The Identity of Evil (Delvonian Tales Book 4) by Herb Mallette

Author:Herb Mallette [Mallette, Herb]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-18T23:00:00+00:00

LVIII

I settled on a destination during breakfast and asked the serving girl how to find it. She wasn’t certain such a place even existed, but she asked the cook and then relayed what he told her. So by midmorning, after a moderate walk through Hanim’s exotic streets, we arrived at one of the few places in the city where the goods for sale had not been imagined in the nearest dream foundry.

As we turned onto Menagerie Boulevard, Nene said, “I can see from the signs and tell from the smell that we are here. Now are you ready to tell me why we are here?”

I looked up the boulevard with interest, pleased to see the swards of grass and the trees that lined its walks. Like many of Hanim’s districts, this one had resulted from someone’s vision – an architect or a consortium in love with a particular idea and driven to craft it into reality. Along with shrubberies trimmed into animal shapes, statues, and painted signs above the shops, several of the buildings themselves told of this street’s purpose. One had been built in the shape of a turtle, another in the winding curve of a snake, and the tallest of them took the form of a giant alabaster owl sitting in a nest.

“We’re here,” I told Nene, “to find you a pet.”

She thought on this for a moment, frowning and turning the word over in her head. “Why would I want a pet? Does a pet help me learn to fight? Does a pet give me erotic entertainment?”

I cleared my throat. “No. A pet is an animal friend. A pet makes its owner feel –”

“I know what a pet is. I was trying to communicate that the idea seems foolish to me.”

Shocking, I thought. But I’d already prepared for that reaction. Walking onward, I pointed to a man with a snub-tailed cat on a lead, both of them apparently enjoying the process of scaring birds out of the bushes in a small park between two shops.

“Look. A pet can be entertaining. Some can even be useful – a hunting or herding dog, for instance.”

Nene scoffed, barely glancing at the man and his cat. “I have not yet learned to fight, much less hunt, and I have nothing to herd. My interest in animals is limited to their ability to be turned into meat.”

“Regardless, we’re going to see if we can find you a companion.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have a companion. So far I have not found it to my liking – why would I want another?”

“Well for one thing, this one won’t make the mistake of talking to you,” I replied.

“Talking is not the problem,” she said. “When the woman at the dream foundry talked to us about returning to her home to fornicate with her and her husband, I found the subject interesting. But you do not pick subjects as interesting.”

“They’re interesting to me,” I said, “and they’d be useful to you, if you’d listen. But

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