Transformation Page 16

  He lay back and gazed thoughtfully on the golden wine cup as it gleamed in the firelight. “I should kill all of you. Khelid and Ezzarians. Perhaps I will. All of this is words and mirrors and distractions. Theater props. None of it real.” He wasn’t going to tell me what had happened to him. He felt stronger, too, and believed he could resist it, whatever it was, just as he had resisted the sleeplessness.

  “If you can control whatever they’ve done to you, you are stronger than any sorcerer.”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “Then, you should send me away, my lord. The farther, the better, for I am the one who is mad. But if whatever didn’t happen should happen again, I might be of some help.” I pressed my forehead to the floor, and started toward the door. “Shall I take a message to Captain Sovari?”

  “Sovari!” He sat up straight. “Athos’ balls, what time is it?”

  “Somewhere in second watch,” I said.

  “Damn. Tell him to wake me at dawn, and we’ll be off. Tell him ... tell him I decided we needed to ride in daylight.”

  “As you command, my lord.”

  I left him poking at the fire, and crept past the attendants sleeping outside his door. After delivering his message to the Derzhi captain, who had been snoring under a horse blanket in the stables, I slipped up the back stair to the attic room and collapsed onto my pallet. Tired as I was, I could not sleep. The Lord of Demons . . . here, working such magic ... the war to end the world. As I lay in the dark stale air, listening to the harrowing moans of slave dreams, my thoughts wandered into the dusty corridors of Ezzarian prophecy. The Scroll of Eddaus foretold a lost battle—a prophecy that many of my countrymen believed had been fulfilled with the Derzhi conquest. That writing was the same that spoke of the Gai Kyallet ... and foretold a second battle, which, if lost, would leave the world in the thrall of demons. My people had been confidant that, however terrible our first defeat, this second and final battle was far in the future. All we had to do was make sure that some of us survived, to grow strong again. But what if we had been wrong? I threw my arms over my head and added my groans to those of my sleeping brethren. I could not bear to think.

  The Prince did not leave at dawn. He was nowhere to be found when Sovari came to wake him, so I heard. I heard a number of the rumors that flitted through the palace that day. After administering five lashes and a solid beating with his padded truncheon and putting me on half rations for a month for my evening’s disappearance, Boresh set me to scrubbing floor tiles. I guessed that the expanse of floor in the Summer Palace could have paved all the kingdom of Manganar. But even through the haze of hunger and pain and too little sleep, I heard the talk as I worked.

  The Prince is ill. The Prince regrets his impulse to search for Lord Dmitri. After all, he detests the old man. Has threatened to poison him. Has cursed him and tried to keep him away from Capharna. There’s ill luck hanging over this dakrah: the Marshal Dmitri missing, the bandit raids at Erum. Beasts have come down from the mountains and been seen in the city. A tavern keeper was mauled in the last night.

  Sometime just after midday, I moved my aching knees to yet another square of cold slate in the gallery that separated the residential wing from the administrative wing of the palace. As I gritted my teeth and dipped my raw hand into the water pail yet again, two men hurried past. One of them was Aleksander, fastening the high collar on a green tunic as he walked. “... do not need to explain myself to anyone,” he said. “Now, I’m late. ...”

  Aleksander hurried on, while his companion stopped and put his hands on his hips in exasperation. It was Sovari.

  “May I be of service, Captain?” I said, pausing for a moment to ease my burning shoulders.

  In one glance he took in my identity and the bloody tunic stuck to my back. “We’ve both felt the brunt of this night’s doings it seems,” he said.

  “I’ve had better mornings,” I said.

  “He changed his mind. We’re not to go after the Marshal, after staying up half the night to be ready. He’s sent another party into the Jybbar. I’ve been put on report for upsetting the household. I may have lashes of my own coming.”

  “I’m sorry, Captain. I only brought the message I was told.”

  “We all do as we’re told, but some days it doesn’t seem to matter.”

  I saw no more of Aleksander that day. I worked until two hours past midnight before finishing. Neither mind nor body could function any longer, and I was glad for it. Not even the growling in my belly would keep me awake. But as I stumbled up the attic stair ready to ease my weary bones and torn flesh onto the pallet, a hand gripped my arm and a whisper burst upon my ear. “Come with me, Ezzarian.”

  “I’ve done everything required, Master Boresh,” I mumbled. “If you have more floors to be cleaned—”

  “Quiet.” The hand dragged me away from the barracks-room door and the snoring guard, and down another back stair. Who was it? Boresh had no need for secrecy. As we turned at a landing, a sliver of moonlight penetrated a grimy window and fell on a broad, flat Manganar face encircled by wiry, gray-streaked hair.

  “Master Durgan!”

  “I said to close your mouth. Just come.”

  I no longer resisted, but went willing, curiosity pumping a bit of life into my legs. We emerged in the brick-paved kitchen courtyard and wound our way through the snow-covered barrels, crates, and piles of rusty stovepipes, and past the stinking refuse heaps and the bins of smoldering ashes. Durgan led me not into the slave house, but into a long, open work shed at the far side of it. At one end of the shed was a storeroom, where spare ropes and chain and pulleys and such things were kept. We stopped at the storeroom door.

  “I grew up in the southern lands,” said the slave master, “where strange tales of good and evil were told at our hearth fires ... my gran always said we could feel safe, living close to the sorcerers’ land as we did. She said the Ezzarian sorcerers kept faithful watch and held the darkness away. In truth, I’ve not slept easy in all the years since Ezzaria’s fall. There’s evil abroad in the land. These past weeks, I’ve felt it close, and tonight I know it. Did you hear of the beast that roamed the city last night?”

  “I heard that a bear or a mountain cat of some kind mauled an innkeeper. Probably waked hungry from winter sleep. ...”

  “I thought the same. I was watching for it, thinking it might show up here near the refuse heaps, and sure enough, tonight I saw it slinking through the courtyard. I gave chase and it ran in here, but when I got my sword and ventured inside, it was no beast I found.”

  All the dread from the previous night surged through my veins, shoving my weariness aside. I knew what I would find when Durgan opened the door. “Get blankets and hot tea or wine,” I said, and I stepped into the storeroom and knelt beside Prince Aleksander.

  “My lord, can you hear me?”

  He was cowering in the corner, his eyes golden pools of fear with no sense or intelligence in them. The green tunic was torn and stained, and his feet were bare. Just as on the previous night, he was shivering violently, and a low, feral moan rumbled from his chest.

  “We’ll soon have you warm again,” I said. I tried to examine him for injuries, but he snarled and shrank away. I spoke to him calmly, though, and by the time Durgan was back with blankets and a pot of boiling nazrheel, I had determined that his body was unharmed. I scooped a cup of the strong tea from Durgan’s pot and held it close to Aleksander’s face so the steam might warm him and the familiar scent draw his senses into some sort of focus. Soon I had him sipping from the cup, the clouds slowly clearing from his eyes.

  “We need a fire,” I said to the slave master. “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

  “The gardener’s workroom,” he said. “No one will be there this time of year.” He pointed the way, then hurried ahead to light a fire.

  I gave Aleksander more tea and tried to get him up and moving. He curled into a tight ball, covering his head with his arms and groaning in shaking mi
sery. “Madness,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’ve gone mad.”

  “No, you’ve not,” I said. “I told you there was a spell on you. If I’m to help you, I need to know what’s happening.” From Durgan’s tale I feared the worst. “But come with me, and we’ll get you warm first.”

  The gardener’s shed smelled of cold earth and damp wood. Overturned pots and empty barrels, withered plants and rusty tools littered the place that would not come to life again for two months yet. Gardeners had a short working season in Capharna. Durgan had a fine fire going in the smoke-grimed brick hearth, and we got Aleksander settled by it. I hinted to Durgan that it was important that someone stand guard in the courtyard until the Prince was recovered, and, to my satisfaction, he took my suggestion. I didn’t want to be interrupted.

  “How does it begin?” I said. “Do you feel it coming?”

  “Hot,” said the Prince, rubbing his face with a filthy hand. “So hot I can’t breathe. The first time I thought it was from dancing. They got me dancing in their cursed playacting. When it was over, I needed air, so I stepped outside. ...”

  “And you felt the change begin.”

  “Gods of night ... I’ve never felt anything like. As if my bones are bending out of shape but won’t break, as if my flesh is ripping apart. The world ... everything ... goes dark, and when I can see again ...” He looked up, bewildered, anguished. “... I can’t think. I can’t remember. Everything looks so different ... the colors all drained away, the angles and positions peculiar. And the smells ... I think I’m going to drown in the stink. That’s when I go mad. I have this dream ... It must be a dream.” He shuddered and pulled the threadbare blanket tight about his shoulders. “I wake up like this. What’s happening to me?”

  “How often has it happened?”

  “Three times. Last night when you found me. This morning ... I woke before dawn thinking the bed was on fire. I ran outside and came to myself halfway up Mount Nerod in the middle of the morning. Then this afternoon, we were doing something ... swearing ... the Twenty Hegeds swearing fealty. I couldn’t finish it. Said I was sick and hid out in the kitchen garden. No one would be there to see.... It’s impossible. Why do I even speak of it?”

  “It is a demon enchantment, my lord. I saw it in you, but I didn’t know what it would do.”

  “So is it like before ... some trinket ... some poison? Tell me how to stop it.”

  I wished I could tell him. “This one is not so simple, my lord. It’s not a spell bound to an artifact, but one that’s been buried in you by their magic. It is part of you until a Khelid ... or someone ... takes it away. We need to find out what they want of you.”

  “What they want?”

  Exhaustion kept creeping in between me and clear thinking, and my torn back was bleeding again where Aleksander had leaned on it as I helped him to the gardener’s shed. I rubbed the back of my neck and tried to shake off my dullness. “Have the Khelid ... this Kastavan ... has he said anything to you? Have you argued with him ... defied him ... angered him? He thinks to gain something from this affliction.”

  “No. I’ve told him I think it’s stupid to build a new capital, no matter how fine it would be. But my father is going ahead with it anyway, and he’s not likely to die any time soon. It doesn’t really matter what I think about anything.”

  “What happens if you can’t finish the dakrah? If you can’t be anointed?”

  “Not finish ... ? It can’t happen. Whatever isn’t done one day, can be done the next. I will be anointed, whether on my birthday in front of two thousand people or a week later in my father’s bedchamber with a scullery maid to witness it. It makes no difference.”

  “Unless your father chooses someone else to succeed him.”

  Even while trembling with pain and cold, Aleksander could shrink one to the size of a gnat with his scorn. “I’m his only legitimate son. Dmitri is his only brother and has no sons. My male cousins are all of the female line. If I were a puling leper, my father would anoint no one else.”

  “But your father will want to go back to Zhagad to pursue his plans, not stay here to wait for you to recover from some strange ‘illness.’ That will mean more delay. And if Kastavan has been able to convince the Emperor to abandon Zhagad—the Pearl of Azhakstan—what else will he be able to convince him of? Perhaps your father will find himself unable to sleep or unable to take a woman to his bed.”

  “Druya’s horns.” There was a tremor beneath the quiet curse. “Why don’t they just kill me and be done with it?”

  I shook my head. “What would your father do if you were found dead?”

  Even as he said it, Aleksander’s eyes widened in understanding. “He would torture and kill every man, woman and child in Azhakstan until he found out who had done it.”

  “Therefore, they cannot kill you.”

  “So the dakrah must be completed.” He breathed deeply. “I’ll have to tell him ... something. I’ll have you explain it.”

  “No!” My blood curdled at the thought of Ivan, and thus Kastavan, so much as hearing my name. “It would endanger the Emperor. If the demons have no game to play, then they will take what pleasures they can from chaos. We must get you through the dakrah. There are only three more days.” And then I would need to think more about demons and prophecy, and knowledge that I had no means to act on.

  “But how do I stop this ... change? You said—”

  “We can’t stop it. We might be able to control it ... no, not completely.” I had to quench the desperate hope that flared up in his face. “You must have Giezek give you something to make you sleep. Enough that a turret falling on your head will not wake you from the moment you recline until the moment you absolutely must be up. You cannot afford to dream.”

  “I can see to that. And what of waking hours?”

  “That will be more difficult.” Impossible, most likely. The nighttime change would be triggered by dreams, but in the day ... “If you would, my lord, tell me everything that you remember from this afternoon and last night.”

  I led him through it three times. Each time he swore he had told me all, but each time I pulled out more details. But which detail was the important one? Was it that he had been impatient? No, or else he would have been shape-shifting before my eyes in the dark gardener’s shed. Was it that he had felt the stirrings of desire at the sight of a woman? If so, we would never be able to hold it off. “But you were not angry at the heged lords for taking so long with their speeches?”

  “I said not! Why do you care? This is intolerable.”

  “We’ve got to discover the trigger, the thing that sets it off. It could be an emotion, a smell, a sound, the touch of flesh, the taste of cheese, anything.”

  “I remember nothing about it. So what do I do?”

  “You must avoid anything that you ate, drank, or touched on those occasions. If you find yourself growing angry or distracted or drowsy, fix your mind on a single image—something you like. Something that encompasses your entire being when you consider it—and something you’ve not thought of these past two days. Submerge yourself in it until the disturbance is past. Perhaps that will get you through these next days.”

  “And if not?”

  “Send for me. I cannot prevent it, but perhaps I can help you endure it. Your mind is not gone away with the enchantment.”

  Aleksander fingered a strand of pearls that dangled from his torn tunic. “I can’t believe any of this. The longer I sit here, the more convinced I am that nothing happened. It’s all an illusion, like that cursed forest in the ballroom.”

  It was too late and we were too tired for me to explain about the forest. But I could have no mercy on him. “A man in the town had his throat ripped out last night by some kind of large cat or bear roaming the streets. Durgan saw such a beast on this night, my lord. He saw it run into the storage room behind the slave house, and when he followed it, with a sword in his hand ready to slay the beast, he found you. No illusion leaves a man bleeding to
death in the streets of Capharna.”

  The color that had returned to Aleksander’s face as we talked drained away again. “Gods of night ...”

  “I’m sorry. I wish I could have prevented this.”

  He took a deep breath. It was not difficult to imagine the whispers of horror and dread crowding together in the place behind his eyes. “What if the Khelid don’t stop it? How am I to be rid of it? I am to be Emperor.”

  Yes. The essential question. I could not yet bring myself to think of the only answer. “We’ll have to find someone to help you.” I stared down at my dirty, raw, useless hands and began once more to trace their outline.

  As if reading the part of my mind I forbade myself, Aleksander said softly, “Could you have done it ... before you were taken?”

  “Yes.”

  I expected a barrage of questions, of demands or speeches, perhaps threats. But he just said, “Would I could undo what has been done.” And it was not only for himself he said it.

  Chapter 15

  I slept in Aleksander’s chambers that night, on the floor in front of his hearth. In the nine years since I had been brought to Capharna I had never slept warm, so I kept waking up from the strangeness of it, then sinking into blissful slumber again.

  The first thing on the next morning, after he had drunk enough strong tea to clear his head of Giezek’s sleeping draught, Aleksander sent for Fendular. The High Chamberlain arrived to find Aleksander wearing only a loincloth. The Prince was to run in the footrace to the top of Mount Nerod that morning along with three hundred other young Derzhi men. The loincloth was the traditional garb, no matter the fat, wet snowflakes drifting from the gray sky.

  “Chamberlain, I have decided that my writing slave is not available for household service until after the dakrah. He is to be held for my exclusive use. Durgan will see to his sleeping and feeding and discipline.”