But she felt herself wondering if Attrebus would think she looked passable in this outfit.
“Come, come,” Dulg called impatiently. “Your hair and face must be tended to.”
An hour later, after the services of a silent, slight, blondish man, Dulg finally led her through a suite of richly furnished rooms and into a chamber with fresh air pouring through a large door and beyond …
Toel was there, but she could not make her gaze focus on him. There was too much else to wonder at.
She was outside, and Umbriel rose and fell all around her.
She stood on an outjut in a cliff face that was steep but not vertical, and that looked out on a vast, conical basin. Below her spread an emerald green lake and, above, the city grew from the stone itself, twisting spires and latticed buildings that might have been built with colored wire, whole castles hanging like bird cages from immensely thick cables. Higher still, the rocky rim of the island supported gossamer towers in every hue imaginable, and what appeared to be an enormous spiderweb of spun glass that broke the sunlight into hundreds of tiny rainbows.
“You like my little window?” Toel asked.
She stiffened, afraid to say anything for fear it might be the wrong thing, but just as fearful of saying nothing.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t know that anything in Umbriel could be beautiful, you mean?”
She opened her mouth to try and correct her mistake, but he shook his head.
“How could you, laboring down in the pits? How could you have imagined this?”
She nodded.
“Do you fear me, child?” he asked.
“I do,” she admitted.
He smiled slightly at that, and then walked closer to the rail, putting his back to her. If she were quick and strong, she might send him toppling over.
But of course he knew that. She could tell by the easy confidence with which he moved. He knew she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—do any such thing.
“Do you like your quarters?” he asked.
“Very much,” she replied. “You are very generous.”
“I’ve elevated you,” he said. “Things are better here. I think you will find your work more enjoyable, more stimulating.”
He turned and walked to a small table furnished with two chairs.
“Sit,” he said. “Join me.”
She complied, and a slight man in a vest with many buttons brought them a drink that hissed and fizzed and was mostly vapor. It tasted like mint, sage, and orange peel and was nearly intolerably cold.
“Now,” Toel said. “Tell me about this place you are from.”
“Lord?”
“What is it like, how was your life there? What did you do? That sort of thing.”
She wondered at first why she felt so surprised, but then it occurred to her that no one—not even Slyr—had ever asked her about her life before coming to Umbriel—not unless it concerned her knowledge of plants and minerals.
“There’s not much left of it, I think,” she said.
“No, I imagine not. And yet some of it lives in you yet, yes? And in Umbriel.”
“You mean because their souls were consumed here?”
“Not merely consumed,” he replied. “Mostly, yes, Umbriel must use living energy to remain aloft and functioning. But some of it is cycled, transformed, reborn—it’s not all lost. Take solace in that, if you can. If you cannot, it’s no matter to me, really, but a waste of your time and energy.”
“You think grieving a waste?”
“What else could it be? Anger, fear, ecstasy—these states of mind might produce something useful. Grief and regret produce nothing except bad poetry, which is actually worse than nothing. Now. Speak of what I asked you.”
She closed her eyes, trying to decide where to start, what to say. She didn’t want to tell him anything that might help Umbriel and its masters.
“My home was in a city called Lilmoth,” she said. “In the Kingdom of Black Marsh. I lived with my father. He was—”
Toel held up a finger. “Pardon me,” he said. “What is a father?”
“Maybe I used the wrong word,” she said. “I’m still learning this dialect.”
“Yes. I know of no such word.”
“My father is the man who sired me.”
Again the blank stare.
She shifted and held her hand up, palms facing each other.
“Ah, a man and woman, they, ahh … procreate—”
“Yes,” Toel said. “That can be very entertaining.”
She felt her face warm and nodded.
“You think so, too, I see. Very interesting. So a father is the man you used to procreate with?”
“No. Oh, no. That would be—no. I mean I’ve never—” She shook her head and started again. “A man and woman—my father and mother—they procreated and had me.”
“‘Had you’?”
“I was born to them.”
“You’re not making sense, dear.”