Touch of the Demon

And then there was Szerain. I took a step forward and touched the carvings on the lip of the bath where the memory-vision had been. He didn’t look anything like Ryan in the face, but his build, green gold eyes and hair were right. Well, Szerain’s hair was longer than Ryan’s FBI-regulation cut, but the color and texture were a match. What else about him was different? Elinor hadn’t been afraid of him. That was some consolation at least.

Every answer seemed to raise two more questions. I gave a mental shrug and dipped my hand in the water. Plush towels, basic toiletry items—including the much-desired toothbrush—and a full hot bath. Looked like just what I needed. Yeah, a nice long soak could make up for a lot.

I stuck my head out of the bedchamber. “I’m going to bathe, okay?”

Safar snorted and crouched, which I took for acknowledgment.

I returned to the bath, stripped quickly, and sank to my neck in the water. For a moment I wondered who the hell filled the damn thing since there was nothing resembling a faucet, but then decided I really didn’t care. It was completely awesome. Would’ve been better if I didn’t have a death-or-madness sentence coming up in two days, but what the hell. All the more reason to enjoy the shit while I could.

Chapter 4

After about twenty minutes I felt more human and more certain that I was well clean of any lingering Tracy- bits and my own puke-spatter. I dried and dressed but paused before returning to the main room, taking this chance to peer at the damn collar in the mirror. No seam that I could feel or see. My gaze swept the bathroom and finally rested on the edge of the stone table that held the basin. Crouching awkwardly, I scraped the edge of the collar against the table about half a dozen times then peered at it in the mirror.

Shit. The edge of the table had a long gouge on it, but the stupid collar was as pristine and whole as ever. Not even the slightest mar or scratch. What the hell was this stuff?

Sighing in annoyance and disappointment, I returned to the main room just as a pair of faas burst in, one carrying a mug and the other a tray of what I sure hoped was food.

“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. Deja 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