CHAPTER 3: You’ll Get Dirty

Kurou Rukh
Day 1

The execution fire died down before noon. Kurou and Jaiy set a few smoldering coals in the brazier and doused the rest with buckets of water. As steam hissed off the sizzling scaffold, the fractures in the stone popped and lengthened.

Kurou didn’t think the cracks would pose any problem for Shivrant’s execution, but they would have to be repaired before the rainy season. He hoped the raja’s exchequer would cover the expense. Maybe Magister Gerent would write him a letter of support. Gerent had caused the damage in the first place, after all.

Below them, a handful of ragged children and beggars lingered as Basu Karanjit’s charnel wagon rattled to a stop beneath the scaffold’s edge. Kurou stepped to the edge of the scaffold and lifted a hand. Basu grinned and waved back.

“I heard you got some excitement today, Brother!” he shouted. “Too bad I missed it!”

A babble of voices arose as the street urchins rushed to tell Basu what had happened. The young man stretched out on the wagon’s bench to smoke, teasing the eager children as they vied for his attention. The bulky ceradha hitched to his wagon rumbled and shook its bony, horn-covered head at the noise.

Kurou turned away from the hubbub and set Scandha’s skull to one side. Picking up a shovel, he began scraping the thanaturge’s charred but damp remains off the edge of the scaffold. They fell like a dark, heavy rain into the charnel wagon below. The rukhs on the arches descended in a cloud of wings and claws, and the street urchins abandoned Basu to cling to the sideboards next to the avialans, reaching inside the wagon bed to sift through the scraps.

Basu rolled off the wagon bench and walked around to rub his ceradha’s massive scaly head, exchanging polite greetings with the two sadhus sitting in the scaffold’s shade.

“Why do you let them do that, Uncle?” Jaiy frowned as the children and rukhs squabbled over the largest chunks. “They’re just going to sell the bones as talismans. And Basu will probably sell the ash to the soapmakers.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kurou scraped his shovel over the greasy soot. His nephew scowled, wiping his face with his sleeve and leaving a black smear.

“Well,” the boy complained, “they’re still making money off our hard work.”

Kurou raised an eyebrow. That was twice this morning that Jaiy had mentioned money.

“Have you been gambling?” he asked, suspiciously. “Do you have debts?”

“No! Of course not!”

Relieved, Kurou turned back to his work. “Then stop complaining. We’re fortunate enough to be able to support ourselves. It’s our privilege to help others do the same.”

“Other Families sell remains.”

“Not the Rukhs.” Kurou wondered if Jaiy’s father, a Pujari, was in the remains business, and if so, what his sister Kushal thought about it. “Your grandfather said selling remains dishonors the executioner and the dead.”

“I don’t see how we can get any more dishonorable than we are,” the boy muttered. “At least we could make some money at it.”

“There’s nothing dishonorable about dharma, Jaiy. And how much more money do you think we need, anyway?” Kurou adopted a teasing tone, trying to coax his nephew out of his grumpy mood. “Were you planning to buy yourself some silk slippers and a gold-hemmed dhoti? Or maybe you want to ride around town on a thoroughbred utaha with gilded horns? Shall we start calling you ‘Lord Executioner’?”

“It’s not funny!” Jaiy’s voice rose. “Why shouldn’t we wear slippers? You work for the raja himself, and people still treat you like shit!”

Kurou sobered. “There’s nothing wrong with the way people treat me.”

“Well, maybe you don’t mind being treated like a freak, but I do!”

Kurou leaned on his shovel and cocked his head.

“Why?” he asked, simply.

Jaiy looked at him, on the verge of saying something, then jerked around, his shoulders high.

“It doesn’t matter,” the boy muttered.

Kurou drew in a deep breath and slowly released it, deliberately relaxing his shoulders. He was allowing his nephew to annoy him — no, he corrected himself, he was allowing himself to be annoyed by his nephew — and there was no reason for it.

When he’d told his sister Kushal that he’d be happy to let Jaiy apprentice with him, his only thought had been that working as first assistant to the Rukh in Katakot would be better for the boy than working as third assistant to a Pujari in rural Lasa. Besides, Kurou’s mother had been delighted at the idea of having one of her grandchildren come live with them. Little had he known that working with a moody fifteen-year-old would be a consistent test of his self-control.

I must need the lesson, he reminded himself. The gods provide.

“Suit yourself.” He splashed more water on the scaffold and returned to scraping the stone. The water spilled over the edge, dark with ash and gleaming with human fat. Down below, one of the children swore as he was splashed, and his friends laughed.

The tense silence stretched on. Kurou bit his tongue. If he knew his nephew…. Sure enough, Jaiy finally stopped scrubbing and dropped back onto his heels.

“I got another job offer,” the boy blurted out.

“As an executioner?” Kurou was surprised. “Where?”

Jaiy scowled. “As a radio technician!”

Ah. Of course. Kurou sighed.

“It won’t work, Jaiy. They’ll rescind the offer as soon as they realize you’re a genmark.”

“Ms. Farha won’t! She already knows.”

“Who’s Ms. Farha?” Kurou hadn’t heard the name before. A new girlfriend, maybe? “I thought you were going out with some bartender’s daughter.”

“I am!” Jaiy leaped to his feet and started pacing back and forth, the length of the scaffold. “I am. Her name is Lina, and we’re in love.”

“All right….”

“We’re going to get married.”

Kurou raised an eyebrow. “Does your mother know?”

“I haven’t told her yet.” Jaiy scowled. “Because Lina won’t marry an executioner.”

“Then —”

“That’s why I need a new job,” Jaiy continued in a rush. “I’m good with electronics, Uncle; Ms. Farha says so, and she runs her very own radio station. I can work there and on the radio nobody will know I’m a ’mark!”

“Except your coworkers, and everyone they tell about you. And what about Lina? Does she realize the mark’s heritable?” Kurou tapped his eyes and gestured at Jaiy’s. “Is she ready to have children who look like this? Who’ll be shunned by respectable society?”

Jaiy’s chin rose.

“She loves me!” he protested, his fists clenching.

Kurou shook his head.

“You haven’t discussed any of this with her, have you?” he asked, exasperated. “Did she really say she’d marry you if you got a new job?”

“She will!” Jaiy shouted. “She’ll marry me if I get an honest job, and I’ll show everyone that genmarks don’t matter!”

“Except they do. Forget it, Jaiy. I’m not going to release you from your apprenticeship, and her p—”

“If you don’t release me, I’ll tell Grandma about your girlfriend!”

Kurou’s expression darkened. He rose to his feet, gripping the shovel handle with all his strength.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he grated, his voice tight.

“Yes I do, and if you get in my way, I’ll tell her; I’ll tell everyone!” Jaiy spun and ran off, storming down the scaffold steps. Kurou opened his mouth to shout after him — he wasn’t sure what — and then snapped it shut again with a low growl.

As Jaiy reached the square, Basu Karanjit called out a question that the boy ignored. The customers chattering outside the Bitter Cup turned to gawk at the apprentice as he ran past, then gazed curiously up at Kurou.

Kurou spun and slammed his fist into the gallows’ upright. His skin split against its decorative bas relief carvings, but the pain cleared his head.

“Shit.” He shook his hand, wincing, then rubbed his face. Ash and grit scraped against his short beard.

That could have gone better, he thought with self-reproach. He glanced at his house. No sign that his mother was watching, thank the gods. He squatted and picked up Jaiy’s discarded scrub brush. The knuckles of his right hand were scraped and bloody … but Jaiy isn’t, he thought.

Grandmother would tell him to focus on the positive. Although so far today there’d been precious little to be positive about, he brooded as he started to scrub.

Someone coughed behind him. He tensed.

“Hey, Older Brother, is everything all right?” Basu Karanjit squatted beside him.

“Yes.” Kurou couldn’t meet the younger man’s gaze. Grandmother’s voice murmured in his mind, reminding him of the perils of anger and ego. “…I shouldn’t have raised my voice in public.”

“I heard about your fight with Scandha, yeah? Nobody can blame you for being a little wound up.” Basu held out his smoldering cigarette, its narcotic fumes overwhelming the scent of wet human ash. “Relax a little?”

Kurou shook his head. “I’d better not. I still have work to do.”

Basu nodded, replacing the cigarette between his lips.

“Well, come by and visit sometime,” he urged. “All of you. You need a break from all this killing, yeah? Mother would love to have you over.”

“We’d love to see her again. Let’s have dinner together after my next job is over.”

“That would be good. You all done up here? Then I’ll head off.” He rose. “See you soon, Brother. Give my love to your mother.”

“And mine to yours,” Kurou replied, watching enviously as Basu ambled off. The Karanjit brothers were almost as relaxed as sadhus. He wished he could attain that level of serenity. Maybe if he only had to cremate bodies, instead of create them, he’d be under less stress. He sighed and turned his attention back to the stone, knuckles bleeding as he pressed down on the scrub brush.

Jaiy was a fool if he thought he could escape his fate. The yakṣas and lateni might consider every germline equally valuable, but humans didn’t. Katakot’s mansions were full of people who could track their germlines right back to the Stillness without a mutation or genmark among them. Whereas a germline like his, permanently marked or mutated, made him little better than any genetically aberrant techscavenger from the Wastes.

The brush’s stiff bristles grated against something metallic. He dug a thick, soot-blackened ring out of a crack between the stones. Scandha’s, he decided, examining it. Prisoners weren’t supposed to have jewelry, but Scandha’s jailer had obviously done a piss-poor job of preparing him for execution. He scraped at the metal with a broken fingernail. Salvage steel, probably, to have survived the fire so well. Maybe recast by some artisan. Expensive, but he supposed the raja’s former physician would have been able to afford expensive jewelry.

Kurou tucked the ring into his jerkin pocket and reached for the brush again, his thoughts turning inexorably back to his nephew.Maybe Barak was right, he mused. Maybe he’d given Jaiy too much freedom. Maybe a beating or two would straighten the boy out. Although it hadn’t worked on him. Anger resolves nothing, as Grandmother would say.

Still — what if Jaiy really did quit his apprenticeship to pursue another career? It had the potential to end disastrously, if anyone took offense. Beatings would be the least of it. And Jaiy’s parents would have a fit if he quit the scaffold; Kurou was certain Kushal would blame it on him, and maybe she’d have a point.

He sighed and looked around. Cleaning usually calmed his nerves, but today it wasn’t working. His scaffold was still cracked and buckled and fire-scorched. The broken gallows trap door still hung open, and despite all his scrubbing, the stone surface still looked dark and greasy with human ash. No matter how hard he scoured the stone, he wasn’t going to be able to scrub away his problems.

He stood and stretched his aching shoulders. Basu had left with the wagon a long time ago, and the street urchins had vanished. He squatted again to bind the skull’s fire-blackened jaw with strips of damp leather, his fingers moving with the ease of long practice. Once the skull was tightly wrapped, he grabbed the ladder and rested one end against the iron arches overhead. Rukhs hopped back and forth through the leafy vines, chortling to themselves as he climbed up to their perch.

“Be good,” he admonished as the black-feathered avialans tugged on his sleeves with needle-toothed jaws. The boldest of the rukhs used their wing-claws to climb up onto his shoulders, croaking in his ears. Their cocky fearlessness, as always, lifted his spirits. “Wait your turn.”

Leaves brushed his hands as he hammered Taim Scandha’s skull down onto an iron spike and adjusted its angle. As soon as he began climbing down, the rukhs darted forward to squabble over what little charred flesh remained on the bones.

---

Kurou’s restless mood lingered as he headed back to the Diamond Keep, tool bag slung over one shoulder and ladder balanced on the other. Sandalwood fumes rose from his clothes; he’d asked the sadhus for a blessing before leaving the Square.

The street was crowded, but space opened around him like magic as he walked; bicyclists and rickshaw drivers veered out of his way and pedestrians made gestures to ward off evil as he passed. A few onlookers tugged on their neighbor’s sleeves, heads inclining in his direction as they scuttled by. Kurou kept his eyes lowered, aware, as always, of the attention he drew. No doubt they were all gossiping about the morning’s debacle with Scandha. He supposed he’d be blamed for it, even though it hadn’t been his fault that the prisoner hadn’t been drugged.

Eventually the lane widened, forming a plaza around the Diamond Keep’s high, ancient diamondoid walls. Two giant yakṣa eyes had been painted over the Keep’s main gate, gazing serenely over the bustling crowd. The eyes had been placed too high to be covered by the patchwork of advertisements and political posters glued in ragged layers over the rest of the surface. Tangled electrical wires crisscrossed overhead, running from poles lining the edge of the open plaza to service panels jury-rigged on top of the Keep’s glittering walls. Kurou walked to the Keep’s small postern gate, lowering the ladder.

“Hey, Rukh, you made the papers again.” The gate guard brandished a smudged newspaper page and began reading. “‘The Rukh’s cruel and mirthless smile as he ruthlessly strangled the infamous villain sent a chill through the heart of this horrified journalist.’” He laughed. “C’mon, gimme a smile, Rukh. It’s hot out here; I could use a chill.”

“Gods … don’t let Captain Barak read that,” Kurou muttered. “He’d never let me live it down. Is Jaiy back?”

“Nope, but I sent some pretty young thing down to your office a half-hour ago. Guess she wants a peek at that famous smile, too.” The guard chortled, holding the gate open as Kurou maneuvered his ladder through.

Several more jailers and guards waved copies of the paper as Kurou passed, gleefully reading the more ludicrous passages aloud. Kurou scarcely acknowledged them, his heart pounding with anticipation as he jammed his tools into the Keep storeroom. He stopped at the courtyard pump and splashed tepid greywater over his hands and face, rinsing off the worst of the day’s sweat and ash.

The Diamond Keep had gone through several incarnations before it had been converted into the capital’s central prison. Now, in a skewed reflection of the basin-shaped city of Katakot itself, the prison’s lowest levels housed the poorest criminals, while its upper stories held political prisoners, wealthy merchants, and disobedient zamindars. Lord Jatin Maitra Shivrant, the imprisoned champion of Montiku, had a cell at the very top of the Keep. Kurou’s office was in the basement.

He smelled Mariya’s perfume as soon as he stopped in front of his office door. Shooting a sharp glance up and down the narrow corridor to make sure he was alone, he anxiously smoothed the front of his leather executioner’s jerkin and ran a palm over his short-cropped hair and beard. By the blessed mother goddess, he thought with frustration, why did she never give him any warning before she visited? Taking a deep breath, he opened the door.

Mariya was standing beside his desk, reading a document. She set it down and turned, letting her silk dupatta fall from her face as soon as she recognized him.

“Kurou!” Her bright eyes scanned him up and down. “Tell me you’re all right.” Rings glittered on her fingers as she pulled off her scarf and folded it, laying it on top of his desk.

Kurou closed the door and rested his back against it. The weak light of his office’s single overhead bulb burnished Mariya’s cinnamon-colored skin and the warm copper scales of her honormarks, making her glow like a welcoming hearth fire.

“I came here as soon as I could,” she continued. The hem of her silk sari swept through dust and straw scraps as she crossed the room. Gold bangles chimed on her wrists and ankles as she walked. “The news was all over the radio and newspapers. They said you and Scandha were fighting.”

“You’ll get dirty,” he warned.

She ignored him, pressing herself against the length of his body. He closed his eyes as they kissed, tasting honey and danger. All the worried thoughts spinning around his head stumbled and came to a halt as he lifted a hand and ran a callused thumb over the curve of her cheek. A narrow band of soft, smooth scales rippled beneath his touch.

“I don’t care.” She drew back, her gentle fingers sliding down his sleeves. Her touch still made his heart pound, even after so many years and so many transformations. Sometimes his heart pounded so hard that he thought he was dying. “What did he do to you?”

“Nothing.” He dropped his hands to her slender waist and pulled her close, burying his face against her neck and breathing the scent of her hair. “You need to stop coming here, Maya,” he whispered in her ear. “Someone will recognize you.”

“I was careful,” she murmured back. “I had to be certain you were well.”

“I’m fine, and so are Barak and Jaiy….” His words trailed off as his worries resurfaced. He raised his head. Mariya touched his lips with one delicate finger, looking alarmed.

“What’s wrong? He did hurt you, didn’t he?”

“It’s not that. It’s just — I had a stupid argument with Jaiy today.”

She relaxed. “What was it this time?”

“He wants to quit his apprenticeship for a girl.”

“Oh, dear.” Mariya clasped his hand and tugged him toward a chair. He dutifully followed. “Tell me about it.”

“I don’t know much more than that.” Kurou sat for the first time since dawn. A wave of weariness swept over him. He rested his eyes as Mariya pulled her chair next to his and laid a hand on his arm. “He says they’re going to get married, although I’m sure her parents would never agree. I mean, Kushal wouldn’t, either — he’s still too young, even if he did have a chance to marry outside the Family. At any rate, he started shouting at me and stormed off.”

Her laugh was low and rich.

“Good thing he’s not a Rukh; he would have done more than shout.”

“He’s half-Rukh. I think he was considering it.” Kurou opened his eyes again. “I didn’t lay a hand on him.”

“Of course you didn’t.”

“I was tempted, though.”

“Being tempted doesn’t count.” Silk rustled and glimmered as she moved, fabric hiking up over one delicate ankle to reveal a stack of glittering anklets. “So, what happens now? What do you think he’ll do?”

“I don’t know. I…” Kurou dragged his gaze away from her legs. “Believe it or not, Jaiy threatened to tell my mother about us.”

“Really?” Her eyes danced. “Did he think you’d be grounded, at your age?”

“Who knows? I’m sure he doesn’t have any idea who you are.” He sighed. “But it makes me think that maybe I shouldn’t criticize him. I mean, we were younger than he was when….” He let his voice trail off.

Mariya leaned forward and kissed him on the brow. He ran his hand down the curve of her bare arm, her flesh and scales warm under his callused fingers. His concern over Jaiy’s future was quickly fading.

“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispered with a smile, “you and I were so much older when we were Jaiy’s age. He’s just a naive little country boy.”

“Kushal will kill me if I let him quit. Maybe I should send him back to her.”

“Maybe you should just let this little drama play itself out without you. What is Jaiy going to do with himself, if he quits his apprenticeship?”

“Radio. He said —” Kurou stopped, feeling a pang.

“What?”

“…He said his girlfriend wouldn’t marry an executioner.”

Silence stretched between them. Then Mariya leaned forward and slid her hand over his. Her nails were neat, clean, gleaming … he remembered a time when they’d been ragged and dirty, like his. Their fingers twined together with comforting familiarity.

“If you didn’t hit Jaiy, what did you hit?” she asked, looking down at his scabbing knuckles.

“The gallows.”

“Silly man.” She gently squeezed his fingers. “You know I love you.”

“Not enough.” He hated the despair in his voice.

“Too much for my own good.” She tugged at his hands until he looked at her. Her kohl-darkened eyes were wide and compassionate. “You know I have no objections to your job.”

He bit back his useless arguments and released her hands under the pretense of shifting in his chair. “What do you think I should do?”

“Well, I don’t think you should get upset over it. It’s his problem, not yours. Stay out his way.”

“I can’t. He’s my nephew.”

“He’s a young man who needs to figure out his place in the world, and if a few of his dreams get shattered along the way, well, it happens to all of us. You won’t do him any favors by trying to protect him.”

“Mariya….” Kurou shook his head.

“Shhh. If you’re not going to listen to my advice, I won’t waste my time offering it.” Mariya stood and slid into his lap, her sari sliding up to reveal a stretch of smoothly curved calf. “I can’t stay very long — I’m supposed to go riding with Lord Warud this afternoon.”

Kurou reached for her, painfully aware of his weakness. Mariya had told him once that he was the only part of her past she couldn’t bring herself to toss aside. He knew how pathetic it was that he felt grateful for that.

She draped her arms around his neck.

“Now, tell me what happened at the execution,” she demanded.

He wrapped his arms around her slender waist and laid his head against her bosom. She stroked his short hair as he recounted Scandha’s escape and attack.

“But he didn’t hurt you?” she pressed.

Kurou hesitated. What did she want to hear? He didn’t want to tell her what Scandha had said about killing the king. So, something else. Something horrible. She always wanted to hear something horrible.

“He harrowed me,” he admitted.

“No! He didn’t!” Her eyes widened as she drew back. Despite himself, his heart warmed at the honest shock in her expression. “How dare he!”

“I wasn’t — I mean, it hurt, but I feel all right now. Gerent said I was lucky. Scandha killed the other two men he harrowed. And he tried to kill Captain Barak, but I pulled him off.”

“Oh, that bastard!” Mariya lifted his head up and kissed him, then pressed her face against the shoulder of his soot-stained jerkin. “That — What was he thinking? He could have killed you! Are you sure you feel all right?”

“Don’t do that,” Kurou protested. “I’m dirty and I smell awful.”

“You smell like sandalwood and burned meat. At least tell me he was still alive when you burned him!”

He ran his fingers down the gentle slope of her bare shoulder, tracing a swirl of copper-colored scale that darkened to green as it touched her spine. Four years ago, Mariya had surreptitiously funded a microcredit union for the women in her old neighborhood that had done much to improve the living situation for them and their daughters. She hadn’t wanted any recognition for it, reminding Kurou that she had to hide her background if she were going to work her way up the social hierarchy. Nevertheless, two years ago Caretaker Nathapala had awarded her an honormark for “charitable works,” a vague enough description to satisfy curiosity while protecting her privacy.

Kurou had thought she might stop seeing him after that, but she’d showed up a few weeks after her reinscription as if nothing had changed. She was the first honormark he’d ever touched.

“Kurou?”

He slid his hand from scale to flesh.

“Yes, he was alive. But I don’t think he was conscious.”

“What did it sound like when he burned?”

“I don’t know,” he said. She shifted and looked at him with deep brown, hungry eyes. He groped for an answer that would please her. “Hissing and crackling. Like frying food.”

“What did he look like when you put out the fire?”

He placed a finger on her lips and she licked it. Her delicate fingers began to unbutton his jerkin. He shifted her in his lap to accommodate his arousal.

It had been the killing had drawn Mariya to him in the first place, and it was the killing that kept bringing her back. That knowledge made his heart ache, but it was the only way he knew to keep her close.

“He looked like charcoal.” He stroked her cheek, then ran his fingers down her neck, feeling her shiver. “His body was black and brittle. We broke it up with our shovels.”

“Then you have him on you,” she said in a husky whisper, little more than an exhalation. She pulled his jerkin open. Kurou lifted one of her hands to his mouth and kissed her palm.

“I wish I could watch you work,” she sighed. “If only it wouldn’t be so improper.” She cupped his face in her hands. He closed his eyes, enjoying the cool caress of her fingers on his cheeks, his beard.

“You love improper,” he murmured. “Or you wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

“I love you, Kurou,” she replied, reproachfully.

He wished he could believe it. If she really loved him … with a jolt, he remembered Scandha’s ring. He pulled back and dug it out of his jerkin pocket.

“Here,” he said, holding it out. “I think Scandha was wearing this when he died. You can have it, if you want.”

She gave him a startled look. “His ring? Kurou, why….?”

“That’s not — I mean, I — I just thought you might want it,” Kurou stammered, his cheeks heating. “As a souvenir, that’s all. I found it in his ashes. It doesn’t — I mean, I’m not trying to —”

“Oh, sweetheart. …That’s so thoughtful.” Wearing a peculiar expression, she slid the soot-covered ring onto one finger and then leaned forward to kiss him again. He pulled away, chagrined. That was stupid, he berated himself. What was he thinking, putting a dirty steel ring on her delicate hand? Salvage steel might be valuable, but the ring was heavy and crude compared to her gold and jewels.

Heavy and crude like me, he thought with despair.

Mariya laid a hand on his chest and pressed her tongue into his mouth and his mind mercifully emptied.

“I’ll keep it,” she promised.

He reached up to remove the pins that held up her hair, but she brushed his hands aside and took out the pins herself, letting them fall onto the desk next to them. Then she leaned forward, her long black hair framing their faces.

“Darling,” she murmured. “Citta Radio said the raja has ordered Lord Shivrant’s execution.”

He nodded, glancing at his desk. She’d laid her folded dupatta on top of the death sentence. Mariya tugged his face back toward her, her fingers running over his short beard.

“People aren’t happy about it,” she continued. “There have already been several street protests, and I understand there may be more.”

He swallowed, his ardor diminished. She stared into his eyes.

“I want you to be careful, sweetheart. Stay close to Captain Barak and the rest of the guards on the scaffold, and keep yourself safe if any trouble breaks out.”

“I don’t want to execute him,” he confessed softly. “I don’t think he deserves it.”

She leaned closer, pulling open his rough, kadi-cloth shirt.

“You have to execute him, my love.” The tips of her fingers stroked the prayer tattooed over his heart. “But promise me you’ll stay safe while you do it.”

Kurou closed his eyes, drowning in her perfume and wishing there were something more between them than history and death.