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something a hero in a novel or in a movie would say. But it wouldn’t be said while lying on their backs tied to a chair. Maybe he should keep his mouth shut.
    The man turned away and gestured to Lourds. ‘Get him up.’
    Two men grabbed hold of the chair and righted Lourds. The jarring did his kidneys no good at all.
    ‘If I can draw your attention to something important,’ Lourds said, ‘I’ve been tied to this chair for a long time. Is there a lavatory nearby?’
    The leader of the group said something to one of the men. Lourds found it strange that he didn’t know the dialect or the language. He knew enough of most languages to get along in them.
    The man quickly bowed, then departed. He returned promptly and dropped a rusty bucket at Lourds’ feet.
    Lourds couldn’t believe it. ‘Surely you’re jesting.’
    ‘You can use the bucket or not,’ the leader said. ‘The choice is yours.’
    ‘I’m going to need to stand up.’
    The man nodded. One of the others untied the ropes in a simple movement. Lourds felt even more foolish when the man made it look so easy. His hands and forearms stung as blood rushed back into them.
    Lourds looked at the woman. ‘I would prefer it if you turned your back.’
    ‘You’re modest?’ The woman raised her eyebrows sceptically. ‘After that moment we shared in the alley?’
    Lourds wasn’t sure if the young woman was trying to impress him or the men. It didn’t matter. He fumbled with his zip and got everything arranged properly. Gratefully, Lourds let loose and sighed in relief. Unfortunately, his aim wasn’t all it could have been. Or that’s what he made it look like. The boots of at least two of the men standing near him got soaked. They screamed in protest and jumped back.
    ‘Sorry about that,’ Lourds said as he fastened his trousers again. But he wasn’t.
    The leader held out a book open to a page. ‘I want you to read this, Professor Lourds.’
    Lourds stared at the page and tried to make sense of the symbols across it. The symbols weren’t written on the page, not exactly. It was more as though the writing had left indentations on the paper, like a brass rubbing of an old tombstone. The writing was actually white blank spaces in the centre of a graphite smear.
    ‘Professor Lourds,’ the leader repeated impatiently, ‘can you read this?’
    Concentrating on the script, Lourds barely registered the man’s question. The symbols were deceptively familiar, yet they stubbornly remained just out of his reach. Excitement filled him and drowned the fear and pain in his mind. As a result of all the years he’d been studying linguistics, there were now few languages he couldn’t fluently decipher in their written form. His professors and later colleagues had insisted his brain had been hardwired with code breakers.
    Lourds didn’t think that was true. He loved languages, loved the mystery and beauty of them, and—most of all—he loved to read. So much knowledge was lost in the world because cultures had lost their languages over the years, or gradually changed to that of their conquerors.
    ‘Professor Lourds.’ The leader stepped forward and touched his pistol barrel between Lourds’ eyes. ‘Are you able to read that?’
    Lourds glanced at the man and told him the truth. The professor could lie when he needed to, but that generally involved knowing the person he was lying to well enough to lie believably.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t read it.’
    The man thumbed the hammer back on the pistol and growled in frustration.
    Despite the obvious threat to his life and the man’s displeasure, Lourds was more afraid he wouldn’t get the chance to puzzle out the document than he was of dying. His death was a given thing. Sooner or later, he would die. But finding a real challenge to his skills and mastery of languages? Those opportunities were few and far between. Even rarer was the puzzle that would not only tax his abilities, but also prove worthy of the