She perplexed me. Intrigued me. And then, she was gone.

Green-and-purple grasses reached several feet above our heads with thick stalks I couldn’t wrap a hand around. Water had pooled in long, narrow troughs cut on both sides of the road and continued down parallel lines that stretched into the distance row after row after row. The road was set with irregular slats of gray-black slate amid tufts of herbs growing from the mud. Above, clouds formed a patchwork of white with gray spots. The hot, sticky air surrounded us, and all of our clothes were soaked through with sweat. The perfect, mildly sweet taste of fresh coconut lingered on my tongue, and my mind puzzled over that expression on her face.

Davod, Geraln, Ales, Faren, Rock, Kelint, and Northstar all stopped where the tall grass had ended and gaped.

A thousand yards of open field with uneven tufts of green grass gave way to a massive wall of stone mortared together in a patchwork of gray and yellow with rows of square crenelations at the top and towers every so often. This was surrounded by an expanse of black water that emerged from a river beyond on one side only to rejoin on the other. The whole place had to be at least a mile wide with walls wrapping around beyond view on both sides. On the left, behind the outer wall was a cluster of tall stone towers that reached even further into the sky with more crenelations encircling the top and set with narrow slits running down the sides and out of view. To the right, the purple rock wall of the Terbulin ridge faded into the mist. To the left, thick trees covered rolling hills that rose into the distance while a streak of dark gray clouds reached down from the sky and brushed its fingers upon the forest.

Carthia.

The rough, gray-black slate road cut through the clearing and led directly to the gate, a massive archway in the stone wall bridged by a wooden span that unfolded itself across the moat. All about the field on both sides, herds of goats and pigs grazed, tended by women with exceedingly dark-green skin and hair white as snow who wore naught but a simple cloth about their hips, leaving their bare chest and back exposed to the elements. Several of them turned and glanced our way as we emerged from the bush.

Up on the ramparts, men paced with bows in hand and arrows nocked.

I turned to look behind me. There was no sight of her. I lamented not having the words to wish her a safe journey. Father in heaven, keep her safe? For me?

From the archway ahead emerged a train of people—men who looked Herali, olive-green skin and long, straight, dark-green hair wearing chain armor over padded leather accompanied women with dark-green skin and white hair, mostly naked as the others. Three small bison pulled empty wooden carts. Women walked alongside the beasts with sticks in hand while the men walked the perimeter, keeping their eyes outward. Together they made their way across the field towards the tall grasses with a brief nod to us as they passed. I looked closely, and while one of the men kept his eyes to the bush with his hands on his weapon, one of the women came up and stroked his bum. He leaned down and kissed her lips, and they kept walking.

As we approached the bridge, I saw something long and bulky lying across the stone slats with a thick tail that reached onto the wooden bridge. Its heavy, armored, gray-black barrel of a body rose up about knee-height with four clawed tree-trunk hands out at its sides, but had to be at least six yards from the front of its snout to the end of its heavy tail. Two eyelets sat atop its head, and several fangs stuck out from its long mouth.

Rock’s eyes bulged when he realized it was alive. “Holy fuck what that is being?”

Faren smirked and answered him in Goloagi. “That’s a sign. It reads… ‘No Swimming.’”

We stopped a good ten yards from the gargantuan alligator, and a man’s voice called out from above the gate. “You’ll have to pay the toll!”

Up on the rampart two men, Herali, stood gawking at us and sending words in our direction while laughing among themselves. The other man spoke through muted laughter. “Yeah! You’ll have to feed him one of you!”

At that, another man came out from under the archway and looked up at our tormentors. As soon as they saw him, they looked away and wandered off.

This man was average height with a sharp jaw and lean build. His skin was dark, not so dark as the others, but darker than ours. His hair had a sandy-green color like the Saeni, but his eyes were bright yellow. His sharp features and widow’s peak hairline placed him into his thirties, with wide, full lips and high cheeks. A bright-yellow loincloth set with silver embroidery along the edges hung front and back from a leather strap about his waist, but other than that he was naked. He wasn't bulky, but finely chiseled muscles graced his knees, his stomach, his chest, shoulders, and arms. He had a handful of circular scars on one thigh and a line of scar on his opposite shoulder.

“Come around this way,” he spoke Herali with a hint of accent, gesturing for us to go around the No Swimming sign.

Davod refused to take his eyes off the monster. His voice oozed apprehension. “Are you sure?”

The man smiled. “Well, his teeth are on that end. Isn’t that right, Peti?” He pursed his lips as he spoke that last part, cooing out some weird affectation for the beast, who didn’t react to him at all even as he crouched low to slap the alligator’s tail. He then smiled at us and moved his arms in an ark.

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We took his suggestion and walked around, and Peti didn’t react to us, either.

Ales remarked, “he must like those stones. He’s just basking.”

Rock, Northstar, Davod, Geraln, and Kelint couldn’t stop gawking at the beast. They gingerly stepped around him, onto the wooden planks before rushing to get clear.

Through the archway I heard men grunting and sticks clattering against one another. I looked off to the right, and through a passage between a large stone building and the recessed gate there was an open field where lines of men, Herali like us, attacked one another with long staffs tipped with padded cloth at one end. A series of pops sounded off, and in another section of the clearing was another group of men lined up with bows who shot at an opposing line of burlap men raised on sticks some twenty yards away. At the end of the yard, mortared gray and yellow stones of the outer walls rose up from tall grass.

The man led us directly ahead, towards an imposing structure of the same yellow-and-gray stone as the outer walls, three stories high with wrap-around balconies on the second and third floors covering a verandah on the ground level. Walls weren’t more than a line of open archways, some of which had sheer curtains to obscure the interior. Looking down upon us from the second floor were three people, a man and two girls.

The man was Goloagi and taller than the girls by a head. Lines of silver dotted his otherwise dark-green, curly hair. He had a long nose with a rounded bridge, and his square chin seemed fixed in consternation. He wore no shirt, but a long, black rectangle of a loincloth set with gold embroidery, and about his shoulders was an ornate silk scarf with bands of colors behind black lettering sewn in to indicate his rank, the Imperial Voice.

To his left stood a girl with skin the same color as the man who’d greeted us at the gate—dark, but not so dark as the others. She was likely our age with yellow eyes and hair with streaks of white amid dark green set in braids that incidentally covered her bare breasts and dangled down to her waist. The only clothes she had on were a white silk loincloth with a golden flower print that hung down to her knees, and leather sandals that webbed over her feet and up beyond her ankles.

The other girl was one of the natives. Noticeably shorter than the other, her skin was the same green shade of black as Miyani’s, and her eyes were the same bright yellow, too. Her ivory-white hair was a little longer, falling just over her shoulders. She’d dressed in a white cotton sleeveless robe of a dress that left a plunging V-line at the center of her body and had a hem that scarcely covered her marvelous toned thighs.

I turned around to look behind us on an off chance that Miyani had decided to come through the gate behind us at that moment. She wasn’t there.

Then I heard a screech, followed by a rapid thumping across rustling leaves.

To the left, an open expanse cordoned off by a line of pillars with no fence between them held groves of coconut trees, large shady trees, and a few small sheds. From this area, a blur of a thing zoomed towards us kicking up clods of mud behind it. It was one of those lizards like the one Miyani rode, only small, scarcely knee high with bright green scales, flitting about on two gangly legs. It raced up to Davod, bobbing its head about rapidly and chirped, sniffing all up and down his leg before bounding over to Faren. Faren could scarcely greet the creature before, moving its snout around frantically and sniffing everything it could reach, it darted over to Northstar to sniff at him.

“Don’t try to pet her,” the man grinned, “just stand perfectly still.”

I looked up, and the girl with the dress had leaned over to rest her arms on a handrail. She watched the small creature as it flitted about among us with a wide smile across her strikingly beautiful face. She turned to look off to her right.

I looked, and another lizard stepped towards us, only much bigger. This one stood as tall as Blue, probably taller, and was light brown in color with a dark-brown diamond pattern on its back. It let out another screech as it came close to us but then stopped about ten feet from where we stood.

The little one bounded over to Geraln, sniffed his feet, then his knees, then jumped up at him several times and chirped in rapid succession. Geraln looked down, furrowed his brow, then looked up at me as if to beg for some kind of help before turning around to look at our host.

The man laughed. “She likes you!”

The big lizard took two more steps towards us and screeched again, holding its body still while snaking its long neck so as to turn its head towards the little one. A flap of skin under its neck wiggled as it let out a string of clicks.

I stepped back and glanced up at our three onlookers, who’d kept their attention on this event as it unfolded.

The little one flitted about as though the big one wasn’t there growling and chirping to get its attention. It darted over to Kelint and sniffed his feet. Kelint tried to back away, but the creature followed him, craning her tiny neck up to sniff his knees before frolicking over to Ales.

The large one stepped forward to stand between me and the rest of our group, then let out a sharp caw followed by more clicks.

The little one turned to face it, then opened its tiny jaws wide and hissed before turning away and rushing over to Rock to sniff up and down his leg. Rock lifted his meaty hands and tried to watch as she ran in circles around his feet.

I looked around. The man who’d greeted us at the gate stood with his arms folded and smiling wide. Davod’s eyes bulged and he glanced at me, then back to the large lizard, while Geraln kept watching the little one. Ales stood like a statue with a look of great confusion on his face while Faren looked back and forth between the two lizards. Northstar kept glancing up at the three on the balcony, Kelint was trembling, and Rock had his attention ensnared by the tiny creature at his feet.

The big one then got down on all fours and let out a loud screech, then started to rush towards the little one.

The tiny creature then ran straight over to our host and jumped up into his waiting arms. He caught her and lifted her up, laughing while the little thing nestled its tiny head in the crook of his neck. The larger one then stood on its hind legs and pulled its head back while the man brought the little one over to it. Finally he set her back down, and she spirited off into the wide expanse of fruit trees while the bigger one followed.

Ales looked at Faren. Rock looked at Northstar, and Davod looked at me while a wave of tension passed through us. None of us were prepared for what we’d walked into.