Severed Read online

  I took a step towards him and saw, for the first time, that he had a jagged white scar running down the left side of his face. It started at his temple, barely missed his eye, and ran all the way down to his jaw line. The scar was well camouflaged by his long black hair but when he moved his head it was clearly visible.

  I looked at Lucian and Drace to see if they would object to me walking with a strange man. Lucian was frowning and Drace was glaring but since neither of them said anything, I put my arm through Mandrex’s and allowed him to lead me past the staircase and down a long central walkway.

  As we made our way to the dining room, I thought that Lord Mandrex must really be loaded. Lucian’s apartment was gorgeously expensive and well appointed but the mansion we were walking through now—really more of a small castle—was filled with rich tapestries and works of art in glass cases, all placed at tasteful intervals. Everything looked like it had cost a fortune.

  Many of the works of art appeared to be quite old—ancient pottery and tools from some bygone Stone Age era of Denarin pre-history. I wondered why a guy from a whole other planet would be so interested in the history of someplace else entirely. But then, maybe he was just really into exploring other cultures. Or maybe, as Drace had hinted, his own people didn’t want him so he had decided to immerse himself in the art and language and culture of someplace else entirely.

  At last we reached the dining room and I saw one last, massive glass case standing in front of the richly carved double doors. I say glass but I’m not sure what the material was that made up the case—only that it was a clear cube which seemed to hover in mid air at a fixed point—the same way the sleeping platform bed hovered on Lucian’s ship.

  Inside the hovering cube was a black velvet pillow. Lying on it was a triangular stone about as big as my clenched fist. It was a strange mottled color—bluish-gray mingled with specks and swirls of brilliant orange. There was a hole in the center of it but it wasn’t completely round—there was a notch at one end that tapered up towards the highest, thinnest point of the triangle. I thought it looked like one of those weird, multicolored crayon rings you can find in craft shops sometimes only it was much larger than a ring—more like bracelet-sized.

  “Behold,” Lord Mandrex said to me, nodding at the case. “The Tanterine Key—the oldest relic of Denarin prehistory ever to be discovered. Dealers of antiquities estimate its worth in the hundreds of millions of credits. I, myself, paid a considerable sum to own it when it came to auction.”

  I bit my lip. Was he telling us the key wasn’t for sale…or that we couldn’t afford it? Because I was pretty sure we couldn’t. Gold bars not withstanding, I had an idea that Lucian was rich but not that rich. Of course, his family might be that rich—they might be willing to pay millions of credits to find a way to sever his improper bond but I wasn’t sure. As for Drace and myself, well, I got the feeling that Drace was a regular blue collar guy and I was just a starving paralegal. There was no way Mandrex would be getting much out of either of us.

  “It’s very lovely,” I murmured, nodding at the Key.

  “Not as lovely as you, my dear.” But I had the idea he was paying me an empty compliment. There was something about those whirling, electric-blue eyes…they were cold, distant. As though he’d been hurt in the past and had absolutely no intention of risking his heart again.

  Then again, I might have just been reading things into the situation.

  “Thank you,” I murmured.

  Mandrex nodded and ushered us inside a two-story dining room that looked like it could double as a ballroom in a pinch—if they had that kind of thing here.

  A single long, high table with a silver tablecloth dominated the room. It was set with thin, oval plates decorated with a swirling turquoise pattern and multiple alien-looking eating implements. On one side were three place settings right in a row. On the other, there was only one. Taking the hint, Drace and Lucian and I went to the side with three. We sat down with Lucian on my right and Drace on my left.

  Lord Mandrex seated himself across from us and snapped his fingers twice. Immediately four uniformed servants ran forward, all carrying steaming dishes held out at arm’s length. With a flourish, they set the plates down in front of all of us at exactly the same moment and vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

  I looked down at the plate in front of me and had to fight not to wrinkle my nose.

  It appeared to be a large serving of long, thin strips of…well, it looked like noodles covered in brown fur. But not like someone had stroked a cat and then dusted their hands over the noodles—more like the noodles themselves had somehow sprouted long, straight hairs right out of their pale, fleshy sides. Mixed in among the furry noodles were large, flat black disks, about the size of a silver dollar. The resulting dish was, shall we say, less than appetizing.

  “Ah yes,” Mandrex said grandly. “This is ylla-reth, a high holiday dish from the area around Y’brith.”

  I looked at Lucian who nodded and picked up a pair of golden tongs. He used them to stir his hairy noodles. That sounds really wrong, doesn’t it? But believe me, it doesn’t sound half as wrong as it looked. This was some seriously nasty-looking food.

  Of course, I would never say that I thought the food looked nasty out loud. Instead, I copied Lucian’s actions, but without much appetite. The hairy noodles and black disks were making my stomach churn. Still, I didn’t want to be impolite so I used my tongs to bring one furry noodle to my lips. It was as tough and dry as carpet liner and had about as much flavor, plus the hairs got stuck in my teeth. It was awful.

  “Do you like it?” Lord Mandrex inquired, smiling across the table at me.

  “It’s very, uh, chewy,” I said, trying to smile. “A very unique dish. I love trying new things. What is it made of?”

  “In the very center of the Sands of Death is a deep cavernous hole which leads many leagues down to the Sunless Sea,” Mandrex informed me. “Growing from the walls of this ancient cavern is the ylla moss. It hangs in long curtains right down to the sandy ground around the sea. Intrepid epicureans shear off sheets of the moss and cut it into long, thin strands. It’s boiled quickly in the clear juice of the yazzen fruit and served piping hot.”

  “So…moss? These are long strips of moss?” I lifted another hairy noodle with my tongs questioningly.

  “Indeed it is but you’re eating it wrong,” he informed me. “You have to split open the blood mollusks first and mix their bile with the ylla moss to get the most flavor.”

  “Blood…mollusks?” I asked hesitantly. “Bile?”

  “Observe.” Mandrex picked up another piece of silverware which looked like a tiny golden hammer with a sharp point on one end. He held one of the flat black disks steady with his tongs and gave it a sharp tap with the pointed end of the hammer.

  There was a brittle cracking sound and what looked like dark red blood started seeping out of the shattered black disk. It sizzled and sent up a sickly-sweetish cloud of pink steam when it hit the hairy noodles, which immediately went limp.

  “And now you can eat it,” Mandrex demonstrated by putting down his tongs and hammer and picking up a pair of golden chopstick looking implements. Without hesitation, he shoved a mouthful of the now-limp, bile-covered, hairy noodles into his mouth.

  “Oh, um…” I looked down at my plate which was now even less appealing than before Mandrex had showed me how to prepare it.

  “Would you like some help?” Lucian positioned one of my flat, black blood-mollusks with his tongs and cracked it sharply for me before I could answer. “Stir it quickly,” he advised as the blood-like bile came hissing and sizzling out to mix with the noodles. “The bile needs to coat all of the ylla moss strips for the best flavor.”

  “Oh, of…of course.” Swallowing hard, I picked up my own set of long, needle-thin golden chopsticks and began swirling them through the steaming mixture. I really, really didn’t want to eat this but since everyone else—even Drace—was digging in, I felt I