It was dark and humid in the tiny hovel Ibres called home; in fact it was no more than a badly concealed hole half dug into the sandy earth beneath the shade of a raised walkway.  There were slimers standing on the narrow walkway now, alerted by the commotion; some of them were even sitting down with their legs dangling over the gloomy recess to witness what followed.  It wasn't morbid curiosity, merely the urge to be there with their fellow in his final moments.  A mark of respect, if that were possible.  More were crowded around the entrance as Revan and Manag approached.  Revan had to push several of his people aside before he could get close enough to see anything at all.

He heard it first: the long, painful breaths of a dying slimer.  The gasps cut through the deathly silence like the slashes of a knife.  Somewhere in the murky rectangle of blackness, Ibres lay in mortal agony.

It was the time of the Squirming.

No one had yet been able to explain it satisfactorily, although every slimer knew about it - and dreaded it.  The final ignominy.

Manag touched Revan on the shoulder but he barely felt it.  'You don't have to do this.'

Revan just shook his head.  'Yes, I do.'

The people were watching him, he knew that.  Some of them were curious, some of them distrustful.  But there were others who expected something from him, something he had promised without even saying a word.  That same unspoken pact that Revan shared with the people he called his own brought him here now.  Ibres had been one of his.  Revan wouldn't let him die alone.

Some of the slimers had started to let out a low, keening moan of despair that had come to mark occasions like these.  It was like a cry of the cold wind in the mountains, utterly devoid of warmth or pity - a force of nature.  The sound of the lament was more than a sob, less than mourning.

Revan stooped in order to enter the hovel, his eyes slow to adjust to the gloom.  He could sense Manag behind him,  lurking in the doorway, unable or unwilling to follow.

Ibres lay on a thin mattress of dirt and canvas.  The shiny black carapaces of tiny insects glinted in the moonlight as they explored their home, eager to take up residence in Ibres's remains.  Revan swatted some of them away with an angry swipe of his paw, and then knelt down.

Ibres's eyes were shut, but they had bulged beneath the glistening skin of his face.  His mouth was open as he laboured to breathe, a round black hole in the greyness.  His arms were moving feebly at his sides, fingers twitching inside their thick gloves.

Revan tried to talk to him, but there was no response other than a series of jerks and incoherent gurgles.  Fear and revulsion welled up in Revan's chest as he watched the Squirming begin.

When the time came, there was nothing he could do except try to hold Ibres down.  His body convulsed and twisted in Revan's grip, more powerful in near death than it had been in life.  Ibres was young, not very strong, but he had believed in Revan.  He had followed him.

And now there was nothing Revan could do to save him, repay him, except to watch him suffer and give up what miserable existence he had to whatever spiteful god claimed his pathetic soul.

When the end came, it came quickly if not mercifully.  With an agonised growl, Ibres shuddered and writhed until his head flew back and his mouth opened in a last, silent scream.  Revan closed his eyes tightly so that he didn't have to witness the things that emerged from the thrashing corpse.  He could could hear them, though: slithering and sucking in the blood than ran down . hand and wrists and pooled beneath the shaking body.