No Tentacles Needed

They had to travel through the wilderness of the shard that they now called Shard One.

No one but Ian had the General Poetry Key.

Ian didn't feel like using it.

He was now preparing himself for a meeting with a krobinnuti. He did not exactly know whether it was Tom's death that plagued him so, or something else, but in any case, he did feel like he really wanted to light stuff on fire.

Diana had changed back into her krobinnuti form. She moved like a wounded animal; she was sensitive and kind. That banshee stuff had hit her pretty hard.

Kortock got his ankle in a better condition, but his lips still formed a tight, straight line as if he had been in pain.

"Are you all right?" Ian asked him. "Is it about Tom?"

"About Tom, yes, and Lilac, and Sally and Sam, Johnny too, then there was a man called Ahmed and his girlfriend, was she Leena? Yes, I think she was. I could go on, but you get the point. Too many names. Too many dead bodies. And I remember them all."