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jetted off in search of the habitat’s owner, Chachel remained just out of the demon’s reach. He hated surprises, and to be surprised by a suddenly hostile demon was a fate he would prefer to avoid.
    This particular fiend, however, looked anything but threatening. As they waited, she hardly moved, apparently content to drift in center of the central, well-lit shaft that bored through the chamber from top to bottom. Her eyes were half closed, as if she was falling asleep.
    When Glint reappeared with Oxothyr in tow, she woke up very fast.
    Fully extended, the limbs of the manyarm mage were long enough to span the entire chamber from one side to the other. The fact that most of them remained coiled close to his body did nothing to reassure the startled demon. At the sight of Sandrift’s shaman her head virtually disappeared in a sudden eruption of bubbles. Spinning around, she kicked wildly in an attempt to swim back in the direction they had come.
    Sensing her distress, Oxothyr immediately changed hue from his normal relaxed beige-green to a pale turquoise streaked with pink—the most soothing color combination he knew. Since Glint had already informed him that the demon was incapable of civilized speech, the shaman did not try to reassure her with words. Instead, he compacted his body as best he could, twisted his eight arms around him, drew his eyes back into his head, and murmured a few choice reassuring words. Then, utilizing a combination of natural mimicry and a touch of wizardry, he changed shape.
    Grabbing the fleeing demon by one leg, Chachel twisted hard and spun her around in the water. Forced to look backward, she saw—herself. Herself flaunting cephalopodan eyes and tinted turquoise, but unmistakably herself. The incongruity of it was enough to halt her frantic flight. Her arms and legs stopped thrashing.
    All octopuses are natural mimics, able to alter not only their color but their shape to match their surroundings. These inherited skills the venerable and practiced Oxothyr had mastered long ago. Still, even sheened with magic, it required some of his most exquisite contortions to twist himself into a replica of the alien being currently hovering before him in the column of light shafting down from above. While far from a perfect facsimile, the resemblance was striking enough to unsettle not only the demon herself but Chachel and Glint as well.
    When the wizard extended a thick tentacle in her direction, she bent at the waist and started to reach for her knife. As Chachel prepared to intervene, Oxothyr perceived his intent and with another limb waved him off. Lightly, the tip of his extended tentacle made contact with the demon’s shoulder, ran down her side and leg. The extreme delicacy of touch must have reassured the creature. Straightening, her fingers slowly drew away from the weapon.
    As Oxothyr examined her closely, she marveled at his coloration, size, and the bejeweled bracelets that decorated each of the shaman’s eight sucker-lined arms. Scrunched up as near to his elastic body as possible, each armlet was fashioned of different gems, shells, and metals. For some reason she seemed to be particularly attracted to the circlet of hammered gold that encircled one tentacle. Watching her, Chachel just shook his head. Who could fathom the interests of a demon? Perhaps only Oxothyr—which was one reason they had brought her here.
    “Are you going to kill it?”
    “Are you going to eat it?”
    The squeaky-voiced queries came from Sathi and Tythe, the shaman’s sibling squid famuli. At their appearance, Glint flashed a disgusted pattern. Too often, the interests of the shaman’s servants seemed focused on matters of feeding and reproduction to the exclusion of all else.
    “Why would I do either to something that is plainly so frightened?” the shaman murmured reprovingly to his assistants.
    Chachel frowned. “Frightened? The demon is afraid of us ?”
    “It is plainly afraid of something. Perhaps