Wall Lizards

Overview

Wall lizards live in every dry-stone retaining wall of the Leeward Folds and the sea-cut terraces of the Tidelace Coasts, sunning on the stones by day and hunting insects among them. Halfling wall-menders read them as a gauge: a wall with lizards is dry and breathing, and a wall with no lizards has gone damp inside and is about to slump.

Appearance

A wall lizard is as long as a hand, half of it a thin whip of a tail, with a narrow pointed head, bright black eyes, and slender legs with long clinging toes. Its colours vary from wall to wall: brown, grey, or olive, netted and spotted with black, and in spring the males' throats and flanks turn green and blue, with a row of blue spots along the belly edge. It moves in sudden flickers, darting into a crack the instant a shadow falls on it, and holds perfectly still between. It makes no sound but a faint scratching of claws on stone.

Habitat and Range

They live wherever there is sunny stone with gaps behind it: terrace walls, the stone houses of the fold towns, cistern halls, rock outcrops on the saddles, and the walled gardens of the Tidelace harbour towns. A sound wall may hold a lizard every stride along its face.

Behaviour and Temperament

They warm themselves on the stone in the morning, then hunt flies, beetles, spiders, ants, and grubs through the day, darting out to snatch them. In the hottest hours and through the winter they retreat deep into the wall. Males defend their stretch of wall with nods, push-ups, and chases. They are shy of people but grow used to those who work the walls every day, and will sun beside a resting mender.

Abilities

A seized wall lizard sheds its tail, which goes on twitching while the lizard escapes. It grows a new one, shorter and plainer.

Life Cycle

Females lay a few soft eggs in a warm, dry crack in early summer, and the young hatch in late summer, tiny copies of their parents. They live five or six years.

Uses and Dangers

They eat the insects of the terraces and gardens, and are welcome for it. Their real worth is as a gauge. A dry-stone wall needs to drain: when water gets trapped behind it and the fill turns to mud, the lizards leave, and the wall is close to failing. Menders walk the walls after heavy rain counting lizards as well as stones, and a stretch they have left is taken down and rebuilt before it can bring a terrace onto the one below.

Lore and Belief

Halflings say a new wall is not finished until the lizards move into it, and a household that has rebuilt a wall watches for the first one. Children are forbidden to catch them, and told that a wall lizard holds the memory of every rain that wall has stood. Gnome families on the Tidelace terraces read them as well, though they say the lizards are listening for the tide.

Where It Appears

• Overview: Animals