Transformation Read online

  “Quite accomplished, I hear. Perhaps even some royal Ezzarian blood in him.”

  “A barbarian sorcerer! I’ve never seen one of them. Will you lend him out?” asked a low-voiced woman with more on her mind than food.

  “Ah, Tarina, why do you ask it? What pleasure would you find in such a scrawny fellow, all dark hair and dark eyes?”

  “Though nowhere near your own stature, my lord, he looks quite fit. If his face is pleasing, I could be tempted ... when your eye wanders, as it seems to do constantly. Will Lydia allow such dallying when you are married?”

  “Now you’ve done it. I will certainly not lend him to anyone who reminds me of the sharp-tongued she-wolf. Come take your pleasure with my food, for you will surely not get my slave.”

  I very much disliked being the center of such sparring. As I had discovered again so recently with the Baron’s daughter, it was more dangerous than serving a warrior on the front lines of the Empire. I bowed and mumbled. “If that’s all ...”

  “Speak up,” said the Prince. “How can you read if you can’t speak clearly? And no, that is certainly not all. We must let Tarina see what she’s missing.” Before I could be properly afraid, a hand reached under my chin and jerked it up. By the time my eyes could focus after the nauseatingly sudden movement of my head, they were looking straight into the hot amber gaze of Prince Aleksander. “Get Durgan!”

  Someone scurried past us, hearing the unrefusable menace in the Prince’s voice. I was held immobile by the iron hand under my chin. He had me stretched up on my toes, and I was sorely afraid I might be sick again from the position and the mingled scents of heavy perfumes, cinnamon, and the rank tea and half-rotted goat’s cheese the Derzhi so prized.

  Durgan’s account of the afternoon’s events was somewhat muffled by the carpet under his mouth. Complete prostration was perhaps a bit overdramatic in such a private setting, but the slave master was fighting for his life. When the tale was done, the Prince released his grip and shoved me aside. I knelt down and crossed my hands on my breast as would be expected, encouraging my stomach to return to its proper venue.

  Ezzarian Seers teach that in nature’s pause before disaster strikes, a discerning listener will hear the clicking of the victim’s bones. On this occasion a stone could have heard them. When the Prince gave the order summoning Lord Vanye, the bone rattling was as noisy as an earthquake.

  I was sent outside the palace gates to await the young lord. The night was freezing, and I had no cloak or shoes. But neither the gate guard’s bonfire nor the blazing torches on the wall could have warmed the chill inside me. Perhaps the Prince thought it would unsettle his chinless friend to see me, though as I led the gray-faced young man through the gates, I doubted my presence had anything to do with his terror. He knew he was done for.

  The Prince met us in the front courtyard of the palace. He wore his white fur cloak and gave his hand to Lord Vanye as the trembling man dismounted. “You see I sent this slave outside to greet you ... freely, with no concern that he might run away. You’ve done me quite a service, Vanye.” The young lordling gaped stupidly at the Prince, who laughed, took the young man’s arm, and strolled toward the kitchen courtyards and workshops. “Come, I want to thank you for it.”

  Though he laughed uncertainly—more of a squeak than a laugh—Lord Vanye could not have been easy. In addition to two torchbearers and two attendants, there were four liveried soldiers following him and the cheerfully chattering Prince. The soldiers shoved me after them. I wrapped my arms about myself, silently cursing winter and royalty and my life.

  Dread and surety gnawed at my gut as we stepped inside the smithy, the heat of the thundering flames searing my cheek anew until the very air quivered with the burning outlines of the falcon and the lion that I would wear to my grave. The smith stood ready.

  Vanye tried to pull away as they strapped him to the post, but he was not half strong enough. Then he began to beg, his pockmarked face a pasty gray. “Aleksander ... Your Highness. You must understand. My father ... the disgrace ... handling slaves ...” When the smith pulled the largest of his glowing irons from the fire, the gibbering turned to a low wailing.

  I would not watch it. I had been very close to howling two short hours earlier, and the smith had been careful with me. I closed my eyes ... so I was not at all prepared when the burly smith crammed a heavy iron handle into my hand.

  “Do it,” commanded the Prince, who smiled and folded his arms, waiting. “Vanye is not content to be a slave handler. He thinks he can fall no lower. Prove to him how wrong he is.”

  “My lord, please.” I could scarcely speak for my revulsion. Everything I still held sacred, everything I prayed was still tucked away inside me ...

  The hot amber gaze shifted to me. I wanted to look away, knowing that no good could come from anything I might do or say. But there are deeds that are impossible, no matter what the consequence of leaving them undone.

  “I’ll hear no womanish Ezzarian scruples. I’m giving you the chance for revenge. Surely a slave craves revenge.”

  I held my tongue, but did not look away. I could not let him mistake my intent. While staring straight into his blazing fury, I raised the vile implement to toss it back into the fire. But before I could loose it, the Prince roared, curled his powerful hand about my own, and forced the red-hot iron onto Vanye’s face.

  I heard Vanye’s screams and smelled his burning flesh long into that night, long after I was locked in a cell beneath the slave house in the frigid darkness. I pulled the filthy straw over my nakedness and fought to retrieve some semblance of the peace and acceptance I had striven to build over sixteen years. But all I could think was how much I detested Prince Aleksander. I could not judge Lord Vanye or whether he was truly worthy or unworthy of Aleksander’s scorn, but how could I not despise a prince who would mutilate one man and trample the pitiful scraps of another to remedy his own foolish mistake?

  Chapter 2

  It was three or four days before Prince Aleksander had need of someone who could read. Not just anyone. Someone that he trusted. Palace scribes were notorious for spying and intrigues, being privy to private information as they were. Of course, it wasn’t so much that he trusted me, as that he could remove my tongue should I repeat a word I read. I understood that. Misplaced trust is an extremely painful lesson.

  I was asleep when Durgan dropped the wooden ladder through the ceiling and yelled at me to come out of my barren little hole. Through years of such intermittent punishments, I had learned to make the best of the silent hours. I had taught myself to sleep through almost anything: sweltering heat, bitter cold, chains, ropes, unending damp, pain, filth, and vermin. Hunger was a little harder, but only rarely had I been starved—slaves were too expensive to ruin frivolously—and, in general, I had managed to give my masters little reason to go beyond the normal beatings and degradations that seemed to make them happy. On this particular occasion I feared I had gone too far and might not get out of it, but even so, I had managed to sleep away most of the time.

  “There’s a cistern just outside, and your tunic on the hook,” said Durgan as I climbed squinting and shivering into the cold daylight. “You’re to make yourself presentable. There’s a knife beside the cistern. Take off the hair. And don’t think I won’t check to be sure the knife is still there when you go.”

  I sighed and did as he told me. The knife was very dull, and my head throbbed at every jerk. It seems ridiculous, but being forced to cut off my hair had come to be more irritating than any of the other petty annoyances of servitude. It was so pointless.

  “You’re to go straight to the Prince’s chambers.” Durgan gave me no word as to what was wanted. Whether I was to serve dinner or be murdered, it wasn’t his business to know ... or to tell me even if he did. I ran across the bustling, slushy courtyard to the kitchens, cleaned the mud off my bare feet in the footbath by the outer door, then hurried up the stairs, regretting the savory smells and billowing warmth I left b
ehind as I passed by the spits and baking ovens. Perhaps I’d get to linger a moment on the way back. Surely the Prince wouldn’t have bothered to have me cleaned up if he was going to kill me.

  I tapped on the gold-leaf door and swore at myself for violating my long-held rule by thinking beyond the moment.

  “Come.”

  A quick glance about before dropping to my knees and averting my eyes told me that only the Prince and one other man were present. The other man was much older, with a weathered face, long, wiry gray hair only partially tamed into his braid, and upper arms that looked as if he juggled boulders for pleasure.

  Aleksander was reclined on a blue brocade couch. “Who are ...? Ah.” It wasn’t a deadly sort of ah, but neither was it an “I’m going to forget that you defied me” sort of ah. With my luck he would have a long memory. “Come here and read this.”

  Derzhi nobles did not learn to read or write, or if they did, they certainly wouldn’t let anyone know about it. The Derzhi were a warrior race, and though they prized the literacy of their scholars and merchants, it was much in the way they prized their dogs who did tricks, or their birds who could carry messages unerringly, or their illusionists who could make rabbits turn into flowers or sultry maidens disappear. It was not something they would want to do themselves.

  I touched my head to the carpet, rose, and knelt again beside the couch where the Prince lay, waving a rolled paper at me. My voice was hoarse to begin with, as I’d scarcely used it since being sent to the slave merchant almost a week before, but after a paragraph I got the words to come out clearly.

  Zander,

  It sorrows me greatly that I’m not able to come for your dakrah. I’m bogged down in getting the Khelid legate installed here in Parnifour. His list of requirements for his residence is unbelievable. It must back to the hills. It must accommodate at least three hundred. It must have a superior view of the city. It must have two wells that are not connected. It must have enough garden space with its own spring that their delicacies can be grown there. And so on endlessly.

  Why your father chose to send his most junior dennissar to see to such a matter is beyond me ... though I am still interminably grateful for the appointment and honored to be entrusted with such an important duty. I feared the Khelid legate might be offended at my assignment, thinking it less than his due, but he is everlastingly charming and accommodating—as long as I meet all his demands. I may have to turn Baron Feshikar out of his castle if I can’t find anything better. Dispossessing a landed baron of the Fontezhi Heged is an ordeal I would as soon avoid. But I carry the Emperor’s warrant, so anything that must be done will be done.

  So as you can see it is impossible that I be there, though I know it will be a celebration worth a man’s life to miss. My throat aches already, thinking of the bottles that have been laid down these twenty-three years for the day of your anointing, and everything else aches for the women that you will leave aside for the rest of us to enjoy! You must save me a bottle and a wench, and enough fire for a race from Zhagad to Drafa next spring. My Zeor is faster than ever and with a superior rider—myself—will have no difficulty against your pitiful Musa and his feeble master. I’ll set you a thousand-zenar wager right now. That will give you reason not to forget me while I languish here in the backwaters of the realm.

  Your desolate cousin,

  Kiril

  “Damn!” said the Prince, sitting up abruptly. “It won’t be a proper feast without Kiril. It’s only a two-week journey on a good horse. You’d think he could manage to be here for at least two or three days out of the twelve.” The Prince snatched the letter from my hand and stared at it as if to send his displeasure back to its writer. “Maybe I should have him recalled. Kiril is a warrior, not some diplomatic lackey. Father can send someone else to do this servant work.” He pushed his boot into the older man’s back. “How could you let Father do this to Kiril? I thought he was your favorite nephew. Would you send a son into such dismal exile? Perhaps that’s why the gods never gave you any.”

  “Did I not predict this?” said the older man, more worry in his voice than an unavailable cousin seemed to warrant. “As the Khelid weasel their way into your father’s favor, they start making more and more demands. I’m told they insist that only their own magicians can practice in Karn’Hegeth, and that a Khelid must officiate at every marriage and funeral and dakrah. It’s only been three months since your father gave them the city, and already they shape its working as if they were its conquerors.”

  I knelt unmoving, my eyes fixed on the intricate red and green designs of the thick carpet, trying not to give the appearance of interest. The Baron was the only one of my masters who had permitted me to hear anything of the world beyond uninformed slave-house gossip. It had been a small pleasure in a life with few of them, and I had regretted losing it more than almost anything when he put me up for sale.

  “You worry too much, Dmitri,” said the Prince. “You’ve been on the borders too long, and you’re still upset with Father for giving away the city you took from the Basranni. Learn to enjoy yourself again. Even in this ice pocket to which my father consigns us, there are distractions aplenty. You’ve not been hunting with me in six years, and still owe me a new bow from the last time.”

  “You worry too little, Zander. You are Ivan’s only son, the future Emperor of a thousand cities. It’s time you worked at it. These Khelid ...”

  “... could not defeat so much as a single Derzhi legion with their finest troops. They ran away, Dmitri, and hid for twenty years. They were so afraid of us, they came back groveling for peace. Who cares what they do with Karn’Hegeth? Who cares what they do with their magicians? Might as well worry about their jugglers or acrobats. Actually ...” The Prince poked at the other man who sat cross-legged on the floor beside him. “... I’ve decided to hire a few of their magicians for my dakrah feast. I’ve heard they’re astoundingly good.”

  “You must do no such thing. The anointing of the Derzhi Crown Prince on the day of his majority is not a spectacle for foreigners. No outsider should even be in the city on that day. And if their magicians are a part of their religion as they claim, then why would they hire them out for entertainments? I’d like to send all of them packing with their books and crystals shoved up their asses.”

  My shriveled Ezzarian soul could not hear such frivolous talk of true power without a twinge of anxiety. “Magic” was the common term for the illusions, sleight of hand, and smatterings of spell-weaving used for entertainment and mystification. Sorcery was altogether different. True power could alter the workings of nature and could be used for purposes most men and women could not imagine. I had heard enough of the Khelid to believe they knew something of sorcery. The Derzhi played with things they did not understand. There were mysteries ... dangers ... in the world ... I closed my eyes and slammed shut the doors of knowledge and memory, the doors locked and barred on the day the Derzhi had stolen my freedom and the Rites of Balthar had stripped me of true power.

  Lord Dmitri must have sensed my uneasiness, for he seemed to notice me for the first time. He reached for my arm and twisted it almost to breaking behind my back.

  “You understand the penalties for sly, sneaking slaves who so much as think about the private conversations of their masters?”

  “Yes, my lord,” I squeezed out. I had seen such penalties early on in my captivity and had needed nothing further to persuade me to keep my counsel. I could forget as easily as I could sleep.

  “Get out,” said the Prince, his cheerful manner clouded. “Tell Durgan to put you back where you were.”

  I touched my head to the floor again and returned to the slave house, informing Durgan that I was to go back underground. The Derzhi enjoyed seeing slaves carry the messages for our punishments. They would have had us lash ourselves if they thought it possible we would do it to their satisfaction.

  In the dark, cold days before Aleksander called for me again, between my long hours of sleeping and t
he three minutes a day I was fully occupied by a cup of gruel, a hard lump of bread, or a chunk of rancid meat wild dogs would disdain, I did some thinking about the Khelid. My previous master, the Baron, was the most traditional of Derzhi, and mistrusted any foreigner that had not been conquered by force of arms. Even Ezzarians were more palatable to him than the Khelid. We had held out for all of three days once the Derzhi set their minds on the soft green rain swept hills beyond their southern borders. The Baron thought us weak and stupid to let ourselves be ruled by a woman, and muddled in the head with our sorcery, but at least we had put up our best effort before we were dutifully subdued.

  “These Khelid, though,” he had said, confiding in his slave because no one else would listen to him, “never really fought us before they ran away. I never believed they were engaged in a real battle. They did not ride, you see. No horses. But look at them now, prancing around on these stallions they’ve brought with them—beasts that Basranni would worship as gods. You cannot convince me the Khelid do not fight on horseback.” He was not a particularly intelligent man, the Baron, but he knew horses and he knew war.

  When I asked him what the Khelid had been doing if they were not fighting, he said they had been “testing” the Derzhi. “They would probe here and there, then disappear,” he said. “Show up in another place, get whipped, and run away. One day they just never came back. They learned where we were and how strong we were. Do you know we never captured any of them alive? Only dead. Always dead.”

  “But why is this so different?” I asked. “They learned you were stronger ... as did we all. They just endured the loss of their independence with less death and destruction.”

  The Baron had no answer for that. He had no vocabulary for concepts beyond war.

  I wondered if Lord Dmitri knew the Baron. It seemed he shared something of the same sense about the pale-haired strangers from a land so far away few Derzhi had ever seen it. It had been three years since the Khelid had reappeared, offering their tongueless king to the Derzhi in chains and vowing subjugation to the Derzhi Empire in return for peace, friendship, and mutual respect. Their king had been executed straightaway, and his head dispatched to Khelidar with a military governor and a small garrison. Messenger birds arrived regularly with reports from the governor detailing the good relationship with the Khelid in their remote and harsh land. It was a very different relationship than with other newly conquered peoples. The doomed king—or whoever he truly was—had been the only one to wear chains.