by J F Mehentee
I stared at the copper-coloured sceptre. Formed from the demoness’s blood, what did she hope to achieve by leaving behind this replica? The more accurate the reproduction, the easier it would make it for a diviner to locate the real sceptre. But was that her only reason for leaving it behind?
Biyu laid three books along the table. Like all demonology books, these had distinctive scents. The one closest to me I recognised from its chocolatey fragrance. Demonic spells filled that one.
‘You’re frowning,’ Biyu said. ‘What are you thinking?’
I smiled. Talking to Biyu always helped to organise my thoughts.
‘I was wondering why she gave us that.’ I pointed at the sceptre. ‘I mean, why not wear another disguise, take that thing to a diviner and find out where the real one is. What does she need us for?’
Biyu ran a finger down the book’s index.
‘Maybe she knows exactly where it is,’ she said. ‘Only she can’t get to it. Humans and demons live side by side, peacefully on some Zadrinesian islands. But there are places they frequent where a human isn’t welcome, and vice versa.’
The anzu, its eyes closed, stretched out a paw and rested it on my stomach.
‘Are you suggesting humans have the sceptre?’
Biyu slid the book she’d been reading away to her left and opened another.
‘You’re probably right about demons not having it. Then again, humans might not have it either.’
The archipelago was home to other races. One of them—maybe the last of its kind—slept in my lap.
‘Frit,’ Biyu said.
I looked up from Chubbychick. Biyu leafed through the book’s table of contents.
‘What’s wrong?’
Biyu humphed.
‘If there’s anything in these books, it’ll take hours to find. Why couldn’t she just tell us where to look for the original?’
I wanted to say, because it’s not in a demon’s nature to be so direct. Biyu wouldn’t appreciate me stating the obvious.
‘What about the divining ball? You could use it on those books like you did when we searched for the poison used on Rahmat.’
Biyu’s mouth opened. She was smiling.
‘I’m not a one-trick dragoness,’ she said. ‘I have a better idea.’
Amusement framed Biyu’s eyes.
‘And what is this better idea?’ I said, trying to sound interested instead of worried.
Her eyes and her mouth widened a little more. I saw pointed teeth instead of molars.
‘If I can identify the magic used to make the sceptre, categorise it, we’ll know more about what and who we’re up against.’
Categorise.
The word sent a shiver—a slimy shiver—down my spine. She used them to collect, stabilise and concentrate any magic still present on the surface of an object.
‘Not the slugs,’ I said.
Biyu clapped her hands.
‘Not just any slugs, Jaybird, Cachurean slugs.’
Between three and four inches long and up to two inches thick, Cachurean slugs had shiny green phlegm-like skin. Black eyeballs sat on the end of yellow optic tentacles and ogled whoever handled them.
‘They don’t like me,’ I reminded Biyu.
‘That’s because they know you hate them,’ she replied.
I must have been shuffling in my seat because the anzu opened its eyes. Unamused and droopy-eyed, it gurgled and then went back to sleep.
‘So, you’re saying those slugs in the safe we feed lettuce to every morning are empathic?’
Biyu shrugged.
‘I’ll admit, their mucus smells like sun-ripened sewage, but I like them.’
I lifted Chubbychick as gently as I could, stood and placed it on the chair. It curled onto its side and covered its eyes with a paw.
‘You get the slugs,’ I said, ‘and I’ll get the lettuce.’
I raced for the stairs before Biyu suggested otherwise.
I brewed us some green tea before collecting the slugs’ lettuce from the fridge—the leaves we used in our salads weren’t bitter enough for them. I carried the mugs and lettuce downstairs on a tray.
Biyu was in the laboratory and had already set two of the glass jars on the bench.
‘I’ve made tea,’ I said.
I saw Biyu remove the lid from a jar.
‘Bring it in here,’ she said.
The thought of eating or drinking close to them made me want to gag. Once inside the laboratory, I placed the tray on the bench and at the end farthest from the jars.
Biyu accepted her mug, her attention on a slug as it climbed up the glass, its ocular stalks swaying in opposite directions. Beside the jars, Biyu had arranged a rack with test tubes and a line of swabs.
I raised my mug so the steam from it masked the memory of the stink the slugs made whenever they were upset.
‘That one wants to escape,’ I said.
Biyu sipped her tea.
‘Wouldn’t you, stuck in a glass jar and spending most of your time in the dark?’
I lowered my mug a little to answer.
‘They like the dark. If they stayed out in the sun, they’d shrivel.’
Biyu studied me through hooded eyes and shook her head.
‘Watch our escapee,’ she said. ‘I’ll get the sceptre.’
‘Will d—’
Biyu’s mug smashed on the tiled floor.
‘No,’ she cried. ‘Cubchick, leave it alone.’
Outside the laboratory, Chubbychick stood on the table and over the sceptre. It licked the sceptre’s length as if it were a lollipop.
‘You silly, bean,’ she said, and grabbed the anzu.
The slug had reached the rim of the jar. I didn’t want to touch it.
‘Everything okay?’ I said, exiting the laboratory.
‘Cubchick’s contaminated the sceptre with its slaver,’ Biyu said. Her eyes narrowed as if this were my fault. ‘I won’t know if I’m sampling the demoness’s magic, the anzu’s or both.
I put down my mug and held up my hands.
‘Hang on. I was getting the lettuce and making tea, remember. You can’t blame this on—’
Biyu wasn’t looking at me, or rather she was but not at my face. My hand reached up and touched my throat when I realised what she stared at. The thought made me dry heave.
‘I’m going upstairs for a shower.’
Biyu folded her arms across her chest.
‘Don’t be a twerp. You said so yourself, that demoness is dangerous. We have to know what we’re dealing with. She grabbed you by the throat. Your skin’s perfect for collecting a sample.’
I wracked my panicking brain for alternatives but couldn’t think of any.
‘There has to be another way. Can’t you just swab my…’
Biyu was right. We had to figure out what kind of threat the demoness posed. If any residual magic remained on my skin, it would bind itself to the slugs’ revolting slime.
‘All right, all right. But let’s get it over with.’
Biyu rolled her eyes.
‘At least show some appreciation,’ I said. ‘You know how much I hate those things.’ Biyu strode to the stairs. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To get a mop for the lab’s floor,’ she said, and then muttered, ‘drama queen.’
‘I’m not a drama queen,’ I called.
I heard slurping and turned.
The anzu had lost interest in the sceptre and was busy lapping up my tea. Over in the laboratory, the slug had escaped.
‘This is all your fault,’ I said to Chubbychick. ‘Feel free to eat a slug.’
Then you get to clean up the mess when it vomits or gets the shits, Biyu said from upstairs.
I glared at the anzu. I’d left my mental shields down.
By the time Biyu returned with a mop and bucket, I’d collected and dropped the shattered pieces of the mug into a bin.
I offered to clean the laboratory floor, and the anzu had fun chasing the mop. Me
anwhile, Biyu made a space on the floor next to the table and arranged her test tube rack and swabs on the tray I’d brought earlier.
‘Come one,’ Biyu said. ‘You can’t make the floor any shinier.’
As we’d agreed, I closed the laboratory door before Chubbychick could escape.
‘Okay, okay,’ I said, and lay down on the floor. ‘You’ll stop them if they go near my mouth or try to slip under my tee shirt?’
Biyu nodded in the laboratory’s direction.
‘I already have one infant. I don’t need a second.’
She touched her fingers to her lips and then touched them to mine.
‘Close your eyes, scaredy pants.’
A coolness crossed my throat. Despite its size, I wasn’t aware of the slug’s weight, and I only realised there was another one on my neck when the paths of coolness crossed.
You’re using two!
‘That way it will be over in half the time.’
She slapped my hand away when I felt slimy coolness approaching my ear.
A fingertip—I hoped that’s what it was—brushed my earlobe. There was the slightest tug, and then coolness touched my chin.
It took all my self-control to stop myself from batting at my chin, sitting up and screaming.
Biyu. What are you doing?
‘There’s bruising under your chin.’
I screwed my eyes tighter. If I opened them and a pair of black eyeballs on yellow stalks staring at me, I’d freak out.
The other one. My ear.
‘Got it.’ I felt a familiar tug. ‘That’s it, you big baby. No more monsters. You can open your eyes.’ A hand pressed down on my chest. ‘Don’t move until I’ve swabbed the mucus from your throat.’
The first time we’d used the slugs, I’d got some of their slime on my fingers. The stuff, capable of absorbing ten times its volume in water, wouldn’t wash off.
Biyu nudged me.
‘Go have that shower. I’ve removed as much of the mucus as I can.’
I must have fallen asleep while she rolled swab after swab over my throat.
Scratching came from the other side of the laboratory door. I pointed.
‘Want me to take the saboteur upstairs and lock it in the wardrobe?’
Biyu shook her head.
‘I’m going to try something I’ve seen Dad do with bawling infants.’
Desperate to wash the remains of the gunk from my neck and from behind my ears, I didn’t wait for her explanation.
A half hour of scrubbing later, I returned to the vault. Biyu was still in the laboratory.
‘Where’s Chubbychick?’
Biyu didn’t react to my corruption of the anzu’s name. She indicated the chair I’d sat in earlier.
Swaddled in two of the towels we used to dry the glassware, the anzu lay fast asleep.
‘I remember Dad using it on the newborns visiting the practice,’ Biyu said.
Except for a rack with five test tubes in it, Biyu had cleared the bench. Four of the test tubes contained thawed samples. From left to right, the first four tubes contained samples of progressively darker shades of red. The liquid in the fifth tube was so dark, it could have been mistaken for black.
‘Let me guess,’ I said, and pointed at the fifth tube. ‘The darker the red, the more demonic the magic. And this one contains the neck sample.’
Biyu rubbed her temples.
‘I have colorimetric values that help me categorise the magic and hence the species of the demon who’d wielded it. That’s what the thawed samples are for. They’re used by the Ministry and the University as standards. Each colour represents a particular demon species. When I loaded your sample into the machine, the values were almost off the scale.’
Biyu hugged herself. I placed an arm around her.
‘You said almost.’
Biyu took a deep breath and leaned against me.
‘I checked the machine’s reference values against the standards. There’s a lack of data to be sure about your sample.’
Biyu shook. I pulled her closer to me.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘What’s got you so worried?’
Biyu stared up at me.
‘According to your sample, that goatherd isn’t an ordinary demon. There isn’t enough data to prove it, but she was telling the truth when she said she was demon royalty. She draws magic from a plane of existence unlike ours. Magic that’s off the scale.’
No wonder the demoness was faster and stronger than me.
‘So human qi and human magic won’t affect her?’ I said.
Biyu answered my question with a slow nod.
3
I’d forgotten it was Sixth Day. It being a day of worship, most people had risen early. At eight in the morning, all the roads leading to District Three, the temple district, were as gridlocked as if it were morning rush hour.
The continuous nose flute music the taxi driver played in his cab had given me a headache.
‘We should get out here and walk the rest of the way,’ I said to Biyu.
She gave the anzu a gentle shove as its head peeped over the unzipped top of my favourite leather holdall.
‘There’s still half a mile to go,’ she said.
I pointed at the pavements on both sides of us. They were busy but not crowded.
‘It’d be quicker to walk.’
Biyu nodded. She made sure not to catch any of the anzu’s fur as she zipped the holdall almost closed. Like me, she was eager to meet Toojan and see if he could provide us with answers to who this royal demoness was, and also why she’d picked us to find her father’s sceptre, the location of which she might already know.
‘Stop here, please,’ I said to the driver.
I checked the meter. Thirty xerafins. Thanks to all the waiting, we’d racked up twice the fare. I handed over three ten xerafin notes. I returned the driver’s stare. After the twenty minutes of whiny nose flute I’d had to endure, he could forget a tip.
Outside, the morning sun had already dried yesterday’s rain, and the pavement reflected its heat. In Bagh-e-Khuda, the warmer it got, the slower people walked. Coupled with it being a Sixth Day, no one was in a hurry and the pace had slowed to a creep. To make headway, Biyu and I walked in single file.
I swear Cubchick is heavier than it was last night, Biyu said.
My wife was far stronger than me. It wasn’t a complaint.
My brow’s muscles tightened.
With everything going on this morning, we’ve hardly fed it.
Biyu’s groan turned a few heads. She felt as guilty as I did.
It took us fifteen minutes to reach the temple district and then another ten to push our way through the crowd of worshippers. The capital’s citizens wanted to give thanks to their gods and then get on with the rest of their day off.
Outside Toojan’s temple, before climbing the steps into it, we slipped off our shoes. I studied the mythical creatures carved into the temple’s wooden pillars—dragons, kirin and griffins—but found no sign of an anzu.
The windowless interior meant the air and floor felt cool, and just the hint of incense reached my nose. Three monks sat and faced an eleven-foot golden statue of a meditating monk. They recited chants from thin strips of wood tied together at one end. Apart from the monks, the temple—unlike the others in the district—was devoid of worshippers.
‘Psss.’
Over there, Biyu said, pointing at a head poking out from behind the statue.
Toojan beckoned us over and then hurried towards a door at the back of the temple. When we reached it, he’d disappeared.
Where did he go? I said. I didn’t see the door open.
Biyu didn’t answer. She grasped the ornate brass dragon-shaped handle and pushed. Biyu stepped through the doorway and suddenly stopped, causing me to bump into her.
The door hissed shut.
Toojan sat beneath a cherry tree. A mountain range formed a backdrop to the tree and its pink blossoms. Moist bla
des of grass tickled my bare feet as we approached the little monk. A plain stretched around us.
Where the frit are we? Biyu said.
Wherever we were, it wasn’t Bagh-e-Khuda.
No idea.
From the grin on Toojan’s face, I got the impression the little monk was enjoying our confusion. He gestured for us to join him and sit in the shade. A pair of green parakeets sat among the branches and chittered.
We joined him and sat down.
‘I thought we should meet somewhere we won’t be disturbed,’ he said.
Close up, he still resembled an eight-year-old boy in monk’s garb. Perhaps the shadows cast by the tree’s branches played tricks on me—the side profiles of other faces concertinaed in the space where his ears should have been. It was like watching the corners of a book being flicked through, over and over.
Before I could ask him what was going on, Toojan pointed at the holdall.
‘You brought it,’ he said. ‘Can I see it, please?’
Gone was the lisp from the last time we’d spoken, and he hadn’t asked me for laddoos. A more business-like Toojan faced us.
Biyu unzipped the bag. The anzu’s head appeared. It blinked its large orange-brown eyes as it accustomed itself to the light.
Toojan leaned forward and plucked a hair from between its ears. Chubbychick didn’t protest. Its eyes followed Toojan’s hand as he dropped the hair into a brass bowl filled with water. It hadn’t been there when we’d arrived.
The surface of the water fizzed, and the hair crinkled and smoked. Toojan lifted the bowl to his nose and inhaled the fumes. He put down the bowl and closed his eyes. I looked from Biyu to the anzu, its paws resting on the edge of the holdall. Like me, they sat rapt, eager for Toojan to speak. I think we all watched how his eyeballs moved like synchronised pendulums beneath his eyelids.
His eyes flicked open, and I gave a sharp exhale.
‘The world is in jeopardy,’ he said, without a hint of emotion. ‘The anzu’s anger will shake the world’s crust. No mountain will withstand its roar. The Leyakian covet the animal. If they cannot possess it, then they will pursue its destruction for fear of it being turned on them. Until it can fly and leave this world to seek its heavenly master, you, Biyu and Sanjay, must protect it.’
