I relaxed and tapped Harkat's hand to show that I was OK. He released me and stepped back, his large green eyes alive with concern. He handed me a mug of water. I drank deeply from it, then wiped a shaking hand across my lips and smiled weakly. "Did I wake you?"

"I wasn't asleep," Harkat said. The grey-skinned Little Person didn't need much sleep and often went two or three nights without dozing. He took the mug from me and set it down. "It was a bad one this… time. You started screaming five or six… minutes ago, and only stopped now. The same nightmare?"

"Isn't it always?" I muttered. "The wasteworld, the wave of fire, the dragon, the… Steve," I finished quietly. I'd been haunted by the nightmare for almost two years, screaming myself awake at least a couple of times a week. In all those months I hadn't told Harkat about the Lord of the Shadows and that wretched face I always saw at the end of the nightmare. As far as he knew, Steve was the only monster in my dreams I didn't dare tell him that I was as scared of myself as I was of Steve Leopard.

I swung my legs out of my hammock and sat up. I could tell by the darkness that it was only three or four in the morning, but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep any more. The nightmare always left me shaken and wide awake.

Rubbing the back of my neck, I found myself studying Harkat out of the corner of my eye. Although he wasn't the source of my nightmares, I could trace their origins back to him. The Little Person had been built from the Remains of a corpse. For most of his newlife he hadn't known who he was. Two years ago, Mr Tiny a man of immense power, with the ability to travel through time transported us to a barren wasteworld and sent us off on a quest to discover Harkat's previous identity. We fought a variety of wild creatures and twisted monstrosities before finally fishing Harkat's original body out of the Lake of Souls, a holding place for damned spirits.