We followed him through the room between the small desks and past the other two wardens present to a small, dark door. There were no windows in the place, similar to everywhere else on Ith-Korr, but there was a large opening between his office and the main barracks room. Jumping lithely and reaching up, he grabbed a pulley and covered the opening with a heavy wooden shutter. His office was a similar size as the bedroom I’d been staying in at the Woven Vine; no more than six feet wide, and that high. I ducked into the room and had to stand slightly hunched.

I’m sure I’ve grown taller, I thought again. But it might just be that I’ve been in Ith-Korr too long.

Paresh sat behind a — for me and Lenya — thigh height desk, and indicated a single stool. I was about to indicate ladies first to Lenya, but she had already dropped down onto it.

The captain sighed heavily, which turned into a yawn, rubbed his eyes, leant back on his chair and crossed his arms in front of him.

“Before I start, I’m not going to go into all the details. This is a very sensitive subject amongst Vyneshi, and you are shortly to be perhaps one of only a dozen outsiders who know about it. . . . Our people are going through a change.”

“Of government? Of spirit?” Lenya suggested.

Paresh shook his head. His face was troubled, heavy eye bags beneath a V-met brow, and he inhaled and exhaled deeply.

“Of our bodies and minds. We’ve . . . been aware of it for some time — some generations, but are no closer to understanding why as we are to stopping it. Simply put, we are becoming more feral. Our emotions run hot or deathly cold, we fear the darks of the trees below, and yet we all, on some level, yearn to simply leave Ith-Korr and welcome the jungle’s embrace. This pull is becoming greater each year, and our minds grow more confused and instinctual. My . . . the outburst you saw is a symptom of this, but it is eating into our culture and every part of our way of life. Our Shrewdship, the council, believes we have but a few decades left before the majority of us are simple beasts.

“We all feel this,” he continued. “Those of the Dwellship no longer feel the need to maintain the buildings. We are gradually sacrificing crops to the wilds as we cannot keep them back. Our traders are hoodwinked at every turn, taken advantage of as our natures become more trusting, or set upon unawares and undefended.”

Absolutely of blank mind, I just stared at him and let the information wash over me. Devastating, I thought. Horribly devastating. I imagined the terror and fear that would come over Earth if the population were to suddenly start . . . devolving. The panic and rage, the total unrest . . .

“And on top of that, the Scouring.”

Lenya’s voice was quiet, pained. Tears flowed freely, wetting her robes. I leant against the wall.

Had I been more empathetic back on Earth? I pushed the thought from my mind.

The Wardship Captain continued:

“We are determined to weather our curse alone and with dignity, but groups such as the Shadow Prowlers exploit the situation.”

The dark statement lingered for a moment, and Paresh sunk further into his chair. I tried to switch tacks.

“Do you know whether the Shrewdship has heard from other cities? We were wondering whether this incursion was more widespread.”

Paresh sat up in his chair again, taking on a little more of the captain’s authority that we knew.

“As soon as we were sure we were made safe, the Shipship sent our fastest vessels to the other docks on the Boiling Sea. We are expecting to hear back from them tomorrow.”

Rapping my fingers on the wall behind me, I considered the option, then decided:

“We will hear the outcomes before setting out to the Shadow Prowlers. This concerns us and our business greatly.”

A moment of weird panic flashed across Paresh’s face, then, and he spoke through bared teeth, “Did you know, too?”

“We did not,” Lenya said sternly, wiping her eyes.

“We are aware of the foe you face. It has ravaged the places Alator and Lenya come from.”

“It had not yet fully reached Aricaeëth, but we were suffering the same attacks before I . . . was pulled away,” Lenya clarified.

“From what I understand,” I continued, “Alator’s World was set on for many years, and the World-Eater itself appeared there. We don’t have specifics — the man’s not very forthcoming — but we know it ended in awful tragedy, and the fight was still raging by the time he was . . . pulled away.”

Paresh breathed out heavily, uncrossed his arms and placed them on the table in front of him.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“The World-Eater?”

Lenya still bristled each time the name was used. She explained:

“An awful colossus. My people called it Albowesti. The breadth of what we know, you now know as well.”

Scratching his head with a long, leathery hand, moving about the soft green fur there, Paresh mumbled:

“Right. Very little. Well, I’ll disseminate this scant information.”

“Only to a select few who need to know,” I noted.

“Of course,” Paresh said, taken aback a moment. “I am not yet so simple. Thank you again. And yes, you can wait until tomorrow to set out to the Shadow Prowlers. I’ll ask Drya to take you to the first of their breadcrumbs then.”

We nodded, and got up to leave. Paresh jumped clean over the desk as easily as flinching, and opened the door for us.

Outside, the suns were visible beneath the tier ceiling above our heads, sinking over the eastern horizon, lighting the Boiling Sea a sickly wine red.

“Let’s get back to the Woven Vine.”

Stepping into the low-ceilinged place, lit only by a single flickering oil lamp, we spotted Alator.

“I’ve another place to stay,” he grunted shortly, standing and walking past us.

Still in a mood.

I’d have liked to stay close to Keza and Brekis, but at least for now they didn’t need protection. We followed Alator across the way and rounded the corner of one of the enormous redwood trees to a single storey white painted building, joined to the wood below. Inside, it was clearly a normal house, mostly a single squat main room, but set out like temporary accommodation, all prim and proper and spotless. I felt like I was in an Airbnb filling a very peculiar niche.

“Owners said this is ours as long as we’re in the city,” Alator explained, shrugging. Lenya went to the cupboards to find them stuffed, and made everyone a pick and mix dinner.

Not much was spoken about over dinner as Lenya and I devoured it and Alator picked carefully at each thing, scrutinising it and — more often than not — setting it aside.

The elf princess then set up three plush bed pallets in the room and, setting herself up against the wall, fell asleep.

After a while, once we could hear Lenya’s breathing settle into sleeping rhythm, Alator piped up:

“Heard you got another bounty under your belt.”

“Yes, an international criminal. No thanks to you.”

He scoffed.

“You don’t seem too shaken up.”

“One of the wardens gave me a Windbloom when we got back,” I explained with a shrug.

“The same healing herb you used when the cold serpent bit you?”

Impressed with his recall, I nodded. Alator’s already testy mood turned even darker.

“And you used it to flit away some bruises and discomfort? Did it not occur to you to retain it, to use it when it was actually required?”

“Oh, leave it,” I grunted. I knew where this conversation was going.

“You don’t think! You have so much more to learn, I understand that — you lived in luxury until two weeks ago — but you don’t even seem capable of thinking for yourself. This is another blunder, Talbot.”

He’s just taking out frustration, don’t rise to it. The inner voice came calm and collected, followed instantly by a rush of anger that superseded it, dissipating any patience I had.

“Another blunder? I think I’ve been doing a bloody good job, considering. I’ve killed wolves with human faces, a skeleton, a massive enchanted snake, a demon armadillo, weird mercury angelfish, and scorpions as long as my arm! And that was just in the first week!”

Alator breathed out steam, his long wolf’s teeth glinting in the flickering lamplight.

“That’s not all, Talbot,” he hissed menacingly. “You’ve also killed enemy warriors.”

My heart skipped a beat, pain in my chest, my face drew pale and the coming torrent of words I had been putting into place in my mind slipped away. A silence passed for a moment as I flinched under Alator’s stare. Then he spoke past bared teeth:

“But they did not come to mind when thinking of your triumphs. You must accept it.”

“Mortal self-defence,” I muttered.

“Yes, it was. Does that change anything about the action — about the fact of taking a life?”

“No, but . . .” I trailed off.

“No. Accept that you killed people. Accept each and every one of them, and accept that many more are coming.”

Steeling myself, I brought my gaze back to his and put a hand to my chest.

“I will always do everything I can to avoid that.”

Noise exploded from Alator — something between a howling laugh and a frustrated shout.

“The orchard in Akhur’shet. Those people were out for your blood. They would have killed you without a second thought, and held themselves entirely morally justified for doing so. We had the opportunity to end that — by destroying whatever fell god had them under its sway.”

This had to come up at some point, I thought.

“They all relied on it, Alator,” I tried to steady my voice, but the pumping blood in my ears had me almost shouting at him. “If we’d destroyed the Ember Spirit, the emberfruit trees would have died, they would all have lost their livelihood.”

“THEY WOULD HAVE KILLED —” Alator started yelling, until the movement of heavy woollen sheets and creaks from the bed in the corner had him stop and spin his head.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Lenya’s voice came sleepy and faint across the room. She sat up and leant against the wooden cladding on the wall.

“No!” Alator barked. It must have been a reflex, because he breathed out and muttered, “What do you think?”

She shut her eyelids hard, then opened them and looked at me. The oil lamplight danced across the graceful curve of her face.

“I think you’re hiding something behind all this talk, Talbot. I think you’ve laid a shroud of morality over what really exists beneath.”

Alator threw a hand to her in agreement.

A little stunned, a wordless defensive scoff as a murmur crept out of my lips, but only for a moment. I was very used to people over-analysing my mind through years of HR check-ins at MegaCorp, so I then responded by humouring her:

“And what’s beneath?”

“Brutality, Talbot. Your morality is just; I see that and recognise much of what my own people believe within you, but the way you act is so different — like night and day. At first, I really begrudged you for it, but I’ve come to accept it as part and parcel of life in this New World of Barbican. Alator and you come from different Worlds, I know, but I wonder how comparable they are in their savagery.”

I thought of my polyester sheets of my Assigned Domicile, the uncomfortable cushions of the sky-buses I used to take to my 8 to 6 job.

The biggest tension I experienced in my old life was someone stealing my milk from the office fridge.

“Sorry, Lenya, but you’re wrong. Nothing in my old world was savage. We had sterilised everything. The only time I used my body at all was for a quick weekly gym session.”

She cocked her head and without missing a beat, asked, in a very small voice, curious and honest, with no knowledge of how devastating the words were:

“Then why do you think you’re like this?”

I could do nothing but let the question hang there.