Page 31

The Eye of the Beholder

They didn’t try to devour us when we went inside. In fact, the genius was very nice to us, although his mother remained standoffish.

The palace of the genii was an enchanted place of wonder, but I was too tired to do much more than glance around before I toppled face down onto a bed. I caught glimpses of marble staircases, wide balconies, and gleaming chandeliers, all scaled to a larger-than-human size. There were also, to my delight, lovely flowers everywhere, vases stuffed with gorgeous blossoms in every alcove. We didn’t encounter anyone other than the genius and his mother. Not a single guard, servant, cousin, or houseguest. As far as I could tell, the two genii spent their days rattling around in this grand building all by themselves.

The genius offered us platters of unfamiliar hors d’oeuvres, and I stayed awake long enough to scarf down a few. We asked what everything was before we tried it, since we were concerned that human flesh might be on the menu. But the genius told me that I was eating sweetmeats (which, confusingly, weren’t meat, but some kind of candy) and sweetbreads (which, equally confusingly, weren’t bread, but bits of fried lamb pancreas). True to his word, the genius also pressed several decks of cards upon us. He promised that we could select our other treasure in the morning.

The horses were housed in a capacious stable, well stocked with feed but entirely lacking any other animals. Yudit and I were shown to a tower-top guest room with a bed large enough to host a twenty-person orgy. More flowers decorated the end tables on either side. We scaled the footboard—it was higher than the top of my head—and flopped down next to each other on the soft mattress.

What felt like moments later, I was wide awake again.

Something I haven’t had cause to mention before is that Yudit snores. Loudly.

That night, it was especially bad, stertorous rattles and grumbles and snorts. If there’d been a regular rhythm to it, it might have faded into background noise, but it came in unpredictable fits and starts. There was no way to ignore it.

Through the clear glass of the bedroom windows, the sky was the dark of deep night. More time had passed than I’d thought. The moon was a bloated crescent hovering above the horizon. We were up high enough that I could see it spilling white light across the distant sea. The windows were enormous. Winifred would have adored them.

I tried to fall back asleep, but it was a lost cause. Every time I started to drift off, another snort would jolt me awake. So I decided to get out of bed and go exploring.

Now that I’d had a few hours’ sleep, I found the genii’s palace more interesting, although disconcerting in its emptiness. I walked alone through vast, silent halls. The walls and floors were mostly constructed of riveted brass plates, but I also saw wooden beams varnished to a gleam, ornately carved stone pillars, and glazed clay tiles set in intricate mosaics. All of it was lit by small flickering torches in filigreed sconces. They produced no smoke, and as far as I could tell, they never went out.

Aside from the shimmering lights, the only movement came from the ubiquitous flowers spreading their petals and sprouting new stalks as I approached. Occasionally, a saprophytic orchid, its blossoms stippled with extravagant patterns, would burst out of a deep rug. But for the most part, the brass kept my footsteps free of extraneous flora.

Who cleaned the rooms? Who changed the sheets and washed the laundry? Who set out the flowers? Caring for a building this large took a staff the size of an army. For that matter, the very existence of the palace was a mystery. Who built it, and how? It was a gargantuan structure in the middle of a swamp, but it didn’t appear to have any issues with sinking or flooding. Perhaps the genii did it all with magic—cooking, cleaning, groundwater drainage management systems. It seemed as good an explanation as any.

I passed through room after room whose purposes I couldn’t determine. A walk-in closet where transparent pipes crisscrossed the ceiling, brightly colored liquids gurgling through them. A spherical chamber lined with mirrors from top to bottom. When I slid to the lowest point of that one, I had some trouble climbing back up to the door. I felt oddly at home wandering through a labyrinth of bizarre and unsettling chambers; it reminded me of my childhood. Although none of the ones here were deathtraps, as far as I could tell. That made for a pleasant change.

The furnishings, like everything else, were all designed for beings much larger than I was. The chair seats were as high as my chest, and I could walk under a table with a good foot of space to spare. Using the lavatory was very difficult, when I finally found one. At least it had recognizable fixtures.

As I descended into the depths of the palace—scooching my way down the three-foot-high steps—I noticed a strange and captivating floral scent, overwhelming the ones that emanated from the nearby vases. I followed it, choosing the passages where it was most noticeable, heading down and farther down. It wasn’t the smell of any flower I was familiar with. It was enchanting, though, and I wanted to find out what it was.

To my surprise, in a building otherwise overrun with decorative blossoms, I ended up in a place with no flowers at all. A long row of barred, brass-walled cells. The genius had mentioned his dungeon, and there could be no other explanation for this part of the palace.

I wandered past, staring into the silent, bare chambers. Windowless prisons, their farther reaches lost in shadow. Like the rest of the palace, there was no one inside.

Or at least that’s what I thought until a dinner plate smashed into the wall next to my head.

“Flock off, you cart-tickling ankle-flicker!” a woman’s voice screamed as earthenware shards rained down on me.

I peered through the bars and could just make out a figure huddled in the darkness of the far corner.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know anyone was there.”

“Sure you didn’t,” whoever it was sneered. “I bet you didn’t sneak down to take a peek at me, either, you lunching shot-nuzzler. Get the funk out of here and leave me alone.”

“I’ll go away if you want, but I promise I wasn’t looking for you. I only stumbled across the dungeon by accident.”

There was a long pause before any reply came.

“You don’t work for that beet-mulching genius? Or his mother?”

I shook my head. “No, I just met them today. I’m spending the night so I don’t have to sleep in the swamp.”

“Then why haven’t they—”

“I made him promise not to eat me.”

“Oh.” The figure tossed down a pewter cup, which rolled to the other side of the cell. “In that case, I won’t throw the mug at you, too.”