There were eight of them and they were sisters. Badger knew this because they all had the same smell, and he thought they looked similar, but that was always difficult to tell. Apart from Mistress, Husband, and a handful of others, badger found humanoid beings hard to tell apart. They stood in the middle of the echoing hall, the translucent crimson draperies billowing between the columns, drifting on the cardamom wind. Slowly, flames emerged from the air, floating amongst the draperies and burning with a soft, clear fire.
One of the demons threw back her head and gave a snarling cry. The women's garments sank to the floor, melting into pools of the same soft fire, and vanishing. The badger watched, impassive. Slowly, not keeping pace with one another, the women began to change: stripes appearing across thighs and haunches, faces elongating into wide-whiskered muzzles. Only the eyes remained the same, golden and fierce, mirroring fire.
It would not be wise, badger thought, to make a run for it now. He thought of the antelope glimpsed in the garden below: courtiers, or dinner? Wisest to keep silent and still, wisest to wait. And see, something new was happening.
He came out of the air, gradually solidifying just as the flames had done, and at first, the badger thought he was a flame. Scarlet and gold, with a single black thread running through it all, the colors of hibiscus, of roses, of sunset. Then all these colors merged, resolving into a slender man in a fire-colored tunic and trousers, with gilt bells around one ankle, a long column of black hair, and eyes that were also the shade of night, with a golden circlet around each iris, like an eclipse.
He was smiling.
"Girls, girls, there's really no need—and who is this?" The eclipse-eyes turned to the badger. There was a sudden, crushing weight, as though the sun had fallen. Ah, the badger thought, with chagrin. Not just a demon, then. A little bit more than that.
"Prince Agni, this is one of the things that was taken through. A creature of earth, from China, but not of Earth." The voice, emanating from a tigress' throat, was entirely human, with no trace of a growl. "From their Hell, you see."
"But this is a beast," the tiger prince said. He held out a faintly striped hand and the badger cowered back at the heat that blasted from it. No chance of a quick bite here, then. "I was expecting something in the form of a man." A soft voice, but something in it spoke to the badger of fire and it seemed that the tigresses recognized this also, for there was the shuffling and rustling of discomfited cats.
"That person, also, was taken, do not worry, our hireling did not fail us."
"Ah, I see. My apologies, ladies. I should have made more certain of my facts." But the tigresses said nothing, nor would they have done so, badger realized, even if they had been chastised. There was only one power in this room. "Where is he?"
"In the dungeon, Lord Prince."
"Good. I'll pay him a visit a little later."
Badger's ears remained pricked throughout this conversation: someone else had been taken, then. Who? Zhu Irzh? He had been closest to the location when the badger had been snatched. "As for the animal—keep it leashed. Perhaps we might hunt it a little later; I understand they are carnivores." He turned back to the badger. "What do you say, creature of earth? Can you hunt more than beetles?"
"I have hunted men," the badger replied.
An elegant eyebrow rose. "Have you, now? Then perhaps you will have the chance to do so again." A sharper glance. "This is not your only aspect, is it?"
"No." Badger was what he was, no point in denying it. But it was slightly embarrassing, all the same.
"Perhaps you would like to change for us? Come, ladies, keep our guest company."
Eight tiger-skin rugs decorated the floor and pooled into flame, each with a naked girl arising from it.
"Oh, all right then," the badger growled. Moments later, a battered iron teakettle sat rocking on the marble floor. At least, the badger reflected sullenly, his hearing was not quite so keen in this particular form. It cut down the tinkling laughter and cries of "How sweet!" But only by a little.
The thing about old teakettles, even ones with a collar and leash, is that people forget they are there. Badger was carried with some ceremony, and not a little caution, on a cushion into an adjoining room where the tea setting was kept, and placed amongst cups of porcelain and jade. The end of the chain was tied tightly to an iron ring set into the wall.
"There." The tigress who had carried him in bent down to speak to him. "I don't know what you can do in this form. Spit, maybe? We'll have to put you on the stove a little later and see what happens to you then. But for now, this will be your place."
Badger was used to being a teakettle for long periods. It was restful, though he could have done without the collar. The demon went away after that and badger passed into what counted as sleep, but he woke as soon as he heard voices, coming from just outside the kitchen annex. The voices were hushed and conspiratorial, and those sorts of conversations were always worth listening to.
"Does he know where she is?"
"He trusts me to keep him informed."
"And have you?"
"Of course not. Don't be stupid. You know perfectly well what we agreed to do. But there's a problem. She nearly came back."
"What? When?" There was real panic in the voice.
"Last night. You were with Agni, otherwise you'd have noticed."
"Yes, it was my turn. At least, I swapped with Urushi because she had a headache and—"
"Aruth, don't go on, that doesn't matter. Anyway, we were all in the main hall and suddenly she was almost here, you could see her. Just her outline, but I thought the little bitch was going to manifest completely. Urushi dropped a glass."
"But what does it mean? Has she decided to come home?"
"You really are quite dim sometimes, Aruth. You know perfectly well that we took steps to stop that happening and the only person who could have countermanded that is Agni. And Agni doesn't know. No, what it means is that the humans who took her have got tired of her and are trying to send her back. They nearly succeeded, even despite our measures. And that worries me."
"If she does come home—"
"She won't be pleased. More to the point, neither will Agni."
"We should never have done it." This voice—younger, more timid (for a tigress)—had a definite prey-on-the-run quality, to badger's ears. "If Agni finds out—"
"Yes. Well. We're just going to have to make sure that doesn't happen." There was a note in this voice, badger mused, that did not sound at all like prey, more than a hint of a growl.
Silence, a meditative kind of pause, and then footsteps, retreating. Interesting, badger thought. It wasn't the first time he'd been able to use overheard information to his own advantage. And somehow, he did not think it would be the last.