“Cousin,” Maelen commented softly to himself. “Well that could explain the similarity then, I suppose.” He said this very softly, to himself, although Edwyrd heard him anyway. Maelen shook his head, as if to change gears. “We must get together some time during the voyage, do some shop talk you know.” Maelen said much louder, also more friendly then he’d first seemed. His eyes almost glinted. Glinted with something, Edwyrd wasn’t sure what. Amusement, curiosity? guile? Edwyrd didn’t know which it was, but it didn’t seem bad, just different.
That was all he needed, Edwyrd decided. Another person wanting to quiz him in depth on being an animage. How did he get into this?
“Hello! Anyone home?” Antefalken shouted into the cave. He waited politely a few moments before calling again. He was pretty sure no one was home, but it paid to be sure. When he got no response he entered the cave’s long passageway. He felt slightly guilty, entering another’s home while the individual was away. It wasn’t like breaking in, there was no door after all. Nonetheless, he needed information.
He’d actually hoped this Tom fellow would be home. He’d managed to wrangle the basic location of the demon’s cave from Boggy, and from there he’d preceded to search for likely caves. The symbol over the door seemed to be a good sign. This had to be the cave.
A cave! For Sammael’s sake! A fourth order demon living in a cave. What was the world coming to? Only Bogsworth or Tizzy would recommend a cave to a fourth order. Oh, sure, given that the guy was supposedly new, it probably wasn’t a bad idea, for starters. Especially given that he was bound and probably too busy with that to set up a decent place. Still, it was slumming more than just a little for a four. First or second order, sure, even quite a few of thirds, but Antefalken couldn’t think of any other fours that lived in a cave. Not that there were that incredibly many, a couple hundred or so, but still.
Antefalken himself, would never be caught living in such a location. Caves seemed to be a real turn-off for women. Something deep down inside, going back to the ‘ drag them by the hair’ caveman days that just seemed to put the nix on romance for most women, Antefalken presumed. Palatial buildings with silks and other soft cloths, plus lots of jewels, seemed to work much better.
By this point, Antefalken had reached the main area of the cave. The furnishings weren’t much, mostly hand carved, literally. Stylistically he’d seen better, but O.K. for a first try. The chair and table were functional, the bookshelves too, although empty. No real sign of any Astlanian materials; either this Tom wasn’t able to do physical transport or hadn’t figured out how yet. Not surprising, not many demons could. The majority of fours could manage something though, maybe not much, but at least small things.
Antefalken drew in a breath through his nose, preparing for a sigh.
Perspiration, he decided. This was most intriguing. Demons, naturally, did not sweat, unless they worked rather hard at it. More effort than it was worth by all accounts. Except during sex, he reminded himself. Then it was completely appropriate and in fact considered rude in some parts if you didn’t. However, all of this was beside the point, he definitely smelled perspiration, and unless he missed his guess, rather recent and rather human.
Human perspiration in the Abyss, remarkable really. Not remarkable that a human would sweat of course, it was a bit on the warm side even in this cool cave, no, it was remarkable that a human had been in the cave recently at all. In fact, unless he missed his guess, as he repeatedly sniffed around the room, there seemed to be two distinctly different patterns. Male and female it seemed. While he didn’t use his sense of smell often, Antefalken had to admit that it was at least as good as his other demonic senses.
