At the tent flap Aahz didn't even hesitate or knock, if knocking was possible on a big tent. He just stepped inside and Tanda led me right behind him.
The place was huge.
No, huge didn't describe it. On either side of us the tent seemed to fade off into the distance. This was the first time I had seen one of the Bazaar tents that had bigger insides than outsides. Aahz had mentioned them, but until I stepped into the massive room on the other side of the tent flap, I had no idea that such a thing was really possible. I was going to have to have Aahz teach me the magik involved so I could do that with our rooms back at the palace.
The tent was dimly lit and had a polished marble floor and dark, wooden-looking walls. There was almost no furniture. A simple wooden desk sat on the side of the room facing where we had come in. A massive map of what looked like dimen sions filled the wall behind it.
A woman sat at the desk, not looking at us at all. Whatever had Aahz and Tanda so worried about being here wasn't clear on first glance. The room felt odd, but not threatening, besides it being a hundred times larger than the tent holding it. We all stopped a few feet in front of the desk, with Aahz clearly in the position to do the talking.
The woman looked up at him and smiled. She had deep orange eyes and a pug nose that looked more like a hog's nose than anything like Tanda's. I had never seen a demon like her before.
"Yes?" she asked.
I almost fell over backwards. Her voice was deep, rough, and clearly that of a man. It was with the voice that I actually looked at her. Or him, as I was coming to realize. I had no idea why I had thought he was a woman. His arms and shoulders were built like a man's, and his brownish hair was cut short. Yet I had sworn, until he spoke, that he was a woman. Just thinking about it was getting me confused. Aahz got right to the point.