"No! Fossils… what is this?" ze said.

"You don't know?" I asked.

"As far as I knew," ze replied, "the top of the bell-tower was, you know, a bell tower! Yes, we do interrogations up here, but I didn't think they'd do this. This is torture, pure and simple!"

"Aren't the Vvz'zsh monsters, though?" Lark asked.

"I don't care," Dk'brr said, "we're better than this! We're supposed to be the good guys! If there's to be any hope of ending the fighting, it's not going to happen like this!"

I was impressed. I hadn't expected this of Dk'brr and was pleasantly surprised by what I'd seen.

"I think you'll make a wonderful leader, Dk'brr," I said.

"Thank you," ze replied. Ze pointed at the Vvz'zsh's bindings. "We have to get zym down and bring zym to the lower floors."

Skittering up to the bound D'zd, I started picking away at the ropes binding zym to the post, but to no avail. It was like plucking a string, only without any sound.

I turned to my companions. "A little help, here?"

Nina walked up beside me. "Step back." She stuck out her two-fingered arms. "I'm gonna try something." She glanced at Lark and I. "Get ready to catch him."

Dk'brr looked at her in confusion. "What? What is ze going to do?"

"Just a little magic to grease the wheels," Nina said.

Pressing her two pairs of hands together, Nina bent her flower down slightly and mumbled some barely audible spurts of light. The next thing I knew, waves of suction converged on the captive D'zd and briefly swirled around, snapping the ropes binding zyr arms. The prisoner fell forward, but Lark and I caught zym, holding zyr torso from either side. Nina cut the ropes around zyr legs and abdomen with quick slashes of pure force.

Dk'brr stared at her, as if ze'd seen a ghost. "H-How did you do that?"

"It's the same thing as the Chant your Dad used…" Nina replied.

But that didn't quash Dk'brr's concerns. "I've never seen anything like that." Ze pointed at the broken bindings. "Chant is Chant, but… you didn't sing at all."

"Great," Lark said, "now everyone's confused. Come on, everybody, what are we going to do with this guy?" She pointed at the tortured D'zd. "We're not supposed to be here, remember?"

I glanced at the stair-hole. "We climb back down, I guess."

I swear, I was certain I'd either drop the Vvz'zsh or fall off the wall, but, amazingly, nothing bad happened.

We made it down to the ground floor a couple minutes later. I set the nearly lifeless D'zd on one of the rugs, which Lark had pulled up to the kiln-chimney on the far wall.

Gradually, the D'zd's tremors stilled. The frost around the small holes⁠ on zyr abdomen melted away. The muscles responsible for breathing started returning to their normal rhythms, drawing air in through zyr spiracles.

Lark looked over the D'zd. "At the risk of pointing out the obvious, what happens if this barbarian Vvz'zsh tries to kill us?"

"I'd be amazed if ze could even walk," Dk'brr said. "I don't think ze's a threat."

Nina glanced at one of her hands. "And, even if he is, I think I'll be able to immobilize him."

I, for one, believed her—and, from the look of it, so did Dk'brr, who gave her a stare.

"What?" Nina said. "You can also help if you want." She glanced at Dk'brr's swords.

Finally, the Vvz'zsh stirred. Zyr flower crinkled open, radiation blurrily rippling out of zyr antennae. The waves of the Dd'zd's voice crackled, skipping like a damaged record, but I managed to make out the words.

Ze stared up at us—at me.

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"Am I dead?" ze asked.

"Death is relative," Lark said.

"You… you're the Messengers," the Vvz'zsh said. "The Vyx…" The D'zd flipped onto zyr abdomen and stretched zyr limbs. The cubic lumps were shrinking in the heat, but that didn't make them look any less painful.

But then ze turned to Dk'brr, and zyr flower narrowed. "You…"

Dk'brr struck out an arm. "I had nothing to do with this. This was supposed to be an interrogation, not…" the Subcommander's stinger-tail drooped. "…this."

"A T'dzd'ch with an exoskeleton," the D'zd said. "Never thought I'd live to see it."

"I'm only doing what's right," Dk'brr replied. Ze pointed at us. "I'm helping the Vyx's Messengers."

"Why let them free me?"

"You might be a savage and a terrorist, but you still have dignity. I was taught to be better than my enemies. That's how I know I'm standing on the right side of history."

The D'zd looked away from Dk'brr, clearly uninterested in zyr platitudes.

"You, Messengers… why are you here?"

"Though it might not look like it, we are not of your species," I said. "We aren't even from this world."

"But… the Dominion! They took you in! They—"

The D'zd's stinger-tail drooped piteously with exhaustion.

"—My own world's religion and politics are more than enough for me," I said. "Other than generally condemning violence in all its forms, I'm not taking sides in your conflicts, not until I hear all sides of the story."

The D'zd raised zyr head and torso. "What if I tried to kill you?"

"Well, speaking as a doctor," I said, "I'd be happy that I saved you from certain death."

"Why help me? Who am I to you?"

"My friends and I are here because we're looking for someone, someone who I can't afford to leave behind. It would be irresponsible of me not to ask everyone I can about his whereabouts."

Scooting back, the d'zd huddled up against the curve of the kiln-tube, pressing zyr arching limbs against its blessed warmth.

"You are… very strange," ze said.

"And from my perspective," I said, "so are you—not to mention everything that's been happening to me as of late." I pointed at myself. "I'm Genneth."

"Lark," Lark said.

"Nina," Nina said. "And, trust me, if you try anything fishy, you will regret it," she added.

The D'zd stared at us. "I have never seen names like yours…"

"As I said, we're not from around here."

"Clearly." The D'zd tried to stand up, only to let out a groan of pain as ze sank down onto zyr legs. Ze raised zyr flower up from its droop of dejection.

"I am Dzrtk (Zurtuk)," ze said.

"It's nice to meet you, Dzrtk," I said. "Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

Dzrtk spread zyr arms in what I imagined was a perfunctory gesture. "Ask away."

"I assume you know what the townsfolk say about you—about your people, I mean? The Vvz'zsh?"

"Sometimes," Dzrtk replied, "I wish what they said was the truth. The Dominion blames us for everything. What I wouldn't give to have the powers they attribute to us. We could have saved so many more lives that way."

"Tih-Kuzoond was attacked earlier today," Nina said. "A lot of people died." She rested her lower pair of arms where her hips would have been, had she still been human. "Was that your people's doing?"

"Yes," Dzrtk said, slowly flexing a limb. "That was our war party." Ze tried to get up for a second time, only to wince in pain. "My only regret is that I couldn't be there, fighting alongside them."

"Why?" I asked.

"Why?" Dzrtk replied, sweeping one of zyr arms out in a wrathful arc. "Because of what they've done to us! Because of what they're still doing!" Pushing zymself up, Dzrtk sat up, torso erect, leaning against the kiln's wall.

"Your people killed children!" I yelled.

"Yes, and perhaps now, they will listen," Dzrtk replied, "but I doubt it. They didn't listen before."

"What?" Dk'brr asked.

"Generations ago, we sometimes used gentler sign-acts," the D'zd explained. "We piled Szrg-leaves by the river, and left headless vrr't'k on their homesteads' rooftops, but it did nothing. Only a madman repeats zymself, expecting a different result. And Vvz'zsh remember and learn."

"So, because they didn't listen before, you torture them now?" I asked.

Dzrtk flicked zyr stinger at me. "Let me guess, they didn't tell you about their puppets, did they?"

The D'zd spoke the word "Puppets" with purest hate.

"I can't say they have," I said.

"Puppets?" Dk'brr asked, abdomen twitching. "What Vvz'zsh nonsense is this?"

"Then let me shine your way," Dzrtk replied. Ze glanced at Dk'brr. "T'dzd'ch: there's nothing we can ever do that will ever measure up to what you have done to us. It's a good thing you worship your madrigals," ze said. "I shudder what to think the Bzhrtlord would do if you ever dared to honor zym. The things you've done… and not just us, but to your own kind, too!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

"See me, Zhn'nt: when the T'dzd'ch call Vvz'zsh soulbreakers, they're merely describing themselves. Those silent soldiers the Dominion employs as slaves? They're silent for a reason."

"Yes, because it enforces discipline," Dk'brr laughed.

"Good grief," Dzrtk said. "I don't know whether to light you as a fool, or just näive. Your foot-soldiers are silent because they can no longer speak, because their souls are gone! They used to be people, once. People with hopes and fears and dreams. But then they crossed a line. Maybe they were dissidents, or petty criminals, or anyone with the temerity to hold to our ancestors' beliefs—the reasons never matter. Your fate is sealed the moment the Dominion deems you an enemy."

"What are you saying?" Dk'brr asked. "You're flashing nonsense." Ze turned to face me. "Don't listen to zym, ze's got nothing worthwhile to shine."

"From what I've heard, you're supposed to become your progenitor's successor as the leader of this town," Dzrtk said.

"Yes," Dk'brr said, "provided I can win the election."

"If all the townsfolk are as blind as you are, you'll win in a landslide—the blind leading the blind."

Dk'brr drew zyr blades. "Keep talking, Vvz'zsh. You'll regret it."

I lashed out with my arms and stomped one of my forelegs. "Stop it, both of you!"

It was like dealing with Yuta and Geoffrey all over again, just… weirder.

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