“For you. For youuuuu!” one burbled as they placed tray and mug on the table. With a body about three feet long, a sinuous tail about twice that, and six legs, the faas reminded me of a sleek blue-furred lizard. It peered at me with near comic curiosity, its vertically-slitted bright golden eyes round and shining over a broad snout. Its tail coiled and undulated ceaselessly, and the demon itself vibrated all over as though it could barely contain itself. I’d summoned faas on several occasions to do arcane warding in my house, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen one be still. “Jekki! Jekki! I am,” it said, vibrating yet more, purple iridescence shimmering over its fur.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it. Faas had that effect on me. “Kara Gillian. I’m honored to meet you, Jekki.”
The second faas raised up so that it supported itself on the back four legs and had free use of the front two as hands. It traced a quick blue sigil in the air and coalesced it into what looked like a little azure gem which it promptly tossed to Jekki. “Faruk. I am Faruk. Kara Gill Ian,” it said, holding its fisted right hand out as though waiting for a fist bump. “Faas of Mzatal say greet to Kara.”
I found myself grinning despite the trauma of the past couple of days. I had no idea what the protocol was for this, so I just went with what I knew and gave the faas a fist bump. “Right back atcha, Faruk. Greetings and all that,” I said, hoping I hadn’t made a social blunder like eating with the wrong fork. Apparently it was okay, because Faruk bared its teeth in a smile and held its hand out toward Jekki, who returned not only the blue gem but two red ones it dug out of a belt pouch. “Eaaaaaaat! Drinnnnnnnnk!” Faruk said, and then both darted out without another word.
Still smiling, I looked over to Safar. “What was that all about?”
Safar rumbled in amusement. “They traded kek. Tokens,” he said scrunching a soft drawstring pouch that depended from his belt—his only article of clothing. It sounded like a bag of marbles, so I suspected it contained a bunch of these tokens. “Wagers,” he said as if that explained everything.
I was about to ask what sort of wager, but a savory scent demanded my attention, and I turned to the table, mouth watering. The faas had brought food—real, solid food—and that was the most important thing to me right now. I didn’t recognize much of the stuff, but I figured it was safe enough. If Mzatal wanted me dead, it wouldn’t be by poisoning.
I broke my liquid diet with gusto, though I stuck mainly to simple, vaguely recognizable things: grape-like fruit that tasted of lemon and melon, potato-y things that tasted like…potatoes, which they probably actually were. A creamy sweet cheese that would’ve gotten a five star rating except for its sickly grey-green color. I only tried it because, unbeknownst to me, some of it was stuck to the bottom of one of the relatively innocuous crackery things. It was so damn good even the color couldn’t put me off after that. The experience should have emboldened me to try some of the other questionable “delicacies,” but, um, no. That sort of experimentation would have to wait until I was either hungrier or not so stressed.
I finally wiped my face and hands, dropped the napkin on the table, then looked to Safar. “You said I could do anything as long as I don’t try to kill myself or leave the grounds,” I said. “Does that mean I’m allowed to explore?”
He stood. “Unless I say you are not to go somewhere, yes.”
Bath, food, and a sliver of freedom? My attitude was better already. Might as well find out everything I could before the end, right? I headed out to the hallway, looked up and down. “I’ve never been in a palace before.”
Safar patiently dogged me as I wandered the lower levels of the palace, but after what was probably an hour or so of examining paintings and statues and poking through empty rooms, I found myself in what I knew, with Elinor’s help, to be the main entry corridor. I stood near a set of double doors at the end of a broad arched corridor that ran at least twenty-five yards to a matching set of double doors. Judging by the distance, I figured it led to the other side of the palace. One of the doors stood half open, so I headed out to see the sights without bothering to ask Safar for permission. I figured he’d stop me soon enough if I went somewhere I wasn’t supposed to go.
The first thing that hit me when I reached the open air was the sense of spaciousness. I mean, I could look up and see sky like this at home, but it just felt bigger somehow, as if what I could see was only a small part of what was there.
I stood before the central section of the palace atop a set of three broad steps overlooking a large courtyard. To the left and right, wings of the structure angled out to frame the grounds, the far ends terminating in towers. Déjà vu whispered once again, but this time with a memory of watching the sun set from the tower to the left. Apparently that was west, or whatever the local equivalent was. The west tower rose gracefully above the roof line, but the one to the east was another story. It looked like it had literally melted to half its height, with stone in frozen flows around its base. What the hell could do something like that?
Walkways paved in dirt-stained white stone curved through ragged grass, sometimes lost in overgrowth. Tangles of weeds flourished in what might have been flowerbeds. In the distance I could see that the courtyard was bounded by what were once likely manicured bushes but were now shaggy lines of wild growth.
I sighed. Much like the interior of the palace, everything suffered from neglect. What a waste. I guess none of the other lords bother to take care of it with Szerain gone.
The center of the courtyard was graced by a raised circle of stone approximately twenty feet in diameter surrounded by eleven columns, in an eye-pleasing blend of honey-gold stone and wood, like much of the palace behind me. That was as good a destination as any, so I headed for it. The buzz of insects—or what I assumed were insects—mingled with an intermittent raucous cry that sounded like a cross between a crow and a bullfrog. Untamed vines dripping tiny scarlet flowers snaked up the nearest three columns. As I got closer, I identified them as the source of a pleasant tangy-sweet scent that laced the air.
Peering through the leaves, I saw that the columns bore subtle carvings that had to be sigils, though I didn’t recognize a single one of them. The whole place emanated a subtle potency that rippled in goosebumps up my legs, and I had the strange sense that it was asleep and…dreaming.
“Dak bah!” came a loud shout off to my left. I turned to see a reyza I didn’t know and the shadowy form of a zhurn near the wall of the west wing. They were heavily engaged in something that I could only describe as a fast and furious game of rock, paper, scissors, but with a lot more possibilities, and both hands were used. A few minutes of attentive focus taught me not much more, except that the reyza tended to favor a four-fingers-spread configuration, they were pretty damn serious about their fun, and that the kek tokens were passed back and forth periodically.
A rush of air warned me, and I looked up in time to see a syraza make a precise and graceful landing in the center of the pavilion, its subtly iridescent-pearl skin catching the sun.
For one brief, heart-stopping moment I thought it was Eilahn, my kickass demon bodyguard. She’d been killed on Earth, which meant that she would, hopefully, return here just as I’d returned to Earth after my death in this world. But even as my hope flared I realized that it wasn’t her. I’d only spent a few minutes with Eilahn in her natural form before she’d shifted into a human guise, but it didn’t matter. I knew this was a different demon. It just didn’t feel like Eilahn.
This demon stood a head taller than me, long of limb, with bird-like delicacy, paper thin wings, and a decidedly feminine cast to its—her?—features. I truly had no idea how gender worked with so many of the demons. Most of the time I simply used whatever pronoun seemed to fit the best. I had no doubt I’d been utterly wrong a time or three, but so far none had taken insult. At least I hoped not.
The syraza looked to me with huge violet eyes set in an almost human face, though broader of forehead and much more elongated. “I am Ilana. Fair greetings,” she said in a voice with overtones of delicate chimes and birdsong.
“I’m Kara Gillian,” I replied, doing my best to hide my disappointment that she wasn’t Eilahn. “Fair greetings. I don’t suppose you’re here to rescue me from all this?” I gestured to encompass the dingy palace and Safar as well. “Sorry, big guy,” I said to him. He merely snorted, but Ilana gave a chiming laugh that wasn’t mean or derisive in any way.
“I cannot take you from Mzatal’s custody, gentle one, but I would be honored if you would accept my company while you walk Szerain’s grounds.”
“I would be the one honored,” I replied.
She looked to Safar, and a heartbeat later he leaped into the air and winged his way to the central tower of the palace proper, high above the double doors.
The syraza parted her lips and curled them back a smidge in what I interpreted as a syraza smile. She headed for the double doors, and I was about to ask why seeing the grounds entailed going back in, but then decided to go with the flow. It wasn’t as if I had any sort of schedule or agenda. We walked the long corridor toward the set of double doors at the far end. Déjà vu familiarity hummed.
“You’re with Mzatal?” I asked as we walked. I’d almost asked if she served Mzatal, but somehow that didn’t seem quite right.
“I am his ptarl. His counselor,” she explained. “The lords bear much responsibility, and each has one of the Elder syraza as ptarl, though Rhyzkahl, Szerain, and Kadir are separated from theirs.”