They made camp in the same place they’d stopped the previous night, but now they were much more watchful and alert than they’d been before. They now had the Scrolls of Skava to guard, possibly the most important objects in the world at the moment, and nothing could be allowed to happen to them. They sat guard two at a time, therefore, one of the watchers having the casket containing the scrolls by his side at all times to make absolutely sure it was safe.

     At around midnight, Arroc found himself on guard with Thomas. The wizard had the casket in his lap and was thoughtfully running his fingers around the carvings on its lid as he silently pondered what was inside. It was a still, quiet night, disturbed only by the occasional cry of a night bird, and there was plenty of time to think. Arroc had a lot to think about, but no matter how many times he ran them around in his head he was unable to make any sense of them, so eventually he went over to Thomas and sat down beside him. Wizards were supposed to know a lot. Perhaps he could help.

     “Thomas,” he said therefore, “what’s a throwback?”

     “What?” said the wizard with a start, jolted out of his thoughts.

     “What’s a throwback?” repeated the trog a little louder.

     “A throwback?” said Thomas in confusion. “I’ve got no idea. You’re using the word as a noun rather than a verb, aren’t you? An object called a throwback rather than the act of throwing something back?”

     “That’s right,” agreed the trog, although he had no idea what nouns and verbs were.

     “Never heard of it,” said the wizard with a shrug of his shoulders. “Sorry.”

     “It’s an agricultural term, isn’t it?” said Teasel, coming forward to sit with them.

     “You’re supposed to be asleep,” protested Thomas. “You’re on watch in two hours.”

     “Who can sleep with you two rabbiting on? Besides, we nomes need less sleep than you humans.”

     “So what’s a throwback?” repeated Arroc, concerned that the conversation might drift too far away from the subject.

     “Well,” said Teasel, “you know that you can breed animals and plants to make them bigger and tastier and so on.”

     “So?”

     “Well sometimes, for no apparent reason, a seed will grow or an animal be born that resembles the distant ancestor from which it was cultivated. They’re called throwbacks, because they’ve been ‘thrown back’ to their ancestors, so to speak.”

     Arroc stared at her in stunned amazement. “Throwback,” he said dreamily.

     “Why?” asked Thomas. “Where did you hear the word?”

     “Back in the Ruby Keep,” replied the trog. “When I were awake and the rest of you were asleep, when those people came ter carry us off. They were dressed in some kind of uniform, like they were members of the castle staff, and they were chatting with each other. One of them called me a throwback trog.”

     He paused, a look of joyful amazement on his face. “There’s a theory held by some trogs that all the humanoid races are descended from a common ancestor, that trogs are descended from a race that walked on the surface just like humans and the shae folk. That we were taller in those days and skinnier and had hairy bodies. Could that be it? Is that why I look different from other trogs? Oh don’t deny it, I’ve always known I look different. That’s why some people think I were born as a result of my mother having had an affair with a human. They were wrong. They were all wrong! My mother never dishonoured ma father. I’ve always said so. She were faithful ter him all her life!”

     The trog’s delighted exclamations woke up the others, the soldiers thinking at first that they were being attacked and searching all around, weapons in hand. When they learned that it was just Arroc they demanded to know what was going on, and the trog was only too glad to tell them, repeating over and over again that he’d always known his mother was faithful, almost as if he were the most surprised of all.

     “I’m really delighted for you,” said Shaun, stifling a yawn. “Now is it all right if the rest of us get a little sleep?”

     “Just one more thing first, if I may,” said the trog, a frown replacing the look of joy on his face. “Jasper and Garnet said one other thing while they were carrying us off.” He turned to look straight at Naomi, wanting to see what effect his words would have on her. “Does anyone know what a felisian is?”

     The black girl’s reaction was just what he’d expected it to be. She jumped in alarm, and a fearful, trapped look came over her face as all the others looked at her. “It’s you, isn’t it?” said Arroc, advancing on her. “You’re the felisian.”

     “What does it mean?” asked Thomas curiously. “What is a felisian?”

     Naomi backed warily away, looking around for possible avenues of escape. “It’s just another name for a worshipper of Abixis,” she protested. “That’s all it is. I swear!”

     “They were surprised to find a felisian here on Tharia,” added the trog, staring up at her through slitted eyes. “They thought you might be a scout, or a spy.”

     “A spy for who?” demanded the black girl, now becoming angry. “And of course he would have been surprised to find one of us on Tharia. There aren’t many of us on this world. Tharia has no intelligent feline faces, so Abixis feels no need to maintain many priests here. I’ve told you all this before!”

     “Or maybe a felisian is something completely different,” continued Arroc, still glaring suspiciously at her. “A member of another race from another world, perhaps, come to Tharia ter spy us out.”

     “Oh come on Arroc!” protested Shaun in disbelief. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

     “I don’t know what ter believe,” said the trog. “Think of all the questions she keeps asking. It was her idea ter follow you ter the Emerald Oracle, you know.”

     Shaun opened his mouth to reply, but then froze, staring at her suspiciously.

     The black girl turned grey when she saw the look in his eyes. “You’re insane!” she cried furiously. “You can’t condemn me on the basis of some overheard comment made when you were probably half asleep yourself!”

     “She’s right,” agreed Thomas. “She’s a valued and very useful member of our team. She’s done nothing to cause the least bit of suspicion from us. Now give it a rest.”

     “I agree,” added Diana. “If you have any real evidence to support your suspicions, let’s hear it. If not, please be silent.”

     The trog grunted and turned away, and everyone relaxed. Dennis patted Naomi’s shoulder and smiled at her. “Don’t worry about him,” he said. “It’s just his nature to be suspicious. Don’t let it get to you.”

     The black girl smiled gratefully back at him, then glared at Shaun and Arroc until they were forced to look away. She returned to her sleeping blankets and settled down with her back to the others. Arroc continued to stare at her, thinking he could see tenseness and guilt in the set of her body, until Diana warned him again not to sow discord in their team. "We face the most important task we've ever known," she said. "To get these scrolls back to the Vale of Thorns through nearly a hundred miles of hostile territory. We cannot afford to fight with each other."

     Arroc grunted his reluctant agreement, but he knew the black girl was hiding something. Something important. If you're a spy, he promised himself, I'll find proof and expose you to the world. No-one pulls the wool over the eyes of a trog.

     Shaun and Diana decided to take the incident as an opportunity to take over the watch and so Thomas and Arroc returned to their sleeping blankets. It took Arroc a long time to fall asleep, and when he did he dreamed of an invading army of cat people swarming and massacring their way across the world while everyone he knew, drenched in blood and cradling the bodies of loved ones, accused him of not doing enough to stop the spy who'd enabled it.

☆☆☆

     Thomas also dreamed that night.

     He dreamed that he was in a vast underground cavern, carved out of the living rock. On either side of him stood endless rows of large glass tanks filled with yellow tinted liquid through which bubbles rose from an aerator near the bottom. In each tank was the embryo of a large reptile, curled up in a foetal position and twitching now and then as they tested their developing muscles. Like all embryos at that stage of development, their heads were as large as the rest of their bodies. Their huge eyes were visible through transparent eyelids and pink blood vessels traced their way through semi-transparent flesh, pulsing as blood was pumped by small but already fully developed hearts.

     They had the beginnings of wings, although they were nothing more than tiny flaps of skin folded back along the sides of their bodies, and their legs were nothing more than stumpy buds. In the strange way of dreams, though, Thomas knew that, as their development progressed, those buds would gradually wither away and vanish. They were relics of their ancestors, ordinary winged reptiles who could walk on the ground or fly through the air as they chose, but they would be no part of these creatures when they were adult. These beasts would only be able to fly.

     Thomas dreamed that he walked slowly between the rows of tanks, a feeling of deep satisfaction filling his body and making him glow with pleasure and pride. My babies, he thought, smiling happily. My beautiful babies. He walked on, and it seemed that he carried on walking all night, that there was no end to the cavern and its bubbling, gurgling tanks.

     When he woke up, he felt that he’d had a very strange dream, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what it had been about.