Transformation Read online

  The seventh day of Dar Heged, the third of Aleksander’s odd behavior, began with a very complex case where the head of a family had died, leaving only one unmarried female child to inherit extensive lands and properties. Aleksander sat in his chair holding on to its arms so tightly, I would not have been surprised to see the ancient wood crumble in his grasp. I was close enough to see dark gray circles under the amber eyes that darted here and there, never focusing on anything. The Chamberlain had warned him that the parties to the disputed inheritance, two male members of the House who each claimed the young woman in marriage, were powerful barons of equal degree, who guarded the most dangerous frontiers of the Empire. The Emperor would not wish to antagonize either of them.

  After half an hour of tedious explanation by the representative of one of the warriors, Aleksander began to tremble. His hands, his legs, his body quivered as if the bitter winter outside had snuffed out the hearth fires and settled upon him alone. “Continue,” said the Prince tightly when the speaker paused to stare at him. Quiet murmuring rippled through the audience hall. “I said, continue.”

  The man went on, then yielded to the other party in the disagreement. I did not see how Aleksander could possibly be taking in the details of family connections, old debts, warriors’ promises, marriage pledges—the very minutiae of Derzhi clan lore. He looked like a volcano ready to spew fire. Onlookers were shaking their heads, frowning, wondering. And there among them, leaning casually against a doorway was Korelyi, the Khelid emissary ... smiling.

  I quickly dropped my eyes to my ledger. Never, ever could I allow the Khelid to see me watching him, to see that I knew. I had no power. I would be helpless. There were things in the world that made enslavement to the Derzhi seem benign by comparison, and I could not allow myself to so much as think of them. Demons were attracted by fear. But in the instant of time that it took me to pull my eyes from the smiling Khelid, he made a slight movement of his fingers and my heart skipped a beat. I whipped my head back up to look at Aleksander. He was shaking his head from side to side as if to clear it. What was happening?

  “I beg you, do not deny my saying, Your Highness,” said the bewildered advocate. “I have not even bespoke the agreement with the young lady in the matter as to Baron Juzai’s suit.”

  “No, no. I’m not denying ... Proceed, Cerdan. I understand the import of this matter, and I will give you full hearing as I promised.” The Prince could scarcely pronounce the words through his gritted teeth.

  For another half hour Aleksander battled his strange malady, setting his jaw in iron. As I wrote down the particulars of the case, I would glance up from time to time and let my eyes wander to the slender man by the door. There ... another flick of his fingers. The Prince tightened his grip on the chair and forced himself still. The man in purple was not smiling anymore.

  When both sides had presented all their evidence, Aleksander closed his eyes briefly, then said, “I must give this case full consideration. Such noble servants of the Empire will receive all due respect. I shall retire to my chambers and issue my judgment tomorrow morning.” With such self-mastery as I had never witnessed, Aleksander stood, acknowledged the two lords’ genuflection and the obeisance of the crowd, and hurried out of the Hall.

  The people broke into frenzy the moment he was gone.

  “What ails him?”

  “Must be a sickness ... I’ve not seen its like before.”

  “I’ve heard he’s not slept in three days.”

  “Ah, it’s that he has no patience for ruling. He has not his father’s strength.”

  “Arrogant twit. He’ll never have wit enough to rule. Did you hear ... ?”

  “We’ll pray he has fine sons and dies young.”

  The comment in which I was most interested was made without words. As I stood up, stoppering my ink, gathering up papers, closing the ledger to give into the safekeeping of the Chamberlain, I cast my eyes about once more. The scowling Khelid brutally shoved three servants aside and disappeared through the door.

  It didn’t work as you expected, did it? I thought, as I packed the pens and sharpening knife into the wooden writing case. He was stronger than you believed. Stubborn.

  I ran my ink-stained fingers idly over the maroon leather binding of the ledger. Not sleeping. Of course that was it. It would be easy to find the cause of Prince Aleksander’s malady. A gift, perhaps, a miniature bronze horse or porcelain egg ... or something left behind under a cushion, perhaps a ring or a kerchief. No, not a kerchief. Cloth was too weak. It could be a brass box, suitable for a jewel, or a shining pebble dropped in one of the garden pots in Aleksander’s chambers. All you had to know was what to look for, what to see, what to listen for when you took yourself into silence....

  I shook my head as if to dismiss a dream and snuffed the lamp that had illuminated my writing. The First Audience Hall was almost deserted. Sweepers came through with mops to clear away the puddles and dirt left by the hundreds of muddy boots.

  What was I thinking? I had no power. No weapon. I cared nothing ... far less than nothing for Prince Aleksander. He and his people had stolen my life, had destroyed everything of meaning to me, had maimed and mutilated my body and mind, and ruined ... oh gods, don’t let it come. Not now. I stared at my trembling hand that held the ledger book. I forced myself to trace its lines, the long, bony fingers stained with ink, the roughness and cracks of constant cold, the steel wrist band that would be with me until death, and then, in my mind, I transformed my hand into the aged, dried husk it would become. The reality and the illusion were not yet the same. Not yet. I banished the unwanted memory quite effectively, but I could not dismiss my belief in what I had to do.

  It was not for Aleksander or any Derzhi that I picked up the maroon book and set off for the Prince’s chambers. It was not for any larger purpose. My larger purposes had been stripped away with my power. It was for myself. So I would not see the sly smile in company with the ice-blue eyes. So I could sleep again in peace.

  “I’ve brought the recording book. The Prince needs my notes to aid in his deliberation,” I said to the door guard who had searched me and my writing case thoroughly and didn’t quite know what to do with me.

  “But he hasn’t sent for you.”

  “Well, he may have. It’s all so strange, how he can’t sleep, and we’ve been having all these cases in the Dar Heged, and it’s very confusing. I think he commanded me to bring it. Perhaps it would be best if you ask him, you being a Derzhi warrior and all. He’ll not have you hanged just for asking like he would a slave. Maybe a lash or two, nothing more. But if he wanted me to come and you didn’t let me in ...” I shrugged my shoulders. “Yes, you should be the one to ask him.”

  The guard blanched and glanced over his shoulder as if the whip might be bearing down on him already. “Certainly not, slave. If you can’t hear things right, then you’ll have to take your own consequences.”

  “He’s been here before when the Prince needs writing work done,” said one of the gentleman attendants. “And if he dies for his stupidity, who cares?”

  Indeed.

  They tapped on the door, opened it, and shoved me inside. It was very dark. Heavy draperies had been drawn across the windows and only a single candle gleamed on the table by the door. Aleksander was sprawled on the couch, one arm thrown over his face, and I screamed silently at myself for an idiot. He was asleep. I’d risked my neck for nothing.

  “Who is it?”

  Quickly I knelt, bent my head, and took a deep breath. “Seyonne, Your Highness.”

  He pulled his arm away, and his eyes were like dark holes in the dim room. “Have you a particular wish to die this day, Ezzarian? I did not send for you.”

  “No, my lord. I’ve come to give you back your sleep.”

  He sat up abruptly. “Has the whole world gone mad and not just me? I’ll have you flayed and hung out for the wolves for this impertinence.”

  I had no doubt he would, though I hoped exhaustion might
slow him down a bit. I talked very rapidly. “Before you do so, my lord, I will tell you one fact, and if I’m wrong, you may do with me as you will. Of course you can do with me as you will anyway, but ...” I stopped and cursed myself for a babbling fool, then began again.

  “In some hour just before you were struck with this malady of sleeplessness, you had a visitor in these chambers. My guess is that this visitor brought you a gift—something of brass or bronze or porcelain. He put it directly in your hand. Very shortly thereafter, he found the need to light a candle or pull a burning twig from your fire. You may or may not have noticed him draw a pattern in the air with the fire. It may have just looked like he was using his hands to express himself and had forgotten he held it. Shall I tell you who was this visitor, my lord? And shall I tell you the word he spoke when he touched the fire?”

  The Prince sat motionless. “I have many visitors and receive many gifts. If there’s meaning to this blathering, you’d best get to it while you have a tongue that works.”

  I sagged in relief. If I had guessed wrong, I would be on my way to the flogging post at best.

  “If I can discover this gift ... this artifact ... my lord, will you listen to what else I can tell you about it?”

  “I do not bargain with slaves.”

  “It’s not a bargain. Of course not. I only beg hearing and believe that my act will lend weight to my words.”

  “Show me.”

  I bowed, then stood up and picked up the candle. After a moment’s preparation—a clearing of the mind and a shifting of focus that would allow me to see and hear with deeper senses—I began to walk around the large, quiet room. I shone the candle on every surface, on every bit of glass or metal, examining every bottle, every decoration, the painted dishes with remnants of an early breakfast, bells, rings, the box of ulyat stones and pegs, scattered jewelry, the Prince’s sword belt thrown on the floor, the clasp on his fur robe dropped beside it, the riding crop and gloves tossed on a table. My ordinary senses became aware of someone speaking to me, but I was not listening for voices, so I didn’t hear what he was saying.

  The skills I used were not sorcery. My power was long dead, methodically and deliberately destroyed in the first days of my captivity. But I had been trained from age five to see and hear, taste and smell with acuity well beyond the usual, to detect the irregularities in the weaving of the world caused by enchantment. One could not live every moment with such sensitivity; the barrage of sensation would be exhausting, akin to living inside of a pounding drum or drowning in an artist’s paint pot. And so I had also learned to shift back and forth between ordinary senses and extraordinary, only calling on those heightened skills when needed.

  There ... what was that? I stepped to the small writing desk by the window, and quiet, gut-twisting music sounded faintly in my head. Closer. I held the candle high and the soft light gleamed on the polished finish of the desk. Where was it? The music was louder, wrenching, teeth-on-edge dissonance, where the next note you expected to hear fell sour upon the ear and the soul. Quickly ... before it deafens you. Demon music eats the mind away.

  I pulled open the drawer and found it, a heavy brass seal with an ivory handle that would imprint the same Derzhi lion and falcon as Aleksander’s ring when pressed into hot wax. A larger seal than his ring, designed to be used for official documents of the Empire. A mark of his coming majority when he would become his father’s voice and not just his father’s son. The waves of enchantment pulsing from the handsome thing made my skin itch and my spine cold. I shifted my focus again, picked up the heavy piece, and turned to Aleksander, who stood not five paces behind me, staring at the thing in my hand.

  “Here, my lord. This is what the Khelid gave you.”

  “What witchery is this, Ezzarian?” said the Prince softly. I could not see his face in the dark. “Were you not put through the Rites as I was told? Or is this some more ordinary treachery?”

  Stupid to think he would accept my word. “I have been through the Rites of Balthar, my lord. I have no power of any kind, nor any way to use it. But there are skills ... practiced skills no different than fencing or riding or dancing ... that the Rites cannot take away. That’s what I used to find this thing.”

  “What has this gift to do with this sickness of mine? Choose your words carefully, slave. I am not the fool you take me for.”

  Careful! I almost laughed. I had abandoned sixteen years of caution the moment I stepped into his rooms. Stupid fool. To stick one finger in a boiling pot and, because I did not immerse my whole hand, believe I would remain unburned. Every lesson of my life demanded I remain mute.

  “I’ve seen this kind of affliction before. I recognized the signs of it these three days. Such enchantments are carried on artifacts that have been triggered with fire. This is where you sleep. It had to be here. Throw it in the fire for an hour and the enchantment will be broken.”

  “And why would you tell me this? Don’t say it’s because you love me well. Think you to get an extra ration tonight? Or perhaps a silken pillow or a pliant female for your slave-house bed? Do you think because I’ve missed a few hours’ sleep that I’ll believe the first lunatic story that a cowardly, sniveling slave tells me?”

  Before I could attempt an answer, the back of his hand sent me stumbling backward. My shoulder struck the corner of the writing desk, and I ended up in a heap at its feet. The ivory and brass seal flew out of my hand and clattered onto the tile floor beyond the carpet.

  “I don’t believe in sorcery, slave.” His boot caught me in the side, before I could roll up to protect my more vulnerable parts. “You think you’re very clever ... yes, I’ve seen it. You watch me and judge me, and here is the result of it. I told you that you think too much, but you didn’t heed my warning.” His boots were very heavy, and his feet were very quick and very strong. “ ‘Tell the story to the fool of a Derzhi,’ you thought. ‘Tell him it’s the Khelid, for he doesn’t trust them. He’ll sleep soon enough, and he’ll believe it was his slave who saved him. He’ll thank me.’ Is that how it goes?”

  He kept at me with both words and boots. I began to lose track of the words in a fog of dizziness and pain. I couldn’t blame him, of course. What reason would he have to believe a slave would try to help him? Yet even as the darkness came rolling over me, I was satisfied. At least I would see no demon’s eyes that night.

  Chapter 7

  It was a dreadful mistake to move my head. Something hard and pointed was poking into my eye, and I thought that if I moved my head, it would stop. But though the hard pointed thing—which was the steel band about my wrist and the chain attached to it—was no longer poking in my eye, the movement woke me up enough to realize that every bone, muscle, and bit of flesh I owned hurt. Even my hair felt bruised.

  I did not have to open my eyes to know where I was. Not that it would have been all that revealing to open my eyes; there wasn’t going to be any light in Durgan’s hole. Besides, it was going to hurt. It would be marvelous if I could just drift back to sleep or insensibility, or wherever I had been since Prince Aleksander had reminded me of how stupid one could be when one tried to care about issues like good and evil. Issues far beyond the control of a slave.

  Of course, once I was awake enough to think of all these things, I realized how parched I was and how cold. Not hungry—or at least I couldn’t tell whether the dull ache in my belly was hunger or a royal boot print. Thus began a long deliberation on whether it was worth the misery of moving to find out if Durgan had left me a cup of water when he dumped me back in my cell. Thirst won. Thirst is very powerful.

  Someone must have been listening for sounds of life. I emitted several inadvertent groans as I groped about the little cell and found no tin cup, and not long afterward, the trapdoor flew open. From out of the blinding light descended the very cup on its usual hook and rope. I clutched it tightly and eased myself to sitting by the wall. “Thank you,” I said, the words coming out somewhere between a croak and a moan. I le
t the immediate discomfort subside before I began to drink. Better to enjoy it as much as possible. One sip at a time. Make it last. Savor it.

  I collapsed back into oblivion about the time I finished the water. A blessed result.

  I don’t know how long it was before the trapdoor opened again. I believe I was somewhat out of my head. The square of light wouldn’t stay still.

  “Ezzarian, come up,” said the harsh whisper from the light. “Move your feet, slave.”

  I peered carefully into the darkness beyond my aching belly, but saw only dancing spots of light. “Can’t find my feet.”

  “Hush, fool, and get up here.”

  The words made no sense, so I rolled over and closed my eyes. Before I could sleep again, two large rough hands were pulling me off the dirt and straw and shoving me up the ladder. The straw at the top of the ladder was much cleaner than that at the bottom, so I crawled out of the door and burrowed straight into it, trying to get warm.

  “Come on, boy,” whispered the man who followed me out of the cell. “You’ve had a rough go, but you’ve got to get your head clear. Here—” He threw something at me. A thin blanket that stank of horse ... the finest thing I’d felt in forever. “Wrap up and get over there by the fire. We’ve got to get you cleaned up. He wants you in five minutes.”

  His urgency could not penetrate my daze, and he had to half carry, half drag me down the aisle between the rows of sleeping men. He dropped me beside his little brazier, then poured a dram of brandy down my throat. I gasped and heaved and coughed. It had been sixteen years since I had tasted anything stronger than sour ale, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to get a breath ever again.