“Not yet they aren’t,” the voice from earlier said. “Back in the heat with you.”
This time her gaze found the speaker—a froglike creature about two feet high, mottled orange, yellow, and green. It was crouched above the doorway.
“We have to go back in there?” Annaig said.
“You’re both extremely polluted,” the thing said. “This could take a while. But at least you seem to be enjoying it.”
She wasn’t enjoying it an hour later, when the alternating heat and cold had rendered all the strength out of her. She was also starving. But finally the frog-thing gave a little nod and sent them across the room to the robes.
The fabric was like nothing she had ever touched before, utterly smooth, almost like a liquid. She thought she had never felt anything better.
“Come along,” the creature said, hopping down from its perch and landing, to stand on its hind limbs. It waddled off, through a slit in the cloth that draped the walls and into a smooth, polished corridor.
After a few turns he led them into a room appointed much as the pool-room had been, except the drapery was of more muted, autumn shades. Her heart struck up a bit when she saw a small, low table set with a pitcher of some sort of liquid and bowls of fruits, fern fronds, and small condiment bowls.
“Eat,” the creature said. “Rest. Be ready to speak with Lord Toel.”
Annaig didn’t have to be told twice.
The pitcher contained an effervescent beverage that had almost no taste, but reminded her of honeysuckle and plum, though it wasn’t sweet. The fruits were all unknown to her: a small orange berry with a tough rind but sweet, lemony pulp inside; a black, lozenge-shaped thing with no skin that was a bit chewy and was a lot like soft cheese; tiny berries no larger than the head of a needle, but clustered in the thousands, which exploded into vapor on touching her tongue. The ferns were the least pleasant, but the various jellies in the small bowls clung viscously to them, and those were delightfully strange.
She couldn’t taste alcohol in the drink, but by the time she felt sated, things were getting pleasantly spinny.
“This is nice,” Annaig said, looking around. There were two beds, also on the floor. “Do you think this is our room? One room just for the two of us?”
“Like our little hideaway in Qijne’s kitchen.”
“But bigger. And with beds. And—ah—interesting food.”
Slyr closed her eyes. “I’ve dreamed of this,” she said. “I knew it would be better.”
“Congratulations,” Annaig said.
Slyr shook her head. “It’s because of you. These things you come up with … when Toel figures that out, I’ll be out of his kitchen, just as your lizard-friend was out of Qijne’s.”
“That won’t happen,” Annaig said. “Without you, I wouldn’t have known where to start, and now I don’t know where to start again. I need you.”
“Toel will have cooks of more use to you.”
“He won’t,” Annaig said. “It’s both of us or neither.”
Slyr shook her head. “You’re a strange one,” she said. “But I—” She put her head down.
“What?”
“I said I didn’t care about anyone in Qijne’s kitchen. But if you had died, I think I might be sad.”
Annaig smiled. “Thanks,” she said.
“Okay,” Slyr said, rising unsteadily. “Do you care which bed?”
“No. You choose.”
Annaig soon found her own bed. Like the robe, it was a delight, especially after weeks of hard pallets and stone floor.
She was dropping off to sleep, feeling content for the moment, at least in a creature sort of way.
She thought maybe she should open her locket, contact Attrebus, let him know how things had changed.
But then it struck her: Her amulet was gone.
Even with worry as her bedmate, when she woke the next morning she was more rested and felt better than she had in a long time, even before coming to Umbriel. Slyr was still dead to the world, but the frog-creature had returned and was waiting patiently near the table.
“You’ll break your fast with Lord Toel,” he said.
“Let me wake Slyr,” she said.
“Not her,” it said. “Only you.”
Slyr’s fears from the night before were still fresh in her mind. “I’d rather—” She began.
“You’d rather not protest Lord Toel’s wishes,” the thing interrupted.
She nodded, reminding herself that she had a greater mission. Besides, she could never put in a good word for the other woman if she never got to talk to Toel.
“What’s your name?” she asked the creature.
“Dulgiijbiddiggungudingu,” it sputtered. “Gluuip.”
She starred at the froth the name had formed on the creature’s mouth.
“Dulbig—” she started.
“Dulg will do,” he added.
“Lead the way, Dulg.”
“You don’t imagine you’re going in that?” Dulg asked. He gestured toward a curtained area.
She followed his gesture, and in the enclosure discovered a gold and black gown. Like everything else here, it might have been spun of spider silk, or something far finer.
She never wore things like this. It clung embarrassingly to her contours and was uselessly ornamented with fine beaded webs at the cuffs and collars. She felt clunky and far more out of her element than she had in Qijne’s fire pits. Although her father held a noble title in High Rock that had once had currency in Black Marsh, since before she was born there had been no balls, no cotillions, no evenings at the theater. All of that—and the frippery that went with it—was swept away when the Argonians retook control of their land.
And good riddance to that, at least. Or so she had always thought.
But she felt herself wondering if Attrebus would think she looked passable in this outfit.
“Come, come,” Dulg called impatiently. “Your hair and face must be tended to.”
An hour later, after the services of a silent, slight, blondish man, Dulg finally led her through a suite of richly furnished rooms and into a chamber with fresh air pouring through a large door and beyond …
Toel was there, but she could not make her gaze focus on him. There was too much else to wonder at.
She was outside, and Umbriel rose and fell all around her.
She stood on an outjut in a cliff face that was steep but not vertical, and that looked out on a vast, conical basin. Below her spread an emerald green lake and, above, the city grew from the stone itself, twisting spires and latticed buildings that might have been built with colored wire, whole castles hanging like bird cages from immensely thick cables. Higher still, the rocky rim of the island supported gossamer towers in every hue imaginable, and what appeared to be an enormous spiderweb of spun glass that broke the sunlight into hundreds of tiny rainbows.
“You like my little window?” Toel asked.
She stiffened, afraid to say anything for fear it might be the wrong thing, but just as fearful of saying nothing.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know that anything in Umbriel could be beautiful, you mean?”
She opened her mouth to try and correct her mistake, but he shook his head.
“How could you, laboring down in the pits? How could you have imagined this?”
She nodded.
“Do you fear me, child?” he asked.
“I do,” she admitted.
He smiled slightly at that, and then walked closer to the rail, putting his back to her. If she were quick and
