Real Magic Part VI
Real Magic
Credits as for Part I
For the wonderful, patient and long-suffering Geyer.
Saturnin took a step backward and released Hermione before her focus could turn from the magic to the liberties she might perceive him to have taken. The air from the ventilation system hit her back like a cold shower now that he no longer shielded her from it. She hitched in a breath and turned to him. "But what does that get us other than a riddle wrapped inside an enigma?"
"You said it yourself," Saturnin said. "We're talking about lore so ancient that it has been forgotten by the wizarding world as we know it. It's so old and so alien that even with fifty-some years of arcane study, I can say little other than I doubt it is even human in origin... and yet this casting dates back no more than a year or two at most."
"Not human?" Hermione asked.
"Neither human, nor goblin, nor elven, nor centaur, nor any of the other sentient races that form part of our society."
"Could we be talking about a vampire sorcerer?" Giles interjected. "The locket was part of a horde belonging to-"
"Can you stop trying to blame me for long enough to even listen to him, Watcher?" Spike protested as he opened a cupboard under the bar and pulled out an unopened bottle of bourbon, twisting out the cork. "It's nigh on twenty years since I dug up that stuff. He says this only goes back a couple of years max." He threw the cork into a bin and took a deep drink.
Saturnin seemed to still give Giles' suggestion some consideration. "No, this is not the work of any form of undead."
"Check the pendant," Hermione instructed Saturnin, as she strode across the dance floor. "It's the only way to stop them arguing."
"A please wouldn't kill you when you're presuming to order around your former instructor," Saturnin growled.
Hermione rolled her eyes. "Please check the pendant, O Great and Wonderful Fount of All Knowledge," she replied sarcastically.
"Better," Księcia grumbled, one corner of his tight lips lifting faintly upward. "And, pray tell, what will you be doing?"
Hermione nodded to the bags by the back door. "I'll be unpacking the real problem."
"Miss Granger!" Saturnin stopped her dead with just the tone of his voice. "Did you learn nothing from Miss Bell's unfortunate handling of that necklace? It would be a shame to cut short our reacquaintance due to your untimely death."
"You said that the magic wasn't dark, and if I'm right, both Audrey and I have already handled it," Hermione argued.
"And here we are trapped..." Saturnin drawled. "Well, I'm sure if you handle it some more you can get us into even more trouble. Go right ahead!"
"I, ehm, well, I apologise, Spike," Giles conceded with a sheepish expression after Anya had nudged him.
Spike opened his mouth, paused and then gave a shrug before he fixed his gaze firmly on his grandsire, who was currently questioning Buffy as to why they stocked Bushmills instead of Jamesons and refusing to acknowledge the fact that Saturnin had just confirmed that Audrey's locket was completely devoid of magic. "Yeah, well," the blond conceded, "It's only natural for a dad to worry about his kid. Not like you don't have an excuse." He raised his voice. "An' I stock Bushmills because I was nostalgic for your whining about protestant whiskey."
"I was not whining-"
"Nah, 'cause you'd have to be a right git to complain about free booze," Spike replied sarcastically.
"I was not whining. I was just asking Buffy a civilised question out of- Hey, that's my present!" Angel glared at Saturnin and Hermione as she carried the box containing the Egyptian-style figure to the table where Saturnin had examined Audrey's necklace. "What are you doing with it?"
"I am about to ascertain whether it is, as Madam Krum suspects, the cause of our problems," Saturnin smoothly replied.
Spike snickered and took another pull from his bottle of bourbon. "Imagine giving a cursed whatever-it-is to an eleven-year-old!"
"We don't know that it's cursed," Angel peevishly protested.
"Oh, and you waited for confirmation before you accused me. The experts seem to think it's the prime suspect."
"Who says they're experts?" Angel demanded. "They could be the ones doing all this. We don't know anything about either of them. It could be some sort of con trick. They could be saying it's the statuette just to throw suspicion away from them. We don't even know they can do magic at all."
Audrey gave the vamp a scathing glance. "The walls don't normally glow on their own."
"Huh?" Angel gave the girl a bewildered look that was echoed by Buffy.
"Sparkly walls," Robert replied scathingly.
Giles turned his attention to the former star-crossed lovers. "Interesting..." he murmured and then raised an eyebrow in Spike's direction. "You?"
"Faint, but there. Look, Watcher, I know it goes with the job description an' all, but don't you think that you'd do better to put your brain to work thinking of a way out of here rather than making notes as if the rest of us are rats in your maze?"
"It's rather difficult to do much in the way of research when I can't get to my books," Giles snapped back.
In the meantime, a combined effort from Saturnin and Hermione involving some carefully controlled levitation spells had managed to remove the statuette from its wrappings without either of them needing to touch it.
"See how the hieroglyphs are inconsistent?" Hermione pointed out. "I thought it was just because whoever did the design had copied them at random from different sources, but if you're right about the caster not being human..."
"Yessss," Saturnin drawled contemplatively. "Stand back, please."
"Let me see!" Anya cut in just as Saturnin raised his wand. The former demon crouched slightly, peering at the symbols on the edges of the statue's base as she circled the table. "Rupert! Spike! We need someone who can translate Quadimbassrasnasslugha."
"Quadimwhat?" Giles demanded, the frown lines at the centre of his forehead deepening considerably as Spike shook his head.
"I know how to order a beer, basic tourist sort of stuff but that's about my limit. Can't make head nor tail of all the birdies and beasties and other squiggles."
His wand still raised as if he had forgotten he'd been poised to cast, Saturnin pinned Anya in his jet gaze. "What is Quadimbassrasnasslugha?"
Anya stared back intently for a few seconds and then took a step closer to Saturnin. "Well, don't you have an interesting family history? Giant, goblin or demon?" she asked. "Until Spike put the lights back up, I just thought they were really dark brown."
"I believe there are more important things to discuss than my heritage," Księcia whispered with chilling clarity. "Quadimbassrasnasslugha?"
"Exactly what it says on the tin," Spike interrupted. "If you know Arabic. The ancient language of the cat-headed people."
Saturnin nodded his head in Spike's direction. "Certain elements of the written language seem to correspond to Ancient Egyptian. Do you perhaps know if the pronunciation might be similar?"
Spike shrugged. "It's not like they go meow."
Hermione looked sceptical. "We don't even know whether it reads left to right or right to left."
"Huh?" Buffy screwed up her face. "If they use the same alphabet, wouldn't you read them in the same direction?"
Giles ran the fingers of his right hand through his hair again. "Technically they're glyphs rather than letters and Ancient Egyptian isn't read in any set direction. Some examples read right to left, some read top to bottom and some read left to right. The asymmetrical characters always look toward the beginning of the text, so if all the birdies and beasties as Spike calls them face to the right, then you would begin reading from right to left."
"Only here they don't," Hermione pointed out. "Some of them are facing right and some are looking the other way."
"Right to left," Anya interjected. "Now, how about you prove that you learned something in all that time you worked at The British Museum?"
"That was rather a long time ago, dear," Giles pointed out, colour rising to his cheeks as he realised that every English person in the room was now staring expectantly at him. "And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some of the glyphs aren't actually pronounced. There are determinants and phonetic complements."
"Is he still speaking English?" Buffy asked Spike in a stage whisper. "And why would working in this British museum have anything to do with Egyptian stuff?"
"Because when archaeology was still tomb-robbing, Egypt was part of the British Empire, pet," Spike explained. "Everything that wasn't nailed down got shipped back to good old London town. And, yes, it's English. Dry as dust Watcher English, but English."
Giles gave a sigh and pinched his nose. "Some characters are there to provide clarification as to which of several meanings might be applied to an adjoining character, some determine pronunciation. The symbol nfr, meaning beautiful might be followed by the phonetic symbols for f and r for example, or if the same symbol is followed by a determinative symbol for a pot, it means beer or wine, but is still pronounced nefer, though we have no way to know the original vowel sounds. Custom dictates that we use an 'e' sound between consonants and an 'a' sound after a single consonant as in Ra, but we have no way of knowing the sounds originally used. If any part of this is an incantation, it may be impossible for us to replicate it accurately."
"Is this your way of saying it's hopeless?" Robert asked.
"I'm afraid it would be extremely difficult, and potentially inaccurate, unless I had access to the correct reference materials."
"We still don't know that the Bast thing has anything to do with it," Angel protested. "You said that dream catcher was made by some Native American shaman."
"First Native," Audrey corrected. "The Dene Tha' live in Canada."
"Maybe Oz asked him to put some sort of spell on it and either it went wrong or... something," the vampire continued in blithe denial of any wrongdoing on his part. "Just because he says it's not human magic doesn't mean he's right. Maybe he just doesn't recognise shamany magic. Some of their gods are meant to be into mischief, the crow or the raven or whatever. It could even be the jacket."
Anya sighed. "Have you never seen a cat with a ball of wool? Or better yet some tinsel. Or are you another one who uses kittens for poker chips?"
"What?" Hermione's head had come up like a shot and she was glaring at the taller vamp with suspicion and something close to hatred.
"She's joking!" Angel insisted. "I don't- I even saved a puppy once. Dived- Dove- Dived right out in front of a car to get it. Spike's the one..."
Hermione tossed her head in a gesture of disbelief and turned her attention back to the figurine.
Giles, however, continued to give the elder vamp a look of withering disdain. "The owner of the trading post is a sorcerer. The Dene Tha' are renowned for their magical abilities and Oz and Willow are friends with both him and the shaman who made the dream catcher and we've met them both when we've visited. In my opinion, neither of them would sell anything cursed to Oz or Willow. On the other hand, you haven't provided any details as to how you came to find the statuette."
"What difference does that make?" Angel muttered, flicking at his thigh as if to remove an invisible piece of lint.
"Oh, let me think," Spike said in a facetious tone. "You spend half your time running around hacking off demon heads and then you end up with a cursed demon artefact, and we're meant to think it's a coincidence?"
"I buy stuff there all the time. It's always been fine up to now," the taller vampire argued.
"Where?" Buffy asked impatiently.
"EBay. They deliver. You can choose practically anything you want from the comfort of your own home."
Anya rolled her eyes. "From that specific vendor?" she asked.
"It's all the same, isn't it?"
"Angellll," half the people in the room seemed to sigh in exasperation.
Anya walked up to the Irish vampire and kicked him hard on the shin. "Spike, Take Mr Eighteenth Century and, if you can still get into your office, find out what you can about who he bought this from. At least Rupert admits he doesn't know anything about computers and doesn't play with things he doesn't understand."
"You have a computer here?" Hermione asked, looking suddenly hopeful. "Does it have internet access?"
"That'll depend on this curse, won't it?" Spike looked back from the foot of the staircase to reply.
"You have an idea?" Severus asked.
"Well, there has to be some sort of reference material for hieroglyphs online," Hermione suggested, "and failing that we could always use a camera phone to take pictures of the glyphs and send them to someone."
"If you can come up with someone with the eldest Weasley's proficiency with hieroglyphics who has so little magical ability that they can own a computer and keep it functioning. Or you could just let me check that it is the statuette," Saturnin said. "And if it is, I may be able to translate it, given some privacy."
At this Anya walked over to Saturnin and kicked him, exactly as she had kicked Angel. "You could have told us that before, Goblin Eyes."
Saturnin scowled down at her. "I only said I may be able to translate it. I can offer no guarantees."
"I don't see why you need privacy," Hermione argued. "You've used plenty of magic already.
"Hogwarts is not the only school which guards its secrets," Saturnin replied smugly. "Or did you never wonder exactly how a polyglot faculty teaches children from so many disparate backgrounds? Maybe you thought I addressed the school by shouting and miming as if I were Dolores Umbridge speaking to Hagrid?"
"Oh sod off," Hermione told him, though her tone was far from caustic. "I know the habit's deeply ingrained, but you don't have to spend the rest of your life being a total arse." Hermione knew she shouldn't have used such language in front of a potential pupil and her family, but Saturnin's shocked expression was more than worth it. "Yes, I learned to swear since I left school. I don't do it often, but I find that with some particularly stubborn characters that gets through where reasoned arguments simply goad them into arguing back." She smiled sweetly. "Now take the pretty statue off to the toilets, Professor, and do... whatever secret things you feel compelled to do."
"Harridan," Severus muttered as he levitated the figure from the table.
"Grouch," Hermione retaliated.
Spike perched one butt-cheek on the banister and slid gracefully down the precipitously steep slope while Angel trudged down the stairs as if he were going to the scaffold.
"What a wanker!" Spike announced, shaking his head derisively. "He only sent his money off to someone with no user recommendations whose only address was a Post Office Box in New Jersey. And that's not even the best bits!"
Giles crossed his arms raised both eyebrows and looked at the two vampires. "Oh?" he enquired in a deceptively conversational tone.
"Tell the nice man what the user name was," Spike sing-songed with a smirk.
"Miss_Kitty69," Angel muttered under his breath.
"And what email address did she use for her PayPal account?"
"How was I supposed to know it was a fake name?" Angel demanded, searching the room for anyone who would hold his gaze without staring daggers and fixing on Buffy.
Giles uncrossed his arms and strode forward. He grabbed Angel by his jacket lapels, lifting him off the ground and slamming his back into the bar. "Answer the bloody question!" he said in a chilly tone that matched Severus Snape at his most dangerous. "You do not get to put my children in danger and then look for sympathy."
"Selina Kyle!" Angel sputtered.
Robert rolled his eyes and muttered, "Doofus."
Anya swatted at the vampire with her handbag and even Buffy couldn't help but smirk.
Giles kept the vampire suspended, though his face turned red and his arms trembled. "You bought my daughter's gift from Catwoman?"
"Well, I didn't know..."
"Are you gay?" Anya asked, hitting the vampire again. "Because if you aren't you must be the only heterosexual male in the Western world who hasn't drooled over Michelle Pfeiffer in PVC at one time or another." Her voice softened and she turned to her husband. "Rupert, put him down. He's not worth a heart attack."
"In a minute," Giles replied softly, leaning in until only an inch separated his nose and the vampire's. "Get this straight, Angel. Buffy may like you. Spike may have to put up with you, but once we get out of here, if you even so much as wave at any member of my family from the far side of the street, I will personally dust off my favourite crossbow, buy up enough 'Killer of the Dead' to wipe out the entire house of Aurelius, and come hunting for you." He loosened his grip and let Angel slump against the bar.
Anya pushed Angel aside to wrap her arms around Giles waist and draw him into a hug. "Oh, Rupert," she sighed into his chest. "I love it when you're all manly."
"Geez, Mom!" Robert complained. "You love it when he breathes. Get a grip."
Giles lifted his eyes from his wife and gave his son an affectionate smile. "We could have put you up for adoption you know," he remarked.
"You'd miss-"
"Granger!" Saturnin bellowed as he flung open the toilet door. "What in Merlin's name have you done?"
Hermione glared defiantly at him. "Does this mean you have a translation?"
Saturnin gave the tightest of smiles. "When the moon is full and the ib is pure, then the path to its greatest desire may be illuminated." He inhaled deeply through his nose. "Care to tell us what that might be? Unless you believe that we are imprisoned here on Miss Giles' whim."
"Well, it sure as hell lets you off the hook, Grumpypants!" Hermione retorted, leaving Saturnin momentarily struggling for words. "But I don't think anyone made it through the war unscathed."
A newly chastened Angel leaned down to whisper to Spike, "What's the ib?"
Spike shrugged and tilted his head toward Audrey. "Ask Snacksize."
"According to the Ancient Egyptians, the soul is made up of seven different parts," she explained. "Ka, or life-force, is probably the one most people have heard of, but to the Egyptians, the ib was regarded as the most important part. We'd call it the heart. At the time of death, the ib would pass on to the afterlife and be examined by Anubis and the deities, or so they believed. If it was found to weigh more than the feather of Maat, then it was immediately consumed by the demon, Ammit."
"And the fact remains that you were the first person to find they couldn't leave... Hermione." Saturnin seemed hesitant, as if he had had to consciously choose to use her given name.
"She didn't wish," Audrey insisted. "I would have heard her. I was standing right there all the time she was touching it and she didn't wish. We were just tidying away the presents and talking."
"And what were you talking about?" Saturnin asked the girl.
"Mr Krum a-and what he was like." As the girl stumbled over the words her gaze dropped to her feet and then met Hermione's.
Realisation hit Hermione at the same time and her eyes widened in horror. "Oh Merlin!"
"Ah. So you have your very own Księcia?" That was what Audrey had asked and Hermione remembered the thought that had run through her head. If only.
"Look, there must be another explanation. I'm hardly some sort of saint."
"Samantha," Spike cut in. "Don't suppose you keep a cat?"
"Well, yes, I've always had a cat since I was fourteen, except for during the war. Crooks was killed in the first attack and then we had to go into hiding so it wouldn't have been fair, but-"
"And I bet you spoil them a bit?" Spike said.
"No, not really. I mean they get fish and meat from the kitchens but it's being prepared anyway and the tinned stuff is just rancid."
Spike gave a snort of amusement. "Well, you might not be a saint, pixie, but you're a cat lover an' I'm willing to bet where that statue came from they're pretty much interchangeable."
"So if you have any idea what might be causing this," Saturnin prompted softly, even gently, "now is not the time for prevarication."
Hermione's cheeks flamed and she looked at her shoes. "Audrey asked if I had my own Doctor Księcia, but it's not like she really meant you. I'd said I was thinking about Viktor. Seeing you reminded me how much I miss him. That's all."
"But the actual question you were asked used my name?" Saturnin asked, slowly closing the distance between them with steady hypnotic strides that had Hermione shuffling back until her thighs hit the edge of one of the tables. "And what did you tell her?" he asked.
"Not any more."
"I told you that she didn't wish," Audrey added.
"And when she asked you, was that the first answer you thought of?"
"If only," Hermione admitted in a barely audible whisper as Saturnin brought his hand up under her chin to stop her dropping her eyes from his. "I thought, 'If only'."
He searched her face for a long moment, as if he were oblivious to every other person in the room watching them and holding their breath. Then, he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers with a tantalising softness, his beard a gentle rasp against her skin.
Hermione could do nothing to prevent the sigh that opened her mouth under his, and as he took advantage of her parted lips to deepen the kiss she wrapped her arms around his neck. As she extended her tongue to brush against his, tip to tip, there was a loud crack, the type of sound caused by a clumsy Apparition.
Saturnin and Hermione jumped apart, drew wands and turned back to back.
"Now, that was real magic," Anya remarked. "You've got to respect the classics."
By the time Saturnin and Hermione had swept the room, Audrey had made her way to the back door.
She tried the handle. It turned easily and she threw the door open.
"Thank fuck for that!" Spike spat out. He checked his watch. "Well, doesn't look like we'll be opening up again tonight."
"Yes, well, it's well past time that Anya and I got the children home," Giles said, wrapping an arm around his wife's shoulders and guiding her toward the door.
"What about Audrey's statue?" Buffy asked.
"I suggest you leave it where it is until the full moon is over," Saturnin said.
"Then Angel can take it back to wherever he got it," Giles added.
Spike snorted. "Yeah, if he wants to go all the way to New Jersey and sit outside a post office for days on end."
"Tomorrow evening at seven," Hermione confirmed before the family quickly left. She turned to Spike and Buffy. "I'm sorry for all this. I hope it hasn't been too much of an inconvenience."
Spike shrugged off her apology but shot a meaningful look at his grandsire. "Just like old times. His Lordship gets us in trouble and then blames me," he answered.
She gave a tight smile. "Well, I better go."
"Wait." Again Saturnin seemed to falter as if having to make a conscious effort not to use a formal address. "Hermione. I believe we should talk."
Hermione shook her head as she scooped up her bag and made for the door. "I think you already said all there is to say."
"Mi- Hermione!" Saturnin quickened his pace as Hermione broke into a jog, but when he reached the alley at the rear of the club it was empty.
"Damn the bloody woman!" Saturnin lifted his head high and made his way to the taxi rank they had used earlier. It was fortunate that most of the clubs had closed some hour or more earlier because he was in no mood to deviate from his chosen path for anyone. He bore down on any fellow pedestrians, paying them as little heed as a luxury liner might give a row boat. However, when he reached the rank, the queue snaked back half the length of the street. Though he made himself walk past them on the other side of the street, scanning for the bird's nest the infuriating woman deigned to pass off as hair, he couldn't bear to join the mostly drunken throng.
Instead, he let the downward-sloping streets guide him to the water and then followed the water's edge until harbour gave way to beach. He took off his socks and shoes, tucking the former into his jeans pockets and tying the laces of his shoes together so that they could dangle easily from one hand. His steps, which began brisk enough that had he worn robes they would have given his trademark billow, soon slowed as he walked on the soft sand. He veered toward the water's edge but the tide was almost full and the only way to get a firmer footing was to roll up his trouser legs and get his feet wet.
Against his will much of his anger leeched away as he made his way up the shore. By the time the distinctive silhouette of the hotel came into view, he was left with little more than a sense of disappointment.
Then as he drew closer he spotted what looked like a moonlit mermaid perched on the sand, with her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her ankles. Her wild hair rippled in the light breeze, and her full attention seemed fixed upon the silver-tipped waves. She sat on a russet blanket, and whatever she wore on her top half appeared to blend seamlessly with her skin.
He waited until he was a scant ten yards from her before he spoke. "Hermione?"
She ducked her head and dashed at her cheeks with the back of one hand before she looked up at him.
"Hermione." This time it came out as more of a groan and he tossed his shoes carelessly toward the dryer sand and sank down to his knees beside her. "Why didn't you let me explain, you silly woman?"
"Why couldn't you let me go?" she retaliated in the whisper of someone too tired to fight any longer.
"Is that what you really want?" Saturnin asked, running fingertips down the side of her neck where it was exposed. "Or have you just told yourself that's what you want because you somehow got the mistaken impression that all I want from you is a one-night stand?"
Hermione twisted and rose into a kneeling position almost facing him, but with the outside of her right thigh resting against his. "Isn't it?" she asked.
He let his fingers slide into the soft tangles at the base of her skull and drew her close. "Do you really think that I would expect perfection from my students but set my sights so low in my private life as to flit from bed to bed?"
When he seemed to wait for a response, Hermione gave a tiny shake of her head.
"Few indeed are the women who pique my interest, fewer still who might return my feelings. Did you really expect that I would discover myself to be the path to your heart's truest desire and then let you escape me?" He lowered his head to nibble at her right earlobe. "Never," he whispered. Then, he pressed kisses along her jaw. "Certainly not before you at least give me a chance."
"We teach half a world apart," Hermione protested feebly.
"We have long holidays and Prague is not so very far from Obzor," Saturnin countered as he began to work his way down toward Hermione's collar bone.
"Saturnin..." Hermione sighed. "We aren't teenagers. What happens when summer's over?"
"My offer of a job at Durmstrang is still open," Saturnin offered.
"Hiring your girlfriend wouldn't help your reputation, or mine," she argued.
"Bugger my reputation," Saturnin whispered before he finally claimed her lips with his own.
Hermione hesitated for a fraction of a second, but then she allowed her passion to rise to match his until they tumbled sideways onto the sand. "My family-"
"Your family will have time to get to know me, and if you feel unable to accept my offer, then I will simply have to accept one of Minerva's many proposals," Saturnin suggested mildly.
"What? Minerva? You can't be serious. There's no position Minerva could offer you that would compare-"
"With seeing her face when Saturnin Księcia and his pupils arrive for the Triwizard tournament."
"Really? You would do that?" Hermione asked. "I thought you'd never go back to Britain."
"I thought I would never have sufficient incentive. It appears that I was wrong."
Hermione smiled and got to her feet, extending a hand to Saturnin. "Why don't we wait and see how things go over the summer?"
Saturnin let her help him up and then picked up Hermione's blanket. "The summer is still quite a few letters away, my dear," he said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Why don't we begin with what time you want to meet for breakfast tomorrow and where you want to go for the day?"
"Breakfast?" Hermione asked.
"You wanted to know that this isn't a one night stand," he answered. "So I'm going to walk you back to your room and kiss you goodnight. Tomorrow is another day."
"And the day after that?" Hermione asked with a teasing smile.
"The day after that, I expect you to write," Saturnin said.
"Only if you write, too," Hermione insisted.
"Didn't you hear me say that I was never going to let you go?" Saturnin reached up. He let a single fingertip trace from the bridge of her dainty little nose down to its tip. "If a day goes by that I don't write, you have my word that there will be a very good reason."
"I have your word?"
"You have my word," he answered solemnly.
"Good enough," Hermione conceded. "What if I said that where I want to spend tonight and tomorrow is in your bed?"
Hermione was suddenly drawn into darkness, her body undergoing the familiar feelings of distortion associated with Apparition.
Saturnin reached out one hand to switch on the bedside lamp. "Welcome to my room."
The end.
Author's note: According to the only phonetic Arabic online translator I could find Quadim=Ancient, Bass=Cat, Ras=Head, Nass=People, Lugha=Language. I'm sure I've put it all together in completely the wrong way, but I think it suffices for most people's purposes, though I'm sure there will be an ancient linguist or three out there cringing at the very thought.