They have the taste of honey, I’m told, and the scent of flowers.’

‘I’ve seen you dab them every morning,’ Hanako said.

‘A secret revealed! And yet you still speak of marriage? Hanako, this journey of ours is almost as bad, with all the shattered privacy of making toilet and other things. Imagine this intimacy, young sir, with no end in sight! Shall I pluck importunate hairs from alarming locales upon your person, while you squeeze blackheads upon mine? Shall we take turns wiping the drool from our chins with every dawn, for years on end? Tell me, what other details of marriage can I offer you, to disavow all your notions of romantic bliss?’

‘Please, Lasa. My thoughts are for Erelan Kreed. He does not improve. There was madness in that dragon’s blood.’

‘It’s said that there are celibate monks among the south-dwellers. Pray rush to their cold company, Hanako.’

‘Lasa Rook, I beg you, we must discuss what to do with our friend here!’

‘We bring him down to the Jaghut, of course. And whatever Azathanai might be lounging about. They can examine our blathering warrior here, and decide if he is fit to live or die. This matter, you must see, Hanako, lies beyond us. Now, where was I? Ah, these protrudinous fruit, so swollen and inviting—’

With a low growl, Hanako rose to his feet. He stepped away from the fire, moving past Lasa, and made his way down to the pebbled shoreline.

The stars were strewn upon the still surface of the lake. Cool air rose from the water, lifting to Hanako the faintly pungent smell of decay where detritus made a cluttered rim of the shoreline. He walked along that verge, his steps slow. Rock and water… the world had a way of making borderlands the repository of the discarded, as if in the collision of smaller worlds things did not merge, only break.

The Thel Akai, such lovers of tales from distant lands, were nonetheless a people content with their own isolation. There were things to protect, after all, and pre-eminent among them a host of precious but flimsy beliefs. There was little defence, however, against the invasion of ideas, beyond whatever strength was offered by collective prejudices. And even among an isolated people such as the Thel Akai, factions arose, jostling for dominance, always eager to impose distinctions.

The only weapon of any worth against such idiocy was laughter, and it cut sharper and deeper than any blade.

A war upon death. That was worth a bold guffaw. Now watch us laugh all the way to the feet of the Lord of Rock-Piles himself. Some ideas will turn the blade, wounding the wielder with unexpected suddenness.