Fillip inched out of the burrow. “Everyone has a name,” he said.
Sot inched out with him. “Yes, everyone,” he agreed.
“Not I,” the bottle said mournfully. Then it became brighter. “But perhaps you can give me a name. Yes, a name you find fitting for me. Why don’t you let me out so you can name me?”
Fillip and Sot hesitated, but their fear was already giving way to curiosity. Their marvelous treasure was not just a pretty thing; it was a talking thing as well!
“If we let you out, will you be good?” asked Fillip.
“Will you promise not to hurt us?” asked Sot.
“Hurt you? Oh, no!” The bottle was shocked. “You are the masters! I must never hurt the masters of the bottle. I must do as they bid me. I must do as I am told.”
Fillip and Sot hesitated further. Then Fillip reached out his hand tentatively and touched the bottle. It felt warm. Sot did the same. They looked at each other and blinked.
“I can show you wonderful things,” the bottle promised. “I can show you things of bright magic!”
Fillip looked at Sot. “Should we open the bottle?” he asked in a whisper.
Sot looked back at him. “I don’t know,” he replied.
“I can give you pretty things,” the bottle promised. “I can give you treasures!”
That was good enough for the G’home Gnomes. Fillip and Sot reached for the bottle as one, fastened their hands about its neck, and pulled the stopper free. There was a puff of reddish smoke that glittered with bits of green light, then a popping sound, and something small, black, and hairy crawled out of the bottle. Fillip and Sot jerked their hands back at once. The thing crawling from the bottle looked like an oversized spider.
“Ahhhh!” The thing on the lip of the bottle sighed contentedly. It perched there and looked down at them. It was barely a foot tall. Red eyes blinked like those of a cat. It looked less like a spider now. It had four limbs, all seemingly the same, a rat’s tail that switched and jerked, an arched back with a spine of bristling black hair, whitish hands and fingers like those of a sickly child, and a face that was thick with hair and blunted—as if it had been pushed in once and never came back again to its original shape. Pointed ears pricked up and listened to the night sounds. A mouth crooked with teeth and wrinkled skin smiled in something close to a grimace.
“Masters!” the creature soothed. The fingers of one limb picked at its body as if there were something irritating hidden in all that black hair.
“What are you?” asked Fillip in a whisper. Sot just stared.
“I am what I am!” the creature said. The grimace broadened. “A wondrous child of magic and wizardry! A being far better than those who gave me life!”
“A demon!” whispered Sot suddenly in terror.
The creature winced. “A Darkling, masters—a poor unfortunate made prisoner to this repulsive body by… chance. But keeper of the bottle, too, masters—keeper of all its wonders and delights!”
Fillip and Sot were barely allowing themselves to breathe. “What… what wonders do you keep in the bottle?” Fillip ventured finally, unable nevertheless to keep his voice from shaking.
“Ahhhh!” the Darkling breathed.
“Why… are they kept there?” asked Sot. “Why not in your pocket?”
“Ahhhh!” the Darkling said again.
“Why do you live in the bottle?” asked Fillip.
“Yes, why?” echoed Sot.
The spider like body arched and turned on the lip of the bottle like some feeding insect. “Because… I am bound!” The Darkling’s voice was an excited hiss. “Because it is my need! Would you like it to be yours, too, perhaps? Would you like to feel its touch? Little masters, would you dare? Would you dare to see how it shapes and molds and reworks life?”
Fillip and Sot were inching further back down into their burrow with every word, trying to make themselves disappear altogether. They were wishing they had kept the bottle closed as they had agreed they would. They were wishing they had never opened it up.