Strata

and wide bowls.
    ‘That’d better be water,’ growled Marco, ‘ ’cos I’m gonna drink it.’
    He pushed his head noisily into the bowl in front of him, causing mild consternation among the servants. Silver picked up hers and, after a preliminary sniff, opened her mouth like a funnel and tipped it down. Kin drank her fill in a reasonably ladylike manner, and used the rest to wash the dust off her face.
    She took the opportunity to look around.
    There was hardly any furniture. The room was just an ornate box, walls decorated with geometrical and horticultural patterns and several large screens at one end. By the grounded carpet was a low table, its top apparently one thick slab of crystal.
    Ali had disappeared, along with the servants. Silver peered around the room.
    ‘The water was ice cold,’ she stated. ‘There were crystals in it. Show me iced water, and I’ll show you civilization.’
    ‘Anywhere else it would mean a refrigerator,’ Kin admitted, ‘but here, I’d bet they’ve got hot-and-cold running demons in all rooms.’
    Marco walked over to the carpet and inspectedit carefully. Then he stepped on it and said the word.
    ‘I imagine it’s slaved to his voice pattern,’ said Silver, without looking round. Marco cursed quietly.
    Ali Baba appeared from behind the screens, followed by two men with swords. He was carrying a small black box on a red cushion.
    He looked sideways at Silver and spoke a few words in halting Latin.
    ‘He is going to, uh, summon that-which-speaks-all-tongues,’ she said. ‘I think.’
    While they watched he laid the box on the floor and opened the lid. The thing he took out puzzled Kin. It looked like a small flat teapot made out of adulterated gold.
    He polished it with his sleeve.
    ‘Will You Give Me No Peace, Sorcerer?’
    It had appeared a few feet away, hazy in a cloud of purple smoke. It was immediately obvious to Kin why Marco’s appearance hadn’t bothered the man – if he was used to things that looked like this, he was used to
anything
.
    It was man-height, or would have been if it stood erect. But it was bent almost double, two thick gold scaled arms and oversized hands serving as a second pair of legs. Clusters of tendrils grew out of its neck. Its face was long, vaguely horse-like, topped by a pair of pointy ears and tailed by two moustachios that trailed on to the floor. It wore a small cone-shaped hat.
    ‘Know All That I Am Azrifel,’ it began in a sing-song voice, ‘Djinnee Of The Desert, Terror Of Thousands, Scourge Of Millions And, I Must Be Frank About It, Slave Of The Lamp. So What Do You Want This Time, Master?’
    There was a long speech from the sorcerer. The djinnee turned around until it faced the trio.
    ‘My Master Abu Ibn Infra Presents His Compliments And Welcomes You To His Humble Abode And A Lot Of Stuff Like That. If You Want To Eat, Just Tell The Table. Your Wish Is Its Command. There’s A Lot Of That Sort Of Thing Goes On Around Here,’ he added.
    Kin hunkered down beside the table and looked at it more closely. It was one block of crystal, but now that she paid close attention there seemed to be something else in there too, something like a moving wisp of faint smoke.
    She thought of cucumber and green paprillion salad, and the cinnamon ice cream she used to buy from Grnh’s Olde Drugge Store in Wonder-strands, the one with the recipe that Grnh had refused to sell to the dumbwaiter programmers. There was always a black Treale cherry on the top. The memory of that taste welled up until she drooled.
    It grew out of the table. There was an impression of swirling movement in the crystal and then it was there, smoking with frost.
    There was a black Treale cherry on the top. And – Kin picked up the carton and stared.
    It was in a familiar blue, black and white and showed an anthropomorphic penguin in a chef’s hat. Around the side was: The Olde Drugge Store, corner of Skrale and High, Upperside, Wonderstrands 667548. Tregin Grnh and Siblings, reg. WE FREEZE TO PLEASE.
    Marco stared at the carton, then looked down at the teasing shadows in the tabletop.
    ‘I don’t know how you managed that,’ he said carefully, ‘but what I have in mind is the Blue Plate special they serve in Henry Horse’s Kung Food Bar in New—’
    He stopped, because it was already there. There was one bowl, heavy pottery containing something under an orange-yellow crust that rumbled with internal eruptions.
    ‘It must be telepathy,’ he said