We spend several days in Tarantos, meeting with the followers of Lord Riyel who went underground when Ashera and her followers asserted control of the city. I took advantage of the time to teach the psalms to new converts, and to those followers whose memory of the scriptures had faded. Liana and Taur became avid learners, and were immediately drawn to the Dirge of Possession, which is the song of Hirlam, who was possessed by a demon before being freed.

I am a prisoner in my own home,

A captive at the table while another feeds himself

In my ears an inhuman sings the song of madness

in the bitter key of evil

even in my sleep it will not stop

I was once the captain, but have lost my ship.

Tied to the mast, I can only watch

as a brigand steers us to the rocks.

We sail for a week toward the island of Sugbu, until we reach the port of Ingaño. Once the ship docks we make our way down the ramp toward the plaza. They are a strange group of people, wearing the studs and tattoos of the followers of Ashera, but we see effeminate men in dresses, and another class of man who is soft and chubby like a grown child.

“He is a null,” Liana explains as we pass one of the men in the lilac robe. “He has been castrated.”

“Why would they do that to him?” Taur asks the question, because the prospect of castration is unsettling to any man.

Once again I am grateful that my genitals are on the inside, and not exposed.

“They choose to live like that.” Liana shrugs her shoulders. “They believe that humans are an unspeakable evil, especially men, and that they can serve the earth goddess best by refusing to have children.”

“Did you notice.” Taur asks, “that all of the watch are women?”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” I reply. It seems to me that men and women have swapped roles, with the men overly effeminate and the women taking on masculine roles, such as bearing pole arms as part of the watch.

“Are you okay, Liana?” I ask, seeing that she draws the most attention. “Have you two noticed that Taur and I seem to be okay, but Liana draws suspicious looks?”

We pass a bank and an apothecary, where I smell a pungent mix of herbs and roots. Street carts display fruits and vegetables, while a man whose expertise is sharpening sits behind a desk where his foot spins the grindstone he uses to sharpen scissors, knives, and clippers.

“Excuse me,” I ask a castrato, or a null, as we pass. “Can you tell us where is the butcher's shop?”

His beady eyes are sunken into a face like coals jammed into the round head of a rotund snowman. The fat surrounding his eyes opens for a moment. “You mean, eat meat?”

“Just asking for a friend.” I want to laugh when I see the guy's horror at the thought of eating meat.

“What kind of killer murders an animal?” He fixes me with a look of disapproval, adjusts his lilac dress. “Is that cape made of real fur?”

“The beavers all died of old age,” I tell the neutered man. “Their fur is very soft, but it's hard getting out all the wrinkles.”

Taur breaks out into a laugh, which causes the null to swipe at him with his flabby arm as he passes. Once the soft man's back is to us, he lets out a snort of disgust loud enough for us to hear it.

“There's your answer, Taur.” I pat his back with my hand, although I can't reach very far up. “When a society falls far enough, it no longer believes that God created man, so man loses his special place. The scriptures say, 'O, Janith, the Lord has made you queen over all creation, and your husband is king.' The next step is people want to worship animals and elevate animals above humans.”

“Like the followers of Ashera, who wanted to become snakes,” Liana points out, “they want to become animals.”

“As a walking gecko, I am obviously an animal, and with your horns, Taur, you are more animal than other humans, so we are okay in their eyes. It's a feminine young lady like Liana that draws suspicion.” I rest a hand on her shoulder and can feel the bumps of the rough scars like beads inserted beneath her skin.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Well, we'll give them something to complain about.” Taur removes a coin from the leather purse at his waist and runs across the street to a delicate man selling flowers.

“The pink one.” Taur points with the coin on his hand.

“That's just going to clash something awful with that scar. I think white is the way to go. Set that between your horns—may I suggest a full garland?—and pow!” The thin man brings the tips of his fingers together then snaps them open. “You're styling.”

“It's not for me,” Taur insists, handing the man the coin. “Just give me the pink one.”

“Maybe you'd like a more thorough, more intimate consultation?” the flower vendor asks.

Taur doesn't know what to say and whirls around, jogging back across the street, where he gives Liana the pink rose.

“Thank you, Taur,” the albino girl says as she threads the rose into her snowy white hair. “My last flowers all wilted on the voyage over.”

“You're welcome,” the muscled man replies, meeting her soft pink and blue eyes. “You look lovely with flowers in your hair.”

The bull man abruptly steps forward to take point as we pass through the crowds of people, all of whom seem to be headed to the plaza, which is visible straight ahead. A painted harlot steps from the doorway of a tavern and latches herself onto Taur's shoulder, running her cheek over his fur cape.

“Real fur,” the harlot exclaims. “I don't know whether to be repulsed or excited. Will you lie with me? I have no child to sacrifice.”

Taur stops in mid stride, and his horns tilt at an angle as he puzzles over what the prostitute just said. “Get away from me,” he orders, and strips her hand from his arm.

“It's hard finding a real man in this city.” She is pleading and moves to reattach herself to him when Taur stiff arms her, shooting out his palm and shoving her into the tavern wall.

I am so focused on Taur that I miss the slattern who practically leaps out of the shadowed doorway, where the sounds of the raunchy tavern song are being sung, and latches onto me.

“Come to my bed, and we will make a baby to sacrifice to Molech.” She bats her eyes at me, and I can see that she was an attractive woman a long time ago, but a long line of customers and barrels of wine have dimmed her beauty.

“You realize I'm a gecko, right?” I ask and see Liana recoil.

“I've never been with a lizard man before,” she coos, trying her best to be alluring, but she's an actress who is too old to play an ingenue, and is merely muttering well-rehearsed lines.

I just told her I was a gecko, and she still calls me a lizard, which is frustrating as hell.

“Find yourself a husband while you can.” I remove her from me and push her back, aided by my tail which encircles her waist and pulls her away.

She looks at me in bewilderment. The thickness of her makeup makes it difficult for her to express emotion, but her confusion is evident.

One of the bouncers of the bar steps forward, and like the members of the watch, she's a woman, too, albeit a burly one without a trace of femininity. “Watch out how...”

Taur launches an uppercut with his left fist, not throwing it with the arm, as an untrained person would do, but powering it with a rising motion of his body, starting with his feet and surging up through his legs and hips. His fist is held in close to the body, where it is strongest, and not thrown at a distance where the arm is weak. The bull man's brawny fist connects with the hefty woman's jaw, rocking her head back, and she falls to the sidewalk, out cold.

We continue toward the plaza, moving closer to the immense statue that is visible even from the ocean, long before our ship reached the harbor. Carved out of black stone, a demon with broad horns sits cross legged in the center of the plaza, with the royal palace behind him. His hands are placed in front of him, over his legs, canted downward at an angle, as if gesturing toward a pit. A series of steps leads down into a pit where children are gathered. A crowd stands outside the pit, which resembles an amphitheater, watching as a man in a lilac dress performs an obscene dance for the assembled children.

One of the neutered men in the lilac robes comes up to Taur and takes him by the arm. “Won't you please speak to the children?”

“I'm not a speaker.” Taur shakes his horns and points to me. “My friend the gecko will speak for me.”

“Please come with me.” The effeminate castrato takes me by the arm. “Ooh, shackles. Are you into bondage?”

“I'd rather be free.” The soft man leads me down the steps into the pit, where the man in a dress has finished his suggestive dance. I realized that the null approached Taur because he took the bull man's horns as a sign of Molech.

“Okay, children! Listen!” The emasculated man claps his chubby hands. “We have a special guest today, who will tell you all about Molech, and if you're lucky, he'll share details of his exciting sex life.”

“Are you a real lizard?” a young boy asks me, and I see he's wearing a dress.

“I'm a real gecko, and you're not a real girl.” I leap up to the center platform as the boy I've just spoken to breaks into tears. “I've got a song for all of you.”

Before all else there was dust,

blown by the wind in the darkness

until God formed the whirlwind.

The spinning winds shaped the dust into the world

and the Almighty caused the rain to fall.

From the clay he molded figures of a woman, animals,

and the flowers of the field.

They were still and lifeless in the darkness

until God caused the sun to rise and bake them.

The Lord breathed into them, and they lived.

The woman said, “I am with child,

who will protect and provide for me and our son?”

From the damp clay God molded the first man, and the sun hardened him.

Together he and the woman raised the son of God

and the children that followed.

Every child is from God and we are merely witnesses,

charged with protecting and nurturing the greatest treasure of the earth.

At first my song meets with approval, and the crowd is drawn in. But gradually it occurs to them that I am not singing about Molech or sexual matters, but am singing the story of creation from Psalms of Wholeness. I am met with boos and hisses, while others throw the claw gesture, which is the equivalent of the giving me the middle finger.

“Arrest him!”

“Send for the watch!”

“Hear me out, degenerates!” I leap into the hands of the Molech statue, drawing a gasp from the crowd and the children. “Whoever harms a child will in the land of shadow and dust fervently pray for the flames to die out, and a death that will not come. You have brought the wrath of God the Protector down on your heads like hot coals.”

From my vantage point I can see the day watch has assembled, as well as a formation of troops gathering at the barracks. It's like my mission on this planet is to kick the hornets' nest, invariably getting myself and my friends into deep trouble.