Trickster or not, the spirit has planted a seed inside me that grows at an unnatural pace throughout the day. I would that Ariel had kept his silence, but it is too late. Dreams and nightmares, indeed. Whatever does it mean?
That night my dreams are crowded with shapeless terrors, things that swarm out of the darkness. I awaken with screams caught in my throat, choked whimpers like a hare caught in one of Caliban’s snares, only to find shadows pooling around my pallet, rising like dark waves, formless things in the depths reaching for me with open mouths filled with teeth; and then I scream and wake again with a whimpering jolt, knowing the first awakening to have been false.
Over and over, this happens.
And when I am awake, truly awake, lying alone and afraid in the darkness, I wonder. What does Papa’s sanctum contain?
I know only that I cannot bear any more of this not-knowing.
When Papa’s chant greets the first rays of dawn, I slip from beneath the linens. The tiles are cool beneath my bare feet, all the Moorish patterns on the walls faint in the dim grey light.
Clutching my robe about me, I climb the stairs to the upper story. There is no lock on the doors to Papa’s sanctum, only a pair of heavy iron handles. Trusting to my obedience, Papa has never needed a lock.
I tell myself I will steal only the merest glance. One glance, just to confirm that there is nothing to fear, that Ariel does but seek to bait me as he baited Caliban. And then I will tell Papa what Ariel said to me, and he will bid the spirit to hold his tongue. Papa need never know I doubted him.
I turn one handle and the door creaks open a few inches. Outside, Papa chants the songs of the spheres.
Beyond the door, it is still. A waft of air emerges, carrying the scents I have smelled on Papa’s robes; scents of herbs and oils, acrid scents of chymicals and heated metal that catch in my nose.
I push the door open.
Dreams, oh! Papa’s sanctum contains such things as I never knew existed; fantastical instruments of gleaming metal with bits that spin and turn and fit together in intriguing ways. There are shelves and shelves; an entire shelf filled with books, shelves filled with animal skulls and seashells and coral, horns and hooves, rocks and feathers. There are jars of herbs and unguents, and strangely shaped glass vessels with tubes protruding from them. There are cases and cases of drawers, some labeled in Papa’s neat hand, others labeled in unfamiliar hands and unfamiliar letters. The very walls are covered with strange drawings and symbols I cannot begin to decipher.
I stare, gaping.
There on a long counter, there is a brazier glowing brightly, so brightly the bars of the metal grate are red-hot. It makes a faint crackling sound. And I know, I know, I should close the door and go, but I do not.
I need to know what it is that burns so brightly within it.
My feet move soundlessly across the smooth tiles. Inside the brazier, there is a nest of fire; inside the nest, a salamander lies curled, and although I have never seen a fire elemental, I know it as such. It uncurls itself at my approach, lifting its head from its tail and stretching out its legs, unfurling its claws and opening eyes that blaze like I imagine rubies must do, its gaze on a level with mine.
“Oh!” I whisper in awe, for it is so very beautiful in the heart of the fire, all red and gold and shining.
The salamander’s eyes blink. “You mussst be the child,” it says in a voice that crackles and hisses like embers.
I take a step backward. “You speak?”
A tongue like a tiny forked flame darts forth from its lipless mouth and retreats. “Yesss.”
“Oh,” I say again, feeling foolish.
The salamander regards me with red eyes faceted like jewels. “Have you come to sssee it?”
“It?” I echo.
“Her.” The salamander amends its choice of words, its jeweled gaze slewing sideways. “Her.”
I follow its gaze.
There is a glass jar atop the counter. It sits some foot and a half away from the brazier. It is filled with clear liquid, and there is a … thing … floating in it. A dead thing, I think at first; a skinned hare or some such thing that Papa has preserved here.
But it is not a hare.
And it is not dead.
The thing floating in the jar is a tiny misshapen person. Its skin is as white and sickly as the gills of a mushroom. Its features are unformed blobs, but as I stare in sick fascination, its lids open to reveal pale, milky blue eyes. Its mouth opens and closes, and its limbs stir.
“What—” My voice cracks. “What is it?”
The salamander laughs, a sound like a shower of sparks rising. “Look clossser,” it says. “Look closer.”