Transformation

by Carol Berg

  I nodded. “You have no idea.”

  “Hmm.” He waited for me to say more, but there was nothing to say. Not until I had a chance to speak to Ysanne. When Aleksander saw that I wasn’t going to elaborate, he went on. “It took so long to get the business over with, the treacherous bastard came to himself and disappeared. No one knows where he’s gone, though, one of Kiril’s men reported that he was seen riding south with Korelyi, who also managed to escape our sweep. The first I knew of anything was when I woke up in that ruin with you on the floor carved up like a roast pig, and your queen collapsed beside you. Mistress Catrin was fussing over the two of you, while her one-eyed lover was asking me if I was mad or not and deciding whether he dared untie me. I had the bloodiest awful headache any man has ever endured, and he kept trying to make me be quiet. If I hadn’t felt like I’d just had my entrails drawn through a sieve, I would have throttled him. But he finally got through to me that there were Khelid about, and that if you had won your battle, which he sincerely hoped, then they were going to be mightily angry and upset. I said I would take care of it.”

  “And did you?”

  “I did. I commanded them to guard the temple site or I’d have their hearts out of their bodies.” He grimaced. “I knew what words to use with them. I’ve used such threats often enough through the years. They were afraid and unsure, and they couldn’t see that I wasn’t ... as I had been. So Hoffyd and Catrin and I got the two of you and brought you here—Kiril’s house—and then I went and found my cousin exactly where I’d told him. He said you had told him that if he did-n’t hear within a day, he should leave, but being the stubborn Derzhi that he is, he waited and watched. Then we set out to root the Khelid out of their nest. ...”

  He told me what he had learned from the Demon Lord, the information he had tried so hard to impart to me, hoping that I could get out and use it even if he could not. The demon-Khelid had entrenched themselves in twenty cities around the borders of the Empire, and in each one had created a magical gateway to Khelidar. Through these gateways they could pour troops, as soon as Kastavan—or Aleksander—gave the word. The portals were still a risk, as the Khelid were determined to take the Empire, and the other nineteen garrisons would have time to recover from the shock of losing their demon cohorts. But Aleksander had also learned what was necessary to seal the portals—a simple enchantment that Hoffyd had been able to work once the Derzhi routed the Khelid from the border fortress. The Khelid were not exceptionally talented sorcerers.

  “... and now I have to get word of this to Lydia’s father ... and mine ... else the Khelid will continue to bring troops through the other gateways. Hoffyd says that Derzhi magicians can work these closing spells if they’re taught.” The Prince lost his animation and gave me a weak smile. “So I’m on my way to stick my head in the old lion’s mouth. I’m glad you chose to rouse yourself today. Kiril is ready to go.”

  “Your cousin?” My head was still muddled, for I couldn’t see where he was leading.

  “He’s taking me to my father. There’s an imperial ‘summons’ out for me, and orders to arrest anyone who hinders me from answering it—which means anyone who helps me. So to ensure Kiril’s safety ... and to make sure he is listened to even if I am not ... I’ve asked him to escort me to Zhagad under guard.”

  “But if your father still thinks you mad ...”

  “He’ll lock me away for the rest of my life, take a new young wife, and make sure he has another heir. My mother will be ill-humored, don’t you think? And if he agrees that I am not mad, but still believes I killed Dmitri, he will take my head and do the same. So I must convince him that I’m not mad and that I didn’t kill Dmitri.” He did not look confident. “I’ll keep the Ezzarians out of it. I’ve a number of witnesses among Kiril’s men as to what was found in the fortress here. My father knows the Khelid can do magic beyond our own practice of it, so perhaps he’ll believe they could control me in some way. About Dmitri ... I’ll just have to tell him what in the name of the gods I thought I was doing.” He shook his head. “Was ever a man so stupid as I have been?”

  “I can think of a number of instances,” I said, and proceeded to demonstrate the point. “Are there perhaps some clothes around here?” I was clad in nothing but a thin singlet.

  Aleksander frowned. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I’ve never seen Zhagad, and it would be well to visit it before the season gets too far toward summer. And I’m in no condition to fight bandits along the way, so I’d best go with the surest protection I can find.”

  “Absolutely not. I forbid it.” He was on his feet, and I thought he might pick me up and throw me back in the bed. “Have you forgotten?” He clamped his fingers on my left arm and pulled my shoulder forward slightly. “What will you say when someone sees this mark and puts you back in chains? I can’t protect you. Not until my own business is done ... and you know as well as I how unlikely that is to come out well. And Kiril has too little influence to help you. He’s risking everything to take me in.” He let go of my arm and strode to the door. “You’ve done enough. You are free. Go home and make love to your wife.”

  But I had not done enough, not until the demon’s plot was completely unraveled. “If I am a free man, my lord, then you cannot prevent my going. And in case you’ve forgotten, my home remains under the yoke of the Derzhi. And I have no wife ... not as long as Rhys is alive.”

  “Then, go chase the bastard and cut his throat. Leave me to sort out my own mess. It’s time I learned how.” With no further farewell, he left.

  But in two hours more when Aleksander rode out of the gates of Parnifour, escorted by his cousin and twelve Derzhi warriors, I rode along, tucked in a wagon alongside piles of confiscated weapons and the other evidence of the Khelid conspiracy that Kiril had collected in the raid on the border fortress. Aleksander did not know I was there until we were too far down the road to send me back. Kiril, less concerned for my safety than Aleksander’s, had been willing to risk his cousin’s wrath to enlist my help.

  Catrin had been slightly more difficult to persuade. “We need you in Dael Ezzar, Seyonne,” she had said when she found me struggling to get on my boots. “All these demons you’ve just dispossessed ... what do you think is going to happen? A year for them to regenerate, and we will see such an onslaught of demon madness as the world has never experienced. If they’ve all grown into this human evil ...”

  “Then, go back and get your students trained. A few weeks and I’ll be there to help. I promise. But if Aleksander’s father executes him, we will have lost after all. The world is going to change, Catrin. I know it. We’ve got to ensure it changes for the better.”

  She probed deep with her dark eyes. “And what of the Queen? You’ve had no chance to speak with her.”

  “When I come back, I will serve her in whatever way she commands.”

  “Serve her?” I thought Catrin’s indignation might set my hair ablaze. “Are you blind? She never betrayed you, Seyonne. Never. Will you not give her hearing? How can you—”

  I laid my hand on her flushed cheeks. “I walked her portal, Catrin, so I understand more than you think. But she knows, and you know, that nothing can be done. We were not wed when I was taken. She was free to marry, and she did. Her husband lives. Such an oath as marriage cannot be voided because one party is not worthy. Therefore I can be nothing to her, not without risking the very ill that Rhys brought upon himself. Beyond that ... she knows my heart.”

  Three weeks later I stood with the Prince on a rocky height and looked across a sea of red-gold sand at Zhagad. The pink spires and golden domes of the capital city rose from the desert as if sculpted by whimsical fingers, while on the western horizon the red sun lingered, as if reluctant to yield its mastery of the world when such a fair sight lay before it.

  “Ah, gods of day and night, it is beautiful, is it not?” said the Prince, ruffling Musa’s mane. “There is no city in the world so marvelous. Wait until you se
e the flowers. You’ll think your own sorcerers must live there to make it bloom so.”

  I stood beside him, reveling in the pleasure of feeling more like myself and invigorated by the cooling evening after the sapping heat of the afternoon. For two long weeks of the three-week journey I had ridden in the wagon. In the first I woke from uncomfortable sleep only long enough to eat and drink and have one of Kiril’s men help me change my bandages. The second week I spent shoving aside the piles of confiscated swords and spears and lances that kept crowding me into the corner of the wagon bed, while I read the evidence that rode in the wagon with me. There were map rolls of the entire Empire, sketches of fortifications, reports of Derzhi troop positions from every posting in the Empire, and letters from Kastavan detailing everything from guard schedules in the imperial residence to the ways the water supply of Zhagad might be compromised. I studied every scrap of paper as we traveled, and I was sorely afraid the evidence was not enough. In none of the correspondence, notes, or reports was there any mention of either Dmitri or Aleksander. Perhaps the Prince could convince his father that his mind was intact and the Khelid were traitors, but there was nothing to prove him innocent of murder.

  One long, leather traveling case was sealed with an enchantment. Kiril’s men said it had belonged to Lord Kastavan, but the locks scorched their fingers when they tried to open it. After half a day of false starts, I managed to get past the spell, but found only the Khelid’s clothing and a casket crammed with gems and jewelry: necklaces, pendants, bracelets, and rings of every variety. I threw it all back into the case and slammed the lid in disgust. Aleksander was going to die if he couldn’t come up with something beyond his own guilty conscience to explain why he had confessed to the murder. A guilty conscience was something Ivan was unlikely to understand.

  By the third week of the journey, I was willing to do anything to get out of the wagon, even to riding double with a soldier who had likely not bathed since the ritual washing at his birth. The discomfort was made doubly bad by the fact that we were entering the heart of the Azhaki desert. We were continually starting and stopping—the Derzhi method of preserving their horses’ stamina on long desert treks; therefore it was impossible for me to sleep. After a few days Kiril had mercy and let me ride one of his packhorses.

  Aleksander was subdued. He rode alone or with Kiril, scarcely speaking. Every day he would ask after my health and comfort, but he did not speak to me privately at any time. Kiril’s men were curious as to my position, a foreigner neither slave, nor servant, nor companion, but they were well disciplined and treated me respectfully, as their commander required.

  But on that last evening the Prince had motioned me to ride with him up the rocky ridge, while the rest of the party waited behind. To my surprise Aleksander removed Musa’s saddle once we had dismounted. Then he walked to the edge of the rocks, and as we looked across the desert to the Pearl of Azhakstan, he folded his arms in front of him and took a deep breath, half laughing as he did so. “Stupid that I should be more afraid of this than giving myself to a demon.”

  “You never believed in demons,” I said.

  “It’s not the dying that bothers me so much. I’d not have him withhold justice for the sake of blood ties. But I hate him thinking that I could take Dmitri’s life for my own petty grievances.”

  I had no words of comfort. “I’ll be close by,” I said. “Whatever you need of me, you have only to ask.”

  Aleksander laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll have to fight this one alone, my guardian. And no use delaying. Stay close to Kiril.”

  As the sun sagged low on the horizon, he threw himself on Musa’s bare back and pulled his scarf around his mouth and nose. With a long lingering whoop and a touch of his heel, he and the horse flew down the path and across the rippling waves of sand. Never had I seen such joy in a physical being as I saw in Aleksander on that evening, as he raced across the desert raising a storm of purple and gold behind him.

  Chapter 36

  The rest of us followed Aleksander across the desert more slowly, Kiril holding his men back firmly when they tried to release their own exuberance. Only when we came to the first of the monumental stone lions that guarded the approaches to Zhagad did we catch up to the Prince. He stood waiting beside Musa, stroking the horse’s graceful neck. A grim Kiril dismounted and removed something from his saddle pack before walking to where his cousin waited. I nudged my mount close enough to hear.

  “Ah, Zander, are you sure of this?”

  Aleksander did not speak. He opened his arms, and the two embraced fiercely until the Prince pushed his cousin away and drew his sword. Kiril’s men stiffened in their saddles, but Aleksander reversed the weapon and presented it, hilt first, to his cousin.

  “Until you reclaim it,” said Kiril, attaching the weapon to his own belt.

  Aleksander nodded and held out his hands. Without meeting his cousin’s steady gaze, Kiril bound Aleksander’s wrists together with silken cord. The two Derzhi mounted up again, and Kiril gave his men a curt command. One of them took Musa’s reins, and the rest fell in close about Aleksander. There was no deeper humiliation for a Derzhi than to be forced to yield the reins of his mount.

  Night had dropped over the desert, and the soldiers lit torches to lead us on our way down the Emperor’s Road. On either side of us loomed the paired stone lions designed to strike the heart with awe and terror of the Derzhi and their Empire. It was a road Aleksander should have ridden in triumph, as the anointed Emperor-in-waiting. He should have heard the cheers of his subjects instead of the silence of the desert. He should have worn gold and diamonds, not a prisoner’s bonds—even ones of silk. He should have ridden in the shining glory of his god, but he passed in the night, and the torchlight flickered from light to shadow on the empty eyes of the massive lions, as if the beasts were closing their eyes in shame.

  Aleksander displayed no shame. He held his back straight and his head high. His demeanor was haughty and cold, even when we passed through the towering gates that marked the outer ring of the city, and the people began to gather to see their disgraced prince come home. His name rippled through the city like the night wind, stirring the people from the lamplit courtyards, where they sat sipping tiny cups of steaming nazrheel. His name fluttered through the graceful houses and from stone benches around the flower-bordered public wells, where people sat gossiping with friends in the cooling evening.

  Though I wore the desert robes, and it was unlikely anyone could see the mark on my face, I could not help but be uneasy as the crowd gathered. I felt their eyes on my back, probing, curious, and found myself searching the sea of faces for eyes that knew more of seeing than ordinary senses. So many Derzhi. A few of the ever-present Manganar, who seemed to enjoy the hard work of empire that other warrior races disdained. Suzaini merchants. Slender Kuvai who gathered around the foundries and art studios of the great cities. Few Thrid, for the dark-skinned mercenaries were not comfortable in commercial centers and tended to stay in their own lands.

  Foreboding hung over us like arrows aimed at our backs. I shifted my senses, looking for vengeful Khelid, but it was not a Khelid that brought me up short. What in the name ...? For one brief moment, I caught sight of a pair of dark slanted eyes, something like those of a fish, set on the surface of a broad face. Rhys! He was glaring straight at me as if he could see through the scarf that was wound about my face. Why would Rhys come to Zhagad? He was lost instantly in the mass of bodies as we rode through the second ring of stone into the heart of the city.

  Only Derzhi were allowed to live within the inner walls of Zhagad. And the closer we got to the Imperial Palace, the bolder was the crowd. They pressed against Kiril’s soldiers. “Murderer ... his kinsman ... for shame ... madman ... Athos, spare us a monster ... kin-murderer ... madman.”

  Kiril and his men held the surging crowd away from Aleksander, and once, when the people blocked the way entirely, the young dennissar shouted angrily. “He submits himself to the Empero
r. The Emperor will judge. Not you.”

  Without moving his head or shifting his eyes from their position straight ahead of him, Aleksander whispered a quiet word to Kiril. The young Derzhi said no more, just forged a way through the churning mob to the Palace steps. Once there, we dismounted, and Kiril marshaled his men about Aleksander, motioning me to stay close beside him. I was swept up the broad steps and through the vast atrium of the Imperial Palace with the rest. There was no time to stare at the grandeur; I got only a fleeting impression of the soaring height of the ceilings, the brilliant colors of the murals, and the graceful arches that led whispered breezes through the cool stone. I blessed the trailing white scarf I had been given to wrap about my face to keep out blowing sand and prying eyes.

  Kiril conferred with a half-naked man of awesome physical perfection, who wore three earrings in one ear and a braid that reached below his waist. He must be the padish, the Emperor’s Lidunni bodyguard. I had heard that the Lidunni could snap a man’s spine without taking a second breath. On seeing him, I believed it. With a nod the padish led us across a circular atrium, ringed with columns, and he opened a pair of wooden doors five times a man’s height.

  Ivan sat on a raised dais at one end of a spare, undecorated room, a council room as it appeared, for it had several long tables rowed up around the sides with dark cushions piled up behind. No one reclined on the cushions at present. The padish took up a position to the left of the stone-faced monarch. At the Emperor’s right hand stood Korelyi.

  My stomach constricted. Though he could not have failed to see the danger, Aleksander did not hesitate, but walked into the room and knelt, touching his head to the white stone. He stayed in the submissive posture, awaiting his father’s command to rise. Kiril stood beside him and bowed as was proper for a soldier on guard duty. Before a word had been spoken, a flick of the imperial finger had the door closed in front of the rest of us.