The sleeping should have gone on for another three days. Herlut should have been satisfied. But instead, as we polished his scales that morning, a huge ripple ran across his body, his hide quivered underneath our touch, his tail lashed and writhed, smashing Ixbal’s chair to kindling. I froze, the poisons rushing around my body on reflex, and in some other level on some other dimension my human heart beat faster, skin prickled with gooseflesh.
His main eye opened – burning red at the outside. Clear and dark at the centre. Then the creature breathed.
His gigantic lip curled, startling a crowd of scale parasites nestled in its creases – they fled behind his ear, as his blood-red tongue licked around his teeth, moistening them, getting ready to speak.
“What is it, o great one?” Ixbal said.
“I hunger.”
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