Page 118 of Silk & Sand
Seth’s jaw clenched, but he found himself answering anyway. “I hired him to guide me across the Kesh to Aqarat. Which he did. Why?”
“And you were aware of his quicksilver?”
“I had seen some of it, yes,” Seth admitted, unable to repress the answer, though he did manage to add, “Again, why?”
Seth still got no answer but only another question, this time from Malik. “What do you think is its purpose?”
“To fight, obviously. What the hell else would it be—”
“Not its function. Its purpose. Why does he have it?”
Seth stilled. That had been his own question for a long time. “I don’t know. He never told me.”
Seth might have said, He doesn’t remember, but those weren’t the words that had slipped out of his mouth under the influence of whatever drug he’d been given—because he didn’t believe that. He never had.
Seth asked more calmly, “What is going on?”
Rahim opened the book to its title page. Walking to Seth, he turned the book to show it to him. Seth read the bold, inked-in title: The Masterwork of Kahzir.
Seth’s mind reeled. “Why would Julian steal a book about—or written by?—Kahzir? And what does that have to do with Raider?”
Malik said, “We have no more idea than you why Julian stole the book, though it is certainly a book that some would murder for.”
Rahim turned the book toward himself and flipped through its pages with the same disturbing relish that Seth had perceived earlier. “This book records Kahzir’s process of making the perfect assassin. Due to the unique nature of that work, the assassin’s identity is unmistakable.”
Seth’s head spun as he fought to hold off the conclusions to which his mind tried to leap.
Then Malik spoke, forcing him to those very conclusions. “Seth, the question remains: what do you think is the purpose of your lover’s quicksilver?”
The world seemed to shift. Everything shattered. And when the broken pieces settled, they shaped a totally different reality.
Seth shook his head, not ready to accept any of that, desperate for some other truth. “Let me talk to him,” he begged. “Please.”
***
Free of his bonds, Seth followed Malik and Rahim from the arcanist’s workroom down to the lower levels of the palace. The prince and arcanist had briefly argued about bringing the book. The workroom, apparently, had some sort of arcane booby trap that prevented theft, thus keeping the room’s contents secure. Malik had wanted to leave the book behind, but Rahim had insisted on seeing Raider’s reaction to it.
Seth had asked to see the thing but, being denied, hadn’t fought for it. It would take too long to go through the book anyway, and it was more important to see Raider. That was the only thread that Seth could follow among his frayed thoughts. It was all he could think about. Otherwise, he might have recognized the large tabby cat with citrine eyes that came prowling through the shadows of the palace foyer.
Seth, Malik, and Rahim were walking along the shallow evaporative cooling pool when the prince yelped. One knee buckling, Rahim flung up his hands to keep his balance. The book flew from his grasp.
The cat darted out from behind the prince and leaped into the air … where it turned into blue smoke.
Spindly little fingers emerged from the smoke to snatch the book from the air before the ifrit solidified from the waist up into a vaguely human form. Below that, blue smoke continued to drift. Blue skinned and hairless, the ifrit remained about the same size that the cat had been. Small, curved horns protruded from its temples. Only the citrine eyes were unchanged. They flashed with mischief.
“A trade!” Malik cried, clearly thinking fast. “The book for riches! Gold!”
But the ifrit laughed wickedly and darted away, zooming through the air, lugging the heavy volume. Seth raced after it, splashing through the shallow pool, but the ifrit zipped through a window and into the night.
Rahim shouted quick orders at the guards flanking the palace’s front doors. They hauled the doors open and hurried after the ifrit, but they couldn’t possibly catch it. The devious little thing was long gone.
Seth walked back through the shallow pool and stepped out, streaming water. The bottom half of his silk pants clung to his legs.
Rahim twisted around, inspecting his calf. “It bit me!”
“Julian’s?” Seth guessed. “You said he had an ifrit.”
And not just any ifrit, but the one that had approached Seth and Raider in the bazaar. It must have been gathering information for Julian.