Isaac gently took Sacramundi’s report from Yagharek’s hands and returned it to the shelves. He opened a desk drawer and brought out his tentative blueprint.

He placed it in front of Yagharek, then hesitated and drew away slightly.

“Yag, old son,” he said. “I really have to know . . . is that behind us, now? Are you . . . satisfied? Convinced? If you’re going to fuck about with Torque, for Jabber’s sake tell me now and I’ll bid you goodbye . . . and my condolences.”

He studied Yagharek’s face with troubled eyes.

“I have heard what you say, Grimnebulin,” said the garuda, after a pause. “I . . . respect you.” Isaac smiled humourlessly. “I accept what you say.”

Isaac began to grin, and would have responded, except that Yagharek was looking out of the window with a melancholy stillness. His mouth was open for a long time before he spoke.

“We know of the Torque, we garuda.” He paused lengthily between sentences. “It has visited the Cymek. We call it rebekhlajhnar-h’k.” The word was spat out with a harsh cadence like angry birdsong. Yagharek looked Isaac in the eye. “Rebekh-sackmai is Death: ‘the force that ends.’ Rebekh-kavt is Birth: ‘the force that begins.’ They were the First Twins, born to the worldwomb after union with her own dream. But there was a . . . a sickness . . . a tumour—” he paused to savour the correct word as it occurred to him “—in the earthbelly with them. Rebekh-lajhnar-h’k tore its way out of the worldwomb just behind them, or perhaps at the same time, or perhaps just before. It is the . . .” He thought hard for a translation. “The cancer-sibling. Its name means: ‘the force that cannot be trusted.’ “

Yagharek did not tell the folk story in any incantatory, shamanic tones, but in the deadpan of a xenthropologist. He opened his beak wide, closed it abruptly, then opened it again.

“I am an outcast, a renegade,” Yagharek continued. “It is . . . no surprise . . . if I turn my back on my traditions, perhaps . . . But I must learn when to turn to face them again. Lajhni is ‘to trust,’ and ‘to bind firm.’ The Torque cannot be trusted, and nor can it be bound. It is uncontainable. I have known that since I first knew the stories. But in my . . . I . . . I am eager, Grimnebulin. Perhaps I turn too quickly to things from which I would once have recoiled. It is . . . hard . . . being between worlds . . . being of no world. But you have made me remember what I have always known. As if you were an elder of my band.” There was one last, long pause. “Thank you.”

Isaac nodded slowly.

“Not at all . . . I’m . . . mighty relieved to hear all that, Yag. More than I can say. Let’s . . . say no more about it.” He cleared his throat and prodded the diagram. “I’ve some fascinating stuff to show you, old son.”