The design showed a stylized brazier, red on yellow. Tasteful.

Behind Arlen someone said, "What's happening? What are they doing?"

Arlen turned back and answered, "Being ignorant. We'll correct that."

Arlen smiled broadly and pulled two iron mugs out from his basket of props. He poured rum from a clay jug into both, sipped one, and offered the other. Why yes, we have ironworking.

The captain considered for a moment, then took the drink and sipped. He spoke a few words as he handed the cup back. The rest of his two-boat party stepped ashore at last.

Arlen puzzled over the words. He had no convenient gift of understanding in this case, but the language reminded him of the Builder tongue. He first said, "Do you understand me?" in the Echoing Isles language. When that got him only confused looks he tried the same words as taught to him by Sachin, over in the ruined chemical plant.

This time, the robed priest stood up straighter. "Hark! Ken thou this?"

"Yes." Arlen's had nearly reached his limit for being able to speak Builder without careful planning. He tried saying, "This place, island home."

The nobleman stepped forward to speak. "Here, this." He had one of his minions bring out a fine little treasure chest full of jewelry. There were strings of glass beads, a few pearls, even a silver necklace with amythysts. Several bright-polished coins as well, with the likeness of some king. Shiny. Then came a bundle of clothes including a silk-like blue robe and a belt woven with feathers. The man with the gifts gestured grandly as he offered the hoard to Arlen and had it all placed on a sheet on the beach.

"Gifts?" said Arlen's entourage.

Arlen told them, "These people are at least making an effort."

One of the men said, "Which of them is really in charge? Three chiefs, maybe."

"Looks that way. Anybody speak Builder language at all?"

A woman said, "A little of their jabbering sounded familiar." She stepped up to try helping Arlen stumble through some translation.

Arlen tried to offer equal attention to the three foreign "chiefs". The priestly one was the best at finding a useful phrasing for what the others were saying. Through him they conveyed, "We, the Together-Singing of Mariv. Thou, Storm-Blinded Lands. We bring gifts to --"

The rest of the intro was hard to convey, and several of the islanders had to pitch in with some creative sand-drawings. Eventually the outlanders nodded at some designs and pointed to the shiny coins. "We bring gifts to thee, lost children of the King."

Arlen smiled wider and nodded extra hard. "Our King brings gifts to thee." Then, he uprooted the flag the foreigners had planted on the shore, and carried it to the great big stone fort that had a flag-holder built right into it. He inserted the flag and waved to make it clear he was offering the whole little patch of real estate. Rather than everything around it.

The entire delegation halted and murmured. The nobleman leader spoke sharply to the others. The lead captain held up a hand and answered him more carefully, while the priest reddened and muttered.

Arlen began drawing and cobbling together what words he could. Expressing, "We will give food and drinking water. You stay here or on ships, ten days. Stop sickness."

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The ancient, mad Builder hadn't taught him a word for "quarantine", but Arlen did his best.

The sailors looked to each other uneasily. Their leaders conferred. The captain said with some difficulty, "We rest here."

"Ten days. Then you see more islands."

He exchanged confused talk with the priest. "Hmmph. Ten days."

Arlen nodded. "Would a few of you like to hunt birds with us?"

#

Arlen had worked things out with a few brave hunters. He'd explained they were risking themselves for the safety of everyone, by being near people who might be bringing strange diseases. Since high chief Voz was alerted, he'd be in a position to help them if problems emerged.

Arlen was worried he was a canary too. His bond to the Builders' power had done wonders to protect him from injury, but he had no assurance he was immune to whatever these new guys carried, and wasn't even sure his DNA counted as fully human anymore. The possible species difference worked in the islanders' favor, as did their past contact with outsiders. This was a case where he legitimately knew more than anybody else around and had no qualms about being bossy.

He set out with two islander hunters and a party of three from the ships. He'd suggested bringing a few more, but some kind of argument had broken out and they'd insisted on exactly equaling his group.

One of their three was the nobleman, struggling to understand and speak.

"You are the leader?" he attempted to say.

"I am war leader. We have another for peace."

"You are... big fighter?" Though the man asking the question wasn't obviously brawny himself, Arlen wasn't the mightiest looking man in the bunch either.

Arlen laughed. "I can fight. What's your name?"

"Joop."

They ascended a trail into the hills, exchanging a few words, trying to understand and mostly pointing at things. "Rock. Tree. Island. Sun."

Talk of the sun and of directions made Arlen want to gather more information. The group paused near a waterfall, where three bright red parrots watched them.

"These birds?" asked a sailor. That one had brought out a scroll of parchment and was sketching a map from up here, with much of the coast in sight.

"No, farther on." Arlen sketched in the dirt and gestured to the sky to illustrate something. "You, have time tool? Thing like this to say time?" He drew a sundial, an hourglass, a clock face. Though come to think of it, the exact design of the mechanical clocks he knew was based on obscure Babylonian measurements.

The crew crouched to study the drawings. Joop pointed to the sundial and hourglass, saying, "Yes, this."

A bush rustled. An islander man burst up from it, hurling a spear. He charged, throwing one knife and drawing another before anyone could react.

The spear thudded into a man's side and the knife clipped Joop's arm. Arlen threw himself at the attacker and his fist glowed with ice as he punched. They both went down.

A gun went off. Only Arlen recognized the sound. "Down, everyone! Stop!" He shoved himself free of the man he'd punched. Metal scraped against someone's scabbard. He looked up in time to hear another bang and feel a musket ball crash into his left leg, sending him sprawling. Swords clashed with spears.

"Stop!" yelled Joop, sword and gun in hand. By the time Arlen could stagger upright, the fighting had stopped but the two sides faced each other with weapons out.

Arlen pointed to the assassin. "Grab him. You! What were you thinking?"

That guy started running. One of his men chased and tackled him, and Arlen's other guy ran to help. Arlen was now alone with the three foreigners, one on the ground with a spear in his ribs and a smoking pistol in his hand.

Arlen spread his hands, then slowly knelt by the injured man. His own thigh burned from a nasty bruise but he tuned it out. The wound was deep, and a dark green poison had been smeared on the blade. He swore. This was a barbed hunting spear, too. He forced down his urge to retch and gestured for the others to hold their companion and help him remove the spear.

They helped. It was awful and messy, and they used up their canteens trying to wash the wound while their man cried out. Arlen cast a spell of water to conjure more of the stuff and flood out as much as possible of the vile goo.

The other islanders returned, hauling the assassin with several knife wounds on him. Joop took a moment to scream incoherently at him. Arlen gestured "Down", and the islanders threw the man to the ground and stepped on him.

The assassin said, "Idiots! They're going to kill us all unless we get them first. Arlen, you're not doing your job. I heard them talking. They think we're stupid, and weak, and they can take everything."

Arlen grimaced as he tried to clean the wound a little more. This was beyond him. He said, "Then we'll correct their mistake. And give them a gift of one moron."