Transformation Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  An unwelcome guest

  As the Prince spoke to the other nobles gathered at his table, I knelt and poured the drink, stealing a glance at the Khelid’s face. Smooth, pale white skin, absolutely unlike the ruddy, weathered Derzhi or the reddish-gold color of my own race. A pleasant, narrow face. Ageless. Smiling. Then his eyes met my own.

  Eyes that terrified me beyond anything I had seen as a slave, beyond nightmares, beyond the most fearful encounters of my youth, for never had I faced such eyes defenseless. I stopped pouring and bowed my head, breaking off the contact instantly. Brandy was of no use to him. Nothing could ever warm those eyes or what was behind them.

  However crippled I was, however lost, however removed from the person I once had been and the life I had once lived, I could still recognize one when I saw it.

  He was a demon....

  ROC

  Published by New American Library, a division of

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  First published by Roc, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  First Printing, August 2000

  Copyright © Carol Berg, 2000 All rights reserved

  eISBN : 978-1-101-49846-0

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  To Mother, who taught me of books, and Pete, who taught me to reach. And to Linda, who taught me that putting words on paper was the first and most important step, and whose generous listening and perceptive questioning at innumerable “story lunches” forced Seyonne and Aleksander, Seri, Aidan, Dante, Will, and the rest of them to reveal themselves.

  Chapter 1

  Ezzarian prophets say that the gods fight their battles within the souls of men and that if the deities mislike the battleground, they reshape it according to their will. I believe it. I have seen such a battle and such a reshaping as could only come about with the gods’ devising. It was not my own soul involved—thank Verdonne and Valdis and any other god who might eavesdrop on this telling—but I did not remain unchanged.

  Crown Prince Aleksander, Palatine of Azhakstan and Suzain, Priest of Athos, Overlord of Basran, Thryce, and Manganar, heir to the Lion Throne of the Derzhi Empire, was perhaps the rudest, most callow, ungenerous, and arrogant youth ever to ride the deserts of Azhakstan. From the instant of our first meeting I judged him so, though it could be said that I was prejudiced. When one is standing naked on a slave-auction block in a wind cold enough to freeze a demon’s backside, one is unlikely to have a fair impression of anyone.

  Prince Aleksander had inherited the intelligence and strength of a royal family that had ruled a constantly expanding empire for five hundred years and had been clever enough not to diminish itself through inbreeding or internal mayhem. Older Derzhi nobles and their wives despised his lack of respect even while shoving marriageable daughters into his path. The younger nobility, themselves no paragons of virtue, named him a fine fellow on the basis of the lavish entertainments he permitted them to share, though that opinion often changed when they ran afoul of the Prince’s whims and irritability. Derzhi military commanders judged him fit, as his heritage demanded, though rumor had it that they drew lots among themselves, the loser forced to serve the rash and stubborn Prince as military aide. The common folk were, of course, not allowed an opinion on the issue. Nor were slaves.

  “You say this one can read and write?” said the Prince to the Suzaini slave merchant after examining my teeth and prodding the muscles in my arms and thighs. “I thought only Ezzarian women learned to read, and that just for deciphering potions and spells. Didn’t know the men were permitted it.” Then, while poking at my private parts with his riding crop, he leaned over to his companions and expressed the usual humorous opinions on the question of gelding Ezzarian slaves. “Completely unnecessary. Nature’s already seen to it when they’re born a man in Ezzaria.”

  “Aye, my lord, he can both read and write,” said the fawning Suzaini, his bead-woven beard rattling as he babbled. “This one has many refinements as would suit him for your service. Quite civilized and well behaved for a barbarian. Can keep accounts or serve at table or do hard labor as you prefer.”

  “But he’s been through the rites? None of their sorcery nonsense hanging about in his head?”

  “None. He’s been in service since the conquest. Went through the rites his first day, I’d say. The Guild always makes sure of Ezzarians. Got nothing left of witchery inside him.”

  No indeed. None of that. I was still breathing. There was still blood inside me. That was about all that was left.

  More rude poking and prodding. “It would be decent to have a house slave who had some semblance of intelligence—even barbarian intelligence.”

  The merchant glared at me in warning, but a slave learns quickly to pick and choose the points of honor for which he is willing to suffer. As the years of servitude pass, those become fewer and fewer. I had been a slave for sixteen years, almost half my life. No mere words could raise my hackles.

  “But what’s this?” I tried not to jump when the riding crop touched the lacerations on my back. “I thought you told me he was well behaved. Why the stripes if he’s so virtuous? And why is his owner getting rid of him?”

  “I’ve papers, Your Highness,
where the Baron Harkhesian swears this one is as fine and obedient a slave as can be found, with all the accomplishments I’ve said. He’s only getting rid of him to settle his financial affairs and says the marks were a mistake and should not tell against the slave. I don’t understand it, but you can see the lord’s seal on his papers.”

  Of course the slave merchant would not understand. The old warrior baron I had served for the past two years was dying and had decided he would sell me rather than allow me to become the property of his only daughter—a woman who took singular pleasure in abusing those she could not command to love her. Deciding whom to love was one of my remaining points of honor. No doubt it would crumble along with all the rest, given enough time.

  “If he doesn’t suit, perhaps one of these others ...” The slave merchant’s small eyes darted nervously about the barren, walled enclosure and the ten restless spectators. As long as the Prince was interested in me, no one else would dare bid, and the weather was so nasty, there was no assurance anyone would stay around to buy the other four wretches huddled together in the corner.

  “Twenty zenars. Have him delivered to my slave master.”

  The slave merchant was horrified. “But, Your Highness, he’s worth at least sixty!”

  The Prince gave the man such a look of strained patience as would make a sensible person check his back for daggers. “I’m reducing it fifty because he’s damaged. With scars on his back I’ll have to keep him better clothed. But I’m giving you ten extra because he can read and write. Is it not fair?”

  The slave merchant recognized his defeat—and his danger—and prostrated himself. “Of course, Your Highness. Fair and wise as always. Twenty zenars.” I had a feeling the merchant was going to have an unpleasant surprise ready for whatever well-meaning friend had notified the Prince that a literate slave was up at auction.

  The Prince was in company with two other young men. Those two were dressed like gaudy birds, in bright-colored silks and satins with gold linked belts, and carried daggers and swords so ornately wrought and crusted with jewels that the things would be absolutely useless. From the soft look of the pair and the way their eyes were set so close together, I wondered if they could figure out what to do with weapons. The Prince himself, lean and long-limbed, wore a sleeveless shirt of white silk, dun-colored doeskin breeches, tall boots, and a white fur cloak that could only be the pelt of the silver Makhara bear, the finest and rarest fur in the world. His red hair was caught in a single braid on the right side of his head—the Derzhi warrior’s braid—and he wore few adornments: arm rings of beaten gold and a single gold earring set with a diamond that was likely worth more than all his foppish companions’ baubles put together.

  The Prince slapped the arm of one of his finely dressed companions. “Pay the man, Vanye. And why don’t you bring the creature along? Except for the scars, he’s a league more handsome than you. He’ll look well in my chambers, don’t you think?”

  The pockmarked young lordling in blue satin and cock feathers dropped his receding jaw in horrified astonishment. Well he might. With a single phrase, his prince had banished Lord Vanye from Derzhi society forever. It was not the humiliating public comment on his physical shortcomings that had done it, but the fact he was named a slave handler: a job ranking just above those who tend dead bodies before they’re burned and just below those who skin animals. As the Prince turned his back and strolled out of the gate, the chinless man pulled out his purse and threw the coins at the feet of the slave merchant, looking as if he had just eaten a green dakhfruit. It was astounding how proficiently Aleksander could destroy a friend, insult a reputable merchant, and cheat an influential baron in a short five minutes.

  In the way of slaves, I looked no further to the future than the next hour. Rather than spending an entire day chained to the wall of the slave market in the dismal weather, I had the prospect of clothes and shelter almost immediately. Not a dreadful result. Far from my worst day on the auction block.

  But as was to happen frequently in the ensuing months, I was to reap the consequences of Prince Aleksander’s carelessness. The furious slave merchant said he had no time to replace the choke-collar, arm chains, and hobbles that were designed to make delicate female slave buyers feel secure, and he refused to supply so much as a loincloth to cover me. My journey across the crowded, cosmopolitan city, naked in the freezing rain, hobbling frantically behind Lord Vanye’s horse to keep from being dragged, ranked with the more ridiculous events of my long captivity.

  As for the chinless lord ... well, having one’s body in the control of a man who sees himself grossly ill-used is not the way to improve on a miserable situation. And when the man thinks himself clever, but is not, matters can get much worse. Instead of delivering me straight to the Prince’s slave master, Lord Vanye took me to the palace forge and ordered the smith to mark me with the royal seal ... on the face.

  What breath I had left was sucked away in horror. On the day of their capture, all slaves were branded with a crossed circle, but it was always on the shoulder, as I had been, or on the thigh. Never on the face.

  “Is he a runaway, then?” asked the smith. “Prince Aleksander don’t brand none but runaways in that fashion. Don’t like the ugliness, even in those for the mines.”

  “No, I’m only—” I tried to protest, but Vanye shut off my cry with an iron bar he’d been fondling since we’d entered the smithy.

  “See the lash marks on his back, and how we’ve had to chain him up like a wild dog? Of course he’s a runaway.”

  “He’s an Ezzarian. Durgan says—”

  “Are you afraid of groveling filth like this? The only magic that’s going to happen here is when I turn you into a tongueless gelding for disobedience. Now, do it.”

  Vanye’s blow to my head had left me groggy, but I soon wished that he had hit me harder. Claiming long experience with the Prince’s whims, the uncertain blacksmith used only his smallest iron to sear the seal of the Derzhi royal house on my left cheekbone. The larger iron would have exposed bone and teeth, creating enough damage that sepsis would eat away what was left of healthy tissue. But, at the moment, gratitude was not in my mind.

  And so I was delivered to the Emperor’s Summer Palace in the middle of winter, deposited on the straw-covered floor of the slave house, shivering, nauseated, and half out of my head.

  The burly slave master, a bearded, flat-faced Manganar who called himself Durgan, looked down at me in puzzlement. “What’s this? I got word of a new house slave for the Prince’s service, not a runaway fit for nothing but the mines.”

  I was certainly in no condition to explain Vanye’s pitiful attempt at revenge, his clever plan to ruin the Prince’s bargain.

  “This is the only new one bought today. Lord Vanye said—” The smith’s lad who had dragged me across the courtyard almost swallowed his tongue when Durgan grabbed his throat.

  “Demonfire! Vanye! Smith burned the Prince’s new slave on the word of a dolt not clever enough to open his pants to piss?” The slave master looked like he wanted to put his head through a brick wall. “Tell your master Smith he don’t ever, ever in this world mark a slave but the word comes from the Prince’s own mouth or from me. I was told to get this one cleaned and sent up to serve supper. Just look at him!”

  I could not have been a happy sight. My stomach emptied itself again at this mere hint of food.

  “At least master was careful with the branding,” stammered the boy, backing toward the door. “Not too damaged, is he?”

  “I wouldn’t set great hopes for living much past fourteen if I were you. Be off with you. I’ve work to do.”

  Half an hour later I was climbing the back stairs of Aleksander’s palace carrying a monstrously heavy tray filled with a platter of peeled fruit, cinnamon-dusted pastries, a round of stinking Azhaki cheese, and an urn of scalding nazrheel; their tea that smelled like burning hay. Every few steps I had to stop and let my muddled head clear, my churning stomach settle, and th
e throbbing firestorm in my cheek subside.

  I was dressed in a plain white sleeveless tunic that reached from shoulders to knees, a concession to the Prince’s distaste for seeing open wounds or excessive scars. The Derzhi usually kept their male house slaves in fenzai—short, loose pantaloons—and no shirt. It was some remnant of their desert heritage, singularly inappropriate and unpleasant for those of us held captive in the mountainous northern regions of the Empire. The tunic was not much warmer, but felt slightly more modest at least.

  Strangely enough, the slave master’s biggest dilemma had been my hair. I had no beard—Ezzarians just don’t produce them like most races. But, unlike the usual custom in Derzhi slave houses, the Baron’s daughter had commanded my hair be left long. Durgan wanted it off, but was afraid that would leave the burn marks on my face too prominent and expose the swollen, bloody lump where Vanye had laid the iron bar. So instead, he had me tie it loosely to one side in the Derzhi style—not braided, of course; only blooded warriors wore it braided—hoping it would cover Vanye’s folly. He also put salve on the burn, a gesture I did not mistake for kindness. The slave master was praying to see the next sunrise.

  “Ah, supper!” said the Prince as I walked through the gold-leaf doors and into a sumptuous sitting room. I bowed—awkward with the tray—and congratulated myself when I managed to straighten up again without passing out. There were seven or eight people in the room. Three men and two women were seated on cushions around a low table playing ulyat, a Derzhi gambling game that involved painted stones and wooden pegs and not a few blood feuds. I studiously did not look at anyone as I set the tray on another low table surrounded by blue and red silk cushions. The slave master had been very specific about keeping my eyes down. I wasn’t sure if it was a household rule or just a way to keep my swollen, seeping cheek out of view.

  “Look, all of you. I’ve got myself a new slave. An Ezzarian who can read.”

  “Impossible ...” There were titterings and a repetition of the standard remarks.