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‘I see,’ said Garovel. ‘Pretty strange how Avar would choose to appear to you in the form of an animal you’d never seen before.’

“Such is His vast knowledge and power,” said Torveis. “Perhaps He thought I would be less moved by His presence if He took the form of an animal I had previously seen.”

‘That would make sense. But I was beginning to wonder--or dare I say, HOPE--that you had been to the surface, yourself. I would have been extremely interested to hear what your opinion of the surface world was after having seen it with your own eyes.’

For a moment, Torveis just looked at him. “I should like to go there, one day, but as yet, I am afraid I have not.”

‘Pity.’

And a suddenly heavy silence drew out.

‘He’s probably lying,’ said Garovel privately. ‘This man has been to the surface before.’

Hector had about a dozen questions, the first of which was, ‘Hun’Sho can survive on the surface?’

‘Yeah. Their magma lets them regulate their body temperature pretty efficiently.’

‘Why would he lie about that?’

‘I don’t know, and that’s what’s bothering me.’

‘Maybe Avar really did take the form of a bird in his dreams.’

‘Yeah, sure.’

Torveis revived the conversation. “Perhaps you could tell me of more animals from the surface. I have heard that you have quite a large variety, compared to the Undercrust.”

‘Heh, he’s a really good liar,’ said Garovel, still privately. Then he switched over to public voice. ‘That’s true. The environment on the surface is a bit more forgiving, though it can be dangerous in many other ways.’

“I am intrigued. Please do tell me more.”

And Hector just listened as Garovel did so. The reaper spoke of many different animals, some of which Hector didn’t know much about himself and therefore was almost as interested to learn of as Torveis appeared to be.

But all the while, Hector couldn’t help feeling as if a shadow had been cast over the conversation, as if it were mostly just an act now.

He wondered if Garovel was right, and Torveis really had been lying; or if that was just Garovel’s cynical bias, and Torveis really had seen the God of Fire in his dreams before ever knowing what a bird looked like. Of course, he was much more inclined to believe Garovel, if only because he barely even knew Torveis, but still, it was pretty obvious now that Garovel didn’t know everything. Even if the reaper liked to say otherwise.

At length, a new voice arrived.

“Lord Darksteel.” It was Manuel Delaguna and his reaper, Lorios. They were also accompanied by the non-servant woman from before, whose name Hector had since learned was Elise Garza.

Hector noticed the look on Manuel’s face first. “Is something wrong?”

Lorios floated forward and addressed Torveis. ‘We apologize for interrupting, but might we borrow these two from you for a minute?’

“But of course,” said Torveis, gesturing with one hand. “I feel I should apologize for monopolizing them to myself for quite some time now.”