Pheel was looking at him on the flat stone on which they sat, really observing the man/character/hero/person, sack of attributes, as he at times described it himself; both, he couldn't recall, Pry neither, cobbled together out the psychological mess of obsessions and fears perhaps, even compulsions, even fantasies, about himself, about his own fears, about – he looked at the guy and saw that this wasn't a joke; he wasn't kidding.

And neither was the side of his face, that indicated whether or not he was detecting lies. Pastel colours filtered across that side, that indicated, if he didn't know this no one did, he was detecting lies - but that applied even to himself, in the air; there weren't any lies, in the immediate vicinity, near but not -. - Pheel did not understand the range of this attribute, precisely, but – perhaps focus was a factor – because this did not include the cave mouth and demonic zone beneath, it just meant – all this just meant that he meant it.

“That bush over there, go.”

Pheel stood up so as to appear as if he were cooperating, but this was a type of lie. There flashed across Art's face a gland response, and a particular facial expression accompanying that encouraged Pheel to adopt a more cooperative attitude.

Okay a bush, he said to himself. In his head there, the top part that sat on his body, on his neck, over there, above there. The neck. A head on top of it. His thoughts inside this. He was saying these words in order to, and thinking in this fashion in order to – he didn't know. Just doing words because if he kept doing them then maybe he could figure out a way that he could actually do this. Or be hit hard.

It was a bush. It had green leaves. It was a pretty bushy, squat; it kind of just sat there, separate from anything else, a bush.

“I like the bush, I don't want to -”

“Then something else -”

Pheel looked around. “What about this pile of dry sticks here?”

“Even better.”

Okay, pile of dry sticks here. How do they usually do it? Concentrate or think or something, he thought. I mean, he was saying to himself, if I were a sorcerer character - and there have been obviously, Pale Louie was a sorcerer - that was years ago; he just – but that was his attribute, that's not my attribute, my attribute is – it's, well, it's invention. Art's right, this world does correspond in some sense to my – but then there was a discourse about how much he really controlled the story that was played through him, obsessions etc., themes, his compulsive weird fears and mental problems, okay, all true, and he wasn't passive, exactly, he did it. But -

“The sticks there, Pheel,” Art called over.

If they had wristwatches in Shensh, he'd be checking his.

Sticks.