'Taking me to see a monster is your idea of keeping me safe?'

Kithrel laughed, landing softly next to her. 'You as good as begged me.' He pushed open the door.

The deck before them was huge, spanning the length of the entire vessel. Drawers were built into the walls, countless cages hung from the ceiling. Isla stepped into the room gingerly, for the floor was made of glass, golden script scribbled around its perimeter. Under her feet, the ocean stretched on; dark and impenetrable.

Already Kithrel was strolling across the deck, checking the cages. Not empty, after all. Each held a bird, most no bigger than a man's fist. But it was their colouring that stunned Isla. Their texture was that of smoke, only more transparent and light.

'Come closer. Our sylphid are exceptionally well-trained.' Kithrel's voice broke Isla's fascination. 'Beautiful, are they not?'

There were so many of them. More than enough. 'It's cruel to keep them locked down here, for Saegyr knows how long.'

'Daemons have a very different appreciation of time.'

'They feel boredom and loneliness just as we do.' Her salamander certainly did.

'They have each other for company. But I do agree with you in principle,' Kithrel added off the withering look Isla was giving him.

'And your marid?'

'He is kept in check by those runes you see written around the glass. He likes to keep to the deep waters; it may not be a good idea to call him to the surface.'

Isla studied the water below her and saw nothing. Her salamander nuzzled out of her sleeve for a peek of its own before Isla jerked it back inside. 'The runes keep it from breaking through, don't they?'

She could sense Kithrel's hesitation. What was the point of bringing her if he was going to balk at the last minute? Isla fired her core and sent a gentle pulse in his direction.

A wall. She dared not attempt to sneak through. She was not yet so proficient in her stealth exercises. One wrong push could very well send his alarm bells ringing.

'All right.' She decided for a different route. 'Shall we make a deal? If you show me your marid, I will show you my jin.'

'Your djinn?' he yelled in surprise. 'What – on board the ship?'

'I'll tell you where it is after you show me this marid.'

'Outrageous! Who let you on board with a djinn? I'll have him –'

'I'm quite in control of it.' Isla struggled not to laugh. 'The sooner you let me see your marid, the sooner you can confiscate my jin.'

Kithrel was bristling when he walked to the centre of the room. 'One minute,' he said, 'and then it is deckside for you.'

Isla shrugged. Kithrel invoked in Ancient Pertheist. The runes lit the floor gold and white. Calligraphic script that Isla could neither read nor see before charted across the glass surface. A halo of light pierced through the ocean, and deep beneath them, something groaned.

Isla edged closer to Kithrel. A rumble shook the floor. She held on to him for balance.

A shadow moved from deep below, gaining form as it approached the surface – a tangle of tentacles, sewn out of the very sea; jaws of coral and broken shell ...

The ship rocked violently as tentacles broke against the glass, only to reform itself in the waves. Eyes blinked out of the water; gaping, swirling whirlpools, and then a mouth, large enough to swallow them whole. The sylphid rattled in their cages, filling the room with an outbreak of wind. Good, Isla thought. Fast and full of spirit.

At least her salamander was enjoying itself, heating as though in response to some message Isla could not catch. After all it has done for her, the least she could do was give it a taste of its home. It wiggled free, this time out of Isla's neckband.

She flicked her head and covered the element with a curtain of hair. 'I thought the marid is supposed to be under control!'

'It is under control,' Kithrel shouted back. He muttered more words in the ancient tongue – a binding rite of some sort, for the sylphid gently calmed and the room settled into quiet once more.

'You call this under control?' The ship rocked again, punctuating her point.

'These are simply theatrics. Every once in a while he has to demonstrate his discontent of being bound by humans.'

The marid gurgled in response. Lucky the ifrit in Master Galen's bath house doesn't decide to be theatrical every once in a while.

'We've only had this marid for two years,' continued Kithrel. 'He still carries a strong spirit of resistance.'

'You would, too, if you were seized from your home and into a lifetime of servitude.'

Kithrel smiled at her. 'You must not equate daemons to mankind. Especially not demidaemons such as a marid. Most would sooner devour you the moment you show a weakness such as sympathy. Look, he calms. Now we must discipline him for his small act of rebellion.'

He walked to the edge of the room, counted the drawers, and pulled one open. Isla studied the marid in Kithrel's brief absence. The demidaemon was a creature of water – in the literal sense of the word – coalescing into the ocean, its form only marked by a shift in the water's tide and colour.

'He is tied to Tempestorm by the bindings of these runes.' Kithrel was back beside her. 'Much like a horse is harnessed to its cart. He propels us forwards; our helmsman only needs steer the way. But much like an unbroken horse, he still needs consistent regulating.'

Kithrel did not come back empty-handed. He now carried incense in one hand and a cup-sized pot of dirt in the other; materials that Isla suspected were much more sinister than they looked.

He pierced the incence into the dirt, lowered his lips to the pot, and whispered a string of words. Kithrel blew into the incense, and bright flame hissed alive in their collective tips. It flickered after a moment and died, leaving a burning ember and a trail of dark red smoke.

'How does a sailor become well-versed in Ancient Pertheist?' The only thing Isla knew of the language was that it originated thousands of years back in the Age of Deities. Apparently it was the closest tongue to that spoken by the gods themselves when they once walked the earth.

'I'm the third mate of the ambassadorial vessel for Surikhand. Do you think they offered me the position for my looks?' said Kithrel, his eyes watching the smoke curl and dance; ribbons that misted the air around them. 'Is it not remarkable? It is said the fragrances within these sticks are captured from the epps itself.'

'The epps?'

'Do you not know it?' There was no ridicule in his voice, only genuine interest.

'That's only a children's tale.'

'The epperstrom? Ah – I forget daemon lore is not taught to highborn ladies.' It was amusing he thought her a highborn lady, but Isla did not correct him. 'It is no simple tale, nor a meaningless profanity. The epperstrom is a world that, they say, lies upon ours, where daemons reside as non-physical entities of consciousness. Skilled daemon masters can summon forth energy from the epps and conjure daemons into our world. Better daemologs yet can reach out and walk the epps themselves.'

Is that your home, little one? Isla gave her salamander a pet under the pretense of scratching her shoulder. It must miss the place dearly. It was excited to even share the same room as its kin.

'It is from them we have these incense sticks,' Kithrel was saying. 'Dhupa, we call them. They are stimulated by a simple word of Ancient Pertheist; their purpose varies from one type of dhupa to another. You'll soon see.'

Isla could not smell anything, though the dhupa discharged smoke so thick she could hardly see her feet. The sylphid were growing uneasy, and her salamander hid back into the security of Isla's coat.

'It's ready,' said Kithrel. The entire place now swam in red streaks of smoke. He rolled back his shoulders, held his palms before him, and muttered words Isla could not catch.

The runes exploded into brilliant white as the smoke spilled through the glass; threads unravelling, whirling as though sucked into a maelstrom. The water simmered, bubbling beneath their feet. The marid bellowed; a sound like a horn blowing in the distance that had the sylphid in a frenzy.

Kithrel continued his chant mercilessly, even as the daemon below them boiled, entrapped, unable to move beyond the confines of the runes. Steam rose, fogging the glass. The marid flung out his tentacles, smashing against the glass to little effect.

'You're hurting him!' That was exactly the point, but she could not let the observation pass. She covered her ears against the marid's howls. 'He has been disciplined enough!'

But Kithrel, lost in his own rite, did not seem to hear her. The marid's liquid form was now erupting in bubbles and froth. Isla stirred her core awake and sent an enquiring pulse towards Kithrel.

As she had expected, his walls were down. She could not sense the hard, unyielding barrier she had now learnt to identify. The rites must be taking his full concentration, and evidently he felt secure enough to rest his defences.

Isla made herself as inconsequential as possible. Weightless as sunbeams ... transparent as glass ... soundless as a petal, drifting in an autumn air ...

She was in.

Eshe's mind, in the instances Isla managed to breach it, was clear and predictable. By instinct alone Isla knew which doors to open to dictate action, which to take to dictate thought. But Kithrel's was an empty cavern, full of winding tunnels and a darkness that ate her; something gnawing, like the seeds of Eshe's void.

Isla froze, but her meditative instructions took over and eased her back into a calmness. Losing her nerves now would only bring attention to her presence.

Clarity came to her in spurts until Kithrel's mind was no longer dark to her. She sensed his glimmers of light, sensed his speech. She could feel the words on the tip of his tongue; the meaning behind them, even though her physical ears could neither catch nor comprehend a single word. She followed its source, revelling in the experience.

She had never been so absorbed before. With Eshe, she had always gone straight for the core, wrenching it like a thief in the limelight. There was no wonder the Ligueri compared her to a raging boar. But now she noticed the human mind was as telling as a map. All she needed was to observe.

'... fire of all flames, blessèd and unyielding, take thee and reap ...' Kithrel's voice echoed in her ears and through the chambers of his own head. There – she followed it to the foresection of his mind. Clusters thrummed and sparked every time he spoke, sending an almost sentient warmth down Isla's spine with every flicker.

This cluster knew the words before he even said them aloud. That one helped form the words. And somewhere deeper within ... those clusters lit with Kithrel's every thought and movement.

Lights sparkled and shimmered. Some were bright, others a dim glow; a constellation of stars that danced and hummed in a pattern she was yet to grasp ...

'Isla!'

Isla blinked. Kithrel had both hands on her shoulders, shaking her until she looked him in the eyes.

'Are you well?'

She did feel faint. 'I'm fine. What – why?' she pulled away from his grasp, making as though to dust her clothes.

'You've been standing there for some minutes. I called you several times and you did not respond. Is it the dhupa? Can you smell the fumes?' He sounded genuinely concerned.

But then it's his job to be concerned. 'No, I ... a little,' she lied. The alternative was far worse – if he knew she had been transfixed, entranced by the colours of his mind – well, she did not know how he would react.

'Some people are sensitive of anything arising from the epps – I did not think you would be one of them. Forgive me. Come, let me take you upstairs.'

'It's nothing my jin cannot fix,' Isla said, but did not turn away the offer.

Kithrel faltered. 'I am glad you mention it. This matter of your djinn ...'

'Yes. It really is quite lovely, once you get used to it.' Isla revelled in the look of panic flashing across Kithrel's face.

'Be that as it may, I will have to ask you to expel it while –'

'That would be a shame though. It's outrageously expensive. To spill it into the sea would be an awful waste.'

Kithrel paused before helping her up the ladder. 'I ... don't follow. Spill it into the sea?'

'How else do you propose I throw out my jin? I cannot drink the whole bottle in one sitting. You are welcome to help me try, though.' Kithrel's face slowly dawned with comprehension, and Isla smiled at the exasperated scowl that shortly followed.
     

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